by Talbot Mundy
“It can curse as well as bless!” he said meaningly.
“I bade thee bless me with it!”
“Aye, but I will curse thee with it unless thou art amenable!”
“To what?”
“To me!”
“Mashallah! Thou art an Arab. Shall I obey an Arab? Thou truly art an Arab — is it not so?”
“Aye,” said Grim, “a Hajji. Thrice I have made the pilgrimage to Mecca.”
“Thrice blessed one!” said Akbar bin Mahommed. “Nay, I will not be cursed! What then?”
Grim seemed to hesitate, but I knew that he was acting; he had made his mind up. He clutched the tooth in its paper wrapping close to his breast, as if he loved it. His eyes glowed as he stared at Akbar bin Mahommed, and he seemed to recognise in the hillman’s face something splendid — something that thrilled him. Yet he clutched the tooth again, and seemed to wage a war within himself, forcing himself at last to speak.
“Thou art a man — a very man — a man indeed — a good man, art thou not?” he asked.
“None better!” said the hillman modestly.
“And a good chief thou wouldst be?”
“Aye, had I but a following. But the fools follow others.”
“They would follow the tooth of Mahommed, the Prophet of God!”
“Aye!”
“And thee if it were thine!”
“By Allah, would they not! Nevertheless, thou art a holy Hajji, and I will not slay thee, even to possess the tooth!”
Grim looked astonished. His jaw dropped. Astonishment gave place to wonder — wonder to admiration — admiration to excitement — excitement at last to a measure of caution. It was marvelous good acting.
“Near the place where the Prophet of Allah used to pray in the holy city of Mecca, a very holy and white-bearded sheikh, who used to pray there seven times daily, waiting for the hour when he should die, gave me the blessed Prophet’s Tooth,” said Grim.
“Peace be to him! In the name of the Most High, peace to him!” said Akbar bin Mahommed.
“Thrice seven years had he waited there, praying seven times daily in that spot, keeping all the fasts. And when he saw me he knew me instantly, having oftentimes beheld me in a vision in a dream,” said Grim.
“Allaho akbar!”
“He pressed the blessed tooth into my hands, thus, wrapped in this paper that bears the Prophet’s blessing written with his own hand.”
“Allaho akbar!”
“And he laid a charge on me.”
“Thrice blessed one!”
“‘Go thou,’ said he to me, ‘to the mountains northwest of Peshawar, where thou shalt find a man — a warrior — a very Rustum — whose name shall be an attribute to God, and whose other name shall be the Prophet’s.’ That might be thou,” Grim suggested.
“I and no other!”
“‘With him have word,’ said he. And he described the man to me, signifying such an one as thou art — even with a white scar like a star, five-pointed, on the face between the eye and nose.”
“Allah! Surely he meant me then!”
“‘But I charge thee in the name of the All-wise,’ said he, ‘to have great care lest the holy tooth should fall into evil incapable hands. For the tooth is for that one whom thou shalt meet; and when he shall possess the tooth he shall straightway become a great chieftain.’”
“It is I, and no other! Give me then the tooth,” exclaimed Akbar bin Mahommed.
“And he spoke to me after this wise: ‘There is a good man, who shall have the holy tooth, and a bad one, who will greatly desire it. Each of them will say these words to thee: “Thou art a holy Hajji, and I will not slay thee, even to possess the tooth.” ‘Nevertheless,’ said he again, ‘thou shalt know the good one from the evil one after this manner. Lo, he who is evil will refuse to obey thee. But he who is good will obey thee in all things for a hundred days, or until such time as thou releases him. To him, when he has obeyed thee, give the tooth, with my blessing in the Name of Names. He shall be a great chief.’”
Akbar bin Mahommed’s eyes burned. His fingers clutched his knife-blade. He could have killed Grim for the tooth that instant, but for his own vow not to, and for a certain dim sense of the proprieties.
“Lo, I obey thee! Have I not obeyed?” he asked, with bated breath. Excitement had him by the throat. He could hardly speak.
“Not yet for an hundred days,” Grim answered. “Nor have I yet met the second man — the evil one. When I meet him—”
“Ill for him in that hour!” the hillman interrupted. “I will slay the dog in Allah’s name! I will hack him into pieces and burn the foul bits on a dung-heap! It is I who am the good one, I assure thee!”
“Maybe,” Grim answered. “We have yet to prove that. Lo, there is a great trust laid on me, and I must put thee to the utmost test.”
Akbar bin Mahommed thumped his breast and laid his forehead on the cave- floor. Then, looking straight into Grim’s eyes:
“Inshallah, I will not fail!” he said simply. “I obey thee. And moreover, this being the will of Allah, and the charge of the holy sheikh, it must follow that I pass unscathed through all things! Can I die and yet possess this tooth? Nay. Then since I must possess the tooth — for that is written — surely I cannot die! Lo, then, I am a lion! Lo, not Ali was a safer one than I! I may dare all things! Obey? I will obey thee if the order is to walk through fire....”
“By the Forty Martyrs, I am not a madman!” answered Grim, judging his customer shrewdly. “What good would it do me to see a fool singe himself? It is my orders not thy boastfulness thou must obey!”
“Say the word, and I march to Mecca, Hajji!”
“Nay, for then I could not keep an eye on thee.”
“Bid me slay an hundred men!”
“Not thou, but I, must choose the orders.”
“Choose then, Hajji! Be swift! My bosom burns! By Allah, I obey thee if the order is to—” (he glanced at me and grinned)— “to fight this Ramm-is-den!”
“Nay, Ramm-is-den is my friend,” answered Grim.
“I will slay you the Sikh, then!”
“He likewise. It is I who choose the deeds that must be done.”
“In Allah’s name then, choose thou, Hajji! Be swift with the beginning!”
Little the hillman guessed what a taskmaster he was dealing with. Grim’s eyes, whose color is all mixed of grey, and blue, and brown, so that those who know him hardly ever agree as to what their color really is, hardened — lost their romantic gleam — grew cold, with a different fervor. Narayan Singh, who knew that sign of old, caught his breath sharply and leaned forward.
“Does Kangra Khan know you have taken the part of the sahiba, and of this sahib, and of this Sikh?” Grim asked.
“Nay. How should he?”
“Does he know you were made prisoner?”
“Surely. Why not? I was either a prisoner or a dead man. Allah! What else should he think?”
“But those men with whom you fought in the dark? Your brother Ali? Will they not tell Kangra Khan you are alive and a traitor?”
“Nay, I know them! They will say I was stealing the sahiba on my own account, having made my own escape. They will show the loot I took from the Waziri packs. They will say she watched it for me. Kangra Khan will laugh, saying I am, lo, a greater thief than ever!”
“Presently,” said Grim, “before the sun sets, thou shalt go with me to the cavern where Kangra Khan is. Thy first task is to introduce me to him, winning his great favour in consequence, boasting thou hast persuaded me to show him favour.”
Akbar bin Mahommed looked first incredulous, then crafty. Then his face lit with guile and greed as all the possibilities of this new turn of events dawned on his imagination.
“Allah be praised, who designeth all things!” he exclaimed. “I understand thee! I will slay this Kangra Khan, who is a cockerel from a very smelly dung-heap. Then thou shalt give me the Prophet’s Tooth, and proclaim me chief. Thus shall the pro
phecy be fulfilled! Thou art a wise and cunning fellow, Hajji — a strong one and a bold! Hah! Inshallah, I shall be a great chief; and there shall be a war such as these borders have never before seen!”
“There shall be a cursing such as thou hast never heard!” Grim hastened to assure him. And with that, he passed his hand over his mouth, removing the plate that holds in place the false teeth of his upper jaw on either side. His cheeks sunk instantly. It changed the whole expression of his face, making him almost unrecognizable. Then he scowled, squinted inward, thrust his tongue between his teeth, and made a noise in his throat that resembled something boiling up from within him. He waved the tooth in its paper packet to and fro.
“Nay, Hajji! Nay! What have I done? Nay! Keep thy curses for an enemy. I am thy friend — indeed thy friend! By Allah, I will obey thee! Say the word, and I will nestle Kangra Khan to my bosom. I will slay his enemies! I will—”
Grim’s aspect changed, although he did not let a hint of a smile escape him.
“I begin to believe thou art truly the one,” he said, nodding.
“Aye. By Allah, I am he! No doubt of it!”
Grim passed the tooth to me. With utmost outward reverence I stowed it out of sight.
“These two,” said Grim, pointing to Narayan Singh and me, “are made custodians of the holy tooth until such time as I, and no other, bid them convey it to thee. Thou and I are thus freed, I of danger, and thou of temptation.”
“I would not slay thee, little Hajji!”
“Nay, I know it. And it would be yet more difficult to slay these two men. Moreover, should accident befall me — for none knoweth when his hour comes — these two will keep the tooth, because they may not part with it without my order.”
“Little Hajji, how I will preserve thee! None less than Allah shall do thee a harm! I will nurse thee like a fledgling! But who shall preserve them?”
“Allah, who is Lord of all,” said Grim.
“Yet the one is a Sikh, who is damned, and the other an Amelikani, whose god is a dollar, as all the world knows! A pious Moslem would deem he did Allah a favour by driving a bullet through both of them!”
“That is why I have appointed them custodians of the tooth,” said Grim. “It will preserve them both.”
Akbar bin Mahommed saw the force of that, but he was far from satisfied. However, it was no use arguing with Grim; a very kaffir could have seen that the Hajji was full to the brim of retorts and evasiveness, and besides, the longer he talked the longer it would be before he won the tooth and with it a key to chieftainship. By the look in his eyes he already saw himself unquestioned ruler of a thousand villages. [ Unbeliever]
“I am ready. Allah is my witness,” he said proudly — simply. No crusader starting for the Holy Land ever felt, or looked, more consecrated.
Grim turned to me and spoke in Arabic, which might as well have been ancient Greek as far as Akbar bin Mahommed was concerned, although he could mouth a few Koran texts from memory.
“I don’t care to meet Kangra Khan before dark,” he said. “That night when he first called on us the fire was between him and me, but even so he might recognise me, even with my teeth out. I have no particular plan except to go close and get word with Miss Leich. After that, if possible, I mean to discover what Kangra Khan intends. They may march tonight. So as soon as it’s dark you two would better go as close as you dare. I’ll try to send our friend here back to get in touch with you, so keep a look out. But if I fail to do that, and Kangra Khan marches, follow on our heels.”
“What about King and the Waziris?” I suggested.
“He’s already to the northward, trying to work between Kangra Khan and his probable objective. He’ll try to persuade the Waziris to put up another fight, but they’re short of ammunition and may prefer to scatter and run. In that case King will try to raise some other clans to hound Kangra Khan. There’s nothing certain. The next half-hour may see us all dead. On the other hand, we may rescue Miss Leich tonight. You fellows must be alert and use discretion.”
Narayan Singh grunted. He loves commands of that kind. Once in Palestine they gave him a letter to carry across the Jordan and down into Arabia, with leave to use discretion; and he was so discreet that he came back uninjured, with an answer and two camel-loads of loot. Besides, he knows those gruesome hills more or less, having campaigned among them rather frequently when he was in the Indian Army. He was all I had to rely on, for I don’t know those hills at all; and though I understand the lingua franca, I speak it with an obviously foreign accent.
It does not amuse me to be sniped by dark or daylight. I believe Narayan Singh enjoys it. I enjoy a stand-up fight, although I’m ashamed to admit it; but cold steel in the dark gives me the shudders when I think of it. Narayan Singh prefers cold steel to rifle-fire. Grim revels in work, no matter what it is. He stood in the cave-mouth, back to the light.
“Allah keep you, my brothers. Allah give you strength and courage. Allah bless you!” he said — and was gone.
“I know a thousand gods superior to Allah!” said Narayan Singh.
CHAPTER 8. “We’ve one chance in a million. Are we all set?”
IT was blowing a gale of dry, cold wind when Narayan Singh and I left the cave. To the westward there was the last light of a yellow sunset on the bellies of aloof clouds — liars like the hillmen, threatening a rain they had no notion of delivering. It was darker than a coal-hole underfoot, for the moon had not risen, and the rocks cast shadow everywhere. No stars yet visible, because of high-hung clouds. No sense of direction; no guide but the feel of the wind on your cheek and, now and then, when we topped a rise, the crimson glow of flame in the throat of a cavern a mile away. A mile, that is, as crows are said to fly; about five miles by the route we had to take. The wind seemed to blow clean through you.
We scrambled and stumbled for about two hours, more or less in an arc of a circle, helping each other over steep places, and grateful for the shelter from the wind when the road (for that was what Narayan Singh called it, and he swore it was a good one for that neighbourhood) dipped into deep hollows. How he found the way I don’t know, for once we went more than half an hour without catching sight of the crimson glow; but we halted at last and lay down in the eye of the wind on a ledge half-way up the side of the deep ravine opposite the cavern in which Kangra Khan and Joan Angela were supposed to be.
It was nearly, but not quite, impossible to keep watch there, for the bitter wind made our eyes run; and it was so cold that when I borrowed Narayan Singh’s rifle and took a sight along it, just on general principles, I could not hold the foresight on the mark for trembling. However, we could see the glow of the fire; and at moments, when we wiped our eyes, we could see men, or perhaps women, going and coming.
“They carry the loads out,” said Narayan Singh. “They march tonight.”
No sign of Grim. No sign of Joan Angela. Nothing to show that either she or he was over there. Both, for aught we could prove, were lying dead in the ravine, and about all that we could do was to hope and hang on. Now and then the wind swept down the ravine with such force that it nearly blew us off the ledge, and at last I grew rebellious.
“This isn’t as close as we can get,” I said — down-wind into the Sikh’s ear. “I’m going closer.”
I did not wait for him to object, but started there and then to clamber down into the ravine, not caring how much noise I made, nor seeking cover, for we were in shadow on our side, and sound was carried along so swiftly by the wind that no one who heard could judge our whereabouts.
None did hear — not even the man I stepped on, who was no more aware of me than I of him, until he felt my weight between his shoulders and tried to squirm out from under. Narayan Singh dropped down beside me on another man, nearly breaking his back, and in a second we were fighting blind-man’s- bluff in total darkness, with long knives whickering to right and left, and nothing to be seen at all. Narayan Singh clubbed his rifle; I heard the butt descend on something and a
cry as a bone broke. Then I thought I saw something at last — fired at it point-blank with the pistol — and hit a horse. No doubt of that whatever. It was a shod horse; it kicked and struck sparks as it fell. Someone fired back at me, and then a voice said:
“By any chance, is that you, Jeff?”
It was King’s voice! I would know it in a thousand, and Narayan Singh exploded one great guttural monosyllabic laugh. I heard King calling off his men, and he had his work cut out, for we had injured three of them and tempers run quick and high in those infernal hills. But he managed it somehow, and came in the dark to stand between us, smoking a cigarette, which he held very carefully in the hollow of his cupped hand.
“Let’s hope Kangra Khan’s men didn’t hear your pistol-shot,” he said. “Where’s Grim?”
I told him where I hoped Grim was, and he nodded. “How many men have you?” I asked him.
“Fifty,” he said, “less three you’ve hurt. The rest have cleared off home, and stand no chance of getting there.”
“Grim thinks you’re to the northward,” I told him.
“Couldn’t make my fifty march,” he answered. “Our only chance is to nab Kangra Khan as he comes out. Tonight or never! Another morning’ll see all the hills out after our Waziris. I’ve promised these men, if they’ll see this through, to try to lead them back across the border where we’ll let ’em take refuge until the situation clears a bit.”
“Any sign of Joan Angela?” I asked him.
“None. But there’s somebody or something important in there that they’re keeping out of sight. By Gad, I’m worried about Grim. I should have seen him. The firelight betrays anyone who passes the cavern-mouth. Tell you what,” he said after a pause, “one of us should go close and find out.”
Narayan Singh volunteered for that duty almost before the words had left King’s lips, but King suggested I should go too, because his men were none too pleased with us for having put three of them out of action, and it would be easier to calm them in our absence.
“Cover each other,” he said. “If you can, let Grim know where we are. When Kangra Khan starts to lead his men out, duck, for we’ll ambush ’em, and there’ll be wild work! Then see if you and Grim between you can’t bag the girl and get away with her. If she’s shot, that’s kismet. Our best is the best we can do for her. So long.”