Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  A vicious-looking rascal stood out there with his back to the door, but turned and saluted.

  “Remember,” warned the Committee-man, “if anybody comes, rap loudly and give us ample warning!”

  He spoke Hindustanee, the lingua franca. They all did. Among nine Committee-men there were five races and three creeds, and they could not have understood each other or their servants in any other tongue.

  “All is well,” said the ninth, joining the others on the stone bench.

  The Moplah chairman no longer sat in the midst but at the far end. The place of importance was occupied by Aurung Ali, the little, self-important man. He was the only one who looked quite comfortable, lolling back against the wall with his hands folded in his lap contentedly.

  “Well, your honor judge Wilmshurst,” he began sarcastically, “I believe the pleasure of recognition is mutual, eh? I recall you were in no hurry when you sentenced me to twenty years’ imprisonment. I will be equally patient and provoking! We are all going to enjoy ourselves thoroughly in secret session. Isn’t it nice!”

  He said that in English; then to the Committee in Hindustanee:

  “Now you understand. The evidence of torture cannot be applied to a body successfully after death. It must be done, painstakingly, while they are living. I will not have them killed too soon. There must be proof, positive and convincing, that they were done to death miserably. This is an opportunity of a lifetime to inaugurate a reign of reprisal and counter-reprisal that will last until India is aflame from end to end! Now, who has a pistol?”

  They all had. They produced them, thinking he wished that. He cackled meaningly.

  “There you are! You produce them much too readily! You will use them too readily!”

  “I say, shoot them first!” said a rather fat man, shifting his legs nervously. “Only Moplahs will see the bodies afterwards. They have no professional coroners. We can say they were tortured, and they will believe it. I am against this business of torturing.”

  “You mean, I suppose, that your brain has become as fat and flabby as your stomach! Idiot! We must take great care that the bodies fall into British hands! What would be the use of inflaming the passion of one side, without a corresponding hatred on the other?”

  “We can easily make marks on them with a hot iron directly after death — almost the same second. None would ever know the difference,” the other objected.

  “No! Look here, you’re going to spoil everything! Lay down your pistols, all of you! Lay them on the bench! Look — see — there is mine! To hear you talk you might be a lot of Gandhis preaching non-violence! Now, no backing out of this! We were all agreed. You must all commit yourselves. Each of you must lend a hand and torture somebody. Take your knives, and somebody bring the hot coal. Leave Mrs. Wilmshurst to me — I am sure the judge would rather have it that way!”

  They obeyed him, laying their pistols on the bench, and in proof that it was fear and not compunction that had made him flinch it was the fat man who went at once to drag a glowing charcoal brazier out from behind one of the stone images. The remainder chose their victims with a businesslike air, Aurung Ali bowing sarcastically to Mrs. Wilmshurst.

  “I want you to watch this, judge!” he said pleasantly, moving toward the brazier to choose an iron.

  Not one of the prisoners said a word. Each stared at the devil in front of him. Each devil fingered a long knife, hesitating even yet to begin the abominable business.

  “Now watch!” said Aurung Ali, whirling a hot iron.

  But his movement was arrested by a quiet tap on the temple door from outside. Every member of the Committee turned and faced the door as if Nemesis had already entered.

  “Go on, go on!” exclaimed Aurung Ali. “That is nothing. I ordered him to knock loud for danger. This is some minor matter. I will go and see.”

  He walked to the door, after thrusting the iron back in the fire to keep it hot, and drew the bolt back gingerly. The instant the edge of the bolt was clear the door was burst in violently, and the dead body of the man who had been left on guard was flung in like a sack, knocking Aurung Ali backward half-way across the temple floor. The blazing light of full noon shone in like a sunburst, and in the midst of that stood Mahommed Babar, with the mullah, haggard and red-eyed, behind him. Mahommed Babar held a pistol in each hand. There was nothing to be gained by moving. He stood there, summing up the situation, for about thirty seconds — then spoke to the mullah without turning his head. The mullah went to the stone bench and gathered all the pistols off it into his lap.

  “This comes of hymns and praying!” announced Mrs Wilmshurst. The soldier who had prayed with her was dead, but that thought did not occur until afterward.

  “If you would kindly cut our thongs, Mahommed Babar,” said King, “we could—”

  But he left the mullah to do that. Without answering King, he spoke again over his shoulder, and someone closed the temple door behind him. In the sudden change from light to gloom it was difficult to see, but none could mistake the sound of the saber licking from its scabbard, or the thrum as he wristed it to the attack.

  It was then that Aurung Ali went mad and charged Mahommed Babar with a hot iron, upsetting all the charcoal on his way and screaming in the last frenzy of fear. There was a sudden swish and thud, and Aurung Ali’s head rolled to Ommony’s feet, where it lay mouthing at him.

  Then panic seized the rest, and they pursued the mullah from shadow to shadow, from pillar to pillar, from corner to door. The mullah shook the pistol chambers empty as he ran and then threw away the weapons. They fought for the empty weapons, and screamed as they found them useless — rushing, swearing, imprecating, screaming — like rats in a pit with a terrier after them. And in among them — swift — unhurrying — certain as the act of destiny — Mahommed Babar’s saber licked — and hacked — and thrust — until the last Committee-man backed away screaming in front of him and clung to Mrs. Wilmshurst for protection.

  “You needn’t kill him to oblige me,” she said. “Is he worth killing?”

  Mahommed Babar hesitated — stepped a pace back — and seemed to go off guard. The frenzy of cowardice gripped the other, and he lunged with his long knife, missing Mahommed Babar by an inch. A thwack — a thud and his head rolled to lie gaping near Aurung Ali’s.

  The mullah was struggling to cut thongs, making poor progress. Mahommed Babar shouted and the temple door was swung wide open. Twenty or thirty men peered in, crowding to see but not crossing the threshold. Mahommed Babar walked behind the prisoners and severed all thongs with his saber. King held his hand out. Mahommed Babar shook it, very stately and gently, perhaps because of the injured wrist.

  “We’re all awfully obliged,” said King.

  “I say — we’re simply frightfully grateful!” said Mrs. Wilmshurst.

  “You’re a man and a brother, Mahommed Babar,” put in Ommony.

  “Won’t someone introduce us?” asked the judge.

  “Of course, you’ll come with us, old man?” King asked, taking Mahommed Babar’s arm.

  Linkinyear led his two privates to bring their dead comrade’s body from the inner room.

  “No, sahib. I have my work to do. I am a rebel. Here are fifty men who have put the Committee’s men to flight. They will escort you to the British lines. Please give them safe conduct back again.”

  “Ommony and I — this that you have done here — we can save you from a rebel’s fate—” King began.

  “Sahib, you and I are friends,” he interrupted. “Forgive me, then, for my father’s sake and yours. I am a rebel. I will be a rebel until the end.”

  He bowed to Mrs. Wilmshurst, then toward the open door, then to the judge, and kicked two gaping heads out of the way. “You have my leave to go,” he said, and stood waiting, only shaking hands with King and Ommony as they went by.

  EPISODE TWO

  CHAPTER 1. “There isn’t a king, crowd, or parliament that could make me the enemy of a man whom I approve.”


  Cotswold Ommony sat in what he called his “seat of custom,” underneath the sambur antlers, between the front door and the window of the library, on his veranda that overlooked an acre or two of clearing on the outer, penetrable fringe of the forest.

  A crowd of mixed Moplahs with a few veiled women among them squatted on the brown earth that was lawn for two or three months of the year. Man after man emerged into the clearing and added himself to the crowd.

  All eyes were one way. They all watched Ommony’s face — even the dogs, between the intervals of announcing newcomers — as if dreadful matters rested in the scales of his decision.

  Beside him on a mat there squatted an almost naked individual who knew but one business, and who feared that such gods that he had heard of might envy his good fortune unless he also wore the tiger’s eye-tooth around his neck. He cleaned a rifle more scrupulously than any mere military weapon was ever cleaned. Ommony watched that. He said something to the rifle’s valet, who rose and held the barrel so that Ommony could squint along it.

  “Son of Neglectfulness, it calls for three more drops of oil, and much perseverance!”

  “Father of Eyes, it does!” agreed the naked man, without so much as looking to confirm the observation or dispute it.

  The dogs announced the arrival of several more foot-weary men and women, who seemed — at any rate the men — to have improvised a wardrobe from somebody’s rag-pile. Ommony hardly glanced at them, but chose a cigar from a leather case that held half a dozen, and someone below in the crowd accepted that as a sign.

  “We are all here, Ommon-ee.”

  “So I see. The dogs know you are murderers, thieves, destroyers. They grow!”

  “That is true, Ommon-ee. That is why we are here. We wish you to do something about it.”

  The speaker was a tall, lean, long-haired man with eyes like a bird’s, who rose from the front rank of the squatting visitors as meek as a Jew on Sinai, all simple lines of ragged drapery from head to heel; with a nose like a vulture’s beak and a neck that carried the head manfully for all the forward bend of deference.

  “Because you did not burn my house or steal my goods am I beholden to you?” Ommony demanded, obviously enjoying his cigar.

  “Nay, Ommon-ee. We did not burn or take away because you were our friend. That has nothing to do with this. Only we have escaped the cordon of troops, burying our weapons in the jungle, and you are the only friend we know of.”

  “You have to make peace with your enemies, not me,” he retorted.

  “Oh, Ommon-ee! You jest, but we are men between the upper and the lower millstone, who laugh lamely. We made rebellion, and we lost, as Allah knows. We seek comfort, not mockery.”

  “What have you made in the form of overtures?” asked Ommony.

  “What could we do? Those who surrendered when the Raj made proclamation will escape death. Not so with us.”

  “How then? Did Allah breathe a special destiny into your bodies?”

  “That must be. He is omnipotent and can do as He pleases. We are the last, who stayed with Mahommed Babar, whom the British proclaimed a traitor, threatening death to all who should give him aid, counsel, or encouragement. They offered a reward for Mahommed Babar, dead or alive. We be poor men, yet we did not seek that reward. Nevertheless, when the end came we proposed to deliver him to the British as the price of our own lives.”

  “Well?”

  “When we sought him, he was gone!”

  The comforting thing about Ommony was that he always sat still. When in doubt or puzzled he did not get up and pace the veranda restlessly. You could look at him in one place, and feel him look at you, and know that whatever the outcome Ommony would do his best because he was neither nervous, in a hurry, nor afraid.

  “Mahommed Babar was my friend,” he said at last, blowing the ash off his cigar away over the veranda rail. “If you would surrender my friend, why should I seek to save you?”

  The speaker for the Moplahs dropped his jaw for about a second, as if he had just seen the answer to a hard conundrum; and instead of answering he sat down swiftly with his back toward Ommony, beckoning the nearest men to gather close. To them he explained the situation as it now appeared to him; they nodding, grunting, whispering — and presently hurrying outward to explain it to the others in intensely interested groups. They acted as if there were a screen that prevented Ommony from seeing them. It was ten minutes before the diplomatic interlude was over and the spokesman rose to his feet again.

  “Oh, Ommon-ee, what if we spare Mahommed Babar? What if we will not inform against him? Will you help us then?”

  He answered promptly.

  “He was your leader, or he was not. He led you bravely, or he did not. He would have been a fool to leave himself in your hands at the end, or he would not. Judge for yourselves, then tell me the answer.”

  The Moplah chief sat down again. The conference was resumed. In three or four directions one handkerchief could have covered a dozen heads. It was like one of those games that children play, whispering until somebody shouts “ready.”

  They reached emphatic, gesticulating unanimity.

  “Oh, Ommon-ee, we are agreed. In the name of Allah, who is Lord of Truth, as we be men, we will not betray Mahommed Babar.”

  “I see there are women among you,” answered Ommony, wise in the evasions of the East.

  “We answer for our women. They shall not speak.”

  Ommony seemed unimpressed, went on smoking and said nothing. Whatever his visitors’ purpose they appeared to have failed in it. They conferred again, blundering only into deeper mazes of incomprehension, growing angry with the spokesman. Hissing abuse at him for not establishing their case, until at last he cursed them and got to his feet with both hands clenched and a look of forlorn hope.

  “Oh, Ommon-ee, we are not liars. We will not injure Mahommed Babar. We seek only help for ourselves.”

  Ommony saw fit to hint at what was lacking.

  “A man was drowning,” he said gruffly. “Those on the bank said, ‘Lo, you were a good friend; we will not throw stones at you!’”

  The spokesman saw the point. The final whispered interlude lasted about two minutes. Then:

  “Oh, Ommon-ee, we are agreed. As Allah is our witness, Mahommed Babar led us to defeat, but he led well. In the end he knew of our intention to deliver him to the British, and because of that he left us. We will not betray him. We will help him while we live, as Allah sends the opportunity.”

  Ommony nodded. Everybody nodded. The atmosphere changed almost as when the button is pressed that starts a big electric fan.

  “There are those whose orders I obey. I might be told to ask you questions about Mahommed Babar,” said Ommony.

  “Oh, Ommon-ee, we would not answer you.” He nodded again. So did they all.

  “It is a pleasure to help brave men,” he said.

  “We be brave men, Ommon-ee. Are we not the last who held out?”

  “You are outlaws,” he said. “What is your answer to that?”

  “We are rebels, but we are defeated. We surrender.”

  “They will say you have aided and abetted treason, helping the traitor Mahommed Babar. What will you answer?”

  “Nothing. There is no answer. We beg you to help us, Ommon-ee. Accept our surrender and—”

  “I have no authority for that,” he answered.

  “But you can help us?”

  “I will write a letter. Surrender yourselves and deliver the letter to the nearest British post. I don’t know yet what I can do, but I will do my best. My servants will give you food. I will come and see you where they keep the prisoners. You have my leave to go.”

  They trooped away to the back of the house, where Ommony’s Hindu steward measured to them short weight of what meager fare the store contained, taking a receipt for overweight. Ommony sat still, smoking, frowning — watched the dogs as they watched the Moplahs trail away wearily, eyed and initialed the steward’s store-boo
k, sent the steward away, whistled the dogs to lie down near his chair — and continued to sit still; even though birds’ voices and the setting sun told him it was time for certain routine duties. Unbidden, the jungli leaned the clean rifle against the wall and vanished.

  Suddenly all three dogs rose upright with their ears alert. But they did not bark, and Ommony did not move. Diana, the Irish wolf-hound, laid her chin on his knee and thumped the floor slowly with a tail that never makes mistakes. The sun dipped under the topmost trees. The voices of all the servants arguing rose from the kitchen at the rear of the house. A man’s footstep creaked. The fox-terrier’s sawed-off tail made a shuffling sound wigwagging on the floor, and Ommony spoke without moving his head.

  “Go into the library, Mahommed Babar.”

  He gave the man plenty of time, and then followed him in, after a very careful survey of the deepening gloom, which he sent the three dogs scouting to confirm. He obviously cared to have no witnesses.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting. Pardon me if I lock the door.”

  Mahommed Babar looked startled and then checked himself. Ommony understood — left the key in the lock and deliberately turned his back on it, walking across the room to light the lamp. If it is bad manners to scare your guest, it is worse to appear to know that he is scared.

  They stood on either side of a small teak table and looked in each other’s eyes. The other was a very tired man, but still resolute. He wore a saber of the ‘fifties slung from his shoulder by a Sam Browne belt, and a khaki uniform that was patched in a dozen places and half-concealed by a cape that once hung from German shoulders — possibly in the first rush into Belgium, for it was old enough. His turban was torn, and folded carefully to hide the tears. He had no boots, but sandals, with puttees over them.