Bertram Mitford (continued 4)

“You are in luck, Melian, dear,” she could not restrain herself from saying, wistfully. “Look at all this, and then think of me this time to-morrow.”

Melian was in the mood thoroughly to sympathise. This was one of those days which she appreciated every hour, every minute of—and on which she felt she could not get up too early or see the last of too late.

“Couldn’t you anyway manage to stretch it out even a day or two longer?” she said. “Surely you can?”

But the other shook a desponding head.

“No fear. I’ve pulled it out to its very utmost limits,” she said. “I can’t afford to play cat and banjo with my billet—certainly not yet.”

There was that in the answer which seemed to remind Melian that the speaker had done that very thing on her behalf, what time she had been ill, and friendless, and nearly destitute.

“It’s too bad,” she declared. “Yes, I am lucky, Violet, dear, and I owe my luck entirely to you. But of course, when you have your long holiday—in August or September—you are to put in every day of it here. Just think—all those glorious heather slopes above Plane Pond—right away back—will be blazing with crimson, and—what times we’ll have. It isn’t so far off either, so buck up. It’s of no use talking about week-ends I suppose.”

“You know I can’t run to it, dear.”

“I know you’re altogether too beastly proud,” was the answer. “If we gave you a birthday present of a new hat you wouldn’t be too proud to take that, and a return ticket here runs to far less. It’s an absurd distinction.”

But the other’s head shake was quite decided.

“We’ve hammered all that out before,” she said. “Look, your uncle has finished his siesta. Here he comes.”

The two girls had been picking wild flowers and had wandered away from the spot where they had been picnicking on sandwiches and ginger-beer—and something stronger for the only male of the party. It was a lovely spot, an intermingling of heath and woodland, and the white stems of birches supporting their new feathery foliage, stood out in relief from a background of dark firs. Just glimpsed in the distance beyond stood a venerable wooden windmill raised on piles—one of its sails missing and another falling in half through sheer old age, like teeth. The whole made for that combination of charm and the picturesque so characteristic of, if not unique, as a sample of English rural scenery.

“Well,” said Mervyn, knocking the ashes out of his pipe as he joined them, and looking very placid and contented. “Isn’t it time to saddle up? We’ve come a precious long way, remember, and you have to allow a margin for punctures.”

But Melian overruled him.

“We needn’t hurry, you know, dear,” she urged. “And it’s Violet’s last day.”

“I know it is, worse luck,” he answered, kindly, “I wish it needn’t be. Then again, we must also allow for that inspection of ‘old stones’ you threatened to deflect us from our way to go and adore.”

“Oh, Chiltingford? You must see that, Violet. And there’s a ripping old pair of stocks too. By Jove, but that’s good enough!”

“Don’t know whether the misdemeanants who were clamped up in them thought them good enough?” said her uncle with a laugh, and lighting a fresh pipe. “Well, you shall both do just what you like to-day.”

And they did; and the long, bright golden afternoon went all too quickly by, as they skimmed along the well-kept roads, skirting greenwoods resonant with thrush voices; down long hills between spangled meadows; past cottages nestling in trees—every one a picture in itself—and snug farms bulging with the suggestion of solid comfort; old grey church towers, at which Melian looked wistfully and had to be reminded that the cultus of every pile of “old stones” they saw would not come within the compass of their time limit—and here and there one of those old country seats whose exact counterpart is to be found in no other country in the world. Yes, it was one of those days that would stand out, to elderly and young alike, of those comprising that trio. To two of them at least it might be that it would come back with all the more marked contrast—perchance of deadly peril and fear—but that was within the potentialities of the Future.

The stars were already bright in the summer sky as they descended the last steep and stony hill, the quality of the latter calling forth more than one half stifled malediction from the elderly unit of the trio aforesaid. But to another unit of the said trio, the darkness, the spot, conjured up a recollection, albeit the “tang-tang” of a jubilant nightingale sounded from the dark and now leafy depths of “Broceliande,” and the little brown owls, hawking over the adjoining fields, were sending forth their harsh, fierce cries. Here was where she had accidentally met Helston Varne for the last time, and they had not met since. She was wondering again whether they ever would. And yet—it was of no use to keep on dwelling upon it, she decided.

Chapter Twenty.

The Influence.

It was a glowing, beautiful summer, and as each radiant day succeeded another, it seemed to Melian a difficult thing to realise her former life, so completely had that passed away. It seemed to have been the life of somebody else. She thought of Violet Clinock with pity and real concern—stewed up in horrible dusty streets, in all the roar and bustle of them—while she herself was revelling in the glory of the unclouded sunlight, and the dim holiness of leafy wood-depths, or the roll of open champaign stretching away softened into far distance; a fresh vista of joy whichever way the eye might turn; breathing the free and fragrant air of Heaven itself. Yet her concern was to a certain extent wasted, so differently are humans constituted; for, as a matter of fact, though thoroughly enjoying every moment of the few days which constituted her visit, the same number of months would have bored Violet Clinock to death. She was temperamentally of the stirring, bustling order, and the very elements of the town life, which to Melian, looking back upon, gained in repulsion, were to her without knowing it, part of the essentials of well being.

For the misgivings which had beset Melian as to whether she was not wasting her life had lulled, if not died, as the joyous spring rushed on into glorious summer, and she noted and appreciated every shade and harmony of such change; the deepening of the leafage, and the blooming of this or that new variety of wild flower life; the song chorus of innumerable thrushes, in all its varying liquid notes, from early morn till late eve; and the “tang-tang” of nightingales through the fast shortening hours of darkness. And then, when the dawn pearled upon the awakening world, what a carolling of sweetness as countless larks sprang upwards and soared higher and higher into the liquid blue.

And then those delightful rambles, whether short or long, by field paths or along leafy hedges where the honeysuckle was beginning to hang its creamy petals, or in shaded woods, the sunlight networking here and there on the feathery tops of the green bracken, a rest at some quaint little roadside inn for tea, then home again in the dewiness of rich meadows, where young lambs skipped and shrilly bleated. Or again, a long round on the bicycle, exploring this or that old ruin, or massive and picturesque ancient church. By this time she knew the whole countryside by heart. And it is doubtful whether this brought more enjoyment to her than to her uncle—her invariable companion on such wanderings.

As for Mervyn himself, it is safe to say perhaps that he had never been so happy in his life. All that appealed to the girl here, appealed to him, but he had not been capable of enjoying it in solitude. Now this was all changed, and at every moment of the day he found himself revelling in her happiness, whether it was watching her gathering wild flowers in a sunbath of greenery and radiance, or seated smoking the pipe of placidity and peace upon some churchyard wall what time she was assimilating the interior of the mouldering structure, to come forth presently, with animated eyes to descant upon the wondrous fret of some grisly old Norman arch which it comprised. And he revelled in it with the deeper intensity because, with the experience of age, he knew that it was not destined to last.

And then, indeed, as though to bear out the soundness of this reasoning, there came a change—a cloud, a shadow—but of this he divined nothing as yet. As the summer drew near its zenith something seemed to come over Melian. Throughout the radiancy of the glowing summer day—or even when clouds from seaward brought some hours of soft warm rain to keep the full sapped leafage from succumbing to a too long unbroken glow of sun heat, she rejoiced with the joy of living. But at night, in the solitude of her room, all her elation would leave her. An influence seemed to creep over her, substituting depression; not depression merely, but conveying a suspicion of fear—of dread. Of dread she knew not of what. Yet it was there. Happy, joyous, in the long hours of light and open, yet when the night shut down, this feeling would come over her—and come over her suddenly—directly she found herself in the solitude of her own room. And it grew upon her more and more until she began to dread the time of retiring for the night—for the life of her she could not have told why. Yet she kept it to herself. It seemed absurd to worry her uncle over what after all was a mere fancy. It would pass. For months now, nothing had occurred to alarm her, as on that other night—and surely in this paradise of a country there could be no room for depression or haunting imaginings. But at such times her thoughts flew unaccountably to Helston Varne.

For by this time she had arrived at the conviction that some influence, sinister and terrifying, was really hanging about Heath Hover. She had even tried drawing old Joe Sayers on the subject again, but that astute rustic, remembering his former slip, had shut up like an oyster. With old Judy she met no better success.

“We be wold folks,” had answered that ancient, when deftly sounded as to why they should not take up their quarters altogether at Heath Hover on the ground of convenience to her—Melian. “We likes our own chimbley corner o’ nights,—Miss Melun. The master, he’s allus been middlin’ cumferble o’ nights without we. And now you’m here and he’s more cumferble nor ever—sure-lye.”

This, with the deft invocation of “the master,” was unanswerable, as old Judy had intended. That these two were not to be drawn was obvious, and Melian had no idea in the world of looking for information outside. Her uncle too, had distinctly discouraged her taking any interest in the surrounding cottages, and there were few enough of these. She began to think she saw through the reason.

But, after all, here she was, and life was happy, she would tell herself; and she had found it so after some experience of it of which this by no means held good. She must make the best of it, and, after all, the best, even by force of contrast, was very good indeed. Yet still, that weird, uncanny oppression—yes, that was the word for it, oppression—came upon her more and more as sure as the hours of darkness set in. And more and more her thoughts reverted to Helston Varne.

Why had he not been again to see them after all this time? It could be through no want of cordiality in repeating their invite either on her uncle’s part or upon hers. He was a skilled clearer-up of mysteries. He had told her—with some earnestness—that if ever she were in a difficulty, and stood in need of a friend—she was to communicate with him at once.

And more than once she had thought of doing so—had been on the point of doing so—when another consideration would obtrude. Would she not, in a way, be working behind her uncle? For instance, the mystery of that queer, shining thing, with several points, the mere sight of which had turned him ashy pale and evoked a peremptory command to her to drop it—at once, and where she stood. That had never been explained. What if in some way it were bound up with the mystery which overhung this eerie, creepy old dwelling? What if in some way it affected him—were in some way, patient of evil results to him? And if Helston Varne were to give his wonderful faculty towards discovery at Heath Hover, he must do so wholly. He would never stop halfway—and then, what about that incident upon which her uncle seemed to set such store of secrecy? No, it wouldn’t do, she decided. It was one thing to let loose that sort of thing, it was another to know where it was going to end. Yet, apart from it, she owned to herself she would be glad, very glad, to see Helston Varne again. And then, all unexpectedly, she obtained her wish.

She was standing in front of the house one morning. The black kitten was on her left shoulder and she was playing with it with a bit of string, which it was striving to seize without falling from its perch. Clad in cool white, she stood erect against a background of Virginia creeper and one of the window frames of the old house; and the gleaming waves of her gold hair changed their lights with every movement of the head. A perfect picture, a most exquisite picture, thought the one spectator, who had arrived on the scene unobserved, such a picture indeed as he would carry in his mind, and which he was wholly loth to disturb all at once. Then a low, lighthearted laugh escaped her as the kitten, missing its stroke, overbalanced and dropped lightly to the ground. Then looking up, she discovered she was not alone.

Helston Varne raised his hat and came down the path from the sluice. She made a step forward to meet him.

“How long were you standing there?” she said, in her bright, quick, animated way, when the first greetings had been exchanged.

“Well, not long—unfortunately. But I hope I have too much of an artistic eye to be in a hurry to break up that picture. Is your uncle in?”

“No. He had to run up to London on business. He wanted to take me, although he always says London is the worst place in the world to take a girl to for the day, unless she’s got a lot of things of her own to attend to—which I haven’t. Says he doesn’t know what to do with her. He more than half wanted me to go—and chance it, but I wouldn’t. I should only have been in the way, of course.”

“That’s a pity. I didn’t want to see him about anything in particular, only as I shall have to be away from England some time, I thought I should just like to see how you were all getting on first.”

If Melian’s face had fallen just a shade over the announcement, the change, it is certain, did not escape the keen perception of the other, nor could he tell why the fact should have afforded him a modicum of gratification.

“I suppose I mustn’t ask, as a matter of innocent and feminine curiosity, what part of the world you are bound for next?” she ventured.

Even that smile as she looked up at him was not sufficient to let down his guard. He shook a deprecating head.

“I’m afraid not. The element of secrecy in my movements is one of the very first essentials.”

“Why, of course. By the way, here am I keeping you standing. Do come inside. But—where’s your bicycle? You didn’t walk?”

“I left my bike up there on the sluice, till I’d found out whether anybody was at home. Save the bother of lugging it up again if nobody was.”

“Oh, do go and fetch it. Some one might bag it.”

“They’d wish they hadn’t—before they had ridden it a hundred yards,” he answered with a laugh. “They’d come about the most complete spill they’d ever come in their lives.”

“Why? How?” she asked, mystified.

“There’s a dodge in it that would produce that result with any other than myself mounting it. Incidentally, there have been two attempts made at annexing it—with the effect described.”

“That’s a very wonderful machine of yours,” she said. “The other day—only it was months ago—you told us it was unpuncturable—now it seems it’s unrideable, for any one but its owner.”

“Yes—it is rather wonderful, isn’t it—Hallo?” as he became alive to the greetings of the kitten, which was rubbing against his legs and purring. “Why, this little beauty is hardly any bigger than it was, and it ought to be nearly full grown by this time.”

“Yes, and aren’t I just glad too, that it’s always going to stay small. I was afraid it wouldn’t,” she answered, picking it up and replacing it upon her shoulder. “But you’re not pressed for time, are you? Uncle Seward will be back by quite an early afternoon train, and he’d he awfully disgusted if he missed you—especially as you’re going away.”

To Helston Varne this invitation was wholly alluring—he wondered that it should prove so much so. And what a strange turn the situation had taken. He had originally come to these parts with—professionally—hostile intent towards the occupier of Heath Hover; now, any discoveries that he might make—whatever their nature—and this he would repeat to himself with emphasis, he would certainly use to the aid and advantage of that individual, if possible. He would have been only too glad to arrive at a solution, as a matter of purely professional interest only—but with no intention of using it by a hair’s breadth against his new-found friend, as to which he had already begun to put Nashby off the scent by such modicum of suspicion as we heard him express to that painstaking officer. Now he answered:

“If you can do with me for all that time, Miss Seward, I shall be only too delighted. What a lovely day it is. Won’t you get on your bicycle and show me some of the country I haven’t seen? We could pick up lunch at some wayside inn, and get back in time to meet your uncle.”

“I’d be delighted, but my bike happens to be out of commission. It wants a thorough overhauling in fact. Let’s have a walk instead. It’s no end jolly just meandering on, winding in and out, now in a jolly wood—now through a field, or by a pond—in fact, just anywhere you like to go. We can get back here by lunch-time. Yes, that’ll be the very thing. I’ll go up and get a hat—I won’t be a sec.”

She vanished upstairs, and Helston Varne, left momentarily alone, was conscious of a mixed train of thought. First of all was the certainty of a very delightful day before him: then, as he sat opposite the creeper-shaded window, his glance fell upon the couch which stood beneath it. There, then, was where the stranger had been found dead. Instinctively he rose from his seat and went over to the couch. It was the first time he had been alone in the room, and now his professional instincts moved him in that direction. Yet there was nothing on earth to reward them in the aspect of this very plain and innocent looking article of furniture. He looked at it long and earnestly—up and down, but no. It suggested nothing. Then the sound of Melian’s footsteps, coming down the stairs recalled him to the ordinary ways of life, and he simply stood where he was—looking out of the window.

“Which way shall we go?” she said. “I know. We’ll go up through Broceliande and out on to the heath, then we’ll wander round the wood on the other side, and down again by the head of Plane Pond.”

“Anywhere you like,” he said. “And your programme sounds delightful.”

Chapter Twenty One.

The Disused Room.

If ever a country ramble was a success, a grand success, that one was. In the gnarled oak-wood dim in cool gloom, comparative, as regarded the flood of sunshine outside, the girl would let imagination run riot, and as she rattled on—fitting this and that vista into the scenes of her favourite romance—her companion listened, enjoying the extraordinary naturalness of her. And he entered into it all, adding here and there an apposite suggestion, which thoroughly appealed. Then, too, when they got out upon open heathland, though the time of its crimsoning had not yet come—and a wide sweep of rolling valley, and dark belts of firwoods contrasting with the brighter, richer green of oak, she would point him out this or that old church tower in the distance, and expatiate upon the archaeological treasures contained within the same, and her wide eyes would go bright with love of her subject, and her cheeks glow with the soft sun-kiss and the bracing upland air—even her words would trip each other up in her anxiety to get out a description. And then Helston Varne would decide to himself that it was just as well he was strong-headed beyond the ordinary, for anything approaching the perfect charm of this girl at his side, he, with a large and varied experience of every conceivable shade and phase of life, had certainly never encountered.

She was so natural, so intensely and confidingly natural—and therein lay a large measure of her charm. There was not a grain of self-consciousness about her, and she talked to him throughout as though she had known him all her life. It was not often he had struck anything approaching such an experience. So the morning wore on—fled, rather—all too quickly for him at any rate; for he was enjoying this experience as he could not quite remember ever having enjoyed an experience before.

They were near home now, threading a narrow keeper’s path, through the thick covert. Once she laid a light hand on his sleeve to stop him, as a cuckoo suddenly gurgled forth his joyous call right overhead, so near, in fact, as to be almost startling.

“Look. There he is. You can see him,” she whispered, gazing upward. “Ah, he’s gone,” as the bird dashed away. “But, did you notice—he’s got the treble note. I don’t like that. When they get on the treble note it means that we’ll soon hear no more of them.”

“Well, now you’ve told me something I didn’t know. Yes—I noticed the treble call, but I’ll be hanged if I’ve ever noticed it before.”

Melian laughed—that clear, rich, joyous laugh of hers. Incidentally he had noticed that before.

“And I’ve actually been able to tell you some thing you never knew before. You! Well, Mr Varne, I do feel proud.—Wait—look.”

Again she laid a restraining hand upon his sleeve. They had reached the pond head, and on the long expanse of glowing surface the perfect reflection of the tossing greenery overhanging it lay outlined as though cut in silver. A waterhen with her brood was swimming across, and at the shrill, grating croak of the parent bird, alarmed by human proximity, a dozen tiny black specks rushed with hysteric flappings through the surface to bunch around her.

“Aren’t they sweet?” whispered Melian. “Such jolly little black things! I’ve caught them two or three times when we’ve been out in the boat fishing, but they get so horribly scared that I’ve never done it again. I’m so fond of all these birds and beasts, you know, that I hate to think I am bothering any of them.”

Helston Varne merely bent his head in assent. Curiously enough, just then he did not feel as if he could say anything. A wave of thought—or was it a consciousness—such as he never remembered to have experienced before, had come over him. He just let her talk, and was content to watch her. He wanted to absorb this picture and carry it away with him in his mind’s eye; and somehow the idea of having to go away at all, for a long period at any rate, had suddenly become utterly distasteful to him.

He watched her, radiant, animated, lighthearted. He remembered their talk on the road in the evening’s dusk, on the last occasion of his visit. He had intended to revert to it, to find out whether he could do anything to help in relieving her mind. But now, looking at her, the idea seemed out of place. She seemed so utterly happy, lighthearted, and without a care.

And she? She had wished for his presence so that she could put to him the matters that were troubling her, yet now that it was here, somehow or other she could not. But as they wandered homeward through the shaded woodland path, she told him something about her past experiences, and he listened sympathetically, careful not to betray that he already knew all that she was telling him. Then—for the path skirted the pond—they came to the scene of the midnight rescue in the ice; and suddenly Melian stopped, for an idea had struck her.

“Mr Varne,” she said, her eyes fixed full upon his face. “Do you know that the police suspected my uncle of killing the man he had just saved?”

“Yes. I know.”

“I ask you—you—had they the slightest reason for that suspicion?”

“Why do you ask it?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I suppose it’s because you are you; and if any one can see through a thing, you can.”

“Thanks greatly for that compliment. I shall treasure it,” he answered, glad of the pretext for turning a lighter vein on to what was becoming somewhat tense. “Wait now,”—seeing a spasm of disappointment begin to flit over her face, at the fancied consciousness that she was not being taken seriously. “What I was going to say is this: All tragical happenings of this nature, involving mystery, are bound to convey a certain element of suspicion. Very well then. This affair answers exactly to these conditions. The local police, therefore, did no more than their duty in watching it. But they have now realised the futility of doing so any longer.”

Melian looked up quickly.

“Have they?” she said.

“Yes. You may take it from me.”

A breath of relief escaped her, but it was not wholehearted relief. This assuredly did not escape her companion’s keen perception.

“Tell me another thing,” she said swiftly, and again looking him full in the face. “I hardly like to ask it, but I will. Was it not the investigation of this—mystery, that brought you down here in the first instance?”

This was hitting straight out and no mistake. But Helston Varne did not for a moment hesitate.

“Yes. It was,” he said.

“Ah!”

For a moment neither spoke. She was still looking him straight in the face, but what she read there was hardly disquieting.

“And—what conclusion have you arrived at?” she went on, slowly.

“The conclusion that I might just as well have remained away—but for one thing.”

The relief which had sprung to her animated, speaking face, died down suddenly.

“And—that one thing?”

“That one thing? Why, then I should never have met you; should never have known such a delightful time as I have enjoyed this morning for instance.”

That killed the tragic element in the atmosphere. Melian broke into a peal of clear, wholehearted laughter, not more than a third due to reaction, for she had a very complete sense of humour. Her companion was smiling too, perfectly at ease and natural, as though he had stated a mere obvious fact. There was no consciousness of having paid a pointed compliment about his manner, nor any manifestation of a desire to carry it further.

“Well—it’s very nice of you to say so,” answered the girl, all her easy lightheadedness apparently restored, “because I thought I’d been talking your head off all the time we’ve been out; and if it wasn’t that we seem to have a lot of ideas in common, should have thought I’d been boring you to death. But, here we are at home again, and—I don’t care how soon old Judy turns on lunch. Do you?”

“Candidly, I don’t. This gorgeous country air makes all that way.”

It is not strange that, seated opposite each other at table, in the cool, old-world room, the June sunlight slanting through the creepers which partly shaded the wide open window, Helston Varne should have let his imagination run riot. In fact, he was picturing to himself this girl, in her uncommon beauty, her complete naturalness, her quick, unfeigned interest in everything, her grace of movement even in the smallest of things—seated thus with him—always. Albeit those who knew him—even the very few who really knew him—would have reckoned it strange. For since his salad days he could not call to mind any woman he had ever been acquainted with who could be capable of calling up such a suggestion. And the two of them were there alone together; the glow of sunlight outside, the fragrant breaths of glorious summer wafting in from without. Even a straggling wasp or two winnowing down over the table, was not unwelcome, as a sure guarantee that summer was here: rich, glowing, vernal, English summer.

He talked to her—easy, very contented with the hour—and interested her more and more. He told her a few strange, out of the way, bizarre experiences—and the girl listened, almost entranced. This was the sort of thing that appealed, and she contrasted it with the boredom of commonplace, which she was as capable of appreciating—on the wrong side—as she was of appreciating these cullings from a life of action; of keen, intricate, intellectual unravellings of strange occurrences almost unimaginable in their surroundings of weird mystery. Yet he so talked in no wise for the sake of talking, or to glorify himself, but simply and solely because it interested her; and to see that face lit up with vivid interest was sheer enjoyment to Helston Varne at that stage. And the little black fluffy kitten, as though cunningly appreciating the situation, was taking its toll, jumping up first upon one, then upon the other, nibbling daintily at this or that tidbit bestowed upon it, quite unrestrained by Melian, who had always set her face against spoiling it.

“What a life you must have had,” she said. “But—what made you take to it?”

“I don’t know. The sheer sporting instinct, I suppose,” he answered. But he did not tell her as much as he had told Nashby, as to its perils—its continuing perils. Then he deftly switched the conversation on to her own particular interests, in the result of which, when they got up from table, Melian said:

“There’s some queer old oak stuff in one of the lumber rooms upstairs if you’d like to look at it. It’s all jolly dusty though.”

“Certainly I would,” he answered. “I really do like that sort of thing.” And with the remark came the thought of how cheaply he had purchased his hour and a half’s imprisonment in that ghastly ice-house of a vault, what time he had introduced himself here—under false pretences.

“Come along then.”

She led the way upstairs. Now by some curious instinct, Helston Varne’s professional faculties became on the alert. It was as though some mysterious instrument string had suddenly been tuned in his ear.

She opened a door, and the atmosphere, albeit it was nearly midsummer, struck a chill through them both. The one window was clouded up with cobwebs, and the dust lay thick upon everything.

“We don’t use this part of the house,” she explained, “and we’ve only enough hands to take care of the part we do use. Look, this is the best thing in the room,” putting a hand upon an old sideboard of well nigh black oak, and then withdrawing it. “Wait a bit. I’ll go down and get a duster. This isn’t fit to be touched as it is, and I want to open it and show you.”

She turned and went out of the room. Left alone, Helston Varne set to while away the time by examining the old oak sideboard, and his all round mind at once convinced him that it would fetch a fabulous sum if put upon the market. Then he went round to examine it from behind, and with this intent, pushed it a little away from the wall. What was this?

Something gleamed at him from the dust beneath—something bright, staring like an eye. He bent down. It was a small, star-shaped disc—a pentacle in fact—but on one of the points a small, triangular piece had been, as it were, cut out. It was a strange object, and gazing at it, somehow, all sorts of queer ideas began to chase each other more or less confusedly through his brain. He forgot where he was, forgot about the impending immediate return of Melian. All he could do was to stare at the thing, and it—seemed to stare at him.

What was this? Again those ideas seemed to rush and rampage, and the worst of it was he could not marshal them—could not docket them. He reached down to pick the thing up, and then—something seemed to hold him back from touching it. Yes, there was no mistake about it. It was as if a voice—a very distinct voice—were whispering in his ear. “Unless you are tired of life—leave it.”

This would never do. With an effort of will he pulled himself together. Again he reached out his hand—and again more forcibly came that chill feeling of an unmistakable warning, and again he withdrew it. And then, as though breaking the spell, the clear, sweet, fluty voice of Melian, returning along the passage, came to his ears.

Helston Varne was conscious that a clammy perspiration had broken out upon his forehead. Brushing a hand rapidly over this, he turned to face the door. Then he was conscious that another voice was mingling with that of the girl—a male voice. Again acting under some strange instinct, he moved the heavy sideboard back to its place against the wall, and had just done so when Melian entered, followed by her uncle.

The latter, he thought, looked perturbed, nor did he fail to notice the swift, furtive, enquiring glance, which lighted upon the heavy piece of furniture.

“Ah, how are you, Varne? Been looking at musty old oak things this little girl tells me. Yes, well—I dare say they’re worth a lot of money, only they ain’t mine, worse luck. I’d jolly well send them to Christie’s if they were, I can tell you. I don’t care for dismal old stuff about me. Give me something cheerful and up-to-date and comfortable. The other thing gives you the holy blues. So does this room by the way,”—and he shivered. “So if you’ve seen what you want, come down and join me in a whisky and soda.”

“Delighted. Yes, that certainly must be very valuable old stuff,” answered the other. “I thought it was yours.”

“No. It’s old Tullibard’s, but it’s left here to save the trouble of moving it anywhere else. Well, and so you’re off on another of your mysterious expeditions, the child tells me. Look out, Varne. The bucket that goes down the well too often—you know the old copybook chestnut.”

“Yes, and like all others of its kind, there’s a fallacy behind it,” laughed Varne.

“Perhaps. Come along then. This infernal room’s giving me the cold shivers. I believe I got a touch of the sun on the way back. Anyhow, I’m not feeling at all the thing.”

After their guest had left, the remainder of the day, radiant, golden, cloudless as it was, seemed to take on a gloom to one of them. What a very perfect companion he was, thought Melian. She wished he were a near neighbour instead of putting in sporadic appearances, and then vanishing for ever so long. She had refrained from telling him her troubles, not wanting to spoil their splendid morning ramble; now he was gone, for a long time perhaps, she regretted her reticence. Later she had reason to regret it more.

They were seated at supper. The blinds were down and the lamp burned cheerfully. Outside, a sudden gust swirled round the corner of the house, setting the woodland trees rustling.

“Ah—ah!” said Melian. “That spells change. I thought it was too perfectly clear to last.”

Another gust stronger than the first, followed upon her words.

“Why, it is coming on to blow,” she went on. “And look; it has blown the old cellar door open.”

She was sitting so as to face this. Mervyn with his back to it. She could not fail to notice the sudden, almost startled look as he turned quickly to follow the direction of her glance.

The door was open.

About one quarter open it stood, framing a black gash, whence the cold chill of a draught came pouring into the room—open, just as it had stood six months ago. And now, as then, it had been fast locked.

Chapter Twenty Two.

The Sniper.

Overhead the gloomy rock walls reared up on either side for many hundred feet, seeming in places well nigh to meet, in others, leaning outward so as completely to obliterate the narrow blue thread of sky. Loose stones, round stones, every conceivable shape of stone, large and small, constituted the natural paving of the natural roadway, and slipped and rattled under the tired, stumbling hoofs of the two horsemen; the three rather, for the rear was brought up at a respectful distance by a mounted syce.

It was cool in the depths of the great chasm, cool but strangely stuffy. Both Europeans were in khaki suits, quite looking like having seen service, and wore Terai hats. Each carried a business-like magazine rifle—and, incidentally, knew thoroughly well how to use it when occasion demanded. And each had been so using it, but for peaceful purpose, for they were returning from a fairly successful markhôr stalk in the craggy range, of which this chasm, cleaving the heart of an otherwise unbroken mass of rock, formed a natural roadway.

“I tell you what it is, Helston,” the older of the two men was saying. “This is no sort of place to go through during the rainy season. The water rushes down it as through a spout. I’ve had a narrow squeak or two in just such a tube as this before.”

“Yes. You can see that. There’s high watermark.”

The other followed his upward glance. Just a few scarcely perceptible bits of stick and dry grass quite twenty feet overhead.

“By Jove, Helston, but what an eye you’ve got. And you’re new to this end of the country too.”

“Yes. I’ve got an eye—for trifles—as you say, Coates,” returned Helston Varne. “But I only wish some of the things I’ve got to—I’ve had to—clear up, were as easy to deduce as that—only I don’t, because it would eliminate the sporting element altogether. By the way, there’s some one coming from the opposite direction. We shall meet directly, but I hope it isn’t a lot of beastly loaded camels, or Heaven only knows how we are going to pass each other.”

“What? Why you’ve got an ear as well as an eye. Blest if I can hear anything.”

“Not, eh?” Then, after a moment of listening—“By Jingo, yes—it is camels.”

Now the sound grew audible to all, that of deep toned voices and the roll and rattle of loose stones, and soon, round a bend of the rock wall appeared a characteristic and extremely picturesque group.

There might have been ten or a dozen men. The one who led was mounted on a fine camel, but the rest were afoot. Another camel brought up the rear, loaded with baggage. They were tall, hook-nosed, copper coloured men, with jetty beards and an equally jetty tress flowing down in front over each shoulder. They were clad in loose white garments, and their heads surmounted by the ample turban wound round the conical kulla—and all were armed with the inevitable and razor-edged tulwar, three or four indeed carrying rifles besides. At sight of the Europeans they halted, and their looks were not friendly. In point of fact these expressed distinct suspiciousness, partly dashed with a restrained combination of fanatical and racial hatred. But the whole group was splendidly in keeping with the stern wildness of its background.

“Now how the devil are we going to pass each other, and who’s going to give way?” mused Varne Coates in an undertone. Helston said nothing. His mind was absorbed entirely with taking in and thoroughly appreciating the effect of the picture.

“Salaam, brothers,” began Coates, speaking Hindustani: “This tangi is over narrow for two parties to pass each other. Is it not wider a little back, the way you have come?”

The look of hostility on the dark faces seemed to deepen ever so slightly. To Helston’s acute observation it deepened more than slightly.

“Or the way you have come,” came the answer from more than one voice. But the man on the camel said nothing, perhaps because he did not understand—or as a freeborn mountaineer, did not choose to understand—the language of servants—of slaves. But he did not look friendly. Things were at a decided deadlock.

There was just barely room to pass, but only then by floundering up the most rugged part of the dry watercourse. But Varne Coates, Commissioner of Baghnagar, and temporarily quartered on leave at the frontier station of Mazaran for the purposes chiefly of markhôr stalking, was temperamentally a peppery man, and traditionally entirely opposed to the idea of giving way to natives whoever they might be. And it looked uncommonly as though he would have to do so now.

“Here, Gholam Ali,” he called back over his shoulder to the syce. “You talk to these people. They don’t seem to understand me.”

The man came forward, and Helston was not slow to notice that his tones, as he talked, were respectful, not to say deferential. The face of the camel rider the while was that of a mask. He uttered a few laconic words in a deep toned voice, and in Pushtu.

“Hazûr, it is a sirdar of the Gularzai,” translated the syce, “His name Allah-din Khan. He does not know the Hazûr, and this is his country. Hazûr, he says, does not belong to the Sirkar here (the Government, or administration), but is a stranger. Further down the tangi is a wide space where all can pass one another. ‘Let those who come up then make way for those who come down.’ Those are the words of the sirdar.”

Here was an impasse. Helston Varne noticed on his kinsman’s face a sort of apoplectic tendency to grow purple. He realised that the situation was critical—very. He noticed likewise that the expression on the faces of the opposite party was one of scowling determination, but he further noticed that there was nothing insolent or provocative in it. This seemed to save the situation. His keen brain saw a way out. It was rather a funny one, but it might answer.

“See now, Gholam Ali,” he said, in Hindustani, of which he had a thorough knowledge. “When we sportsmen have a difference we throw up a coin, and decide according to choice whether the King’s head is uppermost or not. The Gularzai are sportsmen like ourselves. So we can toss up for who shall give way.”

He produced a rupee, and watched the face of the chief while this was put to him. The latter gave a slight nod, and said a word or two to his followers. They crowded forward.

“What does the sirdar say?” went on Helston. “The King’s head or the other side?”

“The King’s head,” was the answer.

“Good. Let one of them throw up the rupee,” said Helston, handing it over.

A tall, hook-nosed barbarian came forward, and taking the coin, sent it spinning high in the air. It came down with a clink, rebounded, and settled. The King’s head was undermost.

“‘Tails.’ We’ve won,” said Helston, looking up. “But if they’d like two out of three, we can call again.”

But the sirdar shook his head.

“It is child’s play,” he said. “Still—a test is a test—and a game a game. We keep to it.”

And to the intense relief of at any rate two of them, he turned his camel round, and retraced his way up the tangi, followed by his retinue.

“Well I’m damned!” was all that Coates could muster.

“No you’re not. We’ve got round that hobble,” answered his kinsman placidly. “It was rather a funny situation though, wasn’t it. Fancy tossing for priority of way, bang, so to speak, in the heart of the earth. Well, Allah-din Khan is a sportsman anyhow.”

“Is he? Wait a bit. We haven’t passed him yet.” And the answer carried a potential suggestiveness, which, under the circumstances, was unpleasant.

However, such was not borne out by events. A few hundred yards higher up, the tangi widened out considerably, and here they found the sirdar and his following awaiting them. Helston said a few pleasant and courteous words as they passed, which were gravely but not sullenly, received. But the hostile stare on the faces of the chief’s following, there was no mistaking.

“That’s what comes of sending the escort on ahead,” said Varne Coates. “If they’d been along we needn’t have stood any nonsense from Mr Allah-din Khan. It would have been man for man then, or very nearly, and a good deal more than rifle for rifle.”

“Don’t know it isn’t a good thing that we did,” answered the other with some conviction. “The evenness of numbers would probably have brought on a row. And I’m perfectly certain any one of those chaps is equal to any two of ours, if not three.”

“But the rifles?”

“Even then, they wouldn’t have given us time to use them. No. I think we’re well out of that racket, Coates.”

“All right. I shall be glad to see camp anyhow. I’m yearning for a long, stiff, cool peg. Wrangling and getting into a wax is very dry work. Well, we’re not far off now, thank the Lord.”

The tangi was widening out considerably. The cliffs no longer rose sheer and facing each other, but had changed into tumbling crags and pinnacles, and terraced ledges, while beyond lay a glimpse of more open country. But on one hand the mouth of the pass was dominated by a huge, magnificent cliff wall.

“Look there,” cried Coates, glancing at a point halfway up this where some objects were moving. “Markhôr—three of them! But they are wild. At that height they ought to be standing calmly staring at us, and they’re off already as if the devil was after them.”

And as the words left his mouth, the answer—the explanation—came, startlingly, unpleasantly.

For an echoing roar broke from the cliff front just below the point they had been scanning, and something heavy and vicious and convincing thudded hard with a “klopf” against a boulder just to the right of Helston. The rock face was marked as with the splatter of blue lead.

“We’re being sniped, by God?” exclaimed Coates, reining in. The syce had instinctively drawn behind the nearest boulder, and had dismounted.

Again came the crash, together with a score of bellowing reverberations as the echoes tossed from crag to crag. This time the missile shaved the neck of Helston’s horse so close as to set that noble animal snorting and curvetting in such wise that the rider was put to some trouble to keep his seat.

“This is damn silly,” growled Coates. “Well, there’s nothing for it but to take cover and think it out. If we could only get a glimpse of the soor.”

There were many loose boulders at the entrance to the chasm, and only in the nick of time did they get behind two of these. For a third bullet hummed over the very spot, now in empty air, a fraction of a second ago occupied by Helston and his horse.

“He’s getting our range now, and no mistake,” went on Coates. “Now we must try and get his. Just about halfway up the khud there, below where we sighted the markhôr.”

For some minutes there was no further sign. The sniper seeing now nothing to snipe at, did not snipe. Meanwhile he was enjoying the fun of keeping two of the ruling race crouching behind rocks for their lives. He had the best part of the day before him to enjoy it in, for it was quite early afternoon, and his time was all his own. When they came out into the open, as sooner or later they would be sure to do—for they were but scantily endowed with the saving grace of patience, these infidels—then he would have them; the whole three, with good fortune; only he would spare the syce perhaps, because he was a believer.

“This is a nice cheerful country, Coates, and a fairly eventful day of it,” remarked Helston. “First, we as nearly as possible have a hand to hand scrap for the right to pass an exceedingly cut-throat looking gang of ruffians, then no sooner are we clear of that than we have to slink behind stones like scared rabbits, because some sportsman unknown takes it into his head that we make very good moving targets at a given distance. And I don’t quite see the way out, that’s the worst of it. Do you?”

“Not unless we can get a sight on the budmash,” was the reply. “I’ve put mine at four hundred yards.”

“Yes. That would do it,” agreed Helston. “Stop. I’ve got an idea—give me a leg up to the top of this boulder. There are several loose stones there that I can get behind, and use as sort of loopholes.”

“Better not. He’ll have you there to a dead cert,” warned the other.

“I’ll chance that. So. That’s it.”

Whether the sniper had seen this move, or whether he himself was tired of inaction, another bullet now pinged hard and viciously against the boulder itself. This just suited Helston Varne. He was able in that moment’s flash to locate the lurking place of their enemy, and himself, lying flat, was able to get his piece forward, and cover it. With the aid of a loophole-like formation of the stones he felt that he could not miss.

“Work the dummy trick, Coates,” he called back, in a low voice. “Draw his fire somehow. I’ve got the spot exactly covered, and—I think we shall soon be on our road again.”

“All right,” came back the answer. “I’ll give a cough when I’m all ready to show the lure.”

It was a strange drama this duel between hidden foes, and for its setting one of the wildest scenes of wild Nature. The mountain side opposite, rising in huge terraced cliffs, the ledges affording sparse hold for a scanty growth of pistachio shrub. Beneath, the stones and boulders of the now dry watercourse, and behind, the craggy entrance to the great tangi. No vegetation either, save coarse dry grass, no sign of life, unless a cloud of kites, wheeling in circles high overhead, against the blue. And, facing each other, unseen, two units of humanity lay there, each bent on relieving the human race of one. Then Varne Coates coughed.

But simultaneously, with the echoing roar from the cliff face, Helston pressed trigger. The sound from opposite was not that of a missile striking a hard substance.

“Got him,” he said, quietly. “Yes. He’s done. I could see it plainly. He got it just under the chin, as he was watching the effect of his pull-off.”

“The effect of his pull-off,” said Coates, “is that he’s got the range plumb by now, and if anything had been inside the boot I stuck out, its owner would have gone very lame for life. Look hereat it.” And he held it up showing a hole neatly drilled just above the ankle. “Sure you’ve got him though?”

“So sure that—Well, look.”

Helston had slid down from his coign of vantage, and now deliberately walked forth into the open. Here he stood for a few moments, gazing up at the cliff.

“That’s practical faith at any rate,” said Coates, grimly. “Yes, you certainly must have ‘got him,’ or he’d have got you by this. Still, it’s risky. There might have been two of them.”

“There might, but there weren’t.”

“How the deuce could you tell that?”

“By the systematic way the one was getting the range.”

“Oh, good old Sherlock Holmes again!” laughed Coates. “Now we can head for that ‘peg’ I was yearning for just now, and in dry fact—devilish dry—have been ever since.”

“What are we going to do about—that?” said Helston, with a nod in the direction of their late menace.

“Do? Why, not say a damn thing about it to anybody. Gholam Ali won’t for his own sake. He’s half a Pathan himself and knows better than to advertise trouble. Yes, as you were saying—it’s a nice cheerful country this, not dull by any means.”

The other laughed significantly.

“No,” he said. “But this time it’s a case of the sniper sniped.”

And then they both laughed.

Chapter Twenty Three.

Camp—and a Conversation.

The camp was pitched in open ground, and had the drawback of that—for there were no shading trees or sheltering heights, as to which Varne Coates remarked that it didn’t matter a curse about shading trees if only that any moment a swarm of locusts might happen along and feed off all the “shade” within half an hour or so, leaving them as bare as Hyde Park in January; while as for the sheltering heights, well they had just seen what those could “shelter”—and it was better to be out of range of such.

The point on which the camp was pitched could certainly boast no charm of picturesqueness. It stared out upon open plains destitute of foliage, and rendered here and there even more ugly by low humps of hill, whose mud coloured domes were relieved here and there by white streaks of gypsum. Bounding it on both sides, but at some little distance, rose craggy mountain ridges, good stalking ground for markhôr and gadh, and, from another side of the operation, the same, as we have seen, for the Gularzai sniper. But the big living tent was roomy, and as replete with such travelling comfort as only comfort-loving India somehow, seemed ever able to run to: and the sleeping tents, too, were not wanting in that much to be appreciated advantage. These, and the tents of the various servants, the khansamah tent, and those of the Levy sowars who formed the escort, made up quite a respectable sized nomad village.

“Wonder if Ford’ll turn up to-morrow,” remarked Coates, as they sat smoking their after-dinner cheroots under the stars in front of the big tent. Ford was the Conservator of Forests for the district of Mazaran—incidentally there were no “forests” worthy of the name in the said district, but Ford was Forest Officer nevertheless, and drew his pay as such all the same.

“Ford? Oh, yes, of course,” answered Helston, shooting out a big trail of smoke and pulling himself out of a big meditation in which he had been wrapped. “Yes. He’ll do. He’s all right.”

“Yes. And on this infernal frontier it’s not a bad thing to have another hard man around who can shoot straight. These soors don’t love us any too well—as you’ve seen to-day.”

It might be asked under the circumstances why the devil two men should be such fools as to go putting their heads into the lion’s mouth, by camping around here and there right in the heart of a wild country peopled by hostile and fanatical barbarians, just for the sake of shooting a few wild goats. But—there you are. They were Englishmen, and this, we suppose, is an all sufficing answer.

“What a rum thing it is, Helston,” went on Coates, jumping to another subject, “that you should have run into my old pal Seward Mervyn. I’ve often thought about it, do you know?”

“Yes, but the world’s very small. Yet, I’m not sure that England, that little bit of an island on the map, isn’t the largest section of it—as far as running into people goes.”

“Why it must be some years since I saw him. He must be ageing.”

“I should say not. He struck me as a remarkably wiry and energetic sort of man.”

“Energetic? Yes. He was too much that,” said the other. “He was always wanting to know everything. In point of fact, strictly between ourselves—he got to know too much.”

“Did he? In what direction?”

The tone was even, languid; the tone, in short, of a man who is enjoying his after-dinner smoke in the open air after a day of hard healthful exercise. But in reality the speaker suddenly found himself all athrill.

“Oh, he wanted to find out everything about the people—and there are about fifty different sorts and phases of people on the Northern border alone. Not content with getting behind their different character and manners and customs—and this is between ourselves, mind,” and the speaker instinctively lowered his voice—“he got himself mixed up in their secret societies.”

“The deuce he did!”

“Yes. Said he wanted to know the whole thing thoroughly, and everything about it, and that was the only way of getting to do so. But he ended by biting off rather more than he could chew.”

“How?”

“How? Well now you’re getting rather beyond me, old chap. I can only tell you that he retired suddenly, but not a day too soon. The climate of India became no longer healthy for him, you understand.”

There was no misunderstanding the significance of the speaker’s tone. Helston Varne was becoming more and more vividly interested.

“So? Did he turn the knowledge he’d gained to official account then?” he said. “Go back on them, for instance?”

“There again I can’t tell you anything definite. But some of us—very few of us—know that he didn’t retire a day too soon.”

“H’m,” and Helston Varne selected another cheroot from the box and lighted it slowly and deliberately. “But I thought these secret societies were far reaching, indeed world-wide reaching. Would he be much safer—or any safer at all—anywhere he went?”

“That too, is more than I can say. But you saw something of him at home. Did he seem all right there? You say he’s buried in some out of the way country place. Well, did it strike you he might be—what shall we say—sort of in hiding?”

“N-no. I can’t say it did, exactly. He told me he’d lost a lot of dibs over some damn silly invention he’d thought to make a pot over, and was glad to live in a shack which he got for nothing because it was supposed to be haunted.”

Outwardly cool, the speaker was conscious of a stirring awakening. He began to see light—vivid light, but he was not going to give things away. His kinsman clearly had never heard of the Heath Hover mystery, and now to him, Helston Varne, the Heath Hover mystery began to take on an interest which had been dropping of late to expiring point.

It is strange how a long sought solution will suddenly come as in a flash. The Heath Hover mystery had so far baffled this man to whom the unravelling of mysteries was as the breath of life, baffled him because there had been absolutely nothing to go upon. Once he had thought there was, and that was the day he had been an unwilling prisoner in the Heath Hover cellar. But that had evaded him, and since then he had owned himself puzzled. And now just a few casual conversational remarks let fall by his kinsman, here, away on the Indian frontier, seemed to let a whole flood of light in upon it. At that moment indeed he was very nearly piecing together the whole puzzle. His said kinsman’s voice broke the absorption of his thoughts.

“Hand the cheroot box across, Helston—Thanks—By the way you were saying, if I remember right, that Mervyn had got a niece stopping with him. What’s she like?”

“Lovely.”

The other whistled.

“Fact. I don’t often wax superlative, Coates, but nothing short of superlative will define her appearance.”

“Oh-h!” said Coates, significantly. But Helston took absolutely no notice.

“And the strange part is that she doesn’t even know it,” he went on, “which constitutes not the least part of the charm.”

“Doesn’t she? That’s rather a tall story to swallow, Helston.”

“I agree. But it happens to be true.”

“What’s her name?”

“Seward. She’s his sister’s child. But she might just as well be his own as far as their relationship goes. In fact there are precious few to whom their own children are as much.”

“Yes, I remember. Mervyn used to talk of that affair. He always objected to his brother-in-law, said he was a cross between a waster and a jackass, but mostly jackass. He objected too, on the ground of near relationship, for I believe they were first or second cousins.”

“Well I can tell you, Miss Seward forms a very complete exception to the generally received opinion on that subject. She’s all there, and no mistake.”

His kinsman was relighting his cheroot, which was burning badly, and in the flare of the vesta Helston could see the significant grin which was wreathing his lined, bronzed features; understood its burden too. But he said nothing—except:

“What sort of man was Mervyn when he was over here, Coates?”

“Sort? Oh he was a man of—bouts, for want of a definition. He had his equable bouts, and his gloomy bouts, his peppery bouts and his gusty bouts, and sometimes downright nasty and cynical bouts. They didn’t overlap either, but were as hard and fast apart by rule and line as the watertight compartments of a ship. Still, all round, he was all right. I could stick him better than most people, and we were very ‘pal-ly’ he and I. He was a fine sportsman too.”

“Didn’t he ever marry?”

“Now you ask, he did make—that mistake. But it didn’t last long—not more than a year or two. Bad egg you know. Did a bunk—I forget whether it was a Police wallah or a civilian. They didn’t get far though, for they were both lost in the Tara, when she foundered with nearly all on board going home, you’ll remember. Mervyn was rather relieved, as it saved him the bother and expense and scandal of taking proceedings. But he didn’t repeat the mistake. Well, now—that’s Mervyn.”

“Yes. That’s Mervyn,” repeated Helston. “It seems to form a whole epitome of him.”

His mind reverted to Heath Hover, and his mind’s eye seemed to form a picture—of the lonely, self-contained man—dry, gruff in manner and biting in conversation—that of course before the arrival of Melian, for he was judge enough to deduce that Mervyn had sloughed a great deal of those characteristics since that sunny presence had been there to irradiate the solitary and secluded habitation, and to melt the sour hardness of an atrophied life.

“What do you think will be the end of Mervyn?” he went on, after a pause. The other started.

“The end of—Eh—what? The end of Mervyn? Good Lord! I hadn’t given it a thought. But why? What on earth should have put that into your head, Helston?”

“Perhaps it’s been in my head for some time—almost from the moment I first saw the man. He’s remarkably outside the ordinary, and I’m always genuinely interested in such.”

“Quite sure you’re not ‘genuinely interested’ in some one else, old chap?” said Coates, slily.

“I’m quite sure that I am—and that very much so,” came the perfectly unperturbed reply. “But to come back to Mervyn, you haven’t answered my question.”

“Well, how the blazes can I? I’ve never given it a thought I tell you.”

“Well, I have. Do you think for instance, he’ll ever come out here again?”

“Not if he’s wise,” came the decided answer.

“I should say he was that—from what I saw of him. Still I have an idea—and a strong one—that he will come out here again.”

“Did he talk about doing so, then?”

“Never. But, don’t be surprised if ever he does.”

“I’ll try not. But—look here, old Sherlock Holmes. What are you getting at? Eh?”

“Nothing wonderful. Only I’m interested in—Mervyn.”

The other stared—then began to put two and two together. His kinsman had been “superlative” on the subject of the girl—not effusively so, but quietly, and therefore all the more forcibly so, and being superlative on the subject of anybody spelt a great deal as coming from Helston Varne. Could it be that Mervyn was in opposition and he would gladly see Mervyn removed? Yet that hardly seemed to hang, for he gathered that the two men were on the friendliest of terms.

“If he comes out here again,” he now answered, “I’m afraid the end of him won’t be far off. It may not be lingering, but it’ll be sudden.”

“That’d be a pity. Yet—do you know. I have it somewhere down, Coates—somewhere down—that it mightn’t be the worst thing for him—for Mervyn—to come out here again. I can’t tell you where I have it, but it’s there.”

Varne Coates began to feel really interested. He had an immense respect for the acumen of his younger relative, and for the almost superhuman judgment and skill wherewith the latter had probed some of the most delicate and baffling mysteries whose enlightenment had ever startled the world—no less than for the intrepidity and dash which had secured his individual safety in perilous crises involved in such. Be it remembered that he knew nothing of the connexion of Mervyn with any such mystery as the one in question, yet now for the first time he began to scent something of the kind. He also began to scent underlying romance.

“Well I give it up, old chap,” he answered with a laugh. “Give it up clean. You’ve always got something mysterious up your sleeve, but I suppose it’ll all come out in God’s good time—and yours. Though if Mervyn did come out I’d be jolly glad to see him, and have a cheery old bukh together again—and a little shikar. Kwai-hai!”

The bearer padded up in answer to the resounding call, and salaamed.

“Peg lao, Bolaki Ram,” said his master, and in obedience a bottle and a syphon and two tall tumblers were set out on the camp table before them.

Helston Varne, lying on his charpoy in his sleeping tent, felt very far removed indeed from going to sleep. To begin with, his relative’s information with regard to Mervyn had given him abundant food for thought. It had pieced together a great deal that had been wanting, and it had also carried him back largely to Heath Hover and that which Heath Hover contained. Strong-headed as strong framed, this man in the very zenith of his prime, had found out his weak spot—and, why should he not—so he now told himself? Nothing—nobody—within the ordinary had ever touched him. Now he had found something—somebody—outside the ordinary—clean outside the ordinary. He recalled vividly that last meeting at the head of Plane Pond, under the sprouting green leafage of early spring in the Plane woods. He had decided it should not be the last, and when Helston Varne decided anything, it was strange if that contingency should fail to befall. He remembered vividly those trustful blue eyes, so clear and straight, and withal appealing in their glance. And now he was effecting the substance of their appeal, for he had not come to this wild and turbulent end of the earth, either by accident or for his own amusement—and then a short, wholly mirthful laugh escaped him as he remembered how he had gone down to help Nashby over the unravelling of the Heath Hover mystery. Heavens, how that worthy rural police inspector would have stared could he have so much as guessed at what that real unravelling would lead up to! But the situation was changed now, for in such unravelling Nashby was clean counted out. He, the unraveller, was wholly in the interest of the other side.

Far out over the plain a wolf howled, and was answered by another. Something in the sound brought back that of the owls hooting in the Plane woods, and “Broceliande,” and the contrast to the present surroundings came out sharply defined. Why their adventures of that very day seemed to make the other remote and commonplace—though there was one element about it which reflected the very reverse of commonplace. Even his well regulated system seemed to stir uneasily at the thought, and stretched upon his charpoy here at midnight in one of the wildest tracts of wilderness in the world, Helston Varne felt as if sleep would never visit him again.

The wolves howled, this time nearer. He could hear the half alarmed snort of one or two of the picketted horses, and a restless camel indulge in its characteristic, swearing snarl. He got up and mixed himself another peg, lit a fresh cheroot, then lay down again, staring at the tent roof and thinking—thinking back.

Chapter Twenty Four.

A Startler for Helston Varne.

High up amid the soaring pinnacles of the craggy world Helston Varne and his shikari were worming their way in stealthy silence, now round a corner where every hand and foothold had to be carefully tested before trusted, now along a rock ledge whose crannies alone supplied both—or again along a steep slope of scaly slag, hardly less slippery than ice. But on either or any of these delectable samples of terra firma a single slip would carry the same result—an abrupt descent of hundreds of feet, with not an unbroken bone on arrival at the bottom. It required an iron nerve, and the perfection of muscular, and generally physical, condition. Furthermore, having regard to the object of its undertaking, it must be accomplished in the most perfect silence. And all this for the sake of shooting a wild goat—or at any rate making a sporting attempt at the achievement of that feat! For this particular point was one of the best places for markhôr in the whole range.

Like master like man. The shikari, Hussein Khan, was a hard mountaineer, all muscle and keenness. He was a Pathan of the Kakhar tribe and had an immense respect for his master, primarily because the latter was his equal in both these attributes, and also for another reason which may or may not appear.

The time was the middle of the forenoon. They should have arrived at this point earlier, but the climb had proved more difficult and dangerous than either had anticipated, and both were sufficiently experienced to know that it was one that no amount of keenness would enable them to rush. But for hours they had clambered thus, and now, mere specks against the brown, craggy mountain side, they paused for a blow; for you cannot take a steady aim when winded after real hard exertion. Incidentally to one of them the pause was due to another motive, for Hussein Khan was a true believer, and was not this the hour of prayer? So cramped on the ledge, with barely enough space for the prescribed prostrations, the follower of the Prophet, his face turned in the direction of the Holy City—as to which he was able to judge by the hang of the sun, and that with marvellous accuracy—having put off his shoes and spread his chudda—went to work at the same, as entirely absorbed from the world as though kneeling on the even flooring of some cool, dim mosque. The “infidel” meanwhile, took the opportunity of a bite from a sandwich and a pull at his flask.

But the creed of Islam is a very work-a-day one, so the shikari’s devotions did not take long, a few minutes at the outside. He rose again, rested in body and satisfied in conscience, and the pair resumed their way. A very short bout of additional clambering, and they looked out from among a jumble of pinnacles and crags upon the world beyond and beneath.

Beyond, a grand crescent of rock terrace and crag, akin to that on which they lay. On the one hand a great peak, towering skyward, a roll of dark juniper forest in waves around its base, then a marvellous formation of dome-like rock surface all interseamed with dark fissures, like the crevasses on a glacier, and beneath, nearer still, a valley bottom, through which a mountain torrent coursed. But between this and themselves, sloping down from the foot of the ragged cliff immediately below where they lay, was an open, grassy strip. Helston brought the rifle to his shoulder.

Too late. Four markhôr were bounding and scampering away, as though for dear life. They had been browsing on this open slope, just where the stalkers had expected to find them.

“Don’t shoot, Hazûr,” whispered the shikari. “It would only panic them, and lose us our chance of getting round them, for I think they will not go very far.”

Helston recognised the force of this advice, and forebore to risk a long, flying shot. Yet the result of hours of toil was vanishing from sight at the rate of many miles per hour.

“It is written,” he answered. “Yet, I think, Hussein Khan, the ram that led those three was the father of all markhôr in these mountains, for never did I see a larger one, nor even so large a one. Assuredly the eye of Shaitan is upon our luck to-day.”

“Who may say, Hazûr? Yonder, perhaps, he is.”

The man’s face broadened in a whimsical smile, displaying magnificent white teeth. Helston followed his glance. A splendid eagle, black as jet, was soaring in majestic circles over the valley. It alone, set in the surroundings, formed a sight that it was almost worth their toil and trouble to obtain, he thought.

“Shaitan or not, Hussein Khan,” he answered, “that is not enough to frighten four full grown markhôr, especially with such a leader as that ram, for he is the king of all markhôr I have ever seen. And now—what?”

But the other made no reply. He gave a peremptory sign for silence, the while he himself was listening intently. Instinctively Helston followed his example, and crouched lower still upon the slab of rock whereto he had wormed himself, to obtain, as he thought, a most effective shot. But his nerves tingled and his blood fired up. The shikari, with his fine sense of hearing, had detected the sound of other markhôr approaching. That was it. He would get his chance after all.

His faculties of hearing stretched to their utmost tension he listened. Most men would have been conscious of a tingling of the nerves, but the nerves of Helston Varne were as hard and as well in hand as those of the Pathan shikari himself. Yet he would soon have reason to congratulate himself that they were so.

Now the rattle of a dislodged stone came to his hearing, then a sound of hoof-strokes, but to that practised sense of hearing it conveyed no presage of the approach of mountain game. With the recollection of the sniping episode fresh in his memory, he appreciated his attendant’s emphatic injunction for silence, for caution. In this wild and shaggy land, the hand of everybody was against the intruder, the infidel. And as he gazed, the turbaned heads of a band of horsemen came into view above the rocks below.

They were advancing up the valley. They were as yet too distant for detail. Helston made a move to get out his powerful binocular. But Hussein Khan laid a warning hand upon his arm.

“Leave that, Hazûr,” he breathed. “Those who go yonder have eyes—like those of the eagle we sighted just now. One glint of the sun upon the glasses, and—”

The gap was significant. Knowing the state of the country and the temper of its people, Helston could supply it very well. And, indeed, his sight was not less keen than that of his shikari. He lay still and watched with interested expectation.

The band was now defiling into full view, but still advancing, head on; he could not quite distinguish the figures apart; but that they were all armed he could see plainly. Some had rifles, others the native sickle-stocked jezail, and all wore the universal fulwar, hung by a broad sabretasche from the right shoulder.

“Who—what are they?” he whispered.

“Gularzai,” breathed Hussein Khan, in reply. “See, at the head rides the Sirdar, Allah-din Khan.”

With something of a start of interest Helston recognised the man named. Now, mounted on a fine horse, looking very warrior-like and martial at the head of his wild band, was the man with whom he had tossed for right of way in the tangi but a week or two since. And then—he saw something else, and the sight sent all the blood back to his heart.

He stared, then stared again. No. It could not be.

The band, amounting to some score of horsemen, was nearly abreast of them now, riding at a foot’s pace, as indeed the rocky nature of the ground demanded. But in the midst of it rode two figures which belonged certainly not to the Gularzai, or to any known tribe or race within our Indian possessions. They were unmistakably Europeans and represented both sexes. And then Helston Varne got the surprise of his life. Indeed, he began to wonder whether he were dreaming or delirious, for there—now immediately beneath him, in the midst of this wild band of predatory mountaineers rode John Seward Mervyn and his niece.

Heavens! what did it mean—what could it mean? These two, whom he had left safe in quiet, peaceful, rural England, not so very long since—here now, in this shaggy, perilous wilderness, and for escort an armed band of savage, fanatical tribesmen. What could it mean? At all risks he would get out his binocular and scan them more closely. Yes, at all risks. And this he put to his shikari. The latter slightly shrugged one shoulder, impassively.

Under the powerful lens, Melian was brought within thirty yards, and with the sight, his heart seemed to stand still within him. The beautiful face, though calm, had a set, troubled look, even a frightened look, he told himself. But her splendid pluck was evidently standing her in good stead. Then he turned the glasses upon her uncle. Mervyn’s face was impassive, and betrayed no emotion whatever. And then, like a flash, there ran through his own mind the whole gist of his talk with Coates on the night of their arrival in the new camp—his prediction that at some time or other Mervyn would return to this strange, dim, mysterious land, and the other’s reply—ready reply at that—that if he were wise he would not. And now here he was—manifestly a prisoner, and, for what purpose? And with him, Melian.

If ever Helston Varne had run against difficulty in his life—and that he had run against and surmounted many, we have already said—he realised that he was running against the greatest—here and now. He knew enough of this wild Northern border, with its labyrinthine impenetrable chasms and fastnesses, and the fierce fanatical treachery of its indomitable tribesmen, to recognise that sheer forcible rescue was clean out of the question. If for some special reason like that hinted at by Coates, they had managed to get Mervyn into their power, it was with a long brooded upon, and settled purpose, one which involved no mere matter of ransom. And Melian? Here one ray of hope did dawn. She could have had no part in, or knowledge of, her uncle’s dealings with their inner and mysterious affairs, and as strict Mahomedans, they would not offer active insult to a woman. Here the question of ransom might come in, and if it did, he himself would find it—find it promptly and cheerfully.

In a whirl of mingled feelings the ordinarily cool-headed, hard nerved man watched the band as it receded now, for it had already passed their point of outlook, and would disappear directly round the upper bend of the valley. Then he turned to Hussein Khan.

“What does this mean?”

Again the other shrugged a shoulder.

“Who may say, Hazûr? The Gularzai are ever restless, and they love money as—Ya Allah, who does not! If they have persuaded, yonder Hazûr, and the Miss Sahib, to go with them, it is because they are worth many rupees.”

Helston looked fixedly at him, even meaningly.

“And that is all their motive—all?” he added, with emphasised meaning.

But the man’s fine face was mask-like in its lack of response. If its owner knew—suspected—any other—well, he was an Oriental.

“Allah-din Khan too, loves money,” he answered. “We are alone Hazûr, so—there are some who would be alive to-day had they been able to give him what he asked.”

An immense relief would have swept across Helston’s mind had the shikari’s answer carried conviction. For it would have cut the knot of the difficulty on the spot. He knew that Mervyn was a poor man, and realised with intense satisfaction then that he himself was not. Whatever this freebooting chieftain might ask to set his captives free should be paid. It would be a mere matter for negotiation. But, unfortunately, in the light of his talk with Coates, the answer did not carry conviction—not entirely, though he tried to buoy himself up with the hope that it did.

“Where is Allah-din Khan’s village?” he said.

“His village? It is more like a fort, Hazûr. It is away among the mountains, nearly two days journey from here. They are heading straight for it now.”

Helston’s heart sank. A fort—a hill fort! Why, it would require an expedition to reduce such, and meanwhile, what would become of the captives? The only solution he saw was that of ransom, and that was, under the circumstances, by no means a reassuring one.

“Can you guide me to it, Hussein Khan?”

The man looked strangely troubled.

“I can do so,” he said, after a pause. “But it is putting the head between the tiger’s jaws, for then will not Allah-din Khan demand the price of three instead of the price of two? And the price he will name will not be small, Hazûr.”

The matter of price would have been nothing. But more and more did Helston conjecture a deeper motive to underly. One redeeming side of it, however, was that he did not think they would be in any immediate danger, and it would be hard if he could not find some way out of the impasse.

“This needs some planning out, Hussein Khan. Meanwhile we will return to the camp.”

“Ha, Hazûr.”

“Any luck?” asked Varne Coates, coming out of the tent to meet him. He had remained at home, not feeling very fit. Then, as if the negative shake of the head constituted a matter of no importance, he went on eagerly: “You certainly have the gift of prophecy, Helston, or you must be the devil himself. Remember, when we were talking about Mervyn the other night, you predicted he’d be turning up here again?”

“Yes.”

“Well, he has. I’ve just got a ‘chit’ from him saying he’ll be here with us this evening, and he’s bringing his niece. They left Mazaran three days ago on purpose to join us. We’ll have a rare old bukh, over old times, but,”—with a shake of the head—“you remember what I was saying—that he’d be a damn fool if he did come out here again. Well, I only hope I was wrong.”

“I wish you were, but I’m afraid you’re not. Come into the tent here, and see that no one’s about who can understand us.”

Varne Coates stared at his kinsman. The concerned gravity in the latter’s tone affected him, taken in conjunction with his superhuman gift of finding out everything. He led the way into the tent in silence.

And then Helston put him into possession of the morning’s discovery. At the conclusion of the narrative Coates shook a very doleful head indeed.

“They weren’t with Allah-din Khan’s crowd of their own free will,” he declared. “Did Mervyn show any signs of having been in a scrap?”

“No. My glasses are extra powerful. He looked—normal. Well? What do you think of it—of the chances?”

“Chances? I think the chances for Mervyn are worth just that,”—with a snap of the fingers. “For the girl, it’s just possible that this budmash may give her up, at the price of lakhs of rupees, but who the devil’s going to pay it?”

“The Government?”

“No fear, Government may send an expedition, but that won’t help anybody, but it isn’t going to pay up.”

“Then I am.”

“You are?” with a stare of amazement.

“Certainly. Only too glad to get her back safe at any price, even if it costs me every damn shilling I’ve got in the world.”

Varne Coates looked at his kinsman and whistled.

“So that’s how the cat jumps, is it?”

“That’s how.”

Chapter Twenty Five.

Mervyn’s Dilemma.

We must glance back.

Mervyn’s camp was pitched not very far from the mouth of the Duran Tangi; that is, not very far from the scene of the sniping episode of a week or two previously, of which, of course, he was in ignorance, but far enough from the great overhanging wall of terraced cliff, to be beyond the possibility of a repetition of the same. He had been warned at Mazaran that the country was extra restless just then, and that moving about in it, in the happy-go-lucky way he proposed, was positively unsafe; but with his usual gustiness, he pooh-poohed every suggestion of the kind. No one was good enough to teach him his India, he declared. If it suited the military element to get up and foment a chronic scare, well that wasn’t going to interfere with him. It was of no use representing to him that this wasn’t India precisely, but the Northern border—whose inhabitants were a fierce, predatory set of fanatics caring for no show of authority, and that even now these were in a state of unrest—well, he knew them too. When he heard that his old friend Varne Coates—and especially the latter’s relative, and his friend, were on a shikar expedition two or three days out, that was sufficient. He only spent long enough at Mazaran to collect camp necessaries and hire servants, and at once set out to join them.

He had even demurred to the escort of four Levy sowars, which was pressed upon him. These damned Catch-em-alive-ohs, he declared, were of no—ditto—use. They couldn’t hit a haystack if it came to shooting, and even then they’d either clear or make common cause with the enemy, to whom, tribally, they as likely as not belonged. So—here he was.

They had made a very early start from their last camp, and the morning was yet young. They had not long finished breakfast, and were seated in camp chairs under the shade of a canvas awning.

“Oh, this is perfectly glorious,” Melian was saying, her eyes seeming to feed upon the sunlit wildness of the surroundings. “What a contrast to dear old Heath Hover, too. Look at that splendid mountain face, all terraced, as it were, with great cliffs; and even the openness of it all has a marvellous charm.”

Her uncle puffed meditatively at his cheroot, then looked at her, and in the result felt not unsatisfied. She had taken, with characteristic readiness, to this strange wild country and its life—and every phase of it afforded her a fresh delight. And its people, too, of every shade and type, but that which attracted her most, was the tall, turbaned, often scowling, mountaineer, with his primitive jezail and never absent and wicked looking tulwar—a very Ishmaelite in deed and in appearance.

They had come up the tangi in the early morning and she had been entranced with the vastness of the huge narrow chasm, the first of its kind she had ever seen. And now, as Mervyn contemplated the eager animated face, tinged with the golden glow of an open air life, the blue eyes clear and large in contrast, he found himself thinking satirically that it was small wonder if Mazaran had sought to throw stumbling blocks in the way of their leaving it. And then as though the mention of Heath Hover evoked a recollection she suddenly said:

“I do hope old Joe and Judy will take real care of our little black poogie, and not let it out at night to get shot, or get into a trap in the coverts—dear little pooge-pooge?”

“Oh, I’m sure they will. But—we couldn’t have done with it here, could we?”

“No, but I would like to have it all the same. Why, what’s this?”

A whirl of dust was coming down the road, and as it drew nearer, they could make out a band of horsemen, clad in the loose white garments of the mountain tribes. Through it, too, as the gleam of weapons.

“Oh, it’s some of these picturesque people, and they are so fascinating,” cried the girl. “It’ll be quite a sight to see them ride past.”

The road ran about a hundred yards below the site of the camp. For the first time some qualm of misgiving came into Mervyn’s self-sufficient mind, and he found himself actually hoping that they really would ride past. They looked a formidable gang enough, some two score strong, and armed to the teeth. It was not lessened as he saw that they were not on the road at all, and were heading straight for the camp.

Came another sight, which caused his face to pale and stiffen strangely.

“Melian, go inside the tent, and stay there till I tell you to come out,” he said sharply.

“Why? Mayn’t I see?”

“Do as I say—at once,” he repeated, with a stamp of the foot. “They may be a bit rough, but—I’ll settle them.”

She obeyed, greatly wondering. “Mayn’t I see?” she had said. Good! Then she had not seen—what he had, and he felt thankful.

Out on the plain two of his camp natives were herding the camels. He had seen several of the horsemen dart out upon these from the main body, and cut them down with their keen edged tulwars without giving them time so much as to utter a shriek. At that moment John Seward Mervyn realised that if ever he had been in a tight place in his life he was in one now, and if he did not, when too late, curse his own foolhardiness for bringing him into it, why it was only because he had not time.

The whole band rode down like a whirlwind upon the camp. The bearer and khitmutghar, and the cook, Punjabi natives, scared out of their lives, had crept into one of the tents and crouched trembling. The Levy sowars alone showed fight, and pointed their rifles, but it was plain they would have welcomed any chance offered to surrender.

“Melian, don’t move outside, do you hear,” said her uncle over his shoulder. He had risen, and stood confronting the wild array. These had now reined up, and were facing him, in a crescent formation.

“Salaam!” he said. “This is a strange welcome to a stranger in a strange land, brothers.”

A grunt broke from the fierce shaggy faces; and the gleaming, hostile eyes seemed to take on a further deepening of hate and greed.

“This is the Sirdar, Allah-din Khan,” said one, designating the man on his right.

“That is good to hear,” answered Mervyn, speaking in the Pushtu, “Salaam, Sirdar Allah-din Khan. I repeat this is a strange way of paying a friendly visit.”

“A friendly visit?” repeated the chief, in deep tones. “But what if this is not a friendly visit?”

The fierce eyes of the fanatical predatory Asiatic, and the hard, determined blue gleam in those of the European met, and there was no yielding in the glance of either.

“In that case,” replied the latter, “I invite the Sirdar to withdraw. It is not safe to stay—for him, for as the life of the Sirdar Allah-din Khan must be worth the lives of all his followers put together, it is not good policy to throw away so valuable a life.”

The tone was perfectly even, in itself containing no threat. Mervyn was at his best now, cool, desperate, therefore deadly dangerous. At his words a gasp of amazement escaped from the other side. The first thought was of a trap. Were there soldiers concealed in the tent, with rifles trained upon them through the canvas? And meanwhile Mervyn stood confronting them, calmly; one hand, however, always behind him.

“The life of so important a chief as the Sirdar Allah-din Khan must be of great value,” he went on in the same unconcerned tone. “And—he has but one.”

“And thou hast two, Feringhi,” answered the chief, darkly. “Two, and that means two deaths instead of one, lingering and painful deaths at that. One of thy ‘lives’ is behind in the tent. Good! I may fall or I may not, but I swear on the tomb of the Prophet that if thou so much as drawest the weapon now held behind thee, thou and thy daughter,”—this was a figure of speech—“shall be burnt alive. She first.”

Mervyn felt desperate. He tried not to pale as he gazed at the speaker. But his hand did not move from behind him. In that fierce, hard, set countenance, in the very words of the oath uttered, he knew there would be no going back from that sentence. He might shoot the chief dead, but no power on earth would turn the whirlwind rush of his followers. And they would be as good as their leader’s word, as to that he entertained no doubt whatever. Melian—writhing in a death of fiery torment—the bare idea was as a pictured glimpse into hell itself. A great roll of time swept over his mind in that moment or two, as he stood, confronting the man in whose power he was.

“She first,” this barbarian had said. There was a full refinement of diabolical cruelty in the words. God! the thing was unthinkable!