* * * * *
Anyway, the sapphire had gone, and if I could manage it it would keep gone. Crowther could chase it if he liked. That was his affair. But we three here in the rest-house in the jungle were emancipated, and were going to remain emancipated. Imogen, it was true, had lost a lovely jewel and friends of hers might have been expected to show some regret at her loss. I had no such feeling. The stone was compacted by an earthquake on a night of eclipse. It was accursed. Its setting was misery, not platinum, and the spark which gleamed in it was the very soul of malevolence. In other words I was elated to know that never again would Imogen wear it about her slender throat. She had bought it and paid for it — that was true enough. But on the other hand I had not a doubt that she would have given it back to Michael if he had talked to her for five minutes.
But even that conversation was not going to happen if I could help it. I should have to tread delicately, of course. A certain amount of diplomacy would be needed. But whilst we had been talking I had thought of a plan.
“About to-morrow,” I said. “There’s one place you’ve got to see, of course — the city on the mountain, Sigiri. It’s on the way from here to the south. I must tell you about it. There was a King — —”
“Darling,” Imogen interrupted plaintively, “we, too, have a guide-book.”
“Then that makes it all right,” I said heartily. “I’ll leave you both to go up by the gallery whilst I roll along to see a friend of mine, and come back again for you.”
I saw the two girls sit up straight. They looked at me intently. I lit a cigarette with great indifference.
“Yes, that’s the plan,” I said.
“I suppose it’s the same friend you had to put in two days with at Kandy,” Pamela suggested sweetly.
“Not at all. I have lots of friends,” said I.
Pamela went off to her bedroom and came back with her Murray’s Handbook.
“It’s the map we want,” said Imogen.
The unfolding of the map made me uneasy. For on a bare white space in print distressingly clear, there were marked, fairly close together, Sigiri and Dhambulla. Imogen put her finger on a spot.
“That’s the place, I think,” she said cheerfully, and then she turned to me. “For how long do you propose to leave us at Sigiri, Martin? An hour?”
“No,” I answered.
“Less than that?”
“More than that. About two hours altogether,” I said indifferently.
The two girls stared as though I had committed some enormity. Then they bent their heads again over the map.
“That’s the place,” said Imogen, dabbing the tip of her finger on the map as if she were smashing a mosquito.
“Yes,” Pamela agreed, “he’s got a date at Dhambulla with a coloured lady.”
“I have nothing of the sort,” I cried.
“But you’re going to Dhambulla,” cried Imogen.
I suppose that an intellectual would have found a way out of the ditch I had jumped into. My reply was simply fatuous. I said:
“Well, I might look in at Dhambulla.”
After that they played animal, vegetable, mineral with me until Crowther’s name was yielded up.
“You have seen him?” they both cried with one voice.
“At Kandy.”
“It was his sapphire, then?”
“Yes. It was stolen from the top of the pagoda.”
“And he has come after it?”
“Yes.”
“And what time is your appointment to-morrow?” asked Imogen.
“Eleven o’clock.”
“We’ll go with you to Dhambulla,” said Pamela.
I had to make the best of it.
“I’m delighted, of course,” I said. “My business won’t take a minute. I’ll leave you both in the car — it’s a bit of a climb to the terrace — —”
“As steep as the gallery at Sigiri, Martin?” Imogen asked innocently.
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen either one or the other,” I replied firmly. “But it’s steep, and I’ll run up and tell Crowther the sapphire’s stolen again and then the three of us can roll along to Sigiri.”
Imogen and Pamela exchanged glances of amusement.
“But, darling Martin,” Imogen said sweetly. “You don’t think that you’re going to put it over us like that, do you? We’re both going to see the Rock Temple and we’re both going to see your Mr. Crowther.”
I wanted to keep them both apart from Michael Crowther. I did! There was no longer, of course, any reason for uneasiness. The only link which could have caused them trouble — and, indeed, it had caused trouble enough already — was broken. Still, I did not want them to meet.
“Oh, Crowther’s nothing to write home about,” I grumbled.
“But, Martin, we don’t want to write home about him,” said Imogen gently. “We’re just going to meet him to-morrow on the terrace of the Rock Temple at Dhambulla.”
“But you haven’t an idea what you’re going to meet,” I exclaimed. “I know him of old, so it doesn’t matter to me what he looks like. But he’s too awful” — and I gave them a description of Michael as I remembered him kicking his heels against the parapet of the lake at Kandy. I thought my description to be sufficiently humorous, but not a smile illuminated their faces; and when I had done Pamela declared:
“My mother used to say to me: ‘Pamela, darling, when the moment comes to select one of your innumerable suitors, always remember that if you choose a man wearing an I. Zingari belt, you have chosen a gentleman.’”
I threw up the sponge.
“Very well. We start at nine.”
Anyway, the sapphire had gone. Nothing could alter that.
Chapter 14 A Council at the Rock Temple
THE WAY LED upwards over bare shelving slabs of gneiss. As we mounted, the blue hills of Kandy came into view in the south, a coronet of sharp peaks encircling the royal city. We wound about the mountain and climbed a short flight of steps with a lantern fixed upon a pillar at the side. Now a slender satin-wood tree with delicate foliage sprang here and there from a crevice in the slabs like a plume of lace. We came out again upon the crest of the ridge and the vast jungle streamed away before us to the north. It was broken by great rocks with the bloom of plums, and by vivid patches of fresh green where some primeval village hid; and across ten miles of it the huge rounded pebble of Sigiri rose like an island from the sea. A few trees grew now on that high summit where once a king had built his capital, and the line of the long gallery, which alone had given access to the gates, ran plainly along the pebble’s side like a fissure in the rock. Now the steps which we mounted broadened and rose in a welcome shade of trees.
“Listen!” said Imogen, and we stopped; and we heard a wild elephant trumpeting far away in the jungle.
We crossed more slabs and passed between the white-washed pillars, and beneath the brown-tiled canopy of the temple’s gates. A bell hung within a stand upon our left. A bo-tree stood in a stone enclosure protected by a parapet. A long wall, above which two high tamarinds rose, enclosed the five temples and the terrace in front of them. And as we stepped on to the terrace a man rose from a stone seat in the wall and came quickly towards us.
“Crowther,” said I.
He had changed his dress since I had last seen him. Gone were the white knickerbockers and the vivid glory of his belt and the worsted stockings. He wore a thin grey suit and brown shoes, a silk shirt with a small collar and a restful tie. He was vastly improved but not improved enough to appease me. All the resentment under which I used to labour on his steamer on the Irrawaddy had returned to me during the last two days. I blamed him for all the anxiety and the peril to which Imogen had been put; and I was quite logical in my censure. If he had been honest with Ma Shwe At he would not have deserted her without a word, he would not have taken back his trumpery presents, and the sapphire would never have gleamed darkly on the white table-cloth of the Dagonet or been stolen from the spire o
f the pagoda at Pagan. I was altogether against Crowther this morning, and with a foolish hope that I could keep the girls apart from him, I stepped forward as he approached.
“At all events you don’t make me hot to look at you, Michael,” I began grudgingly. “That’s a blessing”; and, of course, Imogen and Pamela were already one on each side of me.
“This is Miss Pamela Brayburn,” I said reluctantly, “and this is Miss Imogen Cloud who bought your sapphire at Kandy —— Oh!”
The “Oh” was an exclamation of annoyance. Although the sun was high above the rock, we were standing in the shade of one of the great trees and Crowther had taken off his helmet. I had meant to say all in one breath:
“This is Miss Imogen Cloud who bought your sapphire at Kandy and it was stolen from her yesterday at a rest-house and I wish you good morning.”
But I found that I could not say it. I wanted to believe that since, in his pursuit of his sapphire, he had discarded his yellow robe, he had passed completely out of another phase of his violent career. But now I could not believe it. He had taken his hat off. I suppose that we have all known men devoted to one calling, to whom the slow sculpture of the years has given dignity, breeding, even beauty. But I have never known anyone in whom the change has been so swift, so definite, so obviously permanent. There was no trace left of Michael D. Even with the stubble of new stiff hair upon his crown he had the look of a saintly, ascetic and prayer-worn Cardinal. I said gently:
“I am sorry, Michael. I have no good news for you. The sapphire was stolen yesterday from Imogen and by the Indian.”
Crowther looked down upon the ground. He made no movement. He uttered no word. His very impassivity made the fullness of his disappointment clear to us as no outcry could have done.
Imogen broke into an account of the robbery. Crowther listened to the end with his eyes set hungrily upon her face.
“Yes,” he said with resignation. “Muhammed Ghalli is bad. He is known. He has great powers and uses them wickedly. It will be long before he finds his way out of the forest to the rocky path.”
Imogen looked puzzled, as well she might. She had never heard of that allegory which Michael Crowther had related to me on the deck of the lighter, lashed to the side of the Moulmein steamer on the way to Schwegu.
“But if you still had the sapphire,” he asked, “you would have given it back to me in return for the price you paid?”
“I would have given it back to you gladly,” Imogen answered quietly. “But I would not have taken a farthing of the price I paid.”
A very disarming smile took all the severity from Michael’s face.
“The wish will be counted to you, Miss Cloud,” he replied.
I intervened at this point hurriedly. I had a fear that he was going to point out to her that as a reward for her goodwill she might find herself a man in her next life, and by this change of sex ever so much nearer to her great Release. And I did not think that this point of view would commend itself to her at all. I said:
“Look here, Michael. I’ve got something to say about all this. Let’s sit down!”
We sat down on one of the stone seats cut out of the wall. There was just room for the four of us. We were high above the world. In front of us the temple carved out of the hill-side. On our right hand rose the monstrous pebble of the Lion Rock of Sigiri where for eighteen years, in the last days of the Roman Empire, a parricide reigned splendidly and well. And below us to our left and our right spread the vast green ocean of the jungle. I began to argue.
“What I think is this. Your sapphire, Michael. It’s a symbol of renunciation. A symbol of your renunciation. But in the end it’s just a sapphire found in a native working near Mogok. It has no real sanctity of its own and no history. That’s what I mean. It’s not a great diamond stolen out of the forehead of an image of Krishna, for instance. It has no romance, no curse upon it” — that, by the way, I did not believe— “it’s just a very beautiful sapphire. Do you follow me?”
“You are my friend,” replied Crowther, and it was a very disturbing reply. It might just mean that “the obligations of friendship compel me to listen to any idiotic remarks you may feel disposed to make.” Or again it might mean that whatever a friend says has a decided worth. I preferred the latter alternative and resumed:
“Secondly — —”
Pamela broke in with a wail:
“Martin, you are not going to preach a sermon, are you?”
I crushed her with a look. At least, I meant to; and since she did not meet my look but was gazing at Michael Crowther, I claim that I did.
“Secondly,” I repeated firmly, and went on: “The sapphire, however lovely, is not one of the premier stones. It does not compete with the pearl and the diamond and the emerald and the ruby. It is of the second cru. Allowed? Allowed?” I turned from one girl to the other to bear me out. Neither answered, and indeed I noticed traces of impatience in Pamela Brayburn.
“Well, then, since your sapphire, Michael, is first of all a secondary stone — —”
“No, no,” said Pamela wearily. “It was secondly a secondary stone. If you must be dogmatic, Martin, you should also be correct.”
I was exasperated, but Imogen took a side now.
“Pamela’s right, Martin. It was firstly a stone without associations.”
“And even that,” Crowther added with a smile, “is not quite correct. For it has very definite associations for me.”
“Very likely,” I cried with some triumph. Here was my chance to get a little of my own back. I wagged my finger at him. “But not the sort of associations you ought to be thinking about nowadays.”
“Oh!”
“Oh!”
Two shocked feminine voices protested in one breath.
“Martin!”
Imogen was gently reproachful.
“Not nice.”
Pamela was quite definite about my bad taste. I ought never to have told these girls as much as I had done about Crowther’s murky past. That was my fault. My good or bad taste was my affair.
“I wanted to come up here alone,” I exclaimed. “I wanted to talk to Michael without any interruption. And I am going to say what I meant to say in spite of you. Michael can buy another sapphire and string it up on his hti. Michael has money. Michael’s going to build a pagoda at Tagaung and live by the side of it.”
I was very much in earnest about this. I did with all my heart desire that Ma Shwe At’s sapphire should vanish as utterly as if it had been flung by somebody blindfolded into the middle of the sea. There was a shadow to it. Its deep clear blue which had no clouds meant clouds for those who handled it. I was afraid of it.
“Buy another, Michael. Buy one like it. It’s merely a matter of looking about a bit.”
Imogen scanned my face with anxiety.
“But, Martin, darling,” she remonstrated with the upward inflexion of extreme surprise, “you are not on the map at all.”
“I won’t be baited,” I said, digging my toes in.
“Baited! You’re not a horse,” said Pamela scornfully, “although there is an animal I could mention, if I had not been well brought up.”
They were both siding with Michael, of course, against me. I might have known that they would. This was my unlucky day.
Then Crowther himself intervened.
“For me,” he said with a smile of rare sweetness, “there can be no other sapphire. Firstly,” — and his lips twitched again— “it is a symbol of renunciation. You yourself, Mr. Legatt, used the phrase and it is so, believe me! — a true description. But that jewel is the symbol, not another jewel like it. Secondly, there is that bad thought of mine to build a pagoda for myself.”
I threw up my hands. I could not keep pace with the variations of Michael’s belief.
“So that’s a bad thought now!” I exclaimed.
“It always was a bad thought,” Michael answered; and at this point Pamela must chip in and add to the confusion.
“It certainly was,” she agreed serenely. “My mother used to say to me: ‘Pamela, dearest, if I had got to do one or the other, I’d build an aquarium.’”
Uncle Sunday beamed upon her.
“Did she say that?” he asked admiringly; and for the first time in our acquaintanceship I saw Pamela Brayburn disconcerted. She had not an idea how to take the question. Was Crowther chaffing her? But his manner was too simple and sincere. Was he asking seriously a literal question? But the question was too idiotic. Pamela was unaware that in Michael’s creed the destruction of life was a great sin, and the preservation of it a great merit. An aquarium preserved fish from being gobbled by bigger fish or caught in nets or hooked on lines — a highly deserving business. Michael was asking his question in absolute innocence. I am bound to say that I had noticed already that his new religion had killed his sense of humour. He continued quite eagerly:
“And did your mother build many?”
“What?” Pamela asked, still more at a loss. She looked towards me for help. I grinned at her with pleasure. I wasn’t going to get her out of her trouble.
“Build many aquariums?” said Michael.
Whatever qualities Pamela possessed, effrontery was the chief of them.
“Only two,” she answered calmly. “One at Brighton and the other under the shadow of Westminster Abbey.” And she got away with it. By some lucky chance Michael, during his three years in London, had never heard of the one or the other.
“But to build even two was most meritorious,” said he. “On the other hand, to build a pagoda and a tiny monastery beside it for myself? No man may do so overweening a thing. A monastery for others — yes. A pagoda, too — for the greater glory of Gautama. But to feed a man’s conceit, to sit by the side of it and hear men say: ‘That is U Wisaya who built it, sitting there in the shade’ — no, a thousand times. It is forbidden. The mere thought of it a sin — one amongst many to be atoned for. And the recovery of this sapphire is for me the way of atonement.”
Complete Works of a E W Mason Page 649