Eyes in the dark, awake and keen,
See and may not themselves be seen;
But--and this is the tale I tell--
What if the dark have eyes as well?
BESIDE the reeking bear's cage in which Ali Partab stood and swore was
a dark, low corner space in which at one time and another sacks and
useless impedimenta had been tossed, to become rat-eaten and decayed. In
among all the rubbish, cross-legged like the idol of the underworld, a
nearly naked Hindoo sat, prick-eared. He was quite invisible long before
the sun went down, for that was the dingiest corner of the yard; when
twilight came, he could not have been seen from a dozen feet away.
Joanna, sweeping, sweeping, sweeping, in the courtyard, with her back
very nearly always turned toward the cage, appeared to take no notice
of the falling darkness; unlike the other menials, who hurried to their
rest and evening meal, she went on working, accomplishing very little
but seeming to be very much in earnest about it all. Very, very
gradually she drew nearer to the cage. When night fell, she was within
ten feet of it. A few lamps were lit then, here and there over doorways,
but nobody appeared to linger in the courtyard; no footfalls resounded;
nothing but the neigh of stabled horses and the chatter around the big,
flat supper pans broke on the evening quiet.
Joanna drew nearer. Ali Partab came forward to the cage bars, but said
nothing; it was very dark inside the cage, and even the sharp-eyed
old woman could not possibly have seen his gestures; when he stood,
tight-pressed, against the bars she might have made out his dark shape
dimly, but unless he chose to speak no signal could possibly have passed
from him to her. He said nothing, though, and she-still sweeping, with
her back toward him--passed by the cage, and stooped to scratch at some
hard-caked dirt or other close to the rubbish hole where the Hindoo
waited. Still scratching, still working with her twig broom, still
with her back toward the rubbish hole, she approached until the darkest
shadow swallowed her.
There were two in the dark then--she and the man who listened. He,
motionless as stone, had watched her; peering outward at the lesser
darkness, he lost sight of her for a second as she backed into the
deepest shadow unexpectedly. Before he could become accustomed to the
altered focus and the deeper black, her beady eyes picked out the whites
of his. Before he could move she was on him--at his throat, tearing it
with thin, steel fingers. Before he could utter a sound, or move, she
had drawn a short knife from her clothing and had driven it to the hilt
below his ear. He dropped without a gurgle, and without a sound she
gathered up her broom again and swept her way back past the cage-bars,
where Ali Partab waited.
“Was any there?” he whispered.
“There was one.”
“And--?”
“He was.”
“Good! Now will the reward be three mohurs instead of two!”
“Where are they?”
“These pigs have taken all the money from me. Now we must wait until
Mahommed Gunga-sahib comes. His word is pledged.”
“He said two mohurs.”
“I--Ali Partab--pledge his word for three.”
“And who art thou? The bear in the cage said: 'I will eat thee if I get
outside!”'
“Mother of corruption! Listen! Alwa must know! Canst thou escape from
here? Canst thou reach the Alwa-sahib?”
“If the price were four mohurs, there might be many things that I could
do.”
“The price is three! I have spoken!”
“'I would eat honey were I outside!' said the bear.”
“Hag! The bear died in the cage, and they sold his pelt for how much?
Alive, he had been worth three mohurs, but he died while they bargained
for him!--Quick!”
“I am black, sahib, and the night is black. I am old, and none would
believe me active. They watch the gates, but the bats fly in and out.”
“Find out, then, what has happened to my horses, left at the
caravansary; give that information to the Alwa-sahib. Tell the
Miss-sahib at the mission where I am. Tell her whither I have sent thee.
Tell the Alwa-sahib that a Rangar--by name Ali Partab--sworn follower of
the prophet, and servant of the Risaldar Mahommed Gunga--is in need and
asks his instant aid. Say also to the Alwa-sahib that it may be well to
rescue the Miss-sahib first, before he looks for me, but of that matter
I am no judge, being imprisoned and unable to ascertain the truth. Hast
thou understood?”
“And all that for three mohurs?”
“Nay. The price is now two mohurs again. It will be one unless--”
“Three, sahib! It was three!”
“Then run! Hasten!”
The shadows swallowed her again. She crept where they were darkest--lay
still once, breathless, while a man walked almost over her--reached the
outer wall, and felt her way along it until she reached low eaves that
reached down like a jagged saw from utter blackness. Less than a minute
later she was crawling monkeywise along a roof; before another five had
passed she had dropped on all fours in the dust of the outer road and
was running like a black ghost--head down--an end of her loin-cloth
between her teeth--one arm held tight to her side and the other crooked
outward, swinging--striding, panting, boring through the blackness.
She wasted little time at the caravansary. The gate was shut and a
sleepy watchman cursed her for breaking into his revery.
“Horses? Belonging to a Rangar? Fool! Does not the Maharajah-sahib
impound all horses left ownerless? Ask them back of him that took them!
Go, night-owl! Go ask him!”
Almost as quickly as a native pony could have eaten up the distance, she
dropped panting on the door-step of the little mission house. She
was panting now from fright as well as sheer exhaustion. There were
watchers--two sets of them. One man stood, with his back turned within
ten paces of her, and another--less than two yards away from him--stood,
turned half sideways, looking up the street and whistling to himself.
There was not a corner or an angle of the little place that was not
guarded.
She had tried the back door first, but that was locked, and she had
rapped on it gently until she remembered that of evenings the missionary
and his daughter occupied the front room always and that they would not
have heard her had she hammered. She tapped now, very gently, with her
fingers on the lower panel of the door, quaking and trembling in every
limb, but taking care to make her little noise unevenly, in a way
that would be certain to attract attention inside. Tap-tap-tap. Pause.
Tap-tap. Pause. Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap. Pause. Tap-tap. The door opened
suddenly. Both watchers turned and gazed straight into the lamplight
that streamed out past the tall form of Duncan McClean. He stared at
them and they stared back again. Joanna slunk into the deep shadow at
one side of the steps.
“Is it necessary for you to annoy me by rapping on my door as well as by
spying on me?” asked the missionary in a tone of weary remonstrance.
The guards laughed and turned their backs with added insolence. In that
second Joanna shot like a black spirit of the night straight past the
missionary's legs and collapsed in a bundle on the floor behind him.
“Shut the door, sahib!” she hissed at him. “Quick! Shut the door!”
He shut it and bolted it, half recognizing something in the voice or
else guided by instinct.
“Joanna!” he exclaimed, holding up a lamp above her. “You, Joanna!”
At the name, Rosemary McClean came running out--looked for an
instant--and then knelt by the old woman.
“Father, bring some water, please, quickly!”
The missionary went in search of a water-jar, and Rosemary McClean bent
down above the ancient, shrivelled, sorry-looking mummy of a woman--drew
the wrinkled head into her lap--stroked the drawn face--and wept over
her. The spent, age-weakened, dried-out widow had fainted; there was no
wakened self-consciousness of black and white to interfere. This was a
friend--one lone friend of her own sex amid all the waste of smouldering
hate--some one surely to be wept over and made much of and caressed.
The poor old hag recovered consciousness with her head pillowed on a
European lap, and Duncan McClean--no stickler for convention and no
believer in a line too tightly drawn--saw fit to remonstrate as he laid
the jar of water down beside them.
“Why,” she answered, looking up at him, “father, I'd have kissed a dog
that got lost and came back again like this!”
They picked her up between them, after they had let her drink, and
carried her between them to the long, low sitting-room, where she told
them--after considerable make-believe of being more spent than she
really was--after about a tenth “sip” at the brandy flask and when
another had been laughingly refused--all about Ali Partab and what his
orders to her were.
“I wonder what it all can mean?” McClean sat back and tried to summarize
his experiences of months and fit them into what Joanna said.
“What does that mean?” asked his daughter, leaning forward. She was
staring at Joanna's forearm and from that to a dull-red patch on the
woman's loin-cloth. Joanna answered nothing.
“Are you wounded, Joanna? Are you sure? That's blood! Look here,
father!”
He agreed that it was blood. It was dry and it came off her forearm in
little flakes when he rubbed it. But not a word could they coax out
of Joanna to explain it, until Rosemary--drawing the old woman to
her--espied the handle of her knife projecting by an inch above the
waist-fold of her cloth. Too late Joanna tried to hide it. Rosemary held
her and drew it out. Beyond any shadow of a doubt, there was blood on
the blade still, and on the wooden hilt, and caked in the clumsy joint
between the hilt and blade.
“'Joanna--have you killed any one?”
Joanna shook her head.
“Tell me the truth, Joanna. Whose blood is that?”
“A dog's, Miss-sahib. A street dog attacked me as I ran hither.”
“I wish I could believe it!”
“I too!” said her father, and he took Joanna to one side and
cross-examined her. But he could get no admission from her--nothing but
the same statement, with added details each time he made her tell it,
that she had killed a dog.
They fed her, and she ate like a hyena. No caste prejudices or forbidden
foods troubled her; she ate whatever came her way, Hindoo food, or
Mohammedan, or Christian,--and reached for more--and finished, as hyenas
finish, by breaking bones to get the marrow out. At midnight they left
her, curled dogwise on a mat in the hall, to sleep; and at dawn, when
they came to wake her, she was gone again--gone utterly, without a trace
or sign of explanation. The doors, both front and back, were locked.
It was two days later when they found a hole torn through the thatch,
through which she had escaped; and though they searched the house from
cellar up to roof, and turned all their small possessions over, they
could not find (and they were utterly glad of it) that she had stolen
anything.
“Thank God for that!” said the missionary.
“I've finished disbelieving in Joanna!” said his daughter with a grimace
that went always with irrevocable decision.
“I've come to the conclusion,” said McClean, “that there are more than
just Joanna to be trusted. There is Ali Partab, and--who knows how
many?”