The Achmed Abdullah Megapack

by Achmed Abdullah

  A moment later I thought I had been too rash. Holding the girl in my left arm, I tried to open the door with my right; but it was impossible. I could not even budge it.

  Stephen Denton smoked for a while in silence, a silence suddenly broken by the strumming of a native guitar which drifted down the stairs. He smiled.

  Can you imagine stepping from utter silence and darkness into a room with a bright light? Why, no! What is there to apprehend, to startle you, even in a bright light? You know it comes from somewhere, through some mechanical or natural agency, don’t you?

  What startled me into stark, breathless immobility was a faint noise—a faint, rasping noise, the like of which I had never heard before.

  Not that, with my back against a cold, moist wall, the girl in my left arm with her feet touching the ground, I had time to run in my memory over all the noises I had ever heard. But I knew that was it—I knew that the noise which I heard had a sinister, grim connection with the fetid scent which had drifted down the corridor in front of me, and, too, that it held in itself a terrible menace. It wasn’t a hissing, nor a barking, nor a scraping. It seemed more like a tremendous vibration that filled the space about me, that seemed to close in on me; and while I was not afraid—how could I have been with her in my arms?—I felt, sort of dimly, a rushing wonder as to the aspect, the source, the nature, yes as though it may seem silly to you—the all-fired use and necessity of that unknown noise! I want you to feel that noise as I felt it—yes, felt it more than heard it—perhaps a combination of the two sensations. I seemed to both feel and hear somebody, something listening in the dark! Presently the impression grew into positive knowledge, and then—I guess there’s some scientific connecting-link between seeing and hearing and smelling—at that very same moment the fetid smell rose against me like a solid wall, and I saw two small, oblong, green lights—and they appeared to be flat.

  You know, I wouldn’t have minded so much if those two green lights had seemed rounded, globular. What startled me was the fact that they were quite flat. Mad, don’t you think? But true, old man!

  And the door was shut behind me; and I and the girl who was all the world and all the world’s salvation to me were imprisoned with that strange, humming vibration, the terrible, fetid odor, the flat oblong, green lights!

  What was I to do? Get my arms free for action, for savage battle, for whatever might happen—that was the first!

  I turned a little to the left to let the girl slip gently to the floor.

  And then my heart stood still, quite still. The blood in my veins felt exactly like freezing water!

  For as I turned I saw two more flat, green lights. But they were less distinct than the others. Sort of vague, wiped-over—that’s how they looked; and they were in the wall, like jewels in a deep setting. I raised my right hand to crush them, to pluck them out; and then I laughed.

  I am sure I laughed—at myself.

  You see, the moment my hand was in one line with them they disappeared; and then I knew the second pair of green lights was only a reflection of the first pair, the slimy, dank wall acting as a mirror; and so I propped the girl against the wall, drew my knife, and turned back to face once more the unknown danger.

  The vibrations were increasing in intensity; the green lights swerved and swayed here and there like gigantic fireflies; and I was a little afraid, perhaps because my love was not in my arms any more; and so I commenced whistling to regain my self-confidence. I whistled quite well, very softly. I used to practice it years ago in prep school to annoy my teachers.

  Imagine me standing there like a fool in that inky-black room in the heart of the Colootallah, shielding a Hindu girl, a girl whose name I didn’t know and whom I had finally decided to take with me to the very end of life—facing I didn’t know what unknown horror and iniquity, and whistling—whistling one of those slow, dreamy, peaches-and-cream Hawaiian melodies, the “Waikiki Moonlight,” if I remember rightly, with a little drooping sob to every third note.

  I am glad that it was dark and that there was no mirror down there in which to behold myself. I am sure I must have cut a laughable figure—I can imagine it with my hair, since I was a little scared, standing out like ruffled feathers, my eyes wide open and staring into those flat, green, ghastly things in front of me, my jaw a trifle dropped, and my lips pointed, whistling that sentimental poppycock about the dear old silvery moonlight on dear old Waikiki beach. Gosh!

  But presently the impression grew on me—to become a stony certainty almost immediately—that those swaying green things in front of me were becoming more quiet, more stationary, the longer and softer I whistled. Too, the vibration, while it did not cease, became indifferent, less terrible and minatory; seemed to lose some of its menacing, crouching, intensity.

  A few more staves about moonlight and Liliuokalani and Waikiki, and the vibrations had blended completely into a soft, contented—well a mixture between a purr and a hiss.

  What did I do? Why I kept right on whistling. You just bet I did! I must have gone through my entire lengthy repertory of sentimental mush—German tunes, American, Hawaiian, Irish and Greaser! And, which is the incredible part of it, the true, inevitable part, that one little accomplishment saved my life that night.

  I was beginning at about No. 33 on my musical program—by this time the green things, had become quite stationary and something like a milky veiled film had settled over them when there was a soft rushing noise, but not at all a terrifying noise, the green lights were blotted out altogether, and something hove up out of the dark: it brushed up against me, it poured over my feet and ankles with the soft, pliable weight of a huge steel cable—something mighty and very cold! I stood there like a statue if a statue can tremble a little—and the coiled, steely, thing drew itself up, up the length of my legs, around my waist with a great turn over my shoulders; then, without any apparent effort, still farther up, over my head a foot or so encircling my neck—the next moment one end of it touched my cheek with a soft, gentle, caressing gesture.

  A cobra! yes—a cobra!

  That huge reptile had heard me whistle—perhaps it was some sob catch in my way of whistling which did the trick, which reminded the snake of the plaintive notes which the snake-charmer produces from his flat reed pipe.

  Anyway, there it was, encircling my body, gently touching my cheeks. Fancy though—wasn’t it?—to consider that there, in that rabbits’ warren of a building with every one’s hand against me, a cobra—most hated and feared of animals—was the only living thing which seemed to have a sort of affection for me!

  What did I do? Oh, I patted its head, and I have a vague, shameful recollection that I addressed the great, slimy brute as “good old pussy”—but, whatever it was, it pleased her; and if ever a snake purred, that snake purred!

  Presently it must have thought that there had been enough caressing for the time being, for, with one final, deep vibrating hiss-purr, it slid down my body, and with a slight wiggle of farewell which nearly knocked me off my feet, it scooted off.

  I didn’t waste much time in putting two and two together. For a cobra in India in a building meant priests and a temple.

  You see, I had done quite a little sight-seeing in Calcutta; I had also studied my guide-book and had talked to several seasoned old Anglo-Indians, Roos-Keppel included; and I remembered what I had seen and read and heard—about the sacred king-cobra which the Hindus keep in stone caves at the feet of some of their idols, how the Brahmans go down and feed them, and how tame the reptiles become.

  Don’t you see? I was just in such a snake den, and I said to myself that the way of getting out of it was the way by which the priest brought down the food—they can’t throw it down, you know, since cobras drink a good deal of milk—a way which must lead, not back to the landing whence I had come, but straight into the temple. So I groped and tapped about the walls and the low ceiling, and finally I found a curved metal handle. A jerk and a twist—and half the ceiling slid to one side, into a we
ll-oiled groove, sending down a flood of haggard, indifferent light. I picked up the little Hindu girl, who was still unconscious, lifted her gently through the hole in the ceiling, and followed after.

  The room in which I found myself was lit by the dull-red, scanty glow which came from an open-work silver brazier swinging on chains from the vaulted ceiling—a dull-red glow sadly mingling with a few pale moon-rays breaking through a tiny window high up on the left wall.

  For a few seconds I was bewildered—couldn’t quite locate myself. Directly in front of the opening—I saw that plain enough—was a huge, bestial Hindu idol—an image of Shiva in his incarnation as Natarajah, “Lord of the Dance.” I remembered that from the other temples I had seen.

  You can imagine what the idol looked like—its right leg in the air in a fantastic curve, the left pressed upon the figure of a dwarf; in the whirling hair a cobra, a skull, a mermaid figure of the river Ganges, and the crescent moon; in the right ear a man’s earring, in the left a woman’s; and with four arms—one holding a drum, and another fire, while the third was raised, and the fourth pointed to the lifted foot—and the whole act on a huge lotus pedestal.

  From an incense-burner in the farther corner a mass of scented smoke swirled up, darkening the air with a solid, bloated shadow—and everything seemed shapeless, veiled, wreathed in floating vapors.

  Presently my eyes got used to the dim half-light. I discovered that the temple was fair-sized, and that it contained no furniture nor ornament—no article of any sort except the statue of Shiva and the incense-burner. The window was too high up to reach, and there was only one door—a low door, directly across from the idol, a door leading—where?

  “Say,” Stephen Denton interrupted his tale, “are you getting tired of my adventures? Would you rather play a game of cards—dummy bridge? Say the word.”

  I told him that I abhorred cards. I told him that just then I was only interested in one thing. “How the deuce did you get away from there?” I wound up. “What was behind that door? How did you—”

  “Survive?” he completed my halting question with a low laugh. “Why, old man—you forget that I bore a charmed life that night—a charmed life—just like Napoleon, like Tamerlane, like—”

  “What was behind that door?” I interrupted him a little heatedly.

  “Wait till we get to it.” Stephen Denton laughed. “Something else happened in the temple—before I opened that door and found out!”

  CHAPTER V.

  NERVES.

  E gaio il minuetto, ma tavolta piange

  (The minuet’s lift is merry, but sometimes a song breaks through)

  —Fogazzaro

  * * * *

  There was one thing more in the temple—a fine, soft, silk rug—and I rolled it into a tight pillow and slipped it under the head of the little Hindu girl. I had stretched her out on the floor.

  You know—Stephen Denton continued, with a curious, hazy note of embarrassment in his pleasant voice—I am afraid that, at that moment, with the girl at my feet and the grinning idol above me—with the scented, whirling wreaths of incense-smoke floating about me—I had a certain revulsion of feeling.

  I was not afraid. Nor was I exactly riled at that mad throw of the dice of fate which had chucked me there—into the dim, mysterious heart of the Colootallah, five centuries removed from the Hotel Semiramis, the Presbyterian Church, the English bobbies, and all the rest of trousered, hatted civilization. I didn’t mind that. Of course not! For, don’t you see, I loved that warm, little, girlish thing of gold and black and crimson at my feet. My love was one of those mighty, heaving, cosmic revolutions which will attempt and accomplish the impossible—it was one of those stony, merciless facts which no arguing and no self-searching can kick out of existence.

  But I guess there is such a thing as loving in spite of one’s self—of love being a thing, a condition, a fact apart from the rest of one’s life.

  Don’t you get me? Why, old man, remember what I told you of how the girl was dressed—in the costume of a tuwaif, a Hindu dancer—and here, grinning and jeering above my head, was the idol of Shiva in his incarnation as Natarajah, “Lord of the Dance”—and the connection seemed obvious! And, after all, my people did come over in the Mayflower—and there was that reproachful church-bell from Old Court House Street—just then it was tolling the quarter to one.

  Nothing shocking in the art and motion of dancing. But you have seen Hindu dances—religious Hindu dances—haven’t you? You know the significance of the image of Natarajah, how in the night of Brahma nature is said to be inert and cannot breathe nor move nor dance till Shiva wills it; how Shiva rises from his stillness of meditation, crushes the dwarf of night and inertia, and, dancing on his prostrate body, sends through all matter the pulsing waves of awakening sound, preceding from the drum; how, in the richness of time, still dancing, he destroys all names and all forms by fire; and how then all emotions and a new rest come upon the Earth.

  A mad Hindu notion of bringing together the orderly swing of the spheres, the perpetual movement of atoms, the sensation of the human body, and evolution itself—all represented in the dancing figure of Shiva Natarajah—and in the whirling bodies of the nautch, the Hindu dancing-girls who are consecrated to the service of the gods!

  You know the nature and meaning and gestures of those dances, don’t you? And there was the girl at my feet in her dancing costume, and the grinning idol above us—there was the memory of some of things which Roos-Keppel had told me about the crimes and vices and the unclean castes which center in the Colootallah; and how—as in the rest of the world—it is always woman who is used as the mainspring of intrigue and venal traffic—and I clenched my fists until the knuckles stretched white.

  I looked at the girl—the light was dim, trembling, uncertain, but I could see the pale gold of her little face, the dusky, voluminous clouds of hair, the thick net of the eyelashes.

  I touched her face, her shoulders—only for a fleeting second—for, don’t you see, to me she was holy, and somehow she was to me part of that temple—of the sacredness of that temple—yes—sacredness—and I mean it. A mad, bombastic, fantastic, cruel faith—that Hindu faith! I know it! But faith, religion, just the same somehow trying to make the world better. I guess there isn’t a single religion which really tries to do harm.

  Yes, sacred and inviolable she was to me—and I thought how she and the love of her had come to me, in the purple Indian night—precious, swift, unexpected, like a break of glimmering sunlight after a leaden gray day—and there leapt into my heart, with the terrific and incalculable aim of lightning, the blinding longing for complete possession—and deliberately I disentangled myself from the jumble of bitter emotions which had come to me through the thought she was a nautch, consecrated to Shiva Natarajah.

  The whole revolution of feeling had only lasted a few seconds. I said to myself that love—real love—has no time to consider and weigh the patterned dictates of abstract morality. Mine own life to make or to mar—and I considered that I would rather mar my life through love than make it through clammy indifference!

  Temple girl or no temple girl, it was up to me to get her out of that building, out of the Colootallah, out of whatever shame and misery and disgrace life had meant to her before I had seen her for the first time, back there on the rooftop at the end of Ibrahim Khan’s Gully.

  This time I had no choice of directions, for there was only one door out of the temple. Should I pick her up and step into the unknown? No—I decided the next moment—instead of carrying her, and thus burdening and slowing my progress, it would be better for me to scout ahead, to hunt about until I had discovered an avenue of escape. When I had found that, I would come back to her and carry her to safety.

  But there was the chance that the two Hindu watchmen on the roof-top might give up their fruitless search and come into this room. Too, there was the possibility of some Brahman priest entering the temple to attend to some of his sacerdotal duties. I wou
ld have to hide the girl. But where? Remember, the room was empty of furniture and ornaments. I went the round of the walls, hunting for a closet, but found none. There was only the incense burner, and the huge idol of Shiva Nataajiht, the latter standing fairly close to the wall.

  I walked around it more or less aimlessly, and then I made a discovery—quite an interesting discovery—with which, had I had time to use it for that purpose just then, I could have blown the thaumaturic reputation of that particular Hindu temple sky high.

  I found that the lotus pedestal of the statue had an opening in the back, a sort of curved sliding door three feet high and about seven broad, which was partly open. I stooped to investigate, and then I drew back in a hurry.

  For sounds came from within. I suppose my nerves tingled a little, but you mustn’t forget that—though at the time the thought never entered my head; I was too busy—all the events of that mad night had been so unusual that I had really lost the common standards of judging and of fearing. So I let my nerves tingle all they wanted to, and I stooped down once more to discover the source and nature of those sounds.

  The very next moment I knew, and I guess I was foolish enough to laugh. You see, the sounds which came from the inside of the pedestal were really quite peaceful and prosaic; they might have happened in quiet old Boston, for that matter.

  Somebody in there was snoring—in a fat, contented, elderly way!

  So I pushed the sliding-door to one side just as far as it would go. I looked, and sure enough, there, comfortably curled up on a litter of rugs and pillows and shawls. I saw the dim form of a portly Brahman priest sleeping with his mouth wide open, his curly white beard moving rhythmically up and down with the intake of his breath. Not a bad-looking old gentleman—quite peaceful and dignified. But that didn’t help him any just then; for here was the ideal hiding-place for my Daughter of Heaven.