Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  No one had moved, stirred, spoken. On the segment of the broken gallery that solemn audience sat still like vultures that await death. Whose? Hawkes struggled to release his arms, but F.11 heard him and whispered:

  “Not yet!”

  Then Hawkes pressed his back against the wall so hard that it tortured his pinioned elbows; but the pain was better than the too near edge of that rail-less gallery. When F.11 moved a little closer to him he set his teeth — shrank. Pride would not let him cry out, but he felt already the appalling vertigo of falling into dark space. He began to pray for guts with which to face it.

  Suddenly the blood came coursing through his veins again like an electric current. Sound as vibrant as a file on brass so struck the silence that it seemed to make the very silence throb with anger. It was the hag. She was singing. And never in battle, nor in the ambulances where the stricken screech their greeting to the jaws of hell, nor in the jungle, when the python steals on victims in the night, had Hawkes heard such a paean to the gods of horror. Agony was in it, and the utter emptiness of hunger for the ultimate of nothing — and the knowledge that the hunger, too, was nothing, and the agony of the nothingness of hunger in a void that had no end and no beginning — an eternity that was not, is not, never will be. And the human vultures in a row round the ledge, between the little yellow lamp-flames, chanted flat, monotonous responses to her litany of death.

  It ended in a silence in which nothing stirred except a skull that rolled out of shadow where the tiger’s eyes shone in the torchlight. Then the hag struck a gong and the tiger crept into view, as if he knew that signal. Some one at the far end of the gallery — without a word or gesture that betrayed emotion — set his thumb deliberately on the little flame beside him, stood up leisurely as if he yawned at what was coming, raised both arms above his head, swayed slowly and then, soundless, let himself go, feet first, down into the dark pit.

  He fell with a thud amid bones and debris. There was no other sound, except a slight one as he writhed in shadow. Hawker’s pulse beat a hundred times before the tiger leaped like tawny lightning through the zone of torchlight. Then a guttural growl — thud — scrunch, as teeth went home into a man’s neck. Silence — nothing — no emotion, except that the tigress, like a frantic green-eyed shadow, wove to and fro on a loom of longing in her dungeon behind the stone bars.

  CHAPTER 16. “I kiss feet, Heavenborn!”

  Ram Dass, dealer in grain and mortgages, was a gentleman whose hat was always in the ring. He had an enviable reputation as a good sport, who was easy on his debtors if the debtors played fair. But it was dangerous to “gyp” him. Having lent the Rajah five thousand rupees at usurious rates on an open note, at the request of Syed-Suraj, he was perfectly willing to wait for his enormous profit; but he did not choose to lose the money.

  And Chullunder Ghose had very deftly planted in the mind of Ram Dass more than a suspicion that the Rajah was in danger of losing his throne. On top of that came rumor — then the circumstantial story — and then proof that the Rajah had murdered Syed-Suraj in the course of a furious argument. The inquest, held immediately in the Rajah’s library; the servants’ version of what had happened; and the verdict — had deceived nobody, not even the presiding judge who acted coroner. The Rajah had not even honored the inquest with his presence, although rumor had it that he listened through the panel above the bookcase that had been used by the woman who actually saw the murder and reported it in detail to Chullunder Ghose’s dish-faced spy.

  “If I must lose my money I will have a run for it,” said Ram Dass to his head clerk. “Royalty may get away with murder, but the ones who do settle their debts! And besides, that babu didn’t drop me hints for nothing. It was not for nothing that he told me how to get the elephant-feed contract. Not for nothing that he saved me from lending another five thousand. Not he! He does nothing for nothing. And he knows I play fair. What does he expect, then? He didn’t say what he wants. But if I play my own game it will probably exactly fit his.”

  He had none of the airs of the plutocrat. In spite of all his wealth he did not even own a carriage. Beneath a very cheap umbrella, and with a very ordinary cotton blanket swathed round his shoulders, he walked to the office of Ananda Raz, the Brahmin attorney. He was admitted instantly into the Brahmin’s presence. And, being a sensible man, to whom another’s dignity was equally important as his own, so long as it entailed no calculable loss or inconvenience to him, he started with the proper formula.

  “I kiss feet.”

  So the Brahmin wheezed an asthmatic, equally perfunctory but inoffensive blessing and they sat down, studying each other with the guarded guile of men who thoroughly detest each other’s morals but respect each other’s business acumen.

  “Terrible weather,” said Ram Dass.

  “Dreadful,” agreed the Brahmin. “But the rain should give us good crops. Do you look for a low price for future rice deliveries?”

  “I look for God’s will.”

  “Such is wisdom,” said the Brahmin.

  “As attorney to the temple trustees, you undoubtedly are more familiar with God’s will than the rest of us,” said Ram Dass. “Is it probable that changes of importance may occur soon?”

  “Of the weather?”

  “At the moment I was thinking more of ruined temples — and a tiger — and the funeral of Syed-Suraj,” Ram Dass answered. “Is the Rajah’s cousin’s health improving?”

  “I have no news.”

  “Is the sahib at the Residency well?”

  “I have heard he has boils,” said the Brahmin. “And if that is true, he should be pitied. Boils are painful, and they who suffer from them usually lose their judgment along with their bodily vigor.”

  That was an opening. Ram Dass rode straight at it, whip, spur and bridle.

  “Is he sick, or is he shamming? Are they diplomatic boils, and is he waiting on events, to see which way the priests — I mean the cats — jump, before he bets on one or other of them?”

  “Strictly between you and me, he is ill,” said the Brahmin, “but it makes no difference. Such a person as he is always at the mercy of events, since he always looks backwards. If he does look forward, it is only to a dream of laziness. In consequence, a change inevitably sees him trying to resist it.”

  “So you do think there will be a change?” asked Ram Dass.

  “Do I? And what sort of change?” the Brahmin answered.

  That seemed to be another opening, so Ram Dass tried again.

  “I am in favor of a change,” he answered. “Did you hear the Rajah’s sepoys fire a volley from the palace gate just now?”

  “Yes, yes. Nobody was hurt, however. It was a warning to the crowd to disperse.”

  “I am in favor of the crowd,” said Ram Dass. “I have heard that the Rajah sent an elephant to wreck the sacred image of the goddess Kali. Do the priests intend to overlook such sacrilege?” Ananda Raz knew perfectly that Ram Dass cared no more for Kali’s image than he did for Confucius; he was simply talking to seduce the attorney’s confidence. Ananda Raz, however, only wanted an excuse; he only dreaded to give an opinion that he could not, later, claim he had been justified in giving. So he yielded — let his temper get the better of him — wheezed as if someone had stolen a fat fee:

  “Sacrilege! Sacrilege! Now you have laid your finger on it! Murder we are used to! Insolence and personal defilement we have had to learn to tolerate! But show me proof that it was he who sent that cursed elephant to break up the procession through the streets, and I will—”

  He hesitated for effect, and Ram Dass flattered him by a show of breathless interest:

  “Tell me!”

  “I will guarantee to have him replaced by his cousin within ten days!” said the Brahmin.

  “How then?”

  “I will bring on a rebellion! And I will get up an appeal for British troops! And I will sign up an association of his creditors!”

  He paused again. He stared hard. Then he pointed
with his index finger. “Tell me, are you not his creditor?”

  At that Ram Dass unmasked his own artillery as blandly as a conjurer producing rabbits from a top-hat.

  “Thank you,” he retorted.

  “What for?”

  “A concerted action by his creditors might force me to accept as little as a tenth of what he owes me. So, unless I get mine first, in full, you may depend on me to take his part in any serious trouble that may turn up!”

  “You astonish me!”

  “I know, too, that he owes you a lot of money,” Ram Dass continued. “You expect to get it from his cousin, as the price of the priests’ support, but you propose to make the other creditors accept a small percentage of their claims.”

  “But I assure you—”

  “I need no assurance! As attorney for the temple trustees, you know that the priests have got themselves into a mess! They have a tiger—”

  “Prove it!” snapped the lawyer.

  “I don’t need to. Tigers are their own proof! Are you such a fool as to suppose that an inquiry by the British won’t involve the priesthood in a scandal that will clip their claws and break their teeth forever? That is why you sit still. You, as the attorney for the priesthood, are afraid to appeal to the British. So unless I get the money that the Rajah owes me, I am going to the Residency now to demand that the Resident wire for troops.”

  “Then neither of us could collect the money that the Rajah owes us,” said the Brahmin.

  “I can afford to lose mine,” Ram Dass answered. “I would lose it far more cheerfully if you must lose yours also.”

  The attorney stood up, blazing indignation. “Go then, to the Residency!” Ram Dass bowed to him in mock humility.

  “I kiss feet, heavenborn!”

  He bowed his way out, but he guessed Ananda Raz would have him followed. So, his purpose being to recover money, not to make more difficulties, he struggled against the rainstorm to the palace without the slightest effort at concealment. If Ananda Raz should guess that he was on his way to offer the Rajah loyalty and influence, possibly then Ananda Raz might change his mind and buy him off by purchasing the Rajah’s debt. But if not — and if the Rajah should be obdurate or flat-broke — there was still the Residency and the more or less amusing prospect of annoying — and arousing — and compelling Major Smith to act with energy that was as foreign to his nature as humor and genuine dignity were.

  The officer on duty at the front gate never had been asked to pay his bill for horse-feed, so Ram Dass was promptly admitted. But he was questioned. The officer wanted to know what course the rioting had taken and what the prospect might be of a further demonstration at the palace gate.

  “I am not in politics,” said Ram Dass, “and I mind my own business. But I have heard that the priests are up to something. They are crows who caw of death, remember!”

  The officer’s face betrayed concern. “And His Highness is suddenly sick!” he remarked. “Just now they brought a doctor to him.” If he had spoken the word “poison” he could not have expressed the thought more clearly.

  Ram Dass nodded, to conceal his own surprise. “His Highness’s cousin’s health?” he asked, to keep the thought in motion.

  But the officer was not so easy to tempt into indiscretion.

  “Go in,” he answered. “Bring me the news on your way out.”

  So as accident, or luck, or some unseen directing spirit such as dogs the ways of murderers, would have it, Ram Dass swayed and struggled against rain and wind and reached the Rajah’s front steps, under the elaborately gaudy portico, exactly at the moment when Chullunder Ghose came down the steps to confer with Copeland, who was sitting on the back seat of the Ford attending to the nosebleed and the bruises of the villager. The villager was enjoying the fun of being “serviced” by a sahib, in a rich man’s chariot, beneath the up- turned noses of a lot of Rajah’s servants, who were showing their profound displeasure from the high steps of the very palace entrance. It was exquisitely pleasant to offend such haughty nabobs.

  CHAPTER 17. “Sappier and verbier than you guess! Hurry! Hurry!”

  No less swift or sure of touch than Copeland’s to the villager’s needs, Chullunder Ghose’s genius leaped instantly to deal with Ram Dass. That a middle- aged man of affairs should face such filthy weather, at a time of riot, was sufficient proof that opportunity was stirring, and the babu knew the nature of the seed that he had planted in the merchant’s mind. The law of probabilities suggests, if it does not actually indicate, that certain sorts of men are likely to react in a clearly predictable way to certain sorts of pressure; and the babu was an artist; he could recognize a psychological condition with the accuracy of a sculptor making notes for future use, and with the skill of a physician who observes the symptoms that a patient is trying to hide from himself.

  “Which are you doing?” he demanded. “Are you sawing off the branch you sit on? Or are you trying to ride two camels, in two directions, with a fence between them that you wish to sit on?”

  “I have come to recover my money,” said Ram Dass.

  With his belly thrust out and his hands on his hips, like a fat chef in an apron, the babu laughed at him. He laughed as if the universe held nothing else than good jokes.

  “Perhaps you like to lose your money?” Ram Dass shot back irritably.

  “God, I haven’t any! Ha! ha! You won’t have any, unless you change your methods! I would rather look for goblets full of cool wine in the Gobi Desert, than for money where you go questing for it! You remind me of a virgin who has lost her reputation. It is irredeemably lost, and the thing for her to do is to forget it and establish herself as soon as possible as someone much too sensible to feed a dead horse!”

  “I have talked with Ananda Raz. I have just been to see him,” said Ram Dass.

  “Anyone could guess that!” the babu answered. “And a pair of pale eggs in a frying-pan could see that you have told him too much and have heard too little! I suppose you offered to join the High Church party on condition that the party should agree to guarantee your money? Don’t deny it. I would probably have done the same thing!”

  “What would you suggest?” Ram Dass asked. “You, who said you never bet, but who have lent your money to a profligate at the request of needy adventurer, in the hope of making too much profit from a contract to supply good elephants with bad corn — you astonish me that you forgot my hot tip! Bet on this babu, I told you.”

  “Is it too late?”

  “Do I look it? Unless Hawkesey also has forgotten which horse he should bet on, and has upset all the dope by disobeying men he doesn’t know and shooting away the weight that my opponents have to carry, I am winning hands down! Bet on me, you idiot!”

  “I bet,” said Ram Dass.

  “Very well, then. Go in and demand your money. He will say the money isn’t due, and it isn’t, but you must accuse him of having got it from you under false pretences, and of having shot the only witness.”

  Ram Dass hesitated. “He will shoot me!”

  “Do you think so? In my presence? I shall be there, mind you. It is less than fifteen minutes since he did not dare to shoot me, all alone, and dearly though he would have loved to do it!”

  “Ah! If you are coming with me—”

  “I would not trust you to see him alone,” the babu answered. “And now understand this — memorize it: he knows a lot too much already for his own good, because I have told it to him. I have given him exactly twenty minutes to prepare a trap, and I intend to walk right into it! He had the impudence to tell me that it takes his whole corps of mahouts that long to harness up an elephant. He had the ignorance to imagine I would wait in his office while he summoned somebody to quarrel with me and provoke a fortunate excuse for my arrest. He does not dare to kill me; he is contemplating other means of making me innocuous. So when he does what I am almost sure he contemplates, you are to fall into the trap too.”

  Ram Dass was a much too easy-going usurer, and
much too downright in his dealings to consider traps with equanimity. He checked again.

  “You have a sahib in the Ford car. Take him in there with you. I will wait here. Then, if you don’t come out in due course—”

  Chullunder Ghose affected sudden interest. He swept away resistance by accepting and conditioning the other man’s proposal before he had time to voice it.

  “Yes, yes. You could go to the Residency and report to Major Smith. But you must do that afterwards: It is of the utmost importance that you should go to the Residency, and I depend on you to do it.”

  “Do you mean you planned this?” Ram Dass asked him. “How did you know I was on my way here?”

  “Planned it? No, no. But the second I saw you coming I knew the gods were working with me! ‘Ram Dass,’ I said to myself, ‘is a gift of the gods to a man in a tight predicament!’ I was in terror at the thought of taking in this surgeon sahib to protect me in the Rajah’s presence. He is brave and honorable, but about as ignorant of statecraft as an alligator is of contract bridge. So you can estimate my pleasure when I saw you — thoroughly experienced and dependable Ram Dass! ‘Here is a man,’ said I, ‘whom I can safely bet on! We shall help each other; what a privilege — what fun — what justice — in return to help him get his money!’”