Chapter VI: The Cry of Death

When the dawn had broadened into full daylight, the change was not too noticeable, for by now the boys were trudging along a narrow, winding road that was flanked by vivid tropical foliage and thick, overhanging tree boughs that cut off much of the sunlight.

To Kamuka, this was intriguing indeed, for it carried him back to his own jungle life in Brazil, especially when he caught the chatter of the monkeys from the higher branches. But to Chandra, who was familiar with it all, such sounds were an annoyance as he tried to explain his plans to Biff.

“This road will take us to the Grand Trunk Road,” stated Chandra, “which we will follow until nightfall to reach the village of Supari, where my uncle is _patwari_—”

“Patwari?” interposed Biff. “What is that?”

“The same as _karnam_ or _kulkarni_ or _talati_—I have heard it called by all those names—but it means in English, the man who keeps the village accounts.”

“That would be the town clerk in America.” Biff nodded. “So your uncle is an important man. Go on.”

“On the Grand Trunk Road,” continued Chandra, “we will look like everybody else, because all India is there. You will see _hathi_, _oont_, _ekka_—”

“Wait now, Chandra,” put in Biff. “Hathis are elephants, that I know. And oonts are camels. But I never heard of ekkas. What are they?”

“Pony carts,” returned Chandra seriously, “and you will also see bicycles and jeeps.”

“It sounds good,” decided Biff. “But what if we were being watched on the train. Do you think they will catch up with us?”

“They cannot catch up,” returned Chandra, “because they have gone ahead. If they talked to ticket agent or to the man who took our tickets, they know where we should get off and will look for us there.”

“When does the train reach our station?” Kamuka asked.

“Not for about an hour,” calculated Chandra, “counting change of engines. Before they come back to look for us, we will be on the Grand Trunk Road.”

Despite his assurance, Chandra was moving rather cautiously, but for another reason. He was looking from side to side, for they were in the jungle now and there was no telling what night creatures might still be on the prowl. Chandra knew this from occasional experience in such a setting, as any Indian boy would who had lived in a native village like Supari. But Kamuka, the boy from Brazil, recognized it instinctively, for he was jungle born and bred, though in the opposite hemisphere.

“Remember, Biff?” queried Kamuka. “The time the big jaguar jumped at you?”

“I remember,” replied Biff, “because it was you who stopped it, Kamuka.”

“I just helped,” said Kamuka. “But this jungle reminds me of jaguars. Do they have them here?”

“They have cheetahs, leopards, and tigers. Those should be enough—and more.”

“And big _sucuria_, too?”

“Yes, they have those.” Biff turned to Chandra. “He means a boa constrictor. We ran into a big one up the Amazon, a snake the size of your python.”

“What about _Macu_?” demanded Kamuka.

“Head hunters,” translated Biff to Chandra. “He wants to know if you have them, too.”

“We have something much worse,” declared Chandra solemnly. “We have thugs, or stranglers, who ride on trains with us. They are after your ruby, Biff, if you still have it.”

Anxiously, Biff brought the bag from his pocket, opened it and held the Light of the Lama in his palm, where it caught the glint of the sunlight and reflected it with a vivid crimson sparkle that seemed to dye Biff’s entire hand. The great ruby was larger than the biggest walnut, and as Biff turned it in the light, its flattened surfaces, or facets, rivaled one another with their fiery glow.

Chandra, who had been around the gem markets of Calcutta and other Indian cities, and Kamuka, who had seen the finest of South American stones during his studies in Brazil—both were swept with awe.

“Never have I seen such fire!” exclaimed Chandra. “The red ruby, like the blue sapphire, is often beautiful in color, yet very dull.”

“This one loses its sparkle sometimes,” Biff declared. “And according to Mr. Chand, it’s a bad sign when it does.”

“It gives us a good sign now,” observed Kamuka. “In South America, we have the finest of all gems, the green emerald from Colombia. They say it glows brighter than any red ruby, but now I am not so sure.”

Biff smiled, as he recalled Kamuka’s debates with Li while they were on the freighter voyage. For Kamuka to admit that a product of South America could be matched by those of any other continent, was a concession indeed.

“That ruby,” calculated Chandra, “must be worth ten _lakhs_ at least, ten times a hundred thousand rupees. But that is not why your father wants it. He needs it for some special purpose; that was why he went to New Delhi. That much I have heard Mr. Chand tell Jinnah Jad.”

“So it was through Jinnah Jad,” inquired Biff, “that my father’s message reached me?”

“It was more through me,” returned Chandra proudly. “I swam out to the ship, carrying the tape in this.” He produced a watertight bag on a neck chain. “I looked for the cabin with the tape recorder. I put on the tape, the way Mr. Chand showed me. Then I heard you coming, so I went out through porthole quick, and dropped straight down.”

“A neat trick,” complimented Biff. “I’d like to see you do it some time. Tell me, Chandra, did you ever meet my father?”

“Yes, I see Sahib Brewster twice, when I was there at Chand and Brothers, with Jinnah Jad.”

“And did you meet his friend, Barma Shah?”

“No, never. He came only to see Mr. Chand in secret. He is what you call undercover. He stayed away on purpose, when others began to find out that the ruby was there. Like thugs I speak about.”

They were trudging along the road again, and now Biff recalled that it was Chandra’s mention of thugs, or stranglers, that had caused him to stop and make sure that he still had the priceless ruby safely tucked away.

“These thugs,” questioned Biff, “do they want the ruby because of its value?”

“They want it because of the goddess Kali,” replied Chandra. “That is why they started riot outside of Chand and Brothers. They would have strangled Mr. Chand, but they found the ruby gone—”

“So they were looking for me because I had it, and they would have killed me for it!” Biff explained.

“That is right. But thugs will strangle almost anybody if they find suitable time and place, because they believe in Kali.”

Biff was putting the ruby back into its bag. Chandra paused to hand him the chain with the waterproof bag, suggesting that he put the packet in that, which Biff decided was a good idea. As they started on again, Biff urged:

“Tell us more about this Kali business, Chandra.”

“People say Kali was a great goddess who killed a huge monster that wanted to destroy the world,” Chandra related. “But each drop of monster blood sprang up into a new monster. So Kali taught men to strangle monsters with a special cloth called _rumal_, about this long”—Chandra spread his hands approximately a yard apart—“and after monsters were all gone, men began to strangle men in the same way, never shedding any blood. And so they do today.”

“But all that was stopped a hundred years ago—”

“You mean the time when British Raj said there should be no more _thugee_? Look there”—Chandra stopped abruptly and pointed to an anthill at the side of the road—“and you see white ants. They are dangerous, like thugs, so I stamp them out.” Roughly, Chandra trampled the anthill and the insects teeming around it. “But are they all stamped out? No, some have gone under—how do you say it?”

“Underground,” returned Biff.

“That is it,” nodded Chandra. “That is the way the thugs went. Underground. Now they have come up again.”

“But why do they want the ruby for Kali?”

“Because they think that rubies are drops of demon blood that will become new demons unless Kali stops them. Your ruby would make biggest demon of all, so they want it most. So Jinnah Jad tells me.”

“How many thugs do you think were on the train with us, Chandra?” Biff asked.

“There always must be three,” declared Chandra. “Two to use the _rumal_ while the third holds the person they strangle. Always, they pick some quiet place. Often they work in many secret bands, so they have a special call, which Jinnah Jad has heard and warned me against. It goes like this—”

Stopping short, Chandra tilted his head back and gave a long, weird howl, “_Hyyyyaaaaahhhh!_” that sent shivers up Biff’s spine, despite the increasing warmth of the morning. Biff pulled off his big turban and mopped his forehead.

Kamuka, too, was impressed. Never in the jungle of his own native Amazon had the Brazilian boy heard a cry as strange as that. It was a curious cross between a human shriek for help and an animal’s anguished wail. In jungle or village, it would strike a familiar, yet fearful note.

But as Biff and Kamuka stared in silence, Chandra’s own face turned suddenly tense. From beyond the bend in the narrow road behind them came a distant, echoing answer:

“_Hyyyyaaaaahhhh!_”

It was Biff who broke the grim hush.

“Try it again, Chandra. Let’s see how close they are.”

Chandra repeated the call in a louder wail that must have carried farther, for now the answer came, not from behind them, but from the jungle reaches up ahead. To the startled boys, their plight was all too grimly plain.

On a forgotten road, walled on both sides by solid jungle, they were trapped between two murderous bands of approaching thugs!