Free Coromandel! by John Masters Page A

backs swept up to the ceiling and round the four walls. He saw another globe on a table, and parchment, sand, ink, and quills beside it. But--the books! He took one out at random and carried it like a jewel to the window.
    He opened it and stared at the print. It wasn’t even English. He knew the alphabet now, and this was different. He put it back and got out another. All writing, and he could not read.
    He found a book with pictures on nearly every page. He burst out laughing with delight, and quickly hushed and listened, but no one moved in the big house. He was looking at a wondrous animal with a tail at each end and four, five, six men, carrying spears, in a box on its back. The animal had--he looked more closely--God’s blood, it had great teeth like a boar’s, only ten times bigger and curving down instead of up. He looked at the ceiling. That animal could not fit into this room. There was writing in the book as well as pictures, and he could not read it. Still, the pictures were more marvellous than shooting stars. He turned the pages greedily.
    Pennel church clock clanged loud and close, the cracked bell notes shaking the glass panes in the window and thudding to silence among the leather books. Jason started and stared nervously around him. What was he doing here? Jane Pennel.
    The back of the chair was damp where he had been sitting in his wet jerkin. He slipped out of the room, taking the book with him. He crept up the wide staircase. The third door on the left. He made a little scratching on it with his fingernail and waited. He heard a stir in the room and stepped to one side, in case it might after all be the wrong room that he had come to. The door opened an inch and, used now to the dark--ness, he saw a slice of Jane’s face. She opened the door, let him in, and shut it quickly behind him.
    She whispered, ‘Where have you been? Why are you so late?’
    He said, ‘I was looking at this book, Jane. It’s full of pictures. Look.’ He opened the book at random and said excitedly, ‘Look at that!’
    She whispered furiously, ‘I don’t want to look at pictures. You gave me a terrible fright!’ She was trembling as she stood beside him. He began to explain that the book was like a key to heaven, but she said, ‘You’re wet. You smell of cow dung.’
    Jason sniffed carefully. He did smell strong. The rain always did that, and the smell seemed even more powerful in this faintly scented bedroom. He took her in his arms and kissed her. That was what she had wanted most from him, ever since the Oak and Horn. She was dressed only in her shift, and she pressed her spiced mouth against his. He opened his eyes to look past her head through the window as they kissed. The first leaves were beginning to fall; they looked like flying tiny ships of air as they sailed down in the light of the outside lantern. He ought to have told Mary he couldn’t marry her; but he hadn’t seen her since the harvest fair.
    He stood back from the girl and whispered, ‘Jane, we must go away. We’ll go to Aleppo and see all the animals in the book.’ He picked up the book and opened it.
     
    For a moment she stood watching his face. Already he was absorbed in the book, and she standing here in her shift trembling for him--and she her father’s only daughter. And he--he did smell of cow dung. But she ought not to have said that just now. It was cruel. He couldn’t help it. She couldn’t help what she was doing, either, because his eyes sparkled when he looked at her, and she had felt the same helpless weakness years ago when she was only a little girl and hadn’t then really known the difference between a Pennel and a Savage. So because he had been her first love then, and she had not dared to tell him, she was here and he was here.
    She was wicked, and Hugo would kill her if he knew. But Jason would protect her. He had a short knife, and his arms were sinewy and sunburned. The line of his jaw lay hard against the light from