by Talbot Mundy
“I told you I hit him!” he said, thrusting his chin at Ommony.
“Yes, you did say so.”
Ommony turned his back to hide a grin, winked at the other two, and began peering into the undergrowth. Jeff took twenty strides down the behind him, picked up an empty brass shell, obliterated traces of his own heels in the mould. Ommony sent a jungli up a sar tree, to crawl along an overhanging branch and peer downward. The jungli said two words. Ommony answered. The jungli broke off dead wood dropped it — spoke again.
“All right,” said Ommony. “Dogs in first.”
So Diana led the way, with the other two yelping at her heels. The junglis hacked behind them with the knives that were their only badge of office. In five minutes Ommony was counting the whiskers and claws of a male tiger, lest the men who would have to take the pelt off should add to their private store of talismans against the devils of the forest.
“There!” said Strange. “You said I’d kill him if I hit him from that angle.”
That was Strange’s measure of concession, magnanimous for sake of the proprieties. His voice was an unrighteous crow, and Ommony, with his finger in the bullet-hole, making note of the angle of impact, said nothing. Jeff gathered up the carcase and carried it out into the clearing, while the junglis clucked in amazement, because it takes four of them to carry a grown tiger on a pole; and only Ommony observed how carefully Jeff laid the carcase down. Strange might otherwise have seen the hole through which the bullet emerged, after tearing straight across from rib to rib, behind the heart — out of a rifle nearly on a level with the tiger, broadside to.
“Huh! My first tiger! Hu — humum!”
It was meant there should be others to follow this one. Acquisitiveness had its claws in. To Meldrum Strange there was no such thing as enough of anything he liked. Now he would no longer have to be satisfied to smile contemptuously at club members who donated big-game trophies to decorate the rooms (with their names underneath on neat brass plates); he would be one of them. After all, he wasn’t only a millionaire, he was human being who had missed a lot of fun he was entitled to.
“You asked me to stay a month, I think?”
“Yes, at least a month,” said Ommony.
“I will.”
Three faces changed. Jeff’s and Charley’s fell; they had been confident that Strange would cut his visit short, and had hoped to be left him for a few days. Ommony’s rose like a barometer. His enemy had delivered himself into his hand.
“The forest is yours,” he said delightedly, but added, “for a month then,” by way of afterthought thought.
“It’ll suit me,” Strange announced pompously. “Do my health good. And I needn’t waste time, seeing I’ve Ramsden with me. Have you horses, Mr. Ommony?”
Jeff’s face fell lower yet. He shook his head at Ommony from behind Strange’s back. But Ommony could not deny he had three horses in the stable.
“Good. If you’ll lend me two horses, and a few of your savages to show the way, I can ride about with Ramsden and we’ll have a good look at this forest of yours. Something might come of it.”
Ommony did not care. He never did doubt Destiny when Destiny dealt him the joker. He trod homeward with a lighter step, enduring Strange’s arrogance without a twinge, indifferent to the fact that the other two were gloomy.
“And as for Charley,” Strange said suddenly, “I’ll send him home.” Perhaps some memory of how Charley had attached himself revived resentment. “You’re not cut out for this kind of thing,” he said over his shoulder. “You’d better return to New York on the next ship. I’ll give you an order on the New York office for your pay.”
“Can you beat that?” asked Charley in an overtone to the world at large.
“Keep you from buzzing about India. Go home, and go to work!” Strange snorted.
Jeff’s terrific grip on Charley’s shoulder saved a hot retort, Jeff having notions of his own, and the rest of the walk home was made in silence, Strange being awkwardly aware of a great storm brewing behind him. But he was set on his purpose now. No argument from Jeff or anyone was going to move him one iota. Charley should go home. Jeff and he would ride about the forest, appraising it, and killing big game. He strode up the steps of Ommony’s bungalow as if he owned the place, and Jeff intercepted Ommony.
“D’you care if I’m in there alone with him first for a minute or two?” Jeff asked.
“Very much. I object!”
“I want a minute’s talk with him. If he answers back, I’ll thrash him. He may have the tiger, but he can’t treat Charley that way, and keep me. I’m through with the brute.”
“One minute,” said Ommony. “Just how far are you and I friends?”
Jeff hesitated, looking straight into Ommony’s eyes. Each knew the other for a man worth trusting but the big man’s anger had risen until the veins on his forehead swelled.
“This isn’t the first time Strange has made a beast of himself in front of me,” he said, with that slow, deliberate impressiveness that argues behind the words. “It’s the last!”
“After all, I’m host. Why not leave this me?” said Ommony.
“Oh, if you put it that way, I’ll go now. You may tell him I’m through and will call or later.”
“Charley’s going to stay,” said Ommony. “How can he?”
“He’s my guest.”
“Then Strange will go.”
“Not if you stay.”
“What’s the use?”
“You see this forest? Strange has made mind to cut down every tree in it. I’m alone against him. I want your backing. I want you to help me keep him here occupied, until I have time to upset his plan.”
“Humm! He won’t listen to me if I argue against it,” said Jeff. “He’s mule-headed.”
“Precisely. Then argue for it. Stay here and help me.”
“I’m on the brute’s pay roll,” Jeff objected.
“All right, give him his money’s worth. Show him what the forest would be worth to an exploiter.”
“Let me take him by the neck and throw him into the first train leaving for Bombay!”
“The worst thing you could do,” said Ommony. “You’d rouse all the monster in him. If he couldn’t ruin you—”
“He can’t. I’m independent, thank the Lord!”
“ — he’d make me deputy and have revenge on me. He’d have to vent his spleen on something, so he’d steal or buy a concession and make this place a howling wilderness.”
“I think he would,” Jeff answered. “Would it break you?”
“Oh, no. I’ve saved a competence. But look.” He took Jeff’s arm and turned him toward the fairest view of nursed and well-loved timber. “Perhaps a hundred years from now—”
Jeff nodded.
“Yes. I’ve seen him at it. I’ve exploited for him; but that was gold and silver — you can take them anytime. All right Ommony.”
They did not shake hands. An understanding that was much too deep and elemental for surface expression had made them partners. Both men were conscious of a pact that might involve immeasurable consequences. The law of hospitality, that says a guest may not be allowed to betray himself; the law of loyalty, that grants the same grace to the employer; Jeff’s habit of open dealing, and Ommony’s of absolute reliance on a Destiny he trusted, were all in danger and both men knew it. They had pledged themselves to the lesser of two evils, for lack of an obvious third course, and neither of them liked it, but both were resolute. Jeff strode away to the stables to let his anger cool, there being something about horses that comforts and restores the self-control of outdoor men. Ommony looked for Charley and found him packing his camera in the improvised dark-room.
“You’ll stay, of course,” he said, abruptly, divining instantly that Charley would not.
“You bet! I’ll stay away from him. If this wasn’t your house—”
“But it is,” said Ommony.
“I’d lick him first! Maybe I can’t, but I’d
treat myself to the attempt.”
“I’d have to protect him, of course.”
“Sure. I’ve no quarrel with you.”
“What’s your plan, then?”
“Nothing. Pull out of here, and then think. Lend me your rig to the station, soon as I get this stuff packed. If I see him again there’ll be trouble.”
“Have you money?”
“Not much. But I’ll take no more of his.”
“Let me help out.”
“Thanks. No. I’ve enough to get to Delhi. Zelmira’s there. Maybe she’ll finance a scheme for—”
Ommony whistled softly, so that Diana, close at heel, became alert for the unforeseen. She knew that signal of her master’s changing mood.
“Why, what’s up?” asked Charley.
“The flag,” said Ommony. “It’s nailed up. Any port in a storm, and any friend in tr — . Tell me, to what extent do you feel beholden to your late employer?”
“From now on? Nix! He’s mud for all of me.”
“So if Madame Poulakis should ask you for news of Strange’s whereabouts, you’d—”
“Tell her he’s not fit to run with. Gee! What a woman like her can see in him—”
“Isn’t that her affair?” asked Ommony.
“Maybe. It’s mine to tell her what I think, and I will if she freezes me for it.”
“But you’ll tell her where he is?”
“Maybe’if she wants to know, after I’m through knocking him.”
“Let me pay your fare to Delhi!”
Charley made a hand-spring to the workbench, and sat there looking at Ommony with those sky-bright eyes that read vague nuances between the light and shadow.
“What’s up?” he asked again. “I’d do a lot to help you.”
“Is Madame Poulakis clever?”
“As blazes! Only dumb thing about her is she wants Strange. Cave-man stuff, I reckon.”
“Well: suppose you warn her against Strange—”
“I’ll do that sure, first thing! What then?”
“If she persists after that, would you give her a message from me, as an absolute stranger?”
“I’ll tell her anything you say.”
“Say this: that Strange contemplates using his money and influence to grab this forest, and she can have me for ally on sole condition that she helps me to prevent that, by using her influence with Strange.”
“If, as, and when!” said Charley. “Sure. I get you. If that’s his game, why don’t you go straight to headquarters and spike it?”
“Daren’t. If I should leave here Strange would jump to the right conclusion. Knowledge that I was opposing him would only make him keener, and he can beat us all with his money ridden influence. He could buy some politicians and the native press’pull strings’and have the forest. This fight has got to be personal between Meldrum Strange and me. I’m looking for allies.”
“I’m one,” said Charley.
“Let’s hope she’ll be another.”
“Yes. But listen here,” said Charley. “I reserve the right to warn her first. I’m going to tell her what I think of Strange, and why.”
“Agreed.”
“I’ll warn her he’s no good, and that if she gets him she’ll regret it from the minute they sign up. I’ll rub it in good, with illustrations a lecture on the side, and give her a day a night to think it over. After that, if she’s still nuts on him, I’ll tell her I know she’s crazy, and chip in.”
“Satisfactory to me,” said Ommony.
“What’ll I tell her to do, though?”
“Leave that to her. Tell her she can count on me to help her, but on what terms, and say we’ve got thirty days to win or lose in. Now, let me provide you with money.”
“No. I’ve enough for the present.”
“Have lunch before you go, then. There’s no train till two o’clock.”
“No. Put up some eats for me. Send ’em to the station. I’ll wait there. If I see Strange again I’ll hurt him. Say — turn round — look through the door! D’you see that line of light down the edge of a monkey on the big tree over to the left? Look at him move now! Can you beat it?”
IV. — AS ESTHER TO AKAZUERUS
“Mon ami,
Bon ami,
Je fais mes compliments, Hopp-la-la!
Tra-la-la-la-la!
Je m’en fiche de vos dents!”
Ommony stepped back into his house, humming, and if not devoid of care, inclined to laugh at it. Great-hearted men, forever diving into gloom as the price of greatness, rise out of it again and soar the higher for it. Problems lie buried in earth; their hearts are of the empyrean. Ommony again could see his forest enduring for centuries, ripening, reseeding, fulfilling its destiny, as he proposed to fulfil his.
He was more than courteous to Strange; he charmed him. Gone was the feeling of being at the mercy of this invading Visigoth; unnatural restraint went with it, and he made it his business to soften the fall of the tyrant by giving him good entertainment to remember.
If he did have qualms, they had vanished. The means he meant to use were such as Strange provided him, nor had he any thought of personal gain. At the end of that first day he might have entered the millionaire’s employment almost on his own terms; for it was part of Strange’s pride that he could pick men, and he began to see the unusual characteristics of his host.
Of all the men in India who can weave tales from the entrails of events Cottswold Ommony stands first. His gift is to see below the surface, and interpret; and he sees so much more than camera or microscope, that what he says has a sound of half-humorous prophecy.
All rich men crave amusement, and enjoy the truth if it is handed to them on such terms as let them laugh at it, that being the old court jester’s secret. And there on the fringe of that forest all the world’s news seemed to come, for Ommony to turn over and subject to scrutiny.
It was not for Strange to know that Ommony stands high in the counsels of the ablest secret service in the world; or that men, near the throne send him sealed communications, to be returned with his marginal comment. His duty and pleasure are trees, and they, like his natural gifts, are a nation’s, to be drawn on in emergency.
So Strange learned things that are only guessed at by the politicians, and the days began to pass superbly&mdash:the best, almost the only true vacation Strange had in all his life. He and Ommony, and Jeff Ramsden with the least decrepit of the horses straining under him, explored the forest in all directions, Ommony diverting attention from the trees by telling of ancient races that had once owned cities there.
Whenever Strange became greedy for a stand of timber, it always seemed that they came to an ancient ruin, or the traces of a road, immediately. There Ommony would dismount, to give Jeff’s horse a chance, and would turn imagination loose among such facts as he had garnered, speculating on the ways and manners of nations dead centuries ago.
Strange had about decided to endow a new museum in the West when, on the fifth morning, as Jeff was starting for the stable to take pity on his horse before the day’s work, he stopped in the garden face to face with a fat Bengali babu.
“Chullunder Ghose!” he exclaimed. “You were fired for good and all. What are you doing here?”
The babu was resplendent in new cotton clothing and a silk turban of rainbow hue that would have shamed a peacock, but he sat down in the dust and fanned himself with a palm leaf. The action was apparently impromptu and induced by the heat; but he seemed aware that in that position a bed of flowers no brighter than his turban screened him effectually from the house.
“You were fired,” Jeff repeated.
“Yes. In moment of wrath deprived of pittance for support of wife and numerous dependents. Said brutality was highly desperate for brutalee. Am in new employment therefore.”
“Oh.”
“Yes, indeed.”
“Who’s the unfortunate employer? Mr. Ommony?
“No, sahib, no such luck; yet better luck.
This babu is much blessed.”
“Who are you robbing?”
“Immaculate and gorgeous creature, such as queens should envy and the wives of viceroys should imitate, has availed heavenborn self of this babu’s confidential services.”
“What’s her name? Satanita? Jezebel?”
“Ah! All glorious name, if only for a while! How fleeting are life’s pseudonyms for spiritual facts! Sahib, pray desist! I said confidential services!”
“You see my boot?” demanded Ramsden.
“Sahib, yes’emphatically; but desist! I must see Mr. Ommony. Instructions are—”
“He’s on the verandah.”
“Yes, and three dogs. Krishna! Here is one of them! Sahib, call the brute off!”
Diana came and sniffed at the babu, only restraining open enmity on Jeff’s account. Chullunder Ghose shrugged himself into the smallest space possible, covering his bare legs with folds of clothing. His toes twitched in his sandals.
“I am fearful! Yow! What evil incarnated into thee?” he demanded, scowling at the dog.
Jeff scratched his chin. Past experience of the babu warned him; however, the house and its problems were Ommony’s.
“Fetch your master, Di!” he ordered; and Di went off at a bound.
“Oh, excellent!” exclaimed the babu. “Sahib, the embodiment of homage’thus!”
He blew into his right hand and made a gesture as if throwing the result at Jeff, who grinned at him.
“Ah! Smiles! This babu makes salaam of much appreciation!”
He bowed to the dust.
“What has Di found?” demanded Ommony, appearing down the path. “Snake? Leopard tracks?” he hazarded. “Oh. No, I can’t employ a babu. Sorry. You may get food from the servants and sleep one night in the godown, if that’s convenient.”
“Am overwhelmed by courtesy! Sahib, graciously consent to listen to me Lend me your ear.”
“I’m listening.”
“Sahib, this babu is not Mark Antony! Publicity, the breath of all things temporal, is very well for politicians, but for me, unopulent and pitiful babu that I am—”