by Talbot Mundy
Perhaps a thousand souls came out to watch, all told. Not an eye of them all missed the government marks on King’s trappings, or the government brand on the mules, and after a minute or two, when the procession was half-way down the street, a man reproved the child who had thrown a stone, and he was backed up by the others. They classified King correctly, exactly as he meant they should. As a hakim — a man of medicine — he could fill a long-felt want; but by the brand on his accouterments he walked an openly avowed robber, and that made him a brother in crime. Somebody cuffed the next child who picked up a stone.
He knew the street of old, although it had changed perhaps a dozen times since he had seen it. It was a cul-de-sac, and at the end of it, just as on his previous visit, there stood a stone mosque, whose roof leaned back at a steep angle against the mountain-side. The fact that it was a mosque, and that it was the only building used as such in Khinjan, had saved it from being leveled to the ground by the last British expedition.
It was a famous mosque in its way, for the bed-sheet of the Prophet is known to hang in it, preserved against the ravages of time and the touch of infidels by priceless Afghan rugs before and behind, so that it hangs like a great thin sandwich before the rear stone wall. King had seen it. Very vividly he recalled his almost exposure by a suspicious mullah, when he had crept nearer to examine it at close range. For the Secret Service must probe all things.
There had been an attempt since his last visit to make the mosque’s exterior look more in keeping with the building’s use. It was cleaner. It had been smeared with whitewash. A platform had been built on the roof for the muezzin. But it still looked more like a fort than a place of worship.
Toward it the one-eyed ruffian led the way, with the long, leisurely-seeming gait of a mountaineer. At the door, in the middle of the end of the street, he paused and struck on the lintel three times with his gun-butt. And that was a strange proceeding, to say the least, in a land where the mosque is public resting place for homeless ones, and all the “faithful” have a right to enter.
A mullah, shaven like a mummy for some unaccountable reason — even his eyebrows and eyelashes had been removed — pushed his bare head through the door and blinked at them. There was some whispering and more staring, and at last the mullah turned his back.
The door slammed. The one-eyed guide grounded his gun-butt on the stone, and the procession waited, watched by the crowd that had lost its interest sufficiently to talk and joke.
In two minutes the mullah returned and threw a mat over the threshold. It turned out to be the end of a long narrow strip that he kicked and unrolled in front of him all across the floor of the mosque. After that it was not so astonishing that the horses and mules were allowed to enter.
“Which proves I was right after all!” murmured King to himself.
In a steel box at Simla is a memorandum, made after his former visit to the place, to the effect that the entrance into Khinjan Caves might possibly be inside the mosque. Nobody had believed it likely, and he had not more than half favored it himself; but it is good, even when the next step may lead into a death-trap, to see one’s first opinions confirmed.
He nodded to himself as the outer door slammed shut behind them, for that was another most unusual circumstance.
A faint light shone through slit-like windows, changing darkness into gloom, and little more than vaguely hinting at the Prophet’s bed-sheet. But for a section of white wall to either side of it, the relic might have seemed part of the shadows. The mullah stood with his back to it and beckoned King nearer. He approached until he could see the pattern on the covering rugs, and the pink rims round the mullah’s lashless eyes.
“What is thy desire?” the mullah asked — as a wolf might ask what a lamb wants.
Supposing Yasmini to be jealous of invasion of her realm, King did not doubt she would be glad to have him break down at this point. Until he had actually gained access to her, nobody could reasonably charge her with his safety. If he had been done to death in the Khyber, the sirkar would have known it in a matter of hours. If he were killed here they might never know it.
“Answer!” said the mullah. “What is thy desire?”
“Audience with her!” he answered, and showed the gold bracelet on his wrist.
The red eye-rims of the mullah blinked a time or two, and though he did not salute the bracelet, as others had invariably done, his manner underwent a perceptible change.
“That is proof that she knows thee. What is thy name.”
“Kurram Khan.”
“And thy business?”
“Hakim.”
“We need thee in Khinjan Caves! But none enter who have not earned right to enter! There is but one key. Name it!”
King drew in his breath. He had hoped Yasmini’s talisman would prove to be key enough. The nails his left hand nearly pierced the palm, but he smiled pleasantly.
“He who would enter must slay a man before witnesses in the teeth of written law!” he said.
“And thou?”
“I slew an Englishman!” The boast made his blood run cold, but his expression was one of sinful pride.
“Whom? When? Where?”
“Athelstan King — a British arrficer — sent on his way to these ‘Hills’ to spy!”
It was like having spells cast on himself to order!
“Where is his body?”
“Ask the vultures! Ask the kites!”
“And thy witnesses?”
Hoping against hope, King turned and waved his hand. As he did so, being quick-eyed, he saw Ismail drive an elbow home into Darya Khan’s ribs, an caught a quick interchange of whispers.
“These men are all known to me,” said the mullah. “They all have right to enter here. They have right to testify. Did ye see him slay his man?”
“Aye!” lied Ismail, prompt as friend can be.
“Aye!” lied Darya Khan, fearful of Ismail’s elbow.
“Then, enter!” said the priest resignedly, as one admits a communicant against his better judgment.
He turned his back on them so as to face the Prophet’s bed-sheet and the rear wall, and in that minute a hairy hand gripped King’s arm from behind, and Ismail’s voice hissed hot-breathed in his ear.
“Ready of tongue! Ready of wit! Who told thee I would lie to save thy skin? Be thy kismet as thy courage, then — but I am hers, not thy man! Hers, thou light of life — though God knows I love thee!”
The mullah seized the Prophet’s bed-sheet and its covering rugs in both hands, with about as much reverence as salesmen show for what they keep in stock. The whole lot slid to one side by means of noisy rings on a rod, and a wall lay bare, built of crudely cut but very well laid stone blocks. It appeared to reach unbroken across the whole width of the mosque’s interior.
On the floor lay a mallet, a peculiar thing of bronze, cast in one piece, handle and all. The mullah took it in his band and struck the stone floor sharply once — then twice again — then three times — then a dozen times in quick succession. The floor rang hollow at that spot.
After about a minute there came one answering hammer-stroke from beyond the wall. Then the mullah laid the mallet down and though King ached to pick it up and examine it he did not dare.
Excitement now was probably the least of his emotions. It had been swallowed in interest. But in his guise of hakim he had to beware of that superficial western carelessness, that permits folk to acknowledge themselves frightened or excited or amused. His business was to attract as little attention to himself as possible; and to that end he folded his hands and looked reverent, as if entering some Mecca of his dreams. Through his horn-rimmed spectacles his eyes looked far-away and dreamy. But it would have been a mistake to suppose that a detail was escaping him.
The irregular lines in the masonry began to be more pronounced. All at once the wall shook and they gaped by an inch or two, as happens when an earthquake has shaken buildings without bringing anything down. Then an irregular secti
on of wall began to move quite smoothly away in front of him, leaving a gap through which eight men abreast could have marched.
As it receded be observed that the lowest course stones was laid on a bronze foundation, that keyed in wide bronze grooves. There was oil enough in the grooves to have greased a ship’s ways and there neither squeak nor tremor as the tons of masonry slid back.
At the end of perhaps three minutes that section of the wall had become the fourth side of a twenty-foot-wide island that stood fair in the middle of a tunnel, splitting it in two to right and left. Judging by the angle of the two divisions they became one again before going very far.
The mullah stood aside and motioned King to enter. But the one-eyed guide who had led them to the mosque thrust himself between Darya Khan and Ismail, pushed King aside and took the lead.
“Nay!” he said, “I am responsible to her.”
It was the first time he had spoken and he appeared to resent the waste of words.
The tunnel that led to the left was pierced in twenty places in the roof for rifle-fire; a score of men with enough ammunition could have held it forever against an army. But the right-hand way looked undefended. Nevertheless, the guide led to the left, and King followed him, filled with curiosity.
“Many have entered!” sang the lashless mullah in a sing-song chant. “More have sought to enter! Some who remained without were wisest! I count them! I keep count! Many went in! Not all came out again by this road!”
“Then there is another road?” King wondered, but he held his tongue and followed the guide.
It proved to be fifty yards through part natural, part hand-hewn, tunnel to the neck of the fork where the left — and right-hand passages became one again. He stopped at the fork and looked back, for none of his men was following.
He caught the sound of scuffling of clattering hoofs, and grunts and shouted oaths — and started to run back, since even a native hakim may protect his own, should he care to, even in the “Hills.”
For the sake of principle he chose the other passage, for Cocker says, “Look! Look! Look!” But the guide seized him by the arm from behind and swung him back again.
“Not that way!” he growled. But he offered no explanation.
In the “Hills” it is not good to ask “why” of strangers. It is good to be glad one was not knifed, and to be deferent until more suitable occasion. King started to run again, but this time along the same defended passage down which they had come. And now the guide made no objection but leaned on his long gun and waited.
The charger proved to be making the trouble — the horse that King had exchanged with the jezailchi in the Khyber. The terrified brute was refusing to enter the passage, and all the men, including Ismail and the mullah, were shoving, or else tugging at the reins.
At the moment King appeared the united strength of six men was beginning to prevail. The mullah let go the reins, and in that instant the horse saw King advance toward him out of the tunnel; so, after the manner of horses, he chose the other passage. King ran at full speed round the corner after him, remembering that the guide had admitted responsibility, and therefore that the chances were he would be rescued should he run into a trap.
Suddenly, ten yards in the lead down the dark tunnel the horse threw his weight back with a clatter of sparks and screamed as only a horse can. After that there was neither sight nor sound of him.
Creeping forward with both arms outstretched against the left-hand wall, he reached the spot where, the horse had been, and shuddered on the smooth dark edge of a hole that went the full width of the floor. There came whispering up out of it, and a dank wet smell, as if there were running water a mile away below. He could feel that a little air flowed downward into it. Twenty yards away on the far side the path resumed, but there was neither hand nor foothold on the smooth damp walls between. He went back to his men with a shiver between his shoulder-blades, and the mullah, standing in the gap of the mosque wall, blinked at him with lashless eyes.
“Many have entered,” he chanted maliciously. “Some went out by a different road!”
“Come!” Ismail growled at the other men, seizing the mule’s bridle himself and leading to the left. “The ghosts will have a charger now for their captain to ride! Lead on, Hakim sahib!”
“Come!” called the one-eyed guide from the neck of the fork ahead. And as they all pressed forward after King the hairless mullah gave a signal and the great stone door slid slowly into place. It was like a tombstone. It was as if the world that mortals know were a thing of the forgotten past and the underworld lay ahead.
“Lead along, Charon!” King grinned. He needed some sort of pleasantry to steady his nerves. But even so he wondered what the nerves of India would be like if her millions knew of this place.
Chapter IX
Oh, Abdul trod with a martial tread,
Swinging his scimiter’s weight.
“I am overlord here,” he said,
“And he who wishes may chance his head,
“For my blade is long, and my arm is strong,
“And the goods of the world to the bold belong!”
So Abdul guarded the gate.
Many a head did Abdul cleave,
Turban and crown and chin,
For all the ‘venturers sought to know
What it could be he guarded so.
And since none give but eke receive,
A thrust in his ribs made Abdul grieve
For good blood outpourin’.
His men wept, watching Abdul bleed
And life’s light waning dim,
Till he cursed them. “Open the fort gate wide!
To saddle, and scour the countryside
For a leech!” he swore. “God rot ye, ride!”
’Twas thus, in the guise of a friend in need,
His enemy came to him.
The second gap closed up behind them and the tunnel began to echo weirdly. The mule was the next to be panic-stricken. The noise of his plunging increased the echoes a thousand times and multiplied his fright, until the poor brute collapsed into meek obedience at last. But the guide strode on unconcerned with his easy Hillman gait, neither deigning to glance back nor making any verbal comment.
Over their heads, at irregular intervals, there were holes that if they led as King presumed into caves above, left not an inch of all the long passage that could not have been swept by rifle-fire. It was impregnable; for no artillery heavy enough to pound the mountain into pieces could ever be dragged within range. Whatever hiding place this entrance guarded could be held forever, given food and cartridges!
The tunnel wound to right and left like a snake, growing lighter and lighter after each bend; and soon their own din began to be swallowed in a greater one that entered from the farther end. After two sharp turns they came out unexpectedly into the blaze of blue day, nearly stunned by light and sound. A road came up from below like that of an ocean in the grip of a typhoon.
When his wits recovered from the shock, King struggled with a wild desire to yell, for before him, was what no servant of British India had ever seen and lived to tell about, and that is an experience more potent than unbroken rum.
They had emerged from a round-mouthed tunnel — it looked already like a rabbit-hole, so huge was the cliff behind — on to a ledge of rock that formed a sort of road along one side of a mile-wide chasm. Above him, it seemed a mile up, was blue sky, to which limestone walls ran sheer, with scarcely a foothold that could be seen. Beneath, so deep that eyes could not guess how deep, yawned the stained gorge of the underworld, many-colored, smooth and wet.
And out of a great, jagged slit in the side of the cliff, perhaps a thousand feet below them, there poured down into thunderous dimness a waterfall whose breadth seemed not less than half a mile. It spouted seventy or eighty yards before it began to curve, and its din was like the voice of all creation.
Ismail came and stood by King in silence, taking his hand, as a little child might. Presentl
y he stooped and picked up a stone and tossed it over.
“Gone!” he said simply. “That down there is Earth’s Drink!”
“And this is the ‘Heart of the Hills’ men boast about?”
“Nay! It is not!” snapped Ismail.
“Then, where—”
But the one-eyed guide beckoned impatiently, and King led the way after him, staring as hakim or prisoner or any man had right to do on first admission to such wonders. Not to have stared would have been to proclaim himself an idiot.
The least of all the wonders was that the secret of the place should have been kept all down the centuries; for it was the hollow middle of a limestone mountain, that could neither be looked down into from above, because the heights were not scalable, nor guessed at from the conformation of the country. The river, that flowed out of rock and went plunging down into the chasm, must be snow from the Himalayan peaks, on its way to swell the sea. There was no other way to account for that; but that explanation did explain why at least one Indian river is no greater than it is.
The road they followed was a fold in the natural rock, rising and falling and curving like a ribbon, but tending on the average downward. It looked to be about two miles to the point where it curved at the chasm’s end and swept round and downward, to be lost in a fissure in the cliff.
They soon began to pass the mouths of caves. Some were above the road, now and then at crazy heights above it, reached by artificial steps hewn out of the stone. Others were below, reached from the road by means of ladders, that trembled and swayed over the dizzying waterfall. Most of the caves were inhabited, for armed men and sullen women came to their entrances to stare.