* JOURNAL We have put in WEEKr. ThP-(OUTlI CAoi71. ces run fr0o~ires to change presidents as 'ance changes ministerl#. vy tan, patj aviation doings are going to nt a work - the round shouldered squad\ a successful and decorous avI - you wantmeet be properly called a high ot1 at your Vbeat is below the average, but the', have "of automobile accidents In first .ss. yot Women's hats are to be smaller, thus .ing the hatpins a freer range for action. The girl with six feet veil stream ing from her hat certainly does not own an auto. Many a man boasts that he Is "self -WMade" when he ought to do hin best to keep it a secret. About the only strings on the human kites are the pull of gravity and the rules of the aviation meet. The new way of proposing is this: "I don't like your last name." If the girl agrees to this it is all settled. American men should prevent wom en from entering business life, sayeaa doctor. Just let them try iti A highbrow tells us that there is po etry in a bean. But the chunk of pork that goes with it is quite prosy. Eating corn on the cob may not be the most dignified pastime in the world, but, by criminy, it's real sport! Big liners and tall skyscrapers are soon outdone, and then they fall back and are forgotten in the rank and file. Brass bands and vaudeville stunts have failed to draw worshipers to a Chicago church. Why not try re ligion? We see by the papers that a girl in Long Branch danced herself to death. She had probably remarked: "I could Just die waltzing!" A man in Cincinnati offers to sell himself to the highest bidder, thereby placing himself on a level with Eu ropean nobility. Speaking nce again of the flight of time,_ is th anything that flies more the week immediately There's one born every minute. A Cleveland girl complains to the police that alto was persuaded to hand a gypsy fortune teller $168. "The forehead," says Lillian Rtussell, "should not he too high." Great Scott! Are they going to switch the forehead about liko the waist line? There is nothing newv in the report the the human aura has been discov ered. it has often been used as a costume by our classical dancers. It is against the law to wear a dead bird on one's hat In New Jersey, but the millIners may be depended upon to concoct something just as costly. Chinese authorities have spent $100,000 in furnishing a class room for theIr 5-year-old emperor and pro viding imperial textbooks. Poor little kid! -There's a tribe in Africa, under Ger man domInation, where the men eat their wives. This is a litle more dis agreeable than ordinary divorce, but it saves ailmony. Nevertheless, we refuse to believe that the man who went over Niagara F'ails in a barrel could drop 1,000 feet from an aeroplane and escape death, even if he used his barrel. A writer in a Chicago newspaper says that no real-life lovemaking is lk. that which the novelists describe. It may be, however, that the novelists deseribe it as it should be. A New York woman thinks she is going to solve the servant problem by importing Filipino girls. Probably she will find before long that she has merely added another side to it. A shoe merchant tells us that wom en's feet and brains are becoming larger. Possibly he is misled by the tact that women have developed enoulgh brains to buy shoes that fit. In the war against the fly the mos quito hopes to escape unnoticed. But success in the extermination of the one will stimulate the fight against \the,.cher, so the distur-bed of our slum bers need not hum the louder in anti cipated safety. A legitimate outlet has at length been found tqr the surplus vacation energy -of the small boy. He is fly swatting, and the community and the home circle are doubly rejoIced. A French scientist has succeeded in hatching tadpole. from frogs' eggs by admklatering electric shocks. We de e1~ to beonre qciti& If . he had succeeted in tting tadpolos out of blackberry ge9d tere' might be some a eso fp ~g-protf~ one Wer I~fr~te *4ev74 epnt or DYLOUIS JOSI AUTIJOR Or "THE BRA8 oa.[L9U[IlUo@?J ty wR COPYR/OWT &V Lo.//1 r/o.WW VAMC SYNOP818. David Amber, starting for & duck-shr.otv Ing visit with his friend, Quai conres up nayoung lady euestriesewo has been ismounted by hlie' o (t 'f4ecoming fright ed-at t d ppearance in the road D a y Hindu. He declares he is B Lal Chatterji "the appointed 4 thpiece of the Bell,' addresses Amber an a mail of thigh rank and pressing a mysterious little bronze box, "T heo ken," into his hand di'appears in the wood. The girl calls Amber by name. He in turn addresses her as Miss Sophie Farrell, daughter of Col. Farrell of the British diplomatio service in India and visiting the Quains. Several nights later the Quain home is burglarized and the bronze box stolen. Amber and Quain go hunting on an island and become lost and Amber is left marooned. He wanders about, finally reaches a cabin and rec ognizes as its occupant an old friend named Rutton, whom he last met in Eng land, and who appears to be in hiding. When Miss Farrell is mentioned Rutton is strangely agitated. Chatterji appears and summons Rutton to a meeting of a mysterious body. Hutton seizes a revol ver and dlashes after Chatteril. He re-I turns wildly excited, says he has killed the Hindu, takes poison, and when dying asks Amber to go to India on a myster ous errand. Amber decides to leave at once for India. On the way he sends a letter to Mr. Labertoucho, a scientific friend in Calcutta, b a quicker route. Upon arrivin lhe fin s a note awaiting him. It direc!m Amber to meet his friend at a certain place. CHAPTER V1i. (Continued.) "Who?" Her glance was penetrat ing. "Oh, he's wytin' for you." She nodded, lifting a shrill voice. "Garge, 0 Garge! 'Ere's that Yankee." With a bare red elbow she indicated the further end of the room. "You'll find 'im down there," she said, her look not xunkindly. Amber thanked her quietly, and, I extricating himself from the press around the bar, made his way in the I direction indicated. A couple of bil liard tables with a small mob of on lookers hindered him, but by main strength and diplomacy he wormed his way past and reached the rear of the room. There were fewer loafers here and he had little hesitation about selecting from an attendant circle of sycophants the genius of the dive Honest George himself, a fat and burly rufflan who filled to overflow- t ing the inadequate accommodation of L an arm-chair. Sitting thus enthroned i In his shirt-sleeves, his greasy and I unshaven red face irradiating a sort a of low good-humor that was belied by r the cold cunning of his little eyes, he fulfilled admirably the requirements of the role ho played self-cast. " 'Ere, you!" he - hailed Amber t brusquely. "You're a 'oil of a job tinter, ain't you? Mister Abercrom- 1 bie's boen wytin' for you this hour gone. 'Know the w'y upstairs?" His tone was boisterous enough to y fIx upon Amber the attention of the I knot of loafers round tho arm-chair. Amber felt himself under the particu lar regard of a dozen pair of eyes, felt that his measure was taken and his identification complete. Displeased, ~ he answered curtly: "No." "This w'y, then." Honest George hoisted himself ponderously out of his Irm-chair and lumbered heavily across the room, shouldering (lie crowvd aside with a high-handed contempt for the pack of them. Jerking open a small door in the side wall, ho beck onied Amber on with a backward nod of his heavy head. "lDe a hit lively, carn't you?" ho growled; andl Amber, in despite of qualms of distrust, fol lowed the fellow into a small and noi some hallway lighted by a single gas jet. On the one hand a flight of rick ety steps ran up into repellent ob scurity; on the other a low door stood open to the night. The crimip lowered his voice, "Your friend's this w'y." He waved his fat rod hand toward the door. "Them fools back there'll think you're tryin' for a berth with Aboerombie, the ship-master. I 'opes you'll not tyke offense at the w'y I 'ad to rag you back there, sir." "No," said Amber, and Honest George led the way out into a small, flagged well between towering black walls and left him at the threshold of a second doorway, "Two flights up, the door at the top," he said; "knock 'twice and then twice," And without waiting for an answer he lurched heavily back to his own establish ment. Aniber watched his broad back fill the dimly lighted doorway opposite and disappear, of two minds whether or not to turn tail and run. Suspici ous enough in the beginning, the af fair 'had now an exceeding evil smell i-os repullsive figuratively as was the actual effluvium of the premises. With a shrug, at length, he took his courage in his hands--and his life, too, for all he knew to the contrary and moved enu into the blackness, groping his w a y cautiously down a short corridor, his fingers on either side brushing wails of rotten plaster. He had absolutely nothing to guide him beyond the crimp's terse instruc tions. Underfoot the flooring seemed to sag ominously; it creaked hideous ly. Abruptly he stumbled against an obstruction, halted, and lighted a match, Tbe insignificant flame showed him a flight of stilrs, leading up to dark ness. With a drumming heart he be-, gn to ascend, counting 21 steps ere his feet failed to find another, Then groping again, one hand encountered a bajuster-rall; with this for guide he turned and dollowed it until it began to slaat upwtards. This ti me he count 0- 16 Am DIH VANeI 5 BOWI." ETC. ibove the level of the upper floor, dis ,overed to him a thin line of light, yght along the threshold of a door. Ele began to breathe more freely, yet Lpprehension kept him strung %kp to a high tension of nerves. He knuckled the door loudly"-one louble knock followed by another. From within a voice called cheer. lully, in English: "Come in." He fumbled for the knob, found and turned it, and entered a small, low 3eiled chamber, very cozy with lamp. light, and simply furnished with a sin gle chair, a charpoy, a water-jug, a large mirror, and beneath the latter a dressing-table littered with a collec Lion of toilet gear, cosmestics and bot Lies, which would have done credit to an actress. There was but a single person in the room and he occupied the chair before the 4ressing table. As Amber ,ame in, he rose; a middle-aged babu In a suit of pink satin, very dirty. In ne hand something caught the light, ;littering. "Oah, Mister Amber, I believe?" he gurgled, oily and affable. "Believe no, most charmed to make acquaint mnce." And he laughed agreeably. But Amber's face had darkened. WVith an oath he sprang back, threw its weight against the door, and with its left hand shot the bolt, while his ight whipped from his pocket Rut on's automatic pistol. "Drop that gun, you monkey!" he ,ried, sharply. "I was afraid of this, )ut I think you and I'll have an ac ,ounting before any one else gets in iere." CHAPTER IX. Pink Satin. Shaking with rage, Amber stood for long monnt with pistol poised and iyes wary; then, bewildered, he slow y lowered the weapon. "Well," he ob erved, reflectively, "I'm damned." 'or the glittering thing he had mis aken for a revolver lay at his feet; nd it was nothing more nor less than shoehorn. While as for the babu, Le had dropped back into the chair nd given way to a rude but reassu ing paroxysm of gusty, silent laugh er. "I'm a fool," said &mber; "and if 'm not mistaken, you're Laber ouche." With a struggle the babu overcame Js emotion. "I am, my dear fellow, am," he gasped. "And I owe you *n apology. Upon my word. I'd for otteni; one grows so accustomed to Lying the parts in theso masquerades, ,fter a time, that one forgets. For live me." lie offered a hand which mber grasped warmly in his uinut erable relief. "Im really delighted to noot you," continued L~abertuche, se 'iouisly. "Any inan who knows India an't help being glad to meet the aui her of 'The Peoples of the Hindu tush.' "You did frighten me," Amber con essed, smiling. "I didn't know what .o expect-or suspect. Certainly," vith a glance round the incongruously urnished room-"I never looked for yard to anything like this-or you, ni that get-up." "You wouldn't, you know," Labor ouche admitted, gravely. "I might lave warned you in my note; but that vras a risky thing, at best. I feared :o go into detail--it might have fallen nto the wrong hands." '"Whose?" demanded Amber. "That, my dear man, is what we're tiere to find out-if we can. But sit :lown; we shall have to have quite a bit of talk." He scraped a heap of gaily-colored native garmnents off one and of the charpoy and motioned Am ber to the chair. At the same time lie fished a cigar-case out of sofrne re cess of his clothing. "These are good," he remarked, opening the case and offering it to Amber; "I daren't smoke anything half so good when at work. The native tobacco is abom Iaable, you know-quite three-fourths 11th." "At work?" questioned Amber, clip ping the end of his cigar and lighting it. "You don't mean to say you travel round in those clothes?" "But I do. It's business with me though few people know it. Quain didn't; only I had a chance, one day, to tell him some rather startling facts about native life. This sort of thing, done properly, gives a man insight into a lot of unusual things." Labertouche puffed his cigar into a glow and leaned back, clasping one knee with two brown hands and equinting up at the low, discolored ceiling. And Amber, looking him sver, was amazed by the absolute fidelity of his make-up; the brownish stain on face and hands, the high-cut patent leather boots, the open-work iocks through which his tinted calves showed grossly, his shapeles, baggy, moiled garments-all were hopelessly babu-ish. "And if it isn't done properly?" "Oh, then-i" Labertouche laughed, ifting his shoulders expiessively. 'No Englishman incapable of living ip to a disguise has ever tried it nore than once In India; few, very 'ow, have lived to tell of the experi nan tA,~ nembered Rutton's empbatio prohi ition. But Quain had not: failed to men ion that. "Officially, no," said Laber touche readily. "Now and again, of ,ourse, I run across a bit of valuable information; and then, somehow, in irectly, the police get wind of it. But this going fantee in an amateur way is simply my hobby; I've been at it for years-and very successfully, too. Of course, it'll have its end. One's bound to slip up eventually. You can train yourself to live the life Df the native, but you can't train your mind to think as he thinks.. That's how the missteps happen. Some day . . ." He sighed, not in the least unhappily. . . . "Some day I'll dodge into this hole, or another that I know of, put on somebody olse's rags-say, these I'm wearing and inconspicuously become a mys terious disappearance. That's how it Is with all of us who go in for this sort of thing. But it's like opium, you know; you try it the first time for the lark of it; the end is tragedy." Amber drew a long breath, his eyes glistening with wonder and admira tion of the man. "You don't mean to tell me you run such risks for the pure love of it?" "Well . . . perhaps not altogeth er. But we needn't go into details, need we?" Labertouche's smile robbed the rebuke of its sting. "The opium simile is a very good one, though I say it who shouldn't. One acquires a taste for the unbidden, and one hires a lit-. tIe room like this from an unprincipled blackguard like Honest George, and insensibly one goes deeper and deeper until one gets beyond one's depth. That is all. It explains me sufficient ly. And," he chuckled, "you'd never have known It if your case hadn't been exceptional." "It is, I think." Amber's expression became anxious. "I want to know what you think of it-now Quain's told you. And, I say, what did you mean by 'news of the Fe.?"' "News of the Farrells-father and laughter, of course." Labertouche's' Byes twinkled. "But how In the name of all that's strange-I" "Did I connect Rutton with the Far rell's? At first by simple inference. You were charged with a secret er rand, demanding the utmost haste, by Rutton; your first thought was to Stood for a Long Moment Wit, travel by the longer route-which, as it happens,- Miss Farrell had startedI upon a little while before. You had recently met her, and I've heard she's rather a striking young woman. You see?" "Yes," admitted Amber, sheepishly. "But-" "And then I remembered some thing," interrupted Labertouche. "I recall Rutton. I knew him years ago, when he was a young man. . You know the yarn about him?" "A little-mighty little. I know now that he was a Rajput-though ho never told me that; I know that he married a Russian noblewoman"-Am ber hesitated imperceptibly-"that she died soon after, that he chose to live out of India and to dio rather than return to it." "He was," said Labortouche, "a singular man, an exotic result of the unnatural conditions we English have brought about in India. The word renegade describes him aptly, I think; he was born and bred a Blrahmin, a Raiput, of the hottest and bluest blood in Rajputana; he died to all mn tents and purposes a European-with an English heart. Hie Is-was-by rights Maharana of Khandawar. As the young miaharaj he was sent to ~ngland -to be educated. I'm told his ord at Oxford was a brilliant one. became a convert to Christianity that As pr'edestined-was admitted to the h reh of England, a communi eant,. an his father died and he was bmoned to take his place, Rut ~t Arst refuse4 ..'ressure was -to bear u1 n him by the Eng i nmant and he returned, was enthroned, and, for a little time u4 Khandawar; It was than that I knew t him. He was continually diuatlsfie4, ,t however, and after a year or two die-, t appeared. It was rumored that he" - struck a bargain with his prime min's ister, one Salig Singh. At all events 4 Salig Singh contrived to usurp the I throne, government offering no objeo. I tion. Rutton turned up eventually in e Russia and married a woman there who died in childbirth-twenty years g ago, perhaps. The child did not sur- I vive ts.,mother . . ." Labertouche I paused deliberately, his glance search- j ing Amber's face. "So the report ran, I at least,"- he concluded, quietly. . "How do you know all this?" Am- I ber countered, evasively. "Government watches its wards I very tenderly," said Labertouche with a grin. "Besides, India's a great i place for gossip. . . . And then," I lie pursued tenaciously, "I remem bered something else. I recalled that Rutton had one very close friend, an I Englishman named Farrell-" < "Oh, what's the use?" Amber cut in f nervously. "You understand the sit uation too well. It's no .good my try ing to keep anything from you." "Such as the fact that Colonel Far roll adopted Rutton's daughter, who, e as it happens, did survive her mother? i Yes; I knew that-or, rather, part I I knew and part I guessed. But don't worry, Mr. Amber; \I'll keep the se- a cret." "For the girl's sake," said Amber, a twisting his hands together. I "For her sake. I pledge my word." i "Thank you." "And now . . . for what purpose did Rutton ask you to come to India? I Wasn't it to get Miss Farrell out of a the country?" "I think you're the devil himself," said Amber. "I'm not,'* confessed Labertouche; "but I am a member of the Indian se- I cret service-not officially connected i with the police, observei-and I know j a deal that you don't. I think, in < short. I can place my finger on the i reason why Rutton was so concerned ( to get his daughter out of the coun- < try." Amber looked his question. I "You read the papers, don't you, in i America?" "Rather." Amber smiled. "You've surely not been so blind as to miss the occasional reports that I -1 Pistol Poised and Eyes Wary. leak out about native unrest in' India ?" "Surely you don't mean-" "I assuredly do mean that the Sec ond Mutiny inmpends," declared Lab ertouche, solemnly. "Such, at least, is my belief, and such is the belief of every thinking man in India who is at all informed. The entii'e country is undermined with conspiracy and sedi tion; day after day a vast, silent, un derground movement goes on, foment ing rebellion against the English rule. The worst of it Is, th'ere's no stopping it, no way of scotching the serpent; its heads are myriad, seerningly. And yet-I don't know-since yesterday I have hoped that through you we might eventually strike to the heart of the movement." "Through me!" cried Amber, startled. Labertoucho nodded. "Just so. The informdtion you have already brought us Is invaluable. Have you thought of the significance of Chatterji's 'Mes sage of the Bell?'" "'Even now,' Amber quoted me chanically, "'The Gateway of Swords yawns wide, that he who is without fear may pass within; to the end that the Body be purged of the Scarlet Evil.'" He shook his head mystified. "N6; I don't understand." "It's so simple," urged Labertouche: "Alt but the Gateway of Swords.'. I don't place that--yet. . ..B the 'Body'-plainly that Is I 'Scarlet Evil-could anything tingly describe English rule native point of view?" Amber felt of his head sol "And yet," he averred p taint ,doesn't feel lika wood. -' Lm Dhig n will ler4 gS i 01a Baksh,--omi ant oubtedly. May ing-'this tokenf" Unbuttoisg his shirt, Luded the ]ye from the o abertouche studied it for n silence, returning it wi leep perturbation. "The thing is strange aid. "For the present w aas it as simply what it e-a token, a sign by which hall know- another. . out turn the -stone in; and Lands In your pockets W100 ide." Amber obeyed. "We'll kow?" ' "Yes." Labertouche ro6 way his cigar and stamgr Ire.:.. "But the Farrells?" "rgive me; I had for rarrells are at Darjeeling, 9 olonel is stationed just nowt or him." "Then," said Amber, with I leave for Darjeeling t norning." "I know no reason wS4. houldn't," agreed Labertouc nything turns up I'll contriy7 rou know." le looked Amber iown with a glance that.to