Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  It was no use. There were too many things to remind him of the days with Dorothy. His evenings he spent with me and talked of nothing else but Dorothy, and if I took him to a show or to a prize-fight he would sit up until daylight afterwards to make up for the time lost. Ramon meant far more to me than a brother; there was nothing I would not have done for him, if it would help. But the job of enduring his gloom much longer would have driven me crazy and I jumped at the chance of visiting the U.S.A. on business with Sharpe, whose broken yacht you see yonder.

  Ramon announced he would come too and I couldn’t dissuade him. On the voyage he was worse than ever. However, Sharpe turned out to be a generous eccentric who enjoyed the use of influence and liked to help unusual people when the mood was on him. I surprised him in one of those moods and Sharpe got Ramon quite a good job in a Pittsburg foundry where they needed such a man for their experimental work.

  Then Sharpe went to his home in Florida and I went travelling. The next I heard of Sharpe was that his yacht was wrecked on Hell Shoal. He sent me a long telegram. He had already forgotten Ramon’s name and where he was employed, so he asked me to spare no expense in finding him and bringing him to Florida as soon as possible. That was easy enough; Ramon was sick of Pittsburg, where it seemed that someone’s young widow had been fascinated by his figure and by his eyes that looked so tortured by experience. Perhaps his talk, too, shook her loose from some of her illusions; I have noticed women enjoy that, whereas men usually don’t. At any rate, Ramon came away with me.

  You know Sharpe’s home near Tarpon Springs? It looks like an eccentric Moslem’s dream of paradise, except that all the houris are of marble and the liquor is kept under lock and key. Sharpe offered to obliterate about a million roses and to erect an electric foundry on the site if Ramon would undertake to superintend it and then cast the biggest bell-buoy in the world for Hell Shoal. Afterwards — Sharpe is always good at justifying his extravagances — Ramon was to cast bronze statues for the garden.

  Ramon leaped at the proposal. He became a new man — almost a reincarnation, if you could call it that, of the Ramon who had lived and loved and worked and caught thought on the wing for Dorothy. You know Sharpe? You know how he does things — spe-cial airplane — long distance telephone — telegram — he is afraid to die before the thing gets done. That suited Ramon; he flung himself into the work, and I went travelling again, more happy about him than I had been since the old days in the studio in Surrey. Knowing he would not write, even if he promised, I arranged with the foreman to send me a telegram in time to bring me back for the casting of the big bell, and it came two full months before I expected it. I had to hurry. I came by train and plane and auto and arrived near midnight. They were to cast next morning. Sharpe came with me to the foundry to find Ramon, who he said was keeping watch at the switches.

  “Careful fellow. Splendid fellow. Trusts no one. Takes no chances.” Sharpe kept up a running comment as we entered the place and climbed to the upper platform. There was no Ramon there, but Sharpe didn’t appear to notice it. He peered into the crucible, masking his eyes with a bit of smoked glass. “How is that for the blood and bones of Doomsday Bell?” he asked me, chuckling at his joke. But I was looking at some splashes of hot metal on the wall, and I came over suddenly faint and weak. Sharpe helped me off the platform, grumbling at my stupidity. He said I must have known I couldn’t stand the heat.

  “Ramon!” he shouted. “Ramon!”

  However, nobody found Ramon. Nobody will find him, I imagine. Next morning it was the foreman who pulled the plug and let that metal run. Sharpe hired detective agencies to hunt for Ramon. I kept silent. What do you think of it?

  “Listen,” I answered. I could see the wind come rippling from seaward, and the gulls were stirring.

  “Doom!” the bell sang. “Doom! Doom! DOOM!”

  THE AVENGER

  “THERE’S only one thing worse than corruption when it comes to enforcing the law, and that’s sentiment,” said Quinn. He glanced through my library window at the distant row of eucalyptus. “If I wasn’t your friend, I’d have raided that queer group at the end of your garden long before this. They’re all tramps. Now I have a warrant for the one they call Sirdar — his right name is Duleep Singh. What makes you think he’ll be here tonight?”

  “Because I have been invited to go down and hear him talk.”

  “What do you know about him?’’ Quinn asked.

  “Many months ago,” I said, “the Sirdar and three other men came to my front door. I invited them in and they introduced themselves as an ex-officer of the British Indian Army, an ex-sheepherder named Whittlesea, an ex-tramp steamship captain named Jones, and a French ex-circus clown named Lamont. They called themselves a committee of the Exiles Club, which, they said, has fewer than a hundred members scattered all over the United States. They asked permission to use the shed by the eucalyptus grove in the hollow at the end of my garden, and I hadn’t the hardihood to refuse.”

  “No,” said Quinn, “you wouldn’t have. What do they use it for?”

  “A sort of clubhouse. They drop in from time to time, build a bivouac fire, listen to the Sirdar, and admit new members. Their ages range all the way from eighteen to eighty.”

  Quinn snorted. “Have you listened in to what they talk about? Hell! If you’d stolen up on them once or twice, as a sensible man would do, you’d have phoned me long ago to come and pinch the whole gang. Listen here:

  “Some months ago a man was found dead on a lonely road about fifty miles north of here. He’d been killed by one blow with a heavy weapon — killed and robbed. He’d been dead several days, but the body was more or less identified by a couple of Hindu fruit-pick-ers. Said they had known him in India. Said his name was” — Quinn referred to his notebook–”Yussuf bin Ibraim.

  “This identification was unreliable, but we sent out a tracer, with full particulars. Nothing came of it, except a report from several states that a foreigner, who did sword tricks and gave his name as Duleep Singh, had gone to the police in quite a number of places asking for the wherabouts of Yussuf bin Ibraim.

  “Get that? It began to look like one of those feuds that have their origin abroad but come over here to get finished. Your Sirdar makes his living doing sword tricks. Did you know that? It’s my belief that he’s the head man of a gang of cut-throats, who are using your garden as headquarters. I’ve some men posted. When the Sirdar comes, we’ll bag the lot of ’em and find out what’s what. Who did you say was in charge of the camp?”

  “Old Whittlesea. They all call him Mr. Whittlesea. He’s the ex-sheepherder. He despises houses and beds. He lives, like Diogenes, in a big ship’s water-butt that he rolled all the way from the wharf. He’s gardener for the group — raises vegetables, keeps the place tidy and buries the trash.”

  “I will bet you,” said Quinn, “that he buries the loot. We’ll find out.”

  “You’re in plain clothes,” I said. “Why not come down to the bivouac with me and listen in before you make your arrest.”

  “Why?”

  “The word ‘sirdar’,” I answered, is an Indian title of distinction. You say you’ve a warrant, but your case against him seems rather vague. If you’re sure he can’t escape, why not gather all the evidence you can?”

  Quinn’s eyes were watching the window. An automobile headlight flashed on and off three times down by the front gate. He interrupted: “That’s the signal from the men I’ve posted. It means that the Sirdar’s come. Your idea is good. If you and I should overhear ’em talking, you’d be a good witness. Something might come of that. I can whistle for my men when I’m ready to take him.”

  So I wrote a note to the Sirdar, saying I had a guest whom I should like to bring if he had no objection. I gave the note to my dog Bosco to take down to the bivouac, and I opened the window screen to let him jump out.

  We sat in silence for several minutes. Then Bosco jumped back through the window. He lay still, whining sotto voce and th
umping his tail on the floor to announce a visitor of whom he approved. It was too dark to see much, because the moon was on the other side of the house, but Mr. Whittlesea’s limp was unmistakable. As if the house were a trap, he came no nearer than he needed to without having to raise his voice. “Mister, ef you an’ y’r comp’ny’d care to jine us a while, there’s corfey. Tea for them as likes it.”

  There were twenty-two of them around the fire. I introduced Quinn as John O’Connor and he sat down at my left hand on an upturned box. I sat on a roughly carpentered bench, between him and Joe Abram, who is a trainer of vicious horses. He looks like the Merchant of Venice in overalls. But he smells of old leather and horse, and they say he can gentle savage brutes that no one else can handle.

  We sat for I don’t know how long, drinking good coffee out of very clean tin mugs and gazing through the vista of eucalyptus trees at the moonlight silvering the slowly heaving kelp on the Pacific. Quiet: soft, slow wind in the trees, the cry of insects, the rustle of quail on a date palm, the far-off murmur of the sea, the firelight, the immensity of heaven — and the butt of Quinn’s revolver bulging just exactly where his hand could reach it in a fraction of a second.

  “Sirdar,” I said. “my friend and I have been wondering why you ever came to America. Will you tell us?”

  Over beyond the fire the Sirdar stood up, bearded, erect, in an ancient beach- robe that in moonlight resembled a toga. His right hand was on the hilt of the saber with which, for a dollar or two, he does what look like superhuman tricks.

  “It is a long tale,” he said. “But will you listen?”

  There was a chorus of grunts. Mr. Whittlesea spoke: “Night’s young. Cut the ‘pologies.”

  The Sirdar drew a long breath. For about a minute, as if searching memory, he gazed along the moonlit glade. Then he looked at us one by one; I think he was suspicious. But his voice, when at last he spoke, was firm and resonant:

  “Such as this was the night of the justice that fell upon Yussuf bin Ibraim, Khan of the Abazai. I had served my time and was no longer a soldier on the night when Yussuf bin Ibraim the Afridi, on a black mare lifted from the horse lines of the Bengal Lancers, stole my son’s wife. Through the darkness, with her on his saddlebow — she willing — he spurred for Kalat — with my son at his heels on a Kathiawari gelding.

  “Fleet and stanch was the black mare, hard to see or to hear in that darkness. Nowhere is it darker and more trackless than at night in the howling gorges beyond Quetta on what is known as Allah’s Slag Heap. But anger, like a magnet, drew the one toward the two. The mare was overburdened. The gelding gained. My son, being not yet eighteen or experienced in border warfare, let fly. Nine shots with an old Martini rifle. All wild but the last. That slew the woman. She fell from Yussuf bin Ibraim’s saddle, lifeless.

  “Then Yussuf bin Ibraim reined the foundered mare and waited in the dark. He was reckoned the deadliest swordsman from Duazab to Shal Kot. None was better than he with tulwar. A left-handed man. As tricky as a devil. My son, whom Allah blessed with more courage than brains, had at him with the clubbed Martini, having used his last shot. Yussuf bin Ibraim slew him and wiped the tulwar. Upon me fell duty.”

  “Corfey, anyone?” asked Mr. Whittlesea.

  He passed the pot around and broke the spell. The Sirdar looked now like a gray-haired druid. He raised the tin mug to his lips, set it down, and resumed:

  “I, with my own hands, dug their graves. As I have told you, though a Moslem born, I have been blessed by higher teaching. To the Guru I went, at whose feet I had sat when soldiering was done.

  “I liked him: ‘What shall I do?’

  “He answered: ‘I have taught much. You have learned a little. Now is the time for you to reap what I sowed.’

  “So I asked him: ‘Though I seek not vengeance, since I may not, shall I sit submissive to the will of Yussuf bin Ibraim? Shall I accept the name of coward? Shall I beg his mercy, lest he come and slay me also?’

  “My Guru answered: ‘Who has taught you that a coward’s cloak might possibly redeem the killings that you did when you were under oath to kill? When you were a soldier, did I blame you? Did I forbid you to slay at the word of command?’

  “I answered: ‘You bade me be true to my soldier’s oath. I was. Until that soldier’s oath, which I had freely given, had been fulfilled to the last obedience and the last minute, you refused me the teaching I sought. But I am no longer a soldier. Now I am under oath to you, to abstain from bloodshed and to be a servant of peace.’

  “He answered: ‘Have I taught you to fear death in the service of peace?’

  “I said he had not taught that; or, that if he had, I had not listened.

  “Then said he: ‘Have I taught you that it is wise or manly to let theft and murder go unanswered? Of a truth this is on your head and on the slayer’s. He has slain your son. You, of your own free will, have pledged yourself never again to slay, for any reason: never to seek vengeance. But have I taught that you shall tell the slayer that you will not slay? Consider that. And since you may not curse, then bless, for it is just as easy. Use what you have, though its use shall take you to the earth’s end.’

  “I answered: ‘I have nothing to use but my hands and my skill with the sword.’

  “He answered: ‘Use what you have.’

  “So I went after Yussuf bin Ibraim, who slew my son and mocked me from the hills. He fled. Week after week I hunted him, village to village and fort to fort, until by accident I learned how vainly I was spending my strength. The Sirdar’s — that is to say the Indian Government’s — agents had sent forth word that Yussuf bin Ibraim was an outlaw. It was known he carried money in his belt. So all men’s hands had turned against him. Even in that lawless borderland there was no safe refuge. He had shaved. He had changed his name. He had fled, none knew whither.

  “I returned to Quetta. Presently I learned that Yussuf bin Ibraim had been seen to take ship from Karachi. I followed — to Bushire, to Aden, to Egypt. He had more money than I. It was no light task to follow him. In Cairo he saw me on the street and fled — to Alexandria, France, London, with a forged passport.

  “Knowing it forged, I could have had him arrested, deported to India — hanged. But could a hangman do my duty? Could he comfort me? Or could he keep my oath? The Quetta hangman would have been my substitute, relieving me of what? Of my responsibility for having taught my son so ignorantly that he died by the hand of a border thief? I prayed that the arm of God might otherwise employ the guardians of justice — and leave it to me to deal with Yussuf bin Ibraim!

  “But I had to wait in Cairo for my pension money.When it came, I followed Yussuf bin Ibraim to London, where I earned a living by feats of swordsmanship for shillings — aye, and when shillings failed, for ha’pence.Seeking, seeking, seeking. And at last I learned that Yussuf bin Ibraim had gone with horses to New York.

  “I followed. It was months before I learned that he had joined a circus. When I overtook the circus he had been discharged. He was said to have gone westward. I hunted and I hunted until I found his trail. Teaching swordsmanship, performing feats in side shows, sharpening razor blades, I earned my way as I went, I followed Yussuf bin Ibraim. He had changed his name thrice in three years since he slew my son. But there is a magic that guides migrating birds, and a magic that guides determination to its goals. At last I found him, on a western ranch, where he was putting horsemanship to use.

  “I watched. It was a marvel how a man whose sword had been so swift to slay should have such patience for a brute whose only purpose was to kill him if it could. I saw him tame that stallion. He used no violence. He wore down violence, until the brute’s intelligence came forth from baffled passion, and he obeyed the man. But me he saw not.

  “That night–it was a night like this one, calm with the peace of the beauty of God — I followed Yussuf bin Ibraim along a winding track. I overtook him where he rested in a hollow, sitting gazing along a fold between the foothills at the moonlit s
ea.

  “I had brought two sabers wrapped in a bundle — this one, and another that I use when I split sticks in mid-air. These sticks are thrown at me by anyone who thinks the trick worth the money. The sabers were of equal length, but that other was better suited to a man used to the Afghan tulwar.

  “I stood silent, until he raised his head from between his hands and turned — and saw. For a moment he did not recognize me. Then he knew that his hour had come. He stood up. For the space of a hundred breaths we faced each other, thirty feet apart.

  “ ‘Slayer of my son,’ I said at last. ‘Is this the end of your running away?’

  “I threw that other saber to his feet, but he stood irresolute. He thought I meant to kill him when he stooped for it. I turned my back, turning again too soon for him to play that border trick on me.

  “ ‘Sirdar Duleep Singh,’ he said then, ‘slay me, and the hangman has you. If I slay you, then the hangman has me. This is not the Harnai. Il-hamdu’lillah, there is law in this land. Let there be peace beween us.’

  “ ‘I have only my saber,’ I said, ‘wherewith to make peace. I have sworn to use it.’

  “Thereat he came on. No more than a panther was he irresolute when he couldn’t escape. He was true to his fame. He attacked. Crouching, smiling, counting on the left-hand skill that always gave him the advantage against a right-handed man, he was resolved to make swift work of it. The moonlight shimmered on a blade that stole toward me, creeping, creeping nearer, ready for the thrust and slice.