6. THE WHITE DROMEDARY
THE BLACK GRANITE massif of the Jebel Harb was six days behind. Still the order of
march
was the same: old sheik Fouad el Akmet upon his
hejin,
leading the caravan along the road of skulls; the endless line of weary camels behind, carrying the Bedouin renegades, the whites of the “Secret Legion,” the paraphernalia of modern war; the tank roaring and clanging in the rear.
Two days they had rested at the well in the mountains; the white men, during the first bitter night, alone, unmounted, helpless. But dawn had brought the fugitive Arabs back from their panic-stricken flight, slipping up cautiously to see how the battle had gone. Their situation was nearly as desperate as that of the others, for both camels and men were suffering for water, obviously unable to cover the distance back to the last alkaline well. Convinced, to his own amazement, that the whites had been victorious over the evil
djinn
of the accursed land, old Fouad had been glad to rejoin the expedition.
Twice since they left the range the trail of skulls had led them to brackish, bitter pools. But no living thing had they seen, in this domain of death within the mountain barrier.
The fleet gazelles, the hyenas and prowling jackals, the occasional ostriches of the desert’s fringes had long been left behind. In this lifeless land, even the tamarisks and acacia and sere camel-grass were lacking. The ubiquitous desert insects, ants, spiders, scorpions, were rare. The
rakham,
the black-winged vultures that had followed ominously from the mountains, had long since deserted.
It was late afternoon, and the long caravan was winding across one of the ever more frequent red-sand strips, into the selected camping-place for the night, when Price saw the white dromedary.
A magnificent, pure-white animal, resembling the
Unamiya
camels which the El Murra breed in the borders of the Rub’ Al Khali, it stood upon a bare red dune two miles off the track. Its rider, a slim, white-clad figure, appeared to be watching the caravan.
Price fumbled quickly for his binoculars, but he had hardly focussed them when the unknown rider vanished silently beyond the red dune.
At the moment Price, as the expedition’s leader, was busy with the old sheikh, settling one of the difficulties that had risen as a result of the Arabs’ thievish dispositions and the frayed nerves of the whites. Mawson, a little Cockney machine-gunner, had attacked the Arab Hamed with his fists, accusing him of stealing a gold watch and other trinkets from his pockets, while he slept. Hamed, unable to deny possession of the articles in question, swore that he had found them on the ground, after camp was broken that morning, producing perjured witnesses to substantiate his story.
A routine affair, but one that required diplomatic settling to maintain the harmonious discipline of the expedition.
The tents were already up, on a sand-rimmed plane of shale, before the case was finally adjusted, Mawson’s valuables being returned, and Hamed dismissed with a warning.
Only then did Jacob Garth inform Price that he had sent three Arabs in pursuit of the lone rider they had seen.
“Don’t want our arrival broadcast,” the big man said.
“Promised the men they could divide the spoil.”
The three Bedouins had already returned with the white dromedary, which was a priceless animal, and its rider. The captive was a woman.
“She’s something of a beauty,” Garth added. “Don’t blame de Castro for wanting her.”
“What have they done with her?” asked Price.
“The three divided their loot into three shares, and distributed them by lot. Kanja won the girl. He felt rather cheated, because Nur got the camel, which is much more valuable. Alie’s share was her outfit: saddle and her clothing and a long golden knife—a sort of straight
jambiyah.
“Kanja wasn’t especially pleased with his share of the spoil. But de Castro saw the woman, while they were dividing up. It seems she struck his fancy; he gave Kanja his binoculars for her. Must have been hit hard—you know how he prized those glasses.”
“Where is she now?”
“Joao has her tied in his tent.”
“Look here!” cried Price. “We can’t tolerate anything like that!”
It was Price’s nature to sympathize with the under-dog, with any one mistreated or imposed upon or oppressed merely because some one else was stronger. Jacob Garth’s account of the bound girl roused a dull anger in him. And because Price Durand was essentially a man of action, that resentment was to find physical expression.
“We’re a long way,” Garth observed placidly, “from the white man’s law.” The pale eyes, the broad, suave, white face, held no feeling.
“But we’re still white men!” Price insisted, hotly. Then, realizing that the other was unimpressed, he sought for arguments. “And even with honor and decency aside, it’s an unwise way to treat the first citizen of this country that we meet.”
“She can’t be a very important citizen,” Garth opposed, “or she wouldn’t be out here alone, half dead for a drink.”
“Anyhow, if we treated her fairly, she might be able to give us valuable information.”
“She’s going to,” the huge man said calmly. “Just now she’s in a huff, and doesn’t want to talk. But Joao de Castro is an artist at coaxing reluctant tongues.”
“You don’t mean he’d torture a woman!”
“You don’t know him.”
Price said decisively, “I’m going to see her.”
“Better leave her alone,” Garth advised, in the same expressionless voice. “Joao will be irritated if you interrupt his amusement. We can’t afford to have any trouble.”
Without answering, Price strode away toward de Castro’s tent, a small, hot flame of anger in his heart.
A little group of men, whites and Arabs, were gathered in front of the tent. The captured white camel was tied down, near by. Ali was proudly displaying his share of the loot—
abha
of soft white wool,
kamis
and
cherchis
of fine-woven silk, and a thin, golden dagger, whose temper, he was declaring excitedly, was good as any steel. Nur, with gestures and elaborate pantomime, was telling the story of the chase, of the fierceness with which the girl had fought, baring his side to show a skin wound he had received from the yellow dagger.
Kanja stood aside, delightedly fondling the newly won binoculars, grinning with childish pleasure as he peered through them, first from one end of the tubes and then the other.
Price strode through the group to where the Eurasian stood at the lifted flap of the tent, his swarthy, pock-marked face evil with lust. Beside him was his henchman, Pasic, a Montenegrin, who had been mate of the
Iñez,
Joao’s schooner. Black, hairy, powerful as a bull, he deserved his usual appellation, “Black Ape.”
“I’d like,” Price said, “to see your prisoner, de Castro.”
“D’ bitch, she ess mine,” the little Macanese muttered, rather belligerently, in his awkward English.
A moment he stood in front of Price, but his shifty, furtive, oblique eyes fell before Price’s stern blue ones. He stepped aside.
The girl lay upon the rough shale beneath the tent. Most of the clothing had been stripped from her—being part of Ali’s loot—and her wrists and slender ankles were trussed with rough halter-ropes of camel’s hair. Price had known she must be
attractive,
to tempt the Eurasian to part with his prized binoculars. But her loveliness astonished him.
Young, she was; no more, he guessed, than nineteen. The skin of her fresh, smooth body was whiter
than his own
. Even the oval face was not deeply tanned; she must, he thought, have worn a veil.
Bound as the girl was, she could not rise. But as Price peered into the tent she twisted into a half-upright position and glared at him in regal rage. Framed in disordered brown hair, her face was delicately strong, red-lipped. Dark her eyes were, violet-blue, and quite devoid of fear.
Without stopping to analyze his emotions—which was a thing he seldom did—Price knew at once that he could not leave her in the hands of the Macanese. And he realized at the same time that Joao would make trouble, rather than lose her.
He started impulsively into the tent, to loosen her ropes. She flung her half-bare body at him, grazed his hand with strong, flashing teeth.
De Castro seized his arm, jerked him from the tent before he could resist. Dark, slanted eyes were snapping with jealous passion.
“
She
ess mine!” he hissed. “Damn you, keep ’way!”
“De Castro,” Price said, “I want you to turn her loose.”
The thin yellow hands of the Eurasian trembled.
“Turn ’er loose?” he screamed. “Turn ’er loose, when I geeve for ’er my ver’ fine binoc’lar?
D’ hell!”
“That’s all right. I’ll pay you for the glasses. Or even give you mine, if you want.”
“I want ’er, not d’ dam’ binoc’lar!”
“I’ll give you five hundred dollars—”
“D’ hell!
What ess money, ’ere?”
“Listen, de Castro,” Price
said,
a new note of authority in his voice. He realized that mild measures had been a mistake. “I’m head of this expedition. I order you to untie that girl.”
“Dios!”
the Eurasian screamed, shaking in a fit of passion.
“Then I’ll do it, for you.”
Price started into the tent again. De Castro’s yellow hand darted into his shirt front. A thin knife flashed up and down.
But Price, knowing well the familiarity of Joao’s kind with knives, was alert. He evaded the slashing blade, drove a heavy fist into the pock-marked face. Savage joy filled him at the dull crunch of teeth beneath the blow.
With a bull-like bellow, the Montenegrin charged to the aid of his crony. Leaping upon the unprepared Price, he wound his long, ape-like arms around him, pinioning his arms in a savage embrace, driving his knees up in vicious blows at the loins.
Twisting furiously, but helpless in the arms of the “Black Ape,” Price butted uselessly at his flat, hairy face. The Arabs gathered in a ring, applauding enthusiastically.
Pasic threw back his shoulders, dragging Price clear of the ground, helpless and gasping in the ape-like embrace that was forcing the breath from his body. The Montenegrin hitched him up, dexterously changing his hold, and Price knew that the man was about to throw him over his head, probably to fall with a broken back.
Desperately he struggled for a leg-hold, failed, kicked vainly at Pasic’s legs. Then an abrupt, savage lunge tore his left arm free from that crushing grasp. Instantly he drove his elbow, with a short, jabbing blow, into the Montenegrin’s solar plexus.
The man gasped; the constricting embrace relaxed for an instant. Price tore himself free of the terrible arms, darted away to hitting distance.
The “Black Ape,” better provided with strength and savagery than with science, charged again, long arms flinging. A quick one-two to the brutish body stopped him, a dazed expression on his flat face. Another blow, to the jaw, deliberately timed and with all Price’s hundred and eighty-two pounds behind it, and the man’s knees weakened. He sprawled heavily beside the groaning Eurasian.
Price went into the tent.
7. AYSA OF THE GOLDEN LAND
THE BOUND GIRL glared at him, angry hate in her violet eyes. She did not recoil from his hands; she revealed no fear—only hot wrath. White teeth flashed at his hands again. He disregarded them, busied himself with the tightly drawn knots in the halter-ropes that held her.
Suddenly she was quiet; the rage in her eyes changed to silent wonder.
The ropes loosened, he chafed her wrists and ankles to restore circulation; then slipped an arm beneath her shoulders and lifted her to her feet from the rough shale upon which she had been thrown.
She stood watching him, curious speculation in her violet eyes.
“Aiee, Ali!”
Price called, from the doorway of the tent.
The Arab
approached,
the garments that had been taken from the girl still in his arms.
“Give me this woman’s clothing,” demanded Price.
The Arab began whining protests. Price repeated the order in sterner tones, and the Arab reluctantly surrendered the garments. He kept the golden dagger thrust in his belt, and hung avidly near.
“Now go!” Price told him shortly.
He turned and proffered the clothing to the girl. Violet eyes wide in mute astonishment, she accepted them mechanically. He looked down at her white, fresh body. With a little cry, she began slipping into the garments, swiftly and without self-consciousness.
Price watched her until she had dressed, listening to the groans of de Castro and Pasic outside the tent, and the excited clamor of the gathering crowd. Knowing the Macanese would raise trouble as soon as he recovered consciousness, Price was anxious to get the girl away from his vicinity.
When she was ready, he took her hand, led her from the tent. After a questioning look at him, she followed willingly. Outside, however, at sight of her recent persecutors, her rage flared up again. Jerking away from him, she darted upon Ali, and snatched the golden dagger from his belt. In a moment she was above Joao, who was groaning and struggling to sit up.
“Bismillah!
Laan’abuk!”
cursed Ali, leaping after her to recover the dagger, which had struck his fancy because of the phenomenal hardness of its yellow metal. Seizing her arm, as she raised the blade above the Macanese, he twisted it back, painfully.
A suppressed cry of agony broke from the girl’s lips; her face went white. She dropped the weapon, just as Price’s fist crushed against Ali’s jaw.
The Bedouin staggered away, spitting blood. The girl was biting her lip; the twisted arm hung limp. But, with the other hand, she snatched for the golden dagger.
De Castro’s yellow claw was ahead of her.
Price put his foot on Joao’s wrist, bent and wrenched the weapon from his hand. Seizing the girl firmly by the shoulder, he led her unresisting away, toward his own tent.
Several of the watching men started to follow. He turned, ordered them curtly back. They gathered sympathetically around Joao. Though Price had won the girl’s release, he realized the victory was only for the moment; her position was still precarious.
As usual, the tank had been stopped near Price’s tent. Sam Sorrows, the lean old Kansan who drove it, was watching from beside it.
“Trouble in the camp, Sam,” Price told him briefly.
“Over the woman?”
Price nodded.
“Thought so.
Damn’ queer place, this, for a woman. But I reckon one could make trouble anywhere.”
“It isn’t her fault.”
“It never is.”
“Sam, I’d like you to get back in the machine and stand guard with the machineguns for a while. There’s mutiny afoot.”
“Okay, Mr. Durand.” The lanky old man grinned, as if the likelihood of fighting were enjoyable, and climbed into the tank.
Price led the girl to his tent, indicated that she might enter. A moment she studied his face, with wondering violet eyes. Then she smiled, and slipped inside.
For a little time Price studied the disorganized confusion of the camp about him, on the little plain among red sand-dunes. He was near the center of the camp. Tents, piles of dunnage, saddles, kneeling camels, were scattered all around him. The crowd of men about de Castro was still increasing. Price’s heart sank as he realized the inevitability of conflict. Of all the seventy men about him, Sam Sorrows was the only one he trusted.
Picking up a canteen of water, Price entered the tent. The girl was waiting, tense, white-faced, just within. He unscrewed the top of the canteen, shook it so that the water sloshed audibly, and held it out to the girl. Eagerly she put her lips to it, drank until Price, fearing she would make herself sick with too much water,
took
it away.
She laughed at him questioningly; he grinned.
Then it happened: her tortured nerves gave way. She broke suddenly into a storm of weeping. Understanding that it was only the natural reaction to her relief, and yet uncertain what to do, he went toward her, touched her shoulder, pityingly.
Shaken with uncontrollable sobs, she buried her face trustfully against his shoulder. Her brown hair, fragrantly soft, brushed against his face. Then she was in his arms.
The tempest of weeping ceased as abruptly as it had begun. The girl slipped away from Price, composed again, drying her eyes upon the corner of her
cherchis.
Seeing that she looked exhausted, Price spread a blanket on the tent-floor and invited her, with a gesture, to sit down; which she did, with a grateful glance.
“Do you speak Arabic?” Price asked her, kindly.
A moment she hesitated; then understanding dawned in her violet eyes.
“Yes!” she affirmed. “That is the tongue of my people, though you speak it oddly.”
Her Arabic was clearly comprehensible, though it had a curious inflection. It was more nearly akin, plainly, to the classic language than to any modern dialect that Price knew. But its forms were older, even, than the classic. The girl spoke the Arabic of many centuries ago!
“You are welcome,” Price told her. “I am truly sorry you were treated so. I hope to make amends.”
“Birkum
[I thank you],” she replied, with so close an approximation to the modern accent that Price followed without difficulty. “I am very grateful for your rescue.”
It was on his lips to tell her that the rescue was still far from complete. But it would be unkind, he thought, to worry her needlessly with the true gravity of the situation. He smiled,
then
asked:
“Your people are near?”
She pointed northward. “That way
lies
El Yerim. It is three days by camel.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he urged. “I’ll see that you get safely back.”
Her violet eyes widened with fear. “But I can not go back,” she cried. “They would give me up to the golden folk.”
“You are in trouble, besides this?” She nodded.
Price invited: “Tell me about it.”
“You are strangers. You know not the golden folk?”
“No. We come from a far land.”
“Well,” she explained, “the golden folk are beings of gold that dwell in a mountain near El Yerim.
Malikar, who is a man of gold—or a god.
Vekyra, who is his—well, wife.
The golden tiger, upon which they ride to hunt.
And the yellow snake, which is the ancient god, and the greatest of the four.”
“I see. Go on.”
“Every harvest season, Malikar comes down to El Yerim upon the tiger, to select the grain and the dates, the young camels, and the slaves, that shall be sent as offering to the snake-god.
“Five days ago he came. All the people of El Yerim were gathered by Yarmud, the king. And Malikar rode among them on the tiger, choosing those he would take for slaves. He saw me, and commanded that I be sent with the camels and the grain, on the next day.
“That night my house was guarded. Though the priests say it is an honor to be offered to the snake, few take it so.” The girl smiled wearily. “I tricked the guards, and slipped out into the night. In the fields I found the camel that was my father’s, and rode away into the desert.
“Four days I have ridden. And I was able to bring little water or food.”
Price squatted on his heels, lighting a cigarette—which operation she watched with evident astonishment—as he digested her words. Her story excited his curiosity immensely; but he felt that it would be unkind to question her at much length, dead-tired as she obviously was. But one thing he must ask:
“This tiger, and the golden people—are they really gold? Living metal?”
“I know not. It is strange that metal should have life. But they are the color of gold. They are stronger than men. They do not die—they have lived since Anz was great.”
“Anz?”
Price caught eagerly at the name of the lost city of the legends. Was Anz, after all, no myth, but sober fact?
“Anz,” the girl explained, “was the great city where once my people lived; they still call themselves the Beni Anz. Long ago the rains came every year, and all this land was green. But a thousand years ago the desert conquered Anz, and the sands rolled over it, and my people came to the oasis at El Yerim.”
And the girl added, “I was searching for Anz.”
“Why, if it is deserted?”
She hesitated, reluctantly. Her weary eyes studied him.
“No matter—” Price began, and her words rushed swiftly:
“You may think me foolish—but there is a prophecy. The last great king of Anz was Iru. A brave warrior he
was,
and a just man. Tall, like you.” The violet eyes dwelt upon Price. “And his eyes were blue, like yours, and his hair red. The legend speaks of those matters, for most of my people are dark,” she explained.
“And the prophecy?”
Price asked.
“Perhaps it is an idle tale.” Again she paused,
then
continued with a rush: “But according to the legend, Iru is not dead. He still sleeps in the halls of his palace, in the lost city. He waits for some one to come and wake him. Then he will come out again with his great ax, and slay the golden folk, and free the Beni Anz.”
“Do you believe the legend?” asked Price, smiling.
“No,” she denied. “Yet I do not know. It might be true. By the legend, you see, it is a woman of my name who should go to wake the king.” and she added: “When I had fled from El Yerim, I had nowhere else to go.”
The girl caught herself nodding, jerked back upright, smiling wanly at Price.
“One thing
more,
and you may sleep,” he said. “What is your name?”
“Aysa,” she whispered. “And I shall call you—”
“Price Durand.”
And he murmured softly, “Aysa.
Aysa of the golden land.”
She smiled, and was suddenly asleep, sitting half upright. Price rose and laid her softly upon his blankets, in a comfortable position. She did not wake when he moved her, but she smiled vaguely in her sleep.
“See here, Durand, we want to stop this muddle before it makes more trouble,” Jacob Garth greeted Price, as he walked up to the tent. Joao de Castro and Pasic were close behind him, nursing bruised faces, muttering unpleasantly together. Fouad followed, and a crowd of other men, whites and Arabs, most of them eyeing Price with unconcealed hostility.
Price stepped to meet them, trying to assume a confidence that he did not feel. “Of course,” he agreed, “we don’t want any trouble.”
“You’ll have to return Joao’s woman,” said Garth, his voice blandly sonorous, expressionless. His pouchy, broad face, still oddly tallow-white, as if the desert sun had never touched it, was blank as a mask. Unwinking, unfeeling, the small, pale eyes stared at Price.
“The girl isn’t his property,” Price stated, stiffly.
“Dios!”
howled de Castro. “Do I pay for d’ bitch, to ’ave heem rob me?”
Jacob Garth waved a puffy, white hand. “That’s all right, Joao. We’re going to settle this… Durand, he did trade fairly for the woman. You can’t appropriate her for yourself, in this high-handed way. The men won’t stand for it.”
“I don’t propose,” said Price, “to have the girl mistreated.”
Garth moved ponderously forward, his voice rolled out persuasively:
“Listen, Durand. We’re after big stakes. A fortune is waiting for us. Many fortunes! A bigger strike than men have ever dreamed of. We’ve got to stand together; we can’t afford a quarrel.”
“I’m willing to do anything reasonable. I’ll pay de Castro whatever you think he should have.”
“It isn’t a question of money. Not with the gold practically at our finger-tips. Surely you don’t want to spoil our chances, for the sake of a woman. What’s one native slut, against the loot of the golden land?”
“Please don’t refer to her that way!” Price demanded, sharply. “After all, I’m the leader of this expedition. When I say hands off, it is hands off! De Castro is
not
going to have the girl!”
He was immediately sorry for the flare of anger, for it brought lowering looks from the men. To repair the damage, he turned to the little knot of whites and spoke pleadingly:
“See here, fellows, I want to do the right thing by all of you. I don’t want to deal unfairly by de Castro. I’ll give him my binoculars in place of those he traded for the girl. I don’t want her for myself—”
Rude, derisive laughter broke out. Trying to hide his rising anger beneath a smile, he went on:
“Surely you don’t want to see a helpless woman manhandled—”
“Enough of that,” Garth cut in. “You must realize that these are men, not Sunday school children.”
“Men, I hope, and not beasts.”
His appeal met no sympathy. These were a hard sort: no others would have been attracted by this desperate raid into the desert’s heart. Many of them were outside the law. Hardship and fear and greed had ridden down whatever of chivalry they might have had.
The faintest hint of a sardonic smile crossed Jacob Garth’s placid, red-bearded face.
“Has it occurred to you, Durand,” his question rolled out deliberately, “that you have just about lived out your usefulness as our leader? It’s possible, you know, that we could do without you—now there are no more checks to be signed.”