Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  “Deeds — the very echoes are the fruit of deeds! One stone laid on another in Hope’s name is greater service to the gods than all the pomp of conquest and the noise of prayer! A deed — who measures it? Who knows the limits of a mended wheel or reckons up the leagues it shall lay underfoot? — what burdens it shall bear? — whose destiny it shall await and serve? A new-born Krishna may descend into the world — and ride on it to glories such as earth has never known!

  “O people, ye have over-praised calamity! Too much ye have considered night; and not enough have ye observed the dawn! Your hope has died because ye starved it like a pot-bound plant within the shell of envy, in the drought of greed! Too truly ye have longed to gain and to possess; too little ye have hoped to add one gift to each gift-laden moment as it comes!

  “Lay one stone on another, and give thanks! Add one deed to another and sing praises to the lords of tide and time who measure the ant’s labors and record kings’ idleness! Sing! Your very song shall vibrate in the universe when ye return to earth a thousand lives from now!”

  The orchestra stole its way into his last half-dozen sentences and, as he finished, burst into the splendid opening bars of a hymn that was already ancient when the Hills were young. Conquering, it sounded, rising, overturning, splendid with the bloom of life and Hope that knows it is immortal.

  And how those girls, and the trained Tibetan chorus massed behind them, sang! They swept the audience along with them into a surging spate of sound whose melody was like the rolling wonder of long rivers.

  The curtain came down amid such deafening applause that not even the radongs could blare above the thunder of it and the Lama had to shout like a mountaineer to make himself heard behind the scenes. Ommony had seen no messenger arrive, no consultation held, but the word the Lama shouted rang with a strange note of anxiety, and though the audience was yelling for more song, and to see the dog again, the stage and the wings took on the aspect of a stricken camp — all haste, all running to and fro, but strangely no confusion.

  Ommony was seized and stripped of his saddhu’s costume — left to dress himself in Brahmin clothes as best he might, while Maitraya fought against a similar indignity with as much effect as if he were a scarecrow struggling with a Himalayan wind. The other actors threw their costumes off before the wardrobe men could get to them; and before they could pull on their ordinary clothes the framework of the well and every detail of stage furniture had vanished. The girls had disappeared almost before the echo of the Lama’s warning cry had ceased, and within five minutes from the time the curtain came down Ommony found himself alone in the wings with Diana and Dawa Tsering, who wanted to stay there and brag of his performance.

  “I have made up my mind I will be an actor, Gupta Rao! I am good at it! Did you hear how they laughed when I showed myself! That play would have failed but for me! Ha-hah! The Lama knew it, too! He had to tell his lousy Tibetans to let me out of that room back there, so that I might come and save the day!”

  Ommony did not waste time to disillusion him, but even so they were nearly caught by a tide of men who tried to surge in through the stage door, sweating, laughing, shouting questions, wanting to know when the next performance would take place, wanting to see the dog and to hear her talk again, demanding to be shown the Chinese actor and to know whether he was really Chinese — above all, when would the next performance be?

  Ommony had to shove his way through the midst of them, holding Diana by the collar and hustling Dawa Tsering, who wanted to stop and wallow in flattery. Not even loud commands to keep their unclean fingers off a “twice- born” served to keep the crowd from getting in the way; and they would have followed across the street to the elephant stable if Ommony had not thought of telling them that the dog must be fed before she could possibly go to the temple of Siva and speak a couple of mantras from the street near the temple porch. (It was quite safe to mention the temple of Siva; there is always one where there are Hindus.) They stampeded toward the temple to take up good positions, and only a few small boys saw Ommony, Dawa Tsering and the dog go into the elephant compound by way of the alley, which was full of sheep through which they had to thread their way.

  The pitch-dark compound was in quiet confusion. There were camels being loaded, and the elephants were all in line beside the balcony, from whose upper deck the girls, already masked in black, were stepping down like goblins into the curtained howdahs. Ommony found the Lama, Samding beside him, standing near the last elephant of the line; and as he drew near, some one whose outline suggested Prabhu Singh returned thanks for the Lama’s blessing and disappeared into the darkness.

  “Why the hurry?” Ommony demanded. “They came crowding to the door to insist on another performance. Why not stay and give it?”

  “My son,” the Lama answered, with the slightest trace of tartness in his voice, “no course is good unless there are seven reasons for it, even as no week is whole that has not seven days. You may ride on that elephant — that third one. May peace ride with you.”

  CHAPTER XIX. A Message from Miss Sanburn

  He who is wise is careful not to seem too virtuous, lest they who dislike virtue should exert unceasing energy to demonstrate that he is viler than themselves. True virtue suffers from advertisement.

  — from The Book of the Sayings of Tsiang Samdup

  A TUMULT in the street announced that Ommony’s ruse had only gained a moment’s respite. The night was alive with curiosity; a voice that bellowed like a fog-horn asked who the actors were — when they would perform again — whether San-fun-ho was a Mahatma — if so, which of all the pantheon he favored. Another voice shouted for San-fun-ho to come out and speak.

  However, it appeared the Lama had foreseen all that. The bleating sheep gave notice that the barrier was down and the crowd swarmed into the alley. But a string of elephants to all appearance loaded filed down the alley from the compound and the crowd had to retreat; those elephants paraded through the town streets, drawing the crowd after them, and there were no spectators when the gate at the opposite end of the compound opened and the Lama’s long procession — camels, elephants and this time mules as well — swayed toward open country.

  The same Tibetan shared a howdah with Ommony, Dawa Tsering and Diana, and was just as uncommunicative as before. They crossed a railway line; an engine whistled and they had to cling to the howdah when the elephant climbed an embankment and descended on the far side; and once there was hollow thunder underfoot as the procession crossed a long bridge. The pace was much more leisurely than on the first night, and there were fewer interruptions; but twice out of the darkness, once in the gloom of overhanging trees, and once where the crimson glow of a bonfire shone through the howdah curtains, muttered orders came from men on foot and the direction changed.

  About two hours before dawn a halt was called in what appeared to be some kind of royal park; there was a wall all around it and there were peculiar walled subdivisions, but nothing to show who the owner might be. The elephants, camels and mules returned by the way they had come, leaving the baggage heaped in a clearing between trees. Somebody shouted a long series of incomprehensible commands, repeating it all three times, and Ommony was hurried away to a tent in a triangular space with a stone wall on either hand and trees in front. There was a good bed in the tent, and a generous meal all ready on a linen-covered table.

  When Ommony had finished eating Samding emerged out of the darkness like a ghost and stood framed in the tent opening, looking like a cameo against the sky.

  “Tsiang Samdup sends a blessing,” he said calmly. “He requests that you will not leave this enclosure. Kindly do not go beyond the trees.”

  He disappeared again. It was not until he had gone that it occurred to Ommony the language he had used was English. Speaking, thinking in two languages concurrently, occasionally listening to a third, one does not identify them without an effort. For a minute or two Ommony sat still, trying to recall the chela’s voice, intonation and accent; i
t seemed to him that if the words had not been perfectly pronounced he would have noticed instantly that the chela was talking English, not Urdu. He recalled the exact words one by one. “Blessing,” “enclosure” and “the” were key-words that would inevitably have betrayed a foreign accent had there been one; as far as he could remember all three words had been stressed exactly as a well educated Englishman would use them; he was sure there had been no accent on the vowel in “the” — a shibboleth that everlastingly betrays the Asian born.

  “I’ll swear that youngster is European,” he muttered — and then laughed at himself. No European — certainly no English youth ever had it in him to seem so saintly and at the same time to be so inoffensive. There would have been an almost irresistible impulse to kick any western youth who dared to look as virtuous as that. One did not want to kick Samding.

  Ommony turned Diana loose to roam wherever she pleased; no inhibition had been laid on her. He hoped natural canine curiosity might lead her to make new acquaintances who in some way would help to throw light on the mystery; for as he threw himself on the bed to sleep the whole thing seemed a deeper mystery than ever. Was it propaganda intended to foist Samding on the country as a new mahatma? A political mahatma, who should bring on revolution? If so, why the sudden flight? What could be the advantage of creating intense enthusiasm and then running away from it?

  He was awakened late in the morning by a man who removed the dishes and spread a fresh meal on the linen-covered table. The man was someone he had not seen before, as silent as an oiled automaton. Diana was coiled up asleep on her sacking. Dawa Tsering, smelling hot food, awoke with a start to devour it, and it was he who first noticed the silence.

  “Gupta Rao, we are—”

  He left his bowl of food and ran to the trees that screened the end of the enclosure, peered between them, and came hurrying back with a grin on his face.

  “It is true. They have gone and left us!”

  Ommony’s obstinate jaw came forward with a jerk. An insult from the Lama’s lips could not have produced a tenth of the effect.

  “Damn him after all!” he muttered. “I admitted I was spying. If he’d simply asked me to clear out, I’d have gone and waited for him at Tilgaun. I’ll be blowed, though, if I’ll let up now. I’ll trace him if I have to—”

  He sat down on the bed, glancing in the dog’s direction, wondering how much she had seen in the night and wishing she could really talk. She was curled up fast asleep, but his eye detected something on her collar. He called her, and removed a piece of paper that had been wired to the brass ring; it was twisted and soiled, but the writing on the inside was perfectly legible, English, and done in heavy quill pen strokes that he believed were the Lama’s, although there was no signature.

  “There is a time for silence and a time for speech; a time for seeing and a time for covering the eyes. This is the time for silence and not seeing. Obey him who will attend you.”

  But the man in attendance had vanished. The only living creatures in sight outside the tent were crows on the top of the near-by wall and kites wheeling lazily overhead. There was almost perfect silence — no roofs — no smoke — nothing to suggest that there were human beings within ten miles.

  “I will explore,” said Dawa Tsering. “That old Lama is a great one at writing letters that mean nothing. Maybe I shall find that fellow who brought the breakfast. If I beat him he may interest me with some news.”

  Ommony sat still and read the note again. The Lama might be simply inducing him to waste time instead of starting in pursuit; but there were several other possibilities, not the least that the Lama’s route might be leading somewhere where it would be dangerous for a foreigner to go disguised. There are individuals, in India as elsewhere, who would dare to ask the devil or even a Bhat-Brahmin for his identification papers.

  Another not unreasonable theory was that the Lama might be willing to be spied on at just such times as his actions were not mischievous, but would prefer to keep the spy at a distance when events of true importance were under way.

  At any rate, the wording of the note might be held to imply a diplomatic threat that disobedience would terminate all communication. And on the other hand, he supposed the Lama — a remarkably good judge of human nature — knew that he, Ommony, would not permit himself to be dropped into the discard quite so easily as that. If it was a trick, there would be more to it than merely leaving him behind; the best course was to sit still and await developments.

  He awaited them for fifteen minutes, and then Dawa Tsering came, but not as a free agent. He was being led by the ear, although his huge “knife” was in his right hand and there seemed to be nothing to prevent plunging it into his custodian’s stomach. Diana growled a challenge and ran forward to sniff quarrelsomely at the legs of the stranger, who ignored her as if she were not there; after a few sniffs she seemed to recognize him and returned to the tent, where she lay down close to Ommony and watched. She had ceased growling. The hair on her neck was no longer on end.

  The stranger appeared to be a Sikh, but was possibly a Rajput. He was more than six feet tall, wore his black beard parted and brushed upward, looked extremely handsome in a gray silk turban whose end fell down over his shoulder, and was dressed in almost military looking khaki-jacket and trousers, with a gray silk cummerbund around his waist. He strode with consummate dignity that appeared to be natural, not assumed.

  He let go Dawa Tsering’s ear when he came within three strides of the tent, and took no further notice whatever of the Hillman, who stood a couple of paces away and thumbed the edge of his weapon, making grimaces that were nearly as inhuman as the grin on the devil-mask he had worn on the stage. There was nothing to show there had been a struggle; both men’s clothes were in order; neither man was breathing hard. The stranger’s dark-brown eyes looked steadily into the gloom within the tent and he presently saluted after a fashion of his own, quite unmilitary, something like the ancient Roman, raising his right hand, palm outward.

  “Mr. Ommony?” he asked, in English.

  “No!” roared Dawa Tsering. “Gupta Rao, thou ignorant idiot! A Bhat- Brahmin from Bikanir — a man who has a devil in him, who can teach thee manners!”

  “Yes, I’m Ommony.”

  There was something in the voice and in the eyes that warned Ommony there was nothing to be gained by evasion. He stood up and returned the salute, also in his own way, adding to the gesture of his right hand an almost unnoticeable finger movement. The other man smiled.

  “I am Sirdar Sirohe Singh, of Tilgaun.”

  Ommony laughed sharply, the way a deep-sea captain coughs sarcastic comment when a pilot has missed the tide. Here was the Secret Service after all! It was Sirdar Sirohe Singh who had sent the written report of the missing piece of jade to McGregor.

  “Come in,” he said abruptly, and made room on the bed for the sirdar to sit down. He did not try to pretend to be glad to see him, but the sirdar’s next words altered the whole aspect of affairs.

  “I do hope my letter to Number One did no harm,” he began, stretching out long legs in front of him and speaking at the tent wall. His English was almost perfect, but guttural and a trifle aspirated. “I was in a difficult position. As a member of the Secret Service I was obliged to report. As the Lama’s friend I felt — naturally — other obligations. It was not until I learned that you were assigned to investigate that I ceased to worry.”

  “Who told you?” asked Ommony.

  “Oh, I heard it. News travels, you know. No, I have not been in Delhi.” (He had answered Ommony’s thought; the question was unspoken.) “I arrived last night from the north. The Lama asked me to submit myself to your disposal.”

  “Does this place belong to you?” asked Ommony, examining the calm strong profile against the light. He had heard that the sirdar was a wealthy landowner.

  “No. The Lama has the temporary use of it.”

  “It was kind of you to — how did you express it? — submit yourself to
my disposal. What I most need is information,” said Ommony.

  “Ah. That is elusive stuff.”

  “Not if you keep after it. Tell me what you know about the Lama.”

  The sirdar turned his head quickly and looked straight at Ommony.

  “Did you receive a note from him?” he asked. “It was tied to the dog’s collar.”

  Ommony looked into the baffling dark eyes and could read nothing there except that the sirdar knew much more than he proposed to tell. He was also conscious of dislike, and knew that it was mutual.

  “Just to what extent are you at my disposal?” he asked bluntly.

  “I am to convey you to another place. Of course, that is, at the proper time and if you wish to go; not otherwise.”

  “Will the Lama be there?”

  “Possibly.”

  “Tell me what you know of Samding.”

  “Did you read the note?” asked the sirdar, again meeting Ommony’s stare. “I have a message for you from Miss Sanburn at the Tilgaun Mission. She entertained me the night I left Tilgaun. I admitted to her it was possible I might meet you somewhere. She asked me to convey affectionate regards and to say that she would appreciate notice of exactly when she may expect you.”

  Ommony turned that over in his mind for half a minute. He could imagine no legitimate reason why Hannah Sanburn should ask for notice in advance. As a trustee it was his duty to pay surprise visits. Mrs. Cornock-Campbell’s story of a girl named Elsa of whose very existence he had never previously heard, was a perfectly good reason for paying his next visit unannounced.

  “When will you be seeing Miss Sanburn again?” he asked.

  “Oh, quite soon.”