2
Just about the time Trent reached the P. W. D. Bungalow, a street-juggler with a scar across one cheek and a drooping eyelid made his way through the main road of the bazaar. His good eye was very active—as was the other, for that matter, although less visible to passers-by—and he swung along with his head cocked at a rakish angle, pack slung over his shoulder, flashing smiles at the copper-skinned Kachin and Maru girls.
Singling out a shop where boiled frogs, sweetmeats and confectionery were displayed to the mercy of insects, he approached, and, after purchasing a delectable morsel cooked in ghee (which he deposited in his pocket instead of his stomach), he announced to the spare Burman who lounged in the doorway:
"I go to Bhamo to-morrow, O vender of sweets, and I must take my brother a present. Canst thou suggest what it shall be?" Then, before the other could answer, he went on: "I might buy an umbrella—or, better still, a turban-cloth."
The Burman came out of his lassitude enough to say that he sold very beautiful turban-cloth, and much cheaper than any other merchant in the bazaar.
"I want a nice one," he of the drooping eyelid asserted; "a white one, spotted like a cheetah, or perhaps yellow."
The shopkeeper had none such as he described, he said, but he had some fine cloth of red hue that came from a shop in Sule Pagoda Street, in distant Rangoon.
"Ah!" exclaimed the juggler. "I have been to Rangoon. It is a great city. Let me see the cloth of red."
In the course of bargaining, he said:
"Tell me, O wise one, is there in the bazaar a merchant who bears the name of Da-yak?"
The Burman grunted that there was and waved his hand toward a lighted doorway not far away. "There!"
"Ah!" exclaimed the juggler again. And he added, by way of explanation, that at Waingmaw, whence he had come, a friend warned him against buying at the shop of Da-yak, who was a cheat.
"All Tibetans are cheats," was the Burman's comment.
"Has he been here long, robbing you of your trade?" the juggler pursued.
"Oh, not very long," was the languid answer; "since about the time of the casting of the bell in the pagoda last year. But his shop is not half so nice as mine. He is a dirty wild-man." Then: "Didst thou say, O traveller, that thou wouldst take the turban cloth for six rupees and two annas?"
"Nay, I am a poor man. For five rupees, O generous one."
At length the turban-cloth was purchased, for five rupees, and the juggler moved on. In front of the shop of Da-yak he paused, looked about tentatively, then strode to a spot just outside the door. There he unslung his pack. From a basket he produced a brass pot with a thin neck. Squatting, back to the wall, he brought forth a flute and began to play.
At first the music attracted only children. But before many minutes girls and men joined the circle about the juggler, and, as the group enlarged, a sinuous black body rose from the brass pot; rose and dropped back, like a geyser; rose again and slithered to the ground where it curled its tail into an O, and, with head lifted, lolled to the delirious piping.
"A-ie!" sighed the onlookers with approval—and drew back a step.
Presently a head was thrust out of the doorway of Da-yak's shop—as the juggler did not fail to observe—and, following the head, its owner. He squatted and indifferently watched the proceedings.
After the cobra had danced, the juggler performed many feats of magic, to the delight of the simple hill-people. When his repertory was exhausted, the audience moved on and he found himself alone with the squatting Tibetan merchant.
"I am a stranger here, O brother," announced the juggler, pouring the coins from his bowl into his hands and shifting them from one palm to the other with a musical clink-clink. "Canst thou tell me where I will find a bed for to-night?"
In the dim light the juggler studied Da-yak's features—thin lips, high, thin cheeks, and mere slits for eyes.
"Thou canst find a bed of grass under any tree," was his reply, covertly watching the coins.
"Nay! Am I an animal that I should lie upon the ground when I sleep? Hast thou no room? I am a story-teller and for a bed I will tell thee a tale that thou hast never heard before!"
"Nay, juggler, I have no time for stories."
"Then thy children?"
"I have none."
"Perhaps thy wife?"
"Nor have I a wife, either."
The juggler grunted. "Art thou a celibate that thou hast no wife?" He leaned closer, peering into the Tibetan's face. "Indeed, O merchant, thy face is like that of a lama I knew in Simla!"
Da-yak's slitty little eyes opened wider, showing small, bleary pupils.
"What is it to thee, O scarred one, if I have a wife or not?"
To himself the juggler admitted that it meant more than a little, but to the Tibetan he said: "Scarred indeed, and afflicted of an eye! Seest thou this?"—touching the scar. "It is a mark left by a Dugpa's knife—in Tibet. I was headman for a Burra Sahib who traveled from Sikkhim, which is a far country which thou hast never heard of, to the holy city of Lhassa. From thence we went down, across many mountains, into Hkamti Long and the Kachin country. At Fort Hertz we followed the mule-road. That was many years ago."
"Thou dost lie," accused Da-yak. "No white man has ever crossed from Tibet into the country of the Hkamtis. There is no road there—"
"Then where is the road, indeed, if thou dost know?" interrupted the juggler.
"Did I say there was a road?" flared the Tibetan. "There is none."
"There is a road, if a road it can be called! For did not I travel it? By the Four Truths of Gaudama Siddartha, it is thou who dost lie!"
Da-yak's eyes burned with anger. "Why dost thou swear by the Lord Gaudama?"
Inwardly, the juggler smiled. "Why do rivers run down to the sea, thou dolt?" he asked—and made a mystic sign, a sign that is known to few.
Da-yak's eyes were no longer burning. But his inky-black pupils moved nervously under the lids.
"Thou dost make strange signs, O evil eye," he muttered. "How do I know that thou hast not summoned Nats to beset my shop and drive away those who might buy?" He rose. "Go find a bed in the stink where thou dost belong!"
The juggler, too, rose. He spat contemptuously.
"Kala Nag!" he hissed; which means, "black snake."
And, picking up his pack, he swaggered off—while Da-yak, with an uneasy glance over his shoulder, entered his shop. However, the juggler did not go far. In the darkness of a nearby alley, from which point he could observe anyone going in or out of Da-yak's house, he sat down to wait. But not for long. Scarcely had five minutes passed before the Tibetan emerged from the shop and, like a shadowy cinema-figure, hurried off in the gloom.
The juggler got up. He smiled—for, figuratively speaking, he possessed a key to certain locked doors.