With a score of firearms aimed directly at them, Nakhla realized that all thoughts of escape or even resistance must be foregone. She did not wish to see her would-be rescuer slain as the sole reward for having championed her. She laid a cool hand upon his shoulder.
“There is no use,” she said. “Let us give ourselves up now, and await another opportunity.”
But scarce had she voiced the plea when Azîz sprang for the nearest Arab. The fellow’s matchlock missed fire, and then he was down beneath rending fangs. His companions dared not fire for fear of hitting him, but they clubbed their guns and a moment later it was an insensible lion-man that lay securely bound beside the fire. At his head sat Nakhla bathing the wound upon his forehead.
CHAPTER 21
Seven men were gathered in the back room of the little inn with which we are familiar. There were two former officers of The Guards Regiment, who had just been transferred to a frontier regiment; there were two officers of the Seventh Regiment of Infantry, and two from the Tenth Cavalry Regiment; the seventh man was Andresy.
“The people are ripe for revolt,” said Andresy. “Increased taxation has fallen heavily on all classes. If the money were to be spent for the public good, they might forgive it; but it is to be spent for a new palace, a private train, a yacht, and the extravagant private life of the King and his — associates.” A lieutenant of the 10th Cavalry flushed and looked straight ahead. “The situation is intolerable, and the people are furious.”
“The restlessness had spread to the army also,” said one of the officers. “He has transferred many officers of The Guards to regiments stationed on the frontier, replacing them by his friends and those of Lomsk. He has raised the pay of The Guards and cut that of every other branch of the service, rank and file as well as officers. I think that we can now work together.”
“Our interests are mutual,” said Andresy. “We do not ask much — merely the formation of a republic and the adoption of the new liberal constitution. We wouldn’t even ask for a republic, if there were any member of the royal family acceptable to the people for accession to the throne; but there is not. In the new government, it has been suggested that General Count Sarnya represent the army; and I, the people. Is that satisfactory to you gentlemen?” His eyes searched the faces of the six.
“It is,” said he who spoke for the officers. “Sarnya is loved by the army. He holds it in the hollow of his hand. There could be no better man than he.”
“Will he work with us?” asked Andresy. “He has been a staunch monarchist all his life, you know.”
“I have spoken to him within the week,” replied the officer. “He will support any move to rid the country of Ferdinand.”
“Good,” said Andresy. “The details of the coup I shall leave to you gentlemen. I am sure that you are far more capable of handling it than I; but please keep me informed — I should like to know the exact day and hour that you intend to strike.”
“General Sarnya has applied for leave, which has been granted; and he will arrive in the capital next Thursday,” said the officer.
“The next day is Friday the thirteenth,” said Lieutenant Hans de Groot.
“An excellent date,” commented Andresy; “one that will always be easy to remember. Do you know the hour?”
“Three o’clock in the morning,” replied Lieutenant de Groot
* * * * *
“They started pouring the foundations for the palace this morning,” said the King. “I am having a little silver casket made to place beneath the corner stone when I lay it; it will contain nothing but a lock of your hair.”
“‘Casket’!” repeated Hilda, with a shudder. “I do not like the word.”
Ferdinand laughed. “Well, we shall call it a box, then.”
Hilda did not laugh. “When I drove today, some people hissed me; when I passed the cemetery, I saw a man digging a grave. Oh, Ferdinand, send for Maria; and let me go back to my apartment. We were so happy before, and nobody seemed really to mind — nobody but Hans. Poor Hans!”
“I am going to make him a general,” said Ferdinand, “and then he will be happy; and I have a surprise for you, too, my dear.”
“What is it? No more jewels, I hope. There is always some nasty little squib in the Paris papers every time you give me anything.”
“I am going to create you a countess,” said Ferdinand. “Then they cannot say that I married a commoner after divorce Maria.”
Hilda shook her head. “You are very sweet, Ferdinand; but you are also very blind and foolish. Even if I were Queen, I should always be a gardener’s daughter to them. I wish you would not do it.”
“I shall, though,” he said, stubbornly. “I am king, and I shall do as I please.”
* * * * *
The cobbler’s pretty daughter arrived at the frontier on Wednesday, the eleventh. She had enjoyed the trip by train very much indeed, because she had never been on a train before and because this was the farthest she had ever been from home. She felt quite traveled and cosmopolitan. She also enjoyed the trip because of the smart, new clothes she had bought with the money Captain Carlyn had sent her — the kind and generous Captain Carlyn. She knew how to dress, because she had worked in a swank modiste’s shop in the capital before she and William had married; and she could wear clothes, because - well, just because she could wear them. It is a knack that one is born with, or isn’t — most people are not.
When Captain Carlyn met her at the train, he was very proud of her, indeed. He thought that she was quite the loveliest thing he had ever seen; and in that he was, perhaps, quite right. He congratulated himself upon his good taste and his good fortune. He took her to a hotel, where she registered; and then he took her to lunch. He was very attentive — very much the enamored lover. That afternoon he paraded her through the little frontier town, eliciting envious glances from fellow officers. They dined together late that night; and then they went to her room. After they entered it, Captain Carlyn turned and locked the door leading into the corridor.
* * * * *
On that same Wednesday, Hans de Groot went to see his mother and father. They talked of the army and of politics and the nursery business, of everything except that which was on their minds, for Hans had not spoken Hilda’s name to his parents for years. Finally Martin de Groot had to leave to look over a job his men were working on. After he had gone, Hans knelt on the floor and buried his head in his mother’s lap. She ran her fingers through his hair and stroked his head. Finally he turned his face so that he could speak. “I have been thinking of Michael so much of late,” he said. “What good times we used to have — Michael and Hilda and I.” He had spoken her name at last. After that it was easier. He recalled little incidents of their childhood. Now he could talk of nothing else but Hilda. But he never spoke of Ferdinand or any other unpleasant thing. When it came time for him to go, he held his mother very tight and kissed her many times. She felt his tears on her face.
CHAPTER 22
After Azîz had left them in the canyon of their lair, the lion and the lioness roamed restless about for an hour or two, returning about dawn to the carcass of a buck they had killed the previous day, where they ate for a while. Then they went down to the river and drank, splashing the cool water noisily. For a few minutes they stood looking up and down the canyon; then the lion turned up toward their den, and followed by his savage mate crept in and lay down.
It was dusk again before either stirred. The lioness rose first and yawned, stretching her great length. The lion, aroused, opened his yellow eyes and stared up at his mate. She purred down upon him. Slowly and majestically the king of beasts came to his feet. As he passed his lioness his rough tongue stroked her muzzle in a gentle caress, and a moment later his massive head and great black mane were framed in the entrance of the cave.
With slow, ponderous dignity the huge beast strode out into the growing night. He moved noisily down the narrow trail toward the canyon’s bottom, at his heels his fond compani
on. Occasionally the great head turned toward the right or toward the left, but there was no stealth in his movements, and no sign of that nervous trepidation which marks the waking life of the lesser beasts of the wilderness. What need of caution upon the part of the lord of the desert! Only when he would hunt did he send his great, sinuous frame through tangled grasses or dense brush in utter noiselessness.
At the river the two drank. Then they turned their footsteps toward the remains of their kill. They were traveling upwind, when to their sensitive nostrils came the scent of flesh. It was an unwary antelope drinking fifty yards above them.
As by magic the two great cats became silent specters moving through the gloomy shadows of the canyon. The lion was in advance. As he crept forward his huge padded feet gave no slightest warning of his coming. Not a grass blade rustled. Not a twig snapped beneath his noiseless tread. Eight hundred pounds, perhaps, the great beast weighed, yet no tit-mouse could have moved in silence more complete.
Almost to the drinking antelope he came before that nervous, fearful creature sensed anything amiss, even then it heard no noise. Some subtle sense of peril brought its horned head aloft and alert, but too late.
With a blood-curdling roar el adrea hurtled from the bush at its side. With a frantic snort the creature wheeled to fly, but a mighty taloned forepaw, swinging with all the terrific force of a steam hammer fell upon its shoulder. The bone shattered beneath that awful blow, and then gleaming fangs were buried in the soft throat. There was scarce a struggle after that.
Neatly the lion tore open the body of his kill and disemboweled it. The entrails he buried on the spot, amidst much roaring and growling. Then he grasped the carcass by the face and dragged it fifty or sixty yards to a little clump of bushes, where, purring and grunting, he and his lioness filled their bellies.
As they ate, the clatter of hoofs fell upon their ears from down the canyon. The two waited, crouching behind their kill, their heads flattened and their eyes gleaming like coals of fire. Presently there came within their view a party of horseman — fifty perhaps. They wore the khaki of European soldiery — all but one, and he rode, white burnoosed, at the head of the column beside the leader of the troop. He was Ali-Es-Hadji’s messenger bringing Colonel Vivier and a detail of troopers to assist the Arab in the recovery of his daughter.
The party rode by within fifty yards of the two lions without seeing them. When they had passed, the male rose and looked after them. Then he commenced pacing restlessly about sniffing the ground. It was here that they had pounced upon their brother last night. It was here that he had bid them goodbye and gone away in the direction in which all these men were now riding.
What passed within the fierce, tawny head? Who may guess? He came close to the side of his lioness, sniffing and whining. At last she, too, came to her feet, and then commenced a restless pacing such as one sees within the barred prison cages of the zoo. Back and forth the mighty beasts of prey strode, until at the last the lion, raising his huge head, gave voice to an angry challenging roar, and with tail up set out at a rapid trot upon the trail of the horsemen, and at his heels followed his lioness.
Before they had emerged from the canyon the trot had slackened to a walk, and after that they moved easily, with great strides, over the hills and out into the desert — two mighty creatures of destruction, upon what errand? moved by what promptings?
All that night they traveled, lying up for a few hours during the heat of the following day, for lions, though they can cover great distances without fatigue in the cool of the darkness suffer greatly under a scorching sun.
During the second night they passed through a narrow rocky gorge, and out of it up a steep cliff side that must have taxed the endurance of the horses that preceded them.
Close to dawn they came upon a camp in which were many men sleeping. Great fires burned, and all about stood a thin line of watchful humans, leaning upon their long black guns.
The lion skulked through the surrounding darkness, circling the camp a dozen times, and making a night hideous for the sentries with their uncanny “Aaows,” and deep, solemn “Goom! Goom!”
Whatever they searched for they did not find; and before the camp, which consisted of Colonel Vivier’s men and Ali-Es-Hadji’s warriors, broke in the early morning the lions were far in advance of them upon another spoor. This time it was a definite spoor which they had recognized and could follow.
* * * * *
When Azîz regained consciousness he was aware principally of a severe ache in his head. As he opened his eyes, Nakhla ceased to bathe his forehead. He looked up at her and smiled — it was a smile that reminded her of the smile that he had turned upon the white Nasrâny girl. With the memory came flooding back all the embittered, jealous anguish that she had suffered because of it, and which had been almost forgotten during the vigil at the side of the wounded man.
She turned her eyes haughtily away, and then rising walked to a little distance and stood with her back toward him. For a long time his gaze remained fixed upon her unbending and relentless figure.
“Nasrâny,” he thought. “Pig. Dog.” No wonder that she did not care to look at him, and then he sighed and turned upon his face, burying his hurting head in his arms.
At dawn the marauders were ready to break camp. Several of them were for making short work of the brother of el adrea; but for some reason of his own, Sidi-El-Seghir preferred to spare the prisoner’s life for a while. Perchance he anticipated a price for so powerfully built a slave at the court of the lazy black sultan to the south.
The day was yet in its infancy when the Arabs took up their march. It was not yet precisely flight, for they did not guess that so large a force was upon their trail, but Sidi-El-Seghir was endowed with sufficient wisdom to guess that Ali-Es-Hadji would not permit his daughter to be thus boldly stolen and make no strenuous effort to succor her; so he pushed on at as good a pace as the rough country permitted.
Nakhla rode upon the rump of Mohammed’s mount; but Azîz, a stout camel hair rope about his neck, was tethered to the saddle of Sidi-El-Seghir. There was little ground across which the horses could move faster than a walk; but even where they went at a trot or a canter for short distances the lion-man found less difficulty in keeping the pace than did the wiry beasts the Arabs rode.
The prisoner’s agility and endurance so greatly interested Sidi-El-Seghir that he became more than ever determined to carry the captive with him — the price that he had placed upon him growing steadily with the rough miles the almost naked white man covered without apparent exertion or fatigue.
During the long, hot day Azîz was aware of but two things — the terrible hurting in his head and the cold, disdainful glances of the girl whom the accidents of the march occasionally brought close to him. It was difficult to say which caused the keenest anguish.
Night found them far to the south, yet still clinging to the eastern side of the foothills; though the traveling was difficult there was more cover, and water permitted of easier marches. Here, in a hollow, they halted for the night.
Azîz hoped for a word with Nakhla then, that he might learn for truth if it were his low estate that lay at the bottom of her aloofness; but try as he would he could get no speech with her, and at last when he saw that she had rolled herself up in her rug for the night he lay down beside the guard to whom he was tied, and tried to efface his suffering in sleep.
For half the night he tossed and turned upon the hard ground. His captors had given him no covering, but he did not suffer much on this account though he would have been glad of the soft, hot body of el adrea against which he had snuggled on so many countless nights.
Even as he thought of the great beast there came faintly to him the distant “Goom! Goom!” of a lion. Ah, if it were but his own loved companion! But there could be no hope of that — too far from the haunts of his savage chum had the Arabs dragged him.
As he lay listening to the sound that fell so sweetly upon his ears, another impinge
d upon his sensitive perceptions — the muffled fall of iron-shod hoofs upon the rock trail along which they had come that day. All his faculties were awake now. The awful torture of his wounded skull was all but forgotten. Motionless as death he listened intently, for he knew that the iron shoes meant the soldiery of France. What could they be doing upon this trail? Yet it must be they, and with them would come rescue for his Nakhla. He did not think of himself. He did not care other than for the welfare of her around whom the mantle of his love would drape its protecting folds.
Closer and closer came the sound of the approaching horsemen, until he wondered at the deafness of the sentries who showed no sign of having heard the noise which fell upon his sensitive ears with such distinctness.
Presently the sound ceased, to be followed by that of the stealthy creeping of an individual toward the camp. Nearer and nearer it came. At last the sentries awoke to the nearness of an enemy. A musket flashed and roared, to be answered from the stunted bush beyond the camp by another.
Instantly the bivouac was astir. Arabs sprang armed and ready to repel the attack they had known must come sooner or later. Matchlocks bellowed and spit great sheets of fire into the dark belly of the night.
Sidi-El-Seghir dragged Nakhla to the shelter of a large boulder. Then he summoned Mohammed to fetch Azîz to the same point and watch over them.
“Should they attempt to escape, shoot them,” commanded the marauder, and ran forward to take his place upon the firing line, prone behind a rocky shelter.
Now there came the sharp, clear-cut ping of the white man’s rifle. It was followed by a volley, perfectly delivered, that revealed to Sidi-El-Seghir the straits into which he had blundered. It was bad enough to have Ali-Es-Hadji hunting him down, but with the force of the white man’s arm beside him the marauder’s position was far from enviable. The night was yet very dark. The moon had not risen.
Delphi Collected Works of Edgar Rice Burroughs (Illustrated) (Series Four Book 26) Page 497
