Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  “All right, Narayan Singh.”

  I was lifted from behind. Grim never was a weakling, but it puzzled me how he had found the strength to do that.

  “Sorry if it hurts,” he grunted.

  He began to carry me, but turned to see whether Narayan Singh was following. He was not; he was facing the enemy, hilt high, his saber looking like a beam of sunlight. The advancing monks were sheltering their eyes under their left arms.

  “Retire, Narayan Singh !” Grim called to him, but the Sikh did not move.

  “Go thou, Jimgrim sahib!” he shouted back. “There comes one with a pistol.”

  I could see a man advancing slowly; he was nearly midway between the monks and the commencement of the causeway, framed exactly by the open door a hundred yards behind him. Grim began to set me down, using time and thought to do it carefully, for I am no light weight.

  “Will you come, or shall I come and make you!” he demanded.

  “Nay! I see Rait!” the Sikh answered.

  In a second he was charging straight at the advancing monks. The first three flinched and tried to turn, but there was no room to pass the four who blocked the way behind them. They struggled. One slipped and fell over, screaming as he somersaulted through the sunlit air. Then the Sikh was into them and five more went after the first, the saber licking out like lightning stabs. The last one turned and ran, throwing his weapon away and picking up the skirts of his long cloak.

  “Now come!” Grim shouted. But Narayan Singh went in pursuit.

  The man with the pistol opened fire and at the third shot hit the monk, who toppled backward and went head-long into the ravine. A fourth shot whistled close to Grim and me. The man was dazzled by the sunlight; he kept bending his head to right and left, shielding his eyes with his left hand. Narayan Singh raced forward and Grim started after him, shouting to him to stop, but before he had gone ten paces the Sikh turned, waved his saber and shouted:

  “Rait! I have him!”

  He ran on again along the causeway. Rait reloaded and took aim, but the sun glared off the ice and off the quartz-like rock and three shots in succession missed, one splintering the ice near Grim’s feet. Then a fourth shot hit the Sikh and staggered him.

  His answering shout went echoing among the crags:

  “Rung ho!”

  Rait fired again. I think he hit a second time, but — up through his forearm — through the throat — and out behind his head the saber went with one of those long lunging thrusts for which Narayan Singh was famous.

  “Rung ho!” came the echoing shout again. Narayan Singh clutched air, fell forward on to Rait — writhed — slid — and the two went over, separating as they plunged into the abyss.

  Grim glanced up at the sky after a moment.

  “Vultures already,” he said.

  Then he stood still, looking down into the abyss, but someone fired a rifle at us from the ruined building and a group of monks came out through the open door. So Grim said nothing, but hoisted me up on his shoulders again and made all haste toward the tunnel mouth at the causeway’s other end — slipping, staggering, stumbling — ten times over we were closer than a hair’s breadth of the edge — and when he laid me down at last in echoing darkness he collapsed beside me.

  Then I heard a voice in Tibetan: “Gently! Very gently!” I was lifted and laid on a litter, and for a long time I was conscious of a litter swaying under me and of the footfalls and the steady breathing of the men who carried it. Somebody covered my face with a cloth after a while and I believe I slept. I dreamed about a ladder I was climbing — miles high and exactly upright. As I climbed, the lower rungs fell one by one, so there was no way down again. When I reached the top there was nothing there except blue sky and I stood swaying in the wind.

  I began to lose my balance, until Grim leaned through the blue above me with an outstretched hand and called to me to jump.

  I could not make it, and the last rung of the ladder began cracking underfoot.

  CHAPTER XXII. The Herdsman’s Hut.

  My son, when you have come to a decision between right and wrong, then act, not waiting on approval. If you do right it will add no virtue to the right that friends gave their assent beforehand; rather it will give a false friend opportunity to strengthen his attachment, so that ultimately you may listen to him to your own undoing. If you do wrong it will harm you not at all that enemies rejoice, since proper motive will preserve you in the end and it is well to have our enemies uncovered. Be your own judge. But commit no trespass, watchfully remembering that where another’s liberty begins your own inevitably meets its boundary.

  — from The Book Of The Sayings Of Tsiang Samdup

  I AWOKE in a herdsman’s hut. A gale was blowing and crisp snowflakes fell through a square hole in the roof into a yak-dung fire that burned on a stone hearth underneath it. I was lying against a partition that divided the hut down the middle; men were talking on the other side of it in low tones, but it was difficult to hear because of the blustering wind, and equally difficult to see because the smoke explored the room in clouds before a little of it found its way out through the hole.

  I tried to raise myself but had the sickening experience of feeling too weak. My mouth tasted as if I had been made to swallow medicine, and for a while I was still confused by the vivid dream from which I had awakened. Gradually, however, recollection came, and not long after that I began to distinguish Grim’s voice, near my head, between me and the end wall. He was talking English.

  “All the same,” he said, “I should like to tell Jeff why you could not help us more definitely than you did. When Jeff comes to he will learn that your men brought litters, waited for Narayan Singh, and me to rescue him and the babu, and then carried them all the way to this place. And I know my friend Jeff. He will ask why you could do that but couldn’t help in the actual rescue. I’m not questioning your actions; I’m simply asking what to say to him.”

  “Tell him the plain truth,” said Lhaten’s unmistakable voice. “You may say we don’t take life for any reason.”

  There was a pause. Then Grim resumed: “He’ll take my word for that, I don’t doubt. But, as I say, I know him; he will feel as sorry about Narayan Singh as I do — very likely worse. He isn’t demonstrative but—”

  “I know,” Lhaten answered. “He loves his friends, but he hasn’t understood yet that death strengthens friendship rather than reduces it. We all die. We all meet again — some of us with fewer limitations and more knowledge. It was no harm that Narayan Singh should die fighting. Better that than be killed in a brawl or in an unjust cause, as so many soldiers die. Rait undoubtedly would have shot you and your friend Ramsden if Narayan Singh had not prevented.”

  “What makes you sure of that?” asked Grim.

  “Knowledge,” said Lhaten. “If you think a minute you will know too. Did you ever know a criminal to spare old friends who are ashamed of him? He hoped to be the perfect criminal, yet in his heart he knew he had neither the intelligence required for that nor yet the courage. He was in the hands of little dugpas, of the sort who aspire to be big ones but lack imagination. Those are as jealous as snakes. Their whole venom is jealousy and they had poisoned what was left of him. He hated you and Ramsden because he had failed. Didn’t you hear Ramsden talking in his sleep — how he cried out that Jimgrim had died believing him an untrue friend? I don’t doubt Rait had told him that.”

  “Well,” said Grim, “when Ramsden wakes up he will ask why, if you and your brotherhood know so much, you didn’t protect us all from those black rascals. He’ll say it was strange that you let me be knocked down and stripped before you stirred a finger, and still more strange that you let them be taken prisoners and carried off. What shall I answer him?”

  “The plain truth.”

  “I don’t know the truth of it,” said Grim, “except that certain individuals have been kind enough to order you to protect us in all ways possible.”

  “In all ways possible,” Lhaten
’s voice repeated. “But would you ask a musician to make inharmonies in order to teach music to you? Or must you think in terms of music before the musician’s thought can reach yours?”

  Grim seemed to be thinking that over. When he spoke at last I could almost see him smile:

  “Do you think that explanation would be any use to Jeff? He likes his eggs fried both sides, with the date on ’em.”

  “If he can’t understand, he must fail, that is all,” said Lhaten. “Like any true musician, or poet, or sculptor, we are always doing our best to stir humanity. But artists can only reach such people as respond to the artistic impulse; others seem to look, or seem to listen, but the art means nothing to them and they either mock or misinterpret. We think thoughts. We breathe out principles. The dugpas interfere in every detail of the lives of those whom they have in submission — and the poor fools call it luck, or the act of God, or providence. You see, the dugpas have persuaded a great number of people that neither they, nor we, exist; so, although crime, madness, suicide and discontent are on the increase, they who have authority ascribe it to all causes but the right one. Nevertheless, you may have noticed that benevolence and altruism and a spirit of inquiry also are increasing, in quantity as well as quality. That is because it makes no difference whatever what a man’s religion or his politics may be; a principle is universal, and whoever apprehends one lives it, or begins to live it — until presently it bursts the bonds of his religion or his politics, exactly as a tree root bursts the rock in which it grew. It is the object of the dugpas to prevent men from grasping principles. I assure you, those were very little, unimportant dugpas who had caught Rait and who attacked you; they were like the criminals who murder at the bidding of the unsuspected hierarchies that infest civilization.”

  “Well and good,” said Grim, “we all know there are master criminals who hardly ever get caught. But what am I to tell Jeff Ramsden? If I should ask him he would go the limit. His religion is friendship, if you can call that a religion. He would rather see a friend through to a finish, even when he doubts the outcome, than turn aside and make a profit on his own account. I don’t want that. I would rather he should see the thing as I do and go forward on his own responsibility.”

  “Every man goes forward on his own responsibility,” said Lhaten. “There is no escape from it. But no two healthy men think quite alike, or there would be no such thing as independent judgment. We never interfere with anyone unless he reaches out to us. We could not help Rait. We could not even help that splendid man Narayan Singh — at least, not much — so long as he depended on his saber. Don’t you see that to help a man win saber fights is to increase his faith in sabers? We prefer to guide that valor and integrity into much more profitable channels; but how shall we guide unless the individual is willing to be guided? We are not dugpas, who compel obedience. We, are like musicians, who play harmonies for you to follow if you can; and just as, let us say, Beethoven could not compromise with those who did not understand him, or who detested his music, neither can we compromise. It is for you, or for anyone else, to agree or not as you see fit.

  “I shall try to explain what happened. When you were in that monastery talking to the yellow lama you appealed to me.”

  “I did not,” Grim retorted.

  Lhaten laughed. “Didn’t you think of me?” he asked.

  “Yes. I wished like the deuce you were there to explain why we were led to that place and how to get swag.”

  “That opened a line of communication. I could reach you. I sent you a warning, but you did not understand it entirely; in fact, you hardly understood at all. What you did was to get up to go and explore. It was a most emphatic warning against violence, because violence is the dugpas’ specialty, at which they can beat you easily. If you should win by violence against them you would merely play into the hands of other dugpas, who are worse than they. So I warned you against violence. But how did you interpret it?”

  “I received no warning,” Grim, answered.

  “No? What did you do at the door of the stable?”

  “I told Narayan Singh to stand guard outside, and I gave him my pistol.”

  “Why?”

  “I hadn’t used it for a long time. He had asked to look at it the day before. As he was going to stand outside I thought he might as well employ his time.”

  “Why did you leave him outside?”

  “Impulse. No sense in two of us going in. I preferred to know exactly where he was, in case of need.”

  “Do you realize that if you had kept your pistol you would certainly have used it? If you had taken him into the stable with you there would certainly have been a fight. The noise would have brought Ramsden and Chullunder Ghose into the trap, and the outcome would have been much worse than it actually was. It was bad enough anyhow. Why didn’t you cry out, when you shut the stable door and struck a match and knew you were surrounded?”

  “It flashed on me that they would kill Narayan Singh the moment he should open the door. It was better to leave him outside to join forces with Jeff Ramsden.”

  “That decision saved you,” Lhaten answered. “Do you remember what happened next?”

  “Not clearly.”

  “Well, they knocked you on the head and you had sense enough to lie still. Otherwise they would have killed you. They dragged you to that pile of sheepskins in the corner and lifted you up through a hole in the wall, that was almost entirely hidden by the shadows and a transverse beam. Up there in the hole they stripped you naked. And it was there that I found you later on.”

  “Where were you while this was happening?”

  “Too far away to have come to your help one second sooner than I did. Remember, I am nothing but a chela. I am not so limited as you in some respects, and I knew there was serious danger, so I warned you of it, meanwhile hurrying to get as near you as I could. Remember, I am not allowed to oppose violence with violence because that defeats its purpose; my effort was directed to induce you to rise above it.

  “I tried to reach all four of you. There was a woman in the monastery who was being employed to stir up Ramsden and Chullunder Ghose. The dugpas work on the principle that if you irritate you will get action and the action will follow the line of least resistance. Ramsden was the man they wanted. They weren’t so foolish as to think that women could inveigle him; they simply made use of her to irritate him, and presently Ramsden, Chullunder Ghose and Narayan Singh all walked into the trap.”

  “What saved Narayan Singh that time?” Grim asked.

  “Fidelity. The man’s sole thought was how to save his friends’ lives. Even fighting can’t entirely smother that fine motive. It enabled me to reach him; and I think I reached Ramsden at the same time; Ramsden was probably thinking of nothing but how to find you and protect you from the trap. Ramsden ordered Narayan Singh to go and find you if he could. The Sikh obeyed him and fell down a well in the dark, so his pursuers missed him. The well was not very deep but the rope was slippery with ice, so it took him nearly an hour to climb out.”

  “Do you mean you foresaw that?” Grim asked.

  “Not I! No more than a musician foresees the effect of music on an audience. He merely plays the harmonies. Emotion does the rest. Have you not seen a beaten regiment stirred by half a dozen bugles and a drum until it rallies? That is the crudest possible illustration. True music appeals to the inner more than to the outer ear; it stirs that spirit in a man that catches inspiration. And the force I have been taught to use is ten times subtler than the rarest music. Let it only reach a man in a moment when his finest thought is active and it will rend the veil between him and his own reality. Then he will do the right thing always — even if it means that he shall tumble down a well!”

  “You saw him die,” said Grim.

  “There was a thought of hatred then. He hated Rait. He wanted his revenge on Rait. I could not make him hear. Did you try?”

  “Yes. He disobeyed,” Grim answered.

  “Nevertheless, h
e very likely saved your life and Ramsden’s. There are deaths much less magnificent than that,” said Lhaten.

  “Ramsden will want to know,” said Grim, “why you could furnish stretcher- bearers and could come that long way with Narayan Singh and me, but could not lift a finger in the actual work of rescue. He’s a whole-hearted old dog. He doesn’t like men who appear to him to sit on fences when the issue is in doubt. I think I understand you, but I’m pretty nearly sure I can’t explain it to him.”

  “Ask him then,” said Lhaten, “whether, if he should wish to stop a dog fight, he would get down and fight like the dogs with his teeth. And if not, why not? He will say he knows better. He is likely to admit that he would lose the whole advantage of superior intelligence and would find himself on a plane where the dogs were his masters. Does a fireman go into the fire? Does the conductor of an orchestra play all the instruments — even though in his day he has had to play many of them? Does the architect lay bricks? Does the poet set type? And if he who tends the beacon light should leave it to direct the rescue, who could see? I am no match for the dugpas if I try to fight them with their weapons. Each of us must use what he can to best advantage, and there is deadly danger in another’s duty, just as there is duty in another’s danger. When Ramsden wakes ask him whether he had any sensation of power in reserve while he was in the dugpas’ hands. I did my best to stir that consciousness and once or twice I think I reached him.”

  They were silent for a long time after that. Outside it blew a hurricane that shook the roof, beating the smoke back through the hole and filling the hut with a stinging blue cloud. Hail and snow sizzled on the hearth and Grim went and stirred the fire to keep it from going out, heaping on dry yak-dung to protect it. He came and looked at me, but I pretended to be sleeping.

  “How far are we from the goal?” he asked when he sat down again.