Chapter 24

"You are a fool," said the crow. "Am I?" the hen answered. "Certainly
you are a fool. You sit in a dark corner hatching eggs, when there
are live chickens for the asking over yonder." So the hen left her
nest in search of ready-made chickens, and the crow, made a square
meat. —Eastern Proverb

A hundred guarded it.

It began to be rumored presently that Utirupa had declined to recognize
Blaine’s contract with his predecessor. Samson’s guarded hints, and
the fact that the mouth of the mine remained blocked with concrete
masonry were more or less corroborative. But the Blaines did not go,
although Dick put in no appearance at the club.

Then Patali, who was sedulously cultivating Yasmini’s patronage, with
ulterior designs on Utirupa that were not misunderstood, told Norwood’s
wife’s ayah’s sister’s husband that the American had secured another
contract; and the news, of course, reached Samson’s ears at once.

So Samson called on Utirupa and requested explanations. He was told
that the mining contract had not received a moment’s consideration
and, with equal truth, that the American, being an expert in such matters
and on the spot, had been asked to undertake examination of the fort’s
foundations. The new maharanee, it seemed, had a fancy to build a
palace where the fort stood, and the matter was receiving shrewd
investigation and estimate in advance.

Samson could not object to that. Those foundations had not been
examined carefully for eight hundred years. A perfectly good palace
had been wrested away by diplomatic means, on Samson’s own initiative,
and there was no logical reason why the maharajah should not build
another one to replace it. The fort had no modern military value.

"I hope you’re not going to try to pay for your new palace out of taxes?"

Samson asked bluntly.

 

But Utirupa smiled. He hoped nothing of that kind would be necessary.
Samson could not go and investigate what Blaine was doing, because
he was given plainly to understand that the new palace was the maharanee’s
business; and one does not intrude uninvited into the affairs of ladies
in the East. The efforts of quite a number of spies, too, were unavailing.
So Dick had his days pretty much to himself, except when Tess brought
his lunch to him, or Yasmini herself in boots and turban rode up for a
few minutes to look on. The guards on the bastions, and in the great
keep in the center, knew nothing whatever of what was happening, because
all Dick’s activity was underground and Tom Tripe, with that ferocious
dog of his, kept guard over the ancient door that led to the lower passages.
Dick used to return home every evening tired out, but Tom Tripe, keeping
strictly sober, slept in the fort and said nothing of importance to any
one. He looked drawn and nervous, as if something had terrified him,
but public opinion ascribed that to the "snakes" on the night of the coronation.

Then about sundown one evening Tom Tripe galloped in a great hurry
to Utirupa’s palace. That was nothing to excite comment, because in
his official capacity he was always supposed to be galloping all over
the place on some errand or another. But after dark Utirupa and Yasmini
rode out of the palace unattended, which did cause comment, Yasmini
in man’s clothes, as usual when she went on some adventure. It was
not seen which road they took, which was fortunate in the circumstances.

Tess was up at the fort before them, waiting with Dick outside the locked
door leading to the ancient passages below. They said nothing beyond
the most perfunctory greetings, but, each taking a kerosene lantern,
passed through the door in single file, Tom leading, and locked the
door after them. That was all that the fort guards ever knew about
what happened.

"I’ve not been in," said Dick’s voice from behind them. "All I’ve done
is force an entrance."

From in front Tom Tripe took up the burden.

"And I wouldn’t have liked your job, sir! It was bad enough to sit and
guard the door. After you’d gone o’ nights I’d sit for hours with my hair
on end, listening; and the dog ’ud growl beside me as if he saw ghosts!"

"Maybe it was snakes," Yasmini answered. "They will flee from the
lantern-light—"

"No, Your Ladyship. I’m not afraid of snakes—except them Scotch
plaid ones that come o’ brandy on top o’ royal durbars! This was the
sound o’ some one digging—digging all night long down in the bowels
of the earth! Look out!"

They all jumped, but it proved to be only Tom’s own shadow that had
frightened him. His nerves were all to pieces, and Dick Blaine took the
lead. The dog was growling intermittently and keeping close to Tom’s heels.

They passed down a long spiral flight of stone steps into a sort of cavern
that had been used for ammunition room. The departing British troops
had left a dozen ancient cannon balls, not all of which were in one place.
The smooth flags of the floor were broken, and at the far end one very
heavy stone was lifted and laid back, disclosing a dark hole.

"I used the cannon balls," said Dick, "to drop on the stones and listen
for a hollow noise. Once I found that, the game was simple."

Leading down into the dark hole were twelve more steps, descending
straight, but turning sharply at the bottom. Dick led the way.

"The next sight’s gruesome!" he announced, his voice booming hollow
among the shadows.

The passage turned into a lofty chamber in the rock, whose walls once
had all been lined with dressed stone, but some of the lining had fallen.
In the shadows at one end an image of Jinendra smiled complacently,
and there were some ancient brass lamps banging on chains from arches
cut into the rock on every side.

"This is the grue," said Dick, holding his lantern high.

Its light fell on a circle of skeletons, all perfect, each with its head toward
a brass bowl in the center.

"Ugh!" growled Tom Tripe. "Those are the ghosts that dig o’ nights!

Go smell ’em, Trotters! Are they the enemy?"

 

The dog sniffed the bones, but slunk away again uninterested.

"Nothing doing!" laughed Dick. "You haven’t laid the ghost yet, Tom!"

"Have you got your pistols with you?" Tom retorted, patting his own
jacket to show the bulge of one beneath it.

"Those," said Yasmini, standing between the skeletons and holding
up her own light, "are the bones of priests, who died when the secret
of the place was taken from them! My father told me they were left to
starve to death. This was Jinendra’s temple."

"D’you suppose they pulled that cut stone from the walls, trying to force
a way out?" Dick hazarded. "The lid of the hole we came down through
is a foot thick, and was set solid in cement; they couldn’t have lifted
that if they tried for a week. Everything’s solid in this place. I sounded
every inch of the floor with a cannon ball, but it’s all hard underneath."

"I would have gone straight to the image of Jinendra," said Yasmini.
"Jinendra smiles and keeps his secrets so well that I should have
suspected him at once!"

"I went to that last," Dick answered. "It looks so like a piece of high
relief carved out of the rock wall. As a matter of fact, though, it’s about
six tons of quartz with a vein of gold in it—see the gold running straight
up the line of the nose and over the middle of the head?—I pried it away
from the wall at last with steel wedges, and there’s just room to squeeze
in behind it. Beyond that is another wall that I had to cut through with
a chisel. Who goes in first?"

"Who looks for gold finds gold!" Yasmini quoted. "The vein of gold
you have been mining was the clue to the secret all along."

She would have led the way, but Utirupa stopped her.

"If there is danger," he said, "it is my place to lead."

But nobody would permit that, Yasmini least of all.

"Shall Samson choose a new maharajah so soon as all that?" she laughed.

"Let the dog go first!" Tom proposed. Trotters was sniffing at the dark
gap behind Jinendra’s image, with eyes glaring and a low rumbling
growl issuing from between bared teeth. But Trotters would not go.

Finally, in the teeth of remonstrances from Tess, Dick cocked a pistol
and, with his lantern in the other hand, strode in boldly. Trotters followed
him, and Tom Tripe next. Then Utirupa. Then the women.

Nothing happened. The passage was about ten feet long and a yard
wide. They squeezed one at a time through the narrow break Dick had
made in the end of it, into a high, pitch-dark cave that smelt unexplainably
of wood-smoke, Dick standing just inside the gap to bold the lantern
for them and help them through—continuing to stand there after Tess
had entered last.

"Jee-rusalem!" he exclaimed. "This is where I lose out!"

The first glance was enough to show that they stood in the secret
treasure-vault of Sialpore. There were ancient gold coins in heaps on the
floor where they had burst by their own weight out of long-demolished bags—
countless coins; and drums and bags and boxes more of them behind.
But what made Dick exclaim were the bars of silver stacked at the rear
and along one side in rows as high as a man.

"My contract reads gold!" he said. "A percentage of all gold. There’s
not a word in it of silver. Who’d ever have thought of finding silver,
anyhow, in this old mountain?"

"Your percentage of the gold will make you rich," said Utirupa. "But
you shall take silver too. Without you we might have found nothing for
years to come."

"A contract’s a contract," Dick answered. "I drew it myself, and it stands."

"Look out!" yelled Tom Tripe suddenly. But the warning came too late.

Out of the shadow behind a stack of silver bars rushed a man with a
long dagger, stabbing frantically at Dick. Tom’s great barking army
revolver missed, filling the chamber with noise and smoke, for he used
black powder.

Down went Dick under his assailant, and the dagger rose and fell in
spasmodic jerks. Dick had hold of the man’s wrist, but the dagger-point
dripped blood and the fury of the attack increased as Dick appeared
to weaken. Utirupa ran in to drag the assailant off, but Trotters got there
first—chose his neck-hold like a wolf in battle—and in another second
Dick was free with Tess kneeling beside him while a life-and-death fight
between animal and man raged between the bars of silver.

"Gungadhura!" Yasmini shouted, waving her lantern for a sight of the
struggling man’s face. He was lashing out savagely with the long knife, but
the dog had him by the neck from behind, and he only inflicted surface wounds.

"Hell’s bells! He’ll kill my dog!" roared Tom. "Hi, Trotters. Here,
you—Trotters!"

But the dog took that for a call to do his thinking, and let go for a better
hold. His long fangs closed again on the victim’s jugular, and tore it out.
The long knife clattered on the stone floor, and then Tom got his dog
by the jaws and hauled him off.

"You can’t blame the dog," he grumbled. "He knew the smell of him.

He’d been told to kill him if he got the chance."

 

"Gungadhura!" said Yasmini again, holding her lantern over the dying man.
"So Gungadhura was Tom Tripe’s ghost! What a pity that the dog should
kill him, when all he wanted was a battle to the death with me! I would
have given him his fight!"

Dick was in no bad way. He had three flesh wounds on his right side,
and none of them serious. Tess staunched them with torn linen, and
she and Tom Tripe propped him against some bags of bullion, while
Utirupa threw his cloak over Gungadhura’s dead body.

"How did Gungadhura get in here?" wondered Tess.

"Through the hole at the end of the mine-shaft, I suppose," said Dick.
"I built up the lower one—he came one day and saw me doing it—but
left a space at the top that looked too small for a man to crawl through.
Then I blocked the mouth of the tunnel afterward, and shut him in, I suppose.
He’s had the men’s rice and water-bottles, and they left a lot of faggots
in the tunnel, too, I remember. That accounts for the smell of smoke."

"But what was the digging I’ve heard o’ nights?" demanded Tom. "I’m
not the only one. The British garrison was scared out of its wits."

Utirupa was hunting about with a lantern in his hand, watching the dog
go sniffing in the shadows.

"Come and see what he has done!" he called suddenly, and Yasmini
ran to his side.

In a corner of the vault one of the great facing stones had been removed,
disclosing a deep fissure in the rock. One of Dick Blaine’s crow-bars
that he had left in the tunnel lay beside it.

"He must have found that by tapping," said Tom Tripe.

"Yes, but look why he wanted it!" Yasmini answered. "Tom, could you
be as malicious as that?"

"As what, Your Ladyship?"

"See, he has poured gold into the fissure, hoping to close it up again
so that nobody could find it!"

"But why didn’t he work his way out with the crow-bar?" Dick objected
from his perch between the bags of bullion.

"What was his life worth to him outside?" Yasmini asked. "Samson knew
who murdered Mukhum Dass. He would have been a prisoner for the
rest of his life to all intents and purposes. No! He preferred to hide
the treasure again, and then wait here for me, suspecting that I knew
where it is and would come for it! Only we came too soon, before he
had it hidden!"

But it was Patali afterward, between boasting and confession, who
explained that Dick was Gungadhura’s real objective after all. He
preferred vengeance on the American even to a settled account with
Yasmini. He must have found the treasure by accident after crawling
into the unsealed crack in the wall to wait there against Dick’s coming.

"The money must stay here, and be removed little by little," said Utirupa.

"First of all Blaine sahib’s share of it!" Yasmini added. "Who shall
count it? Who!"

"Never mind the money now," Tess answered. "Dick’s alive! When
did you first know you’d found the treasure, Dick?"

"Not until the day that Gungadhura found me closing up the fault, and
asked me to dig at the other place. The princess told me I was on the
trail of it that night that you went with her by camel; but I didn’t know I’d
found it till the day that Gungadhura came."

"How did you know where it was?" Tess asked, and Yasmini laughed.

"A hundred guarded it. I looked for a hundred pipal trees, and found
them—near the River Palace. But they were not changed once a month.
I looked from there, and saw another hundred pipal trees—here, below
this fort—exactly a hundred. But neither were they changed once a month.
Then I counted the garrison of the fort—exactly a hundred, all told.
Then I knew. Then I remembered that ’who looks for gold finds gold,’
and saw your husband digging for it. It seemed to me that the vein of
gold he was following should lead to the treasure, so I pulled strings
until Samson blundered, trying to trick us. And now we have the treasure,
and the English do not know. And I am maharanee, as they do know,
and shall know still better before I have finished! But what are we to
do with Gungadhura’s body? It shall not lie here to rot; it must have
a decent burial."

Very late that night, Tom Tripe moved the guards about on the bastions,
contriving that the road below should not be overlooked by any one.
The moon had gone down, so that it was difficult to see ten paces.
He produced an ekka from somewhere—one of those two-wheeled
carts drawn by one insignificant pony that do most of the unpretentious
work of India; and he and Ismail, the Afridi gateman, drove off into the
darkness with a covered load.

Early next morning Gungadhura’s body was found in the great hole that
Samson’s men had blasted in the River Palace grounds, and it was
supposed that a jackal had mangled his body after death.

(That was what gave rise to the story that the English got the treasure
after all, and that Gungadhura, enraged and mortified at finding it gone,
had committed suicide in the great hole it was taken from. They call
the great dead pipal tree that is the only one left now of the hundred,
Gungadhura’s gibbet; and there is quite a number, even of English
people, who believe that the Indian Government got the money. But
I say no, because Yasmini told me otherwise. And if it were true that t
he English really got the money, what did they do with it and why was
Samson removed shortly afterward to a much less desirable post?
Any one could see how Utirupa prospered, and he never raised the
taxes half a mill.

Samson had his very shrewd suspicions, one of which was that that
damned American with his smart little wife had scored off him in some way.
But he went to his new post, at about the same time that the Blaines left
for other parts, with some of the sting removed from his hurt feelings.
For he took Blaine’s rifle with him—a good one; and the horse and dog-cart,
and a riding pony—more than a liberal return for payment of a three-
thousand rupee bet. Pretty decent of Blaine on the whole, he thought.
No fuss. No argument. Simply a short note of farewell, and a request
that he would "find the horses a home and a use for the other things."
Not bad. Not a bad fellow after all.