Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  “You may come down, Mahommed Babar. You’re a man. We’ll treat you decently.”

  CHAPTER 11. “Ommony was right in some respects.”

  Destiny makes no mistakes. We men are so perpetually fallible that, weary of ourselves, we invent a cause for disappointments and call that Destiny; but Destiny proceeds and is positive — with the precision of a calculating instrument. You punch a few keys here and it gives you a result there. No errors. No stray consequences.

  Mahommed Babar did not come down from the Rump and surrender as requested. That surprised Ommony and annoyed Tregurtha. Tregurtha had in mind to do the decent thing and treat the rebel leader like a gentleman. He had proposed to himself to let him keep his sword, at least until they should reach the railway line, when it might possibly be mislaid as if by accident and not be seen again until turned into store at headquarters. He had decided to invite him to dinner al fresco, and to share with him the last two “tots” of whisky remaining in his pocket-flask. A gentleman resolved to act with courtesy is naturally annoyed by surliness.

  And Ommony was twice surprised. That Mahommed Babar should be gloomy and aloof was in the circumstances comprehensible. But that his whole disposition should change in a few hours from that of a gallant commander to one of fear and surliness was puzzling. There was no reason whatever why he should not come down and shake hands and be introduced — unless he had not kept his promise to deliver Ali Khan to justice. Even so, perhaps, he had.

  Ommony set about exploring the temple, peering into the holes under the paving-blocks where the rebels had made themselves at home, visiting the scene of his fight with Prothero in the vault below the temple, hunting behind the great image of the Buddha, in whose lap he had slept on a pile of blankets, investigating the shadows, bidding his dogs “go find him.” But the dogs searched as vainly as he.

  It was possible, and even probable, that Ali Khan had proved cantankerous, and at the last minute had had to be roped or even killed. But if roped, where was he? And if killed, where was his corpse? The man’s crimes had been so abominable, and even his escape from jail, where he had awaited death, was contrived with such cruelty, that to leave him loose in a forest uncontrolled would be a worse crime than rebellion — a moral crime, whereas rebellion was only a legal one and might be a moral obligation. Yet the dogs could find no trace of him, dead or alive. And he hated to ask Mahommed Babar for an accounting of his given word — hated the idea of that as much as Tregurtha hated to send up a junior on the Rump to bring the defeated leader down.

  The whole situation savored of anti-climax. The men lighted bonfires where the rebels’ fires had been, and reflections of the flames danced merrily on the wonderful temple wall. The cook and his assistants, cursed, contriving, competent, began without argument to burn and boil the evening meal, so there was even that comforting smell to advertise contentment. There was even a trench ready-dug that would serve as a grave for their dead and rob death of its toil. There was plenty to eat; there was nothing to fear; there were dug- outs to sleep in and a temple for the officers; and yet there was gloom.

  Something, somewhere had gone wrong, and even the cook’s assistant stirring the slumgullion knew it.

  Since Mahommed Babar would not come down, and there was only one way up discoverable, and that a narrow one eked out with hewn steps as wide as a man’s foot, it was clearly beneath Tregurtha’s dignity, as well as dangerous, to go up to him. If the man had to be dragged down, then a junior must do it. So he sent up a captain and two men, with orders to be polite if possible.

  Waiting at the foot of the narrow, winding stair, that turned on itself like a snake in the dark, Tregurtha was presently aware of the captain’s head that dropped through the dark to his feet and lay crushed like an egg. He felt hot blood splash on his hand, and almost before he could spring away in disgust the body of one of the privates came somersaulting down, striking the rock alternately with head and feet until it thudded on the captain’s head and stayed there.

  The third man shouted. He was putting up a fight. Tregurtha shouted too. There was a rush to clamber up and reach him before it should be too late and as only one at a time could use the steps they swarmed up the sides of the rock on one another’s shoulders. Dozens fell back, and a number were injured, some badly; but nothing — no natural bar — can prevent the assault of men really determined. The fires of Vesuvius — Everest — the North Pole — nothing but the equally determined will of other men can hold them back; and nearly a score of them, clambering like apes, with bayonets shoved into the chinks to tread on and belts let down to haul the other fellow up, using teeth and nails and, chiefly, courage, scrambled on their bellies over the bulging summit. Then the rest was a matter of seconds and more team work. To their everlasting honor they took their prisoner alive, and unhurt except for the broken skin in places where the webbing they tied him with had bitten a mite too deep.

  He had killed an officer and one man, mortally wounded a third, and seriously injured five more, including a lieutenant — all on the strength of a message, sent by Ommony, to the effect that he would surrender at discretion for the sake of peace.

  Tregurtha naturally was indignant, although so proud of his men’s performance that the two emotions choked him and he could hardly speak. They had taken the prisoner’s sword away. A private, saluting very emphatically to call attention to himself — for the hope of decorations burns undimmed — presented it to Tregurtha, who took it in his fist by the middle of the scabbard, hardly noticing, and led the way to find a place where they should dare untie the prisoner’s legs and arms without risking further violence or possible escape.

  It did not prove easy to find just the right place. He made up his mind to ask Ommony. But where in hell was Ommony? What was he doing? What the deuce did he mean by absenting himself in a moment like that? And Lal Rai? Where the devil was that one-eyed scoundrel?

  He knew in about a minute. He came on him gasping what looked like his last in a fight to the death with three dogs and the jungli who had trotted behind Ommony. They had to drive the dogs away with rifle-butts and drag the jungli free, too late to get any reasonable explanation from Lal Rai, who was raging semi-conscious in a hell full of imaginary monsters, acting like a cat in a fit — epileptic possibly. And as for the jungli, none knew his speech, even if he had said anything; he simply collapsed into absolute fear, which is stupidity.

  The dogs did the explaining. Hurt by Lal Rai’s fingers and the rifle- butts of his rescuers, they retreated to the first cause, the beginning, the basic fact that they understood, which is the way of intelligent men as well as animals. Without even glancing backward to see who followed, they sped into the temple’s inner gloom and vanished downward, only the terrier giving tongue with a yap-yap-yap that gave away the whole itinerary as its tone changed, growing cavernous.

  So they brought flashlights, a lantern, resinous torches, and followed — the colonel, two officers, and about a dozen men shepherding the prisoner, careful to use no violence, but hedging him in so closely that he would have had to kill three or four before he could start to escape.

  The temple shadows danced in the torchlight and lamp-light, suggesting mystery and danger that the echoes more than half confirmed; but they followed the dogs, downstairs into the temple crypt, and came on them licking and whimpering over Ommony, who lay looking dead at the foot of the steps, between them and the thing like an altar on which Prothero had recently avoided painful entertainment.

  But he was only stunned, for he was breathing. They picked him up, dogs protesting, and laid him on the altar, where he came to, blinking like a man just waking from a dream.

  So he and the prisoner saw each other — looked for one swift moment into each other’s eyes before the soldiers closed around their man again and hustled him away into the farthest corner. Question — Ommony’s — met mockery — the sirdar’s — as Tregurtha saw and noted mentally. It took more than seconds, usually, for Tregurtha’s mental pr
ocess to function, excepting in action. He knew he needed time to think.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “Don’t know,” said Ommony, also needing time to think. Tregurtha walked around the cavern examining the walls carefully, making sure it was a safe place in which to keep his prisoner, then ordered two of them to carry Ommony up the steps if he could not walk, and himself led the way, stumbling over Ommony’s rifle that lay in a shadow below the lowest step. So he picked up the rifle, and thought about that, too.

  Outside in the temple porch, rifle in one hand, captured saber in the other, Tregurtha stayed to question Lal Rai, who was recovering his wits — malignant all of them.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “Omm-on-ee.”

  “I’ll speak with him presently. Tell me your version of it.”

  “Omm-on-ee going shoot-um me, damn-is-eyes, damn quick me knock-um down!”

  “Didn’t you try to kill him?”

  “No! No kill-um! None my bisnis. He sahib, me Lal Rai no kill-um. He going shoot-um me then give-um shove. Dogs coming — me run quick!”

  “What happened to Ommony sahib?” Tregurtha asked suspiciously.

  “No savvy. Give-um shove, dogs coming, and me run!”

  Tregurtha went back into the temple and met Ommony leaning on the shoulders of two men, limping with a twisted ankle.

  “How is your memory working now?” he asked. “Do you know what happened?”

  “I remember a blow on the back of the head. There’s a bruise. You can feel it.”

  “You might have got that falling,” said Tregurtha.

  “I’m pretty nearly sure Lal Rai hit me from behind, said Ommony, not realizing yet that he was in a brand-new false position. He was still half- dizzy from the blow, or the fall, or from both.

  “Did you see him?”

  “Yes. He followed me into the temple. I called the dogs off him.”

  “He tells me you threatened to shoot him.”

  “No. Ordered him out of the temple, that’s all. Then hunted here and there—”

  “For what?”

  “For a man I expected to find. Lal Rai must have followed me and struck me as I started down the steps.”

  “You had your rifle in your hand, of course?”

  “Under my arm, the way I always carry it.”

  “Why didn’t he brain you with it, or use it to shoot the dogs? He says you threatened to shoot him, so he pushed you and ran to escape the dogs.”

  “Probably the dogs prevented him from taking the rifle,” Ommony answered, beginning to appreciate that he himself was now under suspicion.

  “You mean possibly. It is just possible,” Tregurtha answered. “A man attacking from behind according to your version would mean murder. Lal Rai knew the dogs were there. If he really did attack you he would naturally seize the rifle to defend himself against the dogs, if not to murder you.”

  “What do you suggest as the alternative?” Ommony asked dryly.

  “His story is that you threatened to shoot him, and he knocked you downstairs backward. You’ve a bruise on the back of your head I believe.

  “Oh, all right. Believe him if you want to,” Ommony retorted.

  It was the first time he had lost his temper since the ever memorable day when a member of the British Cabinet, traveling at national expense, had asked him to have tigers driven into a wire inclosure to be shot by his right honorable self before a battery of cameras. The present circumstance was not so aggravating, and be probably would not have lost control of his emotions but for that pain at the back of his head and the agony in his ankle. And if he had kept his temper nothing should have been easier than to regain Tregurtha’s good opinion.

  “I’ll thank you for my rifle,” he said, letting go the men he leaned on and holding his hand out. He wanted it to support himself, but Tregurtha, hot-headed at the best of times, misunderstood.

  “No you won’t. I’ll keep it. There are things that you’ll have to explain.”

  Tregurtha turned his back and strode away with head erect and lips set in a straight line under the iron mustache.

  Cotswold Ommony’s case began to look not so clear to him — in fact curiously turgid — rotten! All those rumors, all that talk about him, all that criticism at headquarters, might have had foundation after all.

  “Where the smell of smokeless powder is, someone has pulled the trigger,” thought Tregurtha to himself. “I should have remembered that. I’m too prone to take a fellow’s word for everything. Can’t afford it! Too damned trusting, that’s what I am! Always refusing to believe ill of anyone. Foolish — foolish! Ought to be more careful.”

  It occurred to him that Ommony’s report of the situation had been nearly all wrong — not wrong enough to convict him of deliberate falsehood, but sufficiently so to throw discredit on his whole judgment. This might be an ambush after all. Something had doubtless gone wrong with the enemy’s plans, which was why they had caught the sirdar all alone there on the rock, and only taken the fellow after a struggle.

  “Lord! How the fellow defended himself! What a scorpion at bay! Moslem- fanatic, of course — never had intended to surrender — end of his resources — seeking paradise by the usual route of killing a few unbelievers — well — he missed it — have to be shot like a gentleman and go to hell instead — altogether too bad that he got so many men before they captured him — good men, too — wonderful men! Too bad. And how about Ommony?”

  He puzzled about Ommony, the while he took precautions, running no more risk on the strength of Ommony’s assurance that there would be no ambush, no surprise attack. He posted every available man in person, placing them in twos, with orders that one should sleep and the other stay awake alternately. Then he went down in person and saw that his prisoner had food and a blanket, not speaking to him except in an official tone of voice to ask whether he needed anything, and receiving no reply.

  “Surly devil!” he remarked, and came away after cautioning the men; presently he sent down his remaining captain to be in charge all night, and himself sat in the temple doorway, alert as a gray wolf, meaning to stay awake and sincerely hoping that Ommony would not come and try to talk with him. He hated that kind of thing.

  “Beastly bad taste to insist on explanation, at the wrong time.” However, Ommony agreed with him, it seemed, at least on that point, and did not come. He had given no orders that Ommony should be restrained in any way, and he could see him with his three dogs up on the top of the Rump, sitting smoking in the liquid, honey-colored moonlight.

  “Rather decent of him, I should say. Shows tact. Keeps himself in full view without occupying anybody.”

  If there was one quality under heaven that Tregurtha esteemed above all others it was fairness. So he naturally was fair. He began to feel ashamed of having treated Ommony so cavalierly on the strength of the mere assertion of a one-eyed epileptic such as Lal Rai. He decided to question the rascal again, and sent for him. But nobody could find him. He sent a junior officer up to the Rump to inquire whether Ommony had seen him, but Ommony had not. Ommony, however, volunteered to summon junglis, who would track the miscreant through the jungle in the event of his having sneaked away.

  “Very decent of him,” said Tregurtha, and sat still smoking, thinking the situation over for about an hour.

  The silence was only broken by the occasional snore of a tired man, the footfall of an officer quietly going the rounds, and the cry of the outpost men at regular intervals announcing that so far all was well. Those, and the voices of millions of insects, made up the nocturne. There was no suggestion of the presence of an enemy. A lieutenant, told off to patrol with six men along the new lane forced by the rebels’ elephants in their retreat, came in to say that he had met no enemy except mosquitoes.

  “Ommony was right in some respects,” Tregurtha thought. “Honest enough, I dare say. Probably made use of by Mahommed Babar, who wanted to die in a spectacular fashion. Sorry I didn’t give him
back his rifle when he asked for it. Beastly rude of me! In front of witnesses, too. Well, a suitable apology in front of witnesses should offset that.”

  He began to wonder why Ommony should have thrashed Prothero, and that line of thought made him sympathetic, almost affectionate; for if ever a cad deserved kicking, Prothero was he, in his, Tregurtha’s, judgment. Dearly he would have loved the task himself! Times without number nothing had prevented but the rules of the Service and the requirements of discipline!

  “A cad with influence, money, and imagination. Is there anything worse?” Tregurtha wondered, and on top of it began to wonder, too, whether his own treatment of Ommony had complied with his standard of personal conduct — his own, by which alone he was entitled to judge others.

  He decided to send for Ommony, and a moment later an orderly started up the Rump. He returned, however, to say that Ommony was sleeping with the dogs all around him. Was he to be disturbed, and if so might the dogs be killed if they should offer to prevent?

  “No. Let him sleep. He’s a hurt man,” said Tregurtha.

  That again seemed a strong point in Ommony’s favor. True, the lower types of criminal can sleep in any circumstances, but the man of intelligence, caught in the act of illicit intrigue, and thereby in danger of life and liberty unless he can explain himself, is much more likely to lie awake and cudgel his brains nervously. A headache and a twisted ankle should make that sort of man yet more sleepless. If Ommony could sleep like that he was probably not guilty of anything worse than over-confidence.

  At the suggestion of over-confidence he looked down at the row of medal- ribbons on his tunic. Most of them had been won by over-confidence — rashness some men called it.

  Suddenly it occurred to him to wonder how a man with a badly twisted ankle could have climbed the Rump. He had given no orders to have him carried up there, and he could account in his head off-hand for the movements of every one of his officers and men since he made his dispositions for the night. He called to the orderly.