"But I thought my husband was--in prison," chimed in Mrs. Scarsdale; "the paper said so."

"Merely a case of mistaken ident.i.ty," Jack hastened to a.s.sure her. "I had him set free in no time. And that reminds me: I ran across your brother here last evening, Allingford. It is he who has caused all the trouble. Frankly, I am almost sorry I did not give him over to the police."

"I wish you had," replied the Consul; "I wouldn't have bailed him out till my honeymoon was over. Where is he now?"

"I'm inclined to believe," replied Carrington, "that he has gone to Melton Court in search of you, in company with a man who talked some nonsense about your having stolen an elephant from him."

Allingford and Mrs. Scarsdale both began to laugh.

"I don't see anything funny about that," said Jack.

"Oh, don't you?" returned the Consul. "Well, you would if you knew the rest of the story." And in a few brief words he explained about the elephant's arrival and their subsequent flight.

"Heavens, man!" cried Carrington, "you don't seem to realise what you have let Scarsdale and your wife in for!"

"Great Scott!" exclaimed the Consul, "I never thought of that. Why, I reckon it's rampaging all over the place by this time, and the old lady must be in a perfect fury. When's the next train back? We can't get there too quickly."

"One goes in five minutes," said Jack.

"If I'd ever suspected," gasped Mrs. Scarsdale to Allingford as they rushed down the platform, "that you were laying such a trap for my poor husband----"

"I'm sure I didn't do it on purpose," he replied; "but if they happen to meet the catawampus after she's met the elephant, they'll be in for a pretty hot time."

"Your brother was bad enough," she groaned as the train pulled out; "but as for your elephant----! It's worse than being arrested!"

CHAPTER X

IN WHICH LADY MELTON RECEIVES A STRANGE VISITOR

However hara.s.sing and disturbing the events of the past few days had been to the people particularly interested in them, to the mind of one the proceedings of all those with whom he had come in contact had been characterised by an ignorance, not only of the necessities of life, but even of the very etiquette that lends a becoming dignity to existence, which seemed almost pitiful. Not since the elephant left his native sh.o.r.e had he received what he considered to be proper, or even intelligent, attention. On the voyage, indeed, though his quarters were crowded, and denied by the proximity of low-caste beasts, his material wants had been considered; but since yesterday, when he had landed in the midst of a howling wilderness of iron monsters, who could neither see nor hear and were no respecters of persons, there had been a scarcity even of food and water. All night he had been dragged about the country at a speed unbecoming the dignity of a ruler of the jungle (without even the company of his mahout, who had lost the train at Southampton); and, now that the earth had ceased to move past him and was once more still, he expressed his opinion of the ignorant and degraded people of this wretched country in no uncertain voice. Then, finding that the pen in which he was confined was cramped and dirty, and wholly unfitted for one of his exalted position, he exerted himself to be free, and in a short time reduced his car to kindling-wood. Being now at liberty, he naturally desired his breakfast; but what was one to do when men disfigured the earth with bars of steel over which one tripped, and stored the fruits of the land in squat yellow bungalows, with fluted iron roofs which were difficult to tear off? Therefore the elephant lifted up his voice in rage, whereat many things happened, and a high-caste man, clad in the blue of the sky and the gold of the sun, ran up and down upon the earth, and declared that he should forthwith be taken to the "Court" and delivered to the "Damconsul."

What a "Damconsul" was the elephant did not know; but concluded that it was the t.i.tle these barbarous people bestowed on the Maharajah of that district. Since he lived at a Court, it seemed certain that he would know how to appreciate and fittingly entertain him. The elephant therefore consented to follow his attendant slaves, though they understood not the n.o.ble art of riding him, but were fain to lead him like a beast of burden. On the way he found a spring of sweet water, of which he drank his fill, despite the protestations of his leaders and the outcries of the inhabitants of the bungalow of the well, whose lamentations showed them to be of low caste and little sensible of the honour done them.

The procession at length reached the gate of the Court; and while the attendants were in the lodge explaining matters to the astonished keeper, the elephant, realising that "drink was good but food better,"

determined to do a little foraging on his own account, and so moved softly off, taking along the stake to which his keepers fondly imagined he was tethered.

He judged that he was now in the park of the Court of the "Damconsul"; and the fact that there were many clumps of familiar plants scattered over the gra.s.s increased his belief that this was the case. He tried a few coleus and ate a croton or two; but found them insipid and lacking the freshness of those which bloomed in his native land. Then turning to a grove of young palms, he tore a number up by the roots; which he found required no expenditure of strength, and so gave him little satisfaction. Moreover, they grew in green tubs, which rolled about between his feet and were pitfalls for the unwary. He lay down on a few of the beds; but the foliage was pitifully thin and afforded him no comfortable resting-place; moreover, there were curious rows of slanting things which glistened in the sunlight, and which he much wished to investigate. On examination he found them quite brittle, and easily smashed a number of them with his trunk. Nor was this all, for in the wreckage he discovered a large quant.i.ty of most excellent fruit--grapes and nectarines and some very pa.s.sable plums. Evidently the "Damconsul" was an enlightened person, who knew how to live; and, indeed, it is not fitting for even an elephant to turn up his trunk at espalier peaches at a guinea apiece.

Certainly, thought the elephant, things might be worse. And after a bath in a neighbouring fountain, which cost the lives of some two score of goldfish, he really felt refreshed, and approached the palace, which he considered rather dingy, in order to pay his respects to its owner.

Coming round to the front of the building he discovered a marble terrace, gleaming white in the sunshine, and flanked by two groups of statuary--Hercules with his club, and Diana with her bow: though, being unacquainted with Greek mythology, he did not recognise them as such.

On the terrace itself was set a breakfast-table resplendent with silver and chaste with fair linen; and by it sat a houri, holding a sunshade over her golden head. The elephant, wishing to conciliate this vision of beauty, advanced towards her, trumpeting gently; but his friendly overtures were evidently misinterpreted, for the houri, giving a wild scream, dropped her sunshade, and fled for safety to the shoulders of Hercules, from which vantage-point she called loudly for help.

Feeling that such conduct was indecorous in the extreme, he ignored her with a lofty contempt; and, having tested the quality of the masonry, ventured upon the terrace and inspected the feast. There were more nectarines--but he had had enough of those--and something steaming in a silver vessel, the like of which he remembered to have encountered once before in the bungalow of a sahib. Moreover, he had not forgotten how it spouted a boiling liquid when one took it up in one's trunk. At this moment a shameless female slave appeared at a window, in response to the cries of the houri, and abused him. He could not, it is true, understand her barbarous language; but the tone implied abuse. Such an insult from the sc.u.m of the earth could not be allowed to pa.s.s unnoticed. He filled his trunk with water from a marble basin near at hand, and squirted it at her with all his force, and the sc.u.m of the earth departed quickly.

"It would be well," thought the elephant, "to find the 'Damconsul'

before further untoward incidents could occur"; and with this end in view, he turned himself about, preparatory to leaving the terrace. He forgot, however, that marble may be slippery; his hind legs suddenly slid from under him, and he sat hurriedly down on the breakfast-table.

It was at this singularly inopportune moment that Lady Diana appeared upon the scene.

Her ladyship awoke that morning to what was destined to be the most eventful and disturbing day of her peaceful and well-ordered life, with a feeling of irritation and regret that it had dawned, which, in the light of subsequent events, would seem to have been almost a premonition of coming evil. She was, though at this early hour she little knew it, destined to receive a series of shocks of volcanic force and suddenness, between sunrise and sunset, any one of which would have served to overthrow her preconceived notions of what life, and especially life at Melton Court, ought to be.

As yet she knew nothing of all this; but she did know that, though it was long after the hour appointed, she had heard no sound of her great-niece's departing footsteps. She waited till she must have missed the train, and then rang her bedroom bell sharply to learn why her orders had been disobeyed.

"If you please, my lady," replied her maid in answer to her mistress's questions, "Bright did not go because we could not find Mrs. Scarsdale."

"Could not find my niece! And why not, pray?" demanded her ladyship angrily.

"She was not in her room, my lady, or anywhere about the Court; only this note, directed to your ladyship, on her dressing-table."

"Why didn't you say so to begin with, then?" cried her mistress testily.

"Open the window, that I may see what this means."

The note was short and painstakingly polite; but its perusal did not seem to please Lady Diana, for she frowned and set her thin lips as she re-read it. The missive ran as follows:

"DEAR LADY MELTON,

"I write to apologise for the somewhat unconventional manner in which I am leaving your house; but as your plans for my disposal to-day did not accord with my own ideas of what is fitting, I have thought it best to leave thus early, and so avoid any awkwardness which might arise from conflicting arrangements. I wish you to know that I shall be with friends by this evening, so that you need feel no anxiety about my position. Pray accept my thanks for your hospitality, which I am sure my husband will much appreciate, and believe me,

"Yours respectfully, "MABEL SCARSDALE."

This communication her ladyship tore up into small fragments, and then snapped out:

"Is there anything more?"

"Yes, if you please, my lady," replied the maid; "a note for you from Mr. Allingford, left in his room."

Lady Melton took it as gingerly as if it were fresh from some infected district, and, spreading it out on the bed before her, read it with a contemptuous smile.

"YOUR LADYSHIP," wrote the Consul, "I have the honour to inform you that I am leaving at the earliest possible moment, not wishing to impose my company longer than is absolutely necessary where it is so evidently undesired. That there may be no burden of obligation between us, I beg you to accept a trunk belonging to me, which will arrive this morning, as compensation for my board and lodging.

"I remain "Your Ladyship's Obedient Servant, "ROBERT ALLINGFORD, "_U.S. Consul, Christchurch, England_.

"P.S.--I mail you to-day a deed of gift of the property in question, legally attested, so that there may be no question of ownership.

"R. A."

"Insolence!" gasped Lady Melton, when she comprehended the contents of this astonishing communication. Then turning to her maid, she commanded:

"If this person's trunk arrives here, have it sent back to him instantly." And she fumed with rage at the thought.

"How dare he suppose that I would for a moment accept a gratuity!"

Indeed, so wrought up was she that it was with difficulty that she controlled herself sufficiently to breakfast on the terrace. Moreover, her interview with Bright, the butler, whom she encountered on her way downstairs and who announced the arrival of her great-nephew and a strange lady, was hardly soothing; for it forced her to believe that that faithful servant, after years of probity, had at last strayed from the temperate paths of virtue. Seeing him dishevelled and bewildered, she had sternly rebuked him for his appearance, and from his disjointed replies had only gathered that his astounding state was in some way due to the Consul.

"Has that insolent person's trunk arrived?" she inquired; when, to her astonishment, her old retainer, who had always observed in her presence a respectful and highly deferential demeanour, actually t.i.ttered.