THEFORBIDDENGARDEN

by The Forbidden Garden(Lit)

  "Brassey's laboratory men made a discovery like that?" Vartan asked a little skeptically. "They must have been pretty remarkable biologists."

  "Please don't laugh," she begged. "I know the way I tell it makes it sound foolish, but it is the honest fact."

  "I'm not laughing," he apologized. "Go ahead. What else did they find?"

  "One man discovered that the coloring matter of the leaves was not chlorophyll, as it is in normal plants."

  "What was it then?"

  "A substance intermediate between chlorophyll and hemoglobin."

  "Between the green of leaves and the red of animal blood?" he asked incredulously.

  "That is what the man said. By comparatively simple chemical treatment he was able to change the doubtful substance into either chlorophyll or hemoglobin at will."

  "So he never knew actually whether he was dealing with a plant or an animal?"

  "Although you don't believe me," she replied coldly, "I must repeat that what I tell you is a fact."

  Vartan halted. "Look here, Miss Driscott," he said. "There's no sense in our falling out this late in the game. For our mutual self-preservation we've got to work together. So I shall tell you exactly what is in my mind. First, I do not doubt your facts. Until there is evidence to the contrary, I shall accept your account of the singular botany – or physiology – of those plants grown from James Brassey's sample package. Second, I do not believe that any scientist in Charles Brassey's employ ever made such a discovery as you describe."

  He marched off, to overtake the guards, who were showing signs of impatience.

  "You still distrust me?" she flashed.

  "Only as far as I have tried to indicate plainly. Any chemist who found means of changing the coloring matter of any plant – or animal – from chlorophyll to hemoglobin and back again at will, and by a simple method as you say he did, would broadcast his discovery in the leading chemical journals of the world. Why didn't he?"

  "He was in Mr. Brassey's employ. Anything he might find would be a trade secret."

  "Rot, Miss Driscott," he retorted with quiet finality. "A chemist or biologist of that calibre wouldn't be in anyone's employ for long. Such men dictate their own terms, and they do not repress scientific discoveries of the first magnitude for the good of trade."

  "You are either abnormally suspicious," she flashed dangerously, "or–"

  "Or what?" he encouraged when she hesitated.

  "Never mind," she said, with a smile not wholly free of malice.

  "Why not give me my due," he laughed, "and acknowledge that I'm not the fool you thought I was in Bombay?"

  "Because," she retorted enigmatically, "you trust Ali."

  Further interchange of edged pleasantries was interrupted by the simultaneous shouting of the guards. They were now within two miles of the soaring northern wall of the valley. For the past half hour they had been traversing narrow lanes between well tilled fields. As yet there was no sign of habitation, human or otherwise. From an extensive clump of what looked like bamboo about a quarter of a mile distant, four figures emerged hurriedly in answer to the guards' shouts, and hastened toward the party.

  The newcomers proved to be decently clad, which was rather more than could be said for the hairy guards who had thus far conducted the prisoners. Their clothes were close fitting suits, apparently all of one piece of brightly flowered fabric, not unlike a professional acrobat's costume. Their shoes, clumsy, shapeless attempts at artistry, were of closely woven grass, patterned in three colors with leaves and simple flowers. Evidently the cult, if any, of these people was floral. To Marjorie's relief, one of the four was a woman.

  The first glance showed that these clothed natives were of a far higher order of intelligence than any the party had so far seen, either as guards or working in the fields. Although far from normal according to ordinary human standards, these four, in spite of their obvious deformities, were not wholly repulsive. Vartan found himself unconsciously scrutinizing their hands. Of all eight, there was but one, the woman's left, which had four fingers and one thumb only. The hands, and possibly also the feet, seemed to be the last stronghold of the strange disorder which afflicted these unfortunate people.

  With much oratory on the part of the old guard, the prisoners were transferred to the newcomers. The woman took charge of Marjorie; two of the men made themselves responsible for Ali and Vartan, while the third, with the easy strength which seemed as natural as breathing to the valley dwellers, shouldered all three packs and brought up the rear. The three of the old guard turned back, and proceeded briskly over the trail by which they had come.

  "The next patrol may be real human beings, if it keeps up like this," Vartan observed. "Each is better than the one before. I wonder where they live?"

  Ali answered. Pointing excitedly to the sheer wall directly in front of them, now distant about a mile, he called their attention to a crisscross net of narrow trails hewn in the face of the all but perpendicular cliff. What from a greater distance had appeared as the natural weathering of the precipices, now was revealed as the elaborate work of industrious human beings. Tier after tier of irregularly spaced holes, evidently the entrances to caves, pitted the face of the cliff like the precariously placed nests of swallows.

  For as high as the eye could follow distinctly, the staggered trails soared dizzily up from one straggling row of pockets to the next, till it needed but a slight leap of the imagination to prolong the fading tracery clear to the snowy crests of the precipices, fourteen thousand feet or more above the valley floor.

  So stunned were the three by the sheer magnitude of what they saw, that they scarcely noted when they began the ascent of one of the broader trails up the face of the cliff. The guards seemed to fear for their prisoners' safety. The woman led, guiding Marjorie by the hand; Ali followed, supported from behind by one of the men, while Vartan's guide insisted upon leading him by the hand. The man with the packs, fearful of his own unsteady balance, unslung his burdens and dragged them up after him.

  The first half dozen black holes in the rock, uninhabited so far as the prisoners could discover at a hurried glance, were passed by the guides. At the eighth, larger than any of the preceding, the woman leading Marjorie halted, and called to the man with the packs for instructions or orders. They were now about three hundred feet above the floor of the valley. The sun had already sunk behind the rim of precipices, and the three prisoners were evidently at the point of exhaustion. The orders suited the common sense of the situation, and the woman led Marjorie into the cave. The others followed.

  For half a mile they proceeded in total darkness. A strong odor of pitch prepared them for what was to come. Emerging at last from the black tunnel, they entered a natural cavern, low-ceilinged but apparently without limit, lit by innumerable torches of natural gas that flamed from fissures in the floor. It was not a single cave in which they found themselves, but rather an endless labyrinth of connected galleries with bewildering vistas of flaming natural torches and supporting walls or pillars of living rock in all directions, like the multiple reflections of many caverns and a thousand flaring torches in a maze of mirrors placed upright but at random in a darkened hall.

  One of the men disappeared in the maze. He was gone over half an hour. During his absence not a word was spoken, either by guards or prisoners. Vartan, for once in his life, was overcome by the mere scale on which nature builds her masterpieces. Ali seemed scarcely to think at all; Marjorie was stunned into a belief that she was dreaming, or remembering a dream.

  The guard returned with five men and two women, all of higher humanity than himself. Marjorie was entrusted to the two women, and led off behind a convenient pillar. One of the new men took charge of the packs, and at once began a systematic, impersonal inspection of their contents. The old guard, the three men and the one woman, departed by the same tunnel as that by which they had come. Before Vartan realized what was happening to him, two of the men were stripping his clothes off as neatly
as they might have husked a cob of corn. Ali was faring no better; indeed he was already stripped, save for the precious trinket tied about his middle by a stout cord.

  Vartan found himself staring in amazed unbelief at Ali's naked body. It was as white as his own. No Indian ever had a skin like Ali's. Almost refusing to believe his own eyes, Vartan followed every movement of the men searching Ali. The trinket around his waist seemed to arouse their suspicions, if not their hostility. They were no fools; a man does not carry a tiny glass bottle filled with black dust around his waist, where only an efficient police officer would think of looking for it, unless it be precious.

  "Who the devil are you?" Vartan shouted at the quaking Ali. "And what do you mean by stealing Shane's black ice?"

  Before Ali could explain or lie himself out of his predicament, the suspicious guards hustled him out of sight and hearing down a corridor of the flaming maze.

  "Miss Driscott!" Vartan cried at the top of his lungs, "Miss Driscott! Don't trust Ali. He's white! He stole Shane's black ice, and he has the dried sediment of it on him now in a bottle."

  "I hear you," came a clear voice from behind a nearby pillar. "They found nothing on me. Did I tell you to trust Ali?"

  "Rub it in," he replied. "I deserve it. But who is Ali?"

  "How should I know? If they shave him and wash the stain off his face I may recognize him. If I do, I'll tell you – provided we ever see each other again. Tell me honestly, do you think we are in danger?"

  "Why should we be?" he temporized. "Our only crime was to enter their valley without a passport. They can only send us back. These people are civilized."

  "You haven't answered me."

  "I know. But–"

  His explanation remained unfinished. The guards hustled him off by the way the unfortunate Ali had gone.

  CHAPTER 15

  THE RIVER

  Exhausted by the strenuous physical labor of the past three days, Vartan deferred further speculation on Ali's identity and probable guilt, and made up his mind to sleep. His bed invited slumber; the drowsy rustle of innumerable jets flaming in adjacent corridors, mile after mile into the depths of the mountain barrier, was as sleep-compelling as the gentle pulse of the surf on an all but level strand. The cave in which he slept was dark, save for the dim, flickering glow from one of the perpetual torches reflected against the pillar in front of the entrance. The whole floor was a luxurious bed. Petals of aromatic flowers and the tender young leaves of spicy shrubs had been dried and tossed knee deep onto the bare rock. Although the alert guard, sombrely outlined in the throbbing glow at the cavern's entrance, was a sufficient reminder that the fragrant room was nothing but a prison cell, Vartan refused to worry. All his mature life as an explorer he had taken his troubles one at a time as he met them.

  So soundly did he sleep that only the guard's persistent shaking woke him. It was time to worry about Marjorie and Ali. As the guard led him out into the full glare of the main corridor, Vartan let out a lusty shout.

  "Where are you?"

  "Here," a multiplied reply echoed from pillar to pillar in answer to his own. It was Marjorie's voice. Ali either had not heard, or the guards had removed him to some distant part of the caves for safe keeping. He alone seemed to have excited the suspicions of the guards at the inspection; doubtless they had hustled him off to headquarters to interview their chief of police and head customs officers.

  Vartan's own guard carried the prisoner's clothes over his arm. At an inquiring gesture from Vartan, the clothes were surrendered without hesitation, and the guard enjoyed a treat watching what to him was an unnecessarily complicated ceremony as Vartan dressed. Having finished his toilet, Vartan shouted again, holding up two fingers. The guard understood. Shaking his head vigorously, he held up one finger. Ali evidently was not within hearing. The guard motioned Vartan down a long corridor to the left, brilliantly lighted by a double row of the white flame jets. From the regular spacing of these torches, Vartan inferred that some at least were artificial, having been made by drilling the rock floor to reach the reservoir of natural gas beneath. This guess was confirmed by the lighting of the impressive hall they now entered.

  "You are late for breakfast," a pleasant voice greeted them as they entered. Somewhat startled, Vartan wheeled round to find Marjorie waiting for him with her woman attendant – or jailer. "We're still alive," she continued lightly. "I half expected to wake up in another world. Didn't you find your bed as stupefying as an opium den?"

  "I've never been in one," Vartan laughed. "But now that you mention it, I do remember sleeping as I never slept in my life. These people seem to know all about plants, even if they are not highly civilized. Hullo, is this our breakfast coming?"

  A young girl entered the lofty hall from a gallery on the opposite side, almost staggering under a huge wicker tray piled with fruits, vegetables and leaves of all imaginable sizes, shapes and colors. The dining hall, roughly elliptical in shape, was lighted by five dazzling white jets, each twice the height of a tall man, in the centre of the bare stone floor. Around the walls, thirty to forty feet from the blazing jets, hassocks of fragrant dried grasses, each capable of seating five guests comfortably, provided both tables and chairs for the banqueters. Motioning their charges to be seated on one of these, the two guards relieved the girl of her tray, and deposited it, fruit, vegetables and all, at the feet of the prisoners.

  "Do we have to eat all that?" Marjorie asked in dismay. "Where do we begin?"

  "Try one of these striped red and yellow pickle things," he suggested, offering her an unwholesome looking fruit like an overgrown slug. To his surprise, the man guard, who had been watching him curiously, snatched it from his hand. "Indigestible, eh?" Vartan commented. "You show us what is fit to eat," he suggested, pointing to the luscious pyramid before them.

  The man understood at once. Exchanging a few words with the woman in charge of Marjorie, he began methodically sorting out the fruits, two of each, into two parallel rows. Then, indicating the right end for beginning the sequence, he invited them to eat. It was a complicated ritual, that breakfast. A single taste from each specimen only, even of the smallest, was permitted, and after each teasing bite the guests were made to wipe their fingers on two or three of the leaves. No leaf was used twice.

  "Etiquette was never like this in our Four Hundred," Vartan remarked. "Perhaps it isn't all as silly as it seems."

  "You mean they know what is good for us?"

  "Exactly. If an Eskimo offers you rancid blubber, throw away your canned lobster and eat it. I always live on what the natives of a country eat. These people seem to know their business."

  "And I thought we should never be able to put away the tenth of all this. Now I begin to doubt whether we shall have enough."

  "We will," he assured her with conviction. "That last mouthful tasted like dried Chinese eggs."

  When the last fruit had been sampled, the guests were satisfied, neither more nor less. The guards gathered up the nibbled remains, swept the napkin leaves onto the pile and threw the lot into one of the flaming jets.

  "Housekeeping reduced to its lowest terms," Marjorie remarked admiringly. "If it were all as simple as that, I shouldn't mind doing it myself – for a month."

  "You would stick for about one day," Vartan retorted drily, "after the life you've led."

  "What sort of life?" she teased.

  "Catching spies for Brassey. By the way, who and what is our absent friend Ali?"

  "I haven't the slightest idea," she asserted.

  "On your word of honor?"

  "Is it necessary?" she countered.

  "Perhaps not. You suspected him on general principles?"

  "More or less. If you had worked for Brassey House six years, as I have, you might begin to have a feeling for rogues when you see them. Ali was too efficient and altogether too guileless to be what he pretended. Do you remember how I walked constantly with him when we started? I was trying to make him talk his native language. But he w
as too wily. He never got excited enough to forget his assumed accent. Whoever he may be, Ali is almost an expert. Not quite, however. Reticence is not a characteristic of a true oriental. They may be dignified and reserved, but they are not 'close' in the same way that an intelligent, highly trained white man is. From the day we left Srinagar, I suspected Ali of being European, or at most Anglo Indian. I'd give a good deal to know what they are doing to him now."

  "So would I. Hullo! What's become of our guards?"

  "We seem to be left to ourselves. Shall we explore?"

  "We must," he asserted emphatically, "if we are not to end our days here. Come on."

  The guards had not forgotten them. Outside the breakfast hall, they found two men and two women whom they had not seen before, patiently waiting in the main corridor. With an inquiring glance, Vartan suggested that he and Marjorie would like to return for a spell to daylight. The guards stood motionless. Taking their inaction as consent, Vartan strode off in the general direction of the exit. Marjorie caught up and kept step.

  "Walk off as if we were perfectly free, he advised, "and see what happens."

  The guards watched them curiously for a few seconds before following. No attempt was made to halt the prisoners or to interfere with their movements. Keeping about twenty yards behind their charges, the four followed in silence. And so it went all morning. The guards followed with only an occasional word between themselves, watching every step the prisoners took.

  "I don't like this," Vartan muttered, when it became plain that the guards had been ordered merely to observe. "They are trying to size us up. Why?"

  "Perhaps they have been told to see that we don't run into danger," Marjorie suggested cheerfully. "Why worry?"

  "You're right; I shan't. Let us enjoy it while we can still see."

  "What do you mean?" she asked in sudden alarm.

  "I was thinking of James Brassey," he replied gravely. "Was his resignation from the world – to put it so – voluntary, do you suppose?"