El Borak and Other Desert Adventures (25 page)

A few moments later they reached a heavy, iron-bound door, and Azizun, gesturing for caution, drew Gordon to it and showed him a tiny aperture to peer through. He looked into a fairly wide corridor, flanked on one side by a blank wall in which showed a single ebon door, curiously ornate and heavily bolted, and on the other by a row of cells with barred doors. The corridor was not long. He could see each end, closed by a heavy door. Archaic bronze lamps hung at intervals cast a mellow glow.

Before one of the cell-doors stood a resplendent Arab in glittering corselet and plumed helmet, scimitar in hand. He was hawk-nosed, black-bearded, his arrogant bearing an assurance of prowess.

Azizun’s fingers tightened on Gordon’s arm.

“Lal Singh is in the cell before which he stands,” she whispered. “Do not shoot the Arab. Slay him in silence. He has no gun and he is proud of his swordsmanship. He will not cry out until he knows he is beaten. The ring of steel will not be heard above.”

Gordon tried the balance of the blade she had given him — a long Indian steel, light but well-nigh unbreakable, razor-edged for slashing, but not curved too much for thrusting. It was the same length as the Arab’s scimitar.

Gordon pushed open the secret door and stepped into the corridor. He saw the bearded face of Lal Singh staring through the bars behind the Arab. Gordon had made no sound as he stepped from his hiding place, but the hidden hinges creaked, and the Arab whirled catlike, snarled with amazement, glared wildly, and then came to the attack with the instant decisiveness of a panther.

Gordon met him half-way, and the wild-eyed Sikh gripping the bars until his knuckles were bloodless, and the Indian girl crouching in the open doorway witnessed a play of swords that would have burned the blood of kings.

The only sounds were the quick, soft, sure shuffle and thud of feet, the slither and rasp of steel on steel, the breathing of the fighters. The long, light blades flickered illusively in the mellow light. They were like living things, like the tongues of serpents, darting and gleaming; like parts of the men who wielded them, welded not only to hand, but to brain as well. To the girl it was bewildering, incomprehensible. But Lal Singh, grown to manhood with a
sword in his hand, realized and appreciated to the fullest the superlative skill which scintillated there in lightning intricacies, and he alternately chilled and burned with the bright splendor of the fray.

Even before the Arab, he knew when the hair-line balance shifted; sensed the inevitable outcome an instant before the Arab’s lip drew back from his teeth in ferocious recognition of defeat and desperate resolve to take his enemy with him. But the end came even before Lal Singh realized its imminence. A louder ring of blades, a flash of steel that baffled the eye which sought to follow it — Gordon’s flickering blade seemed lightly to caress his enemy’s neck in passing — and then the Arab was lying in his own blood on the floor, his head all but severed from him body. He had died without a cry.

Gordon stood over him for an instant, the sword in his hand stained with a thread of crimson. His shirt had been torn open and his muscular breast rose and fell easily. Only a film of perspiration which glistened there and on his brow betrayed the strain of his recent exertions.

Stooping he tore a bunch of keys from the dead man’s girdle. The grate of steel in the lock seemed to awaken Lal Singh from a trance.

“Sahib!
You are mad to come into this den of snakes! But who would have thought an Arab could wield such a sword! It carried me back to the old days when we matched our steel against the finest blades of the Turks!”

“Come on out.” Gordon pulled open the door, and the Sikh stepped forth, light and supple as a great panther. Without a turban, and half-naked, yet his condition did not decrease the manliness of his bearing.

Gordon thought rapidly.

“We won’t have a chance if we make a break before dark. Azizun, how soon will another come to relieve the man I killed?”

“They change guards every four hours in these dungeons. His watch had just begun.”

“Good! That gives us four hours lee-way.” He glanced at his watch and was surprized to note the hour. He had been in Shalizahr much longer than he had realized.

“Within four hours it will be sun-down. As soon as it’s well dark, we’ll make our break to get away. Until we’re ready Lal Singh will hide on the secret stairway.”

“But when the guard comes to relieve this man,” said the Sikh, “it will be known that I have escaped from my cell. You should have left me here until you were ready to go,
sahib.”

“I didn’t dare risk it. I might not have been able to get you out when the time came. We have four hours before they’ll be likely to find you’re gone. When they do, maybe the confusion will help us. We’ll hide this body somewhere.”

He turned toward the curiously decorated door, but Azizun gasped, grasping his arm: “Not
that
way,
sahib
! Would you open the door to hell?”

“What do you mean? What lies beyond that door?”

“I do not know. The bodies of executed men and women are thrown over the edge of the plateau for the kites to devour. But through this door are carried wretches who have been tortured but still live. What becomes of them I do not know, but I have heard them scream, more terribly than they did under the torture. The girls say that a
djinn
has his lair beyond that door, and that he refuses to devour the dead, but accepts only living sacrifices.”

“That may be,” said Lal Singh skeptically. “But I saw a slave some hours ago open that door and hurl something through it which was neither a man nor a woman, though what it was I could not tell.”

“It was doubtless an infant,” she shuddered.

But Gordon was already dragging the body of the Arab into the cell and stripping it. He instructed Lal Singh to enter the cell and doff the rags left him by his captors, and he clothed the dead man in the Sikh’s garments and laid the body in the furthest corner, with his back to the door, and his gashed throat invisible to the casual glance. The Arab was not as tall as the Sikh but in the doubled-up position that fact would not be so noticeable. Lal Singh donned such of the dead man’s garments and accouterments as would fit, which did not include the helmet and corselet; these he brought with him to hide in the secret tunnel. Gordon locked the cell door behind them, and gave the keys to the Sikh.

“Nothing we can do about the blood on the floor. When the other guard comes, maybe he’ll think the Arab is you, asleep or dead, and start looking for the original guard instead of you. The longer it is before they find you’ve escaped, the more time we’ll have. I haven’t made any definite plan about escaping from the city; that will depend on circumstances. If I find I can’t get away I’ll kill Othman — and the rest will be on the lap of Allah.

“In case you two 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 after them. He started back at dawn. If he found the horses safe he should reach Khor shortly after nightfall. The Ghilzai should reach the canyon below the plateau sometime tomorrow morning.”

They returned to the secret door, which, when closed, presented the illusion of being part of the blank stone wall, and pausing only long enough for Azizun to relight her candle, they traversed the tunnel and mounted the stair.

“Here you must hide until the time comes,” said Gordon. “Take the swords, and the candle, and my electric torch. And this, too.” He forced the big blue pistol on him, despite his demur.

“You’ll need it before the night’s over. If anything happens to me, take the girl and try to get away after dark. If neither of us comes for you within four hours, open the panel-door and make a break for it alone.”

“As you will,
sahib
. It is my shame that I was taken unawares. But Yezidees stole out of the ravine like cats, and one struck me down with a stone thrown from a sling before I was aware of them, they standing back in the darkness where the devil himself could not have seen them. When I came to myself I was gagged and my arms bound behind me. In the same way, they told me, they smote down Ahmed Shah. But then they cut his throat, because these Ismailians will have nothing to do with the hill-folk, fearing such men would talk to their kin, and so betray the secret of Shalizahr. The Yezidees are like cats which steal in the dark. Nevertheless it is a great shame upon me.”

And so saying he seated himself cross-legged on the top-most step and settled himself for his long vigil with the tranquillity of his race.

When Gordon and Azizun were back in the chamber, and Azizun had carefully hung the tapestry over the fake-panel, 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 well dark. I have 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. I’ll attend to him when we’re ready to go. And by the way, they sent this drugged wine just before you left. Tell them you saw me drink it. I think I know why they sent it.”

“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. Petted daughter of a rich Moslem merchant of Delhi, she was not accustomed to such treatment as she had received in Shalizahr. But she was holding herself up well.

Gordon took up the wine jug, smeared just enough wine on his lips to make a scent that would be detected by keen nostrils, then he emptied the contents in a nook behind the tapestries, and threw himself on the divan in an attitude of slumber, the jug lying on the floor near his hand.

Only a few minutes elapsed until the door opened again. A girl entered. He did not open his eyes, but he knew it was a girl by the light rustle of her bare feet on the thick carpets, and by the scent of her perfume, just as he knew by the same evidences that it was not Azizun returning. Evidently the Shaykh did not place too much trust or responsibility upon any one woman. Gordon did not believe she had been sent there to murder him — poison in the wine would have been sufficient for that purpose — so he did not take the risk of peering through slitted lids.

That the girl was afraid was evident by the quick tremor of her breathing
as she bent over him. Her nostrils all but touched his lips, and he heard her sigh of relief as she thought she smelled the drugged wine on his breath. Her soft hands stole over him, searching for hidden weapons, and as she felt the empty scabbard under his left arm-pit he was glad that he had left the pistol with Lal Singh. To keep up the deception he would have been forced to allow her to take it.

She glided away, the door closed softly, and he lay quietly. Might as well take it easy. Four hours 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. His life and the lives of his companions depended upon his finding a way to escape from the plateau that night. He had no plan as yet; had no idea as to how they were to escape from the city and descend the cliffs. He was gambling that he would be able to find or make a way when the time came. And in the meantime he slept, as tranquilly and soundly as if he lay in the house of a friend, in the safety of his native country.

Like most men who live by the skin of their teeth, Gordon had acquired the knack of sleeping just so long as he wished, and waking when he chose. But he was not allowed to sleep out his four hours.

His slumber was healthy and sound, but he awoke the instant a hand touched the door. Awoke and came to his feet as Musa entered, with the inevitable salaam.

“The Shaykh Al Jebal desires your presence,
sahib
. The lord Bagheela has returned.”

So the mysterious Panther had returned sooner than the Shaykh had expected. Gordon felt a premonitory tenseness as he followed the Persian out of the chamber. A sidewise glance showed a bulge in the tapestry where he had glimpsed the helmet; the guard was still there.

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: Kurds, Druses and Arabs, and an 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 sort of a glance. All his attention was fixed 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, this 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 Konaszevski, 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. Gordon laughed aloud, and none who heard him understood why. Ivan Konaszevski did not understand. He knew Gordon well enough to sift truth from falsehood and understood his real purpose in Shalizahr. But he did not know him well enough to understand that laugh, or to understand the dark flame that rose in the black eyes.