The Three Sapphires. Fraser William Alexander

slow, sinuous dance, the violin, with its myriad wire strings, pulsating with sobs. The soft, enveloping moon shimmer lent a mystic touch of unreality to the elfin form that seemed to float in rhythmic waves against the dark background of the sal forest. Faster and faster grew the dance, more and more weird the wail of the violin, and the plaint from the girl for her lover's life became a frenzied cry. Now she had failed; her strength was gone; death still held in its cold fingers the heart of her lover; she reeled in exhausted delirium, but, as she would have fallen, the lover rose from death and caught her to his breast.

      But the gift of the gods – his life – had been but transitional – a bitter mockery – for the princess lay dead against his pulsing heart. Smothering the unresponsive eyes and lips with kisses, he gently placed the girl upon the ground, and, standing erect, defied the gods – called them to combat.

      Prince Ananda interpreted the words and gestures of the gladiator as the moonlight painted in gold and copper his bronze form.

      In answer to his challenge a sinister form glided from the shadow of the wall.

      "Bhairava, the evil black god, who rides abroad at night," Ananda explained, adding, as the combat began: "They are two Punjabi wrestlers. The lover is Balwant Singh, which means 'Strong Lion;' Bhairava, whom you see is so grotesquely painted black, is Jai Singh, 'Lion of Victory.'"

      The struggle was Homeric, as Balwant Singh, the muscles on his back rising in ridges, strove to conquer the black god. In vain his strength, for the god, sinuous as a serpent, slipped from the lover's grasp with ease. At last Jai Singh's black arm lay across the lover's throat, anchored to the shoulder by a hand grip; there was a quick twist to the arm, a choking gasp from Balwant Singh, and, with startling suddenness, he was on his back, both shoulders pinned to the mat.

      The tragic drama was at an end. The lover, slain by the gods he had defied, lay beside his dead princess.

      "Ripping!" Lord Victor cried. "In Drury Lane that would cause no end of a sensation as a pantomime. Hello! By Jove! I say!"

      For even as the young man cackled, some heavy shadow, some mystic trick of the Orient, had faded from their eyes the three figures of the drama.

      Prince Ananda, with a soft laugh at Gilfain's astonishment, said: "Bharitava, the evil god, has spirited the lover and the princess away."

      "My friends, dot to me brings of importance a question," Doctor Boelke commented. "How is it dot a few Englishmen rule hundreds of millions, and we see dot der Hindus are stronger as der white man; no Englishman could wrestle those men."

      "I fancy it's hardly a question of what we call brute force where England governs," Swinton claimed.

      "Oh, of course!" And Doctor Boelke laughed. "England alvays ruling people because of philanthropy. Ah, yes, I hear dot!"

      "Do you mean to say, sir" – and Lord Victor's voice was pitched to a high treble of indignation – "that we have no wrestlers at home as good as these Hindu chaps? Damn it, sir, it's rot! A man like Fitzalban, who was at Oxford in my last year, would simply disjoint these chaps like wooden dolls."

      The doctor puffed his billowy cheeks in disdain, and Finnerty contributed: "Don't underrate these Punjabi wrestlers, my young friend; there are devilish few professionals even who can take a fall out of them."

      "The major should know," and Darpore nodded pleasantly; "he has grappled with the best that come out of the Punjab."

      Gilfain, his spirit still ruffled by the Prussian's sneer at England, declared peevishly: "I wish there was a chance to test the bally thing; I'd bet a hundred pounds on the Englishman, even if I'd never seen him wrestle."

      Boelke, with a sibilant smack of his lips, retorted: "You are quite safe, my young frient, with your hundred pounds, because, you see, there is no Englishman here to put der poor Hindu on his back."

      "I'm not quite so sure about that, Herr Doctor."

      Boelke turned in his chair at the deliberate, challenging tone of Finnerty's voice. He looked at the major, then gave vent to an unpleasant laugh.

      "There is one thing a Britisher does not allow to pass – a sneer at England by a German." Finnerty hung over the word "German."

      "Vell," the doctor asked innocently, "you vil prove I am wrong by wrestling der Punjabi, or are we to fight a duel?" And again came the disagreeable laugh.

      "If the prince has no objection, I don't know why I shouldn't take a fall out of one of these chaps. It's a game I'm very fond of."

      "And, Herr Doctor, I'll have you on for the hundred," Lord Victor cried eagerly.

      "Just as you like, major," the prince said. "There'll be no loss of caste, especially if we sit on our sporting friend over there and curb his betting propensities."

      "Right you are, rajah," Finnerty concurred. "We wrestle just to prove that Britain is not the poor old effete thing the Herr Doctor thinks she is."

      Prince Ananda sent for his secretary, Baboo Chunder Sen, and when the baboo came said: "Ask Jai Singh if he would like to try a fall with the major sahib."

      Balwant Singh came back with the baboo when he had delivered this message. Salaaming, he said: "Huzoor, the keddah sahib has his name in our land, the Land of the Five Rivers. We who call men of strength brothers say that he is one of us. No one from my land has come back boasting that he has conquered the sahib. Jai Singh, in the favor of the gods, has achieved to victory over me, so Jai Singh will meet with the sahib."

      "Fine!" Finnerty commented. "I'll need wrestling togs, prince."

      "The baboo will take you to my room and get a suit for you."

      Finnerty put the sapphire in a silver cigarette box that was on the table, saying: "I'll leave this here," and followed Chunder Sen into the palace.

      "Devilish sporting, I call it; Finnerty is Irish, but he's a Britisher," Gilfain proclaimed. "He'll jolly well play rugby with your friend, Herr Boelke."

      "In my country ve do not shout until der victory is obtained; ve vill see," and the doctor puffed noisily at his cheroot.

      But the fish eyes of the professor were conveying to Prince Ananda malevolent messages, Swinton fancied. The whole thing had left a disturbing impression on his mind; Boelke's manner suggested a pre-arrangement with the prince.

      The doctor's unpleasing physical contour would have furnished strong evidence against him on any charge of moral obliquity. He sat on the chair like a large-paunched gorilla, his round head topping the fatty mound like a coconut. His heavy-jowled face held a pair of cold, fishy eyes; coarse hair rose in an aggressive hedge from the seamed, low forehead, and white patches showed through the iron-grey thatch where little nicks had been made in the scalp by duelling swords at Heidelberg. He was a large man, but the suggestion of physical strength was destroyed by a depressing obeseness.

      A tall, fine-looking rajput came across the terrace toward Darpore.

      "Ah, Darna Singh," the prince greeted, rising; "you are just in time to see a kushti that will delight your warrior heart. This is my brother-in-law, Nawab Darna Singh," he continued, turning to Swinton and Gilfain and repeating their entitled names.

      The rajput salaamed with grave dignity, saying the honour pleased him.

      "Have a seat," Ananda proffered.

      "I have intruded, rajah," Darna Singh explained, "because there is trouble at the temple. The mahanta is at the gate – "

      "Show him in, Darna. I can't see him privately just now; the keddah sahib and Jai Singh are going to make kushti."

      While the rajput went to the gate for the mahanta, Prince Ananda said apologetically: "Even a prince must show deference to the keeper of the temple."

      Darna Singh returned, accompanied by an animated skeleton of mummy hue. Draping the skin-covered bones was a loin cloth and a thread that hung diagonally from one shoulder to the waist.

      With a deep salaam, the mahanta, trembling with indignation, panted: "Dharama comes in the morning with his Buddhistic devils to desecrate the temple by placing in it that brass Buddha – accursed image! – he has brought