The Ruby of Kishmoor | Page 6

and this was Jonathan's first
night spent in those tropical latitudes, whither his fancy and his
imagination had so often carried him while he stood over the desk
filing the accounts of invoices from foreign parts.
It might be finally added that, had he at all conceived how soon and to
what a degree his sudden inclination for adventure was to be gratified,
his romantic aspirations might have been somewhat dashed at the
prospect that lay before him.

II. The Mysterious Lady with the Silver Veil

At that moment our hero suddenly became conscious of the fact that a
small wicket in a wooden gate near which he stood had been opened,
and that the eyes of an otherwise concealed countenance were
observing him with the utmost closeness of scrutiny.
He had hardly time to become aware of this observation of his person

when the gate itself was opened, and there appeared before him, in the
moonlight, the bent and crooked figure of an aged negress. She was
clad in a calamanco raiment, and was further adorned with a variety of
gaudily colored trimmings, vastly suggestive of the tropical world of
which she was an inhabitant. Her woolly head was enveloped, after the
fashion of her people, in the folds of a gigantic and flaming red turban
constructed of an entire pocket-handkerchief. Her face was pock-pitted
to an incredible degree, so that what with this deformity, emphasized
by the pouting of her prodigious and shapeless lips, and the rolling of a
pair of eyes as yellow as saffron, Jonathan Rugg thought that he had
never beheld a figure at once so extraordinary and so repulsive.
It occurred to our hero that here, maybe, was to overtake him such an
adventure as that which he had just a moment before been desiring so
ardently. Nor was he mistaken; for the negress, first looking this way
and then that, with an extremely wary and cunning expression, and
apparently having satisfied herself that the street, for the moment, was
pretty empty of passers, beckoned to him to draw nearer. When he had
approached close enough to her she caught him by the sleeve, and,
instantly drawing him into the garden beyond, shut and bolted the gate
with a quickness and a silence suggestive of the most extravagant
secrecy.
At the same moment a huge negro suddenly appeared from the shadow
of the gatepost, and so placed himself between Jonathan and the gate
that any attempt to escape would inevitably have entailed a conflict,
upon our hero's part, with the sable and giant guardian.
Says the negress, looking very intently at our hero: "Be you afeard,
Buckra?"
"Why, no," quothed Jonathan; "for to tell thee the truth, friend, though I
am a man of peace, being of that religious order known as the Society
of Friends, I am not so weak in person nor so timid in disposition as to
warrant me in being afraid of any one. Indeed, were I of a mind to
escape, I might, without boasting, declare my belief that I should be
able to push my way past even a better man than thy large friend who
stands so threateningly in front of yonder gate."

At these words the negress broke into so prodigious a grin that, in the
moonlight, it appeared as though the whole lower part of her face had
been transformed into shining teeth. "You be a brave Buckra," says she,
in her gibbering English. "You come wid Melina, and Melina take you
to pretty lady, who want you to eat supper wid her."
Thereupon, and allowing our hero no opportunity to decline this
extraordinary invitation, even had he been of a mind to do so, she took
him by the hand, and led him toward the large and imposing house
which commanded the garden. "Indeed," says Jonathan to himself, as
he followed his sable guide--himself followed in turn by the gigantic
negro--"indeed, I am like to have my fill of adventure, if anything is to
be judged from such a beginning as this."
Nor did the interior sumptuousness of the mansion at all belie the
imposing character of its exterior, for, entering by way of an
illuminated veranda, and so coming into a brilliantly lighted hallway
beyond, Jonathan beheld himself to be surrounded by such a wealth of
exquisite and well-appointed tastefulness as it had never before been
his good-fortune to behold.
Candles of clarified wax sparkled like stars in chandeliers of crystal.
These in turn, catching the illumination, glittered in prismatic
fragments with all the varied colors of the rainbow, so that a mellow
yet brilliant radiance filled the entire apartment. Polished mirrors of a
spotless clearness, framed in golden frames and built into the walls,
reflected the waxed floors, the rich Oriental carpets,