The Camp of the Snake/Chapter 9

NSIDE the door we all halted and looked down. Another narrow stair, this time of marble, ran from our feet to the floor of the mausoleum itself. A lantern stood near the center, with Dixon's rifle; or rather the one he had borrowed from me, beside it.

The air was cold, but reasonably fresh, due to the door being left open. And the place itself was a treasure chamber, like a stage setting. The walls were a mass of mosaics, of some shining stone. Moorcroft explained that they were made of onyx and jasper, and the green in them was jade. And these stone pictures on the walls were a replica of the forest over our heads—slender trees with triangular, green leaves, and patterns of vines running through them.

Even the slender columns that supported the red sandstone roof were shaped like cedars, with branches spreading out at the top and running into the sandstone. The carving on the pillars was a work of art and each one, probably would have sold for ten thousand dollars on Fifth Avenue or Post Street.

Moorcroft pointed out everything, explaining that the builder, Jahangire the Mogul chap, had tried to make this tomb of a favorite immune from the wear of time. The precious stones were bright as ever, and the marble floor was polished. But water had seeped through here and there, and places in the walls were crumpled in by roots of the deodars that had grown into the tomb.

He said the entrance had been covered up by the loose rocks to prevent discovery. But a thing like this is not forgotten. And though the Chitralis, from whom Moorcroft learned the secret, kept its site hidden as well as they could, many natives in India knew about it.

"For three hundred years no robber dared to enter here," the doctor remarked. "But look at that!"

Across the chamber the floor was a square of solid silver, and around this ran a lacy screen, clear to the ceiling. By holding the lantern close to the openings in the carved screen we could see a kind of altar inside, with a small casket on it. This box was set with precious stones, mostly emeralds I expect.

In that casket, Moorcroft told us, rested the ashes of the Persian girl the Mogul had loved. And the marble screen—the thing was really carved out of marble—was shattered at one place by a small blacksmith's hammer, that lay near where we stood.

It did not need a diagram to show that Dixon had been at work smashing the barrier between him and the casket when he had been interrupted. Miss Carnie looked as if someone had struck her, but she faced Moorcroft frankly and asked him to tell his story.

R. MOORCROFT had known Lawrence Dixon for several years, since the captain had resigned from the army. Dixon had been posted in the Kashmir region, doing work with the border commission. While he was a subaltern he had mixed with the wealthier natives a lot and had taken to eating opium. He had always been a drinker, and his promotion was due to influence.

Why the man had resigned, Moorcroft did not say, but it came out afterward that he had been involved in smuggling opium into Russia.

Besides opium Dixon had dabbled more than was good for him in the mysteries of the Hindus. He had followers in nearly every caste because the man had a keen mind and knew how to make a penny turn up when he wanted it. When the rajah of Chitral, Babur el-Sulaiman, had been in need of money in Delhi, a few months ago, Dixon offered to buy out the hill chief's feudal rights to cut timber.

He got the concession cheap, for some six thousand pounds. But to buy the timber he had to interest two or three other men in the forestry venture. These people in Calcutta supplied most of the six thousand pounds, and stipulated that Cobden should be made manager. Cobden was notoriously honest, though quarrelsome, and an experienced lumber man.

About the actual terms of the partnership Moorcroft knew little. Dixon was content to take a small percentage for his services because he meant to make his profit in a different thing, the tomb of Jahangire.

He knew the site of the tomb must be close to this spot, having learned that much from his native friends, but knew also that the Chitralis kept a close watch on it. The timber cutting gave him an excuse to go over every foot of the ground. Taking the sacred grove as a starting point, he found the entrance in the rock pile quickly.

The man was not afraid to take long chances. Still, breaking into the mausoleum would require the help of another white man and armed followers. Dixon had an idea of the wealth buried in the tomb, and he made his first mistake by trying to win over Cobden to help him make the raid. A man venturing into the vault alone would be at the mercy of the Chitralis who would probably gather outside and shut him up in the place—so Dixon must have reasoned.

Anyway, Cobden refused to meddle, and accused Dixon of ruining the timber concession by an act of plain thievery. The tomb belonged to the rajah, the trees to the Englishman, who had made a good bargain.

Whether Cobden threatened to reveal Dixon's plans to the other partners, Moorcroft did not know. But Dixon asked one of his followers, Anim Dass, to get the manager out of the way for several weeks—carry him off to one of the unruly hill tribes or see that he fell sick. Now Anim Dass did not believe in taking any unnecessary trouble, and while Dixon was absent in Delhi, waiting for the field to be cleared, the babu proceeded to kill Cobden—which was the safest thing to do from his point of view.

And he did it cleverly. A cobra was brought up from one of the southern valleys and was slipped into the manager's overcoat by one of the natives who could handle the deadly snake. Cobden was bitten before he was aware of danger, in the half light of sunrise near the edge of the cliff.

A cobra's bite does not always kill, but Anim Dass had his species of reptile selected with care, and Cobden saw what had struck him; he knew, too, that he was a couple of miles from medicines and stimulants at the camp—and did not care to die under the eyes of the natives who had tricked him. He walked off the cliff.

Which suited Anim Dass perfectly, because a half dozen witnesses could say that the white man died by accident.

Meanwhile Dixon had met Gordon Carnie at the races in Delhi. Moorcroft found out that he was paying attention to the girl. Miss Carnie's parents were dead and both she and her brother disliked the perfunctory care-taking of the officers' wives; Dixon's history was not known in Delhi, and—that was all Moorcroft said of the love that the girl had wasted on the man who had tried to marry her for her money. But I knew pretty well what he left unsaid. Dixon, playing for a greater stake than the Chitral tomb, had persuaded Gordon Carnie and her brother to come to the hills to his camp. Then he tried to induce her to go with him in the car to the missionary to be married.

The girl was barely out of school, wilful and heedless as her brother, hardly out of the stage. Yet a woman's instinct warned her to hold back from this final step. I think Dixon tried to play the sheik and rush her off, and failed. Anyway, the talk that afternoon gave her an insight into his character, and the conjuring of the natives, horrible as it was, did the rest.

Even then I didn't quite believe that the Chitralis had turned Dixon into a human snake by collective thought-action. Probably the man had been tricked, or drugged, and was trying to crawl away without being seen.

"You haven't explained yet how Anim Dass died," I reminded Moorcroft. In spite of the man's open story and its effect on the girl I was not quite sure in my mind what part he was playing.

"He followed Cobden," retorted the doctor grimly. "Last night when Dixon was sleeping in his tent, the babu took alarm, suspecting the truth. He had an inkling that the Chitralis had decided on his death as a punishment for the murder of the white man, which they witnessed." Moorcroft took up the hammer and glanced at it thoughtfully. "Anim Dass was aware of the secret of the tomb. He came to me last night, and, being thoroughly frightened, confessed a good deal, trying to lay all the blame on Dixon. I could do nothing for him. After I'd left the camp to go to the tribe and try to make them keep their hands off you, Smith, and the Carnies, Anim Dass ran to find Arnold Carnie. He was creeping through the underbrush when he put his hand on a cobra."

"Accident?"

"No. The Chitralis caught him after they'd seen him barging around the stone heap, yesterday. He was petrified by terror and half numb with the poison that kills in a half hour, when he reached the edge of the cliff where you were. Probably he was more than half blind by then, and stumbled off. It made no difference."

Suddenly he stopped and looked at Gordon Carnie. There were dark circles under her eyes, and her teeth were caught in her lower lip.

"Why did you keep silent so long, Dr. Moorcroft? You are Lawrence's enemy, and I do not believe what you say. Why won't you accuse him to his face?"

She was defiant and bitterly hurt. I suppose a woman is a poor judge of character in the man she loves or likes, and law doesn't mean the world to her either. But I saw her wince as she looked at the break in that beautiful screen built by a prince generations ago to guard the remains of the woman he had cherished.

"I'm going to find Lawrence and make him answer you," she added, lifting her chin in a way that meant business.

A breath of cold air passed through the tomb, blowing out the candle and making the lantern flicker. Moorcroft held up his hand, listening, and I set myself for some new kind of magic.

"The wind is rising," he said.

We left the tomb, and I had no regrets when he closed the door after us and crawled out the hole. Behind that screen was a fortune in jewels and a few whacks of the hammer might have made it mine, because I was armed, and Moorcroft wasn't, and the Chitralis had left us—evidently trusting the doctor, who had been there before.

But when I thought of Dixon and his snake wriggle, and the things I might be made to look like if I tried to crack that crib, I walked out on my toes and helped Moorcroft roll the boulders back into place. Outside, a merry gale was blowing and the deodars were swaying overhead. The moon had gone behind clouds and it sure looked good for a storm.

So Moorcroft thought, and we hurried the girl to his trick tent, as the best shelter available. Those Himalaya thunderstorms are no dewy showers.