River-of-Perfumes-Chapter-04

But his problem bristled with practical difficulties as Barrett explored what he was undertaking. Escape from the house was impossible; Tou Dac’s men guarded every exit from the gardens, for white man or house-boy, and Nanya was now dressed as one. There was but one way left open: back to the sampan waiting at the wharf. And that sampan would be swooped upon by another, bearing Tou Dac, hot for his girl and aided by a dozen retainers.

Where would Tou Dac attempt the abduction? Somewhere during that brief trip down the River of Perfumes to the palace water-gate. His eyes would be on her sampan every moment. No matter which way it left the wharf, he would pounce in pursuit. He would listen to no evasions either; the girl, or her dead body as proof she had succumbed to the cobra bite—one or the other—would have to be on board.

Barrett eyed Nanya critically. That long black gown of coarse silk worn by both sexes, with its straight lines, hid her graceful curves. She wore the flat turban of many turns of thick ribbon silk—but under it beamed her piquant ivory face, all asparkle with merriment. It would never do! Her beauty glorified any clothes; men would not look at them, but at her. And gasp—and remember. Tou Dac could trace her anywhere they went.

“Can you row, dear one?” Barrett asked.

She nodded, smiled, gripped his forearm. Lord, she was strong. He resisted, but his arm nearly bent back. That training in dance since childhood had given her endurance and lithe strength. “Many times on the Mekong I have paddled the pirogue, beloved one,” she told him, her saucy eyes dancing.

“We’re fixed, then,” Barrett said with relief, and stepped into his laboratory. Presently he emerged with a brush and chemical pigments; a good Colt revolver was now strapped to his belt. Caste marks with the brush disfigured Nanya’s lovely face; frightful lines of worry, labor, and semi-starvation smeared her eyebrows and grooved her piquant cheeks. She now looked like a sampan rowing-woman, gaunt with toil.

“You’ll do,” said Barrett. “Come.”

Together they went down to the wharf, she following as the white man’s coolie. Barrett spoke sharply to the squatting sampan man: “Go! Help them up at the house. She must be carried. Careful now! Coolie, make ready the bed,” he ordered Nanya.

She stepped clumsily aboard and busied herself with the pillows under the great canopy tongue of the orchid. Barrett watched the sampan man till his shuffling figure darkened the doorway.

“Quick, Nanya! Take the oar,” he called softly. “Straight down the river. Keep to the middle when passing the palace. Keep rowing, no matter what happens.”

He dove into the heart of the lotus. Swiftly he blew out the paper lanterns. Then he banked the pillows close around him to hide his lean masculine form as much as possible. Over them he drew a large coverlet of eyelet-embroidered silk, then loosened the revolver in its holster. The strokes of her oar kept up steadily.

Barrett could only guess how Tou Dac would manage the abduction, but he pictured the raiding sampan dashing alongside and the Prince leaping aboard to snatch his prey from the heart of the lotus. He was ready for him. The oarsman? Ah, there was uncertainty enough in his plan to sicken the heart. He could not foretell what she would do when the crisis came. The Prince’s retainers would deal summarily with any sampan rower showing resistance. At least three would board with the Prince to help carry off the girl. And she would fly to his defense, reckless of risks. She had given him proof enough of that devotion. It was a fool plan, Barrett groaned miserably. He wished he hadn’t tried it, but it was the best he could conceive. Once down to the river-mouth, tramp steamers waited off the bar of Hué.

Where were they now? He heard the distant cries of the sampan man discovering his boat gone. A powerful waft of frangipani reminded him of a great tree of that species growing by the garden wall some distance above the water-gate. Then came the pungent odor of teak in full blossom. To him who knew it, the River of Perfumes was a guide in landmarks by its smells alone. Those teak trees were near the water-gate; they were passing it, unchallenged.

Then her oar-strokes quickened. The craft leaped ahead. “My lord!” her voice called to him. “Boat following, fast!”

Barrett heard the faint rhythmic dip of many paddles in the river’s silence. “Jump overboard, Nanya!” he called tensely. “Meet me down the river—left bank. I’ll take care of them. It is Prince Tou Dac, who comes to take thee.”

“Aarrrh!” That cry of rebellion against men’s lust raged from her lips. She had found love; its exaltation scorned the thought of the loveless palace girl, the plaything of princes. “That withered old ape? Better the dagger, my heart! I have it with me.”

Barrett almost broke his ruse in his anxiety. “Don’t!” he cried. “Jump and swim ashore. They will take you for the sampan rower. You can meet me below—”

There was no time for more. A ferocious gabble of yells erupted close at hand over the River of Perfumes. Paddles splashed furiously. A heavy wooden bump careened the sampan as a great long war pirogue swept alongside.

“Jump!” Barrett yelped, then lay tense under the coverlet, one hand gripping his revolver butt. Commotion erupted on board; the sampan rocked wildly under the thrust of sandals, a violent leap of some powerful man into the heart of the lotus. Gripping hands tore away the coverlet for a gloat over the languid beauty ensconced in the pillows, and then—Prince Tou Dac arrested his clutch in midair. His mouth gaped. He was looking down the bore of Barrett’s revolver.

“Hands up! Back—back to your pirogue, all of you!” That order was imperative as Barrett leaped up with a thrust of his left hand. Tou Dac retreated before the revolver, his hands high; then he found his voice.

“Doctor Barrett!” he grated, his eyes all ferocity, astonishment, bafflement. “What do you here? Where is she? What does this mean?”

“It means,” said Barrett bitingly, “that you are not to have her, Prince. I sent her back to the Emperor some other way.”

“You did! You dared, dog of a white man?” A white-hot glare of rage made Tou Dac’s eyes feral. The chains of his wrath loosed. “Upon him! Kill!” He clutched for Barrett’s pistol with that harsh shout.

Barrett eluded his groping talons with a swift circular twist of the gun that brought its barrel down viciously, with all his force, on Tou Dac’s turban. The Prince crashed down across his legs. But close behind followed a circle of long, curved daggers thrusting for Barrett’s life under their guarding arms. He could back no further into the orchid shrine.

“Mawng Shwé!”