The Adventures of Kathlyn, page 39 by Harold MacGrath
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tooped and recovered his pipe and swore softly. "Ali, if this is true, then it's some devil work; and I'll wager my shooting eye that that sleek scoundrel Umballa, as they call him, is at the bottom of it. A white woman, good old Hare's daughter. I'll look into this. It's the nineteenth century, Ali, and white women are not made rulers over the brown, not of their own free will. Find out all you can and report to me," and Bruce dismissed his servant and fell to pacing before his tent.
The native who had spread this astounding news in Bruce's camp was already hastening back to the city, some fourteen miles away. He had been a bheestee (water carrier) to the house of Ramabai up to the young banker's incarceration. To him, then, he carried the news that a white hunter had arrived outside the city--"Bruce Sahib has returned!"
Ramabai lost no time in taking this news to Kathlyn.
"Ramabai, I have saved your life; save mine. Go at once to him and tell him that I am a prisoner but am called a queen; tell him I am Colonel Hare's daughter, she who traveled with him on the same ship from Hongkong to Singapore. Go! Tell him all, the death of my father and Umballa's treachery. Hasten!"
Bruce was eating his simple evening meal when Ramabai arrived.
"Bruce Sahib?"
"Yes. Your face is familiar."
"You have been twice to my bank. I am Ramabai."
"I remember. But what are you doing here?"
"I have come for aid, Sahib, aid for a young woman, white like yourself."
"Then it is true? Go ahead and let me have all the facts. She is Hare Sahib's daughter; Ali told me that. Precious rigmarole of some sort. The facts!"
"She is also the young lady who traveled in the same boat from Hongkong to Singapore." Ramabai paused to see the effect of this information.
Bruce lowered his fork slowly. The din about him dwindled away into nothing. He was again leaning over the rail, watching the phosphorescence trail away, a shoulder barely touching his: one of the few women