El Borak and Other Desert Adventures (86 page)

“Aye,” agreed Gordon equably. “Do so. And when your master asks: ‘Where is El Borak, who brought me important news?’ Say to him: ‘Lo, thou didst not consult with us concerning this man, and so we slew him to teach thee a lesson!’”

They winced at the biting irony of his words and tone.

“None will ever know,” growled one. “Shoot him.”

“Nay, the shot would be heard and there would be questions to answer.”

“Cut his throat!” suggested the youngest of the band, and was scowled at so murderously by his fellows that he fell back in confusion.

“Aye, cut my throat,” taunted Gordon, laughing at them.
“One
of you might survive to tell of it.”

This was no mere bombast, as most of them knew, and they betrayed their uneasiness in their black scowls.

“Knives are silent,” muttered the youngster, trying to justify himself.

He was rewarded by receiving a rifle butt driven angrily into his belly, which made him salaam involuntarily, and then lift up his voice in gasping lamentation.

“Son of a dog! Would you have us fight El Borak’s guns with naked steel?”

Having vented some of their spleen on their tactless comrade, the Kurds grew calmer, and the taller man inquired uncertainly of Gordon: “You are expected?”

“Would I come here if I were not expected? Does the lamb thrust his head unbidden into the jaws of the wolf?”

“Lamb?” The Kurds cackled sardonically. “Thou a lamb? Ha, Allah! Say, rather, does the grey wolf with blood on his fangs seek the hunter!”

“If there is fresh-spilt blood it is but the blood of fools who disobeyed their master’s orders,” retorted Gordon. “Last night, in the Gorge of Ghosts —”

“Ya Allah!
Was it thee the Yezidee fools fought? They knew thee not! They said they had slain an Englishman and his servants in the Gorge.”

So that was why the sentries were so careless; for some reason the Yezidees had lied about the outcome of that battle, and the Watchers of the Road were not expecting any pursuit.

“None of you was among those who in their ignorance fell upon me in the Gorge?”

“Do we limp? Do we bleed? Do we weep from weariness and wounds? Nay, we have not fought El Borak!”

“Then be wise and do not make the mistake they made. Will you take me to him who awaits me, or will you cast dung in his beard by scorning his orders?”

“Allah forbid!” ejaculated the tall Kurd. “No order had been given us concerning thee. Nay, El Borak, thy heart is full of guile as a serpent’s. But if
this be a lie our master shall see thy death, and if it be not a lie, then we can have no blame. Give up thy rifle and scimitar, and we will conduct thee to him.”

Gordon surrendered the weapons, secure in the knowledge of the big pistol reposing in its shoulder scabbard under his left arm.

The leader then picked up the rifle dropped by the young Kurd, who was still bent double and groaning heartily: straightened him with a resounding kick in the rump, shoved the rifle in his hands and bade him watch the Stair as if his life depended on it; then turned, barking orders to the others.

As they closed around the seemingly unarmed American, Gordon knew their hands itched to thrust a knife in his back. But he had sown the seeds of fear and uncertainty in their primitive minds, and he knew they dared not strike.

They moved out of the clustering boulders and started along the wide road that led to the city. That road had once been paved, and in some places the paving was still in fair condition.

“The Yezidess passed into the city just before dawn?” he asked casually.

“Aye,” was the terse reply.

“They couldn’t march fast,” mused Gordon. “They had wounded men to carry. And then the Sikh, their prisoner, would be stubborn. They’d have to beat and prod and drag him.”

One of the men turned his head and began: “Why, the Sikh —”

The tall leader barked him to silence, and turned on Gordon a baleful gaze.

“Do not answer his questions. Ask him none. If he mocks us, retort not. A serpent is less crafty. If we talk to him he will have us bewitched before we reach Shalizahr.”

So that was the name of that fantastic city; Gordon seemed to remember the name in some medieval historical connection.

“Why do you mistrust me?” he demanded. “Have I not come to you with open hands?”

“Aye!” The Kurd laughed mirthlessly. “Once I saw you come to the Turkish masters of Bitlis with open hands; but when you closed those hands the streets ran red. Nay, El Borak, I know you of old, from the days when you led your outlaws through the hills of Kurdistan. I can not match my wits against yours, but I can keep my tongue between my teeth. You shall not snare me and blind me with cunning words. I will not speak, and if any of my men answer you, I will break his head with my rifle butt.”

“I thought I recognized you,” said Gordon. “You are Yusuf ibn Suleiman. You were a good fighter.”

The Kurd’s scarred face lighted at the praise, and he started to speak — then recollected himself, scowled ferociously, swore at one of his men who had not offended in any way, squared his shoulders uncompromisingly, and strode stiffly ahead of the party.

Gordon did not stride; rather he strolled, with the air of a man walking amidst an escort of honor, rather than a guard, and his bearing had its effect on the warriors. By the time they reached the city they were shouldering their rifles instead of carrying them at the ready, and allowing a respectful interval between themselves and him.

As they approached Shalizahr the secret of the groves and gardens became apparent. Soil, doubtless brought laboriously from distant valleys, had been used to fill some of the many depressions which pitted the surface of the plateau, and an elaborate system of deep, narrow irrigation canals threaded the gardens, obviously originating in some natural water supply near the center of the city. The plateau, sheltered by the ring of crumbling peaks, presented a more seasonal climate than was common in those mountains.

The road ran between large orchards and entered the city proper — lines of flat-roofed stone houses fronting each other across the wide, paved street, each with an expanse of garden behind it. There was no wall about the city. The plateau itself was a fortress. Half a mile of ravine-gashed plain separated the city from the mountain which frowned above and behind it. The plateau was like a great shelf jutting out from the massive slope.

Men at work in the gardens and loitering along the street halted and stared at the Kurds and their captive. Gordon saw Druses, many Persians, Arabs, a few Indians. But no Afghans. Evidently the heterogenous population had no affiliations with the native inhabitants of the land.

The people did not carry their curiosity beyond questioning stares. The street widened into a
suk
closed on the south side by a broad wall which enclosed the palacial building with its gorgeous dome.

There was no guard at the massive bronze-barred gates, only a gay-clad negro who salaamed deeply as he swung open the portals. Gordon and his escort came into a small courtyard paved with colored tile, in the midst of which a fountain bubbled and pigeons fluttered about it. The Kurds marched straight on across the court and were halted on the broad pillared portico by a guard of thirty Arabs whose plumed helmets of silvered steel, gilded corselets and gold-chased scimitars contrasted curiously with the modern rifles in their hands.

The hawk-faced captain of the guard conversed briefly with Yusuf ibn Suleiman, and Gordon divined that no love was lost between them. The captain, whose name was Muhammad ibn Ahmed, presently made a gesture with his slim brown hand, and Gordon was surrounded by a dozen glittering Arabs, and marched among them up the broad marble steps and through the wide arch whose bronze doors stood wide. The Kurds followed, without their rifles, and not looking at all happy.

They passed through wide, dim-lit halls, from the vaulted and fretted
ceilings of which hung smoking bronze censers, while on either hand velvet-curtained arches hinted at inner mysteries. Tapestries rustled, soft footfalls whispered, and once Gordon saw a slim white hand grasping a hanging as if the owner peered from behind it.

Even the swagger of the Arabs — all except their captain — was modified. The Kurds were openly uneasy. Mystery and intangible menace lurked in those dim, gorgeous halls. Gordon felt that he might have been traversing a palace of Nineveh or ancient Persia, but for the modern weapons of his escort.

Presently they emerged into a broader hallway and approached a double-valved bronze door, flanked by even more gorgeously-clad guardsmen, Persians, these, scented and painted like the warriors of Cambyses. These bizarre figures stood impassively as statues while the Arabs strode by with their captive, or guest, and entered a semi-circular room where dragon-worked tapestries covered the walls, hiding all possible doors or windows except the one by which they had entered. Golden lamps hung from the arched ceiling which was worked in fretted gold and ebony. Opposite the great doorway there stood a marble dais. On the dais stood a great canopied chair, scrolled and carved like a throne, and on the velvet cushions which littered the seat lolled a slender figure in a pearl-sewn
khalat
. On the rose-colored turban glistened a great gold brooch, made in the shape of a human hand gripping a three-bladed dagger. The face beneath the turban was oval, the color of old ivory, with a small pointed black beard. The dark eyes were contemplative. The man was a Persian.

On either side of the throne stood a giant Sudanese, like images of heathen gods carved out of black basalt, naked but for sandals and silken loin-cloths, with broad-tipped tulwars in their hands.

“Who is this?” languidly inquired the man on the throne, in Arabic.

“El Borak,
ya sidna!”
answered Muhammad ibn Ahmed, with a swagger in his consciousness that the announcement of that name would create something of a sensation anywhere East of Stamboul.

The dark eyes quickened with interest, sharpened with suspicion, and Yusuf ibn Suleiman, watching his master’s face with painful intensity, drew in a quick breath and clenched his hands so the bails bit into the palms.

“How comes he in Shalizahr uannounced?”

“The Kurdish dogs who watch the Stair say he came to them, swearing that he had been sent for by the Shaykh ez Zurim.”

Gordon stiffened as he heard that title. It was incredible, fantastic; yet it was true. His black eyes fixed with fierce intensity on the oval face.

He did not speak. There was a time for silence as well as for bold speech. His next move depended entirely on the Shaykh’s next words. They might brand him as an imposter and doom him. But he depended on two things: the
belief that no Eastern ruler would order El Borak slain without first trying to learn the reason behind his presence; and the fact that few Eastern rulers either enjoy the full confidence of their followers, or themselves wholly trust those followers.

After a pause the man on the throne spoke at, but not to, the Kurd: “This is the law of Shalizahr: no man may ascend the Stair unless he makes the Sign so the Watchers of the Stair can see. If he does not know the Sign, the Warder of the Gate must be summoned to converse with the stranger before he may mount the Stair. El Borak was not announced. The Warder of the Gate was not summoned. Did El Borak make the Sign, below the Stair?”

Yusuf ibn Suleiman sweated as he wavered between a dangerous truth and a lie that might be even more dangerous. He shot a venomous glance at Gordon and spoke in a voice harsh with apprehension: “The guard in the cleft did not give warning. El Borak appeared upon the cliff before we saw him, though we were vigilant as eagles. He is a magician who makes himself invisible at will. We knew he spoke truth when he said you had sent for him, otherwise he could not have known the Secret Way —”

Perspiration beaded the Kurd’s narrow forehead. The man on the throne did not seem to hear his voice and Muhammad ibn Ahmed, quick to sense that the Kurd had fallen in disfavor, struck Yusuf savagely in the mouth with his open hand.

“Dog, be silent until the Shaykh deigns to command thy speech!”

Yusuf reeled, blood starting down his beard, and looked black murder at the Arab, but he said nothing.

The Persian moved his hand languidly, yet with impatience.

“Take the Kurds away. Keep them under guard until further orders. Even if a man is expected, the Watchers should not be surprized. El Borak did not know the Sign, yet he climbed the Stair unhindered. If they had been vigilant, not even El Borak could have done this. He is no magician. You have my leave to go. I will talk to El Borak alone.”

Muhammad ibn Ahmed salaamed and led his glittering swordsmen away between the silent files of warriors lined on each side of the door, herding the shivering Kurds before them. These turned as they passed through the door and fixed their burning eyes on Gordon in a silent glare of hate.

Muhammad ibn Ahmed pulled the bronze doors shut behind them. The Persian spoke in English to Gordon.

“Speak freely. These black men do not understand English.”

Gordon, before replying, kicked a divan up before the dais and settled himself comfortably on it, with his feet propped on a velvet footstool. He had not established his prestige in the Orient by meek bearing or timid behavior. Where another man might have tip-toed, hat in hand and heart in mouth,
Gordon strode with heavy boots and heavy hand, and because he was El Borak, he lived where other men died. His attitude was no bluff. He was ready at all times to back up his play with hot lead and cold steel, and men knew it, just as they knew that he was the most dangerous man with any sort of weapon between Cairo and Peking.

The Persian showed no surprize that his captive — or guest — should seat himself without asking permission. His first words showed that he had had much dealings with Westerners, and had, for his own purposes, adopted some of their directness. For he said, without preamble: “I did not send for you.”

“Of course not. But I had to tell those fools something, or else kill them all.”

“What do you want here?”