A Fascinating Traitor: an Anglo-Indian story

Book I. Out Of The Dead Past

Chapter I. — A Chance Meeting at Geneva - 5 ,, II. — An Offensive and Defensive Alliance - - - - 25 III.— "And at Delhi What Am I to Do?" - - - - 47 IV.— The Veiled Rosebud of Delhi - 66 „ V.— A Diplomatic Tiffin - - 83

Book II

"A DEVIL FOR LUCK." Chapter VI. — The Mysterious Bungalow- - 102 VII.— The Price of Safety - - - 121 „ VIII. — Harry Hardwicke Takes the Gate Neatly ! - - - 144 „ IX. — Alan Hawke Plays His Trump Card - - - - 165 „ X. — A Captivated Viceroy - - CONTENTS.

Book III. Prince Djiddin's Visit To England

Chapter XL— " Do You See This Dagger? " -213 „ XII.— On the Cliffs of Jersey - - 233 ,, XIII. — An Asiatic Lion in Hiding. - - 252 „ XIV. — The Council at Granville - - 272 „ XV.— The French Fisher Boat " Hirondelle" -

Chapter I

A CHANCE MEETING AT GENEVA. " By Jove ! I may as well make an end of the thing right here — to-night! " was the dejected conclusion of a long council of war over which Major Alan Hawke had presided, with the one straggling comfort of being its only member. All this long September afternoon he had dawdled away in feeding certain rapacious swans navigating gracefully around Rousseau's Island He had consumed several Trichinopoly cigars in the interval, and had moodily gazed back upon the strange path which had led him to the placid shores of Lake Leman! The gay prom enaders envied the debonnair-looking young Briton, whose outer man was essentially "good form." Chil dren left the side of their ox-eyed bonnes to challenge the handsome young stranger with shy, friendly ap proaches. Bevies of flashing-eyed American girls "took him in " with parthian glances, and even a widowed Russian princess, hobbling by, easing her gouty steps with a jeweled cane, gazed back upon the moody Adonis and sighed for the vanished days, when she possessed both the physical and mental capacity to wander from the beaten paths of the proprieties.

But — the world forgetting — the young man lingered long, gazing out upon the broad expanse of the waters, his eyes resting carelessly upon the superb panorama of the southern shore. He had wandered far away from the Grand Hotel National, in the aimlessness of sore mental unrest, and, all unheeded, the hours passed on, as he threaded the streets of the proud old Swiss burgher city. He had known its every turn in brighter days, and, though the year of ninety-one was a brilliant Alpine season, and he was in the very flower of youth and manly promise, gaunt care walked as a viewless warder at Alan Hawke's side. He had crossed over the Pont de Montblanc to the British Consulate, only to learn that the very man whom he had come from Monaco to seek, was now al ready at Aix la Chapelle, on his way to America, on a long leave.

He had wearily made a tour of the prin cipal hotels and scanned the registers with no lucky find! Not a single gleam of hope shone out in all the polyglot inscriptions passing under his eye! And so he had sadly betaken himself to a safe, retired place, where he could hold the aforesaid council of war. The practical part of the operations of this sole com mittee of ways and means, was an exhaustive examina tion of his depleted pockets. A few sovereigns and a single crisp twenty-pound Bank of England note consti tuted the rearguard of Alan Hawke's vanished ' 'sinews of war." The young man briefly noted the slender store, with a sigh. "Twenty-five pounds — and a little trumpery jewelrv — I can't ever get back to India on that ! " He seemed to hear again the rasping voice of the vulpine call er at Monte Carlo: "Messieurs!

Faites vos jeux! Rien ne va plus! Le jeu est fait!" And, if a dismal failur; in Lcndor \<a\ been his Leipsic, the black week at Monaco had been his long drawn-out Waterloo! "I was a rank fool to go there," he growled, "and a greater fool to come over here ! I might have got on easily to Malta, and then chanced it from there to Calcutta ! " The sun's last iances glittered on the waters gleaming clear as crystal, with their deep blue tint of reflected sky, and liquid sapphire ! The gardens were becom in deserted as the loungers dropped off homeward one by one, and still the handsome young fellow sat mood ily gazing down into the rushing waters of the arrowy Rhone, as if he fain would cast the dark burden of his dreary thoughts far away from him down into those darkling waters. But thirty-two years of age, Alan Hawke had already outlived all his wild boyish ro mances, The thrill with which he had first set foot upon the land of Clive and Warren Hastings had faded away long years gone!

And, Fate had stranded him at Geneva ! As he sat, still irresolute as to his future movements, the dying sunlight gilded the splendid panorama of the whole Mont Blanc group. Rose and purple, with fading gold and amethystine gleams played softly upon the far-away giant peak, with its noble bodyguard, the Aiguilles du Midi, Grandes Jorasses, the Dent du Geant, the sturdy pyramid of the Mole, and the long far sweep of the Voirons. But he noted not these splendors of the dying sun god, as he stood there moodily defying adverse fate, a modern Manfred. "I might with this get on to London — but what waits me there ? Only scorn — callous neglect ! " His eye fell upon the statue of Jean Jacques, lifted up there by the sturdy men who have for centuries clung to the golden creeds of civil and religious liberty — the independence of man — and the freedom of the unshackled human soul.

" Poor Rousseau ! seer and parasite, fugitive adven turer, the sport of the great, the eater of bitter bread — the black bread of dependence ! I will not linger here in a long-drawn agony ! Here, I will end it for ever, and to-night! " There were certain visions of the past which returned to shake even the iron nerves of Alan Hawke! Face to face now with his half formed resolution of suicide, the wasted past slowly unrolled itself before him. The brief days of his service in India, an abrupt exit from the service, long years of wandering in Japan and China, as a gentleman adventurer, and all the sin gular phases of a nomadic life in Burmah, Nepaul, Cashmere, Bhootan, and the Pamirs He smiled in derision at the recollection of a briefly flattering fortune which had rebaptized him with a shadowy title of uncertain origin.

Thus far, his visit ing card, "Major Alan Hawke, Bombay Club," had been an easily vised passport — but — alas, good only among his own kind! He was but a free lance of thc polished " Detrimentals," and, under this last adverse stroke of fortune, his poor cockboat was being swamped in the black waters of adversity. He had staked much upon a little campaign at the Foreign Of fice in London. The cold rebuff which he had received there had carried him in sheer desperation over to Monaco, and, incoming onto Geneva, he had "burned his ships " behind him. Ignorant of the precise manner in which his clouded reputation had stopped the way to his advancement in the English Secret Service, he remembered, even at the last, that a few letters were due to those who still watched his little flickering light on its way over the trackless sea of life!

For, hard hearted as he was, — benumbed by the blows of fate, his heart calloused with the snapping of cords and ties which once had closely bound him, — there were yet loosely knit bonds of the past which tingled with the glow of his dying passions — the unforgotten idols of his adventurous career! He rose and walked mechanically along the Quai du Mont Blanc with the alert, springy step of the soldier. "Once a Captain, always a Captain," was in every line of his resolute, martial figure. His well-set-up, graceful form, his nobly poised head and easy, sol dierly bearing, contrasted sharply with the lazy shuffle of the prosperous Swiss denizens and the listless lolling of the sporadic foreign tourists. Crisp, curling, tawny hair, a sweeping soldierly moustache, with a resolute chin and gleaming blue eyes accentuated a handsome face burned to a dark olive by the fiery Indian sun.

An easy insouciance tempered the habitual military smartness of the man who had known several different services in the fifteen years of his wasted young man hood. As he swung into the glare of the hospitable doorway of the Grand National, the obsequious head porter doffed his gold banded cap. " Table d'hote serving now, Major!" With the mere social instinct of long years, Alan Hawke recognized the man's perfunctory politeness, tipped him a couple of francs, and then, mechanically sauntered to a seat in the superb salle it manger. "I'll get out of here — to-night" — he muttered, and then he bent down his head over the carte du jour and peered at the wine list, as the chatter of happy voices, the animated faces of lovely women and the eager hum of social life around, recalled him to that world from which he contemplated an unceremonious exit.

It was in a de ference to old habit, and the " qu en dira 't on, " that he ordered a half bottle of excellent Chambertin and then proceeded to dine with all the scrupulous punctilio of the old happy mess days. Something of defiance seemed to steal back into his veins with the generous warmth of the wine — a touch of the old gallant spirit with which he had faced a hard world, since the unfortunate incident which had abruptly terminated his con nection with "The Widow's" Service. His eye swept carelessly over the international detachment seated at the splendid table. Lively and chat tering as they were, it was a human Sahara to him. He easily recognized the " Ten-Pounder" element of wandering Britons; poor, anxious-eyed beings grudg ingly furloughed from shop and desk, and now sternly determined to descend at Charing Cross without break ing into the few reserve sovereigns.

Serious-looking women, clad in many colors, and stolid cockneys, hostile to all foreign innovation, met his eye. He sighed as he cast his social net and drew up nothing. There was a vacant chair at his left. Very shortly, without turning his eyes, he was made aware of the proximity of a woman, young, evidently a continental, from her softly murmured French. " Houbigant's Forest Violets," he murmured. " She is at least semi-civilized ! " He was dreaming of the far off lotos land which he had left, as he felt !he re bellious protest of his young blood and the defiant spirit awaked by the mechanical luxury of the well ordered dinner. " These human pawns seem to be all prosperous, if not happy! I'll have another shy at it! By God! I must get back to India!" The whole checkered past rushed back over his mind !

The fifteen years of his "wanderjahre " ! Scenes which even he dared not recall ! Incidents which he had never dared to own to any European! He but two well knew the origin of his loosely applied title of Major — a field officer's rank more honored at the easy going clubs of Yokahama, Shanghai, and Hong Kong than on the Army List — a rank best known at the ring side of Indian sporting grounds, and only tacitly ac cepted in the extra-official circles of Hindustan. For it figured not in the official Army List, either as active or retired. The whole panorama of the mystic land of the Hindus was unrolled once more by the memories of fifteen clouded years He saw again his far-away theater of varied action, with its huge grim mountains towering far over the snow line, its arid wastes, its fertile plains bathed in intense sunshine, its mystic rivers, and its silent, solemn shrines of the vanished gods. , Major Alan Hawke silently ran over his slender pro fessional accomplishments.

" I'm not too heavy to ride yet. I've a fair hand at cards — tough nerves, and even a bit of staying power. Luck may turn my way yet — and — there's always the Pamirs! At the worst, the Russians — the Afghans, — or those fellows up in Sikkim and Hill Tipperah ! An artillerist is always welcome there!" But even in his moral des peration, he hung his head, fora flush of his boyhood's bright ambitions returned to shame him. An old song jingled in his memory, "When I first put this uniform on." He lapsed into a bitter reverie! The soldier of fortune was finally aroused from a brown study by the impassive steward presenting two great dishes. The clatter of some late convive seating himself also caused him to turn his head. " Hello, Anstruther! You are a long way from staff headquarters here!" quietly said Hawke, as the new arrival gazed at him in a mute surprise.

Captain the Honorable Anson Anstruther put up his monocle and duly answered: " I thought that you were still in Calcutta, Hawke." There was a faint noli me tangere air in the young staff officer's manner, and yet mere propinquity drew them together in a few minutes. With the insouciance of men bred in club and at mess, the two soldiers soon drifted into an easy chat, meeting on safe grounds. They calmly ignored the surrounding civilians, regardless of the attractions of two falcon-eyed Chicago beauties, loud of voice and brilliantly overdressed, who were guiding "Popper" and " Mommer" over the continent. These resplendent daughters of Columbia already boasted a train con sisting of a French count (of a very old and shadowy regime), a singularly second-hand ' looking Italian marquis, a wooden-soldier figured German baron, and a sad-eyed, distant-looking Russian prince, whose bold Tartar glances rested hungrily upon both Miss "Phenie" and Miss "Genie" Forbes.

The Anglo-Indians, however, calmly pursued their dinner and gossip regardless of the fact that Miss " Phenie " had violently nudged Miss "Genie," and whispered in a stage aside: "Say, Genie, look at those two English fellows! They are something like — I bet you that they are two Lords!" The approval of the gilded Western maidens, whose father systematically assassinated a thousand porkers per diem, was lost upon the chance-met acquaintances. "I must get back to India, by hook or crook," mused Alan Hawke, and therefore, he very delicately played his wary fish, the Sybaritic young swell of the staff. Captain the Honorable Anson Anstruther's reserve soon melted under the skillful bonhomie of the astute Alan Hawke. An easy-going patrician of the staff, he was in the magic circle of the viceroy.

The heir to an inevitable fortune, and already vested with substantially strati fied deposits at "Coutts"' and Glyn, Carr and Glyn's, he would have been envied by most luckless mortals the heavy balances which he always carried at " Grind lay's," a fortune for any less fortunate man. He was already interested in the remarkably fetch ing looking young woman at Alan Hawke's left, being a squire of dames par excellence, while Major Alan Hawke himself wondered how Anstruther had drifted so far away from the direct line of travel to London. Thawing visibly under the influence of Hawke's gracefully modulated camaraderie, the susceptible Anstruther was attentively examining his fair neighbor in silence, while he tried vaguely to recall some story which he had once heard, quite detrimental to the cosmopolitan Major.

He gave it up as a bad job ! " Hang it ! " he thought. " It may have been some other chap\ Very likely!" It was the strange story of a sharp encounter with the hostile Rookies, in which a couple of English mountain guns, long before abandoned by a British expedi tionary force, had been served with due professional skill and most desperate dash by a reckless man, easily recognized as an English refugee artillerist. The wounded escaped British soldier, who had died after denouncing the deserting adventurer, had left his part ing advice to the Royal Artillery to burn the fearless renegade, should he ever be captured. It was the story of a nameless traitor! But, the vague distrust of the curled darling of Fortune soon faded away under Hawke's measured social leading. A silver wine cooler stood behind their chairs, and the old yarn of a British officer playing Olivier Pain became very misty under the subtle influence of the Pommery Sec.

Alan Hawke guarded the expected story of his own wanderings, waiting craftily until Bacchus and Venus had sufficiently mollified Anstruther. He duplicated the champagne, knowing well the warming influence of "t'other bottle." The Major of a shadowy rank had early learned the graceful art of effacing himself, and on this occasion, it stood greatly to his credit. Anstruther was now quite sure that the graceful head of the beautiful neighbor swayed in an unconscious recognition of his witty sal lies. A true son of Mars — ardent, headlong, and gal lant as regarded le beau sexe — he talked brilliantly and well, aiming his boomerang remarks at a woman whom he knew to be young and graceful, and whose beauty he was gayly taking upon trust; an old, old in terlude, played many a time and oft. "What is going on here in this beastly slow old town?

Nothing much for to-night, I fancy," said the aid-de-camp, wondering if a promenade au clair de la lune or a carriage ride to Ferney would be possible ! He already had noted the purity of the French accent of the fair unknown. No guttural Swiss patois there, but that crisp elegance of tone which promised him a flirtation en vraie Parisienne. "Only Philemon and Bautfis, an antique opera, at the Grand Opera House, and sung by a band of relics of better days, wandering over here! " said Hawke. And then it finally dawned upon the blase young staff officer that he had met Alan Hawke in certain circles where plunging had chased away the tedium of Indian club life with the delightful sensations of raking in other people's money. "Better come up to my rooms then, and have a weed and a bit of ecarte!" slowly said Anstruther.

"We may manage a ride afterward!" Alan Hawke nodded, and a thirsty gleam lit up his crafty eyes. He instinctively felt for the little card case containing that solitary twenty-pound note; it was a gentleman's stake after all. And the would-be suicide silently invoked the sickle goddess Fortuna! Captain Anstruther, however, furtively murmured a few words to the solemn head steward and then leaned back contentedly in his chair. His ostensible orders for cafe noir and cards, as well as the least murderous of the obtainable cigars, covered the plan of using a five-pound note in an adroit personal inquiry. For, the Honorable Anson Anstruther proposed to ride that very evening, and he did not wish to bore Major Hawke with his company. He nursed a little scheme of his own. "Do you make a long stay?" carelessly said the wary Major.

"I intend to leave to-morrow night," gayly answered the other. "I came over here ona very strange errand. I've got to see an eminent Gorgon of respectability, who has a finishing school here for the young person [bien clcvec," said Anstruther, eyeing the unknown. " Hardly in your line, Anstruther!" laughed Hawke, casting his eyes around the depleted table, for Miss Phenie and Miss Genie Forbes had vanished at last, leaving behind them expanding wave circles of sharp ly echoing comment. The noisy Teutons had devoured their seven francs' worth, and the fair bird of passage on their left was left alone, woman-like, dallying with the last sweets and finishing her demi bouteille with true French deliberation. " It's a case of the wolf and the sheep-fold ! " " Not that ; not at all ! " gayly answered Anstruth er.

"I have a long leave, and I only ran over here to oblige His Excellency. " He spoke with all the easy disdain of all underlings born of an Indian official life— the habitual disregard of the Briton for his in ferior surroundings. "By Jove ! you may help me out yourself! You're an old Delhi man ! " He gazed ear nestly at Hawke, who started nervously, and then said: " You know I've been away for a good bit of the ten years in the far Orient, but I used to know them all, before I went out of the line." "Then you surely know old Hugh Johnstone, the rich, old, retired deputy commissioner of Oude?" Alan Hawke slowly sipped his champagne, for his Delhi memories were both risky and uncertain ground. " I fail to recall the name, Johnstone — Johnstone," murmured Hawke. " Why, everyone knows old Johnstone ; he is an old mutiny man.

You surely do ! He was Hugh Fraser until he took the name of fohnstone, ten years or so ago, on a Scotch relative leaving him a handsome Highland estate! " There was a warning rustle at Hawke's left, as the fair stranger prepared for her flitting. "I was very intimate with Hugh Fraser in my griffin days. But I thought he had retired and gone back home. He is enormously rich, and — an old bachelor! I know him very well; he was a good friend of mine in the old days, too ! " Anstruther leaned toward Hawke, as he signed to the waiter to refill his hearer's glass. "Well, lean surprise even you! He has turned up with a beautiful daughter — at Delhi — just about the prettiest girl I ever " "Je demande mille pardons, Madame!" politely cried Major Hawke, as his fair neighbor's wine glass went shivering down in a crystalline wreck.

" Pas de quoi, Monsieur !" suavely replied the woman whom till now he had hardly noticed. A moment after the slight damage was repaired, and then Cap tain the Honorable Anson Anstruther had his little innings. With courtly hospitality he offered the creamy champagne as a remplacement for the lost vin du pays. A charming smile rewarded the gallant youth, while Major Hawke turned with interest to the renewal of the interrupted narrative. He had caught a glance of burning intensity from the dark brown eyes of the lady a la Houbigant, which set every nerve in his body tingling. It was a challenge to a companionship, and, as he led on the triumphant Anstruther, he deeply regretted the absence of that most necessary organ, — an eye in the back of the head. He was dimly aware that his beautiful neighbor was very leisurely drinking the peace offering of the susceptible son of Mars.

"I will bet hundreds to ha'pennies she speaks English! " quickly reflected the now aroused Major, "You astound me, Anstruther," the Major said. " Not a lawful child! Some Eurasian legacy — a relic of the old days of the Pagoda Tree! Why, the old commissioner always was a woman hater, and abso lutely hostile to all social influences!" The Captain was now stealing longing glances at the willowy figure of the beautiful woman whose glistening dark brown eyes were turned to him with a languid glance, as Alan Hawke leaned forward. To prolong the sight of that bewitching half profile, with the fair, low brows, the velvet cheeks, a Provencale flush tinting them, the parted lips a dainty challenge speaking, and the rich masses of dark brown hair nobly crowning her regal outlines, Anstruther yielded to the spell and babbled on.

"The whole thing is a strange tn/lange of official business and dying gossip! " dreamily said An struther with his eyes straying over the ivory throat, the superbly modeled bust and perfect figure of the young Venus Victrix. He was duly rewarded by a glance of secret intelli gence when he leaned back, dreamily closing his eyes. " You see, they were going to make old Hugh Fraser or Hugh Johnstone, as he is now called, a baronet for some secret services to the Crown of an important na ture, rendered about the time when mad Hodson piled up the whole princely succession to the House of Oude in a trophy of nake-fcorpses, pistoling them with his own hand." He ordered a third bottle of Pommery, with a wave of his hand, and proceeded: " Of course, you know, Her Majesty's Government always closely investigate the social antecedents of the nominee in such cases.

The change of name is all right; it is regularly entered at Herald's College and all that sort of thing, but the Chief has heard of the sudden appear ance of this beautiful daughter. Now, old Johnstone surely never looked the way of woman in India! It's true that he went back about twenty years ago to Eng land on a two years' leave. He has lived the life of a splendid recluse in his magnificent old bungalow on the Chandnee Chouk." Anstruther paused, fishing for another fugitive smile. He caught it behind the back of the wary adventurer. "I know the old house well," said Hawke with an affected unconcern. " Men were always entertained royally there, but I never saw a woman of station in its vast saloons." "Now there you are !" cried Anstruther, lightly resuming: " I was sent up to Delhi to delicately find out about this alleged daughter, for the Chief does not want to throw Johnstone's baronetcy over.

The fact is before they packed the toothless old King of Oude away to Rangoon to die with his favorite wife and their one wolf cub out there, Hugh Fraser skillfully extorted a surrender of a huge private treasure of jewels from these people while they were hidden away in Humayoon's tomb. There's one trust deposit yet to be divided between the Government and this sly old Indo-Scotch man, and I fancy the empty honor of the baronetcy is a. quid pro quo." Alan Hawke laughed heartily. "It is really diamond cut diamond, then." "Precisely," said Anstruther, as he most calmly waved his hand to the steward, who silently refilled even the glass of the Venus Anonyma. A slight in clination of the head and parthian glance number three, encouraged Anstruther to hasten and conclude, for the moon was sailing grandly over the lake now.

Love thrilled in the young man's vacant heart, sound ing the chords of the Harp of Life. He had been in a glittering Indian exile long enough to be very susceptible. " I spent two weeks up there with the expec- ;, 17 tant Sir Hugh Johnstone," lightly rattled on the aid. " I verified the fact that the young woman is his ac knowledged daughter. He has no other lineal heir to the title, for an old dry-as-dust, retired Edinburgh professor, a brother, childless and eccentric, is living near St. Helier's, in Jersey, in a beautiful Norman chateau farm mansion, where old Hugh proposed once to end his days. It seems to be all square enough. I was as delicate as I could be about it, and the matter is apparently all right. The papers have all gone on and, in due time Hugh Fraser will be Sir Hugh John stone !

" Anstruther quaffed a beaker with guileful ideas of de taining his fair neighbor, now ruffling her plumage for departure, for only a sporadic knot of diners here and there lingered at the long table. " The girl herself ?" asked Hawke, with a strange desire to know more. "Report has duly magnified her hidden charms," replied Anstruther. She is called "The Veiled Rose of Delhi," and no manner of man may lift that mystic veil. I was treated en prince, but — held at arm's length." Hawke smiled softly, and said in alow voice, "I hardly see how all this brings you over here. ' The Rose blooms by the far-away Jumna." "Then know, my friend," laughed Anstruther, " such a rose as the peerless Nadine Johnstone must have a duenna." He deftly caught an impassioned glance from the softly shining brown eyes, and hastily went on.

"She was educated right here in this em porium of watches, musical boxes, correct principles, and scientific research. Mesdames Justine and Euphrosyne Delande, No. 122 Rue du Rhone, conduct an institute (justly renowned) where calisthenics, a view of the lake, a little music, a great deal of bad French, and the Conversations Lexicon, with some surface womanly graces, may all be had for some two hundred pounds a year. Miss Justine Delande, a sedately gray-tinted spinster, has been tempted to remain on guard for a year out in India, having safely conducted this Pearl of Jeunes Personnes Bien Elevees out to the old Qui Hai. I have been charged with some few necessary explanations and negotiations, the delivery of some presents, and, when I have visited this first-class institute 'enjoying all the at tractions of the Jardin Anglais and the Promenade du Lac,' I shall flee these tranquil slopes of the Pen nine Alps.

Incidentally, the records of Mademoiselle Euphrosyne will confirm the very natural story of the would-be Sir Hugh, whose vanished wife no Anglo- Indian has ever seen. She is supposably dead. A last official note after I have run on to Paris will close up the whole awkward matter. I will call there to morrow and then take the early train, as I am on for a lot of family visits and sporting events before I can settle down to have my bit of a fling." "It's a very strange story," murmured Alan Hawke. "No man ever suspected Hugh Fraser of family honors." "And — 'the Rose of Delhi!' will probably marry some lucky fellow out there, as old Johnstone has lacs and lacs of rupees," said Anstruther, "for he cannot keep her in his great gardens forever, guarded by the stony-eyed Swiss spinster, or let her run around as the Turks do their priceless pet sheep with a silver bell around her neck.