Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  “Why should I not speak?” Rita asked. “And how shall I tell who killed me, seeing I am not yet dead?”

  She stepped into the room — then hurried. Annie Weems was fainting. Rita and Hawkes together were in time to save her from collapsing. They set her in Hawkes’ chair with her head against Rita’s bosom and Rita’s hands stroking her temples.

  “Now what?” Hawkes asked, turning, facing Poonch-Terai. He was as truculent as the devil, and as eager to bring on a climax as if he could foresee the end of it. However —

  “You will sit down,” said the Yogi and the steam went out of Hawkes as suddenly as it had boiled up. He found himself a stool and sat on it with his back to the door through which Poonch-Terai had entered.

  “Paddle your own canoe,” he said. “I can wait for my turn.”

  Joe, still sitting upright, thought his own turn was about due. He was feeling weak again; reaction had set in; but he felt almost jealous of Annie Weems that she should monopolize Rita just then. He had not been as much as recognized.

  “Rita, can you spare me just one minute?”

  She was whispering. Annie Weems pushed her away. She crossed the floor to Joe’s bedside and stood smiling at him until he raised his arms, and then she stooped and kissed him.

  “Joe, you don’t have to ask for minutes. Very soon now you and I have all eternity.”

  “Dead or alive?” he asked her, laughing. “Rita, Hawkes says Poonch-Terai’s men—” Poonch-Terai strode forward and interrupted. “Hawkes is a drunken liar! I can account for the movements of all my men. I know where every one of them has been. I knew some kind of plot against me was afoot, — I took precautions.”

  “I, too,” Rita answered. “Hawkesey injured one of them.”

  “Not one of my men!”

  “All his front teeth are broken, and I don’t know how to mend teeth. But I put some antiseptic on his gums and a dressing on his cut lips; they will need stitching when the swelling goes down. Hawkesey is an awful pile-driver of a man when he’s angry. But none of the rest were hurt worth mentioning.”

  “I don’t know what this all means,” said the Maharajah. But he was getting nervous. “What is supposed to have happened?”

  “Not much, except that your carriage met me at the jail gate. Some of your men leaped out of it and wrapped me in this cloth, so that I couldn’t scream or struggle. Then they carried me into the carriage, and threw the hurt man in, and followed.”

  “Not my carriage, I assure you. Not my men.”

  “No? Would you recognize the carriage? It is in the temple compound.”

  “Bandits must have stolen it.”

  “Oh! Your followers are bandits? Would you recognize them? Should I bring them in? I have them with me.” She turned and faced Ram-Chittra Gunga. “Shall I?”

  Poonch-Terai cracked his heels together, making the spurs jingle.

  “So the plot thickens,” he said. “No, I would not be interested. I know where my men are. These are certainly impostors.” And he strode toward the door, against which Hawkes sat with his chair on two legs.

  “No,” said Hawkes, “you stay here until me, and Rita, and Ram-Chittra Gunga” — that was an afterthought— “has done with you and gives you leave to go.”

  Poonch-Terai whipped out an automatic pistol. Hawkes kicked his wrist, still tender from the injury when he crashed Joe in the hunting field, and sent the pistol flying. It fell on Joe’s bed. Joe broke it open and removed the shells.

  “And now,” said Hawkes, “we’re man to man, conceding that you are one for the sake of argument. So you behave yourself. Go and sit down on that chair — that one. If you don’t I’ll smash you one that I’ve been saving for you longer than you’d guess.”

  CHAPTER XXIII. “There’s rather more in this than meets the eye.”

  Poonch-Terai preserved a fragment of his dignity, if dignity there is in flouting one’s inferior; all save that fragment was lost in the sneer of contempt with which he declined the chair, strode to the door that led into the courtyard, opened it and glanced out. Then, however, instantly his natural, his highly trained adroitness asserted itself. He saw a staggering array of evidence against him. Even in India, not even princes may set ambuscades and seize unwilling women without putting their thrones in peril; and though thrones have thorns that make their owners restless, men have foresworn faith to win them; and to preserve them many a prince has sent a hundred thousand citizens to death.

  He stepped astride the threshold — scowled — looked terrible and hurled abuse, in their own language, at some men from Poonch whom no one in the room could see but who evidently waited in the cloister. Joe reinserted the shells in the automatic and the Yogi watched him with mildly curious attention.

  Poonch-Terai faced the room again, his hands on his hips and his legs astride, his stomach outthrust, as if he was a conqueror inspecting some one’s harem. Plainly he was in no mood to ask anybody’s mercy; nor would he grant it.

  “Now what?” he demanded. “Get this nonsense over with.”

  Ram-Chittra Gunga snorted, as if a bad smell suddenly annoyed him.

  “Yes,” he said, “you have my leave to make an end of nonsense.”

  “Ingrate! I will end yours!” Poonch-Terai retorted. “Too long I have tolerated you. You and your abominable priests have grown too fat on revenues from my estates. You are an infidel and an impostor. You corrupt religion and profane the sacraments with your innovations. I accuse you in English, which you understand, because I wish these witnesses to know what I am saying. You have overstepped yourself at last by plotting against me and tampering with my men. I intend not to leave this place until I have had you thrown out,” — he glared at Joe, and Hawkes, and Annie Weems— “you and every trespasser whom you have encouraged.”

  “Bold words — very bold words,” Ram-Chittra Gunga answered. “Let the coachman enter.”

  Strode in promptly, through the door that led to Annie Weems’ room, two men from Poonch, erect and bearded, splendid in the Maharajah’s livery but looking scared. They saluted, but hardly knew whom to salute. They faced the Yogi. Their eyes were like leopards’ that trusted nobody and doubted everything except death’s fangs. Poonch-Terai glared again at Annie Weems and showed his wonderful white teeth in a grin of malicious triumph:

  “So you, too, are in this conspiracy. I might have known it. I should have expected it when I closed your mission. But vengeance, madam, you will find is bitter when it is clumsy and fails! That is your apartment. You had those men hidden in there?”

  “No,” she said indignantly, “I did not.”

  “Let me see that room.” He strode toward it, thrust the screen aside, kicked the door open and stared. At the end of a passage, with closed doors on either hand, a lamp shone on a big door bossed with iron nails that evidently led into the open air. He turned and sneered again at Annie Weems. “Who else is hidden in your room? That door at the end of the passage is locked.”

  A thin smile flickered on the Yogi’s lips. “Are you sure it is locked?” he asked him.

  “I will soon see.”

  Insolence had gained momentum. Poonch-Terai did not hesitate; he strode into the passage. Hawkes leaned forward and made eager signals like a boy in school who knows the answer to a question. The Yogi nodded. Swiftly, silently, Hawkes closed the door, locked it and set the screen in place; grinning, he stowed the huge key in his tunic pocket.

  “What have you done? He will search my room!” Annie Weems objected, horrified. Her courage steamed up to the surface. No New England spinster likes to have her bedroom searched by a critical male.

  “But he will find what?” asked the Yogi. “Presently he will go out through the end door, since he can not return through this one. Let the coachman tell his story.”

  But the coachman stood speechless. His companion whispered to him, obviously urging silence.

  “Come on, out with it,” said Hawkes. “No conferences. Speak quick, if you know what’s
good for you. You make ’em talk, Miss Rita; you could coax the truth out of the biggest liar unhung.”

  Suddenly Hawkes’ jaw dropped. He was facing the door to the courtyard and he looked as if he saw the devil out beyond it in the shadows. Joe saw it next. Then Annie Weems. It was a ghost that swayed and shivered on a draught of dark air.

  “Amal!” Rita was the first to recognize her.

  Rusty — starved — scared — with her clothing all in rags — an embodied shadow of unhappiness, the ayah — if it was the ayah — swayed beyond the threshold in the baffling half-light from the open door. Her eyes were like holes through which pale starlight dimly peered.

  “Amal!” That was Rita’s voice again, but it might have been any one’s; it gave tongue to collective horror.

  The vision crossed the threshold, as if thrust forward — some one’s shadow. Even in the room, in lamplight, she looked unsubstantial, until she threw herself at Rita’s feet and lay fondling them, sobbing and murmuring such foolishness as ayahs use to children. Rita stood still, staring at the Yogi as if at a loss to know what to say or do, until the sobbing ceased and Amal lay still. Then, at last, Ram-Chittra Gunga spoke:

  “Silence was the part of wisdom. And not a word of reproach; I praise that.”

  Annie Weems stiffened herself to face a new crisis. She came and knelt beside the ayah.

  “Bring me a sheet quickly.”

  Rita snatched a sheet from Joe’s bed; she and Annie Weems together spread it over Amal’s body.

  “Dead?” Joe asked. He would have said more but his throat was dry, and as the victim of Amal’s knife he felt he had the right to appear calm, even if he was not.

  “Dead?” said Hawkes. “Good God, what a hell of a night! What killed her?”

  “Poison,” said the Yogi.

  Hawkes resented such swift omniscience. “How do you know?” he demanded. “If you’re as wise as all that, say who gave it to her.”

  “She did. Who else? She is fortunate. Some people spend eternities before the creeping poison of their malice teaches them the lesson that they came into the world to learn. But she was a soul whose malice was as simple as her generosity. The poison of her malice acted swiftly, and — like unto like — some fool more reckless of his destiny than of his present need sensed what he thought was opportunity and gave that poor starved body what her soul knew it deserved. Is it not thus that the soul learns? How else? She did evil, and because she was faithful and simple, evil punished her thus soon that she might learn swiftly and not suffer too much. But he who killed — have you not heard the teaching that it needs must be that evil come, but woe unto him through whom it cometh?”

  Rita went down on her knees beside Amal’s body and covered her eyes with her hands; she appeared to be weeping. But Annie Weems stood up and faced Ram-Chittra Gunga. She looked dreadful in that lamplight, with her white hair disarranged and all the hollows of her face in shadow; ancient sibyls may have looked as she did when the priests of other temples turned their oracles against them.

  “How dare you! Are you a devil quoting Scripture? Sri Ram-Chittra Gunga, you shall not use Christ’s words to support your dreadful teaching! I will not endure such blasphemy.”

  A dozen generations of New England heritage uprose and swamped her. But she was a swamped rock. Not even that moment could destroy her gentleness; it was as strong as granite.

  “Words from an aching heart are as the stings of wasps. But whom do they sting? And does the heart ache less?” he answered.

  “Yes, I spoke unkindly. I am sorry. But I denounce our bargain. This must be the end of it; I can’t — I will not keep it any longer.”

  “Woman, who are you and I to speak of bargains? Was it we who laid down destiny and bounded it within the limits of our choosing? What you speak of as a bargain—” “Was one,” she interrupted. “God in His infinite wisdom must judge me for my share of it. He knows I meant well, as I know you did; you and I have too much mutual respect to doubt each other’s motive.”

  “What then is it that you doubt?” he asked her.

  “Oh, don’t argue with me. When I took this child and agreed to share her education with you, I struggled against scruples that I should have known were warnings. We may not serve two masters. I have tried to serve mine and yours also; and here, at my feet, between us, is one part of God’s judgment on that. The least and the last first. I might have saved poor Amal.”

  “Until she slew you? Yea, you might have saved her from small sinning until impulse waxed strong and she slew you and me also.”

  Annie Weems would not be comforted. She stirred the barb of self-contempt that made her heart ache. “I have done with self-deception. I am guilty, and the blame is mine, not yours. You knew no better. What you taught Rita, you believe is true; but what I have brought on her by letting her as much as hear your teachings, neither you nor I can guess, Ram-Chittra Gunga. And the dreadful part is, that the blame is mine but she must suffer for it.”

  “It is we, and only we ourselves, who cause ourselves to suffer,” said the Yogi. “Nevertheless, we do well, because suffering loosens ignorance and lets in light.”

  But she shook her head; she would have none of his argument. “And I have wronged you, too, Ram-Chittra Gunga. I should not have let you wrong this child, whom you have loved as much as I did. You were loyal to your teachings, false though they are; and I was false to mine. Forgive me. I should not have yielded to your urging. It was not your voice that spoke then; it was Satan speaking through you. But you did not know that; and I should have known it. I sinned, and it is too late to undo it. But I declare our bargain ended. Rita must stay with you or come away with me. There can be no alternative.”

  “There is,” said Joe, “there is a fine alternative.”

  But only Hawkes and Rita heard him. Hawkes drew his pipe from his tunic pocket, stared at it and thrust it away again. A thousand pounds was a fortune to a man in his shoes. He looked vexed, as if he understood that fortune is evasive. Joe read his thought as easily as if it were a printed page; but he could not read Rita’s. Rita glanced once, swiftly; she was listening to Annie Weems, still kneeling but so disturbed that she hardly realized it. She stood up and embraced her, whispering and coaxing.

  “No, child. No, I tell you.”

  “Annie, after all these years do you turn your back on me?”

  Ram-Chittra Gunga interrupted. “Amal has turned a page of life’s book. Let her body be laid in the cloister.”

  Wordlessly he intimated to the men from Poonch — the coachmen — that they should do that. They objected, not without speech, sullen and half defiant.

  “What is their trouble?” Joe asked. He, though probably for other reasons, was as eager as the Yogi to get that corpse out of sight.

  “They declare they are clean men but a corpse is unclean, so they will not touch it,” said the Yogi. Hawkes strode swiftly toward them, temper twitching in his right foot. They backed away. They almost stumbled over Amal’s body. A long knife, whistling out of darkness, missed the coachman’s throat by half an inch and struck point first into the wall above Joe’s head, where it thrummed sharp like an off-key tuning fork. Joe fired three blind shots through the doorway. He could see nothing.

  “Take that thing from him,” said the Yogi.

  Hawkes came to the bedside. “Pardon me, sir. That can only get us into trouble. May I have it? Your nerves are a little upset.” But Hawkes was sweating; he had nerves too. His hand had hardly closed around the pistol when he nearly jumped out of his skin.

  “Who shot at me?” demanded Poonch-Terai’s voice.

  He stood full in the doorway, hands on hips again. Had he been master of the situation he could not have looked more truculent. Joe tried to snatch the pistol back but Hawkes was a shade too quick for him.

  “You black murderer!” said Joe. “Who threw that knife?”

  “How should I know? But I have two witnesses to the shooting,” Poonch-Terai answered. He be
ckoned the two coachmen. They hesitated, but he seemed to hypnotize them. Hawkes interfered:

  “You stay here, both of you. Come and stand over here by me.”

  But Poonch-Terai voice startled them. They almost ran toward their master, dreading him more than they did Hawkes and attracted, in their panic, toward the greater dread. Poonch-Terai stepped aside and let them pass him through the doorway. Then he faced Ram-Chittra Gunga and spoke with mocking malice:

  “Father of miracles! Perhaps now — of your wisdom and your sanctity — you may be shrewd enough to tell these priests to open the temple gate.”

  “I perceive that you tried to climb the wall,” the Yogi answered. “Why your great haste?”

  Poonch-Terai swore as if stung, trying to look indifferent as he glanced down at the telltale marks on his breeches and riding-boots. “Either you let me out of here,” he answered, “or I will force my way out.”

  “I do nothing,” said the Yogi. “I am contented to let that be, which is. I am not destiny.”

  “You are a dog, whom I will kick into the dirt,” said Poonch-Terai. He took a long stride forward and then suddenly stood still. There came a knock on the door through which he had first entered — one knock followed by impatient thunder.

  “What now?” he demanded, thrusting his jaw forward. “What have you done?” He betrayed alarm by much too carefully disguising it. He overplayed the note of insolence.

  Hawkes strode to the door, glanced toward the Yogi for permission and drew back the bolt. He saluted instantly, surprise making him as stiff as a raw recruit.

  “Oh, hello, Hawkes, you here? Not trespassing, I hope?”

  Bruce of the Lancers strode in, stared at Poonch-Terai and then saluted Annie Weems. He seemed annoyed to have to be there.

  “Were you invited?” Poonch-Terai asked. Probably he himself could not have told why the sight of Bruce enraged him, but it seemed to Joe that mental flint and spiritual steel were striking sparks.