The smell here transcended mere badness. It was not a smell of mammals or even reptiles, but of an entirely different order of Creation. It was thrilling. For quite some time Jack had been breathing through his nose, but now he threw one arm over his face and sucked in air through the crook of his elbow. For the air in this, the deepest and innermost part of the hospital, was (he estimated) fifty percent insects by volume, a sort of writhing meat-cloud that continually hummed, as if he had climbed into an organ pipe. And if even one of those bugs got into a nostril and injured itself trying to struggle free of Jack's nose-hairs, the caretakers would be sure to notice, and then Jack would be out of a job. For the same reason, he had altered his gait, and now shuffled along on bare feet, plowing carefully through the drifts and flurries of bugs on the floor, hoping there weren't any scorpions there just now.
"Jack Shaftoe reporting for duty!" he hollered. The chief bug-doctor, and his diverse hierarchies and sub-hierarchies of assistants, had all been sleeping under gauzy bug-nets suspended from the ceiling. These huddled in the corners of the bug-ward like claques of pointy-headed ghosts. They now began to bobble and twitch as sleepy Hindoos emerged from them. Jack stripped down to the thong that he used to protect what remained of his privities, and handed his clothes to someone (he wasn't sure whom, and didn't care; this was Hindoostan, there were a lot of people here, and if you held something out and looked expectant, someone would soon enough take it).
A boy brought him the usual concoction, holding the coconut shell to Jack's lips while others bound Jack's hands together behind his back with a strip of cloth. Out of habit, Jack put his ankles together so that those could likewise be bound. When he had finished gulping down that draught (which was supposed to nourish and replenish the blood), he allowed himself to fall forward, and was caught by many small warm hands and gently lowered onto the floor—though not before it had been gently swept clear of any insects. His bound ankles were brought up to meet his hands, and all were tied together above his bare buttocks. Meanwhile a swathe of gauze was being tied about his head, screening his mouth, nose, and eyes.
Above, he could hear a boom of timber—what sailors would call a yard—being swung around until one end of it was above him. From a pulley on its tip, a stout rope was now brought down and tied to the web of bonds that joined his wrists and ankles, with a couple of turns around his waist to carry most of his weight.
Deeper voices spoke now—the pulley squeaked, the rope tensed, the yard began to tick and groan, and then Jack was airborne. They swung the yard around, Jack skimming along just a hand's breadth above the floor, escorted by giggling and shuffling Hindoo boys. But these suddenly peeled away as the stone floor dropped out from under him and he swung out over a pit: a stone-lined silo perhaps four yards across and somewhat less in depth. They let him hang above the middle of it for a few seconds, prodding him artfully with bamboo poles until he stopped swinging; then the rope was let out and Jack descended. Many torches had been lit for this the most critical part of the operation. The gauze over his eyes strained their light from the air and clouded his vision, which was just as well. They took utmost care not to let his full weight down onto the sandy floor of the pit until they were absolutely certain that no living creature was underneath him. But they or their ancestors had done this many times a day since the beginning of Time and were good at their work. Jack came to rest on the pit-floor without crushing a thing.
Then from small holes and arches and burrows, tanks, puddles, sumps, rotten logs, decomposing fruit, hives, and sand-heaps all around, out they came: foot-long centipedes, clouds of fleas, worms of various descriptions, all manner of flying insects—in short, all sorts of creatures whatever that subsisted on blood. He felt a bat land on the back of his neck, and tried to relax.
"That iridescent beetle feasting on your left buttock does not appear to be injured or sick in the slightest degree!" said a curiously familiar voice, speaking English with a musical accent. "I think it should be discharged forthwith, Jack."
"Wouldn't surprise me—the whole country is infested with idlers and freebooters—like that rabble out front."
"That rabble, as you call them, are the men of the Swapak mahajan," said Surendranath—for by this point Jack had recognized him as none other.
"So they keep telling me—what of it?"
"You must understand that the Swapaks are a very ancient subcaste of the Shudra Ahir—the herdsmen of the Vinkhala tribe—which is one of the sixteen branches of the Seventh Division of the Fire Races."
"And?"
"They are divided into two great classes, the noble and the ignoble, the former being divided into thirty-seven subtribes and the latter into ninety-three. The Shudra Ahir were formerly one of the thirty-seven, until after the Third Incarnation of Lord Kalpa, when they came up from Anhalwara by way of Lower Oond, and intermarried with a tribe of degenerated Mulgrassias."
"So?"
"Jack, just to put that in context, you must understand that those people are regarded as Dhangs of the lower subcaste (yet considerably above the Dhoms!) by the Virda, whom they nonetheless abhor. To give you an idea of just how degenerate they were, these Dhangs, in an earlier age, had intermarried with the Kalpa Salkh of Kalapur, of whom almost nothing is known save that not even the ape-men of Hari would allow themselves to be overshadowed by them."
"I am waiting for your point to arrive."
"The point is that the Shudra Ahir have been herdsmen and feeders of livestock since before the breaking of the Three Jade Eggs, and the Swapak, for almost as long, have been—"
"Feeders of bloodsucking insects in animal hospitals that are operated by some other mahajan of some other caste—yes, I know, it's all been tediously explained to me," said Jack, flinching as a centipede bit through the flesh of his inner thigh and tapped into an artery. "But those Swapak have been assured of jobs for so many thousands of years that they have become indolent. They make unreasonable demands of the Brahmins who run this place, and lounge around out front all day and night, pestering passers-by."
"You sound like a rich Frank complaining about Vagabonds."
"If I were not having my blood sucked out by thousands of vermin, I might take offense—as it is, your japes and witticisms strike me as more of the same."
Surendranath laughed. "You must forgive me. When I learned that you were earning your keep in this way, I rashly assumed that you had become a desperate wretch. Now I appreciate that you take pride in your work."
"Compared to those layabouts who are encamped in front, Padraig and I—ouch!—are willing to do this work for a more competitive rate, and comport ourselves as professionals."
"I very much fear that you will be comporting yourselves as dead men if you do not get out of Ahmadabad," said Surendranath.
Above, Jack heard commands uttered in Gujarati, then the welcome creak of the pulley. The rope came tight and raised him a few inches off the ground. He writhed and shook himself, trying to shed as many of the creatures as he could. "What are you talking about? They don't even step on bugs. What're they going to do to a couple of men?"
"Oh, it is not difficult for such people to come to an understanding, Jack, with members of castes that specialize in mayhem."
Jack was now raised up out of the pit and swung round over the floor again. The bug-doctors converged on him with brooms, gently sweeping away the engorged ticks and leeches. Then they let him down and began untying the bonds. As soon as he could, Jack reached up and pulled off the gauze face-mask. Now he was able to get a good look at Surendranath for the first time.
When they'd parted company, outside the customs-house of Surat, more than a year ago, Surendranath, like Jack, had been a shivering wretch, dressed in rags, and still walking slightly bowlegged on account of the thoroughgoing search that was meted out to all who entered the Mogul's realms there, to make sure that they were not secreting Persian Gulf pearls in their rectal orifices.