Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  “Have you been ragging her again?” he demanded. “Can’t you let her alone?” He turned his back toward Lewis.

  Lewis raised one eyebrow so high that his monocle fell out. He glanced at Nancy Strong. She nodded, smiling. Even Andrew was aware that they were exchanging comments about him, although he had turned and stooped to put wood on the fire, and no word passed between them. Bompo Tsering came and stood in the opening between the bookcases. Lewis studied him:

  “So this is Man Friday?”

  Andrew straightened himself and turned his back to the fire. “Yes,” he said. “I don’t want him scared any more than he is. Don’t talk metaphysics to him. He’s superstitious.”

  Lewis laughed. Elsa studied Bompo Tsering.

  “Why did you bring him in here?” she asked. She sniffed, then laughed too. With the rain on him Bompo Tsering smelt like all Tibet.

  Nancy sighed: “It makes me homesick. But someone please open a window!”

  “No!” said Andrew. “Not now. No windows. Please. There’s a reason.”

  CHAPTER 17

  Bompo Tsering looked shell-shocked. Mistrust of his surroundings numbed him. Tibetans are an intuitive people. He could sense the spiritual strength of Nancy’s hospitality. But he was afraid of it. A legion of superstitions crowded his mind. He was afraid of the room. The familiar Tibetan things on the walls didn’t lessen the trap-sensation. In his imagination they increased it. Loot. Scalps. The books were overwhelming evidence of occult lore; it might be white, but it was much more likely to be black magic. He had seen Andrew’s room at the hotel, and the inside of many a rich man’s house in Tibet; but nothing like this room. Andrew ordered him curtly to uncover his head. He obeyed, sheepishly. But curiosity was just a bit stronger than shyness: holding his fur trimmed, filthy hat in both hands, he thrust his tousled head around the corner of the bookcase. First, he recognized Elsa — stuck out his tongue respectfully — grinned self-consciously — then repeated the respectful salutation, to Nancy Strong — to Lewis — with an extra tongue — show thrown in on general principles — perhaps to the gods of the hearth.

  “Tongue’s furry,” said Lewis. “Too much starch. Guzzles rice and ghee three times a day. He’ll have an enlarged spleen if he isn’t careful.”

  “He’ll work that off soon enough,” said Andrew. “Uphill all the way. Pass beyond pass, and the south side always the steeper. Six days a week. That’ll cure him.”

  “You always rest one day a week?” asked Lewis.

  “Usually. Rest the animals. Give the gang a chance to repair boots, tents, harness and settle arguments.”

  The conversation was beyond Bompo Tsering’s scope of English. He was unaffected by it. It meant nothing. He stood smiling, flat-faced, stocky, sloe-eyed, bulkily clothed in a wet fleece-lined, padded, long-sleeved leather overcoat; it was made bulkier still by the things in his bokkus, which is the space between neck and belt where Tibetans stow all their portable belongings. There was a small splinter from a saint’s thigh bone stuck through the lobe of one ear; in the other was a long turquoise earring good enough for a nobleman. Around his neck was a twisted coil of parchment; it resembled a hangman’s noose blackened by exposure to storms and human sweat, but it was actually a scroll of beautifully written blessings worth ten times the price of the earring.

  “I’d like to talk to him,” said Elsa. “May I? Or would you rather I didn’t?”

  Andrew shook his head: “Later. He has the wind up at the moment. Give him a chance and he’ll throw a panic, like a caught animal.”

  “But why should he be afraid of me?” asked Elsa.

  Nancy asked an easier one: “Why bring him in here? Not that he isn’t welcome — but why?”

  “He was afraid to stay outside,” Andrew answered. “Swears there are dugpas. Scared stiff of ’em.”

  “Did he talk?” asked Lewis.

  “Sure he talked — outside in the dark, because he felt he had to divvy up the funk with someone fifty-fifty. But you try to get him to talk now!” It was quite obvious, Andrew was rather proud of having been confided in. “Watch him try to stop me talking!” he added.

  Bompo Tsering’s face had become as blank as an old ivory moon — no smile left. His right hand with the thumb between the fingers moved up and down almost imperceptibly, from superstitious habit. His real effort to gag Andrew was mental — a darkly invisible psychic force such as passes between conspirators or in a courtroom when a witness is expected to betray perilous secrets. Elsa spoke up:

  “Andrew, can’t we help him? I can see his fear, like a fog — yellowy — gray — green — like a London pea-souper. The poor man wasn’t as scared as this even when we were cursed by the Black Monks at—”

  Lewis took a hand, speaking Tibetan with an accent learned on medical inspection tours in Sikkim. The accent and the monocle together totally masked the sympathy which was all that Lewis intended:

  “Tell us what frightened you, Bompo Tsering. Speak. We are friends. We won’t laugh at you.”

  The very use of his name by a stranger aggravated prejudice. Bompo Tsering’s eyes changed perceptibly. They transferred dark attention from one dread to another. Beneath his matted black fringe of hair they suggested a yak’s eyes, unintelligently ready to stampede — utterly mistrustful. Nancy Strong was watching:

  “No use, Morgan!” Her voice had the finality note of experience. “You should have asked his advice. Then he’d have told. I always ask children’s advice when they’re in trouble.”

  Lewis smiled wryly: “Mental jujitsu, eh? Good tactics. But it isn’t a safe plan, always. Try it on some of my patients! Try it, for instance, on Lemon!” He turned to Andrew. “Did he say he saw who fired that shot through the window?”

  Andrew nodded: “Said he saw a man with his face half covered by a shawl, who obeyed a dugpa who lurked in the shrubbery.”

  “Did he see the dugpa?”

  “Yes — so he said. He’s always seeing ’em. I guess they’re part of his religion.”

  “He is always very brave about them,” said Elsa. “Much braver than I am about the things that I see.”

  “He’s more afraid on our account than for himself,” said Andrew. “That bit of holy shin bone in his ear is all he figures he needs. But we’re pelings — ignorant foreigners who don’t know what we’re up against. If the dugpas should get, for instance, me, bang goes his meal-ticket. Get the idea?”

  Lewis wiped his monocle with a thoughtful, professional air: “Dugpas,” he said, “are just as real to a Tibetan as microbes are to me, or to a man with influenza. They’re exactly as real as the snakes seen by a man in delirium tremens. They’re a symptom. Swat the snakes, and what happens?”

  “He saw someone,” said Andrew.

  “Of course he did. And his frightened senses lied about it.”

  “Every single one of our physical senses is an incorrigible liar,” said Nancy Strong.

  “Could he have seen Bulah Singh—” Andrew suggested, “lurking in the bushes — with another of his hypnotized Lemons to do the dirty work?”

  Lewis laughed. “No, Gunning, no! If Bulah Singh were as easy as all that, he would have been hanged long ago. Someone in the Lemon category fired the shot through the window. There’s nothing much easier than for a devil to find stool pigeons. You may depend on it: the real culprit was as far from the scene as the real conspirators were who directed the shot at Sarajevo.”

  Elsa spoke suddenly: “The man in the shrubbery wore a devil-mask! I can see it l I can see it now!”

  Nancy Strong frowned: “Nonsense, Elsa! What you are seeing is Bompo Tsering’s own mental image of what he wants to persuade us that he saw.”

  “But, Nancy, how do you know?”

  “Because I saw it when you did. That is how panics — even wars get started. It happens to animals and humans. False mental pictures projected from thought to thought by invisible rays of fear.”

  “But if that’s so, how can one ever know the d
ifference between the real thing and a—”

  “Child, I told you. Try to remember. If you will insist on believing you are a person with a supposititious soul, or no soul, you will always believe the wrong thing, because your premise is wrong. Change your premise. It is impossible to reason correctly from a wrong premise. If you remember you are a soul, and that you have an unreal but persuasively realistic person to wear and to manage, as you would manage an instrument, you will soon learn to see the difference between truth, and lies about the truth. You will find you get increasingly less deceived by tricks of any kind.”

  Lewis laughed: “That’s a very fair example of the odds against the use of clairvoyance for any practical purpose. Who’s going to deny his senses? That’s what it amounts to.”

  “It calls for more integrity and courage than most people have nowadays,” said Nancy. “It’s the hardest work in the world. But it can be done. It has got to be done.” There came a knock at the door. Nancy Strong got up, looking grimly patient. “Trumpet call!” she remarked. “Turn out the guard!”

  The door opened. A woman teacher, wrapped in an overcoat over a dressing gown, stood in the doorway.

  “All right,” said Nancy. “I’m coming.”

  The door closed again. Nancy approached Andrew. He stood up. “The pistol shot,” she said, “awakened some of the children in the west building. I must go and ask them to advise me what to do when people break my window.” She held out her hand: “Until we meet again, Mr. Gunning, my best wishes! Your secret is safe with me. I hope we have hit on the best way to handle it.”

  Andrew nodded gravely as he shook hands. “Anything I can do for you in return?”

  “No!” She met his eyes, smiling. “If there’s one thing I detest it’s to be hit with return favors like an actress being pelted with eggs. If I have helped you, help someone else when you see the need. Pass it along Don’t dare to think of me as anything but a window that let the light through. Please don’t smash me with bricks of hard-boiled gratitude. Good-bye, and good luck to you. Come and see me when you return.”

  Bompo Tsering stepped away from her. He faced her with his tongue out, staring as if he hesitated between fear and something like reverence. As she passed him she tapped his sleeve with her right hand, as one pats a great friendly dog.

  “You smell of Tibet,” she said, smiling.

  “The blessed, happy, precious land!” he answered. He stood looking at the sleeve as if a Bodhisattva had bestowed a blessing on it.

  “Nancy Strong,” said Lewis, as the door closed after her, “is the one person who can make me feel like a ten-year-old. Gunning, my boy, wish I were coming with you to Tibet.”

  “Come if you want to,” said Andrew. “You’ll be welcome.”

  “Sorry to have to say no. But you must get going. I’d like a few words with you in private before you leave.”

  Andrew glanced at Elsa.

  Lewis took the hint: “You will find me in the hall. I want to talk to that Lepcha servant — if he isn’t asleep.” He walked out. Elsa stood up. “Andrew, then this isn’t good-bye? It really isn’t good-bye? I know it isn’t! But I want to hear you say it! I feel like two people tonight. One of me sings with excitement. The other just doesn’t believe.”

  “No, it’s not good-bye. The monks will know where to find me. They’ll bring you.”

  “But, Andrew, you might have to wait—”

  “I’ll wait.”

  “It’s strangely easy to believe you, Andrew. But you mustn’t wait too long. You mustn’t let me ruin everything. Delay might prevent you from crossing the border. I mean—”

  “I’m betting on Lewis and Bulah Singh.”

  “Andrew, you’re not trusting Bulah Singh, are you?”

  “Hell, no. But he wants me in Tibet. If he thinks I’m playing his game, he’ll clear the tracks. Pretending to leave you behind will make him cocksure that he has me by the short hair.”

  “Andrew, I’m trying to see. I can’t see any real danger to you at the moment. But — but — Bulah Singh is like a shadow that—”

  Andrew laughed gruffly: “That guy’s shadow isn’t long enough to reach beyond the first pass! We’ll climb the mountains and forget him. Nancy Strong will do your shopping. She’ll know how to turn you over to Mu-ni Gam-po’s party. The minute she says the word, get going. Come after me just as fast as those monks can travel. You’ll find me waiting for you.”

  “Andrew, I won’t waste a minute. I promise.”

  “Okay. But see here.” He hesitated. Then suddenly: “Don’t let ’em get you buffaloed.”

  “Who, Andrew? Whom do you mean? I won’t even see Bulah Singh. I won’t—”

  “I mean Lewis and Nancy Strong.”

  “Hadn’t you better speak more plainly? I mean, I want to understand you, so there won’t be any mistake. I like both of them. I trust them. Don’t you?”

  “Sure I do.” Andrew reached for a pine knot and set it carefully on the fire. Then, looking straight at Elsa: “Lewis is a good guy. He’s a genius: darned close to being a nut. He’s on the level, but he’s haywire on some subjects, notably psychic phenomena. Yes him. But keep your feet on the ground. Do you understand that?”

  “I think so. All right, I promise.”

  “Don’t make easy promises. They’re too damned difficult to keep. Don’t let Morgan Lewis sell you any superstitious hokum about your being someone special who can magic the rest of us out of hell or any tripe like that.”

  She laughed. “That’s easy, Andrew. All right, I won’t—”

  “Don’t promise! Do your own thinking. Keep your common sense hard-boiled and on top while you’re talking to Lewis.”

  “Very well, Andrew, I’ll try to. And Nancy Strong? Don’t you trust her?”

  “You bet. She hasn’t a personal axe to grind on other people’s problems. But don’t forget, she’s a hot wire — a government secret agent working for the B.S.I. You can’t trust anybody farther than the end of his rope. It isn’t reasonable to take a chance on it.”

  “What do you mean by rope?”

  “I mean what ropes ’em to the ground — to the normal, everyday, common-sense view of what’s right and wrong. The minute they cut that rope, they all go rainbow chasing. So stay on the ground. Do your own thinking. Watch your step.”

  “Very well, Andrew.”

  “You don’t seem to like the idea.”

  “Andrew, it comes like a bit of an anticlimax. It lets out the steam. Nancy has been talking quite a lot this evening. I don’t think she said anything that you would object to, but—”

  “Go ahead. What?”

  “Well — at first I didn’t like what she said. But — Andrew, you know how she talks, and—”

  “Yes — I know. She’s a great talker. Well, it won’t be long now. We’ll ram you into a brace of blizzards at fifteen or sixteen thousand feet. That’ll blow out the illusions. Just try to keep half sensible meanwhile, and don’t let Nancy sell you Mt. Everest.”

  “If you won’t let me promise, what shall I say?”

  He laughed. “Say so long and good luck. Let’s shake on that and I’ll be on my way.”

  “So long, Andrew. I won’t even say you’re a brick — for fear of making you angry.”

  He looked as if he were going to kiss her good-bye, but he didn’t. He shook hands. The art of going, instead of talking about going, was one of his special accomplishments. He walked away, leaving behind him a sensation of finished business — nothing to be added to, or changed, or undone. Elsa gazed at his back as he strode to the door, until Bompo Tsering strode between them and followed him like a big, black, smelly shadow, shutting off the view.

  Not even a gesture of good-bye from Bompo Tsering. He ignored her, too intent in his dog-like devotion to Andrew. Andrew didn’t pause at the door. He walked through. Bompo Tsering closed it.

  Silence. The crack of the new pine knot on the fire. A leaping flame — and suddenly, out of the shadows, on
the small table in mid-room emerged the silver-framed likeness of Lobsang Pun — Old Ugly-face — inscrutably, unconquerably smiling — with a bullet hole exactly in the middle of his forehead.

  CHAPTER 18

  Andrew almost bumped into Lewis. At the far end of the hallway at the foot of the stairs the Lepcha servant sat on a chair beneath a Tibetan painting of the Buddha. He looked dazed. Obviously Lewis had been talking to him.

  “Bad case,” said Lewis, glancing at the servant and turning his back. “That poor fellow is a sample of secret vice at war with conscientious love of his employer. He relies on the one to condone the other — hides in the one to forget the other. But it can’t be done. One fights the other, almost like a chemical reagent. That leaves him feeling physically weak and morally helpless. He craves relief from self-contempt, so he mentally almost leaps to meet the first hypnotic influence that comes along. Bulah Singh was like a magnet to a bit of scrap iron. Nancy will have a hard time helping that poor fellow to rebuild his self-control.”

  Lewis was obviously making conversation until Bompo Tsering should move out of earshot. But the Tibetan had to be told to go and wait by the front door. He didn’t mind being told, but he hated to wait; he kept trying the lock and fidgeting with the brass check chain. Andrew and Lewis faced each other beneath the ceiling light, between the rows of books and photographs. Lewis screwed in his monocle. That meant business.

  “Gunning, I’ll ask a favor of you.”

  Andrew fell on guard — so visibly that Lewis hesitated. Andrew got his own demand in first: “I’ve a favor to ask, too,” he retorted. “An important one. I’m dead set on it.”

  “Very well, my boy. Yours first. What is it? If it’s anything that I can—”

  “It’s easy,” said Andrew. “It’ll cost you nothing, and put you to no trouble. Please leave Elsa’s mind alone. Don’t aggravate what gives her grief enough already.”

  Lewis nodded, staring, smiling, as if he were diagnosing symptoms of something that Andrew had overlooked.