Caravans By Night Part 10

Trent, pipe clamped between his teeth, sweat running into his eyes from his helmet-band, jogged along, thinking leisurely (as men do in warmer climates) of the woman of the cobra-bracelet, and thinking more of the bracelet than the woman. It was one of his peculiarities to collect rare ornaments; among his curios he had a bangle of a Nepalese princess, a Burmese bell from a paG.o.da in the Pyinmana district, and a silver-chased, turquoise-inset teapot from Tibet. The bracelet the woman wore was finely wrought, and its design not of the ordinary; this he recognized, even though he had but a glimpse of it. A king-cobra with a lifted hood. And the wearer.... Why had she lowered her veil--why had she denied that she came from his compound? Mystery.... But, he reflected, mysteries were not rare; mysteries, to such as he, in the jungle; in the ruins and tumbled grandeur of ancient temples; in the dim, dark bazaars, spice-reeking, where filth mocks British law, and Love and Death are one....

A white figure, ahead in the scented gloom, broke into his thoughts, a figure that at first was distinguishable only as a stain of pallor on the roadway. Trent experienced a quickening of interest. She of the cobra-bracelet? No. He could see now. Not a woman; a native. The man was moving at a swift gait, almost running; but as he drew nearer, he halted, looking about irresolutely, nervously. And at that moment (he was not more than ten yards away) Trent recognized him and reined in his mare.

"Chatterjee!" he called. "D'ye want to see me?"

The native did not answer, only fixed upon him a mute, terrified stare, and crashed through the high, dense undergrowth at the side of the road.

The sounds of his flight grew fainter as he plunged deeper into the jungle.

Trent stared at the spot where he disappeared. His first impulse was to follow--an impulse that he cast aside. Now that was odd, he thought.

What in flaming hades was the matter with him? For a moment he sat in mystified silence, then he kicked his mount lightly in the flanks.

A day of incidents. First, the dispatch from Delhi, then the veiled woman, now this encounter. From where had the native come? The bungalow?

Perhaps he was merely on his way from Meera, for the road pa.s.sed his quarters. But he knew natives never walked when it was possible to ride.

Anyhow, that didn't explain his actions. Confound it, he'd have trouble with that fellow yet! This as he branched off from the main highway and clattered along the driveway to his compound.

Not until he reached the gate did he observe that the house was dark, squatting in gloomy secrecy among the surrounding trees. At first it puzzled him; then he decided that Manlove had probably gone to bed.

When his mare was stabled, he made his way into the living-room. In the dark he struck his knee on a sharp projection and swore. He fumbled for the light-switch; blinked in the sudden glare. A yawn and an indolent stretch. He'd get a good sleep and--

"h.e.l.lo!" he exclaimed, as his eyes trailed across the room to an over-turned chair. "What the devil!"

A piece of bronze, some Hindu G.o.d, lay on the floor, gleaming sinisterly, and a picture--its regular place was on the desk--had fallen to the floor. An insidious thought took root in his brain. With quick strides he reached Manlove's room. It was empty, the bed unused. Its desertion hurt him--a queer sensation, that. He whirled about, returned to the living-room and halted, irresolute.

"Manlove!"

Silly to call, he thought. Perhaps Manlove had gone to the lawn party.

But the over-turned chair and the idol did not look well. Thieves?

Or.... Suddenly the meeting with Chatterjee shaped into significance. He knew the workings of the native brain, and a frightful possibility suggested itself.

An electric torch lay on the table. He reached for it; stood with his hands poised in the air, thought temporarily suspended from action. For his eyes, lowered involuntarily, fastened upon a small, dark spot on the matting.

Regaining the power to move, he stooped. A sudden sickness seized him.

Unmistakable. But why did blood affect him? Blood. The discovery added a spark to his suspicions. His imagination painted a swift, vivid picture.

The look of terror on Chatterjee's face.... Manlove, the innocent....

But no! It couldn't be!

In possession of the torchlight, he strode out upon the veranda. There he discovered a trail of spots identical with that on the matting, a trail that led down the steps. He made a quick search of the compound. A sense of helplessness smote him. Manlove, perhaps somewhere within calling distance, yet unable to summon him....

He halted at the gate. On the left was jungle, dark and hushed; on the right, a few lights in the nearest bungalow. Across the road was the mouth of a narrow path which he knew led to the ruins of an old temple hidden behind the rank foliage. At thought of the ruins an impulse made him forsake the compound and follow the path.

Less than two hundred yards from the road the growths thinned. Looming before him, spectral in the yellow mystery of the moonlight, was the temple. The outer court was throttled with weeds. Luxurious vines trailed from ruined pillar to ruined wall and wove a sanctuary for vipers. At the end of an avenue of crumbled columns gaped the black entrance of the inner court. An impalpable vapor steamed up from the moist plants and bathed the ruins in a dream-like haze, as the blurred waters of the ocean engulf and make fantastic the myriad rock-palaces of the sea-bottoms.

The dark inner court challenged Trent, and he snapped off the light and moved between the stone sentinels. A power, terrifying in its vagueness, pressed upon him, locking his muscles in a tension. A bat, startled out of hiding by the ring of his footsteps, flapped up from the parapet and wheeled across the moon's face. But for that, and an occasional rasp of an insect, the temple was swathed in a hush.

In the doorway of the inner court he paused. He groped for the shattered frame; clutched something tangible; fought against a terrible paralysis.

Yellow moonshine poured through a rent in the ceiling, drenched the walls and formed a honey-hued pool on the flagging.

In the wan light lay a human form.

A deadly inertia coiled about Trent's brain and body. For a moment he was unable to think, to do other than struggle against the constricting coils of horror. But at length he broke the rigor. A few steps brought him to the pool of moonlight. He knelt; switched on the torch; saw the face. Dull agony spread from his throat to his limbs. In that instant he seemed to slip back through a millennium and endure the concentrated pains of a hundred bodies--a flame of cosmic anguish burning down through the dim jungles of time.

Automatically his hand went to the heart, but before his trained fingers touched the breast he knew that to feel was useless. Dark moisture stained the tunic-front. He unb.u.t.toned the garments. Knife wound!

Manlove had been dead at least a half hour.

The infinitesimal fraction of a minute that he knelt there might have been an hour for the mult.i.tude of irrelevances that sped through his brain. Orders. Benares.... And he had cursed when he struck his knee!

Had Manlove ridden with him to Colonel Urqhart's this would not have happened. Urqhart; what an absurd name.... Murder. In a vague manner he wondered who had done it; in a vague manner he felt angry. Dead.

Impossible. This must be a dream, a horrid nightmare. d.a.m.n these nightmares! It was the heat ... heat.... His comrade.... Kasvin....

Kut-el-Amara. And this was the end! The futility of things swept him, a chill and shuddersome tide that served to wash some of the tangles from his thoughts.

He rose. He felt giddy, and the inner court, with its shadows, its pool of moonshine, swam in a throat-gripping vertigo. But it pa.s.sed swiftly.

Out of the mental chaos emerged a coherency: perhaps the one who had done this was still in or about the temple. The remembrance of Chatterjee immediately appeared to deny it. A solution of the affair unreeled quickly. Chatterjee, the avenger ... a fatal mistake. That explained the native's look of terror when he met Trent on the road, explained his flight.

Nevertheless, Trent made a search of the ruins and returned to the body.

The face, outlined boyishly in the pallid moonlight, commanded his gaze with hypnotic insistence. Now that the first acute horror had dwindled, he was conscious of an abysmal loneliness, an ache that habited every nerve and fiber of his being.

He must notify Colonel Urqhart. But the body, what of that? He couldn't leave it lying in this den of vipers. The very suggestion horrified him, although he knew the body was but a husk of flesh. He had some authority; he'd act on his own responsibility.

An involuntary dread ran through him as he slipped his hands under the inert form and lifted it. His sight blurred, but he moved with a steady stride across the courtyard and through the gate. Upon reaching the bungalow, he laid the body upon the bed in Manlove's room. When he switched on the light, the boyish features again compelled his gaze.

Manlove had told him of the dream of "Gray Towers," of the House of Lords; and the memory of it, returning through the stupefaction that still surrounded him, sent a poignant charge into his throat. To have his dream perish like this! Whatever a man's philosophy of immortality, death remains a shock.

He was about to leave the room when his attention was arrested by the gleam of a bright object in the lifeless hand. He was forced to pry open the fingers. The gleaming thing proved to be a piece of reddish stone.

Coral. It was oval-shaped and some six inches in circ.u.mference. An intricate design was overlaid in silver upon the smooth salmon-hued surface--a human figure. The oval was edged with silver, and at the top was a tiny clasp. The clasp was broken. He studied the silver design. It was evidently some sort of deity, but different from any he had ever seen--an ugly little G.o.d with three eyes.

What was it? he wondered--part of a necklace, an ornament? The broken clasp testified that it had been wrenched from its fastening. Perhaps in a struggle--_the_ struggle....

Temporarily dismissing it from his thoughts, he left it lying upon the table and went to the telephone.

4

Meanwhile, at the dak bungalow, which looks out upon the main street of Sahib's Gaya, the _khansammah_, a ghostly figure in his white garments, sat on the covered portico and watched a gharry approach in a whirl of dust.

The carriage was jerked to a halt at the compound, and from its dim interior appeared a form.

It was the strange Memsahib, the _khansammah_ observed to himself.

Strange, indeed, he reflected; Memsahibs rarely wore veils, and those they affected were gossamer, cobweb-like affairs that hid not a feature.

But this Memsahib wore an almost opaque veil, a veil which she lifted only to eat and when in her room. She had a beautiful face, and well that she covered it from befouling eyes. For the _khansammah_ was a Mohammedan.

She was very generous, this Memsahib, oh, very generous, indeed! True, she asked many questions--about Major Trent Sahib and his friend, the other Dakktar Sahib--but she paid for the information. She had been at the dak bungalow only since morning, and he hoped she would remain longer. Business was none too good.

Thus ran his thoughts as the woman alighted from the gharry and crossed the compound.

When she reached the steps he rose and rendered a salaam. As usual, her veil was lowered. He sensed a repressed excitement in the manner that her white hand closed upon the post of the veranda; a bracelet shone softly on her arm.

"_Khansammah_," she began, in a low, vibrant voice that made him think of the golden tongue of a certain singing-nautch he had once heard, "When does the next train leave for Mughal Sarai? Do you know?"