# The Road to Kandahar

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Extracted from Adventure, 15 Nov 1927, pp. 2–55. A “Daril ibn Athir” story.
“A Complete Novelette of the Mogul Hosts”
Baki the Wise who stood between the Pathan thieves and the Moguls of Ind
THE ROAD TO KANDAHAR
A Complete Novelette By HAROLD LAMB
Author of “Genghis Khan,” “The Guest of Karadak,” etc.
It is written: Thy wealth will not save thee, if thy deeds destroy thee.
And I have seen a man who had a great store of gold under his hand, yet he was slain by his own deeds. It was in the year one thousand and twenty and nine, when I was journeying to the land of Ind—I, Daril, the Arab of the sahra, the desert land.
I was then beyond the middle of life and I had sheathed the sword to follow the path of a physician, thirsting to see new lands. I had agreed to pay a camelman of Isfahan ten silver pieces to bring me safely to the frontier of Ind. He was called Sher Jan and he was a rogue.
Yea, a man of loud oaths and many weapons—three knives of different shapes and a rusty tulwar. At times he would draw this sword and flourish it, but I never saw him clean it. In his girdle besides the knives he carried a beard comb and opium and flint and a pouch filled with powder, though he had never owned a musket. Sher Jan, with his forked beard and his deep voice, had the mien of a lion and the heart of a hare. He called me his lord and his friend, and one evening he spoke very boldly, asking if I carried much money.
This was the evening when we climbed out of the plain and entered the foothills where Iran ends and Ind begins. We followed a shallow valley that became narrower as we advanced, until the ridges of red rock loomed above us like walls. Yellow dust hung around the camels ir clouds, until the air in this hour of sunset became a golden haze. The baked earth still gave off the heat of the sun, and the river of the gully was no more than brackish pools. By one of these Sher Jan halted, looking about on all sides and sniffing like a dog. Satisfied, he set his helper to work pulling tamarisk bushes and picking up dead roots, while he loosed the bales from the kneeling camels.
“What place is this?” I asked.
“The Kaizak-davan—the Valley of Thieves.” He wiped his long nose with his sleeve and looked at me sidewise. “It is well named. If thou hast much money, O my lord, give it to my keeping for the night.”
“Nay,” I assured him, “our bargain was that thou shouldst protect my possessions from theft and tribute on the road.”
“God knows,” he muttered, “I deny it not. Yet consider, O favored one, if thy purse and gear be stolen from thee while I sleep, how am I responsible? While if I have them in charge, I must answer for them.”
“Answer for thyself!” I cried at him.
Truly the camel driver had sworn to me by the triple oath that he was the master of a large caravan, with many armed followers and that he made the journey from Iran to Ind several times in the year and had bought immunity from the chieftains who might otherwise plunder caravans along the way. And it turned out that he had no more than eight camels, laden with red leather and honey and sweet oil, and no more than one sorry servant whose only weapon was a cudgel to beat off dogs.
“Upon thy head be it,” he said calmly, meaning that if anything happened to me it would be of my doing, not his.
So I spoke no more, and went and sat, to meditate and enjoy the one good hour of these days when the sun was at the rim of the desert below us. In my belt I had no more than forty silver coins, of which I had agreed to pay Sher Jan ten. But I needed little.
I was alone. My horse, a swift paced dun mare; my sword, a plain Damascus blade with a horn hilt. All other belongings I had given away when I set forth upon my wandering. Yea, wanderers are we, we Arabs of the sahra, the desert land.
It is better to be thus free than to be chained; better to ride with few possessions than with many, and far better to journey thus, toward a strange land than to abide in one place, bowed down by goods and debts and increasing cares. In my youth it would have been misery to be thus bare of gear and goods, and apart from the eyes of fair young women and the raids of the clans. Now, though I wore still the sword, I sought peace; men called me Shaikh and Hakim—elder and physician.
And yet I was not quite alone. The mare, coming close to my shoulder, stretched down her head, rattling the bit. In my argument with Sher Jan I had forgotten her. I rose, loosed the saddle and lifted it down. I rubbed the slender limbs with a handful of dry grass and freed her from bit and head band, slipping on halter and rope. Then I let her drink at the pool, and gave her a measure of barley and salt. As I was leaving her, she lifted her head and neighed.
In our small caravan we had no other horses. Sher Jan and his follower rode between the camel packs. I looked at Sher Jan and found him heaping more tamarisk upon the pile, already smoking and blazing.
“O one of little wit!” I cried. “If this be truly a place of thieves, why light such a beacon to guide them?”
“In this gully the fire will not be seen,” he answered, throwing roots on the fire to show that he cared not for my reproach.
“Nay, look at the smoke.”
Down by the pool, hemmed in by ridges of rock, the dusk had deepened, but the sky overhead still glowed, changing from shimmering blue to dull purple. From the heights before us the twisting smoke would be clearly seen against the last of the sunset. Sher Jan squinted up and wiped his eyes with his greasy sleeve.
“True, O Shaikh,” he made response, “but we must eat.”
“On thy head be it then.”
I went and sat by the fire, while he put water and salt and rice and strips of mutton into the pot. The air had become cold of a sudden, and the wind was chill from the snow far above us. It was then the beginning of winter, and Sher Jan said the snow lay in the passes ahead of us, in these mountains that he cursed, calling them the mountains of the Pathans. Yet he said that the city we would reach the next day was a veritable paradise, a garden spot within the barrens.
This city he swore to be the gateway of the empire of Ind—the end of his road, to which he had made covenant to guide me. And he called it Kandahar, rolling the word upon his tongue as if he loved well the sound of it.
“Verily,” he often said, “that is a place good for wine and for profit.”
But that evening, although he had set the stew boiling, we ate from a cold pot and at a late hour. Before the last light had left the sky the thieves came.
First my mare neighed again, then I heard hoofs striking upon loose stones. Sher Jan sprang to his feet, but when a dozen riders clattered down into the gully he made no move to draw weapon or to fly. He might have fled, because the horsemen all came along one path and at a hand pace, without attempting to rush us. I thought that one of them had been watching us for some time and that Sher Jan's fire would bring no good.
When the horsemen moved into the firelight I saw they were warriors of a kind strange to me, mounted on scrawny hill ponies. They were armed with light lances, with hair tufts under the points. Over their mail and leather shirts they wore immense gray wool and sheepskin coats, while their reins were heavy with silver; and their leader sat upon a saddle-cloth of embroidered damask.
To Sher Jan he spoke in a language I knew not, and my valiant camel driver with his helper made haste to open up his loads, the leader of the band riding from one bale to the next.
No more than one load of the eight did he order taken—bales of red leather—and divided up into four packs, which his men strapped upon led ponies. Then he of the damask cloth walked his horse over to me and asked a question. When I shook my head, he called out a name.
“Shamil!”
A rider who had kept far from the fire advanced at the summons—a drowsy man, finely clad in a green and white striped khalat edged with soft brown fur. He swayed in the saddle, and his eyes, touched up with dark powder, did not open at all. His lips and thin beard were stained bright red, and he acted as if he had been chewing too much opium.
“O brother of the Arabs,” he greeted me in a droning voice, “pay down the road tax to this man.”
“Who asks it?” I demanded.
His eyelids flickered as if this surprised him.
“I am Shamil, the treasurer of the Hazara band. Who art thou, and whence?”
“Daril of Athir, of the Nejd Arabs,” I answered truthfully, “a physician upon the road to the empire of Ind.”
“To serve whom?”
“If God wills it, the emperor, the Mogul of Ind.” For I had been told that he was the most powerful of rulers, the most fortunate of living men, and I had journeyed from afar to visit his court. “Art thou a servant of the Mogul?”
Shamil laughed, gently.
“Nay, we are kites swooping down from the mountain. Pay us gold!”
I pointed at the shawl that held no more than a headkerchief, my lancet and such things.
“As thou seest”—for the man called Shamil seemed to watch me from under heavy lashes, and when I turned away I felt his eyes upon me—“I am no merchant, nor have I goods with me. What talk is this of gold?”
Then the leader of the band pushed forward, scowling at me and gesturing. He had noticed the dun mare picketed just beyond the firelight.
“We will take the mare,” said Shamil, “and require no more of thee, O Arab.”
Stepping between them, I laid my hand on my sword hilt. W'allahi, a man of peace am I, seeking no quarrel! But to take a man's horse in the barrens, without authority, to set him afoot in such a place was the deed of a dog-born dog. Sher Jan edged nearer, plucking at my sleeve and whispering to me to show no anger.
“Lay hand on the mare,” I said to them, “and more than one man will die—thou, Redbeard, the first.”
At this he opened one eye a little, and would have drawn back, but I held his rein. The leader of the Hazaras made as if to pull out the heavy battle mace in his belt, and I stepped to the far side of Shamil's horse. Sher Jan began to bellow imploringly, and it seemed to me that my road would end here. Against ten horsemen with lances I would not have lived more than a moment—long enough to dispatch the man called Shamil and perhaps, if God willed it, another. For I could strike swiftly and surely with the curved blade, and it was not my habit to draw a weapon without striking.
Shamil and the chieftain spoke together, and he of the damask saddlecloth put back his weapon. Strange it was that he should heed the words of the unarmed Shamil. Long afterward I understood why they had no wish to shed blood in this place.
“By God!” cried he of the striped cloak and red beard. “If thou hast silver, O Daril, we will take it instead of the mare.”
The horsemen crowded around, hearing our dispute, but not understanding what was said. There was nothing to do but to pull the coin bag from my girdle and toss it to Shamil, who caught it deftly enough, for all his sleepy eyes. The Hazara chieftain came over to watch him count the silver dirhems, grumbling because they were so few. But Shamil spoke in his ear, and he seemed satisfied, for he raised his arm, shouting to his men—
“Off!”
They trotted out of the firelight, shouting back mockingly at us until the cliffs overhead gave out the echoes—Ya-hough! Ya-hou-ugh! Sher Jan, bending shame-faced over the dying fire, pretended not to hear the taunts or my step when I strode over to him. Nor did he look up when I asked whether this were his promised immunity against raiders.
“Eh,” he said, “I am not rich.”
“What has that to do with thy covenant?”
“Listen to me, my lord! If I had wealth, then I could well pay the heavy tithes to the chieftains of the Hazaras and the Yuzufis. But God has not given to me wealth, so they take a little of my goods.”
“Fool! How easily thou and I could have slipped through this gorge, if thou hadst not settled here for the night and lighted a grandfather of fires!”
He stirred the embers and shook his head.
“Nay, my lord. Above us are eyes that see in the night. Besides, the next time they would have taken all my goods, and I am a poor man with only eight camels to my hand, and five daughters and three small sons to feed.”
Now I was very angry at him, because of the near loss of the dun mare and the vanishing of my silver.
“At least, Sher Jan,” I reminded him, “thou wilt have no payment for thy guidance, since thy ten dirhems have gone off with these Hazaras, with my purse.”
“God is great,” the stubborn fellow answered readily, “because my lord is a shaikh and a man of his word. Also, he is a hakim, of reputation; and soon in Kandahar he will have silver to repay his servant.”
“Repay! What have I to repay? May dogs dig up thy father's grave!”
“Nevertheless,” said Sher Jan calmly, “I asked my Lord Daril to give his money to my keeping, and he chose not so to do. What happened, he brought upon his own head.”
When he said this I kicked him into the ashes and sat down by the pot. Truly, it was not fitting for a chieftain of the Nejd, son of a chieftain, to quarrel with a carrier of goods. Convinced by my silence that he would eventually have his ten pieces, Sher Jan waited cheerfully until I had drawn the best morsels of mutton and balls of rice from the pot. He even growled out a song about the fragrant wine of Kandahar and the fine figures of the lulis, the dancing girls.
The next morning, while we climbed out of the gullies, past cliffs of veined limestone, I meditated upon the Valley of Thieves. The raiders had taken only part of the spoil they might have had. In my land, the riders of the clans would strip a stranger's caravan, but leave untouched the goods and animals of a friend. These Hazaras acted otherwise, and I thought that they were only one of many bands serving one leader. Verily, the mountains that rose, snowcapped, to the north of us might have sheltered many armies!
I was at the gale of the Mogul's empire, but what a cold and windy gate it was! Hugging his sheepskins about him, Sher Jan grinned at me.
“Only think, my lord, tonight we will walk in the alleys and look at the dancing girls, who have moon faces and sheep's eyes.”
He hurried on the camels, muttering to them of grape leaves and grass that they would feed upon that evening; he shouted out blessings on the horsemen and merchants we met coming down the trail, and he swore that he had brought me safely out of the desert—I, who had been born in the sahra. All fear had left him, and when the valley became shallow and the red rock walls drew far apart, he ran up a ridge and beckoned me.
“Now, my lord, approaches the hour of ease and profit. Look!”
Eh, what my eyes beheld was pleasant as an oasis after the sand glare and dust of the track. We stood at the edge of a wide and lofty plain, set with fruit gardens and water ditches and the yellow walls of villages. Lines of vineyards rose against the nearest hills, and pomegranate bushes with their dark, shining leaves nearly hid the water ditches. We splashed through the ford of a gentle river, and I beheld at the northern edge of the plain the domes and minarets of a city above a gray scum of leafless poplars. And above the roofs of the city towered the foundations and lofty walls of the kasr—the citadel.
I saw distant camel and mule caravans going toward the gates of Kandahar, and I thought that indeed it was a good place, a strong place, one to bring power to its master.
Sher Jan made all haste, but his beasts were weak from lack of food, and the plain was wide. Not until after the hour of evening prayer did we arrive at the nearest gate and find it closed for the night. Sher Jan swore and then besought me to go with him to the Armenian village by the river, outside the walls. It was, he said, the order of the governor that the gates should not be opened after sunset. The governor was a cautious man, and Kandahar a frontier city, perched above the dominion of the Iranis, through which we had come.
W'allahi, our road was ended. No longer did I need the guidance of Sher Jan. I told him that I would go and seek for Arabs, who are to be found on every caravan road, and always outside the walls.
Asking first of one person, then of another, I learned that some Bedouins had their tents out on the road toward Ind, where they could graze their sheep and cattle. There I dismounted and gave the mare into the hands of the youths who came out of the black goatskin tents to greet me. Many times had I fought Bedouin raiders in the sahra; but here in a strange land we were as friends, and the blind chieftain of the band sent out and had a sheep killed in my honor, and his men thronged in to talk with me.
They heaped up the fire and filled the largest copper dish with the feast of mutton and rice, murmuring their pleasure when I ate heartily. We sipped many bowls of coffee. When the great bowl had been sent out to the women and the children and the dogs, we rested at ease on the rug.
The blind chieftain said that every year they journeyed from the hill country of Persia with horses, selling them in Kandahar.
“Dost thou pay road tribute to the tribes?” I asked, thinking of the Valley of Thieves.
“Yea, Daril of Athir. And when we are within Kandahar we again pay road tax to the guards of the Mogul.”
“But the guards do not keep the road clear.” I told him of my meeting with the Hazaras.
“Will dogs keep off a wolf pack?” He shook his head. “Nay, the Pathans of these hills rob where they will.”
“Yet taking only a small part.”
“That is their custom and they obey the order given them.”
“By the governor of Kandahar?”
The blind man bared his yellow teeth and drew nearer, until his head touched my shoulder.
“By God, the chieftain in Kandahar is no man for war. The Pathans obey a stronger.”
“That must be the shah.” I had heard tales of the might of Abbas, Lord of Persia.
“Nay, they obey a voice.” The master of the tent mused awhile. “A loud and clear voice, calling to war and plunder. Some of my men have heard it, up yonder.” He motioned with his head toward the hills. “That is why we linger here, to learn what the voice of al Khimar will command.”
Indeed, al Khimar was a name to rouse the desert men—a name with memories of dark hours and great slaying. Al Khimar, The Veiled One. Once a woman had been called that, and again a prophet in Khorassan—a false prophet.
“He has spoken to the tribes,” said a youth, coming to sit by me, “promising many things and foretelling that which has already happened.”
Yea, that is the manner of prophets, to promise and foretell, and to rouse a following. Verily, in elder ages there had been some who talked with God, and since then many who lied and stirred up strife. But these Bedouins were full of mystery.
“Nay, Daril,” they cried when I said naught. “This is no common man; he eats not at all, nor does he sleep. Only at times does he appear at his place. At other times nothing living is to be seen there.”
“In one thing he hath shown his power,” grunted the blind man, “for the tribes, the Hazaras and Baluchis and Yuzufis and all the Pathans, all obey him and do not harm each other.”
“He told them to look for the coming of the great caravan bringing cotton and indigo and silver, and in the next moon it came,” put in another.
“And many muleloads of silver did the tribes take from that caravan,” added a third Bedouin, twisting his nose with his fingers, while the man of the tent sighed. It was clear to me that they envied the people of these mountains, who were guided to plunder by a truthful prophet.
“Why do they call this man al Khimar?” I asked, not wishing to mock them.
“Because he is veiled. From eyes to shoulders he wears a veil of thin white silk.”
“Then ye have seen him?”
The Bedouins exchanged glances. They knew me for a wayfarer and an Arab, still they hesitated to say what they had seen of al Khimar. One at last admitted that he had been visiting the tribes in the hills above the town, when al Khimar had appeared among them. It seemed that this prophet kept himself in a certain gorge or valley, to which there was only one entrance. Hither went the people seeking him, sometimes finding him among his rocks, sometimes not. Yet no one had ever seen him leave the gorge. The Bedouins swore by the triple oath that no food was taken him, nor had he been known to eat. They who had beheld him said that he had a clear voice—far carrying as a muezzin's cry.
“His eyes!” cried one, “oh, his eyes! They burn with dark fire.”
“What is hidden,” assented the youth eagerly, “his eyes see. How else would he have known of the coming of that great caravan bearing silver?”
“All this is strange,” grumbled the blind chieftain, who was old and irritable. “Is not a prophet a man? How can a man live up yonder with the eagles, without a fire, in such cold? Surely he eats.”
“Nay,” his followers cried at him, “it is a barren place, and he will accept no offerings of fruit or grain or any food. We have seen.”
“What thinkest thou, Lord Daril?” growled the chieftain. “These boys of mine are foolish as foals not yet licked dry. They go from me and come back with tales.”
Indeed the Bedouins are wild folk, inclined to run after whatever takes their fancy. Instead of going back with the money they had gained from the sale of the horses, they lingered here among a strange people, filling their ears with the talk of a veiled prophet.
“In what language does al Khimar speak?” I asked, unwilling to show open doubt.
“In the speech of the Pathans.”
“As one born to it, or as one who has accustomed himself to it?” I asked again.
“Verily, as one born.”
Almost I laughed at them, for the harsh speech of the Pathans, bearded men shouting among their rocks, was little known to the Arabs, and how could they judge of it? Their zeal inflamed their minds, and to argue with them would only rouse them to anger.
“O men of the tent,” I assured them, “I grant thy prophet is no common man. Still, a Pathan is as full of tricks as a dog of fleas.”
“Al Khimar hath no need of trickery,” muttered the youth who wore the cloak and girdle of a warrior. His beadlike eyes peered at me from between twisted plaits of dark hair. “Fortunate indeed, Lord Daril, art thou, that thou drewest not the sword against the followers of al Khimar. For those who pay not the tribute he slays swiftly.”
In this manner we were gossiping, lying at ease, until the blind man should dismiss his followers and allow me to sleep. Being blind, he hungered for more talk, and the night hours passed until a herd boy rode up, calling out that riders were coming up the road toward Kandahar.
A Bedouin drew back the entrance curtain of the tent, and we saw lanterns moving among the trees, and heard a man singing. The clear voice carried far in the cold air, and I knew it to be a trained voice, a minstrel's. When we saw mules laden with packs, and servants walking beside them, the Bedouins who had grasped their spears and bows lay back at ease again. Travelers with lights and luggage could not be raiders, looking for cattle to lift or tents to ride down and plunder.
“By my head!” swore the youth of the braids. “These are men of the Mogul.”
When the first riders came abreast our tent they halted, and the singer ceased his chant. A black stallion, reined in by a strong hand, stalked up to the embers of our fire, and a cloaked figure scanned us.
“Peace be upon ye,” a deep voice greeted us.
“And upon thee be the peace,” responded the blind man.
“How far to the gate of Kandahar?”
“An hour of slow riding.” The old Bedouin began to be curious, because the stranger, though not an Arab, had spoken in full voiced Arabic. “O my lord, there is no good in going forward, because all the gates are closed at sunset and they would not open to the Mogul himself.”
The stranger mused a moment.
“Is that done by order of the governor?”
“Yea, by his order.”
“Thou hast water in this place?”
“Indeed, enough for all thy beasts.”
Blind the Bedouin chieftain was, but he had learned to judge of what happened near him by sound, and he guessed there were twenty to thirty animals with the travelers. I, using my eyes, judged that there were three nobles and six servants and twenty warriors in the escort, with two or three mule drivers. By the number of soldiers and the few senators, I thought the strangers were officers. Indeed, that was the case, because the rider of the black stallion turned his head, speaking a brief order, and the followers began to off-load the mules and set up small pavilion tents in the meadow across the road, while the armed retainers dismounted and looked to their horses. The boys of our tents ran to bring water.
“O my lord,” cried the blind man, “thou who speakest our speech should take food and sleep within this tent. Verily, I am honored this night with two guests. By what name may I greet thee?”
Before any one could answer, a slender noble came to the fire—a man whose crimson cloak was lined with down, whose girdle gleamed with gold thread, who swaggered with head high, his loosely knotted silk turban clasped with a single great emerald.
“Know ye not, O men of the tents,” he cried in broken Arabic, “that I am Kushal, the songmaker? As to this lord, my companion, bring me wine and I shall tell you who he is.”
Kushal's fine voice was that of the minstrel who had been singing up the road. The Bedouins stared, because his white tunic under the cloak was spotted with fresh blood. His young face seemed pallid, though his clear eyes sparkled with mischief. Some one brought him a jar of wine, muttering that it had been taken from a Persian kafila and not tasted until now. Kushal laughed and poured himself out a goblet, emptying it down his throat with a toss of his wrist.
“My companion—” he nodded toward the rider of the stallion who was talking in the road with the warriors—“is an officer of the Padishah, the emperor, the Mogul.”
“May God grant him fortune in his service,” responded the old Bedouin courteously.
“Stay,” cried the songmaker, “thou hast not heard his name. He is Mahabat, lord of ten thousand horse.”
While Kushal poured himself another gobletful and drank, the blind chieftain frowned, responding briefly—
“May his honor be increased.”
“There is more to hear,” grinned Kushal. “He is Mahabat Khan, the most trusted general of the emperor.” And he filled his third goblet.
“Mahabat Khan, the sword of the Mogul!” cried the Bedouin, suddenly angry. “Nay—” he caught my arm—“take the wine from this loud talker, or after another drink he will swear that his companion is the prophet of God!”
Verily, the Bedouin thought the minstrel mocked his blindness. Kushal laughed a ringing laugh, heedless of the restlessness of the men in the tent. I rose from my place, but the rider of the stallion strode out of the darkness among us. In dress he was somber beside the gleaming songmaker; his dark cloak and silver inlaid mail bore no mark of distinction; his gray pugri had neither heron feather nor jewel, yet his sword had a rare hilt of goldworked ivory.
All this I saw in the first glance and knew that this man needed no ornament to mark him a chieftain. The thin, wide lips; the lean, dark head, with its hawk's beak, revealed at once passion and the iron will that controlled it; his straight back and supple limbs spoke of strength restrained. He came almost silently among us in his riding boots of soft leather. His dark eyes, brilliant under rugged brows, had the fire of untamed daring. W'allahi, this was a man to listen to and to follow!
Without impatience or annoyance he looked at Kushal, who stilled his laughter, and at the Bedouins who had grasped their weapons and risen from their places. For an instant his glance weighed me and passed on.
“Since when,” he reproved the minstrel, “has it been thy wont to mock affliction?”
Now Kushal's mirth held no guile. He had been amused when the Bedouins took the goblet from him. Yet he had not understood that the shaikh was blind, that the old man had intended no jest. As for the anger of the others, he seemed more than ready to welcome a quarrel. Yet he bandied no words with his companion.
“Thy pardon, O shaikh,” he said quickly to the old man. “Verily, by God, a stranger beholding thee and hearing thy speech doth not deem thee afflicted!”
A little mollified by the compliment, the blind man muttered—
“Eh, thou wert not born in the tents, songmaker.” He turned his head toward the man in the gray turban. “And thou, who art thou in truth?”
“The son of Ghayur of the northern hills.”
“Then thou art Mahabat Khan.” Hastily the blind chieftain rose, calling at his followers impatiently. “O fools! O sons of dogs, ye have blackened my face with dishonor. Ye have eyes and saw not that this lord should be greeted as a guest. Go and kill a sheep and prepare the dish again. Leave the tent!”
Startled and protesting, the Bedouins laid aside their weapons and went forth to cook another feast. Most of them were children and grandchildren of the gray chieftain, and endured insults from him that would have been cause for a blood feud from the lips of another. The chieftain groped about until he caught the hand of Mahabat Khan, then led him to a seat on the carpet beside him, feeling to make sure that a saddle properly covered with a rug lay ready for the arm of his distinguished guest.
“I am Abu Ashtar the Blind,” he said, “and verily this is a joyful night that brings to me the leader of a hundred thousand swords.”
For Mahabat Khan to have declined his hospitality would have been a great disappointment to Abu Ashtar, who anticipated hours of pleasant talk with a distinguished guest who could speak Arabic fluently. Although he must have been road weary and, as we learned presently, had been involved in a skirmish that afternoon, Mahabat Khan sat by the old chieftain, drinking the tea and coffee brought by the Bedouin youths and sending away his own attendants who came after a while to seek him.
Listening to their talk, I came to know that he was a Pathan born, who had sought service with the Mogul as a youth. Abu Ashtar had heard of his deeds, reciting battles unknown to me, and conquests of strange lands. Now in this winter Mahabat Khan desired to see his own people again. He had started off at once, taking only a small following and Kushal.
And when Abu Ashtar asked it, the minstrel sang to us, low voiced. He also was a Pathan, no more than a youth. The blood on his tunic had not yet turned dark, and his left arm seemed to be injured, for he would not touch the guitar slung upon his shoulder, yet the magic of his voice was such that we listened greedily while he sang of his deeds in one battle and another, and always of the glory of the Pathans.
He was a youth of fierce pride and heedlessness—a spirit that could no more keep out of trouble than an unleashed hawk out of the air. He boasted often of his skill with the bow and the sword, and yet was master of neither weapon. In battle his recklessness made him dangerous to his foes and himself, for he seldom escaped without a wound. It was a miracle that he still lived—a miracle, indeed, that he liked to sing about. A loyal friend, and an enemy greatly to be feared.
Hearing from Abu Ashtar that I was a physician, Mahabat Khan requested me to treat a sword cut on the minstrel's arm. Kushal drew back his cloak and showed me a slash running from his elbow joint through the muscles of his forearm—the wound that had soiled his garments.
After I had drawn off the hastily knotted bandage, I washed it and heated in the embers a broken spear head that lay in the tent. With this I seared the cut, Kushal smiling at me and praising my skill to show that he heeded not the pain, even while his face blanched. Then I dressed it with oil and bound it up again. With his good hand Kushal slipped a silver chain from his wrist and offered it to me.
“Nay,” I said at once, “we are guests of Abu Ashtar, and shall I take payment for easing thy hurt?”
“Why not?” he smiled, and added, “perhaps the gift should be gold instead of silver.”
He meant that I might have been offended because he offered too little. When I assured him I would lake no reward, he laughed.
“By my head, Daril, thou'lt never go far at the Mogul's court. There the greatest physicians ask the biggest prices.”
He told me how he had the wound. That afternoon Mahabat Khan's cavalcade had been stopped by a band of Hazaras who demanded a road toll.
“I told him that the roads were God's,” the minstrel cried, “and they responded that we should taste of woe if we paid not the toll. Then swords were drawn and many were slashed on our part and their's, and the man who gave me this was carried off without his arm.”
“Then ye have beaten off one of al Khimar's bands,” I cried, glad that men had been found bold enough to stand against these robbers.
Mahabat Khan glanced at me questioningly, and I told him what had befallen me in the Valley of Thieves, adding much that I had since heard in Abu Ashtar's tent. The Pathan lord listened intently and said gravely that he had heard of a veiled prophet in the hills.
“But not a tax gathering prophet,” laughed Kushal.
Mahabat Khan asked the old Bedouin if the governor of Kandahar had not armed strength enough to put an end to such exactions.
“His strength is like a camel's,” responded Abu Ashtar with a grunt, “good for work in the alleys and the plain, but no good for climbing mountains. Bism'allah! When the governor sends horsemen after the raiders they catch no one; when he sends search parties into the upper gorges they find no one. When he patrols the roads, the men of al Khimar wait until the merchants go forth or come a second time and then take thrice the toll, so that travelers take pains to pay the price to the Veiled One without delay.”
“And if they pay not?”
Abu Ashtar shook his head.
“At first some merchants who did not pay were put to death in their houses in Kandahar. The men of the Veiled One come and go unseen. Since then no one has refused, until thy coming. As to thee, who knows? Thy great name may safeguard thee, and perhaps al Khimar will content himself with slaying one of thy men.”
“If he does that,” swore Kushal, “he will have made a blood enemy of Mahabat Khan and ye will see the Veiled One torn out of his rocks. Mahabat Khan does not suffer a man of his to be slain, unavenged.”
Eh, IT was a little matter, the talk of that evening in the tent of the Bedouins—the compassion of the Pathan general upon the blind man who made two feasts in one night for unexpected guests. Yet I had reason to remember the talk.
In Kushal I gained a friend. When Mahabat Khan withdrew to sleep, the minstrel insisted I should come to his own tent, a comfortable place well strewn with carpets and robes. Thither the next day while Kushal still slept, after the midday meal had been brought us, came one who cried my name loudly.
“Lord Daril! Fortune awaits thee.”
This was Sher Jan, my camel driver, and I cursed him for making a tumult in the camp of the strangers.
“Nay, thou'lt bless me when I have told thee the reason for my coming, O my lord. The most splendid of reasons. I swear to thee by all the holy names that I have not ceased to labor for thee in the last night. I proclaimed thy skill in the streets and taverns, and this morning a servant sought me with a message. There is no other physician worth his price in Kandahar.”
This was not strange, because Persians skilled in medicine were more apt to attach themselves to some powerful noble or prince of a reigning family than to shut themselves up in a frontier town. And Arab physicians are much sought after.
“The message is written,” continued Sher Jan with broad satisfaction, “and I have it in my girdle. The servant wore clean linen and gave me—” he swallowed hard and twisted his words—“directions how to reach the house where there is need of thee. And that is not all.”
He grinned and stooped down to my head.
“By God,the summons is from a hanim!”
He meant either a wife of a noble or a daughter, and this pleased me little. For the hardest work of a physician is in visiting the women behind the curtain. In my land, where my name was known, the Arabs let me look upon the faces and at need the bodies of their sick daughters. But in Persia I had been forced to judge the health of an ailing woman by feeling the pulse in the arm she thrust through a curtain, and by a few questions.
I looked at the missive Sher Jan drew forth—a tiny square of scented paper bearing a few words written in a skilled hand.
   Greeting to the Arab hakim. An afflicted woman hath need of thee and reward for thee.
“Why was not the summons from the lord of the house?” I asked, wondering.
“By the Ka'aba!” observed Kushal, sitting up on his rug. “Thou art the first man, Daril, to ask that when a fair hanim summons thee.”
Our talk had roused him, and he stretched his good arm out for the paper. When he had read it he laughed.
“Allah, what more canst thou wish?”
“Lord Daril,” put in Sher Jan, gazing at the minstrel approvingly, “the servant said that his mistress was alone, without the men of her family.”
Then, surely, she was a singing girl or public dancer, for otherwise she would be guarded. Still, the servant or Sher Jan or both might be lying.
“What is the matter with her?” I asked.
The camel driver lifted his hands and shook his head.
“O my lord, what does that matter? Anyway, she is very beautiful and it is certain thou wilt receive many times the ten pieces of silver. Remember—”
“Be still, brother of a dog!”
But it was not easy to silence Sher Jan's tongue. The witless man had determined to see me earn the silver that he thought I owed him and had cried my skill through all Kandahar. Probably he had been given some money, to find me.
“Remember, my lord,” he whispered loudly, “to reward thy follower. Take care to make the affliction seem to be a great one requiring many visits and blood letting, and stiffen thy price thereby.”
“Wait, I will not delay thee long, Daril,” cried Kushal, calling for his servant. “I must change these soiled things for better ones before approaching a hanim.”
“Thou!”
“No help for it. Mahabat Khan is talking politics with the governor, and I must escort thee.”
While he spoke he helped his man put clean linen on his slender figure, until he stood garbed in rose pink brocade that heightened the color of the great emerald in his white headgear. Then he put on an embroidered coat with sleeves and collar edged with soft sable, and around his waist he wrapped a green and gold girdle, taking care to leave the coat open at his breast to show the fine brocade beneath. Then he washed his face and hands in water scented with attar of rose and slipped his feet into pearl sewn riding slippers. W'allahi, never had I seen such a splendid youth! I could not help looking down at my dull black headcloth and heavy brown mantle and dust stiffened sandals, while Sher Jan walked around the minstrel, grunting his amazement and satisfaction at this elegance.
I told Kushal that I had need of no escort and that he was clad for an audience at court rather than a visit to a sick woman and that, in any case, be would not be admitted to the presence of the hanim.
“If she is really beautiful,” he smiled, “I will admit myself; if she is ugly I will go off without troubling you.”
Eh, there was no checking him. On a freshly groomed white charger he galloped all the way to Kandahar, putting my fleet footed mare to her best paces. He offered to buy the mare of me and, when I refused, to cast dice for both horses. At the gate of the mud wall where some Mogul soldiery lounged, he reined in until they scrambled up to salaam to him, thinking him a grandee of Ind.
Perforce, we had to wait for Sher Jan and his follower, who had done their best to keep up with us, without avail. They were far down the road. This interval of quiet the minstrel spent in gazing at the bare ridges to the north, red bulwarks against the blue of the sky.
“Those mountains are like sleeping lions, Daril,” he said under his breath.
The tawny masses did have the shape of crouching beasts, and Kandahar itself stretched up toward them along a ridge, as if one of the lions had thrust a paw down into the plain. Outside the gray mud wall were endless orchards and hamlets of many people, Tajiks, Jews, Baluchis—the followers of the caravan track.
Inside the wall the city rose, tier above tier, crowning the summit of the ridge, to the yellow stone citadel where the banner of the Mogul rose and fell in the wind gusts.
Sher Jan came up, beating his nag—that he had borrowed or stolen in the night—and led us through the crowds and dust and kneeling camels of the market-place, crying out to clear a path for us. Then he turned up the street that led toward the citadel. It was so steep that stone steps had been built at places, a dirt path being left for the horses. But Kushal urged his white charger up the stairs, mocking me when I did not follow.
Not until we were within arrow shot of the gate of the governor's castle did Sher Jan halt and peer at the walls of houses and courtyards that lined the street solidly on either hand. He quested about, and knocked at the wooden gate of a court.
The portals opened at once, without question or the barking of dogs. Sher Jan drew back, suspicious at this silence, but Kushal swung his horse aside from the steps and paced in.
A dozen armed men, who might have been Gipsies or Baluchis, stared steadily at his magnificent figure. They were lying around a fire, shivering under leafless poplars, even in the sun, for the winds of Kandahar came out of snow filled gorges. Kushal greeted them, and one stepped forward to hold his horse. The one door of the white house behind the poplars opened and a bearded Persian came and stared in his turn from the minstrel to me. Seeing Sher Jan, his face cleared and he hastened to my stirrup, bidding me dismount and enter. But he would not allow Kushal to accompany me, and the minstrel kept his saddle.
1 followed the bearded keeper of the door through a corridor and up a winding stair that ended in a curtain. Here, as if she had been listening for our steps, a young slave appeared out of a niche.
“The hakim—the hakim of Arabistan,” explained he of the beard, and the veiled girl giggled when she salaamed, slipping through the curtain and beckoning me to follow.
The Persian folded his arms and took his stand at the head of the stair, as if to show me that he would stay there until I left.
I parted the curtain and went forward, feeling beneath my toes the richness of a fine carpet. Into my nostrils crept the scent of rose leaves and of the incense that smoldered within a copper jar before me.
The only light came from a round, heavily latticed window by the far corner, and the sun's rays, coming through the lattice, pierced dimly the hanging wreaths of smoke. Near at hand I heard the fluttering of birds, the whirr of wings and tiny scrape of claws.
“The carpet will not harm thee, O shaikh! Sit, and fear not.”
The voice was young and amused and so low that I barely heard the words above the stir of the hidden birds and splashing of a fountain.
“Nay, not there; here in the sun,” it said.
So I seated myself under the window, drawing my mantle about me, and the speaker seemed to find more food for amusement in that.
“What is this? An old gray eagle! I thought thee a physician. Nay, thy manners smack of the tents, and thy sword is an omen of blood, and thy face is that of a father of battles.”
“Can the eye of youth,” I asked, “discern the wisdom of age? Judge thou whether I have a physician's skill or no.”
By now I could see a couch under the round aperture, and upon the couch the outstretched form of a girl whose slender feet within touch of my hand were white as jasmine, whose ankles were bound with bracelets of flashing sapphires. Her head, unveiled, was no more than a shadow, beneath the smoke clouded sunbeams. And yet the shadow seemed to be tipped with gold.
“But all physicians,” she cried, “act in a manner that is not thine. Nay, they bow to earth and come forward with ready compliments and rare promises.”
“No doubt they were Persians,” I said and she laughed a little, for she spoke in the Persian manner, and boldly, as if she were a woman who knew how to command men.
“Wilt thou cure me by burning or by letting blood or by purging?” she asked.
“What troubles thee?”
She mused a space and said gravely that sleep would not come to her, and sometimes her eyes pained her.
“Stretch forth thy hand,” I bade her.
I pressed my fingers upon the artery in her slender wrist. In leaning forward her head came more into the light, and I saw that her hair was yellow as sunburned wheat. And the touch of her skin was cool and moist, the beat of the pulse as true and mild as the drip of the fountain. I withdrew my hand.
“Thine eyes,” I asked, “let me see them.”
“The light pains them,” she murmured, keeping in her shadow, and beginning all at once to chatter like a parrot aroused.
She questioned me as to my travels, and the road to Kandahar, and whether I had been robbed. To this I made answer that I had been captive to the Persians, and she clapped her hands, summoning the slave girl who brought sherbet, cold and sweet, and dates, full flavored and good, like the dates of my land. I thought of Kushal, sitting impatient below, and smiled.
“Hanim,” I said before tasting her offering. “I can do naught for thee. Thy health is good, and to my thinking all that ails thee is curiosity.”
Once or twice before I had been summoned by women who had grown weary of confinement behind curtain and veil—who could go forth only to the mosque and the bath, and wished to hear talk of the world. In the shadow under the incense smoke her eyes dwelt upon me, whether amused or angry I could not know. I was ill pleased to be summoned thus at the whim of a girl, and the insistence of a camel driver; and yet, shameless though she must be, because unveiled, there was charm in the music of her voice.
“O father of battles,” she said reprovingly, “thy hand is more accustomed to the sword hilt than the lancet. I am weary for my land and feverish with longing for my mountains, the snow mountains by the Sea of the Eagles.”
Verily, such longing can be no less than fever, and I too longed at times for the bare sahra and its clear night skies. Because it seemed to me that she had spoken the truth, and because I was partaking of her salt and perhaps because I wished to keep Kushal out in the courtyard where he could not stir up any mischief, I talked with her, answering the murmur of her questions.
She told me her name was Nisa. She was a Circassian, born in the mountain land of Persia, a singer who wandered from city to city. For months she had been pent up in Kandahar, because she feared to take the road down into Ind, where the riders of al Khimar might despoil her of possessions or carry her off.
She asked me about my capture by the pasha, and I told her the truth—that I had seen this pasha, the ambassador of the great shah of Persia, slain in a hill tower, and the gifts he was escorting into Ind scattered among thieving Kurds. Then she asked me if I had seen any nobles of the shah hunting near the frontier.
“I shall go back,” she cried softly, “if I can find protection upon the road. Kandahar is full of merchants and hillmen and I am weary of it.”
“Would the shah's nobles hunt in winter?” I made response.
“Yea, if the whim came to them.”
I told her I had passed only one camp, at a distance, where I had seen Persian Red Hat soldiery and many horses, doubtless the frontier guards.
And then Kushal made himself heard. A guitar struck the first light notes of melody, and he sang—I knew not what. Nisa grew silent at once, and I thought that she must have watched us from the window, because she made no effort to look out to see who the minstrel might be.
But the song had the rush of galloping hoofs and the ripple of laughter and the harsh notes of anger, and when I rose and looked through the lattice, I beheld Kushal on his white horse among the warriors of the courtyard. They were sitting, agape, grinning and listening with all their ears.
It was a Pathan love song, this—a thing of fire and grief and passion, and the warriors enjoyed it. When Kushal ceased and bent his head over the guitar and adjusted its strings, Nisa whispered a question.
“Who is the young lord?”
I told her that he was a minstrel of Mahabat Khan's, and she rose to her knees to watch him, the sunlight coming full against her face for the first time. W'allahi, it was my turn to stare!
Unveiled, clouded with pale gold tresses penned beneath a silver fillet, her eyes dark as pools at night, her lips small and fine as the seal of a signet ring, what a face it was! Too young for richness of beauty, too impulsive for peace of mind—it was the face of a child of peristan, of elfland, wilful and careless and still tender.
And that moment Kushal chose to ride up under the window. Perhaps he could see her through the lattice or perhaps he heard her whisper, for his ears were keen as his wits and his head was no more than a lance length from the opening.
Nay, she did not complain then of the sun glare or of aching eyes, for she pressed close to the wooden fretwork, and Kushal surely beheld her face. An instant he stared, his fingers fumbling the guitar, then he smiled and salaamed, crying—
“The praise to God who created fair women!” Musing a moment he put his thought into song, choosing a lilting Persian melody, thus:
“Swords are sharpened for a blow.
Tresses perfumed for a lover— Everything is created so.
Is it, or not?”
Nisa, resting on a slender arm, cuddled down to listen, and the slave girl clapped her hands soundlessly.
“Eyes were given me to see
Maiden's beauty. Thus, I fancy.
Everything was made to be— Was it, or not?”
Not once did the songmaker seem to remember the armed henchmen at his back, nor did he once falter for a word.
“Lips were given thee to kiss
And banish sorrow. Nay, thou sayest,
'Everything was made for this!'
Was it, or not?”
The slave girl was sighing with admiration, but Nisa chose to laugh—a soft trill that provoked and mocked, not less melodiously than Kushal's song. Kushal's eyes lighted at the sound.
“Open the casement,” Nisa ordered her woman, and when this was done, she turned at once to look back at me. “Verily, Lord Daril, thy companion resembles a peacock in splendor and in self conceit, and his voice is as harsh as a peacock's.”
Now Kushal's improvised song had been put in a Persian measure, and was not to be compared to his native chants, but often I had seen a minstrel rewarded with a jeweled bracelet for less than that, by a pleased patron. Of course, Nisa being a woman, a reward was the last thing he expected.
“Throw him a coin,” Nisa whispered quite distinctly to her maid. “Nay, not gold—silver.”
Naturally the slave girl giggled and, after a moment's search, a silver dirhem was tossed from the casement by the maid. Kushal's face darkened and he sat rigid in the saddle, his eyes fastened upon Nisa's face.
“Close the casement,” she whispered, glancing from beneath long lashes at the motionless minstrel.
Although I was not ill pleased to behold Kushal's pride touched, I had seen enough of the girl's pranks.
“Thou hast my leave to depart,” she said idly, and slipped from the couch to accompany me to the curtain, which was strange.
Here we met the bearded steward in argument with one of the warriors of the courtyard, and they both looked unhappy when they saw their mistress.
“What is upon you?” she asked at once.
The armed retainer squirmed and held out a closed fist.
“Ai, hanim, a message from the lord who sang, he of the white horse.”
“What, then?”
“These words, 'The gift of Kushal Kattack, who has many times bestowed a diamond for a glimpse of a fair face.'”
The slender Circassian brushed back the tangle of her tresses and held out her hand. The man opened his fingers reluctantly and yielded up a single copper coin.
“This was his gift.”
Nisa's left hand flew toward his girdle, as if to grasp the hilt of a dagger, and the messenger shrank back. Then, looking amused, she let the copper piece roll down the stair and waved the two servitors to follow it. They went gladly, and I thought that she had made them fear her anger before now.
Verily, by pretending that she had appeared at the casement for a price, Kushal had matched her treatment of him—and he had not stopped to think that we were shut up with a dozen of the Circassian's armed followers. When she dismissed the maid, after the two men, I began to watch for a storm.
“Art thou his friend?” she asked in a whisper.
I pondered, and nodded. For a night I had dwelt in his tent, sharing his salt.
She looked at me searchingly, and twice seemed to check the words that rose to her lips. Seldom will a woman do thus.
“Then bear him this message—to him alone. Warn him thus, 'If Kushal abides in Kandahar a week he will meet the hour of his death.'”
She spoke impatiently and so softly that I barely caught the words. As to me, she said naught, and I went from her presence wondering. If he had offended her, why should she delay taking vengeance upon him? If she had reason to fear for him, why did she not summon him up and warn him herself? It seemed likely enough that Kushal had enemies in Kandahar—and everywhere.
When we had rid ourselves of Sher Jan, outside the courtyard gate, I gave him Nisa's message, and he smiled.
“No doubt she would like to see me run, as a jackal flees a lion's den.”
“As to that I know not, and God alone knows what is behind a woman's words. After all, she is a singing girl, without shame.”
To my surprise he turned upon me fiercely.
“Allah kerim! Thou liest, Daril! Those eyes—” He meditated, with an inward struggle. “True, she is without shame, knowing not its meaning. She is a child, untaught.”
“She said she was a singing girl, and she meets men unveiled.”
“I thought thee wiser, Daril. I'll wager my horse and purse she knows no more evil than that pigeon.”
He pointed up at a blue pigeon that had swept down out of the west, circling above the poplars. Fluttering, it dropped out of sight upon the roof of Nisa's dwelling. In the clear, level sunlight of late afternoon I caught the flash of silver upon one of its claws.
“A messenger pigeon,” I laughed, but Kushal frowned.
“Why did she summon thee?” he asked moodily.
“To question me and amuse herself; nay, she has mocked us.”
Kushal glanced again at the blank white wall of the house and reined forward savagely. While we had been idling in this fashion at the Circassian's, the followers of Mahabat Khan had moved forward into Kandahar, taking up quarters in a large house offered the Khan by the governor, who had not known until this day of the coming of the foremost soldier of Ind. To this house Kushal now made his way, saying nothing at all.
And here I would have parted from him, to go back to the Arabs' camp, had not one of the troopers of Mahabat Khan galloped forth to meet us.
“Hai, for an hour the order of Mahabat Khan has awaited thee, to go at once to him at the governor's hall!”
Kushal shook off his meditation and gathered up his reins.
“The Arab physician likewise,” added the man.
His voice had a ring to it, and his eyes looked ominous. Beyond him, in the pomegranate garden of the dwelling other troopers walked about among their saddled horses, talking vehemently. I saw for the first time that these followers of Majabat Khan were Rajput horsemen, warriors too proud of their own birth and worth to serve any lord of another race who was not a man of the utmost courage and as careful of honor as themselves. And at this moment they looked as if they wanted nothing more than to take to the sword and saddle.
“What has happened?” Kushal asked.
“Enough!” said the trooper, chewing his beard. “When the Sirdar—” in this fashion they named Mahabat Khan—“rode through the market place of this city, a man dressed as a pilgrim drew a tulwar and ran at him. Rai Singh, riding at the Sirdar's flank, saw him and spurred forward, taking the blow in his breast. Thus the man failed to do harm to our lord.”
“Allah! And then?”
“The man of the tulwar fled through the bazaars, and we heard this cry, 'The stroke of al Khimar!' Who cried out, we know not. The Sirdar drove his horse into the crowd, but the assassin escaped. Rai Singh died in these last moments, after the Sirdar had gone to the governor. Tell him so.”
While we trotted toward the citadel the same thought came to both of us—that al Khimar had dared take vengeance for the skirmish of yesterday.
At that time Baki the Wise was governor of Kandahar. Kwajah Baki, frugal and penny saving, a learned reader of books, a good man for accounts and management, who trusted no soothsayers, but studied the stars himself, making calculations of fortunate and evil days. Wise indeed he was, but too fearful to be a good soldier, though he was the son of a Pathan chieftain and a Persian mother.
We found his palace to be evidence of his peculiarity. The walls were bare of tapestries, the carpets were mended, the servants meanly dressed. Even the merchants and officers who awaited audience with him had come garbed in common stuffs, and the worn slippers that they left at the threshold were no better than my sandals.
And Baki himself we found not in the fountain garden nor in the tiled reception hall, but perched in the high round tower at the rear of the citadel, at a table covered with rolls of paper. We were escorted to this chamber, where Mahabat Khan nodded to us and spoke our names to the governor.
Baki had the large clear eyes and pale skin of the man who goes forth seldom into the sun. His black cotton tunic and loose red khalat seemed to make up in color what they lacked in ornament. He looked fixedly at Kushal's elegance and turned his back upon us, with a curt greeting.
“As to the wound of thy follower,” he said to Mahabat Khan, resuming his conversation without heeding us, “that is one of the least of the injuries inflicted by al Khimar.”
“Rai Singh is dead,” remarked Kushal.
Mahabat Khan glanced at him and nodded again, clasping his lean hands between his knees. Baki and he sat upon the low, carpet covered platform that ran around the wall, while Kushal and I stood before them, there being no fit sitting place on the clay floor of the governor's workroom.
“O Kwajah,” said the Pathan Sirdar quietly, “thou has heard. My men will expect me to find the murderer.”
“How?” asked Baki crisply. He had a keen mind and the gift of plain words. “By now the man who did it is hidden in any one of a hundred cellars. By night-fall he will be lowered over the city wall, on his way to the hills. Once there thou and I could search for a month and only see more men slain.”
“Then he is from the tribes? He wore pilgrim's dress.”
“So do a thousand others who journey from Ind to the shrines of Meshed and Mecca yearly. When al Khimar is pleased to murder in Kandahar, it is his whim to dress his swordsmen so.”
Mahabat Khan called Baki's attention to us.
“This companion of mine was wounded in fighting off raiders yesterday, and this physician was robbed of his silver in a place called the Valley of Thieves, all within thy territory.”
The governor pressed his thin lips together and thrust out his chin.
“B'illah! Hadst thou advised me of thy coming, Mahabat Khan, I would have sent two hundred troopers to escort thee.”
“The fault is not thine,” Mahabat Khan said grimly, “but the responsibility is thine.”
“Nay,” retorted Baki, “it is God's, who made hillmen—Pathans and Hazaras. Were the Veiled One in Kandahar I could scent him out and make an end of him. But he does not leave his gorge. Only his men wander in and out—excellent spies by all tokens, because they inform him of the coming of the caravans.”
“Were any caught?”
Baki spread out his hands.
“Two were caught and accused by twenty witnesses. I tortured them and put them to death thereafter, they swearing by the life of God that they knew naught of al Khimar. And the next day a message was dropped from the wall at my feet, saying that they had died speaking the truth and al Khimar knew them not.”
Verily, he was a man of peace like myself, desiring quiet to finish his tablets of solar equations and movements of the moon.
“In the end,” he said moodily, “it was clear to me that the twenty accusers were al Khimar's men, and the twain that I slew were enemies of his. In this fashion he cast dirt upon my beard.”
“A prophet who sheds blood!” Kushal cried.
“Yea,” assented the governor, “who sheds blood to clear the path he means to follow.”
“And that path?” Mahabat Khan looked up.
“Leads to war. Promising war and loot, he is rousing the tribes of the hills.” Suddenly Baki rose, drawing his heavy coat about his thin shoulders. “Come!”
He unlocked the narrow door behind his table, and a gust of wind whirled into the chamber. We followed him upon a spiral stair that led upward past embrasures to the roof of the tower. Whoever built this tower of the citadel had meant it for a lookout. A solid parapet, breast high, ran around it.
Leaning against this wall, our robes tossed by the buffeting of the icy wind, we could see all Kandahar and the fertile plain below. It was then the hour of early afternoon, after the third prayers.
“Look,” cried Baki the Wise, “and you will see why al Khimar prevails against me.”
Mahabat Khan was silent, his dark eyes running over every point of the citadel, as a chess player gazes at the men on the board, with thought for strength of attack and defense.
Indeed, this was a strong kasr, a fort to be held by few against many. On three sides a rocky ditch lay under the wall, which had been built of yellow stone, buttressed and sloping sharply upward four or five times the height of a man. The one large gate of black wood, ironbound and studded, was set in the maw of a squat tower. Instead of the usual litter of stables and stalls against the inner side of the wall, the space was clear to the inner citadel, also of solid stone, rising roof above roof toward this wind blasted tower.
And the tower sat back squarely against the soaring ridge of the mountain behind us. I could have cast a javelin against the rocky face of the mountain, with its gaping fissures and jagged pinnacles.
To right and left, clear in the glow of the evening sky, other arms of the mountains stretched down toward the dark line of poplars that marked the highway from Ind to Persia. A dozen shadow filled gorges led back to the upper slopes of the hills, and it was clear to me that raiders coming from the heights could choose their valley and strike and flee unharmed.
“Listen!” exclaimed Baki, shivering in his wraps.
Below the walls of the citadel all Kandahar was astir, perhaps aroused by the parties of Mogul guards who searched in vain for the murderer.
“Ya hu—ya hak!”
Beggars, scenting profit in the confusion, cried the louder, pulling at the horsemen and cursing those who beat them off. Dust rose about them like a veil, swirling up in the hot air that lurked in the alleys, smelling of camels and dirty cotton and burning dung. Women screamed down from the roofs, abuse mingled with praise and questions for all the world to hear.
“With three hundred men,” said Baki, “I am given the duty of holding Kandahar and collecting the tax of the Mogul. Half my men are Pathans, cousins of the hill dogs, fire-eaters, who would like nothing better than to loot on their own account. The landholders in the plain will not support me, because they say I tax them too heavily. The wandering folk who have come down to camp here for the winter are more afraid of al Khimar than of me. Mahabat Khan, I watch, and I will hold the fort if I am attacked. I have posted guards at the trail that leads to the devil's aerie. Here!”
He led us to the west side of the tower and, shading my eyes, I looked down into the haze of a bare ravine under the city wall at the gray river winding through its depths. On my right hand the ravine wound up into the hills, and a thin column of smoke showed where Baki's outpost camped by the river, within sight of the tower.
“That is well done,” said Mahabat Khan gravely.
Baki peered at him curiously, no doubt wondering if the Sirdar meant to complain of him to the Mogul. In truth this was not the place for Baki, a man whose years had been passed in the academies, who craved solitude and was fearful of the unseen. A strong hand and a ready sword were needed to keep this mountain gate for the Mogul.
“There is a way to take the slayer of Rai Singh,” went on the Pathan, and Baki shook his head, thinking he would be asked for men or money.
“How?” he asked.
“Write thou a summons to al Khimar, bidding him find the man and send him to thee, bound.”
“For what price?”
“For no price; seal it with thy seal.”
Baki and Kushal both looked at him to see if he jested, but Mahabat Khan led the way back to the cell-like chamber, and the governor wrote some words in Pushtu upon a paper.
“Who will take this, Mahabat Khan?” he asked, pausing.
“I will be responsible for that.”
When he had signed his name, Baki rubbed some ink on a corner of the paper, and pressed his signet ring into the ink, then rolled up the missive and thrust it into a plain wooden tube.
“O Sirdar,” he said, as he handed the tube to Mahabat Khan, “thy coming hath cast the torch of strife into the framework of my administration. Should harm befall thee, my trouble will be grief indeed. So I beg of thee to go upon thy way, relating the plight of Kandahar at the court of our illustrious lord, the Emperor of Ind, so that aid may be sent me and my hand strengthened against these hill dogs.”
“Aye,” smiled the Pathan, “I will do that, after I have delivered the murderer of Rai Singh to my men.”
Baki's eyes darkened, and his lips closed in a straight line. Verily, he knew his own mind and did not lack conviction.
“Art thou the Sirdar, conqueror of Bengal, victor in twenty battles, lord of twenty thousand horse, or the son of Ghayur, meddler in feuds and thievery?”
“Both,” responded Mahabat Khan, pulling at his mustache. “O Baki, when an obligation is laid upon thee, dost thou put thy hand to its fulfillment or mount thy horse and ride away?”
Baki smote thin fists together, his slender body rigid as a lance shaft, under its poor and ill fitting clothes.
“By God, Mahabat Khan, it is my duty to hold Kandahar for the Emperor! And thou, riding at pleasure, art bound to anger al Khimar and give him the very pretense for war that he seeks!” He raised both fists over his head, struggling with anger. “At least, take care whom thou sendeth into the hills with this message, for al Khimar will send thee back his head and then thou wilt have two blood feuds on thy hands instead of one.”
“Then will thy troubles be at an end.”
So said the Pathan, rising to go forth, and I pondered the riddle of his words until we had mounted and left the citadel. Then I saw a little of what was in his mind, for he signed to me to come to his side.
“Daril, hast thou a mind to serve the Mogul?”
“Yea, my lord—as a physician.”
He smiled fleetingly, white teeth flashing under his clipped mustache.
“Thou art not a man of ready promises. Good! Ride to the tents of Abu Ashtar, and lead him to me before the first hour of this night, with three of his men.”
“They are Bedouins, serving no lord. For what reason shall I bid them come?”
“Ask if they wish to increase their honor.”
“How?” I questioned, knowing that they would demand to be told.
Mahabat Khan was little accustomed to quibbling over a command, but he seemed to know the men of the tents.
“Bid them come, and learn. Shall I be feasted by Abu Ashtar and not kill a sheep for him?”
Not with three Bedouins, but with eleven, did I come to Mahabat Khan's house in the second hour of that night. At first they had refused loudly, fearing both the walls and the guards of Kandahar, and doubtless with good reason, because of thefts committed by them in the past. But the Father of the Blind had the courage of his affliction, and it was a matter of honor to accept the Sirdar's invitation—of honor and good eating. When he had scolded his men for their fears and announced that he would go alone with me, they all began to think in another fashion and begged to come. Abu Ashtar rode a fine mare, with embroidered caparisoning and silk saddle cloth and fringed reins.
Kushal greeted him at the courtyard of the Sirdar's quarters and led him and his men to the fire, where a whole sheep was boiling. The songmaker explained that his master begged to be excused, as he was with the Rajputs in the chamber where the body of Rai Singh lay. Some of the Rajputs came forth presently and greeted us, taking no part in the feast, for they were Hindus. They seemed both restless and troubled, and Kushal was buried in his thoughts. But the servants brought forth many dishes, offering saffron and dates and sherbet with the mutton, and my companions stuffed themselves comfortably.
When we had licked clean our fingers, Kushal led us into the first room of the house. There, as we sat against the wall, I beheld in the dim light of a hanging lanthorn a tall Pathan striding back and forth. The step and the poise of the head were familiar, and presently I knew him by his beaked nose and lean chin to be Mahabat Khan.
W'allahi, but he had changed more than his garments! His loose, soiled pugree with its hanging end, his long wool shirt and rusty chain mail, his baggy breeches bound to the knee with odds and ends of cloth, and his once splendid padded and embroidered coat—all these looked and smelled like those of a thieving hillman, and even the gold chain bearing some talisman at his throat, and the battered silver armlets were no more than evidence of plunder taken from a slain foeman. He walked like a man accustomed to stride over boulders and climb goat paths.
The keen eyes of the Bedouins recognized him; and they waited for him to speak.
“O Abu Ashtar,” he said, “I asked only for three men—three who know the way to the den of al Khimar.”
The blind chieftain muttered uneasily:
“We are horse traders, strangers in these hills. How should we know the paths?”
“The talk was otherwise in thy tent. I ask for three men to go with Daril and with me.”
Even then I could not believe that Mahabat Khan meant to enter the hills. I thought he was playing a trick, and the Bedouins answered in chorus that they knew nothing of the veiled prophet and his people.
“Are ye al Khimar's men?” he said, smiling.
“Nay, lord. We are—”
“Choose ye the three who will go,” he bade them. “Let Abu Ashtar choose. I ask for three to go up the river gorge, to point out the way to the sangar, and thereafter to watch our horses. No more than that; nor will any blame be upon them.”
He went away then to talk with Kushal, and the Bedouins turned upon me, accusing me of betraying them. I had a moment to reflect and decided how to answer them.
“What is upon ye?” I cried. “This Sirdar hath a feud with al Khimar. Think ye he will go into the hills and betray ye? Fear ye the river gorge or Baki's guards?”
“Nay, we fear the anger of the Veiled One.”
But Abu Ashtar had been meditating, and now he announced suddenly that his men should go. It was better, he said, to obey the Sirdar. If all went well there would be a reward. The truth was that Abu Ashtar had realized that he himself would be held as a hostage by the Rajputs, and he scoffed loudly at the misgivings of the youths who, he said, were eager enough to slink off and listen to the prophet, but reluctant to earn something for him. So the youth with the lovelocks bethought him and offered to go with me, and likewise two of his companions.
Why did I go with the Sirdar? I had brought the Bedouins to Kandahar and I was responsible for the three men to Abu Ashtar. And then it was not easy to refuse Mahabat Khan, who had power to cast us into chains, but who asked no more of us than suited our minds. Eh, before the end came I watched him take command in truth; but that was not yet.
Only once that night did he use his authority, when we four reached the eastern gate of the city. He drew aside the officer of the guard, and presently the gate was opened—against Baki's order. I have often wondered what the Sirdar said to that man!
For a while we rode east, then circled through the outer camps, until we were heading west. So we reached the river fer out from the wall and dropped into the path that wound toward the dark mouth of the gorge.
“Sahib,” I said, drawing abreast Mahabat Khan, “this venture is not wise. There is peril for thee; and as for me, if thou art harmed, Baki will crucify me, and thy troopers will light a fire under my toes. If harm comes to the Bedouins, Abu Ashtar will make an end of me.”
“Thou shalt go with me,” he laughed.
“Whither?” I wondered. “To deliver the message to that prophet?”
“Perhaps.”
“That is madness, for al Khimar cares naught for the power of the Mogul.”
“Nay,” he said, “it would be madness to hang about the streets of Kandahar after what has happened. Tell me, Daril, if thou wert riding upon an open road and an arrow sped against thee out of the brush, what would best be done? To ride on, or to turn thy horse swiftly into the brush?”
“To turn aside and hide, and then watch,” I made answer.
“Aye,” he said, “and that is what we shall do.”
When we drew near the outpost in the ravine, the Bedouins thought that the Sirdar would ride in boldly and make himself known; and that would be folly, if eyes were watching from the hills.
Instead, he turned off the path and climbed a ridge, bidding us dismount and warning me to take care that the mare did not whinny. He led us among boulders and bunches of camel thorn without hesitating, and I thought that he had marked this course from the tower that afternoon. The Bedouins moved almost silently beside their unshod beasts. The mutter of the river filled the ears of the guards beside the fire. Perhaps they heard us—once the pack pony stumbled heavily, and we waited, listening for a challenge, but I think they were content enough to stay by the road and keep their skins whole. A hundred men could have passed them as we did.
When the fire was too far behind to outline our figures, Mahabat Khan led us down again to the path and halted.
“Lead ye,” he said to the Bedouins. And when they would have pushed past, he checked them and whispered.
“I am called Mahabat Khan—aye, of the Lodi Pathans. I came to Kandahar to sell horses, and I have come hither with you to hear the prophet preach. Is that understood?”
“Yea,” they answered.
They had been surprised when he led them past the picket, and more surprised that he thought to warn them of a name and a tale to tell when questioned. And I too began to see that the Sirdar was not on strange footing in these hills. As for the name, there might have been a hundred Mahabat Khans within the borders of Ind. Who would think that he assumed his own name?
But now he was no longer the Sirdar. He had left his authority down below at the outpost. From now on he was to be Mahabat Khan, horse trader of the north, and if his disguise failed him he could expect to be held until al Khimar was paid what ransom he might deem fitting. That, at the best—at the worst it meant a dead Sirdar and endless trouble for me.
Yet he seemed well content.
Within an hour the Bedouins drew rein and waited until we came up.
“There is the way,” they said. “May God protect you!”
We had gone forward no more than an hour from the outpost, and the valley was still open, the gleam of the river clear to our eyes. On our right hand the slope fell away, divided sharply, and I stared into the utter darkness of a narrow gorge. Toward this they pointed.
“We will wait here with the horses. Keep close to the rock on your right hand.”
The Sirdar dismounted; I said something about torches.
“Nay, Daril,” the Bedouins said in chorus, “al Khimar's men will shoot at any light. We will guard the horses and the packs.”
“But the covenant was that you should show the way,” I objected.
The air tasted of ice, and the wind cut through my robes, and my joints ached too much to relish climbing upon a mountain such as this that towered over us.
“Nay,” they cried instantly, “Mahabat Khan asked only that we should keep the horses; the beasts can not go upon that path. Inshallum, it is not very far to the sangar!”
Nevertheless, I saw that the graceless liars took the saddles from the animals and wrapped themselves in their blankets, lying down in a sheltered spot, as if they expected to spend the night in waiting. Mahabat Khan, seeing this, gave them leave to go back to Kandahar, if we did not return by the time the sun crossed its highest point the next day. I too would have liked the warmth of my blankets, and sleep. But how could I abandon Mahabat Khan and lurk with these horse tenders after my high words concerning responsibility? I could not!
Mahabat Khan strode off, and I followed. In a moment his figure was lost in utter gloom. I hastened forward and touched him before I saw him.
“What is upon thee, Daril?” he asked softly.
“The way is hidden,” I said.
“Aye, this is a tangi—a water ravine. When we reach the heights we will be able to see the path.”
It is not easy to dismount from the saddle and go forward on foot—not at all easy, after the third hour of the night, when the path winds up the rocky face of a cliff. For a man like myself in sandals, lean and stiff limbed and shivering, it is like an ordeal of Tantalus.
Truly, this was a water ravine. Dropping farther below us, a stream rushed and gurgled its way to the river; even the stones that bruised my kneebones were wet, and the air smelled damp. After the first hour, the gorge narrowed and the stars were obscured; the wind beat at us in gusts, and presently the air began to be truly wet, because it rained.
By keeping close to Mahabat Khan, my feet did not stray from the path, which was well, because stones loosed under our tread rattled down through the darkness until they passed beyond hearing. I thought of the Bedouins and hoped that they too were wet.
My shoulders ached, and the calves of my legs. But Mahabat Khan, who had the harder part of feeling the way, did not lag. He must have had legs of iron.
At times we picked our course over a nest of boulders, and then Mahabat Khan was obliged to seek again for the narrow path that hung between the cliff and empty air. The wind no longer beat at our faces; it swirled up from below, or swooped down upon our shoulders, and my thighs and ribs began to be wet.
At times we climbed upon our hands, over slippery stone and treacherous gravel. No longer could I hear the stream; instead, scores of tiny water courses trinkled and pattered in our ears and, in that terrible gloom, it seemed as if we were wandering blindly, driven like sheep before wind. Nevertheless, I think we tended more and more to the right. Presently the wind ceased. Snow began to beat softly against my chin, under the hood of the robe, and to fall unheeded on my numb hands.
As IF Satan had withdrawn a curtain, we beheld a strange dawn. The snow had ceased, and the cold increased; and our bruises ached where we had slipped and stumbled and clung. The stars stood in a clear sky, so deep a blue it seemed a shimmering black. Gray pinnacles came forth from behind the curtain of mist, where an old hidden moon shone. I could see Mahabat Khan's swinging coat and pugi'd head and the black knobs of boulders in his path.
We moved along a shallow ravine that twisted and turned among rock ledges and, after the murk of the tangi, the half light overhead seemed like the true dawn. Presently Mahabat Khan stopped and looked steadily to one side. I saw a flicker of red light run up a chasm.
“Yea,” I said to him, through chattering teeth, “Satan hath lighted a lantern to guide us.”
He said that somewhere in these gullies a fire burned, and we had seen its reflection upon ice. But it was the cold and not fear that made my jaws quiver. Indeed, such chill as this I had never known.
We went forward more swiftly, looking for the fire. Once I beheld something that danced and beckoned in the shadows of rocks, and went toward it. Eh, it was a grave, and an old grave, because, thrust upon dead branches and knotted to bushes, long rag streamers whipped about in the wind.
“Peace be upon ye,” I whispered, hurrying after Mahabat Khan, until we both halted and stared about in the dimness.
“O ye wanderers,” a voice shouted at us, “what seek ye here?”
I saw no man, but the voice had come from the gloom under a cliff beside us, and I wondered what manner of men kept watch over the graves in this lofty valley. Mahabat Khan made answer in the harsh Pathan tongue, speaking loudly and arrogantly, until the very rocks rang. The man who had challenged seemed satisfied, because he lifted a long wail like the howl of a wolf.
“Come,” Mahabat Khan muttered, and we went on without haste, climbing toward a ridge that showed dark against the stars. Soon we beheld one advancing to meet us, who leaned on a staff, peering at our eyes in the starlight. He grinned and spat and went away without a word, motioning to us to go where we willed.
Thus we followed the path to the ridge and stopped to stare. W'allahi, we had come upon the encampment of the hills, not before, but beneath us!
A hundred cubits or more the ridge dropped away beneath our feet, to the bed of a short valley. And scattered through this valley a score of fires flamed bright. Around the fires squatted men in sheepskins and garments of every sort, and women and children behind them. Off in the brush several hundred horses were picketed.
It seemed to me that there were many different clans grouped at those fires, and Mahabat Khan took his time in studying them, saying nothing. On the other three sides the walls of ridged rock loomed sheer, rising out of the firelight. I thought that this pit of the hills was a good place of concealment—a thousand men might lie here for days unseen.
It seemed to me that another road must lead to the bed of the pit, because there were horses and mules and tents down below that could never have come up the tangi , or scrambled down the footpath that we were now forced to descend.
No one heeded us, because the men of the pit were all rising and moving toward the fires at the far end. Mahabat Khan swaggered among them without turning his head, yet using his eyes and ears to pick up scents, like a hound that has returned to his own abiding place after long years. There was a mutter of talk that I did not understand and a smell of wet mud and sweat and burned leather. The women hurried to fetch more wood for the fires, toward which the wave of hillmen moved, and I saw a white stake set in the earth here, on a level spot under the cliff.
It was the bole of a tree, the bark cut away from it, and around it the throng began to thicken, leaving clear about the stake the space of a stone's cast. An elbow was thrust into my ribs and a bearded face leered at me.
“In the name of God!” the man muttered. “The Arab doctor hath come to the hills!”
Eh, this man was one of the Hazaras who had visited me at Sher Jan's fire. Indeed, many of his companions stared at me, for my garments were not like the Pathans'. They seemed both suspicious and arrogant.
“See, hakim,” quoth another, in broken Persian, “the stake is ready for thee.”
“He quakes,” jeered a third, “and before long he will shrivel. We will build a fire around him.”
I heard several of them draw swords out of sheaths, and the press around me grew greater. Mahabat Khan, standing near, made no sign. I thought that if there were danger, he would take my part.
“Bism'allah!” I cried. “Is this the hospitality of thy camp?”
“Nay,” grunted the Hazara, “this is not our sangar. What led thy steps hither?”
“The other Arabs—they of the horse traders' tents—told me of a holy man in this spot.”
A pockmarked Pathan, with a sword scar whitening his brow, pushed through the crowd to me and growled.
“Who led thee hither?”
At last Mahabat Khan turned, stepping between us.
“I!” he said. “I did.”
They all looked at him, finding nothing to say for the moment. I wondered if any would know the face of the Sirdar of Ind. But then horns began to quaver behind us, and drums rumbled. The Pathans forgot us and thronged about the cleared space, into which a score of the elder men were moving, swords in hands. Turning their left shoulder to the post, these old warriors made a circle about it.
“Hai! Ahai-hai!” one shouted, and the drums quickened into a fierce beat.
Mahabat Khan touched me on the shoulder and led me to a blanket by one of the fires. Here we sat, our faces toward the stake, the veiled women moving off a little from us.
“Silence is best,” he whispered, “for a little, until this is ended.”
The music grew louder; younger warriors ran from the crowd toward the elders, who were now moving slowly around the stake, swinging their swords over their heads. Eh, the youths had more supple joints. They hastened into rings, leaping and swinging their blades in time to the music.
Some had two swords, some a sword and musket. All the circles were now revolving about the posts in the same direction, and the swiftly darting blades made red light above the tossing heads. Faster leaped the warriors, the sword edges whistling in the air. Straining throats made deep tongued clamor.
More swiftly the long robed figures ran, long locks tossing about the turbaned heads. But never a blade clashed another, never a steel edge slashed a man. The cliffs roared back in echo:
“Hai—hai!”
Half smiling, yet his eyes agleam, the Sirdar watched the sword dance of his hills, seeming to expect some greater miracle of movement and madness. And it happened.
There was a rush of hoofs, a straining creak of saddles and jangling of silver laden reins. Standing in their stirrups, nay, leaping upright upon the saddles, the men who had mounted horses joined the throng, rushing about the post. They tossed their swords into the air, caught them and flashed the blades down at the dancers. Red firelight flickered on the bare steel.
The Pathans who sat about the spot were staring, loose lipped and shouting. Mudstained children jumped about in their bare feet beside their mothers. More and more swiftly the drums resounded and the hoofs raced. Then some of the horses darted aside, figures swirled and a man shouted in rage.
I had seen a horse stumble. Its rider must have slashed another Pathan—the same pockmarked giant who had confronted me. He gripped his ear, the blood running through his fingers; the greater part of the ear was cut clean away.
Shouting, he made toward the horseman who had wounded him. The drums fell silent, the horns ceased, and the dancers ran toward the two antagonists. Deep toned clamor arose—men snarling at their companions of a moment before. Panting and mad with excitement, they would have thrown themselves at each other, for at such a time it takes little to turn play into slaughter, and many clans with many feuds had joined the dance. But the tumult was quieted before the first blow could be given.
Above the stake on a great flat boulder appeared a slight figure in a brown robe and green turban, and a high voice shrilled over the quarreling—a single word.
I saw that this figure was veiled beneath the eyes. At its bidding the Pathans dropped their swords, the wounded man fell silent and, in a moment, they turned to go back to their fires, as jackals turn at the coming of a wolf.
“What is this?” I whispered.
But Mahabat Khan frowned, his eyes intent.
“A time for silence,” he repeated under his breath.
Still fingering their weapons, panting from the dance, the hillmen sought the fires. Some of them snarled at me; but they were too full of their half stifled quarrel and too eager to hear what the man on the boulder might say, to bother about an old Arab.
“O ye of little wit!” he cried, in their speech.
Nay, at the time of his speaking, I understood not, but many have told me his words. For the words of al Khimar were treasured in the memory of the hillmen.
“Know ye not that it is written, 'Nothing happens save by the will of Allah?' What have I seen? A horse stumbled, a man was cut by a sword, and ye thoughtless ones—ye less than children—would have taken life, here, before me!”
Slowly he spoke, pausing to give them time to hear and understand and mutter among themselves. Every word was clear as the clank of steel, and I thought that at one time al Khimar had been a meuzzin. The warrior of the slashed ear made as if to complain to him, but the veiled prophet waved him away angrily, and he went in among his fellows, unheeded.
I saw now why al Khimar had appeared so suddenly. Behind the flat-topped boulder was a dark mouth of a cave. Within this he must have stood and watched. There were many clefts and ridges in the rock wall, but this seemed to be a cavern of some size.
“Why are ye here?” he asked, and looked from one to another.
The Pathans moved uneasily and many thrust their swords back into their girdles.
“To obey,” responded an old man, “to hear and obey.”
“Take heed that ye do it!” Again he searched the crowd with his eyes, and the listeners held their breaths. “Have I come at this hour of the night to see ye wield swords? Are ye indeed children that ye may not wait for a space without a game?”
“Nay,” cried a bearded warrior with one eye, “Shamil the Red Snout set up the stake and called upon us to show our skill. I am of the Yuzufi Khel—”
Even their reverence for the holy man could not keep these children of the hills curbed entirely. They answered back like defiant sons and, like sons, received their chastening. I noticed likewise that when they spoke the echoes flung back the words. The louder they shouted, the louder roared the opposite cliffs. Foolishly, they tried to make themselves understood by shouting.
But al Khimar, standing apart from them and facing the end of the valley down which we had come, managed to speak without stirring up the echoes. No doubt he had experimented until he had discovered how to do this, yet it filled the hillmen with awe—they knew that echoes were the voices of devils, mocking men.
“Thou art a pig's butcher!” gibed al Khimar, and the valley rocked with laughter.
When the echoes rumbled—Ho-oho-ho!—they were frightened and fell silent again.
“Will ye take up the swords again and play at butchering—or listen to me?”
“Nay, al Khimar,” protested the Yuzufi, “we will listen.”
And thus the veiled prophet quieted them by mocking them, and turned their thoughts to him.
“I dreamed last night of war,” he said then. “Have ye forgotten that time I beheld in a dream the coming of the caravan with silver and precious stuffs? In this new dream a message came to me. These were the words of the message: 'Think ye your wealth will save you, if your deeds destroy you?'”
They murmured, saying that truly they had not forgotten.
“The gain was great at that time,” quoth al Khimar, “and now—very soon—it will be more. But you must win it by your deeds!”
“Ah!” cried the Yuzufi. “Lead us to Kandahar! We have waited and increased in strength, and now, surely, it was time.”
“O thou shameless one!” shrieked al Khimar. “If these men followed thee, many would be slain with little gain. Know ye not the citadel of Kandahar hath walls too high to climb? Behind walls the Moguls will be stronger than ye. Know ye not that the Sirdar of Ind hath come to Kandahar with a following? What talk is this? Nay, I dreamed of another matter. In the night this was revealed to me—a rich camp, with camels and mules. A camp of silk pavilions and ivory and red leather—of full wineskins and a thousand slaves.”
The Pathans gazed up at him, plainly astonished, and Mahabat Khan chewed his mustache.
“Where?” shouted a man far back of us.
Al Khimar pointed to the west.
“At the edge of the plain, among the foothills, I saw this camp.”
Then a camel driver sprang up, his face distorted with amazement.
“By Allah, indeed!” he shouted. “There is a camp, down below, a day's ride. Yesterday I saw it, and it is filled with Persians, lords and servants who have come hither to hunt.”
The shrill voice of al Khimar soared.
“May their eyes be darkened! They will fall to our swords—save those who would better be held for ransom. Yea, we shall have slaves enough to glut the markets of Kandahar. For nothing happens save by the will of God! The fate of these Persians is not to be altered—the hour of their doom is written.”
And for a while he harangued the Pathans, promising to lead them to victory, rousing them again to eagerness and anger, though they needed little rousing. Thus he made them cease to think of Kandahar, and to long for the spoils of the camp below. Never before had the wealthy lords of Persia ventured so near the frontier.
He painted with words the attack upon the lashgar of the hunters by night, the overthrow of the guards, the swift charge among the tents, the slaughter and the pursuit of the fleeing, and the capture of young and fair women—until the mass of hillmen rose to their feet and shouted to be led down into the valleys.
“Not yet,” said al Khimar, when the roaring had died away between the cliffs, “not yet is the time. In two days—the night following the next.” Then he lifted his slender arms. “Upon ye be the blessing of Allah!”
This done, he turned and stepped down from his rock, vanishing from the circle of firelight as swiftly as a shadow. He must have entered his cavern, because I could not see him anywhere behind the rock. A moment later, the red bearded opium eater Shamil—whom I had defied in the Valley of Thieves—came and stood upon the rock, leering down at the fires as if all these men were no more than sheep to be led under the knife. As usual, his eyes were nearly closed, yet I thought from a sudden movement and a turn of the head that he had noticed me.
Mahabat Khan sat in talk with the Yuzufi, who was called Artaban, and who wore about his neck a charm. It was a camel's tooth upon which a prayer had been carved by some holy man. Artaban carried it in a silver locket, hanging upon a plaited cord. He said to us, for he loved the sound of his own voice, that this charm made him safe from bullets or steel.
“Allah is my witness,” he swore, “that bullets have gone through my sleeves and girdle and headcloth without harming my skin. I had it of a man I slew with my hands.”
Truly this Artaban had a bear's strength in his arms. Grinning with yellow teeth, he showed me how he had slain the owner of the charm, seizing his beard in one hand and pulling to one side while with his other hand he thrust the man's shoulder in the opposite direction.
“Allah is merciful,” he grinned again. “The night after the next I will flay one of the dog-born dogs of Persians alive. They had my brother for a slave and ripped him up with a knife.”
Eh, the Persians love the Pathans as wolves love panthers; because the ones reverence Ali as the successor to Muhammad, and the others disown Ali. It is said that no feuds are as fiercely hot as the feuds of cousins, and no quarrels are as deadly as the strife of Alyites and Sunnites.
“And will al Khimar lead ye to attack?” asked Mahabat Khan, looking about him idly, as if no more than courtesy had prompted the words.
“Nay,” declared Artaban. “He gives us warning of what must be done; he chooses the fortunate hour of sallying forth; but I and the red Shamil and the Hazara chieftain lead.”
“Truly, ye have many men.”
Artaban grunted.
“Six hundred and more. There are guards upon the roads, and other men in Kandahar.”
“It is a great miracle,” said Mahabat Khan, sinking his voice, “that the Veiled One eats not and never ventures from his place.”
“Allah is great!”
“What man could go without food for many days?”
Artaban pulled at his beard and blinked, flattered by the reputation of his prophet.
“Perhaps,” went on Mahabat Khan gravely, “there be fools who believe such matters, but thou and I are men of intelligence, and we understand that even saints must have food—even though it pleases them to pretend otherwise.”
“True, by Allah!” The one-eyed Yuzufi chieftain frowned and tried to look wise.
“Some say there is another way out of this cavern.”
“Then let them look! I will not enter it.”
“Does none go in?”
“Shamil—nay, I saw a man of the Waziri khels carried out with his toes turned up and a knife in his heart. Why not? Al Khimar keeps all the offerings of his people—all the silver that we shall need some day—in there.”
“True. Who does not know a day of need?”
“As for me, I take what I require.”
Artaban struck his fist against his broad chest covered with chain mail to which some traces of gilt still clung. I wondered if the steel shirt were the reason why the Yuzufi had escaped wounds.
“So Shamil goes in,” nodded Mahabat Khan, his head close to the tribesman's shaggy locks. “Surely he is the servant of the Veiled One.”
“Nay, his watchman. Red Shamil keeps the silver and sees to it that none goes in. If one of us went in, how would we know that the silver and precious things were not stolen? The Hazaras and the Waziri are great thieves.” Artaban spat.
I heard a man breathe at my shoulder and turned swiftly. The man called Shamil stood within touch of me, his eyes fixed on the ground, his thin lips sneering.
“So,” he said harshly, “ye twain have come hither to hear the Veiled One? Will ye go to his place and speak with him?”
The Yuzufi dropped back a pace and stared, but Mahabat Khan considered a moment and nodded.
“Aye.”
“Why?” demanded the watcher.
“I am of the Lodi Pathans and I have come far. I bear a message to al Khimar.”
“From whom?”
“That is for him to hear.”
For a moment Shamil combed his beard, swaying his red head from side to side. I wondered what the Sirdar would find to say to the prophet. It would have been a mistake to refuse to go with Shamil—who among these men would refuse? And suspicion was in the air.
“And thou, Daril,” snarled the red beard, “hast thou a message also?”
I shook my head, and he turned on his heel, motioning for us to follow. Mahabat Khan did not look at me, but he waited until I had reached his side before he advanced. His step and bearing told me that he foresaw no good thing awaiting us. Artaban and a dozen others trailed along to listen.
The fires had died to glowing embers and, when we climbed up behind the boulder, we could see little except the dark mouth of the cavern. A cold gust of air touched our faces. Shamil bade us stand, while he went forward to speak to al Khimar concerning us. I looked up at the stars, above the black wall of the cliff, and envied the Bedouins in their blankets by the river.
W'allahi! It is written that no man knoweth what the next moment will bring to him. I thought of many things, but not of what happened now. Shamil had vanished into the darkness, and I strained my ears in vain, hearing only the coughing and shuffling of the tribesmen who had lingered by the boulder.
Then I beheld a tiny spot of light that danced on the rock wall of the cavern. It vanished, and a soft glow was cast upon the arched roof, slowly moving toward us. I stared at it like a sheep. Mahabat Khan moved beside me. Steel slithered faintly through leather.
The flickering glow came nearly over us, when suddenly a glaring light shone full into my eyes.
The light was from a copper lantern held in a man's hand. I could see the hand and the long sleeve, but little else, for the frame of the lantern was so wrought that it threw its illumination only in front. In such shadow and at such a moment the eyes seize upon a little thing, a familiar thing. I was sure that I noticed Shamil's curling beard. I think he had brought the lantern from elsewhere and wrapped it in a soft blanket, because presently my toes caught in a loose cloth upon the rock floor. But at that moment my ears were filled by a high pitched shout—the voice of al Khimar.
“Spies! These twain be spies, sent by the men of Kandahar. Slay them, ye men of the hills!”
The voice came from behind Shamil, and I thought that verily this was a prophet of true words! One instant's sight of our faces, and he had cried out at us. The hair prickled on my scalp, and I put my hand to my sword hilt.
It was the part of Mahabat Khan to act now; he was the leader, his the responsibility. I did not need to wait the space of a quickly drawn breath to see what he meant to do. Before the light shone upon us, he had drawn his blade, and now he slashed at Shamil behind the lantern.
The watcher of the Veiled One caught the glimmer of steel descending and sprang back. Mahabat Khan was after him like a panther, and Shamil ran to the side of the cavern, the light swinging wildly. Eh, Shamil bleated like a sheep, and I ran in to corner him. Nay, I should have remained at the edge of the cavern!
Mahabat Khan whirled suddenly away, flinging over his shoulder a command to me to finish the red beard. I heard his saber grate against steel, and then the clish-clash-clank of many blades striking together.
Shamil was like a rat, slipping this way and that, evading me. He drew and flung a knife that ripped through a fold of my head cloth, the guard scratching my ear. Darting past me, he ran out of the mouth of the cavern, close to the rock.
I saw then that Mahabat Khan had taken his stand in the entrance of the cavern. His sweeping blade barely missed Shamil. But four Pathans were pressing in upon him, Artaban roaring his war shout, the foremost of them.
My eyes searched the cavern for a glimpse of al Khimar, but in vain. He had vanished. And yet I saw one thing that was most precious. The beam of the lantern, which Shamil had dropped, struck against a cleft in the rock wall at the back of the cavern. I saw that the cleft was wide enough for a man to pass through and that the ground lay upward within it.
Mahabat Khan was engaged too closely with the four hillmen to withdraw. The mouth of the grotto was perhaps seven paces wide, and they were trying to slip past him to take him from the sides. Verily, the Sirdar seemed to be two men, bending from side to side, parrying and slashing with an arm of steel. With a quick thrust and snap of the blade he disarmed one of the Pathans. Nay, he did not cry out his name or make any plea for mercy.
It would have been easier to check a wolf pack by prayers. I made up my mind to join him and fall, if need be, with a weapon in hand, when Artaban began to shout at his companions to stand clear.
“Aside ye dogs! I will make trial of him, and the Veiled One shall see his blood run.”
The Pathans to right and left of the one eyed chieftain gave back and Artaban sprang at Mahabat Khan alone. Between the faint glow of the outer fires and the radiance of the lantern their figures loomed half seen—tall forms that swayed forward and back while steel grated shrilly. Eh, it lasted no more than a moment.
Artaban slashed fiercely and the Sirdar caught the descending blade upon his hand guard. The steel snapped and flew against the rock. Artaban bent low and drew from his girdle a long pistol. Stepping back swiftly, he pulled at the trigger and the flint snapped down.
Many times have I seen such weapons snap without roaring, yet fortune favored the Yuzufi, for the pistol bellowed. I heard the bullet flatten itself somewhere upon the rock, and Mahabat Khan suffered no hurt at all, while black smoke swirled through all the cavern.
“Back!” I cried to him, seizing this instant of quiet, while the Pathans were peering into the smoke. “Here—”
He turned and ran toward me, and I snatched up the lantern. To light his way—there was no time for talk or hesitation—I ran into the cleft, finding it so narrow that the sides brushed my shoulders.
The ground was firm beneath me, and the lantern showed the marks of many footprints. For perhaps ten lance lengths I went up, the crevice growing wider, until I stood within a second rock chamber.
“Set the light down—there!” Mahabat Khan pointed with his sword tip, and took his stand at one side of the entrance.
Before doing as he commanded I turned the light in all directions. The walls were of the same red stone, ridged and crumbling, as the outer cliffs, yet darker. Space and darkness lay above us, and I saw no end to this place. Near my feet lay several blankets, a water jar and the stained leaves of a Koran. In truth we had come to the nest of al Khimar—a place of cold and darkness.
“Good!” laughed Mahabat Khan, breathing a little quickly.
When I had listened to the muttering of the Pathans in the outer cavern, I whispered to him that it would be better to go away. Shamil was urging them to follow us, and Artaban and others were grumbling. Verily, their fear of al Khimar served us well, because the hillmen were reluctant to enter the cleft where the dim light showed. We had vanished in the smoke; they had no love of this maw of the cliff. In a little while Shamil might persuade them to go forward, perhaps by leading them.
“We can hold this corridor,” the Sirdar mused.
“And gain what?” I asked. “Nay, without water or food, it would avail us nothing.”
He considered and nodded.
“Is there a way out?”
“God alone knows. Let us go and see.”
After looking down the passage, he felt in his girdle and drew out a little wooden tube, the same in which Baki had sealed his message. He looked at it and tossed it down the cleft. “A bone for Shamil to gnaw on! Come!”
Picking up the lantern he shook it close to his ear to hear how much oil might be in it. Then he grinned and strode back into the depths of the cavern, I following. It was needful to go quickly or not at all.
It was a strange path, that in the belly of the mountain. Indeed, it seemed to be no path at all, but a goat's track that squeezed through rock walls and ascended from ledge to ledge, and once ran along a bridge of stone over a crevice that had no bottom at all. Here the air rushed up, and the flame of the lantern flickered and died down, so that I breathed not until Mahabat Khan sheltered it in a niche between two boulders.
He said that water had made this passage through the heart of the mountain, and showed me how the surface of the rock was worn, and how the very boulders were round and smooth.
At times we were forced to quest about and choose among many passages. The thought came to me that we might have chosen wrongly, and were lost in this accursed place; but Mahabat Khan was only concerned about the oil in the lantern, lest it fail and leave us in darkness. We were walking swiftly through a long corridor when a thought came to me.
“Bism'allah! The Veiled One must have gone before us.”
Mahabat Khan looked at me. “Eh, Daril, I wonder if Shamil is not the prophet? Hast thou seen the two, at the same moment?”
I pondered this and shook my head. Verily the veil might have hidden that red beard. I suspected that al Khimar really came forth and ate and slept among the Pathans, unknown to them. Other rogues had played that trick before. Among them, al Khimar would be no more than a hillman, listening to their talk. Then, slipping into the cavern, he would put on his clean garments and the green headcloth and the veil, and come out upon his speaking place. Only at times did he appear thus.
“But the voice,” I said, “the voice was different.”
“Even a common singer can do that,” he reminded me.
“In the cave, when the light appeared, the voice seemed to come from behind Shamil.”
“True,” he nodded. “That is a more difficult trick, yet I have known conjurers to throw their voices elsewhere.” He thought for a while. “By a gesture or little thing a man is known. What sawest thou of al Khimar?”
“That he had a light skin and fine eyes—that he is slender in body, and his mind quick to read thoughts.”
“And knows our faces,” laughed Mahabat Khan. “Except for thee, he had put an end to us.”
“If Shamil is not the man,” I responded, “he must have gone ahead of us.”
“Then God grant we catch him, for I need al Khimar in my hands. Look!”
He held the light low and pointed. I saw that the ground was damp and that snow lay among the boulders. Surely it did not snow down here in the belly of the mountain. I turned my eyes upward. Stars winked down at me from between the dark sides of a gorge. We had come out into the open air, and Mahabat Khan spent some time in observing landmarks so that he could find the passage again.
A little farther on we stopped again. Here a sprinkle of snow lay upon the gravel and, clearly pressed into it, we saw the mark of slender and small feet, going in the way that we were going. But we did not see al Khimar. The gorge opened out into a nest of blind ravines. We climbed a height to observe what lay around us.
Eh, thus we beheld many things—the snow-whitened peaks, tinged by the first glow of dawn, the dark mass of Kandahar far down ahead of us, the shadow-filled plain and the great crimson fire of sunrise. It was bitterly cold, and all my body ached; my knees quivered and creaked. When the sun flooded these lofty levels, I sought a sheltered spot and lay down.
“Bism'allah!” I said to the Sirdar. “I did not come with thee to join a Pathan sword dance, nor did I come to frolic in ice and snow. I am tired, and here will I sleep.”
So I thrust my arms into my sleeves and slept, Mahabat Khan sitting beside me. When I waked the shadows had turned, and he was still in the same spot, the lifeless lantern at his feet. He had waited to watch beside me, and I was ashamed of my weariness and ill temper.
“Nay, Daril,” he laughed, “I have learned something. Now it is time we went down to Kandahar, or those Bedouins will be back and rouse Baki with their tales.”
Those Bedouins were back indeed. They had been routed out of their sleep by a rush of Pathans down the tangi at dawn, and had had to flee without their saddles or blankets. Probably Shamil had remembered the guides who brought us to the hills and had sent a band down to bring them in. The tribesmen being afoot, my Arabs had escaped without hurt, but were gloomy over the loss of the saddles.
When Mahabat Khan and I walked into the courtyard of his house, they were saying that all the forces of the Veiled One had sought to take them, that they had held their ground as long as they could, in spite of the fact that we twain must be captive or slain.
Thus they were protesting. The Rajput followers of the Sirdar were in a cold rage, while Abu Ashtar cursed. When they saw us, all became silent except the blind man.
“By God!” said I to the Bedouins. “I marvel that you have your shirts—or that you did not leave your breeches in the hands of the hillmen.”
I added that their flight had made us walk back; and to this they had nothing to say.
“Shall we beat them?” the captain of the Rajputs asked his lord, very willingly.
“Nay,” said Mahabat Khan, “they are not to be blamed.”
“But the saddles—and the packs?”
“I swear,” put in old Abu Ashtar who had listened intently, “that these worthless and light minded puppies of mine shall bring you other saddles.”
“I ask a harder thing,” responded Mahabat Khan gravely. “That they, and you, shall say no word concerning this past night.”
“On my head,” swore the blind chieftain.
“Aye,” assented the Sirdar with a flash of grimness, “for thou shalt be surety for their silence.”
Thus chastened, the Bedouins could only stare at me. They yearned to know how we had come back to Kandahar, because they were certain we had not come down the tangi again. I hinted that Mahabat Khan had stood off all the men of the Veiled One with his sword, and made great show of wiping the stains of dampness from my blade with a clean cloth.
Eh, it is written that the boaster digs a pitfall for his feet to tread. After I had mocked the Bedouins and looked to see whether the mare were safe in the Sirdar's stable, I began to be hungry. Mahabat Khan seemed to have forgotten food. I was not minded to beg of his men, so I went forth to find Kushal, who had gone into the bazaar.
Seeking him, I wandered into the shadows of narrow alleys, stooping beneath the woven roofs of stalls. In a dark place among sacks of rice and trays of tea bricks I heard a swift movement behind me.
I turned to look, but it was my kismet that I should see no more in Kandahar that day. A dusty sack was cast over my head and held about my shoulders. A hand reached forth and jerked the sword from my girdle, while a dagger's point pricked the tender skin under my ribs.
“O Daril,” a voice whispered through the sack, “thou art a man of judgment. Walk between us quietly. We have no mind to slay thee—now, and in this place.”
“Who art thou?” I said foolishly, for the voice seemed familiar.
“Thy fate!” I heard a laugh. “Come!”
W'allahi, in such a plight a man is less than an ass! With a sack held over my shoulders, all dignity was lost. Hands gripped my arms and led me back into the stall, stumbling over bales and rugs. For a moment sunlight shone on my head; then we entered the darkness of another covered place, smelling of hemp and spices and dirt.
Here I heard camels grunting and bubbling, as they do when the loads are put on. My arms were drawn behind my shoulders and bound together skillfully. Then my knees were bound, and my ankles.
I was lifted high by several men and dropped in what seemed to be a basket, but a basket that swayed and creaked under me. Then the ends of the cords from my arms and ankles were drawn taut and knotted—so that by bending my knees up under my chin I could ease the pain of the cords, but could not raise myself in any way.
The sack was lifted and replaced at once by a kerchief, tied loosely under my chin.
“To keep off flies, O Daril,” whispered the voice.
“May God requite thee for it!” I answered.
“Harken to this, O hakim. Thou art in a camel's howdah, and thou art bound upon a little journey. Men will walk beside thee who care not at all for thy life. They will carry spears. If thy voice is heard after this, for any reason, those long spearheads will be thrust through thy basket. Dost thou understand?”
“Indeed,” I responded. “But let the journey be short, for I shall desire water.”
“Water thou shalt have and wine.”
I thought that the speaker mocked me, and I said no more. As if they had waited only for me, the men began to move about; the camel beneath me rocked and lurched to its feet, and the smell of it came more strongly through the wicker work of the panier. Then we began to walk.
By the sounds around me, we passed out into narrow alleys, brushing through the stalls of merchants who cursed the ancestors of warriors who would lead he-camels through the market at such an hour. We turned hither and yon, and began to move more swiftly.
By the motion of the camel, I knew that we went downhill, and once I heard a clatter of hoofs and the voices of Rajputs riding past, but I thought of the spears and made no sound. My captors had laid branches in the open top of the basket, and through these and the 'kerchief I could see no more than tiny sparkles of sunlight and blue sky.
We halted for many moments in a place where horses were gathered. Men walked about on all sides. From the talk I suspected that we were among soldiers of the Mogul. When we went on again, a deep shadow passed over my head, and sounds echoed hollowly. We were moving under an arch, probably the outer wall of Kandahar.
After this had been left behind us, things were quieter. The camels settled into a swifter stride, when I heard faintly a voice close to my head. It whispered again, a little louder.
“Ho, Daril—how is it with thee?”
Eh, it was the voice of Kushal, the songmaker, and I answered as softly.
“Where art thou?”
He laughed a little then.
“In the other basket.”
A spear or sword blade slapped angrily the side of my panier, and I said no more. I had wished to ask him whither we were bound, but what mattered it? We were going whither we were going. It seemed to me then—I had wondered at first if the Bedouins had not come after me to make me captive on some whim—as if we were bound for the hills.
A1 Khimar's men might have entered Kandahar in force, after the Bedouins, and seen me stalking like a witless gazelle through the bazaar. In truth, I did not dream of what lay before me!
After hearing Kushal, I knew that I had a companion of misfortune. It was warm in the panier and, in spite of cords and the ache of hunger, I began to doze. Presently all sounds and smells drifted away and I slept.
The camel waked me by kneeling. It must have been late in the afternoon, for the sun was no longer overhead. I was lifted from my basket and carried under shelter, placed upon a carpet; all the cords were severed with a sword. Only a little at first did I stretch my limbs; they ached as if all the nerves had been pierced. At this moment Kushal cried out beside me.
“Thou!”
“Thy kismet,” murmured the soft voice of a woman.
I pulled the cloth from my head and saw that I was under a tent, or rather, a pavilion of blue silk, set with a splendid carpet. The air had a scent of rose leaves. Kushal sat beside me, a 'kerchief in his hand, his bloodshot eyes flaming and his pugri and white damask garments clean in order, in spite of his trussing. The severed ends of cords lay about him.
Beyond the tent pole, on a cushioned divan, knelt Nisa. She nodded at me.
“Hai—thou art not an eagle this evening but a frowsy old owl, Daril.”
I knew now that her voice had warned and advised me after my capture. Verily, it seemed to change with her mood. But Kushal was gripped by the heedless anger of youth. His hands shook and his voice trembled.
“God be my witness!” he cried. “I shall never honor word of thine again. In the bazaar one came to me saying that Nisa had need of my aid. I followed, and was caught like—”
“A caged parrot,” she giggled. “Oh, I watched thy struggles.”
Suddenly and strangely Kushal mastered himself, became utterly calm; only, his cheeeks paled and his eyes darkened.
“It pleases thee to mock me,” he said.
Aware of this new mood, she glanced at him from the corners of her eyes.
“To repay thee for the copper coin,” she murmured.
He shrugged his slender shoulders and turned to me.
“I heard thee say thou thirsted, Daril. Only a man without honor or a woman—” his eyes ran over Nisa, dwelling upon every part of her body, as a slave buyer might look at a new purchase—“without shame would deny water to a captive.”
Nisa seemed to draw back before his glance. It was true that she went unveiled, and might not be trusted, as we had both learned, but the songmaker's new mood hurt her, and she too turned to me.
“Wilt thou have sherbet or red wine, Daril?”
“Water,” I grumbled, for sherbet increases thirst, and wine was not for my tasting.
She clapped her hands, and that same maid tripped in, to return presently with a tray of fruit and china bowls of clear water. I drank, and began to eat of the dates, but Kushal waved away the woman. This was foolish in him, for hunger and thirst are no allies in a moment of need, and it is more profitable to prod a panther than to anger a young woman.
“What seekest thou?” he asked Nisa. “Money?”
“Nay, the emerald in thy turban cloth.”
Without a word Kushal reached up and undid the clasp that held the precious stone in place. He tossed it upon the divan at the knees of the singing girl.
“And what of Daril?” jeered the young Pathan.
But Nisa rose and went to the entrance, passing out without answer. At once—they must have been standing on guard—two of her warriors came and took stand within the entrance, grinning at us. When I finished all the dates, I tried to get Kushal to talk, asking him in Arabic what all this meant and what might be in store for us.
“Ask her!” he muttered after a long silence. “She alone can explain her secrets. Last night, when I went to look again at her house, these same men told me she had gone away.”
I remembered that she had warned Kushal to go from Kandahar; but it is profitless to try to reason why a woman does things. Each hour brings her different moods and different thoughts.
“Not more than a day ago thou didst call her a child untaught,” I reminded him. “What now?”
Kushal was not minded to smile at his misfortune. He lay down upon the divan with his arms beneath his head and pretended to care or think nothing at all about it. He had been taken captive and bundled into a camel panier by a woman, and his honor suffered greatly.
“She could have had the emerald yesterday, for the asking,” he cried once.
It occurred to me that she had said Kushal must leave the city within a week. The time, it seemed, had grown less—something had happened since our first meeting with her. Sitting in silence I listened, and after a while became certain of two things.
We were in a strange encampment, and no small one. Horses were being watered—many of them. Men passed with a hurried tread, and such talk as I heard was in Persian or dialects I knew not. At sunset the caller-to-prayer made himself heard, and his words were not familiar.
There did not seem to be many women about, and indeed little was to be heard. The camp seemed to be muffled in quiet, yet in constant motion. After dark the maid brought us a good repast, and I ate Kushal's share when he would not touch it.
Once I made as if to go out of the entrance, but the guards stayed me, saying that it was not permitted.
“By whose orders?” I asked.
They pretended not to understand. So I went and sat and listened attentively. Eh, by its tracks a camel reveals itself—whether it be laden or not, whether it be old or young, weak or strong; and by the sounds of evening much may be learned of a camp.
These were no tents of merchants. Orders were given in the speech of the Persians, and arrogantly. When a group of men passed our tent, I did not see the glow of torches or lanterns—they moved about in darkness, often stumbling over pavilion ropes and picket lines. At such times, weapons clanged or clashed. I heard an officer curse some servants for allowing a fire to blaze up. By one thing and another I thought that this was an encampment of nobles, with strong guards, and that the leaders desired not to attract attention to themselves. All this was true.
About the second hour of the night Nisa slipped into the tent. She seemed to be grieving. Her bright hair fell in disorder about her cheeks; there were shadows under her dark eyes. Soundlessly she went toward the divan upon which Kushal lay. At his feet she seated herself, he paying no heed.
In a moment I heard feet approaching, striding free and heavily. A word of command was spoken. Our two guards sprang up swiftly, drawing back the entrance hanging.
Nisa crossed her arms on her breast and bent her splendid head until it nearly touched the divan upon which she knelt.
“Shabash!” A man spoke harshly. “Well done!”
Peering into the outer darkness I made out several figures in long mantles, the gleam of tiaras and jeweled turban crests—for an instant only, because, at a second command, the guards let fall the hanging and the footsteps retreated. Beyond doubt these lords of the encampment did not wish to be seen.
For a while Nisa sat in silence, brushing the flies from Kushal's head, her eyes dim with thought. Never have I seen a more beautiful pair than these two—the wild Pathan, cloaked in his pride, and the golden maned singing girl at his feet.
Eh, many times have I seen the fire of love brighten and grow dim. Nisa was wrapped up in her love for this man, as strange and fierce a love as ever glowed in the eyes of a pantheress. As if fire had burned all other feeling out of her, she bent over his feet, sweeping away the flies with the end of her shawl, until suddenly she remembered me and sprang up, bidding me follow her. Only then did Kushal look at her, as a man might glance at a dog behaving in some new fashion.
Outside the tent, she led me swiftly toward a mass of horses and stopped under the clear starlight, where none could overhear.
“An order has been given to flay him alive,” she whispered, and I began to understand a little why she grieved.
At Kushal, sitting the saddle of his horse and singing in her courtyard, she had hurled insolence and defiance. For Kushal, captive and defenseless, she grieved. And yet she had brought him hither herself!
“They will torture him,” she went on, “unless—” she checked the words to glance fleetingly into distant shadows—“unless thou canst bring Mahabat Khan hither before sunrise—sunrise after this next.”
I wondered what this encampment was and why they wanted Mahabat Khan and how she expected me to bring him; but I said nothing, since she was minded to speak freely at last.
“When the first rim of the sun is seen over the plain, they will bind him and begin tearing the skin from his throat and breast,” she whispered. “By noon they will have taken the skin from his back and at the end of the day he will be dead.”
“No man may escape his fate,” I said, to spur her on.
The white blur of her face drew near me and the scent of rose leaves came to my nostrils.
“Daril,” she cried softly, “thou art a man of honor. Forget that I beguiled thee in Kandahar and made sport of him.” She clasped her hands and laid them against my breast. “Wilt thou pledge me this?”
“What?” I asked. “And under what conditions?”
“To ride now, at once, to Kandahar, and tell Mahabat Khan all thou hast seen. Tell him that the life of his companion, the songmaker, is in his hands. He may come alone, or with his men.” She leaned close to look up into my eyes. “Daril, a man such as thou wilt not believe a woman's oath. I can not swear to this truth, but it is surely true that Mahabat Khan will suffer no harm by coming.”
“To whom?” I asked. “Who sends for him?”
“I—I do. It will be better for him to come without escort.”
“W'allahi! Will the Sirdar of Ind come forth unattended at a woman's whim? To visit a woman?”
“To save the life of Kushal—aye! He must!”
“What if he chooses to bring a squadron of Moguls and his Rajputs?”
“It is all one to me; but he will fare better alone. Nay, I swear—nay, Daril, a greater lord than thou or the Sirdar of Ind, swears on his honor that Mahabat Khan will suffer no least harm. He will be entertained for a day, perhaps a little longer, and then he and the songmaker may ride free.”
Reaching down, I took her wrist in my fingers, feeling the beat of the blood in her veins. Understanding that I was making test of her, she withdrew her wrist and pressed my hand under her breast against the heart. It fluttered and throbbed as if heavy fever were in her veins. Indeed, fever burned in her.
“Thou art beside thyself, Nisa,” I said. “Mahabat Khan will not believe such a tale as this of mine.”
At this she laughed softly.
“Nay, he will believe. I will give thee such proof as he will believe. Thus!”
She put into my fingers a hard object, about the size of a date, wrapped in thin silk.
“Kushal's emerald,” she explained. “And here—” she gave me a tiny tube such as messenger pigeons carry—“is a letter saying that Kushal will be tortured, as I have said, unless he comes.”
I let the things lie in my hand while I pondered. Indeed, the songmaker was captive in this camp. As to the matter of his death, I knew not. But I believed that Nisa hoped to save his life, if Mahabat Khan could be persuaded to visit this place. Clearly it would serve no one for me to remain sitting in this tent. I decided to go to the Sirdar and explain all that had happened. The responsibility, then, would be his.
“Give me a horse,” I said, “and tell me where Kandahar lies.”
She sighed, as if a burden had been taken from her back, and motioned toward the line of beasts near us.
“My men have a horse awaiting thee. Kandahar lies no more than two hours to the north.”
“How can I enter at night?” I demanded, remembering that the gates would be closed.
“Show the silver tube to an officer.” She waved me away, as if dreading any least delay. “God requite it thee!”
The tokens I thrust into my girdle and asked yet one more thing.
“Thy sword?” She clapped her hands impatiently, and presently a tall figure swaggered up leading a saddled horse. “Sher Jan took it. He has it now.”
The figure halted suddenly, and I stretched forth my hand. Indeed it was Sher Jan, my companion of the road, and among his many weapons he had my scimitar in his sash. Reluctantly he drew it forth, and I girdled it on again, without a word.
“Lead him past the guards,” Nisa commanded the camel driver, when I had mounted and, in silence, Sher Jan holding my rein, we moved away. I heard the sound of sobbing behind me, where Nisa stood, the starlight gleaming faintly on her hair. After that I was more inclined to put faith in her words, because a fair woman often tries to bend a man to her will by tears; but if she weeps after his departure, it must be that she has cause for tears.
“So thou has taken service with a new mistress,” I remarked to Sher Jan.
“Aye, indeed, my lord.” He grinned up at me. “Oh the excellent food, and the wealth to be had!”
He had lingered at Nisa's house on the street of the steps and had wheedled himself into the attention of her major-domo. There was no good in reproaching him for turning against me; although it irked me that he should have handled my sword.
“And thy mistress,” I hazarded, “hath found a new lord to serve.”
But Sher Jan's tongue would not start wagging. He conducted me past the outer sentries and commended me to the mercy of God with great dignity.
As it happened I had no need of parley at the Kandahar gate. Torches were lighted over the gate tower, and I was challenged an arrow's flight distant. When I spoke my name, the small door beside the gate was opened, and I led in my horse—a shaggy mountain pony, worth very little.
“Mahabat Khan is above,” said one of the Mogul soldiers, eying the pony and its saddle without approval. “He gave command to send thee up.”
It seemed to me that the custom of the guard had changed in the last day and night; but I was grateful that Mahabat Khan should be at the gate. He was sitting on a couch in the chamber of the tower above the arch, by an embrasure that gave him sight of the road of approach. He looked graver than before, with deeper lines about his eyes.
“My men were searching for thee, Daril,” he said at once. “How in the name of God didst thou get out of the city?”
“In a camel's howdah,” I answered, but he did not laugh.
He was in no mood for trifling. I told my tale with few words, watching his brow darken the while. At the end he struck his hip impatiently.
“Am I to shepherd witless minstrels and doddering hakims? Where are the tokens?”
He glanced at the emerald and laid it aside, but the tiny message tube he turned over in his fingers before withdrawing the cap. He shook out a roll of paper no larger than the written prayers that some physicians give their patients to swallow by way of cure. It had only a line of writing on it, in a fine hand, without flourishes.
“A woman wrote this,” he said. “It bears witness to thee, Daril, in this wise:
   “The Arab hakim is a speaker of truth, and the hour of fate is the second sunrise.”
Again he glanced at the tube, which had elaborate ornament inscribed upon it.
“How large is that encampment?” He used the word lashgar, which may mean the traveling camp of a lord, or the gathering place of a tribe.
I told him that they had led me out by the horse lines, and I had seen little. But I thought that several hundred men might be in those tents. At this he nodded.
“And the visitors who came to look into thy tent—what didst thou see of them?”
“They walked carelessly, spoke harshly and wore costly attire.”
“What is thy thought concerning them?”
“Mahabat Khan,” I said, “at first I thought that some of al Khimar's bands had made me captive. But the men of that lashgar were not Pathans. I do not think the girl Nisa serves this prophet.”
Again he nodded.
“They, who hold Kushal, are Persians. While I sat beside thee on the height behind Kandahar, in the clear light of early morning, I saw at a great distance a long line of men and beasts moving up from the western defiles into the plain. They were soon lost to sight among the trees.”
“Eh, then they must be the hunters—the camp al Khimar saw in his dream.”
“Or otherwise. They are at least Persians who have crossed the frontier and kept very much to themselves.” He mused a while, pulling at his mustache. “I sent two of my troopers out to look at them from a distance; my men reported that they number more than a thousand, and have baggage enough for a journey to Isfahan.”
I wanted to ask why such men should have come up into the plain, without seeking Kandahar, and why they should desire Mahabat Khan to come to them. Then I remembered that al Khimar had promised his hill people that they should plunder this lashgar.
“It is well for al Khimar that these Persians have come into the plain; for, if his men had attacked such a strong force, the Pathans would have been cut up and driven away empty handed, and they might then have made al Khimar the victim of their disappointment.”
Mahabat Khan looked at me with straightforward eyes.
“Daril, I think thou hast spent more time in the saddle of war than upon the rug of the physician.”
He told me to go and sleep, but not to leave the tower. So I unrolled a rug and lay down by the charcoal brazier in the corner. The stone beneath the rug was both hard and cold, and the smoke from the charcoal made me cough, so I did not sleep at first. Mahabat. Khan called at once to the men below, and several of them came and saluted him. What orders he gave I know not, but they went away with the manner of men who have much to do in little time.
Horses were led out below, and I heard the little door open and shut. The horses trotted away and began to gallop, before they were out of hearing. Mahabat Khan mused awhile, leaning in the embrasure, looking up at the stars. Then, without calling any one, he blew out the candles and threw himself down on the divan.
When he heard me moving about, trying to ease my bones on the stones, he laughed a little.
“These Persians have made Baki fearful,” he remarked. “Also the planets foretell calamity to come—so he calculates. He is drinking wine and making his calculations over again in his tower, after praying me to take charge of the city gate.”
“And thou?” I made bold to ask.
“Eh, the stars tell the hour of the night, but men make or break themselves.”
He said nothing of Kushal, or of what he meant to do; before long he was breathing deep. I do not think he had had any sleep since two nights before.
Just before I fell asleep the thought came to me, as such slight things do when the mind is empty and drowsy, that Baki had warned Mahabat Khan that, if he sent a messenger to al Khimar, he would have not one but two blood feuds on his hands. Indeed, matters had turned out as Baki had predicted.
I heard a stir below us before dawn, and Mahabat Khan rose and went out quietly. It was too cold to sleep any more, so I sat up and fed more charcoal to the brazier and became aware of excitement that grew around me as the light increased.
Because Mahabat Khan had commanded it, I remained in the tower—that is, within call of the tower. The gate was still closed and held in strength by the garrison—three-score Moguls, short and stocky men, in good chain mail and leather, wearing burnished steel helmets. The Sirdar's escort of Rajputs sat by their saddled horses, with the air of men awaiting a summons. To them I went, seeking Dost Muhammad, the leader of the escort, who was striding back and forth, examining girths and stirrup leathers.
Dost Muhammad stood even taller than I, by reason of his white silk pugri; he was a man gaunt and restless as a racing horse and almost as sparing of words. His beard, brushed to either side his chin, was streaked with white. Verily, with his feathers and his stiff muslin skirt projecting out from his knees, and his white leather slippers and the tiny jeweled hilt of his light sword, he seemed to be robed for an audience at court rather than service of any kind. Yet Kushal had told me that he was terrible with the sword, when aroused. When I asked whether he was in command here, at the gate, he looked down at me, as if searching for insult, and said that Rajputs never mounted guard.
Then he remembered that I was the guest of his lord and he began to explain what all Kandahar was talking about. The men of the garrison sent out by Mahabat Khan last night—the party I had heard riding off—had scouted around the Persian lashgar. They had brought back three prisoners, sentries carried off from an outer post. These captives proved to be Red Hats, soldiers of the great shah of Persia. They had been persuaded—Dost Muhammad did not choose to explain in what manner—to talk and had admitted that twelve hundred or more soldiers of the shah were in that camp, commanded by royal officers.
The Red Hats swore that they did not know why they had been led beyond the frontier, although they believed that the hunting was only a pretense. They swore likewise, very earnestly, that their leaders had no designs on Kandahar, because no artillery or siege tools had been brought along.
“There are no greater liars anywhere,” said Dost Muhammad, “than these dogs of Persians. Still, it must be true that their camp is a military camp, and it is well indeed for the Mogul governor that the Sirdar of Ind is here.”
“Why?” I asked, for the captain of the Rajputs was too blunt to relish anything but plain words.
“When the eagle is perched on the edge of his nest, the hawk keeps its distance,” he smiled.
He added that Kandahar, being the gateway in the mountains between Persia and Ind, was greatly desired by the shah. For the present the shah and the Mogul were at peace, but it was the uneasy peace of powerful emperors, who complimented each other while they had their hands on their swords.
“Nay,” said Dost Muhammad gravely, “those Persians have crept up to pluck Kandahar from Baki.”
“What will the governor do?”
The tall Rajput had all the contempt of his race for the man of peace and trade.
“Baki the Wise! I went before him with the Sirdar after the dawn prayer, and he was like a man struck on the head. He begged the Sirdar to defend Kandahar, and hastened off to eat opium and pray.”
Evidently Baki thought that calamity was descending upon him! Now it was clear why Kushal had been carried off. The leaders of the Persians had heard of the Sirdar's presence in Kandahar and wished to get him out of the walls, in their hands, away from the garrison. The Sirdar of Ind would be a splendid hostage, in their camp. But if he chose to defend Kandahar against them, their task would be no easy one.
“No doubt,” I said, “they will pay the woman, Nisa, a fine price for bringing them the songmaker.”
Although Dost Muhammad would admit no knowledge of this woman, it seemed to me that she had planned the trap for the Sirdar, knowing that Kushal was his friend—knowing that he would risk his own life to aid Kushal.
Mahabat Khan, by his prompt sortie of the night, had uncovered this much of their plans. But what he would do now, I did not know. With three hundred Mogul men-at-arms and a handful of Rajput riders, he could not attempt to rescue Kushal; nor could he hope to defend the outer wall of the city against an attack of twelve hundred Persian Red Hats. Then, too, he had to watch al Khimar, who was no doubt hovering like a vulture in his hills.
I saw only one thing for Mahabat Khan to do—to retire with the governor into the citadel and try to defend it as best he could. But Dost Muhammad chose to mock at this plan.
“When did an eagle fly into a cage?”
Indeed, Mahabat Khan did otherwise—and of all things this seemed to me the most mad and vain. He rode up to us alone, but clad in a cloth-of-silver robe of honor. He chose me and Dost Muhammad and two troopers from the Rajputs. He left the gate in charge of a Mogul officer and, when all the men of his cavalcade had mounted and reined behind him, trotted off toward the citadel.
In the garden by Baki's tower he dismounted, leaving our horses with the other Rajputs, who looked crestfallen when they were ordered to remain in the garden until his return. With only Dost Muhammad and me he walked under the trees to a narrow door like the one beside the main gate. This he unlocked and locked again after us, confiding the key to one of the troopers.
We had come out into a shadow ravine and, before the Sirdar had gone a hundred paces, I knew the place. It was the same ravine by which we had come down from the heights the day before. Mahabat Khan, looking neither to right nor left, began to climb up among the boulders.
Before the shadows turned, we reached the spot where I had dozed during our flight from the Pathan's sangar. Here the Sirdar halted to gaze down at the city and the distant plain, which was motionless under a burning sun. No caravans moved along the road; no horsemen entered and left the villages. As birds quiet their noise and take shelter before a storm, the people of the valley had withdrawn from sight to await events. Mahabat Khan looked at everything and turned, striding into the rock strewn gully that led to the caverns.
“May God prosper it!” I muttered, thinking of what we had left behind us in that place.
“Are there horses ahead?” Dost Muhammad wondered aloud.
Unlike the Sirdar he hated to walk; indeed, he limped already in his light slippers, and the other Rajputs eyed the rocky way with little favor. They would rather have galloped in the saddle down to Satan than have climbed afoot to paradise! Mahabat Khan had given them a half-dozen split pine torches to carry, while he let me walk unburdened.
“Where is he going?” I asked.
“To preach to some hill tribes,” Dost Muhammad muttered, “some men of that prophet.”
W'allahi! It seemed to me then that Baki was wiser than we. I would have relished both wine and opium before entering that pit again.
“Yea,” I said to the Rajput captain, “there are horses beyond us, but it is likely thou and I will descend into our graves before we mount a stirrup again.”
This prospect of danger put an end to his grumbling. The hillmen he held in utter scorn. But it seemed to me that Mahabat Khan might stroke a wounded panther more easily than talk to those Pathans again. He must have counted on al Khimar's absence from the valley this afternoon and on persuading the tribes to take his side in the coming struggle.
It is written that God deals lovingly with the bold of heart, and many times since have I thought of that saying. Mahabat Khan staked his own life and ours that day, and God put a weapon into his hand. Nay, he did not look for it!
It was Dost Muhammad who caught my arm and whispered—
“What is this?”
I looked up and saw, a bowshot ahead of us, al Khimar sitting on a boulder in the gully. He wore the same brown mantle and wide green turban and veil, and his back was toward us. He sat like a man who rests beside the path he follows.
Mahabat Khan saw him in the same instant and sprang forward. He made no sound, but one of the troopers, shifting the torches on his shoulder, made some noise and al Khimar looked over his arm at us. At once he sprang to his feet and ran. His mantle floating behind him he skimmed among the boulders, holding something in his arms.
“Take him!” Mahabat Khan cried to his followers.
But before we had run ten bowshots, al Khimar vanished. We saw him disappear into a narrow cleft of the rock that walled the end of the gully. This was the place where we had come out under the stars. At the cleft, Mahabat Khan checked us, bidding us light the torches.
It was no easy task. Mahabat Khan went on into the cleft, and Dost Muhammad knelt, cursing the damp wind of the place, while he struck flint against steel, dashing little sparks upon a wad of dry hemp that he placed in the end of the pine sticks. Many sparks died before the hemp began to smoke, and the flame caught slowly upon the wood. Then Dost Muhammad seized the torch and waved it until the fire sputtered and flared.
Still waving it, he ran into the rock passage, his men after him, and I following. We did not see anything ahead for a while, but when we came down over the ledges, we made out two figures hastening below us.
Al Khimar must have had eyes that could see in the dark, or he knew every step of the way. He might have had a torch or lantern of his own hidden somewhere, but he had not waited to light it, thinking that we could not follow in the darkness.
When Mahabat Khan and I had felt our way out of those accursed caverns, the path had seemed endless and terrifying. In reality it was not far to the chasm, where the rock bridge led across.
Guided by our torch, Mahabat Khan was only a spear's thrust behind the veiled figure. A1 Khimar ran out upon the narrow bridge and slipped or stumbled. Suddenly he screamed, falling to his knees and clutching that which he held still in his arms. The shrill cry echoed and quivered in the chasm, and Dost Muhammad cursed aloud.
Sword in hand, the Sirdar bent over the kneeling figure. He reached down and jerked off the veil and stood thus without moving. When we came up. Dost Muhammad held the torch high, and we stared at the terrified face of the kneeling man.
Eh, we saw before us Baki the Wise. His eyes were fixed on the darkness beneath him, his whole body rigid with terror.
After a moment the Sirdar thrust back his sword and helped Baki to our side of the chasm.
“Light another torch,” he bade us, “and retire beyond hearing until I summon you.”
When this was done, we went and sat on a ridge of rock, breathing heavily, staring at the tall and gleaming figure of the Sirdar and the man who crouched at his feet.
What they said I know not. Mahabat Khan seemed to ask many questions, and Baki, after a space, began to complain shrilly. Swiftly Mahabat Khan cut him short and called to the Rajput captain.
The Sirdar looked and spoke like a man who sees his way clear before him, after searching through darkness and uncertainty. Although he was no longer on the brink of the chasm, Baki still labored with his fear. His eyes gleamed, when Mahabat Khan took from his arms the bundle that he had carried during his flight.
It was a gray sack of coarse cloth. The Sirdar thrust his hand into it, drawing out a little heap of silver coins. At these Baki stared anxiously, and I wondered what strange hope he might have in this money—sitting thus after that wild chase through the gut of the mountain. His face fell, when Mahabat Khan handed the sack to me.
“Nay!” cried Baki. “Nay, that is mine!”
He trembled and kept stretching out a thin hand toward the sack. Mahabat Khan looked down at him in silence for a moment, while the governor of Kandahar put forth his hand and drew it back like a child, desiring something greatly, yet fearing to be punished.
“Art thou,” the Sirdar asked presently, “the servant of the emperor, to whom a trust was given?”
Baki nodded several times.
“Then let there be an end of al Khimar,” the Sirdar said. “And do thou yield to me the command of the men and treasure of Kandahar, until such time as thou canst go before the emperor and justify thyself.”
Again Baki assented, his eyes still fixed upon the sack in my hands. But the tall Pathan was not content with this.
“Wilt thou yield thy trust to me?” he asked again.
“Into thy hands,” muttered Baki, “I give the government of Kandahar.”
He glanced up at us with such malice that Dost Muhammad swore into his beard, and I felt misgiving. Truly, in that day of calamity few men would have wished to take the reins Baki let fall.
“And I accept the responsibility,” answered Mahabat Khan.
At once he gave an order to his two troopers, to take Baki back with them, going slowly along the heights and not descending to the garden gate of Kandahar until sunset. He bade them escort Baki to his tower, taking care to veil his face, and to keep him there, a captive, through the night.
Immediately Dost Muhammad voiced an objection.
“Mahabat Khan, the follower of this man, slew Rai Singh. Let him come with us and make atonement.”
The Sirdar did not reprove his officer for this speech.
“Within an hour,” he said, “the murderer of Rai Singh shall face my sword, or thine.”
Dost Muhammad uttered an exclamation, and touched his sword hilt, stepping back. Then the troopers took one torch and Baki, and they hastened back, desiring to be out of the cavern. Mahabat Khan and the old Rajput and I went forward.
Nay, I would have chosen to go with the troopers. Surely Baki, who had taken the veil of al Khimar, had laid many plots, and Shamil likewise. That Baki was a coward made matters no easier for us, because the intrigues of a weak and covetous man do more harm than the scheming of a bold rogue.
I thought that Mahabat Khan was taking a mad risk, to go among the Pathans. Baki had tricked him and nearly slain him twice. Indeed, Mahabat Khan was not the match of these men, much less the Persians, at scheming. By good fortune, when he ventured into the heights, he had made Baki captive. What more could he do?
But Mahabat Khan was a leader of cavalry, a man of his word, faithful alike to his lord and his men. He saw only one thing to do—to go forward until he was overcome. And God had given him one weapon—the knowledge that Baki had played the role of al Khimar. This weapon he used in a very simple way.
It is ill to rouse sleeping dogs. The Pathans in the prophet's gorge were sleeping wolves!
Standing in the deep shadow of the outer cavern, we could see all of that great pit of the hills. It looked different by day than by night. The sun struck against the lofty cliff of dark red limestone, filling the bed of the pit with a ruddy half light. The gleam of dazzling snow on sentinel peaks far overhead filled our eyes.
Perhaps six hundred tribesmen sat and slept and gossiped and ate, scattered in clan groups among their horses. Some were testing sword edges, or binding feathers upon fresh arrows. Others overhauled the flints and priming-holes of a few firelocks. The women and boys were making ready to bundle up their belongings on pack animals, to follow down behind the warriors, in the raid of the coming night.
Upon the opposite ridge, where we had first seen the sangar stood a solitary sentry, wrapped in ^sheepskins. I saw the one eyed Artaban chewing the last meat off a sheep's bone and then wiping his fingers on a passing dog. At his side squatted the red bearded Shamil, casting anxious glances at times toward the cavern, as if he expected al Khimar to appear.
Eh, they were like drowsy wolves, wary of the unknown, more than ready to quest, to prey when roused, a pack that awaited its leader. And in full sight of them Mahabat Khan stepped out upon the boulder with the Rajput officer at his side.
“O ye men of the hills!” he cried his greeting, in their speech.
At first the nearest children bobbed up, to stare and run from him. Warriors turned on their elbows and grasped for their weapons, when they saw the glittering garments of the two strangers. Men rose to their feet and gradually the murmur of the camp died into silence. In truth, they were too amazed to understand what was before them.
“I come from al Khimar,” Mahabat Khan cried in his deep voice.
This loosed the shackles of their amazement. Shamil sidled in, peering up at the boulder from his slits of eyes. Artaban grunted and pushed his way toward us, and presently a mass of them elbowed and swayed before the boulder.
“Who art thou?” demanded one.
“The son of Ghuyar, chief of the Lodi people. Sirdar of Ind, under authority of the emperor!”
There was silence anew, while they pondered this, and then a great outcry of amazement. Mahabat Khan addressed them in their own Pushtu, and many were found to tell me later the words he spoke. Not a man or child of them but had heard of the battles won and the honors gained by the soldier of the hills. Only there were no Lodi clansmen in that throng, and these men who had gathered at al Khimar's summons were resentful of authority and suspicious of new developments. They had the feeling of being tricked or trapped, and mutters of anger rose and swelled, until Mahabat Khan flung up his arm.
“Are ye wolves or men? Where are your leaders? Set forward the leaders, for I have come to speak at a jirhgar and not with wolves!”
A jirhgar is a council of elders and chieftains, with all the tribes listening. And because they were curious to hear what message Mahabat Khan might have for them, they began to call for their chief men to come forth. Artaban and half a dozen others ranged themselves under the boulder, and Shamil joined the group, peering up under his shaggy brows.
Mahabat Khan would not go down until they were seated, all six hundred of them, and then he went leisurely and sat upon a large rock, his hands clasped over his knee. As the hillmen were squatted on the ground, this set him a little over them, as if he spoke from a throne, and increased his dignity.
The straightforward manner of the man had calmed them. They saw that he had only one or two followers. I lingered in the shadow of the cavern. Their curiosity grew mighty indeed. Mahabat Khan had stepped out of the cave where al Khimar was supposed to dwell; he had said that he came from the prophet. I think only Shamil recognized him as the Pathan who had ventured hither the night before last, and Shamil, with Baki absent, hesitated to cry out his knowledge. The others, seeing him clad in this new fashion, in daylight, thought not at all of the shaggy Mahabat Khan who had come among them by firelight.
“Al Khimar,” the Sirdar said at once, “hath given me his place among ye. I have come to lead ye to a battle this night, to the spoil that al Khimar truly foresaw.”
W'allahi! When a blunt man speaks thus, who does not believe? A schemer might have argued, and a prophet have exhorted in vain. But the Pathans, drawing a long breath, became attentive. Probably al Khimar had kept them waiting overlong.
“I shall remain among ye,” he said again, “I alone, until the end of things.”
They did not believe this at first; but, as he spoke on, they began to consider and to believe.
Of all things he told them the truth—that twelve hundred Persians had been sent by the shah to take Kandahar by a trick; that this force was too great for the hillmen to attack alone; that, besides, the Persians were now camped in the plain out beyond Kandahar.
He described the camp, as his scouts had seen it. Then he talked about the great shah of Persia, revealing his trickery and cruelty, his way of venturing where he was not known and putting to death all who offended him. Yea, the Sirdar showed them that with the Persians quartered in Kandahar, the men of the hills would be hunted and driven from their sangars.
“My brother-in-arms, the songmaker, is captive in that camp,” he said suddenly, “and at the next dawn the Persians will begin flaying him alive, unless I yield myself also to them. And I mean to be in that camp before sunrise.”
They could understand now his need of making war upon the Persians. This was well, because otherwise they would have suspected a trick.
“If ye will,” he cried very loud, “ye can take me and sell me to the men of the shah.”
This was what they had been considering, but they denied it loudly at his challenge.
“Nay, Mahabat Khan,” declared Artaban, “we are not traitors. But we are too few to go against twelve hundred.”
Then the Sirdar revealed the plan he had made. He knew the Persians would not move out until dawn, because they would wait that long to see if he would give himself up. He meant to have the Moguls of the garrison sally out in the last hours of darkness and make an onset upon the lashgar.
Upon the heels of this charge he would lead the Pathans to attack the tents, thus taking the Persians by surprise at two points.
Eh, he knew these hillmen. The plan warmed their hearts. They would not have advanced alone against regular soldiery; but to dash in on the flank of the Moguls—to slash and loot among the tents!
“Hai-a!” they murmured, beginning to be eager.
Then it was that Shamil acted. He had waited until he saw the issue going against him, had waited vainly for al Khimar to appear. Now he sprang up and pointed at the Sirdar.
“Fools! This is the governor's spy who tried to seize al Khimar.”
He had waited too long. Artaban was thinking now, not of the Veiled One, but of the coming raid.
“Nay,” they cried, “this is the Sirdar of Ind.”
Mahabat Khan took matters in his own hand.
“Choose, ye men of the hills, will ye go against the Persians, as Pathans should? Or lurk here like the thieves of al Khimar?”
The chieftain of the Yuzufi was the first to spring up.
“By God, I will go with thee!”
“And I!” cried others, not willing to be thought lacking in courage. Many said nothing, but Mahabat Khan gave them no chance to quarrel about it.
“Will ye have me for leader, or him?” And he pointed at the enraged Shamil.
Now it is a strange thing but true that men are ever willing to pull down an old leader for a new one, and these Pathans loved both daring and dignity. A moment ago they might have slashed Mahabat Khan to pieces, but now they rallied to him.
“With thee will we go!”
“Then I shall be obeyed, from now—from this instant!”
His dark eyes swept over them confidently. And Shamil, struggling with his anger, learned the truth of the saying that a man who can not master himself may not lead others.
“Wait!” He tried a new course, changing his words. “Wait for the coming of the Veiled One and hear his command!”
“Then would ye wait long,” smiled the Sirdar, “for al Khimar is sitting with Baki the governor in the tower of Kandahar. As for thee—” he turned swiftly upon Shamil—“may God judge thee, for thou hast slain a man of mine, taking him unaware. For thee there is but one choice. Wilt thou draw thy sword against me, or Dost Muhammad?”
The captain of the Rajputs stirred and came forward.
“Is this the one who struck down Rai Singh?”
“In the bazaar,” assented the Sirdar. “I saw his face, and there are not two such beards in these mountains.”
When Shamil appealed to the Pathans, they jeered at him. In truth, they had not known of the killing in Kandahar. They cared not at all about the life of Rai Singh, but they knew the law of the punishment of blood. Any relative or companion-in-arms of the dead man was privileged to draw his sword against Shamil, and the red beard must look to his own life.
The law of the hills is inexorable—that no man may shrink from his quarrel. Even Shamil saw the uselessness of appeal, and his face grew hard. He looked once toward the cavern; his eyes no longer drooped, but glared hatred. No doubt he thought al Khimar had betrayed him.
In the end he chose to fight Dost Muhammad. Mahabat Khan seated himself on his stone. True, the Rajput seemed both lank and old, and his small sword was lighter than Shamil's long tulwar. But Dost Muhammad grinned at the choice, motioning back the hillmen who thronged about him.
“Thou shalt taste what is stored up for thee,” he said to the red beard.
I wondered what Mahabat Khan would do if Shamil vanquished the Rajput, but he seemed not at all concerned. The hillmen thought the more of him because he had been willing to take Rai Singh's death as his own quarrel.
“Al Khimar hath set thee upon me,” Shamil muttered, and seemed willing to say more, but Artaban mocked him; and presently, the space before the rock being cleared, Shamil fell to watching the Rajput who had drawn his sword and stood in readiness.
The light blade of Dost Muhammad was a khanda, double edged and finely balanced, of blue steel. The tulwar of Shamil was longer and much heavier at the head—a weapon made for a wide slash. As to strength, I could not judge. Dost Muhammad stood almost rigid, balanced on his thin feet, while Shamil moved about restlessly as a chained bear, his jaw outthrust, his heavy shoulders moving under his tunic.
“Inshallah!” cried Artaban. “As God wills it let the end come!”
The two swordsmen watched each other as keenly as hawks. Being afoot and with curved blades, the struggle would be decided swiftly. Shrewdly, each waited for the other to leap in, while the tribes breathed heavily, and jostled, not to lose a single glimpse of the two men.
Suddenly Dost Muhammad paced forward, his curved blade held at his hip. This spurred on Shamil who cried out and ran in, his mantle flying, his tulwar flashing out and down. The Rajput thrust out his long arm and parried, letting the long blade slide off his khanda.
“Hai!” cried Artaban. “The stork wards off the hawk!”
Shamil pretended then to rush in, twice, without being able to draw Dost Muhammad into a false guard. Then he slashed at the head and changed direction in midair, to strike the Rajput's slender hips. Again Dost Muhammad parried; and now the two blades sang and clashed so swiftly that I could not follow thrust and cut.
I saw that the tall Rajput walked forward slowly, and that by degrees he forced Shamil to guard himself. The tulwar man scowled, springing back again and again to escape those light cuts of the khanda. Then he saw the folly of falling upon the defense, and leaped forward, his long blade singing in the air.
Dost Muhammad sprang this time to meet him. The swords clashed and parted, and clashed anew. Shamil cried out, and swung up his tulwar to put all of his strength in one slash.
Instead of drawing back, the Rajput stepped in, his blade flicking sidewise across his enemy's breast. Shamil made his slash indeed, but the tulwar slowed in the air and fell from his hands. The front of his tunic under the ribs suddenly became red. The khanda had touched him and passed half through his body.
Dost Muhammad laughed and stood to one side, lowering his point. Shamil, dying upon his feet, gripped his breast, his knees sinking under him. His red beard stood out strangely, as his face became bloodless.
I looked at the Rajput. He was breathing evenly, wiping clean his blade with a cloth he had picked up from the ground.
“By God!” cried the one eyed Artaban. “This man has held a sword before now!”
The slaying of Shamil silenced any who might have sided against Mahabat Khan. When the Sirdar told them that he sought for true men who would not turn away from weapons, and that men of another mind need not come with him, the Pathans all cried that they would follow him.
So he drew apart while they made ready, and Dost Muhammad refreshed himself with wine. He took me aside with him and told me the secret of Baki.
Baki the Wise was a man of a single craving. He coveted wealth—gold pieces and silver. He stinted himself to gather in money.
And when he had found the revenues of Kandahar yielded little more than the emperor's tithe, he had bethought him of the hill tribes. Shamil, a merchant of Kandahar, had told the governor of this valley, of their favorite camping place and of the passage through the mountain that led to it. Shamil alone knew of this passage. They knew the superstition of the hills, and planned between them for Baki to appear in the valley, veiled, so that he would not be recognized. Baki had once been a reader of the Koran and knew its verses by heart.
He found that the tribes were afraid of him, and he gained real influence over them by foretelling the coming of certain caravans—a thing well known to him in Kandahar. He gathered tribute from the tribes, while he held them in leash by promising to lead them to war. Shamil, abiding with them, watched their moods.
Baki could come and go unseen from his tower, by the little door. So much he had confessed to Mahabat Khan, when he was caught in the caverns. As to the bag of money, he had said he meant to give it to the Pathans, but more probably he had been taking it from the tower to a safer hiding place. It was not all his money.
The coming of the Persians had found him unprepared to make any defense. He had thought of loosing the tribes upon the camp, but had lacked courage to lead them. Truly, a man who gathers wealth is fearful of harm!
“He was taken like a hare, running from one hole to another,” I said.
“But his scheming opened a way to strike at our enemy,” said Mahabat Khan, and when Dost Muhammad came up he gave us careful orders.
He bade us return at once to Kandahar by the caverns. He wrote out an order for us to give the leader of the Mogul garrison. All the garrison was to be led out under Dost Muhammad and the Mogul captain, about the fourth hour of the night. All must be mounted. With the first trace of light over the plain, they were to attack the Persian camp from the Kandahar side.
He would lead the Pathans down the tangi and the river valley, and be in position to attack from the west at the same time. Dost Muhammad listened intently and nodded, saying briefly—“On my honor!” He asked how many men should be left to keep the citadel.
“One,” said Mahabat Khan grimly, “to watch Baki.”
Dost Muhammad looked at me instantly, saying nothing. I knew that he meant to put me in place of his men, who would not relish being left behind. The prospect filled him with quiet joy, and he was only disconsolate because we could not ride back to the city.
He saluted Mahabat Khan and turned away. At the cave mouth we both looked back, beholding only the tumultuous preparations of the tribes—and the cold body with the red beard, outstretched by the boulder. So elated were we that we did not reflect how unruly were these same Pathans, and how Mahabat Khan would be cut off from all word from us.
“Hai, Daril,” cried Dost Muhammad, “the sniff of a battle gives life to thy aged bones.”
“Nay,” I said, “my old bones rejoice because life is in them after I had thought myself dead.”
More time had passed than we thought, and it was after sunset before we reached the last height. The descent in growing darkness was both slow and painful, and more than once we went astray. By the time we beheld the wall loom up before us, Dost Muhammad was cursing by all the ninety and nine holy names and more names of Hindu gods. The gate was unlocked, and we had to shout before servants came with torches and went to fetch the Rajputs with the keys. Dost Muhammad was fuming voicelessly, asking how in the name of all the gods he was to rouse and muster and lead out three hundred men at the time appointed. He calmed a little, when he found it was no more than the third hour of the night. He hastened to the tower where, as I had suspected, he bade me take the responsibility of Baki, so he would have all his men.
This was a mistake, and I was doubtful about standing guard over the governor of Kandahar in his own tower. True, Baki was still veiled, his arms bound, and the tower chamber darkened. I did not think he would wish to reveal himself in this garb.
“Send me the Bedouins and Abu Ashtar,” I responded, “and I will remain here.”
Full of his coming battle, Dost Muhammad hastened off. Presently the eleven Bedouins appeared, full of curiosity.
They all peered at Baki in the starlight of a window and satisfied themselves that this was indeed al Khimar. To put an end to their questions, I invented a fearful story of how the Veiled One had been chased through caverns that led to the underworld, and how Mahabat Khan had fought with him on a bridge of rock over a bottomless pit.
This gave them something to think about, for each one was trying to memorize the story, to improve upon it at the next telling. Baki understood me, but had nothing to say.
After a while I, too, became thoughtful. After all, of what was Baki guilty? We did not know for certain that he had sent Shamil to slay Mahabat Khan. Indeed, why should he have desired the death of the Sirdar?
In the hurry of events at the gorge I had not spoken of this; now I dared not ask Baki about it, before the Bedouins. It seemed to me that the prisoner was restless and breathing heavily, and that he roused up whenever hastening footsteps passed under the tower. Dost Muhammad had told the Moguls that Baki was taking opium, which was a well known failing of the governor. No one came to ask about him, and presently all was quiet around the tower.
Then this quiet was broken horribly by the voice of the captive. He cried out in a shrill whimper that made the Bedouins gasp.
“Ai-a! This is a night of fear. The wolves are sitting on their haunches and blood will fill the gullies before dawn. Oh, the terror!”
He continued to moan and exclaim, rocking back and forth.
“May God forgive me, I see the death of a thousand souls! I see shadows riding in a host through the plain!”
Then he sighed deeply and flung himself back on the couch.
“May God be merciful to me—it was not my doing. May their blood not be on my head.”
“Allah!” whispered the blind Abu Ashtar. “He prophesies!”
At first it had startled me, until I reflected that Baki was no doubt playing a trick of some kind, to excite the Arabs or gain his freedom. But it was otherwise. The man was gripped by a great terror, and so real was his fear that we began to share it.
“By God, Daril,” said Abu Ashtar again, “this is truth indeed. What is happening in the plain?”
Baki kept on moaning weakly, at times starting to speak and then checking himself to break into new lament. The Bedouins were thrilled.
“The garrison is gone out,” muttered Baki, and turned his head toward me. “Has not Mahabat Khan led down the Pathans to attack the lashgar?”
Since Dost Muhammad had spoken before him, I saw no good in trying to conceal our plans, and told him what was passing.
“Then they are doomed,” cried Baki and, as if breaking the chains that held him silent, he cried out harshly—
“You do not know that Shah Abbas, king of kings, lord of Iran and Irak, and master of Persia is in that lashgar!”
For a moment I did not understand the significance of his words and then I doubted that this could be true.
“That is surely a lie!” I said.
“By the triple oath I swear it,” he moaned, and then angry impatience swept over him. “Daril, the Shah is in that lashgar. The Persians Mahabat Khan captured told him many things, but not that.”
I was too astounded to wonder then how Baki came to know this. For a while I pondered, the Bedouins, breathless with interest, pressing closer not to miss a word. W'allahi, they thought that this was indeed a noble prophecy!'
A little at a time I pieced things together in my mind. Nisa, with her messenger pigeons flying from the west—her eagerness to make Mahabat Khan captive—her promise that a king would be surety for the life of Mahabat Khan, if he gave himself up. Nay, she was one of the women spies of the Persian court; and she had been willing to trick Kushal to aid the ambition of Shah Abbas.
So the whole matter became clear in mind, as a mirage drifting away from the hot plain shows the bare rocks and gullies that are really there. It was like the Persians to plan such a trick—to pretend that the shah had been hunting in these mountains, that the shah was really entertaining Mahabat Khan as a guest. But once in Kandahar with his troops, the gateway of the hills would be Persian indeed, and not soon would Mahabat Khan win his freedom.
“Fool!” cried Baki, trembling. “Canst thou not see what is about to happen? The Persians will beat off the Moguls and those hillmen; they will follow up to Kandahar and enter it easily. They will come here and take thee and set thee on a stake, on a greased stake, to die slowly, for the length of a day.”
“Allah!” breathed the Bedouins, agape.
Verily, this was about to happen. I knew well that Shah Abbas would not venture over the frontier without a strong guard of his warlike nobles, the atabegs, and hundreds of his veteran mailed cavalry, the kurshis, and his men-at-arms, the Red Hats, who would rather slay than plunder, and rather torture than slay.
When I thought of the fury of the shah and his men, surprised and attacked in his camp, my bowels became weak and ached mightily.
“It is certain,” cried Baki, “that he has other forces in support across the frontier within a day's ride. There is only one thing to be done, Daril. I have gold—some gold, hidden here in the tower. I will show thee where it is, and thou and these Arabs can take it, and bear me across the hills into Ind. We can take a boat on the Indus and be safe from all harm. But we must hasten!”
Indeed, I was tempted. Who would not be tempted, knowing that this miser must have gold enough hidden away to yield us luxury for years. No doubt he would try to trick us again, but the Bedouins and I would know how to deal with him.
“We can leave the city now without hindrance,” whispered Baki, still shaken by his fear. “But in two hours it may be too late.”
I went to the embrasure and looked out. Clouds hid the stars and an icy wind swept and swayed through the gardens of the almost deserted citadel. There was no telling the hour. I knew it must be long after midnight, and that the air was full of a rising storm. So much the better, if we fled.
I had not sworn to guard Baki, yet I had promised Dost Muhammad to remain here. Was Mahabat Khan my lord, that I should hazard torture to hold his prisoner here? Yet I owed him the duty of companionship and of salt. I thought of Mahabat Khan riding into the storm with his wild hillmen at his back, and it sickened my spirit to leave him thus.
“O Father of the Blind,” I cried to Abu Ashtar, “what thing wilt thou do in this situation?”
He answered promptly—
“Daril, we can not fly, leaving our tents and women out there.”
When Baki would have spoken, I checked him. A thought had come to me, a memory of words that Baki himself had spoken to the Pathans when he exhorted them to war against the Persians.
“Saidst thou not, in the valley,” I asked him, “'It is written: Thinkest thou that thy wealth will deliver thee, when thy deeds destroy thee?'”
“I said that, indeed, but the Pathans are fools to be swayed by such words. Thou and I, Daril, are otherwise. We are men of wisdom.”
“God forbid!” I responded, “that my wisdom should be kin to thine. I am a man of peace, but I have never reined my horse from a place where my companions tasted death.”
It was clear to me then that I must go at once and warn Mahabat Khan of what Baki had revealed. But how? I wished then for a Rajput trooper. It is easy to sit by and see others hold the reins of command, but it is far from easy to take up the reins they let fall! The Bedouins were waiting for me to decide. They longed for gold; greater than their longing was their fear of what was breeding in the storm.
“Find horses!” I bade them. “Find and saddle my mare, and tarry not.”
Some of them departed at once, being more than willing to do this. In truth, they knew where to look for mounts, because within the time it takes to light a fire they were back at the tower with thirteen mounts saddled in every fashion.
“Nay,” I cried, “what is this? We can not take al Khimar with us. Some few of ye must remain here with him.”
All speaking at once, they refused unconditionally to stay in the tower; even Abu Ashtar refused. They were like sheep that would not separate in a storm. So we had to bind Baki more securely and fill his mouth with a cloth, stripping off his turban and binding his jaw tight with its long cloth. At least he would not cry out, and we left him to what God had ordained.
Putting Abu Ashtar in the center of our cavalcade, I mounted my mare, and we galloped through the dust swept streets, out of the open gate. Only slaves and women saw us go.
To find six hundred men in hiding somewhere upon a wide countryside in a starless and wind swept night is a task for hunting dogs or a real prophet. We only knew that Mahabat Khan had come down the shallow valley of the river and would be somewhere west of the Persian lashgar.
We turned toward the river and heard it rushing past, making a deep roar. Up in the hills the storm had filled the water-courses, and the river raged. We had great trouble making our way down it, plunging through tilled land and skirting tossing willow groves. Dogs howled at us in a chorus that echoed the voice of the wind. We saw no lights, although we passed dark hamlets several times.
We trotted over the highroad upon which I had come to Kandahar. Then the gardens became less and the open brush more plentiful. Our horses were restless, and we had to rein them in in order to listen; this availed us little, for the brush crackling under the wind and the mutter of the river filled our ears.
“On such a night,” cried a young Bedouin, “we could steal into the Persian horse lines, unheard.”
“On such a night,” I responded, remembering other experiences in other years, “we could wander into a Persian guard post, unknowing.”
By now it seemed to me that the lashgar must lie upon our left. But it was useless to try to feel our way toward it and hope to meet the body of Pathans before running into the camp. Whether we encountered friends or foes, we would probably be greeted with arrows.
I decided to follow the river, thinking that in this accursed blackness we would at least be keeping in one direction, and that some stragglers would surely have fallen behind Mahabat Khan's force.
Then the rain came down, driving suddenly upon the backs of our heads and shoulders.
We shivered and went on in silence. In the end it was not our searching that came upon the Pathans. My mare whinnied, and another horse answered, a spear's length away.
I bent low in the saddle and called out, saying that we were friends, seeking the Sirdar. Something stirred in the blackness and a voice answered—
“By God, so are we!”
Three or four Yuzufis had become lost and were wandering around, as witless as ourselves by the river. They told us that Mahabat Khan had passed an hour ago, turning east before the rain began. At least we knew that he was not by the river, and I ordered my men and the Yuzufis to spread out, keeping within call of each other, and to push on swiftly.
So we went ahead after a fashion, yelling and stumbling and trotting heavily in the mud. As to our line, it soon became a thing of madness, for I heard Bedouins crashing through brush behind me, and once I ran into a Pathan who was going across my path. Only Abu Ashtar kept his temper, saying that all things had an end.
This, indeed, had a sudden end. A heavy voice cried out within touch of my rein hand—
“In the name of Allah the compassionate, the merciful—are ye women, nightmare ridden, or dogs become mad?”
The voice was Artaban's. The Yuzufi chieftain had heard our clamor over the beat of the rain and had hastened back to silence us. We had come upon the right wing of Mahabat Khan's force. A little more to the right, and we would have pushed in to the lashgar of Shah Abbas.
I told the one eyed chieftain that I must see Mahabat Khan at once. He was a man of deeds, and he took my rein in one hand and Abu Ashtar's in the other and strode off without another word.
It is a strange thing but true that all the other eleven Arabs heard us and gathered docilely behind me, like a disciplined escort, whereas a moment before they had been plunging about anywhere. Nay, the Yuzufis with us chose to slip away to their comrades, without revealing themselves, no doubt dreading their chieftain's tongue.
We splashed among groups of men squatting in the rain, and presently found horsemen about us, dismounted and standing by their beasts. Hillmen such as these do not love night marches or fighting in a storm, and it was a miracle that Mahabat Khan had brought them thus far and formed them after a fashion. He had taken command of the two hundred riders in the center.
By the time we found him the rain had ceased, although the wind still blew with force. The clouds raced overhead, yielding a little light—or rather, the utter darkness seemed less. Mahabat Khan was in the center of a group of Hazaras, telling them of a time when he had marched at night in Bengal during the rains and had missed half his command, at dawn, a hundred miles down the Ganges in boats. I took him apart, dismounting and standing in the mud, and he listened silently to what I had to tell—that Shah Abbas was before him in that lashgar.
He did not reprove me for leaving Baki without a guard. I had expected reproof and anger, and a hurried command to withdraw. But he kept his thoughts to himself and gave no command.
“It is too late to do otherwise,” he said quietly. “I could not get word to Dost Muhammad.”
After a moment he laughed a little.
“Eh, Daril, one thing is sure; Shah Abbas will be wet this dawn!”
The Pathans around us fell silent, and began to gather up their reins. Abu Ashtar lifted his head, and Mahabat Khan left me, springing toward his horse.
Somewhere ahead of us, over the whine of the wind, a roar of hoofs resounded, and a deep shouting. A smashing of brush, shrill neighing of horses—a growing clatter of steel, a bellow of a firelock. Dost Muhammad was in the Persian camp.
With a shout Mahabat Khan swung upon his saddle.
“Hai! Come with me, ye men of the hills!”
And with a roar like the angry rush of the river, the tribesmen followed his voice.
I know now, many years after that battle, that if Mahabat Khan had not led us forward instantly as he did, we would have been worsted at once. Sentries shot arrows at us, and drums rolled in the blackness. We had gone only a little way, when men began to run out in front of the horses.
Here and there lights flared up—torches in the hands of frightened slaves. They only made the darkness thicker elsewhere. We plunged in among the tents, knocking many of them flat, the Pathans halting to slash at the Persians who struggled under the wet cloth.
But Mahabat Khan led his riders on.
“Forward ye men of the hills!”
So we left many Persians behind us, to be dealt with by the Pathans afoot. Arrows sang past my ears, doing little harm to any one. It was no place for bows. Mahabat Khan had ordered his followers to wield their swords, and those long tulwars did fearful work in the confusion. As to firelocks, I heard only that first shot. The rain and the swift onset made the clumsy muskets of no use at all.
The Arabs and I had followed the mass of Pathan riders who in turn followed the Sirdar. And presently we all saw lanterns and torches grouped in front of us. Here a hundred or more kurshis, mailed riders, were forming under officers, struggling into the saddles of rearing horses. Eh, few of them had had lime to put on their armor.
Mahabat Khan tarried not at all. He spurred over the slippery clay at the Persians. A horseman swung out to meet him, and Mahabat Khan reined in, lifted his sword arm. His horse, checked in this fashion and made frantic by the flaring lights, slipped and slid, all four legs locked.
In this fashion they crashed into the foremost Persian, knocking his horse off balance, so that beast and rider went down beside the Sirdar, who leaned forward and slashed at a second soldier. The man tried to parry, cried out, and reeled with his head split open.
The sight inflamed the charging Pathans, who might have hung back and broken if they had not seen Mahabat Khan go through the Persian array like that.
“Allah, il-'lah!” they shouted from straining throats, and the clatter of steel and creaking saddles resounded around me.
After that all order was lost. My Bedouins scattered like dogs in a field of running hares, and many of the torches went down in the mud.
In truth I knew not what was happening. Men told me afterward that the main force of the Persians had rallied around the shah, to make stand against the Moguls who had not cut their way in as far as we.
I reined in under some trees and looked around. Artaban galloped past, waving a torch in one hand and a sword in the other, his dark face frenzied. He was alone. I saw one of the Bedouins ride down and kill with his scimitar a fleeing Persian. Then he dismounted with a shout of triumph to rob the body, which was richly clad. It was folly to dismount at such a time. A bearded kurshi saw, and wheeled and galloped down upon the Bedouin, sticking him through the body with a lance.
I had drawn toward them, and the Persian saw me, dropped his lance and made at me with the sword. I gathered the mare under me and half turned, to take him on his left hand. He saw, rose in his stirrups and slashed down at me across his horse's head. I wished vainly then for a shield, knowing that such a stroke is hard to parry. At such a moment the mind races and the arm moves slowly.
The kurshi towered over me, blood dripping from a slash in his cheek, his teeth gleaming through his matted beard. He leaned forward and down as he struck. I thrust up my sword, catching his blade against my hand guard.
The force of the blow knocked the sword from his hand, and he drew back, reaching for a knife hilt. I slashed at his throat and felt the blade strike into flesh. He staggered, and urged his horse on, past me. Looking back, I saw him slip from the saddle.
“Daril!”
Mahabat Khan was calling me, and I made toward him, finding him escorted by no more than two Hazaras, one holding a torch gingerly—more than ready to drop it, if the Persians beset him. Mahabat Khan was breathing heavily, his fine tunic darkened with mud and blood. He bade me take the Hazaras and find the tent where Kushal had been held. Then he trotted off to seek Dost Muhammad.
As soon as the Sirdar had turned his back, the Hazara cast down the torch. I remembered that Kushal had been on the far side of the camp. When we galloped thither, we found little fighting going on. A fight gleamed within the pavilion of blue silk.
The entrance was closed, and I dismounted, bidding the tribesmen hold my horse. I lifted the hanging and stepped inside. No living thing was here, but upon the couch, outstretched in death, lay a woman.
I went to her side, looking down at the familiar yellow tresses, the slender throat and the blue-lidded eyes. It was Nisa.
Her lips curved a little, as if smiling, and her splendid head rested on one side against a cushion, as if she had settled herself to sleep. There was still a flush in her cheeks and warmth in her hand, when I touched it. She had been slain within the hour—slain by many stabs. Nay, the one who did it must have been angered indeed, thus to mutilate so fair a body.
The candle flames rose and sank as gusts of air came through the pavilion, and the changing light made Nisa's eyes and lips seem to move. I closed her eyelids and drew her shawl across her breast. At that moment I remembered only the time when she had pressed my hand against her heart.
I am an old man, and many times have I seen death, sudden and fearful, but for a girl to die thus alone and in the midst of maddened men was pitiful.
The entrance curtain was flung back, and I turned, sword in hand, seeing Kushal enter. His pugri was gone; his wet dark hair hung about his bloodshot eyes. He staggered like a man badly wounded or utterly weary.
“Ha, Daril!” he cried at me, and flung his sword down upon the carpet.
“Hast thou done this?” I asked, pointing at the couch.
“I?” He planted his back against the tentpole and laughed with bloodless lips. “I loved her. Knowest thou what she has done?”
The tumbling words seemed to give his spirit relief, and he talked on:
“Daril, we twain were here in the hour before this dawn. She had waited for the coming of Mahabat Khan, and I taunted her, saying that he would never come at her summons. I hoped he would not come. I knew she had betrayed me to these dogs of the shah. In the hour before dawn she despaired of the Sirdar, and talked with the guards of the tent. Then she summoned that fellow of thine, the camelman, Sher Jan.”
He sighed, holding himself more erect.
“She bade me go with Sher Jan, before the first light, saying that it had all been a trick. I went at once, and Sher Jan guided me past the outer guards unseen. Then I met Dost Muhammad's cavalry and heard of the attack to be made upon the lashgar.”
He looked wearily at the weapon he had thrown away.
“Daril, I begged a sword and a horse, and fought my way hither. There were Persian lords at the tent, and lights. They had come for me and had revenged themselves on her.”
Upon this I meditated, understanding that Nisa, the singing girl, had made Kushal captive, to serve her lord the shah. Then, when the hour came for Kushal's torture she had freed him, and waited in his place.
Why had she not gone with him? Was her pride too great for this? Did she hope at the last to outwit the Persians? I knew not. The heart of such a singing girl, wayward and passionate and full of longing—who knows it?
Kushal had gone to the divan and thrown himself down, pressing his forehead against her feet, in the very place where she had sat a day and a night ago, fanning the flies from him. He would not let me look at his wounds; he bade me go and keep the entrance, and let no others in. Nay, he thought no more of the battle.
My two tribesmen said that now the fighting was all in one place, and this meant that the shah must be surrounded by the Pathans and Moguls. The mist had turned gray and was drifting through the trees, and somewhere the sun was rising. The wet pavilions and the dark boles of trees were clearly visible.
The sound of the fighting changed, and my Hazaras gathered up their reins. Horses galloped toward us. I mounted into my saddle. No sooner had I done so, than riders swept out of the trees and past the blue pavilion. Others followed in a dense mass, rushing like fiends out of the veil of mist. They were Persian cavalry, with nobles riding haphazard among troopers and mounted slaves.
In the midst of the throng rode a man of short stature and wide shoulders clad in cloth-of-gold. He was in the saddle of a tall black horse with gilded reins. I caught a glimpse of his broad face, dark with anger, as he lashed on his charger.
It was thus that I saw Abbas the Great flee from Kandahar, and he went as if Satan followed behind him.
But it was Mahabat Khan, who pursued the Persians, bareheaded, with Dost Muhammad at his side, and two hundred Moguls at his heels. They crashed through the camp and vanished into the mist. I stayed at the blue pavilion, where Nisa's candles burned fainter, and Kushal mourned.
After victory, after the last blow is struck, and men begin to feel the ache of wounds, the spirit flags and the body is heavy. Then a man can not sleep and desires not food.
I watched the Pathans exulting as they looted the tents, dragging out carpets, piling up weapons and leading off the horses they had taken. My Bedouins rode by, clad after their custom, in the gilded mail and the silk turbans of the shah's men. They carried new shields and had gleaned the best of the horses, and were singing about it all. I smiled when blind old Abu Ashtar rode past, singing with the rest, his arms full of plunder. By God's mercy he had suffered no harm in all that fighting.
But later in the day I came upon the body of Artaban. In spite of his charm, or perhaps because he trusted too much in his charm, he had been slain by a lance that passed clear through his throat. Too often had he boasted that steel could not pierce him.
Shah Abbas escaped by the speed of his horse, taking refuge across the border, where other Persians awaited him. I did not see this pursuit of an emperor, because I remembered Baki and galloped back to Kandahar to take charge of him again. Thus I was the first to enter the gates and shout the tidings of the battle.
I hastened to the tower chamber, and found it empty. The cords with which we had bound Baki lay upon the stone floor beside the cloth that had served for a gag. The rug and the cushions were torn from the divan, revealing a wooden chest as empty as the room. Baki had been able to free himself from his bonds and to flee from the citadel, taking with him a great weight of gold.
Nay, I knew before the end of that day that he had taken the gold.
He had placed it in sacks upon a horse and had gone through the gate unseen. He had turned his horse toward the river. It was Mahabat Khan who summoned me and took me to Baki.
The Veiled One lay curled up like a bird that had dropped from the sky. He lay in the mud by the river, crushed and beaten down by weapons and the hoofs of horses. Only by his tattered garment and the shreds of his veil did we know him. And all around him Pathans searched eagerly, picking out of the mud the gold coins that had fallen from the burst sacks.
“Eh, Daril,” said Mahabat Khan, leaning on his saddle horn, “that is Persian gold. The atabegs of the shah, who are my prisoners, have told me the tale. Baki offered to open one of the gates of Kandahar to the shah if Abbas would come secretly with a strong body of men, as if to capture the city. Baki asked a price of ten thousand pieces of gold for Kandahar, and the shah agreed.”
He looked away from the body, frowning.
“Five thousand pieces were sent to Baki by the hand of a singing girl, Nisa. I think he meant at first to take refuge in the hills, when the rest of the gold was his.”
I thought of another thing—the coming of Mahabat Khan had disturbed both the Persians and Baki, and each had tried to be rid of the Sirdar, in different ways.
In the end Baki had become afraid and had fled with his horse in the darkness along the river. He had been seeking the Persians, and thus, in the first light he had appeared before the maddened shah and a hundrd riders. His death had been swift—what a death! Nay, Shah Abbas had believed himself betrayed, and in that dawn of fighting his mood must have been dark indeed.
Thus Baki disappeared, and no man saw him again. But to the Veiled One death brought honor of a strange kind. The Pathans recognized the body of their prophet, and mourned. My Arabs told their tale of his last vision in the tower, and to all of them it seemed that the Veiled One was indeed a holy man.
Who was to say otherwise? Not Dost Muhammad or Mahabat Khan, who took me with them in fellowship to Ind. Not I, who was glad to behold Baki at last safely in his grave. Many hillmen stopped to pray and to tie rags to his shrine, and the sick journeyed far to this holy spot.
But I, when I passed through those hills again, thought of what is written—that a man can not save himself by his gold, if his deeds destroy him.
* ↑ 1619 A.D.
* ↑ Persia, then ruled by the great Shah Abbas. Daril and other Arabs called it Iran, but the modern name is substituted hereafter in the narrative.
* ↑ The tribe of Joseph. Also David and Solomon are favorite names in the Afghan hills, where tribes trace their descent from the rulers of Israel.
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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