The Outcaste. F. E. Penny

      CHAPTER I

      The aviation ground was thronged with spectators. Eyes were turned skywards and men held their breath. Women uttered ejaculations, drawn unconsciously from them in their intense excitement. The wind blew gustily with an upward sweep that sent dead leaves and fragments of paper into the air. A furious blast heralding the coming storm seized one of the aviators as he was in the act of turning. It seemed to shake him with a living enmity. Under the violent motion the tips of the delicate wings of his machine snapped. He recognised the seriousness of the accident; and the breathless multitude watched his efforts to avoid impending catastrophe. As well might the dying bird, winged by the October sportsman, try to sustain its arrested flight. The machine ceased its horizontal movement, folded its broken planes about its struggling guide, and dropped almost vertically to the ground.

      Some, fascinated by the horror of it all, stared at the falling wreck. Others withdrew their gaze, but could not shut their ears to the thud and crash in which the earthly life of a human being came to an abrupt end.

      The hush was followed by a murmur as emotion found expression in speech and exclamation. Many of the women shed tears; some screamed; a few fainted. Ten minutes later there was a general stir as the sightseers, sick at heart, began to depart.

      Eola Wenaston beckoned to her brother, who stood at a little distance talking to a couple of men. He approached the motor car into which she had just stepped. Before she could speak he hastened to reassure her, anticipating the question that was on the lips of all.

      "It's all right; the man is not dead. Of course he has had a shock, falling from such a height, and the machine is smashed to atoms. You need not be nervous——"

      "I'm not nervous. It was a horrid sight, but I'm not troubled with nerves. The man must be dead after such a fall."

      "Well, no one can say how——"

      She interrupted him with a touch of impatience born of anxiety.

      "Would you mind going home by train? Mrs. Greenford is thoroughly unhinged. She is in that tent over there crying her heart out, and she ought to be taken away at once."

      "She doesn't know him, does she?"

      "Yes, slightly. It appears that he dined with her and her husband last night."

      "What do you wish to do?"

      "Drive her home at once; but it leaves you to go by rail. You won't mind giving her your seat in the motor?"

      She did not doubt for a moment that he would object. The car was a new purchase made by Wenaston on his arrival in England on furlough. He intended to take it back to India on his return to his work.

      "Not a bit," he replied readily.

      "I can't ask Miss Stuart to give up her place in the car."

      "Of course not; I'll join Ananda and his friends. They are travelling up by the special leaving in about an hour's time."

      "You need not journey in their company. Now-a-days, when our blood is curdled by assassinations——"

      He interrupted her.

      "They are all right—three of the nicest fellows I know."

      She made a little grimace, not noticing that a Hindu, faultlessly frock-coated and top-hatted, had approached on the other side of the motor, and was waiting for an opportunity to speak, waiting with the courtesy of good breeding that happily is not the monopoly of the European.

      "Still, one cannot forget——" she mentioned the name of a well-known public man who had been done to death by an Oriental fanatic.

      The blood rushed to the temples of the Hindu. He raised his hat as he said quietly—

      "You must not suppose that we are all assassins, Miss Wenaston, any more than I may suppose you English to be all murderers like——" and he in his turn named a notorious criminal who had recently been convicted of a murder perpetrated under circumstances of peculiar cruelty.

      "Of course not! I beg your pardon, Mr. Ananda. I ought not to have said it."

      In her contrition she turned and held out her hand. She felt the nervous close grip, momentary as it was, and the friendliness of the Englishwoman warmed towards the exile.

      "My brother proposes to travel home with you by rail and give his seat in the motor to Mrs. Greenford, who is upset by the accident. Have you heard how the aviator is?"

      "I am afraid from all accounts he is in a bad way. The committee has decided to stop the competitions for to-day. Visitors ought to have no objection."

      "It is sad to have an ending like this!" She turned to Wenaston. "Please go and find Mrs. Greenford; Miss Stuart is with her. Bring them both here. Tell them I am in a hurry to start. I should like to get Mrs. Greenford away before she hears worse news. Oh! I wish he hadn't attempted that last flight! It was quite unnecessary, and not on the programme—a mere show to please the people."

      Ananda stood by the motor whilst Wenaston went to do his sister's bidding.

      "You take these things too seriously, Miss Wenaston. If you were a fatalist you would believe that it was preordained by the gods; and you would be resigned. It is of no use to fight against fate. He had to meet it whether he flew upon an aeroplane or whether he remained in his own house. We are taught that we cannot escape the fulfilment of our destiny."

      She looked at him, her attention