The Adventure MEGAPACK ®. Уильям Хоуп Ходжсон

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СКАЧАТЬ 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.

      CHAPTER 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’s gait had become a lurching walk. Gordon halted it, slid off without making it kneel, and took its rope.

      “It’s 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’s head. Olga rubbed her chill hands and wished for sunrise.

      “The Well of Harith,” Gordon indicated a walled enclosure ahead of them. “The Turks built that wall, years ago, when the Walls of Sulaiman 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.

      “I’d better get off and walk too,” Olga suggested.

      “These flints would cut your boots and feet to pieces. It’s not far now. Then the camel can rest all it needs.”

      “And if the Juheina aren’t there—” She left the sentence unfinished.

      He shrugged his shoulders.

      “Maybe Osman won’t come up before the camel’s rested.”

      “I believe he’ll make a forced march,” she said, not fearfully, but calmly stating an opinion. “His 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.

      “Well,” he said quietly, “let’s 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.

      “Look! 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.

      “They are not Juheina! They’re 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:

      “Allah!” howled a tall, scarred warrior. “It is El Borak!”

      Olga caught her breath as she saw the man’s finger quiver on his rifle-trigger. Only a racial urge to gloat over his victim kept him from shooting the American, then and there.

      “El 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’s 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.

      “You keep poor watch, Mitkhal ibn Ali,” said Gordon. “If 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.

      “You expected to find friends here, El Borak!” he exulted. “But 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!”

      “It’s not to you I speak, Zangi Khan, you Kurdish dog,” retorted Gordon contemptuously, “but 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.

      “Wait!” he growled. “Let 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.

      “If you listen, he will trick you with cunning words!” shouted the angered Zangi Khan furiously. “Slay him now, before he can do us harm!”

      “Is Zangi Khan shaykh of the Rualla that he gives his commands while Mitkhal stands silent?” asked Gordon with biting irony.

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

      “Let El Borak speak!” he ordered. “I command here, Zangi Khan! Do not forget that.”

      “I do not forget, ya sidi,” the Kurd assured him, but his eyes burned red at the rebuke. “I 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’s reputation as a fighting man meant much to the younger warriors. Mitkhal was more fox than wolf, and he evidently feared the Kurd’s СКАЧАТЬ