Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  “Chup! “ said King and Grim together — a very rude word in the circumstances.

  Neither of them cared who knew that Narayan Singh might have their blood and bank accounts to back him for the asking.

  “There’s dust in my lungs!” announced King. “This office building is a fire-trap. If the enemy marked us down they’ll burn the whole block. We’ll have drawn ill fate on to the heads of a hundred people — or more. Suppose we move on.”

  “Where to?” Grim objected. “How will Rammy and Jeremy find us? This was the rendezvous.”

  “Was! If they were alive they’d be here.”

  “Life’s longer than that,” Grim objected. “Then there’s Chullunder Ghose—”

  King interrupted, smiling with a tired, wry face — not cynical, but sorry, because of the probabilities:

  “They’ve caught him with the ox-cart. There must be a million ways to get into trouble with that contraption. We shouldn’t have sent him.”

  “But we did,” Grim answered. “Here’s our place until someone shows up.”

  King knew that. Left to himself he would never have suggested any other course. Had he doubted Grim he would never have voiced his own doubts. But there is comfort in the privilege of pouring forth unwisdom to be contradicted. He had been that kind of rebuttal-witness for many a good man in the toils of discouragement. It was his turn.

  “Oh, go to hell!” he answered wearily.

  For an hour after that they sat in silence, listening to the brassy ticking of the export-clock — the quarreling of birds along the roof- edge — all the noises that an Indian population makes in getting ready for the day — unpleasant noises for the most part from the western view. Alternately they slept by fits and starts, but there was always one of them awake, and all three instantly caught the rhythm of Narayan Singh’s returning feet. Ali opened the door for him unbidden, forgetful already of the dawn’s resentment.

  “And the boys — my sons — ?”

  “Are awake now! “ the Sikh assured him, and faced the others to announce his news.

  “There are tales in the street of an ox-cart, driven by a god some say — some name the god — wandering all night about the city. The bunnias laugh, but the crowd is saying it portends events. Men say the oxen were as big as elephants, and the cart like the Car of Jaggernathi! They say it means India will rise and free herself!”

  “Has the hour come for the North then?” wondered Ali, plucking at his knife.

  “If six men of the North stay awake, I think none in yellow can pass them. But if the enemy should come in pink or green — above all green—” Narayan Singh went on.

  “My sons are not fools!” Ali countered hotly, getting to his feet.

  But Narayan Singh took little notice of him.

  “If a man in green came, asking for the whereabouts of friends of Father Cyprian, I think our six would let him through unchallenged—”

  “You lie! By Allah, in your beard, you lie!” said Ali with his left hand on his long knife, thrusting the hilt outward.

  “I think the man in green is past the inner-guard already,” said Narayan Singh, with his ear cocked for the outer passage but his eye on Ali’s weapon.

  “A man with green silk lining to his long cloak, and on his forehead a caste-mark such as I never saw — two triangles, one on the other. A man with a woman’s smile—”

  “My sons would gut him!” Ali swore.

  But Narayan Singh opened the door. A man who answered well enough to the description walked in with the considerate deference of one who needs defer to nobody. The smile was a woman’s as the Sikh had said, and the face a preserver of secrets, although sunnily handsome. Nothing that that man wanted to conceal would ever become news. He told nothing — gave away nothing, except that he was something of a dandy and comparatively well-to-do. The caste-mark on his brow — two yellow triangles one on the other — told nothing; one could not even guess whether he was Hindu or Mohammedan; his eyes were like a Parsi’s, and his costume was a compromise — European shoes for instance, and imported socks showing under the green-lined old-gold cloak.

  “Friends of Father Cyprian?” he asked, glancing from face to face.

  There was no challenge in his glance, and no fear. He did not see a prisoner in yellow peeping at him from around the desk, but Ali did.

  King got off the floor and advanced toward him.

  “We’re anxious for news of Cyprian,” he said.

  “I was told to bring three sahibs — Grim, King and Narayan Singh.”

  “By whom? To bring us where?” King asked.

  “By Father Cyprian. As to where — that is—”

  He hesitated, giving King full opportunity to frame whatever speech he had in mind. And King flung irresolution to the winds:

  “Fact is, we’re afraid to be seen on the streets,” he confessed. “There were incidents last night. Arrest would be inconvenient. We—”

  “I have a closed car,” the newcomer announced.

  But that eased no anxieties. A closed car outside an office in that narrow street would only arouse curiosity. The first inquisitive policeman would learn the car’s number after which to trace its course through Delhi would not call for much ingenuity.

  But the anonymous messenger told where he had left the car, which of itself was proof that he could only come from friends. Then within the minute, leaving Ali to guard their prisoner and gather the somnolent sons beneath his wings, King, Grim and Narayan Singh were in full flight by the private route, through the warehouse where men dealt in wholesale drugs and outlawed politics — out by a back-door to another street — across that to a sub-cellar gambling-den, whose lawless owner could not afford to tell tales — out by a window into a yard — across the yard into a shed where a Jew swapped camels and was hand-in-glove with all illicit traffickers — through his side-door into a blacksmith’s shop, and out of that into a street where a big closed Daimler with crimson curtains waited. It looked like a Maharajah’s car, but lacked the royal insignia, and there was no small platform up behind for footmen.

  “If your honors please—”

  The suave guide, holding his cloak to show as little of the green lining as might he, bowed them in, followed, and slammed the door — which was signal and direction; for without a word said, a driver who looked like a Gourkha but wore spectacles, started away at the highest speed conceivable in those thronged, narrow streets.

  In fifteen minutes, by the grace of those who guide the comets in their wild ellipse, having hit nothing, killed nobody, he blew his horn in the throat of a cul-de-sac ; and by the time they reached the end of it a great gate opened, admitting them without reducing speed.

  They could hear the great gate slam, and the clang of iron bars that fell in place, but could only see ahead because of the crimson curtains. And ahead was nothing but the whitewashed stall the car belonged in, wide open to receive it. They came to a standstill with the front wheels on its threshold.

  But their guide opened the near-side door and they stepped out into a garden of half an acre in which a fountain played. A house, that certainly had been a temple not so long ago, stood face to the fountain, and there were flowers everywhere — in hanging baskets — in niches where perhaps the images of gods had been — on steps and balconies, in windows on a score of ledges, on the roofs raised one above the other — and in masses to right and left of the driveway and the walk that curved between the fountain and the house.

  They were thirty yards away from a pillared portico that shaded the house-entrance. Rioting colors, the splash of water and the sunlight on ancient masonry, the quiet, the coo of cloves, and that peace that comes from absolute proportion of design, united to make them feel in another world, or else on another plane in this one. The assurance of their guide completed the effect. Unquestionably he was confident of introducing them to wonders.

  “Please feel at home,” he said, smiling. “There should be a sign over this doorway adapted from
the famous warning above the gate of Dante’s Hell — Abandon CAN’T and CANT all ye who enter here! Another mystery? Ha-ha! You will understand it after breakfast.”

  Breakfast! They could smell new-roasted coffee and hot rolls! They were willing to abandon almost anything that instant. Only manners checked a stampede!

  “I would burn a city for half such impulse!” swore Narayan Singh. “My belly yearns like a woman for her lover!”

  But a man came forward in the portico to greet them, who might have checked a royal progress. Not that there was evidence of majesty about him, or of potential violence. There was nothing whatever forbidding in his whole surroundings. He might have been the spirit of the place, but his smile was compact of all the manly elements, and hate omitted.

  He was middle-sized, more than middle-aged and yet so hale and well preserved that his age was difficult to guess, nor was his nationality determinable, although like his messenger he wore distinctly oriental clothes — a costume of compromises for the sake of comfort — Hindu on the whole. But he wore no caste-mark. There were no twin triangles on his brow beneath the plain white turban.

  His beard, and, as presently appeared, his hair, were iron-gray, not long but affluent and carefully groomed. Hands, face, forehead were netted with tiny wrinkles that seemed to have been smoothed out rather than caused by time; the impression was that he was growing young again, after having faced the worst the world could do to him. Great hunters, great explorers, great law-givers, great sailors have such lines as his. He knew. He had looked in the jaws of infinitely worse than death and had not flinched. Fear for himself had no hold on him. Therefore he was lord of all he surveyed, and not proud, because pride is foolish, whereas he had humor. The humor shone forth from his eyes. Ease made her home with him.

  “Please feel welcome,” he said in English. “I am Bhima Ghandava, and this is my house. Your friends are up-stairs. Your wonderful ox-cart is in my stable, the oxen have been fed, and so have your friends and their prisoner. As soon as you have washed you will find breakfast waiting. After that I am sure you would rather talk than sleep, although the sleep would do you more good, so please come to the library.”

  There was nothing to do but accept his invitation and follow his green-lined chela * into a place where marble, cool water, soap, towels, and the bathroom smell made life for the moment no longer a dream but an exquisite luxury.

  The white man thinks the bath is a religion peculiar to himself. The English made a privileged Order of it centuries ago, and it is the only creed that the whole West can agree on. But it also is the one lone recognizable common denominator by which West and East may understand each other in the end — the outward and visible product of an inborn yearning to be clean. There was no difference between Grim’s and King’s devotion to the ritual and Narayan Singh’s, except perhaps the Sikh enjoyed his most.

  Then rolls and coffee on white table-linen in a chamber in which priests had kept the Mysteries before men forgot what such things are and what simplicity must go with them.

  An atmosphere outlives the men who made it. It is easy to feel lawless in a smugglers’ den — brave and determined ‘tween-decks in a ship just home from drifting in the polar ice. It was easy to feel then and there that the hatch was off the hold of the impossible and all things waited for accomplishment by them who dared, and knew. There was a sense of being in the very womb of faultless Destiny.

  “I would trade my whole accomplishment and all my medals, just to know I was worthy to sit here!” said Narayan Singh piously — then set his teeth into a buttered roll and washed a titanic mouthful down with coffee that smelt of paradise.

  There were no attendants. The messenger in green-lined finery whom their host had called his chela vanished when he had shown them where to go. None intruded on their privacy until the food was all devoured, and even then it was an old acquaintance who burst in on them, weary-eyed and as contented as a bear among the honey-pots.

  “Sahibs ! Exquisite adventure! Luck at last! Gods whom we have long offended have forgiven us! We are in house of holy adept, whose tobacco is as perfect as his point of view! I swear, thou swearest, he swears! I drink, thou drinkest, he drinks! Rammy sahib consumed one quart of imported stout at seven A. M. Jeremy sahib had whisky-soda. Me, I have drunk cognac, contrary to caste and precedent. Am intoxicated with exuberance! Ghandava sahib drank gin — I am sure — I saw him! He does all things same as everybody. Sahibs , secret is, he doesn’t give a damn! He knows too much! He is incorporated essence of accumulated ancient knowledge! Ask him anything — I bet he knows it! He put oil on Rammy sahib’s injuries that has made him feel like pigs in clover. You, you incredulate — but me, I know a good thing when I see same. I want somebody to bet with!”

  Chullunder Ghose sat down cross-legged where a shaft of golden sunshine quivered between the slats of a shutter, and fanned himself with a handkerchief.

  “Am commanded to escort you three sahibs to sanctum sanctorum soon as gorges rise at thought of further rations. Personally I ate nine rolls and drank a gallon. Emulate me. There is lots more!”

  They followed him up stone stairs worn by the tread of ancient feet — stairs set in the heart of the masonry by builders who had no need to economize in labor or material, and passed between what once had been the priests’ rooms, walking on rugs whose origin was Asia from Mongolia to Damascus. At the end of one long passage was a door at least a foot thick carved with the stories of the gods; Chullunder Ghose thumped that with both fists. It opened at once, as if by a hidden mechanism.

  They found themselves in what was probably the largest room in the building. It opened by means of high windows on a deep veranda banked with flowers, and its ceiling was vaulted in four sections, with one pillar in the midst to support the inner ends of all four arches. Somewhere were hidden ventilators through which fans drove cool air; the purr of the fans was dimly audible and, just as with Ghandava’s costume, there was enough modernity about the place to provide comfort without sacrificing any aspect worth preserving.

  The deep, long window-seats, for instance, were upholstered in brocaded cloth, and the stone floor was spread with several layers of rugs. There were books wherever shelves could be fitted between projecting portions of the masonry; and an enormous toucan, neither caged nor chained, sat perched on a bracket projecting from one wall, looking futuristic.

  Bhima Ghandava himself rose out of an overstuffed leather armchair to greet them. Ramsden was sprawling in another one. Jeremy sat cross-legged on a divan in a corner near the big bird, whose phonetics he was trying at intervals to imitate. The prisoner, unbound, sat like a big bronze idol on the floor with his back to the window; and Chullunder Ghose resumed the perch he had left at one end of a window-seat. Cyprian was not in sight, but there was a sound of book-leaves quickly turning that suggested him.

  “Please be at home,” smiled Ghandava.

  They collapsed into deep armchairs, but Narayan Singh gave up the effort to feel comfortable in his and after a minute squatted on the floor instead, with his back against it. Bhima Ghandava resumed the window-seat vis-a-vis to Chullunder Ghose, and then — as if he might have been watching through a peep-hole for the proper moment — the green-lined chela entered, addressed him as “most reverend guru ,”* asked whether he needed anything, and was dismissed.

  It was conceivable — although not certain by a thousand chances — that that little incident had been designed on purpose to suggest the proper attitude of deep respect. Perhaps the chela had himself conceived it to that end. Ghandava was not in need of the sort of mechanism that surrounds mere royalty. He provided his own atmosphere.

  “I am trying to make this prisoner feel at home, too,” he said with an air of comical regret, “but he seems to yearn for brimstone and red-hot coals! This is too tame!”

  The bronze man sat immobile. Not a feature moved. His wrists were unbound but he had crossed his arms over his breast and held them so as if hypnotized. The proud smil
e on his thick lips seemed to have been frozen there. He hardly seemed to breathe. He did not blink. When King, Grim and Narayan Singh entered he did not so much as glance at them. He was like a dead man at a feast.

  “He imprisons himself!” said Ghandava. “You see before you the embodiment of fear and not the slightest need for it. No combination of physical terrors could reduce him to that condition. He is self-hypnotized. He is afraid with a fear that is within himself — that he has cultivated in himself — that he has used to govern others. Dynamite could hardly loosen it. What shall we do with him?”

  That was hard to answer.

  “He’s the head of their gang, and he’s dangerous,” said Jeff.

  “To whom?” Ghandava asked. “He seems safe to us at present!”

  Whereat Cyprian piped up, emerging from behind the only detached bookcase in the room, wiping spectacles and looking as if he had been cataloging all his life.

  “You are right!” he said sharply. “He is only a danger to his friends. I say, release him!”

  Ghandava glanced at Jeff, whose fist had done the capturing. By right of lex non scripta * the decision was up to him. But Jeff, though an irresistible force when his mind is made up, is no leaper at blind conclusions or interpreter of men’s minds. His forte is common sense, applied.

  “Stow him incommunicado, while we talk,” he suggested, and that was carried by acclamation.

  Bhima Ghandava summoned the green-lined chela by means of an electric hell.

  “Such arrogant simplicity! How simple are the great! He who could think and be obeyed! To use a common bell — such meekness!” exclaimed Chullunder Ghose, rolling his eyes in an ecstasy.

  Bhima Ghandava explained what was required. The chela addressed remarks to the prisoner, who took no more notice of them than the image of Buddha would if a fly had rested on it. King leaned over and prodded Chullunder Ghose in the stomach with a pole meant for closing windows.

  “Less emotion!” he commanded.

  Jeff hove himself out of his chair and seized the prisoner under the arms.