The Bronze Bell Part 20

"You've surely not been so blind as to miss the occasional reports that leak out about native unrest in India?"

"Surely you don't mean----"

"I a.s.suredly do mean that the Second Mutiny impends," declared Labertouche solemnly. "Such, at least, is my belief, and such is the belief of every thinking man in India who is at all informed. The entire country is undermined with conspiracy and sedition; day after day a vast, silent, underground movement goes on, fomenting rebellion against the English rule. The worst of it is, there's no stopping it, no way of scotching the serpent; its heads are myriad, seemingly. And yet--I don't know--since yesterday I have hoped that through you we might eventually strike to the heart of the movement."

"Through me!" cried Amber, startled.

Labertouche nodded. "Just so. The information you have already brought us is invaluable. Have you thought of the significance of Chatterji's 'Message of the Bell'?"

"'_Even now,_'" Amber quoted mechanically, "'_The Gateway of Swords yawns wide, that he who is without fear may pa.s.s within; to the end that the Body be purged of the Scarlet Evil._'" He shook his head mystified. "No; I don't understand."

"It's so simple," urged Labertouche; "all but the Gateway of Swords. I don't place that--yet.... But the 'Body'--plainly that is India; the 'Scarlet Evil'--could anything more fittingly describe English rule from the native point of view?"

Amber felt of his head solicitously. "And yet," he averred plaintively, "it doesn't _feel_ like wood."

Labertouche laughed gently. "Now to-night you will learn something from this Dhola Baksh--something important, undoubtedly. May I see this ring--this Token?"

Unb.u.t.toning his s.h.i.+rt, Amber produced the Eye from the chamois bag.

Labertouche studied it for a long time in silence, returning it with an air of deep perturbation.

"The thing is strange to me," he said. "For the present we may dismiss it as simply what it pretends to be--a token, a sign by which one man shall know another.... Wear it but turn the stone in; and keep your hands in your pockets when we're outside."

Amber obeyed. "We'll be going, now?"

"Yes." Labertouche rose, throwing away his cigar and stamping out its fire.

"But the Farrells?"

"Forgive me; I had forgotten. The Farrells are at Darjeeling, where the Colonel is stationed just now--happily for him."

"Then," said Amber, with decision, "I leave for Darjeeling to-morrow morning."

"I know no reason why you shouldn't," agreed Labertouche. "If anything turns up I'll contrive to let you know." He looked Amber up and down with a glance that took in every detail. "I'm sorry," he observed, "you couldn't have managed to look a trace shabbier. Still, with a touch here and there, you'll do excellently well as a sailor on a spree."

"As bad as that?"

"Oah, my dear fallow!"--it was now the babu speaking, while he hopped around Amber with his head critically to one side, like an inquisitive jackdaw, now and again darting forward to peck at him with hands that nervously but deftly arranged details of his attire to please a taste fastidious and exacting in such matters--"Oah, my dear fallow, surely you appreciate danger of venturing into nateeve quarters in European dress? As regular-out-and-out sahib, I am meaning, of course. It is permeesible for riff-raff, sailors and Tommies from the Fort, and soa on, to indulge in debauchery among nateeves, but first-cla.s.s sahib--Oah, noah! You would be mobbed in no-time-at-all, where we are going."

"All right; I guess I can play the part, babu. At least, I've plenty of atmosphere," Amber laughed, mentioning the incident of the peg he had not consumed over Honest George's bar.

"I had noticed that; a happy accident, indeed. I think"--Labertouche stepped back to look Amber over again--"I think you will almost do. One moment."

He seized Amber's hat and, das.h.i.+ng it violently to the floor, deliberately stamped it out of shape; when restored to its owner it had aged five years in less than half as many minutes. Amber laughed, putting it on. "Surely you couldn't ask me to look more disreputable,"

he said with a dubious survey of himself in the mirror.

His collar had been confiscated with his tie; his coat collar was partially turned up in the back; what was visible of his s.h.i.+rt was indecently dirty. His polished shoes had been deprived of their pristine l.u.s.tre by means of a damp rag, vigorously applied, and then rubbed with dust. An artistic stain had been added to one of his sleeves by the simple device of smudging it with the blacking from his shoes. As for his hat, with the brim pulled down in front, it was nothing more nor less than shocking.

"You'll do," chuckled Labertouche approvingly. "Just ram your hands into your trouser pockets without unb.u.t.toning your coat, and shuffle along as if nocturnal rambles in the slums of Calcutta were an everyday thing to you. If you're spoken to, don't betray too much familiarity with the vernacular. You know about the limit of the average Tommy's vocabulary; don't go beyond it." He unbolted and locked the door by which Amber had entered, putting the key in his pocket, and turned to a second door across the room. "We'll leave this way; I chose this place because it's a regular rabbit warren, with half a dozen entrances and exits. I'll leave you in a pa.s.sage leading to the bazaar. Wait in the doorway until you see me stroll past; give me thirty yards lead and follow. Keep in the middle of the way, avoid a crowd as the plague, and don't lose sight of me. I'll stop in front of Dohla Baksh's shop long enough to light a cheroot and go on without looking back. When you come out I'll be waiting for you. If we lose one another, get back to your hotel as quickly as possible. I may send you word. If I don't, I shall understand you've taken the first morning train to Darjeeling. I think that's all."

As Amber left the room Labertouche extinguished the lamp, shut and locked the door, and followed, catching Amber by the arm and guiding him through pitch darkness to the head of the stairs. "Don't talk," he whispered; "trust me." They descended an interminable flight of steps, pa.s.sed down a long, echoing corridor, and again descended. From the foot of the second flight Labertouche shunted Amber round through what seemed a veritable maze of pa.s.sages--in which, however, he was evidently quite at home. At length, "_Now go ahead!_" was breathed at Amber's ear and at the same time his arm was released.

He obeyed blindly, stumbling down a reeking corridor, and in a minute more, to his unutterable relief, was in the open air of the bazaar.

Blinking with the abrupt transition from absolute night to garish light, he skulked in the shadow of the doorway, waiting. Beneath his gaze Calcutta paraded its congress of peoples--a comprehensive collection of specimens of every tribe in Hindustan and of nearly every other race in the world besides: red-bearded Delhi Pathans, towering Sikhs, lean sinewy Rajputs with bound jaws, swart agile Bhils, Tommies in their scarlet tunics, j.a.panese and Chinese in their distinctive dress, short and st.u.r.dy Gurkhas, yellow Saddhus, Jats stalking proudly, brawling knots of sailormen from the Port, sleek Mahrattas, polluted Sansis, Punjabis, Bengalis, priests, beggars, dancing girls; a blaze of colour ever s.h.i.+fting, a Babel of tongues never stilled, a seething sc.u.m on a witch's brew of humanity....

Like a fat, tawdry moth in his garments of soiled pink, a babu loitered past, with never a sidelong glance for the loaferish figure in the shadowed doorway; and the latter seemed himself absorbed in the family of Eurasians who were shrilly squabbling with the keeper of a vegetable-stall adjacent. But presently he wearied of their noise, yawned, thrust both hands deep in his pockets, and stumbled away. The bazaar accepted him as a brother, unquestioning, and he picked his way through it with an ease that argued nothing but absolute familiarity with his surroundings. But always you may be sure, he had the gleam of pink satin in the corner of his eye.

Before long Pink Satin diverged into the Chitpur Road, with Amber a discreet shadow. So far the latter had been treading known ground, but a little later, when Pink Satin dived abruptly into a darksome alleyway to the right, drawing Amber after him as a child drags a toy on a string, the Virginian lost his bearings utterly and was thereafter helplessly dependent upon the flutter of Pink Satin, and unworried only so long as he could see him, in a fidget of anxiety whenever the labyrinth shut Labertouche from his sight for a moment or two.

It was quiet enough away from the main thoroughfare, but with a sinister quiet. Tall dwellings marched shoulder to shoulder along the ways, shuttered, dark, grim, with an effect of conspirators, their heads together in lawless conference. The streets were intolerably narrow, the paving a farce; pools of stagnant water stood in the depressions, piles of refuse banked the walls. The fetid air hung motionless but sibilant with stealthy footsteps and whisperings....

Preferable to this seemed even the infinitely more dangerous and odorous Coolootollah purlieus into which they presently pa.s.sed--nesting place though it were for the city's most evil and desperate cla.s.ses.

In time broad Machua Bazaar Street received them--Pink Satin and the sailorman out for a night of it. And now Pink Satin began to stroll more sedately, manifesting a livelier interest in the sights of the wayside. Amber's impatience--for he guessed that they neared the goldsmith's stall--increased prodigiously; the shops, the stalls, the thatched dance-halls in which arose the hideous music of the nautch, had no lure for him, though they ill.u.s.trated all that was most evil and most depraved in the second city of the Empire. He was only eager to have done with this unsavoury adventure, to know again the clean walls of his room in the Great Eastern, to taste again the purer air of the Maidan.

Without warning Pink Satin pulled up, extracted from the recesses of his costume a long, black and vindictive-looking native cigar, and lighted it, thoughtfully exhaling the smoke through his nose while he stared covetously at the display of a slipper-merchant whose stand was over across from the stall of a goldsmith.

With true Oriental deliberation Pink Satin finally made up his mind to move on; and Amber lurched heavily into the premises occupied by one Dhola Baksh, a goldsmith.

A customer, a slim, handsome Malayan youth, for the moment held the attention of the proprietor. The two were haggling with characteristic enjoyment over a transaction which seemed to involve less than twenty rupees. Amber waited, knowing that patience must be his portion until the bargain should be struck. Dhola Baksh himself, a lean, sharp-featured Mahratta grey with age, appraised with a single look the new customer, and returned his interest to the Malay. But Amber garnered from that glance a sensation of recognition. He wondered dimly, why; could the goldsmith have been warned of his coming?

Two or three more putative customers idled into the shop. Beyond its threshold the stream of native life rolled on, ceaselessly fluent; a pageant of the Middle Ages had been no more fantastic and unreal to Western eyes. Now and again a wayfarer paused, his interest attracted by the goldsmith's rush of business.

Unexpectedly the proprietor made a substantial concession. Money pa.s.sed upon the instant, sealing the bargain. The Malay rose to go. Dhola Baksh lifted a stony stare to Amber.

"Your, pleasure, sahib?" he enquired with a thinly-veiled sneer. What need to show deference to a down-at-the-heel sailor from the Port?

"I want money--I want to borrow," said Amber promptly.

"On your word, sahib?"

"On security."

"What manner of security can you offer?"

"A ring--an emerald ring."

Dhola Baksh shrugged. His eyes s.h.i.+fted from Amber to the encircling faces of the bystanders. "I am a poor man," he whined. "How should I have money to lend? Come to me on the morrow; then mayhap I may have a few rupees. To-night I have neither cash nor time."

The hint was lost upon Amber. "A stone of price----" he persisted.

With a disturbed and apprehensive look, the money-lender rose. "Come, then," he grumbled, "if you must----"

A voice cried out behind Amber--"_Heh_!"----more a squeal than a cry.

Intuitively, as at a signal of danger, he leaped aside. Simultaneously something like a beam of light sped past his head. The goldsmith uttered one dreadful, choking scream, and went to his knees. For as many as three seconds he swayed back and forth, his features terribly contorted, his thin old hands plucking feebly at the handle of a broadbladed dagger which had transfixed his throat. Then he tumbled forward on his face, kicking.

There followed a single instant of suspense and horror, then a mad rush of feet as the street stampeded into the shop. Voices clamoured to the skies. Somehow the lights went out.

Amber started to fight his way out. As he struggled on, making little headway through the press, a hand grasped his arm and drew him another way.