“Villain!” cried Dr. Shaw, and hurled himself forward.
So unexpected was his attack, that Barbarroja was taken unawares. The amazed Spence saw his companion twine both hands in the flaming beard and jerk the ruffian forward. A wild howl of pain broke from the renegade, to be quenched in a groan as the lusty divine kicked him amidships and stretched him senseless on the stones.
“That’s the way to deal with such gentry!” panted Shaw. “Now, to horse, Patrick!”
From the Spahis broke a shout of warning. A spattering of musket fire leaped from the hillside; men shouted, a ring of dark figures appeared, closing on the party. Spence and Dr. Shaw ran forward, trying to gain the horses.
“Ride, Shaw!” shouted Spence. “Ride with Mistress Betty and send aid! They’ve got us.”
The ring of figures closed in upon them. Steel flashed in the moonlight.
CHAPTER VII
“An honest fellow enough, and one that loves quails.”
The shots set the blooded, sensitive horses to plunging madly. One of the Spahis caught the bridle of Mistress Betty and spurred away with her, the other, his horse slain, leaped into the empty saddle of Barbarroja and galloped after his comrade.
Shaw was mounted, but two men were stabbing at him, a third had gripped his bridle rein. Yimnah was caught afoot. Spence missed his horse, which shied away; the two beasts were careering madly around, headed from the road and finding no outlet from the ruins.
Spence cut down the first man who sprang at him, and shouted again at the divine:
“Spur for it, Shaw! After her! Spur!”
“He who takes the sword,” quoth the doctor, neatly putting his rapier through one of his assailants, “shall even perish by the same.” And the thin blade split the throat of the man at his rein. “Farewell, Patrick! Woe is me that I must leave you.”
His voice was lost as he thundered away.
Spence conjectured that a score of men must have fallen upon them. He himself was ringed in against a block of marble, which secured his back. He pistoled two of the men before him, seized his sword again, and they recoiled momentarily from his attack.
A wide blade flamed in the moonlight. The hoarse, inarticulate rage scream of Yimnah rent the night like a paean of horror. The monstrous figure of the eunuch, streaming blood from a dozen wounds, rushed through the assailants, striking to right and left in blind fury. They opened before him, fell back from Spence, shrieked that this was no man, but some jinni of the mountains Yimnah leaped on them, struck and struck again, screaming.
“Fools!” cracked out a voice in Spanish.
A musket flashed near the voice. There died Yimnah, the wide blade sweeping out from his hand and clashing on the stones.
At this instant Spence leaped out suddenly as one of the horses plunged past; he caught the beast in mid-career, dragged himself into the high saddle. That harsh, crackling voice electrified him; it was the voice of Gholam Mahmoud. Now he perceived the man’s figure, off to one side, and directed the plunging horse toward it.
“Assassin!” he shouted. “This time you shall not escape.”
Another musket shot rang out. Spence felt a shock—and darkness came upon him. He bowed forward, his body supported by the huge Moorish saddle, his fingers twined into the mane of the horse. The frantic beast dashed away into the night with whirlwind hoofs.
Gholam Mahmoud leaped forward, raving like a maniac. To insure against discovery of the ambush, his horses had been left a quarter mile distant; pursuit was impossible. While Gholam Mahmoud cursed, Barbarroja came groaning to the scene, holding his hurt stomach.
“Ha, thou bitch wolf’s fool!” cried the furious red-beard. “Why did you not await the signal?”
“You were too cursed long in giving it,” snarled Gholam Mahmoud. “Now the woman is gone.”
“A murrain on you and your woman!” shouted Barbarroja. “Now Spence is escaped, and Mulai Ali not come. Pot-head that you are—only one eunuch bagged, and half our men down!”
“Devil take you, get the horses and after them!”
“After them yourself,” growled Barbarroja. “I stay here to kill Mulai Ali when he comes.”
Ten minutes later Gholam Mahmoud rode away toward Udjde—alone.
When Patrick Spence came to his senses his horse was following a cattle track in a long and narrow valley. Where he was, Spence had not the least idea; he was completely lost. He had caught his own horse, and behind the saddle were provisions, water-skin, and the covered box belonging to Mulai Ali.
For a space he rode confusedly, until a twinge of pain recalled him to memory. He drew rein, found himself bareheaded, and discovered a slight wound along the scalp above his left ear. He made shift to wash the wound with water from his bottle.
“The devil!” he exclaimed suddenly. Realization smote him full force, left him appalled and bewildered. Why, Barbarroja must have been in league with Gholam Mahmoud all the time. He must have expected to lead Mulai Ali into that ambush; and, too, must have had some share in Gholam Mahmoud’s work in Tlemcen.
“And I never suspected, when he found me trussed up and appeared so amazed,” thought Spence, dumfounded. “Well, Master Red-beard, just wait a bit. I’ll have a word with you in time.”
Presumably, Shaw and the girl had escaped with the Spahis. They would reach Udjde and send help to Mulai Ali. Thus the assassins had gained nothing, and Spence considered his own case as he rode onward again.
He was lost, sure enough. So far as he could tell, he was among a series of long, barren hills; the valley stretched interminably, and seemed uninhabited, yet he knew that this cattle track must lead somewhere. He let the horse take its head.
The hours dragged until the moonlight was gone. Still Spence perceived no sign of life among the bare hills. With darkness, he halted, hobbled the horse, and lay down to sleep until dawn, hopeless of wandering on through the obscurity.
With dawn he found the horse muzzling him for food. Stiffly he gained his saddle and sent the Arab onward. As the sun rose to warm them, Spence noticed that the beast quickened its pace; ten minutes later he made out a low group of trees, and the dull walls of a mud-thatched building in an elbow of the valley.
Renewing the priming of his musket, he rode forward. Not until he drew near the trees and shouted did he discern any sign of life. Then a misshapen old man came forth from the hut and peered at him, chattering Arabic volubly.
“Do you speak Spanish?” demanded Spence. “Or English?”
The hunchback started, and drew back. “Be you an Englishman, sir?” he quavered.
“Eh?” Spence started. “You’re not?”
“God love ye, sir; God love ye!” broke out the ancient. “Out o’ the stirrup and welcome to ye! It’s two year and more since I’ve had a bit of English speech. A bonny bit o’ flesh under ye, sir! God love ye, what a bonny creature it is.”
“You’re English?” said the astonished Spence, as he dismounted. “I need feed for the horse more than for myself.”
“God love ye, an honest man thinks for his beastie first. Come in, and lead the horse after ye, sir. ’Tis like entertaining a prince to have a horse o’ that blood under my roof! True Njed quarter strain, I’ll warrant. Come in, sir, and welcome!”
Feeling as though in a dream, Spence entered the hut, a clean place, where the old man dwelt alone. A queer chap, this hunchback, with his wisps of gray hair, his tattered garb, his bleary old eyes and palsied hands.
His name, the man would not tell; but he chattered out his story. Indeed, his thought was all for the horse rather than for Spence. A cutpurse in Bristol, he had been jailed, taken into the navy with other criminals, and was aboard a sloop captured by Algerines. For thirty years he had been a slave. A natural liking for horses had made him the manager of an outlying herd of the animals which were bred hereabouts.
“Fifteen hands, and full o’ the haunches,” he mumbled, lovingly stroking the Arab’s coat. “God love ye, didst ever see a finer
slope o’ the shoulder than this? And saddle-backed! Just the touch o’ wiry springs, no weakness. What a head it is now, what a taper down from the brows! God love ye, sir, this beastie could drink from a pint pot and to spare! And the legs, twisted wi’ sinew, but clean as a whistle, and the ear like a thorn—God love ye, this beastie must be out o’ the bey’s stables at Arzew! Not the dey himself has a horse o’ Njed strain, but Hassan had two o’ them. Ye bain’t a slave on the escape, sir?”
Spence laughed.
“No. You’re right about the horse, gran’ther; it’s from the bey’s stable.”
He told briefly that he had been attacked by robbers at the Cisterns, and was lost. The ancient mumbled in amazement, but answered Spencer’s queries as to his road to Udjde.
“The Cisterns? God love ye, it’s far away from here! Follow the vale and ’twill bring ye out on the river a few mile ahead. There ye’ll find the river road from Udjde to the sea coast. Turn south to Udjde, or north to Adjerud, a tiny bit of a port that the Moors use.
“For a fine gentleman like you ’tis no journey at all! Sunset will see ye safe with lackeys and servants, and sojers, too, belike! God love ye, sir, ’tis no ride at all. Now wait ye here till I get some fresh tomatoes from the garden—”
The ancient shuffled away.
Within an hour Spence had breakfasted and mounted again. Spence forced money on the old man, and with a final “God love ye!” ringing in his ears, he rode away down the valley.
“A grotesque blessing, yet why not?” he reflected. “I’ve met worse hospitality in Christian lands. God rest you, old man, renegade or not!”
He saw no living creature on his way, though mile after mile slipped past. Udjde, he knew, was fifty miles from the coast. The “river road” was doubtless one that ran north to the port of Adjerud, for the maritime Moors were not fond of being cut off from the sea.
Shortly after noon Spence found that the valley was insensibly disappearing, and presently saw a river line of trees in the distance. In no long while he came to a wide but shallow stream, crossed it easily, and on the farther side found himself actually upon the road of which the old hunchback had told him.
He noted, too, a cloud of dust coming toward him from the north, betokening other riders on the road to Udjde. Since he had a straight story to tell and naught to fear, he waited, meaning to join them and ask protection as far as Udjde. He perceived that no caravan was approaching, but a group of horsemen, perhaps a detachment going to join the army.
Then, as he watched, the curiosity of Spence changed to incredulous amazement. Here were a score of horsemen, brilliantly garbed, and amid the foremost rode one clad in a plain white burnoose. Against this white burnoose, at the throat, was a glitter—there could be only one man in all the world with the effrontery to display the collar of the Golden Fleece against the garb of a renegade.
It was Ripperda beyond question. Ripperda, and with him his bodyguard of renegades—and riding to Udjde!
CHAPTER VIII
“I’ll learn to conjure and raise devils, but I’ll see some issue of my spiteful execrations!”
Doctor Shaw did not regain control of his terrified horse until he pounded up alongside the two Spahis, who held between them the reins of Mistress Betty.
Vainly had she ordered them to return and fight, vainly threatened them, vainly entreating them, all but swearing at them in an agony of supplication. They, dour, bearded Turks, shrugged their shoulders and pricked westward. So when Shaw came up with the three, and the girl saw that he was alone, she turned upon him fiercely.
“Where is Captain Spence?”
“When I left he was still fighting.”
The divine gave no explanation of his desertion.
“Oh!” cried the girl. “Oh—coward that you are, to leave him! Shame upon you!”
The Spahis grinned in the moonlight. They did not understand the words, but had no need to. Shaw, who still carried his naked rapier in his hand, wiped and sheathed it.
“My dear madam,” he said, the cool stiffness of his voice giving no hint of the tears that were upon his cheeks, “Patrick Spence is very dear to me. But it is I who bear the letter to the Governor of Udjde. It is I who am charged with a commission involving the fate of empires and of religions—”
“And you save your craven neck for that reason!” burst forth the girl, bitterly.
“Even so, and it pleases you,” rejoined Shaw’s emotional voice. “Unless I reach Udjde, our friend Mulai Ali falls into a trap back yonder, and receives no aid. In this event Pasha Ripperda remains sole ruler of Morocco. In such case, the Barbary States combine against Spain, who will be alienated from her allies; and the Moors will begin a holy war for the reconquest of the peninsula. It is very logical that—”
“A murrain on your logic!” snapped Mistress Betty. “Patrick Spence is worth more than all your fine plans and schemes!”
“So speaks the woman, mulier saeva,” reflected Dr. Shaw. “The cruel woman who recks empire less than the little finger of a man! Truly says Clemens Alexandrinus that—”
His voice ended, however, in a choked silence and a gulp. Here, perhaps, Mistress Betty perceived that in him was a greater tenderness than appeared, and guessed that his desertion of Spence might have other reason than cowardice or logic, for after this she rode on in silence.
They rode into Udjde in the morning with a great and haughty shouting on the part of the Spahis, and demands to see the amel immediately. Udjde, amid its wide orchards and olive groves, the most fertile oasis in all the Nagad steppe, opened itself to them by way of the Bab el Khemis.
Amid a continually growing concourse of horsemen, curious townfolk, and men of the famed Barbary tribes, they rode to the kasbah in the south quarter of the town. Thirty minutes later a hundred men of the ancient Lamta tribe were spurring madly eastward along the caravan road to the Cisterns.
Dr. Shaw found himself and Mistress Betty given commodious quarters in the citadel and hospitably entertained by the amel, or governor—an old, hoary Moor who had managed to live long by dint of guile and not too high ambitions.
During most of the day the worthy doctor rested. Toward evening he was summoned to dine with the governor, with word that news of Mulai Ali was expected at any time. Mistress Betty, being a woman, was forced to remain in her own apartment with the female slaves allotted her.
Garbed in clean linen, Shaw was conducted to the private quarters of the governor, whom he found alone. While a bountiful repast was served, the two fell to discussing affairs in Morocco. The governor was certain that once Mulai Ali could get into the country his star would quickly blaze above that of his cousin Abdallah.
“All men turn to the new master,” he said sagely, stroking his white beard with his left hand, while his right plunged into the food. “El Magrib is ripe for revolt—but Abdallah is strong, and stronger yet is Ripperda, in whose hands is the power.”
“If Mulai Ali comes will you declare for him?” asked Shaw.
“Yes, and my warriors will ride to Fez with him. Know you who that renegade was—him with the red beard, whom you called Barbarroja?”
Shaw shook his head. The old governor chuckled as at a good jest.
“He serves the Sherif Abdallah and carries with him the royal signet. And the other of whom you told me this morning, the man in the black burnoose, Gholam Mahmoud, is the agent of Pasha Ripperda. He, he! No wonder those twain laid in ambush for Mulai Ali!”
Before Shaw could reply to this disclosure—indeed, for a moment he sat agape at hearing the truth about Barbarroja—a slave hurriedly entered and knelt. In his hands was a pigeon, which he presented to his master. Knowing that the force sent to the Cisterns had taken carrier pigeons, the quicker to inform the governor of what took place there, Shaw leaned forward anxiously as a tiny roll was taken from beneath the bird’s wing.
The old Moor opened it, read a scrawl of Arabic, and turned pale.
“God, God, and God the Compassionate,
the Merciful!” he ejaculated. “This is from a friend in Adjerud. It warns me that Pasha Ripperda is on his way here with his bodyguard of renegades. He should arrive tomorrow.”
Shaw gave a start.
“Ripperda—with his bodyguard! No troops?”
The old Moor shook his head. He was extremely agitated; the very fact of Ripperda’s coming had thrown him into consternation.
At this instant a second slave dashed in and presented a second bird. With trembling fingers the governor detached the missive. He read it, then crumpled the thin paper in his hand and sat staring before him, like a man who sees utter disaster ahead. In reality, his fertile old brain was scheming and planning, but Shaw did not know this.
“What is it?” demanded the divine eagerly. “News from Mulai Ali?”
For a long moment the Moor made no response. He stared straight before him, as though the question had been unheard. Shaw, unable to bear the suspense, reached out for the paper, but the Moor hastily tore it across.
“Catch Ripperda when he comes!” exclaimed Dr. Shaw swiftly. “You see your chance? Catch him at the city gates, capture him, raise the flag of Mulai Ali—”
The old Moor turned, lifted his head, regarded Shaw steadily.
“Ali,” he said slowly, “is dead. The redbeard has done his work. The troops reached the place too late—Ali had been stricken by a bullet.”
Shaw quivered under the blow. Then, silently, he resumed his seat and folded his hands on the table. Mulai Ali dead! Everything was lost. He did not observe that, while speaking, the eyelids of the Moor had fluttered slightly—an involuntary lowering of the lids, which is nature’s signal of a lie issuing from the lips.
Swiftly the governor clapped his hands. A slave brought writing materials, and the old Moor dashed off several notes, which he sealed and dispatched. Then the captain of the troops, a splendid Berber of the hills, strode in and received rapid orders.
“The Pasha Ripperda arrives tomorrow. Prepare rooms in the citadel for his use. In the name of Allah, greet him as one who is the right hand of our lord the sherif!”
Again the two men were alone. The old governor turned to Shaw with a quiet gesture.
The H. Bedford-Jones Pulp Fiction Megapack Page 24
