El Borak and Other Desert Adventures (50 page)

A few moments later they stood upon the low knoll on which Shalan ibn Mansour had stood. The Arab chief was still there. He sprawled on his back in a dark crimson puddle, and his throat had been ripped open as if by the claws of a wild beast. He was a grisly sight in the light of the match Gordon shaded over him.

The American straightened, blew out the match and flipped it away. He strained his eyes into the surrounding shadows and called: “Ivan!” There was no answer.

“Do you suppose it was really Al Wazir who killed him?” asked Hawkston uneasily.

“Who else could it have been? He must have sneaked on Shalan from behind. The other fellow caught a glimpse of him, and thought he was the devil of the caves, just as you said they would.”

What erratic whim had impelled Al Wazir to this deed, Gordon could not say. Who can guess the vagaries of the insane? The primitive instincts of murder loosed by lunacy — a madman stealing through the night, attracted by a solitary figure shouting from a knoll — it was not so strange, after all.

“Well, let’s start looking for him,” growled Hawkston. “I know you won’t start back to the coast until we’ve got him nicely tied up on that camel. So the sooner the better.”

“All right.” Gordon’s voice betrayed none of the suspicion in his mind. He knew that Hawkston’s nature and purposes had been altered none by what they had passed through. The man was treacherous and unpredictable as a wolf. He turned and started toward the cliff, but he took good care not to let the Englishman get behind him, and he carried his cocked rifle ready.

“I want to find the lower end of that shaft the Arabs came up,” said Gordon. “Ivan may be hiding there. It must be near the western end of that gully they were sneaking along when I first saw them.”

They were moving along the shallow gully, and where it ended, against the foot of the cliff, they saw a narrow slitlike cleft in the stone, large enough to admit a man. Hoarding their matches carefully they entered and moved along the narrow tunnel into which it opened.

This tunnel led straight back into the cliff for a short distance, then turned sharply to the right, running along until it ended in a small chamber cut out of solid stone, which Gordon believed was directly under the room in which he had fought the Arabs. His belief was confirmed when they found the opening of the shaft leading upward. A match held up in the well showed the angle still blocked by the boulder.

“Well, we know how they got into the caves,” growled Hawkston. “But we haven’t found Al Wazir. He’s not in here.”

“We’ll go up into the caves,” answered Gordon. “He’ll come back there for food. We’ll catch him then.”

“And then what?” demanded Hawkston.

“It’s obvious, isn’t it? We hit out for the caravan road. Ivan rides. We walk. We can make it, all right. I don’t believe the Ruweila will stop before they get back to the tents of their tribe. I’m hoping Ivan’s mind can be restored when we get him back to civilization.”

“And what about the Blood of the Gods?”

“Well, what about them? They’re his, to do what he pleases with them, aren’t they?”

Hawkston did not reply, nor did he seem aware of Gordon’s suspicion of him. He had no rifle, but Gordon knew the pistol at his hip was loaded. The American carried his rifle in the crook of his arm, and he maneuvered so the
Englishman went ahead of him as they groped their way back down the tunnel and out into the starlight. Just what Hawkston’s intentions were, he did not know. Sooner or later, he believed, he would have to fight the Englishman for his life. But somehow he felt that this would not be necessary until after Al Wazir had been found and secured.

He wondered about the tunnel and the shaft to the top of the cliff. They had not been there a year ago. Obviously the Arabs had found the tunnel purely by accident.

“No use searching the caves tonight,” said Hawkston, when they had reached the ledge. “We’ll take turns watching and sleeping. Take the first watch, will you? I didn’t sleep last night, you know.”

Gordon nodded. Hawkston dragged the sleeping skins from the nest and wrapping himself in them, fell asleep close to the wall. Gordon sat down a short distance away, his rifle across his knees. As he sat he dozed lightly, waking each time the sleeping Englishman stirred.

He was still sitting there when the dawn reddened the eastern sky. Hawkston rose, stretched and yawned. “Why didn’t you wake me to watch my turn?” he asked.

“You know damned well why I didn’t,” grated Gordon. “I don’t care to run the risk of being murdered in my sleep.”

“You don’t like me, do you, Gordon?” Hawkston laughed. But only his lips smiled, and a red flame smoldered in his eyes. “Well, that makes the feeling mutual, you know. After we’ve got Al Wazir back to el-Azem, I’m looking forward to a gentlemanly settling of our differences — just you and I — and a pair of swords.”

“Why wait until then?” Gordon was on his feet, his nostrils quivering with the eagerness of hard-leashed hate.

Hawkston shook his head, smiling fiercely. “Oh no, El Borak. No fighting until we get out of the desert.”

“All right,” snarled the American, disgruntledly. “Let’s eat, and then start combing the caves for Ivan.”

A slight sound brought them both wheeling toward the door of the nest. Al Wazir stood there, plucking at his beard with his long black nails. His eyes lacked their former wild-beast glare; they were clouded, plaintive. His attitude was one of bewilderment rather than menace.

“Ivan!” muttered Gordon, setting down his rifle and moving toward the wild man. Al Wazir did not retreat, nor did he make any hostile demonstration. He stood stolidly, uneasily tugging at his tangled beard. “He’s in a milder mood,” murmured Gordon. “Easy, Hawkston. Let me handle this. I don’t believe he’ll have to be overpowered this time.”

“In that case,” said Hawkston, “I don’t need you any longer.”

Gordon whipped around; the Englishman’s eyes were red with the killing lust, and his hand rested on the butt of his pistol. For an instant the two men stood tensely, facing each other. Hawkston spoke, almost in a whisper:

“You fool, did you think I’d give you an even break? I don’t need you to help me get Al Wazir back to el-Azem. I know a German doctor who can restore his mind if anybody can — and then I’ll see that he tells me where to find the Blood of the Gods —”

Their right hands moved in a simultaneous blur of speed. Hawkston’s gun cleared its holster as Gordon’s scimitar flashed free. And the gun spoke just as the blade struck it, knocking it from the Englishman’s hand. Gordon felt the wind of the slug and behind him the madman in the door grunted and fell heavily. The pistol rang on the stone and bounced from the ledge, and Gordon cut murderously at Hawkston’s head, his eyes red with fury. A swift backward leap carried the Englishman out of range, and Hawkston tore out his scimitar as Gordon came at him in savage silence. The American had seen Al Wazir lying limp in the doorway, blood oozing from his head.

Gordon and Hawkston came together with a dazzling flame and crack of steel, in an unleashing of hard-pent passions, two wild natures, thirsty for each others’ life. Here was the urge to kill, loosed at last, and backing every blow.

For a few minutes stroke followed stroke too fast for the eye to distinguish, had any eye witnessed that onslaught. They fought with a chilled-steel fury, a reckless abandon that was yet neither wild nor careless. The clang of steel was deafening; miraculously, it seemed, the shimmer of steel played about their heads, yet neither edge cut home. The skill of the two fighters was too well matched.

After the first hurricane of attack, the play changed subtly; it grew, not less savage but more crafty. The desert sun, that had lighted the blades of a
thousand generations of swordsmen, in a land sworn to the sword, had never shone on a more scintillating display of swordsmanship than this, where two aliens carved out the destinies of their tangled careers on a high-flung ledge between sun and desert.

Up and down the ledge — scruff and shift of quick-moving feet — gliding, not stamping — ring and clash of steel meeting steel — flame-lighted black eyes glaring into flinty gray eyes; flying blades turned crimson by the rising sun.

Hawkston had cut his teeth on the straight blade of his native land, and he was partial to the point and used it with devilish skill. Gordon had learned sword fighting in the hard school of the Afghan mountain wars, with the curved tulwar, and he fought with no set or orthodox style. His blade was a lethal, living thing that darted like a serpent’s tongue or lashed with devastating power.

Here was no ceremonious dueling with elegant rules and formalities. It was a fight for life, naked and desperate, and within the space of half a dozen minutes both men had attempted or foiled tricks that would have made a medieval Italian fencing master blink. There was no pause or breathing spell; only the constant slither and rasp of blade on blade — Hawkston failing in his attempt to maneuver Gordon about so the sun would dazzle his eyes; Gordon almost rushing Hawkston over the rim of the ledge, the Englishman saving himself by a sidewise leap.

The end came suddenly. Hawkston, with sweat pouring down his face, realized that the sheer strength in Gordon’s arm was beginning to tell. Even his iron wrist was growing numb under the terrific blows the American rained on his guard. Believing himself to be superior to Gordon in pure fencing skill, he began the preliminaries of an intricate maneuver, and, meeting with apparent success, feinted a cut at Gordon’s head.

El Borak knew it was a feint, but pretending to be deceived by it, he lifted his sword as though to parry the cut. Instantly Hawkston’s point licked at his throat. Even as the Englishman thrust he knew he had been tricked, but he could not check the motion.

The blade passed over Gordon’s shoulder as the American evaded the thrust with a swaying twist of his torso, and his scimitar flashed like white-steel lightning in the sun. Hawkston’s dark features were blotted out by a gush of blood; his scimitar rang loud on the rocky ledge; he swayed, tottered, and fell suddenly.

Gordon shook the sweat from his eyes and glared down at the prostrate figure, too drunk with hate and battle to fully realize that his foe was dead. He started and whirled as a voice spoke weakly behind him: “The same swift blade as ever, El Borak!”

Al Wazir was sitting with his back against the wall. His eyes, no longer murky nor bloodshot, met Gordon’s levelly. In spite of his tangled hair and beard there was something ineffably tranquil and seerlike about him. Here, indeed, was the man Gordon had known of old.

“Ivan! Alive! But Hawkston’s bullet —”

“Was that what it was?” Al Wazir lifted a hand to his head; it came away smeared with blood. “Anyway, I’m very much alive, and my mind’s clear — for the first time in Heaven knows how long. What happened?”

“You stopped a slug meant for me,” grunted Gordon. “Let me see that wound.”

After a brief investigation he announced: “Just a graze; ploughed through the scalp and knocked you out. I’ll wash it and bandage it.” While he worked he said tersely: “Hawkston was on your trail; after your rubies. I tried to beat him here, and Shalan ibn Mansour trapped us both. You were a bit out of your head and I had to tie you up. We had a tussle with the Arabs and finally beat them off.”

“What day is it?” asked Al Wazir. At Gordon’s reply he ejaculated: “Great heavens! It’s more than a month since I got knocked on the head!”

“What’s that?” exclaimed Gordon. “I thought the loneliness —”

Al Wazir laughed. “Not that, El Borak. I was doing some excavation work. I discovered a shaft in one of the lower caves, leading down to the tunnel. The mouths of both were sealed with slabs of rock. I opened them up, just out of curiosity. Then I found another shaft leading from an upper cave to the summit of the cliff, like a chimney. It was while I was working out the slab that sealed it that I dislodged a shower of rocks. One of them gave me an awful rap on the head. My mind’s been a blank ever since, except for brief intervals — and they weren’t very clear. I remember them like bits of dreams now. I remember squatting in the nest, tearing tins open and gobbling food, trying to remember who I was and why I was here. Then everything would fade out again.