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George Meredith - "The Gentleman of Fifty and The Damsel of Nineteen"

William Beckford - "Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents"

George Gissing - "By the Ionian Sea"

T.S. Arthur - "The Hand But Not the Heart"

Guns of the Gods

T >> Talbot Mundy >> Guns of the Gods




"I left off believing in hell when I was ten years old," Tess answered.

"I hope to God you're right, ma'am!" put in Tom Tripe piously, and both
women laughed.

"Then I shall trust you and we shall always understand each other,"
decided Yasmini. "But why will you not tell lies, if there is no hell?"

"I'm afraid I'm guilty now and then."

"But you are ashamed afterward? Why? Lies are necessary, since
people are such fools!"

Tom Tripe interrupted, wiping the inside of his tunic collar again with a
big bandanna handkerchief.

"How do you know the commissioner is coming, Your Ladyship? Phew!
You'd better hide! I'll have to answer too many questions as it is. He'd
turn you outside in!"

"There is no hurry," said Yasmini. "He will not be here for five minutes
and he is a fool in any case. He is walking his horse up-hill."

Tess too had seen the beggar on the rock remove his ragged turban,
rewind it, and then leisurely remove himself from sight. The system
of signals was pretty obviously simple. The whole intriguing East is
simple, if one only has simplicity enough to understand it.

"Can your horse be seen from the road?" Yasmini asked.

"No, miss. The saises are attending to him under the neem-trees at
the rear."

"Then ask the memsahib's permission to pass through the house and
leave by the back way."

Tess, more amused than ever, nodded consent and clapped her hands
for Chamu to come and do the honors.

"I'll wait here," she said, "and welcome the commissioner."

"But you, Your Ladyship?" Tom Tripe scratched his head in evident
confusion. "I've got to account for you, you know."

"You haven't seen me. You have only seen a man named Gunga Singh."

"That's all very fine, missy, but the butler--that man Chamu--he knows
you well enough. He'll get the story to the maharajah's ears."

"Leave that to me."

"You dassen't trust him, miss!"

Again came the golden laugh, expressive of the worldly wisdom of a
thousand women, and sheer delight in it.

"I shall stay here, if the memsahib permits."

Tess nodded again. "The commissioner shall sit with me on the veranda,"
Tess said. "Chamu will show you into the parlor."

(The Blaines had never made the least attempt to leave behind their
home-grown names for things. Whoever wanted to in Sialpore might
have a drawing-room, but whoever came to that house must sit in a
parlor or do the other thing.)

"Is it possible the burra-sahib will suppose my horse is yours?" Yasmini
asked, and again Tess smiled and nodded. She would know what to
say to any one who asked impertinent questions.

Yasmini and Tom Tripe followed Chamu into the house just as the
commissioner's horse's nose appeared past the gate-post; and once
behind the curtains in the long hall that divided room from room, Tom
Tripe called a halt to make a final effort at persuasion.

"Now, missy, Your Ladyship, please!"

But she had no patience to spare for him.

"Quick! Send your dog to guard that door!"

Tom Tripe snapped his fingers and made a motion with his right hand.
The dog took up position full in the middle of the passage blocking the
way to the kitchen and alert for anything at all, but violence preferred.
Chamu, all sly smiles and effusiveness until that instant, as one who
would like to be thought a confidential co-conspirator, now suddenly
realized that his retreat was cut off. No explanation had been offered,
but the fact was obvious and conscience made the usual coward of him.
He would rather have bearded Tom Tripe than the dog.

Yasmini opened on him in his own language, because there was just
a chance that otherwise Tess might overhear through the open window
and put two and two together.

"Scullion! Dish-breaker! Conveyor of uncleanness! You have a son?"

"Truly, heavenborn. One son, who grows into a man--the treasure of
my old heart."

"A gambler!"

"A young man, heavenborn, who feels his manhood--now and then
gay--now and then foolish "

"A budmash!" (Bad rascal.)

"Nay, an honest one!"

"Who borrowed from Mukhum Dass the money-lender, making
untrue promises?"

"Nay, the money was to pay a debt."

"A gambling debt, and he lied about it."

"Nay, truly, heavenborn, he but promised Mukhum Dass he would repay
the sum with interest."

"Swearing he would buy with the money, two horses which Mukhum Dass
might seize as forfeit after the appointed time!"

"Otherwise, heavenborn, Mukhum Dass would not have lent the money!"

"And now Mukhum Dass threatens prison?"

"Truly, heavenborn. The money-lender is without shame--without mercy--
without conscience."

"And that is why you--dog of a spying butler set to betray the sahib's
salt you eat--man of smiles and welcome words!--stole money from me?
Was it to pay the debt of thy gambling brat-born-in-a-stable?"

"I, heavenborn? I steal from thee? I would rather be beaten!"

"Thou shalt be beaten, and worse, thou and thy son! Feel in his
cummerbund, Tom Tripe! I saw where the money went!"

Promptly into the butler's sash behind went fingers used to delving into
more unmilitary improprieties than any ten civilians could think of. Tripe
produced the thousand-rupee note in less than half a minute and, whether
or not he believed it stolen, saw through the plan and laughed.

"Is my name on the back of it?" Yasmini asked.

Tom Tripe displayed the signature, and Chamu's clammy face
turned ashen-gray.

"And," said Yasmini, fixing Chamu with angry blue eyes, "the commissioner
sahib is on the veranda! For the reputation of the English he would
cause an example to be made of servants who steal from guests in
the house of foreigners."

Chamu capitulated utterly, and wept.

"What shall I do? What shall I do?" he demanded.

"In the jail," Yasmini said slowly, "you could not spy on my doings, nor
report my sayings."

"Heavenborn, I am dumb! Only take back the money and I am dumb
forever, never seeing or having seen or heard either you or this sahib
here! Take back the money!"

But Yasmini was not so easily balked of her intention.

"Put his thumb-print on it, Tom Tripe, and see that he writes his name."

The trembling Chamu was led into a room where an ink-pot stood open
on a desk, and watched narrowly while he made a thumb-mark and
scratched a signature. Then:

"Take the money and pay thy puppy's debt with it. Afterward beat the
boy. And see to it," Yasmini advised, "that Mukhum Dass gives a receipt,
lest he claim the debt a second time!"

Speechless between relief, doubt and resentment Chamu hid the banknote
in his sash and tried to feign gratitude--a quality omitted from his list of
elements when a patient, caste-less mother brought him yelling into
the world.

"Go!"

Tom Tripe made a sign to Trotters, who went and lay down, obviously
bored, and Chamu departed backward, bowing repeatedly with both
hands raised to his forehead.

"And now, Your Ladyship?"

"Take that eater-of-all-that-is-unnamable," (she meant the dog), "and
return to the palace."

"Your Ladyship, it's all my life's worth!"

"Tell the maharajah that you have spoken with a certain Gunga Singh,
who said that the Princess Yasmini is at the house of the commissioner sahib."

"But it's not true; they'll--"

"Let the commissioner sahib deny it then! Go!"

"But, missy--"

"Do as I say, Tom Tripe, and when I am maharanee of Sialpore you
shall have double pay--and a troupe of dancing girls--and a dozen horses--
and the title of bahadur--and all the brandy you can drink. The sepoys
shall furthermore have modern uniforms, and you shall drill them until
they fall down dead. I have promised. Go!"

With a wag of his head that admitted impotence in the face of woman's
wiles Tom strode out by the back way, followed at a properly respectful
distance by his "eater-of-all-that-is-unnamable."

Then the princess walked through the parlor to the deeply cushioned
window-seat, outside which the commissioner sat quite alone with Mrs. Blaine,
trying to pull strings whose existence is not hinted at in blue books.
Yasmini from earliest infancy possessed an uncanny gift of silence,
sometimes even when she laughed.





Chapter Three



No Tresspass!

There's comfort in the purple creed
Of rosary and hood;
There's promise in the temple gong,
And hope (deferred) when evensong
Foretells a morrow's good;
There's rapture in the royal right
To lay the daily dole
In cash or kind at temple-door,
Since sacrifice must go before
The saving of a soul.
The priests who plot for power now,
Though future glory preach,
Themselves alike the victims fall
Of law that mesmerizes all -
Each subject unto each -
Though all is well if all obey
And all have humble heart,
Nor dare to hold in cursed doubt
Those gems of truth the church lets out;
But where's the apple-cart,
And where's the sacred fiction gone,
And who's to have the blame
When any upstart takes a hand
And, scorning what the priests have planned,
Plays Harry with the game?


"Give a woman the last word always; but be sure it is a question,
which you leave unanswered."

He was a beau ideal commissioner. The native newspaper said so
when he first came, having painfully selected the phrase from a "Dictionary
Of Polite English for Public Purposes" edited by a College graduate
at present in the Andamans. True, later it had called him an "overbearing
and insane procrastinator"--"an apostle of absolutism"--and, plum of
all literary gleanings, since it left so much to the imagination of the native
reader,--"laudator temporis acti." But that the was because he had
withdrawn his private subscription prior to suspending the paper sine die
under paragraph so-and-so of the Act for Dealing with Sedition; it could
not be held to cancel the correct first judgment, any more than the
unmeasured early praise had offset later indiscretion. Beau ideal must stand.

It was not his first call at the Blaines' house, although somehow or other
he never contrived to find Dick Blaine at home. As a bachelor he had
no domestic difficulties to pin him down when office work was over
for the morning, and, being a man of hardly more than forty, of fine
physique, with an astonishing capacity for swift work, he could usual
finish in an hour before breakfast what would have kept the routine rank
and file of orthodox officials perspiring through the day. That was one
reason why he had been sent to Sialpore--men in the higher ranks,
with a pension due them after certain years of service, dislike being hurried.

He was a handsome man--too handsome, some said--with a profile l
ike a medallion of Mark Antony that lost a little of its strength and poise
when he looked straight at you. A commissionership was an apparent
rise in the world; but Sialpore has the name of being a departmental
cul-de-sac, and they had laughed in the clubs about "Irish promotion"
without exactly naming judge O'Mally. (Mrs. O'Mally came from a cathedral
city, where distaste for the conventions is forced at high pressure from
early infancy.)

But there are no such things as political blind alleys to a man who is
a judge of indiscretion, provided he has certain other unusual gifts as
well. Sir Roland Samson, K. C. S. I., was not at all a disappointed man,
nor even a discouraged one.

Most people were at a disadvantage coming up the path through the
Blaines' front garden. There was a feeling all the way of being looked
down on from the veranda that took ten minutes to recover from in the
subsequent warmth of Western hospitality. But Samson had learned
long ago that appearance was all in his favor, and he reenforced it with
beautiful buff riding-boots that drew attention to firm feet and manly bearing.
It did him good to be looked at, and he felt, as a painstaking gentleman
should, that the sight did spectators no harm.

"All alone?" he asked, feeling sure that Mrs. Blaine was pleased to see
him, and shifting the chair beside her as he sat down in order to see
her face better. "Husband in the hills as usual? I must choose a Sunday
next time and find him in."

Tess smiled. She was used to the remark. He always made it, but
always kept away on Sundays.

"There was a party at my house last night, and every one agreed what
an acquisition you and your husband are to Sialpore. You're so refreshing--
quite different to what we're all used to."

"We're enjoying the novelty too--at least, Dick doesn't have much time
for enjoyment, but--"

"I suppose he has had vast experience of mining?"

"Oh, he knows his profession, and works hard. He'll find gold where
there is any," said Tess.

"You never told me how he came to choose Sialpore as prospecting ground."

Tess recognized the prevarication instantly. Almost the first thing Dick
had done after they arrived was to make a full statement of all the
circumstances in the commissioner's office. However, she was not her
husband. There was no harm in repetition.

"The maharajah's secretary wrote to a mining college in the States for
the name of some one qualified to explore the old workings in these hills.
They gave my husband's name among others, and he got in correspondence.
Finally, being free at the time, we came out here for the trip, and the
maharajah offered terms on the spot that we accepted. That is all."

Samson laughed.

"I'm afraid not all. A contract with the British Government would be kept.
I won't say a written agreement with Gungadhura is worthless, but--"

"Oh, he has to pay week by week in advance to cover expenses."

"Very wise. But how about if you find gold?"

"We get a percentage."

Every word of that, as Tess knew, the commissioner could have
ascertained in a minute from his office files. So she was quite as much
on guard as he--quite as alert to discover hidden drifts.

"I'm afraid there'll be complications," he went on with an air of friendly
frankness. "Perhaps I'd better wait until I can see your husband?"

"If you like, of course. But he and I speak the same language. What
you tell me will reach him--anything you say, just as you say it."

"I'd better be careful then!" he answered, smiling. "Wise wives don't
always tell their husbands everything."

"I've no secrets from mine."

"Unusual!" he smiled. "I might say obsolete! But you Americans with
your reputation for divorce and originality are very old-fashioned in some
things, aren't you?"

"What did you want me to tell my husband?" countered Tess.

"I wonder if he understands how complicated conditions are here.
For instance, does your contract stipulate where the gold is to be found?"

"On the maharajah's territory."

"Anywhere within those limits?"

"So I understand."

"Is the kind of gold mentioned?"

"How many kinds are there?"

He gained thirty seconds for reflection by lighting a cigar, and decided
to change his ground.

"I know nothing of geology, I'm afraid. I wonder if your husband knows
about the so-called islands? There are patches of British territory,
administered directly by us, within the maharajah's boundaries; and
little islands of native territory administered by the maharajah's government
within the British sphere."

"Something like our Indian reservations, I suppose?"

"Not exactly, but the analogy will do. If your husband were to find gold--
of any kind--on one of our 'islands' within the maharajah's territory, his
contract with the maharajah would be useless."

"Are the boundaries of the islands clearly marked?"

"Not very. They're known, of course, and recorded. There's an old
fort on one of them, garrisoned by a handful of British troops--a constant
source of heart-burn, I believe, to Gungadhura. He can see the top of
the flag-staff from his palace roof; a predecessor of mine had the pole
lengthened, I'm told. On the other hand, there's a very pretty little palace
over on our side of the river with about a half square mile surrounding
it that pertains to the native State. Your husband could dig there, of course.
There's no knowing that it might not pay--if he's looking for more kinds
of gold than one."

Tess contrived not to seem aware that she was being pumped.

"D'you mean that there might be alluvial gold down by the river?" she asked.

"Now, now, Mrs. Blaine!" he laughed. "You Americans are not so
ingenuous as you like to seem! Do you really expect us to believe
that your husband's purpose isn't in fact to discover the Sialpore Treasure?"

"I never heard of it."

"I suspect he hasn't told you."

"I'll bet with you, if you like," she answered. "Our contract against your
job that I know every single detail of his terms with Gungadhura!"

"Well, well,--of course I believe you, Mrs. Blaine. We're not overheard
are we?"

Not forgetful of the Princess Yasmini hidden somewhere in the house
behind her, but unsuspicious yet of that young woman's gift for garnering
facts, Tess stood up to look through the parlor window. She could see
all of the room except the rear part of the window-seat, a little more than
a foot of which was shut out of her view by the depth of the wall. A cat,
for instance, could have lain there tucked among the cushions perfectly invisible.

"None of the servants is in there," she said, and sat down again, nodding
in the direction of a gardener. "There's the nearest possible eavesdropper."

Samson had made up his mind. This was not an occasion to be actually
indiscreet, but a good chance to pretend to be. He was a judge of those matters.

"There have been eighteen rajahs of Sialpore in direct succession father
to son," he said, swinging a beautiful buff-leather boot into view by
crossing his knee, and looking at her narrowly with the air of a man who
unfolds confidences. "The first man began accumulating treasure.
Every single rajah since has added to it. Each man has confided the
secret to his successor and to none else--father to son, you understand.
When Bubru Singh, the last man, died he had no son. The secret
died with him."

"How does anybody know that there's a secret then?" demanded Tess.

"Everybody knows it! The money was raised by taxes. Minister after
minister in turn has had to hand over minted gold to the reigning rajah--"

"And look the other way, I suppose, while the rajah hid the stuff!"
suggested Tess.

Samson screwed up his face like a man who has taken medicine.

"There are dozens of ways in a native state of getting rid of men who
know too much."

"Even under British overrule?"

He nodded. "Poison--snakes--assassination--jail on trumped-up charges,
and disease in jail--apparent accidents of all sorts. It doesn't pay to know
too much."

"Then we're suspected of hunting for this treasure? Is that the idea?"

"Not at all, since you've denied it. I believe you implicitly. But I hope
your husband doesn't stumble on it."

"Why?"

"Or if he does, that he'll see his way clear to notify me first."

"Would that be honest?"

He changed his mind. That was a point on which Samson prided himself.
He was not hidebound to one plan as some men are, but could keep
two or three possibilities in mind and follow up whichever suited him.
This was a case for indiscretion after all.

"Seeing we're alone, and that you're a most exceptional woman, I think
I'll let you into a diplomatic secret, Mrs. Blaine. Only you mustn't repeat it.
The present maharajah, Gungadhura, isn't the saving kind; he's a spender.
He'd give his eyes to get hold of that treasure. And if he had it, we'd
need an army to suppress him. We made a mistake when Bubru Singh
died; there were two nephews with about equal claims, and we picked
the wrong one--a born intriguer. I'd call him a rascal if he weren't a
reigning prince. It's too late now to unseat him--unless, of course, we
should happen to catch him in flagrante delicto."

"What does that mean? With the goods? With the treasure?"

"No, no. In the act of doing something grossly ultra vires--illegal, that's
to say. But you've put your finger on the point. If the treasure should
be found--as it might be--somewhere hidden on that little plot of ground
with a palace on it on our side of the river, our problem would be fairly easy.
There'd be some way of--ah--making sure the fund would be properly
administered. But if Gungadhura found it in the hills, and kept quiet
about it as he doubtless would, he'd have every sedition-monger in
India in his pay within a year, and the consequences might be very serious."

"Who is the other man--the one the British didn't choose?" asked Tess.

"A very decent chap named Utirupa--quite a sportsman. He was thought
too young at the time the selection was made; but he knew enough to
get out of the reach of the new maharajah immediately. They have a
phrase here, you know, 'to hate like cousins.' They're rather remote
cousins, but they hate all the more for that."

"So you'd rather that the treasure stayed buried?"

"Not exactly. But he tossed ash from the end of his cigar to illustrate
offhandedness. "I think I could promise ten per cent. of it to whoever
brought us exact information of its whereabouts before the maharajah
could lay his hands on it."

"I'll tell that to my husband."

"Do."

"Of course, being in a way in partnership with Gungadhura, he might--"

"Let me give you one word of caution, if I may without offense. We--
our government--wouldn't recognize the right of--of any one to take that
treasure out of the country. Ten per cent. would be the maximum, and
that only in case of accurate information brought in time to us."

"Aren't findings keepings? Isn't possession nine points of the law?"
laughed Tess.

"In certain cases, yes. But not where government knows of the existence
somewhere of a hoard of public funds--an enormous hoard--it must
run into millions."

"Then, if the maharajah should find it would you take it from him?"

"No. We would put the screws on, and force him to administer the
fund properly if we knew about it. But he'd never tell."

"Then how d'you know he hasn't found the stuff already?"

"Because many of his personal bills aren't paid, and the political stormy
petrels are not yet heading his way. He's handicapped by not being
able to hunt for it openly. Some ill-chosen confidant might betray the
find to us. I doubt if he trusts more than one or two people at a time."

"It must be hell to be a maharajah!" Tess burst out after a minute's silence.

"It's sometimes hell to be commissioner, Mrs. Blaine."

"If I were Gungadhura I'd find that money or bust! And when I'd found it--"

"You'd endow an orphan asylum, eh?"

"I'd make such trouble for you English that you'd be glad to leave me
in peace for a generation!"

Samson laughed good-naturedly and twisted up the end of his mustache.

"Pon my soul, you're a surprising woman! So your sympathies are all
with Gungadhura?"

"Not at all. I think he's a criminal! He buys women, and tortures animals
in an arena, and keeps a troupe of what he is pleased to call dancing-girls.
I've seen his eyes in the morning, and I suspect him of most of the
vices in the calendar. He's despicable. But if I were in his shoes I'd
find that money and make it hot for you English!"

"Are you of Irish extraction, Mrs. Blaine?"

"No, indeed I'm not. I'm Connecticut Yankee, and my husband's from
the West. I don't have to be Irish to think for myself, do I?"

Samson did not know whether or not to take her seriously, but recognized
that his chance had gone that morning for the flirtation he had had in view--
very mild, of course, for a beginning; it was his experience that most
things ought to start quite mildly, if you hoped to keep the other man
from stampeding the game. Nevertheless, as a judge of situations,
be preferred not to take his leave at that moment. Give a woman the
last word always, but be sure it is a question, which you leave unanswered.

"You've a beautiful garden," he said; and for a minute or two they talked
of flowers, of which he knew more than a little; then of music, of which
he understood a very great deal.

"Have you a proper lease on this house?" he asked at last.

"I believe so. Why?"

"I've been told there's some question about the title. Some one's bringing
suit against your landlord for possession on some ground or another."

"What of it? Suppose the other should win--could he put us out?"

"I don't know. That might depend on your present landlord's power to
make the lease at the time when he made it."

"But we signed the agreement in good faith. Surely, as long as we
pay the rent--?"

"I don't know, I'm sure. Well--if there's any trouble, come to me about
it and we'll see what can be done."

"But who is this who is bringing suit against the landlord?"

"I haven't heard his name--don't even know the details. I hope you'll
come out of it all right. Certainly I'll help in any way I can. Sometimes
a little influence, you know, exerted in the right way--well--Please give
my regards to your husband--Good morning, Mrs. Blaine."

It was a pet theory of his that few men pay enough attention to their
backs,--not that he preached it; preaching is tantamount to spilling beans,
supposing that the other fellow listens; and if he doesn't listen it is
waste of breath. But he bore in mind that people behind him had eyes
as well as those in front. Accordingly he made a very dignified exit
down the long path, tipped Mrs. Blaine's sais all the man had any right
to expect, and rode away feeling that he had made the right impression.
He looked particularly well on horseback.

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