Guns of the Gods

T >> Talbot Mundy >> Guns of the Gods

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Clad in an enormous turban and clean white linen from head to foot, a
stout Hindu appeared, superintending a tall meek underling who carried
the customary "little breakfast" of the country--fruit, biscuits and the
inevitable tea that haunts all British byways. As soon as the underling
had spread a cloth and arranged the cups and plates Chamu nudged
him into the background and stood to receive praise undivided. The
salaams done with and his own dismissal achieved with proper dignity,
Chamu drove the hamal away in front of him, and cuffed him the minute
they were out of sight. There was a noise of repeated blows from
around the corner.

"A big dog might serve better after all," mused Tess. "Chamu beats
the servants, and takes commissions, even from the beggars."

"How do you know?"

"They told me."

"Um, Bing and Ping would better keep away. There's no obligation to
camp here."

"Only, if we fired Chamu I suppose the maharajah would be offended.
He made such a great point of sending us a faithful servant."

"True. Gungadhura Singh is a suspicious rajah. He suspects me anyway.
I screwed better terms out of him than the miller got from Bob White,
and now whenever he sees me off the job he suspects me of chicanery.
If we fired Chamu he'd think I'd found the gold and was trying to hide it.
Say, if I don't find gold in his blamed hills eventually--!"

"You'll find it, Dick. You never failed at anything you really set your heart on.
With your experience--"

"Experience doesn't count for much," he answered, blowing at his tea
to cool it. "It's not like coal or manganese. Gold is where you find it.
There are no rules."

"Finding it's your trade. Go ahead."

"I'm not afraid of that. What eats me," he said, standing up and looking
down at her, "is what I've heard about their passion for revenge. Every
one has the same story. If you disappoint them, gee whiz, look out!
Poisoning your wife's a sample of what they'll do. It's crossed my mind
a score of times, little girl, that you ought to go back to the States and
wait there till I'm through--"

She stood on tiptoe and kissed him.

"Isn't that just like a man!"

"All the same--"

"Go in, Dick, and get dressed, or the sun will be too high before you
get the gang started."

She took his arm and they went into the house together. Twenty minutes
later he rode away on his pony, looking if possible even more of an
athlete than in his pajamas, for there was an added suggestion of
accomplishment in the rolled-up sleeves and scarred boots laced to
the knee. Their leave-taking was a purely American episode, mixed
of comradeship, affection and just plain foolishness, witnessed by more
wondering, patient Indian eyes than they suspected. Every move that
either of them made was always watched.

As a matter of fact Chamu's attention was almost entirely taken up just
then by the crows, iniquitous black humorists that took advantage of
turned backs (for Tess walked beside the pony to the gate) to rifle the
remains of chota hazri, one of them flying off with a spoon since the
rest had all the edibles. Chamu threw a cushion at the spoon-thief and
called him "Balibuk," which means eater of the temple offerings, and
is an insult beyond price.

"That's the habit of crows," he explained indignantly to Tess as she
returned, laughing, to the veranda, picking up the cushion on her way.
"They are without shame. Garud, who is king of all the birds, should
turn them into fish; then they could swim in water and be caught with
hooks. But first Blaine sahib should shoot them with a shotgun."

Having offered that wise solution of the problem Chamu stood with fat
hands folded on his stomach.

"The crows steal less than some people," Tess answered pointedly.

He preferred to ignore the remark.

"Or there might be poison added to some food, and the food left for
them to see," he suggested, whereat she astonished him, American
women being even more incomprehensible than their English cousins.

"If you talk to me about poison I'll send you back to Gungadhura in
disgrace. Take away the breakfast things at once."

"That is the hamal's business," he retorted pompously. "The maharajah
sahib is knowing me for most excellent butler. He himself has given
me already very high recommendation. Will he permit opinions of other
people to contradict him?"

The words "opinions of women" had trembled on his lips but intuition
saved that day. It flashed across even his obscene mentality that he
might suggest once too often contempt for Western folk who worked
for Eastern potentates. It was true he regarded the difference between
a contract and direct employment as merely a question of degree,
and a quibble in any case, and he felt pretty sure that the Blaines would
not risk the maharajah's unchancy friendship by dismissing himself;
but he suspected there were limits. He could not imagine why, but he
had noticed that insolence to Blaine himself was fairly safe, Blaine being
super-humanly indifferent as long as Mrs. Blaine was shown respect,
even exceeding the English in the absurd length to which he carried it.
It was a mad world in Chamu's opinion. He went and fetched the hamal,
who slunk through his task with the air of a condemned felon. Tess
smiled at the man for encouragement, but Chamu's instant jealousy
was so obvious that she regretted the mistake.

"Now call up the beggars and feed them," she ordered.

"Feed them? They will not eat. It is contrary to caste."

"Nonsense. They have no caste. Bring bread and feed them."

"There is no bread of the sort they will eat."

"I know exactly what you mean. If I give them bread there's no profit
for you--they'll eat it all; but if I give them money you'll exact a commission
from them of one pesa in five. Isn't that so? Go and bring the bread."

He decided to turn the set-back into at any rate a minor victory and went
in person to the kitchen for chupatties such as the servants ate. Then,
returning to the top of the steps he intimated that the earth-defilers
might draw near and receive largesse, contriving the impression that
it was by his sole favor the concession was obtained. Two of them
came promptly and waited at the foot of the steps, smirking and changing
attitudes to draw attention to their rags. Chamu tossed the bread to
them with expressions of disgust. If they had cared to pretend they
were holy men he would have been respectful, in degree at least, but
these were professionals so hardened that they dared ignore the
religious apology, which implies throughout the length and breadth of
India the right to beg from place to place. These were not even true
vagabonds, but rogues contented with one victim in one place as long
as benevolence should last.

"Where is the third one?" Tess demanded. "Where is Pinga?"

They professed not to know, but she had seen all three squatting together
close to the little gate five minutes before. She ordered Chamu to go
and find the missing man and he waddled off, grumbling. At the end
of five minutes he returned without him.

"One comes on horseback," he announced, "who gave the third beggar
money, so that he now waits outside."

"What for?"

"Who knows? Perhaps to keep watch."

"To watch for what?"

"Who knows?"

"Who is it on horseback? A caller? Some one coming for breakfast?
You'd better hurry."

The call at breakfast-time is one of the pleasantest informalities of life
in India. It might even be the commissioner. Tess ran to make one
of those swift changes of costume with which some women have the
gift of gracing every opportunity. Chamu waddled down the steps to
await with due formality, the individual, in no way resembling a British
commissioner, who was leisurely dismounting at the wide gate fifty yards
to the southward of that little one the beggars used.

He was a Rajput of Rajputs, thin-wristed, thin-ankled, lean, astonishingly
handsome in a high-bred Northern way, and possessed of that air of
utter self-assuredness devoid of arrogance which people seem able
to learn only by being born to it. His fine features were set off by a turban
of rose-pink silk, and the only fault discoverable as he strode up the
path between the shrubs was that his riding-boots seemed too tight
across the instep. There was not a vestige of hair on his face. He was
certainly less than twenty, perhaps seventeen years old, or even younger.
Ages are hard to guess in that land.

Tess was back on the veranda in time to receive him, with different
shoes and stockings, and another ribbon in her hair; few men would
have noticed the change at all, although agreeably conscious of the
daintiness. The Rajput seemed unable to look away from her but
ignoring Chamu, as he came up the steps, appraised her inch by inch
from the white shoes upward until as he reached the top their eyes met.
Chamu followed him fussily.

Tess could not remember ever having seen such eyes. They were
baffling by their quality of brilliance, unlike the usual slumbrous Eastern
orbs that puzzle chiefly by refusal to express emotion. The Rajput bowed
and said nothing, so Tess offered him a chair, which Chamu drew up
more fussily than ever.

"Have you had breakfast?" she asked, taking the conscious risk. Strangers
of alien race are not invariably good guests, however good-looking,
especially when one's husband is somewhere out of call. She looked
and felt nearly as young as this man, and had already experienced
overtures from more than one young prince who supposed he was
doing her an honor. Used to closely guarded women's quarters, the
East wastes little time on wooing when the barriers are passed or down.
But she felt irresistibly curious, and after all there was Chamu.

"Thanks, I took breakfast before dawn."

The Rajput accepted the proffered chair without acknowledging the
butler's existence. Tess passed him the big silver cigarette box.

"Then let me offer you a drink."

He declined both drink and cigarette and there was a minute's silence
during which she began to grow uncomfortable.

"I was riding after breakfast--up there on the hill where you see that
overhanging rock, when I caught sight of you here on the veranda.
You, too, were watching the dawn--beautiful! I love the dawn. So I
thought I would come and get to know you. People who love the same
thing, you know, are not exactly strangers."

Almost, if not quite for the first time Tess grew very grateful for Chamu,
who was still hovering at hand.

"If my husband had known, he would have stayed to receive you."

"Oh, no! I took good care for that! I continued my ride until after I knew
he had gone for the day."

Things dawn on your understanding in the East one by one, as the
stars come out at night, until in the end there is such a bewildering
number of points of light that people talk about the "incomprehensible
East." Tess saw light suddenly.

"Do you mean that those three beggars are your spies?"

The Rajput nodded. Then his bright eyes detected the instant resolution
that Tess formed.

"But you must not be afraid of them. They will be very useful--often."

"How?"

The visitor made a gesture that drew attention to Chamu.

"Your butler knows English. Do you know Russian?"

"Not a word."

"French?"

"Very little."

"If we were alone--"

Tess decided to face the situation boldly. She came from a free land,
and part of her heritage was to dare meet any man face to face; but
intuition combined with curiosity to give her confidence.

"Chamu, you may go."

The butler waddled out of sight, but the Rajput waited until the sound
of his retreating footsteps died away somewhere near the kitchen. Then:

"You feel afraid of me?" he asked.

"Not at all. Why should I? Why do you wish to see me alone?"

"I have decided you are to be my friend. Are you not pleased?"

"But I don't know anything about you. Suppose you tell me who you
are and tell me why you use beggars to spy on my husband."

"Those who have great plans make powerful enemies, and fight against
odds. I make friends where I can, and instruments even of my enemies.
You are to be my friend."

"You look very young to--"

Suddenly Tess saw light again, and the discovery caused her pupils
to contract a little and then dilate. The Rajput noticed it, and laughed.
Then, leaning forward:

"How did vou know I am a woman? Tell me. I must know. I shall study
to act better."

Tess leaned back entirely at her ease at last and looked up at the sky,
rather reveling in relief and in the fun of turning the tables.

"Please tell me! I must know!"

"Oh, one thing and another. It isn't easy to explain. For one thing, your insteps."

"I will get other boots. What else? I make no lap. I hold my hands as
a man does. Is my voice too high--too excitable?"

"No. There are men with voices like yours. There's a long golden hair
on your shoulder that might, of course, belong to some one else, but
your ears are pierced--"

"So are many men's."

"And you have blue eyes, and long fair lashes. I've seen occasional
Rajput men with blue eyes, too, but your teeth--much too perfect for a man."

"For a young man?"

"Perhaps not. But add one thing to another--"

"There is something else. Tell me!"

"You remember when you called attention to the butler before I dismissed
him? No man could do that. You're a woman and you can dance."

"So it is my shoulders? I will study again before the mirror. Yes, I can
dance. Soon you shall see me. You shall see all the most wonderful
things in Rajputana."

"But tell me about yourself," Tess insisted, offering the cigarettes again.
And this time her guest accepted one.

"My mother was the Russian wife of Bubru Singh, who had no son.
I am the rightful maharanee of Sialpore, only those fools of English put
my father's
nephew on the throne, saying a woman can not reign. They are no
wiser than apes! They have given Sialpore to Gungadhura who is a
pig and loathes them instead of to a woman who would only laugh at
them, and the brute is raising a litter of little pigs, so that even if he and
his progeny were poisoned one by one, there would always be a brat
left--he has so many!"

"And you?"

"First you must promise silence."

"Very well."

"Woman to woman!"

"Yes."

"Womb to womb--heart to heart--?"

"On my word of honor. But I promise nothing else, remember!"

"So speaks one whose promises are given truly! We are already friends.
I will tell you all that is in my heart now."

"Tell me your name first."

She was about to answer when interruption came from the direction
of the gate. There was a restless horse there, and a rider using resonant
strong language.

"Tom Tripe!" said Tess. "He's earlier than usual."

The Rajputni smiled. Chamu appeared through the door behind them
with suspicious suddenness and waddled to the gate, watched by a
pair of blue eyes that should have burned holes in his back and would
certainly have robbed him of all comfort had he been aware of them.

Chapter Two

Thaw on Olympus

Bright spurs that add their roweled row
To clanking saber's pride;
Fierce eyes beneath a beetling brow;
More license than the rules allow;
A military stride;
Years' use of arbitrary will
And right to make or break;
Obedience of men who drill
And willy nilly foot the bill
For authorized mistake;
The comfort of the self-esteem
Deputed power brings--
Are fickler than the shadows seem
Less fruitful than the lotus-dream,
And all of them have wings
When blue eyes, laughing in your own,
Make mockery of rules!

And when those fustian shams have flown
The wise their new allegiance own,
Leaving dead form to fools!

"Friendship's friendship and respect's respect, but duty's what I'm
paid to do!"

The man at the gate dallied to look at his horse's fetlocks. Tess's
strange guest seemed in no hurry either, but her movements were as
swift as knitting-needles. She produced a fountain pen, and of all
unexpected things, a Bank of India note for one thousand rupees--a
new one, crisp and clean. Tess did not see the signature she scrawled
across its back in Persian characters, and the pen was returned to an
inner pocket and the note, folded four times, was palmed in the subtle
hand long before Tom Tripe came striding up the path with jingling spurs.

"Morning, ma'am,--morning! Don't let me intrude. I'd a little accident,
and took a liberty. My horse cut his fetlock--nothing serious--and I set
your two saises (grooms) to work on it with a sponge and water.
Twenty minutes--will see it right as a trivet. Then I'm off again--I've a
job of work."

He stood with back to the sun and hands on his hips, looking up at Tess--
a man of fifty--a soldier of another generation, in a white uniform something
like a British sergeant-major's of the days before the Mutiny. His
mutton-chop whiskers, dyed dark-brown, were military mid-Victorian,
as were the huge brass spurs that jingled on black riding-boots. A
great-chested, heavy-weight athletic man, a few years past his prime.

"Come up, Tom. You're always welcome."

"Ah!" His spurs rang on the stone steps, and, since Tess was standing
close to the veranda rail, he turned to face her at the top. Saluting with
martinet precision before removing his helmet, he did not get a clear
view of the Rajputni. "As I've said many times, ma'am, the one house
in the world where Tom Tripe may sit down with princes and commissioners."

"Have you had breakfast?"

He made a wry face.

"The old story, Tom?"

"The old story, ma'am. A hair of the dog that bit me is all the breakfast
I could swallow."

"I suppose if I don't give you one now you'll have two later?"

He nodded. "I must. One now would put me just to rights and I'd eat
at noon. Times when I'm savage with myself, and wait, I have to have
two or three before I can stomach lunch."

She offered him a basket chair and beckoned Chamu.

"Brandy and soda for the sahib."

"Thank you, ma'am!" said the soldier piously.

"Where's your dog, Tom?"

"Behaving himself, I hope, ma'am, out there in the sun by the gate."

"Call him. He shall have a bone on the veranda. I want him to feel as
friendly here as you do."

Tom whistled shrilly and an ash-hued creature, part Great Dane and
certainly part Rampore, came up the path like a catapulted phantom,
making hardly any sound. He stopped at the foot of the steps and
gazed inquiringly at his master's face.

"You may come up."

He was an extraordinary animal, enormous, big-jowled, scarred, ungainly
and apparently aware of it. He paused again on the top step.

"Show your manners."

The beast walked toward Tess, sniffed at her, wagged his stern exactly
once and retired to the other end of the veranda, where Chamu, hurrying
with brandy gave him the widest possible berth. Tess looked the other
way while Tom Tripe helped himself to a lot of brandy and a little soda.

"Now get a big bone for the dog," she ordered.

"There is none," the butler answered.

"Bring the leg-of-mutton bone of yesterday."

"That is for soup today."

"Bring it!"

Chamu was standing between Tom Tripe and the Rajputni, with his
back to the latter; so nobody saw the hand that slipped something into
the ample folds of his sash. He departed muttering by way of the steps
and the garden, and the dog growled acknowledgment of the compliment.

Tess's Rajput guest continued to say nothing; but made no move to go.
Introduction was inevitable, for it was the first rule of that house that all
ranks met there on equal terms, whatever their relations elsewhere.
Tom Tripe had finished wiping his mustache, and Tess was still wondering
just how to manage without betraying the sex of the other or the fact
that she herself did not yet know her visitor's name, when Chamu returned
with the bone. He threw it to the dog from a safe distance, and was
sniffed at scornfully for his pains.

"Won't he take it?" asked Tess.

"Not from a black man. Bring it here, you!"

The great brute, with a sidewise growl and glare at the butler that made
him sweat with fright, picked up the bone and, at a sign from his master,
laid it at the feet of Tess.

"Show your manners!"

Once more he waved his stern exactly once.

"Give it to him, ma'am."

Tess touched the bone with her foot, and the dog took it away, scaring
Chamu along the veranda in front of him.

"Why don't you ever call him by name, Tom?"

"Bad for him, ma'am. When I say, 'Here, you!' or whistle, he obeys
quick as lightning. But if I say, 'Trotters!' which his name is, he knows
he's got to do his own thinking, and keeps his distance till he's sure
what's wanted. A dog's like an enlisted man, ma'am; ought to be taught
to jump at the word of command and never think for himself until you
call him out of the ranks by name. Trotters understands me perfectly."

"Speaking of names," said Tess, "I'd like to introduce you to my guest,
Tom, but I'm afraid--"

"You may call me Gunga Singh," said a quiet voice full of amusement,
and Tom Tripe started. He turned about in his chair and for the first
time looked the third member of the party in the face.

"Hoity-toity! Well, I'm jiggered! Dash my drink and dinner, it's the princess!"

He rose and saluted cavalierly, jocularly, yet with a deference one could
not doubt, showing tobacco-darkened teeth in a smile of almost
paternal indulgence.

"So the Princess Yasmini is Gunga Singh this morning, eh? And here's
Tom Tripe riding up-hill and down-dale, laming his horse and sweating
through a clean tunic--with a threat in his ear and a reward promised
that he'll never see a smell of--while the princess is smoking cigarettes--"

"In very good company!"

"In good company, aye; but not out of mischief, I'll be bound! Naughty,
naughty!" he said, wagging a finger at her. "Your ladyship'll get caught
one of these days, and where will Tom Tripe be then? I've got my
job to keep, you know. Friendship's friendship and respect's respect,
but duty's what I'm paid to do. Here's me, drill-master of the maharajah's
troops and a pension coming to me consequent on good behavior,
with orders to set a guard over you, miss, and prevent your going and
coming without his highness' leave. And here's you giving the guard
the slip! Somebody tipped his highness off, and I wish you'd heard
what's going to happen to me unless I find you!"

"You can't find me, Tom Tripe! I'm not Yasmini today; I'm Gunga Singh!"

"Tut-tut, Your Ladyship; that won't do! I swore on my Bible oath to the
maharajah that I left you day before yesterday closely guarded in the
palace across the river. He felt easy for the first time for a week. Now,
because they're afraid for their skins, the guard all swear by Krishna
you were never in there, and that I've been bribed! How did you get
out of the grounds, miss?"

"Climbed the wall."

"I might have remembered you're as active as a cat! Next time I'll mount
a double guard on the wall, so they'll tumble off and break their necks
if they fall asleep. But there are no boats, for I saw to it, and the bridge
is watched. How did you cross the river?"

"Swam."

"At night?"

The blue eyes smiled assent.

"Missy--Your Ladyship, you mustn't do that. Little ladies that act that
way might lose the number of their mess. There's crockadowndillies
in that river--aggilators--what d'ye call the damp things?--mugger. They
snap their jaws on a leg and pull you under! The sweeter and prettier
you are the more they like you! Besides, missy, princesses aren't
supposed to swim; it's vulgar."

He contrived to look the very incarnation of offended prudery, and she
laughed at him with a voice like a golden bell.

He faced Tess again with a gesture of apology.

"You'll pardon me, ma'am, but duty's duty."

Tess was enjoying the play immensely, shrewdly suspecting Tom Tripe
of more complaisance than he chose to admit to his prisoner.

"You must treat my house as a sanctuary, Tom. Outside the garden
wall orders I suppose are orders. Inside it I insist all guests are free
and equal."

The Princess Yasmini slapped her boot with a little riding-switch and
laughed delightedly.

"There, Tom Tripe! Now what will you do?"

"I'll have to use persuasion, miss! Tell me how you got into your own
palace unseen and out again with a horse without a soul knowing?"

"'Come into my net and get caught,' said the hunter; but the leopard is
still at large. 'Teach me your tracks,' begged the hunter; but the leopard
answered, 'Learn them!' '

"Hell's bells!"

Tom Tripe scratched his head and wiped sweat from his collar. The
princess was gazing away into the distance, not apparently inclined to
take the soldier seriously. Tess, wondering what her guest found
interesting on the horizon all of a sudden, herself picked out the third
beggar's shabby outline on the same high rock from which Yasmini
had confessed to watching before dawn.

"Will your ladyship ride home with me?" asked Tom Tripe.

"No."

"But why not?"

"Because the commissioner is coming and there is only one road and
he would see me and ask questions. He is stupid enough not to recognize
me, but you are too stupid to tell wise lies, and this memsahib is so
afraid of an imaginary place called hell that I must stay and do my own--"

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