The Golden Scorpion Page 25

  CHAPTER V

  THE HEART OF CHUNDA LAL

  Dusk had drawn a grey mantle over the East-End streets when Miska,discharging the cab in which she had come from Victoria, hurriedfurtively along a narrow alley tending Thamesward. Unconsciously shecrossed a certain line--a line invisible except upon a map of Londonwhich lay upon the table of the Assistant Commissioner in New ScotlandYard--the line forming the "red circle" of M. Gaston Max. And,crossing this line, she became the focus upon which four pairs ofwatchful eyes were directed.

  Arriving at the door of a mean house some little distance removedfrom that of Ah-Fang-Fu, Miska entered, for the door was open, anddisappeared from the view of the four detectives who were watching thestreet. Her heart was beating rapidly. For she had thought, as shehad stood up to leave the restaurant, that the fierce eyes of ChundaLal had looked in through the glass panel of one of the doors.

  This gloomy house seemed to swallow her up, and the men who watchedwondered more and more what had become of the elegant figure,grotesque in such a setting, which had vanished into the narrowdoorway--and which did not reappear. Even Inspector Kelly, who knewso much about Chinatown, did not know that the cellars of the threehouses left and right of Ah-Fang-Fu's were connected by a series ofdoors planned and masked with Chinese cunning.

  Half an hour after Miska had disappeared into the little house nearthe corner, the hidden door in the damp cellar below "The PidginHouse" opened and a bent old woman, a ragged, grey-haired and dirtyfigure, walked slowly up the rickety wooden stair and entered a bareroom behind and below the shop and to the immediate left of the denof the opium-smoker. This room, which was windowless, was lighted bya tin paraffin lamp hung upon a nail in the dirty plaster wall. Thefloor presented a litter of straw, paper and broken packing-cases.Two steps led up to a second door, a square heavy door of greatstrength. The old woman, by means of a key which she carried, wasabout to open this door when it was opened from the other side.

  Lowering his head as he came through, Chunda Lal descended. He woreEuropean clothes and a white turban. Save for his ardent eyes andthe handsome fanatical face of the man, he might have passed for alascar. He turned and half closed the door. The woman shrank fromhim, but extending a lean brown hand he gripped her arm. His eyesglittered feverishly.

  "So!" he said, "we are all leaving England? Five of the Chinese sailwith the P. and O. boat to-night. Ali Khan goes to-morrow, and RamaDass, with Miguel, and the _Andaman_. I meet them at Singapore. But you?"

  The woman raised her finger to her lips, glancing fearfully towardsthe open door. But the Hindu, drawing her nearer, repeated with subduedfierceness:

  "I ask it again--but _you_?"

  "I do not know," muttered the woman, keeping her head lowered andmoving in the direction of the steps.

  But Chunda Lal intercepted her.

  "Stop!" he said--"not yet are you going. There is something I have tospeak to you."

  "Ssh!" she whispered, half turning and pointing up toward the door.

  "Those!" said the Hindu contemptuously--"the poor slaves of the blacksmoke! Ah! they are floating in their dream paradise; they have noears to hear, no eyes to see!" He grasped her wrist again. "Theycontest for shadow smiles and dream kisses, but Chunda Lal have eyesto see and ears to hear. He dream, too but of lips more sweet thanhoney, of a voice like the Song of the Daood! _Inshalla!"_

  Suddenly he clutched the grey hair of the bent old woman and with oneangry jerk snatched it from her head--for it was a cunning wig.Disordered, hair gleaming like bronze waves in the dim lamplight wasrevealed and the great dark eyes of Miska looked out from theartificially haggard face--eyes wide open and fearful.

  "Bend not that beautiful body so," whispered Chunda Lal, "that isstraight and supple as the willow branch. O, Miska"--his voicetrembled emotionally and he that had been but a moment since so fiercestood abashed before her--"for you I become as the meanest and thelowest; for you I die!"

  Miska started back from him as a muffled outcry sounded in the roombeyond the half-open door. Chunda Las started also, but almostimmediately smiled--and his smile was tender as a woman's.

  "It is the voice of the black smoke that speaks, Miska. We are alone.Those are dead men speaking from their tombs."

  "Ah-Fang-Fu is in the shop," whispered Miska.

  "And there he remain."

  "But what of ... _him!"_

  Miska pointed toward the eastern wall of the room in which they stood.

  Chunda Lal clenched his hands convulsively and turned his eyes in thesame direction.

  "It is of _him_," he replied in a voice of suppressed vehemence, "itis of _him_ I would speak." He bent close to Miska's ear. "In thecreek, below the house, is lying the motor-boat. I go to-day to bringit down for him. He goes to-night to the other house up the river.To-morrow I am gone. Only you remaining."

  "Yes, yes. He also leaves England to-morrow."

  "And you?"

  "I go with him," she whispered.

  Chunda Lal glanced apprehensively toward the door. Then:

  "Do not go with him!" he said, and sought to draw Miska into his arms."O, light of my eyes, do not go with him!"

  Miska repulsed him, but not harshly.

  "No, no, it is no good, Chunda Lal. I cannot hear you."

  "You think"--the Hindu's voice was hoarse with emotion--"that _he_ willtrace you--and kill you?"

  _"Trace me!"_ exclaimed Miska with sudden scorn. "Is it necessary forhim to trace me? Am I not already dead except for _him!_ Would I behis servant, his lure, his slave for one little hour, for one shortminute, if my life was my own!"

  Beads of perspiration gleamed upon the brown forehead of the Hindu,and his eyes turned from the door to the eastern wall and back againto Miska. He was torn by conflicting desires, but suddenly cameresolution.

  "Listen, then." His voice was barely audible. "If I tell you that yourlife _is_ your own--if I reveal to you a secret which I learned in thehouse of Abdul Rozan in Cairo----"

  Miska watched him with eyes in which a new, a wild expression wasdawning.

  "If I tell you that life and not death awaits you, will you come awayto-night, and we sail for India to-morrow! Ah! I have money! Perhaps Iam rich as well as--someone; perhaps I can buy you the robes of aprincess"--he drew her swiftly to him--"and cover those white armswith jewels."

  Miska shrank from him.

  "All this means nothing," she said. "How can the secret of AbdulRozan help me to live! And you--you will be dead before I die!--yes!One little hour after _he_ finds out that I go!"

  "Listen again," hissed Chunda Lal intensely. "Promise me, and I willopen for you a gate of life. For you, Miska, I will do it, and weshall be free. _He_ will never find out. He shall not be living tofind out!"

  "No, no, Chunda Lal," she moaned. "You have been my only friend, andI have tried to forget ..."

  "I will forswear Kali forever," he said fervently, "and shed no bloodfor all my life! I will live for you alone and be your slave."

  "It is no good. I cannot, Chunda Lal, I cannot."

  "Miska!" he pleaded tenderly.

  "No, no," she repeated, her voice quivering--"I cannot ... Oh! do notask it; I cannot!"

  She picked up the hideous wig, moving towards the door. Chunda Lalwatched her, clenching his hands; and his eyes, which had been sotender, grew fierce.

  "Ah!" he cried--"and it may be I know a reason!"

  She stopped, glancing back at him.

  "It may be," he continued, and his repressed violence was terrible,"it may be that I, whose heart is never sleeping, have seen and heard!One night"--he crept towards her--"one night when I cry the warningthat the Doctor Sahib returns to his house, you do not come! He goesin at the house and you remain. But at last you come, and I see inyour eyes----"

  "Oh!" breathed Miska, watching him fearfully.

  "Do I not see it in your eyes now! Never before have I thought sountil you go to that house, never before have you escaped from my careas here in London. Twice again I
have doubted, and because there wasother work to do I have been helpless to find out. _To-night_"--hestood before her, glaring madly into her face--"I think so again--thatyou have gone to him...."

  "Oh, Chunda Lal!" cried Miska piteously and extended her hands towardshim. "No, no--do not say it!"

  "So!" he whispered--"I understand! You risk so much for him--for meyou risk nothing! If he--the Doctor Sahib--say to you: 'Come with me,Miska----'"

  "No, no! Can I never have one friend in all the world! I hear youcall, Chunda Lal, but I am burning the envelope and--Doctor Stuart--finds me. I am trapped. You know it is so.

  "I know you say so. And because he--Fo-Hi--is not sure and because ofthe piece of the scorpion which you find there, we go to that house--_he_ and I--and we fail in what we go for." Chunda Lal's hand droppedlimply to his sides. "Ah! I cannot understand, Miska. If we are notsure then, are we sure _now?_ It may be"--he bent towards her--"we aretrapped!"

  "Oh, what do you mean?"

  "We do not know how much they read of what he had written. Why do wewait?"

  _"He_ has some plan, Chunda Lal," replied Miska wearily. "Does heever fail?"

  Her words rekindled the Hindu's ardour; his eyes lighted up anew.

  "I tell you his plan," he whispered tensely. "Oh! you shall hearme! He watch you grow from a little lovely child, as he watch hisdeath-spiders and his grey scorpions grow! He tend you and care foryou and make you perfect, and he plan for you as he plan for thisother creatures. Then, he see what I see, that you are not only hisservant but also a woman and that you have a woman's heart. Helearn--who think he knows all--that he, too, is not yet a spiritbut only a man, and have a man's heart, a man's blood, a man'slongings! It is because of the Doctor Sahib that he learn it----"

  He grasped Miska again, but she struggled to elude him. "Oh, let mego!" she pleaded. "It is madness you speak!"

  "It is madness, yes--for _you!_ Always I have watched, always I havewaited; and I also have seen you bloom like a rose in the desert.To-night I am here--watching ... and _he_ knows it! Tomorrow I amgone! Do you stay, for--_him?_

  "Oh," she whispered fearfully, "it cannot be."

  "You say true when you say I have been your only friend, Miska.To-morrow _he_ plan that you have no friend."

  He released her, and slowly, from the sleeve of his coat, slipped intoview the curved blade of a native knife.

  _"Ali Khan Bhai Salam!"_ he muttered--by which formula heproclaimed himself a _Thug!_

  Rolling his eyes in the direction of the eastern wall, he concealedthe knife.

  "Chunda Lal!" Miska spoke wildly. "I am frightened! Please let me go,and tomorrow----"

  "To-morrow!" Chunda Lal raised his eyes, which were alight with theawful light of fanaticism. "For me there may be no tomorrow! _JeyBhowani! Yah Allah!"_

  "Oh, _he_ may hear you!" whispered Miska pitifully. "Please go now.I shall know that you are near me, if----"

  "And then?"

  "I will ask your aid."

  Her voice was very low.

  "And if it is written that I succeed?"

  Miska averted her head.

  "Oh, Chunda Lal ... I cannot."

  She hid her face in her hands.

  Chunda Lal stood watching her for a moment in silence, then he turnedtoward the cellar door, and then again to Miska. Suddenly he droppedupon one knee before her, took her hand and kissed it, gently.

  "I am your slave," he said, his voice shaken with emotion. "For myselfI ask nothing--only your pity."

  He rose, opened the door by which Miska had entered the room and wentdown into the cellars. She watched him silently, half fearfully, yether eyes were filled with compassionate tears. Then, readjusting thehideous grey wig, she went up the steps and passed through the doorwayinto the den of the opium smokers.