THE GREAT RUBY. A TALE OF ADVENTURE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2605, 17 February 1904, Page 59

THE GREAT RUBY. A TALE OF ADVENTURE.

By T. W. HANS HEW,

Author of "The World's Finger," "The Mallison Mystery," etc.

young Luttrell again and again proposed visits to the seashore, to the woods, to any and ail places of interest that should take them away from the cottage and its vicinity. He even went so far -as to send one of his Indian allies down to Penvarney to hire saddle horses for a week's time, and tried by this means to tempt Sir Nigel and Helen away from the house.

But the temptation was of no .avail : keen lovers of the saddle finished equestrians though they both were, not even the pleasure of riding Pegasus himself would have tempted them to go a hundred yards away from Lonewood Cottage that day, or to be out of sight when Jack Tredennis should come.

And Jack Tredennis came not at all!

"He only said that he might come today, dad, dear," said Helen, whep the night fell" and still no sign of him. "V ou mustn't be gloomy and downcast ; he only said that he might come, remember, and think how full his hands are with his own affairs and what a mission he is on. He will come to-morrow ; I am very sure that he will."

Yet when that morrow came, it was as fruitless as yesterday ftad been !

From dawn to dark no sign of Tredennis, and from dark to dawn again nothing bui the same vain hope and the same useless watching. By this time even Helen had begun to feel worried and anxious, and, as the day wore on, she fell to remembering the dreadful reason which had prevented him from keeping his promise on that other occasion when she had looked so eagerly for his coming, and a fear she did not dare to give a name began to gnaw at her heart. "It can't be; it simply can't be!" she told herself. "Lord St. Omer can't have had the boldness to follow him to this neighbourhood, and, even if he should have done so, Jack is too well on his guard ; he knows the man, and is not likely to be led into any trap by him. Some important discovery in relation to his mother has turned vp — I feel instinctively that that ia it — and he has not been able to spare the time to come to us before. Who knows but he may be on his way here even now, and that he may come at any moment T' If she built much on that hope, it was a vain building indeed. The morning wore itself away, the luncheon hour came and passed, and she and Sir Nigel were talking disconsolately in their little private sitting room, when a strange and startling thing happened. "Helen, I can't overcome the feeling that something has happened to young Tredennis," Sir Nigel was saying at the time. "1 don't want to alarm you, my child, but ever since I opened my eyes this morning a queer, uncanny feeling Has possessed me, and I am sure that something is wrong." " You want exercise, dad, dear," said Helen, making a pretence of being far less serious than she felt. "You have scarcely left the house since we came to it, and unless you have a change very soon " She did not finish the sentence. In the very midst of it the door was flung violently open, and, followed by at least half a dozen swarthy, copper-skinned men, there stalked into the room no less a person than Mr Gideon Luttrell, his clothing disordered, his face haggard, and his whole body shaking with excitement. " Through the rooms with you ; search every corner ; try every window ; look into every cupboard !" he said with a sweeping gesture as he came hurrying in. "If she's been here, she's found her way to them in spite of Abbas — in spite of j r ou all — and the thing's in. these rooms if it's anywhere. AUessayah ! Noozrut ! Sayd ! here, all of you ! Seize these people, and search them. By the sacred tooth of Buddha, if it is on them I will have it though it cost their lives !" And then, before Sir Nigel or Helen could prevent it — indeed, before they even realised what was about to be — three swiftmoving coppery-skinned figures flashed across the room/ and they were seized and searched with amazing dexterity, and in the twinkling of an eye. " You hound ! what is the meaning of this? How dare you put such an indignity upon mj daughter and me?" said Sir Nigel, turning, in a white-heat passion, upon Mr Luttrell.

" None of your business, you pig of an infidel !" answered Luttrell in a voice of seething wrath. "AUessayah, have you found nothing?" "Nothing, O Son >f Arjeeb! Neither the man nor the woman has it." "Has what, you rascals?" cried Sir Nigel, shaking with wrath. "WJiat are you looking for, that you have dared to lay hands on Miss Forrester and me?" And, as before, Gideon Luttrell answered him : "None of your business ! What we want we will find ; make no mistake aboutj. that. Noozrut! Sayd! is there no trace of her in any of tbe Jtooais?"

CHAPTER XV— (Continued.)

O KEEP Abbas Luttrell in good humour, he was invited - to lunch with them, and to be ever in reach lest Jack ; should airive, and they not ; be there to meet him, neither I father nor daughter went more than fifty yards away from the cottage, although

swered the men, who had gone into the adjoining suite whilst Sir Nigel and Helen were being searched. "It is as our brothers below have fissured us : the daughter of infidel thieves has not been here. If she is to come, she has not come yet."' •A look of relief, too great to be expressed, passed ovtr Gideon Luttrell's face, and he gave a little laugh of hystei'ical happiness.

"She will come; she will come yet!" he said. "Out with you ; surround the house, and lie in hiding. What is to be will be. She will come here to these infidels, and if you are watchful, we shall have her. Lock the doors, and keep this man and this woman prisoners. They must have no chance to warn the infidel dog of our watching and to come between us and our sacred aim. Out with you all, and mind there are eyes in every corner!"

Then "smack!" went the door, as he and his companions ran ov.t of the room, and locked it behind them, and presently there came the rattling sound of keys turning in many locks, and Sir Nigel, hastening to try the doors of Helen's suite and his own found every one of them fastened.

" Helen," he &aid, coming back to his daughter — "Helen, we are locked in. Luttrell has made prisoners of us. Whatever can it mean?"

" 1 think I know, dad," she answered, with a little nervous laugh "Lady Adela's key to the hiding place of the Ruby has been found, and Jemima Ann has got it." "Helen!"

'' I believe it, dad, dear ; as I am a living creature I believe it. Oh ! if only Jack Tredennis would ceme now when we need him so much!"

But Jack Tredennis did not come !

To-day passed as yesterday had passed — without a sign of him, — and night coming down again found matters worse than ever ; for now Sir Nigel and Helen were prisoners, and outside, in the darkness, a cordon of spies lay hid in the bushes, watching to see that no one came near them.

And Jack Tredennis never came !

The evening deepened to night, and the night wore on toward the hour when night is said to cease. Too greatly excited to sleep, Sir Nigel and Helen sat talking together in the quiet little sitting room, and waiting they knew not for what.

Outside the darkness lay close and thick about the quiet sleeping world, and it was impossible to see an inch beyond the windows : through the distance the voice of the far-off sea droned with a faint and mournful sound, and somewhere in the wilderness that stretched out before the cottage a bird roused from sleep shrilled out a frightened cry. Sir Nigel and Helen talked on, hearing and seeing nothing, until, all of a sudden, there came an odd tapping sound upon the window behind them — a window opening out upon a sort of balcony all wreathed with vines on the south side of the house — and Helen, attracted by it, looked round and saw a face pressed against the glass. She gave a little startled cry, and, rising, ran to it, opening the window very cautiously, and saying in a voice that was scarcely audible, "Sh-h-h ! I knew you would come ; I was certain that you would. Oh ! have you got it, dear ?"

"Well, I ain't got nuffink else," answered a voice out of the darkness. "I say, put down the light, will yer? or else draw the curtains round so's they will shadder me. That's the caper. Now, lay low — I'm comin' in."

And then, out of the darkness of the clustering vines, slid slowly the figure of Jemima Ann.