lone behind
the high  wall.  The courtyard was  now filled with artisans busy fashioning
parts for the wheel under his direction.
     The courtyard had been turned into  an open-air  workshop, with forging
furnaces  and  a  copper-smelting furnace. In  the middle  of the  yard  the
contours of a giant wheel seventy-two  feet in  diameter had  been traced on
the hard-packed ground, as at a shipyard.
     Sometimes  Fedor actually felt as though he were in the shipyards or in
the courtyard of the Smolny palace at St. Petersburg, except that here there
was none of the joking,  bickering or singing  characteristic of Russians at
work.
     Carpenters were making parts of the  rim and  the buckets of the wheel.
The  swiftly falling water would turn the wheel,  which  would  convert this
simple, comprehensible  form of  energy into another form, into  mysterious,
darting lightning.
     The  gigantic rim  was made  of the finest  hardwood. Copper  and  iron
bindings fastened the joints.
     Once grey-bearded Jogindar  Singh,  the foreman of the carpenters, came
up  to Fedor. The two  men  communicated in an incredible mixture  of Uzbek,
Indian and Dutch.
     "I  want  to ask  you how  thick  the wheel  axis will  be,"  said  the
carpenter. As Fedor started  to explain, a graceful  girl in a sky-blue sari
that left  one shoulder bare  approached  them.  The girl said something  to
Jogindar Singh that Fedor did not understand, gave Fedor a  fleeting  glance
of curiosity, and ran off.
     "It is now noon,"  said Jogindar Singh. "My daughter has summoned me to
dinner. May we have the honour of your company?"
     Fedor agreed eagerly.  He  wanted a  chance  to  talk  to  that  quiet,
understanding man. Also, he wanted another glimpse of the girl.
     Lal Chandra's workmen lived  near the workshop,  in tents set up  among
the trees in the big garden.  They lived here with their families since they
had no right to leave  the premises until the job  was finished. Each family
prepared its food over a fire in front of its tent.
     On the way, Jogindar Singh and Fedor washed their hands in a large pool
of running water.
     As they  entered the tent the girl uttered a low cry and ran out. After
a moment  she returned  carrying a black lacquered tray  covered with bright
flowers, and placed it on a mat spread on the floor. On the tray lay a mound
of boiled rice over which a fragrant spicy sauce had been poured.
     Then  the  girl brought in hot flat cakes and a  brass  pitcher of cold
water  mixed with the  slightly  astringent  juice of a fruit  unfamiliar to
Fedor.  The girl moved  lightly and quickly. She sat down beside her father,
and Fedor looked at her dark, slanting eyes and thin brown arms. She dropped
her eyes.
     Jogindar  Singh  settled down to  his dinner.  Fedor  also  dipped  his
fingers into the rice.
     "I  thought  you  Hindus weren't  supposed  to  eat in  front of  other
people," he said.
     "That  rule is  followed  by  those who divide  people into jaties," or
castes," said the elderly carpenter.
     "To which caste do you belong?"
     "I'm  a  Sikh  and  so  are all  the  others  working  here," said  the
carpenter, gazing intently at Fedor. "We do not divide people into castes."
     "Does that mean you do not recognize Brahmans?"
     "We  do not  believe in  future  reincarnation," Jogindar Singh replied
evasively. Just who are you? Moslems?"
     "No."
     It was obvious that the carpenter did not want to answer his questions,
so  Fedor  ate  in  silence.  He washed  down  the rice with water from  the
pitcher. From time  to  time he stole glances at the girl, wondering how old
she was.  He decided she could not be more than  eighteen, and he  was  just
about to ask what her name was when her father began to speak.
     "Look here, foreigner. I do not know how you came  to the  Punjab but I
can see "'it was not because you wanted to."
     "Wanted to?" Fedor laughed bitterly. " I was sold, like an ox."
     "Do  not put your trust in Lal Chandra," the  carpenter went on. "He is
your enemy. He is our enemy too."
     "Then  why do  you work for him?"  "We work for him because- Listen, we
Sikhs were forced off our land. Everything was taken away from us." Jogindar
Singh's eyes glittered angrily. "But that  is  not for  long! We  Sikhs will
gather our forces-"
     The light pouring  through  the entrance to  the tent was  suddenly cut
off. Fedor turned round to see Ram Das standing there.
     "You've found a suitable place  for such  talk,  old man," the coachman
remarked derisively.
     "There are no strangers here," the carpenter replied quietly. "Only our
brethren live in the garden."
     "In the garden! That damned house is full  of Lal Chandra's spies," Ram
Das said as he squatted beside the tray of food.
     Fedor looked at the coachman's frowning, sharp-featured face and again,
as in the temple, a chill ran down his spine.
     "Foreigner, you are as trusting as a child," Ram Das said. "Lal Chandra
has given you a nice toy to play with and you forget that your end is near."
     Fedor paled. "What  can I do?" he asked. "As long as I am  building the
wheel  no one will touch  me. Afterwards,  if I  have to, I'll stand up  for
myself."
     "No one is going to challenge you to a duel. You don't know the customs
of the Brahmans. Instead of  dying  a useless death  why do  you  not remain
alive and help us? Jogindar Singh, send  your daughter out  of the tent. She
must not listen to the talk of men."
     The  Punjab was  an arid semi-desert in  the  north-western  corner  of
fabulous, fertile  India.  It was inhabited by stern, warlike men who passed
their lives in a grim  struggle against  drought in order to earn an austere
living for themselves and a life of luxury for their rulers.
     The Punjab, along  the border, had  the most  extensive  trade contacts
with other countries and was  the part of India that was most often invaded.
Alexander the Great's weary warriors came  to the Punjab  in the year 327 B.
C. Later the region was invaded by the Persians and the Afghans.
     The  Punjab,  accustomed  to  foreigners,  to foreign merchants and  to
foreign conquerors, became the centre of the Sikh community.
     Sikhism was a monotheistic religion that rejected castes, mortification
of the flesh, priests, temples and public worship. The Sikhs wanted a better
life in this world, and did not believe in reincarnation.
     Shortly before Fedor Matveyev landed in the Punjab, the Sikhs had risen
up against  the subahdars,  Moslem  viceroys of the Mogul  dynasty, and  the
local feudal  rajahs.  The uprising  had  been drowned  in blood, with  mass
executions.
     Although the Sikhs had suffered defeat and bitter losses, and had (been
deprived of their lands, they  had not lost heart. Feigning  submissiveness,
they gradually gathered forces for another uprising.
     Those  were troubled  times in  the Punjab. The dynasty of Great Moguls
was clearly  on the  wane. The Punjab rajahs,  whom Lal Chandra served, were
preparing to  seize power from the  weakened hands of the Mohammedan rulers.
But  the blood-stained spectre  of another Sikh uprising haunted  the rajahs
and Brahmans. As a counter-measure they prepared to work miracles that would
distract the people from the sobriety of the Sikh religion, convince them of
the might of the old Hindu gods, and  persuade them to  resign themselves to
obeying Hindu rulers.
     The Brahmans had long possessed a variety of miracles demonstrating the
power  of  their  gods.  The miracles  were performed by  wandering  fakirs,
ascetic  wonder-workers  and hypnotisers  of wide experience.  They tortured
themselves  in public by driving needles into their bodies, walking barefoot
over burning coals, and allowing themselves to be buried alive.
     The idea behind it all was that man can endure whatever trials life may
bring him.
     But it  had become difficult  to astound the grim people of  the Punjab
with  the  old,  familiar  miracles in  which fakirs  pierced their  bodies,
charmed snakes or turned themselves into towering palm-trees.
     That was why Lal Chandra was  preparing new  miracles of  a kind  never
seen or heard of before.
     Fedor Matveyev had .plenty to think about.
     At home, in Russia, he had known that their family owned some two dozen
peasant households, that those peasants belonged to his father. The house in
which the Matveyevs lived  was much like a peasant's hut, while the family's
food differed from that of their peasants only in that there was more of it.
However, the lighting  in the Matveyev home came not from splinters but from
tallow candles, which, true, his frugal mother insisted on using sparingly.
     The Matveyevs  occupied the best  pews in  the tiny church,  and Father
Pafnuty  never missed  an opportunity  to  sing the  praises of the Matveyev
family in his prayers.
     Tallow candles and prayers did not, of course, matter so much as having
a familiar, stable way  of  life. Father owned  the  peasants. The  peasants
ploughed, planted, reaped and threshed the grain, and then brought it to the
barn  of  their owner. Thus  it had  been  for centuries, and  thus it would
always 'be. There had always been masters and there had always been slaves.
     But now, in a foreign land, Fedor was himself a slave. Not a slave like
the servants of Lal Chandra, true, but still  a slave.  When Ram Das  openly
urged him to take the side of the Sikhs, Fedor  was thrown into the greatest
confusion.
     He recalled  his father's stories  about  the  peasant  uprising  under
Stepan Razin, which had so terrified the big landowners. Now Indian peasants
were  planning the  same thing against  their masters and, besides,  against
their  gods. How could  a man who  belonged to the  nobility think of making
friends with rebels?
     For  that matter, Ram Das was a  fine one, pretending to  be  a  humble
slave! He was, Fedor guessed, practically the leader of these Sikhs.
     The Sikhs had placed their  trust  in him. They  had told  him  that an
uprising  was  planned for  the  day  the  Brahmans arranged  a festival  to
celebrate restoration of the temple of the goddess Kali. The \Sikhs had told
him that he must help them.
     But how could he bring himself to help rebels?
     Besides,  what  if  they  were lying when they said that as soon as  he
finished his work on the water-wheel he would  be killed? What if they  were
simply trying to frighten him?
     Should he go  to Lal Chandra  and tell  him  the  whole  story? No,  he
couldn't do that either.
     There was no one to advise him.
     Fedor's soul was in turmoil.


        CHAPTER FOUR

        IN WHICH FEDOR MATVEYEV IS PRESENTED WITH A KNIFE

     Jogindar Singh asked Fedor to come to the smithy with him.
     "Kartar Sarabha wants to make you a gift," he said.
     Thickly-bearded Kartar  Sarabha, the blacksmith, smiled  broadly.  "You
have taught me many useful things that I  did not know. In gratitude I  want
to make you a present  of a  knife. A man should not go about unarmed.  I'll
work while you look on."
     This, Fedor realized, was a sign of great  trust in  him, a  foreigner.
Craft secrets were being shown to him.
     The  blacksmith picked  up  a bunch  of  short wires and  sorted  them,
bending and unbending each one. Fedor noticed that some  were  made  of soft
iron and others of firm steel. The steel wires were hard to bend.
     After making his selection and tightly tying the ends together, Sarabha
heated  the middle of the bunch in the forge and tied it neatly into a knot.
Then he heated it again and began to hammer it with rapid but careful blows.
The wires were welded together into a bar.
     After a few more heatings the blacksmith began  to  pound with  all his
might.
     "Come tomorrow before dinner. We'll finish it,"  he  said, tossing  his
tongs into a trough of water.
     The next  day  Fedor was presented with a blade that  had been polished
and  fitted  into a handsome  ivory handle. Examining the  knife, he gave an
exclamation of surprise. Smoky ornamentation with wavy lines ran the  length
of the bluish-grey steel blade. This was Indian damask steel, famous for its
hardness and elasticity.
     Fedor  found himself drawn more and  more  often to  the tents  of  the
Sikhs. He liked these plain, stern men with whom he could talk frankly. Most
of all, he was drawn to Bharati, the daughter of the grey-bearded carpenter.
Bharati giggled when Fedor tried  to converse  with her in  a hodgepodge  of
languages.  She was merry and  bubbled with life, unlike the  people  around
her.
     On stifling evenings Fedor  and Bharati  sat  by the side of the  pool,
dangling  their bare  feet in  the cool  water. Fedor  would  absentmindedly
launch into  a long story in Russian.  The  girl listened intently, her dark
head bent and her big eyes glowing.
     He told her about his distant  homeland with its  forests and snow, and
rivers whose waters turned white and  hard as stone in winter. He  talked of
great ships with  tall masts  and  white sails  taut  in  the wind,  and the
thunder of the cannon at Hango-Udd. Of the green meadows  in spring, and the
song of larks high in the blue sky.
     Did Bharati understand him? Probably she did, for it was not the  words
that mattered.
     From time to  time she  gave Fedor  a sidelong glance. In the starlight
his face  with its turned-up nose, his fair hair tossed  back, and his brown
beard, soft and curly, made him look, in her eyes, like a  god of the North.
She knew that in daylight his eyes were as blue as the water in the ocean.
     When Fedor caught himself speaking Russian he fell silent in confusion,
then  shifted to his usual  gibberish. Bharati laughed, splashing her  brown
legs in the  pool, but  then  she would suddenly  stop splashing and  sit in
silence for a long time. Or else she would  start telling Fedor, in her West
Punjab dialect, about her life, about the travels with her father, about the
winter monsoons  that  blow from  the land and the summer monsoons that blow
from the ocean and bring rain, about the hot deserts and the swampy jungles.
     As  Fedor  listened  to  the  half-understood  words  pronounced  in  a
high-pitched, flute-like voice, he gazed at the girl's dark, elongated eyes,
the black braids hanging over her shoulder, and her strong, slender arms.
     Now Fedor got down to designing the big lightning machine that would be
placed in the temple of Kali. He still knew nothing about the terrible force
that  had thrown him  to the ground that  day. He remembered that jolt as  a
combination of the cold bronze hips of the goddess Kali, the crackle of blue
lightning, the smell of a thunderstorm, and the sensation  that his body was
being pierced by thousands of needles. The instant of pain was followed by a
strange shivering and a metallic taste in his mouth.
     Fedor understood that neither  the six-armed  Kali nor any  other deity
had anything to do with shafts  and gears. It was just that the Brahman knew
something which others did not know.
     The  mysterious  force, as  Fedor  now realized,  was  produced  by the
revolving of the disc, and it could travel anywhere along metal. Lal Chandra
knew how to accumulate that force in metal vessels filled with a liquid; the
bronze statue of Kali was hollow and filled with the same liquid.
     Fedor was dying to learn the  Brahman's  secret and  carry  it  home to
Russia with him. He  did not yet know how to discover the secret, or how  to
escape afterwards, but he was already wondering  how he could get to see the
tsar and tell him about the supernatural force.
     Sometimes Lal  Chandra burned spices and  gums in a bowl standing  on a
tripod, from which came  odorous  smoke,  while Fedor helped him to move the
bronze spheres of the machine together and  apart. Different spices produced
different kinds of  lightning, from very weak flashes to streaks that leaped
across a wide gap between the two spheres.
     The smell of  the burning spices and gums reminded Fedor of incense and
church, there was something  godly  about it. But sometimes there was such a
stench that  even intrepid  Lal Chandra covered  his  nose, extinguished the
fire  in  the  bowl,  and  aired  the  premises.  Such  a  stench could not,
naturally, be associated with divine guidance.
     Fedor  realized  more and more clearly that  Ram Das was right and that
Lal  Chandra was contemplating  some evil  deed.  He  was not  calling forth
lightning  for the sake of science, or burning his infernal spices merely to
glorify his many-armed idols.
     One  day  the  corpse of  a  middle-aged man, thin  hut well-built, was
brought  into the laboratory  on  a stretcher. A  table  with  a heavy black
marble  top was  placed  beside the  lightning machine. Two  thick, flexible
cables woven of  bronze  wires were attached to the bronze spheres. Bands of
thin  silk  soaked  in  a resin of  some kind were  wound round  the cables.
Needle-sharp silver tips were soldered into the free ends of the silk bands.
     At a sign from Lal  Chandra the servants placed the naked corpse on the
marble top of the table and silently vanished.
     Lal Chandra threw a pinch of spice into the smoking bowl on the tripod.
Greenish clouds of smoke filled the room with a pungent odour.
     Next the Brahman picked up one of the cables.
     "Take the other but be careful not to touch the tip," he told Fedor.
     The disc of the  lightning machine revolved faster and faster. The gold
plates  merged  into a glowing  arc.  The room was filled with  a monotonous
humming.
     Fedor held the cable  with both hands, the  sharp-pointed end  sticking
out like a spearhead. Lal Chandra slowly moved  his  sharp end of  the cable
towards Fedor.
     There  was  a crackle  as  a blinding streak of blue  lightning  leaped
between the two ends.  A  spectral light  illuminated  the  clouds of  green
smoke.  Fedor  stood  perfectly  still.  He  was accustomed  to  flashes  of
lightning. Lal Chandra  swept the end  he was holding to  one  side, and the
lightning,  with a final  crackle, ceased. Still holding the cable, he  went
over to the marbletopped table and pulled off the cloth covering the face of
the dead man.
     Fedor gave a start of horror.  The face  was a terrifying bluish-white.
The  tip  of  the  tongue protruded between convulsively  twisted  lips. The
wide-open glassy  eyes held an  expression of terror. Round  the neck  ran a
blue furrow- the clear mark of a woven noose.
     Fedor at once remembered the Sikh stories of  the  abominable  sect  of
thugs. Their "sacred" nooses hidden beneath their robes, members of the sect
roamed  the highways and the city  streets in the evening, lying in wait for
victims. Holding the noose by the ends in both hands, the thug crept up from
behind, threw the noose round the neck of a lone passer-by,  twisted it into
a knot  in a  quick  movement and,  thrusting a knee into the victim's back,
pulled the noose tight.
     This was done to propitiate the wrathful goddess Kali.
     Fedor had also  learned  from  the  Sikhs  that such  thugs  had  never
appeared in the Punjab, where the cult of  the terrible Kali was not held in
esteem.
     Lal  Chandra's  domain lay far from any community, and the servants did
not leave the grounds of  the mansion. This  meant  that the man, one of Lal
Chandra's slaves-Fedor recognized him in spite of his distorted features-was
not  the accidental  victim of  a fanatic.  He  had  been  strangled  on the
grounds, inside the high wall, for some transgression, or simply because Lal
Chandra needed a corpse.
     A  terrifying  thought struck Fedor. Lal  Chandra  was  not  concealing
anything from him, did not hesitate to show him a man whom he had seen alive
the day before and who had been strangled in such a fashion.
     This could only mean that Lal Chandra considered Fedor as good as dead.
When the  job was finished Fedor  would be strangled  just as efficiently as
this poor creature had  been. For an instant Fedor thought he could feel the
noose round his neck. He swallowed convulsively. Without thinking, he took a
step towards Lal Chandra.
     The Brahman glanced at him in alarm. The silent duel lasted for no more
than a  second. Then Fedor pulled himself  together, turned  and asked  in a
toneless voice what he was to do next.
     Lal Chandra calmly approached the corpse and plunged the sharp tip into
the brown shoulder.
     "Stick your tip into his foot," he ordered.
     "I ought to stick it into you," went through
     Fedor's mind. "But where would that get me? There are probably thugs in
the next room. Never mind, your turn will come."
     Fedor silently pushed the tip of the cable into the dead man's foot-and
leaped aside with a cry. The man's leg had jerked, bent at the knee and then
jerked forward as though it was about to kick Fedor.
     Lal  Chandra's  laughter rang  out  beneath the vaulted ceiling of  the
laboratory.
     "Scared,  Russian warrior?"  he asked mockingly. "Don't be  afraid.  He
cannot harm you."
     Fedor took  a deep  breath. He gave the  Brahman a challenging look and
said: "I am a man of war  accustomed to dealing with living adversaries." He
added in Russian: "May the dogs sniff at you, you murderer!"
     Later,  Fedor found  an opportunity to tell Jogindar  Singh  about  the
horrifying experiment.
     "That means he  is gathering thugs," said the elderly carpenter. "Well,
thugs are mortal. When the time  comes we'll see whether the goddess Kali is
pleased by the death of her priests."


        CHAPTER FIVE

        WHICH ACQUAINTS THE READER WITH
     NEWCOMERS IN LAL CHANDRA'S HOUSE

     A  long  caravan passed  through  the  iron  gate leading  out  of  Lal
Chandra's  garden. In front went eight elephants loaded with the wooden  and
metal parts  of  the  water-wheel and  the big  lightning machine. After the
elephants came several two-horse carts carrying the workmen. Fedor, Jogindar
Singh and Bharati  rode in the first cart.  Far behind rolled carts drawn by
longhorn oxen, carrying materials that would not be needed at once. The slow
oxen would reach the  temple only on the  third  day. The  elephants and the
horse-drawn carts would arrive there in about twenty hours.
     The caravan crossed rivers and small streams that were beginning to dry
up. Each time the elephants entered  a stream they behaved the way elephants
always do, sucking up water  with  their trunks  and then spraying  it  over
their heads and backs.
     "What   wonderful  animals!"  Fedor  exclaimed.   "So  clever   and  so
industrious."
     "Aren't there elephants in your country?" Bharati asked.
     "No,"  said Fedor,  suppressing a  sigh. "They're fine animals  but I'd
willingly never see another elephant again if only I could return home."
     Jogindar Singh glanced at Fedor, noting the sad expression on his face.
"Is there anyone waiting for you at home?"
     "Yes, of course. My mother, my father and my sister."
     "No wife or children?"
     Fedor gave  a  wry smile. "When you're in the navy you  don't have much
time to build a nest of your own."
     "Father," said Bharati, "the foreigner is  weary from the long journey,
yet you plague him with questions."
     Fedor stretched out a hand and gently touched the girl's shoulder. With
a graceful movement she freed her shoulder from his hand.
     The cart shook as  it rumbled across the stony, practically dry, bed of
one of the numerous tributaries of the Ravi.  On the other side they halted,
unharnessed  the  horses,  and settled down to rest in the shade of a  large
tree.
     The carpenter built a fire and  Bharati began to prepare  their evening
meal. It was still so light that the flames looked pale.
     Fedor picked up a dry stick and started to whittle it.
     "If you have courage you can escape from here," the old man said all of
a sudden in a low voice.
     "Escape?"
     Jogindar Singh squeezed Fedor's arm above the elbow.
     "Speak softly.  There are many alien ears  here. Listen carefully.  The
river on which the Kali temple stands flows into the Indus. If you sail down
the Indus for ten days you will reach the sea."
     "The sea?" Fedor whispered.
     "Just before it enters the sea  the Indus divides  into many arms," the
carpenter  went  on. "If you follow  the northernmost arm you will reach the
sea near the  village of Karachi. But if  you take the southernmost arm  and
then sail  along the  coast to the southeast you will come to the  Island of
Diu. The  Portuguese seized it long ago and have built a  fortress there. Do
you know the Portuguese?"
     Fedor rubbed his brow with his hand, straining his memory to recall the
Portuguese maps he had seen in France when he was studying navigation there.
     "But  Diu is  somewhere  far to the  south. About 500  sea  miles  from
Karachi."
     "I do not know how to measure that distance," said Singh, "but it is no
longer than  the voyage  down the Indus.  Look." He took the stick Fedor had
been whittling  and sketched, in the  sand, a  plan  of the route along  the
coastline.
     Fedor sprang to his feet  and walked around  the campfire. The  sea! He
could hear the hurricane wind roaring in his ears and see  the blue expanses
shining in the sun. The sea! Only the sea route could bring him home.
     Suddenly  he remembered  where  he was. He sat down and  picked  up the
stick again. As he whittled he said, his  voice discouraged, "Thank you  for
your kind advice. But I cannot go to sea in a nutshell."
     "Listen further."  Singh moved closer to  him. "Draw me  the plans  and
I'll build you just the kind of boat you want," he whispered. "There will be
a  great  deal  of work going on at  the Kali temple,  and I'll  be  able to
deceive Lal Chandra's  men. They won't notice anything."  The old  carpenter
fell silent. Then he said, "But before you make your escape you must tell us
everything you know about the miracles Lal Chandra is preparing."
     Soon  after,  the  caravan  set  out again.  Jogindar Singh fell asleep
inside  the cart. Fedor sat on the  box in front, gazing thoughtfully at the
road, white in the moonlight, which stretched ahead. He  could see only  one
thing before his eyes- a sturdily built  boat with low sails. It must have a
sliding keel, like those  on Turkmen feluccas. Then no squall could overturn
the boat. Oh Lord, could freedom really be so near?
     Suddenly he heard soft  weeping. He turned round to look into  the dark
depths  of the  cart, which was covered  with linen cloth.  It was  Bharati!
Fedor felt  ashamed of himself.  There  he  was,  rejoicing like a child and
forgetting all about her!
     He stroked her hair and patted her shoulder in the darkness.
     "Darling,"  he  whispered. "Did you think I  would go anywhere  without
you?  Don't be afraid. Your seas are warm, and I'm a good sailor. I'll  take
care of you. We'll make our way to Russia. Then everything will be fine."
     The girl gave a sob and raised her tear-stained face.
     "How can I leave Father?" she whispered.
     "Why, we'll take  him along too!  When the  time comes  we'll  tell him
everything. He'll understand."
     Bharati shook her head sorrowfully. "No, he won't go anywhere. He won't
leave his people. And I can't leave him."
     Fedor fell silent, overwhelmed by despair.
     The caravan reached the temple at dawn. Fedor sprang down to the ground
at once. He  felt  light-headed  from  lack  of  sleep and his thoughts were
confused and disconnected.
     From dawn to dusk sweat poured from the  slaves of Lal Chandra and from
the Sikh  artisans as  they laboured beneath the merciless  sun.  They drove
piles for  a  dam  into  the  bed  of  the dried-up  stream  just  above the
waterfall, and  hacked through the  rocky bank so that the water  behind the
dam  could reach the chute. In the hollow leading to the temple they set  up
thick logs to support the chute. They made a frame for the water-wheel.
     Fedor  was  so busy  from  morning  to  night that he  hardly  ever saw
Bharati. He had no chance  to talk with her father except about the  dam  or
the chute, for Lal Chandra's overseers were always close by.
     "Will Jogindar Singh be able to handle the job without you if we return
to the house for a  few days?" Lal Chandra asked Fedor one evening. "Yes, of
course."
     "I want you to talk to him tomorrow morning and tell him  what  to  do.
Give him  and his men an assignment for each day. I want  you to be prepared
to leave tomorrow evening, as soon as the heat abates."
     The next morning Fedor  handed Jogindar Singh several drawings and took
him aside to explain what they were about. They seated themselves  on planks
laid  across  the  posts  which  would support the chute. There  was no  one
nearby.  As  they  examined the drawings Fedor discarded one  of  them.  The
carpenter took the crumpled sheet from him and smoothed it out on  his knee.
It was a drawing  Fedor had  made during a sleepless, lonely night, a sketch
of a sailboat with a sliding keel.
     "This sketch is all to no purpose," Fedor  muttered gloomily. "I  don't
need a  boat at all because I love your daughter and she cannot leave you at
such a time." Jogindar Singh closed his eyes. "We'll do everything we can to
save you before the festival,"  he said finally,  after a long silence. "But
anything could happen-"
     Many  changes had taken place in Lal Chandra's mansion. Here, there and
everywhere  Fedor saw strangers who spoke dialects he could  not understand.
These were itinerant fakirs.  They showed one another the miracles they were
preparing to perform at the festival in honour of the renovated temple. They
completely  ignored  Fedor and he was  able  to  see  what  was behind their
miracles.
     One morning three men with heavy sacks appeared  at  the gate and asked
to see Lal  Chandra.  They  were ragged  and emaciated, with  long  hair and
matted  beards,  their  dark-skinned bodies were  covered with scratches and
bruises.
     Ram Das learned afterwards that they were just back from the Himalayas.
Lal Chandra sent them there  at a time when the stars were propitious to lay
large cakes  of rare, precious resins on  top of the highest  snowy peaks in
order  to bring the  resins closer  to  the stars. They had spent some  time
there  in the  mountains- suffering from the intense cold,  living on scanty
rations, and trembling in  fear of the mountain  spirits. Of the seven  whom
Lal Chandra had sent, four perished in the fissures of glaciers or fell over
precipices. This was all that  Ram Das was able to learn.  He predicted that
no one would ever again see the three men who had returned with the resins.
     Soon  after, a  tall, portly Brahman  in white  robes  appeared  in the
mansion. Lal Chandra treated him with great deference. On the morning of the
Brahman's arrival Lal Chandra sent Fedor away for the whole day.
     Fedor had a great many things to keep him busy. On Lal Chandra's orders
he stretched  the plaited copper cables covered with  resin-impregnated silk
from the lightning machine into the garden, to the pool at whose edge he and
Bharati used to sit in the evenings.
     Posts  which had been soaked  in  oil were set up on both sides  of the
pool.  Copper bars attached to the posts were lowered into the water. At the
ends of the bars  there  were  highly polished concave  copper  mirrors that
faced one another in the water.
     An  enormous, tower-like barrel,  fourteen feet  in diameter and a good
thirty-five  feet  high, made of sheets  of copper, stood  beside  the pool.
Fedor  had drawn the plans of  the barrel only a short while before,  at the
Kali temple, and he was  amazed to see it completed when  he returned to Lal
Chandra's  house. For two days in  a row men had scooped  water  out of  the
pool,  had  climbed  up to a platform on top  of  the copper barrel, and had
poured more than 10 000 pails of water into it. Then Lal Chandra himself had
climbed  to the top of the barrel and sprinkled several  bags of spices  and
gums into the water.
     A thick  copper chain hung  from the  platform into the water.  Similar
copper cables  covered with silk connected the  barrel  and  the  chain with
clips at the pool.
     Fedor knew that the force  produced by the lightning machine could pass
anywhere along metal, but not through silk and wood soaked in oil.
     He  also  knew that this force was  strongly drawn to the  ground, from
which all metal parts had to be kept away.
     Lal Chandra and Fedor carefully examined all the connections.
     "Strike the gong to set the machine in motion," Lal Chandra said in his
gentle voice.
     The   imposing  Brahman   strolled   towards  the  pool.  Lal   Chandra
deferentially  explained  something to  him  in  a  language Fedor  did  not
understand. They both kept their eyes on the surface of the pool.
     Near one of  the  bars the  water bubbled and boiled as though  it were
being heated by invisible fires. At the other  bar  the water  was  far less
turbulent but a faint, strange-smelling mist was rising from it.
     Lal Chandra picked up  the  free end of a wire and, holding it at arm's
length, brought it up to the bar where the water was bubbling.
     There was a crackle, a flash  of lightning, and a great pillar of  fire
shot out of the water.
     Fedor  leaped aside; he stared flabbergasted  at  the  bright pillar of
flame. The flame shrank in size but it remained as bright as ever. If anyone
had told Fedor that water could burn he would not have believed it. Yet now-
     "Break the path of the mysterious force," Lal Chandra commanded.
     One of  the cables ran through a wooden frame to which a copper bar was
attached at one end by a hinge, while the other rested on a copper plate.
     Fedor  tugged at  a  silk  cord, and  the  bar rose. Lightning streaked
between the bar and the plate for an instant.
     The water  near the bar immediately stopped bubbling and the flame died
down.
     "Now open the path to the force," Lal Chandra said.
     Fedor released the cord. The copper bar dropped to the plate. Again the
water bubbled and seethed, but there was no flame.
     Lal Chandra picked up a clay pitcher  of  fragrant oil and, tipping  it
cautiously, poured some oil into  the water above the mirror attached to the
bar.
     The  oil instantly  flowed through  the water to the other  side of the
pool. They could see the oil forming a ball as it stopped above the opposite
mirror.
     With Fedor's help Lal Chandra lifted a huge pitcher containing at least
three pails of the same fragrant reddish oil and poured it into the pool.
     Instead of spreading across the surface the oil sank into the water and
flowed in a long stream to the opposite mirror. A fairly large-sized ball of
oil had now formed there.
     Lal Chandra picked up  a ladle  with a long handle  and dipped  out the
oil. The mysterious force did not strike him.
     Fedor was so impressed by everything he had seen that he could  not get
it out of  his mind. That night he lay awake a long time. "I must get to the
bottom of it, no matter what," he resolved.


        CHAPTER SIX

        IN WHICH FEDOR MATVEYEV TRIES TO KILL THE BRAHMAN

     Fedor lay in bed with open eyes, unable to fall asleep. Scenes from the
past went through his mind. How fed up he was with this foreign land! How he
wished he were home!
     More  than  five years had  passed  since  Prince Bekovich-Cherkassky's
detachment  met  its doom.  He  had been  in the  service of Lal Chandra for
nearly five long years.
     "I'll probably  be  granted a good long furlough if I  ask  for it as a
reward for what I've gone through," he reflected. "Then I can have a holiday
at  home. Mother and Father probably think I am  dead.  Father  Pafnuty must
have conducted a funeral service."
     Sleep was out of the question. Fedor rose from his bed. In a loin-cloth
and a thin shirt he stepped across the windowsill to  a covered gallery that
ran round the inner  courtyard. There it  was somewhat  cooler than  in  his
room. Fedor leaned against the railing and again gave himself up to thought.
     Suddenly he  heard voices. He  pricked  up his ears and  listened. They
were speaking a language he did not  know, the language in which Lal Chandra
talked to the fakirs. He recognized Lal Chandra's gentle voice. Sometimes it
was interrupted by an imperious, sharp, threatening voice. Fedor realized it
was the voice of the Brahman who had been present during the experiment with
water, fire and oil. He must be an important person.
     The third voice was unfamiliar. It spoke more rarely than the other two
and repeated the same phrase,  in the same tone, in  reply to everything the
Brahman said.
     The  voices  were  coming  from  a  window  on the  upper storey  of an
intricate tower that  rose above the central hall in which the altar to Kali
stood.
     The tower was a square, ledged  pyramid covered with sculptured figures
of elephants, horses and many-armed gods. Fedor had always thought the tower
was purely  ornamental since there was no way of entering it from the house.
But now, in the middle of the night, a  faint light glowed in the window and
it was from there that the voices came.
     Something urged Fedor to act. He slipped back over the windowsill  into
his room, took his knife from its hiding place in the bedding, and tucked it
inside his loin-cloth. Then he returned to the  gallery, scrambled up a post
to its flat roof, and from there made his way to the roof of the house.
     As he approached  the  tower Fedor realized  that  the  window with the
light in it was  all of forty feet  from the roof.  Well, in for a penny, in
for a pound! Clinging to the  high-reliefs of gods and sacred animals, Fedor
clambered  upwards  from  ledge  to ledge. It was a  moonless  night, and he
thought it unlikely anyone would notice his white-shirted figure against the
white masonry of the tower.
     Clasping the stone body of a deity, Fedor cautiously peered through the
window.
     An oil lamp illuminated  a  round room. The floor was covered with rugs
on which bright cushions were scattered.
     An  imposing-looking old man was seated on cushions in  front of a  low
table covered with papers and rolls of parchment. His thin,  deeply wrinkled
face, framed in long grey hair, was impassive.
     In front of the old man, their  backs  to Fedor, stood Lal Chandra  and
the distinguished  Brahman. Lal Chandra was now shouting in  a high-pitched,
venomous voice. The elderly Brahman's voice was also savage. But the old man
kept calmly repeating the same words.
     Fedor  glanced  about the  room with curiosity.  The  shelves along the
walls  and the  tables were covered  with  glassware and instruments,  and a
small lightning machine stood in the corner.
     So this was where Lal Chandra  got his ideas, thought Fedor. He did not
invent his "miracles" himself but took  the ideas for them from this old man
whom he kept locked up and  whom he forced to create all those mysteries for
his own purposes.
     Now the two Brahmans were evidently trying to force the old man to tell
them something.
     Suddenly the old  man rose to his feet. Tall and thin, he looked at the
two Brahmans scornfully from beneath thick grey eyebrows. He began to speak,
slowly  and  calmly. Judging  by  their  expressions, Lal  Chandra  and  his
distinguished companion found his words unpleasant.
     As  the  old man  moved, Fedor  saw something  glitter behind his back.
Looking more closely, he  saw a thin chain leading from the  man's belt to a
ring attached to the wall.
     A feeling of pity mingled with anger swept over Fedor. How he wanted to
spring into  the  room and throw  himself on those  two  torturers. His hand
involuntarily sought his knife.
     "I'll strike  that aristocratic  viper  first," he thought. "Then  I'll
settle with Lal Chandra, may the dogs  sniff at his  corpse. But  what next?
With all those menials everywhere I won't be able to get out  of the  house.
There are probably guards inside the tower too."
     The aristocratic Brahman said something to Lal  Chandra in a low voice.
Lal  Chandra bowed  and  went  out  through a small door  under  the vaulted
ceiling.  A  second  later a tall fakir  with a  caste  mark on his forehead
entered. Placing the palms  of his hands together, he bowed  to the Brahman.
Then he went up behind the old man and, taking  a thin cord out of his robe,
wound  it round the neck of  his victim, carefully  passing it under the old
man's  grey beard. He  twisted the ends of the cord round his hands,  raised
his r