by Talbot Mundy
Ommony whistled. There came other junglis — four, five, six of them — flitting from tree to tree like homeless shadows. He questioned them. They had seen. He asked who had fired the shot. They pointed through the undergrowth at Prothero. Ommony called to Prothero, who came crashing through the bushes like a wounded buck.
“Here’s your victim,” he said. “Victim and six witnesses.”
“Their evidence—”
“Plus mine,” said Ommony dryly.
Prothero eyed him for a minute, clicking his teeth with his thumbnail.
“Very well,” he said, “you and I had better understand each other. These poor devils won’t know enough to make a complaint unless you — By the way, though — halt and as you were! How could their evidence be taken without an interpreter? And who’s to interpret? You?”
Ommony faced him, answering nothing. It was true, he was the only possible interpreter, and if he himself were to stand charged with treason —
“I, too, was a witness!” said a quiet voice from behind the nearest rock.
For a second Ommony caught sight of Mahommed Babar’s face. Prothero turned on his heel and emptied the automatic stupidly in the general direction of the voice, and then, while he reached for the Webley:
“Look!” said the same voice.
Two heads appeared above near-by rocks — strangers’ heads that set the dogs growling savagely.
“These also were witnesses,” Mahommed Babar continued, keeping carefully out of sight.
“Who the hell are they?” demanded Prothero. “Associates of yours? That outlaws ’em!”
“You are a murderer. That outlaws you!” replied Mahommed Babar. “You are only safe from me as long as you are the guest of Ommon-ee. Whatever harm befalls him shall recoil on you!”
Mahommed Babar disappeared and Prothero laughed. The jungli coughed his life out. The others picked the body up and carried it away. Ommony started homeward. Prothero, stowing away both pistols, swore and followed him.
CHAPTER 4. Peria Vur.
Ommony sat on his favorite seat on the veranda that evening, cursing not exactly fate but his own misuse of it. It is a chief part of his forest-learned creed, which he has drummed into the heads of scores who thought themselves unfortunate, that misfortune is not a cause, but the result of mistakes and misuse of opportunity. So he had no self-pity; only distress and a desire to know wherein he had stumbled.
For stumbled he certainly had. Whoever had heard Prothero’s leave-taking that afternoon could not have failed to understand that Ommony’s number was up, as the saying is. The colonel had made one last effort to reach terms dishonorable, and Ommony had simply laughed.
“Trap Mahommed Babar for me and I’ll save your bacon!”
“Those dogs wouldn’t do what you ask. Am I worse than a dog?” he had answered.
And Prothero had said:
“Yes! Less than a dog you’ll be before I’m through. I’m a man of few principles, Ommony, but I live up to ’em. I never brook refusal or interference. If I go for a man, I get him. Now — I’ll give you a last chances”
“Go to hell,” said Ommony.
Whereat Prothero went to the railway station on Ommony’s pony, having no sense of pride where his own comfort was concerned. Lal Rai followed on foot with several of Ommony’s prized possessions concealed about his person, having no more pride than his master.
So Ommony’s cook went to no pains with the dinner. And the butler neglected to put flowers on the table. The “boy” put broken studs into the white shirt that he laid on the bed, and deliberately picked out old socks with holes in them. It is in such little ways as that that kings first learn of their subjects’ disaffection.
They reasoned that Ommony would dress for dinner in spite of the colonel sahib’s threats and the whispered hints of Lal Rai, who was a badmash, but knew too much. Ommony always did dress for dinner even when alone, that being another section of his inviolable creed. A white man, to his way of looking at it, is a white man, and his home is his castle, wherein if he does not respect himself none will.
However, he continued to sit on the veranda that evening until after dark, taking no notice of the boy’s announcement that hot water was ready — refusing to have his boots removed — keeping his gun beside him instead of letting the hamal place it in the glass case and bring the key as usual.
The butler, who had been many things to many masters, spoke darkly of suicides he had known. According to him, a white man always sat that way, with a gun beside him, and his head between his hands, and elbows resting on knees, when he contemplated blowing out his brains. He said the signs were infallible. Moreover, the dogs came and sat down beside their master miserably, divining his sorrow, which was an even more positive sign. Diana, the wolf-hound, moaned, and was rewarded with a few pats on the head, which brought the terrier into Ommony’s lap in spasms of jealousy.
Dinner was announced by the butler — in a dirty smock because of the occasion. Normally Ommony would have dismissed him for the evening in shame and tribulation for daring to be otherwise than spotless. But Ommony did not even look up — did not acknowledge the summons — and the dogs, having understanding of their master’s mood and not much patience with stupidity, growled at the butler for the first time since he had been engaged two years before, so that he fled precipitately and locked himself into his quarters.
Finally Ommony shook the terrier off his lap and pulled out a cigar. He could see no solution of the problem; therefore he would bide the event — mark time, as the soldiers have it. Prothero’s power was too great, his influence too vast, and the fear of him in bureaucratic circles too well- founded for any one man in India to possess a chance against him, whatever the rights and wrongs of the argument.
He might charge Prothero with murder, it was true. But he had only jungle witnesses, and himself for interpreter, unless he should call on Mahommed Babar and his two unexpected friends, whose heads had appeared so opportunely near the scene. But he could not call on Mahommed Babar without putting the man’s life in jeopardy, even supposing he could find Mahommed Babar now in any event. The owners of those unexpected heads were probably fugitives from justice, who had served to bluff Prothero nicely at the time but would never dare approach a township to give evidence against him.
And there was the whole unholy gamut of Prothero’s ability to procure false witnesses, sustain false charges, tamper with evidence and blackmail officialdom. Moreover, there was that filthy beast Lal Rai, capable of swearing and procuring witnesses to prove whatever Prothero’s ambitious heart desired.
There was only one thing to do, one course to take that he could see.
“Nothing!” he said aloud. “Nothing whatever, and trust whatever gods there be!”
“Your honor might take in Mahommed Babar and surrender him,” said a voice he knew; and he realized all at once that for several minutes past Diana had been nuzzling into his fist to call attention, and the other dogs had been wagging tails and restless.
He turned his head to see Mahommed Babar standing in the dark inside the door, holding his hand back of him as if restraining someone else. He got up, taking the gun with him, and entered the library, where three men followed him, one of whom locked the door. He could not see who they were until he had lighted the lamp, but the dogs, who had come too, betrayed no alarm, so he set the gun down in the corner before he struck a match. The light showed Mahommed Babar and the other two strangers from the North who had witnessed the killing of the jungli. Mahommed Babar presented them.
“All Khan of Aira. Jhat Singh of Jubbulpore. Your honor’s servants.”
Jhat Singh was square and squat, but Ali Khan looked much like Mahommed Babar. Ommony eyed them without enthusiasm. Their presence only complicated matters.
“Mahommed Babar, I wish to hell you’d go away, and stay away — you and your friends!” he said rudely. “Ali Khan is an escaped murderer under sentence. You’re no better than the company you kee
p. Get away from here!”
“Give me up, sahib! I am here to propose that,” said Mahommed Babar. “Here are two men who will carry on my work. After I am hanged they will do better than I, being two in place of one and spurred to greater valor by the fate that overtook me.”
“Damn it! D’you think I’m on your side?” demanded Ommony. “D’you think I protect you in order to see my own crowd slaughtered?”
“Nay, sahib, I know better. You have been my friend, and I offer you my life to save your honor. But I would be dishonest unless I showed you what the consequence would be. I speak in good faith. You may surrender me. These men, my brothers-in-blood, will carry on the task.”
“You’re talking rot!” Ommony retorted. “You’re claiming blood-brotherhood with a convicted criminal, who richly deserves hanging. If you choose to surrender, go and do it. That’s your affair. My business is the forest.”
“Sahib, I would surrender if I saw no other way.”
Mahommed Babar took a side-step rather swiftly in the direction of the corner. Ali Khan of Aira pocketed the door-key. Ommony noticed neither incident. Only the dogs began to grow unaccountably restless, so that Ommony had to chide them gruffly, laying his hand on Diana’s neck to smooth the rising hair.
Mahommed Babar had his back to Ommony’s shot-gun now.
“I do see an alternative,” he said abruptly. “Can your honor control those dogs? Otherwise I must shoot the big one!”
The thing was over in a minute. Mahommed Babar’s friends pinned Ommony’s arms behind him, and the gun was leveled at Diana. So he spoke the word that saved the dog’s life, and Mahommed Babar smashed in the glass of the gun-case, taking out three rifles, one revolver, a shot-gun, and some ammunition.
“During all the time you have trusted me I have never touched your firearms, sahib. But now it shall be perfectly clear that you are an unwilling prisoner. We will demonstrate the absence of collusion — thus!”
They had tied Ommony’s hands, and Diana the wolf-hound was sniffing at the cord, wondering what to do about it yet obedient to the almost unbelievable command to “stay still.” Mahommed Babar gave Ommony’s rifles to his two friends, himself buckled on the revolver, laid the shot-gun on the table, and took pen and paper. He wrote in English:
Mr. Cotswold Ommony has been taken prisoner and is held a hostage for the lives of all Mahommed Babar’s men who surrendered recently. Should harm befall those Moplahs, Mr. Ommony will suffer in like degree. Should they be set free unharmed, Mr. Ommony will receive the same treatment.
— Mahommed Babar (Sirdar),
Officer Commanding the remaining unsurrendered rebels against British rule.
He pushed it across the table for Ommony to see. Ommony laughed.
“Who’ll believe that after Prothero’s account is in?” he sneered. “You’d better shoot me and have done with it.”
“We shall see, sahib. We shall see. We shall see,” said Mahommed Babar, and began to give hurried orders to the other two. “We will leave this manifesto on the table. That should be a good place. Be good enough to control those dogs, sahib. It would grieve me as much as you to be obliged to kill them. Thus. Now we will proceed. Which servant would your honor prefer? Unfortunately one is all we can permit, and I advise the cook.”
“Do as you damn please!” answered Ommony, walking out of the room with a shot-gun at his back.
“Your honor shall ride. Which horse do you prefer?”
“The gray one.”
There followed panic almost indescribable in pitch blackness criss- crossed by the glow-worm flashes of three lanterns, as Mahommed Babar turned out Ommony’s servants and put them to work producing such stores as he needed. Nothing more was demanded of Ommony than that he stand and be seen under the stable lamp with his hands made fast behind him and a shot-gun leveled at his head. Every one of the servants saw him — all three grooms, the gardeners, butler, hamal, boy, and two or three hangers-on. They saw the cook seized, too, and bound, protesting, to a tonga-wheel while the kitchen was rifled of delicacies.
Then the whole lot — provisions, delicacies, ammunition, odds and ends, and cook — were bundled into the tonga and driven away down a jungle lane, followed by Ommony on the gray pony with his hands still tied behind and the dogs in close attendance.
Mahommed Baber rode away last on Ommony’s fourth horse — a beast that was nearly due for pension underground. He locked up the empty house first, and drove the other servants all away toward the railway station, after making sure they would report all they had seen by threatening them with torture if they did. Then he kicked the decrepit mount into a canter, overtook Ommony and reined alongside.
“Could your honor summon the junglis to keep leopards and such away?” he asked.
“No need,” Ommony answered. “They never let me out of sight unless I go by train.”
“Day or night?”
“Day or night. Loosen this cord, will you; it cuts like the devil.”
“No, sahib. I am sorry. Nevertheless, I am pleased it cuts.”
Mahommed Babar gave no explanation of that paradox — avoided being asked for one — rode on — overtook the tonga — exchanged places with Ali Khan, who was driving, and sent the other back to act rear- guard.
Ali Khan was distinctly curt with Ommony. Although a convicted murderer, apparently he did not like the name. The atmosphere of captive and captor — almost of threat — became unmistakable, and on the whole was rather a relief. At least a man knew where he stood, so to speak. Even the cord that bound his wrists seemed to hurt less.
They went at a slow trot as far as the ponies could drag the tonga. Close to the Outlook Rock the track became too difficult for wheels in the dark, so they took the ponies out, up-ended the tonga shaft so as to tip out all of the contents, cached everything except one haversack full of eatables which they loaded on the cook, left the tonga where it was, mounted the cook on one of the tonga ponies, where he sat lamenting dismally, and carried on.
The forest owned Ommony. He was its guardian spirit. There was not a track he did not know. It was not his boast, but his conviction, that you might blindfold him and lead him anywhere within its limits, and he would “place” himself almost instantly after his eyes were uncovered. It was certainly impossible to lose him by following any negotiable trail within ten miles of his bungalow; and as his eyes were not bandaged it was only a matter of minutes before he understood perfectly whither they were heading.
Once, in the days when the Buddha was something more than a tradition, those square leagues used to echo to traffic and the boom of temple bells. There were half a dozen cities in the area now claimed by Ommony’s beloved trees. Roots, rain and wind had used the centuries to upturn and make mere stones of the masonry. Where towers had stood were mounds, in which the she- wolves dug to rear their young. In the market-places was a tangle of such undergrowth as only the wild pig could scramble into. Streets had become watercourses, boiling brown in the monsoon, almost unnegotiable tracks when the rain was over.
But there were visible remains of splendor, if a man knew where to look for them. There are papers in archaeological archives, written by Ommony, and filed by men who paid him graceful compliments, but neither cared nor understood, describing in extraordinary detail some of the Buddhist remains in Moplah country. They are accompanied by photographs and drawings — even maps — so that an inquirer could find his way to them without much more than a compass and an escort. But there is fashion in archaeology, as in other things. Ommony and advertisement don’t jibe. He tells what he knows and, if it falls on deaf ears, turns his back, respecting societies no more than individuals. So his antiquities are almost as unknown as when he first discovered them and scratched among their carvings with a stick.
One, and the most wonderful, is the place he has called Peria Vur, which means Great City; not that there is any city left, but he argues that the temple, whose foundations and part of whose upper structure he discovered,
can only have existed in a populous community. It may have housed as many as a thousand priests. Its gates that open north, south, east and west are more massive than those the ancient Egyptians raised, and, though in ruins, still bear witness to the traffic passing under them, for the stones are worn into channels by the tread of simply countless naked feet.
Ommony, with the aid of junglis, had done a little work in there with ax and spade at various time; but the jungle grows so fast again after the rains that year by year he could hardly find the clearing of the year before. He had ordered the junglis to drive animals away, and the track leading to the place had been kept more or less practicable by their repeated visits in the breeding season for that purpose. But as a rendezvous almost any jungle clearing would have been more practicable than Peria Vur when he last set eyes on it.
Nevertheless, to Peria Vur they were bound, for that winding track led nowhere else. As they advanced it became easier, instead of more difficult. In the pitchy darkness — not even stars were visible through the canopy of branches — it was quite impossible to tell how much work had been done, but there were no low-hanging twigs to strike a horseman’s face, and the stirrups did not catch in undergrowth as formerly.
It was about nine miles, by a winding route that made fifteen of it, from the Outlook Rock to Peria Vur, and they covered the distance in three hours, which was proof enough that more than a handful of men had been busy. Then they were aware of three lights — red, green, yellow — evidently looted train lamps — swinging horizontally in line above the trees.
Someone — probably Mahommed Babar — blew a horn. One shrill blast. It was answered by the lights, which moved, and hung vertically. Also by another blast, which explained unmistakably the condition of the track by which they came. Elephants trumpeted.
There is a huge rock that you must skirt before you come on Peria Vur. Even by day it shuts off all view of the place from between the trees. It stands so high and bulks so big that bonfires on the Peria Vur side would be invisible to anyone approaching. On the top of that rock — the “Rump,” as the junglis call it because of its shape — someone was managing the colored lights. The elephants — seven as it transpired — were tethered to the left of the track, and the party wound around between them and the rock, being greeted by a second trumpeted salute that nearly scared the ponies out of their senses.