But, at Allahabad, Major Alan
Hawke was raving alone in a helpless rage. There was no Johnstone
there, and Ram Lal Singh had telegraphed him: "The daughter and
governess went away in the night by the railroad--special train.
A man from Calcutta took them away."
"You shall pay for this, you old hound!" he yelled, "Yes, with your
heart's blood.'"
CHAPTER IX.
ALAN HAWKE PLAYS HIS TRUMP CARD.
When the Calcutta train rolled into Allahabad, two days after Harry
Hardwicke's crushing surprise, Major Alan Hawke, the very pink of
Anglo-Indian elegance, awaited the dismounting of the returning
voyagers. He had passed a whole sleepless night in revolving the
various methods to play oft each of his wary employers against each
other, and had decided to let Fate make the game.
"The devil of it is, I'm not supposed to know anything of the
flitting!" he mused, after digesting Ram Lal Singh's carefully
worded telegrams. All the light in his shadowy mental eclipse was
the positive information that a special train had been made up for
Bombay at the station, "on government secret service."
"The old man is preparing to fight, now," he decided. "His 'wooden
horse' is within Berthe Loiuson's camp. If she is not wary, she
may never leave India, Johnstone can be very ugly. But what must
I do? Shall I warn Berthe, now? If I do, she will both doubt me
and make a scene.
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