The Marriage of Meldrum Strange/Chapter 7

HERE were days after that when Strange fretted, and the problem was to distract him from a too quick move, that might have been equally advantageous for Ommony, who held all trumps, but none the less fatal to Zelmira Poulakis. And Ommony considered her his partner now to be considered only less than the forest.

The old disease that had rioted unchecked in Strange for forty years, lulled for a while by his new great scheme to be the world’s arch-sleuth, had broken out anew with three-fold virulence. Attain! Acquire! Possess! Exploit! Then on to something else! It boiled in his veins—set his brain on fire. It was all so easy! All a man needed was the money and initiative—that, and the gift of recognizing opportunity.

The only immediate outlet for his surging energy was the forest, so he began to butcher game. The slaughtered buck meant no more to him than yesterday when it is past. Blood-lust was not in him. He recoiled from carcasses, cared nothing for the trophies, only ached to demonstrate his own ability and feel the power that fed.

Blood on his hands disgusted him; it was all too personal. When his clothes were soiled he changed them, and returned for more hunting. He was not cruel in the ordinary sense; he killed clean, or when he failed to kill, kept after the wounded beast until he had it. But the power to kill was his, and he used it, stoking the fires beneath that other power, to have, that he intended to use too.

Jeff protested on occasion, for he was a big-game hunter born.

“If I don’t, some one will,” Strange answered. “Life’s like that. Take, or it shall be taken from you, even that which you have. I’ve neglected this part of my education. You’ve neglected business. The result is I’ve got millions to your thousands, but you’re the better shot. I’ll learn this. You cultivate your head!”

Ommony knew what was going on, but had no time to interfere, nor much inclination. The game had to be sacrificed on the forest altar. Nature, left alone, would restore the balance presently. He had the big victory to plan for. This butchery was an affair of outposts, not beneath his notice, but insufficient to distract him from the main plan. However, it did not reduce his grim determination to make the ultimate defeat of Meldrum Strange a rout, and if he once had thought of offering quarter, that sweet reasonableness vanished. The devil, that in varying percentage lives in every human, had Cottswold Ommony by the heart-strings; nor was its grip loosened in the least by knowledge that Strange had sent to Bombay for money in large quantities, and that the money had arrived.

So he himself sent a telegram and then rode to interview the raja; but this time instead of waiting at the outer gate for the usual rigamrolerigmarole [sic], he sent in a note, and rode away to a clearing near the forest edge, where the masonry of an ancient well was crumbling to decay. There he dismounted and waited, peering curiously into and around the well, as if he had expected some thing, and presently was satisfied. He did not wait long; there was that in his note that had not suggested dalliance.

The raja came cantering, and drew rein just in sight of him, then advanced at a walk, endeavoring to look at ease with all the world and his own thoughts. The result was an absurd mixture of nerves and indifference, whose effect was heightened by the extravagant gesture with which he threw away a half-smoked cigaret.

“Shall we ride together?” he suggested.

“Sit here,” said Ommony, laying his hand on the stone-work of the ruined well.

The raja immensely disliked receiving orders, but an open quarrel would have been no convenient thing to have on hand at that crisis of his affairs; he dismounted with an ill-grace, threw his reins over a tree-stump, and sat down with arms folded.

“Well?” he asked. “What?”

“Have you your pistol with you?”

“No.”

“You’re mistaken. It’s in that side-pocket.”

The raja muttered an exclamation. It was easy enough to guess what he would have liked to do.

“Uh! My servant put it there, eh? The fool must have thought”

“May I see it?” asked Ommony.

There was no alternative. As resentfully as a boy caught stealing apples, the raja produced the gold-plated thing, butt-end first. Ommony took it, glanced at it, and dropped it down the well, with his other hand preventing the raja from peering down after it. The well must have been either deep or empty. There came no sound of the pistol’s reaching bottom.

“You won’t shoot my dog again with that, at all events.

“I did nothing of the kind”

“I have the dog to prove it, and two witnesses. Shall we ask the dog to settle the point? She’s not fit to run yet, but I can have her carried over; or you may come to my place, and we’ll know in a minute who’s telling the truth.”

The raja showed his teeth and chewed the end of his mustache. Then he glanced to right and left. There were no witnesses.

“The beast was being used to carry messages from spies on me!” he snarled. “How dare you do that?” he demanded.

“I dare worse. I dare charge you with plotting to sell this forest to Meldrum Strange without as much as notifying the Government of your intention! But I’ll be satisfied with throwing your pistol down the well, provided!”

“What?”

“Provided you’re reasonable too.”

THE raja glanced to right and left again. The only audience were the horses. Rage had him by the throat; but princes in these drab, degenerate days are worse off than beggars, in that a beggar need have no master. He choked the rage down with an effort, and forced a smile.

“Well, all right then, we’re quits. I did shoot your infernal dog, and that well’s deep, confound you! But look here, Ommony, old boy, I must have money, and the shroffs won’t lend.”

“I understand you’ve told Strange I’m corruptible,” said Ommony.

The raja glared.

“He told you that? He lies! He”

“Oh no, he didn’t lie.”

The enemy’s mistakes win the victor’s battle. The astonishing thought that Strange—not Ramsden—had betrayed him to Ommony more unmanned the raja than a thrashing would have done; and Ommony was quick to seize advantage.

“What a fool you are to trust a stranger, and betray an old friend,” he said indignantly. “I’ve been your friend through thick and thin. I’ve backed you against the priests, against the central government, against your creditors—against yourself! You’ve never set a foot wrong when you listened to me. Your revenue is nearly double what it was. You’ve received a coveted honor on my recommendation; You know as well as I do that my one concern is this forest. And you reward friendship by trying to undo my life’s work! What do you think would happen if Strange should ever get a foot-hold here?”

Now the raja traced his ancestry so far back into the dawn of time, and was so inbred—lest the royal strain should be defiled—that European kings were vulgar riff-raff by comparison. And that is a condition that begets a point of view. The ancientry arose within him.

“What do I care? Who are you, you foreigner!” he snorted, “to come here and meddle? The land and the forest are mine—you hear me? mine! You English are thieves, that’s all—thieves who will be kicked out presently, those of you who are not dead with”

“With our boots on,” Ommony suggested. “Let’s not worry about after that. Until then, is the problem. Until the Powers hoist my number I’m forest guardian, and you’ve me to deal with. Now then. What are you going to do?”

The raja confessed to himself, at any rate, that he did not know, and his face told Ommony the tale. That is a state of mind that jumps at ready-made solutions.

“What you thought of doing was to sell to Meldrum Strange alleged forest rights, that are doubtful to put it mildly, and to leave him to fight through the courts for the title. That’s dishonest. Why don’t you sell him something you do own?”

“For instance?”

“Do you own the Panch Mahal?”

The rajah scowled. That was another property on which the shroffs would not lend one rupee, not because the raja’s heritage was doubtful, but because the priests of the temple of Siva in Chota Pegu claimed a lien on it. There was no pretense of its being a legal lien, only one of those theoretical and subtly enforced claims that the church in all ages and all climes has maintained irresistibly.

“You know what the priests say.”

“What can they do?” demanded Ommony.

“Dogs! I won’t go near them! They avoid my court. They set the rabble against me. They have me hooted in the streets. They deny me caste. I will make no overtures to that swarm of cankering worms!”

Pride of that sort is impregnable by direct assault, but more susceptible to flank attack than an over-extended speculator.

“Chullunder Ghose has no pride,” Ommony remarked, as if to the blue sky, apropos of nothing.

That set the raja thinking on a new line. He would have loved to cheat the priests—to double-cross and laugh at them; but he did not dare attempt that; the priests’ power is too subtle and far-reaching, as well as ruthless. Pride, that is sweeter than success, restrained him from an open bar gain with them. Poverty—extravagance—the distant lights of La Ville Lumière impelled. Chullunder Ghose was a rogue with brains, who would serve any master who paid him well enough. Strange vs. Priests of Siva would be a game worth while for the Pantheon of Heaven to come and watch!

Ommony, watching the raja as a salesman studies his prospect, judged his time and struck.

“I’m against Strange,” he said frankly, leaning back against the masonry with both hands in his pockets. “You’d better sell him the Panch Mahal, and stick to your old friends.”

“Will you not prevent my selling him the Panch Mahal?”

“Why should I?”

“Will you help me against the priests?”

“It’s against British policy to interfere in religious matters. You must manage them yourself. Perhaps the priests may make first overtures. They’re omniscient, you know. They read thoughts. They’re always forehanded. You won’t have to eat humble pie if they come to you first.”

“I must think this over,” said the raja.

“Do.”

“And Madame Poulakis?”

“For the moment leave her out of it.”

“How can I? She is becoming a nuisance. I can not invite Strange to the palace while she is there, and she has begun to have sick headaches. She complains she is too unwell to travel.”

“Keep Strange away, then. Take him to the Panch Mahal.”

“But I can’t go away and leave her in the palace.”

“Why not?”

“It is unthinkable.”

“Try to think it. She’s a gentle-woman. You can’t be rude to her.”

The raja hesitated, then took two steps and stood in front of Ommony with arms folded.

“Tell me what she is doing here!” he said. “Chullunder Ghose persuaded me I might reap advantage from her visit. When I ask her why she came, she laughs; and the babu swears he’s afraid to tell what her business is. Am I being made a catspaw in some scheme?”

“I’d let the babu manage that, if I were you.”

“That rascal!”

“You took his advice in the first place. Carry on! You’ve never failed when you took my advice. Go home and think it over!”

The raja snapped his fingers with irritation, chewed at his mustache a moment, scowled, swore irresolutely, scowled again, glanced once at Ommony, who met his eyes good-humoredly, kicked at a stone, and made his mind up.

“I will try the luck a last time. All or nothing! I will carry on. Ommony, old boy, if you’ve misled me this time”

HE LEFT the nature of the threat to be imagined, mounted, and rode away, glancing back twice swiftly over-shoulder, as if to catch Ommony’s expression unalert and so divine his secret mood. But he was out of sight before a peacock-colored turban arose slowly from within the well, and a full, fat face beneath it surveyed the scene cautiously.

“Sahib, choose new assignation spot! Standing on six-inch ledge, holding with fingers of one hand, with drop into watery bowels of underworld the penalty for least slip, is Grand Guignol sensation!”

“Why not hold on with both hands?” Ommony asked without looking round.

“Needed one for pistol, which sahib dumped. Self was dumpee. Said very valuable weapon fell on this babu. Having caught same, could not move purpose of disposal within clothing. ''Verb. sap.'' Am emasculated—very!”

He climbed out over the rim of the well and stretched himself painfully, one section at a time.

“Am creased like old kerosene can! Yow! I need hammer to out-flatten me!”

“Did you hear what was said?” Ommony asked, lighting his pipe, and not even looking at him sidewise.

The babu sat down cross-legged on a broken stone to one side of the well, where he was least conspicuous, and proceeded to examine the pistol. He faced away from Ommony. Their conversation might have been directed to the empty air.

“Unlike regal artillery, am not gold-plated. Oh no, very far from it. Am impoverished person. Nevertheless, resembling gun in other matters, I go off when safety-catch is released and trigger pressed—thus. Yow! I did not know it was loaded!”

“Hurt yourself?”

“No.”

“Answer my question then.”

“All things on this plane are relative and governed by desire. How much did the sahib wish me to hear?”

“What did you hear?”

“Acoustic properties of well are excellent.”

“Can you take a hint?”

“On paper is easiest, sahib—with signature of executive of bank of issue!”

“Get your pay from your employer.”

“Sahib, it is difficult for untitled and impecunious babu to obtain permit to carry firearms. Now if influential sahib”

“Should demand the pistol back,” suggested Ommony.

“Will try again! There are but five shots left in magazine, plus one empty cartridge, which might be refilled by expedient person in emergency. Sale of ammunition to this babu being ultra vires of inspected commerce, sahib in his magnanimity might”

“Better take the hint,” suggested Ommony. “If I heard too much talk about pistols I might begin to look for one.”

“Ah dear me!”

“Have you made the acquaintance of the priests?”

“Have accumulated glamor of much sanctity.”

“Well? What are you waiting for?”

“Emolument!”

“I tell you I’m not your employer.”

“Oh no! You are only person who can send me on red stallion through forest full of tigers, accompanied by cannibals, who drive me before them, replacing me on back of said terrifying stallion when I frequently fall off! You are unconnected person, who can nevertheless compel me to cling by toe- and finger-nails to wall of snakesome well. Not my employer! Nevertheless, this babu awaits emolument.”

But Ommony knew better. Fifty rupees from him would have made the babu as undependable as a dog that is bribed to obey.

“Get on or get out!” ordered Ommony. “I can manage well without you.”

“Is gratitude always ex post facto? May not generosity cast its shadow in advance?” the babu grumbled.

“It’s getting late,” said Ommony. “Suppose you walk to the palace and present my compliments to Madame Poulakis. Ask, if her head doesn’t ache too much if she’d care to meet me in the grounds.”

The babu sighed, salaamed, and waddled off. Ommony gave him ample time to get out of sight, then mounted and rode slowly after him for a quarter of a mile, in order to make sure he had not doubled back to watch him through the trees. However, he saw the broad back continuing in the right direction; and a back tells more than some men’s faces; the babu’s air was businesslike, and Ommony turned again, contented.

He rode into the forest by a trail not often used, pulled out his watch, whistled, peered about him, cantered for a mile or so along a glade, found rising ground, and ascending that, at last saw what he was looking for. A thing of many legs, like a prehistoric monster, passed slowly over a rise a mile beyond him, moving his way. He sat down then and waited until he heard grunts, complaints and quarreling; but before their source appeared in sight he mounted and rode back slowly toward the well.

He had not dared wait. He had done a miracle. He had persuaded sixteen junglis, to whom toil at anything but hunting is a worse contemplation than hunger, to carry a load to him across the forest and they are literal-minded folk. They would have dropped the load and run away, if they had found him anywhere before the journey’s end. So he sat down by a stone hut with an iron roof, that he himself had built years ago to hold tools, when planting was in progress thereabouts. The hut was almost hidden in the trees and undergrowth, and the padlock had rusted into uselessness, but he smashed that and put a new one in its place.

Then the junglis came, weary beyond belief, thin-legged and all new to the exercise, carrying shoulder-high a big box lashed in the midst of four poles. He praised them, promising that the devils of the jungle should impose no more red-sickness for seven years, and rewarded them fabulously from the contents of his saddle-bag. Each bewildered one received, when the box was safely in the hut, a brand-new, glittering, imported knife, Those blade would actually fold into the handle. Each knife had a ring on it, to hang it to a fellow’s neck by, and a bright brass chain through the ring. It was incredible; but there the knives were, and they ran lest the devils should see, and envy them, and make new sorts of trouble.

No need to warn them not to talk. Only Ommony in all that forest could converse with them. They understood not more than ten words in any other language than their own decayed Lemurian.

With the key of the hut in his pocket Ommony rode on to the palace, and was admitted this time by a side-gate, since there was nothing official about his call. Zelmira with Charley in attendance waited for him in an open-sided Summer-house in the midst of three acres of neglected garden. There was no chance of eavesdropping, but they themselves were easily visible from the palace windows.

“What’s that?” asked Charley.

“A key to Destiny! Your box is in a hut I’ll show you. Have you developers?”

“Plenty.”

“Can you overcome the mechanical difficulties?”

Ommony spoke calmly, but fear was creeping up his back. Knowing nothing of the nature of the difficulties, he had not even imagined any until that moment, when it dawned on him like the knell of disaster that a reel of film might be unmanageable without extensive apparatus.

“I don’t know,” said Charley, “I’ve spent part of two years figuring out a kit that would serve in emergencies. It’s all in that box. The hardest job is washing and drying. But I’ve got a collapsible drum to wind the stuff on. If there’s scads of decent water, cool enough—”

“There’s a perennial spring of cool water within fifty yards of where your box is,” Ommony assured him. “It flows over clean rock, rather slowly.”

Charley nodded. That was settled. But now another dread took Ommony by the throat, so that he coughed.

“Have you a projector?”

“Bet your life! No use developing film on the spot unless you can test it and see what you’re doing.”

Ommony laughed outright.

“What’s the joke?”

“It’s on Strange!”

“I think it’s on me,” said Zelmira. “I’m feeling so well I could walk twenty miles, and I have to play sick with my head in a shawl! I want to ride, and dance, and sing, and be alive, but I have to pretend that even the phonograph makes my head ache! The raja’s hints that I’ve been here long enough are getting positively rude.”

“That nabob will have his head punched presently!” said Charley, nodding confirmation.

“Faint heart never won fair plutocrat!” laughed Ommony. “Stick it out, madame! The raja will change his tune from now on. Strange goes to the Panch Mahal within a day or two. Then everything depends on you. I’ll have a parson in attendance.”

“So quick?”

“Surely. Strange needs distraction, or he’ll murder everything on four legs and cut down all the trees in the universe! Charley, I want you to look over that kit of yours and foresee every possible chance of accident. We can’t afford one faux pas.”

Charley promised that, and they, went into session of agenda, ways and means, Zelmira bubbling laughter and Charley exploding approval at intervals, as Ommony unfolded all his plan.

“It’s a sizzling scheme!” said Charley.

“And if it goes wrong it’s only another scandal in high life!” Zelmira added, chuckling mischievously.

“If it misses one cog, Amen to my career!” said Ommony, not copying the fabled ostriches that stick their heads in sand. He liked to face all issues.

“The safe bet is,” said Charley, “Strange won’t dream any one would try to put that over on him. He’s so used to people being scared of him, he’ll try to bluster, and make it worse.”

“Well, let’s hope!” said Ommony; and then, as darkness fell, he went to interview the raja.

HE FOUND him tête-à-tête with the babu, on a side-veranda, facing the other way from the Summer-house. Chullunder GohseGhose [sic] was squatting on the floor near the raja’s feet, catching a purple handkerchief between his toes, as he let it fall and pulled it back repeatedly in sign of nervousness. They were conversing in English, as a precaution against eaves-dropping, and because each understood that language better than he did the other’s; but all Ommony overheard was—

“They are worse than money-lenders!”

“True, mighty one, they are priests! They will take no less.”

“Curse them!”

“This babu, sympathizing with your highness, curses them devoutly! Nevertheless—shall I not say—fifty-fifty? Yes?”

“May gangrene rot them! Yes.”

“And my honorarium?”

“Here—take this—there’s some one coming—go away—hurry!”

The babu slunk into the shadows, stowing paper-money into some recess between his stomach and loin-cloth.

“Oh, hullo Ommony, old boy, I’m glad to see you,” said the raja. “Are you feeling sprightly and full of the old corn and all that kind of thing? What do you say to a ride through the jungle tonight to your place? Dinner and forty winks, then up like Gay Lochinvar and to with caution! I’d like to ride with you, and call on Strange at breakfast.”

“Suits me well,” said Ommony. “You’ve done your thinking then?”

“Yes, ! Those lousy priests want everything! They won’t sell their claim or release it. They offer to say nothing for the present on a fifty-fifty basis.”

“Will they do anything?” asked Ommony.

“That’s just what puzzles me,” said the raja. “They sent that babu to say they’d do anything in reason. They don’t know what reason is, confound them! I don’t know what they mean, or what you mean either! You must be a wizard! How have you contrived to make priests offer to do anything?”

“I haven’t been near them,” said Ommony truthfully.

“You’ve had correspondence then.”

“No.”

“You’ve threatened them.”

“No. I don’t interfere with priests.”

“I wish you’d let me alone as religiously! Well: the priests know everything in advance as usual; and as usual I’m the only one in the dark—the reigning raja! Huh! Why don’t you take me into your confidence?”

“I will when my dog recovers.”

That rebuke having reduced the raja to glowering silence, Ommony pursued the advantage.

“It’s enough for you to know there’s nothing legal in the priests’ claim; but I advise you to mention it to Strange and to tell him it isn’t legal and can’t be enforced in court. If Strange asks me, I’ll confirm that. Represent to Strange that if he buys the Panch Mahal and pays you cash for it, then you’ll consider the forest deal, but not otherwise. I’ll admit to him, if necessary, that as a property-owner he’ll have a better leg to stand on when it comes to arguing with the Government. Now, are we agreed? Then good; we’ll start after midnight, in time to reach my place for breakfast.”