The Bronze Bell by Louis Joseph Vance
page 67 of 360 (18%)
page 67 of 360 (18%)
![]() | ![]() |
|
manner of supreme self-complacency, producing the bronze box and
waddling over to drop it into Rutton's hand. "My lord is satisfied?" he gurgled maliciously. Without answering Rutton turned the box over in his palm, his slender fingers playing about the bosses of the relief work; there followed a click and one side of it swung open. The Bengali fell back a pace with a whisper of awe--real or affected: "The Token, hazoor!" Amber himself gasped slightly. Unheeded, the box dropped to the floor. Between Rutton's thumb and forefinger there blazed a great emerald set in a ring of red old gold. He turned it this way and that, inspecting it critically; and the lamplight, catching on the facets, struck from it blinding shafts of intensely green radiance. Rutton nodded as if in recognition of the stone and, turning, with an effect of carelessness, tossed it to Amber. "Keep that for me, David, please," he said. And Amber, catching it, dropped the ring into his pocket. "My lord is satisfied with my credentials, then?" the babu persisted. "It is the Token," Rutton assented wearily. "Now, your message. Be brief." "The utterances of the Voice be infrequent, hazoor, its words few--but charged with meaning: as you know of old." The Bengali drew himself up, holding up his head and rolling forth his phrases in a voice of great resonance and depth. "These be the words of the Voice, hazoor: |
|