Patrick O’Brian 3-Book Adventure Collection: The Road to Samarcand, The Golden Ocean, The Unknown Shore. Patrick O’Brian
resemblance to heathen idol,’ said Li Han, ‘or perhaps local fabulous monster.’
‘You quit that,’ said Olaf, going redder still. ‘My face ban okay, see? Ay reckon it ban a natural choice. But Auntie … aw, shucks.’
‘It is not Auntie who is the prime mover, in my opinion,’ said the Professor. ‘It is rather that stout young matron whose name, I think, is Ayuz, Auntie’s daughter. But that, if anything, makes the choice even more extraordinary.’
‘I would believe anything of people who put butter in their tea,’ said Sullivan. After a minute of hard thought he said, ‘What are we to do? In a case of this kind it’s like being without a compass or a chart. If you’re right, and I fear you are, these infernal women will never let us get on the road until they have their way. I’ve had something to do with women, and they’re all the same: they always get you down in the end.’
‘The first thing to do is to make sure of our suspicions,’ said the Professor, ‘and then perhaps we can think of some plan to confound the sirens.’
A few hours later they were sitting in the largest room in Tanglha-Tso, facing the formidable old woman they called Auntie. Behind her stood three of her four husbands, meek men, all of them, and at her side stood the young, stout woman whom Olaf now called Polly Andrews: her hair was more thickly buttered than usual, and she wore a towering scarlet hat. In the background there were all the villagers who could squeeze in: the air was thick with smoke and heat.
‘That girl ban nuts,’ muttered Olaf. The words were hardly out of his mouth before Polly stepped forward and pinned a silver brooch, studded with turquoises, on to Olaf’s coat. He went as red as a beetroot. He sprang up, saying, ‘Why, thank you, marm,’ and crashed his head against the ceiling. He sat down again, rubbing his head and muttering, ‘Aw, shucks.’
Polly went back to stand by the old woman, and she gazed unceasingly at Olaf while the old woman poured out a flood of words, mostly directed at the Professor, but some at Olaf, who sat there with an impassive countenance, wishing, above all things, to prove his innocence to the others.
Presently tea came in, and a jar of a sticky, greenish substance, very dark. They were all given bowls of buttered tea, but Olaf alone had something from the jar. Polly squatted by him and fed it to him from a spoon. He absorbed it without any expression whatever, but Derrick, squeezed firmly against him by the villagers, felt him tremble. From time to time Polly stroked Olaf’s golden hair and murmured loving words.
There was no doubt left in their minds at all, and they watched with profound misgiving.
When the tea was being carried away, the holder of the tea-pot did not move quickly enough to please Polly: she lifted her long coat and swung her boot forward in a kick that shot the attendant far out into the darkness.
‘That young person has a will of her own,’ remarked the Professor.
‘Lifted him a yard,’ muttered Olaf, nervously wiping his brow. ‘What ban Ay let in for?’
The old woman’s flow of words became slower, more emphatic. There were several scraps of Mongol in it: she clearly meant to be understood.
The Professor replied, and the room was silent, listening intently. He broke off, consulted his list of words, and went on.
The old woman began again, and all the eyes in the room, whether they could understand or not, turned to her. Then the Professor spoke, and all the eyes swung back again. He said a long sentence. There was a gasp of horror from the Tibetans. He repeated it, pointing up towards the monastery, and they gasped again, gazing at Olaf and drawing away from him. The old woman started a long harangue, pointing at Olaf with one hand and waving a prayer-wheel with the other. The whole room stared at Olaf, edging still farther away. While they were doing this, the Professor pretended to consult his book, and behind it whispered rapidly to Sullivan, ‘Olaf must go mad when I strike the table. Let him shriek, and then knock him down. Pass it on.’ The whisper ran down the line while the old woman was still speaking, but it did not reach Derrick, who was the other side of Olaf, and who was therefore petrified when, after the Professor had pronounced another sentence that made the Tibetans gasp and recoil so that the weaker members were crushed against the wall and cried out in agony, and had held up a charm with one hand while he banged the table with the other, Olaf suddenly rose in a weird, hunched attitude, drew his face into an appallingly contorted mask and began to shriek like a steam-whistle, ‘Hoo, hooo, hoooo.’ At the same time he began to lurch madly from side to side and grasped at Derrick’s throat with hands like crooked claws. At this moment Ross and Sullivan hurled themselves upon Olaf, flung him to the earth and began to belabour him with their fists. But they could not master him: with wild heaves he flailed about, still pouring forth his hideous and deafening scream until the Professor stepped up to him, and holding the charm over him said, in a chanting voice, ‘Oh thou able seaman, hold thy tongue. Go limp, therefore, and look as meek and peaceable as thou conveniently mayest.’
Olaf relaxed, an expression of imbecile benignity overspread his weathered features, and he lay still.
But the horror and alarm – to which Derrick’s unfeigned astonishment had added – was too great for the Tibetans. They rushed madly into the night, and only the old woman and Polly, with one person who was too paralysed with fear, remained. The old woman was trembling, but she would not run: Polly, as pale as she could very well go, gestured faintly towards Olaf and whispered something. The Professor bent over Olaf, whispered, ‘Foam a little,’ and unpinned the turquoise brooch. Olaf foamed like a whirlpool and twitched horribly. Polly took her brooch and vanished.
‘I think it would be advisable if Olaf were now to crawl on his hands and knees through the street to our yaks,’ said the Professor, sitting down. ‘Dear me, what an exhausting conversation.’
‘How did you do it, Professor?’ asked Sullivan, with admiration.
‘I had in mind a passage in a book of travels by the Buddhist monk Yen Tzu, who was in these regions during the last days of the T’ang dynasty. I was by no means sure of my ability to convey the anecdote, but they seem to have caught the gist, though with heaven knows what distortions, because I have only the most general notion of the meaning of some of the words I employed. However, the story that I intended to convey was this: Yen Tzu, on one of his journeys, met a Siberian person who had captured a semi-human monster in the desert and had taken him to an abbot famous for his piety to have him entirely humanised – it appears that he was a serviceable monster. But the abbot had only been partially successful: with the waning of each moon – and I happened to notice that the moon was very small last night – the power of the charm diminished, and the monster returned to his habit of eating human flesh, female human flesh. He could only be subdued by a jade charm, and then only when it was held by his owner. This was the tale I adopted, using the convenient departure of our good friend the abbot as a circumstantial detail, and as far as I can see they understood and believed the greater part of it. At all events, I venture to prophecy that none of them will willingly encounter Olaf as he crawls about the streets, particularly if he continues to snort in that disagreeable fashion.’
From outside came the sound of Olaf’s progress as he shuffled industriously round and round the narrow streets, grunting as he went, and scratching horribly at each door to strike terror and dismay into the silent and cowering inhabitants.
‘I am really sorry to have added to the burden of superstition that weighs on these unfortunate people,’ said the Professor, in another tone. ‘It would have been inexcusable if our need had not been so pressing: but I shall leave a letter, in the simplest Chinese that I can devise, to explain the situation to the abbot on his return, and I trust that he will be able to undo at least some of the mischief.’
‘It was a wonderful feat, Professor,’ said Sullivan. ‘Now I understand why you were drawing crescents and full moons on the table. But I hope we have not overdone it. I am quite sure that they will not want to keep Olaf in their bosoms any longer, but if they get so frightened that they won’t trade with us or lend us guides, then we shall be in a pretty fix.’
‘I do not anticipate that,’