by Talbot Mundy
“Who is that Lama who was in here just now?” Ommony went on.
“Tsiang Samdup.”
Chutter Chand did not catch that name; or, if he did, the name meant nothing to him. Ommony, on the other hand, had to use all his power of will to suppress excitement, and even so he could not quite control himself. The Hillman noticed the change of expression.
“Aye,” he said, “Tsiang Samdup is a great one.”
“Who is the other who was with him — the young one?”
“His chela.”*
“What name?”
“Samding. Some call him San-fun-ho.”
“And what have you to do with them?”
Instead of answering, the Hillman retorted with a question.
“What is thy name? Say it again. Ommonee? That sounds like a name with magic in it. Om mani padme hum!* Who gave thee that name? Eh? Thy father had it? Who was he? How is it a man should take his father’s name? Is the spirit of the father not offended? Thou art a strange one, Ommonee.”
“Why did you come in here some days ago and threaten Chutter Chand?” asked Ommony.
“Why not!” said the Hillman. “Did I not ride under a te-rain, like a leech on the belly of a horse, more hours and miles than an eagle knows of? Did I not eat dust — and nothing else? Did I not follow that rat Tin Lal to this place? Did I not — pretending to admire the cobra in the window — see him with my own eyes sell the green stone to this little lover-of-snakes? I said too much. I did too little. I should have slain them both! But I feared, because I am a stranger in the city and there were many people. Moreover, I had already slain a man — a Hindu, who drove an iron car and broke the wheel of the cart I rode in. I slew him with a spoke from the broken wheel. And it seemed to me that if I should slay another man too soon thereafter, it might fare ill with me, since the gods grow weary of protecting a man too often. So I returned four days later, thinking the gods might have forgotten the previous affair. They owe me many favors. I have treated the gods handsomely. And when this little rat of a jeweler swore he no longer had the stone, I threatened him. I would have slain him if I thought he really had it, but it seemed to me he told the truth. And he promised to get the stone back from someone to whom he had entrusted it. And I, vowing I would sever him in halves unless he should keep faith, went and told Tsiang Samdup, who came here accordingly, I following to protect the old man. I suppose Tsiang Samdup now has the stone. Is that so?”
“He shall have it,” said Ommony.
“I think thou art not a liar,” said the Hillman, looking straight into Ommony’s eyes. “Now, I am a liar. If I should have said that to thee, it would only be a fool who would believe me, and a fool is nothing to be patient with. But I am not a fool, and I believe thee — or I would plunge this knife into thy liver! Who taught thee to speak my language?”
Ommony saw fit not to answer that. “Is it not enough for thee that I can speak it? Where can I find the holy Lama Tsiang Samdup?”
“Oh, as to that, he is not particularly holy — although others seem to think he is; but I am from Spiti, where we study devils and consider nonsense all this talk about purity and self-abnegation and Nirvana.* Who wants to go to Nirvana? What a miserable place — just nothing! Besides, I know better. I have studied these things. It is very simple. Knife a man in the bowels, as the Gurkhas do with a kukri, or as I do as a rule, and he goes to hell for a while; he has a chance; by and by he comes to life again. Cut his throat, however, and he dwells between earth and heaven; he will come and haunt thee, having nothing else to do, and that is very bad. Hit him here—” (he laid a finger on his forehead, just above the nose)— “and he is dead. That should only be done to men who are very bad indeed. And that is the whole secret of religion.”
Ommony looked serious. “I would like to talk to you about religion—”
“Oh, I could teach you the whole of it in a very short time.”
“ — but meanwhile, I would like to know where the holy Lama Tsiang Samdup is staying.”
“I don’t know,” said the Hillman.
“You are lying,” said Ommony. “Is that not so?”
“Of course. Did you think I would tell you the truth?”
“No. That hardly occurred to me. Well—”
Diana came in, waving her long tail slowly. She flopped on the floor beside Ommony and there was silence for about a minute while the Hillman stared at her and she returned the gaze with interest. Finally her lip curled, showing a prodigious yellow fang and Ommony laid a hand on her head to silence a thunderous growl.
“That is an incarnation of a devil!” said the Hillman. “In my country we keep dogs as big as her to eat corpses. Devils, as a rule, are very evil, but I think that one—” (he nodded at the dog) “ — is worse than others. Well — I go. Say to that fool at the door that he should not offend me with his little stick, for it may be he desires to live. I am glad I met thee, Ommonee.”
He waved his hand, smiled like a Chinese cherub, and walked out, ignoring Chutter Chand as utterly as if he had never seen him; and at the door he smiled at the policeman as the sun smiles on manure. The policeman did his best, but could not keep himself from grinning back.
CHAPTER V. The House at the End of the Passage
He who puts his hand into the fire knows what he may expect. Nor may the fire be blamed.
He who intrudes on a neighbor may receive what he does not expect. Nor may the neighbor be blamed.
The fire will not be harmed; but the neighbor may be. And every deed of every kind bears corresponding consequences to the doer. You may spend a thousand lives repaying wrong done to a neighbor.
Therefore, of the two indiscretions prefer thrusting your own hand into the fire.
But there is a Middle Way, which avoids all trespassing.
— from The Book of the Sayings of Tsiang Samdup
CHUTTER CHAND’S usefulness had vanished. His brain did not function now that fear had the upper hand. He could think of nothing but the Hillman’s knife and of the possibility that there might be more Hillmen, who would knock down the policeman at the door, storm the shop, loot everything and slay.
“I tell you, Ommonee, you have only lived in India twenty years. You do not know these people!”
He began hurriedly putting in order a mechanical system of wire and weights by which the snakes might be released in an emergency, all the while complaining bitterly against a government whose laws forbade the keeping of firearms by responsible, reputable, law-abiding citizens.
Ommony laughed and walked out with both fists in his pockets, preceded by Diana, who was a lady of one idea at a time, and that one next door to an obsession. She had “seen ’em home.” Ergo, she should now show Ommony where “home” was, and he was quite satisfied to follow her. To have tracked Dawa Tsering the Hillman would simply have been waste of time, for the man would soon see he was followed and would almost certainly play a great game of follow-my-leader all over town. Moreover, the very name of the Lama-Tsiang Samdup — had excited Ommony in the sort of way that news of an ancient tomb excites an archeologist.
It was well on toward evening — that quarter-of-an-hour when the streets are most densely thronged and every one seems in a hurry to get home or to get something done before starting homeward. All cities are alike in that respect; there is a spate before the slack of supper-time and temple services.
The hound threaded her way patiently through the crowd and turned down a narrow thoroughfare past fruit and vegetable shops, where chafferers were arguing to cheapen produce at the day’s end and all the races of the Punjab seemed to be mixed in tired confusion — faded and ill-tempered because the evening breeze had not yet come, and walls were giving off the oven-heat they had stored up during the day.
There was no especial need to take precautions. Sufficient time had elapsed since the Lama and his young companion left the Chandni Chowk to convince them they had not been followed; and in any case, the most ill-advised thing Ommony could h
ave done would have been to act secretively. A man attracts the least attention if he goes straight forward.
Those who noticed him at all admired, or feared, the dog, and she paid no attention even to the mongrels of her own genus, who snarled from a respectable distance or fled down alleyways. Diana turned at last down suffocating passages that led one into another between blind walls, where death might overtake a man without causing a stir a dozen yards away. But if you think of death in India, you die. To live, you must think of living, and be interested.
One of the passages opened at last into a square, whose walls were built of blocks that had been quarried from the ancient city; (for cities surrender themselves to posterity, even as human mothers do). The paving was of the same material, still bearing traces of the ancient carving, but rearranged at random so that the pattern was all gone. At the end of the courtyard was a stone building of three stories, whose upper windows overlooked it. (Those below had been bricked up.) There was an open door in the wall, that led into a long arched passage in which other doors to right and left were visible. Diana ran straight to the open door, and stopped.
Ommony began to feel now like a sailor on a lee shore, with rocks ahead and pirates to windward. It was growing dark, for one thing. At any moment the Hillman with the saw-edged knife and the haphazard notions about death might approach down the passage from the rear. Forward lay unknown territory, and a buttery smell that more than hinted at the presence of northerners, whose notions of hospitality might be less than none at all. He could be seen through the window-shutters, but could not see in through them. And he had in his pocket the lump of jade, that had lured men all the way from beyond Tilgaun into the hot plains that they hate. He wished he had left the jade somewhere.
It was the sound of a footstep some distance behind, that might be the Hillman’s, which decided him. He strode forward and entered the door, his footsteps echoing under the arch. Diana followed, growling; she seemed to have a feeling they were being watched.
The passage presently turned to right and left in darkness, and Ommony, as he paused to consider, became acutely conscious that his trespass was not only rash, but impudent. He had no vestige of right to intrude himself into the quarters of strangers, nor had he the excuse that he did not know what he was doing. A tourist might commit such an impertinence and be forgiven on the ground of ignorance, but if he should be knifed for ill-manners he would not be entitled to the slightest sympathy. He decided at once to retrace his steps; and as he turned to face the dim light in the doorway a voice spoke to him in English suddenly, making his skin creep.
Diana barked savagely at a small iron grating in a door to one side of the passage, filling the arch with echoes. It took him several seconds to get the dog quiet. Then the voice again:
“Go away from here! Go away quickly!”
It sounded like a boy’s voice — young — educated. It was not pitched high; there was no note of excitement — hardly any emphasis. Diana barked again furiously, and there was no time for hesitation; either he was in danger or he was not; the hound said, Yes; the boy’s voice implied it; curiosity said, Stay! Common sense said, Make for the open quickly! Intuition said, Jump! and intuition is a despot whom it is not wise to disobey.
He reached the courtyard neck and neck with Diana, who nearly knocked him over as she faced about savagely with every hair bristling, fangs bared, eyes aglare. He seized her by collar and tail and threw his weight backward to stop her from springing at the throat of a man in dingy gray, who paused in mid-stride, one hand behind him, in the doorway. There was another man behind him, dimly outlined in the gloom. Their faces, high-cheek-boned and fanatical — almost Chinese — were fiercely confident, and why they paused was not self-evident; for the man who held a hand behind his back was armed, and with something heavy, as the angle of his shoulder proved.
Diana saved that second. Her animal instinct was quicker than Ommony’s eye, that read anticipation in the faces in front of him. She nearly knocked Ommony over again as she reversed the direction of effort, broke the collar- hold and sprang past him, burying her fangs in something (Ommony knew that gurgling, smothered growl). She had knocked him sidewise and he spun to regain his balance while a ten-pound tulwar split the whistling air where his back had been. He was just in time to seize the wrist that swung the weapon — seize it with both hands and wrench it forward in the direction of effort. The saw-edged tulwar clattered on the paving-blocks, but the enemy did not fall, for Diana had him by the throat and was wrenching in the opposite direction. It was Dawa Tsering!
The Hillman’s hands groped for the hound’s forelegs; to wrench those apart was his only chance, unless Ommony could save him. A spring tiger-trap was more likely to let go than Diana with a throat-hold. Ommony took the only chance in sight; he yelled “Guard!” to Diana, and crashed his fist into the Hillman’s jaw, knocking him flat on his back as Diana let up for a fraction of a second to see what the new danger might be. He seized her by the tail then and dragged her off before she could rush in to worry her fallen foe.
Her turn again! Struggling to free herself, she dragged Ommony in a half- circle, nearly pulling him off his feet as the man in the doorway lunged with a long old-fashioned sword. The third man seemed to prefer discretion, for he still lurked in the shadow, but the man with the sword came on, using both hands now and raising the sword above his head for a swipe that should finish the business.
There was nothing for it but to let Diana go. Ommony yelled “Guard!” again, and jumped for the saw-edged tulwar that had clattered away into the shadow. His foot struck it and he stooped for it as the swordsman swung. The blow missed. Diana seized the foe from behind and ripped away yards of his long cloak. Dawa Tsering struggled to his feet, more stunned by the blow on the back of his head when he fell than mangled by Diana’s jaws; he staggered and seemed to have no sense of direction yet.
And now Ommony had the tulwar. He was no swordsman, but neither was his antagonist, who was furthermore worried by Diana from the rear.
“Guard, girl!” Ommony yelled at her, and discipline overcame instinct. She began to keep her distance, rushing in to scare the man and scooting out of reach when he turned to use his weapon. The third man possibly had no sword, for he still lurked in the doorway. Ommony ran, calling Diana, who came bounding after him, turning at every third stride or so to bark thunderous defiance.
The strange thing was that no crowd had come. The walls had echoed Diana’s barks and Ommony’s sharp yells to her, that must have sounded like the din of battle in the stone-walled silence. It was almost pitch-dark now, and there were no lights from the upper windows, although the glow of street-lights was already visible like an aura against the sly. The whole affair began to seem like a dream, and Ommony felt his hip pocket to make sure the jade was still there. He paused in the throat of the narrow passage by which he had come, sent the hound in ahead of him, and turned to see if he was followed. He heard footsteps, and waited. In that narrow space, with Diana to guard his back, he felt he could protect himself with the tulwar against all-comers.
But it was only one man — Dawa Tsering — holding a cloth to his throat and walking unsteadily.
“Give me back my weapon, Ommonee!”
The words, spoken in Prakrit, were intelligible enough but gurgled, as if his throat was choked and hardly functioning. Diana tried to rush at him, but Ommony squeezed her to the wall and grabbed her collar.
“Down!” he ordered, and she crouched at his feet, growling.
“Aye, hold her! I have had enough of that incarnated devil. Give me my knife, Ommonee!”
“You call this butcher’s ax a knife! You rascal, it’s not a minute since you tried to kill me with it!”
“Aye, but that is nothing. I missed. If you were dead, you might complain. Give me the knife and be off!”
Ommony laughed. “You propose to have another crack at me, eh?”
“Not I! Those Lamas area lousy gang! They told me I could
come to no harm if I obeyed them and said my prayers! Their magic is useless. That she-devil of thine has torn my throat out! I doubt if I shall ever sing again. Give me the knife, and I will go back to the Hills. I wish I had never left Spiti!”
“I told you I am a friend,” said Ommony, spearing about in his mind for a clue as to how to carry on.
“Aye. I wish I had believed you. Give me the knife.”
“Do you know your way around Delhi?”
“No. May devils befoul the city! That is, I know a little. I can find my way to the te-rain.”
Ommony felt in his pocket, found an envelope, and penciled an address on it in bold printed characters.
“Midway between ten and eleven o’clock tonight, go out into the streets and get into the first gharry* you meet.
Give that to the driver. If the driver can’t read it, show it to passers-by until you find someone who can. Then drive straight to that address, and I will pay the gharry-wallah.* If your throat needs doctoring, it shall have it.”
“And my knife?”
“I will return it to you tonight, at that address.”
“All right. I will come there.”
“I suppose, if I had given you the knife back now, you would have killed me with it!”
“Maybe. But you are no fool, Ommonee! You had better go quickly, before those Lamas find some way of making trouble for you.”
Ommony accepted that advice, although he did not believe that, if they really were Lamas, they would go out of their way to make trouble for anyone outside their own country. It is one thing to attack an intruder; quite another thing to follow a man through the streets and murder him. He was glad he had hurt nobody. Dawa Tsering’s hurt was plainly not serious. There is no satisfaction whatever in violence (if it can possibly be avoided) to a man of Ommony’s temperament. He walked in a hurry along the narrow, winding passageways and found the street again, bought food for Diana, gave her the package to carry (for she was temperamentally dangerous in a crowd after having used her jaws in action, unless given something definite to do), and after fifteen minutes’ search found a gharry, in which he drove to McGregor’s office. McGregor was not there, so he pursued him to his bungalow, where he fed Diana and examined curios for fifteen minutes before deciding what to say.
