The Adventures of Kathlyn

Having decided upon the fate of Kathlyn, the natives set about

recapturing the wild elephant. It took the best part of the morning.

When this was accomplished the journey to Allaha was begun. But for

the days of peace and quiet of the wilderness and the consequent

hardness of her flesh, Kathlyn would have suffered greatly. Half the

time she was compelled to walk. There was no howdah, and it was a

difficult feat to sit back of the mahout. The rough skin of the

elephant had the same effect upon the calves of her legs that sandpaper

would have had. Sometimes she stumbled and fell, and was rudely jerked

to her feet. Only the day before they arrived was she relieved in any

way: she was given a litter, and in this manner she entered the hateful

city.

In giving her the litter the chief mahout had been inspired by no

expressions of pity; simply they desired her to appear fresh and

attractive when they carried her into the slave mart.

In fitful dreams all that had happened came back to her--the story her

father had told about saving the old king's life, and the grim,

ironical gratitude in making Colonel Hare his heir--as if such things

could be! And then her own journey to Allaha; the nightmarish durbar,

during which she had been crowned; the escape from the ordeals with

John Bruce; the terrors of the temple of the sun; the flight from there

. . . John Bruce! She could still see the fire in his eyes; she could

still feel the touch of his gentle yet tireless hand. Would she ever

see him again?

On the way to the mart they passed under the shadow of the grim prison

walls of the palace. The elephants veered off here into a side street,

toward the huge square where horses and cattle and elephants were

bought and sold. The litter, in charge of the chief mahout, proceeded

to the slave mart. Kathlyn glanced at the wall, wondering. Was her

father alive? Was he in some bleak cell behind that crumbling masonry?

Did he know that she was here? Or was he really dead? Ah, perhaps it

were better that death should have taken him--better that than having

his living heart wrung by the tale of his daughter's unspeakable

miseries.

Even as she sent a last lingering look at the prison the prisoner

within, his head buried in his thin wasted hands, beheld her in a

vision--but in a happy, joyous vision, busying about the living room of

the bungalow.

And far away a younger man beheld a vision as very tenderly he gazed at

Kathlyn's discarded robe and resumed his determined quest. Often,

standing beside his evening fires, he would ask the silence, "Kathlyn,

where are you?" Even then he was riding fast toward Allaha.