El Borak and Other Desert Adventures (89 page)

“That will give us four more hours of time in which to plan and effect our escape from Shalizahr. I’ve made no definite plan yet; that will depend on circumstances. Yusuf ibn Suleiman will patrol the corridors in case someone comes before the guard is due to be changed. Lal Singh and the other Kurds will hide in the tunnel. As soon as it is dark, if I’m still alive and at liberty, I’ll come to you and we’ll make the break, somehow. If anything happens to me the girl Azizun will get the word to you, and you must take her and try to fight your way clear.

“In case you men make it and I don’t, try to get back along the trail and meet the Ghilzai as they come. I sent Yar Ali Khan back after them. He should return with them to the canyon below the plateau some time tomorrow morning.”

They listened in silence, nodding, and Gordon gave his pistol and electric torch to Lal Singh, and the Indian saber to one of the Kurds. Then Azizun relighted her candle, and Gordon pulled open the secret door which, when closed, presented the illusion of being part of the blank stone wall, and showed his followers the tunnel behind it.

“Here you must hide, ready to aid Yusuf ibn Suleiman when the guard comes. If neither I nor Azizun comes to you within seven hours, go up the stairs, open the panel-door and escape if you can.”

“We hearken and obey,
sahib,”
said Lal Singh. “It is my shame that I was taken unawares, but the Yezidees stole out of the ravine like cats, and struck me down with a stone thrown from a sling before I was aware of them. When I regained my senses I was bound and gagged. In the same way they smote down Ahmed Shah, but him they slew, because the Hidden Ones have naught to do with the hill-folk fearing such men would talk to their kind and so betray the secret of Shalizahr. The Yezidees are like cats in the dark. Nevertheless it is a great shame upon me.”

And so saying he seated himself cross-legged on the tunnel floor, where the Kurds had already deposited themselves, and settled himself tranquilly for his long vigil. Gordon followed Azizun down the tunnel and up the stair, with his whole chance of success and life itself depending on the word of a savage. There was nothing to keep Yusuf ibn Suleiman from seeking to buy his life from Othman by betraying the American — nothing but the primitive honor of a man who knew he was trusted by another man of honor.

Back in the ivory-domed chamber, Azizun carefully hung the tapestry over
the fake panel, and Gordon said: “You’d better go now. If you stay too long, they may get suspicious. Contrive to return to me here as soon as it’s dark. I’ve got an idea that I’m to remain in this chamber until this fellow Bagheela returns. When you come back, tell the guard outside that the Shaykh sent you. If the Shaykh questions you concerning me, tell him I’m a bloody-handed outlaw, eager to join the Hidden Ones — and that I have no hidden weapons on me.”

“Yes,
sahib
! I will return after dark.” The girl was trembling with fear and excitement, but she controlled herself admirably. There was pity in Gordon’s black eyes as he watched her slender figure, carried bravely, pass through the door.

Then the hard-limbed American stretched himself on the couch. Four hours at least must pass before he could make any kind of a move. Long ago he had learned to snatch food and sleep when he could. He was playing a game with Life and Death for stakes. His masquerade hung by a hair. He had as yet no plan for escaping from the city or descending the cliffs afterward. He was gambling that he would be able to find or make a way when the time was ripe. And in the meantime he slept as tranquilly and soundly as if he lay in the house of a friend, in his native country.

Like most men who live by the skin of their teeth, Gordon’s slumber though sound, was light. He awoke the instant a hand touched the door, and he was on his feet, fully alert, when Musa entered, with the inevitable salaam. He knew he had not slept four hours.

“The Shaykh ez Zurim desires your presence,
sahib
. The lord Bagheela has returned, ahead of time.”

So the mysterious Panther had returned sooner than the Shaykh had expected. Gordon felt a premonitory tightening of his nerves as he followed the Persian out of the chamber. A backward glance showed a man emerge from the tapestry where he had glimpsed the helmet, and fall in behind them.

Musa did not lead him back to the chamber where the Shaykh had first received him. He was conducted through a winding corridor to a gilded door before which stood an Arab swordsman. This man opened the door, and Musa hurried Gordon across the threshold. The door closed behind them, and Gordon halted suddenly.

He stood in a broad room without windows, but with several doors. Across the chamber the Shaykh lounged on a divan with his black slaves behind him, and clustered about him were a dozen armed men of various races, including
one Orakzai, the first Pathan Gordon had seen in Shalizahr — a hairy, ragged, scarred villain whom Gordon knew as Khuruk Khan, a thief and murderer.

But the American spared these men only the briefest glance. His eyes were glued on the man who dominated the scene. This man stood between him and the Shaykh’s divan, with the wide-legged stance of a horseman — handsome in a dark, saturnine way. He was taller than Gordon and more wiry in build, his leanness being emphasized by his close-fitting breeches and riding boots. One hand caressed the butt of the heavy automatic which hung at his thigh, the other stroked his thin black mustache. And Gordon knew the game was up. For this was Ivan Konstantine, a Cossack, who knew El Borak too well to be deceived as the Shaykh had been.

“This is the man,” said Othman. “He desires to join us.”

The man they called Bagheela the Panther smiled thinly.

“He has been playing a role. El Borak would never turn renegade. He is here as a spy for the English.”

The eyes fixed on the American grew suddenly murderous. No more than Bagheela’s word was necessary to convince his followers. They did not understand why the American laughed suddenly. Konstantine did not understand. He knew Gordon well enough to know El Borak was a foe, not a friend of the Hidden Ones, but he did not know him well enough to understand that laugh, or the dark flame that rose in the black eyes.

Gordon’s laughter was not of self-mockery, or of that cynicism which derides its own defeat. It welled from the depths of his elemental soul in the knowledge that all masks were fallen, subtlety and intrigue were done with, and only fighting remained — fighting in which he exulted blindly, unreasoningly, whatever the odds, as his berserk ancestors exulted. But for the moment he held himself hard in check, and his enemies did not recognize the warning that burned in his black eyes.

The Shaykh made a gesture of repudiation.

“In these matters I defer to your judgment, Bagheela. You know the man. I do not. Do what you will. He is unarmed.”

At the assurance of the helplessness of their prey, wolfish cruelty sharpened the tense faces, and Khuruk Khan half drew a three-foot Khyber knife from its embroidered scabbard. There was plenty of edged steel in evidence, but the Cossack’s gun was the only one in sight.

“That will make it easier,” laughed Konstantine, then slipped into Russian which the Persian obviously did not understand. “Gordon, you were mad to come here. You should have known you’d meet someone who knew you as you are — not as these fools think you are.”

“You were the joker in the deck,” admitted Gordon. “I didn’t know the natives called you Bagheela. But I knew some European power must be behind
this masquerade. Somebody’s dreaming of an Asiatic empire. So they sent you to combine forces with a fanatic, help him build a city, and make a tool of him. They supplied money and European wits. What do they hope to do — supplant each Eastern ruler now friendly to England with a puppet trained to dance on their string?”

“In part,” admitted Konstantine. “This is but one strand in a far-flung web of imperial plan. I won’t bother to remind you that you might have had a part in the coming empire, if you chose. I can not understand your friendship for the British who rule India. You are an American.”

Gordon smiled bleakly.

“I care nothing for England or English interests. But India is better off under British rule that it would be under men who employ such tools as yourself. By the way, who are your employers now? The agents of the Czar — or somebody else?”

“That will make little difference to you shortly!” Konstantine showed his white teeth in a light laugh. Othman and his men were exhibiting uneasiness, irked at being unable to follow the conversation. The Cossack shifted to Arabic. “Your finish will be interesting to watch. Men say you are stoical as the red Indians of your country. I am curious to test that reputation. Bind him, men —”

His gesture as he reached for the automatic at his hip was leisurely. He knew Gordon was dangerous, but he had never seen the black-haired Westerner in action; he could not realize the savage quickness that had won El Borak his name. Before the Cossack could draw his pistol Gordon sprang and struck as a panther strikes. The impact of his fist was like that of a trip-hammer and Konstantine went down, blood spurting from his jaw, the pistol slipping from its holster.

Before Gordon could snatch the weapon Khuruk Khan was upon him. Only the Pathan realized Gordon’s deadly quickness, and even he had not been swift enough to save the Cossack. But he kept Gordon from securing the pistol, for El Borak had to whirl and grapple as the three-foot Khyber knife rose above him. Gordon caught the knife-wrist as it fell, checking the stroke in mid-air, the iron sinews springing out on his own wrist with the effort. His right hand ripped a curved dagger from the Pathan’s girdle and sank it to the hilt under his ribs almost with the same motion. Khuruk Khan groaned and sank down dying, and Gordon wrenched away the long knife as he crumpled.

All this had happened in a stunning explosion of speed. Konstantine was down and Khuruk Khan was dying before the others could get into action, and when they did they were met by a yard of razor-edged steel in the hand of the most terrible knife-fighter North of the Khyber.

Gordon did not put his back to the wall; he sprang into the thick of his foes, wielding his dripping knife murderously. They swirled about him; he was
the center of a whirlwind of blades that flickered and lunged and swiped, yet somehow missed their mark again and again as he shifted his position so swiftly that he baffled both eye and hand. Their numbers hindered them; they cut thin air or gashed one another, confused by his speed and demoralized by his wolfish ferocity.

At such close quarters the long knife was more deadly than saber or tulwar, and Gordon was master of its every use, whether the terrible downward swing that splits a skull, or the savage upward rip that spills out a man’s entrails. It was butcher’s work, but El Borak never made a false motion, was never for an instant in doubt or confused. Like a typhoon he waded through that milling jam of straining bodies and flailing blades, and he left a red wake behind him.

The sense of time is lost in the madness of battle. However long it seemed to the combatants, it was only a matter of moments until the melee burst asunder as the survivors gave back, stunned by the havoc wrought among them. And as the press gave way Gordon cleared a path with a devastating swing of his knife and bounded toward the nearest door — the one on the left of that opening into the hallway.

“Stop him!” screamed the Shaykh, from his place of safety across the room, flanked by his stolid Sudanese. In his fury he ran across the chamber, shrieking maledictions at his groping, floundering, bemused warriors.

They seemed paralyzed by the rapid movements of the American. Gordon reached the door and jerked at it, and his heart fell into his boots. It was bolted on the other side. Clusters of armed men stood between him and the other doors, and now they converged toward him as Othman yelled with gratification and lashed them on. Gordon wheeled, his back to the wall at last, facing death in the onrushing hedge of bristling steel backed by wild faces, but aware of no emotion except a ferocious intent to take a bloody toll among his slayers.

The door opened behind him and he whipped around in a flash and struck at the arm that extended a big blue pistol — checked the blow just in time because he recognized the gun and the hand that held it — and then the blue muzzle spat flame and smoke and thunder and a hail of lead crashed into the oncoming horde.

At that range it was slaughter. The heavy slugs ripped through tense bodies to deal death to the men behind them. Through a swirling fog of smoke Gordon saw men staggering and falling, heard one high-pitched shriek ring above the clamor, and saw a rose-colored turban tossed convulsively as it sank — a roar of dismay drowned the death-cries as Gordon sprang through the open door and slammed it.

“You’ve killed Othman!” he roared.

Lal Singh laughed in the fierce exurberance of the moment, and shot home the bolt. Azizun was clinging to Gordon’s arm, half-mad with terror, and the
Kurds were clustered about him — Yusuf ibn Suleiman in the plumed helmet, scimitar in hand, and the other five, armed with swords and daggers.

“The girl came to us where we waited in the tunnel, and cried out that they meant to slay you,
sahib
!
”
shouted Lal Singh, white teeth flashing in his black beard. “We came swiftly, snatching blades from weapon-racks as we ran! Now we await your orders!”

In the other chamber howls of fear and dismay that greeted the fall of Othman were turning into screams of blood-thirsty frenzy. Not lightly may a man slay a Shaykh ez Zurim, head of a cult that was old when England was a savage wilderness. The bolted door began to tremble under the impacts of battering hilts and frantic bodies. Ivan Konstantine’s voice was lifted like the slash of a saber above the clamor.

“Out into the corridor, you dogs! Surround that chamber!”

“Out of here, quick!” snapped Gordon, and led his followers at a run across the chamber to the opposite door. He did not know where it led, but there no time to pick and choose. They had to escape the trap before it closed. They burst into a corridor that led off from the larger hall at right angles — and collided with a pack of Arab swordsmen hurrying in the direction of the noise. One was Muhammad ibn Ahmed.