by Talbot Mundy
McGregor paid himself. Ommony at the desk tore up sheet after sheet of paper, chuckled at last, and wrote a final draft. “There, that should do. That’s obscure enough. That hoists him with his own petard. Why don’t women ever have clean blotting-paper?”
He showed what he had written to McGregor, who read it aloud, Mrs. Cornock-Campbell playing very softly while she listened.
“To the holy Lama Tsiang Samdup, in the place where he has chosen to secrete himself.
“I will take the Middle Way if I can find it, and I hope neither of us may get lost. I wish you all success.
“Cottswold Ommony.”
“Sarcasm?” said Mrs. Cornock-Campbell. “I wonder if that ever pays.”
“We’ll see!”
Ommony sealed up the envelope, on which he had written simply “Tsiang Samdup,” and stood over Dawa Tsering.
“Take this letter to the Lama. Come back here with proof you have delivered it, and you shall have your knife.”
“Send him in my dog-cart,” McGregor advised. “My sais* is one of those rare birds who do as they’re told. He doesn’t talk or ask questions.”
So Dawa Tsering was seen on to the back seat of the dog-cart, with a horse-blanket under him to keep grease off the cushion, and the conference was resumed. McGregor questioned Ommony narrowly concerning the events of the afternoon, and particularly as to the exact location of the courtyard where the attack had taken place.
“It doesn’t look to me as if they meant to kill you,” he said at last. “It seems to me they were hell-bent on merely driving you away. Um-tiddley-um- tum-tum — we’ve made a mess of this — we should have had that building watched. Katherine, I will bet these ten rupees that our friend from Spiti draws blank.”
“Men are unintuitive creatures,” Mrs. Cornock-Campbell answered. “No, John, I won’t bet. The obvious thing was to take the Lama at his word and go straight to Tilgaun. I supposed Cottswold would see that, but he didn’t — did you? What is the objection?”
“This,” said Ommony, pausing, looking obstinate, “he is either my friend, or he isn’t. He has every reason to be frank with me. He has chosen the other line. All right.”
“All wrong!” she answered, chuckling. “In that letter, in his own way, he invited you to trust him.”
“I don’t!” remarked Ommony, shutting his jaws with a snap that could be heard across the room.
He refused to explain himself. He was not quite sure he could have done that, but had no inclination to try. If he had opened his lips it would have been to invite McGregor to throw a plain-clothes cordon around that house at the end of the courtyard, search the place and expose its secrets.
Habitual self-control alone prevented that. Twenty years of living courteously in a conquered country, making full allowance for the feelings of those who must look to him for justice, had bred a restraint that ill-temper could not overthrow. But he did not dare to let himself speak just then. He preferred to be rude — took up a book and began reading.
Mrs. Cornock-Campbell went on playing. John McGregor smoked in silence, pulling out the Lama’s letter, reading it over and over, trying to discover hidden meanings. So more than an hour went by with hardly a word spoken, and it was long after midnight when the wheels of McGregor’s returning dog-cart skidded on the loose gravel of the drive at the rear of the house and Diana awoke on the porch to tell the moon about it.
Dawa Tsering was admitted through the back door and shepherded in by the butler, who held his nose, but who was not otherwise so lacking in appreciation as to shut the door tight when he left the room. Ommony strode to the door, opened it wide, looked into the frightened eyes of the Goanese and watched him until he disappeared through a swinging door at the end of the passage.
“Now,” he said, shutting the door tight behind him.
“The Lama is gone!” Dawa Tsering announced dramatically. “If I had had my knife I would have slain the impudent devil who gave me the news! Tripe out of the belly of a pig is his countenance! Eggs are his eyes! He is a ragyaba!”*
“The son of evil pretended not to know me! When I offered him the letter for the Lama he growled that Tsiang Samdup and his chela had gone elsewhere. When I bade him let me in, that I might see for myself, he answered ignorantly.”
“Ignorantly? How do you mean?”
“He struck me with a bucket, of which the contents were garbage unsuitable to a man of my distinction. So I crowned him with the bucket — thus — not gently — and his head went through the bottom of the thing, so that, as it were, he wore a helmet full of smells and could no longer see. So then I smote him in the belly with my fist — thus — and with my foot — thus — as he fell. And then I came away. And there is the letter. Smell it. Behold the dirt on it, in proof I lie not. Now give me my knife, Ommonee.”
Ommony went into the hall and produced the “knife” from behind the hat- rack. Dawa Tsering thumbed the edge of the blade lovingly before thrusting the weapon into its leather scabbard inside his shirt.
“Now I am a man again,” he said devoutly. “They would better avoid me with their buckets full of filth!”
Ommony studied him in silence for a moment. “Did you ever have a bath?” he asked curiously.
“Aye. Tsiang Samdup and his chela made me take one whenever they happened to think fit. That is how I know they are not especially holy. There is something heretical about them that I do not understand.”
“I am worse than they,” said Ommony. “No doubt. They have their good points.”
“I have none! You must wash yourself as often as I tell you, and I shall give the order oftener than they did! From now on, you are my servant.”
“But who says so?”
“I do.”
“You desire me?”
“No, because I already have you. I can dispose of you as I see fit,” said Ommony. “I can send you to the jail for killings and for train-robberies, and for trying to murder me this afternoon. Or I can bid you work out the score in other ways.”
“That is true, more or less. Yes, there is something in what you say, Ommonee.”
“It is not more or less true. It is quite true.”
“How so? Have I not my knife? Would you like to fight me? I can slay that she-dog of thine as easily as I can lay thy bowels on the floor.”
“No,” said Ommony, “no honorable man could do that to his master. Are you not an honorable man?”
“None more so!”
“And I am your master, so that settles it.”
Dawa Tsering looked puzzled; there was something in the reasoning that escaped him. But it is what men do not understand that binds them to others’ chariot wheels.
“Well — I do not wish to return to Spiti — yet,” he said reflectively. “But about the bath — how often? Besides, it is contrary to my religion, now I come to think of it.”
“Change your religion, then. Now no more argument. Which way has the Lama gone?”
“Oh, as to that — I suppose I could discover that. How much will you pay me?”
“Thirty rupees a month, clean clothing, two blankets and your food.”
“That is almost no pay at all,” said Dawa Tsering. “To make a profit at that rate, I should have to eat so much that my belly would be at risk of bursting. There is discomfort in so much eating.”
“They would give you enough to eat and no more, without money, in the jail,” said Ommony, “and you would have to obey a babu, and be shaved by a contractor, and make mats without reward. And if you were very well behaved, they would let you rake the head jemadar’s garden. Moreover, Tin Lal, who is also in the jail, would mock you at no risk to himself, since you would have no knife; and because he is clever and malignant he would constantly get you into trouble, laughing when you were punished. And since he is only in the jail for a short time, and you would be in for a long time, there would be no remedy. However, suit yourself.”
“You are a hard man, Ommonee!”
“I am. I have warned you.”
“Oh, well: I suppose it is better so. A soft knife is quickly dulled, and men are the same way. Yielding men are not dependable. Pay me a month’s wages in advance, and tomorrow we will buy the blankets.”
But beginnings are beginnings. A foundation not well laid destroys the whole edifice.
“From now on until I set you free, your desires are nothing,” Ommony said sternly. “You consider my needs and my convenience. When I have time to consider yours, it will remain to be seen whether I forget or not. Go and wait on the porch. Try to make friends with the dog; she can teach you a lot you must learn in one way or another. If the dog permits you leisure for thought, try to imagine which way the Lama may have gone.”
Dawa Tsering went out through the hall, too impressed by the novelty of the situation even to mutter to himself. Ommony went to the window and said two or three words to Diana, whose long tail beat responsively on the teak boards. Presently came the sound of Dawa Tsering’s voice:
“O thou: my time has not come to be eaten.* Have wisdom!”
A low rumbling growl announced that Diana was considering the situation, keeping Ommony’s command in mind.
“I have no doubt thou art a very evil devil!”
Again the growl, followed by a thump and the shuffling sound of Dawa Tsering squatting himself on the porch.
“So — thus. We will see whether Ommonee knows what he is doing. Attack me, and die, thou mother of fangs and thunder! Then I will know it is not my karma to obey this Ommonee. Lie still, thou earthquake, and I will—” His voice dropped to a murmur and died away. Thoughts too obscure for expression seemed to have riveted his whole attention. Ommony, peering through the shutter slats, could see him sitting almost within arm’s reach of the dog, staring straight in front of him at the stars on the north horizon. He turned to Mrs. Cornock-Campbell:
“And now I’ll go away and let you sleep. When we come to your house, Mac and I invariably forget manners and stay into the wee small hours—”
But at a sign from her he sat down again. She closed the piano and locked it. “Cottswold,” she said, “tell me what you have in mind. You have said too much or too little.”
“I have told all I know — that is that I care to tell, even to you,” Ommony answered. “I suppose, as a matter of fact, I’m a bit piqued. That Lama has had scores of opportunities to realize that I wouldn’t betray confidences. I am told I’m notorious for refusing to tell the government what I know about individuals; and the Lama is perfectly aware of that. I’ve risked my job fifty times by insisting on holding my tongue. Am I right, Mac?”
“You are!” McGregor answered with a dry smile. “I remember, I once considered it my duty to advise threatening you with drastic penalties. I would have ordered you tortured, but for the cir-r-cumstance that that means of inducement is out of date. And besides, I had ma doots of its efficacy in your instance.”
Ommony grinned. He preferred that praise to all the orders in the almanac. “So, damn the Lama!” he went on fervently. “He has kept aloof for twenty years. I’m satisfied there’s something he’s deliberately keeping from me. I’ve no notion what it is, but that piece of jade is probably connected with it. I’m going to track him — tempt him — force his hand.”
“Are you sure you’ve no notion what he’s keeping from you?” Mrs. Cornock- Campbell asked; and Ommony stared hard at her, while McGregor blew smoke at the ceiling.
“Perhaps I have a sort of notion — yes,” he answered slowly. “Sometimes I suspect he knows what took Fred Terry and my sister to the Ahbor country.”
“And?”
Mrs. Cornock-Campbell studied him with dark blue eyes that seemed to search for something lacking in his mental make-up.
“He may know what became of them.”
Mrs. Cornock-Campbell smiled and sighed. “Well — we three will meet again before you go, I suppose?”
“No,” said Ommony. “I expect to be gone before daybreak. I’ll write when I get the chance. If we don’t meet again this side of Yama’s* Bar—”
“This is India — it might happen,” she answered. “Your friendship has been one of five things that have made my life in India worth while.”
“Oh, nonsense,” he said gruffly. The least trace of sentiment frightened him.
“I’m glad I’ve helped,” she went on. “It’s a privilege to have friends like you and John McGregor, who don’t imagine they’re in love when you share their confidences! Good night. I don’t believe you’re going to your doom. I think I’d know it if you were.”
“Doom? There isn’t any! There’s only a reshuffling of the cards,” said Ommony. “Good night.”
CHAPTER VIII. The Middle Way
We live in the eternal Now, and it is Now that we create our destiny. It follows, that to grieve over the past is useless and to make plans for the future is a waste of time. There is only one ambition that is good, and that is: so to live Now that none may weary of life’s emptiness and none may have to do the task we leave undone.
— from The Book of the Sayings of Tsiang Samdup
NO MAN can learn any more of India in twenty years, or in any length of time, than he can learn about himself; and that is a mystery, but it is the door to understanding. And that is why men like Ommony and John McGregor, who have given to India the whole of their active lives, will say in good faith that they know very little about the country. It is also why they are guarded in their praise of viceroys, and candidly suspicious of all politicians; why they listen to the missionary with emotion not entirely disconnected from cold anger; and why, when they return to England in late life, ripened by experience, they do not become leaders of men. Knowing how easily and how often they have deceived others and themselves have been deceived, they do not dare to pose as prophets.
However, there are naturally some things that they do know, guide-books, government reports and “experts” notwithstanding.
They know (some of them) that news travels up and down India without the aid of wire, semaphore or radio, and faster than any mechanical means yet invented can imitate. It seems to travel almost with the speed of thought, but although it gets noised abroad none will ever tell which individual released it.*
They also know that there are routes of travel, unconnected with the railway lines or trunk roads, not marked by recognizable signposts, and obscure to all who have not the key to them. Some of these routes are suspected to be religious in their origin and purpose; some are political, (and those are better understood). Some, they say, are survivals of forgotten periods of history when conquered people had to devise means of communication that could be kept absolutely secret from the conqueror.
At any rate, the routes are there, and are innumerable, crossing one another like lines on the palm of a man’s hand. A man with the proper credentials (and whatever those are, they are neither written nor carried on the person) can travel from end to end of India, not often at high speed, but always secretly; and the strange part is, that he may cross a hundred other routes as unknown to himself as the one he travels by is secret from other people.
The routes are opened, closed and changed mysteriously. The men who use them seldom seem to know their exact detail in advance, and the fact that a man has traveled once by one of them (or even a dozen times) is no proof that he can return the same way. The underground route by which runaway slaves were smuggled from South to North before the Civil War in the United States is a crude and merely suggestive illustration of how the system works; and one thing is certain: these so-to-speak “underground” communications have nothing whatever to do with the ordinary pilgrim routes, although they may cross them at a thousand points. Like eternity, they seem to have neither beginning, end, nor relation to time; midnight is as high noon, and you cut into them at any time or point you please — provided that you know how.
“Hotel, I supposes” said McGregor, tooling the dogcart along at a slow trot through the deserted streets. (The
y were deserted, that is, of apparent life, but there are always scores of eyes alert in India.)
“No. Set me down in the Chandni Chowk. I’ll tell you where to stop.”
“Man alive, you can’t go scouting in a dinner jacket!”
“Why not?” Ommony asked obstinately.
McGregor did not answer.
Ommony spoke his mind in jerky sentences.
“Tomorrow morning — this morning, I mean, be a good chap — pack my things at the hotel — forward them all to Tilgaun. Send some one you can trust. Let him leave them with Miss Sanburn — bring back a receipt to you.”
“Money?” asked McGregor, nodding.
“Plenty. If I need more I’ll cash drafts on Chutter Chand.”
“What name will you sign on them? I’d better warn him, hadn’t I?”
“No need. I’ll make a mark on the drafts that he’ll recognize.”
“Going to take the dog with you?”
“Of course.”
McGregor smiled to himself. Ommony noticed it.
“By the way, Mac, don’t try to keep track of me.”
“Um-m-m!” remarked McGregor.
Ommony’s jaw came forward.
“I might not know but they would, Mac. You can’t keep a thing like that from them. They’d close the Middle Way against me.”
McGregor whistled softly. The Middle Way to Nirvana is no particular secret; anyone may read of it in any of a thousand, books, and he may tread that Path who dares to declare war on desire. But that is esoteric, and no concern of the Secret Service. Exoterically speaking, “The Middle Way” is a trail that for more than a century the Secret Service has desired to learn with all its inquisitive heart.
“I mean it, Mac. All bets are off unless you promise.”
“You needn’t betray confidences,” said McGregor. “You’re not responsible, if I keep tabs on you.”
“That’s a naked lie, and you know it, Mac! I can get through, if I burn all bridges. I haven’t learned what little I do know by letting you know what I was doing. You know that.”