The Old Man of the Mountain Part 19

Examining it end-wise, he saw that the interior was filled with a fine substance that might be desiccated marrow. He shook it; some of the powdery contents fell to the floor. He knocked it against his boot, and almost shouted with amazement: for at his feet lay a tiny spill of paper, apparently rice paper, very tightly wound.

[Ill.u.s.tration: He shook it: some of the powdery contents fell to the floor.]

Hot now with excitement, he unrolled the paper with nervous fingers, and saw on it, in small characters written, as it seemed, with the fire-blackened end of a sharp stick, the words, "Give me my bone."

CHAPTER XIV

HEAD COOK

Mackenzie and Jackson, it will be remembered, had been removed from the Temple before Forrester, at the close of the scene with the Old Man.

They were taken back to their separate cells, and locked in for the rest of the day. Jackson's nerves were shaken all to pieces; Mackenzie, whose robuster physique was less affected, was in desperate anxiety as to Forrester's fate. He spent a wretched day, a still more wretched night. By turning his back on the monster he managed to fend off the worst effects of the baleful eye; but the consciousness that it was there behind him with its unwinking glare intensified his distress.

When morning came, and he was escorted again to the foot of the rock stairway, he welcomed the respite afforded by the prospect of a day in the open air, and hoped against hope that the Old Man had relented, and would allow Forrester to join him.

Night brings counsel, and Mackenzie was a long-headed Scot. He had come to the decision that it would be sheer folly, after what had happened, to repeat his refusal to work on the plantations. The depressing influence of solitude and the mysterious light was no doubt relied on by the Old Man to bring his prisoners to a proper docility. Well, Mackenzie would a.s.sume that virtue, if he had it not, and he would advise his friends, if they came, to fall in with his own plan: to work with apparent resignation, though always alert to seize on any opportunity of escape that might offer itself.

When he was handed a spade, therefore, by the priest who appeared to act as taskmaster, he accepted it, and set to work on the plot of ground a.s.signed to him. But he took care not to ply his implement too energetically, stopping every now and again to mop his brow with his sleeve and to heave the sigh appropriate to a forced labourer.

As the day wore on, and neither of his friends appeared, he feared the worst. Jackson's absence might easily be accounted for by a nervous breakdown natural to a man of his temperament; but Forrester would have come if he had been at liberty to do so, and it seemed only too likely that he had either been demolished by the Eye, or that he was still confined to his cell, or possibly condemned to some other punishment whose nature Mackenzie could not guess. At the close of the day he sought to relieve his suspense by addressing a question to the priest, but received only a stony stare. He could not tell whether the man understood him or not.

Several days pa.s.sed in the same dreary, hopeless fashion. Mackenzie kept away from the old zamindar, who, though his daughter had been restored to him, was visibly broken down by a haunting dread of calamities yet to come. He exchanged only a few words now and again with Sher Jang, fearing, in the one case as in the other, that closer intercourse with them might tend to their harm. But one morning he was as much delighted as surprised to see Jackson appear at the head of the stairway. He had been supported in the climb, practically pushed up, by one of the priests. The taming process was evidently regarded as successful. From that time the two friends remained constantly on the plateau, being given a small hut among the cl.u.s.ter nearest to the dwellings of the priests. It contained no furniture; their only bedding was a blanket apiece.

In the fresh air, and under the bracing influence of Mackenzie's companionship, Jackson, in some degree, recovered tone. The two friends worked side by side. No check was placed on their a.s.sociation; it was evidently a.s.sumed that they were resigned to their lot, or at any rate too much dominated by their fears to give trouble. After the first day together they never spoke of Forrester: in their hearts they believed that they would see him no more.

But they sometimes speculated on the fate of Hamid Gul. They had never seen him since they pa.s.sed his unconscious body in the rift. It seemed monstrous that so humble a member of their party should have fallen a victim to the Old Man's malignity; yet they could only surmise that, whatever the reason might be, the man had been put out of the way.

It was therefore with a joyous surprise that they saw him one day staggering across a field under a load of vegetables. Mackenzie called to him, but Hamid, though he must have heard the cry, pursued his way without so much as a turn of the head.

"There's a reason for that," said Mackenzie. "Hamid is no fool."

Some hours later, when work had ceased, and all the slaves had returned to their huts, a dark form appeared in the open doorway of that which Mackenzie and Jackson shared.

"Where is Forrester sahib, please to say, sahibs?" came in a whisper from Hamid Gul.

"Come away in, man," cried Mackenzie, "--if it is safe."

"It is right as rain, sahib," replied the Bengali. "c.h.i.n.ky jossers believe me a one-eyed a.s.s. But Forrester sahib?"

"We don't know: we fear he is dead."

Hamid's one eye and twisted features told rather of rage than of sorrow.

He poured forth a torrent of abuse in his own tongue, invoking the direst curses on the heads of the oppressors, and the uttermost defilement of their graves.

"Where have you been all this time? What have they done to you?" asked Mackenzie.

"I am head cook and bottle-washer, sahib--may the sons of pigs boil everlastingly in oil! Hiked into kitchen, there I was, I having sung my praises quite a lot. For sake of self and master, I pocketed feelings and dignity and concocted that pilaff of lamb Forrester sahib was such nuts on. A bald-headed chap kept eye on me, and made me gobble a bit; then carried dish away, and told me in due course it was well. When he was gone, pig of c.h.i.n.ky cook put his nose out of joint and was exceedingly rude, saying many things in barbarous lingo of libellous nature."

"But you don't understand Chinese!" Mackenzie interposed.

"Exactly, quite so, sahib; but he had a face! My sublime effort took the cake, sahibs. They offered me job on spot. Every day I made something fresh and bilious, and cook in office did not get look in. He lost his wool, sahibs, and one day set on me tooth and nails, and bald-head found us going at it hammer and tongs. Chinaman got bag, and I got crib."

Hamid went on to explain that the fly in his ointment was his employer's want of trust. His work was always done under the eyes of a priest, and he had to taste of every dish before it was removed. He was disgusted, too, because he received neither money nor thanks. He had never learnt who it was that consumed his viands; the dishes always came back empty, and his unknown master had evidently a keen tooth for dainty fare.

His quarters were a lean-to adjoining the kitchen. On the other side was the door through which the priest carried the dishes to and fro.

Hamid had had the curiosity one day to follow the priest at a safe distance, but was brought up by a closed door. In the wall of the pa.s.sage there was a grating which had given him the idea that his employer must be a man of great wealth, for the bars of it appeared to be of pure gold. Once, to avoid the trouble of carrying a pail of dirty water to the field on which it was usually poured, he had been on the point of emptying it through the grating; but the priest had come by at that moment, and had rebuked him with such violence, and used such alarming threats about the punishment of the Eye, that he had never ventured to save his labour again.

"Do you know anything about the punishment of the Eye?" Mackenzie asked.

"Devil a bit, sahib. My one optic is only feature I have to boast of, and it goes without saying that I cannot afford to lose it."

The Englishmen felt that Hamid had much to be thankful for. It was clear that he had no suspicion of the horrors of the place, and they saw no reason for enlightening him. The less his fear, the more useful he might be.

"Well, man, you had better not stop any longer," Mackenzie said. "And don't come here again: you may be spied on. But I wish you to keep your eyes open--your one is as good as two--and find out all you can. We are keen to get away; but we see no chance of it. Maybe you'll find out one of these days how they get down to the rift. Don't make any attempt to see us unless you have something important to communicate. We will always be on the look-out. You go into the fields sometimes. If we see you open and close your hand three times, we will know you have something to say, and we will find some way to hear you; but not here: it's maybe not safe."

"Better warn him against the Old Man," Jackson suggested.

"Ah, true! Your cooking, Hamid, is done for the master of the place, a very old Chinaman. You may never see him; if you do, watch him carefully, and above all, never cross him. Now go, and mind yourself."

In giving instructions to Hamid Gul, Mackenzie had no definite hope.

The man, being practically confined to his kitchen when within doors, was not in a position to ascertain for himself the interior arrangements of the place; and his ignorance of any language but his own and English would prevent his understanding any conversation he might overhear among the Chinese. But he could be trusted to make the best use of such opportunities as might offer.

Thinking over the little information that Hamid had been able to give, Mackenzie was struck with a suspicion. The grating!--was it not likely that here, as in European castles, there were dungeons beneath the floor of the princ.i.p.al chambers? Might not Forrester be immured underground, in a cellar to which the grating gave access? He wished he had thought of this when Hamid was with them, and enquired about the nature of the grating, and the size of the opening it covered. Why had the priest objected to its use as a sink? Not from any tenderness towards prisoners, if prisoners there were. Either there must be, below, some treasure of the Old Man which water might injure, or--and here Mackenzie felt some excitement--it was desired that the existence of the aperture should not be known to the prisoners.

Impatient to question Hamid Gul, Mackenzie hoped every day to see him; but it was not until the third morning after his visit that the Bengali again appeared in the fields, with a basket slung on his back. He pa.s.sed at some distance from the Englishmen, and they saw his left hand open and close three times. Looking around to make sure that no priest was on the watch, Mackenzie left his plot, struck off at an angle, and slipping round a plantation of tea shrubs, met Hamid in the enclosure where he was digging truffles.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Mackenzie met Hamid in the enclosure where he was digging truffles.]

"Well?" he asked eagerly.

"I have got a rise, sahib," the man replied. "Purely honorary; no pay!"

"What do you mean?"

"Rich food sometimes is cause of colic and inward qualms, sahib. After tiffin yesterday, bald-head comes to me;--he has a face, sahib!--and says 'Hai! come along!' Off I trot, knees playing castanets, blue funk, because of his face. Along pa.s.sage, into room, another room, much to flabbergastation of humble self; for what do I see but gold everywhere: table of gold, seats of gold, cups of gold!

"On couch of gold was very old man, very like monkey, bald as egg. Two bald-heads on knees to him: hai! what faces! Had to go down on knees; old man he stared at me with eyes like burning coals. I shivered like jelly. 'You poison me!' he said. I swore by Siva I was innocent as new-born babe. I talked a lot, told him I was absolutely ignorant he was so old, too old to eat things that would upset ostrich digestion of piggish little sons of English sahibs. I declared with great gusto if I had known I would not have made things so bilious. 'Send for doctor,'

he said. Another bald-head came. Kicked me away, knelt in my place. I crawled away, p.r.i.c.ked in manhood's dignity, but calm in innocency of heart, and while doctor did his job, I took squint round. Great snakes, sahib! At one end of room, in recess behind screen of gold wire, I spotted gorgeous robe hanging on gold peg, and on small gold table most splendiferous head-dress. My stars! old c.h.i.n.ky could give socks to American millionaire."

"Did you see the Eye?" Jackson asked eagerly.

"What eye, sahib? Old man's eyes enough for me. They lugged me back; down I drop again; his eyes made me frizzle. He said 'Go!' Nothing wrong with him but liver off colour. But this morning bald-head told me to carry in dish myself: in future I must taste all grub in presence of old man. That is my rise, sahib."

"Eh, man, you're lucky," said Mackenzie. "But now tell me: the grating in the pa.s.sage--what is it like?"

"It is thin bars of gold, sahib."