Читать книгу C.I.D. - Talbot Mundy - Страница 7

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CHULLUNDER GHOSE sat in the dark cart, enjoying motion after days of sitting still and being talked to by ignorant villagers. It was slow motion; the big wheels sank deep in the mud and the horses paused at frequent intervals to gather strength; but the horses were as keen as the driver on reaching the journey's end, so they pulled their best. The silence—he enjoyed that also—was comparative; the important thing was that the driver made no conversation. Countless millions of frogs made such a din that he could hardly hear the splashing of the horses' hoofs or the squeak of an oil-less wheel. But none of those facts excused carelessness; the business of being "purposely misunderstood" demands unceasing and acute attention.

It may be that the comfort of a heavy blanket made him sleepy. He felt sure, too, that he had left behind a village that was friendly to himself, whatever hatreds or intrigues might dwell there. But probably he himself could not have told exactly why he let his normally alert and intensely intelligent senses slumber while he mused and pondered. He was chuckling over the letter he had sent by messenger to Doctor Copeland, and envying the almost superhuman skill and courage of the messenger who swam that swollen ford without as much as hesitating on the brink, when his turban fell over his eye and he felt a blow on the back of the head that almost stunned him. But he had felt the blow. He could still feel it. Therefore he knew he was not too badly hurt, and in the dark the odds were in his favor yet, whoever the enemy might be. Between him and the driver was a curtain of heavy cloth that made the inside of the cart so absolutely dark that he knew his assailant must have struck at random. Probably some enemy had crawled in over the cart-tail and was now crouching amid the litter of empty sacks and goatskins, waiting to see what his blow had accomplished. Those thoughts took a fraction of a second.

In another fraction of a second Chullunder Ghose had stripped his blanket off and bulked it, holding it at arm's length in his left hand. Beneath it, with his left foot, he kicked on the floor of the cart to suggest his own whereabouts. He felt a club hit the blanket. He pounced. A man as wet as a fish, and as slippery, writhed in his grasp, and even the babu's prodigious strength was hardly enough to hold him; he had to grab the man's hair and almost strangle him with his left arm while he thumped him breathless with his right knee. The driver heard the intense, swift struggle, and pulled the curtain aside to ask what the trouble might be. Chullunder Ghose mastered his breath:

"Another passenger. He overtook us. I invited him to ride."

"He should pay," said the driver. "Such a journey as this may break my cart and harm my horses. It is enough that—"

"It is enough that your crows' meat pull so feebly that this cripple overtook us!" the babu retorted. "Drive on. I will pay you with a kick in the teeth if I hear another word from you!"

"Shameless ingrate! I will turn back," said the driver.

"Try it! See what happens!"

It was too late to turn back; it was already nearly as far to the encampment by the ford as it was to the city. And to turn about meant facing wind and rain. The driver made a virtue of convenience.

"I made a promise. It is better that I keep it. I will pray your honor to be generous."

He closed the curtain, and Chullunder Ghose relaxed the pressure on his assailant's throat, but he did not let go of his hair. He seized an arm and twisted it.

"Who are you?" he demanded. "Besides being a jungle-bum with less brains than an animal, what are you?"

"Have pity, sahib!"

"Answer before I break your neck, you murderer!"

"And if I answer, what then?"

"Pity, perhaps; and perhaps a thrashing; possibly a rupee. Who knows? Was it Soonya who sent you?"

"Nay, nay, sahib! We of the village laid our heads together."

"And the honey of united wisdom came forth?"

"Sahib, we thought if your honor should make complaint in the city about the tiger, then there might be trouble from the priestess."

"You should have said that to me before I left you."

"But we did not think of it until your honor crossed the river. Then we guessed that your honor had lied about being a spokesman for the dok-i-tar sahib who skins eyes. Some said you are probably a politician; and we agreed that much trouble might come, and of that we have plenty, without more of it."

Chullunder Ghose jerked at the man's hair. As an afterthought he groped for the club and laid it out of reach. "For instance?" he demanded.

"First, a sahib might come. It might be Smith sahib, who would command the services of many people and much food for his servants, who would beat us. And the servants would pay us nothing, even though their sahib might give them money for the purpose. Or perhaps the Rajah himself might come, and that would be much worse."

"Yes, and—?"

"She would put a curse on us for having made complaint."

"Who? Soonya? That priestess?"

"Yes, sahib. She might carry out her threat to loose on us a second tiger—a she-one—much worse."

"Uh-huh."

"So it seemed best—"

"To silence me by killing me, eh? How did you cross the river?"

"That was easy, since your honor let the raft get caught to the far bank by a tree-root. Was there not the rope? We drew that tight and I crossed by it, hand over hand, being better used to such dangerous work than the others. Was it not I who received a reward for rescuing a Prince in mid-stream? And having crossed I sought a club, but it was difficult to find one in the darkness. The one I cut at last was too light. Thus the blow I struck was feeble and your honor—"

"Where is your knife, with which you cut that club?" the babu asked him.

"It was in my loin-cloth. But it fell in the mud when I slipped, as I tried to crawl silently into the cart. Otherwise I could have used it, and your honor—"

"I will give you a new knife," said the babu.

"That is generous. But it is only fair. I—"

"With which to cut your own throat for being such a frog-brained jungli!"*

[* jungli, junglee (Hindi)—a savage; a primitive native; a "man of the woods." See the G lossary of Inglish (Indian English) Slang at the Writer's Block website. ]

"Nay, I will need it badly for my work in the fields when the rains are over."

"If I let you sit there near the cart-tail will you jump off and run home?"

"Nay, I need a new knife, sahib. Where can we buy it unless in the city?"

"Then what?"

"I will go home. I will tell them in the village you are one whose heart is so big that it swells your belly. They will excuse my failure when I show the new, expensive knife."

"Clothe yourself with sacks. Sit silent. I am sick of talking to you."

So the cart creaked on and there was no more conversation. Wind, rain, trees, and frogs united in an ocean-chorus; it was easy to imagine that the cart was a boat on a storm-tossed sea. The villager, almost invisible even against the sky at the open cart-end; sat with his chin on his knees and seemed to meditate. Chullunder Ghose, wrapped in his blanket, cuddled himself at the front end, in a corner, undiscoverable even to a bat's eyes, it was so dark. Even when the jolting of the cart-wheels moved him he was quite invisible.

The cart stopped. Someone spoke to the driver. Chullunder Ghose, ear to the curtain, caught the driver's answer.

"Nay, I am from this side of the ford. I know not who he is."

"Is he a fat man?"

"Look within the cart and judge that for yourself."

Footsteps splashed around the cart. Someone hooded in a flour sack leaned in, from the rear. At the same time there was a faint click, but to the trained ears of the babu it was clearly not a pistol. It was probably a flashlight, damaged by rain, short-circuited, useless. A man swore scurrilously.

"Who is in here?" he demanded.

The villager stirred uneasily. The man seized him and dragged him out into the darkness.

"Who are you? Who else is in there?"

"No one," said the villager.

"Not a babu? Not a very fat man? Not he who was camped beyond the river?"

"Nay, nay! I am from that village. I have seen that fat one—I have spoken with him. He is still there. How could he have crossed the river?"

"How did you cross?"

"On a horse—but it drowned the horse. I, clinging to its tail, was thrown up on the bank on this side."

"Why are you traveling?"

"To reach the dok-i-tar. My eyes fail and I fear I go blind. I have heard there is a sahib—"

Stealthily Chullunder Ghose moved to the cart-tail, the villager's club in his fist. The frog-noise and the rain that spattered on the roof effectually drowned any noise he made. He crouched in the corner opposite to where the villager had sat.

"You jungli, you are lying!" said the voice in outer darkness. "He who drives said—"

Unexpectedness was two-thirds of Chullunder Ghose's method, and the other third was use of intuition. He decided there was only one man to be dealt with. He sprang—two hundred and fifty pounds of suddenness and muscle. He struck with the club with all his might. Luck aided him. Square on the top of a skull the club broke in two and the man went down into a puddle like a pole-axed steer. The babu set a foot on him. He waited; there might be someone else; although he guessed not.

"See who he is," he commanded presently. The villager knelt—felt—pulled at something.

"Nay, your honor means, who was he? He is dead now. And he had this."

He thrust a heavy, old-fashioned revolver into the babu's hand. By its weight—by the balanceless feel of it Chullunder Ghose guessed, almost beyond the possibility of error, that it came from the Rajahs armory. The Rajah's private weapons were as new and costly as caprice could dictate and his credit provide, but his soldiers and policemen—and his murderers and bullies—had to use what other armies sold as bargains fifty years ago. However, the babu struck a match to make sure, recognized the Rajah's monogram on the holster worn by a man in plain clothes who lay prone in a puddle, and then threw the revolver away. He heard it splash into a deep hole.

"Are you sure he is dead? I also think so. Get into the cart."

He climbed in too, and resumed his blanket in the corner.

"Cheloh!"* he commanded, drawing aside the curtain. "Why do we wait? Are the horses as stupid as you?"

[* Cheloh! (Hindi)—Giddy-up! Get moving! ]

The driver whipped and yelled. The cart creaked forward and the rain came down in blustering squalls that almost blew the roof off. It was several minutes before Chullunder Ghose even attempted to make his voice heard. Then he moved a little closer to the villager and asked him:

"Did I say you are a frog-brained jungli?"

"Yes, but it is not true."

"I repeat it. You wished to kill me. That man would have done it for you."

"Yes, I guessed that, sahib."

"Why, then, did you tell those lies and say I was not in here?"

"I need a new knife, don't I?"

"Krishna! You shall have a good one," said the babu. "I can use such a madman as you are!"