“GUPTA RAO.”
Dawn came and no Dawa Tsering. Pale light through cobwebbed windows
drove the dark into corners and consumed it, until the devil-mask on the
wall over Ommony’s head grinned like a living thing and the street
noises began, announcing that Delhi was awake. Diana stirred and
sniffed, mistrusting her surroundings, but patient so long as Ommony was
satisfied to be there. Benjamin shuffled away to the stairs. The
daughter came, fussily, fatly hospitable, with _chota hazri_[15] on the
brass Benares tray—fruit, tea, biscuits, and a smile that would have
won the confidence of Pharaoh, Ruler of the Nile.
But Ommony’s heart had turned harder than Pharaoh’s ever did. He could
hardly force himself to be civil. He drank the tea and ate the fruit
because he needed it, unconscious now of any ritual of friendship in the
act, answering polite inquiries with blunt monosyllables, his mind and
memory working furiously, independently of any efforts at conversation.
His face was a mask, and a dull one at that, with no smile on it. The
iron in him had absolute charge.
He was not by any means the sort of man who flatters himself.
“You damned, deluded fool!” he muttered pitilessly, and Diana opened one
eye wide, awaiting action.
He blamed himself, as mercilessly as he always had been merciful to
others, for having acted as the Lama Tsiang Samdup’s foil for twenty
years. Above all things he despised a smug fool, and he called himself
just that. He should have suspected the Lama long ago. He should have
seen through Benjamin. He had believed his trusteeship of the Tilgaun
Mission was a clean and selfless contribution to the world’s need. Why
hadn’t he resigned then from his government job long ago to devote his
whole career to the trust he had undertaken? If he had done that, he
knew no Lama could have hoodwinked him. No little girls would have been
smuggled then into the unknown by way of Tilgaun.
The self-accusation case-hardened him. He set his teeth, and almost
physically reached out for the weapons of alertness, patience,
persistence, cunning, with which he might redeem the situation. For
redeem it he surely would, or else perish in the attempt. Exposure too
soon would do no good. He needed full proof. And he cared less to punish
the offenders than to rescue the children who had been carried off, and
to make anything of the sort impossible in future, wondering, as he
considered that, what any one would be able to do for girls in their
predicament. The early years are the most impressionable; their
characters would have been undermined. And then a worse thought: was
Benjamin the only agent? There might be a regular market for European
girls in that unknown corner of the earth, with secret agents supplying
it from a dozen sources. If so, he felt and accepted his full share of
responsibility. Who else could share it with him? Only Hannah Sanburn.
She, too, had shielded the Lama and, if ignorant of what was going on,
might at least have suspected.
And thoughts of Hannah Sanburn did not give comfort. He remembered now a
dozen incidents that should have made him suspect _her_ years ago. That
look in her eyes, for instance, and her nervousness whenever he had
urged her to bring about a meeting between the Lama and himself. He
recalled now how carefully she had always shepherded him through the
mission, under pretext of observing the proprieties; she had never given
him a chance to talk alone with any of the mission girls, and like a
fool he had believed she did that to prevent the very suggestion of
scandal from finding an excuse. He had admired her for it. But there was
that room (or was it two rooms) near her own quarters that she had
always kept locked, and that he had not cared to ask to inspect, because
she said she kept her personal belongings in there.
And now this story, told by Mrs. Cornock-Campbell, a witness as
trustworthy as daybreak, of a white girl named Elsa, who spoke English
and Tibetan, who had been to Lhassa, and who could draw—for he had seen
the drawings—as masterfully as Michael Angelo. And Hannah Sanburn’s
plea for secrecy. And the fact that McGregor had had suspicions.
Marmaduke might not have been the father of this strange girl, but that
did not preclude the possibility of Hannah Sanburn being the mother. It
seemed likely—more than likely—that the Lama possessed knowledge which
enabled him to blackmail Hannah Sanburn; it was easy enough to
understand how that well-bred New England woman would fight to preserve
her good name, and how, if the Lama had once tempted her into one false
position, she could be terrified from bad to worse. There is more
deliberate blackmail in the world than most of its indirect victims
suspect.
Nevertheless, Ommony wondered that Hannah Sanburn should not have
confided in himself. She might have known he would have shielded her and
helped her to redeem the situation. She had had dozens of proofs of his
friendship. He smiled rather grimly as he thought to what lengths he
would have gone to shield and befriend Hannah Sanburn—and yet more
grimly—cynically—as it dawned on him to what lengths he might now have
to go. Friendship is friendship—unto death if need be.
Benjamin returned; and an hour’s thought had had its effect on him too.
His assistants came, and he chased them out on hurriedly invented
errands, barring the shop-door behind them.
“I have sent for Maitraya,” he announced, stroking his beard, watching
Ommony sidewise. He seemed to be not quite sure that Ommony might not
have changed his mind with daylight.
“All right. Hunt me out a costume.”
Ommony stepped off the pile of blankets and began to strip himself.
Benjamin’s swift fingers sought and plucked along the shelves, selecting
this and that until a little heap of clothing lay ready on a table,
Ommony saying nothing but observing almost savagely, like a caged man
watching his meal prepared.
“There, that is perfect,” said Benjamin at last. “A dude—a dandy, such
as actors are—aping the high-caste—too educated to submit to
inferiority—a little of this, a little of
that—fashionable—tolerated—half-philosopher, half-mountebank—”
Stark-naked, Ommony confronted him, and Benjamin betrayed the naked fear
that has nothing to do with physical consequences. Ommony looked
straight into his eyes and analyzed it, as he had done fifteen years ago
when he protected Benjamin against accusers.
“All right, Benjamin. I’ll trust you this once more. But no flinching.
See it through.”
He dressed himself, Benjamin watching alertly for the least mistake, but
that was an art in which no man in the world could give Ommony
instruction; he knew costumes as some enthusiasts know postage stamps,
and he bound on the cream-colored silk turban without a glance in the
mirror that Benjamin held for him.
“I’ll need an old trunk now, and three or four changes,” he said
abruptly. “No, cow-hide won’t do—no, there’s glue in that imported
thing—observe caste prejudices, even if I’m supposed to have
none—basket-work’s the stuff. That’s it. Throw me in a trousseau.”
He began to pace the floor, adjusting himself to the costume, finding it
not difficult; his natural, sturdy gait learned in forest lanes with a
gun under his arm, suggested independence and alertness without a hint
of drill, which is the secret of self-assurance; add good manners to
that and an intimate knowledge; there is not much acting needed.
He looked stout and a bit important in the flowing cotton clothes. The
short beard gave him dignity. His skin, weathered by twenty years of
outdoor life, needed no darkening. Even his legs, and his bare feet
thrust into red morocco slippers had the ivory color that belongs to
most of the higher castes; and an actor must be of Brahman or Kshattriya
origin if he hopes to be admitted anywhere within the pale from which
the lower castes are utterly excluded. His profession makes him
technically unclean, but that is rather an advantage than a handicap.
“And the name? The honored name?” asked Benjamin admiringly.
“Gupta Rao. I’m a Bhat-Brahman of Rajputana.”
Benjamin sat down and laughed with his head to one side, nursing a knee.
“Oh, you Ommony! A Jew you should have been! Hey-yey-clever! Now who
would have thought of that but you! _Yah-tchah!_ Bhat-Brahman—of whom
even rajahs are afraid! Gossiping tongue! The privilege to slander!
_Yah-keh-keh-keh!_ You are a clever one! Not even a Brahman will
challenge you, for fear you will make him a laughing-stock!
_Keh-hah-hah-hey-hey-hey!_ Ah, but wait, wait! We forgot the _pan_. You
must have a pouch to carry betel-nut. And the caste-mark—keep still
while I paint the caste-mark.”
And then at last came Dawa Tsering, not pleased with himself but trying
to appear pleased, adjusting his eyes to the dimness as Benjamin let him
in by the back door.
“Where is Ommon_ee_?”
He stared about him, brushed past Ommony contemptuously, and at last saw
the cast-off dinner jacket and white shirt. He broke into the
jargon-Hindustani that serves for lingua franca in that land of a
hundred tongues, chattering as he hurried along the passage past the
stairs and back again:
“Where is he? Is he hiding? Has he gone?” Then, shouting at last in
something near panic: “Oh—Ommon_ee_!”
He stared at Diana, but she gave him no information. She lay curled up
on the floor, apparently asleep. Benjamin looked non-committal—busy
considering something else.
“Where is he—thou?” the Hillman demanded, coming to a stand in front of
Ommony and fingering the handle of his knife. The light was dim just
there where the saddles were piled in a ten-foot heap.
“Would you know his voice?” asked Ommony.
“Aye, in a crowd!”
“Would you know his walk?”
“None better! Seen from behind, when he is thinking, he rolls thus, like
a bear. But who art thou? Where is he?”
Ommony turned his back, walked to the heap of blankets by the wall, and
sat down.
“Would you know him sitting?” he asked casually; and suddenly it
occurred to Dawa Tsering that he was being questioned in his own tongue.
“Thou!” he exclaimed. “Well, may the devils destroy the place! Art thou
then a magician?” He sniffed three times. “Not even the smell is the
same! Was it the Jew who worked the magic? Art thou truly Ommon_ee_?”
“No, I’m changed. I’m Gupta Rao. If you ever call me Ommony again
without my permission, I will bring to pass a change in your affairs
that you will remember! Do you understand?”
“Gupta Rao—huh? A change—eh? Hmm! And that is not a bad idea. Change
_me_, thou! There are many garments in this place—buy me some of them.
That Lama played a dirty trick on me. He has vanished. I found his
_chela_ Samding, and I told him the Lama owes me two months’ pay; and I
said ‘Where is the Lama?’ But Samding, standing by a covered
bullock-cart (but the cart was empty, for I looked) laughed at me and
said nothing. I would have killed him if I had not thought of that
letter, which you said the Lama _must_ receive. So I slapped Samding’s
face with the letter, and threw it on the ground in front of him, and
bade him pick it up and find the Lama or take the consequences. And _he_
said, with that mild voice of his, that I had become very reckless all
at once, so I hustled him a time or two, hoping to make him strike me,
that I might with justice strike him back. But he has no fight in him.
He picked up the letter, holding it thus, because there was dirt on it
and he hates to soil his hands. And he said to me, ‘The Lama has no
further use for you!’ Do you hear that, thou—what is thy new
name?—Gupta Rao? Did you ever hear the like of it for impudence? You
wonder, I suppose, why I didn’t smite Samding there and then, so that
the Lama would have no further use for _him_. Trust me, I would have
done; but two great devils of Tibetans came out of a doorway and seized
me from behind. Lo, before I could draw my knife they had hurled me into
a party of Sikh soldiers who were passing, so that I broke up their
formation, they blaming _me_ for it, which is just like Sikhs. And it
isn’t wise to argue with too many Sikhs, so I ran. Now—what is thy name
again? Gupta Rao? Well—it would now be fitting to disguise me, so that
I may come on that Lama and his _chela_ and the whole brood of them
unawares. Then let us see what one man can do to half-a-dozen!”
Ommony got up and began to pace the floor again. It would be difficult
to disguise Dawa Tsering, even if that were advisable, for the man had a
swagger that was as much a part of him as his huge frame, and a
simplicity that underlay and would inevitably shine through all cunning.
Yet the man would be useful, since he knew more than a little about the
Lama’s goings and comings; and, once in the Hills, where a man without
an armed friend has a short life and a sad one as a rule, he would be
almost indispensable.
He had not made up his mind what to do when one of Benjamin’s assistants
hammered on the shop-door and announced Maitraya. Dawa Tsering sat down
beside Diana, who seemed to have decided he was tolerable, and Maitraya
entered stagily, as if he thought he were a god, or wished other people
to believe him one. He was not a very big man, but he had a trick of
filling up the doorway and pausing there before he strode into the room
to seize by instinct the most conspicuous position and command all eyes.
His face was rather wrinkled, but he was richly clothed in new Tussore
silk, with a gorgeous golden _cummerbund_,[16] and his gallant bearing
tried to give the lie to fifty years. There were marks on his handsome
face that suggested debauch, but might have been due to former hardship;
his manner on the whole was one of dignity and conscious worthiness. One
could tell at a glance what were his views on the actor’s art and on the
position that actors should hold in the community; in another land he
would have pestered the politicians for a knighthood. A pair of gorgeous
black eyes, that he knew how to use with effect, glowed under a heavy
lock of black hair that he had carefully arranged to fall in apparent
carelessness beneath his turban.
“You wished to see me, Benjamin?”
His voice was tragic, his language Urdu, his diction refined to the
verge of pedantry. Benjamin signed to him to be seated on a heap of
blankets, but he declined the invitation like Cæsar refusing a throne
(except that Cæsar could not have done it with such super-modesty).
“May all the glorious gods, and above all friendly, fortunate Ganesha,
have worked on you and made you change your mind, O stubborn Benjamin!
Father of money-bags! Provider of finery for entertaining fools!
Patient, but too cautious Benjamin! May all the gods melt butter on you
for your former trust in me, Maitraya,—and may they also melt your
heart! I need you, Benjamin. I have a bargain with that Lama struck and
bound. The man is crazy, and a traitor to all his gods, but he knows a
little. God knows they will tear him between wild asses for debauching
his religion, when he gets back to Tibet! Believe me or not,
Benjamin—although I _hope_ my word rings unsuspicious in your ears—he
leans toward modern views! Can you imagine that—in a Ringding Lama from
Tibet? He proposes just what I have always preached—to moderate the
ancient plays, retaining their charm and morality, but making them
comprehensible! The man is mad—mad as an American—but genuinely gifted
with imagination. It will make me famous, Benjamin.”
“Does he offer to pay you?” Benjamin asked dryly.
“Richly! Princely! Like a maharajah—with the difference—aha!—that he
will settle regularly, instead of forcing me to borrow from his special
money-lenders (as the rajahs do) while I await his slow convenience. I
tell you, Benjamin, the Lord Ganesha surely smiled on me in the hour of
this Lama’s birth!”
“Did you ask for money in advance?” asked Benjamin.
“Not I, Benjamin. What do you mistake me for—a parasite? A beggar? A
man without dignity? A hanger-on of some courtesan? Nay, nay! I
remembered my blessed friend Benjamin, who likes to do business at a
reasonable profit, and who will be glad to advance me a little more, in
order that I may pay what I already owe. Are we not _good_ friends,
Benjamin? Have I ever defrauded you or told you a word of untruth?”
“A man’s word and his deed should be one,” Benjamin answered. “I hold
your _hundis_[17] that you have not paid. There is interest due on
them.”
“True, Benjamin, true. I have been unfortunate. Who could have foretold
smallpox, the death of three actors, and the burning of a theater? But
another might have repudiated, Benjamin. Another might have told you to
hunt for your money where the smallpox and the fire are born! _Kali_[18]
can care for her own! Did I repudiate? Did I not come and tell you I
will pay in time?”
“The worst is, you are not the only one,” said Benjamin. “I have another
here, who is heavily in my debt, although a famous actor, more famous
than you, and a much finer artist. This is Gupta Rao sahib, of Bikanir.”
“I never heard of him,” said Maitraya, looking slightly scandalized
although prepared to condescend.
“He is a very great actor,” said Benjamin. Whereat Ommony bowed with
becoming gravity, and Maitraya took his measure, up and down.
“Does he act in that beard?” he inquired.
“I have lately been acting the part of an Englishman,” said Ommony; and
his Urdu was as perfect and pedantic as Maitraya’s.
“An Englishman? There are few who can do that with conviction.” Maitraya
stepped back a pace. “You don’t look like an Englishman. No wonder you
grew a beard. That is the only way you could have carried off the part
at all without looking foolish. It takes a man of my proportions to play
an Englishman properly. I have been told that I excel at it. I played
once before the officers of a cavalry regiment at Poona, and they
assured me they believed I was an English gentleman until I stepped down
off the stage. Watch this.”
Maitraya inserted an imaginary monocle and gave an outrageous caricature
of a stock Englishman as portrayed in comic papers on the European
continent.
“God-dam fine weather, eh? Not bad, eh? What?”
“I see you are a genius,” said Ommony. “I could not do it nearly so well
as that.”
“No, I dare say not. The actor’s is an art that calls for technique.
However, I dare say you are good in conventional parts,” said Maitraya,
mollified.
“I have seen him and I am a good judge of such matters,” said Benjamin.
“What I have to say to you, Maitraya, is that I am anxious about the
money which you and Gupta Rao owe me.”
Benjamin put on his extra-calculating air, that Jews use to make their
customers believe there is something as yet undecided—an alternative
course, less profitable to the customer. It is the oldest trick in the
world—much older than Moses. Maitraya showed furtive alarm.
“My son-in-law is away on a long journey. It is costing too much. I need
the money,” Benjamin went on. “I will not advance you more—no, not a
_rupee_ more—”
“Unless?” said Maitraya. He was watching the old Jew’s face, flattering
himself that he could read behind the mask and swallowing the bait as
simply as a hungry fish.
“Unless you take Gupta Rao with you—”
“I could give him small parts,” said Maitraya, cautiously yet with a
gorgeous magnanimity.
“As leading actor,” Benjamin went on, “on a leading actor’s salary, so
that he may have a chance to pay me what he owes.”
“But I must first see him act,” Maitraya objected. “I promised the Lama
a company of actors second to none, and—”
“And on this new _hundi_ both your names must go,” said Benjamin, “so
that you are both responsible, and I can take a lien on Gupta Rao’s
salary if I so wish.”
That stipulation started a long-winded argument, in which Ommony joined
sufficiently to add confusion to it and support Benjamin by pretending
to support Maitraya. Benjamin’s investment in costumes, theatrical
properties and cash might be considerable, and there was no reason why
the shrewd old merchant should not protect himself. At the end of an
hour of expostulation, imprecation, gesticulation and general
pandemonium Benjamin had his way, vowing he had never made a more
unprofitable bargain in his life, and Maitraya was convinced that Gupta
Rao had at least a rich vocabulary. Moreover, as fellow victims of
necessity, with their names on a joint promissory note, they had an
excuse for friendship, of which Ommony took full advantage.
“Being of Brahman origin, of course I have access to inner circles, and
enjoy privileges that are denied to you; and if I were an ordinary
Brahman I would not _join_ forces with you. But we Bhats consider
ourselves above caste, and when we find an outcaste of merit and
distinction, such as you evidently are, we believe it no dishonor to
befriend him. You will find it a great advantage to have me in your
company, and for many reasons.”
Maitraya was readily convinced of that. A Bhat enjoys more privileges
than any scald did in the Viking days, for there is none who dares to
call him in question and nowadays, at least in Northern India, there is
no authority that can discipline him. An orthodox Brahman is very easily
kept within bounds, and it is next to impossible for a man of lower
caste to pose as a Brahman successfully because at the first suggestion
of suspicion he would be questioned narrowly and be required to give
substantial proofs; if the proofs were not forthcoming the Brahmans
would simply close their ranks against him. But who shall challenge the
College of Heralds on points of etiquette?
The very Pundits themselves, who are the fountainheads of orthodoxy, are
at the mercy of the Bhats. A Pundit who should challenge a Bhat’s
veracity or privilege would lay himself open to such scurrilous attack,
in song and jest and innuendo, as he could never stand against. He would
be in the position of a public man in Europe or America who should dare
to defy the newspapers. The only limits to a Bhat’s audacity are imposed
by his own intelligence and his own gift of invective. He may act, sing,
dance in public and be undefiled; he may accept gifts whose very shadow
no orthodox Brahman would dare to let fall on his door-step; and that
source of strength is the secret of his weakness at the same time,
since, like the Press that accepts paid advertising, he has to be
careful whose corns he crushes.
Maitraya, finding himself linked with this Gupta Rao by a contract,
which Benjamin would certainly enforce, began at once to take good care
to establish cordial relations. He was even deferent in his remarks
about the beard.
“Beautiful it is, and manly—good to see, Gupta Rao, but—for certain
parts and certain purposes—will it not be inconvenient?”
Ommony conceded that point. He withdrew to a little dark room and
removed the beard by candle-light, using a razor belonging to one of
Benjamin’s assistants and, since the skin was paler where the hair had
been, rubbing on a little dark stain afterward. While that was going on,
Maitraya was regaled by Benjamin with accounts of Gupta Rao’s audacity
and influence.
“Then why is he not rich?” Maitraya asked. “These Bhats are notorious
for luxury. Everybody gives them presents, to keep their tongues from
wagging.”
“That is just it,” Benjamin explained. “Too much luxury! Too many gifts!
It spoils them. This one is a gambler and a patron of the courtesans,
who favor him exceedingly. _Tshay-yay-yay!_ What a weakness is the love
of women! But he is on his good behavior at present because, says he, a
Bikaniri broke his heart. But the truth is, she only emptied his
pockets.”
“And that great dog?” Maitraya asked. “To whom does that belong?”
Benjamin stroked his beard and hesitated. But Ommony had heard every
word of the conversation through the thin partition.
“And that great savage beside the dog—that Northerner—who is he?”
asked Maitraya.
Ommony emerged, having reached a conclusion at last as to what should be
done with Dawa Tsering and Diana.
“I must count on your honor’s sympathy and good will,” he said, smiling
at Maitraya rather sheepishly. “That, hound is the agent of
_Hanuman_[19]. The man from Spiti is a simpleton, whose service is to
keep the hound in good health and to assist with occasional amorous
errands. Our friend Benjamin has not told all the truth. Whose heart is
broken while he can communicate with his beloved?”
Maitraya smiled. He had acted in too many plays, in which the plot
consisted of intrigue between man and woman, not to accept that sort of
story at face-value. Life, to him, was either drama or else mere
drudgery. Ommony excused himself, to go and talk with Dawa Tsering.
“Now this dog is used to a dog-boy,” he said sternly. “Moreover, she
will do as I say, and if you are kind to her, she will be tolerant of
you.”
Diana smelt Ommony over inquisitively. The strange clothes puzzled her
but, having nosed them thoroughly, she lay down again and waited.
“She is an incarnation of a devil,” said Dawa Tsering. “I am sure of
it.”
“Quite right. But she is a very friendly devil to her friends. I am
going to tell her to look after you; and she will do it. And I order you
to look after her. Keep the fleas off her. Attend to it that she is
clean and comfortable.”
“What then?”
“The Jew shall provide you with new clothing, after you have cleaned
yourself. When I go presently, with that man Maitraya, you are to remain
here, and you will see that the dog will remain with you willingly. At
the proper time you are to come and find me.”
“But how, Ommon_ee_? How shall I find you?”
“Don’t call me Ommony! Remember that. My name is Gupta Rao.”
“That makes you even more difficult to find!”
“You are going to learn what the dog can do. When I send a messenger,
the dog will follow him, but you are to remain here, do you understand?
You are not to move away on any condition. When it suits my convenience
the dog will return to this place alone and will bring you to wherever I
may happen to be. Do you understand?”
“No, I don’t understand, but I will wait and see,” said Dawa Tsering. “I
think you would make a good thief on the te-rains, Om—I mean, Gupta
Rao!”
-----
[15] Early breakfast.
[16] Sash.
[17] Promissory notes.
[18] Goddess, among other horrors, of the smallpox.
[19] The monkey—god—patron of love-affairs.
Men agree that prostitution is an evil, and they who know more
than I do have assured me this opinion is right. But there are
many forms of prostitution, and it may be that among the least
of them is that of women, bad though that is. I have seen men
sell their souls more inexcusably than women sell their
bodies—and with more disastrous consequences—to themselves and
to the buyer.
From the Book of the Sayings of Tsiang Samdup.