Rung Ho! A Novel by Talbot Mundy (ebook reader for surface pro .txt) 📗

breaks cover, he was in the unenviable condition now of being forced to make the first move. Over and over again he cursed the men who had made Ali Partab prisoner, and over and over again: he wondered how—by all the gods of all the multitudinous Hindoo mythology—how, when, and by what stroke of genius he could make use of the stiff-chinned Rangar and convert him from being a rankling thorn into a useful aid.

He dared not poison him—yet. For the same reason he dared not put him to the torture, to discover, or try to discover, what Mahommed Gunga's real leanings were in the matter of loyalty to the Raj or otherwise. He dared not let the man go, for forgiveness is not one of the virtues held in high esteem by men of Ali Partab's race, and wrongful arrest is considered ground enough for a feud to the death. It seemed he did not dare do anything!

He racked his opium-dulled brain for a suspicion of a plan that might help solve the difficulty, until his eye—wandering around the courtyard—fell on the black shape of a woman. She was old and bent and she was busied, with a handful of dry twigs, pretending to sweep around the stables.

“Who is that mother of corruption?” demanded Jaimihr; and a man came running to him.

“Who is that eyesore? I have never seen her, have I?”

“Highness, she is a beggar woman. She sat by the gate, and pretended to a power of telling fortunes—which it would seem she does possess in some degree. It was thought better that she should use her gift in here, for our advantage, than outside to our disadvantage. So she was brought in and set to sweeping.”

“By the curse of the sin of the sack of Chitor, is my palace, then, a midden for the crawling offal of all the Howrah streets? First this Rangar—next a sweeper hag—what follows? What bring you next? Go, fetch the street dogs in!”

“Highness, she is useful and costs nothing but the measure or two of meal she eats.”

“A horse eats little more!” the angry Prince retorted, perfectly accustomed to being argued with by his own servants. That is the time-honored custom of the East; obedience is one thing—argument another—both in their way are good, and both have their innings. “Bring her to me—nay!—keep her at a decent distance—so!—am I dirt for her broom?”

He sat and scowled at her, and the old woman tried to hide more of her protruding bones under the rag of clothing that she wore; she stood, wriggling in evident embarrassment, well out in the sun.

“What willst thou steal of mine?” the Prince demanded suddenly.

“I am no thief.” Bright, beady eyes gleamed back at him, and gave the lie direct to her shrinking attitude of fear. But he had taken too much opium overnight, and was in no mood to notice little distinctions. He was satisfied that she should seem properly afraid of him, and he scowled angrily when one of his retainers—in slovenly undress—crossed the courtyard to him. The man's evident intention, made obvious by his manner and his leer at the old woman, was to say something against her; the Prince was in a mood to quarrel with any one, on any ground at all, who did not cower to him.

“Prince, she it is who ran ever with the white woman, as a dog runs in the dust.”

“What does she here, then?”

“Ask her!” grinned the trooper. “Unless she comes to look for Ali Partab, I know not.”

He made the last part of his remark in a hurried undertone, too low for the old woman to hear.

“Let her earn her meal around the stables,” said the Prince. A sudden light dawned on him. Here was a means, at least, of trying to make use of Ali Partab. “Go—do thy sweeping!” he commanded, and the hag slunk off.

For ten minutes longer, Jaimihr sat still and flicked at the stone column with his whip,—then he sent for his master of the horse, whose mistaken sense of loyalty had been the direct cause of Ali Partab's capture. He had acted instantly when the fat Hindoo brought him word, and he had expected to be praised for quick decision and rewarded; he was plainly in high dudgeon as he swaggered out of a dark door near the stables and advanced sulkily toward his master.

“Remove the prisoner from that cell, taking great care that the hag yonder sees what you do—yes, that hag—the new one; she is a spy. Bring the prisoner in to me, where I will talk with him; afterward place him in a different cell—put him where we kept the bear that died—there is a dark comer beside it, where a man might hide; hide a man there when it grows dark. And give the hag access. Say nothing to her; let her come and go as she will; watch, and listen.”

Without another word, the Prince got up and shuffled in his decorated slippers to a door at one end of the cloister. Five minutes later Ali Partab—high-chinned, but looking miserable—was led between two men through the same door, while the old woman went on very ostentatiously with her sweeping about the yard. She even turned her back, to prove how little she was interested.

Ali Partab was hustled forward into a high-ceilinged room, whose light came filtered through a scrollwork mesh of chiselled stone where the wall and ceiling joined. There were no windows, but six doors opened from it, and every one of them was barred, as though they opened into treasure-vaults. The Prince sat restlessly in a high, carved wooden chair; there was no other furniture at all, and Ali Partab was left standing between his guards. The Prince drew a pistol from inside his clothing.

“Leave us alone!” he ordered; and the guards went out, closing the door behind them.

“I gave no orders for your capture,” said Jaimihr, with a smile.

“Then, let me go,” grinned Ali Partab.

“First, I must be informed on certain matters.”

Ali Partab still grinned, but the muscles of his face changed their position slightly, and it took no expert in physiognomy to read that questions he would answer must be very tactfully asked.

“Ask on!”

“You are Mahommed Gunga's man?”

“Yes. It is an honorable service.”

“Did he order you to stay here?”

“Here—in this palace? Allah forbid!”

“Did he order you to stay in Howrah?”

“He gave me certain orders. I obeyed them until your men invited swift death for themselves and you by interfering with me!”

“What were the orders?”

Ali Partab grinned again—this time insolently.

“To make sure that the Jaimihr-sahib did not make away with the treasure of his brother Howrah!” he answered.

“If you