Show di HAROLD amm author the place etc TM newill SYNOPSIS 3 warrington an american adventurer nd james his servant with a cased par ot the known up and down the as parrot co travel along the road to the landing bound tor Ilan Koon to cash a draft or QUO rupees lisa rich american parl tourist sees come aboard the boat at he landing and amazed at ills likeness to her fiance arthur I 1 allson asks the purs r to introduce her he tells her that has beaten a and sold his oil claims or CHAPTER ill continued well he gasn wasn t above having his revenge he made the syndicate come up there they wired asking why be coulden couldn t come on to rangoon and very frankly he gave his reasons they came up on one boat and left on another they ery pleasant but they bought his oil lands lie cama aboard last night with a check for twenty thousand pounds and two rupees in his pocket the two rupees were all he had in this world at the time they wrote him the check arabian night what I 1 am glad I 1 like pluck I 1 like en durance I 1 like to see the lone man win against odds tell me Is he going back to americal 9 ah there s the weak part in the chain the purser looked diffidently at the deck floor it would have been easy enough to discuss the warring ton of yesterday but the warrington of this morning was backed by twenty thousand good english sovereigns he was a different individual he says he doean doesn t know what his plans will be who knows perhaps some one ran away with his best girl ive lots of them to wind up out here on that account when do we reach bromet about six understanding that the warrington incident was closed it isn t worth while going ashore though to see at night I 1 have no inclination to leave the boat until we reach rangoon she met warrington at luncheon and she greeted him amiably to her mind there was something pitiful in the way be had tried to improve his condition so long as she lived no matter whom she might marry she was convinced that never would the thought of this man fade completely from her memory neither the abaz ing likeness nor the romantic back ground bad anything to do with this conviction it was the mans utter loneliness I 1 have been w alting for parrot co all the morning she said I 1 II 11 show him to you right after luncheon it gasn wasn t that I 1 had forgot ten rajah took the center of the stage and even the colonel forgot his liver long enough to chuckle when the bird turned somersaults through the steel hoop eisa was delighted she knelt and offered him her slim white finger rajah eyed it with his head cocked at one side lie turned insolently and entered his cage since he never saw a finger without flying at it in a rage t was the politest thing he had ever done isn t he a sassy little beggar 9 laughed the owner teats the way his band or claw rather against all the world I 1 ve had him half a dozen years and he bates me just as thor hughly now as be did when I 1 picked him up while I 1 was at jaibur have you carried him about all this time demanded the colonel lie was one of the two friends I 1 had one of the two I 1 trusted quietly with a look which rather disconcerted the anglo indian by the actions of him I 1 should say that be was your bitterest enemy he Is yet I 1 call him friend there s a peculiar thing about friendship said the kneeling man we make a man our friend we take him on trust frankly and loyally we give him the best we have in us but we never really know rajah is frankly my enemy and why I 1 love him and trust him I 1 should have preferred a dog but one takes what one can de sides warrington paused thrust the perch between the bars and got up jah jah jah jah jah jaath the bird shrilled oh what a funny little bird cried elsa laughing what does he say ive often wondered it sound like the bell gong ou bear in the shwe dagon pagoda in rangoon he picked t up himself the colonel returned to his elderly charges and became absorbed n his aged times if the girl wanted to pick up the raff to talk to that was her affair americans were impossible any how how long have ou been in the orient elsa asked ten years he anaw ered gravely that is a long time sometimes it was like eternity I 1 have heard from the purser of our good luck oh he stooped again and locked the door ot rajah s cafe I 1 dare say a good many people will hear of it it was splendid I 1 love to read stories like that but I 1 d rather hear them told firsthand elsa was not romantic in the sense that she saw heroes where there were only ordinary men it was the obscure and unknown hero who appealed to her such a ono as this man might be oh there was nothing splendid about the thing I 1 simply hung on then a thought struck him you are traveling with a companion A peculiar question she thought it Is not wise he commented my father was a soldier she re plied it isn t a question of bravery be explained a bit of color charging un der his skin this world Is not like your world women over here oh I 1 ve lost the art of saying things clearly lie pulled at his beard em barras sedly are you warning me against your self why not twenty thousand pound do not change a man they merely change the publics opinion of him for all you know I 1 may be the great est rascal but ou are not lie recognized that it was not a query and a pleasurable thrill ran over him had there been the least touch of condescension in her manner he would have gone deep into his shell no there are worse men in this world than I 1 but we are getting away from the point of women traveling alone in the east oh I 1 know you can protect yourself to a certain ex tent but everywhere on boats in the hotels on the streets are men who have discarded all the laws of convention of the social contract and they have the keen eye of the kite and the vulture to elsa this interest in her welfare was very diverting in other words they can quickly discover the young woman who goes about unprotected don t you think that the trend of the conversation has taken rather a remarkable turn not as impersonal as it should be I 1 beg your pardon shall I 1 go no I 1 want you to tell me some stories she laughed dont worry about me mr warrington I 1 have gone my way alone since I 1 was six teen I 1 have traveled all over this wicked world with nobody but the woman who was once my nurse now tell me something of your adventures ten years in this land must mean something I 1 am always hunting for harun al ld or or some one who has done something out of the ordinary he inclined against abo rail and stared down at the muddy water ad venture he frowned a little I 1 m afraid mine wouldn t read like adaven tures there s no glory in being a stevedore on the docks at hongtong Hong kong a stoker on a tramp steamer between want you to tell me some cg singapore and the andaman islands what haven t 1 been in these ten years with a shrug can you fancy me a deck steward on a P 0 boat tucking old ladles in their chairs stag gering about with a tray of broth bowls helping the unsteady to their staterooms state rooms and touching my cap at the end of the voyage for a few shillings in alps tell me more he looked into her beautiful face animated by genuine interest and wondered if all men were willing to obey her it always interests me to hear from the man s own alpa how be overcame obstacles sometimes I 1 dlan t overcome them I 1 ran away after all the strike in oil was a fluke I 1 don t think so but go on she prompted well I 1 have been manager of a plantation in I 1 ve helped lay tracks in upper india had a band in some bridges sold patent medicines worked in a ruby mine been a haberdasher in the laidlaw shop in bombay cut wood in the teak forests helped exterminate the plague at coltor and Udal pur and never saved a penny I 1 never had an adventure in all my life why 5 our wanderings were ad ventures she insisted think 0 the things you could tell and never will a smile breaking over his face how like arthurs that smile was thought the girl romantic persons never have any adventures it Is to the prosaic these things tall because of their nearness iou lose their values there Is some difference between romance and adventure romance Is what you look forward to adventure Is something you look back upon but I 1 always supposed adventure was the finding of treasures on land and on sea ot filibustering of fighting with sabers and pistols and all that algma role I 1 can t quite lift my imagination up to the height of calling my six months shovel engineering on the galle an adventure it was brutal hard work and many times I 1 wanted to jump over the lascara lascars often got out of trouble that way it all depends upon how we look at things she touched the parrot cage w ath her foot and rajah hissed what would you say it I 1 told you that I 1 was unconventional enough to ask the pur ser to introduce you the amazement in his face was an awer enough don t you suppose she went on the picture you presented standing on that ledge the red light of the torch on your face the bird cage in your hand dont you suppose you roused my sense of the romantic to the highest pitch parrot co I 1 with a wave of her hands she was laughing at him it could not be otherwise it made him at once sad and angry romance I 1 bate the word I 1 again affirm that young women should not travel alone they think every bit of tinsel Is gold every bit of colored glass ruby romance adventure bah so much twaddle has been written about the east that aads cads and scoundrels are mis taken tor Gala hads and D few men remain in this country who can with honor leave it who knows what manner of man I 1 am he picked up the parrot cage and strode away jan jah began the bird not all the diplomacy which worldly wise men have at their disposal could have drawn this girls interest more surely than the abrupt rude manner of his departure CHAPTER IV two days of paradise at first elsa did not know whether she was annoyed or amused the mans action was absurd or would have been in any other man his ad vice to her to go home was downright impudence and yet the sight of the parrot cage dangling at his side made it impossible for her to take lasting offense once upon a time there had been a little boy who played in her garden aben he was cross h would take bis playthings and go home the boy might easily have been this man warrington grown up of course he would come and apologize to her for his rudeness Pter hapa he bad resented her curiosity perhaps her questions bad beba pressed too hard and perhaps be had suddenly doubted her genuine interest at any rate it was a novel experience and that bewildering likeness she returned to her chair and opened the book again and as she read her wonder grew the diction was ex there was style but now as she read there was lacking the one thing that stood for life blood it did not pulsate in the veins of these people until now she had not lecog this tact and she was halfway through the book what had happened to her since yesterday to what cause be assigned this opposite angle of vision so clearly benned denned the book fell upon her knees and dreamily she watched the perspective open and the low banks with their golden haze of dust the cloudless sky the sad and lonely white pagodas charmed her and the lan buor of the east crept stealthily into her northern blood she was not con of the subtle change she only knew that the world of yesterday was unlike that t today warrington after depositing rajah in the stateroom sought the bench on the stern deck he filled his cutty with purser loaned tobacco and roundly himself as a blockhead he had forgotten all the niceties of clel liz atlon he no longer knew how to behave the first young woman in all these years who had treated him as an equal and be had straightway proceed ed to lecture her upon the evils of traveling alone in the orient and yet he had told her the truth it was not right that a oung and at woman should wander about in the east unattended save by a middle aged companion it would provoke the devil in men who were not wholly bad women had the fallible idea that they could read human na ture and never found out their mis take until after they were married he knew her kind it she wanted to walk through the bazaars in the evening she would do so it a man tol lowed her she would ignore the fact if be caught up with her and spoke she would continue on as if she had not heard if a roan touched her she would rely upon the fire of her eyes she would never call out for help some women were just that silly rt he bit hard upon the etera of bla pipe what was all this to him why should he bother his head about a woman he had known but a few hours ah why lie to himself he knew what elsa usually quick and receptive did not know that he was not afraid of her but terribly afraid of himself for things ripen quickly in the east men and women souls and deeds and he was something like the pariah dog spoken kindly to it attached itself am mediately and enduringly he struck the cutty against his boot heel why not it would be only for two days at rangoon their paths would separate he would never see her again he got up he would go to her at once and apologize and thus he surrendered to the very devil he had but a moment gone so vigor bously discountenanced he found her asleep in her chair the devil which had brought him to her side was thrust back why she was nothing more than a beautiful child A great yearning to brother her came into his heart he did not disturb her but waited until five that grave and sober hour when kings and clerks stop work for no logical reason whatever tea she opened her eyes and saw him watching her he rose quickly 1 I was very rude while ago will iou accept my apologies on condition that you will never take your playthings and go home he laughed engagingly you ve hit it squarely it was the act of a fetu lant child it did not sound exactly like a man who had stoked six months from singapore to the andaman islands but there Is one thing I 1 must under stand before this acquaintance conten no I 1 am going to singapore aes ues you said who knows what manner of man I 1 am have you ever done anything that would cons clen forbid you to speak to a young unmarried woman take care of hersel fT he rather believed she could the bluntness of her question dissipated any doubt that remained no I 1 haven t been that kind of a man simply 1 I could look into my mothers eyes without any sense of shame it that is what you mean that Is all I 1 care to know your mother is living yes but I 1 haven t seen her in ten years his mother his brows met in a frown his proud beautiful elsa saw the frown and realized that she had approached delicate ground she stirred her tea and sipped it slowly there has been a deal of chatter about chitty untrustworthy eyes he said the greatest liars I 1 have ever known could look st peter straight and serenely in the eye it s a matter of steady nerves nothing more somebody says that so and so is a fact and we go on believing it for years until someone who is not a person but an individual explodes it 1 I agree with you but thera is something we rely upon far more either eyes or ears instinct it is that attribute of the animal which civilization has not yet successfully dulled women rely upon that more readily than men and make more mistakes with a cynicism be could not conceal she had no ready counter for this do you go home from rangoon now that you have made your fortune no I 1 am going to singapore I 1 shall make my plans there singapore elsa stirred unea sll it would be like having a ghost by her side she wanted to tell him what had really drawn her interest but it seemed to her that the moment to do so had passed vultures how I 1 detest she pointed to vard a sand bar upon which stood several of these birds and an adjutant solemn and aloof at lucknow they were red beaded I 1 do not recollect seeing one of them fly but I 1 admire the kites they look much like our eagles |