Читать книгу Caravans By Night - Harry Hervey - Страница 7

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The usual heavy downpour following a break in the monsoon drenched the bazaar. It came with a high wind, and doors strained at their locks and windows rattled as legions of rain rode through the streets. The torrent rumbled upon tin roofs and roofs of corrugated iron; reduced the dust in alleys to mud; lashed the thirsty, sun-scorched trees.

Muhafiz Ali sat on a cushion in the inner room of his shop with a copy of the Koran open in his lap, more intent upon the eerie sounds than the book. Frequently his eyes left the pages and sought the door as gusts of wind smote its panels, and when sudden draughts made the lamp-flame flicker and sent the shadows shuddering over the walls, a chill dread spread through him. Not until that accursed thing of imitations had been taken away would he feel safe. Surely the devils were hard besetting him for losing the Sulaimaneh ring!

The door shook—as though impatient with the lock and hinges that held it. Outside, the storm wrung wails and groans from the bazaar. Again the door rattled, furiously.

Muhafiz Ali set aside the book, rose and crossed the room. He unlocked the door. A spray was blown into his face. No one was there. Rain poured over the street-lamps in gauzy, iridescent ribbons; it wove spumy lace upon the black roadway and trailed, fuming, into the gutters.

He shut the door and locked it. He had taken no more than two steps before a pounding brought him to a halt. He stood there for a moment, tense; then turned and pressed his lips to the crack of the door.

"Leroux Sahib?"

Faintly, from out the chaos of sounds, came—"Yes."

He turned the key. The door opened violently and slammed behind the drenched figure of the yellow-bearded sahib. Water dripped from his helmet; streams of moisture trickled down his rain-cape and gathered in pools upon the floor.

"Allah be praised!" Muhafiz Ali murmured fervently.

Leroux Sahib flung aside his cape, and the native saw that he carried a flat package under one arm. The white man shook the water from his helmet and mopped his face with a khaki handkerchief.

"Mother of God! What a night!" he exclaimed, smiling grimly. Then: "Is it ready?"

Muhafiz Ali hastily opened one of his chests and removed several trays. The sahib joined him. His eyes shone feverishly as the Mussulman drew forth a thing that tinkled musically. Strands of nacreous spheres reflected a soft radiance from the lamp; luster of cream-colored satin. The imitation diamonds that inset the clasp burned like star-splinters.

Leroux Sahib swore under his breath and chuckled; swore in a tongue Muhafiz Ali did not understand.

"What a joke! What a colossal joke! And they think it is for them.... Bon Dieu!"

The door rattled; the lamp-flame rippled threateningly.

"I shall place it in a tin box, Sahib," Muhafiz Ali said, for the sooner the thing was gone the sooner he would feel at ease. "See, a box no larger than the one you carry."

He moved the lid. Pearls rattled coolly. Meanwhile, the sahib counted out several banknotes.

"Count them," he instructed as Muhafiz Ali handed him the tin box, wrapped and tied.

The Mussulman obeyed. The door shook again. A sudden burst of wind almost carried the notes out of his hand. The lamp gasped. A slam followed.

Muhafiz Ali looked up quickly to behold a strange tableau—a tableau that for the while suspended all thoughts from his brain and drew from his limbs the power to move.

A man had entered—a blue-eyed Punjabi. The face was vaguely familiar, and Muhafiz Ali's memory groped.... A string of ferozees.... The Punjabi stood with his shoulders pressed against the door, his feet planted wide apart. His soaked garments clung to his body; his turban dripped water into his eyes. But that did not quench the fire in them. How they burned! Blue sapphires! In his hand he held a thing that glittered like an evil eye.

Leroux Sahib had swung about. His feet, too, were planted well apart, as though he were steadying himself for an impact. The muscles of his throat stood out like white cords in the shadow of his beard. There was a hard gleam in his eyes; more than ever they resembled black chalcedony.

Afterward, Muhafiz Ali never quite remembered how it all happened. At the time he was too stupefied to observe details. The blue-eyed Punjabi laughed. It was a challenge. Leroux Sahib, suddenly smiling, answered it; lunged toward the lamp. The ring of shattered glass—and darkness wiped out the scene. Followed the thudding jar of muscle and bone against yielding flesh; swift, staccato breathing. The door was flung wide. Muhafiz Ali, crouching in a corner, saw a figure faintly silhouetted in the door-frame, an amorphous shadow upon the paler darkness of the street. It vanished. Another figure lurched out after it, and was swallowed by the storm.

Energy flashed into the Mussulman. He ran to the door. The incandescent lamps gleamed through a crystal curtain of rain. The street was deserted. For a moment he stood there, shivering. Then he shut the door; locked it; lay weakly against the panels. When he had recovered, he groped his way to where he knew a lantern hung. He lighted it, and a mellow radiance played upon bits of broken glass.

He rapidly counted the banknotes. Satisfied, he returned to the door and pressed his ear to the crack. Only the slush and drench of rain. He shivered again.

Whither had they gone, this Leroux Sahib and the blue-eyed Punjabi? Their eyes! Black chalcedony and blue sapphires! The Punjabi had a pistol.... Over imitation pearls! Strange were the ways of these white barbarians, stranger still the ways of the Raj. On the morrow would the police come and ask him all manner of confusing questions? Or had the hurricane spent itself? Was this the last he would ever see of the yellow-haired Sahib or the Punjabi?

He turned back, looking half abstractedly upon the gleaming particles of glass. He shivered for the third time. Devil-business!

And so the gods, having no further use for Muhafiz Ali, merchant and loyal servant of the Raj, left him to wonder at the source of these ripples that had touched him; left him to grope behind the drop that had suddenly fallen upon this bewildering interlude; left him to dream of the house in Peshawar and the azure-necked peacock that strutted and shrilled like an angry Rajput.