Only Berthe's determined attack on
the granting of the baronetcy in London, and her own "lightning
disappearance" had saved her from Ram Lal's cupidity. Master of
the secrets of a dozen Eastern poisons, the artful confederate of
her dark retinue in the silver bungalow, Ram Lal would have gladly
worked Hugh Johnstone's will for his red gold. But the fierce quarrel
and the precipitate flight of Berthe Louison had balked Johnstone,
who fell by the very hand of the sly wretch whom he had designed
to buy, as the murderer of another. The engineer hoist by his own
petard. But, steadfastly looking to Valerie's child alone, she knew
not the dangers which she had escaped.
"I was afraid they would kill you, Madame. Thank God, we are now
safe at sea!" said Jules Victor.
"Who?" cried the startled woman.
"Why, that old wretch; he had money, and his spies were all around
you," said Jules.
"Yes! Thank God! We are safe now!" mused Berthe Louison, and she
bade a long adieu to the strange scenes of her pilgrimage. "I shall
never see India again!" she reflected, when she passed, in a mental
review, Calcutta, holy Benares, smoky Patna, brisk Allahabad,
Cawnpore, where the white-winged angel broods over the innocent
dead, heroic Lucknow, and crime-haunted Delhi--all these rose up
in a weird panorama of the mind. Strange tales of wild adventure
told by Alan Hawke returned to her now--the mysteries of Thibet,
the weird ferocity of Bhotan, the quaint tales of the polyandrous
Todas, and the strange story of Vijaynagar, the desecrated city
whose streets are peopled but ten days in the year! A lotos land
where crime broods, where the cobra hides under the painted blossoms
of Death!
Glittering palaces of Agra, gloomy caves of Elephanta, the light
and lovely Mohammedan architecture, the dark haunts of Kali and
Bowanee, the thronged Ghats of the sacred rivers, the color medleys
of the vast cities, all these busied her as she passed her days
alone in study over the secretly gathered up collection of polychrome
views which had taken her from the Neilgherries to Cape Comorin.
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