El Borak and Other Desert Adventures (26 page)

Gordon’s laughter was not self-mockery, or of that cynicism which derides its own defeat. Under Gordon’s inscrutable exterior lurked the untamed soul of a berserker. He had long learned the unwisdom of fighting except as a last resort. But now the game was up. All masks were fallen. He had done all he could with subtlety and intrigue. His back was at the wall, and fighting was all that was left for him. He could plunge into the bright madness of battle without doubts or regrets or consideration of consequences. The laughter that so amazed his enemies rose in ferocious exultation from the depths of his elemental soul. But for the moment he held himself in check; the burning flame in his eyes was all there was to warn his enemies, and they did not recognize that warning.

The Shaykh made a gesture of repudiation.

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

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

“That will make it easier,” laughed Konaszevski, then slipped into Russian
which the Persian did not seem to understand. “Gordon, you were mad to come here. You should have known that you would meet someone who knew you as you really 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. That was what trapped me. But I knew some European power must be behind this masquerade. Your masters have dreams of an Asiatic empire, do they not? So they sent you to combine forces with a fanatic; help build him a city, and make a tool out of him. They supplied the money, and European wits and weapons. What do they hope to do? Supplant each Asiatic ruler now friendly to England with a puppet to obey their orders? Intimidate hostile sultans and pashas with the fear of assassination, to secure favorable treaties and concessions?”

“In part,” admitted Konaszevski calmly. “This is but one strand in a far-flung web of imperial ambition. I will not bother to remind you that you might have a part in the coming empire if you were wise. I know your stubbornness in refusing to do anything against the interests of British rule in India, though I can not understand why. You are an American. And you are not even English by descent. Even before your ancestors crossed the Atlantic they had fought the English for centuries.”

Gordon smiled bleakly.

“I care nothing for England as a nation. But India is better off under her rule than it would be under men who employ such tools as yourself. By the way, who are your masters just now? The agents of the Czar — or somebody else?”

“That will make little difference to you, shortly!” Konaszevski showed his white teeth beneath the wiry black mustache in a light laugh. Othman and his men were shifting uneasily, irked at being unable to follow the conversation. The Cossack shifted to Arabic. “Your end will be interesting to watch. They say you are as 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 lurked in El Borak’s hard thews. Before the Cossack could draw his pistol Gordon sprang and struck as a panther slashes. The impact of his clenched fist was like that of a trip-hammer and Konaszevski 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 ferocity of attack, 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 in the effort. His right hand ripped a 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, embracing a mere tick of time. Konaszevski was down and Khuruk Khan was dying before the others could get into action, and when they did they were met by the yard-long knife in the hand of the most terrible knife-fighter North of the Khyber.

Even as he whirled to meet the rush, the long blade licked out and a Kurd went down, choking out his life through a severed jugular. An Arab shrieked, disembowelled. A Druse overreached with a ferocious dagger-lunge, and reeled away, clutching the crimson-gushing stump of a wrist.

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

At such deadly close quarters the long knife was more effective than the scimitars and tulwars. In the hands of a man who knows how to wield it there is no more murderous weapon in the universe. And Gordon had long ago mastered 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 made no false motion; he was never in doubt or confused. There was no uncertainty or hesitation in his attack. He waded through that melee of straining bodies and lashing blades like a typhoon, and he left a red wake behind him.

The sense of time is lost in the daze of battle. In reality the melee lasted only a matter of moments, then the survivors gave back, stunned and appalled by the havoc wrought among them. El Borak wheeled, located the Shaykh who had retreated to the further wall, flanked by the stolid Sudanese — then even as Gordon’s leg-muscles tensed for a leap, a shout brought him half-way around.

A group of Arab guardsmen appeared at the door opening into the corridor, levelling their rifles at him, while those in the room scurried out of the line of fire. Gordon’s hesitation endured only for the fleetest tick of time, while the guns were coming to a level. In that flash of consciousness he weighed his chances of reaching the Shaykh and killing him before he himself
died — knew that he would be struck in mid-air by at least half a dozen bullets, but did not hesitate to match his ferocious vitality against death itself.

And then — everything seemed to be happening at once — before Gordon could leap or the Arabs could loose their volley, a door to the right crashed inward and a blast of lead raked the ranks of the riflemen. Lal Singh! With the first crack of the big blue pistol in the Sikh’s hand Gordon altered his plans from death to life. He charged the Arabs in the doorway instead of the Shaykh.

Thrown into confusion by the unexpected blast which mowed down three men and set others to staggering and crying out, the Arabs fell into demoralized confusion. Some fired wildly at the Sikh, some at Gordon as he charged
them, and all missed, as is inevitable when men’s attention is divided. And as they fired futilely Gordon was among them with a rush and a gigantic bound. His dripping blade spattered blood and left a wake of writhing, dripping figures behind him — then he was through the milling mob and racing down the corridor, shouting for Lal Singh as he headed to pass the corridor door of the adjoining chamber from which the Sikh had fired.

Lal Singh, the instant he saw Gordon plunge through the band of guards, slammed the bronze door between the rooms, grinning as he heard bullets flatten on the metal, then turned and rushed toward the door that opened into the corridor. But even as he reached the threshold, answering Gordon’s shout, a hand came out from behind the tapestry, clutching a bludgeon. The Sikh did not see it, and his convulsive movement, as Gordon yelled warning, was too late. The cudgel crashed on his unprotected head and he reeled backward and toppled down through an aperture which opened suddenly in the floor and then closed above his falling body.

With a snarl Gordon leaped at the tapestry but his slashing blade only ripped velvet and rang on stone. Whoever had lurked there had already withdrawn into some secret niche.

The Sikh had been precipitated — whether dead or alive — through a concealed trap door, and Gordon could not help him now. The trap was closed, and men were pouring into the corridor, firing wildly. The echoes of their shots slapped deafeningly up and down along the walls of the corridor.

Gun butts hammered on the bronze door the Sikh had slammed. Gordon slammed the door to the corridor, ran around the room, skirting the wall so as to avoid the trap in the middle of the floor, and threw open a door opposite the bronze door. He came into a narrow corridor that ran off at right angles from the main hallway. At the other end was a gold-barred window. A Kurd sprang up from an alcove, lifting a rifle. Gordon came at him like a mountain storm. Daunted by the sight of the savage, blood-stained white man, the Kurd fired without aiming, missed, and jammed the lock of his rifle. He shrieked, tore desperately at the bolt, then threw up his hands and screamed as Gordon, maddened by the fate of the Sikh, struck with murderous fury. The Kurd’s head jumped from his shoulders on a spurt of crimson and thudded to the floor.

Gordon lunged at the window, hacked once at the bars with his knife, then gripped them with both hands and braced his legs. A heaving surge of iron strength, a savage wrench, and the bars came away in his hands with a splintering crash. He plunged through into a latticed balcony overlooking a garden. Behind him men were storming down the narrow corridor. Rifles cracked spitefully and lead spattered about him. He dived at the lattice-work headfirst, the knife extended before him — smashed through the flimsy material without checking his flight and hit catlike on his feet in the garden below.

The garden was empty but for half a dozen scantily-clad women who screamed and ran. He raced toward the opposite wall, quartering among the low trees to avoid the bullets that rained after him. Hot lead ripped through the branches, rattling among the leaves. A backward glance showed the broken lattice crowded with furious faces and arms brandishing weapons. Another shout warned him of peril ahead.

A man was running along the wall, swinging a tulwar.

The fellow, a fleshily-built Kurd, had accurately judged the point where the fugitive would reach the wall, but he himself reached that point a few seconds too late. The wall was not higher than a man’s head. Gordon caught the coping with one hand and swung himself up almost without checking his speed, and an instant later, on his feet on the parapet, ducked the sweep of the tulwar and drove his knife through the Kurd’s huge belly.

The man bellowed like an ox in pain, threw his arms about his slayer in a death-grip, and they went over the parapet together. Gordon had only time to glimpse the sheer-walled ravine which gaped below them. They struck on its narrow lip, rolled off and fell fifteen feet to crash sickeningly on the rocky floor of that ravine. As they rushed downward Gordon turned in mid-air so that the Kurd was under him when they hit, and the fat, limp body cushioned his fall. Even so it jolted the breath out of him and left him gasping and half-stunned. Above him a rifle was poked over the wall.

Gordon staggered to his feet, empty handed, glaring in hypnotic fascination at the black ring that was the rifle muzzle trained full upon him. Behind it a bearded face froze in a yellow-fanged grin of murder.

Then a hand dragged aside the barrel as the wall was lined with turbaned heads. The man who had struck up the rifle barrel laughed and pointed down the ravine, and the man with the gun hesitated, and then grinned malevolently. Gordon scowled up at the row of bearded faces that looked down at him, all grinning as if at a grim jest. Some laughed derisively, and others shouted replies to questions hurled by some unseen party.

Gordon stood motionless, unable to comprehend the attitude of his enemies. When he rose to face that rifle he had expected nothing but an instant blast of lead; but the warriors had not fired, and seemingly had no intention of firing.

Another countenance appeared above him — a blood-stained face, adorned with a black mustache. Konaszevski was rather pale under his dark skin, and his expression was no less malignant.

“Out of the frying pan into the fire, as you damned Americans say,” he laughed viciously. “Well, I had other plans for you” — he dabbed with a bit of silk at the cut on his chin — “but this suits me well enough. I leave you to your meditations. You are no longer important enough to take up my time, and I certainly have no intention of allowing you to be put out of misery with a merciful rifle-shot. Farewell, dead man!”