“Let me in, Benjamin.”
The Jew nodded and, holding a lantern high, led the way down a passage beside a staircase into a big room at the rear, that was piled with heaps of clothing—costumes of every kind and color, some new, some second-hand, some worthy to be reckoned antiques. There were shelves stacked with cosmetics and aromatic scents. There were saddles, saddle-cloths and blankets; tents and camp-equipment; yak-hair shirts from over the Pamirs; prayer-mats from Samarkand; second-hand dress suits from London; silk-hats, “bowlers,” turbans; ancient swords and pistols; match-locks, adorned with brass and turquoise and notched in the butt suggestively. And there was a smell of all the ends of Asia, that Diana sniffed and deciphered as a Sanskrit scholar reads old manuscripts.
“I will have tea brought,” said Benjamin, setting down the lantern and shuffling away in the dark toward the stairs. The impression was that he wanted time to think before indulging in any conversation.
Ommony sat down on a heap of blankets and beckoned Dawa Tsering to come closer to the light.
“Now you know where to find me,” he said abruptly. “When the Jew returns he shall let you out by the back door. Find your way to that house in the courtyard. Tell those Tibetans that unless that letter—you still have it?—is delivered to the Lama, he shall never get that for which he came to Delhi. Do you understand?”
“Do you take me for a fool, Ommonee? You mean if he receives this letter he shall have the green stone? But that is the talk of a crazy man. Tell him he must buy the stone, and then let me do the bargaining!”
Ommony betrayed no more impatience than he used to when he was teaching the puppy Diana the rudiments of her education. “I see I have no use for you after all,” he said, looking bored.
“Huh! A blind man could see better than that. It is as clear as this lantern-light that you and I are destined to be useful to each other. Nay, Ommonee, I will not go away!—What is that? I am not worth paying? Is that so! Very well, I will stay and serve for nothing!—Do you hear me, Ommonee? Huh! Those are the words of a great one—of a bold one—but it is nothing to me that you will not have me thrown into prison if I get hence.—I say I will not go away!—You will not answer, eh?—Very well I will go with the letter and that message. Then we will see! One of these days you will tell me I was right. Where is that Jew bunnia?”[[13]]
Benjamin came shuffling back along the passage, looking like an elongated specter as he stood in the door with the dark behind him. Dawa Tsering swaggered up to him demanding to be let out, and from behind the Hillman’s back Ommony made a signal indicating the back door. Benjamin, very wide awake now and taking in everything with glittering black eyes, picked up the lantern and, leaving Ommony in the dark, led the way into another large room at the rear, out of which a door opened into an alley.
“That one not only has a stink, he has a devil! Beware of him, Ommony!” he said, returning and sitting down on the blanket pile, making no bones about it, not waiting for an invitation. He and Ommony were evidently old friends. “My daughter will bring for us tea in a minute. Hey-hey! We have all grown older since you hid us in that forest of yours—where the ghosts are, Ommony, and the wolves and the tigers! Gr-r-r-agh! What a time that was! Our own people lifting hands against us! None but you believing us innocent! Tch-tch-tch! That cave was a place of terrors, but your heart was good. I left my middle-age in that cave, Ommony. Since fifteen years ago I am an old man!”