Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  “Miss, I don’t think that’s nice of you,” said Quorn. “Tigers and heroics ain’t in my line; and I don’t quite get the idee — not yet. But did you think I’d let another guy do my job? The hell I will. I’m double for the Gunga sahib, that’s what I am. Getting et by tigers is a raw deal but a durned sight better than it would be to watch you et, and me sitting pretty. Get a double for the babu, if he needs it. He’s a heathen.”

  Chullunder Ghose grinned. “Am bum psychologist, I don’t think. This babu’s verbosity is many verb saps made into a volume. Let’s go. Million to one shot — same as odds of Irish sweepstakes! Somebody always wins. It’s Moses’ turn to—”

  “Let me talk to Moses,” said the Princess.

  XVII

  “B. Q.”

  Quorn never knew what the Princess said to Moses. He could only guess that she had said it well. The change in the one-eyed, rather shifty looking Eurasian was even more sudden and remarkable than what had taken place in Quorn himself; his self-esteem had suddenly been raised to altitudes where mystery redeems one from a lowly heritage. Excitement, held in by pride, produced what years of education and environment had almost obliterated — that spark of essential spirit that, like death and sleep, makes all men equal — the spark that always upsets calculations, the divinity in man not being calculable by lords of things and rules and precedents.

  “I am to guard you, sir,” said Moses. “You are not to be a massacre. I am entrusted with it.”

  Guardianship began when Quorn went down the ladder in the well-head. Moses went first. He went ahead through the tunnel. The only check in the growth of Moses’ new sense of responsibility was momentary. Quorn called to him to ask what lay behind the huge stone door in mid-tunnel, and for thirty seconds then, Moses plainly hesitated. He seemed afraid to confess ignorance. Then, suddenly:

  “But sir, it would be breach of confeedence. It will be told at the proper moment.”

  Not one word more could Quorn get out of him on that subject. Moses went ahead up the steps at the far end, peering about at the top to make sure no enemies were ambushed. Quorn watched him engage the assistant mahout in conversation; watched the mahout change from sleepy indifference to alertness.

  “What have you said to him?”

  “Nothing much,” said Moses. “If one says too much to such ones they become bad. I have onlee said he shall receive the debt paid that he owes a monee-lender, if for one week he obeys obedientlee and is utterlee secretive.”

  Asoka was summoned out of the water, glistening wet, and for the first time in his life Moses rode in real state, up behind Quorn, scared but too proud to admit it, with a hand on Quorn’s shoulder to keep his balance, The assistant mahout unlocked the gate. The Maharajah’s soldiers drove the crowd back, and Asoka swayed homeward, the assistant mounting by his tail and perching on the wet back with the agility of a monkey.

  “What next?” Quorn asked. He was slightly jealous of the fact that Moses had been taken into confidence.

  Moses, leaning forward, answered in his ear awesomely but trying to smile it off:

  “We are to teach the tiger.”

  “We? You mean you’re game to tackle that?”

  “But sir, if we should fail to do so, there would be unsatisfactoree conseequences.”

  “What do you know about tigers?”

  “Nothing, sir. But I also do not know about poleetics. Yet here I am, politicalee active. That must be undoubtedlee because God wishes it; and if I die obedient to God, then I shall go to heaven. It will make no deeference whether a tiger kills me or I die of some other atrocitee.”

  “Gee, you’re pious.”

  “Pietee is better, sir, than supersteetion.”

  “Aren’t you scared any more o’ the priests?”

  “Oh yes, but they are not of princeepal importance. I shall need some monee. I must send to the bazaar for food and cooking pots, since it is necessaree now to see you are not poisoned, for a week at anee rate. So I will cook in the shed. And I will sleep there also.”

  “The hell you will.”

  “Yes, I have promised, and there are two cots. This assistant is to have a blanket, and shall sleep on the veranda. He and I will watch that you are not a massacre by night. For one week onlee. It is orders.”

  “Whose?”

  “Her Eminence’s orders.”

  Quorn thought things over. It was a new one, to be subject to Moses’ dispositions and vigilance. Was Moses set to spy on him? Again a gulf appeared to yawn between himself and all this mystery of legend and intrigue. It was too late now to back down. He was for it. But the thing seemed more ridiculous than ever. Five-cent books on history had taught him that a coup d’ état is never possible unless the military are behind it, yet a coup d’ état was obviously being planned. Two or three British bombing planes could easily subdue Narada. There was the wire to the border that could summon the Royal Air Force at a few hours’ notice. Even supposing some one should cut the wire, there were the Maharajah’s hundred men and the police. It was the damnedest, craziest, least credible proposition he had ever heard of.

  “Do they mean to feed that Maharajah to the tiger?” he wondered. There was no suggestion wild enough to fit the situation.

  Quorn said nothing more until they reached the compound and Asoka was once more safely picketed beneath his tree with hay to keep him amused. But there was a faint smell of tiger that appeared more interesting than the hay, so Quorn sat on the veranda of his little shed, where he couid watch and be ready for trouble. The elephant was real enough; Quorn understood him. But the rest seemed unreal, and he could not understand it. There were too many mysterious details. There was too much clockwork-like precision in the way things fitted — as for instance: during his absence some one had hung a newly killed kid in a sack to a nail on the wall of the shed. Did that fat babu never overlook anything? How many secret assistants had he? Moses came and sat beside Quorn:

  “It is better, sir,” said Moses, “that you should not seem to understand the language. Then, if I interpret for you, you will know exactlee what is said. And you will not need to say veree much. But what you do say will be accuratelee understood by those to whom I will interpret what you do say.”

  The proposal being reasonable, Quorn nodded. It suited him perfectly.

  “It is better to seem stupid than too senseeble,” said Moses. “It is even better that you give a foolish name to that assistant who has gone for food and cooking pots, because a follee is an unsuspicious circumstance. Exactitude is something to arouse the curiositee of malevolent people.”

  “Yeah, I already named him,” said Quorn. “He’s the image o’ Ratty Riley — him that they ‘lectrocuted for the Trenton hold-up. He already answers to Ratty.”

  “And sobrietee is inadvisable,” said Moses.

  Quorn eyed him sideways. “Never touch the stuff,” he answered. “I’m a tartar when I’m pie-eyed. Six or seven shots o’ Rye and you couldn’t kid me that I can’t lick Dempsey and a locomotive. I’m not taking any.”

  “Nevertheless,” said Moses, “should I put some cold tea in a whisky bottle, it would cause them to treat you not so carefulee, because a drunken person acts ridiculouslee, whereas sober people must be treated otherwise.”

  “I get you. Okay. I’ll act pie-eyed. This whole damned business seems pie-eyed to me. Let’s feed the tiger.”

  Asoka had grown quiet and was tossing hay on to his back contentedly. Quorn took down the kid’s carcase from the nail, and he and Moses climbed over the wall. They pulled the ladder after them to reduce the risk of espionage. Quorn fed the tiger, shuddering as the brute struck the meat off the end of a stick and began to devour it instantly, entrails first.

  “How do you tame a brute like that?” he grumbled.

  “It must certainlee be done,” said Moses. “Possiblee if you should beat him with a whip — or with a hot iron—”

  Quorn sent him over the wall again, to cook dinner and keep an eye on
Asoka.

  “If I’m needed, throw a rock on the roof of this shed. I’ll come quick.”

  Then he settled down to study the conundrum. There was an old packing case in the shed; he sat on that and watched the tiger devour his meal, all but the head and the lower parts of the legs. Then he went near enough to make sure there was water in the pan, and since the tiger merely stared he grew bolder and decided to try to clean the cage. So he climbed back over the wall, hunted up a long-handled hoe and returned. When he shoved the hoe between the wooden bars the tiger played with it, striking at it and pretending to be furious. Or perhaps he was furious. But the job was finished in about fifteen minutes and then the tiger lay down, licking himself contentedly.

  “If I should feed him fat, he’ll probably go sick,” Quorn argued to himself, “but he’ll be safer full o’ meat than craving it. I’d sooner he was sick than me all chewed up.”

  He dragged the packing case close to the cage and sat there to let the tiger get used to him. The brute took no apparent notice, although Quorn sat there until he was weary of sitting still. Then Moses summoned him to dinner. After dinner he returned and found the tiger pacing up and down, so he paced up and down too, as close to the bars as he dared; and at last, when the tiger grew tired of it and lay down in a corner of the cage, Quorn scratched him cautiously. The tiger promptly sprawled to let his ears be rubbed. He was tame. He was used to being handled. There was the clear mark of a collar on his neck.

  “If I should get a collar on him, what then?”

  Barring one journey across the wall when all the elephants returned from the river and supplies had to be measured out, Quorn stayed with the tiger all that afternoon, talking to him now and then in a low voice, hunting for a phrase that the beast might recognize, but with no result. The tiger drowsed most of the time, not growing restless until Quorn started to move away, when he jumped up. He appeared to like human company.

  “But what the hell? A woman couldn’t hold him by the collar, even if he is tame. It’s a cinch he’d break away. And she’d be lucky if he didn’t scrag her. Could I give him opium, I wonder?”

  There was opium in the store-shed, for sick elephants, and as a reward, to be rationed out in minute quantities to the mahouts, who needed it at intervals to keep their dissolute bodies and souls together. But how could one feed a tiger opium? And how much?

  “Wisht I had a book on tiger-training.”

  It was almost dark when Moses summoned him. A stone came thumping on the roof of the shed and startled the tiger out of a snooze. Quorn left him pacing up and down, and as he climbed the wall he could smell supper. There was a little table laid on the veranda. But all that Moses produced was a whisky bottle, from which he poured a stiff dose into a long glass. Not a word was said. Quorn drank the stuff. He detested the flavor of lukewarm tea, but he kept a straight face and even smacked his lips, since there was evidently something in the wind.

  “Give me some more,” he commanded. Moses made a show of protest. Quorn insisted angrily. He drank a second glass, then lurched to the chair and sat down.

  “There is somebodee to see you, sir,” said Moses.

  “Let him wait.”

  Quorn shredded tobacco clumsily and filled his pipe, staring about him while he lighted it, but he could see nothing out of the ordinary. The last of the sacred monkeys was getting away with stolen corn, almost too sleepy to dodge the stone that a mahout threw. It was almost dark; there were a few pale stars already visible and the day smell had changed to the smokier, slightly damper, cooler smell that heralds night. Moses retired into the shed, but Quorn was aware of him peering through the window; he could hear him performing the silly old trick of snapping coins together to suggest a cocked revolver. But nothing happened.

  “Well — who is it?” he demanded at last.

  Then, from around beside the shed, there came a dark-skinned, solemn-looking little man with high cheek-bones and mutton-chop whiskers turning iron-gray. He had a fierce moustache and wore a dull-red turban made of twisted cloth. The bare calves of his legs looked powerful as he stepped on to the veranda, but he was a more than middle-aged man and not particularly active looking — no one to feel afraid of, although he had a vague air of being used to authority, and he was certainly not afraid of Quorn.

  “Kick off your slippers!” Quorn commanded.

  The man obeyed without comment. Then for almost sixty seconds he and Quorn stared at each other, mutually hostile, until the sudden total darkness of the Indian night closed in around them and they were framed in the yellow lamplight from the open window.

  “What does he want, Moses?”

  Quorn knew enough of the language to follow the conversation, and his ears were alert enough to catch the flick of the blade of Moses’ cooking knife against the wood beneath the window.

  “Sir, this personage is the private secretary of the Maharajah’s minister of state. He wishes to speak to you confidentialee.”

  “Tell him to come in the moming when I’m sober. Say when I’m as drunk as this I don’t keep secrets.”

  “Sir, he says it would be well to treat him confidentialee. Thus he may befriend you properlee, but otherwise how can he?”

  “After breakfast in the morning is the time for talk,” Quorn answered.

  “He says, sir, that it is necessaree he and you shall speak together now.” Moses came around through the door with his knife in his hand and dragged up a chair for the visitor, who sat down. “He says, sir, that if there are to be events he wishes to be cognizant of same, in order that he may behave discreetlee. Somebody, he says, has cut the telegraph wire. He thinks you ordered it.”

  “I should care what he thinks.”

  “He says, sir, that you should have a friend or two at court unless you are willing to die of a perfect certaintee; because it will not be permitted that the Princess shall attempt to lead the tiger, and if necessaree they will shoot the tiger and will kill you.”

  “Says he.”

  “Sir, he says that you are quite undoubtedlee a British agent. He is perfectlee aware, he says, that you are sent here by the British to perform a mysteree in order that political disturbance may occur, because the British, who are in manee difficultees, wish for an excuse to seize Narada as they once took Scinde and certain other places. So, he says, you must be veree brave to dare death so importantlee. He says, it is invariablee profitable to protect the brave and to provide for their necessitees. If you should need some monee—”

  “Tell him he may go to hell,” Quorn interrupted. Ignorant he might be, but he was not so ignorant as that. When a total stranger mentions money it is time to close the conversation. But Moses, it appeared, thought otherwise:

  “He says, sir, he is certain that your honor is in no great danger after all, because, if anyone should kill you, that would give the British an excuse to interfere, and nobody will wish that. Nevertheless, he thinks that you should authorize him to suggest that thought to others, just in case some sillee person should neglect to think about it and should act indiscreetlee and kill. He says, it is so easy to take life, so difficult to preeserve same, so impossible to bring back to life when once thoroughlee dead.”

  “Does he think I’m crazy?” Quorn asked.

  “Sir, he says you certainlee are crazee unless you culteevate his affection, because otherwise he will not dare to speak to you as one friend to another.”

  “Kiss him for me. Say I love him first rate.”

  “He says, sir, that he will tell you all he knows if you will be a friend to him in what he calls contingencees. I believe, sir, it would be as well to treat this personage politelee.”

  “Go ahead then. Kiss him.”

  Moses interpreted that at such garrulous length that Quorn grew tired of listening. He gathered, though, that Moses represented him as being tough, and rather drunken, but such a man of his word that even the incredulous and cautious British-Indian Council of State entrusted him with terrific secrets. Moses’ i
dea of the Indian Government was almost as hazy as Quorn’s, but he made up for that with an air of sincerity, and at last the visitor revealed a slightly deeper layer of his motive:

  “Now he says, sir, that the popularitee of the Princess is such that nobodee will dare to attempt to preevent what she has said that she intends to do.”

  “He said the opposite o’ that just now,” Quorn inter- rupted.

  “But, he says, he did not dare to tell the truth until he tested first your honor’s confeedence. But what he wishes to inquire is, how will your honor overcome the prejudices of the priestlee tiger, which is being teased to make him veree angree? Should the Princess try to lead that angree animal, he says, she will be certainlee a massacre. But should she not attempt it, after having promised, she will lose her popularitee, and consequentlee certain personages hesitate to acclaim her. Should they do so they might be much humiliated. If your honor has a good plan and a safe one—”

  Quorn interrupted again: “You tell him miracles are my meat. Joshua, who made the sun stand still, was a mere beginner. And remind him your name’s Moses. Tell him plaguing the Egyptians with frogs and boils was nothing to what you’re cooking up for Bughouse Bill. Say tigers don’t mean nothing to us. Tell him, where I come from, tigers are pet cats. Then tell him I want my supper, so to hell with him and good night.”

  Moses’ translation of that was free but eloquent. He managed to convey the idea without unnecessary detail. The visitor stood up and bowed; but as he bowed he spoke again, low voiced.

  “He says,” said Moses, “does your honor not want monee? He would like her Highness to remember, later on, that he was friendlee toward her—”

  “Tell him to see Chullunder Ghose about it.”

  That was final. Quorn’s voice was suddenly whip-crack definite, and the visitor turned to go.

  “It isn’t that I don’t like graft,” said Quorn to Moses. “Finding’s keepings. First come, first served, mebbe. But I like to know who’s buying what, and why. You get me?”