by Harold Lamb
But Hossein's heart swelled at the knowledge that Dom Gion had no god. There was no divinity that gave him power, not Kali the deity of the thugs-and Hossein was a devout servant of the woman-god.
"Ohai," he muttered. "So, my master sought to keep the eyes of men from his treasure by fear. Well, I fear him no longer."
The thought of Tala returned swiftly to his agitated mind and the boy turned to run out of the chamber in the rock and up into the jungle. Dom Gion, he knew, had gone to the castle and where he was the Rajput girl must be.
Slipping noiselessly from the undergrowth, Hossein climbed the debris of the crumbling rampart until he could see upon the terrace where a score of torches flickered in the hot wind of the night, adding their glow to the pallid radiance of the moon.
In a serried half-circle sat the men of Bhir, with the visiting merchants. They passed the hookah stem from one to another. Behind them stood their young male children, gazing wide-eyed at three or four buffoons who, dressed as women and native dignitaries, danced about and sang to the sound of fiddle and drum.
The little boys laughed, with a great show of white teeth, for the by- ropee.s, the comic actors of the village, were very funny. They had painted their faces grotesquely and their antics as they imitated their superior lords were clever indeed.
Isolated from the gathering, Hossein could see Malcolm sahib and Rawul Singh sitting against the wall of the castle beside an open niche. The Scot was smiling, but the Rajput's lean face was grim.
Having carried out his orders from Dom Gion in bringing the assemblage from the village to the castle, Hossein was free for the moment and he squirmed nearer until he lay in the deep shadow of the tower.
The thug was trying to discover Dom Gion and Tala. Neither was visible; yet he knew both must be within sight of the tamasha.
He paid no attention to the shrill-voiced byropees, because he knew that a sterner drama, a conflict in reality, was impending. He knew that blood would be shed and the lives of the two men sitting by the wall would be attempted, yet in such a manner as to leave no suspicion of murder in the minds of the visiting merchants or the children.
On their part Malcolm and Rawul Singh were alert and watchful, although the Scot puffed at his clay pipe tranquilly and the warrior played with the fire.
Malcolm had received the gathering from Bhir calmly and expressed his pleasure at the tamasha. He noticed that no one bore arms-at least weapons that could be seen-and that the young boys were with the Bhir men. This might well be meant to drive away suspicion.
Yet he could not understand why the men of Dom Gion, who he expected were present, would attempt violence before the hula admees-the respectable persons-among the visitors who were with them.
Only one inkling did Malcolm have of what was in store for him. A big trader made a low, mocking salaam.
"Sahib," the man said, "it is written that he who takes usury from others shall suffer."
Rawul Singh would have responded at once and insolently-the idea of a bazaar moneychanger invoking the term usury had in it something of the farcical-but Malcolm checked him.
"The revenues of the government," the Scot said crisply, "are not a tax but a payment between friends. For what we take, we give value. Are your harvests gathered in?"
"Aye."
"Then, for this season they have not been destroyed by native raiders from other states. And tell me this: have you been forced to pay tax on lease deeds to him who calls himself Dom Gion and master of Bhir-since my coming?"
The man was silent, and Rawul Singh noted that he glanced covertly at the shadows on the right, the shadows cast by the tower.
"The man who made himself, illegally, master of Bhir," went on Malcolm with assurance, "will no longer tax you. He has slain wrongly and his reward will be that of a murderer-hanging, if we take him alive, but in any event, death."
Malcolm had been thinking of the fate of his predecessors when he spoke, but the Bhir men fancied that he referred to Dom Gion's connection with the thugs and deep silence fell for a moment.
They watched Malcolm with shifting, avid eyes. Before their eyes a contest was being waged between the farangi and the master of the thugs who did not permit himself to be seen. In fact, much of Dom Gion's prestige lay in his concealment within the confines of the castle. Judged by his acts, he was a man of immense power.
It was a strange thing, thought the men of Bhir, that this sahib should show no fear of his enemy. Dom Gion had assured them through Hossein that the sahib would, in the midst of the music and shouting of the tamasha, fall to earth shrieking with fear.
So they watched eagerly, to miss no detail of what would come.
And it came so swiftly that Malcolm and Rawul Singh were unprepared. A cloak fell away from a figure squatting beside the musicians and a woman stepped through the ranks of men. In her hand was a bare scimitar.
She walked forward slowly. On her dark hair was the silver tinsel cap of a Persian dancer, and she was dressed for the sword dance. Yet she swayed uncertainly, and her glazed eyes barely moved in their sockets.
Under the rouge the woman was very pale and by this and the dark rings under her eyes the watching Moslems knew that she had been given the heavy stimulus of drugs-probably bhang and opium mixed.
"Tala!"
The girl looked at her father when he cried out, but her face did not change. She had been set on her feet to do the dance that she had often given before Dom Gion. Yet, so were her faculties numbed, she could barely lift the sword or step forward. Still, she looked long at Rawul Singh.
Hossein rose from the ground, his hand on the hilt of his sword. He had not imagined that Dom Gion would allow Rawul Singh to see his daughter; the appearance of Tala, he knew, must foreshadow the blow that Dom Gion would strike. The young thug saw Tala snatched from his arms, and blood rushed to his head. For he fancied that he heard the shrill laugh of Dom Gion near him.
The Rajput girl had stepped forward among the actors, until she was only a few feet from Rawul Singh, at whom she was still gazing in a bewildered fashion.
Sight of his daughter painted and garbed for dancing, in the possession of his enemies, was like a blow in the face to the Rajput. Her indifference to him was a lash to his fierce spirit.
"By Siva and Vishnu-by the many-armed gods! " His sword came into his hand swiftly. "Woe to you who have done this thing!"
He took a step forward, his weapon raised. The actors looked at each other and their hands went under their loose robes. Malcolm caught the glitter of knife blades, and saw the trap that had been laid for Rawul Singh. In a broil the Rajput would be slain, and everyone present would swear that it was merely a quarrel over a woman.
"The girl is mine," observed the potail of the village uncertainly, drawing back as he did so.
Malcolm's hand checked the Rajput before another step was taken.
"Wait," he said. "It is my command."
Loyalty to his officer and fierce resentment struggled for mastery in Rawul Singh, so that he stood transfixed beside Malcolm. And then every head in the assembly became still.
The hookah stems were withdrawn from bearded lips; the clamor of the music ceased. A long sigh escaped the lips of the watchers.
"It is a trick," whispered Malcolm, "to make you attack them and to separate us."
Although they must have understood, none of the watchers moved or spoke. Their eyes were fastened on a spot a little to the right of Malcolm. Tala alone gave a low cry as if perception had pierced the numbness of her mind.
A yard from Malcolm's elbow, the head of a large cobra weaved from side to side. The hood, fully inflated, showed the brilliant spectacle mark. The light hissing of the snake was barely to be heard under the murmur of the wind in the vines of the ruined tower.
Rawul Singh, however, marked the sound and looked down, Malcolm following the direction of his eyes.
"Sahib," uttered the Rajput under his breath, "do not stir. The snake has been angered."
He reflected quite coolly that if he had moved-if Rawul Singh had continued his advance to his daughter-the snake would have struck. It had appeared quite by chance-yet Malcolm had made certain in the first day of his stay in the castle that there were no snakes in the ruins.
And, as if by chance, a twig fell from the air to the earth near the cobra, which seemed to swell the more thereat.
"Dom Gion is devilishly clever, after all," thought Malcolm.
Rawul Singh was powerless to aid his officer, who stood between him and Tala and the snake. He was certain that no one in the assemblage would risk his life by slipping behind the snake and striking at it-the only chance of preventing it from striking.
And the bite of the snake, Rawul Singh knew, would bring death to Malcolm sahib. The farangi might cauterize and bind the wound, butdeprived of the protection of the Rajput, other poison would be injected into him secretly-and a hundred persons would swear it was the snake that had caused his death.
He heard his daughter's cry, and his sharpened senses caught the slight sound of silk slippers on grass. Then there was a flash of steel in the shadow behind the snake.
The cobra darted its head at Malcolm, but the head writhed on the ground and there were two coils instead of one. Tala stared down at the stain on her scimitar, her eyes dark with the fear that comes to one who is wakened from sleep by an evil dream.
Rawul Singh jerked Malcolm away from the thrashing coils and the spectacled head that was still menacing. He snatched Tala back and peered into her face.
"Dost know me-thy father?" he said harshly.
"The snake frightened me. It was near thee." Her voice was dull and low but the glaze had passed from her eyes.
"Well for our honor that it was so and thou didst slay it."
A slight movement near them caused Rawul Singh to wheel and Malcolm to look around. His head bent in salutation, Hossein emerged from the shadow of the brush pile where he had been standing.
"Ma'shallah, sahib," he smiled. "God be praised that you escaped the snake. Now that it is slain you should be safe." His words were low-pitched and held a double significance. "It is a pity that this fine tamasha be interrupted. Sahib, favor your servant by commanding that it proceed."
Politely he saluted Rawul Singh and as he did so, the torchlight flashed on rich pearls in his turban. Hossein was quite composed, for he saw his chance to play a part and to strike where he knew Dom Gion had failed.
"Tala, thy daughter," he added to the Rajput, "has long been under my humble protection. Misfortune, perhaps the fate of her brother, had unsettled her mind and she could not recall the name of her father. Inshallah -what is fated, will come to pass. I did not know that she would appear this night as a dancer."
Familiarly he stepped to the girl's side and looked into her face. As he did so, his dark cheeks flushed for Tala was very fair to look upon. A new excitement had added its luster to her eyes.
"Is it not true," he asked her softly, "that I, unworthy Hossein, have spoken of love to you? Have I not been gentle to you?"
Malcolm, who had been staring up at the sky whence the stick had fallen near the snake, turned and looked quizzically at the girl. She half put out her hand to the thug, then frowned as if uncertain of her feelings.
Rawul Singh surveyed the placid Moslem youth fiercely, and glanced jealously at his daughter.
"I have been sick," she repeated slowly in Turki as if seeking for words. "Sometimes I liked you, Hossein. But you promised-you would take me away where I would find my father. Now Dom Gion has done that, although I do not quite know how-"
"She knows not what she is saying," broke in Hossein. "Too much opium has been given her, Rawul Singh, yet not by me."
Assuring himself that Malcolm was giving orders to the perturbed potail for the actors to proceed, Hossein bent close to the Rajput and whispered-
"Rajput, would you look upon the man who slew your son?"
"Point him out, and name your reward."
"Come, then, but quietly. He hides within the castle, waiting to set hands on the revenue of the farangi. Say naught to the sahib, for you know that he would but arrest the man and place him in a farangi prison."
"It must wait."
There was perhaps no other inducement that would have appealed to Rawul Singh so strongly. But he would not leave his master.
As for Hossein, he shrugged, then cast a significant look at the thugs in the circle of spectators and loosened the long sash that was bound tightly around his waist. In the shadow of the castle wall he might have a chance to set upon the Rajput.
The Moslem youth was a skilled strangler, yet he desired the sound of music to stifle any possible outcry, for Rawul Singh was a big man and would not die quickly even if set upon from behind in the darkness.
It would be a notable achievement, thought Hossein, and would bring him fame among the thugs-fame and possession of Tala. Dom Gion's craft had failed, Hossein meditated, and Tala had almost betrayed them.
He would risk being seen by the spectators, perhaps. But he was young and anxious to distinguish himself.
His deed would come at a fortunate moment for the thugs, for with Rawul Singh out of the way, Dom Gion might deal with the farangi that night.
"You have done your share in entertainment," Malcolm assured the potail and the other merchants.
"Now I will take part in the tamasha."
"The sahib is kind."
Malcolm looked at the ring of faces around him and smiled. Many of these were his enemies and many were thugs; but he knew that they would not openly molest him-at least until he gave Dom Gion an opportunity to strike again.
And this he did not intend to do.
While the potail and his fellows watched, Malcolm told off three or four torch-bearers and placed them around the base of the tower. He then looked for Rawul Singh, and noticed that the Rajput was hanging back, glancing anxiously into the castle hall behind him. He was hoping to set eyes on the slayer of his son.
Then Malcolm called to the potail and the leading men of the village.
"Come with me," he commanded, "and bring a torch-there are snakes about, it seems."
The men hung back but Malcolm was imperious, his hard eyes threatening. As they approached he beckoned them into the castle. Choosing his way, the Scot went quickly to the foot of the stair leading to the tower. Rawul Singh followed the group, preferring to watch from the rear where he could see any weapon lifted against his master.
Malcolm took a risk in leaving the Bhir men at his back, but he had selected them with care-fat men and wealthy, consequently timid of their persons. The music outside clamored away as the potail had commanded and drowned their footfalls.
Hossein slipped behind Rawul Singh. "It's time we took the offensive," Malcolm thought, "after standing 'em off so long. Better for the morale of all concerned."
With that, nodding to the others to follow, he stepped on the stairs running up swiftly. The final few feet he took in a bound and came out on the terrace top, pistol in hand.
Here he crouched, leveling his weapon.
"Stand up, Dom Gion," he cried to the figure that knelt against the parapet. "Or I fire. Come, come, I saw you watching me, and I'm rarely curious to see you, my friend, after this long time."
The merchants had not presumed to ascend the stairs, but presently they heard footsteps coming down toward them. By the glow of the torch they saw the thin figure of the half-caste, his yellow face pallid and his light eyes darting about him. One pace away was Malcolm, his pistol at the other's head.
"I have brought you," said the Scot to them sternly, "to witness the arrest of an evildoer, by name Dom Gion, who has illegally claimed governorship of the district of Bhir."
The potail and the merchants gave back readily; i
n fact, they made haste out of the castle corridor to the lights of the terrace. Dom Gion had built up an aura of fear about his presence-fear reinforced with threats-and it was perhaps the first time that they had seen him so clearly, face to face.
Moreover, not suspecting as Malcolm had done that the half-caste was in his favorite eyrie of the tower, there was something distinctly unnerving in the way Malcolm had, as it were, plucked his enemy out of the air.
Yet as the Scot and his prisoner moved into the light and the music ceased for the second time, many of the thugs among the spectators moved uneasily and felt for their strangling nooses and knives.
"Stand back!" ordered Malcolm, looking in vain for Rawul Singh.
Dom Gion glanced about eagerly, but the first figure he saw was that of Tala, staring at him hostilely, her eyes bright with anger.
"Is this the man who kept thee captive?" Malcolm asked her.
"Aye sahib."
At that fear came suddenly upon Dom Gion.
"Aid!" he shrieked. "Aid for the jemadar. Servants of Kali, strike down this man!"
He flung himself on the ground, crouching away from Malcolm's pistol, hope flashing into his twisted face as he realized that the other hesitated to shoot.
"Fools!" cried the half-caste. "Hossein-Oho, Hossein! It is the jemadar who calls-"
And then the watchers saw a strange thing. Rawul Singh stepped from the darkness of the castle. About his neck was bound a thug noose that dangled over his shoulders; his face was purple and blood came from his nostrils down over his beard.
In his arms Rawul Singh carried the limp body of Hossein.
"Sahib," he groaned, throwing the body down, "the thug would have strangled me. Aye-almost he overcame me, until he exulted and cried in my ear that he who had killed the son would strangle the father."
The Rajput straightened, glaring at Dom Gion.
"Sahib, it gave me strength-that word. I ask pardon of thee for not keeping beside thee-it was a trick of our enemies."
Malcolm studied the throng of onlookers and saw that many were slipping away. Those who were not thugs prepared to depart as hastily as possible with dignity. The death of Hossein had taken away any desire that they might have had to fight. The followers of Dom Gion lingered, scowling and muttering.