"The king dead, Hare dead, and his daughter on the throne! How did she
get here? And what the devil is a chap to do?" Bruce stooped and
recovered his pipe and swore softly. "Ali, if this is true, then it's
some devil work; and I'll wager my shooting eye that that sleek scoundrel
Umballa, as they call him, is at the bottom of it. A white woman, good
old Hare's daughter. I'll look into this. It's the nineteenth century,
Ali, and white women are not made rulers over the brown, not of their own
free will. Find out all you can and report to me," and Bruce dismissed
his servant and fell to pacing before his tent.
The native who had spread this astounding news in Bruce's camp was
already hastening back to the city, some fourteen miles away. He had
been a bheestee (water carrier) to the house of Ramabai up to the young
banker's incarceration. To him, then, he carried the news that a white
hunter had arrived outside the city--"Bruce Sahib has returned!"
Ramabai lost no time in taking this news to Kathlyn.
"Ramabai, I have saved your life; save mine. Go at once to him and tell
him that I am a prisoner but am called a queen; tell him I am Colonel
Hare's daughter, she who traveled with him on the same ship from Hongkong
to Singapore. Go! Tell him all, the death of my father and Umballa's
treachery. Hasten!"
Bruce was eating his simple evening meal when Ramabai arrived.
"Bruce Sahib?"
"Yes. Your face is familiar."
"You have been twice to my bank. I am Ramabai."
"I remember. But what are you doing here?"
"I have come for aid, Sahib, aid for a young woman, white like yourself."
"Then it is true? Go ahead and let me have all the facts. She is Hare
Sahib's daughter; Ali told me that. Precious rigmarole of some sort.
The facts!"
"She is also the young lady who traveled in the same boat from Hongkong
to Singapore." Ramabai paused to see the effect of this information.
Bruce lowered his fork slowly. The din about him dwindled away into
nothing. He was again leaning over the rail, watching the
phosphorescence trail away, a shoulder barely touching his: one of the
few women who had ever stirred him after the first glance. In God's
name, why hadn't she said something? Why hadn't she told him she was
Colonel Hare's daughter? How was he to know? (For Hare, queerly enough,
had never shown his young friend the photographs of his daughters.)
Perhaps he had been at fault; he, too, had scarcely stirred from his
shell. And where was that scoundrel Rao?
"I shall enter the city as soon as I can settle my bungalow. This rather
knocks me out."