The Weeping Ash (50 page)

The Holy Pir laughed kindly.

“Do not perturb yourself, ma'am! I will not deprive you of your charge. And now”—he glanced at the light in the sky—“I must return to my devotions, but I look forward to conversing with all or any of you again next time I am at leisure.”

He returned to his desk, picked up the bell and the rosary, elevated his gaze to the northern sky, and recommenced his chanting as if he had never stopped.

Somewhat awed by this remarkable duality and detachment, Scylla followed Miss Musson on tiptoe from the cave. Outside, above a fairly narrow ledge overhanging the precipice, she noticed an altar, liberally smeared with yak butter and loaded with offerings: goats' heads, green disks of flat buckwheat bread, silver beads and amulets, markhor horns. It was evident that some pilgrims ventured no farther than this, perhaps fearing to disturb the Holy Pir at his devotions.

Cal did not follow his companions.

“He will come by and by,” said Miss Musson tranquilly. “I hope that he is learning resignation from that holy man.”

They retraced their way down the winding rock steps and when they had reached the foot Miss Musson said:

“If you are feeling truly recovered, my dear, would you care to accompany me in a search for camel fodder? Rob does not dare allow the camels to graze outside because, of course, if the Bai does send any pursuers this way, they would be instantly recognized. And it seems too hard that all the labor of finding forage for them should devolve on the men.”

“Of course I will help you,” Scylla said instantly. “I shall be glad to see what lies outside the cave.”

The view from the Pir's window in the cliff face had shown a series of gradually declining foothills, rippling away northward into a great flat desert plain, of apparently almost limitless extent. But when they left the cave by an eastward entrance, Scylla realized that they must be at the northern tip of the chain of mountains which, she knew, curled through the center of Kafiristan. Great peaks, some of them still snow-covered, surrounded the upland plateau which lay behind the Pir's mountain. Here grew wild sage and wild rose, huge thistles, pale spear grass, leaves of wild hollyhock and uncurling tendrils of wild rhubarb. It did not take the two women very long to gather a large bundle of grass apiece, but, Miss Musson said, “Camels eat a deal of fodder; we had better take in at least a dozen bundles each.” Scylla had no objection; it was pleasant, here on the mountainside, going to and fro, and on the slopes sheltered from the keen and constant wind the sun was very hot.

“Pray tell me, child, if you see anybody approaching,” Miss Musson said. “My eyes are not as good as yours.” And presently, far off across the plateau, Scylla was able to inform her guardian that she could see the tall, rangy figure of Cameron and the shorter, rounder one of the Therbah, carrying some large beast slung between them. As they came closer, this was revealed to be a large, shaggy deerlike animal.

“Cameron Sahib shoot a foo!” called the Therbah joyfully.

Cameron, less enthusiastic, apparently, about the acquisition of the foo, approached the females with a forbidding expression.

“I
did
ask you, ma'am, not to venture far from the cave,” he remarked irritably as soon as he was within speaking range. “Supposing the Bai's warriors should ride this way? They could see you for a great distance in this open place.”

Scylla was tempted to retort, “In that case, was it not rather foolhardy of you, Colonel Cameron, to go hunting so far from the cave?” but, with an effort, she held her peace.

“I am sorry; I did not think of that,” admitted Miss Musson. She did not seem too perturbed, however, and added placidly, “Well, it is fortunate that Scylla and I have collected a great deal of fodder. Now nobody need go out for two days at least, as I see our stewpot has been handsomely provided for; and, by the end of that time, perhaps you may be satisfied that danger of pursuit is over.”

“How can I be?” he replied gloomily, and was turning to climb up to the cave mouth (a large cleft in the mountainside, approached by a kind of rock stair) when Scylla walked up to him.

“Colonel Cameron,” she said resolutely. “I am very sorry indeed for the inconvenience and trouble that my—my action at the Bai's castle has brought upon you. Heaven knows that we have immeasurable cause to be grateful to you. You must have been tempted to abandon such awkward charges as we have proved many times over, and yet you have borne with us and rescued us from the predicaments in which we have involved you, again and again. I can only apologize and hope that you may be able to forgive me.”

She had prepared this speech with some care and spoke it slowly, with a thudding heart. Concluding, she looked up into his face and held out her hand. But his face, she saw with dismay, was set like granite, and he replied dryly, without taking the extended hand:

“Let us proceed into the cave, if you please, before we discuss your behavior at the Bai's castle, Miss Paget.”

Deeply mortified at this rebuff, she spun around on her heel and climbed up into the cave entrance, biting her lip to keep herself from tears. When they were inside and she was certain of her voice, she said:

“I have not the least intention of
discussing
my behavior at the Bai's castle, Colonel Cameron,” and walked hastily away through the heaps of camel fodder toward the chamber where Miss Musson had arranged her sickbed.

Miss Musson followed her, while the two men, assisted by Cal, who had come down from the upper cave at that moment, set about carrying the fodder into some more remote area where the camels were quartered.

“The camels must be housed deep inside the mountain, poor things,” Miss Musson explained in her matter-of-fact way, following Scylla with little Chet balanced on her hip, “for, of course, if a troop of the Bai's riders arrived, and they had any camels with them, they would all call to each other; camels are very communicative beasts, it seems.”

“I see,” replied Scylla mechanically, taking little Chet from her guardian. His friendly warmth was consoling; she sat down on the pile of feathers and gave him a hug. Noticing her inattentive tone, Miss Musson said kindly:

“Now, my dear child, pray do not be distressing yourself about Rob! He is stiff-necked, as most men are—
especially
those of Scots descent—he will come around by and by. You have done your part by apologizing—you did very well—all you need do now is keep out of his way as much as possible until we recommence our journey, so as to avoid occasions for dispute.” Scylla received this discouraging news without comment.

* * *

At the end of two more days' cave life Scylla was heartily weary of incarceration and longed to be on the move again. Even the Bai's castle would have been preferable! Following Miss Musson's advice, she had hardly seen Cameron—except for brief intervals at mealtimes—but she heard from Cal that he still thought it best not to move on.

During this period the two women mended their clothes and those of the men; the Therbah assiduously groomed the camels and made a new carrying frame for little Chet; Cal spent as much time as he was permitted in theological discussions with the Holy Pir, a good many hours in waiting, and the rest of his time holding long conversations with Scylla.

Sooner or later these always came around to the subject of Sripana and his feelings about her; certain that the more he was allowed to discuss his hopeless passion, the sooner he would begin to recover from it, Scylla indulged him in this, though she was beginning to find these dialogues inexpressibly painful.

How Colonel Cameron passed his leisure Scylla did not know, nor did she inquire. But at the end of three days his caution received its justification, for a troop of armed men in the service of Mir Murad Beg came climbing up the slopes of the Pir's mountain.

Fortunately there were no external traces to betray the presence of the fugitives. The incessant wind (the Therbah said it was called “the wind that blows for a hundred and twenty days”) removed all footprints from the rocky, dusty terrain, and all camel droppings had been thriftily scooped up to be used for fuel. The indignant camels themselves had had their muzzles tied up to prevent them from roaring, snarling, or shrieking and had been led by the Therbah to the deepest cave he could find that would accommodate them, as soon as the first tiny puff of dust, denoting a troop of horses, had been sighted on the horizon.

The humans, likewise, took refuge far inside the mountain, where they were obliged to remain without light or fire, because the smell of smoke, drifting through the tunnels, might betray their presence. Even little Chet was somewhat dismayed by the cold and the blank darkness; he whimpered dolefully at first but was appeased by Scylla's holding him tightly and singing all the lullabies she could think of, in a voice hardly above a whisper, until he finally fell asleep.

This disagreeable period of imprisonment seemed to last for an eternity. Cameron had asked the Holy Pir's disciple, Buyantu, a small, stocky, taciturn monk with a very Mongolian cast of countenance, to let them know when the searchers departed; but hours elapsed before his shuffling tread was heard coming along the rocky passages, and the glimmer of his taper gradually illuminated their tomblike place of refuge.

Buyantu explained to the Therbah (the only one who understood his dialect) that the Bai's men had been obliged to remain for several hours—it had seemed like days to the captives—because the Holy Pir was engaged in one of his periods of prayer and could not be interrupted. Meanwhile Buyantu had blocked all their questions with the answer, “I know nothing; I know nothing.”

The leaders of the troop—two of the Bai's sons—were finally admitted to the Holy Pir's presence.

“Bless the old boy, he was quite equal to them,” said Cal cheerfully, telling his sister about the interview later. “Apparently they said to him, ‘Have you seen some European thieves and murderers here?' or something like that, and he answered, ‘I have seen nothing but God.' He wasn't telling any lie. That's all he does see. And of course they were obliged to accept his word, because he is the Holy Pir.”

“Did he learn what had happened to Dizane?” asked Scylla anxiously.

“Yes, they told him the whole story—how the Bai had been wounded and insulted and deprived of his rightful property—meaning Dizane.”

“Where is she?”

“She is dead.”

Scylla had expected as much, but still the news came as a kind of numbing grief: she remembered so clearly how the girl had knelt to her, how she had snatched up the gun, the urgency of her speech, the touch of her hand—now all that proud energy was gone, finished.

“What happened?”

“They were following her on horseback, coming closer, and she slowed up a little and turned around to shout back at them, ‘You will never catch me, never!' and then she jumped her horse over a cliff.”

“Oh, I am glad!” Scylla said fervently. “Does Cameron know?”

“Yes, he was there when the Holy Pir was telling us about it.”

“Did he say anything?”

“No; he asked about the Bai.”

“Was the Bai badly hurt?”

“No; he is better now.”

“That is fortunate… So now we can continue on our journey?”

“When a pilgrim caravan passes by.”

This did not occur for another ten days, during which the party had time to grow exceedingly weary of cave life and a diet composed mainly of mountain goat.

However on the fifth day the Pir, learning by chance from Cal that they were very short of funds, suddenly announced that he would escort them to a spot where they might supply themselves with enough wealth to provide them with provisions and equipment for the rest of their journey.

“How very singular!” exclaimed Scylla when Cal told her this. “Wealth to be picked up in the wilderness? What is this place?”

“A ruined temple, it seems, destroyed by King Ogotai when he came down from the north.”

“Ogotai?”

“He was a son or nephew of Genghis Khan,” replied the well-informed Cal.

“If there are treasures,” said Scylla, thinking of the Great King's tomb at Ziatur, “why have thieves not made off with them long ago?”

“They believe the temple is watched over by a powerful djinn.”

* * *

It took them half a day's journey to reach the temple of Koh-i-Ruwan; this was partly because of the Pir, who, owing to his stationary life, could not move very quickly. He rode on a white ass; the rest of the party walked, and the outing took on something of the cheerful aspect of a picnic excursion, because the Pir was delighted as a boy to have a chance of a day out from his cave and continual orisons.

“I shall have to pray for twenty-one days without stopping at all to make up for this,” he confided to Miss Musson. “But yet it will have been worth it! I know that the world we see about us is merely an illusion, an insubstantial show, a shred of vapor, no more important than a dream—but still, it has a very agreeable appearance!”

Miss Musson admired the white ass, a handsome beast, and he told her that he had once ridden it all the way to Mecca. “I have been to all the holy places of Asia.—But there is nothing in Mecca,” he said sadly. “It is just a place, like any other. For true sanctity one must look inward.”

Scylla discovered with amazement that the Pir had also been to Jerusalem, to Constantinople, and even to Rome, which was where he had learned his excellent English.

“But all this running to and fro in the world is as nothing! Travel, even to the greatest seats of learning and sanctity, weighs nothing in the balance—no, not so much as a grain of sand—against remaining in one spot, withdrawing from temptation, abstaining from all actions, even virtuous ones, and loosening one's ties with everything temporal and corporeal.”