The Native Born | Page 4

yells drawing every second
nearer.
"Margaret!" he cried wildly, holding out his revolver in the darkness.
"If not at my hands, then at your own. Save yourself--"
"I shall save myself, have no fear!" she answered, with a bitter, terrible
laugh.

From the couch Christine Stafford's voice rose peacefully:
"Lord, into Thy hands I commend my spirit!"
Another voice answered, "Amen!" There was the report of a revolver
and a sudden, startling stillness. It lasted only a breathing space.
Furious shoulders hurled themselves against the frail, weakly barred
door. It cracked, bulged inward, with a bursting, tearing sound, yielded.
The moonlight flooded into the little room, throwing up into bold relief
the three upright figures and the little heap that knelt motionless by the
couch.
The crowd of savage faces hesitated, faltering an instant before the
sahibs who yesterday had been their lords and masters. Then the sahibs
fired. It was all that was needed. The room filled. There was one stifled
groan--no more than that. No cry for mercy, no whining.
Little by little the room emptied again. The cries and bloodthirsty
screams of triumphant vengeance died slowly in the distance, the grey
moonlight resumed its peaceful sovereignty. Only here and there were
dark stains its silver could not wash away.
CHAPTER II
THE DANCING IS RESUMED.
"Oh, I love India--adore it, simply!" Mrs. Cary exclaimed, in the tone
of a person who, usually self-controlled, finds himself overwhelmed by
the force of his own enthusiasm. "There is something so mystic, so
enthralling about it, don't you think? I always feel as though I were
wandering through a chapter of the Arabian Nights full of gorgeous
princes, wicked robbers, genii, or whatever you call them. Isn't it so
with you, Mrs. Carmichael?"
Her hostess, a thin, alert little woman with a bony, weather-beaten face,
cast an anxious glance at the rest of her guests scattered about the
garden.

"There aren't any robbers about here--except my cook," she said
prosaically. "My husband wouldn't allow such a thing in his department,
and in mine he is no good at all. As for the princes, we don't see
anything of the only one this region boasts of. He may be gorgeous, but
I really can not say for certain."
"Ah!" said Mrs. Cary, with a placid smile. "You have been in fairyland
too long, dear Mrs. Carmichael. That's what's the matter with you. You
are beginning to look upon it as a very ordinary, everyday place. If you
only knew what it is to come to it with a virgin heart and mind-thirsting
for impressions, as it were. That is how we feel, do we not, Beatrice?"
She half turned to the girl standing at her side, as though seeking to
draw her into the conversation.
"It is indeed new for me," the latter answered shortly, and with slight
emphasis on the personal pronoun.
"I was about to remark that this is scarcely your first visit to India," Mrs.
Carmichael put in. "I understood that your late husband had a
government appointment somewhere in the South?"
Mrs. Cary's heavy face flushed, though whether with heat or annoyance
it was not easy to judge.
"Of course--a very excellent appointment, too--but the place and the
people!" She became confidential and her voice sank, though beyond
her daughter there was no one within hearing. "Between you and me,
Mrs. Carmichael, the people were dreadful. You know, I am not
snobbish--indeed I must confess to quite democratic tendencies, which
my family always greatly deplores--but I really couldn't stand the
people. I had to go back to England with Beatrice. The place was filled
with subordinate railway officials. Don't you hate subordinates, dear
Mrs. Carmichael?"
Mrs. Carmichael stared, during which process her eyes happened to fall
on Beatrice Cary's half-averted face. She was surprised to find that the
somewhat thin lips were smiling--though not agreeably.

"I really don't know what you mean by 'subordinates,'" Mrs.
Carmichael said, in her uncompromising way. "Most people are
subordinates at some time or other. My husband was a lieutenant once.
I don't remember objecting to him. At any rate," she continued hastily,
as though to cut the conversation short, "I hope you will like the people
here."
"I'm sure I shall. A military circle is always so delightful. That is what I
said to Beatrice when I felt that I must revisit the scene of my girlish
days. 'We must go somewhere where there is military.' Of course, we
might have gone to Simla--I have influential friends there, you
know--but I wanted my girl to see a real bit of genuine India, and Simla
is so modern. Really a great pity, I think. I am so passionately fond of
color and picturesqueness--comfort is nothing to me. As my husband
used to say, 'Oh, Mary, you