The E. Hoffmann Price Fantasy & Science Fiction

by E. Hoffmann Price

  “What’s that?” he demanded of the priest. Then he recognized the three-eight time of Indian music, utterly different from the tempo and five-note scale of Burmese musicians.

  “A company of nautch girls (East Indian professional dancing girls) on their way to the Shan states,” he replied. His gesture invited him to witness the rehearsal; and Steele, though in no mood for nautch dances, decided it would be good policy to humor the old fellow.

  They followed him to the inner courtyard, where the strolling players were performing.

  “By Allah, sahib!” declared the Afghan, as he eyed the slender, golden brown bodies swaying in the moonlit court, “these be finer game than those village girls.”

  Achmet was true to form.

  “Nilofal and Nur Mahal,” commented the priest. “Kashmiri dancing-girls. Perhaps my lord would be interested in a—ah, one might say, a private performance, at the bungalow.”

  Steele gave him the Burmese equivalent of “hell, no!”

  Achmet, however, had been thinking rapidly.

  “Sahib,” he interposed, “those lovely girls are in great peril from the shaitan-leopard. And those dogs from Hindustan”—his contemptuous gesture indicated the musicians—“would make no move to protect them. Nor the old priest either. They should be at camp where I could stand guard.”

  “Get out,” ordered Steele.

  “Or let me stay here and watch the temple for this excellent old priest,” persisted the Afghan.

  But Steele this time had a ready weapon: “While you were whispering sweet nothings to that Burmese girl, an assassin came near knifing me.”

  “Billah! My face is still blackened,” the Afghan penitently admitted; but as he followed Steele, he cast covetous glances at Nilofal and Nur Mahal. Then he sighed and resigned himself to his master’s uncommon whims.

  As they headed back toward the teak camp, Steele noted the Afghan’s thoughtful face, and wondered whether he was thinking of the King of Wizards or the unprotected Kashmiri girls.

  “Kashmiri wins by a length,” was his verdict as he seated himself at the table in his room.

  He composed a letter to Powell, giving him a complete report. The situation was becoming tense, and Steele wanted further information as to Kirby. A skillful trainer of hunting-leopards, introduced into the camp by a rival teak company, and aided by native wizards, could completely demoralize the organization.

  “Which is a damn sight more reasonable than shaitan-leopards,” concluded Steele, as he added his signature to the letter that was to go to Rangoon in the morning. And Achmet, now more than ever determined to kill Kirby, would be just the man to act as runner. The following morning, however, Steele saw that his strategy had failed. Achmet was gone; and shortly after breakfast, Steele learned the cause of his desertion. One of the mahouts finally told him that the Afghan had set out on foot to seek the King of Wizards, determined to settle things, once for all.

  * * * *

  When Steele’s wrath subsided, he philosophically decided that an Afghan is an Afghan, and sent a woodcutter with the message to Powell.

  That afternoon brought a second upset, though one that was more welcome. Powell himself, riding a shaggy Shan pony, came ambling into camp.

  “Your first letter set me thinking,” he explained. “Your being nearly knifed at the Burmese village convinced me that the forest devils had human allies. So I looked up Kirby’s references, and found out that they were faked. He was on the payroll of the Kokogon Teak Company until I put him in charge here—which entirely contradicts his story about working in the Pahang gold belt.

  “And our friend Kirby will be dismissed at once. I’ll manage this camp myself until a new man can come from Rangoon. In the meanwhile, you can be killing the leopard.”

  “Flattering as hell, Powell—unless the natives happen to be right about Kirby.”

  Powell eyed him narrowly, shook his head, and twisted his drooping, straw-colored mustache.

  “The first thing I know, Steele, you’ll be following Achmet to the village of the King of Wizards.”

  “Anyhow,” countered Steele, “don’t fire Kirby. Let’s look into this a bit further.”

  They argued it back and forth for half an hour, but finally Steele’s counsel prevailed. He maintained that dismissing Kirby would at the best be begging the question, and that the only way to restore order in the camp was to kill the shaitan-leopard.

  For a week there were no depredations. The morale of the camp improved, and when Kirby realized that Powell had not come to dismiss him, relations between the three white men were less strained. Yet for all his assurance that Steele had not been undermining him, Kirby was far from cordial toward the American. Steele often caught the camp manager fixedly regarding him with a strange, appraising stare. He wondered whether Kirby still feared that he would report to Powell their conversation the evening of the American’s arrival at camp.

  “I’m beginning to think,” observed Powell one evening after dinner, “that you must have seriously wounded the beast the last time you encountered it, and it crawled away to die.”

  Steele shook his head. “I think the natives have been so scared that they’re keeping under cover, so it can’t grab any of them. I know I had my rifle lined right at it, but I’m just as sure that I didn’t touch the beast. My guess is that as soon as the natives become careless again, we’ll hear plenty.”

  “Maybe,” was Kirby’s ironic comment, “it waylaid your Afghan playmate and died of indigestion.”

  Powell saw the wrathful flash in Steele’s eyes, and tried to change the subject.

  “You know, we really ought to see a performance by those nautch dancers before they go north,” he remarked. “I hear they’re uncommonly talented.”

  As he spoke, Powell’s glance included the American and Kirby.

  “Thanks, but I’m going out to do a bit of bushwhacking tonight,” Kirby answered. “It’s about time for the beast to show up again.”

  They watched Kirby shoulder his rifle and set out on foot toward the jeel.

  “By Heaven,” muttered Powell, “I don’t half blame the natives for feeling funny about Kirby. Quite aside from the expression of his face, did you ever see anyone that reminded you more of a cat? Just look at that stride—he even moves like one.

  “Suppose,” countered Steele, as he struck light to a cigar, “that you take a jaunt to the village of wizards.”

  And when Steele’s cigar was down to its final inch, they sent a mahout to tell the old priest that they would presently be on hand to witness a performance.

  “By Allah, sahib,” rumbled a deep voice at the doorway, “now that I have returned, I will guard you and the manager sahib on the way to the temple.”

  Achmet, tattered, bedraggled, but triumphant, had returned. He wore his silver-hafted Khorassan tulwar; but as he spoke, he patted the butt of his service revolver. Before Steele could demand an accounting, the Afghan grinned amiably and explained, “As your honor doubtless knows, I went to see the King of Wizards, and got a charm to protect me against leopard shaitans. Furthermore, my revolver is loaded with silver bullets. And for good measure I have engraved on each one: ‘I betake me to the Lord of the Daybreak for refuge against Shaitan, and against the evils of the night when it darkeneth’.”

  Steele, putting little trust in the hundred and thirteenth chapter of the Koran, even if engraved on a bullet, reached for his express rifle as he and Powell set out for the temple. But when they were only a little more than halfway to their destination, Steele knew that they would witness no performance that night. From the half-ruined heap came an agonized cry that was abruptly cut short. Then a confusion of yells, savage growls, and the wailing of a woman.

  And as they dashed toward the temple, Steel saw a monstrous leopard bounding from the terrace. It had seized one of the dancing-girls, and was draggin
g her into the jungle. He halted, fired a crackling volley at a streak of golden brown that was scarcely perceptible in the light of the waning moon; but it was a perilous shot as likely to kill the victim as the beast. There was a savage snarling, thrashing in the brush, then a blur of tawny, silken hide.

  “You got him!” shouted Powell, as he followed.

  “Then it’s blind luck,” panted Steele, as he approached the spot where the abandoned victim lay moaning. “I barely caught a flash of him.”

  The Kashmiri girl, mangled by the beast’s fangs, was beyond help. But as Steele knelt beside the pitiful remnant of loveliness, he heard a yell, and a rattle of pistol fire; then a crackling in the underbrush, and a wrathful, rasping volley of oaths. Steele leaped forward, rifle in hand. Powell and Achmet were at his heels. A dozen strides brought them through the thicket and into a small clearing. They saw Kirby emerging from its farther edge, pistol drawn in hand and stretching his long legs toward them. He was utterly out of breath, and it was not until they reached the body of the Kashmiri girl that he was able to explain.

  “I was coming from the jeel, and I heard a shot. The first thing I knew the beast was on me, running as if the devil was after it. Knocked me end for end, but went on. It seemed as anxious to get away as I was, but I fired as it cleared me.” During Kirby’s narrative, Achmet’s sharp eyes covered him from head to foot. Kirby’s shoulder was bleeding.

  “Billahi, sahib,” he whispered to Steele. “Verily, he is the shaitan-leopard. Look where your shot grazed him!”

  “Shut up, you idiot,” Steele growled; “that’s a slash, not a bullet crease.”

  But he began pondering when the natives, mustering up enough courage to leave the temple, approached the group gathered about the body of the Kashmiri girl. One of them carried a spear, and its tip was dripping with blood. Someone, cornered and desperate, had struck at the marauder as he bounded out with his prey. And a lance-head would make a slash in passing!

  CHAPTER 6

  Steele and Achmet carried the remains of the Kashmiri girl back to the temple. There he learned that Nur Mahal, the other nautch dancer, had been badly clawed while trying to save her sister.

  “Sahib,” said the girl, whose dark eyes now blazed with wrath, “we were twins, born only an hour apart, and our destinies are closely interlaced. The beast will therefore return for me. There is no help for it, but before the evil stars of my horoscope reach the House of Death I will devise vengeance.”

  “What do you mean?” he demanded. Although Nur Mahal’s argument was fairly sound astrology, it meant little to Steele; but she might suggest some device that had not thus far occurred to the hunters. The valley of Kashmir is infested with leopards, and the natives are unusually skillful in disposing of the beasts.

  “It was ordained that the demon leopard would kill my sister,” declared Nur Mahal, “and likewise, that he must kill me, since we were born so little apart. Therefore, he will seek me; and you may watch, and thus kill him. My fate is certain; so let me bait a trap, instead of using a young goat, as is the custom.”

  As she spoke, Nur Mahal’s eyes shifted toward Kirby, who stood at the fringe of the crowd. Steele saw their eyes clash, and sensed the antagonism between the two. The girl was firmly convinced that Kirby was a leopard in human form; and he, in his turn, was wrathful because of the girl’s unspoken accusation, and the muttering among the natives as they edged away from him.

  “That’s entirely too wild, Nur Mahal,” countered Steele. “You’re pretty badly scratched, and you’d better come to camp and get yourself doctored up a bit.”

  If infection set in, Nur Mahal’s dire forebodings would be fulfilled without another attack by the leopard. The Kashmiri girl was being carried on by her nerve. Even as he spoke, she wavered on her feet. Steele caught her as she collapsed.

  “You are right,” asserted the old priest. “Take her, lest she die of those clawings.” His suggestion was eagerly echoed by the natives. Nut Mahal’s saying that her destiny was linked with that of her dead sister and that of the demon leopard made them eager to get her as far from them as possible.

  They devised a rude litter. Powell and Achmet carried her to camp.

  During the discussion, Kirby had wrathfully left the temple.

  “My Heaven, Steele,” muttered Powell, as they headed across the clearing, “it’s all perfect rot, but Kirby has to leave here at once, or I won’t have a logger or mahout left in camp.”

  “Better wait a while,” temporized Steele. “This girl is in bad shape, but I think I can pull her through. That will prove that her astrology was all wrong, which will encourage the natives.”

  Powell conceded Steele’s argument.

  Halfway across the clearing, they saw Jang running toward them.

  “Sahiban,” he began, “you must not bring the girl to camp. The news has spread. All the woodcutters will leave at once. They are certain that she will draw an attack from the demon leopard.”

  Steele cursed heartily.

  “What’ll we do with her?” demanded Powell. “Jang is right. I didn’t think of that.”

  “Build a shelter here near the edge of the clearing,” suggested Achmet, “and I will run to camp and get the medicines and bandages for Steele Sahib to apply. I will help him guard this woman.” Then he added, “Until Allah permits the shaitan-leopard to eat her.”

  “Jang,” demanded Steele as Achmet bounded across the clearing, “who the devil started, this, anyhow?”

  “Kirby Sahib heard the woodcutters’ mutterings,” answered Jang. “But as for me, I think that he gave them the thought, so that the girl would not be placed in a bungalow where he could not get her when he takes the shape of a leopard.”

  “You’re crazy,” growled Steele. “How can a man become a beast?”

  “This is no true leopard,” Jang stubbornly persisted. “In my native country there were many of them, but they were only nuisances, not a danger. We hunt them on foot—with a turban cloth wrapped around the left arm, to ward off their claws, while we take a kukri and slice them in half when they attack. Verily, this must be a demon, to be hunting men in such an unnatural manner.”

  That left, Steele no argument. This beast was different from the vicious pests of Kashmir and Nepal.

  While awaiting Achmet’s return, Jang set to work with his kukri, chopping down bamboos and saplings to construct a shelter for the injured girl and her guardian. And presently Nur Mahal received first aid.

  * * * *

  Despite Steele’s efforts, infection set in. For three days and nights he was at his wits’ end, trying to use his sketchy medical knowledge to save the Kashmiri girl. When she was not delirious, she stared at the matting wall of her shelter, fatalistically resigned to the beast’s return.

  Powell was in a high-grade funk. “If she dies, we’re jolly well blown up. The camp depends on your proving that a first-aid kit can beat this devil leopard, even if a rifle can’t.”

  Steele somberly shook his head. “She’d pull through if she weren’t sold on the idea that her number is up. So she has absolutely no resistance, no will to hang on. For all the good it’s done, my taking care of her, I might as well have been out-bushwhacking. Better, perhaps. If I nailed the leopard, she’d be on her feet in an hour.”

  “Sahib,” Achmet cut in, “if Nur Mahal dies, I will then and there kill Kirby, or may Allah do as much to me, and more.” The burly Afghan meant exactly what he said. He was not blustering. He squatted on the ground, grimly fingering the hilt of his blade. That in no way lightened Steele’s problem.

  Powell said, “You can’t have that chap running around executing wizards. He’s off his chump. I’m referring to Achmet, you understand. No doubt Kirby’s a bit of a scoundrel, offering me forged credentials, but we can’t have him butchered.”

  “Now, don’t get tough with Achmet,” Steele answered impa
tiently. “Not that I approve of his ideas any more than you do. But it wasn’t so many years ago that fellows as smart as you are were burning witches—right in your home territory.”

  “Don’t be absurd!” Powell snapped. “Couple of centuries ago, at least.”

  “Did you ever hear of the Malleus Maleficarum?” Steele persisted.

  “No, and I’m sure I’d not want to. Who were they?”

  “It was a book of instructions for detecting wizards, witches, and the like. Written in 1485—”

  “Oh—of course. Hammer of Evildoers.” Powell had unraveled the title. “Beastly stuff, Latin. Strike me dead, but I could do with such a hammer in this camp. What about the blasted book? Filthy superstition, for an educated person.”

  Steele rubbed his chin. He eyed the restless girl, the Afghan who crouched like a beast ready to spring, and the harassed manager. “Powell,” he went on finally, “there is something filthy in this jungle, but I’m not so sure it’s superstition. The authors of the Malleus Maleficarum—”

  “Collaboration, eh?” Powell was gnawing his mustaches.

  “Right. Two priests, Iacobus Sprenger and Heinrich Kramer. I remember hearing quite a bit of one of their chapters quoted. About human beings that could assume animal forms—”

  “By Jove!” Powell snapped to his feet. He choked, blinked. “Now you give me this blighted rot! I sent you out here to kill a leopard, not explain him. I—I—why—”

  “What I meant was,” Steele cut in, “that you mustn’t be too impatient with Achmet—when people of our own race had similar notions, not so long ago, as history goes. Suppose you trot along and get some sleep, old fellow.”

  He took Powell’s elbow, and edged him toward the door. At the threshold, he added in a whisper, “And keep an eye on Kirby. Don’t tell him Achmet is making threats, but persuade him to quit his prowling around. It’d be awkward if this red-bearded ruffian did go off his chump!”