The Best Short Stories of 1918 Part 21

The thing in the chest stirred its coils uneasily.

"Be silent!" commanded the fat priest. "Would you slay little N'Yang?"

I shuddered. A great bat came in through the rift that let in the moon-glow. In the trees over the temple a gibbon wailed in his sleep like a sick child-"_Hoop-oi-oi-oi_"!

Wat Na Yang extended his arm before him in a gesture of dismissal.

"Go!" he commanded. Then he placed a heavy hand on my shoulder.

Nagy N'Yang stood up, bowed her head and went down the path the moonbeams made, went into the shadow near the door, and out.

The fat priest sat down on the chest beside me. The mottled terror in the chest was still again.

"She was wed," the priest began, "but on her wedding-day we claimed her.

Her husband cannot claim her. But if some one unwittingly kills the great python, she will be free. It must be some one not a friend of the husband. No one will kill the python here. She is temple-bound for life-"

The bulk inside thrilled to life again. I heard the scales rustling as the great coils rose and fell.

"Go, you!" he ordered. "The G.o.ddess likes you not. Even if you take the girl, I can call her back or kill her by touching her flesh with a single scale from the Naga in the chest."

He walked with me to the door. At the portal we stood for a s.p.a.ce, silent.

The tiled entrance was flooded with moonlight. In the middle of it a cobra lay, stretched out, seemingly asleep-a small cobra, deadly none the less.

"You see," the gross priest said, pointing to the deadly serpent there.

"Nagy's spirit watches you here, too. But the girl she did not harm."

Filled with some spirit of Western bravado I could not stifle, I stepped close to the cobra and stamped on its head.

"That for all scaly serpents!" I jeered at him. I stood on the cobra's head while it lashed out its life.

The fat yellow priest watched me, and I could see hatred and horror struggle for mastery on his face.

Coming close to me he began to talk in long, rolling sentences, of which I here and there caught a word. But I caught the sense of what he was saying.

Oh, yes-the fat priest. It was there, in front of the temple, that he put on me, in Sanskrit, the Curse of Siva, ending:

"With gurgling drops of blood, that plenteous stream From throats quickly cut by us-"

I laughed at him, threw a yellow coin at his face, kicked the dead cobra into the door of the temple-and went down the path toward the Laos girl's hut.

At the hut door she sat, silent, wonderful.

"Come!" I commanded.

"Where?" she asked.

"To Kalgai town by Salwin River," I answered. I took her in my arms.

Yes, I took her! Why not? She was mine, wasn't she? Yes, I took her! Not down the Thoungyeen River or the road along it. Why? We feared pursuit.

Five miles below Karen a little hill stream comes to the Thoungyeen River. I never heard its name. We went up that to its springs and then along to the Hlineboay Chuang.

We traveled slowly, afoot, on cattle-back, on elephant-back-as the hill-folk could take us, or as we cared to go. Nagy N'Yang at first was moody, but as we left her own village far behind and got among the greater hills, she was gayer and gayer. I think when we came to Shoaygoon Plains she was happy. I was. It was in Shoaygoon _zana_ that I let her tattoo my forehead with the mark of Siva, to please her and quiet her superst.i.tious fears. It was wrong, yes, for all-whites; but for me, with a brown mother? Mayhap not....

And so we came to Kalgai in Kalgai Gorge, and the rains were not yet come.

We were early. The traders' huts were not filled. Only a few were taken.

A Eurasian here, a Russian there, a Tibetan there, and yonder a Chinese.

So I had my choice of the best places and picked the best house in the gorge-on the rock spit that juts into the gorge's biggest bend over the whirlpool.

The house we took was of teak beams and bamboo. For a few gold coins I had its use, entire, with its mats, pots, kettles.

There was a little s.h.i.+lly-shallying of trade, which I did not get into.

Traders came up and down and across. I didn't care for traffic just then.

Nagy N'Yang was happy, she told me. I believed it. She went about her little household tasks neatly.

"After the big rains," I told her, "we two take boat for Maulmain and beyond." I was due for a trip up past Rangoon for temple bra.s.ses and carved ivory. The air was heavy with the promise of the first of the rains.

"Where you go, I go," she laughed, stuffing my mouth with rice and fish.

She cuddled closer to me on the eating mat we had spread out.

A shadow fell across the open doorway. She screamed.

It was Pra Oom Bwaht, who smiled down on us with his twisty smile.

"Welcome," I said.

He came in boldly and sat down.

"You went quickly from Karen," he said simply.

I could feel my Laos girl wince as she leaned against me. I clutched the dagger inside my robe.

Pra Oom Bwaht smiled his twisty smile.

"How come you here?" I demanded.

"Why should I not?" he asked. "Especially to see my sister-" He pointed to Nagy N'Yang.

She sighed and laughed a little nervous laugh.

"I did not know," I said, "that she was your sister. You are welcome to our poor house."

Pra Oom Bwaht smiled again, got up and stalked out. As he went, the first patter of the rains came, beating up the dust in the s.p.a.ce before the door for a few seconds, then laying it all in a puddle of mud again as a great dash of fury came into the storm. But it was only the first baby rain, not enough to make Kalgai whirlpool talk out loud.

I turned to Nagy. She was staring out into the storm.