Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  “Nay, sahib, but her maid. She went once and returned again, and now she is gone for the second time.”

  “What’s all the trouble?”

  “No trouble, sahib. Yasmini would know.”

  “Know what?”

  “Whether she confers an honor or receives one.”

  “‘Pon my soul, I’d give a month’s income to know the same thing!” laughed Boileau to himself. And then the door opened grudgingly and Abdullah beckoned to him and bowed him through, and squatted on the step outside with the dog- like patience of the Indian native servant.

  Inside were darkness, and the smell of musk — black darkness, made blacker yet by a curtain at the stair head. Some one whom he could not see replaced the peg in the peephole; and an unseen soft hand that trembled at his touch but did not draw away, took his.

  “Lead on, McDuff!” said Boileau, throwing off his sense of helplessness, and kicking out to find the bottom step. But his dress spur caught in gauzy drapery and something ripped. He stood on one leg, and tried to free himself, but the wearer of the gauze pulled, too, to free it. He felt his balance going and kicked out again, and fell. A second later he was struggling on the ground with a giggling woman, laughing from sheer appreciation of the unforeseen, but expecting every second to feel a long knife in his ribs.

  Then before he could regain his feet the curtain parted at the stair top and a radiance appeared in the middle of it — Yasmini herself. There was no doubt — she must be Yasmini. He had thought of her as black, or dull olive color at the best. He saw an ivory and old rose tinted damsel, who might or might not be twenty years of age. He had thought of black hair, drawn back in straight lined waves. He saw a mass of burnished copper-gold, that fell in curling cataracts from crown to knees. He had thought of thin, cruel lips, dyed blue perhaps, and even of a nose ring. What he saw were features that would be May-crowned in the West, and lips — red lips, uncarmined; lips that a shaven anchorite would have fought half the world to kiss.

  She stood forward on the step and smiled down at him, framed in an aura of gold light between black curtains. He could see her feet, pale pink and ivory, encased in gilded slippers. Above them, some pale-blue filmy stuff encircled her as mist enfolds the morning, hinting at loveliness and making it far lovelier — by concealment. He could neither speak nor laugh now, nor find his feet. He lay spellbound, looking upward at her, until his eyes met hers. And he had thought of almond eyes, brown or perhaps hazel!

  No man that ever lived could tell the secret of the color of her eyes. Few dared look into them longer than to bear away a memory of smoldering loveliness — of molten jewels, lovelit under drooping lids. But Boileau was a man whose every breath of life was daring, and he stared — and stared — and forgot the power of speech.

  Yasmini spoke first and what she said, in a velvet voice that sounded vaguely like the love call of a nightingale, was in a language Boileau did not understand. But the maid understood it and found her feet at once; and Boileau guessed. However purred, through lips however sweet, the tongues of the ancient East are apt at framing comment on such matters as a man and a maiden in the dark.

  “What did she say?” asked Boileau, feeling the blushes rise from somewhere down his neck and race beneath his hair until his ears glowed crimson. But the girl only giggled and pushed him toward the stairs.

  So up went Boileau, swaggering to get his self-possession back, letting his spurs clank handsomely and twirling at his waxed mustache. And Yasmini made way for him, bowing before him mockingly — half, he suspected, to let him realize her supple grace, and half because she really was amused. Eight maids — all dark- skinned contrasts to the queen of this strange jungle bower — attended her, and seemed to know her thoughts. They piled the cushions high on a long, low divan by the window, and motioned Boileau to it; and, feeling like an idiot, he sat on it, and sank deep down among the soft embroidery. It was impossible to sit; he sprawled, and felt more like an idiot than ever.

  But Yasmini herself came over and sat near him on a pile of cushions, pushing out one slippered foot so that he could see the greenish veins under the transparent skin. And he began to forget his awkwardness in amazed contemplation of what the curtained East could lay bare when it chose.

  A maid extinguished most of the lamps, and left only half a dozen hanging, jeweled lights that glowed mysteriously, multicolored, through faint blue sandal smoke. Two maids sat near her. One fanned her, for the heat was stifling; one watched. Another maid bent over the divan and wafted air at Boileau with a fan of peacock feathers. Yasmini, showing little even pearls of teeth, smiled like the soul of early morning, leaned on her elbow and began to talk.

  She spoke now in Hindustani, which Boileau understood. For all its other qualities that is a language that can sound, and be, like honey on the lips of loveliness.

  “What ails my lord?”

  She purred it, as though it were an overture to love itself.

  “Nothing ails me. I think I am singularly favored.”

  “You seem displeased. Is aught lacking?”

  “Miss Yasmini, I think there is nothing lacking when you are at hand!”

  He could not for the life of him bring himself to call her Yasmini without some prefix. It sounded ridiculous, but he, too, felt ridiculous — until he looked into her eyes again. Then he forgot himself and everything except her eyes.

  “My lord is pleased to joke with me?”

  “‘Pon my soul!”

  English was the only tongue that suited his dilemma. With her eyes on him, he could not think unless he thought aloud, and he had a foolish notion that if his thoughts were in English she might not understand.

  “Does anybody ever joke with you?” he asked in Hindustani.

  Her eyes changed — not in color, but as if the light behind them glowed a little more.

  “Not often. One did — once. My lord has not yet deigned to tell the cause of the honor that he pays me.”

  That was a stumper. She waited for his answer as a suppliant waits, pillowed at his feet and looking up at him. There was not a hint of laughter in her eyes, nor the vaguest, least suggestion that she thought him an intruder or a boor, or anything except what he had thought himself an hour ago — a spurred and righteous lord of what he looked at.

  “I had heard of you, that’s all.”

  “And came to see me? Why? Why at this hour?”

  “‘Pon my soul, I—”

  “To laugh at me?”

  “On my honor, no!”

  “To order me away?”

  She looked at his spurs and at his military mess jacket; and if she were not afraid she gave a very good imitation of concern.

  “I don’t suppose there’s a man living who would order you away from anywhere!”

  “Then I have leave to stay on here?”

  “So far as I can give it you have leave to stay here till the crack of doom. I’d hate to see you go. I want to see a lot more of you. I—”

  He cursed the unresisting pillows that prevented him from sitting upright. No white man — least of all a soldier — can collect his wits and fence with words reclining in a nest of scented clouds. Besides, a soldier’s garments are not made for it; he looks ridiculous.

  “Then why at this hour, Heavenborn?”

  The last thing that Boileau had expected was to be snubbed for breach of etiquette.

  “It isn’t so late as all that, is it?” he stammered awkwardly. He felt for his watch, but had none. He did not want to go, but for the life of him he could think of no excuse for staying. And Yasmini continued to look up at him like a little girl suppliant, awaiting explanations.

  “Why — ah—” he twirled at his mustache and tried to seem at ease— “I was busy all day long and — ah — my native servant said—”

  “What did he say?”

  “Said that he knew the way here and that you might receive me — said he wasn’t sure, but he thought you might.”

  “And is that your
servant — he who sits below there at the door?”

  There was a world of wonder in her voice, and she watched him now through eyelids almost closed; he could no longer see the pools of fire that glowed behind them.

  “Yes.”

  “Then the way of the sahib log is to ask questions of their-low caste servants—” she shuddered, but even that movement was all suppleness and grace “and to follow their advice in matters pertaining to their visits?”

  “Abdullah isn’t a low caste man. He’s—”

  “No?”

  Boileau remembered then that there are castes within castes, and that even Mohammedans are not without a caste law of their own, so he said nothing.

  “And that man — that creature of the devil — said that I would receive you? No wonder that you came! Will the Heavenborn partake of sherbet?”

  “No thanks,” said Boileau. “I’m sorry you’ve gathered such a false impression. I — ah — wouldn’t have offended you for worlds — ah — I’ll take my leave now and ah — call — again, perhaps to-morrow, at a more reasonable hour. Didn’t want to meet my own troopers here, you know,” he added, as an afterthought, by way of mild retaliation.

  “Have your troopers, too, said strange things of me?”

  “Not to me, at all events. We — ah don’t discuss — ah — ladies.”

  Yasmini smiled, and he might take her smile to mean exactly what he chose. He rose, and she rose languidly, taking her maid’s hand. She might have been smiling at his tight-kneed effort to escape with dignity from the embracing divan. Whatever the cause of it, her smile bewildered him exactly as his first sight of her had done, and he could not find words as she bowed in front of him, with the same mock worship, and the same lithe grace and led him to the stair.

  He went down the stair feeling like an idiot — glad of the darkness — going sidewise to prevent his spurs from catching in the carpet; but in spite of it his spurs did catch and he fell down nearly to the bottom. And his feelings were still further tortured by the sound of peal on peal of tinkling, silvery laughter from the room above, that started immediately the maid opened the narrow door for him. A chorus of laughter from the maids was the last sound that he heard as the door slammed tight behind him.

  He walked back like a man in a stupor, stumbling once or twice in spite of Abdullah’s care to hold the lamp over each protruding tree root. He could see Yasmini’s eyes in the dark, but every time he tried to gaze at them, they moved and when he tried to follow them they moved again.

  “I’ve not been drinking,” he muttered to himself. “It must be liver. Yes, it’s liver. But ye gods and little fishes, what a woman!”

  “Been trying to get cool, Boileau?” said a voice, as he passed down the lines to his own quarters, and he nearly jumped. It was only by a miracle that he recalled his nerve in time. He turned into the tent whence the voice came, and saw his Colonel sitting in a camp chair smoking.

  “Didn’t expect you back so soon, sir. Any luck with Gopi Lall?”

  “No. Found his nest. Got him on the run, that’s all. The troops are after him. Any cooler out in the jungle there?”

  Boileau laughed. “I got a cool reception, sir,” he answered. “I called on Yasmini.”

  “The very deuce you did! What’s she like?”

  “She’s a wonder, sir. Couldn’t describe her — no man living could.”

  “Beautiful?”

  “Have to find a new word, sir.”

  “Gave you a cool reception did she? I wonder she admitted you. Did you get the least idea as to why she’s here?”

  “None whatever.”

  “Is she — ah — I mean — what about her morals?”

  “Judging by the way she treated me, sir, I would say she was—”

  “Well, what?”

  “That she belies her reputation. She’s a native, of course, and there’s no means of judging them, any more than a man can tell how the stories about her started. But she’s chaperoned more thoroughly than a seventeen year old débutante at home, and she’s as dignified — for all her witchery — as the deuce himself.”

  “Um-m-m! I’d keep away if I were you. I’m not giving orders, but — well — it’s good advice. If trouble came of it — she’s a native woman, mind — you’d run the risk of being neither officer nor gentleman. A deuce of a nasty risk to run! Turning in? Good night.”

  CHAPTER VI. — DOST MOHAMMED GOES ON A STILL HUNT

  Who sees all that a robber sees — hears what

  a robber hears —

  Learns the lore that a robber knows —

  Treads where his trail to hiding goes —

  Feels what a robber fears?

  None save he who dons his garb, acts as

  the robber’s mate —

  Runs as the robber runs from men

  Begs of the other robbers — then

  Kicks, too, the robber’s fate.

  ALL that the Tail-Twisters, working troop by troop, unearthed was evidence of police complicity and supineness. They found misguided natives who mistook them for policemen, thinking that anything in uniform was some sort of a “constabeel,” and from these they learnt surprising things; as, for instance, that the flood levy had been paid that month to Gopi Lall, and therefore the police would find themselves in trouble if they trespassed.

  At first there would be disillusionment, for a trooper of the Bengal Horse is not exactly flattered by being likened to a civilian, and to a policeman least of all. The butt of a lance thrust with an oath of explanation at the erring rustic’s stomach would bring acknowledgment of error. But once it was known that they were troops, and not police, the channels of information dried, so after awhile they pretended to be a new brand of “constabeel” whenever the pretense was possible.

  From time to time they came on villagers who offered them rupees; and he who has tried to tip a Bengal cavalryman for service rendered may have a good idea of what reception that met. They will loot, those fierce, black-bearded troopers, in time of war — none more readily or thoroughly; but gratuities, in money or in kind, are rather more to be withheld than verbal insult. Their pride is not of the made-for-show description.

  Whether hunting through the tangled thickets where thatched huts were hidden in tiny clearings, or scouring on a chance-encountered trail from village to hill village, they found evidence in plenty of the outlaw’s doings and of the terror he had established, but never a sign of Gopi Lall himself.

  “Where is his woman?” demanded Dost Mohammed twenty times a day at least. And the answer was always the same — often in the same words:

  “Huzoor, what woman dare refuse him?”

  “Which woman loves him most?”

  “None love him. All fear him!”

  “Which, then, does he most love?”

  “Huzoor, does a he wolf love the sambur? Does a tiger love the village buffalo?”

  Then, “May Allah rip the vitals out of every Jungli in Bengal!” Dost Mohammed would swear, and spur his charger on to the next village.

  Cross quartering the country they searched, as eagles search, minutely, for signs of any guard that might betray the whereabouts of the robber’s hidden loot; but either he had trusted nobody to guard or else the men he trusted were too shrewd to show that they were watching.

  They made prisoners who led them along half hidden trails to where the outlaw once had been; and once thus guided they discovered underneath a waterfall a secret cave, where possibly his loot had once been hidden. There was one rupee there, fallen in a crack between the rocks; a trooper forced it out with his saber point. But there was neither other loot than that one coin there, nor track of Gopi Lall.

  Once they fell in with a posse of police, who grinned at them and asked what they had done with the outlaw’s head. That nearly brought about a fracas, and it was only the timely arrival of their English officers that stopped them from teaching the “constabeels” how a charger-and-Rajput-driven lance point feels. The police, under
questioning from the officers, swore that Gopi Lall had left the country and would not return.

  They began almost to believe that Gopi Lall had been a myth, and several officers became converts to the theory that he was in reality a syndicate of robbers, who had taken one collective name for the sake of mystery and convenience. Acting on that suggestion they began the search all over again, rounding up the inhabitants of every village and making the headmen give an account of each. But still there was no result worth mentioning. They succeeded in corroborating the fact of an actual, single, Gopi Lall’s existence, but nothing more.

  Then Dost Mohammed became possessed of an idea, and asked for leave to hunt alone.

  “Why, Dost Mohammed?”

  The senior Major lacked not a little of the Colonel’s tact. “For the reward?”

  The Rajput flushed under his dark skin. “Because thus I will hunt better, sahib.”

  The Major pulled out a copy of the printed proclamation from his saddle bag and looked it over.

  “The reward is offered to any person or persons who procure or bring such information as shall lead to the arrest and conviction of the outlaw known as Gopi Lall.’ That means, Dost Mohammed, that the first man to hand in the information gets the money.”

  Dost Mohammed sat his horse in silence, glaring.

  “It says, too, at the bottom, ‘in addition to the above named reward for information, a sum of rupees three thousand will be paid to whomsoever shall produce the head or body or both of the above named Gopi Lall.’ That would be five thousand rupees all told — nothing much to divide among a Regiment, but a tidy little sum for any one man; what?

  “Since when, sahib, has an officer of this Regiment been subject to suspicion such as recruits for the Regulars merit?”

  “You say you have a private clue. If you followed it and found the man you would be within your rights if you claimed the whole reward.”

  “I said nothing of a private clue, sahib, nor of a clue at all, nor of my rights. I said that I had an idea, and a good one, that I could best carry out alone. All the rights I claim are the right to be treated as a man of honor. As for the reward—”