by Talbot Mundy
“So-ho!” said the babu. “So you ventured too near Gunpat Rao? One more difficulty! Oh my fathead! Bughouse Bill is safe enough. But Gunpat Rao—”
XX
“Oh Krishna, Why Was I Born Timid?”
Moses went ahead, feeling his way carefully. He was so afraid of lurking enemies, or of stumbling on the worn stone steps, that he did not realize the babu had paused near the middle of the stairway and was speaking to Quorn. The moon had dipped out of sight. There was almost nothing visible except the pool of light around Quorn’s lantern in which he and the babu stood like tragic actors on a darkened stage, and the little ghee-lamps dotting the darkness, that illuminated nothing.
“Let go of my arm,” said Quorn. “D’you think I can’t feel?”
“Raise the lantern. Look into my eyes,” the babu answered.
They were Gunpat Rao’s eyes. Behind, or looking through, or mixed up with the babu’s massive head, was Gunpat Rao’s. As a pulse beats, Gunpat Rao’s baleful stare grew stronger than the babu’s. Then the babu’s eyes prevailed again. Then Gunpat Rao’s.
“Loose my arm, I tell you!”
“Gunpat Rao is an expert,” said the babu.
Moses came back, running up the steps in panic. His breath came in sobs, and his teeth were chattering. He stumbled, clutched the babu’s leg and saved himself from falling headlong. The babu gave him a hand and raised him. He clung to the hand with both of his.
“Oh!” he exclaimed. “Oh!” Then he clapped both his hands to his face and shook hysterically, fighting like a man to regain self-control.
“Oh, well,” said the babu. He sighed resignedly. “If this is defeat, then it is. But let us see about it.”
He retained his grip on Quorn’s arm but relaxed it a little. Moses seized his other hand, and the babu led the two of them down the steps in silence. There were no priests at the bottom — no lanterns. All was darkness. In the far corner the tiger snarled at Quorn’s lantern; he was pacing the cage; one could hear him plainly.
“Oh God!” Moses took his topee off and wiped sweat from his forehead. “They are gone — the soldiers! We are helpless!”
“Are we?” said the babu. He led them to where the corpse had lain. It was gone; there was not even blood on the paving stones. “Look at me. What do you see?” the babu demanded. It was almost the voice of a drill-master.
Quorn met his eyes again. He saw the eyes of Gunpat Rao. Moses blubbered:
“How do we get out? Oh, sirs—”
The babu led toward the tiger’s cage. “God-dammit, stare straight at him!” he commanded.
The tiger crouched, his face so near the bars that in the lantern light there appeared to be nothing but eyes and fangs. They were the eyes of Gunpat Rao. But the face of Gunpat Rao gradually faded as the tiger’s shape took form in darkness. Then the eyes became an animal’s — terrible — hateful. But the passionless intelligence was not there. Suddenly the tiger sprang against the bars, reared up and leaped to the rear of the cage, where he crouched.
“Look at me!” said the babu. “Quickly!”
They were his eyes — sleepy — intelligent — skeptical. “Remember,” said the babu, “that we deal with Bughouse Bill, not Gunpat Rao! Bughouse Bill is just a tiger in a cage called Gunpat Rao, that’s all. Let’s go.”
But he retained his grip on Quorn’s arm, and there was a sensation, wordless but convincing, that the babu was almost as close to hysteria as Quorn himself. Moses was beyond control; he clung to the babu’s arm and muttered half-remembered prayers. He was praying to the Virgin.
“Go where?” Quorn asked.
“Think!” said the babu. “Do some thinking! Are you brainless?”
Quorn looked around in the darkness. There were little blinking ghee-lamps and the dreadful sound of silence. When the tiger moved, the skin went crawling up his spine, and Moses moaned. Quorn kicked Moses savagely, then talked to hide his own hysteria.
“Can’t go home,” he said. “The cobra’s in there. There’ll be blood on the veranda. Oh the hell—” He made a pitiful attempt at humor. “Call a cab and find a hotel.”
“Sleep is indicated,” said the babu. He was almost asleep on his feet. The will-power that was forcing him to stay awake was also overburdening his nerves. “A spot of Scotch,” he said, “would be the best bet, but the priests aren’t civilized. The trouble is, I don’t know what has happened to the soldiers.”
“If you knew, you might be scared worse,” Quorn retorted. “Where do we go from here?”
“To a woman! Cherchez always the inevitable woman! This is hour of zero. Why are the priests so slow — so like eternity? If priests were only quicker, there would be no governments; the rest of us would all be choir-boys. It is their next move. Why don’t they make it?”
“What do you mean, their next move?”
“I have made a bargain with them. Will they keep it?”
“Damn you!” Quorn exploded. “Wake up!”
Moses shuddered and clung to the babu. “Oh!” he groaned, “I hear them — they are coming now, and I must die unshriven! Bless me, some one!”
“Bless them,” said the babu. “They may have the military; what do we care? This is what they think shall be the hearse of our conspiracy! It is the womb, I think, of victory — a womb on wheels! Oh destiny, I disbelieve in you. You are too convincing. Nothing that convinces us is true. I know it. But you are plausible, you bad bitch.”
Out of the darkness, rumbling, and to judge by the echoes, out of the tunnel from which the priests had come — strange sounds approached, but no lanterns. Gradually the thump of heavy wheels grew recognizable, and then the leisurely tread of oxen. It was impossible to see anything; the little ghee-lamps only made the darkness down there in the courtyard more impenetrable. Quorn’s lantern cast a yellow pool of light that made the dark beyond it seem like a black wall, on which Gunpat Rao’s face appeared whenever Quorn stared long enough. It was not as distinct as it had been, and when he thought of the tiger’s eyes it vanished. But it aroused hatred. It made Quorn killing irritable.
“Now, if they should have a sense of humor, we are done for,” said the babu, “but solemnity and humor are not relative. They are Euclidean — can’t be in the same place at the same time. Let us hope that is a verb sap. Otherwise—”
He still kept his grip on Quorn’s arm. He still let Moses cling to him. He led them forward, until the lantern light shone on a pair of milk-white sacred oxen, huge-humped, heavy-horned, yoked to the pole of a boxlike, four-wheeled vehicle with slatted shutters. It was nearly as big as a moving van, and it was painted yellow and vermilion. A nearly naked driver sat on the pole and held the oxen by the tails. There was a door at the back. A priest stepped out from darkness and took Quorn’s lantern. Another opened the door of the conveyance.
“In with you,” said the babu, for the first time letting go of Quorn’s arm. So Quorn climbed in and Moses followed. There were no seats, and it was pitch-dark inside, so they sat on the floor together, leaning their backs against the wooden wall. Outside, the babu talked for a few moments in a low voice. Then he climbed in and the door slammed. For a second or two dim strips of lantern light came through the slatted shutters and made a pattern on the ceiling. After that it was so dark that Quorn could not see his hand when he scratched his forehead. The vehicle moved and thumped over the paving stones. The great gate shut behind them with a thunderous thud, and there was a sudden sea of noise as a crowd made way and let the oxen turn up-street. Quorn got on his knees and tried to see through the slats, but the downward angle was too sharp, so he resumed his seat. It became insufferably stuffy and the sweat poured so that he pulled his jacket off.
“Care if I smoke?” he asked, but there was no answer. Quorn struck a match. The babu was already asleep. With his head on his chest and his hands on his belly he leaned into the corner by the door, not snoring but breathing like a man half-strangled. Moses screamed and clutched Quorn’s arm:
; “Oh God, sir! Did you see that?”
But the wooden match had burned Quorn’s fingers. He dropped it and then shook Moses off. “God-dammit, if you do that to me again I’ll kill you! What the devil—”
He struck another match. He followed Moses’ horror-stricken stare. At the front end of the vehicle, facing each other, their heads sagging on their breasts, slouched into the opposite corners, were the soldiers. One man’s turban had fallen off.
“Wake ’em,” said Quorn. But he knew they were dead.
“This is a sin,” said Moses. “We are veree sinful. Let us wake the babu. I have prayed for us implicitlee, but—”
Out went the match, and Moses clutched Quorn’s arm again. The face of Gunpat Rao stared at Quorn whichever way he looked. The vehicle lurched over an open drain at a cross-street and one of the bodies thudded to the floor. Quorn felt Moses reach across him, meaning to grope for the babu and shake him awake. He shoved him back roughly.
“Stiffs can’t hurt us. If you wake the babu he’ll be loco. Give him a chance. Here, hold my coat.”
He took his box of matches and approached the dead bodies on hands and knees. Then he struck match after match and examined them, until he had only two matches left. He could discover no wounds — no clue at all as to how they had died. Their eyes were shut and their jaws had fallen open. There was no plain evidence of poison, such as swollen lips or tongues — no bruises to be seen by matchlight.
“Beats me,” he muttered, and crawled back. “I’ll go mad if this keeps up, I reckon.” Then he remembered he had two matches left, so he got out his knife and tobacco, shredded enough of the stuff in the dark, then filled his pipe and lighted it. It tasted like straw. He discovered his mouth was as dry as a brick.
“Care to smoke?” he asked Moses, and offered the pipe.
Flattered, Moses accepted it. He drew hard. In the sudden red glow from the bowl his one eye looked like the end of a hard-boiled egg, it was so white with terror. Moses passed the pipe back.
“It is too strong, sir. But thank you veree much all the same.”
“Did that babu tell you where we’re going?”
“He said, to a woman.”
“Damn, I’ll kill him if that’s it! We’ve had trouble enough for one night.”
“Are we there yet?” asked the babu suddenly. He opened the door and looked out. “No, not there yet.”
“Do you know what’s in here?” Quorn asked.
“Yes,” said the babu. “Sleep is.” In another moment he was breathing heavily. Ten minutes later he was awake again, opened the door and again looked out. Without a word he jumped out, and a moment later the vehicle came to a standstill. Quorn and Moses followed him. They were in time to see him kick the driver like a football and send him running for sheer life. There was no crowd visible or audible. They were in a dark lane, near a gate in a wall.
“Do you know where you are?” the babu asked.
“Do you know what’s in there?” Quorn retorted. “Two dead soldiers — our two — dead as mutton! Folks ‘ll say we murdered ’em.”
“Priests will say anything,” the babu answered. “Let them say it.” But he stood still, thinking. “Damn them, so they did that? So they had a sense of humor? That makes them dangerous! How were they slain?”
“Not a mark,” Quorn answered.
“It is a good jest,” said the babu, and that irritated Quorn. He bridled:
“Dammit, they were our gang!”
“They were paid deserters,” said the babu. “They would have deserted us next. But we must turn that jest back somehow — oh for sleep — sleep! Help me do this.”
In the dark it took all three of them to open the gate in the wall. They had to lift it off its hinges. Then the babu took the oxen by their nose-rings, and with a great deal of backing because of the sharp right-angle in the narrow lane, he guided them in through the gate.
“No, leave it open,” he commanded. “You go over the wall and fetch that young assistant. Don’t you know where you are? Can’t you smell your elephants? And bring a flashlight if you have one. Moses, stay here.”
Quorn obeyed. He could think of no alternative. As he groped his way toward the wall he heard the lumbering van follow. By the time he had climbed to the roof of the tiger’s shed and swarmed the wall, the oxen were already backing and turning beneath him. It was not until he had dropped to the earth on the far side that he began to wonder how to get the flashlight. There was a cobra in the shed. How could he enter? The lamp was still burning, but he could see no blood on the edge of the veranda where the murdered man had fallen. He supposed Ratty had washed it away. Not a bad guy, for an ignorant heathen. He walked over to Asoka’s picket and found Ratty half-asleep beside a sack in an open box. The man’s vocabulary was as limited as Quorn’s; it took him about three minutes to explain that he had caught the cobra by noosing him with a string on a long stick. He explained it was a very fine snake; he could sell it to a man whose trade was snatching out their fangs and teaching them to dance to music. It was worth five — perhaps six rupees. When Quorn told him he was wanted on the far side of the wall he insisted on taking the snake with him, lest one of the mahouts should steal it. He seemed to expect Quorn to help him over the wall with his burden, and there was disillusion in store for him on that point; Quorn would not knowingly touch a cobra at the end of a ten-foot pole. But when they reached the wall the narrow door was open and the babu stood in the gap, fuming with impatience.
“Hurry!” he commanded. “Where is the flashlight?” But Quorn paused to explain to him what Ratty had done, and suddenly the babu threw impatience to the winds. He put his hands to his stomach and went off into one of his spasms of silent laughter.
“Bughouse Bill!” he gurgled. He was breathless. “Go and get your flashlight.”
By the time Quorn had found that and a box of matches the babu was in the tiger shed with Ratty. Moses, standing beside the oxen, stammered a warning only just in time to prevent Quorn from stumbling over something. He switched on the flashlight and discovered the two dead soldiers at his feet. They were carefully posed, as if they had died writhing. On top of one of them lay a cobra, dead but still squirming.
“God forgive us all,” said Moses. “It is tereeble to treat dead people sacreeligiouslee. They made the cobra bite them both, and then they slew it. That babu is—”
“Are you never coming?” the babu shouted.
It was all Quorn could do to squeeze into the shed because the van was backed against it. The moment he was inside, Moses backed the oxen further, until the rear-end of the great boxlike vehicle was flat against the shed wall. Its open door was in the center of the shed door, but there was a space underneath, half the height of the wheels. The babu blocked that with the packing case that Quorn had used to sit on. Then he took Quorn’s flashlight.
“Are you ready, Moses?” he shouted. “Oh if I had thought of bringing meat!” he muttered. “Now then. Let us do this swiftly. Let a tiger think, and he will think of difficulties! Take that stick and stand there. If the tiger turns back, whack him! If he kills you, go to heaven and remember this babu with condescending pity!”
He and Ratty each took an end of the cage and began to pull at the pegs that held the corners together. The babu flashed the light into the empty van. Then the whole front of the cage suddenly fell outward and the babu switched the light off. There was total darkness for a second. Then the light flashed again on a tiger leaping for the open doorway. It leaped straight into the trap prepared for it. The babu shouted, ran, and held the flashlight in the opening while Moses tugged at the oxen’s heads and the van lurched forward. When it had moved by the width of its door Ratty slammed the door shut. He seemed to think it was all perfectly right and natural; he grinned because the job was well done, but he was not excited.
“Oh Krishna!” exclaimed the babu. “Why was I born timid?” Then he leaned on Quorn so heavily that he almost threw him to the ground. Quorn helped him to th
e packing case in the doorway, and the thing creaked under his weight as he sat down. He made as if to vomit, but recovered.
“Never mind me,” he said after a moment. “You take your assistant. Bring your elephant.”
“Bring him where?”
“To the mission. Lock that door in the wall, and bring the key with you.”
“How about Moses?”
“I will feed him and his morals to the tiger!” said the babu. “He can not be timid without feeling sinful. I will teach him soon what sin is! Look sharp. Wait for me at the first cross-street. You had better keep the elephant behind us. I am not a good driver. The oxen don’t know me. If they balk, you must shove from behind. Yes, yes, leave me, I am all right — No, no. Wait a moment — do you see the jest now? Soldiers’ hypothetical desertion is accounted for by bite of cobra! Who can contradict it? And it probably was known we had a tiger in here — tame — from the Jains, who tame them thoroughly. Now, the tiger is gone — has escaped! I will leave the big gate open. Whoever finds the soldiers sees an empty tiger-cage! A little propaganda! All I have to do is to announce a big reward for one tame tiger, and Bughouse Bill will think he has us! — Go now — hurry, hurry, hurry!”
XXI
“Are Rats As Important As Tigers?”
It took time, because Quorn took two elephants, one for the purpose of carrying food for Asoka; he knew there was no food for him at the mission. He was rather proud of having thought of something that Chullunder Ghose had overlooked. The mahouts, too, made difficulties. They wanted to know about orders for the following day, and that was obviously only an excuse for asserting themselves. They had seen a murder and a mystery. They knew there was a secret in the wind. They knew they had a nuisance value. It was as clear as impudence and furtive suggestion could make it that they had already talked with the police. However, since the world began, no sane mahout ever told the truth to a policeman; and they were even more afraid of Quorn’s eyes and his Gunga sahibdom than of the priests of Kali’s temple. They insisted Quorn should remain there and protect them, and he suspected the police had ordered them to say that, because they refused to tell from what he should protect them. After fifteen minutes’ argument he rationed out some opium from the locked store and they withdrew, looking more contented than he felt, for he discovered that somebody had a key to the shed. A quantity of opium was missing. That and the sight of the mahouts clustering around him in the darkness, with their eyes reflecting the light from the lamp in the shed window, had almost as much effect on Quorn’s imagination as the eyes of Gunpat Rao had done. That was perhaps because he understood them better. He could understand how unreliable and treacherous they were.