E. Hoffmann Price's War and Western Action

by E. Hoffmann Price

  “She is hiding those pearls,” said the presence that he could now feel beside him. Soon he would also be able to see. “Better get them…you can trick her…she will not know…”

  So Burton listened as he planned with Salima, who still believed he would take her with him to holy Mecca.

  She poured more wine, but sipped very daintily. The great wisdom told him she was waiting for him to become dead drunk. But she underestimated him. He could drain the Nile if it flowed with wine, and still keep his head.

  “Sing for me, Salima,” he commanded.

  Her chattering was becoming intolerable. It was blocking out the voice of wisdom, but music would not.

  She set aside the wine flagon, picked up her eight-stringed oudh, and plucked it with a turkey-quill plectrum.

  Zabiyat il unsi ilaya

  Badri qabl al fawat

  Wunsheri tibun zakiyn

  Mun ’ashah fi el hayat…

  Her song was an ecstasy that stabbed him like many knifes: “Come to me, O Gazelle, before I die…” .”

  Burton steeled himself against that heart-searing beauty, fumbled in his girdle, and found a large packet of bank notes. He had forgotten them, that afternoon. The faithful in Cairo had given him a heavy payment. Then the great wisdom spoke, and he slumped back against the cushions, mouth agape and snoring…

  Presently Salima ceased singing. That made it easier. Burton was not unconscious. Hasheesh was making him unnaturally wakeful.

  Through barely parted lashes he saw her eye the money, stealthily pluck it from the folds of his robe, glance warily over her shoulder, then bar the door.

  That done, she tiptoed across the room and drew aside an embroidered hanging. Her fingers caressed the masonry. They lingered on a spot that had been polished by many finger tips. A panel of the wall yielded. She thrust the bank notes into the secret cavity, then closed the niche.

  Burton now knew where she stored the jewels he had bought her while drunk with her loveliness and treacherous love.

  Salima resumed her song, then ceased singing, and for a long time sat staring past him and into the moon-drenched patio.

  “See, she is waiting for him,” whispered the hasheesh voice from the fourth dimension. “But do not laugh aloud…she does not suspect you have slain him… Burton, she is insulting you by that lack of suspicion. She does not think you are shrewd enough to sense treason. Now do as I say…”

  He listened, until at last another voice cut in. This was one that rang sonorously from far above the housetops: the muezzin calling true believers to the midnight prayer.

  “A-a-a-a-alahuakbar! Al-l-l-l-abu-u-u-a-a-a-akbar!” The cadence rose and fell like a mighty organ note. “God is most great! Come to prayer! Prayer is better than sleep…”

  That was the signal. Burton bestirred himself, yawned, and said to Salima, “I go to pray. Then to rout out Saoud, the caravan master.”

  She kissed him, and for a moment Burton relented. She was luxurious and supple and she clung like a caressing flame. Her eyes were great black opals, splendid with passion, shadowed with concern at his peril.

  Peril that she had created, something reminded Burton as he broke away from that shapely form that pressed against him and shuddered with ecstasy.

  Then in the cool of the Cairene night the hasheesh presence whispered anew: “Do not weaken, Burton. Treachery always wears a lovely mask. You are a man among men, but a fool among women…verily, this is your night of power when you shall plumb the depths and reach the heights of your destiny, its lord and master…yea, do this thing and redeem yourself from the folly that oppressed you these many years since that first woman with gilded hair persuaded you to borrow what you could not repay…”

  So he presently found Saoud the red-bearded Afghan, squatting beside a charcoal fire in a serai near the mosque of el Hakim.

  “Hakim” means wise and learned. It seemed appropriate, now. Wisdom is bitter, but Burton was smiling as he bargained for a position as camel driver in the caravan. He was too subtle to speak of the money he would have.

  Beyond the Gate of Victory-by-the-Aid-of-God he saw the domes and tombs in the moonlight. He shuddered slightly as he thought of what would follow. But they were gracious and inviting, those ancient forgotten tombs. Still, God might give him victory.

  A surge of devotion for a moment choked him, and he silently gave thanks for wisdom.

  “Yet we may not march in the morning,” muttered Saoud the Afghan, spitting and stroking his red beard. “There was murder tonight. A dog of an infidel officer was neatly knifed. By God, who did that killing is my brother. It was well done, but the British will make the King’s police find the slayer, else they will bombard the city.”

  He grinned hopefully for a moment, then added, “Wallah! Maybe there will be rioting and excellent looting!”

  “It is with Allah,” said Burton, betraying not a sign of the alarm that burned into his hasheesh wisdom. “I go to attend to certain business. But I will be ready at dawn.”

  “Allah give you strength,” wished the Afghan.

  Burton needed it. He fingered the haft of his knife as he walked through what had become a whispering darkness. The shadows gossiped of a red-faced major lying in a pool of red. God curse the dog, why could his carcass not have lain concealed a few more hours?

  As a special agent of the Ismailians he had thus far handled only cash, not knives. The novelty oppressed him. Then he smiled contentedly at the recollection of his skillful first slaying.

  Soon he was again at his house. The hasheesh voice warned him to be stealthy.

  “Maybe Salima is asleep…it will be easier…”

  But she was neither asleep nor alone. She was talking to a man with an unpleasant voice: old Abbas, and a glimpse through the window confirmed it.

  “He will be here soon,” she said. “It will be easy…”

  Abbas, the crafty dog, had guessed! He had prepared a trap!

  Burton consulted with the hasheesh presence. It answered: “You can not slay them both without raising an alarm. But there is a way…”

  He withdrew from the court, creeping toward a narrow alley to await the impatience of Abbas. The traitors could not anticipate his cunning. Abbas would finally leave. But he would not go far.

  “Unless the red flames of Jahannum are distant,” amended Burton, feeling the edge of his blade.

  Before he reached cover, the darkness was alive with uniformed Egyptian police. He was surrounded by tall men whose harsh voices called his name, accused him of murder, leveled pistols and demanded surrender.

  A knife was a vain thing, and they did not fire as he drew the weapon. They wanted him alive, to try him, convict him, avert the martial law that the British overlords would proclaim if vengeance were not exacted.

  Yet Burton’s wits were more subtle than any policeman’s.

  He reeled, chanting a bawdy song as the flashlights blazed into his face. The wildness of his voice shocked them for an instant. Their pistols wavered, and they muttered.

  Burton leaped straight up, moving with incredible agility. Only hasheesh gave him the power. He seized the ledge of a low mashrabtyah window, and like an ape swung himself to its ornate, out-thrust molding.

  The police gaped as he crouched on his perch, one backward reaching hand lacing fingers into the lattice work.

  “Come down, Haroun,” they said, calling him by his assumed name, “else we fire.”

  “Haste is of Satan,” he amiably agreed. “Beware—I drop—”

  But he did not drop. His muscles, exquisitely timed in their surge of power, shot him out and to the fringe of the squad. His feet landed on brawny shoulders. Two policemen were bowled over. Pistols crackled. They belabored each other with feet and truncheons as they tried to seize the elusive creature that had attacked them like a leopard.

 
There was a roaring and a shouting, then a futile blasting of fire and lead as Burton broke clear and dashed down alleys that no detail of special police could ever thread.

  The pursuit was deflected, abruptly, unaccountably. Then Burton laughed as he understood. Abbas, alarmed by the raid, had burst out into the street, and they were pursuing him!

  Just a glimpse of white robes and white beard, just one yell of terror that was swallowed by thundering pistols. Then a flash of Abbas pitching headlong, probing flashlights in an instant finding him.

  Before the police could realize that they had killed Abbas by mistake, Burton was lost in an impenetrable tangle of passageways. He paused to take counsel of the companion who had not deserted him.

  “This is wisdom,” said the voice. “They know you dare not return to your house. They are hunting you in the old city, at Zorayda’s place, at Selim’s. Therefore, get the jewels from the niche, and the rest will be easy. Do not go to holy Mecca. Go to Bagdad, and be the new king of Iraq. This night’s cunning proves you a king without a crown.”

  That was wisdom. He boldly circled, doubled back, threading those narrow ways which no police from the Ezbekiyah could fathom. And in an hour or so he was back to his house, entering this time by a secret door opening from the rear.

  Salima was alone.

  “For a change,” a soft, bitter voice whispered. “She smiles in her sleep, knowing you can not escape the net. Maybe she does not even know that Abbas was killed. But that would make no difference. She has no heart.”

  He deftly caressed the panel behind the drapery. The niche opened. There was no jewelry. He froze. Then he saw there were many packets of bank notes. She had sold his gifts.

  His smile warped. All the better. He swept the packets and heavy envelopes into a bundle which he tied up with the drape. Before he left, he paused to look at the loveliness curled up on the mastaba.

  Salima’s beauty was like a knife-thrust between his ribs. This was the last of the women who had led him to folly. He did not hate her, even though she had betrayed him to the police.

  He might have known she had seen that blood-splash on his sandal. He carefully wiped it off. Then he knelt beside her. The half smile faded, and she stirred uneasily. Her conscience?

  He bent to kiss her. The undulant, sweet curves that gleamed through the silken gauze were a memory to take to Iraq. That sense-stirring beauty made treachery a trifle.

  But as she sensed his presence, stirred sleepily, blinked unfocused eyes, the hasheesh companion was whispering in soft venom:

  “Oh fool and descended of fools, you forgive this? Until the end of your days, some woman will trick you of your senses, and you will be king of beggars, not a king in Iraq. The Ismailian master will mock you.

  “And you will mock yourself, for the sake of all these who have kissed you to your doom…prove yourself, do not weaken—”

  But Salima’s awakening brought recognition to her eyes. Her arms arose, closed about him.

  “Oh—I thought—I feared—”

  “Clever,” said the prodding voice from the side, as her lips fused to his. “Very clever. She feared. Feared you would escape—”

  One arm drew Salima very close, until her young breasts rebelled against the pressure. Burton’s other hand found his knife. It was easy…but her shudder was not of passion… The blood that frothed to her lips was hot and salty on Burton’s tongue as that last kiss choked her outcry…

  He finally let her slip from his arms. He wiped the blood from her mouth. He sheathed the dagger. Then he bowed very low, picked up his parcel of plunder, and stalked boldly into the night.

  He was free. He knew that never again would any woman trick him. He had redeemed himself for all those follies.

  The false dawn was graying. He knew better than to try to slip out through the Gate of Victory. He made a long loop into the citadel Saladin had built. He climbed the steep ascent, picked his way through the deserted gloom, then perilously climbed down, crevices in the ruined masonry giving him a hold. Soon he was at the foot of the Mokattam Hills, and on the way to the tomb-dotted wastes beyond.

  He headed northward to intercept the caravan. If Saoud really was right, then he could lurk in the cemetery until the blockade was lifted.

  But presently he heard the tinkle of bells, the grunt of camels, the cursing of the drivers. All was clear. He sat down in the doorway of a tomb and in the first light of the true dawn he scrutinized his plunder.

  Money, of course. Thousands of reclaimed pounds. But more than that. Papers—not English, but Arabic. The script was large, formal. Straining his eyes, he read as he waited.

  But he knew before he read. That was the great seal of the Ismailian grand master, on a letter addressing Salima, his “beloved sister.”

  “This Haroun, the English renegade, is a persuasive talker, but an ass. Perhaps you can keep him from other women. Make him spend his collections on you, lest others dupe him…”

  “Do not trust Haroun to blackmail that British major in the intelligence service. You and Abbas will handle that. That red-faced pig can not endure scandal—let Abbas trap him with you, and—”

  He read no more, nor looked at any other papers. He knew now that Salima did not betray him. He remembered her words, “He will soon be back…”

  She had meant the major, not Burton.

  The camel bells were closer. Burton, known as Haroun the hasheesheen, sat erect in the door of the tomb. A red-bearded man mounted on a Barbary horse was reeling drunkenly in the saddle as he headed the caravan: Saoud, the Afghan.

  The path was close to the tomb. His voice was thick but loud.

  “By God,” he chuckled, “and again, by God! I have the price of Haroun’s head, yet Haroun escaped, may Allah prosper him! Blood on his shoes, wits in his head, he escaped. By Allah, there is no God but Allah!”

  “Yea, brother,” hiccupped the Arab riding boot to boot with the Afghan, “He is wise. He is generous! Praised be his name!”

  That was mockery and bitterness and frost; but what came from the voice beside Burton was infinitely worse: “Hear, and know that Fate freed you better than you could free yourself. This was the last of the women who beguiled you. You know now that you can not face the Grand Master, whose sister you slew in error.

  “But those many thousand Egyptian pounds, and your cunning—”

  Saoud the Afghan had other things to say; but they were not spoken. A squared rock that had fallen from the tomb fitted Burton’s hand and purpose. He hurled it, and it soared into the dawn.

  Bone crunched. The Afghan toppled from his horse. There was an outcry, a stampeding, and a screech that rippled down the lines as the leaders of the caravan saw a tall form ducking out of a tomb and losing itself among other tombs.

  If a lurking demon wants to brain a drunken Afghan, it is not sensible to interfere. The Holy Prophet doubtless sent the devil to punish the blasphemer. They praised Allah, and rode on.

  Burton walked to Cairo.

  “Fool,” whispered that vibrant voice, “go the other way. Catch up with the caravan. They will think you are a madman—one whose wits are with Allah. That you punished a blasphemer. They will think you a saint. It is better to be a saint than a king.”

  But Burton, thinking of the girl whose blood had stained his lips, mocked the voice of wisdom, and stalked toward the Gate of Victory-by-the-Aid-of-God. His face was no longer drawn. His eyes were no longer uncanny. He seemed much younger in the morning glow, and there was contentment for the first time in years.

  He bore a straight course. He passed his house without a glance to the side. He entered the Ezbekiyah, where the British had their headquarters.

  Presently he answered the challenge of sentries. The strange gleam in his eyes gave him entrance to a house where no native could enter at that or any other hour.

  “Sir,”
he reported, “Captain Harvey Burton, of His Majesty’s Own Seventh Bengal Fusileers reports after twelve years, five months, eleven days absence without leave to face charges of desertion, embezzlement, and—Sir, you might as well add murder to that. Major Harris, and there’s a girl—”

  The colonel gaped, choked, blinked, and called the guard.

  “The blighter’s balmy! Blast it, if this happens again—who—”

  He eyed Burton for a long moment. He began to remember and understand. Then he said, “It’s better this way, captain. You couldn’t have escaped, you know.”

  But Burton’s smile mocked hasheesh wisdom, not the colonel’s ignorance.

  HELL IN DARIEN

  Originally appeared in Spicy-Adventure Stories, Nov. 1937.

  The girl who lay in the hennequen hammock was a king’s daughter, and her lover was the self-appointed governor of Antigua del Darien—Vasco Nunez de Balboa, who had just discovered the South Sea.

  A scarlet skirt clung close to generous hips, and outlined her shapely legs, and her full breasts were bound with calico that was an adornment rather than concealment. She was exquisitely formed, yet there was enough of her to fill the arms of a man as large as Balboa, who called her Tula, since her Indian name was entirely too much for any Spanish tongue.

  A ruddy mustache fringed his broad, reckless mouth; and that the man was as bold as his face was proved by the red plumed helmet, which hung near his steel corselet. Both were dented by Carib war clubs, and nicked with arrows. But for the moment, pearls filled his hands instead of a Toledo blade.

  They gleamed splendidly against Tula’s olive skin when he looped the strands about her throat. But pearls were nothing to an Indian girl. She liked them because he did, and as he bent over her, she drew him close, fervently pressing her mouth against his.

  “But you were saving them for your king, querido,” she murmured.