E.Voiskunsky, I.Lukodyanov. The Crew Of The Mekong
страница №4
...ble servant of Kali, the Goddess of Terror. I have beenchosen to be her instrument, so that men of the lower castes should be
convinced, through miracles, of the might of the gods, and resign themselves
to their lot of obedience and toil. As for our rulers, when they see a
miracle they will realize that they must obey the high priests. Do you
understand me, young man?"
"You mean that if your gods don't work miracles you'll-"
"Exactly. The gods, who have unveiled a small part of their mysteries
to me, may work miracles through me. For the gods are all-powerful. Come
with me. I will show you signs of their might."
Picking up a clay lamp, Fedor followed Lal Chandra into the big room in
which the strange machine stood. Lal Chandra clapped his hands thrice and
then issued an order to the servant who silently appeared before him.
The huge black disc rumbled as it started to rotate. Creaking, the
woven belt emerged from the floor and passed over the pulley.
"Are men down below turning it?" Fedor asked.
Lal Chandra nodded. The disc spun faster and faster. Its gold plates
merged into a glowing ring. A high-pitched hum filled the room.
Next Lal Chandra turned an ebony lever, and two sparkling bronze
spheres that were part of the machine drew closer and closer together.
Suddenly there was a dry crackle as a streak of bluish-violet lightning
flashed between the sphere. The air felt fresh and cool, as after a
thunderstorm.
While Fedor watched in fascination, lightning blazed in the dusk-filled
room. He felt his skin creep.
With a turn of the lever Lal Chandra separated the spheres. The
lightning ceased.
Lal Chandra gestured towards the bronze statue of the six-armed
goddess.
"Do not be afraid of the goddess. Embrace her."
"Horrible creature," Fedor muttered in Russian.
"Are you afraid?"
Fedor boldly put his arms around the bronze hips of the goddess. In the
same instant he was deafened and stunned, and flung to the floor. Crackling
lightning had sprung from the body of the goddess. A wave of freshness
struck his nostrils.
Fedor regained his feel, cursing roundly.
"Forgive my little joke," Lal Chandra said, his lips parting in a
smile. "1 simply wanted to show you the power which the goddess has given me
over lightning."
Fedor became aware of an itching sensation in the palm of his left
hand. Looking down, he saw a cut at the base of his thumb.
"Your goddess bites, damn it!" he exclaimed. He was trembling.
Lal Chandra smeared a fragrant salve on the cut and the pain subsided.
"Now you will learn the purpose to which you will be put," he said. "I
have heard that the art of building water-wheels is well known in your
country. Is this art known to you?"
The covered wagon, driven by the same half-naked coachman, travelled
across a barren tract for a long time before it came to a rocky road that
led to the bank of a small stream.
Lal Chandra stepped out of the wagon and Fedor sprang down after him.
They pushed their way through thickets until they reached the high bluff.
There, squeezed between rocky banks, the stream was very narrow and formed a
swift waterfall. Below the waterfall the stream was placid.
"Would this be a good place for a water-wheel?" Lal Chandra asked.
"Yes, a very good one," Fedor replied. "But does the stream flow all
the year round?"
"No, it dries up in summer. Anyway, we won't need it long, only during
the rains. Take the measurements you'll need to build a large wheel here."
Fedor looked round. On the other side of the stream, not far away,
stood a temple-like building with two towers.
"Will we be able to approach that temple later?" he asked. "I'll have
to if I'm going to take measurements."
"Of course. That temple is where the will of the gods is going to
manifest itself."
"Very well," said Fedor. "I'll get my sight-vane."
He went back to the wagon for his instrument, a shallow wooden bowl
with two tiny notches on the edges, diametrically opposite one another.
Picking up a clay pitcher and the sight-vane, Fedor approached the spot
where the water cascaded over the lip of the rocks. He placed the bowl on a
flat stone, filled the pitcher with water, and poured water into the bowl
until it was almost full. Then he lay down on the ground and turned the bowl
in front of his eyes so that both notches were in line with one of the
towers of the temple. By pouring more water from the pitcher into the bowl,
and carefully propping up the sides of the bowl with stones, he forced the
water to swell above the edges of the bowl. Then, closing one eye, he
concentrated on getting the nearest and farthest edges of the bowl to
coincide in height. Holding his breath lest he get out of line, he counted:
the water level was six rows of stones below the windows of the second
storey of the temple.
Then Fedor rose, rubbed his numb elbows, scrambled up the rocks to the
top of the waterfall, and repeated his observations there, after which he
descended to where Lal Chandra was waiting.
Next the two men waded across the stream and entered the abandoned
temple. Ahead of them strode the coachman, Ram Das, carrying a torch.
Bats flitted about under the vaulted ceiling. The flapping of their
wings nearly extinguished the torch. The air was damp and had a musty smell.
"Any snakes here?" Fedor asked. "You won't find cobras in damp, dark
places," said Lal Chandra. "But we are in the hands of Shiva and Kali."
The passage led into a room whose ceiling was so high that the light
from the torch did not reach the top. The sides of the room faded into
terrifying darkness.
On a three-tiered pedestal stood Fedor's old acquaintance, the goddess
Kali, with her six arms, three faces and six breasts, wrathful, inscrutable
and ready to act. The face that was turned to Fedor gazed across the room
with a strange expression in which an inviting smile was combined with a
threatening frown. The gaze was fixed on an equally enormous statue, with
four arms, standing on one leg, the other being bent at the knee, in a
dancing posture. This was the god Shiva, Kali's spouse.
Lal Chandra prostrated himself before the menacing goddess.
"What a handsome couple you make!" Fedor whispered to himself jokingly
in an effort to regain his composure. He was in the grip of a fit of
shivering caused either by the dampness or by the eerie atmosphere of the
place.
He glanced at Ram Das. As the driver stood there holding the torch his
face expressed neither fear nor religious devotion. He simply looked bored.
There may have been a trace of scorn in the look the half-naked slave gave
his master, Lal Chandra, lying prostrate before the sovereign over life and
death.
The expression on the slave's face sobered Fedor. He resumed his
scrutiny of the goddess. Suddenly he startled in horror. From her graceful
neck hung a chain of human skulls.
"The foul murderess!" he exclaimed in Russian. Ram Das did not
understand the words, but the wrathful tone prompted him to level a long,
thoughtful glance at Fedor.
A few minutes later Lal Chandra led Fedor through a series of intricate
passageways to the stairs leading up into one of the towers. Fedor climbed
up the weathered, sand-sprinkled steps to the ninth storey. Looking down
from a window, he saw Lal Chandra at the foot of the tower. Fedor took out
his length of string, in which he had tied knots at intervals of one foot,
attached a stone to the end, and began paying out the string, counting the
knots. When the stone reached the sixth row of bricks below the
second-storey window Lal Chandra gave a shout. Fedor stopped paying out the
string, leaned far out of the window, and saw that the row of bricks he had
noticed when he made his second measurement was at the seventy-fourth foot.
"That means the waterfall is seventy-four feet high," he thought. "I
wonder how far it is to the ground."
He allowed the string to run out until the stone at the end touched the
ground. The distance was about ninety feet.
Fedor now forgot about everything but the unusual and interesting job
ahead of him. He was in such high spirits that when he descended and saw the
silent torch bearer he clapped him on the shoulder. "We'll make a wonderful
wheel!" he exclaimed happily.
Ram Das moved forward without a word. But after taking a few steps he
stopped, glanced round, lifted his torch high to illuminate everything
around them, and then gestured to Fedor.
"Do you understand what I say?" he asked in a Moslem dialect.
"I do," Fedor replied in Uzbek.
"Do not rejoice like a new-born calf. You will live just as long as you
are needed to finish this job. Do you understand that?"
A shudder ran through Fedor.
"But what can I do? How can I escape?" he asked tonelessly.
"It is too early to talk of such things. I will find a suitable time
and place to talk with you. But now, silence!"
The torch-bearer moved forward. A few minutes later they emerged into
the bright sunshine. Ram Das threw the torch, which had burned low, into the
stream. The flame hissed and went out.
Lal Chandra smiled at Fedor.
Man is a strange creature. Sometimes Fedor would wake up in the middle
of the night and, recalling Ram Das's grim words, give way to despair. But
when morning came his fears would evaporate, whether because of his carefree
Russian nature or because he was carried away by the work.
As he sat over the sketches and calculations of the huge water-wheel he
sang to himself. At times these Russian songs were sad, at times they were
gay.
Now the days passed more quickly. Fedor learned to speak the local
dialect. Lal Chandra often travelled to the old temple to supervise the
restoration work that had been begun there. Fedor was no longer alone behind
the high wall. The courtyard was now filled with artisans busy fashioning
parts for the wheel under his direction.
The courtyard had been turned into an open-air workshop, with forging
furnaces and a copper-smelting furnace. In the middle of the yard the
contours of a giant wheel seventy-two feet in diameter had been traced on
the hard-packed ground, as at a shipyard.
Sometimes Fedor actually felt as though he were in the shipyards or in
the courtyard of the Smolny palace at St. Petersburg, except that here there
was none of the joking, bickering or singing characteristic of Russians at
work.
Carpenters were making parts of the rim and the buckets of the wheel.
The swiftly falling water would turn the wheel, which would convert this
simple, comprehensible form of energy into another form, into mysterious,
darting lightning.
The gigantic rim was made of the finest hardwood. Copper and iron
bindings fastened the joints.
Once grey-bearded Jogindar Singh, the foreman of the carpenters, came
up to Fedor. The two men communicated in an incredible mixture of Uzbek,
Indian and Dutch.
"I want to ask you how thick the wheel axis will be," said the
carpenter. As Fedor started to explain, a graceful girl in a sky-blue sari
that left one shoulder bare approached them. The girl said something to
Jogindar Singh that Fedor did not understand, gave Fedor a fleeting glance
of curiosity, and ran off.
"It is now noon," said Jogindar Singh. "My daughter has summoned me to
dinner. May we have the honour of your company?"
Fedor agreed eagerly. He wanted a chance to talk to that quiet,
understanding man. Also, he wanted another glimpse of the girl.
Lal Chandra's workmen lived near the workshop, in tents set up among
the trees in the big garden. They lived here with their families since they
had no right to leave the premises until the job was finished. Each family
prepared its food over a fire in front of its tent.
On the way, Jogindar Singh and Fedor washed their hands in a large pool
of running water.
As they entered the tent the girl uttered a low cry and ran out. After
a moment she returned carrying a black lacquered tray covered with bright
flowers, and placed it on a mat spread on the floor. On the tray lay a mound
of boiled rice over which a fragrant spicy sauce had been poured.
Then the girl brought in hot flat cakes and a brass pitcher of cold
water mixed with the slightly astringent juice of a fruit unfamiliar to
Fedor. The girl moved lightly and quickly. She sat down beside her father,
and Fedor looked at her dark, slanting eyes and thin brown arms. She dropped
her eyes.
Jogindar Singh settled down to his dinner. Fedor also dipped his
fingers into the rice.
"I thought you Hindus weren't supposed to eat in front of other
people," he said.
"That rule is followed by those who divide people into jaties," or
castes," said the elderly carpenter.
"To which caste do you belong?"
"I'm a Sikh and so are all the others working here," said the
carpenter, gazing intently at Fedor. "We do not divide people into castes."
"Does that mean you do not recognize Brahmans?"
"We do not believe in future reincarnation," Jogindar Singh replied
evasively. Just who are you? Moslems?"
"No."
It was obvious that the carpenter did not want to answer his questions,
so Fedor ate in silence. He washed down the rice with water from the
pitcher. From time to time he stole glances at the girl, wondering how old
she was. He decided she could not be more than eighteen, and he was just
about to ask what her name was when her father began to speak.
"Look here, foreigner. I do not know how you came to the Punjab but I
can see "'it was not because you wanted to."
"Wanted to?" Fedor laughed bitterly. " I was sold, like an ox."
"Do not put your trust in Lal Chandra," the carpenter went on. "He is
your enemy. He is our enemy too."
"Then why do you work for him?" "We work for him because- Listen, we
Sikhs were forced off our land. Everything was taken away from us." Jogindar
Singh's eyes glittered angrily. "But that is not for long! We Sikhs will
gather our forces-"
The light pouring through the entrance to the tent was suddenly cut
off. Fedor turned round to see Ram Das standing there.
"You've found a suitable place for such talk, old man," the coachman
remarked derisively.
"There are no strangers here," the carpenter replied quietly. "Only our
brethren live in the garden."
"In the garden! That damned house is full of Lal Chandra's spies," Ram
Das said as he squatted beside the tray of food.
Fedor looked at the coachman's frowning, sharp-featured face and again,
as in the temple, a chill ran down his spine.
"Foreigner, you are as trusting as a child," Ram Das said. "Lal Chandra
has given you a nice toy to play with and you forget that your end is near."
Fedor paled. "What can I do?" he asked. "As long as I am building the
wheel no one will touch me. Afterwards, if I have to, I'll stand up for
myself."
"No one is going to challenge you to a duel. You don't know the customs
of the Brahmans. Instead of dying a useless death why do you not remain
alive and help us? Jogindar Singh, send your daughter out of the tent. She
must not listen to the talk of men."
The Punjab was an arid semi-desert in the north-western corner of
fabulous, fertile India. It was inhabited by stern, warlike men who passed
their lives in a grim struggle against drought in order to earn an austere
living for themselves and a life of luxury for their rulers.
The Punjab, along the border, had the most extensive trade contacts
with other countries and was the part of India that was most often invaded.
Alexander the Great's weary warriors came to the Punjab in the year 327 B.
C. Later the region was invaded by the Persians and the Afghans.
The Punjab, accustomed to foreigners, to foreign merchants and to
foreign conquerors, became the centre of the Sikh community.
Sikhism was a monotheistic religion that rejected castes, mortification
of the flesh, priests, temples and public worship. The Sikhs wanted a better
life in this world, and did not believe in reincarnation.
Shortly before Fedor Matveyev landed in the Punjab, the Sikhs had risen
up against the subahdars, Moslem viceroys of the Mogul dynasty, and the
local feudal rajahs. The uprising had been drowned in blood, with mass
executions.
Although the Sikhs had suffered defeat and bitter losses, and had (been
deprived of their lands, they had not lost heart. Feigning submissiveness,
they gradually gathered forces for another uprising.
Those were troubled times in the Punjab. The dynasty of Great Moguls
was clearly on the wane. The Punjab rajahs, whom Lal Chandra served, were
preparing to seize power from the weakened hands of the Mohammedan rulers.
But the blood-stained spectre of another Sikh uprising haunted the rajahs
and Brahmans. As a counter-measure they prepared to work miracles that would
distract the people from the sobriety of the Sikh religion, convince them of
the might of the old Hindu gods, and persuade them to resign themselves to
obeying Hindu rulers.
The Brahmans had long possessed a variety of miracles demonstrating the
power of their gods. The miracles were performed by wandering fakirs,
ascetic wonder-workers and hypnotisers of wide experience. They tortured
themselves in public by driving needles into their bodies, walking barefoot
over burning coals, and allowing themselves to be buried alive.
The idea behind it all was that man can endure whatever trials life may
bring him.
But it had become difficult to astound the grim people of the Punjab
with the old, familiar miracles in which fakirs pierced their bodies,
charmed snakes or turned themselves into towering palm-trees.
That was why Lal Chandra was preparing new miracles of a kind never
seen or heard of before.
Fedor Matveyev had .plenty to think about.
At home, in Russia, he had known that their family owned some two dozen
peasant households, that those peasants belonged to his father. The house in
which the Matveyevs lived was much like a peasant's hut, while the family's
food differed from that of their peasants only in that there was more of it.
However, the lighting in the Matveyev home came not from splinters but from
tallow candles, which, true, his frugal mother insisted on using sparingly.
The Matveyevs occupied the best pews in the tiny church, and Father
Pafnuty never missed an opportunity to sing the praises of the Matveyev
family in his prayers.
Tallow candles and prayers did not, of course, matter so much as having
a familiar, stable way of life. Father owned the peasants. The peasants
ploughed, planted, reaped and threshed the grain, and then brought it to the
barn of their owner. Thus it had been for centuries, and thus it would
always 'be. There had always been masters and there had always been slaves.
But now, in a foreign land, Fedor was himself a slave. Not a slave like
the servants of Lal Chandra, true, but still a slave. When Ram Das openly
urged him to take the side of the Sikhs, Fedor was thrown into the greatest
confusion.
He recalled his father's stories about the peasant uprising under
Stepan Razin, which had so terrified the big landowners. Now Indian peasants
were planning the same thing against their masters and, besides, against
their gods. How could a man who belonged to the nobility think of making
friends with rebels?
For that matter, Ram Das was a fine one, pretending to be a humble
slave! He was, Fedor guessed, practically the leader of these Sikhs.
The Sikhs had placed their trust in him. They had told him that an
uprising was planned for the day the Brahmans arranged a festival to
celebrate restoration of the temple of the goddess Kali. The \Sikhs had told
him that he must help them.
But how could he bring himself to help rebels?
Besides, what if they were lying when they said that as soon as he
finished his work on the water-wheel he would be killed? What if they were
simply trying to frighten him?
Should he go to Lal Chandra and tell him the whole story? No, he
couldn't do that either.
There was no one to advise him.
Fedor's soul was in turmoil.
CHAPTER FOUR
IN WHICH FEDOR MATVEYEV IS PRESENTED WITH A KNIFE
Jogindar Singh asked Fedor to come to the smithy with him.
"Kartar Sarabha wants to make you a gift," he said.
Thickly-bearded Kartar Sarabha, the blacksmith, smiled broadly. "You
have taught me many useful things that I did not know. In gratitude I want
to make you a present of a knife. A man should not go about unarmed. I'll
work while you look on."
This, Fedor realized, was a sign of great trust in him, a foreigner.
Craft secrets were being shown to him.
The blacksmith picked up a bunch of short wires and sorted them,
bending and unbending each one. Fedor noticed that some were made of soft
iron and others of firm steel. The steel wires were hard to bend.
After making his selection and tightly tying the ends together, Sarabha
heated the middle of the bunch in the forge and tied it neatly into a knot.
Then he heated it again and began to hammer it with rapid but careful blows.
The wires were welded together into a bar.
After a few more heatings the blacksmith began to pound with all his
might.
"Come tomorrow before dinner. We'll finish it," he said, tossing his
tongs into a trough of water.
The next day Fedor was presented with a blade that had been polished
and fitted into a handsome ivory handle. Examining the knife, he gave an
exclamation of surprise. Smoky ornamentation with wavy lines ran the length
of the bluish-grey steel blade. This was Indian damask steel, famous for its
hardness and elasticity.
Fedor found himself drawn more and more often to the tents of the
Sikhs. He liked these plain, stern men with whom he could talk frankly. Most
of all, he was drawn to Bharati, the daughter of the grey-bearded carpenter.
Bharati giggled when Fedor tried to converse with her in a hodgepodge of
languages. She was merry and bubbled with life, unlike the people around
her.
On stifling evenings Fedor and Bharati sat by the side of the pool,
dangling their bare feet in the cool water. Fedor would absentmindedly
launch into a long story in Russian. The girl listened intently, her dark
head bent and her big eyes glowing.
He told her about his distant homeland with its forests and snow, and
rivers whose waters turned white and hard as stone in winter. He talked of
great ships with tall masts and white sails taut in the wind, and the
thunder of the cannon at Hango-Udd. Of the green meadows in spring, and the
song of larks high in the blue sky.
Did Bharati understand him? Probably she did, for it was not the words
that mattered.
From time to time she gave Fedor a sidelong glance. In the starlight
his face with its turned-up nose, his fair hair tossed back, and his brown
beard, soft and curly, made him look, in her eyes, like a god of the North.
She knew that in daylight his eyes were as blue as the water in the ocean.
When Fedor caught himself speaking Russian he fell silent in confusion,
then shifted to his usual gibberish. Bharati laughed, splashing her brown
legs in the pool, but then she would suddenly stop splashing and sit in
silence for a long time. Or else she would start telling Fedor, in her West
Punjab dialect, about her life, about the travels with her father, about the
winter monsoons that blow from the land and the summer monsoons that blow
from the ocean and bring rain, about the hot deserts and the swampy jungles.
As Fedor listened to the half-understood words pronounced in a
high-pitched, flute-like voice, he gazed at the girl's dark, elongated eyes,
the black braids hanging over her shoulder, and her strong, slender arms.
Now Fedor got down to designing the big lightning machine that would be
placed in the temple of Kali. He still knew nothing about the terrible force
that had thrown him to the ground that day. He remembered that jolt as a
combination of the cold bronze hips of the goddess Kali, the crackle of blue
lightning, the smell of a thunderstorm, and the sensation that his body was
being pierced by thousands of needles. The instant of pain was followed by a
strange shivering and a metallic taste in his mouth.
Fedor understood that neither the six-armed Kali nor any other deity
had anything to do with shafts and gears. It was just that the Brahman knew
something which others did not know.
The mysterious force, as Fedor now realized, was produced by the
revolving of the disc, and it could travel anywhere along metal. Lal Chandra
knew how to accumulate that force in metal vessels filled with a liquid; the
bronze statue of Kali was hollow and filled with the same liquid.
Fedor was dying to learn the Brahman's secret and carry it home to
Russia with him. He did not yet know how to discover the secret, or how to
escape afterwards, but he was already wondering how he could get to see the
tsar and tell him about the supernatural force.
Sometimes Lal Chandra burned spices and gums in a bowl standing on a
tripod, from which came odorous smoke, while Fedor helped him to move the
bronze spheres of the machine together and apart. Different spices produced
different kinds of lightning, from very weak flashes to streaks that leaped
across a wide gap between the two spheres.
The smell of the burning spices and gums reminded Fedor of incense and
church, there was something godly about it. But sometimes there was such a
stench that even intrepid Lal Chandra covered his nose, extinguished the
fire in the bowl, and aired the premises. Such a stench could not,
naturally, be associated with divine guidance.
Fedor realized more and more clearly that Ram Das was right and that
Lal Chandra was contemplating some evil deed. He was not calling forth
lightning for the sake of science, or burning his infernal spices merely to
glorify his many-armed idols.
One day the corpse of a middle-aged man, thin hut well-built, was
brought into the laboratory on a stretcher. A table with a heavy black
marble top was placed beside the lightning machine. Two thick, flexible
cables woven of bronze wires were attached to the bronze spheres. Bands of
thin silk soaked in a resin of some kind were wound round the cables.
Needle-sharp silver tips were soldered into the free ends of the silk bands.
At a sign from Lal Chandra the servants placed the naked corpse on the
marble top of the table and silently vanished.
Lal Chandra threw a pinch of spice into the smoking bowl on the tripod.
Greenish clouds of smoke filled the room with a pungent odour.
Next the Brahman picked up one of the cables.
"Take the other but be careful not to touch the tip," he told Fedor.
The disc of the lightning machine revolved faster and faster. The gold
plates merged into a glowing arc. The room was filled with a monotonous
humming.
Fedor held the cable with both hands, the sharp-pointed end sticking
out like a spearhead. Lal Chandra slowly moved his sharp end of the cable
towards Fedor.
There was a crackle as a blinding streak of blue lightning leaped
between the two ends. A spectral light illuminated the clouds of green
smoke. Fedor stood perfectly still. He was accustomed to flashes of
lightning. Lal Chandra swept the end he was holding to one side, and the
lightning, with a final crackle, ceased. Still holding the cable, he went
over to the marbletopped table and pulled off the cloth covering the face of
the dead man.
Fedor gave a start of horror. The face was a terrifying bluish-white.
The tip of the tongue protruded between convulsively twisted lips. The
wide-open glassy eyes held an expression of terror. Round the neck ran a
blue furrow- the clear mark of a woven noose.
Fedor at once remembered the Sikh stories of the abominable sect of
thugs. Their "sacred" nooses hidden beneath their robes, members of the sect
roamed the highways and the city streets in the evening, lying in wait for
victims. Holding the noose by the ends in both hands, the thug crept up from
behind, threw the noose round the neck of a lone passer-by, twisted it into
a knot in a quick movement and, thrusting a knee into the victim's back,
pulled the noose tight.
This was done to propitiate the wrathful goddess Kali.
Fedor had also learned from the Sikhs that such thugs had never
appeared in the Punjab, where the cult of the terrible Kali was not held in
esteem.
Lal Chandra's domain lay far from any community, and the servants did
not leave the grounds of the mansion. This meant that the man, one of Lal
Chandra's slaves-Fedor recognized him in spite of his distorted features-was
not the accidental victim of a fanatic. He had been strangled on the
grounds, inside the high wall, for some transgression, or simply because Lal
Chandra needed a corpse.
A terrifying thought struck Fedor. Lal Chandra was not concealing
anything from him, did not hesitate to show him a man whom he had seen alive
the day before and who had been strangled in such a fashion.
This could only mean that Lal Chandra considered Fedor as good as dead.
When the job was finished Fedor would be strangled just as efficiently as
this poor creature had been. For an instant Fedor thought he could feel the
noose round his neck. He swallowed convulsively. Without thinking, he took a
step towards Lal Chandra.
The Brahman glanced at him in alarm. The silent duel lasted for no more
than a second. Then Fedor pulled himself together, turned and asked in a
toneless voice what he was to do next.
Lal Chandra calmly approached the corpse and plunged the sharp tip into
the brown shoulder.
"Stick your tip into his foot," he ordered.
"I ought to stick it into you," went through
Fedor's mind. "But where would that get me? There are probably thugs in
the next room. Never mind, your turn will come."
Fedor silently pushed the tip of the cable into the dead man's foot-and
leaped aside with a cry. The man's leg had jerked, bent at the knee and then
jerked forward as though it was about to kick Fedor.
Lal Chandra's laughter rang out beneath the vaulted ceiling of the
laboratory.
"Scared, Russian warrior?" he asked mockingly. "Don't be afraid. He
cannot harm you."
Fedor took a deep breath. He gave the Brahman a challenging look and
said: "I am a man of war accustomed to dealing with living adversaries." He
added in Russian: "May the dogs sniff at you, you murderer!"
Later, Fedor found an opportunity to tell Jogindar Singh about the
horrifying experiment.
"That means he is gathering thugs," said the elderly carpenter. "Well,
thugs are mortal. When the time comes we'll see whether the goddess Kali is
pleased by the death of her priests."
CHAPTER FIVE
WHICH ACQUAINTS THE READER WITH
NEWCOMERS IN LAL CHANDRA'S HOUSE
A long caravan passed through the iron gate leading out of Lal
Chandra's garden. In front went eight elephants loaded with the wooden and
metal parts of the water-wheel and the big lightning machine. After the
elephants came several two-horse carts carrying the workmen. Fedor, Jogindar
Singh and Bharati rode in the first cart. Far behind rolled carts drawn by
longhorn oxen, carrying materials that would not be needed at once. The slow
oxen would reach the temple only on the third day. The elephants and the
horse-drawn carts would arrive there in about twenty hours.
The caravan crossed rivers and small streams that were beginning to dry
up. Each time the elephants entered a stream they behaved the way elephants
always do, sucking up water with their trunks and then spraying it over
their heads and backs.
"What wonderful animals!" Fedor exclaimed. "So clever and so
industrious."
"Aren't there elephants in your country?" Bharati asked.
"No," said Fedor, suppressing a sigh. "They're fine animals but I'd
willingly never see another elephant again if only I could return home."
Jogindar Singh glanced at Fedor, noting the sad expression on his face.
"Is there anyone waiting for you at home?"
"Yes, of course. My mother, my father and my sister."
"No wife or children?"
Fedor gave a wry smile. "When you're in the navy you don't have much
time to build a nest of your own."
"Father," said Bharati, "the foreigner is weary from the long journey,
yet you plague him with questions."
Fedor stretched out a hand and gently touched the girl's shoulder. With
a graceful movement she freed her shoulder from his hand.
The cart shook as it rumbled across the stony, practically dry, bed of
one of the numerous tributaries of the Ravi. On the other side they halted,
unharnessed the horses, and settled down to rest in the shade of a large
tree.
The carpenter built a fire and Bharati began to prepare their evening
meal. It was still so light that the flames looked pale.
Fedor picked up a dry stick and started to whittle it.
"If you have courage you can escape from here," the old man said all of
a sudden in a low voice.
"Escape?"
Jogindar Singh squeezed Fedor's arm above the elbow.
"Speak softly. There are many alien ears here. Listen carefully. The
river on which the Kali temple stands flows into the Indus. If you sail down
the Indus for ten days you will reach the sea."
"The sea?" Fedor whispered.
"Just before it enters the sea the Indus divides into many arms," the
carpenter went on. "If you follow the northernmost arm you will reach the
sea near the village of Karachi. But if you take the southernmost arm and
then sail along the coast to the southeast you will come to the Island of
Diu. The Portuguese seized it long ago and have built a fortress there. Do
you know the Portuguese?"
Fedor rubbed his brow with his hand, straining his memory to recall the
Portuguese maps he had seen in France when he was studying navigation there.
"But Diu is somewhere far to the south. About 500 sea miles from
Karachi."
"I do not know how to measure that distance," said Singh, "but it is no
longer than the voyage down the Indus. Look." He took the stick Fedor had
been whittling and sketched, in the sand, a plan of the route along the
coastline.
Fedor sprang to his feet and walked around the campfire. The sea! He
could hear the hurricane wind roaring in his ears and see the blue expanses
shining in the sun. The sea! Only the sea route could bring him home.
Suddenly he remembered where he was. He sat down and picked up the
stick again. As he whittled he said, his voice discouraged, "Thank you for
your kind advice. But I cannot go to sea in a nutshell."
"Listen further." Singh moved closer to him. "Draw me the plans and
I'll build you just the kind of boat you want," he whispered. "There will be
a great deal of work going on at the Kali temple, and I'll be able to
deceive Lal Chandra's men. They won't notice anything." The old carpenter
fell silent. Then he said, "But before you make your escape you must tell us
everything you know about the miracles Lal Chandra is preparing."
Soon after, the caravan set out again. Jogindar Singh fell asleep
inside the cart. Fedor sat on the box in front, gazing thoughtfully at the
road, white in the moonlight, which stretched ahead. He could see only one
thing before his eyes- a sturdily built boat with low sails. It must have a
sliding keel, like those on Turkmen feluccas. Then no squall could overturn
the boat. Oh Lord, could freedom really be so near?
Suddenly he heard soft weeping. He turned round to look into the dark
depths of the cart, which was covered with linen cloth. It was Bharati!
Fedor felt ashamed of himself. There he was, rejoicing like a child and
forgetting all about her!
He stroked her hair and patted her shoulder in the darkness.
"Darling," he whispered. "Did you think I would go anywhere without
you? Don't be afraid. Your seas are warm, and I'm a good sailor. I'll take
care of you. We'll make our way to Russia. Then everything will be fine."
The girl gave a sob and raised her tear-stained face.
"How can I leave Father?" she whispered.
"Why, we'll take him along too! When the time comes we'll tell him
everything. He'll understand."
Bharati shook her head sorrowfully. "No, he won't go anywhere. He won't
leave his people. And I can't leave him."
Fedor fell silent, overwhelmed by despair.
The caravan reached the temple at dawn. Fedor sprang down to the ground
at once. He felt light-headed from lack of sleep and his thoughts were
confused and disconnected.
From dawn to dusk sweat poured from the slaves of Lal Chandra and from
the Sikh artisans as they laboured beneath the merciless sun. They drove
piles for a dam into the bed of the dried-up stream just above the
waterfall, and hacked through the rocky bank so that the water behind the
dam could reach the chute. In the hollow leading to the temple they set up
thick logs to support the chute. They made a frame for the water-wheel.
Fedor was so busy from morning to night that he hardly ever saw
Bharati. He had no chance to talk with her father except about the dam or
the chute, for Lal Chandra's overseers were always close by.
"Will Jogindar Singh be able to handle the job without you if we return
to the house for a few days?" Lal Chandra asked Fedor one evening. "Yes, of
course."
"I want you to talk to him tomorrow morning and tell him what to do.
Give him and his men an assignment for each day. I want you to be prepared
to leave tomorrow evening, as soon as the heat abates."
The next morning Fedor handed Jogindar Singh several drawings and took
him aside to explain what they were about. They seated themselves on planks
laid across the posts which would support the chute. There was no one
nearby. As they examined the drawings Fedor discarded one of them. The
carpenter took the crumpled sheet from him and smoothed it out on his knee.
It was a drawing Fedor had made during a sleepless, lonely night, a sketch
of a sailboat with a sliding keel.
"This sketch is all to no purpose," Fedor muttered gloomily. "I don't
need a boat at all because I love your daughter and she cannot leave you at
such a time." Jogindar Singh closed his eyes. "We'll do everything we can to
save you before the festival," he said finally, after a long silence. "But
anything could happen-"
Many changes had taken place in Lal Chandra's mansion. Here, there and
everywhere Fedor saw strangers who spoke dialects he could not understand.
These were itinerant fakirs. They showed one another the miracles they were
preparing to perform at the festival in honour of the renovated temple. They
completely ignored Fedor and he was able to see what was behind their
miracles.
One morning three men with heavy sacks appeared at the gate and asked
to see Lal Chandra. They were ragged and emaciated, with long hair and
matted beards, their dark-skinned bodies were covered with scratches and
bruises.
Ram Das learned afterwards that they were just back from the Himalayas.
Lal Chandra sent them there at a time when the stars were propitious to lay
large cakes of rare, precious resins on top of the highest snowy peaks in
order to bring the resins closer to the stars. They had spent some time
there in the mountains- suffering from the intense cold, living on scanty
rations, and trembling in fear of the mountain spirits. Of the seven whom
Lal Chandra had sent, four perished in the fissures of glaciers or fell over
precipices. This was all that Ram Das was able to learn. He predicted that
no one would ever again see the three men who had returned with the resins.
Soon after, a tall, portly Brahman in white robes appeared in the
mansion. Lal Chandra treated him with great deference. On the morning of the
Brahman's arrival Lal Chandra sent Fedor away for the whole day.
Fedor had a great many things to keep him busy. On Lal Chandra's orders
he stretched the plaited copper cables covered with resin-impregnated silk
from the lightning machine into the garden, to the pool at whose edge he and
Bharati used to sit in the evenings.
Posts which had been soaked in oil were set up on both sides of the
pool. Copper bars attached to the posts were lowered into the water. At the
ends of the bars there were highly polished concave copper mirrors that
faced one another in the water.
An enormous, tower-like barrel, fourteen feet in diameter and a good
thirty-five feet high, made of sheets of copper, stood beside the pool.
Fedor had drawn the plans of the barrel only a short while before, at the
Kali temple, and he was amazed to see it completed when he returned to Lal
Chandra's house. For two days in a row men had scooped water out of the
pool, had climbed up to a platform on top of the copper barrel, and had
poured more than 10 000 pails of water into it. Then Lal Chandra himself had
climbed to the top of the barrel and sprinkled several bags of spices and
gums into the water.
A thick copper chain hung from the platform into the water. Similar
copper cables covered with silk connected the barrel and the chain with
clips at the pool.
Fedor knew that the force produced by the lightning machine could pass
anywhere along metal, but not through silk and wood soaked in oil.
He also knew that this force was strongly drawn to the ground, from
which all metal parts had to be kept away.
Lal Chandra and Fedor carefully examined all the connections.
"Strike the gong to set the machine in motion," Lal Chandra said in his
gentle voice.
The imposing Brahman strolled towards the pool. Lal Chandra
deferentially explained something to him in a language Fedor did not
understand. They both kept their eyes on the surface of the pool.
Near one of the bars the water bubbled and boiled as though it were
being heated by invisible fires. At the other bar the water was far less
turbulent but a faint, strange-smelling mist was rising from it.
Lal Chandra picked up the free end of a wire and, holding it at arm's
length, brought it up to the bar where the water was bubbling.
There was a crackle, a flash of lightning, and a great pillar of fire
shot out of the water.
Fedor leaped aside; he stared flabbergasted at the bright pillar of
flame. The flame shrank in size but it remained as bright as ever. If anyone
had told Fedor that water could burn he would not have believed it. Yet now-
"Break the path of the mysterious force," Lal Chandra commanded.
One of the cables ran through a wooden frame to which a copper bar was
attached at one end by a hinge, while the other rested on a copper plate.
Fedor tugged at a silk cord, and the bar rose. Lightning streaked
between the bar and the plate for an instant.
The water near the bar immediately stopped bubbling and the flame died
down.
"Now open the path to the force," Lal Chandra said.
Fedor released the cord. The copper bar dropped to the plate. Again the
water bubbled and seethed, but there was no flame.
Lal Chandra picked up a clay pitcher of fragrant oil and, tipping it
cautiously, poured some oil into the water above the mirror attached to the
bar.
The oil instantly flowed through the water to the other side of the
pool. They could see the oil forming a ball as it stopped above the opposite
mirror.
With Fedor's help Lal Chandra lifted a huge pitcher containing at least
three pails of the same fragrant reddish oil and poured it into the pool.
Instead of spreading across the surface the oil sank into the water and
flowed in a long stream to the opposite mirror. A fairly large-sized ball of
oil had now formed there.
Lal Chandra picked up a ladle with a long handle and dipped out the
oil. The mysterious force did not strike him.
Fedor was so impressed by everything he had seen that he could not get
it out of his mind. That night he lay awake a long time. "I must get to the
bottom of it, no matter what," he resolved.
CHAPTER SIX
IN WHICH FEDOR MATVEYEV TRIES TO KILL THE BRAHMAN
Fedor lay in bed with open eyes, unable to fall asleep. Scenes from the
past went through his mind. How fed up he was with this foreign land! How he
wished he were home!
More than five years had passed since Prince Bekovich-Cherkassky's
detachment met its doom. He had been in the service of Lal Chandra for
nearly five long years.
"I'll probably be granted a good long furlough if I ask for it as a
reward for what I've gone through," he reflected. "Then I can have a holiday
at home. Mother and Father probably think I am dead. Father Pafnuty must
have conducted a funeral service."
Sleep was out of the question. Fedor rose from his bed. In a loin-cloth
and a thin shirt he stepped across the windowsill to a covered gallery that
ran round the inner courtyard. There it was somewhat cooler than in his
room. Fedor leaned against the railing and again gave himself up to thought.
Suddenly he heard voices. He pricked up his ears and listened. They
were speaking a language he did not know, the language in which Lal Chandra
talked to the fakirs. He recognized Lal Chandra's gentle voice. Sometimes it
was interrupted by an imperious, sharp, threatening voice. Fedor realized it
was the voice of the Brahman who had been present during the experiment with
water, fire and oil. He must be an important person.
The third voice was unfamiliar. It spoke more rarely than the other two
and repeated the same phrase, in the same tone, in reply to everything the
Brahman said.
The voices were coming from a window on the upper storey of an
intricate tower that rose above the central hall in which the altar to Kali
stood.
The tower was a square, ledged pyramid covered with sculptured figures
of elephants, horses and many-armed gods. Fedor had always thought the tower
was purely ornamental since there was no way of entering it from the house.
But now, in the middle of the night, a faint light glowed in the window and
it was from there that the voices came.
Something urged Fedor to act. He slipped back over the windowsill into
his room, took his knife from its hiding place in the bedding, and tucked it
inside his loin-cloth. Then he returned to the gallery, scrambled up a post
to its flat roof, and from there made his way to the roof of the house.
As he approached the tower Fedor realized that the window with the
light in it was all of forty feet from the roof. Well, in for a penny, in
for a pound! Clinging to the high-reliefs of gods and sacred animals, Fedor
clambered upwards from ledge to ledge. It was a moonless night, and he
thought it unlikely anyone would notice his white-shirted figure against the
white masonry of the tower.
Clasping the stone body of a deity, Fedor cautiously peered through the
window.
An oil lamp illuminated a round room. The floor was covered with rugs
on which bright cushions were scattered.
An imposing-looking old man was seated on cushions in front of a low
table covered with papers and rolls of parchment. His thin, deeply wrinkled
face, framed in long grey hair, was impassive.
In front of the old man, their backs to Fedor, stood Lal Chandra and
the distinguished Brahman. Lal Chandra was now shouting in a high-pitched,
venomous voice. The elderly Brahman's voice was also savage. But the old man
kept calmly repeating the same words.
Fedor glanced about the room with curiosity. The shelves along the
walls and the tables were covered with glassware and instruments, and a
small lightning machine stood in the corner.
So this was where Lal Chandra got his ideas, thought Fedor. He did not
invent his "miracles" himself but took the ideas for them from this old man
whom he kept locked up and whom he forced to create all those mysteries for
his own purposes.
Now the two Brahmans were evidently trying to force the old man to tell
them something.
Suddenly the old man rose to his feet. Tall and thin, he looked at the
two Brahmans scornfully from beneath thick grey eyebrows. He began to speak,
slowly and calmly. Judging by their expressions, Lal Chandra and his
distinguished companion found his words unpleasant.
As the old man moved, Fedor saw something glitter behind his back.
Looking more closely, he saw a thin chain leading from the man's belt to a
ring attached to the wall.
A feeling of pity mingled with anger swept over Fedor. How he wanted to
spring into the room and throw himself on those two torturers. His hand
involuntarily sought his knife.
"I'll strike that aristocratic viper first," he thought. "Then I'll
settle with Lal Chandra, may the dogs sniff at his corpse. But what next?
With all those menials everywhere I won't be able to get out of the house.
There are probably guards inside the tower too."
The aristocratic Brahman said something to Lal Chandra in a low voice.
Lal Chandra bowed and went out through a small door under the vaulted
ceiling. A second later a tall fakir with a caste mark on his forehead
entered. Placing the palms of his hands together, he bowed to the Brahman.
Then he went up behind the old man and, taking a thin cord out of his robe,
wound it round the neck of his victim, carefully passing it under the old
man's grey beard. He twisted the ends of the cord round his hands, raised
his r...
