Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  And in the evening came Chullunder Ghose, a sturdy-legged pony panting under him, three or four chins all grinning, a new heliotrope turban impudently poised on his enormous head, and a fat, sleek, pompous, half-ingratiating, half-truculent swagger, announcing the fact that he was glad to see us — not a doubt of that.

  “Rammy sahib! And Jimgrim sahib! I am jolly well reborn! This babu might be father of twins, so proud I am at this summons, which is, doubtless, prelude to an offer of emolument! Oh yes, believe me, both yours very truly! Only name job and be done with it!”

  Ungraciously, because we knew him and proposed to establish sound relationships at once, we tipped him off the pony and drove rather than led him into Hancock’s study, where the treatises on Francis Bacon and Mosaic miracles were heaped on chairs as well as on the desk and shelves. There was nowhere to sit except on the floor, so we arranged ourselves cross-legged in a triangle with the babu’s face toward the lamp so that we might read his artfully concealed emotions. Then I held out my hand.

  “Give me Rait’s letter!” I said abruptly.

  He shook hands, making believe he had not understood me.

  “Rammy sahib, this is like old times,” he said, heaving an enormous sigh. “How tempus does jolly well fugit. Is your honor prosperous?”

  He looked much too prosperous. He had been robbing some Americans, as all Darjeeling knew, and had not yet had time to lose the money by trying to treble or quadruple it.

  “Rait’s letter!” I repeated.

  He affected not to hear and began complimenting Jimgrim on his personal appearance:

  “Like money in pocket to see you, sahib! Like sunrise on perpetual snow- peaks! This babu basks in your honor’s beatific presence!”

  “Rait’s letter!” I said a third time, spanking a fist into my hand for emphasis.

  “Sahib, I heard you first shot out of barrel. Silence means dissent — not knowing, can’t say — who is Rait? — What letter? — And besides, I brought no documents. How should I know why you sent for me?”

  “Have you read the letter?” Grim asked. “If so, tell us what was in it; bring the letter afterward.”

  Chullunder Ghose rocked to and fro and scratched his stomach through the opening of an imported mauve and white-striped flannel shirt.

  “Am all ears,” he suggested. “Suitable proposition might act on memory like water from a can on radish seeds. No knowing. Might do worse than try it.”

  “You want a blind promise? What do you take us for?” asked Grim.

  “Verity in all her nudity is priceless,” said Chullunder Ghose. “Nevertheless, am scoundrel personally and would sell same. Sealed bids will be answered very promptly.”

  “I’ll bid you a broken neck,” I told him.

  “You should take that bid to the police for registration,” he retorted. “This babu is incorruptible by anything but bribes. Am honest scoundrel, not contemptible skin-salvationist.”

  “How many people beside yourself have read the letter?” Grim asked.

  “Sahib, you have set accurate foot on cockroach of domestic infelicity. This babu’s wife of bosom is new fangled female who believes in ruling roost. Being virtuous mother of seven children, same being now grown up but not self-supporting — as this babu can testify on stacks of holy books of all religions — she is peevishly disposed toward secretiveness and keen on cash. Having been promised money by insidious stranger and believing, as your honors seem to do, that your humble servant had received mysterious letter from unknown correspondent, she proceeded to search all this babu’s garments — drawing blank as certainly as if she had bought ticket in Calcutta Sweep.”

  For a while he chuckled silently, shaking his great stomach, until we grew impatient. Then:

  “By and by this babu was observed to bury tin biscuit-box by moonlight, under heap of manure in which she cobra was reported to have laid eggs. Report was false, since cobras are non est in neighborhood but same made no difference to female nerves. Mongooses were bought, which slew chickens of neighbors. Wandering snake charmers were consulted, and discovered cobras naturally, having brought same with them. Subsequently, coolie hired to rake manure heap brought forth empty biscuit-tin and were accused of having stolen all its contents. Heated acrimony, I assure you — followed by such meditation — you could hear my wife’s brain clicking like imported Swiss alarm-clock.

  “Virtuous mother of children had to maintain innocence and yet ease strain of her increasing curiosity and appetite for money. Same is complicated process. Much house-cleaning, in order to look under carpets; likewise most ill-tasting victuals, containing adulterants purchased from unlicensed bazaar bootlegger of confounded drugs intended to make me talk in sleep. Resultant bellyache, however, totally prevented sleep, and this babu’s haphazard remarks were beside the point altogether.

  “Diet was changed, and tasted much worse. Self-preservation being first rule of all sensible religions, this babu, obeying number one rule, pretended sleep and talked much, suggesting many hiding-places — in all of which nobody home! My wife is good objectionist — first-class, but lacking enchantment which distance might add! Ring bell — they’re off! Devil take hindermost! Where do we go from here!”

  Grim signaled with his eyes. I seized the babu by the arms and jerked him off his balance. Grim stuck a hand into his waist-cloth, laughed, and showed Rait’s letter in the lamplight. I let go, and the babu sat up, trying to look dignified as he rearranged his turban.

  “You fat scoundrel!” I said. “That is my letter, addressed to me. What do you mean by not handing it over?”

  “Fat belly and fat head are not same thing!” the babu answered. “I am honest scoundrel, which is whole point.”

  “The seal has been broken and replaced,” said Grim.

  “Contents of said letter being consequently known to this babu!” remarked Chullunder Ghose and once more scratched his stomach. “Am your honors’ most obedient humble servant — in predicament from which I beseech rescue for the sake of former services. Tibetan spies who offered money to my wife for information as to contents of that letter are no more eager than British authorities who did ditto.”

  “Do you want to be bribed to hold your tongue?” Grim asked him.

  Chullunder Ghose looked shocked — grieved-half-incredulous.

  “Jimgrim sahib, I am scoundrel from necessity, but honest always. Being short of money, through inability to pull purse-strings of tight-wad wife — to whom I gave all my money for safe-keeping, easy-going disposition and experience of up-and-downishness of fortune being damn bad mixture — I, nevertheless, scorned offers of Tibetan spies, who would have bought that letter from me, cash down — and being refused would undoubtedly have killed me for it, had they been sure that they knew where to find it.”

  “Then what do you want?” demanded Grim.

  “Salary plus expenses!”

  “To do what?”

  “Whither thou goest, I go, same as Ruth and Boaz, in English History!”

  “You’re a lot too fat,” said Grim.

  “Not so. This is all guts,” said the babu, smacking his enormous thighs. Then suddenly he changed his tone of voice and began pleading, swaying backward and forward, hurling the words at us. “Sahibs! I have read that letter! You will go to Tibet. You will not be able to resist! Have I more character than you? Can I resist? I have brains — imagination — courage; I have tasted all adversities; I have encountered dangers: I am failed B.A. Calcutta University, who might have been topnotcher barrister, with only ten more marks! I am adventurer by instinct, same as you, and shall a dark skin stop me? Formerly I have shared your risks; I have been loyal to you; I have kept your secrets; I have never cheated you — not even from the petty cash box when you had your office in the Chandni Chowk in Delhi and a child could have robbed you without your knowing it. I have never refused to obey an order. I have spied and run errands and lied for you. I have made your honor and your success mine — more than mine, for I
have set them ahead of mine! And all my life — I tell you, all my life! — I have longed, I have craved to go to Tibet! Shall I let this opportunity escape me? Not so! Do you make me threaten you? Then that is your fault. You are not fools: you are strong white sahibs, who know as well as I do that the color of a man’s skin is no criterion. There are white cowards and brown brave men — brown cowards and white brave men. You know that, and you have tested me a hundred times. So — scoundrel that I am — I offer you my services, to go to Tibet. Should you say yes, then I shall serve you to the death. But should you say no, then I, also, shall say no. You shall not go to Tibet without me, for I will tell the contents of that letter to the Tibetan spies and to the British authorities, both!”

  He paused, out of breath, with his hands on his knees, his jaws, that were black with the close-shaven hair, shining with sweat in the lamplight.

  “He has more guts than I thought,” said Grim. “How many people besides yourself have read the letter, babu-ji?”

  “None! On my honor!”

  “Were you followed to this place?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. We shall soon discover,” said Chullunder Ghose, a trifle sulkily.

  Grim signaled with his eyes again. I nodded.

  “We shall have to call your bluff—” said Grim. “Without reading the letter, or deciding anything else, we refuse to be blackmailed. You may go and tell your tale to the authorities and get your money for it.”

  Chullunder Ghose looked downcast. He lowered his head for a moment so that we saw nothing but his turban.

  “Too bad,” he said, looking up again. “Oh, very well, I am scoundrel. I can also be magnanimous. I love you both and you may go to Tibet. I shall not tell. But I am sorry. I am heart-broken babu.”

  “We shall pay you, of course, for your silence,” said Grim.

  “Sahib, I refuse to take your money! Permission to you to go to Tibet is my free gift. You shall not deny me that one consolation.”

  Grim caught my eye again, and again I nodded.

  “No,” he said, “we won’t deny you anything in reason. If we go to Tibet, you shall come with us.”

  Chullunder Ghose grinned. He did his best to look surprised, but he entirely failed. The rascal had merely shot us with the other barrel of his gun. He had been shrewd enough to realize that Grim was only testing him by offering to call his buff. He won the trick; and neither he nor we have since regretted that he did.

  CHAPTER II. “A manuscript in the handwriting of jesus!”

  Three men set forth seeking fortune. And the one found gold; another came on good land, and he tilled it. But the third saw sunlight making jewels of the dew. All three went by the same road. Each one thought himself the richer.

  — from The Book Of The Sayings Of Tsiang Samdup

  ELMER RAIT’S letter had been wrapped in dogskin and then enclosed in a tough brown envelope. It smelled vaguely of ghee. The white paper was filthy with finger-marks, torn here and there, and turned yellow in places with age, as if Rait had made use of such stuff as he found in the markets of Lhasa.

  “Dear Jeff: What on earth did we quarrel about? I forget. Nothing serious anyhow — probably ethics. You’re a muscular moralist, whereas I’m practical and don’t even want to make things better than they are. And here I am in Lhasa — the Forbidden City! — thinking of you, wishing you were here too, in spite of those winkers you wear, which you think are respectable compunctions, for all the world like an old maid in a bathing costume with the pants tied round her ankles. You ought to have been a bishop. You’d look splendid with a miter and crook. And how that fist of yours would shake a pulpit! However, there is nobody quite like you: nobody quite so whole-souled in stupidity with so much force behind it; nobody quite so willing to oblige a friend, and especially when the friend least deserves it; nobody more dependable. You’re like a phalanx in reserve, or a siege-train — anything heavy and honest, that can hit like Billy-o when pointed in the right direction.

  “Which is Tibet in this instance. Come along. I dare say money wouldn’t tempt you, even though your ancestors were Scotch and you’ve a fortune salted down in tax-exemptums. I have spent seven years preparing for this trip, and I have got through this far as a Tibetan trader with a Chinese accent. I am after loot, though not the kind of loot that you’ll appreciate — ancient manuscripts — priceless. Those won’t tempt you either. This will.

  “I am headed for Sham-bha-la. The place is said to be fictitious, although three or four explorers have been within thirty or forty miles of it. You’ve heard of it, of course; you and I talked about it years ago; that time we met the Lama in Benares, who was paying his way with stamped gold ingots.

  “When I started out for Lhasa I was not yet sure that Sham- bha-la is a real place, but now I’m positive. I’m almost sure I can get there, and get in, but almost equally sure I can’t get out again without help. Hence this S.O.S. call for the phalanx.

  “I will split with you fifty fifty. It is true about the ancient libraries; the books are written on palm-leaves, treated with mastic such as the old Egyptians used, that has preserved them perfectly. They’re bound with leather thongs between wooden blocks, which have had to be renewed every few centuries.

  “The people who live in Sham-bha-la can read those books, which are in a language much older than Sanskrit. They are not a warlike people; they will not take life; they protect themselves from intrusion and interference by taking advantage of Tibetan superstition and dislike of strangers. The Dalai Lama, who is a well-meaning man, and the Tashi Lama, who is an extremely intelligent religionist, do what they are told by these Sham- bha-la people, who advise them secretly.

  “It would take too long to tell you how I found out all about them, but remember: although we quarreled about morals or some such nonsense, I never once gave you a wrong steer during all the years we were in partnership. If you find my trail and come to Sham-bha-la, I promise you full pay for all your trouble — gold, priceless manuscripts and information that will make historians and scientists look sick. Think of the fun of refuting the high-brows!

  “Your danger will be mainly from Tibetans, who are dead- set on keeping all foreigners out of the country. I have quite convinced them I was born in Tibet and kidnapped over the Chinese border in my youth, but there’s a rumor that a white man has slipped in through Gyang-tse (which is the way I came) so they’ll be keeping an extra sharp lookout along that route. They strip all suspected wayfarers and search them, which is no joke with the wind at twenty below zero; so stain your skin with something permanent.

  “It’s an awful journey, which will suit you to a T. The country is hell, and you’ll like it. There’s no food fit to eat, no sugar, and you mayn’t smoke. The wind gives you toothache, and Tibetans never wash; dirt helps to keep them warm and fuel is scarce everywhere. Tibetans are all right — no bigger rogues than you and me — but awfully suspicious. Yes, I know well you believe you are honest. The Tibetans won’t believe it, so look out for them.

  “Beware of women, who are in a minority in Tibet and therefore doubly dangerous. Some of them go in for polyandry, and they like men Herculean, so beware! They get indignant when their overtures are turned down, and the other husbands take it as an insult to themselves, so they go after you with bows and arrows. One white man I heard of — I forget his name — fell for the proposition, hoping to find some way to visit Lhasa; he found himself one of nine and, being the latest recruit — a mere Plebe, as it were — was made bell-hop to the gang. I’m told he stuck it out for five or six years, always trying to escape, until he almost forgot he was white; but one day he took a bath in a hot spring, the dye gave out, and the woman was tired of him anyway. So they had him examined by a government official, who found him guilty, had him flogged to death and fed him to the dogs. The fact that the woman and all her husbands were also flogged to death was not much consolation to him. Better avoid matrimony, even at the risk of seeming rude.

  “Don’t trust any
one on British territory, except Chullunder Ghose, who is an impudent scoundrel but extremely fond of you. Him you will have to trust, so make the best of it. You had better bring him with you; he will die in the passes, which is the best thing that could happen to him. You will probably need one confidant who can make the grade, but whatever you do, don’t bring along a white man. Choose someone you can kick, and who won’t matter much if he dies. Any white man would be certain to turn quarrelsome, at this elevation, with the bad grub, and dirt, and one thing and another. Particularly, don’t bring Jimgrim or Narayan Singh. I know they’re your friends, or you think they are, but I hate them both. They think they know too much, and neither of them has the slightest use for me.

  “You must make your way toward Lhasa and work that great lump of a head of yours for all it’s worth. Discover my Tibetan name and where I am. Naturally, I don’t dare to write my Tibetan name in this letter, which might fall into the wrong hands, in spite of all precautions. You will have to prospect for me. You remember those marks we used to make on rocks when we were prospecting? Look out for those or something like them. Where-ever you see such a mark beside the main road you may look for a message in writing not far from it — probably hidden under the stones of one of the countless roadside cairns on which each passer-by sticks a prayer-flag.

  “You can’t get in through China, because the Chinese and Tibetans haven’t made peace, except nominally, and both sides have blocked the frontier. They say it’s equally impossible to get down through Siberia, because the Soviet people have closed all routes, which are said to be almost impassable anyhow. Sven Hedin came up several years ago along the Valley of the Indus, while the Maharajah of Kashmir pretended to look the other way; there was an awful row about it, and the odds are that way’s blocked; the Maharajah won’t dare look away another time. You’d better take the least used and most difficult route you can find, and hold your tongue about it.