by Talbot Mundy
“God Almighty, he’s as good as a murderer! She’d have obeyed him, whatever he said! Couldn’t he forbid her to follow him?”
Anger was the fuel that kept him going, until intuition warned him he was near the mouth of St. Malo’s cave. The wind confirmed it by the change in its tumult as it howled into the cave and through the short tunnel beyond.
He craved no fight with St. Malo’s men. He approached, groping his way as alertly as numbed muscles and ice-covered rock would permit. Judging by the change in the sound, he had just reached the edge of the opening of the cave, where the ledge was a little wider, when a hand reached out from total darkness, seized him by the shoulder and dragged him into the mouth of the pitch-black cave. He struck out with all the strength he had left — hit nothing. A hand seized his wrist. He heard a voice close to his ear:
“This is Tom Grayne. Keep your hair on!”
Andrew cursed him. “Damn your soul to hell! Do you know where Elsa is? Do you know what’s happened to her?”
They couldn’t see each other. They couldn’t hear without shouting. Tom thrust his face close to Andrew’s:
“Wasn’t she in the cavern?”
“No!”
“Then she’s here!” Tom shouted. “Must be! Unless she’s fallen off the ledge, there’s nowhere else she can be! I believe she made a trade with St. Malo!”
“You do?”
“Yes. Martyr complex!”
“Nuts!” Andrew yelled at him. “Nuts! Do you hear me — nuts!” He wanted to crash his fist into Tom’s mouth. He backed away for fear he might do it. Tom followed him, shouting against the wind:
“She’s lost! It’s your fault! Why in hell did you bring her?”
Andrew suddenly grew calm. He had to shout, but the anger was gone:
“You mean, you’ve lost her! She has broken her heart — turned chela! But come on — what’s your game here? Let’s get busy!”
CHAPTER 56
One by one Andrew’s column filed like ghosts into the cave. Tom counted them as they passed into total darkness where a curve of the wall afforded protection from the wind.
“One missing,” he shouted.
Bompo Tsering reported the man dead. Then Andrew asked:
“Where’s Old Ugly-face?”
Tom cupped his hands to Andrew’s ear and shouted angrily: “Disarm St. Malo’s men and we’ll go find out.”
There was no sign of St. Malo’s men, but Tom expected them. In a moment or two there came a light along the tunnel. The wind blew it out. Tom switched on a flashlight but directed it away from the tunnel, outward, toward the ledge, leaving everyone in darkness. After that they heard men in the tunnel, fighting against the wind. Tom cupped his hands again:
“I’ve told St. Malo’s men that he’s a prisoner and they’ll be scuppered by the monastery monks unless they join us. That scared ’em. They’re bringing out their loads. That’ll make ’em clumsy. Take ’em one at a time. Bring Bompo Tsering here.”
Andrew crossed the cave, ordered the men to be quiet, gave Bompo Tsering his flashlight and led him to where Tom was standing. Then he stood facing Tom, one on each side of the tunnel. He knew what Tom was expecting, and he hated him for it. He wondered what Tom would do if Elsa should show up with St. Malo’s men. He knew she wouldn’t, but he couldn’t help wondering. It gave him a hunch. He cupped his hands and shouted to Bompo Tsering:
“No kill! Fool ’em with the light! No kill!”
The pitch-dark tunnel was filled with tumult; the men in it could neither see nor hear. They came out one by one, too heavily burdened to use their rifles, and believing they had only Tom to deal with.
Bompo Tsering did a swell job. He flashed the light on his own men, letting the first man in the tunnel see them for a second, confusing him. He tried to back, but bumped into the man behind him. Andrew jerked the rifle out of his hands. Tom’s fist knocked him spinning on the cave floor, where he was pounced on by Bompo Tsering’s men. Andrew flung the rifle out into the night.
The second man was more alert than the first. Tom had to hit him hard. He stumbled into Andrew and fought for his rifle, but Andrew twisted it out of his hands and hurled it after the first one. The third man was easier; Tom tackled him single-handed. Then it was Andrew’s turn, and by that time Bompo Tsering’s gang had caught on and were waiting like wolves to pounce. The floor was becoming littered up with, men and loads. It was almost like a shambles, where the steers come one by one along a passage. Only the last of the seventeen gave any real trouble. He was suspicious. He had come last on purpose. He went down on his hands and knees in the tunnel and tried to peer into the cave. He didn’t move until Bompo Tsering used the flashlight again. Then he shot at the flashlight, missed, and Andrew went in after him. He dived under Andrew, to grab his legs, but Andrew kicked free and got behind him to block his retreat. Tom was in the tunnel by that time. So the last man went out, rifle and all, head first into the glare of Bompo Tsering’s flashlight, where he fought pluckily and had to be beaten half unconscious.
“You stay here,” Tom shouted. “I’m going on in.” He had to shout three times before there was a lull in the wind and Andrew understood what he said.
Then Andrew got out of the tunnel and took charge. St. Malo’s men were professional brigands. They couldn’t be given a break or they’d take quick advantage of it. It was all to St. Malo’s credit as a con-man that they had made the toilsome march from Sinkiang to meet him, probably on his bare promise of loot. Even if they were escaped felons, with only pursuit at their rear and no future but what St. Malo offered, nevertheless he must have made them believe in him. But now St. Malo was a prisoner. They were puzzled, bewildered, disposed to preserve their lives on any terms, and in no hurry to make matters worse for themselves.
For the moment, Andrew’s own men were the more dangerous. Too many loads of loot. Too many loaded rifles had not yet been thrown over the cliff. Even Bompo Tsering, who could be sensible about some things, wanted to pack three rifles for himself as well as his own bag of rations and one of the plundered loads. He and his men mutinied when Andrew began chucking rifles into the ravine. They threatened to make common cause with St. Malo’s men. Andrew had a tough two minutes. It was dark. A couple of flashlights weren’t much help. He didn’t want to kill anyone. Certainly he wouldn’t start the shooting — there’d have been a shambles in ten seconds. But it would have been madness to leave those captured rifles within reach of the punishment squad.
In the glare of the flashlight he grabbed that last man to come through the tunnel, who had fought so hard and had given the most trouble. He was rubbing his ear and still unsteady on his feet, but beginning to think.
“What’s your name?”
“Ga-pa-dug. My being headman.”
Andrew had him by the throat, but he grinned into Andrew’s face, cheerfully impudent. He shouted in the teeth of the wind:
“Your giving back our rifles-our making your men obey.”
He shouted so loud that Bompo Tsering heard it and relayed it to his men. No Tibetan craves to be bossed by brigands. Andrew snatched a rifle from the nearest man, threatened to break skulls with it, and within sixty seconds rifles were being pitched over the ledge as if they weren’t worth a dollar a piece.
Then Bompo Tsering rose to the occasion. It was a heartbreaker to have lost those precious rifles, but it was wonderful to be on the winning side. He approved of Andrew — gave him credit for having tricked Ga-pa-dug to say exactly what he wanted him to say. That amused, inspired, encouraged him. He turned to and helped to line up all St. Malo’s men against the wall, with his own men staggered between them at proper intervals to prevent ganging up. He saw the point, too, of compelling St. Malo’s men to carry their own burdens:
“Their carrying now! Our taking later on. Good.”
Then Tom came out of the tunnel, cursing when Bompo Tsering turned the flashlight on him. He looked humiliated — mortified — ashamed — consequently furious.
He snatched the flashlight from Bompo Tsering and used his own, too.
“Where are the rifles?” he demanded.
Andrew answered him: “Over the cliff.”
He nodded — made no other comment. He was in no mood to praise Andrew. He inspected the prisoners one by one, going up close to each man, looking him straight in the eyes. Andrew understood very well that Tom was recovering some kind of peace with himself; so he waited patiently. He allowed him all the time he needed. He was seeing Elsa again — eyes, then her whole face, quite apart from the darkness and in no way affected by it. He couldn’t understand what it meant, although he felt sure it was a message. Warning? Summons?
He wondered that Tom couldn’t see it. But Tom was seeing only his own necessities. He came and asked Andrew to lead the way along the ledge.
“Get going. I’ll bring up the rear.”
So Andrew led. The storm was worse than ever. At intervals he waited, in the lee of dykes and broken rocks, to let the straggling column catch up; but he could never be sure how many had caught up. All the way he was out of touch with Tom. Along the worst parts of the ledge he had to wait for the lightning to show the way. They were inside a snow cloud. It felt solid. They could hardly breathe. It wasn’t so cold as it had been and the wind wasn’t quite so strong, but it piled up all the more snow for that reason. They had to shove snow off the ledge before they could crawl forward. It came so fast that it was all piled up again before the next man crossed the cleared space. But the Tibetans couldn’t have turned back without having to face Tom’s Mauser. The third or fourth or fifth man might have got to him and hurled him over the ledge. But there was no one to lead the mutiny. One by one St. Malo’s men dropped their loads over the cliff, unable to struggle with them any farther. The column followed its leader.
The night was far spent when Andrew crawled on to the widening end of the ledge where the hermits’ caves were, and staggered to his feet. Then he stood aside, waiting for Tom, counting the men as they hurried to the dead hermit’s cave for shelter. Bompo Tsering waited beside Andrew, after crashing into him in a chaos of snow that was snatched up from the ledge and wind-whipped into their faces. He seemed cheerful enough. He shouted, spinning his prayer wheel:
“This happy blessed country being too many devils their wanting it too much! No can get it!”
Andrew ordered him into the hermit’s cave, to keep the men from coming out until wanted. In passing he struck Andrew with his prayer wheel, on purpose, as a precaution, to prevent devils from getting him. Andrew called him back:
“Try to make friends with Ga-pa-dug.”
He struck again, and then hurried away before Andrew’s special private devils could invent a crazier task.
At last Tom came. He and Andrew walked together to where the ledge widened and turned a corner and there was less wind. Intuition — instinct — something guided them. They pointed their flashlights suddenly in the same direction. At the end, of the zone of light, someone, whose back was toward them, stood talking to Old Ugly-face — two black phantoms nearly smothered in snow, gesticulating, shouting to each other against the wind. Then lightning — and incredible scores of phantoms — naked. Like a Doré illustration of Dante’s Inferno.
Forked lightning. A huge cliff, pockmarked with dark holes. Tumbled stone and broken masonry near the mouths of the holes. A ledge that ribboned into darkness. To the left, beneath the ledge, a sheer drop into swirling chaos. Phantoms along the ledge — so many they were uncountable. Naked. Stark naked. Scrawny and bearded and some of them old. They squatted along the rim of the ledge staring downward into that horrible abyss as if it were a hearth toward which they yearned. They didn’t move much. Even when forked lightning shattered the darkness and they were as clearly outlined as by a photographer’s magnesium flash, they didn’t seem to move. Except that their hair blew in the wind, they might have been gargoyles carved of rock.
One thing was clear. Old Ugly-face had broken open the cells and turned out the hermits. They hadn’t clothing, food or weapons. Some of them looked too old and feeble to march half a mile; those were the fanatical ascetics, whose only ambition was to starve their bodies slowly into useless clay, that their souls might grow and they need not return to earth after death and be encumbered by new bodies and endure more austerities. But those were a small minority. Most of them were sinewy stalwarts, all the stronger for their ordeal — theological students — the everlasting miracle of Tibet strength of will and body achieved by abstinence and conquest of desire — authority attained through passionate humility. Old Ugly-face had gone through that ordeal in years gone by. He had lived stark naked. So he understood hermits.
Between peals of thunder Tom yelled in Andrew’s ear: “The old man’s crazy! He’s counting on hermits to force the monastery gates!”
Andrew hardly heard him. He stared, waiting for the lightning flashes. At last he gripped Tom’s arm:
“Do you know who that is talking to him?”
Tom didn’t speak. When Andrew turned the flashlight on him he merely nodded.
“Won’t you go speak to her?”
“No.”
“Then I will.”
“Suit yourself.”
“Come with me.”
“No. I’m through.”
“What d’you mean?”
“She has wiped my eye! She knew damned well I’d planned to be Old Ugly- face’s chela!”
“Says you! How should she know? Did you tell her?”
“She knew all right. Go ahead — you talk to her. Don’t mention me. I’ll wait here.”
Andrew strode forward alone.
CHAPTER 57
Old Ugly-face saw Andrew coming. A crackling flash of lightning revealed the old prelate’s glittering eyes and every grained wrinkle on his face. He made no sign of recognition. He turned his back and walked away toward the hermits, saluted by a cannonade of thunder that sounded like bursting mountains. Then Elsa turned and faced Andrew. He couldn’t tell whether she welcomed him or not — whether she was surprised or not. There wasn’t much of her visible under the peaked hood as she braced herself against the wind.
The storm had reached its crisis. It began to exhaust itself in spastic squalls that tore rocks loose and sent them rolling over the abyss. A broken ice dam loosed a torrent across the ledge; poured out fifty feet into the wind before it curved downward and was lost in the dark whirling uproar. It was impossible to speak. Andrew threw an arm, around Elsa. He almost lifted her off her feet. She made no protest. She let him half carry, half drag her across the ledge to an empty hermit’s cave, where the hollow roar within was silence compared to the tumult outside. There she braced herself, back to the wall. He used his flash-light. She shook her head. After that they spoke when they could see each other by the flash of forked lightning, and when they could hear between peals of thunder.
“Take your glove, Andrew.” She was breathless. “This is yours, isn’t it?”
It felt like a gift glove. He pulled it on. “Where did you get it?”
“From the big monk — you gagged with it — in the dead hermit’s cave. He recognized Lobsang Pun — loves him — would die for him. Lobsang Pun has sent him — to the monastery, to confirm St. Malo’s story.”
Andrew had no suspicion how stern he looked and sounded: “Where were you when St. Malo came?”
“In the cave above. You saw me when you went away. Didn’t you?”
“Yes,” he answered. “Saw. But I didn’t believe. I went and looked for you, back in our cavern.”
She had recovered her breath now — spoke as measuredly as he: “Did you see me there?”
“Yes.”
“I meant — I hoped you would.”
“I saw you, very clearly. But I didn’t understand. I got no message. — When did you get here?”
“Before you did. I came with Lobsang Pun. When he looked in on you, in the entrance of St. Malo’s cave, along there on the ledge, I was close behind him —
almost touching him, ready to cling if the wind should—”
Andrew swore with concentrated vigor: “Lobsang Pun shall answer for it! Damn him!”
“Answer for what, Andrew?”
“For bringing you here. Why did you give us the slip? Why didn’t you stay in our cavern?”
He couldn’t hear her laugh because thunder out-crashed all other sound. Perhaps she only smiled. The lightning revealed her pale face, bright-eyed, merry with unexpected humor. When the thunder rolled its echoes away after it and ceased, she asked him:
“Andrew, if I had asked you, would you have brought me here? Would you have let me come?”
He laid his hands on her shoulder. She put her hands on his.
“No,” he answered, unsmiling.
She nodded. Then he surprised her:
“I’ve no right to let or not let.”
Her eyes widened. Her hands fell. She clasped them in front of her. “Your life is yours,” said Andrew. “What are you planning to do with it?”
“Must I tell?”
“No. You don’t have to.”
“I’ve already told. I told you in the cavern.”
“I didn’t listen.”
She looked puzzled. “But now, if I tell, you will listen?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I’ve been talking to Tom Grayne.”
Her eyes tried to read his while the zigzag lightning tore the storm apart; but all that she saw resembled anger, and beneath it the veil she could almost never penetrate. When thunder ceased again she asked:
“Andrew, how is Tom taking it?”
“Badly.”
“Did he speak of me?”
“Yes.”
“He knows I’m here. He saw me. Does he understand now that I didn’t even think of joining St. Malo?”
“Yes. He knows that.”