by Talbot Mundy
—From the Second of the Nine Books of Noor Ali.
BLAIR’S EYES began to grow accustomed to the dimness as he followed the man with the light, not attempting to overtake him. He did try to shout to him once, but his parched throat made only unintelligible sounds and it seemed stupid to repeat the effort, much wiser to reserve his remaining energy. His thirst was increased by a weird sensation of being under water at great depth. His clothes and riding-boots felt like a heavy diving-suit. There should be no sound under water, but the hollow echoes somehow or other increased the suggestion. Bats, occasionally glimpsed, were like swift fish swimming.
The tunnel wound like a snake. It was certainly hewn out and widened in places, but it appeared to follow what originally was a watercourse in the heart of the mountain, although there was not a trace of dampness. There began to be a lot of stalagmite formation that took fantastic shapes like the faces of monstrous men and animals. The floor of the tunnel was filthy with bats’ excreta. The dust was stifling; it made breathing difficult. The dust kicked up by the man ahead hung suspended in air, and the light appeared through that as dim as moonlight on the sea floor.
He had lost all sense of time, distance and direction when the light at last began to grow stronger. It was still dim with dust, but more golden and suggested daylight. Presently he felt fresher air on his face. That revived him a little, although the air was dry and hot and if anything it increased his thirst. There was such a singing in his cars that he could hardly hear his own footsteps.
When he stood still for a moment he could hear nothing ahead of him in the tunnel. When he went on again he discovered the tunnel made two sharp turns, which might account for his not hearing the other man’s footsteps. The second turn brought him face to face with brilliant sunlight that poured through a huge fanged break in the mountain wall, like a monster’s mouth, two or three hundred feet away and fifty feet above him.
Dazzled by the glimpse of blue sky, he could see almost, nothing else tor a moment. There was a big boulder almost blocking the mouth of the tunnel; he stood in the shadow of that and leaned against it, protecting his eyes with both hands. The fierce light looked liquid where it met the floor—a layer of liquid silver on soot-black ink. Dust particles in the air increased the suggestion of sediment formed on the floor of a pond. After a while he traced a winding track across the soot-black floor; it led from the tunnel out of which he had come, toward what looked like blackened masonry on the far side. The track had evidently been made by human footsteps. But why did it curve?
Some of the blackness changed to ash-gray as he stared at it. He began to be able to see the discolored walls of a cavern. Soon after that he discovered that his hands were blackened by something resembling soot. So was his clothing. The walls of the cavern took shadowy shape, and though he could not see the roof he could guess at the size of the place, it was not enormous—perhaps sixty or seventy feet long by a hundred wide. Something hung from the roof; apparently it was a blackened chain, with rust-red showing through a covering of soot; it suggested a trapdoor up there, or at any rate some kind of, opening.
Almost suddenly it occurred to him that he might be beneath the keep of Gaglajung. This might be the place where munitions—more probably firewood—had been stored. Such a fortress would need enormous quantities of fuel in case of siege. If the legend were true; if Ranjeet’s consort actually had immolated herself and her women rather than surrender the place, what easier way had she than to set fire to the store of fuel? That would have served a double purpose by preventing the three kings from forcing an entrance through the secret tunnel, supposing it were true that Ranjeet under torture had betrayed its secret.
There were signs everywhere of the effects of tremendous heat. He took the winding track across the floor and his feet fell iii almost silence on a thick carpet of charcoal and ashes. He discovered then why the track was not straight; it avoided lumps of blackened wood, and other things. There was a skull, for instance, as black as charcoal, grinning upward with blackened teeth; It was a small skull and might be a woman’s. There were blackened rib-bones. He detected about half of a human spine. In another place a forearm and part of a hand, as black as ebony, lay on something that looked like a half-burned stump of a sawn tree.
Stepping incautiously as he stared about him, he trod on a thigh-bone that cracked and crumbled into dust. Acrid ash-dust rose from beneath his feet, however carefully he walked. It nearly choked him. He was half blinded by it before he reached the far side, but he could see that the discolored masonry had cracked as— the result of fire;, enough of it had fallen to leave a gap through which it was easy to pass without touching the sides. Until he approached it closely the gap looked like a fluke of sunlight on the blackened wall. Actually light shone through the gap. There was a sensation as of someone lurking in wait on the far side. But by that time he would have plunged through fire in the hope of finding water anywhere beyond it.
He had passed a whole night without sleep. He had killed a man in gruesome circumstances and had suffered horrors of imagination. But his ravening thirst was worse than all that. If he had known for a fact that ten men lurked in ambush, and that they intended to tear him in pieces, he would nevertheless have gone forward.
He stepped through and found himself in what was once a rock-hewn temple naturally, formed of stalactite and stalagmite, some of which had been fantastically carved into semi-human shapes. The place was quite small. At the far end was a huge lingam on an altar of stalagmite. Beside that was a wide doorway with remains of the decayed woodwork still wedged into slots in the smooth rock wall. Almost staggeringly unexpected, stock-still in the doorway, waiting for him, staring at him, stood Zaman Ali, in a thin cotton shirt, with, a knife at his waist. His face was filthy with sweat-streaked soot. He had a revolver in one hand, and in the other he carried an engineer’s electric lantern that had an enormous lens. He flashed the light on, full in Blair’s face.
“So you come alone!” he said in Pushtu, rather indistinctly. He, too, had dust in a dry throat. “Mashallah, this world is full of wonders! Allah’s will be done—but have you robbed me of the chance to be the agent of it? Where is Taron Ling?”
Blair could not have forced himself to speak intelligibly. His throat was burning. But he would not have answered in any event. He was actually less conscious of thirst now that he had a concrete enemy to tackle. There was not much risk of Zaman Ali using the revolver—not if Zaman Ali, as seemed certain, wanted him there in the heart of a mountain alive, for some purpose or other. He craved water. Undoubtedly Zaman Ali knew where water could be found, and that was the first problem, but it might not be wise to let the Afghan know how serious it was. He tried to close his lips, breathe calmly and look like a man with information and resources in reserve as he strode toward him.
Zaman Ali laughed. It was a snarl and a sneer combined, but there was humor in it cruel humor that anticipated triumph. “There are streams of cool water,” he said, “in paradise. So it is written. There is water of secret springs in this grave of devils. Thirst is stronger than devils. It is stronger than fear or wisdom.”
He stood aside. Through the wide doorway at his back came three of the men whom Blair had seen at Wu Tu’s in Bombay. One was the owner of the brown-and-white shoes and the blackjack, who had looked absurd in striped socks. He was wearing the shoes now; they were filthy and so was his shirt. He was wild-eyed with excitement.
“Have you a weapon?” he asked in. English, snapping the words out, peering into Blair’s face. “No,” he said over his shoulder, “he has no weapon.” Then he produced the little blackjack from inside his shirt. He slapped it on the palm of his left hand. “I have this,” he said, showing his teeth. “You are acquainted with its efficacy. Are you thirsty?” He slapped the weapon on his hand a second time. “If you are already very thirsty, that is a simplification. We had thought we might be forced to wait until tomorrow. There is no water exactly here. Do you want any? I could get i
t.”
“Where is Taron Ling?” repeated Zaman Ali. Blair stood silent. The man with the blackjack was of a perfectly familiar type. He was capable of any cruelty; equally incapable of sympathy or real courage. There was nothing on earth to be gained by arguing with him. He was within reach. It might have been possible to knock him out with a sudden hook to the jaw, or to trip and fall on him; but to attempt to do either, and fail, was to invite intelligent but bestial revenge. Zaman Ali was the only real man,in sight. A rogue, yes. A ruthless, sly, not improbably treacherous, and certainly shameless scoundrel. But a man. Well hidden, but discoverable somewhere in his character were principles for which Zaman Ali would be willing to die in his boots. All the others were human jackals. Blair strode up to Zaman Ali and the Afghan understood that perfectly. He nodded.
“Aye,” he said, “this is an issue between thee and me.” He turned fiercely on the others and ordered them back whence they came, using scurrilous words that, where he came from, would have set Death on tiptoe for the harvest. But he had a revolver and they had none. They retreated grinning, as if it were a good joke to hear their mothers’ memory reviled. Then Zaman Ali shrugged his shoulders, with a sour look at the lingam on the ancient altar:
“Curses on such a religion!” he muttered. Then, more loudly, “But there is a secret here worth plucking forth. I have sold drink dear in my day, but by God, Blair Warrender, today’s price is the highest!”
Somewhere beyond the doorway, someone began pouring water from one vessel into another. It splashed delightfully.
“And there is salt,” said Zaman Ali. “I have seen more than one man, trussed within sight and sound of water, given salt to eat. If I remember rightly, it was not too long before they chose between alternatives. There is the other Salt, of the oath one man makes to another. Choose thou between them, Blair Warrender!”
The Afghan kept well out of arm’s reach. The sight of knife and revolver was unlikely to restrain a man whom thirst had maddened, but Blair was not nearly maddened yet, and the Afghan knew it. He evidently did not wish to use his weapons; he wished to bargain. The splashing of water implied that his men were listening for a cue to rush in and very swiftly stop any fight that Blair might offer. Whatever Zaman Ali’s motive might be, he evidently wanted Blair alive and uninjured for some definite purpose. But Blair had a good excuse for not trying to speak, and he made the most of it. He waited in silence for Zaman Ali to unmask motive. Zaman Ali stared into his smouldering eyes:
“Perhaps you have the heart to die of thirst,” he said after a long pause. “But by my beard I see no sense in it.” He laughed curtly. “I have seen obstinate men die of torture.”
The windy look came into his eyes, as if he stared at a hard horizon. “Allah only knows what gain they won.of that. Die, if you like, Blair Warrender. I have the giving of death; I will give without flinching. Thou and I, it may be, are two of one wilfulness. But in the matter of a choice between betrayals, only Allah, who knoweth all things, knows what a tortured man will choose.”
He switched the light off. Dim daylight, through the openings at either end of the little temple, created gloom amid which the carved stalactite monsters on the walls grinned like gray ideas half-visioned in a waking dream. The splashing of water increased perceptibly. The sooty sweat on Zaman Ali’s face exaggerated the seams of savagery, and the pupils of his eyes grew” large but lost no hardness.
“Do you understand,” he said, “that you were driven hither, as they drove that tiger to your gun in the night? That was a long task and expensive. God be my witness, I was against employing Taron Ling. But Wu Tu took the bit in her teeth and was worse to manage than a mad mare. I would have put the torture to you there in Bombay, but Wu Tu would have none of it: and by Allah, having some experience of women, and of Wu Tu, I perceived there was more than one blade to the knife of her argument. So I used your pass and Chetusingh’s to draw the police off my trail; and I came hither.
“Your trail—Wu Tu was right about that— was as easy to foretell as a colt’s when the mares are up-wind. seeing how Wu Tu had forced an” issue by sending to the papers news that Frennisham is missing. There was none except you likely to be sent to question Frennisham’s daughter. None other can bridle that filly, unless—”
He paused. He appeared to wish to feel out prejudices and to find a compromise between them. He was telling too much, for a man who felt he held the whiphand. Blair gave him no help—waited—watched—betrayed no curiosity. But he perfectly understood that Zaman Ali meant to go the limit if argument failed. There was a stiff proposition coming. The alternative to torture was likely to be nothing easy. He began to see Wu Tu’s eyes again, and that worried him because it might mean he was losing self-control. His only imaginable chance was that delay might bring some of the commissioner’s or Howland’s men to the rescue. But Zaman Ali guessed that thought was in his mind.
“The police hunt for me in Calcutta,” he said. “They who followed this trail have been dealt with. They are dead. Die thou of thirst here, and none will know it. But such a death will serve what purpose— Allah! I would rather watch thee dying than see the woman in the same case! Be that on your head! The sahiba’s torment shall begin where yours ends! Some men say that women are less than dogs; but I am not of that number. I say women vary; and it may be one of them now and again is worth a man’s life and everything else that he has.”
The water splashed again. Zaman Ali strode to the doorway and someone put a brass goblet of water into his outstretched hand. He swilled out his mouth, drank deep, shook the remaining drops on the dry floor, returned the empty goblet and again faced Blair.
“Henrietta Frennisham sahiba,” he said slowly, “is at your mercy—if you have any. As for me, I have none, “excepting at a high price.”
Blair took a step backward and leaned against the ancient altar, partly because his face was then in deeper shadow; but he also knew he needed physical support if he was not to show how scared he felt. If it was true that Henrietta was in danger of being tortured, he could not help her, himself or anyone by choosing death first rather than yield to the Afghan’s demands.—But it was not yet time to admit that. The thirst that he already felt” was sufficiently fierce to tax will power, and he. knew from previous experience that it was nothing compared to what was coming unless he could get water soon. He might have the strength to endure it and die. But could he leave her to that fate?
“There is a secret here,” said Zaman Ali. “and she has it. If she has not, she can get it. If she will not, she will die. his thy task. Bee-lair Warrender, to break that filly to the rein and get the secret. Do it. and both of you have my leave to live. Fail, and you die. By Allah, that is the whole story.”
He came closer and stood watching Blair’s face. Then he went to the doorway, demanded water, spilled half of the contents of the little goblet on the floor and offered the rest to Blair.
“Drink,” he said. “Then answer. That is your last drink, until you and I agree together.”
Blair moistened his mouth. Then he drank and set the empty goblet on the altar beside the lingam.
“Where is Taron Ling?” Zaman Ali demanded. It was the third time he had asked that question. Blair decided not to answer it.
“Wait and see,” he said, testing his voice. It was very important to speak calmly if he possibly could. Nothing tells in the East more strongly in a man’s favor than a level voice in poignant circumstances. Nothing gives a man better command of himself. His voice came hoarsely from his throat, but it still had some quality.
Zaman Ali’s eyes glanced anxiously at the gap in the broken masonry. He seemed afraid Taron Ling might enter. His hand closed tight on his revolver butt. He even stepped to the gap, peered through and paused to listen. Then he returned and stared at Blair’s eyes.
“Did you make a bargain with him?” he demanded.
Blair clung to his resolution not to answer. The Afghan’s fear was probably more deadly than his
greed, but there was a long chance, perhaps one in a thousand, that fear of Taron Ling might make him easier to manage.
“You—and that dog of a devil—agreed on— what?” Zaman Ali demanded.
“No matter what.”
That was Wu Tu’s voice—unmistakably hers. Something moved in the gloom behind Zaman Ali and the voice continued, “Trust an Afghan to flinch from a dugpa! Out of the way and let me handle him!” She was half-invisible against the stalagmite behind her. She peered through the folds of a sari that shrouded her head and shoulders, looking unexpectedly small beside Zaman Ali’s bulk—small, frail, vital. Her eyes were a determined devil’s. She kept out of Blair’s reach. “Who cares what Taron Ling did? Watch what I do! If he disobeys me, tie him and bring the salt.” She advanced a step closer. “Are you willing to obey me?”
Blair’s eyes smoldered and grew calm again. It was useless to defy her openly: Zaman Ali and his men could overwhelm him in a moment, and Wu Tu would have less compunction than a tigress. But could he deceive her? He avoided her stare for a moment and then met it suddenly, as if trying to read her mind. His own was made up.
