El Borak and Other Desert Adventures (78 page)

“Born in a palace,” he whispered. “And I’m dying behind a rock wall! No matter — it is
Kismet
. There is a curse on heathen treasure — men have always died when they rode the trail of the Blood-Stained God —” And he died even as he spoke.

Hawklin, O’Donnell and Hassan glanced silently at each other. They were the only survivors — three grim figures, blackened with powder-smoke, splashed with blood, their garments tattered. The fleeing Jowakis had vanished in the gorge, leaving the canyon-bowl empty except for the dead men on the slope.

“Yakub got away!” Hawklin snarled. “I saw him sneaking off when they broke. He’ll make for his village — get the whole tribe on our trail! Come on! We can find the temple. Let’s make a race of it — take the chance of getting the idol and then making our way out of the mountains somehow, before he catches us. We’re in this jam together. We might as well forget what’s passed and join forces for good. There’s enough treasure for the three of us.”

“There’s truth in what you say,” growled O’Donnell. “But you hand over that map before we start.”

Hawklin still held a smoking pistol in his hand, but before he could lift it, Hassan covered him with a revolver.

“I saved a few cartridges for this,” said the Persian, and Hawklin saw the blue noses of the bullets in the chambers. “Give me that gun. Now give the map to O’Donnell.”

Hawklin shrugged his shoulders and produced the crumpled parchment. “Damn you, I cut a third of that treasure, if we get it!” he snarled.

O’Donnell glanced at it and thrust it into his girdle.

“All right. I don’t hold grudges. You’re a swine, but if you play square with us, we’ll treat you as an equal partner, eh, Hassan?”

The Persian nodded, thrusting both guns into his girdle. “This is no time to quibble. It will take the best efforts of all three of us if we get out of this alive. Hawklin, if the Jowakis catch up with us I’ll give you your pistol. If they don’t you won’t need it.”

There were horses tied in the narrow pass behind the wall. The three men mounted the best beasts, turned the others loose and rode up the canyon that wound away and away beyond the pass. Night fell as they travelled, but through the darkness they pushed recklessly on. Somewhere behind them, how far or how near they could not know, rode the tribesmen of Yakub Khan, and if the chief caught them his vengeance would be ghastly. So through the blackness of the nighted Himalayas they rode, three desperate men on a mad quest, with death on their trail, unknown perils ahead of them, and suspicion of each other edging their nerves.

O’Donnell watched Hassan like a hawk. Search of the bodies at the wall had failed to reveal a single unfired cartridge, so Hassan’s pistols were the only firearms left in the party. That gave the Persian an advantage O’Donnell did not relish. If the time came when Hassan no longer needed the aid of his companions, O’Donnell believed the Persian would not scruple to shoot them both down in cold blood. But he would not turn on them as long as he needed their assistance, and when it came to a fight — O’Donnell grimly fingered his blades. More than once he had matched them against hot lead, and lived.

As they groped their way by the starlight, guided by the map which indicated landmarks unmistakable, even by night, O’Donnell found himself wondering again what it was that the maker of that map had tried to tell him, just before he died. Death had come to Pembroke quicker than he had expected. In the very midst of a description of the temple, blood had gushed to his lips and he had sunk back, desperately fighting to gasp a few more words even as he died. It sounded like a warning — but of what?

Dawn was breaking as they came out of a narrow gorge into a deep, high-walled valley. The defile through which they entered, a narrow alley between towering cliffs, was the only entrance; without the map they would never have found it. It came out upon a ledge which ran along the valley wall, a jutting shelf a hundred feet wide with the cliff rising three hundred feet above it on one hand, and falling away to a thousand foot drop on the other. There seemed no way down into the mist-veiled depths of the valley, far below. But they wasted few glances on what lay below them, for what they saw ahead of them drove hunger and fatigue from their minds. There on the ledge stood the temple, gleaming in the rising sun. It was carved out of the sheer rock of the cliff, its great portico facing them. The ledge was like a pathway to its dully-glinting door.

What race, what culture it represented, O’Donnell did not try to guess. A thousand unknown conquerors had swept over these hills before the grey
dawn of history. Nameless civilizations had risen and crumbled before the peaks shook to the trumpets of Alexander.

“How will we open the door?” O’Donnell wondered. The great bronze portal looked as though it were built to withstand artillery. He unfolded the map and glanced again at the notes scrawled on the margins. But Hassan slipped from his saddle and ran ahead of them, crying out in his greed. A strange frenzy akin to madness had seized the Persian at the sight of the temple, and the thought of the fabulous wealth that lay within.

“He’s a fool!” grunted Hawklin, swinging down from his horse. “Pembroke left a warning scribbled on the margin of that map — ‘The temple can be entered, but be careful, for the god will take his toll.’”

Hassan was tugging and pulling at various ornaments and projections on the portal. They heard him cry out exultantly as it moved under his hands — then his cry changed to a scream of terror as the door, a ton of carved bronze, swayed outward and fell crashing. The Persian had no time to avoid it. It crushed him like an ant. He was completely hidden under the great metal slab from beneath which oozed streams of crimson.

Hawklin shrugged his shoulders.

“I said he was a fool. The ancients knew how to guard their treasure. I wonder how Pembroke escaped being smashed.”

“He evidently stumbled on some way to swing the door open without releasing it from its hinges,” answered O’Donnell. “That’s what happened when Hassan jerked on those knobs. That must have been what Pembroke was trying to tell me when he died — which knobs to pull and which to let alone.”

“Well, the god has his toll, and the way’s clear for us,” grunted Hawklin, callously striding past the encrimsoned door. O’Donnell was close on his heels. Both men paused on the broad threshold, peering into the shadowy interior much as they might have peered into the lair of a serpent. But no sudden doom descended on them, no shape of menace rose before them. They entered cautiously. Silence held the ancient temple, broken only by the soft scruff of their boots.

They blinked in the semi-gloom; out of it a blaze of crimson like a lurid glow of sunset smote their eyes. They saw the Blood-Stained God, a thing of brass, crusted with flaming gems. It was in the shape of a dwarfish man, and it stood upright on its great splay feet on a block of basalt, facing the door. To the left of it, a few feet from the base of the pedestal, the floor of the temple was cleft from wall to wall by a chasm some fifteen feet wide. At some time or other an earthquake had split the rock, and there was no telling how far it descended into echoing depths. Into that black abyss, ages ago, doubtless screaming victims had been hurled by hideous priests as human sacrifices to
the Crimson God. The walls of the temple were lofty and fantastically carved, the roof dim and shadowy above them.

But the attention of the men was fixed avidly on the idol. It was brutish, repellent, a leprous monstrosity, whose red jewels gave it a repellently blood-splashed appearance. But it represented a wealth that made their brains swim.

“God!” breathed O’Donnell. “Those gems are real! They’re worth a fortune!”

“Millions!” panted Hawklin. “Too much to share with a damned Yankee!”

It was those words, breathed unconsciously between the Englishman’s clenched teeth, which saved O’Donnell’s life, dazzled as he was by the blaze of that unholy idol. He wheeled, caught the glint of Hawklin’s saber, and ducked just in time. The whistling blade sliced a fold from his head-dress. Cursing his carelessness — for he might have expected treachery — he leaped back, whipping out his scimitar.

The tall Englishman came in a rush, and O’Donnell met him, close-pent rage loosing itself in a gust of passion. Back and forth they fought, up and down before the leering idol, feet scruffing swiftly on the rock, blades rasping, slithering and ringing, blue sparks showering as they moved through patches of shadow.

Hawklin was taller than O’Donnell, longer of arm, but O’Donnell was equally strong, and a blinding shade quicker on his feet. Hawklin feared the naked
kindhjal
in his left hand more than he did the scimitar, and he endeavored to keep the fighting at long range, where his superior reach would count heavily. He gripped a dagger in his own left hand, but he knew he could not compete with O’Donnell in knife-play.

But he was full of deadly tricks with the longer steel. Again and again O’Donnell dodged death by the thickness of a hair, and so far his own skill and speed had not availed to break through the Englishman’s superb guard.

O’Donnell sought in vain to work into close quarters. Once Hawklin tried to rush him over the lip of the chasm, but nearly impaled himself on the American’s scimitar and abandoned the attempt.

Then suddenly, unexpectedly, the end came. O’Donnell’s foot slipped slightly on the smooth floor, and his blade wavered for an instant. Hawklin threw all his strength and speed behind a lunging thrust that would have driven his saber clear through O’Donnell’s body had it reached its mark. But the American was not as much off-balance as Hawklin thought. A twist of his supple body, and the long lean blade passed beneath his right arm-pit, ploughing through the loose
khalat
as it grazed his ribs. For an instant the blade was caught in the folds of the loose cloth, and Hawklin yelled wildly and stabbed with his dagger. It sank deep in O’Donnell’s right arm as he lifted it, and simultaneously the
kindhjal
in O’Donnell’s left hand plunged between Hawklin’s ribs.

The Englishman’s scream broke in a ghastly gurgle. He reeled back, and as O’Donnell tore out the blade, blood spurted and Hawklin fell limply, dead before he hit the floor.

O’Donnell dropped his weapon and knelt, ripping a strip of cloth from his
khalat
for a bandage. His wounded arm was bleeding freely, but a quick investigation assured him that the dagger had not severed any important muscle or vein.

As he bound it up, tying knots with his fingers and teeth, he glanced at the Blood-Stained God which leered down on him and the man he had just slain. It had taken full toll, and it seemed to gloat, with its carven, gargoyle face. He shivered. Surely it must be accursed. Could wealth gained from such a source, and at such a price as the dead man at his feet, ever bring luck? He put the thought from him. The Red God was his, bought by sweat and blood and sword-strokes. He must pack it on a horse and begone before the vengeance of Yakub Khan overtook him. He could not go back the way he had come. The Jowakis barred that way. He must strike out blind, through unfamiliar mountains, trusting to luck to make his way to safety.

“Put up your hands!” It
was a triumphant shout that rang to the roof.

In one motion he was on his feet, facing the door — then he froze.

Two men stood before him, and one covered him with a cocked rifle. The man was tall, lean and red-bearded.

“Yakub Khan!” ejaculated O’Donnell.

The other man was a powerful fellow who seemed vaguely familiar.

“Drop your weapons!” The chief laughed harshly. “You thought I had run away to my village, did you not? Fool! I sent all my men but one, who was the only one not wounded, to rouse the tribe, while with this man I followed you. I have hung on your trail all night, and I stole in here while you fought with that one on the floor there. Your time has come, you Kurdish dog! Back! Back! Back!”

Under the threat of the rifle O’Donnell moved slowly backward until he stood close to the black chasm. Yakub followed him at a distance of a few feet, the rifle muzzle never wavering.

“You have led me to treasure,” muttered Yakub, squinting down the blue barrel in the dim light. “I did not know this temple held such an idol! Had I known, I would have looted it long ago, in spite of the superstitions of my followers. Yar Muhammad, pick up his sword and dagger.”

At the name the identity of Yakub’s powerful follower became clear. The man stooped and picked up the sword, then exclaimed: “Allah!”

He was staring at the brazen hawk’s head that formed the pommel of O’Donnell’s scimitar.

“Wait!” the Waziri cried. “This is the sword of him who saved me from torture, at the risk of his own life! His face was covered, but I remember the hawk-head on his hilt! This is that Kurd!”

“Be silent!” snarled the chief. “He is a thief and he dies!”

“Nay!” The Waziri was galvanized with the swift, passionate loyalty of the hillman. “He saved my life! Mine, a stranger! What have you ever given me but hard tasks and scanty pay? I renounce my allegiance, you Jowaki thief!”