El Borak and Other Desert Adventures (32 page)

A scattering fire was returned from the nearest house-tops, but no shot was fired from the garden or in the orchard, and the shooting from the roofs was weak and ineffective.

“Look!”

A band of men, a hundred or so in number, emerged into the street from among the houses. They moved in ragged order out along the road, firing as they went. Gordon cursed suddenly and passionately, for he foresaw the trick. The Kurds craning over his shoulders wagged their turbans in confirmation.

“They go to draw the Afghans into a charge. They will fall back in confusion presently. There was never an Afghan who could resist pursuing a fleeing enemy. The Ghilzais will run into the trap set for them, after all.”

The nearest point of the Afghan line was a few hundred yards beyond the orchard. The Ismailians had scarcely passed the orchard when they received a withering fire from the full length of the irregular line, and their uneven ranks wavered as a dozen men fell. They held long enough to fire a volley in return, and then began to fall back. The bodies that dotted the plain showed that the Ismailians were prepared to pay a fair price for their ultimate victory.

The wolf-like yelling of the Afghans came plainly to the group in the tower as the Assassins broke and fled toward the shelter of the houses. Just as the Kurd had predicted and Gordon had feared, the Ghilzais leaped up and charged after them, firing as they ran and howling like blood-mad demons.

They converged from both sides into the road, and there, though Baber Khan was unable to check their headlong rush, he did at least manage to beat and curse them into a more compact body as they surged into the end of the street.

The fleetest of the tribesmen were not a hundred yards behind the last-most Ismailians when the latter dashed between the orchard and the garden and raced on up the street. Gordon clenched his hands until his nails bit blood from his palms. Now the foremost of the Afghans were passing the further end of the garden — a few moments more and they would be in the jaws of the trap.

But something went wrong. Later Gordon learned that it was a turbaned head poked incautiously up above the garden wall that spoiled Ivan’s trap. Baber Khan, with eyes that missed nothing, spied that head, and the bullet he instantly smashed through it caused the owner to jerk the trigger of his cocked rifle even as he died. At the crack of his rifle his mates, keyed to almost unbearable tension, fired mechanically and practically involuntarily. And the men in the orchard across the way, reacting without stopping to think, poured
a ragged volley into the onrushing horde. And of course, at that, the men on the roofs ahead began firing spontaneously and without orders. When a trap that is hinged with hair-trigger precision is sprung prematurely, the result is always demoralization and confusion.

A score of Afghans bit the dust at the first volley, but Baber Khan instantly realized the trap and saw and took the only way out. The unexpected fire was like a slap of cold water in the faces of his men, sobering them out of their blind blood-madness, and before that could turn to panic, Baber Khan commanded their staggering attention by a high-pitched furious yell, and wheeling, led them straight at the orchard wall. They were accustomed, since their cradles, blindly to follow where he led. They followed him now, with the bullets from all sides ripping through their ranks.

A volley that blazed along the wall full in their faces left a line of crumpled bodies in the road but did not stop the charge. They went over the orchard wall like a typhoon-driven wave in the teeth of raking lead and biting steel, swamped the fifty men crouching there with sheer numbers, shot, stabbed or knocked them in the head before they could even break away, and then, from behind the wall themselves opened a savage fire on the garden and the houses.

In an instant the whole complection of the fight had changed. The road was full of dead men, but, at a loss of some forty warriors, Baber Khan had slipped out of the trap before it could close.

The Ghilzais were well covered by the wall, and the trees which crowded the orchard. Lead rained into the orchard from the garden across the way, and from the roofs of the houses, but with little effect. There were fountains in the orchard for water, and fruit on some of the trees. Unless dislodged by a direct charge, they could hold their position for days.

On the other hand, they were themselves in a vise. They could not take the city by sniping from behind an orchard wall, and if they emerged from their cover, they would be exterminated. They could not charge the houses, and they could not fall back across the plain and descend the Stair without being followed and massacred as they retreated. Continual firing from the houses would gradually decrease their numbers, until a charge would sweep over the wall and crush them as they had crushed the fifty riflemen who had first held the orchard.

And in the meantime, Gordon reflected savagely, he was hemmed up there in that accursed tower, while the men who had come to rescue him fought for their lives against a crafty and merciless foe. Tigerishly he paced the floor, his eyes burning, his hands quivering with the desire to be gripping gun butt or sword hilt. Azizun knelt near the wall, watching him with wide eyes, and the Kurds were silent.

The spattering of bullets on the tower outside maddened him. They were not shooting at anything they could see; were simply warning him to keep under cover; to remain hemmed in until Ivan Konaszevski could exterminate his friends and return to destroy him at his leisure. A red mist floated before Gordon’s eyes, making everything seem to swim in a gulf of blood.

He scarcely knew it when one of the Kurds wandered down into the lower chamber; but he was aware of the man’s return, for he came up the steps three at a time, his eyes blazing.

“Effendi!
Come and look! I tore the carpet off the floor of that chamber down there looking for loot, which is often hidden beneath floors, and I found a brass ring set in a slot. When I pulled upon it a trap-door opened in the floor, and a flight of stone-steps leads down!”

Gordon came out of his maze of helpless rage like an awakening panther, and raced headlong down the stair after the warrior. An instant later he was crouching over the open trap, striking one of the matches he had found in the upper chamber. The steps led down a few feet into a narrow tunnel. Gordon knelt in meditation while the match flickered out.

“That tunnel leads towards the palace,” he said presently. “If Ivan knew of this he’d have led his men through it to attack us. Othman must have used this way in passing secretly to and from the palace. He’d naturally have secrets he’d keep even from Ivan. It’s probable that only he and his black slaves knew of this tunnel; which means that no living men except ourselves know of it.”

“We do not know where it leads to in the palace,” reminded the Kurd.

“No. But it’s worth taking a chance. Get the others.”

When the three Kurds came trooping down with the girl, hugging her make-shift silk garment about her, he said briefly: “I’m gambling that this will lead us into some part of the palace that isn’t full of Assassins. There can’t be many men in the palace, and they are in the front part of the building, judging from the sound of the firing. Anyway, it’s better to take a chance than to wait here to be butchered.

“If we get into the palace alive, we’ll make for the tunnel where Yusuf ibn Suleiman is hiding. There’s no point in his waiting there now, but of course he probably doesn’t know that. If we get there I’m going to send you men and the girl out through the ravines.” And in a few words he told them how to reach the cave and the hole in the cliff.

“We do not wish to leave thee,
effendi!”
Weariness and wounds were telling on the Kurds at last; their bearded faces were drawn and haggard, but they spoke with sincerity.

“You’ll obey my orders, as you swore to do, and so will Azizun —” as the girl showed evidences of mutiny. “You know the way to Khor. Go there, and
give the people the same pass-word I told to Yusuf. Don’t be afraid in going through the ravines. The
djinn
is dead — and it was never anything but an ape, anyway. If you reach Khor, get into communication with Azizun’s family in Delhi. They’ll pay you well for returning her.”

“The dogs pollute their Hindu money! Thy command is enough. But,
effendi
, what of thee?”

“After you’ve gotten safely into the ravines I’m going to slip out of the palace and try to reach the orchard where the Afghans are at bay. They came to save me. I can not desert them. It is a point of
izzat.”

He used the Afghan term unconsciously, but the Kurds understood; they too had their code of honor.

“I tell you this now, so if I fall before we reach the tunnel where Yusuf is, the rest of you will know what to do. Make for Khor! And now let’s go!”

They entered the tunnel, lighting their way with improvised torches. It was ornate for such a passage, walled with friezed marble, arched and tiled. It ran straight for some distance, until Gordon knew they were well under the palace. He was wondering if it connected with the dungeons when they came to a narrow flight of steps leading up to a bronze door. Careful listening betrayed no sound beyond the door, and Gordon pushed it open cautiously, rifle ready. They emerged into an empty chamber, of which the secret door formed a panel in the wall. When Gordon pushed it shut behind them a hidden spring clicked. Their escape was cut off in that direction.

They stole across the chamber and peered through the curtained door into the dim corridor beyond. No sound broke the silence of the palace except the dry cracking of rifles some distance away. It was the men in the front part of the building shooting at the tower. Gordon smiled thinly to think that while the riflemen were so engaged, the folk they thought safely trapped were invading the palace behind them.

“Do you know exactly where we are now, Azizun?”

“Yes,
sahib.”

“Then lead us to the room which opens on the secret stair. There’s no use warning everyone to go quietly.”

“I do not think we will be discovered. The male slaves will be at the other end of the town, watching the fighting. The women, slaves and
houris
, will be hiding in terror in the upper chambers — possibly locked in by their masters,” replied Azizun, leading them swiftly along the winding corridor.

She was apparently correct in her surmise, for they reached the door of the chamber which Gordon had occupied the day before without seeing anyone. But even as Gordon reached for the door, their hearts jumped into their throats at the mutter of two low voices and the soft tread of many feet in the chamber. It was as unexpected as a shot from ambush. Before they could
retreat the door was thrown open, and then Gordon’s rifle muzzle jammed hard into the belly of the man who had opened it.

For an instant both men stood frozen.

“Sahib!”

“Lal Singh!”

The Kurds behind Gordon stared wildly as they saw the great bearded Sikh throw his arms about their
effendi
in an embrace of glad relief. Behind Lal Singh Yusuf ibn Suleiman in his Arab finery grinned like a bearded mountain devil, and fifty wild figures with rifles and tulwars crowded the chamber.

“I feared you were dead,” Gordon said a bit unsteadily.

“I deserve to be, because I failed in my mission,” said the Sikh contritely. “I should have reached the Gorge of the Kings before the Ghilzais.
Sahib
, at the western foot of the crags which surround this plateau, I came upon an old road-bed — the old caravan road which once ran through this country from Persia to India. It turns northward along the foot of the crags and comes into the Gorge of the Kings a mile or so to the west of the cleft where you killed the Mongol.

“It was easy going after I struck the road — but as I climbed down toward it I slipped and fell and struck my head against a rock. I must have lain senseless for hours. When I came to myself and pressed on, and reached the Gorge of the Kings, it was already dawn, and the Ghilzais, who had almost killed their horses in an all-night ride, had already passed through the cleft. I came upon their horses which they had left in the gorge, with some boys to watch them. They told me that Yar Ali Khan had used your rope to get upon the ledge that hides the mouth of the cleft, and had gotten through the door and shot the man guarding the cleft before the fellow knew the Afridi was near him. The secrets of these Assassins have been safe for so long, the fools have grown careless. Not even your entry of the city put them on their guard. They never guessed that men would follow you.

“Well, even as I started to follow the Ghilzais through the cleft, I heard firing from a point I knew to be the summit of the cliffs. I knew they were already on the plateau, for the firing receded as I listened. While I hesitated, not knowing what to do, and cursing myself for my failure to reach them in time, these fifty men rode into the gorge, following the Ghilzais. They are Waziris whom Baber Khan allowed to establish their village a few miles from Khor; hearing the Ghilzais were at war, they followed to aid in the fighting — and the looting. Seeing no better course I brought them with me, as you had planned for me to bring the main force of the Ghilzais. The horses were tired, but even so we made good time, for we followed the old road-bed to a point within half a mile from the hole where I crawled through the cliff. And now we await your orders!”

“Shabash!”
exclaimed Gordon. “There is man’s work for us all.”

“What has occurred,
sahib?”
the Sikh asked eagerly, while the wild Waziris, who had followed him merely because they knew him to be El Borak’s comrade, crowded close eagerly. “We heard firing all the way, but of course could see nothing. And this Kurd, who opened the door for us, knows no more than we.”

“The Ghilzais hold the orchard at the other end of the town,” Gordon answered. “Later I will tell you of the battle; now there is work to do in haste.” Turning to the three Kurds, he said: “Do you three men do as I have instructed you. Lal Singh, tell them where you left the Waziri horses.” This done, Gordon added: “Ride to Khor and wait for us. If the battle goes against us, I charge you to see that Azizun gets safely home.”