The red glow of barracks burning--an ayah from whom a dagger has
been taken locked in another room--the knowledge that there are fifty
thousand Aryan brothers, itching to rebel, within a stone's throw--and
two lone protectors of an alien race intent on torturing a High Priest,
each and every one of these is a disturbing feature. No woman, and least
of all a young woman such as Ruth Bellairs, can be blamed for being
nervous under the stress of such conditions or for displaying a certain
amount of feminine unreasonableness.
She stood shivering for a minute and watched spellbound while Mahommed
Khan held the hot coal closer and even closer to the High Priest's naked
foot. The priest writhed in anticipation of the agony and turned his
eyes away, and as he turned them they met Ruth's. High priests of a
religion that includes sooth-saying and prophecy and bribery of gods
among its rites are students of human nature, and especially of female
human nature. Knowledge of it and of how it may be gulled, and when,
is the first essential of their calling. Her pale face, her blue eyes
strained in terror, the parted lips and the attitude of tension, these
gave him an idea. Before the charcoal touched him, he screamed--screamed
like a wounded horse.
“Mahommed Khan, stop! Stop this instant! I won't have it! I won't have
my life, even, on those terms! D'you hear me, sir!”
“Have courage, heavenborn! There is but one way to force a Hindu priest,
unless it be by cutting off his revenues--he must be hurt! This dog is
unhurt as yet--see! The fire has not yet touched his foot!”
“Don't let it, Mahommed Khan! Set that iron down! This is my room. I
will not have crime committed here!”
“And how long does the heavenborn think it would be her room were this
evil-living pig of a priest at large, or how long before a worse crime
were committed? Heavenborn, the hour is late and the charcoal dies out
rapidly when it has left the fire! See. I must choose another piece!”
He rummaged in the brazier, and she screamed again.
“I will not have it, Risaldar! You must find another way.”
“Memsahib! Thy husband left thee in my care. Surely it is my right to
choose the way?”
“Leave me, then! I relieve you of your trust. I will not have him
tortured in my room, or anywhere!”
Mahommed Khan bowed low.
“Under favor, heavenborn,” he answered, “my trust is to your husband. I
can be released by him, or by death, not otherwise.”
“Once, and for all, Mahommed Khan, I will not have you torture him in
here!”
“Memsahib, I have yet to ride for succor! At daybreak, when these Hindus
learn that the guns will not come back, they will rise to a man. Even
now we must find a hiding-place or--it is not good even to think what I
might find on my return!”
He leaned over the priest again, but without the charcoal this time.
“Speak, thou!” he ordered, growling in Hindustanee through his savage
black mustache. “I have yet to hear what price a Hindu sets on immunity
from torture!”
But the priest, it seemed, had formed a new idea. He had been looking
through puckered eyes at Ruth, keen, cool calculation in his glance, and
in spite of the discomfort of his strained position he contrived to nod.
“Kharvani!” he muttered, half aloud.
“Aye! Call on Kharvani!” sneered the Risaldar. “Perhaps the Bride of
Sivi will appear! Call louder!”
He stirred again among the charcoal with his tongs, and Ruth and the
High Priest both shuddered.
“Look!” said the High Priest in Hindustanee, nodding in Ruth's
direction. It was the first word that he had addressed to them. It
took them by surprise, and the Risaldar and his half-brother turned and
looked. Their breath left them.
Framed in the yellow lamplight, her thin, hot-weather garments draped
about her like a morning mist, Ruth stood and stared straight back at
them through frightened eyes. Her blue-black hair, which had become
loosened in her excitement, hung in a long plait over one shoulder and
gleamed in the lamp's reflection. Her skin took on a faintly golden
color from the feeble light, and her face seemed stamped with fear,
anxiety, pity and suffering, all at once, that strangely enhanced her
beauty, silhouetted as she was against the blackness of the wall behind,
she seemed to be standing in an aura, shimmering with radiated light.
“Kharvani!” said the High Priest to himself again, and the two Rajputs
stood still like men dumfounded, and stared and stared and stared.
They knew Kharvani's temple. Who was there in Hanadra, Christian or
Mohammedan or Hindu, who did not? The show-building of the city, the
ancient, gloomy, wonderful erection where bats lived in the dome and
flitted round Kharvani's image, the place where every one must go who
needed favors of the priests, the central hub of treason and intrigue,
where every plot was hatched and every rumor had its origin--the
ultimate, mazy, greedy, undisgorging goal of every bribe and every
blackmail-wrung rupee!
They knew, too, as every one must know who has ever been inside the
place, the amazing, awe-inspiring picture of Kharvani painted on the
inner wall; of Kharvani as she was idealized in the days when priests
believed in her and artists thought the labor of a lifetime well
employed in painting but one picture of her--Kharvani the sorrowful,
grieving for the wickedness of earth; Kharvani, Bride of Siva, ready to
intercede with Siva, the Destroyer, for the helpless, foolish, purblind
sons of man.
And here, before them, stood Kharvani--to the life!
“What of Kharvani?” growled Mahommed Khan.
“'A purblind fool, a sot and a Mohammedan,”' quoted the priest
maliciously, “'how many be they, three or one?'”
The Risaldar's hand went to his scabbard. His sword licked out free and
trembled like a tuning-fork. He flicked with his thumbnail at the blade
and muttered: “Sharp! Sharp as death itself!”
The Hindu grinned, but the blade came down slowly until the point of it
rested on the bridge of his nose. His eyes squinted inward, watching it.
“Now, make thy gentle joke again!” growled the Risaldar. Ruth Bellairs
checked a scream.
“No blood!” she exclaimed. “Don't hurt him, Risaldar! I'll not have you
kill a man in here--or anywhere, in cold blood, for that matter! Return
your sword, sir!”
The Risaldar swore into his beard. The High Priest grinned again. “I am
not afraid to die!” he sneered. “Thrust with that toy of thine! Thrust
home and make an end!”
“Memsahib!” said the Risaldar, “all this is foolishness and waste
of time! The hour is past midnight and I must be going. Leave the
room--leave me and my half-brother with this priest for five short
minutes and we will coax from him the secret of some hiding-place where
you may lie hid until I come!”
“But you'll hurt him!”
“Not if he speaks, and speaks the truth!”
“Promise me!”
“On those conditions--yes!”
“Where shall I go?”
The Risaldar's eyes glanced toward the door of the inner room, but he
hesitated. “Nay! There is the ayah!” he muttered. “Is there no other
room?”
“No, Risaldar, no other room except through that door. Besides, I would
rather stay here! I am afraid of what you may do to that priest if I
leave you alone with him!”
“Now a murrain on all women, black and white!” swore Mahommed Khan
beneath his breath. Then he turned on the priest again, and placed one
foot on his stomach.
“Speak!” he ordered. “What of Kharvani?”
“Listen, Mahommed Khan!” Ruth Bellairs laid one hand on his sleeve, and
tried to draw him back. “Your ways are not my ways! You are a soldier
and a gentleman, but please remember that you are of a different race!
I can not let my life be saved by the torture of a human being--no, not
even of a Hindu priest! Maybe it's all right and honorable according to
your ideas; but, if you did it, I would never be able to look my husband
in the face again! No, Risaldar! Let this priest go, or leave him
here--I don't care which, but don't harm him! I am quite ready to ride
with you, now, if you like. I suppose you have horses? But I would
rather die than think that a man was put to the torture to save me! Life
isn't worth that price!”
She spoke rapidly, urging him with every argument she knew; but the grim
old Mohammedan shook his head.
“Better die here,” he answered her, “than on the road! No, memsahib.
With thirteen blades behind me, I could reach Jundhra, or at least make
a bold attempt; but single-handed, and with you to guard, the feat is
impossible. This dog of a Hindu here knows of some hiding-place. Let him
speak!”
His hand went to his sword again, and his eyes flashed.
“Listen, heavenborn! I am no torturer of priests by trade! It is not my
life that I would save!”
“I know that, Mahommed Khan! I respect your motive. It's the method that
I can't tolerate.”
The Risaldar drew his arm away from her and began to pace the room.
The High Priest instantly began to speak to Ruth, whispering to her
hurriedly in Hindustanee, but she was too little acquainted with the
language to understand him.
“And I,” said the Risaldar's half-brother suddenly, “am I of no further
use?”
“I had forgotten thee!” exclaimed the Risaldar.
They spoke together quickly in their own language, drawing aside and
muttering to each other. It was plain that the half-brother was
making some suggestion and that the Risaldar was questioning him and
cross-examining him about his plan, but neither Ruth nor the High Priest
could understand a word that either of them said. At the end of two
minutes or more, the Risaldar gave an order of some kind and the
half-brother grunted and left the room without another word, closing
the door noiselessly behind him. The Risaldar locked it again from the
inside and drew the bolt.
“We have made another plan, heavenborn!” he announced mysteriously.
“Then--then--you won't hurt this priest?”
“Not yet,” said the Risaldar. “He may be useful!”
“Won't you unbind him, then? Look! His wrists and ankles are all
swollen.”
“Let the dog swell!” he grunted.
But Ruth stuck to her point and made him loosen the bonds a little.
“A man lives and learns!” swore the Risaldar. “Such as he were cast
into dungeons in my day, to feed on their own bellies until they had had
enough of life!”
“The times have changed!” said Ruth.
The Risaldar looked out through the window toward the red glow on the
sky-line.
“Ha! Changed, have they!” he muttered. “I saw one such burning, once
before!”