by Talbot Mundy
“Come, we shall eat!” she said, leading him by the hand to a couch. She took the one facing him, and they lay like two Romans of the Empire with the table in between.
She struck a golden gong then, and a native woman came in who stared at King as if she had seen him before and did not like him. Except for the jewels, she was dressed exactly like Yasmini, which is to say that her gauzy stuff was all but transparent. But Yasmini uses raiment as she does her eyes; it is part of her, and of her art. The maid, who would have shone among many women, looked stiff and dull by contrast.
“I trust no Hill woman — they are cattle with human tongues,” Yasmini said, frowning at the maid. “Even in Delhi there was only this one woman whom I dared bring here with me. You brought my men-servants! They are loyal, but as clumsy as the bears in their cold ‘Hills’! Rewa Gunga brought me this one disguised as a man — you remember?”
She nodded to the servant, who clapped her hands. At once came a stream of Hillmen, robed in white, who carried sherbet in bottles cooled in snow and dishes fragrant with hot food. He recognized his own prisoners from the Mir Khan Palace jail, and nodded to them as they set the things down under the maid’s direction. When they had done the woman chased them out and came and stood behind Yasmini with a fan, for though it was not too hot, she liked to have her golden hair blown into movement.
“My cook was a viceroy’s,” she said, beginning to eat. “He killed an officer who said the curry had pig’s fat in it. That made him free of Khinjan but of not many other places! I have promised him a swim in Earth’s Drink when he ever forgets his art!”
King ate, because a man can not talk and eat at once. It was true that he was hungry, that hunger is a piquant sauce, and that artist was an adjective too mild to apply to the cook. But the other reason was his chief one. Yasmini ate daintily, as if only to keep him company.
“You would rather have wine?” she asked suddenly. “All sahibs drink wine. Bring wine!” she ordered.
But King shook his head, and she looked pleased.
He had thought she would be disappointed. When he had finished eating she drove the maid away with a sharp word; and when King jumped to his feet she led him toward the gold-and-ivory thrones, taking her seat on one of them and bidding him adjust the footstool.
“Would I might offer you the other!” she said, merrily enough, “but you must sit at my feet until our hearts are one!”
It was clear that she took no delight in easy victories, for she laughed aloud at the quizzical expression on his face. He guessed that if she could have conquered him at the first attempt a day would have found her weary of him; there was deliberate wisdom in his plan for the present to seem to let her win by little inches at a time. He reasoned that so she would tell him more than if he defied her outright.
He brought an ivory footstool and set it about a yard away from her waxen toes. And she, watching him with burning eyes, wound tresses of her hair around the golden dagger handle, making her jewels glitter with each movement.
“You pleased me by refusing wine,” she said. “You please me — oh, you please me! Christians drink wine and eat beef and pig-meat. Ugh! Hindu and Muslim both despise them, having each a little understanding of his own. The gods of India, who are the only real gods, what do they think of it all! They have been good to the English, but they have had no thanks. They will stand aside now and watch a greater jihad than the world has ever seen! And the Hindu, who holds the cow sacred, will not support Christians who hold nothing sacred, against Muhammadans who loathe the pig! Christianity has failed! The English must go down with it — just as Rome went down when she dabbled in Christianity. Oh, I know all about Rome!”
“And the gods of India?” he asked, to keep her to the point now that she seemed well started.
He was there to learn, not to teach.
“I know them, too! I know them as nobody else does! They are neither Hindu, nor Muhammadan, but are older by a thousand ages than either foolishness! I love them, and they love me — as you shall love me, too! If they did not love both of us, we would not both be here! We must obey them!”
None of the East’s amazing ways of courtship are ever tedious. Love springs into being on an instant and lives a thousand years inside an hour. She left no doubt as to her meaning. She and King were to love, as the East knows love, and then the world might have just what they two did not care to take from it.
His only possible course as yet was the defensive, and there is no defense like silence. He was still.
“The sirkar,” she went on, “the silly sirkar fears that perhaps Turkey may enter the war. Perhaps a jihad may be proclaimed. So much for fear! I know! I have known for a very long time! And I have not let fear trouble me at all!”
Her eyes were on his steadily, and she read no fear in his, either, for none was there. In hers he saw ambition — triumph already — excitement — the gambler’s love of all the hugest risks. Behind them burned genius and the devilry that would stop at nothing. As the general had told him in Peshawur, she would dare open Hell’s gate and ride the devil down the Khyber for the fun of it.
“Au diable, diable et demie!” the French say; and like most French proverbs it is a wise one. But whence the devil and a half should come to thwart her was not obvious.
“I must be a devil and a half,” he told himself, and very nearly laughed aloud at the idea. She mistook the sudden humor in his eyes for admiration of herself, being used to that from men.
“Listen, while I tell you all from the beginning! The sirkar sent me to discover what may be this ‘Heart of the Hills’ men talk about. I found these caves — and this! I told the sirkar a little about the Caves, and nothing at all about the Sleepers. But even at that they only believed the third of what I said. And I — back in Delhi I bought books — borrowed books — sent to Europe for more books — and hired babu Sita Ram to read them to me, until his tongue grew dry and swollen and he used to fall asleep in a corner. I know all about Rome! Days I spent — weeks! — months! — listening to the history of their great Caesar, and their little Caesars — of their conquests and their games! It was good, and I understood it all! Rome should have been true to the old gods, and they would have been true to her! She fell when she fooled with Christianity!”
She was speaking dreamily now, with her chin resting on a hand and an elbow on the ivory arm of the throne, remembering as she told her story. And it meant so much to her, she was so in earnest, that her voice conjured up pictures for King to see.
“When I had read enough I came back here to think. I knew enough now to be sure that the Sleeper is a Roman, and the ‘Heart of the Hills’ a Grecian maid. She is like me. That is why I know she drove him to make an empire, choosing for a beginning these ‘Hills’ where Rome had never penetrated. He found her in Greece. He plunged through Persia to build a throne for her! I have seen it all in dreams, and again in the crystal! And because I was all alone, I saw that I would need all the skill I could learn, and much patience. So I began to learn to dance as she danced, using those pictures of her as a model. I have surpassed her! I can dance better than she ever did!
“Between times I would go to Delhi and dance there a little, and a little in other places — once indeed before a viceroy, and once for the king of England — and all men — the king, too! — told me that none in the world can dance as I can! And all the while I kept looking for the man — the man who should be like the Sleeper, even as I am like her whom he loved!
“Many a man — many and many a man I have tried and found wanting! For I was impatient in spite of resolutions. I burned to find him at once, and begin! But you are the first of all the men I have tested who answered all the tests! Languages — he must speak the native tongues. Brave be must be — and clever — resembling the Sleeper in appearance. I began to think long ago that I must forego that last test, for there was none like the Sleeper until you came. And when this world war broke — for it is a world war, a world war I tell you! �
� I thought at last that I must manage all alone. And then you came!
“But there were many I tried — many — especially after I abandoned the thought that the man must resemble the Sleeper. There was a Prince of Germany who came to India on a hunting trip. You remember?”
King pricked his ears and allowed himself to grin, for in common with many hundred other men who had been lieutenants at the time, he would once have given an ear and an eye to know the truth of that affair. The grin transformed his whole appearance, until Yasmini beamed on him.
“I’m listening, Princess!” he reminded her.
“Well — he came — the Prince of Germany — the borrower!”
“Borrower of what, Princess?”
“Of wit! Of brains! Of platitudes! Of reputation! There came a crowd with him of such clumsy plunderers, asking such rude questions, that even the sirkar could not shut its ears and eyes!
“I did not know all about sahibs in those days. I thought that, although this man is what he is, yet he is a prince, and perhaps I can fire him with my genius. I could have taught him the native tongues. I thought he had ambition, but I learned that he is only greedy. You see, I was foolish, not knowing yet that in good time if I am patient my man will come to me! But I learned all about Germans — all!
“I offered him India first, then Asia, then the world — even as I now offer them to you. The sirkar sent him to see me dance, and he stayed to hear me talk. When I saw at last that he has the head and heart of a hyena I told him lies. But he, being drunk, told me truths that I have remembered.
“Later he sent two of his officers to ask me questions, and they were little better than he, although a little better mannered. I told them lies, too, and they told me lies, but they told me much that was true.
“Then the prince came again, a last time. And I was weary of him. The sirkar was very weary of him too. He offered me money to go to Germany and dance for the kaiser in Berlin. He said I will be shown there much that will be to my advantage. I refused. He made me other offers. So I spat in his face and threw food at him.
“He complained to the sirkar against me, sending one of his high officers to demand that I be whipped. So I told the sirkar some — not much, indeed, but enough — of the things he and his officers had told me. And the sirkar said at once that there was both cholera and bubonic plague, and he must go home!
“I have heard — three men told me — that he said he will never rest until I have been whipped! But I have heard that his officers laughed behind his back. And ever since that time there have always been Germans in communication with me. I have had more money from Berlin than would bribe the viceroy’s council, and I have not once been in the dark about Germany’s plans — although they have always thought I am in the dark.
“I went on looking for my man — studying all, Germans, English, Turks, French — and there was a Frenchman whom I nearly chose — and an American, a man who used the strangest words, who laughed at me. I studied Hindu, Muslim, Christian, every good-looking fighting man who came my way, knowing well that all creeds are one when the gods have named their choice.
“There came that old Bull-with-a-beard, Muhammad Anim, and for a time I thought he is the man, for he is a man whatever else he is. But I tired of him. I called him Bull-with-a-beard, and the ‘Hills’ took it up and mocked him, until the new name stuck. He still thinks he is the man, having more strength to hope and more will to will wrongly than any man I ever met, except a German. I have even been sure sometimes that Muhammad Anim is a German; yet now I am not sure.
“From all the men I met and watched I have learned all they knew! And I have never neglected to tell the sirkar sufficient of what men have told me, to keep the sirkar pleased with me!
“Nor have I ever played Germany’s game — no, no! I have talked with a prince of Germany, and I understand too well! Who sups with a boar may get good roots to eat, but must endure pigs’ feet in the trough! Pigs’ hides make good saddles; I have used the Germans, as they think they have used me! I have used them ruthlessly.
“Knowing all I knew, and being ready except that I had not found my man yet, I dallied in India on the eve of war, watching a certain Sikh to discover whether he is the man or not. But he lacked imagination, and I was caught in Delhi when war broke and the English dosed the Khyber Pass. Yet I had to come up the Khyber, to reach Khinjan.
“So it was fortunate that I knew of a German plot that I could spoil at the last minute. I fooled the Germans by letting the Sikh whom I had watched discover it. The Germans still believe me their accomplice — and the sirkar was so pleased that I think if I had asked for an English peerage they would have answered me soberly. A million dynamite bombs was a big haul for the sirkar! My offer to go to Khinjan and keep the ‘Hills’ quiet was accepted that same day!
“But what are a million dynamite bombs! Dynamite bombs have been coming into Khinjan month by month these three years! Bombs and rifles and cartridges! Muhammad Anim’s men, whom he trusts because he must, hid it all in a cave I showed them, that they think, and he thinks, has only one entrance to it. Muhammad Anim scaled it, and he has the key. But I have the ammunition!
“There was another way out of that cave, although there is none now, for I have blocked it. My men, whom I trust because I know them, carried everything out by the back way, and I have it all. I will show it to you presently.
“I know all Muhammad Anim’s plans. Bull-with-a-beard believes himself a statesman, yet he told me all he knows! He has told me how Germany plans to draw Turkey in and to force Turkey to proclaim a jihad. As if I did not know it first, almost before the Germans knew it! Fools! The jihad will recoil on them! It will be like a cobra, striking whoever stirs it! A typhoon, smiting right and left! Christianity is doomed, and the Germans call themselves Christians! Fools! Rome called herself Christian — and where is Rome?
“But we, my warrior, when Muhammad Anim gets the word from Germany and gives the sign, and the ‘Hills’ are afire, and the whole East roars in the flame of the jihad — we will put ourselves at the head of that jihad, and the East and the world is ours!”
King smiled at her.
“The East isn’t very well armed,” he objected. “Mere numbers—”
“Numbers?” She laughed at him. “The West has the West by the throat! It is tearing itself! They will drag in America! There will be no armed nation with its hands free — and while those wolves fight, other wolves shall come and steal the meat! The old gods, who built these caverns in the ‘Hills,’ are laughing! They are getting ready! Thou and I—”
As she coupled him and herself together in one plan she read the changed expression of his face — the very quickly passing cloud that even the best-trained man can not control.
“I know!” she asserted, sitting upright and coming out of her dream to face facts as their master. She looked more lovely now than ever, although twice as dangerous. “You are thinking of your brother — of his head! That I am a murderess who can never be your friend! Is that not so?”
He did not answer, but his eyes may have betrayed something, for she looked as if he had struck her. Leaning forward, she held the gold-hilted dagger out to him, hilt first.
“Take it and stab me!” she ordered. “Stab — if you blame me for your brother’s death! I should have known him for your brother if I had come on him in the dark! — His head might have come from your shoulders! — You were like a man holding up his own head, as I have seen in pictures in a book! I would never have killed him!”
Her golden hair fell all about his shoulders, and its scent was not intended to be sobering. She ran warm fingers through his hair while she held the knife toward him with the other hand.
“Take it and stab!”
“No,” he said.
“No!” she laughed. “No! You are my warrior — my man — my well — beloved! You have come to me alone out of all the world! You would no more stab me than the gods would forget me!”
Their eye
s were on each other’s — deep looking into deep.
“Strength!” she said, flinging him away and leaning back to look at him, almost as a fed cat stretches in the sunlight. “Courage! Simplicity! Directness! Strength I have, too, and courage never failed me, but my mind is a river winding in and out, gathering as it goes. I have no directness — no simplicity! You go straight from point to point, my sending from the gods! I have needed you! Oh, I have needed you so much, these many years! And now that you have come you want to hate me because you think I killed your brother! Listen — I will tell you all I know about your brother.”’
Without a scrap of proof of any kind he knew she was telling truth unadorned — or at least the truth as she saw it. Eye to eye, there are times when no proof is needed.
“Without my leave, Muhammad Anim sent five hundred men on a foray toward the Khyber. Bull-with-a-beard needed an Englishman’s head, for proof for a spy of his who could not enter Khinjan Caves. They trapped your brother outside Ali Masjid with fifty of his men. They took his head after a long fight, leaving more than a hundred of their own in payment.
“Bull-with-a-beard was pleased. But he was careless, and I sent my men to steal the head from his men. I needed evidence for you. And I swear to you — I swear to you by my gods who have brought us two together — that I first knew it was your brother’s head when you held it up in the Cavern of Earth’s Drink! Then I knew it could not be anybody else’s head!”
“Why bid me throw it to them, then?” he asked her, and he was aware of her scorn before the words had left his lips.
She leaned back again and looked at him through lowered eyes, as if she must study him all anew. She seemed to find it hard to believe that he really thought so in the commonplace.
“What is a head to me, or to you — a head with no life in it — carrion! — compared to what shall be? Would you have known it was his head if you had thrown it to them when I ordered you?”