Farandoul, looking over the entire crowd, took in a strange and grandiose scene at a single glance. In the great courtyard of the palace, the rajah’s guards were lined up immediately in front of the central colonnade, where the dignitaries of the court were standing. Right at the back, behind a balustrade, the white head of Nana-Sirkar was visible; he was immobile on a divan, in the midst of his 40 wives.
The chariot, passing rapidly in front of the troops, stopped immediately in front of the balustrade, 20 meters from the rajah. All eyes were staring in astonishment at the fake fakirs, who had not found any opportunity to escape.
Having entered with the crowd behind the chariot, the interpreter was able to slide up to them. “Beware!” he said. “The adventure caused a fuss; people are vociferating against the profaners of the chariot—it’s necessary to get out.”
Indeed, shouts could be heard behind the guards; fanatics could be seen hoisting themselves up on to their shoulders and shaking their fists at the poor fakirs. Of all these fanatics, the bayaderes’ musician seemed to be the most enthusiastic.
Farandoul darted a rapid glance around him; two ranks of guards had moved forward quietly to range themselves behind the mariners. The retreat was cut off; it was necessary to keep his composure and maintain his role impassively.
Meanwhile, a young man with a handsome face, who had been standing beside the rajah, came forward to the balustrade to interrogate the crowd of fanatics. His officers had brought him the bayaderes’ musician, who was still gesticulating. To Farandoul’s great astonishment, a long conversation began between the highly-placed individual and the humble musician, almost on an equal footing. The musician certainly began with marks of apparent humility, but their heads gradually moved closer and the conversation continued in low voices.
“The bayaderes’ musician!” murmured Mandibul. “Damn! Damn! Ventre de phoque!”
Farandoul was struck by a sudden thought. “Mandibul! You’ve been chatting with the bayaderes—a fatal imprudence! You’re not impassive enough to be a fakir. Be ready for anything—we’ve been discovered.”
“The highly-placed person who is talking to the musician,” the interpreter whispered, is the jaghirdar Rundjet, the first minister of old Nana-Sirkar, whom you see over there in the midst of his wives.”
“Doesn’t he ever move?”
“The rajah hasn’t been out of his palace for a long time. He’s more than 90 years old; his longevity surprises everyone in Kifir, but you’ll understand that his 40 wives have a serious interest in conserving his health. For them it’s a matter of avoiding suttee—which is to say, of being burned with him on the day of his funeral.
“The custom of burning widows is conserved in Kifir?”
“Of course! It’s still maintained in the English possessions; it’s even stronger here. In Kifir, no widow of high rank neglects the custom—least of all the rajah’s wives, required by their high position to set an example. Besides, for them, the sacrifice would not be a matter of choice but of compulsion!”
“I wouldn’t like to be in their shoes—the rajah’s very old.”
“Bah! With care…personally, I think the custom is excellent for husbands!”
“Pay attention!” said Farandoul. “Jaghirdar Rundjet is coming over to us. Take care—he doesn’t look pleased. Try to explain our situation as fakirs deprived of speech by a vow…”
After his conversation with the musician, Jaghirdar Rundjet had gone to confer with the rajah and his wives; now he was advancing towards the fake fakirs with a severe expression and furrowed brows.
The circle of guards had closed in around them. Like it or not, it was necessary to confront the jaghirdar. Standing behind the balustrade, a few paces away from Farandoul, he stared at the false fakirs, one after another, without saying a word. Then he signaled to his officers to close ranks even more tightly.
“This is going badly,” murmured Mandibul. “O perfidious bayadere!”
The jaghirdar finally started speaking, in English: “You obviously know, Europeans, about the prohibition issued by the rajah of Kifir, since you have adopted disguises to introduce yourselves into the holy city on the days of the solemn ceremonies of Chattiram. You knew, therefore, what you would be risking if you were discovered.”
“Powerful Jaghirdar,” said the interpreter, humbly, “these men are not Europeans; they are holy anchorites from my country, fakirs who have come to Kifir for religious motives.”
“Silence! You are an accomplice of these men and will share their fate. You are in the hands of a powerful rajah whom you have provoked by insolently presenting yourselves in Kifir. For that crime alone, you already merit death, but that is not all. You have pushed audacity to the point of profaning our temples by your presence, to the point of laying your impure hands upon the sacred chariot of Chattiram, to the point of setting foot on the venerated statues of Shiva, Vishnu, Hanuman and Kali. All that can only be paid for by terrible tortures! Nana-Sirkar, the rajah of Kifir, condemns you to die in long torment, Here your sentence, therefore: the rajah Nana-Sirkar has ordered that you be taken to the great pagoda of Chattiram, and there, on the peristyle that overlooks Kifir, within the sight of all the faithful that you have insulted by your profanations, you will be flayed alive with skilled slowness, in such a fashion that your torture will last until the end of the festivals—which is to say, or three days. Have you anything to say in your defense?”
“Not to you, most amiable Jaghirdar, but to the rajah himself,” replied Farandoul, who had not taken his eyes off the old rajah, still motionless on his cushions, during the whole of Rundjet’s speech. And before the jaghirdar could stop him, Farandoul leapt over the balustrade with a single bound—which testified to the skill of monkeys as professors—and landed on his feet ten paces behind Rundjet. In another three strides he was in front of the rajah, in the midst of Nana-Sirkar’s wives, who were appalled by his audacity.
In spite of their screams and the blows distributed by their fans and parasols, the audacious Farandoul put his hand on the rajah’s shoulder, without the latter deigning to move his head or furrow his white eyebrows. Very strange! Impassive in the majesty of his long white beard, old Nana-Sirkar had not budged; his plume of diamonds had not even quivered; his swords and daggers, enriched with fine pearls, had not been drawn from their scabbards.
The audacious Farandoul, careless of his royal majesty, dared to put his hand on that august beard and tug it disrespectfully! Not a muscle twitched in the rajah’s face; his bright eyes did not flinch.
Finally, the terrible Farandoul, not content with these assaults on the dignity of their lord and master, set his elbow on the rajah’s head and leaned over his breast.
The rajah’s wives wrung their hands; their secret was discovered!
Nana-Sirkar, whose longevity was admired by the whole of Kifir, was a stuffed rajah! Nana-Sirkar had been dead for 12 years. For 12 years the kingdom of Kifir had been ruled by an embalmed rajah. For 12 years, nobody had noticed it. It had required the keen eyes of Farandoul to discover the fraud; since his arrival in front of the balustrade he had been struck by the immobility of the old rajah. He had observed; he had discovered the truth.
How can the alarm of the rajah’s wives and their terror before the menacing Farandoul be described?
“The rajah of Kifir had cruel intentions!” shouted Farandoul, in a strident voice.
“Silence!” murmured Jaghirdar Rundjet, squeezing his hand. “Don’t ruin us—you won’t be flayed, I promise!”
“I’m relying on it,” Farandoul replied. “Do you know that you’re in peril, at this moment, of burning with these ladies on a pyre!”
“Shut up, in the name of Brahma! Let’s make a pact. “I’ll save you—don’t ruin us!”
“First have my friends brought forward. Send the chariot of Chattiram away, and let’s talk quietly.”
The jaghirdar obeyed. He went to the balustrade and gestured benevolently to the false fakirs. The
astonished Brahmins stared at the jaghirdar; the latter declared that the rajah Nana-Sirkar had now recognized the sanctity of the fakirs had had taken them under his protection. The priests did not ask any more questions, and signaled to the procession to get under way again. As for the fanatics who permitted themselves to murmur, the soldiers showered blows on them from above with pike-shafts, rapidly dispersing them. The musician who was the author of the tumult had disappeared without waiting for this distribution.
Order having been reestablished, the jaghirdar graciously invited Mandibul and his sailors to climb over the balustrade in order to present their compliments to the rajah.
The mariners had only caught glimpses of the scene that had just taken place, the rajah’s wives having striven to use their fans and parasols to conceal it from the eyes of the high dignitaries of the court standing some distance away. Farandoul brought his friends up to date succinctly; condemned by the cruel rajah Nana-Sirkar to be flayed in a delicate fashion lasting three days, his discovery had saved their lives. Instead of finding themselves in cruel peril, they were now the ones holding a terrible revelation, suspended like the sword of Damocles, over their enemies’ heads.
Nana-Sirkar’s 40 wives were truly charming, further enhancing their striking beauty with the refinements of Hindu coquetry. Rings and precious gems ornamented their nostrils and foreheads, the surrounds of their eyes were gilded or silvered, and bracelets adorned their arms and legs.
Mandibul, standing contemplatively in front of poor Nana-Sirkar, lost all gravity within the group carefully formed by the 40 widows. “Stuffed!” he murmured. “Stuffed! How imaginative these Far-Eastern wives are!”
“Shh! Shh!” muttered the jaghirdar. “Remember that everyone’s lives—yours and those of the charming widows of Nana-Sirkar….”
“You’re right. It’s a serious matter. These ladies would be condemned to climb on to the pyre if anyone noticed, and we would be…the matter is, indeed, serious. But how long has the throne of Kifir been occupied by such an extraordinary rajah?”
“I’ll tell you everything. It happened 12 years ago. Nana-Sirkar, who was already very old then—but was not yet past it—wanted to marry 20 young and charming wives to add new luster to that of 20 other wives who were already shining in his harem like a sparkling river of diamonds, or an immense constellation of stars in the firmament! That made 40 pearls in the rajah’s jewel-box, 40 roses, 40…”
“Yes, yes, fine! You’re an admirer of the shine of pearls and the perfume of roses—I’m beginning to understand.”
“So, on the very night of his marriage, Nana-Sirkar experienced a fearful fit of anger on seeing me, Jaghirdar Rundjet de Ghapol, his first minister, depositing a respectful kiss on the hand of one of his new wives. Nana-Sirkar started, went pale, roared, seized his sword, and…fell down stone dead, choked by that thoughtless anger. The rajah’s 40 wives came running, in floods of tears. They were widows; it would be necessary, in the full flower of their youth, to follow their august spouse’s funeral procession and mount the pyre as suttees. A cruel prospect! An evil ceremony!
“A flash of genius passed through my mind; no one in the court except for me and the august widows knew about the fatal event. I decided to save them and had the body transported to an isolated chamber. The 40 widows immediately shut themselves away, and the celebration continued without the rajah, who was believed to be in his harem.
“The next day and the days thereafter, the rajah did not show himself at all for, during that time, I had him embalmed by skillful artists whom, fearful of indiscretion, I took care to have decapitated when their work was done. When he was presentable, I dressed him myself in his most sumptuous garments and summoned the august widows. They were rapt with admiration—the rajah was perfect!
“An ingenious mechanism made the head move from time to time and the eyes roll; at ten paces, the illusion was perfect. In a durbar, or general assembly, the rajah was presented to the court, at a respectful distance and surrounded by his wives, busy plying long feathery fans around him. I read the high dignitaries a letter from the rajah announcing his intention of relieving his old age by transferring the burdens of his office to me. The rajah made signs of acquiescence from time to time, by means of little stimuli administered to my mechanism. The high dignitaries fell over themselves to offer signs of approval and the durbar as concluded without any suspicion.”
“And since then,” asked Farandoul, “no one has seen anything?”
“No, the necessary precautions being so well taken, I continue to govern on behalf of old rajah Nana-Sirkar, whose longevity so admired throughout India; I show him to the people once or twice a year on important occasions, and that suffices. The rest of the time, the terrible rajah is shut up in a secret cupboard, to which I have the only key, and we remain tranquil.”
“Accept the expression of our total admiration, ingenious jaghirdar, you deserve it! You’ve saved the lives of 40 charming ladies! You deserve a medal.”
“You’re too kind!”
“No, no, I’m just. I’m happy, doubly happy, to have seen through it; it permits me to admire at close range the 40 pearls in Nana-Sirkar’s jewel-box, the blooming roses of the garden of Kifir, and it has saved the lives of my friends and myself—for three days of being flayed, no matter how delicately, would leave very little hope! Tell me—why did the diabolical rajah of Kifir have such cruel intentions in our regard?”
“That’s another matter. You came here to steal our white elephant—the former elephant of the King of Siam—didn’t you?”
“Yes, but how do you know that?”
“Did you see me talking to the bayaderes’ musician? He’s the one who told me—he’s the one who revealed the secret of your disguises. He knows all your plans; he knows that you intend to steal the elephant to take it back to the King of Siam, and he’s sworn to prevent that.”
“But who is this musician? What interest does he have in the matter?”
“The musician is a fake—he’s the leader of the Siamese pirates who sold me the white elephant! Having received the four millions, the price of the sale, he loyally undertook to warn us about the peril our purchase was running.”
Farandoul, deep in thought, soon emerged again. “Let’s wind this up,” he said. “We’re all in great danger here. My friends and I are risking being flayed alive, you’re running the risk of a decapitation, more rapid but no less disagreeable, and Nana-Sirkar’s widows will have to be sacrificed if the fraud is discovered. We’re keeping one another alive; you’re saving us from torture and we’re sparing you from the blade and the pyre by keeping quiet. Quid pro quo! But I’m not stupid enough to find an equal balance between our 18 more-or-less unprepossessing masculine faces and the rajah’s 40 seductive widows…”
“An academy of roses in bloom,” said Mandibul, with a smile for the ladies.
“No, the precious existence of a single one of these charming widows is worth all of ours. In consequence, as there are 40 whose lives were are saving, we cannot be content with 18 reprieves. We require something else…”
“What do you mean?” cried the anxious jaghirdar. “What do you want? Spit it out—you’re frightening me. Some of Nana-Sirkar’s widows, perhaps—or a few millions? I must warn you that the State coffers have almost run dry…a rajah who has 40 wives can’t help having a lot of expenses…”
“Don’t worry—all I want is the King of Siam’s white elephant.”
“But it’s ours—we’ve paid for it. The Brahmins of the Chattiram pagoda won’t want to part with it.”
“I’m only taking the white elephant to return it to its rightful owner—that should silence all the hesitations of a man as scrupulous as you. Come on, I’m only asking you to let us steal it. In return, I promise you eternal silence regarding the causes of the longevity of the Rajah Nana-Sirjkar and the freedom to enjoy it. We’ll be content to brush the hands of a few of the unburned widows of Kifir with our lips. Is that agreed?”
“Yes, it’s agreed,” said the jaghirdar. “You can have your white elephant—that’s a loss of four millions for me.”
“Bah! The rajah will decree some new tax—you’ll get them back. This evening, then, at nightfall, you’ll take us to the pagoda of Chattiram, you’ll help us to evade the surveillance of the Brahmins, and we’ll go our separate ways s good friends.”
During the final part of this scene, the curtains closing off the colonnade had completely isolated the members of the court from the group formed by our friends and the rajah’s widows. Nana-Sirkar, august and impassive, had been taken to the back of the room and seated on his throne. When everything had been settled between the mariners and the jaghirdar, the latter asked them for a few minutes to greet, along with his master, the ambassadors of the Maharajahs of Baroda, Udaipur and Mysore and the English chargé d’affaires, the only European admitted to Kifir. As soon as this tedious ceremony was over, he would be entirely at their disposal to discuss the means of stealing the white elephant with the least possible risk.
Farandoul made a few objections. “What?” he said “You have the imprudence to receive the English ambassador? But he’ll see through the fraud!”
“Fear not—for 12 years he’s had interviews with old Nana-Sirkar every three months; he holds long discussions with him on thorny questions. Nana-Sirkar utters his replies by way of his faithful minister Rundjet; he discusses alliances, concludes treaties, and the English ambassador has never noticed anything odd.”
“You’ve set my mind at rest. You understand that, now that I’ve had the honor of making your acquaintance and that of the rajah’s charming widows, I wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to you.”
The Adventures of Saturnin Farandoul Page 44