Caravans By Night Part 23

CHAPTER VI

HSIEN SGAM

Nightfall found the _Manchester's_ prow bearing into a thin mist. The rain had slackened to a fine diamond-drizzle; lightning no longer wrote livid ideographs upon the sky, but flashed far away in faded flares.

Trent did not see Dana Charteris at dinner, as he expected. "_Dummkopf Englischer_"--thus he was catalogued by a German merchant from Celebes who sat at the same table in the dining-salon and succeeded in drawing only monosyllables from him. The gentleman from Celebes was hot, damp and irritable, and he found fuel for his ill-humor in the Englishman who sat beside him and ate mangosteens with the air of one who liked such beastly heathen food.

After the meal Trent sought the smoking-room with a volume of lyrics, much to the disgust of his German dinner-companion, who, in pa.s.sing, read, "Poems of Alan Seeger" over his shoulder. But Trent could not fix his attention upon the reading matter, and he sat with the book in one hand, a lighted cheroot in the other, and his interest nowhere in particular. He was suffering the first anaesthetizing effects of a drowsy boredom.

"... You'll have to go higher than that if you want to see me!" rasped a voice close by, and there followed a click of chips, a laugh.

Clouds of grayish smoke, fanned into fantastic shapes by electric punkas, floated on dead atmosphere, personifying the languor that had suddenly quartered in Trent. A white-clad deck-steward slid through the vaporous whorls, serving frosty gla.s.ses of _arrica_, or whiskey and soda to those less favorably inclined toward exotic liquors.

"... But surely, my friend, you would resent it if _we_ sent missionaries to your country," a voice not far behind him was saying; a quiet voice that separated itself from the drone of conversation, a voice with a peculiar, alien note that caused Trent to wonder, after he heard it, why it had not penetrated to him before. "Why, imagine the indignation of your--what do you call them, New Yorkers?--if Buddhist priests established a mission in that vast and bewildering city; if they so presumed as to try to press their creed upon those of another religion."

Trent was possessed of a desire to turn; he merely sat expelling smoke from his nostrils, listening without consciousness of eavesdropping.

Another voice, quieter still and more reserved--an American voice--answered. "The result of such a thing," it said, "would be ...

well, in the first place no Christian would...."

"That is precisely it. Do you wonder, then," resumed the voice with the alien note, "that we resent the intrusion of missionaries? What does it matter if Deity is symbolized by Buddah, Mohammed or a Nazarene? G.o.d is one. No, my friend, you cannot convince me that it is better for my people to subst.i.tute your G.o.d for theirs. In other relationships they should be friendly, and they are, but in religion ... a colossal misunderstanding. My people are declining; soon, as a man of letters once said, the rust of our departed glory will corrode us and reduce us to the dust into which our empire has dwindled. Russian wine, j.a.panese greed and Western vices--a combination too strong for the slender potencies of our flesh. On the other hand, you Anglo-Saxons, Celts, Normans, Huns and Slavs will continue to build your empires; to fight among yourselves (there will be no war between East and West); to go forward in science and invention.... Yes, I am returning home."

The American voice asked a question. A laugh, selvaged with irony, answered it, and--

"No, I shall not attempt to 'enlighten' my people. I have studied in your universities, dipped into your learning; now, true to the blood, I go back. Perhaps, were you to see me in a few months, you would be shocked, for I shall be a 'barbarian'.... What? Satisfied? Yes, I believe I will. Your country has its dramas, its libraries--so very much--yet I could not but feel, when I was there, that the structure of your land is a--a _Frankenstein_, do you call it?--of self-stimulated delight, something soulless. Millions worshipping the false G.o.ds of body-pleasure; va.s.sals of the senses, ignoring the fact that there are hungers above mere flesh-appet.i.te."

The voice fascinated Trent, gave him a picture of deft fingers inlaying a mosaic; thoughts chosen with care and spoken as though filtered through many translations before they left the tongue in the integument of English.

"... I hope I have not offended you," the voice resumed. "I feel no rancour, you understand, only an ache--a very great ache--over this colossal misunderstanding.... You must go? Then, good night!"

A chair moved. After a moment a man in somber clerical garb pa.s.sed and left the smoking-room. Trent closed his book; placed his burnt-out cheroot in an ash-bowl; got up. And the quiet voice behind him asked:

"Your pardon. Have you a match?"

Trent turned. Whatever he expected, he was surprised at what he saw. An Oriental of no common type. He registered an impression of bronze, almost beautiful, features; a high, Mongoloid skull; dark eyes, veiled by an impalpable haze of tobacco smoke; moist, sensitive lips, rather thin and too red. Features that drew and repelled him in the same instant--face of a Buddha, and eyes.... He groped in an effort to understand the eyes. The man wore tweeds with the air of one accustomed to Western clothing, and he had a poise, a finish to the minutest detail of dress, that, in a yellow man, seems sleek and "dossied" to the eyes of the Occident.

"Thank you," said the Oriental, as Trent gave him a match.

The Englishman nodded perfunctorily and left the smoking-room, a picture of the bronze, beautiful face, lighted by the flaring match, engraved upon his brain.

His curiosity led him to the purser's office where he consulted the register. His eyes paused as they encountered the name "Dana Charteris"; roved down the list of first-cla.s.s pa.s.sengers to a signature that stood out from the others by its very _bizarrerie_.

"Hsien Sgam," he mused aloud. "Hmm.... Sgam--Sgam.... Mongolian."

And he went to his cabin to fetch a raincoat, still thinking of the bronze face of Hsien Sgam.

2

Trent twice circled the promenade deck. The faint drizzle had ceased, but there was a dampness in the mist that moistened his face as with spray. Yet he could not bring himself to the point of turning in. The scene exerted an irresistible fascination over him. The spectral pallor of cabin walls; portholes aglow in the murk; a gentle vibration underfoot; the _swish-swish_ of the tide against the hull.

On his third round of the ship he paused aft, at a point that yielded a view of gaping cargo-well and the steerage. He could see the forms of steerage-pa.s.sengers--amorphous blurs in the hazy night. A tongue of yellow lapped out from a bleary deck-lamp and licked across crowded bodies, groping stanchions and hatches, touching twin ventilators that reared up, like phantom cobras, out of the jungle of human beings. Some one was piping on a reed flageolet--an eerie, tuneless wailing. He almost imagined the pink turban of Tambusami among the spot-like head-dresses below.

As he pa.s.sed the wireless-house, at a turn of the promenade-deck, he caught a glimpse of green-shaded lights. A breath of tobacco warmly brushed his face; he heard the crackle of static trickling in.

It was not yet ten-thirty when he went to his cabin. He undressed leisurely, reflecting the while. Then, lighted pipe between his teeth, he established himself in his berth with a newspaper. But the restful churn of the engines had a somnolent effect upon him, and presently he tossed the news-sheet away, put out the light and settled himself for sleep.

And did not.

Of late, since the night he found Manlove in the ruined temple at Gaya, he had formed the habit of reviewing, after retiring, the incidents of the day. This habit clung. Sleep that a moment ago courted him, now evaded his advances. A picture of the Mongol created itself in illusive imagery before him. A woman's mouth--and a woman's hands, for the skin that touched his as he gave the Oriental a match had the feel of satin.

Long hands, they were; but he fancied that beneath the silken smoothness was sinuous, fibrous strength. They.... But why in Tophet was he thinking of this Buddha-faced heathen? He shut his mind. But thoughts refused to be excluded from their dominion. Nor could he sleep. His eyelids rebelled against closing, and when now and then he succeeded in downing their resistance, it was only to have them lift the next instant and show him the dim monotony of the state-room, relieved by the murky gray porthole.

And as he stared at the porthole, contemplating it vindictively, as if it were responsible for his wakefulness, it suddenly darkened.

When he became fully cognizant of the fact that a face was peering in at him, it had vanished--but as he sat up, his every nerve alive, he witnessed a second apparition.

The murk outside the porthole gave birth to a hand that sank into the dim obscurity within, then reappeared, stamped momentarily in relief upon the gray circle, and withdrew into the foggy gloom that had yielded it.

Trent sprang from his berth. As his feet touched the floor, he heard a thudding sound on the deck; a low exclamation; running footsteps. At the door he fumbled with the lock, then stepped into the cross-corridor vestibule-way and rushed out upon the deck.

A nearby deck-lamp shone in the mist like a nebula-ringed planet, shedding paltry light upon moist timbers and begrudgingly revealing a pale turban as it disappeared around a projection of the deckhouse.

And there was not only one turban, for another followed the first!

Trent threw a glance right and left; broke into a run, his bare feet padding on the damp planks; paused at the corner of the deckhouse. A few yards beyond, a companionway spilled a plenitude of light. Voices came to him above the rumble of the steamer's screws; a woman's laugh. He stood motionless for a moment, hesitating; then, chagrined, returned to his cabin and switched on the light.

No recess from intrigue, even on the ship! Mystery ever at his heels.

Was this another demonstration of the power whose hand he felt at Benares and Calcutta?

He fastened the wingbolts upon the bra.s.s-bound port-gla.s.s; pulled the curtain to insure against observation from outside. Not until then did the glittering object at his feet capture his attention. As he saw it a charge, as of an electric current, tingled the length of his body. It seemed unreal, impossible--until he picked it up. The contact a.s.sured him it was no vision, that he held in his hand a coral silver-chased oval with a broken clasp--the pendant that he had found in Manlove's dead fingers.

Cold antic.i.p.ation settled upon him. He inserted a fingernail under the band that bound the oval; hesitated, stayed by a queer reluctance. He held what he believed to be a key to the mystery of Manlove's death. A single move and the name engraved within would be disclosed--the ident.i.ty.... But suppose there was no name; suppose--

He pressed under the silver band ... and a knock sounded on the door.

3

Trent did not stir for a s.p.a.ce of several seconds. Then, reluctantly, he placed the pendant under his pillow and opened the door.

A grotesque effigy grinned at him. After an intent scrutiny he recognized Tambusami--Tambusami, turbanless, blood welling from a cut in his cheek, but, despite the wound, smiling.

"I have him, Presence!" he announced.