by Talbot Mundy
“I don’t understand.”
“I must wear your clothes. In the dark I shall get past the guard, making believe that I am you.”
“Then how shall I manage?”
“You must do as I say. I can contrive it. Come, the maids and I will make a true Rajputni of you. Only I must study how to walk as you do; please walk along in front of me — that way — follow Hasamurti through that door into my room. I will study how you move your feet and shoulders.”
Looking back as she followed Hasamurti, Tess witnessed a caricature of herself that made her laugh until the tears came.
“It is well!” said Yasmini. “This night began in hunger, like the young moon. Now is laughter without malice. In a few hours will be bright dawn — and after that, success!”
Chapter Eight
An Elephant Interlude
Watch your step where the elephants sway
Each at a chain at the end of a day,
Hurrumdi-didddlidi-um-di-ay!
Nothing to do but rock and swing,
Clanking an iron picket ring,
Plucking the dust to flirt and fling;
Keep et ceteras out of range,
Anything out of the way or strange
Suits us elephant folk for change -
Various odds and ends appeal
To liven the round of work and meal.
Curious trunks can reach and steal!
Fool with Two-tails if you dare;
Help yourself. But fool, beware!
Whatever results is your affair!
We are the easiest beasts that be,
Gentle and good and affectionate we,
You are the monarchs; we bow the knee,
Big and obese and obedient — um!
Just as long as it suits us — um!
Hurrumti-tiddli-di-um-ti-um!
(Unfortunately at this point Akbar’s attention was diverted to another matter, so the rest of his picket-song goes unrecorded.)
“They’re elephants and I’m a soldier. The trouble with you is nerves, my boy!”
There was brandy in the place that Tom Tripe knew of — brandy and tobacco and a smell of elephants. Dick Blaine, who scarcely ever touched strong liquor, having had intimate acquaintance with abuse of it in Western mining camps, had to sit and endure the spectacle of Tom’s chief weakness, glass after glass of the fiery stuff descending into a stomach long since rendered insatiable by soldiering on peppery food in a climate that is no man’s friend. He protested a dozen times.
“We may need our wits tonight, Tom. Suppose we both keep sober.”
“Man alive, I’ve been doing this for years. Brandy and brains are the same in my case. Keep me without it, and by bedtime I’m an invalid. Give me all I want of it, and I’m a crafty soldier-man.”
Dick Blaine refilled his pipe and watched for an opportunity. He had heard that kind of argument before, and had conquered flood and fire with the aid of the very men who used it, that being the gift (or whatever you like to call it) that had made him independent while the others drew monthly pay in envelopes.
It was a low oblong shed they sat in, with a wide door opening on a side street within four hundred yards of Yasmini’s palace gate. It was furnished with a table, two chairs and a cot for Tom Tripe’s special use whenever the maharajah’s business should happen to keep him on night duty, his own proper quarters being nearly a mile away. Alongside the shed was a very rough stable that would accommodate a horse or two, and the back wall was a mere partition of mud brick, behind which, under a thatched roof, were tethered some of the maharajah’s elephants. There were two windows in the wall, through which one could see dimly the great brutes’ rumps as they swayed at their pickets restlessly. The smell came through a broken pane, and every once in a while the Blaines’ horse, standing ready in the shafts outside with a blanket over him, squealed at it indignantly.
Tom’s horse dozed in the rough shed, being used to elephants.
Dick got up once or twice to peer through the window at the brutes.
“Are they tethered fore and aft?” he wondered.
“No,” Tom answered. “One hind foot only.”
“What’s to stop them from turning round and breaking down this rotten wall?”
“Nothing — except that they’re elephants. They could break their picket chains if they were minded to, same as I could break Gungadhura’s head and lose my job. But I won’t do it, and nor will they. They’re elephants, and I’m a soldier. The trouble with you is nerves, my boy. Have some brandy. You’re worried about your wife, but I tell you she’s right as a trivet. I’d trust my last chance with that little princess. I’ve done it often. Brandy’s the stuff to keep your hair on. Have some.”
The bottle had only been three parts full. Tom poured out the last of it and set a stone jorum of rum in readiness on the table over against the wall.
“Wish we had hot water handy,” he grumbled.
“Which of the elephants are tethered here?” asked Dick. “That big one that killed a tiger in the arena the other day?”
“Yes. Did you see that? Akbar was scarcely scratched. Quickest thing ever I saw — squealed with rage the minute they turned ‘stripes’ loose — chased him to the wall — downed him with a forefoot and crushed him into tiger jelly before you could say British Constitution!”
“I guess that tiger had been kept in a cage too long,” said Dick.
“Don’t you believe it. He was fighting fit. But they’d given old Akbar a skinfull of rum, and that turns him into a holy terror. He’s quite quiet other times.”
Dick looked at his watch. Tess had been in the palace about three hours, and he was confident she would come away as soon as possible, if for no other reason than to put an end to his anxiety. She was likely to appear at the gate at any minute. At any minute Tom Tripe was likely to attack the jorum, and if present symptoms went for anything, it would not take much of it to make him worse than useless. At present he was growing reminiscent.
“Once old Akbar had a belly-ache and they gave him arrak. They didn’t catch him for two days! He pulled up his picket-stake and lit out for the horizon, chasing dogs and hens and monkeys and anything else be could find that annoyed him. Screamed like a locomotive. Horrid sight!”
“Where does this road outside lead to?” asked Dick.
“Don’t lead anywhere. Blind alley. Why?”
“Oh, nothing.”
Dick was examining the wall between the shed they sat in and the stable-place next door. It was much stronger than the mud affair between them and the elephants. Tom Tripe had nearly finished his tumbler-full, and there was madness in the air that night that made a man take awfully long chances.
“Do you suppose a man could lose his way in the dark between here and the palace gate?”
“Not even if he was as drunk as Noah. All he’d have to do ‘ud be hold on to the wall and walk forward. The road turns a corner, but the walls are all blind and there’s no other way but past the palace. You sit here, though, my boy. No need to try that. Your wife’s all right.”
“Well, maybe I’d better stay here.”
“Sure.”
“Do you suppose I could back the dog-cart into the shed where your horse is? I hardly like to leave my horse standing any longer in the open, yet he’s better in the shafts in case we want him in a hurry.”
“Yes, the door’s wide enough.”
“Then I’ll do it.”
“Suit yourself. But take some of that rum before you go outside. The night air’s bad for your lungs. Help yourself and pass the bottle, as the Queen said to the Archbishop of Canterbury.”
“All right, I will.”
Dick poured a little on his handkerchief, thrust the handkerchief through the broken pane and waved it violently to spread the smell. It was cheap, immodest stuff, blatant with its own advertisement. Then he set the jorum down on the end of the table farthest from the wall, to the best of his judgment out of reach from the window.
“Come along, Tom,” he said then. “Help me with the horse.”
“What’s your hurry? Take a drink first.”
“No, let’s take one together afterward.”
He took Tom by the shoulder and pushed him to his feet.
“The horse might break away. Come on, man, hurry!”
Over his shoulder Dick could see a long trunk nosing its way gingerly through the broken pane and searching out the source of the alluring smell. He pushed Tripe along in front of him, and together they backed the dog-cart into the stable-place, making a very clumsy business of it for three reasons: Tom Tripe was none too sober: the horse was nearly crazy with fear of the uncanny brutes just beyond the wall; and Dick was in too much hurry for reasons of his own. However, they got horse and cart in backward, and the door shut before the crash came.
The crash was of a falling mud-brick wall, pushed outward by the shoulders of a pachyderm that wanted alcohol. The beast had had it out of all sorts of containers and knew the trick of emptying the last drop. The jorum was about his usual dose.
About two minutes later, while Dick and Tom Tripe between them held a horse in intolerable durance between the shafts, and Tom’s horse out of sympathy kicked out at random into every shadow he could reach, the door and part of the wall of Tom’s shed fell outward into the pitch dark street as Akbar, eleven feet four inches at the shoulder, strode forward conjecturing what worlds were yet to conquer. The other elephants stood motionless at their pickets. A terrified mahout emerged through the debris like a devil from bell’s bunkers, calling to his elephant all the endearing epithets he knew, and cursing him alternately. The horses grew calmer and submitted to caresses, like children and all creatures that have intimate contact with strong men; and presently the night grew still.
“D’you suppose that brute swiped my liquor?” wondered Tom Tripe.
“You mind the horses while I look.”
But suddenly there was a savage noise of trumpeting up-street, followed by a bark and a yelp of canine terror.
“God!” swore Tom. “That’s Trotters coming to fetch us! Akbar’s chasing him back this way! Hang on to the horse like ten men! I’ll go see!”
He was outside before Dick could remonstrate. Between them they had lashed the dog-cart wheels during the first panic, but even so Dick had his hands full, as the trumpeting drew nearer and the horse went into agonies of senseless fear. It was a fight, nothing less, between thinking man and mere instinctive beast, and eventually Dick threw him with a trick of the reins about his legs, and knelt on his head to keep him down. By the grace of the powers of unexpectedness neither shafts nor harness broke.
Outside in the darkness Tom Tripe peered through brandied eyes at a great shadow that hunted to and fro a hundred yards away, chasing something that was quite invisible, and making enough noise about it to awake the dead.
“Trotters!” he yelled. “Trotters!”
A moment later a smaller shadow came into view at top speed, panting, chased hotly by the bigger one.
“Trotters! Get back where you came from! Back, d’ye hear me! Back!”
Within ten yards of his master the dog stopped to do his thinking, and the elephant screamed with a sort of hunter’s ecstasy as he closed on him with a rush. But thought is swift, and obedience good judgment. The dog doubled of a sudden between Akbar’s legs and the elephant slid on his rump in the futile effort to turn after him — then crashed into the wall opposite Tripe’s dismantled shed — cannoned off it with a grunt of sheer disgust — and set off up-street, once more in hot pursuit.
“That brute got my good rum, damn him!” said Tom, opening the stable door. “Hello! Horse down? Any harm done? Right-oh! We’ll soon have him up again. Better hurry now — Trotters came for us.”
Chapter Nine
So many look at the color,
So many study design,
Some of ’em squint through a microscope
To judge if the texture is fine.
A few give a thought to the price of the stuff,
Some feel of the heft in the hand,
But once in a while there is one who can smile
And — appraising the lot — understand.
Look out,
When the seemingly sold understand!
All’s planned,
For the cook of the stew to be canned
Out o’ hand,
When the due to be choused understand!
“It means, the toils are closing in on Gungadhura!”
Within the palace Tess was reveling in vaudeville In the first place, Yasmini had no Western views on modesty. Whatever her mother may have taught her in that respect had gone the way of all the other handicaps she saw fit to throw into the discard, or to retain for use solely when she saw there was advantage. The East uses dress for ornament, and understands its use. The veil is for places where men might look with too bold eyes and covet. Out of sight of privileged men prudery has no place, and almost no advocates all the way from Peshawar to Cape Comorin.
And Yasmini had loved dancing since the days when she tottered her first steps for her mother’s and Bubru Singh’s delight. Long before an American converted the Russian Royal Ballet, and the Russian Royal Ballet in return took all the theatre-going West by storm — scandalizing, then amazing, then educating bit by bit — Yasmini had developed her own ideas and brought them by arduous practise to something near perfection. To that her strength, agility and sinuous grace were largely due; and she practised no deceptions on herself, but valued all three qualities for their effect on other people, keeping no light under a bushel.
The consciousness of that night’s climactic quality raised her spirits to the point where they were irrepressible, and she danced her garments off one by one, using each in turn as a foil for her art until there was nothing left with which to multiply rhythm and she danced before the long French mirrors yet more gracefully with nothing on at all.
Getting Tess disrobed was a different matter. She did not own to much prudery, but the maids’ eyes were over-curious. And, lacking, as she knew she did, Yasmini’s ability to justify nakedness by poetry of motion, she hid behind a curtain and was royally laughed at for her pains. But she was satisfied to retain that intangible element that is best named dignity, and let the laughter pass unchallenged. Yasmini, with her Eastern heritage, could be dignified as well as beautiful as nature made her. Not so Tess, or at any rate she thought not, and what one thinks is after all the only gage acceptable.
Then came the gorgeous fun of putting on Tess’s clothes, each to be danced in as its turn came, and made fun of, so that Tess herself began to believe all Western clothes were awkward, idiotic things — until Yasmini stood clothed complete at last, with her golden hair all coiled under a Paris hat, and looked as lovely that way as any. The two women were almost exactly the same size. Even the shoes fitted, and when Yasmini walked the length of the room with Tess’s very stride and attitude Tess got her first genuine glimpse of herself as another’s capably critical eyes saw her — a priceless experience, and not so humiliating after all.
They dressed up Tess in man’s clothes — a young Rajput’s — a suit Yasmini had worn on one of her wild excursions, and what with the coiled turban of yellow silk and a little black mustache adjusted by cunning fingers she felt as happy as a child in fancy dress. But she found it more difficult to imitate the Rajput walk than Yasmini did to copy her tricks of carriage. For a few minutes they played at walking together up and down the room before the mirror, applauded by the giggling maids. But then suddenly came anti-climax. There was a great hammering at the outer door, and one of the maids ran down to investigate, while they waited in breathless silence.
The news the maid brought back was the worst imaginable. The look-out at the northern corner of the wall (Yasmini kept watch on her captors as rigorously as they spied on her) had run with the word to the gateman that Gungadhura himself was coming with three eunuchs, all four on foot.
&n
bsp; Almost as soon as the breathless girl could break that evil tidings there came another hammering, and this time Hasamurti went down to answer. Her news was worse. Gungadhura was at the outer gate demanding admission, and threatening to order the guard to break the gate in if refused.
“What harm can he do?” demanded Tess. “He won’t dare try any violence in front of me. Let us change clothes again.”
Yasmini laughed at her.
“A prince on a horse may ride from harm,” she answered. “When princes walk, let other folk ‘ware trouble! He comes to have his will on me. Those eunuchs are the leash that always hunt with him by night. They will manhandle you, too, if they once get in, and Gungadhura will take his chance of trouble afterward. The guard dare not refuse him.”
“What shall we do?” Tess wondered. “Can we hide?” Then, pulling herself together for the sake of her race and her Western womanhood: “If we make noise enough at the gate my husband will come. We’re all right.”
“If there are any gods at all,” said Yasmini piously, “they will consider our plight. I think this is a vengeance on me because I said I will leave my maids behind. I will not leave them! Hasamurti — you and the others make ready for the street!”
That was a simple matter. In three minutes all five women were back in the room, veiled from head to foot. But the hammering at the front door was repeated, louder than before. Tess wondered whether to hope that the risaldar of the guard had already reported to Gungadhura the lady doctor’s visit, or to hope that he had not.
“We will all go down together now,” Yasmini decided, and promptly she started to lead the way alone. But Hasamurti sprang to her side, and insisted with tears on disguising herself as her mistress and staying behind to provide one slim chance for the rest to escape.
“In the dark you will pass for the memsahib,” she urged. “The memsahib will pass for a man. Wait by the gate until the maharajah enters, while I stand at the door under the lamp as a decoy. I will run into the house, and he will follow with the eunuchs, while the rest of you slip out through the gate, and run before the guard can close it. Perhaps one, at least, of the other maids had better stay with me.”
