Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  No living mortal could endure that, he imagined. He swore aloud, but there was no answer, so he got up, after crashing his rifle-butt down on the floor to scare away anything that crawled. For a moment he stood, undecided whether to take the lamp or rifle with him — then decided on the rifle, for the lamp might blow out in some unexpected night gust, whereas if he left it where it was it would go on burning and show him the way back to bed again. Besides, he was too unaccustomed to the joy of owning the last new thing in sporting rifles to hesitate for long about what to keep within his grasp.

  Through the open door he could see nothing but pitch-blackness, unpunctuated even by a single star. There were no lights where the tents stood, so he judged that even the accustomed natives had found the added heat of Mahommed Gunga’s watch-fires intolerable and had raked them out; but from where he imagined that the village must be came the dum-tu-dum-tu-dum of tom-toms, like fever blood pulsating in the veins of devils of the night.

  The punka-wallah slept. He could just make out the man’s blurred shape — a shadow in the shadows — dog-curled, with the punkah rope looped round his foot. He kicked him gently, and the man stirred, but fell asleep again. He kicked him harder. The man sat up and stared, terrified; the whites of his eyes were distinctly visible. He seemed to have forgotten why he was there, and to imagine that he saw a ghost.

  Cunningham spoke to him — he first words that came into his head.

  “Go on pulling,” he said in English, quite kindly.

  But if he had loosed his rifle off, the effect could not have been more instantaneous. Clutching his twisted rag of a turban in one hand, and kicking his leg free, he ran for it — leaped the veranda rail, and vanished — a night shadow, swallowed by its mother night.

  “Come back!” called Cunningham. “Iderao! I won’t hurt you!”

  But there was no answer, save the tom-toms’ thunder, swelling now into a devil’s chorus-coming nearer. It seemed to be coming from the forest, but he reasoned that it could not be; it must be some village marriage feast, or perhaps an orgy; he had paid out what would seem to the villagers a lot of money, and it might be that they were celebrating the occasion. It was strange, though, that he could see no lights where the village ought to be.

  For a moment he had a half-formed intention to shout for Mahommed Gunga; but he checked that, reasoning that the Rajput might think he was afraid. Then his eye caught sight of something blacker than the shadows — something long and thin and creepy that moved, and he remembered that bed, where the pans of water would protect him, was the only safe place.

  So he returned into the hot, black silence where the tiny lamp-flame guttered and threw shadows. He wondered why it guttered. It seemed to be actually short of air. There were four rooms, he remembered, to the bungalow, all connected and each opening outward by a door that faced one of the four sides; he wondered whether the outer doors were opened to admit a draught, and started to investigate.

  Two of them were shut tight, and he could not kick them open; the dried-out teak and the heavy iron bolts held as though they had been built to resist a siege; the noise that he made as he rattled at them frightened a swarm of unseen things — unguessed-at shapes — that scurried away. He thought he could see beady little eyes that looked and disappeared and circled round and stopped to look again. He could hear creepy movements in the stillness. It seemed better to leave those doors alone.

  One other door, which faced that of his own room, was open wide, and he could feel the forest through it; there was nothing to be seen, but the stillness moved. The velvet blackness was deeper by a shade, and the heat, uprising to get even with the sky, bore up a stench with it. There was no draught, no movement except upward. Earth was panting-in time, it seemed, to the hellish thunder of the tom-toms.

  He went back and lay on the bed again, leaning the rifle against the cot-frame, and trying by sheer will-power to prevent the blood from bursting his veins. He realized before long that he was parched with thirst, and reached out for the water-jar that stood beside the lamp; but as he started to drink he realized that a crawling evil was swimming round and round in rings in the water. In a fit of horror he threw the thing away and smashed it into a dozen fragments in a corner. He saw a dozen rats, at least, scamper to drink before the water could evaporate or filter through the floor; and when they were gone there was no half-drowned crawling thing either. They had eaten it.

  He clutched his rifle to him. The barrel was hot, but the feel of it gave him a sense of companionship. And then, as he lay back on the bed again, the lamp went out. He groped for it and shook it. There was no oil.

  Now, what had been hot horror turned to fear that passed all understanding — to the hate that does not reason — to the cold sweat breaking on the roasted skin. Where the four walls had been there was blackness of immeasurable space. He could hear the thousand-footed cannibals of night creep nearer — driven in toward him by the dinning of the tom-toms. He felt that his bed was up above a scrambling swarm of black-legged things that fought.

  He had no idea how long he lay stock-still, for fear of calling attention to himself, and hated his servant and Mahommed Gunga and all India. Once — twice — he thought he heard another sound, almost like the footfall of a man on the veranda near him. Once he thought that a man breathed within ten paces of him, and for a moment there was a distinct sensation of not being alone. He hoped it was true; he could deal with an assassin. That would be something tangible to hate and hit. Manhood came to his assistance — the spirit of the soldier that will bow to nothing that has shape; but it died away again as the creeping silence once more shut down on him.

  And then the thunder of the tom-toms ceased. Then even the venomed crawlers that he knew were near him faded into nothing that really mattered, compared to the greater, stealthy horror that he knew was coming, born of the shuddersome, shut silence that ensued. There was neither air nor view — no sense of time or space — nothing but the coal-black pit of terror yawning — cold sweat in the heat, and a footfall — an undoubted footfall — followed by another one, too heavy for a man’s.

  Where heavy feet were there was something tangible. His veins tingled and the cold sweat dried. Excitement began to reawaken all his soldier senses, and the wish to challenge seized him — the soldierly intent to warn the unaware, which is the actual opposite of cowardice.

  “Halt! Who comes there?”

  He lipped the words, but his dry throat would not voice them. Before he could clear his throat or wet his lips his eye caught something lighter than the night — two things — ten — twelve paces off — two things that glowed or sheened as though there were light inside them — too big and too far apart to be owl’s eyes, but singularly like them. They moved, a little sideways and toward him; and again he heard the heavy, stealthy footfall.

  They stayed still then for what may have been a minute, and another sense — smell — warned him and stirred up the man in him. He had never smelled it in his life; it must have been instinct that assured him of an enemy behind the strange, unpleasant, rather musky reek that filled the room. His right hand brought the rifle to his shoulder without sound, and almost without conscious effort on his part.

  He forgot the heat now and the silence and discomfort. He lay still on his side, squinting down the rifle barrel at a spot he judged was midway between a pair of eyes that glowed, and wondering where his foresight might be. It struck him all at once that it was quite impossible to see the foresight — that he must actually touch what he would hit if he would be at all sure of hitting it. He remembered, too, in that instant — as a born soldier does remember things — that in the dark an attacking enemy is probably more frightened than his foe. His father had told it him when he was a little lad afraid of bogies; he in turn had told it to the other boys at school, and they had passed it on until in that school it had become rule number one of school-boy lore — just as rule number two in all schools where the sons of soldiers go is “Take the fight to hi
m.”

  He leaped from the bed, with his rifle out in front of him — white-nightshirted and unexpected — sudden enough to scare the wits out of anything that had them. He was met by a snarl. The two eyes narrowed, and then blazed. They lowered, as though their owner gathered up his weight to spring. He fired between them. The flash and the smoke blinded him; the burst of the discharge within four echoing walls deadened his cars, and he was aware of nothing but a voice beside him that said quietly: “Well done, bahadur! Thou art thy father’s son!”

  He dropped his rifle butt to the floor, and some one struck a light. Even then it was thirty seconds before his strained eyes grew accustomed to the flare and he could see the tiger at his feet, less than a yard away — dead, bleeding, wide-eyed, obviously taken by surprise and shot as he prepared to spring. Beside him, within a yard, Mahommed Gunga stood, with a drawn sabre in his right hand and a pistol in his left, and there were three other men standing like statues by the walls.

  “How long have you been here?” demanded Cunningham.

  “A half-hour, sahib.”

  “Why?”

  “In case of need, sahib. That tiger killed a woman yesterday at dawn and was driven off his kill; he was not likely to be an easy mark for an untried hunter.”

  “Why did you enter without knocking?”

  The ex-risaldar said nothing.

  “I see that you have shoes on.”

  “The scorpions, sahib—”

  “Would you be pleased, Mahommed Gunga, if I entered your house with my hat on and without knocking or without permission?”

  “Sahib, I—”

  “Be good enough to have that brute’s carcass dragged out and skinned, and — ah — leave me to sleep, will you?”

  Mahommed Gunga bowed, and growled an order; another man passed the order on, and the tom-tom thundering began again as a dozen villagers pattered in to take away the tiger.

  “Tell them, please,” commanded Cunningham, “that that racket is to cease. I want to sleep.”

  Again Mahommed Gunga bowed, without a smile or a tremor on his face; again a growled order was echoed and re-echoed through the dark. The drumming stopped.

  “Is there oil in the bahadur’s lamp?” asked Mahommed Gunga.

  “Probably not,” said Cunningham.

  “I will command that—”

  “You needn’t trouble, thank you, risaldar-sahib. I sleep better in the dark. I’ll be glad to see you after breakfast as usual — ah — without your shoes, unless you come in uniform. Good night.”

  The Rajput signed to the others and withdrew with dignity. Cunningham reloaded his rifle in the dark and lay down. Within five minutes the swinging of the punka and the squeaking of the rope resumed, but regularly this time; Mahommed Gunga had apparently unearthed a man who understood the business. Reaction, the intermittent coolth, as the mat fan swung above his face, the steady, evenly timed squeak and movement — not least, the calm of well-asserted dignity — all joined to have one way, and Chota-Cunnigan-bahadur slept, to dream of fire-eyed tigers dancing on tombstones laid on the roof of hell, and of a grandfather in full general’s uniform, who said: “Well done, bahadur!”

  But outside, by a remade camp-fire, Mahommed Gunga sat and chuckled to himself, and every now and then grew eloquent to the bearded men who sat beside him.

  “Aie! Did you hear him reprimand me? By the beard of God’s prophet, that is a man of men! So was his father! Now I will tell Alwa and the others that I bring a man to them! By the teeth of God and my own honor I will swear to it! His first tiger — he had never seen a tiger! — in the dark, and unexpected — caught by it, to all seeming, like a trapped man in a cage — no lamp — no help at hand, or so he thought until it was all over. And he ran at the tiger! And then, ‘you come with your shoes on, Mahommed Gunga — why, forsooth?’ Did you hear him? By the blood of Allah, we have a man to lead us!”

  CHAPTER VIII

  Now, the gist of the thing is — Be silent. Be calm.

  Be awake. Be on hand on the day.

  Be instant to heed the first note of alarm.

  And — precisely — exactly — Obey.

  AT Howrah, while Mahommed Gunga was employing each chance circumstance to test the pluck and decision and reliability of Cunningham at almost every resting-place along the Grand Trunk Road, the armed squire he had left behind with a little handful of gold mohurs and three horses was finding time heavy on his hands.

  Like his master, Ali Partab was a man of action, to whom the purlieus of a caravansary were well enough on rare occasions. He could ruffle it with the best of them; like any of his race, he could lounge with dignity and listen to the tales that hum wherever many horsemen congregate; and he was no mean raconteur — he had a tale or two to tell himself, of women and the chase and of the laugh that he, too, had flung in the teeth of fear when opportunity arose.

  But each new story of the paid taletellers, who squat and drone and reach a climax, and then pass the begging bowl before they finish it — each merrily related jest brought in by members of the constantly arriving trading parties — each neigh of his three chargers — every new phase of the kaleidoscopic life he watched stirred new ambition in him to be up, and away, and doing. Many a dozen times he had to remind himself that “there had been a trust imposed.”

  He exercised the horses daily, riding each in turn until he was as lean and lithe and hard beneath the skin as they were. They were Mahommed Gunga’s horses — he Mahommed Gunga’s man; therefore, his honor was involved. He reasoned, when he took the trouble to, along the good clean feudal line that lays down clearly what service is: there is no honor, says that argument, in serving any one who is content with half a service, and the honor is the only thing that counts.

  As day succeeded ever sultrier, ever longer-drawn-out day — as each night came that saw him peg the horses out wherever what little breezes moved might fan them — as he sat among the courtyard groups and listened in the heavy heat, the fact grew more apparent to him that this trust of his was something after all which a man of worth might shoulder proudly. There was danger in it.

  The talk among the traders — darkly hinted, most of it, and couched in metaphor — was all of blood, and what would follow on the letting of it. Now and then a loud-mouthed boaster would throw caution to the winds and speak openly of a grim day coming for the British; he would be checked instantly by wiser men, but not before Ali Partab had heard enough to add to his private store of information.

  Priests came from a dozen cities to the eastward, all nominally after pilgrims for the sacred places, but all strangely indifferent to their quest. They preferred, it would seem, to sit in rings with chance-met ruffians — with believers and unbelievers alike — even with men of no caste at all — and talk of other things than pilgrimages.

  “Next year, one hundred years ago the English conquered India. Remember ye the prophecy? One hundred years they had! This, then, is the last year. Whom the gods would whelm they first deprive of reason; mark ye this! The cartridges they serve out to the sepoys now are smeared with the blended fat of cows and pigs. Knowing that we Hindoos hold the cow a sacred beast, they do this sacrilege — and why? They would make us bite the cartridges and lose our caste. And why again? Because they would make us Christians! That is the truth! Else why are the Christian missionaries here in Howrah?”

  The listeners would nod while the little red fires glowed and purred above the pipes, and others not included in the circle strained forward through the dark to listen.

  “The gods get ready now! Are ye ready?”

  Elsewhere, a hadji — green-turbaned from the pilgrimage to Mecca — would hold out to a throng of true believers.

  “Ay! Pig’s fat on the cartridges! The new drill is that the sepoy bites the cartridge first, to spill a little powder and make priming. Which true believer wishes to defile himself with pig’s fat? Why do they this? Why are the Christian missionaries here? Ask both riddles with one breath, for both two ar
e one!”

  “Slay, then!”

  “Up now, and slay!”

  There would be an instant, eager restlessness, while Ali Partab would glance over to where the horses stood, and would wonder why the word that loosed him was so long in coming. The hadji would calm his listeners and tell them to get ready, but be still and await the sign.

  “There were to be one hundred years, ran the prophecy; but ninety-nine and a portion have yet run. Wait for the hour!”

  Then, for perhaps the hundredth time, Ali Partab would pretend that movement alone could save one or other of his horses from heat apoplexy. He would mount, and ride at a walking pace through the streets that seemed like a night view of a stricken battle-field, turn down by the palace wall, and then canter to the schoolhouse, where the hag — wiser than her mistress — would be sleeping in the open.

  “Thou! Mother of a murrain! Toothless one! Is there no word yet?”

  The hag would leer up through the heavy darkness — make certain that he had no lance with him with which to prod her in the ribs — scratch herself a time or two like a stray dog half awakened — and then leer knowingly.

  “Hast thou the gold mohurs?” she would demand.

  “Am I a sieve?”

  “Let my old eyes see them, sahib.”

  He would take out two gold coins and hold them out in such a way that she could look at them without the opportunity to snatch.

  “There is no word yet,” she would answer, when her eyes had feasted on them as long as his patience would allow.