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The Man From Poonch:
Talbot Mundy:
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The Man From Poonch
by
Talbot Mundy
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Based on an image created with Microsoft Bing software
First published in Argosy, 17 Jun 1933
This e-book edition: Project Gutenberg Australia, 2024
Argosy, 17 Jun 1933, with "The Man From Poonch"
The Hillmen tied him hand and foot.
IT was chilly and dark at the back
of Daldeen Lai's place. The distant lights of Simla,
glimpsed now and then through a fluke in the mist, served
to emphasize the loneliness and darkness. Nine men,
scarcely visible to one another, squatted on the creaking
balcony.
Yussuf Aroun raised a floor-board, using his toe for the
purpose, and spat into eight hundred feet of dark nothing
beneath him; it was less trouble than raising his head
above the sheet of corrugated iron which broke the cold
wind from the Himalayas. He spat with the emphasis of a
Pathan who had made up his mind.
"By Allah and by my beard, all men from Poonch," he
said, "are sons of impudently unchaste mothers."
But the man from Poonch said nothing. He was at the end
of the balcony, with his back toward Simla and his face
toward eight suspicious, hostile men. The solitary lantern
cast a red glow on as much of his face as was not hidden in
the horse-blanket that draped his head and shoulders. It
touched, too, the silvery hilt of his long knife.
His eyes held the smouldering wrath of a panther's. When
he rolled himself a cigarette his tongue licked the edges
of the paper as if tasting in advance difficulties that he
knew how to enjoy. The most exciting challenge in the world
is silence, and the man from Poonch seemed made of the
intolerable stuff.
Seven shadows, that were Hillmen of seven unrelated
blood-strains but with a language, a creed and some
hatreds in common, stirred a little as their host rose.
Water splashed in the darkness beneath. The wooden balcony
squeaked as it swayed to the wind and the weight of Daldeen
Lai's cat-like footsteps, careful not to touch men as he
passed them. He opened his house-door, entered, and shut
it behind him swiftly; the light from it shone on some
of the faces, for a moment. They were hook-nosed men in
stinking sheep-skin jackets—black-bearded, with oily
love-locks.
One laughed with a nervous high pitch:
"By Allah, men from Poonch can take a dive into the mist
beneath us, just as easily as men from better places! What
say you, brothers?"
Yussuf Aroun answered, deep-throated, deliberate:
"Nay! If he is false, a spy for the British, I slay
him, because it is I who first suspected him and said so.
By my beard, he shall die as many deaths in that case as
he can draw breaths between a midnight and a midnight. He
shall beg for the edge of a knife to cut him free from
torment."
But the man from Poonch continued to say nothing. The
door opened again and Daldeen Lai squirmed himself through
like a cat:
"A fool wanted the loan of a bicycle pump," he said.﹃I
told him he could push his bicycle.﹄He sat down.
"Now about this man from Poonch—"
When Daldeen Lai spoke Pushtu he abominably
mispronounced it, and he knew the mispronunciation
irritated those intolerant Hillmen, who despised him and
his Hindu religion. That he made a point of not being
religious merely increased their contempt. It was much more
difficult for them to treat him civilly, than for him to
endure their arrogance. But they shared his secret; and
the secret gave him an authority that he did not choose to
hazard by talking more than necessary. So he paused in his
speech.
"Who believes such a tale as he tells?" asked Yussuf
Aroun. "Taught him to fly in Ameliki, did they—he
having made the Amelikins think he was one of
themselves—Eh? Allah! I saw an Amelikin; he wore
spectacles: he had a fat wife who found fault. He was less
like this man than a horse is like a camel. Saucy and
abominable are the men from Poonch, and I say this one is a
liar. How do we know he can fly an air-ee-o-per-lane? Why
won't he tell us his name?"
The moon rose, revealing the tops of deodars in the
ghosty white mist that streamed in the valley beneath. It
silvered a wet crag that projected from the side of the
ravine a hundred yards away.
"But somebody must fly for us," said Daldeen Lai. "His
is a probable story. Many besides he have been imprisoned
for being suspected persons possessing pistol and no
license. While he was in prison his family died of neglect
and want, because the money-lender foreclosed. Is there
anything unlikely about that? Why should he not seek
vengeance on the British?"
"Allah! I doubt him," said Yussuf Aroun.
The man from Poonch spoke then, rather gutturally,
in a strong voice that suggested self-imposed, calm,
rising slowly to his feet and revealing contempt with
unexaggerated gesture:
"I have heard women who talked more manfully." He took a
stride toward the door.﹃Whoever craves a fight with me may
have it.﹄He met each gaze in turn. None flinched. His eyes
lingered on Yussuf Aroun's, and he touched his knife-hilt,
but not even Yussuf Aroun made an answering move. With a
sideways jerk of his head he indicated the moon-lit crag
that glistened over the ravine. "I will sit yonder and
think thoughts while ye belch fears."
He opened the door slowly, stood framed in the glow
from within—a rather tall man with the loose-limbed
stance and insolently careless poise of. an experienced
fighter—and then stepped suddenly into the passage,
shut the door firmly, and listened, with his hand on the
latch.
Not a man on the balcony spoke, but he felt pressure on
the latch. He removed his hand. As the latch yielded he
kicked the door. It slammed in Daldeen Lai's face, hurling
him backward. The teeth of the other men gleamed in the
sudden light like wolves' fangs, but no word was spoken.
The man from Poonch shut the door again and strode along
the lamp-lit passage, tossing two pice slipper-money to the
lame Kashmiri at the outer door.
Outside in the garden he listened again, but no sound
followed him. There were dense streams of blown mist,
but the moonlight shone in broken streams of silver that
revealed the pathway leading from the ramshackle house. He
followed it through a gate amid shadowy trees, and where
it forked toward the road that leads to Simla he took the
right-hand track and squatted, in the full light of the
moon, on the wet crag that overhung the ravine.
Torn shreds of fluffy mist blew past him, but he could
see and be seen from Daldeen Lai's balcony; and he could
see the shadowy road to Simla, where it curved to avoid
the rising ground, some fifty feet away, and a shadowy
man with an upturned bicycle appeared to be examining a
punctured tire. The man with the bicycle called to him in
Hindustanee:
"Oh you! Where can I borrow a pump to put air in my
leaking tire?"
"I don't know," said the man from Poonch.
"Also my lamp has gone out. Where can I get oil and
matches?"
"I don't know."
"Will you,watch my bicycle, if I leave it while I go to
find a pump?"
"No."
"I would come back quickly."
He from Poonch turned away and stared at the ravine,
not answering. So the man with the bicycle set his machine
upright and began pushing it along the road toward Simla.
But very soon the sound of his footsteps ceased. He
appeared to be riding the thing. His bell, rang—one,
two—one, two, three—one, two, as if it might
be a signal. The-man from Poonch appeared not to notice
that. He sat still, staring downward at the mist that
flowed like frosted cotton through the tops of deodars,
until at last the lame Kashmiri came from the house and
said hoarsely that Daldeen Lai would like to speak to
him.
"Tell him I sicken of too much speech," he answered.
Ten minutes later Daldeen Lai, in a thick shawl and a
belted khaki overcoat, came, carefully avoiding moonlight,
and stood waist-deep in mist in the shadow beneath the crag
between it and the road.
"Is it true then that all the men from Poonch are
mules?" he demanded. "Pray be reasonable. Who would
admit you to such a secret as ours without proof of your
trustworthiness? They are ready to kill you now unless you
give proof, since you already know too much. Had it not
been for me, Yussuf Aroun would already have shot you as
you sit here. You offended him. His finger itches for the
trigger."
The man from Poonch smiled. "It is I who lack proof," he
retorted. "A life is not much. But shall I risk mine for
perched hens who scratch lice and cackle?"
"Tell me truly who you are," said Daldeen Lai. "If you
will give me references—"
"God knows who I am. God knows who you are. And that is
enough."
"If I thought you were a spy," said Daldeen Lai, "there
would already be no flesh on your bones. Your skeleton
would be rotting among rats in a dark hole."
The man from Poonch answered with an air of
indifference: "I am a spy. I spy for deeds, and a chance to
do them. Therefore I will get hence. When I die, it shall
not be of too much talking."
"It is true," said Daldeen Lai, "that speech is
sometimes valueless. And you impress me as a man of strong
resolution. But I have to convince those others. They will
not consent to telling you our secret unless you first give
a pledge."
"I have nothing."
"Your life—"
"It is worth nothing."
"Put it then into our hands, and we will tell you our
secret. We will not trust you otherwise. At the moment,
Yussuf Aroun has you covered with his rifle, and if I
should signal to him—"
The man from Poonch dropped as if shot, and as he fell
near Daldeen Lai's feet, there came the sharp, dead smack
of a rifle in mist. A bullet whizzed overhead, but there
was so much spacious silence that the sound died swallowed
in a moment. The man from Poonch stood up with his back to
the rock and spoke calmly:
"I saw you make that signal. Now I will kill you as well
as Yussuf Aroun! Or will you tell me your secret?"
"In the others' presence I will tell it." Daldeen
Lai turned up the path to the house in a hurry, plainly
disliking that talk about death. The man from Poonch
removed an iron bracelet from his wrist and tossed it to
the road. It fell in dust in moonlight.
The man on a bicycle, pedalling back from the direction
of Simla, got off his machine and called out:
"Have you seen my spanner? I believe I dropped it where.
I tried to mend a puncture just now. Ah! Ah! I see it!" He
picked up something, mounted and returned by the way he had
come.
"May your luck be as flat as your tire, you voice out of
a sepulchre!" Daldeen Lai called after him, hurrying toward
the dim lamplight at the front door.
The man from Poonch followed him into the house and
through it, out on to the balcony, where he met the gaze of
Yussuf Aroun.
"If you can't shoot any straighter than that," remarked
the man from Poonch, "your women must be anybody's. Or are
they too ill-favored to tempt your betters?"
"I will eat your liver," Yussuf Aroun answered, showing
splendid yellow teeth.
"No spy would dare to speak as he does," said Daldeen
Lai. "Would a spy return here, after being, shot at? I
intend to tell him our secret in the presence of you
all. But you are not to trust him. Mind that. Two of
you—better yet, three must watch him day and night,
one sleeping and two waking."
"Let him give us his knife," said Yussuf Aroun.
The man from Poonch looked calmly at him.﹃You may have
it in your belly,﹄he answered.
"Allah!" Yussuf Aroun's hand went to his own knife.
"Peace!" exclaimed Daldeen Lai. "Of what use would a
coward be to us? He is good. Shall I tell him now?"
The. man from Poonch laughed curtly: "I will say what I
know already. There is haste, and you need an airman, but
there is none, unless you accept me. You are afraid. And
now what?"
"That proves it. He has spied on us," said Yussuf
Aroun.
The man from Poonch looked sideways at him:﹃I mistook
this,﹄he said, "for a women's jirga, not believing men
could be such chatterers. Allah! Who needs more than one
eye to read fear on a Pathan's face?"
"Tell him," said Yussuf Aroun. "Let him learn what fear
is. If he fails us or betrays us, I will answer for it. He
shall hot be out of my sight until all is finished. And
then he and I, insh'allah, will decide the matter of our
honor!"
The man from Poonch went and sat beside Yussuf Aroun
insolently. Hands on knives, they eyed each other sideways.
Daldeen Lai shifted the lantern and sat with his back to
the mountains. He cleared his throat importantly.
"This is no hysterical conspiracy of students," he
began. "We intend, to break the English this time, all or
nothing. A major calamity at this opportune moment ought
to stagger them and stiffen revolutionists of all types.
But it must be astonishing—staggering. It must be
the impossible thing, that nevertheless happens. Otherwise
the English will rally as usual and in some way survive it
because of their organization. We must destroy the English
system, as the Bolsheviki first destroyed the system of
the Czar. And in the anarchy that follows we will reap our
harvest."
"There will be loot," said Yussuf Aroun. "Wallahi!"
A cloud of mist shut down on them, so dense that it shut
off the moonlight and blanketed sound. It was like being at
sea on a swaying deck. The lantern in the midst only made a
dim blur. Daldeen Lai coughed and raised his voice:
"The viceroy and all the members of his council are
to meet at Delhi, three days from now. The governors of
five provinces will be there, along with eleven ruling
princes, to say nothing of innumerable subordinates. A
bomb—"
"A poison-gas bomb!" Yussuf Aroun interrupted
"Allah!"
"Such a bomb," said Daldeen Lai, "as will infallibly
kill all of them!"
He rubbed the palms of his hands together.
"As infallibly, by God, as I will kill you if you fail!"
said Yussuf Aroun. All the other men on the balcony moved
like vultures on a ledge that smell blood on the wind.
Daldeen Lai's face, as he leaned forward, glowed in the
lantern-light. His breath steamed like a devil's in a
Tibetan painting.
"Cruelty," he said, "is waste of energy, and it is too
unfortunate we could not make a poison-gas to kill them
instantly. The ingredients for that were not obtainable.
We had to use a gas of the corrosive type that burns the
membrane. It is so potent, that one part of it to ten
thousand parts of air produce death; and so corrosive,
that we dare not mix it in readiness. There are three
principal ingredients. For the sake of secrecy those have
been produced in places very far apart, by experts trained
in European laboratories. Each ingredient is sealed in a
gas-tight but fragile container; and the three containers
are enclosed in one bomb. When the bomb falls, it will
smash the containers. The resulting mixture will escape,
assisted by a little nitroglycerine to crack the casing.
And whoever breathes any of that—however little of
it—will be dead within ten or fifteen minutes—I
regret to add, painfully."
"Pain," said Yussuf Aroun, "is all that kaffirs will
ever know of Allah's mercy!"
The man from Poonch rolled a cigarette and licked the
paper thoughtfully.
"Fire!" he demanded. Yussuf Aroun, startled, struck a
match for him and grinned spitefully across the flame that
they sheltered together between cupped hands. The man from
Poonch blew out the match. "You stink," he remarked. "Keep
your distance."
"You must believe in your lucky star," said Yussuf
Aroun.
The chill of the mist was penetrating. Daldeen Lai
shuddered as he cleared his throat again.
"The essential thing," he said, "is timing—to
drop the bomb in the right place at the proper moment. The
difficulty is, to do that in spite of a cordon of troops
and scores of special policemen. You see, there have been
so many acts of terrorism lately that the viceroy and his
council will be guarded like golden money. We foresaw that.
That is why you were selected and encouraged to approach
us."
A bearded face beneath a gunnysack thrust itself into
the lamp-light.
"Bismillah! Hear the fool boast! It was I—I tell
you, I who lay under the air-bombs when Bulteel sahib
brought his 'planes across the Indus and wrecked our
village, slaying eighteen including my son—it was I,
Mahommed Sayyid, I who thought of it. I said, by Allah,
said I—"
"Thou art like a cock that has laid an egg," remarked
Yussuf Aroun. "It were better to slit thy throat than
listen to the crowing."
Daldeen Lai resumed his discourse:
"We are not suspected. The C.I.D. doesn't know us.
None of us has ever been connected with a crime. Our
finger-prints are unrecorded—unless yours are?" He
stared hard at the man from Poonch, but drew no answer.
He continued:﹃Even so, however, it would be impossible,
even for us, who are not suspected, to carry a bomb
weighing over a thousand pounds, through the crowd and
through the viceroy's, guard—although we did think of
dressing the bomb to resemble a man bleeding to death in an
ambulance. But if that had succeeded, its explosion would
have meant our own death;﹄He paused dramatically. "But an
airplane—"
The man from Poonch extinguished the butt of his,
cigarette against the damp floor-board. Daldeen Lai
continued:
"One of us—no matter who—owns a repair
shop—buys second-hand automobiles—is
a good mechanic—studied aeronautics in
Germany—possesses copies of all the airplane
specifications that are constantly published by various
governments. He has had two years in which to build a
monoplane, secretly, using four second-hand automobile
engines, which he adapted. We needed speed, not radius.
The plane can rise easily and swiftly with the weight
of the bomb and one man. It carries fuel for only fifty
miles, but that is plenty. In minutest detail the
machine is theoretically perfect for its task. There is
a secret and perfectly level runway of two hundred yards
between high walls. The machine can be in the air in a
moment, and in Delhi in another moment. There will be
havoc—panic—death."
"And after that?" the man from Poonch asked.
"We of the North will have our innings then," said
Yussuf Aroun. "By Allah, we will sweep India as a storm
sweeps orchards!"
Daldeen Lai smiled in the glow of the lantern.﹃At
first, there will be a little anarchy,﹄he conceded.
"That is perhaps not a bad thing, to make men welcome
a new government. A little slaughter—a little
frightfulness—and then peace."
"Such is the way of God," said some one, looming through
the mist near Yussuf Aroun.
"After the bomb is dropped, then what next?" the man
from Poonch demanded.
Daldeen Lai stared "Come to earth and escape, of course.
There will be such panic and confusion that escape should
be simple enough. But burn the plane, if possible, because
of finger-marks."
"And has this plane been flown yet?" asked the man from
Poonch.
"No. Of course not. How could it be? It is a great
enough marvel to have built it undetected. It is tuned, as
I think they call it. It has taxied along the runway once
quite recently, but that made too much noise to be risked
a second time. It has never been up in the air, but it is
theoretically—"
"It is written that it shall not fail," said Yussuf
Aroun. "It is also written, thou from Poonch, that thou
art to fly the thing. Thereafter, if all goes well, I
will take back all I said about our honor and we shall be
good friends. But fail, and thy lucky star will have set
forever, as a star that falls dead in the sky."
"All of us will trust you afterwards, when the great
deed is done," said Daldeen Lai. "He has a knife," he
added.
Yussuf Aroun drove a sudden elbow against the jaw of
the man from Poonch, forcing his head back with a jerk; He
snatched the knife, laughing with a sort of high-pitched
yelp of triumph as he sent it spinning, into the mist. "Now
sit still, or I will gut thee ere thy time comes!"
So the man from Poonch sat glaring but extremely still
while the Pathan's hands searched him for hidden weapons.
After that, three of the other Hillmen tied him hand and
foot. They threw a blanket over him. They left him. Daldeen
Lai lingered and whispered:
"Trust me and never mind them! Do your part well. After
that, if you wish, you shall die of drink and women! Don't
fear that dog of a Pathan."
There was no answer. The man from Poonch lay still
beneath the blanket.﹃Perhaps you would like some friend
to know where you are?﹄Daldeen Lai asked. "Tell me his
name. I will send the message. That will give you greater
confidence in me."
But there was no answer—no movement. The creak
of the balcony, wind and the splash of water down in the
ravine were the only sounds.
"There will be five thousand rupees for you afterwards,"
said Daldeen Lai. "Suppose you crash? If you are killed,
who is to have your money?"
Suddenly he screamed. He smothered the scream in his
shawl, but it was too late; a Hillman hurried out through
the door with a lantern.
"He bit me! He bit me! Krishna!"
Daldeen Lai wrung his right hand and kicked at the
blanket savagely, but the man from Poonch ducked his head
and sat upright, snarling, his eyes like embers in the
darkness:
"Curse your black soul and your money!" he said
deliberately. "May the one eat the other and corrupt you
into worms in the belly of endless time!"
He lay down again. The Hillman re-spread the blanket,
nodding:
"He is good. He will make us no trouble at all. His
kind have the courage of Allah in them." He grinned at the
blood on Daldeen Lai's finger and then led the way into the
house.
For a long time after that the man from Poonch lay very
still beneath the blanket, while within the house there was
a conference, extremely difficult to overhear because of
the creaking of wood in the wind and the hollow noises that
came upward out of the ravine.
Yussuf Aroun, followed by two other men, came out at
last. He kicked the blanket.
"Awake! By Allah, now we test thy star and thy honor!
Loose him, brothers. If he craves my knife-edge, let him
tempt me!"
But the man from Poonch seemed dazed, or perhaps
indifferent. He let himself be raised to his feet, offering
no protest when Yussuf Aroun and another man put arms
behind his back and held hands. They pressed him close,
pinning his arms to his sides; and the third man followed,
almost equally close.
"There is no escape," said Yussuf Aroun. "Fail, and the
devil gets thee! Do well, and I am thy friend forever!
Hey-yeh! As a mother-bird teaches the fledgling, thou shalt
teach me to fly—afterwards—afterwards—me!
But Allah is Lord of Afterwards!"
Out into the darkness, then, Daldeen Lai and the rest
of the group following at cautious intervals, one at a
time.
Across the shadowy road, then downward into a sea of
dark tree-tops, in which the mist hung like snow and,
when they reached it, changed into wet gems twinkling in
moonlight. Ferns and their smell. The feel of the floor of
a forest spread with moss, pine-trash, rotting twigs.
On downward, and forever downward, hour after hour,
by paths such as cats and pheasants know, crossing
and re-crossing a winding post-road, drenched by the
shoulder-high rhododendrons, out through the mist into
silvery moonlight and the warm air stealing upward tainted
by lowland dust.
At last the railway junction. It swarmed even before
daylight with dark-skinned and bright-turbaned oddments
from a hundred unrelated human breeds, to whom a train is
an adventure, and time nothing.
There was a smell of steam, oil, sweat, spices. The
cries of sweetmeat vendors. The drone of ten languages
spoken at once, like the laughter of water on gravel.
Extremely obvious policemen pretending not to notice
well-known faces in the lamplight. The scream of a
frightened woman separated from her man.
Near the booking-office entrance, a man with a bicycle,
tired and even sleepy but volubly indignant with a railway
police naik for refusing to hold the machine while he
bought himself a ticket.
"A Bahinchute, am I?" he shouted, as the man from
Poonch went by shoving through the crowd between two
heavy-shouldered Hillmen. "I will not rest until I have
made you eat that word! I will follow you with my hatred
until you shall swear the world is nothing but eyes that
scorch your soul!"
"Out of the way!" said Yussuf Aroun, shoving him. That
brought him face to face with Daldeen Lai, who almost fell
over the bicycle, barking his shins and maliciously siding
with the naik.
"Kick him! He hunts women all night long. His trick is
to ask for a bicycle pump, that he may rob the fool who
lends it to him!"
Then the train, and the surge, in half-darkness, for
seats in third-class carriages already crammed to bursting.
Squatting on the floor between two Hillmen, the man from
Poonch traced patterns with his heels in the mud that his
slippers had collected on wet hillsides.
"I have a knife, remember," Yussuf Aroun whispered. "It
can reach thy liver as a woman's glance reaches a lover's
manhood. So beware of tricks. Sit still. Say nothing. Let
me see where thy hands are at all times!"
So the man from Poonch sat in the stifling heat,
seeing nothing but legs and fruit-peel, except when the
compartment door opened at stations.
Then, with the draught of fresher air there would be a
glimpse, between coppery legs, of the station bhisti with his sharp cry and clattering brass cups. Then a policeman
would come and stare in.
Twenty times before Delhi was reached the man
from Poonch looked straight into a policeman's
eyes—sometimes into the eyes of an English police
officer. But he never moved or made any sign; he could feel
the point of Yussuf Aroun's knife at his shoulder-blades.
The policemen seemed uninterested. They stared, slammed
the door shut and passed on along the train to continue
inspection.
All the talk among the passengers was of the great
affair in Delhi, two days hence now: the opening of the
great assembly, with the known risk of a clash between
Hindu and Moslem. No two opinions were alike, but there was
only one expectation—of trouble, red, reckless. When
the train reached Delhi it was a rather silent crowd that
poured forth to the platform. Anticipation held men by the
throats and excitement smothered natural emotions, for the
moment.
Yussuf Aroun shepherded the man from Poonch along the
teeming platform, observant but not noticeably nervous
until a man behind him, shoving a bicycle, rang to
invite him to make way—one, two—one, two,
three—one, two.
"Haie, you Pathan! You are not in your hills! When
bells ring, that means 'Be quick!'"
Yussuf Aroun swore like a startled bear then. The man
with the bicycle laughed. His little round embroidered cap
made him look monkey-impudent.
"Take care. You are not in your hills. I will summon my
friends to teach you what to do when bells ring!"
Yussuf Aroun made a swipe at him with a hairy fist, but
he ducked and hurried until he was presently lost in the
crowd. Then, presently, a swarming, clanging tramcar and
the delirious heat and movement of city streets in lamplit
darkness—stink, din, tumult and an ever deepening
feel of tension, on the way toward teeming suburbs, past
groups of special police and military posts at the throats
of dark streets plunging into unguessable slums.
"By Allah, this, city was built to be plundered!" said
Yussuf Aroun. "Do thy task, thou of Poonch! Thou of Poonch,
be sure and sudden! We others will not fail. Allah!"
One, two—one, two, three—one, two. A
bicycle bell rang when they left the tramcar to plunge on
foot down zigzag alleys, But there were scores of bicycles;
they flitted like bats in all directions. On through a
shadowy, stinking maze, whose darkness felt like one vast
eye, whose silence whispered. Stars seen against sheeted
harems on flat roofs. They threaded a devious course too
swift for legs cramped by the long railway journey, but
when the man from Poonch lagged he was threatened:
"Allah! Is it a spur thou needest?"
Daldeen Lai was leading. There were glimpses of him, at
moments, at corners. The other men followed at careless
intervals, one by one, independently, until at last Daldeen
Lai fumbled at a gate in a wall and passed through. The man
from Poonch was thrust through after him, into an ebony
shadow beneath a parallelogram that was a purple street of
stars—the roof of a pair of apparently endless high
walls.
"Lo, the runway!" said Yussuf Aroun. He stretched out
his left arm. "Day after to-morrow, that way lies thy road
to hell or heaven!"
The remainder of the party filed in, one after another,
some invisible watchman taking word and sign, countersign,
and some other mysterious signal.
"Allah! It is true that good thieves sleep in
gun-rooms," said Yussuf Aroun. "There is a police khana
half a stone's throw yonder, and beyond that stands a
prison! Nevertheless, lo and behold, the runway; and who
knows of it save God and we ourselves! It is now three
months since the air-ee-o-per-lane was ready. But a man to
ride it? We have slain three. It was I who slew them. Three
vain boasters who were offered a chance to fly to hell or
heaven failed us for one reason or another. Poonchling, it
is thy turn! Let me see thee examine this wonder."
Daldeen Lai—a voice, a vague sensation in the
dark—spoke urgently:
"Thou from Poonch, now listen. I will show you."
Yussuf Aroun shoved him. "Lead on, and turn on a light!
Let me watch him take hold. By Allah, as a woman knows a
man by his eye, I know a horseman by the way he looks at
a horse from a mile off. And a birdman is as easy. Lead
on!"
Pavement, between walls. An iron roof. A, sliding
corrugated-iron door, opening silently—shut again
with a thud. Metal on metal. A man stumbling amid tin
cans, cursed for a clumsy rat by Yussuf Aroun. The Pathan
was excited; he gripped the arm of the man from, Poonch
with fingers like a trap's jaws. Sudden electric light
and—
"Is it good, thou Poonchling? It is good, by Allah! Is
it not good?"
It looked perfect, even to the paint—new-born
like a dragon-fly, beneath a makeshift crane, amid
shadows etched on white walls. Four engines—a
stream-line pattern that should make a falcon
jealous—gold-and-aluminum, with black walnut
propellers—white tires on gold-and-aluminum wheels,
stainless steel wiring—a bomb, torpedo-shaped, snug
as a roe in a herring—
Ting-ting—ting-ting-ting—tingting! It was
the bicycle bell.
Crack! The left fist of the man from Poonch shot a
half-hook upward at the peak of Yussuf Aroun's jaw. The
Pathan reeled on his heels; his hand went to his knife.
The fist struck him again—gain. A right went to
his solar plexus. The roof split, like a packing-case
coming apart, and the light went out. The man from Poonch
felt a head in the dark and punched it—found
another head—cracked both together—fell,
he and two others, on top of Yussuf Aroun. There
was a sudden spitting-cracker-cat-fight of teeth,
oaths, knives—in the dark—in a din. Then
star-light—flash-light—a command in English:
"Grab him! Don't be afraid to kill him! That's the
style! Light, somebody! Light here! Two more men here! Come
on, two more!"
Somebody found the switch. The full light went on.
Thirty-two policemen, bearded, beautiful with sweat and
malice and the gun-crew grin that viewed a shot square on
the target.
The bicyclist of the round embroidered cap, mud
spattered on his loose white loin-cloth, let himself be
pulled from under Daldeen Lai, fingering his ear; there was
blood on it from Daldeen Lai's teeth.
"Pip, pip!" he remarked as he felt himself for
injuries.
The man from Poonch, rubbing a raw knee, laughed at him.
"All right, Moti? Not hurt? That was neat work. Timed it
beautifully. Where's Charley?
Almost casually, from the outer darkness, bleeding a
little and bruised in places, a smiling Englishman in
shorts and shirt, made his way through the police to the
man who might have been from Poonch.
"Got 'em all!" the newcomer remarked. "Got each last one
of 'em!"
He passed a flask. "I thought you might need a spot of
this."
There were gurgles.﹃Thanks. You always were
thoughtful.﹄Somehow that man no longer looked as if he
came from Poonch. He glanced at the wings of the plane
that loomed above him. "This ought to cause a sensation.
What?"
Charley's eyes met his in silent laughter. "Might have
been serious, Grayson, mightn't it? I'll have to get the
high explosives section of the C.I.D. to come and draw the
teeth of that egg.
"You're tired, old man. Hungry? How about a tub, then
the club and some dinner? We can make out reports together
after dinner."
Yussuf Aroun, handcuffed and snarling between dark-eyed
Sikh constables, spat some blood from his teeth and swore a
streak of Northwest frontier blasphemy:
"I knew that Poonch tale was a lie! Another second and
thy liver should have lain like—"
He who, it now appeared, undoubtedly was not from
Poonch, looked at his barked knuckles. Then his eye sought
the flask,
"Give my friend Yussuf a drink," he suggested. "He's
quite a character. I hit him a bit harder than was
necessary. Yes, then I'm ready when you are. Dinner? I've
forgotten what good food tastes like."
THE END
Project Gutenberg Australia