The Achmed Abdullah MEGAPACK ®. Achmed Abdullah

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СКАЧАТЬ of the purple, silver-nicked gloom that draped the hills of Rajputana.

      The babu, too, was conscious of it. His teeth clicked. His body trembled, and he looked at the Englishman, who looked back at him.

      Neither spoke. Something utterly overwhelming enfolded them. For the whirring was at once of enchanting peace and sweetness, and of a mournful, tragic, sobbing strength that was like the death of a soul.

      Once the babu put it into words:

      “Like the death of a soul—”

      “Shut up!” Thorneycroft whispered, and then silence again but for the pattering hoofs of the bullocks.

      There were few signs of life. At times a gecko slipped away through the scrub with a green, metallic glisten. Once in a while a kite poised high in the parched, blue sky. Another time they overtook a gigantic cotton-wain drawn by twenty bullocks about the size of Newfoundland dogs.

      Then, late one night, they reached Deolibad. They passed through the tall southern gate, studded with sharp elephant-spikes, paid off their driver, walked through the mazes of the perfume-sellers’ bazaar, and stopped in front of an old house.

      Three times Thorneycroft knocked at the age-gangrened, cedarwood door, sharp, staccato, with a long pause between the second and third knocks, and then again three times in rapid succession.

      It was as if the ramshackle old house were listening in its sleep, then slowly awakening. Came the scratch of a match, a thin, light ray drifting through the cracks in the shutters, a shuffling of slippered feet, and the door opened.

      A man stood there, old, immensely tall, immensely fat, an Afghan judging from his black silk robe and his oiled locks, holding a candle in his right.

      He peered at the two figures in front of him. Then he broke into high-pitched laughter and gurgling words of greeting.

      “Thorneycroft! Thorneycroft, by the Prophet! Young heart of my old heart!”

      And in his excitement he dropped the candle clattering to the ground and hugged the Englishman to his breast. The latter returned the embrace; but, as the Afghan was about to renew his flowery salutations, cut them short with:

      “I need your help, Youssef Ali.”

      “Anything, anything, child! I will give you any help you ask. I will grant you anything except sorrow. Ahi! These are like the old days, when you, with your mother’s milk not yet dry on your lips, rode by my side to throw the dragnet of the British Raj’s law around the lying priests of this stinking land. Heathen priests of Shiva and Vishnu, worshiping a monkey and a flower! Aughrrr!” He spat.

      Thorneycroft laughed.

      “Still the old, intolerant Youssef, aren’t you? All right. But I don’t need much. Simply this—and that—” He crossed the threshold side by side with the Afghan and followed by the babu. He said a few words, adding: “I hear that you are a much-married man, besides being an amateur of tuwaifs, of dancing-girls. So I’m sure you will be able to help me out. I could have gone to the bazaar and bought the stuff. But there are leaky tongues there—”

      It was Youssef’s turn to laugh.

      “A love affair, child? Perhaps with the daughter of some hill raja?”

      “No. Not love. But life—and death. And perhaps—” He was silent. There was again the giant whirring of wings. Then he went on: “Perhaps again life! Who knows?”

      “Allah knows!” piously mumbled Youssef. “He is the One, the All-Knowing. Come with me, child,” he went on, lifting a brown-striped curtain that shut off the zenana. “Sitt Kumar will help you—a little dancing-girl whom”—he coughed apologetically—“I recently encountered, and whose feet are just now very busy crushing my fat, foolish old heart. Wait here, O babu-jee!” he said to the babu, while he and the Englishman disappeared behind the zenana curtain.

      There was a moment’s silence. Then a woman’s light, tinkly laughter, a clacking of bracelets and anklets, a rapid swishing of linen and silk.

      Again the woman’s light laughter. Her words:

      “Keep quiet, sahib, lest the walnut-dye enter thy eye!” And ten minutes later the zenana curtains were drawn aside to admit once more the Afghan, arm in arm with a middle-aged, dignified Brahman priest, complete in every detail of outer sacerdotal craft, from the broidered skull-cap and the brilliant caste-mark on his forehead to the patent-leather pumps, the open-work white stockings, and the sacred volume bound in red Bokhara leather that he carried in his right hand.

      “Nobody will recognize you,” said Youssef.

      “Good!” said the Brahman in Thorneycroft’s voice. “And now—can you lend me a couple of horses?”

      “Surely. I have a brace of Marwari stallions. Jewels, child! Pearls! Noble bits of horseflesh! Come!”

      He led the way to the stable, which was on the other side of his house, and sheltered by a low wall. He lit an oil-lamp, opened the door, soothed the nervous, startled Marwaris with voice and knowing hand, and saddled them.

      He led the horses out, and Thorneycroft and the babu mounted.

      “Where to?” asked the Afghan. Thorneycroft waved his hand in farewell.

      “To Oneypore!” he replied. “To interview a dead raja’s soul!” He turned to the babu. “We must hurry, O babu-jee! Every minute counts!”

      And he was off at a gallop, closely followed by the other.

      Chapter IV

      The night was as black as pitch, but Thorneycroft rode hard.

      He figured back.

      The Maharaja of Oneypore had died on the fifteenth of January. Today was the tenth of February. Twenty-five days had elapsed since the raja’s death.

      Would he be in time?

      “Come on, babu-jee!” he cried, and rode harder than ever.

      Once his stallion reared on end and landed stiffly on his forefeet, nearly throwing him. But that night he could not consider the feelings of a mere horse. He pressed on the curb with full strength and brought his fist down between the animal’s ears; and, after a minute or two of similar reasoning, the Marwari stretched his splendid, muscled body and fell into a long, swinging fox-trot.

      The road to Oneypore was as straight as a lance and fairly good. They rode their horses alternating between a fast walk and a short hand gallop.

      Thorneycroft had not eaten since noon of the preceding day, and was tired and hungry. But he kept on. For there was something calling him, calling him, from the ragged hills that looped to the east in carved, sinister immensity; and through the velvety gloom of the night, through the gaunt shadows of the low, volcanic ridges that trooped back to Deolibad and danced like hobgoblins among the dwarf aloes, through the click-clanketty-click of the stallions’ pattering feet, there came to him again the whirring—like a tragic message to hurry, hurry.

      * * * *

      Morning blazed with the suddenness of the tropics. The sun had hardly risen, but СКАЧАТЬ