“Why not write it?” Blair asked. He suddenly felt better. Suitcases? That
looked like premeditation. He offered Grayne a cigarette. Grayne glanced
keenly at him before answering.
“Well, to tell you the plain truth, old man, you looked rattled first
thing this morning. You still do. It occurred to me—she’d been here,
hadn’t she?—she might have cleared out on your account. She’s a queer
girl. Did you have a row with her?”
Blair lighted his cigarette, turning his back to the hot wind, to avoid
answering. Grayne continued:
“None of my business—but—are you down here to see her? I mean,
it might be damned unpleasant for you to have reports go in and—”
Blair interrupted: “Doris expects you back?”
“No.”
“She all right?”
“Yes. Doris won’t worry—or if she does she’ll send a servant to find
out.”
“Write her a note,” said Blair. “I’ll send a servant with it. Say you’re
staying for a few hours to oblige me. Write your report in my tent and put
down every detail you can remember— conversations—minor
incidents—omit nothing, no matter how unimportant, since Henrietta came
to stay with you and Doris. If I’m not back by noon, or if I don’t send a
message, you’d better take charge and either move my camp over the ford to
yours or bring yours over here, no matter which. And if anyone asks for me,
say I’ve gone looking for the Bat-Brahmin of Gaglajung.”
“That swine?”
“What do you know about him?” Blair asked.
“Oh, he’s a swine, that’s all. He’ll tell you nothing. He’s a saucy
impostor, but he isn’t dangerous”! He makes too fat a living off the peasants
to risk it by taking a chance with the police.”
“Where will I find him?”
“Lord knows. Anyone will tell you if you ride up to Doongar village. But
you may find him at Ganesha’s shrine near where you shot the tiger last
night. I’ll bet you one rupee to an anna a word that you get no information
from him.”
Blair ordered his horse saddled and brought to the tent with a mounted
sais
to follow him. While he waited he searched his mind for something
else to say to Grayne. But it seemed wiser to say nothing. He could hardly
tell him about Taron Ling’s phenomenal tricks, and what else was there to
say? Suddenly he saw Taron Ling in the distance, on a rock by the track
toward Doongar, apparently sitting waiting for him.
“Help yourself to’ anything you need,” he said to Grayne. Then he mounted
and rode away, into the scorching wind.
Truth clothes herself in mystery. Wherever ye see a mystery,
seek Truth; and ye shall find it as ye found Hope, which none might have
known were it not for despair.
—From the Ninth (unfinished) Book of Noor Ali
THE Rajput attendant who rode behind Blair sat splendidly,
but his gray horse betrayed the condition of the man’s mind, a weird
nervousness passing from rider to beast. The gray horse was as frantic as if
tigers were about. He frightened the bay that Blair rode. But that did Blair
good: he had to get complete self-mastery in order to control the animal.
A hundred yards before they reached the rock on which Taron Ling sat
waiting the Rajput’s gray went mad—plunged—reared— cannoned
into Blair’s horse—almost unseated him—broke a rein and bolted as
if all the devils of hell were following. Taron Ling laughed. He was frugal
of laughter: one scornful “Hah!” was all he needed to express his kind of
amusement. Then he jumped from the rock and started walking rapidly, not
toward Doongar village but along a winding track that led toward the dry
river-bed, through sparse, hot jungle.
Blair followed, riding slowly in a cloud of flies that were as persistent
and disturbing as his thoughts. He had no other weapon than a light
riding-whip, and he had an acute premonition of danger. It occurred to him
several times to return to the camp for his revolver, but he dismissed that
thought after considering it. Taron Ling appeared also unarmed, and might not
wait for him. He was not afraid of the man’s hypnotic tricks, extraordinary
though they were. He felt fairly sure that, now he was on guard, such tricks
would not succeed again. He had definite orders to walk straight into any
trap he might see, and he felt equally sure he was being led into
one—equally sure the Rajput on the gray had thought so too, and had
welcomed his horse’s panic as the lesser of two evils, even if he had not
deliberately encouraged the horse to bolt.
There was probably not much danger. He was under observation; he had a
telegram in his pocket that said so; if anything should happen to him,
somebody would soon know about it—follow up—rescue. He had a very
small sense of his own personal importance in the scheme of things. He was a
pawn in the game. The game was playing. He kept Taron Ling in sight until
they came to the dry pool in the river-bed where he had shot the tiger the
previous night.
It looked different by day. Night’s loveliness was a dream that had
vanished. The sun was well up. Shortening shadows lay on quartz sand,
bleached and drab, except where it sparkled in sunlight: there the glare was
painful. There was some relief from the choking hot wind, because of the
curve of the tree-lined gorge that formed the river-bed beyond. Where
Henrietta had descended in the moonlight from the flank of Gaglajung was a
raw, dry scar of glaring boulders; and the stone where he and she had sat was
a sun scorched lump of ruin, tumbled from a dead hill. It resembled a
tooth.
The remains of the tiger were black with flies. A dozen vultures took wing
clumsily— gorged, filthy scavengers that had stripped the dead brute’s
bones as clean of flesh as the daylight had stripped the scene of romance.
Gaglajung, up aloft on the right, resembled dry bones breaking through the
back of a decaying hill.
Taron Ling, pausing in full sunlight and facing the gorge, shouted one
bell-like monosyllable, as startling as a rifle-shot. It was. answered by
another, like the bark of a wild dog.
Out from the throat of the gorge a man came walking handsomely with a
mountaineer’s swing of the loins. He wore a loosely bound gray loin-cloth
that revealed his right leg as high as the hip, bronzed and muscular. He
looked like a dancer of heroic ballet parts, and carried a short stick like a
marshal’s baton in his right hand, using that to salute Taron Ling; but to
Blair he made no gesture of respect, although he walked up close to the horse
and peered at the rider’s face. His eyes were as satyr-like as a
he-goat’s.
“My
chela
,” said Taron Ling. “He will take take the horse now. He
does what I tell him.”
THE
chela
seized the horse’s rein. Common riot-drill provided a
very simple answer to that impudence. But to have kicked the man under the
chin would not have revealed the whereabouts of Henrietta. Besides, it was of
utmost importance to learn what Taron Ling, if followed, might be able to
reveal. Blair was almost sure he saw a man’s face peering between two rocks
in deep shadow on the flank of the gorge; there was more than one chance in a
hundred that that might be one of the commissioner’s men. If not, it was at
any rate a witness, who would report what lie had seen to someone and set
rumor moving; rumor would provide a clue that might be followed; so that,
whatever might happen, he would not disappear as Frensham, Henrietta and
Chetusingh had done, leaving no clue at all. It seemed wise to ignore the
chela
‘s action for the moment; and it might not be a bad idea to let
Taron Ling think he had established hypnotic control.
“You must come on foot now. He shall take the horse back with a message,”
said Taron Ling.
“Message from whom?”
“From you.”
“To say where we’re going—”
“He will know what to say.”
“What?”
“He already knows it.” He had forgotten to mispronounce
English—spoke it excellently.
Two heads showed in the shadow’s, quite distinctly, for a moment. With the
corner of his eye Blair saw a hand steal like a snake’s head into the
sunlight, spread all five fingers three times and withdraw. He knew that
signal— answered it, pushing his helmet to the back of his head and
wiping his forehead three times with a handkerchief.
It was safe to go forward: the Department was on the watch and would learn
whatever happened. An involuntary shudder crept up his spine and along his
shoulders, but he contrived to appear casual. He flicked flies off his face
with his handkerchief, then treed his right foot from the stirrup.
“Well,” he said, “I’m curious. I’ll go with you.”
He dismounted. The
chela
led the horse away in the direction of the
camp without waiting for further orders. Blair felt glad he had left Grayne
in charge. Whatever verbal message the
chela
might deliver, even
Grayne was hardly likely to accept it without suspicion if there was nothing
in writing. Grayne might not be the kind of man who seizes responsibility and
acts swiftly on suspicion, but he would either detain the
chela
or
else send a servant or two to check up.
“I am ready. Which way?”
Taron Ling immediately turned his back and led up-gorge to the footpath
that Blair had taken the night before with Henrietta toward the shrine where
the mad hermit had blessed the tiger-skin. Taron Ling, too, had the stride of
a mountaineer; he climbed fast. Blair took his own time about following, and
let him wait at frequent intervals. He had a half-hope of getting word with
one of the men whom he could distinctly hear following through the jungle on
either flank, of the gorge. They were making too much noise, and there was no
need, as he saw it, for more than one at the moment; he would have liked to
send one of them back to the camp with a message to Grayne. He even sat down
for a rest, several times, hoping one of the men would creep up close, but
they kept their distance, waiting when he waited.
Taron Ling showed no impatience and no inclination to talk, until at last
Blair stepped out on the level ledge where the shrine nestled against an
almost sheer cliff. There was no sign of the mad hermit, but the Bat-Brahmin
in freshly laundered white turban and loincloth came forward to meet them. He
seemed to have been waiting within the shrine, he appeared so suddenly. He
greeted Taron Ling like an old acquaintance and eyed Blair curiously, as if
appraising his clothes for their value. In his eyes was the insolent audacity
of the professional blessing- and cursing-monger, hard with avarice and,with
experience of human gullibility.
He offered Blair no greeting but turned his back and led toward the
shrine, Taron Ling tailing behind, so that Blair walked between the two men
until they reached the shrine and the Bat-Brahmin faced about in the dim
entrance.
There was an argument then. The Bat wanted Blair to take his boots off. He
lifted one bare foot repeatedly, smiting the sole with the flat of his hand;
but Taron Ling ridiculed him and tor a minute or two they looked like coming
to blows, paying each other such scurrilous compliments that at last Blair
intervened to restore peace. The dispute had served his present purpose; he
had waited in the dim shrine entrance long enough tor the commissioner’s men
to watch which way he took and who was with him. The Bat-Brahmin, as a
notorious character, could hardly be improved on as a link in a chain of
evidence. He had no objection to removing his boots. He had often done that
in religious buildings. But it occurred to him to see what Taron Ling would
do if he refused; so he ordered the Bat-Brahmin out of the way and told Taron
Ling to lead on in. Taron Ling shoved the Bat aside roughly. The Bat screamed
like a beast; his outraged eyes almost popped from his head, but he thought
better of striking back although he raised his right hand. He entered last,
muttering obscenities with lips that slobbered malice. He had mad eyes. He
seemed to be on the verge of an epileptic fit. Taron Ling kept calling him
names that might have made even a sane man mad with anger.
The shrine was not nearly large enough to be called a temple but it had
beautiful fluted columns and its, walls were covered with carvings of the
Hindu pantheon, the greater part of them monstrously obscene to western eyes.
There was an atmosphere of peace, a reek of faded flowers, a heavy silence
and, in the gloom at the rear amid the dimness of smoky oil-lamps, the genial
image of the god Ganesha, elephant-trunked, pot-bellied, competent of
judgment. The old mad hermit sat beside the image, too mad. too meditative to
notice anyone except the Bat, at whom his eyes smiled like a child’s who sees
his mother.
The back wall of the shrine was the mountain rock that had been quarried
perpendicular and carved like the rest of the walls. It was impossible to see
into the soot-black shadow behind the image, but it seemed strange.that the
image should be set forth from the wall. It stood three feet forward from it.
Taron Ling’s irreverence seemed more than casual: he even spat on the floor
at the foot of Ganesha. But it was rather a serious matter for a police
officer in uniform to invade such a place without definite orders to do it,
and Blair hesitated, peering into the gloom, until he saw that behind the
image the rock wall had been left uncarved.
There was a smooth place, of lighter color, of the same size as the image.
At the base of the wall there remained a projecting ledge of the same height
and width as the built up base in front of it on which the image actually
rested and looked like an afterthought. In the rock wall, curiously placed
amid the carvings, there were two big forged iron rings of ancient make and
no obvious purpose. Blair, as he followed Taron Ling into the gloom, stumbled
and nearly fell over a coil of thick rope.
Then there was another altercation with the Bat, who changed his mind
about permitting sacrilege. He screamed at Taron Ling. He tried to get in his
way. Taron Ling took him roughly by the singlet and tore it as he hurled him
backward easily with one hand. According to Hindu religious law there is no
worse crime than to strike a Brahmin, and Bats claim Brahmin privileges. But
the old hermit took no notice, and there were no other witnesses. The bat
stood aside, glaring and muttering, with the light from the entrance making
him look half human and half shadow. Taron Ling sprang to the ledge behind
Ganesha, placing a hand on the image to steady himself. He offered his other
hand to help Blair. Blair thought he detected movement, but he was not sure.
He accepted Taron Ling’s hand, and as he hauled himself up to the ledge, he
too placed his hand on the back of the image. It did move. It rocked, almost
imperceptibly. It rested, evidently, on a roller, or rollers, of stone or
iron. Those rings in the wall were for the rope. Ganesha’s image could be
hauled back flat against the wall and probably one man. or at any rate two,
could do it.