"Now this is my own proverbial good luck! Come away up to the house and give account of yourself. Where are the pictures? We'll take 'em along."
Cadman presented Skag to Doctor Murdock of the University, explained that it was imperative for them to do some general outfitting, but promised to bring his friend in the afternoon.
"Doctor Murdock is an extraordinary man, Skag," said Cadman, as the Englishman hurried away. "Beside his chair in the University, he is said to be top surgeon of Bombay. Barring none, he has more of different kinds of knowledge than any man I know; becomes master of whatever he takes up—authority, past question."
"I wondered why you promised to take me along," Skag put in.
"You'll be glad to have met him. He'll be interested in you," Cadman answered. "He's quite likely to take us to see some of the Indian nautch-girls. They're one of his fads—for their beauty. He has specialties in art as well as in science; but he's clean stuff—nothing rotten in him."
They forgot time in the Bombay bazaars; first looking for bags, to be easily carried on their own persons; and then giving themselves to quality and workmanship in things designed for their special uses. There was no hurry. All life stretched before them, in widening vistas.
Doctor Murdock's house was high on Malabar Hill. Their hired carriage came in behind his trim little brougham, as it turned on the driveway into his compound.
"My fortune again!" the Doctor called. "I've been detained by a case and properly sweating for fear you'd reach my den first."
Tea was served on a verandah entirely foreign and tropical and strange looking to Skag. A field of palm-tops stretched away from their feet to the sea. They told him the city of Bombay was hidden under those fronds.
"And now you understand, Cadman," the Doctor was saying, "there's your own room and one next for your friend Hantee. Your traps will be up before you sleep, which may not be early, for I've a tamasha on for you this night—you remember, I enjoy dinner in the morning?"
That tamasha was a maze of strange colour, strange motion and stranger perfume to Skag; not penetrating his conscious nature at all—feeling unreal to him.
"I've been watching you without shame this night, young man," the Doctor said to him, as they finished the after-midnight meal. "My entertainment fell dead with you. Sir. You've been 'way off somewhere else. I'm simply consumed to know what you have found in life, to make your eyes blind and your ears deaf to the lure of human beauty. You're not to be distressed by my impudence—it's innocent."
The Doctor's eyes widened for seconds; then they gloomed as he spoke:
"Between you, you challenge modern manhood. We have not conceived that 'clean glamour' since men were young—forgotten ages past. No, there was no human beauty to-night to make a man forget those tigresses. … She was not there. I am one of many who miss her, but I would give—" The Doctor broke off, searching their faces before he spoke again: "There is no hope you will know the depth of the calamity; the bitterness of the loss. Speaking of clean things—"
"Who was she?" Cadman asked.
"She was the most beautiful thing on earth. She was indeed the most marvellous thing on earth, being a Bombay singing nautch-girl—undefamed. There has been no one else, these ages."
The Doctor sat smoking, apparently oblivious of his guests.
"The Spartan Helen?" Cadman suggested.
"Hah! The Spartan Helen was not invincible!"
"The Noor Mahal?"
"The Noor Mahal was always in seclusion."
"Her name?" Skag questioned.
"She had no name," the Doctor answered, "but she was called 'Dhoop Ki Dhil'—Heart-of-the-Sun; possibly on account of her voice. There has been none like it. The master-mahouts of High Himalaya, their voices pass those of all other men for splendour; but I tell you there was none other in the world, beside hers. Rich men in Bombay would give fortunes to anyone who would find her."
"Then she is not dead?" Skag spoke startled.
"We do not know that she is dead," the Doctor answered. "We would suppose so, but for a curious happening four days before she disappeared. Down in the silk-market a dealer was buying silk from an up-country native—a man from the Grass Jungle. The native was exceptionally good to look upon. Dhoop Ki Dhil came into the place to make some purchase. Her eye fell on the jungle man and she stood back. She was a valuable customer, so the silk-merchant made haste to signal her forward. But she shook her head and moved further back."
The Doctor stopped to smoke.
"After a while Dhoop Ki Dhil came forward, moving like one in a trance, and said to the jungle man, 'Are you a god?' and the jungle man answered her with shame, 'No, I am a common man.'
"Now that silk-merchant will tell no more. One doesn't blame him. The natives are not patient with such a tale of her. To hear that any man had taken her eye, maddened them. She had passed the snares of desire—immune. She had turned away from fabulous wealth. She had denied princes and kings. She smiled on all men alike—with that smile mothers have for little children."
"She was a mother-thing," murmured Cadman.
The Doctor turned, questioning:
"A mother-thing? Yes, probably. But she led the singing women like a super-being incarnate. She led the dancing women like a living flame. They sing and dance yet, but the fire of life is gone out!"
"Where is the Grass Jungle?" Cadman asked.
"Nobody seems to know. As for me, I never heard of it—till this. The silk-merchants say that once in several years some strange man—one or another—in strange garments, comes down with a peculiar kind of silk, to exchange for cotton cloth. He won't take money for it and he's easily cheated. He won't talk—only that he's from the great Grass Jungle. He usually calls it 'great.'"
"It must be possible to find," said Cadman, glancing at Skag. "What do you say?"
"I'm with you," Skag answered.
"Now am I gone quite mad, or do I understand you?" the Doctor enquired.
"I think you understand us," Cadman answered.
The Doctor sprang up, exclaiming:
"I've often told you, Cadman, you Americans develop most extraordinary surprises. Most remarkable men on earth for—for developing at the—at the very moment, you understand!"
"Do you know anyone who might give us something on the locality?" Skag asked Cadman.
"That's the point. I think I do," Cadman nodded. "But we'll have to go and find out."
"My resources are at your disposal," the Doctor put in.
"Your resources have accomplished the first half," smiled Cadman. "It's fair that the rest of it should be ours."
"Then what's to do?" the Doctor questioned.
"A few things to purchase first, easily done to-day," Cadman answered, glancing out at the faint dawn. "Then, I know Dickson of the grain-foods department, at Hurda—Central Provinces. He ought to be familiar with the topography of all the inside country. We'll risk nothing by going to him."
"Then away with you to bed and get one good sleep. The boy will bring you a substantial choti-hazri when you're out of your bath at six. I have a couple of small elephant-skin bags—you'll not find the like in shops—they're made for the interior medical service."
So Cadman and Skag went up from Bombay that night on the Calcutta-bound train, facing the far interior