by John Speed
Around the blindfold edges, Da Gama could see a little: the yellow jet of his urine, and the brass tip of the guard's scabbard, and blue flowers crushed beneath his boots. As they walked he watched tiny patches of shade along the path. When they yanked him to a stop, Da Gama caught a glimpse of one of Geraldo's boots. After standing for a long silent moment the boot disappeared.
Then one of the guards grabbed Da Gama's shoulder, spun him around, and gave him a kick. He tumbled forward. He landed in a sprawl on a kind of bed. Gentle hands touched him and guided him onto it. Seeing a bit of scarlet pattern in a satin cloth, he realized they'd thrown him in the palki. He squirmed to sit up.
"Here, Deoga," came Maya's voice. She leaned over him to pull him forward by the arms.
"Where's Lucy?" he whispered.
Maya fussed with a cushion, trying to make him comfortable. "She's riding a horse."
"Idiots." Da Gama could just imagine the discussions between Slipper and Geraldo that had led to this arrangement. Scowling, he struggled, futilely pulling at his bound wrists. He gave up with a gasp.
"They're watching. I can't help you," Maya whispered. "And they see when we speak. Say nothing, Deoga. It is not safe. I pretend to cry, and speak from behind my hand. We're on our way to Gokak Falls, to the camp of the Sultana."
From every side came the sounds of a caravan forming up. "I know," Da Gama answered. "I mean, I guessed. Is Lucy in front or behind?"
"She rides before us. She neither speaks nor moves. Around her shoulders she wears one of Slipper's robes. They would not untie her even to let her dress."
The palki bearers grunted and Da Gama and Maya lurched into the air. The caravan was on the move.
They traveled for more than an hour, uphill mostly. The bearers' breath grew short; they panted with their effort. Beyond them came the deep booming of the falls. At the camp they had heard the distant rush of water. Now the sound grew constantly louder, a dull thundering roar, and now and again the unexpected blast of water slapping rock. "We're close," Da Gama said.
Their pace had slowed; the path here was uneven-broken rocks beside the river's edge. The palki began to pitch as the bearers stumbled. They stopped often, and the palki heaved unexpectedly. At last Da Gama heard Geraldo's command to halt, and with a suddenness that confirmed their exhaustion, the bearers dropped the palki with a bump.
"Geraldo comes," Maya whispered.
"Let him."
A moment later an unseen hand yanked off Da Gama's blindfold. He blinked at the sunlight. To their left, a stark rock wall towered forty feet into the air; to their right the river Ghataprabha churned. White cascades broke over hidden rocks. The path was punctuated by broken cubes of stone, each about the size of a strongbox. In time the river had swept them into tumbled heaps, as a child sweeps aside toy blocks. One could walk the trail, but only by choosing each next step carefully.
Directly ahead they saw the edge of Gokak Falls. The falls fell fierce, swollen from the recent rains. Mist boiled from the canyon and rose into the blue sky. The river here was wide and shallow, its current treacherous. The other shore was a riot of plants, vines, and trees twisted in impenetrable confusion. A hundred yards or so ahead, where the falls had formed a swirling pool, mists rose around a temple so ancient that vines had grown through the colonnades, and its tower listed over the water as though about to fall. Parts of its ghats, the steps that led to the water, remained intact.
Without his blindfold, the noise seemed louder. Da Gama saw Geraldo speaking but had to strain to hear. "You're too big to carry, Da Gama. From here on you walk," Geraldo yelled. He took a knife and sliced through the ropes on Da Gama's ankles.
"Untie my hands," Da Gama shouted.
Geraldo merely smirked. He nodded to the falls. "Do you know anything about this place?"
Da Gama nodded. "I came this way once. It was in the dry season then. Not so big as now. This path."-He snorted at his own description-"this miserable trail, I mean, leads right through the falls."
"What?" Geraldo said. "Through the water?"
"It's easy enough in the dry season. You climb up there"-Da Gama pointed with his chin to the trail that clung to the cliff face-"duck through a trickle of water. It's just a little shower. Then you walk behind the falls. There's a big chamber right behind the falls, a sort of cave carved by the water. You walk through the chamber, get another shower, and then you're out. In the dry season you don't even get too wet."
Da Gama looked around, trying to act nonchalant. He took in Lucinda on horseback, the wide eyes of the anxious guards, the exhausted palki bearers. "This is dangerous, Geraldo. Why did you choose this way?"
Geraldo sneered. "The goddammed eunuch chose it. I wanted to go the long way, but he's beside himself to get to the Sultana by afternoon. I told him-let's get there tomorrow if it means arriving in one piece. He ignored me. I think we should turn back."
"You're right," Da Gama lied. A change in plan would affect Pathanif he even showed up. On the other hand, Da Gama thought, a detour would buy Lucy a few more hours. "I'll speak to Slipper. Maybe I can talk some sense into him." Geraldo looked skeptical. "Look, Aldo, I don't want to die here." Geraldo at last closed his eyes and nodded.
With his hands still tied behind his back, it was hard going for Da Gama to navigate the broken trail. At the head of the procession a few guards stood next to Slipper's palki, only a few yards from the climb up to the falls. Behind it came Lucinda, mounted on Geraldo's mare; then the remaining guards. Maya's palki, where Da Gama had ridden, came last, with no guards at all.
"What did you do with Victorio?" Da Gama shouted over the roar of the water.
"Buried him near the tents."
Like so much garbage, thought Da Gama. When they passed Lucinda, who sat listlessly on one of the horses borrowed from Pathan, Da Gama gave her a brave smile. Her expression never changed. "Has she had any food?" he shouted to Geraldo.
"She won't eat," he shouted back. It seemed likely that he hadn't bothered to offer any.
They found Slipper speaking animatedly with one of the guards. So close to the falls, he had to shout, of course, and his high voice pierced the air like a trumpet. He greeted Da Gama with a warm smile. "We won't inconvenience you for long, Deoga. On the other side of the falls are the Sultana's guards. Once we hand over the condemned, I shall see you are released."
The condemned, thought Da Gama. "Look, senhor, this is folly. The path behind the falls is never easy. Look at the water coming down! With the rains, the force is gigantic!" Da Gama struggled to make himself heard.
But Slipper's mind was made up. "I'm sick of this foolishness. I'm getting back to civilized society, and as quickly as I can!"
"It's madness! The palkis will be swept away and the bearers with them."
"Who cares about some old bearers, Deoga?"
"You will, if you're in their palki, Senhor Eunuch."
Slipper pulled Da Gama by the arm, right to the river's edge. "Look, Deoga! Can you see the Sultana's guards, right over there?" Da Gama could make out their green turbans through the swirling mist. "I've been through the back of those falls a dozen times. The Sultana loves this place. It's easy!"
"Have you done it after the rains? When the water storms down? I don't think so."
Slipper's expression showed that Da Gama had guessed right. He glanced at the path behind the falls, then back to Da Gama. "You say a palki won't make it through?"
"A man on foot, maybe. But not a palki."
Slipper considered this. His eyes kept drifting to the other side, to the green turbaned guards. He licked his plump lips, like one anticipating a feast after long fasting. "We'll go through on foot then, Deoga!"
"What about the palkis?"
"We'll send them back. Pathan's can go home, and ours can go the long way." Slipper sized up the falls and the procession with a surprisingly professional glance. "What about the horses?"
Da Gama squinted. All this worry made his brain hurt. "Maybe. Maybe the
y can make it. Those falls are treacherous, senhor! Look!"
Of course, by now Slipper's golden turban had come unwound, and it was soaked by the spewing mist. Water dripped down Da Gama's face, and from his queue along his back. "Well, we can't get too much wetter, can we, Deoga?" Slipper grinned. "The Sultana's camp is just a few yards from here. On the other side of those falls is safety, comfort, and justice. We can get a little wet and be there in an hour, or we can trudge uphill and down for a day, or two, or even more. I'm already wet, senhor. Let's go through!"
In drier times, the falls came down gently, like a sheer curtain. The trail of broken rock passed behind the curtain, where the falls had hollowed out a large chamber. In drier times, it was amusing and exciting to pass behind the roaring curtain, and to stand in the dark, carved-out rock and see the sunlight glittering through the water curtain, making a lakh of rainbows. Yet even in drier times, the falls roared in the chamber so loud that one felt terror-the way a child feels terror when his father tosses him in the air, that pleasant terror of knowing that the danger is not so very great.
But now the river above them had crested in a flood, and overflowed its banks, and water poured over the cliff 's edge in a harsh deluge, and seeped across the haphazard trail of rocks, to make each step treacherous.
Slipper's eagerness would brook no more delays. "I will eat lunch with Whisper!" he announced. After sending the palkis away, Slipper arranged things: He himself would go first, with Deoga. Then the nautch girl. Then Geraldo would lead Lucinda on her horse. Then the guards. Da Gama made suggestions, but perhaps the falls' roar was too loud.
So they stood at the edge of the falls, the last remnants of the caravan that had set out from Goa a few weeks before. Da Gama, once their leader, now bound; Slipper once the butt of many jokes, now in command. "On the other side is safety, comfort, and justice!" Slipper announced, appreciating his turn of phrase. "A little bath, and then comfort, pleasure, and the Sultana's hospitality!" His voice was barely audible over the thunder of the falling water. "Come, Deoga! We two shall lead the way!"
Taking Da Gama's arm in his pudgy hand, Slipper stepped forward. Singly, the going was difficult, but to go together was nearly impossible. Slipper lurched one way, Da Gama the other. The overspray from the falls drenched all their clothes. The path climbed upward, about ten feet over the surface of the pool below.
"Don't look down, senhor," Da Gama shouted. "We're nearly there!" The roaring's loudness increased and its pitch grew higher as they approached the water curtain. Slipper's beadlike eyes grew wide, and he still clung to Da Gama. "Come, Senhor Eunuch!" Da Gama screamed.
It was not like water. It was like stepping into a shower of pebbles, so fierce was the pounding on Da Gama's head. He stumbled, and fell through the water. Slipper spilled beside him. "Oh, Allah," Slipper moaned.
They had reached the chamber behind the falls. Here it was dry, and oddly, the noise of the falls was dampened, though other sounds echoed. Each heard the other's sighs. "Oh, Deoga, what was I thinking. That was terrible! I thought I was dead!"
"Help me to my feet, senhor," Da Gama answered.
Slipper lumbered up, and then steadied Da Gama. "I should not have made you go through bound, senhor," Slipper said, almost weeping. "The force of it! Who could have imagined!"
"Unbind me now, then, Senhor Eunuch."
"Alas I have no blade! And your bonds are drenched-I'd never get the knots untied with these fat fingers!"
"No matter. We're nearly through." Da Gama took a moment to enjoy the place-the huge dark chamber carved by the water from the living rock; dry, spacious, lit with rainbows filtering through the water curtain that formed its outer wall. The place had the tangy smell of humid rocks. "Now we've had a little rest, let's go."
Slipper fell to his knees. "No! I can't go through it again!"
"Forward or back, senhor-the problem is the same. You might as well go forward! As you say, there's lunch this way." This time Slipper clung to Da Gama's arm as a bride to a bridegroom. The water smacked them like wet sacks of sand. A moment later, they stumbled into the arms of the green-turbaned eunuch guards of the Sultana.
"Look out!" one of them said, nodding to their feet. They had stumbled only a few inches from the edge of the path, and nearly fallen to the pool below.
Slipper pressed Da Gama in a sideways embrace. "I can't release you yet, Deoga. Not until the guards have custody of the condemned. Oh dear, senhor, you must forgive me this small insult. I never could have made it through without you!" Slipper made his way to the river's edge. Water spilled into the pool, sending a plume of mist into the sun. The eunuch leaned out, and waved to the others who waited on the other side of the falls. "It's good, it's good!" They could only see his broad enthusiastic smile.
"I'm next, I suppose," Maya said. Geraldo came forward as if to embrace her, but she stepped away. She glanced at Lucinda, who stared with lifeless eyes at the rushing waterfall. Why must I go alone? she thought. Ah, she answered herself, at least I won't be going with him. She stared down at the mists rising fifteen feet below. At last she gripped her shoulder bag, said her mantra, and drove forward.
She didn't expect the power of the falls. The water drove her to her knees and poured upon her. She gasped for breath. I'll drown here, she thought. With all her will, she managed to stand, but the water came from everywhere. She stumbled right, left. Somewhere the falls must end! She pushed on, but stumbled ever deeper into the water, never out of it. Again and again she fell to her knees. She began to choke.
A hand reached through the water. A moment later she found herself sprawled on the rock floor of the inner chamber, coughing. At last she managed to look up. "Hello?" she called. "Deoga?" She stood, water poured from her clothes and hair. "Who helped me? Speak!" She wiped her dripping eyebrows with her palm. "Bless you, whoever you are!" she cried, when no one answered. "And bless me while I make for the other side."
Perhaps she was better prepared for the water's weight this time. She felt as though someone pushed against her back, thrusting her through the curtain. Then many hands reached out for her, and there was Deoga, laughing. "Quite a view from up here," he said, nodding toward the drop to the pool below.
"Did you help me in there, Deoga?" she asked. Then she saw that his hands still were tied.
Someone else had been in the chamber.
On the other side of the falls, one of the Sultana's eunuch guards squinted through the mists. "Hey!" he called. "What's that on the other shore?"
"What?" Slipper shouted. "Where?" He looked across the pool and shook his head. "It is nothing. Deoga, do you see something?"
Da Gama peered through the clouds. On the other bank, near an old, decaying temple, two horsemen had appeared, with long, deadly looking bows. Maya reached Da Gama's shoulder and whispered to him: "Those are the men I saw last night!"
Da Gama nodded nearly imperceptibly. Then to Slipper he said loudly, "They are hunters, I think." But the eunuch guards now took an interest and peered across the water. "Damn.. . ," he said in Maya's ear above the roar of the water. "What're they doing over there-on the wrong damned shore?!"
"Well, dearest cousin, it's our turn now," Geraldo said.
From one of his pockets, Geraldo took a large square of tawny waxcloth, wrapped it around his long-barreled pistol, and shoved the package in his belt. Then he took the reins of Lucinda's mare and guided her to the very edge of the falling water. Geraldo walked backward, tugging the bridle, leading the mare with calming words. The mare walked on calmly-as calmly as Lucinda, whose empty expression never changed. At last, with the roaring waters to his back Geraldo took a breath, and pulled them through the deluge.
He felt the pelting weight of the water, and for all his blinking could barely see the horse's head. He gasped for air; he fell to his knees. Suddenly Geraldo felt someone take the reins from his hands, and pull the mare through. He stumbled after.
In the scattered rainbow light that filtered through the falls,
Geraldo saw a figure gentling the mare: a tall man, dripping wet but slender and strong. When he had stroked the mare to calmness, he moved to Lucinda. He touched her bound hands.
Pathan!
Geraldo scowled as he pushed his dripping hair from his brow and found his breath. Lucinda's wet clothes clung to her skin, exposing every contour of her body. Water spilled down her legs and fountained from her slippered feet. But Pathan seemed oblivious; he merely touched her hands and searched her eyes.
"What are you doing here, burak?" Geraldo shouted. His words echoed from the chamber walls.
"I owe a man a favor," Pathan answered, not looking at him. "Now I shall pay my debt." He wore no turban, and his wet hair hung in dark, dripping sheets around his shoulders. A puddle had formed at his feet. Though his eyes never left Lucinda's, his hand stole to the hilt of his curved sword. With a motion so smooth the mare never stirred, he unsheathed it, and lowered it to his side.
"What do you mean to do, burak?" Geraldo got slowly to his feet; his left hand gestured with each word, while his right stole silently toward his pistol. "You know she is a murderer."
"Yes," Pathan said, still staring into her eyes. "For she has killed me." With his left hand, Pathan stroked Lucinda's fingers. "I do not dream anymore, nor do I sleep. My days are empty, my nights endless. My only thought is of her, this murderer. But despite what you say, she brings me life."
Lucinda's eyes stirred, and she looked into her Munna's face, and when she saw him gazing at her with such devotion, Lucy smiled.
"I ask again, burak. What do you mean to do?"
Pathan now looked at Gcraldo. "I mean to save her from you. You have done a terrible thing, sir. Her only hope is to run. But now the Sultana and the Brotherhood will pursue her endlessly, seeking the Dasana fortune. Lucy will need to hide forever. Never will she know a home, a family. You have taken from her not just her rightful legacy-you have taken her life."
"Make him tell the truth then, Munna," Lucinda said. "I know what he did. Let him die for his crimes!"