But if she
refused, he would tell his master, who would flog and torture her and
then give her to the police, who would kill her. CHAPTER XIV--BATTLE RENEWED


The consequences of that meeting in the dusk of Diana's Grove were acute
and far-reaching, and not only to the two engaged in it. From Oolanga,
this might have been expected by anyone who knew the character of the
tropical African savage. To such, there are two passions that are
inexhaustible and insatiable--vanity and that which they are pleased to
call love. Oolanga left the Grove with an absorbing hatred in his heart. His lust and greed were afire, while his vanity had been wounded to the
core. Lady Arabella's icy nature was not so deeply stirred, though she
was in a seething passion. More than ever she was set upon bringing
Edgar Caswall to her feet. The obstacles she had encountered, the
insults she had endured, were only as fuel to the purpose of revenge
which consumed her. As she sought her own rooms in Diana's Grove, she went over the whole
subject again and again, always finding in the face of Lilla Watford a
key to a problem which puzzled her--the problem of a way to turn
Caswall's powers--his very existence--to aid her purpose. When in her boudoir, she wrote a note, taking so much trouble over it
that she destroyed, and rewrote, till her dainty waste-basket was half-
full of torn sheets of notepaper. When quite satisfied, she copied out
the last sheet afresh, and then carefully burned all the spoiled
fragments. She put the copied note in an emblazoned envelope, and
directed it to Edgar Caswall at Castra Regis. This she sent off by one
of her grooms. The letter ran:

   "DEAR MR. CASWALL,

   "I want to have a chat with you on a subject in which I believe you
   are interested. Will you kindly call for me one day after lunch--say
   at three or four o'clock, and we can walk a little way together. Only
   as far as Mercy Farm, where I want to see Lilla and Mimi Watford. We
   can take a cup of tea at the Farm. Do not bring your African servant
   with you, as I am afraid his face frightens the girls. After all, he
   is not pretty, is he? I have an idea you will be pleased with your
   visit this time. "Yours sincerely,

   "ARABELLA MARCH." At half-past three next day, Edgar Caswall called at Diana's Grove. Lady
Arabella met him on the roadway outside the gate. She wished to take the
servants into her confidence as little as possible. She turned when she
saw him coming, and walked beside him towards Mercy Farm, keeping step
with him as they walked. When they got near Mercy, she turned and looked
around her, expecting to see Oolanga or some sign of him. He was,
however, not visible. He had received from his master peremptory orders
to keep out of sight--an order for which the African scored a new offence
up against her. They found Lilla and Mimi at home and seemingly glad to
see them, though both the girls were surprised at the visit coming so
soon after the other. The proceedings were a repetition of the battle of souls of the former
visit. On this occasion, however, Edgar Caswall had only the presence of
Lady Arabella to support him--Oolanga being absent; but Mimi lacked the
support of Adam Salton, which had been of such effective service before. This time the struggle for supremacy of will was longer and more
determined. Caswall felt that if he could not achieve supremacy he had
better give up the idea, so all his pride was enlisted against Mimi. When
they had been waiting for the door to be opened, Lady Arabella, believing
in a sudden attack, had said to him in a low voice, which somehow carried
conviction:

"This time you should win. Mimi is, after all, only a woman. Show her
no mercy. That is weakness. Fight her, beat her, trample on her--kill
her if need be. She stands in your way, and I hate her. Never take your
eyes off her. Never mind Lilla--she is afraid of you. You are already
her master. Mimi will try to make you look at her cousin. There lies
defeat. Let nothing take your attention from Mimi, and you will win. If
she is overcoming you, take my hand and hold it hard whilst you are
looking into her eyes. If she is too strong for you, I shall interfere. I'll make a diversion, and under cover of it you must retire unbeaten,
even if not victorious. Hush! they are coming." The two girls came to the door together. Strange sounds were coming up
over the Brow from the west. It was the rustling and crackling of the
dry reeds and rushes from the low lands. The season had been an
unusually dry one. Also the strong east wind was helping forward
enormous flocks of birds, most of them pigeons with white cowls. Not
only were their wings whirring, but their cooing was plainly audible. From such a multitude of birds the mass of sound, individually small,
assumed the volume of a storm. Surprised at the influx of birds, to
which they had been strangers so long, they all looked towards Castra
Regis, from whose high tower the great kite had been flying as usual. But
even as they looked, the cord broke, and the great kite fell headlong in
a series of sweeping dives. Its own weight, and the aerial force opposed
to it, which caused it to rise, combined with the strong easterly breeze,
had been too much for the great length of cord holding it. Somehow, the mishap to the kite gave new hope to Mimi. It was as though
the side issues had been shorn away, so that the main struggle was
thenceforth on simpler lines. She had a feeling in her heart, as though
some religious chord had been newly touched. It may, of course, have
been that with the renewal of the bird voices a fresh courage, a fresh
belief in the good issue of the struggle came too. In the misery of
silence, from which they had all suffered for so long, any new train of
thought was almost bound to be a boon. As the inrush of birds continued,
their wings beating against the crackling rushes, Lady Arabella grew
pale, and almost fainted. "What is that?" she asked suddenly. To Mimi, born and bred in Siam, the sound was strangely like an
exaggeration of the sound produced by a snake-charmer. Edgar Caswall was the first to recover from the interruption of the
falling kite. After a few minutes he seemed to have quite recovered his
_sang froid_, and was able to use his brains to the end which he had in
view. Mimi too quickly recovered herself, but from a different cause. With her it was a deep religious conviction that the struggle round her
was of the powers of Good and Evil, and that Good was triumphing. The
very appearance of the snowy birds, with the cowls of Saint Columba,
heightened the impression. With this conviction strong upon her, she
continued the strange battle with fresh vigour. She seemed to tower over
Caswall, and he to give back before her oncoming. Once again her
vigorous passes drove him to the door. He was just going out backward
when Lady Arabella, who had been gazing at him with fixed eyes, caught
his hand and tried to stop his movement.