The House of the Falcon/Chapter 3
CHAPTER III
THE GATE
It was at Baramula, which is the beginning of the real Kashmir, that Edith Rand saw the watcher at the gate. At least so she christened him to herself.
The girl and her aunt, Catherine Rand, had been sent to the hills by Arthur Rand at the first contact with the lifeless heat of Calcutta. A Southerner by birth and an easy-going gentleman of the old school, he could not permit the women to face the climate of southern India which was like a fever breath compared with the heat of Louisville in midsummer.
His florid face had been almost purple when he kissed Edith good-by on the platform beside the carriage of the Punjabi Mail. Edith had not wanted to leave him. She knew that he was not well—this knowledge had made her determined to come with him to India.
Moreover Edith fancied that the business venture that brought them to India had not been going well. Letters from home had hinted at a stock market slump and she knew that her father had invested heavily.
But the Southerner, reluctant to worry his daughter or his sister, had smiled and said that he would join them within a few days in Kashmir. He had handed Catherine Rand her inseparable traveling companion, a pail of assorted medicines dear to her heart, wrapped in a black cloth, and waved good-by.
"My dear," admitted Edith's aunt, as the guard closed the carriage door, "no one can do business in this Turkish bath. It was fortunate that I brought my medicines. I fear that we all shall need them. Your father is not well. He should never have come."
This had filled Edith with vague foreboding, a feeling that Arthur Rand was concealing his worries from her. Murree and the fresh air of the hills after the long train journey had revived her, and the joggling carts that convey them to Baramula fascinated her.
They had passed through the gateway of Kashmir, threading mountain passes, while cold winds bearing scent of pines, jasmine, and acacias swept down on them. They moved in the shadow of cliffs. Vines and wild flowers almost touched their hats as they passed by.
It had cast a spell upon Edith, a sleepy, pleasant kind of spell. She yearned for a horse to ride among the mountain paths. Two English ladies, officers wives, who were with them had smiled at her indulgently. The American traveler, they thought, was a beautiful girl; they wondered just how she would fare in the army circles at Srinagar. When she inquired if it were called the City of the Sun, they responded that the natives interpreted its name so. They spoke of it as "Sreenugger."
At Baramula the tongas had halted to change horses. At once a crowd of natives pressed around them, shouting, pushing, bowing. Bearded Afghans elbowed tattered Turkomans aside; slim Paharis gestured frantically beside squat Kashmiri traders with arms full of shawls; handsome Central Asian Jews pleaded with great play of brown eyes for the khanum to notice the unrivaled excellence of their heaven-devised silks; self-appointed interpreters cried loudly that the mem-sahibs should not fail to avail themselves of their matchless services. Pockmarked beggars in garments that were miracles of rags continued to wail for the never-ending baksheesh.
All—except the beggars—deprecated any idea of reward, and asserted boldly and bodily their high integrity and the encomiums heaped upon them by previous travelers. Noisy recrimination on the part of the tonga drivers against the horde of rivals added to the confusion.
Through the mass of natives a carriage drove up behind splendidly matched horses, scattering the ranks of the beggars. A diminutive, uniformed figure dropped instantaneously from the seat beside the driver and sought out Edith Rand. The military atom bent a turbaned head and raised slim hands, crying in very fair English:
"Major-Sahib Fraser-Carnie presents compliments. Is this the American Missy?" Adding complacently, "I am the orderly of the Major-Sahib, Rawul Singh."
Edith was about to follow her aunt into the carriage, while Rawul Singh attended to the forwarding of their baggage on the tongas, when a man stepped from the crowd and thrust his arm over the carriage wheel. The action surprised the girl, unaccustomed to the manners of the native servants.
She saw that the man was as tall as the Afghans, but of a more powerful build. His impassive broad face was the hue of burned wood. Slant, black eyes were bent submissively before her. Yet she had the impression that he had been looking at her intently for some time.
The aspect of the native was somber—one arm resting across the heavy, gray woolen coat over his chest, his big head surmounted by a round, black velvet cap. A scar, running from mouth to eye, increased the grimness of the intent face.
Just for an instant the eyes of the man sought hers. Then, with a bow he was gone. Edith fancied that he was still watching the carriage from the crowd. As they sped away she looked back and thought that she saw him climbing into one of the tongas.
She forgot him almost at once, in the glory of the drive along the valley beside the flooded Jhilam that muttered through its gorge at their feet. Those who have once entered the paradise of Kashmir do not soon forget the gateway.
Edith laughed with the joy of it, seeing gray clouds twining among the mountain slopes behind them. The edges of the cloud bank were touched with a fiery purple from the concealed sun, when—as if an invisible hand passed across the face of the sky—the sunlight was blotted from their path.
The horses quickened their pace as the Afghan driver cracked his whip and Rawul Singh spoke sharply in Turki:
"Drive, son of a pig! Would you discomfort the guests of your master?"
He glanced back reassuringly and met Edith's flushed, delighted countenance. "Verily," he observed to the muttering Afghan, "this young mem-sahib has no fear of a wetting or a storm."
Edith laughed as the carriage swayed and rattled onward, happy in the rush of air, exhilarated by the challenge of the wind. Dust eddied around them, and he poplar trees that lined the road turned their pale leaves restlessly at the breath of the storm. In a few moments the temperature dropped many degrees.
As the first heavy drops of rain fell, they swept under the trees that almost covered one of the outer avenues of Srinagar, in the growing darkness. Lightning flashes dazzled them, while a peal of thunder brought a quick response from the apprehensive Miss Rand.
Just as the thunderstorm broke, the carriage jerked to a halt. Rawul Singh sprang down and led the two women up a steep flight of steps in a grassy slope. With the orderly almost carrying her aunt, and Edith running ahead, they gained the shelter of a wide veranda as the rain pelted down.
A white figure strode down to meet them, and the girl was assisted up the veranda steps, breathing quickly with the effort of the climb. In the darkness of the house a voice spoke close to her ear.
"You have come to the garden in a storm. Perhaps the gods are angry."
Edith almost cried out in surprise. A glimmer of lightning showed her the dark countenance of Edouard Monsey. Blackness closed in on them again. A curtain of rain descended upon the bungalow, and the road became a mass of mud. Edith heard her aunt stumble on the porch.
For an instant she wondered whether they had come to Monseys quarters instead of the major's. Monsey wore an undefinable air of ownership. She shivered slightly, chilled by the sudden cold. By now the full force of the thunderstorm had swept upon them. The mat blinds rattled with the impact of the wind gusts. Lightning flickered incessantly, revealing the Afghan, water dripping from his beard, staggering up with their hand luggage.
A spattering of drops that was almost a spray ran along the porch, and Rawul Singh led them inside, lighting lamps that trembled in the air currents.
"Is this the house of Major Fraser-Carnie?" Edith asked Rawul Singh quickly, drawing away from Monsey, and arranging her disordered hat. "Aren't we going to a hotel?"
The orderly glanced at her curiously, and Monsey replied. The major was detained at the cantonment, settling some affairs of the natives. Fraser-Carnie had arranged to take up his quarters at the Residency, and they were to have full possession of the bungalow—Fraser-Carnie's bungalow. There was no good hotel, he explained.
Monsey turned to go and in so doing spoke to Edith.
"You have not forgotten your promise?"
She shook her head and watched him depart, somewhat surprised that he should go during the storm and without waiting for the arrival of the major.
The shower had passed over Srinagar; the level sunlight shone on a freshened vista of poplars and the water-stained wooden bungalows of the European colony when Fraser-Carnie appeared to pay his respects.
Major Alfred Fraser-Carnie was ruddy and gray-haired. He was good-natured, in a heavy kind of way, and not talkative until aroused to the proper point. Well past middle age, he still made a presentable figure on a horse.
Moreover, he did not shun an occasional sally into the polo fields of the northern stations to keep himself fit. A surgeon, attached to a cavalry regiment, he had labored conscientiously at his profession, a labor increased by his own hobby—gathering material on the tribal customs and environment of Central Asia. For many years he had been looked upon as a total loss by marriageable ladies of the cantonments, who spoke vaguely—as if by way of excuse—of an early attachment which the major had been unable to forget.
He greeted Catherine Rand with unaffected heartiness, mentioning his remembrance of former visits to Louisville, and took Edith's hand in his, looking long into her face.
Edith was the first to finish dressing for dinner, and tripped downstairs to find the major. Now that the storm had ceased a ruddy light was flooding the house, and the blinds and mats had been flung open. In a near-by compartment she heard the servants moving about, setting the table.
On the threshold of the room she paused with a quick breath of surprise. Framed against one of the French windows opening into the veranda she saw the figure of a tall native that was unmistakably familiar.
The man had been bending over some objects on the window seat, and now he straightened, casting a startled glance over his shoulder. In the brilliant light she could see the scar that ran from eye to cheek quite plainly. It was the native of Baramula, the watcher at the gate, as she had christened him whimsically.
With a leap he cleared the window seat and disappeared out on the porch, as a great, shaggy mountain sheep might vanish from sight of a hunter.
"What in the world!" thought Edith, because it was quite clear that the man had no right to be in the house. Going directly to the open window she looked out on the lawn, but saw nothing more of the uncouth visitor.
Having assured herself of this, she glanced down, wondering what the native could have been doing in the room. A thief, perhaps, she thought. Yet his bearing had been more bold than furtive, and certainly he had tried to take nothing with him in his flight.
Quickly she glanced around the room, with a woman's keen eye for details in a strange house. She saw neat disorder. Trophies—fine heads of mountain sheep and elk—hung from the walls. Twin collections, European and native, of weapons were ranged systematically on either side of the stone fireplace in which a blaze crackled cheerily.
Comfortable wicker chairs, bookshelves filled with much-used volumes, green cotton curtains—all this was quite homelike.
On the window seat under her eyes stood a bamboo box filled with a varied assortment of objects: some stained clothing, a tarnished telescope, a notebook carefully tied up, and a volume of poetry. On the clothing was pinned a slip of paper.
"Belongings of Donovan Khan," she read.
The two words did not seem to fit; the "khan" did not match with "Donovan." Beyond this there was nothing unusual in box or contents. Edith, perceiving this, felt a trifle embarrassed, as if she had been spying unwittingly on another person.
Probably, she reflected, the big native was a servant of the place—one who was not allowed in the front portion of the house. Edith, unfamiliar with the customs of the people of Srinagar, did not wish to play the part of a busybody. It was quite a trivial thing, she thought And she said nothing at dinner that evening to the major about the scarred native.
Once when Fraser-Carnie's eye traveled to the box she fancied that he smiled.
"I have a duty to perform. Miss Rand," he observed. "A mutual acquaintance, Whittaker by name, a very talkative chap you know, has written me. His stories are quite a religion with him and he complains that you did not believe one of his yarns." He glanced quizzically from the attentive girl to her aunt. "About the man who was missing from Kashgar, and all that. It's quite true. There is his outfit, in that box."
He nodded at the bamboo chest on the window seat.
"Then, his name was Donovan Khan?" Edith asked.
"Quite so, to be sure. Donovan Khan."
Edith was interested. For the first time she felt the reality of the odd story Whittaker had told. At the Château she had hardly thought of it as true—until Monsey had chimed in. Monsey? She frowned.
And then she drew a startled breath. Whittaker had said that the native who had been leading the caravan at Kashgar, the one who had killed Jain Ali Beg, had been blind in one eye.
It had just occurred to Edith that the big native who visited the drawing-room that evening had not seen her until long after she had seen him. Then he had turned clear around to look at her. There had been a scar, running from his mouth to his eye—the eye that must be blind.
"Edith, my dear," her aunt was staring through her lorgnette, "you are not ill, are you?"
She shook her head, laughing. "Only excited, Auntie."
Major Fraser-Carnie had said that the Kashmiris were harmless as kittens and quite all right. Edith told herself that she was a silly goose. There must be more than one native in Central Asia who wore gray sheepskins and was blind in one eye. For all she knew there might be hundreds.