The Indian Bangle. Fergus Hume
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"No," replied Mallow, listlessly. "What's in them?"
"The usual nothing. France is abusing us, Germany is envying us, Russia is warning us, and the U.S.A. are beginning to see that blood is thicker than foreign ditch-water."
"And what are we doing?"
"Holding our tongues and picking up unconsidered geographical trifles. Silence is ever golden annexation with us."
"Upon my word, Jim," said Mallow, with good-humoured astonishment, "you are getting beyond words of one syllable. You can actually construct a sentence with a visible idea in it."
"I am growing up, Mallow; age is coming upon me."
"Well, Jim, suppose we take a walk."
Aldean laughed, and pointed with the stem of his pipe towards the red roofs of the distant manor house, "Over there, I suppose?"
"Jim, you have no tact. If our steps do tend in that direction, wandering in devious ways, I--I--well, I have not forgotten that Miss Ostergaard is paying a visit to--to--Miss Slarge."
"True enough," replied Jim, winking. "Let us pay a visit to--to--Miss Slarge."
"We might do worse," said Mallow; and sighed.
"I expect we'll do better," was Aldean's response.
Mallow groaned. "Oh, Jim, Jim, I am a fool. I know that she is going to marry this Carson; and yet--and yet I cannot help making myself miserable by calling to see her."
"Buck up, old man, she isn't spliced yet!"
"James, you are incurably vulgar."
"If you pay me any more compliments, Mallow, I shall forget the respect to my former tutor, and chuck you out of this gangway. Come for a walk."
So Mallow allowed himself to be persuaded, and in due time, as he knew they inevitably would do, they found themselves in the grounds of the Manor House.
Striding up and down the lawn was an elderly lady with a lack-lustre eye and the gait of a grenadier.
"How do you do, Miss Slarge," said the visitors, almost simultaneously. And they waited for the priestess of Minerva to wake up and return their salutation.
Miss Rubina Slarge was a maiden of forty-five years. She was sufficiently well-looking to have married a score of times. However, early in life she had become convinced that it was her mission to expose the errors of the Romish Church, and she felt that for this purpose she should dispense with a husband. Her knowledge was extensive, but apt to be inaccurate. It was her firm impression that the idol worship of Babylon still existed in the Papal Church, and she was writing a voluminous book to prove this. Nimrod and his wife Semiramis were still worshipped, she declared, and the festivals and ritual of modern Rome were identical with those of ancient Babylon. She thought of little else, and lived in a world of Biblical prophecy and mythological lore. Therefore, although she was supposed ostensibly to look after Olive, that clear-headed young lady looked after her, and the house to boot. Olive called her Aunt Ruby, but she was really only a distant cousin, connected by blood with the late Mrs. Bellairs. Absent-minded and dogmatic, Aunt Ruby was nevertheless amiable and kindly, and Olive was really fond of her. But it was rare for her to leave Rome or Babylon to speak on commonplace subjects. She was difficult to manage, and required no little humouring.
On seeing two young men standing bareheaded before her, she stopped and looked bewildered. Then she recognized them both and smiled. Finally she pointed a lean finger at Lord Aldean.
"Septem alta jugis toti quæ presidet orbi,'" said Miss Slarge, solemnly. "What does that mean, Lord Aldean?"
"Great Scott!" gasped Jim, cramming his hat on his head, "I don't know."
"Yet you call yourself a scholar, sir?"
"No, I don't, Miss Slarge. I call Mr. Mallow a scholar. What is it, Mallow?"
"The lofty city with seven hills which governs the whole world," translated Mallow.
"I know that," snapped Miss Slarge; "it is a simple sentence from Virgil. But what city?"
"Rome, of course; what other city has seven hills?"
"I was certain of it," cried Miss Slarge, triumphantly; "the chief seat of idolatry under the New Testament. Mystery, Babylon the great--that is Rome!"
"Is it indeed," said Aldean, for her eyes were fastened upon him. "What a rum idea!"
"Jim, Jim," reproved Mallow, smiling.
"It is a very wonderful idea," said Miss Slarge, reproachfully. "Do you know, Mr. Mallow, I made a most remarkable discovery last week? The two-horned mitre of the Romish bishops is nothing but the mitre worn by Dagon, the fish-god of the Babylonians."
"I do not quite understand, Miss Slarge."
"It is not difficult," replied the lady. "Dagon was depicted as half man, half fish."
"I know," cried Aldean; "he had a fish's tail, like a mermaid."
"True enough," assented Mallow; "but that does not explain the mitre."
Miss Slarge became excited. "The head of the fish, with open jaws, was worn on the god's head!" she cried, "and the scales and tail formed a cloak. The bishops of the papal church don't wear the tail, but they place the open-jawed head on their brows, and call it a mitre. Now do you see?"
"Oh yes. It is truly wonderful, Miss Slarge."
"Osiris also wore such a mitre, Mr. Mallow. How then can you doubt that the Pope of Rome is not the modern representative of the Philistine, of the Babylonian deity. Why, if----"
By this time Miss Slarge was taking a breather on her hobby horse, and might be expected to gallop that tiresome animal for a considerable time; so, leaving Mallow to endure the martyrdom, Lord Aldean edged away from the pair by degrees. The cunning rascal had caught a glimpse of Miss Ostergaard out of the tail of his eye, and, preferring flirtation to instruction, managed to place himself by her side whilst she was filling a small basket with roses. All this apparently without her knowledge.
The young lady from New Zealand was one of the most charming of young ladies; and Aldean went so far as to make no reservation in favour of any one. She had been sent to England to be educated, and, having gone to the same school as Olive, a close friendship had sprung up between them as rapidly as had grown Jonah's gourd. Happily the friendship was more enduring than the plant, and for three or four years these two had been like Helena and Hermia, two cherries on one stem. Miss Ostergaard, whose Christian, or rather Maori name, was Tui, loved Olive as her other self, and frequently came to stay at the Manor House. She was now twenty years of age, and so pretty that she won every heart left uncaptured by Olive. With dark hair, dark complexion, and two wonderful dark eyes like wells of liquid light, she made such havoc amongst young and susceptible males that she should have been shut up as a too delightful damsel dangerous to the youth of the community. Her last victim was the hapless Aldean. Having impaled him on a pin, she was watching him wriggle. Not that Jim objected to the process--indeed, he rather liked it--for if he wriggled on the pin no one else could, for the time being; and thus he secured all the sweet torment unto himself: a most gratifying monopoly.
Of course Tui knew that Olive was in love with Mallow, and equally, of course, Olive was aware of Aldean's passion for Tui; and of course both of them discussed their lovers to their hearts' content. Tui was distinctly in favour of Mallow as a suitor for her darling Olive, and was enraged at the mere thought of her friend being handed over, with fifty thousand pounds, to an unknown suitor from the back of beyond. Therefore she was glad to see him, and she hoped that he would rescue Olive from the Indian dragon as a true knight should; for Olive was very wretched and very tearful, and had been so ever since the departure of Mr. Dimbal.
"Poor dear!" sighed Miss Ostergaard, thinking of her friend.
"That is me, isn't it?" asked the artful Aldean.
"You?" said the lady, snipping vigorously--"as if