Caves of Terror, Talbot Mundy [best books under 200 pages txt] 📗
- Author: Talbot Mundy
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"Are there any stories of her?" King inquired.
"Thousands, sahib! But no two agree. It is known that she fell foul of the raj in some way, and they made her come to this place. I was here when she came. She has a household of a hundred women—maunds of furniture—maunds of it, sahib! She gave orders to her men-servants to be meek and inoffensive, so when they moved in there were not more than ten fights between them and the city-folk who thought they had as much right to the streets. There was a yellow-fanged northern devil who marshaled the serving-men, and it is he who keeps her palace gate. He keeps it well. None trespass."
"What other visitors does she entertain besides the Mahatma?"
"Many, sahib, though few enter by the front gate. There are tales of men being drawn up by ropes from boats in the river."
"Is there word of why they come?"
"Sahib, the little naked children weave stories of her doings. Each has a different tale. They call her empress of the hidden arts. They say that she knows all the secrets of the priests, and that there is nothing that she cannot do, because the gods love her and the Rakshasas (male evil spirits) and Apsaras (female evil spirits) do her bidding."
"What about this Tirthanker temple? Who controls it?"
"None knows that, sahib. It is so richly endowed that its priests despise men's gifts. None is encouraged to worship in that place. When those old Tirthankers stir abroad they have no dealings with folk in this city that any man knows of."
"Are you sure they are Tirthankers?" asked King.
"I am sure of nothing, sahib. For aught I know they are devils!"
King gave him a small sum of money, and we walked away toward the burning ghat, where there was nothing but a mean smell and a few old men with rakes gathering up ashes. But outside the ghat, where a golden mohur tree cast a wide shadow across the road there was a large crowd sitting and standing in rings around an absolutely naked, ash-smeared religious fanatic.
The fanatic appeared to have the crowd bewildered, for he cursed and blessed on no comprehensible schedule, and gave extraordinary answers to the simplest questions, not acknowledging a question at all unless it suited him.
King and I had not been there a minute before some one asked him about the Princess Yasmini.
"Aha! Who stares at the fire burns his eyes! A burned eye is of less use than a raw one!"
Some laughed, but not many. Most of them seemed to think there was deep wisdom in his answer to be dug for meditatively, as no doubt there was. Then a man on the edge of the crowd a long way off from me, who wore the air of a humorist, asked him about me.
"Does the shadow of this foreigner offend your honor's holiness?"
None glanced in my direction; that might have given the game away. It is considered an exquisite joke to discuss a white man to his face without his knowing it. The Gray Mahatma did not glance in my direction either.
"As a bird in the river—as a fish in the air—as a man in trouble is the foreigner in Hind!" he answered.
Then he suddenly began, declaiming, making his voice ring as if his throat were brass, yet without moving his body or shifting his head by a hair's breadth.
"The universe was chaos. He said, let order prevail, and order came out of the chaos and prevailed. The universe was in darkness. He said, let there be light and let it prevail over darkness; and light came out of the womb of darkness and prevailed. He ordained the Kali-Yug—an age of darkness in which all Hind should lie at the feet of foreigners. And thus ye lie in the dust. But there is an end of night, and so there is an end to Kali-Yug. Bide ye the time, and watch!"
King drew me away, and we returned up-street between old temples and new iron-fronted stores toward Mulji Singh's quarters where he had left the traveling bag that we shared between us.
"Is that Gray Mahatma linked up with propaganda in the U.S.A?" I asked, wondering.
"What's more," King answered, "he's dangerous; he's sincere—the most dangerous type of politician in the world—the honest visionary, in love with an abstract theory, capable of offering himself for martyrdom. Watch him now!"
The crowd was beginning to close in on the Mahatma, seeking to touch him. Suddenly he flew into a fury, seized a long stick from some one near him and began beating them over the head, using both hands and laying on so savagely that ashes fell from him like pipe-clay from a shaken bag, and several men ran away with the blood pouring down their faces. However, they were reckoned fortunate.
"Some of those will charge money to let other fools touch them," said King. "Come on. Let's call on her now."
So we returned to Mulji Singh's stuffy little office, and King changed into a Major's uniform.
"It isn't exactly according to Hoyle to wear this," he explained. "However, she doesn't know I've resigned from the army."
CHAPTER II
THE PALACE OF YASMINI
Nobody saw us walk up to Yasmini's palace gate and knock; for whoever was abroad in the heat was down by the ghat admiring the Mahatma.
The bearded giant who had admitted us stood staring at King, his long, strong fingers twitching. In his own good time King turned and saw fit to recognize him.
"Oh, hullo Ismail!"
He held a hand out, but the savage flung arms about him that were as strong as the iron gate-clamps, and King had to fight to break free from the embrace.
"Now Allah be praised, he is father of mercies! She warned me!" he croaked. "She knows the smell of dawn at midnight! She said, 'He cometh soon!' and none believed her, save only I. This very dawn said she, 'Thou, Ismail,' she said, 'be asleep at the gate when he cometh and thine eyes shall be thrown to the city dogs!' Aye! Oho!"
King nodded to lead on, and Ismail obeyed with a deal of pantomime intended to convey a sense of partnership with roots in the past and its fruition now.
The way was down a passage between high, carved walls so old that antiquarians burn friendship in disputes not so much about the century as the very era of that quiet art—under dark arches with latticed windows into unexpected gardens fresh with the smell of sprinkled water—by ancient bronze gateways into other passages that opened into stone-paved courts with fountains in the midst—building joining on to building and court meeting court until, where an old black panther snarled at us between iron bars, an arch and a solid bronze door admitted us at last into the woman's pleasance—a wonderland of jasmine, magnolia and pomegranates set about a marble pool and therein mirrored among rainbow-colored fishes.
Beyond the pool a flight of marble steps rose fifty feet until it passed through a many-windowed wall into the panch mahal—the quarters of the women. At their foot Ismail halted.
"Go thou up alone! Leave this elephant with me!" he said, nudging me and pointing with his thumb toward a shady bower against the garden wall.
Without acknowledging that pleasantry King took my arm and we went straight forward together, our tread resounding strangely on steps that for centuries had felt no sterner shock than that of soft slippers and naked, jeweled feet.
We were taking nobody entirely by surprise; that much was obvious. Before we reached the top step two women opened a door and ran to meet us. One woman threw over King's head such a prodigious garland of jasmine buds that he had to loop it thrice about his shoulders. Then each took a hand of one of us and we entered between doors of many-colored wood, treading on mat-strewn marble, their bare feet pattering beside ours. There were rustlings to right and left, and once I heard laughter, smothered instantly.
At last, at the end of a wide hall before many-hued silken curtains our two guides stopped. As they released our hands, with the always surprising strength that is part of the dancing woman's stock-in-trade, they slipped behind us suddenly and thrust us forward through the curtains.
There was not much to see in front of us. We found ourselves in a paneled corridor, whose narrow windows overlooked the river, facing a painted door sixty paces distant at the farther end. King strode down the corridor and knocked.
The answer was one word that I did not catch, although it rang like a suddenly struck chord of music, and the door yielded to the pressure of King's hand.
I entered behind him and the door swung shut of its own weight with a click. We were in a high-ceilinged, very long room, having seven sides. There were windows to right and left. A deep divan piled with scented cushions occupied the whole length of one long wall, and there were several huge cushions on the floor against another wall. There was one other door besides that we had entered by.
We stood in that room alone, but I know that King felt as uneasy as I did, for there was sweat on the back of his neck. We were being watched by unseen eyes. There is no mistaking that sensation.
Suddenly a voice broke silence like a golden bell whose overtones go widening in rings into infinity, and a vision of loveliness parted the curtains of that other door.
"My lord comes as is meet—spurred, and ready to give new kingdoms to his king! Oh, how my lord is welcome!" she said in Persian.
Her voice thrilled you, because of its perfect resonance, exactly in the middle of the note. She looked into King's eyes with challenging familiarity that made him smile, and then eyed me wonderingly. She glanced from me to a picture on the wall in blue of the Elephant-god—enormous, opulent, urbane, and then back again at me, and smiled very sweetly.
"So you have brought Ganesha with you? The god of good luck! How wonderful! How does one behave toward a real god?"
And while she said that she laid her hands on King's arms as naturally as if he were a lover whom she had not seen perhaps since yesterday. Plainly, there was absolutely nothing between him and her except his own obstinate independence. She was his if he wanted her.
She took King's hand with a laugh that had its roots in past companionship and led him to the middle, deepest window-seat, beneath which the river could be heard gurgling busily.
Then, when she had drawn the silken hangings until the softened light suggested lingering, uncounted hours, and had indicated with a nod to me a cushion in the corner, she came and lay on the cushions close to King, chin on hand, where she could watch his eyes.
King sat straight and square, watching her with caution that he did not trouble to conceal. She took his hand and raised the sleeve until the broad, gold, graven bracelet showed.
"That link forged in the past must bind us two more surely than an oath," she said smiling.
"I used it to show to the gatekeeper."
He sat cooly waiting for her next remark. And with almost unnecessary candor began to remove the bracelet and offer it back to her. So she unmasked her batteries, with a delicious little rippling laugh and a lazy, cat-like movement that betokened joy in the danger that was coming, if I know anything at all of what sign-language means.
"I knew that very day that you resigned your commission in the army, and I laughed with delight at the news, knowing that the gods who are our servants had contrived it. I know why thou art here," she said; and the change from you to thou was not haphazard.
"It is well known, Princess, that your spies are the cleverest in India," King answered.
"Spies? I need no spies as long as old India lives. Friends are better."
"Do all princesses break their promises?" he countered, meeting her eyes steadily.
"Never yet did I break one promise, whether it was for good or evil."
"Princess," he answered, looking sternly at her, "in Jamrud Fort you agreed to take no part again in politics, national or international in return for a promise of personal freedom and permission to reside in India."
"My promise was dependent on my liberty. But is this liberty—to be forced to reside in this old palace, with the spies of the Government keeping watch on my doings, except when they chance to be outwitted? Nevertheless, I have kept my promise. Thou knowest me better than to think that I need to break promises in order to outwit a government of Englishmen!"
"Quibbles won't help, Princess," he answered. "You
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