Caravans By Night Part 29

Trent stared after him. Presently he laughed, without humor.

Of a certainty, he told himself, there was madness in the night.

9

The _Manchester_ swung into the Rangoon River some twenty hours late.

Trent, who had risen early, saw the dome of the Shwe Dagon in the dawn, like a rippling flame against the purple haze. Before the ship dropped anchor, he sought the captain.

"I've decided not to press charges against the fellow confined below,"

he announced. "Let him go--but not until a half hour after we come to anchor."

The captain, his eyes following Trent's receding shoulders, reflected that he'd see the blighter in blazing hades before he'd let him off so easily. But, not being clairvoyant, he could not know that Trent had a few minutes before issued certain specific instructions to Tambusami.

Later, after Trent had concluded with the tiresome customs details, he saw Dana Charteris. She was preparing to go ash.o.r.e. She wore the black hat with the sheaf of cornflowers and wheat about the crown, and her face, shadowed by the wide brim, had the pallor of ivory.

"I suppose I ought to say something," he began, halting in front of her, "but I don't know whether I want to ask your forgiveness for what occurred last night."

It was a strained moment, for both were painfully conscious. She averted her face.

"Perhaps," she suggested, "it would be better to say--nothing."

Then she looked at him; smiled; extended her hand.

Not until she was gone, a creature of white and russet-gold in the sunshine, did he remember that he did not know her address. This realization brought a new and enveloping sense of isolation....

Interlude! And this was the end--_andante dolento_!

CHAPTER VII

THE VERMILION ROOM

Sunset, like the wings of a giant golden moth, quivered in the sky and beat gently against the city, stirring from the earth a film of dust that, illuminated by the lingering glow, hung in the air like yellow pollen. Gold was the sovereign tone of every quarter. In the Shwe Dagon numerous Buddhas smiled at the vain splendor of goldleaf and gold-fretted spires; Victoria Lake, on whose banks social Rangoon had gathered to cool after a stifling day, lay like a gold-chased platter; along the riverfront, dull brown water, shot with glinting ripples, swirled and eddied beneath quayside G.o.downs, and in the adjacent bazaars a concourse of native life moved against a background of gold-lettered signs and gilt-painted shops.

This golden dust-haze enveloped the bungalow in Prome Road where Dana Charteris was packing a suitcase; floated through the window of a house near the waterfront where Hsien Sgam sat talking to another Oriental; irradiated the interior of the tramcar that carried Tambusami toward the commercial town; and glowed in a luminous cloud about a veranda of the Strand Hotel where Trent, lounging in a wicker chair, engaged in an occupation that might have cast some slight reflection upon the morale of the British Army.

Immediately after reaching the hotel from the steamer he had inquired about the train schedule, and was informed that to make the best connection at Mandalay for Myitkyina he should leave Rangoon on the noon train, reaching Mandalay at nightfall. From there, he was told, Myitkyina was a matter of twenty-four hours. Trent decided to remain in Rangoon until the next day; for he intended to explore the mysteries of the House of the Golden Joss. Having settled the time for his departure, he gave himself over to an inspection of the city. After tiffin he visited the bazaars, purchased a small leather-bound volume by Shway Yoe at a shop in Merchant Street, and now sat on the veranda of the Strand, waiting for Tambusami, whom he had not seen since he came ash.o.r.e.

It was growing too dark to read, and he slipped the book into a pocket of his silk suit, transferring his attention to the variety of head-dresses that pa.s.sed in the roadway. Pith helmets, felt Bangkok hats, Chinese skull-caps, loosely-knotted Burmese scarfs, and turbans of all sizes.... Darkness fell and street-lamps glowed into being before he abandoned his watch and went to dinner.

After the meal he returned to the veranda--and met a smiling, bespectacled Tambusami in the doorway.

"_Burra salaam_, O Presence!" was the native's greeting. "Was the Presence beginning to believe I had been swallowed up by this strange city?"

Trent drew him into one corner and sat down.

"Well?"--as he lighted his pipe.

Tambusami, after a wary look about him, made a gesture.

"I did as you directed, Presence," he began. "I waited until that filthy Mohammedan louse left the ship, and followed. Louse indeed, for he went to a place of stinks that would poison other than vermin! Fish and onions, Presence! He put such corruption into his belly! From there he walked about several streets that are as filthy as that stink-hole of a restaurant, then took a tramcar. He sat in front, I in the rear.

"At the paG.o.da, the great paG.o.da"--meaning, Trent knew, the Shwe Dagon--"he got off and defiled it with his presence. He went up to the top, where there is a great bell, Presence, and many images of the Lord Gaudama. Even the dogs in the stalls snarled at him! After he had tainted the upper platform with his presence, he returned to the bazaars below. There at the foot of the steps he waited, while I hid in the shadows above. Finally the one for whom he waited came--a Memsahib."

Trent's lips pressed into a thin line.

"A Memsahib," Tambusami went on. "She wore a veil and I could not see her face. She was dressed in white."

"Did you notice the color of her hair?" Trent cut in.

"No, Presence; the veil was heavy. But I saw a bracelet--oh, a very beautiful bracelet! It was gold and had a cobra upon it--a king-cobra, with hood lifted!"

If this announcement was startling to Trent, he succeeded quite well in hiding it. He smoked on in silence.

"I could not hear what they said," continued the native. "They left almost immediately. She had a gharry waiting in the road. I did not follow long. Am I a dog that I should run behind until my tongue drips and I drop dead of heat? When they disappeared, I got on a tramcar. Now I am here!"

Trent looked at him closely. "You heard the Memsahib's voice?"

"Yes, Presence, but not--"

"It wasn't familiar?"

"Nay!"

Trent's fingers drummed on the arm of his chair.

"You should have followed," was his comment, after a moment. "Since you didn't, the only thing for you to do is to return to the restaurant. He may go back to-night."

Tambusami ceased smiling. "That stink-hole of fish and onions!" he exclaimed indignantly; then: "Very well--I am a faithful servant of the Presence!"

Whereupon he salaamed and departed, quickly losing himself among the many turbans in the street.

Trent continued to drum on the arm of his chair. The woman of the cobra-bracelet! And in Rangoon! That meant she was a pa.s.senger on the _Manchester_. But no, not necessarily. d.a.m.n the illusiveness of her! Who was she, anyway? Sarojini Nanjee? In that event it was likely Tambusami would have recognized her. Perhaps he did, was his next and disconcerting thought; perhaps the affair on shipboard was a hoax, a foil for something deeper; perhaps Tambusami knew this and his story of the meeting at the paG.o.da was false. It was queer, he admitted, that Tambusami didn't hear anything that pa.s.sed between the two.... But at least, he told himself, he was free of his perpetual shadow for several hours; he had not despatched Tambusami to the restaurant because he believed Guru Singh would return (if he had ever been there), but because he did not wish his own actions under surveillance that evening.

Still puzzling over Tambusami's report, he left the hotel. An involuntary glance behind showed him no familiar face, and he hailed a cab. (When the temperature is at ninety degrees one does not walk for pleasure.) The _gharry-wallah_ knew no English--which was not unusual--and to make himself understood Trent had to solicit the aid of a Sikh policeman.

Hsien Sgam was the pivot of his thoughts as he rolled northward along Strand Road. His interest in the invited interview was almost wholly personal, for he felt that the Mongol's "revolution" was more a matter of vain dreaming than reality. Such a movement, unless backed by some power, could hardly be regarded as formidable. Yet the rebellion in South China in nineteen-eleven, which brought about the presidency of Yuan Shih-Kai, must have seemed puny in its first stages. Although insurrection in Mongolia against China would scarcely affect the interests of his Government, it was at least worthy of investigation.

There was, as always, the possibility of infection--for the smell of powder, especially in Eastern lands, is dangerous. It might spread into Szechuan and Yunnan (there were already ugly symptoms along the banks of Mother Yangtze) or into Tibet, thus bringing it to the back door of Burma. And that "back door," he knew, was no small consideration. Since the occupation of Hkamti Long, the Kachin tribes of the Burmese hinterland needed but slight pretext to inaugurate trouble. True, they could be easily put down--"easily," he reflected grimly, meaning troops; death for hundreds in fever-haunted swamps and in jungles where lurked innumerable dangers. That was "black" country, up there between India, Tibet and China; wild people in a wild setting--dwarf Nungs, Black Marus and Lisus. Yes, they could be quelled, these primitive people, for a price. All of which, he concluded, was pure romancing.

He was in a street that ran parallel with the river, a highway where Burmans, Chinese, Hindus, Madrasees, Tamils, Cingaleese and Chittagonians mingled in a colorful, reeking democracy unknown to caste-bound Indian cities. On one side, beyond quays and warehouses, was the river, its dim expanse flecked with lamps on sampans, junks and lighters, here and there the white silhouette of an ocean-going vessel blotting the gloom; on the other, groups of colors that, like parrots, would seem gaudy and flamboyant in other than their natural setting shifted upon a background of low, swarth buildings and shops decorated with imitation lacquer and goldleaf.

Here was Burma, sleepy gilded Burma, with its quaint kyoungs and paG.o.das, its air of vain decay. A siren of the East whose charms are fast being supplanted by the craft of her less attractive, but more industrious, sisters. They laughed and smoked, these light-hearted Burmans, while Chinos and Hindus moved with stealthy intent among them--grim, silent fellows, as quick in commerce as the Burmans are lazy and indolent. This was not the quiet of India or China, a boding hush, but an atmosphere of somnolence and perfect content.

Thus Trent was musing when he came at length to the House of the Golden Joss. It was a yellow brick building in a flagged enclosure, its upcurling eaves and series of roofs, to Trent, strikingly like the fantastic headgear of a lemon-faced mandarin who looked out with satisfaction upon the marine highway by which the merchandise of his sons floated into port. Curious eyes followed the Englishman as he paid the _gharry-wallah_ and moved up the low stair to the entrance. There, after a pause, he pa.s.sed between twin stone dragons; pa.s.sed from the twentieth century, so it seemed, into a perished dynasty.