INTERLUDE
Calcutta was luxuriating in the amber and blue of a clear day when Trent
detrained in the Howrah Station the following morning; detrained as Mr.
Robert Tavernake of London, in light gray tweeds, instead of Major
Arnold Trent of Gaya, whose military trappings, with his identity, were
secreted in a trunk.
As he neared the front arches of the building, with a porter in tow, he
was hailed by a drill-clad officer.
"Hello, Trent!" exclaimed the uniformed one, whom he recognized as a
former messmate. "_Quo vadis_, you old mummy?"
Trent, not blind to the fact that he was being eyed by a native in
horn-rimmed spectacles and a pink turban, returned the greeting with a
polite smile.
"Sorry," he said; "You must be mistaken"--and walked on.
"Crazy?" wondered the surprised officer, "or am I?"
He stared at Trent's gray back and sunburnt neck--and he was not the
only one, for at least two others did.
As the porter put Trent's luggage into an automobile, the expected
happened: the spectacled, pink-turbaned native approached, beamed upon
him and spoke in suave tones, in English.
"You are Tavernake Sahib?"
Trent nodded. "Tambusami?"
The pink turban inclined forward as he salaamed. "I have a communication
for the Presence!" he announced, extending an envelope that distilled an
unmistakable perfume.
Trent did not open it, but thrust it into his pocket and instructed:
"Get in."
The motor car rolled across the Hoogly and deposited Trent and his
involuntarily acquired servant at a hotel off the Maidan. There he
dismissed his bearer.
"I sha'n't want you this morning," he told the pink-turbaned Tambusami,
resolving to experiment with him.
And the native departed with a most profound salaam.
A half hour later, over breakfast, Trent read the note from Sarojini
Nanjee. It wished him welcome to Calcutta and urged him to listen well
when he visited his Excellency the Mandarin Li Kwai Kung--"who lives in
that very poetic Street of the River of the Moon," as she put it. "I
regret that it will be impossible for me to see you in Calcutta," she
concluded. "Meanwhile, I trust you will find Tambusami an excellent
bearer."
"Hmm," he thought, "if she won't be able to see me in Calcutta, where
the deuce will she see me?"
Then he turned his attention to the "Daily Indian News," perused the
closely-set columns while he finished his meal, and, after breakfast,
set out for a stroll. He moved north along Chowringhee, past
green-grown gardens, and into a quarter where the streets swam in
intense white sunlight and men and women of every caste and color
pressed close to the flanks of harnessed beasts. It did not disturb him
in the least when a backward glance showed him a pink turban following
at a discreet distance; he smiled. When he had filled his pipe, he
turned toward the riverfront. He felt rather in the mood for a tramp, so
he increased his pace--strode on. He reached the Hoogly Bridge; followed
Harrison Road. After an hour of steady walking he of the pink turban
showed signs of weakening. Trent, perspiring freely yet not
uncomfortable, suddenly plunged into a side street, made a series of
turns and came out, eventually, near the Secretariat--without the pink
turban. There he encountered the officer he had met in the Howrah
Station earlier that morning.
"Hello, Ayrton," was Trent's genial greeting. "Sorry I couldn't speak to
you this morning--but too many ears were listening."
"So!" commented the officer, wisely. "You're doing _that_ now!" He shook
his head with assumed gravity. "Government's gone mad--madder 'n a March
hare!" A laugh. "I suppose you're shadowing Ghandi!"
Trent grinned and made an inconsequential remark.
"Here permanently?" he queried.
"End of my life, I daresay," was the gloomy reply.
"You can do me a favor, then"--thus Trent. "I've a uniform I want to rid
myself of temporarily; don't object if I send it around for you to
keep?... Thanks."
They chatted for a few minutes; then the officer entered one of the
buildings facing the square, and Trent returned to his hotel.
He arrived hot and perspiring, and sat down upon the veranda to wait.
And before long the pink turban appeared in the street below. Their
glances met and Trent motioned to him.
"Why did you follow me?" he demanded, as Tambusami, sweat flowing from
every pore of his brown face, salaamed.
"My orders, O Presence!"
"Whose orders?"
"The Presence knows!"
Trent thought a moment. Then: "I object to it."
Tambusami smiled broadly. "But, O Presence, it is for your good that I
follow--to protect you!"
And knowing it was useless to tell him he lied, the Englishman dismissed
him curtly.
Trent spent an idle afternoon. He did not leave the hotel, for he feared
that he would encounter other acquaintances, as he had met Ayrton, and
with Tambusami tracking him it might make more insecure his position. To
be sure, Sarojini Nanjee knew he was Arnold Trent--but did Tambusami?
As he lay sprawled across his bed, enjoying the inactivity and listening
abstractedly to the sounds from the street, a recollection of the
bronze-haired girl insinuated itself into his thoughts. Subconsciously,
he wondered why the remembrance of her came to him. He hadn't seen her
since she entered the carriage at Benares Cantonment; didn't know
whether she left the train along the route or in Calcutta. Queer that
this girl should have crossed the border of mere observation. Yet, had
he analyzed it, he would have known the reason. The world, that is, the
great firmament of existence around his immediate sphere, was to him a
scroll of faces. Now and then some countenance was lifted from the
multitude--a swift glimpse of eyes in the dusk, eyes he would never see
again, and for many nights afterward, when he sat alone with his pipe
and the stars, he would spin webs of glamour. A quixotic person, this
Trent.... The girl, then, was one of the lifted faces. Skin of old ivory
hue, he mused, and hair--now, just what color was it? His imagination
supplied a simile. Golden, with little flickerings of auburn--like
firelight on bronze. The figure rather pleased him. Firelight on bronze.
A contrast to Sarojini Nanjee. One the jungle orchid, blossom of purple
shadows; the other ... well, the type one liked to picture at a piano in
a dusk-deepened room, with hands gleaming pale as moonlight....
Sentimentalism, he concluded. And dropped off to sleep.
2
Dusk had fallen when he awakened. He dressed quickly and went below.
Tambusami was nowhere in sight; however, he suspected his shadow was not
far away. Doubtless the native knew of his appointment in the Chinese
quarter, but he determined if possible not to have him at his heels. To
this end he took an automobile part of the way, by a roundabout route;
then, certain he had eluded his tracker, set out on foot to finish the
journey.
An intense vitality lived in every line of his body as he swung along
crowded streets, a tall, trim figure in white linens, smoking a cheroot
with the air of a globe-trotter trickling through the evening swarm for
no other purpose than to absorb atmosphere, instead of a man approaching
an uncertain venture.
Native Calcutta was airing itself after a hot day, and a film of color
and life unreeled in the early night. He passed two sailors from a
British man-o'-war, younger by ten years than himself, clean-clipped
chaps. The sight of them brought back the old dream--freedom and the
quest for fabulous isles. He rather envied that pair, irresponsibly
young. Always there, this dream, lurking in the subconscious, eager for
some incident to draw it into the conscious.
From the thronged bazaars he turned into a quarter that was no less
crowded, but with people of a different sort. It was as though he had
descended into another world, a planet of dirt and filth and sin--sin in
its nakedness, as only Asiatic cities know how to strip it of its
glamour. A foul artery fed with the virus of the East--beings whose
faces were mottles of yellow and brown and chocolate black upon the
mephitic gloom. A woman in satin trousers ran out of a balconied house
and clutched his arm, whispering an entreaty; she cursed him in bastard
English when he thrust her away. Something of psychic consciousness came
to him from the street, as though fanned into momentary being were the
sparks of old evil.... Babylon and Rome, and the perished cities of the
Nile....
Once clear of this humanity-clogged artery with its aura of ancient sin,
he found himself in the quieter, though scarcely cleaner, Chinese
quarter. Jews, Parsees and Chinamen; black and gilt signs; open doors
that, like dragon-mouths, expelled the mingled odors of _samshu_ and
soy, of cassia and joss-sticks and opium; an atmosphere that transported
Trent to the picturesquely wicked towns of the Straits Settlements.
The Street of the River of the Moon belied its name; it was no more than
an alley and it slunk in the shadows of unpretentious houses. Its lights
were dim, many-colored globes afloat on warm darkness; it was as
mysterious as the numerous slant-eyed yellow men who came and went so
soundlessly in its shifting dusks. After several inquiries Trent located
the residence of his Excellency the Mandarin Li Kwai Kung--a dark,
colonnaded pile. He jerked the leather strap that hung from a panel of
the door; heard a muffled tinkle, the padding of feet. The door opened
wide enough to permit a yellow face to peer out.
"Tell his Excellency that Mr. Tavernake is here," Trent instructed.
The door closed quickly; again the padding of feet. After a moment the
yellow face reappeared. This time the door opened sufficiently for
Trent to see a house-boy in a slop-shop suit and a black skull-cap.
"His Excellency sends greetings and bids you enter his dwelling,"
announced the house-boy.
The door closed behind Trent. He was in a hall where a _dong_, swinging
from brass chains, kindled an orange flame against the semi-darkness,
where a stale-sweet scent clung to the air and gloom varnished
everything.
The house-boy took his shoes and gave him straw sandals, afterward
leading him through a series of doors to a corridor where the rich,
stupefying odor of opium saturated the atmosphere. A sliding door was
pushed back--a black door inlaid with characters in glistening
nacre--and Trent stepped into a dimly illuminated area.
A lamp with a yellow shade hung by invisible means from an invisible
ceiling, casting a pyramid of ochre light upon a figure that squatted on
silken cushions beneath it--a figure arrayed in a loose yellow garment
and the embroidered boots of a mandarin's undress. He was grossly obese,
with drooping gray mustaches and oblique, beady eyes--a grotesque effigy
made more unreal by the incense that floated up from a brazier at his
side and wreathed bluish spirals on the dead air around him. Trent
received an impression of sheeny hangings beyond the radius of the lamp;
vases and gold-embroidered screens--a web of shadows, with, in its
center, this gorged yellow spider.
His Excellency rose with visible effort, smiled blandly and shook his
own hands within his brocaded sleeves.
"You will do me the honor to be seated?" he enquired, gesturing toward a
pile of cushions opposite him. "My house is flattered that one of such
fame should lighten it with his presence."
Trent waited for his host to be seated, knowing this to be a custom,
then dropped cross-legged on the cushions. Followed the usual exchange
of lilied words, of felicitations and compliments. Afterward, Li Kwai
Kung struck a gong and a little rice-powdered, red-lipped girl appeared
from behind the dusky screens, like a figure out of one of Pan Chih Yu's
poems, and set a brass basin filled with scented water before Trent.
When he had washed his hands the basin was removed. More lilied words,
more felicitations and compliments. Then, a few minutes later, the first
course of the meal was served.
"_Ch'ing chih fan_," said the mandarin graciously--by which he invited
Trent to eat.
Bamboo shoots, rice-cakes and honey; roast duck flavored with soy, seeds
of lotus in syrup; prawns, sweetmeats, nuts and tea made fragrant with
petals of jasmine. A very celestial meal. They talked as they ate, and
if his Excellency clung to the custom of balancing food on his chop
sticks and thrusting it unexpectedly into his guest's mouth, as an act
of courtesy, he refrained from doing so on this occasion. Trent grew
anxious to have the formalities over with. He knew he was undergoing a
test; upon the success of this interview, he imagined, depended his
future safety.
When the meal was finished, Li Kwai Kung asked:
"Will you join me with a pipe?... No?"
A ring of the gong brought the serving-maid with cigars. His Excellency
declined to smoke tobacco; instead he spoke to the girl in his own
tongue and she vanished, to reappear presently with the requisites of an
opium smoker--a lighted lamp on a tray, a blue jar containing
poppy-treacle, and a metal pipe. The jar, Trent observed, was a piece of
blue porcelain of the Sung period.
Then, after the manner of the East, which is to say, obliquely, his
Excellency approached the subject of Trent's visit.
"There are certain necessary precautions," he began, while the girl
twisted a black gummy substance about a needle and held it over the
lamp, "before we enter into any discussion."
Trent opened his shirt and revealed a coral pendant chased with silver,
lying against his skin. Li Kwai Kung nodded.
"And if I say, 'It is a wise man who holds his tongue in the presence of
knaves,'" pursued the mandarin, "what would be your comment?"
"I would reply with the ancient wisdom of Lao Tzu--'By many words wit is
exhausted; it is better to preserve a mien.'"
Li Kwai Kung nodded again. "_Hao_," he grunted--and his guest did not
know that was a signal for the house-boy, armed with a revolver, to
retire from behind one of the many screens.
"It is needless, I am sure," the Oriental resumed, "for me to caution
you, who are about to start on a journey to the dwelling-place of
_He-whose-wisdom-is-as-a-lamp-filled-with-much-oil_, that the discreet
man questions himself, a fool others. You will tread the path of
discretion, I know, for I perceive that the light of intelligence burns
with much brightness in your brain."
A pause. Trent studied the blue porcelain jar. Li Kwai Kung took the
metal pipe from the girl and inhaled; bluish vapor welled from his
nostrils, half-obscuring his countenance.
"The arm of the Order is long and powerful, like Mother Yangtze, and its
eyes are as many as the stars." Their glances met; no expression was
mirrored in either face. "Yours is a great work to do," continued his
Excellency, sinking deeper among the cushions and expelling smoke. "The
Order will reward the faithful; they shall flourish as the
willow-branch. The first step of your journey to the City of the Falcon
will be taken shortly--and what sage was it that said, 'A journey of a
thousand miles begins with one step'?"
The obese effigy smiled, pleased with his knowledge, and Trent felt that
each word had its own hidden significance. Curiosity pricked him, like a
needle flashing back and forth across the loom of thought. But he smoked
his cigar and stared at the blue jar as if he had nothing weightier than
the Sung porcelain upon his mind.
"As a man climbs a mountain by terraces, so will you travel to the city
where dwells the Falcon, he who guides the workings of the Order," Li
Kwai Kung went on. "There, having attained the summit, you will--er--see
light. The next terrace of your journey is Burma."
He withdrew an object from under the cushions and Trent looked upon a
packet wrapped in white silk. The mandarin, placing his pipe in a bowl
at his side, rested a contemplative gaze upon the silken wrapping.
"Passage for Rangoon has been booked for you on the _Manchester_, which
leaves day after to-morrow. Here"--indicating the packet--"are all
necessary papers. When you reach Rangoon you will take a train, as soon
as convenient, for Myitkyina, where you will go to the shop of Da-yak,
the Tibetan, and identify yourself by showing the symbol of the Order.
He will furnish you with a _hu-chao_, or, as you would say, a passport,
to a--er--higher terrace."
He handed the packet to the Englishman, who placed it in his pocket.
Trent's thoughts were revolving about what he had just heard--revolving
and reaching no end. Myitkyina. Upper Burma. Were the jewels in Burma?
But why Burma? How were they taken there? "Under the protection of your
Secret Service," Sarojini Nanjee had said. Were they hidden somewhere in
the hills? Myitkyina. He tried to visualize a map; failed.... This City
of the Falcon: in Burma? And the Falcon? Who was he? White or
Oriental?... Groping--groping in the dark--a purposeless circle. At
least, this Order was no small one.
"I believe there are no further instructions to deliver," he heard Li
Kwai Kung say. "Regarding the trivial matter of your--er--incidentals, I
presume you have been told to keep an account and submit it at the
proper time?... No?... Then do so, as it is the wish of the Order that
you suffer no personal expenses.... Stay,"--as Trent made a move to
leave--"it would be ungracious for me to allow so honorable a guest to
depart without further hospitality!"
The little Chinese maid brought liquor--a sort of _arak_ that, despite
his Excellency's comment that it was a draught of the gods, tasted like
sweetened vinegar to Trent. As the Englishman sipped the wine he
continued to mull over what Li Kwai Kung had told him. The
formidableness of the Order amazed him, troubled him not a little. This
Falcon had a nest in Calcutta and Myitkyina. Where else? What of his
brood? Why not, he mused, report what he knew to the Intelligence
Department; let them swoop down upon these two nests; thus avoid any
treachery that Sarojini might contemplate? An idea that he instantly
dismissed, for to act prematurely was to invite defeat. He was under
orders--and he had given his word of honor. Seek the root of the vine,
the seed from which the Order flowered; then exterminate it.
Trent saw by his wrist-watch that it was nearly ten o'clock when he
finally rose to take his leave. Li Kwai Kung lifted his corpulent person
with an effort and repeated the ceremony of vigorously shaking his own
hands.
"A sage once said, 'A man's actions are the mirrors of his heart,'" was
his parting remark. "And, verily, I have looked into your heart!"
(Which, Trent reflected later, was a rather cryptic compliment.) "May
you flourish in wisdom and wealth, as the blossoms of the almond tree
flourish after the snows have melted and run down from the Yunnan-fu!"
Trent inclined his head gravely. "And may the Green Gods grant you the
Twelve Desires!" he returned.
The house-boy appeared; his Excellency sank among his cushions, like a
spider retiring to its gossamer web; and Trent was led back through the
series of doors to the outer portal, where he exchanged the straw
sandals for his shoes, and left the colonnaded residence--left a world
of mystery for a world of noise and heat, of odorous reality and pale
lanterns that reflected upon yellow faces and sloe-dark eyes.
He was a short distance beyond the mouth of the alleyway when a gharry
rolled by. He started to call after it--an impulse born dead. It was not
late; he would walk. Motion accelerated his thoughts. And he wanted to
think.
As he strode along the street, fragments of the obese mandarin's
conversation slid into his brain and receded, like waves gently
insinuating themselves upon a beach. Casually (he had turned into a
narrow highway of balconies, of swinging signs and Chinese scrolls) he
noticed a white woman on the opposite side of the street--only noticed
her, for he knew the type that haunted this quarter. He would have
expelled her instantly from his mind had not she moved from the shadow
into a band of light that extended beyond a doorway; had not he seen
her pause and draw away, as from a plague, as a Chinaman slunk past. The
glow fell upon a face of old ivory hue, upon hair as bronze as the
lettering upon the black scroll above her wide-brimmed hat.
He drew a quick breath.
The girl evidently recognized him as he recognized her, for she darted
out of the band of light and to his side. Dark eyes looked into his from
under the brim of her hat. She smiled, half with fright, half ashamed.
"I--I've been very foolish," she said, much after the manner of a truant
child. "Please take me out of this dreadful place!"
Trent did not speak immediately; grasped her arm; looked about; hailed a
dilapidated carriage that was rattling by. As it came to a halt he said
"Get in!" much after the manner of a stern parent.
She smiled again, that same half-frightened, half-ashamed smile, and
obeyed.
Thus she of the bronze hair stepped from Trent's world-scroll into a
sphere of more intimate association.
3
The girl was the first to speak.
"Really, I don't know what to say. I hope you don't think--"
"I think as you do," he interposed, "that you've been very foolish."
She laughed tremulously. A voice as soft as a gentle monsoon rain--a
voice that slurred over its words. Wisps of hair were burnished by
passing lights; her throat shone palely. Only the eyes were in the
shadow--dark eyes, deep with mystery and a promise of revelations....
Old ivory and bronze. A picture of soft tones and colors.
"My brother would--well, I hardly know what he _would_ do if he knew
about this!"
"Your brother's in the city?"--conscious of a lingering strain.
She shook her head. "I'm alone, or I wouldn't have done what I did
to-night--or what I'm doing now. It was brazen of me to come up to you
as I did, but I was frightened--terribly!" Then, with that nervous
little laugh, she added, "But it wasn't as though I were approaching a
totally strange person, for--for I believe you were at the hotel in
Benares."
Trent remembered his uniform and that now he was Tavernake--remembered
divers things. He decided quickly.
"You must be mistaken about having seen me at Benares; but I've a
brother there--in the Army. Perhaps you saw him. He passed through the
city to-day."
"Oh! Perhaps so!"--this rather frigidly. "What a striking likeness!" He
felt her eyes upon him--those dark eyes. A moment passed before she
said: "I must explain why I'm here, at this hour. Of course it will seem
foolish to you, but I'm a tourist, and I wanted to see Calcutta's
Chinese colony at night--oh, it had to be night, because I knew
everything would be tawdry and ugly in daylight!"
It didn't seem at all foolish to him, only indiscreet.
"I hired a registered guide. He was to show me the temple of--of
Kwan-te, I believe. Anyhow, he assured me it would be perfectly
safe--and, knowing that it wasn't, but rather enjoying the idea, I went.
But I didn't see the temple. There was a street fight between some
Chinese and Brahmins--Chinese and Brahmins _do_ fight, don't they? In
the confusion my guide disappeared. Perhaps he joined in or ran--I
suspect the latter. I was so frightened when I found myself alone--and
I--well, I walked a short distance--and then--then I saw you."
He realized he ought to say something to fill in the gap that followed,
but he was not a man given to much conversation and for the time nothing
suggested itself. Finally:
"I hope you've learned a lesson"--grimly.
She laughed, and the nervous note had gone from her voice. Again he
thought of cool monsoon showers.
"I'm afraid I'm incorrigible! Now that I'm safe, I think I really
enjoyed it. Being a man, you'll disapprove."
"Thoroughly," he responded.
Conversation lagged for a brief spell. The girl took it up.
"You see, Mr.--"
She stopped and he supplied:
"Tavernake--Robert Tavernake."
"I forgot we hadn't been introduced. My name is Dana Charteris. I was
going to say that this is like a fairy tale to me--some 'Arabian
Nights' story. Since I was a child I've wanted to travel--to see
Aladdin's palace and Sinbad's islands--and now I'm doing it. I lived in
a town called Bayou Latouche, in Louisiana, U. S. A., and, you know,
Bayou Latouche scarcely prepares one for this!"--with a gesture. "It
reminds me of carnival in New Orleans."
"You've not been disillusioned?"
"In India? No."
"Of course you have visited Agra."
"No, I haven't seen the Taj. It's a frightful confession to make, isn't
it?"
He reflected upon the question and decided:
"It's rather jolly to find some one who's traveled in India without
seeing the Taj. Sort of different. But I forgot to ask where you wanted
to go. For some reason I took it for granted that you're staying at the
Grand."
"That's almost clairvoyant; I am stopping there."
When he had instructed the _gharry-wallah_, she asked:
"You don't live in Calcutta?"
Making conversation, he thought.
"My home is the world." Then, specifically, "I live in London. I
represent a diamond firm."
Before she spoke he knew quite well what she was going to say.
"Jewels always fascinate me. Isn't it frightful about the gems that were
stolen?"
"Rather," was the close-mouthed reply.
"Just fancy losing all those jewels!" she went on. "My brother said
they are worth millions or _lakhs_ and _lakhs_ of rupees, to be proper.
I suppose it's the work of this Chavigny who's reported to be at large.
You've heard of him, haven't you?"
He answered in the affirmative and, inwardly, expressed relief that they
were nearing the end of the ride.
"I can't ever thank you enough," she told him as they left the gharry
and entered the hotel.
In the better light he saw her eyes for the first time and explored a
new dimension of strength and dignity. He felt as though he looked into
the rich glow of autumn forests, spaces of warmth and color and
spirit--an initiation into the sense of discovery and lofty exhilaration
that Balboa must have known when he gazed upon the shining expanse of an
unknown sea. It was a glimpse into some high arcanum--to him new, but to
the world as ancient as the tale of Cana of Galilee.
"I hope I'll see you before I leave," she said in a way that would have
made it impossible for him to misunderstand, had he been inclined to do
so. "Good night."
He watched her go.... And when he reached his room and examined the
silk-wrapped papers Li Kwai Kung had given him, she persisted in
cleaving through his thoughts, in appearing from the pages before him
and distracting him; and after a few minutes he re-wrapped the packet
and placed it in his trunk.
Long after he plunged the room into darkness he lay thinking--thinking
of Kerth in Bombay, of his Excellency Li Kwai Kung sitting in his
shadowy room, like a yellow-bellied spider, and of the Order of the
Falcon. The _Manchester_ was to sail Saturday; it was Thursday now. Two
days, an interlude; then the Bay, Rangoon and--
But would he see _her_ before he left?
4
Morning and a hint of coolness caressing the air. Sampans and other
craft rocked and crooned in the murky Hoogly. Gauzy streamers of smoke
floated over the jute-mills of Howrah. Sunshine drenched the modern
buildings of Dalhousie Square and Government Row; submerged the myriad
bazaars and shops in yellow liquor; crept into the room where Trent was
sleeping and aroused him with an impelling finger.
He dressed and went to breakfast. When he left the dining-hall his
attention was arrested by a black straw hat with a sheaf of cornflowers
and ripe yellow wheat about the crown. A tendril of hair glowed against
the somber brim. She was talking with a native, an itinerant merchant; a
string of beads hung from her white fingers. Trent approached from
behind and spoke.
"He's asking entirely too much for those stones, Miss Charteris."
She turned, smiling. He felt the same warmth in her brown eyes as on the
previous night.
"You always appear at the psychological moment--or rather," she
interpolated, "this time at the financial moment."
She returned the beads to the merchant, who took no pains to hide his
displeasure at Trent's interposition.
"I'm really glad you appeared--for a purely selfish reason. I want to
buy some things to send home, and I know if I go alone I'll be cheated
outrageously. I wonder if you'd care to go with me? However, I suppose
that, man-like, you detest shopping with a woman."
"I don't object at all," he said.
"And you really haven't any business engagements?"
"I'm free until to-morrow."
"Oh, you're leaving Calcutta then?"
"Yes."
"So am I"--with a smile.
She raised a silk parasol of pongee-color as they left the hotel, and
the sun reflected a rich glow through the fine texture.
"You see," she explained, "I taught music at Bayou Latouche and I
promised my pupils I'd send them each a remembrance from India."
He might have known she was a musician. There was a depth of conception
in her that was lyrical, a somber yet thrillingly-alive tone, of which
her eyes were the pinnacle-expression. _Andante appassionato._ Queerly,
that term came to him. His mental portrait of the day before blended in
with actuality: White hands brushing the keys in a dusk-varnished room;
nothing heavy, some old song, redolent of recollections....
"Is this your first trip to India?" he heard her asking. The clamor of
Chowringhee was in his ears, but her voice rang clearly through the
sounds, an unbroken thread in the tangle of city streets.
"No. Mother India called me when I was a boy. I used to hunt with my
father." That was true; for some reason he detested lying to her.
"Hunting! Tiger?"
He nodded.
"Is it true," she queried, "that there are mystics who walk in the
jungles with animals--who belong to a sort of brotherhood of the wild
and understand tiger and python and cobra?"
"The jungle has her own secrets," was his reply; "things that white men
will never know."
"I heard a man," she resumed, "a converted Brahmin priest, lecture in
New Orleans. He told of his boyhood; of the magic lore of the
'Mahabarata' and the 'Ramayana'; and of a time when an old priest--he
called him a _Saddhu_--took him into the jungle at night, and he heard
the many animal-sounds--the voices of the jungle. He said that once
green eyes peered at them, so close that he could hear the quick
breathing of the beast, and the old priest only looked into the
eyes--oh, he described that look as so potent and unafraid!--and soon
the eyes disappeared. I've always remembered that. Since then I've
wanted to _feel_ the jungle--and the power of will that can soothe a
great animal. Yet I suppose Mother India, as you call her, is suspicious
of us foreigners who try to pry into her secrets. And yet"--the brown
eyes were filled with reflections--"perhaps she has a right to be
resentful, for men have maligned and misrepresented her so, credited her
with false mysticism, with _Mahatmas_ and cults of which she isn't
guilty." Then she laughed--a little ripple that broke the smooth spell.
"I--an outsider--talk as if I were intimate with India! Although
sometimes I do feel that I must have known India before; a haunting
familiarity. That's why I came--to see if my visions were aright." Again
the rippling laugh. "But I'm sure you'll think me an Annie Besant,
incognito, if I talk on like this!"
"Not at all"--smiling. "I'm interested."
"But you should tell me of India; for you've hunted in her forests and
wild places. Oh, it must be wonderful to know the world!"
"Well, I'd scarcely say I know the world," he corrected; "only a few
Indian and Persian cities--and some of the more southern watering-places
of Asia. I was stationed for a while at Singapore."
"Stationed? You mean in the interest of your firm--or were you in the
Army then, like your brother?"
"In the Army," he answered, again experiencing that insurrection against
falsehood.
"I see," she commented. A wistful sigh. "I think I should have been a
man. Penang, Shanghai and Zanzibar, those cities with such thrillingly
wicked names, fascinate me; Tibet and inner China, all the far places,
call. There's something pagan and magnificent about it--a sort of broken
thread in me that matches the tapestry of it all. Oh, I'm sure I should
have been a man! I know if I were, I'd be an explorer and hunt among the
ruins of the Phoenicians and the Incas, and those other remnants of
ancient civilizations."
Her words brought a tightening of the cords in his throat. Another who
dreamed of the fabulous isles! But, for a reason he did not analyze, he
could not place her in the picture she painted. Always, to him, the
music-room--white hands in the dusk.
"But I'll have my fling," she continued; "only in a mild degree. My
brother's home is in Burma. I'm going to live with him, and we plan to
slip off every now and then. A trip to Malaya or Borneo or Java--I've
heard so much of the beauty of Batavia--or up the other way to Siam.
Siam! Isn't the very name magic? Bejewelled dancers and emerald Buddhas
and theaters where they pantomime ancient tales!... I'm not a reformist
in the least, but there's one sort of 'uplift work' I'd love to do--a
'purpose in life,' as some call it. I'd like to visit the far places and
return home and lecture to those whose boundaries are their own yards,
and try to make them understand that on the other side of the world
there are civilizations so much mellower than their own, and doctrines
of existence that have nothing to do with mints and stock exchanges!"
Her voice was an expression of the high arcanum that he had glimpsed in
her eyes. Here was a woman who possessed the rare triumvirate of flesh
and mind and soul; whose gifts to men were other than brief summer
passions and earthly donations. He felt that it was irreverent when he
asked if he might smoke. As he touched a match to his cheroot, she went
on:
"Oh, the West knows so little about the East, and the East so little
about the West, that it isn't strange that one misunderstands the
other.... But I'm boring you with this talk," she broke off
irrelevantly.
"Won't you go on?"--earnestly.
She smiled. "It's impertinence for me to tamper with mysteries that I
haven't explored. No,"--still smiling--"I'm going back to my ken--to
Siamese dancers and pantomime shows. And that reminds me, is it safe to
go to a native theater? I'd feel as if I'd missed part of Calcutta if I
didn't see a Bengali performance."
"I wouldn't advise you to go alone." This soberly. "Too, if you don't
understand the language, it would prove rather dry entertainment."
Another smile. "Why must a woman have such narrow man-made boundaries?
If you hint that it's dangerous, then you'll intrigue me the more."
A recollection of the Chinese quarter flashed through him.
"If you insist on going," he said, and he, too, was smiling, "I daresay
nothing can stop you--and the best possible thing for me to do is to
offer my guardianship."
"It really wouldn't be stealing your time? Oh, it would be splendid!...
But you're leading me by all these shops. Shall we go in here?"
It was an epochal morning for Trent. After the tension of the past few
days, he craved relaxation. This recess had a warmth and exhilarating
intimacy that was a stimulus to him, and he luxuriated in it, listening
attentively as the girl talked--talk that revealed little brilliant
flashes of her nature--and drinking in the study of rich tints that her
face and hair presented in the straw-colored light beneath her sunshade.
He had the feeling of a seaman in port, a boyish thrill at the freedom
from restraint; a few hours shore leave, then the sea again. He entirely
forgot his substantial shadow until they returned to the hotel. The
sight of the pink turban whipped him back into tension.
"At five-thirty," she said as they parted. "And I'm sure it will be a
wonderful adventure."
As she left him, Tambusami approached, smiling his ingratiating smile.
"I have news to report, Presence," he announced. "It is indeed well that
I am here to protect your interests, for while you were away some one
entered your room, and had not I appeared at the opportune moment he
might--"
"You had him arrested?" Trent cut in.
"I went to your room, and hearing strange sounds within, I looked
through the keyhole and saw a man--a brown man. Knowing he was a thief,
I took the liberty of entering. He had opened your trunk--oh, they are
clever, these thieves!--but he did not have a chance to steal
anything."
"You caught him?"
The smile left Tambusami's face. "He was too strong for me, Presence; he
had muscles like the unicorn!"
Trent considered a moment. Then: "Whose servant are you--mine or hers?"
Tambusami beamed. "_She_ pays me to be _your_ bearer!"
"Then say to her that I'm capable of taking care of myself and that
you're to be my servant from now on and _not_ my shadow. We'll only be
here until to-morrow, which no doubt she's already told you, but until
then you'll watch my room instead of me."
Trent found the silk-wrapped packet safe in his trunk. Nothing was
disturbed or missing. However, he surmised that the "thief" gained what
he came after--knowledge of his, Trent's, destination. Was this the hand
of that mysterious power he had felt in Benares when he awakened to
discover an intruder in his room? But what power could it be? Not
Sarojini Nanjee. Who?... Plot and counter-plot. Each day fixed in him
more immovably the belief that behind the activities in which he was
involved was a sinister purpose, more stupendous, when revealed, than he
imagined. Every new incident, like a hand in the night, lured him,
beckoning, but never fulfilling the promise of disclosure. Adventure!
And only one thorn to prick the joy from it.... Manlove....
It came to him suddenly that perhaps, unaware of it, he was exploring
the fabulous isles of his fancy.
5
They had tea at a restaurant in Government Place. She wore the black
straw hat with cornflowers and wheat woven about the crown. White voile
caressed slender limbs and fell away in a deep hem to give a glimpse of
silk-stockinged ankles and suede shoes.
They rode along Beadon Street in a glamorous after-sunset glow (the car
was threading through swarms whose sheet-like garments blended softly
with the gray pastel of houses and the lingering rose-light) and Trent,
eyes upon the girl, felt the sheer call of youth and romance at dusk.
The very atmosphere was an electrode, drawing its current from the first
white stars. Nor was Dana Charteris unreceptive. She was aware of a
shielding warmth, and not of the physical, in his presence. The play of
muscles of sunburnt cheek and jaw was vital and challenging, but behind
that, more convincing because it was not visible to the eye, but to a
sense of inner perception, was a compelling cleanliness; strength that
had not to do with thews or tendons.
The theater was in a neighborhood of white houses and green palms, close
to Beadon Square; their seats in an orchestra-stall. Over the pit hung
oil lamps, round yellow moons suspended in cavernous gloom; dim electric
lights in the ceiling; about them, a loose-robed, turbaned audience, the
majority chewing pellets of crushed areca-nut and lime.
Musicians in white raiment filed in and played an overture, and the
performance began.... A tale of chivalrous deeds and chivalrous days
(thus translated Trent in a whisper, as the actors, flashes against the
rich gloom of a back-drop, recited their lines); of Kurnavati, the Rani
of Chitor, and Humayun, the Great Mogul. Bahadur Shah, so went the
story, was hurling his armies against Chitor. The Rani had sent out the
pride of the Rajputs, but they could not check the onrush of Bahadur
Shah. Chitor was lost. Then the Rani, recalling a custom, took from her
arm a bracelet and gave it to a servant, bidding him carry it, with a
plea for succor, to Humayun, the Great Mogul. The servant departed....
And the first act ended.
"And you said it would be dull!" This from Dana Charteris when Trent had
explained all that happened. "Somehow it makes me think of the Brahmin
priest who lectured--a sort of thrilling mysticism; color and tragedy."
Just before the second act Trent glanced around the betel-chewing
audience and saw--a pink turban. It disappeared as he looked, and he
smiled at the thought of Tambusami crouching between the seats of the
back row of stalls.
The second act was at the court of Humayun. The messenger of the Rani of
Chitor arrived; presented the bracelet. Humayun, knowing of the custom,
accepted it. By that act he became the bracelet-brother of the Rani,
bound by custom to go to her if she called. Then the servant delivered
the Rani's plea. And Humayun, who was a noble monarch, drew a jewelled
sword from a jewelled scabbard and declared that the blade should not
return to its sheath until his bracelet-sister was free of the
oppression of Bahadur Shah.
Thus the second act. There was a third; a fourth. Clash of steel upon
steel; the clangor and strident ring of battle. In the last act Humayun
reached Chitor--too late. For Kurnavati, rather than be conquered by the
terrible Bahadur Shah, died upon the funeral pyre. And Humayun, borne to
the walls in a golden palanquin, looked toward the smoky ruins and wept.
Trent, leaving the theater, let his eyes quest over the crowd in search
of Tambusami. But he had gone. However, the Englishman suspected he
would find him at the hotel, the essence of innocence.
"Now that you've seen the Chinese quarter and a Bengali theater," he
said as they rode toward the modern city, "what other reason can you
think of to prowl about after dark?"
"I won't have another chance in Calcutta," she answered, smiling. "I'm
leaving to-morrow; and when I'm with my brother--well, you know how
brothers are.... I felt so sorry for the Rani in the play--she looked as
I've always visualized _Ameera_, in 'Without Benefit of Clergy.' Was
that really a custom--the part about the bracelet-brother?"
He nodded.
"It was superb romance." The brown eyes deepened. "I shall always
remember that story of Humayun and Kurnavati--and remember you for
explaining it to me."
Silence of a few seconds followed. Then Trent ventured:
"I daresay I sha'n't see you again before I go. I sail to-morrow noon."
"Really? I'm sailing then, too. I suppose you're going back to England?"
"No. I"--he hesitated--"I'm bound for Burma."
She laughed, a bit tremulously--that laugh of soft monsoon showers.
"Why, so am I. Surely you're not booked on the _Manchester_?"
The face that was turned to her, faintly bronze in the street-lights,
was impassive enough; his only expression was of mild, polite surprise.
"Yes--on the _Manchester_."
His thoughts were swept by two currents, one shot with chill warnings,
the other warm with the wine of anticipation. But for the incident of
the uniform at Benares, the announcement that she would sail on the same
boat would have done anything but disturb him. However, even if she did
suspect his brother-fabrication, she could not guess his mission. As
Tavernake she knew him. A few days more--a lengthening of the
_intermezzo_, rich notes and chords of harmony to remember
afterward--then, at Rangoon, the finale. _Allegro moderato_.... No harm,
this Tavernake interlude; a cool breath to the being, like temple-dusk
after arid desert heat.
"What a coincidence!" she remarked; then explained, "My brother lives in
Rangoon. But he isn't there now. He had an--an accident in Delhi, and I
came ahead to attend to some matters for him. Oh, nothing serious
happened to him, or I wouldn't be here. But it is queer that we're going
on the same boat. Don't you think so?"
And he replied in a manner that was new for him.
"Not altogether. It merely proves that Kismet had a purpose in arranging
our meeting last night."
"A purpose?" she echoed--and they both were thinking different thoughts.
They were in Chitpur Road; soon Chowringhee; then the hotel. To him the
throbbing of the motor car suddenly became the pulse of the night, of
the hot street where, on either side, dark faces peered curiously at
them. Subconsciously, his brain dipped back; he saw her beneath the
black-and-gold scroll on the previous night.... Her voice broke in, a
crystallization of his thoughts.
"I was thinking how foolish it was," she said, "for me to have done what
I did last night."
"You mean"--he smiled--"in speaking to me, or--"
A whimsical laugh. "Both. Oh, don't misunderstand me! The thought just
occurred that--well, my adventure might have turned out differently. I'm
wondering, too, if I should have come with you to-night. Instead of a
jeweller from London, you might have been--anything. What I'm trying to
say, and doing it badly, is that after all we're prisoners of
instinct--at the mercy of elements that we have not the power to
fathom!"
A pause ensued, and when she spoke again her tone was one of light
raillery, yet beneath it was a tense excitement that puzzled him.
"And consider. For all you know I might have planned that meeting in the
Chinese quarter for a--a dreadful purpose. Even now I may be spinning a
web around you!" Then, with a laugh, she switched the topic. "It will be
pleasant to have an acquaintance aboard. Voyages are rather monotonous
when one is alone, don't you think?"
Conversation was not at its best during the remainder of the ride, and
at the hotel they parted with a few words, rather stilted words. He'd
surely see her on the boat. Yes, he must look her up. She had enjoyed
the evening tremendously. A last glimpse of her eyes, of their luring
mystery; then she was gone.
* * * * *
Trent did not go to sleep immediately. He lay in darkness and smoked a
cheroot, puzzling over what Dana Charteris had said.
"... For all you know I might have planned that meeting.... Even now I
may be spinning a web around you!"
Those words lodged in his brain, baffled him. There was something he
could not understand, but none the less intriguing, in the still,
obscure depths below the surface ripples.
6
Trent did not see Dana Charteris the next day. It was raining and
Calcutta was gray and dismal. Tambusami appeared early and saw to it
that his luggage was transferred to the ship. Trent felt that his very
spirits were moist as he rode to the boat. Even his cabin was damp,
cheerless.
Shortly before five o'clock the _Manchester_ warped out from the jetty,
her twin screws churning the brown water. Trent, looking out of his
cabin window, saw Calcutta draw robes of rain about her and fade. The
smoke-stacks of Howrah's mills were blurred fingers appealing to a stark
sky; leaves, wind-whirled from toddy-palms on the mud banks, spun across
the Hoogly; only when lightning scribbled a line of vivid lavender
across the heavens was the gray monotony relieved.
The world was an old, old woman, and the sound of the steamer's whistle
was her hoarse, stricken voice.