nder a binocular magnifying glass. The needle and the holder were placed in a screw-clamp with a micrometer screw in such a way that the needle point was close to a steel cube. All this was inserted in a coil between parallel plates and enclosed in a thick-walled vessel. Wires connecting the apparatus with the electrostatic machine and the oscillator ran through holes drilled in the glass. "Now we'll see what your oscillator is capable of," Opratin remarked. "Well, here we go. We'll try to make the electric field act on the intrinsic bonds of the substance of this cube." The disc of the electrostatic machine began to whirl, humming softly. "Switch on the oscillator," Opratin commanded. A tumbler clicked. Inside the glass vessel the little motor slowly turned the micrometer screw, bringing the point of the needle closer and closer to the cube. Opratin and Benedictov kept their eyes glued to the magnifying glass. A bell tinkled as the tip of the needle came into contact with the cube. The automatic recorders were switched on. The point continued to move, penetrating into the steel. But the sensitive instruments did not record any force. The needle was entering the steel cube without meeting resistance! That lasted only a moment. The next instant Opratin and Benedictov were flung against the wall. The glass chamber was shattered to smithereens. Benedictov looked round. He was overwhelmed. Had it all been a dream? Opratin rose to his feet. His face was pale. Blood trickled down his forehead. "The cube!" he cried. "Where is it?" They found the cube in a corner beside fragments of the screw-clamp. When they examined it under a microscope they could not find the slightest trace of a hole made by the needle. But the automatic recorder, an impartial witness, told them that the needle had penetrated into the steel to a distance of three microns. The two scientists sank into armchairs facing each other. For a time they were silent. "What," Benedictov finally said, "do you think of the whole thing?" "I think it was a great moment." Opratin spoke in a calm voice and his face now wore a somewhat detached expression. "We achieved penetrability for an instant by weakening the bonds of the substance of the cube. But the energy that created those bonds was released-and that was what hit us." After a long pause he continued, his voice calmer than ever: "We've made a start, Anatole. But we won't get anywhere working at home. Once we're invading the structure of matter there's no telling what kind of blasts may be produced. We must build a big installation. We'll need a Van de Graaff generator without fail. We're going to conduct a great many experiments." "What do you propose?" "I can arrange matters so that I work by myself, without any outsiders poking their noses in. But what about you? You aren't a member of our staff, unfortunately." Opratin fell silent. Then he said bluntly: "You'll have to join the staff of the Research Institute of Marine Physics." Nikolai and Yura had been experimenting with mercury in the small glassed-in gallery in Cooper Lane for several days. They had put together a "mercury heart", an old-fashioned apparatus used to demonstrate how electric current builds up surface tension. The device was assembled on one pan of a laboratory scales. A large drop of mercury was covered with a solution that would conduct electricity. A screw with a needle lay so that the point of the needle touched the mercury. The drop of mercury was connected by the conducting solution to the anode of a storage battery and the needle was wired to the cathode. A weight on the other pan kept the scales balanced. The electric current increased the surface tension, making the drop of mercury shrink and move away from the needle. But when the circuit was thus broken, the drop of mercury spread out until it again touched the needle. This "mercury heart" pulsated continuously. The young engineers tried to act on the "heart" with high frequency current by winding a spiral round the apparatus and linking it up with a valve oscillator. They hoped a certain definite frequency of oscillations would greatly increase the surface tension of the mercury and squeeze it to such an extent that it would no longer touch the needle. Then, by adding mercury and registering the increase in the weight of the drop, they could measure the degree to which the surface tension had increased. They tried different shapes of spiral and different frequencies but nothing came of it. The "mercury heart" continued to pulsate with the same calm, steady rhythm. "We're not getting anywhere," said Yura, turning off the current. "We're just wasting our time." But Nikolai patiently continued to vary the experiment. CHAPTER TEN DESCRIBING A FIND THAT COMPELS THE AUTHORS TO END PART ONE AND SWITCH TO THE FIRST HALF OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY The rusty iron bar that Privalov brought home from the bazaar lay at the bottom of the pantry for more than a fortnight. Privalov had not forgotten about the bar but simply had no time to examine it. Finally, one afternoon, he attached a vise to the kitchen table. Humming a popular tune, he laid out his tools. His wife Olga, who was doing up the dishes, frowned. "I wish you wouldn't bring home so much junk," she grumbled. "What do you want that dirty piece of iron for?" Meanwhile, Privalov had put the bar into the vise and was removing a thick layer of kerosene-softened rust with a sharp scraper. "It's not iron," he said. "Don't you remember? I once told you that iron is rarely met in its pure state. It is usually alloyed with carbon to make steel. The element iron, or ferrum, is found in a pure state only in laboratories. Incidentally, it hardly ever rusts. All the rust on this bar means that it is steel." "What about stainless steel?" "Stainless steel is just a name. There is sometimes more chromium and nickel in it than iron. "I seem to be learning lots of new things in my old age," Olga said, wiping a plate. Her eyes were amused. After a time she said, "Let's go to the cinema, Boris. I know where 'The Sorceress' is on. It's an old picture, but we haven't seen it." "I have nothing against 'The Sorceress'," said Privalov as he scraped away. "You know I've always stood up for witches, magicians and goblins. But before we deal with the occult sciences I'd like to see what's inside this little box." "Box? Do you mean to say this little bar is hollow?" "Exactly. The moment I picked it up at the bazaar I noticed that it's too light for its size. But I didn't see any joints, and I wanted to learn how it's put together." "Be careful, Boris. It could be a booby trap." "That's not likely. I don't see a single opening for a fuse or a safety lock." "But what if it really is one?" Privalov grinned. "You remind me of the grandmother in Tolstoy's Childhood. Remember? She refused to listen to an explanation of why small shot isn't the same as gunpowder." "A very flattering comparison." "Don't fly into a huff. You see, the box was made very long ago, before delayed-action mechanisms were invented." He set a frying pan on the gas range and put the box in the pan. "Are you going to fry it?" "I'm applying the cleansing action of fire." Privalov turned the box over. "We'll just warm up all these rheumatic old joints." Humming all the time, he shook some tooth-powder into a saucer, poured water into it and stirred the mixture, then dipped a cloth in it and smeared the sides of the box. The chalk hissed as it quickly dried on the hot metal. Next Privalov dipped a dry rag in kerosene and squeezed out the rag above the box. The yellow drops were instantly soaked up by the chalk. Thin, clear-cut lines forming a severe geometrical pattern showed up, as though scratched on the box by a needle. "It's put together with dowels, like a wooden box. The edges must have been caulked, and then the whole thing was polished. Kerosene on chalk will always show up a crack, no matter how tiny." "You're not going to open it now, are you?" "Oh, yes, I forgot. 'The Sorceress'." Privalov quickly tidied up the table and went off to wash his hands. Boris Privalov entered the laboratory towards the end of the day. "Do you remember the rusty iron bar I picked up at the bazaar that day?" he asked Nikolai and Yura. "Here it is, all cleaned up." "Why, it's dowelled," said Nikolai, turning it over in his hands. "Must have been made ages ago." "Let's open it," Privalov suggested. He went over to the bench and put the box into the jaws of a vise. With each tap of a hammer the dowels loosened, one side of the box rising at an angle. Another blow of the hammer, then still another, and one side of the box clattered to the floor. Three heads bent over the open box. Inside lay a white roll of cloth. Yura reached out to touch it but Privalov caught his arm. He cautiously unwrapped the roll. Inside it were sheets of thin but strong paper. The pages were covered with fine handwriting in letters that were hardly connected with one another. "It's in a foreign language!" Yura exclaimed. Privalov pushed his glasses up onto his forehead and looked down at the manuscript. "Black ink", he said. "It wasn't written in this century. Ink isn't made out of nut-gall nowadays. From the way the letters are shaped they must have been written with a goose quill. And it's in Russian, although in the old-time spelling." "An old manuscript!" Yura exclaimed delightedly. "Boris, we must get Val to read it for us. She's a philologist and her field is Old Russian." "Could it be a last will and testament, I wonder?" Privalov said thoughtfully. He began to read, but it was slow work because of the unfamiliar spelling. The manuscript began as follows: "I commence this epistle on the second day of January in the year of Our Lord 1762, desirous of passing on my thoughts and ideas to my beloved eldest son, Alexander. "My youth was spent in trials and tribulations and wanderings, similar unto those of Homer's Ulysses. Upon attaining manhood I was often called away from home by duty, so that I seldom saw you, Alexander. After you entered the service I retired. Now I spend my days at home, and I see less of you than ever. "As I await my last hour I have chosen this time to set down an account of matters to which I have given much thought, and I place my hopes in you, for you are strong in the sciences. "I shall put down my story point by point, from the beginning, lest I should omit something. First, during the reign of our great ruler, Peter the Great, son of Alexis, eternally blessed be his memory, I was despatched on a long journey...." 2 NAVAL LIEUTENANT FEDOR MATVEYEV Many the men whose towns he saw whose ways he proved', And many a pang he bore in his own breast at sea, While struggling for his life and his men's safe return. Homer -THE ODYSSEY CHAPTER ONE WHICH TELLS OF THE CAMPAIGN OF PRINCE BEKOVICH-CHERKASSKY Lieutenant Fedor Matveyev of the Russian Navy had gone through the same school as many another young nobleman who, by the will of Peter the Great, was torn away from his placid rural life and cast into the maelstrom of those turbulent times. The School of Navigation in Moscow, instruction in carpentry, the wheel wright's craft and shipbuilding in Holland, the Louis Quatorze Nautical School in Marseilles, artillery training in Paris, and round-the-clock work in the shipyards of the new, cold city of St. Petersburg had turned the illiterate village bumpkin, pigeon fancier and church singer into a smart naval officer fluent in foreign languages and inured to the deprivations of a wanderer's life. The indomitable will of Russia's extraordinary tsar had scattered these young men of a new mould far and wide. Fedor Matveyev was not the least surprised when he received orders to join a hydrographic expedition on the Caspian Sea. He and young men like him had no time to be surprised-they were too busy surprising others. When Fedor reached the Caspian town of Astrakhan his ears were still ringing with the roar of the battles on the Baltic Sea, and his right shoulder ached from a wound made by a Swedish falcon bullet. He was struck by the quietness here. In contrast to the steel-grey waters and overcast skies of the Baltic, the Caspian Sea was green; it had yellow sandy beaches, a dazzling blue sky and a merciless southern sun. The tsar's instructions ordered the expedition, which was under the command of Prince Bekovich-Cherkassky, "to search assiduously for harbours and rivers where ships might be put in and scout-boats find a haven during storms; to establish the location of sandbars and underwater reefs, and enter all these and other things on maps; to cross the sea and note the location of islands and shoals; to put the width of the sea on the map". Fedor Matveyev enthusiastically set about mapping the unfamiliar sea. There was an ancient mystery about those uninhabited, windswept shores. Fedor knew that beyond the sun-baked yellow sands lay fabulous India. He was unaware, as yet, that Prince Bekovich-Cherkassky's expedition had another mission, a secret one. Finding the shortest trade route to India had long been one of Peter the Great's ambitions. He had heard much about that country's wonders and unbelievable wealth. Indian goods reached Europe through Persian and Arab merchants. European goods flowed to India through the same hands. Yet, reflected Peter, Nature herself had decreed that Russia should be a middleman in the commerce between Europe and Asia. On the route to India lay Khiva and Bukhara, troubled lands whose rulers were constantly engaged in strife. In the year 1700 Shah Niaz, Khan of Khiva, had expressed a desire to become a subject of the Russian tsar, hoping with Peter's help to bolster up his shaky throne. But then new rulers succeeded one another so rapidly in Khiva that it was impossible to keep track of them. Everything was a mystery in that sun-scorched land. For instance, old maps showed the Amu Darya flowing into the Caspian Sea. Herodotus, the Greek historian, and Arab historians also, said the Amu Darya flowed into the Caspian. Yet it was rumoured that the fickle river had shifted its channel. The rulers of Khiva, it was said, had built an earthen dam which caused the river to flow into the Sea of Aral. What sort of river was this Amu, river of the Bull, known to the ancient Romans as the Oxus and to the Arabs as the Jihun? Peter the Great was aware that it rose somewhere in India. If it could be turned back into the Caspian, and if he, Peter, could be master of its banks, or at least live in peace and friendship with those who held them, India's rich commodities could be delivered down that river to the Caspian Sea, across the Caspian to the city of Astrakhan, and from there up the Volga into Russia-by-passing the Persian merchants. These Indian commodities would be cheaper, and, besides, Russia's treasury would profit. Furthermore, Peter had heard there was gold in that area, near the town of Irket. All these rumours must be verified. The area must be explored by trusty men. Peter could not tolerate delay. Early in May 1714 he ordered Prince Bekovich-Cherkassky, a lieutenant in the Preobrazhonsky Guards Regiment, to set out for the Caspian Sea with the men he needed, "to search for the mouth of the river Amu Darya". On May 19 he ordered the Prince, in addition, "to proceed to Khiva and from there to Bukhara, to ascertain the possibilities of trade, and under cover of that, to find out everything he could about the town of Irket." Before his conversion to Christianity Prince Alexander Bekovich-Cherkassky's name had been Devlet Kizden Mirza. He came from a line of Kabardian rulers. As a boy he had been stolen by Nogai tribesmen. He fell into the hands of the Russians when Russian troops under Vassily Golitsin besieged the town of Azov, and was taken into the home of Vassily's brother Boris, one of Peter's tutors. In 1707 he was sent abroad to study. Soon after, he married into the Golitsin family, taking Boris Golitsin's daughter, the Princess Martha, for his wife. When Prince Bekovich-Cherkassky joined the Preobrazhensky Regiment he attracted the tsar's attention. It was to this strong, courageous, well-educated young man with a knowledge of the East that Peter the Great assigned the difficult mission of finding a route to India. On his way to Astrakhan, which he reached in August 1714, Prince Bekovich-Cherkassky stopped at Kazan, on the Volga. Here he took more than 1,500 soldiers and 19 cannon under his command. The expedition set sail from Astrakhan for Guryev, a town on the Caspian, at the mouth of the Ural River, on November 7 and nearly perished at the very beginning of the voyage. A vicious autumn storm scattered the twenty-seven light Volga boats and two schooners. The battered flotilla limped back to Astrakhan one month later, at the beginning of December, without ever having reached Guryev. After wintering at Astrakhan and obtaining about two dozen new boats, the expedition set sail again on April 25, 1715. Prince Bekovich-Cherkassky stood on the weather side of the quarter-deck as his flagship emerged from the Volga delta into the expanses of the sea. The green waters of the Caspian now gurgled beneath the schooner's keel. The Prince stood there, lost in thought. He was only a little Over thirty at the time, and the realization that he was responsible for so many men and so many ships weighed heavily on him. He gazed in silence across the green vastness, wondering what awaited him beyond those deserted shores and the burning, shifting sands. The flotilla cruised along the eastern coast of the Caspian until late autumn. It stopped at Guryev, rounded the Mangyshlak Peninsula and sailed southwards for a long time, mapping and describing in detail the strange, deserted coastline. The sun blazed down on them. The barrels of water taken on at Guryev became putrid; the men were tormented by thirst. But even stronger than thirst was the yearning for distant Russia, for shady forests and smoke rising from the chimney of one's own log cabin. The flotilla sailed past a gap in the coastline through which the sea rushed noisily. This was the mysterious Gulf of Karabugaz, eternally covered with a dark haze of evaporation. Then it sailed over a long, dangerous underwater spit that is now called Bekovich Bank. After rounding the bank it entered Krasnovodsk Bay, a place that slept the sleep of the dead amidst burning sands and hillocks. In the autumn of 1715, one year after it had first sailed out into the Caspian Sea, the flotilla returned to Astrakhan. The expedition had failed to reach either Khiva or Bukhara, and it had not learned anything about gold in that area. But it had confirmed the fact that the Amu Darya did not flow into the Caspian and that its old channel had dried up. Also, it had mapped the coast of the Caspian. The expedition proved to be too small and unsatisfactorily equipped for a long, dangerous overland journey. On February 14, 1716, Prince Bekovich-Cherkassky was given a new assignment. He was appointed Ambassador to the court of the Khan of Khiva with instructions to proceed to Khiva along the Amu Darya, carefully studying the river and examining the dam to see whether the river could be turned back into its old channel instead of flowing into the Sea of Aral. He was also to determine how many men would be needed to do that. Rumour had it that Khan Shirgazy, who now ruled Khiva, was extremely hostile to the local princes and was eager to consolidate his power. Prince Bekovich-Cherkassky was instructed to persuade him to become a Russian subject loyal to the tsar by promising to help him to unite his domain. In return for putting a Russian regiment at his service the Khan would presumably act in the interests of Russia. The Prince was also instructed by Peter to send an intelligence agent to Khiva disguised as a merchant to search for a water route to India. By decree of the Senate the strength of the expedition was enlarged to 6100 men in three infantry regiments, two dragoon units, two Cossack regiments, a marine detachment and a building crew. The building crew included men experienced in the construction of fortifications. The expedition also had scribes, interpreters, doctors and pharmacists. The regiments and baggage-trains gathered at Guryev. Prince Bekovich-Cherkassky set out for Guryev from Astrakhan, accompanied for a short distance, as far as the Caspian, by his wife Martha and their children. A fishing vessel followed the flotilla to take her and the children back to Astrakhan. Soon after they set sail the weather changed. A furious wind drove heavy waves against the current. The Prince bade his wife and children farewell, then stood for a long time watching the triangular white sail of their boat grow smaller in the distance. As he observed the clouds gathering above the Volga and listened to the wind howling in the rigging, he was filled with foreboding. Before long the news reached Guryev that his wife and daughters had been drowned in the storm. Only his little son had been rescued. When in the company of others the Prince tried to hide his sorrow. But the sight of him sitting alone in his tent, gazing fixedly into space, his face a picture of despair, was enough to wring the hardest heart. At the end of May 1717 the expedition set out from Guryev for Khiva. There was a good road, and they had an abundance of water as well as plenty of forage for the horses. The expedition was able to make up to fifteen kilometres a day across the salt marshes, and reached the Emba River in a week's time. There the men and the horses rested for two days, then built rafts and crossed the river. Here the sands began. Following a caravan route, the expedition finally reached the blue Sea of Aral. The men were tormented by the heat and by thirst. All around them stretched scorching sands. Time and again the expedition failed to reach the next well by nightfall. Slowly but surely it was moving towards its doom. Fedor Matveyev found the march difficult. Although he had a good physique and endured the heat better than many of the others, a presentiment of disaster kept nagging at him. Outwardly, however, he was composed. He encouraged the weary and seemed to know just where to dig shallow wells during bivouacs. The water brought up was brackish but potable. Finally the expedition reached Lake Aibugir. Now Khiva was only a few days' march away. It had been assumed, when plans for the expedition were first laid, that Khan Shirgazy was a weak ruler, fearful of his subjects, and would eagerly accept an offer of Russian military aid. That was no longer the case in 1717. Khan Shirgazy had brutally suppressed an uprising and was now stronger than ever before. As the Russians approached Khiva he resolved to show his enemies just how strong he really was. One morning a band of Khiva horsemen galloped into view from behind the hillocks along the lake shore. Brandishing curved sabres and filling the desert with war cries, they charged the Russian camp. The attack failed because the sentries were vigilant and the camp was surrounded by a wall of carts from the baggage-trains. The attacking force had to dismount and lie prone. The exchange of fare lasted until evening. During the night the Russians fortified their positions. They dug ditches on three sides of the camp and built an earthen rampart. The fourth side was the lake, which was thickly overgrown with reeds. They tied reeds into bundles and piled them together to conceal the batteries. The next morning an army of 20 000 men-ten times more than the expedition had-led by Khan Shirgazy himself, surrounded the camp. The siege lasted two days. The Russian cannon pounded away steadily; the men did not run out of either cannon-balls or vodka, and water for cooling the gun barrels was at hand. Heavy losses were inflicted on the attacking Khivans. Although the Prince's men were exhausted from their gruelling march they fought gallantly. When Khan Shirgazy saw that he could not take the camp by storm he decided to resort to guile. To the astonishment of the Russians the besieging troops vanished during the night. Silence reigned over the desert. The next day passed in tense expectation. Towards evening a lone horseman came galloping across the desert towards the camp. Wearing a richly-embroidered robe and turban, and with his hennaed beard, he was a colourful sight. When he reached the camp he introduced himself as Ishim Hodja, envoy of the Khan, and explained courteously that the attack had been made without the Khan's knowledge. The Khan, he said, had ordered the heads of the guilty to roll, and now invited the Prince to a council of peace and friendship. The latter sent a Tatar named Useinov to tell the Khan that he, Prince Alexander Bekovich-Cherkassky, was an envoy of the white tsar, bearing credentials and many gifts, and that it would be to the Khan's great advantage to receive the Russian mission. Khan Shirgazy received Useinov and asked him to tell the Prince that he would reply after he had consulted with his advisers. He did consult with his advisers. They said it had been a mistake to withdraw from Lake Aibugir, for the Prince did not have many men and it was too early to resort to guile. Soon the curved blades of the Khiva horsemen again glinted in the sun in front of the Russian fortifications beside the lake. Slender arrows and clay bullets glazed with lead again flew towards the camp. Again clouds of black smoke drifted across the desert as the Russian gunners, veterans of the war against Sweden, took aim and fired. After beating off the attack Prince Bekovich-Cherkassky again sent his parliamentarian to the Khan to demand an explanation of this perfidious conduct. Khan Shirgazy insisted once again the attack had been made without his knowledge. Again he declared that those to blame for the attack had already been caught and punished, some by death and others by a fate worse than death. The next day Prince Bekovich-Cherkassky himself rode over to the headquarters of the Khan for a talk. The Khan received him graciously. He promised to order his men to tear down the dam on the Amu Darya. He promised to be a younger brother to Peter the Great. He pledged peace and love and he kissed the tsar's scroll. The day was clear, with a fierce sun beating down mercilessly. All of a sudden the motionless air stirred, and a light breeze arose. Dogs howled and horses neighed. The sheep which the Khan's men had brought along for a feast huddled together, bleating piteously. A black smudge appeared on the disc of the sun. It grew rapidly, spreading across the sun. Darkness fell. Stars came out. The Khiva men beat on tambourines and drums to drive away the demons that were trying to swallow the sun. Khan Shirgazy was alarmed. Could this be a bad omen, just when he was about to sign a treaty with the white tsar? An elderly mullah in a green turban stood on tiptoe, his goatee tickling the hairy ear of tall Khan Shirgazy. He whispered, a crooked finger pointing to the darkened sun, "Do you see the omen, oh mighty ruler?" "I do," the Khan growled. "The omen is shaped like a crescent. It signifies that the glory of Islam will eclipse the glory of the infidels." This reassured the Khan. When the eclipse ended he accepted the gifts of the white tsar with a light heart. Examination of the gifts lasted until evening. Then the Khan and the Prince mounted their steeds and set out for Khiva, riding side by side. They were followed by the Khan's suite and the Russian expedition. The Russians, now in good spirits, sang as they marched along. A short distance from Khiva the Khan and his men set up camp on the bank of a stream. The Russians pitched their tents nearby. Prince Bekovich-Cherkassky and his companion, Prince Samonov, were the guests of honour in the Khan's tent. During supper the Khan explained to the Prince that it would be impossible to quarter the entire Russian mission in Khiva because there would not be enough food for them and it would take some time to bring in more supplies. Unless the Prince had plenty of his own provisions, in which case, of course- Prince Bekovich-Cherkassky had to confess that he was running short of provisions. The Khan then suggested that he divide the Russian force into five units, each to be quartered in a different town where, he promised, the food and lodging would be of the best. Prince Bekovich-Cherkassky and his companions would, of course, be offered hospitality in Khiva itself. It is hard to understand why Prince Bekovich-Cherkassky ever agreed to such a dubious arrangement. Perhaps he believed that Khan Shirgazy really had been frightened by the Russian artillery during the skirmishes at Lake Aibugir. Or he was so overwhelmed by his personal grief that he was unable to think clearly. The Russian foot soldiers, dragoons and gunners marched off from the stream in five different directions, each group accompanied by Khiva guides. The thick dust raised by the departing units hung for a long time in the hot, still air. Slowly the strains of their marching songs died away in the distance. Prince Bekovich-Cherkassky stood in front of the Khan's tent, gazing after his men, oblivious of the Khivans who had crowded round him. The units vanished from sight. The dust began to settle. "You dog! Betrayer of Islam! You have sold your soul to the infidels!" said Khan Shirgazy softly, laying a hand on the Prince's shoulder. "You dog! You tried to deceive me with your miserable gifts!" Prince Bekovich-Cherkassky spun round. Although he had difficulty understanding the Uzbek language he immediately grasped the meaning of the Khan's words. All he had to do was read the Khan's face. Khan Shirgazy drew out the royal credentials from the sleeve of his robe. Slowly and solemnly he tore the paper in half, threw the pieces on the ground, spat on them, and rubbed them into the sand with the pointed, turned-up toe of his yellow boot. Prince Bekovich-Cherkassky took a step backwards. He reached for his sword, then dropped his hand. Smiling and chattering, the Khan's bodyguards drew closer, their swords bared. Khan Shirgazy turned away. "Don't spoil the face," he murmured as he passed the bodyguards. The heads of the senior Russian officers were brought to Khiva and displayed to the public. Prince Bekovich-Cherkassky's head was not among them. Rumour had it that Khan Shirgazy had sent the head as a gift to the Khan of Bukhara, but cautious, far-sighted Abul-Faiz had refused to accept the horrifying gift and had sent it back. The five Russian detachments were destroyed one after another. Some of the men were killed, others were sold into slavery. A few managed to escape, some during the fighting and others later, while in captivity. Only a very few managed to make their way back to Russia by various routes after enduring indescribable deprivation and dangers. CHAPTER TWO IN WHICH FEDOR MATVEYEV FINDS HIMSELF IN INDIA When Fedor Matveyev opened his eyes he found himself lying beside a dusty road that ran through a tract of desert where only camel's-thorn grew. He groaned as the memory of that frightful day came back to him. Had it been yesterday, or the day before? The pitiless sun, directly overhead, made his eyes ache. He felt weak and nauseous. There was a sharp, constant pain in his right shoulder. When Fedor awakened again the sand, soaked with his blood, was cool. Enormous stars glittered in the black sky. His throat was dry. Wheels creaked close by, accompanied by a monotonous, wailing song in an unfamiliar language. "If they capture me I'll be tortured and killed," Fedor thought. "I must creep farther away from the road." With an abrupt movement he turned over on his stomach, gave a sharp cry of pain, and fainted once more. During the night he recovered consciousness several times. Each time he saw the same bright stars overhead and heard the creaking of wheels and the plaintive song. Added to these sensations was the feeling of being jolted and the acrid odour of sheep's wool and horse sweat. Fedor had been found lying unconscious near the road by an Uzbek peasant named Sadreddin, who put him in his bullock cart and took him home. There he and his family nursed Fedor solicitously, using ancient remedies to treat his deep wound. Fedor's collarbone was broken- but young bones mend quickly. The wound was encouraged to fester and was not allowed to heal so that the pus could carry away the small fragments of broken bone. After the fever subsided Fedor began to recover. He was given nourishing food and could feel himself growing stronger day by day. What would happen next? Fedor could not but be worried. The peasant who had taken him in was a kind man but he could not help wondering how he could turn the presence of this infidel to advantage. The young Russian could help him in the fields, and he probably knew some handicraft which he could practise. But it would be impossible to hide a healthy young Russian for long. The Khan's men would learn about him sooner or later-and that would be the end of Sadreddin. Taxes were onerous as it was, and now he would be stripped of everything he possessed. He could let the Russian go free, of course. But where would he go to? Sadreddin grew angry with himself. The faithful should never take pity on infidel dogs. No, he had not fed and nursed the Russian to let him go just like that. He would find a different way out. One night at the end of summer Sadreddin prepared a basket of provisions and put the basket and Fedor into his covered cart. Casting fearful glances to right and left, he drove through the sleeping hamlet. He had not concealed his plans. Fedor knew that the kindly Uzbek was taking him to some place far away from Khiva to sell him. "Are you a gunner?" he asked Fedor for the hundredth time as the cart rolled along. Fedor, who had learned a little Uzbek, nodded. "Can you do a blacksmith's work?" Again Fedor nodded absentmindedly. He was wondering what to do. It would not be hard to overpower sluggish Sadreddin and take the horse and cart and food away from him. But what next? It must be all of 800 versts to Guryev. Travelling by cart it would take him a month to reach that city. But it would be risky to follow the road. On the other hand, setting out across the desert, without knowing where the wells were, would mean certain death. Sadreddin knew that Fedor had no way of escaping, and so he travelled along slowly without taking any precautions. They reached Bukhara in two weeks' time. There Sadreddin sold Fedor to a merchant from Kashgar for a good price. He spent the money on Bukhara merchandise. "You have brought good luck to my house," he told Fedor in parting. "You fetched a good price. If I can return home with these goods without being robbed, my family will live well. For this, Allah will help you, even though you are an unbeliever." The swarthy Kashgar merchant, who had been told Fedor's history, laughed into his thick black beard. Poor Sadreddin thought the price he had been paid for Fedor made him a rich man. He had no idea of the true value of a strong young man who had been trained in the arts of warfare and metallurgy. The merchant treated Fedor well, even giving him a horse to ride, for he knew that Fedor would not attempt to escape from the caravan. He also gave Fedor sheets of paper and a copper inkpot on a chain to hang at his belt. When the caravan set up camp for the night Fedor would take his pen, made of a split reed sharpened at the end, and, in a hand grown unaccustomed to writing, would describe the landmarks and details of the journey. In Astrakhan not so long ago he had envisioned his travels to distant India from Khiva to gather information about that country. Now he was actually on his way to India but as a slave instead of a scout of the tsar. Still, who could tell? These notes might yet prove useful. Fedor had decided to conceal his homesickness and bitterness and bide his time. It took the caravan three weeks to reach the mountains. For ten days they climbed higher and higher along a narrow path. It grew colder. Fedor's heart leaped with joy at the sight of snow, but it made him more homesick than ever for the snowy plains of Russia. Finally they made their way over the pass and descended into the flowering Vale of Kashmir, following the river Gilgit to its confluence with the Indus. They crossed the Indus and some of its tributaries. Several weeks later they entered the city of Amritsar, a big commercial centre. So this was India! It was a land of strange buildings, unfamiliar trees, colourful bazaars and copper-skinned people, some half-naked, some dressed in white robes. Fedor drank in the marvellous sights with unfeigned curiosity. The Kashgar merchant decked Fedor out in new clothing and gave him an opportunity to rest up. But at the inn he locked Fedor into his room and ordered the servants to guard him, not so much because Fedor might escape as because someone might try to steal him. One day the merchant brought a tall, thickset Hindu, all dressed in white, to see Fedor. The Hindu looked him up and down intently, then smiled and seated himself cross-legged on a carpet, making a sign to Fedor to be seated too. During the years he spent in the East Fedor adopted many of the customs of the region, but nothing was harder for him to learn than to sit on the floor in Indian fashion, with the soles of his feet lying on his thighs. "Sprek je de Nederlandse taal? the Hindu asked. Fedor was amazed to hear him speak Dutch. "You have nothing to worry about," said the Hindu. "If what the merchant says about you is true you will have a fine life." The Hindu then proceeded to question Fedor. He asked him about dams and water wheels. They discussed European politics and Russia's war with Sweden. Fedor was surprised to find himself conversing with a highly-educated man. Finally the Hindu turned to the Kashgar merchant. Although Fedor did not understand a word of what they said it was clear they were bargaining. This went on for a long time. At times the merchant, accustomed to bazaars, would raise his voice to a scream. The Hindu kept his voice low but firm. Then there came the moment when he unwound his broad sash and removed a small purse and scales with a single tray and a weight suspended from an ivory rod. From the purse he took two precious stones that sparkled with greenish lights. He dropped the gems into the tray, and, holding the loop of the ivory rod in his left hand, he moved the weight along the rod with his right hand to balance the scales. The Kashgar merchant looked at the mark at which the weight stopped, then carefully picked up the stones and examined them, first one and then the other, against the light. He bowed respectfully and without saying a word started unwinding his sash to put the jewels away inside it. "You can see how much you are worth," the Hindu remarked in Dutch. Fedor did not like the idea of being sold for such a high price. He knew little about precious stones but realized that if he were ever ransomed the ransom would be high. His family was not rich. They would hardly be able to raise such a sum. The tsar had seen him only once or twice and probably would not remember him. If the Foreign Board were asked to pay a ransom, would it consent? "Now fortify yourself with food," the Hindu said to Fedor. "There is not much time and we have quite a distance to travel." A servant at the caravansarai brought in a bowl of rice and mutton similar to the Uzbek pilau, and a pitcher filled with a cold liquid. Fedor and the Kashgar merchant set about their meal. The Hindu rose and moved towards the door. "Why doesn't he have something to eat too?" Fedor asked in a low voice. "Sh-h," the merchant whispered. "He's a Brahman. They never eat with other castes. Besides, they don't eat meat and many other things." "Who is he?" Fedor asked. The merchant's reply was vague. "He must be an important person. All I know is that his name is Lal Chandra and he comes from the Punjab, not so very far away from here." By evening Lal Chandra's covered wagon was some distance from Amritsar. The driver, bare to the waist, urged on the horses. Lal Chandra dozed, reclining against rug-covered cushions. Fedor lay on the floor of the wagon, his thoughts far away, in distant Russia. They drove through Lahore and then followed the bank of a river. Afterwards they turned west and rode for a long time across a desert tract that looked like the land in the vicinity of the Sea of Aral. They crossed the beds of dried-up rivers. They followed the bank of one of these streams and finally halted in front of an iron gate in a high stone wall. The gate swung open to allow the wagon to pass through, then swung shut. Fedor looked out but he could see no one beside the gate. Nor was there anyone on the long road that wound through a park in which unfamiliar trees grew. The hot air was filled with a heady fragrance, evidently from the big, bright flowers. The wagon stopped before a tall stone mansion with many niches in which stood strange creatures carved of stone. Lal Chandra slowly descended from the wagon. Fedor sprang out after him, stretching his stiff legs. Lal Chandra led him along a narrow, vaulted, dusky passage into a large cool room where a big statue of polished stone stood. Fedor had never seen anything like it, not even in his most horrible nightmares. Three steps led up to a low pedestal on which sat a woman with her feet tucked under her. Her face was unbelievably beautiful, her eyes were blind, and her lips were curved into an enigmatic, frightening smile. The woman had six arms. Two arms ended in hands folded peacefully in her lap, two were bent at the elbow and raised, and two were thrust forward menacingly. She had three pairs of breasts. Lal Chandra placed the palms of his hands in front of his face and prostrated himself before the statue. He remained motionless for a long time. "He obviously isn't Moslem," Fedor thought, "if he is praying to this idol." Finally the Hindu rose and bowed three times before the goddess. Then he led Fedor into a small room that resembled a monk's cell, with bare stone walls and a vaulted ceiling. Slanting rays of sunshine coming through a window near the ceiling provided the illumination. In the floor was a pool filled with water, evidently running water. "I do not know whether your gods prescribe ablutions," said Lal Chandra, "but I must purify myself before attending to my affairs. You may, too, if you wish." Fedor promptly removed his clothing and sank with pleasure into the cool water. He began to splash noisily, not noticing the Hindu's frown. After the ablutions Lal Chandra led Fedor along another passage into a large, bright room with windows looking out on a garden. The windows did not have either glass or mica in them but were covered by intricately carved shutters with interstices through which the light came. Here, too, there was a statue of the six-armed goddess. Smaller than the first one, it was made of copper and stood on a high marble support. Low tables lined the walls. The shelves above them were filled with fancifully shaped glass, clay and metal vessels, scales, sandglasses and water clocks. In a corner there was a stove. The curved necks of copper vessels jutted out of its sides. Fedor's attention was caught by a monstrous object on a platform in the middle of the hall, opposite the statue of the goddess with six arms. Moulded copper columns, ornamented with carvings of plants and animals, supported a horizontal shaft whose necks rested on copper wheels half a foot in diameter. An enormous disc of some black material was mounted in the middle of the shaft. It was covered with radially distributed plates, narrow and shining, that might have been made of gold. At one end of the shaft was a pulley encircled by a round, woven strap. The ends of the strap went into openings in the floor. Fedor stood in front of the bulky machine trying to grasp its purpose. He had never seen anything like it before. "It pleases me to see that here you have forgotten about contemptible food," Lal Chandra said, touching Fedor on the shoulder. "But man is weak. Pass through that door"-he pointed to a narrow opening in the wall- "and you will find the kind of food to which you are accustomed. Then you will learn what you are to do." In the small adjoining room Fedor found a bowl of fried meat and steamed vegetables on a low table. A narrow-necked pitcher stood on the floor. There was no chair. "I suppose I'll have to get used to it," Fedor said to himself with a sigh as he awkwardly squatted down beside the table. CHAPTER THREE WHICH DESCRIBES THE LIGHTNING MACHINE The days in Lal Chandra's house passed slowly. Fedor wandered through empty corridors and peeped into cool rooms. He never saw anyone in them. But he knew that he had only to strike a bronze gong for a silent servant to appear on the threshold. The food was plentiful, but it brought Fedor no joy. He wanted to go out beyond the wall to see what the locality looked like, but each time he came to the gate he found it locked. Escape was impossible. Besides, Fedor was hunted by the feeling that someone was watching his every step. On the other side of the filigree shutters lay an alien night. The silence was absolute. He longed to hear a sound, any sound, even the barking of a dog. At times he was driven to such despair that thoughts of laying hands on himself came into his mind. Cry out though he might, Russia would never hear him. She was too far away, beyond high mountains and scorching plains. Fedor shook the shutters in fury. He pressed his tear-stained face to the cold metal. Lal Chandra visited him almost every day. He would enter, tall and erect, in his white robe, and conduct a vague conversation on theological topics. These talks made Fedor uncomfortable. At home he had never prayed with any particular fervour and he had never had the time or inclination to go into the subtleties of religion. He had felt that it was enough if he, as a soldier, crossed himself before climbing into bed. One day he was unable to restrain himself, and in the midst of Lal Chandra's monotonous utterances he burst out: "I'm sick of all this dull talk. You bought me to work. Well, give me something to do." Lal Chandra was silent for a while. "Soon," he said, "I shall raise before you the veil that shrouds a holy mystery which the gods reveal only to the chosen." "Couldn't your gods find anyone else but me?" Fedor asked derisively. "Do not speak thus of gods about whom you know nothing. Only I possess knowledge of this mystery. You will be my assistant. You are a foreigner, without friends or relatives here, and therefore you are less dangerous to me than a fellow tribesman." "If I am initiated into this mystery you will not allow me to return home when the opportunity comes. I don't want to know it." "It will be of no use to you at home. It is important and awe-inspiring only here," Lal Chandra replied evasively. "But you must not speak about it to anyone. If you do, yours will be a horrible death." With those words he walked out of the room. Fedor stood motionless for a long time, lost in gloomy thought. The next evening Lal Chandra softly entered Fedor's room and sat down beside him. "Which deity did you worship in your country?" he asked. Fedor was at a loss. "The Holy Trinity," he wanted to say, but he could not find the words in Dutch. "I believe in the holy three," he said. "Three gods-The Trimurti," Lal Chandra repeated thoughtfully. "Do your gods work miracles?" "Of course they do. The Bible tells how Jesus Christ, the son of God, turned water into wine and raised Lazarus from the dead. Then there's the story in the Old Testament of a bush that burned but didn't burn up." "Have you ever seen a miracle?" "No, never." "Now listen carefully, young man," Lal Chandra began. "When the gods do not work miracles, men tend to forget that they must obey the high priests implicitly. But we are not given to know why the gods fail for a long time to remind us of themselves." "Are you a priest?" Fedor asked in surprise. "I am but a humble servant of Kali, the Goddess of Terror. I have been chosen to be her instrument, so that men of the lower castes should be convinced, through miracles, of the might of the gods, and resign themselves to their lot of obedience and toil. As for our rulers, when they see a miracle they will realize that they must obey the high priests. Do you understand me, young man?" "You mean that if your gods don't work miracles you'll-" "Exactly. The gods, who have unveiled a small part of their mysteries to me, may work miracles through me. For the gods are all-powerful. Come with me. I will show you signs of their might." Picking up a clay lamp, Fedor followed Lal Chandra into the big room in which the strange machine stood. Lal Chandra clapped his hands thrice and then issued an order to the servant who silently appeared before him. The huge black disc rumbled as it started to rotate. Creaking, the woven belt emerged from the floor and passed over the pulley. "Are men down below turning it?" Fedor asked. Lal Chandra nodded. The disc spun faster and faster. Its gold plates merged into a glowing ring. A high-pitched hum filled the room. Next Lal Chandra turned an ebony lever, and two sparkling bronze spheres that were part of the machine drew closer and closer together. Suddenly there was a dry crackle as a streak of bluish-violet lightning flashed between the sphere. The air felt fresh and cool, as after a thunderstorm. While Fedor watched in fascination, lightning blazed in the dusk-filled room. He felt his skin creep. With a turn of the lever Lal Chandra separated the spheres. The lightning ceased. Lal Chandra gestured towards the bronze statue of the six-armed goddess. "Do not be afraid of the goddess. Embrace her." "Horrible creature," Fedor muttered in Russian. "Are you afraid?" Fedor boldly put his arms around the bronze hips of the goddess. In the same instant he was deafened and stunned, and flung to the floor. Crackling lightning had sprung from the body of the goddess. A wave of freshness struck his nostrils. Fedor regained his feel, cursing roundly. "Forgive my little joke," Lal Chandra said, his lips parting in a smile. "1 simply wanted to show you the power which the goddess has given me over lightning." Fedor became aware of an itching sensation in the palm of his left hand. Looking down, he saw a cut at the base of his thumb. "Your goddess bites, damn it!" he exclaimed. He was trembling. Lal Chandra smeared a fragrant salve on the cut and the pain subsided. "Now you will learn the purpose to which you will be put," he said. "I have heard that the art of building water-wheels is well known in your country. Is this art known to you?" The covered wagon, driven by the same half-naked coachman, travelled across a barren tract for a long time before it came to a rocky road that led to the bank of a small stream. Lal Chandra stepped out of the wagon and Fedor sprang down after him. They pushed their way through thickets until they reached the high bluff. There, squeezed between rocky banks, the stream was very narrow and formed a swift waterfall. Below the waterfall the stream was placid. "Would this be a good place for a water-wheel?" Lal Chandra asked. "Yes, a very good one," Fedor replied. "But does the stream flow all the year round?" "No, it dries up in summer. Anyway, we won't need it long, only during the rains. Take the measurements you'll need to build a large wheel here." Fedor looked round. On the other side of the stream, not far away, stood a temple-like building with two towers. "Will we be able to approach that temple later?" he asked. "I'll have to if I'm going to take measurements." "Of course. That temple is where the will of the gods is going to manifest itself." "Very well," said Fedor. "I'll get my sight-vane." He went back to the wagon for his instrument, a shallow wooden bowl with two tiny notches on the edges, diametrically opposite one another. Picking up a clay pitcher and the sight-vane, Fedor approached the spot where the water cascaded over the lip of the rocks. He placed the bowl on a flat stone, filled the pitcher with water, and poured water into the bowl until it was almost full. Then he lay down on the ground and turned the bowl in front of his eyes so that both notches were in line with one of the towers of the temple. By pouring more water from the pitcher into the bowl, and carefully propping up the sides of the bowl with stones, he forced the water to swell above the edges of the bowl. Then, closing one eye, he concentrated on getting the nearest and farthest edges of the bowl to coincide in height. Holding his breath lest he get out of line, he counted: the water level was six rows of stones below the windows of the second storey of the temple. Then Fedor rose, rubbed his numb elbows, scrambled up the rocks to the top of the waterfall, and repeated his observations there, after which he descended to where Lal Chandra was waiting. Next the two men waded across the stream and entered the abandoned temple. Ahead of them strode the coachman, Ram Das, carrying a torch. Bats flitted about under the vaulted ceiling. The flapping of their wings nearly extinguished the torch. The air was damp and had a musty smell. "Any snakes here?" Fedor asked. "You won't find cobras in damp, dark places," said Lal Chandra. "But we are in the hands of Shiva and Kali." The passage led into a room whose ceiling was so high that the light from the torch did not reach the top. The sides of the room faded into terrifying darkness. On a three-tiered pedestal stood Fedor's old acquaintance, the goddess Kali, with her six arms, three faces and six breasts, wrathful, inscrutable and ready to act. The face that was turned to Fedor gazed across the room with a strange expression in which an inviting smile was combined with a threatening frown. The gaze was fixed on an equally enormous statue, with four arms, standing on one leg, the other being bent at the knee, in a dancing posture. This was the god Shiva, Kali's spouse. Lal Chandra prostrated himself before the menacing goddess. "What a handsome couple you make!" Fedor whispered to himself jokingly in an effort to regain his composure. He was in the grip of a fit of shivering caused either by the dampness or by the eerie atmosphere of the place. He glanced at Ram Das. As the driver stood there holding the torch his face expressed neither fear nor religious devotion. He simply looked bored. There may have been a trace of scorn in the look the half-naked slave gave his master, Lal Chandra, lying prostrate before the sovereign over life and death. The expression on the slave's face sobered Fedor. He resumed his scrutiny of the goddess. Suddenly he startled in horror. From her graceful neck hung a chain of human skulls. "The foul murderess!" he exclaimed in Russian. Ram Das did not understand the words, but the wrathful tone prompted him to level a long, thoughtful glance at Fedor. A few minutes later Lal Chandra led Fedor through a series of intricate passageways to the stairs leading up into one of the towers. Fedor climbed up the weathered, sand-sprinkled steps to the ninth storey. Looking down from a window, he saw Lal Chandra at the foot of the tower. Fedor took out his length of string, in which he had tied knots at intervals of one foot, attached a stone to the end, and began paying out the string, counting the knots. When the stone reached the sixth row of bricks below the second-storey window Lal Chandra gave a shout. Fedor stopped paying out the string, leaned far out of the window, and saw that the row of bricks he had noticed when he made his second measurement was at the seventy-fourth foot. "That means the waterfall is seventy-four feet high," he thought. "I wonder how far it is to the ground." He allowed the string to run out until the stone at the end touched the ground. The distance was about ninety feet. Fedor now forgot about everything but the unusual and interesting job ahead of him. He was in such high spirits that when he descended and saw the silent torch bearer he clapped him on the shoulder. "We'll make a wonderful wheel!" he exclaimed happily. Ram Das moved forward without a word. But after taking a few steps he stopped, glanced round, lifted his torch high to illuminate everything around them, and then gestured to Fedor. "Do you understand what I say?" he asked in a Moslem dialect. "I do," Fedor replied in Uzbek. "Do not rejoice like a new-born calf. You will live just as long as you are needed to finish this job. Do you understand that?" A shudder ran through Fedor. "But what can I do? How can I escape?" he asked tonelessly. "It is too early to talk of such things. I will find a suitable time and place to talk with you. But now, silence!" The torch-bearer moved forward. A few minutes later they emerged into the bright sunshine. Ram Das threw the torch, which had burned low, into the stream. The flame hissed and went out. Lal Chandra smiled at Fedor. Man is a strange creature. Sometimes Fedor would wake up in the middle of the night and, recalling Ram Das's grim words, give way to despair. But when morning came his fears would evaporate, whether because of his carefree Russian nature or because he was carried away by the work. As he sat over the sketches and calculations of the huge water-wheel he sang to himself. At times these Russian songs were sad, at times they were gay. Now the days passed more quickly. Fedor learned to speak the local dialect. Lal Chandra often travelled to the old temple to supervise the restoration work that had been begun there. Fedor was no longer alone 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