by Talbot Mundy
“What do you want here?” demanded Jeremy, looking straight into the face of the erstwhile prisoner.
“Protection!” he answered, rather humbly. “Bhima Ghandava has disappeared.”
“What of it?” asked Jeremy.
“He is that member of the Nine Unknown whom I was to have killed! I betrayed my party to him, thinking it better that they should all perish. But now Ghandava sahib has disappeared, and I have no friends!”
Chullunder Ghose tapped him on the shoulder.
“Have you money?” he demanded. “No? Jewelry? No? Well — am charitable. This babu will give advice in forma pauperis . Go and be a hermit, which is proper course for individual with aching conscience and no friends! Go! Be off! In words of Hamlet, stay not—”
But the man in yellow was already gone; perhaps he was afraid of King and Grim, angry, sweating, baffled, who came hurrying across the temple courtyard.
“Bhima Ghandava has disappeared!” King announced out of breath, and then listened while Ramsden related what had happened.
They went and pounded on the door of the house where they had been lodged, but none answered, and they desisted at last in fear of the police. However, the police were all busy on the waterfront, where an ancient ruin on which fakirs used to stand in turns, had vanished into the river — by earthquake, as the newspapers asserted afterward — although no seismographs recorded any earthquake in Benares.
There was nothing to be done but to return to Delhi, and no man but Cyprian to whom they dared to go. To have asked anybody else to obtain European clothing for them would have led too surely to enquiry. They searched for him first at Ghandava’s house, but found that empty and deserted. Cyprian was back in his own home, being nursed by Manoel, who looked ashamed — repentant.
“The rascal!” said Cyprian. “The rogue! The impudent, incorrigible sinner! You remember, there was a front page missing from one of my occult books that be had hidden under a blanket in the pantry? Well, he, Manoel had torn it out. I found him — where do you think? I found him in a rear room in a back-street starting a new religion with the aid of that page of symbols! Rascal! But he is not altogether bad. He has been a comfort. See, my sons — my house is clean again!”
“But why did you leave Ghandava’s house?” asked Jeremy.
“They came and took all the furniture away!”
“Who did?”
“I don’t know. People I had never seen before. They provided me with a carriage to come home in, but gave no explanations. I hope Ghandava is not in difficulties. He was always a courteous host and a considerate friend, but there is only one possible result of dabbling in occultism and the black arts.”
“We heard,” said Jeremy, “that he is one of the NINE — one of the actual NINE UNKNOWN.”
“Oh, no,” said Cyprian. “Oh, no! I don’t believe it. Whoever the Nine Unknown are, they are devils — men without souls! Bhima Ghandava is a gentleman. No, no, he can’t be one of them.”
“Nevertheless, Pop, I believe he is!” said Jeremy.
“So do I,” said King and Grim together.
“I’m pretty nearly sure of it,” said Ramsden cautiously. “Remember: he said that what we saw was merely a trifle — nothing compared to all the other knowledge of the Nine Unknown.”
“My son, it is easy to say things,” said Cyprian.
“Aye,” exclaimed Narayan Singh, “and difficult to know things. But I know . And no man can persuade me I do not know. Bhima Ghandava is one of them.”
“Knowledge,” said Chullunder Ghose, rubbing his fat stomach, “what is knowledge for, if not for use? Myself, am pragmatist. Myself, am satisfied that sahibs wisely trusting this babu to hold his tongue will provide same abject individual with continuous employment at a generous remuneration. No, sahibs , no! Am good sport! No — no threat intended! Blackmail not included in my compendium of ways and means! Am gentleman, accepting sportsmanlike standard of West and looking forward to reward—”
“In hell, I’m afraid, unless you mend your ways, my, friend!” said Cyprian.
THE END
OM: THE SECRET OF AHBOR VALLEY
This novel was heavily influenced by Mundy’s new found interest in theosophy (a movement founded in America in the 1870’s to explore mystical and occult philosophies). Previously Mundy had been a Christian Scientist for a number of years, but he resigned from that movement in 1923. Naturally enough and probably in keeping with many novelists, Mundy explored his spiritual enquiries through his writing and such was the involvement of his new found interest in the plot that Adventure magazine felt compelled to publish a disclaimer stating that they did not endorse the esoteric movement. By now a publishing routine of sorts had been established and the tale was serialised in Adventure magazine in 1924 and then published in book form by Bobs-Merrill. Despite the narrowness of the subject matter the novel was very well received by critics and the public and Mundy received hundreds of complimentary letters from fans of the book. It has widely been regarded as the most “literary” of his works and as such, one of his best; Mundy himself wrote that the novel was “soaked with sound philosophy and stirring mystery”.
Cottswold Ommony is a remarkable fellow. He is regarded at his gentlemen’s’ club in Dehli with a mixture of deep admiration, envy and some suspicion. Not only is he a gifted plantation manager and planter, he has an affinity with animals and is reputed to be able to communicate with tigers; a quiet, mature man, he seems always to succeed and no scandal ever seems to tarnish his reputation; one fellow club member comments, “he always gets what he goes after”. However, as the story opens Ommony is unaccountably irritable and cynical, reappearing suddenly with his huge wolfhound Diana after a long absence in the hills. This is no holiday, however – Ommony and Diana make their way to a meeting with a fellow Briton, John McGregor and it becomes apparent to the reader from the conversation that Ommony is some form of secret agent, recently returned from a mission. McGregor shows his agent a special piece of jade that apparently has supernatural properties, so much so that Ommony refuses to gaze into it, but McGregor entrusts the stone to his care and instructs Ommony to venture out into the mysterious and perilous Abhor region to investigate the mystery behind the piece of jade. What ancient artefact has it been broken from? What are the mysterious powers it has? How is it connected with a long acquaintance of Ommony’s, Hannah Sanburn and her adopted daughter whom no-one has ever seen? It transpires that more people have an interest in the jade than at first thought, including a Tibetan Lama and before long Ommony and Diana are in danger of their lives.
A bare summary of the first part of the plot of this story cannot adequately convey the intriguing nature of this novel. It is packed with philosophical discourse and ideas that are fascinating, although at times they do distract the mind from the action, rather like the mysterious piece of jade drawing one’s thoughts into new directions. Generally speaking, Mundy manages to avoid too much stereotyping on non-European people, as his adverse views of British rule come through loud and clear in the voice of Ommony. It will not appeal to everyone, but for anyone in the present day that has an interest in all things spiritual, esoteric or in the Eastern philosophies, it will be a very entertaining read.
The first edition
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. “Cottswold Ommony is no man’s fool.”
CHAPTER II. Number One Of The Secret Service
CHAPTER III. “What is fear?”
CHAPTER IV. “I am one who strives to tread the middle way.”
CHAPTER V. The House at the End of the Passage
CHAPTER VI. “Missish-Anbun is mad.”
CHAPTER VII. “Sarcasm? I wonder if that ever pays.”
CHAPTER VIII. The Middle Way
CHAPTER IX. “Gupta Rao”
CHAPTER X. Vasantasena
CHAPTER XI. “All this in the space of one night.”
CHAPTER XII. “All things end — even carriage rides.”
CHAPTER
XIII. San-Fun-Ho
CHAPTER XIV. The Second Act
CHAPTER XV. The Roll-Call by Night
CHAPTER XVI. “Where are we?”
CHAPTER XVII. Diana Rehearses a Part
CHAPTER XVIII. Diana Adopts Buskins
CHAPTER XIX. A Message from Miss Sanburn
CHAPTER XX. Ommony Capitulates
CHAPTER XXI. The Lay of Alha
CHAPTER XXII. Darjeeling
CHAPTER XXIII. Tilgaun
CHAPTER XXIV. Hanna Sanburn
CHAPTER XXV. The Compromise
CHAPTER XXVI. Ahbor Valley Gate
CHAPTER XXVII. Under the Brahmaputra
CHAPTER XXVIII. The Lama’s Home
CHAPTER XXIX. The Lama’s Story
CHAPTER XXX. The Lama’s Story (Continued)
CHAPTER XXXI. The Jade of Ahbor
CHAPTER I. “Cottswold Ommony is no man’s fool.”
Tides in the ocean of stars and the infinite rhythm of space;
Cycles on cycles of aeons adrone on an infinite beach;
Pause and recession and flow, and each atom of dust in its place
In the pulse of eternal becoming; no error, no breach
But the calm and the sweep and the swing of the leisurely,measureless roll
Of the absolute cause, the unthwarted effect — and no haste,
And no discord, and nothing untimed in a calculus ruling the whole;
Unfolding; evolving; accretion; attrition; no waste.
Planet on planet a course that it keeps, and each swallow its flight;
Comet’s ellipse and grace-note of the sudden firefly glow;
Jewels of Perseid splendor sprayed on summer’s purple night;
Blossom adrift on the breath of spring; the whirl of snow;
Grit on the grinding beaches; spume of the storm-ridden wave
Hurled on the north wind’s ice-born blast to blend with the tropic rain;
Hail and the hissing of torrents; song where sapphire ripples lave
The crest of thousand-fathom reefs upbuilt beneath the main,
Silt of the ceaseless rivers from the mountain summits worn,
Rolled along gorge and meadow till the salt, inflowing tide
Heaps it in shoals at harbor-mouth for continents unborn;
Earth where the naked rocks were reared; pine where the birches died;
Season on season proceeding, and birth in the shadow of death;
Dawning of luminous day in the dying of night; and a Plan
In no whit, in no particle changing; each phase of becoming a breath
Of the infinite Karma of all things; its goal, evolution of MAN.
— Evolution
IF you want views about the world’s news, read what Cottswold Ommony calls the views papers; there is plenty in them that thoroughly zealous people believe. But remember the wise old ambassador’s word of caution to his new subordinate— “And above all, no zeal!” If you want raw facts devoid of any zeal whatever try the cafes and the clubs; but you must sort the facts and correlate them for yourself, and whether or not that process shall leave you capable of thought of any kind must depend entirely on your own ability. Thereafter, though you may never again believe a newspaper, you will understand them and if you are reasonably human sympathize.
There used to be a cafe, in Vienna, where a man might learn enough in fifty minutes to convince him that Europe was riding carelessly to ruin; but that was before 1914 when the riders, using rein and spur at last, rode straight for it.
There is still a club in Delhi, where you may pick up odds and ends of information from over the Pamirs, from Nepal, from Samarkand, Turkestan, Arabia and the Caucasus, all mixed up with fragments from the olla podrida* of races known collectively as India. And having pieced them all together you may go mad there, as comfortably as in Colney Hatch, but with this advantage that nobody will interfere with you, provided you pay your bills on the first of the month and refrain from sitting on two newspapers while you read a third.
It is a good club, of the die-hard kind; fairly comfortable, famous for its curry. It has done more to establish empire, and to breed ill-will, than any other dozen institutions. Its members do not boast, but are proud of the fact that no Indian, not even a Maharajah,* has ever set foot over its threshold; yet they are hospitable, if a man knows how to procure the proper introduction (no women are admitted on any pretense), and by keeping quiet in a long-armed chair you may receive an education. You may learn, for instance, who is and who is not important, and precisely why. You may come to understand how the old guard, everywhere, inevitably must die in the last ditch. And, if you have it in you, you will admire the old guard, without trying to pretend that you agree with them.
But above all, you may study the naked shape of modern history as she is never written — history in the bathroom, so to speak. And once in a while, you may piece together a dozen assorted facts into a true story that is worth more than all the printed histories and all the guide-books added together. (Not that the club members realize it. They are usually bored, and almost always thinking about income-tax and indigestion, coupled with why in thunder so-and-so was fool enough to bid no trumps and trust to his partner to hold the necessary ace.)
When Ommony turned up at the club after three years in a forest he produced a refreshing ripple on a calm that had grown monotonous. For a week there had been nothing to discuss but politics, in which there is no news nowadays, but only repetition of complaint. But Cottswold Ommony, the last of the old-time foresters (and one of the few remaining men in India whom the new democracy has not reduced to a sort of scapegoat rubber-stamp), stirred memories and conjecture.
“His turn for the guillotine! He has done too damned well for twenty years, not to have his head cut off. I’ll bet you some babu* politician gets his job!”
“You’ll have to make that bet with Ommony, if he’s mad enough. Didn’t you hear poor Willoughby was killed? That leaves Jenkins at the head of Ommony’s department, and they’ve hated each other since Jenkins turned down Ommony’s younger sister and Ommony told him what he thought about it. Not that the girl wasn’t fortunate in a way. She married Terry later on and died. Who’d not rather die than have to live with Jenkins. Willoughby always considered Ommony to be a reincarnation of Solon or Socrates, plus Aristides crossed on Hypatia.* Willoughby—”
But everybody knew the ins and outs of that news. A fat babu in a dirty pink turban that would have scared any self-respecting horse, driving a second-hand Ford, with one eye on the Punjabi “constabeel” at the street crossing, bumped into and broke the wheel of Willoughby’s dogcart, setting any number of sequences in motion. The horse bolted, tipped out Willoughby, who was killed under a tram-car, and crashed into Amramchudder Son and Company’s open store-front, where blood from the horse’s shoulder spoiled two bales of imported silk. A lawsuit to recover ten times the value of the silk was commenced against Willoughby’s estate that afternoon. (Mrs. Willoughby had to borrow money from friends to carry on with.)
The babu put on full speed, naturally, and tried to escape down a side- street, of which there are as many, and as narrow ones in Delhi as in any city of its size. He ran over a Bengali (which nobody except the Bengali minded very much), knocked down two Sikhs* (which was important, because they were on their way to a religious ceremony; righteous indignation is very bad stuff when spilled in the street), and finally jammed the Ford between a bullock-cart and a lamp-post, where the pride of Detroit collapsed into scrap.
The owner of the bullock-cart, a Jat* with a wart on his nose, which his mother-in-law had always insisted would bring bad luck (she said so at the trial later on, and brought three witnesses to prove it), was carrying, for an extortionate price, a native of a far-northern state, who had recently arrived by train without a ticket, and who knew how to be prompt and violent. The man from Spiti (which is the name of the northern state) descended from his perch at the rear of the cart, picked up a spoke that the collision had
broken away, and hit the babu with it exactly once between the eyes. The babu died neatly without saying anything; and a hot crowd of nine nationalities, that was glad to see anybody die with politics the way they had been for a year or two, applauded.
The man from Spiti vanished. The “constabeel” arrested the owner of the bullock-cart, who turned his face skyward and screamed “Ayee-ee-ee!” once, which was duly noted in a memorandum book for use as evidence against him. Seventeen onlookers, being questioned, all gave false names and addresses, but swore that the Jat with the wart had attacked the babu; and a wakil (which is a person entitled to practice law), who knew all about the Jat’s recent inheritance from his uncle, offered legal services that were accepted on the spot. Presently, in the jail, a jemadar* and two “constabeels” put the Jat through a hideously painful third degree, which left no marks on him but did induce him to part with money, most of which was spent on a debauch that ended in the jemadar being reduced to the ranks since the wakil objected on principle to sharing the loot of the Jat with any one and therefore righteously exposed the jemadar’s abominable drunkenness.
Meanwhile, the native papers took the matter up and proved to nine points of decimals that the incident was wholly due to British arrogance and the neglect of public duty by an “overpaid alien hegemony,” demonstrating among other things that the British are a race “whose crass materialism is an insult to the spiritual soul of India, and whose playing fields of Eton are an ash-bed from which arise swarms of Phoenixes to suck the life-blood of conquered peoples.” (Excellent journalese conceived on the historic principle that if you make sufficient smell you are sure to annoy somebody, and he who is annoyed will make mistakes, which you may then gleefully expose.)
The Sikhs who had been knocked down by the Ford accused the “obsequious servants of alien tyranny” — meaning the police — of having tried to prevent them from attending their religious ceremony; the fact being that the police had taken them to the hospital in an ambulance. The entire Sikh community in consequence refused to pay taxes, which set up another sequence of cause and effect, culminating in a yell of “Bande Materam!”* as three or four thousand second-year students, who were not Sikhs, rushed foaming at the mouth into the Chandni Chowk (which is a business thoroughfare) with the intention of looting the silversmiths and putting the whole city to the torch. A fire-engine dispersed them; but the stream of water from the hose ruined the contents of Chanda Pal’s drug-store.
