The House of the Falcon Read online

  Clouds were passing over the surface of the moon, rendering the light on the wooden steps fitful. When they ascended from the last platform four hundred feet above the roofs of the river front, a fresh breeze touched their faces.

  "Do you not find it dangerous?" Monsey asked curiously. "I should think your aunt would object——"

  "She does," absented Edith, "that's why she is not invited."

  The girl perched herself on the bole of an obsolete cannon that rested its muzzle on the grass near by. She patted it in friendly fashion. "Old war dog, I wonder did you growl at enemies in your time? Do they have forts like this in India, Mr. Monsey?"

  Standing beside her, he could see the girl's form against the sky and admire the light that glinted in the tangle of her hair. A remarkably willful person, he thought, wishing that he could gauge her mind.

  "I have heard there are many such in northern India in the mountains. You will doubtless visit them, because the early summer heat will be oppressive in the south."

  "Major Fraser-Carnie lives in Kashmir, I think," she nodded. "We will visit him for a while—until Daddy has finished his business in Calcutta."

  Inwardly she was wondering why he parried any direct allusion to India. She remembered now that her father had mentioned meeting a man in the Château who had come not long ago from that country and who had given him some useful information. Monsey, she reflected, did not seem inclined to give her useful information.

  "If you are in Kashmir, Miss Rand," he observed after a brief silence, "you will doubtless be in Srinagar. I have already assured your father that I may have the pleasure of meeting him there. Business"—he laughed—"recalls me from my—ah—vacation, I believe you call it—yes?" Monsey tapped the pocket of his dinner jacket. "I have here a summons to return. It is my misfortune that I must hasten by the most direct way, the tiresome C.P.R. boat, while you will cross from New York."

  There was something fantastic, it seemed to Edith, in the thought of any one's taking a vacation from India in America, even in quaint Quebec. And Mousey did not appear to her to be a business man. Of course he might merely be cultivating her to gain the good will of powerful Arthur Rand——

  "ln Srinagar," his low voice went on, "you will grant me the happiness of the dance that kismet has denied me here?"

  "Yes, of course."

  "Ah, you will not forget? Kashmir is the garden of India: Srinagar is the jewel of Kashmir."

  Monsey was speaking to her of the Himalayas, of floating pleasure palaces of dead kings, and the shrines of the hills that were built before the coming of Europeans. They were walking back slowly toward the stairs, and Edith was wrapped up in his description of the place she had looked forward to seeing. A cloud was passing over the moon's face.

  The girl was at the edge of the parapet and she stepped out upon what she thought to be the head of the stairway. A high-heeled foot slid over the brink of the height and she fell to her knees.

  All the blood seemed to leave her heart, and every nerve tingled with swift pain. She cried out as she slipped downward and glimpsed the docks in the shadowy darkness below.

  Then she felt an arm about her shoulders. Monsey's sharp exclamation of alarm penetrated the roaring in her ears. He must have thrown himself down on the grass beside her.

  By degrees that seemed to Edith infinitely slow the grasp on her shoulders tightened and she was drawn up. Above her the stars danced in a maze of light and a dozen moons circled the sky.

  She was standing again in the grass, well back from the edge, Monsey's arms around her, and his face peering into hers. "Thank you," she heard herself saying quite calmly. "I was very foolish——" She drew away, leaning against the cannon for support.

  "It was my kismet," he nodded, "that I should be of aid to you. Now you will not forget the dance at Srinagar. I must see you again." His voice, always low, was little more than a whisper. "Because I shall not live until then."

  Edith was repeating to herself that he had saved her life. He had acted promptly, at great risk to himself. The man seemed to think only of her.

  Yet, even while thanking him, Edith was conscious of a strong feeling of aversion. More than his last words offended her. The young girl was sensitive to impressions. Something, perhaps, that she had seen in his face repelled her.

  * * * * *

  When she returned to her room Edith glanced through the letters that Monsey had given back to her, a note from a school chum, invitations. One missive caught her attention. It was a single sheet of blue paper, and the envelope from which it came had already been opened. On the blue sheet several lines of meaningless characters peered at her.

  "How strange!" Edith whistled softly, a habit of hers when puzzled.

  The odd lettering was very neat—pothooks, dashes, and scrolls, all following each other in regular succession. It was not shorthand. Nor was it any language with which Edith was acquainted. But underneath it she noticed some penciled words in English.

  Her smooth brow wrinkled as she reread the penciled phrases which were evidently a translation of the message.

  The Falcon is on the wing, searching the City of the Sun. Take care.

  It was like poetry, she thought—like a bit from the Rubaiyat. Or was it a code? Her father had used code at times—writing apples when he meant profits, and plums instead of losses, and so forth. Yet here the second line seemed to make good sense as it was.

  The phrase "City of the Sun" had been scratched out and "Srinagar" substituted. Was this code? The word "Srinagar" gave her an inkling of how the blue sheet had come into her possession.

  For the first time she inspected the envelope, the open envelope from which she had taken it. It was addressed to Edouard Monsey, the Château, Quebec, Province of Quebec, Canada. In one comer was the legend, "To be held until called for."

  A foreign stamp was attached, blurred over by an unreadable postmark. The writing on the envelope was English, but angular and stilted as if penned by an unfamiliar hand.

  Edith replaced the blue sheet, and rang for a boy. To him she delivered the missive with instructions to take it to Mr. Monsey and say that he had given it to Miss Rand by mistake that evening.

  It was clear that Monsey had handed the blue letter to her when returning those she had given him. She regretted that she had, unwittingly, read his letter. When she tried to put it out of her mind she found that she could not do so.

  What a queer phrase—the Falcon! She had always connected the word with knights and the days of chivalry. Were there falcons to-day? Or was it a kind of code word for something else? Edith did not know.

  "It must be code, after all. He said he had received a business letter," mused Edith, drowsily, and straightway went to bed and to sleep.

  * * * * *

  By now the lighted windows of the Château had blinked into darkness. The twisted streets of Quebec had long been silent. The pleasure-stage was deserted by its guests, the curtain drawn. Players and attendants alike slept.

  Somewhere in the old French city under the height chimes rang out from a cathedral tower. Answering bells sent their notes forth under the stars. A chorus of ironlike harmony welled from invisible sources.

  Though the pleasure-stage was dark in the hours before dawn, the chimes of Quebec did not sleep. The roofs of the city were still, under the eye of the moon. A solitary note of carriage bells struck into the chimes—from the slope of a dark street.

  Monsey, who had been dozing, dressed, in his chair, swore softly and leaped to his feet.

  "Confound the bells!" he muttered, lifting clenched hands to his head.

  In the confused instant of wakening from heavy, troubled sleep he had fancied the chimes were human voices. Into his senses had come the distant, wailing cry of cloaked muezzins summoning to prayer and shouting forth the salutation to a prophet

  He had been dreaming, and the effect was still strong upon him. He fancied that cries of anguish were ringing in his head—cries drowned by the clamor
of huge trumpets lifted to the skies.

  "Horns of Jericho!" he exclaimed, and this time he did not speak in English.

  His fancy still retained the echo of the chimes distorted into another sound—the summons of ten-foot trumpets reverberating from the impulse of the lungs of powerful men, and reëchoed from distant hillsides as if from cliffs in the sky. His memory pictured hooded heads raised to the first light of dawn, and lips murmuring age-old prayers.

  The carriage bells of Quebec had taken the semblance of camel bells of another country that jangled as long-haired beasts pad-padded over the snow to the hoa-hoa of caravaneers.

  Then he glanced from the window out over the mist-shrouded river, laughed, and stretched.

  "Nerves, by Jove! Didn't know I had 'em."'

  CHAPTER III

  THE GATE

  It was at Baramula, which is the beginning of the real Kashmir, that Edith Rand saw the watcher at the gate. At least so she christened him to herself.

  The girl and her aunt, Catherine Rand, had been sent to the hills by Arthur Rand at the first contact with the lifeless heat of Calcutta. A Southerner by birth and an easy-going gentleman of the old school, he could not permit the women to face the climate of southern India which was like a fever breath compared with the heat of Louisville in midsummer.

  His florid face had been almost purple when he kissed Edith good-by on the platform beside the carriage of the Punjabi Mail. Edith had not wanted to leave him. She knew that he was not well—this knowledge had made her determined to come with him to India.

  Moreover Edith fancied that the business venture that brought them to India had not been going well. Letters from home had hinted at a stock market slump and she knew that her father had invested heavily.

  But the Southerner, reluctant to worry his daughter or his sister, had smiled and said that he would join them within a few days in Kashmir. He had handed Catherine Rand her inseparable traveling companion, a pail of assorted medicines dear to her heart, wrapped in a black doth, and waved good-by.

  "My dear," admitted Edith's aunt, as the guard closed the carriage door, "no one can do business in this Turkish bath. It was fortunate that I brought my medicines. I fear that we all shall need them. Your father is not well. He should never have come."

  This had filled Edith with vague foreboding, a feeling that Arthur Rand was concealing his worries from her. Murree and the fresh air of the hills after the long train journey had revived her, and the joggling carts that conveyed them to Baramula fascinated her.

  They had passed through the gateway of Kashmir, threading mountain passes, while cold winds bearing scent of pines, jasmine, and acacias swept down on them. They moved in the shadow of cliffs. Vines and wild flowers almost touched their hats as they passed by.

  It had cast a spell upon Edith, a sleepy, pleasant kind of spell. She yearned for a horse to ride among the mountain paths. Two English ladies, officers wives, who were with them had smiled at her indulgently. The American traveler, they thought, was a beautiful girl; they wondered just how she would fare in the army circles at Srinagar. When she inquired if it were called the City of the Sun, they responded that the natives interpreted its name so. They spoke of it as "Sreenugger."

  At Baramula the tongas had halted to change horses. At once a crowd of natives pressed around them, shouting, pushing, bowing. Bearded Afghans elbowed tattered Turkomans aside; slim Paharis gestured frantically beside squat Kashmiri traders with arms full of shawls; handsome Central Asian Jews pleaded with great play of brown eyes for the khanum to notice the unrivaled excellence of their heaven-devised silks; self-appointed interpreters cried loudly that the mem-sahibs should not fail to avail themselves of their matchless services. Pockmarked beggars in garments that were miracles of rags continued to wail for the never-ending baksheesh.

  All—except the beggars—deprecated any idea of reward, and asserted boldly and bodily their high integrity and the encomiums heaped upon them by previous travelers. Noisy recrimination on the part of the tonga drivers against the horde of rivals added to the confusion.

  Through the mass of natives a carriage drove up behind splendidly matched horses, scattering the ranks of the beggars. A diminutive, uniformed figure dropped instantaneously from the seat beside the driver and sought out Edith Rand. The military atom bent a turbaned head and raised slim hands, crying in very fair English:

  "Major-Sahib Fraser-Carnie presents compliments. Is this the American Missy?" Adding complacently, "I am the orderly of the Major-Sahib, Rawul Singh."

  Edith was about to follow her aunt into the carriage, while Rawul Singh attended to the forwarding of their baggage on the tongas, when a man stepped from the crowd and thrust his arm over the carriage wheel. The action surprised the girl, unaccustomed to the manners of the native servants.

  She saw that the man was as tall as the Afghans, but of a more powerful build. His impassive broad face was the hue of burned wood. Slant, black eyes were bent submissively before her. Yet she had the impression that he had been looking at her intently for some time.

  The aspect of the native was somber—one arm resting across the heavy, gray woolen coat over his chest, his big head surmounted by a round, black velvet cap. A scar, running from mouth to eye, increased the grimness of the intent face.

  Just for an instant the eyes of the man sought hers. Then, with a bow he was gone. Edith fancied that he was still watching the carriage from the crowd. As they sped away she looked back and thought that she saw him climbing into one of the tongas.

  She forgot him almost at once, in the glory of the drive along the valley beside the flooded Jhilam that muttered through its gorge at their feet. Those who have once entered the paradise of Kashmir do not soon forget the gateway.

  Edith laughed with the joy of it, seeing gray clouds twining among the mountain slopes behind them. The edges of the cloud bank were touched with a fiery purple from the concealed sun, when—as if an invisible hand passed across the face of the sky-—the sunlight was blotted from their path.

  The horses quickened their pace as the Afghan driver cracked his whip and Rawul Singh spoke sharply in Turki:

  "Drive, son of a pig! Would you discomfort the guests of your master?"

  He glanced back reassuringly and met Edith's flushed, delighted countenance. "Verily," he observed to the muttering Afghan, "this young mem-sahib has no fear of a wetting or a storm."

  Edith laughed as the carriage swayed and rattled onward, happy in the rush of air, exhilarated by the challenge of the wind. Dust eddied around them, and the poplar trees that lined the road turned their pale leaves restlessly at the breath of the storm. In a few moments the temperature dropped many degrees.

  As the first heavy drops of rain fell, they swept under the trees that almost covered one of the outer avenues of Srinagar, in the growing darkness. Lightning flashes dazzled them, while a peal of thunder brought a quick response from the apprehensive Miss Rand.

  Just as the thunderstorm broke, the carriage jerked to a halt. Rawul Singh sprang down and led the two women up a steep flight of steps in a grassy slope. With the orderly almost carrying her aunt, and Edith running ahead, they gained the shelter of a wide veranda as the rain pelted down.

  A white figure strode down to meet them, and the girl was assisted up the veranda steps, breathing quickly with the effort of the climb. In the darkness of the house a voice spoke close to her ear.

  "You have come to the garden in a storm. Perhaps the gods are angry."

  Edith almost cried out in surprise. A glimmer of lightning showed her the dark countenance of Edouard Monsey. Blackness closed in on them again. A curtain of rain descended upon the bungalow, and the road became a mass of mud. Edith heard her aunt stumble on the porch.

  For an instant she wondered whether they had come to Monseys quarters instead of the major's. Monsey wore an undefinable air of ownership. She shivered slightly, chilled by the sudden cold. By now the full force of the thunderstorm had swept upon them. Th
e mat blinds rattled with the impact of the wind gusts. Lightning flickered incessantly, revealing the Afghan, water dripping from his beard, staggering up with their hand luggage.

  A spattering of drops that was almost a spray ran along the porch, and Rawul Singh led them inside, lighting lamps that trembled in the air currents.

  "Is this the house of Major Fraser-Carnie?" Edith asked Rawul Singh quickly, drawing away from Monsey, and arranging her disordered hat. "Aren't we going to a hotel?"

  The orderly glanced at her curiously, and Monsey replied. The major was detained at the cantonment, settling some affairs of the natives. Fraser-Carnie had arranged to take up his quarters at the Residency, and they were to have full possession of the bungalow—Fraser-Carnie's bungalow. There was no good hotel, he explained.

  Monsey turned to go and in so doing spoke to Edith.

  "You have not forgotten your promise?"

  She shook her head and watched him depart, somewhat surprised that he should go during the storm and without waiting for the arrival of the major.

  The shower had passed over Srinagar; the level sunlight shone on a freshened vista of poplars and the water-stained wooden bungalows of the European colony when Fraser-Carnie appeared to pay his respects.

  Major Alfred Fraser-Carnie was ruddy and gray-haired. He was good-natured, in a heavy kind of way, and not talkative until aroused to the proper point. Well past middle age, he still made a presentable figure on a horse.

  Moreover, he did not shun an occasional sally into the polo fields of the northern stations to keep himself fit. A surgeon, attached to a cavalry regiment, he had labored conscientiously at his profession, a labor increased by his own hobby—gathering material on the tribal customs and environment of Central Asia. For many years he had been looked upon as a total loss by marriageable ladies of the cantonments, who spoke vaguely—as if by way of excuse—of an early attachment which the major had been unable to forget.