by Talbot Mundy
“Do you mean,” Quorn asked the babu, “that you’ll trust that heathen to time your trick right?”
“Must trust some one,” said the babu. “So I trust me. I am not a heathen, let me tell you. Am a voluble verb sappist, realistically skeptical of destiny, who is a dull wench. What a hell of a life to know exactly what will happen! What a bore to be destiny! Let us go up now and close the trap-door. Should the tiger murder Ratty — oh, well — we shall know soon.”
So they closed the trap-door, and to Quorn it felt like immuring a decent heathen in a dreadful tomb. It brought to his mind the pictures he had seen in the public library of martyrdoms in ancient Rome. However, those thoughts were dispersed by mutiny and Moses, the last person in the world from whom mutiny seemed likely. The babu shouted for Moses, who came out of the gate-house sulkily, offended because he had not been thought reliable enough to help with the tiger. He stuck a hand into his trouser pocket and looked superior. The babu ordered him to scrub the inside of the van.
“You can bring a pail and carry water from the tank there. Please use quantities of soap and lots of water. Get the tiger-stink out.”
But Moses stood on privilege. “I am taking orders onlee from my employer,” he answered, “and for strictlee honorable service. I am cooking tiffin. As for sweepers, there are plentee in the citee.”
As a good God-fearing democrat, Quorn saw the principle involved in that in less than half-a-second.
“Okay. You’re fired,” he retorted. “Get your money. Now whose orders are you taking?”
“Fired, eh?” said the babu. One of his amazing kicks snapped upward and missed Moses by the width of a shoe-sole. Moses’ eye whitened as he stepped backward.
“Seeing you’re fired,” said Quorn, “I can’t protect you any. Where I come from, that’s a white man’s job to valet tiger-cages. Heathen don’t get trusted with important jobs o’ that sort.”
“Oh, sir, if it is important—”
Quorn frowned. “It needs doing right,” he answered. “I must find a guy I can depend on.”
“Kindly re-engage him,” said the babu. “It will save me the necessity of asking you to do that awfully important work.”
“But sir,” said Moses, “that is no job for a gentleman.” His one eye looked at Quorn remorsefully. “To save you from it I would do a so much worse indignitee.”
“Okay. Then you’re hired again,” said Quorn. “Go to it.”
So the babu smiled and Moses went to work with soap and scrubbing-brush. He scrubbed until the van was twice as clean inside as when the priests had loaned it to the babu. It was much too late for tiffin — after four already — and the rice was burned to the side of the pot, but the curry looked good, so Quorn started a kettle for tea, and while the kettle was boiling he fed the elephants. He did not dare to loose Asoka yet; he carried water for him, making six or seven trips with buckets; and by the time that was finished the babu had already helped himself to curry, had made the tea and was busy drinking from a saucer. Quorn helped himself, too, and then lighted his pipe and sat down.
“Maybe I’m dumb,” he began, “but I’ve been fair itching to ask you something. If it’s part o’ your fancy plan that you won’t talk about, I reckon I can save my breath to cool this.”
“They who ask, occasionally learn what is not true, and that eliminates some useless guessing,” said the babu. “And besides, I am not a diplomatist. I only lie when it is virtuous to do so — not from fear or force of habit. Try me.”
“Why in thunder,” Quorn asked, “did the outfit round at Bughouse Bill’s place loan you that there van and oxen, and no objections?”
“But there were objections,” said the babu. “Very grave objections. And I made them.”
He imbibed tea from the saucer with a sound like the last of a bath-tub’s contents gurgling down the drain. Then, noticing that Quorn was all attention:
“They insisted on it.”
Quorn waited. He expected a prodigious lie was coming. He could see the babu’s beautiful brown eyes enjoying roguery of some sort. But it might be reminiscence. Possibly the truth was humorous enough to need no tinkering. Silence seemed best, so he swallowed his tea — a form of moderated silence that was non-committal.
“They insisted I should have the van to bring the Princess to the tiger,” said the babu.
“Hey now, don’t talk crazy.”
“Cleverness and craziness are closer to each other than the cream and the milk,” the babu answered. “It was I who thought of it, but they who thought they thought of it when I refused, the same as Japanese denying that they want Manchuria, to use anything belonging to the temple. First they thought I wanted money, because priests are very simple people, who know all about psychology, like high financiers who get caught short of scarce stock on a rising market. So I had to help them; and I told them that the Princess would insist on coming in a modern motor car to show her disrespect for precedents and so forth. And I added, since I knew their proud and bitter hatred of his Highness, that they ought to ask the Maharajah for his new car, something they would almost rather die than do. As a matter of fact he can’t use it in the city, because it won’t go around the corners of the narrow streets — but priests don’t think of those things. And I knew that Bughouse Bill was busy trying to be Gunpat Rao. You remember, he was lurking at a stairhead. He was prompting the priests I talked with. And when a high priest lurks, he has his cunning with him, maybe, but his wisdom is at the laundry or somewhere.”
Quorn wiped his forehead as an excuse for passing his hands before his eyes. The very mention of that meeting with Gunpat Rao on the temple parapet brought back the awful vision of the priest’s face and made him shudder. But the babu, though he noticed the gesture, went on talking:
“I knew that Kali’s priests knew that the Jains had disposed of their tame but irreligiously carnivorous tiger. They knew about that tiger, because the Jains had offered it to them; they had refused it because they didn’t need it, since they had one that was savage and more to their liking. They suspected me of having the Jains’ tiger hidden away somewhere because I am always suspected of anything anyhow; and of course it was only a matter of time before they would discover where I had it, because the only way to keep a secret from an inquisitive priest is to kill the priest or tell the truth. The truth will usually fool them; and a secret that they think they have discovered for themselves behaves like a strong wine in an ascetic head. So I became a little reverently courteous to them, just as you might be if a New York cop should catch you carrying some liquor, and I made one of my best mistakes. Whoever tells you that the highest art is to conceal art is a bum instructor. Such is amateurish in comparison to making bloody blunders at a proper moment. I apologized to them for the smell on my garments. There was none, but they smelt it then at once, and thought it had annoyed their sanctimonious noses since we first began talking. And I said the smell was from the ekka, which belonged to a trainer of animals who did some carting for the Jains. At that, of course, they knew for certain that I had the tiger and would try to substitute it somehow, or to play a trick of some sort.”
“Sounds like contract bridge,” said Quorn, “with deuces wild,” he added. “Go on. I’m listening.”
“Bughouse Bill was listening, when I told them that the Princess was willing to concede a little to their prejudices, just as a matter of give and take in the name of sacredness, but that she could not be persuaded to employ a vehicle belonging to the temple. Gunpat Rao saw through that, of course, immediately; any experienced diplomat would have understood that I wished for the use of a temple vehicle. But intelligence and vulgar cunning in the same skin are like meum and tuum, they don’t mix even on a communistic basis; so Bughouse Bill spoiled Gunpat Rao’s judgment. Bughouse Bill made one of the two priests who were talking to me step back and whisper to him; and I sat staring at the moon as if I were in love whereas I was wishing for supper and sleep.”
“And you were scar
ed,” said Quorn. “Don’t kid your- self.”
“I was not. I am frightened when I think I know that something terrible will happen, or when I know I know it will. But when I don’t know, then my curiosity is made of what a Jew calls innocence, and you can’t frighten that with innuendo. Cultivated innocence has no nerves. Until the priest came back to me I did not know that Bughouse Bill was such a cunning looney as I hoped. Nothing but audacity and innocence — and they are two heads of the self-same penny — made me hope that he would set for me a trap which Gunpat Rao in a calmer moment would have seen that I was tempting him to set. He did it, though. Bughouse Bill had told that priest to tell me that the show was off, and the priests would have nothing to do with it, unless the Princess should come to the temple in a vehicle provided by the priests. He stipulated that it should be a closed vehicle publicly recognizable as temple property. And he was cunning enough to pretend that stipulation was to save the Princess from the populace among whom certain fanatics, who dislike sacrilege, are probably conspiring to assassinate her, said he.”
“Hell — you’re lying. Or the priests are stark mad,” Quorn answered. “They aim to have her scragged by that there temple tiger, don’t they?”
“It is their divinely inspired and pious purpose that she shall get scragged,” said the babu.
“Well — their van connects ’em with the murder, don’t it? A patrolman on his first beat could figure that out.”
“Ah, yes,” said the babu. “That is why the Maharajah waits with such complacency; because he knows we have that van. I know he knows, because I sent the information to him. That van is his trump card. It is evidence against the priests of full complicity and of conspiracy to murder. He is betting on it. But do you imagine that Bughouse Bill expects the Princess will be in that vehicle? Of course he thinks we will bring our tiger in it. I have sent for two big howdahs for the elephants; they will be here soon; and the elephants go with the van to make a nice procession through the streets; so Bughouse Bill will bet his destiny that the Princess is hidden in one of the howdahs.”
“What good would that do?” Quorn asked.
“He has such a saintly sort of cunning,” said the babu, “that he simpletonly thinks we mean to leave the temple tiger in its cage and let the Princess lead our tame one up over the bridge for the crowd to gape at. Possibly he thinks we mean to shoot the temple tiger. He will make provision to prevent that.”
“But it’s what I hoped at first you meant to do,” said Quorn. “That ‘ud be possible, wouldn’t it? The way it is now, if you can get the back of that cage open in time you’ll have two tigers on your hands and one gun. Maybe you think a tiger-fight’s a picnic, but I’m losing my faith in this venture, I am. I’ll lay a fair-sized bet who it is gets scragged, unless you figure you’re too tough for tigers’ chewing.”
“Don’t make fool bets,” said the babu. “I will tell you what to bet on. Bet that Bughouse Bill’s most truculent, suspicious and determined Holy Joes will be on the reception committee. Bet, too, that a crowd will fill the Pulke-nichi like a roaring river; and the roofs of all the houses will be crowded also. It will be the easiest thing in the world to start a riot.”
“Oh yeah — and me on Soaker? Not so good, that isn’t.”
“They will demand to see the Princess in the van before they let her enter,” said the babu. “Why not? That is reasonable. Her identity is important, isn’t it? Some of the priests will search the howdahs at the same time, probably. They don’t know yet when to expect us. And they won’t know for another hour or two yet whether to expect us tonight or tomorrow, because this astrologically-minded babu has to cast another horoscope or two and genuflect to Siva. And the priests believe that horoscope story as much as Asoka does. They know I mean to spring a trick and hope to catch them unprepared for it. So they will look for a tiger in the van. And they will look for the Princess hiding in a howdah. Would it not be an ecclesiastically cunning and contemptuously safe bet to denounce her to the crowd as an impostor who is playing hob with holy matters? Would the crowd not—”
“Scrag her?” Quorn set his teeth. “There’ll be Soaker,” he said grimly. “Scragging her means scragging him and me. If he should cut loose—”
The babu interrupted him: “You must lead the procession. No matter what the priests say, you must ride Asoka into the temple courtyard ahead of the Princess. Otherwise, when the priests discover that they have guessed wrong they will be in a panic. Panicky priests, I tell you, are worse than politicians, because they have older instincts. They will stab Asoka, or do something else to make him furious. If he should charge into the crowd there would be a terrible calamity. They would blame you and her, and it would be easy after that to have you murdered by indignant fanatics. A mob would hunt you down and tear you both into little pieces. Do you understand that?”
“Yeah, and it don’t sound good,” Quorn answered.
“It is better than good,” said the babu. “It is perfect. It is perfectly balanced. My agents, and the priests’ agents, and the Maharajah’s agents, from three different angles have worked on the crowd’s psychology until it is ready for anything. What the crowd wants to see is a miracle. It wants to see and believe with its own eyes. Even if it doesn’t believe, it wants to see. And it will be for us or against us at the touch of a trigger. So the moment the gate of the temple courtyard opens, ride in on Asoka and leave the van to follow you.”
“How are you going to time this?” Quorn asked. “You’ll be in the tunnel.”
“I will time it by their tiger’s antics. They have kept him famished. He is restless. He will leap at the bars of the cage when he sees the elephant. I will be wearing a black turban and something black over my shoulders, and when he leaps at the front bars I will look through the cage from behind him.”
“Fine and dandy. What d’you kid yourself that Soaker will be doing when he sees their tiger?” Quorn asked. “Scratching himself or something?”
“Then you pinch hit,” said the babu.
“I get pitched off, that’s what happens. Soaker flattens out the whole kaboodle, priests and Princess, tiger, me and every one. This here is a louse-bound proposition. I won’t have a thing to do with it. It’s crazy.”
“Yes, I knew you’d funk it,” said the babu. “That is why I have another man ready to ride Asoka. He is being made up now by the women. He is just your size. If you will lend us your jacket, darkness and the women’s pigments will do the rest. He is a man of evil character who will try to blackmail us afterwards, but he is afraid of nothing, so we must use him.”
“Oh, yeah? What I meant is, use your wits and think up something reasonable. You’ve time to change the plan around. You said the priests don’t know when to expect you to pull this off. Postpone it, and let’s think o’ something.”
“Time,” the babu answered, “is a dimension, and the dimensions of one plan are not the same as those of another. This is timed for tonight. This time tomorrow we are either dead or very interesting people. But you have a perfect opportunity to run away, and you can go now. I will get you a horse, and you can ride to rail-head. Nobody will notice you, if you wear no turban and go quietly; they are all too excited about the Princess. Start at sunset.”
Quorn struck his pipe on his heel. He spoke with decision: “I don’t aim to find fault with a heathen, such as you are, for mistaking the meaning of Christian speech. I was putting it up to you to think this proposition over. And I say it’s a crazy proposition. But if you won’t be reasonable — and that’s the trouble with heathens, they ain’t — you needn’t kid yourself that I’m yellow. Maybe I am, but I haven’t discovered it yet. Was that why you picked that yellow turban for me? God damn it to hell, I won’t wear yellow!”
“You shall have a red one,” said the babu.
“Dull-red. Damn all these sissified colors!”
“Good, dark blood-red,” said the babu.
“Where’s this guy who wants my job? I’d like to
see him. Let me give him the once over. Maybe he needs taking down a peg. Been dolled up by the ladies, has he? Done wise-cracking about me, I reckon, while they prettied him up. Where is he? Lead me to him.”
But the babu drew a herring over that trail and restored Quorn’s equanimity at the same time: “You and I must go and see the Princess,” he answered. “We will go by way of the tunnel and up through the well-head; that is better than over the roof. So many people have been trying to persuade her to delay this ceremony, and for so many reasons, that I would bet my fortune, if I had one, that the priests are trying to gain time. And when the enemy tries to gain time, that is just what not to give him. She is impatient enough — perhaps too impatient. But they might persuade her. We must tell her the real reason why the time is tonight.”
Quorn’s eyes brightened alertly: “You haven’t told me yet.”
“I believe it is the priests’ reason for wanting to delay proceedings.”
“Ought to be hot. What is it?”
“That it is impossible to keep a secret. That the odds are something like a million to one that somebody has warned the British. Airplanes! It would only need one thoroughly experienced and cheerful Englishman to stop this. They might kill him. But he’d stop it.”
“Hell, yes, that ‘ud never do,” said Quorn. “Their Viceroy ‘ud clean this place up with a posse o’ polite young earls in khaki, damn ’em! — and we’d catch it! Lord, we’d catch it! Come on. Soaker’s quiet now. Let’s go and talk to the Princess.”