The Winds of the World, Talbot Mundy [rom com books to read .txt] 📗

that therefore Germany has a right to state the terms. Of course, I know there are the cobras, but I am not afraid of them. Our stipulation is that there shall be at least a show of fight before aid is given. If the cobras deal with me, and my secret dies with me, there will be one German less and that is all. That regiment I have seen looks ripe for mutiny."

Ranjoor Singh drew breath slowly through set teeth.

"Let it mutiny," said the German, "and I am ready with such material assistance as will place Delhi at its mercy. Delhi is the key to India!"

"It shall mutiny to-night!" said Ranjoor Singh abruptly.

The German stared hard at him, though not so hard as Yasmini; the chief difference was that nobody could have told she was staring, whereas the German gaped.

"It shall mutiny to-night, and you shall be there! You shall lead us then to this material aid you promise, and after that, if it all turns out to be a lie, as I suspect, we will talk about cobras."

For a minute, two minutes, three minutes, while the rubber tires bumped along the road toward Yasmini's, the German sat in silence, looking straight in front of him.

"Order horses for him and me!" commanded Ranjoor Singh; and Yasmini bowed obedience.

"When will you start?" the German asked.

"Now! In twenty minutes! We will follow the regiment and reach camp soon after it."

"I must speak first with my colleagues," said the German.

"No!" growled the Sikh.

"My secret information is that several regiments are ordered oversea. Some of them will consent to go, my friend. We will do well to wait until as many regiments as possible are on the water, and then strike hard with the aid of such as have refused to go."

The carriage drew up at Yasmini's front door, and a man jumped off the box seat to open the carriage.

"Say the rest inside!" she ordered. "Go into the house! Quickly!"

So the German stepped out first, moving toward the door much too spryly for the type of street merchant he was supposed to be.

"Do you mean that?" whispered Yasmini, as she pushed past Ranjoor Singh. "Do you mean to ride away with him and stage a mutiny? How can you?"

"She-buffalo!" he answered, with the first low laugh she had heard from him since the game began.

She ran into the house and all the way up the two steep flights of stairs, laughing like a dozen peals of fairy bells.

At the head of the stairs she began to sing, for she looked back and saw babu Sita Ram waddling wheezily up-stairs after Ranjoor Singh and the German.

"The gods surely love Yasmini!" she told her maids. "Catch me that babu and bottle him! Drive him into a room where I can speak with him alone!"

"Oh, my God, my God!" wailed the babu at the stair-head from amid a maze of women who hustled and shoved him all one way, and that the way he did not want to go. "I must speak with that German gentleman who was giving lecture here—must positivelee give him warning, or all his hopes will be blasted everlastinglee! No—that is room where are cobras—I will not go there!"

In three native languages, one after the other, he pleaded and wailed to no good end; the women were too many for him. He was shoved into a small room as a fat beast is driven into a slaughter-stall, and a door was slammed shut on him. He screamed at an unexpected voice from behind a curtain, and a moment later burst into a sweat from reaction at the sight of Yasmini.

"Listen, babuji," she purred to him.

"Who was that man asking for me?" demanded the German.

"How should I know?" snorted Ranjoor Singh. "Are we to turn aside for every fat babu that asks to speak to us? I have sent for horses."

"I will speak with that man!" said the German.

He began to walk up and down the length of the long room, pushing aside the cushions irritably, and at one end knocking over a great bowl of flowers. He did not appear conscious of his clumsiness, and did not seem to see the maids who ran to mop up the water. At the next turn down the room he pushed between them as if they had not been there. Ranjoor Singh stood watching him, stroking a black beard reflectively; he was perfectly sure that Yasmini would make the next move, and was willing to wait for it.

"The horses should be here in a few minutes," he said hopefully, after a while, for he heard a door open.

Then babu Sita Ram burst in, half running, and holding his great stomach as he always did when in a hurry.

"Oh, my God!" he wailed. "Quick! Where is German gentleman? And not knowing German, how shall I make meaning clear? German should be reckoned among dead languages and—Ah! My God, sir, you astonish me! Resemblance to Mohammedan of no particular standing in community is first class! How shall I—"

"Say it in English!" said the German, blocking his way.

"My God, sahib, it is bad news! How shall I avoid customaree stigma attaching to bearer of ill tidings?"

"Speak!" said the German. "I won't hurt you!"

"Sahib, in pursuit unavailingly of chance emolument in neighborhood of
Chandni Chowk just recently—"

"How recently?" the German asked.

"Oh, my God! So recently that there are yet erections of cuticle all down my back! Sahib, not more than twenty minutes have elapsed, and I saw this with my own eyes!"

"Saw what—where?"

"Where? Have I not said where? My God, I am so upset as to be losing sense of all proportion! Where? At German place of business—Sigelman and Meyer—in small street leading out of Chandni Chowk. In search of chance emolument, and finding none yet—finding none yet, sahib—sahib, I am poor man, having wife and familee dependent and also many other disabilitees, including wife's relatives."

The German gave him some paper money impatiently. The babu unfolded it, eyed the denomination with a spasm of relief, folded it again, and appeared to stow it into his capacious stomach.

"Sahib, while I was watching, police came up at double-quick march and arrested everybodee, including all Germans in building. There was much annoyance manifested when search did not reveal presence of one other sahib. So I ran to give warning, being veree poor man and without salaried employment."

"What happened to the Germans?"

"Jail, sahib! All have gone to jail! By this time they are all excommunication, supplied with food and water by authorities. Having once been jail official myself, I can testify—"

"What happened to the office?"

"Locked up, sahib! Big red seal—much sealing wax, and stamp of police department, with notice regarding penalty for breaking same, and also police sentry at door!"

Looking more unlike a Mohammedan street vender than ever, the German began to pace the room again with truly martial strides, frowning as he sought through the recesses of his mind for the correct solution of the problem.

"Listen!" he said, coming to a stand in front of Ranjoor Singh. "I have changed my mind!"

"The horses are ready," answered Ranjoor Singh.

"The German government has been to huge expense to provide aid of the right kind, to be ready at the right minute. My sole business is to see that the utmost use is made of it."

"That also is my sole business!" vowed Ranjoor Singh.

"You have heard that the police are after me?"

Ranjoor Singh nodded.

"Can you get away from here unseen—unknown to the police?"

Ranjoor Singh nodded again, for he was very sure of Yasmini's resource.

Again the German began to pace the room, now with his hands behind him, now with folded arms, now with his chin down to his breast, and now with a high chin as he seemed on the verge of reaching some determination. And then Yasmini began to loose the flood of her resources, that Ranjoor Singh might make use of what he chose; she was satisfied to leave the German in the Sikh's hands and to squander aid at random.

Men began to come in, one at a time. They would whisper to Ranjoor Singh, and hurry out again. Some of them would whisper to Yasmini over in the window, and she would give them mock messages to carry, very seriously. Babu Sita Ram was stirred out of a meditative coma and sent hurrying away, to come back after a little while and wring his hands. He ran over to Yasmini.

"It is awful!" he wailed. "Soon there will be no troops left with which to quell Mohammedan uprising. All loyal troops are leaving, and none but disloyal men are left behind. The government is mad, and I am veree much afraid!"

Yasmini quieted him, and Ranjoor Singh, pretending to be busy with other messengers, noted the effect of the babu's wail on the German. He judged the "change of mind" had gone far enough.

"We should lose time by following my regiment," he said at last. "There are now five more regiments ready to mutiny, and they will come to me to wherever I send for them."

The German's blue eyes gazed into the Sikh's brown ones very shrewdly and very long. His hand sought the neighborhood of his hip, and dwelt there a moment longer than the Sikh thought necessary.

"I have decided we must hurry," he said. "I will show you what I have to show. I will not be taking chances. You must bring a messenger, and he must go for your mutineers while you stay there with me. When we are there, you will be in my power until the regiments come; and when they come I will surrender to you. Do you agree?"

"Yes," said Ranjoor Singh.

"Then choose your messenger. Choose a man who will not try to play tricks—a man who will not warn the authorities, because if there is any slip, any trickery, I will undo in one second all that has been done!"

So Ranjoor Singh conferred with Yasmini over the two great bowls of flowers that always stand in her big window; and she suppressed a squeal of excitement while she watched the German resume his pacing up and down.

"Take Sita Ram!" she advised.

Ranjoor Singh scowled at the babu.

"That fat bellyful of fear!" he growled. "I would rather take a pig!"

"All the same, take Sita Ram!" she advised.

So the babu was roused again out of a comfortable snooze, and Yasmini whispered to him something that frightened him so much that he trembled like a man with palsy.

"I am married man with children!" he expostulated.

"I will be kind to your widow!" purred Yasmini.

"I will not go!" vowed the babu.

"Put him in the cobra room!" she commanded, and some maids came closer to obey.

"I will go!" said Sita Ram. "But, oh, my God, a man should receive pecuniary recompense far greater than legendary ransom! I shall not come back alive! I know I shall not come back alive!"

"Who cares, babuji?" asked Yasmini.

"True!" said Sita Ram. "This is land of devil-take-hindmost, and with my big stomach I am often last. I am veree full of fear!"

"We shall need food," interposed the German. "Water will be there, but we had better have sufficient food with us for two nights."

Yasmini gave a sharp order, and several of her maids ran out of the room. Ten minutes later they returned with three baskets, and gave one each to the German, to Ranjoor Singh, and to Sita Ram. Sita Ham opened his and peered in. The German opened his, looked pleased, and closed the lid again. Ranjoor Singh accepted his at its face value, and did not open it.

"May the memsahib never lack plenty from which to give!" he said, for there is no word for "Thank you" in all India.

"I will bless the memsahib at each mouthful!" said Sita Ram.

"Truly a bellyful of blessings!" laughed Yasmini.

Then they all went to the stair-head and watched and listened through the open door while a closed carriage was driven away in a great hurry. Three maids and six men came up-stairs one after another, at intervals, to report the road all clear; the first carriage had not been followed, and there was nobody watching; another carriage waited. Babu Sita Ram was sent downstairs to get into the waiting carriage and stay