The Strange Ride of Morrowbie Jukes - Part II

My only means of escape from the semicircle was protected with a
quicksand!

How long I lay I have not the faintest idea; but I was roused at last by
the malevolent chuckle of Gunga Dass at my ear. "I would advise you,
Protector of the Poor" (the ruffian was speaking English) "to return to
your house. It is unhealthy to lie down here. Moreover, when the boat
returns, you will most certainly be rifled at." He stood over me in the
dim light, of the dawn, chuckling and laughing to himself.

Suppressing my first impulse to catch the man by the neck and throw him on
to the quicksand, I rose sullenly and followed him to the platform below
the burrows.

Suddenly, and futilely as I thought while I spoke, I asked:--"Gunga Dass,
what is the good of the boat if I can't get out _anyhow?_" I recollect
that even in my deepest trouble I had been speculating vaguely on the
waste of ammunition in guarding an already well protected foreshore.

Gunga Dass laughed again and made answer:--"They have the boat only in
daytime. It is for the reason that _there is a way_. I hope we shall have
the pleasure of your company for much longer time. It is a pleasant spot
when you have been here some years and eaten roast crow long enough."

I staggered, numbed and helpless, toward the fetid burrow allotted to me,
and fell asleep. An hour or so later I was awakened by a piercing
scream--the shrill, high-pitched scream of a horse in pain. Those who have
once heard that will never forget the sound. I found some little
difficulty in scrambling out of the burrow. When I was in the open, I saw
Pornic, my poor old Pornic, lying dead on the sandy soil. How they had
killed him I cannot guess. Gunga Dass explained that horse was better than
crow, and "greatest good of greatest number is political maxim. We are now
Republic, Mister Jukes, and you are entitled to a fair share of the beast.
If you like, we will pass a vote of thanks. Shall I propose?"

Yes, we were a Republic indeed! A Republic of wild beasts penned at the
bottom of a pit, to eat and fight and sleep till we died. I attempted no
protest of any kind, but sat down and stared at the hideous sight in front
of me. In less time almost than it takes me to write this, Pornic's body
was divided, in some unclean way or other; the men and women had dragged
the fragments on to the platform and were preparing their morning meal.
Gunga Dass cooked mine. The almost irresistible impulse to fly at the sand
walls until I was wearied laid hold of me afresh, and I had to struggle
against it with all my might. Gunga Dass was offensively jocular till I
told him that if he addressed another remark of any kind whatever to me I
should strangle him where he sat. This silenced him till silence became
insupportable, and I bade him say something.

"You will live here till you die like the other Feringhi," he said,
coolly, watching me over the fragment of gristle that he was gnawing.

"What other Sahib, you swine? Speak at once, and don't stop to tell me a
lie."

"He is over there," answered Gunga Dass, pointing to a burrow-mouth about
four doors to the left of my own. "You can see for yourself. He died in
the burrow as you will die, and I will die, and as all these men and women
and the one child will also die."

"For pity's sake tell me all you know about him. Who was he? When did he
come, and when did he die?"

This appeal was a weak step on my part. Gunga Dass only leered and
replied:--"I will not--unless you give me something first."

Then I recollected where I was, and struck the man between the eyes,
partially stunning him. He stepped down from the platform at once, and,
cringing and fawning and weeping and attempting to embrace my feet, led me
round to the burrow which he had indicated.

"I know nothing whatever about the gentleman, Your God be my witness that
I do not He was as anxious to escape as you were, and he was shot from the
boat, though we all did all things to prevent him from attempting. He was
shot here." Gunga Dass laid his hand on his lean stomach and bowed, to the
earth.

"Well, and what then? Go on!"

"And then--and then, Your Honor, we carried him into his house and gave
him water, and put wet cloths on the wound, and he laid down in his house
and gave up the ghost."

"In how long? In how long?"

"About half an hour, after he received his wound. I call Vishnu to
witness," yelled the wretched man, "that I did everything for him.
Everything which was possible, that I did!"

He threw himself down on the ground and clasped my ankles. But I had my
doubts about Gunga Dass's benevolence, and kicked him off as he lay
protesting.

"I believe you robbed him of everything he had. But I can find out in a
minute or two. How long was the Sahib here?"

"Nearly a year and a half. I think he must have gone mad. But hear me
swear, Protector of the Poor! Won't Your Honor hear me swear that I never
touched an article that belonged to him? What is Your Worship going to
do?"

I had taken Gunga Dass by the waist and had hauled him on to the platform
opposite the deserted burrow. As I did so I thought of my wretched
fellow-prisoner's unspeakable misery among all these horrors for eighteen
months, and the final agony of dying like a rat in a hole, with a
bullet-wound in the stomach. Gunga Dass fancied I was going to kill him
and howled pitifully. The rest of the population, in the plethora that
follows a full flesh meal, watched us without stirring.

"Go inside, Gunga Dass," said I, "and fetch it out."

I was feeling sick and faint with horror now. Gunga Dass nearly rolled off
the platform and howled aloud.

"But I am Brahmin, Sahib--a high-caste Brahmin. By your soul, by your
father's soul, do not make me do this thing!"

"Brahmin or no Brahmin, by my soul and my father's soul, in you go!" I
said, and, seizing him by the shoulders, I crammed his head into the mouth
of the burrow, kicked the rest of him in, and, sitting down, covered my
face with my hands.

At the end of a few minutes I heard a rustle and a creak; then Gunga Dass
in a sobbing, choking whisper speaking to himself; then a soft thud--and I
uncovered my eyes.

The dry sand had turned the corpse entrusted to its keeping into a
yellow-brown mummy. I told Gunga Dass to stand off while I examined it.
The body--clad in an olive-green hunting-suit much stained and worn, with
leather pads on the shoulders--was that of a man between thirty and forty,
above middle height, with light, sandy hair, long mustache, and a rough
unkempt beard. The left canine of the upper jaw was missing, and a portion
of the lobe of the right ear was gone. On the second finger of the left
hand was a ring--a shield-shaped bloodstone set in gold, with a monogram
that might have been either "B.K." or "B.L." On the third finger of the
right hand was a silver ring in the shape of a coiled cobra, much worn and
tarnished. Gunga Dass deposited a handful of trifles he had picked out of
the burrow at my feet, and, covering the face of the body with my
handkerchief, I turned to examine these. I give the full list in the hope
that it may lead to the identification of the unfortunate man:

1. Bowl of a briarwood pipe, serrated at the edge; much worn and
blackened; bound with string at the screw.

2. Two patent-lever keys; wards of both broken.

3. Tortoise-shell-handled penknife, silver or nickel, name-plate, marked
with monogram "B.K."

4. Envelope, postmark undecipherable, bearing a Victorian stamp, addressed
to "Miss Mon----" (rest illegible)--"ham"--"nt."

5. Imitation crocodile-skin notebook with pencil. First forty-five pages
blank; four and a half illegible; fifteen others filled with private
memoranda relating chiefly to three persons--a Mrs. L. Singleton,
abbreviated several times to "Lot Single," "Mrs. S. May," and "Garmison,"
referred to in places as "Jerry" or "Jack."

6. Handle of small-sized hunting-knife. Blade snapped short. Buck's horn,
diamond cut, with swivel and ring on the butt; fragment of cotton cord
attached.

It must not be supposed that I inventoried all these things on the spot as
fully as I have here written them down. The notebook first attracted my
attention, and I put it in my pocket with a view to studying it later on.
The rest of the articles I conveyed to my burrow for safety's sake, and
there, being a methodical man, I inventoried them. I then returned to the
corpse and ordered Gunga Dass to help me to carry it out to the
river-front. While we were engaged in this, the exploded shell of an old
brown cartridge dropped out of one of the pockets and rolled at my feet.
Gunga Dass had not seen it; and I fell to thinking that a man does not
carry exploded cartridge-cases, especially "browns," which will not bear
loading twice, about with him when shooting. In other words, that
cartridge-case has been fired inside the crater. Consequently there must
be a gun somewhere. I was on the verge of asking Gunga Dass, but checked
myself, knowing that he would lie. We laid the body down on the edge of
the quicksand by the tussocks. It was my intention to push it out and let
it be swallowed up--the only possible mode of burial that I could think
of. I ordered Gunga Dass to go away.

Then I gingerly put the corpse out on the quicksand. In doing so, it was
lying face downward, I tore the frail and rotten khaki shooting-coat open,
disclosing a hideous cavity in the back. I have already told you that the
dry sand had, as it were, mummified the body. A moment's glance showed
that the gaping hole had been caused by a gun-shot wound; the gun must
have been fired with the muzzle almost touching the back. The
shooting-coat, being intact, had been drawn over the body after death,
which must have been instantaneous. The secret of the poor wretch's death
was plain to me in a flash. Some one of the crater, presumably Gunga Dass,
must have shot him with his own gun--the gun that fitted the brown
cartridges. He had never attempted to escape in the face of the rifle-fire
from the boat.

I pushed the corpse out hastily, and saw it sink from sight literally in a
few seconds. I shuddered as I watched. In a dazed, half-conscious way I
turned to peruse the notebook. A stained and discolored slip of paper had
been inserted between the binding and the back, and dropped out as I
opened the pages. This is what it contained:--_"Four out from crow-clump:
three left; nine out; two right; three back; two left; fourteen out; two
left; seven out; one left; nine back; two right; six back; four right;
seven back_." The paper had been burned and charred at the edges. What it
meant I could not understand. I sat down on the dried bents turning it
over and over between my fingers, until I was aware of Gunga Dass standing
immediately behind me with glowing eyes and outstretched hands.

"Have you got it?" he panted. "Will you not let me look at it also? I
swear that I will return it."

"Got what? Return what?" I asked.

"That which you have in your hands. It will help us both." He stretched
out his long, bird-like talons, trembling with eagerness,

"I could never find it," he continued. "He had secreted it about his
person. Therefore I shot him, but nevertheless I was unable to obtain it."

Gunga Dass had quite forgotten his little fiction about the rifle-bullet.
I received the information perfectly calmly. Morality is blunted by
consorting with the Dead who are alive.

"What on earth are you raving about? What is it you want me to give you?"

"The piece of paper in the notebook. It will help us both. Oh, you fool!
You fool! Can you not see what it will do for us? We shall escape!"

His voice rose almost to a scream, and he danced with excitement before
me. I own I was moved at the chance of getting away.

"Don't skip! Explain yourself. Do you mean to say that this slip of paper
will help us? What does it mean?"

"Read it aloud! Read it aloud! I beg and I pray you to read it aloud."

I did so. Gunga Dass listened delightedly, and drew an irregular line in
the sand with his fingers.

"See now! It was the length of his gun-barrels without the stock. I have
those barrels. Four gun-barrels out from the place where I caught crows.
Straight out; do you follow me? Then three left--Ah! how well I remember
when that man worked it out night after night. Then nine out, and so on.
Out is always straight before you across the quicksand. He told me so
before I killed him."

"But if you knew all this why didn't you get out before?"

"I did _not_ know it. He told me that he was working it out a year and a
half ago, and how he was working it out night after night when the boat
had gone away, and he could get out near the quicksand safely. Then he
said that we would get away together. But I was afraid that he would leave
me behind one night when he had worked it all out, and so I shot him.
Besides, it is not advisable that the men who once get in here should
escape. Only I, and _I_ am a Brahmin."

The prospect of escape had brought Gunga Dass's caste back to him. He
stood up, walked about and gesticulated violently. Eventually I managed to
make him talk soberly, and he told me how this Englishman had spent six
months night after night in exploring, inch by inch, the passage across
the quicksand; how he had declared it to be simplicity itself up to within
about twenty yards of the river bank after turning the flank of the left
horn of the horseshoe. This much he had evidently not completed when Gunga
Dass shot him with his own gun,

In my frenzy of delight at the possibilities of escape I recollect shaking
hands effusively with Gunga Dass, after we had decided that we were to
make an attempt to get away that very night. It was weary work waiting
throughout the afternoon.

About ten o'clock, as far as I could judge, when the Moon had just risen
above the lip of the crater, Gunga Dass made a move for his burrow to
bring out the gun-barrels whereby to measure our path. All the other
wretched inhabitants had retired to their lairs long ago. The guardian
boat drifted down-stream some hours before, and we were utterly alone by
the crow-clump. Gunga Dass, while carrying the gun-barrels, let slip the
piece of paper which was to be our guide. I stooped down hastily to
recover it, and, as I did so, I was aware that the diabolical Brahmin was
aiming a violent blow at the back of my head with the gun-barrels. It was
too late to turn round. I must have received the blow somewhere on the
nape of my neck. A hundred thousand fiery stars danced before my eyes, and
I fell forward senseless at the edge of the quicksand.

When I recovered consciousness, the Moon was going down, and I was
sensible of intolerable pain in the back of my head. Gunga Dass had
disappeared and my mouth was full of blood. I lay down again and prayed
that I might die without more ado. Then the unreasoning fury which I have
before mentioned laid hold upon me, and I staggered inland toward the
walls of the crater. It seemed that some one was calling to me in a
whisper--"Sahib! Sahib! Sahib!" exactly as my bearer used to call me in
the mornings. I fancied that I was delirious until a handful of sand fell
at my feet, Then I looked up and saw a head peering down into the
amphitheatre--the head of Dunnoo, my dog-boy, who attended to my collies.
As soon as he had attracted my attention, he held up his hand and showed a
rope. I motioned, staggering to and fro the while, that he should throw it
down. It was a couple of leather punkah-ropes knotted together, with a
loop at one end. I slipped the loop over my head and under my arms; heard
Dunnoo urge something forward; was conscious that I was being dragged,
face downward, up the steep sand slope, and the next instant found myself
choked and half fainting on the sand hills overlooking the crater. Dunnoo,
with his face ashy grey in the moonlight, implored me not to stay but to
get back to my tent at once.

It seems that he had tracked Pornic's footprints fourteen miles across the
sands to the crater; had returned and told my servants, who flatly refused
to meddle with any one, white or black, once fallen into the hideous
Village of the Dead; whereupon Dunnoo had taken one of my ponies and a
couple of punkah-ropes, returned to the crater, and hauled me out as I
have described.

To cut a long story short, Dunnoo is now my personal servant on a gold
mohur a month--a sum which I still think far too little for the services
he has rendered. Nothing on earth will induce me to go near that devilish
spot again, or to reveal its whereabouts more clearly than I have done. Of
Gunga Dass I have never found a trace, nor do I wish to do. My sole motive
in giving this to be published is the hope that some one may possibly
identify, from the details and the inventory which I have given above, the
corpse of the man in the olive-green hunting-suit.