Guns of the Gods

T >> Talbot Mundy >> Guns of the Gods

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"I understand there's precious little sleep for me tonight, and hell in
the morning!"

"Pouf! Are you a soldier?"

"I'm your ladyship's most thorough-paced admirer and obedient slave!"
Tom answered gallantly, his mutton-chop whiskers fairly bristling with a grin.

"Prove it, then, this night!"

"As if I hadn't! Well--all's well, Your Ladyship, I'm on the job! Crib,
crupper and breakfast-time, yours truly!"

"When you have finished interviewing Gungadhura, find for Blaine sahib
a new cook and a new butler, who can be trusted not to poison him!"

"If I can!"

"Of course you can find them! Tell Sita Ram, Samson sahib's babu,
what is wanted. He will find men in one hour who have too much honor,
and too little brains, and too great fear to poison any one! Say that I
require it of him. Have your understood? Then go! Go swiftly to the
guard and stop their tongues!"

Tom whistled his dog and rode off at a canter. Dick gave the horse
his head and drove home as fast as the steepness of the hill permitted,
Yasmini talking to him nearly all the way.

"You must dismiss Chamu," she insisted. "He is Gungadhura's man,
and the cook is under the heel of Chamu. Either man would poison his
own mother for a day's pay! Send them both about their business the
first thing in the morning if you value your life! Before they go, let them
see you put a great lock on the cellar door, and nail it as well, and put
weights on it! If men come at any time to pry about the house, ask
Samson sahib for a special policeman to guard the place!"

"But what is all this leading to?" demanded Dick. "What does it mean?"

"It means," she said slowly, "that the toils are closing in on Gungadhura!"

"The way I figure it," he answered, "some one else had a pretty narrow
shave tonight!"

Yasmini knew better than to threaten Dick, or even to argue with him
vehemently, much less give him orders. But each man has a line of
least resistance.

"Your wife has told you what Gungadhura attempted?" she asked him.

"Yes, while you were at the money-lender's--something of it."

"If the guard should tell Gungadhura that your wife was in the palace
with me and could give evidence against him, what do you suppose
Gungadhura would do?"

"Damn him!" Dick murmured.

"There are so many ways--snakes--poison--daggers in the dark--"

"What do you suggest?" he asked her. "Leave Sialpore?"

"Yes, but with me! I know a safe place. She should come with me."

"When?"

"Tonight! Before dawn."

"How?"

"By camel. I had horses and Gungadhura took them all, but his brain
was too sotted to think of camels, and I have camels waiting not many
miles from here! I shall take my horse from your stable and ride for
the camels, bringing them to the house of Mukhum Dass. Let your
wife meet me there one hour before dawn."

"Dick!" said Tess, with her arm around him. "I want to go! I know it
sounds crazy, and absurd, and desperate; but I'm sure it isn't! I want
you to let me go with her."

They reached the house before he answered, he, turning it over and
over in his mind, taking into reckoning a thousand things.

"Well," he said at last, "once in a while there's the strength of a man
about you, Tess. Maybe I'm a lunatic, but have it your own way, girl,
have it your own way!"

Chapter Ten

In odor of sweet sanctity I bloom,
With surplus of beatitude I bless,
I'm the confidant of Destiny and Doom,
I'm the apogee of knowledge more or less.
If I lie, it is to temporize with lying
Lest obliquity should suffer in the light.
If I prey upon the widow and the dying,
They withheld; and I compel them to do right.
I am justified in all that I endeavor,
If I fail it is because the rest are fools.
I'm serene and unimpeachable forever,
The upheld, ordained interpreter of rules.

"Discretion is better part of secrecy!"

Some of what follows presently was told to Yasmini afterward by Sita Ram,
some of it by Tom Tripe, and a little by Dick Blaine, who had it from
Samson himself. The rest she pieced together from admissions by
Jinendra's fat priest and the gossip of some dancing girls.

Sir Roland Samson, K. C. S. I., as told already, was a very demon for
swift office work, routine pouring off him into the hands of the right
subordinates like water into the runnels of a roof, leaving him free to
bask in the sunshine of self-complacency. But there is work that can
not be tackled, or even touched by subordinates; and, the fixed belief
of envious inferiors to the contrary notwithstanding, there are hours
unpaid for, unincluded in the office schedule, and wholly unadvertised
that hold such people as commissioners in durance vile.

On the night of Yasmini's escape Samson sat sweating in his private
room, with moths of a hundred species irritating him by noisy self-
immolation against the oil lamp-whose smoke made matters worse
by being sucked up at odd moments by the punkah, pulled jerkily by
a new man. Most aggravating circumstance of all, perhaps, was that
the movement of the punkah flickered his papers away whenever he
removed a weight. Yet he could not study them unless he spread
them all in front of him; and without the punkah he felt he would die
of apoplexy. He had to reach a decision before midnight.

Babu Sita Ram was supposed to be sitting tinder a punkah in the next
room, with a locked door between him and his master. He was staying
late, by special request and as a special favor, to copy certain very
important but not too secret documents in time for the courier next day.
There were just as many insects to annoy him, and the punkah flapped
his papers too; but fat though he was, and sweat though he did, his
smile was the smile of a hunter. From time to time he paused from
copying, stole silently to the door between the offices, gingerly removed
a loose knot from a panel, and clapped to the hole first one, and then
the other avidious brown eye.

Samson wished to goodness there was some one he dared consult with.
There were other Englishmen, of course, but they were all ambitious
like himself. He felt that his prospects were at stake. News had reached
the State Department (by channels Sita Ram could have uncovered
for him) that Gungadhura was intriguing with tribes beyond the northwest frontier.

The tribes were too far away to come in actual touch with Sialpore,
although they were probably too wild and childish to appreciate that fact.
The point was that Gungadhura was said to be promising them armed
assistance from the British rear--assistance that he never would possibly
be able to render them; and his almost certain intention was, when
the rising should materialize, to offer his small forces to the British
as an inexpensive means of quelling the disturbance, thus restoring
his own lost credit and double-crossing all concerned. A subtle motive,
subtly suspected.

It was no new thing in the annals of Indian state affairs, nor anything
to get afraid about; but what the State Department desired to know
was, why Sir Roland Samson, K. C. S. I., was not keeping a closer
eye on Gungadhura, what did he propose as the least troublesome
and quietest solution, and would he kindly answer by return.

All that was bad enough, because a "beau ideal commissioner" rather
naturally feels distressed when information of that sort goes over his
head or under his feet to official superiors. But he could have got
around it. It should not have been very difficult to write a report that
would clear himself and give him time to turn around.

But that very evening no less an individual than the high priest of Jinendra
had sent word by Sita Ram that he craved the favor of an interview.

"And," had added Sita Ram with malicious delight, "it is about the treasure
of Sialpore and certain claims to it that I think he wants to see you."

"Why should he come by night?" demanded Samson.

"Because his errand is a secret one," announced the babu, with a hand
on his stomach as if he had swallowed something exquisite.

So Samson was in a quandary, going over secret records getting ready
for an issue with the priest. His report had to be ready by morning, yet
he hardly dared begin it without knowing what the priest might have in
mind; and on his own intricate knowledge of the situation might depend
whether or not he could extract, from a man more subtle than himself,
information on which to base sound proposals to his government. His
reputation was decidedly at stake; and dangerous intrigue was in the
air, or else the priest would never be coming to visit him.

Sita Ram kept peeping at him through the knot-hole, as a cook peers
at a tit-bit in the oven, to judge whether it is properly cooked yet.

Jinendra's priest had had time for reflection. True to his kidney, he
trusted nobody, unlike Yasmini who knew whom to trust, and when,
and just how far. It was all over the city that Gungadhura's practises
were hastening his ruin, so it was obviously wise not to espouse the
maharajah's cause, in addition to which he had become convinced in
his own mind that Yasmini actually knew the whereabouts of the Sialpore
treasure. But he did not trust Yasmini either, nor did he relish her
scornful promise of a mere percentage of the hoard when it should
at last be found. He wanted at least the half of it, bargains to the contrary
notwithstanding; and he had that comfortable conscience that has
soothed so many priests, that argues how the church must be above
all bargains, all bonds, all promises. Was there any circumstance,
or man, or woman who could bind and circumscribe Jinendra's high
priest? He laughed at the suggestion of it. Samson was the man to see--
Samson the man to be inveigled in the nets. So he sent his verbal
message by the mouth of Sita Ram--a very pious devotee of Jinendra
by Yasmini's special orders; and, disguising his enormous bulk in a
thin cloak, set forth long after dark in a covered cart drawn by two tiny bulls.

There were two doors to Sita Ram's small office; two to Samson's
large one--three doors in all, because they shared the connecting one
(that was locked just now) in common. At the first sound of the long-
awaited heavy footsteps on the outer porch Sita Ram hurried to do the
honors, and presently ushered into Samson's presence the enormous
bulk of the high priest, spreading a clean cloth for him on an easy chair
because the priest's caste put it out of the question for him to sit on
leather defiled by European trousers.

Then, while the customary salaams were taking place, and the customary
questions about health and other matters that neither cared a fig about,
Sita Ram ostentatiously drew a curtain part-way over the connecting
door, and retired by way of the other door and the passage to remove
the knot from its hole.

It was part of Samson's pride, and one of his stoutest rungs in the ladder
of preferment, that be knew more Indian languages than any other man
of his rank in the service, and knew them well. There were asterisks
and stars and twiggly marks against his name in the blue book that
would have passed muster as a secret code, and every one of them
betokened passed examinations in some Eastern tongue. So he was
fully able to meet the high priest on his own ground, as well as conscious
of the advantage he held to begin with, in that the priest had come to
him instead of his going to the priest.

"Well?" he demanded, cutting the pleasantries short abruptly as soon
as Sita Ram had closed the door.

"I came to speak of politics."

"I listen."

Samson leaned back and scrutinized his visitor with deliberate rudeness.
Having the upper hand he proposed to hold it.

But Jinendra's high priest was no beginner either in the game of
Beggar-my-neighbor. He understood the value of a big trump to begin
with, provided there is other ammunition in reserve.

"The whereabouts of the treasure of Sialpore is known!"

"The deuce it is!" said Samson, in good plain English. "Who knows it?"
he demanded.

The high priest smiled.

Samson, as was natural, felt that tingling up and down the spine and
quickening of the heart-beats that announces crisis in one's personal
affairs, but concealed it admirably. It was the high priest's turn to speak.
He waited.

"Half of that treasure belongs to the priesthood of Jinendra," said the
priest at last.

"Since when?"

"Since the beginning."

"Why?"

"We were keepers of the treasure once years ago, before the English came.
There came a time when the reigning rajah deceived us by a trick,
including murder; and ever since the English took control the priests
have had less and less authority. There has been no chance to--
to bring any--to put pressure--to reestablish our rights. Nevertheless,
our rights in the matter were never surrendered."

"What do you mean by that exactly?"

"The English are now the real rulers of Sialpore."

Samson nodded. That was a significant admission, coming from a
Brahman priest.

"They should claim the treasure. But they can not claim it without knowing
where it is. The priests of Jinendra are entitled to their half."

"You mean you are willing that my government should take half the treasure,
provided the priests of Jinendra get the other half of it?"

The priest moved his head and his lips in a way that might be taken
to mean anything.

"If you know where the treasure is, dig it up," said Samson, "and you
shall have your answer!"

Yasmini in the heat of excitement had called Samson an idiot, but he
was far from being that, as she knew as well as any one. He judged
in that moment that if Jinendra's priest knew really where the treasure
was, he would never have come to drive a bargain for the half of it,
but would have taken all and said nothing. On the other hand, it well
might be that Gungadhura's searchers had stumbled on it. In that
case, there was that secret letter from headquarters hurriedly placed
in his top drawer when the priest came in, that would give good excuse
for putting screws on Gungadhura. A coup d'etat was not beyond the
pale of possibility. As a champion of indiscretion and a judge of
circumstances, he would dare. The gleam in his eyes betrayed that
he would dare, and the priest grew uneasy.

"It is not I who know where the treasure is. I know who knows."

"You mean Gungadhura knows!"

The priest smiled again. The commissioner was not such a dangerous
antagonist after all. Samson's eyes betrayed disappointment, and
the priest took heart of grace.

"For one-half of the treasure I will tell you who it is that knows. You
can take possession of the of the person. Then--"

"Illegal. By what right could I arrest a person simply because some
one else asserts without proof that that person knows where the treasure is?"

"Not arrest, perhaps. But you might protect."

"From whom? From what?"

"Gungadhura suspects. He might use poison--torture--might carry the
person off into hiding--"

He paused, for Samson's eyes were again a signal of excitement.
He had it! He knew as much as the priest himself did in that instant!
There was one particular individual in Sialpore who fitted that bill.

"Nonsense!" he answered. "Gungadhura would be answerable to
me for any outrages."

The priest showed a slight trace of dejection, but went forward bravely
to defeat.

"There is danger," he said. "If Gungadhura should lay hands on all
that money, there would be no peace in Rajputana. I should not bargain
away what belongs to the priesthood, but discretion is permitted me;
if you will agree with me tonight, I will accept a little less than half of it."

Samson wanted time to think, and he was through with the priest--finished
with the interview,--not even anxious to appear polite.

"If you bring me definite information," he said slowly, "and on the strength
of that my government should come in possession of the Sialpore
treasure, I will promise you in writing five per cent. of it for the funds
of the priesthood of Jinendra, the money to be held in trust and administered
subject to accounting."

Jinendra's high priest hove his bulk out of the leather chair and went
through the form of taking leave, contenting himself, too, with the veriest
shell of courtesy--scorn for such an offer scowling from his fat face.
Samson showed him to the door and closed it after him, leaving
Babu Sita Ram to do the honors outside in the passage.

"I kiss feet!" said the babu. "You must bless me, father. I kiss feet!"

The priest blessed him perfunctorily.

"Is there anything I can do, holy one? Anything a babu such as I can
do to earn merit?"

Rolling on his ponderous way toward the waiting bull-cart, the priest
paused a moment--eyed Sita Ram as a python eyes a meal--and answered him.

"Tell that woman from me that if she has a plan at all she must unfold
it swiftly. Tell her that this Samson sahib is after the treasure for himself;
that he invited me to help him and to share it with him. Let her have
word with me swiftly."

"What treasure?" asked Sita Ram ingenuously. Having had his ear
to the knot-hole throughout the interview, it suited him to establish innocence.
The priest could have struck himself for the mistake, and Sita Ram,
too, for the impudence.

"Never mind!" he answered. "Tell her what I say. Those who obey
and ask no unwise questions oftentimes receive rewards."

Inside the office Samson sat elated, wiping his forehead and setting
blotter over writing-paper lest sweat from his wrists make the ink run.
It was a bender of a night, but he saw his way to a brilliant stroke of
statecraft that would land him on the heights of official approval forever.
Heat did not matter. The man at the punkah had fallen asleep, but he
did not bother to waken him. Back at the knot-hole, babu Sita Ram
watched him scribble half a dozen letters, tearing each up in turn until
the last one pleased him. Finally he sealed a letter, and directed it by
simply writing two small letters--r. s.--in the bottom left-hand corner.

"Sita Ram!" he shouted then.

The babu let him call three times, for evidence of how hard it was to
hear through that thick door. When he came it was round by the other
way in a hurry.

"You called, sir?"

"You need not copy any more of those documents tonight, Sita Ram.
I shall send a telegram in the morning and keep my report in hand for
a day or two. But there's one more little favor I would like to ask of you."

"Anything, sahib! Anything! Am only desirous to please your excellency."

"Do you know a man named Tripe--Tom Tripe--drill-instructor to the
Maharajah's Guard?"

"Yes, sahib."

"Could you find him, do you think?"

"Tonight, sahib?"

"Yes, tonight."

"Sahib, he is usually drunk at night, and very rough! Nevertheless, I
could find him."

"Please do. And give him this letter. Say it is from me. He will know
what to do with it. Oh, and Sita Ram--"

"Yes, sahib."

"You will receive two days' extra pay from me, over and above your
salary, for tonight's extra work."

"Thank you, sahib. You are most kind--always most generous."

"And--ah--Sita Ram--"

"Sahib?"

"Say nothing, will you? By nothing I mean nothing! Hold your tongue, eh?"

"Certainly, sahib. Aware of the honor of my confidential position, I am
always most discreet!"

"What are you doing with that waste-basket?"

"Taking it outside, sahib."

"The sweeper will do that in the morning."

"Am always discreet, sahib. Discretion is better part of secrecy! Better
to burn all torn-up paper before daylight always!"

"Very good. You're quite right. Thank you, Sita Ram. Yes, burn the
torn paper, please."

So Sita Ram, piecing together little bits of paper got a very good idea
of what was in the letter that he carried. The bonfire in the road looked
beautiful and gladdened his esthetic soul, but the secret information
thrilled him, which was better. He crossed the river, and very late that
night he found Tom Tripe, as sober as a judge, what with riding back
and forth to the Blaines' house and searching in a cellar and what-not.
He gave him the letter, and received a rupee because Tom's dog
frightened him nearly out of his wits. Tom swore at the letter fervently,
but that was Tom's affair, who could not guess the contents.

Almost exactly at dawn Sita Ram, as sleepy as a homing owl, reached
his own small quarters in the densest part of town. He had his hand
on the door when another hand restrained him from behind.

"You know me?" said a voice he did not know. A moment later his
terrified eyes informed him.

"Mukhum Dass? I owe you nothing!"

"Liar! You have my title-deed! Hand it over before I bring the constabeel!"

"I? Your title-deed? I know nothing of it. What title-deed?"

Mukhum Dass cut expostulation short, and denied himself the pleasure
of further threatening.

"See. Here is a letter. Read it, and then hand me over my title-deed!"

"Ah! That is different?" said Sita Ram, pocketing Yasmini's letter, for
precaution's sake. "Wait here while I bring it!"

Two minutes later he returned with a parchment in a tin tube.

"Do I receive no recompense?" he asked. "Did I not find the title-deed
and keep it safe? Where is the reward?"

"Recompense?" growled Mukhum Dass. "To be out of jail is recompense!
The next time you find property of mine, bring it to me, or the constabeel
shall have work to do!"

"Dog!" snarled the babu after him. "Dog of a usurer! Wait and see!"

Chapter Eleven

To cover a trail is less than half the work, for any dog with a nose
can smell it out. You should make a false trail afterward to deceive
the clever folk. -Eastern Proverb

"Say: that little girl you're wanting to run off with is my wife!"

The other side to the intrigue developed furiously up at the Baines'
house on the hillside. Yasmini gave directions from Tess's bedroom,
where Tess hid her from prying servants, she electing to change clothes
once more--this time into her hostess' riding breeches, boots and helmet.
But she insisted on Tess retaining the Rajput costume, only allowing
a hand-bag to be packed with woman's things, skirt, blouse and so on.

"If I am seen there must be no mistake about me. They must swear
that I am you! It doesn't matter who they believe that you are. Above all,
Chamu the butler must not see me. When he is dismissed in the
morning he will tell tales for very spite, and take his chance of my
accusing him of theft; so be sure that he sees Tom Tripe search the cellar.
Then he will confirm to the maharajah afterward that Tripe did search--
and did see something--and that Blaine sahib did lock the cellar door
afterward in anger, and put weights on it. That is the important thing.
Blaine sahib must drive the carriage again to the house of Mukhum Dass;
and be sure that I am not kept waiting there--we must start before the
dawn breaks! Now give me paper and a pen to write the chit (letter) for
Mukhum Dass."

There was no ink in the bedroom; Dick took her into the place he called
his study, and locked the door, glad of the excuse. He was minded
to know more of the intrigue before letting his wife go off again that
night on any wild adventure, second thoughts having stirred his caution.
He began by offering to lend her money, suspecting that a fugitive
princess would need that more than anything. But she replied by drawing
out from her bosom a packet containing thousands of rupees in Bank
of India notes, and gave him money instead--not much, but she forced
it on him.

"For the three beggars. Ten rupees each. Pay it them in silver in the
morning. They have been very useful often, and may be so again."

He watched her write the letter and seal the envelope. Then:

"Say," he said, "don't you think you'd be doing right by telling me more
of this? I'll say nothing to a soul, but that little girl you're wanting to
run off with is my wife, and I'll admit I'm kind o' concerned on her account."

Yasmini met his iron-gray eyes, judged him and found him good.

"I never trusted man yet, not even the husband I shall marry, with all
I shall tell you," she answered. "Will you give me silence in return for it?"

"Mum as the grave," he answered. And Dick Blaine kept his word, not
even hinting to Tess on the long drive afterward that there had been
as much as a question asked or confidence exchanged. And Tess
respected the silence, not deceived for a minute by it. He and Yasmini
had been longer in that room together than any one-page letter needed,
and she was sure there was only one subject they discussed.

Dick brought Yasmini's horse to the gate, not to the door, and she
mounted outside in the road for additional precaution. Instantly, then,
without a word of farewell she was off like the wind down-hill.

"It'll be all over town tomorrow that I'm dead or dying, if anybody sees
her!" Dick told his wife. "They'll swear that was you, Tess, riding full
pelt for the doctor!"

Soon after that Tom Tripe came, and made Chamu hold a light for
him while he searched the cellar.

"Hold the candle and your tongue too, confound you!" he told the
grumbling butler, indignant at being brought from bed.

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