by Harold Lamb
Her glance showed that she knew Robert, but she did not break silence to make an appeal for help. Evidently she and the priest had been among the riders of the camels, and she must have seen all that passed on the edge of the pool.
"Aid, tall brother, for the maid!" cried Will hoarsely. "Draw and smitebows and bills! See, the dogs would cast her into the water."
Then Robert realized that Ellen's arms were chained and her ankles bound together with a girdle. With the priest and the two Moslems she stood on the brink of the ledge, swaying in the wind. The other women who had screened the captives until then had been herded ahead along the narrow path. This path, no more than two paces wide, ran between the wall of the cliff and the dark space of the abyss.
As he watched, Inalzig made another sign, and one of the guards seized the girl's long tresses, twisting them tight in his grasp. Her eyes widened in horror as the warrior, grinning, forced her to the very edge of the rock.
"Yonder maid," observed the keeper of the Gate reflectively, "was taken from among the Franks. We have other women, from Armenia and the Bedawan villages, and they are kept for the pleasure of the shah. Such is the custom of the forays beyond the border-yet, 0 emir, the redbeard may have touched her, and the touch of a dog of an unbeliever is defilement. So-thrust her over," he ordered the warrior who held her fast.
And Inalzig's white teeth flashed under his thin mustache.
"Ha! Would a Cairene act thus?"
Robert had leaped the space between the dam and the ledge. The warrior who stood over the girl released his prey and lifted shield and scimitar as he strode to meet the knight.
"Ah no, my lord!" Ellen cried, raising her chained arms eagerly. "Keep to your guise and your own purpose. No man's aid will serve to abate our misfortune, and you would be lost!"
She covered her eyes.
"The sweet Mother in Heaven give strength!"
The Moslem who opposed Robert took time for a swift glance at the two chiefs, who shouted an order at him, and the knight drew his sword. The guard's lips lifted in a snarl as he braced his legs for a leap forward. Then he flung up his shield.
In a gleaming arc the heavy blade of the crusader flashed, and the Moslem's scimitar was knocked down. His shield of hide and wood crumpled, and the blade hewed through his left arm, deep into his side. The man was swept over the ledge, and Robert freed his blade with a jerk as the body dropped out of sight.
"Well struck, 0 Nazarene!" applauded Inalzig. "Said I not you would be put to a test at the Gates? Ha, no guise will veil your heart hereafter. Like your follower, I had a devil from the first day, and the devil was doubt."
The second guard rushed low at Robert, to be met with the point of the sword and slain in his tracks. Will Bunsley scrambled to his feet, wrenching the scimitar from the hand of the falling slave.
"Let us show them our heels, brother," he muttered excitedly. "Do thou take up the maid and run along the path."
Robert, however, knew that this was just what the Moslems must desire him to do. Moreover the blind priest could not run, and there was no time to release the girl's bonds. He had been tricked and well tricked.
And fierce exultation warmed his heart. No need, now, of racking his brain for the words of deceit. He had jumped to aid the maid instinctively, and even now he might have explained his cutting down of the guards-if Inalzig and the captain of the warders would listen. But he had no desire to try them and for their part they prepared readily to make an end of him. There was the gleam of steel, red in the torchlight, before him and the feel of his sword-haft in his fists.
"Stand clear," he growled at the archer, and stepped to meet the first two spearmen who crossed from the dam to the pathway.
Ellen had slipped to her knees and was moving toward Father Evagrius, who was trying to draw her back to the cliff, his face upturned in the patient questioning of those who cannot see what goes on about them.
As Will pushed forward stubbornly beside him Robert swept him back with his left arm and slashed at the nearest spearhead. The steel point flew humming through the air, and the crusader dodged the thrust of the second. The Moslems crouched and reached for their long knives. They had not yet learned that the round targets of bull's hide were no protection against the long weapon of their foe. Robert cut through one shield and the skull of the man behind it.
The other warrior shouted and leaped, and Robert missed catching his dagger arm as it came down. But he stepped forward, and the man's knife snapped on the chain mail of his back.
Robert caught hold with his free hand on the man's shoulder blade and-sensing Will's presence behind-jerked him back, to be dealt with by the yeoman's sword. A snarling grunt that changed to a scream sounded from the path, and presently a splash in the water below.
"Sa-ha!" chanted Will. "Another knave a-swim in the Styx. Guard thee, tall brother-so! Pretty work-yeomanly struck."
A third Moslem had followed close upon the other two and raised his scimitar. Robert, caught with his blade down, jammed the heavy hilt into the man's beard and took the scimitar stroke on his helmet. The blow sent flames flying before his eyes, and the light steel cap spun from his head. But the Moslem was down, choking, and the knight took another pace forward, leaving Will to dispose of the injured warrior.
A spear splintered against the mail on his chest, and he reeled, coughing, for the point had lodged in his breastbone. The man who had flung it shouted and whirled up his scimitar. The knight parried one cut that would have hacked a knee in half and staggered again, when another spear tore into his left shoulder. The guard-a big-boned Turk-pressed forward too hastily and was dashed down when his legs were cut out from under him by a slash of the long blade.
"By the ninety and nine holy names!" swore Inalzig, who had followed the fighting with glittering eyes. "Here is one who should be brought alive to Bokhara, for he is not as common men. See, he strides forward again."
"Then, do you, take him alive, 0 khan," snarled the captain.
Will was feverish with exultation. Only three men beside the two chiefs stood on the dam, and these held the torches. Behind them the Kankalis had vanished from sight and hearing. If the strength of the knight could crush these five as well as the six who had died, they would be free, for the moment, in the gorge. But he did not mark how the two wounds had bitten into the thews of his companion.
Inalzig Khan rushed as a falcon stoops-warily, quick of eye, and with his long cloak sweeping about him. His scimitar glittered above his shield. Someone behind him hurled a torch at the knight.
Bending low, Robert moved to meet the Moslem, and the two swords grated. The scimitar bent nearly double and whipped clear-whipped down on the crusader's sword arm, cutting to the bone. Robert stumbled forward, threw himself against Inalzig and felt for the Moslem's knife hilt, while Inalzig felt for his throat and found it.
Jerking the curved dagger free, Robert thrust with failing strength at his foe's thighs under the mail. Inalzig's eyes glared into his, blood-seared and protruding. The knife-blade slipped upward on the Moslem's thighbone, and the curved point caught within his ribs.
His grip on Robert's throat fell away, and the knight gasped for air and felt himself drop through space. Instantly the torchlight faded, and he crashed into water, still locked with his adversary. Blackness grew denser, and then red flames shot up before his eyes and his nostrils stung. Blood flooded his throat.
He coughed-found that he could gulp in air-and moved his limbs feebly to keep afloat. For what seemed an interminable time he swam in a gigantic chasm, conscious of lights above him and-once-of Abdullah, the minstrel, looking down at him calmly. Then water splashed over his face, and the blackness was complete.
Chapter VII
Osman the Wazir
Many things appeared to Robert to take place very rapidly. He felt delightfully at ease, although aware that his body was being jolted, the creaking of leather and the jolting made him think he was riding again, though how he could ride lyi
ng down he knew not. Then the sun smote full into his eyes, and somebody shaded them. Robert peered out between two curtains and saw the green expanse of a wide sea with a sail drifting along the horizon. A salty wind caused him to shiver violently, and, still shivering, he dropped back into the inertia.
Again he found himself studying the stars, looking for the Great Bear and recalling that Abdullah had called it jitti karatchi, the Seven Robbers. He could not make out the robbers, and told himself that this was a strange sky as well as a strange sea.
Once he lay on his elbow, looking down at the earth. It was whitish gray. Taking up some in his fingers, he put his tongue to it and found it to be salt. A strange earth. He was bathed in sweat, and a woman came and wiped his face and hands with a cool, moist cloth.
He began talking to the woman, telling her about the changed earth and the remarkable sea that was so cold and so hot. By and by he noticed that the woman was weeping and that she was the Demoiselle d'Ibelin. Henceforth events happened less swiftly and Robert grew irritable with pain, but more often he felt the girl's touch and drank things from her hand.
"Where is that rogue, Abdullah?" he asked, his voice ringing clear.
"He is not here, my lord. Nay, I have not see him since the night in the mountains when he talked with the infidels, and-but, hush, please you, Sir Robert."
"Demoiselle," he remarked with dignity. "I am not Sir Robert of Antioch. I am Robert the Wayfarer; and as every man's hand is against me, so is mine against every man. Where is the lout, Will?"
"The archer is chained-nay, do not miscall him, for he jumped into the gorge and saved you your life many days ago."
"Now that is verily a lie," Robert responded angrily, "for this is but the morrow of that night."
With that he slept, to awaken master of his senses again.
They were in a boat-he and the maid and the priest, and a score of strange warriors. He lay upon a cloak stretched on rushes, with a woven screen over his head.
His first thought was for his sword. It was gone, and he reflected that his horse, also, was lost to him. Then he fumbled about for the chain of rubies and found it not. The mail shirt had been removed, and he was clad in loose cotton, with a light khalat wrapped over him.
When he moved, one shoulder irked him with its stiffness. Further investigation revealed a stubby beard and mustache and a growth of hair on his skull that had been shaven. After considering this he asked Father Evagrius, who sat quietly beside his couch, how long he had lain ill, and how he came to be brought alive through the Gates.
"For ten days the fever was heavy upon you, my son. The maid prayed that you would regain your wit and strength, and her prayers were heard. I could not see what befell in the mountain pass, yet meseems Abdullah did persuade the guards to send you living to the lord of this land."
"Did we pass the border of a sea?"
"Aye, Sir Robert. A week agone I heard the wash of the waves for the last time. Since then we have been placed on camels, and yesterday within this long skiff."
Robert thought this over. They must then have left the Caspian behind them, and by now should be near to the main cities of Khar. So Abdullah had outlined the journey to him. He asked Father Evagrius to call for Ellen, and the priest shook his head, saying that the maid was kept within the after part of the boat, guarded by Ethiopians. The Kankalis, the priest explained, had permitted her to nurse him during the height of his fever, while he was being carried in a horse litter; but now the Moslems took care to keep her apart. Of Will Bunsley he knew little, save that the archer had survived the gorge of the Sialak and his voice had been heard at times thereafter, complaining bitterly of his chains and a diet of rice and sour wine.
Unable to sit or stand, Robert was fain to be content with this. He could not see over the side wall of the boat, nor could Evagrius see anything at all, and neither of them might speak with Ellen.
So for days the knight was constrained to lie gazing at the roofed-in afterdeck where the slender form of the maid of Ibelin sometimes appeared, heavily veiled. At such moments her eyes would seek him out, and she stood where he was visible until one of the guards signed for her to enter the hangings that separated her from the men.
Father Evagrius spent his time in contemplation, eating slowly when food was brought and fingering the cross that hung from a cord about his lean throat. Robert, waxing more irritable with the confinement and the odors of the boat, marveled at the grave quietude of the priest who was preparing himself to meet death at the hands of the Moslem tormentors.
There came an evening when he could stand and look out from the boat, as the Moslems were at the evening prayer.
The river proved to be broad, and thronged with other craft. Gardens, divided off by lines of flowering trees, lined the bank, and Robert observed at once two marble pillars downstream. These rose from the dark mass of a wall, and until they drifted through the water gate he would not believe that he had judged truly the height of the wall.
Within it he saw the glimmer of lighted pavilions close to the water, and black spires rearing against sunset over domes that gleamed purple and crimson. Straight down upon their boat rowed a barge, draped in black silk and driven by a score of slaves.
On the raised platform behind the rowers a half-dozen men, turbaned and robed in many-colored silks, leaned on brocade cushions and stared down at the smaller craft and its crew.
"Ho, Moslems!" A tall man in the bow of the barge challenged them. "Who enters the water gate after nightfall?"
Robert could not understand the reply of his captors, but presently a command issued from the barge and the sailing skiff was brought alongside, the rowers lifting their oars. The same speaker, who seemed to be overseer of the slaves, ordered the warriors to send up their prisoners and the woman of the Franks. When Robert's guards argued, a mellow voice called out from the stern in liquid Arabic.
"Surety? Am I not Osman the Hadji, Wazir of the Throne and master of Bokhara? I will be surety to the shah, and that will suffice thee. Jackals-sons of jackals and sires of dissension! Yield up the Franks and seek thy pay in the appointed day and place! Am I a hireling to be affronted by slaves in the hour that Allah decreed for pleasuring?"
To a man the soldiers in the boat cast themselves on their knees and beat their foreheads against the planks. Yet Robert heard one murmur to another that the wazir had kept in his own purse the pay that had been promised them. The negroes ushered Ellen forward, through the waist of the boat, and in the deep shadow under the side of the barge she stumbled.
"AUdullah's word to you, my lord!" she whispered quickly. "Hide it!"
He heard the rustle of paper sliding over the reeds of the deck, and leaned forward.
"And what of you, demoiselle?"
"Father Evagrius hath prayed. Tend him-let no injury be done to him."
One of the negroes thrust Robert back, and steel gleamed in the shadow. The girl was lifted to the barge, and he took advantage of the respite to search for and find a narrow roll of parchment that lay near his feet. Putting this in his girdle, he helped the patriarch out of the boat and followed, rendered dizzy by the sudden movement but finding his limbs steadier than he had thought.
"So this is the champion of the Franks," observed one of the Moslems about Osman, "who named himself the Lion and clawed Inalzig, the bahator, to death with a score of warriors at the Gates. Shall we match the lion with a man-eating tiger?"
"Nay, 'twould take an elephant to crush his bones," responded another lightly. "He is greater in bulk than the tallest of the Ethiopians."
"You are both wrong, my cup-companions," put in a third. "The Frank, like the maid, is to be kept alive against the coming of the shah."
Osman, who had been staring at the girl, frowned at this, and a slender boy with insolent eyes ceased tuning a lute long enough to murmur:
"Allah la yebarak fili! May Allah not prosper his coming!"
"What words are these words, 0 Hassan?" reproved the wazir. "
Am I not the slave of Muhammad, and was not he-"
"A slave himself, 0 most generous of lords," quoth Hassan, bending ear to lute again, "when he was my age and caught the eye of a woman."
Somebody mouthed a gibe about the eyes of women, and the assemblage laughed. Osman struck upon a silver gong that hung by his side; and the overseer of the slaves bellowed to the rowers, who brought the barge about and headed down the river into the heart of the lighted city.
Robert, utterly unnoticed, studied Osman curiously. It was the first time he had seen a Kharesmian of the higher classes, and it was difficult to believe that this was not the shah himself. Osman had pallid, weakmuscled cheeks, surrounded by a narrow beard, and his jeweled turban would have bought a castle in Palestine. His dark lips curved like a girl's, and his fine brown eyes had the blank stare of a dreamer or a user of drugs. From the instant that the demoiselle of Ibelin was seated at his side he did not cease to pay her attention.
"Let my counsel be as earrings in thy pretty ears, 0 damsel. Incline to me, and I will robe thee in samite and cloth of gold, and scent thy eyebrows with attar of rose-so that the shah himself shall fall bewildered by thy beauty."
He seemed loath to believe that the captive did not understand his praise, but when it was clear that she knew no Arabic the courtiers launched re marks that made the knight turn away so that they could not observe his eyes. It was wiser that they should not be aware that he could follow what was said.
"To the seller of perfume," smiled the boy with the lute, "what remains save the dust of the rose petal? How long, 0 treasurer, wilt thou labor to keep safe the treasure of the slave who claims to be thy master?"
Osman glanced at him warningly, yet seemed to find food for thought in the idle words. He lifted a drinking cup of pure jade, and from the waist of the barge cymbals and drums resounded as he drank.