A Traitor's Wooing.

by Headon Hill.

CHAPTER I

TWO VILLAINS AND THE HEROINE

"Your Highness will find your opportunity now; Miss Maynard is for the moment alone," Mr. Travers Nugent whispered to his companion.

A guttural "Ah!" was the only answer as the individual addressed left the speaker's side and made his way through the crush towards a tall girl who had just dismissed her partner in the last dance. The ball-room at Brabazon House was almost inconveniently crowded on the occasion of this, the first great function of the London season, and progress was a little difficult. A gleam of satisfaction crept into Mr. Nugent's steadily following eyes when at length the Maharajah stood bowing before the fair young Englishwoman.

The Indian Prince, a notable figure by reason of the jewelled turban that crowned his otherwise orthodox European evening dress, gave his arm to the girl, who greeted him with a pleasant smile of recognition, and together the pair strolled out through one of the French windows into the vast tropical winter-garden for which Brabazon House is celebrated.

The dusky face of the Maharajah as it disappeared from view wore an expression of ecstatic rapture that caused Mr. Nugent's thin lips to curl in the ghost of a sneer.

"His Highness won't look like that when he comes back," the watcher muttered under his breath, as he leaned against a pillar and composed himself to wait. Mr. Travers Nugent spent much of his life in waiting--with the consolation of knowing that there was generally a big stake to wait for. He was a well-built man of middle age and height, wearing a long, fair moustache that at first sight gave him rather a distinguished air--an impression that was, however, negatived for any student of character by a hint of shiftiness in the close-set blue eyes.

A bachelor of good family, and of no visible occupation, Travers Nugent moved easily in the orbit of West End society. He occupied a luxurious flat in Jermyn Street, and rented besides a pretty cottage in Devonshire, to which he retired after the fatigues of the season. He had a host of acquaintances, but very few intimates, and even to these latter the source of his income was a mystery. He was vaguely supposed to have inherited a small patrimony from an adventurous uncle who had died in America, and to whom he sometimes jocularly referred as his "avuncular oof-bird." As a matter of fact, there was a substratum of truth in this, to the extent of about a hundred a year, but as Mr.

Nugent usually spent 2,000 in that period some other explanation was needed.

He could have furnished one readily, had he been so minded. He lived, and lived well, upon the best a.s.set with which kindly Nature can endow a man not otherwise provided for--a clever, subtle brain, prompt to seize every chance that may come to it, and, failing such fortuitous aid, equally prompt to manufacture the chances for itself. To put it plainly, Travers Nugent lived upon his wits. A soldier of fortune, he belonged to the commissioned ranks of the great predatory army which sacrifices nothing to scruple, to compa.s.sion, or to honour. As cruel and as secret as the grave, he made a very good thing of it, and on its profits fed several unholy vices which no one knew that he possessed.

For the last three months he had been acting as self-appointed bear-leader to the arrogant Indian prince who had gone out into the winter garden with the loveliest of all the budding debutantes of the year upon his arm. There are many ways in which a not too scrupulous man of the world can be of use to an Oriental potentate whose civilization is only skin deep, and Travers Nugent had already established many claims upon the exalted visitor's grat.i.tude.

His prophecy was quickly verified. Black thunder lowering on his swarthy brows, the Maharajah of Sindkhote came back through the window into the ball-room, and he came alone. Another dance was in progress now, but the Eastern barbarian, under the veneer of Western polish, had broken loose.

Like one demented, yet with some remnants of savage dignity clinging to him, he strode straight across the floor to where Nugent still leaned against the pillar. The amused dancers who had to steer clear of his imperious path forgave much for the priceless jewels in his turban.

"Come away before I kill some one, Nugent," he said in a furious undertone. "Come round to my rooms at once. I must consult you on a matter of the utmost importance, in which I need your help."

Travers Nugent's help was always at the disposal of those who were willing, or could be forced, to pay for it. With the adroit tact for which he was noted he contrived to get the excited prince out of Brabazon House without a scene, forbearing to question him till a motor car had borne them swiftly to the great hotel where the Maharajah was staying. But as soon as they were alone in the dining-room of the suite which his patron for the time being rented there escaped him the two words--

"She refused?"

Bhagwan Singh, Maharajah of Sindkhote, walked unsteadily to the sideboard and poured out half a tumbler of neat brandy. He drank it at a gulp, and then turned to his European mentor, restored to the outward semblance of his customary Oriental calm. A good-looking man with a pale olive complexion, jet black moustache and features of the full-faced Eastern type, he was by no means ill-favoured, though in his lazy eyes there were infinite possibilities of malevolent cruelty.

"Sit down, my dear Nugent, and talk," he said, tossing a gold cigarette-case across the table. "Yes, she not only refused my offer of marriage, but laughed at me--treated me, the descendant of a hundred kings, as a joke. By G.o.d! I could have killed her twenty minutes ago, as she stood smiling disdainfully at me among the palms. But that brandy has steadied me for a better way. She shall be mine yet, though not as Maharanee now. I will have my way with her, and then she shall sweep out the harem."

"That is rather a tall order, Prince," rejoined Nugent, watching the other narrowly. "You will never accomplish that unless you kidnap her, and to convey an unwilling maiden from England to India presents, to my prosaic mind, a good many initial difficulties."

"Difficulties? Yes, but I will give you twenty thousand pounds to help me to surmount them. And I do not even ask you to devise the scheme for humbling this proud Englishwoman to the dust. When you told me that Violet Maynard would laugh me to scorn I did not believe you, but all the same I, Bhagwan Singh, prepared a plan for meeting the contingency.

It depends, however, on one point. Has the girl a lover already?"

"No; I can rea.s.sure you as to that. She has admirers, of course--with her attractions that goes without saying. But she is perfectly heart-whole--so far," was Nugent's reply.

"Then success is certain, for I will provide her with a lover," the Maharajah rejoined, evidently expecting an outburst of surprise at the apparent paradox.

But his cunning eyes searched Travers Nugent's face in vain for signs of any such emotions. It was not that astute gentleman's way to show his inmost feelings, which at the moment were an intense curiosity to learn what was expected of him in return for the enormous bribe. It was characteristic of him that it was in his most indifferent manner that he said:--

"You are altogether too subtle for me, Maharajah, and I cannot think that you are quite serious. If you have finished poking fun at a jaded man about town, I think I'll go home to bed."

He half rose, as if to suit the action to the word, and that was the precise moment when the Hindoo once for all a.s.sumed the lead in the infamous partnership that was to bind them. And Bhagwan Singh gained and kept that mastery by the simple but efficacious expedient of throwing off all semblance of the equality on which they had muck-raked London together. In a blaze of haughty contempt he let his jackal see that he was understood and appreciated at his proper value.

"You are never jaded when there is plunder in view, and you have no intention of going from here till you have heard the proposal to which you will sit still and listen," said Bhagwan Singh, waving him with a commanding gesture back to his chair. "It comes natural to those of Royal blood, Mr. Nugent, to estimate truly those who serve them, and I know that you are a useful but expensive tool, as willing to be bought as I am to buy you. You have taught me some of your slang. I will act on the square with you if you will act on the square with me. If I pay you 20,000, and show you how to do it, will you, without any personal risk to yourself, aid me in achieving the desire of my heart?"

In a matter of business, and when there were no witnesses, there was not much pride about Travers Nugent. He tacitly waived his position as friend of the prince, and became his subordinate by replying:

"I should like to hear your plan before I commit myself, your Highness."

Now the project which the Maharajah of Sindkhote, after further recourse to the brandy decanter, proceeded to unfold, if put forward by any ordinary man, would have seemed on the face of it too wildly preposterous to be entertained for a moment. But Travers Nugent was aware that his patron's wealth was almost boundless, and that the lavish expenditure he was prepared to incur would discount most of the obstacles to the amazing abduction contemplated.

Bhagwan Singh, it transpired, had in his service as commander of his native body-guard a young Englishman who had been compelled by his extravagant follies to leave the British regiment in which he had formerly held a commission. He had incurred such debts in India that he would have been unable to leave that country even if he had possessed the price of a pa.s.sage home, and, being thus stranded and penniless, he had accepted a mere pittance to drill the semi-barbarous matchlockmen of Sindkhote.

"He is mine body and soul, and the wretch is nearly desperate with home-sickness and misery," the Maharajah went on, warming as he saw that he had gripped Nugent's attention. "There are no Europeans for him to a.s.sociate with in Sindkhote, and before his fall he was the most popular young officer at Simla and Calcutta--a good dancer, a crack shot and a grand polo player. He is as strong and as handsome as one of the ancient G.o.ds, and all the ladies adored him. I propose to return to India by the next mail boat, and I shall send him home to England, so that Violet Maynard may fall in love with him."

"What good is that going to do you?" asked Nugent, though his agile mind was already grasping the germ of the idea.

"It will be the task of this Leslie Chermside to induce Miss Maynard to elope with him on a fast steamer, ostensibly his own yacht, which I will furnish you with the funds to charter," the Maharajah continued. "It will be for you to select the crew and make all the arrangements, as well as secretly supervising Chermside's courtship and diplomatically working old Maynard so as to drive his daughter to consent to elope.

Once on board, the rest will be easy, provided the embarkation is skilfully managed. She will make all speed round the Cape for Sindkhote, which is a maritime state, and the thing is done."

"And my twenty thousand will be paid--when?"

"It will be placed to your credit the day Violet Maynard sets foot in my dominions. In any case, you will at once be supplied with the necessary money for preliminary expenses."

Nugent rapidly reflected. Win or lose the main stake, there should be some pretty pickings out of those preliminary expenses, and it ought not to be difficult in the event of failure so to cover up his own connection with the dastardly project as to escape unpleasant consequences for himself. It was a tempting prospect, but there was a flaw in the scheme from the point of view of one who would have sold his best friend for a song.

"You are sure of this fellow Chermside?" he said. "He won't play fast and loose with you, and chuck the whole job as soon as he gets quit of India and his embarra.s.sments there?"

Bhagwan Singh's sensual lips creased in a cruel smile. "My dear Nugent,"

he said, "Mr. Leslie Chermside will not really be quit of his Indian debts till he has served my purpose. I shall buy them up, and hold them over him as a bond of good faith. If he shows signs of kicking over the traces it will be for you to put on the screw--in your own way. Not that I antic.i.p.ate anything of the sort from one who has sunk as low as he has, and I shall further secure his loyalty by the promise of a small pension contingent on his success."

Travers Nugent hesitated no longer. "Here is my hand on it," he exclaimed with an admiration that was not wholly feigned. "It would be flying in the face of Providence to stand out of a campaign planned on such masterly lines. Your Highness has supplied the strategy; I will devise the tactics."

CHAPTER II

"A SCREW LOOSE SOMEWHERE"

A smiling expanse of summer sea; hedges ablaze with wild flowers; the distant moorland one vast carpet of purple heather; and near at hand, dotted up and down on either side of a gently sloping coombe, some scores of pretty houses set in gardens of almost tropical luxuriance.

Towards the lower end of the hill the private residences yielded pride of place to a little main street of more commercial aspect, which terminated in an unpretentious esplanade backed by a row of lodging-houses fronting the beach.

Westward from this spot the red cliffs shelved steadily upward till they culminated a mile and a half away in the Flagstaff Hill, a bold headland so called from the coastguard signal station thereon. Eastward of the esplanade, but hidden from it by a slight eminence, lay the marsh, formerly a broad estuary through which the river, then navigable for several miles inland, had emptied into the sea. In these later days the once broad river's mouth has become a mere stream by the action of a great storm which many years ago hurled a mighty dam of pebbles across all but a few yards of the outlet.

But the banks of the older watercourse remain, their steep red sides all verdure-clad and scored with cavities, hardly to be dignified as caves, concealed in the trailing undergrowth.