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Page 42
"You are now acquainted with the trust I would impose upon you: swear
to me, Moro, that you will make this explanation for me to John
Darrow and to no other human being! Swear it by the love you once
said you bore me!" She sank back exhausted and awaited my response.
For a moment I dared not trust myself to speak, yet something must
be said. As I noted her impatience I replied: "Lona, you have lifted
a great weight from my heart and placed a lesser one upon it.
Forgive me that I have ever doubted you. Even as you have been true
to yourself, I swear by the love I still bear you to deliver your
message to Darrow Sahib and to no other human being. I shall commit
your words at once to writing that nothing may be lost through the
failure of my memory."
She reached her hand out feebly to me, and never shall I forget the
look of gratitude which accompanied its tremulous pressure as she
murmured: "After John, Moro, you are dearest. I shall not try to
thank you. May the ineffable peace which you bring my aching heart
return a thousand-fold into your own. Farewell. Ragobah may return
at any moment. Let us not needlessly imperil your safety. Once
more good-bye. The dew-drop now may freely fall into the shining
sea." Poor distraught child! She had tried to adopt her lover's
religion without abandoning her own. I bent over and kissed her.
It was my first and last kiss and she gave it with a sweet sadness,
the memory of which, through all these years, has dwelt in the
better part of me, like a fragrance in the vesture of the soul.
One long, lingering look and I departed, never to see again this
woman I had so fondly, so hopelessly loved.
You now know the exact nature of the covenant I have felt constrained
to violate. I have told you her story in her own words. I wrote it
out immediately after my interview with her and have read it so many
times, during the last twenty years, that I have committed it to
memory. The recollection of that last meeting, of her kiss and her
grateful look has been throughout all these long, weary years the
one verdant spot in the desert of my life.
[Moro Scindia paused here, as one who had reached the end of his
narrative, and I continued my interrogations.]
Q. Although you never again saw your cousin you must, I think, have
heard something of her fate.
A I learned of it through Nana Kandia, the servant who had secretly
embraced Lona's cause, and who had borne her message to me. It
seems that, after my interview with her, my cousin was seized with
a consuming desire to see her English lover once more before her
death; so she devised a plan by which, with Kandia's help, Darrow
Sahib was to be secretly conducted to her under cover of night. She
wrote a letter asking him, as a last request, to meet her messenger
on Malabar Hill, and instructing him how to make himself known.
This she gave to Kandia to post early in the morning of the day upon
which their plan was to be put into execution. As he was about
leaving the house Ragobah called him into his chamber and demanded
to know what was taking him forth so early in the morning. Kandia
saw at once that the purpose of his errand had been discovered, and
determined to meet the issue bravely. "I was going to post a letter,
Sahib," he replied quietly. "Let me see it!" Ragobah roared. "I
have no right to do so," Kandia replied, springing toward the door.
But he was not quick enough for the wary Ragobah, who felled him to
the floor with a chair before he had reached the threshold. When
he returned to consciousness he found his assailant, who had
skilfully opened the letter, standing over him perusing it in
malicious glee. When he had finished reading he carefully resealed
it and placed it in his pocket. Then he called two of his servants
and gave Kandia into their charge with orders to gag him, to bind
him hand and foot, and, as they valued their lives, not to permit
him to leave the room till he ordered it.
What occurred between that time and the return of Ragobah, wounded
and furious, late in the evening, we can only surmise. He doubtless
posted the letter, and went himself to meet Darrow Sahib on Malabar
Hill. When he returned home he hobbled into his wife's apartment
and then ordered Kandia to be sent to him. His left leg was badly
crushed and his face, contorted with pain and fiendish malevolence,
was horrible to look upon.
"Our trusty friend here," he said, addressing his wife and pointing
to Kandia, "could not conveniently post your letter this morning, my
dear, so I did it myself." Lona's face turned ashen pale, but she
made no reply.
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