Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  Ram Dass looked amazed. “I didn’t know you take bribes,” he answered.

  “I can seldom get them,” said the babu.

  “Do you mean,” said Ram Dass, “that your influence can actually save this Rajah? Changes are sometimes bad for business. When we know where we are, we are there, at any rate. But can you do it?”

  “I am sent to save him from an abdication,” said the babu.

  “But you won’t, unless he bribes you? Oh, well. I shall never think the same of you again. But stability counts. I will wait for my money — provided I get all the contracts for delivery of corn.”

  “Yes, yes,” said the Rajah, “at a good price — at a very good price. I will see the treasurer about it, and you need not fee him. But I shall expect your loyal influence. There must be counter-propaganda to offset the lies the priests are telling.”

  “I detest those rogues,” said Ram Dass.

  The Rajah forced a smile. He crackled three one-thousand rupee notes and laid them on the window-sill.

  “I may depend on both of you — eh? They are yours. You may take them,” he said to the babu. But as he drew his hand away his finger-ring struck the window-pane. And as the babu took the money, a red turban — two eyes — then a lean, mean face appeared above the sill.

  “You see, we have another witness!” said the Rajah, smiling much more genuinely than he had done. “I supposed a little bribe was all you wanted, so I took a precaution.”

  “Only one?” the babu asked him.

  “No need now to kill you!” said the Rajah. “You will either serve my interests without fail, or lose your job and go to prison for accepting bribes. You understand me?”

  “Perfectly, huzoor.”

  “You had better begin to use your wits at once against those thieving priests.”

  “I wish to do so.”

  “And don’t forget that they are intriguing to get my loving cousin on the throne.”

  “I will not forget it.”

  “Then you have my leave to take your beastly presence hence into the rain, you blackguard, and begin!”

  “I go now,” said the babu.

  Bowing — suitably respectful — he and Ram Dass hurried out. Chullunder Ghose retrieved his slippers from the door attendant and slapped him with one of them.

  “Just to remember me by!” he remarked. “Your master has insulted me. Out of my way, you dog, before I spit at you!”

  “Just try to get in here again!” said the attendant.

  “You have done it now!” Ram Dass grumbled. He hurried down the front steps, but the babu overtook him.

  “Get in!” he commanded.

  “Into that old Ford? Not I. It has flat tires. Why should I risk my neck at my age?”

  “Because I tell you. Get in!”

  Chullunder Ghose hustled him in, but it took him a minute or two to get the thing started, and he had to hold the merchant.

  “Let me out, I tell you! I have never ridden in a—”

  Fear seized Ram Dass as the car jerked forward, missing badly, thumping on its rims. He set his teeth and held on grimly until the car had to stop at the iron gate, where the officer, dismounted now, leaned in to speak to the babu.

  “What news?”

  “Not much,” said the babu. “Any more rioting?”

  “None yet. That one volley turned their stomachs. Let us hope the rain will continue. That will stop rioting. But tell me your news.”

  “Can you keep a secret?” asked the babu.

  “None better! I am trained to keep them.”

  “Don’t say that I told you. But the truth is that Hawkesey — you know Hawkesey?”

  “Don’t I!”

  “Hawkesey has been got at! He has turned against His Highness. He is in a temple in the jungle, where he is conspiring with the priests to bring about a coup d’état to put the Rajah’s cousin on the throne. Hawkesey has been promised double salary. And the Rajah’s cousin has guaranteed him a pension for life in the event that the British insist on having him deported. That’s all.”

  “And you call that nothing? Does His Highness know it?”

  “No. And I daren’t tell him,” said the babu. “Even if I did dare, I could not get back into the palace. One of the attendants has assaulted me. He called me vile names. All the palace servants are afraid of me because they think I spy on them and will report them to the Rajah. So I don’t know what to do.”

  “How many people know this?” the officer asked.

  “Not many, sahib. Even Ram Dass hears it only for the first time.”

  The officer affected scorn. “I don’t believe this. It is another big-fish story.”

  “Who expects you to believe it? Who expects the Rajah to believe it? Nobody believes a true tale, until too late! Why should you believe me? I am an anonymous and stupid fat man, sent by someone stupider than me to find out what is going on — so, naturally, I know nothing! I would like to know, though, what the Rajah is to do about it!”

  “Five hundred men!” said the officer. “We can hew hard. We can shoot straight. Even Hawkes has praised our shooting lately!”

  “Oh yes. I suppose, then, you will face about and display your heroism to a brigade or so of British troops? You idiot! Do you suppose the British will permit a civil war in this State at a time when they must also deal with Gandhi and a dozen other troubles? They will simply march in and annex the territory. And then where will you be? Perhaps you think the British will sack their commander-in-chief in order to provide you with a fat job?”

  “What is this about poison?” the officer asked. “His Highness sent away that doctor just now on an elephant.”

  “Poison, nothing! I suspect the Rajah knows the truth of what is happening and simply has the wind up! He is drinking too much, and he has a headache, that’s all. Anyone who told him what to do would be a Godsend to him.”

  “I can reach him,” said the officer. “His Highness is always willing to receive me whenever I have anything to report.”

  “But you are not to tell him that I told you,” said the babu. “He would be angry with me for not having told him myself just now, when I had the chance.”

  “Why did you not tell?” asked the officer.

  “Because I was afraid of him, for one thing. As for you, if you are not afraid, you had better say your own spies told you. Thus you will receive more credit.”

  “Why not? Yes, that part of it is simple. But what is the proper advice to give him?”

  “Ask me!” laughed the babu. “Who am I to know that? I know well enough what I would do in his shoes. But I am not in them, praise be to the gods of Karma!”

  “What would you do?”

  “I would go to that temple on elephant-back. I would take not more than one or two men with me, and perhaps some servants. I would order Hawkesey to return to duty.”

  “And if Hawkes should refuse?” asked the officer.

  The babu stared. “Are you so innocent as that? Do you suppose Hawkesey would shoot him — and hang? Of course he would not! Could he take him prisoner? Quite equally, of course not! What could Hawkesey do with such a prisoner? I tell you, Hawkesey is alone, with only three or four priests. He is supposed to be shooting a tiger. He is actually making propaganda.”

  “Why not appeal to the British?”

  “That would take time,” said the babu. “Time is in favor of Hawkesey.”

  “Why not go, then, with a hundred men and seize Hawkes?”

  “Because of the rioting! Let twenty-five, or fifty, or a hundred armed men march, in monsoon weather, and who will believe the Rajah is not making war against the priests? Do you suppose the priests will sit still and say nothing? You have never seen a riot such as that one would be!”

  “But if Hawkes refuses to surrender to His Highness personally?”

  “Then the Rajah has a fine case, hasn’t he, against the British! They would have to help him to destroy Hawkes, but it would not give them an excuse to over
turn the government and put another in the Rajah’s place. At the least, they would have to pretend to be ashamed of Hawkesey’s misbehavior.”

  “Well, why not shoot Hawkes?” asked the officer. “He might be ambushed. Or he might be tempted into a parley and—”

  “Oh, how I envy anyone whom you advise!” the babu interrupted. “Shoot Hawkes without bringing him to trial — and then see who can stop the yell of ‘murder’ that will go up! Don’t forget that Hawkes is much more popular than you are. And the priests, who probably despise him, nevertheless would take advantage of his murder to accuse the Rajah. Can the British let a Britisher be killed and not retaliate?”

  “So you suggest — ?”

  “That he should use his courage!” said the babu. “Has he any? Order them to open me the gate, I pray you.”

  Presently, in drenching rain, in mutually watchful silence, Chullunder Ghose and Ram Dass skidded to a standstill. There was no one near the yellow- shuttered corn-shop except a dish-faced penitent who sat in sackcloth, chin on knees, beside the shop door; even he seemed unobservant.

  “Now I thank God I am still alive,” said Ram Dass, starting up the steps between the ancient cannons. He seemed to wish the babu not to follow him. He hurried. He turned at the shop door and noticed the babu giving money to the dish-faced individual.

  “Buy merit if you can! You need some,” he remarked, and then entered his shop.

  Chullunder Ghose followed him through to the back room, where the oil- stove burned amid the corn-sacks. Ram Dass turned on him.

  “You are insane!” he said bitterly.

  “I hope so, sahib! Here are your three thousand rupees. Take them.”

  “My three thousand? Are you drunk too?”

  “Not yet. When insanity has done its job, I mean to get as drunk as Bacchus! Take your money. You are fined two thousand dibs for having lent good money to a bad crook! I could not do any better for you.”

  “Do you mean it? You are not so mad after all. That dirty dog would never have repaid me, whatever I threatened. He knew I was bluffing. I thank you. Three thousand is better than nothing at all. And I apologize for my remarks just now.”

  “But how about the contracts?” asked the babu. “Do you want them? And don’t you owe me something? Turn about is fair play.”

  “Money? How much?”

  “To the devil with your money! Hawkesey and I are on the level. So are you, Ram Dass-jee. Run an errand for me, and we cry quits!”

  “What now?”

  “Go to the Residency and insist on seeing Major Smith, however many times he may refuse to see you. Tell him that his boils are not an alibi, and say you have important information for him. Then, as soon as he has finished reprimanding you for the intrusion, turn the tables on him. Say that the priests are telling all the people that the Rajah has sent Hawkesey to commit a sacrilege by invading a sacred place. Say also that the Rajah boasts that Major Smith advised him to send Hawkesey, and that therefore the people are doubly indignant. Tell him that today’s riot was a prelude to rebellion that only he can prevent. And then commence to flatter him. When flattery has done its work, tell him you have overheard me talking to the Rajah’s bodyguard, and say you think the Rajah intends to force a civil war, in order to compel the British India authorities to intervene and put the hooks into the priests — which will inevitably bring the British into the religious sort of difficulty that they dread with all their nerve and instinct.”

  “I was right when I called you insane,” said Ram Dass.

  “Nevertheless, reserve your judgment,” said the babu. “My insanity is catching! What I want is to get Major Smith to hurry to the palace. He will take a sore neck and a rotten temper with him. He will threaten the Rajah. He will Dutch-uncle him. I know Smith. And if I know the Rajah, he will drink a lot of brandy and decide on what a statesman would have jumped at in the first place — and spoil it by incorporating what that officer of the guard to whom I spilled a little seed of my insanity, advises.”

  “Then what?”

  “Major Eustace Smith will get a decoration.”

  “What for?”

  “Nothing. I shall get a reprimand, and much more interesting work to do. And you will get the contracts.”

  “Pah! I doubt it. That man’s promise—”

  “Is as good as wooden money, no doubt. How about his cousin’s promise? If I tell his cousin you were instrumental in—”

  “Oh! This man has to abdicate?”

  “No.”

  “What then?”

  “Wait and see!” the babu answered. “Will you do that errand at the Residency?”

  Ram Dass rubbed a finger on his sly old nose and hesitated half a minute. Then he answered:

  “I will do it. Not because I trust you, but because I think you trust me.”

  “Stchah-Stchah! The fellow to trust is the Rajah,” the babu answered. “I know devils when I see them!”

  CHAPTER 19. “C.3 meant to do that, if he did it”

  Familiar though he was with death’s most bloody and disgusting shapes, Hawkes was dazed and sickened by the devotee’s death at the claws and fangs of the tiger of Kali’s temple. Helplessly bound, with the stench of the tiger’s den beneath him and the grim hag’s torchlight breaking up the gloom, he hugged the wall again for fear of falling off the ledge. Ghosts of dead men seemed to leap out from the shadows. He could hear the tiger snarling and the crunch of the brute’s fangs on human flesh and bone.

  There was no more ceremony, except that the hag stood upright on her broken pillar and began to scream, waving and shaking her torch. She was as mad- drunk as ever a Roman mob became at orgies of dramatically frightful death. Her screams appeared to stir the tigress in the cage behind the stone bars; eyes that glittered in the torchlight did a dance to the measureless rhythm of the hag’s chant, leaving to imagination the invisible contortions of a body yearning to glut strength in a feast of frenzy.

  Both Hawkes’s captors seized him by the shoulders, raised him to his feet and started back along the gallery, one leading with the shrouded lantern and the other urging from behind. He could not have been recognized by any of the others on that gallery; it had been too dark; his captors hustled him away too soon. At the end of a winding passage — not the same they came by — they descended three steps and passed through an iron door that F.11 closed and bolted. Then the other unshrouded the lantern — grinned and pointed.

  Half in and half out of a trough of carved stone lay a python, heavier and much longer than any Indian python Hawkes had ever seen. It was offended by the lantern-light. Red anger stared from its fixed eyes. It swayed its head in baffled arcs as it tried to see beyond the lantern. Then it crawled away across the threshold of another door and vanished amid tumbled masonry. And F.15 spoke:

  “Fed full! He has slain his count of men, that serpent; but he eats goats, since a man is too much for his jaws to swallow, though he crushes them like sponges dipped in red wine! One goat a week they give him — and six for the tigress; on the seventh day they let her hunger. But to the he-tiger they give nothing; he must hunt men!”

  “Loose my arms!” Hawkes ordered. “Dammit, I gave all my whisky to the elephant. I need a drink like Judas Iscariot!”

  F.11 unfastened his arms and chafed the places where the raw hide thong had bitten when he strained against it in his terror.

  “Now the rifle!”

  F.11 gave it to him. There was no hint of his being a prisoner now — no fear of him, and not the slightest trace of anything but comradeship. F.15 and F.11 grinned, disclosing teeth as yellow as their long smocks, and their eyes were as inscrutable as those of alligators. They were partners in an ugly game; they were as full of guile as rats, as full of ruthlessness as leopards; but they were as friendly as two good hunting dogs.

  Hawkes stared up at a ceiling formed by broken vaulting, into which huge blocks of masonry had jammed themselves in falling.

  “What now?” he demanded. “I’d
like half a ton o’ T.N.T. I’d fix this place up proper! Samson could ha’ done the job right — pull away the props and drop it on ’em? Never heard o’ Samson? You should go to Sunday school, the same as I did. How do I get out o’ this?”

  “You don’t!” said F.11. “Did not C.3 tell you to obey us?”

  “Chullunder Ghose asked me to get back quick to him with information,” Hawkes answered. “If you’ve any message for him, get it off your chests, now. And then how about one of you coming to show me the way home?”

  Both men shook their heads. “Our orders are to stay here,” F.11 answered. “We have done our work well. Soonya believes we are a pair of Kali-worshipers in quest of this death.” Even F.11 shuddered. “Our turn is the last — us two together — after all the others have been torn and fanged into eternity. We are to keep you here until the babu comes. He said so.”

  Hawkes asked: “Did he mention me by name?”

  “He did not. What does C.3 care about a man’s name? C.3 is a doer of the silent deeds that set up this one, and that set down that one, but that leave him as secret as the drawers of night’s curtain. Nay, a man’s name or his place are nothing to him; for if Number One says, ‘this one is a traitor; ruin him!’ or ‘that one is a true man in a tight place; clear a way for him a little!’ C.3 does it. And he told us he would send a man to stand by, who should do our bidding and defend us if it comes to grave need. We are to defend him also and to show him all we can discover. You are that one.”

  “Am I? I’m in a predicament,” Hawkes answered. “That’s what I’m in. First of all, the Rajah’s Dirty Dick says I’m to come and shoot the tiger. I tell C.3, and he urges me to come, but says I’m — not to shoot the tiger; I’m to hurry back and tell him what’s what. On the other hand, he did say I’m to dress by anyone I find here who appears to have credentials; and you blokes have ’em. And you tell me I’m to stay along o’ you until he comes. But I’m paid by the State o’ Kutchdullub, out o’ taxes, and supposed to obey the Rajah — barring that, I mayn’t take part in politics or buck the local prejudices, one of which is that a white man shouldn’t enter temples. It’s a mix-up! Damned if I know what to do now! I’ve a mind to go and shoot both tigers to begin with.”