by Talbot Mundy
They stopped in the narrowest place, in front of the narrowest door of all, set deep into the wall and thickly studded with bronze nails. Jannath slipped out between the front curtains before Ommony could spur his horse between wheel and wall in the gut where the alley curved.
There was a narrow, barred slit in the door, and Jannath spoke through that. The door opened about an inch, as if someone within were holding it ready. Jannath shrank into the recess out of reach, and it was too late then to grab him by the neck and keep control of him.
With growing misgiving Ommony dismounted. The dog jumped out and made ready to attack Jannath from under the ekka at the first hint from Ommony; but it was in his mind that minute to call off everything. What right had he to risk a woman’s life when he could save her by simply ordering the ekka to drive on?
He went to the rear end to lean in through the curtains and caution Elsa to remain inside. But she stepped out before he could speak.
“All ready!” she said, smiling.
Maybe the Christians smiled and spoke and looked like that before they stepped into the arena in ancient Rome. She was nothing if not admirable.
Then Jannath yelped. The ekka-driver whacked the foundered dun and drove away. Ommony had thrown his horses’ reins over a peg on the tail-end; so the horse went too.
And out of doors before them and behind, some thirty yards in each direction up and down the alley, there came other priests and priests’ attendants. There was no retreat, nor any use in sending the dog to change the ekka-driver’s mind. There was room to have fought, now the ekka was out of the way, but an impulse not to fight — an inner prompting to go forward with the whole affair.
He could see in his mind’s eye Molyneux in white drill, dress sword and official helmet approaching the temple entrance, striding straight and taking no heed whatever of side issues.
Jannath beckoned. The door opened wider. Elsa Craig, with less than a full glance at Ommony over her shoulder, walked straight in, and the dog followed at her heels. The priests — four or five from each direction — started to run as if their intention was to cut in in front of Ommony and block the way. With a sickening feeling in his heart of having mismanaged it all and failed, he followed Elsa with a leap, repeater in one hand and riding-whip in the other; and instead of priests at his back the door slammed shut — in darkness!
“Where are you?”
No answer. Not even Diana’s whimper to announce her whereabouts. Absolute silence, and a sense of being shut within thick walls. No glint of light; the slit in the door he entered by was covered by an iron plate, and he could not feel what fastened it. Matches! He stuck the riding-whip under his arm to grope in his pocket; found a box of safeties, worried one out with impatient fingers, struck once without result, struck again — and the fire he saw was in his own eyes as he fell! He was hit hard, and he knew it — even knew it was a sandbag — felt the numbness down his neck and shoulders — knew enough to lie still.
He was not unconscious — knew that presently. He felt as if Cotswold Ommony were lying down and out, perhaps dead, while he, another man, was looking on, or, rather, listening-in, for it was much too dark to see. And his brain was working perfectly; he understood each word he listened to, in a language not so many know besides the priests.
“Is he dead?”
“I think so.”
“Better hit him again and make sure.”
“No need. If he comes to life I will hit him.”
“Have you his pistol?”
“Yes.”
“What is the meaning of all this, Jannath?”
“Send someone with money to that ekka-driver. He must either be killed or bribed to go away. What he knows must be covered up.”
“Presently. No hurry about that. Brass-Face threatened to search the temple. He is on the way. Parumpadpa is distracted and blames all on you.”
“Parumpadpa shall eat blame for this. I am the next high priest. Those who are my friends now will be recompensed. Parumpadpa has said she is dead. We will prove it.”
“We have all said that.”
“My friends, and I, will say that Parumpadpa ordered it. She must be killed and thrown into the crypt. We will show her, dead, to Brass-Face, saying Parumpadpa ordered it. To the people we will say that Parumpadpa is to blame for desecration of the temple.”
“Why kill her? Why not give her up alive to Brass-Face?”
“She knows too much. She would deny what we say.”
“Then what about this man?”
“Let him be found dead along with her. Of him we will say it is a scandal; that he loved the missionary’s wife. Loving not such scandals, the British will be easier to manage afterward. Take this pistol and go in and kill her.”
“Not here! There would be a noise.”
“Then go in with a dagger or a rope.”
“None dares. It is dark, and that dog is as big as a man — more savage, too, than ten men!”
“All right; let her walk into the crypt; that is easier. There you and I will kill her. Leave the dog to me. I will shoot the dog with this pistol; you use your dagger on the woman.”
“I am afraid.”
“Ask no favors then when I am high priest! You can see that Parumpadpa’s day is done. His friends will fall with him. There will be a collapse. Who but I can restore our former prestige?”
“Then you will kill the woman, and I will try to shoot the dog.”
“No. You must be compromised, so that I may be sure you won’t betray me afterward. Come along; help me drag this thing.”
“Ach-h! I hate to touch a corpse; it is defilement.”
“That is why I haven’t killed him, quite. We will finish the business in the crypt. Make haste. Brass-Face may be at the door already.”
They each took a leg and dragged Ommony face upward over smooth flags with gaps between them; and every bump over the gaps brought Ommony to clearer consciousness. The healthy blood resumed its coursing, and he felt the life flow back through nerves and muscles, tingling like pin-points.
“Better listen first,” said Jannath’s accomplice. “Yes, I’ll go with you. There must be no slip!”
“Leave me to watch here then, while you go.”
“Not I! Come with me. Is that, door shut?”
“Yes.”
“Come on, then.”
They let go Ommony’s legs and hurried down an echoing passage in the dark. Ommony lay still until he heard a door shut behind them in the distance before he got to his knees and fell forward again from vertigo. Afraid to try that again, lest reaction should overcome him altogether, he lay still, calling: “Di! Di!” in a low voice. Then he whistled, and heard Diana’s snuffling beyond a door and the dog’s low whimper. He crawled to the door, and felt a half-inch crack beneath it.
“Mrs Craig! Mrs. Craig!” he whispered.
“Mr. Ommony? Is that you?”
He groped in his inner pocket.
“Quick! Take this!”
And he pushed under the door the page from his memorandum-book, on which he had written a message to Molyneux.
“There’s a leather loop on Di’s collar, near the buckle. Fold this message and push it through the loop so that the paper sticks out at each end and can be easily seen. Then at the first chance send the dog for help. Just say: ‘Bring a white man! Bring a white man!’ and she’ll do her best.
“Don’t answer me! Don’t try to speak to me! I’m supposed to be dead or dying, and that’s the only chance we’ve got — except the dog; so preserve Di’s life as long as possible. Hs-s-h! They’re coming!”
He crawled back to the spot where they had left him and lay still, face upward. There were four now. Jannath and his friend had found two other men, or had been detected by them and had had to let them into the secret.
“Parumpadpa swears all is your fault, Jannath!”
“He will cease boasting presently! But silence! You two bring the woman and the dog while we drag this thin
g. Threaten her that if she does not keep the dog quiet you will kill them both instantly.”
“Why not kill the dog at once?”
“Yes; no harm. But no noise; and be swift!”
All in pitch blackness Jannath and his friend began to drag Ommony, and the bumping over smooth, unevenly laid flags so dinned into his head that he could hardly hear the others open the door of the room where Elsa was. But he heard what followed — thunder! Volleys of angry growling split apart by Diana’s war bark! Cries for help!
They let go Ommony’s legs and ran back, crying for silence. He decided it was time to come to life and, now or never, to test his returning strength. He whistled — shouted:
“Good dog, Di! Down ’em!”
He managed to get to his feet. Jannath returned on the run, and Ommony could hear the sandbag whirling as the priest got speed up for a blow that should finish him. If he could only see!
But neither could Jannath see. The priest swung — missed — clutched at his victim — and went down as a chance left swing by Ommony went home under the angle of his jaw.
Down on his knees on the priest’s empty belly went Ommony, searching for the pistol — found it — and brought the butt of a .45 down hard on the shaven head. That ended Jannath’s chance of the high-priesthood. The skull broke like an eggshell.
Back down the passage there was pandemonium, echoes of growling, shouts, feet slipping on stone — and a woman gasping, crying:
“Careful! Careful!”
“Sic ’em, Di!” yelled Ommony.
The dog’s best chance for safety against daggers lay in swift attack; and the more ferocious she was, the better his chance from the rear. He ran with both hands out in front, guided by sound, turned to the right when he felt the corner of the wall, and nearly fell again, for a man crashed backward into him to escape Diana’s jaws.
He used the butt again. Diana smelled him — slobbered on him — began to wriggle and yelp pleasure — then yelped in earnest as a long knife reaching for her slit the skin along her flank. She turned and had that opponent by the throat before the echo of her yelp came off the wall, and Ommony saved a second stab point blank with the .45.
By its flash he saw Elsa, white and motionless against a corner of a four- square stone cell, and the third man coming for him, felt the wind of the dagger descending; thrust the muzzle against naked ribs — and fired again.
“Four all accounted for! Are there any more in there?”
“No more,” said Elsa. “Are you hurt?”
“No. Come.”
“We ought to stay and give first aid to these.”
“They’ve had all they’ll need! Come on!”
He took her hand and ran with her, Diana careering ahead to smell out ambush and making the long passage echo with a hunting-howl. Elsa tripped over Jannath’s body and had to be helped up.
“What next?” she gasped.
“Straight through with the plan!”
“Do you know the way?”
“We’ll find it! Come on — hurry!”
“I’ve hurt my knee.”
“Come on!”
At the end of possibly a hundred yards of echoing darkness they ran into a door. He stopped and struck matches — three of them; the damned things wouldn’t light.
Suddenly it occurred to him to try the door. It was unlocked. They ran through into gloom that was as daylight by comparison, and down endless steps, with Diana’s waving tail always a turn ahead of them and her deep, delighted bark announcing, “All’s well!”
Into another passage — deep below ground-level this one — and along that for fifty yards to rising steps. Diana charged up them and returned looking puzzled, standing where an overhead shaft allowed a beam of distant light to filter in.
“What is it, Di? Lord! If a dog could only talk! Come on; we’ll have to chance it!”
Up, and up, dragging Elsa by the hand, she following gamely; turn, and turn again, another short passage — steps — and then a door-locked! No lock on this side — only a keyhole, big enough to thrust the muzzle of the .45 in easily. He fired, and an ancient iron lock fell loose on the other side.
Something still held, but a shove with most his remaining strength sent the door swinging, and Diana rushed in past him — into the crypt — no doubt of it, they were under Siva’s temple.
In a gloom like twilight, images of what looked like a dozen different gods were ranged against the walls, as if one by one they had been superseded and relegated to this lumber-room. But the place was clean from use. There was an altar in it with a lingam, and away beyond that steps leading upward into golden light.
“Temple lamps up there!” said Ommony. “It’s a goal! Come on!”
They could hear confusion in the temple — men’s voices, and a noise as if things were being moved to barricade a door. Someone was giving orders. Ommony caught one’s purport.
“They’re coming! Shut the door now! Shut it in their faces!”
Then Diana must have burst among the priests like an apparition. Ommony, speeding up the last steps, lost sight of her, for the inside of the temple was a maze of pillars, images and colored lights, with a great clear space in the midst.
But the great door was open yet. The bolt that should drop into a hole in the stone threshold caught in the stones as they fumbled in their haste. There was a gap yet a yard wide, through which the outer twilight streamed.
“Good dog, Di! Get a white man! Go bring him!”
Like a flash the dog broke through; and then they raised the bolt, and the door slammed after her, missing the end of her tail by the breadth of a hair on it.
“Now,” said Ommony, “if I’m not sick I feel like it. My head aches. Take this pistol and defend yourself. If you’re alive when Molyneux comes in, say you came up from the crypt. Say nothing more if you can help it. Please obey that.”
Then he sat down suddenly with his back against the wall in a corner and his heels sliding out from under him. His head fell forward on his chest, and Elsa, with the pistol in her right hand, stood there looking at the priests and him, and wondering what to do.
CHAPTER 14. “She euchred the Ephesians!”
Sir William Molyneux, advancing up the narrow street toward the temple with a mounted regiment behind him, met the diwan’s carriage coming from the other direction and saluted. Behind the diwan was a company of infantry, not nearly so dependable, but there in order that the Maharajah’s forces might be fully represented.
Brass-Face pulled out his watch. He seemed totally unconscious of a crowd that swarmed behind the troops and yelled at him from roofs and every imaginable vantage-point. A stone fell and broke within two feet of him, but he took no notice.
“Six-thirty! I’ve allowed them half an hour’s grace. Diwan sahib, I intend to force that temple door unless they open it or produce Mrs. Craig.”
A big stone knocked the watch out of his hand, but he took no notice. He was smiling — frowning over it — a little like a heavyweight considering the opponent from his corner of the ring.
“Ah! There’s a priest. Perhaps they intend to be sensible.”
The temple door was shut, but a priest came solemnly around a corner of the building, mounted the steps at the end, and then came down them straight toward Molyneux. Even the crowd grew still. The only sounds were the stamping of restless troop-horses and a dog’s bark not far away. The priest stood still in front of Molyneux and waited to be addressed.
“Where’s Mrs. Craig?” asked Molyneux in English.
“We do not know.”
“What does he say?”
“He says he does not know,” interpreted the diwan.
“Is she in that temple?”
“No.”
“What does he say?”
“He says, ‘No.’”
“He’ll have to prove it! Tell him that! My information is that she is in there.”
The diwan spoke, and the priest grew angry.
“She
is not in there. We know nothing of her. She is probably dead by the diwan’s orders.”
“Lord! I hate this!” muttered Molyneux.
He turned half-about to say something to the troops’ commanding officer but checked himself. He caught sight of a white man’s helmet, someone — Craig, it could not be another — forcing his way violently toward him along the line between the troopers and the crowd.
“Let that man come! What is it, Craig?”
Craig burst through and ran to him, holding a great bleeding stag-hound by the collar with one hand-waving a piece of paper in the other — breathless.
“A letter — Ommony — my wife — they’re in there!”
He thrust the paper into Molyneux’s hand.
“But this is addressed to me, sir!”
“Can’t help that! I read it before I knew. It was in the dog’s collar. She found me, and I’ve found you! They’re in there now! Get busy, man!”
“I accept that explanation. All right, Craig.”
“Then hurry, man! Look sharp!”
But Brass-Face, whom no man ever succeeded in hurrying, paused to read the penciled note:
You will find Mrs. Craig in the temple. I will try to worm my way in and be with her. When you get this note it will be time to act swiftly. — C.O.
Swiftly was another thing from hurriedly. Molyneux and speed could be one unit on occasion, with unexpectedness on top of that to hurry the other side.
“ — Open that door!” he commanded, feeling for his watch, forgetting it was in fragments at his feet.
He had meant to allow sixty seconds.
“We will not!” the priest answered. “There is an image backed against it. You may not — cannot-enter!”
The diwan started to interpret, but Molyneux did not wait for that. He seized the priest by neck and one arm, twisted the arm and forced the priest to face about.