 CHAPTER IX. THE ADVENTURE OF THE MAGNIFICENT MAHA-RAJAH. Our arrival at Bombay was a triumphal entry. We were received like royalty. Indeed, to tell the truth, Elsie and I were beginning to get just a little bit spoiled. It struck us now that our casual connection with the Asshurst family, in its various branches, had succeeded in saddling us, like the Lady of Burley, with the burden of an honour unto which we were not born. We were everywhere treated as persons of importance, and, oh dear, by dint of such treatment, we began to feel at last almost as if we had been raised in the purple. I felt that when we got back to England we should turn up our noses at plain bread and butter. Yes, life has been kind to me. Have your researches into English literature ever chance to lead you into reading Horace Walpole, I wonder? That polite trifler is fond of a word which he coined himself, serendipity. It is derived from the name of a certain happy Indian prince, serendip, whom he unearthed or invented in some obscure Oriental story, a prince for whom the fairies or the jenni always managed to make everything pleasant. It implies the faculty which few of us possess of finding whatever we want turn up accidentally at the exact right moment. Well, I believe I must have been born with serendipity in my mouth in place of the proverbial silver spoon, for wherever I go all things seem to come out exactly right for me. The Jumna, for example, had hardly heaved too in Bombay harbour when we noticed on the quay a very distinguished looking Oriental potentate in a large white turban with a particularly big diamond stuck ostentatiously in its front. He stalked on board with a marshal air as soon as we stopped and made enquiries from our captain after someone he expected. The captain received him with that odd mixture of respect for rank and wealth combined with true British contempt for the inferior black man which is universal among his class in their dealings with native Indian nobility. The Oriental potentate, however, who was accompanied by a gorgeous suite like that of the wise men in Italian pictures, seemed satisfied with his information and moved over with his stately glide in our direction. Elsie and I were standing near the gangway among our rugs and bundles in the hopeless helplessness of disembarkation. He approached us respectfully and bowing with extended hands and a deferential air asked in excellent English, May I venture to inquire which of you two ladies is Miss Lois Kaylee? I am, I replied, my breath taken away by this unexpected greeting. May I venture to inquire in return how you came to know I was arriving by this steamer? He held out his hand with a courteous inclination. I am the Maharaja of Muzufar Nugur. He answered in an impressive tone as if everybody knew of the Maharaja of Muzufar Nugur as familiarly knew of the Duke of Cambridge. Muzufar Nugur in Rajputana, not the one in the Doab. You must have heard my name from Mr. Harold Tillington. I had not, but I dissembled so as to self his pride. Mr. Tillington's friends are our friends, I answered sententiously. And Mr. Tillington's friends are my friends, the Maharaja retorted with a low bow to Elsie. This is no doubt Miss Pethridge. I have heard of your expected arrival as you will guess from Tillington. He and I were at Oxford together. I am a Merton man. It was Tillington who first taught me all I know of cricket. He took me to stop at his father's place in Dumpfershire. I owe much to his friendship and when he wrote me that friends of his were arriving by the Jumna, why I made haste to run down to Bombay to greet them. The episode was one of those topsy-turvy mixtures of all places and ages which only this jumbled century of ours has witnessed. It impressed me deeply. Here was this Indian prince, a feudal Rajput chief, living practically among his vassals in the Middle Ages when at home in India, yet he said, I am a Merton man, as Harold himself might have said it, and he talked about cricket as naturally as Lord Southminster talked about the noble quadruped. The oddest part of it all was, we alone felt the incongruity. To the Maharaja, the change from Muzufa Nugar to Oxford and from Oxford back again to Muzufa Nugar seemed perfectly natural. They were but two alternative phases in a modern Indian gentleman's education and experience. Still, what were we to do with him? If Harold had presented me with a white elephant I could hardly have been more embarrassed than I was at the apparition of this urbane and magnificent Hindu prince. He was young, he was handsome, he was slim for a raja, he wore a European costume saved for the huge white turban with its obtrusive diamond, and he spoke English much better than a great many Englishmen. Yet what place could he fill in my life and Elsie's? For once I felt almost angry with Harold. Why couldn't he have allowed us to go quietly through India, two simple unofficial journalistic pilgrims in our native obscurity? His highness of Muzufa Nugar, however, had his own views on this question. With a courteous wave of one dusky hand he motioned us gracefully into somebody else's deck chairs, and then sat down on another beside us, while the gorgeous suite stood by in respectful silence. This gentleman in pink and gold brocade forming a court all around us. Elsie and I, unaccustomed to be so observed, grew conscious of our hands, our skirts, our postures, but the Maharaja posed himself with perfect unconcern, like one well used to the fierce light of royalty. I have come, he said, with simple dignity, to superintend the preparations for your reception. Gracious heavens, I exclaimed, our reception, Maharaja, I think you misunderstand. We are two ordinary English ladies of the proletariat accustomed to the level plain of professional society. We expect no reception. He bowed again with stately eastern deference. Friends of Tillington's, he said shortly, are persons of distinction. Besides, I have heard of you from Lady Georgina Fawley. Lady Georgina is too good, I answered, though inwardly I raged against her. Why couldn't she leave us alone to feed in peace on duck bungalow chicken instead of sending us this regal mannered heathen to bother us? So I have come down to Bombay to make sure that you are met in the style that befits your importance in society, he went on, waving his suite away with one careless hand, for he saw it fussed us. I mentioned you to his honour the acting governor, who had not heard you were coming. His honour's aid to camp will follow shortly, with an invitation to Government House while you remain in Bombay, which will not be many days, I don't doubt, for there is nothing in this city of plague to stop for. Later on, during your progress up my country, I do myself the honour to hope that you will stay as my guests for as long as you choose, at Muzufarnugar. My first impulse was to answer, impossible, Maharaja, we couldn't dream of accepting your kind invitation. But on second thoughts I remembered my duty to my proprietor. Journalism first, inclination afterwards. My letter from Egypt on the rescue of the English woman who escaped from Khartoum had brought me great ecla, as a special correspondent, and the daily telephone now billed my name in big letters on its placards, so Mr. Elworthy wrote me. Here was another noble chance, must I not strive to rise to it? Two English ladies at a native court in Rajputana, that ought to afford scope for some rattling journalism? It is extremely kind of you, I said, hesitating, and it would give us great pleasure were it feasible to accept your friendly offer. But English ideas, you know, Prince, two unprotected women, I hardly see how we could come alone to Muzufarnugar unshaperoned. The Maharaja's face lighted up, he was evidently flattered, that we should even thus dubiously entertain his proposal. Oh, I've thought about that too, he answered, growing more colloquial in tone. I've been some days in Bombay making inquiries and preparations. You see, you had not informed the authorities of your intended visit so that you were travelling incognito, or should it be incognita? And if Tillington hadn't written to let me know your movements, you might have arrived at this port without anybody's knowing it, and have been compelled to take refuge in a hotel on landing. He spoke as if we had been accustomed all our lives long to be received with red cloth by the mayor in corporation, and presented with illuminated addresses and the freedom of the city in a gold snuff-box. But I have seen to all that. The acting governor's aid to camp will be down before long, and I have arranged that if you consent a little later to honour my humble roof in Rajputana with your august presence, Major Balmasi and his wife will accompany you and chaperone you. I have lived in England. Of course I understand that two English ladies of your rank and position cannot travel alone as if you were Americans. But Mrs. Balmasi is a nice little soul of unblemished character. That sweet touch charmed me. Received at Government House—he had learned the respect due to Mrs. Grundy—so that if you will accept my invitation you may rest assured that everything will be done with the utmost regard to the unaccountable prejudices of Europeans. His thoughtfulness took me aback. I thanked him warmly. He unvent at my thanks. And I am obliged to you in return, he said. It gives me great pleasure to be able through you to repay Harold Tillington part of the debt I owe him. He was so good to me at Oxford. Miss Cayley, you are new to India, and therefore, as yet, no doubt unprejudiced, you treat a native gentleman I see like a human being. I hope you will not stop long enough in our country to get over that stage, as happens to most of your countrymen and countrywomen. In England a man like myself is an Indian prince. In India, to ninety-nine out of a hundred Europeans he is just a damned nigger. I smiled sympathetically. I think, I said, venturing under these circumstances on a harmless little swear word, of course, in quotation marks, you may trust me never to reach damned nigger point. So I believe, he answered, if you are a friend of Harold Tillington's. Ebony or ivory he never forgot we were two men together. Five minutes later, when the Maharaja had gone to inquire about our luggage, Lord Southminster strolled up. Oh, I say, Miss Cayley, he burst out. I'm off now, ta-ta! But remember that office always open. By the way, who's your black friend? I couldn't help laughing at the errors the fellow gave himself. To see a nigger sitting there, with a suite all around him, waving his hands and sunning his rings and behaving for all the world as if he were a gentleman, it's really too ridiculous. Harold Tillington picked up a fellow like that at Oxford. Do so good cricketer, too. Wonder if this is the same one. Good-bye, Lord Southminster. I said quietly with a stiff little bow. Remember on your side that your offer was rejected once for all last night. Yes, the Indian prince is Harold Tillington's friend, the Maharaja of Muzufar Nuggar, whose ancestors were princes while ours were dressed in woad and oak leaves. But she will write about one thing. He behaves like a gentleman. Oh, I say, the pea-green young man ejaculated, drawing back. That's another in the eye for me. You're a good-and-it facers. You gave me one for a welcome, and you give me one now for a parting-shot. Never mind, though, I can wait. You're backing the wrong fella, but you're not the Ethels and you're well worth waiting for. He waved his hand. So long! See you again in London. And he retired with that fatuous smile still absorbing his features. Our three days in Bombay were uneventful. We merely waited to get rid of the role of the ship, which continued to haunt us for hours after we landed. The floor of our bedrooms having acquired an ugly trick of rising in long undulations as if Bombay were suffering from chronic earthquake. We made the acquaintance of his honour the acting governor and his honour's consort. We were also introduced to Mrs. Balmossi, the lady who was to chaperone us to Muzufar Nuggar. Her husband was a soldierly scotch-man from Forfisher. But she herself was English, a flighty little body with a perpetual giggle. She giggled so much over the idea of the Maharajahs inviting us to his palace that I wondered why on earth she accepted his invitation. At this she seemed surprised. Why, it's one of the jolliest places in Rajputana, she said, with a bland, similar smile. So picturesque! He he he! And so delightful! Simkin flows like water. Simkin's baboo English for champagne, you know. He he he! And though, of course, the Maharajahs only a native like the rest of them. He he he! Still, he's been educated at Oxford and has mixed with Europeans and he knows how to make one, he he he! Well, thoroughly comfortable. But what shall we eat, I asked? Rice, ghee, and chapattis? Oh, dear no! Europe food, every bit of it, foie gras, and your cam, and wine ad liv. His hospitality's massive. If it weren't for that, of course, one wouldn't dream of going there. But Archie hopes some day to be made resident, don't you know? And it will do him no harm, he he! With the foreign office, to have cultivated friendly relations beforehand with his highness of Muzufar Nugger. These natives, he he! So absurdly sensitive! For myself, the Maharajah interested me, and I rather liked him. Besides, he was Harold's friend, and that was in itself sufficient recommendation. So I determined to push straight into the heart of native India first, and only afterwards, to do the regular tourist round of Agra and Delhi, the Taj and the Mosques, Benares and Allahabad, leaving the English and Calcutta for the tale of my journey. It was better journalism. As I thought that thought, I began to fear that Mr. Elworthy was right after all, and that I was a born journalist. On the day fixed for our leaving Bombay, whom should I meet but Lord Southminster, with the Maharajah at the railway station? He lounged up to me with that eternal smile still vaguely pervading his empty features. Well, we shall have a jolly party, I said. They tell me this nigger is famous for his tigers. I gazed at him, positively taken aback. You don't mean to tell me, I cried. You actually propose to accept the Maharajah's hospitality. His smile absorbed him. Yes, he answered, twirling his yellow mustache and gazing across at the unconscious prince, who was engaged in overlooking the arrangements for our saloon carriage. The black fellow discovered I was a cousin of Harold's, so he came to call upon me at the club, of which some Johnny's here made me an honorary member. He's offered me the run of his place while I'm in India, and of course I've accepted. Excentric sort of chap can't make him out myself, says anyone connected with Harold Tillington has always dear to him. Rum-starred, isn't it? He's a mere oriental, I answered, unused to the ways of civilized life. He cherishes the superannuated virtue of gratitude. Yes, no doubt. So I'm coming along with you. I drew back horrified. Now, while I'm there? After what I told you last week on the steamer? No, that's all right. I bear you no malice. If I want any fun, of course, I must go while you're at Muzufa Nuga. Why so? You see, this black bounder means to get up some big things at his place in your honor, and one naturally goes to stop with anyone who has big things to offer. Hang it all. What does it matter who a fellow is if he can give you a good shooting? A shooting, don't you know, that keeps society and England together? And therefore you propose to stop in the same house with me, I exclaimed, in spite of what I have told you. Well, Lord Southminster, I should have thought there were limits which even your taste. He cut me short with an inane grin. There you make your blooming little error, he answered errorly. I told you, I keep my office still open, and hang it all, I don't mean to lose sight of you in a hurry. Some other fellow might come along and pick you up when I wasn't looking, and I don't want to miss you. In point of fact I don't mind telling you I back myself still for a couple of thou sooner or later to marry you. It's dogged as does it. Faint heart they say never one fair lady. If it had not been that I could not bear to disappoint my Indian Prince, I think when I heard this I should have turned back then and there at the station. The journey up country was uneventful but dusty. The mofusil appears to consist mainly of dust. Indeed I can now recall nothing of it but one pervading white cloud which has blotted from my memory all its other components. The dust clung to my hair after many washings and was never really beaten out of my travelling clothes. I believe part of it thus went round the world with me to England. When at last we reached Muzufunugar, after two days and a night's hard travelling, we were met by a crowd of local grandees who looked as if they had spent the greater part of their lives in brushing back their whiskers, and we drove up at once in European carriages to the Maharaja's palace. The look of it astonished me. It was a strange and rambling old Hindu hillfort high perched on a scarped crag like Edinburgh Castle and accessible only on one side, up a gigantic staircase guarded on either hand by huge sculptured elephants cut in the living sandstone. Below clustered the town, an intricate mass of tangled alleys. I had never seen anything so picturesque or so dirty in my life. As for Elsie, she was divided between admiration for its beauty and terror at the big whiskered and white-turbaned attendance. What sort of room shall we have, I whispered to our moral guarantee, Mrs. Belmossie? Oh, beautiful dear, the little lady smirked back, furnished throughout, by liberty. The Maharaja wants to do honour to his European guests. He fancies poor man, he's quite European. That's what comes of sending these creatures to Oxford. So he's had suites of rooms furnished for any white visitor who may chance to come his way. Ridiculous, isn't it? And champagne, oh, gallons of it. He's quite proud of his rooms. He's always asking people to come and occupy them. He thinks he's done them up in the best style of decoration. He had reason, for there were as tasteful as they were dainty and comfortable, and I could not for the life of me make out why his hospitable inclination should be voted ridiculous. But Mrs. Belmossie appeared to find all natives alike a huge joke together. She never even spoke of them without a condescending smile of distant compassion. Indeed, most Anglo-Indians seemed first to do their best to anglicise the Hindu, and then to laugh at him for aping the Englishman. After we had been three days at the palace, and had spent hours in the wonderful temples and ruins, the Maharaja announced with considerable pride at breakfast one morning that he had got up a tiger-hunt in our special honour. Lord Southminster rubbed his hands. Ha! That's right, Maharaja, he said briskly. I do love big game. To tell you the truth, old man, that's just what I came here for. You do me too much honour, the Hindu answered with quiet sarcasm. My town and palace may have little to offer that is worth your attention, but I am glad that my big game at least has been lucky enough to attract you. The remark was thrown away on the pea-green young man. He had described his host to me as a black-bounder. Out of his own mouth I condemned him. He supplied the very word. He was himself nothing more than a born-bounder. During the next few days the preparations for the tiger-hunt occupied all the Maharaja's energies. You know, Miss Kaley, he said to me, as we stood upon the big stairs, looking down on the Hindu city, a tiger-hunt is not a thing to be got up lightly. Our people themselves don't like killing a tiger. They reverence it too much. They're afraid its spirit might haunt them afterwards and bring them bad luck. That's one of our superstitions. You do not share it yourself, then, I asked. He drew himself up and opened his palms with a twinkling of pendant emeralds. I am royal, he answered with naive dignity, and the tiger is a royal beast. Kings know the way of kings, and if a king kills what is kingly it owes him no grudge for it. But if a common man or a low-caste man were to kill a tiger, who can say what might happen? I saw he was not himself quite free from the superstition. Our peasants, he went on, fixing me with his great black eyes, won't even mention the tiger by name for fear of offending him. They believe him to be the dwelling place of a powerful spirit. If they wish to speak of him they say, The Great Beast, or My Lord, the Striped One. Some think the spirit is immortal except at the hands of a king. But they have no objection to see him destroyed by others. They will even point out his whereabouts and rejoice over his death. For it relieves the village of a serious enemy, and they believe the spirit will only haunt the huts of those who actually kill him. Then you know where each tiger lives, I asked. As well as your gamekeepers in England know which cobert may be drawn for foxes. Yes, it is a royal sport, and we keep it for Maharajas. I myself, never hunt a tiger till some European visitor of distinction, comes to Muzufanuga, that I may show him good sport. This tiger we shall hunt tomorrow, for example, he is a bad old hand. He has carried off the buffaloes of my villages over yonder for years and years, and of late he has also become a man-eater. He once ate a whole family at a meal, a man, his wife, and his three children. The people at Janwagur have been pestering me for weeks to come and shoot him, and each week he has eaten somebody, a child, or a woman. The last was yesterday, but I waited till you came because I thought it would be something to show you that you would not be likely to see elsewhere. And you let the poor people go on being eaten that we might enjoy this sport, I cried. He shrugged his shoulders and opened his palms. They were villagers, you know, riots, mere tillers of the soil, poor, naked peasants. I have thousands of them to spare. If a tiger eats ten of them they only say it was written upon their foreheads. One woman more or less who would notice her at Muzufanuga. Then I perceived that the Maharaja was a gentleman, but still a barbarian. The eventful morning arrived at last and we started all agog for the jungle where the tiger was known to live. Elsie excused herself. She remarked to me the night before as I brushed her back hair for her, that she had half a mind not to go. My dear, I answered, giving the brush a good dash, for a higher mathematician that phrase lacks accuracy. If you were to say seven-eighths of a mind it would be nearer the mark. In point of fact, if you ask my opinion, your inclination to go is a vanishing quantity. She admitted the impeachment with an accusing blush. You're quite right, brownie, to tell you the truth, I'm afraid of it. So am I, dear, horribly afraid. Between ourselves I'm in a deadly funk of it, but the brave man is not he that feels no fear, and I believe the same principle applies almost equally to the brave woman. I mean, that fear to subdue as far as I'm able. The Maharaja says I shall be the first girl who has ever gone tiger-hunting. I'm frightened out of my life. I never held a gun in my born days. But, Elsie recollect, this is splendid journalism. I intend to go through with it. You offer yourself on the altar, brownie. I do, dear, I propose to die in the cause. I expect my proprietor to carve on my tomb sacred to the memory of the martyr of journalism. She was killed in the act of taking shorthand notes by a Bengal tiger. We started at early dawn a motley mixture. My short bicycling skirt did beautifully for tiger-hunting. There was a vast company of native swells, nawabs, and ranas in gorgeous costumes, whose precise names and titles I do not pretend to remember. There were also Major Balmasi, Lord Southminster, the Maharaja, and myself, all mounted on gaily caparizant elephants. We had likewise on foot a miserable crowd of wretched beaters, with dirty, white loincloths. We were all very brave, of course, demonstratively brave, and we talked a great deal at the start about the exhilaration given by the spice of danger. But it somehow struck me that the poor beaters on foot had the majority of the danger, and extremely little of the exhilaration. Each of us great folk was mounted on his own elephant, which carried a light basket-work houda in two compartments, the front one intended for the noble sportsman, the back one for a servant with extra guns and ammunition. I pretended to like it, but I fear I trembled visibly. Our mahout sat on the elephant's necks, each armed with a pointed goat, to whose admonition the huge beast answered like clockwork. A born journalist always pretends to know everything beforehand, so I speak carelessly of the mahout as if he were a familiar acquaintance, but I don't mind telling you, aside, in confidence that I had only just learnt the word that morning. The Maharaja protested at first against my taking part in the actual hunt, but I think his protest was merely formal. In his heart of hearts I believe he was proud that the first lady tiger hunter should have joined his party. Dusty and shadeless, the road from Muzufarnugar fares straight across the plain towards the crumbling mountains. Behind, in the heat mist, the castle and palace on their steeply scarped crag, with the squalid town that clustered at their feet, reminded me once more, most strangely, of Edinburgh, where I used to spend my vacations from Gerton. But the pitiless sun differed greatly from the gray haar of the northern metropolis. It warmed into intense white the little temples of the wayside, and beat on our heads with tropical garishness. I am bound to admit also that tiger hunting is not quite all it's cracked up to be. In my fancy I had pictured the gallant and bloodthirsty beast rushing out upon us full pelt from some grass-grown nula at the first sniff of our presence and fiercely attacking both men and elephants. Instead of that I will confess the whole truth. Frightened as at least one of us was of the tiger, the tiger was still more desperately frightened of his human assailants. I could see clearly that so far from rushing out of his own accord to attack us, his one desire was to be left alone. He was horribly afraid. He sulked in the jungle like a wary old fox in a trusty spinny. There was no nula, whatever a nula might be. There was only a waste of dusty cane-break. We encircled the tall grass patch where he lurked, formed a big mound with a ring fence of elephants, the beaters on foot advancing half naked with a caution with which I could fully sympathize, endeavored by loud shouts and gesticulations to rouse the royal beast to a sense of his position. Not a bit of it. The royal beast declined to be drawn. He preferred retirement. The Maharaja, whose elephant was stationed next to mine, even apologized for the resolute cowardice with which he clung to his ignoble, lurking place. The beaters drew in. The elephants, raising their trunks in air and sniffing suspicion, moved slowly inward. We had girt him round now with a perfect ring, through which he could not possibly break without attacking somebody. The Maharaja kept a fixed eye on my personal safety. But still the royal animal crouched and sulked, and still the black beaters shrieked, howled and gesticulated. At last among the tall perpendicular lights and shadows of the big grasses and bamboos I seemed to see something move, something striped like the stems, yet passing slowly, slowly, slowly between them. It moved in a stealthy, undulating line. No one could believe till he saw it how the bright flame-colored bands of vivid orange-yellow on the monster's flanks and the interspersed black stripes could fade away and harmonize in their native surroundings with the lights and shades of the upright jungle. It was a marvel of mimicry. Look there, I cried to the Maharaja, pointing one eager hand. What is that thing there, moving? He stared where I pointed. By Jove, he cried, raising his rifle with a sportsman quickness, you have spotted him first—the tiger! The terrified beast stole slowly and cautiously through the tall grasses, his lides silk inside gliding in and out snakewise, and only his fierce eyes burning bright with gleaming flashes between the gloom of the jungle. Once I had seen him, I could follow with ease his sinuous path among the tangled bamboos, a waving line of beauty in perpetual motion. The Maharaja followed him too, with his keen eyes, and pointed his rifle hastily. But quick as he was, Lord Southminster was before him. I had half expected to find the pea-green young man turned coward at the last moment, but in that I was mistaken. I will do him the justice to say whatever else he was—he was a born sportsman. The gleam of joy in his leaden eye when he caught sight of the tiger, the flush of excitement on his pasty face, the eagerness of his alert attitude, were things to see and remember. That moment almost ennobled him. In sight of danger, the best instincts of the savage seemed to revive within him. In civilized life he was a poor creature. Face to face with a wild beast he became a mighty Shikari. Perhaps that was why he was so fond of big-game shooting. He may have felt it raised him in the scale of being. He lifted his rifle and fired. He was a cool shot, and he wounded the beast upon its left shoulder. I could see the great crimson stream gush out all at once across the shapely sides, staining the flame-colored stripes and reddening the black shadows. The tiger drew back, gave a low fierce growl, and then crouched among the jungle. I saw he was going to leap. He bent his huge backbone into a strong downward curve, took in a deep breath, and stood at bay, glaring at us. Which elephant would he attack? That was what he was now debating. Next moment, with a frightful rrrr, he had straightened out his muscles and, like a bolt from a bow, had launched his huge bulk forward. I never saw his charge. I never knew he had leapt upon me. I only felt my elephant rock from side to side like a ship in a storm. He was trumpeting, shaking, roaring with rage and pain, for the tiger was on his flanks, its claws buried deep in the skin of his forehead. I could not keep my seat. I felt myself tossed about in the frail houda like a pill in a pillbox. The elephant, in a death grapple, was trying to shake off his ghastly enemy. For a minute or two I was conscious of nothing save this swinging movement. Then, opening my eyes for a second, I saw the tiger, in all his terrible beauty, clinging to the elephant's head by the claws of his fore paws, and struggling for a foothold on its trunk with his mighty hind legs, in a wounded agony of despair and vengeance. He would sell his life, dear. He would have one or other of us. Lord Southminster raced his rifle again. But the Maharaja shouted aloud in an angry voice, Don't fire! Don't fire! You will kill the lady. You can't aim at him like that. The beast is rocking so that no one can say where a shot will take effect. Down with your gun, sir, instantly. My mahout, unable to keep his seat with the rocking, now dropped off his cushion among the scrub below. He could speak a few words of English. Shoot! Memsahib, shoot! he cried, flinging his hands up. But I was tossed, to and fro, from side to side with my rifle under my arm. It was impossible to aim. Yet in sheer terror I tried to draw the trigger. I failed. But somehow I caught my rifle against the side of my cage. Something snapped in it somewhere. It went off unexpectedly without my aiming or firing. I shut my eyes. When I opened them again I saw a swimming picture of the great sullen beast losing his hold on the elephant. I saw his brindled face. I saw his white tusks. But his gleaming pupils burned bright no longer. His jaw was full towards me. I had shot him between the eyes. He fell slowly, with blood streaming from his nostrils and his tongue lolling out. His muscles relaxed. His huge limbs grew limp. In a minute he lay stretched at full length on the ground with his head on one side. A grand, terrible picture. My mahout flung up his hands in wonder and amazement. By father, he cried aloud, truly the mem sahib is a great shikari. The Maharaja stretched across to me. That was a wonderful shot, he exclaimed. I could never have believed a woman could show such nerve and coolness. Nerve and coolness indeed I was trembling all over like an Italian greyhound, every limb a jelly. And I had not even fired. The rifle went off of itself without me. I am innocent of having ever in danger the life of a haycock. But once more I dissembled. Yes, it was a difficult shot, I said, jauntily, as if I rather liked tiger-hunting. I didn't think I'd hit him. Still, the effect of my speech was somewhat marred, I fear, by the tears that in spite of me rolled down my cheeks silently. Pawn-honour, I never saw a finer piece of shooting in my life! Lord Southminster drawled out. Then he added a side and an undertone. Makes a fellow more determined to annex her than ever. I sat in my houda half-dazed. I hardly heard what they were saying. My heart danced like the elephant. Then it stood still within me. I was only aware of a feeling of faintness. Luckily for my reputation as a mighty sportswoman, however, I just managed to keep up, and did not actually faint, as I was more than half inclined to do. Next followed the native peon, the crowded round the fallen beast in a chorus of congratulation. Many of the villagers also ran out with prayers and ejaculations to swell our triumph. It was all like a dream. They hustled round me and salamed me. A woman had shot him. Wonderful! A babble of voices resounded in my ears. I was aware that pure accident had elevated me into a heroine. Put the beast on a pad-elephant, the Maharaja called out. The beaters tied ropes round his body and raised him with difficulty. The Maharaja's face grew stern. Where are the whiskers, he asked fiercely in his own tongue, which Major Balmasi interpreted for me. The beaters and the villagers, bowing low and expanding their hands, made profuse expressions of ignorance and innocence. But the fact was patent. The grand face had been mangled. While they had crowded in a dense group round the fallen carcass, someone had cut off the lips and whiskers and secreted them. They have ruined the skin, the Maharaja cried out in angry tones. I intended it for the lady. I shall have them all searched and the man who has done this thing. He broke off and looked around him. His silence was more terrible by far than the fiercest threat. I saw him now, the oriental despot. All the natives drew back, awestruck. The voice of a king is the voice of a great god, my Mahud murmured in a solemn whisper. Then nobody else said anything. Why do they want the whiskers, I asked, just to set things straight again. They seem to have been in a precious hurry to take them. The Maharaja's brow cleared. He turned to me once more with his European manner. A tiger's body has wonderful power after its death, he answered. His fangs and his claws are very potent charms. His heart gives courage. Whoever eats of it will never know fear. His liver preserves against death and pestilence, but the highest virtue of all exists in his whiskers. They are mighty talismans. Chopped up in food they act as a slow poison which no doctor can detect, no antidote God against. They are also a sovereign remedy against magic or the evil eye. And administered to women they make an irresistible filter, a puissant love potion. They secure you the heart of whoever drinks them. I'd give a couple of monkeys for those whiskers, Lord South Minister murmured, half unnoticed. We began to move again. We'll go on to where we know there is another tiger, the Maharaja said lightly, as if tigers were partridges. Miss Cayley, you will come with us? I rested on my laurels. I was quivering still from head to foot. No thank you, Maharaja, as unconcernedly as I could. I've had quite enough sport for my first day's tiger hunting. I think I'll go back now and write a newspaper account of this little adventure. You have had luck, he put in. Not everyone kills a tiger his first day out. This will make good reading. I wouldn't have missed it for a hundred pounds, I answered. Then try another. I wouldn't try another for a thousand, I cried fervently. That evening at the palace I was the heroine of the day. They toasted me in a bumper of hide-seek's dry monopole. The men made speeches. Everybody talked gushingly of my splendid courage and my steadiness of hand. It was a brilliant shot under such difficult circumstances. For myself I said nothing. I pretended to look modest. I dared not confess the truth that I never fired at all. And from that day to this I have never confessed it till I write it down now in these confiding memoirs. One episode cast a gloom over my ill-deserved triumph. In the course of the evening a telegram arrived for the pea-green young man by a white-turban messenger. He read it and crumpled it up carelessly in his hand. I looked enquiry. Yes, he answered nodding. You're quite right, it's that. Poor old mommy is gone after all. Ezekiel and Habakok have carried off his sixteen stone at last. I don't mind telling you now, though it was a nearer thing. It's I who am the winner. Recording by Goldfish. Miss Kaylee's Adventures by Grant Allen, Chapter 10, The Adventure of the Cross-eyed QC. The cold weather, as it is humorously called, was now drawing to a close, and the young ladies in sailor hats and cambrick blouses, who flocked to India each autumn for the annual marriage market, were beginning to resign themselves to a return to England, unless, of course, they had succeeded in catching. So I realised that I must hurry on to Delhi and Agra, if I were not to be intercepted by the intolerable summer. When we started from Musa Funuga, for Delhi and the East, Lord Southminster was starting for Bombay and Europe. This surprised me not a little, for he had confided to my unsympathetic ear a few nights earlier in the Maharaja's billiard room that he was stony-broke, and must wait at Musa Funuga for lack of funds till the oof-bird laid at his bankers in England. His conversation enlarged my vocabulary at any rate. So you've managed to get away, I exclaimed, as he dawdled up to me at the hot and dusty station. Yes, he drooled, fixing his eyeglass and lighting a cigarette. I've... managed to get away. Maharaja seems to have thought, it would be cheaper in the end to pay out than to keep me. You don't mean to say he offered to lend you money? I cried. No, not exactly that. I offered to borrow it. From the man you call a nigger. His smile spread border over his face than ever. Well, we borrow from the Jews, you know, he said pleasantly. So why the Jews shouldn't we borrow from the heathen also? Spoiling the Egyptians, don't you see? The same as we used to read about in the scripture. When we were innocent kiddies, like marriage, quite, you borrow in haste and repay at leisure. He strolled off and took his seat. I was glad to get rid of him at the mainline junction. In accordance with my usual merciful custom, I spare you the details for our visit to Agra, Moutra, Benares. At Calcutta Elsie left me. Her health was now quite restored, dear little soul. I felt I had done that one good thing in life if no other, and she could no longer withstand the higher mathematics which were beckoning her to London with invisible fingers. For myself, having so far accomplished my original design, of going round the world with two pence in my pocket, I could not bear to draw back at half the circuit, and Mr. Elworthy, having willingly consented to my return by Singapore and Yokohama, I set out alone on my homeward journey. Harold wrote me from London that all was going well. He had found the will which I drew up at Florence in his uncle's Escortoir, and everything was left to him. But he trusted, in spite of this untoward circumstance, long absence might have altered my determination. Dear Lois, he wrote, I expect you to come back to England and marry me. I was brief, but categorical. Nothing, meanwhile, had altered my resolve. I did not wish to be considered mercenary. While he was rich and honoured, I could never take him. If, some day, fortune frowned, but there, let us not forestall the feet of calamity, let us await contingencies. Still, I was heavy in heart. If only it had been otherwise. To say the truth, I should be thrown away on a millionaire, but just think what a splendid managing wife a girl like me would have made for a penniless pauper. At Yokohama, however, while I'd ordered, in curiosity shops, a telegram from Harold startled me into seriousness. My chance at last. I knew what it meant, that villain Higginson. Come home at once. I want your evidence to clear my character. Southminster opposes the will as a forgery. He has a strong case. The experts are with him. Forgery! that was clever. I never thought of that. I suspected them of trying to forge a will of their own, but to upset the real one, to throw the burden of suspicion on Harold's shoulders. How much subtler and craftier! I saw it a glance, it gave them every advantage. In the first place it put Harold virtually in the place of the accused, and compelled him to defend, instead of attacking, an attitude which prejudices people against one from the outset. Then again it implied positive criminality on his part, and so allowed North Southminster to assume the air of injured innocence. The eldest son of the eldest brother unjustly set aside by the scheming machinations of an unscrupulous cousin. Premogenitor, the ingrained English love for keeping up the dignity of the noble family, the prejudice in favour of the direct male line as against the female, all were astutely utilised in Lord Southminster's interest. But worst of all, it was I who had typewritten the will. I, a friend of Harold's, a woman whom Lord Southminster would doubtless try to exhibit as his fiancée. I saw at once how much like conspiracy it looked. Harold and I had agreed together to concoct a false document, and Harold had forged his uncle's signature to it. Could a British jury doubt when a Lord declared it? Fortunately, I was just in time to catch the Canadian steamer from Japan to Vancouver. But oh, the endless breadth of that broad Pacific! How time seemed to lag as each day one rose in the morning, in the midst of space, blue sky overhead, behind one the hard horizon, in front of one the hard horizon, and nothing else visible. Then steamed on all day to arrive at night, where? Why, in the midst of space, starry sky overhead, behind one the dim horizon, in front of one the dim horizon, and nothing else visible. The Nile was child's play to it. Day after day we steamed, and night after night was still where we began, in the centre of the sea, no farther from our starting point, no nearer to our goal, yet for ever steaming. It was endlessly wearisome. Who could say what might be happening meanwhile in England? At last, after months, as it seemed, of this slow torture, we reached Vancouver. There, in the raw new town, a telegram awaited me. Glad to hear you are coming, and may call haste. You may be just in time to arrive for the trial. Just in time? I would not waste a moment. I caught the first train on the Canadian Pacific, and travelled straight through day and night to Montreal and Quebec without one hour's interval. I cannot describe to you that journey across the continent I had never seen before. It was endless and hopeless. I only know that we crawled up the Rocky Mountains and the Selkirk Range over spider-like viaducts with interminable effort, and that the prairies were just the broad Pacific over again. They rolled on for ever, but we did reach Quebec in time we reached it, and we caught by an hour the first liner to Liverpool. At Prince's Landing stage, another telegram awaited me. Come at once, case now proceeding. Harold is in court. We need your evidence, Georgina Foley. I might still be in time to vindicate Harold's character. At Houston, to my surprise, I was met not only by my dear cantankerous old lady, but also by my friend, the magnificent Maharaja, dressed this time in a frock coat and silk hat of Bond Street glossiness. What has brought you to England? I asked, astonished. The jubilee? He smiled and showed his two fine rows of white teeth. But, nominally, in reality the cricket season. I play for bucks. But most of all, to see dear Tillington safe through this trouble. He's a brick. Lady Georgina quiet with enthusiasm. A regular brick, my dear Lois. His carriage is waiting outside to take you up to my house. He has stood by Harold, well, like a Christian. Or a Hindu, the Maharaja corrected, smiling. And how have you been all this time, dear Lady Georgina? I asked, hardly daring to inquire about what was nearest to my soul. Harold. The cantankerous old lady knitted her brows in a familiar fashion. Oh, my dear, don't ask. I haven't known a happy hour since you left me in Switzerland. Lois, I shall never be happy again without you. It would pay me to give you a retaining fee of a thousand a year. What a bright it would, I assure you. What I've suffered from the Gretchen since you've been in the East has only been equaled by what I've suffered from the Mary Ann's and the Celestine's. Not a hair left on my scalp, not one hair, I declare to you. They have made my head into a tabula rasa for the various restorers. George R. Sims and Mrs. S. A. Allen are going to fight it out between them. My dear, I wish you could take my maid's place. I've always said," I finished the speech for her. A lady can do better whatever she turns her hand to than any of these hussies," she nodded. And why? Because her hands are hands. Well, as for the Gretchen's and the Mary Ann's, pause is the only word one can honestly apply to them. Then on top of it all comes this troubled about Harold. So distressing, isn't it? You see, at the point which the matter has reached, it is simply impossible to save Harold's reputation without wrecking self-minsters. Pretty position that for a respectable family. The Ashhurst's hitherto have been quite respectable. A co-respondent or two perhaps, but never anything serious. Now, either self-minster sends Harold to prison, or Harold sends self-minster. There's a nice sort of a dilemma. I always knew kidderston's boys were born fools, but to find their born naves too is hard on an old woman in her hairless dotage. However, you've come, my child, and you soon set things right. You're the one person on earth I can trust in this matter. Harold, go to prison! My head reeled at the thought. I staggered out into the open air and took my seat mechanically in the Maharaja's carriage. All London swam before me. After so many months' absence, the polychromatic decorations of our English streets, looming up through the smoke, seem both strange and familiar. I drove through the first half mile with a vague consciousness that Lipton's tea is the perfection for the complexion, but that it dies all colours and won't wash clothes. After a while, however, I woke up to the full terror of the situation. Where are you taking me? I inquired. To my house, dear. Lady Georgina answered, looking anxiously at me, for my face was bloodless. No, that won't do, I answered. My cue must be now to keep myself as aloof as possible from Harold and Harold's backers. I must put up at an hotel. I was so much better in cross-examination. She's quite right, the Maharaja broke in with sudden conviction. One must block every ball with these nasty swift-ballers. Where's Harold? I asked after another pause. Why didn't he come to meet me? My dear, how could he? He's under examination, a cross-eyed QC with an odious lair. The south-minster's chosen for contention. Drive to some hotel in the German street-district. I cried to the Maharaja's coachman. That will be handy for the law-courts. He touched his heart and turned. In a sort of dicky behind sat two gorgeous turbaned Rajput servants. That evening Harold came round to visit me at my rooms. I could see he was much agitated. Things had gone very badly. Lady Georgina was there. She had stopped to dine with me, lest I should feel lonely and give way. So had Elsie Petheridge. Mr. Elworthy sent a telegram of welcome from Devonshire. I knew at least that my friends were rallying round me in this hour of trial. The kind of Maharaja himself would have come to if I had allowed him, but I thought it inexpedient. They explained everything to me. Harold had propounded Mr. Ashhurst's will, the one I drew up at Florence, and had asked for probate. Lord South-Minster intervened and used the grant of probate on the grounds that the signatures were for juries. He propounded instead another will drawn some twenty years earlier when they were both children, duly executed at the time and undoubtedly genuine. In it, Tester left everything without reserve to the eldest son of his eldest brother, Lord Kinniston. Marmy didn't know in those days that Kinniston's sons would all grow up fools, besides which, that was before the poor dear soul took to plunging on the stock exchange and made his money. He had nothing to leave, then, but his best silk hat and a few portrait-hundreds. Afterwards, when he feathered his nest in soap and cocoa, he discovered that Bertie, that's Lord South-Minster, was a first-class idiot. Marmy never liked South-Minster nor South-Minster Marmy. For, after all, with all his faults, Kinniston, while Bertie, well, my dear, we needn't put a name to it. So he altered his will, as you know, when he saw the sort of man South-Minster turned out, and left practically everything he possessed to Harold. Who are the witnesses to the well, I asked? There's the trouble. Who do you think? Why Higginson's sister, who was Marmy's masseuse, and a waiter, who's dead, they say, or at least not forthcoming? And Higginson's sister foreswares her signature. Harold added gloomily, while the experts are most of them dead against the genuineness of my uncles. That's clever. I said leaning back and taking it in slowly. Higginson's sister, how well they've worked it! They couldn't prevent Mr. Ashhurst from making his will, but they managed to supply the witnesses. If it had been Higginson himself, now he'd have had to have been cross-examined. And in cross-examination, of course, we could have shaken his credit by bringing up the episodes of the Count de la Roche-sur-Loire and Dr. Fortescue Langley. But his sister, what's she like? Have you anything against her? My dear! Lady Georgine acquired. Higginson provided himself with a sister of tried respectability and blameless character. As she denies that it is her handwriting, I asked. Higginson must have trained up his sister for forty years in the ways of wickedness, yet held her in reserve for the supreme moment. And where is Higginson? I asked. Lady Georgine broke into hysterical laugh. Where is he, my dear? He appeared into space at the last moment. That's artful again, I said. His presence could only damage their case. I can see, of course, Lord Southminster has no need of him. Southminster's the wilyest fool that ever lived. Harold broke out bitterly. Under that mask of imbecility, he's a fox for trickiness. I bit my lip. Well, if you succeed in evading him, I said, you will have cleared your character. And if you don't, Harold, our time will have come. You will have your longed-for chance of trying me. That won't do me much good, he answered. If I have to wait fourteen years for you at Portland. Next morning in court, I heard Harold's cross-examination. He described exactly where he had found the contested will in his uncle's escritoire. The cross-eyed QC, a heavy man with bloated features and a bulbous nose, begged him with one fat uplifted forefinger to be very careful. How did he know where to look for it? Because I knew the house well. I knew where my uncle was likely to keep his valuables. Oh, indeed! Not because you had put it there. The court rang with laughter. My face grew crimson. After an hour or two of fencing, Harold was dismissed. He stood down baffled. Council record, Lord Southminster. The pea-green young man, stepping briskly up, gazed about him open-mouthed through the vacant stair. The look of cunning on his face was carefully suppressed. He wore, on the contrary, an air of injured innocence combined with an eyeglass. You did not put this will in the drawer where Mr. Tillington found it, did you? The council asked. The pea-green young man laughed. No, I certainly didn't put it there. My cousin Harold was man in possession. He took jolly good care, eyed, and come near the premises. Do you think you could forge a will if you tried? Lord Southminster laughed. No, I don't," he answered with a well-assumed naivety. That's just the difference between us, don't you know? I'm what they call a fool, and my cousin Harold's a precious, clever fellow. There was another loud laugh. That's not evidence, the judge observed. It was not, but it told far more than much that was. It told strongly against Harold. Besides, Lord Southminster continued with engaging frankness. If I forged a will at all, I'd take jolly good care to forge it in my own favour. My turn came next. Our council handed me the incriminated will. Did you draw up this document? He asked. I looked at it closely. The paper bore our Florentine watermark and was written with a spread eagle. I type-wrote it. I answered, gazing at it with care to make sure I recognised it. Our council's business was to uphold the will, not to cast dispersions upon it. He was evidently annoyed at my close examination. You have no doubts about it," he said, trying to prompt me. I hesitated. No, no doubts. I answered, turning over the sheet and inspecting it still closer. I type-wrote it at Florence. Do you recognise that signature as Mr. Marmadue Cashhurst? He went on. I stared at it. Was it his? It was like it, certainly. Yet those K's and those S's I almost wondered. Council's obviously annoyed at my hesitation. He thought I was playing into the enemy's hands. Is it his or is it not?" he inquired again testily. It is his, I answered. Yet I own I was troubled. He asked many questions about the circumstances of the interview when I took down the will. I answered them all. But I vaguely felt he and I were at cross-purposes. I grew almost as uncomfortable under his gaze as if he had been examining me in the interest of the other side. He managed to fluster me as a witness for Harold I was a grotesque failure. Then the cross-eyed QC, rising and shaking his huge bulk began to cross-examine me. What did you type right this thing, do you say? He said, pointing to it contemptuously. In my office at Florence. Yes, I understand. You had an office at Florence. After you gave up retailing bicycles on the public roads and you had a partner, I think, a Mr. Marmadue Cashhurst? Yes. You had a partner, I think, Miss Petherick or Petherton or Penny Farthing or something? Miss Petheridge. I corrected while the court titted. Are Pesseridge, you call it? Well, now answer the question carefully. Did your Miss Petheridge hear Mr. Asher dictate the terms of his last will and testament? No, I answered. The interview was of a strictly confidential character. Mr. Asherst took me aside into the back room at our office. Oh. He took you aside. Confidential. Well, now we are getting at it. Did anybody but yourself see or hear any part whatsoever of this precious document? Certainly not, I replied. It was a private matter. Private? Oh, very. Nobody else saw it. Did Mr. Asherst take it away from the office in person? No, he sent his courier for it. His courier? The man Higginson. Yes. But I refused to give it to Higginson. I took it myself that night to the hotel where Mr. Asherst was stopping. Ah. You took it yourself. So the only other person who knows anything at first hand about the existence of this alleged will is this person Higginson. Miss Petheridge knows, I said, flushing, at the time I told her of it. Oh, you told her. Well, that doesn't help us much. If what you are swearing isn't true, remember, you are on your oath, what you told Miss Petheridge or Pettifarthing at the time can hardly be regarded as corroborative evidence. Your word, then, and your word now are just equally valuable or equally worthless. The only person who knows beside yourself is Higginson. Now, I ask you, where is Higginson? Are you going to produce him? The wicked cunning of it struck me dumb. They were keeping him away and then using his absence to cast doubts on my veracity. Now, Jack, Higginson is well known to be a rogue and he is keeping away lest he may damage your side. I know nothing of Higginson. Yes, I am coming to that in good time. Don't be afraid that we're going to pass over Higginson. You admit this man is a man of bad character. Now, what do you know of him? I told the stories of the Count and of Dr. Fortescue Langley. Cross-eyed cross-examiner lent across towards me and leered. And this is the man he exclaimed with a triumphant air, whose sister you pretended you had got to sign this precious document of yours. Whom Mr. Ashhurst got to sign it, I answered red-hot, it is not my document. And you have heard that she swears it is not her signature at all. So they tell me she is Higginson's sister. For all I know she may be prepared to swear or to foreswear anything. Don't cast doubt upon our witnesses without cause. Miss Higginson is an eminently respectable woman. You gave this document to Mr. Ashhurst you say. There your knowledge of it ends. A signature is placed on it, which is not his as our experts identify. It purports to be witnessed by a Swiss waiter who is not forthcoming and who is asserted to be dead as well as by a nurse who denies her signature. And the only other person who knows of his existence before Mr. Tillington discovers it in his uncle's desk is the missing man Higginson. Is that, or is it not, the truth of the matter? I suppose so, I said baffled. Well, now, as to this man Higginson, he first appears upon the scene so far as you are concerned on the day when you travelled from London to Schlaganvard. That is so, I answered. And he nearly succeeded then in stealing Lady Georgina of Forley's jewel-coat. He nearly took it, but I saved it. And I explained the circumstance. The cross-eyed QC held his fat sides with his hands looking incredulous at me and smiled. His vast width of waist-coat shook with silent merriment. You are a very clever young lady. He murmured, You can explain away anything, but don't you think it just as likely that it was a plot between you two and that, owing to some mistake, the plot came off unsuccessful? I do not. I cried crimson. I never saw the count before that morning. He tried another tack. Still, wherever you went to this man, Higginson, the only other person you admit who knows about the previous existence of the world, turned up simultaneously. He was always turning up at the same place that you did. He turned up at Lucerne as a face-healer, didn't he? If you will allow me to explain, I cried, biting my lip. He bowed, all blandless. Oh, sir! He murmured, Explain away everything. I explained, but, of course, he had discounted and damaged my explanation. He made no comment. And then he went on with his hands on his hips and his obtrusive rotundity. He turned up at Florence as courier to Mr. Ashhurst at the very date when the so-called will was being concocted. He was at Florence when Mr. Ashhurst dictated it to me. I answered, growing desperate. You admit he was in Florence. Good. Once more, he turned up in India with my client, Lord Southminster, upon whose youth and inexperience he had managed to impose himself. And he carried him off, did he not, by one of these strange coincidences to which you are peculiarly liable on the very same steamer on which you happen to be travelling. Lord Southminster told me he took Higginson with him because a rogue suited his book. I answered warmly. Well, you swear his lordship didn't say THE rogue suited his book, which is quite another thing. The QC asked blandly. I will swear he did not. I replied, I have correctly reported him. Then I congratulate you, young lady, on your excellent memory. My lord, will you allow me later to recall Lord Southminster to testify on this point? The judge nodded. Now, once more, as to your relations with the various members of the Ashhurst family. You introduced yourself to Lady Georgina Forley, I believe, quite casually, on a seat in Kensington Gardens. That is true, I answered. You had never seen her before. Never. And you promptly offered to go as her ladies made to Schlagenwad in Germany. In place of her ladies made for one week, I answered, Ah, a delicate distinction in place of her ladies made. You are a lady, I believe, an officer's daughter, you told us, educated at Gertin. So I have said already. I replied crimsonly. You are a lady, I believe, I said already. I replied crimson. And you stick to it by all means. Tell the truth and stick to it. It's always safest. Now, don't you think it was rather an odd thing for an officer's daughter to do, to run about Germany as made to a lady of title? I tried to explain once more, but the jury smiled. You can't justify originality to British jury. Why, they would send you to prison for that alone if they made the laws as well as dispensing them. He passed on after a while to another topic. I think you have boasted more than once in society that when you first met Lady Georgina Forley, you had two prints in your pocket to go around the world with. I had, I answered, and I went round the world with it. There in time. With it, and other things. A few months later, more or less, you were touring up the Nile in your steam Dahabir in the lap of luxury. You were taking saloon carriages on Indian railways, weren't you? I explained again. The Dahabir was in the service of the daily telephone, I answered. I became a journalist. He cross-questioned me about that. Then I am to understand he said at last, leaning forward with all his waistcoat that you sprang yourself upon Mr. Elworthy at sight. Pretty much as you sprang yourself upon Lady Georgina Forley. We arranged matters quickly. I admitted the dexterous wretch was making my strongest points all tell against me. Hmm. Well, he was a man, and you will admit, I suppose. Fingering his smooth fat chin that you are a lady of. What is the stock-phrase reporters use? Considerable personal attractions. My lord, I said, turning to the bench, I appeal to you. Has he the right to compel me to answer that question? The judge bowed slightly. The question requires no answer. He said with a quiet emphasis. I turned bright scarlet. Well, my lord, I defer to your ruling. The cross-eyed cross-examiner continued radiant. I go on to another point. When in India, I believe, you stopped for some time as a guest in the house of a native Maharajra. Is that matter relevant? The judge asked sharply. My lord, the QC said in his blandest voice, that you should suggest to the jury that this lady, the only person who ever beheld this so-called will till Mr. Harold Tillington described in its terms as younger of Gledcliffe, whatever that may be, produced it out of his uncle's desk. I am striving to suggest that this lady is my duty to my client compels me to say an adventurous. He had uttered the word. I felt my character had not a leg left to stand upon before a British jury. I went there with my friend, Miss Petheridge. I began. Oh, Miss Petheridge once more. You hunting couples. Accompanied and chaperoned by a married lady, the wife of a major Balmossi in my staff-call. That was certainly prudent. One ought to be chaperoned. Can you produce the lady? How is it possible? I cried. Mrs. Balmossi is in India. Yes, but the Maharaja I understand is in London. That is true, I answered. And he came to meet you on your arrival yesterday. With Lady Georgina poorly, I cried, taken off my guard. Do you not consider it curious, he asked, that these Higginsons and these Maharajas should happen to follow you so closely round the world, should happen to turn up wherever you do. He came to be present at this trial, I exclaimed. And so did you. I believe he met you at Houston last night due to a hotel and his private carriage. With Lady Georgina poorly, I answered once more. And Lady Georgina is on Mr. Tillington's side, I fancy. Yes, I thought so. And Mr. Tillington also called to see you and likewise Miss Petherick I beg your pardon, Petheridge, we must be strictly accurate where Miss Petheridge is concerned. And in fact you had quite a little family party. My friends were glad to see me again, I murmured. He sprang afresh in Uendo. But Mr. Tillington did not present your visit to this gallant Maharaja. Certainly not, I cried bridling. Why should he? Oh, we're getting to that too. Now, answer me this carefully. We want to find out what interest you might have supposing a will were forged on either side in arranging its terms. We want to find out just who would benefit by it. Please reply to this question. Yes, or no, without prevarication. Are you or are you not conditionally engaged to Mr. Harold Tillington? If I might explain, I began quivering. He sneered. You have a genius for explaining. We are aware. Answer me first, yes or no. We will qualify afterward. I glanced appealingly at the judge. He was adamant. Answer as council directs you witness. He said sternly. Yes, I am. I faltered. But excuse me one moment. I had to marry him conditionally upon the result of Mr. Ashhurst's testamentary dispositions. I did, I answered, but my explanation was drowned in rules of laughter in which the judge joined in spite of himself when the mirth and court had subsided a little I went on. I told Mr. Tillington I would only marry him in case he was poor and without evidence. If he inherited Mr. Mamadouk Ashhurst's money I could never be his wife. I said it proudly. The cross-eyed QC drew himself up and let his rotundity take care of itself. Do you take me, he inquired, for one of Her Majesty's horse-marines. There was another war of laughter feebly suppressed by a judicial frown and I slank away annihilated. You can go, my persecutor said. I think we have got well, in everything we wanted from you. You promised to marry him if all went ill. That is a delicate feminine way of putting it. Women like these equivocations. They relieve one from the oneness of speaking frankly. I stood down from the box feeling for the first time in my life conscious of having scored an ignominious failure. Our council did not care to re-examine me. I had recognised that it would be useless. The hateful QC had put all my history in such an odious light that explanation could only make matters worse. It must savour of apology. The jury could never understand my point of view. It could never be made to see that there are adventurises and adventurises. Then came the final speeches on either side. Gerald's advocate said the best he could in favour of the will are party propounded, but his best was bad, and what guiled me most was this. I could see he himself did not believe in its genuineness. His speech amounted to little more than a perfunctory attempt to put the most favourable face on a probable forgery. As for the cross-eyed QC, he rose to reply with humorous confidence. In his big body, too, and fro, he crumpled our will and our case in his fat fingers like so much flimsy tissue paper. Mr. Ashhurst had made a disposition of his property twenty years ago, the right disposition, the natural disposition. He had left the bulk of it as childless English gentlemen have ever been want to leave their wealth to the eldest son of the eldest son of his family. The honourable Marmaduke Courtney Ashhurst, the testitor, was a scion of a great house, which recent agricultural changes, he regretted to say, had relatively impoverished. He had come to the succour of that great house, as such a scion should, with his property acquired by honest industry elsewhere. It was fitting and reasonable that Mr. Ashhurst should wish to see the Kinniston period regain in the person of the amiable and accomplished young nobleman, whom he had the honour to represent some portion of its ancient dignity and splendour. But jealousy and greed intervened. Here he found at Harold. Mr. Harold Tillington, the son of one of Mr. Ashhurst's married sisters, cast longing eyes as he had tried to suggest to them on his cousin, Lord Southminster's natural heritage. The results he feared was an unnatural intrigue. Mr. Harold Tillington formed the acquaintance of a young lady. Should we say young lady? He withered me with his glance. Well, yes, a lady. Indeed, by birth and education, but an adventurous by choice. A lady who, brought up in a respectable, though not, he must admit, a distinguished sphere, had lowered herself by accepting the position of a lady's maid, and had trafficked in patent American cycles on the public high roads of Germany and Switzerland. This clever and designing woman, he would grant her ability, he would grant her good looks, had fascinated Mr. Tillington. That was the theory he ventured to lay before the jury today, and the jury would see for themselves that whatever else the young lady might be, she had distinctly a certain outer gift of fascination. It was for them to decide whether Miss Lois Caley had or had not suggested to Mr. Harold Tillington the design of substituting a forged will for Mr. Marmaduke Ashhurst's undeniable testament. He would point out to them her singular connection with the missing man Higginson, whom the young lady herself described as a rogue, and from whom she had done her very best to dissociate herself in this court, but ineffectually. Wherever Miss Caley went, the man Higginson went independently. Such frequent recurrences, such apt juxtapositions could hardly be set down to mere accidental coincidence. He went on to insinuate that Higginson and I had concocted the disputed will between us, that we had passed it on to our fellow conspirator Harold, and that Harold had forged his uncle's signature to it, and had appended those of the two supposed witnesses. But who now were these witnesses? One, Franz Marcime, was dead or missing. Dead men tell no tales. The other was obviously suggested by Higginson. It was his own sister. Perhaps he forged her name to the document. Doubtless he thought that family feeling would induce her, when it came to the pinch, to accept and endorse her brother's lie. Nay, he might even have been foolish enough to suppose that this cock and bull would not be disputed. If so, he and his master had reckoned without Lord Southminster, a gentleman who concealed beneath the careless exterior of a man of fashion the solid intelligence of a man of affairs, and the hard head of a man not to be lightly cheated in matters of business. The alleged will had thus not a leg to stand upon. It was Type-Britain, save the Marc, from dictation at Florence by whom, by the lady who had most to gain from its success, the lady who was to be transformed from a shady adventurous tossed about between Irish doctors and Hindu Maharajas into the lawful wife of a wealthy diplomatist of noble family on one condition only if this pretended will could be satisfactorily established. The signatures were forgeries as shown by the expert evidence and also by the oath of the one surviving witness. The will left all the estate practically to Mr. Harold Tillington and five hundred pounds to whom? Why to the accomplice Higginson? The minor bequest the QC regarded as ingenious inventions pure player fancy intended to give artistic verisimilitude as Pulbar says in the opera to an otherwise bold and unconvincing narrative. The fads, it was true, were known fads of Mr. Ashhurst's but what of fads? By metalism? Anglo-Israel? No, braces and shoe-horns clearly the kind that would be best known to a courier like Higginson, the soul-bigetta he believed of this nefarious conspiracy. The cross-eyed QC lifting his fat right hand in solemn adoration called upon the jury confidently to set aside this ridiculous fabrication and declare for a will of genuineness a will drawn up in London by a firm of eminent solicitors and preserved ever since by the testators' bankers. It would then be for his lordship to decide whether in the public interest he should recommend the crown to prosecute on a charge of forgery the clumsy fabricator of this preposterous document. The judge summed up strongly in favour of Lord Southminster's will if the jury believed the experts and Miss Higginson one verdict alone was possible the jury retired for three minutes only it was a foregone conclusion they found for Lord Southminster the judge, looking grave concurred in their finding a most proper verdict and he considered it would be the duty of the public prosecutor to pursue Mr. Harold Tillington on the charge of forgery I reeled where I sat then I looked round for Harold he had slipped from the court unseen during counsel's address some minutes earlier that distressed me more than anything else on that dreadful day I wished he had stood up in his place like a man to face this vile and cruel conspiracy I walked out slowly supported by Lady Georgina who was as white as a ghost herself but very straight and scornful I always knew Southminster was a fool she said aloud I always knew he was a sneak but I did not know at all now he was also a particularly bad type of criminal on the steps of the court the pea green young man met us his air was jaunty well I was right you see he said smiling and withdrawing his cigarette you're back the wrong fella I told you I'd win I won't say more now this is not the time or place to refer to that subject but by and by you'll come round you'll think better of it still you'll back the winner I wished I were a man that I might have the pleasure of kicking him we drove back to my hotel and waited for Harold to my horror and alarm he never came near us I might almost have doubted him if he had not been Harold I waited and waited he did not come at all he sent no word, no message and all that evening we heard the news boys shouting at the top of their voice in the street extra special the asher's wilk ice sensational developments mysterious disappearance of Mr. Harold Tillington end of chapter 10 read by Goldfish