The Adventures of Kathlyn

Kit, beautiful Kit! Oh, they would not, could not let her die! And

she had come into this land with her mind aglow with fairy stories!

One of the leopards in the treasury corridors roared, and Winnie

crouched into her cushions. What were they going to do to her? For

she understood perfectly that she was only a prisoner and that the

crown meant nothing at all so far as authority was concerned. She was

indeed the veriest puppet. What with Ahmed's disclosures and Kathlyn's

advice she knew that she was nothing more than a helpless pawn in this

oriental game of chess. At any moment she might be removed from the

board.

She became tense again. She heard the slip-slip of sandals In the

corridor, a key turn in the lock. The door opened, and in the dim

light she saw Umballa.

He stood by the door, silently contemplating her. "What a certain

dungeon holds!" still eddied through the current of his thoughts.

Money, money! He needed it; it was the only barrier between him and

the end, which at last he began to see. Money, baskets and bags of it,

and he dared not go near. May the fires of hell burn eternally in the

bones of these greedy soldiers, his only hope!

His body ached; liquid fire seemed to have taken the place of blood in

his veins. His back and shoulders were a mass of bruises. Beaten with

a gun butt, driven, harried, cursed--he, Durga Ram! A gun butt in the

hands of a low caste! He had not only been beaten; he had been

dishonored and defiled. His eyes flashed and his fingers closed

convulsively, but he was sober. To take yonder white throat in his

hands! It was true; he dared not harm a hair of her head!

"Your sister Kathlyn perished under the wheels of the car of

Juggernaut."

Winnie did not stir. The aspect of the man fascinated her as the

nearness of a cobra would have done. Vipers not only crawl in this

terrible land; they walk. One stung with fangs and the other with

words.

"She is dead, and to-morrow your father dies."

The disheveled appearance of the man did not in her eyes confirm this.

Indeed, the longer she gazed at him the more strongly convinced she

became that he was lying. But wisely she maintained her silence.

"Dead," he repeated. "Within a week you shall be my wife. You know.

They have told you. I want money, and by all the gods of Hind, yours

shall be the hand to give it to me. Marry me, and one week after I

will give you means of leaving Allaha. Will you marry me?"

"Yes." The word slipped over Winnie's lips faintly. She recalled

Ahmed's advice: to humor the man, to play for time; but she knew that

if he touched her she must scream.