LIKE A THIEF IN THE NIGHT.
One reason why Brazenose Blake had been picked for the post of British
Resident in Nerada was his genius for official inertia and strictly
unofficial action. He could be incredibly indiscreet and get away with
it.
A more meticulous observer of precedent and the proprieties would have
sent for the police. Blake searched the dead Brahmin's clothing, asked
Quorn all the questions he could think of, left the Brahmin's body
lying in the hut and took Quorn to the Residency, where, the moment he
arrived, he sent a galloper in search of Rana Raj Singh. Then he gave
Quorn a carefully measured dose of whisky, personally rendered first
aid to the tortured wrists and ankles, bit the end from an expensive
cigar, sat down and waited, with his feet on the veranda rail.
"No use getting excited," he said. "You've twenty minutes, Quorn, to
lie still and remember all that happened. When Rana Raj Singh comes,
you can tell the whole story to both of us at the same time. Save
breath and exertion."
So Quorn fell asleep, which was exactly what Blake intended, and when
Rana Raj Singh came thundering down the lane at last--only a sound in
the night--black suit, black boots, black beard, on a black horse--and
drew rein like a landslide at the front door, Quorn had recovered to
a point where he could tell his story almost as it happened. But his
account of Maraj was understated; he was afraid that if he told the
whole truth, and described the maniac whose picture had been burned
into his brain, neither Blake nor Rana Raj Singh would believe a word
of it.
"That's all," he said at last. "The next best thing is for me to get
back to Asoka before he busts loose and comes looking for me. He's
liable to look good. He knows he's only got to shove down a wall to see
what's t'other side."
But Blake had not finished yet. "I found this," he said, "on the dead
man's body." He unfolded a slip of yellowish paper and passed it to
Rana Raj Singh. "Will you read it to us? Do you mind translating it?"
Rana Raj Singh carried the writing to the lantern that hung from a hook
on the porch and studied it, stroking his beard, looking almost like
a disembodied phantom because the unusual black suit that he had put
on shaded imperceptibly into the darkness, offering almost no outline.
Then he strode back.
"Temple jargon," he remarked. "A sort of slang in shorthand that the
Brahmins use for confidential communications. It appears to me to mean:
'M'--that may stand for Maraj--'bungled elephant affair. Faquir killed
uselessly, since no rioting occurred and Quorn escaped on elephant.
Find M and tell him he must finish Q'--that is Quorn, I suppose--'or
coöperation must cease.' I suppose it means they intend to denounce him
unless he kills Quorn. It might mean that. I can't think of anything
else it could mean."
"Cinch," said Quorn abruptly. "You keep that, sir, and let's pretend I
have it. Them Brahmins'll try all the harder to get me, and we'll trap
'em that much easier."
He watched Blake fold the piece of paper in his wallet. Then he turned
to Rana Raj Singh: "Maraj ain't far off. He's as mad as Nebuchadnezzar
the king was in them Bible times. But maybe they didn't teach you about
Nebuchadnezzar, sir. Anyhow, he's mad, and he's got it all set in his
mind to make a devil out o' me. So if you watch me you'll get him
easy. But that won't get them Brahmins all compromised up with him the
way we want. My thought is, sir, that madmen maybe are like any other
kind o' mad critter--one idee at a time but covered awful cunning, so
it maybe looks like just plain random cussedness, whereas it isn't. Get
me?
"This guy's got it in his head to prove himself superior to Brahmins
on all points. He's all set to take a fall out o' that gang that run
Siva's temple. They've used him for a heap o' dirty work and me,
I heard that dead guy threaten him. They mean to double cross him
whenever it suits 'em, and Maraj, he knows it. What's more, he figures
two can play that game. So the Brahmins have it in for him and me; he
has it in for me and the Brahmins. The Brahmins want to get me first
and then him. He wants to get the Brahmins first and then have a good
time turning me so crazy that even Satan 'u'd feel jealous. 'Tain't
worse than a crossword puzzle. We ought to be able to work it out."
"The thing to do," said Rana Raj Singh, "is to follow you and kill him
the first moment he shows himself."
"You'll pardon me, sir, if I talk back?"
Rana Raj Singh nodded. Blake bit another cigar, scowling. All three
listened for a moment to a noise outside; it was difficult to guess
where it came from, but it might have been close to the compound wall,
a hundred yards away.
* * * * *
"If that is Maraj," said Rana Raj Singh, "I expect we have him. Ten
of my men followed me. They are rather good at approaching a place
silently."
"'Twould be a sin to kill that sucker and let them temple Brahmins
get off free," said Quorn. "I'm mean about 'em. Maybe it ain't good
manners, sir, to mention your young lady, but she's my employer. I
think such a hell of a lot of her I'd take a long chance for her sake
and I've no sort o' use for swine that 'u'd try to make her kill a
decent elephant. I'd go the limit--and there ain't no limit--just to
down her enemies and leave her sitting pretty. I know her as good as
anybody does. She'd say, 'Take all chances, Mr. Quorn, and let's win
this! Don't let's have another drawn game?' That's what she'd say.
Can't I get you, sir, to see it that way?"
Rana Raj Singh's white teeth showed in a slowly widening smile.
"I am afraid you have my promise, Mr. Quorn. You may command me. I
obey!"
Before Quorn could think of an answer to that a peculiar whistle--high
C, B, C sharp--thrilled out of the darkness not far off. Then a horse
tripped on a stone and stumbled. Rana Raj Singh answered the whistle,
vaulted the veranda rail, leaped on to his black horse and was gone
like a galloping ghost.
Suddenly: "What's that, sir?" Quorn asked in a low voice.
"What?" demanded Blake. "What d'ye mean? Where?"
Any man's hair would have stood on end, and his blood run cold. The end
of the veranda was some fifteen feet away, screened by woven wire and
hung with creepers. Lamp-light, streaming past the edge of a carelessly
drawn blind, made a fan-shaped, milky opalescence in which a tangle of
wire and creepers were clearly visible.
Something as irresistible as destiny was tearing that tangle
apart--opening it, as curtains are opened down the center. There was
hardly any noise. Then, in the midst of the opening, full in the
lamp-light, grinned a face--a human face, inhuman as a nightmare.
"God!" cried Blake. "Who is it?"
He mastered himself. He had no weapon. He forced himself up from his
chair, and the face vanished. Blake strode toward where it had been,
and stood there staring at the broken strands of wire and of creeper
that would have been difficult to cut through even with an ax.
Quorn watched him--until a hand came through the veranda railing and
seized Quorn's leg in a grip that checked the flow of blood. It checked
speech, paralyzing like the cold-iron grip of nameless fear.
Then the face of Maraj came up out of the dark--and the lips of Maraj
smiled upward--and the eyes of him gleamed at Quorn. They were like
an animal's and Quorn knew they were watching Blake alertly even
though they stared so straight into his own eyes. Then the lips moved
and a voice that was hardly a voice at all, and yet that carried as
distinctly as sounds carry in dreams, said:
"Get your elephant and meet me--"
There was no time for him to finish. Blake was turning, starting back
toward his chair. Horses were coming--clattering, cantering, scattering
stones, making as much noise as Rajputs always do when they are done
with ghostly silence. Quorn felt the blood flow again as the grip
ceased from his leg.
"Thought we had him," said Rana Raj Singh, vaulting from the saddle and
throwing his reins to a man who galloped up from behind him. "One of my
men saw him, another heard him, but he gave us all the slip."
"He was here not a minute ago--there--at the end of the veranda," Blake
said. "I distinctly saw him."
"Hell, I felt him!" said Quorn. "Look at this." He held his leg toward
the light and drew his trousers up to show the marks where the maniac's
hand had gripped. "He ain't far off."
Rana Raj Singh whistled all his men and there began a hunt amid the
shrubbery that bade fair to lay Blake's garden waste. Blake ran to the
other end of the veranda and slammed a window shut, then ran into the
house and locked it on the inside. As he came out he slammed the door
and turned the key.
"Fine howdy-do if she should bolt into the house!" he remarked. "Why
haven't I a dog? Goldarn it! Never again will I live without a decent
dog. Why, even a terrier would--"
* * * * *
He vaulted the veranda rail and vanished into the darkness to help Rana
Raj Singh and his companions search the shrubbery. Quorn heard the
click of the Colt revolver that Blake had brought with him out of the
house.
"Too bad if they get him yet," he muttered. "We've a first rate
chance, if we use it right, to teach them Brahmins a lesson they won't
forget--not in _her_ time."
He sat considering the Ranee and his duty to her, wondering whether
it was possible, in these democratic days, to be the benevolently
autocratic ruler that she aspired to be. He knew there are more
than a hundred different kinds of government in India, ranging from
a theocratic despotism to the fringes of fascism and socialistic
experiment.
"Tyrannies, all of 'em," he muttered. "Maybe she can do it." He spoke
louder than he realized--and suddenly he almost leaped out of his chair.
"Of course I can!" a voice said quietly behind him.
It was the Ranee herself, in riding-breeches. He jumped to his feet,
but it hurt his ankles, so he leaned against the railing.
"No, you are not dreaming, Mr. Quorn. You talk aloud so often to your
elephant that you think aloud when you are alone. It is dangerous. And
those others all talk at the top of their voices, which is foolish; but
people are ruled by being foolish, not by any wisdom in their rulers.
Have you heard of Haroun-al-Raschid--and Peter the Great--and Amir
Abdurrahman? Each of them was his own secret service. I follow in
their footsteps, in some respects.
"Do please be seated, Mr. Quorn. I came when I learned that Rana Raj
Singh had been sent for, and I have been listening. Maraj was within
three feet of me--he even touched me without knowing it. Mr. Blake
looked straight at me through the hole that Maraj made in the trellis.
How blind men are unless they know what they are looking for! I heard
what you said. Have you anything to tell me that you haven't told those
others?"
"Yes, miss! You go home! This ain't no place or time o' night for
pretty ladies with a throne to lose! Who came with you?"
"Nobody."
"No guards nor nothing? I'll be sugared! The President o' the United
States can't move around without he's watched, and he's supposed to
live in a safe country. Prince Rana Raj Singh--what will he say?"
"We will soon know," she answered. "I hear him coming."
Blake came up the steps to the veranda. Rana Raj Singh caught sight
of the Ranee in the lamp-light and vaulted out of the saddle over the
veranda rail. His gesture as he stood before her was inimitable,
blended of an Old World courtesy, a lover's privilege, anger,
self-control, a sense of outraged dignity, and hopelessness of ever
teaching her the elements of common sense. But he was too steeped in
dignity to reproach her in Quorn's presence.
Blake had less compunction. "You?" he said. "At this hour? Have you
come to claim protection? No? What do you suppose my government will
think of a queen of your age who runs such personal risks in darkness?
Don't you realize your enemies will represent--"
Her musical answering laugh disarmed him. "I came for sport!" she said.
"Politicians are fogeys, but is there any need to lecture Mr. Blake on
sportsmanship? Rana Raj Singh is another story. Listen!" She laid her
right hand on the Rajput's. He seized it and the slumbering fire in his
dark eyes leaped into passion, but he subdued that.
"When your ancestors in Rajasthan went forth to war," she said, "who
held the castle? Women! When your ancestors were slain in battle and
the enemy laid siege, who defended the castle? Wives and sweethearts!
If a woman had not held your castle against the Mahratta hordes, she
ever in the front rank of the fighting, until her son was born and the
Mahratta army gave up the siege in weariness--would you be alive to
frown at me to-day? You talk to me, and rightly and proudly you talk
to me, of the ancient deeds of Rajput men and women. Would you have
me something less than they were? This little war we wage against the
Brahmins of Narada--is it something that should make a coward of me?
You--on whom I count to help me make my throne a power and my people
free!"
He bowed dramatically, with a hint of half-grudging good humor. Not
yet officially recognized as even her future consort, he was hardly in
any position to restrain her. Besides, her logic was not answerable.
Logic is exasperating stuff, which women never use unless they wish to
defend their illogical intuition. Rana Raj Singh stiffened himself, a
grim determination to stand by and face whatever consequences she might
bring down on himself and herself simply bristling from him.
"Danger and death are nothing. It is how we die and how we meet danger
that counts," he remarked.
"This is neutral territory. Let us talk things over amicably and make a
good plan," said the Ranee.
"Neutral be damned!" Blake muttered. He had his eye on a shadowy
perpendicular pen-stroke in the darkness--nothing more important than
the pole on which, by day, the British flag was raised. He wondered
how many treaties and laws were being broken, using his neutral veranda
for a jumping-off place in a raid on Brahmins.
* * * * *
"After all," said the Ranee, "it is me they are after. Quorn and Asoka
are pawns they think they have to take before they catch the queen. I
wish I knew where Bamjee is. I might send Bamjee to the temple with
misinformation that should cause those Brahmins to trap themselves.
Bamjee is crooked and unreliable, but I can depend on him to do the
wrong thing at the right minute. If you know what somebody will do,
then you know yourself what to do. But where is Bamjee? No, he didn't
go home. I often have Bamjee watched; it pays. But he didn't go out
through the palace gate, so the watcher hunted for him and found his
trousers lying near a place where an active man could climb the wall.
Bamjee is up to mischief."
"So is Asoka, miss, I'll bet you!" Quorn retorted. "I hid him good,
but he won't stay hid long. He has hay enough, but he'll miss me and
he'll miss his warm cakes. Folks with long noses like his have a way o'
getting so darned inquisitive that rope won't hold 'em. And the rope
weren't none too up-to-date. Rats had et some of it. How will I get to
him? I can't walk."
"Do you think Maraj would follow if you should go on horseback?" the
Ranee asked. "He heard him order you to get your elephant and meet him.
Did he tell you where to meet him?"
"No, miss, he was interrupted."
"He is very likely listening to us now," said Blake, leaning out over
the veranda rail to peer into the night.
"No," said Rana Raj Singh. "We have searched every bush and shadow. He
escaped, but my men are watching. Not a rat could get past them. He may
be lurking outside their circle, but he is not inside it."
"Very well then. Somebody give Mr. Quorn a horse," the Ranee ordered.
"Let it be a tame horse, one that he can sit on even if he can't ride.
And let somebody give him a big white turban and voluminous white
clothing, so as to make him unrecognizable. Be sure you shorten his
stirrup leathers--otherwise a child would see through the disguise.
Let Mr. Quorn go to his elephant and two or three men follow him on
horseback at a distance, taking care not to appear to follow him. If
they are half wide-awake, they may capture Maraj. If the Brahmins are
watching Quorn, some Brahmins might be caught, too. If we had the luck
to catch Maraj alive, and two or three Brahmins as well, and lock them
into one room--and listen--"
"Don't trust luck. Luck is always with your enemy," said Blake. "Two or
three men--could they take that many prisoners? It might take more than
three of them to hold Maraj, even supposing they could catch him and
tie him."
"I will follow Quorn," said Rana Raj Singh, "and I will take eight men.
Let the others be your escort to the palace. It is no man's business to
ask me whither I ride at any hour, day or night, so if any one asks--"
"Take all your men," the Ranee interrupted. She looked appraisingly at
Blake. "Would Mr. Blake mind riding with me to the palace?"
"Honored. Shall we go now?" Blake answered promptly. He wanted her
out of the residency before some spy should recognize her and send
secret reports to the Central Government that might keep him writing
explanations for a twelve-month.
* * * * *
"And if this plan fails us?" asked the Ranee.
"Which it will," Blake interrupted. "But it's a good plan, because it
sends you back to the palace out of danger."
"If it fails us, there is this: the Brahmins are sure to send a
deputation to me in the morning to demand the execution of Asoka and
probably, too, the dismissal of Mr. Quorn. I shall refuse, of course,
and that will make them far more irritated than they are already. I
will publicly arrange to send Asoka to the old hermitage beyond the
river. That will be a challenge to them; they claim the hermitage as
theirs, whereas it isn't. I will ride Asoka to the hermitage, and I
will ride rashly without my soldiers. That should tempt the Brahmins to
occupy the hermitage and to attack me on the way, or to cause others
to attack me, as is more likely. Rana Raj Singh will provide them the
answer to that!"
Suddenly she turned to Rana Raj Singh--touched his hand again. "You and
I have quarreled, because I rode from my palace at night, unattended,
to the residence of Mr. Blake, who is a bachelor! You are leaving
me--riding away in disgust with all your men! I will spread that story.
All Narada shall have heard it by to-morrow noon. So you shall be a
surprise to the Brahmins. Watch Quorn--keep yourself and your men under
cover--let Mr. Blake know where you are, so that he can find you or get
a message to you without any one suspecting you are in secret touch
with me." She smiled at Blake. "Everybody knows that Mr. Blake would
never stoop to interference in local intrigue, so no one will suspect
him--not even his government."
Blake winced. Smoking in a powder magazine is a sane, safe and
comfortable form of self-preservation in comparison to overstepping the
bounds of diplomatic privilege in India. However, he who coined the
motto "safety first" forgot that safety is the enemy of all adventure
and of all things new, as well as of the ancient virtues such as
chivalry.
"Oh, damn!" said Blake. "Well, go on. What next? I'm in for it."
"Each to his task," said the Ranee. "I go home. If any of you happens
to see Bamjee, don't be too rough with him, but send him to me at the
palace. Good night, Mr. Quorn. I hope your ankles and wrists will soon
get well again." Suddenly she remembered she had made Quorn her special
agent with full authority. "Is the plan all right? Is it a good one?"
"Yes, miss. Good as any other, I guess."
"Very well then, it stands. Mr. Blake, shall we let them ride away
before you take me to the palace?"
Ten minutes later she bowed to convention enough to let Blake hold her
stirrup while she swung into the saddle.
Less than thirty seconds after their backs were turned--almost before
the lamp-light ceased to gleam on their horses' quarters--Blake's
office window was gently raised and a man stepped out on the veranda.
One of Blake's servants saw him, started after him.
The man waited and the servant rushed him. The man stepped aside. A
silken handkerchief flickered almost too fast for human eyes to follow
and the servant fell face forward, separated from his life as if
electric energy had drawn his very nerves into itself. He did not move.
He made no sound except the thump of falling. For a second the owner
of the handkerchief stood on the rail of the veranda, holding to an
upright, listening. Then he leaped into a shadow and was gone.