THE EARTHQUAKE ELEPHANT
At the end of a minute's examination I began to suspect that King was
not quite dead, so I recalled the old life-saver's drill and got to work
on him. It took time. As King came more and more to his senses, and
vomited a bit, and began to behave in all ways like a living man again,
I had a chance to talk to the mahouts; and they were just like the
members of any other union, preferring conversation to alleged hard
labor any day of the week. They told me why the elephants were being
washed so early and we enjoyed a regular _conversazione_ on the beach.
It appeared the elephants were wanted to take part in a procession, and
for a while they let me guess what sort of a procession. But at last
they took compassion on my ignorance.
"_She_ has issued invitations to a party for princesses in _her panch
mahal_!"
Who was _she_? Everybody knew who _she_ was!
"The Princess Yasmini?" I suggested.
Whereat they all chuckled and made grimaces, and did everything except
acknowledge her name in public.
And then suddenly Athelstan King decided to sit up and spat some more
water out and tried to laugh. And they thought that was so exquisitely
funny that they all laughed too.
Then, when he had coughed a little more--
"We're going to attend that party!"
"Why?" I asked him.
"Two reasons." But he had to cough up more water before he could tell
them. "One: The Gray Mahatma will never rest until he knows we're dead,
or done for, and the safest place is close to the enemy; and, two: I
never will rest until I know the secret of that science of theirs!"
"How in thunder are we going to get back?" I objected.
"Ride!" he suggested.
"How--when--where?"
"Elephant--now--to her palace," he answered.
"They're not her elephants."
"So much the better! She'll think the Maharajah knows all about us.
She'll _have_ to accord us protection after that."
He asked a dozen more questions, and finally struggled to his feet.
"My friend," he said then to the chief mahout, "if you propose to take
us two _sahibs_ to _her_ palace, and be back at your master's stables in
time to get ready for the _Bibi-kana_, you'll have to hurry!"
"But I did not propose it!" the mahout answered.
"Nay, the gods proposed it. Which is your fastest elephant?"
"That great one yonder--Akbar. But who is giving orders? We are a
maharajah's servants."
"The gods are ordering all this business!" King assured him. "I wish to
ride to _her_ palace."
"By _her_ leave?"
"By the gods' leave."
"Will the gods pay me?"
"Doubtless. But she will pay first--setting the gods a good example."
The native of India finds it perfectly convenient to ride on a six-inch
plank, slung more or less like a house-painter's platform against an
elephant's bulging ribs, and it does not seem to make much difference to
him when more weight is on one side than on the other. But King and I
had to stand and hold each other's hands across the pad; and even so we
were by no means too secure, for Akbar resented being taken away from
the herd and behaved like a mutinous earthquake.
It was not so far to the city by road, because the river wound a good
deal and the road cut straight from point to point. But it was several
miles, and we covered it at pretty nearly the speed of a railroad train.
In spite of his rage, Akbar had perfect control of himself. Having
missed about half his morning swim, and the herd's society, he proposed
to miss nothing else, and there was not one cart, one _ekka_, one
piled-up load in all those miles that he did not hit and do his utmost
to destroy. There was not one yellow dog that he did not give chase to
and try to trample on.
He stopped to pull the thatch from the roof of a little house beside the
road, but as the plying _ankus_ made his head ache he couldn't stay long
enough to finish that job but scooted uproad again in full pursuit of a
Ford car, while an angry man shoved his head through the hole in the
roof of the house and cursed all the rumps of all the elephants,
together with the forebears and descendants of their owners and their
wives.
It seemed that Akbar was fairly well-known thereabouts. The men in the
Ford car shouted the news in advance of his coming, and the road into
the city began to look like the track of a routed army. Every man and
animal took to his heels, and Akbar trumpeted wild hurrahs as he
strained all tendons in pursuit. He needed no second wind, because he
never lost his first, but he took the whole course as far as the city
gate at a speed that would have satisfied Jehu, son of Nimshi, who, the
Bible says, made Israel to sin.
That particular city gate consisted of an arch, covered with carvings of
outrageous-looking gods, and as a picture display it was perfect, but as
an entrance to a crowded city it possessed no virtue. It was so narrow
that only one vehicle could pass at a time, and the whole swarm jammed
between it and us like sticks in front of a drain.
And not even Akbar's strength was so great that he could shove them
through, so the ancient problem of an irresistible force in contact with
an immovable object was presented, and solved by Akbar after a fashion
of his own.
He picked the softest spot, which was a wain-load of cotton bales, and
upset it, cannoning off that cushion so swiftly as to come within an ace
of scattering his four passengers across the landscape; and discerning,
with a swift strategic eye that would have done credit to the dashingest
cavalry general, that that rout was complete and nothing could be gained
by adding to it, he headed for the river and the women's bathing place,
took the broad stone steps at a dead run, and plunged straight in.
No ship was ever launched with more perfect aplomb, nor floated more
superbly on an even keel than did Akbar at the women's bathing ghat. For
a moment I thought he proposed to lie down there and finish his
interrupted toilet, but he contented himself with squirting water on the
sore spot caused by the thumping _ankus_ of the driver's and set out to
swim upstream.
It was not until he had reached the second ghat and climbed the steps
there that Akbar put himself in Napoleon's class. When he reached the
top of the steps no amount of whacking with the _ankus_ could make him
turn to the right and follow the city street. He turned to the left,
tooted a couple of wild hurrahs through his newly wetted whistle, and
raced to meet the traffic as it struggled through the gate in single
file!
There was ruin ripe for harvest and it looked like the proper time to
jump. But suddenly--with that delightful wheeled panic at his mercy, the
big brute stopped, stood still and looked at them, muttering and
gurgling to himself. Instantly the mahout began petting him, calling him
endearing names and praising his wisdom and discretion. I can't swear
that the beast understood what was said to him, but he acted exactly as
if he did. He picked up dust from the street with his trunk, blew a
little of it in the general direction of the defeated enemy, blew a
little more on himself, and turned his rump toward the gate, as if to
signify that hostilities were over!
As he did that, a man who was something of an athlete swung himself up
on the off-side footboard, and a second later the proud face of the Gray
Mahatma confronted me across the saddle-pad alongside King's!
"You are heavy enough to balance the two of us," he said, as if no other
comment were necessary. "Why did you run away from me? You can never
escape!"
Well, of course anybody could say that after he had found us again.
"Was it you who checked this elephant?" I asked him, remembering what he
had done to the black panther and the snakes, but he did not answer.
"Where do you think you are going?" I asked.
"That is what the dry leaves asked of the wind," he answered. "An
observant eye is better than a yearning ear, and patience outwears
curiosity!"
Suddenly I recalled a remark that King had made on the beach and it
dawned on me that by frightening the mahout into silence the Mahatma
might undo the one gain we had made by that plunge and swim. As long as
the Maharajah who owned the elephant was to hear about our adventure,
all was well. News of us would reach the Government. Most of the
maharajahs are pro-British, because their very existence as reigning
princes depends on that attitude, and they can be relied on to report to
the British authorities any irregularity whatever that comes under their
notice and at the same time does not incriminate themselves.
The same thought probably occurred to King, but he was rather too
recently recovered from drowning to be quick yet off the mark and
besides, the Mahatma was between him and the mahout, whereas I had a
free field. So I tugged at the arm of the second mahout, who was sitting
behind his chief, and he scrambled down beside me.
The Mahatma tried to take immediate advantage of that, and the very
thing he did made it all the easier for me to deal with the second
mahout, who had made the trip with us and who stared into my face with a
kind of puzzled mistrust. The Mahatma, as active as a cat, climbed up
behind the chief mahout and sat astride the elephant's neck in the place
where the second mahout had been, and began whispering.
"What is your Maharajah's name?" I asked my neighbor on the plank.
"Jihanbihar," he answered, giving a string of titles too that had no
particular bearing on the situation. They sounded like a page of the Old
Testament.
"You observe that his favorite elephant is about to be stolen with the
aid of the Gray Mahatma!"
The fellow nodded, and the expression of his face was not exactly
pleased; he may have been one of a crowd that got cursed by the Mahatma
for asking too many impertinent questions.
"He has a reputation, that Mahatma, hasn't he?" I suggested. "You have
heard of the miracles that he performs?"
He nodded again.
"You see that he is talking to the chief mahout now? Take my word for
it, he is casting a spell on him! Would you like to have him cast a
spell on you too?"
He shook his head.
"Run swiftly then, and tell the Maharajah _sahib_ to get a Brahman to
cancel the spell, and you will be rewarded. Go quickly."
He dropped from the plank and went off at a run just as the Mahatma
turned and saw him. The Mahatma had been whispering in the mahout's ear,
and as his eye met mine I laughed. For a moment he watched the man
running, and then, as if to demonstrate what a strange mixture of a man
he was, he laughed back at me. He acknowledged defeat instantly, and did
not appear in the least annoyed by it, but on the contrary appeared to
accord me credit for outwitting him, as undoubtedly I had.
India is not a democratic country. Nobody is troubled about keeping the
underworld in its place, so mahout or sweeper has the ear of majesty as
readily as any other man, if not even more so. And it would not make the
slightest difference now what kind of cock and bull story the mahout
might tell to the Maharajah. However wild it might be it would certainly
include the fact that two white men had ridden to Yasmini's palace on
the Maharajah's favorite elephant after having been fished out of the
river by mahouts at the elephant's bathing ghat.
It was the likeliest thing in the world that representations would be
made that very afternoon by telegraph to the nearest important British
official, who would feel compelled to make inquiries. The British
Government can not afford to have even unknown white men mysteriously
made away with.
The Gray Mahatma took all that for granted and nodded comprehendingly.
His smile, as we neared Yasmini's palace gate, appeared to me to include
a perfect appreciation of the situation. He seemed to accept it as
candidly as he had acknowledged my frequent escapes the night before.
Ismail opened the gate without demur and Akbar sauntered in, being used
to palaces. He passed under the first arch into the second courtyard,
coming to a halt at a gate on the far side that was too small for his
enormous bulk where he proceeded to kneel without waiting for
instructions.
"Do you feel proud?" the Mahatma asked me unexpectedly as he climbed off
Akbar's neck.
Suspecting some sort of verbal trap I did not answer him.
"You are like this elephant. You are able to do irreparable damage if
you see fit. _She_ was as apt as usual when she dubbed you Ganesha!"
He was working toward some point he intended to make, like one of those
pleasant-tongued attorneys flattering a witness before tying him up in a
knot, so I was careful to say nothing whatever. King came around the
kneeling elephant and joined us, leaning back against the beast and
appraising the Mahatma with his eyes half-closed.
"You're dealing with white men," King suggested. "Why don't you talk in
terms that we understand?"
It seemed difficult for the Mahatma to descend to that. He half-closed
his eyes in turn and frowned, as if hard put to it to simplify his
thoughts sufficiently--something like a mathematician trying to explain
himself to the kindergarten class.
"I could kill you," he said, looking straight at King.
King nodded.
"You are not the kind of man who _should_ be killed," he went on.
"Did you ever hear the fable of the fox and the sour grapes?" King asked
him, and the Mahatma looked annoyed.
"Would you rather be killed?" he retorted.
"'Pon my soul, I'm inclined to leave that to the outcome," King
answered. "Death would mean investigation, and investigation discovery
of that science you gave us a glimpse of."
"If I was to let you go," the Mahatma began to argue.
"I would not go! Forward is the only way," King interrupted. "You've a
reason for not having us two men killed. What is it?"
"I have no reason whatever for preserving this one's life," the Mahatma
answered, glancing at me casually. "For reasons beyond my power of
guessing he seems to bear a charmed existence, but he has my leave to
visit the next world, and his departure would by no means inconvenience
me. But you are another matter."
"How so?" King asked. "Mr. Ramsden is the man who would be inquired for.
The Indian Government, whose servant I no longer am, might ignore me,
but the multi-millionaire who is Mr. Ramsden's partner would spend
millions and make an international scandal."
"I am thinking of you, not of him. I am thinking you are honest," said
the Gray Mahatma, looking into King's eyes.
"So is he," King answered.
"I am wondering whether or not you are honest enough to trust me," said
the Gray Mahatma.
"Why certainly!" King answered. "If you would commit yourself I would
trust you. Why not?"
"But this man would not," said the Mahatma, nudging me as if I were the
elephant.
"I trust my friend King," I retorted. "If he decides to trust you, I
stand back of him."
"Very well then, let us exchange promises."
"Suppose we go a little more cautiously and discuss them first,"
suggested King.
"I will promise both of you your life, your eventual freedom, and my
friendship. Will you promise me not to go in league with _her_----"
"I'll agree to that unconditionally!" King assured him with a dry smile.
"--not to try to learn the secret of the science----"
"Why not?"
"Because if you _should_ try I could never save your lives."
"Well, what else?"
"Will you take oath never to disclose the whereabouts of the entrance to
the caverns in which you were allowed to see the sciences?"
"I shall have to think that over."
"Furthermore, will you promise to take whatever means is pointed out to
you of helping India to independence?"
"What do you mean by independence?"
"Self-government."
"I've been working for that ever since I cut my eye-teeth," answered
King. "So has every other British officer and civil servant who has any
sense of public duty."
"Will you continue to work for it, and employ the means that shall be
pointed out to you?"
"Yes is the answer to the first part. Can't answer the second part until
I've studied the means."
"Will you join me in preventing that princess from throwing the world
into fresh confusion?"
"Dunno about joining you. It's part of my business to prevent her little
game," King answered.
"She has proven herself almost too clever, even for us," said the
Mahatma. "She spied on us, and she hid so many witnesses behind a wall
pierced with holes that it would be impossible for us to make sure of
destroying all of them. And somewhere or other she has hidden an account
of what she knows, so that if anything should happen to her it would
fall into the hands of the Government and compel investigation."
"Wise woman!" King said smiling.
"Yes! But not so altogether wise. Hitherto we fooled her for all her
cleverness. Her price of silence was education in our mysteries, and we
have made the education incomprehensible."
"Then why do you want my help?"
"Because she has a plan now that is so magnificent in its audacity as to
baffle even our secret council!"
King whistled, and the Mahatma looked annoyed--whether with himself or
King I was not sure.
"That is what I have been hunting for three years--your secret council.
I knew it existed; never could prove it," said King.
"Can you prove it now?" asked the Mahatma with even more visible
annoyance.
"I think so. You'll have to help me."
"I?"
"You or the Princess!" King answered. "Shall I join you or her?"
"Thou fool! There was a sheep who asked, 'Which shall I run with, tiger
or wolf?' Consider that a moment!"
King showed him the courtesy of considering it, and was silent for
perhaps two minutes, during which the mahout judged it opportune to
whine forth his own demands. But nobody took any notice of him.
"You seem check-mate to me," King said at last. "You daren't kill my
friend or me. You daren't make away with us. You daren't make away with
the Princess. The Princess and several of her women know enough of your
secret to be able to force your hand; so do my friend Mr. Ramsden and I.
Mr. Ramsden and I have seen sufficient in that madhouse underneath the
temple to compel a Government inquiry. Is it peace or war, Mahatma? Will
you introduce me to your secret council, or will you fight to a finish?"
"I would rather not fight with you, my young friend."
"Introduce me, then," King answered, smiling.
"You don't know what you ask--what that involves."
"But I propose to know," said King.
The Mahatma never seemed to mind acknowledging defeat.
"I see you are determined," he said quietly. "Determination, my young
friend, combined with ignorance, is a murderer nine times out of ten.
However, you do not understand that, and you are determined, I have no
authority to make such terms as you propose, but I will submit the
matter to those whom you desire to meet. Does that satisfy you?"
King looked immensely dissatisfied.
"I would rather be your friend than your enemy," he answered.
"So said light and darkness each to the other when they first met! You
shall have your answer presently. In the mean time will you try not to
make my task even more difficult than it already is?"
King laughed uncomfortably.
"Mahatma, I like you well enough, but no terms until I have your answer!
Sorry! I'd like to be friends with you."
"The pity of it is that though you are honestly determined you are bound
to fail," the Mahatma answered; and at that he dismissed the whole
subject with a motion of one hand, and turned toward Ismail, who was
lurking about in the shadows like a wolf.
The Mahatma sent the man to the door of the _panch mahal_ with a message
that money was needed; and the mahout spent the next ten minutes in loud
praises of his kneeling elephant, presumably on the theory that "it pays
to advertise," for it is not only the West that worships at that shrine.
When Ismail came back with a tray on which were several little heaps of
money the mahout went into abject ecstasies of mingled jubilee and
reverence. His mouth betrayed unbelief and his eyes glinted avarice. His
fingers twitched with agonied anticipation, and he began to praise his
elephant again, as some people recite proverbs to keep themselves from
getting too excited.
The various heaps of money on the tray must have amounted to about fifty
dollars. The mahout spread out the end of his turban by way of begging
bowl, and the Mahatma shook all the money into it, so that Ismail gasped
and the mahout himself turned up his eyes in exquisite delirium.
"Go or you will be too late!" was all the Mahatma said to him, and the
mahout did not wait for a second command, but mounted his elephant's
neck, kicked the big brute up and rode away, in a hurry to be off before
he should wake up and discover that the whole adventure was a dream.
But he could not get away with it as easily as all that. Ismail was
keeper of the gate, and the gate was locked. Akbar doubtless could have
broken down the gate if so instructed, but even the East, which is never
long on gratitude, would hardly do that much damage after receiving such
a royal largesse. Ismail went to unlock the gate, and demanded his
percentage, giving it, though, the Eastern name, which means "the usual
thing."
And the usual argument took place--I approached to listen to it--the
usual recriminations, threats, counterclaims, abuse, appeals to various
deaf deities, and finally concession--after Ismail had made the
all-compelling threat to tell the other mahouts how much the gift had
amounted to. I suppose it was instinct that suggested that idea. At any
rate, it worked and the mahout threw a handful of coins to him.
Thereat, of course, there was immediate, immense politeness on both
sides. Ismail prayed that Allah might make the mahout as potbellied and
idle as his elephant; and the mahout suggested to a dozen corruptible
deities that Ismail might be happier with a thousand children and wives
who were true to him. Whereat Ismail opened the gate, and Akbar helped
himself liberally to sugar-cane from a passing wagon; so that every one
was satisfied except the rightful owner of the sugar-cane, who cursed
and wept and called Akbar an honest rajah, by way I suppose of
expressing his opinion of all the tax-levying powers that be.
There happened to be a thing they call a "constabeel" going by, and the
owner of the sugar-cane appealed to him for justice and relief. So the
"constabeel" prodded Akbar's rump with his truncheon, and helped
himself, too, to sugar-cane by way of balancing accounts. And while the
owner of the sugar-cane was bellowing red doctrine about that, Ismail
went out and helped himself likewise, only more liberally, carrying in
an armful of the stuff, and slamming the gate in the faces of all
concerned. In cynical enjoyment of the blasphemy outside he sat down
then in the shadow of the wall to chew the cane and count the change
extorted from the mahout.
"Behold India self-governed!" I said, turning to beckon through the arch
between the two courtyards.
But the Mahatma was gone! And unlike the Cheshire cat, he had not even
left a smile behind him--had not even left Athelstan King behind him.
The two had disappeared as silently and as utterly as if they had never
been there!