Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  “How long have you been here?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. Two minutes — hours — days! Was it good? I was away up — from the moment when I took your hand until you turned.”

  “So was I. But I must go down there now, and—”

  “No. Don’t. Watch from here. I know what will happen.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I will tell later.”

  He hugged her close to him and leaned, between her and the wind, against the barbette where they could see both sides of the wall.

  “Andrew,” she said, “can you help Ram-pa Yap-shi? Can you reach him with a thought that may make him feel less lonely?”

  “I can fix him so he’d quit feeling at all,” Andrew answered. “I’ve a rifle.”

  “Aren’t you ashamed?”

  “No. That’s how I feel. He looks like Satan to me. If such a thing’s possible, he’s Old Ugly-face’s opposite. Have you talked to the kid Lama? What does he think of him?”

  “He pities him.”

  “That child? Kids of his age are pitiless.”

  “Can a Dalai Lama — even only seven years old — return evil for evil?”

  “If he’s such a prodigy of virtue, can’t he use his virtue to prevent—”

  “No. Watch.”

  There was talk going on at the gate, through the hole in the postern. Outside, five hundred monks, noisily bullied by platoon commanders, were piling their rifles in fairly orderly stacks. Hermits opened the postern. It seemed a protocol had been arranged. The plundered baggage animals were led away to another gate. Tom and his Tibetans marched off to see the ponies safely stabled and the loads put under lock and key. Then, one by one, led by their commander, the disarmed monks filed in through the postern. One hermit took them in charge, striding like a mountaineer as he led them past Old Ugly-face to the door through which Ram-pa Yap-shi had walked alone. They saluted as they passed Old Ugly-face. He took no notice. Someone called out their names as they passed. The secretary’s writing brush moved on the page — nemesis, writing. Andrew speculated: “To the dungeons”?

  “No. What has happened in this—”

  “Are you psyching it?”

  “No. The Dalai Lama’s personal attendant told me. First; Ram-pa Yap-shi was offered to those monks whom he armed and misled — to be their leader. They might take him and go wherever they pleased.”

  “He got his answer,” said Andrew.

  “After that, since his own would have none of him — and even Ram-pa Yap-shi knew that would happen — he knew that terrorists are always turned on by their favorites when failure sets in — he was offered two alternatives. They were both in accord with the Tibetan code of justice. He might claim hospitality — of the dungeons, in which he has tortured and starved his enemies. Or he may, of his own free will, earn merit.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Watch. Think kindly if you can!”

  “Damn him, I can’t. He’s a son of a bitch.”

  “Andrew, we are going to see tragedy. He’s as lonely as Judas. He needs pity!”

  “Well, okay then, God pity him! Now what?”

  Ram-pa Yap-shi had stood motionless until the last of his men had stacked their rifles and passed in through the postern. But now he moved, slowly, with bowed head, his back to the wind — like a man in a trance, except that he clearly knew where he was going, and deliberately forced himself to go. He walked between the piles of rifles and along the trampled track between banks of snow, until he reached the bend where the ledge began that skirted the thousand-foot deep ravine. He never paused once — never hesitated.

  “Bless him!” said Elsa. “Be kind to him, Andrew! There’s nothing else we can do!” She didn’t know it, but she was driving her fingernails into Andrew’s wrist. “Try to love him, just one little bit! Love him! He’s human! He’s doing his best, at his world’s end!”

  Ram-pa Yap-shi walked straight forward, knee-deep in the snow, instead of turning where the track curved eastward. Two vultures followed him. He reached a wind-blown crag that leaned out over the precipice, kept walking forward with his hands clasped behind him, trod on air — vanished. The vultures followed.

  “Good God!”

  Andrew didn’t speak again for a moment. He hugged Elsa close to make sure she wasn’t shaking from cold. From a roof, where the bells were ringing in the wind a radong like a foghorn, blared Ram-pa Yap-shi’s requiem.

  “He took it standing,” Andrew said then. “He didn’t squeal.”

  Elsa faced about. She met his eyes and put her hands on his shoulders. “Andrew! Do you realize what happened?”

  “No. I’m thinking. You tell it. It feels somehow loaded. I can’t explain what I mean.”

  “Andrew, it means this. Ram-pa Yap-shi acknowledged — to himself, and to his own soul, and to the world — that his sins misled thousands, who obeyed him through fear and ignorance. Disaster showed him the end of that road. So he chose death as the death of his own sin and theirs too—”

  “Steady!” said Andrew. “Steady! If there’s a hell, that’s where he’s gone! Sins like his, nor mine either, can’t be wiped out in a moment.”

  “No?” she said. “Do you remember the repentant Thief on the Cross? ‘Today shalt thou be—’”

  “You mean — ? Lord God! You don’t mean — ?”

  “‘For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: — Andrew, the Dalai Lama has asked for ‘the big man they call Gunnigun.’ He is waiting below. Will you come?”

  CHAPTER 63

  At the foot of the gatehouse stairs both doors were open, although Andrew had bolted one and the other was locked when he entered. There was a commotion outside. Old Ugly-face was coming — looking, Andrew thought, so physically tired that he was almost out on his feet; but so spiritually vigorous that no fatigue could conquer him. Andrew and Elsa stood back to let him pass, but at the threshold he waited for someone while the monks swarmed around him and had to be driven back by main force. It was only when he turned and faced them, raising his right hand, that they retreated to a decently respectful distance.

  Through the other door there appeared a long, dim passage, lighted with little brass butter lamps set in niches in the wall. Somewhere about fifty feet along the passage there appeared to be a chamber corresponding to a buttress that supported the main wall on the inside and formed the base for an enormous stupa. Several Tibetans dressed in silk robes stood facing the entrance to the chamber.

  “Where’s the boy Lama?” Andrew whispered.

  Elsa nodded in the direction of the chamber: “Those are his attendants.”

  One of the attendants, smiling at Elsa as he passed, came and spoke to Old Ugly-face, murmuring to him from behind. Old Ugly-face bowed his head in token of assent. The attendant returned, and presently the young Dalai Lama came walking alone, preceded by the attendant walking backwards and followed by four other servants, two by two, ten feet behind him.

  The boy was wearing the same gorgeously embroidered silk as when Andrew first saw him. He smiled wonderfully when he saw Elsa. With a gesture as spontaneous as the flash of delight in his eyes he clasped his hands, then spread his arms wide. In a moment, to the horror of his attendants, he was standing between Andrew and Elsa with his hands in theirs.

  “Gunnigun!” he laughed. “Gunnigun!”

  “Hello, feller!” said Andrew. “What’s your name?”

  There was no time to answer. The clucking attendants tried to separate them. Old Ugly-face turned and reproved the attendants so savagely that they slunk back into the passage and tried to get out of his sight. Then Old Ugly- face went down on his weary knees and made obeisance to the child, whose guardian he had again become. The child blessed him with the unselfconscious gesture of an ancient of days. Then he took Elsa’s and Andrew’s hands again. Old Ugly-face stood up, unsmiling, unoffended, his gaze fixed on Andrew. He spoke in Tibetan, Elsa translating:

&nb
sp; “Because ye are three, who of your best have given—”

  “God’s sake, where’s Tom?” Andrew wondered.

  “And because your best has been acceptable to Destiny that serves His Holiness who clasps your hands in peace and good will—”

  The boy Lama chuckled and squeezed hands. He seemed to know what was coming. Old Ugly-face spared him a reproving frown and continued:

  “Ask! What will you?”

  “Nothing,” said Andrew. “It has been my great privilege to contribute my services. I would do it again. Your Eminence owes me nothing.”

  Old Ugly-face smiled. He thrust his hand into his bosom and produced the silk flag taken from St. Malo. He unfolded it and showed it to Andrew. But he gave it to Elsa. Then he spoke what he considered to be English:

  “Your country needing you. Your needing her. Damned old bugger, am I?”

  “Your servant,” said Andrew. “My respects to you, sir.”

  Old Ugly-face took Elsa’s hand and put it into Andrew’s. His lips moved for many seconds before he spoke aloud:

  “Her being my chela. My sending her forth. Your being her fellow pilgrim helping her give — My blessing you. Many, many million never failing blessings — finding wherever your being, always, always. Tum-Glain my keeping here — his needing too much.” Then he spoke again, at length, in Tibetan to Elsa. She interpreted:

  “Andrew. Tom is waiting near the stupa. We are all to be blessed in public by the Infant Lama, so that the monks may understand that we’re protected as long as we’re in Tibet. When we’ve rested a couple of days we’re to say good-bye. Tom will stay here; he begged it, and I begged it for him.”

  “And you’re coming with me?”

  The boy Lama took their hands again. Old Ugly-face turned and led, booming the mystic syllable that leads, like all true music, upward, universe by universe, to an infinity beyond eternity, whence pours all newness —

  “Aum-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m!”

  THE END

  The Shorter Fiction

  Mundy enrolled at Rugby School, Warwickshire, in September 1893. Two years later his father died of a brain haemorrhage and Mundy soon left Rugby School without any qualifications.

  PAYABLE TO BEARER

  First published in The Cavalier, December 1912

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER I. — Ikey And His Trade

  CHAPTER II. — Which Introduces Woman Number One

  CHAPTER III. — Ha, Ha! Woman Number Two! The Plot Thickens!

  CHAPTER IV. — Enter The Hero! The Plot Gets Thicker Still

  CHAPTER V. — In Which Ikey Makes A Killing, And Enjoys Himself

  CHAPTER VI. — In Which Ikey’s Streak Of Luck Begins To Hold Out Symptoms Of Getting Thin

  CHAPTER VII. — Across The Continent

  CHAPTER VIII. — Which Enlightens Lizzie Wingfield And Certain Others

  CHAPTER IX. — Which Is Short, And Treats Of Ikey

  The magazine in which this tale originally appeared

  PAYABLE TO BEARER

  CHAPTER I. — Ikey And His Trade

  IF you bring a woman into a story you spoil the story, and in all probability libel the woman; everybody knows that. But there are two women in this story, so get ready; they always have crept in, and they always will — and we have to make the best of it. In this instance, though, the first person to creep in was Ikey Hole.

  The police in particular, but almost everybody who knew him at all intimately, called him Keyhole Ikey, so that by the time that he crept into the story he was laboring under an extra syllable as well as a kit of scientifically constructed tools distributed about his person. It was a second story that he crept into — through a bedroom window.

  Ikey started in business at the early age of sixteen as a porch-climber, and by the time he was twenty he had become a past grand-master of his profession; but since by that time porches had grown a little out of fashion in New York he began to make a specialty of fire-escapes, and from that time on he throve amazingly, as everybody does who is sufficiently far-sighted to move with the times.

  He was a very careful man, was Ikey. He considered every little detail, just like the big interests do; but, unlike them, he was contriving to salt away quite a snug little fortune without running the risk of being muckraked.

  He agreed with the big interests in detesting publicity, but he differed from them again, in having nothing whatever to do with gentlemen’s agreements. Ikey had no pals; he always worked alone.

  He closed the window carefully behind him, leaving just sufficient space open at the bottom to enable him to insert his fingers should he have need to open it again in a hurry; then he pulled down the blind.

  That left him in pitch-darkness, but not for long, for he produced an electric torch from his sleeve and pressed the button; that gave him just sufficient light to examine the door by.

  The door proved to be unlocked, and the key was on the outside; so he opened it very gently, removed the key, and locked it on the inside.

  Now, economy was one of Ikey’s strong points, and burning that electric torch of his cost him good money; so he extinguished it and replaced it up his sleeve.

  Then he switched on the electric light that was hanging in the middle of the room; it was a sixteen candlepower tungsten lamp, and, besides being a whole lot better to work by, the use of it cost him nothing.

  The sudden flood of light revealed his figure full length in the pier-glass that stood facing him in one corner of the room, and he nearly jumped out of his skin with fright.

  “Gee,” he muttered with a low chuckle; “I’m gettin’ nervous! Have to cut out corfee and cigarettes for a while!”

  Coffee and cigarettes were Ikey’s chief solace in his hours of ease; but there was the making of a hero in Ikey, and he decided to give them both up on the instant, and with as little compunction as he would have felt in refusing an offer of employment; he knew what suited him, did Ikey, and he never broke his word to himself, either, whatever he might do to other people.

  “Woman,” he muttered to himself, looking sharply round the room and twiggling his nose. His nose had escaped being prehensile by very little; it was big, curled over at the end, and he used it to talk to himself with, just like a mouse does that is peeping out of a hole; you could almost read his thoughts by watching that nose of his twist and wrinkle and squirm, and he had a pair of little beady, black eyes above it that were not at all unlike a mouse’s.

  In addition to all that, he had rather large ears that stood out on either side of his head and were pointed at the top. So he was really very like a mouse, was Ikey.

  As he stood surveying the room, buttoning the top button of one of his black kid gloves that had come unfastened, you would never have mistaken Ikey for a big-hearted man; you would have probably mentally assessed him as a “piker,” and it would never have entered your head that he might possibly possess both characteristics.

  “Woman,” he muttered, “lemme see — under the mattress? no; under the rug? no; nice little dinky tin box under the bed? like as not; no, nothing there. Um-m-m! Tucked in the folds of a nighty in the middle of a bureau drawer? No, not there, either.” He pulled out handful after handful of lingerie, tossing the garments into a heap on the floor. “All pretty cheap stuff this — midsummer sale sort of stuff; heaps of it, though — guess she spent all her money at the sales. Dashed robbers, those department-stores — guess there’s nothing doing here. Hello! Ah, here’s a drawer locked! There may be somethin’ inside worth lookin’ at.”

  He tugged at the top right-hand drawer of the bureau, and his nose wriggled, and his little black mustache stood straight on end on either side of it as his lips straightened into a grin, and his little black eyes glittered like jewels in a setting of crow’s feet when the drawer refused to come open.

  “Love-letters, like as not!” he muttered. “Too much fluffy white stuff here. I reckon somebody’s goin’ to git married. I’ll bet a nic
kel that’s what’s the matter. Better have a look though.”

  Ikey always traveled prepared for every possible contingency, except fighting; he never fought, and he never murdered people; but, like Dan Cupid he laughed at locksmiths.

  He produced a short, stiff, crooked piece of wire, which he worked about with his thin, restless fingers for about half a minute; then he inserted it gingerly in the keyhole, jerked it, drew it back a little, jerked it again, and click! went the lock, and Ikey opened the drawer.

  “Gee!” he exclaimed, out loud this time, wriggling his whole body and twisting one leg round the other in excitement. “Gee — whiz! Gee — Rusalem! By the blue beak on the map of a traffic-bull in winter, if here ain’t all the money in the world!”

  He pulled out a bundle of bills from beneath a pile of lace-handkerchiefs and began to count.

  ?Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen! Mother of me, what a haul! Twenty-five, twenty- six! I wonder if I’m drunk? Thirty-three, thirty-four, thirty-five — this is like findin’ money! Forty-six, forty-seven! By the red face of a thirsty bull on pay-day, if here ain’t fifty centuries! Fifty one-hundred-dollar bills! Fif- tee little yeller plasters o’ one hundred plunks apiece, payable to bearer on demand, and me the bearer! Me!”

  He slipped the whole bundle into an inside pocket, hardly able to contain himself with glee; but he would not have been Keyhole Ikey if he were not still careful; he unlocked the door again and replaced the key on the outside before going, with the laudable intention of causing suspicion to fall on some one in the house.