In the old days when the Turks misruled Sanaa, it was a red hot spot; but since the conquering Imam had taken charge, there was neither music nor mirth, neither bawdy houses, liquor, nor hasheesh. Sanaa had become an unpleasantly moral town where the executioner’s sword cured people of amiable vices.
Farrell glumly eyed the foreboding fortress in which Habeeb Ali, the governor’s cousin, was imprisoned.
“Be damned if this isn’t the first time I ever had to break into jail!”
For a week Farrell prowled about town, getting the lay of the land.
The women of Sanaa were fascinating, with their Himyar veils, that concealed nothing; but the sword of the Imam kept the ladies looking straight to the front.
At sunset of the eighth evening, Farrell wandered into the leading and lousiest samsarah in the city. No travelers had any gossip from Hodeidah. Farrell was about to go his way when he heard a stifled, plaintive sobbing from a room on the second floor.
Farrell investigated. Anything to escape his own hopeless problem.
“Destour!” he rumbled, tapping at the door.
A woman answered. She did not raise her veil in time to cheat Farrell of a dazzling eyeful. A lovely little creature, with long lashed dark eyes that reminded him of Zayda’s. She was younger than Zayda—but not too young.
Her name was Ayesha, and her room at the samsarah had been stripped clean by sneak thieves. She was stranded in Sanaa. Walking to the coast would be tough on bare feet.
“My father,” she concluded, “came to Sanaa to be a hostage in the Imam’s prison. I accompanied him, and was to go on to Hodeidah to stay with my aunt. And now—”
A fresh supply of tears impended.
Farrell had spent over a week trying to get into the Imam’s prison, and here Ayesha was in a tough spot because her father had succeeded! He was thinking fast. By pleading Ayesha’s case with the Imam, he might get a chance to play his own cards.
“By Allah!” he declared. “I will go to the Imam. I will demand an escort and money for you—I will tell that white-bearded goat—”
A brave voice and a face to match; but Ayesha had every reason to fear the stern Imam and his many spies.
“Oh—do be careful!” she warned, interrupting the tirade. “If anyone hears—”
She was quite close now, and her dark eyes were wide with mingled fear and admiration. Her soft fingers closed on his wrist, ripe, warm curves whispered to Farrell through her shapeless outer robe. Ayesha was marvelously well equipped, and as she drew closer, Farrell became less and less concerned with immediately defying the pious Imam.
His plans were becoming slightly incoherent, but Ayesha was not critical. That might have been because only one of Farrell’s hands now gestured. The other was shaping itself to the latest discovery.
Ayesha’s eyes were becoming misty and her breath came in short gasps that made Farrell’s ears simmer, and when he found her lips, she eagerly clung to him.
Luckily, the thieves hadn’t stolen the prayer rug…
But unluckily, Farrell hadn’t barred the door. It slammed open. Ayesha’s scream lifted the tiles, but fright froze her arms about him. Before he could break clear, he did not need a guide book to tell him that someone was jabbing a pistol against his back.
“Don’t!” shrieked Ayesha, her shrill voice piercing the oaths that rumbled like a cavalry charge. “Would you kill your own daughter?”
She doubtless overestimated the penetration of the pistol; but the blast was delayed.
If the man behind the gun was Ayesha’s father, he had a remarkably wide range of action for a hostage! If this wasn’t a frame up, nothing was.
“No, by Allah!” raged the irate parent. “But I will call the guard! I will have him impaled in the public square!” Farrell was up to his neck. This sort of thing wasn’t being done in Sanaa any more. Not by anyone who wanted to keep his head.
“And you—cutting up this way before I even get to my cell!” raged the old man. “Ya Allah—!”
“Wait a minute!” interposed Farrell, desperately snatching at the last words. “Haven’t you been there yet?”
The Arab gasped, taken back by the irrelevant, insistent question.
“Nay.”
“Then I will take your place,” said Farrell.
“There is no God but Allah!” exclaimed the astonished Arab.
The pistol sagged. Farrell whirled.
Sock! Arms and the man crashed into separate corners. That calmed everyone ; and explanations were forthcoming.
“Wallah, I am Shareef Nuri,” said Ayesha’s father. “And before reporting to the warden, I remembered my prayer rug. So I returned—”
“Does the Imam inspect his hostages very often?” Farrell interposed.
“What difference?” countered Shareef Nuri. “He has never seen me. He knows only my uncle, whose fidelity my head guarantees.”
That made it a bargain. Farrell took the Shareef’s credentials, gave him half of his cash, and paused only long enough to exchange a regretful glance with Ayesha.
“Too bad,” he muttered as he strode across the maidan, “this would have worked just as well an hour or so later…”
Presently Farrell presented credentials to the warden.
The food was good, and the vermin not excessive. Only one move remained: find the governor’s cousin, and make good use of the hack saw blade which had eluded the search of the sentries.
A few moderate bribes, and Farrell found his man. Habeeb Ali was in a tower at the end of a corridor, and overlooking the city wall.
That night he hailed the jailer: “Take me to the cell of Habeeb Ali. Get some tapers, so we can play chess.”
Plausible enough, and three Maria Theresa dollars clinched it. Farrell ceremoniously saluted Habeed Ali. As the jailer’s footsteps receded down the passageway, he whispered to the wizened, sharp-featured little man, “Keep up a lusty argument about this game, O brother, and Allah will reward thee.”
Habeed Ali was perplexed, but as Farrell set to work with his hack-saw blade, he caught the point and staged a good act. It muffled the rasp of the saw, and though the blade was giving Farrell more blisters than a rowing match, it was biting into the soft, hand-wrought iron window bar.
An hour passed, and a second yielded. Farrell bounded to the sill, gripped the free ends, and slowly wrenched them upward.
“Go first, ya Habeeb, and may Allah prosper thee,” Farrell invited; but the Arab drew back.
“Nay,” he protested. “Go your way. I stay where I am.”
He meant it. It occurred to Farrell that perhaps Habeeb Ali suspected a snare.
“Your cousin, the governor of Hodeidah, sent me to liberate you.”
“I stay here, regardless,” declared Habeeb Ali.
Farrell was convinced that he was dealing with a madman.
“You idiot,” warned Farrell. “Supposing your cousin is planning a revolt. You know what would happen to you.”
“My cousin wants me released to have me assassinated,” declared Habeeb. “So that he can inherit my estate. Now rub your head, or by Allah, I will call the jailer.”
“Listen, fellow!” growled Farrell. “You’re going to be rescued, whether or not!”
He lunged; but he landed only after Habeeb’s yell had echoed down the corridor. An earthenware jar crashed to shards. Then Farrell caught up with Habeeb. Pop! The Arab froze in his tracks.
Farrell unwound his prisoner’s turban, spliced it to his own, and looped the free end under Habeeb’s arms. Then, shouldering his captive, he bounded to the sill as the jailer and the guard came pounding down the corridor.
It was touch and go. Farrell lowered Habeeb to the city wall. He leaped clear of the sill as the guard surged into the vacated cell.
Seizing his unconscious prisoner, he cleared the crest,
beating a hail of slugs by a split second. He crashed heavily to the ground; but badly shaken as he was, there was one advantage; the nearest of the city’s gates was half a mile to the north. Shouldering the wizened Habeeb, Farrell charged across the plain.
If he could reach the pass that cleft the encircling mountains, there was a chance. But Farrell’s heart was pounding; his legs were stiffening, and the veins at his temples stood out like fire hose. He had to detour to dodge a walled estate.
Habeeb was showing signs of life. Farrell dumped him to his feet.
“Gallop! Or I’ll blow your head off!” he bluffed.
Habeeb tottered half a dozen steps, then caught his stride. The damned little runt was swift as a horse! And he headed for the highway instead of the open darkness.
Farrell’s desperate sprint closed the gap, but the drumming of hoofs became louder as that accursed Habeeb reached the Hodeidah highway.
The captive tripped and sprawled headlong across the road.
“Head for the hills or I’ll bust your head against the rocks, you—!” growled Farrell as he closed in. “Son of a flat-nosed mother—”
His blood froze. He heard the padding of camel’s feet and the muffled sound of arms just ahead of him. They were almost upon him, and the Imam’s soldiers were closing in from the rear. He seized a rock and crouched by the roadside. There were only three camels, and one lacked a rider. He hurled the missile at the leader’s chest.
Chunk! He reeled in the saddle, cursed wrathfully, and recovered. Only one such voice in Arabia, and only one man who could digest such a blow: Red O’Hara.
“Hold it, Red!” shouted Farrell, ducking the answering pistol blast.
“Pile on!” said O’Hara, wheeling his beast.
“Just a second—”
The Imam’s cavalry was perilously near, but Farrell had urgent business. He turned, booted Habeeb headlong into the gloom, then swung to the saddle.
“Sure, and I got the breaks,” explained O’Hara, as they raced southward. “She was a fine figure of a woman, and she slipped a knife into my cell. So we stole some camels and I came to get you.”
It was only then that Farrell noted that O’Hara’s companion was a woman.
“You have all the luck, Red,” concluded Farrell, as he told how he had almost escaped the governor of Hodeidah.
“And what do you say her name was?” demanded O’Hara. “Not the fat one, but her maid.”
“Zayda.”
“Zayda, eh?”
There was something odd about O’Hara’s voice; but what confirmed Farrell’s suspicions was the soft laugh of their companion, and the lowering of her veil.
Zayda herself! For a long moment the silence was broken only by the padding of feet of the camels. The sudden chill was not from the desert night.
“And so you got me out of jail just to do him a favor?” growled O’Hara.
“You big louse, as if you had any kick coming!” retorted Farrell. “After a week across the desert with her!”
Then Zayda interposed: and her solution of the tangle was simple.
A long, three-cornered exchange of glances in the moonlight, and grimness expanded into grins.
“Be good, now, and ain’t our girl got the answer!” admitted O’Hara. Then he frowned, and demanded: “But what’s this polyandry stuff she’s talking about?”
“Oh, that?” Farrell chuckled. “That’s the great ambition of every Arab woman. But now that that’s settled, let’s dope out some alibi to hand Ibn Saoud for the way we muffed that job of spying.”
O’Hara snorted.
“To hell with Ibn Saoud and the rest o’ them kings until we find out how our girl’s idea works out!”
SCARLET RENDEZVOUS
Originally published in Spicy-Adventure Stories, April, 1936, under the pseudonym “Clark Nelson.”
The crags of Tanjong Merah jutted out into the savagely pounding China Sea. A red sunset was following the typhoon that had just subsided; and red jets of rifle fire poured from the parapet of the half ruined fortress that crowned the long, narrow cape.
Tsang Wu, the Chinese pirate was bottled up; and Glenn Farrell, the American beach-comber who had become commander of Sultan Iskander’s vest pocket army, could not pull the cork.
The short, stocky Malay askaris could digest just so much lead from Tsang Wu’s rifles. Farrell, grimy and tattered, his rugged face raked by splinters of flying rock and his long, lean body creased with scorching slugs, scrambled to his feet. His blue eyes blazed wrathfully, but he had only one move.
“Datu Hamid,” he shouted to the second in command, as he deliberately turned his back to the blistering fire of the enemy, “keep those yellow devils ducking for cover while our right retreats to the barricade! Throw dust in their eyes!”
The wiry, squint-eyed datu in the green sarong relayed the order. A volley rippled down the left of the skirmish line, chewing chips from the parapet and blinding the Chinese snipers as the right drew back.
And by repeating the maneuver, the American soldier of fortune withdrew his forces with little loss.
The Malay troops were muttering wrathfully. Datu Hamid, whom Farrell had displaced as commander of the sultan’s army, made no move to quiet them. Their resentment ignored the fact that to continue the charge would have wiped out two-thirds of the attackers.
Farrell’s binoculars swept the foothills far to the west. He cursed.
If the two field guns the sultan had borrowed from a neighboring prince didn’t arrive soon, the water would calm down enough to let Tsang Wu return to the armored yacht which lay aground on a sand bar, far off shore. By some freak of the typhoon, the pirate’s miniature warship had not been battered to pieces. All he had to do was put out in the launch in which he’d escaped, and tow the yacht into deeper water.
If Tsang Wu escaped, Farrell would be discredited. Worse than that, he hated to fall down on the job. Sultan Iskander had given him a lift when the whites of Malaya had kicked him on the chin.
Too many gin pahits one night, and an unfortunate tangle with a woman notorious from Singapore to Siam, the news spread like wild fire, and lovely Irma Stanley gave him the air. Then more gin pahits and Farrell landed on the beach.
For a moment Irma’s ivory and golden beauty, and the kisses they had exchanged by moonlight were a painful, mocking memory. Damn that gin-inspired bit of playfulness, just when Irma’s reserve was at the melting point! He grimaced wryly, scanned the horizon, and resumed methodically cursing the artillery.
And then, just before the swift fall of night, he saw a gun carriage drawn across the distant crest by a pair of water buffaloes. A caisson lumbered after it.
Farrell turned to his tent to wolf the pot of curry his orderly had prepared. As he ate, he cast about for ways of salving Datu Hamid’s grouch. He didn’t blame the old fellow for getting his nose out of joint at the sultan’s favor to a foreigner.
But before he devised an approach, Pa’dullah, his orderly, stepped into the kerosene lantern glow of the tent.
“Tûan, a messenger from Tsang Wu,” he announced, thrusting ahead of him a slender Chinese girl.
And what a girl! Her vermillion tunic and black silk pajamas were tattered, and her sleek black hair was disordered, but her exotic loveliness left him scarcely aware of her disarray. Small, firm breasts modeled in amber-shadowed ivory peeped coyly from the rents in the high necked tunic, and its severe lines could not quite hide the suave flare of her hips. And the gracious curve sweeping upward from her left knee was a charming hint at the fascinations she still kept in reserve.
Her dark, slanted eyes, reflecting her crimson smile, made him think of several things he’d like to do when the siege was over.
“If you’re a sample of what pirates carry around, I’m getting in that business myself—but what’s up now?”
�
�I’m Chan Li. One of Tsang Wu’s prisoners,” she said in Mandarin. “Just before the typhoon he captured the Semiramis, bound from Hong Kong to Singapore.”
“What’s all that to me?” His smile faded. She might be a spy.
“Tsang Wu,” she explained, “demands that you let him escape to his stranded yacht. He saw your artillery coming up. To save your face, you can take the fuses out of the shells so they will not do any great damage.”
The effrontery of it was almost as striking as Chan Li’s alluring loveliness.
“And if you do not,” she resumed, “Tsang Wu will—”
She paused, and a slender hand probed her tattered silks. Whatever she was hunting, it’d be uncommonly pleasant helping her. Then she found it: a silver vanity case.
The initials engraved on it were I. S. Farrell’s expression changed. He opened the case. Inside the cover was a snapshot, somewhat frayed and stained: his own face, and next to it, the smiling sweetness of Irma Stanley. Taken that day at Tanjong Rhu, when Irma almost forgot she was a nice girl…
The sudden rumbling in his ears was not artillery fire.
Irma was Tsang Wu’s prisoner. The pirate, recognizing the familiar face of Sultan Iskander’s field marshal, was making the most of it.
“He will release her unharmed if you let him escape. Otherwise,” explained Chan Li, “Tsang Wu and his lieutenants will make their doom a bit more pleasant. The yellow-haired girl will not like it.
“She came to Singapore to find you. But when the siege is over, you won’t want to see her. Not after having refused to save her.”
Farrell’s shoulders slumped and his face became gray. He planted himself in a folding chair. He could now hear the curses and shouts of the Malays, and the grunts of the water buffalos dragging the three inch field guns to blast Tsang Wu into dripping shreds. But first there was plenty of time for Tsang Wu’s Mongolian vengeance.
Farrell racked his blazing brain for some saving device. Let Tsang Wu escape. Suppose the British did depose the Sultan for not maintaining order? They were looking for some pretext against that gray-haired man of iron. If they missed this one, they’d find another.
E. Hoffmann Price's Pierre d'Artois: Occult Detective & Associates Page 47
