Читать книгу Mystery of the Ambush in India - Adams Andy - Страница 2

The last call for dinner interrupted any further comments on the mysterious message. Tonight was a big event, for the chief steward of the Northern Star had gone the limit to please the three youthful passengers on the freighter. The meal consisted of specialties in Brazilian, Hawaiian, and American dishes, with little speeches in between.

But the boys found it difficult to share the spirit of the other passengers and ship’s officers, who were doing their best to entertain them on this last evening together. Biff was sure that morning would bring some confirmation of his father’s message, while Li and Kamuka were wondering whether or not he had sufficient reason to be that confident.

Early the next morning, the three boys were up and on deck when a mail boat came to the Northern Star. A uniformed Hindu handed a telegram to Captain Peterson, the skipper of the freighter, who passed it on to Biff with the comment:

“This is for you rather than for me.”

Li and Kamuka were peering over Biff’s shoulders as he read the message aloud:

“NOTIFY BIFF BREWSTER HIS FATHER CANNOT MEET HIM IN CALCUTTA. HE AND FRIENDS ARE TO PICK UP PLANE RESERVATIONS FOR DARJEELING AND JOIN HIS FAMILY THERE.”

The message was signed by the New Delhi representative of the Ajax Mining Company, for which Biff’s father worked. Captain Peterson told the boys to let him know if they had any trouble finding their plane reservations at the Grand Hotel, where the bus left for the Calcutta Airport at Dum Dum. Biff and his two companions said good-by and packed themselves ashore.

They took a taxicab past the Maidan, the huge park where hundreds of Hindus were asleep on the grassy expanse. Still more were sprawled along the sidewalk of Chowringhi Road, which brought them to the Grand Hotel. There, they found that plane reservations had been made for Darjeeling, but instead of picking them up immediately, Biff inquired the way to the New India Bazaar and found that it was a short rickshaw ride from the hotel.

Soon the boys were riding swiftly through the native quarter of Calcutta, in a two-wheeled, man-hauled carriage that followed narrow streets flanked by rows of old tenement houses and other crude structures filled with the city’s teeming population.

At the New India Bazaar, they found rows of small shops surrounding a busy square where shoppers in Hindu attire carefully side-stepped a sacred cow that was sprawled complacently on the sidewalk. Barkers were babbling in Hindustani, trying to attract trade and one youth, attired in shorts and loose white jacket, was drumming up business by beating the ends of a wooden keg, tom-tom style, drawing a crowd along with him.

The Indian boy looked tall because he was thin, even to his smiling face. He eyed Biff and the other boys closely as he passed them, giving the drum a few quick, extra beats as an invitation to come along. Biff turned to his companions and ran his hand through his shock of blond hair.

“Dad must have given his friend a good description of me,” Biff told the others, “so I am sure to be spotted soon. The more we circulate, the easier it will be to find me, so we may as well see where this drummer boy is leading us.”

They wound up at an open corner where some buildings had been demolished to make way for one of the wide new streets that were being cut through the city’s congested areas. Temporarily, at least, it had been turned into an outdoor theater, for a man in baggy white clothes and a huge turban was beckoning the crowd his way as he announced:

“I, Jinnah Jad, greatest jadoo wallah in Bengal. I make jadoo with duck. You see.”

By “jadoo” Jinnah Jad meant “magic,” and the term “wallah” signified that he performed it. The jadoo wallah filled a small tub with water from a big jar, then placed a miniature imitation duck in the tiny pond thus formed. As Jinnah Jad made mystic passes over the toy duck, it dived into the water, only to come popping up again at his command.

As the boys moved closer with the interested crowd, Jinnah Jad gestured them into a semicircle and announced:

“I show you magic with mango. First I make tent where it can grow – ”

As he spoke, he set three sticks in the ground so they formed a tripod about four feet high. He took a cloth from a big heap and wrapped it around the sticks, making a little tepee. He held up a mango seed, about the size of a large pear, then pushed it in through the opening of the tent, as though planting it.

Soon Jinnah Jad pulled away the cloth and showed a little sprout instead of just a seed. He formed the tent again, using a larger cloth. He piped a tune on a hollow gourd that he used as a flute and pulled away the cloth. There, spreading out from the tent, was a small mango tree, with fruit on its branches!

As the crowd buzzed its admiration, Jinnah Jad turned to the slender boy with the drum and said, “Chandra, you bring me rupees, so I make more jadoo.” The boy promptly picked up a wooden bowl and started through the crowd, taking up a collection, nudging people with the bowl and gesturing to their pockets whenever they hesitated at contributing a few coins.

Biff, meanwhile, was speaking in a low voice to his companions. “Let’s spread out, so you two can watch to see if anyone is watching me,” he suggested. “Then no one will know that we are together.” To that, Li and Kamuka agreed. As they moved away, they each passed Chandra and added coins to the collection at the Hindu boy’s urging. Then Chandra reached Biff and asked politely, “You have rupees, maybe, sahib?”

Biff pulled two rupee notes from his pocket and dropped them in the bowl. Chandra bowed and brushed past, taking the bowl to Jinnah Jad, who picked out the rupee notes and glowered his dissatisfaction at the rest. Two men were passing by, carrying a heavy basket that dangled by its handles from a long pole. Jinnah Jad told them to set down their burden and remove the bundles that it contained. Then:

“This boy is good for nothing,” declared Jinnah Jad, indicating Chandra. “So I make him go for good. You watch.”

Before Chandra could dart away, Jinnah Jad grabbed him and thrust him into the basket, which was roundish and bulging at the sides. Jinnah Jad threw a cloth over the boy’s head and shoulders and suddenly, Chandra’s form collapsed beneath it. Triumphantly, Jinnah Jad jumped into the basket and trampled the cloth there.

Chandra had vanished from the basket, and to prove it, Jinnah Jad not only stamped his feet all around, he squatted down in the basket, filling it with his fat form, while he clucked like a happy hen seated on a nest. Then, emerging from the basket, Jinnah Jad snatched up a long sword, shouting, “I show you boy is really gone!” With that, he stabbed the sword through one side of the basket and out the other side.

While the crowd gasped, Jinnah Jad repeated the thrust again and again, one direction, then another. The jadoo wallah had worked himself into a frenzy when the men who owned the basket stopped him and babbled in a native dialect.

“They know the boy is gone,” translated Jinnah Jad, for the benefit of the crowd. “They do not want me to spoil their basket.” He waved to the basket and told the two bearers, “All right, take it.”

Eagerly, the two natives piled their bundles into the basket, thrust the pole through its handles and hoisted it on their shoulders. By then, Jinnah Jad was in the midst of another miracle. He was pouring rice from a bowl into a square teakwood box that had a glass front, while he stated:

“One time, in India, there was great famine, with people everywhere needing rice. So a great yogi in the Himalayas fill a box with rice like this – ”

The throng was hushed, for Calcutta itself had suffered from great famines, even in comparatively recent years.

“So by magic, he sent rice everywhere, to everybody!” Jinnah Jad gave the box a flip. Instantly, the rice was gone from behind the glass and he was opening the box wide, showing it to be totally empty. “Yes, to everybody! To you – to you – to you.” Jinnah Jad was jabbing his finger from person to person. “So look in your pockets and find it! You, sahib – you, babu – find rice!”

People were bringing fistfuls of rice from their pockets. Biff smiled, thinking these were friends of the jadoo wallah, until he saw total astonishment on faces close by. Those included Li’s, for a dozen feet away, the Hawaiian youth was bringing out two handfuls of the tiny grains from each coat pocket. Still skeptical, Biff thrust his hands into his own pockets and brought them out – containing rice!

The deeper he dug, the more he found. Biff was almost ready to accept the jadoo of Jinnah Jad as real indeed, when he brought out something else, a crinkly wad of paper, with more rice inside it. Puzzled, Biff pulled it open and found it to be a penciled note that stated:

Follow men who go with basket. Go alone. Tell no one where you go. Important.

None of the other spectators had found a note like that, for they were simply staring at the rice, while Jinnah Jad moved through the crowd, taking up a new collection in person. Biff looked for the basket bearers and saw them starting slowly away, as if they had waited just long enough for Biff to find the note.

So Biff started after them, working his way through the crowd so that he went past Li. Quickly, Biff muttered:

“Don’t look now. Just find Kamuka and wait for me here. I’ll be back – soon.”