Chapter 4

Jinendra’s Smile

Deep broods the calm where the cooing doves are mating

And shadows quiver noiseless ’neath the courtyard trees,

Cool keeps the gloom where the suppliants are waiting

Begging little favors of Jinendra on their knees.

Peace over all, and the consciousness of nearness,

Charity removing the remoteness of the gods;

Spirit of compassion breathing with new clearness

"There’s a limit set to khama; there’s a surcease from the rods."

"Blessed were the few, who trim the lights of kindness,

Toiling in the temple for the love of one and all,

If it were not for hypocrisy and gluttony and blindness,"

Smiles the image of Jinendra on the courtyard wall.

 

"The law …. is like a python after monkey’s in the tree-tops."

Yasmini, hooded like a bandit in the camel-hair cloak, resumed an air
of leisurely dignity in keeping with the unhurried habit of Sialpore the
moment she was through the gate. It was just as well she did, for Mukhum
Dass, the money-lender, followed by a sweating lean parasite on foot,
was riding a smart mule on his customary morning round to collect
interest from victims and oversee securities.

He was a fat, squat, slimy-looking person in a black alpaca coat, with a
black umbrella for protection from the sun, and an air of sour dissatisfaction
for general business purposes—an air that was given the lie direct by
a small, acquisitive nose and bright brown eyes that surely never made
bad bargains. Yasmini’s hooded figure brought him to a halt just at
the corner, where the little road below the Blaines’ wall joined the wider
road that led down-hill. Business is business, and time a serious matter
only for those who sign promissory notes; he drew rein without compunction.

"This house is yours?" she asked, and he nodded, his sharp eyes shining
like an animal’s, determined to recognize his questioner.

"There is a miscalculating son of lies who brings a lawsuit to get the title?"

He nodded again—a man of few words except when words exacted interest.

"Dhulap Singh, is it not? He is a secret agent of Gungadhura."

"How do you know? Why should the maharajah want my property?"

"He hunts high and low for the Sialpore treasure. Jengal Singh, who
built this house, was in the confidence of Gungadhura’s uncle, and a
priest says there will be a clue found to the treasure beneath the floor
of this house."

"A likely tale indeed!"

"Very well, then—lose thine house!"

Yasmini turned on a disdainful heel and started down-hill. Mukhum Dass
called after her, but she took no notice. He sent the sweating parasite
to bring her back, but she shook him off with execrations. Mukhum
Dass turned his mule and rode down-hill after her.

"True information has its price," he said. "Tell me your name."

"That also has its price."

He cackled dryly. "Natives cost money only to their owners—on a hundi."

(Promissory note.)

 

"Nevertheless there is a price."

"In advance? I will give a half-rupee!"

Once more Yasmini resumed her way down-hill. Again Mukhum Dass
rode after her.

"At any rate name the price."

"It is silence firstly; second, a security for silence."

"The first part is easy."

"Nay, difficult. A woman can keep silence, but men chatter like the apes,
in every coffee shop."

His bargain-driver’s eyes watched hers intently, unable to detect the
slightest clue that should start him guessing. He was trying to identify
a man, not a woman.

"How shall I give security for silence?" he asked.

"I already hold it."

"How? What? Where?"

The money-lender betrayed a glimpse of sheer pugnacity that seemed
to amuse his tormentor.

"Send thy jackal out of ear-shot, tiger."

He snapped at his parasite angrily, and the man went away to sit down. Then:

"Where are the title-deeds of the house you say you own?" she asked
him suddenly.

Mukhum Dass kept silence, and tried to smother the raging anger in his eyes.

"Was it Mukhum Dass or another, who went to the priest in the temple
of Jinendra on a certain afternoon and requested intercession to the
god in order that a title-deed might be recovered, that fell down the
nullah when the snakes frightened a man’s mule and he himself fell
into the road? Or was it another accident that split that car of thine in
two pieces?"

"Priests cackle like old women," growled the money-lender.

"Nay, but this one cackled to the god. Perhaps Jinendra felt compassionate
toward a poor shroff (money-lender) who can not defend his suit
successfully without that title-deed. Jengal Singh died and his son,
who ought to know, claims that the house was really sold to Dhulap
Singh, who dallies with his suit because he suspects, but does not
know, that Mukhum Dass has lost the paper—eh?"

"How do you know these things?"

"Maybe the god Jinendra told! Which would be better, Mukhum Dass—
to keep great silence, and be certain to receive the paper in time to
defend the lawsuit,—or to talk freely, and so set others talking?"

Who knows that it might not reach the ears of Jengal Singh that the title-deed
is truly lost?"

"He who tells secrets to a priest," swore the money-lender, "would better
have screamed them from the housetop.

"Nay—the god heard. The priest told the god, and the god told a certain
one to whom the finder brought the paper, asking a reward. That person
holds the paper now as security for silence!"

"It is against the law to keep my paper!"

"The law catches whom it can, Mukhum Dass, letting all others go, like
a python after monkeys in the tree-tops!"

"From whom am I to get my paper for the lawsuit at the proper time?"

"From Jinendra’s priest perhaps."

"He has it now? The dog’s stray offspring! I will—"

"Nay, he has it not! Be kind and courteous to Jinendra’s priest, or perhaps
the god will send the paper after all to Dhulap Singh!"

"As to what shall I keep silence?"

"Two matters. Firstly Chamu the butler will presently pay his son’s debt.
Give Chamu a receipt with the number of the bank-note written on it,
saying nothing."

"Second?"

"Preserve the bank-note carefully for thirty days and keep silence."

"I will do that. Now tell me thy name?"

Yasmini laughed. "Do thy victims repay in advance the rupees not yet
lent? Nay, the price is silence! First, pay the price; then learn my name.
Go—get thy money from Chamu the butler. Breathe as much as a hint
to any one, and thy title-deed shall go to Dhulap Singh!"

Eying her like a hawk, but with more mixed emotions than that bird can
likely compass, the money-lender sat his mule and watched her stride
round the corner out of sight. Then, glancing over her shoulder to make
sure the man’s parasite was not watching her at his master’s orders,
she ran along the shoulder of the hill to where, in the shelter of a clump
of trees, a carriage waited.

It was one of those lumbering, four-wheeled affairs with four horses,
and a platform for two standing attendants behind and wooden lattice-work
over the windows, in which the women-folk of princes take the air.
But there were no attendants—only a coachman, and a woman who
came running out to meet her; for Yasmini, like her cousin the maharajah,
did not trust too many people all at once.

"Quick, Hasamurti!"

Fussing and giggling over her (the very name means Laughter), the
maid bustled her into the carriage, and without a word of instruction the
coachman tooled his team down-hill at a leisurely gait, as if told in advance
to take his time about it; the team was capable of speed.

Inside the carriage, with a lot more chuckling and giggling a change
was taking place almost as complete as that from chrysalis to butterfly.
The toilet of a lady of Yasmini’s nice discrimination takes time in the
easiest circumstances; in a lumbering coach, not built for leg-room,
and with a looking-glass the size of a saucer, it was a mixture of horse-play
and miracle. Between them they upset the perfume bottle, as was natural,
and a shrill scream at one stage of the journey (that started a rumor all
over Sialpore to the effect that Gungadhura was up to the same old
game again) announced, as a matter of plain fact that Yasmini had sat
on the spurs. There was long, spun-gold hair to be combed out—penciling
to do to eye-brows—lac to be applied to pretty feet to make them exquisitely
pretty—and layer on layer of gossamer silk to be smothered and hung
exactly right. Then over it all had to go one of those bright-hued silken
veils that look so casually worn but whose proper adjustment is an art.

But when they reached the bottom of the long hill and began twisting
in and out among the narrow streets, it was finished. By the time they
reached the temple of Jinendra, set back in an old stone courtyard with
images of the placid god carved all about in the shade of the wide
projecting cornice, all was quiet and orderly inside the carriage and there
stepped out of it, followed by the same dark-hooded maid, a swift vision
of female loveliness that flitted like a flash of light into the temple gloom.

It was not so squalid as the usual Hindu temple, although so ancient
that the carving of the pillars in some places was almost worn away,
and the broad stone flags on the floor were hollowed deep by ages
of devotion. The gloom was pierced here and there by dim light from
brass lamps, that showed carvings blackened by centuries of smoke,
but there was an unlooked-for suggestion of care, and a little cleanliness
that the fresh blossoms scattered here and there accentuated.

There were very few worshipers at that hour—only a woman, who desired
a child and was praying to Jinendra as a last recourse after trying all
the other gods in vain, and a half-dozen men—all eyes—who gossiped
in low tones in a corner. Yasmini gave them small chance to recognize
her. Quicker than their gaze could follow, a low door at the rear, close
beside the enormous, jeweled image of the god, closed behind her
and the maid, and all that was left of the vision was the ringing echo
of an iron lock dying away in dark corners and suggesting nothing
except secrecy.

The good square room she had entered so abruptly unannounced was
swept and washed. Sunlight poured into it at one end through a window
that opened on an inner courtyard, and there were flowers everywhere—
arranged in an enormous brass bowl on a little table—scattered at random
on the floor—hung in plaited garlands from the hooks intended to support
lamps. Of furniture there was little, only a long cushioned bench down
the length of the wall beneath the window, and a thing like a throne on
which Jinendra’s high priest sat in solitary grandeur.

He did not rise at first to greet her, for Jinendra’s priest was fat; there
was no gainsaying it. After about a minute a sort of earthquake taking
place in him began to reach the surface; he rocked on his center in
increasing waves that finally brought him with a spasm of convulsion
to the floor. There he stood in full sunlight with his bare toes turned
inward, holding his stomach with both hands, while Yasmini settled
herself in graceful youthful curves on the cushioned bench, with her
face in shadow, and the smirking maid at her feet. Then before climbing
ponderously back to his perch on the throne the priest touched his
forehead once with both hands and came close to a semblance of
bowing, the arrogance of sanctity combining with his paunch to cut
that ceremony short.

"Send the girl away," he suggested as soon as he was settled into
place again. But Yasmini laughed at him with that golden note of hers
that suggests illimitable understanding and unfathomable mirth.

"I know the ways of priests," she answered. "The girl stays!"

The priest’s fat chops darkened a shade.

"There are things she should not know."

"She knows already more in her small head than there is in all thy big
belly, priest of an idol!"

"Beware, woman, lest the gods hear sacrilege!"

"If they are real gods they love me," she answered, "If they have any
sense they will be pleased whenever I laugh at your idolatry. Hasamurti stays."

"But at the first imaginary insult she will run with information to wherever
it will do most harm. If she can be made properly afraid, perhaps—"

Yasmini’s golden laugh cut him off short.

"If she is made afraid now she will hate me later. As long as she loves
me she will keep my secrets, and she will love me because of the
secrets—being a woman and not a belly-with-a-big-tongue, who would
sell me to the highest bidder, if he dared. I know a Brahman. Thou
and I are co-conspirators because my woman’s wit is sharper than
thy greed. We are confidants because I know too much of thy misdeeds.
We are going to succeed because I laugh at thy fat fears, and am
never deceived for a moment by pretense of sanctity or promises
however vehement."

She said all that in a low sweet voice, and with a smile that would have
made a much less passionate man lose something of his self-command.
Jinendra’s priest began to move uneasily.

"Peace, woman!"

"There is no peace where priests are," she retorted in the same sweet-
humored voice. "I am engaged in war, not honey-gathering. I have
lied sufficient times today to Mukhum Dass to need ten priests, if I
believed in them or were afraid to lie! The shroff will come to ask about
his title-deed. Tell him you are told a certain person has it, but that if
he dares breathe a word the paper will go straight to Dhulap Singh,
who will destroy it and so safely bring his lawsuit. Then let Dhulap Singh
be told also that the title-deed is in certain hands, so he will put off the
lawsuit week after week, and one who is my friend will suffer no annoyance."

"Who is this friend?"

"Another one who builds no bridges on thy sanctity."

"Not one of the English? Beware of them, I say; beware of them!"

"No, not one of the English. Next, let Gungadhura be told that Tom

Tripe has ever an open-handed welcome at Blaine sahib’s—"

 

"Ah!" he objected, shaking his fat face until the cheeks wabbled.
"Women are all fools sooner or later. Why let a drunken English soldier
be included in the long list of people to be reckoned with?"

"Because Gungadhura will then show much favor to Tom Tripe, who
is my friend, and it amuses me to see my friends prosper. Also I
have a plan."

"Plans—plans—plans! And whither does the tangle lead us?"

"To the treasure, fool!"

"But if you know so surely where the treasure is, woman, why not tell
me and —"

Again the single note of mocking golden laughter cut him off short.

"I would trust thee with the secret, Brahman, just as far as the herdsman
trusts a tiger with his sheep."

"But I could insure that Gungadhura should divide it into three parts, and—"

"When the time comes," she answered, "the priest of Jinendra shall
come to me for his proportion, not I to the priest. Nor will there be three
portions, but one—with a little percentage taken from it for the sake of
thy fat belly. Gungadhura shall get nothing!"

"I wash my hands of it all!" the priest retorted indignantly. "The half for
me, or I wash my hands of it and tell Gungadhura that you know the
secret! I will trust him to find a way to draw thy cobra from its hole!"

"Maybe he might," she nodded, smiling, "after the English had finished
hanging thee for that matter of the strangling of Rum Dass. Thy fat belly
would look laughable indeed banging by a stretched neck from a noose.
They would need a thick rope. They might even make the knot slippery
with cow-grease for thy special benefit."

The priest winced.

"None can prove that matter," he said, recovering his composure with
an effort.

"Except I," she retorted, "who have the very letter that was written to
Rum Dass that brought him into thy clutches—and five other proofs beside!
Two long years I waited to have a hold on thee, priest, before I came
to blossom in the odor of thy sanctity; now I am willing to take the small
chance of thy temper getting the better of discretion!"

"You are a devil," he said simply, profoundly convinced of the truth of
his remark; and she laughed like a mischievous child, clapping her
hands together.

"So now," she said, "there is little else to discuss. If Gungadhura should
be superstitious fool enough to come to thee again for auguries and
godly counsel—"

"He comes always. He shows proper devotion to Jinendra."

"Repeat the former story that a clue to the treasure must be found in

Blaine sahib’s house —"

 

"In what form? He will ask me again in what form the clue will be, that
he may recognize it?"

"Tell him there is a map. And be sure to tell him that Tom Tripe is
welcome at the house. Have you understood? Then one other matter:
when it is known that I am back in my palace Gungadhura will set extra
spies on me, and will double the guard at all the doors to keep me
from getting out again. He will not trust Tom Tripe this time, but will
give the charge to one of the Rajput officers. But he will have been
told that I was at the commissioner sahib’s house this morning, and
therefore he will not dare to have me strangled, because the commissioner
sahib might make inquiries. I have also made other precautions—and
a friend. But tell Gungadhura, lest he make altogether too much trouble
for me, that I applied to the commissioner sahib for assistance to go
to Europe, saying I am weary of India. And add that the commissioner
sahib counseled me not to go, but promised to send English memsahibs
to see me." (She very nearly used the word American, but thought
better of it on the instant.)

"He will ask me how I know this," said the Brahman, turning it all over
slowly in his mind and trying to make head or tail of it.

"Tell him I came here like himself for priestly counsel and made a clean
breast of everything to thee! He will suspect thee of lying to him; but
what is one lie more or less?"

With that final shaft she gathered up her skirts, covered her face, nudged
the giggling maid and left him, turning the key in the lock herself and
flitting out through gloom into the sunlight as fast as she had come.
The carriage was still waiting at the edge of the outer court, and once
again the driver started off without instructions, but tooling his team this
time at a faster pace, with a great deal of whip-cracking and shouts to
pedestrians to clear the way. And this time the carriage had an escort
of indubitable maharajah’s men, who closed in on it from all sides, their
numbers increasing, mounted and unmounted, until by the time Yasmini’s
own palace gate was reached there was as good as a state procession,
made up for the most part of men who tried to look as if they had made
a capture by sheer derring-do and skill.

And down the street, helter-skelter on a sweating thoroughbred, came
Maharajah Gungadhura Singh just in time to see the back of the carriage
as it rumbled in through the gateway and the iron doors clanged behind it.
Scowling—altogether too round-shouldered for the martial stock he sprang
from—puffy-eyed, and not so regal as overbearing in appearance, he
sat for a few minutes stroking his scented beard upward and muttering
to himself.

Then some one ventured to tell him where the carriage had been seen
waiting, and with what abundant skill it had been watched and tracked
from Jinendra’s temple to that gate. At that he gave an order about the
posting of the guard, and, beckoning only one mounted attendant to
follow him, clattered away down-street, taking a turn or two to throw the
curious off the scent, and then headed straight for the temple on his
own account.