The House of the Falcon

by Harold Lamb

  She could no longer see Iskander, although his hands still held her. But the face of the tall native of Baramula peered into hers. He spoke, and never had Edith felt such utter distress as at the sounds of his heavy words.

  "These are no longer alive!"

  And at the words, the man with the scar pointed to the forms covered by the rugs. Edith felt that in some manner he was kin to the passive figures. Then he stooped to raise one of the rugs with a gigantic hand, and Edith cried out frantically——

  She was awake, her forehead moist, and her thin nightgown cold with perspiration. Huddled, the girl brushed back the damp hair from her brow and stared up into the blackness of her room.

  The nightmare had been very real. She still heard the terrific words—so they seemed to her—of the strange native ringing in her ears. With a whimper of subsiding fear the girl cuddled down in her bed, listening to the stentorian breathing of the sleeping Miss Rand.

  Awake in the dark, Edith was thankful to hear the quiet footsteps of Rawul Singh on the veranda below her, and to know that the orderly was keeping his nightly post

  CHAPTER V

  ALAI BALA SLEEPS

  It had rained and ceased raining that evening as it usually did in Srinagar. Mist, tinted flame color by the setting sun, was twining around the rocky base of Jyestharudra's pinnacle. The melancholy call of the boatmen in the doongas came over the water as Monsey drifted about, alone except for his paddler, on the lagoon.

  Edith had left him in a black mood. He lay back on the cushions of the doonga, his powerful body tense, a cigarette half bitten through in his nervous lips. Overhead the panoply of sunset, spreading across the arch of the sky, reflected itself on the lagoon.

  Boats moved slowly under the rickety bridges. Not without reason is Srinagar called the Venice of India. Distant spots of purple that were iris beds growing over graves winked down at the twilight city.

  While Monsey meditated, the ragged Kashmiri boatman propelled his craft slowly toward the bazaar quarter with its yawning shop fronts, its raft of vessels crowding together, and its poppy-covered, tumbledown roofs.

  "Where will the sahib go?" the man ventured at last, feeling the inner impulse of hunger.

  "To purgatory, or Abbas Abad's," growled Monsey. "Take your choice."

  A moment later the gondola drew up at a painted flight of steps. Glancing about the canal keenly, Monsey left the boat, tossing its proprietor a coin. Stepping forward with the assurance of one who knew the way, he entered a ramshackle wooden structure that had once been a bright pink but was now the hue of a very dirty and diseased carnation. Stooping under an openwork balcony he pressed onward in semidarkness rife with a pungent odor.

  This smell came from a native woman lying huddled on some mats, puffing a spluttering opium pipe with a child at her breast Monsey kicked the woman aside, the movement drawing a wearied cry from the baby. To silence it, the Kashmiri placed the pipe at its lips. A single breath of the smoke and the child subsided into a drugged sleep.

  Monsey ascended a dark flight of steps to an upper room lighted by a yellow hanging lamp and apparently without access to any fresh air. On a bundle of quilts in one corner the form of a girl was coiled—a satin-clad form with spangled, velvet bodice and flooding brown hair escaping under a cap of tarnished cloth of silver.

  The pale olive countenance of the woman—a Georgian—was lax in sleep—it might well have been judged pretty otherwise. Circles were under the closed eyes, stained lips parted over fine teeth. An aroma of musk and rose scent exuded from her body. Mingled with the stale perfume was the stringent fragrance of a Turkish hubble-bubble, at which a man puffed. He glanced at Monsey casually, from half-closed eyes.

  "Nasha or opium ?" he remarked.

  "Neither," said Monsey curtly. They both spoke Turki. Apparently they were on familiar terms. The man's face was the hue of the girl's, only the skin was creased and pinched as if from exposure to hot winds. His heavy eyes were bloodshot; a red fez rested on straggling, curly black hair.

  "As you please," he muttered. "What was your fate?"

  Leaning back on the quilts, he eyed the gurgling water pipe. His dress had once been immaculate white duck, girded by a brilliant shawl belt. The open collar disclosed a round, muscular throat rising from a stout chest.

  "An evil one. Abbas." Monsey sank upon the quilts and tossed away the burned stub of his cigarette savagely. The woman stirred, opened tired eyes, and hunched away from the men, to fall into her disturbed sleep. "I played my cards and they lost. I tell you, they lost."

  "I hear. It is fate. Did you think the beautiful Americain khanum would want you for a husband?"

  "Why not?" Monsey scowled. "Other women have loved me—and they were better than this—— "

  He looked at the drowsy woman sardonically. The Turkoman—he was actually an Alaman, a Russianized Mohammedan of the Turki race—shrugged powerful shoulders.

  "I saw her passing in the boat, my friend. Nay, I believed not she would be a wife to you. Who was the native soldier?"

  "Orderly to the British major—the son of a dog. He will not leave the woman."

  "Therein he shows his wisdom." Abbas bared stained teeth. "So they do not trust you, despite your French manners and your patrician Russian birth? Eh?"

  Monsey—perhaps the name had once been spelled otherwise—looked up coldly. His dark eyes were dangerous. "At least," he smiled, "I know my own birth. I am not a jackal, born in a gully."

  Abbas Abad Mustieh'din exhaled the smoke from his lungs and his faded eyes blinked. "Khei'leh khoûb, Effendi, khei'leh, khoûb!" he murmured. ("Very well, my good master, very well!")

  "Nor," continued Monsey ironically, "am I a monkey, clad in the garments of gentlefolk, my betters."

  Willful and domineering, he was irritated at himself, at Edith Rand. The remarks of Abbas had added fuel to the fire. Like many men of narrow mind, the Russian lacked humor. He was not a man to swallow a jest lightly. With his faults, however, he was not lacking in courage. He faced the Alaman, smiling but watchful.

  A dull red flooded into the seamed countenance of Abbas. The artificial pride, common to those who mimic the personality of their superiors, had been touched. One powerful hand clasped the turquoise-inlaid hilt of the dagger in his girdle.

  Monsey dropped a hand into the pocket of his jacket and waited. The pocket bulged, and the bulge pointed toward Abbas. For a long moment the Alaman eyed his friend, the coat of his friend—under which he knew a serviceable revolver was turned toward him—then his brow cleared and he raised an empty hand, palm up.

  "Bismillah! Why should I cut open your throat? I need you. You need me. But keep your tongue in your mouth, or one day it will be slit—thus!"

  Monsey had relaxed his vigilance for an instant at the overture. The dagger of Abbas flashed out and passed across his companion's breast. Monsey stared down grimly at his jacket. The cloth over his heart had been slit deftly, yet he had felt no prick on his skin.

  Abbas replaced the knife in his girdle, grinning, well pleased with himself. He clapped the stem of the pipe to his lips and inhaled, slapping Monsey on the knee with his heavy palm.

  "Eh—you have seen what you have seen. Be wise, oh, be wise. By the seven hells of purgatory, you are no fool. Or I—Abbas Abad—would not walk in your shadow. Come, my cherished gentleman. Hearken. Have you given up your lust for the girl? Are you willing to listen to the wisdom of Abbas, your friend? I, who sent you a letter clear across the ocean—I, who paid a scribe well to write your name and address in English. Would I have done that if I had not wanted you? The time is ripe for us to sell our merchandise. Aye, the markets of Samarkand and Kashgar will pay good prices for women. And for such a one as yonder Americain——"

  "Bah—I tell you she is mine. Abbas, would you fly a falcon at a hare when a young deer is marked down?"

  "Why not, my Excellency? We must eat. We have no money."

  "Abbas, you are a fool. The American father is rich. He c
an pay—more than the price of six light-haired Georgian women at Stamboul." The Russian's dark eyes were calculating. "He would fill both your hands with gold pieces."

  The Alaman grunted skeptically.

  "What would it avail me, if my head were cut off? The days are past when we might garner white women openly for slaves." He shook his head. "Nay, I will take a serpent from its hole with my bare hand, but a white woman I will not touch. With my own ears I heard the cannon of the French warships battering the gates of Constantinople. The Protector of the Faithful is but a shadow and the cloak of Islam is rent asunder. I know, I know."

  "All this," said Monsey impatiently, "is idle talk. Abbas, there is a place where the hand of the Englishman does not reach. You know, for you lay hid there many months."

  "Above?" Abbas pointed upward and to the north.

  "Aye—beyond the Hills. Once the Cossack posts were set there, like the links of a strong chain. Now, the chain is broken. The tribesman grazes his cattle over the ashes of camp fires. The priests of Islam chant their prayers unheard, save by true believers. You have seen that. Abbas!"

  "It is true."

  Monsey tapped his chin reflectively with lean fingers.

  "No American consul is within a thousand miles. Do you think I am a child, wet with mother's milk, to want to make the American girl a slave to sell at a price? Not when I love her, as I do. Allah, and all his saints!—she is beautiful. I have been thinking."

  The Alaman was silent, pondering. Monsey, who had been the link by which he sold the choicest of his women to be "servants" of the Russian officers on the border during a former régime, never spoke idly. The dissolute gentleman—once an officer himself—had profited much by Abbas. But the shrewd merchant was cautious lest the whims of his companion should involve him in needless trouble.

  "Once beyond the Kashmir frontier, we would be safe, Abbas," muttered the white man, "Fraser-Carnie—a disciplined numskull—would not dare send any of his few men into the Hills—if, indeed, he could trace us. The Kashmir government would not bother its head. And we would return the woman——"

  He shrugged

  "For a price, grinned Abbas. "Oh, undoubtedly we would."

  "Rand would pay the price. He could. I tell you, I want the woman."

  "For a time—yes. You tire of them quickly. As I have seen."

  "Abbas, you are a thrice-born fool. Think you I would run such a risk ? Nay, my plan is otherwise."

  "I heed. Excellency!"

  "If we carry off the woman—you and I—there must be no accusation of brigandage. Am I a bazaar thief, or a lawless hill chief? I tell you, I will marry the American woman. I will find means to make her submit. A missionary can be found in Kashgar. By God, Abbas, do you think I would have risked my neck to come back here, if I had not seen her and wanted her at Quebec?"

  The Alaman listened intently. For the first time he seemed to approve. "This is wisdom—perhaps," he grunted. "Speak!"

  Monsey's expressive eyes glowed. After his fashion he loved Edith, and her curt dismissal of his suit had angered him. "After the marriage we can talk terms with the father. If he will not pay well for his daughter's freedom, he will pay to have her restored to him. I will see to that." He laughed and stretched his arms, good-humored again. "Abbas, my dog, luck is setting my way again. I shall do it."

  "Who knows what is before him?" The Alaman shrugged. "There is much danger and also much profit at stake. Has your wisdom found a way to take the woman to the Hills?"

  "Said I not my star was rising, O one-of-small-wit? To-morrow night is the ball of the Maharaja. I am bidden, because of"—he hesitated and his eyes darkened—"old ties. Well, it is our kismet. I shall dance with the woman. She has promised, and she will keep her word. The father has not yet arrived; the aunt is a fool. We will walk in the garden, she and I——"

  Glancing around cautiously, he lowered his voice. Abbas bent his bearded head to listen. For several moments Monsey talked, gesturing vividly, his purpose strong upon him. An able man, strong-willed, he had gambled with the finer ties of life—rank—honor. Now his mind was twisted, his thoughts bent inward. Perhaps Abbas Abad was the better man of the two. He at least had not forsaken his heritage for a mess of pottage. He had never been otherwise than he was—a slave dealer, of Asia.

  "This is wisdom," muttered the Alaman, "and our need is great. Yet the danger also is great."

  "Abbas, my luck is good. I feel it. Come, we will try the dice of fate! This woman of yours has slept through our talk. She would not have wakened if I had slain you. We will hear what she has to say——"he touched the passive girl with his foot, then shook her by the shoulder. "Confound your opium, Abbas! Alai Bala!"

  She stared up at him sleepily, too drowsy to rise. The Alaman looked on curiously.

  "Alai Bala!" commanded Monsey, "hearken! Your master and I are of two minds. Shall we abide in this hole or ride to the Hills?"

  The girl seemed not to comprehend. She shook her head slightly.

  "Speak, my pretty parrakeet," purred Abbas. "Come, my gentle dove, my jewel of jewels, my priceless pearl of beauty! You have heard, O offal of the bazaars, harlot—scum of paradise, my saintly houri——"

  "The Hills," murmured Alai Bala wearily. "This is an evil place: let us ride to the Hills——"

  She sank at once into her interrupted slumber, her kohl-stained face pallid, and her breathing laboring from tormented lungs. Monsey nodded agreeaby.

  "My luck holds."

  Abbas glanced up shrewdly. "You would have let her decide, effendi!

  Monsey turned away. "Certainly——as I said."

  He disappeared down the stairs. His footsteps died away and the room was silent except for the gurgle of Abbas' pipe. Presently the shrill cry of the sick child sounded from below. It ceased, and Alai Bala twisted uneasily in her sleep.

  Abbas looked from her to his pipe. The murmur of the chanting boatmen came to his ears, mingled with another chant.

  "Allah il akbar," came the murmur. "Allah, the Great. There is no god but Allah——"

  It was the hour of sunset prayer.

  CHAPTER VI

  THE GARDEN

  Edith had never been quite so happy as the night of the Maharaja's ball Major Fraser-Carnie had announced that Arthur Rand was near Srinagar—the mail tonga had come in a few hours ago and its driver brought the tidings.

  Relieved and excited at the news, the girl had donned the gown that was her father's favorite, the blue-gray ball dress she had worn at Quebec. The pleasure of the coming occasion added its glow to her cheeks and her eyes sparkled.

  "Ripping! Oh, I say, you're absolutely splendiferous, and—all that, you know." Fraser-Carnie, who had blossomed forth in dress uniform, added his compliments to the purring approval of her aunt, at the carriage. Rawul Singh strutted behind his beautiful charge, supremely unconscious of the envy of the other house servants.

  Edith smiled at the major joyously as the carriage rolled forward between the poplar avenues, following a line of European carriages of visiting native potentates.

  Sultan after sultan with his pomp

  Abode his destined hour and went his way—

  Miss Rand murmured the quotation.

  "Quite so." The surgeon's ruddy face reflected a shade of anxiety. Almost to himself he quoted another couplet, but Edith's quick ear caught the words:

  The Sultan rises and the dark Ferrash

  Strikes—and prepares it for another guest

  The flush of evening lay again upon Srinagar; the sky was flaming from the gateway of the departing sun. Mists were gathering in the hollows and creeping together along the plain, as if tenuous spirit hands were gripping each other.

  The mists half concealed a caravan of animals winding along a path outside the city. Edith could see only the heads of horses and the cloaked forms of riders. It was as if beasts and men were swimming in a gray sea in the evening calm.

  Like an echo from another world, she heard the faint so
und of tinkling bells wafted from the caravan —the hoa-hoa of drivers. A hooded wagon rumbled in the mist. Barely could the girl see the moving shapes, so swiftly did the wings of evening fall.

  She wondered briefly if the cavalcade included the tonga of her father. Then she reflected that he would approach Srinagar from another quarter. She looked up. Her aunt had neither seen nor heard the caravan.

  Edith glanced back at the path in the mist. The riders and horses were almost invisible. Dimly the hood of the ekka* moved along jerkily. Then her own carriage swerved into a drive, and the Afghan servant and Rawul Singh shouted as they almost collided with a vehicle coming from the other direction.

  *Two-wheeled native cart

  Through the garden the bulk of the sprawling, ill-designed palace confronted them. Edith was claimed joyously at the entrance by her new friends, the young subalterns. Fraser-Carnie expostulated good-naturedly and they all laughed.

  Whole-heartedly, she threw herself into the tide of the evening. Dances were begged and allotted; Fraser-Carnie insisted on the first waltz—although reminded by his brother officers that he had not danced in public for half a decade. Edith was presented briefly to her host—a sallow-faced, smiling little man in evening clothes that did not quite fit.

  "It's so good of you," whispered the girl, "to do all this."

  She gave the officer's hand a quick pat, and he glowed. He managed the maneuvers of the waltz much as he would the evolutions of dress parade. Edith, however, was too much interested in the spectacle of the native dignitaries, the watching British matrons, the active junior officers, to care.

  Her eager eyes danced as they took in the vista of the moving throng on the polished floor, the arched corridors decorated with immense festoons of acacias and honeysuckle, the great divans where hill chiefs in native dress sat painfully erect with their retinues behind them. She hummed lightly in the air of the orchestra—a favorite British cavalry quickstep.