by Talbot Mundy
So Narayan Singh and I set out to cross the floor of that ravine, moving a lot more cautiously than when we dropped down to the ledge. The next we were likely to meet would be foes, not friends, and it was probable that Kangra Khan had his pickets posted within hail. Once Narayan Singh nudged me and we lay down listening; but all I heard was my own heartbeats, and the wind whistling overhead. When we started again I could see about twenty men in front of the fire-glow, and it occurred to me they were taking long chances to stand silhouetted in that way, with enemies all about them in the hills. They seemed deliberately to be trying to attract attention. The same thought occurred to Narayan Singh.
“Let us hope King sahib sees them,” he said, coming close to whisper in my ear. “Those Pathans expect a reinforcement. They have heard their friends are coming, and unless our friend King sahib is alert he may be caught between two fires.”
“You go back and warn him,” I ordered. “I’ll wait here.”
He turned and went without a word. The wind and darkness swallowed him, and I lay there on a flat rock hugging my pistol, with the owls swooping close to take a look at me — swerving down-wind and circling up again for another look. A jackal sniffed my feet and yelped. The men in the cavern-mouth drank something hot out of a kerosene can, passing it from one to the other and laughing (although the wind carried all sound away long before it reached me). They were plainly feeling confident.
It was easier to watch from where I lay than it had been on the ledge, for the wind did not worry my eyes. I kept my gaze fixed on the fire-glow, hoping not to miss Joan Angela, or Grim, if either of them should pass in front of the fire. All I saw was the cavern-mouth and its occupants, and as for hearing, you could probably have fired a rifle within ten yards of me without my knowing it; my left ear ached from the pressure of the cold wind. I was taken absolutely by surprise when a cold hand was laid on my neck from behind and a voice said in Pushtu:
“The tooth, Ramm-is-den! Give me the tooth or I slay thee!”
Lord knows, men fight for idiotic reasons! I fought for that tooth from a savage’s rain-washed skull as instantly and with no more argument than if it had been a regimental colors, or my personal fortune — using a ju-jitsu trick, turning suddenly on my back and kicking upwards with both feet. Akbar bin Mahommed turned a somersault in mid-air, and when he fell I was on top of him, with my knee on his belly and his knife-wrist in my left-hand. He had not let go his knife, and I accepted that as proof you could make a sportsman of him if you had the time, and took the necessary pains.
“Thou elephant!” I joked. He gasped when he could get some breath.
“How did you find me?” I demanded, working at his wrist to make him drop the knife.
“Peace, thou! Let me go! Nay, Allah’s mercy! Break not my knife-wrist, Ramm-is-den, or I am no more use!” I eased on the wrist a little, and repeated the question.
“I heard a jackal cry. There was likely a dead man hereabouts. Not all the dead have been stripped yet.”
I eased the pressure on his belly, meaning to keep him there on his back until I had the whole of his story, but he squirmed off the rock and out from under me, and though he did not offer to use his knife I covered him with the pistol. But he squatted down with his back towards the fire-glow in a gap between two boulders, and began chafing his wrist as if nothing at all out of the ordinary had happened; so I sat down too, where I could keep an eye on the cavern-mouth beyond him, close enough to him to have touched him with the pistol-muzzle.
“Mashallah! Thou art strong!” he grumbled. “Lo, I am no weakling, but thou—”
“Where is the Hajji?” I demanded.
“Up yonder.”
“And the sahibs?”
“Up yonder.”
He jerked his thumb over his back. We were shouting at each other as if thirty yards apart, because the wind snatched words and took them scattering down the ravine.
“What then? Why are you here?” I demanded.
“Allah! To find thee! Why else? Where is the kaffir?”
He meant Narayan Singh, but that was no way to refer to him, so I ignored the question. I demanded news, and he told it in gasps and snatches, showing his teeth as he spat the words out, trying to make me hear without taking all down-wind into confidence.
“Sahibs in corner behind fire — back of cavern — guarded by women. Hajji — Kangra Khan growing friendly. Suspicious at first, but Hajji gave him piece of stone from near Ka’aba at Mecca. Kangra Khan thinks stone will bring luck, but Hajji whispered to me it will curse him. Orakzai Pathans — some say two hundred — some say twenty — sent word — coming tonight — from south, on way home. Kangra Khan waiting for them.”
We heard nothing, but Narayan Singh loomed suddenly out of the night and squatted down beside me.
“King sahib dekta hai!” he shouted in my ear. [ Is on the watch]
Akbar bin Mahommed heard the word “King,” and brought his fist down on his thigh in excitement.
“Thou — Sikh — thou has seen him? Seen King? Is he not to the northward? Where are the Waziris?”
“What then?” Narayan Singh retorted. “Tell thy tale, Pathan!”
“Allah! If only the Waziris were at hand! The Hajji said to me: ‘Those Pathans whom Kangra Khan expects may well be late, or may not come at all. If the Waziris could come in the dark they might appear to be Pathans. Then Kangra Khan would sally forth to march with them, and there might be a fight and a rescuing!’ Much may happen in the dark!” he added.
I turned to Narayan Singh but could hardly see his outline in the darkness. However, he laid a hand on my arm to attract attention.
“Shall I summon King sahib?” he suggested.
I agreed, and he disappeared a second time, swallowed by wind and darkness like a ghost before he had gone two paces.
“The danger,” I said, “is that Kangra Khan may send reliable men to see who the new arrivals really are.”
“Slay them one by one as they come scouting!” he retorted, brandishing his knife.
“No,” I said. “You must go back to the cavern and tell Kangra Khan that his friends are here and waiting for him to come out.”
“He will not believe me. The Hajji yes, me no!”
“Trust the Hajji to persuade him.”
“Aye. That is better. The Hajji might come forth, and return, and report favorably. A great fellow is that Hajji. He convinces men!”
I was much too cold and afraid to take any satisfaction in the thought of a pitched battle in the darkness amid those boulders and in that bewildering wind. But I could see no other hope, and it fitted in with King’s suggestion.
If we could solve the problem of persuading Kangra Khan to lead his men out, there was the risk of shooting Joan Angela and Grim. The only time when they could possibly be distinguished from the others would be at the moment when they passed through the firelight. The chance of persuading excited Waziris to spare the lives of those two, while at death-grips with the rest, was remote to say the least of it.
However, there is always something you must leave “on Allah’s knees,” as the Moslems have it. The question is, how much? And how much is your own responsibility? If we knew that, I daresay there would be a lot less shotted argument and sudden death.
Who should tell friend from foe in that ravine at night? There would be no moon for a long time, and then only at intervals between the racing clouds. No word of command could carry against or across the wind, and to that would be added the din of rifle-firing and the yells of excited hillmen. Yet, if we should postpone an attempt at rescue until dawn, it would be impossible to pretend our Waziris were Pathans, and we would be so out-numbered as to make fighting hopeless. Moreover, if King was right (and he usually is) by daylight the tribes would be swarming to hound the Waziris to death.
“Allah be praised! It would seem to me Kangra Khan’s hour comes tonight!” said Akbar bin Mahommed in my ear, exultingly. He seemed to see no danger in the prospect. �
�As for thee, Ramm-is-den, that tooth is thy preserver. Allaho Akbar!”
I answered him “Allaho Akbar” for courtesy’s sake; for I liked him better than scores I know, who use their tongues to murder with because they are afraid of knives. I wished him luck in his aim on Kangra Khan — another savage not by any means to be despised. And I wished them both at the devil, if that might do the rest of us the least good.
“Thou art a Kaffir, Ramm-is-den!” he yelled into my ear. “It is great shame to doubt Allah! These be His ways to try the hearts of men. What is a fight, or the darkness, to the Lord of all? Whom He loveth He preserveth! Lo, he loveth me, and thou — thou hast the tooth!”
He leaned across to slap me on the shoulder, and I have endured less tolerable pleasantries from gentler men. Then King came. He and Narayan Singh dropped down beside us, and we held a four-square conference in the hollow between tip-tilted rocks, King sitting where he could watch the cavern-mouth. His men were inaudible — invisible; but he said they were hiding all about us in the dark, and once I caught sight of a shadowy thing that might have been a rifle pointing upward.
“You understand,” said King, speaking Pushtu so that Mahommed bin Akbar might feel flattered, “I must stay with the Waziris. They’d run if I left them; and besides, I’ve promised. We’ll engage as soon as the last of Kangra Khan’s men are out of the cavern. But if we just make a skirmish of it without a definite objective it’ll end in our just being scattered, and morning will see our finish. I’m going to try to gain the cavern and hold it.”
“They’ll only blockade you in the cavern,” I objected; but he swept the objection aside impatiently.
“We’ll attend to the day, when day comes!” he answered. “You men have got to grab Miss Leich. Be good enough not to report to me without her, dead or alive. My objective is the cavern. That’s our rendezvous. Who goes to the cavern now, to tell them their friends have arrived and are waiting for them?”
“I!” said Mahommed bin Akbar.
“Good. But don’t seem too positive,” King advised him. “Say you detected us in the dark, and that you think we’re the Orakzai contingent. Then suggest to them that Hajji is the man to find out for sure, because he has been to Mecca and was made immune from bullets. If they let him come on that errand you stay up there. The Hajji should arrange some sort of signal with them, to be made from here as soon as he discovers whether we’re friend or foe. We’ll make the agreed-on signal, of course, and when Kangra Khan’s men come out, get as close to the sahiba as you can. Keep her out of the way of bullets if possible. Look out for Ramm-is-den and Narayan Singh. Help them to rescue her. You understand all that?”
“Aye,” he answered. “But I should first slay Kangra Khan! His hour has come!”
King did not answer. He sat still, as he always does when he feels himself up against insuperable difficulty; much too wise to argue, or to do anything except to wait for a fresh development. But it was I who held the whip-hand in that crisis, though I little guessed what a rod I was laying up in pickle for myself.
“Slay Kangra Khan tonight, and you shall never have the Prophet’s Tooth!” said I. “For I will break it between rocks and throw the dust down-wind!”
“Nay, Ramm-is-den, that were a sin!” he objected.
“Unlike you, I am a sinful man!” I answered him. “I will do as I say. Tonight you must attend to the sahiba’s rescue, ignoring all other issues. Otherwise, no tooth!”
“Allah!”
“Allah witness it!” said I.
After that there was no further argument. Akbar bin Mahommed, with the hillman’s fatalistic recognition of an impasse, rose and went. King disappeared to talk with his Waziris, and Narayan Singh and I sat in silence watching the cavern-mouth. It was half an hour before we saw Akbar bin Mahommed’s back against the fire-glow, where the men on the ledge appeared to be suspicious, for they gathered around him and gesticulated.
It was several minutes before we saw one man enter the cavern, and minutes again before he returned with someone who towered and bulked above them all and by his bearing might be Kangra Khan. There followed argument — gestures — much pacing to and fro — he who might be Kangra Khan breaking away from the others at intervals and striding to the end of the ledge, as if to try and peer into the ravine.
At last Grim came out, easily distinguishable from the others by his Arab dress. He and Kangra Khan stood full in the firelight, Grim stock-still, Kangra Khan gesticulating. Finally Grim disappeared from view. Kangra Khan returned into the cavern, and the others spread themselves along the ledge. At the end of another fifteen minutes Grim sat down in the dark between Narayan Singh and me.
“Where’s King?” he demanded.
King came presently, with two smelly Waziris at his back, who lay down on the rocks and watched us as if their eyes could burn up darkness and read our inner thoughts. They said nothing; gave us no greeting.
“The plan is,” said Grim, “that if you’re Waziris I’m to trick you into staying here until morning, when in Allah’s daylight Kangra Khan’s men and the neighbours hereabouts will deal with you. But if you’re the Orakzai contingent on your way home, I’m to build a fire where they can see it and show myself in front of it three times.”
“Fire, at once!” King ordered; and the two Waziris who had followed him went off in search of anything whatever they might build it with.
Ten more minutes passed, and a pale moon began to glimmer through racing clouds over the summit of a ragged hill, before flames leaped up in a cleft among rocks on our right and Grim went to stand in front of it. He showed himself thrice as required, standing with his arms outstretched as if crucified. After the third time a man in the cavern-mouth took a fire-brand and waved it.
“Now, you fellows!” said King, and disappeared at once to manage his Waziris.
Then Grim, Narayan Singh and I laid our heads together for a last swift conference.
“They’ll come down by a sort of ramp — rough going — that slants downward into the ravine from the righthand end of the ledge as we face it,” said Grim. “Most of their loads are at the foot of the ramp already, with a few on guard. But there’s a path one man can climb at a time, that joins the ramp half-way up. It’s so difficult they haven’t posted anyone to watch it. Joan Angela is watched by the women. I couldn’t manage to get word with her, but I know she recognized me. As soon as they come out of the cavern the women will have to pick up loads. Kangra Khan is pretty sure to keep Joan Angela close by him, with a bodyguard of his best fighters. Our only chance is to lurk and surprise ’em. It’s on Allah’s knees. We’ve one chance in a million. Are we all set? Good. Let’s go!”
CHAPTER 9. “Sure, lend a hand!”
NARAYAN SINGH praised a number of gods for what befell, and himself not at all. Grim and I thanked the wind, that tore down the ravine in gusts and solid waves of irresistible fury that a man could hardly stand against, making Kangra Khan believe that Allah had sent the blast to favour his own retreat northward under cover of darkness. Even the fierce tribesmen of that region were hardly likely to stir on such a night, and he reasoned, as we learned afterwards, that the Waziris would take advantage of the fury of the elements to scoot for home. Consequently none but his temporary allies, the putative Orakzai Pathans, could have signaled to him from below.
He added all that argument to his conviction of the Hajji’s holiness and orthodoxy. But argument and conviction are alike dangerous on dark nights, or at any other time.
His men ignored the possibility of danger. Believing themselves well guarded against surprise by their allies in the ravine, they began to troop out of the cavern and down the ramp, carrying the few odds and ends of loads that had not already been stacked at the foot of the ramp in readiness. And those who were first at the bottom crouched down behind the loads to shelter themselves from the wind; coming out of a warm cavern, they doubtless felt it even more than we did.
Some of them carried lighted torches made of
the resinous wood no longer needed for the fire — proof enough that they meant to march far and furiously, as otherwise they would have heaped the unburned fuel on the women. One group of six torchmen stood at the end of the ledge where the ramp began, perhaps to keep tally of the men who passed; and as we reached the foot of the nearly sheer side of the ravine we could see Joan Angela standing beside Kangra Khan in the torchlight.
She was still wearing the uleema’s turban and a sheepskin jacket, but her hands appeared to be tied behind her, and somebody had robbed her of the long smock, so that she looked like a rather wretched boy in knickerbockers. There were no women near her; they were at work; but as the torchlight wavered in the wind we could see the shadowy forms of about a dozen riflemen — undoubtedly Kangra Khan’s picked bodyguard.
The chief himself seemed in desperate haste, and to be trying to instil the same ambition into his men. Once he seized a torch and beat the men who passed him, driving them with it in a hurry down the ramp. Then he returned and appeared to be speaking to Joan Angela, pretty roughly to judge by his attitude; but she stood up to him, as if afraid we might not recognize her from that distance, although the torchlight shone full in her face.
Then, with an imperious gesture to the handful of men who were watching, Kangra Khan went off with long strides down the ramp, presumably to try to get some kind of order out of the chaos among the loads. It was then that we began to climb, Grim leading, and I last. As the biggest and strongest, it was my job to be a stepping-block when the track proved otherwise impracticable. When they had used my shoulders to reach a higher perch they lowered Grim’s girdle for me, so we went up fairly fast.
Near the top was a narrow ledge shaped roughly like an oyster-shell, jutting out about five feet below the great ledge in front of the cavern. There was just room on it for the three of us, and there we crouched, partly protected by the wall that leaned outward above us, but unseen only because Kangra Khan’s men were overconfident. It was a dizzy perch, and there was a sensation as if the whole hillside were swaying in the wind. When I saw that the torchlight actually shone on Narayan Singh’s rifle, I neither dared tell him of it for fear of being overheard, nor to try to move the thing lest one or other of us should lose his grip and go sliding off the smooth rock on to the fangs below.
