by W E Johns
‘Such as?’
‘He can carry a load that would break a horse’s heart. He spends most of his life doing nothing else. Turn him loose and he’ll make straight for the nearest water — which is something you couldn’t do. When he refills his water tank he takes in a couple of gallons without pausing to get his breath. You couldn’t do that, either.’
‘He can’t beat a horse for speed,’ argued Ginger.
‘For a mile or two; but on a day’s journey I’d back the camel to get there first. When the horse has had enough the camel will still be striding along at the same pace without a falter. As I said a moment ago, if what we see down below are the skeletons of camels there must once have been water, no matter whether the beasts were brought here by men or made their own way here. But we’re not looking for camels, not dead ones, anyway. I can’t take any more of this. I’m going home.’
So saying, Biggles turned away from the rock formation and took up a course for the oasis that was their base.
They had covered about half the distance when Bertie let out a cry that might have expressed alarm or astonishment. He pointed to the north. ‘Oh I say! Take a look at that! It isn’t true.’
Far away, looming gigantic, striding across the sky — as it appeared — was a line of six camels. With the almost majestic dignity of their kind they marched in single file. As far as it was possible to judge each one appeared to carry a rider.
‘You’re right,’ said Biggles. ‘It isn’t true; or only partly true. We can’t actually see that caravan. It’s probably beyond the horizon. What we’re looking at is a mirage. They’re common enough in this sort of country.’
‘Who on earth can they be?’
‘I can’t imagine anyone except the Forgotten of God.’
‘The what?’
‘That’s what the Arabs call the Tuareg. Or maybe that’s what they call themselves. I don’t know. I only know that as a tribe there are not a great many left. They’re tough. The French had a lot of trouble with them when they first took over the Sahara.’
‘Unless the picture we see is cockeyed, those camels are making for the hills we’ve just left,’ observed Ginger.
‘Yes,’ returned Biggles thoughtfully. ‘That does surprise me. I wouldn’t have expected to find Tuareg here. What the deuce can be their object, I wonder? I’ll grab a little altitude. We may be able to see the real live animals.’ He gave the engines a trifle more throttle and eased back the control column.
This move defeated its object, for as the Merlin began to climb the picture began to fade, to dissolve, so to speak, in thin air. In a few seconds it had disappeared entirely, leaving only the everlasting sand.
‘Queer business,’ murmured Biggles, dropping back to cruising speed.
‘How about turning north for a bit to find the caravan?’ suggested Ginger.
‘No. It’s no concern of ours. We’d do better to mind our own business.’
The aircraft continued on its way.
CHAPTER 4
AN UNPLEASANT SURPRISE
The Merlin landed at its temporary base without mishap and taxied on to get as near to the tent as the palms would allow, a matter of fifty yards or so.
‘We’ll have a drink and get the covers on her,’ said Biggles as they got out and started walking. Suddenly he increased his pace, and then stopped, pointing at the ground. ‘Someone has been here,’ he said crisply. ‘These are camel marks.’
‘Well they aren’t here now or we’d see them,’ observed Ginger.
‘I wonder — did they touch our stuff?’ queried Bertie, a note of anxiety in his voice.
‘I wouldn’t think so; anyway, not unless they were desperately short of something,’ replied Biggles.
A few more paces and they stopped, staring. Where the tent had been was a black patch. Ashes. They hurried on. A glance confirmed their worst fears. All their property had been burnt; even the aircraft covers. For a minute no one spoke. Then Biggles said, helplessly: ‘I can’t believe it.’
Investigation revealed that everything had been lost except some foodstuffs that had been buried in the sandy floor to protect them from the heat. These evidently had not been discovered.
‘What about our spare petrol?’ said Ginger.
They strode swiftly to where, in a small depression at the foot of a palm, under a pile of dead palm fronds, six of the reserve cans had been placed.
‘This stuff has been moved,’ stated Biggles, grimly, as they approached.
Ginger was leaning forward to start uncovering the cans, when with a cry of ‘Watch out!’ Biggles thrust him aside.
Ginger looked startled.
Biggles pointed. No words were necessary.
Slowly, so slowly that movement was hardly perceptible, from the base of the heap a snake was emerging. It was small, not more than two feet long. Its head was squat and flat. From just above the cold glittering eyes rose a protuberance like a horn.
Ginger’s face lost some of its colour, ‘Good gracious!’ he gasped.
Biggles picked up a loose frond, stripped the dead leaves, and with the stem, in a single blow, broke the creature’s back. He then beat it to death and tossed the body clear. ‘I don’t any more kill things for fun, but that’s the only thing to do with those little devils,’ he said in a hard voice. ‘Had he got his fangs into you, Ginger, in about ten minutes this party would have been one man short.’
‘A viper?’
‘Horned viper. According to historians this was the asp that ended the life of the famous Cleopatra.’
Said Bertie, gravely: ‘It looks as if we shall have to be careful what we touch and where we put our feet. What was the little beast doing here?’
Biggles shrugged. ‘They’re common all over North Africa. You never know where one is going to pop up. Some oases, particularly where there are old burying grounds, are lousy with them. Near Biskra there’s a hill honeycombed with snake holes. The local Arabs call it The Cursed Site. They say that in the evening the snakes come out in thousands. No one can get near the place. The devil of it is the snakes attack without provocation.’
‘We shall, I trust, have no reason to go near it,’ said Bertie, polishing his monocle thoughtfully.
‘This one must have come here after we dumped the petrol,’ remarked Ginger.
‘Apparently. We made a nice shady spot for it. But never mind snakes. What about our petrol?’ With extreme caution Biggles began removing the fronds one by one. As soon as the top can was exposed he lifted it by the handle. The weight told him all he needed to know. ‘Empty!’ he exclaimed laconically. ‘Good thing we didn’t leave all our reserve fuel.’
‘Now who would do a thing like this?’ asked Bertie, sadly.
‘It must have been that caravan we saw — the mirage,’ declared Ginger. ‘It must have called here.’
‘That’s probably the answer,’ agreed Biggles, lifting out the remaining cans. All were empty.
‘Tell me this, old boy,’ requested Bertie. ‘Why, having scuppered our petrol, did they bother to put the cans back?’
‘They hoped, maybe, we wouldn’t discover the petrol had gone till we needed it.’
‘Or was it,’ put in Ginger, ‘to encourage the snake, which they may have put in, to stay there, hoping it would bite one of us?’
‘That’s a possibility that hadn’t occurred to me,’ admitted Biggles.
‘Oh, come off it,’ objected Bertie. ‘How could they handle the snake?’
‘Some Arabs, like some Indians, can do queer things with snakes,’ reminded Biggles. ‘If there is one anywhere near they can call it up. Don’t ask me how, but it’s a fact. I’ve seen it done. But never mind snake-charmers. This has given me food for thought.’
‘It must have been a party of Tuaregs,’ asserted Ginger.
‘That’s what one would naturally think,’ conceded Biggles. ‘It may be so, yet I rather doubt it.’
‘Why doubt it?’
‘To start with, what
possible reason could they have for sabotaging our petrol? It was no use to them. From what I know about desert travel, Arabs in general have a code of unwritten laws about each other’s property. It must be so or they’d slowly exterminate each other. Arabs are Moslems, and to some, I know, it’s a matter of religion. Mahomet, in his wisdom, laid down some rules of behaviour. Even in tribal warfare, for instance, it was forbidden to cut down even the enemy’s fruit trees or date palms. It doesn’t take long to cut down a tree, but you can’t replace it as quickly. But let’s get out of this heat.’
‘Then what do you make of it?’ asked Ginger, when they were in the shade of the palms.
‘If Arabs, Tuareg, Senussi, or what have you, did this, then I’d say they were forced or persuaded by the man in charge of the caravan.’
‘But who could he be? What sort of man?’
‘I have a feeling it was someone who knew we were coming here; knew, or had an idea, of what we were doing. He didn’t want us here, and seeing a chance to make things difficult for us, took advantage of it. That’s all I can think of.’
Bertie chipped in. ‘But look here, old boy. That implies some rascal knew about Mander’s air trip and its purpose.’
‘You can put it like that.’
‘In which case we haven’t much chance of finding Mander alive.’
‘That doesn’t follow. There’s another side to the picture. If Mander was known to be dead, why interfere with us? Mander may be dead, and probably is, but as I see it the man responsible for this didn’t know whether he was dead or alive. And that goes for Sekunder. Someone was wise to what they were after. Of course, the raiders may not have known we were here, or who we were, but they’d see our landing tracks and guess.’
Ginger spoke. ‘I suppose this couldn’t have been the work of that fellow Sekunder? Mander’s father took a poor view of him — said he wouldn’t trust him a yard.’
‘Even so, it’s hard to see why Sekunder should injure us.’
‘Suppose he and Mander found a treasure. He might plan to grab the lot.’
Biggles considered the suggestion. ‘I can’t see how that could happen. Sekunder went with Mander in the aircraft. How could he get here, or back to Siwa, without him?’
Bertie cut in again. ‘Talking about it isn’t going to help us. The kernel of the bally nut, if I may say so, seems to me to be this. What effect has this dirty business had on our arrangements?’
Biggles answered. ‘Very little, beyond the obvious fact that we now know we have unexpected enemies to contend with. We can still make two more trips to the mountains, and that should about cover the lot. If Mander reached them we should see his machine. If he didn’t it would be a waste of time looking for him. I don’t propose to search the entire Sahara. We shall just have to be more careful from now on, that’s all.’
‘Careful?’
‘I’m thinking particularly of fuel and food. As far as food is concerned we should be able to manage on what we have. At a pinch we can help out with dates for the short time we’re likely to be here. Thank goodness the people who came here didn’t interfere with the water. That would have put the lid on us.’
‘They may have left it alone knowing they were coming back this way, and would need it,’ said Ginger.
‘There may be something in that,’ agreed Biggles.
‘I’ll tell you something else,’ went on Ginger. ‘The thought has just occurred to me. If these raiders left here for the mountains, why didn’t we see them, instead of only their shadows?’
‘That’s easy to answer, although we’ve no proof they were heading for the mountains. For the sake of argument let’s assume they were. The range, as we saw, is a long one, running for miles. They may have headed for the far end, in which case they’d be on a different course from us. I mean, we wouldn’t actually fly over them. We may see them tomorrow. I’m not doing any more flying today, in this infernal heat.’
‘Then you intend to carry on?’
‘Of course. As if nothing had happened. Tomorrow we’ll do what we did this morning, taking in a different section of hills. If that’s where the raiders are bound for we shall beat them to it. We reckoned the hills were a good hundred and fifty miles from here. The thieves could only have arrived here after we left, so when we saw the mirage they couldn’t have been far on their way. As camels go, I can’t see them getting to the hills inside four or five days. As far as we know they have no reason to hurry. With no intermediate oasis those camels will be heavily loaded. They’ll have to carry all the water they need with them. Come to think of it, they must be reckoning on finding water in the hills. They couldn’t carry enough to get them there and back here.’
‘A camel can go for days without water.’
‘That may be, but he goes better with a belly full. He doesn’t like going without a drink any more than we do.’
‘Tell me this,’ went on Ginger. ‘As there’s no trail across the big sands, how do they find their way?’
Biggles nodded. ‘You make a point there, one that might answer some of our questions. Desert Arabs know the stars for night travel. The caravan we saw was on the move in daylight. Like us, it could have been on a compass course. To the best of my knowledge Arabs don’t carry compasses. So what? It suggests there’s someone in the party, possibly a white man, who has a compass and knows how to use it. And while we’re on that angle I’ll tell you something else. According to my information, Arabs, even Tuareg, keep clear of the big sands. They’re the home of devils.’
‘What are you getting at?’ asked Bertie.
‘To travel across the open desert to those hills would be a risky undertaking at the best of times. A sand-storm would wipe out a caravan in no time, and the men with those camels must know that as well as we do — probably better. Therefore it seems to me that the people who came here and pinched our stuff, and are presumably now out in the desert on their way to the hills, must have a thundering good reason for risking their lives; because that’s what they’re doing, and they must know it. For what are men prepared to risk their lives?’
‘Money, old boy. Money.’ Bertie supplied the answer.
‘Jolly good. You may have hit the nail right on the head. I would wager that at the end of this trail there’s money, and lots of it.’
Ginger’s eyebrows went up. ‘You don’t mean real money, actual cash?’
‘Of course not. Things worth money.’
‘Treasure?’
Biggles smiled cynically as he lit a cigarette. ‘Perhaps. It depends on what you call treasure. You know how I feel about treasure hunting. There could be some interesting relics in the mountains, but I wouldn’t expect to find a treasure to be compared with, say, the Inca gold of South America. I see two possibilities of a valuable find. They may be linked together. First, there’s this alleged tomb, near a pinnacle of rock, of some ancient king of the region; a chap named Ras Tenazza. In accordance with ancient custom his personal property was buried with him. This was Sekunder’s story and there could be some truth in it. Legend has often been found to have a basis of fact. Obviously Sekunder believed the story, or he wouldn’t have been such a fool as to come here.’
‘All right,’ put in Ginger. ‘Let’s suppose a king named Ras Tenazza was buried in the mountains and his people put his bits and pieces with the body. What do you suppose they would consist of?’
‘We can only judge by what has been found in other old tombs in North Africa. There would, I imagine, be a certain amount of gold and silver, in the shape of jewellery and ornaments, and some precious and semiprecious stones. That may sound fine and romantic, but let’s not forget that we didn’t come here on a treasure hunt. We came here to look for young Mander — at his father’s expense. He’d take a poor view of it if we wasted our time looking for a collection of antiques.’
‘You said yourself there had always been a trickle of emeralds from the interior and no one knew where they came from,’ reminded Ginger.
&nb
sp; ‘So I’ve been told, and that, I must admit, supports the story of an emerald mine near the tomb of King what’s-his-name, although, of course, the emeralds may have come from other old tombs. Sekunder may have had a second string to his bow. Failing to find the tomb, he may have hoped to find an emerald mine. Obviously he didn’t come here just for the hell of it. He had ideas of getting rich quick.’
‘And if he found an emerald mine he’d get what he wanted, if you see what I mean,’ interposed Bertie.
‘Perhaps. On the other hand he might find he’d been sold a pup.’
‘How do you make that out?’
‘There are emeralds and emeralds. Some are worth practically nothing. To be of any great value a stone must be perfect, and a large perfect emerald is something that doesn’t often happen. As it comes out of the ground an emerald is a green crystal. It can be transparent, or translucent, and it hardens on exposure to the air. Emeralds have been found weighing over a hundred pounds, yet they were worth practically nothing.’
‘Why not? I don’t get it.’
‘Because they were so full of flaws, and so brittle, that they went to pieces at a touch. A large emerald without a flaw, which ruins its natural beauty, is rare. Find one the size of a robin’s egg and you could ask any price you liked for it. It’s the same with rubies. These huge rubies that the Indian princes used to wear are not worth as much as most people imagine. They went in for size; but with all gems it isn’t so much the size that counts as quality. If you try to cut down a big stone to get a perfect piece out of it, it’s liable to fly to dust and you find you’re left with nothing.’
‘How does that happen?’
‘Because the flaws are minute pin-holes of compressed air, ready to explode if they’re touched.’ Biggles frowned. ‘But what’s all this talk about precious stones? We’ve more important things to deal with.’
Ginger grinned. ‘You started it. You thought Sekunder might be looking for an old emerald mine.’
‘Quite right. So I did.’
‘That would go for Mander, too, I suppose.’
