by M. M. Kaye
The silence and that small, futile sound began to get on the Sultan’s nerves, and after a minute or two he said irritably: “Stop staring at that insect! What had you forgotten? What is this about money?”
Rory lifted his head and his eyes were no longer blank and unseeing, but alive and very bright, and his voice held an odd note of excitement:
“What would you offer me if I could show you how to get your hands on a fortune? Enough money to pay the tax to Thuwani and bribe off any number of pirates, as well as keeping yourself in funds for the next twenty years or so?”
Majid abandoned his lounging pose and sat up stiffly, staring as though he were not quite sure that he had heard aright. He said: “You think you can do that?”
“I’m not sure. But it’s possible.”
“Half!” said the Sultan promptly. “If you can do this, you shall have half.”
“Is that a promise?”
“It is an oath. I do not believe that you can do such a thing, but if you can, I swear by the beard of the Prophet and my dead father’s head that you shall take half.”
“Fair enough,” said Rory, “and I may even live to claim it. This man I met in Mombasa…’ He was silent for a space, as though collecting his thoughts, and then he said slowly:
“It was late at night, and he lurched into me and fell flat on his face under my feet. I thought that he too was drunk, and swore at him. But he’d been stabbed. He was an old man, and there was blood all over his back: it looked like embroidery until I put a hand on him to help him up. I turned him over and made him comfortable. There was nothing else I could do for him; but he held on to my sleeve and kept muttering, so I stayed with him until he went. He’d apparently got into a street fight and someone had stuck a knife into him. Told me he came from Pemba, and that his elder brother was a famous Mchawi—a wizard who had been consulted by your father about that drought business with the Mwenyi Mkuu, and was the only one who knew the secret. I asked him what secret—more for something to say than anything else—and he grinned and said the one that everyone wanted to know. The Imam Saïd’s secret Then he babbled a lot of nonsense about it being all very well for his brother to say that gold was no good to anyone and better underground, but there were others who could use it, and he for one did not despise riches. And after a few uncomplimentary remarks about his family he started to cough up blood, and died. I left him there and came back to the ship; and what with waking up the next morning with a head like a cauldron full of red-hot shot, and one of the horses going sick, and then getting back here to find your beloved brother conducting a private war with the British Navy, I haven’t thought of it since.”
“And you are thinking of it now because…?” Majid seemed unable to finish the sentence.
“Because it occurs to me that the man may have been referring to your late father’s treasure.”
There was a long silence in which the angry buzzing of the beetle and the flutter of moths’ wings beating against a lamp was once again startlingly audible, and then the Sultan let out his breath in an explosive sigh. His eyes were as bright as Emory Frost’s and his hands shaking. He said in a harsh whisper: “It cannot be true—it could not be!”
“Why not? No one has ever believed that your father would have hidden that treasure without anyone knowing about it. He must have had some help, even if the reports of its size are less than half true.”
“It is said that they died.’ Majid’s voice was still no more than a whisper. “There is a tale that there were only two men, both deaf and dumb and both afflicted by Allah.”
“Mad?” enquired Rory.
“Simpletons only. Strong in body, but with the wits of young children, and therefore well chosen for such a task. It was said that it took them a score of nights to bury the treasure, so great was its size, and that after it was done my father sent them out of the country, to Muscat, but that the ship ran aground in a great storm off the island of Socotra, and was lost with all aboard her.”
“Very convenient,” commented Rory. “But I still don’t believe that your father—may he rest in peace—would have hidden a sizable fortune without taking at least one other person into his confidence in case of accidents.”
Majid shook his head. “We have always thought that when he buried it he meant to tell his heir upon his death-bed, and could not, because he died at sea and in the arms of my brother Bargash. My father would have known that had he told my brother, or any that were with him, Bargash would have grasped both the treasure and the throne. If any man knew the secret it was the Englishman who was British Consul here at that time, for my father held him in great friendship and called upon his name as he lay dying. But the Englishman lied and denied it, and now he is back in his own country, and the treasure, if it is anywhere, is with him.”
Rory gave a short laugh and came to his feet, kicking aside his empty glass. “Don’t you believe it! I knew the old ram-rod better than you did. A damn’ sight too well! Told me I was a disgrace to his nation and tried to get me deported from the Island. Worse than the present incumbent, though you wouldn’t think that possible. You may not like to believe it, but you can take it from me he was the kind of upright idiot who’d cut his throat before he’d steal sixpence, even if he were starving. I know the breed—and so did your father!”
“But he might still have known.”
Rory made a sweeping, scornful gesture of negation with one hand. “If he had, he’d have told you. Because there wouldn’t have been any point in your father confiding in him except to ensure that someone knew the secret, and could be trusted to hand it on to his heir supposing he should die in Oman, or before he could get back here. And as you were not told it, your father didn’t tell him. That, as Uncle Batty would say, is as plain as the nose on your face. All the same, I bet he told someone, and I’m putting my money on it being that witchdoctor.”
Majid pulled at his lip, his eyes glittering with excitement and his brows wrinkled in doubt, and at last he said pensively: “It is true that the greatest witchdoctors in the world live in Pemba. It has always been renowned for its wizards and warlocks, and my father had great faith in them and often consulted with them on matters of spells and magic and the secrets of the past and the future. There was one whom he visited often and who once came to Motoni, and if he told anyone, he would have told that man. But why?”
“Don’t ask me. Perhaps he wanted a spell put on it.”
Majid’s head jerked round as though it had been pulled on a string. “That is it! Yes, that is it…a spell to keep it safe from discovery and the hands of thieves. I remember hearing that the man could summon demons and that he was famous for such spells. You are right, my friend. There is someone who knows.”
“Well, there we are,” said Rory. “All you’ve got to do is to trace the man, find out if he had a brother who died recently in Mombasa, and then get him to talk.”
“But how—how?” the Sultan struck his hands together and the sweat glistened bright on his excited face. “To trace him will be easy. But if he will not talk? He may not, else why has he not spoken before?
Knowing that my father’s dead and that I am Sultan, he has still kept silent. That can only mean that he does not intend to speak of it to anyone. So what if he holds to that and will not tell?”
Rory laughed unpleasantly and said: “Threaten him with a dose of his own medicine. You’ll find that he’ll be only too ready to spit up all his secrets rather than face the sort of treatment that he and his kind have been handing out to their wretched victims for years. Or are you afraid to threaten a witchdoctor?”
“I would be a fool if I were not,” said Majid, shuddering. “And you too would be wise not to treat such men lightly.”
“I don’t,” said Rory briefly. “But then I don’t treat money lightly either, and in this case it looks like being one or the other. Do we risk offending the powers of darkness, or give up the treasure? Or if you prefer to put it another way, which are you
most afraid of? Being cursed by a witchdoctor, or overrun by pirates and infuriating your brother of Muscat and Oman by failing to pay your yearly tribute money? Though mind you, if you’d take my advice you’d refuse to pay Thuwani another penny, treaty or no treaty!”
Majid said crossly: “So you have often said. But then you have nothing to fear, since he is not your brother.”
“No, thank God.”
Majid smiled wryly and said: “You may well do so. It shall be the money then.”
“Good. I shall leave the details to you and only remind you that if you hope to use some of it to buy off the Gulf pirates, you haven’t got too much time. Look over there—”
He jerked his chin in the direction of the curtained archways and Majid turned and saw that the thin silk was beginning to move at last; billowing out on a draught of air that stole through the hot rooms and set the lamps swaying.
Rory said: “It’s blowing from the northeast. I told you it would rain tomorrow. If these bastards are coming this year they’ll be setting out soon enough, and they won’t take so very long to get here with the wind behind them.”
Majid watched the swaying curtains for a moment or two, and then rose from the divan and crossed over to the windows to look out into the night. The stars were still visible, but the palm trees had begun to whisper and rustle and the distant noises of the city came unevenly as the breeze blew and died and blew again, like a man breathing.
He turned back to look at Rory and said abruptly: “If he should say he will not come here, would you yourself fetch him for me?”
“No,” said Rory promptly. “I can always find a use for money, but I don’t need it as badly as you do, and though there are not many things I stick at, kidnapping a witchdoctor is one of them. I’ve put you on the trail, so it’s only fair that you do the next part And if you get the information I’ll help you collect the booty.”
“How do you know that I will tell you if I get it? I might say that the man did not know—and he may well not!—and then go by stealth and remove all the treasure, leaving you none.”
Rory laughed and said: “For one thing, you have sworn an oath. And for another, I shall watch you like a hawk to see that you don’t get the chance.”
“So?” Majid smiled, and regarded the tall man with shrewd, appraising eyes and a touch of envy: “My friend, it grieves me to say so, but you are a scoundrel. Yes, a reckless, ruthless scoundrel, and had you been born an Arab you would surely have risen to be a great King or a Commander of Armies, instead of only the Captain of a disreputable ship that will undoubtedly one day be sunk by the guns of your own people. It is agreed then: I will consent to do the—ah—‘next part’ for you.”
“For us both,” corrected Rory. “And you are wrong, for I have no desire to be either a King or a Commander of Armies. I am content with what I have.”
“With so little?”
“With freedom; which is no small thing. Here I am free to go where I will and do what I like, and to make and break my own laws. Or anyone else’s, if I choose.”
“You are a romantic, my friend.”
“Perhaps—if to be a romantic is to relish experience and danger, and dislike rules and restrictions and the cramping hideousness of life in the so-called ‘civilized West.’ You don’t know—you couldn’t begin to understand—the smug self-righteousness of those who live there. The sweets of Progress that can turn a green country into an ugly commercialized ash-heap. The endless laws churned out by pompous fools in Parliament that aim at making every petty peccadillo into a crime. The interference and the prying! The—”
He stopped and gave a short laugh. “I’m sorry. I must be drunker than I thought. I’d better get out before I start thumping the table and giving you my views on societies whose sole object is the suppression of something someone else likes to do. You don’t have them yet in your part of the world, but you will. You will! Someday someone is going to see that you get the blessings of Progress, Western style, whether you want it or not. And if you don’t want it you’ll get it crammed down your throat with a rifle butt.”
Majid looked at him with a slow, sly smile, and said softly: “That is not all the truth. There is something else. A reason. What is it that you do with all the money you make?—that which you do not spend?”
“Count it,” said Rory. “What else? Are you hoping for a loan? If so I must regretfully tell you that you won’t get it. Or not from me, anyway.”
“No, no. I am not such a fool as that You mean to make your fortune, do you not? And when you have made it, what I wonder will you do with it? What is it that drives you?”
“Pure greed,” said Rory lightly. “I am a miser at heart. Or do I mean a magpie? That brandy of yours is making me too talkative, so I shall wish you a very good night. Kua-heri! yá Sidi”
He saluted the Sultan and went out into the uneasy night, stumbling a little on the stairs, and did not speak when Batty’s faithful shadow moved across the pool of light by the side gate where three members of the Palace guard whiled away the hours playing cards.
The breeze had strengthened, but it was still blowing in uneven gusts, and the sea was beginning to slap against the harbour wall in small, jerking splashes, turning the reflected lights of the ships from placid streaks of gold to glinting fragments that danced and jigged and leapt as the wind ruffled across the water. The air was perceptibly cooler and the streets had emptied, and Rory listened to the sound of his own footsteps and the faint echo that was Batty’s cat-like tread, and thought of the things that brandy had made him put into words: that restless craving for excitement and danger. The desire to break a law for no better reason than because it was a law. The urge to flout convention, and to escape—above all, to escape…
He had been six when his mother had run away with a dancing master and life had changed for him overnight. She had been pretty and gay and selfish, but she would have spoiled him if she had had her way, and he could not believe that she had abandoned him to the angry, autocratic father whom he had always been afraid of He had been sure she would return one day, and it had taken him a long time to realize that she had gone for good and would never come back.
The next two years had been grey ones, for his father had dismissed both nurse and governess—his reason being that they had been selected by his wife and must therefore be unreliable—and substituted an elderly tutor who disliked children and showed it in many small, mean ways. Rory had hated Mr Eli Sollet with a small boy’s helpless, simmering hate, and had imagined that the world could not hold anyone worse: until his father died of an inflammation of the lung, contracted out duck-shooting on the marshes, and left his son to the care of his only brother, Henry Lionel Frost, with whom he had not been on speaking terms since the day that Henry had chosen to make a few critical remarks on his elder brother’s choice of a bride…
At the time, Rory’s father had been convinced that this disapproval of his Sophia had its roots in spleen, since it had long been an accepted fact that he would die a bachelor, and Henry, who had two sons of his own to think of, had always looked upon himself as his brother’s heir. But the scandal of Sophia and her dancing master had proved his criticisms to have been well founded, and the senior Emory, on his death-bed, had made what seemed to him an adequate acknowledgement of this by appointing him sole trustee and guardian of his only child. The years of bondage had begun.
Uncle Henry, his acid-tongued wife, Laura, and their two stout and over-indulged sons had made the eight-year-old Rory look back upon the reign of Eli Sollet as a period of almost halcyon peace. His cousins were both older than himself, and they had bullied him unmercifully but had no hesitation, when he retaliated, in running screaming to their mother, who punished him with outraged severity.
What am I doing here? How did I get here? Why? thought the boy Rory, locked in a dark attic with a slice of bread and a glass of water for long cold hours, sore from a whipping and burning from a deep sense of injustice. It was a thought
that was to recur with great frequency during the years that followed, and one to which he never found an answer.
The years had dragged by intolerably slowly: punctuated with monotonous regularity by floggings, angry tirades and endless days spent locked in his room or the attic on a diet of bread and water, with a lesson to learn by rote—a chapter from some improving work or several pages from a volume of collected sermons (Uncle Henry and Aunt Laura were both genuinely convinced that Sophia’s son could not have avoided inheriting a large part of his immoral and unmentionable mother’s disposition, and that it was then: duty to eradicate or at least subdue that evil taint with every means in their power). They had locked him in with the New Testament on one occasion, but had not repeated the experiment, and the thrashing that had followed had been more than usually severe, for he had returned it to them with a page turned down at the twentieth chapter of St Luke and part of the fourteenth verse heavily underscored in indelible pencil: ‘This is the heir: come, let us kill him, that the inheritance may be ours.’ Rory was growing up.
The only comfort he had found in those black years had been his discovery that all books were not long-winded sermons or dry-as-dust treatises devoted to improving the sinful, and he had read voraciously; smuggling books out of the library and hiding them under his mattress or on the top of the cupboards, and devouring them in secret. They became his escape from an intolerable world, and with their help he lived a hundred lives: Lancelot and Charlemagne, Marlborough and Rupert of the Rhine, Raleigh, Drake, John of Gaunt and Henry the Navigator. He fought battles with the Roman Legions, scaled the Alps with Hannibal and sailed into the unknown with Columbus, scuttled Spanish galleons with Francis Drake and charged with the Guards at Waterloo. He had been barely twelve when he had opened a book at random and read four lines that he had known were written expressly for him:
By a Knight of Ghosts and Shadows
I summoned am to tourney