El Borak and Other Desert Adventures (82 page)

Steve stooped and stolidly wrenched the great gem from the dead hand.

“An adder’d crawled inside the skull — the sheikh clapped his hand down on it, the skull crumbled to dust and the snake just naturally sank his fangs into the nearest object.

“A beauty, eh, Ali?” Steve held up the gem admiringly, gloating over its luster and sheen. “We’re rich men. I’m no judge of jewels, but I bet this gem will bring a fabulous price anywhere. A curse — bosh! But you know, Ali,” he ruminated, “I’ll admit — it is kind of strange that an adder should happen to be sleepin’ in that skull just at that particular time.”

Three-Bladed Doom
Untitled Fragment

It was the scruff of swift and stealthy feet in the darkened doorway he had just passed that warned Gordon. He wheeled just in time to see a tall figure lunging at him from that black arch. It was dark in the narrow, alley-like street, but Gordon glimpsed a fierce bearded face, the gleam of steel in the lifted hand, even as he avoided the blow with a twist of his whole body. The knife ripped his shirt and before the assassin could recover his balance, the American caught his arm and crashed the long barrel of his heavy pistol down on the fellow’s head. The man crumpled to the earth without a sound.

Gordon stood over him, listening with tense expectancy. Up the street, around the next corner, he caught the shuffle of sandalled feet, the muffled clink of steel. These sinister sounds told him the nighted streets of Kabul were a death-trap for Francis Xavier Gordon. He hesitated, half lifting the big gun, then shrugged his shoulders and hurried down the street, swerving wide of the dark arches that gaped in the walls which lined it. He turned into another, wider street, and a few moments later rapped softly on a door above which burned a brass lantern.

The door opened almost instantly and Gordon stepped quickly inside.

“Lock the door!”

The tall bearded Afridi who had admitted the American shot home the heavy bolt and turned, tugging his beard perturbedly as he inspected his friend.

“Your shirt is gashed under the arm, El Borak!” he rumbled.

“A man tried to knife me,” answered Gordon. “Others followed.”

The Afridi’s fierce eyes blazed and he laid a sinewy hand on the three-foot Khyber knife that jutted from his hip.

“Let us sally forth and slay the dogs,
sahib
!
”
he urged.

Gordon shook his head. He was not a large man, but his thick chest, corded neck and square shoulders hinted at strength, speed and endurance almost primordial in nature.

“Let them go. They’re the enemies of Baber Khan, who knew that I went to the Amir tonight to urge him to pardon the man.”

“And what said the Amir?”

“He’s determined on Baber Khan’s destruction. The chief’s enemies have poisoned the Amir against him, and then Baber Khan’s stubborn. He’s refused to come to Kabul and answer charges of sedition. The Amir swears he’ll march within the week and lay Khor in ashes and take Baber Khan’s head, unless the chief comes in voluntarily and surrenders. Baber Khan’s enemies don’t want
him to do that. They know the charges they’ve made against him wouldn’t stand up, with me defending his case. That’s why they’re trying to put me out of the way, but they don’t dare strike openly.

“I’m going to see if I can’t persuade Baber Khan to come in and surrender.”

“That the chief of Khor will never do,” predicted the Afridi.

“Probably not. But I’m going to try. Wake up Ahmed Shah and get the horses ready while I throw a pack together.”

The Afridi did not comment on the risk of night-travel in the Hills, or mention the lateness of the hour. Men who ride with El Borak are accustomed to hard riding at all ungodly hours.

“What of the Sikh?” he asked as he turned away.

“He remains at the palace. The Amir trusts Lal Singh more than his own guards, and he’s been nervous ever since the Sultan of Turkey was attacked by that fanatic. Hurry up, Yar Ali Khan. Baber Khan’s enemies are probably watching the house, but they don’t know about that door that lets into the alley behind the stables. We’ll slip out that way.”

The huge Afridi strode into an inner chamber and shook the man sleeping there on a heap of carpets.

“Awake, son of
Shaitan
. We ride westward.”

Ahmed Shah, a stocky Yusufzai, sat up, yawning.

“Where?”

“To the Ghilzai village of Khor, where the rebel dog Baber Khan will doubtless cut all our throats,” growled Yar Ali Khan.

Ahmed Shah grinned broadly as he rose.

“You have no love for the Ghilzai; but he is El Borak’s friend.”

Yar Ali Khan scowled and muttered direly in his beard as he stalked out into the inner courtyard and headed for the stables. These lay within the high enclosure, and no one but the members of Gordon’s “family” knew that a hidden door connected them with an outer alley. So all the shadowy figures that lurked about his house that night were watching the other sides of the compound when the small party moved stealthily down the black alley. Within half an hour from the time Gordon rapped at his door, the clink of hoofs on the rocky road beyond the city wall marked the passing of three men who rode swiftly westward.

Meanwhile in the palace the Amir of Afghanistan was proving the adage concerning the uneasiness of the head that wears the crown.

He emerged from an inner chamber, wearing a pre-occupied expression, and absently returned the salute of a tall, magnificently-shouldered Sikh who clicked his booted heels and came to military attention. The Amir turned up the corridor, indicating with a gesture that he wished to be alone, so Lal Singh saluted again and fell back, resuming his station by the door, one hand absently caressing the sharkskin-bound hilt of his long saber.

His dark eyes followed the Amir up the corridor. He knew that his friend El Borak had been closeted with the king for several hours, and had left with an abruptness that hinted at anger.

This interview was likewise on the Amir’s mind as he entered a large lamp-lit chamber and crossed toward a gold-barred window that overlooked the sleeping city. It was the first rift in his relationship with the American, who acted as unofficial advisor, counsel, ambassador and secret service department. Hedged in by powerful nations which used his mountain kingdom as a pawn in their game of empire, the Amir leaned heavily on the western adventurer who had proved his reliability scores of times in the past.

The Amir frowned, from his troubled spirit, glancing idly at a curtain which masked an alcove, and absently reflecting that the wind must be rising, since the tapestry swayed lightly. He glanced at the gold-barred window and instantly went cold all over. The light curtains there hung motionless. Yet the hangings over the alcove had stirred —

The Amir was a powerful man, with plenty of personal courage. Almost instinctively he sprang, seized the tapestries and tore them apart — a dagger in a dark hand licked from between them and smote him full in the breast. He cried out as he went down, dragging his assailant with him. The man snarled like a wild beast, his dilated eyes glaring madly. His dagger ribboned the Amir’s
khalat
, revealing the mail shirt which had saved the ruler’s life more than once.

Outside a deep shout echoed the Amir’s lusty yells for help, and booted feet pounded down the corridor. The Amir had grasped his attacker by the throat and the knife-wrist, but the man’s stringy muscles were like knots of steel. As they rolled on the floor the dagger, glancing from the links of the mail shirt, fleshed itself in arm, thigh and hand. Then, as the bravo heaved the weakening ruler under him, grasped his throat and lifted the knife again, something flashed in the lamp-light like a jet of blue lightning, and the murderer collapsed, his head split to the teeth.

“Your majesty — my lord — !” Lal Singh was pale under his black beard. “Are you slain? Nay, you bleed! Wait!”

He thrust the corpse aside and lifted the Amir. The ruler was gasping for breath and covered with blood, his own and his attacker’s. He sank on a divan and the Sikh began ripping strips of silk from the hangings to bind his wounds.

“Look!” gasped the Amir, pointing. His face was livid, his hand shook. “The knife! Allah, the knife!”

It lay glinting dully by the dead man’s hand — a curious weapon with
three
blades sprouting from the same hilt. Lal Singh started and swore beneath his breath.

“The Triple-Bladed Dagger!” panted the Amir, a terrible fear flooding his
eyes. “The same weapon that struck at the Sultan of Turkey! The Shah of Persia! The Nizam of Hyderabad!”

“The mark of the Hidden Ones!” muttered Lal Singh, uneasily eyeing the ominous symbol of the terrible cult which within the past year had struck again and again at the men occupying the high places of the East.

The noise had roused the palace. Men were running down the corridors, shouting to know what had happened.

“Shut the door!” exclaimed the Amir. “Admit no one but the major domo of the palace!”

“But we must have a physician, your majesty,” protested the Sikh. “These wounds will not slay of themselves, but the dagger might have been poisoned.”

“Then send someone for a
hakim. Ya allah!
The Hidden Ones have marked me for doom!” The Amir was a brave man, but his experience had shaken him terribly. “Who can fight the dagger in the dark, the serpent underfoot, the poison in the wine-cup?

“Lal Singh, go swiftly to El Borak’s house and tell him I have desperate need of him! Bring him to me! If there is one man in Afghanistan who can protect me from these hidden devils, it is he!”

Lal Singh saluted and hurried from the chamber, shaking his head at the sight of fear in the countenance where fear had never showed before.

There was reason in the Amir’s fear. A strange and terrible cult had risen in the East. Who its members were, what their ultimate purpose was, none knew. They were called the Hidden Ones, and they slew with a three-bladed dagger. That was all that was known about them. Their agents appeared suddenly, struck and disappeared, or else were slain, refusing to be taken alive. Some considered them to be merely religious fanatics. Others believed their activities to possess a political significance. Lal Singh knew that not even Gordon had any definite information about them. And the Sikh was pessimistic of even El Borak’s being able to protect the Amir from these slinking hounds of death, who moved like shadows in the night.

THREE days after his hurried departure from Kabul, Gordon sat cross-legged in the trail where it looped over the rock ridge to follow the slope down to the village of Khor.

“I stand between you and death!” he warned the man who sat opposite him.

This man tugged his purple-stained beard reflectively. He was broad and powerful and his Bokhariot girdle bristled with dagger hilts. And he was Baber Khan, chief of the fierce Ghilzai, and absolute overlord of Khor and its three hundred wild swordsmen.

But there was no hint of arrogance in his answer.

“Allah favor thee! Yet what man can pass the spot of his death?”

“I offer you an opportunity to make your peace with the Amir.”

Baber Khan shook his head with the fatalism of his race.

“I have too many enemies at court. If I went to Kabul the Amir would listen to their lies, and would hang me up in an iron cage for the kites to eat. Nay, I will not go!”

“Then take your people and find another abode. There are places in these Hills where not even the Amir could follow you.”

Baber Khan glanced down the rocky slope to the cluster of mud-and-stone towers that rose above the encircling wall. His thin nostrils expanded and into his eyes came a dark flame like that of an eagle which surveys its aerie.

“Nay, by Allah! My clan has held Khor since the days of Akbar. Let the Amir rule in Kabul. This is
mine!”

“The Amir will likewise rule in Khor,” grunted Yar Ali Khan, squatting behind Gordon, with Ahmed Shah.

Baber Khan glanced in the other direction where the trail disappeared to the east between jutting crags. On these crags bits of white cloth were blown out on the wind, which the watchers knew were the garments of the riflemen who guarded the pass day and night.

“Let him come,” said Baber Khan grimly. “We hold the passes.”

“He’ll bring five thousand men, with artillery,” warned Gordon. “He’ll burn Khor and take your head back to Kabul.”

“Inshallah,”
agreed Baber Khan, indomitable fatalistic.

As so often in the past Gordon fought down a rising anger at this invincible Oriental characteristic. Every instinct of his strenuous nature was a negation of this inert philosophy. But just now the matter seemed at a dead-lock, and he said nothing, but sat staring at the western crags where the sun hung, a ball of fire in the sharp windy blue.

Baber Khan, supposing that Gordon’s silence signified recognition of defeat, dismissed the matter with a wave of his hand, and said:
“Sahib
, there is something I desire to show you. Down in yonder ruined hut which stands outside the wall, there lies a dead man, the like of which was never seen by any man of Khor before. Even in death he is strange and evil, and I think he is no natural man at all, but a —”

The sharp spang of a rifle-shot echoed among the crags to the east, and instantly all four men were on their feet, facing that way.

A shift in the wind brought the sound of angry shouting to them. Then a figure appeared on the cliffs, leaping agiley from ledge to ledge. He danced like a mountain devil, brandishing his rifle; his ragged cloak whipped out on the wind.

“Ohai
, Baber Khan!” he yelled, straining above the gusts. “A Sikh on a foundered horse is beyond the pass! He demands speech with El Borak!”

“A Sikh?” snapped Gordon, stiffening. “Let him through, at once!”