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Michael Fairless - "The Grey Brethren and Other Fragments in Prose and Verse"

Gilbert Parker - "Cumner & South Sea Folk, v5"

Percy Bysshe Shelley - "The Daemon of the World"

Annie Hamilton Donnell - "Gloria and Treeless Street"

Guns of the Gods

T >> Talbot Mundy >> Guns of the Gods




Hatred of Yasmini was an obsession of his in any case. He had loathed
her mother, who dared try to wear down the rule that women must be
veiled. Even his own dancing girls were heavily veiled in public, and
all his relations with women of any sort took place behind impenetrable
screens. He was a stickler for that sort of thing and, like others of his
kidney, rather proud of the rumors that no curtains could confine. So
he loathed and despised Yasmini even more than he had detested
her mother, because she coupled to her mother's Western notions
about freedom a wholly Eastern ability to take advantage of restraint.
In other words she was too clever for him.

On top of all that she had dared outrage his royal feelings by refusing
to be given in marriage to the husband be selected for her--a fine, black-
bristling, stout cavalier of sixty with a wife or two already and impoverished
estates that would have swallowed Yasmini's fortune nicely at a gulp.
Incidentally, the husband would have eagerly canceled a gambling debt
in exchange for a young wife with an income.

There was no point at which Yasmini and himself could meet on less
than rapier terms. Her exploits in disguise were notorious--so notorious
that men sang songs about them in the drinking places and the khans.
And as if that were not bad enough there was a rumor lately that she
had turned Abhisharika. The word is Sanskrit and poetic. To the ordinary
folk, who like to listen to love-stories by moonlight on the roofs or under
trees, that meant that she had chosen her own lover and would go to
him, when the time should come, of her own free will. To Gungadhura,
naturally, such a word bore other meanings. As we have said, he was
a stickler for propriety.

Last, and most uncomfortable crime of all, it seemed that she had now
arranged with Samson to have English ladies call on her at intervals.
Not a prophet on earth could guess where that might lead to, and to
what extremes of Western fashion; for though one does not see the
high-caste women of Rajputana, they themselves see everything and
know all that is going on. But it needed no prophet to explain that a
woman visited at intervals by the wives of English officers could not
be murdered easily or safely.

All arguments pointed one way. He must have it out with Yasmini in
one battle royal. If she should be willing to surrender, well and good.
He would make her pay for the past, but no doubt there were certain
concessions that he could yield without loss of dignity. If she knew
the secret of the hiding-place of the treasure he would worm it out of her.
There are ways, he reflected, of worming secrets from a woman--ways
and means. If she knew the secret and refused to tell, then he knew
how to provide that she should never tell any one else. If she had told
some one else already,--Samson, for instance, or Jinendra's priest--
then he would see to it that priest or commissioner, as the case might be,
must carry on without the cleverest member of the firm.

But he must hurry. Poison apparently would not work and he did not
dare murder her outright, much as he would have liked to. It was
maddening to think how one not very violent blow with a club or a knife
would put an end to her wilfulness forever, and yet that the risk to
himself in that case would be almost as deadly as the certainty for her.
But accidents might happen. In a land of elephants, tigers, snakes,
wild boars and desperate men there is a wide range for circumstance,
and the sooner the accident the less the risk of interference by some
inquisitive English woman with a ticket-of-admission signed by Samson.

An "accident" in Yasmini's palace, he decided would be nearly as risky
as murder. But he had a country-place fifty miles away in the mountains,
to which she could be forcibly removed, thus throwing inquisitive
Englishwomen off the scent for a while at any rate. That secluded
little hunting box stood by a purple lake that had already drowned its
dozens, not always without setting up suspicion; and between the city
of Sialpore and the "Nesting-place of Seven Swans" lay leagues of wild
road on which anything at all might happen and be afterward explained away.

As for the forcible abduction, that could best be got around by obliging
her to write a letter to himself requesting permission to visit the mountains
for a change of air and scenery. There were ways and means of obliging
women to write letters.

Best of all, of course, would be Yasmini's unconditional surrender,
because then he would be able to make use of her wits and her information,
instead of having to explain away her "accident" and cope alone with
any one whom she might already have entrusted with her secret. There
should be a strenuous effort first to bring her to her senses. Physical
pain, he had noticed, had more effect on people's senses than any
amount of argument. There had been a very amusing instance recently.
One of his dancing girls named Malati had refused recently to sing
and dance her best before a man to whom Gungadhura had designed
to make a present of her; but the mere preliminaries of removing a
toe-nail behind the scenes had changed her mind within three minutes.

Then there were other little humorous contrivances. There is a way
of tying an intended convert to your views in such ingenious fashion
that the lightest touch of a finger on taut catgut stretched from limb to
limb, causes exquisite agony. And a cigarette end, of course, applied
in such circumstances to the tenderer parts has great power to persuade.

As to accomplices, those must be few and carefully chosen. Alone
against Yasmini he knew he would have no chance whatever, for she
was physically stronger than a panther, and as swift and graceful. But
there are creatures, not nearly yet extinct from Eastern courts, known
as eunuchs, whose strongest quality is seldom said to be mercy, and
whose chief business in life is to be amenable to orders and to guard
with their lives their master's secrets. Three were really too many to
be let into such a secret; but it had needed two to hold Malati properly
while the third experimented on the toe-nail, and Yasmini was much
stronger than Malati; so he must chance it and take three.

The only remaining problem did not trouble him much. The palace
guards were his own men, and were therefore not likely to question
his right to ignore the first law of purdah that forbids the crossing of
a woman's threshold, especially after dark, unless she is your property.
Besides, they all knew already what sort of prowl-by-night their master
was, and laws, especially such laws, were, made for other people, not
for maharajahs.





Chapter Seven




A bloody enlisted man--that's me,
A peg in the officer's plan--maybe.
Drunk on occasion, Disgrace to a nation
And proper societee.
Yet I've a notion the sky--pure blue
Ain't more essential than I--clear through.
I'm a man. I can think.
In the chain of eternal
Affairs I'm a link,
And the chain ain't no stronger than me--or you.


"That will be the end of Gungadhura!"

It took longer to get the hamper ready than Tess expected, partly because
it did not seem expedient to have the butler Chamu in the secret. By
the time she and her husband were up side by side in the dog-cart there
was already a nearly full moon silvering the sky, and the jackals were
yelping miserably on the hillside. Before they reached the stifling town
a slow breeze had moved the river-mist, until a curtain shut off the whole
of the bazaar and merchants' quarters from the better residential section
where the palaces stood. It was an ideal night for adventure; an almost
perfect night for crime; one could step from street to street and leave
no clue, because of the drifting vapor.

Here and there a solitary policeman coughed after they had passed,
or slunk into a shadow lest they recognize and report him for sleeping
at his post. All sahibs have unreasonable habits, and not even a constable
can guess which one will not make trouble for him. An occasional stray
dog yapped at the wheels, and more than once heads peered over
roof-tops to try and glimpse them, because gossip--especially about
sahibs who are out after dark--is a coinage of its own that buys welcome
and refreshment almost anywhere. But nothing in particular happened
until the horse struck sparks from the granite flagstones outside Yasmini's
gate, and a sleepy Rajput sentry brought his rifle to the challenge.

Then it was not exactly obvious what to do next. Tess felt perfectly
confident on the high seat, with the pistol in her husband's pocket pressing
against her and his reassuring bulk between her and the sentry; but
everywhere else was insecurity and doubt. One does not as a rule
descend from dog-carts after dark and present half-sheets of paper by
way of passports for admission to Rajput palaces. The sentry looked
mildly interested, no more. He had been so thoroughly warned and
threatened in case of efforts to escape from within, that it did not enter
his head that any one might want to enter. However, since the dog-cart
continued to stand still in front of the gate, he turned the guard out as
a matter of routine; one never knew when sahibs will not complain
about discourtesy.

The guard lined up at attention--eight men and a risaldar (officer)--double
the regular number by Gungadhura's orders. The risaldar stepped
up close to the dog-cart and spoke to the man he imagined was the
sais, using, as was natural, the Rajput tongue. But Dick Blaine only
knew enough of the language for fetch and carry purposes--not enough
to deceive a native as to his nationality after the first two words.

"Now I feel foolish!" said Tess, and the risaldar of the guard thrust his
bearded face closer, supposing she spoke to him. Dick answered her.

"Shall I drive you home again, little woman? Say, the word and we're off."

"Not yet. I haven't tried my ammunition."

She pulled out Samson's scribbled permit and was about to offer it to
the guard. But there was a risk that whatever she did would only arouse
and increase his suspicions, and she offered it nervously.

"What if he won't give it back to you?" asked her husband.

"Oh, Dick, you're a regular prophet of evil tonight!"

However, she withdrew the paper before the guard's fingers, closed
on it. The next moment a figure like a phantom, making no noise, almost
made her scream. Dick produced a repeating pistol with that sudden
swiftness that proves old acquaintance with the things, and the corporal
of the guard sprang back with a shout of warning to his men, imagining
the pistol was intended for himself. Tess recovered presence of mind first.

"It's all right, Dick. Put the gun out of sight."

She stretched out her hand and a cold nose touched her finger-ends,
sniffing them. A dog's forefeet were on the shaft, and his eyes gleamed
balefully in the carriage lamp light.

"Good Trotters! Good boy, Trotters!"

She remembered Tom Tripe's lecture about calling dogs by name,
wondering whether the rule applied to owners only, or whether she,
too, could make the creature "do this own thinking." Before she could
decide what she would like the dog to think about he was gone again
as silently as he had come. The guard was thoroughly on the qui vive
by that time, if not suspicious, then officious. How should one protect
the privacy of a palace gate if unknown memsahibs in dog-carts, with
saises who knew English but did not answer when spoken to in the
native tongue, were to be allowed to draw up in front of the gate at
unseemly hours and remain there indefinitely. The risaldar ordered
Tess away without further ceremony, making his meaning plain by
taking the horse's head and starting him.

Dick Blaine drew the horse back on his haunches and cursed the man
for that piece of impudence, in language and with mannerisms that
banished forever any delusions as to his nationality; and it occurred to
the officer that his extra complement of men, standing in a row like
dummies at attention, were not there after all for nothing. He despatched
two of them at a run to Gungadhura's palace, the one to tell the story
of what had happened and the other to add to it whatever the first might
omit. Between them they were likely to produce results of some sort.

"Now we're done for!" sighed Tess. "No chance tonight, I'm afraid.
If only I'd done what she told me to and consulted with Tom Tripe first.
Better drive home now, Dick, before we make the case worse."

The unreasonableness of the attempt convinced and discouraged her.
It was like a nightmare. But as Dick reined the horse about there came
out of the mist the sound of another horse at a walk, and two men
marching in step. Then a man's voice broke the stillness. Dick reined in,
and a second later Trotters' huge paws rested on the shaft again.
Tess could see his long, unenthusiastic tail wagging to and fro.

"Tom!" she called. "Tom Tripe!"

"Coming, lady!"

Three figures emerged out of the gloom, one of them mounted and loquacious.

"I'd like to know what these rascally guards are doing off their post!
Give these sons of camp-followers an inch and they'll take three leagues,
every mother's son of them! Halt, there, you! Now then, where's your
officer? Give an account of yourselves!"

There followed an interlude in Rajasthani.* Tom Tripe becoming more
blasphemously vehement as it grew clearer that the risaldar had done
entirely right.
[* The native language of Rajputana.]

"Lady," he said presently, riding round to Tess's side of the dog-cart.
"I'm going to have hard work to convince this man. I'd orders from
Gungadhura to search your house, Krishna knows what for, and I rode
up to ask your leave to do it, hoping you'd be alone after the party.
Chamu told me you and your husband had gone out, and one of the
three beggars gave me a message intended for you that tallied pretty
close with one I knew you'd received already, so I guessed where to
head for, and sent the dog in advance. He came back with his hair on
end reporting trouble, and then as luck would have it I rode into these
two men on their way to Gungadhura. If they'd reached him, we'd all
have had to make new plans tomorrow morning! You want to see the
princess, of course? But what have you got that can get by the guard?"

Tess produced Samson's scribbled note, and he studied it in the carriage
lamplight. Then she recalled Yasmini's warning that Tom Tripe had no
brains and must be told what to do. Her own wits began to work desperately.

"I'm the lady doctor, Tom. That is my written order from the burra
sahib." (Commissioner).

Tom scratched his head and swore in a low voice fervently.

"The difficulty's this, lady: since the escape from the palace across
the river, the maharajah has taken the posting of palace guards out of
my hands entirely. I've still the duty to inspect and make sure they're
on the job--Oh, I see! I have it!"

He turned on the corporal with all the savagery that the white man
generates in contact with Eastern subordinates.

"What do you mean," he demanded in the man's own language, "by
standing in the way of the maharajah sahib's orders? Here's his highness
sending a lady doctor to the princess for an excuse to confine her
elsewhere and have all this trouble off our hands, and you, like a
blockhead, stand in the way to prevent it! See--there's the letter!"

The Rajput looked perplexed. All the world knows what privileges the
rare American women doctors enjoy in that land of sealed seraglios.

"But it is written in English," he objected. "The maharajah sahib does
not write English."

"Idiot! Of what use would a letter in Persian be to an American lady doctor?'

"But to me? It is I who command the guard and must read the letter.
How can I read the letter?"

"I'll read it to you. What's more, I'll explain it. The princess has been
appealing to the commissioner sahib--"

The Rajput nodded. It was all over town that Yasmini had been closeted
with the commissioner on the morning of her recent escape. She
herself had deliberately sown the seeds of that untruth.

"So the commissioner sahib and the maharajah sahib had a conference--"

The Rajput nodded again. It was common knowledge, too that the
commissioner and Gungadhura had had a rather stormy interview the
day before; and it was none of the corporal's privilege to know that
all they had argued about was the ill-treatment of prisoners in the Sialpore jail.

"--It was agreed at the conference that if the princess can be proved
mad, then the maharajah sahib may do as he's minded about sending
her away into the hills. If she's not mad, then he's to give her her liberty.
Do you understand, you dunderhead?"

"Hah! I understand. But why at night? Why not the maharajah sahib's
signature in his own writing?"

"Son of incomprehension! Does the maharajah sahib wish still more
scandal than already has been by permitting such a visit in the daytime?
Strike me everlasting dumb if he hasn't had more than enough already!
Does he want the responsibility? Does he wish the British to say
afterward that it was all the maharajah's doing? No, you ass! At the
conference be agreed solely on condition that the commissioner sahib
should sign the letter and relieve his highness of all blame in case of
a verdict of madness. And it was decided to send an American, lest
there be too much talk among the British themselves. Now, do
you understand?"

"Hah! I understand. If all this is true the matter is easy. I will send
one of the guard with that letter to the maharajah sahib. He will write
his name on it and send it back, and all is well."

"Suit yourself!" sneered Tom Tripe. "The maharajah sahib is with his
dancing girls this minute. What happened to the last man who interrupted
his amusements?"

The Rajput hesitated. The answer to that question could be seen any
day near the place they call the Old Gate, where beggars sit in rags.

"Shall I offer him money?" whispered Tess.

"For God's sake, no, lady! The man's a decent soldier. He'd refuse
it and we'd all be in the apple-cart! Leave him to me."

He turned again on the Rajput.

"You know who I am, don't you? You know it's my duty to see that the
palace guards attend to business, eh? That's why I'm here tonight.
His highness particularly warned me to see that if anything unusual
wanted doing it should get done. If you want to question my authority
you'll have it out with me before his highness in the morning first thing."

The Rajput obviously wavered. Everybody knew that the first thing in
the morning was no good time to appear on charges before a man
who spent his nights as Gungadhura did.

"Who is to enter? A man and a woman?"

"No, you idiot! A lady doctor only. And nobody's to know. You'd better
warn your men that if there's any talk about this night's business the
palace guard will catch the first blast of the typhoon. Gungadhura's
anger isn't mild in these days!"

"Show me the letter again," said the Rajput. "Let me keep it in case
I am brought to book."

Tom translated that to Tess and her husband.

"It's this way, ma'am. If you let him keep the letter I suspect he'll let
you go in. But he may show it to the maharajah in the morning, and
then there'll be hot fat in the fire. If you don't let him keep it, perhaps
he'll admit you and perhaps he won't; but if you keep the letter, and
trouble comes of it, he and I'll both be in the soup! Never mind
about me. Maybe I'm too valuable to be sent packing. I'll take the
chance. But this man's a decent soldier, and he'd be helpless."

"Let him keep it," said Tess.

Tom turned on the Rajput again.

"Here's the letter. Take it. But mark this! What his highness wants
tonight is discretion. There might be promotion for a man who'd say
nothing about this night's work. If, on top of that, he was soldier enough
to keep his men from talking he'd be reported favorably to his highness
by Tom Tripe. Who got you made risaldar, eh? Who stood up for you,
when you were charged with striking Gullam Singh? Was Tom Tripe's
friendship worth having then? Now suit yourself! I've said all I'm
going to say."

The Rajput muttered something in his beard, stared again at the letter
as if that of itself would justify him, looked sharply at Tess, whose hamper
might or might not be corroborative evidence, folded the letter away
in his tunic pocket, and made a gesture of assent.

"Now, lady, hurry!" said Tom. "And here's hoping you're right about
there being no hell! I've told lies enough tonight to damn my soul forever!
Once you're safely through the gate I'll have a word or two more with
the guard, and then your husband and I will go to a place close by that
I know of and wait for you."

But Tess objected to that. "Please don't leave me waiting for you in
the dark outside the gate when I return! Why not keep the carriage here;
my husband won't mind."

"Might make talk, ma'am. I'll leave Trotters here to watch for you. He'll
bring word in less than a minute."

Tom Tripe dismounted to help her out of the dog-cart. The Rajput
struck the iron gate as if he expected to have to wake the dead and
take an hour about it. But it opened suspiciously quickly and a bearded
Afridi, of all unlikely people, thrust an expectant face outward, rather
like a tortoise emerging from its shell, blinking as he tried to recognize
the shadowy forms that moved in the confusing lamplight. He seemed
to know whom to expect and admit, for he beckoned Tess with a long
crooked forefinger the moment she approached the gate, and in another
ten seconds the iron clanged behind her, shutting her off from husband
and all present hope of succor. The chance of any rescuer entering
the palace that night, whether by force or subtlety, was infinitesimal.

The strange gateman--he had a little kennel of a place to sleep in just
inside the entrance--snatched the hamper from Tess and led her almost
at a run across an ancient courtyard whose outlines were nearly invisible
except where the yellow light of one ancient oil lantern on an iron bracket
showed a part of the palace wall and a steep flight of stone steps, worn
down the middle by centuries of sandals. Everything else was in gloom
and shadow, and only one chink of light betrayed the whereabouts of
a curtained window. The Afridi led her up the stone steps, and paused
at the top to hammer on a carved door with his clenched fist; but the
door moved while his fist was in mid-air, and the merry-eyed maid who
opened it mocked him for a lunatic. Dumb, apparently, in the presence
of woman, he slunk down the steps again, leaving Tess wondering
whether it were not good manners to remove her shoes before entering.
Natives of the country always removed their shoes before entering
her house, and she supposed it would be only decent to reciprocate.

However, the maid took her by the hand and pulled her inside without
further ceremony, not letting go of the hand even to close the door, but
patting it and making much of her, smiling the welcome that they had
no words in common to express. The little outer hall in which they stood
was shut off by curtains six yards high, all smothered in a needlework
of peacocks that generations of patient fingers must have toiled at.
Pulling these apart the maid led her into an inner hall fifty or sixty feet
long, the first sight of which banished all diffidence about her shoes;
for never had she seen such medley of East and West, such toning
down of Oriental mysticism with the sheer utility of European importations;
and that without incongruity.

The lamps, of which there were dozens, were mostly Russian. Some
of the furniture was Buhl, some French. There were hangings that
looked like loot from the Pekin Summer Palace, and tapestry from
Gobelin. In a place of honor on a side wall was an ikon, framed in gold,
and facing that an image of the Buddha done in greenish bronze,
flanked by a Dutch picture of the Twelve Apostles with laughably Dutch
faces receiving instruction on a mountain from a Christ whose other
name was surely Hans.

Down the center of the hall, leading to a gallery, was a magnificent
stairway of marble and lapis lazuli, carpeted with long Bokhara strips
so well joined end to end that the whole looked like one piece. And
at the top of those stairs Yasmini stood waiting, her golden hair illuminated
by glass lamps on either marble column at the stairhead. She was as
different from the Gunga Singh of riding boots and turban as the morning
is from night--the loveliest, bewitchingest girl in silken gossamer that
Tess had ever set eyes on.

"I knew you would come!" she shouted gleefully. "I knew you would
get in! I knew you are my friend! Oh, I'm glad! I'm glad!"

She pirouetted a dozen times on bare toes at the top of the stairs,
spinning until her silken skirts expanded in a nimbus, then danced
down-stairs into Tess's arms, where she clung, panting and laughing.

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