"Stable the horses in here!" said the German; and they did so, Ranjoor
Singh dipping water out of a rain-pool and filling a stone trough that
had once done duty as receptacle for gifts for a long-forgotten god.
Then they pushed the carriage under a tangle of hanging branches.
"Look about you!" advised the German, as he emptied food for the horses
on the temple floor; and babu Sita Ram made very careful note of the
temple bearings, while Ranjoor Singh and the German blocked the old
doorway with whatever they could find to keep night-prowlers outside
and the horses in.
Then the German led the way into the dark, swinging a lantern that he
had unearthed from some recess. Babu Sita Ram walked second,
complaining audibly and shuddering at every shadow. Last came Ranjoor
Singh, grim, silent. And the rain beat down on all three of them until
they were drenched and numb, and their feet squelched in mud at every
step.
For all the darkness, Ranjoor Singh made note of the fact that they
were following a wagon track, into which the wheels of a native cart
had sunk deep times without number. Only native ox-carts leave a track
like that.
It must have been nine o'clock, and the babu was giving signs of nearly
complete exhaustion, when they passed beyond a ring of trees into a
clearing. They stood at the edge of the clearing in a shadow for about
ten minutes, while the German watched catwise for signs of life.
"It is now," he said, tapping Ranjoor Singh's chest, "that you begin to
be at my mercy. I assure you that the least disobedience on your part
will mean your instant death!"
"Lead on!" growled Ranjoor Singh.
"Do you recognize the place?"
Ranjoor Singh peered through the rain in every direction. At each
corner of the clearing, north, south, east and west, he could dimly see
some sort of ruined arch, and there was another ruin in the center.
"No," he said.
"This is the oldest temple ruin anywhere near Delhi. On some
inscriptions it is called 'Temple of the Four Winds,' but the old Hindu
who lived in it before we bribed him to go away called it the 'Winds of
the World.' It is known as 'Winds of the World' on the books of the
German War Office. I think it is really of Greek origin myself, but I
am not an Orientalist, and the text-books all say that I am wrong."
"Lead on!" said Ranjoor Singh; and the German led them, swinging his
lantern and seeming not at all afraid of being seen now.
"We have taken steps quite often to make the people hereabouts believe
this temple haunted!" he said. "They avoid it at night as if the devil
lived here. If any of them see my lantern, they will not stop running
till they reach the sea!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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