Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  “Oh, that’s easy to say but it’s just talk,” said Stoddart. “If you ask me, you’re a liar. You haven’t learned anything. To the extent that a white man can condescend to a half breed without losing caste, we’ve been fair to middling friends, you and I. But if you use my name again promiscuous like that, I’ll knock your block off.”

  “Fathead,” said Moses. “He knows me. He doesn’t know you. He came out because he was curious.”

  “And he told you to go to the devil. That’s all you learned.”

  “Fathead! You mean that’s all you learned. I learned that he’s ready. He’s red-hot ready.”

  “Ready for what?”

  “To get Norwood. He’s trigger-ready. If he weren’t, he’d be playing for time, and we’d be arguing this minute about the price o’ what we’ll tell him if he’ll pay.”

  “You mean he’d have bribed us?”

  “I do not. Gulbaz makes promises. And he sometimes keeps his promises, unless.”

  “Unless what?”

  “Unless someone else can keep ’em for him with a long knife. He can hire that done for five rupees a head. So why pay us a thousand? Can your intellect answer that conundrum? Figure it out on a board when you get home.”

  Moses spoke to the driver. The noisy engine began to hurry. The truck bumped on rough pavement. The man with the big white turban fell from his perch, gave chase and climbed in behind. Moses spoke again and the truck went faster — faster.

  “It looks to me like wasted time,” said Stoddart.

  “You’ve no integrity,” said Moses. “You’ve no pride in your profession. You’d insult your soul with guesswork. Get this, saphead: since the day I knew him, I haven’t never, not once, told Norwood nothing that I didn’t know for certain sure. If I’d tell my Catch-’em-alive-o Captain that the sun was the moon, he’d bet on it. And when I tell him, as soon as we get to camp, that his life’s in danger, he’ll bet on that and take measures according. I bet on him, and he bets on me, because we know each other. You chew on that, fathead, and watch what happens.”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  THE Maharanee was scrupulously fair. Rather than disguise her motive, she revealed it. She stripped objections to it naked. She didn’t pretend that Rundhia was a prince of virtue or a man of his word, except when it suited him, or when compelled to keep a promise. The Maharanee believed every word she said. But she used arguments that sounded curious, even to Lynn, who was under the spell of the eastern environment.

  She mentioned the court fortune-teller, a Brahmin, who had been told Lynn’s birth-date and was casting a horoscope:

  “Lynn, it will take him at least a week to finish that horoscope. But already he says it indicates that this year, this month, almost this day, you are to meet your destiny in Kadur. Rundhia’s horoscope is also critical at this time. The astrologer says that Rundhia’s destiny presents him with a crisis, and that your stars and his are in close conjunction at this moment.”

  Astrology was all new stuff to Lynn. It sounded dubious. It was not so luring to her imagination as the unfamiliar eastern dignities, survivals of the long-dead past that Rundhia detested, and the Maharanee cherished in her heart but conscientiously tried to forget, to oblige Rundhia.

  “Lynn darling, I have a plan to capture your romantic heart! It is a trap, so I warn you. Last night, we were unconventional. We were modern.

  Tonight, let us follow the ancient custom. Let us honor His Highness my husband by waiting on him, at a meal soon after sunset, as the women were proud to do in ancient days. He will enjoy it, and it will help you to love us, who love you.”

  So Lynn permitted herself to be dressed again as an Indian princess, in the same costume that she wore when Norwood first saw her.

  “Lynn, spiritually you are one of us! We are your friends. Your own have turned against you. Has Captain Norwood answered your note? He hasn’t, has he? And your aunt intends to disinherit you? When she reaches the United States, will she speak well of you? She leaves you penniless. But we love you. And if you will marry Rundhia, I will settle money on you. The law and the custom is different in different Indian States. In Kadur women have property rights. I will make a settlement witnessed by the American Consul. If you wish, you shall retain your American nationality. You will never be dependent on Rundhia, who is not to be trusted with too much money. You will be able to meet him on his own terms. Your influence will be real, not only sentimental. I will teach you how to manage Rundhia. You will inspire Rundhia to greatness. He has been a bad boy, but he needs only you to make him good and brilliant and great.”

  “I think the supper will be fun,” Lynn answered.

  Rundhia would have been out of place at that supper, even if he would have accepted an invitation to what he would have called a farce. Since they were playing at being old-fashioned, Lynn had to keep her face veiled in the Maharajah’s presence.

  The Maharajah sat alone, cross-legged, at a low table, in solemn, patriarchal grandeur. Lynn and the Maharanee waited on him, Lynn taking each dish from a servant and handing it to the Maharanee, who served her husband on her knees. Subdued music flowed through an open door from another room. A Brahmin blessed each dish before it reached Lynn’s hands. Someone behind a screen sang falsetto songs in praise of Krishna and the damsels with whom that lord of life made merry.

  Lynn could have slapped the Maharajah for his smugness. He accepted it all, including the Maharanee’s worshipful devotion and Lynn’s veiled silence, as his natural right. He broke no rules of ancient etiquette with any such vulgarity as thanks. But when he had finished his meal, he permitted himself the ancient condescension, clipped into a pompous phrase, of hoping the women would enjoy their supper.

  He was escorted from the room by fawning servants, and then Lynn and the Maharanee ate alone together, seated not at the sacred table but on cushions on the floor. It was much better fun than a picnic. Lamplight and subdued color against dark walls, the strains of eastern music and the feeling of being alive and conscious in a dream of long-dead days, all served Lynn’s mood.

  “Have you enjoyed it?” the Maharanee asked her.

  “Yes.”

  “That is the polite answer. Now tell me the truth.”

  “Captain Norwood didn’t answer my letter.”

  “If he is so discourteous, why think about him? Lynn dear, Rundhia, by now, has done whatever can be done for Captain Norwood. Will you talk now with Rundhia? Will you walk with him? If you are afraid of his passionate nature, I will send a servant to—”

  Lynn interrupted: “Where is he? Yes, I want to talk to him.”

  She found Rundhia standing in moonlight, in a golden turban and European dinner clothes. As a palace door closed behind Lynn, she, too, stepped into the moonlight, with her face half veiled under the sequined sari. It was she who looked oriental. Rundhia looked like a western athlete, in more or less fancy dress. And he called Lynn a goddess in western terms that any poloplaying American gallant might have used:

  “You look like Miss India! You almost give me religion! Pull away that curtain! Show your golden hair, and let’s give all the other goddesses a sight to make them green with envy!”

  Lynn uncovered her head and walked beside him in silence.

  “I feel like a god tonight,” said Rundhia “Have you been drinking?” Lynn asked.

  “You golden-haired iconoclast! You arrow aimed into the heart of my ballooning selfesteem! You delicious archer! I have had five cocktails. Do I seem drunk?”

  “What sized cocktails?”

  “Measured to my mood, exactly.”

  “Then you seem astonishingly sober. What have you done about Captain Norwood?”

  “Lynn, let’s forget Norwood. I want to talk to you.”

  “I can’t forget him. You and I have wronged him.”

  “Has he answered your letter?” Rundhia retorted.

  “No. But have you forgotten your promise?”

  “Didn’t the Maharanee tell
you? Don’t trouble yourself about Norwood. Forget him. Talk to me.”

  “I wish to talk about Captain Norwood.”

  “He has talked about you, I don’t mind telling you. According to one of the palace servants, he told your aunt this afternoon that he’s disgusted with you.”

  “I can believe he is disgusted,” Lynn answered.

  “But I can’t imagine him saying so to Aunty, or to anyone else.”

  “Let us talk about you,” said Rundhia.

  “Very well, what about me?”

  “Now you have made me speechless!”

  “Have I? Then perhaps you will listen to me.”

  “Beloved, I will gladly listen to you, in an ecstasy of patience and devotion, during years which shall flow so fast that we’ll be old before we know it!”

  “Did you get that from a book?”

  “I never read books. When I talk to you, my tongue can only stutter miserable hints of how I feel. You make me delirious. Be good enough to notice that these arms resist impulse!” He extended his arms toward the moon, then dropped them to his sides. “Oh, Lynn, I love you.”

  “Good job I don’t love you,” she answered. “There’d be—”

  “A new golden age in Kadur!” Rundhia interrupted. “Lynn: philosophy, religion, economics and the other muck they made me listen to at school and college left me, until you came, dry of faith in anything but evil — and even evil dying! You are my first glimpse of goodness.”

  “Don’t you love the Maharanee? Isn’t she good?”

  “Oh, yes. She is good past history. Lynn, you are the present and the future! One straight look into your blue eyes, and I knew what hope means and the higher vision. I had never seen it, until I saw you. Lynn! For you, I will abandon even prejudice! I will drop my hedonism like a beggar’s rags, to bathe in your inspiration. I will live in Kadur, if you wish it. Be my wife and we will build together, until Kadur blooms into a land of joy!”

  “Sounds good,” Lynn answered. “What was in the cocktails?”

  “Don’t joke! Lynn, I’m in love. I mean every word I’m saying to you.”

  “I mean what I say, too,” Lynn answered. “I don’t love you — What was that noise? In the distance. It sounded like shooting.”

  “I didn’t hear it,” said Rundhia.

  They had reached the steps that led to the kiosk on the garden wall. It was dark in the wall’s shadow. He was justified in offering his arm to guide her up the steps, but he put it around her. She could feel his vibrance. She escaped him — ran up the steps ahead of him, then waited on the wall in full moonlight, facing him, unafraid.

  “There! Did you hear that? Wasn’t that a rifle-shot, Rundhia?”

  “Might have been,” he answered. “Not so easy to tell.”

  “Isn’t Captain Norwood’s camp in that direction?” Lynn asked.

  “Somewhere over there, yes. Possibly a jackall or a stray dog scared his sentries. Never mind Norwood. Lynn, you say you don’t love me. I don’t believe you.”

  “Why not? I told you the plain truth — Do you think sentries would fire at a dog?”

  “His would! He’s crazy. Lynn, I don’t believe you because you forgave what I did in the treasure room. And because when you hurt me, you were sorry. Also because you are not afraid to be alone with me now. Lynn, you don’t know yourself. You’re—”

  “Do you know yourself?” she retorted. “Don’t you think it strange that they should be shooting at night?”

  “No. Most soldiers live in a continual state of false alarm. They’re like silly virgins. Lynn, listen to me. Don’t I excite you?”

  “You did. But I saw you, and I heard you laugh at Captain Norwood’s ruin.”

  “I was laughing at me and my complete surrender to you! Lynn — do you realize what I offer? The throne of Kadur! Wealth, luxury — a life of power, liberty, usefulness, pleasure! Social recognition, and the snobs all clowning for your nod! My adoration! My name! Maharanee Lynn of Kadur! You and I—”

  “You are not up my street,” Lynn interrupted. “We are on different sides of the fence.”

  Rundhia looked stunned — angry, but he controlled his temper.

  “You dislike me?”

  “Oh, no.”

  “You admit I can stir your emotions?”

  “Oh, yes. I admit that. Why tell lies about it? You’re magnetic. I almost fell in love with you.”

  “Lynn, you are thinking about East and West. That hoary old superstition! It lingers, they tell me, in America more tenaciously than anywhere else, though even schoolbooks nowadays admit that we and you are of the same race. Do you know how many western women have become the wives of Indian princes?”

  “I don’t want to know. I don’t care.”

  “You are right, Lynn. Quite right. Why should you care? It is love, not what others have done, that crumbles superstitions. Lynn, I love you. I wouldn’t lie to you—”

  “Have you done your best for Captain Norwood? Have you really done it? What have you done?”

  “Never mind. I have done it.”

  “You swear?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I will listen. You were saying — ?” Rundhia had to recover the train of his thought. He turned away from her a moment, paced the wall, and came back:

  “Lynn, my love for you may sound selfish. I always have been selfish, until I met you. I have no practice with words that a genuine lover should use. But I am genuine. For the first time in my life, I am unselfish. May I tell you — will you listen if I tell you — what my heart tells me?”

  “Yes, I will listen, Rundhia.”

  “Will you really listen?”

  “Yes, Rundhia. I would rather listen to almost anything than my own thought, at the moment.”

  “You are feeling deserted?”

  “Despised!” Lynn answered. “If Captain Norwood had answered my letter—”

  “You are lonely! So am I lonely! Lynn, diwaza kola hai! The door is open! Enter. It is that short step across the threshold that makes you hesitate. Leap!”

  “You mean into your arms?”

  “Yes.”

  “No.”

  “Come, Lynn!”

  “No.”

  “Lynn, you make me hate myself. Am I so unappealing to your—” Suddenly he changed his voice. He sounded angry: “Are you in love with Norwood?”

  “I hardly know him. How could I be? I only know that I never felt dirty before in all my life. I don’t like it, Rundhia. And I can’t forgive you for having crowed over Captain Norwood’s disgrace. You and I brought it on him.”

  “Lynn, is that all that’s the matter? If I give you my word of honor that I have solved the Norwood problem, will you listen to me?”

  “Have you solved it?”

  “If I prove to you, before midnight, that there is no longer any problem about Norwood, will you come into my arms?”

  “Speak plainly, Rundhia.”

  “I will. Lynn, face it! Norwood has no use for you. Has he answered your letter? He has not! The messenger reported that he tore up your letter without reading it. I don’t know why you care a damn what happens to him. He doesn’t care what happens to you. Your aunt doesn’t care. She is leaving you flat.”

  Lynn interrupted: “You say Captain Norwood tore up my letter? Why didn’t you tell me that before?”

  “To save your feelings. However, you know now. That’s how he feels. That’s Norwood. Lynn, you are merely hesitating on that damned old superstitious crumbling platform of ‘East is East and West is West,’ that Kipling lied about. You and I are above all that nonsense. Lynn, beloved, come into my arms now! You are lonely. So am I lonely. See, I am waiting for you. Come here, Lynn. Come of your own will. Be mine. Face things from the inside looking outward. You shall be my wife, and I swear by my love for you, that Norwood—”

  “Oh, that’s only a promise,” Lynn interrupted. “I won’t believe you about Captain Norwood, until you prove it.”

  �
��You believe me about me? You believe I love you?”

  “But, Rundhia, I don’t love you.”

  “I offer you Kadur!”

  “Kadur isn’t yours yet. And I don’t think I want it.”

  Rundhia changed his tactics: “Are you afraid to trust me?”

  “I’m not afraid to trust you. I just don’t.”

  “Do you trust the Maharanee?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “May I repeat to you, in confidence, advice she gave me?”

  “No. If it was confidential, I won’t listen.”

  “It was not in confidence. She said to me: ‘Rundhia, if Lynn should yield herself to you, she would be yours forever. Otherwise, you may have difficulty. Lynn is that kind of girl.’”

  “I don’t believe you,” Lynn answered. “I will ask her if she said it.”

  Rundhia ground his teeth. Then he laughed, and his laugh rang as true as a bell:

  “I admit it. I lied. It was I who said it to her.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She said I couldn’t seduce you.”

  “She was perfectly right,” Lynn answered. “Rundhia, you can’t. For a few minutes I thought that possibly you could. But you can’t. That’s the truth. Please believe it.”

  “Come and talk with me in the kiosk,” said Rundhia.

  “No,” Lynn answered. “Talk here. No. I won’t go into the kiosk.”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  THE Resident was worried. In view of the prevalent political unrest and of the convenient fact that the State of Kadur had been quiescent for years, he had received confidential instructions from his State Department to be very discreet in his relations with the court of Kadur. It was impossible to misinterpret the order. It was plainly worded. He was not to interfere, if it could possibly be helped.

  He had a Parsee secretary, with whom he was not on really confidential terms, and whom he never consulted about anything other than rule of thumb procedure. The Resident was due before long for retirement on pension. He had an intelligible, natural, human disposition to retire without leaving a mess behind him for his successor to clean up. Consequently, he intensely disliked Norwood’s commission of investigation of the Kadur boundary dispute, with its corollary of a prod at the priestly hornets’ nest.