Evening Star Newspaper, March 10, 1935, Page 72

Hllustration by E. F. Ward March 10, 1935 The Look on Their Faces Told Me What They Would Do If I Got Into Difficulties JORKENS RETIRES from BUSINESS But First He Had to Alake a Life-and-Death Decision 3y LORD DUNSANY MEMBER of our club had made a little coup on the Stock Exchange; nothing very much, but enough to bring the conversation round to investments, transactions, and such. And so we got to talking of the whole art of making money — until one of us suddenly introduced the theme of leaving that game, retiring and living far away from towns on such money as one had made. The general feeling of the Billiards Club was very soon evident, and it held that it cannot be done, that you cannot deliberately turn from acquiring gold, where it is at all plentiful and you have the power to acquire it. The issue was slightly confused at first by several members saying that they had retired from business themselves; but it was proved that old age, bankruptcy, depre- ciation of stocks, or general commercial depression, accounted for every case. It is the turning away from gold while it is still to be had in handfuls that in our opinion, as soon as it crystallised, cannot be done by any man. ‘“That is so0,”” said Jorkens suddenly. He said it so finally that, even though he confirmed the opinion of all of us, Terbut felt that he must contradict. ‘It is not so easy for anvone to find gold just now,”” said Terbut. ‘“There’s nodifficulty in that," said Jorkens, away amongst shadows that bowed and trembled before the fire. ““Can you find it?"” said Terbut, from the table where most of us still lingered late after lunch; and outside was the darkening sky of a forbidding December. “Plenty of it,” said Jorkens. ‘“Where?"” answered Terbut, rather natur- ally. ““If you've a good map,”’ began Jorkens. And Terbut almost ran to an atlas. Jorkens opened it with perfect composure, and turned the pages to India. ‘‘It's on an island in a lake.” said Jorkens. *“The island’s barely an acre, a quarter mile out from the shore. It's heaped with nuggets. Big ones; the lake’s an old crater, and I imagine that all that gold must have been thrown up by volcanoes. There was probably a pool of it once, all molten, a mile or so down, a lake perhaps; and the volcano shot it up, a fountain of gold. They say that granite has often been shot up like that." “Did you mention the name of the lake?’* said Terbut. 5 “Umboodwa,’’ said Jorkens. “Could vou show it to us on the map?’’ con- tinued Terbut. “Yes," replied Jorkens. “The name's not marked, but it's there, where there's no sign of water, by my finger." *No sign of water?'" repeated Terbut. *No,"” Jorkens continued, ‘“‘the government don't allow it to appear on any map." *Is it there at all?’’ asked Terbut. “Certainly. I've seen it."” ‘A bit difficult, wasn’t it?" said Terbut. “If the government wouldn't let it be marked on the map, they can hardly have been very keen on your going there.’’ ‘“They weren’t so particular in those days," said Jorkens. “And what made them grow more so?’’ went on the tenacious Terbut. “You see,” said Jorkens reflectively, “I was the only one that ever came back from it."” *“The only one?" Terbut muttered. *I think so,”” said Jorkens. And then we got the rather peculiar tale of how Jorkens went to Umboodwa. “I first heard of it,”’ said he, *‘at a club they had in the hills. I happened to come to the Terai, and upon the hills above me was this club, among a few houses, white like patches of snow. I dined there once or twice. Well. they used to play pretty high in those days. I don't give you the name of the club. because they asked me not to mention what happened that night. I'll tell you, but I'll suppress names. A young fellow got up from one of those tables, having lost 250 pounds in one sitting. He got up very white, and said: ‘I must go to Umboodwa.' ‘“The men to whom he had lost the money shrugged their shoulders; with no more said by anyone, he went out of the room. ‘I naturally began to ask about Umboodwa. ‘Oh, it'sa place,’ was the sort of answer I got. There seems to have been some kind of dis- trust of it even then. And with their effort to hush up the episode of losing 250 pounds at a sitting I heard little more about Umboodwa then. But I persevered and was soon on the track of it. After all, you can’t easily hide a lake nearly a mile across and something like three miles long. What I didn't quite like about it was that, by the time I had found out all I wanted to know of how to get to the lake, I began to ask about that young fellow who had walked out, all white, from the club. The bare fact is he was never heard of again. I didn’t like that. But I went to Umboodwa. “I got there from the hills in a couple of days. I got to within fifteen miles of it by train, and then hired a bullock-tonga and traveled in that as far as there was a road, and then walked over the circular line of low hills that hide the lake from the world. Below me from the top of the hills there lay a perfect circle, part land and part lake. In the lake was an island, a quarter of a mile from the shore, with a tiny temple on it. There was another small temple on the mainland, at the nearest point to the island, and there one or two men were walking about. There were no ts. ““] walked down to the two men, who seemed to take no notice of my coming, until I was quite close, and one of them then came Copyright 1935, by United Newspapers Magazine Corporation a little way forward to meet me. They both looked the kind of Indians that spend their time contemplating things, and I hardly ex- pected either of them to be practical guides. But the one that was coming to meet me said at once: ‘You want gold?' So that at any rate he knew what I had come about. “ ‘Yes, please,’ I said. * ‘Will you please to take a ticket? It is two rupees,’ he told me; which is about half a crown. And he motioned me to the other man."’ “Half a crown for a ticket to pick up gold nuggets?'’ exclaimed Terbut. “No, for a bathing-suit."”’ A bathing-suit,” muttered Terbut. “There are a lot of places like that,” Jorkens replied, ‘‘where they won't let you enter the water without a bathing-suit. But here it was particularly necessary, because the suit was equipped with pockets in which to carry the gold. So I paid my half-crown for a paper ticket, and went and got the kit. It was handed to me by a man in a shack by the temple, very much as you might get your bathing kit at a swimming bath in England. But everything else was different. The kit was different; and the attitude of the two men by the shore was different from anything else whatever. ‘“They both sat down and they watched me; they watched me alertly all the time I was there, and utterly without interest. It gave me an odd feeling — to be watched by eyes that noted your every movement, and yet without caring, as one could see by the look of them, whether one prospered or failed in anything that one wanted or even whether one were alive or dead. The look on their faces left me no illusions as to what they would do if I got into difficulties swimming back from the island; they would go on with their watching. I didn’t know, when I came to that conclusion, how long they both had been at that very thing. They must have been at it for years."” “‘At what?"’ said Terbut. “Watching men drowning," said Jorkens. “Murdering them, do you mean?" said Terbut, suddenly indignant. . ( Continued on Page 15)