by Harold Lamb
"What will the governor do?"
The tall Rajput had all the contempt of his race for the man of peace and trade.
"Kaki 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 their plans. But what he would do now, I did not know. With three hundred Mogul menat-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 alKhimar, 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-ofsilver 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 shadowy 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 son gar. 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 awhile, 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. Al-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 fli
ght.
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 has tened 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.
"0 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.
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br /> 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 sangar.
"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-Khiinar."
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."