The Adventures of Kathlyn - Page 130/201

After a hasty meal the journey toward the sea-port began in earnest.

Umballa's attack had thrown them far out of the regular track. They

were now compelled to make a wide detour. Where the journey might have

been made in three days, they would be lucky now if they reached the

sea under five. The men took turns in standing watch whenever they

made camp, and Kathlyn nor Pundita had time for idleness. They had

learned their lessons; no more carelessness, nothing but the sharpest

vigilance from now on.

One day, as the pony caravan made a turn round a ragged promontory,

they suddenly paused. Perhaps twenty miles to the west lay the emerald

tinted Persian Gulf. The colonel slipped off his horse, dragged

Kathlyn from hers, and began to execute a hornpipe. He was like a boy.

"The sea, Kit, the sea! Home and Winnie; out of this devil's cauldron!

You will come along with us, Bruce?"

"I haven't anything else to do," Bruce smiled back.

Then he gazed at Kathlyn, who found herself suddenly filled with

strange embarrassment. In times of danger sham and subterfuge have no

place. Heretofore she had met Bruce as a man, to whom a glance from

her eyes had told her secret. Now that the door to civilization lay

but a few miles away, the old conventions dropped their obscuring

mantles over her, and she felt ashamed. And there was not a little

doubt. Perhaps she had mistaken the look in his eyes, back there in

the desert, back in the first day when they had fled together from the

ordeals. And yet . . . !

On his part, Bruce did not particularly welcome the sea. There might

be another man somewhere. No woman so beautiful as Kathlyn could

possibly be without suitors. And when the journey down to the sea was

resumed he became taciturn and moody, and Kathlyn's heart

correspondingly heavy.

The colonel was quite oblivious to this change. He swung his legs free

of the primitive stirrups and whistled the airs which had been popular

in America at the time of his departure.

There was no lightness in the expressions of Ramabai and Pundita. They

were about to lose these white people forever, and they had grown to

love, nay, worship them. More, they must return to face they knew not

what.

As for Ahmed, he displayed his orientalism by appearing unconcerned.

He had made up his mind not to return to America with his master.

There was much to do in Allaha, and the spirit of intrigue had laid

firm hold of him. He wanted to be near at hand when Ramabai struck his

blow. He would break the news to the Colonel Sahib before they sailed.

It was four o'clock when the caravan entered the little seaport town.

A few tramp steamers lay anchored in the offing. A British flag

drooped from the stem of one of them. This meant Bombay; and Bombay,

in turn, meant Suez, the Mediterranean and the broad Atlantic.