"BEYOND THE MOON"
At noon the next day Trent drove to the station where Tambusami, having
attended to his luggage, was waiting. The Englishman looked for Kerth
among the travelers on the platform, but saw no one who even resembled
him. However, he reflected as the train pulled out, Kerth might have
changed his identity and passed within a foot of him without his
knowledge!
When Pegu lay behind, he shifted his attention from the "Rangoon
Gazette" to the endless panorama of paddy fields and scrub jungle. Yet
he could not altogether divert himself. Invariably the landscape faded,
to be replaced by the recollection of some recent scene: the court of
the joss-house; the ride along Strand Road with Euan Kerth. But more
frequently his mind was possessed with an image of starry luster and
russet hair. The memory of Dana Charteris occurred suddenly,
unexpectedly, in the very midst of other thoughts. She seemed a central
force about which musings, retrospections and quandaries revolved. He
found himself separating from their short association certain incidents
and looking back upon them as through stained glass. He pictured her
under the black and gilt scroll in the Chinese quarter; in the dusk of
the Bengali theater; in the bow of the _Manchester_, beneath the
sprinkled flame of tropic stars. These portraits arranged themselves in
a mosaic--an exquisite inlay of romance. Romance. He clung to the word.
"The doctrine of Romance and Adventure--" She had said that "... in
mellower years, to close your eyes and dream of wandering in the 'Caves
of Kor' or the time you spent on a pirate island." She had the spirit of
youth eternal--youth with its orient mirages. He was having the Great
Adventure now. Soon it would be over. And then? Back to the old
routine--medicines and sun-scorched villages. (The thought was new,
strange. Had he ever been a doctor? It seemed so long ago!) But in the
years to come, at night, over his pipe, he could dream of it all. The
memory of things--that was life's recompense for taking them away.
* * * * *
Shortly after seven o'clock he arrived in Mandalay. As he left his
carriage, he saw a familiar figure--Kerth, scar, drooping eyelid and
all; saw him again, an hour and a half later, when he boarded the
Myitkyina train.
A perceptible coolness invaded the carriage that night, and when Trent
awakened in the morning he looked out upon jade-green hills. The
scenery, as well as the people who stood on the railway platforms, had
changed. Great fern trees and immense clumps of bamboo grew on the
hillsides.
* * * * *
Evening was pouring its dusky glamour over the world, and the far, misty
ranges of the China frontier had purpled when Trent left the train at
Myitkyina, the terminus of the Burma Railway. He caught a glimpse of
Kerth hurrying away in the twilight as he despatched Tambusami to the P.
W. D. Inspection Bungalow to see if quarters were available there; and,
after numerous inquiries, took himself into the bazaar, to the shop of
Da-yak, the Tibetan.
The latter proved to be a languid person with a blue _lungyi_ twisted
about his hips. He inspected Trent with narrow, inky-black eyes, and led
him into a back-room that stank of the hundred nameless odors of the
bazaar. There he glanced lazily, indifferently, at the coral symbol that
the Englishman showed him.
"We expected you yesterday, _Tajen_," he announced indolently, in
atrocious English; and Trent wondered who the "we" included. "I am
instructed to tell you to go to the Inspection Bungalow and wait. I will
call for you later in the evening; in an hour, perhaps."
Which concluded the interview.
Trent decided immediately that Da-yak, the Tibetan, was of no
consequence, merely a mouthpiece.
He returned to the station, where he had arranged to meet Tambusami.
There he waited for at least fifteen minutes. The native was in a high
state of excitement when he finally arrived.
"Guru Singh is here, O Presence!" he reported. "I saw him down by the
river. He was in a boat, going upstream. I cried out to him and called
him a liar and a thief, and he told me I was a bastard! The swine! He
knew well I could not get my hands on him!"
"And you let him get away?" Trent demanded.
"What could I do, Presence? There was a Gurkha nearby, but I knew the
Presence did not want the police to interfere with his business. Think
you I would have let him go after he called me _that_, could I have
prevented it?"
Trent wasn't so sure; but he only said:
"Very well. What about quarters?"
"All is arranged at the bungalow, Presence."
Thinking of what Tambusami had told him, Trent left the station, the
native at his heels. He wondered. Did Guru Singh's presence mean that
the woman of the cobra-bracelet was in Myitkyina?
2
Just about the time Trent reached the P. W. D. Bungalow, a
street-juggler with a scar across one cheek and a drooping eyelid made
his way through the main road of the bazaar. His good eye was very
active--as was the other, for that matter, although less visible to
passers-by--and he swung along with his head cocked at a rakish angle,
pack slung over his shoulder, flashing smiles at the copper-skinned
Kachin and Maru girls.
Singling out a shop where boiled frogs, sweetmeats and confectionery
were displayed to the mercy of insects, he approached, and, after
purchasing a delectable morsel cooked in _ghee_ (which he deposited in
his pocket instead of his stomach), he announced to the spare Burman who
lounged in the doorway:
"I go to Bhamo to-morrow, O vender of sweets, and I must take my brother
a present. Canst thou suggest what it shall be?" Then, before the other
could answer, he went on: "I might buy an umbrella--or, better still, a
turban-cloth."
The Burman came out of his lassitude enough to say that he sold very
beautiful turban-cloth, and much cheaper than any other merchant in the
bazaar.
"I want a nice one," he of the drooping eyelid asserted; "a white one,
spotted like a cheetah, or perhaps yellow."
The shopkeeper had none such as he described, he said, but he had some
fine cloth of red hue that came from a shop in Sule Pagoda Street, in
distant Rangoon.
"Ah!" exclaimed the juggler. "I have been to Rangoon. It is a great
city. Let me see the cloth of red."
In the course of bargaining, he said:
"Tell me, O wise one, is there in the bazaar a merchant who bears the
name of Da-yak?"
The Burman grunted that there was and waved his hand toward a lighted
doorway not far away. "There!"
"Ah!" exclaimed the juggler again. And he added, by way of explanation,
that at Waingmaw, whence he had come, a friend warned him against buying
at the shop of Da-yak, who was a cheat.
"All Tibetans are cheats," was the Burman's comment.
"Has he been here long, robbing you of your trade?" the juggler pursued.
"Oh, not very long," was the languid answer; "since about the time of
the casting of the bell in the pagoda last year. But his shop is not
half so nice as mine. He is a dirty wild-man." Then: "Didst thou say, O
traveller, that thou wouldst take the turban cloth for six rupees and
two annas?"
"Nay, I am a poor man. For five rupees, O generous one."
At length the turban-cloth was purchased, for five rupees, and the
juggler moved on. In front of the shop of Da-yak he paused, looked about
tentatively, then strode to a spot just outside the door. There he
unslung his pack. From a basket he produced a brass pot with a thin
neck. Squatting, back to the wall, he brought forth a flute and began to
play.
At first the music attracted only children. But before many minutes
girls and men joined the circle about the juggler, and, as the group
enlarged, a sinuous black body rose from the brass pot; rose and dropped
back, like a geyser; rose again and slithered to the ground where it
curled its tail into an O, and, with head lifted, lolled to the
delirious piping.
"A-ie!" sighed the onlookers with approval--and drew back a step.
Presently a head was thrust out of the doorway of Da-yak's shop--as the
juggler did not fail to observe--and, following the head, its owner. He
squatted and indifferently watched the proceedings.
After the cobra had danced, the juggler performed many feats of magic,
to the delight of the simple hill-people. When his repertory was
exhausted, the audience moved on and he found himself alone with the
squatting Tibetan merchant.
"I am a stranger here, O brother," announced the juggler, pouring the
coins from his bowl into his hands and shifting them from one palm to
the other with a musical _clink-clink_. "Canst thou tell me where I will
find a bed for to-night?"
In the dim light the juggler studied Da-yak's features--thin lips, high,
thin cheeks, and mere slits for eyes.
"Thou canst find a bed of grass under any tree," was his reply, covertly
watching the coins.
"Nay! Am I an animal that I should lie upon the ground when I sleep?
Hast thou no room? I am a story-teller and for a bed I will tell thee a
tale that thou hast never heard before!"
"Nay, juggler, I have no time for stories."
"Then thy children?"
"I have none."
"Perhaps thy wife?"
"Nor have I a wife, either."
The juggler grunted. "Art thou a celibate that thou hast no wife?" He
leaned closer, peering into the Tibetan's face. "Indeed, O merchant, thy
face is like that of a lama I knew in Simla!"
Da-yak's slitty little eyes opened wider, showing small, bleary pupils.
"What is it to thee, O scarred one, if I have a wife or not?"
To himself the juggler admitted that it meant more than a little, but
to the Tibetan he said: "Scarred indeed, and afflicted of an eye! Seest
thou this?"--touching the scar. "It is a mark left by a Dugpa's
knife--in Tibet. I was headman for a Burra Sahib who traveled from
Sikkhim, which is a far country which thou hast never heard of, to the
holy city of Lhassa. From thence we went down, across many mountains,
into Hkamti Long and the Kachin country. At Fort Hertz we followed the
mule-road. That was many years ago."
"Thou dost lie," accused Da-yak. "No white man has ever crossed from
Tibet into the country of the Hkamtis. There is no road there--"
"Then where _is_ the road, indeed, if thou dost know?" interrupted the
juggler.
"Did I say there was a road?" flared the Tibetan. "There is none."
"There _is_ a road, if a road it can be called! For did not I travel it?
By the Four Truths of Gaudama Siddartha, it is thou who dost lie!"
Da-yak's eyes burned with anger. "Why dost thou swear by the Lord
Gaudama?"
Inwardly, the juggler smiled. "Why do rivers run down to the sea, thou
dolt?" he asked--and made a mystic sign, a sign that is known to few.
Da-yak's eyes were no longer burning. But his inky-black pupils moved
nervously under the lids.
"Thou dost make strange signs, O evil eye," he muttered. "How do I know
that thou hast not summoned _Nats_ to beset my shop and drive away those
who might buy?" He rose. "Go find a bed in the stink where thou dost
belong!"
The juggler, too, rose. He spat contemptuously.
"_Kala Nag!_" he hissed; which means, "black snake."
And, picking up his pack, he swaggered off--while Da-yak, with an uneasy
glance over his shoulder, entered his shop. However, the juggler did not
go far. In the darkness of a nearby alley, from which point he could
observe anyone going in or out of Da-yak's house, he sat down to wait.
But not for long. Scarcely had five minutes passed before the Tibetan
emerged from the shop and, like a shadowy cinema-figure, hurried off in
the gloom.
The juggler got up. He smiled--for, figuratively speaking, he possessed
a key to certain locked doors.
3
Trent was on the veranda, smoking, when Da-yak presented himself at the
Inspection Bungalow, and without a word he rose and accompanied the
Tibetan.
"We go to the river, _Tajen_," the native informed him briefly.
A walk past lighted bungalows and well-kept compounds brought them to
the river--the mighty Irrawaddi, flowing down from mountain heights,
past dead kingdoms and into tropical seas. A slim saber of a moon was
swinging up over the hills as they came within sight of the stream. It
showered the water with a wealth of silver coins that collected into a
band, and, shimmering and coruscating, stretched from the remote shore
to the sharply etched Kachin rafts and country-boats beneath the
Myitkyina bank.
Into one of the smaller boats Da-yak led Trent. Two boatmen, both in
turban, jacket and _lungyi_, stepped lazily into the craft, and one
shoved off while the other crawled forward and plied his paddle, guiding
the boat into midstream and turning its prow with the current. The smell
of the jungle, warm, fragrant odors, hung in the air, and the rhythmic
dip of the paddle, with the sucking sounds produced by the water as it
slapped the sides, only italicized the silence.
Trent, lounging among cushions amidships, let his eyes follow Da-yak,
who moved forward and took the paddle from the boatman. The latter, with
a murmured word, rose and crawled toward Trent.
"I would sit beside you, Sahib," he announced in a soft voice.
Trent stared--and the boatman laughed, a sweet laugh that rippled low in
the throat; laughed, and sank upon the pillows beside the man whose
breathing had grown a trifle faster as he inhaled the perfume of
sandalwood.
"You are surprised?" asked Sarojini Nanjee, quite pleased with the
effect of her sudden appearance.
He smiled. "You are clever."
The woman clasped her hands behind her head and regarded him. The night
made secret certain of her features, for whereas the moon shone full
upon her face, softening the contours, her eyes were hid in dim mystery.
Thus, when she looked at him, (as she was doing every second) he could
not see her eyes. Which seemed to please her, for she lay back upon the
cushions, smiling, an insolently boyish figure.
"Did not you find Tambusami an excellent bearer?" was her next
query--and he imagined her eyes were mocking him.
"Quite"--rather drily.
"Yet he cannot equal your Rawul Din," she went on. "He is a perfect
example of careful tutoring."
She leaned closer, so close that the warmth of her breath was on his
lips, and her eyes, like black opals, burned near to his.
"I wonder, man of wits, how many bearers would think to do what your
Rawul Din did, that night at my house?" Then she laughed and drew away;
and the musical peals were reminiscent of shattered crystals. "I
_should_ be angry--for why did you spy upon me?"
"I don't understand"--this from him.
"No?"--with irony. "Am I so dull that I do not understand when I find a
pool of wine under a divan? Oh, he was clever, very clever; but I was
more clever!"
Trent wondered how much she knew. He felt sure she could not have
guessed the truth, for the discovery that Delhi was keeping a finger on
her would undoubtedly have angered her.
"Surely you would like to know how I came here," she announced. "Why not
inquire?"
"I was instructed to ask no questions," he reminded.
She nodded that queer little nod of hers.
"You obey well--when you wish to. But we have no time now to talk of
the past; suffice to say I come and go like the wind, when and where I
will, and depending upon no man."
She settled deeper among the cushions and watched him--watched him
half-humorously, as though he belonged to her and she was undecided what
to do with him next. He realized she was waiting for him to speak, that
she wanted to find out what he had learned since their meeting at
Benares. Therefore he resolved to keep silent, not that what he knew was
of any significance, but because uncertainty on her part was his best
weapon. So he drew into his shell and waited. When she could no longer
endure it, she said:
"Now that you are here, have you no thought of what you are to do?"
"There's a platitude about anticipation," was his reply. "Preconceived
ideas never are correct."
"You, of course, suspected Myitkyina was not the end of your journey?"
"Then it isn't?"
He could not see her eyes, but he knew she was looking at him closely.
"Did not his Excellency Li Kwai Kung speak of certain terraces, each a
step toward enlightenment?"
He nodded. "Is the City of the Falcon the next?"
"Ultimately," she modified.
"When do I start--or do _we_?"
She shook her head. "_You_ start to-morrow." Then, following a pause:
"Previous to this you have been under my direct observation and
protection." That made him smile to himself. "I can no longer do that.
Certain threads will be placed in your hands and you will be left to
untangle them. And it will not be easy. That is why I chose you."
The boatman had ceased paddling, and they drifted with the current in
silence that was like a presence. Now and then a gibbon called from the
bank; frequently fish leaped above the water, breaking the moon's path
into silver fragments.
"Oh, it is far from easy!" she continued. "You will pass through a
stretch of country where no Englishman has been. There will be
discomforts--yes, dangers. The jungle knows how to torment white men.
Death in a hundred guises waits for the unwary; death in the poison
swamps, in the bush; death everywhere!" She straightened up, and her
hand closed over his. "There will be times when you will curse me for
having sent you! Yet in the end there is reward! Glory! Honor! Your name
will sweep from one end of the empire to the other!" Then she drew a
sharp breath, for she divined what was in his mind. "You believe I lie?
But I speak the truth, before all the gods! Yonder"--with a wave of her
hand--"beyond the moon, it lies, this city where the Falcon nests with
the treasures of Ind!"
"You mean the jewels passed through Myitkyina?" he questioned, trying to
speak casually, as though it were a spontaneous query rather than a
studied interrogation.
"Ah! Did I say so?" she fenced. "Nay! I will not answer that! Perhaps
they did; perhaps they did not." (Trent was more inclined to believe the
latter.) "However, they are there, beyond the moon, and every one shall
be returned, down to the smallest pearl!"
It sounded rather preposterous to him. How could this thing be
accomplished by two people? Was she playing with him? She'd hardly dare.
She might risk it, were he alone, but with the Government of India
behind him a false move on her part would be her own defeat. Yet he
could not disassociate her from some hidden, not altogether pleasant,
purpose.
"Aye!" she resumed. "You and I"--and her fingers tightened about his
hand--"shall do what the Secret Service could never do! We shall go
where they could never go! We shall understand things that they could
never understand! We are blessed of the gods, you and I! We shall pluck
the Falcon's pinions; rob his nest. And, oh, it will be a great jest, a
very great jest! If you only knew, you would laugh with me! But not yet.
It would spoil the secret to tell it now."
"Yet you can tell me now," he suggested, "how far this Falcon's nest
is?"
She inclined her head. "Yes, I can tell you that now." And her answer
was as fantastic as the city itself: "It is nearly eight hundred miles."
Inwardly, he started. A moment passed before he spoke.
"Nearly eight hundred miles," he repeated, picturing as accurately as
possible a map. "Traveling west of Myitkyina that would take us beyond
the Brahmaputra; east, into China--about upper Yunnan or Kweichow; and
north--well, the Tibetan _border_ is three hundred miles from Myitkyina.
Which is it: north, east or west?"
"Which seems the most likely? In which of the three regions would the
Falcon's nest be in less danger of discovery by blundering British
agents?"
He had guessed, but he did not wish to commit himself. He deliberately
chose--
"Beyond the Brahmaputra?"
She laughed. "You are no fool. The moment I said nearly eight hundred
miles you knew I meant Tibet."
He considered for some time. Then: "That's impossible." Subconsciously,
he was thinking of the coral pendant.... Janesseron, a Tibetan god. Nor
had he forgotten what Kerth told him in Rangoon.
"What is impossible?"
"Tibet."
She chose to smile at that. Apparently she enjoyed the astonishment that
he made no effort to conceal.
"There is a way and a means for everything! Whither goes the elephant
when his time is come? Does man know?" She shrugged. "Oh, it is a
strange planet, this!"
She drew something white from beneath her jacket--something that
crackled as she unfolded it and spread it upon her knees. The moonlight
showed him the faint tracery of a map.
"Bend closer," she directed. "See, here is Myitkyina"--her finger rested
on a tiny dot. "Above is the confluence of the Irrawaddi. The Mali-hka
flows northeast, the 'Nmai-hka northwest. You will follow a route in the
triangular space between the two rivers, in a territory where Government
surveyors have never been. At the edge of the Duleng country you cross
the 'Nmai-hka and go eastward to a town across the Chinese border, in
Yunnan. It is called Tali-fang, and is under the administration of a
military governor, the _Tchentai_. Just beyond Tali-fang is the
Yolon-noi Pass into Tibet. And there"--she touched a blank space in
Tibet, in the northwest corner of Kham--"is the City of the Falcon. Its
name is Shingtse-lunpo."
That conveyed nothing to Trent. But its situation did. In Tibet, between
the sources of the Brahmaputra and the Mekong! It was as incredible as
if she had informed him he was to go to the moon. Her figure of speech
was not amiss--"Beyond the moon." That territory was as nebulous as the
regions of the moon, as weirdly unreal. It was the country toward which
Mohut, the explorer, had striven, which Prince Henri d'Orleans had
skirted.
"From Myitkyina," he heard Sarojini Nanjee saying, "to Tali-fang, you
will be guided by a Lisu; there will be porters, of course. At Tali-fang
you must call at the _Yamen_ of the _Tchentai_, who will furnish fresh
mules and supplies. There you will also exchange your porters and guide
for Tibetan caravaneers. A passport is necessary to enter
Shingtse-lunpo, but that will be provided. Once inside, you will be upon
your own resources."
"As whom does the Falcon know me?" he inserted.
"I am coming to that. He knows you as Tavernake, the jeweler--a
childhood friend of mine. The work he expects you to do is to oversee
the cutting and resetting of the jewels--a work that you will never do.
He will no doubt see you before I do, so guard your tongue. Trust no one
unless he comes in my name and has proof."
"Then I shall see you there?"
A nod. "I start to-night, as I must reach Shingtse-lunpo in advance of
you. Oh, as I said, I come and go as the wind, when and where I will,
and depending upon no man! But I do not go as Sarojini Nanjee.... Just
before you reach Tali-fang--it will not be necessary until then--Masein,
your Lisu guide, will help you effect a transformation from a white man
to a Hindu merchant from Mandalay. White skins are not popular in that
region. You speak Hindustani as well as some Hindus, better than others.
Avoid the natives as much as possible, for they are not over-fond of any
one who is not of their race. If asked whither you go, say to a holy
city in Tibet."
Silence settled for a moment after that. They were more than a mile from
Myitkyina, and the silver coins still glittered and danced in midstream.
"D'you think," he began at length, "if the Government knew I was going
into Tibet, it would approve?"
She shrugged. "Why not? It was understood at Delhi that you were to do
as I directed; go wherever I willed."
"Suppose--" But he halted.
"Yes?"
"Suppose I am killed in Tibet?"
"But you will not be."
"You said there would be dangers."
"Yes--but you are a resourceful man."
"Frequently resourceful men are killed. Let us suppose I were murdered
in Tibet--by robbers, we'll say. It would place my Government in an
awkward position. Could Tibet explain satisfactorily; or would there be
a British expedition, resulting in death for hundreds, because of one
indiscreet Englishman?"
"Is it indiscreet," she countered, "to recover the jewels?"
He appeared to be considering that. Finally:
"If it were made known that the gems are there, the Government could
demand action from the ruling powers of Tibet--or send an expedition."
She laughed. "Do you call that logic? And answer me, impossible one, who
_are_ the 'ruling powers' of Tibet, as you choose to call them? The
Dalai Lama? Or the British Raj? Answer me that! And as for the
expedition: _we_ are the expedition. In this case the wits of two are
worth more than a hundred Lee-Metfords. Guile! Guile is the stronger
weapon--and it does not attract so much attention as guns!"
Again silence. They were still drifting with the current. Behind, in the
moon's path, was a tiny blotch--another boat. He watched it curiously.
Seeing his inquisitive look, the woman spoke.
"No doubt it is Tambusami with your luggage; I instructed him to fetch
it from the Inspection Bungalow and follow. Yonder," she explained, with
a gesture downstream, "is your camp. There you will remain until dawn. I
shall accompany you to the camp, as I have further instructions to give
your guide."
Questions bred in Trent's brain and clamored for utterance, but he
pressed them back. For her to know he was anxious was the surest way to
learn nothing. Therefore he held his tongue, reflecting upon what she
had told him.
He was suspicious of her promises. She was not a type to volunteer
service to a government without some personal motive. And of her motives
he was doubtful. There was a scheme of her own interrelated and under
the surface. Too, he felt that by this latest move, in having his
luggage brought from the Inspection Bungalow, she had thrown Kerth off
the trail.
He extracted cigarettes from his pocket, for he felt that a smoke would
clarify his thoughts; passed the case to her. She took one with
languorous grace and bent nearer for him to light it. As the match
flared, he saw her eyes, again like black opals, close to his. But he
learned no secrets from them; they were as baffling, as crowded with
mysteries, as the black jungles ahead of him.
"There is much more to be explained," she said, tilting her head and
expelling smoke from her nostrils; "certain things to be ignorant of
which would surely lead to trouble...."
As they drifted on she talked, cigarette in one hand, the other resting
upon the map. Before long Da-yak plied his paddle, sending little
ripples over the stars that lay reflected like silver pebbles in the
river. The moon rode high above the hills, a phantom dugout, and the
collar of silver coins spread in extravagant display. The boatman in the
rear crooned a song of ancient Hkamti--of a Sawbwa who loved a Maru
maiden and forsook his kingdom for the dark-eyed daughter of delight.
And Trent, listening, felt himself drawn back to the night when he stood
in the bow of the _Manchester_, in the realm of the stars, and Romance
whispered an old, old tale.
The spell did not leave until the boat grated upon a sandbank, close to
a dark tangle of forest, and Da-yak sprang out. Then Sarojini Nanjee put
away the map, rose and took Trent's hand.
"Your camp is only a short distance beyond the trees," she told him.
As he stepped out of the boat Da-yak made a sound like a night-bird, and
a moment later there came an answering cry from the dark thicket.
4
When the juggler--he of the scar and the drooping eyelid--left the alley
in the bazaar, it was to follow Da-yak. At the P. W. D. Bungalow he saw
a sahib join the Tibetan--which was what he expected. From there he
tracked them to the river, and stood upon the high bank watching as they
cast off and glided downstream.
When they were well under way he sauntered down to the huddle of boats,
and, choosing one, dropped his pack in the bow and kicked the Kachin who
lay sleeping in the bottom.
"Wake up, lazy one; I would go to Waingmaw."
The boatman, thus awakened, looked up with unconcealed hostility. Seeing
a native, and a ragged one at that, he let go a stream of oaths that,
fortunately for him, were not understood by the juggler. However, the
latter imagined from the tone in which the words were delivered that he
was being neither praised nor glorified.
"This for thy trouble, O boatman," said the juggler, choosing to ignore
the oaths and thrusting a banknote within view of the Kachin's eyes.
The boatman, not entirely appeased yet too avaricious to allow a mere
insult to stand between him and the banknote, pushed off, and the
juggler seated himself in the stern, both to steer and to watch the
craft ahead.
"Do not gain on yonder boat," he instructed when they were in midstream,
"nor lose. If thou hast a conscience that thou canst smother, then this
night will indeed be profitable for thee, Kachin."
The juggler said this knowing well that his every word would be repeated
to all the boatmen in Myitkyina, and that, after traveling through
devious channels, they would reach the bazaar, greatly magnified en
route. For what purpose a juggler with a drooping eyelid had followed a
boat down the river could only be surmised--but bazaars surmise much.
"Know you those who are in that boat?" he continued, baiting gossip.
The Kachin grunted--which was intended as a negative answer.
"The boatmen are no friends of thine?"
Another grunt. "The boat belongs to Kin Lo," the Kachin volunteered,
chewing on an opium pellet. "But some stranger hired it for the night."
And he added, by way of personal suggestion, "They paid well."
This information pleased the juggler, for he smiled and drew out a
cheroot and lighted it.
"Aye!" he growled. "They paid well, did they? Well, why should they not?
Robbers! Sons of swine! Listen, Kachin--in yonder boat is my enemy. From
Mandalay I have followed him, and ere the moon sinks I shall avenge the
wrongs he committed against my house!"
"A-a-ah!" sympathized the Kachin, forgetting the rude awakening--they
are as eager for scandal, these wild men of the hills, as the most
polished Englishman who sits beneath a punkah in Rangoon Cantonment.
Whereupon the juggler recited a tale of imaginary woes and wrongs that
did justice to his alleged art of story-telling. Myitkyina's lights had
long dropped away behind when the juggler saw the leading boat turn,
cross the path of moonlight and glide shoreward.
"Ah!" he muttered. "See, Kachin, he thinks to elude me, the swine!"
A glance behind showed him another craft--a mere speck on the expanse of
the river. For a moment he was undecided what to do, then, with an
exclamation of satisfaction, he stripped himself but for a perineal
band.
"Listen well, Kachin," he admonished, creeping forward. "It is not wise
for my enemy to see me coming ashore; therefore I shall swim, like a
crocodile. Turn back to Myitkyina. There hurry to the bungalow of
Colonel Warburton Sahib--you know where it is? Tell him he is wanted at
the landing immediately. He will go."
"But my money," objected the Kachin. "How do I know you will come back?"
"Dost thou not see, O fool, that I have left my clothes and my pack?
Will not I return for them?"
The boatman was not positive of that.
"Well, then, I will give you half now," compromised the juggler, taking
a wallet from the inside pocket of his discarded jacket. The Kachin
watched with crafty eyes to see if the wallet would be returned to the
pocket, but the juggler thrust it carefully under his turban.
"Lend me thy _dah_," he directed. "And do as I said. Thou shalt be well
rewarded for thy trouble."
With the knife gripped between his teeth, he slipped over the side into
the current. He made no sound as he swam away from the boat; only his
moving head and the ripples in his wake told of swift, underwater
strokes.
The river was cool--old wine to the muscles--and he made for the bank
several hundred feet above the white stretch of sand where the other
craft had landed. Not until he was very close to the shore could he
touch bottom. There he halted, head above the surface, eyes straining to
penetrate the gloom further along. He could make out the faint blur of
the boat and a single figure huddled in the stern. A look toward
midstream showed him his craft fast being absorbed by the darkness.
Behind it, coming from Myitkyina, was another boat.
He waited for events to mature. When the latter craft, which he could
see contained two forms, came abreast of him, midstream, it turned
shoreward and a few minutes later touched the sandbank near the boat
that he had followed. He could dimly make out the two forms as they
carried several bulky objects ashore and vanished in the jungle--leaving
the solitary figure huddled in the rear of one of the boats.
The juggler smiled to himself and struck out, swimming easily with the
current. Less than twenty yards from the boat he submerged, propelling
himself forward until yellow sparks reeled before him; then he buoyed
himself up.
The two country-boats loomed close by. His heart beat a tattoo against
his breast as he waited, feet upon the pebbly bottom, to see if his
approach had been heard. Apparently it had not, for the man--a native
boatman from his appearance--lounged in the rear seat, his body slouched
forward.
After a brief hesitation the juggler (his eyelid no longer drooping)
took the _dah_ from between his teeth and moved slowly, cautiously to
the rear of the boat. It was shallower there; the water barely reached
his arm-pits and his chin was level with the back of the craft. The man
had not stirred; he was evidently asleep, the juggler thought. The
forest that met the sandbank was silent but for the whirr of cicadas.
For a full moment the juggler stood motionless. When he moved it was
quickly--and before the native had time to realize what had occurred, he
was seized and jerked backward over the stern. If he cried out, the
water smothered the sound. But what he failed to do in noise, he made up
for in activity. He squirmed and wriggled, his legs and arms thrashing
about in vain effort to wrest himself from the grasp of his sudden
assailant. But the juggler had the advantage of surprise--and a firm
hold on the native's neck--and he brought the hilt of the _dah_ down
upon the latter's skull. The native relaxed--sank with a gurgle.... The
juggler lifted him. Assured that he was only unconscious, he dragged him
to the sandbank, and there, breathing heavily, sank on his knees.
The native, like the juggler, had a beardless face and was naked but for
loincloth and turban. The latter was small, a mere rag twisted around
his head. Therefore, the juggler told himself with the darkness as his
ally he might easily pass for the other--for a short while at least. And
the defeat of empire has been accomplished in less than an hour.
He quickly stripped the man, then cut his own turban into strips and
gagged and bound the unconscious one. When this was done, he caught the
fellow under the arms and dragged him several yards down the bank.
There, carefully selecting a spot in the undergrowth where he was not
likely to be soon found, he hid him. Retracing his steps to the boat, he
sat down in the stern to wait.
Indeed, he reflected, his kismet looked upon him with favor.