Riders of the Steppes

by Harold Lamb

  "Mashallah!"

  "And these garments of the Frank, conceal them likewise. You will have your weapons back again. But as surety for your silence I will take with me this boy, your son, who must guide us to a place of good hiding."

  At this the Arab wailed and fell on his knees, beating his head against the stone, and crying that Hassan was a piece of his liver, the very core of his heart.

  "He will not suffer," said Demid grimly, "if we are not found by those who seek us out. If you betray us I will cut his body open and lay him out by the butchers' quarter where the dogs will—"

  "Ai-a! Allah prosper thee, harm him not, and the master of the Wolf's Ear cannot make me speak. By my beard, upon the Koran I swear it!"

  "Good. I am not a breaker of promises: see to it that you are likewise."

  While he spoke, Demid thrust the sword given him by the Turks under his cloak, signed for Michael to do likewise with the other weapon, and pushed his beard behind a fold of the voluminous garment. Picking up a cord, he bound one end about the wrist of Hassan and the other to Michael's sash.

  "Stoop when you walk, my friend," he said, "and speak thickly if one addresses you. Look upon the ground, and wonder not. The reason for this will be known to you when we reach the only place that is safe in Aleppo."

  It was not hard for Michael to counterfeit weariness, and they passed unnoticed out of the gallery, through the courtyard, into the crowded alley. Demid caught snatches of talk that told him how their horses had been found not far from here, but as they had dismounted at the end of the arcade where deep shadow had hidden them, no one was sure where the prisoners had gone. Even as they turned away, a detachment of janissaries pushed through the throngs and entered the serai. A miskal of gold had been promised the one who found El Kadhr and the escaped Frank.

  Demid however, loitered along and stopped to buy some dates and rice for Michael. When Hassan came up, leading the supposedly sick man, Demid whispered to the boy to show the way to the Gate of Victory. And Hassan gave proof that the byways of Aleppo were well known to him.

  From one arcade to another, down into a dark wine cellar, thence through a passage to a coffee house—where Demid took time to sit and drink a bowl—up into the quarter of the saddlers and shield-makers where hides, hung up to dry, filled the air with a stench greater than that of the hovels they had left—from there to the covered court of a bathhouse he led them.

  Men stopped him, to ask questions, but the boy's wit found a ready answer and Demid took the center of the alleys, reeling along like a desert man who had sat up with the wine bowl the night before.

  "To the well of the lepers," he muttered, drawing up to Hassan.

  The boy shivered, but just then a group of the palace guards came up to search the bath and he turned aside among the heaps of cinders from the bathhouse fires, to a nest of clay hovels grouped around a square hole in the ground. Steps led down this excavation, and Michael flattened against the wall when a mournful figure climbed up past him—a man with loose, white-blotched flesh and swollen lips, who grunted from a tongueless mouth.

  At the bottom of the steps where shadow gave a little relief from the sun squatted other foul shapes, watching with lackluster eyes several of their companion lepers bathing in the sunken well. Hassan sought out a corner as far as possible from the sick men, and Michael watched Demid stagger up and lie down beside him.

  A drunken Arab and another leper with a boy for guide aroused no interest in the unfortunate people of the well, and no questions were put to the three.

  Demid waited until Michael had eaten a little, and then rolled over to whisper: "Sleep will help you, for you are weary. Yet hearken first to what is to be done. The fight at the stake cannot change my plans because Lali acts with us, and we may not get word to her before night."

  "Lali—do you trust her?"

  "Why not? She could have betrayed me, yet she has been faithful."

  "Aye, she had me taken from Sivas and sold! She was jealous, because you cherished me."

  Demid swore under his breath.

  "What a girl! There is a demon in her, and she boasted of her prank to me, then wept because she was not forgiven. We were close upon the heels of your caravan when the Arabs raided it; then I made Lali play the spy upon them, and bring us the tidings that you were being taken to Aleppo. The rahb —the fast camels—went too swiftly for our pursuit. Yet that is past and now we have work to do."

  He cuffed Hassan, who had crept closer to listen, upon the ear and promised him a bath in the lepers' pool if he tried to overhear what was said.

  "I owe you my life," said Michael, starting to hold out his hand but remembering that he was a leper for the time being.

  Demid wrinkled his nose and spat.

  "Hide of the ——, what a smell is here. I would rather bed down with the goats of —— than in here. Nay, you saved my skin on the galley when I was burdened with the girl. You owe me naught."

  "Balaban!" Michael started, at mention of the galley. "He is here and he is the pasha, Sidi Ahmad. The other is a mask in his place."

  "I saw that."

  Demid was silent for several moments, his lips set in hard lines as he listened to the tale of what had befallen his friend. "So we had the leader of these Moslems on the galley, and knew it not. The thought came to me at the Cossack camp that Balaban was a spy. So I took him with us, to point out the way across the sea, and he escaped our hand."

  The young Cossack frowned, gnawing at his heard, his arms crossed on his knees.

  "Ai this is an evil place. Here there was once the church of a Christian saint, and now over its ruins stands a nest of thieves. How is that to be endured?"

  His dark eyes fell moody, and Michael knew that one of the fits of brooding had gripped him. Yet the Cossack was not thinking of the opportunity he had lost. He was musing upon the work to be done, and this he explained to Michael, slowly, making sure that the cavalier understood the part he was to play. Demid never hurried himself or his men. When the time for quick action came he took the offensive at once, Cossack fashion; but, always, he had thought out beforehand what was to be done.

  So it seemed to his enemies that he acted on impulse, and they spoke of him as a falcon that strikes on swift wings from an open sky; but even that morning at the stake he had seen in his mind's eye how Michael might be saved. In this he was different from Michael, who—utterly daring as Demid—acted altogether on impulse.

  "This night," said the Cossack, "we will lift the treasure of Sidi Ahmad."

  "'Swounds! That disguise of yours will never pass you into the Wolf's Ear!"

  Demid nodded.

  "True, my friend, and that is why Sidi Ahmad will not look to find me within the Wolf's Ear. So, the fight at the stake has aided us, when all is counted—aye, because it has given a messenger to send to Ayub and my children."

  "What messenger?"

  "You, a leprous man."

  Michael shivered, for the well of the lepers did not strike him as much better abiding place than the torture stake.

  "Where have you quartered Ayub and his blades—in the lazar house?"

  "Nay, with the dead, in the burial place of the Moslems without the city wall. Even Sidi Ahmad did not think to search the grove of trees among the tombs on yonder hill by the Bab el Nasr. The Moslem warriors do not visit the graves, and the women who go there fear the spirits of the place. Ibnol Hammamgi told me of it—he has taken to cover there, in other days."

  "Good!" Michael grinned a little, thinking of Ayub. "But that is without the gate, and the gate is closed."

  "Hassan will open it."

  "With what?"

  "With you, O my companion of the road. You will be a leper, about to yield life; he will be your son, taking you to the ditch in the burial place wherein those who are unclean are laid while they still breathe. To rid themselves of you, the guards at the gate will open it a little, unseen, because it will be dark by then."

  "And after that�
�"

  Demid took up the dates left by Michael, who had eaten what he dared, and fell to munching them.

  "First there is a tale to tell."

  And it was a tale that banished all desire for sleep from the weary Michael.

  A generation after Christ, the body of St. George was laid in a tomb in one of the cities of the Israelites. When the wave of Moslems overswept the land, the Turks heard of the legend of al-khidr, the Emir George, and sought for the tomb but did not find it. The Armenians, however, who took refuge from the invasion in the northern mountains knew the situation of the tomb of the warrior saint, and during the crusades pilgrims from their folk visited it—until the order of the sultan of the Turks forbade Christians to enter Aleppo. So much Demid had heard from the batko— the priest of the Cossacks.

  The tomb was at the base of the tower which now formed the Wolf's Ear, a dozen feet or more underground.

  At the time of the Moslem conquest, the last Christians to leave the tower had screened the entrance to the stair leading down to the tomb as well as they could. But since the pasha's palace had been built around the tower, Ibol Hammamgi had heard that the stair had been uncovered.

  The cral had ventured once with the Armenian patriarch in disguise to penetrate to the site. The patriarch knew of another entrance, also covered up by rocks that led in from the hillside behind the palace at the base of the cliff. They had been able to remove the protecting boulders unseen by the guards of the palace above, and had made their way up a short passage to the vault, only to find that the inner door could not be opened from the outside.

  It was on leaving the passage, after replacing the rocks, that Ibnol Ham-mamgi had been seized and tortured by janissaries. During his captivity Ibnol Hammamgi had used his good eye and his ear to advantage and suspected that the tower was now a treasure vault of Sidi Ahmad.

  "Faith!" cried Michael of Rohan, "the one-eyed mountain goat has the right of it! The torture chamber where I lay may be the chapel of St. George, and the tomb must be below it. Aye, I mind that Sidi Ahmad passed at times up and down a stair into which a door opened from the place of torture."

  He described how he had encountered the master of the Wolf's Ear the evening before and Demid listened attentively.

  "The stair leads higher, into the tower," Michael added thoughtfully. "The Moslems built it upward, I'll wager odds on 't, when they turned the chapel into a dungeon. Well for you they did. Small good it would do you, Demid, to enter the vault and pass through the door into the dungeon. They would crown you in my place on the stake."

  "Aye," responded the Cossack slowly as was his wont. "From the sepulcher the stair will take me high in the tower—the treasure of Sidi Ahmad

  is bulky, ivory, silks from India, gold plate from Persia—and-knows

  what else. He would keep it in a place apart."

  "Saw you such a place in the Wolf's Ear?"

  Demid shook his head.

  "Faith! Ibnol Hammamgi found the tomb door closed against him. How then will you enter?"

  "Lali will come to the other side. She has pledged it."

  It had been agreed between them that the Armenian girl was to make her way down the stair at the beginning of the second watch of that night, and open the portal to Demid.

  "The fox Sidi Ahmad cannot trust his officers with his secret—there is no faith between them—so the place of the treasure must be hidden. Lali will find out what may be discovered. At that hour the procession of the Guilds—the weapon-makers, the gold spinners, the saddlers, will pass through the terraces before the palace as is customary on this day of the year. Many within the palace will have their eyes on the festival—on the lamps, and their ears will heed the kettledrums and pipes."

  "Even so, what if Lali whispers one word to Sidi Ahmad—"

  "She could not go back to her people. The girl has a spirit of flame, there is nothing she will not dare. Besides, she has a longing to go back to her tribe. We will see."

  And Demid, in a whisper, told Michael what he must do to aid him. At first the cavalier said stubbornly that he would not leave him, but the Cossack pointed out that Michael's presence would be of small use if he failed in the Wolf's Ear, whereas if he won clear he would need Michael and the men, to escape from the city. Besides, if no messenger were sent to the warriors, they and Ayub would remain on the hill outside the wall until they were discovered and slain.

  "They had an order," he added gravely.

  "Egad," thought Michael, "and so have I."

  "Keep Hassan by you until the last; so long as you have him the Arab will not lift his voice against us."

  XI

  Ayub Issues a Challenge

  After sunset, when the heat began to pass from the baked streets of Aleppo, the light and tumult of the festival arose and swelled through all the quarters of the guilds, even to the gate, el Nasr, formerly the Gate of the Jews but named otherwise by Saladin the Great.

  The flickering lamp against the iron fretwork of the portal—the lamp kept lighted since the day of the prophet Elisha—vied with the colored lanterns of a puppet show before which lean Arabs and stout Osmanlis stood gravely, bubbling, however, with inward mirth.

  A party of saddlers assembled in the faya, the cleared space just within the gate, sweating under their sugar-loaf hats and tiger skins and the burden of a float manned by several agile buffoons, who cracked jokes with the half-dozen janissaries on guard at the post.

  Other lamps appeared on the balconies of the nearest houses, where veiled women sat, and occasionally a shrill voice rose over the monotonous tinkling of a guitar.

  Nimble-footed urchins scurried about in the throng, wielding pig bladders inflated and tied to sticks, casting wary glances when a silence fell at the bulk of the Wolf's Ear, which, apart from the merry-making, showed black as a bat's wing against the glowing sky over the hills. But Hassan, the Arab, was not among them.

  Hassan came limping toward the gate in bedraggled garments, snuffling and tearing at his hair. Behind him staggered a slender figure, veiled. The throng gave back as the two neared the gate and the child's cry could be heard.

  "'Way for him who goes to the mercy of Allah! Riwan hath opened the gate of mercy to this one. Ai-a!"

  He tugged valiantly at the rope which seemed to drag the figure of the leper along. Shrewdly enough, Hassan, on seeing that the faya was alight and crowded, had abandoned the idea of secrecy and made outcry sufficient for a half-dozen deaths. Moreover he did not make the mistake of asking that the portal be opened. But he edged closer to the janissaries, who drew back with oaths.

  "Child of misfortune. Cover the fire of disease with the water of solitude."

  "Ai-a! I am his son!"

  "A lie escaped thy tongue." They began to curse the weeping boy and his ill-omened familiar. "You are the son of all stupidity."

  "I know not where to go."

  "Allah!" One of the maskers spoke up feelingly. "Instruct the boy in what he should do. The leper is far gone: let him go out to the burial place of the unclean."

  Here Hassan began to wail the louder, and the crowd began to revile the guards who did not open the gate.

  "It is forbidden!" growled the one in command.

  "So also is a dying leper forbidden within the city."

  "This may be the Frank on whose capture is the price of ten slave girls."

  "O pack-saddle of an ass! The warrior Frank was tall as a spear; this one is like an ape."

  The janissary hesitated, and for a moment Michael feared that Hassan might betray him; but the boy remembered very well that the cavalier had a scimitar under his cloak, and besides, he had heard his real father swear an oath on the Koran. That was binding on Hassan as well.

  "He cannot speak." Hassan forestalled the soldier's intention of questioning the supposed leper. "Lift the veil and you will see how his tongue is rotted away, and the bone sticks through his nose."

  The horrors of the lepers' well were still vivid in Hassan's mind,
and his voice shook. When Michael took it upon himself to make some uncouth noises the janissary drew back quickly.

  "Darisi bashine—the grain may have been reaped by thee! Go, the two of you! Open the gate to them!"

  "Where shall we go?" whined Hassan.

  "Mashallah! Where but to the burial hill yonder—behold the grove of pistachio trees against the skyline."

  So the two slender figures passed under the flickering lamp of Elisha, out into the void of darkness, and the hubbub at the gate resumed its even key. It was a weary climb for the tired Michael, up the path to the shrines and stones of the cemetery, and for some time they stumbled around, feeling their way toward the blotch of the grove.

  Here Hassan gave a real yell of alarm and the skin prickled on Michael's back. From the deeper gloom ahead of them issued the call of animals, and they heard the whining of panthers, the grunting of camels, and the whir of wings. Hassan, knowing that no beasts larger than jackals were in the thickets, started to flee and the rope pulled his companion headlong.

  Perforce, they both halted, and the boy whimpered when a muffled screech sounded from a tree almost overhead; but Michael remembered the Cossacks' trick of mimicking animal calls and cried Ayub's name softly.

  Presently the giant Cossack ataman loomed over them and Hassan quivered, believing firmly that now he was about to be carried off by the djinn—for he never thought a man could be as huge as Ayub.

  "Are the men safe?" whispered Michael.

  Ayub ran a hard hand over the cavalier's face, and grunted with pleasure.

  "-fly away with me if it isn't the little Frank behind a woman's

  veil. Have you wine-meat? Is it a feast day in the city? Then lead us to the frolic."

  Other Cossacks crowded up to salute Michael and stroke his shoulders in high glee at seeing him safe again.

  "As I live," rumbled Ayub, shaking his head sadly, "we have played at ghosts until our own skins crept each cock-crow—not a single pretty woman came to pray at the graves in all the three days. Not a lass."

  "How could you tell, father?" asked one of the younger warriors. "They were all wrapped up."