Q. If I succeed in naming him will you acknowledge it?

A. You will not succeed, Sahib.

Q. But if I should?

A. I will acknowledge it.

Q. The person is John Hinton Darrow.

The old man started as if he had been stabbed, and looked at me in amazement. He seemed at first to think I had read his thoughts and riveted his dark eyes upon me as if, by way of return, he would read my very soul. I think he did so, for his scrutiny seemed to satisfy him. He replied, somewhat rea.s.sured: "I can speak only to John Hinton Darrow."

"John Darrow is dead," I said.

"Dead!" he exclaimed, springing to his feet; "Darrow Sahib dead!" and he fell back into his chair, covering his face with his hands. "Ah, my poor Lona!" he muttered feebly; "I have failed to keep my promise.

Do not reproach me, for I have done my best. For twenty years have I searched in vain for this man that I might fulfil your last request, and the very first information I receive is the news of his death. I have been no less vigilant than Ragobah, yet I have failed, even as he has failed."

I took this opportunity to again question him.

Q. Are you sure Ragobah failed?

A. Yes; had he found Darrow Sahib he would have killed him. His mission was one of revenge; mine one of love and justice; both have failed utterly since their object is dead. My pledge is broken!

Q. In its letter, yes; but the chance is still left you to keep the spirit of your covenant.

A. I do not understand you, Sahib.

Q. I will explain. Lona Ragobah confided to you certain facts in explanation of her conduct toward John Darrow. She loved him pa.s.sionately, and it was her desire to stand acquitted in his sight.

Were she alive now, any wish he had expressed during his life would be fulfilled by her as a sacred and pleasurable duty. This, then, as one who lovingly performs her will, should be your att.i.tude also. John Darrow was the only man she ever loved, and, were she living, every drop of her loyal blood would rise against anyone who had done him injury. Do I not speak the truth?

A. Yes; she was loyal unto death and so shall I be. My hand has ever been against all who have done her harm; Ragobah knows that full well.

Q. Were she alive, you certainly would aid her in bringing to justice one who has done her the most cruel of wrongs and, at the same time, fulfilling the dying request of the man who to her was more than life.

A. I should do her bidding, Sahib.

Q. How much more need, then, now that the poor woman is dead, that you should act for her as she would, were she here.

A. You have not told me all; speak your mind freely, Sahib. You may depend upon my doing whatever I believe Lona would do were she here.

Q. I ask nothing more, and am now prepared to fully confide in you.

As you doubtless know, Rama Ragobah left Bombay for New York about eleven weeks ago. He went, I have been told, on an errand of revenge.

Six weeks ago John Darrow was murdered. He left behind him a written statement describing his wooing of Lona Scindia and his experiences with Rama Ragobah. He a.s.serted, furthermore, his belief that he would die by Ragobah's hand,--the hand which twice before had attempted his life. Even as he loved your cousin, so he hated her husband, and, confident that he would ultimately be killed by him, he was haunted by the fear that he would escape the just penalty for his crime. He bound his heir by the most solemn of promises to use, in the event of his murder, every possible means to bring the a.s.sa.s.sin to justice. There can, of course, be little doubt that the a.s.sa.s.sin and Rama Ragobah are one and the same person. The last request John Darrow ever made--it was after he had been attacked by the a.s.sa.s.sin--had for its object the punishment of his murderer.

Were your cousin living, do you think she would be deaf to that entreaty?

A. No. She would make its fulfilment the one object of her life, and, acting in her stead, I shall do all in my power to see justice done.

If I can render you any aid in that direction you may command me, Sahib.

Q. You can a.s.sist me by telling me all you know of your cousin's married life, and, more especially, the message she confided to you.

A. In doing this I shall break the letter of my oath, but, were I not to do it, I should break the spirit thereof, therefore listen:

You have, I suppose, already learned from the statement of Darrow Sahib what occurred at his last meeting with my cousin on Malabar Hill. Her act, in throwing a venomous serpent in his face, was one which doubtless led him to believe she wished to kill him, although it must have puzzled him to a.s.sign any reason for such a desire.

Not long after this incident my cousin married Ragobah, a man for whom she had always cherished an ill-concealed hatred. I saw but little of her at this time, yet, for all that, I could not but observe that she was greatly changed. But one solution suggested itself to me, and that was that she had discovered her lover false to her and had, out of spite as it is called, hastily married Ragobah. I confess that when this conclusion forced itself home upon me, I felt much dissatisfied with Lona, for I thought such a course unworthy of her. As I saw more of her I noted still greater changes in her character. As I had known her from childhood, she had been most uniform in her temper and her conduct; now all this was changed. To-day, perhaps, she would be like her old self,-- only weaker and more fragile,--to-morrow a new being entirely, stronger and more restless, with a demoniac light in her eyes, and a sort of feverish malignancy dominating her whole personality.

When I noticed this I studied to avoid her. If the Lona I had known were merely an ideal of which no actual prototype existed, I wished to be allowed to cherish that ideal rather than to have it cruelly shattered to make room for the real Lona. I had not seen her for many weeks when one day, to my surprise, I received a note from her. It was short, and so impressed me that I can remember every word of it.

"My DEAR COUSIN:

"I send this note to you by Kandia that you may get it before it is too late for you to do what I wish. I am a caged bird in my husband's house. My every movement is watched, and they would not let you come to me were my husband at home, so, I beseech you, come at once lest he should return before I have had time to intrust to you my last request. I am dying, Moro, and it is within your power to say whether my spirit shall rest in peace, or be torn forever and ever by the fangs of a horrible regret. My secret is as lead upon my soul and to you only can I tell it. Come--come at once!

"LONA."

You can imagine the effect of this revelation upon me better than I can describe it. I did not even know she was seriously ill, and with her urgent request for an interview came the sad tidings that she was dying, and the confirmation of my fear--that she had adopted the religion of her English lover. I lost no time in going to her.

I found her in a state of feverish expectation, fearful lest I should either not be able to come at all, or her husband would return before my arrival. She was worn to a shadow of her former self, and I realised with a pang that she was indeed dying.

"I knew I could depend upon you, Moro," she said as I entered, "even though you think I have lost all claim upon your regard. I said to myself, 'He will come because of the respect he once had for me,'

and I was right. Yes," she continued, noticing my astonishment at the change in her condition, "I am almost gone. I should not have lasted so long, were it not that I could not die till I had spoken.

Now I shall be free to go, and the horrible struggle will be over.

You have been much among the English, Moro, both here and in England, and know they believe they will meet again in heaven those they have loved on earth."

She sank back exhausted from excitement and effort, as she said this, and I feared for a moment she would be unable to proceed. I told her what I knew about the Christian's hope of heaven, and suggested to her that, as her husband might return at any moment, she had best confide to me at once any trust with which she wished to charge me.

For a moment she made no reply, but said at length:

"Yes, you are right. It is not a very long story, and I suppose I had better begin at the beginning. You remember well my being rescued by an English gentleman, a Mr. John Darrow. I afterward became well acquainted,--in fact we were to be married. To this union my parents strongly objected. They had promised me to Rama Ragobah, and were horrified at my seeking to outrage the laws of caste by bestowing my hand not only outside of my station but upon a foreigner and Christian as well. This had only the effect of causing me to meet the Sahib secretly. We chose for our meeting-place the great banyan on the top of Malabar Hill, where I pa.s.sed the happiest moments I have ever known.

Everything went well until the night on which we had planned to run away. We were to meet at the usual place and hour, take the night train for Matheron Station, and there be married.

"My heart bounded with joy as I climbed Malabar Hill on that fatal evening, but my delight was of short duration. In my fear lest I should keep my lover waiting I must have arrived fully fifteen minutes before the appointed time. I was standing with my back against the banyan tree, awaiting the first sound of his approach, when my attention was attracted by what seemed to be two little b.a.l.l.s of fire shining from a clump of bushes almost directly in front of me. They seemed to burn with a lurid and wicked glare, and, as my gaze became entangled by them, a tremor ran through my frame and a cold sweat bathed my entire body. Overcome by an unspeakable dread I made one last frantic effort to withdraw my eyes, but could not. Then gradually, by slow degrees, my terror was succeeded by an over-whelming fascination. I felt myself drawn irresistibly toward the thicket. Then came a vague sense of falling, falling, falling, and I knew no more, at least for some little time.

"The next thing I remember is seeing my lover stretch out his arms to me, while I was inspired with an unaccountable hatred of him so bitter that it left me mute and transfixed. Then he sought to embrace me, and I threw a young cobra, which, coiled in a wicker basket, had been placed in my hand, full in his face. I think, also, that I struck him, and then ran down the hill and straight to the house of Ragobah. What happened during the next few months I know not. I seemed to have been in a continual sleep full of dreams.

When I awoke I seemed conscious that I had dreamt, but could not tell of what. You can imagine my horror, my despair, when I was first addressed as Ragobah's wife. I denied the relation, but everyone told me the same story--I was Ragobah Sahibah. This shock, coming as it did with the memory of my conduct that terrible night on Malabar Hill, nearly killed me, and was followed by another long period of the dream existence. I began to think I was a sufferer from some terrible brain disease, and to doubt which was my real existence, the dreams or the waking moments.

"One day when, for the first time in several weeks, I was in possession of my normal faculties, Ragobah came into my room and sat down beside me. I arose instantly and fled to the farther corner of the apartment. He pursued me and sought to conquer my all too apparent aversion for him by terms of endearment, but the more he pressed his suit the more my loathing grew until, maddened by references made to Darrow Sahib, I lost all self-control and permitted him to learn my detestation of him. He heard me through in silence, his face growing darker with every word, and when I had finished said with slow and studied malice:

"'You forget that you are my wife and that I can follow my entreaty by command. You spurn my love. You are not yet weaned from that English cur whose life, let me tell you, is in my hands. Fool, can you not see how powerless you are? I have but to will you to kill him and your first cursed failure on Malabar Hill will be washed out with his infidel blood. You will do well to yield peaceably. The thread of your very existence pa.s.ses through my hands, to cut or tangle it as I list--yield you must!' With this he strode frantically from the room, leaving me more dead than alive. As he disclosed his fiendish secret something about my heart kept tightening with every word till, at length, it seemed as if it must burst, so terrible was the pressure. I could not breathe. My lungs seemed filled with molten lead. How long this agony continued I do not know, for the thread of consciousness broke under its terrible tension and I fell senseless upon the floor.

"When I recovered from my swoon the inexpressible horror of my situation again descended upon my spirit like a snuffer upon a candle. I was Ragobah's wife, his slave, his tool, as powerless to resist his will as if I were one of his limbs. All was now clear.

The long sleep, crowded with unremembered dreams, represented the period when I was under Ragobah's control,--the horrible night on Malabar Hill being one of them,--and the waking moments, those periods when my feeble, overridden consciousness flickered back to dimly light for a time the gloom of this intellectual night. There was no hope for me. Already had I been so dominated by his will and inspired by his malice as to attempt the life of my lover. What might I not be made to do in future? As I thought of this, Ragobah's last threat rang with a sinister warning upon my ears till it seemed as if it would drive me into madness. The suspicion grew to be a certainty from which there was but one means of escape--death--and I determined at once to embrace it before I could be made the instrument for the infliction of further injury upon my lover. I seized a little dagger which in my normal moments I always kept concealed about me, and was about to plunge it into my bosom when I was smitten by the thought,--and it cut me as the steel could not have done,--that Darrow Sahib would never know the truth, and that his love for me would be forever buried beneath a ma.s.s of black misgivings. The certainty of this conviction paralysed my will, and my arm dropped nervelessly at my side. It would be a simple matter, I thought, to find some way of confiding my story to you and pledging you to explain everything to Darrow Sahib, after which I could die in peace, if not without regret. But it was not so easy to communicate with you as I had expected. Days pa.s.sed before I had a chance to make the attempt, and the only result of it was to show me how closely I was watched. If Ragobah were absent, there was always someone in his employ who made it his business to acquaint himself with my every movement. I dare not take the time to tell you how I succeeded in obtaining this interview further than to say that I was able to win to my cause the man who bore my message to you--a servant in whom Ragobah has the utmost confidence. When my husband departed this morning Kandia was left in charge of me, and so your visit was made possible.

"You are now acquainted with the trust I would impose upon you: swear to me, Moro, that you will make this explanation for me to John Darrow and to no other human being! Swear it by the love you once said you bore me!" She sank back exhausted and awaited my response.

For a moment I dared not trust myself to speak, yet something must be said. As I noted her impatience I replied: "Lona, you have lifted a great weight from my heart and placed a lesser one upon it.

Forgive me that I have ever doubted you. Even as you have been true to yourself, I swear by the love I still bear you to deliver your message to Darrow Sahib and to no other human being. I shall commit your words at once to writing that nothing may be lost through the failure of my memory."

She reached her hand out feebly to me, and never shall I forget the look of grat.i.tude which accompanied its tremulous pressure as she murmured: "After John, Moro, you are dearest. I shall not try to thank you. May the ineffable peace which you bring my aching heart return a thousand-fold into your own. Farewell. Ragobah may return at any moment. Let us not needlessly imperil your safety. Once more good-bye. The dew-drop now may freely fall into the shining sea." Poor distraught child! She had tried to adopt her lover's religion without abandoning her own. I bent over and kissed her.

It was my first and last kiss and she gave it with a sweet sadness, the memory of which, through all these years, has dwelt in the better part of me, like a fragrance in the vesture of the soul.

One long, lingering look and I departed, never to see again this woman I had so fondly, so hopelessly loved.

You now know the exact nature of the covenant I have felt constrained to violate. I have told you her story in her own words. I wrote it out immediately after my interview with her and have read it so many times, during the last twenty years, that I have committed it to memory. The recollection of that last meeting, of her kiss and her grateful look has been throughout all these long, weary years the one verdant spot in the desert of my life.

[Moro Scindia paused here, as one who had reached the end of his narrative, and I continued my interrogations.]