Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  Since he had said I did not matter, I remained, and it was therefore I who shouted down a challenge presently in round English at a party who clattered to the door on blown horses, and thundered on it as if they had been shatirs* hurrying to herald the arrival of the sultan himself. There was nothing furtive about their address to the decrepit door, nor anything meek. Accordingly I couched the challenge in terms of unmistakable affront, repeating it at intervals until the leader of the new arrivals chose to identify himself.

  —— —— —— —— * Shatir, the man who runs before a personage’s horse. —— —— —— ——

  “I am Hans von Quedlinburg!” he shouted. But I did not remember the name.

  “Only a thief would come riding in such a hurry through the night!” said I. “Who is with you?”

  Another voice shouted very fast and furiously in Turkish, but I could not make head or tail of the words. Then the German resumed the song and dance.

  “Are you the party who talked with me at my construction camp?”

  “We talk most of the time. We eat food. We whistle. We drink.

  We laugh!” said I.

  “Because I think you are the people I am seeking. These are Turkish officials with me. I have authority to modify their orders, only let me in!”

  “How many of you?” I asked. I was leaning over at risk of my life, for any fool could have seen my head to shoot at it against the luminous dark sky; but I could not see to count them.

  “Never mind how many! Let us in! I am Hans von Quedlinburg. My name is sufficient.”

  So I lied, emphatically and in thoughtful detail.

  “You are covered,” I said, “by five rifles from this roof. If you don’t believe it, try something. You’d better wait there while I wake my chief.”

  “Only be quick!” said the German, and I saw him light a cigarette, whether to convince me he felt confident or because he did feel so I could not say. I went below, and found Monty and Kagig standing together close to the outer door. They had not heard the whole of the conversation because of the noise the owner’s sons had made removing, at their orders, the obstructions they had piled against the door in their first panic. Every one else had returned to the sleeping platforms, except the Turkish owner, who looked awake at last, and was hovering here and there in ecstasies of nervousness.

  I repeated what the German had said, rather expecting that Kagig at any rate would counsel defiance. It was he, however, who beckoned the Turk and bade him open the door.

  “But, effendi—”

  “Chabuk! Quickly, I said!”

  “Che arz kunam?” the Turk answered meekly, meaning “What petition shall I make?” the inference being that all was in the hands of Allah.

  “Of ten men nine are women!” sneered Kagig irritably, and led the way to our place beside the fire. The Turk fumbled interminably with the door fastenings, and we were comfortably settled in our places before the new arrivals rode in, bringing a blast of cold air with them that set the smoke billowing about the room and made every man draw up his blankets.

  “Shut that door behind them!” thundered Kagig. “If they come too slowly, shut the laggards out!”

  “Who is this who is arrogant?” the German demanded in English.

  He was a fine-looking man, dressed in civilian clothes cut as nearly to the military pattern as the tailor could contrive without transgressing law, but with a too small fez perched on his capable-looking head in the manner of the Prussian who would like to make the Turks believe he loves them. Rustum Khan cursed with keen attention to detail at sight of him. The man who had entered with him became busy in the shadows trying to find room to stall their horses, but Von Quedlinburg gave his reins to an attendant, and stood alone, akimbo, with the firelight displaying him in half relief.

  “I am a man who knows, among other things, the name of him who bribed the kaimakam.* on Chakallu,” Kagig answered slowly, also in English.

  —— —— —— — * Kaimakam, headman (Turkish). —— —— —— —

  The German laughed.

  “Then you know without further argument that I am not to be denied!” he answered. “What I say to-night the government officials will confirm to-morrow! Are you Kagig, whom they call the Eye of Zeitoon?”

  “I am no jackal,” said Kagig dryly, punning on the name Chakallu, which means “place of jackals.”

  The German coughed, set one foot forward, and folded both arms on his breast. He looked capable and bold in that attitude, and knew it. I knew at last who he was, and wondered why I had not recognized him sooner — the contractor who had questioned us near the railway encampment along the way, and had offered us directions; but his manner was as different now from then as a bully’s in and out of school. Then he had sought to placate, and had almost cringed to Monty. Everything about him now proclaimed the ungloved upper hand.

  His party, finding no room to stall their horses, had begun to turn ours loose, and there was uproar along the gipsy side of the room — no action yet, but a threatening snarl that promised plenty of it. Will was half on his feet to interfere, but Monty signed to him to keep cool; and it was Monty’s aggravatingly well-modulated voice that laid the law down.

  “Will you be good enough,” he asked blandly, “to call off your men from meddling with our mounts?” He could not be properly said to drawl, because there was a positive subacid crispness in his voice that not even a Prussian or a Turk on a dark night could have over-looked.

  The German laughed again.

  “Perhaps you did not hear my name,” he said. “I am Hans von Quedlinburg. As over-contractor on the Baghdad railway I have the privilege of prior accommodation at all road-houses in this province — for myself and my attendants. And in addition there are with me certain Turkish officers, whose rights I dare say you will not dispute.”

  Monty did not laugh, although Fred was chuckling in confident enjoyment of the situation.

  “You need a lesson in manners,” said Monty.

  “What do you mean?” demanded Hans von Quedlinburg.

  Monty rose to his feet without a single unnecessary motion.

  “I mean that unless you call off your men — at once this minute from interfering with our animals I shall give you the lesson you need.”

  The German saluted in mock respect. Then he patted his breast-pocket so as to show the outline of a large repeating pistol. Monty took two steps forward. The German drew the pistol with an oath. Will Yerkes, beyond Fred and slightly behind the German, coughed meaningly. The German turned his head, to find that he was covered by a pistol as large as his own.

  “Oh, very well,” he said, “what is the use of making a scene?” He thrust his pistol back under cover and shouted an order in Turkish. Monty returned to his place and sat down. The newcomers at the rear of the room tied their horses together by the bridles, and Hans von Quedlinburg resumed his well-fed smile.

  “Let it be clearly understood,” he said, “that you have interfered with official privilege.”

  “As long as you do your best in the way of manners you may go on with your errand,” said Monty.

  Suddenly Fred laughed aloud.

  “The martyred biped!” he yelped.

  He was right. Peter Measel, missionary on his own account, and sometime keeper of most libelous accounts, stepped out from the shadows and essayed to warm himself, walking past the German with a sort of mincing gait not calculated to assert his manliness. Hans von Quedlinburg stretched out a strong arm and hurled him back again into the darkness at the rear.

  “Tchuk-tchuk! Zuruck!” he muttered.

  It clearly disconcerted him to have his inferiors in rank assert themselves. That accounted, no doubt, for the meek self-effacement of the Turks who had come with him. Peter Measel did not appear to mind being rebuked. He crossed to the other side of the room, and proceeded to look the gipsies over with the air of a learned ethnologist.

  “You speak of my errand,” said Hans von Quedlinbu
rg, “as if you imagine I come seeking favors. I am here incidentally to rescue you and your party from the clutches of an outlaw. The Turkish officials who are with me have authority to arrest everybody in this place, yourselves included. Fortunately I am able to modify that. Kagig — that rascal beside you — is a well-known agitator. He is a criminal. His arrest and trial have been ordered on the charge, among other things, of stirring up discontent among the Armenian laborers on the railway work. These gipsies are all his agents. They are all under arrest. You yourselves will be escorted to safety at the coast.”

  “Why should we need an escort to safety?” Monty demanded.

  “Were you on the roof?” the German answered. “And is it possible you did not see the conflagration? An Armenian insurrection has been nipped in the bud. Several villages are burning. The other inhabitants are very much incensed, and all foreigners are in danger — yourselves especially, since you have seen fit to travel in company with such a person as Kagig.”

  “What has Peter Measel got to do with it?” demanded Fred. “Has he been writing down all our sins in a new book?”

  “He will identify you. He will also identify Kagig’s agents. He brings a personal charge against a man named Rustum Khan, who must return to Tarsus to answer it. The charge is robbery with violence.”

  Rustum Khan snorted.

  “The violence was only too gentle, and too soon ended. As for robbery, if I have robbed him of a little self-conceit, I will answer to God for that when my hour shall come! How is it your affair to drag that whimpering fool through Asia at your tail — you a German and he English?”

  The German had a hot answer ready for that, but the Turks had discovered Maga Jhaere in hiding in the shadows between two old women. She screamed as they tried to drag her forth, and the scream brought us all to our feet. But this time it was Kagig who was swiftest, and we got our first proof of the man’s enormous strength. Fred, Will and I charged together round behind the newcomers’ horses, in order to make sure of cutting off retreat as well as rescuing Maga. Monty leveled a pistol at the German’s head. But Kagig did not waste a fraction of a second on side-issues of any sort. He flew at the German’s throat like a wolf at a bullock. The German fired at him, missed, and before he could fire again he was caught in a grip he could not break, and fighting for breath, balance and something more.

  One of the gipsies, who had not seen the need of hurrying to Maga’s aid, now proved the soundness of his judgment by divining Kagig’s purpose and tossing several new faggots on the already prodigious fire.

  “Good!” barked Kagig, bending the struggling German this and that way as it pleased him.

  Seeing our man with the upper hand, Monty and Rustum Khan now hurried into the melee, where two Turkish officers and eight zaptieh were fighting to keep Maga from four gipsies and us three. Nobody had seen fit to shoot, but there was a glimmering of cold steel among the shadows like lightning before a thunder-storm. Monty used his fists. Rustum Khan used the flat of a Rajput saber. Maga, leaving most of her clothing in the Turk’s hands, struggled free and in another second the Turks were on the defensive. Rustum Khan knocked the revolver out of an officer’s hand, and the rest of them were struggling to use their rifles, when the German shrieked. All fights are full of pauses, when either side could snatch sudden victory if alert enough. We stopped, and turned to look, as if our own lives were not in danger.

  Kagig had the German off his feet, face toward the flames, kicking and screaming like a madman. He whirled him twice — shouted a sort of war-cry — hove him high with every sinew in his tough frame cracking — and hurled him head-foremost into the fire.

  The Turks took the cue to haul off and stand staring at us. We all withdrew to easier pistol range, for contrary to general belief, close quarters almost never help straight aim, especially when in a hurry. There is a shooting as well as a camera focus, and each man has his own.

  Pretty badly burnt about the face and fingers, Hans von Quedlinburg crawled backward out of the fire, smelling like the devil, of singed wool. Kagig closed on him, and hurled him back again. This time the German plunged through the fire, and out beyond it to a space between the flames and the back wall, where it must have been hot enough to make the fat run. He stood with a forearm covering his face, while Kagig thundered at him voluminous abuse in Turkish. I wondered, first, why the German did not shoot, and then why his loaded pistol did not blow up in the heat, until I saw that in further proof of strength Kagig had looted his pistol and was standing with one foot on it.

  Finally, when the beautiful smooth cloth of which his coat was made bad taken on a stinking overlay of crackled black, the German chose to obey Kagig and came leaping back through the fire, and lay groaning on the floor, where the kahveh’s owner’s seven sons poured water on him by Kagig’s order. His burns were evidently painful, but not nearly so serious as I expected. I got out the first-aid stuff from our medicine bag, and Will, who was our self-constituted doctor on the strength of having once attended an autopsy, disguised as a reporter, in the morgue at the back of Bellevue Hospital in New York City, beckoned a gipsy woman, and proceeded to instruct her what to do.

  However, Hans von Quedlinburg was no nervous weakling. He snatched the pot of grease from the woman’s hands, daubed gobs of the stuff liberally on his face and hands, and sat up — resembling an unknown kind of angry animal with his eyebrows and mustache burned off except for a stray, outstanding whisker here and there. In a voice like a bull’s at the smell of blood he reversed what he had shouted through the flames, and commanded his Turks to arrest the lot of us.

  Kagig laughed at that, and spoke to him in English, I suppose in order that we, too, might understand.

  “Those Turks are my prisoners!” he said. “And so are you!”

  It was true about the Turks. They had not given up their weapons yet, but the gipsies were between them and the door, and even the gipsy women were armed to the teeth and willing to do battle. I caught sight of Maga’s mother-o’-pearl plated revolver, and the Turkish officer at whom she had it leveled did not look inclined to dispute the upper hand.

  “You Germans are all alike,” sneered Kagig. “A dog could read your reasoning. You thought these foreigners would turn against me. It never entered your thick skull that they might rather defy you than see me made prisoner. Fool! Did men name me Eye of Zeitoon for nothing? Have I watched for nothing! Did I know the very wording of the letters in your private box for nothing? Are you the only spy in Asia? Am I Kagig, and do I not know who advised dismissing all Armenians from the railway work? Am I Kagig, and do I not know why? Kopek! (Dog!) You would beggar my people, in order to curry favor with the Turk. You seek to take me because I know your ways! Two months ago you knew to within a day or two when these new massacres would begin. One month, three weeks, and four days ago you ordered men to dig my grave, and swore to bury me alive in it! What shall hinder me from burning you alive this minute?”

  There were five good hindrances, for I think that Rustum Khan would have objected to that cruelty, even had he been alone. Kagig caught Monty’s eye and laughed.

  “Korkakma!” he jeered. “Do not be afraid!” Then he glanced swiftly at the Turks, and at Peter Measel, who was staring all-eyes at Maga on the far side of the room.

  “Order your pigs of zaptieh to throw their arms down!”

  Instead, the German shouted to them to fire volleys at us. He was not without a certain stormy courage, whatever Kagig’s knowledge of his treachery.

  But the Turks did not fire, and it was perfectly plain that we four were the reason of it. They had been promised an easy prey — captured women — loot — and the remunerative task of escorting us to safety. Doubtless Von Quedlinburg had promised them our consul would be lavish with rewards on our account. Therefore there was added reason why they should not fire on Englishmen and an American. We had not made a move since the first scuffle when we rescued Maga, but the Turkish lieutenant had taken our measure. Perhaps he had w
hispered to his men. Perhaps they reached their own conclusions. The effect was the same in either case.

  “Order them to throw their weapons down!” commanded Kagig, kicking the German in the ribs. And his coat had been so scorched in the fierce heat that the whole of one side of it broke off, like a cinder slab.

  This time Hans von Quedlinburg obeyed. For one thing the pain of his burns was beginning to tell on him, but he could see, too, that he had lost prestige with his party.

  “Throw down your weapons!” he ordered savagely.

  But he had lost more prestige than he knew, or else he had less in the beginning than be counted on. The Turkish lieutenant — a man of about forty with the evidence of all the sensual appetites very plainly marked on his face — laughed and brought his men to attention. Then he made a kind of half-military motion with his hand toward each of us in turn, ignoring Kagig but intending to convey that we at any rate need not feel anxious.

  It was Maga Jhaere who solved the riddle of that impasse. She was hardly in condition to appear before a crowd of men, for the Turks bad torn off most of her clothes, and she had not troubled to find others. She was unashamed, and as beautiful and angry as a panther. With panther suddenness she snatched the lieutenant’s sword and pistol.

  It suited neither his national pride nor religious prejudices to be disarmed by a gipsy woman; but the Turk is an amazing fatalist, and unexpectedness is his peculiar quality.

  “Che arz kunam?” he muttered — the perennial comment of the Turk who has failed, that always made Kagig bare his teeth in a spasm of contempt. “Passing the buck to Allah,” as Will construed it.

  But disarming the mere conscript soldiers was not quite so simple, although Maga managed it. They had less regard for their own skins than handicapped their officer, and yet more than his contempt for the female of any human breed.