Conspiracies -- Fiction; Courtship -- Fiction; Dime novels; Popular literature; Stepmothers -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
The major did not look up until the horseman drew rein before the
bungalow, and alighted at a huge stone which served as a horse-block.
The stranger came slowly and falteringly toward the veranda, and then
the Sybaritic major set down his empty cup and glanced at him.
The glance became a fixed gaze, full of wildness and affright.
The stranger slowly entered the shade of the veranda and there
halted, his features working, his form trembling. He looked weary and
travel-stained. His haggard eyes spoke to the owner of the bungalow in
a wild appeal.
With the peculiar movement of an automaton, the major slowly arose
to his feet and came forward, his face white, his eyes dilating, a
tremulous quiver on his lips.
“Don’t you know me, major?” asked the stranger wearily.
“Great heaven!” cried the major, even his lips growing white. “It is
not a ghost! I am not dreaming! Have the dead come to life? It is--_it
is--Sir Harold Wynde_!”
CHAPTER XXII. BACK AS FROM THE DEAD.
The stranger who stood upon the veranda of Major Archer’s bungalow was
tall and thin, with a haggard face, worn and sharp of feature, and full
of deeply cut lines, such as a long-continued anguish never fails to
graven on the features. His weary eyes were deeply sunken under his
brows, and were outlined with dark circles. His hair was streaked with
gray, and his long ragged beard was half gray also. His face was white
like death, and unutterably wan. His garments were torn, and hung about
his lank body in rags, save where they were ill-patched with bits of
rags and vegetable fibres.
Was Major Archer right? Could this haggard and pitiable being be Sir
Harold Wynde of Hawkhurst, one of the richest baronets in England, who
was supposed to have perished in the clutches of a tiger?
It seemed incredible--impossible.
And yet when the heavy eyelids lifted from the thin white cheeks, and
looked upon the major, it was Sir Harold’s soul that looked through
them. They were the keen blue eyes the major remembered so well, so
capable of sternness or of tenderness, so expressive of the grand and
noble soul, the pure and lofty character, which had distinguished the
baronet.
Yes, the stranger was Sir Harold Wynde--alive and well!
“You know me then, Major?” he said. “I am not changed, as I thought,
beyond all recognition!”
He held out his hand. The major grasped it in a mixture of bewilderment
and amazement, and not without a thrill of superstitious terror.
“I--I thought you were dead, Sir Harold,” he stammered. “We all thought
so, Graham and all. We thought you were killed by a tiger. I--I don’t
know what to make of this!”
Sir Harold let go the major’s hand and staggered to the bamboo couch
upon which he sank wearily.
“He’s not dead--but dying,” muttered the major. “Lord bless my soul!
What am I to do?”
He clapped his hands vigorously. A moment later his Hindoo servant
Karrah glided around upon the front veranda.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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