Beadle's New York Dime Library, No. 108 — page 13: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

7 - _ member that the Rajah of the Inde Saale tary of Egypt, though he seldom made use of the euisine of the club, and only used it for a morning lounging-place, where news Circula- ted. On the morning after his arrival in Cairo, Diamantina, tranquil and courteous as ever, strolled into the saloon, smoking a cigarette, and found a knot of Egyptian officers excitedly discussing a suhject that seemed of great inter- est, for his arrival did not interrupt the con- versation. Halim Pasha, a gray-bearded old Albanian general, civilized by the contact of French man- ners, Was laying down the law to Houdin Bey, a French renegade in the Khedive’s service. All the officers spoke French, the Egyptian court language at present. ‘‘ I say that a man who forfeits his honor by a sharper’s trick has no right to claim the cour- tesies of this club, monsieur; and I shall make my protest against it to the Executive Commit- tee. ‘My dear friend, do not be rash. You must remember that this Sare Lomlee is an English judge of the Bureau Civile, and holds the name unblemished.” ‘* But just look at this,” exclaimed the pasha, impatiently, and he struck his knuckles on a folded newsp“per lying on his knee, ‘‘ Here is the Times, the Englis per of papers, that charges him directly with the dirty and mean crime of a petty theft.” ‘*Pardon me, monsieur,” here calmly inter- posed Diamantina, who had been puffing his cigarette close by. ‘‘I heard the name of Sir Lomlee mentioned. Is it by chance the gentle- man who is now here?’ . “Ah, my dear duke, you are welcome,” re- plied the old general, rising and cordially shak- ing hands. ‘Yes, itis this Lawtone, this stiff Englishman, that_we talk about! Hear this, monsieur, in the ‘ Bord du Nil’* extracted from the English Times.” And the old officer began to read in French from a local Cariene paper what purported to be the translation of an extract from the Lundon Times, as follows: **A cnrious suit has just been begun in the Court of Kine’s Bench, which recalls some of the darker and less excusable features of the suppression of the Indian Mutiny in 1857. Our older readers may re- ndent state of Krishnapcor was accused by Mr. (now Sir Lumley) Lawton, British Minister Resident at his court, of having taken part in the mutiny by a secret expedi- tion under the guiseof a hunting party, which ended in an attack on Sir James Outram’s provision con- voys and the extermination of half of the 17th Foot, guarding the convoy. The Rajah denied the charge, and offered to prove that he was a hundred miles away atthe time of the attack, and that prisoners afterward taken confessed that Tantia Topee was the leader in that terrible massacre. ‘As is well known in India, Sir Lumley (then Mr. Lawton) obtained access to Krishnapoor by a mas- terly stratagem, pretending friendship, and only ar- rested the treacherous Hindoo when the latter was fairly in his power.” Here Diamantina broke in with a sort of hiss, the nearest approach to a laugh in which he was ever known to indulge. ‘‘ They are droll, these English; are they not, pasha? The Englishman uses a ‘masterly stratagem,’ while the Hindoo is ‘ treacherous’ before he istried. Is it not droil?” Houdin Bey shrug ged his shoulders, ‘‘What would you? The English have the power just now; they and those cursed Ger- mans. Saerrrré !” The Prussophobia of the Frenchman _over- powered even his Anglophobia, and Halim Pasha grinned as he looked over his spectacles, ‘‘Let meread on. The rest is still more droll for the English.” He continued: ‘The Rajah was suddenly arrested in the evening by a detachment of Sikh Horse, and an effort was made at the same time to seize the Ranee, his wife an Lurasiant lady, with their only son, then a chil in arms. This attempt was frustrated by the des- perate fighting of a part of the Rajah’s Guard head- ed by a Yankee adventurer called Gilkarvah by the Hindoos, who cut his way out of the city, carrying off the woman and infant. The Rajah was hurried- ly tried by a court-martial, who found him guilty, ‘and the Resident produced an order from the Vice- roy ordering his execution by blowing from a can- non, the solitary instance in which this form of death was meted out to a Hindoo of rank. The sen- tence was Carried into effect next day at noon in the public square of Krishnapoor. “So much is familiar to all students of that bloody page in Indian history, but the strangest part of the story is yet tocome. Here twenty years after the event comes into court a woman affirming herself to be the widow of the dead Rajah of Krishuapoor and claims that Sir Laney Lawton not only forged the Viceroy’s order for her husband’s execution, but actually took private possession of allthe jewels of the Rajah found on his body, especially a watch, made by Bellechasse Freres of Paris, ‘which she avers to have seen in the possession of Sir SE sister, alleged to have been ordered and paid for by Sir Lumley. This lady sues under the name of Effie Kalidasa, widow of Kalidasa, Rajah of Krishnapoor and offers as witnesses the makers of the watch an some fifty prominent Indian officials who have seen iy in the Hon. Miss Lawton’s possession. Thise proven will convict Sir Lumley of @ very mean * “The Nile Ben : > The Duke of Diamonds. tHuragian, Chien ot Hpopenth Anta | race are thus named tn, Int ee | — oe i eee ms _ = - e ie. “te Poet Ti form of embezzlement of public property, and if | that of a startling resemblance between this roven, will probably lead to his dismissal from her | man, born in Brazil, and the child of Kalidasa, Majesty's Civil Service. The charge of forgery of | who'would only be twenty-one if he were alive. the death-warrant is more obscure, as Lord Law- | Sir Lumley resolved to make a friend of the rence, who was Governor-Generai at the time, has | , © 10Y Tes : been dead some years.” ae and find who he was, for his own safety. When Halim Pasha had finished reading he One thing was certain: if the Princess Eupbro- looked round him triumphantly syne Melapetros hed been twenty years youn- iii ger, she might have passed to Sir Lumley for “There, messieurs; that is the man that : . pre : Nh enor eta oh Effie Blackstone, the little Eurasian, who had Colonel Hamilton, the British consul-general, cheated him at fifteen by marrying Kalidasa. introduces to the club and asks us to grant “Tt must be that they are the same,” he af + , , privileges to. J say I shall protest to the ex- tered to himself now, as he looked at Diamar ecutive committee unless the hame is with- tina and thought of the yesterday’s meeting. drawn.” ‘6 . . Hardly were the words out of his mouth when Ean: Tha this vomee Beg Ha d tnd tekhe | | the men of whom they were speaking entered st, Sots , et wee ee yore the Spent genera) speaking ote ty ry “ Tuind’ Colin re Seeecone Ab posoeg Pah oy Bae poms aaa a glancing rapidly over the paper; and just as ne ie ei. * “sh cs Aare tity Sui ante | Sir Lumley started toward Diamantina he was & beastly country, you know. Pretty iair coo arrested by Hamilton’s voice, saying in a grave om - ~ 8 ee —used to be in the ‘Reform,’ you know—I cainkt think you'll like the club while you're here. | 2° Never any trouble about names, my dear fel- low. Your name would carry you anywhere. Hallo! enh What’s all this?” The consul-general stuck his glass in his eye and stared at the bulletin board of the club, where the names of members proposed were usually posted for the period before voting on ‘‘Look here, Lawton, here’s something you ought to read, It’s a beastly lie, of course. These confounded half-breed French editors al- ways lie. But just read it, you know.” Sir Lumley, with a vague feeling of un- easiness, took the paper and began to glance over the translated article, while Hamilton them’ with wr he ae A of pape ga for a In front of the board were grouped the | ™®2 ° Rea se I Per eens, Degas Oo Cares sey ptian Sora Si ay by Halim Paste. and | j-Rip abcd not bringing him the English tbat venerable and testy oflicer was deliberate- peel, ge ; : a” Stay See ene : ‘“Where is it, you ? Ali, Mebemet, Hassan, A tgp down Sir Lumley’s name from the Francois, whatever is your infernal forei name! I swear you confounded grinning French- Greek moakeys are not fit to wait upon a gen- tleman, confound this beastly country! Give it here, you infernal Egyptian idiot you!” He snatched the paper from the waiter’s hand (said waiter was a Maltese, by the by) and os- tentatiously. turned bis back on the Egyptian officers, with an appearance of rudeness that _ “Hallo, I say, pasha, you know, this is no oke, you know,” angrily exclaimed Colonel amilton, as he stepped forward. CHAPTER XVII. THE ARTICLE. THE old Albanian turned and glowered at him with his fiery eyes as he held out the paper | looked very much like premeditated insult, inned to the obnoxious article in the Bord du The fact was that the Hon. Sidney Hamilton il, which bad caused the trouble, | felt at that moment stung to the very heart ? There, monsieur,” he said, shaking them an- | with indignant shame for his countryman, and grily, “‘I ave torn ze name, zat you may save | longed, Briton-like, to avenge it on any one of your honneur. Do you comprehend, sare? Look | the grinning foreigners, scaloua of Engtish su- at zat article, and say if zat isa name for dis | premacy, who filled the club. club?” He did not believe that the article in the Bord Then with a flourish he slapped his breast and | du Nil came out of the Times at all. He was handed the papers to the amazed Englishman, | too familiar with the peculiar ways of Le- repeating: vantine journalism to doubt that this was some ‘‘T am risponsable, sare.” sort of a blackmailing attack, but all the same And a dozen Egyptians, French and Italian | he remembered to have heard hints in India of officers slapped their breasts together, and | foul play in “‘ that unfortunate Krishnapoor af- cried: fair” and the story about Lorelia’s watch hed ‘“‘ Ve are risponsable, sare!” been a common matter of mess-room scandal in! The English consul-general was a large phleg- | Calcutta. It was characteristic of the utter matic blonde, who wore a gold eyeglass, and | and contem tuous disregard of right and had been a captain in the Guards before he took | wrong in dea ing with Hindoos that marks the to diplomacy. He was as covul as a cucumber | British population of India, that all these stories under fire, and this began to look like fire. _ bad never cost the Lawtons any social or of- ‘“‘Pray don’t waste any unnecessary excite- | ficial Grestige. ‘‘So many things had to be ment, gentlemen,” he remarked, in a tone of | winked atin the inutiny, you know.” aggravating patronage. ‘You must be aware Hamilton looked savagely through the Times, that my position prevents me from fighting in | scanning page after page with the eye of an ex- pert, tilfhe came to the end, when he triumph- antly folded it flat with a slap, and cried: ‘There, pasha; L knew you couldn’t trust those dirty blackmailing sheets they call papers in Cairo, got up by a parcel of French ‘sneak- thieves and Yankee adventurers. That Bord du Nil has made a lie out of whole cloth, and, by Jove, I’ll complain to his highness and haye the paper stop There’s no such article in the Times. It’s alla lie.” Sir Lumley, who was reading the French journal with a face like gray marble and a firm set of the lower jaw, here forced a smile and tossed the paper on the floor, saying: “By Jove, Hamilton, I didn’t think scoundrels had so much audacity. Where’s this fellow’s office? TI shall have to give him a thrashing, I’m afraid.” Pll see if the Khedive Beypr hat’s the row?’ is, sare; dis! Read ’em!”’ And Halim Pasha thrust the paper into his hands, pointing to the article. Meanwhile Sir Lumley Lawton, not quite com- prehending what was the matter, for he had not seen the paper Halim Pasha bad torn down, yet felt thesortof uneasinessa man experiences when he is made spectator of a quarrel. At first he was disposed to laugh at the volu- ble excitement of the old pasha and his southern friends, but then his eyes fell on the Duke of Diamentina, who was ‘sitting in a large cane arm-chair, lazily watching the fracas through the blue wreaths of his cigarette smoke. They had not met sinee the previous day, when Sir Luroley had been taken so suddenly ill at the Diamantina mansion that the duke had been a to send him home in his own car- ‘*Leave him to me. riage. Since that time the once Resident of allows English gentlemen to be insulted like Krishnapoor bad had time to compose his mind | this. By Jove, sir, if he’s anything. short of an and features to meet Diamantina, and lay out a | Englishman, ['l] have him bastinadoed, or Pll course of action for himself. send for the ironclads at once.” : , The cause of bis illness was simple enough, | Thus blustered Hamilton, anxious to save the and if the reader has not gathered it from the credit of his country by prompt action, when foregoing pages, it is soon told. be was arrested by a nasal voice which said: om some occult cause, the young Duke of | “‘ Don’t sweat yourself, cunnel. The French Diamantina seemed to Sir Lumley to be noth- paper didn’t lie. Here’s the identical article in ing but the living it and identity of that | the Times the day before that one you have.” very Rajah of Krishnapoor whom he had cansed — to be destroyed twenty years before. Had not CHAPTER XIX. A BRAZILIAN YANKEE, Sir Lumley seen the mutilated fragments of THE speaker was a tall, thin, angular man, that unhappy prince with his own eyes, he would have believed that the Rajah had escaped | with sharp, clean-shaven face, large bones, and a general appearance of ungainly strength and alive; but as it was, the duke seemed, to his re- shrewdness, while the tones of his voice were morse-haunted vision, to be nothing but an evil spirit that had taken the dead Kalidasa’s | those of the old-fashioned down-East Yankee,' ms now nearly extinct. e had made all sorts of inquiries about the He was dressed in shiny binck like a clergy- duke since he left the Diamantina mansion, an | man, and had been sitting quietly at a distant had found his name well known and printed in | table, reading the very paper which he now held the Almanach de Gotha the indispensable of | out with a grim smilé to Colonel Hamilton. European tuft-hunters, ‘¢ Both the Englishmen stared at him in sur- There he was:—‘‘ Vasco Va , Count of | prise, and Hamilton haughtily asked him: Albuquerque, Marquis of Pombal, Duke of Dia- “Who are you, sir? 1 don’t think I have the mantina, created in 1869, by Dorm Pedro, Em- honor of your acquaintance,” ' peror of Brazil, zetas 28,” * Waal,” retur ed. the American, coolly, ‘I There was ho possi to cgatance = d | was one of the founders of this club—before thet there coul he arly behier eonneetien, thn your time. connel, and if you want to see my these » Rr Se eee COMIC pOOKS (ao: