by Talbot Mundy
“What have you there?” Duncannon asked. The bag looked much too businesslike.
“Medicaments. Am charlatan. Have cure-all remedies for all ills flesh is heir to. First must diagnose. Pray let me see the tongue.”
He seized Duncannon’s wrist but the patient shut his mouth tight.
“Hmn! Venesection indicated. Am extremely expert venesectionist.”
“Nothing doing!” Duncannon remarked between set teeth.
“No? When were you in prison?” asked the babu.
Duncannon sat up.
“What do you mean?” he demanded.
“Tongue very white!” said Chullunder Ghose. “Am psycho-analyst. Who drank the whisky?”
“Ants, by the look of it!”
“New law of nature — marvellous!” said the babu. “Person lifting self upstairs by seat of breeches mere amateur compared to ants reducing level of liquid by lying in same!”
He stooped and sniffed at John Duncannon’s hair, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand to hide a broad smile, and turned toward the bag.
“Will prescribe,” he remarked. “Am intuitionist.”
He whistled again and added three or four words in an undertone. The same lean hand that had produced the bag passed in a big brass chatty containing water. Chullunder Ghose felt it with his flexible fat hands and proceeded at once to reduce the temperature by wrapping it in wetted cotton cloth and standing it on the table where the hot wind through the open door blew all around it.
Next he proceeded to cool the room, pulling out one of Duncannon’s sheets from the hold-all, wetting it thoroughly and hanging it over the door. The effect was instantaneous. Duncannon sighed relief and laid his head back on the pillow. Then Chullunder Ghose poured water from the chatty into a tall brass cup, added powder to it and brought the sizzling contents to the bedside.
“This,” he remarked, “will save you from the bhagl-kana.”
“What’s that?”
“Bug-house!”
John Duncannon drank the sizzling stuff and stared. Almost at once he felt immensely better. His head ceased to throb. He discovered he could sit up and see clearly without the room beginning to whirl.
“Dope?” he asked suspiciously.
“Squeeze miss! Close call — very. Bhagl-kana yawning! Memory any better?”
“Yes,” Duncannon answered. Still vague mental pictures of the last three days were forming in his mind and, strangely enough, they travelled backward. He had recollection now of being carried on a stretcher in the darkness by a group of men who spoke only at long intervals, in a language of which he knew not one word. Then he remembered a temple — or was it a cave below a temple? All at once he recalled the person described as a Gnani, whom he had visited, contrary to the advice of Galloway, who was some sort of government official at Mount Abu.
The babu watched him, scratching a fat jowl, his huge head a little to one side.
“Where am I?” Duncannon asked suddenly.
“Dak-bungalow — Hanadra — territory of the Maharajah of Sirohe,” said the babu.
Duncannon’s face took on a new shade of perplexity. He remembered now that he had acted recently without respect for law or custom.
“Sit down,” he said, gesturing toward a chair. The babu sat, drawing his legs up native fashion under him, pulling off the elastic-sided boots and letting them fall to the floor.
“How far am I from Mount Abu?” Duncannon demanded.
“As crow flies, ten — twelve — fourteen miles, said Chullunder Ghose. “Nevertheless, two sides of triangle are longer than third side according to laws of geometry, Euclid still prevailing over Einstein. To return to Mount Abu you must climb four thousand feet, and we will all cuss Newton who invented gravity and made us sweat much.”
“I heard you say my servants have run away.”
The babu nodded.
“Am hopeful person,” he added blandly.
“What do you mean?”
“Am hoping your Honor heard nothing else.”
“Did you notice a tiger-skin anywhere?” Duncannon asked.
“No, sahib.”
“That’s strange. I suppose my servants stole it. I have a hunting permit. I came down from Mount Abu to shoot a tiger; shot one, too — a beauty. I was cautioned by a gentleman named Galloway — a magistrate, I think he is — who issued the permit, not to go near any temples and particularly not to interfere with a certain Gnani. But I did visit a temple, and come to think of it, I guess I met the Gnani.”
“Naturally!” said Chullunder Ghose, folding his hands over his stomach. He was enjoying himself.
“I must return to Mount Abu,” Duncannon went on. “I’m expecting some mail at the post-office. Do you suppose I can manage without anybody knowing where I’ve been?”
“Am expert manager,” Chullunder Ghose said, looking upward at the ceiling where a snake apparently was pursuing a rat across the ceiling-cloth. “Am exoteric pragmatist,” he added, looking down again. “On esoteric plane am all benevolence. Wisdom being priceless, make no charge for same, but for necessary application of philosophy to fact this babu should have recompense.”
He betrayed suppressed excitement by producing a handkerchief and catching it adroitly two or three times between the toes of his right foot. Otherwise he was as calm as a bronze Buddha.
“You mean you would like me to pay you for that medicine?” Duncannon asked. He knew very well that was not the babu’s meaning, but as he began to feel better his natural shrewdness counselled him to begin to take the upper hand. But he was dealing with a man at least as shrewd as himself. The babu smiled and made a shoulder-gesture that was charitable, generous, sublime, indifferent to all temptation.
“Am altruistic charlatan. No charge. Not being M.D., medical etiquette does not oblige me to submit bill — in fact, might go to prison did I do same. It is time for second dose of restorative.”
He got off the chair as actively as a man of half his weight, washed the brass cup and mixed a strong-smelling potion in it, measuring extremely small spoonfuls of powder from a dozen packages and mixing them with water.
“Learning in daily newspapers of ravages of bootleg liquor,” he said, passing the cup to Duncannon, “this babu made journey to United States to offer thaumaturgical assistance on basis of fifty-fifty, but fell foul of medical trust, who caused police investigation. Sad to relate, was arrested. Offered to prove conclusively by demonstration before magistrate, chief of police and editors of daily papers that this secret compound is elixir vitae, neither more nor less. Bidding them produce two men in delirium tremens, two drug addicts in last stages of disillusion and two politicians for the purpose of experiment, was fined two hundred dollars, same being sum total remaining in wallet after paying lawyer, and was ordered deported as undesirable — packages of drugs all confiscated — democratic, very! Drink, sahib!”
Duncannon made a wry face as he swallowed the strong-smelling stuff; but almost at once he felt a comfortable glow and all his strength returning.
“What do you suppose has been the matter with me?” he asked.
“Ignorance!” said Chullunder Ghose. “Clear case of congenital ignorance. Osseous formations on western occiput inducing self-esteem so adamantine no advice can permeate. Plus curiosity. Plus pride aroused by shooting tiger. Plus fact that tiger was pet pussy-cat belonging to temple of great Gnani. Plus underlying eagerness aroused by business. Total — serious derangement of biliary organs. Symptoms — fever, headache and a smell of a peculiar incense in the hair. Are you married?”
“No.”
“But engaged to be married?”
“No. Why?”
The babu sighed and looked relieved.
“Because I get along very nicely always until love affair casts cloud over horizon.”
“Are you a bachelor yourself?”
“Sahib, weep for me. Have wife and seven children! Am martyr at stake of emancipation. My wife is new female — poetess,
political economist, lecturess — uneconomical, very. Rigorous, though obsolescent prejudices have excluded me from caste affiliations, all because of her, thus slamming doors of richly paid professions in my face.”
“Do you know India?”
“All of it, sahib!” In quest of stray emoluments for sake of wife and family, have wandered from Columbo to Lhasa and from Karachi to Calcutta serving many sahibs most discreetly. Wisdom being priceless, all remuneration is an insult. Pocket same for sake of wife and family. Insult me, sahib. Probe the depth of this babu’s humility!”
“What can you do, for instance?”
The babu’s face grew wreathed in an ingratiating, wise, suggestive smile.
“Can get secret information,” he said, pursing up his lips.
“What makes you think I need secret information?”
Chullunder Ghose chuckled and scratched his stomach with the nails of both hands.
“U.S.A. United States sahibs don’t call on holy men to sell them shaving soap!” he answered. “Nor do holy men put kibosh on foreign gentlemen to cause gap in memory, unless said gentlemen behaved with inquisitive and indiscreet assertiveness.”
“Do you know the Gnani?” Duncannon asked.
The babu drooped his eyelids, either modestly or else to hide the fact that he was thinking.
“We do not speak of knowing him,” he answered after thirty seconds. “Should you ask me, does the holy and benevolent one exert himself to know of my existence, I would answer.”
“Well? Does he?”
“There is no knowing how much he knows,” the babu answered slyly. “At certain times he exerts himself; at others not. Shall I diagnose? Shall I tell you, sahib, why you forced yourself into his presence?”
John Duncannon hesitated. He could not remember yet the circumstances of his visit to the Gnani, though very dimly somewhere in his brain, or else in his imagination, was a picture of a gaunt gray-bearded face with burning eyes that glared at him indignantly. He more than half-suspected that the wise course would be to try to forget the Gnani altogether, especially if it were true that he had shot the old gentleman’s pet tiger. However — business first. He had a sense of loyalty to the firm that amounted almost to religion; and it had dawned on him that he would have to find some native intermediary if he hoped to forestall Lichtig, Low and Pennyweather, who were on the same trail as himself. This man might do, but he must first make sure of him.
“Tell you what,” he said at last. “If you can tell without moving off that chair why I went to the Gnani, I’ll hire you.”
“Oil!” said the babu promptly. He threw the handkerchief again and caught it in his toes. “Am hired?” he asked. “How much emolument?”
“Expenses and a sum of—”
Duncannon paused.
Chullunder Ghose’s face grew rigid; his expression was that of a gambler who has staked his last coin and awaits the outcome.
“ — thirty thousand rupees — that’s the equivalent of ten thousand dollars — if I get what I’m after.”
Chullunder Ghose exploded an enormous gasp.
“Sahib,” he said, “in the hope of that much money I would go in search of Golden Fleece, Holy Grail, Eldorado and Fountain of Youth! Am hired! Accept! Shall have to cheat you out of the expense account, having wife and seven children; but you will save money, nevertheless. Will write expenses in a little book. You audit same, for sake of appearances, and count the cash, which is the important thing. But the merciful man is merciful to his babu, so you will look the other way when this babu makes bargains — yes?”
“In reason,” Duncannon warned him.
“Sahib, I will walk on tip-toe of discretion.”
before the board of trustees. You are the only gravedigger who has applied for the post. How can the dead ever rise again if thoughtless people burn their bodies?”
Realizing the importance of the injury done to the late John Brown, the priests of Narada decided to set a diplomatic backfire before trouble should ensue. So they sent a deputation to Delhi, with a band of music, and painted elephants, to demand that the illegal Christian mission should be withdrawn. Meanwhile, half of the Maharajah’s army guarded the empty mission, or pretended to, while the mails went to and fro across several oceans and the files of the British Embassy in Washington grew fat with memoranda, minutes, references and such similar documents with which delay is diplomatically fortified until dilemma dies a natural death.
“The truth is, Mr Quorn, that we have not been very diplomatic. Mahatma Gandhi, of whom you have perhaps heard, has made things very difficult for us. We made the serious mistake, some years ago, of asking him to espouse our cause. He did so, with the best of intentions. But the result was that the Indian Government opposed us more firmly than ever. And there was a man named Bamjee, a telegraphist, who mixed himself up in everything. He read our telegrams, and he was a shrewd little bat of a man. He was the nigger in the wood-pile, if you will excuse my language. It was he who suggested a compromise, to which we were finally forced to agree after he had helped himself to almost everything removable. He did exceedingly well for himself; he became the Maharajah’s purchasing agent, an office that he himself invented and applied for. The compromise provided that there should be no more mission work, but that the buildings and what remains of their contents should continue as the Reverend John Brown left them.
“Destiny?” said Quorn, scratching the birth-mark on his forehead. “I’ve read books about it. Seems to me it’s just another word for horse-feathers.”
CHAPTER II. Galloway and Rundhia Singh
Norman St. Clair Galloway was much more than a magistrate. He was a bear-leader of rajahs on vacation at Mount Abu, which is a hill station in Rajputana. In the temporary absence of the local magistrate he had issued a hunting permit to John Duncannon, scrawling the words “acting pro. tem.” underneath the official seal and his wholly illegible signature.
Indian maharajahs, rajahs, nabobs, nizams, chiefs and minor princes being nearly seven hundred in number, and no two alike, no two having quite the same measure of authority or nearly the same personal peculiarities, the overruling British Raj has had to invent ways and means of tempering their eccentricities — elastic means, adjustable to circumstance. Hence Norman Galloway, so used to stepping into other people’s shoes and sawing horns off other men’s dilemmas that a mere morning substituting for a magistrate was not worth comment at the club.
His own office was in his bungalow — in a big room opening on a veranda with a view of the lake and the enchanting Aravalli range of hills beyond it. Being a bachelor, the remainder of the house was given up to saddlery, polo-sticks, spears, guns, sporting prints and a very spacious sideboard — known as the high altar — containing alcoholic stimulants. There was a stable at the rear containing twenty ponies, each one of which had a sais of its own, and there were seldom less than fifty turbaned individuals of one sort or another, who had permission, or who received pay to do something, or nothing, around the premises.
The office was frequently empty. So was the bungalow. So were the grounds, of all except two or three gardeners, whose main task was to see that other people’s servants did not steal too many of the potted plants to grace their masters’ dinner-tables. There would be mornings when Norman Galloway would ride off an hour before sunrise, followed by a pack-train loaded up with tents and enough supplies for a small army; and he would return, as a rule after dark, when some particular emergency in some remotely distant native state had been snubbed, adroitly snipped or coaxed into resubmergence. Whereafter one more secret paper would be filed away in the already overcrowded pigeonholes and an incident of which no newspaper and not more than five or six officials had heard even a rumor would be closed.
Naturally, Norman Galloway’s official title revealed next to nothing of his actual authority. A consultation of the Blue Book would reveal that he had passed in seven languages, had been an army major and had occupied more than a dozen appoint
ive temporary posts. His present rank appeared to be Assistant to the Secretary of the Home Department; but that might mean anything — and did.
His office was as unilluminating as his title. There were maps on all four walls, a very big desk with next to nothing on it, a smaller desk for the Parsee clerk, who was usually arguing with messengers outside, a swivel-chair, two armchairs and a basket for waste paper, in which a cat slept when the terrier would let her. There was also a steel safe, usually open and apparently containing nothing except cigars.
It was a hot morning — for Mount Abu, that is. The heat from the plains was creeping upward on the south wind; the lake was shimmering with hardly a cloud reflected on its surface; the mountain range was hazy, with evasive outlines and a glimpse here and there of scintillating granite. Norman Galloway sat in riding-breeches, long boots, spurs and a Norfolk jacket in the swivel-chair straight in the draft from the open window.
He was clean-shaven, with heavy gray eyebrows, grayish hair and a sunburned, florid face. His cheeks, and the end of his nose, were crisscrossed with bluish veins resembling the silk filaments in a United States dollar bill, and there was a deep white scar, two inches long, on one side of his chin. But it was a friendly sort of face; the blue eyes, wise and humorous, looked tolerant.
He was more than middle height and would probably grow fat when pensioned, but for the present his frame was wire-hard, though he possessed the knack of resting easily, tilting backward in the chair with his head against the wall behind him.
Facing him uncomfortably in one of the armchairs sat the scion of an ancient race of Rajputana, Rundhia Kanishka Singh. He resembled a lizard, if a lizard can be imagined in long riding-boots with six-inch spurs, a suit of neutral-colored silk and a blue turban with the end a yard long hanging over his shoulder. In a petulant, querulously spoiled way he was handsome. Since he was only twenty-two or so, the inroads of hereditary vice had not had time to make his face look puffy. His almost amber-colored eyes were dull with sulkiness, not with drugs. He had the beautiful old-ivory complexion of an inbred race, and his little black mustache was waxed into points that made him look aristocratic and distinguished, offsetting the lazy carriage of his shoulders. He was tall for his weight, which was probably hardly a hundred and twenty pounds, and he had very small hands and feet; his wrists, as strong as steel, were almost small enough to go through an ordinary napkin-ring. He wore no jewelry.