“Put this on,” she whispered, “you may need it.”
Three of the great black guards were stretched on the floor beside the cell, breathing heavily.
Tana glanced at them and then beckoned Drake to follow her.
“We must hurry,” she said quietly. “When the Nubian guards are discovered there will be a great outcry. We must be far from here by that time.”
Drake followed Tana for several hundred yards of the winding dark tunnels that honeycombed the bowels of the palace and led gradually up to ground level. When they reached a section of the tunnel where they could feel fresh drafts of air and see sunlight slanting in the barred apertures at the top of the corridor, Tana led him quickly to an unlocked door that opened on one of the rear courts of the palace.
Drake blinked in the strong sunlight as she threw open the door and led him outside. Two great camels were waiting a few feet from the door. A stable boy held their bridles. At a signal from Tana the boy brought the beasts to their knees and she swung herself into the saddle and motioned Drake to do likewise.
The stable boy scampered away as Tana took the reins and pulled the great beast to its feet. Drake’s camel lurched upright, with a sickening lurching motion, of its own accord.
“They are well trained,” Tana said absently. “They are from the royal stables. There is no creature of the desert that can keep up with them.”
As she spoke she threw her veil across her face and pulled her cloak tightly over her shoulders.
“You had better do the same,” she said to Drake. “I have chosen a route that will not take us through the populated sectors of the city, but we must be very careful not to be recognized.”
Drake drew the veil over his face.
“All set,” he said.
THE sun was almost half way across a startlingly blue sky, beating down with heavy hot force, as their camels moved slowly from the deserted courtyard, under the great arched gate that led to the wide avenue which flanked the palace.
They rode quickly through the winding streets of Bagdad, past several jammed market places, and soon they were on the great wide road that from Bagdad to the open stretches of the desert. They followed this road for several miles, moving aside on several occasions to allow long in-coming caravans to pass, and at last they reached the desert and started out on its broad, trackless, shimmering wastes.
This much of the ride had been taken in absolute silence. Tana seemed to know exactly what she was doing and where she was going and apparently felt no need to explain her course to Drake.
When the sun was beginning to sink into the west, she pointed the camels toward a range of mountains which had been but a blue blur on the horizon when they left Bagdad, but which were now looming up as individual peaks stretching in an unbroken chain for dozens of miles.
Drake marveled at the woman’s endurance. His back was almost broken from the heavy lurching of his mount and his tongue was a piece of leather in his mouth. Particles of sand, whirled by the arid desert blasts, stung his face and neck and sifted into his clothes until he felt as if he were clothed in sheets of sanded paper.
But Tana rode on, saying nothing, looking neither to the right nor left, apparently oblivious to the merciless discomforts of the trip; and Drake clamped his lips together obstinately and resolved that he’d ride until his camel fell rather than ask for a rest.
When they reached the foot of the mountain peaks Tana led him through a narrow gorge into bewildering mazes of valleys and fissures that split the mountain into thousands of separate ridges, until he knew he was hopelessly and completely lost.
She rode on until they reached the blank face of an escarpment and Drake thought she was going to drive the camels straight into its flinty side; but a few feet from the sheer towering wall, she brought her camel to a halt.
Drake’s mount came to a stop beside hers. Drake shifted his position in the hard saddle and glanced around. They were on the floor of a shallow basin, surrounded on all sides by towering cliffs. One narrow fissure led into this small, rock-floored valley and Drake knew it would take an army searching the mountains to find the place.
“This is as far as we go,” Tana said.
Drake looked at her, perplexed.
Tana swung about and faced the blank face of the cliff.
“Open Sesame!” she called in a clear loud voice.
For an instant only the echo of her words drifted to their ears rebounding from the sheer sides of the mountain.
But then Drake heard a sudden rumbling sound as if two huge boulders were being ground together, and an instant later, a great slab of stone moved slowly away from the side of the cliff, revealing a gaping black hole, fifty feet wide and half as high.
“Come,” Tana said, “This is the cave of All Baba.”
Her camel moved ahead and Drake’s followed it into the solid darkness of the hole in the side of the cliff.
CHAPTER VI
WHEN they entered the cave they turned right after few dozen feet and entered a large room, formed from the natural rock of the mountain. Torches guttered in niches in the wall, throwing a weird illumination over the great hall. The floor was covered with the tanned hides of animals.
There were a half dozen men lying. about on the floor and one of them climbed to his feet as Tana slid from her mount to the floor.
He was a colorfully dressed fellow of medium height with a thin brown face and snapping black eyes. A scimitar hung from his waist and a wicked looking dagger was jammed into the sash of his trousers.
“Greetings, Tana,” he said.
“Greetings, Ali Baba,” Tana said. “I have brought you the one I spoke about.” She turned and nodded to Drake. “You may dismount. You will stay here for a while, until things are ready and we need you.”
Drake slid gratefully to the ground and stretched his aching muscles.
“We need food and drink,” Tana said.
Ali Baba turned and waved a hand at one of the men lying on the animal skins.
“Mura,” he called, “prepare food for our guests. Hurry!”
“I shall have to return immediately,” Tana said, “but I have news which you will like. We strike within the week. Everything has been arranged.”
Ali Baba’s thin brown face burned with cupidity. He chuckled softly, deep in his throat.
“You bring very good news,” he said. “But how are my men and I to get into the castle?”
Tana smiled softly.
“You will be delivered to the Caliph’s door, my gentle Ali Baba. I have contacted an oil dealer who has a contract to deliver forty casks of olive oil to the palace next week. The casks are huge and each could easily hold a man. Do you understand?”
“Ah!” Ali Baba murmured. He inclined his head toward Tana, his eyes sharp and bright. “I bow to your cleverness, Tana. But are you sure that forty men and myself will be sufficient to subdue the palace guards of the Caliph?”
“You have my assurance for that,” Tana said.
After they had eaten a coarse, but satisfying, meal in the vast, smoky dining-hall, Tana mounted her camel and, after a last word with Ali Baba, left for the return trip to Bagdad.
Drake was filled with a growing wonder as he contemplated the weird fate that had befallen him. And no small part of his wonder was a result of his meeting with Ali Baba, the thief, in this rocky hidden cavern. He had always believed Ali Baba to have been a completely mythical character from the pages of the Arabian Nights; and it was a shock to discover that the man had actually existed.
WHEN Tana had gone Ali Baba asked him if he would like to rest. “Sounds like a good idea,” Drake said. “I’m pretty tired from the trip.
But I notice it didn’t seem to bother Tana particularly.”
Ali Baba smiled, but there was an uneasy glint in his eye that puzzled Drake.
“That woman,” he said, “is like a creature of rock. Her heart is like a piece of tough leather.” He shook his head slowly. “I would not li
ke to have her for my enemy.”
“The same thought has occurred to me,” Drake said drily.
Ali Baba looked at him moodily.
“I hope I never have to fight against her,” he said. “She is like a tigress when aroused.”
“There’s no need to worry,” Drake said. “She needs you as much as you need her. She can’t afford to have you turn against her.”
“I hope you are right,” Ali Baba said. He frowned dubiously and regarded Drake with his sharp brown eyes. “I like you,” he said unexpectedly. “You speak words of good sense. Would you be interested in inspecting my little domain?”
“Very much,” Drake said.
Ali Baba led him from the dining-hall through the rest of the series of connecting caves, explaining as they went what each section was used for. There were sleeping rooms, stalls for camels and horses, workshops where harnesses and weapons were repaired, and several vast storerooms stocked with dried foods, casks of wine and shelves of clothing and equipment of all types and sorts.
“You see,” Ali Baba explained, “we must be self-sufficient. Frequently when the Caliph’s soldiers are searching the mountains for us, we must hide here in our caves for weeks at a time before it is safe to venture forth.” They had reached the last of the caves and Ali Baba led him to a great massive stone door that was locked and bolted securely.
“I will show you something now that few have ever seen,” he said. “Possibly you have wondered about our main gate and the password ‘Sesame’ which is needed to open it?”
“Yes, I have,” Drake said. “It looked like witchcraft to me.”
“It is nothing like that,” Ali Baba smiled.
He unlocked the heavy door, swung it back and started down steps carved in the heavy rock. “Follow me,” he said.
Drake started down the steps after the bandit chieftan, moving carefully in the dark. After several winding turns he saw a flicker of illumination below that threw a dappled light on the steps beneath his feet.
Ali Baba made the last turn and stepped out on a small balcony. When Drake joined him he saw he was overlooking a vast chamber, fully as large as any of the great caves that he had seen above.
In the center of the room, a massive, heavy-spoked wheel was set on a pivot in the floor; and Drake’s hands suddenly tightened with horror as he saw that to each spoke was chained a filthy, rag-covered human being.
THE dazed broken figures hung over the spokes, as lifeless as pieces of wood. Their physical degradation was appalling. Hair hung over their eyes and thin shoulders and their ribs stuck out cadaverously through their scanty, torn rag coverings.
“You see,” Ali Baba said, “there is nothing mysterious about our little secret. Watch!”
He clapped his hands together and said, “Open Sesame!”
Instantly the broken, shambling figures began to stir. Their eyes did not lift to the sound of Ali Baba’s voice, but their muscles contracted, automatically, instinctively.
They laid their weight against the spokes and gradually, ponderously, the great wheel began to turn. The shackled figures strained forward soundlessly and the only noise that broke the gruesome, unnatural silence was the scraping of their unshod feet on the stone floor. When the wheel had completed a half circle, the shackled figures stopped, like obedient horses anticipating a command from a master.
“You see?” Ali Baba said. He clapped his hands again. “Close Sesame!” he said.
The men resumed their task, straining their frail, broken figures against the spokes until the great wheel had completed its circle; then they relaxed and slumped against the spokes, lifeless, motionless, senseless—waiting until again the command of “Sesame” should penetrate their dull, fogged brains and flag their muscles into automatic response.
“What do you think?” Ali Baba asked. “Is it not clever? These husks you see on the wheel are those who sought to betray me, and who were unlucky enough to fall into my hands. After a few years on the wheel even the most independent spirit learns that revolt and resistance are useless. Gradually they adapt themselves to their task until they become as obedient horses. They have but one task; they know but one command; and they do their work well.”
“I think it’s a criminal way to treat human beings,” Drake said grimly. “A knife through the back would be more merciful.”
“Possibly,” Ali Baba shrugged, “but a dead man is of no use to anyone, not even to himself. This way these creatures are able to perform some service.”
“Yes,” Drake said, “but you could put them to work making an automatic leverage system that would open your gate just as effectively.”
Ali Baba shrugged again.
“Maybe there is something in what you say. But let us not worry about it now. For the present this system is satisfactory. Now you must rest.” Drake followed Ali Baba back to the main sections of the cavern, and was taken to a small room with a soft, skin-covered floor. He was tired and aching in every muscle but it was a long time before sleep came. He couldn’t rid his mind of the picture of the helpless, broken figures on the wheel that operated the main gate of the bandit’s cave.
THREE days passed in the caverns of Ali Baba, the thief, and Drake grew increasingly impatient as hour followed hour and there was no news from Tana. He slept and ate and talked interminably with Ali Baba, but his anxiety for Sharon prevented him from relaxing. The problem of how he was to effect their escape from this time to the twentieth century with the news of the German invasion of South America was another nagging worry that never completely left him.
But on the fourth day a messenger arrived, and soon after Ali Baba sought Drake out, his sharp brown eyes snapping with excitement.
“The period of waiting is over,” he announced. “Tana has sent us word that everything is prepared for us. We will leave within the hour for Bagdad. Tonight we make our entrance into the palace of the Caliph.”
“It’s about time,” Drake said.
“The wise man is patient,” Ali Baba said quietly. “We have waited long but our time to strike has come.”
“I hope Tana has everything set,” Drake said. “Supposing the guards of the Caliph are more powerful than we expect? What then?”
“The future is in the hands of Allah,” Ali Baba said philosophically. “If we fail, we shall have no more worries at all after a while. The Caliph, Zinidad, will see to that. But enough of this talk. The time is here for action. Prepare yourself to ride, my comrade. The wealth of Bagdad awaits us.”
CHAPTER VII
THE moon was a pale thin crescent hanging against the velvet blackness of the night sky when the long line of tired, laden camels reached the great gates of the Caliph’s palace.
The custodian of the gale signalled the wall guards and then advanced to meet the leader of the caravan.
“Who is it disturbs the sleep of the Caliph’s palace in the middle of the night?” he challenged.
“It is Raschid, the merchant,” the leader of the caravan, a gnarled, stooped little man, answered sullenly. “Open the gate, uncivil dog! I have forty barrels of oil for the Caliph’s storehouses.”
“Who told you to bring them at this hour?” the custodian demanded. “The palace is asleep. Come back with the honest sun tomorrow and I will open the gate for you.”
“The Mistress Tana directed me to bring them at this hour,” Raschid said stubbornly. “If I leave now you will be answering her questions on the rack tomorrow.”
The custodian fumbled with his beard for a moment and then angrily ordered the gate-keeper to open the barrier.
“Let this be on your head,” he bellowed to Raschid.
“Stop your braying, brother of the swine,” Raschid shouted. “Stand aside and let honest men work.”
He turned and shouted an order to his camel drivers and soon the long caravan of lumbering beasts was filing into the dark courtyard of the Caliph’s palace.
Drake had heard the entire conversation, and when he felt the came
ls begin to move he breathed a sigh of relief. Everything was working according to plan.
He was crouched in one of the huge leather oil barrels that swung from the sides of the camels. And in each of the remaining barrels was one of Ali Baba’s men, thoroughly armed and ready to spring into action at an instant’s notice.
The camel train moved slowly across the court and the only sound in the blackness of the night was the solid scraping slump of the camels’ hoofs on the hard-packed dirt floor of the court yard.
Finally the camels came to a sluggish stop and the caravan attendants began unloading the oil barrels and carrying them into the Caliph’s store house.
Drake felt the barrels in which he was concealed being lifted and carried into the dark storeroom. The attendants grunted with every step and sighed relievedly when they set the barrel down on the floor.
The half dozen attendants repeated this procedure until all the barrels were delivered, then they mounted their camels and left the palace.
The doors of the storeroom were closed by the Caliph’s men, and Drake felt the darkness and silence close over him with an almost physical weight.
For several moments he heard nothing and then Ali Baba’s voice—a soft whisper from the adjoining barrel—reached his ears.
“Drake?”
“Yes?”
“All is going well. We must wait here until Tana sends her messenger for us.”
“How long will that be?”
“Allah knows, my friend. We can but wait.”
MINUTES passed slowly. The air was close and stifling. Suddenly he heard the sound of a door opening slowly. An instant later the whisper of stealthy movements came to his ears. And he heard the ominous clink of arms.
Puzzled and alarmed, he raised himself until he could peer over the top of the barrel. Through the murky darkness he saw a group of men moving toward the line of oil barrels. He could vaguely make out the huge shapes of Nubian guards; and he saw the gleam of their scimitars as they advanced with cat-like tread.
Collected Fiction (1940-1963) Page 179