Originally published: Sept. 4, 1909
Genres: Adventure, Children's
Goodreads link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/200518174-motor-matt-s-short-circuit-or-the-mahout-s-vow
Gutenberg link: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/52397
Chapters: 16
Warning: This may include outdated and derogatory language and attitudes.
CHAPTER I
THE SERPENT CHARMER
A brown man in a white turban sat by the river. It was night, and a little fire of sticks sent strange gleams sparkling across the water, and touched the form of the brown man with splashes of golden light.
The man was playing on a gourd flute. The music—if such it could be called—was in a high key, but stifled and subdued. Under the man, to keep his crouching body from the earth had been spread a piece of scarlet cloth. In front of him was a round wicker basket, perhaps a foot in diameter by six inches high.
As the man played, the notes of the flute coming faster and faster, the lid of the basket began to tremble as by some pent-up force. Finally, the lid slid open, and a hooded cobra lifted its flat, ugly head. With eyes on those of the serpent charmer, the cobra began weaving back and forth in time to the music. Now and then the snake would hiss and dart its head at the man. The latter would dodge to avoid the striking fangs, meanwhile keeping up his flute-playing.
It was an odd scene, truly, to be going forward in a country like ours—cut bodily from the mysteries of India and dropped down on the banks of the Wabash, there, near the intensely American city of Lafayette.
While the brown man was playing and the cobra swayed, and danced, and struck its lightning-like but ineffectual blows, another came into the ring of firelight, stepping as noiselessly as a slinking panther. He, like the other, wore a turban, and there was gold in his ears and necklaces about his throat.
The first man continued his flute-playing. The other, with a soft laugh, went to the player's side, sank down, and riveted his own snakelike orbs upon the diamond eyes of the cobra. Once the serpent struck at him, but he drew back and continued to look. With one hand the newcomer took the flute from the player's lips and laid it on the ground; then, in a silence broken only by the crackling fires, the eyes of the man snapped and gleamed and held those of the cobra.
The effect was marvelous. Slowly the cobra ceased its rhythmical movements and dropped down and down until it retreated once more into the basket; then, with a quick hand, the lid of the receptacle was replaced and secured with a wooden pin.
"Yadaba!" exclaimed the first man.
"Not here must you call me that, Dhondaram," said the second. "I am known as Ben Ali."
Dhondaram spat contemptuously.
"'Tis a name of the Turks," he grunted; "a dog's name."
"It answers as well as any other."
These men were Hindoos, and their talk was in Hindustani.
"You sent for me at Chicago," proceeded Dhondaram; "you asked me to come to this place on the river and to bring with me my most venomous cobra. See! I am here; and the cobra, you have discovered that the flute has no power to quiet its hostility. Your eyes did that, Yada—your pardon; I should have said Ben Ali. Great is the power of your eyes. They have lost none of their charms since last we met."
Ben Ali received this statement moodily. Picking up a small pebble, he cast it angrily into the fire.
"Why have you brought me here?" inquired Dhondaram, rolling a cigarette with materials taken from the breast of his flowing robe.
"Because," answered Ben Ali, "I have made a vow."
"By Krishna," and Dhondaram threw himself forward to light his cigarette at the fire, "vows are evil things. They bring trouble—nothing less."
"This one," hissed Ben Ali, "will bring trouble to an enemy of mine."
"And to yourself, it may be," added Dhondaram, resuming his squatting attitude on the scarlet cloth and whiffing a thin line of vapor into the air.
"The goddess Kali protects me," averred Ben Ali. "It is written on my forehead."
"What else is written on your forehead?" asked Dhondaram after a space. "What was it that caused you to send for me, and to ask me to leave my profitable work in the museum, come here, and bring the worst of my hooded pets?"
Ben Ali, in the silence that followed, picked up more pebbles and cast them into the fire.
"During the feast of Nag-Panchmi," he observed at last, "years since, Dhondaram, a mad elephant crushed a boat on the Ganges. You were in the boat, and I snatched you from certain death."
Dhondaram's face underwent a swift change.
"That, also," he said in a subdued tone, "is written on my forehead. I remembered it when your letter came to me. I owe you obedience until the debt is paid. I am here, Ben Ali. Command me."
"Such baht! You, with the cobra, Dhondaram, will go against my enemy and fulfill my vow. That will repay the debt."
A look of fear crossed Dhondaram's face. It passed quickly but had not escaped the keen eyes of Ben Ali.
"You are afraid!" and he sneered as he spoke.
"And if I am?" protested the other. "I am bound to obey and lose my life, if I must, in paying for the saving of it during the feast of Nag-Panchmi. Who is your enemy, Aurung Zeeb?"
Ben Ali struck the ground with his clenched fist.
"Aurung Zeeb is a coward!" he exclaimed. "He fled and left me to work out my vengeance alone. Hurkutjee! Let us speak no more of him. You knew of my brother, the rajah? How our sister married the feringhi, Captain Lionel Manners, of the English army? How he died, and his wife perished in the ghats, by suttee? Of the daughter they left, Margaret Manners? How, out of hatred to the rajah, I brought the girl to this country and destroy her will by the power of the eyes? How we traveled with the show of Burton Sahib?"
Dhondaram nodded gravely.
"I know," he replied.
"But you do not know of the feringhi boy, the one who flies in the bird machine, and who is called Motor Matt. Because of him, I lost the girl, and she was making a lot of money for me. I was mahout in the show for Burton Sahib's worst elephant, Rajah. No other could drive him, or take care of him. You are a sapwallah, a charmer of serpents, but you are also a charmer of elephants. You can drive them, Dhondaram, as well as I. You can take care of this Rajah beast as well as I."
"I learned to work with the elephants from my brother, the muni," observed Dhondaram. "You have lost the niece you called Haidee?"
"She is under the care of the British ambassador, but she is staying in this town. Perhaps I may get her back—that I do not know. But my vow, Dhondaram, against this feringhi boy, Motor Matt. That is for you to carry out. He has wrecked my plans. I will wreck his. He has put me in danger of my life. Through me, he shall be in danger of his own."
"What am I to do?" queried Dhondaram.
"The show of Burton Sahib is some distance from here, but I will tell you how to find it. The cobra will help you join it, for Burton Sahib is always watching for performers. You must learn to do better with this cobra. By performing with the serpent before Burton Sahib, you will please him. He must have someone to take care of the elephant, Rajah. You will apply for the place. Ha! Do you follow me?"
Dhondaram nodded.
"When you have applied for the place I will tell you what to do. The air machine must be wrecked. Rajah will do that. The feringhi boy must be put where he will not interfere with my plans for my niece—the cobra must do that."
Dhondaram stirred restlessly.
"The law of this country," he murmured, "has a long arm and a heavy fist."
"If you do as I say," went on Ben Ali, "you will not be reached by the arm nor caught by the fist. You will be safe, and so will I, and the vow of Ben Ali will have been carried out."
"You cannot do this yourself?"
"I should be seized if I showed my face again in the show of Burra Burton! I should be thrown into the strong house of the feringhis if I appeared among the tents. Motor Matt has said this, and he has the power to carry out his threat."
"Had Motor Matt the power to do this when he saved Haidee?"
"He had."
"And he held his hand! Why?"
"Because Haidee was under the spell of my eyes. In order to free her, he had to bargain with me. The bargain was that I should go free, but never trouble Motor Matt or the girl anymore. With the girl in my hands, I could secure many rupees from my brother, the rajah, for her. And I hate that brother. He is rich, but he made me the keeper of his elephants! He lived in luxury, but I herded with the laborers."
Again Ben Ali struck his clenched fist on the earth.
"It may be," said Dhondaram, "that Burton Sahib has secured another keeper for the bad elephant, Rajah? In that case, he would not want me."
"It is not likely," returned Ben Ali. "All the other keepers are afraid of Rajah. Aurung Zeeb was the only Hindoo who could have managed Rajah, and he dared not return to the show any more than I. Burton Sahib will want someone, and he will take you. You will go to him, perform with the cobra, and win his favor. Then, and not till then, you will ask for the post of elephant keeper. Burton Sahib, my word for it, will give you Rajah to look after. Then, my friend, you can carry out the terms of my vow. You will pay your debt, and we shall be quits. I shall have no further claim on you."
"And I shall escape the arm of the feringhi law?"
"Even so."
"Tell me what I am to do, and how."
Then, as the little tongues of flame threw their weird play of lights and shadows over the dusky plotters, the talk went on.
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