“Wake!” commanded Wu Tu. “Wake and remember all I told you! Wake!”
He lay still. If he came too quickly out of the trance she might suspect
him. She began slapping his face. “Wake! Wake!”
But he lay still.
The Chinese girl returned with the lantern, and held it to his face, but
that light was not strong enough to make him blink. So she produced an
electric torch from one of the hampers and flashed that full in his eyes. The
glare was unendurable. He let his eyelids flutter. The girl wet a cloth at
the cistern and slapped his face with it. He came to then, sat up and looked
bewildered.
“Do you know who I am?”
He looked into Wu Tu’s eyes. He allowed recognition and pleasure to creep
into his.
“Marie,” he answered. Then, as if he suddenly remembered why and what:
“Where’s Henrietta? I must ask her something.” He got up, feeling stiff and a
bit uneasy but alert and competent. He put his arm around Wu Tu and spoke
caressingly: “Did I turn down your offer in Bombay? That was silly of me.
You’re the one to trust. A man can tell you anything. You keep secrets.”
“I—yes—I keep them!” she said it with set teeth.
He snatched the torch from the Chinese girl, flashed it around the walls
as if he had forgotten where he was, and turned it at last on two dead
bodies. He recognized both! Those men had stood at the foot of the stairs in
Wu Tu’s house in Bombay.
“Who?” he demanded, putting a hand over his eyes as if trying to
remember.
“My servants, Blair. You killed them—shot one—stabbed one. But
I won’t tell who did it. Look.”
“I—I don’t remember killing them,” Blair said.
“No wonder. They hit you hard. They and that swine Chetusingh attacked you
suddenly. You—”
He bent down and examined the bodies. He remembered he had held the dagger
in his left hand, the revolver in his right. One man was shot through the
heart; he very likely had killed that one. But the dagger was between the
other man’s shoulder-blades in such a position that he could not possibly
have done that left-handed. Someone else had used the dagger. Someone must
have snatched it from his hand as he fell—must have driven it to the
hilt into the man’s back from behind. There could be no drug now remaining in
the handle of that weapon! It was a blow of which neither Wu Tu nor the
Chinese girl was capable. Wu Tu, he remembered, had been clinging to his
knees; she could not possibly have done it. Chetusingh was the only
alternative. It was just such a blow as Chetusingh would strike, if put to
it—Rajput-fashion—no half-measures.
“But I don’t remember this,” he said. “I don’t remember it.”
“They hit you on the head,” Wu Tu repeated.
“Your face is wet, isn’t it? We bathed it, to make you recover. What do
you remember?”
“Henrietta!” he said instantly. “Where is she?”
Wu Tu nodded to herself. Blair looked away from her to hide the triumph
that he knew was in his eyes. He had her beaten. Checkmate now in one or two
moves.
I have had one hundred and one
chelas
, of whom one
alone had too much wisdom in him to demand why I, his Teacher, had revealed
to him no great hidden secrets. Are they not hidden? Are they not hidden in
each one’s consciousness? I am a Teacher. I am a gardener, awaiting sun,
rain, growth; observant and perhaps, if diligent, preventing trespass. I can
cultivate, prune, encourage. I protect. But the seed is within you. As the
yearning of the lover to reveal true love to his beloved, is the hunger of
the Teacher to reveal the Secrets to his
chela
. Unto love, and unto
love alone, love shows herself, as a reflection in a pond at sunrise. Unto
inward wisdom. Wisdom is revealed. Truth echoes Truth. All else, in the words
of your Gospel, is pearls that the swine tread underfoot.
—From the First of the Nine Books of Noor Ali.
IT SEEMED probable that Wu Tu would behave herself for the
time being. Murder might be in her mind, but what she wanted first was
Henrietta’s secret. Blair was as keen as Wu Tu on that. But what the devil
should he say to Henrietta? Even supposing he should get rid of Wu Tu
somehow, and then find Henrietta, there still might be one or two of Wu Tu’s
men to be dealt with. She was much more likely than Zaman Ali to have
well-paid and therefore faithful adherents, who would probably have weapons.
He had none. There was a weapon available, but to have pulled that dagger
from the dead man’s body would have alarmed Wu Tu. He was better without a
weapon than with her suspicion aroused. Her over-confidence was
all-important. In the dim chamber, with the red glow from the lantern on her
face and the electric torch revealing a panorama o£ weirdly shaped golden
figures as a setting, Wu Tu looked hardly human. Mystery had taken hold of
her imagination. She looked hungry, determined, cruel.
She undoubtedly believed she was using occult forces. There is nothing
comparable to the obscene fury of the would-be magician whose mental
treacheries are circumvented. She would be like a baffled cobra if
disillusioned. She might kill Henrietta out of sheer spite.
“Why do you wait?” Wu Tu demanded suddenly. He was not so sure then that
he had her beaten. The dilemma was obvious. She was testing the control of
her will over his, directing him mentally, using a form of telepathy that has
sent many a weakling to the gallows. The difficulty was, her thought made no
impression on him; he was unable to detect the slightest tremor of directing
impulse. He had never been able to let his thought be directed by others,
although he and Chetusingh had tried to practice it for the sake of better
teamwork. However, he decided to pretend to receive directions and to take
the chance of making a wrong turning.
The Chinese girl snatched at the torch but he pushed her aside roughly,
turned the light on the entrance-hole and started forward as if he had
suddenly received an overpowering impulse. But he wondered whether that was
the right thing to do. His confidence, that had been so strong a few minutes
before, was waning. He would have preferred to have Wu Tu in front of him
where he could see her.
The Chinese girl followed him so closely, and so fast, that his spine
tingled, as he hurried oil hands and knees through the low passage. True, he
did not expect to be stabbed. He reassured himself that there was not the
slightest fear of that until Wu Tu should have attained her objective. But
there was no doubt about the crawling sensation it gave him to have the girl
so close behind. At the far end of the opening he stood up instantly and
flashed the light in her face. She only smiled. It was the friendliest smile
she had given him yet, But she was quite possibly laughing at his discomfort
or at the disreputable state of his clothing. It would be like a Chinese to
do that, at that moment. She said nothing. Wu Tu came through the opening
slowly, not on her hands and knees but bent double, pausing repeatedly,
appearing to listen, either in deadly fear of Taron Ling, or possibly
expecting reinforcements.
Blair turned to the right and started down the tunnel, with the idea of
reaching daylight before reinforcements could come. The prospect of some more
enemies in the dark was even worse than the dread of the climb up those
projecting steps on the flank of the pit. However, it seemed he had turned
the wrong way. Wu Tu betrayed the strain she was under.
“Stop!” she commanded, pointing tragically with her left arm toward black
darkness. He turned the torch on the darkness beyond the low chamber
entrance. It revealed an opening in the rock wall. He entered. It turned
left, right, left again into the rock, not wide enough for two abreast, but
high enough for that ancient giantess to. have used it without stooping.
After three zigzag turns he found himself in a clean-cut, smooth, descending
passage, in which there was bat-filth but plenty of air.
He wet his finger. The draught of air came toward him. There were marks
here and there in the filth that resembled human footprints, but it was very
difficult to distinguish them by torchlight. Walking was not easy; the narrow
floor was worn trough-shape and was nowhere more than three feet wide, but
the walls sloped outward, so that at the height of his head the passage had a
width of four or five feet. The roof was irregular and gave foot-hold to
hundreds of bats that squirmed and squeaked as the light disturbed them.
The passage curved and turned on itself without any evident reason. There
was not a fault in the walls anywhere—no carvings, ornaments,
inscriptions. Direction was very difficult to keep in mind, but his
impression was that he had made almost a complete circuit and had descended
fifty or sixty feet, if not more, when at last he saw indirect daylight that
streamed across the passage fifty feet ahead, where there was a sharp
right-hand turn. Facing the turn, on the left, there was a slot-like opening
into which the light poured.
The opening revealed a dim chamber with a shelf all around it, similar to
the one from which he had just come. The wall was damp where water poured out
of one hole and into another, but there was no cistern. The place had been’
cleaned out recently. Facing the light was one huge, apparently golden figure
that resembled nothing recognizable or comprehensible, unless it was an
effort to suggest unknown dimensions. If it really was gold its weight and
value beggared imagination. Near it was a plain camp-cot that had been
recently used; the pillow bore the imprint of some one’s head. The clean
white overlying sheet was rumpled. Near the cot, on the floor, were a plain
enamel wash-bowl, towels and a hamper that might contain food. Beside those,
also on the floor, were two large suitcases, both marked H.F.
Blair went straight to the cot and discovered a vanity case beneath the
pillow. He recognized that instantly as Henrietta’s. Wu Tu, as quiet as a
mouse, came in behind him and stood by the suitcases. He scowled as he turned
and faced her. The Chinese girl, dirty, disheveled, impudent, hovered behind
Wu Tu, looking like her evil genius. She leered at the bags and vanity case
as if her thought possessively explored their contents. That brought Blair’s
anger suddenly to the surface. Speech exploded from him:
“Get out of here, both of you!”
Wu Tu smiled. Her shoulders relaxed, as if his anger resolved a doubt. But
her smile looked ghastly in the light that streamed through the opening. She
looked fifty years old, with strained eyes and the suppleness gone from her
limbs. Mentally as well as physically she seemed exhausted. She sat down on
the cot.
“No, you get out of here,” she answered. “Find Henrietta.” She reached for
the vanity case and Blair snatched it away. The suitcases were closed but
unlocked; he put the vanity case inside the nearest one and reclosed the
catches. Then he pushed both suitcases under the cot.
“Yes,” said Wu Tu, “you do love her. Find her. She is your woman.”
That enraged him. But Blair’s anger never governed him for more than
fractions of a second. Instead it stirred his self-control and set him
calculating. If Wu Tu felt so sure she had him hypnotised that she was
willing he should interview Henrietta lone, why disillusion her? Besides, he
did not know yet how to get out of the caverns; Wu Tu very likely did know.
It was important to get that information before challenging her
vindictiveness. He, too, was weary in every fiber of his being; it was easy
to look beaten.
He strode to the water, drank from his cupped hands, bathed his eyes to
take away the smart of sleeplessness, stared at Wu Tu as if he hardly
recognized her, and walked out like a man in a dream. Behind him Wu Tu spoke
in Chinese. When he glanced over his shoulder she already lay sprawled on the
cot with her head on the pillow. She seemed to be failing under the strain.
The girl was massaging her feet. Immediate interruption from that quarter
appeared improbable.
Blinking, he walked straight toward strong daylight. Twenty feet beyond
where the passage turned it came to a sudden end at a strangely carved
opening with a wide stone threshold, almost exactly like the one at “the foot
of the projecting steps, the thought of which still made him shudder. But
this opening was much closer to the bottom of the great pit.
Looking up, he could see the other threshold, and some of the ghastly
steps beyond it, like broken teeth stuck oh the smooth rock. The great cone
in the midst of the pit was far above the level of his eyes and looked creamy
white from that angle. It was no longer transparent and he could not see the
woman. From the threshold where he stood a flight of irregular steps
descended to the floor of the pit; they were like the steps higher up except
that these were much less difficult. There was no other way to go.
He went down, slowly, accustoming his eyes to the light and keeping close
to the wall for safety; he was so tired that he could hardly trust his
sinews.
The light was not nearly as dazzling as it had been; His watch had
stopped, no doubt broken, but he knew it must be long after, noon. From where
he was, he could not see the sky, but it was obvious that the sun ho longer
shone directly into the cavern. There was a wide shadow at the foot of the
wall. The floor of the pit lay in waves of creamy stalagmite; almost like wax
from a guttered candle; but farther away where the light was more direct and
stronger it looked like mother-of-pearl. One gorged vulture was perched on a
wave of the stuff to his left, and he could hear atrocious, echoed noises
made by others that tore at dead men’s bodies out of sight in some hollow
beyond. Many of the waves of stalagmite were more than head-high, but a
smooth, worn, narrow track wound among them snakewise in the general
direction of the central mound, on which the great cone glowed with color
that changed at each step he took. The cone fascinated; it was almost a
physical impossibility not to stare at it.