by Talbot Mundy
Chapter Seventeen"I knew what to expect of the women!"
"AND DELILAH SAID--"
Always at fault is the fellow betrayed(Majorities murder to prove it!)As Samson discovered, Delilah lies,The stigma's stuck on by the cynical wise,And nothing can ever remove it.We'll cast out Delilah and spit on her dead,(That revenge is remarkably human),And pity the victim of underhand tricksSo be that it's moral (the sexes don't mix);But, oh, think what the cynical wise would have saidIf Judas were only a woman!
We slept until Monty called us, two hours before dawn, although Iwas conscious most of the night of stealthy men and women who steppedover me to get at Kagig and whisper to him. His marvelous spy systemwas working full blast, and he seemed to run no risks by lettingthe spies report to any one but himself. Fred, who slept more lightlythan I did, told me afterward that the women principally broughthim particulars of the workings of local politics; the men detailednews of the oncoming concrete enemy.
There was breakfast served by Maga in the dark--hot milk, and astrange mess of eggs and meat. For some reason no one thought ofrelighting the fire, and although the ashes glowed we shivered untilthe food put warmth in us.
By the light of the smoky lamp I thought that Monty wore a strangelydivided air, between gloom and exultation. Fred had been wide awakeand talking with him since long before first cock-crow and was obviouslyout of sorts, shaking his head at intervals and unwilling more thanto poke at his food with a fork. I crossed the room to sit besidethem, and came in for the tail end of the conversation.
"I might have known it, Didums, when I let you go on alone. I'llnever forgive myself. I had a premonition and disobeyed it. Youpose as a cast-iron materialist with no more ambition than moneyenough to retrieve your damned estates, and all the while you'rethe most romantic ass who ever wore out saddle-leather! Found it,have you? Then God help us all! I know what's coming! You're aboutto 'vert back to Crusader days, and try to do damsilly deeds ofchivalry without the war-horse or the suit of mail!"
"No need for you to join me, Fred. You take charge of the othersand get them away to safety."
"Take charge of hornets! I'd leave you, of course, like a shot!But can you see Will Yerkes, for instance, riding off and leavingyou to play Don Quixote? Damn you, Didums, can't you see--?"
"Destiny, Fred. Manifest destiny."
"Can't you see crusading is dead as a dead horse?"
"So am I, old man. I'm no use but to do this very thing. I can servethese people. If I'm killed, there'll be a howl in the papers.If I'm taken, there'll be a row in parliament."
"You don't intend to be taken--I know you!"
"Honest, Fred, I--"
"Have I known you all these years to be fooled now? Smelling rats'ud be subtle to it--I can feel the air bristling! You mean to raisethe Montdidier banner and die under it, last of your race. But you'renot last, you bally ass!"
"Last in the direct line, Fred."
"Yes, but there's that rotter Charles ready to inherit! If you'rebent on suicide--"
"I'm not. You know I'm not."
"--you might have the decency to kill that miserable cousin firstand bring the line to an end in common honor! He'll survive you,and as sure as I sit here and swear at you, he'll bring the Montdidiername into worse disgrace than Judas Iscariot's!"
"I've no intention of suicide, Fred. I assure you--"
But Fred waved the argument aside contemptuously, and stood up togather our attention.
"Listen!" He thrust forward his Van Dyke beard that valiantly stroveto hide a chin like a piece of flint. "Monty has found the robbers'nest that used to belong to his infernal ancestors. I charge anyof you who count yourselves his friends to help me prevent him frombehaving like an idiot!"
"That'll do, Fred!" said Monty, pressing him back against the wall."The fact is," he twisted at his black mustache and eyed us eachfor a second in turn, looking as handsome as the devil, "that I havefound what I originally set out to look for. It overlooks Zeitoon,hidden among trees. I propose to use it. As for quixotism--isthere any one here not willing to fight in the last ditch to helpKagig and these Armenians?"
"I'm with you!" laughed Gloria, and she and Will had a scuffle overnear the fireplace.
"I knew what to expect of the women," said Monty rather bitterly."I'm speaking to Fred and the men!"
"Where's Peter Measel?" I asked. But the others did not seethe connection.
"Come along," said Monty. "Seems to me we're wasting time," andhe strode out through the window on to the roof of the housebelow--usually the shortest way from point to point in Zeitoon. Kagigfollowed him, and then Rustum Khan. The stars were no longer shiningin the pale sky overhead, but it was dark where we were because ofthe mountains that shut out the dawn. Fred came last, grumblingand stumbling, too disturbed to look where he was going.
"Fancy me acting Cassandra at my time of life and none to believeme!" he muttered. Then, louder: "I warn you all! I know thatfellow Monty. If he comes out of this alive it'll be because wehaul him out by the hair! Won't you listen?"
Outside the window I remembered the field-glasses I had laid downin a corner, and returned to get them. In the room were Maga andthe woman Anna, who had appointed herself Gloria Vanderman's maid;they were apparently about to sweep the floor and tidy the place,but as I crossed the room an older gipsy woman entered by the door,and she and Maga promptly drove Anna out through the window aftermy party. Then the old woman came close to me, her beady brighteyes fixed on mine, and went through the suggestive gipsy motionsthat invite the crossing of a palm with silver.
There seemed at first no excuse for listening to her. Every gipsywill beg, whether there is need or not, and knowledge of their habitsdid not make me less short-tempered; besides I had no silver withinreach, nor time to waste.
"Not now!" I said, pushing her aside.
But Maga came to her rescue, and clutched my arm.
"See!" she said, and took a Maria Theresa dollar from some hiding-placein her skirt. "I give silver for you. So." The old hag pouchedthe coin with exactly the same avidity with which she would havetaken it from me. "Now she will make magic. Then I see. Then Itell you something. You listen!"
It began to dawn on me that I would better listen after all. Everyhuman is superstitious, whether or not he admits if to himself;but the particular fraud of pretending to tell fortunes never didhappen to find the joint in my own armor. It seemed likely thesetwo women had some plan that included the preliminary deception ofmyself, and the sooner I knew something about it the better. SoI sat down on Kagig's stool, to give them a better opinion of theiradvantage over me, there being nothing like making the enemy tooconfident. Then I held out the palm of my hand for inspection andtried to look like a man pretending he does not believe in magic.Whatever Maga thought, the old hag was delighted. She began to croakan incantation, shuffling first with one foot, then with the other,and finally with both together in a weird dance that almost shookher old frame apart. Then she went through a pantomime offinger-pointing, as if transferring from herself to Maga the giftof divining about me.
Presently, standing a little to one side of me, with eyes on theold hag's and my hand held between her two, Maga began chanting inEnglish. The fact that her voice was musical and low where the bag'shad been high-pitched and rasping heightened interest, if nothing else.
"You now four men," she began, with a little pause, and somethinglike a swallow between each sentence. "You all love one anotherver' much. You all like Kagig. Kagig is liking you. But Turksare coming presently, and they keel Kagig--keel heem, you understan'?That man Monty is also keel--keel dead. That man Fred--I not know--Inot see. You I see----you I see two ways. First way, you marrythat woman Gloria--you go away--all well--all good. Second way--younot marry her. Then you all die--dam' quick--Monty, Fred, Will,you, Gloria, everybody--an' Zeitoon is all burn' up by bloody Turks!"
She paused and looked at me sidewise under lowered eyelids
. I staredstraight in front of me, as if in the state of self-hypnotism thatis the fortune-teller's happy hunting-ground.
"You understan'?"
"Yes," I said. "I think I see. But how shall I marry Miss Gloria?Suppose she does not want me?"
"You must! Never mind what she want! Listen! This is only wayto save your frien's and Zeitoon! I am giving men--four--five--sixmen. They are seizing Gloria. You go with them. They take yousafe away. Then Zeitoon is also safe, an' your frien's are also safe."
"Monty, too?" I asked.
"Yes, then he is also safe." But--I felt her hands tremble slightlyas she said that.
"Do you mean I should leave him?" I asked.
"You must! You must!" She almost screamed at me, and shook my handbetween her two palms as if by that means to drive the fact intomy consciousness. The old hag had her eyes fixed on my right templeas if she would burn a hole there, and between them they were makinga better than amateur effort to control me by suggestion. It seemedwise to help them deceive themselves. Maga let go my hand gently,and began passing her ten fingers very softly through my hair, andthere are other men who will bear me witness that there exists sensationless appealing than when a pretty girt does that.
"You must!" she said again more quietly. "That is the only way tosave Zeitoon. God is angry."
"What do you know about God?" I asked unguardedly, knowing well thatwhatever their open pretenses, gipsies despise all religion exceptdiabolism. They study creeds for the sake of plunder, just as huntersstudy the habits of the wild.
"Maybe nothing--maybe much! Peter Measel, he say--"
She paused, as if in doubt whether she was using the right argument.And in that moment I recalled what Rustum Khan had once said abouther being no true gipsy.
"Go on," I urged her. "Peter Measel is an expert. He's a high priest.He knows it all."
"Peter Measel is saying, God is ver' angry with Zeitoon and is sendingto destroy such bloody people what plan fighting and rebellion."
"I'll think it over," I said, moving to get up. But independentthinking was the last thing that Maga intended to permit me.
"No, no! No, no, no! You must dee-cide now--at once! There isno time. Now--now I give you five--six mens--now they seize thatwoman Gloria--now you carry 'er away into the mountains--now youmake 'er yours--your own, you understan', so as she is ashamed todeny it afterward--yes?--you see?"
"Where are the men?" I demanded.
"I fetch them quick!"
I could see the hilt of her knife, and the bulge of her repeatingpistol, but I could also feel the weight of my own loaded Colt againstmy hip. I did not doubt I could escape before her men could arriveon the scene, but that would have been to leave some secret onlypart uncovered. There was obviously more behind this scheme thanmet the ear. It is my experience that if we throw fear to the winds,and are willing to wait in tight places for the necessary inspiration,then we get it.
"Very well," I said. "I agree. Bring your men."
"You wait. I get 'em."
I nodded, and she said something in the gipsy language to the oldhag, who went out through the door in a hurry. Alone with Maga Ifelt less than half as safe as I had been. She proceeded to makeuse of every moment in the manner they say makes millionaires.
"Gloria, she is ver' nice girl!" She made a wonderful gesture ofboth hands that limned in empty air the curves of her detested rival."You will love her. By-and-by she love you--also ver' much."
The thought flashed through my head again that I ought to escapewhole while I had the chance; but the answer to that was the certaintythat she would thence-forward be on guard against me without havinggiven me any real information. I was perfectly convinced there wasa deep plot underlying the foolishness she had proposed. The factthat she considered me so venial and so gullible was no proof thatthe hidden purpose was not dangerous. The mystery was how to seemto be fooled by her and yet get in touch with my friends. Thensuddenly I recalled that she and the hag had been trying to usethe gipsy's black art. Unless they can trick their victim into amental condition in which innate superstition becomes uppermost,players of that dark game are helpless.
Yet gipsies are more superstitious than any one else. Hanging toher neck by a skein of plaited horse-hair was the polished shellof a minute turtle--smaller than a dollar piece.
"Give me that," I said, "for luck," and she jumped at the idea.
"Yes, yes--that is to bring you luck--ver' much luck!"
She snatched it off and hung it around my neck, pushing the turtle-shelldown under my collar out of sight.
"That is love-token!" she whispered. "Now she love you immediate'!Now you 'ave ver' much luck!"
The last part of her prophecy was true. The luck seemed to change.That instant the key was given me to escape without making her myrelentless enemy, a voice that I would know among a million beganshouting for me petulantly from somewhere half a dozen roofs away.
"What in hell's keeping you, man? Here's Monty getting up a touristparty to his damned ancestral nest and you're delaying the whole shebang!Good lord alive! Have you fallen in love with a woman, or takenthe belly-ache, or fallen down a well, or gone to sleep again, orall of them, or what?"
"Coming, Fred!" I shouted. "Coming!"
"You'd better!"
He began playing cat-calls on his concertina--imitation bugle-calls,and fragments of serenades. For a second Maga looked reckless--thensuspicious--then, as it began to dawn on her from studying my facethat I, too, was afraid of Fred, relieved.
"Does he know anything?" I asked her.
"He? That Fred? No! No, no, no! An' you no tell 'im. You 'earme? You no tell 'im! You go now--go to 'im, or else 'e is getsuspicious--understan'? My men--they go an' get that woman. Whenthey finish getting that woman, then I send for you an' you comequick--understan'?"
I nodded.
"Listen! If you tell your frien's--if you tell that Frrred, or thoseothers--then I not only keel you, but my men put out your eyes firstan' then pull off your toes an' fingers--understan'?"
I shrugged my shoulders, suggesting an attempt to seem at ease.
"Besides--I warn you! You tell Kagig anything against me an' Kagigis at once your enemy!"
I nodded, and tried to look afraid. Perhaps the speculation thatthe last boast started in my mind helped give me a look thatconvinced her.
Fred began calling again.
"You go!" she ordered imperiously, with a last effort to impressme with her mental predominance. "Go quickly!"
I made motions of hand and face as nearly suggestive of underhandedcunning as I could compass, and climbed out through the window withoutfurther invitation. Seeing me emerge, Fred beckoned from fifty yardsaway and turned his back. Morning was just beginning to descendinto the valley, suddenly bright from having finished all the dawndelays among the crags higher up; but there were deep shadows hereand especially where one roof overhung another.
Jumping from roof to roof to follow Fred, I was suddenly broughtup short by a figure in shadow that gesticulated wildly withoutspeaking. It was below me, in a narrow, shallow runway betweentwo houses, and I had been so impressed by my interview with Magathat assassination was the first thought ready to mind. I sprangaside and tried to check myself, missed footing, and fell into thevery runway I had tried to avoid.
A friend unmistakable, Anna--Gloria's self-constituted maid--ranout of the darkest shadow and kept me from scrambling to my feet.
"Wait!" she whispered. "Don't be seen talking to me. Listen!"
My ankle pained considerably and I was out of breath. I was willingenough to lie there.
"Maga has made a plot to betray Zeitoon! She has been talking withthat Turkish colonel who was captured. I don't know what the plotis, but I listened through a chink in the wall of the prison, andI heard him promise that she should have Will Yerkes!"
"What else did you hear?"
"Nothing else. There was wind whistling, and the
straw made a noise."
At that moment Fred chose to turn his head to see whether I wasfollowing. Not seeing me, he came back over the roofs, shoutingto know what had happened. I got to my feet but, although he hardlylooks the part, he is as active as a boy, and he had scrambled toa higher roof that commanded a view of my runway before my twistedankle would permit me to escape.
"So that's it, eh? A woman!"
"Keep an eye on Miss Gloria!" I whispered to Anna, and she duckedand ran.
If I had had presence of mind I would have accepted the insinuation,and turned the joke on Fred. Instead, I denied it hotly like a fool,and nothing could have fed the fires of his spirit of raillerymore surely.
"I've unearthed a plot," I began, limping along beside him.
"No, sir! It was I who unearthed the two of you!"
"See here, Fred--"
"Look? I'd be ashamed! No, no--I wasn't looking!"
"Fred, I'm serious!"
"Entanglements with women are always serious!"
"I tell you, that girl Maga--"
"Two of 'em, eh? Worser and worser! You'll have Will jealous intothe bargain!"
"Have it your own way, then!" I said, savage with pain (and the reasonshe did not hesitate to assign to my strained ankle were simplyscandalous). "I'll wait until I find a man with honest ears."
"Try Kagig!" he advised me dryly.
And Kagig I did try. We came on him at our end of the bridge thatoverhung the Jihun River. Our party were waiting on the far side,and Fred hurried over to join them. Kagig was listening to the reportsof a dozen men, and while I waited to get his ear I could see Fredtelling his great joke to the party. It was easy to see that GloriaVanderman did not enjoy the joke; nor did I blame her. I did notblame her for sending word there and then to Anna that her serviceswould not be required any more.
As soon as Kagig saw me he dismissed the other men in various directionsand made to start across the bridge. I called to him to wait, andwalked beside him.
"I've uncovered a plot, Kagig," I began. "Maga Jhaere has been talkingwith the Turkish prisoner."
"I know it. I sent her to talk with him!"
"She has bargained with him to betray Zeitoon!"
For answer to that Kagig turned his head and stared sharply at me--thenwent off into peals of diabolic laughter. He had not a wordto offer. He simply utterly, absolutely, unqualifiedly disbelievedme--or else chose to have it appear so.
