The Marriage of Meldrum Strange/Chapter 9

HERE is a kind of glamour about decadence until it dips too low. Refraction in the unclean atmosphere of low ideals blurs the outline, coaxing imagination to see beauty where none is. Age, toning everything and introducing beauty of its own, imposes charm that glorifies even battlefields, and dead bones please when they are dead enough. So the Panch Mahal was a wonder in its way. They built it for living women two full centuries after Shah Jehan conceived the Taj at Agra for a dead one; and it resembled the Taj as an oleograph by John Smith is said to be “after” Rembrandt.

They improved on the Taj, of course, since civilization and modernity are one. They made it practical, affording space for merry-making and eliminating austere waste. The money had been sunk in spaciousness instead of exquisite refinement; plaster—peeling now—aped marble walls; and in place of the clean sublimity of line and curve, obscene gods grinned. But in the flickering lamplight Strange’s new possession seemed passing fair enough.

Strange was sitting in a courtyard, on a stone bench by a dry fountain, with Zelmira laughing at him from the lap of an immoral-looking deity, when Ommony and Jeff walked in.

“Here’s Jeff and his bag,” said Ommony, and raised his hat, nodding to Zelmira. She grinned, and lamplight shone on her white teeth.

Jeff bade the servants follow him, and wandered off to look for quarters, with an old campaigner’s eye for comfort, and a great dislike for more intrigue than he could any way avoid.

“How did you get here?” Strange demanded of Ommony.

“I’ve a bullock-cart. Where’s the raja?”

“Lord knows. Can’t find him or servants.”

“We’ve brought some food and Jeff’s man; he can cook supper.”

“Can you take Madame Poulakis back to the palace?” Strange demanded in a voice of iron, Food was not to be considered in a class with peace.

“If she don’t mind riding in a bullock-cart.”

“That settles it then,” said Strange, and Zelmira exploded laughter into her handkerchief. The man was frank, whatever else.

“Won’t you show us the place?” Ommony wondered.

“Some other time. Come tomorrow.” Strange did not add the word “alone,” but he implied it, and Zelmira could hardly get down from the god’s lap for smothered laughter. She, if none else, was enjoying the game.

“Good-by!” said Strange, and held his hand out, but she courtseyed mockingly instead of taking it, and he did not even follow to the gate to see them away in the bullock-cart. By the way he chewed at a cigar and scratched his chin, he was perplexed.

“Chacun à son goût!” said Ommony, who loved to air bad French. “He’s yours! But I can’t think why you want him.”

“Oh, he’s gold!” Zelmira answered. “Gold when you scratch him!”

“I know! But his heart’s brass, and in his boots this minute!”

Strange must have guessed already he was covered. The raja had even taken away both horses, but that fact only transspired [sic] when some one stopped the squeaking bullock-cart. The oxen shied, as they should not have done, for the man was in Hindu costume—bare legs and a turban, with a white man’s undershirt, and several yards of cotton cloth around his middle. But his first words explained the oxen’s instinct, that detects meat-eating races by the smell, street-widths away.

“Everything’s here and it works!” said Charley’s voice.

“My !” groaned the babu. “This is the impersonation of bad business! In that get-up Charley sahib will exist five minutes—if, perhaps! They will detect him with shut eyes, and beat him to death with lathies!”

“I fooled all of you except the oxen,” Charley retorted. “Say: what’s the raja doing anyway? There was talking in one of those elephant stalls. The raja rode off less than five minutes ago, leading the horse you lent Strange; and he’s left a gang of three men sitting like stuffed idols right next door to where I’ve got the stuff cached. Beards—bald-heads—lots of white cotton clothes—might be Hindu bishops at a board-meeting.”

“Gad! That’s quick!” said Ommony.

Chullunder Ghose rolled off his perch in front of the cart and hurried to the rear, where Ommony was sitting on the tail.

“Sahib! Listen! This babu is Codlin, same being friend, not Short! Short is raja! Atheistic apostate! Too much money is as wine in empty head. This babu knows! That raja demanded from priests reinstatement in circle of sanctified orthodoxy.”

“How do you know that?”

“Self was intermediary! Self conveyed to him retort discourteous from contemptuous ecclesiastics. Exacerbated raja now seeks double-cross for all concerned, you, me, and priests included! What is betting? I bet raja now sends telegram inviting Central Government to intervene! All is up now! Better leave U. S. plutocrat to stew in juices of annoyed Administration! Let us establish alibi!”

The babu’s panic spread to Charley and Zelmira, both of whom began to fear instantly, if vaguely, on Ommony’s account. He had admitted more than once that a false step would imply the end of his career.

“What if he does send a telegram?” Zelmira asked excitedly.

“It will either confirm mine or contradict it. In either case the government will send-Sir William Molyneux, who’ll bring a padre with him! You drive back with Charley to the palace. Charley, I’ll meet you in the tool-hut sometime between now and tomorrow morning. Come on, Chullunder Ghose.”

“Oh all inscrutability, what next!” the babu grumbled.

But Charley Mears jumped up and took the bullocks’ tails. The cart bumped forward, and the babu was left standing in the dark with Ommony, who called out a final warning:

“Remember, you’re deaf and dumb, Charley! If you speak, you’ll give the whole game away!”

Deafness and dumbness had begun. There was no answer. Ommony took the babu by the arm and started leading him toward the rear of the building where Charley had cached his things.

“Go in and talk to the priests. I’ll go one way; you go the other and make lots of noise; give me a chance to get into the next stall without being heard. You talk, and I’ll listen. Be sure you talk loud enough. When it’s time to bring me a message from them, come out noisily to cover my retreat, and I’ll meet you here. You understand?”

“I understand. But sahib, am impoverished babu without”

“Without any hope of being paid by me! You may leave me to manage this alone, if you’d rather.”

“Is idealism always eleemosynary?”

“Always!”

“Hence materialistic tendency of world, no doubt! Am idealist, nevertheless. Sahib, my salaams!”

THE babu waddled off; remembering the order to go noisily, kicking at stones and unchecked rambling vines, singing a song to himself about the love of Krishna, darling of the Gopis, idol of the dreaming maids. In less than five minutes Ommony was squatting cross-legged in impenetrable shadow under an old brick-arch, fearful of scorpions, but absolutely still, and listening to secrets in the language of the gods next door.

“I am blessing. I kiss feet. Holiest of fathers, this unworthy babu abjectly salaams. Pray pardon intrusion. Only reverence and devoted attachment to your honors’ interest brings these humble feet to threshold of divinity. This miserable babu found the Englishman, whose name is Ommony, and having with such skill as he possesses tempted the unclean foreigner into conversation, hopes now to render acceptable service with much humility!”

The answer to that overture was proud and curt.

“Did you warn the fool to keep his hands off?”

“No use warning him! Moreover, worshipfuls, the unclean fellow pursues same object as your heaven-born selves. Great wrath obsesses him. He is indignant that the other unclean rogue should buy this place that has been rendered blessed by your honors’ claim to it. I think I could persuade him to give artful assistance in support of the heaven-borns’ divinely inspired intentions.”

“What would he hope to gain by that?”

“Nothing. He is personally essence of unthriftiness. Idealism, much mistaken doubtless since he is alien ignoramus, burns in unclean bosom. And he fears lest the other brute, who has bought the Panch Mahal, may acquire the forest likewise. Moreover, he knows the raja may not be trusted. I think he would eagerly subserve your honors’ interests rather than be defeated by the other two.”

“Where is he?”

“At a little distance, cudgeling his brains.”

“He who allies himself with fools must eat the offal of their folly!”

“True, most worshipfuls. Yet this babu is not a fool. A humble person, totally unworthy to stand in the heaven-born presence, but endowed by the Creators with an intellect. In this babu’s unworthy hands, that foreign ignoramus might be trusted.”

“We make no bargains with such people!”

“Nay! But with this subservient babu as go-between, much might be managed.”

There was whispering, which the babu may have heard but Ommony did not. Then:

“Let no offer of alliance seem to come from us. There is no treaty—no contract—no given undertaking. Go to him and find out what he wishes. Then report to us again.”

The babu backed away, making such a noisy protest of his reverence and full obedience, and stumbling so awkwardly over a heap of fallen bricks, that Ommony had no trouble at all to escape unheard. There was no risk of being seen. The Indian night had shut down like a black dome pierced with diamonds. He and Chullunder Ghose met again in the road where they had parted company.

“Offering advice to sahibs is like touching high-tension wire with monkey-wrench,” said the babu.

“Nevertheless, your advice is?”

“Ahsti! Steady the Buffs, by Krishna! Keep priests waiting! Likewise lord of dollars in Panch Mahal, where loneliness roars like lions! Let us sit down. Smoke a pipe, sahib!"

So they sat, in mid-road, face to face, each able to watch half of the mysterious horizon; and Ommony smoked a whole pipe out before he offered a suggestion. Then—

“Why was the last raja—this man’s uncle—allowed by the priests to use the Panch Mahal undisturbed?” he asked.

“Because he submitted to initiation, thus acknowledging the priests as superior to himself and virtual landlords,” said the babu.

“And this man?”

“Would like to be initiated; but is such religious apostate and renegade that the priests will have nothing to do with him. He has applied, but they refuse, suspecting he would only turn tables on them, thereafter setting people against them, instead of their making monkey of him on all public occasions, as now happens, oh yes, invariably.”

“Is there any other reason why this raja has had to keep his hands off the Panch Mahal?”

“No other reason, sahib. First he tried to live in it with many women. They say that two women went mad, and one killed herself.”

“How was that done?”

“Apparitions! Thefts! Noises in the night! Flesh creeps to think of same! Tunnels! Accomplices can accomplish! Bur-r-rrh! Have heard tales.”

“They plan, of course, to treat Strange the same way?”

“Why not?”

“Have they started on him?”

“They are not here for nothing!”

Ommony chuckled, and then thought of Jeff Ramsden, which made him chuckle more.

“There’ll be heads broken,” he said; and the babu twitched his bare toes in the sand, comprehending disadvantages.

“Not good,” he remarked.

“Excellent!” corrected Ommony. “Strange’s nerves will be on end, and the priests will reconsider agenda. Both sides will need advice and assistance. That’s where we come in.”

“Self being sahib's coconspirator!”

The babu preened himself. Every atom in his being seemed to tingle with pride at the thought. He leaned forward, laying a finger on Ommony’s knee by way of celebrating partnership. But what he was starting to say died still-born.

“Get away from here! Go and scheme for the other side,” said Ommony, seizing the upper-hand instantly, at any cost. He knew his babu. “Betray me all you want to. I’ll manage this alone.”

“This babu is mud beneath sahib's feet! Am co-nothing—but coincidence! Am subventitious aspirant for eleemosynary service! My excruciated salaams! Only send me not away!”

“Keep your proper place, then! Now: go to the priests, and suggest to them something like this: They’re not really owners of this Panch Mahal; but they’re as good as owners if they can haze the life-tenant into a proper attitude toward them. Isn’t that the idea?”

“Core of the belly of truth, sahib! Most explicit!”

“There’s nothing religious about it—nothing Brahminical.”

“Rather the contrary. Initiation has always been most scandalous. There are tales”

“Never mind. Why not initiate Strange? Suggest that to them.”

“Tee-hee!” The babu’s fat sides began to shake. “Tee-hee! Has the sahib ever witnessed an—hee-hee!—initiation?”

“I’ve been told. We might get it modified.”

“Tee-hee-hee! Temple nautch-girls! Mu-mu-moderation! Tee-hee!”

“Suggest it to the priests. Meet me here later. I’ll see Strange.”

“Khee-hee-hee! Salaam, sahib! Oh, my ribs! Dee-licious, very! Genius! My, yes! Oh, ha-ha-hah! Kuh-scuse it, sahib, please! Your humble servant! He-hee-hee-hee-hee! I go, I go, I go—no, no no—no kick! I”

The babu waddled off, aheave with irrepressible emotion. What Ommony had only heard of, he had seen. His great bulk shook as long as he was in sight; he almost seemed to be dancing as the darkness swallowed him, and the hugeness of his amusement gave Ommony pause. He would hardly be willing, even for the forest’s sake, to over-do the scandal. He decided to commit the priests, and then interview them personally. However, Strange first.

He went and hammered on the wooden gate until it shook and the arch above it echoed; then waited several minutes. No answer, so he beat again. Then he heard Jeff’s heavy footstep approaching, and gave another knock or two.

“That’s enough!” Jeff roared in Urdu. “If I have to open that gate I’ll loose off both barrels at you! Go to the, and leave that gate alone!”

“This is Ommony.”

“Oh!” The bolts began to rattle. “Sorry, old man. Come in.”

Jeff stood in pajamas and bare feet, with the shotgun ready cocked.

“I meant business!” he announced gruffly. “Strange is nearly off his head with rage. Did you hear me shoot, ten minutes ago?”

“No.”

“This place swallows noise and shoots it out the way deep mines do,” Jeff grumbled. “We thought you’d hear the shot ’way off down the road and come back.”

“What did you fire at?”

“Lord knows! There! Look at that thing!”

THEY were under the arch, looking inward across the first courtyard, where Zelmira had sat in a god’s lap. Across the court on the far side was a veranda covered by a tiled roof, and above that were rows of shuttered windows. Along the tiles there crawled, or seemed to crawl, a thing like a snake, thirty or forty feet long, moving itself in corkscrew coils, and glowing as if drenched in phosphorus. It had eyes, for they shone and were moving; and it was solid, or semi-solid, for the tiles were invisible through it. Jeff raised the shot-gun and fired twice. The pellets rattled on the roof and brought a loose tile away, but nothing else happened. The thing like a snake continued on its way, and disappeared—it seemed into the wall—at the far end of the roof.

“Have you seen that before?” asked Ommony.

“No, that’s a new one.”

“What else have you seen?”

“The thing I fired at looked like a naked faquir dancing in a comer of the big assembly-room, where Strange and I were trying to get some sleep. The critter had horns and a beard like a goat’s.”

“Did you hit him?”

“You bet I did! But he didn’t even trouble to stop dancing till I started across the room. Then he disappeared. There isn’t a hole in the floor or the wall thereabouts.”

“How does your servant like it?”

“Bolted! Can’t find him anywhere.”

Strange, in pajamas too, came to the wide door of the assembly-room, that opened on the courtyard.

“Have you caught some one?” he shouted.

“Ommony!”

“Huh! Are you responsible for this?”

He came to meet Ommony bare-footed, looking more than half-inclined to hit him.

“If I catch the imbecile who’s playing these tricks, I’ll jail him or know why!”

“Don’t be a fool,” Jeff advised quietly. “Let’s see if Ommony can explain it.”

They entered the assembly-room and sat on Strange’s cot. It was a huge place, like a modern theater, without seats or stage, but with rows of columns down either side supporting a wide balcony, which was grilled up to the ceiling, so that women could watch unseen whatever might take place below. The other furniture consisted of gilded, upholstered divans, and six tall mirrors in panels against the wall at the farther end.

Strange started to speak, but as he opened his mouth foreknowledge of something about to happen checked him. It was the sort of silence that precedes a bomb explosion, and his mouth stayed open wide.

Suddenly, three times repeated, a breeze several degrees cooler than the surrounding atmosphere struck them in the face. There was a sound like the flapping of a punkah—even the squeak of the cord through a hole in a wall that pulled it—but no punkah visible. The wind was real, for it blew the lamp out.

Then, through the ensuing darkness, came a scream that chilled the marrow of the listeners’ bones. It increased and waned in spasms. They could almost see a rack being tightened in jerks, and a woman stretched between the rollers.

“I’m going to kill some one!” Jeff announced, and struck a match.

A breath of wind blew it out instantly. He struck another.

By its light they saw a headless corpse hung by one leg, apparently from a hook between two mirrors on the wall that faced them. And between the next two mirrors was the corpse-less head, hung by a nail driven into the mouth, and seeming to have been pulled off, for there were shreds of flesh and sinew hanging down from it. The match burned Jeff’s fingers. He swore, dropped it and struck another. The corpse and the head were gone. But again came the cool wind, and the scream of atrocious agony. There were no words to it. It was pain and fear beyond the power of speech.

“Good God!” Strange exploded. “What kind of place is this anyhow?”

Ommony found the lamp, relighted it and sat down. By its light Jeff exchanged the shot-gun for a rifle. The breeze blew out the lamp, and there was silence, broken only by a click as Jeff tested the breech-bolt action in the dark. Then new horror, unseen, unheard at first, and indescribable, but there; some sort of presence, and a musky smell. Presently foot-falls, slow, irregular, and almost too secretive for the ear to catch.

Ommony sniffed twice.

“Tiger!” he said curtly. There was no sound from Jeff. He was ready.

“My God! A tiger in here? Strike a match!” said Strange, groping vainly for the pockets of his suit on the chair beside him.

“Shut up!” Ommony commanded sotto voce.

“No matches!” Jeff growled. “You’ll dazzle me.”

The cot creaked under his weight as he leaned forward, peering along the rifle-barrel. The creak was too much for Strange’s nerves. He jumped off the cot, upsetting Ommony, and seized the chair, the only weapon within reach—then stepped back until he felt the wall behind him.

“Now by, I can defend myself!” he gasped.

Ommony lay still. Jeff never moved, bent forward, peering along the rifle-barrel. They could hear the soft foot-falls more distinctly, as if a beast were exploring the floor in widening arcs.

Then a tiger coughed. That was unmistakable. Jeff’s rifle belched light—twice—three times, with a din that filled the place and drowned the answering snarl.

“Got him!” he said.

“You fool, you’ve — ! Here he is!”

A leg cracked off the chair as Strange raised it and struck the wall behind. Then he hit something with a thud that shivered the chair to pieces, and groped for the cot, backwards. The backs of his knees touched it, and he collapsed, lying still, with his knees curled up under his chin, Ommony, down on the floor, struck a match at last.

“I thought I got him,” Jeff said pleasantly. “See—twice. The first one missed, but the flash showed his eyes.”

A big male tiger lay within a yard of where Strange had stood—shot twice through the lungs. Blood flowed from the open mouth. The claws were extended in his effort to struggle close and slay before life left him.

“Stone dead,” said Ommony.

Then the match went out.

“Don’t light the lamp yet,” Jeff whispered.

There were decencies to be attended to, best managed in the dark. He groped for Strange and shook him by the arm.

“Come on,” he said, “you’re all right.”

Strange sat up, trembling, grateful for Jeff’s strong grip on his arm.

“Just nerves, that’s all,” Jeff said quietly. “You did well for us. When you moved you startled him. He coughed, and that gave me the cue.”

“But I hit him with a chair! I broke a chair on him!” Strange stammered.

“I know you did. Are you all right now? Light the lamp, old man.”

Ommony lighted the lamp and held it so that the yellow glow shone full on the tiger, and the stripes appeared to move a little as the flame danced in the chimney.

“Is he dead?” Strange demanded. “Better put a bullet in him to make sure.”

“Stone dead,” said Ommony.

“Killed a tiger with a chair! Jee-rusalem!” Strange sat down on the cot again. “Cam you beat that? Killed a tiger with a chair, you fellows! Can you beat it?”

Ommony, with his back to Strange, stooped down, examining the kill. Jeff joined him.

“Caged for a good many years. Well fed,” said Ommony. “Probably half-tame. See his pugs? They’re soft, and the hair has grown long over the claws. He’s old, too; look at the length of his eye-teeth. That’s a collar-mark on his neck, or I’m mistaken. He’s been somebody’s pet cat.”

“Which explains why he didn’t attack directly he winded us,” said Jeff.

“But he did attack!” Strange got to his feet again and came and stood between them. “I stood there. You see how close he got to me? I wonder if I cracked his skull—must have—his mouth’s full of blood,” he hesitated. “Say, you men, suppose we keep this among ourselves? I don’t choose to be known as a liar. If we took oath to it, nobody’d believe a man of my age killed that brute with a chair-leg. D’you mind keeping it a secret to oblige me?”

Strange was feeling finely again. Even the memory of goose-flesh raising screams had dimmed in the glory of this achievement.

“With all your strength, I’ll bet you never pulled off a stunt like that!” he said, digging Jeff in the ribs. “It was luck, of course, but”

“Yes, you’re lucky,” Jeff said, grinning at him. Then suddenly his face grew sober. “Ommony, old boy, we’re wasting time. Who screamed just now, and why? We’ve got to unearth that. Then there’s that corpse”

“Buncombe! Let’s sit here and see what happens next,” said Ommony. “I don’t know how they did it, but it’s all a trick. The scheme, of course, is to make Strange abandon the place, just as his friend the raja had to. The priests are old hands at this frightening business.”

“Huh! Scheme to scare me off the lot, eh? , you told me their claim won’t hold water,” Strange objected.

“It won’t. But they’ve defeated everybody yet who tried conclusions with them.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that before?”

“I warned you. You snorted.”

“Well. I’ll fight ’em.” Strange found a cigar, and began chewing it. “They’ve a Tatar on their hands.”

“There’s a better way,” said Ommony.

“The place is mine.”

“Persuade them to admit that, then why run the chance of poison, fire, goodness knows what else. They claim the right to approve or disapprove a tenant for life, and they stop at nothing to uphold their right.”

“Neither will I.”

“They’ve always managed to get rid of any one who disputed their right.”

“Oh! They claim right to dispossess?”

“Only if the tenant for life, after they’ve approved him, backs out of his promise to let them hold a yearly ceremony here.”

“Would they exclude me from the ceremony?” Strange asked.

“I think not. You see, they insist on initiating any tenant before they’ll let him occupy in peace.”

“Initiate him into what? Mysteries?”

“Hardly. They’d never admit a white man into those.”

“Well then, into what?”

“I’ve never seen the ceremony. I might not be allowed to witness it, even if they accept you. But once you’re accepted and admitted, as an initiate they’d very likely let you see the yearly ceremony. It lasts a week, I’m told.”

“That might be fun.”

“They say it’s wild. Its origin is so far back in time that nobody knows its meaning any more, although it was probably religious, once. They used to hold it in the temple, but it got so scandalous that when this place was built they persuaded the raja of that day to let them hold it here instead. He was under their thumbs in some way; and ever since then they’ve asserted an unlegal but prehensile claim to nominal overlordship.”

“Scandalous, eh?”

“So I’m told.”

“Well. If it’s secret, who’s to be any wiser afterwards? It might be good fun.”

“You’re a fool, Strange!” Jeff growled. “Keep out of it.”

“I’m no milk-sop,” Strange retorted. “I’ll keep my head in any situation these fossils can invent. If you’re afraid, suppose you go home!”

“I’ve said my say,” Jeff answered. “I’ll stand by. But you’ll get no sympathy from me, whatever happens.”

“Nothing ’ll happen. Huh! They’ve come to the end of their resources now. We’ve sat here half an hour and not a sign from them. That tiger was the ”

AS HE spoke the light went out. The chill blast of air was renewed, only tenfold. A man’s shout, and a scream like a woman’s in grief as well as agony froze their blood. Something flapped in the air above them, and there was a sudden hurrying noise across the floor that sounded as if ghouls were chasing one another. Then the thud of a trap-door closing, or something resembling that; and silence, in which Jeff’s steady breathing sounded like the ebb and flow of six-hour tides. After two interminable minutes Ommony struck a match.

The tiger was gone. The only trace of him was blood on the wooden floor, where his head had lain and a long smear where he had been dragged across the room. A blast of cool air blew the match out. Something sighed. A shape like a woman’s, faintly phosphorescent, seemed to be wafted on a wind across the room about fifteen feet in front of them. Jeff made a jump for it, and landed heavily on nothing. The shape vanished.

Ommony lit the lamp again, and the three explored the whole room. There were two doors, one they had entered by, and another in the far corner, opposite, but no discoverable trap-door or sliding panel, although the walls sounded hollow, and in places the floor seemed to hint at booming caverns under it when they jumped.

They opened the door in the corner with difficulty, for although it was not locked something seemed to hold it; but when Jeff exerted his strength and it flew wide, there was nothing there—nobody—no sign of anybody having been there.

So they took two rifles and a shot-gun and explored long passages and rooms absurdly furnished with imported export stuff, of the sort that generation after generation of rajas had believed was “quite the thing.” There was almost nothing antique or genuine in the place, although there was plenty of evidence of reckless spending. Not a sign of a human being; only rats that had nested in the stuffing of armchairs and ran as they entered the echoing rooms, striking match after match.

Jeff was for exploring the cellars, too, but Ommony demurred.

“Snakes,” he suggested. “Ambush. Anything might happen and be explained away as accident.”

“Upstairs then,” Jeff proposed; but that seemed almost equally risky, especially as they had left a shot-gun in the assembly-room along with their few other belongings. So they turned back, expecting to find their way easily by the light of the lamp they had left burning.

But the light was out again. Jeff groped his way in the lead and struck out with his fist at something that he felt rather than saw in the passage just before he reached the assembly-room; but whatever it might have been, he missed it.

He struck a match and held it high, to get as wide a circle of light as possible, stepped forward, tripped over something, swore; and the match went out. Ommony struck another close behind him. Jeff kicked at what had tripped him, and the pieces of a broken shot-gun scattered across the floor.

Ommony looked for the lamp, but it was broken too—smashed into smithereens. His feet crunched broken glass, and his shins struck the legs of the over-turned cot. Jeff struck his last match, and by the swiftly waning light of that they could see all the furniture overturned and their torn clothes scattered at random about the floor. There was not a seam apparently unripped, and the bags were torn to pieces in the bargain. Then darkness, and no more matches.

Nothing for it but the courtyard, where the rising moon was just beginning to pour amber light over the roof and change a quarter of the paving into a floor of pale gold. There Jeff took position in the god’s lap that had nursed Zelmira recently and, looking like a herculean god himself in loose pajamas, kept a qui vive with the rifle pointing every way as one sound or another drew attention.

But the only noises now were owls’ hoots. The only movement was the swooping of the big bats, looking like specters as they swerved across moonlight and plunged into shadow again. A jackal’s yelp broke silence at intervals from over the wall, and once in the distance an elephant trumpeted disgust at something.

“Strange,” Jeff said at the end of an hour’s vigil, “I advise you to pull out of here first thing in the morning.”

“Yes. In pajamas! I see myself!” Strange answered. “Mr. Ommony, I’ll have to have my trunk sent over from your place. Can you manage it?”

Ommony supposed he could. There were more impossible things.

“It’ll take time, though,” he warned him. “Meanwhile there’s no knowing what these priests will do.”

“I’ll stay on and stick it out!”

“How would it be for me to suggest to the priests that you’ll stand initiation? That might end this foolishness.”

“What does initiation amount to? Don’t know, eh? Well,, I’m interested—yes, try anything once. Yes, get word to ’em!”

“Strange,” growled Jeff Ramsden, “you’re a fool for all your money. You’re a gilt-edged rube—no better!”