Beadle's New York Dime Library, No. 108 — page 15: what you’re looking at

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

: The Duke of Diamonds. ————.- - ————— o— - > 7" ; Eo = — Fontenoy), had, while yeta raw ‘‘ Griff ” (green- horn), fallen madly in love with a native girl. Worse than that, he had actually married her under the sanction of a Wesleyan missionary | pedition at that very time. who had educated poor Luchmee from the time she was thrown as an infant into the Ganges for the crocodiles, whence he rescued her, to the day she became, to her simple wonder and de- light, a real ‘*Sahib’s lady.” Poor Luchmee! hers was a history rarely met | with outside of India. Who were her parents, was problematical. All the missionary knew of her was that he saw her floating by in a basket one morning, like Moses in the old pictures, with the addition of a dozen crocodiles coming after her, scenting prey. At the risk of his life the worthy man had fished her out, just in time to cheat the crocodiles, took her home to his wife, and both accepted the little brown maid as a gift from Heaven; one bond fide convert to Christianity. ; That Luchmee, beautiful like all her beauti- ful race, talkin om rem well, and having all the education of a white girl in the same sta- tion, should be a bewitching creature even to English ofiicers, is not surprising; and the Lo- tharios of atleast a dozen marching regiments and two crack cavalry se had laid siege to her whenever garrison ty called them to Modbad, where Missionary Wilson labored. But inasmuch as their intentions were in no case honorable, and Mrs. Wilson was a ver dragon of watchfulness, no one succeeded, t young Malcolm Blackstone, with the scent of the heather still in his hair, came, like @ green, honest ce | lad as he was, married Luchmee after a three days’ courtship, and realized, with- | in three days more, that he had made a terrible and fatal mistake. Not alady in the garrison would visit his new wife; and most of them refused even to recog- nize himself. His comrades were cool and dis- tant, and made his position so uncomfortable date, as he sat brooding over it in Cairo, head was dearer to her than all he could offer ment she saw him, and that if he did not leave the palace that moment she would summon the ards and have his head taken off, if it cost er life and kingdom. ““But I paid him up for it,” muttered Sir Lumley, to himself; “‘ and as for the death-war- rant, ties and the statute of limitations bars the rest. I’ve nothing to fear.” Even while he spoke he heard the loud, rol- licking tones of O’Shea in the passage, coming toward the room and talking to some one. CHAPTER XXII. FATHER AND SON. What’s the matter?’ **Oh, nothing ; only I want to meet him very much, O’Shea, : aod into the room came O’Shea and a young man in the semi-Oriental dress affected by Euro- peans in Egypt. They glanced over at Sir Lumley, who was young man lowered his voice. ‘*Do you remember what I told you about my uncle, O'Shea?’ ‘Yes, Gilkarvah, ye mean?” ‘*Thesame. Dom Gil’s the man.” **D’ye nean it now ¢” ‘*I’m sure of it. I’ve been hunting over a dic- tionary and find that translation of Carver.” * Whisht!” answered O’Shea, suddenly nude- ing him and jerking his thumb towurd Sir Lumley. ‘‘ Don’t ye see who’s yonder? Come this way.” that he was glad to resign and go into civil em- jloyment at Allahabad, where Effie was born. -00r Luchmee did not know howshe was ostra- cised, for the simple reason that she never had mingled with any Europeans except her foster- parents, and therefore did vot miss their so- be ciety; but her husband, who had all the sensi- And they left the room before the English tiveness of a poor and proud man, was cut to | baronet could catch any more, and went down the heart at findin himself relegated to the | the Whereis conversing low and earnestly. companionship of Hindoos, among whom he here’s that cursed Irishman,” muttered was disliked and suspected. He loved his beau- | Lawton to himself. “*I was a fool to buy his tiful child-wife (Luchmee wasa woman at four- | Silence with a commission, when a dangerous teen and wed at fifteen), and alwaystreated her | crTand among the mutineers migbt have rid with tenderness; but when she died, after qa | ™e Of bis tongue and himself. If he and the year of married life, leaving baby Effie behind | Ranee put their heads together they may make ier, it is questionable whether her husband did | that watch affair lookugly for me. I wish Owen not feel a certain senes of relief. | was here.” His position in English society was now ca Sir Lumley began to realize that he was past ble of betterment, and he soon found himself is prime, and to lean for help in emergencies rising in the civil service, owing to the know- | 0? his son’s stern will and more active frame. ledgaof natives and their languages obtained | He felt lonely on this hot day in Cairo, the more by him from the circumstances of his marriage. | S° that Helen and Lorelia were sleeping away Effie, therefore, grew up in a nomadie sort of | the noontime up-stairs, and the hotel was de- way, owing to the frequent and rapid transfers | Serted save by a few perspiring waiters. of her father from post to post all over India, He rose and went over to the telegraph office, till by the time she was a full-grown woman of | Where the operator was dozing in his chair, fourteen (in India equal to eighteen or twenty | | Atything for me?’ x in Europe) she could talk a dozen languages fiu-| ‘* You? let me see, sir—what name? ently, read a little English, play a little on the Sir Lumley Lawton. ouitar, sing and dance divinely; though the Positively he felt reluctant to say it aloud in multiplication table was a mystery to her. Cairo, since that article in the Bord du Nil. Then it was that Lumley tnaitie. a married | . The operator looked up at him in a startled, man himself, set his cold, cruel eyes on her and | interested way, as if he too had heard the name, coveted her, He saw her social position anom- | #04 answered: . alous, like that of her mother, no white lady | Yes, sir. Here’s a telegram from Aden for recognizing her, while the men paid her a | ‘Bir questionable respect, tinged with a licentious | SH Taimle tore open the envelope and read devotion that only failed to hurt heron account | With ge elight: of her utter innocence of all guile. Her father, | _ ‘‘Coaling finished. Shall be in Cairo on the 27th. immersed in business, bent only on making | Meet you at the club. Owen.” money with which to leave India, saw little of Then his face fell, and he began to gnaw his | his child and left her exposed to all sorts of dan- | under lip. Owen was to meet him at the club: gers, unsuspecting their nature. that very club which had refused to give him Lumley Lawton was then a civil servige man, | the usual courtesies that morning.- He must ostensibly occupying the post of secretary to | manage to intercept him before he got there. the Rajah of Krishnapoor, really a paid spy ‘* W bat time does the train from Suez get in on that gallant young prince. Two years be- | here?” he asked the clerk at the desk of the fore the ner of the mutiny he was offered | hotel, as that worthy individual dozed in the by the British Government the post of Resident | heat. minister at the court which the Rajah eagerly The clerk woke up confusedly. urged him to accept, on the ground that he pre- ‘Train to Suez? Yes,sir. Six P. mu.” ferred an old friend to a new face, and almost ‘No, no, from Suez here I mean,” said Sir at ithe same time the Rajah wooed and won | Lumley, impatiently. , Effie Blackstone, for whose sweet sake he con- “Oh, yes, sir. Beg pardon, sir. Two trains. sented to abjure polygamy and be married in | One leaves Suez at daylight, gets here 10:55 <a. Christian fashion by the same devoted Metho- | M. Other's the night train—10:40 Pp. wm. Carries dist missionary who had been the only grand- | mail,sir. Very aa pause. P. and O. peo- father Effie ever knew. ple all come in morning train.” Well did Sir Lumley call all this to mind as ‘Thank you. he satin the smoking-room at Shepherd’s Hotel, Sir Lumley turned away to look at his tele- aa. out into the glare of the Egyptian sun- light, through the crevices of the blinds and thinking over the past. Well did he remember the day, just after the massacre of Cawnpoor, am. ro Shall be in Catro on the 27th. That’s—what day of the month is this?” To the clerk this, in his usual quick, snappish when he tried to induce Effie to leave her | way. husband and flee to Calcutta, promising to se-| ‘‘ The twenty-seventh, sir, Monday.” cure her the Rajah’s treasures and a brilliant | ‘‘ To-day!” Sir Lumley felt the sweat run down his face. widower by this time, his only daughter, Helen, | Owen must be here already, and must have ) ngland, his son, Owen, at Eton; and gone to the club. By this time he knew all; he could have kept his word. p must have seen the obnoxious. paper, perhaps t.the Rajah’s sympathies were | had quarrelal withsoma one about it. He told her t i With the s, and thatit would ke «sy t4 “Why dient L get this telegram sconer?” he life in England as his own wife. was a frabador is merely ,a | ~~ - ~~ we trump up a charge against bim in the excited | state otf English feeling, and moreover that Kalidasa was away on a pretended hunting ex-— didn’t know you by sight. The rebuff that was given him by the Ranee | stung him even now, twenty years after the | She told him that a single hair of Kalidasa’s — her, that she had hated him from the first mo- | Lord Lawrence winked at the irregulari- | i asked, fiercely, of the operator, anxious to vent his spleen on some one. ‘“It was marked ‘to be called for,’ sir. I I’m not to blame. It’s been lying here two days or more.” Sir Lumley growled out something very like a profane malediction and went rapidly out of the hotel, taking the direction of the Khedive Club, quite regardless of the heat. Some hundreds of donkey boys, seeing an Englishman, marked him for their lawful prey and came down like a swarm of locusts, shout- ing: ‘*Donkey, howadji! Berry good! Run like deer! Backshish, howadji!” They supplemented their broken English with a long string of Arabic curses and jeers, op the ee ee ee we eS Ooo’ ~ —_—-- ~ - - ' generally safe idea that the howadji would un- ‘‘Dom Git? Divil a one o’ me’s seen him. | derstand the English and take the Arabic for compliments. But Sir Lumley wasin no mood to stand their noise, and he laid about him so fiercely with his stick, with a shower of Arabic epithets as bad -as their own, that the whole tribe fled in dis- may, calling to one another that this was a devil, not a quiet howadji. Heunderstood them. Then the Englishman pursued his way in peace, and the first person he met descending the steps of the club was the Duke of Diaman- replied the voice of a stranger, | tina. Never so strongly as at that moment did the fatal likeness to the dead Rajah strike Sir Lum- ley as he looked at the duke, courteous and smiling, the brilliant beauty of his dark aqui- dimly visible in the darkened room, and the — | | a SL TT line features set off by the broad shadow of his turbaned hat, his white costume of faultless purity. The ex-Resident of Krishnapoor could have sworn Kalidasa stood before him, The duke was going to his carriage, which waited for him, and he lifted his hat with his usual bland smile as he passed Sir Lumley. A sudden impulse inate the older man speak to him, bluntly and abruptly: ‘1 know who you are. What do you want of ine, Kalidasa?’ Diamantina raised his eyebrows in polite sur- prise, “Sir Lumley Lawton! J want of you? My dear sir, you must be careful: th's sun is ver dangerous. Your eye looks wild: you will You must go home, My man Nay, nay, my dear sir, I in- have a stroke. shall drive you. sist.” And before Sir Lumley could resist, the duke haif-led, half-pushed him to the carriage, re- peating: right in your head yet. My dear sir, you must get in. I will take no denial. Pedro shall drive you back to the hotel at once, and then you must lie down.” i vars here Sir Lumley at last broke out, impa- “I tell you I’m as well as you are. Have you seen my son Captain Lawton in the club? That's all I ask.” ‘Captain Lawton?” asked the duke, medita- tively, as if trying to recollect. ‘** Yes, Captain Owen Lawton, Royal British Navy,” retorted the father, in the same exas- perated tone. ‘‘ Have you seen him to-day?” ‘My dear sir, let me think. I see so many people. Captain Lawton, the son. of the dis- tinguished Sir Lumley? I think I have, Yes, sir, 1 bave seen the gentlemanin the Red Sea. Miss Helena will tell you how he fired a shell at the yacht, when his sister was on board, It was a mistake, you know, my good sir.” ‘* But have you seen him ay, lask?”’ Sir Lumley’s patience, never great, was giving way, and his tone was fierce. The duke sopped back a pace, looking at the Englishman sidewise with the same provoking smile on his face, extracted a cigarette-case trom his pocket, opened it, and proffered it to Sir Lumley. ‘“Will you not smoke, sir? The tobacco is from my own plantation in the Vuelta Abajo. It has the true flavor.” **No. I don’t want to smoke. Since you will not answer me, I'll ring the bell. Good- day, duke.” : ‘‘Good-day, my dear sir.” ; The duke lifted his hat with his sweetest smile, while Sir Lumley ascended the steps of the club-house and rung the bell. The smile became one of triumphant meaning a moment later as Diamantina stepped into carriage and was whirled away. As for Sir Lumley, his task was sufficiently ceo ap ange ‘He had to ask for his son in a club from which be had been virtually expell. ed that very morning; and it was with a burn- ing face and in a low tone that he asked the waiter, who opened the door, whether Captain Lawton was in the club. As he spoke, he slip- ped a piece of silver into the man’s hand. The waiter became confidential in a moment. He would not have been a club waiter if; he had not known every item of scandal about the lace. a Yes. Captain Lawton wasin. He was one of the original members. The keph from him the trouble m aameia thai very morning, secon after ‘** The doctor said it was a case of very nearly§ sunstroke yesterday, and you are not quite; mag ng ie Sir Lam. MIiGVOOKS co