by Talbot Mundy
“From Yasmini?”
“Who else?”
King accepted the rebuke with a little inclination of the head. He spoke as little as possible, because he was puzzled. He had become conscious of a puzzled look in the Rangar’s eyes — of a subtle wonderment that might be intentional flattery (for Art and the East are one). Whenever the East is doubtful, and recognizes doubt, it is as dangerous as a hillside in the rains, and it only added to his problem if the Rangar found in him something inexplicable. The West can only get the better of the East when the East is too cock-sure.
“She has jolly well gone North!” said the Rangar suddenly, and King shut his teeth with a snap. He sat bolt upright, and the Rangar allowed himself to look amused.
“When? Why?”
“She was too jolly well excited to wait, sahib! She is of the North, you know. She loves the North, and the men of the ‘Hills’; and she knows them because she loves them. There came a tar (telegram) from Peshawur, from a general, to say King sahib comes to Delhi; but already she had completed all arrangements here. She was in a great stew, I can assure you. Finally she said, ‘Why should I wait?’ Nobody could answer her.”
He spoke English well enough. Few educated foreign gentlemen could have spoken it better, although there was the tendency to use slang that well-bred natives insist on picking up from British officers; and as he went on, here and there the native idiom crept through, translated. King said nothing, but listened and watched, puzzled more than he would have cared to admit by the look in the Rangar’s eyes. It was not suspicion — nor respect. Yet there was a suggestion of both.
“At last she said, ‘It is well; I will not wait! I know of this sahib. He is a man whose feet stand under him and he will not tread my growing flowers into garbage! He will be clever enough to pick up the end of the thread that I shall leave behind and follow it and me! He is a true bound, with a nose that reads the wind, or the general sahib never would have sent him!’ So she left me behind, sahib, to — to present to you the end of the thread of which she spoke.”
King tossed away the stump of the cigarette and rolled his tongue round the butt of a fresh cheroot. The word “hound” is not necessarily a compliment in any of a thousand Eastern tongues and gains little by translation. It might have been a slip, but the East takes advantage of its own slips as well as of other peoples’ unless watched.
The carriage swayed at high speed round three sharp corners in succession before the Rangar spoke again.
“She has often heard of you,” he said then. That was not unlikely, but not necessarily true either. If it were true, it did not help to account for the puzzled look in the Rangar’s eyes, that increased rather than diminished.
“I’ve heard of her,” said King.
“Of course! Who has not? She has desired to meet you, sahib, ever since she was told you are the best man in your service.”
King grunted, thinking of the knife beneath his shirt.
“She is very glad that you and she are on the same errand.” He leaned forward for the sake of emphasis and laid a finger on King’s hand. It was a delicate, dainty finger with an almond nail. “She is very glad. She is far more glad than you imagine, or than you would believe. King sahib, she is all bucked up about it! Listen — her web is wide! Her agents are here — there — everywhere, and she is obeyed as few kings have ever been! Those agents shall all be held answerable for your life, sahib, — for she has said so! They are one and all your bodyguard, from now forward!”
King inclined his head politely, but the weight of the knife inside his shirt did not encourage credulity. True, it might not be Yasmini’s knife, and the Rangar’s emphatic assurance might not be an unintentional admission that the man who had tried to use it was Yasmini’s man. But when a man has formed the habit of deduction, he deduces as he goes along, and is prone to believe what his instinct tells him.
Again, it was as if the Rangar read a part of his thoughts, if not all of them. It is not difficult to counter that trick, but to do it a man must be on his guard, or the East will know what he has thought and what he is going to think, as many have discovered when it was too late.
“Her men are able to protect anybody’s life from any God’s number of assassins, whatever may lead you to think the contrary. From now forward your life is in her men’s keeping!”
“Very good of her; I’m sure,” King murmured. He was thinking of the general’s express order to apply for a “passport” that would take him into Khinjan Caves — mentally cursing the necessity for asking any kind of favor, — and wondering whether to ask this man for it or wait until he should meet Yasmini. He had about made up his mind that to wait would be quite within a strict interpretation of his orders, as well as infinitely more agreeable to himself, when the Rangar answered his thoughts again as if he had spoken them aloud.
“She left this with me, saying I am to give it to you! I am to say that wherever you wear it, between here and Afghanistan, your life shall be safe and you may come and go!”
King stared. The Rangar drew a bracelet from an inner pocket and held it out. It was a wonderful, barbaric thing of pure gold, big enough for a grown man’s wrist, and old enough to have been hammered out in the very womb of time. It looked almost like ancient Greek, and it fastened with a hinge and clasp that looked as if they did not belong to it, and might have been made by a not very skillful modern jeweler.
“Won’t you wear it?” asked Rewa Gunga, watching him. “It will prove a true talisman! What was the name of the Johnny who had a lamp to rub? Aladdin? It will be better than what he had! He could only command a lot of bogies. This will give you authority over flesh and blood! Take it, sahib!”
So King put it on, letting it slip up his sleeve, out of sight, — with a sensation as the snap closed of putting handcuffs on himself. But the Rangar looked relieved.
“That is your passport, sahib! Show it to a Hill-man whenever you suppose yourself in danger. The Raj might go to pieces, but while Yasmini lives—”
“Her friends will boast about her, I suppose!”
King finished the sentence for him because it is considered good form for natives to hint at possible dissolution of the Anglo-Indian Government. Everybody knows that the British will not govern India forever, but the British — who know it best of all, and work to that end most fervently — are the only ones encouraged to talk about it.
For a few minutes after that Rewa Gunga held his peace, while the carriage swayed at breakneck speed through the swarming streets. They had to drive slower in the Chandni Chowk, for the ancient Street of the Silversmiths that is now the mart of Delhi was ablaze with crude colors, and was thronged with more people than ever since ‘57. There were a thousand signs worth studying by a man who could read them.
King, watching and saying nothing, reached the conclusion that Delhi was in hand — excited undoubtedly, more than a bit bewildered, watchful, but in hand. Without exactly knowing how he did it, he grew aware of a certain confidence that underlay the surface fuss. After that the sea of changing patterns and raised voices ceased to have any particular interest for him and he lay back against the cushions to pay stricter attention to his own immediate affairs.
He did not believe for a second the lame explanation Yasmini had left behind. She must have some good reason for wishing to be first up the Khyber, and he was very sorry indeed she had slipped away. It might be only jealousy, yet why should she be jealous? It might be fear — yet why should she be afraid?
It was the next remark of the Rangar’s that set him entirely on his guard, and thenceforward whoever could have read his thoughts would have been more than human. Perhaps it is the most dominant characteristic of the British race that it will not defend itself until it must. He had known of that thought-reading trick ever since his ayah (native nurse) taught him to lisp Hindustanee; just as surely he knew that its impudent, repeated use was intended to sap his belief in himself. There is not much to choose between the native impuden
ce that dares intrude on a man’s thoughts, and the insolence that understands it, and is rather too proud to care.
“I’ll bet you a hundred dibs,” said the Rangar, “that she jolly well didn’t fancy your being on the scene ahead of her! I’ll bet you she decided to be there first and get control of the situation! Take me? You’d lose if you did! She’s slippery, and quick, and like all Women, she’s jealous!”
The Rangar’s eyes were on his, but King was not to be caught again. It is quite easy to think behind a fence, so to speak, if one gives attention to it.
“She will be busy presently fooling those Afridis,” he continued, waving his cigarette. “She has fooled them always, to the limit of their bally bent. They all believe she is their best friend in the world — oh, dear Yes, you bet they do! And so she is — so she is — but not in the way they think! They believe she plots with them against the Raj! Poor silly devils! Yet Yasmini loves them! They want war — blood — loot! It is all they think about! They are seldom satisfied unless their wrists and elbows are bally well red with other peoples’ gore! And while they are picturing the loot, and the slaughter of unbelievers — (as if they believed anything but foolishness themselves!) — Yasmini plays her own game, for amusement and power — a good game — a deep game! You have seen already how India has to ask her aid in the ‘Hills’! She loves power, power, power — not for its name, for names are nothing, but to use it. She loves the feel of it! Fighting is not power! Blood-letting is foolishness. If there is any blood spilt it is none of her doing — unless—”
“Unless what?” asked King.
“Oh — sometimes there were fools who interfered. You can not blame her for that.”
“You seem to be a champion of hers! How long have you known her?”’
The Rangar eyed him sharply.
“A long time. She and I played together when we were children. I know her whole history — and that is something nobody else in the world knows but she herself. You see, I am favored. It is because she knows me very well that she chose me to travel North with you, when you start to find her in the ‘Hills’!”
King cleared his throat, and the Rangar nodded, looking into his eyes with the engaging confidence of a child who never has been refused anything, in or out of reason. King made no effort to look pleased, so the Rangar drew on his resources.
“I have a letter from her,” he stated blandly.
From a pocket in the carriage cushions he brought out a silver tube, richly carved in the Kashmiri style and closed at either end with a tightly fitting silver cap. King accepted it and drew the cap from one end. A roll of scented paper fell on his lap, and a puff of hot wind combined with a lurch of the carriage springs came near to lose it for him; he snatched it just in time and unrolled it to find a letter written to himself in Urdu, in a beautiful flowing hand.
Urdu is perhaps the politest of written tongues and lends itself most readily to indirectness; but since he did not expect to read a catalogue of exact facts, he was not disappointed.
Translated, the letter ran:
“To Athelstan King sahib, by the hand of Rewa Gunga.
Greeting. The bearer is my well-trusted servant, whom
I have chosen to be the sahib’s guide until Heaven
shall be propitious and we meet. He is instructed
in all that he need know concerning what is now in hand,
and he will tell by word of mouth such things as ought
not to be written. By all means let Rewa Gunga travel
with you, for he is of royal blood, of the House of
Ketchwaha and will not fail you. His honor and mine
are one. Praying that the many gods of India may heap
honors on your honor’s head, providing each his proper
attribute toward entire ability to succeed in all things,
but especially in the present undertaking,
“I am Your Excellency’s humble servant,
— Yasmini.”
He had barely finished reading it when the coachman took a last corner at a gallop and drew the horses up on their haunches at a door in a high white wall. Rewa Gunga sprang out of the carriage before the horses were quite at a standstill.
“Here we are!” he said, and King, gathering up the letter and the silver tube, noticed that the street curved here so that no other door and no window overlooked this one.
He followed the Rangar, and he was no sooner into the shadow of the door than the coachman lashed the horses and the carriage swung out of view.
“This way,” said the Rangar over his shoulder. “Come!”
Chapter III
Lie to a liar, for lies are his coin.
Steal from a thief, for that is easy.
Set a trap for a trickster, and catch him at the first attempt.
But beware of the man who has no axe to grind.
— Eastern Proverb
It was a musty smelling entrance, so dark that to see was scarcely possible after the hot glare outside. Dimly King made out Rewa Gunga mounting stairs to the left and followed him. The stairs wound backward and forward on themselves four times, growing scarcely any lighter as they ascended, until, when he guessed himself two stories at least above road level, there was a sudden blaze of reflected light and he blinked at more mirrors than he could count. They had been swung on hinges suddenly to throw the light full in his face.
There were curtains reflected in each mirror, and little glowing lamps, so cunningly arranged that it was not possible to guess which were real and which were not. Rewa Gunga offered no explanation, but stood watching with quiet amusement. He seemed to expect King to take a chance and go forward, but if he did he reckoned without his guest. King stood still.
Then suddenly, as if she had done it a thousand times before and surprised a thousand people, a little nut-brown maid parted the middle pair of curtains and said “Salaam!” smiling with teeth that were as white as porcelain. All the other curtains parted too, so that the whereabouts of the door might still have been in doubt had she not spoken and so distinguished herself from her reflections. King looked scarcely interested and not at all disturbed.
Balked of his amusement, Rewa Gunga hurried past him, thrusting the little maid aside, and led the way. King followed him into a long room, whose walls were hung with richer silks than any he remembered to have seen. In a great wide window to one side some twenty, women began at once to make flute music.
Silken punkahs swung from chains, wafting back and forth a cloud of sandalwood smoke that veiled the whole scene in mysterious, scented mist. Through the open window came the splash of a fountain and the chattering of birds, and the branch of a feathery tree drooped near by. It seemed that the long white wall below was that of Yasmini’s garden.
“Be welcome!” laughed Rewa Gunga; “I am to do the honors, since she is not here. Be seated, sahib.”
King chose a divan at the room’s farthest end, near tall curtains that led into rooms beyond. He turned his back toward the reason for his choice. On a little ivory-inlaid ebony table about ten feet away lay a knife, that was almost the exact duplicate of the one inside his shirt. Bronze knives of ancient date, with golden handles carved to represent a woman dancing, are rare. The ability to seem not to notice incriminating evidence is rarer still — rarest of all when under the eyes of a native of India, for cats and hawks are dullards by comparison to them. But King saw the knife, yet did not seem to see it.
There was nothing there calculated to set an Englishman at ease. In spite of the Rangar’s casual manner, Yasmini’s reception room felt like the antechamber to another world, where mystery is atmosphere and ordinary air to breathe is not at all. He could sense hushed expectancy on every side — could feel the eyes of many women fixed on him — and began to draw on his guard as a fighting man draws on armor. There and then he deliberately set himself to resist mesmerism, which is the East’s chief weapon.
Rewa Gunga, perfectly at home, sprawled leisurely, alon
g a cushioned couch with a grace that the West has not learned yet; but King did not make the mistake of trusting him any better for his easy manners, and his eyes sought swiftly for some unrhythmic, unplanned thing on which to rest, that he might save himself by a sort of mental leverage.
Glancing along the wall that faced the big window, he noticed for the first time a huge Afridi, who sat on a stool and leaned back against the silken hangings with arms folded.
“Who is that man?” he asked.
“He? Oh, he is a savage — just a big savage,” said Rewa Gunga, looking vaguely annoyed.
“Why is he here?”
He did not dare let go of this chance side-issue. He knew that Rewa Gunga wished him to talk of Yasmini and to ask questions about her, and that if he succumbed to that temptation all his self-control would be cunningly sapped away from him until his secrets, and his very senses, belonged to some one else.
“What is he doing here?” he insisted.
“He? Oh, he does nothing. He waits,” purred the Rangar. “He is to be your body-servant on your journey to the North. He is nothing — nobody at all! — except that he is to be trusted utterly because he loves Yasmini. He is Obedience! A big obedient fool! Let him be!”
“No,” said King. “If he’s to be my man I’ll speak to him!”
He felt himself winning. Already the spell of the room was lifting, and he no longer felt the cloud of sandalwood smoke like a veil across his brain.
“Won’t you tell him to come here to me?”
Rewa Gunga laughed, resting his silk turban against the wall hangings and clasping both hands about his knee. It was as a man might laugh who has been touched in a bout with foils.
“Oh! — Ismail!” he called, with a voice like a bell, that made King stare.
The Afridi seemed to come out of a deep sleep and looked bewildered, rubbing his eyes and feeling whether his turban was on straight. He combed his beard with nervous fingers as he gazed about him and caught Rewa Gunga’s eye. Then he sprang to his feet.