Dennis Wheatley - The Rape Of Venice

The best road led south-​westward through Singhbhum to Saranda and Jharsuguda. Enquiries in the villages through which they passed confirmed that Malderini had taken that way and, as Rai-​ul-​daula had supposed, was halting only to purchase food and have meals cooked; so, in this first stage, he had gained a further three days on them. But that did not now unduly trouble Roger as, in the long journey back to Europe his enemy might meet with many unavoidable delays which would bring them up with him.

From Jharsuguda the main artery for traffic, ran due west through the heart of the Maratha country to the city of Raipur, then on to Nagpur, the great metropolis of central India. Day after day the palanquins lumbered on, sometimes through dense jungle and at others through low pastures along the banks of rivers. Frequently, among the bearers who trotted them from village to village, there were men who had helped carry Malderini's palanquins, and after reaching Raipur they learned that he had dropped to a slower pace, halting to sleep at nights; but by then he was a fortnight ahead of them.

On most nights they camped beside a river, so that after the long day Roger could refresh himself with a dip but he soon decided to give up shaving. Now and then, Mahmud Ali shot a buck, but generally they did not dare to venture far from their camp for fear of wild animals, and sometimes they had to build a ring of fires as protection against them.

Their pace varied greatly. There were days when over flat country they covered as much as forty miles between dawn and dusk but, on others, hills and rough going slowed them down to fifteen and, at times, they lost the greater part of a day owing to the armed retainers of local potentates insisting on taking them before their masters. Sometimes they were received with veiled hostility, and forced to pay a tribute before being allowed to proceed; at others, they were treated with great politeness and, to avoid giving offence, Roger had to allow himself to be entertained for the night. None of these petty Princes could understand his anxiety to push on, and it was only by the exercise of great tact that he could resume his journey after a break of anything from twelve to eighteen hours.

In no way could he have better seen the teeming life of India and the splendid evidence of its ancient civilisation. Behind the walls of each city, narrow streets seethed with jostling multitudes. Richly curtained palanquins borne by slaves lumbered their way through crowds of hucksters, beggars, shouting naked children, and soberly robed women carrying water jars on their heads. At every street corner there was a juggler, holy man, snake charmer or brothel tout. In the villages the evidences of poverty were shocking to behold. Goats and cattle shared the flimsy habitations, and rickety, scrofulous youngsters fought over pieces of water-​melon. By contrast, every twenty miles or so, they came upon temples carved with superb artistry and served by dignified, shaven priests, or fairy-​like palaces with fountains playing in their courts, carefully tended gardens, and domes and turrets that stood out as though carved from ivory against the azure sky.

It was after leaving Nagpur that they lost track of Malderini, but that did not greatly worry Roger, as it could now hardly be doubted that the Venetian was heading for a western port on his way back to Venice; so they pushed on through the great state of Badndara to Badnera, and thence to another great city, Malkapur.

There, Roger decided to sell the palanquins and horses and take to the great water highway formed by the rivers Sonala and Tapti, which flowed right down to the Indian Ocean. The transfer to a big gaily-​painted barge with sixteen rowers proved advantageous in more ways than one. Overland they had averaged only a little more than twenty miles a day, whereas by water they were doing nearer thirty. At nights Roger had the barge moored well out from the river banks which kept them much freer from the myriads of flies, mosquitoes and other pests that had plagued them unmercifully during the past seven weeks. The heat, too, with the advance of summer had become almost unbearable, and on the water he felt it slightly less. All the same, it was heartfelt relief that he breathed in the sea breeze at Surat when they arrived there on May 26th.

Having financed the return to Bahna of the invaluable Mahmud Ali and his cook, and made them both handsome presents, Roger went in search of a ship. His enquiries led him to an Arab vessel that was loading for Berbera and due to sail in three days' time. He made an arrangement with her captain for himself and a servant. In the latter capacity he engaged, on the recommendation of a banker with whom he had changed money, a merry-​looking rascal named Hassan Abu ben Oman.

It was, too, on the banker's advice that he decided to make himself less conspicuous on the next stages of his journey by wearing Arab garments. The Sheiks of the Red Sea lands, and the Turkish government in Egypt, were not openly hostile to Europeans, but in strictly Mohammedan countries there was always a risk that some fanatical mullah might raise a mob against an obvious Christian; so the change was a sound precaution. His ten months in the tropics had made him very bronzed and, during the past seven weeks, he had grown a good beard so, when he had dyed it black and put on robes and turban, he was able to pass easily as a fair-​skinned Arab.

While in Zanzibar he had picked up a smattering of Arabic, and as soon as they sailed he began to practise speaking it regularly with his new servant. From Surat they had a most fortunate passage and docked at Berbera in the Gulf of Aden on June 12th.

There he was held up for only two days before Hassan Abu found for them another ship which was about to sail up the Red Sea for Suez; but, in this part of Roger's journey, luck was against him. The vessel was not only dirty and uncomfortable, but proved much slower than the one in which he had spent fourteen days between Surat and Berbera. Worse still, four days north of the straits of Bab-​el-​Mandeb she became becalmed for a whole week.

The heat was intolerable. It had been bad enough during the middle of the day when crossing central India but, hot as that had been, it was no more than a gentle warmth compared to this. The sails hung slack, the sun blazed down, thinning the stagnant air into a degree at which it lacked all reviving properties when breathed in and, instead, felt like a draught of molten copper. The deck was so hot that even the hardened feet of the Arab sailors would have blistered had they crossed it and the only moving things in the vessel for hours on end were the hordes of flies, which enjoyed a happy immunity because their victims were too exhausted by the heat to drive them off.

At last a light breeze enabled the ship to make headway again, but their progress continued to be slow, and the heat so sweltering that Roger reckoned he must have lost a stone in weight during the best part of the month it took him to journey up the Red Sea.

After a night in Suez. Hassan Abu secured camels for them and they joined the daily caravan that was about to set out for Cairo. Again, it proved a slow and uncomfortable method of travelling, so, after an hour or so, Roger suggested to Hassan that they should let their ungainly beasts trot and press on alone. But the young Arab would not hear of it, insisting that, if they left the protection provided by the caravan, desert robbers would certainly capture and hold them to ransom if not kill them. In consequence, the journey took them three gruelling days and it was not until July 10th that they reached Cairo.

On arriving in that fabulous city, Roger was torn between the desire to remain there a while, so that he could see some of its marvels, and the urge to settle his account with Malderini. It was now over three months since Clarissa had died, so his mind was no longer numb with the ache of losing her; but he still wore the rope of her hair round his neck and had vowed not to take it off until he had killed the fiend who, by his abominable rites, had brought about her death.