The Second Achmed Abdullah Megapack. Achmed Abdullah

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СКАЧАТЬ “Ali-Khan is away to the hills. Go, filthy spawn of much evil!”

      “Spawn of your sister’s blood, you mean,” he replied banteringly; and the old woman laughed, for this was a jest after her own heart. “Let me in!” he continued. “Once your daughter blinded my soul with a glance of her eye. Once the fringe of her eyelids took me into captivity without ransom. But time and distance have set me free from the shackles of my love. It is forgotten. Let me bring these gifts to her.”

      So the old woman let him into the zenana, where the windows were darkened to shut out the strong Northern sun. Bibi Halima gave him pleasant greeting from where she lay on the couch in the corner of the room.

      “Live forever, most excellent cousin!” he said, bowing with clasped hands. “Live in the shadow of happiness!” He took a step nearer. “I have brought you presents, dispenser of delights.”

      Bibi Halima laughed, knowing of old Ebrahim Asif’s facility for turning cunning words. She spoke to her mother.

      “Open the blinds, Mother, and let me see what my cousin has brought from the hills.”

      The old woman drew up the blinds, and Bibi Halima looked.

      “See, see, Mother!” she exclaimed, “see the gifts [which my cousin has brought me!”

      “Aye, Daughter,” the old woman replied, “gifts to adorn the house.” And then she added, with the pride of age greedy for grandchildren, “but there will be a gift yet more fit to adorn this house when you lay a man-child into your lord’s arms.”

      Then the terrible rage of the Afghans rose suddenly in Ebrahim Asif’s throat. He had come in peace, bearing gifts; but when he heard that the woman whom once he had loved would give birth to a child, the other man’s child, he drew his cheray.

      A slashing, downward thrust, and he was out of the house and off to the hills again.

      The blow had struck Bibi Halima’s temple with full force. She was half dead, but she forced back her ebbing strength because she wanted to hold a man-child in her arms before she died.

      “Stop your crying!” She turned to her mother, who had fallen into a moaning heap at the foot of the couch. “Allah el-Mumit—God the Dispenser of Justice—will not let me die before I have laid a son into my lord’s arms. Call a doctor of the English.”

      So the old woman came to my door, giving word to me of what had occurred. I hurried to the Street of the Mutton Butchers, where the English hakim lived, and together we went to the house of Bibi Halima.

      He examined her, dressed her wound, and said:

      “A child will be born, but the mother will assuredly die.”

      The old woman broke into a storm of tears, but Bibi Halima silenced her with a gesture.

      “It is as God wills,” she said, and the doctor marveled at her vitality. “Let but the child be born first, and let that child be a man-child. The rest matters not. And you”—she turned to me—“and you, my friend, go to the hills and fetch me my lord.”

      I bowed assent, and went to the door.

      “Wait!” Her voice was firm despite her loss of blood. “If on the way you should meet Ebrahim Asif, you must not kill him. Let him be safe against my husband’s claiming.”

      “I shall not touch him,” I promised, though the sword at my side was whinnying in its scabbard like a Balkh stallion in the riot of young spring.

      All that day and the following night, making no halt, I traveled, crossing the Nadakshi Pass at the lifting of dawn, and smelling the clean snow of the higher range the following noon. Here and there, from mountaineers and the Afghan Emir’s rowdy soldiers, I asked if aught had been seen of the two men, both being well known in the land.

      Yes, I asked for both men; for while I was hurrying to my friend with the message which was about my heart like a heel-rope of grief, it was also in my soul to keep track of Ebrahim Asif. Kill him I could not, because of the promise I had given to Bibi Halima; but perhaps I could reach Ali-Khan before the other had a chance to make the rock-perched villages of the Moustaffa-Khel, and thus comparative safety.

      It was late in the afternoon, with the lights of the camp-fires already twinkling in the gut of the Nadakshi, when I heard the noise of tent-peg speaking to hammer-nose, and the squealing of pack-ponies, free of their burdens, rolling in the snow. It was a caravan of Bokhara tadjiks going south to Kabul with wool and salt and embroidered silks, and perhaps a golden bribe for the governor.

      They had halted for a day and a night to rest the sore feet of their animals, and the head-man gave me ready answer.

      “Yes, pilgrim,” he said; “two men passed here this day, both going in the same direction,” and he pointed it out to me. “I did not know them, being myself a stranger in these parts; but the first was a courteous man who was singing as he walked. He gave us pleasant greeting, speaking in Persian, and dipped hands in our morning meal. Two hours later, traveling on the trail of the first man, another man passed the kafilah, a hillman, with the manners of the hills, and the red lust of killing in his eyes, nosing the ground like a jackal. We did not speak to him, for we do not hold with hillmen and hill-feuds. We be peaceful men, trading into Kabul.”

      It was clear to me that the hillman intended to forestall just fate by killing Ali-Khan before the latter had heard of what had befallen Bibi Halima. So I thanked the tadjik, and redoubled my speed; and late that evening I saw Ebrahim Asif around the bend of a stone spur in the higher Salt Range, walking carefully, using the shelter of each granite boulder, like a man afraid of breech-bolt snicking from ambush. For a mile I followed him, and he did not see me or hear me. He knew that his enemy was in front, and he did not look behind. Again the sword was whinnying at my side. For Ali-Khan was friend to me, and we of Afghanistan are loyal in living, loyal also in taking life.

      But there was my promise to Bibi Halima to keep Ebrahim Asif safe against her husband’s claiming.

      And I kept him safe, quite safe, by Allah, the holder of the balance of right. For using a short cut which I knew, having once had a blood-feud in those very hills, I appeared suddenly in front of Ebrahim Asif, covering him with my rifle.

      He did not show fight, for no hillman will battle against impossible odds. Doubtless he thought me a robber; and so, obeying my command, he dropped his rifle and his cheray, and he suffered me to bind his hands behind his back with my waistband.

      But when I spoke to him, when I pronounced the name of Ali-Khan and Bibi Halima, he turned as yellow as a dead man’s bones. His knees shook. The fear of death came into his eyes, and also a great cunning; for these Moustaffa-Khel are gray wolves among wolves.

      “Walk ahead of me, son of Shaitan and of a she-jackal,” I said, gently rubbing his heart with the muzzle of my rifle. “Together you and I shall visit Ali-Khan. Walk ahead of me, son of a swine-fed bazaar-woman.”

      He looked at me mockingly.

      “Bitter words,” he said casually, “and they, too, will be washed out in blood.”

      “A dead jackal does not bite,” I said, and laughed; “or do you think that perhaps Ali-Khan will show you mercy? Yes, yes,” I added, still laughing, “he is a soft man, with the manners of a Persian. Assuredly he will show you mercy.”

      “Yes,” СКАЧАТЬ