Chapter III (3)

“There!” he announced. “Madame Biddy, the American kid with the freckles--you know the one. Mr. Bill Ledyard from Ohio, the Duchess of Bolingham--from Ireland.”

Out of the black velvet frame there smiled, wicked and joyful, a tiny vision of gold and ivory and sapphire. The head, with its froth of bright curls, lightly tilted--the nose tilted, too--and the lips tilted, too--there she sat laughing down the years, gay as a flower, reckless as a butterfly, lovely as a dream.

“Buffets and insults and three inimitable step-children and four incomparable sisters-in-law--and then some artist chap came along and painted her like this!” The Honourable Tony leaned over, touching the gauzy folds of the dress with a light and caressing finger. “She’s a bit incredible, after all, you know! They were going to crush all that life and laughter clear down into the earth, and away she went dancing through their fingers into the dust that was just a flower garden to her. She’s more alive this minute than they’ll ever be in all their everlasting stale lives. Ah, Biddy darlin’, look at you now after flirtin’ with the fine young man from America, and you with the blessed saints to teach you wisdom all these weary long years.”

Ledyard stared down at her, young and awed and tongue-tied.

“She’s--she’s the prettiest thing that I ever saw--honestly.”

“Oh, prettier than that, young Bill. She’s the prettiest thing that ever lived--or ever died. And she was such a lovely little lunatic herself that we get on famously. We know what a joke it all is, don’t we, Biddy? God be praised, we even know when it’s on us. There now, back you go, mavourneen, while Mr. Billee Ledyar’ and I start out hunting for another lady. Bill, take a look across the _kampong_ at the sun while I hunt up my helmet--if it’s lower than Bhakdi’s roof you’d better be off. It goes down like a rocket in these parts, once it gets started.”

Young Ledyard flung open the great wooden door that had barred out the heat, and a little breeze came dancing in, barely stirring the strange glossy leaves that clustered about the ladder-like steps. The sky was blue as steel; behind the black shadow of the Sultan’s residence there were livid streaks--the world was silent and alien as a dream. He shivered strongly, and stepped back into the room.

“The sun’s set,” he said. “There’s someone coming across from that shack you call a palace.”

The Honourable Tony strolled leisurely out of his bedroom.

“Ghundi!” he commented after a brief inspection. “The incomparable Ghundi.”

“Who the devil’s Ghundi?”

“He’s my head boy, William, and the delight of my soul; the only honest man I ever knew, saving your presence. I’ve taught him English, and he’s taught me considerably more than that--oh, considerably. What tidings, Ghundi?”

The bronze statue saluted with a grave and beautiful precision.

“Master, the Great One says that the white woman stays. Let your friend return down the waters without her.”

The Honourable Tony lifted his brows.

“Stays with the Great One, Ghundi?”

“With the Great One, Master.”

The Honourable Tony glanced pensively at the dark bulk of the palace.

“So much for that!” he murmured gently. “Bear my compliments to the Great One, Ghundi. Is all in readiness at the beach?”

“The raft waits, Master. Go swiftly, or your friend will stumble in the night.”

“Excellent advice! Latch the door after you, and on your way, William; I’ll come as far as the beach. No, this way. The air feels cool as water, doesn’t it? Smell that breeze; it’s straight down from the jungle.”

“It smells of poison,” cried young Ledyard fiercely. “The whole place is rank with it--it’s crawling. Calvert--Calvert, come back with me. I swear I’ll never let you regret it; I swear----”

“And here we are. Gad, we’re just in time if you want to tell the raft from the river. In you go, my lad, and off you go. Lord love you for coming!”

“Calvert, I won’t--I’m not going.”

The Honourable Tony laid his hands lightly and strongly on the boy’s shoulders, pushing him relentlessly toward the water.

“My dearest kid, don’t be an ass. If you stayed one minute longer, you’d ruin the best memory of my life. I mean it. Off with you.”...

He stood with one arm flung up in a reassuring gesture of farewell until the bamboo raft with its sandy-haired occupant vanished around the dim curve of the river. The night was falling with the velvet precipitation of the tropics--even while he stood its dark mantle was about him; new perfumes stole from its folds, troubling and exquisite, and one by one its jewels shone out--the small, ruddy fires of the _kampong_, an occasional lantern swinging hurriedly by and, square by square, the distant windows in the Sultan’s residence, flashing aggressive as a challenge. He lowered his arm somewhat abruptly. Very gay to-night, the Sultan’s residence; gayer than was its wont--gay as for some high festivity. The imperial Bhakdi was not greatly given to such prodigal display of oil and tallow; his mentor eyed the illumination critically, and then, with the old indifferent shrug, swung leisurely off through the blackness toward the shadow deeper than the surrounding shadows that was home. He ran lightly up the crazy steps, felt for the latch--and drew back his hand as sharply as though he had touched hot coal. He had touched something more startling than any coal; the groping fingers had closed on emptiness. The latched door was open.

“Ghundi!” His voice cut sharply into the dark space that a few minutes before had been a room, green-cushioned, white-matted, commonplace, and serene. “Ghundi!”

Silence--haunted and ominous. The Honourable Tony leaned against the door frame and addressed the shadows.

“Of course, this is frightfully jolly! I’d have laid out a mat with welcome drawn up all over it if I’d had the faintest notion of what was in store for me--though that would have been a bit superfluous, come to think of it! You seem to have managed nicely without any mat at all. I hope you’ve made yourself quite at home?”

Silence. The Honourable Tony did not move, but he raised his voice.

“Mrs. Potts! I say, I hope you’ve made yourself quite at home?”

From the hushed depths came a small, frantic commotion.

“Ah, be qui-_yet_!” The desperate whisper came toward him in a rush. “Be qui-_yet_, I do implore!”

“Oh, my dear girl, come now! Silence may be golden, and all that--and naturally I’m enormously flattered at finding you lurking around the corners of my humble abode, but before we do away with the human voice entirely, why not have a go at straightening out one or two minor matters? The first being just precisely what in the devil you’re doing here instead of on Ledyard’s boat?”

“Meestaire Honable Tonee, on my knees I pray to you, be more quiyet! Lissen, lissen, come more close. I tell you evairy thing. No, come more close. Do not let them see--do not, do not let them hear. Ah--ah--more sof’, more still! So!”

Out of the blackness the suppliant whisper drew him like a taut thread--nearer, nearer--he stumbled over something small and yielding, swore and laughed in the same quick breath, and felt two fluttering hands clutch at him, closing over his wrist in frantic protest.

“No, no, do not laff--hush, do not laff, I say.”

“Well, but what in _hell_?” inquired the Honourable Tony, softly enough to satisfy even his exigent audience. “No, I say, drop it, there’s a good little lunatic! I’m after the matches; they’re on this table somewhere----”

“Honable Tonee--lissen--eef one of those matches you should light, we die.”

“Oh, we do, do we? Well, death will be a blessed relief for one of us and a just retribution for the other. Why hasn’t someone killed you for using that simply frightful stuff long before this, Daisy?”

“What stuff ees that? Ah, ah, Honable Tonee, I am a-frighten to die; I am a-frighten!”

“But after all, that hardly alters the merits of the case, now does it? Though even death doesn’t seem to quite expiate the crime! Do you bathe in it?”

“But in _what_? Lissen--I tell you, lissen----”

“Lissen yourself, my child; it’s I who am going to tell you. Apparently you’ve had no guidance whatever so far, but precisely here is where you acquire a guardian angel. Daisy, little girls have been boiled in oil for less than using one drop of the noxious fluid in which you are drowning.”

“No, I do not onnerstan’--no, but lissen, I beg, I pray--you mus’ hide me, Honable Tonee, you mus’ hide me fas’ before he come to keel us both.”

“Hide you?” The Honourable Tony yielded to unregenerate mirth above the terrified murmurs of protest. “My dear Potts, you might precisely as well ask a thimble to hide a perfume factory! Actually, you know, when I was clean over there by the door, it fairly bowled me off my feet.”

“Hush--oh, hush--eet ees my pairfume?”

“It is indeed--it most emphatically is.”

“You could know eet from that door?”

“I could know it from the far edge of the _kampong_.”

“Then they fin’ me--then, oh, they fin’ me!”

At the sick terror of that small wail the Honourable Tony stirred.

“I say, you’re not really frightened, are you?”

“I am vairy frighten’ to die,” his visitor told him simply. “You are not?”

“Well, I’d be jolly well let down, I can tell you! It would upset my schedule no end; so if it’s all right with you we might go on living for a bit.”

“But that I think we cannot do,” said the small, chilled whisper.

“The deuce you say!” commented the Honourable Tony pensively. He swung himself up onto the table, and sat staring into the darkness for a minute, his head cocked on one side, swinging his long legs over its edge. “Look here, suppose we stop entertaining each other and bag a few of the blood-curdling facts. What do you say to diving in again at the beginning of all the small talk, and telling me just exactly what you’re doing trotting into my humble dwelling and turning it into a cross between a madhouse and a cemetery? The woman’s touch, so long lacking, what? Do stop crying; nothing in the whole world’s worth crying about like that--not even that infernal perfume!”

“I cry becaus’ vairy greatly I am afraid,” she explained gently. “An’ vairy greatly I am sorry that I bring to your poor abode such pain an’ grief an’ danger. I make you all excuse; I did not know wair else to go--no, truly, truly I did not know----”

“But why in the name of grief didn’t you go to the boat?”

“Honable Tonee, eet was gone, eet was gone!”

“Oh, rot! The boat was here until a few minutes ago. Look here, my dear child, if you’re trying any of your little tricks on me, I can save you any amount of time and trouble by tipping you off to the fact that you’re heading straight for a wash-out. This whole performance looks most frightfully dodgy and I’m beginning to be pretty fairly fed up. From brother Manuelo on----”

The limp bundle shivering quietly beneath his fingers shivered more deeply still, and sighed.

“About Manuelo, that was a lie.”

“Well, it’s gratifying to have my worst suspicions confirmed, naturally! But of all the confounded cheek----”

“Eet was jus’ a lie that Manuelo he was my brothair. Manuelo, he ees the belove’ of my heart.”

“The devil he is!” The Honourable Tony’s voice was edged with mild interest. “And may I ask why the brotherly transformation?”

“What ees that?”

“Why the lie, Daisy?”

“Because men, too well do I know them. Ah, ah, too well! Eef I say to Meestair Ledyar’, to that black devil out from hell, to your own self, Honable Tonee, that eet ees tryin’ to save the belove’ of my heart that I go crezzy in my haid and die two thousan’ death from terror, you think they lissen to me then? You think they help me then? Well, me, I think not.”

“And me, I think not, too!” agreed the Honourable Tony promptly. “Quite a student of human nature, in your quiet way, aren’t you, Daisy? I say, do let’s have some light on this! I don’t think that Manuelo would fancy it for a moment if he knew that we were all huddled up here in the pitch-black whispering things at each other.”

“Manuelo, one thousan’ time he have tell me eef he fin’ me with a man alone, he cut the heart out from our body.”

“Perhaps it’s all for the best that he’s going to remain in the tin mines,” suggested the Honourable Tony philosophically. “No cloud without a silver lining, what? However, I’m going to humour Manuelo to the extent of seeing that we have all the light that a large lamp can cast over what I trust is going to prove a brief interview. Do stop whimpering, there’s a good child!”

“Honable Tonee, thees lamp you mus’ not light. See, no longer I cry--no longer I make one soun’--only thees lamp you mus’ not light. No, wait, you do not onnerstan’----”

“You’re putting it conservatively, Daisy!”

“Wait, then, I tell you--all I make clear--but no light. Eef there is a light, he know you are here; eef he know you are here, he know that I, too, am here--an’ eef he know I, too, am here, then we die. That ees clear now?”

“Well, frankly, it still leaves a bit to be desired. One or two minor gaps--who is it that’s going to slay us when he comes to the conclusion that we’re both here, Daisy? Manuelo?”

“No, no, no--Manuelo, I tell you, he dyin’ in those tin mines.”

“Oh--well, then, candidly, you have me. If it isn’t Manuelo, my mind is a perfect blank as to who would profit by doing away with us. Unless--you haven’t misled me about Mr. Potts, have you?”

“Ah, what now?”

“Mr. Potts is still dead?”

“Honable Tonee, eet ees not well to mock--eet ees not well to laff! He was dead like I say; eet ees not good to mock the dead.”

“He has my abject apologies. But that brings us back to the murderer.”

“Murderair?”

“By all means--the cove who’s going to dash in and dispose of us if I light the lamp.”

“Honable Tonee, you know well eet ees he, that mos’ accurse’ black devil of all black devils to whom I pray to save my Manuelo.”

“Daisy, it can’t be our royal Bhakdi that you’re referring to in these unmeasured terms?”

And suddenly she clung to him, weeping abjectly through her clicking teeth.

“No, no, nevair say hees name--nevair spik it! Wair ees there I can be hid--wair ees there I can be hid far away? I am a-frighten to die--Manuelo--ah-h--Manuelo!”

The Honourable Tony felt for the small, untidy silken head in the darkness, patting it with deft but reluctant fingers.

“My dear kid, if it’s Bhakdi who’s been frightening you into this state, it’s a good deal simpler than one, two, three to straighten it out. Tell you what: you curl up in this wicker chair--there, put your head back, and take a long breath--and I’ll stroll over to the royal residence and put the fear of God and England into the little blighter. Don’t howl; it’s going to be absolutely all serene, I swear----”

But at that the soft convulsion of weeping deepened to mysterious vehemence.

“No, no, nevair stir--nevair--nevair! He mus’ not know I come here; he mus’ not know I have see you--eef he know that, you die----”

“Daisy, you’ve been running in too much to the cinemas. What you need is a good stiff dose of ‘Alice in Wonderland.’ ‘Off with his head’, what? My good child, the little bounder eats out of my hand--either or both. He----”

“No, no, no, he keel you,” the frantic, obstinate little voice stammered in desperate urgency. “That he tell to me--that he say to me--he keel you.”

“But in the name of the Lord, why?”

“Becaus’ I tell to heem that if once more he lay on me hees black an’ dirty han’s I go to you for help. Ah, Maria, hees han’s--ah, Manuelo, Manuelo!”

“Daisy--Daisy, this is all simply too good to be true; no, honestly, I’m wrenching my mind out of its socket trying to believe you. You’ll swear he said that he’d kill me? But why? Why?”

“Becaus’ ovair me he ees gone crezzy.” The tear-sodden whisper was charged with mournful pride. “Ovair me he ees gone crezzy mad. He tell to me that he marry with me--that the jewels from hees las’ two wive he give to me for prezzens----”

The Honourable Tony yielded to another gale of delighted mirth.

“Well, upon my word, you couldn’t ask for anything fairer than that! Why not accept?”

“Hush--hush--more still! You have forgot Manuelo?”

“To be entirely candid, my child, I had forgot Manuelo. It’s delightful to know that you haven’t, however! Well, but then how in the world did you get here?”

“I have jump out from a window.”

“From a---- Daisy, you’re making this up!”

“No, no--for why, for why should I make thees up, Honable Tonee? Lissen, he have lock me up in a great ogly room, until I come back into my sense, he say, becaus’ so bad I cry an’ scream, an’ cry an’ scream--lissen, so then I jump from out that window. Ah, ah, Dios, eet was too high, that window; my haid eet ache, my haid eet ache so bad, while I have crawl an’ crawl through all the black--but that boat he was gone away, Honable Tonee, an’ me, I am a-frighten till I die, becaus’ I do not know wair to go. Lissen, I am a mos’ bad girl--I bring to you danger an’ worry, but my haid eet hurt, and I do not know wair----”

“My dear Daisy, you knew exactly.” The Honourable Tony administered a final reassuring pat, and swung off from the table. “You showed really extraordinary judgment, not to go into the matter of taste. This is Liberty Hall, my priceless child; you should feel entirely at home with practically no effort. Before you settle down definitely, however, we might run over our lines in case the Imperial Bhakdi takes it into his head to drop in on us before we’ve worked out any very elaborate campaign for Liberty and Manuelo, the heart’s belove’. D’you think he’s liable to dash over before I could hunt up Ghundi and a sampan, and head you down stream?”

“No, no--no, no, no--do not leave me! No, I die when you shall leave me!”

“Oh, come!” remonstrated the Honourable Tony blithely. “That’s spreading it on fairly thick, you know--I don’t believe that Manuelo would pass over that kind of thing for a minute. Look here, I’ll be back before you can get through Jack Robinson----”

“No! No!”

It was indecent for any living creature to show such abject terror, more like a tortured and frenzied kitten than a sane human being. The Honourable Tony shrugged his shoulders.

“Oh, it’s quite all right with me, you know! I simply thought if the little beggar was roving about it might be tidier and simpler to get you out of the way--though it would be any amount jollier if you were around, naturally. We could do something nice with a screen--or there’s the other room; on the whole, that has more possibilities. By Gad, we can get some simply stunning effects, with practically no trouble at all. I’ve an automatic in there.”

“Ah-h-h!”

“My dear kid, don’t go off like that again, or I won’t let you put a finger on it. In the extremely remote event that I am dragged kicking and screaming from the scene of action, however, you could do some very amusing tricks with it, including potting our imperial friend. Are you a good shot, Daisy?”

“No, no--what you say now? Do not let heem come; do not let heem--no thing could I shoot--no thing----”

“Well, there’s one thing that any duffer in the world can shoot,” said the Honourable Tony soothingly. “There’s absolutely no use shaking like that; not as long as any stupid little girl in the world can shoot herself! It’s a simply ripping pistol, Daisy.” He put one arm about her, light and close, and she relaxed against it with a strange, comforted little moan. “So that’s that; of course there’s not half a chance in a thousand that the little beggar won’t grovel all over the place; I’ll tell him that if he lays one finger on a British subject, I’ll take jolly good care that England turns it into an international matter----”

“Oh, for that, he does not care!”

“How do you mean, doesn’t care?”

“No, for Englan’ he does not care--no, not that! When I say to heem that great Englan’ will protec’ me, he laff right out an’ say, ‘Englan’, bah!’”

“Oh, he said that, did he?” inquired the Honourable Tony grimly. “Well, that’s not a pretty thing for any fat little Sultan to say.” He grinned suddenly into the darkness. “‘Englan’, bah!’ Come to think of it, I’ve murmured something fairly like it myself once or twice. But then I’m not a fat little Sultan; I happen to be an Englishman! Daisy, will you swear not to howl if I tell you something?”

“What now?”

“Well, now it begins to look as though things were going to happen. There’s a fair-sized cluster of lights bearing down this way from the royal imperial palace at a good fast clip, and I’m rather inclined to think that it’s time for little girls that have heart’s beloveds in the mines to be trotting off to a more secluded spot. How about it?”

“Yes, yes, I go.” There was a strange and touching docility in the small voice. “Wair now do I go, Honable Tonee?”

“Here--this way--where’s your hand? Quiet, now; sure you aren’t going to howl?”

“No; no.”

“That’s right; here’s the door--nothing in the world to howl about, naturally. Wait, and I’ll find you a chair; or you can curl up on the bed if you’d rather. That comfortable?”

“Oh, that--that is mos’ comfortable.”

“Good. Now for God’s sake, emulate the well-known mouse! The revolver’s on the table. No--no--don’t touch it now. Oh, Lucifer, that perfume! It’ll be our ruin--a headless jackass could smell it in Singapore. Here, let’s have your handkerchief--quick! Steady on there. We’re about to receive callers, Daisy!”

There was the sound of feet on the rickety steps--the sound of hands at the outer door. The Honourable Tony bent down swiftly; kicked off one shoe--the other--ripped off the white linen coat and the blue silk scarf, and strode leisurely across the threshold of his bedroom door with his head on one side and his hands in his pockets.

“What in the devil?” he inquired amiably of the bronze statue standing in the pool of light at the head of the stairs. The statue stirred, and behind it other lights gleamed and danced in darkness. “Oh--it’s you, Ghundi! What’s the row?

“Master, the Great One bids that you bring the woman and come swiftly to the palace.”

“Bring what woman?” inquired the Honourable Tony, lazily diverted. “I say, Ghundi, the Great One hasn’t been having a go at that brandy again, has he?”

The statue did not move but in the pool of light its eyes shone, eloquent and imploring.

“Master, jests will not serve you now. She was seen to enter here by the little son of the head-beater. The Great One says to make all haste.”

“Well, inform the Great One from me with cordial salutations that haste is totally foreign to my nature,” remarked the Honourable Tony affably. “If the largest tiger in the jungle was sitting a paw’s length off, I couldn’t possibly move rapidly--it’s a most frightful handicap, I can tell you! As for the little son of the head-beater, let him be well beaten and allowed no fish for three days, or he will grow up to be as great a liar as his father. Shocking what these infants go in for! Did he mention the lady’s name?”

“Master, master, it is well known that it is the white woman who came up the waters with your friend. You do ill to delay.”

“Ghundi, it’s never Mrs. Potts? Not the ravishing Mrs. Potts? You know, that’s pretty priceless in itself. Now suppose you collect all your little playmates out there and totter back to the Great One and inform him as gracefully as possible that the ineffable Potts has gone down the waters that she came up, reluctantly escorted by Mr. Billee Ledyar’. Present my condolences. She just caught the boat by the skin of her little white teeth. I agree with the Great One that it’s a thousand pities that she caught it at all.”

“Master, I am your servant. I have served you well--I have loved you better. My heart is yours to use for your meat, my skin for your carpet; for them I care nothing. If I return without you, they slay me--if I remain with you, they slay me--it is all one. But you--you are my master--you are my son--you are my father. Delay no longer; the woman was seen to enter here--she has not come out.”

The Honourable Tony did not stir from his careless station before the bedroom door, but something leapt across the guarded space to that dark and lonely figure--something more warm, more friendly, more reassuring than any touch of hands.

“Ghundi, there are two fellows this side of Heaven that I’d give a good bit to take there with me when I go. That sandy-haired young lunatic who came up the waters is one of them--and you’re the other. Now cut along back to the Great One, like a good fellow, and tell him that I was as good as tucked in for the night when you found me, with a nice little flicker of fever. If I wasn’t cagy about this dashed night air I’d nip over with you and explain; as it stands, I’ll trot over the first thing in the morning. Good-night, old chap; wish the Great One happy dreams.”

Ghundi’s grave voice was suddenly heavy with despair.

“Master, she is here. The air about us cries it to all who breathe.”

“Absolutely sickening, what?” agreed the Honourable Tony. “Jockey Club, I understand. I picked up her beastly little handkerchief on the beach path, coming back from the boat--it’s fairly sopped in it. Here, catch--I was going to send it back to her, but God knows when it would reach her. The Great One might fancy it; compliments of the season--corking souvenir, what?”

Ghundi stared down at the wet white ball in his clenched fist.

“Master--I was told to search----”

“And that’ll be about all of _that_,” remarked the Honourable Tony. A peculiarly ingratiating smile curved the corners of his lips, and he took both hands from his pockets and made an expressive gesture toward the long windows above the water. “A little more chatter like that and out you go to the crocodiles. Come on now, cut along like a nice chap--my head’s buzzing no end, and I’m mad for sleep. I’ll have my tea at seven on the tick. And some of that jolly sticky preserve----”

The dark, troubled face was lit suddenly by a smile, gleaming white as a benediction, grave and tender and indulgent.

“Where you go,” said Ghundi, “there may I be to serve you! Farewell, little master.”

He turned back to the dancing lights below him with a sharp word of command, and as quietly as he had come was gone, passing silently down the rickety steps into the night. There was a swift murmur of protest from the waiters, quelled; the light shuffle of feet; the rustle of parted leaves--silence. The Honourable Tony stood for a moment listening for any echo of the small dying sounds--whistled the opening bars of “Where Do We Go From Here, Boys?” twice over with fine accuracy and restraint, shoved open the bedroom door, and yielded himself unreservedly to joyous retrospection.

“My word, fairly neat, eh, Daisy? What price the bit about the handkerchief? And the buzzing head, what? I swear I had no idea I’d be so good. Fancy what a loss to the stage--or Scotland Yard--no, no, more sport keeping out of Scotland Yard; well, then, so that’s that. Now what?”

There was a small sound that might have been a shiver, and a whisper, strange and lonely as a dream, answered him.

“Now then, farewell, Honable Tonee.”

“Farewell? Thinking of leaving me, Daisy?”

“Yes. Now I am thinkin’--of leavin’ you.”

“My poor kid, you’ll shiver your pretty teeth out if you keep up like this; I swear I ought to be drawn and quartered for a thumping brute. After all, it isn’t as much of a lark for you as it is for me, is it? Now just what _are_ we going to do about you?”

“Honable Tonee, eet ees not for me I shiver; eet ees for you. Becaus’ you do not onnerstan’--becaus’ you laff--becaus’ you do not know that all, all ees end. That is mos’ terrible--that you who are good an’ great an’ love’ by all those Saints do not know that eet ees end. Of all those Saints and you I ask pardon--I ask pardon, pardon that thees I have done to you----”

“My dear little lunatic, you’ve done nothing in the world to me; the blighter knows that if he laid a finger on me he’d be as good as cutting his throat. While I’m not much given to swanking about it, half of the big sticks in England are my cousins and my uncles and my aunts, and though it’s rather a grief to us all, they’d simply chew him up if he administered as much as a scratch to anything as sacred as a Bolingham hide. No, I’m a good deal righter than rain and you take a weight off my mind about the sentiments of all those Saints; the question before the house is, what about you?”

“Me? Oh, me, eet ees no mattair. Me, I am through.”

“Daisy, I’m just a bit afraid you’re right. We might as well face the fact at the start that I’m no match for the entire Imperial army, even if an important item of their defence does consist of green panties. You wouldn’t consider chucking it?”

“How, chuckin’?”

“You don’t think that Manuelo would understand if you took the two last wives’ jewels and----”

“Ah,” moaned the little voice in the darkness, “that ees a wicked, that ees a black an’ ogly thing to say. Me, I am no good--me, I am no good at all--but that you should have nevair say to me----”

“My dear,” said the Honourable Tony gently, “you’re as good as gold, and I’m a black-hearted scoundrel that Manuelo ought to flog from here to his tin mines. In this world or the next, he has my congratulations; tell him from me that he’s a lucky devil, won’t you? Now then, I’m off for the other room. I’ll light the lamp, and give a cracking good imitation of an earnest reader for the benefit of any callers. In case it doesn’t meet with the proper applause--just in case, you know--here’s the revolver. You might bolt the door after I’m gone; that way you’ll have any amount of time. Not going to be lonely, are you? You can hear me just as well as though I still were in the room. Moreover, I’m leaving a lady to take care of you.”

“A ladee?”

“The Duchess of Bolingham. Feel this little black frame? Well, she’s in there; hold on tight to her. You two are going to adore each other.”

“No, but I do not onnerstan’; what, what ees thees?”

“This is my mother, Daisy; her first name is Biddy. I think she’s going to want you to call her by her first name.”

“But she ees daid, your mothair?”

“Dead? That’s the most idiotic description of Biddy; however, there may be something in what you say, though you’ll never get her to admit it. Now, then, quite all right? Sure? Good-bye, little Daisy.”

“Honable Tonee.”

He had to bend his head to catch that faint and wavering whisper.

“Yes?”

“Honable Tonee, becaus’ thees room eet ees so black an’ still--not, not that I am a-frighten, but becaus’ thees room eet ees so black an’ still, would you be so vairy kin’ to kiss me good-bye? Manuelo--Manuelo, he would onnerstan’. You do not think that ladee would be angery?”

The Honourable Tony bent his bright head to the dark one, and laid his gay lips swiftly and surely on the small painted mouth.

“That lady would be terrible in anger if I didn’t. Daisy, what nice perfume! Nicest I ever smelled in all my life. I’m going to get bottles and bottles of it. All right now, little thing? Good-night then--Biddy, you look after her; show her all the prettiest places up there--mind the two of you keep out of mischief! Slip the bolt behind me, Daisy.”

With a last touch on her hair, light and caressing as his voice, he was gone through the darkness. He pulled the door to behind him noiselessly, and stood leaning against it for a moment with bowed head, listening. Silence--a faint patter of feet--the heavy grating of the bolt driven home. He raised his head.

“Good girl!” said the Honourable Tony clearly.

He swung across to the table, felt for the matches, and lit the lamp deftly and swiftly, pulling the long chair into its friendly aura and distributing the cushions with a rapid dexterity that belied the lethargy that he had maintained tigers incapable of disturbing. But then, a little wind had just passed through the quiet room--a little wind that blew in heavy with darkness and fragrance and something else--heavy with a distant murmur of voices, and far-off footsteps coming nearer through the night. It passed as it came, but the flame in the lamp flickered and burned brighter, and the flame that danced in the eyes of the gentleman reclining in the long chair flickered and burned brighter, too, though they were discreetly lowered over the account of a highly unsavory Bazaar murder in a two-month-old paper from Singapore. Even when the footsteps were on the rickety stairs he continued to read; even when they were on the threshold he only bent his head a little lower, intent and absorbed; even when the knocks rang out, ominous and insistent, he did not lift those dancing eyes. He flipped over the first page of the Singapore paper with a dexterous thumb and finger, and lifted his voice in welcome leavened with surprise.

“Come in!” called the Honourable Tony to those who stood in darkness. And the door opened and they came in.

First there came a small, plump, swarthy gentleman in immaculate white linen of an irreproachable cut. He had small neat feet shod in the shiniest of patent-leather boots, and small fat hands adorned with three superb emeralds, and a set of highly unpleasant little cat whiskers curling into a grizzled gray at the ends. About his throat was a scarlet watered ribbon from which dangled a star as glittering as a Christmas tree ornament, and about his head was wound a turban of very fine red silk pierced by a brooch in which crouched another emerald large as a pigeon egg, flawed and sinister and magnificent. In one fat little hand he held a pair of white kid gloves and a small handkerchief badly crumpled; in the other a swagger stick of ebony banded with smooth gold. He walked on the tips of his patent-leather toes, and behind him came ten gigantic figures in incredible green uniforms with gold-laced jackets that were debtors to the Zouaves, and fantastic caps strapped under their chins reminiscent of the organ-grinder’s monkey and the dancing vaudeville bellboy. Lanterns light as bubbles swung from their great paws and in the gilded holsters at their waists the mother-of-pearl handles of the famous automatics gleamed like the Milky Way. They padded behind their master, silent as huge cats, and smiled at one another like delighted children. His Imperial Majesty, the Sultan Bhakdi, accompanied by the Royal Body Guard, was making a call on the British Adviser.

The British Adviser rose easily to his feet.

“Your Majesty!” he saluted, with precisely the correct inflection of gratified amazement.

“Excellency!” His Majesty’s accent was a trifle more British than the Honourable Tony’s, but he purred in his throat, which is not done. “We were alarmed by the good Ghundi’s report of your health. You suffer?”

“Oh, Ghundi’s overdone it!” protested the Honourable Tony, all courteous regret, but the carved dimples danced. “I’m no end sorry that you’ve had all this bother. It’s frightfully decent of you to give it a thought; nothing in the world the matter but a rather stiff nip of fever. I was going to turn in in another minute, and sleep it off. I beg any number of pardons for this costume; it’s hardly one that I’d have chosen for such an honour.”

“Hardly!” agreed the Sultan cordially. “Hardly! However, as the visit was unheralded, and as the defects of the costume may be so easily remedied, we dismiss it gladly. Come, we waive formality; we have been bored most damnably without you and the excellent bridge. The mountain comes to Mahomet; my good Mahomet, on with your boots, on with your coat, and out with your cards. We will drive off this pestilential fever with three good rubbers and four good drinks. Ahmet will fetch your coat. It is in your room? Ahmet!”

The Honourable Tony moved more swiftly than Ahmet. He laid one hand on the handle of the bedroom door, but he did not turn it.

“I’m absolutely sick over making such an ass of myself,” he said with pleasing candour. “But I do honestly feel too rotten bad to last out even a hand. I’ll be fit as a fiddle in the morning, and entirely at Your Majesty’s disposal; but for to-night I’m going to ask you to excuse me.”

“But to-night we will most certainly not excuse you,” His Imperial Majesty replied amiably. “No, no, on the contrary. Rather not, as you say. To-night, Excellency, we are quite through. We have been culpably lenient and indulgent in the past; we have overlooked one hundred stupid impertinences and five hundred impertinent stupidities, but your bridge--your bridge was impeccable and we have long desired to perfect our game. Now, however, you outreach our patience. Stand aside, I beg you. When Ahmet fetches your Excellency’s coat and your Excellency’s boots, he will also fetch your Excellency’s lady.”

The Honourable Tony gave a shout of astounded delight.

“My hat!” he cried. “But this is simply gorgeous. All this time that I’ve been ragging you you’ve been plotting a bloody revenge?”

“Revenge,” replied His Imperial Majesty, with an impatient flick of the white gloves, “is an incident. I wish the woman. Stand aside!”

“It’s a dream,” decided the Honourable Tony, cocking his head with Epicurean satisfaction. “No, by Heaven, it’s better than a dream. Just what are you going to do if I don’t stand aside?”

“Shoot you where you stand. Come, come--we are over-patient.”

The Honourable Tony sighed beatifically, as one whose cup of joy was full to overflowing.

“Oh, come now, if you ask me, you’re dashed impatient. Shooting me down in this damn casual way--what d’you think the British Government’s going to make of it?”

“Nothing,” replied the British Government’s loyal ally blandly. “Nothing whatsoever. In due time the proper authorities will be informed that you were lost overboard on an expedition after crocodiles, and owing to the unfortunate proclivities of those depraved reptiles, your body was not recovered. I do not imagine that the loss will afflict the Government so deeply as you imagine.”

The Honourable Tony’s manner changed abruptly from enchanted amusement to the cold insolence of a badly spoiled young man dismissing his valet.

“And that’s enough,” he said. “Take your army and be off. You’re dashed amusing, but you overdo it. If an apology from you were worth the breath you draw, I’d have one out of you for the country that I represent and its representative. As it is, I give you fair warning to clear out; I’m about fed up.”

“Till I count three to stand aside,” remarked His Imperial Majesty conversationally, abandoning the royal “we” as though it were no longer necessary in so informal a discussion, “I shall regret the bridge.”

“You can count to three thousand if you can get that far,” the Honourable Tony informed him politely. “But while you’re about it you might remember that we’re in the twentieth century, not the Adelphi Theatre.”

“We are in Asia,” said His Imperial Majesty. “Life is good, Excellency, and Death, I am told, is a long and dreary affair. The woman is not worth it--a gutter rat out of the music halls. It is her good fortune to amuse me. Stand aside, I beg!”

“My mother was from the music halls,” said the Honourable Tony. “I have half a mind to mop up the floor with you before I turn in.”

“You are a brave man,” said His Imperial Majesty equably. “And a fool.” He turned to the black and emerald giants, and they quivered slightly. “Attention!”

The giants ceased quivering and stood very straight.

“Ready!” said Bhakdi softly. The pearl-handled automatics flashed like jewels.

“Aim!” said Bhakdi with a flick of the handkerchief toward the slim figure framed in the doorway.

“You ought to be jolly grateful to me for teaching you all those nice words,” remarked the figure reproachfully. “They sound simply corking when you snap ’em out like that.”

“I count,” said Bhakdi. “One.”

“I wish you could see yourselves,” said the Honourable Tony admiringly. “For all the world like a lot of comic-opera pirates panting to get into the chorus when the tenor says ‘go.’ ‘For-I’m-the-big-bad-black-faced-chief’--you know the kind of thing.”

“Two,” said Bhakdi.

“I say, you _are_ going it!” cried the British Adviser. In the gleam from the lanterns his hair was ruffled gold and his eyes black mischief. “Aren’t you afraid of its being a bit of a let-down to the Imperial Guard after all this?”

“Three!” said Bhakdi, and he flicked the handkerchief again. “Fire!”

There was a rip and a rattle of sound along the green line--from the other side of the bolted door there came a faint reply, precise and sharp as an echo. The Honourable Tony sagged forward to his knees, still clutching at the handle, his face lit with an immense, an incredulous amazement.

“By God!” he whispered. “By God, you’ve done it!”

And suddenly in the lean curve of his cheek the dimples danced once more, riotous and unconquered.

“I say,” he murmured, “I say, Biddy, that’s--that’s a good one! Comic opera, what? That--that’s a good one--on me----”

His fingers slipped from the door, and he was silent.

* * * * * *

Transcriber’s note:

Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they were not changed.

Simple typographical errors were corrected; unpaireded quotation marks were remedied when the change was obvious and otherwise left unpaireded.

Transcriber removed duplicate book title just above the first story.

Page 113: “Fairfax Carter they they should” was printed that way, but probably should be “that they”.