by Talbot Mundy
But Moses only answered:
“Oh my God!” He dropped his knife on the veranda and stood frozen with terror. Quorn let his chair come forward with a thump and sat still.
The visitor had paused at the veranda step to put his slippers on, and perhaps to think of one last argument to break down Quorn’s reticence. Out of the darkness, flashing for a second in the lamplight from the open window, came a thrown knife. It struck the visitor between the shoulder-blades. He fell without saying a word, blood spurting from his mouth. His lungs were pierced.
“They have killed him, sir,” said Moses stupidly. Quorn got up to look closely, but suddenly thought better of it. He decided first to summon the mahouts as witnesses. His foot struck Moses’ kitchen-knife.
“Pick it up,” he ordered. “Get inside and stay there.”
“Sir, that knife was meant for you!” said Moses. But another voice interrupted, laughing:
“Not so! This babu bets all his money that Bughouse Bill proposes you shall be accused of murder, Gunga sahib! I bet that is your knife, stolen from the mission gate-house! Let me see it.”
Chullunder Ghose strode out of shadow. He stooped to examine the victim — an enormous target, had there been another knife in ambush.
“Watch out for yourself,” Quorn advised him. “How long have you been here?”
“Not long. I followed this man; what he had to tell you was important. Yes, this knife has B.Q. on the handle — your initials.”
Quorn swore angrily: “I never put ’em on a knife.” “No?” The babu chuckled. “They did! Bughouse Bill is fond of finesse, and he thinks of details! One knife for two adversaries. Not bad! But a bughouse is a bughouse. And a verb sap is—” He raised his voice a little higher. “Idherao!” he commanded.
Three men stepped out of the darkness — two who looked like soldiers, and a third who trembled in their grip on his sinewy arms.
XVIII
“Two In One Skin!”
The babu looked deathly tired. The yellow lamplight made his weary, handsome face look older. The chair that Moses brought creaked under him as he let himself go and sat slackly, relaxed. His eyelids drooped, but there was fire behind the meditative eyes. His big head still poised masterfully on the strong neck. Lines of humor, still there, indicated that the humor might have irony behind it. It was a marvel that the man was not a high court judge or something of the sort. In that rich light and shadow he was a picture of Quorn’s idea of what a senator had looked like in the splendid days of Rome. His powerful, well-shaped fingers tapped judicially on the table as he considered the man in front of him — a man who no longer trembled and no longer tried to shrink free from the grip of the two who held him.
“We’re full in lamplight,” Quorn warned.
“And the audience is in the dark,” the babu answered. “That is proper.” Then he began to talk to the prisoner, arrogantly, in a language of which Quorn knew not one word. Moses, who appeared also not to understand that language, slunk indoors, crossing himself and shuddering as he passed the corpse. As he opened and closed the shed door, light shone for a second on shadowy forms in the outer darkness. The mahouts had gathered. They were watching. They were trying to listen.
Suddenly Moses yelled and came rushing out again. The crash of upset cooking pots behind him was as startling as an explosion.
“Cobra! Oh my God!” His one eye was white in the lamplight. “Who will kill him? Somebodee must kill him!” The mahouts came closer. One could hear them breathing.
“Shut the door,” said the babu. “Keep the snake in there. It shall kill this prisoner, unless he tells me what I wish to know.” Apparently he repeated that to the prisoner, who grinned uncomfortably, as a frightened, stubborn man might show his teeth at the sight of instruments of torture.
Quorn shut the door with a slam that made Moses jump. Then he stared in through the open window for about a minute.
“Yes,” he said at last, “a big ‘un. Darn you, you’ve spilled my supper,” he added. “How did he get in there?”
“Which is easier,” the babu asked: “to throw a knife, or to let a cobra out of a basket? Bughouse Bill is thorough. But so are cobras. This man, who threw the knife, shall fight that cobra with his teeth unless he answers me.” He said something or other very swiftly, in a low voice, to the two who looked like soldiers though they wore no uniform, and they began to twist the prisoner’s arms behind his back. Quorn sat down nervously:
“Eh? Third degree?” he objected.
“To begin with,” said the babu. “There are ninety-nine degrees in India and I know all of them. Tread on his toes,” he commanded. “Time is of the essence of our haste, and I am not so sentimental as I look.”
A heavy, military-looking foot descended on the prisoner’s, who set his teeth and held his breath.
“Now punch him in the belly,” said the babu. Out came the prisoner’s breath with a spastic gasp — then a groan — then a tortured exclamation.
“He will talk now,” said the babu. “I intend to let him go if he is truthful.” He repeated that to the prisoner.
“But he murdered a man,” Quorn interrupted.
“You moralist!” The babu smiled scornfully. “Lives there a king or president or ruler in the world, whose authority is not based on murder? Name me a god who is not a murderer! What do I care that this fool slew a secretary? I have learned that the palace hesitates which way to bet. That was the dead man’s message. Having given it, what was he worth? He is a dead rat. Now then—” (he changed to the vernacular)— “twist his fingers.”
But the prisoner had had enough persuasion. He began to talk rapidly, in the language that Quorn did not understand.
“A mere fool,” said the babu at last. “A fanatical fool, and a liar, as fanatics all are. He justifies himself. He says he had no orders, but he overheard the speech of Gunpat Rao. Very probable! It is as if I said I overheard the secrets of the British Cabinet in Downing Street! But he says that he and another therefore made conspiracy together. One would introduce a cobra into the shed. The other — that is this one — would throw a knife. And thus, one way or the other, one of them would slay this imitation Gunga sahib and prevent the intended sacrilege. He says it was an accident; he slew the wrong man. He lies, but what of it? He forgets the initials on the knife. That dead rat went to Gunpat Rao and did talk to him. Am I a simpleton? So simple am I that the man who overheard was no less than the dead rat’s body servant; so I know the whole truth. And the truth is this: there is a palace revolution, almost; but the palace hesitates. So the dead rat was sent to see you, and you only. However, he was a rat, and first he went to Gunpat Rao to have both confidences and to sit on both sides of the fence. Gunpat Rao easily seduced him. So he came here and held you in conversation, intending that you should be an easy target for a thrown knife. But Gunpat Rao is Bughouse Bill, who loves no rats that run from one side to another. To accuse the Gunga sahib of a murder, and to murder the rat who might otherwise betray his confidence, seemed subtler to him and a lot less dangerous. So this fool was instructed, although not by Gunpat Rao, who is not so easy with his confidences, and a knife was notched with your initials. Simple, wasn’t it? Why not arrest you? But the point is, nobody knows now what this murdering fool has told me. Bughouse Bill will certainly repudiate him, but he will not know how much I know. He will try to discover how much I know, before he makes his next move. He surely knows already that his plan miscarried; probably a dozen messages have reached him.”
“Hell,” said Quorn, “he’ll send and murder both of us. That’s easy. Put the light out, Moses. Sitting here’s like daring ’em to do it.”
But Moses was afraid to go into the room where the cobra was, and the lamp was too far back from the window to be reached from outside. The babu seemed too tired to make a joke about it, but he spoke to Quorn as to a child who had been stupid at his lessons:
“There are more than thirty witnesses observing us, you innocent! Do
you imagine Bughouse Bill would trust mahouts to keep his secrets?”
Quorn grunted, not enjoying the snub in the presence of Moses. He had abandoned his feeling of superiority to the babu, but Moses was a half-breed and his servant to boot. The word innocent had humiliating implications. However, the babu changed the subject. Suddenly he sprang out of his chair as if exploded out of it. The prisoner tried to flinch away from him.
“You lied!” said the babu savagely in English, hardly raising his voice but making it vibrate with anger. Then he changed to the vernacular and spoke three or four short sentences that sounded like threats or curses, or both combined. The prisoner flinched again, seemed almost reassured for a second, and then more terrified than ever.
“He will talk now,” said the babu confidently. But he was wrong. The man sulked, until at last the babu asked for pen and ink and paper. Quorn produced a fountainpen, but the babu had to use the fly-leaf of a book to write on, because neither Quorn nor Moses would face the cobra in order to bring paper from indoors. When he had finished writing he folded the note. Then:
“An ekka,” he commanded.
There was a lean pony at a picket in the compound, and in a corner was a small two-wheeled cart with hoops over it to support a sheet in rainy weather. Quorn shouted to Ratty to go and harness the lean pony and bring the ekka. Ratty emerged from a shadow almost at his feet and ran like a ghost to obey. Within three or four minutes the ekka waited close to the veranda. But there was no covering over the hoops.
“Get a sheet,” said the babu. That took longer, but one was found and tied over the hoops at last. And then the night grew tense with silence. Sixty or seventy eyes were watching from the darkness. There was a sensation of breath being held. The prisoner looked terrified; he almost spoke; his lips moved, but there were no audible words.
“Off with his turban,” said the babu. Then he went and stooped over the murdered man as if to make sure he was actually dead. But he appeared to take death for granted, or to be indifferent. What interested him was the dead man’s turban made of yards and yards of coiled red cloth. He pulled it off, tied a loop in the end and passed that over the prisoner’s head.
“Going to lynch him?” Quorn asked. “I won’t stand for it,” he added. “He’s a dirty murderer, but—”
“Worse than lynching,” said the babu. Then he ordered the prisoner bound hand and foot with his own turban, and that was done very efficiently by the man who held him. Using a length of wire that Quorn kept handy for cleaning a pipe-stem, the babu pinned to the prisoner’s breast the folded note that he had written.
“Just my compliments,” he said, “to Gunpat Rao. Lead him to his victim now, and throw him,” he commanded.
That was done with military zeal and lack of gentleness. The murderer fell prone on his victim, and the babu lashed the two together with the turban that he had looped in readiness around the murderer’s neck. He trussed them neck to neck, and arm to arm, and leg to leg.
“He would love death better,” he remarked then. “Making corpses is heroic, but to touch them is against his conscience. He is ritually unclean now, and who shall ritually cleanse him? Bughouse Bill? I think not.”
“That is terrible!” said Moses. “It is sinful. It is—”
“Pretty drastic, aren’t you?” Quorn suggested. “Monkeying with a guy’s religion—”
“Sometimes even I am moral,” said the babu. “Now into the ekka with them.”
It was curious to watch the care with which the military-looking individuals avoided touching the corpse, or even the blood that already drenched the murderer’s clothing. They took the murderer by head and feet, so that the corpse came with him, and hove the two into the ekka like sacked merchandise. And even so they wished to wash themselves — went to the faucet near-by, splashed there for several minutes and then came back dripping. The babu used that interval to make sure that the cover was lashed tight to the ekka. He was not easily satisfied. Finally with his own hands he tied the murderer to the hoops to keep him from escaping. Then he gave his orders:
“Take them to Gunpat Rao! One of you lead the pony. One of you walk behind the ekka.”
Both men objected, one volubly, the other muttering.
“Then go back to your Maharajah!” said the babu. “Go and tell him you deserted but have changed your loyalty a second time!”
They muttered mutinously. They were more afraid of Gunpat Rao than of court martial. But the babu argued, bullied, threatened, and then suddenly drew one more surprise from his store:
“I will go with you! I will lead you!”
It was almost a defeat. They hesitated. It was clear enough that, though they doubted the babu, they had no doubt at all about Gunpat Rao. Chullunder Ghose might punish them, perhaps; perhaps he might not dare to try to punish them. But Gunpat Rao had the powers of darkness at his beck and call. It was the babu’s last shot that won:
“The Gunga sahib is coming also.”
Whether they believed that Quorn’s eyes were an armor against evil, or whether it was curiosity that won them over, or a sense of shame, they surrendered, and one went at once to the pony’s head. Quorn wondered whether to refuse or not. The whole transaction was a lot too lawless for him. But it was Moses who spoke:
“Sirs, you leave me here alone?” he asked. He came and stood beside Quorn. He looked determined — rigid — sacred but not to be imposed upon. And he received at once the accolade that was all he needed to make him a redoubtable ally:
“We need you with us, sahib,” said the babu. No one had ever addressed him as sahib. No one had ever before addressed him as a man whose courage was a positive, unquestionable fact.
“You may command me,” he answered, and his voice held a hint of a choke, as a man’s should in a splendid moment. Then the babu turned to Quorn and spoke low:
“One fathead, so many things to do, no sleep — and what do you think will be the end of it? Am I a man of ice and iron?”
“You’d better watch out, or you’ll crack,” Quorn answered. But the babu frowned and his face grew firm:
“I will not fail! It is good that I made a slight mistake, since it awakens me! If I had been awake, I would have thought of this first! Had you and I not gone to pay this call on Bughouse Bill—”
“Why call on him?”
“We might have had to deal with Gunpat Rao,” said the babu.
“They’re the same man, aren’t they?”
“Two in one skin! I can outwit Bughouse Bill. But Gunpat Rao is a better man than I am. Come on.”
Quorn followed Moses. He was actually too distrustful of the outcome, and too nervous, to have followed the babu without an argument. But he refused to feel inferior to Moses. So he gruffly ordered Ratty to guard the shed, and stepped forth into darkness, swearing below his breath and scratching at the birth-mark on his forehead.
“We’re as crazy as hell,” he muttered. “We’re every one of us as crazy as Billy-be-damned.”
XIX
“So You Ventured Too Near Gunpat Rao?”
The public oil-lamps were far apart and rather dim. There were a few patches of light from badly fitted shutters, and there was a glow on the roofs, where women chattered amid curtains that swayed in the evening wind. The stars shone wonderfully, and the low half-moon bathed one part of the sky in liquid silver. But down in the narrow streets there was barely enough light to show that they were being followed, it was impossible to guess by how many people. The sound of sandaled feet was like that of a soft wind in a forest.
“What’s your plan?” Quorn demanded. But the babu was not to be drawn.
“Only opportunists have plans,” he answered. “Self am creator of opportunities that, being new, have not been spoiled by other people.”
“Wisht we’d come on Soaker,” Quorn grumbled. “We’ll be mobbed, or else land in the lock-up. Which is worse, I wonder?”
“It would be worse to have no witnesses,” the babu answered. “Curiosity
prevents more crimes than cupidity causes. It would be safer to sleep with cobras than to visit Bughouse Bill on such an errand unless lots of people saw us do it. Oh publicity, what secrecy thy fierce light hides! Oh secrecy, how silly are thy slaves!”
He chatted, probably to keep himself awake; or perhaps to keep Quorn from thinking and becoming scared by his own imagination. He may have done it to conceal his own thoughts. At any rate, he revealed a new side of himself:
“Give me one small state that is a member of the League of Nations, and then watch me! Machiavelli’s day is down the river, like Kipling’s empire. The bourgeoisie who wrangle at Geneva think arithmetic empowers them to cope with relativity! One man with an imagination, and the courage of it—”
“Meaning you?” Quorn asked him, keeping step. They trudged behind the ekka like poor relations discussing estimates of compensation and employers’ liability behind a pauper’s hearse.
“Imagination — courage — patience,” said the babu. “Narada is nothing — a mere Andorra — a mere Corsica. But Corsica is an empty egg that hatched a famous chicken!”
“Marry the Princess?” Quorn suggested. In the stories he had read, and in the pictures he had seen, the princess always married the adventurer who overcame her enemies. He knew that difference of age, in the East, is unimportant. “That ‘ud make you Maharajah, would it?”
“Innocent! Am I a simpleton? I like impossibilities, but that would be impossible and silly also. There never lived the king or queen who was more than a puppet. And today their ministers are puppets.”
“Sure, there you’re right,” said Quorn. “Democracy’s the stuff.”
“Stuff? Yes. It is the stuff of which calamities are made,” agreed the babu. “Brains and an imagination! Plus a swarm of silly politicians jealous of each other and in deadly rivalry for self-importance! That is the stuff of which Napoleons build empires.”
“Oh! So you’re a new Napoleon?”
“How can there be a new Napoleon, you ignoramus! What would be new about his mistakes? He was a fool who wisely wanted India but never saw it because vanity and greed prevented him. Gandhi could have had India, but was too much of a moralist to want it. I am not a moralist, and I will win Narada for the Princess. Then what? What when India exchanges British rule for self-determination? Who shall be the self who shall determine that outcome? And if India grows great because of brains and an imagination, what of Asia? If I should live for five-and-twenty years—”