"Hukum hai!" he murmured in Hindustani. "It is the orders. I've
simply got to go. When I recall those rubies and emeralds and
pearls. . . . Well, it's not cupidity for myself. It's for the girls.
Besides; there's the call, the adventure. I've simply got to go. I
can't escape it. I must be always on the go . . . since she died."
A few days later he stood again before the desk in the living-room. He
was dressed for travel. He sat down and penned a note. From the box
which contained the order he extracted a large envelope heavily sealed.
This he balanced in his hand for a moment, frowned, laughed, and swore
softly. He would abdicate, but at a snug profit. Why not? . . . He
was an old fool. Into a still larger envelope he put the sealed
envelope and his own note, then wrote upon it. He was blotting it as
his daughters entered.
"Come here, my pretty cubs." He held out the envelope. "I want you,
Kit, to open this on December thirty-first, at midnight. Girls like
mysteries, and if you opened it any time but midnight it wouldn't be
mysterious. Indeed, I shall probably have you both on the arms of my
chair when you open it."
"Is it about the medal?" demanded Winnie.
"By George, Kit, the child is beginning to reason out things," he
jested.
Winnie laughed, and so did Kathlyn, but she did so because occultly she
felt that her father expected her to laugh. She was positively uncanny
sometimes in her perspicacity.
"On December thirty-first, at midnight," she repeated. "All right,
father. You must write to us at least once every fortnight."
"I'll cable from Singapore, from Ceylon, and write a long letter from
Allaha. Come on. We must be off. Ahmed is waiting."
Some hours later the two girls saw the Pacific Mail steamer move with
cold and insolent majesty out toward the Golden Gate. Kathlyn proved
rather uncommunicative on the way home. December thirty-first kept
running through her mind. It held a portent of evil. She knew
something of the Orient, though she had never visited India. Had her
father made an implacable enemy? Was he going into some unknown,
unseen danger? December thirty-first, at midnight. Could she hold her
curiosity in check that long?
Many of the days that followed dragged, many flew--the first for
Kathlyn, the last for Winnie, who now had a beau, a young newspaper man
from San Francisco. He came out regularly every Saturday and returned
at night. Winnie became, if anything, more flighty than ever. Her
father never had young men about. The men he generally gathered round
his board were old hunters or sailors. Kathlyn watched this budding
romance amusedly. The young man was very nice. But her thoughts were
always and eternally with her father.