# The Guest of Karadak

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“”Harold Lamb tells about tradition among the Arabs, in connection with his long novelette in this issue” —in the Discussion page
THE GUEST OF KARADAK
Retribution of the Desert and the Lord of Iran
A New Novelette by HAROLD LAMB
ONCE—no more than once—have I seen a man dig his own grave. Though his eyes were keen, in that hour he was blind. Though he was favored and fortunate and a conqueror, it availed him not at all in that hour.
Concerning this man, some say—
“It was written, and what is written may not be altered.”
Others—and they are the mountain Kurds—say he was led to his fate by the hand of Sidri Singh. What my eyes have seen, I have seen, and I say that he dug his own grave, unknowing.
W'allahi, how many men have I seen in the hour of their death? I am Daril of the land of Athir. My clan is the Nejd and we are desert Arabs. In my youth I rode with the raiding bands—yea, and the banners of the clans. In those times the sword of Daril ibn Athir was not without honor.
When my years numbered fifty and eight I sheathed the sword, being weary of the war of clan against clan. It was the moment when the soul within cries, “Peace! Make thy peace.” I lingered at the sitting-place of the expounders of the Law, and the burden of their words was not otherwise.
“Make thy peace, that thy years be not troubled.”
But how—in what way?
I can not read the written word of the Law. And where are the two who will agree as to the meaning of the words written? I listened, hearing much dispute, and learning little, for we of the sahra understand only a few words. It was said to me, “Give alms.” I gave then my tents and carpets, the silver jars and the silk of Cathay, the red leather and blue, clear glass—all that my hand had plundered.
They then said to me:
“Go thou upon the pilgrimage.”
And this also I did, taking leave of my followers and the keepers of my herds, For my sheep were numbered by the hundred, my saddle-horses by the score.
When I returned from Macca and Bait al-Mukkudas to my district, I found there only a few of my men, who said that the herds had been carried off by raiders. They besought me to summon clansmen and companions-in-arms and ride and recover the herds. But I made answer that I had no wish to lift the standard of strife.
Nay, the blood was thin in my veins; the mail-shirt irked my stiff bones. I could no longer run beside a galloping horse and leap to the saddle; nor could I lean down from the saddle and slit in halves with my sword's edge a carpet laid in the sand.
“In poverty,” I said, remembering some words of the expounders of the Law, “there is rest.”
But who can sit in one place and eat out of another's bowl? Many men of the Nejd, remembering other days; came to me to have their wounds dressed and other ills healed, for they called me physician, praising my skill at letting blood from a vein, in judging the heat of fever. Thus the thought came to me to rise up and go upon a journey, naming myself a physician.
I would sheathe the sword forever, bearing only the unadorned blade of Damascus forging that I had carried as a youth. Daril, chieftain of Athir, would be Daril al hakim—the physician. I meant to see new lands and visit the throne rooms of far kings—yea, the conquerors.
With this thought I set forth in the year of the Flight, one thousand and twenty and nine. I crossed the gulf to the coast of Iran. It is only a little way from the shore of the Nejd to the great island that lies in the throat of the gulf and to the land of the Iranis. Nevertheless, the rais of the vessel was afraid of pirates. and more afraid of landing on this coast, though we had come to a walled town. He made me go down into a fisherman's craft, and the vessel turned its sail and went away.
I thought that I would buy a camel from these Iranis and go overland to the empire of Ind.
O, ye who listen, there is one thing true beyond doubt. He who sets forth upon a road may not know what the end of the road will be.
IT WAS the season of the first rains, though no grass showed in the sand, and the cattle had not been led out into the valleys. I sat within the sea-gate of Bandar Abbasi, the walled town where the rais of the vessel had left me.
It is a good sitting place, the shadow of a brikc arch of a gate. Here may be seen those who enter with their followers and animals. I listened to the talk of the shepherds and sellers of water who entered Bandar Abbasi.
I learned that this was a new port of the great Shah Abbas, the lord of Iran. Verily, it reeked of foulness and unclean dirt—the water was bad, and the horses, for lack of grain, fed on dried fish and camel flesh. Even the goat's milk that I drank tasted of fish. Many officers of the shah came and went through the gate, the lesser men hastening from their path and greeting them with low salaams, crying—
“May God increase your honor!”
A hajji in a white turban spread his carpet opposite me and prayed in a loud voice at the hour of late morning prayer, and gathered listeners about him when he began to expound the Law. These disciples blocked the gate, and presently I heard curses.
Standing in the sun without, a Turkoman blind in one eye bade them clear his path. He puffed at a clay pipe that he held in his left hand, and he smelled of mutton grease and leather and dung. Indeed, the disciples of the hadji made way for him when they saw the long tulwar and the five or six knives in his girdle. The fingers of his right hand went from hilt to hilt and his one eye glared. Seeing me, he took the pipe from his stained lips, and spat.
“By the beard and the teeth of Ali—what is this?”
He blinked at my striped head-cloth and heavy, brown mantel, stared at my sandals and spat again.
“A dark, thin face. Ho, here is an Arab from Arabistan. Who art thou?”
“One who seeks the road to Ind,” I made response.
“I know it well.” The Turkoman came and squatted by me, on the side of his good eye. “It runs north along the river, then through the dry lands where the wells are a ride apart. Now, it is a hard road; but after the first rains there will be water in the mountain gullies.”
He pulled at his thin beard, eyeing me shrewdly.
“Ho, thou wilt need a companion to show the way, or horses—good mountain-bred beasts that will not give out—or weapons.”
“Nay.”
“Never say that.” He wagged his head, his breath reeking of sour wine. “My brother, I know the track to Ind. I know the Kurds who will raid and rob thee, and the seven-times accursed road-guards of the Iranis who will lift thy wallet from thee as a price of their protection.”
“Of thy wisdom,” I made response, “canst tell me the hour of buying and selling in the souk—the market-place?”
“In Bandar Abbasi there is no souk.” He laughed. “The best of the animals were taken by the Shah's sipahis in the market place—ay, and the girl-slaves. Now, the owners hide them. By the head of Ali, I can fetch thee a camel that is beyond price. A Bikanir racer worth a hundred silver sequins—ay, saddled as if for a prince and fit now for the road. Come and see!”
“Nay.” I had seventy silver pieces in my girdle, and no mind for an affray.
“A white camel, swift-paced as the south wind.”
“And are thy words as wind?”
This Turkoman was a fellow of resource.
“Abide here, O, shaikh,” he cried, “and by the teeth of Ali, I wager thou'lt loose thy purse strings within the hour.”
Rising, he departed, thrusting aside the beggars who thronged the gateway with their cries. Thrusting his pipe in his girdle-sack, he made off as one with a purpose formed.
True to his word, within the hour he came striding back, followed by a Baluchi with greasy ringlets, who tugged at the nose-cord of a camel. And this, indeed, was a Bikanir fit to mount the courier of a king. Small in the head, smooth in gait, with belled trappings and a carpet saddle in place. Truly, a good beast, worth fifty silver pieces in the Nejd. The Baluchi made the white camel kneel near the brick arch of the gate and, when I had considered him, I offered thirty sequins.
“Now by all the companions and the ninety and nine names,” swore the Turkoman, “this Arab would pluck the gall out of thee, little brother. I will attend to the matter, on thy behalf.”
The Baluchi only smiled, twisting the cord in his fingers. He said the camel would bear a man forty leagues between sun and sun.
“At eighty pieces, this man makes no profit,” put in the warrior.
I thought that the Baluchi might make little profit, indeed, for the tribesman meant to extort something from him.
“For the saddle also,” I said, “I will give thirty and eight.”
“Even an Armenian would pay more. With such a beast thou canst fly from all pursuit.”
No doubt he thought me one of the Arabs who escape across the water from their foes. He knew much of the world, this Turkoman.
“From thy brother thieves?” I asked.
“Ho—from the ghosts of the dry lands, or the ghils that ride the winds. Nay, thou art bold of speech, O shaikh, and like unto a piece of my liver.” He whispered hoarsely in my ear. “I will cheat the Baluchi who hath no more wit than a blind dog. I will persuade him to yield thee the racing camel for sixty and five sequins of full weight.”
Thus we disputed the price, the Turkoman haggling loudly, now calling me his foster-brother, now cursing me for more than a grandfather of all usurers. In the end his haggling brought him no good. About mid-day came kettle-drums down the street, and a thudding of hoofs in the dirt.
Crowding against the stalls on either hand, through rising dust, came a cavalcade of horses toward the gate. The leading riders cantered past, and I knew them for Kizilbashis—Red Hats—the cavalry of Iran. They carried leather shields and tufted lances. They wore good mail-shirts and the wide, red, cloth turbans that gave them their name.
The men around me pushed to get out of their way, and the white Bikanir rose to his feet, lurching hither and yon, so that the horsemen cursed, and one drove his stirrup into the belly of the Turkoman, who was unsteady on his feet and not inclined to move.
Before the warrior could get his breath, the Kizil-bashis were gone and a cavalcade of officers trotted through the dust. I saw the cloth-of-gold turban of a Sipahi Agha, a captain of cavalry. The best of the horses was a dun-colored mare.
This mare swerved and halted beside me. Its rider held a tight rein and sat in short stirrups. Upon him he had no mark of honor save a heron feather for turban crest. But the long, curved dagger in his girdle was gold-sheathed, with an emerald of great size upon the tip of the sheath.
“I will buy thy beast,” he said to the Baluchi.
Those around me knelt and beat their foreheads in the dust—all but the Turkoman who had drunk too much wine, and was angered, besides.
“Forty and five sequins were bid,” he grumbled. “By the breath of Ali, my lord, thy price should be not less than that.”
“Who bid the sequins?”
“He!” The thick-headed tribesman beckoned at me.
“And who art thou, O Arab?”
“Daril ibn Athir, of the Nejd.”
“A warlike clan. Thy mission?”
“A hakim, journeying to Ind by the northern track.”
The rider of the mare turned slowly and looked down at me. His full brown eyes were clear and alert. His body was thick and strong, his broad face sallow, his beard dark and close clipped upon a wide chin. A man, I thought, sure of his strength—quick to anger, and accustomed to obedience.
This bearded Irani was leader of the Red Hats and, beyond doubt, an officer of the shah. From me he turned his attention to the camel, impatiently, and spoke to the servant who rode behind him. At once this follower counted out some silver-pieces from a purse and cast them on the ground before the Baluchi.
“I bear witness,” shouted the Turkoman, bending over to count the pieces, “that the sum sufficeth not. Here are no more than twenty sequins.”
The rider of the dun mare seemed to smile, and spoke again. A foot follower hastened forward and caught the nose-cord of the camel from the silent Baluchi. I looked for a tumult and outcry, since the bearded Irani had acted against the custom of open sale. Indeed, the Turkoman began to bellow like a wounded buffalo.
“Hai-hai! I bear witness, O hadji, the payment sufficeth not. Give heed, O hadji, and judgment—for this man hath been wronged and his property taken from him. Hearken to the complaint, O thou of the pilgrimage performed.”
Then the throng turned to look at the expounder of the Law who sat across the street with his pupils. Indeed, he wore the white turban of wisdom and authority. His fingers trembled upon his beard, and his eyes went this way and that. But he spoke no word of blame to the rider of the dun mare.
In my land, across the gulf, the chieftains obey the customs of the clan, but here in Iran it was otherwise. In a moment I saw the proof of it.
Three of the Red Hats dismounted, at a sign from their leader; they ran suddenly at the Turkoman who was too bewildered with wine to take heed. One caught his arms behind his back, another seized his girdle and beard, while the third drew a small and thin knife.
The Turkoman fought, like a buffalo, twisting and bellowing and butting. Eh, the moment had gone by when he could have drawn his weapons—and what avail to struggle without steel in the hand?
He went down, and the dust rose as they rolled about. Before long the three soldiers held him beneath them, and one of them lay across his chest, gripping his head. The thin knife was given the one who lay thus, and while the Turkoman screamed, the wielder of the knife thrust suddenly, once and again. Then the soldiers rose off the man and went to their horses, the one with the dagger wiping it clean on my cloak as he pased.
“Say, O physician,” cried the rider of the dun mare to me, “was it well done? Did the knife do its work?”
W'allahi—I saw then the face of the shaggy Turkoman, with blood running freely from under his brow. His lips drew back from his teeth—long, yellow teeth. No longer did he scream, but he panted with long gasps. His pallid blind eye rolled hither and yon, seeing naught. Indeed, he would never see again, for the knife had been thrust twice through his good eye.
“Truly, O my lord,” I made response. “He is blind, but I bear witness that the deed was not well done.”
And when the men of the Irani had withdrawn from the tormented one, taking his weapons with them, I stooped and began to staunch the flow of blood with a cloth from my girdle. The bearded rider reined his mare over against me, and I feared that punishment would be my lot, for I had spoken in anger.
“By the Ka'aba,” he laughed, “physicians are like to the readers of the Law, being jealous of another's work and clamorous for reward. So, take this, and mend, if thou can'st what my man hath clumsily done.”
A heavy gold coin fell beside me in the blood-spattered dust. The Irani noble wheeled away; his men mounted and fell in behind him, thudding through the gate. The Baluchi hastened to gather up his coins and come and squat by me. But the Turkoman, when I would have bound his head, thrust out his arms and rose up, staggering. He cursed the rider of the mare, and I knew then that the name of the Iran who had blinded him was Mirakhon Pasha.
“This was to come upon my head,” said the Baluchi as we went from the gate. He spoke sadly, thinking of the little price that had been paid him for the camel, and I also thought with regret of the white Bickanir, because my desire to leave Bandar Abbasi increased within me.
“Still,” muttered the Baluchi, “it was worse for him. He spoke in the teeth of Mirakhon Pasha. And he tasted his reward.”
“Justly?” I asked, thinking of the hadji and his saying that men should taste of their deeds.
“Vai!” The Baluchi shook his ringlets and smiled. “Mirakhon Pasha is the master of the horse. If he did not use torment at times, men would not fear him.”
“But he wronged thee in the matter of the price.”
The man from the desert looked quite troubled, but presently his eyes brightened.
“Perhaps he had need of a camel. He goes upon a journey, it is said.” And he looked at me eagerly. “Come, my lord, I can show thee other beasts that will please thee.”
And before the evening prayer I bought a camel of him, with cloth and ropes for the saddle and a water skin, paying thirty and two silver pieces for all. Then I weighed the gold coin in my hand, the tuman that Mirakhon Pasha had tossed me.
“Canst find the Turkoman again?” I asked the man from the desert.
He nodded, saying that a wounded buffalo is easily tracked.
“Then bear him this,” I said, “as a gift to the afflicted. Watch, then, that others do not see and take it from him.”
This the Baluchi promised to do, but he explained that the Turkoman would not live long because the warrior had many enemies in Bandar Abbasi who would take his life in requital of old wrongs, now that he was helpless.
“O hakim,” he said at parting, “thou art an old man, treading the way of justice. Take care, upon the road. It would be well to wait for the great caravan of Mirakhon Pasha, who also takes the northern road to-morrow, through the mountains to the salt lake on the way to Ind.”
But I thought of the Red Hat riders and the scarred face of the drunken warrior and of the trembling fingers of the hadji who had been afraid to speak. And when the Baluchi had gone upon his mission, I listened to the talk in the alleys and coffee stalls. Men spoke often of this caravan, and I learned the reason of its setting forth.
MIRAKHON PASHA was the favorite of Shah Abbas, lord of Iran. Having the ear of the shah, he could gratify any whim without harm. No one dared complain of his deeds, and many stories were told of his strange entertainments. He himself did not drink wine, but it pleased him to make others drunk when they were sitting at supper or coffee. He would give his guests first the wine of Shiraz, and then the full white wine of the mountain vineyards, then spirits, both hot and cold. It angered him if a visitor refused the cup. More than one worthy person who angered Mirakhon Pasha was beaten from his threshold by the cudgels of his slaves—yea, beaten through the streets with great outcry.
The favorite of the shah was best pleased when his guests became maudlin. When they quarreled, or rolled upon the carpet among the dishes, he clapped his hands. And perhaps his ears caught many inklings of secrets, at these drinking bouts. Once in the fort of Bandar Abbasi, he sent for the daughters of the chief men and made them drink wine in his presence.
Indeed, then some of the hadjis murmured publicly, and—hearing of this through his spies—Mirakhon Pasha summoned them, and said, smiling:
“Is it true that the people of Bandar Abbasi did not enjoy my entertainment? That is hard to believe, because I summoned jugglers and wrestlers and the best of my boy dancers and gypsies to perform before the hanims.”
He had brought in a throng of ignoble creatures that he carried about with him for amusement, to perform their antics before these women, thus adding mockery to shame. And he had enjoyed himself very much.
“Eh,” he said again, “if the entertainment was not sufficient I will call in the officers of the Red Hats the next time.”
Thereupon the people of Bandar Abbasi grumbled in secret, and praised Mirakhon Pasha loudly, when he rode forth. Was he not the milk-brother of the shah? They had been nursed by the same woman, and the great shah always remembered this tie between them. Besides, Mirakhon Pasha pleased him.
For the favorite of the shah liked to wrestle with the heaviest of the wrestlers; he was a daring rider, and so great was his love of hunting that he seldom was without a leopard on his crupper, to loose at antelope, or a falcon on his wrist.
He could put a swift horse to utmost speed, and throw three javelins, one after the other, into a mark as he passed. Because of his great strength and sureness of eye he was dangerous with the sword—in either hand. And when he drew a weapon he seldom sheathed it without slaying a man or a woman.
Perhaps because he trusted Mirakhon Pasha more than others, perhaps because he feared him a little, the shah had given command for him to go as ambassador to the court of the Emperor of Ind, to carry some valuable presents. And because pirates infested the gulf at this season, Mirakhon Pasha had given up the idea of going from Bandar Abbasi on a ship, and was preparing to go over the desert road to the north and west.
Thus said the people in the market place of Bandar Abbasi, concerning Mirakhon Pasha, the lord or master of the horse. And when I had heard all the tale I meditated and decided to set out alone upon the road. In setting forth, no man knows whether good fortune or calamity awaits him, but if he rides alone, at least, he will not suffer from evil companions.
AND I had little in my bags. No more than sufficient millet and salt and rice and dates. What more is needed? I had, too, the copper pot and a slender knife and a bow with forked arrows for striking down quail and sand grouse.
Except for my sword, with the damask work upon its blade and the ivory-and-horn hilt, and the silver in my girdle, no thief would covet aught of mine. Indeed, I have found that thieves come oftener to seek the goods of merchants and to hold them to ransom, than they come to trouble an old physician who would fetch a small price as a slave.
So, as I had done in the Nejd, I placed my saddle-felt in a sandy hollow that first night. Here the road ran by a river of salt water, but I made my fire near a stream where the water was sweet and good. And, as in my land, I gathered roots and brush and tamarisk boughs sufficient to keep the embers of the fire aglow until dawn. This we do, so that a stranger may not miss our camp and our hospitality.
It is an old custom. Sometimes it brings strange guests. God knows best. That night the camel was already grunting in its sleep, and I had thrown more brush on the fire. I wrapped my mantle closer to my shoulders and loosened my girdle. The first quarter of the night had passed, but already the ground was chill. I was ready for sleep, because old blood courses slowly through the veins, and the blazing brush gave out a good warmth. My head was pressed against the sand, when I heard the water-fowl flap up from the rushes, suddenly.
Eh, it was a sign. I listened, and in time heard horses moving along the hard earth of the trail. They moved slowly, often stumbling, and their riders did not speak. Drawing tight my girdle and taking my sword sheath in hand I sat up. There were two horses and they came forward as if their masters were fearful or wary.
And they halted in the outer blackness while one called—
“What man art thou?”
I rose and beckoned toward them. The voice had spoken in the Iranian tongue, yet not as one accustomed.
“Come,” I bade them. “The night is cold, and here is warmth. A hakim, I, from over the gulf.”
Then cried out a woman's voice, young and ringing with excitement:
“God hath led us aright. Here, in the thur we have found a physician. Come!”
Through the brush that had screened them came two men and a woman. The leader was mounted on a foam-streaked Kabuli stallion, ungroomed and lean. Lean, and haggard, too, the rider, who wore a cloak that had once been part of a dress of honor. His turban was small, of a kind strange to me, and rings gleamed in his ears. His cheeks were fallen in, his eyes sunken, and he swayed in the saddle, supported by a wild-looking servant, armed with sword and shield. I thought at first the man on the stallion had been wounded.
“Are these the lands of Awa Khan?” he called to me hoarsely. “Can his tower be seen from here?”
I took his rein and greeted him, bidding him dismount and sit. The servant half lifted him down, though he looked like a man well accustomed to stirrup and saddle seat. When he stood on his feet he staggered, and again the follower steadied him. I saw then that the armed servant bore upon his shoulder a heavy bundle, cloth-wrapped.
“My lord,” I made response, “I have seen no tower, nor have I heard the name of Awa Khan.”
“That is a lie,” he muttered, glaring. “All these mountains know my cousin's name, and he hath in his herds over a hundred sheep and a score of horses. His tower overlooks the dry lake, and he—and his sire before him—have had a hand in the making of wars.”
“O hakim,” the woman's voice whispered at my side. “Heed him not. He has talked thus since the sun was overhead. His strength fails. Attend him, and thou wilt not fail of reward.”
She touched her arm, upon which was no more than a single silver armlet. And her long, loose hair was bound at the brow by no more than a coral circlet of little worth. Though she was veiled, one shoulder was bare—yea, and shapely, and her slight body under its thin brown mantle stood straight and unbending. Verily, I thought these travelers had in their company a fourth, invisible, whose name was Poverty. And they lacked not pride. For the servant had carried the bundle, lest it appear that his master and mistress bestrode pack animals.
While the servant spread cloths by the fire, I supported the master, and felt within his veins the heat of devouring fever. In spite of this he wore upon his body a shirt of heavy mail. Without cessation, he muttered to himself, calling out the name of this man and that, as if he were attended by many followers. Later it became clear to me that he was naming warriors who had once been his companions. Indeed, he was himself a leader of warriors, but now when his wits wandered under the scourge of fever, he imagined himself still in the midst of an armed host.
“Ho,” he grimaced. “Align the spears! Is thy shield to be carried thus, Rai Singh? Where went the standard? I see it not. Nay, was it in my keeping?” He peered around him, his blood-streaked eyes moving slowly under knitted brows. “The tower of my cousin should be here. We rode far this day—far.”
Thus did his mind wander from an imaginary host to his quest for the tower of Awa Khan.
“After dawn,” I said to the sick man, “thou wilt look for the abode of thy cousin. But now it is dark, and nothing can be seen.”
Indeed, in this bare plain the starlight was dim, and the chill of the ground made a little mist—very different from the clear nights of my sahra. I helped the servant to lay him upon the bed. I loosened the turban cloth, but he would not suffer me to draw off the mail shirt. The long hair around his forehead was damp, and he breathed with swift gasps. I counted his heartbeats, and signed to the woman to come near.
“How long has he been thus?”
“Since three days. We wandered from the road, and now I think we are near a city of the Irani. Is it far to Bandar Abbasi, upon the sea? I will take my father there and he shall rest until he is well!”
“If God wills.” I thought of the wearied horses, and wondered if the sick man would live to reach Bandar Abbasi. “First he must be bled—a very little.”
The woman then came close to me, looking into my eyes. She clasped her hands upon her breast, and I thought that she was still a child in years.
“To draw much blood—twelve ounces —from thy father,” I said, “would exhaust his strength. But to take a little from him will lessen the fever.”
Her brown eyes clung to my face, and, when the servant had thrown more brush upon the fire, I saw the beauty in the high forehead and the small lips and slender throat under the thin veil.
“Hast thou, O hakim, the skill to lay hand upon Sidri Singh, Rawul of Kukri?”
To this I assented, knowing not at all who Sidri Singh might be, but suspecting that his servant would set upon me with the sword, if harm came to the sick man from the bleeding. Indeed, the wild fellow hung about my elbow when I bared the arm of his master and drew the lancet from my girdle.
The flesh of the sick man had shrunk almost upon the bone, and the veins were clearly to be seen. I did not need to press and rub the skin, but pushed the lancet point into a vein. I had neither cup nor scales to measure or weigh the blood, but when it seemed to me that four ounces had been drawn I closed the vein with my finger and bound it. Then I bade the servant give him boiled millet, and to keep the fire high. When this was done Sidri Singh seemed to rest more easily, and ceased his muttering.
Though it was then an hour of the early morning, the maiden and the follower would not sleep. They sat beside Sidri Singh, talking in a tongue I knew not.
Indeed I had never seen such men upon the road. They had the pride of Arabs—yea, and more. Poverty-ridden, they did not hold out an empty hand, but spoke of payment to be given me.
Sidri Singi, bewildered by fever, might have lost his way, still I thought that the maiden and the follower knew the road.
In the morning the daughter of Sidri Singh came to me and spoke of her own will, saying joyfully that her father slept still. I rose and began to build a shelter for him, against the rising of the sun, cutting tamarisk branches and weaving their tips together, when the bearded servant came up from the stream, and thrust me aside.
“He will suffer no other to tend the Rawul,” she said. “When thou drewest the blood from the arm of my father, he swore an oath that he would cut thee down if the Rawul died.”
A strange servant, whose pride was the pride of his master. He covered the tamarisk boughs with ragged and torn saddle cloths and stood at the entrance of the rude tent as if he were inner sentry to the lord of a host.
I looked here and there, but could not see that the wanderers had any food to ease the early morning hunger. So I soaked and heated rice enough for three, and bade the girl take her portion.
“O hakim!” she stormed at once. “Have I asked for alms? Have I held out a beggar's bowl?”
“And am I, Daril of the Nejd, so poor a being that guests should scorn me?”
Her brown eyes flashed and she pressed her hands to her cheeks. In the clear level light of sunrise she looked more lovely than by firelight, for her skin was delicate, and her dark hair tumbling from the circlet, gleamed freshly.
“It is my misfortune,” I said again, “that guests should come when I have no more to offer them than rice and dates.”
At this she tossed back the long hair from her shoulders and smiled at me. Nay, though I could see white teeth under the silk veil, her eyes half closed, smiling.
“Ai-a, my lord, thou art a man of birth and knowledge of what to do rightly.” At once, having decided, she sat by me and ate eagerly. “I saw thy fire from far off. Hast thou no fear of thieves?”
“It is our custom to keep up the fire.” And I told her how we made camp nightly in the Nejd.
“Ay,” she nodded. “So did we once keep open the gate at Kukri.” Then she was silent until I had wiped clean the bowl and taken it to the servant, the man she called Subbul.
The deep sleep of Sidri Singh rejoiced her who had borne the dread of sickness and the ache of hunger until now. She made merry in her way, smiling often, and asking many questions. I did not think she was older than fifteen years. Her name was Radha, and her father was a chieftain of the Rajputs. They lived on the border of Rajputana, nine days' ride to the east.
They had lost their dwellings and goods in a war, and Sidri Singh had planned to take her to the stronghold of a cousin, here in the barren plain of Iran, where she would be safe while he rode back and took his part again in this war of Ind. But when the fever had come upon Sidri Singh, she and the servant decided to turn aside to Bandar Abbasi, where the sick man could be put under a roof.
“The gods led us to thy fire, Uncle Daril,” she cried again.
And she sent Subbul to see whether the horses had found grazing near the stream. Then she caught up a water jar and went herself to fill it at the stream and offer it to me. Truly, I thought that this was not wonted in Radha, for she carried the jar clumsily, yet offered it with grace, saying:
“Thou hast seen many years, Uncle Daril. Is there none to attend thee?”
“W'allahi, for many seasons have I wandered, companied by the rafik, the brothers of the road—yea, and the enemies.”
“And war?”
Eh, when she smiled again, I did not refrain from boasting, telling her of forays against the Turkomans of the mountains and the Turks who were masters of Bail al-Makkudas. To these idle tales of an old man she listened courteously, and it seemed to me that she herself had seen greater battles.
“And thy home?” she asked.
“Man's home is where his camel's saddle is,” I made response and she shook her head, saying that for her there was no abode but the battlements of Kukri.
Thus we talked, the man Subbul asleep at last—having eaten—under the tamarisk, and the cool morning wind stirring the white salt under our fingers. Perhaps it was the change from suffering and uncertainty to hope, or perhaps it was no more than the food, but Radha's spirits soared, and the wine of her laughter warmed even the thin veins of an old man.
“What men are these?” she asked suddenly, springing up to stare into the sun that was no more than spear high over the plain. I turned and looked, shading my eyes.
Some twenty horsemen were cantered over the low ridges, and several of the leaders bore hawks on their wrists. One, in the center of the troop, carried a hooded leopard on the crupper of his saddle.
Even as we watched, a falcon was loosed at a heron that winged slowly over our heads, and Radha clapped her hands. The man Subbul awoke and joined us, and the twain stared at the circling bird of prey and the gaunt, clumsy heron. Farther and farther flew the heron, over the river, seeking refuge in the brush. But the rider with the leopard reined in and shouted suddenly. He had seen us. And in that moment I knew him to be Mirakhon Pasha.
With his men he galloped over to us, leaving a single rider to follow and fetch the hawk. Sidri Singh still slept, and how could Radha hide from the eyes of the Pasha and his men? She faced them, without alarm, and the milk-brother of the Shah did not rein in until he was beside her, when he pulled the dun mare back on her haunches, and looked about the camp.
“What man is that?” he exclaimed, bending to peer into the ragged shelter where the Rajput still slept heavily.
And Subbul, who had posted himself beside Radha, strode forward without salutation.
“Silence!” he cried softly. “This is Sidri Singh, Rawul of Kukri, brother of the lord of Bikanir, defender of Anavalli, whose right is the right of beating drums to the gateway of Bikanir.” Thus he cried out the titles of his master, with the utmost boldness, as if Sidri Singh were the equal of the pasha. “My lord is stricken with fever,” he said again. “Bid thy men withdraw, lest they wake him.” But the dark eyes of Mirakhon Pasha lingered upon the veiled face of Radha.
“And thou, hanim?” he asked.
She bent her head, without coming forward.
“I pray thee, my lord of Iran, accept thy welcome from me, and ask not that Sidri Singh come to thee, for indeed he is ill.”
So she spoke in her clear young voice, as if she stood among a thousand retainers, while the man Subbul dressed his shield and held high his head. But Mirakhon Pasha had eyes for no one but Radha. Indeed, as he sat the saddle of the restive mare—a horse among a thousand—he made a fine figure, in soft, green leather riding boots, and flowing khalat, bound by a cloth-of-gold girdle. The sword-hilt at his hip gleamed with the fires of many precious stones. The leopard at his back shifted uneasily upon its pad, thrusting its head against him and rattling its chain.
It was clear to me then that Mirakhon Pasha, who had left Bandar Abbasi only an hour behind me, had come forth from his camp to hunt in the cool of the morning. He was attended by the captain of the sipahis, by young nobles and falconers.
“Eh, hanim,” he smiled. “Thy welcome pleases me, and, by the breath of Ali, I would not disturb the slumbers of yonder Rajput.”
To the nearest officer, he added:
“What is thine opinion, Farash Agha? Is not this better quarry than the heron?”
Farash Agha, the leader of the sipahis, reined forward and touched henna-stained fingers to the glitering gold embroidery of his turban.
“Indeed, my pasha! I marvel that thou didst see the beauty of the quarry from such a distance.”
“Then dismount and offer her a stirrup.”
At once the young officer swung down and led his charger toward Radha. Subbul stepped between them with a muttered question. The men of the pasha's following were smiling and sitting idly in their saddles as if they had watched such happenings before.
“Mirakhon Pasha,” explained the sipahi, “begs the hanim to accept the hospitality of his tents and the protection of his power. Indeed, she hath pleased him rarely.”
“Ay,” exclaimed another. “The journey begins well. A happy omen, this.”
“My lord,” said Radha gravely, “I go to Bandar Abbasi.”
“But not now,” responded the pasha. “Such a voice and such eyes would be wasted in Bandar Abbasi.”
“Come,” Farash Agha urged the Rajput maiden. “My lord is impatient of delay. He hath summoned thee to his tents.”
Verily, when first Marakhon Pasha had seen Radha he had been struck with her beauty. His eyes could judge a face behind the veil, and the slender form of the girl, only half hidden by the wind-whipped linen garments. He had claimed her, as swiftly as a hawk stoops from high in the air and clutches its quarry.
Why not? This daughter of Sidir Singh had no following. And the milk-brother of the shah could go far. Marakhon Pasha was no man to waste words or change his whim. If Radha had been the wife of an amir, with a hundred swords to serve her, he would have carried her off.
“Let not the price to be paid trouble thee,” smiled Farash Agha. “My lord is generous. Is Sidri Singh thy father or husband? The price will be greater in that case.”
Radha looked from him to the silent pasha, understanding now the meaning of their words. Though the blood did not rise into her forehead, shadows appeared under her eyes, and the hands, held so stiffly at her side, closed and unclosed. What she would have said then, or what Farash Agha would have done, I know not. Because Subbul's gaunt face darkened, and he drew his sword, rushing forward as if he would have struck the pasha.
He did not take three strides before a horse, swerving under knee and rein, shouldered him aside and, before he could gain his balance, Farash Agha was upon him with the scimitar. In one stroke the sipahi slashed open the Rajput servant's light leather shield.
Then Farash Agha parried a cut, and beat down the Rajput's guard, and passed his blade through the servant's body, under the ribs. He could use his weapon, the sipahi.
“Shabash!” cried the pasha. “Well done. By the breath of Ali, we have roused the sleeping lion.”
Indeed, the clash of steel had brought Sidri Singh out of his slumber and out of his shelter. He came on hands and knees, because of his weakness, and only by grasping a boulder did he draw himself erect.
“Radha!” he called. “What is this?”
I think the fever had left him, and his brain was clear. But the strong sunlight dazed him and he turned his head slowly like a blind man, trying to understand. When he could see a little, he drew his sword and stepped forward, his beard jutting out, his eyes flaming.
“Do not slay him!” The Rajput girl cried out suddenly, and grasped the sword-arm of Farash Agha. “Do not slay!”
But Sidri Singh still advanced, and I saw Mirakhon Pasha reach behind him. A servant thrust a javelin into his hand and he bent forward swiftly in the saddle; his right arm whipped down, and the javelin flashed in the air. Sidri Singh was not five paces distant, and the weapon struck beneath his brow, passing through his eye, the point coming out through his skull.
The force of the blow knocked the old man to the ground, and when I went to his side he was dead. Two others reached him before me—Mirakhon Pasha who kneed his mare forward to see the result of his cast, and Radha who knelt beside the body of Sidri Singh. No sound came from the Rajput, but the girl moaned, swaying upon her knees.
The other riders came up to praise the pasha's skill and swiftness. But he glanced at the sun and ordered the hunt to start again, saying that the first of the caravan would be up presently, and would spoil the sport.
Radah, rising to her feet, spoke to him. Her limbs did not tremble and her voice rang out clearly.
“Mirakhon Pasha, hast thou reckoned the price to be paid for this?”
“Tn gold coin or in jewels or perfumes?” he asked.
“The price will be beyond thy reckoning and it will be paid into the hand of a Rajput, though thy life be long and the day distant.”
“Nay,” laughed the pasha. “Is the Dark Angel then a Rajput? Sidri Singh was an unbeliever and he will look for me in vain through all the seven hells.”
Then Radha covered her face with a fold of her mantle so that these men should not see her grieve. Farash Agha lifted her to the saddle of his charger, and took himself the mount of a servant.
As for the pasha, he watched a slave pull the javelin clear from the head of the dead man, and then he spoke to me.
“O Arab, is it thy fate to appear before me in the company of such dogs?”
He was thinking of the other time in Bandar Abbasi, and seemed of two minds what to do with me. In that moment, indeed, my fate was in his hands. And so I answered him boldly.
“My lord, say rather it was my fate thus to encounter thee. For I had bled Sidri Singh, and now thou hast undone my work.”
He looked down at me and smiled, brushing his red finger-tips across his beard. But he did not give me leave to go.
“A bold tongue hast thou, Arab. We follow the same road. Put thyself under my protection, and ride in my caravan. By the head of Hussein, I swear thou wilt not lack patients!”
In this manner I joined the following of the Master of the Horse, for his request was indeed a command. Perhaps he really had need of a physician to attend his men, or perhaps he had a whim. He had slain Sidri Singh wantonly, and had made Radha a captive, and it pleased him to make sport of me.
FOR MANY days I did not see Radha. Mirakhon Pasha gave orders that she should travel in a panier on the same white camel he had bought at the gate of Bandar Abbasi, and that two black slaves should attend her. And word went through the caravan that she was kourrouk—forbidden to eye or ear. No one went near the white camel and, when a halt was made, the black slaves put up a cloth barrier about her tent. So Mirakhon Pasha made it clear that she was his slave woman.
The pasha himself did not go near her at first. It pleased him at act as if he had forgotten her, and besides, many things happened.
The caravan came to the edge of the dry lands—a sunken plain without road or village. Here the south wind sweeps the plain daily with its fiery breath. The wells are deep, the water poor, and the wells lie a long march apart.
Though it was the season of the first rains, the sky remained clear and the watercourses empty of all save rocks and thorns. This meant that we must go from one well to the next before halting. A few men on fast camels could have done this without hurrying, but the pasha's caravan was like a moving village.
He had forty camels bearing the gifts to the court of Ind, and as many more to carry barley and chopped hay for the animals; he had his retinue, and its slaves, and the escort of seven score Red Hats, and the Baluchi camelmen. Besides, he had brought along nearly a hundred wild Kurds, lest the shah's cavalry turn upon him. Or perhaps the shah had sent the cavalry so that Mirakhon Pasha would not take the emperor's gifts for himself. I do not know.
The Kurds had their own chieftain, but Mirakhon Pasha paid them, and gave them many opportunities to plunder. Though the Kurds have no love for the Red Hats, and always make camp by themselves in their black goatskin tents, there was no fighting in the caravan. The Kurds feared Mirakhon Pasha more than their own chieftain or the ghost of the Desht-i-Lut—the dry lands.
Truly, he was a man without fear or remorse of any kind. He said we would set out near the hour of sunset, and travel through the night, halting at dawn to rest and eat, and pushing on until we came to the next well. And when we set out from the last village, descending into the barren plain, he gave permission to his Kurds to circle back and plunder the village.
W'allahi, with a red sunset behind us, and wailing in our ears, we moved down into the dark plain. Before long, even the Kurds ceased quarreling about the horses they had driven off, and the Baluchis muttered and took hold of the charms they wore on their necks.
A new moon shed light over the black wall of the hills beside us, enough light to make men and beasts appear as shadows. Here, in the gateway of the dry lands, there was silence. No wind stirred the sand, no brush crackled as the animals plodded by.
This silence of the dry plain was something I knew well; but the Iranis missed the sounds of the night in fertile land, where water runs, and birds stir in forest growth, or the wheat whispers under wind breath. Because the Kurds were mountain folk they also felt ill at ease.
“It is well known,” said one who came to my side, “that this place is barren because a curse was laid upon it.”
“It is worse in the day,” responded another who had heard. “Then the wind slays, and the doomed have only time to cry, 'I burn,' before they fall lifeless. I have seen.”
Nay, there was no end to the tales they told of ghosts that lingered in this accursed region. Finally all the talk ceased and the Baluchis halted their camels. The men crowded closer together, and all listened.
It was only a little sound they had heard, from far off. No more than a high-pitched chant, so faint that we could not hear the words or the voices of the singers. We could see nothing at all.
“It is the ilahi,” called out Mirakhon Pasha from the head of our column.
Truly, it might have been the chanted prayers of pilgrims returning from Meshed or Imam Reza. The pasha raised his voice in a shout—
“O ye of the pilgrimage performed, grant us a blessing!”
Though we all listened intently, the chant did not cease, nor did any man answer. I noticed that none of our riders galloped toward the sound to greet the other caravan.
“God alone knows,” muttered the Kurd who had first spoken, “whether they be living or dead.”
Mirakhon Pasha ordered the camels into motion, and mocked at the fears of the Iranis, asking who had heard a dead man sing in the Desht-i-Lut?
“I will bear witness to one thing,” he laughed. “They who lag behind will not live to see the other side of the plain.”
He did not cease to make a jest of this fear of the caravan, and before dawn I saw how he dealt with another happening.
IT WAS in the hour of dusk before sunrise when we had halted. The Baluchis had started fires, fed by thorn bushes and the sticks they had gathered on the way. Into the pots over these fires the Kurds had thrown slices of mutton—there had been sheep as well as horses in the plundered village—and the warriors were warming themselves at the flames.
At this hour the men are sleepy and the beasts weary. The packs are not taken off, because the well is still distant an hour's ride, or two. The slaves stumbled about in the darkness, and the leaders of the caravan cursed first one and then another.
We heard a shout from one of our sentries, then the roar of a firelock. A horseman galloped through the kneeling camels, shouting for Mirakhon Pasha.
I heard a familiar sound—the drumming of hoofs, coming nearer.
“To horse!” cried the pasha, already in the saddle of the dun mare. A servant passed him his round shield with the silver boss, and he rode over to the Red Hats, calling out orders. Beyond doubt, it was a raid.
Farash Agha did not mount his horse. He summoned a score of his men and ran over to the line of kneeling camels, beyond the firelight. The Kurds acted after their manner, dashing away from the raiders into the shelter of darkness and then halting to see what would happen. Already arrows whipped by me.
All at once there was a great shouting. The raiders cried out loudly, loosing many arrows and circling the camp swiftly, trying to drive off our horses. They were long-limbed men wearing high sheepskin hats—Turkomans who had come down from the hills near at hand, perhaps to attack the pilgrims we had heard, or drawn by our fires.
They did not know the strength of the caravan until Mirakhon Pasha led his riders at a gallop through them, and turned to meet them with spear and sword. In the darkness the spear is better than the bow, and the sword better than all else. Soon I could hear the clash of steel blades.
In this moment of disorder I thought of Radha, and went to seek the white camel. A dozen of the raiders swept into the camp near me and flung themselves from the saddles to begin plundering. They ran toward the laden camels and Farash Agha ran to head them off with his twenty warriors.
So the Turkomans—who are no great fighters afoot—were soon fleeing here and there, between the fires, among the yelling slaves and the grunting camels. I soon saw the white camel, and the carpet shelter that screened Radha, and the two swordsmen who stood guard over her.
The thought came to me that I could steal up behind the watchers, and free the Rajput girl, and go with her into the darkness. After that we could certainly manage to find horses running loose.
I crept toward the white camel, with one eye on the fires, lest I be ridden down. Mirakhon Pasha was back in the camp, his horse galloping on the flank of a warrior who was turning desperately this way and that to escape. But the pasha came up swiftly on his left side and struck savagely with his scimitar. The Turkoman flung himself from the saddle to the earth, but his right foot caught in the stirrup, and he was dragged by the galloping pony
Mirakhon Pasha did not leave him thus. He swerved and came up behind the pony, shifting his sword to his left hand. When he was abreast the raider he bent low and his curved steel blade whistled in the air. It struck heavily, and Mirakhon Pasha jerked it free, recovered and reined aside, laughing.
The Turoman lay still, but the pony galloped off into the darkness with his right foot and half the leg still fast in the stirrup. Thus the pasha with one blow severed the limb of his foeman, while both horses were at speed.
This done, he rose in his stirrups to look at the white camel. I lay upon the ground without moving. There was no way of approaching nearer to Radha, because the sky was growing light overhead, and the Kurds, who had seen how matters went, were hastening up to take a hand in plundering the bodies of the slain. Only two or three Turkomans were afoot in the camp, snarling like wounded wolves, hemmed in by the disciplined Red Hats. Their comrades had fled and the Iranis were pursuing.
So I crawled back to the fire, where the nobles were gathering around Mirakhon Pasha, praising him greatly. Riders came up with the heads they had cut from the dead raiders, and of these heads—eight or tenor a dozen—the pasha commanded a pyramid to be built.
When he saw me, the pasha shouted for me to bind up the wounds of the Red Hats, of whom nearly a score had slashes 'and arrow gashes. He watched me for a while, as if to see truly whether I knew my trade. Then, restless as the chained leopard, he wandered off to look at the prisoners. Only a few had been taken—three or four, and all wounded.
“They will not ride again against a caravan of the shah,” said the pasha.
Evidently his men knew what was coming, for they left the steaming pots of mutton, to crowd around him, and the Kurds hastened up, grinning. I heard the pounding of mallets driving stakes into the ground, and saw that the tribesmen were being bound to the stakes. I did not watch the torture, but when we rode away I looked back and saw vultures dropping from the sky and sitting in rings around the bodies of the Turkomans who were still moaning.
So we went deeper into the dry lands, and the hills, the lair of the Turkomans, dropped behind us. And Mirakhon Pasha seemed to be in the best of humors. The raid had roused him to display his strength and, like the panther, he was no longer restless when he had struck down his quarry.
“Ho,” snarled the bearded Kurd who had first spoken to me. “The kites feed well in the tracks of this Master of the Horse.”
This tribesman himself looked much like a carrion bird, with his beak of a nose and his gaunt bare neck, and his little gleaming eyes set beneath thick brows. Verily, his plumage was black, for his one visible garment of black wool stretched down to his bare feet, thrust into up-curving slippers. He had girdled himself over the hips with many girdles of silk and worked leather. On his bare chest he wore a silver talsmin, taken from the body of some holy man.
“Is the pasha thy master, Sharm Beg?”
“Vai—we follow him.”
The eyes of the Kurd dwelt on the striped cloth that covered my head, and it was clear that he wished to roll it and add it to his store of plundered girdles.
“And I, Sharm Beg?” I asked. “What will thy master do with me?”
“Y'Allah! Am I a sorcerer, that I should know? Thou art too old to bring any price as a slave.”
Doubtless the Kurd thought that I had lived too long. Among his people there were sorcerers and perhaps a few priests, but no physicians. He came closer to look up at my sword, which was better than his own, and to pull moodily at his loose under lip.
“Knowest thou the way across the dry lands?” I asked.
“Ay.”
“How many days?”
Sharm Beg withdrew his thoughts reluctantly from the matter of swords, and began to count on his greasy fingers, muttering to himself.
“Seven—eight days to the higher ground and the path that runs east to Ind.”
“And if the water be bad in the wells—”
“Insh'allah—it may rain.”
“And if not?”
The Kurd frowned and cursed me.
“Thou art a fool and the son of a dishonored one! Mirakhon Pasha will find his way through—ay, the very ghosts of this place will aid him. Did he not shout to them and demand a blessing?”
EVEN the Kurds feared Mirakhon Pasha. That night we found the well to be deep—ten lance lengths—and the pasha gave orders to tie the leather water sack to a long rope, and the other end of the rope to the saddle horn of a strong horse. Then he showed his men how to drive two wooden stakes into the ground, so that the rope could travel over the crossed stakes, when the horse was led away from the well. The dripping sack was drawn up to the stakes.
This the pasha did to keep his men from lowering too many water skins and wasting the water and quarreling among themselves—because the well was small and filled slowly once it had been emptied. Farash Agha stood over the well, giving water first to the nobles of the pasha's following, then to the officers of the Red Hats, and then to the men, in turn. But not all the skins were filled when we mounted and set out again.
Some of the slaves on poor horses began to lag, but the pasha would not delay the march for them. Indeed, he could not delay. Nor would he suffer them to ride the pack-camels. At the sixth camp several of the slaves did not appear at all, but Mirakhon Pasha heeded them not.
Eh, we were deep in the bed of the dry lands. And still the sky remained clear and cloudless. On either hand, red ridges of rock lined the way, rising from the gray earth. Beyond the rocks, haze lay like a veil. Above the haze on the left hand stretched the dark purple line of hills.
Under the bright sun the caravan gleamed in many colors, through drifting dust—the crimson turban and silver-adorned harness of the cavalry, the cloth-of-gold and silver of the Irani nobles, the jewel-studded weapons, the pearl-sewn saddles.
But at night, under the half-moon, all were shadows. The men moved in silence, the feet of the camels thumping in a dull cadence like the pulsing of blood through the veins. It was in the seventh night that I heard Radha's song.
God knows why she sang thus. Hidden behind the carpets on the white camel, she could not be seen. Her voice, low and clear, rose and fell. No one knew the words.
At first the rhythm of the song bespoke grieving—but it was not the high ululation of women who mourn. It had in it both sadness and reproach. Then the song changed, and rose more swiftly.
And this, beyond any doubt, was a chant of battle. Ay, it shrilled with the whine of steel and clash of cymbals, and through it ran the mutterings of drums. Every man in the caravan listened, wondering.
“It is not good,” grumbled Sharm Beg, who had come up to hear the better. “It hath the sound of sorcery.”
But it amused Mirakhon Pasha, who vowed aloud that when he reached the dwellings of men, he would have her sing again. And the Irani nobles made jests concerning caged nightingales.
And that night the Kurds who were leading us lost the trail. We were passing over a part of the plain where the soil was streaked with white salt and strewn with rocks. Mirakhon Pasha halted the caravan while the tribesmen scattered to search for the track. They were gone for the time it takes to cook and eat meat, and they came back by ones and twos, some saying one thing, some another. In truth, the trail was lost.
By now the moon was down in the mist—a red ball hanging over the edge of the plain. For two hours, until the rising of the sun, there would be darkness. And the men, weary of stumbling over the boulders that lay on every hand, gathered in groups and talked angrily.
I made my camel kneel and sat against him to sleep, because there was no good in moving about, and no hope of finding the trail until day. Listening to the hubbub, I heard Farash Agha reproaching Sharm Beg:
“Thou dog! To blunder on the threshold of the hills.”
The answer was a snarl and a curse. Farash Agha had all the insolence of the Iranis, and indeed Sharm Beg had not been with the advance.
“The light is bad,” muttered the tribesman. “We will do well to wait here.”
“The caravan of the shah is not a thief's cavalcade. Find the way.”
“Allah? Have I the eyes of a grave-bird, to see what is not to be seen?”
Others began to quarrel, and there was a sudden movement of feet and grating of steel.
“I tell thee, only the offspring of three dogs—”
The quarreling ceased as suddenly as it had arisen. A horse trotted up, and I heard the voice of Mirakhon Pasha, in a rage.
“O ye of small wit! O swine of the dung-heap! I will stake out the one who strikes with a weapon.”
The men drew away in little groups and in a moment I heard Mirakhon Pasha ordering the camelmen to see that their beasts were bound together. I had thought he would order them to wait in their places until dawn. The delay would mean a hard march in the heat of the morrow and, if we were far off the route, hardship and suffering. But to search farther in this darkness was no less than madness.
Still, the pasha ordered the caravan forward, saying that he would lead them. All around me the soldiers mounted and closed in, and the camels roared and squealed in protest. Mirakhon Pasha went off to the left hand, in utter darkness.
For an hour we stumbled over boulders. I could tell by looking at the polar star that Mirakhon Pasha was keeping a fairly straight course, and it seemed to me that the rocks were becoming fewer. The earth looked whiter, though the light was no stronger. I dismounted from the camel, and led it, being weary of its lurching and sliding. Most of the sipahis were leading their horses, but the Kirds, on their shaggy ponies, seemed to be able to keep the saddle.
I felt dry rushes about my knees, and at the same time the air became chill. Mist, rising around us, hid the stars. It came into my mind to slip to one side and wait until the last of the caravan had passed, and thus ride free of the pasha and his men. Indeed, I could have done so, yet it was written otherwise.
The ground beneath me no longer had the feeling of clay or sand. At times it shook and sank strangely and the camels renewed their complaining. I reached down and brushed my fingers against the ground, putting them to my tongue. The taste was bitter salt.
“Yah Allah!” cried a voice in advance of me.
Then a horse screamed and plunged, with a sound as of mud quaking.
“The salt marshes!” Men repeated the words in terror, and the fright of the horses was no less. I remembered then that the merchants in Bandar Abbasi had said that at this end of the Desht-i-Lut there were swamps filled with rushes, where salt water, lying stagnant underground, had moistened the clay until it became as deadly as a quicksand. I sat down where I was, to wait and listen.
Yet Mirakhon Pasha would not halt. Again he gave command to go forward and Farash Agha with his sipahis drove the camelmen along. I was pushed and thrust into the line, and I no longer wished to turn aside, because of the stagnant swamps. It was strange to feel the riders edging in and pressing close to the leaders. Where others had gone, they would be safe.
The air grew damper and more than once I saw white fire glow from the ground. The light seemed at times to be in balls that rested on the ground, and at times to ripple and glide about like snakes. There were Kurds in back of me—judging by the smell of wet wool and leather—and they groaned aloud when these lights appeared.
They were afraid of devils, and most afraid that they would be separated from their fellows. But the camel train, led by Mirakhon Pasha, seemed to find good footing. The light no longer shone from the ground, and the sky behind us became paler. The mist turned gray, and I made out that we were climbing out of the rushes and the salt swamps, upon firm clay.
Did Marakhon Pasha see his way in the darkness, or did his good fortune alone lead him in safety past the swamps? I do not know. The Kurds behind me said that the ghosts of the Desht-i-Lut guided him.
On the horizon a broad, red streak glowed and changed to orange and yellow, and soon we could see that we were walking among sandy hillocks. We were so thankful to be out of the swamps that we no longer thought of the road, or of the need of reaching water.
But when the sun struck upon our backs, we mounted into the saddle and looked on all sides. We were drawing nearer the mountains, and presently one of the Kurds cried out—
“Water!”
The horsemen trotted. forward and the officers hastened to approach Mirakhon Pasha and praise him. For, below us, there lay a long pool of blue water in a sandy hollow. Before the sun was spear high we had reached the hollow, and the camels were kneeling, while the slaves hastened to put up the pasha's tent and the shelters for the officers and Radha. I went down with Sharm Beg to fill my goatskin at the pool, and I saw him kneel suddenly and dip up water in his hand. He drank a little and spat it out.
The water was bitter salt.
SHARM BEG vowed by God that he would not be the one to bear Mirakhon Pasha the word that the water was bad. He lifted his goatskin, shook it, and glared at me. Then, with one accord, we both walked to the highest knoll behind the camp, to look about us.
Eh, it was a strange place to which we had come. Here and there in the hollows were blue pools like the one we had left. To the east lay the long depression of the swamps, gray and green. All around us glittered and sparkled the white salt crust, save where red rocks reared up and cast black shadows.
The very air tasted of salt, and though the sun still hung low over the plain, heat rose from the earth and: beat: down from the sky. I remembered, then, that the merchants of Bandar Abbasi had warned me of this sea of salt, this dry sea.
By now the slaves had discovered the secret of the pool, and down below in the camp many figures moved about the striped silk pavilions. Only the white tent of Radha remained unopened, watched over by the blacks. The sipahis posted as guard over the forty camel-loads that held the Emperor's gifts, gathered in little groups. Mirakhon Pasha did not appear at all. The heat down in the gully must have been great, and he remained with the nobles in the pavilions.
“They have wine,” said one of the Kurds who came up to us.
All the tribesmen climbed the height to escape the thrice-heated air of the hollow. Sharm Beg and their cheiftain sat in the shadow of a large rock and the others curled up near them, to sleep. I drank up the last of the warm and ill-tasting water in my sack, because by evening thirst would grow upon these marauders and, though they would not ask water of me, they would then take whatever remained with me. Nevertheless, I chose to stay with the Kurds rather than join the Iranis who knew no better than to drink up wine in such a place, and heat their blood to torment.
I could hear the Kurds talking among themselves, and at times, when one spoke in the Irani tongue, I understood that they were weighing the worth of the treasure in the forty camel-loads. They knew that Mirakhon Pasha was lost in the dry lands.
“The camels will go well enough for two days,” observed Sharm Beg, “but the horses are good for little more.”
At such a time, when the road is lost, and the men are restless and uncertain, each follower begins to think what he himself may have to do. And the thoughts of all the Kurds were upon the shah's treasure. Some said they knew beyond doubt that the camel-loads held many pieces of gold-inlaid mail, and rolls of silk of Cathay, sewn with pearls and sapphires. Others vowed they had seen solid rock turquoise among the gifts, and weapons of Damascus work.
“The jackals looked up at the eagle's nest!”
Sharm Beg mocked the speakers, meaning that they hungered for what they could not seize. Loot is ever in the thoughts of the Kurds. They looked like vultures, sitting thus on their haunches, staring down at the weary men and the gaunt horses in the pasha's camp. But greater than their desire for loot was their fear of Mirakhon Pasha.
I wondered what I would do, in the place of this lord of Iran. The horses could not be used before sunset. If water and grazing were not found the next day, they would be at the end of their strength.
To save all his men the pasha must leave his loads—all his loads—here by the pool, and mount his people on the camels. And which way would he go?
It seemed to me that the caravan route from which we had wandered lay back of us, beyond the salt marshes, to the east. So thought the Kurds. Could he lead the camels back, across that treacherous ground, in the darkness? The well might be far.
I slept, and did not rouse until the sun was near the hills in the west. The Kurds were muttering again, and below me resounded a tumult of flutes and kettle-drums. It came from the pavilions of the Iranis, and I wondered if madness had come upon the followers of the pasha, until I remembered the buffoons and minstrels.
Eh, the wind made itself felt at last—the south wind that is like the breath of Jehannum, burning the skin and torturing the eyes. It swept among the tents, billowing the pavilions and raising a haze of dust. And the flutes and pipes made a mad kind of music for this dance of the wind.
“Look!” cried Sharm Beg, thrusting his foot into my ribs.
I rose, gripping my sword, but did not draw it. Among fifty foemen, what avails it to draw a weapon? Sharm Beg had reason in a later day to remember that he put his foot upon me. He was looking up at the sky, and I saw that heavy cloud banks had hidden the line of the western hills—clouds that moved up from the south, and soon hid the red ball of the sun.
The sky darkened and the Kurds hurried down to the camp to saddle their horses. They knew as I did that the heat and the scorching wind and the blackness meant the coming of rain.
The pavilions were being taken down, and the Baluchis struggled with the camels' loads, while the kettle drums whirred and the pipes shrieked. Surely the wine was in the blood of some of those Iranis.
Farash Agha stood at the stirrup of Mirakhon Pasha, who waited until the sipahis were in the saddle, and the camels roped up. He waited for no more, but gathered up his reins and trotted off. Nay, he did not turn back to seek the trail. He circled the pool and led the way. toward the distant hills.
In a moment I understood why he had done this. The rain that was coming might not reach this part of the plain. But the storm would surely break down the slopes of the mountains and there, on firmer ground we would find the water-courses filled, or at least enough water in the hollows to keep us alive. It might be the next day before we reached it, and the wounded and the badly mounted slaves must needs taste what was in store for them, yet the caravan and the warriors would be out of the dry lands.
Thus did the pasha, being guided by no devils. Sharm Beg swore that he must have a talsmin on his breast, that such luck should follow him; the sipahis said in whispers that he had summoned up the storm by that mad music. But I have often thought that the invisible hand upon the pasha's rein led him toward those hills, and to that which he found there.
WHAT need to tell of long hours of uncertainty? Upon the afternoon of the next day we found water. We had climbed into the foothills, where creepers grew over giant rocks, and a scum of sage covered the earth. The storm never reached us, but the clouds covered the mountains ahead of us, and muddy water flowed down the gully that we ascended.
Now the wind whistled and roared over us and chilled our veins. The air grew colder. We gave the horses a little water and went on, having relieved our thirst. In a single day the aspect of the land had changed. The dry lands lay far below us, like a great gray sea. Before sunset we climbed out upon a high plateau, where the earth was damp and the brushwood and tamarisk thick.
Ay, more than that. We soon saw pomegranate and slender apricot trees ranged in rows and cattle grazing on the slope above us.
“By ——,” cried Sharm Beg. “There is a village.”
It was only a little village—two-score wicker huts, a granary and cattle sheds. It lay under the sheer wall of a cliff, by a stream that rushed and roared down a depression in the cliff, over a series of little falls. But it was a village of hill men, and as pleasant in our eyes as a green oasis. Nay, it had a citadel and a master, as we soon saw.
Above the huts and the tilled land rose a mass of rock and rubble from the cliff, and on the summit of this outcropping a wall had been built. Within the wall stood a white building and from it reared a tower, almost touching—so it seemed—the dark granite of the cliff.
“We have never seen this place before,” said the Kurds. “And its name we know not.”
The rain had washed the dust from the air. It was then the hour of sun-sinking, and the sky above the hills shone with a fierce and ruddy light, so that we could see everything clearly—the spray rising from the waterfall, the white walls of the castle and the dozen horsemen who picked their way down the ramp of rock and cantered toward us.
Mirakhon Pasha with his officers and twenty sipahis moved to the head of our column and there halted, while every eye fastened upon the leader of the oncoming riders. His black charger moved with the grace of a racing breed, clean and slender of limb, well-groomed of coat.
The master of the black horse did not rein in when his followers halted, but cantered within spear's length of Mirakhon Pasha, whom he singled out instantly. Nor did he dismount to address the lord of Tran.
“O ye wayfarers,” he cried. “What caravan is this?”
Farash Agha reined forward a little. “This is the caravan bearing the shah's gifts to Ind, under command of Mirakhon Pasha of Isfahan.”
“The lord ambassador shall be my guest!”
The stranger instantly saluted Mirakhon Pasha, but with no bending of the head. He touched the hilt of his sword that he wore girdled high, and raised his right arm. I saw then that he was no more than a youth, perhaps the son of the master of the castle, perhaps the leader of the men-at-arms.
He sat at ease, in the plain, worn saddle of the big black. Yea, he carried himself well—a rare horseman, slight of limb and erect. His dark eyes gleamed with insolence or laughter or high spirits. Unlike the Iranis he wore only a single close wrapped tunic of white brocade and a small turban with a loose end falling upon his right shoulder. This head-cloth was bound in a strange way, by a slender fillet of crimson and gold.
“What place is this?” demanded Farash Agha, thrusting himself forward again.
Said I not the stranger could sit a horse? Evidently he did not choose to be addressed only by the officer, for his knees tightened and the black charger tossed his head and neighed, then reared suddenly with pawing hoofs. Farash Agha drew back swiftly from those hoofs, and when the youth of the castle had brought down his horse nothing was between him and the pasha.
“Karadak,” he responded good-humoredly, “the tower is Awa Bahadur Khan's.
“And thou?” demanded the Pasha.
“Thy host.”
At these words something stirred in my memory. I looked over my shoulder at the salt plain, now tinted by the sunset; I looked up into the shadow of the cliff at the single tower and the lofty summits of the range behind it, and I recalled the words of the dead Sidri Singh. Here was the tower above the dry sea.
Mirakhon Pasha had come out of the desert, following no road, to the tower of Awa Khan, the Rajput, the kinsman of Radha.
“And thou art my guest,” laughed the youth in the saddle of the black charger.
THERE is a time for speech, and a time for silence and thought. That first evening in Karadak I kept close to the young lord of the castle, saying nothing at all. I never doubted that this was the place Sidri Singh and Radha had been seeking when the old warrior fell ill, and the girl turned aside to take refuge in Bandar Abbasi.
These were surely Rajputs. The young lord showed us the armory of the castle with its gleaming tulwars ranged on the walls, its shields of buffalo hide, its horn bows in their leather cases and the stocks of reed and wooden arrows, with many old axes.
He himself carried a khanda, or curving blade, double-edged. He drew it at the Pasha's request, and showed it, for the master of the horse had a keen eye for weapons. But in this hour Mirakhon Pasha thought only of satisfying his hunger.
The caravan animals and most of the sipahis and all the Kurds, he had left to make camp beside the village, at the stream that descended from the waterfall. Into the castle he had brought his officers and intimates and servants with a few Red Hats. Twenty and four in all, as I counted.
Radha, likewise, he brought. She was led from the camel by the black slaves, who cast over her head a heavy shawl.
Hearing that this was the woman of the Pasha, the men of the castle went apart when she passed through the courtyard, and the young khan turned away his eyes courteously. Was she not forbidden to the eyes of strangers?
Though I strained my ears as she entered the gate and ascended the stairs I heard neither spoken word nor outcry. Once in her chamber upon the upper floor, guards were placed at the door, and from that moment no man of the castle could approach the door.
More rigid than the law of hospitality is the sanctity of the women of a guest. Save for the servants of Karadak, I did not think that any man would go up to the floor above us. Unless—
How was I to judge what would happen? Radha did not yet know where she was. The Rajputs had not so much as glanced at her. And as for the pasha, he did not know that Awa Khan was the kinsman of his captive.
Indeed, he thought only of enjoyment after his long ride. He announced, through Farash Agha, that he would be pleased to have the evening meal within an hour. The Rajput lord gave command that this should be done, and the servants hastened to and from the kitchen-house, preparing freshly slain fowls and stirring up the fires.
In a little more than the appointed time, the pasha was seated beside the master of Karadak in the hall of the castle with the Rajputs and guests ranged about the cloth on all sides—I sitting among the minstrels and the Red Hats and warriors of the garrison, in a place apart.
Truly, Awa Khan stinted not of his hospitality.
And the pasha plunged his fingers without ceasing into bowls of rice seasoned with saffron, plucked up whole roast pigeons, sweetened grapes and jellies, Then it entered his head to call for wine, and the young Rajput bade the servants bring honey-mead from the cellar. Farash Agha and his officers soon drank this and shouted for more.
“After the journey,” grunted the pasha, “we should feast well. Come, we are not priests. What are these?”
He pointed at two great kettle-drums finished in black wood and finely worked brass. They stood on a shelf midway down the hall—a strange place for nakaras, and indeed, these seemed too large to be carried on the saddle.
“Elchi-gi,” responded an elder Rajput, scarred from brow to lip, “My lord ambassador, those were the gift of the Raja of Bikanir to my master, who, with his descendants for all time, hath the right of beating his drums when he approaches the gates of Bikanir.”
The pasha, his broad shoulders gleaming green satin, the candlelight winking among the jewels of his turban crest, glanced at his youthful host who sat silent.
“Eh, thou hast honor, though thy years be few.”
“I?” The slender warrior started, and smiled. “Nay, not I.”
“He also, my lord,” corrected the old Rajput called Byram by his companions. “He stood before Sidri Singh in the pass of Anavalli when the dead lay thick, and the clans of Bikanir advanced against the red banner of Chitore.
“That sword—”
“Peace, Byram Khan,” cried the master of Karadak. “The talk was of the drums.”
If the pasha remembered the name of Sidri Singh, he gave no sign. “Ay, the nakaras. Let my minstrels sound them.”
“They are the nakaras of Karadak,” the old Rajput retainer uttered swift protest, “only to be beaten when Awa Khan musters his men, or approaches the throne.”
“Nay,” laughed the pasha. “I would hear them.”
The Rajputs exchanged glances and the young lord did not speak for a long moment.
“If it pleases thee,” he said gravely, “my guest.”
How was the pasha to know that these warriors out of Ind counted such matters as dearer than food, or life itself? He did not know that their ancestors had earned honors of a strange kind—a privilege or name bestowed for fierce valor in a bloodied field. Nay, they weighed each word as if it held honor or disgrace. Tradition ruled them, who counted their forebears back to unknown gods, and gave the title of Raj only to the utmost bravery. I did not know, until a later year. The pasha was their guest, and if he had asked even their weapons, they would have yielded to his whim.
So the musicians of Mirakhon Pasha made a tumult of reverberations out of the drums, and the mountebanks beside me sang, while the flutes whined and the pasha began to be amused. One of the Iranis rose and danced, and Farash Agha began to argue with Byram Khan concerning weapons.
“For the mounted man,” he maintained, “the lance is best. Vai—the arrow flies wide of its mark and leaves a horseman open to a blow.”
“Against the lance,” said Byram Khan stoutly, “the sword will prevail, for the sword can ward as well as strike.”
“Parry a lance?” Farash Agha laughed loud. “That is idle talk.”
Byram Khan lifted his head and pulled at his gray mustache.
“Spears serve well enough to strike down boars or scatter camp followers.”
Now Farash Agha and his sipahis all carried the tufted lances, while the men of Karadak had come forth to meet us, armed with shield and sword and bow. And the pasha frowned, ill-pleased.
“By the breath of Ali,” he asked impatiently, “where is the man who will venture against a lance—with a sword alone?”
“Here,” growled the one called Byram Khan, nodding at his master. “Without a shield, he has guarded himself against a spear and a galloping horse—ay, until the rider tired. Well do I know, for I was the rider.”
“I speak not of blunted spears, nor the pastime of boys.”
“Nor do I.”
Eh, the elder Rajput spoke like an Arab of my folk—openly, fearlessly. Little was the lord of the Iranis accustomed to such words, he searching for guile or a veiled threat. For that is the way of the Irani speech, to cover guile with praise, and insult with courtesy. His broad chin thrust out and his dark eyes swept the faces that turned to him.
Then did Fizl Ali, one of his courtiers, mistake the meaning of his glance, and rise, hand on sword hilt.
“O ye men of Karadak, could ye have seen the weapon play of that night a week ago, when our lord, favored of Allah and ever-victorious, rode forth into the ranks of his foemen, spreading about him a carpet of the slain, ye would know as we know that in all Iran and Ind no man can cope with him, with lance or sword or javelin.”
Thus he boasted and Byram's head lifted suddenly as he scented a challenge; but the young khan spoke before him.
“The greater honor, then, to Karadak, in the arrival of such a guest as the lord ambassador.”
Fazl Ali seemed disappointed in this mild response. He fingered his close clipped beard and looked insolently about the hall.
“By the eyes of —— are there no men in Karadak? I see only prating grandfathers and senseless boys.”
He meant to amuse the pasha by baiting the Rajputs, dealing with them as he was accustomed to do with the tribesmen and merchants of Iran. Yet it was true that we had seen in this castle many elders and youths—men like Byram Khan scarred and stiff-jointed, and past the prime of life. Yea, and youths armed with the light and almost straight blade that is half dagger, half sword.
And here was a strange thing. They were no more than the eleven that had come down to greet us, with four or five cup-bearers and servants. The village below had been peopled with no more than a score of peasants, and many women.
Yet the castle of Karadak could shelter easily the half of a hundred, and the stables in the courtyard were ample for a hundred steeds. At the time of our entrance I wondered if other men were holding themselves beyond sight. But there were no other warriors this side the dry lands. And Mirakhon Pasha, always watchful against unseen enemies, had brought with him into the castle two men for every Rajput.
Yea, and more. Two negro swordsmen guarded Radha in her chamber above us, and a sipahi lancer loitered at the gate, within hail of the camp, with its cavalry and Kurds.
At first, when I had heard the name of Awa Khan and seen the tower, I had hope of deliverance for the girl Radha and myself. Now I saw no hope—nay, I thought of stealing away when the pasha had finished making sport of the people of the castle. After the moon had set I could lift my camel from the line under the noses of the sipahis.
“True,” laughed the young lord of Karadak. “Byram Khan is a grandfather many times, and I a fledgling.”
He chose to ignore the taunt of Fazl Ali, but Farash Agha, sensing the mood of the pasha, hastened to add his word.
“Knowest not, little khan, that it is the custom to entertain Mirakhon Pasha with music. Where are thy minstrels?”
“Indeed, O my guest,” growled Byram Khan. “We have no court minstrels. Yet Muhammad Dost and Kasim Khan are skilled after their fashion.”
Two of the Rajput retainers came forward with strange instruments, slender horns of sandalwood and a thing of ebony and strings that sighed and whimpered under the touch of a bow. Eh, the note of the horns in the hands of Muhammad Dost bespoke sadness and grieving. This was no melody of feasting or the wooing of a maiden. It was the mourning of exiles, the sorrow of those oppressed by fate—yea, the slow cadence of riders at a foot-pace.
Mirakhon Pasha threw himself back on his cushions, frowning. And I, also, remembered the song, the same that Radha the captive sang that night in the desert.
Perhaps it was the favorite melody of the Rajputs. I do not know. But presently a stir went through the listeners, and the musicians faltered on a note. Above our heads as it seemed, we heard the elfin echo of a distant voice. A woman's clear voice chiming in with the instruments.
Farash Agha had asked heedlessly for the musicians, and they had played of all things this song of the girl Radha. Had the sipahi held his peace, matters would have ended otherwise and that dawn of terror—but it was written thus.
The horns and the wailing strings began the second part of the song—yea, the onset of battle. And a shiver went through the Rajputs as I have seen Arabs quiver when they look to their swords at the shaking of the standard. Clearer now the voice of Radha, singing in her chamber above, came to our ears. And the lord of Karadak sprang to his feet, silencing the musicians with a gesture.
Unseen, Radha carried on the song to its end, and the Rajput cried out suddenly.
“What voice is that?”
Reclining against his cushions, watching him with amused eyes, the pasha made answer.
“By Allah, that is the Rajputni, my bride.” And he smiled at his host, stroking his chin with henna-stained fingers. “This is the night when she will be my bride, indeed.”
The officers of the pasha whispered among themselves, taking pleasure in the amazement of the youth who had dared to act before them as the equal of their lord. They relished the jest, knowing that the khan of Karadak would not be suffered to question or approach the woman of the pasha. Was she not kourrouk—forbidden to the eye and the ear?
I wondered if the khan would ask her name, and whether the pasha would lie or not in answer. But he asked a different thing.
“Is she a hostage to the shah?”
The pasha smiled.
“Nay, she is mine—given to my hands by her father.”
A single glance went from man to man of the retainers of Karadak. They sat without moving, and their khan said no more. He signed for the musicians to play something else and stepped back into the shadows behind the stands of candles. I saw that his face had become white as the brocade tunic that covered his slender body. Farash Agha laughed and reached for his cup.
In the stir and noise that followed, I rose and slipped from my corner of the hall. For the moment the sipahis had forgotten me, and I meant to see whether I could go unseen from the courtyard before they thought of me again. Twice before this I had meant to leave their caravan, and other happenings had prevented. Now I vowed that I would escape from Mirakhon Pasha. As for Radha, God alone could aid her. If the other Rajputs fought for her, it would put them in their shrouds.
So I thought. But who can choose the path he will follow? I passed through the dark chamber leading to the courtyard, through the open gate of the building.
Clear moonlight filled the courtyard, beyond the shadow of the castle. I could see the sipahi, leaning on his spear by the outer gate, and—the pasha had ordered it left open—beyond it the flat roofs of the village, the dark water of the stream and the tents of the caravan.
Then steel fingers gripped my shoulder, and a voice whispered—
“O hakim, dost thou hear—and understand?”
The words were in the Irani tongue, but the speaker was the khan of Karadak.
“I hear.”
“Thou art the prisoner of the pasha?”
“Yea.”
Though I felt no touch of steel and saw nothing, I did not move or draw away, for the voice of the youth was like the whisper of a sword drawn from sheath.
“Who is the Rajputni maiden?”
“Radha, the daughter of Sidri Singh.”
I had expected an exclamation or a curse, but the man behind me kept silence as if puzzled.
“Sidri Singh was at Kukri with all his followers—aye, he was in the field of war. How could his daughter be here without him?”
“They sought refuge in Karadak. Insh'allah, they wandered to my camp across the dry lands.”
“The swan does not mate with the vulture. The sun might alter its course, or the stars die out, but Sidri Singh would never give child of his to yonder swine. That pasha lied, but thou, O hakim, will tell me the true story and swiftly.”
In that instant I began to respect the young Rajput. And I dared ask a question.
“Hast thou other men near-by?”
“Nay. I bade thee tell me of Radha.”
“Then think twice—ay, and thrice, before giving way to anger, my lord,” I warned him. “Nay, harken to an old man, who has seen much slaying, and the death of the weak. These Iranis are wolves, and they will gut the castle and slash the blood hissing from thy people if thou oppose them.”
“I will be judge of that. Speak.”
So, having thought for a moment, I told him in brief words of the death of Sidri Singh and the man Subbul, and the carrying off of Radha. After all, this youth was her cousin, and it had been ordained that Mirakhon Pasha should come to this place.
MY BLOOD is old and thin. Yet in that moment it ran swift and warm, so that the scars of wounds in arm and breast and thigh—yea, I have known the tearing thrust of steel blade and the fiery smart of arrows—burned beneath the skin. I knew that swords would be bared in Karadak that night. How? How does the buffalo scent the water that lies in a gully beyond sight?
I did not hear the young Rajput leave my side. He did not go far, because I heard him whispering to a servant. Then, in a moment, my ears caught the heavier tread of an older man. Byram Khan growled words I did not understand. He departed, and once more the khan gave an order to the servant, who moved out into the moonlight of the courtyard.
“Art thou bound to serve the pasha?” So said the Rajput chieftain, standing close to me in the darkness.
“Nay.”
“Good! Then go, old wanderer, from this gate and save thyself harm.”
Now a moment before, I had desired nothing more than this. But in this moment curiosity and something more held me to my place. W'allahi—when did the men of the Nejd slink away like jackals from peril?
“I go in my own time,” I said.
“Ho,” he laughed under his breath. “The gray wolf smells out booty. An Arab will find loot.”
“On my head be my deeds. Nay, I shared the bread and salt with Radha and Sidri Singh. I will watch the happenings of this night.”
He seemed to muse awhile.
“By thy word, Arab, this pasha hath forfeited the immunity of a guest. Within the hour we shall know all the truth. And then—” He turned toward me swiftly. “Swear! Swear, thou, to seal thy lips with silence and to lift no weapon against man of mine this night.”
“I swear, by the stone of Mecca!”
Indeed, I was ready to make this covenant. More and more my heart inclined toward the youth. He made decisions quickly, and I had not yet seen the man who dared oppose Mirakhon Pasha. This Rajput seemed utterly reckless. Could he plan wisely and hide his plans? I made test of him.
“Wilt accuse the pasha of an evil deed?”
“I?” Again he laughed, as if delight grew within him. “Another will do so.”
“It would be better to fall upon him with thy followers.”
“Is a hawk to be taken sleeping?”
While I pondered this, he turned from me suddenly and went toward the hall. I heard horses moving out from the stable, and saw they were two—the young Rajput's black charger and the dun mare of the pasha. A servant—the same who had spoken with my companion—led them, and the sipahi at the courtyard gate was full of angry questions, asking why in the name the pasha's horse had been saddled. Doubtless the khan had waited until he heard the horses before leaving my side.
Standing thus in the entrance hall between the feasters and the courtyard, I wondered what plan the Rajput had formed. The stair leading to Radha's chamber was behind me in the darkness, and it came into my mind that the young lord planned to go up with Byram Khan and strike suddenly upon the two negroes, slaying them and carrying off the maiden. So I would have done, in other years—had the girl been beautiful.
But the Iranis would be out of the hall at the first sound of struggle above them. Also, the khan would leave the greater part of his men to be slain. Still, he had saddled two horses—the best of the horses!
I thought that I, in his case, would fall sword in hand upon the feasters in the hall, trusting to surprize and swiftness to avail against numbers. Then I knew that this, also, was vain. How could the Rajputs, scattered among their guests, be warned of the plan? And what would prevent the warriors swarming up from the camp when they heard the tumult through the open gates of the castle? And, in the end, what of Radha, in the hands of the black slaves? I could think of no plan.
All this passed through my mind in the moment when the young khan walked to the heavy curtains of the banquet hall. With a sweep of his arms, he held them wide.
“Ho, where is the man who boasts of his lance?” he cried.
I could see the Iranis sit upright in astonishment. A gust of warm air, heavy with musk and mastic, swept past me. Mirakhon Pasha held a handful of grapes motionless under his lips.
“The sky is clear and the moon is high,” said the young chieftain, smiling. “I have my horse saddled. Nay, we are weary of talk, and I would warm my blood before sleeping. Which is the best lancer among ye?”
By now the pasha's officers had found their voices.
“I!” cried Fazl Ali, springing up.
“By the ninety and nine holy names!” Farash Agha swore. “Dost name me boaster?”
“Art thou the one?” The young lord of Karadak spoke with disdain, scarcely veiled. “Come, my lord ambassador, wilt thou be judge of the joust?”
“What is this?” Mirakhon Pasha frowned.
“The play of Karadak, my lord. We have little skill at play of words or dancing, but it is our custom to mount and ride forth on such clear nights to exercise in arms. Yet thou art weary from the road. So this night we shall run a few courses in the courtyard.”
The pasha noticed the change in the youth, the eagerness that he could not hide in his voice It was clear to him, however, that the other Rajputs took such sport as a matter of course. They rose, making way for their guests. Then the broad face of the pasha grew dark, as I had seen it at Bandar Abbasi, and in the moment that Sidri Singh died. Like a wary boar, peering through the thicket, he scented the approach of something strange.
“O lord of my life,” cried Farash Agha, thrusting Fazl Ali aside and salaaming low to his master. “Have I thy leave to clip the ears of this cub?”
“Look to thine own nose,” cried one of the Rajputs.
Farash Agha glared about him, hand on sword-hilt. For the slicing of a nose there is only one reason, among the Iranis. Then, to mend his pride, he turned to the khan who had challenged him.
“I do not play with blunted lance points.”
“Nor is there need, O Agha. Choose thou a lance, and I shall take the sword. If thou touch my garments, or draw blood, the victory is thine. If I parry the onset, taking no harm, I am winner of the joust.”
The Iranis exchanged glances, being greatly amazed. They were in no mood to pass by a challenge, and even the pasha saw some rare sport before him. Warriors, minstrels and nobles passed from the hall, jostling and talking, some bearing with them the great silver candelabra and the Rajputs followed. Each man of Karadak paused where their young khan stood, and with each he spoke in his own speech. Then he hastened to the side of the pasha.
“Will it please thee to mount, my lord?”
Eh, he had thought to saddle the ambassador's mare, so that the pasha would not be constrained to remain afoot while others sat in the saddle. And he had also another reason that I suspected not at all.
The pasha mounted, Fazl Ali holding the stirrup. Once in the saddle, he took command of matters, placing the attendants with the candles close to him, and summoning the warrior who held his javelins. The Iranis ranged themselves about him, some sitting, others walking about, near the wall of the castle, at one side of the door. There was laughter and crying of wagers—for, in a joust of lance against sword and shield, wounds are freely given.
The pasha began to be restless and eager as he watched the master of Karadak mount the black charger and rein up and down the inclosure, displaying the paces of this steed. Even the Iranis murmured approval, for the khan sat as one rarely skilled, and the clean-limbed charger sidled and trotted and wheeled at touch of knee and bridle.
Soon the leader of the sipahis appeared upon a Turkoman horse, trotting in and out among the spectators, eying the youth of Karadak. For the khan had no shield. Nor did he wear a cloak. His tight-fitting, white tunic made a good mark in the elusive light, mingled of the glow from the sky and the flickering gleam of the «candles.
The pasha looked at his sentry in the open gate, and past him to the tents and dying fires of the caravan. The watchers fell silent, drawing closer to the wall, the Rajputs mingling with the Iranis.
“Begin!” he cried, leaning on the saddle horn.
The two riders cantered to the far-ends of the courtyard, some sixty paces apart. Farash Agha raised his lance tip, and the Rajput drew his saber, saluting. Then the brown horse of the Irani trotted forward, and cantered, while the black charger, tight-reined, trotted, half rearing.
In an instant they were together, hoofs ringing on the hard clay of the inclosure. And those near me shouted loud. Farash Agha gripping his lance in his right hand, pressing the shaft against his forearm, had thrust savagely at the young khan's girdle. Truly, he did not mean to play with blunt weapons!
The khan's sword flashed out, clinking against the wood of the lance, and the long shining point of the spear was turned aside, sweeping past him harmlessly.
“Shabash!” growled Fazl Ali. “Well done.”
But the pasha and most of the Iranis looked disappointed. They hoped to see the Rajput cast, bleeding, from the saddle.
Again the riders turned and faced each other and Farash Agha spurred forward with a tight rein. This time his point wavered and thrust swiftly at the throat of the youth. Eh, the khan, leaning forward, parried upward. Again, the lance point slid off his blade without harm.
The Rajputs watched him with pride, breathing quickly. And when the riders turned for the third course, the pasha and his Iranis thought of nothing but the rearing horses, the gleaming weapons. This time Farash Agha tried another trick.
Leaning far forward, he gripped the spearshaft under his armpit and sat tight in the saddle, trusting by weight and strength to bear through the parrying stroke of the sword.
The young khan saw and acted upon the instant. The black charger darted forward, the rider slipped to the far side of the saddle. The blade of the heavy khanda, held high, smashed down upon the spear, driving the lance point sharply down, into the earth.
Before Farash Agha could recover, the point had caught and held. Perforce he loosed his hold on the spear which remained, upright and quivering, in the center of the courtyard. W'allahi, it happened as I have said—the lancer was disarmed.
And before any one could cry out, the master of Karadak wheeled his charger around to face the pasha.
“The play is ended,” he cried.
He had seen from the corner of his eye what we now saw. From the door of the castle, out of the darkened entrance, stepped Radha.
Clearly was she to be seen, by the candles. Her hair, unbound, fell thick upon her shoulders, and her veil had vanished. Swaying, she stood in the half light, a dagger gripped tight against her slender breast.
For the time it takes to draw and loose a breath there was silence, while her eyes, shadowed by grieving, sought swiftly among the men. Her lips parted and she raised her head. Against the dark entrance she looked like a child out of peristan—an elf of spirit-land. But behind her loomed Byram Khan, his bared sword dripping blood from the channels, and his eyes afire.
“O my kinsmen!” she cried in a clear voice. “Avenge Sidri Singh. I shall live if ye live, or die with ye!”
Her eyes sought the pasha, and Byram Khan strode past her, shouting.
“The proof! To your swords, my children.”
HEARING these words I thought that the Rajputs, all eleven of them, had dug their graves. True, the young khan might have ridden past the sentry at the gate. But, penned thus between the sheer cliff behind the castle and the high wall around the courtyard, how could the others flee? Penned in with the pasha and his wolves!
“God is one,” I said to myself. “It will be over in a little time.”
For the sipahis were no merchant-folk or peasantry to be charged and scattered. Full armed, alert and angered, they grasped at sword-hilt and ax-shaft and Mirakhon Pasha reached back his right hand swiftly. The attendant behind him thrust a javelin into his fingers.
Without an instant's hesitation—without gathering up his reins or stiffening his seat in the saddle—the pasha launched his weapon, his heavy body swinging forward, grunting with the effort. He struck thus, as a panther leaps, with the release of mighty muscles, swift as instinct. Clear in the candlelight I saw him cast at his mark, the young khan wheeling toward him ten paces distant.
No rider could dodge a javelin so thrown at such a little distance. Indeed, I did not see the shaft fly. But I saw it strike—against the far wall of the courtyard.
Mirakhon Pasha had missed his cast. Perhaps the flickering candles beside him had drawn his eye from the slim white figure wavering in the moonlight; perhaps anger had clouded his sight. I do not know.
But when the javelin shattered itself against the bricks of the wall, the pasha cried out as if in pain. The young Rajput, the two-edged sword swinging at his knee, spurred at him. The pasha also drove home his spurs, wrenching out his scimitar as the dun mare plunged.
The Rajput came in like flame out of darkness, laughing, leaning in toward his foe. The broad body of the pasha stiffened. The swords clashed once.
I saw it—the shining blade of the Rajput beat aside the lighter scimitar and seemed to stroke the pasha's breast. in passing.
The pasha rose in his stirrups and cried out twice. Then the dun mare, rearing in frantic excitement, cast him from the saddle and he lay prone on his face, as a heavy sack, cast from a height, remains motionless.
“Guard thy lord!” shouted Farash Agha who had seen from the center of the courtyard the fall of his master.
“Ho, my Agha!” cried the Rajput chieftain. “Where now is thy lance?”
He had recovered, reined back the black charger scattering dust and gravel, and wheeled toward the officer of the sipahis. I did not see their meeting. Steel clanged all about me, and the shouts of the Red Hats mingled with the battle cry of the men of Karadak. The dun mare, riderless, swerved within reach of my hand.
It was no place to remain afoot. Nay, an aged and feeble man would not long have survived in that place of death. I grasped the mare's rein, steadied her, and climbed into the saddle. In other years I would have leaped without touching horn or stirrup. I drew my sword, because in a mad fight such as this within walls, a gray beard is no shield, and every soul must guard himself.
I looked at the leaders. W'allahi, they were slashing like fiends—Farash Agha with his brow and cheek laid open, the Rajput scattering blood when he swung his right arm. The horses were turning swiftly on their haunches, and the grinding of the steel blades did not cease. A sipahi, his lance poised, stood beside them.
“Allah!” shrieked Farash Agha.
The Rajput's two-edged khanda passed into his body under the heart—yea, the half of the blade. And that moment, seeing his chance, the Irani warrior on foot thrust his spear into the Rajput's back.
How could I sit, mounted and idle, and watch a boy struck down in this manner? I kneed the mare forward and slashed at the sipahi's neck above the mail. The edge of my scimitar ground against bone and I had to pull to clear it. The sipahi fell where he stood. It was not a bad blow.
Farash Agha slid from his saddle, but the young khan kept his seat and called out to me above the tumult.
“I have seen, O Arab. Ask thy reward in another day.”
He was able to walk his horse toward the castle door where Radha stood by the candles, her faces bloodless in its cloud of dark hair. But he was too badly hurt to do more than cry encouragement to his men. I glanced about the courtyard. Never had I seen such play of weapons.
The Rajputs, without shield or mail, cast themselves upon their foes with nothing but the sword. Death struck them and laid them low in an instant, or the sipahis fell under their feet. The youths and old men of Karadak acted as if reckless of life. Indeed, they had but one thought—to spread swiftly the carpet of the slain before other enemies could come up from the camp.
And they bore themselves with the skill of warriors reared to weapons. By swift sword-play they slashed through the guard of saber and shield, and leaped forward. And, lo, the fight was now an equal thing. The fury of the Rajputs matched well the sullen anger. of the sipahis. But I knew that if the young hero of Karadak had not overthrown the pasha and Farash Agha in as many minutes, the Rajputs would have been doomed before now.
Leaderless, the sipahis began to think of themselves, to gather in groups. The sentry, who all this time had remained amazed and motionless, so sudden had been the onset, instead of running in, began to beat on his shield and shout in a high voice to the watchers in the camp below.
“Hai-hai! Aid, Kasim ad-Din! Ho, Sharm Beg! Aid—give aid!”
Who can tell the happenings of a hand-to-hand affray? Nay, the man who tells much lies greatly! I saw one of the mountebanks still hugging his guitar, dancing in fear from the swords; I heard a boy shriek for his father—and a man staggering along the wall, curse the name of God. The candles had gone out, and a haze of dust rose against the moonlight.
I rode down one warrior, who tried to guard himself with his shield as if the rush of a horse were the flight of an arrow; I followed another horseman through the murk, rose in my stirrups to slash at his head, and saw that it was Byram Khan who had got himself a horse in some fashion known only to God.
A face peered up at me out of darkness, and I thought it was one of the nobles. He was laughing—
“Ho—aho—ho!”? Thus, on his knees, both hands clutched in his girdle, he was laughing, and it sounded strangely.
Two of the pasha's minstrels, with flying mantles, elbowed and jostled to be first out of the gate, though five horsemen abreast could have passed through without touching stirrup. I thought then that the half-dozen creatures of the pasha would not stand and fight like the sipahis. Then I could see nothing at all for the dust, and drew rein.
A voice behind me called out—
“Close the gate!”
The two, who hurried forward and swung shut the wide portals of teakwood and iron, were men of Karadak, servants who had taken no part in the affray. They turned the massive iron key in the lock and lugged the lance-long bars into place. And the one who had given the order walked up to see that all had been well done. It was Byram Khan.
The fighting had ended. When the dust settled down I looked about the courtyard. Three other Rajputs were on their feet, and none beside the three.
TRULY the Rajput swordsmen had spread that night the carpet of the slain.
Nine sipahis and Irani nobles were already dead or soon to await their shrouds. Four, slashed and pierced in the bodies and heads, cursed and moaned for water. Four defenders of Karadak lay lifeless, and three little better. All the pasha's mountebanks and the remaining three of his men must have fled through the gate. Well for us, that gate had been open! Cornered men will fight with fury.
Indeed, the desperation of the Rajputs, who had been resolved to prevail or perish together, had turned the tide of victory toward them.
Byram Khan peered at me, his eyes clouded and his breath coming in long gasps.
“Ho, Arab!” He gripped my arm. “How many swords will come against us from the camp below?”
I counted over in my mind the number of the caravan folk.
“Two hundred—nay, two hundred and twenty and eight, and perhaps they who escaped from here.”
“What manner of men?”
“Sipahis and Kurdish cavalry.”
Byram Khan looked at his three Rajputs, and at the long stretch of the courtyard wall. He looked at me and said, “God is one!” and walked away. His meaning was that what might happen hereafter would be in the hands of God, not in his.
I dismounted and went to the form of the pasha, thinking that if life remained in him we might hold him as a hostage against attack. Gripping his shoulder I turned him over, with an effort, for he was heavy. His pallid face was smirched with dirt; his lips, drawn back from his teeth, seemed bloodless, and his body below the ribs had been cut through to the backbone. His eyes stared unwinking into the moonlit sky.
Farash Agha I did not look at, knowing well his case; but Fazl Ali lay among the wounded and cursed me.
“The sword prevailed,” he grinned. “But ye will never see the dawn.”
From him I went to look at the wound of the Rajput chieftain. He sat upon a tiger skin, Radha kneeling and supporting his head. She held a turban cloth tight against his back under the shoulder-blade where the lance point had bitten. They were talking low-voiced, for he could do little more than whisper. What they said I know not, yet she seemed to be sorrowing and he heartening her.
“My lord,” I broke in upon them. “Bid thy men carry thee to a couch and I will probe the wound.”
“O hakim,” he responded. “Until the issue is at an end I will not leave the courtyard, and thou art too precious a swordsman to be taken from the wall. Get thee to Byram Khan.”
Nevertheless, he called me back and bade me do what I could for the other wounded while we waited, and this I made shift to do while the shadow of the castle crept across the courtyard as the moon sank behind the hills and a throng of warriors came up with torches from the camp.
This might have been the ninth hour of the night. Well for us that the wall was in shadow! Byram Khan ordered his three followers and four servants to move about and rattle shield and arrow case. The pasha's men halted beyond arrow shot and argued among themselves. Kasim ad-Din, the pock-marked chieftain of the Kurds, and Sharm Beg did most of the talking.
First they demanded the surrender of the castle, bidding us throw our arms over the wall.
“Come ye and make proof of our weapons!” responded the old Rajput.
When it was clear to them that the castle would not be yielded, there was more talk among them. Perhaps they suspected Radha of casting a spell upon their dead lord, for the wild Kurds are fearful of such things; or the few who escaped told them lies about our numbers, to justify themselves.
“Is Mirakhon Pasha truly dead?” they asked.
“As Farash Agha is,” Byram Khan assured them.
Then they withdrew a little and sat down to consult among themselves. When the torches went out, they began to drift back to their camp, This seemed a trick and we watched until the dawn spread in our faces, revealing the tents and the groups of warriors among them. The villagers, fearful of the battle in the morning, had fled during the night, driving off most of their animals. The Kurds and sipahis had other things to think about.
Byram Khan said they would make the attack now when they could see what little was before them. But I began to meditate. The sun was spear high, and smoke rose from the fires of the camp. Nay, that day passed, without so much as an arrow shot against the wall. And I felt assured of what would happen.
The men of the caravan never attacked the castle.
Perhaps the sipahis would have done so, to avenge Farash Agha and gut the castle. But there was the treasure in the camel bales—the forty loads of gifts for the emperor of Ind, worth many times the looting of a small hill tower such as this. The sipahis did not attack because they were afriad to leave the Kurds in charge of this treasure and very likely afraid that if they were cut up by our weapons, the Kurds would fall upon them.
With such unexpected riches under their hands, and with Mirakhon Pasha gone from them, the Kurds thought of nothing but those bales.
Yea, in the end they all went away together, after supplying themselves with water and grain and meat. They went down to seek the road from which Mirakhon Pasha had led them. I have often wondered what befell thereafter in the desert, and what finally became of the treasure bales.
Those bales never reached the emperor. Yet a little of the treasure did go to Ind. In the next year, by the river road of Lahore, I saw some of it. A wealthy tribesman rode past, his saddle cloth silk of Cathy sewn with pearls, his scimitar blazing with sapphires and silverwork. Behind him came five camels bearing women, hidden from sight by rich carpets. Thus I saw Sharm Beg again.
ON THE third day I took my leave of the Rajputs, having seen that it was not ordained that young lord should die. The spear had pierced upward under the shoulder-blade and no arteries were severed. Indeed, he had upon his body the scars of five other wounds, each as bad as this. Though I had bidden him keep to his bed for the rest of that moon. I found him outstretched upon a mattress, clad in a fresh white tunic of brocade, his small turban wound with a string of pearls. And four men-servants of Karadak were bearing the mattress and the wounded youth toward the river garden where Radha sat.
“Nay,” he smiled at my protest. “Thou hast said it was ordained that I should live. Who would deny his eyes the sight of such beauty in a maiden?”
Indeed, though veiled, Radha's face held the pride and gladness of one released from torment. She rose to greet the hero when his mattress was laid at her feet.
“From my lips, my lord,” she said in the Irani speech. “Thou must accept the gratitude of Kukri.”
“For a word from thee, I would have passed through the swords of Kukri,” he responded.
In another man this would have sounded like boasting, but this youth was full of unexpected happenings. Surely, for cousins, they made much of ceremony. But I did not yet know the ways of the Rajputs. Radha, wrapped in her white garments of mourning, sat quiet in the ferns by the bank of the stream—ay, like a lily rising from the ferns, so straight was she, so slender and fair to behold. The eyes of the young lord took fire.
Thirty yeras ago, I would not have left Karadak thus—not without measuring my sword against his, and taking the maiden upon my saddle, if I lived. Thirty years!
“Grant me,” I asked of him, “thy leave to depart.”
“Not without a gift,” cried Radha swiftly. “He will give thee, O shaikh that which thou desirest in Karadak.”
“Nay,” I denied. “I have beheld the beauty of Radha of Kukri, and what gift is to be measured against that sight?”
“Well said!” cried the Rajput. “But thou hast lost a camel in this fighting, Daril.” He turned and spoke to one of the servants who bowed and made off toward the castle. “Byram Khan will choose for thee a good horse, saddled and equipped.” Suddenly he smiled merrily. “Thou art a strange physician, not to claim a reward. But I say thou art a better swordsman than physician, and wilt ever be!”
Thus he gave me leave to go. At the stables I met Byram Khan, mounted, with one follower also in the saddle. Presently a groom let out my mount, and lo—it was the dun mare of the dead pasha!
“Awa Khan hath a generous hand!” I cried.
Byram Khan gathered up his reins and rode forward, musing.
“That is true,” he growled, “as I, the captain of his swordsmen know well. But this mare is the gift of the guest of Karadak.”
I thought of one person and then another.
“The Rajput maiden, then?”
“By her wish, ay, but she had naught to give.”
“Then it was surely Awa Khan.”
The old warrior shook his head, and let his charger trot through the village street, saying that he had orders to escort me forth upon a trail that led north to the caravan route to Ind.
“Awa Khan is not here,” he said, “being in the army of his lord the Raja of Bikanir with seventy men from Karadak. He left me here to keep the castle with nine men.”
Then I remembered that the young Rajput, the rider of the black charger—he who had overthrown Mirakhon Pasha—had never spoken his name. I had thought that he was the kinsman of Radha.
“Who is the swordsman?” I asked.
Byram Khan looked at me in surprize.
“Ask in Chitore—ay, or Ind. He is Kurran, a stripling of the royal house of Chitore, son of the ruler of Rajasthan. He is too young to be sagacious, but he can handle a sword.”
“Then he is no kinsman of Radha of Kukri?”
The old retainer of Awa Khan passed his fingers through his beard and grunted.
“Nay, Chitore and Bikanir have been at war for long years. They are still at war. Once, in the gorge of Anavalli this youth Kurran and Sidri Singh fought hand to hand.”
I thought then of the feuds of my clans in the Nejd. It was clear to me now that Awa Khan and Sidri Singh had been opposed to Kurran's clan in this feud of the Rajputs.
“Yet Kurran was the guest of Karadak,” I said.
“Ay, he was riding from the mountains of Iran, with two followers, to join his father's army. He turned aside to rest at Karadak. Was the hospitality of Awa Khan to be denied the noblest blood of Ind? Being Kurran, we served him, and when this pasha came, though a dog-born dog, it was the duty of Kurran to offer hospitality.”
W'allahi, they knew the duty of the salt, these Rajputs! Desert men, like the chieftains of my sahra. Within the tents, the feud is forgotten.
“Though no kinsman of Radha, this stripling prince drew the sword for her,” I mused aloud.
“If he had not done so,” Byram Khan said grimly, “the honor of Awa Khan would have been lost indeed. Being the guest of Karadak, Kurran took thought for the honor of Awa Khan.” He meditated a moment, easing forward in the saddle. “And Awa Khan will be well satisfied when I tell him what was done, and how.”
Thus we parted, he turning back to Karadak, I trotting forward along the mountain trail. I wondered whether Kurran would ride forth on this road with a bride. Byram Khan had not bothered his head about this. Indeed, it was hard to say what that young Kurran would not do. Thirty years—yea, and eight—I had carried such a maiden off in spite of the watching of her clan.
But one thing was certain. When I looked down at the smooth mane and the twitching ears of the fine mare, I thought of Mirakhon Pasha. Surely he had dug his own grave, being blinded by pride and lust.
* ↑ By the Christian calendar, 1619. At that time the four great empires of Asia, stretching from the gates of Vienna to the Malay peninsula, were—as we moderns call them—Turkey, Persia, India and China. In the narrative of Daril, Persia is called Iran and the empire of the vastly powerful Moghuls is Ind.
* ↑ Ladies—wives and daughters of distinguished men.
* ↑ Jerusalem
* ↑ Bikanir, the city of the desert portion of Rajasthan, held by a clan often at war with Chitore, the citadel of the reigning prince of Rajputs,
* ↑ The shaking of the standards—a signal once used by the Arab clans to go forward and begin the battle.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1930.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1962, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 62 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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