CHAPTER XIV—Continued. nl Rewsa Gunga spoke truth In Delhtl when he assured King he should some day wonder at Yasminl's dancing. She became Joy and bravery and vouth! She danced a story for them of the things they knew, She was the dawn light, touching the distant peaks. She was the wind that follows it, sweeping among the junipers and kiss- ing each as she came. She was laugh- ter, as the little children laugh when the cattle are loosed from the byres at fast to feed In the valleys. the scent of spring uprising. She was blossom. She was fruit! Very daugh- ter of the sparkle of warm sun on snow, she was the “Heart of the Hills" herself! Never was such dancing! Never such an audience! Never such mad applause! She danced until the great rough guards had to run round the arena with clubbed butts and beat back trespassers who would have mobbed her, And every movement— every gracious woader-curve and step with which she told her tale was as purely Greek as the handle on King's and as the bracelets on Greek! And she half-modern Russian, ex- girl-wife of a semi-civilized hill rajah! Who taught her? There is nothing new, even in Khinjan, In the “Hills!” arena guards at last and burst through the swinging butts to seize her and fling her high and worship her mad barbaric rite, she ran toward the shield. The four men raised it shoul der high again. She went to it like a leaf in the wind—sprang on it as if wings had lifted her, scarce touching it with naked toes—and leapt to the bridge with a laugh. else under heaven her bewitchingest. the far side like nothing Yasminl at without pausing on she into the dark hole and was gone! “Come!” yelled Ismall in He could have heard nothin cavern was like from the tumult, “Whither?' the Afridi in disgust. “Does the wind ask whither? Come like the wind and see! They remember next that they have a bone to plek with thee! Come away!” dvice, He t as Ismail could shoul King's ear. ; | for £ 18S, the apart to burst shouted will That seemed good enough a followed as fas men, deafened, at cowed | stupefied, numbed, al | by the ovation they were ng the “Heart of their Hills” As they disappeared after a scramble through the of the tun- nel they had entered by, a roar went up behind them like the birth of earth- quakes. Looking back over his shoul der, King saw Yasminl come back into the hole’s mouth, to stand framed in it and bow acknowledgment. For the space of five minutes she stood In the mouth sume Deana VALVE ME Never Was Such Dancing. crowd below, Then she went, and the ut the roof and brought down hun Iredwelights of splintered stalactite, Within a minute there were a hun dred men busy sweeping up the splin ters. In another minute twenty Zakka fo hels had begun a sword dance, yell ing lke demons. A hundred joined them. In three minutes more the whole arena was a dinning whirlpool, and the river's volce was drowned In shouting and the stamping of ntked feet on stone, “Come!” urged Ismall and led the way. ing's Inst ropression was of earth's THE CENTRE REPORTER | womb on fire and of hellions brewing | wrath. The stalactites and the hurry- {ing river multiplied the dancing lights into a million, and the great roof | hurled the din down again to make | Ismail went like a rat down a run, | and it became so dark that King had [to follow by ear. ' He Imagined they were running back toward the ledge under the waterfall; yet, when Ismail called a halt at last, panting, groped behind a great rock for a lamp and lit | the wick with a common safety mateh, i before. “Where are we? King asked. “Where none dare seek us. thou afraid?’ asked Ismall, the lamp to King's face, “Kuch dar nahin hat!" he answered. “There is no such thing as fear!” Suddenly the Afridi blew the lamp out, and then tke darkness became solid. a yard away. “Ismail !” he whispered. did not answer him, He faced about, leaning against the rock, with the flat of both hands But Ismail of its company ; and almost at once he saw a little bright red light glowing in the distance. It might have been ill Company the clash of rings on a rod. jut he was beyond being startled. He was not really sure he was in the world He was not certain whether it was the ler yet; or whether time had ceased, The place where he was did not look like a cave, but a palace chamber, gold leaf drawn underneath it, on the frieze, was the Grecian always danging. sixty figures of her, no two alike, A dozen lamps were burning, set In niches cut in the walls at measured ! Intervals, | two outside, except that thelr horn chimneys were stained yellow instead of red, suffusing everything in a golden glow, Opposite him was a curtain, rather { like that through which he had en- | tered. Near to the curtain was a bed, | whose great wooden posts were ! erncked with age. In spite of its age it was spread with fine new linen done lady of the lamps, wana to judge, for the darkness was {| measurable, turning, he thought he could see | and made a grab for the flowing beard that surely must be below them, but { he missed. | “Little light I” to should fish swim to the { droned Ismail. “Moths fly light! Who is a man that he | now less than they?” ! He turned again and stared at the light. Dimly, very vaguely he could 1 ward from almost where he stood. He wns convinced that should he try t« climb back Ismail would merely reach | out a hand and shove him down again, and there was no sense in being put that indignity. He decided forward, for there was even less sense in standing still. So he stooped feel the floor with his hand decidir to go forward, There was no mistaking the finish given by the trend of countless feet, He was on highway, and there are not often pit- falls where so many feet have been. For all that he went forward certain Agog did, and it many minutes before he could see | certain g blood-red in the { behind two lamps, at the to] {of ten steps, quite close he saw carpet down the middle of the steps, so ancient that the stone showed through in places; to to sods FAS 8 i as =n once wns a light yof a flight When he glowin stone went any, was worn or faded away, Carpet and ps glowed red too. His own face, and the hands he held In front of him were red-hot-poker color, Yet outside the little ellipse of light the darkness looked like a thing to lean ngninst, and the silence was 20 Intense {that is i ste 1g by his ears, apparently in a little puff of wind that up the steps and at the top he stooped to examine the lamps. They were bronze, cast, polished and graved., All round the circumference of each bowl were figures in half- | relief, representing a woman dancing. | he woman of the knife-hilt, i and of the lamps in the arena! But no two figures of the dance were alike. It was the same woman dancing. but | the artist had chosen twenty differ ent poses with which to Immortalize | his skill, and hers. Both lamps burned | sweet oll with a wick, and eachr had | a chimney of horn, not at all unlike in modern lamp chimney, The born {was stained red. As he set the second lnmp down he became aware of a subtle, Interesting smell, and memory took him back at once to Ynsminl's room In the Chandni Chowk in Delhi where he had smelled it first. It was the peculiar scent he had been told was Yasminl's own-—a blend of scents, like a chord of music, in which musk did not predominate. He took three strides and touched the curtains, discovering now for the first time that there were two of them. divided down the middle, They were of leather, and though they looked old as the “Hills” themselves, the leather was supple ag good cloth, | “Kurram Khan hal!" he announced. But the echo was the only answer. There was no sound beyond the cur taine, With his heart ln his mouth he parted them with both hands, startled by the sharp jangle of metal rings on a rod, 80 he stood, with arms outstretoched, staring-—staring--staring-with eyes skilled swiftly to take In details, but with a brain that tried to explain formed a hundred wild suggestions and then reeled. He was face to face with the unexplainable-the riddle of Khinjan caves, \ The leather curtains slipped through his fingers and closed behind him “vith DeaLp? nL On It, Above the Linen, & Man and a Woman Lay Mand in Hand, In to down from It glide, and a woman lun draperies hung the floor either above the linen, a man on 80 exactly to her that it HHke Yasmini, clothing and her naked @even 4 + «1. possessed, They both seemed asleep, It was minutes before he satisfied himself that the man’s breast did not rise and fall under bronze Roman armor and that the woman's jeweled gauzy stuff was still Imagination played such tricks with him that in the still ness he Imagined he heard breathing After he was sure they were both d, he went nearer, but it ite yet before he knew the woman as not she, At first a swild thought | possessed him that she had killed her self, The only thing to show who he had | been were the letters 8. P. Q. R.on a great plumed helmet, on a little table { by the bed. But she was the woman j of the lamp-bowls and the frieze. A { life-size stone statue in a corner was { 50 like her, and like Yasmini too, that {it was difficult to decide which of the two it represented, She had lived when he did, for her fingers were locked in his. And he had lived two thousand years ago, be cause his armor was about as old as that, and for proof that he had diell in It part of his breast had turned to powder Inside the breastplate, The rest of his body was whole and per fectly preserved. Stern, handsome In a high-beaked Roman way, gray on the temples, firm- lipped, he lay like an emperor in har ness, But the pride and resolution on the Was a of hers, Very surely those two had been lovers, Both of them looked young and healthy-~the woman younger than thirty-<twenty-five at a guess-and the man perhaps forty, perhaps forty. five, Every stitch of the man's cloth ing had decayed, so that his armor rested on the naked fkin, except for a dressed leather kilt about his middle, The leather was as old as the curtains at the entrance, and as well preserved, But the woman's silked clothing was ns new as the bedding. Yet, they both died about the same time, or how could thelr finge! have been interlaced? And some of the jewelry on the wom: un's clothes was very ancient as well ns priceless, He looked closer at the fingers for signs of force and suddenly caught his breath, Under the woman's flimsy sleeve was un wrought gold bracelet, smaller than that one he himself had worn in Delhi and up the Khyber, He raised the loose sleeve to look more . i bare another bracelet, on the man's right wrist, Size for size, this was the same as the one that had been stolen from himself, Memory prompted him, outer edge with a was the little nick {in the soft gold He felt its finger nail, There that he had made when he struck it He touched the It was warm. He repeated the Both ving bracelets had within tO, by warm, worn hour He muttered and frowned in thought, fu being an i i The leather curtain near the be moved on its bronze rod. “Aren't they dears?’ a volce sald In English behind him. “Aren't sweet Yasmini stood not two arms’ lengths away, lovelier than the dead because of the merry life in her, young and warm, aglow, but looking like the dead woman and the woman of the frieze—the woman of the lamp-howls— the statue-—come fo life, speaking to him in English more sweetly than If {it had been her mother tongue. The { English abuse thelr language. Yas- | mini caressed y and made It do its | work twlcé over. Being dressed | salaamed low. the was, she | stalned tips of her warm kiss, and he thought she trembled | when he touched them. But a second Inter she had snatched them away and was treating him to ralllery. | “Man of pills and blisters!” she sald, | “tell me how those bodies are pre- iserved! Spill knowledge from that | les rned skull of thine!” ie did not answer. He never shone conversation at any time, having de as many friends as enemies by ag nothing until the spirit moves ut she did not know that yet. !{ “If I knew for certain two did not turn to worms,” she went on. “almost I would choose to die while I am beautiful! What ith say, think you, King It [tv 0? Speak, man, speak! { Ja: struck you dumb? Bat he did not speak, He was star zg nt her arm, where whitish rks on the skin betrayed that brace let's had been. “Oh, had thay invy woman ns a npative, he the fingers to gave him why would ¥ sahib, Has Khin- two those! They are theirs. { would turn on me, stead, while you slept. hi», while you slept!” Fie, King sa- heve done better to have for then he might «le«]l her, at least for a while. But having judged himself, he did not care a Ag for her judgment of him, She realized that instantly sand having found a tool that would not work, discarded it for a better one. She grew confidential, “I borrow them.” she explained, “put 1 put them back. I take them for so many days, and when the day comes-—the gods lke us to be exact! You were near death when 1 took the bracelet last night. The time was up. I would have stabbed you if you had tried to prevent mel” Now he spoke at last and gave her ia first glimpse of an angle of his mind she had not suspected. “Princess,” he sald. He used the word with the deference some men can combine with effrontery, so that very tenderness has barbs “You might have bad that thing back if you had sont a messenger for it at any time, A word by a servant would have been enough” “You could never have reached Khinjan then I” she retorted. Her eyes flashed again, but his did not waver, “Princess,” he sald, “why speak of what you don't know? He thought she would strike like a snake, but she smiled at him instead. And when Yasminl has smiled on a man he has never been just the same man afterward. He knows more, for one thing. He has had a lesson In one of the finer arts, “I will speak of what I do know,” asl: amed, ¥ Look I She pointed at the bed--at the man on the bed—fingers locked in those of a woman who looked so like herself, He looked, knowing well there was something to be understood, that stared him in the face. But for the life of him he could not determine question or answer, “What is in your bosom?" she asked him, Iie put his hand to his shirt. “Draw it out I” she said, as a teacher drills a child. He drew out the gold-hilted knife with the bronze blade, with which a man had meant to murder him. He let it lle on the palm of his hand and looked from it to her and back again. The hilt might have been a portrait of her modeled from the life, “Here is another like it,” she sald, stepping to the bedside, She drew back the woman's dress at the bosom and King’s band. “One lay on her bosom und one on his when I found them!” “Now, think again!” He did think, of thirty thousand pos- and of one impossible idea that stood up prominent among them nll and insisted on seeming the only likely one. “I! saw the knife in your bosom last night,” she sald, “and laughed so that 1 nearly wakened you.” “Why didn't you take it with the bracelet?’ King asked her, holding it out. “Take it now. I don’t want it.” She accepted it and laid it on the man's bronze armor. Then, however, she resumed it and played with it. “Look again!” she sald, “Think and look again!” He looked, tnd he knew now, But he still preferred that she should tell him, sand his lips shut tight. “Can you guess why I changed my wind about you-—wise man?” She looked from him to the man on the bed and back to him again. Hav- ing solved the riddle, King had leisure be interested in her watched them analytically, like a Jew. eler appraising diamonds, reminiscent, but much mors and colorful than any They had the baffling changing while he watched fo eyes, strungely changeable had ever trick them, “Having sent a man to kill you, why did I cease to want to kill you? In- stead of losing you on the way to Khin- jan, why did I run risks to you after you reached here? Been. of protect Why did | Earth's Drink tonight? You do { know yet? Then I will tell you some- thing else you do not know. 1 was in Delhi when you were! 1 watched and listened while you and Rewa Gunga talked In my house! I was in Rews took and you did not! I have learned nt first hand that you are not a fool But that wgg not enough! You had to be three things—clever and brave and other, The one other you arel Brave you have proved yourself be! Clever you must be, to trick your way into Khinjan caves, even with Ismail at your elbow! That is why 1 saved your life—because you are those two things and — and — Ong other I She snatched a mirror from a little ivory table—a modern mirror-——bad glass, bad art, bad workmanship, but silver warranted, “Look In it and then at him!” ordered. But he did not need to look. The man on the bed was not so much like himeelf as the woman was like her, ‘ § whe + to she but the resemblance seemed to grow | under his eyes, King was the taller and the younger by several years, but | the noses were the same, and the same firm both looked like Romans. mouth ; »- CHAPTER XVI. “Athelstan!" She pronounced his given name as again and looking into his eyes. There high lights in hers that out- gleamed the diamonds on her dress, “Your gods and mine have done this, Athelstan. When the gods combine they lay plans well indeed I” “1 only know one God,” he answered simply, as a man speaks of the deep things in his heart. “Il know of many! They love me! They shall love you, too! Many are better than one! You shall learn to know my gods, for we are to be part pers, you and II" She took his hand again, her eyes burning with excitement and mysti- cism and ambition like a fever. She seemed to take more thi physical pos- session of him. “What brought them here? Tell me that {* she demanded, pointing to the bed. “You think he brought her? 1 Were “Can You Guess Why | Changed My Mind About You-—Wise Man?" tell you she was the spur that drove hima! Is it a wonder that men called her the ‘Heart of the Hills? 1 found them ten years ago and clothed her and put new linen on their bed, for the old was all rags and dust. There bave always been hundreds—and sometimes thousands--who knew the secret of Khinjan caves, but this has been a secret within a secret. Someone, who knew the secret before I, sawed those bracelets through and fitted hinges and clasps. The men you saw in the Barth's Drink have no Hiug' thee She held hig hand a little tighter and pressed closer to him, laughing softly. He stood as if made of iron, and that only made her laugh the more, “Tales of the ‘Heart of the Hilly have puzzled the raj, haven't they, these many years? They sent me to find the source of them, Me! They chose well! There are not many like me! I have found this one dead wom- an who was like me. And in ten years, until you came, I have found no man like him!” She tried to look into his eyes, but he frowned straight in front of him, His native costume and Rangar turban did not make him seem any less a man, His jowl, that was beginning to need shaving, was as grim and as sat- isfylng as the dead Roman's. She stroked his left hand with soft fingers, “lI used to think I knew how to dance!” she laughed, “For ten years I have taken those pictures of her for my model and have striven to learn what she knew, I have surpassed her! muse I my , my hour myself with men’s dreams-—until Then 1 dreamed My dream wa You have come! has come!” Khe tugged his hand. hers, soul and harness, {if signs could prove it. “Come!” she sald, “Is this my hos. pitality? You sre weary and hungry. Come I” She led him by the hand, for it would have needed brute force to pry She drew aside the leather curtain that hung on a bronze rod near the bed, led him through It, and let it clash to again behind them. Now they were In the dark together, and it was not comprehended in her scheme of things to let circumstance Ite fallow. She pressed his hand, and sighed, and then hurried, whispering tender words he could scarcely eatch When they burst together through a curtain at the other end of a passage fn the rock, his skin was red under the tan gnd for the first time her eyes refused to meet his, “Why did they choose that cave to gleep In?" she asked him. “Is not this a better one? Who laid them there?” He They were in 8 great room far more splendid than the first. There was a great fountain In | the center splashing in the midst of flowers. They were cut flowers. The “Hills" must have been scoured for them within a day. on vn account ! s true Our at He was outward stared about. ¥ There were great cushioned couches all about and two thrones of ivory and gold. Between two coud hes was & table, laden with golden plates ind a golden jug, on pure white linen | There were two ets of beaten gold and ha and bronze whole room scent = made enh! gobi golds 0 ades. The seemed to be drenched in the Yasmini favored, and wa samme frieze running round walls, with the woman depicted on dancing. “Come, we shall eat!” she ing him by the hand to a couch. took the one facing him, like two Romans of the empire with the table in between. knives with ndles the there aii + . said, lead- She and they lay She struck a golden gong then, and in, stared nt King as if she had seen him before and did not like him. Yasmini nodd to the servant, who clapped her hands. At once a stream of hillmen, robed in white, who carried sherbet in bottles cooled in snow and dishes fra- | grant with hot food. He recognized { his own prisoners from the Mir Khan Palace jail, and nodded to them { they set the things down under the | maid's direction. When they had fio- ished eating Yasmin! drove the mail away with a sharp word; he brought an ivory footstool and set it about a yard away from her waxen toes. And she, watching him with burning eyes, { wound tresses of her hair around the i golden dagger handle, making her jew els glitter with each movement. “The gods of India, who are the only real gods, what do they think of it all! They have been good to the English but they have had no thanks, They will stand aside and watch a grefter jihad than the world has ever seen! I love them, and they love me as you shall love me, too! If they did not love both of us, we would no be here! We must obey them!” None of the East's amazing ways of courtship are ever tedious, Love springs into being on an instant and lives a thousand years inside an hour. She left no doubt as to her meaning. She and King were to love, as the Eas knows love, and then the world might have just what they two did not care to take from It. His only possible course as yet was the defensive, and there is no defense like silence. He was still. “The sirkar,” she went on, “the silly girkar fears that perhaps Turkey may enter the war. Perhaps a jihad may be proclaimed. So much for fear! 1 kndw! I have known for a very long time! And I have not let fear trouble me at all!” Her eyes were on his steadily, and she read no fear in his, either, for none was there. In hers he saw ambition triumph already — excitement — the gambigr's love of all the hugest risks. Behind them burned genius and the devilry that would stop at nothing. As the general had told him in Peshawur, she would dare open hades gate and ride the devil down the Khyber for the fun of It, (TO BE CONTINUED.) Crushed Possibilities. Jones, the cub reporter, was fat, but ho looked as melancholy as a fat man ean yhen he entered the city editor's office. “Why was my story killed?” he asked gloomily “An act of mercy enld the editor, a native woman came who ined © came as iow t both -
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