Caves of Terror Part 2

We were taking n.o.body entirely by surprise; that much was obvious. Before we reached the top step two women opened a door and ran to meet us. One woman threw over King's head such a prodigious garland of jasmine buds that he had to loop it thrice about his shoulders. Then each took a hand of one of us and we entered between doors of many-colored wood, treading on mat-strewn marble, their bare feet pattering beside ours. There were rustlings to right and left, and once I heard laughter, smothered instantly.

At last, at the end of a wide hall before many-hued silken curtains our two guides stopped. As they released our hands, with the always surprising strength that is part of the dancing woman's stock-in-trade, they slipped behind us suddenly and thrust us forward through the curtains.

There was not much to see in front of us. We found ourselves in a paneled corridor, whose narrow windows overlooked the river, facing a painted door sixty paces distant at the farther end. King strode down the corridor and knocked.

The answer was one word that I did not catch, although it rang like a suddenly struck chord of music, and the door yielded to the pressure of King's hand.

I entered behind him and the door swung shut of its own weight with a click. We were in a high-ceilinged, very long room, having seven sides. There were windows to right and left. A deep divan piled with scented cushions occupied the whole length of one long wall, and there were several huge cushions on the floor against another wall. There was one other door besides that we had entered by.

We stood in that room alone, but I know that King felt as uneasy as I did, for there was sweat on the back of his neck. We were being watched by unseen eyes. There is no mistaking that sensation.

Suddenly a voice broke silence like a golden bell whose overtones go widening in rings into infinity, and a vision of loveliness parted the curtains of that other door.

"My lord comes as is meet-spurred, and ready to give new kingdoms to his king! Oh, how my lord is welcome!" she said in Persian.

Her voice thrilled you, because of its perfect resonance, exactly in the middle of the note. She looked into King's eyes with challenging familiarity that made him smile, and then eyed me wonderingly. She glanced from me to a picture on the wall in blue of the Elephant-G.o.d-enormous, opulent, urbane, and then back again at me, and smiled very sweetly.

"So you have brought Ganesha with you? The G.o.d of good luck! How wonderful! How does one behave toward a real G.o.d?"

And while she said that she laid her hands on King's arms as naturally as if he were a lover whom she had not seen perhaps since yesterday. Plainly, there was absolutely nothing between him and her except his own obstinate independence. She was his if he wanted her.

She took King's hand with a laugh that had its roots in past companionship and led him to the middle, deepest window-seat, beneath which the river could be heard gurgling busily.

Then, when she had drawn the silken hangings until the softened light suggested lingering, uncounted hours, and had indicated with a nod to me a cushion in the corner, she came and lay on the cushions close to King, chin on hand, where she could watch his eyes.

King sat straight and square, watching her with caution that he did not trouble to conceal. She took his hand and raised the sleeve until the broad, gold, graven bracelet showed.

"That link forged in the past must bind us two more surely than an oath," she said smiling.

"I used it to show to the gatekeeper."

He sat cooly waiting for her next remark. And with almost unnecessary candor began to remove the bracelet and offer it back to her. So she unmasked her batteries, with a delicious little rippling laugh and a lazy, cat-like movement that betokened joy in the danger that was coming, if I know anything at all of what sign-language means.

"I knew that very day that you resigned your commission in the army, and I laughed with delight at the news, knowing that the G.o.ds who are our servants had contrived it. I know why thou art here," she said; and the change from you to thou was not haphazard.

"It is well known, Princess, that your spies are the cleverest in India," King answered.

"Spies? I need no spies as long as old India lives. Friends are better."

"Do all princesses break their promises?" he countered, meeting her eyes steadily.

"Never yet did I break one promise, whether it was for good or evil."

"Princess," he answered, looking sternly at her, "in Jamrud Fort you agreed to take no part again in politics, national or international in return for a promise of personal freedom and permission to reside in India."

"My promise was dependent on my liberty. But is this liberty-to be forced to reside in this old palace, with the spies of the Government keeping watch on my doings, except when they chance to be outwitted? Nevertheless, I have kept my promise. Thou knowest me better than to think that I need to break promises in order to outwit a government of Englishmen!"

"Quibbles won't help, Princess," he answered. "You promised to do nothing that Government might object to."

"Well; will they object to my religion?" she retorted, mocking him. "Has the British raj at last screwed up its courage to the point of trespa.s.sing behind the purdah and blundering in among religious exercises?"

No man in his senses ever challenges a woman's argument until he knows the whole of it and has unmasked its ulterior purpose. So King sat still and said nothing, knowing that that was precisely what she did not want.

"You must make terms with me, heaven-born!" she went on, changing her tone to one of rather more suggestive firmness. "The Kali-Yug (age of darkness) is drawing to a close, and India awakes! There is froth on the surface-a rising here, an agitation there, a deal of wild talk everywhere, and the dead old government proposes to suppress it in the dead old ways, like men with paddles seeking to beat the waves down flat! But the winds of G.o.d blow, and the boat of the men with the paddles will be upset presently. Who then shall ride the storm? Their gunners will be told to shoot the froth as it forms and rises! But if there is a wise man anywhere he will make terms with me, and will set himself to guide the underlying forces that may otherwise whelm everything. I think thou art wise, my heaven-born. Thou wert wise once on a time."

"Do you think you can rule India?" King asked her; and he did not make the mistake of suggesting ridicule.

"Who else can do it?" she retorted. "Do you think we come into the world to let fate be our master? Why have I royal blood and royal views, wealth, understanding and ambition, while the others have blindness and vague yearnings? Can you answer?"

"Princess," he answered, "I had only one object in coming here."

"I know that," she said nodding.

"I have simply come to warn you."

"Chut!" she answered with her chin between her hands and her elbows deep in the cushions. "I know how much is known. This man-what is his name? Ramsden? Pouff! Ganesha, here, is far better! Ganesha is from America. Those fools who went to prepare the American mind for what is coming, because they were altogether too foolish to be anything but in the way in India, have been found out, and Ganesha has come like a big bull-buffalo to save the world by thrusting his clumsy horns into things he does not understand! I tell you, Athelstan, that however much is known there is much more that is not known. You would better make terms with me!"

"What you must understand, Princess, is that your plan to overthrow the West and make the East the world's controlling force, is known by those who can prevent you," he answered quietly. "You see, I can't go away from here and tell whoever asks me that you are observing your promise to--"

"No," she interrupted with a ringing merry laugh of triumph. "You speak truth without knowing it! You can not go away!"

Princess Yasmini's boast was good. But we had come to solve a problem, not to run away with it, and she looked disconcerted by our rather obvious willingness to be her prisoners for a while.

"Do you think I can not be cruel?" she asked suddenly.

"I have seen you at your worst, as well as at your best!" King answered.

"You act like a man who has resources. Yet you have none," she answered slowly, as if reviewing all the situation in her mind. "None knows where you are-not even Mulji Singh, with whom you left your other clothes before putting on that uniform the better to impress me! The bag that you and Ganesha share between you, like two mendicants emerging from the jail, is now in a room in this palace. You came because you saw that if I should be arrested there would be insurrection. You said so to Ommony sahib, and his butler overheard. But not even Ommony knows where you are. He said to you: 'If you can defeat that woman without using violence, you'll stand alone in the world as the one man who could do it. But if you use violence, though you kill her, she will defeat you and all the rest of us.' Is not that what your Friend Ommony said?"

"What kind of terms do you want me to make with you, Princess?" King answered.

"I can make you ruler of all India!" she said. "Another may wear the baubles, but thou shalt be the true king, even as thy name is! And behind thee, me, Yasmini, whispering wisdom and laughing to see the politicians strut!"

King leaned back and laughed at her.

"Do you really expect me to help you ruin my own countrymen, go back on my color, creed, education, oath and everything, and--"

"Deluded fools! The East-the East, Athelstan, is waking! Better make terms with me, and thou shalt live to ride on the arising East as G.o.d rides on the wind and bits and governs it!"

"Very well," he said. "Show me. I'll do nothing blindfold."

"Hah! Thou art not half-conquered yet," she laughed. "And what of Ganesha? Is this mountain of bones and thews a person to be trusted, or shall we show him how much stronger than him is a horsehair in a clever woman's fingers?"

"This man Ramsden is my friend," King said.

"Are you his friend?" she retorted.

He nodded.