O’Donnell turned from the street and entered a narrow arched gate which stood open as if in invitation. A narrow stair went up from a small court to a balcony. This he mounted, guided by the tinkle of a guitar and a plaintive voice singing in Pushtu.
He entered a room whose latticed casement overhung the street, and the singer ceased her song to greet him and make half-mocking salaam with a lithe flexing of supple limbs. He replied, and deposited himself on a divan. The furnishings of the room were not elaborate, but they were costly. The garments of the woman who watched interestedly were of silk, her satin vest sewn with seed pearls. Her dark eyes, over the filmy yasmaq, were lustrous and expressive, the eyes of a Persian.
“Would my lord have food — and wine?” she inquired; and O’Donnell signified assent with the lordly gesture of a Kurdish swashbuckler who is careful not to seem too courteous to any woman, however famed in intrigue she may be. He had come there not for food and drink, but because he had heard in the bazaars that news of many kinds blew on the winds through the house of Ayisha, where men from far and near came to drink her wine and listen to her songs.
She served him, and, sinking down on cushions near him, watched him eat and drink. O’Donnell’s appetite was not feigned. Many lean days had taught him to eat when and where he could. Ayisha seemed to him more like a curious child than an intriguing woman, evincing so much interest over a wandering Kurd, but he knew that she was weighing him carefully behind her guileless stare, as she weighed all men who came into her house.
In that hot-bed of plot and ambitions, the wandering stranger today might be the Amir of Afghanistan or the Shah of Persia tomorrow — or the morrow might see his headless body dangling as a feast for the birds.
“You have a good sword,” said she. He involuntarily touched the hilt. It was an Arab blade, long, lean, curved like the crescent moon, with a brass hawk’s head for a pommel.
“It has cut many a Turkoman out of the saddle,” he boasted, with his mouth full, carrying out his character. Yet it was no empty boast.
“Hai!” She believed him and was impressed. She rested her chin on her small fists and gazed up at him, as if his dark, hawk-like face had caught her fancy.
“The Khan needs swords like yours,” she said.
“The Khan has many swords,” he retorted, gulping wine loudly.
“No more than he will need if Orkhan Bahadur comes against him,” she prophesied.
“I have heard of this Orkhan,” he replied. And so he had; who in Central Asia had not heard of the daring and valorous Turkoman chief who defied the power of Moscow and had cut to pieces a Russian expedition sent to subdue him? “In the bazaars they say the Khan fears him.”
That was a blind venture. Men did not speak of Shaibar Khan’s fears openly.
Ayisha laughed. “Who does the Khan fear? Once the Amir sent troops to take Shahrazar, and those who lived were glad to flee! Yet if any man lives who could storm the city, Orkhan Bahadur is that man. Only tonight the Uzbeks were hunting his spies through the alleys.”
O’Donnell remembered the Turkish accent of the stranger he had unwittingly aided. It was quite possible that the man was a Turkoman spy.
As he pondered this, Ayisha’s sharp eyes discovered the broken end of the gold chain dangling from his girdle, and with a gurgle of delight she snatched it forth before he could stop her. Then with a squeal she dropped it as if it were hot, and prostrated herself in wriggling abasement among the cushions.
He scowled and picked up the trinket.
“Woman, what are you about?” he demanded.
“Your pardon, lord!” She clasped her hands, but her fear seemed more feigned than real; her eyes sparkled. “I did not know it was the token. Aie, you have been making game of me — asking me things none could know better than yourself. Which of the Twelve are you?”
“You babble as bees hum!” He scowled, dangling the pendant before her eyes. “You speak as one of knowledge, when, by Allah, you know not the meaning of this thing.”
“Nay, but I do!” she protested. “I have seen such emblems before on the breasts of the emirs of the Inner Chamber. I know that it is a talsmin greater than the seal of the Amir, and the wearer comes and goes at will in or out of the Shining Palace.”
“But why, wench, why?” he growled impatiently.
“Nay, I will whisper what you know so well,” she answered, kneeling beside him. Her breath came soft as the sighing of the distant night wind. “It is the symbol of a Guardian of the Treasure!”
She fell away from him laughing. “Have I not spoken truly?”
He did not at once reply. His brain was dizzy, the blood pounding madly in his veins.
“Say nothing of this,” he said at last, rising. “Your life upon it.” And casting her a handful of coins at random, he hurried down the stair and into the street. He realized that his departure was too abrupt, but he was too dizzy, with the realization of what had fallen into his hands, for an entirely placid course of action.
The treasure! In his hand he held what well might be the key to it — at least a key into the palace, to gain entrance into which he had racked his brain in vain ever since coming to Shahrazar. His visit to Ayisha had borne fruit beyond his wildest dreams.
II
THE UNHOLY PLAN
Doubtless in Muhammad Shah’s day the Shining Palace deserved its name; even now it preserved some of its former splendor. It was separated from the rest of the city by a thick wall, and at the great gate there always stood a guard of Uzbeks with Lee-Enfield rifles, and girdles bristling with knives and pistols.
Shaibar Khan had an almost superstitious terror of accidental gunfire, and would allow only edged weapons to be brought into the palace. But his warriors were armed with the best rifles that could be smuggled into the Hills.
There was a limit to O’Donnell’s audacity. There might be men on guard at the main gates who knew by sight all the emirs of the symbol. He made his way to a small side gate, through a loop-hole in which, at his imperious call, there peered a black man with the wizened features of a mute. O’Donnell had fastened the broken links together and the chain now looped his corded neck. He indicated the plaque which rested on the silk of his khalat; and with a deep salaam, the black man opened the gate.
O’Donnell drew a deep breath. He was in the heart of the lion’s lair now, and he dared not hesitate or pause to deliberate. He found himself in a garden which gave on to an open court surrounded by arches supported on marble pillars. He crossed the court, meeting no one. On the opposite side a grim-looking Uzbek, leaning on a spear, scanned him narrowly but said nothing. O’Donnell’s skin crawled as he strode past the somber warrior, but the man merely stared curiously at the gold oval gleaming against the Kurdish vest.
O’Donnell found himself in a corridor whose walls were decorated by a gold frieze, and he went boldly on, seeing only soft-footed slaves who took no heed of him. As he passed into another corridor, broader and hung with velvet tapestries, his heart leaped into his mouth.
It was a tall slender man in long fur-trimmed robes and a silk turban who glided from an arched doorway and halted him. The man had the pale oval face of a Persian, with a black pointed beard, and dark shadowed eyes. As with the others his gaze sought first the talsmin on O’Donnell’s breast — the token, undoubtedly, of a servitor beyond suspicion.
“Come with me!” snapped the Persian. “I have work for you.” And vouchsafing no further enlightenment, he stalked down the corridor as if expecting O’Donnell to follow without question; which, indeed, the American did, believing that such would have been the action of the genuine Guardian of the Treasure. He knew this Persian was Ahmed Pasha, Shaibar Khan’s vizir; he had seen him riding along the streets with the royal house troops.
The Persian led the way into a small domed chamber, without windows, the walls hung with thick tapestries. A small bronze lamp lighted it dimly. Ahmed Pasha drew aside the hangings, directly behind a heap of cushions, and disclo
sed a hidden alcove.
“Stand there with drawn sword,” he directed. Then he hesitated. “Can you speak or understand any Frankish tongue?” he demanded. The false Kurd shook his head.
“Good!” snapped Ahmed Pasha. “You are here to watch, not to listen. Our lord does not trust the man he is to meet here — alone. You are stationed behind the spot where this man will sit. Watch him like a hawk. If he makes a move against the Khan, cleave his skull. If harm comes to our prince, you shall be flayed alive.” He paused, glared an instant, then snarled:
“And hide that emblem, fool! Shall the whole world know you are an emir of the Treasure?”
“Hearkening and obedience, ya khawand,” mumbled O’Donnell, thrusting the symbol inside his garments. Ahmed jerked the tapestries together, and left the chamber. O’Donnell glanced through a tiny opening, waiting for the soft pad of the vizir’s steps to fade away before he should glide out and take up again his hunt for the treasure.
But before he could move, there was a low mutter of voices, and two men entered the chamber from opposite sides. One bowed low and did not venture to seat himself until the other had deposited his fat body on the cushions, and indicated permission.
O’Donnell knew that he looked on Shaibar Khan, once the terror of the Kirghiz steppes, and now lord of Shahrazar. The Uzbek had the broad powerful build of his race, but his thick limbs were soft from easy living. His eyes held some of their old restless fire, but the muscles of his face seemed flabby, and his features were lined and purpled with debauchery. And there seemed something else — a worried, haunted look, strange in that son of reckless nomads. O’Donnell wondered if the possession of the treasure was weighing on his mind.
The other man was slender, dark, his garments plain beside the gorgeous ermine-trimmed kaftan, pearl-sewn girdle and green, emerald-crested turban of the Khan.
This stranger plunged at once into conversation, low-voiced but animated and urgent. He did most of the talking, while Shaibar Khan listened, occasionally interjecting a question, or a grunt of gratification. The Khan’s weary eyes began to blaze, and his pudgy hands knotted as if they gripped again the hilt of the blade which had carved his way to power.
And Kirby O’Donnell forgot to curse the luck which held him prisoner while precious time drifted by. Both men spoke a tongue the American had not heard in years — a European language. And scanning closely the slim dark stranger, O’Donnell admitted himself baffled. If the man were, as he suspected, a European disguised as an Oriental, then O’Donnell knew he had met his equal in masquerade.
For it was European politics he talked, European politics that lay behind the intrigues of the East. He spoke of war and conquest, and vast hordes rolling down the Khyber Pass into India; to complete the overthrow, said the dark slender man, of a rule outworn.
He promised power and honors to Shaibar Khan, and O’Donnell, listening, realized that the Uzbek was but a pawn in his game, no less than those others he mentioned. The Khan, narrow of vision, saw only a mountain kingdom for himself, reaching down into the plains of Persia and India, and backed by European guns — not realizing those same guns could just as easily overwhelm him when the time was ripe.
But O’Donnell, with his western wisdom, read behind the dark stranger’s words, and recognized there a plan of imperial dimensions, and the plot of a European power to seize half of Asia. And the first move in that game was to be the gathering of warriors by Shaibar Khan. How? With the treasure of Khuwarezm! With it he could buy all the swords of Central Asia.
So the dark man talked and the Uzbek listened like an old wolf who harks to the trampling of the musk oxen in the snow. O’Donnell listened, his blood freezing as the dark man casually spoke of invasions and massacres; and as the plot progressed and became more plain in detail, more monstrous and ruthless in conception, he trembled with a mad urge to leap from his cover and slash and hack both these bloody devils into pieces with the scimitar that quivered in his nervous grasp. Only a sense of self-preservation stayed him from this madness; and presently Shaibar Khan concluded the audience and left the chamber, followed by the dark stranger. O’Donnell saw this one smile furtively, like a man who has victory in his grasp.
O’Donnell started to draw aside the curtain, when Ahmed Pasha came padding into the chamber. It occurred to the American that it would be better to let the vizir find him at his post. But before Ahmed could speak, or draw aside the curtain, there sounded a rapid pattering of bare feet in the corridor outside, and a man burst into the room, wild eyed and panting. At the sight of him a red mist wavered across O’Donnell’s sight. It was Yar Akbar!
III
WOLF PACK
The Afridi fell on his knees before Ahmed Pasha. His garments were tattered; blood seeped from a broken tooth and clotted his straggly beard.
“Oh, master,” he panted, “the dog has escaped!”
“Escaped!” The vizir rose to his full height, his face convulsed with passion. O’Donnell thought that he would strike down the Afridi, but his arm quivered, fell by his side.
“Speak!” The Persian’s voice was dangerous as the hiss of a cobra.
“We hedged him in a dark alley,” Yar Akbar babbled. “He fought like Shaitan. Then others came to his aid — a whole nest of Turkomans, we thought, but mayhap it was but one man. He too was a devil! He slashed my side — see the blood! For hours since we have hunted them, but found no trace. He is over the wall and gone!” In his agitation Yar Akbar plucked at a chain about his neck; from it depended an oval like that held by O’Donnell. The American realized that Yar Akbar, too, was an emir of the Treasure. The Afridi’s eyes burned like a wolf’s in the gloom, and his voice sank.
“He who wounded me slew Othman,” he whispered fearfully, “and despoiled him of the talsmin!”
“Dog!” The vizir’s blow knocked the Afridi sprawling. Ahmed Pasha was livid. “Call the other emirs of the Inner Chamber, swiftly!”
Yar Akbar hastened into the corridor, and Ahmed Pasha called:
“Ohe! You who hide behind the hangings — come forth!” There was no reply, and pale with sudden suspicion, Ahmed drew a curved dagger and with a pantherish spring tore the tapestry aside. The alcove was empty.
As he glared in bewilderment, Yar Akbar ushered into the chamber as unsavory a troop of ruffians as a man might meet, even in the Hills: Uzbeks, Afghans, Gilzais, Pathans, scarred with crime and old in wickedness. Ahmed Pasha counted them swiftly. With Yar Akbar there were eleven.
“Eleven,” he muttered. “And dead Othman makes twelve. All these men are known to you, Yar Akbar?”
“My head on it!” swore the Afridi. “These be all true men.”
Ahmed clutched his beard.
“Then, by God, the One True God,” he groaned, “that Kurd I set to guard the Khan was a spy and a traitor.” And at that moment a shriek and a clash of steel re-echoed through the palace.
When O’Donnell heard Yar Akbar gasping out his tale to the vizir, he knew the game was up. He did not believe that the alcove was a blind niche in the wall; and, running swift and practiced hands over the panels, he found and pressed a hidden catch. An instant before Ahmed Pasha tore aside the tapestry, the American wriggled his lean body through the opening and found himself in a dimly lighted chamber on the other side of the wall. A black slave dozed on his haunches, unmindful of the blade that hovered over his ebony neck, as O’Donnell glided across the room and through a curtained doorway.
He found himself back in the corridor into which one door of the audience chamber opened, and crouching among the curtains, he saw Yar Akbar come up the hallway with his villainous crew. He saw, too, that they had come up a marble stair at the end of the hall.
His heart leaped. In that direction, undoubtedly, lay the treasure — now supposedly unguarded. As soon as the emirs vanished into the audience chamber where the vizir waited, O’Donnell ran swiftly and recklessly down the corridor.
But even as he reached the stairs, a man sitting on them
sprang up, brandishing a tulwar. A black slave, evidently left there with definite orders, for the sight of the symbol on O’Donnell’s breast did not halt him. O’Donnell took a desperate chance, gambling his speed against the cry that rose in the thick black throat.
He lost. His scimitar licked through the massive neck and the Soudani rolled down the stairs, spurting blood. But his yell had rung to the roof.
And at that yell the emirs of the gold came headlong out of the audience chamber, giving tongue like a pack of wolves. They did not need Ahmed’s infuriated shriek of recognition and command. They were men picked for celerity of action as well as courage, and it seemed to O’Donnell that they were upon him before the negro’s death yell had ceased to echo.
He met the first attacker, a hairy Pathan, with a long lunge that sent his scimitar point through the thick throat even as the man’s broad tulwar went up for a stroke. Then a tall Uzbek swung his heavy blade like a butcher’s cleaver. No time to parry; O’Donnell caught the stroke near his own hilt, and his knees bent under the impact.
But the next instant the kindhjal in his left hand ripped through the Uzbek’s entrails, and with a powerful heave of his whole body, O’Donnell hurled the dying man against those behind him, bearing them back with him. Then O’Donnell wheeled and ran, his eyes blazing defiance of the death that whickered at his back.
Ahead of him another stair led up. O’Donnell reached it one long bound ahead of his pursuers, gained the steps and wheeled, all in one motion, slashing down at the heads of the pack that came clamoring after him.
Shaibar Khan’s broad pale face peered up at the melee from the curtains of an archway, and O’Donnell was grateful to the Khan’s obsessional fear that had barred firearms from the palace. Otherwise, he would already have been shot down like a dog. He himself had no gun; the pistol with which he had started the adventure had slipped from its holster somewhere on that long journey, and lay lost among the snows of the Himalayas.
El Borak and Other Desert Adventures Page 50