by Talbot Mundy
“Silence — lest ye darken judgment! Shall not justice justify itself without your mouthings?”
An eternity — perhaps a dozen breaths — prolonged itself until the light that cast no shadow stole again upon the darkness. There sat Poonch-Terai again, but he was now on horseback. He was speaking to the same two men from Poonch who crouched now, trembling, in a corner of the room. One of them gasped as he saw himself holding the horses harnessed to a carriage that had ventilating slats in place of windows. The gasp disturbed the picture for a moment, in the way a light breeze breaks up the reflections in a forest pool. But that was momentary. Six men joined the others and all listened to what Poonch-Terai was saying.
The carriage vanished in a cloud of dust, with two men on the box and six inside it. Poonch-Terai then rode a long way to the hotel, where he talked with Mrs. Beddington again on the verandah. They discussed Joe; he could see himself like a helpless smoke-shape being tossed from mind to mind. They two reached an understanding, and the thought expressed by Mrs. Beddington was that she would presently have Joe in her control again, where she could bully and persuade him until Rita should become a mere past episode. But the thought in Poonch-Terai’s mind was that he would have Joe in his summer palace as a guest beneath the same roof as the raped, humiliated and imprisoned Rita. He anticipated exquisite amusement from the conversation he would hold with Joe and all the vain hope he would stir in him by offering to help him find his lady-love. And even while he talked with Mrs. Beddington his mind was busy searching for a means to let Joe learn the truth at last, but without incriminating Poonch-Terai himself. That was a problem that intrigued his malice exquisitely.
It was after dark when one of the Maharajah’s open landaus arrived for Mrs. Beddington and waited for her underneath the hotel compound trees. He rode away alone, and presently Joe saw him guide his horse into a gap in a broken wall, where he could wait in total darkness and observe the lamp-lighted jail gate not far distant.
Hawkes sighed noisily, and once again, the vision was obliterated by intruding sound. When the picture emerged once more from darkness Hawkes was waiting near the jail gate with his pipe, not drawing, having to be cleaned with “pop-wire” picked up in the gutter and first thoroughly cleaned of microbes with a burning match.
“Oh, Gawd!” said Hawkes’ voice. “Strike me cockeyed! Me a soldier, acting escort!”
And again the vision vanished as the sound-waves stirred its surface. When it reappeared, the small door in the jail gate was in the act of closing behind Rita. There was no one in the sentry-box; apparently the man on guard had left his post and was closing the door from the inside. Rita, glancing nervously to right and left, pretended that Hawkes frightened her — perhaps to hide a premonition that she genuinely felt. They walked together, side by side, ten paces.
Then, as sudden as a gun-team, came the two-horsed carriage — horses reined in to a staggering halt that almost threw them — Rita turning to see what it was — Hawkes roughly thrusting her between him and the wall. Six bearded men, like specters, pouring from the carriage — a grim scuffle — one man down, another staggering backward on his heels — then Hawkes knocked senseless. Rita, wrapped in coils of white cloth, seized and thrown into the carriage — the hurt man thrown in after her, five others following. Then the whip, and away as fast as blooded horses could lay hoof to earth — away toward the outskirts of the city — away from the direction of the temple. Dust — wheels vanishing around a corner — darkness.
And then Hawkes’ voice, sulky and ashamed: “So now you know I ain’t no fighting man. A nurse-girl ‘d ha’ done a dam’ sight better. Gawd’s teeth! I’ve seen a rabbit show more fight than that. And mind you, I’ve three medals. I’m paid money for the guts inside my lingerie.”
Silence and long darkness, but at last again the weird light. Hawkes lay on his face beside the jail wall. Poonch-Terai, guiding his horse through the gap and pausing to gaze to right and left, rode to where Hawkes lay and stooped from the saddle to see if he moved. He tried to make the horse trample him, but the horse edged away in spite of rein and spur. So Poonch-Terai produced an automatic, cocked it and tried to take aim; but the horse shied frantically and became unmanageable, so Poonch-Terai galloped away, almost dropping the automatic as he tried to reduce the horse to obedience by hitting it hard with the butt-end.
“Blackguard!” Bruce could not keep silence when he saw a horse ill-treated. He would have made other remarks, but he saw that his voice had killed the picture. “Damn, I’m sorry. Go on — I won’t offend again.”
But when the vision reappeared the scene had changed. It was a shadowy courtyard somewhere in the temple area, and Amal crouched beside a fountain chafing tired feet that were not yet dry from washing. Chandri Lal, his basket in his hands, crept stealthily toward her through the shadows at the fountain’s edge, the very slight noise, that he must have made, obliterated by the splashing water.
Suddenly Amal leaped up, clapping a hand to her left thigh. Apparently she did not scream, but she turned on Chandri Lal and seized him by the throat. She saw his cobra then and snatched it from him, seizing it by the neck below the hood and smashing it to death against the fountain marble. Then, ignoring her agony, she pounced again on Chandri Lal and held him by both shoulders, forcing him to turn toward the light from a chamber window, so that she could see his eyes while she demanded why he did it. There was something more than sentiment between those two, so that even in horror and wrath they understood each other. He accused indignantly. She answered calmly, although she writhed with pain. He stared, incredulous — mocked — cursed her — stared into her eyes. His lips moved. Then he suddenly believed.
He was like a madman then, obsessed by horror. Guilt — remorse — grief froze him until he could think of nothing but to turn destruction on himself. She clutched his basket to prevent him from thrusting his hand amid the cobras, forcing him more by strength of will than of muscles to lay the basket down and listen to her. Then, half crazed, he tried to suck the poison from her wound, she striking him — shaking her head and beating him on neck and shoulders with her clenched fists until at last he obeyed her — sat still — held her head against his breast, and heard her to a finish. There were only two remaining thoughts in Amal’s mind — to die at Rita’s feet, wherever Rita might be, and to be avenged.
Mrs. Beddington made guttural, protesting noises before she could force speech through a dry throat, banishing the picture:
“It was — it was not my doing. I — I swear I had no idea he would have her killed. Joe, I was protecting you. I—” “Silence, please. I say, let’s see this,” Bruce insisted.
But the picture changed. It was the shuttered carriage swaying through dusty darkness beneath gathering clouds that blotted out the moon. Two coachmen on the box, one managing the reins, the other acting lookout, stared into deepening gloom. The horses slowed — shied — and the driver flogged them. They reared on their haunches. The other man, his wide eyes white with terror, clutched the driver’s arm and pointed. Both men at the same time saw a phantom. Both men recognized it. Several times larger than the living man — long-bearded — naked to the loins and smiling like a statue of an ancient god — Ram-Chittra Gunga, leaning on his long staff, barred the road in front of them. He pointed with his staff toward their right hand. Suddenly the frantic horses lunged and bolted to the right along a pitch-dark road between high walls. And at the end of that, again Ram-Chittra Gunga stood and pointed to the right.
Dumb panic gripped both coachmen and the reins fell slack in terror-loosened hands. The carriage swerved, swayed — and the horses bolted headlong down a road made darker than the Pit by ancient trees — a road that curved like a crescent moon beyond the ancient, ruined city wall and came to an echoing end beneath a huge arch at the temple’s almost unused northern gate. It was a gate that creaked on ancient hinges. There was one dim lantern, showing that the gate yawned open hardly a carriage length before the horses reached it.
The carriage lurched in, swallowed amid shadows and the gate swung shut behind it.
“Seems to me, you might have used a bit of that stuff to have warned me,” Hawkes objected, “‘stead of letting me get knocked out. What had I done, to be left to look out for myself?”
But the Yogi made no answer. Bruce commanded silence. There was a long pause before another picture sketched itself in color on impenetrable darkness. Poonch-Terai, on horseback, waited near the lantern at the temple gate where Joe had fallen under Amal’s knife. He was pleased with himself. He sat his restless horse with handsome self-assurance, spurring forward presently with a gay laugh at the sound of hoofs and wheels. His open landau, bearing Mrs. Beddington, evolved out of the darkness and the coachman drew rein where the lantern shone directly on Joe’s mother’s face. She, too, looked confident. They talked, it seemed, in undertones too low for the man on the box to overhear them. But their thoughts took shape. Ram-Chittra Gunga’s mirror reproduced them.
Visioned by Poonch-Terai was Rita, gagged and helpless, being carried through a door in the wall of his summer palace and along a pathway leading to a private building amid dense trees. Visioned by Mrs. Beddington was Rita — shamed, crushed, hopeless — stricken dumb by perjured evidence of her half-breed parentage and by proof from the lips of a dozen well paid witnesses to her immorality with Hawkes and with Indian troopers. It was plain enough that Poonch-Terai had promised something of the sort.
Then, smiling confidently, glancing at the sky where lightning was already edging the rolling thunder-clouds with blue-white flashes, Poonch-Terai dismounted and, tossing his reins to a carriage footman, strode toward the door where Joe had once lain wounded. There was no bell, so he struck on the door with the butt of his automatic.
Instantly the vision disappeared as the thunder of genuine blows on ancient teak reverberated down the passage. Voices and a wail of wind incrusting through an opened door. Then footsteps. Then a pounding on the door near Joe’s bed.
“Open! Open!”
“Yes, yes. There is a proper time for all things. Open,” said the Yogi.
Rita took the big key from his lap and found her way across the room in darkness. She admitted a glare of yellow lantern-light that dazzled strained eyes, splitting shadows into fragments. Albert Cummings crossed the threshold, drenched, well frightened by the storm. He stared at Rita — turned and took a flashlight from a dripping servant who stood in the passage behind him. Then the door closed softly — probably a temple servant did that. He switched on the flash-light, searching for Mrs. Beddington — discovered her half fainting —
“Well, well! Frightened? Safe, at any rate. Thank God you weren’t caught in the storm — I see you’re dry. The Maharajah’s carriage passed me with the horses going full-pelt — bolted — stampede — terrified by lightning, and small wonder. Inches of rain — never saw such a storm — must be a record — don’t know how I found my way — the Maharajah’s carriage almost ran me down. I started out with four men following my horse, but three of them ran home. Oh, hello, Joe, how are you?”
“How brave of you to come!” said Mrs. Beddington. “And how I prayed you would come!”
Flattery went to his head like laughing-gas. He struck an attitude intended to suggest the heart-of-oak stock that he came from. “Frightened, eh? No wonder! Such a storm was as bad as a battle-field. And unexpected — no one ready for it — not the rainy season — done a world of damage, I’m afraid. But why do you all sit in darkness? No oil? Are you unwise virgins? Hah-hah! Can’t resist my little joke, it’s so good to have found you safe. Oh, hello, Bruce.”
Bruce grunted.
He ignored Hawkes. He almost ostentatiously avoided Rita. He used his flash-light until it framed the Yogi in a luminous disk and the old man looked exactly like a statue, seated, backed against the end wall.
“Oh, hello — salaam, Ram-Chittra Gunga — I must thank you, I suppose, for sheltering these people.”
Joe could not tell whether the old man bowed acknowledgment or not. He made no sound; and if he lowered his head it was immeasurably. So the flashlight moved again until its rays chanced on the tip of the turban of Poonch-Terai. It wavered — framed the Maharajah, seated, leaning with his back against the teak door and his head drooped forward on his chest.
“Why — hello, Maharajah sahib! Glad to see you. Too bad about your carriage — you’ll be lucky, though, if those horses stop before they break their necks.”
No answer.
“Is he asleep?”
The flash-light seemed something dim. He switched it off, and switched it on again. “Are you all right, Poonch-Terai?”
No answer.
He approached him, peering, holding the flash-light well in front of him. “Good God! The man’s dead! How did it happen? Come here, some one! Bruce — quick — here’s a cobra! Come and kill it!”
CHAPTER XXVIII. “No place for a woman of refinement.”
Hawkes looked around for a weapon. There was nothing handy. “Here, give me that flash-light.” He snatched it away from Cummings without ceremony and stepped nearer, turning it full on the cobra. Bruce stepped beside him, cocking an automatic that appeared to have repaired itself.
“Mind your eye, Hawkes — hold that steady while I blow his head off.”
“‘T’s all right, sir — good as dead — its back’s broke. I’ll bet it was caught in the door when it bit his Highness. But can you beat that — him not letting on? I’ll say this for the swine: he had a crust on. I’ve heard say it hurts like hell to be bit by one o’ them things. Now, Miss Rita, don’t you go too near it. Stand back — please, Miss. Wait while I open that door.”
“So that is why he screamed,” said Bruce. “I’ll help you.”
Together they lifted Poonch-Terai and laid him on the floor beside Amal, covering him with the same sheet; there was plenty of it; they did not have to expose Amal to any one’s gaze. Then Hawkes opened the door and kicked the writhing cobra outside into the rain. “Kabadar, you! Watch out!” He played the flash-light on the cobra. “Nag-marao jaldee!” Some one in the darkness outside struck a dozen blows swiftly with something heavy. “Pitch it in the fountain.” It appeared he was obeyed by some one, whom he watched with the aid of a flash-light. Then, though, other people tried to enter. “Stand back!” He reached for the door to slam it in intruding faces.
“No, no, let them in,” said Rita; “it was they who brought me in the Maharajah’s carriage.”
Cummings thought it high time to reassert himself. “No, shut that door and keep them waiting a few minutes. Now, will some one be good enough to tell me what has happened? Why was the room in darkness? Why all this air of mystery? Captain Bruce—” “One minute, sir.” Bruce picked up Cummings’ lantern and returned to mid-room, but as he walked past Mrs. Beddington he raised the lantern so that her face showed like a cameo against the wall behind her. She looked haggard. She knew it. She raised both hands to hide her face from Cummings. Then Bruce beckoned to the two tall coachmen from the land of Poonch. They strode toward him — nervous, goggle-eyed, reluctant.
“You, Hawkes, can you talk their dialect?”
“A bit, sir.”
“Say this to them: they have seen what we saw, and we know it was they who brought this lady — Miss Amrita, I believe her name is — back here to the temple, instead of carrying her off. Do they admit that Poonch-Terai, who lies dead, ordered them to seize her at the jail gate and convey her to his summer palace?”
“They say yes, sir, they admit that.”
“Will they put it in writing?”
“They say yes, sir.”
“Let those others in.”
Hawkes went to obey.
Bruce turned to Cummings: “If you have a fountain-pen and note-book with you, why not take those two men’s depositions? They’re important. Take ’em on oath, you’re a magistrate.”
Five men, one with split lips, filed into the room and lined up sheepishly in front of Bruce.
They looked in vain for the Maharajah. He with the injured mouth attempted to conceal it with his hand; he eyed Rita sideways.
“Now, Hawkes, interpret once more. Do these men admit that they came in the Maharajah’s carriage, seized Miss Amrita, attacked you, and attempted to convey her to the Maharajah’s summer palace? If so, who told them to do it?”
Hawkes faced the five men, to interpret. He began. But he was interrupted by Joe’s mother, who came hurrying forward and seized Cummings arm.
“Albert!” she objected. “Albert, do you mean to say you’ll make me listen to all this nastiness?”
“Why, no, no. But it’s raining. Wait — my horse is out there — I’ll send some one for a carriage.”
“I can’t wait in here. This room’s too stuffy.”
“Yes, it’s no place for a woman of refinement. We can put you a chair at the end of the passage. Will you wait there while I—” “Albert! Will you leave me alone — to-day of all days? Won’t you wait there with me? Haven’t you a court where you can try these men to-morrow?”
“Yes, yes; trust you to be practical!” He turned on Bruce and Hawkes. “This is very irregular. Surely you must know that, Bruce. Who is accused of what? We can’t take evidence unless we know a crime has been committed. Even so, the right thing is to send for the police and to have the men charged in the regular way.”
“I accuse ’em,” said Hawkes, “of assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm — and abduction and assault — and—” “Abduction of whom?” asked Cummings.
“Miss Amrita, sir.”
Joe saw his mother whispering in Cummings ear — saw Cummings’ facial expression take on slyness and a certain smug complacency.
“You mean, they took her in the Maharajah’s carriage?” Cummings asked. Joe’s mother nudged him. “Well, I regret to say I can’t take that accusation very seriously without a world of proof. My information is that that young woman is habitually free with her person and not at all averse to taking midnight rides to much worse places than a Maharajah’s palace.”
