Guns of the Gods

T >> Talbot Mundy >> Guns of the Gods

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But that was not all, either. The murderer of Mukhum Dass was refusing
stolidly to plead guilty to another charge, and Blaine's butler had come
out with the whole story of the burglary. Parliament would get to hear
about it next, and then there would be the very deuce to pay. The police
were offering the murderer what they called "inducements and persuasion";
but he held out for "money down," and did not seem to find too unendurable
whatever it was that happened to him at intervals in the dark cell. There
are limits even to what an Indian policeman can do, without making marks
on a man or compelling the attention of European officers.

On top of all that, Samson had to hand Dick Blaine a check amounting
to a month's pay, look pleasant while he did it, and--above all--look
pleasant at the coming durbar.

On the other hand, there were people who enjoyed themselves. Sialpore,
across the river, was a dinning riot of excitement--flags, triumphal arches,
gala clothes and laughter everywhere. Dick Blaine, driving Tess toward
Yasmini's palace in the very early dawn, had to drive slowly to avoid
accident, for the streets were already crowded. His own place in the
procession was to be on horseback pretty nearly anywhere he chose
to insert himself behind the royal cortege, and, not being troubled on
the score of precedence, he had Tom Tripe in mind as a good man
to ride with. Tom could tell him things.

But he waited there for more than an hour until the royal elephants arrived,
magnificent in silver howdahs and bright paint, and watched Tess emerge
with Yasmini and the other women. Tess wore borrowed jewels, and
a veil that you could see her face through; but Yasmini was draped
from head to foot as if the eyes of masculinity had never rested on her,
and never might. Things were not going quite so smoothly as they ought,
although Tom Tripe was galloping everywhere red-necked with energy,
and it was nearly half an hour more before the escort of maharajah's
troops came in brand-new scarlet uniforms, to march in front, and behind,
and on each side of the elephants. So Dick got quite a chance to "josh"
Tess, and made the most of it.

But things got under way at last. Dick's sais found him with the horse
he was to ride, and the procession gathered first on the great maidan
(open ground) between the city and the river, with bands in full blast,
drums thundering to split the ears, masters of ceremony shouting, and
the elephants enjoying themselves most of all, as they always do when
they have a stately part to play in company.

Utirupa led the way in a golden howdah on Akbar, the biggest elephant
in captivity and the very archetype of sobriety ever since his escapade
with Tom Tripe's rum. Akbar was painted all over with vermilion and
blue decorations, and looked as if butter would not melt in his mouth.

Next after Utirupa the princes rode in proper order of rank and precedence,
each with two attendants up behind him waving fans of ostrich plumes.
Then came a band. Then Samson, and a score of British officers in
carriages whose teams were nearly frantic from the din and the smell
of elephants and had to have runners to hold their heads--all of which
added exquisite amusement. Then another band, and a column of the
maharajah's troops. Then more elephants, loaded with the lesser notables;
and after them, a column nearly a mile long of Rajput gentry on the
most magnificent horses they could discover and go in debt for.

After the Rajput gentry came a third band, followed by more maharajah's
troops, and then Yasmini on her elephant, followed by twenty princesses
and Tess, each with a great beast to herself and at least two maids to
wave the jeweled fans. Then more troops, followed by Dick and Tom Tripe
together on horseback leading the rank and file. Trotters jogged along
between Tom and Dick, pausing at intervals to struggle with both forefeet
to remove a collar bossed with solid gold that he regarded as an outrage
to his dogly dignity.

And the rank and file were well worth looking at, for whoever could find
a decent suit of clothes was marching, shouting, laughing, sweating,
kicking up the dust, and having a good time generally. The water-sellers
were garnering a harvest; fruit- and sweetmeat-peddlers were dreaming
of open-fronted shops and how to defeat the tax-collector. The police
swaggered and yelled and ordered everybody this and that way; and
nobody took the slightest notice; and the policemen did not dare do
anything about it because the crowd was too unanimously bent on having
its own way, and therefore dangerous to bully but harmless if not hit.

Half-way down the thronging stream of men on foot came another elephant--
a little one, alone, carrying three gentlemen in fine white raiment--Bimbu
and Pinga and Umra to wit, who, it is regrettable to chronicle, were very
drunk indeed and laughed exceedingly at most unseemly jokes, exchanging
jests with the crowd that would have made Tess's hair stand on end,
if she could have heard and understood them. From windows, and
roofs that overhung the street, people threw flowers at Bimbu, Pinga
and Umra, because all Hindustan knows there is merit in treating beggars
as if they were noblemen; and Bimbu wove himself a garland out of
the buds to wear on his turban, which made him look more bacchanalian
than ever.

In and out and around and through the ancient city the procession filed,
passing now and then through streets so narrow that people could have
struck Utirupa through the upper story windows; but all they threw at
him was flowers, calling him "Bahadur" and king of elephants, and great
prince, and dozens of other names that never hurt anybody with a sense
of pageantry and humor. He acted the part for them just as they wanted
him to, sitting bolt upright in the howdah like a prince in a fairy story,
with jeweled aigrette in his turban and more enormous diamonds flashing
on his silken clothes than a courtesan would wear at Monte Carlo.
And all the other princes were likewise in degree, only that they rode
rather smaller elephants, Akbar having no peer when he was sober
and behaved himself.

And when Yasmini passed, and Tess and all the other princesses, there
was such excitement as surely had never been before; for if you looked
carefully, with a hand held to keep the sun from your eyes, you could
actually see the outlines of their faces through the veils! And such
loveliness! Such splendor! Such pride! Such jewels! Above all, such
fathomless mystery and suggestion of intrigue! Pageantry is expensive,
but--believe Sialpore--it is worth the price!

And then in front of the durbar hall in the dinning, throbbing heat, all the
animals and carriages and men got mixed in a milling vortex, while the
notables went into the hall to be jealous of one another's better places
and left the crowd outside to sort itself. And everything was made much
more interesting by the fact that Akbar was showing signs of ill-temper,
throwing up his great trunk once or twice to trumpet dissatisfaction.
His mahout was calling him endearing names and using the ankus alternately,
promising him rum with one breath and a thrashing with the next. But
Akbar wanted alcohol, not promises, and none dared give him any before
evening, when he might get as drunk as he wished in a stone-walled
compound all to himself.

Then Samson's horses took fright at Akbar's trumpeting, he getting out
of the carriage at the durbar door only in the nick to time. The horses
bolted into the crowd, and an indignant elephant smashed the carriage;
but nobody was hurt beyond a bruise or two, although they passed
word down the thunderous line that a hundred and six and thirty had
been crushed to death and one child injured, which made it much more
thrilling, and the sensation was just as actual as if the deaths had
really happened.

And inside the durbar hall there was surely never such a splendid scene
in history--such a sea of turbans--such glittering of jewels--such a
peacocking and swaggering and proud bearing of ancient names! Utirtipa
sat on the throne in front of a peacock-feather decoration; and-marvel
of marvels!--Yasmini sat on another throne beside him, unveiled!--with
a genuine unveiled and very beautiful princess beside her, whom nobody
except Samson suspected might be Tess. She wore almost as many
jewels as the queen herself, and looked almost as ravishing.

But the Princess Yasmini's eyes--they were the glory of that occasion!
Her spun-gold hair was marveled at, but her eyes--surely they were lent
by a god for the event! They were bluer than the water of Himalayan
lakes; bluer than turquoise, sapphire, the sky, or any other blue thing
you can think of--laughing blue,--loving, understanding, likable, amusing
blue--two jewels that outshone all the other jewels in the durbar hall that day.

And as each prince filed past Utirupa in proper order of precedence,
to make a polite set speech, and bow, and be bowed to in return, he
had to pass Yasmini first, and bow to her first, although he made his
speech to Utirupa, who acknowledged it. So, when Samson's turn
came, he, too, had to bow first to Yasmini, because as a gentleman
he could hardly do less; and her wonderful eyes laughed into his angry
ones as she bowed to him in return, with such good humor and elation
that he could not help but smile back; he could forgive a lovely woman
almost anything, could Samson. He could almost forgive her that no
less than nineteen British officers of various ranks, as well as
one-hundred-and-three-and-twenty native noblemen had seen him
with their own eyes to make an official bow to the consort of a reigning
maharajah. He had recognized her officially! Well; he supposed he
could eat his aftermath as well as any man; and he drove home with
a smile and a high chin, to unbosom himself to Colonel Willoughby
de Wing over a whisky and soda at the club, as Ferdinand de Sousa
Braganza reported in some detail at the Goanese Club afterward.

Late that night, when the fireworks were all over and the lights were
beginning to be extinguished on the roofs and windows, it was a question
which was most drunk--Akbar, the three beggars, or Tom Tripe. Akbar's
outrageous trumpeting could be heard all over the city, as he raced
around his dark compound after shadows, and rats, and mice and anything
else that he imagined or could see. What Tom Tripe saw kept him to
his quarters, where Trotters watched him in dire misery. The three beggars,
Bimbu, Pinga and Umra, saw three amber moons in a purple sky, for
they said so. They also said that all the world was lovely, and Yasmini
was a queen of queens, out of whose jeweled hand the very gods ate.
And when people scolded them for blasphemy, they made such
outrageously funny and improper jokes that everybody laughed again.

Drunk or sober (and more than ninety-nine per cent. of Sialpore was
absolutely sober then as always) every one had something to amuse
and entertain, except Samson, whose mental vision was of a great
empty hole in the ground in which he might just as well bury all his hopes
of ever being high commissioner; and poor Tom Tripe, who had worked
harder than anybody, and was now enjoying the aftermath perhaps least.

Sialpore put itself to bed in great good temper, sure that princes and
elephants and ceremony were the cream of life, and that whoever did
not think so did not deserve to have any pageantry and pomp, and that
was all about it.

Next morning early, Dick Blaine drove down to look for Tom Tripe, found
him--bound him in a blanket--shoved him, feet first, on to the floor of
the dog-cart, and drove him, followed by Trotters in doubt whether to
show approval or fight, to his own house on the hill, where Tess and
he nursed the old soldier back to soberness and old remorse.

By that time Bimbu and Pinga and Umra were back again at the garden
gate, sitting in the dust in ancient rags and whining, "Bhig mangi, saheebi!"
"Alms! heavenborn, alms!"

Chapter Twenty-Four

"You are a fool," said the crow. "Am I?" the hen answered. "Certainly
you are a fool. You sit in a dark corner hatching eggs, when there
are live chickens for the asking over yonder." So the hen left her
nest in search of ready-made chickens, and the crow, made a square
meat. --Eastern Proverb

A hundred guarded it.

It began to be rumored presently that Utirupa had declined to recognize
Blaine's contract with his predecessor. Samson's guarded hints, and
the fact that the mouth of the mine remained blocked with concrete
masonry were more or less corroborative. But the Blaines did not go,
although Dick put in no appearance at the club.

Then Patali, who was sedulously cultivating Yasmini's patronage, with
ulterior designs on Utirupa that were not misunderstood, told Norwood's
wife's ayah's sister's husband that the American had secured another
contract; and the news, of course, reached Samson's ears at once.

So Samson called on Utirupa and requested explanations. He was told
that the mining contract had not received a moment's consideration
and, with equal truth, that the American, being an expert in such matters
and on the spot, had been asked to undertake examination of the fort's
foundations. The new maharanee, it seemed, had a fancy to build a
palace where the fort stood, and the matter was receiving shrewd
investigation and estimate in advance.

Samson could not object to that. Those foundations had not been
examined carefully for eight hundred years. A perfectly good palace
had been wrested away by diplomatic means, on Samson's own initiative,
and there was no logical reason why the maharajah should not build
another one to replace it. The fort had no modern military value.

"I hope you're not going to try to pay for your new palace out of taxes?"
Samson asked bluntly.

But Utirupa smiled. He hoped nothing of that kind would be necessary.
Samson could not go and investigate what Blaine was doing, because
he was given plainly to understand that the new palace was the maharanee's
business; and one does not intrude uninvited into the affairs of ladies
in the East. The efforts of quite a number of spies, too, were unavailing.
So Dick had his days pretty much to himself, except when Tess brought
his lunch to him, or Yasmini herself in boots and turban rode up for a
few minutes to look on. The guards on the bastions, and in the great
keep in the center, knew nothing whatever of what was happening, because
all Dick's activity was underground and Tom Tripe, with that ferocious
dog of his, kept guard over the ancient door that led to the lower passages.
Dick used to return home every evening tired out, but Tom Tripe, keeping
strictly sober, slept in the fort and said nothing of importance to any
one. He looked drawn and nervous, as if something had terrified him,
but public opinion ascribed that to the "snakes" on the night of the coronation.

Then about sundown one evening Tom Tripe galloped in a great hurry
to Utirupa's palace. That was nothing to excite comment, because in
his official capacity he was always supposed to be galloping all over
the place on some errand or another. But after dark Utirupa and Yasmini
rode out of the palace unattended, which did cause comment, Yasmini
in man's clothes, as usual when she went on some adventure. It was
not seen which road they took, which was fortunate in the circumstances.

Tess was up at the fort before them, waiting with Dick outside the locked
door leading to the ancient passages below. They said nothing beyond
the most perfunctory greetings, but, each taking a kerosene lantern,
passed through the door in single file, Tom leading, and locked the
door after them. That was all that the fort guards ever knew about
what happened.

"I've not been in," said Dick's voice from behind them. "All I've done
is force an entrance."

From in front Tom Tripe took up the burden.

"And I wouldn't have liked your job, sir! It was bad enough to sit and
guard the door. After you'd gone o' nights I'd sit for hours with my hair
on end, listening; and the dog 'ud growl beside me as if he saw ghosts!"

"Maybe it was snakes," Yasmini answered. "They will flee from the
lantern-light--"

"No, Your Ladyship. I'm not afraid of snakes--except them Scotch
plaid ones that come o' brandy on top o' royal durbars! This was the
sound o' some one digging--digging all night long down in the bowels
of the earth! Look out!"

They all jumped, but it proved to be only Tom's own shadow that had
frightened him. His nerves were all to pieces, and Dick Blaine took the
lead. The dog was growling intermittently and keeping close to Tom's heels.

They passed down a long spiral flight of stone steps into a sort of cavern
that had been used for ammunition room. The departing British troops
had left a dozen ancient cannon balls, not all of which were in one place.
The smooth flags of the floor were broken, and at the far end one very
heavy stone was lifted and laid back, disclosing a dark hole.

"I used the cannon balls," said Dick, "to drop on the stones and listen
for a hollow noise. Once I found that, the game was simple."

Leading down into the dark hole were twelve more steps, descending
straight, but turning sharply at the bottom. Dick led the way.

"The next sight's gruesome!" he announced, his voice booming hollow
among the shadows.

The passage turned into a lofty chamber in the rock, whose walls once
had all been lined with dressed stone, but some of the lining had fallen.
In the shadows at one end an image of Jinendra smiled complacently,
and there were some ancient brass lamps banging on chains from arches
cut into the rock on every side.

"This is the grue," said Dick, holding his lantern high.

Its light fell on a circle of skeletons, all perfect, each with its head toward
a brass bowl in the center.

"Ugh!" growled Tom Tripe. "Those are the ghosts that dig o' nights!
Go smell 'em, Trotters! Are they the enemy?"

The dog sniffed the bones, but slunk away again uninterested.

"Nothing doing!" laughed Dick. "You haven't laid the ghost yet, Tom!"

"Have you got your pistols with you?" Tom retorted, patting his own
jacket to show the bulge of one beneath it.

"Those," said Yasmini, standing between the skeletons and holding
up her own light, "are the bones of priests, who died when the secret
of the place was taken from them! My father told me they were left to
starve to death. This was Jinendra's temple."

"D'you suppose they pulled that cut stone from the walls, trying to force
a way out?" Dick hazarded. "The lid of the hole we came down through
is a foot thick, and was set solid in cement; they couldn't have lifted
that if they tried for a week. Everything's solid in this place. I sounded
every inch of the floor with a cannon ball, but it's all hard underneath."

"I would have gone straight to the image of Jinendra," said Yasmini.
"Jinendra smiles and keeps his secrets so well that I should have
suspected him at once!"

"I went to that last," Dick answered. "It looks so like a piece of high
relief carved out of the rock wall. As a matter of fact, though, it's about
six tons of quartz with a vein of gold in it--see the gold running straight
up the line of the nose and over the middle of the head?--I pried it away
from the wall at last with steel wedges, and there's just room to squeeze
in behind it. Beyond that is another wall that I had to cut through with
a chisel. Who goes in first?"

"Who looks for gold finds gold!" Yasmini quoted. "The vein of gold
you have been mining was the clue to the secret all along."

She would have led the way, but Utirupa stopped her.

"If there is danger," he said, "it is my place to lead."

But nobody would permit that, Yasmini least of all.

"Shall Samson choose a new maharajah so soon as all that?" she laughed.

"Let the dog go first!" Tom proposed. Trotters was sniffing at the dark
gap behind Jinendra's image, with eyes glaring and a low rumbling
growl issuing from between bared teeth. But Trotters would not go.

Finally, in the teeth of remonstrances from Tess, Dick cocked a pistol
and, with his lantern in the other hand, strode in boldly. Trotters followed
him, and Tom Tripe next. Then Utirupa. Then the women.

Nothing happened. The passage was about ten feet long and a yard
wide. They squeezed one at a time through the narrow break Dick had
made in the end of it, into a high, pitch-dark cave that smelt unexplainably
of wood-smoke, Dick standing just inside the gap to bold the lantern
for them and help them through--continuing to stand there after Tess
had entered last.

"Jee-rusalem!" he exclaimed. "This is where I lose out!"

The first glance was enough to show that they stood in the secret
treasure-vault of Sialpore. There were ancient gold coins in heaps on the
floor where they had burst by their own weight out of long-demolished bags--
countless coins; and drums and bags and boxes more of them behind.
But what made Dick exclaim were the bars of silver stacked at the rear
and along one side in rows as high as a man.

"My contract reads gold!" he said. "A percentage of all gold. There's
not a word in it of silver. Who'd ever have thought of finding silver,
anyhow, in this old mountain?"

"Your percentage of the gold will make you rich," said Utirupa. "But
you shall take silver too. Without you we might have found nothing for
years to come."

"A contract's a contract," Dick answered. "I drew it myself, and it stands."

"Look out!" yelled Tom Tripe suddenly. But the warning came too late.

Out of the shadow behind a stack of silver bars rushed a man with a
long dagger, stabbing frantically at Dick. Tom's great barking army
revolver missed, filling the chamber with noise and smoke, for he used
black powder.

Down went Dick under his assailant, and the dagger rose and fell in
spasmodic jerks. Dick had hold of the man's wrist, but the dagger-point
dripped blood and the fury of the attack increased as Dick appeared
to weaken. Utirupa ran in to drag the assailant off, but Trotters got there
first--chose his neck-hold like a wolf in battle--and in another second
Dick was free with Tess kneeling beside him while a life-and-death fight
between animal and man raged between the bars of silver.

"Gungadhura!" Yasmini shouted, waving her lantern for a sight of the
struggling man's face. He was lashing out savagely with the long knife, but
the dog had him by the neck from behind, and he only inflicted surface wounds.

"Hell's bells! He'll kill my dog!" roared Tom. "Hi, Trotters. Here,
you--Trotters!"

But the dog took that for a call to do his thinking, and let go for a better
hold. His long fangs closed again on the victim's jugular, and tore it out.
The long knife clattered on the stone floor, and then Tom got his dog
by the jaws and hauled him off.

"You can't blame the dog," he grumbled. "He knew the smell of him.
He'd been told to kill him if he got the chance."

"Gungadhura!" said Yasmini again, holding her lantern over the dying man.
"So Gungadhura was Tom Tripe's ghost! What a pity that the dog should
kill him, when all he wanted was a battle to the death with me! I would
have given him his fight!"

Dick was in no bad way. He had three flesh wounds on his right side,
and none of them serious. Tess staunched them with torn linen, and
she and Tom Tripe propped him against some bags of bullion, while
Utirupa threw his cloak over Gungadhura's dead body.

"How did Gungadhura get in here?" wondered Tess.

"Through the hole at the end of the mine-shaft, I suppose," said Dick.
"I built up the lower one--he came one day and saw me doing it--but
left a space at the top that looked too small for a man to crawl through.
Then I blocked the mouth of the tunnel afterward, and shut him in, I suppose.
He's had the men's rice and water-bottles, and they left a lot of faggots
in the tunnel, too, I remember. That accounts for the smell of smoke."

"But what was the digging I've heard o' nights?" demanded Tom. "I'm
not the only one. The British garrison was scared out of its wits."

Utirupa was hunting about with a lantern in his hand, watching the dog
go sniffing in the shadows.

"Come and see what he has done!" he called suddenly, and Yasmini
ran to his side.

In a corner of the vault one of the great facing stones had been removed,
disclosing a deep fissure in the rock. One of Dick Blaine's crow-bars
that he had left in the tunnel lay beside it.

"He must have found that by tapping," said Tom Tripe.

"Yes, but look why he wanted it!" Yasmini answered. "Tom, could you
be as malicious as that?"

"As what, Your Ladyship?"

"See, he has poured gold into the fissure, hoping to close it up again
so that nobody could find it!"

"But why didn't he work his way out with the crow-bar?" Dick objected
from his perch between the bags of bullion.

"What was his life worth to him outside?" Yasmini asked. "Samson knew
who murdered Mukhum Dass. He would have been a prisoner for the
rest of his life to all intents and purposes. No! He preferred to hide
the treasure again, and then wait here for me, suspecting that I knew
where it is and would come for it! Only we came too soon, before he
had it hidden!"

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