by Talbot Mundy
“Then why didn’t you tell Dr. Lewis?”
He laughed again, uncritical, friendly: “Hell, you bawled me out for telling what little I did tell. You were right, too. This is Tom Grayne’s party. I’m not paid to blow England’s nose.”
“Andrew, who does pay you?”
“No one.”
“Even your expenses?”
“I’d a great aunt.”
“You mean, you’re living off an inheritance?”
“Partly. I can earn money.”
She looked around the tent, and at Andrew’s shadowed face in the yellow lantern light. Shaving had been impossible since they left India, but he had kept his reddish beard close cropped and neatly trimmed. He looked strong, clean, well groomed. He smelt good.
“I believe,” she said after a moment, “there’s nothing you can’t do.”
He looked up sharply, stared for a second with puckered eyes and spoke kindly: “You’re ahead of time. They haven’t got me yet. This isn’t my wake.”
“Why are you superstitious about being praised?”
“Never mind me. Let’s talk of this fix we’re in.”
“Yes,” she said, “yes. There is one thing you can’t do.”
He evaded the challenge neatly. She knew it was deliberate, although it sounded like the good-humored flow of conversation:
“Which of a thousand and one? I bet I know what you’re thinking about. Have I three guesses?”
“As many as you please.”
“I can’t figure out why Old Ugly-face is in this mess. He’s got his head in a noose.”
“But he’s here,” said Elsa. “You do admit it is he?”
“I take your word for it.”
“Very sweet of you, Andrew. Very polite. But somehow unlike you! Don’t you know him?”
“From the photograph? I’d have to see it again to be half sure.”
“I mean, from your own inside vision — don’t you know who he is?”
“You’d make a good cross-examiner. No, I don’t know who he is. On the whole, I’d say yes, I suppose he’s Old Ugly-face. I’m taking it for granted. I couldn’t prove it.”
“Don’t you suppose he’ll prove it, at the right time?”
“Why isn’t now the best possible time?”
“He knows best. He’s in a very tight place,” said Elsa.
“He sure is. So are we — outnumbered — well worth looting — up against at least one, perhaps more, of the coldest blooded devils on earth. St. Malo is as vicious as one of our young coked-up killers in the States. If you could cut his conscience, it wouldn’t bleed. I don’t know who some of those Tibetans are. But St. Malo picked ’em, so they’re no one’s woolly baa-lambs. It’s a bad stable. Our men are scared stiff of ’em.”
“Andrew, he knows all that.”
Andrew laughed. “Who’s superstitious? What d’you want to call him? Monsieur X or something?”
“Monsieur X would do.”
“We’ll call him that. So now — what beats me is that Monsieur X is a statesman. He was on the Council of Regents in Lhasa. He knows the ropes.”
“So was von Schuschnigg a statesman,” said Elsa. “Where is he now? How many of Mussolini’s, Stalin’s, Franco’s statesmen are alive today? Why should Monsieur X be an exception?”
“But according to you, he’s also a magician.”
“So was Jesus a magician — St. Paul — Joan of Arc — Giordano Bruno — Savonarola. Andrew, are you being serious? Do you honestly claim that just because someone is spiritual he can escape from material hatred? The world hates spiritual people. It only admires material success. It only tolerates shams — until after they’re dead.”
“But if he’s a saint, as you think, why should he be in the soup?”
“Why was Jesus in the soup, as you call it?”
“I wish I knew. Why did Jesus, who knew enough to turn society inside out so it stayed that way for a couple of thousand years, go bumming around Palestine with a crook like Judas? Didn’t he know better?”
“Andrew, I’m only a beginner. I don’t know all the answers.”
“If Monsieur X is as bright as you think — how come that he fell for St. Malo?”
“How d’you know he has fallen for him?”
“That’s what’s happened. St. Malo is the king-pin of this outfit. I’m gambling St. Malo came overland from Shanghai just to help Monsieur X escape into a worse trap than he was in before. St. Malo proposed to him to change clothes with that flunky. He means to sell him for hard cash.”
“Andrew — couldn’t it be that Monsieur X knew no other way to reach a definite objective than to agree to St. Malo’s plan?”
“Jesuitry, eh? Lining up with crooks and doing wrong that good may come of it maybe, perhaps? That sounds like the church talking.”
“Gently, Andrew, gently! What wrong has he done — that you know of? Andrew, you must understand this. Please understand it. Monsieur X is a Ringding Gelong Lama who abandoned the broad road of promotion by meditation, for the perilous and much more difficult pilgrimage, as it is called, of attainment by deeds.”
“Attainment! That’s what they’re all after — attainment — success — every last damned politician I ever met or heard of. They have to do it. They can’t do otherwise. Once their snouts are in the swill, they must suck with the rest of the swine. They have to make the front page or go under — feather their nests, or starve when there’s a change of government. Rob or be robbed. Lie, steal, chouse, swindle—”
“Andrew—”
“Yes?”
“To take the path that Monsieur X took, he had first to abandon all those things. He had to tear out of his heart the last trace of self-aggrandizement, greed, pride. He had to earn, by almost unimaginable discipline, not only spiritual power but the equally essential spiritual will never to employ that power for his personal use, even in dire need.”
“Well. I’ve heard of that being done. Go ahead.”
“You know what karma is?”
“I know what the word means.”
“Tell me.”
“It means the unavoidable accumulated incubus of fate caused by deeds in former lives.”
“Near enough. Unavoidable, irresistible, but not unconquerable. Spiritual evolution doesn’t wipe out karma. It can’t. Nothing can. Karma must happen, because every cause is a boomerang that must have its effect, sooner or later, upon the individual who did it. But on the principle which Jesus taught— ‘resist not evil’ — spiritual evolution does show how to rise — as it were into a stratosphere — above karma and in that way to put it to, good use. Have I made that clear?”
“Get up into an ivory tower and offer the other cheek?”
“Not literally — no. Turning the other cheek suggests the idea of tacking a ship at sea, so as to take advantage of an adverse wind. One can progress against the wind. One can make personal karma serve impersonal, spiritual purposes.”
“I object to that word ‘impersonal,’ “ said Andrew. “What’s more I sustain the objection. It’s ruled out. It tries to sidestep the truth that everything happens to persons, through persons. Even an impersonal opinion, so-called, comes through a person. Everything that means anything is personal — from Einstein’s relativity all the way down to a five-four Supreme Court decision, or an egg omelet, or a shot in the back. — Just half a jiffy while I move that lantern.”
He rearranged the lantern carefully so that the shadow of his head and shoulders fell on sacks of barley that lined the tent wall. There was nothing to aim at from outside. Then he shifted two sacks so that there was one on either side of Elsa and she was well protected against possible bullets.
“So let’s keep this personal,” he went on. “We’re in one personal hell of a jam. I’d like to get your view. I’m doing my best to understand.”
“I wish I knew the right words,” she answered. “I can feel it, the way one feels music in silence.”
“Keep on trying,
” said Andrew.
She was silent for almost a minute. Then she said: “Listen! Suppose Monsieur X were in Lhasa, hiding from enemies.”
“Okay. That’s easy. He was.”
“While in hiding he heard of a plot to carry off the infant Dalai Lama in order to make use of him deceitfully for cruel purposes.”
“Stet! That’s what happened.”
“What could he do?”
“You’re telling it.”
“Having no personal ambition none whatever — absolutely none — caring nothing what might happen to his own person — but intensely willing to devote his whole intelligence to the greatest good of all concerned — should he have turned down an opportunity with pious horror because its proposer was Ambrose St. Malo? Or was he right to let St. Malo appear to succeed with his treacherous plan, knowing full well that his own soul will direct him, not only to the right course — but to the only right course? Remember, he doesn’t care twopence about his own personal safety.”
“Did you make that up?” asked Andrew.
“No. I asked my soul to tell me how to convince you. The words came.”
“They make sense,” he answered. “Just a jiffy or two. I’ll make the rounds.”
“Take a guard with you!”
“Sure.”
The four whom he had placed on guard were asleep under the fly of the tent, inside two walls of barley bags. He waked up two of them and led the way first to the pony lines, using his flashlight. It wasn’t snowing any longer, it was thawing. Someone might have ridden away. He counted the animals. Ponies, yaks and sheep were all there with their harness around them. He thought for a minute, made sure that his automatic was easy to get at, and started toward Bulah Singh’s tent. The soft snow smothered his footfall so that he walked like a ghost, but his thoughts were like trip-hammer beats:
“Almighty, if you give a damn, and if you are God, don’t fool me this time.”
A voice seemed to say, inside his head: “Don’t fool yourself.”
Who was talking to whom? He wondered about it. He didn’t know. His lips didn’t move. He wasn’t muttering or talking aloud to himself. “I’m going to play this the way it looks right to me,” he said. But it was soundless.
The voice inside him answered: “You are the judge. There is no other.”
“Nuts!” he said. “I’m damned if I’m the judge! I didn’t create this mess!”
“Didn’t you? Then who did? This is the test you prayed for. Are you afraid?”
“Hell, I’m not afraid of St. Malo and Bulah Singh.”
“Are you afraid not to kill them?”
“I’m going to play it straight. I’ll keep ’em both for Tom Grayne.”
“Are you afraid of Tom Grayne?”
“Why should I be?”
“Why are you?”
“I’m not.”
“You are the judge: Are you afraid of Elsa?”
“God, no.”
“Aren’t you?”
“Why should I be?”
“Then what do you fear? What is it?”
He hadn’t answered himself. He had reached Bulah Singh’s tent. There was a lantern burning inside. It cast the shadow of only one man, that looked like the turbaned shape of Bulah Singh. Andrew touched the shoulders of his Tibetan escort to warn them to keep silent, and stood listening. Presently there came the muffled sound of something hollow being hammered beneath a blanket. Suddenly he drew his own knife and cut the lashings of the tent with swift strokes. He bore down on the ridge pole, collapsing the tent, and stood back to watch the result. The lantern went out. Someone inside the billowing tent fired three shots-panic shots at random. Andrew spotted with his flash-light, jumped and landed with both feet on the invisible pistol. Then there were groans. So he moved aside and ordered his two Tibetans to drag the tent free. Bulah Singh sat up in the glare of the flashlight.
“I might have known it was you,” he said, readjusting his turban. Both his broken Mausers were beside him on the ground. He had been using one as a hammer to break open Andrew’s steel box. “Don’t shoot,” he said, “unless you specially want to. I’m not armed.”
“I will do as I please,” said Andrew. “Pull that blanket aside. No, I know what’s under that one. The other!”
Bulah Singh sat still. He thought it was a trick. He didn’t dare to move. Andrew told one of the Tibetans to pull the blanket away. Beneath it lay Ambrose St. Malo with his head swathed in a torn shirt. It was he who had groaned.
“Next time, I’ll aim better,” said Andrew.
St. Malo sat up. “What do you mean — next time?” He had a peculiar, sub-acid accent that suggested an immeasurable depth of insolence and self- assurance that relied on treachery and other men’s mistakes.
“Next time you burgle my tent,” said Andrew.
“You’d be a fool to kill me,” St. Malo answered. “Perhaps you are a fool. Who knows? Damn you and your tent-peg! You missed killing me by almost nothing. If I had my gun, you’d—”
Andrew interrupted: “Take your gun back from Bulah Singh! He stole it. Go on, take it from him!”
He didn’t have to speak twice. Matter-of-factly St. Malo held out his hand. The Sikh returned his well-oiled Smith and Wesson.
“For your information,” said Andrew, “you were bluffed by a couple of broken Mausers. Now uncover my steel box.”
Both men were afraid to move, because the flashlight was in Andrew’s left hand and his right looked too ready to draw. One of the Tibetans pulled the blanket aside. The steel box was unbroken, though there were deep dents made by the butt of Bulah Singh’s Mauser. At a sign from Andrew a Tibetan picked up the box.
“You hadn’t brains enough to think of this,” said St. Malo. “You’re only a strong-arm amateur. I remember you now from Shanghai.”
“You are right,” said Bulah Singh. “It’s that girl. She’s clairvoyant. She tells him everything.”
St. Malo was beginning to feel a lot less scared, which was what Andrew waited for. One scare is never enough. It needs not less than two.
“If you should shoot me,” said St. Malo, “there’d be no one to tell my rescue party you’ve been hospitable. There’s a party from Lhasa close behind us. You’ll need friends. You’d better make one now. I’m not vindictive.”
Andrew laughed. That might be a half-truth. But it was one sure bet that Ambrose St. Malo had no friends in Lhasa. If he did know, and was known to von Klaus’s party of Germans, then he must have double-crossed them and escaped with the man they were after. He had probably snatched Old Ugly-face out from under their noses. It would be a pursuit — not rescue-party.
“If you should shoot me,” said Andrew, “you couldn’t handle my men. You’d be caught by the pursuing force and strung up. So you may keep your gun. Your five-and-ten-cent lama told me you want to go where I’m headed for. So toe the line. From now on you and Bulah Singh share this tent. You’ll walk — both of you.”
“But my feet!” said Bulah Singh.
“I don’t care a damn for your feet. You’ll use ’em. I intend to repack the loads to spare the ponies. And get this, both of you. The slightest trouble from either of you, from now on, will be personal — between you and me — settled there and then, on that basis, without further notice.”
He didn’t wait to watch them repitch the tent. He left the Tibetans to help them and walked alone to the lean-to, where Bompo Tsering and his own gang were huddled all together at the opposite end of the lean-to from the phony lama’s men. He awoke Bompo Tsering — whispered to him.
“But, Gunnigun—”
“Do as I say, you fool, or you’ll be dead by morning!”
One by one, waking them one at a time, they disarmed St. Malo’s men. It was better to wake them before searching them — especially those who pretended to be very fast asleep. They all had Mausers. Andrew smashed them, one against another, then flung them away in the snow. That those were St. Malo’s and not the phony lama’s m
en was now established beyond doubt, without having to ask questions that might subtly have restored their morale. Being questioned, by someone who needs to know, builds self-importance. If they had been the phony lama’s men they would have looked to him for explanations, help, advice, orders. They didn’t. They never looked at him at all. They didn’t care whether he lived or he died. They stared through the dark toward Bulah Singh’s tent. And they were all the more discouraged and disenchanted because Andrew told them nothing — said not one solitary word. He simply walked away and left them. Bompo Tsering followed:
“Gunnigun, your being hot-damn fool! Why your breaking all them too good Mausers? Why your throwing away? Why your not giving-um me? My—”
Andrew’s impatient gesture stopped him. He blinked in the rays of the flashlight.
“Look in my eyes! Am I afraid?” asked Andrew.
“No, Gunnigun. My being afraid. Your not.”
“Good. That’s what I thought. Turn in and sleep. I’m standing watch. One hour before daybreak, redistribute loads, dividing up between all the ponies, with a half-load for the new one. From here on, everybody walks except the Lady Elsa.”
“Why her not walking also?”
“Because I say it.”
“Yes, Gunnigun.”
“That’s all.”
“Yes, Gunnigun.”
Bompo Tsering walked off toward the pony lines where the tea-urn and fuel were stowed in a hole in the rock. He hummed a mantra guaranteed to ward off devils.
Andrew went to his own tent, rather grim-lipped. His lips didn’t move. “Who said I’m afraid?” he demanded. It sounded like his own voice, but he was absolutely sure he hadn’t actually spoken. A voice inside him answered:
“I said it. I say it again.”
Elsa called to him: “Are you all right, Andrew?”
She opened the tent and held back the flap while he kicked the snow off his boots and went in.
CHAPTER 45
It cleared suddenly. The low moon broke through the clouds. Andrew sat in the mouth of the tent with Elsa beside him and the pole between them, so that they had a view of the entire bivouac. She wrapped a blanket around her, although it wasn’t really cold now the thaw had set in. She hadn’t any idea that it made her look wistful and in need of male protection. She wasn’t thinking of herself. But Andrew found himself resisting an impulse. It made him lean the other way. Impulses at cross-purposes within him made decision difficult. The thawing snow thudded and tinkled. The ponies neighed, smelling the barley sacks; Bompo Tsering was getting their breakfast ration ready before redistributing the loads. There was a feel of excitement — a sensation of impending crisis, and it was suggested all over again by Andrew’s forced calm. The curve of his shoulders resembled a spring under tension. He was ready for anything — eager to employ and relieve his nervous energy. Things seemed real and unreal in undulations, as if thought rose and fell on waves of consciousness.
