The Adventures of Kathlyn

His pipe slipped from his fingers and his head fell upon his knees; and

thus Kathlyn found him.

"Let him sleep, Mem-sahib," warned Ahmed from across the fire. "He has

been fighting the old guru."

"What?" Kathlyn whispered back. "Where?"

Ahmed smiled grimly and pointed toward his forehead.

"Is there really such evil, Ahmed?"

"Evil begets evil, heaven born, just as good begets good. The Colonel

Sahib did wrong. And who shall deny some of these gurus a supernatural

power? I have seen; I know."

"But once you said that we should eventually escape, all of us."

"And I still say it, Mem-sahib. What is written is written,"

phlegmatically.

Wearily she turned toward her tent, but paused to touch the head of her

sleeping father as she passed. Her occidental mind would not and could

not accept as possibilities these mysterious attributes of the oriental

mind. That a will could reach out and prearrange a man's misfortunes

was to her mind incredible, for there were no precedents. She never

had witnessed a genuine case of hypnotism; those examples she had seen

were miserable buffooneries, travesties, hoodwinking not even the

newsboys in the upper gallery. True, she had sometimes read of such

things, but from the same angle with which she had read the Arabian

Nights--fairy stories.

Yet, here was her father, thoroughly convinced of the efficacy of the

guru's curse; and here was Ahmed, complacently watching the effects,

and not doubting in the least that his guru would in the end prove the

stronger of the two.

One of the elephants clanked his chains restlessly. He may have heard

the prowling of a cat. Far beyond the fire, beyond the sentinel, she

thought she saw a naked form flash out and back of a tree. She stared

intently at the tree for a time; but as she saw nothing more, she was

convinced that her eyes had deceived her. Besides her body seemed dead

and her mind too heavy for thought.

Umballa, having satisfied himself that the camp would not break till

morning, slunk away into the shadows. He had failed again; but his

hate had made him strong. He was naked except for a loin clout. His

beard and hair were matted, the latter hanging over his eyes. His body

was smeared with ashes. Not even Ahmed would have recognized him a

yard off. He had something less than nine hours to reach the cape

before they did; and it was necessary that he should have accomplices.

The fishermen he knew to be of predatory habits, and the promise of

gold would enmesh them.

The half island which constituted the cape had the shape of a miniature

volcano. There was verdure at the base of its slope and trees lifted

their heads here and there hardily. It was a mile long and half a mile

wide; and in the early morning it stood out like a huge sapphire

against the rosy sea. Between the land and the promontory there lay a

stretch of glistening sand; there was half a mile of it. Over this a

flock of gulls were busy, as scavengers always are. At high tide,

yonder was an island in truth.