The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection. George Fraser MacDonald

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ it the great Bala Hissar fort seemed to crouch like a watchdog over the white fields. We rode in silence now, our hooves crunching the snow; from the four in front of me the white trails of breath rose over their shoulders. Everything was very quiet.

We came to the canal bridge, and just beyond it was the slope running down from Mohammed’s Fort beside the river. The slope was dotted with Afghans; in the centre, where a blue Bokhara carpet was spread on the snow, was a knot of chieftains with Akbar in their midst. Their followers waited at a distance, but I reckoned there must be fifty men in view – Barukzis, Gilzais, Douranis, yes, by God, and Ghazis.¹⁷ That was a nasty sight. We’re mad, I thought, riding into this; why, even if Shelton advances at the double, we could have our throats cut before he’s half way here.

      I looked back over my shoulder to the cantonment, but there was no sign of Shelton’s soldiers. Mind you, at this stage that was just as well.

      We rode to the foot of the slope, and what I was shivering with was not the cold.

      Akbar rode down to meet us, on a black charger, and himself very spruce in a steel back-and-breast like a cuirassier, with his spiked helmet wrapped about with a green turban. He was all smiles and called out greetings to McNaghten; Sultan Jan and the chiefs behind were all looking as jovial as Father Christmas, and nodding and bowing towards us.

      “This looks damned unhealthy,” muttered Mackenzie. The chiefs were advancing straight to us, but the other Afghans, on the slopes on either side, seemed to me to be edging forward. I gulped down my fear, but there was nothing for it but to go on now; Akbar and McNaghten had met, and were shaking hands in the saddle.

      One of the native troopers had been leading a lovely little white mare, which he now took forward, and McNaghten presented it to Akbar, who received it with delight. Seeing him so cheerful, I tried to tell myself it was all right – the plot was laid, McNaghten knew what he was doing. I really had nothing to fear. The Afghans were round us now, anyway, but they seemed friendly enough still; only Mackenzie showed, by the cock of his head and his cold eye, that he was ready to drop his hand on his pistol butt at the first sign of a false move.

      “Well, well,” cries Akbar. “Shall we dismount?”

      We did, and Akbar led McNaghten on to the carpet. Lawrence was right at their heels, and looking pretty wary; he must have said something, for Akbar laughed and called out:

      “Lawrence Sahib need not be nervous. We’re all friends here.”

      I found myself with old Muhammed Din beside me, bowing and greeting me, and I noticed that Mackenzie and Trevor, too, were being engaged in friendly conversation. It was all so pally that I could have sworn there was something up, but McNaghten seemed to have regained his confidence and was chatting away smoothly to Akbar. Something told me not to stand still, but to keep on the move; I walked towards McNaghten, to hear what was passing between him and Akbar, and the ring of Afghans seemed to draw closer to the carpet.

      “You’ll observe also that I’m wearing the gift of pistols received from Lawrence Sahib,” Akbar was saying. “Ah, there is Flashman. Come up, old friend, and let me see you. McLoten Sahib, let me tell you that Flashman is my favourite guest.”

      “When he comes from you, prince,” says McNaghten, “he is my favourite messenger.”

      “Ah, yes,” says Akbar, flashing his smile. “He is a prince of messengers.” Then he turned to look McNaghten in the eye, and said: “I understand that the message he bore found favour in your excellency’s sight?” The buzz of voices around us died away, and it seemed that everyone was suddenly watching McNaghten. He seemed to sense it, but he nodded in reply to Akbar.

      “It is agreed, then?” says Akbar.

      “It is agreed,” says McNaghten, and Akbar stared him full in the face for a few seconds, and then suddenly threw himself forward, clapping his arms round McNaghten’s body and pinning his hands to his sides.

      “Take them!” he shouted, and I saw Lawrence, who had been just behind McNaghten, seized by two Afghans at his elbows. Mackenzie’s cry of surprise sounded beside me, and he started forward towards McNaghten, but one of the Barukzis jumped between, waving a pistol. Trevor ran at Akbar, but they wrestled him down before he had gone a yard.

      I take some pride when I think back to that moment; while the others started forward instinctively to aid McNaghten, I alone kept my head. This was no place for Flashman, and I saw only one way out. I had been walking towards Akbar and McNaghten, remember, and as soon as I saw the Sirdar move I bounded ahead, not at him, but past him, and so close that my sleeve brushed his back. Just beyond him, on the edge of the carpet, stood the little white mare which McNaghten had brought as a gift; there was a groom at her head, but I was too fast for him.

      I mounted in one flying leap, and the little beast reared in astonishment, sending the groom flying and causing the others to give back from her flashing fore-hooves. She curvetted sideways before I got her under control with a hand in her mane; one wild glance round for a way out was all I had time for, but it showed me the way.

      On all sides Afghans were running in towards the group on the carpet; the knives were out and the Ghazis were yelling blue murder. Straight downhill, ahead of me, they seemed thinnest; I jammed my heels into the mare’s sides and she leaped forward, striking aside a ruffian in a skullcap who was snatching at her head. The impact caused her to swerve, and before I could check her she was plunging towards the struggling crowd in the centre of the carpet.

      She was one of your pure-bred, mettlesome bitches, all nerves and speed, and all I could do was clamp my knees to her flanks and hang on. One split second I had to survey the scene before she was in the middle of it; McNaghten, with two Afghans holding his arms, was being pushed headlong down the hill, his tall hat falling from his head, his glasses gone, and his mouth open in horror. Mackenzie I saw being thrown like a bolster over the flanks of a horse with a big Barukzi in the saddle, and Lawrence was being served the same way; he was fighting like a mad thing. Trevor I didn’t see, but I think I heard him; as my little mare drove into the press like a thunderbolt there was a horrid, bubbling scream, and an exultant yell of Ghazi voices.

      I had no time for anything but clinging to the mare, yet even in my terror I noticed Akbar, sabre in hand, thrusting back a Ghazi who was trying to come at Lawrence with a knife. Mackenzie was shouting and another Ghazi thrust at him with a lance, but Akbar, cool as you please, struck the lance aside with his sword and shouted with laughter.

      “Lords of my country, are you?” he yelled. “You’ll protect me, will you, Mackenzie Sahib?”

      Then my mare had bounded past them. I had a few yards to steady her and to move in, and I set her head downhill.

      “Seize him!” shouted Akbar. “Take him alive!”

      Hands grabbed at the mare’s head and at my legs, but we had the speed, thank God, and burst through them. Straight downhill, across the canal bridge, there was the level stretch beside the river, and beyond lay the cantonment. Once over the bridge, on this mare, there wasn’t a mounted Afghan who could come near me. Gasping with fear, I clung to the mane and urged her forward.

      It must have taken longer to seize my mount, burst through the press, and take flight than I had imagined, for I was suddenly aware that McNaghten and the two Afghans who were carrying him off were twenty yards down the hill, and almost right in my path. As they saw me bearing down on them one of them sprang back, grasping a pistol from his belt. There was no way of avoiding the fellow, and I lugged out my sword with one hand, holding on grimly with the other. But instead of shooting at me, he levelled his piece at the Envoy.

СКАЧАТЬ