Caravans By Night Part 33

"Thou dost lie," accused Da-yak. "No white man has ever crossed from Tibet into the country of the Hkamtis. There is no road there--"

"Then where _is_ the road, indeed, if thou dost know?" interrupted the juggler.

"Did I say there was a road?" flared the Tibetan. "There is none."

"There _is_ a road, if a road it can be called! For did not I travel it?

By the Four Truths of Gaudama Siddartha, it is thou who dost lie!"

Da-yak's eyes burned with anger. "Why dost thou swear by the Lord Gaudama?"

Inwardly, the juggler smiled. "Why do rivers run down to the sea, thou dolt?" he asked--and made a mystic sign, a sign that is known to few.

Da-yak's eyes were no longer burning. But his inky-black pupils moved nervously under the lids.

"Thou dost make strange signs, O evil eye," he muttered. "How do I know that thou hast not summoned _Nats_ to beset my shop and drive away those who might buy?" He rose. "Go find a bed in the stink where thou dost belong!"

The juggler, too, rose. He spat contemptuously.

"_Kala Nag!_" he hissed; which means, "black snake."

And, picking up his pack, he swaggered off--while Da-yak, with an uneasy glance over his shoulder, entered his shop. However, the juggler did not go far. In the darkness of a nearby alley, from which point he could observe anyone going in or out of Da-yak's house, he sat down to wait.

But not for long. Scarcely had five minutes pa.s.sed before the Tibetan emerged from the shop and, like a shadowy cinema-figure, hurried off in the gloom.

The juggler got up. He smiled--for, figuratively speaking, he possessed a key to certain locked doors.

3

Trent was on the veranda, smoking, when Da-yak presented himself at the Inspection Bungalow, and without a word he rose and accompanied the Tibetan.

"We go to the river, _Tajen_," the native informed him briefly.

A walk past lighted bungalows and well-kept compounds brought them to the river--the mighty Irrawaddi, flowing down from mountain heights, past dead kingdoms and into tropical seas. A slim saber of a moon was swinging up over the hills as they came within sight of the stream. It showered the water with a wealth of silver coins that collected into a band, and, shimmering and coruscating, stretched from the remote sh.o.r.e to the sharply etched Kachin rafts and country-boats beneath the Myitkyina bank.

Into one of the smaller boats Da-yak led Trent. Two boatmen, both in turban, jacket and _lungyi_, stepped lazily into the craft, and one shoved off while the other crawled forward and plied his paddle, guiding the boat into midstream and turning its prow with the current. The smell of the jungle, warm, fragrant odors, hung in the air, and the rhythmic dip of the paddle, with the sucking sounds produced by the water as it slapped the sides, only italicized the silence.

Trent, lounging among cushions amidships, let his eyes follow Da-yak, who moved forward and took the paddle from the boatman. The latter, with a murmured word, rose and crawled toward Trent.

"I would sit beside you, Sahib," he announced in a soft voice.

Trent stared--and the boatman laughed, a sweet laugh that rippled low in the throat; laughed, and sank upon the pillows beside the man whose breathing had grown a trifle faster as he inhaled the perfume of sandalwood.

"You are surprised?" asked Sarojini Nanjee, quite pleased with the effect of her sudden appearance.

He smiled. "You are clever."

The woman clasped her hands behind her head and regarded him. The night made secret certain of her features, for whereas the moon shone full upon her face, softening the contours, her eyes were hid in dim mystery.

Thus, when she looked at him, (as she was doing every second) he could not see her eyes. Which seemed to please her, for she lay back upon the cushions, smiling, an insolently boyish figure.

"Did not you find Tambusami an excellent bearer?" was her next query--and he imagined her eyes were mocking him.

"Quite"--rather drily.

"Yet he cannot equal your Rawul Din," she went on. "He is a perfect example of careful tutoring."

She leaned closer, so close that the warmth of her breath was on his lips, and her eyes, like black opals, burned near to his.

"I wonder, man of wits, how many bearers would think to do what your Rawul Din did, that night at my house?" Then she laughed and drew away; and the musical peals were reminiscent of shattered crystals. "I _should_ be angry--for why did you spy upon me?"

"I don't understand"--this from him.

"No?"--with irony. "Am I so dull that I do not understand when I find a pool of wine under a divan? Oh, he was clever, very clever; but I was more clever!"

Trent wondered how much she knew. He felt sure she could not have guessed the truth, for the discovery that Delhi was keeping a finger on her would undoubtedly have angered her.

"Surely you would like to know how I came here," she announced. "Why not inquire?"

"I was instructed to ask no questions," he reminded.

She nodded that queer little nod of hers.

"You obey well--when you wish to. But we have no time now to talk of the past; suffice to say I come and go like the wind, when and where I will, and depending upon no man."

She settled deeper among the cushions and watched him--watched him half-humorously, as though he belonged to her and she was undecided what to do with him next. He realized she was waiting for him to speak, that she wanted to find out what he had learned since their meeting at Benares. Therefore he resolved to keep silent, not that what he knew was of any significance, but because uncertainty on her part was his best weapon. So he drew into his sh.e.l.l and waited. When she could no longer endure it, she said:

"Now that you are here, have you no thought of what you are to do?"

"There's a plat.i.tude about antic.i.p.ation," was his reply. "Preconceived ideas never are correct."

"You, of course, suspected Myitkyina was not the end of your journey?"

"Then it isn't?"

He could not see her eyes, but he knew she was looking at him closely.

"Did not his Excellency Li Kwai Kung speak of certain terraces, each a step toward enlightenment?"

He nodded. "Is the City of the Falcon the next?"

"Ultimately," she modified.

"When do I start--or do _we_?"

She shook her head. "_You_ start to-morrow." Then, following a pause: "Previous to this you have been under my direct observation and protection." That made him smile to himself. "I can no longer do that.

Certain threads will be placed in your hands and you will be left to untangle them. And it will not be easy. That is why I chose you."

The boatman had ceased paddling, and they drifted with the current in silence that was like a presence. Now and then a gibbon called from the bank; frequently fish leaped above the water, breaking the moon's path into silver fragments.

"Oh, it is far from easy!" she continued. "You will pa.s.s through a stretch of country where no Englishman has been. There will be discomforts--yes, dangers. The jungle knows how to torment white men.