Krishna.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 78, 1 April 1922, Page 24

Krishna.

By ALLEN UPWARD, Author of "The Bouse of Sin," "Beorats of the Courts of Europe," "The New Word," "Borne Personalities," etc

CHAPTER XI. When Sintram sat down to dinner with his host lie noticed that tbe Vicar of Buck's Hill was rigidly maintaining hie fast. Indeed, it seemed rather a penance than a fast. The clergyman ate nothing but a salad and some dry bread, and permitted himself only one glass of wine. Nevertheless, he seemed in better spirits than Sintram had seen him before. The guest wondered whether this was due to the fact that he was looking forward to meeting Teresa at the dinner party, or to his having received some assurance of support from the formidable leader of the Pantheists. Burchard had accepted the invitation for himself, because it would have ibeen • I simply impossible to refuse it without rudeness to his friend as well as to Sir Orde. On the whole he thought it might give him an opportunity of feeling his way with the baronet before making up bis mind whether or not to appeal to him as a magistrate. He contemplated explaining the situation to the prisoner when he saw her in the morning, and putting off the escape for a day or two until he felt more sure as to his best course. In the meanwhile the invitation fur nished hhn with a good excuse for questioning his old schoolfellow without offence. '•How did you come to know Sir Orde Rutilis?" he asked, as soon as the parlourmaid had left them alone. The question seemed to startle the Vicar of Buck's Hill. He answered with evident discomfort. "I first met him in London. I held a curacy iv Hampstead, and they lived there before ho came into the title." Sintram saw that his friend was holding something back. To give him eaae, he confined his next question to what might be fairly called a matter of public knowledge. "Oh, then he hasn't been down here very long? When did he succeed?" The information might have been obtaind from more than one 'book of reference to .be found in every library. Yet Bede had the air of parting with it against his will. ••About two years ago, on the death of his elder brother." could not resist putting two and two together." '•Then, if it is a fair question, I suppose that is how Madame Vesta, came into the neighbourhood?" The Vicar nodded. "I believe she was looking for a quiet place in the country, where she would not ibe interfered with on account of her religious ideas, and '. I understand that Sir Orde offered her the Lodge, which happened to be vacant. You know what English villagers are like; every stranger is an object of suspicion; and, of course, it made all the difference to have the lord of tho manor on her side." 'To say nothing of the vicar of the parish," Sintram put in, with a smile. His friend glanced at him apprehensively for an instant, and then suddenly became frank. "I don't want to make a secret of it with you, Sintram, but I shouldn't like it to go any further. The fact is that when Sir Orde offered mc the living, a year ago, it was an understood condition .between us that I should show a certain amount of friendliness to Madame Vesta, enough to prevent the villagers from becoming hostile. I don't •say it was quite a right thing to do, but that is how I am fixed, and if I ■broke the engagement in any way I should feel bound to give up the living." The clergyman seemed relieved -by his confession, though he waited rather anxiously for his friend's reception of it. Sintram found it rather difficult to say what he thought. "I don't blame you in the least," he began, " as far as the original promise went. No doubt the patron of a living has a right to make sure that he is getting a peaceful neighbour. But it looks to mc as though he had obtained your promise by false pretences. I expect he represented this woman to you as a harmless crank, or, at all eventa as a .onafide religious propagandist. Of course, he may believe in her himself for aught I know. But it seems to mc that if you have any'reason to suspect that she is engaged in nefarious prat, tices, with or without his knowledge am. approval, the ease is altered. Your promise cannot hind you to shut your eyes to anything really wrong." Bede looked rather miserable "We don t yet know that there is anything wrong," he p, BB d- d> - After g nothing crimtnal in a midnight service— many of the Nonconformist churches hold them, and even some of our own clenrv And the drum we heard may be perfectly We heard it played openly this morning, which doesn't look as though there were anything to con"AVhat about the poor tr-irl?" ' Bede shivered. "I don ? t like that, I confess. But you must remember that you have only heard her side of the question, so far. And, on her own showing her mind is not in its normal state A doctor might take quite » different view of the case." Sintram bit his lip. There was tnr mud, truth in the £__* remLkT L he had reason to know. The conversation seemed to bring him up a „ ainst ™ same obstacle he had encountered already. If Madame Vesta's victim were to he delivered it must be by virtue of «wV lD her ' and «*t alow ° Well old man," he sa id, reluctantly, ask is that you won't side against "And all I ask is that you won't expect mc to do anything that will drive Teres™- 7 m *""• * can ' t leave The two friends shook hands on the ! bargain with mutual goodwill, and went out into the vicarage garden. That night the forest lay silent all around them; and no magical summons (echoing from far-off Asiatic groves, disturbed the innocent peace of the En<*llish woodland. Sintram felt the time .drag till he could ]ook again l lace that haunted his imagination He 'went to bed early, and rose early the ; next morning from a restless couch The moment he had kept his host company at .breakfast long enough for politeness, I he was out in the forest making his way TO the rendezvous. ! f_°f t thiS , ° cca^ion he Was careful not to take the way that led through the village. He had no deairo for a seconencounter with the steely eyes that seemed able to read his inmost thought*

tALL EIGHT- BZSERTXD.]

I lie fancied himself able to strike the back of Madame Vesta's house through the wood, and he had plenty of time to spare. , He was picking his way through the thick undergrowth, guiding himself by the shadows cast by the trees, as he had often had to do in India, when his ear caught a new sound, hardly less suggestive of mystery than the Drum of Krishna, though from a different instrument. I This was the note of a whistle, if that word could be applied to anything so soft and melodious. The sound was penetrating without being shrill, and it was easy to locate, coming from a short distance in front of him. He pulled up sharply, and then resumed his progress at a slower pace, treading as lightly as he could over the grass and fallen leave 6. He had not gone far when a snake crossed his path, almost under his feet. It was a harmless one, as he recognised; nevertheless the sight of its green skin and writhing motion caused him a certain repulsion. He 6tole on with increasing caution till at length ho obtained a glimpse of the piper through the trees. The musioian was Mohun Rao. The tali, turbaned Hindu was squatting on his haunches with his back to the broad trunk of a huge oak, and he was carefully lingering the small pipe at his lips, while his large, sensuous eyeballs rolled this way and that with an sir of keen expectancy. The District Officer would have given much at that moment to have been in his own province in Hindustan, where he could have taken out his revolver and commanded the dark musician to give an account of himself. As it was, he could only stand and wait to see what happened. , Presently a snake —whether the same one he had seen already or another he could not tell—suddenly gleamed out from the undergrowth, and the Hindu's face shown with excitement. But the snake no sooner became aware of the charmer's presence than it swiftly turned aside and glided away as rapidly as it had come. Mohun Rao took the whistle from his lips in disappointment, and nMiitered something in a language which the Anglo-Indian recognised as Hindustani, though he was unable to catch the words. Apparently, the Hindu had been making an experiment, and considered that it had failed. He got up slowly, and walked straight towards the Englishman, frowning as he came. For a moment Burchard beiieved that he had been discovered, and his heart stood still. But the snake-charmer's unseeing glance passed him by, to fix itself steadily beyond. He shrank down among the bushes as far as he dared, and held hie breath, while Mohun Rao went by, nearly brushing him with his muslin tunic as he passed. Thankful for his escape from detection, and still more thankful that the enemy had gone off in the opposite direction to the Lodge, Sintram now resumed his way, and was not long before coming j out straight in front of the postern door. CHAPTER XII. He had already tried this door on a former occasion in vain, but it occurred to him now that the Hindu might possibly have come out into the forest by this exit and left the door unlocked. He ipproached and pressed his weight against it accordingly, but it refused to" yield. He did not regret this very much at the time, as he would have considered it dangerous to enter the garden with the risk of meeting some attendant in the paths. It did not occur to him what fearful importance the postern door might have for him if it* ever came to an attempt to carry off the prisoner by force. He went cautiously round the wall till he came to the right spot. There he eonsuited his watch, and found he had more, than half an hour to wait. But the I thought struck him that the captive herself might also be before her time, in her impatience for news. Not daring to make any signal, for fear of its reaching the wrong ears, he decided to take a look over the wall. Raising himself by the same means as before, he was soon able to satisfy himself that the object of his quest was not yet in sight. The garden was absolutely deserted as far as he could see. He took the opportunity to make a more careful survey than he had yet done. The total extent of ground might have been three or four acres, but most of it was hidden from where he looked. A path running along near the foot of the wall disappeared on the right round a clump of lilacs, beyond which the house itself rose to the height of two He noticed that every one of the windows within sight was closed, in spite of the heat of the day. At the same time none of them appeared to be barred. There was something „a little unusual in the aspect of the house, but it was difficult to define the impression it made. Perhaps the utter silence that -prevailed was rather uncanny. The voice of a bustling servant, or the rattling of a pail, or even the bark of a dog would have come as a relief from the oppressive silence. The same quiet pervaded the grounds. The path beneath him wound away on the left in the direction of the postern door, between beds of vegetables, which were half grown over by weeds, and fruit bushes in a similar state of neglect. The observer's eye fell once more on the curious mounds he had noticed by moonlight on his first visit to the spot. They rose in a bare patch of soil such as might have been planted with cabbages when the garden was under full cultivation. The surrounding mould had evidently (become dry and hard for want of attention, and had bleached in the sun, while the earth composing the mounds was comparatively dark and fresh, showing that it must have been dug recently. There were three in all, and their size and shape and the way in which they were ranged side by side reminded him of a cemetery. Seen in any ordinary garden, he would have guessed them to be the graves of favourite dogs. The shrubs and plants of various kinds which shut off the central part of the garden were as impenetrable by day as by night. Nothing was visible from the wall that could be connected with the mysterious light that had seemed to come from the earth itself somewhere behind the leafy screen. Sintram was Half inclined to think he had been the victim of an optical illusion. The daylight showed the garden to be desolate and neglected enough, but it revealed nothing in any way suspicious—unless it were those three small, melancholy moundi

Tired by his rather painful position on 'the wall, the young man dropped to the ground again, and once more looked at his watch. The hands seemed to be stricken, with paralysis; the very seconds-hand had lost its lively gait, and lagged so wearily that he raised the •watch to his ear to make sure that it was ticking as usual. The blood in his veins began to itch with impatience as he stood there trying every trick known to lovers to cheat time. And still, no signal reached him from beyond the wall. As the actual hour fixed for the

rendezvous approached he began inI venting all sorts of excuses for the girl's delay, some of them rr/asonable, and some fantastic. But when the time had actually come and passed without any I sign of the captive's presence, he began to feel alarmed in earnest. He raised himself to the top of the wall for the second time, and looked over. Nothing was changed. House and garden 6till lay silent and deserted in the noonday. The girl was nowhere in I sight. j Sintram could no longer conceal from himself that something was amiss. He feared that the prisoner must have been deliberately prevented from keeping hel' appointment with him. And he asked himself why? He could not believe that Madame Vesta, with all her penetration, had been cunning enough to guess his interest in her victim from the mere circumstance of meeting him in the road which led past the house. Somebody must have put her on her guard. And who could that someone be, but oner For the first time Sintram allowed his thoughts to dwell unfavourably on the attitude of the Vicar of Buck's Hill. He was fa r from suspectuig that his old schoolfellow had betrayed him knowingly. But he recalled his plainly confessed anxiety to keep on friendly terms with the tenant of the Lodge, and he remembered that Bede had urged him from the outset to approach her openly on the subject of the girl who was in her charge. Was it not possible" that I the clergyman might have taken it on himself to sound her on the subject, without meaning to betray his friend, and that the woman's shrewdness had enabled he r to guess more than she had •been told? if she had received any hint j that the girl's presence under her root ; was known, that would be enough to j put her on her guard. She would at once take precautions to prevent any I communication between the prisoner and any friend outside. | Sintram reluctantly came to the conclusion that this was the explanation of the girl's non-appearance. She was confined to the house. Somewhere in that .silent building, behind one of those lifeless windows, perhaps, the unhappy I prisoner was waiting and longing for deliverance.

The thought was too much for any considerations of prudence to hold him back. He scrambled over the wall, and dropped boldly down into the guarded premises of Buck's Lodge. Fingering the pistol in his right-hand pocket, Sintram crept cautiously along the path that led towards the house. When he had got as far as the Hlao bushes he hid behind them for a minute while he made a careful survey of the approaches to the building. The house stood almost level with the garden. The part nearest to him appeared to contain the kitchen, and there were one or two outhouses, such as might be used for stor/ng wood or coal, or as a larder, with doors fastened by padlocks. Up a narrow passage to the right was what looked like an entrance to the house—probably the back-door. To seek that wajr of going in would be dangerous. If there were any servants on the premises some of them would be sure to be about in that quarter. On .beyond the kitchen from where he stood there wag a conservatory opening into the garden by means of a door, which was shut, though there was nothing to show whether it was fastened orl not. Sintram decided that he must try) to effect an entrance by this door before going further. The problem was how to reach it without being observed. He dared not risk crossing the garden in front of Che kitchen windows. It was necessary to go back and make a circuit through the grounds to the other side of the house. He stole back as cautiously as he had come, till he reached the space in which the three mounds were situated. He gave another look at them as he passed, and was more than ever impressed by their likeness to small graves. Small graves! In a flash the horrible idea gripped him. Dr. YVildman had hinted that Madame Vesta's patient might have been sent to her for an unlawful' purpose. What if this were a part of the mystery of Buck's Lodge? What if those sinister mounds had some connection with the appalling worship of "Love Without Bounds"? Shuddering in every limb, Sintram crept past, and presently found himself on the other side of the garden. He did not stop to investigate the central shrubbery, whence the strange light had seemed to come. His nerves were tingling with the resolution not to leave his adopted sister in this accursed place for another hour. He found himself able to approach the conservatory under cover of a high privet hedge. Looking through the glass he saw nothing but grape vines and some azaleas in pots. Very gently he tried the handle of the door. To his relief it opened without any effort, and in another moment he found himself inside Madame Vesta's house. His position was not altogether a pleasant one. In the eye of the law he was a trespasser, and he had come with the intention of committing a more serious offence, the abduction of a minor. His motives might be good in his own eyes, but he had no means of proving that to anyone who took a different view. He had not a particle of real evidence against the mistress of Buck's Lodge. She was the head of what passed as a reputable religious body; she wa s living there opeulv with the countenance of the local magistrates and the vicar of the parish; and she had undertaken the care of a girl admittedly in need of special treatment, who had presumably been entrusted to her by her parents or lawful guardians. And he, Sintram Burehard, an official of the Indian Government, and a perfect stranger to the patient, proposed to kidnap her and carry her off by stealth or open violence, without even bavin"- anywhere to take her. Burehard was "accustomed to responsibility and sometimes to peril in his work as a District Officer, but he had never taken in hand such a responsible and perilous enterprise as this. He advanced through the greenhouse into a drawing-room whose contents'( were in harmony with their owners char-i acter. The walls were hung with Indian \ matting and pictures of weird Hindu ! gods. A statuette of Buddha in ivory ; stood on a pedestal in one corner. Chinese ornaments in jade and lacquer i covered the mantel-shelf. A locked book-! case against the opposite. wall contained j volumes mostly dealing with the occuK,| but among them was Burton's celebrated translation of tha "Arabian !

Nights"—the u_e_purgated edition, il heavy _cent of sandal and other Eastern perfumes hung in the close atmosphere. The floor was covered with thick carpets of 'Persian design.

The intruder stepped cautiously across the room to the door, which wa9 protected by a striped woollen curtain. ■Lifting this aside he placed his hand on the knob. The next he had withdrawn his hand and let the curtain fall again. His intent ear had caught the sound of hare feet slapping on the floor of the passage beyond.

He stood there, breathing softly, to give time for the man to go past. All at once he was aware that the door was stealthily opening towards him. His movement of the curtain had allowed a ray of light to cros3 the passage, perhaps, through a chink in the door. He stepped backwards, keeping himself behind the curtain as the door slowly moved. Presently a thin, brown hand appeared holding the edge of the door. (To be continued next Saturday.)