by Talbot Mundy
Then, although the rajah stayed away, there were several of his courtiers, who arrived in a troop on horseback; and there was a joke to be made about every one of them, because everybody knew how in debt they were and who really owned their horses if the truth were out. They let the truth out merrily. One wag swore he saw a money-lender’s name on the accoutrements, and that joke was voted so excellent that thereafter you might have trodden on folks’ toes without making them angry.
But the most surprising marvel of all was yet to come. There had been plans whispered from lip to ear to climb the sar trees presently and see much as might be seen of what should transpire within. The walls were high and available trees were some way off; but the glimpses so had would serve to weave gossip for months to come. Some boys had even gone to fetch a ladder, and they had it stowed in a safe place out of sight. They even had prepared what to say to the rajah’s poo-bah policeman, in case that worthy should turn up and make himself objectionable; there were lots of things that might be said, nor any very comforting to his esteem, but they chose the most scandalous, that being high festival. Whatever that irascible official might say in return, they were determined to climb the trees and remain in the branches until the show was over, or until he fetched an axe and cut the trees down, which they offered to wager he was much too lazy and dignified to do. (All Chota Pegu is willing to bet on a certainty.)
However, when the last of the court noblemen had dismounted, tossed his reins to a ragged sais, and swaggered in, the unbelievable occurred. Somebody threw the great front gate open wide and invited them all to enter and be seated! They could hardly believe their senses! True, the priests had a hand in this, and the priests were always generous providers of pageantry; dangerous folk — mean, grasping, contemptible in many ways — but always willing to let the crowd in on eye-feasts. This, though, was a white man’s tamasha. Sahibs did not provide fun for mere village folk — at least not often, and when they did there was always a string to it, like higher taxes, or vaccination, or some other scheme for impoverishing them in this world and depriving them of heaven in the next.
Everybody knew Iss-tee-range had bought the Panch Mahal, and that he had gone mad in there, shooting off his rifles at the rats at night and prowling around by day in pyjamas and bare feet. Perhaps this was part of his madness.
Anyhow, there were the gates wide open, and somebody beckoning, so they all trooped in, treading on one another’s heels for fear Iss-tee-range might change his crazy mind and slam the gates in the faces of the last ones. But there was lots of room and no hurry after all. Chullunder Ghose, perspiring and nervous to the verge of a collapse, ushered them into long rows on the side of the courtyard facing the door of the assembly — room (in which all the old scandalous debauches used to be held, which everyone agreed were a disgrace to the countryside, and nobody would have missed for a year’s income if by any means he could worm a way in).
And although there was a fountain between them and the other side of the courtyard they could all see nicely, because the fountain was not high, and some sort of stage had been erected, reaching nearly the full width of the courtyard with its back against the assembly — room wall. They recognized that stage; it was the one the priests used when they provided a ceremony outside the temple walls in order that all — even the very lowest castes and the caste-less might benefit. And they knew the screens that stood at each end of the stage and in the midst in front of the assembly-room door; those were the screens the nautch-girls hid behind, to emerge for the ritual dance. They were the screens an old-time rajah — a real one, not to be mentioned in the same breath with this man — had brought from Burma; and some said they had been made in China, or some such far-away land. Whether that was true or not, they were wooden, and carved all over with delightful dragons, and no man now alive possessed the craftsmanship to fashion others like them.
In the midst of the courtyard, with his back to the fountain, beside the image of a god who had four faces so that he might see everything, sat the magnificent prince with the monocle; and it was well worth a three-hour wait to sit in the sun behind him and study the set of his shoulders and see the dignity with which he smoked cigars. The princess with the diamonds and without the veil was beside him in an ordinary arm-chair, and he paid her a great deal of attention — much more interesting than the antics of a leopard in a cage or any other of the sights they were used to.
After a while he complained of the sun, in a big brass voice that must have awakened the gods, because four temple attendants came and rigged up an awning over him and the princess, which rather spoiled the view of those behind him, but they overcame that by crowding closer toward the right and left.
The princess in the dark veil was missing, and none could guess what had happened to her, which was intriguing. But “Mellidrum Iss-tee-range,” with a big cigar in his mouth, sat in a chair over to the left, with an enormous man beside him who was twice as big as Ommonee, and who somebody had said could kill an ox with one blow of his fist.
Everybody hoped he would do that as part of the entertainment. He was a sahib such as everybody loved; when he spoke his voice rumbled like gun-wheels; and even the stray dog that had found its way in was not afraid to go near and sniff him. Iss-tee-range and the big sahib were dressed in ordinary serge suits, and Iss-tee-range was smiling (as who wouldn’t be who owned all the crores and crores he was reported to own). But the big sahib looked uncomfortable, which nobody could account for. Was he not also an Amelikani? And are not all those people fabulously wealthy? Can a man be rich and anxious at the same time? Well, there he was. Behold him, fidgeting at intervals and throwing away a good cigar before he had smoked the half of it.
Then, Oh! Watch! Watch! Still! Be still! Make those women hush the babies! The musicians come!
And sure enough, out from behind the screen in the midst of the stage, and down the steps in front of it, came twenty-eight members of the temple orchestra, each with his string or wind instrument; and then seven drummers with tom-toms, making thirty-five in all. They squatted in a long row in front of the stage and began there and then to discourse sweet music — so sweet and marvellous that it made the great brass-voiced prince from foreign parts call out:
“Dammy! Can we stick it out? By Gad, by Gad, by Gad!”
They wondered what language that might be, but did not doubt it was applause. And so evidently the musicians understood, for they redoubled their efforts; and the princess of the sparkling diamonds sitting beside the great prince laughed until they all laughed too, they couldn’t help it. Nobody in all Chan Pegu ever had half such a wonderful time.
XIV. — CHULLUNDER GHOSE PRAYS TO ALL THE GODS
Up in the little hot room with a hole in the wall that provided view of the whole courtyard Ommony stood sweating beside Charley Wear who had abandoned native costume because there was no more need of it. Charley was arrayed in white duck pants and an undershirt. He looked like a gun-layer going into action. But his gun was a machine with a powerful lens, whose food was sensitized film instead of cartridges.
The window was shuttered, which made the air stifling, but there were holes through which a man could see, and Ommony, wiping the sweat from his neck, clapped an eye to each hole in turn repeatedly, careful not to trip over the camera legs that were spraddled out in three directions so that the camera looked like an enormous spider ready to spring on its prey below.
“Can’t see my sister anywhere,” he grumbled. “Did you notice her come in?”
“No,” said Charley. “I was sighting the machine.”
“Damn!” remarked Ommony.
He realized that he had seen too little of his sister during the last few days, and she had all the family proclivity for launching off on independent lines of action. Brains she had, and loyalty she had, but scant sense of obedience, and too much reliance on her own judgment. He recalled more than one occasion when she had taken her own course without waiting to consult him. Where the dickens was
she?
“Strange is looking much too pleased with himself,” he said presently.
“It’s my belief he knows this camera’s up here,” said Charley, squatting down at last beside his gun, since all was ready. “He glanced up here once or twice,” he added, wiping the sweat off his hands on the seat of his pants. “Gee! Is that what they call music?”
“Who let the crowd in?” Ommony demanded.
He had been busy talking to an emissary from the priests in one of the other rooms, and the man had been so deliberately stupid that everything had to be said three or four times over, so that Ommony had missed quite a lot of what went on.
“Dunno,” said Charley. “The babu acted usher.’’
“Damn that babu!”
“He seems like a kind of humorous guy to me,” said Charley. But that remark was only further irritation.
Ommony had worse than doubt of the babu, He more than suspected him. He was willing to take oath that Chullunder Ghose was up to mischief on his own account, making money out of the proceedings in some ingenious way. For one thing, he was nearly sure he had an understanding with the priests; and he did not flatter himself for one minute that his own bargain with the priests was worth an arena if the priests should discover another means of getting what they wanted. They had promised nothing — merely permitted him to infer that they would fulfil their part; and he would not have felt much easier even if they had made a definite promise.
“Rascals!” he muttered, over and over again.
Well: it was too late now to change anything or call the whole proceedings off. He foresensed disaster; but in that event he knew what he would do. There would be pictures, that much was certain — pictures that would make Strange look ridiculous — that, if a government a thousand miles away should see them, would show Strange in an intriguing light. If worse came to worst, he would go down into the courtyard and dare Strange to do a thing about the forest — threaten him — tell him of the pictures. And there was a rope-ladder all ready for Charley to make his escape with the exposed reels. If Strange should laugh at the threats, then the reels should go to Simla and be shown there.
His whole plan began to look like a nightmare that might end anyway except satisfactorily, and the infernal music in the courtyard heightened the suggestion, grating on nerves already on end from lack of sleep and proper meals. He had tried to oversee too many things at once, and knew it.
Charley, eyeing him thoughtfully, diagnosed stage-fright and tried to comfort him.
“You should not worry,” he said. “You’ll have done your best. That’s all a man can do.”
But Ommony’s creed is stern. He must save the forest. India, the world, the universe would undoubtedly continue to evolve, whatever happened. But there would be no excuse acceptable in face of leagues and leagues of slaughtered trees. There was his life’s work. When his own hour came to face his Karma there would be the dreadful question — just, simple, inescapable— “What ha’ you done?”
Not what the other man did. What had he, Cottswold Ommony, done? Where were the trees entrusted to his keeping? Sincerely, simply, he would rather die than fail the forest. His own personal honour and advantage weighed nothing in the scale.
“Gee! The light off that wall’s perfect!” said Charley, scattering encouragement at random in the hope that some might stick.
“Keep Strange in focus. That’s the main thing.”
“Can’t do a close-up from here, you know. He’ll show small but recognizable.”
“Are you ready?” Ommony snapped suddenly. “Shoot then!”
And the crank of the camera began turning steadily, sixteen times a minute.
Below, the weird stringed instruments burst into sudden spasms of twanged noise and the flutes screamed through that while the thumping of the tom-toms rose and fell. Out filed the nautch-girls from behind the screen — bare of stomach — breasts hidden under tinselled shields — skirted to the knees in pale blue gauzy stuff. Half moved to the right, half to the left, until their line stretched from end to end across the stage and they all stood motionless, leaving a gap in their midst through which the forty-ninth, the “leading lady,” came.
She was unlike all the others — prettier; and such scant garments as she wore were bronze instead of blue. The bosses on her breasts were studded with uncut jewels, and her bracelets glittered. In either hand she held garlands made from flower buds threaded on strings, and as she swayed her lithe body those shook until they looked like wind-blown blossom falling from the trees. But that was not their purpose. She had other use for them. Strange sat smiling with a big cigar stuck upward in the corner of his mouth, having his money’s worth so far by the look of him, and much too pleased with himself.
“You wait!” muttered Ommony. “You forest robber! Wait!”
But he had an eye, too, for Zelmira, whose golden Indian bracelet rose and fell as she tried to find some intelligible rhythm in the music. It did not seem to Ommony that she was paying sufficient attention; she should have been watching for her cue, instead of whispering to Molyneux and laughing at the man’s jokes. Molyneux was perfectly capable of spoiling the whole thing by keeping her there beside him, instead of letting her slip away behind the scenes.
However, the nautch was on. Ommony’s urgent business was to stand ready to hand Charley a fresh reel and slip the exposed one into its steel box, so that they might miss as few incidents as possible.
The music diminished to proportions in which some rhythm was at last perceptible, and the forty-nine girls began to sing, swaying from the feet upward, rather like plants seeking to uproot themselves than women dancing. The long line moved in ripples like waving corn, and the song was a wail, mad-melancholy, but redeemed by golden notes and the faint, far-away peal of a bronze bell struck from behind the scenes at intervals.
It was a long dance, and a language. Each motion was a symbol that had meant the same since India arose from prehistoric sea-bed and became a land; plainer and fuller of meaning than words to eyes uneducated in the changing symbols of the West. It was a simple enough story, of seed, rain, growth, and harvest, with fertilizing wind a-blow through all of it, and all the while a lipped hymn to the ancient gods who cause such sequences to be — melancholy only because men refused to recognize the breath of God in all things.
These were the temple virgins — institution older than the hills — no more conscious of the inner meaning of the ancient rite than their audience, that looked for phallic impropriety, and found it, India having descended into evil days. Production, reproduction, birth, and evolution, all were mocked in a rite designed to glorify them. But it pleased Strange. He chewed on his cigar, and smiled with hands across his stomach, like a bald-head in the front row at the Gaiety. It was expensive. He had paid too much for the Panch Mahal. But this was a pretty good make-weight they had thrown in.
You could see him wondering what the fellows at the club would say when he told them all about it. Not many Englishmen, and no Americans, had ever seen that dance. There was one Englishman who did not want to see it, and the village audience chuckled, for the padre-sahib, who had been sitting out of sight of them on a low chair in front of the image of the four-faced god, came around and sat between it and them, where he could not see the stage.
The music changed, as if the padre-sahib’s mood invited it. It defied him — mocked his disapproval rose into a wild confusion of wailing wind and thrumming strings, with the drums doing galloping footfalls. The eight-and-forty nautch-girls stood nearly motionless, swaying only slightly from the waist. But she in the midst, with a glittering gossamer shawl to aid her, began a serpent dance, like the fabled madness of the pythons in the spring. And that was devilish.
“Get this!” urged Ommony. “Focus on her now, and follow her whatever happens!”
“Dammit, she moves too quick!” said Charley. “She’s the goods, if she’d go slow!”
“Aim for her and nothing else! We’ll get some of it.”
There came eight priests chanting, and walking slowly out from behind the screen — filed down the steps — and stood in line between them and where Strange sat — backs to the audience — cutting Strange off, as it were, from the common herd. And Ommony laughed, for he saw Jeff Ramsden nudge Strange and clench his fist. There was going to be a fight unless the priests should watch their step, and that would serve perfectly. Anything, in fact, would serve that should give Zelmira her chance to rescue Strange from a predicament.
But Strange whispered behind his hand, and Jeff sat back again apparently contented. And why had Zelmira not vanished behind the wings? She should have gone already, but there she sat still beside Molyneux, without a trouble in the world to look at her.
“Another reel, quick!” snapped Charley. “This is hot stuff!”
The python dance was languishing to long, slow, undulating movements that the camera could record, and fingers slippery with sweat worked feverishly to snap the fresh reel in and resume cranking. Ommony clapped his eye to a hole in the shutter again, and almost shouted:
“Get this now! Get this! Are you sure you’re on?”
“Sure, I’ve got it. It’s good.”
Slowly down the steps the nautch-girl came, pausing on every step to let the python spirit torture her into new, monstrous shapes. The priests’ chant and the music rose to wilder heights. The other nautch-girls swayed in a sort of delirious ecstasy, humming obbligato to the priests. The native audience moved in unison, their breath expiring in great gasps all together. Suddenly Strange let his cigar fall, and sat bolt upright.
“Keep her in the picture now!” said Ommony excitedly.
The dancing-girl ceased writhing like a snake and suddenly ran toward Strange as if he were her only love. For a second it looked as if she would embrace him, and all the audience drew it’s breath in sibilantly. But instead, she tossed the garlands over his neck and swept back six paces, pausing a if to admire him, while the music and the chorus rose to a scream and the tom-toms thundered.