Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  CHAPTER IX. “Read thou thine own book.”

  Joe was usually most unhappy when his mother was most in her element. What amused her made him miserable. He could endure her, even if he did not like her, when she was frankly predatory, taking what she could because the law was too ill-served to interfere. But when she talked high altruism while she did damned cruelty, he hated her. His brain groped blindly for the opposite of what she would expect him to do — some move that she would not understand. He thought of and found he could not dismiss from his mind the Yogi by the temple wall. Calling himself an idiot for his pains, he hired a horse and cantered to the temple, knowing it was out of bounds without a permit or an official escort; but at that, he supposed he had escort enough; the ayah and Chandri Lal pursued him, dodging through traffic, taking short-cuts, stealing rides on motor-wagons; whenever he glanced backward one or the other was not very far behind him.

  He found the Yogi seated in his beehive hut. The old man’s eyes shone in the darkness, though his shape was hardly visible; his nose looked beaklike and his beard was the shape of a gray owl’s body. Wondering how to open up a conversation Joe fetched a stone and sat on it before the hut door, so that he could peer upward and seem not too disrespectful. For a long time then he waited for the Yogi to say something, but the silence only deepened as the minutes marched.

  “Old man,” he began at last in his friendliest voice, “I am sorry I was rude to you the other night.”

  “Rudeness is a consequence of ignorance. Of what are you afraid?”

  “How do you know I’m afraid?”

  “Are you a special sort of book that none may read?”

  “If you can read so well, then turn a page or two and tell me what you see,” Joe suggested. There was silence again for so long that, if he had not seen the eyes in the gloom within the hut he would have thought the old man was asleep. He was about to repeat the question when the answer came:

  “What did I call you? And what did I tell you?”

  “You called me a man from Jupiter. And you told me I stand on a threshold.”

  “Should I say it again?”

  “You might explain it.”

  Another silence. Then at last: “If I explain, will you believe? Not so. Three thoughts will seize on your imagination: that I am mad — that I have designs on your purse, perhaps by subtle byways of intrigue — that I flatter my own vanity by claiming understanding that I have not. Thereafter your credulity will fluctuate between those three thoughts, accepting first the one and then the other. But the truth will escape you altogether.”

  Joe pondered what to say to that; the ancient offered no suggestions. It was true, he was not a believer in forecasts. But on the other hand, he felt intensely curious.

  “Suppose I agree not to doubt your honesty,” he suggested.

  “Are you a master of doubt? Can you order its goings and comings? How shall you agree to what you know not how to fulfil?”

  “All right. Suppose I say this then: I will use my best judgment and try to believe you.”

  “Would that be good judgment? It is written on your face as plain as writing in a book, that you have been taught to disbelieve all that is told you.”

  “Taught — yes. But I have never fully learned it. For instance, I don’t doubt your honesty.”

  “You are a fool then. Great liars are they who claim they are honest. Honorable, yes, a man may be — but honest, not yet — not for a few thousand million eternities, and not then without striving. Worse liars — mean, immodest dogs are they who yelp their scorn at the mistakes of others seeking to be honest. It is better to make mistakes than not to make them.”

  “How so? I’m a banker, for instance, among other things.”

  “And have the bankers learned by making no mistakes? Do you know the history of banking? Is there one thing that they knew and fully understood in the beginning? Is there one thing they have learned by any other means than by mistakes? I tell you, no man learns by any other means. And by that means I learned silence when young fools come to me for readings of their plainly written destiny. Read thou thine own book.”

  “Naturally, if I could I’d do it.”

  “Learn! It is excellent knowledge.”

  “Are you subtly kidding me, I wonder? You look like Diogenes under a barrel, and you’ve come near selling me a line of goods I never thought I’d fall for in a thousand years. Dammit, I’ll bite! I’ll trust you.”

  “If I wish not to be trusted — what then?”

  “If I trust a man, I trust him.”

  “That is the excellent way to make mistakes, since trust adds keenness to the later disillusion. Not the wisest man knows very much, and he who volunteers advice knows very little. Nevertheless the biggest fool is he who blames another whose advice he took.”

  Joe grew determined. “Do you refuse advice when you are asked for it?”

  “What is your security? Does your bank lend money to each would-be borrower? If I should give advice, as you call it, then I am lending knowledge. Can you guarantee to spend that knowledge wisely? And if not, what then? When the Examiner examines my account, how shall I answer his accusation that I loaned good knowledge for an unwise purpose? He will hold me answerable.”

  “Can you profit by keeping all your wisdom to yourself?” Joe retorted. “What’s the good of it, if you don’t share it with some one?”

  The Yogi chuckled again. “Are there not rules for the lending of money? I tell you, there are far more certain rules for the employment of wisdom, and a mistake is much more costly.”

  “Maybe. But you said just now that it’s better to make mistakes than not to make them.”

  “True. You are a man from Jupiter. There is no refusing you. Very well, I will make a mistake. I will answer one question. What is it you wish to know?”

  Joe hesitated. He knew what he wanted to ask, but he was doubtful how to phrase it. He suspected the Yogi would evade him with vague generalities unless he cut the issue fine, with diamond distinctness. On the other hand, his intuition warned him not to be too personal, since it was after all a point of principle that troubled him, and once a principle is grasped it is no great problem to apply it.

  “One question and one answer,” said the Yogi.

  “Yes, but how many words? I want to make sure you understand me.”

  “Use ten words.”

  “It can’t be done. I doubt that I could state it in a hundred words. It’s so complicated.”

  “Nothing is complicated, except folly. I know the question.”

  “Impossible. How can you know it?”

  “You wish to know whether that threshold, whereupon I told you that you stand, if crossed will lead to freedom. Is that it?”

  “That’s only part of it.”

  “That is the whole of it. But the answer will seem to have three parts, though they are one in essence.”

  “Go on. I’m listening.”

  “It will lead to strife with one. It will cause you to put warfare in another’s heart. It will lead to greater freedom than you ever dreamed of if — I say if you have manhood enough and march forward.”

  “You’re too vague. I want to understand you clearly. Is the strife with my mother?”

  “Why not? Can you break her hold otherwise?”

  “I’d give a lot to know how you read my history. However, all right, that’s that. Does the warfare that you say I shall cause in another person’s heart concern that girl Amrita?”

  “Why not? When the ayah asked, did I not speak of it?”

  “I think I understand what you mean by the threshold. I have reached the stage where I can’t stand being owned and used. But what if I refuse to cross the threshold? It isn’t too late to turn back.”

  “Cowardice seems comforting to some — until it bears its fruit.”

  “Would I not be justified in refusing to turn against my mother?”

  “If you wish, you may continue to contribute to her sin un
til the sin destroys you both. In the end, what would she or you gain by it?”

  “I’ve reasoned that way sometimes; but you put it more clearly than I did. All right, I can face that issue; there’ll be hell to pay, but I guess it’s the only manly thing to do. I’ll cross that bridge and burn the blasted thing behind me.”

  “That is for you to decide.”

  “I’ve made up my mind. But how about making trouble for that girl Amrita? She never harmed me. What right have I to interfere with her?”

  “Can you avoid it? Can one man’s prayers for a longer night prevent the sun from rising?”

  “That sounds like fatalism.”

  “To a fool’s ears! Idiot! When a promissory note is due, is it not due and payable? Is it not timed? And does the interest not accumulate, with added penalties? Shall the creditor not collect it or else throw the debtor into bankruptcy? And though the debtor forgets the note, can he deny he signed it? Stands his signature not written? Shall he call that fatalism and repudiate it? Are your ears deaf and your eyes blind?”

  “I don’t get the drift of your argument.”

  “Ass! You sleep and wake; you wake and sleep; you see day follow night, and night the day; you have seen old men die, and young ones born. Is it not clear to you then that we die and live, and live and die? I tell you we are reborn millions of times. And what we owe to one life we shall repay, either in that life or another. Each deed done is nothing but a promissory note to meet its consequences. When it falls due, call it destiny and meet it with determination to pay it and set new, sweeter consequences forming; or call it fate and fall beneath it and be rolled on. Each one’s destiny is his own, to make or unmake as he pleases.”

  “Do you mean you think I owe that girl a debt?”

  “Or she you. Or you owe each other. Destiny will make you both pay — as it will make me pay for wasting wisdom on a blind fool! You have asked. I have answered. Now pay me in the coin of courtesy by getting hence. I have more profitable thoughts to think, and there are only a few eternities in which to think them. Go. You may spare your pride. You need not bow to the earth or call me Holy One.”

  CHAPTER X. India would be all right if it weren’t for rajahs.”

  Jon spent the remainder of the day searching after a fashion for Hawkes, but nobody seemed to know where Hawkes was. He inquired at the officers mess of an Indian cavalry regiment; Captain Bruce, who received him, sent an orderly to make inquiries, but the orderly came back none the wiser.

  “Are you in a hurry?” Bruce asked. “Then why not ride the rounds with me? We’ll run across him somewhere.” The aroma of many millions of dollars is a curiously catholic sort of key to hospitality. “If you’d care to ride back here afterward and have lunch with me — perhaps I’d better tell the butler now — we don’t have many visitors — the rogue might have to open tinned atrocities unless I warn him in advance.”

  The subject of Hawkes served well enough as an open wedge into conversation.

  “Hawkes been making himself useful to you? That’s his specialty. Hawkes is probably unique in all the armies of the world. He could drive a herd of sheep through a gap in the King’s Regulations that a practised lawyer couldn’t see, and he can make himself so useful that nobody ever calls him a loafer and sends him back to his regiment. I think his regiment has probably forgotten him. If we should be ordered to Tibet I’d expect to find Hawkes ahead of us in Lhassa with a document of some sort proving he had the right to be there and draw extra pay for doing things that aren’t provided for in the Regulations.”

  “I suppose,” said Joe, “the fact is that he’s in the secret service?”

  “No, I think not. You see, a secret service man goes where he’s sent, but Hawkes goes where he pleases. He’s a genius, and something of a joke. A good part of his secret is that the natives like him. He has a gift that isn’t tact exactly, it’s a sort of fluid understanding crossed on to a lack of prejudice and a rare quick trick of learning a language while another man waits for a text-book. In addition to that the man’s a mine of information. Ask Hawkes if you want to know anything. And by the way, he’s a magician when it comes to skin wounds. Nobody knows how he does it, but he can stitch a wound and leave no scar whatever. Who is that woman, I wonder, and why is she following?”

  Chandri Lal, too, was less than fifty yards away but Joe said nothing. He was vaguely disturbed by that remark about Hawkes being a mine of information, although there seemed to be no particular reason why it should disturb him. What if Hawkes had told about Amrita? Why should he not tell, and what harm could come of it? At any rate, it ought to be easy to discover whether he had or had not told.

  “Has any European ever been into that enormous temple?” he asked.

  “I imagine not. We let temples severely alone. In other words, we let ’em run their own idolatries to suit ‘emselves.”

  “No inspection of any kind?”

  “None that I ever heard of.”

  “I saw the procession the other night. Worth seeing. But I ve wondered once or twice since then whether there was anything in my impression that there might be a white girl or two among those nautch-girls.”

  “Oh, no. Some of ’em may look white, but—” “Some of them look like well bred European women.”

  “Illusion — moonlight — lantern-light — shadows. No, no European women. Their caste laws and traditions are too strict. And besides it isn’t generally recognized outside India but the Indians are extraordinarily decent about our women. Even in the Mutiny of ‘57 there wasn’t one instance of rape, although scores of our women fell into their hands. Our troops, I am sorry to say, were gingered up with propaganda about rape and there was some dirty work done on the strength of it. But there was a rigid inquiry afterward and not one single instance, or even a suspicion of an instance of rape was discovered. Murder, yes, lots of it. Rape, no. There isn’t another country in the world that you can say that for.”

  “How about the Rajah’s harems?”

  “Oh, I’ve heard that two or three of ’em have white wives, and they’re almost all polygamists, but that’s different. If a woman wants to sell herself in that way, Government can’t stop her. They can bring pressure to bear on the Rajah in all kinds of ways, but they can’t legally prevent that kind of thing. It happens very seldom.”

  “How about the Christian missionaries? Is there any check on them?”

  “I think so — in fact, I’m sure there is — mainly, of course, to prevent their falling foul of native prejudice. One fanatic might start a riot that’d take an army corps to squelch. However, there’s nothing o’ that sort hereabouts. The local missionaries, so far as I know, have been more than usually tactful and the local Hindus seem to be a particularly broad-minded lot. We’ve had no rioting or any rot like that.”

  “Lots of missionaries?”

  “Lots of ’em. Presbyterians — Methodists — Baptists — Catholics — all sorts.”

  “They would be likely to know, I suppose, if there were a white girl living in an Indian temple.”

  “They certainly would. And they’d soon raise hell about it.”

  “Do you know Miss Annie Weems?”

  “I should say I do. We all do. She’s the only woman who was ever made an honorary member of our mess. There’s your information bureau — if you’re curious about girls in Indian temples or rajahs’ harems, ask Annie Weems. She actually rents her mission from the trustees, or whatever they call ‘emselves, of the Hindu temple. She and the high priest are on such good terms that we joke her about it. There’s a story that she’s allowed inside the temple once a month, but that’s probably untrue and, anyhow, she denies it.”

  “What’s her mission for? What does she do, I mean — proselytize?”

  “No — doesn’t believe in it. Education, pure and simple. Runs a day-school for Indian children. I’ve often ragged her about being more a Hindu than the Hindus are themselves, but of course that’s exaggeration. She’s a sane old
lady with some very admirable prejudices.”

  Full stop. Joe did not care to pursue that subject any further. It was clear enough that Annie Weems had somehow contrived to keep a secret, and it was certainly not Joe’s business to expose it — yet, at any rate. The mystery of Hawkes’ disappearance was easier solved; a squadron farrier, who knew nothing about the breech-lock mechanism of a modern sporting rifle, explained that the Maharajah of Poonch-Terai had asked for some one who was expert in such occultism and that Hawkes had volunteered to go and doctor the potentate’s expensive weapons.

  “That,” said Bruce, “is Hawkes all over. By the time he returns, he’ll not only have repaired a broken gun or two; he’ll have learned nine-tenths of the Rajah’s business. However, he won’t talk about it — until the time comes to let a cat peep from the bag in order to serve some other object he may have in view. If you don’t believe that, try to pump him.”

  “I have tried. He’s expensive,” Joe answered.

  “Yes, and saves his money. Greed is probably the secret of his genius for doing odd jobs. However, he does ’em, that’s the main thing.”

  Bruce, too, seemed to be a lonely sort of fellow, and there is just as much affinity in loneliness as in any other state or condition. Hardly realizing that they liked each other they talked like a pair of old gossips as they rode the short tour of inspection, Bruce explaining things that interested Joe for no other reason than that he liked the other’s confidences. By the time they were ready for lunch Bruce had even offered the loan of a horse, and Joe had reciprocated by asking Bruce to take care of a magnificent sporting rifle “in case I should ever return to India and care to use it.” They were sowing seeds of friendship, hardly realizing it.

  There were very few officers there to lunch and most of those dropped in and bolted out again after a hurried meal and perfunctory remarks. There was something or other mysterious in the background that was keeping every one on a strain that they tried to conceal; Bruce made no reference to it, but while the others were there he seemed as conscious of it as they were. There was no indication of what its nature might be; it was certainly not personal ill-feeling; they appeared to be a hard-working outfit who got along well together. The only possible clue that occurred to Joe was the abruptness with which they changed the subject when he asked a casual question about the Maharajah of Poonch-Terai; however, he doubted that that was an accurate guess.