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Doggott exclaimed beneath his breath. "Dead!" he cried in a tone of daze. In two strides he had left Amber and was kneeling by Rutton's side.
A peculiar quality, a certain tensity, in Rutton's manner, forced itself upon Amber's attention. "Why?" he asked. "Do you know the Farrells? What's the matter?" Rutton's eyes met his stonily; out of the ashen mask of his face, that suddenly had whitened beneath the brown, they glared, afire but unseeing. His hands writhed, the fingers twisting together with cruel force, the knuckles grey.
I claim to be Naraini, Queen, wife to Har Dyal Rutton, rightful ruler of Khandawar coward, traitor, renegade who stands there!" "For the love of Heaven, Rowan, shut her up!" cried Labertouche. "It's all a pack of lies; the woman's raving. Rutton's dead, in the first place; in the second, he's her father. She can't be his wife very well, whether he's alive or dead.
Between Rutton's thumb and forefinger there blazed a great emerald set in a ring of red old gold. He turned it this way and that, inspecting it critically; and the lamplight, catching on the facets, struck from it blinding shafts of intensely green radiance. Rutton nodded as if in recognition of the stone and, turning, with an effect of carelessness, tossed it to Amber.
With an oath he sprang back, threw his weight against the door, and with his left hand shot the bolt, while his right whipped from his pocket Rutton's automatic pistol. "Drop that gun, you monkey!" he cried sharply. "I was afraid of this, but I think you and I'll have an accounting before any one else gets in here."
"Such as the fact that Colonel Farrell adopted Rutton's daughter, who, as it happens, did survive her mother? Yes; I knew that or, rather, part I knew and part I guessed. But don't worry, Mr. Amber; I'll keep the secret." "For the girl's sake," said Amber, twisting his hands together. "For her sake. I pledge you my word." "Thank you."
Who or what the man was or might have been was ever a field of fascinating speculation to the American, but his wildest conjecture had never travelled east of Italy or Hungary. He had always fancied that one, at least, of Rutton's parents had been a native of the European Continent.
Impulsively the younger man sat up and put a hand upon the arm of Rutton's chair. "What can I do?" he asked simply. Rutton roused, returning his regard with a smile slow, charming, infinitely sad. "Nothing," he replied; "absolutely nothing." "But surely !" "No man can do for me what I cannot do for myself. When the time comes" he lifted his shoulders lightly "I will do what I can.
He understood now how the babu's companion had fallen into error: how Chatterji, possessing sufficient intelligence to recognise his initial mistake, had, having rectified it, saved his face by saying nothing to his companion of the incident; and how the latter had remained in ignorance of Rutton's death after the slaying of Chatterji, and had pardonably mistaken Amber for the man he had been sent to spy upon.
It was quite conceivable that that jewel, intrinsically invaluable, was badly wanted by its former possessors, whether for the simple worth of it or because it played an important part in the intrigue, or whatever it was, that had resulted in Rutton's suicide.
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