by Talbot Mundy
Now it happened that night, when Galloway had watched his servants pitch the tent and had taken his seat on a camp-chair to have his riding-boots pulled off, that the moon was notched exactly in the middle of the temple roof between two broken piles of masonry.
Some sort of parasitic creeper had found footing in the crumbled mortar along with wisps of feathery grass; and it may be that straw, blown by the hot wind, had collected there to add to the screen through which the moon shone at the moment.
It was not a full moon, and there were light clouds that helped to obscure it. Also, somewhere near the temple, on the far side, was a cattle compound. Something, possibly the smell of tiger, had disturbed the cattle, which had kicked up a powdery dust.
The result was that from the temple roof there seemed to glow a dull red flame, as if there were a furnace underneath.
It was almost passionately beautiful. Galloway, who in his youth had hoped to be an artist, watched it fascinated until the moon moved along her course sufficiently to change the picture. The imagination began working, as it almost never does when the brain is concentrated on an object. Galloway sat linking in his mind that legend of the “Red Flame of Erinpura,” the robber whose furnace has never needed fuel, and the rumor — for it was scarcely more — brought by two separate parties of Americans to the effect there was oil in Rajputana.
The dust from the cattle compound drifted down the wind toward him, filling his nostrils with the faint, familiar scent that should have conjured visions of a native village, for it is nose, far more than eyes, that brings suggestions to the brain. But he thought, instead, of earthquakes and the caving in of subterranean passages that might have extinguished flames from a burning oil-pool. He did not know anything about oil, except for snatches of stray information gleamed from newspapers and magazines, so there were no facts to dim his imagination. He saw pictures of an earlier fire worship, perhaps a demon worship with accompanying human sacrifice, that might have been the religion of the country possibly a thousand years before Buddhism brought kindlier centuries, only to die in turn.
He fell asleep in the chair with such thoughts in his mind and dreamed of weird infernos in which Pennyweather strode discussing irrigation, all mixed up with boyhood memories of scripture lessons about Shadrach, Mesheck and Abednego and Nebuchadnezzer’s burning fiery furnace. The voices of his servants, camped within hail, no doubt supplied the drone of the praying multitude that, in the dream, lay with foreheads in the dust around the fire. But there was one voice more distinct than any other, seeming to speak a dialect of Rajasthani, using the same phrase three times, each time more distinctly —
“O Heaven-Born, live forever!”
At the third repetition he opened his eyes, wide awake and looked straight in front of him. The moon had gone down and the velvet Indian gloom had deepened, leaving nothing but a blot against the darkness where the temple had been. Galloway stared for several seconds before his eyes discerned the outline of a man who stood less than six paces away from him.
He had no thought of danger; men whose heart is in their work seldom do when the unexpected happens; but he had to exert all his will-power to separate this spectral human being from the dream.
“You set no guard over your camp,” said a pleasant quiet voice in Rajasthani.
“Why should I?” Galloway asked.
“And your servants sleep.”
“Why shouldn’t they?”
“Therefore I came unannounced.”
“Who are you?”
He could see now that there was no turban, only a mass of long hair. Vaguely he could see the shape of the man, whose age he could not guess. He was quite used to petitioners at all hours, but this man did not whine or cringe as if craving favors; he spoke as an equal, not even troubling to address him as “sahib” or “bahadur.”
“I am a friend,” the shadowy man answered.
“So say all men who ask favors,” Galloway retorted. “Should a friend come at this hour? What is your name?”
“Has the Unknowable a name? Who knows it, except Him? Then who knows my name, except Him? And who then shall tell it? Nay, I came to speak of other things.”
“Speak on,” said Galloway. He knew now who his visitor was. “Be seated.”
For twenty years he had known of the Gnani, had wished to speak with him, but had never even seen him. He reached for a cigarette and struck a match; but the Gnani seated himself, squatting on the earth, bending his head, perhaps to make sure there were no scorpions, and all Galloway saw before the match went out was a mass of nearly white hair falling to the shoulders.
“Beware of Rundhia Kaneshka Singh!” said the Gnani.
“Why?” asked Galloway, for the sake of manners puffing at the cigarette; he did not want it thought that he had struck the match for any other reason.
“Because you are warned. That is reason enough.”
Galloway began to feel exasperated. To a man in his position it was mortifying to be talked to like a child, but he controlled himself.
“If you are an honest man you will tell me what you know,” he said. “It is not honest to speak to arouse suspicion without stating facts.”
“If I should tell you what I know, you would not believe,” the Gnani answered. “I have warned you.”
Galloway was silent for about a minute, turning over in his mind alternatives.
“I thank you for the warning,” he said, reaching a decision suddenly, as his way was. “Now I will warn you in turn. The government that it is my privilege to serve does not interfere with the religious customs, or even with the social habits of the people of India, provided that religion is not made a cloak behind which to conspire against the government. I know perfectly well who you are, and it has long been in my mind, as a duty to you as well as to the government, to caution you. Tolerance is not weakness, as some of you people seem to think; and the fact that you have been immune from arrest and detention all these years is not proof that you are at liberty to carry on intrigues against the government. As to your religion, you must admit that you have received every possible consideration. You have even been allowed to keep tigers at large, and though I understand one of your tigers was shot recently, that was done by an American who did not appreciate the circumstances. About two years ago one was shot that had killed Abercrombie sahib, but I don’t know whether that was your tiger.”
Galloway paused, but the Gnani kept absolute silence. The old man was motionless; even his breathing was inaudible.
“The point is,” said Galloway, “that you have had extremely considerate, I may say respectful treatment; and as long as you confine yourself to religious activities that treatment will continue. But I warn you against interference with the Government.
He did not want to make his lecture too severe, so he paused again, dropped the half-burned cigarette and put his foot on it. Then, to give the Gnani opportunity to say something if he should choose, he groped for his cigar-case, bit the end off a cigar and lighted it. The match shone on the Gnani’s eyes; they looked green and amber — fascinating.
There was a long pause before the owner of those eyes gave voice.
“Nevertheless, you said that I should tell you what I know. Would that not be interference with the Government? For if I told you what I know, though you might not believe, you could not forget what I had told you; and the consequences would be felt by all of Rajasthan, since men act in accordance with the thoughts they think. I could speak to you now in such way as would ruin Rajasthan. To cause misery is never difficult. But I know that by my silence, and a very little speech, I can prevent disaster.”
Galloway’s sensations were like those of a latter-day scientist who is told that a reservation Indian knows how to make rain. He was baffled by the man’s assurance, and indignant less at the assertion than at the credulity expected of him. The knowledge that the Gnani thought him an extremely ignorant person added to the feeling of exasperation.
“What is the
disaster that you think you forsee?” he demanded.
“I foresee that it can be avoided,” said the Gnani. “Does a child born dead receive a name?”
Suddenly it occurred to Galloway to ask a leading question bluntly and abruptly — not a tactful thing to do, in general, in India, where truth withdraws into its shell at the first breath of inquisition.
“Is the Rajah of Tonkaipur, the father of Rundhia Singh, sick naturally? Or is he poisoned?” he demanded.
The Gnani made no answer. He appeared to inclose himself within a wall of silence.
“I am not suggesting you have poisoned him,” said Galloway. “When you came and I asked who you were, you said ‘a friend.’ Why not prove your friendship and talk frankly with me?”
“I have warned you against Rundhia Kaneshka Singh,” the Gnani answered.
“Do you think the rajah will recover?”
The moment he had asked the question Galloway knew how absurd it must sound, but it was too late to withdraw it. He covered his own confusion by repeating it and adding a sarcastic reason for it:
“You, who are said to be able to prophesy, can’t you say whether the Rajah of Tonkaipur will recover?”
The Gnani ignored the sarcasm. He picked up dust in both hands and let it run slowly through his fingers. Then he said suddenly:
“The tiger sallies forth to slay. Let him lose one buck and he will find another, since the will to slay has not been slain in him. And when he has slain, what then? The appetite is glutted, but the will remains and is stronger for the deed. He goes forth when he has rested and slays many times. It is his habit. Therefore, if he of Tonkaipur does not die, look to it that none dies in his place.”
“You mean me?” Galloway suggested.
“Shall it be said which buck the tiger will choose?” the Gnani asked. “But he who comes between the tiger and the buck he chooses — it may be said of him, he is in danger. I have warned you.”
Galloway looked at his feet. It behooved him to think of something very courteous, yet not too self-committal, to say to the old man. He did not wish to be churlish, but on the other hand it would be unwise either to appear to attach too much credence to the warning or to pretend to ignore it altogether. And besides, he hoped, if he were tactful, to elicit further information.
But when he looked up with a phrase already framed, the Gnani was no longer there. He could not even hear his retreating footsteps. There was soft sand in the river-bed and the light wind sighing through the reeds obscured all other sound. After a while he was nearly sure he saw a shadow moving on the far side of the river, but the glimpse he had of it suggested the vague outline of an animal.
Then the ponies began tugging at their heel-ropes, snorting, and he knew what that meant. He went to awaken the saises, who would have slept through an earthquake, and for the next ten minutes they had a hard time to keep the mules and ponies from stampeding while Galloway fetched his rifle and stood quietly in the shadow of a tree. Several times he heard a tiger’s heavy footfall in the darkness, but not the throat noise that a tiger makes when he is contemplating mischief. It would have pleased him just then to have shot one of the Gnani’s tigers, although he would have found difficulty in explaining why, but the tigers — he thought there were two of them — kept out of sight, so he ordered all the lanterns lighted and set men to swinging them.
“Break up camp!” he ordered. “It will be dawn soon. No, I won’t wait for breakfast.”
Mixed motives made him impatient to be off. After what he had said to the Gnani about tigers, he was just as anxious to avoid contact with the brutes as he was determined to kill if he should see them. He was also puzzled and vaguely nervous about the Gnani’s warning. The spy Sivaji’s long silence suggested foul play; and he knew that the British Resident at Tonkaipur was an inefficient invalid as likely as not to be in bed with fever — particularly at a crisis of affairs. The man, an ex-infantry major, had been sent to Tonkaipur as a last expedient, the Secretariat not knowing what else in the world to do with him until the day should come when he should automatically draw his pension and go home to be a nuisance to a London club.
Tonkaipur was not a very long march distant from Erinpura. He could make it before noon; and though the heat would be intolerable, ponies and servants would endure at least as much as he could.
“Quiet!” he ordered. “Quiet! Break camp swiftly!”
His servants obeyed with a will. They regarded the tigers’ presence as a hint much more suggestive than Galloway’s riding-whip that whacked his riding-boot to emphasize his impatience to be off.
CHAPTER X. Baxter
Chullunder Ghose sat with his back against a rock in a hollow about fifty yards away from the winding track up which the pilgrims toiled on their way to a cave that had been sacred for unnumbered centuries. He was out of breath and sweating, for though he was astonishingly active for his weight, the long climb up the mountain-side had taxed him severely.
Facing him were three men, one a European who had been a missionary in another part of India; he still wore the disgusting smirk that had made him so unpopular with fellow missionaries as to irritate them into forcing his resignation. Having money of his own, although not much of it, he had remained in India and had adopted the indefinite title of “agent for European business.” His name was Baxter.
The other two were an Eurasian named Andrew Bonamy, who had passed examinations as a lawyer, but preferred the less competitive pursuit of money-lending; and a Hindu by the name of Gokula Das, who had taken his M.A. degree at Oxford and thereafter denounced all Western learning as abominable barbarism. He was editor and owner of a newspaper produced by lithographic process once a week and enjoying a circulation of at least a hundred copies in the intervals between suppressions by the censoring authority.
Baxter was cool, calm, self-assertive and inclined to seize the upper hand by methods that had caused his separation from the church to which he once belonged.
“You must prove to me,” he said, “that this is something that my conscience doesn’t condemn.”
Chullunder Ghose flapped flies away with a bandanna handkerchief.
“No danger from police. Profitable, very,” he remarked.
“That may be,” said Baxter, “but this map and this report that you have stolen—”
“Bought,” Chullunder Ghose corrected.
“How much did you pay for it?” asked Baxter.
“With torture and anguish — forty years of wandering in wilderness of rare and oh, so small emolument, agonies of sharpening wit at grindstone of impecuniosity, discovering how to choose immoral horse-trader who delivered documents to me in hope of selling spavined horses to representative of tr-r-rillionaire from Pittsburgh, Pa., United States America. Nevertheless, did not sell same. This babu’s conscience is without blemish.”
“Um-m-m!” remarked Baxter. “So now you propose to betray your trillionaire?”
“Have made no proposal whatever,” Chullunder Ghose answered. “Andrew Bonamy, being money-lender with heart of flint, demanded of me rupees a thousand principal and rupees nine thousand eight hundred seventy-two, annas eight, accumulated compound interest, self having received rupees eight hundred cash at time of signing promissory note. Boredom of debtor’s prison yawning between me and opportunity, this babu sought by truthful explanations made under seal of confidence to stave off Bonamy’s cupidity and gain time, not being aware that Bonamy is only agent for ex-reverend Baxter—”
“Bonamy owes me money,” Baxter interrupted dryly.
“Conscience-money, doubtless!” said Chullunder Ghose. “And you owe money to Gokula Das, who, being Master of Arts, is expert creditor. In consequence, this babu in pursuit of too elusive fortune finds himself like camel bearing three loads. Last straw may produce distressing consequences. Verb. sap. Yes indeed.”
“Well, those are stolen documents,” said Baxter. “I consider it my duty to lay information in the proper quarter. That is, unless y
ou can satisfy me that my conscience would permit me to treat the whole thing as legitimate business, in which case—”
“Your conscience is too expensive!” said Chullunder Ghose. “Andrew Bonamy is bad enough with five percent per month at compound interest—”
“Without securitee,” the half-breed commented.
“Oh, shut up!” exclaimed Gokula Das, in a cultivated Oxford accent. “We three have got the babu by the tail. Why jolly well let go? I vote we offer him a one-tenth share provided he gives up the bally papers. Then we three float a company and give enough stock to the proper parties to make it safe for us to go after the oil. I’ll lend the columns of my newspaper for propoganda purposes and we’ll soon have the ecclesiastics mobbing us to sell them oil-shares. Come along, Chullunder Ghose. Jolly well hand over that report and map, or go to prison for debt.”
“Remarkably jolly prospect!” said the babu, fanning himself. “Must take time to consider same.”
“Nonsense!” remarked Baxter. “A man of your age and experience can decide between right and wrong as quick as thinking. You are in debt to Andrew Bonamy. He demands his money. You must either pay or give him some security. Gokula Das has offered far too generous terms.”
The babu scratched his stomach, then opened a cheap umbrella because the morning sun was beginning to peep over the rock. Plainly, he could not be stampeded.
“We will give you until tomorrow morning,” Baxter announced firmly. “Meet us here at this hour and bring the papers with you. When I have seen them I will decide whether my conscience—”
“He will beat you, if you give him time!” Gokula Das interrupted.
“If you’re not here with the papers in the morning, I will have you arrested certainlee,” said Andrew Bonamy. “The warrant is readee to be signed.”