El Borak and Other Desert Adventures (29 page)

Even his patience was wearing thin when without warning there came a rattle of chains, and the door opened a crack.

Someone was peering out, to be sure the grisly guardian of the gorges was not near, before the door was fully opened. More bolts clanged and a Tajik stepped out of the opening door. He bore a great iron platter of vegetables and nuts, and he sounded a weird call as he set it down. And as he bent Gordon struck a hammer-like blow to the back of his neck. The Tajik went down without a sound and lay still, head lolling on a broken neck.

That blow with a clenched fist had been without warning, but mercy was wasted on any rogue of Shalizahr. Gordon peered through the open door and saw that the corridor, lighted by the bronze lamps, was empty; the barred cells stood vacant. Hurriedly he dragged the Tajik down the ravine and concealed the body among some broken rocks, appropriating the dagger the man wore.

Then he returned and entered the corridor. He shut the door and hesitated over shooting the bolts. He finally decided to do so, because someone would be sure to pass that way before the night was over, and suspicion would be aroused and the door bolted anyway. Dagger in hand he started toward the secret door that opened into the tunnel which led to the hidden stair. His plan was clear in his mind. He meant to find Azizun if she were still alive, bring her with him to the tunnel and hide there until Lal Singh led his warriors up the ravine. Then he would open the door, and lead them against the men of Shalizahr, and the outcome thereafter would be as Allah willed and cold steel decided.

Or if hiding in the tunnel was not feasible, he might barricade himself and the girl in the corridor and hold it until the Ghilzai came. He was acting and planning all along as if their coming was a certainty. Of course there was always the chance that they would not come; that Yar Ali Khan had been unable to get through to Khor. But Gordon was nothing if not a gambler. And he was staking his life on the chance that the Afridi had gotten through.

The secret door was in the left wall, near the end of the passage, where there was another door, undisguised. He had not reached his objective when this door opened suddenly and a man stepped into the corridor. It was an Arab and as he sighted Gordon his breath hissed between his teeth and he reached for a heavy revolver which hung at his thigh.

But Gordon’s hand darted back with the dagger, poised for a throw. The Arab froze, pallor tingeing his skin under his black beard. He had no illusions
about the situation with which he found himself confronted. His hand gripped the pistol butt, but he knew that before he could draw and fire that dagger would flash through the air and transfix him, hurled by an arm whose force and accuracy was famed throughout the Hills. Gingerly he spread his fingers wide, drew his hand away from the gun and lifted both arms in token of surrender.

With a stride Gordon reached him, jerked the pistol from its scabbard and jammed the muzzle in the Arab’s belly.

“Where is the Indian girl, Azizun?”

“In a dungeon beyond the door through which I just came.”

“Are there other guards?”

“Nay, by Allah! I am the only one.”

“All right. Turn around and march back through that door. Don’t try any tricks.”

“Allah forbid!”

The man pushed open the door with his foot and stepped through, moving as carefully as if treading on the edges of naked razors. They came into another corridor which turned sharply to the left, disclosing rows of cells on each side, apparently empty.

“She is in the last cell on the right,” the Arab murmured, and then grunted convulsively an instant later as they halted before the barred door. The cell was empty. There was another door in that cell, opposite the one before which they stood, and that door stood open.

“You lied to me,” said Gordon softly, jamming the gun-muzzle savagely into the Arab’s back. “I’ll kill you!”

“Allah be my witness!” panted the man, shaking with terror. “She was here.”

“They have taken her away,” spoke an unexpected voice.

Gordon wheeled, wrenching the Arab around with him so the man stood between him and the direction from which the voice came, with the American’s gun trained over his shoulder.

Bearded faces crowded the grille of the opposite cell. Lean hands gripped the bars. Gordon recognized the prisoners. They glared silently at him with poisonous hate burning in their eyes.

Gordon stepped toward the door, dragging his prisoner.

“You were
faithful fedauis,”
he commented. “Why are you locked in a cell?”

Yusuf ibn Suleiman spat toward him.

“Because of you,
Melikani
dog! You surprized us on the Stair, and the Shaykh sentenced us to die, even before he learned you were a spy. He said we were either knaves or fools to be caught off guard as you caught us, so at dawn we die under the knives of Muhammad ibn Ahmed’s slayers, may Allah curse him and you!”

“Yet you will attain Paradise,” he reminded them, “because you have faithfully served the Shaykh Al Jebal.”

“May the dogs gnaw the bones of the Shaykh Al Jebal,” they replied with whole-hearted venom. “Wouldst that thou and the Shaykh were chained together in Hell!”

Gordon reflected that Othman had fallen far short of obtaining such allegiance as was boasted by his ancestors, for whom their followers gladly slew themselves at command.

He had taken a bunch of keys from the girdle of the guard, and now he weighed them contemplatively in his hand. The eyes of the Kurds fixed upon them with the aspect of men in Hell who look upon an open door.

“Yusuf ibn Suleiman,” he said abruptly, “your hands are stained with many crimes. But the violation of a sworn oath is not among them. The Shaykh has abandoned you — cast you from his service. You are no longer his men, you Kurds. You owe him no allegiance.”

Yusuf’s eyes were those of a wolf.

“Could I but send him to Jehannum ahead of me,” he muttered, “I’d die happy.”

All stared tensely at Gordon, sensing a purpose behind his words.

“Will you swear, each man by the honor of his clan, to follow me and serve me until vengeance is accomplished, or death releases you from the vow?” he asked, placing the keys behind him so as not to seem to be flaunting them too flagrantly before helpless men. “Othman will give you nothing but the death of a dog. I offer you revenge and an opportunity to die honorably.”

Yusuf’s eyes blazed in response to a wild surge of hope, and his sinewy hands quivered as they grasped the bars.

“Trust us!” was all he said, but it spoke volumes.

“Aye, we swear!” clamored the men behind him. “Hearken, El Borak, we swear, each of us by the honor of his clan!”

He was turning the key in the lock before they finished swearing; wild, cruel, turbulent, treacherous according to the western standard, they had their code of honor, those fierce mountaineers, and it was not so far different from the code of his own Highland ancestors that he did not understand it.

Tumbling out of the cell they instantly laid hold of the Arab, shouting: “Slay him! He is one of Muhammad ibn Ahmed’s dogs!”

Gordon tore the man from their grasp, handling the attackers ruthlessly; he dealt the most persistent a buffet that stretched him on the floor, but did not seem to arouse any particular resentment in his savage bosom.

“Have done! Are you men or wolves?”

He thrust the cowering Arab before him down the corridor and back into the passage which opened on the ravine, followed by the Kurds who, having
sworn their allegiance, followed blindly and asked no questions. Back in the other corridor, Gordon ordered the Arab to strip, and the man did, shivering in fear of instant death, and fearful that the command indicated torture.

“Change clothes with him,” was Gordon’s next command, directed at Yusuf ibn Suleiman, and the fierce Kurd obeyed without a word. Then at Gordon’s direction, the others bound and gagged the Arab and thrust him through the secret door, which Gordon opened, and into the tunnel.

Yusuf ibn Suleiman stood up in the plumed helmet, striped
khalat
and baggy silk trousers of the Arab, and his features were sufficiently Semitic to fool anyone who was expecting to see an Arab in that garb.

“I am placing upon you the trust of a great responsibility,” said Gordon abruptly. “It is the due of a brave man. Some time, it may be by dawn, and it may be by another nightfall, or even another dawn, men will come and knock on that bolted door which opens upon the ravine of the
djinn
. They will be Ghilzai riflemen, led by Lal Singh and Yar Ali Khan. This is your part: to hide in this tunnel and open the door when they come. You have the Arab’s scimitar; when another guard comes to relieve the one who lies bound there, kill him and hide his body. If yet another comes before Lal Singh, slay him likewise. They will not know you from one of their comrades until you strike.”

From the way the Kurd’s eyes blazed, Gordon knew he would not fail in that part of the plot, at least.

“It may be no slaying will be necessary,” he qualified. “When the next guard comes, he will see that the prisoners have escaped, and he may not enter this corridor at all. If more than one man comes, hide in the tunnel. It may be we shall have returned before any comes. I take five men with me to look for the girl Azizun. If it is possible, I shall return here with her, and we will bolt the doors and hold this corridor against the men of Othman until Lal Singh comes. But if I do not return, I trust you to remain here, in hiding or holding the corridor by the edge of your sword, and open that door for my warriors when they come.”

“The Ghilzai will slay me when I open the door to them!”

“Before you open the door, call out to Lal Singh and say ‘El Borak bids you remember the wolves of Jagai.’ He will know by that word that he can trust you. Where did the Ismailians take the girl?”

“Shortly after the Arab dog passed on his tour of the cells, men opened the door at the other end of her dungeon and dragged her away. They told her they were taking her to the Shaykh to be questioned by him. He will speak with her in the room where he first received you. But six men can not fight their way through the twenty Persians which stand guard before the door.”

“Do you know the entrance to the garden of Paradise?”

“Aye!” A general nodding of heads showed him that Othman’s mysteries
were certainly not such absolute enigmas as had been those of his ancestor, the location of whose mystic gardens not even
his fedauis
had known.

“Then lead me there.” And Gordon turned away, with his whole chance of success, and life itself, depending on the mere word of a savage who had been born and raised in the conviction that slaughter, rapine and treachery are the natural and proper attributes of a man’s life. There was nothing to keep Yusuf ibn Suleiman from hurrying to the Shaykh as soon as Gordon’s back was turned, to buy his life by betraying the American, and later arranging a trap for Lal Singh and the Ghilzai to walk into — nothing but the primitive honor of a man who knew he was trusted by another man of honor.

Gordon and his Kurds groped through the tunnel and up the stair. The chamber where he had slept was empty. But on the stair, just inside the masked panel he found the two swords where Lal Singh had left them when he charged, pistol in hand, to Gordon’s aid, forgetting the steel in his haste, and with them he armed two of his followers. The dagger he had taken from the Tajik went to another.

The corridor outside the chamber was empty. The Kurds took the lead there. With nightfall the atmosphere of silence and mystery had increased over the palace of the Shaykh Al Jebal. The lights burned more dimly; shadows hung thickly, and no breeze stole in to rustle the dully shimmering tapestries. Gordon’s boots made no more sound on the thick rugs than did the bare feet of the Kurds.

They knew the way well enough; a ragged and disreputable-looking gang, with furtive feet and blazing eyes, they stole swiftly along the dim, richly-adorned hallways, like a band of midnight thieves. They kept to passages little frequented at that time of night, and they had encountered no one, when, passing through a cunningly masked door, they came suddenly to another door, gilded and barred, before which stood two giant black Sudanese with naked tulwars. Gordon had time to reflect that here was the main weakness of Othman’s reign; the entrance to Paradise was too accessible; its mystery not impressive enough.

The Sudanese knew these men were unauthorized invaders, however. They did not shout a warning as they lifted their tulwars; they were mutes. Gordon did not dare chance a shot, but his pistol was not needed. Eager to begin the work of vengeance, the Kurds swarmed on the two blacks, the two men with swords engaging them while the others grappled and dragged them down — stabbed them to death in a straining, sweating, swearing knot of convulsing effort and agony. It was butcher’s work, but it was a matter of grim necessity, and pity for those tongueless murderers was emotion wasted.

“Keep watch here at the door,” he commanded one of the Kurds, and then Gordon threw open the door and strode out into the garden, now empty in the
starlight, its blossoms glimmering whitely, its dense trees and shrubbery masses of dusky mystery. The Kurds, now armed with the tulwars of the blacks, blooded and whetted to the adventure, followed him boldly, even swaggering, as if they were walking through a common garden, instead of one which until that day they had considered, if not, as Othman hoped, Paradise itself, at least its nearest earthly equivalent. They seemed to have just realized — their perceptions sharpened by the spilt blood — that they were following El Borak, whose renown already partook of the mythical in that land of blood and mystery.

Gordon headed straight for the balcony which he knew was there, cleverly masked by the branches of trees which grew beneath it. Three of the Kurds bent their backs for him to stand upon, and in an instant he had found the window from which he and Othman had looked, and had forced it with a dagger point. The next instant he was through it, making no more noise than a panther would have made effecting the same entry.