Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  “Gunga sahib! Gunga — Gunga sahib!”

  It was weird to be a legend from a past life greeted by an ancient name. He almost thought there might be truth in it, until the eyes of Bughouse Bill appeared again and banished all will to believe.

  “Him and me are on opposite sides! If he’s for legends, I’m agin ’em! This here’s hooey! Gee, but it’s hard to believe it ain’t true!”

  He thought about the Maharajah. “What’s he doing? Is he looking on? Or is he one o’ them there generals that die in bed unless a golf ball hits ’em? Say, if I was king o’ this mess, I’d be in it! I’d hire cheap ‘uns to get drunk and do the legislating! I’d be in on this stuff, and to hell with belly-aching in a palace! I could wish this weren’t over so quick!”

  But it was so slow that he feared the moonlight might be all gone before they could reach the temple, and he knew the babu counted on the moonlight. It was so slow that the eyes of Bughouse Bill again and again became the eyes of Gunpat Rao, terrible and so near that he almost struck out with the ankus. But at last they neared the Pulke-nichi, and there panic seized him, as the thunder of the mob rose tenfold. Roofs and walls were thronged with humans and the very sky roared “Gunga! Gunga!”

  “Now we catch it! Wonder if she packs a whallop?

  Can she act up? This ‘ud scare an angel! If she has a fit o’ willies we’re it! Gee-whiz! Yeah, I saw ’em!”

  The two leading elephants turned down-street in a flare of torch-light. Their mahouts raised both arms upward, three times. They had made their signal. For a moment after that a human maelstrom surged at the turn and the elephants stood swaying until self-elected stalwarts fought the crowd back, beating them with sandals — lathis — fists — with anything that offered. Savagery broke loose. It was like a battle that blared with conch-horns; and from the roofs, where excited enthusiasts lost their footing, men and women fell on the heads of the furious mob below. One roof broke beneath the weight of hundreds. But the pulse of the thunderous din was “Gunga! Gunga!”

  A way opened. The procession moved. The van, between two elephants and drawn by two, went bumping forward. Then Asoka turned into the Pulke-nichi, and the bridge lay down-street etched in silver by the low moon — shadowy and lovely. It was like a path of silver laid on solid gloom, with silver statues standing guard along it. Left and right loomed temple buildings — silvered gloom — incalculable bulk upreared toward a star-lit night. But down in the street it was dark except for two flares near the great arched temple gate; and the gate glowed blood-red.

  “Guess it’s her turn!”

  Quorn looked back at last and struck the ankus on the hard front of the howdah.

  “Show yourself, Miss!”

  Then he had one glimpse of her. She seemed to be kneeling, with an aureole of light around her head. He wondered whence the light came, but he had no time to look twice. There was danger, from a dozen ways at once. Crowds on the roof on the right were absolutely frantic. If they should fall on Asoka — if tiles should fall — or if the priests should play a trick here —

  “Whoa there — steady, feller — steady!”

  There were lathis going. A belated company of volunteers clearing the way with a wedge-shaped charge into the crowd down-street ahead of them. The arch beneath the bridge was like a gate of dark death, spewing forth breathless legions. They were forced back screaming “Gunga! Sankyamuni! Sankyamuni!” It was impossible to see quite what was happening but there was death there, dark, choked, dreadful.

  “Us next!” Quorn was staring at the eyes of Gunpat Rao.

  Near the torchlight by the temple gate there was a space kept clear by main force and a barricade of bales and boxes. There stood men who looked like priests, not praying; if they prayed it was for trouble. There was a surge and a crash like the charge of cavalry when the men with lathis widened out the space, and Quorn followed the van to its midst. He did not dare look backward. He was all eyes for the priests, and cursing Gunpat Rao’s eyes that got between him and whatever he looked at. But he caught one glimpse of the Princess. She was standing upright. There was a priest — or he looked like one — who shouted and gesticulated. There began to be a counter-demonstration. There were catcalls and yells of derision. On the roofs and up-street there were evidently men strategically placed to yell to the crowd what the meaning of the altercation was. But there was organized opposition to that, and there began to be fights on the roofs.

  “Oh be swift!” It was the Princess’ voice. She seemed hysterical. Her words reached Quorn’s ears on a sharp note that cut through the tumult.

  Swift? There was nothing to do! The plan had failed — had gone wrong! Six priests climbed to the roof of the van and shook their fists at Quorn and the Princess. Not a word reached Quorn’s ears; tumult swallowed up their shouts, but their defiant gestures dared him to get down and open the van.

  “Tempo!” he remembered. “Tempo!”

  Not even Asoka could have forced a way backward or forward. But the temple gate was shut. Two of the priests with torches, looking frightened, struggled with the handle of the van door. It opened suddenly and they leaped back, to a din like an explosion from the throats of the hundreds looking on. But nothing happened. So the priests went nearer. They let torchlight flare into the van — and nothing happened. Then they peered in, and a roar went up from the street and roofs that shook the fetid air until Asoka raised his trunk and gurgled angrily. Perhaps he sensed the crowds’ impatience.

  “Tempo!” Quorn remembered. “Tempo!”

  But the eyes of Gunpat Rao mocked him, staring at him through the solid woodwork of the shut gate. One of the two elephants beside the van turned slowly while a priest commanded the mahout with word and gesture. Suddenly the elephant came spurting forward almost head-on. The mahout aimed a blow at Quorn’s head with his iron ankus. Quorn ducked. As he ducked he learned why Moses stole a length of rubber hose-pipe. From the howdah, like a striking snake, it licked out and hit the mahout on the back of the neck. He reeled and fell. The elephant continued on its way, and Quorn learned whence the light had come that made an aureole around the Princess’ head and shoulders.

  “It is veree necessaree to be swift,” said Moses, and lay down again. He switched on the flashlight again. He bathed her again in light that made her look like Sankyamuni reborn out of ancient legend.

  “Tempo!”

  In a deafening, exultant, terrifying din Quorn turned Asoka’s head toward the temple gate and sent him at it. There was a rush from behind the priests that came too late. He heard the voice of Moses:

  “Swiftlee! Veree swiftlee!”

  Then Asoka’s head struck on the gate, and it yielded, unlocked, swinging easily. Asoka swayed in. Some one slammed the gate shut. Then Quorn turned his head for orders how the Princess was to dismount — but he only saw the flashlight — Moses’ hands — the rubber hose — the Princess clinging to the hose and dropping to the ground. Then Moses vaulted out, and vanished. After that he saw the eyes of Gunpat Rao — heard the short, gruff, gutteral war-roar of a tiger — felt an earthquake under him — Asoka trumpeting his anger into dreadful darkness — and a fight was on — a nightmare of a fight that lasted all eternity — or sixty seconds — or a week — Quorn never knew. But Bughouse Bill had played his fifth ace. Somebody had pulled a cord that somebody had fastened to the bolt that locked the whole front of the tiger-cage. Down came the front of the cage with a clang. There was a little moonlight — a little starlight — Moses’ flashlight, faithfully and well directed — and a tiger!

  “Pinch hit!”

  That was the babu’s voice. He was in the cage mouth. Moses’ flashlight showed him for an instant, standing with the rifle held in both hands. That was one glimpse.

  But Asoka was moving stiffly — almost sideways — cat-wise — trunk out — gurgling. He screamed — rushed. Something shadowy and swift leaped almost out from under him. Asoka wheeled and gave chase, following in spasms, amid dark columns, something unseen
that watched for an opening. There was a glimpse of Moses, up on the balustrade, his flashlight searching for the tiger. There was a glimpse of the Princess, higher up than Moses, on the stairway, with her hair just touched by moonlight. Then the torchlight found the tiger and he sprang — missed — missed by the width of the wind in his claws, as Asoka switched around and rushed him, trumpeting. Then the still hunt once more, with Asoka creeping like a frozen earthquake, until the flashlight found the tiger and Quorn knew the end was at hand. He had only his ankus. But the tiger was Gunpat Rao, and the tiger’s eyes were Gunpat Rao’s.

  Quorn gripped tight. He swung the ankus like a club. He heard his own voice. It was like another’s, not his:

  “Soak him, Soaker!”

  At bay, in a corner, his back to a wall, the tiger sprang as Asoka charged. Quorn struck — struck straight at the brute’s eyes with the iron ankus. There was a trumpeting, snarling, flash-lit shock — then a quivering thud — thud — thud that shook a temple wall as Asoka’s huge skull rammed the tiger up against it. Thud — thud — thud the ankus went home. Then a trampling dance in darkness as Asoka crushed the tiger into pulp beneath his feet.

  “Goo’ boy, Soaker!”

  Quorn reached out a hand to pat the great head rising and falling in time to the trampling forefeet; but he drew it back sticky with warm blood.

  “Hey! — Fetch — that — light — here!” he shouted. “Steady, feller, steady! That’ll do him! He’s dead!”

  So was Gunpat Rao dead as far as Quorn’s imagination knew him. There were no more awful eyes in the night around him. And he thought of nothing but Asoka.

  “Fetch that light, d’ye hear me!”

  He felt for the blood again, and there was lots of it. He heard the babu running; and the babu had two flashlights, Moses’ and his own. He shouted:

  “Well done, Gunga sahib! Now she pinch hits! We had difficulties — couldn’t make our tiger wake up! But he’s ready, and Bughouse Bill will think of something else unless we look sharp!” He was standing behind a column, probably for safety if the elephant should still be furious and charge him. But his eyes were on details: “Dammit! Ratty can’t sell that tiger-skin — I promised he should have it, but it’s ruined — I shall have to buy it from him! Quickly now — outside with that elephant!”

  “Flash that light on his head!” Quorn answered. “Did you hear me say he’s bleeding? The poor feller’s bleeding!”

  “Take him out of here, I tell you! Out with him! Out with him! Moses will open the gate.”

  “You go to hell! He’s bleeding bad. D’ye see that? Two o’ the tiger’s claws ha’ ripped him awful — missed his eye by half o’ nothing! Water — d’ye hear me? — water — lots o’ water!”

  “I can’t bring that other tiger out until you take him away from here,” the babu argued. He was almost dancing with excitement. “Gunga sahib, for the love of this babu, be reasonable! Take him out into the street and they will bring you water by the cart-load!”

  “Shut up and fetch some water!”

  “Moses!” yelled the babu. “Moses!”

  Quorn had time to glance toward the steps. The Princess stood there, all alone, not evidently frightened. But a priest was speaking to her from a platform where the steps turned up toward the parapet, and the priest was limned clear in the moonlight.

  “Krishna!” exclaimed the babu. “Gunpat Rao.”

  He tossed a flashlight to Moses and ran toward the Princess. But to Quorn the very name of Gunpat Rao had somehow lost its meaning. There were no more fierce eyes in the darkness, although he felt strange and his head swam.

  “Get water, Moses,” he commanded.

  “Sir, I do not know where — —”

  “Water!” he repeated. “Fetch a lot of it quick, or I’ll kill you with this here ankus!”

  Moses and the flashlight vanished, and at last Quorn persuaded Asoka to cease pounding the tiger’s carcass. He moved him away a little, talking to him.

  “Goo’ boy, Soaker. Stopped a hot one, did you — but your poppa’ll fix that! Easy, feller, easy!” He moved him slowly to and fro until Moses came back, carrying a big earthern jar. Quorn reached down and raised it.

  “Sir, I think that it is holee water!”

  “Says they! Gimme more light! What’s that babu doing?”

  He began to be aware again of tumult in the streets and on the roofs, that had not ceased; it was he who had left off hearing it. And he knew now he was trembling, when he tried to pour the water on the clawed wound. He felt sick. But he sluiced the water on and presently discovered the wound was wide, but not deep.

  “Sir, he listens on the steps,” said Moses. “It is she who talks to some one.”

  Suddenly the babu came down-steps like laundry blown before a high wind.

  “Oh my God!” he exploded. “For sake of Jiminy and hell-hell-hell, do get the devil out of here! I tell you there will not be any moonlight in a brace of jiffies and the effect of the tiger’s opium will wear off! Bughouse Bill is hands up! If we finish this he has to kay-o all of it! So get the devil out of here —— you hear me? Do you hear me? Krishna! Wait a minute! Go into the street and watch, but don’t let anybody kill you! When you see her cross the bridge, then work your way below the bridge and to the front gate of the other temple. Wait there —— hurry, hurry, hurry! Pinch hit!”

  He went scurrying back to the steps. Moses led toward the gate that was invisible in the gloom of the temple wall. Quorn let the water-jar drop and smashed it to a thousand pieces. That served as a signal for Asoka, who followed Moses.

  “I’ll be better in a minute, buddy. Go slow till I get this off my stomach.” Quorn relieved his heaving inner man. “A tiger’s like physic, I reckon.” Nausea repeated. “What a night! I’d lead a tiger by a collar over that there bridge I don’t think!” He began to feel better, but his shirt and his jacket were clammy with sweat, and it was all he could do to sit upright. “Outside, Soaker! Wish ’em luck, old-timer! Me and you ha’ pinch hit plenty for one inning!”

  Moses undid the temple gate, and the priests came pouring in when some one shouted to them. They slammed the gate shut, but Quorn hardly heard that, such a tumult arose at sight of him. He thought Moses had remained behind, but in another moment he saw him clamber to the top of the van. So he brought Asoka alongside the van, and Moses climbed into the howdah.

  “That was veree classee, but it was not safe,” said Moses, “and I think the worst is coming!”

  XXVIII

  “A Bit Too Late To Present Credentials”

  “Something has been happening,” said Moses, crouching in the howdah, his one eye searching the crowd. His head was close behind Quorn’s back, but there was such a tumult that it was all Quorn could do to hear him. “We were in there, I think, five minutes onlee, but something has happened.”

  There was a change in the voice of the crowd. It had grown determined. The theme of the din was “Gunga! Gunga! Gunga sahib!” But it was as regular as drumbeats. There was almost a suggestion of an army awaiting orders to march.

  “They act as if the whole job’s in the hat,” Quorn told himself. “Who’s told ’em what?”

  A woman gave some sticky sweetmeats to Asoka. She aroused envy and there was a dangerous surge of imitators, but Asoka’s trunk licked in and out amid the sweaty faces and outstretched arms. He accepted all that came his way, as his due, and grew contented. He forgot tigers. A mahout from another elephant brought oil-soaked linen for his wounded head; but where he got the oil and linen was a mystery until a woman in the crowd, with her own hand-woven linen torn from her breasts struggled up by a wheel of the van and yelled in Quorn’s ear. He did not know what she said, but he let her touch him for luck, since she seemed to have bought the privilege. Moses shouted back at her and she dropped to the ground, screaming excitedly to every one within reach. In less than sixty seconds there was a new wonder leaping from lip to lip.

  “She was asking you,” said Moses, “how
the eleephant was wounded. And I said to her, the tiger was abominablee angree, but the Gunga sahib hit him with the ankus and he scratched the eleephant a little but was afterwards submissive!”

  Quorn laughed. “Next you know,” he told himself, “I’ll be a shining hero in a suit o’ chain mail, killing dragons by the carload. Selling me a hero story won’t come easy after this, I reckon.” Then he glanced at the ankus by the light of a flare. There was blood and hair on the end of it. The crowd was roaring his name, so he raised the ankus in acknowledgment. Moses turned the flashlight on him.

  “Higher! Higher!” said Moses. “This is absolutelee timelee!”

  So he held the ankus high in air; and by that time fifty tales about him and the tiger were leaping from lip to lip. The mahouts on the other elephants salaamed to him, and ovation thundered from the street and from the roofs. But the deafening din seemed weirdly blanketed. The breathless night felt solid with a kind of dreamy mysticism. Mob, heat, din, smell, starlight, temple walls, were all one. They were real. But what was yesterday? And last year? Tomorrow was beyond a bridge that was a streak of silver, like a bridge in a dream. It seemed to link eternal darkness, on the left hand, with the moonlit mysteries of Siva’s temple on the right. The whole of Kali’s temple was in darkness. The moon would be gone in a minute or two.

  “And something else has happened, I know not what,” said Moses, “but the crowd is definitelee resolute. It suddenlee is—”

  Silence shut down. It was a clap of silence — as sudden as explosion. Quorn could hear Asoka munching sweetmeats. Out of utter darkness at the left end of the bridge the Princess stepped forth into moonlight. She was leading the tiger — by a ribbon it seemed; there was something light and flimsy looking in her left hand, that led to his collar. She was between the tiger and the edge of the parapet, and he walked beside her heavily, slouching his weight beneath his shoulders. Once or twice the tiger glanced back, and Quorn thought he glimpsed the babu, black turbaned, where the moonlight met darkness; but he was not sure he had seen him. He held his breath. His fingers ached from his clutch on the ankus. Should the tiger — and he seemed to be pressing the Princess’ left knee — move but one foot sideways, she would be dashed to her death on the heads of the crowd beneath her. Let the crowd but shout and terrify the brute —