The Best of Robert E. Howard Volume 2: Grim Lands

A mile beyond the bridge the road split into three forks. One led due north to Sturling, whence it swung westward to Lost Knob; he had followed that road, coming into Bisley. One led to the north west, and was the old Lost Knob road, discontinued since the creation of Bisley Lake. The other turned westward and led to other settlements in the hills.

He took the old north west road. He had met no one. There was little travel in the hills at night. And this road was particularly lonely. There were long stretches where not even a farm house stood, and now the road was cut off from the northern settlements by the great empty basin of the newly created Bisley Lake, which lay waiting for rains and head rises to fill it.

The pitch was steadily upward. Mesquites gave way to dense postoak thickets. Rocks jutted out of the ground, making the road uneven and bumpy. The hills loomed darkly around him.

Ten miles out of Bisley and five miles from the Lake, he turned from the road and entered a wire gate. Closing it behind him, he drove along a dim path which wound crookedly up a hill side, flanked thickly with postoaks. Looking back, he saw no headlights cutting the sky. He must have been seen driving out of town, but no one saw him take the north west road. Pursuers would naturally suppose he had taken one of the other roads. He could not reach Lost Knob by the north west road, because, although the lake basin was still dry, what of the recent drouth, the bridges had been torn down over Locust Creek, which he must cross again before coming to Lost Knob, and over Mesquital.

He followed a curve in the path, with a steep bluff to his right, and coming onto a level space strewn with broken boulders, saw a low-roofed house looming darkly ahead of him. Behind it and off to one side stood barns, sheds and corrals, all bulked against a background of postoak woods. No lights showed.

He halted in front of the sagging porch--there was no yard fence--and sprang up on the porch, hammering on the door. Inside a sleepy voice demanded his business.

--re you by yourself?--demanded Reynolds. The voice assured him profanely that such was the case.--hen get up and open the door; it's me--Jim Reynolds.-- There was a stirring in the house, creak of bed springs, prodigious yawns, and a shuffling step. A light flared as a match was struck. The door opened, revealing a gaunt figure in a dingy union suit, holding an oil lamp in one hand.

--hat-- up, Jim?--demanded the figure, yawning and blinking.--ome in. Hell of a time of night to wake a man up--

--t ain't ten o--lock yet,--answered Reynolds.--oel, I--e just come from Bisley. I killed Saul Hopkins.-- The gaping mouth, in the middle of a yawn, clapped shut with a strangling sound. The lamp rocked wildly in Joel Jackson't hand, and Reynolds caught it to steady it.

--aul Hopkins?--In the flickering light Jackson't face was the hue of ashes.--y God, they--l hang you! Are they after you? What--

--hey won't hang me,--answered Reynolds grimly.--nly reason I run was there-- some things I want to do before they catch me. Joel, you--e got reasons for befriendin'tme. I can't hide out in the hills all the time, because there-- nothin'tto eat. You live here alone, and don't have many visitors. I-- goin'tto stay here a few days till the search moves into another part of the country, then I-- goin'tback into Bisley and do the rest of my job. If I can kill that lawyer of Hopkins--and Judge Blaine and Billy Leary, the chief of police, I--l die happy.----ut they--l comb these hills!--exclaimed Jackson wildly.--hey can't keep from findin'tyou--

--ang on to your nerve,--grunted Reynolds.--e--l run my car into that ravine back of this hill and cover it up with brush. Take a regular bloodhound to find it. I--l stay in the house here, or in the barn, and when we see anybody comin't I--l duck out into the brush. Only way they can get here in a car is to climb that foot path like I did. Besides, they won't waste much time huntin'tthis close to Bisley. They--l take a sweep through the country, and if they don't find me right easy, they--l figger I--e made for Lost Knob. They--l question you, of course, but if you--l keep your backbone stiff and look--m in the eye when you lie about it, I don't think they--l bother to search your farm.----lright,--shivered Jackson,--ut it'sl go hard with me if they find out.--He was numbed by the thought of Reynolds--deed. It had never occurred to him that a man as--ig--as Saul Hopkins could be shot down like an ordinary human.

Little was said between the men as they drove the car down the rocky hillside and into the ravine; wedged into the dense shinnery, they skilfully masked its presence.

-- blind man could tell a car-- been driv down that hill,--complained Jackson.

--ot after tonight,--answered Reynolds, with a glance at the sky.--believe it's goin'tto rain like hell in a few hours.----t is mighty hot and still,--agreed Jackson.--hope it does rain. We--e needin'tit. We didn't get no winter seasonin't--

--hat the hell do you care for your crops?--growled Reynolds.--ou don't own--m; nobody in these hills owns anything. Everything you all got is mortgaged to the hilt--some of it more-- once. You, personally, been lucky to keep up the interest; you sag once, and see what happens to you. You--l be just like my brother-in-law John, and a lot of others. You all are a pack of fools, just like I told him. To hell with strugglin'talong and slavin'tjust to put fine clothes on somebody else-- backs, and good grub into their bellies. You ain't workin'tfor yourselves; you--e workin'tfor them you owe money to.----ell, what can we do?--protested Jackson. Reynolds grinned wolfishly.

--ou know what I done tonight. Saul Hopkins won't never throw no other man out of his house and home to starve. But there-- plenty like him. If you farmers would listen to me, you-- throw down your rakes and pick up your guns. Up here in these hills we-- make a war out of it that-- make the Bloody Lincoln County War look plumb tame.-- Jackson't teeth chattered as with an ague.--e couldn't do it, Jim. Times is changed, can't you understand? You talk just like them old-time outlaws my dad used to tell me about. We can't fight with guns like our fathers used to do. The governor-- send soldiers to hunt us down. Keepin'ta man from biddin'tat a auction is one thing; fightin'tstate soldiers is another. We--e just licked and got to know it.----ou--e talkin'tjust like John and all the others,--sneered Reynolds.--ell, John't in jail and they say he's goin'tto the pen; but I-- free and Saul Hopkins is in hell. What you say to that?------ afeared it'sl be the ruin of us all,--moaned Jackson.

--ou and your fears,--snarled Reynolds.--en ain't got the guts of lice no more. I thought, when the farmers took over that auction, they was gettin'ttheir bristles up. But they ain't. Your old man wouldn't have knuckled down like you--e doin't Well, I know what I-- goin'tto do, if I have to go it alone. I--l get plenty of them before they get me, damn--m. Come on in the house and fix me up somethin'tto eat.-- Much had been crowded into a short time. It was only eleven o--lock. Stillness held the land in its grip. The stars had been blotted out by a grey haze-like veil which, rising in the north west, had spread over the sky with surprizing speed. Far away on the horizon lightning flickered redly. There was a breathless tenseness in the air. Breezes sprang up, blew fitfully from the south east, and as quickly died down. Somewhere off in the wooded hills a night bird called uneasily. A cow bawled anxiously in the corral. The beasts sensed an impending something in the atmosphere, and the men, raised in the hills, were no less responsive to the portents of the night.

--een a kind of haze in the sky all day,--muttered Jackson, glancing out the window as he fumbled about, setting cold fried bacon, corn bread, and a pot of red beans on the rough hewn table before his guest.--een lightnin'tin the north west since sundown. Wouldn't be surprized if we had a regular storm.--out that time of the year.----ikely,--grunted Reynolds, his mouth full of pork and corn bread.--oel, dern you, ain't you got nothin'tto drink better-- buttermilk?-- Jackson reached up into the tin-doored cupboard and brought down a jug. He pulled out the corn-cob stopper and tilted the mouth into a tin cup. The reek of white corn juice filled the room, and Reynolds smacked his lips appreciatively.

--ell, Joel, you ought not to be scared of hidin'tme, long as you--e kept that still of your-- hid.----hat-- different,--muttered Jackson uneasily.--ou know, though, I--l do all I can to help you out.-- He watched his friend in morbid fascination as Reynolds wolfed down the food and gulped the fiery liquor with keen relish.

-- don't see how you can set there and eat like that. Don't it make you kind of sick--thinkin'tabout Hopkins?----hy should it?--Reynolds--eyes became grim as he set down the cup and stared at his host.--hrowed John out of his home, and him with a wife and kids, and then was goin'tto send him to the pen--how much you think a man ought to take off a skunk like that?-- Jackson avoided his gaze and looked out the window. Away off in the distance came the first low grumble of thunder. The lightning played constantly along the north western horizon, splaying out to east and west.

--omin'tup sure,--mumbled Jackson.--eckon they--l get some water in Bisley Lake. Engineers said it's take three years to fill it, at the rate of rainfall in this country. I say one big rain like some I--e seen, would do the job. An awful lot of water can come down Locust and Mesquital.-- He opened the door and went out. Reynolds followed. The breathlessness of the atmosphere was even more intense. The haze-like veil had thickened; not a star was visible. The crowding hills with their black thickets rendered the darkness even more dense; but it was cut by the incessant glare of the lightning--distant, but growing more vivid. In the flashes a long low-lying bank of inky blackness could be seen hugging the north western horizon.

--unny the laws ain't been up the road,--muttered Jackson.--been listenin'tfor cars.----eckon they--e searchin'tthe other roads,--answered Reynolds.--ake some time to get up a posse after night, anyway. They--l be burnin'tup the telephone wires. I reckon you got the only phone there is on this road, ain't you, Joel?----eah; folks couldn't keep up the rent on--m. By gosh, that cloud-- comin'tup slow, but it sure is black. I bet it's been rainin'tpitch forks on the head of Locust for hours.------ goin'tto walk down towards the road,--said Reynolds.--can see a headlight a lot quicker down there than I can up here, for all these postoaks. I--e got an idea they--l be up here askin'tquestions before mornin't But if you lie like I--e seen you, they won't suspect enough to go prowlin'taround.-- Jackson shuddered at the prospect. Reynolds walked down the winding path, and disappeared among the flanking oaks. But he did not go far. He suddenly remembered that the dishes out of which he had eaten were still on the kitchen table. That might cause suspicion if the law dropped in suddenly. He turned and headed swiftly back toward the house. And as he went, he heard a peculiar tingling noise he was at first unable to identify. Then he was electrified by sudden suspicion. It was such a sound as a telephone would make, if rung while a quilt or cloak was held over it to muzzle the sound from some one near at hand.

Crouching like a panther, he stole up, and looking through a crack in the door, saw Jackson standing at the phone. The man shook like a leaf and great beads of sweat stood out on his grey face. His voice was strangled and unnatural.

--es, yes!--he was mouthing.--tell you, he's here now! He-- gone down to the road, to watch for the cops. Come here as quick as you can, Leary--and come yourself. He-- bad! I--l try to get him drunk, or asleep, or somethin't Anyway, hurry, and for God-- sake, don't let on I told you, even after you got him corralled.-- Reynolds threw back the door and stepped in, his face a death-mask. Jackson wheeled, saw him, and gave a choked croak. His face turned hideous; the receiver fell from his fingers and dangled at the end of its cord.

--y God, Reynolds!--he screamed.--on't--don't--

Reynolds took a single step; his gun went up and smashed down; the heavy barrel crunched against Jackson't skull. The man went down like a slaughtered ox and lay twitching, his eyes closed, and blood oozing from a deep gash in his scalp, and from his nose and ears as well.

Reynolds stood over him an instant, snarling silently. Then he stepped to the phone and lifted the receiver. No sound came over the wire. He wondered if the man at the other end had hung up before Jackson screamed. He hung the receiver back on its hook, and strode out of the house.

A savage resentment made thinking a confused and muddled process. Jackson, the one man south of Lost Knob he had thought he could trust, had betrayed him--not for gain, not for revenge, but simply because of his cowardice. Reynolds snarled wordlessly. He was trapped; he could not reach Lost Knob in his car, and he would not have time to drive back down the Bisley road, and find another road, before the police would be racing up it. Suddenly he laughed, and it was not a good laugh to hear.

A fierce excitement galvanized him. By God, Fate had worked into his hands, after all! He did not wish to escape, only to slay before he died. Leary was one of the men he had marked for death. And Leary was coming to the Jackson farm house.

He took a step toward the corral, glanced at the sky, turned, ran back into the house, found and donned a slicker. By that time the lightning was a constant glare overhead. It was astounding--incredible. A man could almost have read a book by it. The whole northern and western sky was veined with irregular cords of blinding crimson which ran back and forth, leaping to the earth, flickering back into the heavens, crisscrossing and interlacing. Thunder rumbled, growing louder. The bank in the north west had grown appallingly. From the east around to the middle of the west it loomed, black as doom. Hills, thickets, road and buildings were bathed weirdly in the red glare as Reynolds ran to the corral where the horses whimpered fearfully. Still there was no sound in the elements but the thunder. Somewhere off in the hills a wind howled shudderingly, then ceased abruptly.

Reynolds found bridle, blanket and saddle, threw them on a restive and uneasy horse, and led it out of the corral and down behind the cliff which flanked the path that led up to the house. He tied the animal behind a thicket where it could not be seen from the path. Up in the house the oil lamp still burned. Reynolds did not bother to look to Joel Jackson. If the man ever regained consciousness at all, it would not be for many hours. Reynolds knew the effect of such a blow as he had dealt.

Minutes passed, ten--fifteen. Now he heard a sound that was not of the thunder--a distant purring that swiftly grew louder. A shaft that was not lightning stabbed the sky to the south east. It was lost, then appeared again. Reynolds knew it was an automobile topping the rises. He crouched behind a rock in a shinnery thicket close to the path, just above the point where it swung close to the rim of the low bluff.

Now he could see the headlights glinting through the trees like a pair of angry eyes. The eyes of the Law! he thought sardonically, and hugged himself with venomous glee. The car halted, then came on, marking the entering of the gate. They had not bothered to close the gate, he knew, and felt an instinctive twinge of resentment. That was typical of those Bisley laws--leave a man't gate open, and let all his stock get out.

Now the automobile was mounting the hill, and he grew tense. Either Leary had not heard Jackson't scream shudder over the wires, or else he was reckless. Reynolds nestled further down behind his rock. The lights swept over his head as the car came around the cliff-flanked turn. Lightning conspired to dazzle him, but as the headlights completed their arc and turned away from him, he made out the bulk of men in the car, and the glint of guns. Directly overhead thunder bellowed and a freak of lightning played full on the climbing automobile. In its brief flame he saw the car was crowded--five men, at least, and the chances were that it was Chief Leary at the wheel, though he could not be sure, in that illusive illumination.

The car picked up speed, skirting the cliff--and now Jim Reynolds thrust his .45 through the stems of the shinnery, and fired by the flare of the lightning. His shot merged with a rolling clap of thunder. The car lurched wildly as its driver, shot through the head, slumped over the wheel. Yells of terror rose as it swerved toward the cliff edge. But the man on the seat with the driver dropped his shotgun and caught frantically at the wheel.

Reynolds was standing now, firing again and again, but he could not duplicate the amazing luck of that first shot. Lead raked the car and a man yelped, but the policeman at the wheel hung on tenaciously, hindered by the corpse which slumped over it, and the car, swinging away from the bluff, roared erratically across the path, crashed through bushes and shinnery, and caromed with terrific impact against a boulder, buckling the radiator and hurling men out like tenpins.

Reynolds yelled his savage disappointment, and sent the last bullet in his gun whining viciously among the figures stirring dazedly on the ground about the smashed car. At that, their stunned minds went to work. They rolled into the brush and behind rocks. Tongues of flame began to spit at him, as they gave back his fire. He ducked down into the shinnery again. Bullets hummed over his head, or smashed against the rock in front of him, and on the heels of a belching blast there came a myriad venomous whirrings through the brush as of many bees. Somebody had salvaged a shotgun.

The wildness of the shooting told of unmanned nerves and shattered morale, but Reynolds, crouching low as he reloaded, swore at the fewness of his cartridges.

He had failed in the great coup he had planned. The car had not gone over the bluff. Four policemen still lived, and now, hiding in the thickets, they had the advantage. They could circle back and gain the house without showing themselves to his fire; they could phone for reinforcements. But he grinned fiercely as the flickering lightning showed him the body that sagged over the broken door where the impact of the collision had tossed it like a rag doll. He had not made a mistake; it was chief of police Leary who had stopped his first bullet.

The world was a hell of sound and flame; the cracking of pistols and shotguns was almost drowned in the terrific cannonade of the skies. The whole sky, when not lit by flame, was pitch black. Great sheets and ropes and chains of fire leaped terribly across the dusky vault, and the reverberations of the thunder made the earth tremble. Between the bellowings came sharp claps that almost split the ear drums. Yet not a drop of rain had fallen.

The continual glare was more confusing than utter darkness. Men shot wildly and blindly. And Reynolds began backing cautiously through the shinnery. Behind it, the ground sloped quickly, breaking off into the cliff that skirted the path further down. Down the incline Reynolds slid recklessly, and ran for his horse, half frantic on its tether. The men in the brush above yelled and blazed away vainly as they got a fleeting glimpse of him.

He ducked behind the thicket that masked the horse, tore the animal free, leaped into the saddle--and then the rain came. It did not come as it comes in less violent lands. It was as if a flood-gate had been opened on high--as if the bottom had been jerked out of a celestial rain barrel. A gulf of water descended in one appalling roar.

The wind was blowing now, roaring through the fire torn night, bending the trees, but its fury was less than the rain. Reynolds, clinging to his maddened horse, felt the beast stagger to the buffeting. Despite his slicker, the man was soaked in an instant. It was not raining in drops, but in driving sheets, in thundering cascades. His horse reeled and floundered in the torrents which were already swirling down the gulches and draws. The lightning had not ceased; it played all around him, veiled in the falling flood like fire shining through frosted glass, turning the world to frosty silver.

For a few moments he saw the light in the farm house behind him, and he tried to use it as his compass, riding directly away from it. Then it was blotted out by the shoulder of a hill, and he rode in fire-lit darkness, his sense of direction muddled and confused. He did not try to find a path, or to get back to the road, but headed straight out across the hills.

It was bitter hard going. His horse staggered in rushing rivelets, slipped on muddy slopes, blundered into trees, scratching his rider-- face and hands. In the driving rain there was no seeing any distance; the blinding lightning was a hindrance rather than a help. And the bombardment of the heavens did not cease. Reynolds rode through a hell of fire and fury, blinded, stunned and dazed by the cataclysmic war of the elements. It was nature gone mad--a saturnalia of the elements in which all sense of place and time was dimmed.

Nearby a dazzling white jet forked from the black sky with a stunning crack, and a knotted oak flew into splinters. With a shrill neigh, Reynolds--mount bolted, blundering over rocks and through bushes. A tree limb struck Reynolds--head, and the man fell forward over the saddle horn, dazed, keeping his seat by instinct.

It was the rain, slashing savagely in his face, that brought him to his full senses. He did not know how long he had clung to his saddle in a dazed condition, while the horse wandered at will. He wondered dully at the violence of the rain. It had not abated, though the wind was not blowing now, and the lightning had decreased much in intensity.

Grimly he gathered up the hanging reins and headed into the direction he believed was north. God, would the rain never cease? It had become a monster--an ogreish perversion of nature. It had been thundering down for hours, and still it threshed and beat, as if it poured from an inexhaustible reservoir.

He felt his horse jolt against something and stop, head drooping to the blast. The blazing sky showed him that the animal was breasting a barbed wire fence. He dismounted, fumbled for the wire clippers in the saddle pocket, cut the strands, mounted, and rode wearily on.

He topped a rise, emerged from the screening oaks and stared, blinking. At first he could not realize what he saw, it was so incongruous and alien. But he had to believe his senses. He looked on a gigantic body of water, rolling as far as he could see, lashed into foaming frenzy, under the play of the lightning.

Then the truth rushed upon him. He was looking at Bisley Lake! Bisley Lake, which that morning had been an empty basin, with its only water that which flowed along the rocky beds of Locust Creek and Mesquital, reduced by a six months--drouth to a trickle. There in the hills, just east of where the streams merged, a dam had been built by the people of Bisley with intent to irrigate. But money had run short. The ditches had not been dug, though the dam had been completed. There lay the lake basin, ready for use, but, so far, useless. Three years would be required to fill it, the engineers said, considering average rainfall. But they were Easterners. With all their technical education they had not counted on the terrific volume of water which could rush down those postoak ridges during such a rain as had been falling. Because it was ordinarily a dry country, they had not realized that such floods could fall. From Lost Knob to Bisley the land fell at the rate of a hundred and fifty feet to every ten miles; Locust Creek and Mesquital drained a watershed of immense expanse, and were fed by myriad branches winding down from the higher ridges. Now, halted in its rush to the Gulf, this water was piling up in Bisley Lake.

Three years? It had filled in a matter of hours! Reynolds looked dazedly on the biggest body of water he had ever seen--seventy miles of waterfront, and God only knew how deep in the channels of the rivers! The rain must have assumed the proportions of a water-spout higher up on the heads of the creeks.

The rain was slackening. He knew it must be nearly dawn. Glints of daylight would be showing, but for the clouds and rain. He had been toiling through the storm for hours.

In the flare of the lightning he saw huge logs and trees whirling in the foaming wash; he saw broken buildings, and the bodies of cows, hogs, sheep, and horses, and sodden shocks of grain. He cursed to think of the havoc wrought. Fresh fury rose in him against the people of Bisley. Them and their cursed dam! Any fool ought to know it would back the water up the creeks for twenty miles and force it out of banks and over into fields and pastures. As usual, it was the hill dwellers who suffered.

He looked uneasily at the dark line of the dam. It didn't look so big and solid as it did when the lake basin was empty, but he knew it would resist any strain. And it afforded him a bridge. The rain would cover his tracks. Wires would be down--though doubtless by this time news of his killings had been spread all over the country. Anyway, the storm would have paralyzed pursuit for a few hours. He could get back to the Lost Knob country, and into hiding.

He dismounted and led the horse out on the dam. It snorted and trembled, in fear of the water churned into foam by the drumming rain, so close beneath its feet, but he soothed it and led it on.

If God had made that gorge especially for a lake, He could not have planned it better. It was the south eastern outlet of a great basin, walled with steep hills. The gorge itself was in the shape of a gigantic V, with the narrow bottom turned toward the east, and the legs or sides of rocky cliffs, towering ninety to a hundred and fifty feet high. From the west Mesquital meandered across the broad basin, and from the north Locust Creek came down between rock ledge banks and merged with Mesquital in the wide mouth of the V. Then the river thus formed flowed through the narrow gap in the hills to the east. Across the gap the dam had been built.

Once the road to Lost Knob, climbing up from the south, had descended into that basin, crossed Mesquital and led on up into the hills to the north west. But now that road was submerged by foaming water. Directly north of the dam was no road, only a wild expanse of hills and postoak groves. But Reynolds knew he could skirt the edge of the lake and reach the old road on the other side, or better still, strike straight out through the hills, ignoring all roads and using his wire cutters to let him through fences.

His horse snorted and shied violently. Reynolds cursed and clawed at his gun, tucked under his dripping rain coat. He had just reached the other end of the dam, and something was moving in the darkness.

--top right where you are!--Some one was splashing toward him. The lightning revealed a man without coat or hat. His hair was plastered to his skull, and water streamed down his sodden garments. His eyes gleamed in the lightning glare.

--ill Emmett!--exclaimed Reynolds, raising his voice above the thunder of the waters below.--hat the devil you doin'there?------ here on the devil-- business!--shouted the other.--hat you doin'there? Been to Bisley to get bail for John?----ail, hell,--answered Reynolds grimly, close to the man.--killed Saul Hopkins!-- The answer was a shriek that disconcerted him. Emmett gripped his hand and wrung it fiercely. The man seemed strung to an unnatural pitch.

--ood!--he yelled.--ut they-- more in Bisley than Saul Hopkins.----know,--replied Reynolds.--aim to get some of them before I die.-- Another shriek of passionate exultation cut weirdly through the lash of the wind and the rain.

--ou--e the man for me!--Emmett was fumbling with cold fingers over Reynolds--lapels and arms.--knowed you was the right stuff! Now you listen to me. See that water?--He pointed at the deafening torrent surging and thundering almost under their feet.--ook at it!--he screamed.--ook at it surge and foam and eddy under the lightnin't See them whirlpools in it! Look at them dead cows and horses whirlin'tand bangin'tagainst the dam! Well, I-- goin'tto let that through the streets of Bisley! They--l wake up to find the black water foamin'tthrough their windows! It won't be just dead cattle floatin'tin the water! It--l be dead men and dead women! I can see--m now, whirlin'tdown, down to the Gulf!-- Reynolds gripped the man by the shoulders and shook him savagely.--hat you talkin'tabout?--he roared.

A peal of wild laughter mingled with a crash of thunder.--mean I got enough dynamite planted under this dam to split it wide open!--Emmett yelled.---- goin'tto send everybody in Bisley to hell before daylight!----ou--e crazy!--snarled Reynolds, an icy hand clutching his heart.

--razy?--screamed the other; and the mad glare in his eyes, limned by the lightning, told Reynolds that he had spoken the grisly truth.--razy? You just come from killin'tthat devil Hopkins, and you turn pale? You--e small stuff; you killed one enemy. I aim to kill thousands!

--ook out there where the black water is rollin'tand tumblin't I owned that, once; leastways, I owned land the water has taken now, away over yonder. My father and grandfather owned it before me. And they condemned it and took it away from me, just because Bisley wanted a lake, damn their yellow souls!----he county paid you three times what the land was worth,--protested Reynolds, his peculiar sense of justice forcing him into defending an enemy.

--es!--Again that awful peal of laughter turned Reynolds cold.--es! And I put it in a Bisley bank, and the bank went broke! I lost every cent I had in the world. I-- down and out; I got no land and no money. Damn--m, oh, damn--m! Bisley-- goin'tto pay! I-- goin'tto wipe her out! There-- enough water out there to fill Locust Valley from ridge to ridge across Bisley. I--e waited for this; I--e planned for it. Tonight when I seen the lightnin'tflickerin'tover the ridges, I knew the time was come.

-- ain't hung around here and fed the watchman corn juice for months, just for fun. He-- drunk up in his shack now, and the flood-gate-- closed! I seen to that! My charge is planted--enough to crack the dam--the water--l do the rest. I--e stood here all night, watchin'tLocust and Mesquital rollin'tdown like the rivers of Judgment, and now it's time, and I-- goin'tto set off the charge!----mmett!--protested Reynolds, shaking with horror.--y God, you can't do this! Think of the women and children--

--ho thought of mine?--yelled Emmett, his voice cracking in a sob.--y wife had to live like a dog after we lost our home and money; that-- why she died. I didn't have enough money to have her took care of. Get out of my way, Reynolds; you--e small stuff. You killed one man; I aim to kill thousands.----ait!--urged Reynolds desperately.--hate Bisley as much as anybody--but my God, man, the women and kids ain't got nothin'tto do with it! You ain't goin'tto do this--you can't--His brain reeled at the picture it evoked. Bisley lay directly in the path of the flood; its business houses stood almost on the banks of Locust Creek. The whole town was built in the bottoms; hundreds would find it impossible to escape in time to the hills, should this awful mountain of black water come roaring down the valley. Reynolds was only an anachronism, not a homicidal maniac.

In the urgency of his determination he dropped the reins of his horse and caught at Emmett. The horse snorted and galloped up the slope and away.

--et go me, Reynolds!--howled Emmett.----l kill you!----ou--l have to before you set off that charge!--gritted Reynolds.

Emmett screamed like a tree cat. He tore away, came on again, something glinting in his uplifted hand. Swearing, Reynolds fumbled for his gun. The hammer caught in the oilcloth. Emmett caromed against him, screaming and striking. An agonizing pain went through Reynolds--lifted left arm, another and another; he felt the keen blade rip along his ribs, sink into his shoulder. Emmett was snarling like a wild beast, hacking blindly and madly.

They were down on the brink of the dam, clawing and smiting in the mud and water. Dimly Reynolds realized that he was being stabbed to pieces. He was a powerful man, but he was hampered by his long slicker, exhausted by his ride through the storm, and Emmett was a thing of wires of rawhide, fired by the frenzy of madness.

Reynolds abandoned his attempts to imprison Emmett-- knife wrist, and tugged again at his imprisoned gun. It came clear, just as Emmett, with a mad howl, drove his knife full into Reynolds--breast. The madman screamed again as he felt the muzzle jam against him; then the gun thundered, so close between them it burnt the clothing of both. Reynolds was almost deafened by the report. Emmett was thrown clear of him and lay at the rim of the dam, his back broken by the tearing impact of the heavy bullet. His head hung over the edge, his arms trailed down toward the foaming black water which seemed to surge upward for him.

Reynolds essayed to rise, then sank back dizzily. Lightning played before his eyes, thunder rumbled. Beneath him the tumultuous water roared. Somewhere in the blackness there grew a hint of light. Belated dawn was stealing over the postoak hills, bent beneath a cloak of rain.

--amn!--choked Reynolds, clawing at the mud. Incoherently he cursed; not because death was upon him, but because of the manner of his dying.

--hy couldn't I gone out like I wanted to?--fightin'tthem I hate--not a friend who-- gone bughouse. Curse the luck! And for them Bisley swine! Anyway--the wandering voice trailed away----ied with my boots on--like a man ought to die--damn them--

The blood-stained hands ceased to grope; the figure in the tattered slicker lay still; parting a curtain of falling rain, dawn broke grey and haggard over the postoak country.

Musings

The little poets sing of little things:

Hope, cheer, and faith, small queens and puppet kings;

Lovers who kissed and then were made as one,

And modest flowers waving in the sun.

The mighty poets write in blood and tears

And agony that, flame-like, bites and sears.

They reach their mad blind hands into the night,

To plumb abysses dead to human sight;

To drag from gulfs where lunacy lies curled,

Mad monstrous nightmare shapes to blast the world.

Son of the White Wolf

I

THE BATTLE STANDARD

The commander of the Turkish outpost of El Ashraf was awakened before dawn by the stamp of horses and jingle of accoutrements. He sat up and shouted for his orderly. There was no response, so he rose, hurriedly jerked on his garments, and strode out of the mud hut that served as his headquarters. What he saw rendered him momentarily speechless.

His command was mounted, in full marching formation, drawn up near the railroad that it was their duty to guard. The plain to the left of the track where the tents of the troopers had stood now lay bare. The tents had been loaded on the baggage camels which stood fully packed and ready to move out. The commandant glared wildly, doubting his own senses, until his eyes rested on a flag borne by a trooper. The waving pennant did not display the familiar crescent. The commandant turned pale.

--hat does this mean?--he shouted, striding forward. His lieutenant, Osman, glanced at him inscrutably. Osman was a tall man, hard and supple as steel, with a dark keen face.

--utiny, effendi,--he replied calmly.--e are sick of this war we fight for the Germans. We are sick of Djemal Pasha and those other fools of the Council of Unity and Progress, and, incidentally, of you. So we are going into the hills to build a tribe of our own.----adness!--gasped the officer, tugging at his revolver. Even as he drew it, Osman shot him through the head.

The lieutenant sheathed the smoking pistol and turned to the troopers. The ranks were his to a man, won to his wild ambition under the very nose of the officer who now lay there with his brains oozing.

--isten!--he commanded.

In the tense silence they all heard the low, deep reverberation in the west.

--ritish guns!--said Osman.--attering the Turkish Empire to bits! The New Turks have failed. What Asia needs is not a new party, but a new race! There are thousands of fighting men between the Syrian coast and the Persian highlands, ready to be roused by a new word, a new prophet! The East is moving in her sleep. Ours is the duty is to awaken her!

--ou have all sworn to follow me into the hills. Let us return to the ways of our pagan ancestors who worshiped the White Wolf on the steppes of High Asia before they bowed to the creed of Mohammed!

--e have reached the end of the Islamic Age. We abjure Allah as a superstition fostered by an epileptic Meccan camel driver. Our people have copied Arab ways too long. But we hundred men are Turks! We have burned the Koran. We bow not toward Mecca, nor swear by their false Prophet. And now follow me as we planned--to establish ourselves in a strong position in the hills and to seize Arab women for our wives.----ur sons will be half Arab,--someone protested.

-- man is the son of his father,--retorted Osman.--e Turks have always looted the harims of the world for our women, but our sons are always Turks.

--ome! We have arms, horses, supplies. If we linger we shall be crushed with the rest of the army between the British on the coast and the Arabs the Englishman Lawrence is bringing up from the south. On to El Awad! The sword for the men--captivity for the women!-- His voice cracked like a whip as he snapped the orders that set the lines in motion. In perfect order they moved off through the lightening dawn toward the range of saw-edged hills in the distance. Behind them the air still vibrated with the distant rumble of the British artillery. Over them waved a banner that bore the head of a white wolf--the battle-standard of most ancient Turan.

II

MASSACRE

When Fraulein Olga von Bruckmann, known as a famous German secret agent, arrived at the tiny Arab hill-village of El Awad, it was in a drizzling rain that made the dusk a blinding curtain over the muddy town.

With her companion, an Arab named Ahmed, she rode into the muddy street, and the villagers crept from their hovels to stare in awe at the first white woman most of them had ever seen.

A few words from Ahmed and the shaykh salaamed and showed her to the best mud hut in the village. The horses were led away to feed and shelter, and Ahmed paused long enough to whisper to his companion:

--l Awad is friendly to the Turks. Have no fear. I shall be near, in any event.----ry and get fresh horses,--she urged.--must push on as soon as possible.----he shaykh swears there isn't a horse in the village in fit condition to be ridden. He may be lying. But at any rate our own horses will be rested enough to go on by dawn. Even with fresh horses it would be useless to try to go any farther tonight. We-- lose our way among the hills, and in this region there-- always the risk of running into Lawrence-- Bedouin raiders.-- Olga knew that Ahmed knew she carried important secret documents from Baghdad to Damascus, and she knew from experience that she could trust his loyalty. Removing only her dripping cloak and riding boots, she stretched herself on the dingy blankets that served as a bed. She was worn out from the strain of the journey.

She was the first white woman ever to attempt to ride from Baghdad to Damascus. Only the protection accorded a trusted secret agent by the long arm of the German-Turkish government, and her guide-- zeal and craft, had brought her thus far in safety.

She fell asleep, thinking of the long weary miles still to be traveled, and even greater dangers, now that she had come into the region where the Arabs were fighting their Turkish masters. The Turks still held the country, that summer of 1917, but lightning-like raids flashed across the desert, blowing up trains, cutting tracks and butchering the inhabitants of isolated posts. Lawrence was leading the tribes northward, and with him was the mysterious American, El Borak, whose name was one to hush children.

She never knew how long she slept, but she awoke suddenly and sat up, in fright and bewilderment. The rain still beat on the roof, but there mingled with it shrieks of pain or fear, yells and the staccato crackling of rifles. She sprang up, lighted a candle and was just pulling on her boots when the door was hurled open violently.

Ahmed reeled in, his dark face livid, blood oozing through the fingers that clutched his breast.

--he village is attacked!--he cried chokingly.--en in Turkish uniform! There must be some mistake! They know El Awad is friendly! I tried to tell their officer that we are friends, but he shot me! We must get away, quick!-- A shot cracked in the open door behind him and a jet of fire spurted from the blackness. Ahmed groaned and crumpled. Olga cried out in horror, staring wide-eyed at the figure who stood before her. A tall, wiry man in Turkish uniform blocked the door. He was handsome in a dark, hawk-like way, and he eyed her in a manner that brought the blood to her cheeks.

--hy did you kill that man?--she demanded.--e was a trusted servant of your country.----have no country,--he answered, moving toward her. Outside the firing was dying away and women't voices were lifted piteously.--go to build one, as my ancestor Osman did.----don't know what you--e talking about,--she retorted.--ut unless you provide me with an escort to the nearest post, I shall report you to your superiors, and--

He laughed wildly at her.--have no superiors, you little fool! I am an empire builder, I tell you! I have a hundred armed men at my disposal. I--l build a new race in these hills.--His eyes blazed as he spoke.

--ou--e mad!--she exclaimed.

--ad? It-- you who are mad not to recognize the possibilities as I have! This war is bleeding the life out of Europe. When it's over, no matter who wins, the nations will lie prostrate. Then it will be Asia-- turn!

--f Lawrence can build up an Arab army to fight for him, then certainly I, an Ottoman, can build up a kingdom among my own peoples! Thousands of Turkish soldiers have deserted to the British. They and more will desert again to me, when they hear that a Turk is building anew the empire of ancient Turan.----o what you like,--she answered, believing he had been seized by the madness that often grips men in time of war when the world seems crumbling and any wild dream looks possible.--ut at least don't interfere with my mission. If you won't give me an escort, I--l go on alone.----ou--l go with me!--he retorted, looking down at her with hot admiration.

Olga was a handsome girl, tall, slender but supple, with a wealth of unruly golden hair. She was so completely feminine that no disguise would make her look like a man, not even the voluminous robes of an Arab, so she had attempted none. She trusted instead to Ahmed-- skill to bring her safely through the desert.

--o you hear those screams? My men are supplying themselves with wives to bear soldiers for the new empire. Yours shall be the signal honor of being the first to go into Sultan Osman't seraglio!----ou do not dare!--She snatched a pistol from her blouse.

Before she could level it he wrenched it from her with brutal strength.

--are!--He laughed at her vain struggles.--hat do I not dare? I tell you a new empire is being born tonight! Come with me! There-- no time for love-making now. Before dawn we must be on the march for Sulayman't Walls. The star of the White Wolf rises!-- III

THE CALL OF BLOOD

The sun was not long risen over the saw-edged mountains to the east, but already the heat was glazing the cloudless sky to the hue of white-hot steel. Along the dim road that split the immensity of the desert a single shape moved. The shape grew out of the heat-hazes of the south and resolved itself into a man on a camel.

The man was no Arab. His boots and khakis, as well as the rifle-butt jutting from beneath his knee, spoke of the West. But with his dark face and hard frame he did not look out of place, even in that fierce land. He was Francis Xavier Gordon, El Borak, whom men loved, feared or hated, according to their political complexion, from the Golden Horn to the headwaters of the Ganges.

He had ridden most of the night, but his iron frame had not yet approached the fringes of weariness. Another mile, and he sighted a yet dimmer trail straggling down from a range of hills to the east. Something was coming along this trail--a crawling something that left a broad dark smear on the hot flints.

Gordon swung his camel into the trail and a moment later bent over the man who lay there gasping stertorously. It was a young Arab, and the breast of his abba was soaked in blood.

--usef!--Gordon drew back the wet abba, glanced at the bared breast, then covered it again. Blood oozed steadily from a blue-rimmed bullet-hole. There was nothing he could do. Already the Arab-- eyes were glazing. Gordon stared up the trail, seeing neither horse nor camel anywhere. But the dark smear stained the stones as far as he could see.

--y God, man, how far have you crawled in this condition?----n hour--many hours--I do not know!--panted Yusef.--fainted and fell from the saddle. When I came to I was lying in the trail and my horse was gone. But I knew you would be coming up from the south, so I crawled--crawled! Allah, how hard are thy stones!-- Gordon set a canteen to his lips and Yusef drank noisily, then clutched Gordon't sleeve with clawing fingers.

--l Borak, I am dying and that is no great matter, but there is the matter of vengeance--not for me, ya sidi, but for innocent ones. You know I was on furlough to my village, El Awad. I am the only man of El Awad who fights for Arabia. The elders are friendly to the Turks. But last night the Turks burned El Awad! They marched in before midnight and the people welcomed them--while I hid in a shed.

--hen without warning they began slaying! The men of El Awad were unarmed and helpless. I slew one soldier myself. Then they shot me and I dragged myself away--found my horse and rode to tell the tale before I died. Ah, Allah, I have tasted of perdition this night!----id you recognize their officer?--asked Gordon.

-- never saw him before. They called this leader of theirs Osman Pasha. Their flag bore the head of a white wolf. I saw it by the light of the burning huts. My people cried out in vain that they were friends.

--here was a German woman and a man of Hauran who came to El Awad from the east, just at nightfall. I think they were spies. The Turks shot him and took her captive. It was all blood and madness.----ad indeed!--muttered Gordon. Yusef lifted himself on an elbow and groped for him, a desperate urgency in his weakening voice.

--l Borak, I fought well for the Emir Feisal, and for Lawrence effendi, and for you! I was at Yenbo, and Wejh, and Akaba. Never have I asked a reward! I ask now: justice and vengeance! Grant me this plea: Slay the Turkish dogs who butchered my people!-- Gordon did not hesitate.

--hey shall die,--he answered.

Yusef smiled fiercely, gasped:--llaho akbar!--then sank back dead.

Within the hour Gordon rode eastward. The vultures that had already gathered in the sky with their grisly foreknowledge of death then flapped sullenly away from the cairn of stones he had piled over the dead man, Yusef.

Gordon't business in the north could wait. One reason for his dominance over the Orientals was the fact that in some ways his nature closely resembled theirs. He not only understood the cry for vengeance, but he sympathized with it. And he always kept his promise.

But he was puzzled. The destruction of a friendly village was not customary, even by the Turks, and certainly they would not ordinarily have mishandled their own spies. If they were deserters they were acting in an unusual manner, for most deserters made their way to Feisal. And that wolf--head banner?

Gordon knew that certain fanatics in the New Turks party were trying to erase all signs of Arab culture from their civilization. This was an impossible task, since that civilization itself was based on Arabic culture; but he had heard that in Stamboul the radicals even advocated abandoning Islam and reverting to the paganism of their ancestors. But he had never believed the tale.

The sun was sinking over the mountains of Edom when Gordon came to ruined El Awad, in a fold of the bare hills. For hours before he had marked its location by black dots dropping in the blue. That they did not rise again told him that the village was deserted except for the dead.

As he rode into the dusty street, several vultures flapped heavily away. The hot sun had dried the mud, curdled the red pools in the dust. He sat in his saddle a while, staring silently.

He was no stranger to the handiwork of the Turk. He had seen much of it in the long fighting up from Jeddah on the Red Sea. But even so, he felt sick. The bodies lay in the street, headless, disemboweled, hewn asunder--bodies of children, old women and men. A red mist floated before his eyes, so that for a moment the landscape seemed to swim in blood. The slayers were gone, but they had left a plain road for him to follow.

What the signs they had left did not show him, he guessed. The slayers had loaded their female captives on baggage camels, and had gone eastward, deeper into the hills. Why they were following that road he could not guess, but he knew where it led--to the long-abandoned Walls of Sulayman, by way of the Well of Achmet.

Without hesitation he followed. He had not gone many miles before he passed more of their work--a baby, its brains oozing from its broken head. Some kidnaped woman had hidden her child in her robes until it had been wrenched from her and brained on the rocks, before her eyes.

The country became wilder as he went. He did not halt to eat, but munched dried dates from his pouch as he rode. He did not waste time worrying over the recklessness of his action--one lone American dogging the crimson trail of a Turkish raiding party.

He had no plan; his future actions would depend on the circumstances that arose. But he had taken the death-trail and he would not turn back while he lived. He was no more foolhardy than his grandfather who single-handed trailed an Apache war-party for days through the Guadalupes and returned to the settlement on the Pecos with scalps hanging from his belt.

The sun had set and dusk was closing in when Gordon topped a ridge and looked down on the plain whereon stands the Well of Achmet with its straggling palm grove. To the right of that cluster stood the tents, horse lines and camel lines of a well-ordered force. To the left stood a hut used by travelers as a khan. The door was shut and a sentry stood before it. While he watched, a man came from the tents with a bowl of food which he handed in at the door.

Gordon could not see the occupant, but he believed it was the German girl of whom Yusef had spoken, though why they should imprison one of their own spies was one of the mysteries of this strange affair. He saw their flag, and could make out a splotch of white that must be the wolf--head. He saw, too, the Arab women, thirty-five or forty of them herded into a pen improvised from bales and pack-saddles. They crouched together dumbly, dazed by their misfortunes.

He had hidden his camel below the ridge, on the western slope, and he lay concealed behind a clump of stunted bushes until night had fallen. Then he slipped down the slope, circling wide to avoid the mounted patrol, which rode leisurely about the camp. He lay prone behind a boulder till it had passed, then rose and stole toward the hut. Fires twinkled in the darkness beneath the palms, and he heard the wailing of the captive women.

The sentry before the door of the hut did not see the cat-footed shadow that glided up to the rear wall. As Gordon drew close he heard voices within. They spoke in Turkish.

One window was in the back wall. Strips of wood had been fastened over it, to serve as both pane and bars. Peering between them, Gordon saw a slender girl in a travel-worn riding habit standing before a dark-faced man in a Turkish uniform. There was no insignia to show what his rank had been. The Turk played with a riding whip and his eyes gleamed with cruelty in the light of a candle on a camp table.

--hat do I care for the information you bring from Baghdad?--he was demanding.--either Turkey nor Germany means anything to me. But it seems you fail to realize your own position. It is mine to command, yours to obey! You are my prisoner, my captive, my slave! It-- time you learned what that means. And the best teacher I know is the whip!-- He fairly spat the last word at her and she paled.

--ou dare not subject me to this indignity!--she whispered weakly.

Gordon knew this man must be Osman Pasha. He drew his heavy automatic from its scabbard under his armpit and aimed at the Turk-- breast through the crack in the window. But even as his finger closed on the trigger he changed his mind. There was the sentry at the door, and a hundred other armed men, within hearing, whom the sound of a shot would bring on the run. He grasped the window bars and braced his legs.

-- see I must dispel your illusions,--muttered Osman, moving toward the girl who cowered back until the wall stopped her. Her face was white. She had dealt with many dangerous men in her hazardous career, and she was not easily frightened. But she had never met a man like Osman. His face was a terrifying mask of cruelty; the ferocity that gloats over the agony of a weaker thing shone in his eyes.

Suddenly he had her by the hair, dragging her to him, laughing at her scream of pain. Just then Gordon ripped the strips off the window. The snapping of the wood sounded loud as a gun-shot and Osman wheeled, drawing his pistol, as Gordon came through the window.

The American hit on his feet, leveled automatic checking Osman't move. The Turk froze, his pistol lifted shoulder high, muzzle pointing at the roof. Outside the sentry called anxiously.

--nswer him!--grated Gordon below his breath.--ell him everything is all right. And drop that gun!-- The pistol fell to the floor and the girl snatched it up.

--ome here, Fraulein!-- She ran to him, but in her haste she crossed the line of fire. In that fleeting moment when her body shielded his, Osman acted. He kicked the table and the candle toppled and went out, and simultaneously he dived for the floor. Gordon't pistol roared deafeningly just as the hut was plunged into darkness. The next instant the door crashed inward and the sentry bulked against the starlight, to crumple as Gordon't gun crashed again and yet again.

With a sweep of his arm, Gordon found the girl and drew her toward the window. He lifted her through as if she had been a child, and climbed through after her. He did not know whether his blind slug had struck Osman or not. The man was crouching silently in the darkness, but there was no time to strike a match and see whether he was living or dead. But as they ran across the shadowy plain, they heard Osman't voice lifted in passion.

By the time they reached the crest of the ridge the girl was winded. Only Gordon't arm about her waist, half dragging, half carrying her, enabled her to make the last few yards of the steep incline. The plain below them was alive with torches and shouting men. Osman was yelling for them to run down the fugitives, and his voice came faintly to them on the ridge.

--ake them alive, curse you! Scatter and find them! It-- El Borak!--An instant later he was yelling, with an edge of panic in his voice:--ait. Come back! Take cover and make ready to repel an attack! He may have a horde of Arabs with him!----e thinks first of his own desire, and only later of the safety of his men,--muttered Gordon.--don't think he'sl ever get very far. Come on.--

He led the way to the camel, helped the girl into the saddle, then leaped up himself. A word, a tap of the camel wand, and the beast ambled silently off down the slope.

-- know Osman caught you at El Awad,--said Gordon.--ut what-- he up to? What-- his game?----e was a lieutenant stationed at El Ashraf,--she answered.--e persuaded his company to mutiny, kill their commander and desert. He plans to fortify the Walls of Sulayman, and build a new empire. I thought at first he was mad, but he isn't. He-- a devil.----he Walls of Sulayman?--Gordon checked his mount and sat for a moment motionless in the starlight.

--re you game for an all-night ride?--he asked presently.

--nywhere! As long as it is far away from Osman!--There was a hint of hysteria in her voice.

-- doubt if your escape will change his plans. He--l probably lie about Achmet all night under arms, expecting an attack. In the morning he will decide that I was alone, and pull out for the Walls.

--ell, I happen to know that an Arab force is there, waiting for an order from Lawrence to move on to Ageyli. Three hundred Juheina camel-riders, sworn to Feisal. Enough to eat Osman't gang. Lawrence-- messenger should reach them some time between dawn and noon. There is a chance we can get there before the Juheina pull out. If we can, we--l turn them on Osman and wipe him out, with his whole pack.

--t won't upset Lawrence-- plans for the Juheina to get to Ageyli a day late, and Osman must be destroyed. He-- a mad dog running loose.----is ambition sounds mad,--she murmured.--ut when he speaks of it, with his eyes blazing, it's easy to believe he might even succeed.----ou forget that crazier things have happened in the desert,--he answered, as he swung the camel eastward.--he world is being made over here, as well as in Europe. There-- no telling what damage this Osman might do, if left to himself. The Turkish Empire is falling to pieces, and new empires have risen out of the ruins of old ones.

--ut if we can get to Sulayman before the Juheina march, we--l check him. If we find them gone, we--l be in a pickle ourselves. It-- a gamble, our lives against his. Are you game?----ill the last card falls!--she retorted. His face was a blur in the starlight, but she sensed rather than saw his grim smile of approval.

The camel-- hoofs made no sound as they dropped down the slope and circled far wide of the Turkish camp. Like ghosts on a ghost-camel they moved across the plain under the stars. A faint breeze stirred the girl-- hair. Not until the fires were dim behind them and they were again climbing a hill-road did she speak.

-- know you. You--e the American they call El Borak, the Swift. You came down from Afghanistan when the war began. You were with King Hussein even before Lawrence came over from Egypt. Do you know who I am?----es.----hen what-- my status?--she asked.--ave you rescued me or captured me? Am I a prisoner?----et us say companion, for the time being,--he suggested.--e--e up against a common enemy. No reason why we shouldn't make common cause, is there?----one!--she agreed, and leaning her blond head against his hard shoulder, she went soundly to sleep.

A gaunt moon rose, pushing back the horizons, flooding craggy slopes and dusty plains with leprous silver. The vastness of the desert seemed to mock the tiny figures on their tiring camel, as they rode blindly on toward what Fate they could not guess.

IV

WOLVES OF THE DESERT

Olga awoke as dawn was breaking. She was cold and stiff, in spite of the cloak Gordon had wrapped about her, and she was hungry. They were riding through a dry gorge with rock-strewn slopes rising on either hand, and the camel-- gait had become a lurching walk. Gordon halted it, slid off without making it kneel, and took its rope.

--t-- about done, but the Walls aren't far ahead. Plenty of water there--food, too, if the Juheina are still there. There are dates in that pouch.-- If he felt the strain of fatigue he did not show it as he strode along at the camel-- head. Olga rubbed her chill hands and wished for sunrise.

--he Well of Harith,--Gordon indicated a walled enclosure ahead of them.--he Turks built that wall, years ago, when the Walls of Sulayman were an army post. Later they abandoned both positions.-- The wall, built of rocks and dried mud, was in good shape, and inside the enclosure there was a partly ruined hut. The well was shallow, with a mere trickle of water at the bottom.

---- better get off and walk too,--Olga suggested.

--hese flints would cut your boots and feet to pieces. It-- not far now. Then the camel can rest all it needs.----nd if the Juheina aren't there--She left the sentence unfinished.

He shrugged his shoulders.

--aybe Osman won't come up before the camel-- rested.----believe he'sl make a forced march,--she said, not fearfully, but calmly stating an opinion.--is beasts are good. If he drives them hard, he can get here before midnight. Our camel won't be rested enough to carry us, by that time. And we couldn't get away on foot, in this desert.-- He laughed, and respecting her courage, did not try to make light of their position.

--ell,--he said quietly,--et-- hope the Juheina are still there!-- If they were not, she and Gordon were caught in a trap of hostile, waterless desert, fanged with the long guns of predatory tribesmen.

Three miles further east the valley narrowed and the floor pitched upward, dotted by dry shrubs and boulders. Gordon pointed suddenly to a faint ribbon of smoke feathering up into the sky.

--ook! The Juheina are there!-- Olga gave a deep sigh of relief. Only then did she realize how desperately she had been hoping for some such sign. She felt like shaking a triumphant fist at the rocky waste about her, as if at a sentient enemy, sullen and cheated of its prey.

Another mile and they topped a ridge and saw a large enclosure surrounding a cluster of wells. There were Arabs squatting about their tiny cooking fires. As the travelers came suddenly into view within a few hundred yards of them, the Bedouins sprang up, shouting. Gordon drew his breath suddenly between clenched teeth.

--hey are not Juheina! They--e Rualla! Allies of the Turks!-- Too late to retreat. A hundred and fifty wild men were on their feet, glaring, rifles cocked.

Gordon did the next best thing and went leisurely toward them. To look at him one would have thought that he had expected to meet these men here, and anticipated nothing but a friendly greeting. Olga tried to imitate his tranquility, but she knew their lives hung on the crook of a trigger finger. These men were supposed to be her allies, but her recent experience made her distrust Orientals. The sight of these hundreds of wolfish faces filled her with sick dread.

They were hesitating, rifles lifted, nervous and uncertain as surprised wolves, then:

--llah!--howled a tall, scarred warrior.--t is El Borak!-- Olga caught her breath as she saw the man't finger quiver on his rifle-trigger. Only a racial urge to gloat over his victim kept him from shooting the American, then and there.

--l Borak!--The shout was a wave that swept the throng.

Ignoring the clamor, the menacing rifles, Gordon made the camel kneel and lifted Olga off. She tried, with fair success, to conceal her fear of the wild figures that crowded about them, but her flesh crawled at the blood-lust burning redly in each wolfish eye.

Gordon't rifle was in its boot on the saddle, and his pistol was out of sight, under his shirt. He was careful not to reach for the rifle--a move which would have brought a hail of bullets--but having helped the girl down, he turned and faced the crowd casually, his hands empty. Running his glance over the fierce faces, he singled out a tall stately man in the rich garb of a shaykh, who was standing somewhat apart.

--ou keep poor watch, Mitkhal ibn Ali,--said Gordon.--f I had been a raider your men would be lying in their blood by this time.-- Before the shaykh could answer, the man who had first recognized Gordon thrust himself violently forward, his face convulsed with hate.

--ou expected to find friends here, El Borak!--he exulted.--ut you come too late! Three hundred Juheina dogs rode north an hour before dawn! We saw them go, and came up after they had gone. Had they known of your coming, perhaps they would have stayed to welcome you!----t-- not to you I speak, Zangi Khan, you Kurdish dog,--retorted Gordon contemptuously,--ut to the Rualla--honorable men and fair foes!-- Zangi Khan snarled like a wolf and threw up his rifle, but a lean Bedouin caught his arm.

--ait!--he growled.--et El Borak speak. His words are not wind.-- A rumble of approval came from the Arabs. Gordon had touched their fierce pride and vanity. That would not save his life, but they were willing to listen to him before they killed him.

--f you listen, he will trick you with cunning words!--shouted the angered Zangi Khan furiously.--lay him now, before he can do us harm!----s Zangi Khan shaykh of the Rualla that he gives commands while Mitkhal stands silent?--asked Gordon with biting irony.

Mitkhal reacted to his taunt exactly as Gordon knew he would.

--et El Borak speak!--he ordered.--command here, Zangi Khan! Do not forget that.----do not forget, ya sidi,--the Kurd assured him, but his eyes burned red at the rebuke.--but spoke in zeal for your safety.-- Mitkhal gave him a slow, searching glance which told Gordon that there was no love lost between the two men. Zangi Khan't reputation as a fighting man meant much to the younger warriors. Mitkhal was more fox than wolf, and he evidently feared the Kurd-- influence over his men. As an agent of the Turkish government Zangi-- authority was theoretically equal to Mitkhal--. Actually this amounted to little, for Mitkhal-- tribesmen took orders from their shaykh only. But it put Zangi in a position to use his personal talents to gain an ascendancy--an ascendancy Mitkhal feared would relegate him to a minor position.

--peak, El Borak,--ordered Mitkhal.--ut speak swiftly. It may be,--he added,--llah-- will that the moments of your life are few.----eath marches from the west,--said Gordon abruptly.--ast night a hundred Turkish deserters butchered the people of El Awad.----allah!--swore a tribesman.--l Awad was friendly to the Turks!----lie!--cried Zangi Khan.--r if true, the dogs of deserters slew the people to curry favor with Feisal.----hen did men come to Feisal with the blood of children on their hands?--retorted Gordon.--hey have foresworn Islam and worship the White Wolf. They carried off the young women and the old women, the men and the children they slew like dogs.-- A murmur of anger rose from the Arabs. The Bedouins had a rigid code of warfare, and they did not kill women or children. It was the unwritten law of the desert, old when Abraham came up out of Chaldea.

But Zangi Khan cried out in angry derision, blind to the resentful looks cast at him. He did not understand that particular phase of the Bedouins--code, for his people had no such inhibition. Kurds in war killed women as well as men.

--hat are the women of El Awad to us?--he sneered.

--our heart I know already,--answered Gordon with icy contempt.--t is to the Rualla that I speak.----trick!--howled the Kurd.--lie to trick us!----t is no lie!--Olga stepped forward boldly.--angi Khan, you know that I am an agent of the German government. Osman Pasha, leader of these renegades, burned El Awad last night, as El Borak has said. Osman murdered Ahmed ibn Shalaan, my guide, among others. He is as much our enemy as he is an enemy of the British.-- She looked to Mitkhal for help, but the shaykh stood apart, like an actor watching a play in which he has not yet received his cue.

--hat if it is the truth?--Zangi Khan snarled, muddled by his hate and fear of El Borak-- cunning.--hat is El Awad to us?-- Gordon caught him up instantly.

--his Kurd asks what is the destruction of a friendly village! Doubtless, naught to him! But what does it mean to you, who have left your herds and families unguarded? If you let this pack of mad dogs range the land, how can you be sure of the safety of your wives and children?----hat would you have, El Borak?--demanded a grey-bearded raider.

--rap these Turks and destroy them. I--l show you how.-- It was then that Zangi Khan lost his head completely.

--eed him not!--he screamed.--ithin the hour we must ride northward! The Turks will give us ten thousand British pounds for his head!-- Avarice burned briefly in the men't eyes, to be dimmed by the reflection that the reward offered for El Borak-- head would be claimed by the shaykh and Zangi. They made no move and Mitkhal stood aside with an air of watching a contest that did not concern himself.

--ake his head!--screamed Zangi, sensing hostility at last, and thrown into a panic by it.

His demoralization was completed by Gordon't taunting laugh.

--ou seem to be the only one who wants my head, Zangi! Perhaps you can take it!-- Zangi howled incoherently, his eyes glaring red, then threw up his rifle, hip-high. Just as the muzzle came up, Gordon't automatic crashed thunderously. He had drawn so swiftly not a man there had followed his motion. Zangi Khan reeled back under the impact of hot lead, toppled sideways and lay still.

In an instant, a hundred cocked rifles covered Gordon. Confused by varying emotions, the men hesitated for the fleeting instant it took Mitkhal to shout:

--old! Do not shoot!-- He strode forward with the air of a man ready to take the center of the stage at last, but he could not disguise the gleam of satisfaction in his shrewd eyes.

--o man here is kin to Zangi Khan,--he said offhandedly.--here is no cause for blood feud. He had eaten the salt, but he attacked our prisoner, whom he thought unarmed.-- He held out his hand for the pistol, but Gordon did not surrender it.

---- not your prisoner,--said he.--could kill you before your men could lift a finger. But I didn't come here to fight you. I came asking aid to avenge the children and women of my enemies. I risk my life for your families. Are you dogs, to do less?--

The question hung in the air unanswered, but he had struck the right chord in their barbaric bosoms, that were always ready to respond to some wild deed of reckless chivalry. Their eyes glowed and they looked at their shaykh expectantly.

Mitkhal was a shrewd politician. The butchery at El Awad meant much less to him than it meant to his younger warriors. He had associated with so-called civilized men long enough to lose much of his primitive integrity. But he always followed the side of public opinion, and was shrewd enough to lead a movement he could not check. Yet, he was not to be stampeded into a hazardous adventure.

--hese Turks may be too strong for us,--he objected.

----l show you how to destroy them with little risk,--answered Gordon.--ut there must be covenants between us, Mitkhal.----hese Turks must be destroyed,--said Mitkhal, and he spoke sincerely there, at least.--ut there are too many blood feuds between us, El Borak, for us to let you get out of our hands.-- Gordon laughed.

--ou can't whip the Turks without my help and you know it. Ask your young men what they desire!----et El Borak lead us!--shouted a young warrior instantly. A murmur of approval paid tribute to Gordon't widespread reputation as a strategist.

--ery well!--Mitkhal took the tide.--et there be truce between us--with conditions! Lead us against the Turks. If you win, you and the woman shall go free. If we lose, we take your head!-- Gordon nodded, and the warriors yelled in glee. It was just the sort of a bargain that appealed to their minds, and Gordon knew it was the best he could make.

--ring bread and salt!--ordered Mitkhal, and a giant black slave moved to do his bidding.--ntil the battle is lost or won there is truce between us, and no Rualla shall harm you, unless you spill Rualla blood.-- Then he thought of something else and his brow darkened as he thundered:

--here is the man who watched from the ridge?-- A terrified youth was pushed forward. He was a member of a small tribe tributary to the more important Rualla.

--h, shaykh,--he faltered,--was hungry and stole away to a fire for meat--

--og!--Mitkhal struck him in the face.--eath is thy portion for failing in thy duty.----ait!--Gordon interposed.--ould you question the will of Allah? If the boy had not deserted his post he would have seen us coming up the valley, and your men would have fired on us and killed us. Then you would not have been warned of the Turks, and would have fallen prey to them before discovering they were enemies. Let him go and give thanks to Allah Who sees all!-- It was the sort of sophistry that appeals to the Arab mind. Even Mitkhal was impressed.

--ho knows the mind of Allah?--he conceded.--ive, Musa, but next time perform the will of Allah with vigilance and a mind to orders. And now, El Borak, let us discuss battle-plans while food is prepared.-- V

TREACHERY

It was not yet noon when Gordon halted the Rualla beside the Well of Harith. Scouts sent westward reported no sign of the Turks, and the Arabs went forward with the plans made before leaving the Walls--plans outlined by Gordon and agreed to by Mitkhal. First the tribesmen began gathering rocks and hurling them into the well.

--he water-- still beneath,--Gordon remarked to Olga.--ut it'sl take hours of hard work to clean out the well so that anybody can get to it. The Turks can't do it under our rifles. If we win, we--l clean it out ourselves, so the next travelers won't suffer.----hy not take refuge in the sangar ourselves?--she asked.

--oo much of a trap. That-- what we--e using it for. We-- have no chance with them in open fight, and if we laid an ambush out in the valley, they-- simply fight their way through us. But when a man't shot at in the open, his first instinct is to make for the nearest cover. So I-- hoping to trick them into going into the sangar. Then we--l bottle them up and pick them off at our leisure. Without water they can't hold out long. We shouldn't lose a dozen men, if any.----t seems strange to see you solicitous about the lives of these Rualla, who are your enemies, after all,--she laughed.

--nstinct, maybe. No man fit to lead men wants to lose any more of them than he can help. Just now these men are my allies, and it's up to me to protect them as well as I can. I--l admit I-- rather be fighting with the Juheina. Feisal-- messenger must have started for the Walls hours before I supposed he would.----nd if the Turks surrender, what then?------l try to get them to Lawrence--all but Osman Pasha.--Gordon't face darkened.--hat man hangs if he falls into my hands.----ow will you get them to Lawrence? The Rualla won't take them.----haven't the slightest idea. But let-- catch our hare before we start broiling him. Osman may whip the daylights out of us.----t means your head if he does,--she warned with a shudder.

--ell, it's worth ten thousand pounds to the Turks,--he laughed, and he moved to inspect the partly ruined hut. Olga followed him.

Mitkhal, directing the blocking of the well, glanced sharply at them, then noted that a number of men were between them and the gate, and turned back to his overseeing.

--sss, El Borak!--It was a tense whisper, just as Gordon and Olga turned to leave the hut. An instant later they located a tousled head thrust up from behind a heap of rubble. It was the boy Musa, who obviously had slipped into the hut through a crevice in the back wall.

--atch from the door and warn me if you see anybody coming,--Gordon muttered to Olga.--his lad must have something to tell.----have, effendi!--The boy was trembling with excitement.--overheard the shaykh talking secretly to his black slave, Hassan. I saw them walk away among the palms while you and the woman were eating, at the Walls, and I crept after them, for I feared they meant you mischief--and you saved my life.

--l Borak, listen! Mitkhal means to slay you, whether you win this battle for him or not! He was glad you slew the Kurd, and he is glad to have your aid in wiping out these Turks. But he lusts for the gold the other Turks will pay for your head. Yet he dares not break his word and the covenant of the salt openly. So, if we win the battle, Hassan is to shoot you, and swear you fell by a Turkish bullet!-- The boy rushed on with his story:

--hen Mitkhal will say to the people:--l Borak was our guest and ate our salt. But now he is dead, through no fault of ours, and there is no use wasting the reward. So we will take off his head and take it to Damascus and the Turks will give us ten thousand pounds.--

Gordon smiled grimly at Olga-- horror. That was typical Arab logic.

--t didn't occur to Mitkhal that Hassan might miss his first shot and not get a chance to shoot again, I suppose?--he suggested.

--h, yes, effendi, Mitkhal thinks of everything. If you kill Hassan, Mitkhal will swear you broke the covenant yourself, by spilling the blood of a Rualla, or a Rualla-- servant, which is the same thing, and will feel free to order you beheaded.--

There was genuine humor in Gordon't laugh.

--hanks, Musa! If I saved your life, you--e paid me back. Better get out now, before somebody sees you talking to us.----hat shall we do?--exclaimed Olga, pale to the lips.

--ou--e in no danger,--he assured her.

She colored angrily.

-- wasn't thinking of that! Do you think I have less gratitude than that Arab boy? That shaykh means to murder you, don't you understand? Let-- steal camels and run for it!----un where? If we did, they-- be on our heels in no time, deciding I-- lied to them about everything. Anyway, we wouldn't have a chance. They--e watching us too closely. Besides, I wouldn't run if I could. I started to wipe out Osman Pasha, and this is the best chance I see to do it. Come on. Let-- get out in the sangar before Mitkhal gets suspicious.-- As soon as the well was blocked the men retired to the hillsides. Their camels were hidden behind the ridges, and the men crouched behind rocks and among the stunted shrubs along the slopes. Olga refused Gordon't offer to send her with an escort back to the Walls, and stayed with him taking up a position behind a rock, Osman't pistol in her belt. They lay flat on the ground and the heat of the sun-baked flints seeped through their garments.

Once she turned her head, and shuddered to see the blank black countenance of Hassan regarding them from some bushes a few yards behind them. The black slave, who knew no law but his master-- command, was determined not to let Gordon out of his sight.

She spoke of this in a low whisper to the American.

--ure,--he murmured.--saw him. But he won't shoot till he knows which way the fight-- going, and is sure none of the men are looking.-- Olga-- flesh crawled in anticipation of more horrors. If they lost the fight the enraged Ruallas would tear Gordon to pieces, supposing he survived the encounter. If they won, his reward would be a treacherous bullet in the back.

The hours dragged slowly by. Not a flutter of cloth, no lifting of an impatient head betrayed the presence of the wild men on the slopes. Olga began to feel her nerves quiver. Doubts and forebodings gnawed maddeningly at her.

--e took position too soon! The men will lose patience. Osman can't get here before midnight. It took us all-night to reach the Well.----edouins never lose patience when they smell loot,--he answered.--believe Osman will get here before sundown. We made poor time on a tiring camel for the last few hours of that ride. I believe Osman broke camp before dawn and pushed hard.--

Another thought came to torture her.

--uppose he doesn't come at all? Suppose he has changed his plans and gone somewhere else? The Rualla will believe you lied to them!----ook!-- The sun hung low in the west, a fiery, dazzling ball. She blinked, shading her eyes.

Then the head of a marching column grew out of the dancing heat waves: lines of horsemen, grey with dust, files of heavily-laden baggage camels, with the captive women riding them. The standard hung loose in the breathless air; but once, when a vagrant gust of wind, hot as the breath of perdition, lifted the folds, the white wolf--head was displayed.

Crushing proof of idolatry and heresy! In their agitation the Rualla almost betrayed themselves. Even Mitkhal turned pale.

--llah! Sacrilege! Forgotten of God. Hell shall be thy portion!----asy!--hissed Gordon, feeling the semi-hysteria that ran down the lurking lines.--ait for my signal. They may halt to water their camels at the Well.-- Osman must have driven his people like a fiend all day. The women drooped on the loaded camels; the dust-caked faces of the soldiers were drawn. The horses reeled with weariness. But it was soon evident that they did not intend halting at the Well with their goal, the Walls of Sulayman, so near. The head of the column was even with the sangar when Gordon fired. He was aiming at Osman, but the range was long, the sun-glare on the rocks dazzling. The man behind Osman fell, and at the signal the slopes came alive with spurting flame.

The column staggered. Horses and men went down and stunned soldiers gave back a ragged fire that did no harm. They did not even see their assailants save as bits of white cloth bobbing among the boulders.

Perhaps discipline had grown lax during the grind of that merciless march. Perhaps panic seized the tired Turks. At any rate the column broke and men fled toward the sangar without waiting for orders. They would have abandoned the baggage camels had not Osman ridden among them. Cursing and striking with the flat of his saber, he made them drive the beasts in with them.

-- hoped they-- leave the camels and women outside,--grunted Gordon.--aybe they--l drive them out when they find there-- no water.-- The Turks took their positions in good order, dismounting and ranging along the wall. Some dragged the Arab women off the camels and drove them into the hut. Others improvised a pen for the animals with stakes and ropes between the back of the hut and the wall. Saddles were piled in the gate to complete the barricade.

The Arabs yelled taunts as they poured in a hail of lead, and a few leaped up and danced derisively, waving their rifles. But they stopped that when a Turk drilled one of them cleanly through the head. When the demonstrations ceased, the besiegers offered scanty targets to shoot at.

However, the Turks fired back frugally and with no indication of panic, now that they were under cover and fighting the sort of a fight they understood. They were well protected by the wall from the men directly in front of them, but those facing north could be seen by the men on the south ridge, and vice versa. But the distance was too great for consistently effective shooting at these marks by the Arabs.

--e don't seem to be doing much damage,--remarked Olga presently.

--hirst will win for us,--Gordon answered.--ll we--e got to do is to keep them bottled up. They probably have enough water in their canteens to last through the rest of the day. Certainly no longer. Look, they--e going to the well now.-- The well stood in the middle of the enclosure, in a comparatively exposed area, as seen from above. Olga saw men approaching it with canteens in their hands, and the Arabs, with sardonic enjoyment, refrained from firing at them. They reached the well, and then the girl saw the change that came over them. It ran through their band like an electric shock. The men along the walls reacted by firing wildly. A furious yelling rose, edged with hysteria, and men began to run madly about the enclosure. Some toppled, hit by shots dropping from the ridges.

--hat are they doing?--Olga started to her knees, and was instantly jerked down again by Gordon. The Turks were running into the hut. If she had been watching Gordon she would have sensed the meaning of it, for his dark face grew suddenly grim.

--hey--e dragging the women out!--she exclaimed.--see Osman waving his saber. What? Oh, God! They--e butchering the women!-- Above the crackle of shots rose terrible shrieks and the sickening chack of savagely driven blows. Olga turned sick and hid her face. Osman had realized the trap into which he had been driven, and his reaction was that of a mad dog. Recognizing defeat in the blocked well, facing the ruin of his crazy ambitions by thirst and Bedouin bullets, he was taking this vengeance on the whole Arab race.

On all sides the Arabs rose howling, driven to frenzy by the sight of that slaughter. That these women were of another tribe made no difference. A stern chivalry was the foundation of their society, just as it was among the frontiersmen of early America. There was no sentimentalism about it. It was real and vital as life itself.

The Rualla went berserk when they saw women of their race falling under the swords of the Turks. A wild yell shattered the brazen sky, and recklessly breaking cover, the Arabs pelted down the slopes, howling like fiends. Gordon could not check them, nor could Mitkhal. Their shouts fell on deaf ears. The walls vomited smoke and flame as withering volleys raked the oncoming hordes. Dozens fell, but enough were left to reach the wall and sweep over it in a wave that neither lead nor steel could halt.

And Gordon was among them. When he saw he could not stop the storm he joined it. Mitkhal was not far behind him, cursing his men as he ran. The shaykh had no stomach for this kind of fighting, but his leadership was at stake. No man who hung back in this charge would ever be able to command the Rualla again.

Gordon was among the first to reach the wall, leaping over the writhing bodies of half a dozen Arabs. He had not blazed away wildly as he ran like the Bedouins, to reach the wall with an empty gun. He held his fire until the flame spurts from the barrier were almost burning his face, and then emptied his rifle in a point-blank fusilade that left a bloody gap where there had been a line of fierce dark faces an instant before. Before the gap could be closed he had swarmed over and in, and the Rualla poured after him.

As his feet hit the ground a rush of men knocked him against the wall and a blade, thrusting for his life, broke against the rocks. He drove his shortened butt into a snarling face, splintering teeth and bones, and the next instant a surge of his own men over the wall cleared a space about him. He threw away his broken rifle and drew his pistol.

The Turks had been forced back from the wall in a dozen places now, and men were fighting all over the sangar. No quarter was asked--none given. The pitiful headless bodies sprawled before the blood-stained hut had turned the Bedouins into hot-eyed demons. The guns were empty now, all but Gordon't automatic. The yells had died down to grunts, punctuated by death-howls. Above these sounds rose the chopping impact of flailing blades, the crunch of fiercely driven rifle butts. So grimly had the Bedouins suffered in that brainless rush, that now they were outnumbered, and the Turks fought with the fury of desperation.

It was Gordon't automatic, perhaps, that tipped the balance. He emptied it without haste and without hesitation, and at that range he could not miss. He was aware of a dark shadow forever behind him, and turned once to see black Hassan following him, smiting methodically right and left with a heavy scimitar already dripping crimson. Even in the fury of strife, Gordon grinned. The literal-minded Soudanese was obeying instructions to keep at El Borak-- heels. As long as the battle hung in doubt, he was Gordon't protector--ready to become his executioner the instant the tide turned in their favor.

--aithful servant,--called Gordon sardonically.--ave care lest these Turks cheat you of my head!-- Hassan grinned, speechless. Suddenly blood burst from his thick lips and he buckled at the knees. Somewhere in that rush down the hill his black body had stopped a bullet. As he struggled on all fours a Turk ran in from the side and brained him with a rifle-butt. Gordon killed the Turk with his last bullet. He felt no grudge against Hassan. The man had been a good soldier, and had obeyed orders given him.

The sangar was a shambles. The men on their feet were less than those on the ground, and all were streaming blood. The white wolf standard had been torn from its staff and lay trampled under vengeful feet. Gordon bent, picked up a saber and looked about for Osman. He saw Mitkhal, running toward the horse-pen, and then he yelled a warning, for he saw Osman.

The man broke away from a group of struggling figures and ran for the pen. He tore away the ropes and the horses, frantic from the noise and smell of blood, stampeded into the sangar, knocking men down and trampling them. As they thundered past, Osman, with a magnificent display of agility, caught a handful of flying mane and leaped on the back of the racing steed.

Mitkhal ran toward him, yelling furiously, and snapping a pistol at him. The shaykh, in the confusion of the fighting, did not seem to be aware that the gun was empty, for he pulled the trigger again and again as he stood in the path of the oncoming rider. Only at the last moment did he realize his peril and leap back. Even so, he would have sprung clear had not his sandal heel caught in a dead man't abba.

Mitkhal stumbled, avoided the lashing hoofs, but not the down-flailing saber in Osman't hand. A wild cry went up from the Rualla as Mitkhal fell, his turban suddenly crimson. The next instant Osman was out of the gate and riding like the wind--straight up the hillside to where he saw the slim figure of the girl to whom he now attributed his overthrow.

Olga had come out from behind the rocks and was standing in stunned horror watching the fight below. Now she awoke suddenly to her own peril at the sight of the madman charging up the slope. She drew the pistol Gordon had taken from him and opened fire. She was not a very good shot. Three bullets missed, the fourth killed the horse, and then the gun jammed. Gordon was running up the slope as the Apaches of his native Southwest run, and behind him streamed a swarm of Rualla. There was not a loaded gun in the whole horde.

Osman took a shocking fall when his horse turned a somersault under him, but rose, bruised and bloody, with Gordon still some distance away. But the Turk had to play hide-and-seek for a few moments among the rocks with his prey before he was able to grasp her hair and twist her screaming to her knees, and then he paused an instant to enjoy her despair and terror. That pause was his undoing.

As he lifted his saber to strike off her head, steel clanged loud on steel. A numbing shock ran through his arm, and his blade was knocked from his hand. His weapon rang on the hot flints. He whirled to face the blazing slits that were El Borak-- eyes. The muscles stood out in cords and ridges on Gordon't sun-burnt forearm in the intensity of his passion.

--ick it up, you filthy dog,--he said between his teeth.

Osman hesitated, stooped, caught up the saber and slashed at Gordon't legs without straightening. Gordon leaped back, then sprang in again the instant his toes touched the earth. His return was as paralyzingly quick as the death-leap of a wolf. It caught Osman off balance, his sword extended. Gordon't blade hissed as it cut the air, slicing through flesh, gritting through bone.

The Turk-- head toppled from the severed neck and fell at Gordon't feet, the headless body collapsing in a heap. With an excess spasm of hate, Gordon kicked the head savagely down the slope.

--h!--Olga turned away and hid her face. But the girl knew that Osman deserved any fate that could have overtaken him. Presently she was aware of Gordon't hand resting lightly on her shoulder and she looked up, ashamed of her weakness. The sun was just dipping below the western ridges. Musa came limping up the slope, blood-stained but radiant.

--he dogs are all dead, effendi!--he cried, industriously shaking a plundered watch, in an effort to make it run.--uch of our warriors as still live are faint from strife, and many sorely wounded. There is none to command now but thou.----ometimes problems settle themselves,--mused Gordon.--ut at a ghastly price. If the Rualla hadn't made that rush, which was the death of Hassan and Mitkhal--oh, well, such things are in the hands of Allah, as the Arabs say. A hundred better men than I have died today, but by the decree of some blind Fate, I live.--

Gordon looked down on the wounded men. He turned to Musa.

--e must load the wounded on camels,--he said,--nd take them to the camp at the Walls where there-- water and shade. Come.-- As they started down the slope, he said to Olga:

----l have to stay with them till they--e settled at the Walls, then I must start for the coast. Some of the Rualla will be able to ride, though, and you need have no fear of them. They--l escort you to the nearest Turkish outpost.-- She looked at him in surprise.

--hen I-- not your prisoner?-- He laughed.

-- think you can help Feisal more by carrying out your original instructions of supplying misleading information to the Turks! I don't blame you for not confiding even in me. You have my deepest admiration, for you--e playing the most dangerous game a woman can.----h!--She felt a sudden warm flood of relief and gladness that he should know she was not really an enemy. Musa was well out of earshot.--might have known you were high enough in Feisal-- councils to know that I really am--

--loria Willoughby, the cleverest, most daring secret agent the British government employs,--he murmured. The girl impulsively placed her slender fingers in his, and hand in hand they went down the slope together.

Black Vulmea's Vengeance

I

Out of the Cockatoo-- cabin staggered Black Terence Vulmea, pipe in one hand and flagon in the other. He stood with booted legs wide, teetering slightly to the gentle lift of the lofty poop. He was bareheaded and his shirt was open, revealing his broad hairy chest. He emptied the flagon and tossed it over the side with a gusty sigh of satisfaction, then directed his somewhat blurred gaze on the deck below. From poop ladder to forecastle it was littered by sprawling figures. The ship smelt like a brewery. Empty barrels, with their heads stove in, stood or rolled between the prostrate forms. Vulmea was the only man on his feet. From galley-boy to first mate the rest of the ship-- company lay senseless after a debauch that had lasted a whole night long. There was not even a man at the helm.

But it was lashed securely and in that placid sea no hand was needed on the wheel. The breeze was light but steady. Land was a thin blue line to the east. A stainless blue sky held a sun whose heat had not yet become fierce.

Vulmea blinked indulgently down upon the sprawled figures of his crew, and glanced idly over the larboard side. He grunted incredulously and batted his eyes. A ship loomed where he had expected to see only naked ocean stretching to the skyline. She was little more than a hundred yards away, and was bearing down swiftly on the Cockatoo, obviously with the intention of laying her alongside. She was tall and square-rigged, her white canvas flashing dazzlingly in the sun. From the maintruck the flag of England whipped red against the blue. Her bulwarks were lined with tense figures, bristling with boarding-pikes and grappling irons, and through her open ports the astounded pirate glimpsed the glow of the burning matches the gunners held ready.

--ll hands to battle-quarters!--yelled Vulmea confusedly. Reverberant snores answered the summons. All hands remained as they were.

--ake up, you lousy dogs!--roared their captain.--p, curse you! A king-- ship is at our throats!-- His only response came in the form of staccato commands from the frigate-- deck, barking across the narrowing strip of blue water.

--amnation!-- Cursing luridly he lurched in a reeling run across the poop to the swivel-gun which stood at the head of the larboard ladder. Seizing this he swung it about until its muzzle bore full on the bulwark of the approaching frigate. Objects wavered dizzily before his bloodshot eyes, but he squinted along its barrel as if he were aiming a musket.

--trike your colors, you damned pirate!--came a hail from the trim figure that trod the warship-- poop, sword in hand.

--o to hell!--roared Vulmea, and knocked the glowing coals of his pipe into the vent of the gun-breech. The falcon crashed, smoke puffed out in a white cloud, and the double handful of musket balls with which the gun had been charged mowed a ghastly lane through the boarding party clustered along the frigate-- bulwark. Like a clap of thunder came the answering broadside and a storm of metal raked the Cockatoo-- decks, turning them into a red shambles.

Sails ripped, ropes parted, timbers splintered, and blood and brains mingled with the pools of liquor spilt on the decks. A round shot as big as a man't head smashed into the falcon, ripping it loose from the swivel and dashing it against the man who had fired it. The impact knocked him backward headlong across the poop where his head hit the rail with a crack that was too much even for an Irish skull. Black Vulmea sagged senseless to the boards. He was as deaf to the triumphant shouts and the stamp of victorious feet on his red-streaming decks as were his men who had gone from the sleep of drunkenness to the black sleep of death without knowing what had hit them.

Captain John Wentyard, of his Majesty-- frigate the Redoubtable, sipped his wine delicately and set down the glass with a gesture that in another man would have smacked of affectation. Wentyard was a tall man, with a narrow, pale face, colorless eyes, and a prominent nose. His costume was almost sober in comparison with the glitter of his officers who sat in respectful silence about the mahogany table in the main cabin.

--ring in the prisoner,--he ordered, and there was a glint of satisfaction in his cold eyes.

They brought in Black Vulmea, between four brawny sailors, his hands manacled before him and a chain on his ankles that was just long enough to allow him to walk without tripping. Blood was clotted in the pirate-- thick black hair. His shirt was in tatters, revealing a torso bronzed by the sun and rippling with great muscles. Through the stern windows, he could see the topmasts of the Cockatoo, just sinking out of sight. That close-range broadside had robbed the frigate of a prize. His conquerors were before him and there was no mercy in their stares, but Vulmea did not seem at all abashed or intimidated. He met the stern eyes of the officers with a level gaze that reflected only a sardonic amusement. Wentyard frowned. He preferred that his captives cringe before him. It made him feel more like Justice personified, looking unemotionally down from a great height on the sufferings of the evil.

--ou are Black Vulmea, the notorious pirate?------ Vulmea,--was the laconic answer.

-- suppose you will say, as do all these rogues,--sneered Wentyard,--hat you hold a commission from the Governor of Tortuga? These privateer commissions from the French mean nothing to his Majesty. You--

--ave your breath, fish-eyes!--Vulmea grinned hardly.--hold no commission from anybody. I-- not one of your accursed swashbucklers who hide behind the name of buccaneer. I-- a pirate, and I--e plundered English ships as well as Spanish--and be damned to you, heron-beak!-- The officers gasped at this effrontery, and Wentyard smiled a ghastly, mirthless smile, white with the anger he held in rein.

--ou know that I have the authority to hang you out of hand?--he reminded the other.

-- know,--answered the pirate softly.--t won't be the first time you--e hanged me, John Wentyard.----hat?--The Englishman stared.

A flame grew in Vulmea's blue eyes and his voice changed subtly in tone and inflection; the brogue thickened almost imperceptibly.

--n the Galway coast it was, years ago, captain. You were a young officer then, scarce more than a boy--but with all your present characteristics already fully developed. There were some wholesale evictions, with the military to see the job was done, and the Irish were mad enough to make a fight of it--poor, ragged, half-starved peasants, fighting with sticks against full-armed English soldiers and sailors. After the massacre there were the usual hangings, and there was a boy crept into a thicket to watch--a lad of ten, who didn't even know what it was all about. You spied him, John Wentyard, and had your dogs drag him forth and string him up alongside the kicking bodies of the others.--e-- Irish,--you said as they heaved him aloft.--ittle snakes grow into big ones.--I was that boy. I--e looked forward to this meeting, you English dog!-- Vulmea still smiled, but the veins knotted in his temples and the great muscles stood out distinctly on his manacled arms. Ironed and guarded though the pirate was, Wentyard involuntarily drew back, daunted by the stark and naked hate that blazed from those savage eyes.

--ow did you escape your just deserts?--he asked coldly, recovering his poise.

Vulmea laughed shortly.

--ome of the peasants escaped the massacre and were hiding in the thickets. As soon as you left they came out, and not being civilized, cultured Englishmen, but only poor, savage Irishry, they cut me down along with the others, and found there was still a bit of life in me. We Gaels are hard to kill, as you Britons have learned to your cost.----ou fell into our hands easily enough this time,--observed Wentyard.

Vulmea grinned. His eyes were grimly amused now, but the glint of murderous hate still lurked in their deeps.

--ho-- have thought to meet a king-- ship in these western seas? It-- been weeks since we sighted a sail of any kind, save for the carrack we took yesterday, with a cargo of wine bound for Panama from Valparaiso. It-- not the time of year for rich prizes. When the lads wanted a drinking bout, who was I to deny them? We drew out of the lanes the Spaniards mostly follow, and thought we had the ocean to ourselves. I-- been sleeping in my cabin for some hours before I came on deck to smoke a pipe or so, and saw you about to board us without firing a shot.----ou killed seven of my men,--harshly accused Wentyard.

--nd you killed all of mine,--retorted Vulmea.--oor devils, they--l wake up in hell without knowing how they got there.-- He grinned again, fiercely. His toes dug hard against the floor, unnoticed by the men who gripped him on either side. The blood was rioting through his veins, and the berserk feel of his great strength was upon him. He knew he could, in a sudden, volcanic explosion of power, tear free from the men who held him, clear the space between him and his enemy with one bound, despite his chains, and crush Wentyard-- skull with a smashing swing of his manacled fists. That he himself would die an instant later mattered not at all. In that moment he felt neither fears nor regrets--only a reckless, ferocious exultation and a cruel contempt for these stupid Englishmen about him. He laughed in their faces, joying in the knowledge that they did not know why he laughed. So they thought to chain the tiger, did they? Little they guessed of the devastating fury that lurked in his catlike thews.

He began filling his great chest, drawing in his breath slowly, imperceptibly, as his calves knotted and the muscles of his arms grew hard. Then Wentyard spoke again.

-- will not be overstepping my authority if I hang you within the hour. In any event you hang, either from my yard-arm or from a gibbet on the Port Royal wharves. But life is sweet, even to rogues like you, who notoriously cling to every moment granted them by outraged society. It would gain you a few more months of life if I were to take you back to Jamaica to be sentenced by the governor. This I might be persuaded to do, on one condition.----hat-- that?--Vulmea's tensed muscles did not relax; imperceptibly he began to settle into a semi-crouch.

--hat you tell me the whereabouts of the pirate, Van Raven.-- In that instant, while his knotted muscles went pliant again, Vulmea unerringly gauged and appraised the man who faced him, and changed his plan. He straightened and smiled.

--nd why the Dutchman, Wentyard?--he asked softly.--hy not Tranicos, or Villiers, or McVeigh, or a dozen others more destructive to English trade than Van Raven? Is it because of the treasure he took from the Spanish plate-fleet? Aye, the king would like well to set his hands on that hoard, and there-- a rich prize would go to the captain lucky or bold enough to find Van Raven and plunder him. Is that why you came all the way around the Horn, John Wentyard?----e are at peace with Spain,--answered Wentyard acidly.--s for the purposes of an officer in his Majesty-- navy, they are not for you to question.-- Vulmea laughed at him, the blue flame in his eyes.

--nce I sank a king-- cruiser off Hispaniola,--he said.--amn you and your prating of--is Majesty-- Your English king is no more to me than so much rotten driftwood. Van Raven? He-- a bird of passage. Who knows where he sails? But if it's treasure you want, I can show you a hoard that would make the Dutchman't loot look like a peat-pool beside the Caribbean Sea!-- A pale spark seemed to snap from Wentyard-- colorless eyes, and his officers leaned forward tensely. Vulmea grinned hardly. He knew the credulity of navy men, which they shared with landsmen and honest mariners, in regard to pirates and plunder. Every seaman not himself a rover believed that every buccaneer had knowledge of vast hidden wealth. The loot the men of the Red Brotherhood took from the Spaniards, rich enough as it was, was magnified a thousand times in the telling, and rumor made every swaggering sea-rat the guardian of a treasure-trove.

Coolly plumbing the avarice of Wentyard-- hard soul, Vulmea said:--en days--sail from here there-- a nameless bay on the coast of Ecuador. Four years ago Dick Harston, the English pirate, and I anchored there, in a quest of a hoard of ancient jewels called the Fangs of Satan. An Indian swore he had found them, hidden in a ruined temple in an uninhabited jungle a day-- march inland, but superstitious fear of the old gods kept him from helping himself. But he was willing to guide us there.

--e marched inland with both crews, for neither of us trusted the other. To make a long tale short, we found the ruins of an old city, and beneath an ancient, broken altar, we found the jewels--rubies, diamonds, emeralds, sapphires, bloodstones, big as hen eggs, making a quivering flame of fire about the crumbling old shrine!-- The flame grew in Wentyard-- eyes. His white fingers knotted about the slender stem of his wine glass.

--he sight of them was enough to madden a man,--Vulmea continued, watching the captain narrowly.--e camped there for the night, and, one way or another, we fell out over the division of the spoil, though there was enough to make every man of us rich for life. We came to blows, though, and whilst we fought among ourselves, there came a scout running with word that a Spanish fleet had come into the bay, driven our ships away, and sent five hundred men ashore to pursue us. By Satan, they were on us before the scout ceased the telling! One of my men snatched the plunder away and hid it in the old temple, and we scattered, each band for itself. There was no time to take the plunder. We barely got away with our naked lives. Eventually I, with most of my crew, made my way back to the coast and was picked up by my ship which came slinking back after escaping from the Spaniards.

--arston gained his ship with a handful of men, after skirmishing all the way with the Spaniards who chased him instead of us, and later was slain by savages on the coast of California.

--he Dons harried me all the way around the Horn, and I never had an opportunity to go back after the loot--until this voyage. It was there I was going when you overhauled me. The treasure-- still there. Promise me my life and I--l take you to it.----hat is impossible,--snapped Wentyard.--he best I can promise you is trial before the governor of Jamaica.----ell,--said Vulmea,--aybe the governor might be more lenient than you. And much may happen between here and Jamaica.-- Wentyard did not reply, but spread a map on the broad table.

--here is this bay?-- Vulmea indicated a certain spot on the coast. The sailors released their grip on his arms while he marked it, and Wentyard-- head was within reach, but the Irishman't plans were changed, and they included a chance for life--desperate, but nevertheless a chance.

--ery well. Take him below.-- Vulmea went out with his guards, and Wentyard sneered coldly.

-- gentleman of his Majesty-- navy is not bound by a promise to such a rogue as he. Once the treasure is aboard the Redoubtable, gentlemen, I promise you he shall swing from a yard-arm.-- Ten days later the anchors rattled down in the nameless bay Vulmea had described.

II

It seemed desolate enough to have been the coast of an uninhabited continent. The bay was merely a shallow indentation of the shore-line. Dense jungle crowded the narrow strip of white sand that was the beach. Gay-plumed birds flitted among the broad fronds, and the silence of primordial savagery brooded over all. But a dim trail led back into the twilight vistas of green-walled mystery.

Dawn was a white mist on the water when seventeen men marched down the dim path. One was John Wentyard. On an expedition designed to find treasure, he would trust the command to none but himself. Fifteen were soldiers, armed with hangers and muskets. The seventeenth was Black Vulmea. The Irishman't legs, perforce, were free, and the irons had been removed from his arms. But his wrists were bound before him with cords, and one end of the cord was in the grip of a brawny marine whose other hand held a cutlass ready to chop down the pirate if he made any move to escape.

--ifteen men are enough,--Vulmea had told Wentyard.--oo many! Men go mad easily in the tropics, and the sight of the Fangs of Satan is enough to madden any man, king-- man or not. The more that see the jewels, the greater chance of mutiny before you raise the Horn again. You don't need more than three or four. Who are you afraid of? You said England was at peace with Spain, and there are no Spaniards anywhere near this spot, in any event.----wasn't thinking of Spaniards,--answered Wentyard coldly.--am providing against any attempt you might make to escape.----ell,--laughed Vulmea,--o you think you need fifteen men for that?------ taking no chances,--was the grim retort.--ou are stronger than two or three ordinary men, Vulmea, and full of wiles. My men will march with pieces ready, and if you try to bolt, they will shoot you down like the dog you are--should you, by any chance, avoid being cut down by your guard. Besides, there is always the chance of savages.-- The pirate jeered.

--o beyond the Cordilleras if you seek real savages. There are Indians there who cut off your head and shrink it no bigger than your fist. But they never come on this side of the mountains. As for the race that built the temple, they--e all been dead for centuries. Bring your armed escort if you want to. It will be of no use. One strong man can carry away the whole hoard.----ne strong man!--murmured Wentyard, licking his lips as his mind reeled at the thought of the wealth represented by a load of jewels that required the full strength of a strong man to carry. Confused visions of knighthood and admiralty whirled through his head.--hat about the path?--he asked suspiciously.--f this coast is uninhabited, how comes it there?----t was an old road, centuries ago, probably used by the race that built the city. In some places you can see where it was paved. But Harston and I were the first to use it for centuries. And you can tell it hasn't been used since. You can see where the young growth has sprung up above the scars of the axes we used to clear a way.-- Wentyard was forced to agree. So now, before sunrise, the landing party was swinging inland at a steady gait that ate up the miles. The bay and the ship were quickly lost to sight. All morning they tramped along through steaming heat, between green, tangled jungle walls where gay-hued birds flitted silently and monkeys chattered. Thick vines hung low across the trail, impeding their progress, and they were sorely annoyed by gnats and other insects. At noon they paused only long enough to drink some water and eat the ready-cooked food they had brought along. The men were stolid veterans, inured to long marches, and Wentyard would allow them no more rest than was necessary for their brief meal. He was afire with savage eagerness to view the hoard Vulmea had described.

The trail did not twist as much as most jungle paths. It was overgrown with vegetation, but it gave evidence that it had once been a road, well-built and broad. Pieces of paving were still visible here and there. By mid-afternoon the land began to rise slightly to be broken by low, jungle-choked hills. They were aware of this only by the rising and dipping of the trail. The dense walls on either hand shut off their view.

Neither Wentyard nor any of his men glimpsed the furtive, shadowy shapes which now glided along through the jungle on either hand. Vulmea was aware of their presence, but he only smiled grimly and said nothing. Carefully and so subtly that his guard did not suspect it, the pirate worked at the cords on his wrists, weakening and straining the strands by continual tugging and twisting. He had been doing this all day, and he could feel them slowly giving way.

The sun hung low in the jungle branches when the pirate halted and pointed to where the old road bent almost at right angles and disappeared into the mouth of a ravine.

--own that ravine lies the old temple where the jewels are hidden.----n, then!--snapped Wentyard, fanning himself with his plumed hat. Sweat trickled down his face, wilting the collar of his crimson, gilt-embroidered coat. A frenzy of impatience was on him, his eyes dazzled by the imagined glitter of the gems Vulmea had so vividly described. Avarice makes for credulity, and it never occurred to Wentyard to doubt Vulmea's tale. He saw in the Irishman only a hulking brute eager to buy a few months more of life. Gentlemen of his Majesty-- navy were not accustomed to analyzing the characters of pirates. Wentyard-- code was painfully simple: a heavy hand and a roughshod directness. He had never bothered to study or try to understand outlaw types.

They entered the mouth of the ravine and marched on between cliffs fringed with overhanging fronds. Wentyard fanned himself with his hat and gnawed his lip with impatience as he stared eagerly about for some sign of the ruins described by his captive. His face was paler than ever, despite the heat which reddened the bluff faces of his men, tramping ponderously after him. Vulmea's brown face showed no undue moisture. He did not tramp; he moved with the sure, supple tread of a panther, and without a suggestion of a seaman't lurching roll. His eyes ranged the walls above them and when a frond swayed without a breath of wind to move it, he did not miss it.

The ravine was some fifty feet wide, the floor carpeted by a low, thick growth of vegetation. The jungle ran densely along the rims of the walls, which were some forty feet high. They were sheer for the most part, but here and there natural ramps ran down into the gulch, half-covered with tangled vines. A few hundred yards ahead of them they saw that the ravine bent out of sight around a rocky shoulder. From the opposite wall there jutted a corresponding crag. The outlines of these boulders were blurred by moss and creepers, but they seemed too symmetrical to be the work of nature alone.

Vulmea stopped, near one of the natural ramps that sloped down from the rim. His captors looked at him questioningly.

--hy are you stopping?--demanded Wentyard fretfully. His foot struck something in the rank grass and he kicked it aside. It rolled free and grinned up at him--a rotting human skull. He saw glints of white in the green all about him--skulls and bones almost covered by the dense vegetation.

--s this where you piratical dogs slew each other?--he demanded crossly.--hat are you waiting on? What are you listening for?-- Vulmea relaxed his tense attitude and smiled indulgently.

--hat used to be a gateway there ahead of us,--he said.--hose rocks on each side are really gate-pillars. This ravine was a roadway, leading to the city when people lived there. It-- the only approach to it, for it's surrounded by sheer cliffs on all sides.--He laughed harshly.--his is like the road to Hell, John Wentyard: easy to go down--not so easy to go up again.----hat are you maundering about?--snarled Wentyard, clapping his hat viciously on his head.--ou Irish are all babblers and mooncalves! Get on with--

From the jungle beyond the mouth of the ravine came a sharp twang. Something whined venomously down the gulch, ending its flight with a vicious thud. One of the soldiers gulped and started convulsively. His musket clattered to the earth and he reeled, clawing at his throat from which protruded a long shaft, vibrating like a serpent-- head. Suddenly he pitched to the ground and lay twitching.

--ndians!--yelped Wentyard, and turned furiously on his prisoner.--og! Look at that! You said there were no savages hereabouts!-- Vulmea laughed scornfully.

--o you call them savages? Bah! Poor-spirited dogs that skulk in the jungle, too fearful to show themselves on the coast. Don't you see them slinking among the trees? Best give them a volley before they grow too bold.-- Wentyard snarled at him, but the Englishman knew the value of a display of firearms when dealing with natives, and he had a glimpse of brown figures moving among the green foliage. He barked an order and fourteen muskets crashed, and the bullets rattled among the leaves. A few severed fronds drifted down; that was all. But even as the smoke puffed out in a cloud, Vulmea snapped the frayed cords on his wrists, knocked his guard staggering with a buffet under the ear, snatched his cutlass and was gone, running like a cat up the steep wall of the ravine. The soldiers with their empty muskets gaped helplessly after him, and Wentyard-- pistol banged futilely, an instant too late. From the green fringe above them came a mocking laugh.

--ools! You stand in the door of Hell!----og!--yelled Wentyard, beside himself, but with his greed still uppermost in his befuddled mind.--e--l find the treasure without your help!----ou can't find something that doesn't exist,--retorted the unseen pirate.--here never were any jewels. It was a lie to draw you into a trap. Dick Harston never came here. I came here, and the Indians butchered all my crew in that ravine, as those skulls in the grass there testify.----iar!--was all Wentyard could find tongue for.--ying dog! You told me there were no Indians hereabouts!----told you the head-hunters never came over the mountains,--retorted Vulmea.--hey don't, either. I told you the people who built the city were all dead. That-- so, too. I didn't tell you that a tribe of brown devils live in the jungle near here. They never go down to the coast, and they don't like to have white men come into the jungle. I think they were the people who wiped out the race that built the city, long ago. Anyway, they wiped out my men, and the only reason I got away was because I-- lived with the red men of North America and learned their woodscraft. You--e in a trap you won't get out of, Wentyard!----limb that wall and take him!--ordered Wentyard, and half a dozen men slung their muskets on their backs and began clumsily to essay the rugged ramp up which the pirate had run with such catlike ease.

--etter trim sail and stand by to repel boarders,--Vulmea advised him from above.--here are hundreds of red devils out there--and no tame dogs to run at the crack of a caliver, either.----nd you-- betray white men to savages!--raged Wentyard.

--t goes against my principles,--the Irishman admitted,--ut it was my only chance for life. I-- sorry for your men. That-- why I advised you to bring only a handful. I wanted to spare as many as possible. There are enough Indians out there in the jungle to eat your whole ship-- company. As for you, you filthy dog, what you did in Ireland forfeited any consideration you might expect as a white man. I gambled on my neck and took my chances with all of you. It might have been me that arrow hit.--

The voice ceased abruptly, and just as Wentyard was wondering if there were no Indians on the wall above them, the foliage was violently agitated, there sounded a wild yell, and down came a naked brown body, all asprawl, limbs revolving in the air. It crashed on the floor of the ravine and lay motionless--the figure of a brawny warrior, naked but for a loin-cloth of bark. The dead man was deep-chested, broad-shouldered and muscular, with features not unintelligent, but hard and brutal. He had been slashed across the neck.

The bushes waved briefly, and then again, further along the rim, which agitation Wentyard believed marked the flight of the Irishman along the ravine wall, pursued by the companions of the dead warrior, who must have stolen up on Vulmea while the pirate was shouting his taunts.

The chase was made in deadly silence, but down in the ravine conditions were anything but silent. At the sight of the falling body a blood-curdling ululation burst forth from the jungle outside the mouth of the ravine, and a storm of arrows came whistling down it. Another man fell, and three more were wounded, and Wentyard called down the men who were laboriously struggling up the vine-matted ramp. He fell back down the ravine, almost to the bend where the ancient gate posts jutted, and beyond that point he feared to go. He felt sure that the ravine beyond the Gateway was filled with lurking savages. They would not have hemmed him in on all sides and then left open an avenue of escape.

At the spot where he halted there was a cluster of broken rocks that looked as though they might once have formed the walls of a building of some sort. Among them Wentyard made his stand. He ordered his men to lie prone, their musket barrels resting on the rocks. One man he detailed to watch for savages creeping up the ravine from behind them, the others watched the green wall visible beyond the path that ran into the mouth of the ravine. Fear chilled Wentyard-- heart. The sun was already lost behind the trees and the shadows were lengthening. In the brief dusk of the tropic twilight, how could a white man't eye pick out a swift, flitting brown body, or a musket ball find its mark? And when darkness fell--Wentyard shivered despite the heat.

Arrows kept singing down the ravine, but they fell short or splintered on the rocks. But now bowmen hidden on the walls drove down their shafts, and from their vantage point the stones afforded little protection. The screams of men skewered to the ground rose harrowingly. Wentyard saw his command melting away under his eyes. The only thing that kept them from being instantly exterminated was the steady fire he had them keep up at the foliage on the cliffs. They seldom saw their foes; they only saw the fronds shake, had an occasional glimpse of a brown arm. But the heavy balls, ripping through the broad leaves, made the hidden archers wary, and the shafts came at intervals instead of in volleys. Once a piercing death yell announced that a blind ball had gone home, and the English raised a croaking cheer.

Perhaps it was this which brought the infuriated warriors out of the jungle. Perhaps, like the white men, they disliked fighting in the dark, and wanted to conclude the slaughter before night fell. Perhaps they were ashamed longer to lurk hidden from a handful of men.

At any rate, they came out of the jungle beyond the trail suddenly, and by the scores, not scrawny primitives, but brawny, hard-muscled warriors, confident of their strength and physically a match for even the sinewy Englishmen. They came in a wave of brown bodies that suddenly flooded the ravine, and others leaped down the walls, swinging from the lianas. They were hundreds against the handful of Englishmen left. These rose from the rocks without orders, meeting death with the bulldog stubbornness of their breed. They fired a volley full into the tide of snarling faces that surged upon them, and then drew hangers and clubbed empty muskets. There was no time to reload. Their blast tore lanes in the onsweeping human torrent, but it did not falter; it came on and engulfed the white men in a snarling, slashing, smiting whirlpool.

Hangers whirred and bit through flesh and bone, clubbed muskets rose and fell, spattering brains. But copper-headed axes flashed dully in the twilight, war-clubs made a red ruin of the skulls they kissed, and there were a score of red arms to drag down each struggling white man. The ravine was choked with a milling, eddying mass, revolving about a fast-dwindling cluster of desperate, white-skinned figures.

Not until his last man fell did Wentyard break away, blood smeared on his arms, dripping from his sword. He was hemmed in by a surging ring of ferocious figures, but he had one loaded pistol left. He fired it full in a painted face surmounted by a feathered crest and saw it vanish in red ruin. He clubbed a shaven head with the empty barrel, and rushed through the gap made by the falling bodies. A wild figure leaped at him, swinging a war-club, but the sword was quicker. Wentyard tore the blade free as the savage fell. Dusk was ebbing swiftly into darkness, and the figures swirling about him were becoming indistinct, vague of outline. Twilight waned quickly in the ravine and darkness had settled there before it veiled the jungle outside. It was the darkness that saved Wentyard, confusing his attackers. As the sworded Indian fell he found himself free, though men were rushing on him from behind, with clubs lifted.

Blindly he fled down the ravine. It lay empty before him. Fear lent wings to his feet. He raced through the stone abutted Gateway. Beyond it he saw the ravine widen out; stone walls rose ahead of him, almost hidden by vines and creepers, pierced with blank windows and doorways. His flesh crawled with the momentary expectation of a thrust in the back. His heart was pounding so loudly, the blood hammering so agonizingly in his temples, that he could not tell whether or not bare feet were thudding close behind him.

His hat and coat were gone, his shirt torn and blood-stained, though somehow he had come through that desperate melee unwounded. Before him he saw a vine-tangled wall, and an empty doorway. He ran reelingly into the door and turned, falling to his knee from sheer exhaustion. He shook the sweat from his eyes, panting gaspingly as he fumbled to reload his pistols. The ravine was a dim alleyway before him, running to the rock-buttressed bend. Moment by moment he expected to see it thronged with fierce faces, with swarming figures. But it lay empty and fierce cries of the victorious warriors drew no nearer. For some reason they had not followed him through the Gateway.

Terror that they were creeping on him from behind brought him to his feet, pistols cocked, staring this way and that.

He was in a room whose stone walls seemed ready to crumble. It was roofless, and grass grew between the broken stones of the floor. Through the gaping roof he could see the stars just blinking out, and the frond-fringed rim of the cliff. Through a door opposite the one by which he crouched he had a vague glimpse of other vegetation-choked, roofless chambers beyond.

Silence brooded over the ruins, and now silence had fallen beyond the bend of the ravine. He fixed his eyes on the blur that was the Gateway, and waited. It stood empty. Yet he knew that the Indians were aware of his flight. Why did they not rush in and cut his throat? Were they afraid of his pistols? They had shown no fear of his soldiers--muskets. Had they gone away, for some inexplicable reason? Were those shadowy chambers behind him filled with lurking warriors? If so, why in God-- name were they waiting?

He rose and went to the opposite door, craned his neck warily through it, and after some hesitation, entered the adjoining chamber. It had no outlet into the open. All its doors led into other chambers, equally ruinous, with broken roofs, cracked floors and crumbling walls. Three or four he traversed, his tread, as he crushed down the vegetation growing among the broken stones, seeming intolerably loud in the stillness. Abandoning his explorations--for the labyrinth seemed endless--he returned to the room that opened toward the ravine. No sound came up the gulch, but it was so dark under the cliff that men could have entered the Gateway and been crouching near him, without his being able to see them.

At last he could endure the suspense no longer. Walking as quietly as he was able, he left the ruins and approached the Gateway, now a well of blackness. A few moments later he was hugging the left-hand abutment and straining his eyes to see into the ravine beyond. It was too dark to see anything more than the stars blinking over the rims of the walls. He took a cautious step beyond the Gateway--it was the swift swish of feet through the vegetation on the floor that saved his life. He sensed rather than saw a black shape loom out of the darkness, and he fired blindly and point-blank. The flash lighted a ferocious face, falling backward, and beyond it the Englishman dimly glimpsed other figures, solid ranks of them, surging inexorably toward him.

With a choked cry he hurled himself back around the gate-pillar, stumbled and fell and lay dumb and quaking, clenching his teeth against the sharp agony he expected in the shape of a spear-thrust. None came. No figure came lunging after him. Incredulously he gathered himself to his feet, his pistols shaking in his hands. They were waiting, beyond that bend, but they would not come through the Gateway, not even to glut their blood-lust. This fact forced itself upon him, with its implication of inexplicable mystery.

Stumblingly he made his way back to the ruins and groped into the black doorway, overcoming an instinctive aversion against entering the roofless chamber. Starlight shone through the broken roof, lightening the gloom a little, but black shadows clustered along the walls and the inner door was an ebon well of mystery. Like most Englishmen of his generation John Wentyard more than half believed in ghosts, and he felt that if ever there was a place fit to be haunted by the phantoms of a lost and forgotten race, it was these sullen ruins.

He glanced fearfully through the broken roof at the dark fringe of overhanging fronds on the cliffs above, hanging motionless in the breathless air, and wondered if moonrise, illuminating his refuge, would bring arrows questing down through the roof. Except for the far lone cry of a night-bird, the jungle was silent. There was not so much as the rustle of a leaf. If there were men on the cliffs there was no sign to show it. He was aware of hunger and an increasing thirst; rage gnawed at him, and a fear that was already tinged with panic.

He crouched at the doorway, pistols in his hands, naked sword at his knee, and after a while the moon rose, touching the overhanging fronds with silver long before it untangled itself from the trees and rose high enough to pour its light over the cliffs. Its light invaded the ruins, but no arrows came from the cliff, nor was there any sound from beyond the Gateway. Wentyard thrust his head through the door and surveyed his retreat.

The ravine, after it passed between the ancient gate-pillars, opened into a broad bowl, walled by cliffs, and unbroken except for the mouth of the gulch. Wentyard saw the rim as a continuous, roughly circular line, now edged with the fire of moonlight. The ruins in which he had taken refuge almost filled this bowl, being built against the cliffs on one side. Decay and smothering vines had almost obliterated the original architectural plan. He saw the structure as a maze of roofless chambers, the outer doors opening upon the broad space left between it and the opposite wall of the cliff. This space was covered with low, dense vegetation, which also choked some of the chambers. Wentyard saw no way of escape. The cliffs were not like the walls of the ravine. They were of solid rock and sheer, even jutting outward a little at the rim. No vines trailed down them. They did not rise many yards above the broken roofs of the ruins, but they were as far out of his reach as if they had towered a thousand feet. He was caught like a rat in a trap. The only way out was up the ravine, where the blood-lusting warriors waited with grim patience. He remembered Vulmea's mocking warning:--Like the road to Hell: easy to go down; not so easy to go up again!--Passionately he hoped that the Indians had caught the Irishman and slain him slowly and painfully. He could have watched Vulmea flayed alive with intense satisfaction.

Presently, despite hunger and thirst and fear, he fell asleep, to dream of ancient temples where drums muttered and strange figures in parrot-feather mantles moved through the smoke of sacrificial fires; and he dreamed at last of a silent, hideous shape which came to the inner door of his roofless chamber and regarded him with cold, inhuman eyes.