Caravans By Night: A Romance of India

by Harry Hervey

2

Trent and Dana Charteris made a thorough inspection of the house. The rooms were clean, as clean as Tibetan rooms ever are; but the lack of proper ventilation and the ever-present stale-sweet odors did little to invite occupancy. From the roof the monastery and a portion of the town could be seen, and there, in a space protected by the high masonry that enclosed the housetop, the girl decided to quarter herself, while Trent chose the room directly beneath.

Before sundown, while Dana Charteris was overseeing the transportation of her packs to her elevated abode, Trent sought Kee Meng and found him in the quadrangle.

"I am going to place my brother in your charge," he announced. "I will probably be away from him much of the time, and if anything happens to him—" He chose to leave the sentence unfinished. (Trent always spoke of the girl as his "brother," although it was tacitly understood that Kee Meng knew she was not a man.)

"Cheulo!" responded the Mussulman. "Henceforth, instead of makotou, I am Protector-of-the-Brother!"

"And furthermore," Trent added, "I forbid you, or any of the men, to leave the grounds without my permission."

Later (dusk had swooned on Shingtse-lunpo), as Trent entered the main hall, which was unlighted except for a brass butter-lamp, he beheld a naked brown ankle and the bottom of a red robe as they vanished into one of the several black cavities opening upon the chamber. He stopped—then quickly backing to one side, against the wall, he drew his revolver and edged toward the passageway. When he was yet a few feet away a round, blue muzzle leaped out to meet him. As he recoiled, the owner of the ankle and robe, a lama with a very modern automatic gripped in one slim hand, stepped out. They stood motionless for a space of seconds, each with weapon lifted. Then a familiar satanic smile traced itself upon the yellow countenance—a smile that made the lama look Mephistophelian, despite his shorn head and hairless features.

"Kerth"—as Trent lowered his revolver, smiling. "Always at pistol-point...."

"I was beginning to feel uneasy about you," said Euan Kerth, as their hands met. "It was a relief when I saw your pack-train ride in to-day. Where can we go to talk—the garden? I came that way."

They left the house by a black-dark corridor, making their way into the grove of willow-thorn. Bright stars peered down through the branches, and the moon, floating above the white wall, reflected a faint, hazy light among the shadowy trees.

"I'd almost given you up," Kerth began, halting in the gloom beside the wall. "You were due over a week ago."

Trent had been debating with himself since the meeting in the house. Now he spoke; told Kerth of Dana Charteris; of the meeting in Calcutta and the subsequent happenings. Kerth saw a story within a story and surmised certain things that Trent omitted. He was silent for a while after the latter finished.

"It complicates matters, of course," he ventured discreetly, at length, "yet ... hmm ... no, you had no alternative. She had nerve, all right; how many women would have dared to do that? Damn these meddling police agents! If it hadn't been for her brother.... Hmm—and he had the Pearl Scarf!" A pause. "D'ye think Sarojini knows of her presence?"

"Miss Charteris? How could she?" Then Trent explained how he had exchanged muleteers at Tali-fang.

"Good!" exclaimed Kerth. "Good! That's a score against Sarojini. She'll raise thundering hell when she learns of it, but I think you can tame her—yes, you can do it."

"But tell me what happened at Myitkyina"—this from Trent.

The other shrugged. "Oh, nothing much. I had suspected we were headed for Tibet since I learned the character of the god on the symbol of the Order—yet this"—he made a gesture intended to include the city—"well, this is a bit beyond my imagination."

Briefly he then sketched his activities at Myitkyina.

"I followed you and Da-yak to the river that night, then downstream in another boat. After you had landed, and your servant, Tambusami, in another boat, I swam ashore. There was one fellow waiting with the boats, so I slipped up behind him.... After that it wasn't difficult. I exchanged clothing with him and waited. Sarojini Nanjee, dressed as a Kachin, returned in a few minutes, and with her, Da-yak, Tambusami and the boatmen. She and the Kachins took one of the craft downstream, I suppose to her camp, and Da-yak and your bearer got into the other boat—the boat where I was waiting. I'd sent a note to Warburton, the C. O. at Myitkyina, and he was waiting at the landing with several Gurkhas. We didn't have any trouble arresting them; the trouble came when we tried to force them to speak. All summed up, what they said was surprisingly little. Tambusami declared he was simply a servant and knew nothing about the Order, except that it existed. But Da-yak told where you had gone, and said there were three men in Myitkyina who knew the trail to Tali-fang. One of them I later hired. Da-yak said that up until a year ago he had a shop in the bazaar at Shingtse-lunpo, which he described as 'a great city where many lamas live'; that he was commanded by a Grand Lama to go to Myitkyina and establish a business. He was instructed to obey all who came to him with a certain symbol—the symbol of the Order. He swore he knew nothing of the Falcon or the jewels."

Kerth paused; peered into Trent's face; smiled.

"You're thinking just as I wish you to think," he observed; then went on: "Meanwhile, I'd reported the place in Calcutta and it had been raided. What happened I don't know. I was ready to start for Shingtse-lunpo the day after you left, but of course Delhi waited a couple of days to telegraph permission—and I was glad enough to get it then, for I was half afraid the Viceroy would refuse to let me go into Tibet. At Tali-fang I learned you hadn't passed and I left a message—you received it?... Eighteen days later I was inside the walls of Shingtse-lunpo—and paying homage to his Holiness Sâkya-mûni, the Buddha reincarnated."

"You mean," Trent interrogated, "there's a lama here who's supposed to be a reincarnation of Buddha?"

Kerth nodded. "That's his palace"—indicating Lhakang-gompa. "Oh, we've stumbled into a jolly little nest! It'll take your breath when I tell you everything. This—Shingtse-lunpo—is everything that Lhassa was, and a hundred things that Lhassa never could be, with Lhassa's secretiveness and holiness intensified to the nth degree. It's the—well, I suppose one might call it the secret capital of the Lamaist hierarchy. From all I can learn, it hasn't always had the great significance and power that it has now; until a few years ago it was simply the home of a Grand Lama who ranked with the Tarnath Lama. Nobody knew of it, because explorers haven't covered this part of Tibet; the nearest anybody ever came to this particular strip of territory was some time ago when a naturalist made his way into Kham, and again, later, when an American doctor went to a place called Chiamdo.... They say the Dalai Lama actually hid here, in Lhakang-gompa (which, incidentally, is a facsimile of the Potala at Lhassa, which I saw with the Mission) before he went to Urga. But that's monkish gossip.... At any rate, here's how I interpret affairs from all I've heard:

"After the Mission was sent to Lhassa the Dalai Lama lost a certain amount of prestige. The authority of the Tashi Lama, as you probably know, is more spiritual than temporal. Englishmen had been to Lhassa and to Tashi-lunpo; therefore, both of their holy-of-holies had been profaned. The lamas—that is, the hierarchy—were losing their hold on the people. All that was before nineteen-twelve. Then the President of China restored Tubdan Gyatso, the Dalai Lama, to Lhassa. But even that failed to revive the old zeal. So a coup d'état was planned. A Grand Lama had a made-to-order vision in which he saw the soul of Gaudama Siddartha descend into the body of one of the abbots. From that moment the abbot was Sâkya-mûni, Buddha reincarnated, and they installed him in Lhakang-gompa, here in Shingtse-lunpo, the secret city par excellence of Tibet. Lhassa and the Dalai Lama became figureheads—'to fool the British,' as one priest put it to me. The monasteries of Sera, Debung and Gaden, hotbeds of political intrigue in the time of the Dalai Lama and the Buriat, Dorjieff, were no longer powerful, but subservient to Lhakang-gompa. I understand the Tashi Lama objected to all this, but the Yellow Caps over-ruled him.... So now Sâkya-mûni, with the Lamaist hierarchy behind him, is supreme pontiff of the Church—and Lhakang-gompa is the Vatican, as it were, from which he rules Tibet and practically all of Mongolia, with certain sub rosa wires that give him power in Nepal, Sikkhim, Bhutan and parts of China."

Trent was staring up through the branches at the stars, but as Kerth stopped he looked down and asked:

"Didn't you say you had an audience with him?"

Kerth's shaven skull nodded. "Yes. The Living Buddha wears a veil at all ceremonies—too holy for mortal eyes, I fancy. Of course the Grand Lamas have seen his face, but in the presence of the laity he is always veiled. I attended what might be called pontifical mass. In company with a number of pilgrim priests—at Shingtse-lunpo for the Feast of the Sacred Dance—I was conducted through a veritable labyrinth in the monastery and to a huge cathedral-like place. Sâkya-mûni, in yellow robes and with a golden veil over his face, sat on a throne at one end. Many cardinals and high officials were there, including the Great Magician of Shingtse-lunpo. After the ceremony the Living Buddha murmured something about 'Om, Ah, Hum' and blessed a lot of red scarves, or katags as they're called, and distributed them among the pilgrim priests. Then we left."

In the pause that followed Trent inserted:

"What of the jewels?"

Another shrug from Kerth. "If they're in Shingtse-lunpo, they are well hidden and their presence isn't widely known."

"Yet—" But Trent checked himself.

"Yet Sarojini Nanjee said they were here," Kerth finished up. "I know it. The fact that I haven't learned anything about them doesn't mean they aren't here."

"And you haven't seen Sarojini?"

"If I did, it was without my knowledge."

"Or—Chavigny?"

Kerth laughed quietly. "If I didn't know he existed, I'd believe him a myth. No, I haven't seen Chavigny, nor heard of him, for that matter, since I entered the city. But that's not queer, for if he were here he wouldn't advertise the fact."

Trent motioned toward the lamasery. "Do you suppose he had a hand in the jewel affair?"

"Who? Sâkya-mûni? If not, why were the gems brought to Shingtse-lunpo? And remember: a Grand Lama sent Da-yak to Myitkyina."

"But—"

"I agree with you," Kerth cut in, anticipating him. "It is preposterous. It's evident that Chavigny has the alliance of the lamas, but how did he get it? I haven't told you the strongest link in that chain yet. You'll recall that a Grand Lama from a Tibetan monastery emulated the example of the Tashi Lama and made a pilgrimage to the Sacred Bo-tree at Gaya just about the time the gems were stolen?"

Trent's jaw tightened, but he said nothing.

"Precisely," continued Kerth, reading the other's thoughts. "I believe the lamas who pilgrimaged to Buddh-Gaya carried the jewels out of India. I have foundation for this theory, too. Since my arrival here I've learned that a number of the monks who went on that pilgrimage were from Shingtse-lunpo—and they haven't returned yet!"

Trent was subconsciously following a detached idea. He remembered that the priests were at Gaya on the night Manlove was murdered, and if their purpose was that suggested by Kerth, it furnished a reason for Chavigny being there....

"Nor is that all I know," Kerth resumed. "Caravan-loads of rifles have been brought here from Mongolia—Russian rifles—also gunpowder and dynamite. They're stored in the armory under the monastery. Has that any significance to you?... Trent, we may yet bring down a brace of birds when we only expected to pot one.... I'm more than a little concerned with Sarojini Nanjee; I can't adjust her with this business. What are her secret strings that give her so much power? What can she expect to do alone? She has a trump card up her sleeve, mark my words. She's no fool, and I'd feel deucedly better if I were certain she was going to play that card for us."

"She promised," Trent reminded.

Kerth smiled wryly, but the smile passed quickly.

"Captain Manlove?" he queried. "You've learned nothing?"

Trent shook his head. The silence after that was heavy. Kerth ended it.

"I can't stay any longer now. I'm cultivating the abbot of one of the lesser monasteries, with the view of eventually being assigned to a cell in Lhakang-gompa. I've a suspicion I'll find something of interest there, if I ever get in. I daresay you're scheduled to witness the ceremonies to-morrow, so I won't have an opportunity to see you until to-morrow night, but I'll return then, about this hour." He extended his lean hand. "Here's luck to you!"

"The same," Trent responded with a smile, gripping his hand. "How'd you get in?"

Kerth indicated the wall. "Give me a lift, will you?"

Trent clasped his hands, and, by stepping into the foothold thus formed, Kerth was able to grasp the top of the wall and draw himself up. There he sat for a moment, looking below on the other side; then, with a wave of farewell, he dropped from sight.

Trent returned to the house, passing the muleteers who were gathered about a fire in the quadrangle, and climbed to the roof. Dana Charteris was there—but asleep. For a space of seconds he stood looking down at the slim form. Her head was pillowed upon one arm and utter weariness lined the features that were revealed in the moonlight—pale, starry features. He felt a warm rush of sympathy, a moment when he loathed himself for having brought her into danger.... He turned away, moving quietly to the shaft.

At the top of the ladder he paused. The city lay before him, patches of gloom and shadow, beneath the dark bulk of the lamasery. To think that there, among those huddled buildings, was a key to the riddle—a solution that would dispel the nebulous clouds, perhaps clear the mystery of Manlove's death!

A wave of the old bitterness swept up through him; swept up and cast his features into a mold of grim resolution.