by Talbot Mundy
But he closed his eyes after a moment. Wu Tu lifted his head to her lap — touched something to his nostrils. It had a faint smell, but whatever it was she shook it as if it was empty and he heard her set it down. After that her fingers caressed his temples and passed over his eyes. “Sleep!” she commanded in a low voice. “Sleep! Sleep” He found it difficult at first to stay awake. He had been exhausted and sleepy before this happened. Lassitude stole over him. The gurgling water harmonized with her voice. He could almost physically feel magnetic influence stealing over him and he began to see her eyes again through closed eyelids.
He reminded himself that there is no such influence; that by suggestion mesmerists persuade a victim to impose obedience on himself. Nevertheless, he felt consciousness slipping. But her eyes, that he saw without seeing, aroused anger. He resented them — rebelled against the impudent trickery that compelled him to see them. Had she done something of the sort to Henrietta? The thought of Henrietta in Wu Tu’s clutches stirred an impulse to kill. But the same impulse aroused caution. He must first, have Wu Tu’s secret — Henrietta’s — Frensham’s. Secrecy is the key to secrets. He lay still.
There was something hard between the back of his hand and his leg. He guessed it was the empty revolver. By pressing his hand against that he hurt it sharply where the Chinese girl had pricked him and he. had bitten the wound to make it bleed. He kept on doing it. The pain intensified alertness. By continually relaxing and increasing the pressure he avoided becoming used to it.
“Sleep!” commanded Wu Tu. “Sleep! Sleep! Sleep and forget — and forget.” Her hands moved rhythmically caressing his eyes and temples. Some or her sensuous perfume still clung to her clothing. Heat, the sensation of darkness, the.sound of flowing water aided her. Stab-stab went the pain in his right hand. He was awake, alert. But he breathed evenly, relaxing his neck-muscles so that his head lay heavy oh her lap. “Forget! Forget!” commanded Wu Tu. He remembered every detail of her previous attempt on him in Bombay. She pinched his ear but he was ready for it — lay still. She pinched until her nails almost met in the lobe of his ear, but he betrayed no sign of having felt it. The voltage of his anger increased with every stab of pain, but he welcomed the pain because it proved he was conscious.
“You are asleep,” she said, “but you know. Marie speaks to you. You are happy — oh, so happy, because Marie gives you Henrietta. You desire, and you love Henrietta with all your heart.”
The position of his neck across her thigh had become almost intolerable. He, moved slightly. She took his head in both hands and re-settled it in her lap. “Sleep! Sleep! You are asleep. But you can speak when I tell you to speak.”
The terrific difficulty was. to lie slack. If he had allowed alertness to make his muscles rigid she would have noticed it. Mesmerism very likely was her last card, if it was true that her supply of drug was exhausted. To defeat her, he must convince her she was winning. But it is easier to feign strength than weakness. He was afraid he might sneeze. Fear created the impulse. Not to sneeze, then, was his,height of attainment of self-control. He did not sneeze, and the effort of will left him more than ever master of himself. He no longer saw Wu Tu’s eyes through closed eyelids. His imagination functioned normally; he could bring up any mental picture he wished; could see himself, for instance, unshaven, in a filthy uniform, on his back on the floor of a hewn rock chamber, with his head in the lap of the most dangerous woman in India.
He did not enjoy the danger; but he admired that woman with a patient, merciless and deadly admiration that exceeded, by a thousand times, his regard for the tiger he, had shot dead the previous night. His admiration for. her was her greatest danger. She might spring surprises, but he Would be ready.
“Sleep!” she commanded. “Sleep! You are in a deep sleep. But you can hear and you can answer. You think what I tell you to think. You have no other thought. It makes you happy — very happy — very, very happy to think what I tell you. You have no voice except to answer me. You are about to go to Henrietta. You love Henrietta. Answer me. Do you love Henrietta?”
“Yes,” he answered, picking a tone of voice at random. It appeared to satisfy her.
“And you trust me, Marie. Answer, do you trust me?”
“Yes,” he answered.
“Yes,, you trust me. I am Marie, who am more than a lover and more than a friend. Blair, Marie — Marie, Blair — we two trust and understand each other. When you awake you will forget Wu Tu; you will forget Jenny and Soonia Singh. You will remember Marie, who is your friend and guide. Answer. Whom do you remember?
“Marie.”
“Marie has wisdom, experience, courage. Marie is the wisest woman in the world. Marie knows how rotten all the world is, with intrigues and treachery, and she despises it, so you also despise it. Like her, you despise the little official cowards with big names and authority. They call Marie Wu Tu, and they know she could ruin them, men and women. She knows their secrets. But you know why she doesn’t ruin them. Marie is great and generous. Great and generous. Marie deserves to be great. Answer: what is Marie?”
“Great,” he answered. “Great and generous.” He could feel her thrill to the answer.
“Now you will go to Henrietta because Marie sends you. Henrietta loves you. You love Henrietta. But she is in danger because she has stolen the secret of the Woman of Gaglajung. She is in deadly danger. You will go to Henrietta. You will love her savagely — savagely — strong, sweet, overwhelming. You will make her tell the secret. Win it from her. Make her tell it to you. Henrietta may demand your promise not to tell the secret to Wu Tu. You will make that promise. Henrietta, does not know Marie. It will be Marie, not Wu Tu, to whom you will tell it. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“What secret will you find out?”
“Henrietta’s.”
“What is it? Answer.”
“The secret of the Woman of Gaglajung.”
“Will you tell it to Wu Tu?”
“No.”
“But to whom will you tell it?”
“Marie.”
“Nothing is important except Henrietta’s secret. You will make her tell it to you. It is so important that you will rather die than not learn it. You will learn it from her. You will tell it to me. Answer. To whom will you tell it?”
“Marie.”
“At once to Marie?”
“At once to Marie.”
Her thigh muscle moved. He felt her leaning forward as if listening. Down at the far end of the low opening the Chinese girl coughed on a peculiar note and made noises by shifting the lantern. The sounds appeared to convey information. Wu Tu relaxed a little. Then she laid both hands on Blair’s forehead and continued:
“Taron Ling is the enemy. Are you afraid of Taron Ling?”
Not knowing on the spur of the moment how to answer that question, Blair was silent. A principle of hypnotism is to tell the victim what to answer before asking a question. This one might be a trick, to discover whether he was really under hypnotic control. She repeated it. He continued silent. If it was a test, she appeared satisfied. She resumed:
“Taron Ling is the enemy. Answer. Who is the enemy?”
“Taron Ling.”
“You do not fear Taron Ling. You despise him. You do not fear him in the least. He has no power over you, no influence over you. You do not fear Taron Ling. He only knows a little silly magic such as works on superstitious fools. He may be able to control Bat-Brahmins and hermits, but not you and you don’t fear him, because Marie protects you from him. Answer. Do you fear Taron Ling?”
“No.”
“Who protects you from him? Answer.”
“Marie.”
“When you awake you will not remember Taron Ling. You will remember Marie, your friend. You will obey her because you understand’ her, and she loves you and protects you. Answer. Whom will you obey when you awake?”
“Marie.”
Again she appeared to be listening, for the space of forty
or fifty heart-beats. Again the Chinese girl made noises that perhaps conveyed information. They ceased. Against the sound of splashing water Blair could hear Wu Tu’s heartbeat and his own — out of time with each other — hers fluttering fast. It was nearly a minute before she continued:
“Chetusingh is a treacherous swine and a liar. Chetusingh is Taron Ling’s dupe. Certain women put some poison into him to make him sensible but Taron Ling deceived him, made him see things, and confused him. Now he is doubly treacherous, obeying first one and then the other. He will try to kill Taron Ling. But Taron Ling will kill him. It doesn’t matter. Chetusingh has served his purpose, which was to go with a message to Henrietta before daybreak, saying you wished her to accompany him for secret reasons. Henrietta will ask you, was it a true message? You will say yes. Answer. Was it a true message?”
“Yes.”
“Chetusingh is a traitor, but he gave a true message to Henrietta. But now he betrays her. He betrays you. He is a swine of a Christian convert. You hate Chetusingh. Answer.”
“I hate Chetusingh.”
“You love Marie because she guards you against Chetusingh and Taron Ling, who are a pair of devils. What are they? Answer.”
“Devils.”
“Let us hope they kill each, other. All men die who seek the secret of the Woman of Gaglajung. Frensham sought it. And where is he? What happened to Zaman Ali and those others? They are dead — dead — dead. But Henrietta is to be the mother of Blair’s children, not a victim of the Woman of Gaglajung, whose curse is on all who violate her Secret. Save Henrietta from that! I, Marie; fear no curse. I violate no secret. I will take all consequences. I am Marie, rich in wisdom. I will know and preserve the secret in my heart of hearts I—”
She paused, trembling with excitement. Her hands pressed on Blair’s forehead. Emotion poured along them, like a stream of will; it was contagious, but not as she meant it to be. It sharpened the intensity of Blair’s resistance and revived his energy. His thought worked wholly independently of hers. He saw the logical conclusion of her purpose. Should she learn the secret she would try to kill both Henrietta and himself. She would share it with no one.
But she feared Taron Ling, that was evident. Fear of Chetusingh, too, might explain why she had inveighed against him. That was a point in Chetusingh’s favor. Almost super-humanly crafty in some, respects, Chetusingh might risk the chance of being killed for treachery, in order to gain an objective.
Wu Tu’s weakness was her belief in her own hypnotic power; but without drugs to assist her she was only an amateur. Chetusingh would appreciate that. He might have found some way of avoiding the effect of the drugs. If so, his obvious cue was to pretend to be hypnotised. He had always been the best actor on the police force. By convincing Wu Tu that he was thoroughly hypnotised, Chetusingh might overhear or worm his way into her secret plans. Supposing he had learned of her intention to hypnotise Blair, he would guess what Blair would do about it. They had worked together too often and successfully for him not to guess that Blair would pretend to fall into the trap. Chetusingh from that minute received benefit of doubt.
“Wake!” commanded Wu Tu. “Wake and remember all I told you! Wake!”
He lay still. If he came too quickly out of the trance she might suspect him. She began slapping his face. “Wake! Wake!”
But he lay still.
The Chinese girl returned with the lantern, and held it to his face, but that light was not strong enough to make him blink. So she produced an electric torch from one of the hampers and flashed that full in his eyes. The glare was unendurable. He let his eyelids flutter. The girl wet a cloth at the cistern and slapped his face with it. He came to then, sat up and looked bewildered.
“Do you know who I am?”
He looked into Wu Tu’s eyes. He allowed recognition and pleasure to creep into his.
“Marie,” he answered. Then, as if he suddenly remembered why and what: “Where’s Henrietta? I must ask her something.” He got up, feeling stiff and a bit uneasy but alert and competent. He put his arm around Wu Tu and spoke caressingly: “Did I turn down your offer in Bombay? That was silly of me. You’re the one to trust. A man can tell you anything. You keep secrets.”
“I — yes — I keep them!” she said it with set teeth.
He snatched the torch from the Chinese girl, flashed it around the walls as if he had forgotten where he was, and turned it at last on two dead bodies. He recognized both! Those men had stood at the foot of the stairs in Wu Tu’s house in Bombay.
“Who?” he demanded, putting a hand over his eyes as if trying to remember.
“My servants, Blair. You killed them — shot one — stabbed one. But I won’t tell who did it. Look.”
“I — I don’t remember killing them,” Blair said.
“No wonder. They hit you hard. They and that swine Chetusingh attacked you suddenly. You—”
He bent down and examined the bodies. He remembered he had held the dagger in his left hand, the revolver in his right. One man was shot through the heart; he very likely had killed that one. But the dagger was between the other man’s shoulder-blades in such a position that he could not possibly have done that left-handed. Someone else had used the dagger. Someone must have snatched it from his hand as he fell — must have driven it to the hilt into the man’s back from behind. There could be no drug now remaining in the handle of that weapon! It was a blow of which neither Wu Tu nor the Chinese girl was capable. Wu Tu, he remembered, had been clinging to his knees; she could not possibly have done it. Chetusingh was the only alternative. It was just such a blow as Chetusingh would strike, if put to it — Rajput-fashion — no half-measures.
“But I don’t remember this,” he said. “I don’t remember it.”
“They hit you on the head,” Wu Tu repeated.
“Your face is wet, isn’t it? We bathed it, to make you recover. What do you remember?”
“Henrietta!” he said instantly. “Where is she?”
Wu Tu nodded to herself. Blair looked away from her to hide the triumph that he knew was in his eyes. He had her beaten. Checkmate now in one or two moves.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I have had one hundred and one chelas, of whom one alone had too much wisdom in him to demand why I, his Teacher, had revealed to him no great hidden secrets. Are they not hidden? Are they not hidden in each one’s consciousness? I am a Teacher. I am a gardener, awaiting sun, rain, growth; observant and perhaps, if diligent, preventing trespass. I can cultivate, prune, encourage. I protect. But the seed is within you. As the yearning of the lover to reveal true love to his beloved, is the hunger of the Teacher to reveal the Secrets to his chela. Unto love, and unto love alone, love shows herself, as a reflection in a pond at sunrise. Unto inward wisdom. Wisdom is revealed. Truth echoes Truth. All else, in the words of your Gospel, is pearls that the swine tread underfoot.
— From the First of the Nine Books of Noor Ali.
IT SEEMED probable that Wu Tu would behave herself for the time being. Murder might be in her mind, but what she wanted first was Henrietta’s secret. Blair was as keen as Wu Tu on that. But what the devil should he say to Henrietta? Even supposing he should get rid of Wu Tu somehow, and then find Henrietta, there still might be one or two of Wu Tu’s men to be dealt with. She was much more likely than Zaman Ali to have well-paid and therefore faithful adherents, who would probably have weapons. He had none. There was a weapon available, but to have pulled that dagger from the dead man’s body would have alarmed Wu Tu. He was better without a weapon than with her suspicion aroused. Her over-confidence was all-important. In the dim chamber, with the red glow from the lantern on her face and the electric torch revealing a panorama o£ weirdly shaped golden figures as a setting, Wu Tu looked hardly human. Mystery had taken hold of her imagination. She looked hungry, determined, cruel.
She undoubtedly believed she was using occult forces. There is nothing comparable to the obscene fury of the would-be magician whose mental treacherie
s are circumvented. She would be like a baffled cobra if disillusioned. She might kill Henrietta out of sheer spite.
“Why do you wait?” Wu Tu demanded suddenly. He was not so sure then that he had her beaten. The dilemma was obvious. She was testing the control of her will over his, directing him mentally, using a form of telepathy that has sent many a weakling to the gallows. The difficulty was, her thought made no impression on him; he was unable to detect the slightest tremor of directing impulse. He had never been able to let his thought be directed by others, although he and Chetusingh had tried to practice it for the sake of better teamwork. However, he decided to pretend to receive directions and to take the chance of making a wrong turning.
The Chinese girl snatched at the torch but he pushed her aside roughly, turned the light on the entrance-hole and started forward as if he had suddenly received an overpowering impulse. But he wondered whether that was the right thing to do. His confidence, that had been so strong a few minutes before, was waning. He would have preferred to have Wu Tu in front of him where he could see her.
The Chinese girl followed him so closely, and so fast, that his spine tingled, as he hurried oil hands and knees through the low passage. True, he did not expect to be stabbed. He reassured himself that there was not the slightest fear of that until Wu Tu should have attained her objective. But there was no doubt about the crawling sensation it gave him to have the girl so close behind. At the far end of the opening he stood up instantly and flashed the light in her face. She only smiled. It was the friendliest smile she had given him yet, But she was quite possibly laughing at his discomfort or at the disreputable state of his clothing. It would be like a Chinese to do that, at that moment. She said nothing. Wu Tu came through the opening slowly, not on her hands and knees but bent double, pausing repeatedly, appearing to listen, either in deadly fear of Taron Ling, or possibly expecting reinforcements.