Caravans By Night Part 22

The smile left Tambusami's face. "He was too strong for me, Presence; he had muscles like the unicorn!"

Trent considered a moment. Then: "Whose servant are you--mine or hers?"

Tambusami beamed. "_She_ pays me to be _your_ bearer!"

"Then say to her that I'm capable of taking care of myself and that you're to be my servant from now on and _not_ my shadow. We'll only be here until to-morrow, which no doubt she's already told you, but until then you'll watch my room instead of me."

Trent found the silk-wrapped packet safe in his trunk. Nothing was disturbed or missing. However, he surmised that the "thief" gained what he came after--knowledge of his, Trent's, destination. Was this the hand of that mysterious power he had felt in Benares when he awakened to discover an intruder in his room? But what power could it be? Not Sarojini Nanjee. Who?... Plot and counter-plot. Each day fixed in him more immovably the belief that behind the activities in which he was involved was a sinister purpose, more stupendous, when revealed, than he imagined. Every new incident, like a hand in the night, lured him, beckoning, but never fulfilling the promise of disclosure. Adventure!

And only one thorn to p.r.i.c.k the joy from it.... Manlove....

It came to him suddenly that perhaps, unaware of it, he was exploring the fabulous isles of his fancy.

5

They had tea at a restaurant in Government Place. She wore the black straw hat with cornflowers and wheat woven about the crown. White voile caressed slender limbs and fell away in a deep hem to give a glimpse of silk-stockinged ankles and suede shoes.

They rode along Beadon Street in a glamorous after-sunset glow (the car was threading through swarms whose sheet-like garments blended softly with the gray pastel of houses and the lingering rose-light) and Trent, eyes upon the girl, felt the sheer call of youth and romance at dusk.

The very atmosphere was an electrode, drawing its current from the first white stars. Nor was Dana Charteris unreceptive. She was aware of a s.h.i.+elding warmth, and not of the physical, in his presence. The play of muscles of sunburnt cheek and jaw was vital and challenging, but behind that, more convincing because it was not visible to the eye, but to a sense of inner perception, was a compelling cleanliness; strength that had not to do with thews or tendons.

The theater was in a neighborhood of white houses and green palms, close to Beadon Square; their seats in an orchestra-stall. Over the pit hung oil lamps, round yellow moons suspended in cavernous gloom; dim electric lights in the ceiling; about them, a loose-robed, turbaned audience, the majority chewing pellets of crushed areca-nut and lime.

Musicians in white raiment filed in and played an overture, and the performance began.... A tale of chivalrous deeds and chivalrous days (thus translated Trent in a whisper, as the actors, flashes against the rich gloom of a back-drop, recited their lines); of Kurnavati, the Rani of Chitor, and Humayun, the Great Mogul. Bahadur Shah, so went the story, was hurling his armies against Chitor. The Rani had sent out the pride of the Rajputs, but they could not check the onrush of Bahadur Shah. Chitor was lost. Then the Rani, recalling a custom, took from her arm a bracelet and gave it to a servant, bidding him carry it, with a plea for succor, to Humayun, the Great Mogul. The servant departed....

And the first act ended.

"And you said it would be dull!" This from Dana Charteris when Trent had explained all that happened. "Somehow it makes me think of the Brahmin priest who lectured--a sort of thrilling mysticism; color and tragedy."

Just before the second act Trent glanced around the betel-chewing audience and saw--a pink turban. It disappeared as he looked, and he smiled at the thought of Tambusami crouching between the seats of the back row of stalls.

The second act was at the court of Humayun. The messenger of the Rani of Chitor arrived; presented the bracelet. Humayun, knowing of the custom, accepted it. By that act he became the bracelet-brother of the Rani, bound by custom to go to her if she called. Then the servant delivered the Rani's plea. And Humayun, who was a n.o.ble monarch, drew a jewelled sword from a jewelled scabbard and declared that the blade should not return to its sheath until his bracelet-sister was free of the oppression of Bahadur Shah.

Thus the second act. There was a third; a fourth. Clash of steel upon steel; the clangor and strident ring of battle. In the last act Humayun reached Chitor--too late. For Kurnavati, rather than be conquered by the terrible Bahadur Shah, died upon the funeral pyre. And Humayun, borne to the walls in a golden palanquin, looked toward the smoky ruins and wept.

Trent, leaving the theater, let his eyes quest over the crowd in search of Tambusami. But he had gone. However, the Englishman suspected he would find him at the hotel, the essence of innocence.

"Now that you've seen the Chinese quarter and a Bengali theater," he said as they rode toward the modern city, "what other reason can you think of to prowl about after dark?"

"I won't have another chance in Calcutta," she answered, smiling. "I'm leaving to-morrow; and when I'm with my brother--well, you know how brothers are.... I felt so sorry for the Rani in the play--she looked as I've always visualized _Ameera_, in 'Without Benefit of Clergy.' Was that really a custom--the part about the bracelet-brother?"

He nodded.

"It was superb romance." The brown eyes deepened. "I shall always remember that story of Humayun and Kurnavati--and remember you for explaining it to me."

Silence of a few seconds followed. Then Trent ventured:

"I daresay I sha'n't see you again before I go. I sail to-morrow noon."

"Really? I'm sailing then, too. I suppose you're going back to England?"

"No. I"--he hesitated--"I'm bound for Burma."

She laughed, a bit tremulously--that laugh of soft monsoon showers.

"Why, so am I. Surely you're not booked on the _Manchester_?"

The face that was turned to her, faintly bronze in the street-lights, was impa.s.sive enough; his only expression was of mild, polite surprise.

"Yes--on the _Manchester_."

His thoughts were swept by two currents, one shot with chill warnings, the other warm with the wine of antic.i.p.ation. But for the incident of the uniform at Benares, the announcement that she would sail on the same boat would have done anything but disturb him. However, even if she did suspect his brother-fabrication, she could not guess his mission. As Tavernake she knew him. A few days more--a lengthening of the _intermezzo_, rich notes and chords of harmony to remember afterward--then, at Rangoon, the finale. _Allegro moderato_.... No harm, this Tavernake interlude; a cool breath to the being, like temple-dusk after arid desert heat.

"What a coincidence!" she remarked; then explained, "My brother lives in Rangoon. But he isn't there now. He had an--an accident in Delhi, and I came ahead to attend to some matters for him. Oh, nothing serious happened to him, or I wouldn't be here. But it is queer that we're going on the same boat. Don't you think so?"

And he replied in a manner that was new for him.

"Not altogether. It merely proves that Kismet had a purpose in arranging our meeting last night."

"A purpose?" she echoed--and they both were thinking different thoughts.

They were in Chitpur Road; soon Chowringhee; then the hotel. To him the throbbing of the motor car suddenly became the pulse of the night, of the hot street where, on either side, dark faces peered curiously at them. Subconsciously, his brain dipped back; he saw her beneath the black-and-gold scroll on the previous night.... Her voice broke in, a crystallization of his thoughts.

"I was thinking how foolish it was," she said, "for me to have done what I did last night."

"You mean"--he smiled--"in speaking to me, or--"

A whimsical laugh. "Both. Oh, don't misunderstand me! The thought just occurred that--well, my adventure might have turned out differently. I'm wondering, too, if I should have come with you to-night. Instead of a jeweller from London, you might have been--anything. What I'm trying to say, and doing it badly, is that after all we're prisoners of instinct--at the mercy of elements that we have not the power to fathom!"

A pause ensued, and when she spoke again her tone was one of light raillery, yet beneath it was a tense excitement that puzzled him.

"And consider. For all you know I might have planned that meeting in the Chinese quarter for a--a dreadful purpose. Even now I may be spinning a web around you!" Then, with a laugh, she switched the topic. "It will be pleasant to have an acquaintance aboard. Voyages are rather monotonous when one is alone, don't you think?"

Conversation was not at its best during the remainder of the ride, and at the hotel they parted with a few words, rather stilted words. He'd surely see her on the boat. Yes, he must look her up. She had enjoyed the evening tremendously. A last glimpse of her eyes, of their luring mystery; then she was gone.

Trent did not go to sleep immediately. He lay in darkness and smoked a cheroot, puzzling over what Dana Charteris had said.

"... For all you know I might have planned that meeting.... Even now I may be spinning a web around you!"

Those words lodged in his brain, baffled him. There was something he could not understand, but none the less intriguing, in the still, obscure depths below the surface ripples.

6

Trent did not see Dana Charteris the next day. It was raining and Calcutta was gray and dismal. Tambusami appeared early and saw to it that his luggage was transferred to the s.h.i.+p. Trent felt that his very spirits were moist as he rode to the boat. Even his cabin was damp, cheerless.

Shortly before five o'clock the _Manchester_ warped out from the jetty, her twin screws churning the brown water. Trent, looking out of his cabin window, saw Calcutta draw robes of rain about her and fade. The smoke-stacks of Howrah's mills were blurred fingers appealing to a stark sky; leaves, wind-whirled from toddy-palms on the mud banks, spun across the Hoogly; only when lightning scribbled a line of vivid lavender across the heavens was the gray monotony relieved.

The world was an old, old woman, and the sound of the steamer's whistle was her hoa.r.s.e, stricken voice.