by Talbot Mundy
The minute Dick was out of sight Mukhum Dass entered the small gate in the wall, and called out for Chamu brazenly. Chamu received him at the bottom of the house-steps, but Mukhum Dass walked up them uninvited.
“The cellar,” he said. “I have come to see the cellar. There is a complaint regarding the foundations. I must see.”
“But, sahib, the door is locked.”
“Unlock it.”
“I have no key.”
“Then break the lock!”
“The cellar door is nailed down!”
“Draw the nails!”
“I dare not! I don’t know how! By what right should I do this thing?”
“It is my house. I order it!”
“But, sahib, only yesterday Blaine sahib dismissed me in great anger because I permitted another one as much as to look into the cellar!”
If the tale Yasmini told him on the morning of her first visit to Tess had not been enough to determine Mukhum Dass, now, with the lost title-deed recovered, the conviction that Gungadhura wanted the place for secret reasons, and Chamu’s objections to confirm the whole wild story, he became as set on his course and determined to wring the last anna out of the mystery as only a money-lender can be.
“With what money did you repay to me the loan that your son obtained by false pretenses?” he demanded.
“I? What? I repaid the loan. I have the receipt. That is enough.”
“On the receipt stands written the number of the bank-note. I have kept the bank-note. It was stolen from the Princess Yasmini. Do you wish to go to jail? Then open that cellar door!”
“Sahib, I never stole the note!” wept Chamu. “It was thrust into my cummerbund from behind!”
But Mukhum Dass set his face like a flint, and the wretched Chamu knew nothing about the law against compounding felonies. Wishing he had had curiosity enough himself to search the cellar thoroughly before the door was nailed down, he finally yielded to the money-lender’s threats and between them, with much sweating and grunting, they pushed and pulled the safe from off the trap. Then came the much more difficult task of drawing nails without an instrument designed for it. Dick Blaine kept all his tools locked up.
“There is an outside door to the cellar, behind the house,” said Chamu.
“But that is of iron, idiot! and bolts on the inside with a great bar resting in the stonework. Are there no tools in the garden?”
Chamu did not know, and the money-lender went himself to see. There Pinga with the vertical smile saw him choose a small crow-bar and return into the house with it. Pinga passed the word along to another man, who told it to a third, who ran with it hot-foot to Gungadhura’s palace.
Once inside the house again Mukhum Dass lost no time, arguing to himself most likely that with the secret of the treasure of Sialpore in his possession it would not much matter what damage he had done. He would be able to settle for it. He broke the hasp of the door, and levered up the trap, splintering it badly and breaking both hinges in the process, while Chamu watched him, growing green with fear.
Then he ordered a lamp and went alone into the cellar, while Chamu, deciding that a desperate situation called for desperate remedies, went up-stairs on business of his own. It took Mukhum Dass about two minutes to discover the loose stone — less than two more to raise it — and about ten seconds to see and pounce on the silver tube. He was too bent on business to notice the man with the vertical smile peering down at him through the trap. Pinga escaped from the house after seeing the money-lender hide the tube inside his clothes, and less than a minute later a lean man ran like the wind to Gungadhura’s palace to confirm the first’s report.
With a wry face at the splintered trap-door, and a shrug of his shoulders of the kind he used when clients begged in tears for extra time in which to pay, Mukhum Dass looked about for Chamu with a sort of half-notion of giving him a small bribe. But Chamu was not to be seen. So he left the house by the way he had come, mounted his mule where he had left it in a hollow down the road, and rode off smiling.
Ten minutes later Chamu and the cook both left by the same exit. Chamu had with him, besides his own bundle of belongings, a revolver belonging to Dick Blaine, two bracelets belonging to Tess, a fountain-pen that he had long had his heart on, plenty of note-paper on which to have a writer forge new references, a half-dozen of Dick’s silk handkerchiefs and a turquoise tie-pin. The revolver alone, in that country in those days, would sell for enough to take him to Bombay, where new jobs with newly arrived sahibs are plentiful. The cook, not having enjoyed the run of the house, had only a few knives and a pound of cocoa. They quarreled all the way down-hill as to why Chamu should and should not defray the cook’s traveling expenses.
A little later, in the ghat between Siva’s temple and the building, where the dead Afghan used to keep his camels, Mukhum Dass, smiling as he rode, was struck down by a knife-blow from behind and pitched off his mule head-foremost. The mule ran away. The money-lender’s body was left lying in a pool of blood, with the clothing torn from it; and it was considered by those who found the body several hours afterward and drove away the pariah dogs and kites, that the fact of his money having been taken deprived the murder of any unusual interest.
Late that evening Dick Blaine, returning from a desultory dinner at the club across the river, very nearly fell into the trap-door, for the hamal had run away too, thinking he would surely be accused of all the mischief, and no lamps were lit.
“Well!” he remarked, striking a match to look about him, “dad-blame me if that isn’t a regular small town yegg’s trick! You’d think after I gave Gungadhura the key and all, he’d have the courtesy to use it and draw the nails! His head can’t ache enough to suit me! Me for the princess! If I’d any scruples, believe me, bo, they’re vanished — gone — Vamoosed! That young woman’s going to win against the whole darned outfit, English, Indian and all! Me for her! Chamu! Where’s Chamu? Why aren’t the lamps lit?”
He wandered through the house in the dark in search of servants, and finally lit a lamp himself, locked all the doors and went to bed.
Chapter Sixteen
The buildings rear immense, horizons fade
And thought forgets old gages in the ecstasy of view.
The standards go by which the steps were made.
On which we trod from former levels to the new.
No time for backward glance, no pause for breath,
Since impulse like a bowstring loosed us in full flight
And in delirium of speed none aim considereth
Nor in the blaze of burning codes can think of night.
The whirring of sped wheels and horn remind
That speed, more speed is best and peace is waste!
They rank unfortunate who tag behind
And only they seem wise who urge, and haste and haste.
New comforts multiply (for there is need!)
Each ballot adds assent to law that crowds the days.
None pause. None clamor but for speed — more speed!
And yet — there was a sweetness in the olden ways.
“And since, my Lords, in olden days—”
Trotters, fed on chopped raw meat by advice of Tess, and brushed by Bimbu for an hour to get the stiffness out of him, was sent off in the noon heat with a double message for his master, one addressed to Samson, one to Dick Blaine, and both wrapped in the same chewed leather cover, that the dog might understand. The mongrel in him made him more immune to heat than a thoroughbred would have been. In any case, he showed nothing but eagerness to get back to Tom Tripe, and, settling the package comfortably in his jaws, was off without ceremony at a steady canter.
“If all my friends were like that one,” said Yasmini, “I would be empress of the earth, not queen of a little part of Rajputana! However, one thing at a time!”
It was hardly more than a village that Tess could see through the jalousies of her bedroom windows. The room was at a corner, so that she had a wide view in two direc
tions from either deep window-seat. There were all the signs of Indian village life about her — low, thatched houses in compounds fenced with thorn and prickly pear, — temples in between them, — trades and handicrafts plied in the shade of ancient trees, — squalor and beauty, leisure, wealth, poverty and lordliness all hand in hand. She could see the backs of elephants standing in a compound under trees, and there were peacocks swaggering everywhere, eating the same offal, though, as the unpretentious chickens in the streets. Over in the distance, beyond the elephants, was the tiled roof of a great house glinting in strong sunlight between the green of enormous pipal trees; and there were other houses, strong to look at but not so great, jumbled together in one quarter where a stream passed through the village.
Yasmini came and sat beside her in the window-seat, as simply dressed in white as on the night before, with her gold hair braided up loosely and an air of reveling in the luxury of peace and rest.
“That great house,” she said, peering through the jalousies, “is where the ceremony is to be tonight. My father’s father built it. This is not our state, but he owned the land.”
“Doesn’t it belong to Gungadhura now?” Tess asked.
“No. It was part of my legacy. This house, too, that we are in. Look, some of them have come on elephants to do me honor. Many of the nobles of the land are poor in these days; one, they tell me, came on foot, walking by night lest the ill-bred laugh at him. He has a horse now. He shall have ten when I am maharanee!”
“Won’t the English get to hear of this?” Tess asked.
Yasmini laughed.
“Their spies are everywhere. But there has been great talk of a polo tournament to be held on the English side of the river at Sialpore. The English encourage games, thinking they keep us Rajputs out of mischief — as indeed is true. This, then, is a conference to decide which of our young bloods shall take part in the tournament, and who shall contribute ponies. The English lend one another ponies; why not we? The spies will report great interest in the polo tournament, and the English will smile complacently.”
“But suppose a spy gets in to see the ceremony?” Tess suggested.
Yasmini’s blue eyes looked into hers and there was a Viking glare behind them, suggestive of the wintry fjords whence one of her royal ancestresses came.
“Let him!” she said. “It would be the last of him!”
Tess considered a while in silence.
“When is the tournament to be?” she asked presently. “Won’t the English think it strange that the conference about men and ponies should be put off until so late?”
“They might have,” Yasmini answered. “They are suspicious of all gatherings. But a month ago we worked up a dispute entirely for their benefit. This is supposed to be a last-hour effort to bring cohesion out of jealousy. The English like to see Rajputs quarrel among themselves, because of their ancient saw that says ‘Divide and govern!’ I do not understand the English altogether — yet; but in some ways they are like an open book. They will let us quarrel over polo to our heart’s content.”
There is something very close to luxury in following the thread of an intrigue, sitting on soft cushions with the sunlight sending layers of golden shafts through jalousies into a cool room; so little of the strain and danger of it; so much of its engagement. Tess was enjoying herself to the top of her bent.
“But when the ceremony is over,” she said, “and you yourself have proclaimed Prince Utirupa king of Sialpore, there will still remain the problem of how to make the English recognize him. There is Gungadhura, for instance, to get out of the way; and Gungadhura’s sons — how many has he?”
“Five, all whole and well. But the dogs must suffer for their breeding. Who takes a reverter’s colt to school into a charger? The English will turn their eyes away from Gungadhura’s stock.”
“But Gungadhura himself?”
“Is in the toils already! Say this for the English: they are slow to reach conclusions — slower still to change their policy; but when their mind is made up they are swift! Gungadhura has been sending messages to the Northwest tribes. How do I know? You saw Ismail, my gateman? His very brother took the letters back and forth!”
“But why should Gungadhura risk his throne by anything so foolish?”
“He thinks to save it. He thinks to prove that the tribes began the dickering, and then to offer his army to the English — Tom Tripe and all! Patali put him up to it. Perhaps she wants a necklace made of Hill-men’s teeth — who knows? Gungadhura went deeply into debt with Mukhum Dass, to send money to the Mahsudis, who think more of gold than promises. The fool imagines that the English will let him levy, extra taxes afterward to recoup himself. Besides, there would be the daily expenses of his army, from which he could extract a lakh or two. Patali yearns for diamonds in the fillings of her teeth!”
“Did you work out all this deep plot for yourself?” Tess asked.
“I and the gods! The gods of India love intrigue. My father left me as a sort of ward of Jinendra, although my mother tried to make a Christian of me, and I always mistrusted Jinendra’s priest. But Jinendra has been good. He shall have two new temples when I am maharanee.”
“And you have been looking for the treasure ever since your father died?”
“Ever since. My father prophesied on his death-bed that I should have it in the end, but all he told to help me find it was a sort of conundrum. ‘Whoever looks for flowers,’ be said, ‘finds happiness. Who looks for gold finds all the harness and the teeth of war! A hundred guard the treasure day and night, changing with the full moon!’ So I have always looked for flowers, and I am often happy. I have sent flowers every day to the temple of Jinendra.”
“Who or what can the hundred be, who guard the treasure day and night?”
Tess wondered.
“That is what puzzled me. At first, because I was very young, I thought they must be snakes. So I made friends with the snakes, learning how to handle even cobras without fear of them. Then, when I had learned that snakes could tell me nothing, but are only Widyadharas — beautiful lost fairies dreadfully afraid of men, and very, very wishful to be comforted, I began to think the hundred must be priests. So I made friends with the priests, and let them teach me all their knowledge. But they know nothing! They are parasites! They teach only what will keep men in their power, and women in subjection, themselves not understanding what they teach! I soon learned that if the priests were treasure-guards their charge would have been dissipated long ago! Then I looked for a hundred trees, and found them! A hundred pipal trees all in a place together! But that was only like the first goal in the very first chukker of the game — as you shall learn soon!”
“Then surely I know!” said Tess excitedly. “In the grounds of the palace across the river, that you escaped from the night before you came to see me, there is quite a little forest of pipals.”
“Nine and sixty and the roots of four,” Yasmini answered, her eyes glowing as if there were fire behind them. “The difficulty is, though, that they don’t change with the full moon! Pipal trees grow on forever, never changing, except to grow bigger and bigger. They outlive centuries of men. Nevertheless, they gave me the clue, not only to the treasure but to the winning of it!”
The afternoon wore on in drowsy quiet, both of the girls sleeping at intervals — waited on at intervals by Hasamurti with fruit and cooling drinks — Yasmini silent oftener than not as the sun went lower, as if the details of what she had to do that night were rehearsing themselves in her mind. No amount of questioning by Tess could make her speak of them again, or tell any more about the secret of the treasure. At that age already she knew too well the virtue and fun of unexpectedness.
They ate together very early, reclining at a low table heaped with more varieties of food than Tess had dreamed that India could produce; but ate sparingly because the weight of what was coming impressed them both. Hasamurti sang during the meal, ballad after ballad of the warring history of Rajasthan and its ro
yal heroines, accompanying herself on a stringed instrument, and the ballads seemed to strike the right chord in Yasmini’s heart, for when the meal finished she was queenly and alert, her blue eyes blazing.
Then came the business of dressing, and two maids took Tess into her room to bathe and comb and scent and polish her, until she wondered how the rest of the world got on without handmaidens, and laughed to think that one short week ago she had never had a personal attendant since her nurse. Swiftly the luxurious habit grows; she rather hoped her husband might become rich enough to provide her a maid always!
And after all that thought and trouble and attention she stood arrayed at last as no more than a maid herself — true, a maid of royalty; but very simply dressed, without a jewel, with plain light sandals on her stockinged feet, and with a plain veil hanging to below her knees — all creamy white. She admitted to herself that she looked beautiful in the long glass, and wished that Dick could see her so, not guessing how soon Dick would see her far more gorgeously arrayed.
Yasmini, when she came into the room, was a picture to take the breath away, — a rhapsody in cream and amber, glittering with gems. There were diamonds sparkling on her girdle, bosom, ears, arms; a ruby like a prince’s ransom nestled at her throat; there were emeralds and sapphires stitched to the soft texture of her dress to glow and glitter as she moved; and her hair was afire with points of diamond light. Coil on coil of huge pearls hung from her shoulders to her waist, and pearls were on her sandals.
“Child, where in heaven’s name did you get them all?” Tess burst out.
“These? These jewels? Some are the gifts of Rajput noblemen. Some are heirlooms lent for the occasion. This — and this” she touched the ruby at her throat and a diamond that glittered at her breast like frozen dew— “he gave me. He sent them by his brother, with an escort of eight gentlemen. But you should wear jewels, too.”