Full Moon

by Talbot Mundy

  ]f it was Chetusingh, that only complicated matters. And who else could it be? Wu Tu might not have lied. It was quite possible that Chetusingh had discovered Taron Ling’s dead body, and under cover of darkness, had whispered to her, making her believe he was Taron Ling. But if Wu Tu should learn that now, she would shoot for a certainty. She went on snarling:

  “Taron Ling gets Henrietta if I shoot you! Do you hear me? He’ll make her talk. I’ll shoot him afterwards. Speak now! Do you make her tell? Or do I?”

  The sound outside grew louder, but not nearer. It resembled a footfall on echoing rock, made by someone wearing slippers who rutched his feet. Tap-tap-tap-rutch—tap-rutch-tap-rutch— tap-tap-rutch-rutch-rutch-tap—“Carry on while I go for assistance,” that meant. Pause. Then again the tap-tap-tap-rutch—It was Chetusingh’s signal.

  The problem was to answer it without informing Wu Tu. Unless it were answered, Chetusingh might come nearer. If Wu Tu should learn it was he, not Taron Ling, she would leap to conclusions and probably shoot Blair instantly. She looked desperate enough to tackle Chetusingh then; she and the Chinese girl might lie in ambush for him; or the Chinese girl might do it while Wu Tu stood guard over Henrietta. What she would do after that to Henrietta was something that Blair preferred not to guess. How to answer that signal?

  He had to be quick.

  “Half a minute,” he said as calmly as he could, half-turning toward Henrietta but keeping his eyes on Wu Tu. “I don’t know the secret yet. I will ask her to tell it to me. Let me talk to her alone a moment. You don’t listen.”

  With his right arm around Henrietta he passed behind the chair. It was the kind that can be taken apart and rolled up; the top piece came away easily when he grasped it in his left hand. Wu Tu thought he meant to use that as a weapon and said one word in Chinese; she and the Chinese girl crouched instantly, aiming their automatics like desperate amateurs.

  “Poisoned bullets!” said Wu Tu.

  “I’m going to make a noise with this,” he answered. “You’re not to hear what I say, that’s all.”

  The place was almost circular. He led Henrietta to the wall, exactly opposite the opening, wondering whether sound would travel out of the place more distinctly than it crept in. He struck the wall hard with the piece of wood—tap-pause-tap-tap, for attention. and whatever the effect might be, outside the din was deafening under that glass-like root. Wu Tu could not possibly hear what lie said. He changed his signal to tap-tap-long pause-tap-tap, and kept repeating it.

  “That means, ‘your signal understood,’” he said to Henrietta. “We’ll have help soon. We’ve got to gain time. Taron Ling is dead. Wu Tu doesn’t know it.” He kept on hammering the wall, with an eye on Wu Tu, estimating her impatience. “Will you temporise? Offer to tell? Pretend to tell, to gain time?”

  Henrietta nodded. “I would rather die than tell her. I will tell you. Then you do as you please.”

  He ceased hammering and threw away the stick. “Miss Frensham is afraid of Taron Ling.” he said to Wu Tu. “She will tell me the secret on condition that you keep Taron Ling at a distance. Can you do it?”

  “Taron Ling is afraid of poisoned bullets.” Wu Tu answered. “That’s why he daren’t come near unless I summon him.” But she herself looked wretchedly afraid—obsessed by the explosive fear that is the strength of madness.

  Blair spoke to her in an almost confidential tone: “Leave us alone while we talk. You and that girl keep Taron Ling away. Get outside there and watch.” But he knew that was only ‘a lame expedient. If help should come, Wu Tu would be aware of it first. She looked desperate enough to do instant murder then, and after that to shoot the girl and herself in baffled rage and disappointment. However, any expedient was better than none. Contempt and cunning showed on Wu Tu’s face. She was about to answer when Henrietta interrupted. She stepped forward, freeing herself from Blair’s arm, and faced Wu Tu with a restraint of gesture that revealed rather than disguised loathing. But she spoke gently:

  “You have worked for months to get this secret, Wu Tu, haven’t you? I would never have told it to you. However, I can’t let Mr. Warrender be shot, so I will tell him. He may tell you. But not in this place.”

  “Where?” Wu Tu demanded. She growled like a dog; within a space of hours she had become a hag, with a voice like rasping metal.

  “You shall see where we go,” said Henrietta. “You may follow, but you must not come near or interrupt until the moon shines through the opening up there.”

  “Hours!” snarled Wu Tu.

  “Not many hours. You must keep Taron Ling at a distance. Otherwise I’m helpless. I’m afraid of him. I can do nothing with Taron Ling near me.”

  Wu Tu grinned and glared: “Do you know what Taron Ling will do to you unless you—” Blair interrupted. Madness feeds on threats of that sort. There was one chance in a hundred that she might believe her hypnotic efforts had partially succeeded. It was worth trying.

  “Marie,” he began, “I thought you—” He hesitated, putting a hand to his eyes as if perplexed by a haunting memory.

  Wu Tu glowered at him. “Yes,” she said, “I’m Marie. You remember?”

  Henrietta spoke before Blair could answer:

  “Listen, Wu Tu. He and I have promised. But it isn’t possible until moonlight. I need rest—sleep. So does Mr. Warrender. I can’t sleep unless you protect us against Taron Ling; and unless I get some sleep I can’t do what you ask.”

  “Sleep here,” said Wu Tu, glancing at the entrance. “Taron Ling can’t enter.” She flourished her automatic.

  “Even though I have to trust you to ]3rotect me, I don’t like you,” Henrietta answered. “I must be in the right mood to reveal this secret. You make that impossible. I came here to be alone, to grow calm and collect my thoughts. I must begin again—”

  “Now that you’re happy?” Wu Tu interrupted, hag-leering, incredible. Evil had come and clothed her suddenly in Time’s bark. She even looked wrinkled. “It is thanks to me you are happy—isn’t it?”

  The argument was getting nowhere, and it was growing twilight dark. The danger increased with darkness. The electric torch lay on the floor. Blair made a sudden stride toward it. Wu Tu squeaked in Chinese and the Chinese girl, on hands and knees, was there ahead of him. She snatched the torch and covered Blair with her automatic. He took a deadly chance then—all or nothing. Henrietta gasped and distracted Wu Tu’s attention for a second by springing forward in an agony of excitement. Blair kicked the pistol out of the girl’s hand, made a dive for it, caught it before it fell and was back within six feet of Wu Tu before she could turn and face him.

  “Drop that pistol!” he commanded. She raised it slowly.

  “Damn you—I said—drop it!” He could not see the Chinese girl. He could see Henrietta. The Chinese girl sprang from behind—seized his wrist—clung like a cat with teeth and finger-nails. In that same fraction of a second Henrietta sprang at Wu Tu, seized her wrist and tried to snatcH the pistol. Wu Tu pulled the trigger. The shot was deafening. A lump of stalagmite fell from the roof with a crash. The Chinese girl clung to Blair’s wrist; he dragged her until he could reach Wu Tu. She fired a second shot, wild as the first. Then in a second he had both weapons, and with Wu Tu’s pistol he rapped the Chinese girl’s knuckles until she let go and walked away to look for her cigarette tube.

  She was as suddenly indifferent as she had been recklessly determined. Except that she nursed her kicked wrist she seemed to have forgotten the incident. Wu Tu, also nursing a wrist, backed away until she reached the wall; then she called to the Chinese girl, who came and stood beside her.

  “Please shoot us both!” said Wu Tu.

  “Please shoot!” she repeated.

  Blair had no doubt what to do, but he was struggling with an almost hysterical impulse to laugh. He took both pistols in his left hand because Henrietta took his right hand and.used her frock to stanch the blood where the Chinese girl had torn and bitten it. It was bleeding badly. There was b
lood on the girl’s face and she kept wiping her lips with the back of her hand.

  “Any more hidden weapons?” he demanded.

  “No,” said Wu Tu.

  Henrietta tore a long strip from her frock that had been ripped in the struggle, and began to bandage his right hand.

  “Come here and be searched,” he commanded.

  “No,” said Wu Tu. “Shoot me.”

  “That’s bravado, old lady. You know damned well I won’t shoot.”

  “I would have shot you,” she retorted. “They are poisoned bullets. You would have died if one had touched you.”

  He grinned at the pain in his right hand. Henrietta bandaged it carefully.

  “Finished? Good. We’re in for trouble now, so stand by!” He eyed Wu Tu again, emptied both automatics and pocketed the cartridges.

  “Strip off that sari and throw it to me!” he commanded.

  The answer was suddenly passionate: “No! Don’t you dare to shoot? Are you too big a coward?”

  “Yes,” he answered. “But I don’t mind kicking you unconscious! D’you hear me?”

  Wu Tu heard and evidently understood, but hesitated. Suddenly she began to plead:

  “Blair, shoot me! You can say that Zaman Ali, or Taron Ling or someone did it! I can’t go to prison, Blair. I can’t! I won’t! If I can’t have this secret, life’s finished, for me. Lots of people will be grateful to you if you shoot me—all those who owe me money—all the—”

  He took one step toward her. At that she pulled off the sari, bundled it and flung it on the floor between them, sneering:

  “You swine!”

  Henrietta laughed: “You little thief, Wu Tu! That’s my underwear that you have on!”

  “Pick up her sari, please,” said Blair. “Tear it into good long strips.”

  Henrietta obeyed. She had to use her teeth to get the rending started.

  “Now hold both pistols and keep cool. I may have to be a bit rough.”

  Blair took the long silken strips and walked toward Wu Tu, smiling. “Better take your medicine, old lady. I don’t want to hurt you, but I will if I must. Turn your face to the wall and put your hands behind you.” He was wondering just how hard to hit if she resisted, and what the effect of the blow would be on Henrietta. He did not care in the least about Wu Tu’s feelings. He was rather surprised when she obeyed him and faced the wall—not quite agreeably surprised, because obedience might mean that she could still command unguessable resources.

  So he tied her wrists cunningly. Then, when he had helped her to the chair, he tied her ankles, and tied her into the chair, watched all the time by the Chinese girl as if he were a conjurer showing her some new trick.

  “No need to gag you,” he said. “I’ll bring you water by and by.”

  Then, maliciously: “Shout for help if Taron Ling annoys you.”

  After that he tied the Chinese girl hand and foot, apologizing because he could not leave her a hand free to smoke cigarettes. She offered no resistance, made no answer, lay at Wu Tu’s feet and looked up at her without any apparent emotion.

  “You are no gentleman,” said Wu Tu. “If you were, you would shoot.”

  She repeated the remark to Henrietta:

  “Remember, I have warned you—he is not a gentleman!”

  Blair’s interest in Wu Tu’s judgment on that point amounted to less than a shrug of the shoulders, but he wondered why she said it.

  There was probably a motive.

  It was growing so dark that he had to take the electric torch to examine the knots he had tied. The bandaged right hand had made him a bit clumsy. However, the knots looked good. He turned the torch on Henrietta— framed her in a pool of light, her white skin glowing through the torn frock. His eyes appraised, enjoyed, approved. Then, suddenly:

  “Where’s Frensham?” he demanded.

  All the answer Henrietta made was to put on her sandals and lead the way out.

  * * *

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  What are the dimensions of an Idea? Length? breadth? depth? Can it be measured by foot-rule or bushel or pound? Has one of you not known an idea? Are its dimensions—in number, space and kind, not infinite? Then do ye dare to tell me, who am teaching you the virtue of rebellion against the limits of the three dimensions in which ye strangle—do ye dare—do ye dare to tell me four (of all the infinite dimensions) are beyond the compass of experience, intelligence and knowledge?

  What is death? Can ye, or any of your holy, learned or reputedly informed authorities assure me, and produce their evidence, that Death is not experience of life in four dimensions? Thence, death again, experience of life in five dimensions? And so on—six—seven— unto eternity. And of eternity, where is the end?

  —From the Ninth (unfinished) Book of Noor Ali.

  IT WAS not yet sunset; the sky showed through the. gap in the roof. But the great pit was filled with gloom in which the cone-shaped sepulchre of Her of Gaglajung stood vaguely luminous. It seemed to stand on nothing, because of the darkness of the mound beneath it. The echoed gurgle and splash of water emphasized the stillness. Bats were awake; in thousands, like black particles in a whirlpool, they streamed in an ascending spiral toward the opening far overhead. Blair was almost out on his feet, from lack of sleep and physical exhaustion. The maddeningly mystic gloaming made his senses reel.

  He followed Henrietta slowly, fighting an almost overwhelming impulse to let everything go to hell and just make love to her. Habitual self-discipline—that, and the lingering suspicion of Wu Tu’s methods, that might have unbalanced him more than enough to make him act unwisely—forced him to concentrate effort on getting and feeling control of himself. He did that savagely, not overtaking Henrietta until she waited for him, in a hollow between two walls of waxy stalagmite, where the shadow lay deep. Her first words shocked him:

  “There will be a full moon.”

  What the hell had that to do with it? He was not there to talk about moonshine! The new-born sense of intimacy, sudden and delicious, that for the first time in his life had withdrawn the veil between him and any woman, produced a characteristic reaction. He was a trained and trusted public servant, whose personal delights came last, not first.

  “Where is your father?” he demanded in a quiet voice, cautious not to stir too many echoes. “Don’t forget I came here looking for him.”

  “Please, Blair, you must wait for moonlight.”

  He turned the torchlight on her. Her hand trembled as she laid the empty automatics on a fold of the rock. But she was less tired than he was. Stockingless, lithe, athletic, in a torn frock that revealed most of one thigh, she looked gorgeous—like a Sabine woman, plundered and all the more precious for that.

  He strode nearer and she recognized the unsecret, possessive, and strong-willed light that glowed from his eyes. No word passed between them. He switched o(T the torchlight, took her in his arms, kissed and crushed her , breathless.

  There was no India, no job, nothing for a while except they two—until the night shut down solidly black, and away up near the , summit of Gaglajung the Pleiades, like jewels, twinkled through, the gap.

  “No more secrets,” he said then.

  “No more secrets!” said an echo. Every spoken word produced a hollow murmur, but some words came back unexpectedly in an exaggerated whisper.

  “No. Blair, from the day I first loved you, I never wanted to keep a secret from you.”

  The policeman, that was the other half of Blair Warrender, resumed authority, suddenly, because that was his way.

  “And your father is where?” he asked her.

  “Where?” said the echo. “Where? Where?”

  She nestled closer, and laughed delightedly because she understood him. It was true they could have no secret from each other. That was his abrupt way of accepting intimacy, genuine and forever. But the echoes also laughed. They were derisive. She lowered her voice.

  “Blair, dear, please wait for the moon. Don’t you—won’t yo
u understand I couldn’t tell you simply and solely because I couldn’t?”

  “You could have tried,” he answered.

  “Blair, if you only knew, you wouldn’t say that. While you didn’t love me, but I did love you, there was one thing I couldn’t even try to do. Would you try, now, to make me despise you? If I had tried, you would have thought me quite mad. Even if you hadn’t said so, I would have known what you thought, and I couldn’t have endured that. It was better you should think me venomous, or criminal—oh, anything was better. It isn’t as if I could have made you believe. I couldn’t.. If you hadn’t come here, you would never have seen me again. You would never have known the secret; or I think not.”

  That startled him. He spoke louder. “Do you mean—”

  “Do you mean?” an echo whispered.

  “Oh, no, I would not have killed myself. There was no need. You will understand that presently. But you would never have seen me again.”

  “Wu Tu would have killed you?”

  “Oh, no. Wu Tu wants to learn the secret from me. If she has learned it, then it would have been too late to kill me.”

  “I’m being awfully patient, sweetheart.”

  “I know it. You will soon understand. You will see my difficulty. Father discovered this placed Do you know what his passionate interests were?”

  “Passionate interests!” said an echo. It was like a mocking commentary.

  “More or less. Fourth dimension—ancient magic—showers of fish in deserts—sudden appearance of plants and animals on desert islands—Charles Fort’s books—disappearance without trace of about a hundred thousand people every year—telepathy—clairvoyance—pretty” nearly everything a soldier shouldn’t care a damn about.”

  “True, he should not have been a soldier.”

  “For God’s sake, where is he?”

  “Where is he? Where is he?” an echo whispered. “Wait, dear, for moonlight.”