Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  Gup McLeod began to feel new interest in life at Dera Ismail Khan. Striding through the horse-lines, thinking his own thoughts behind the barrage of the dealers’ lies, he felt a comforting sense of detachment, as if he, although it might be only he, in all that crowd was not imprisoned any longer in the web that men call destiny. He believed he was his own master at last, to do and buy and sell what suited him. He had planned to buy a dozen horses but there was not much prospect of his finding that number, since he insisted they must carry his own great weight as a test of money’s worth.

  “There is always a market for muscle,” he told himself. “The only problem is to find both the muscle and market.”

  But there is a market for more things than muscle, and there are keen wits ever searching for the rare commodity without which not much else has value. Spirit, too, has a market price. There was never an eagle but some one wished to trap and cage him. But Gup was not thinking of traps: there was a coal-black horse that he was pretending, with Scots caution, not to believe as good as he looked — a stallion from God knew where, with a plausible claim to being two-thirds English thoroughbred; and there was a man in charge of him, also from God knew where, who was strangely indisposed to sell, in a buyers’ market. His was the only stallion that spring that stirred a little competition among those with money at their belts. The man in charge would name no price; he invited bids, but he refused to allow the horse to be ridden, even by men whose horsemanship was known from Quetta to Aintree. Nevertheless, when Gup McLeod asserted that the big-boned beauty was not up to weight he was instantly offered a ride. The apparent owner, an Afghan by the name of Rahman, even ventured a cautious hint that Gup did not dare to risk his neck.

  “He is a stallion of stallions! God’s breath is in him. He believes he is wind and an eagle in one! Iskander is his name — why not? A lesser name would be an insult to such a son of tempests — such a sire of lightnings!”

  Watched by hundreds, and especially watched by Pepul Das, who was an inconspicuous small Hindu wearing the fez and turban of a convert to Islam, Gup mounted and turned the stallion’s head toward the hills. He and his mount were one that instant — one force, welded by a wrath against all limits. It is not mere speed that exhilarates, it is expense of effort. It is not mere strength that stirs until the blood goes surging and the breath comes in deep draughts, it is the use of strength. Ability to lay leagues underfoot is relative; machinery and the wind both have it. But the horse, and the horse alone of all created things, can awaken in man the consciousness of physical dominion, so that he becomes that very Centaur that the ancients drew symbolically on the temple walls.

  Gup felt balanced, for the first time since he went into the war in Flanders sharing with thousands of other men on both sides that dynamic calm that resembles the lull before a typhoon. It was a balance of emotions that never lasts long, being fraught with too much power, but for the moment there was only one emotion possible, felt and enjoyed simultaneously by stallion and man. The scented earth thundered beneath them, and the thunder was as passionate as the plunging of waves against a rockbound shore. It was an overture to something; stallion and man both knew it, although neither of them cared; eternity, to both of them, was now, that moment, sensed and seen and almost understood, as effort squandered itself, glorying in sheer extravagance of being strong. There was no competition — no limit — not a muscle or a nerve unused — nor one mean thought in forty minutes of exultant and united living.

  Then back to the horse-lines slowly, to let sweat dry in the wind and to let muscles resume quiescence without shrinking to the opposite extreme of stiffness — back to a supper and blanket and the almost cosmic music of a camp where tents were astir with the cooking and the smell of wood-smoke sharpened appetite. As Rahman rubbed the stallion’s legs he spoke to Gup McLeod as to one who has knowledge of matters normally beyond the ken of those who had not ridden from far-off places over mountain passes where the snow lies shoulder deep and there is nothing between men and death but their horses’ good will and their own resourcefulness.

  “Huzoor, with men and horses, it is all one. You, I, and any horse that lays a good leg to the ground — we are all one when we do our utmost. We have shone then as the sun shines. We have blown then as the wind blows. We are servants of the Most High then — may God be praised.”

  “But how much for the horse?” asked Gup McLeod. He did not see Pepul Das, who was pretending to finger the off-knee of a Kathiawari gelding, but as Rahman stooped to rub the black stallion’s fetlock he could look under his elbow at the small man’s mobile face and read his mouthing. There was nothing spoken.

  “What is the price of an eagle in the sky?” asked Rahman. “Nay, it is not with money that a man buys spirit — as he might buy whisky in a bottle,” he added. It was a pointed afterthought. There was a barb in it.

  “I have a bottle in my tent. You’d better join me,” Gup answered and walked away. Whereat Pepul Das approached very close and pretended to examine the stallion’s com, so that he might whisper to Rahman unsuspected even by his shadow. However, Rahman answered him aloud in the hearing of all who cared to listen, so that an officer who happened to be passing turned and stared, wondering what the cryptic speech might mean.

  “Go, push the sun and make it set the quicker, Pepul Das! You see the journey’s end, but I see this night’s trail. By God, I spur no willing horse on such a trail as this.”

  The sun went down in splendor, and the stars, that looked as chilly as the northern wind, shone down on shadowy mystery where lamplight glowed and the sparks of camp-fires streamed in the lanes between the tents. There were few sounds now except the rare squeal of a stallion and, here and there, a song to a stringed accompaniment; the men of the North take relaxation dourly and impose their manner by example, but there were circles of cloaked figures around the fires and, with suitable long pauses, there were tidings of wondrous affairs being told in undertones; plans were being laid that would creep to fulfilment at all nine ends of Asia. The secret-service men were wrapped in none knew which cloaks, and the approach of a stranger to any camp-fire brought down silence like the sudden ceasing of the speech of frogs.

  But the English have different manners and the Scots are hospitable in a nervous fashion of their own, so that Gup McLeod’s tent was noisy for a long time with talk about nothing. One self-invited guest who stayed interminably was a dealer in horses from Calcutta side, who hoped to learn something of McLeod’s business; he had less chance than he imagined, but the whisky was free and plentiful, and he seemed to think that chattering about tight money and loose women might tempt McLeod to talk horse, from which to indiscretion is an any-man’s land that is crossed with half a dozen words. But Gup McLeod talked platitudes, at which the Scots excel when on their guard, and the candle-lantern light showed a thin smile on a lean strong face that should have warned any horse-coper that curiosity was useless.

  The other man was Major Glint, an individual apparently in no haste, long-limbed, lazy-looking but as keen in some ways as a Hillman’s knife-edge — a man proud of hiding his aim and motive behind lamely humorous conversation but less able to do it than he supposed — given to occasional ridicule of morals and zeal, the better to hide his own zealotry and rigid rule of conduct as laid down for others. It was his boast that he had “spoiled more little games” and put more men behind the bars than any one else in India, and it was his delusion that almost nobody, and certainly no stranger, could see through his outer suavity to the heart of the spy within. A very pleasant-looking man, until you saw his teeth; it seemed impossible that the truth could get by those teeth without being stripped of virtue.

  Rahman came. Perceiving visitors, he would have backed away into a shadow but McLeod invited him into the tent, where he refused a chair but sat down on a heap of saddles and horse-blankets. He was wrapped in his sheepskin overcoat that made his bulk shapeless, and his graying beard, that began unusually close to his eyes and spread when he
dropped his chin on his chest, combined with the turban to make him hardly recognizable where he sat in the shadow, but his restless eyes shone in the candle-light, and about his shapelessness there was a hint of seasoned and surprising strength. He accepted whisky.

  “I am not suggesting you are a hypocrite,” said Glint, “but are you not a Moslem? Now we should call it sailing under false colors to acknowledge the Prophet and drink forbidden whisky almost with the same breath.”

  Rahman would have answered, but Gup McLeod’s mood had not changed much since he rode the black stallion Iskander home to the lines. There was the same emotion surging in him, craving another outlet since he had to sit still. He sprang to his feet, knocking his chair over backward, and turned on Glint with blue eyes blazing and his fist clenched like a club.

  “The man’s a gentleman. What right have you to stick your teeth into his religion? You heard me invite him. Who gave you leave to insult my guest?”

  Glint smiled. “I did not realize you had had too much to drink,” he remarked and found his way out of the tent, striding with a faint suggestion of a stork in search of pickings. In the door of the tent he turned and smiled again:

  “To-morrow, if you are sober, I will give you a chance to apologize-before witnesses. After you have sobered up you’d better ponder whether you are in a safe position to make an enemy of me. Not many people do that without regretting it. Good night.

  The man from Calcutta side got to his feet a bit unsteadily. “You’ll have to excuse me,” he said thickly “Quarreling is not my trade. I’d rather not be drawn into it. I heard nothing. I saw nothing.”

  “And you’re good for nothing,” Gup retorted.

  “Good night to you.”

  “Two enemies in one night!” Rahman commented. “Huzoor, an enemy or two are good for us but —

  He paused, stared, then took an older man’s privilege. “Did he speak truth about the drink?

  Gup raised his glass from the table. It was almost untasted. “My first to-day,” he answered. Anger was still blazing in him.

  “Is there then a woman in this quarrel.

  Gup stared, half inclined to hurl the balance of his fury at the Afghan. But Rahman was his invited guest, whereas the others had been uninvited, and besides he had met this man in circumstances that had almost forced the entering wedge of familiarity. Mutual admiration of a horse transcends all limits of a formal introduction.

  “Have supper with me,” he said curtly. No, there is no woman. —

  “Good. But I would rather quarrel with a woman than with that finder of faults. It was he, if you permit plain speech, Huzoor, who meddled in the business at Mahmud Kot and sent Captain Llewellyn home in disgrace — and for nothing except that the Captain refused to salute him after he had whipped a horse until it bled from rump to shoulder. He poses as one who can tame bad horses, whereas he can only break heart and spirit. He has a devil in him.”

  “He’ll get a licking in the morning if he doesn’t keep out of my way,” said Gup. “Sit down. I’ll call the servant.”

  Rahman watched him as he strode out to the rear where food was cooking in a smaller tent. He watched in the same way that he would judge a horse’s points, not taking them one by one but letting the whole picture limn itself on an undisturbed mind, getting a general impression first. He nodded approval. Nevertheless, there was laughter in his eyes, as if he knew that strong men build their own snares and entrap themselves if given scope enough.

  “There’ll be food in a minute. Let’s talk horse,” said Gup, returning. “Take a comfortable chair.”

  “Huzoor, talk concerning a horse is a gate through which much speech may enter. Is it permitted that I take that riding-whip — the long one with the whalebone in it? So — a moment.”

  He went outside the tent and made a circuit, peering into the darkness underneath the flies. A sudden yell announced that he had caught a man in hiding and was laying on the whip with a vengeance, but there was no comment from the near-by tents and Gup sat still. It was nothing unusual to catch a thief on the prowl; the police were almost helpless to prevent oiled experts from sneaking through the shadows, and the law of the whip was a better solution than legal formulas for that sort of impudence.

  “It was as I thought,” said Rahman returning, a trifle breathless. “By the Prophet, though, the man was swift.”

  “Who was?”

  Rahman laughed. “He with the teeth — your Honor’s enemy! He had his spy already placed where he might overhear my talk and so accuse your Honor of God knows what infamies! I am a person of some notoriety,” he added proudly. “Doubtless he suspected me of intention to corrupt your Honor’s politics!”

  “Oh, talk horse,” Gup retorted. “I’m sick of all this nonsense.”

  “Let us have no more of it,” said Rahman. “By your Honor’s leave I will attend to that.”

  He stood in the tent mouth and whistled. Some one came — small and shadowy — clothed in a turban and sheepskin jacket.

  “Watch!” commanded Rahman.

  He was answered by a grunt, then silence. Rahman took his place at table and the food was brought in. For a while there was no conversation, because the servant, too, might be a spy and Gup offered no word in his favor. It is an old trick for a government to make use of a man’s own household to overhear his speech and watch his doings. Rahman ate noisily, as much from politeness, to show appreciation of the food, as from habit of eating in horse-camps, where a finicky man is suspected of lack of stamina; he ate enormously and drank with wonderful restraint, sip for sip with his host. They spoke of Arabian breeds of horses, and of the snow lying late in the passes. It was not until the servant had removed the tablecloth that Rahman opened up, his eyes on the smoke of McLeod’s cigar lest his own eyes should be read too easily.

  “And what of the black stallion?” he asked.

  “I’ll buy him,” said Gup, “if you don’t ask too much money.”

  “Huzoor, no money under heaven could buy that horse.”

  “Then why bring him to Dera Ismail Khan?”

  “He might be had, but not for money.”

  “I hate a mystery. What will you take for him?”

  “He is not mine.”

  “Dammit — then whose is he?”

  Rahman watched impatience rising, diagnosed it, understood it as he would a horse’s fretting at the bit. He might not know what make of bit it was that produced that inner fury, but he knew the symptoms. He increased them before he offered remedy.

  “Huzoor, if it were known who the stallion’s owner is, that man, whom your Honor ordered forth from this tent but an hour ago, would know no rest until he had wrought indignities and brought down shame on some one’s head.”

  “On your head?”

  “On my head also. But first on the head of the horse’s owner.”

  “Why? Is he a border-thief? Did he steal the horse?”

  “By Allah and by my beard, no! Huzoor — are you a border-thief and do you steal horses? Is it necessary that a man be vile in order that a government should set the secret agents on his trail?”

  “None better than I can answer that,” said Gup with a low laugh that had no mirth in it. “The truth is, Rahman, that no good government has been invented yet. However, what’s the trouble with the stallion’s owner?”

  “Nothing, Huzoor, except a strong distaste for prison.”

  “Is he in prison now?”

  “May God and His Prophet be praised, not yet! Nor shall be! But for the owner of that stallion to visit Dera Ismail Khan or for you to visit that stallion’s owner would be as dangerous as to — as to cross the Pamirs in midwinter.”

  “How so? Is he far from here?”

  “Not as you and I reckon distances.”

  “I’m a free man, Rahman. I visit whom and when and wherever I please. I would like to meet the owner of that animal. What I can’t understand is why, seeing he won’t sell, he sends the stallion to a horse-fair.”
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  “I will answer, Huzoor. Let the truth speak for itself. It was known that your Honor will come to Dera Ismail Khan. It was also known you are a man of strong will, much annoyed by having seen the entrails of intrigue; a lover of plain speech. How then shall a meeting be arranged between your Honor and that stallion’s owner, to whom intrigue is as needful as air to a bird, and to whom plain speech is forbidden. Should I come and openly try to arrange it? Allah! — And be ordered out of your Honor’s tent like that dog who took me to task about religion! Nay. Neither am I a man who will eat such shame, nor is the owner of that stallion one whose embassies—”

  Gup whistled softly. “Embassies? You speak in highfalutin terms.”

  Rahman ignored the interruption, as if he had not heard it and had not used the word embassies with deliberate intention. “What better way then, Huzoor, than to bring hither such a stallion as challenges attention? And as a result do I not sit here at your Honor’s table, speaking of such matters as could not have been spoken of otherwise between us two?”

  “Stated plainly, then, the owner of that stallion wants to meet me? Why?”

  “If I should answer,” Rahman said, “what proof is there? Speech face to face is better than through the mouth of the most trusted messenger.”