NUMBER 9A, ALBEMARLE SQUARE.

“Don’t drink our sherry, Charles?”

Mr Preenham, the butler, stood by the table in the gloomy servants’ hall, as if he had received a shock.

“No, sir; I took ’em up the beer at first, and they shook their heads and asked for wine, and when I took ’em the sherry they shook their heads again, and the one who speaks English said they want key-aunty.”

“Well, all I have got to say,” exclaimed the portly cook, “is, that if I had known what was going to take place, I wouldn’t have stopped an hour after the old man died.It’s wicked!And something awful will happen, as sure as my name’s Thompson.”

“Don’t say that, Mrs Thompson,” said the mild-looking butler.“It is very dreadful, though.”

“Dreadful isn’t the word.Are we ancient Egyptians?I declare, ever since them Hightalians have been in the house, going about like three dark conspirators in a play, I’ve had the creeps.I say, it didn’t ought to be allowed.”

“What am I to say to them, sir?” said the footman, a strongly built man, with shifty eyes and quickly twitching lips.

“Well, look here, Charles,” said the butler, slowly wiping his mouth with his hand, “We have no Chianti wine.You must take them a bottle of Chambertin.”

“My!” ejaculated cook.

“Chambertin, sir?”

“It’s Mr Girtle’s orders.They’ve come here straight from Paris on purpose, and they are to have everything they want.”

The butler left the gloomy room, and Mrs Thompson, a stout lady, who moved only when she was obliged, turned to the thin, elderly housemaid.

“Mark my words, Ann,” she said.“It’s contr’y to nature, and it’ll bring a curse.”

“Well,” said the woman, “it can’t make the house more dull than it has been.”

“I don’t know,” said the cook.

“I never see a house before where there was no need to shut the shutters and pull down the blinds because some one’s dead.”

“Well, it is a gloomy place, Ann, but we’ve done all these years most as we liked.One meal a day and the rest at his club, and never any company.There ain’t many places like that.”

“No,” sighed Ann.“I suppose we shall all have to go.”

“Oh, I don’t know, my dear.Mr Ramo says he thinks master’s left all his money to his great nephew, Mr Capel, and may be he’ll have the house painted up and the rooms cleaned, and keep lots of company.An’ he may marry this Miss Dungeon ain’t her name?”

“D’E-n-g-h-i-e-n,” said the housemaid, spelling it slowly.“I don’t know what you call it.She’s very handsome, but so orty.I like Miss Lawrence.Only to think, master never seeing a soul, and living all these years in this great shut-up house, and then, as soon as the breath’s out of his body, all these relatives turning up.”

“Where the carcase is, there the eagles are gathered together,” said cook, solemnly.

“Oh, don’t talk like that, cook.”

“You’re not obliged to listen, my dear,” said cook, rubbing her knees gently.

“I declare, it’s been grievous to me,” continued the housemaid, “all those beautiful rooms, full of splendid furniture, and one not allowed to do more than keep ’em just clean.Not a blind drawn up, or a window opened.It’s always been as if there was a funeral in the house.Think master was crossed in love?”

“No.Not he.Mr Ramo said that master was twice over married to great Indian princesses, abroad.I s’pose they left him all their money.Oh, here is Mr Ramo!”

The door had opened, and a tall, thin old Hindoo, with piercing dark eyes and wrinkled brown face, came softly in.He was dressed in a long, dark, red silken cassock, that seemed as if woven in one piece, and fitted his spare form rather closely from neck to heel; a white cloth girdle was tied round his waist, and for sole ornament there were a couple of plain gold rings in his ears.

As he entered he raised his thin, largely-veined brown hands to his closely-cropped head, half making the native salaam, and then, said in good English:

“Mr Preenham not here?”

“He’ll be back directly, Mr Ramo,” said the cook.“There, there, do sit down, you look worn out.”

The Hindoo shook his head and walked to the window, which looked out into an inner area.

At that moment the butler entered, and the Hindoo turned to him quickly, and laid his hand upon his arm.

“There, there, don’t fret about it, Mr Ramo,” said the butler.“It’s what we must all come to some day.”

“Yes, but this, this,” said the Hindoo, in a low, excited voice.“Is is it right?”

The butler was silent for a few moments.

“Well,” he said at last, “it’s right, and its wrong, as you may say.It’s master’s own orders, for there it was in his own handwriting in his desk. `Instructions for my solicitor.’Mr Girtle showed it me, being an old family servant.”

“Yes, yes he showed it to me.”

“Oh, it was all there,” continued the butler.“Well, as I was saying, it’s right so far; but it’s wrong, because it’s not like a Christian burial.”

“No, no,” cried the Hindoo, excitedly.“Those men they make me mad.I cannot bear it.Look!” he cried, “he should have died out in my country, where we would have laid him on sweet scented woods, and baskets of spices and gums, and there, where the sun shines and the palm trees wave, I, his old servant, would have fired the pile, and he would have risen up in the clouds of smoke, and among the pure clear flames of fire, till nothing but the ashes was left.Yes, yes, that would have been his end,” he cried, with flashing eyes, as he seemed to mentally picture the scene; “and then thy servant could have died with thee.Oh, Sahib, Sahib, Sahib!”

He clasped his hands together, the fire died from his eyes, which became suffused with tears, and as he uttered the last word thrice in a low moaning voice, he stood rocking himself to and fro.

The two women looked horrified and shuddered, but the piteous grief was magnetic, and in the deep silence that fell they began to sob; while the butler blew his nose softly, coughed, and at last laid his hand upon the old servant’s shoulder.

“Shake hands, Mr Ramo,” he said huskily.“Fifteen years you and me’s been together, and if we haven’t hit it as we might, well, it was only natural, me being an Englishman and you almost a black; but it’s this as brings us all together, natives and furreners, and all.He was a good master, God bless him! and I’m sorry he’s gone.”

The old Indian looked up at him half wonderingly for a few moments.Then, taking the extended hand in both of his, he held it for a time, and pressed it to his heart, dropped it, and turned to go.

“Won’t you take something, Mr Ramo?”

“No no!” said the Indian, shaking his head, and he glided softly out of the servants’ hall, went silently, in his soft yellow leather slippers, down a long passage and up a flight of stone stairs, to pass through a glass door, and stand in the large gloomy hall, in the middle of one of the marble squares that turned the floor into a vast chess-board, round which the giant pieces seemed to be waiting to commence the game.

For the faint light that came through the thick ground-glass fanlight over the great double doors was diffused among black bronze statues and white marble figures of Greek and Roman knights.In one place, seated meditatively, with hands resting upon the knees, there was an Indian god, seeming to watch the floor.In another, a great Japanese warrior, while towards the bottom of the great winding staircase, whose stone steps were covered with heavy dark carpet, was a marble, that imagination might easily have taken for a queen.

Here and there the panelled walls were ornamented with stands of Indian arms and armour, conical helmets, once worn by Eastern chiefs, with pendent curtains, and suits of chain mail.Bloodthirsty daggers, curved scimitars, spears, clumsy matchlocks, and long straight swords, whose hilt was an iron gauntlet, in which the warrior’s fingers were laced as they grasped a handle placed at right angles to the blade, after the fashion of a spade.There were shields, too, and bows and arrows, and tulwars and kukris, any number of warlike implements from the East, while beside the statues, the West had to show some curious chairs, and a full-length portrait of an Englishman in the prime of life a handsome, bold-faced man, in the uniform of one of John Company’s regiments, his helmet in his hand, and his breast adorned with orders and jewels of foreign make.

The old Indian servant stood there like one of the statues, as the dining-room door opened and three dark, closely-shaven and moustached men, in black, came out softly, and went silently up the stairs.

There was something singularly furtive and strange about them as they followed one another in silence, all three alike in their dress coats and turned-down white collars, beneath which was a narrow strip of ribbon, knotted in front.

They passed on and on up the great winding stairs, past the drawing-room, from whence came the low buzz of voices, to a door at the back of the house, beside a great stained-glass window, whose weird lights shone down upon a lion-skin rug.

Here the first man stopped for his companions, to reach his side.Then, whispering a few words to them, he took a key from his pocket, opened the door, withdrew the key, and entered the darkened room, closing and locking the door, as the old Indian crept softly up, sank upon his knees upon the skin rug, his hands clasped, his head bent down, and resting against the panels of the door.