Chapter VI
Whinney and I were facing a difficult task, a hard ride at night just when we should have been going to bed. This meant little to me for I have frequently gone two and three nights without sleep but it was torture to my companion who is that most pathetic of human beings, a creature of regular habits. Twice, as we plodded along, he lunged from his saddle and as I lifted him he kept murmuring “Must have my eight hours ... must have my eight hours.” All efforts to keep him awake were in vain and I began to despair of ever reaching our destination until I hit on the idea of fastening my burnous between our horses forming a cradle into which my friend fell with a pleased smile and the drowsy comment “Make up lower seven!”
On, on we sped at a smooth, steady pace. Now and again the horses would separate to avoid a thorny squill-bush and Whinney would be tossed lightly in his blanket; but he slept soundly through it all.
REGINALD WHINNEY“That most pathetic of human beings, a creature of regular habits.”
Reginald Whinney
I was glad to be alone, alone with my fears, my anxieties and my great love, for that Lady Sarah felt the force of my flaming passion I could not doubt. Had she not called me to her side? Had she not looked into my eyes that very evening with an expression which might have led me to the gates of Paradise, had I not been interrupted by Azad’s signal flash?
Azad! The thought of him was a knife in my heart. “On, Thunderer, on.” I urged my willing horse, patting his wet neck and shoulder. Then moved by a sentimental desire for a confidant I leaned forward. The brute seemed to understand for he bent back an attentive ear. “It is for her!” I whispered. Thunderer whirled instantly and Whinney was thrown far into the night.
“Nottoher ...forher, you idiot!” I ground out, savagely tugging at the reins and forcing my brace of beasts back toward our passenger. But though we were soon under way again the horses were now restive and difficult to manage.
I had been steering a course by the stars, aiming at a particularly large, red one which looked familiar and which, Whinney agreed, had beendirectly over our camp. But there must have been something wrong with my calculations. Most Sheiks steer entirely by the heavenly bodies but I had hardly had time to get the hang of them.
The sky was fading to a delicate beryl-green when I decided to let the horses have their own way. As I loosed my rein they turned gracefully at a right angle and broke into an encouraging gallop. Soon the heavens were flooded with the invading light, the stars paled and the sun’s rays shot across the desert. With the sun just peering over the horizon every stunted shrub cast a long blue shadow, every shallow depression became a pool of liquid purple into which Thunderer and his fellow rushed, loose-reined.
We must have ridden a dozen miles out of our way following the red star line and I was beginning to wonder if the intelligence of the Arab horses was all that it was said to be, when I detected a distant something on the horizon. It was still too far off for identification but I scanned it eagerly. A quarter hour passed and I could clearly make out an oasis and beneath it tents—our tents!
“Time to get up,” I yelled, bringing the two horses close together, thus squeezing Whinney’shead gently between their bellies, causing him to open his eyes in astonishment.
“There we are,” I shouted. “Get up, man; climb into your saddle.”
He clumsily obeyed my injunction and having freed my burnous, I gave Thunderer his head and dashed forward, glad to be temporarily rid of my sleepy companion. As I flashed by I had a glimpse of Whinney checking his horse and stopping to wipe the sleep from his eyes. Little did I realize it at the time but my leaving him at that moment was to be one of the determining events of my life, an event without which that life would inevitably have been lost and this story, horrible to think of!—never written.
Thunderer and I covered the last quarter mile in record time, jumped a series of tent-ropes and recumbent camels and bounded into the center of a somnolent compound.
“To arms! To arms!” I shouted, brandishing my own. “Your queen is in danger.” Unconsciously I quoted the beautiful lines from the Black Crook, probably the most exquisite lyric drama in the English language. At my words startled Arabs popped from the encircling tents or raised themselves from the masses of baggage upon which theyhad been sleeping. In a moment I was closely hemmed in by a circle of swart, savage faces. “Heavens,” I thought, “how could Ab-Domen have recruited such tough travelling companions?”
Then, raising my hands, I addressed them, speaking boldly, fiercely, talking down to them as it were in order to let them know their place.
“Hearken, O, Scum of the Sahara, and hear the words of your master, Abdullah-el-Dhub....”
A roar of laughter and a mighty cry of “Yaa ... a ... ah” greeted my ears and with a sickening sense of defeat I realized that I was surrounded by enemies. I might have known! The men were of a different type from any of my camp-followers. My Arabs were swart but these were swarter. I instinctively looked over their heads to warn Whinney of my predicament.
“Back,” I shouted. “Back,—I am captured.”
But I might have saved my breath. The plucky fellow was already a speck on the horizon having fled the instant he saw and heard what was transpiring. There was only one desperate chance left; to jump the encircling crowd. Spurring Thunderer with both heels, I gave him a loose rein. Gathering himself together he made a glorious leap from a standing position high over the head of the tallestArab. For a second I thought I had broken through when, straight and sure, rose a native spear hurled by a gigantic Bassikunu. It struck my courageous beast directly below me and with a scream of anguish he fell on the stout shaft, the point being forced upward through bone, sinew, entrails, saddle-blanket and saddle. Only the greatest nimbleness on my part saved me from a fatal puncture.
Like a soaring bird I leaped from the saddle, my burnous floating in billows about me as I planed earthward there to be seized by a hundred hands, disarmed, my hands trussed behind me, my feet bound in morocco leather and my head covered with a filthy gunny-sack.
About me I heard coarse laughter and an occasional remark in the crude Bassikunu dialect.
“Hah!” said one, kicking me contemptuously, “this will be a pleasant surprise for Azad.”
So? I was inhishands. O, the bitterness of my reflection that Azad, the cruellest of men, held me thus in his power, and that far from having captured me I, Traprock, had deliberately ridden into his arms. The humiliation, the ignominy of it. By a desperate movement I managed to struggle to my feet.
Bound as I was, with my head covered I must have presented the appearance of a contestant in some grotesque gymkhana event. After a few convulsive leaps I fell heavily, landing in the live embers of the cook’s fire over which hung a kettle of some nauseous brew which I promptly upset in my spasmodic efforts to escape the burning brands; all this to the accompaniment of uproarious laughter.
Rolling over in one final wriggle I felt something hard under my hands back of me. My grasp tightened on it by instinct as I lost consciousness from faintness and suffocation. I knew vaguely that I was being lifted by two men after which I was thrown down heavily; then blackness closed about me. Matters were not looking their best.
My first impressions of Azad were gained from his voice. He had returned to his camp during my fainting spell and stood not far from the spot where I had been thrown.
“Well, did you get the women?” asked one of his followers.
“No,” he said. “By her side was a mighty Sheik—a Moplah—so my spy tells me, a man of greatstrength and cunning. I resolved to bide my time. Tonight she will be alone with her half-witted husband and her idiot of a Karawan-bashi and—”
“You say a Moplah chief was with her?” questioned an unfortunate follower who had not learned the penalty of speaking out of turn in a conversation with Azad; “why this very day....”
He got no further. Azad gave an almost inaudible command at which the interrupting voice suddenly thinned to a wheeze as if the wind-pipe had been closed by violent pressure. A convulsive gurgling sob was followed by a low moan and I felt the impact of a body falling heavily on the sand near me.
Though I could see nothing I must confess that Azad’s voice was the most unpleasant I have ever heard. Far from being harsh and dominating it was low, cool, almost tired. It faded away at the end of sentences as if the possessor had withdrawn himself from human contact. I sensed the presence of one to whom human life, even his own—was nothing. If a snake had a voice I feel sure it would be the voice of Azad.
“What was the fellow saying?” asked those icy tones.
AZAD THE TERRIBLE“If a snake had a voice I feel sure it would be the voice of Azad.”
Azad the Terrible
“That we have this day captured a Moplah chief, O Sire,” was the humble reply, “even now he lies nearby in the shelter of thy tent where he awaits thy pleasure.”
“Produce,” said Azad.
I was lifted and borne into a brighter light. An instant later the sack was pulled from my head. It was a critical moment; now, if ever, was the time for dissimulation. I must pretend that my fainting fit still endured; upon that depended my life. Even a man as unspeakably cruel as Azad finds no satisfaction in torturing an unconscious enemy. There is no pleasure in it.
I was not mistaken. After a brief inspecting during which I scarcely breathed I was again flung into the shadows.
“Let him wait,” said the voice of Azad,—“when he comes to we will....”
I can not repeat his proposed line of action but the mere mention of it nearly produced a real swoon.
For an hour I lay motionless, thinking, thinking, the thought drumming in my brain,—“How should I get out of this mess?” About me the sounds of the camp gradually quieted. The heat grew intense and I knew that it was the middle of the day, the time of the siesta. And then again I becameconscious of the object which I had clutched when I was first thrown on the ground. Turning it over in my bound hands I realized that it was a knife, evidently one of the cook’s utensils which I had knocked over. To cut the bonds back of me was difficult but I finally managed it by lying on the edge of the knife. One by one I felt the thongs part though I injured myself severely in the process for as each strand of leather gave way the blade sank in my flesh and the sand was reddened about me.
Faint but desperate I realized that I must act quickly in the brief interval offered to me. Freeing my feet I cautiously lifted my burlap veil and peered about. I lay near the entrance of Azad’s tent in the recesses of which I could see his body sunk in deep slumber, guarded by a drowsy slave. Just beyond the outer curtain lay the form of a humble Bassikunu, the unfortunate creature who had interrupted his lord and master. The hem of his dirty brown mantle almost touched that of my burnous.
An open attempt to escape now meant certain death. For one mad moment I thought of springing to my feet, cleaver in hand, and dispatching the filthy Azad with one clean blow. But what was tobe gained. The odds were too great. Slowly a plan formed in my mind.
With the silence of a snake I edged slightly nearer the slain Bassikunu until our garments overlapped. It was the work of an hour which seemed like twelve for me to move his corpse out of his coarse garment and into the voluminous folds of my cloak. Moving a fraction of an inch at a time, the sweat of excitement pouring from my body, I burrowed and pushed and pulled and hauled until we had at last changed places, the humble camel-driver lying inside in my Moplah cloak while I sprawled beyond the tent wall in his blood stained and ignoble raiment. A few feet from me on the sand lay his tongue, plucked out by the roots, a pretty sample of Azad’s work.
Scarcely had I effected this perilous change of costume when the camp was suddenly in an uproar. Into the midst of the compound bounded an excited Arab on a foam flecked horse. Azad leaped to alertness with amazing speed.
“Speak, Mulai Hadji,” he commanded.
“Their caravan approaches!” said the rider excitedly. For a second I cherished the thought that my own men were on the way to my rescue but this hope died as the speaker continued, “even nowthey are moving southward,—their camels rich with plunder, their men few and ill-armed.”
“What of the Moplah caravan?” asked Azad who was evidently a man of caution rather than bravery. I hung on the answer in a fever of excitement for I knew it referred to my own expedition. The information was delivered with a scornful laugh.
“The fools! They continue Eastward in search of their lost master. A day’s journey away they must be nearing the Wells of Tabala. The fruit is ripe, O Mighty Azad; the golden pomegranate is ready for your plucking.”
The golden pomegranate! That could be none other than Sarah, my lovely bird, flying southward at my behest, straight into the clutches of this vulture, this ... it was too much. Leaping to my feet I ran toward the camel-compound. Happily, in my humble costume, I was unnoticed; I was simply a Bassikunu, one more or less. Seizing and mounting the first available camel I joined the mob which was surging northward. My one hope was to detach myself from this filthy band, overtake my own men and bring them back to the rescue. Cruel as it seemed to desert Lady Sarah at this juncture therein lay the only practical plan. But on a slowmoving camel my task was hopeless. Ahead of me rode one of the sub-sheiks on a magnificent sorrel mare. What must be done must be done quickly. For an instant he checked his horse to avoid a tent-rope and in that instant I acted, urging my clumsy brute forward and riding off the Arab, pushing him with all my force against the obstruction until horse and rider fell sprawling. Dropping from my camel I was at his side in a second, pretending to assist him, in doing which I twisted his head completely around so that though his breast lay upward his face was buried in the sand. He fainted without a sound and a moment later, wrapped in his great cloak, I sprang into the empty saddle and, cautiously at first and finally at full speed, rushed off toward the east.
The whole operation took no more than three seconds and could never have been accomplished other than by taking advantage of the peculiar conditions of confusion, etc., and by acting upon what has always been my greatest safeguard—instinct.