Beyond question Yasmini is a craftsman of amazing skill, and her
genius--as does all true genius--extends to the almost infinite
consideration of small details. The medium in which she works--human
weakness--affords her unlimited opportunity; and she owns the trick,
that most great artists win, of not letting her general plan be known
before the climax. Neither friend nor enemy is ever quite sure which is
which until she solves the problem to the enemy's confusion.
But Yasmini could have failed in this case through overmuch finesse.
She was not used to Germans, and could not realize until too late that
her compliance with this man's every demand only served to make him
more peremptory and more one-sided in his point of view. From a mere
agent, offering the almost unimaginable in return for mere promises, he
had grown already into a dictator, demanding action as a prelude to
reward. He had even threatened to cause her, Yasmini, to be reported to
the police unless she served his purpose better!
If she had obeyed the general and had picked a trooper for the business
in hand, it is likely that Yasmini would have had to write a failure to
her account. She had come perilously near to obedience on this
occasion, and it had been nothing less than luck that put Ranjoor Singh
into her hands, luck being the pet name of India's kindest god. Ranjoor
Singh was needed in the instant when he came to bring the German back
to earth and a due sense of proportion.
The Sikh had a rage in his heart that the German mistook for zeal and
native ferocity; his manners became so brusk under the stress of it
that they might almost have been Prussian, and, met with its own
reflection, that kind of insolence grows limp.
Having agreed to lie, Ranjoor Singh lied with such audacity and so much
skill that it would have needed Yasmini to dare disbelieve him.
The German sat in state near Yasmini's great window and received, one
after another, liars by the dozen from the hills where lies are current
coin. Some of them had listened to his lectures, and some had learned
of them at second hand; every man of them had received his cue from
Yasmini. There was too much unanimity among them; they wanted too
little and agreed too readily to what the German had to say; he was
growing almost suspicious toward half-past ten, when Ranjoor Singh came
in.
There was no trooper behind him this time, for the man had been sent to
watch for the regiment's departure, and to pounce then on Bagh, the
charger, and take him away to safety. After the charger had been
groomed and fed and hidden, the trooper was to do what might be done
toward securing the risaldar-major's kit; but under no condition was
the kit to have precedence.
"Groom him until he shines! Guard him until I call for him! Keep him
exercised!" was the three-fold order that sang through the trooper's
head and overcame astonishment in the hurry to obey.
Now it was the German's turn to be astonished. Ranjoor Singh strode in,
dressed as a Sikh farmer, and frowned down Yasmini's instant desire to
poke fun at him. The German rose to salute him, and the Sikh
acknowledged the salute with a nod such as royalty might spare for a
menial.
"Come!" he said curtly, and the German followed him out through the
door to the stair-head where so many mirrors were. There Ranjoor Singh
made quite a little play of making sure they were not overheard, while
the German studied his own Mohammedan disguise from twenty different
angles.
"Too much finery!" growled Ranjoor Singh. "I will attend to that.
First, listen! Other than your talk, I have had no proof at all of you!
You are a spy!"
"I am a--"
"You are a spy! All the spies I ever met were liars from the ground up!
I am a patriot. I am working to save my country from a yoke that is
unbearable, and I _must_ deal in subterfuge and treachery if I would
win. But you are merely one who sows trouble. You are like the little
jackal--the dirty little jackal--who starts a fight between two tigers
so that he may fill his mean belly! Don't speak--listen!"
The German's jaw had dropped, but not because words rushed to his lips.
He seemed at a loss for them.
"You made me an offer, and I accepted it," continued Ranjoor Singh. "I
accepted it on behalf of India. I shall show you in about an hour from
now a native regiment--one of the very best native regiments, so
mutinous that its officers must lead it out of Delhi to a camp where it
will be less dangerous and less likely to corrupt others."
The German nodded. He had asked no more.
"Then, if you fail to fulfill your part," said Ranjoor Singh grimly, "I
shall lock you in the cellar of this house, where Yasmini keeps her
cobras!"
_"Vorwarts!"_ laughed the German, for there was conviction in every
word the Sikh had said. "I will show you how a German keeps his
bargain!"
"A German?" growled Ranjoor Singh. "A German--Germany is nothing to me!
If Germany can pick the bones I leave, what do I care? One does not
bargain with a spy, either; one pays his price, and throws him to the
cobras if he fail! Come!"
The question of precedence no longer seemed to trouble Ranjoor Singh;
he turned his back without apology, and as the German followed him
down-stairs there came a giggle from behind the curtains.
"Were we overheard?" he asked.
But Ranjoor Singh did not seem to care any more, and did not trouble to
answer him.
Outside the door was a bullock-cart, of the kind in which women make
long journeys, with a painted, covered super-structure. The German
followed Ranjoor Singh into it, and without any need for orders the
Sikh driver began to twist the bullocks' tails and send them along at
the pace all India loves. Then Ranjoor Singh began to pay attention to
the German's dress, pulling off his expensive turban and replacing that
and his clothes with cheaper, dirtier ones.
"Why?" asked the German.
"I will show you why," said Ranjoor Singh.
Then they sat back, each against a side of the cart, squatting native
style.
"This regiment that I will show you is mine," said Ranjoor Singh. "I
command a squadron of it--or, rather, did, until I became suspected.
Every man in the regiment is mine, and will follow me at a word. When I
give the word they will kill their English officers."
He leaned his head out of the opening to spit; there seemed something
in his mouth that tasted nasty.
"Why did they mutiny?" asked the German.
"Ordered to France!" said Ranjoor Singh, with lowered eyes.
For a while there was silence as the cart bumped through the muddy
rutty streets; the only sound that interfered with thought was the
driver's voice, apostrophizing the bullocks; and the abuse he poured on
them was so time-honored as to be unnoticeable, like the cawing of the
city crows.
"It is strange," said the German, after a while. "For years I have
tried to get in touch with native officers. Here and there I have found
a Sepoy who would talk with me, but you are the first officer." He was
brown-studying, talking almost to himself. He did not see the curse in
the risaldar-major's eyes.
"I have found plenty of merchants who would promise to finance revolt,
and plenty of hillmen who would promise anything. But all said, 'We
will do what the army does!' And I could not find in all this time,
among all those people, anybody to whom I dared show what
we--Germany--can do to help. I have seen from the first it was only
with the aid of the army that we could accomplish anything, yet the
army has been unapproachable. How is it that you have seemed so loyal,
all of you, until the minute of war?"
Ranjoor Singh spat again through the opening with thoroughness and
great deliberation. Then he proceeded to give proof that, as Yasmini
had said, he was really not a buffalo at all. A fool would have taken
chances with any one of a dozen other explanations. Ranjoor Singh, with
an expression that faintly suggested Colonel Kirby, picked the right,
convincing one.
"The English are not bad people," he said simply. "They have left India
better than they found it. They have been unselfish. They have treated
us soldiers fairly and honorably. We would not have revolted had the
opportunity not come, but we have long been waiting for the opportunity.
"We are not madmen--we are soldiers. We know the value of mere words.
We have kept our plans secret from the merchants and the hillmen,
knowing well that they would all follow our lead. If you think that
you, or Germany, have persuaded us, you are mistaken. You could not
persuade me, or any other true soldier, if you tried for fifty years!
"It is because we had decided on revolt already that I was willing to
listen to your offer of material assistance. We understand that Germany
expects to gain advantage from our revolt, but we can not help that;
that is incidental. As soldiers, we accept what aid we can get from
anywhere!"
"So?" said the German.
_"Ja!"_ said Ranjoor Singh. "And that is why, if you fail me, I shall
give you to Yasmini's cobras!"
"You will admit," said the German, "when I have shown you, that
Germany's foresight has been long and shrewd. Your great chance of
success, my friend, like Germany's in this war, depends on a sudden,
swift, tremendous success at first; the rest will follow as a logical
corollary. It is the means of securing that first success that we have
been making ready for you for two years and more."
"You should have credit for great secrecy," admitted Ranjoor Singh.
"Until a little while ago I had heard nothing of any German plans."
"Russia got the blame for what little was guessed at!" laughed the
German.
"Oh!" said Ranjoor Singh.
A little before midday they reached the Ajmere Gate, and the lumbering
cart passed under it. At the farther side the driver stopped his oxen
without orders, and Ranjoor Singh stepped out, looking quickly up and
down the road. There were people about, but none whom he chose to favor
with a second glance.
Close by the gate, almost under the shadow of it, and so drab and dirty
as to be almost unnoticeable, there was a little cotton-tented booth,
with a stock of lemonade and sweetmeats, that did interest him. He
looked three times at it, and at the third look a Mohammedan wriggled
out of it and walked away without a word.
"Come!" commanded Ranjoor Singh, and the German got out of the cart,
looking not so very much unlike the poor Mohammedan who had gone away.
"Get in there!" The German slipped into the real owner's place. So far
as appearances went, he was a very passable sweetmeat and lemonade
seller, and Ranjoor Singh proved competent to guard against
contingencies.
He picked a long stick out of the gutter and took his stand near by,
frowning as he saw a carriage he suspected to be Yasmini's drive under
the gate and come to a stand at the roadside, fifty or sixty yards away.
"If the officers should recognize me," he growled to the German, though
seeming not to talk to him at all, "I should be arrested at once, and
shot later. But the men _will_ recognize me, and you shall see what you
shall see!"
Three small boys came with a coin to spend, but Ranjoor Singh drove
them away with his long stick; they argued shrilly from a distance, and
one threw a stone at him, but finally they decided he was some new sort
of plain-clothes "constabeel," and went away.
One after another, several natives came to make small purchases, but,
not being boys any longer, a gruff word was enough to send them
running. And then came the clatter of hoofs of the advance-guard, and
the German looked up to see a fire in Ranjoor Singh's eyes that a caged
tiger could not have outdone.
All this while the bullock-cart in which they had come remained in the
middle of the road, its driver dozing dreamily on his seat and the
bullocks perfectly content to chew the cud. At the sound of the hoofs
behind him, the driver suddenly awoke and began to belabor and kick his
animals; he seemed oblivious of another cart that came toward him, and
of a third that hurried after him from underneath the gate.
In less than sixty seconds all three carts were neatly interlocked, and
their respective drivers were engaged in a war of words that beggared
Babel.
The advance-guard halted and added words to the torrent. Colonel Kirby
caught up the advance-guard and halted, too.
"Does he look like a man who commands a loyal regiment?" asked Ranjoor
Singh; and the German studied the bowed head and thoughtful angle of a
man who at that minute was regretting his good friend the
risaldar-major.
"You will note that he looks chastened!"
The German nodded.
In his own good time Ranjoor Singh ran out and helped with that long
stick of his to straighten out the mess; then in thirty seconds the
wheels were unlocked again and the carts moving in a hurry to the
roadside. The advance-guard moved on, and Kirby followed. Then, troop
by troop, the whole of Outram's Own rode by, and the German began to
wonder. It seemed to him that the rest of the officers were not demure
enough, although he admitted to himself that the enigmatic Eastern
faces in the ranks might mean anything at all. He noted that there was
almost no talking, and he took that for a good sign for Germany.
D Squadron came last of all, and convinced him. They rode regretfully,
as men who missed their squadron leader, and who, in spite of a message
from him, would have better loved to see him riding on their flank.
But Ranjoor Singh stepped out into the road, and the right-end man of
the front four recognized him. Not a word was said that the German
could hear, but he could see the recognition run from rank to rank and
troop to troop, until the squadron knew to a man; he saw them glance at
Ranjoor Singh, and from him to one another, and ride on with a new
stiffening and a new air of "now we'll see what comes of it!"
It was as evident, to his practised eye, that they were glad to have
seen Ranjoor Singh, and looked forward to seeing him again very
shortly, as that they were in a mood for trouble, and he decided to
believe the whole of what the Sikh had said on the strength of the
obvious truth of part of it.
"Watch now the supply train!" growled Ranjoor Singh, as the wagons
began to rumble by.
The German had no means of knowing that the greater part of the
regiment's war provisions had gone away by train from a Delhi station.
The wagons that followed the regiment on the march were a generous
allowance for a regiment going into camp, but not more than that. The
spies whose duty it was to watch the railway sidings reported to
somebody else and not to him.
Ranjoor Singh beckoned him after a while, and they came out into the
road, to stand between two of the bullock-wagons and gaze after the
regiment. The shuttered carriage that Ranjoor Singh had suspected to be
Yasmini's passed them again, and the man beside the driver said
something to Ranjoor Singh in an undertone, but the German did not hear
it; he was watching the colonel and another officer talking together
beside the road in the distance. The shuttered carriage passed on, but
stopped in the shadow of the gate.
"Look!" said the German. "I thought that officer--the adjutant, isn't
he--recognized you. Now he is pointing you out to the colonel! Look!"
Ranjoor Singh did look, and he saw that Colonel Kirby was waiting to
let the regiment go by. He knew what was passing through Kirby's mind,
since it is given to some men, native and English, to have faith in
each other. And he knew that there was danger ahead of him through
which he might not come with his life, perhaps even with his honor. He
would have given, like Kirby, a full year's pay for a hand-shake then,
and have thought the pay well spent.
Kirby began to canter back.
"He has recognized you!" said the German.
"And he is coming to cut me down!" swore Ranjoor Singh.
He dragged the German back behind the nearest cart, and together they
ran for the gloom of the big gate, leaving the driver of the
bullock-cart standing at gaze where Ranjoor Singh had stood. The door
of the shuttered carriage flew open as they reached it, and Ranjoor
Singh pushed the German in. He stood a moment longer, with his foot on
the carriage step, watching Colonel Kirby; he watched him question the
bullock-cart driver.
Then a voice that he recognized said, "Buffalo!" and he followed into
the carriage, shutting the door behind him.
The carriage was off almost before the door slammed.
* * * * *
"Am I to be kept waiting for a week, while a Jat farmer gazes at cattle
on the road?" demanded Yasmini, sitting forward out of the darkest
corner of the carriage and throwing aside a veil. "He cares nothing for
thee!" she whispered. "Didst thou see the jasmine drop into his lap
from the gate? That was mine! Didst thou see him button it into his
tunic? So, Ranjoor Singh! That for thy colonel sahib! And his head will
smell of _my_ musk for a week to come! What--what fools men are!
_Jaldee, jaldee!"_ she called to the driver through the shutters, and
the man whipped up his pair.
It was more than scandalous to be driven through Delhi streets in a
shuttered carriage with a native lady, and even the German's presence
scarcely modified the sensation; the German did not appreciate the
rarity of his privilege, for he was too busy staring through the
shutters at a world which tried its best to hide excitement; but
Ranjoor Singh was aware all the time of Yasmini's mischievous eyes and
of mirth that held her all but speechless. He knew that she would make
up tales about that ride, and would have told them to half of India to
his enduring shame before a year was out.
"Are you satisfied?" she asked the German, after a long silence.
"Of what?" asked the German.
"That Ranjoor Singh sahib can do what he has promised."
The German laughed.
"I have an excuse for doing what I promised," he said, "if that is what
you mean."
"That regiment," said Ranjoor Singh, since he had made up his mind to
lie thoroughly, "will camp a day's march out of Delhi. The men will
wait to hear from me for a day or two, but after that they will mutiny
and be done with it; the men are almost out of hand with excitement."
"You mean--"
The German's eyebrows rose, and his light-blue eyes sought Ranjoor
Singh's.
"I mean that now is the time to do your part, that I may continue doing
mine!" he answered.
"What I have to offer would be of no use without the regiment to use
it," said the German. "Let the regiment mutiny, and I will lead you and
it at once to what I spoke of."
"No," said Ranjoor Singh.
"What then?"
"It does not suit my plan, or my convenience, that there should be any
outbreak until I myself have knowledge of all my resources. When
everything is in my hand, I will strike hard and fast in my own good
time."
"You seem to forget," said the German, "that the material aid I offer
is from Germany, and that therefore Germany has a right to state the
terms. Of course, I know there are the cobras, but I am not afraid of
them. Our stipulation is that there shall be at least a show of fight
before aid is given. If the cobras deal with me, and my secret dies
with me, there will be one German less and that is all. That regiment I
have seen looks ripe for mutiny."
Ranjoor Singh drew breath slowly through set teeth.
"Let it mutiny," said the German, "and I am ready with such material
assistance as will place Delhi at its mercy. Delhi is the key to India!"
"It shall mutiny to-night!" said Ranjoor Singh abruptly.
The German stared hard at him, though not so hard as Yasmini; the chief
difference was that nobody could have told she was staring, whereas the
German gaped.
"It shall mutiny to-night, and you shall be there! You shall lead us
then to this material aid you promise, and after that, if it all turns
out to be a lie, as I suspect, we will talk about cobras."
For a minute, two minutes, three minutes, while the rubber tires bumped
along the road toward Yasmini's, the German sat in silence, looking
straight in front of him.
"Order horses for him and me!" commanded Ranjoor Singh; and Yasmini
bowed obedience.
"When will you start?" the German asked.
"Now! In twenty minutes! We will follow the regiment and reach camp
soon after it."
"I must speak first with my colleagues," said the German.
"No!" growled the Sikh.
"My secret information is that several regiments are ordered oversea.
Some of them will consent to go, my friend. We will do well to wait
until as many regiments as possible are on the water, and then strike
hard with the aid of such as have refused to go."
The carriage drew up at Yasmini's front door, and a man jumped off the
box seat to open the carriage.
"Say the rest inside!" she ordered. "Go into the house! Quickly!"
So the German stepped out first, moving toward the door much too spryly
for the type of street merchant he was supposed to be.
"Do you mean that?" whispered Yasmini, as she pushed past Ranjoor
Singh. "Do you mean to ride away with him and stage a mutiny? How can
you?"
"She-buffalo!" he answered, with the first low laugh she had heard from
him since the game began.
She ran into the house and all the way up the two steep flights of
stairs, laughing like a dozen peals of fairy bells.
At the head of the stairs she began to sing, for she looked back and
saw babu Sita Ram waddling wheezily up-stairs after Ranjoor Singh and
the German.
"The gods surely love Yasmini!" she told her maids. "Catch me that babu
and bottle him! Drive him into a room where I can speak with him alone!"
"Oh, my God, my God!" wailed the babu at the stair-head from amid a
maze of women who hustled and shoved him all one way, and that the way
he did not want to go. "I must speak with that German gentleman who was
giving lecture here--must positivelee give him warning, or all his
hopes will be blasted everlastinglee! No--that is room where are
cobras--I will not go there!"
In three native languages, one after the other, he pleaded and wailed
to no good end; the women were too many for him. He was shoved into a
small room as a fat beast is driven into a slaughter-stall, and a door
was slammed shut on him. He screamed at an unexpected voice from behind
a curtain, and a moment later burst into a sweat from reaction at the
sight of Yasmini.
"Listen, _babuji,_" she purred to him.
"Who was that man asking for me?" demanded the German.
"How should I know?" snorted Ranjoor Singh. "Are we to turn aside for
every fat babu that asks to speak to us? I have sent for horses."
"I will speak with that man!" said the German.
He began to walk up and down the length of the long room, pushing aside
the cushions irritably, and at one end knocking over a great bowl of
flowers. He did not appear conscious of his clumsiness, and did not
seem to see the maids who ran to mop up the water. At the next turn
down the room he pushed between them as if they had not been there.
Ranjoor Singh stood watching him, stroking a black beard reflectively;
he was perfectly sure that Yasmini would make the next move, and was
willing to wait for it.
"The horses should be here in a few minutes," he said hopefully, after
a while, for he heard a door open.
Then babu Sita Ram burst in, half running, and holding his great
stomach as he always did when in a hurry.
"Oh, my God!" he wailed. "Quick! Where is German gentleman? And not
knowing German, how shall I make meaning clear? German should be
reckoned among dead languages and--Ah! My God, sir, you astonish me!
Resemblance to Mohammedan of no particular standing in community is
first class! How shall I--"
"Say it in English!" said the German, blocking his way.
"My God, sahib, it is bad news! How shall I avoid customaree stigma
attaching to bearer of ill tidings?"
"Speak!" said the German. "I won't hurt you!"
"Sahib, in pursuit unavailingly of chance emolument in neighborhood of
Chandni Chowk just recently--"
"How recently?" the German asked.
"Oh, my God! So recently that there are yet erections of cuticle all
down my back! Sahib, not more than twenty minutes have elapsed, and I
saw this with my own eyes!"
"Saw what--where?"
"Where? Have I not said where? My God, I am so upset as to be losing
sense of all proportion! Where? At German place of business--Sigelman
and Meyer--in small street leading out of Chandni Chowk. In search of
chance emolument, and finding none yet--finding none yet, sahib--sahib,
I am poor man, having wife and familee dependent and also many other
disabilitees, including wife's relatives."
The German gave him some paper money impatiently. The babu unfolded it,
eyed the denomination with a spasm of relief, folded it again, and
appeared to stow it into his capacious stomach.
"Sahib, while I was watching, police came up at double-quick march and
arrested everybodee, including all Germans in building. There was much
annoyance manifested when search did not reveal presence of one other
sahib. So I ran to give warning, being veree poor man and without
salaried employment."
"What happened to the Germans?"
"Jail, sahib! All have gone to jail! By this time they are all
excommunication, supplied with food and water by authorities. Having
once been jail official myself, I can testify--"
"What happened to the office?"
"Locked up, sahib! Big red seal--much sealing wax, and stamp of police
department, with notice regarding penalty for breaking same, and also
police sentry at door!"
Looking more unlike a Mohammedan street vender than ever, the German
began to pace the room again with truly martial strides, frowning as he
sought through the recesses of his mind for the correct solution of the
problem.
"Listen!" he said, coming to a stand in front of Ranjoor Singh. "I have
changed my mind!"
"The horses are ready," answered Ranjoor Singh.
"The German government has been to huge expense to provide aid of the
right kind, to be ready at the right minute. My sole business is to see
that the utmost use is made of it."
"That also is my sole business!" vowed Ranjoor Singh.
"You have heard that the police are after me?"
Ranjoor Singh nodded.
"Can you get away from here unseen--unknown to the police?"
Ranjoor Singh nodded again, for he was very sure of Yasmini's resource.
Again the German began to pace the room, now with his hands behind him,
now with folded arms, now with his chin down to his breast, and now
with a high chin as he seemed on the verge of reaching some
determination. And then Yasmini began to loose the flood of her
resources, that Ranjoor Singh might make use of what he chose; she was
satisfied to leave the German in the Sikh's hands and to squander aid
at random.
Men began to come in, one at a time. They would whisper to Ranjoor
Singh, and hurry out again. Some of them would whisper to Yasmini over
in the window, and she would give them mock messages to carry, very
seriously. Babu Sita Ram was stirred out of a meditative coma and sent
hurrying away, to come back after a little while and wring his hands.
He ran over to Yasmini.
"It is awful!" he wailed. "Soon there will be no troops left with which
to quell Mohammedan uprising. All loyal troops are leaving, and none
but disloyal men are left behind. The government is mad, and I am veree
much afraid!"
Yasmini quieted him, and Ranjoor Singh, pretending to be busy with
other messengers, noted the effect of the babu's wail on the German. He
judged the "change of mind" had gone far enough.
"We should lose time by following my regiment," he said at last. "There
are now five more regiments ready to mutiny, and they will come to me
to wherever I send for them."
The German's blue eyes gazed into the Sikh's brown ones very shrewdly
and very long. His hand sought the neighborhood of his hip, and dwelt
there a moment longer than the Sikh thought necessary.
"I have decided we must hurry," he said. "I will show you what I have
to show. I will not be taking chances. You must bring a messenger, and
he must go for your mutineers while you stay there with me. When we are
there, you will be in my power until the regiments come; and when they
come I will surrender to you. Do you agree?"
"Yes," said Ranjoor Singh.
"Then choose your messenger. Choose a man who will not try to play
tricks--a man who will not warn the authorities, because if there is
any slip, any trickery, I will undo in one second all that has been
done!"
So Ranjoor Singh conferred with Yasmini over the two great bowls of
flowers that always stand in her big window; and she suppressed a
squeal of excitement while she watched the German resume his pacing up
and down.
"Take Sita Ram!" she advised.
Ranjoor Singh scowled at the babu.
"That fat bellyful of fear!" he growled. "I would rather take a pig!"
"All the same, take Sita Ram!" she advised.
So the babu was roused again out of a comfortable snooze, and Yasmini
whispered to him something that frightened him so much that he trembled
like a man with palsy.
"I am married man with children!" he expostulated.
"I will be kind to your widow!" purred Yasmini.
"I will not go!" vowed the babu.
"Put him in the cobra room!" she commanded, and some maids came closer
to obey.
"I will go!" said Sita Ram. "But, oh, my God, a man should receive
pecuniary recompense far greater than legendary ransom! I shall not
come back alive! I know I shall not come back alive!"
"Who cares, _babuji?_" asked Yasmini.
"True!" said Sita Ram. "This is land of devil-take-hindmost, and with
my big stomach I am often last. I am veree full of fear!"
"We shall need food," interposed the German. "Water will be there, but
we had better have sufficient food with us for two nights."
Yasmini gave a sharp order, and several of her maids ran out of the
room. Ten minutes later they returned with three baskets, and gave one
each to the German, to Ranjoor Singh, and to Sita Ram. Sita Ham opened
his and peered in. The German opened his, looked pleased, and closed
the lid again. Ranjoor Singh accepted his at its face value, and did
not open it.
"May the memsahib never lack plenty from which to give!" he said, for
there is no word for "Thank you" in all India.
"I will bless the memsahib at each mouthful!" said Sita Ram.
"Truly a bellyful of blessings!" laughed Yasmini.
Then they all went to the stair-head and watched and listened through
the open door while a closed carriage was driven away in a great hurry.
Three maids and six men came up-stairs one after another, at intervals,
to report the road all clear; the first carriage had not been followed,
and there was nobody watching; another carriage waited. Babu Sita Ram
was sent downstairs to get into the waiting carriage and stay there on
the lookout.
"Now bring him better clothes!" said Ranjoor Singh.
But Yasmini had anticipated that order.
"They are in the carriage, on the seat," she said.
So the German went down-stairs and climbed in beside the babu, changing
his turban at once for the better one that he found waiting in there.
"This performance is worth a rajah's ransom!" grumbled babu Sita Ram.
"Will sahib not put elbow in my belly, seeing same is highly sensitive?"
But the German laughed at him.
"Love is rare, non-contagious sickness!" asserted Sita Ram with
conviction.
At the head of the stairs Ranjoor Singh and Yasmini stood looking into
each other's eyes. He looked into pools of laughter and mystery that
told him nothing at all; she saw a man's heart glowing in his brown
ones.
"It will be for you now," said Ranjoor Singh, "to act with speed and
all discretion. I don't know what we are going to see, although I know
it is artillery of some sort. I am sure he has a plan for destroying
every trace of whatever it is, and of himself and me, if he suspects
treachery. I know no more. I can only go ahead."
"And trust me!" said Yasmini.
The Sikh did not answer.
"And trust me!" repeated Yasmini. "I will save you out of this, Ranjoor
Singh sahib, that we may fight our quarrel to a finish later on. What
would the world be without enemies? You will not find artillery!"
"How do you know?"
"I have known for nearly two years what you will find there, my friend!
Only I have not known exactly where to find it. And yet sometimes I
have thought that I have known that, too! Go, Ranjoor Singh. You will
be in danger. Above all, do not try to force that German's hand too far
until I come with aid. It is better to talk than fight, so long as the
enemy is strongest!"
"Woman!" swore Ranjoor Singh so savagely that she laughed straight into
his face. "If you suspect--if you can guess where we are going--send
men to surround the place and watch!"
"Will a tiger walk into a watched lair?" she answered. "Go, talker! Go
and do things!"
So, swearing and dissatisfied, Ranjoor Singh went down and climbed on
to the box seat of a two-horse carriage.
"Which way?" he asked; and the German growled an answer through the
shutters.
"Now straight on!" said the German, after fifteen minutes. "Straight on
out of Delhi!"
They were headed south, and driving very slowly, for to have driven
fast would have been to draw attention to themselves. Ranjoor Singh
scarcely troubled to look about him, and Sita Ram fell into a doze, in
spite of his protestations of fear. The German was the only one of the
party who was at pains to keep a lookout, and he was most exercised to
know whether they were being followed; over and over again he called on
Ranjoor Singh to stop until a following carriage should overtake them
and pass on.
So they were a very long time driving to Old Delhi, where the ruins of
old cities stand piled against one another in a tangled mass of verdure
that is hardly penetrable except where the tracks wind in and out. The
shadow of the Kutb Minar was long when they drove past it, and it was
dusk when the German shouted and Ranjoor Singh turned the horses in
between two age-old trees and drew rein at a shattered temple door.
Some monkeys loped away, chattering, and about a thousand parakeets
flew off, shrilling for another roost. But there was no other sign of
life.
"Stable the horses in here!" said the German; and they did so, Ranjoor
Singh dipping water out of a rain-pool and filling a stone trough that
had once done duty as receptacle for gifts for a long-forgotten god.
Then they pushed the carriage under a tangle of hanging branches.
"Look about you!" advised the German, as he emptied food for the horses
on the temple floor; and babu Sita Ram made very careful note of the
temple bearings, while Ranjoor Singh and the German blocked the old
doorway with whatever they could find to keep night-prowlers outside
and the horses in.
Then the German led the way into the dark, swinging a lantern that he
had unearthed from some recess. Babu Sita Ram walked second,
complaining audibly and shuddering at every shadow. Last came Ranjoor
Singh, grim, silent. And the rain beat down on all three of them until
they were drenched and numb, and their feet squelched in mud at every
step.
For all the darkness, Ranjoor Singh made note of the fact that they
were following a wagon track, into which the wheels of a native cart
had sunk deep times without number. Only native ox-carts leave a track
like that.
It must have been nine o'clock, and the babu was giving signs of nearly
complete exhaustion, when they passed beyond a ring of trees into a
clearing. They stood at the edge of the clearing in a shadow for about
ten minutes, while the German watched catwise for signs of life.
"It is now," he said, tapping Ranjoor Singh's chest, "that you begin to
be at my mercy. I assure you that the least disobedience on your part
will mean your instant death!"
"Lead on!" growled Ranjoor Singh.
"Do you recognize the place?"
Ranjoor Singh peered through the rain in every direction. At each
corner of the clearing, north, south, east and west, he could dimly see
some sort of ruined arch, and there was another ruin in the center.
"No," he said.
"This is the oldest temple ruin anywhere near Delhi. On some
inscriptions it is called 'Temple of the Four Winds,' but the old Hindu
who lived in it before we bribed him to go away called it the 'Winds of
the World.' It is known as 'Winds of the World' on the books of the
German War Office. I think it is really of Greek origin myself, but I
am not an Orientalist, and the text-books all say that I am wrong."
"Lead on!" said Ranjoor Singh; and the German led them, swinging his
lantern and seeming not at all afraid of being seen now.
"We have taken steps quite often to make the people hereabouts believe
this temple haunted!" he said. "They avoid it at night as if the devil
lived here. If any of them see my lantern, they will not stop running
till they reach the sea!"
They came to a ruin that was such an utter ruin that it looked as if an
earthquake must have shaken a temple to pieces to be disintegrated by
the weather; but Ranjoor Singh noticed that the cart-tracks wound
around the side of it, and when they came to a fairly large teak
trap-door, half hidden by creepers, he was not much surprised.
"My God, gentlemen!" said Sita Ram. "That place is wet-weather refuge
for many million cobras! If I must die, I will prefer to perish in
rain, where wife and family may find me for proper funeral rites. I
will not go in there!"
But the German raised the trap-door, and Ranjoor Singh took the unhappy
babu by the scruff of his fat neck.
"In with you!" he ordered.
And, chattering as if his teeth were castanets, the babu trod gingerly
down damp stone steps whose center had been worn into ruts by countless
feet. The German came last, and let the trap slam shut.
"My God!" yelled the babu. "Let me go! I am family man!"
"_Vorwarts_!" laughed the German, leading the way toward a teak door
set in a stone wall.
They were in an ancient temple vault that seemed to have miraculously
escaped from the destruction that had overwhelmed the whole upper part.
Not a stone of it was out of place. It was wind and water-tight, and
the vaulted roof, that above was nothing better than a mound of debris,
from below looked nearly as perfect as when the stones had first been
fitted into place.
The German produced a long key, opened the teak door, and stood aside
to let them pass.
"No, no!" shuddered Sita Ram; but Ranjoor Singh pushed him through; the
German followed, and the door slammed shut as the trap had done.
"And now, my friends, I will convince you!" said the German, holding
the lantern high. "What are those?"
The light from the solitary lantern fell on rows and rows of bales,
arranged in neat straight lines, until away in the distance it
suggested endless other shadowy bales, whose outlines could be little
more than guessed at. They were in a vault so huge that Ranjoor Singh
made no attempt to estimate its size.
"See this!" said the German, walking close to something on a wooden
stand, and he held the light above it. "In the office in Delhi that the
police have just sealed up there is a wireless apparatus very much like
this. This, that you see here, is a detonator. This is fulminate of
mercury. This is dynamite. With a touch of a certain key in Delhi we
could have blown up this vault at any minute of the past two years, if
we had thought it necessary to hide our tracks. A shot from this pistol
would have much the same effect," he added darkly.
"But the bales?" asked Ranjoor Singh. "What is in the bales?"
"Dynamite bombs, my friend! You native soldiers have no artillery, and
we have seen from the first the necessity of supplying a substitute. By
making full use of the element of surprise, these bombs should serve
your purpose. There are one million of them, packed two hundred in a
bale--much more useful than artillery in the hands of untrained men!
"Those look like bales of blankets. They are. Cotton blankets from
Muenchen-Gladbach. Only, the middle blankets have been omitted, and the
outer ones have served as a cushion to prevent accidental discharge.
They have been imported in small lots at a time, and brought here four
or five at a time in ox-carts from one or other of the Delhi railway
stations by men who are no longer in this part of India--men who have
been pensioned off."
"How did you get them through the Customs?" wondered Ranjoor Singh.
"Did you ever see a rabbit go into his hole?" the German asked. "They
were very small consignments, obviously of blankets. The duty was paid
without demur, and the price paid the Customs men was worth their
while. That part was easy!"
"Of what size are the bombs?" asked Ranjoor Singh.
"About the size of an orange. Come, I'll show you."
He led him to an opened bale, and showed him two hundred of them
nestling like the eggs of some big bird.
"My God!" moaned Sita Ram. "Are those dynamite? Sahibs--snakes are
better! Snakes can feel afraid, but those--ow! Let me go away!"
"Let him go," said the German. "Let him take his message."
"Go, then!" ordered Ranjoor Singh; and the German walked to the door to
let him out.
"What is your message?" he asked.
"To Yasmini first, for she is in touch with all of them," said Sita
Ram. "First I will go to Yasmini. Then she will come here to say the
regiments have started. First she will come alone; after her the
regiments."
"She had better be alone!" said the German. "Go on, run! And don't
forget the way back? Wait! How will she know the way? How will you
describe it to her?"
"She? Describe it to her? I will tell her 'The Winds of the World,' and
she will come straight."
"How? How will she know?"
"The priest who used to be here--whom you bribed to go away--he is her
night doorkeeper now!" said Sita Ram. "Yes, she will come veree
quickly!"
The German let him out with an air mixed of surprise and disbelief, and
returned to Ranjoor Singh with far less iron in his stride, though with
no less determination.
"Now we shall see!" he said, drawing an automatic pistol and cocking it
carefully. "This is not meant as a personal threat to you, so long as
we two are in here alone. It's in case of trickery from outside. I
shall blow this place sky-high if anything goes wrong. If the regiments
come, good! You shall have the bombs. If they don't come, or if there's
a trick played--click! Good-by! We'll argue the rest in Heaven!"
"Very well," said Ranjoor Singh; and, to show how little he felt
concerned, he drew his basket to him and began to eat.
The German followed suit. Then Ranjoor Singh took most of his wet
clothes off and spread them upon the bales to dry. The German imitated
that too.
"Go to sleep if you care to," said the German. "I shall stand watch,"
he added, with a dry laugh.
But if a Sikh soldier can not manage without sleep, there is nobody on
earth who can. Ranjoor Singh sat back against a bale, and the watch
resolved itself into a contest of endurance, with the end by no means
in sight.
"How long should it take that man to reach her?" asked the German.
"Who knows?" the Sikh answered.
"Perhaps three hours, perhaps a week! She is never still, and there are
those five regiments to hold in readiness."
"She is a wonderful woman," said the German.
Ranjoor Singh grunted.
"How is it that she has known of this place all this time, and yet has
never tried to meddle with us?"
"I, too, am anxious to know that!" said Ranjoor Singh.
"You are surly, my friend! You do not like this pistol? You take it as
an insult? Is that it?"
"I am thinking of those regiments, and of these grenades, and of what I
mean to do," said Ranjoor Singh.
"Let us talk it over."
"No."
"Please your self!"
They sat facing each other for hour after dreary hour, leaning back
against bales and thinking each his own thoughts. After about four
hours of it, it occurred to the German to dismantle the wireless
detonator.
"We should have been blown up if the police had grown inquisitive," he
said, with a shrug of his shoulders, returning to his seat.
After that they sat still for four hours more, and then put their
clothes on, not that they were dry yet, but the German had grown tired
of comparing Ranjoor Singh's better physique with his own. He put his
clothes on to hide inferiority, and Ranjoor Singh followed suit for the
sake of manners.
"What rank do you hold in your army at home?" asked Ranjoor Singh,
after an almost endless interval.
"If I told you that, my friend, you would be surprised."
"I think not," said Ranjoor Singh. "I think you are an officer who was
dismissed from the service."
"What makes you think so?"
"I am sure of it!"
"What makes you sure?"
"You are too well educated for a noncommissioned officer. If you had
not been dismissed from the service you would be on the fighting
strength, or else in the reserve and ready for the front in Europe. And
what army keeps spies of your type on its strength? Am I right?"
But then came Yasmini, carrying her food-basket as the rest had done.
She knocked at the outer trap-door, and the German ran to peep through
a hidden window at her. Then he went up a partly ruined stair and
looked all around the clearing through gaps in the debris overhead that
had been glazed for protection's sake. Then he admitted her.
She ran in past him, ran past him again when he opened the second door,
and laughed at Ranjoor Singh. She seemed jubilant and very little
interested in the bombs that the German was at pains to explain to her.
She had to tell of five regiments on the way.
"The first will be here in two or three hours" she asserted; "your men,
Ranjoor Singh--your Jat Sikhs that are ever first to mutiny!"
She squealed delight as the Sikh's face flushed at the insult.
"What is the cocked pistol for?" she asked the German.
He told her, but she did not seem frightened in the least. She began to
sing, and her voice echoed strangely through the vault until she
herself seemed to grow hypnotized by it, and she began to sway, pushing
her basket away from her behind a bale near where the German sat.
"I will dance for you!" she said suddenly.
She arose and produced a little wind instrument from among her
clothing--a little bell-mouthed wooden thing, with a voice like Scots
bagpipes.
"Out of the way, Ranjoor Singh!" she ordered. "Sit yonder. I will dance
between you, so that the German sahib may watch both of us at once!"
So Ranjoor Singh went back twenty feet away, wondering at her mood and
wondering even more what trick she meant to play. He had reached the
conclusion, very reluctantly, that presently the German would fire that
pistol of his and end the careers of all three of them; so he was
thinking of the squadron on its way to France. In a way he was sorry
for Yasmini; but it was the squadron and Colonel Kirby that drew his
heart-strings.
Swaying to and fro, from the waist upward, Yasmini began to play her
little instrument. The echoing vault became a solid sea of throbbing
noise, and as she played she increased her speed of movement, until the
German sat and gaped. He had seen her dance on many more than one
occasion. So had Ranjoor Singh. Never had either of them, or any living
man, seen Yasmini dance as she did that night.
She was a storm. Her instrument was but an added touch of artistry to
heighten the suggestion. Prom a slow, rhythmic swing she went by gusts
and fits and starts to the wildest, utterly abandoned fury of a
hurricane, sweeping a wide circle with her gauzy dress; and at the
height of each elemental climax, in mid-whirl of some new amazing
figure, she would set her instrument to screaming, until the German
shouted "Bravo!" and Ranjoor Singh nodded grave approval.
"_Kreuz blitzen!_" swore the German suddenly, leaping to his feet and
staggering.
And Yasmini pounced on him. Ranjoor Singh could not see what had
happened, but he sprang to his feet and ran toward them. But before he
could reach them Yasmini had snatched the German's pistol and tossed it
to him, standing back from the writhing German, panting, with blazing
eyes, and looking too lovely to be human. She did not speak. She looked.
And Ranjoor Singh looked too. Under the writhing German, and back again
over him, there crawled a six-foot hooded cobra, seeming to caress the
carcass of his prey.
"He will be dead in five--ten minutes," said Yasmini, "and then I will
catch my snake again! If you want to ask him questions you had better
hurry!"
Then Ranjoor Singh recalled the offices that men had done for him when
he was wounded. He asked the German if he might send messages, and to
whom. But the dying man seemed to be speechless, and only writhed. It
was nearly a minute before Ranjoor Singh divined his purpose, and
pounced on the hand that lay underneath him. He wrenched away another
pistol only just in time. The snake crawled away, and Yasmini coaxed it
slowly back into its basket.
"Now," she said, "when he is dead we will drive back to Delhi and amuse
ourselves! You shall run away to fight men you never quarreled with,
and I will govern India! Is that not so?"
Ranjoor Singh did not answer her. He kept trying again and again to get
some message from the German to send perhaps to a friend in Germany.
But the man died speechless, and Ranjoor Singh could find no scrap of
paper on him or no mark that would give any clue to his identity.
"Come!" said Yasmini. "Lock the door on him. We will tell the general
sahib, and the general sahib will send some one to bury him. Come!"
"Not yet," said Ranjoor Singh. "Speak. When did you first know that
these Germans had taken this vault to use?"
"More than two years ago," she boasted, "when the old priest, that was
no priest at all, came to me to be doorkeeper."
"And when did you know that they were storing dynamite in here?"
"I did not know."
"Then, blankets?"
"Bah! Two years ago, when a Customs clerk with too much money began to
make love to a maid of mine."
"Then why did you not warn the government at once, and so save all this
trouble?"
"Buffalo! Much fun that would have been! Ranjoor Singh, thy Jat
imagination does thee justice. Come, come and chase that regiment of
thine, and spill those stupid brains in France! Lock the door and come
away!"
Brother, a favor I came to crave,
Oh, more than brother, oh, more than friend!
Spare me a half o' thy soldier grave,
That I sleep with thee at the end!
Spur to spur, and knee to knee,
Brother, I'll ride to death with thee!