The old man was stooped by great age. His dark skin had thickened and wrinkled until it resembled the skin of an old potato. The eyes were glittering, yet expressionless. The wasted neck seemed hardly able to support the withered head. The bony shoulders protruded upward in two knobs from beneath the gray robe. The feet were bare, dust-covered.
The natives behind were swarthy, powerful men. On their faces appeared a certain uniformity of expression. They were lean, yet powerfully built. Their features showed a grim asceticism, and in their eyes was a certain something, a burning flame of devouring fanaticism.
The old man’s puckered lips parted. Harsh speech husked from his withered throat. At the first words Nickers knew that he could not understand. But a swift glance told him that his companion was following the conversation.
The old man ceased talking.
Nickers glanced at Forbes. Forbes broke into speech, the same speech that the man had used. He seemed to be explaining something. His hands made an inclusive, sweeping gesture toward the airplane. Then he bowed courteously, spread out his palms in a circling, courteous motion.
As he ceased his talk the old man nodded his withered head slowly, solemnly, impressively.
“Believe I’ve made a sale,” muttered Forbes in an undertone.
But again there came grave, husky speech.
Again Forbes made answer, and this time Nickers was able to detect an undertone of anxiety in his answer. Again the hands gestured.
And then the old man took a tottering step toward the plane, glanced back at those behind him, unfolded his arms, and started a clumsy dance. It was as though a spavined truck horse had tried to cavort as a colt. There was a hideous suggestion of a game in what the man was doing. But it was a game of youth played with the decadence of withered age.
First on one foot, then on the other, he hopped until he was at the plane itself. Then he extended a wrinkled claw, attached to a forearm that was unbelievably skinny. The brown talons ripped a small bit of fabric from the wings.
Nickers uttered an exclamation, made a move as though to stop him. But Forbes held his hand in a viselike grip upon Nicker’s arm.
“Hold everything. Steady, old chap, steady!”
With the sound of ripping fabric the old man hopped to the other side of the plane, waving the bit of cloth as though it had been a trophy of skill won at some friendly game.
Behind him the natives unfolded their arms, skipped toward the plane, tore bits of cloth, and waved them with high glee. Their eyes remained deadly serious, tinged with the reddish glow of dangerous fanaticism. But their lips were drawn back from white teeth in the semblance of a happy grin.
There remained the line of monkeys, moist round eyes watching intently the antics of the humans. Then face turned to face. The monkeys chattered some shrill command and came trooping forward.
“Monkey see, monkey do,” muttered Forbes, the first to catch the significance of the action.
Like brown projectiles cannonballed from a gun, the monkeys trooped across the dust-covered bare ground, leaped to the plane, and began ripping the fabric.
Phil Nickers groaned.
From out of the mists came monkeys, droves of monkeys, troops of monkeys. Shrilling their chatterings to the high heavens, they leaped upon the plane, grabbed a bit of cloth, a fragment of wood, and scampered away.
And other monkeys came from the trees about where they had been watching, concealed by the heavy foliage.
“Millions of monkeys,” groaned Phil. “The plane’s gone.”
Forbes nodded.
“The game is to take things easy and prolong the end as long as possible. There may be a chance yet, but it’s a slim one.”
The monkeys scuttled up and over the plane, and beneath their vandal touch it melted like a lump of ice over which boiling water is poured. In a startlingly short space of time there remained nothing of the graceful plane except the heavier things which were anchored with nuts and bolts, were welded to the frame, or were too heavy to move.
The old man shrilled some command. The monkeys took to the trees or fell in behind the natives. Each monkey carried some bit of the wrecked plane.
The puckered lips husked out a dry command.
“He says ‘walk,’ ” muttered Forbes.
And so they walked in a strange procession. The old man led the way, stalking like some grim corpse, partially mummified. Back of him came the two white men. Behind them the file of natives, and, behind the natives, the file of serious monkeys, aping the solemnity of their leaders, marching with a gravity as outwardly profound as that of a supreme court marching to affirm a sentence of death.
The buildings loomed larger through the mist as the men approached. There was the glitter of gold, the solid gray of old masonry.
Forbes, keeping his eyes ahead, his face upturned, muttered comments from the side of his lips.
“Notice the old pile. And that’s real gold you see on the stone. Sanskrit letters, made of pure gold. They carved the rock and then pounded the gold into the stones, just like a dentist would make a filling. Good God! Look at that ruby over the door. In the form of an eye. See it? Evidently this is the headquarters of priests of Hanuman. But it’s some isolated sect that no white man knows anything about. They’re fanatics. Be careful, and, whatever you do, don’t offend the monkeys. Treat them as though they were sacred.
“There are other people in the house. Get the flicker of motion from that window on the second floor? Seems to be real glass in the windows. Bet these places could tell a story if the stones had the power of speech.
“Hangar over there on the left. Seems to be empty. But there must be a place around here somewhere where Murasingh keeps his planes. Remember he switched planes last night. That is where he picked up the monkey — forgot it was in the plane, or else didn’t search. The monkey probably climbed in for a joy-ride. I say, looks as if they were going to throw us in a dungeon. See the bars on the windows?”
Nickers marched stolidly on, seeing everything, yet keeping silent. He realized now the desperate situation they were in. Their captors were fanatics, and they would stop at nothing.
A door opened before them. As the sunlight was breaking up the rolling clouds of light mist, the men were thrust into a dungeon. A door clanged, and they were left to themselves.
Nickers chuckled.
“Takes an airplane to get a change of environment.”
Forbes grinned.
“Righto. But this is India.”
“What’s the next move?”
“Lord knows. These natives claim to be within their rights in killing white men who get into this section of the country. That’s only half the story. They’ll try their damnedest to keep any news of this place from leaking out to the outside world. This gold didn’t come over a million miles to get here. There must be a regular ledge of it around here somewhere. Then there’s the religious end. These priests of Hanuman take their stuff pretty seriously. Hello, somebody’s coming.”
Outside of the door sounded a strange shuffle, slip, slap, shuffle, slop, slop, shuffle. The noise sounded along the mud floor. A bolt shot back from the massive door, and it swung noiselessly back.
Two natives flanked the doorway, and they were armed with glittering knives whose blades fairly radiated a razor keenness.
Between the natives was a woman. And if ever woman observed the name of witch this woman did. In age she approximated the age of the withered native who had led the procession to the plane. But there was about her a look of malevolent hardness, a glittering-eyed cunning, a hard-jawed selfishness. Her nose hooked down to her chin. Her round chin protruded outward, seemed almost to touch the beak of that huge nose. As she opened her mouth, pink, toothless gums showed back of the wrinkled lips. Her head shook and wagged in perpetual palsy.