Читать книгу The Lost World MEGAPACK® - Lin Carter - Страница 21

PEOPLE OF THE PYRAMIDS, by William P. McGivern

First published in the December 1941 issue of Fantastic Adventures.

“Come, come,” the fat, brown-skinned proprietor of the gaudy little shop in Cairo cried with more enthusiasm than coherence. “Lukka, lukka,” he said proudly, waving a fat arm at the piles of merchandise stacked in the interior of his shop.

Neal Kirby grinned good-naturedly and allowed himself to be half-dragged, half-led into the establishment. He knew he was perfectly secure against the wiles of the fat shop-keeper for he only had one American dollar in his pocket. And his appetite had already staked a claim on that dollar for dinner.

With the proprietor pattering hopefully at his heels he browsed up and down the narrow aisles examining the ropes of cheap beads, the gayly colorful silks and satins and the thousand-and-one sleepy-looking Buddhas, of all sizes and shapes, that stared at him from the shelves.

He was turning to leave when a steely glitter in a corner caught his eye. Looking closely he saw that it was a narrow silver casket with a glass top that had caught the light. Through the glass top he could see a slim stiletto-like knife resting on a pad of red silk. Strangely, it excited his curiosity. He wondered vaguely why a piece of merchandise of such obvious value should be tucked away in the darkest corner of the shop.

“How much?” he asked, pointing to the casket.

The proprietor shook his head until his fat jowls quivered like cups of jelly.

“No sale, no sale,” he said breathlessly. He grabbed Neal by the arm. “Come, come,” he waved to the displays on the opposite side of the shop. “Lukka, lukka.”

Neal shook his head. Stubbornness had been added to his curiosity now. Disregarding the angry squeals of the fat shopkeeper, he bent and picked up the casket. Opening the casket, he almost gasped at the incredible beauty of the knife.

The blade, about eight inches long, gleamed as if it had been delicately forged from pure silver and the handle was formed in the shape of a man’s torso, from some strange red metal that glowed with a fiery luminescence. A small, cunningly chiseled head topped the handle of the knife, and at the neckline where it joined the torso, it was circled by a cluster of small, but perfect diamonds.

Neal whistled in admiration. He was no judge of precious stones and metals but anyone could see that the knife would be worth a Rajah’s ransom. So absorbed was he in the contemplation of the fabulously beautiful knife that he did not hear the sudden sharp exclamation that sounded from the wheezing proprietor. He didn’t hear the footsteps behind him, but he did hear the quiet, sibilant voice that cut through the silence.

“Give me that knife!”

Neal turned in surprise. Two people stood behind him.

One was a man of medium height with a thin, arrogant face and sandy hair but Neal did not take time to notice anything else about him, for he was too busy staring in admiration at the girl who was with him.

She was tall, with hauntingly blue eyes, and fine blonde hair that cascaded in graceful waves almost to her shoulders. Her slender, charmingly feminine figure was accentuated by the smartly tailored white gabardine suit she wore. She looked cool and fresh and American.

Neal smiled suddenly. Just seeing a girl like this made him feel certain that Cairo was a fine place after all.

“It’s a small world, isn’t it?” he said to her.

She looked anxiously at the man she was with and murmured something under her breath that he didn’t hear. Neal’s smile faded as he looked closely at the girl. There was a hidden fear lurking in the depths of her eyes and he saw that the small handkerchief in her hands had been twisted into a small, crushed ball.

Her companion held out his hand imperiously.

“Will you give me the knife?” he snapped. “Or must I summon the police?”

Neal stiffened at the man’s tone. There was something so definitely insulting in it that he felt a hot flush of anger staining his face. His big hands closed spasmodically over the knife in his hands.

“You might get better results,” he suggested as coolly as he could, “if you’d stop snarling at people and improve your manners. The word ‘please’ can work wonders in a lot of cases. You might look it up some time.”

The man swallowed a reply and his jaw clamped shut. His face had drained white and his small, steel-blue eyes hardened into pin-points of angry light.

“Will you give me that knife?” he almost whispered. His hand slipped slowly into the outside pocket of his coat, where a suspicious bulge showed.

Neal straightened slowly, his eyes narrowing to mere slits. He had not missed the gesture or its significance. In spite of the tenseness of the situation he was able to realize that the incident was strange in every respect. The man’s rage and impatience were wholly unreasonable, completely out of proportion to the trifling affair. The girl was looking imploringly at her companion and her hands were clasped tensely together as if in silent supplication.

THE fat, waddling shopkeeper shoved himself between them at that instant, stammering breathless apologies. And as suddenly and abruptly as that the incident was over. The thin man with the arrogant face withdrew his hand from his pocket and went about the business of lighting a cigarette. Neal relaxed slowly. He couldn’t quite convince himself that it was all over. One instant, he knew, the man opposite him was ready to draw his gun and fire. And now he was placidly lighting a cigarette with fingers that were as steady as rocks.

The girl had been talking to the shopkeeper, showing h i m a withered paper in her hand, and now he turned to Neal, smiling nervously.

He pointed to the knife which Neal still held in his hand.

“Give to Missy,” he said imploringly. “Belong her.”

Neal hesitated an instant, and he was aware that the burning eyes of the girl’s companion were resting unwaveringly on him.

“Please,” the girl said simply.

Neal shrugged and handed the girl the knife. As his fingers met hers, he felt paper crackle under his fingers, felt a closely wadded note pushed against his palm. His fingers closed on it automatically and he shoved his fist in his pocket.

“Thank you,” the girl said quickly.

She dropped the brilliantly gleaming knife into her handbag, turned and left the shop. The thin, arrogant, steel-eyed man followed her without a backward glance.

“Go,” the fat shopkeeper said nervously. “Go, please.”

Neal pulled out the wad of paper and spread it flat against his hand. The only information it contained was the name of a hotel and a room number. Neal frowned and shoved it back into his pocket. That didn’t tell him much about the screwy business.

He sauntered from the shop, his thoughts churning futilely. Quiet deliberation was not his most successful accomplishment and he felt queerly impotent and helpless. There was only one thing to do, he decided, after a few moments of anxious cogitation. He pulled the paper that the girl had slipped to him from his pocket and noted the address and room number. Then he walked on whistling.

* * * *

The soft Egyptian night had dropped its black mantle over Cairo, lending an almost mystic enchantment to the intertwined streets and the murmuring voices of natives. Under the merciful light of a full pale moon, the desert stretches surrounding the silent city, looked cool and calm and inviting. But those who knew the desert were aware of its ruthless reality, its cruelty, its danger.

The lobby of the Hotel Internationale was practically deserted when Neal Kirby strolled across its polished floor and stopped at the desk of the blandly polite young native who acted as clerk and receptionist.

“Is the young lady in 402 in?” he asked.

The clerk nodded.

“Did you have an—”

“She’s expecting me,” Neal said quickly. Turning, he strode to the elevator. He realized disgustedly that he had acted tactlessly. The girl had taken such precautions in slipping him the note that it was obvious she didn’t want it known that he was to see her. He had spoiled that by inquiring for her like a breathless sophomore.

He stepped from the elevator at the fourth floor. The hotel was completely modern, with luxuriously thick carpeting and walls paneled with smooth, dark oak. The heavy rug smothered the sounds of his footsteps as he started down the corridor, looking for 402.

He passed three doors before he found it. Suddenly he began to feel nervous. He paused before the door, his throat strangely dry. Maybe this whole thing was a joke of some sort. Or maybe he had received the note by mistake. A dozen other disturbing thoughts occurred to him, but he dismissed them all with a characteristic shrug. He raised his hand to knock when he heard a sudden scuffling noise from inside the room. It was followed by a quick, gasping cry of terror.

Neal hesitated for only a bare instant and then he grabbed the door-knob, shook it violently.

The door was locked. Neal drew back and lunged at the door, driving his heavy shoulders against its hard surface. A splintering crack sounded and the door swung inward suddenly, almost throwing him off balance.

The room was dark, but there was enough moonlight to show him the shadowy outline of two figures struggling near the window. In spite of the uncertain illumination he recognized one of the figures as the girl he had met in the curio shop. She was struggling helplessly against a man whose both hands were wrapped about her neck.

The man looked up as Neal charged into the room. He dropped the limp body of the girl and sprang toward the window, which opened on the fire escape.

Neal dove across the room and his shoulder drove into the man’s back, slamming him against the wall. He heard a grunt of pain escape the man’s lips, but like an eel, the dark figure squirmed from his grasp and dove for the window.

Neal lunged after him, his right fist swinging in a wild looping arc. It crashed into the side of the man’s head as he scrambled over the window ledge, knocking him out onto the balcony formed by the fire escape.

Neal threw the window open wider, but before he could clamber out his intended victim scrambled to his feet and darted down the steps. Neal had one quick look at the man’s dark terrified features before he disappeared.

Wheeling from the window, Neal stepped quickly across the room and closed the door that he had forced. He groped about until he found a lamp and switched it on. He knew there would be no chance of catching the native who had fled down the fire escape, and the girl might be seriously hurt. She was lying on the floor next to a sofa, unconscious. There were angry red marks on her throat, but he could see the rise and fall of her breast under the light flimsy dressing gown she was wearing-

He lifted her carefully in his arms, stretched her on the sofa and rubbed her hands anxiously. After a moment or so her eyelids flickered and he noticed a touch of color returning to her cheeks. With her long, fine hair framing her white face she looked more like an angel than a human being.

She was breathing more normally now, Neal noticed. He poured a glass of water from a pitcher on the coffee table, tilted her head slightly and poured some of its contents down her throat.

She coughed weakly and opened her eyes. For an instant she stared blankly at him, and then, as recognition came to her, she smiled tremulously.

“I was afraid you wouldn’t come,” she murmured. Her hands moved slowly to her throat, touched the abrasions on her skin.

“Don’t talk if it hurts,” Neal said, concerned. “What you need is rest.”

“It doesn’t hurt,” the girl assured him. “I’m still a little frightened, that’s all. Silly of me. I should be getting used to it by now.”

“You mean this has happened before?” Neal asked incredulously.

The girl was silent an instant, and then she turned her eyes full on Neal. In them was mirrored the tragic finality of despair.

“I was wrong to involve you in my troubles,” she said brokenly. “Please go now while there is still time. I—it may be dangerous for you to stay another minute.”

Neal grinned cheerfully and tossed his hat onto an empty chair. He lighted a cigarette and blew a cloud of smoke toward the ceiling expansively.

“You can’t get rid of me that easily,” he chuckled.

“Oh please,” the girl said miserably. “You think it’s something of a lark, something amusing. Can’t you see I’m serious?

Neal’s face sobered.

“The cute little chap who was trying to strangle you was serious too,” he said drily. “That’s why I’m sticking around until I know what’s up. Funny streak in me. I dislike seeing young girls murdered. I don’t know why. But everybody has their peculiarities and that happens to be mine.”

“Would you like me to start at the beginning?” she asked abruptly.

“Now you’re talking,” Neal grinned. “I may not be of any help, but I’m in your corner from now on.”

The girl relaxed as if a heavy weight had been removed from her shoulders.

“Thank you,” she said simply. She was silent for a few seconds before resuming.

“My name is Jane Manners,” she said quietly. “My father was a well-known archaeologist. When he died several years ago he left me a manuscript which contained a map and directions for reaching a city somewhere in the Egyptian desert. He had visited the city years before and it had been his consuming ambition to return there before he died. His last wish was that I would go there and complete the archaeological work he had begun. I didn’t have the necessary funds so I put the trip off. Then I received an offer of help. It came from an Austrian, Max Zaraf, who said that he had known my father in Egypt.”

“Was he the gent I met today?” Neal interrupted.

“Yes. He financed the expedition. At first I was delighted by the assistance, but things have happened which make me believe I made a very serious mistake.”

“What sort of things?” Neal asked. “In the first place,” Jane answered, “he insisted that I let him keep the map. I gave it to him without hesitation. That same night I was almost killed by a heavy piece of iron that dropped from the deck above me. The officers on the boat were unable to explain the accident. Again, three nights later, I was almost killed by a knife hurled through my porthole. It missed me by inches.”

Neal whistled silently.

“Why didn’t you ask Zaraf to return the map to you and call the whole deal off?”

Jane shook her head miserably.

“I wasn’t sure he had anything to do with it. I’m not yet, for that matter. And if I back out I may never get another opportunity to carry out Dad’s last wishes.”

Neal glanced down at his knuckles. “Did it occur to you that it was too late to back out? That is, if Zaraf is the little dark boy in the woodpile. If he made two attempts on your life he certainly wouldn’t give you back the map now and let you walk out on him at this late date. If you tried you’d just be sealing your own death warrant.”

“I thought of that,” Jane answered. “There wasn’t anything to do but go along with him and hope for the best.”

“Which won’t be any too good, if I’m any judge of character,” Neal said drily. “But what about the knife you got at the curio shop? How does that fit into the picture?”

“I don’t know,” Jane answered, frowning. “In Dad’s manuscript he made it very clear that before starting the trip I should stop here in Cairo and pick up that knife. He left it here on his last trip. It must be important or he wouldn’t have been so insistent about it. The shopkeeper knew him and had promised to keep the knife until he returned for it, or sent for it. The paper which I showed the shopkeeper was written by Dad and was a sort of a claim-check on the knife.”

“One more question,” Neal grinned. “How did you happen to pick me for a Boy Scout?”

The girl smiled slightly.

“Maybe,” she answered, “because you look like a Boy Scout. I scribbled my address on a piece of paper while you and Max were glaring at each other in the curio shop. Afterward I told myself that I had acted foolishly, that you’d never bother to investigate a silly, impulsive gesture like that.”

“That was a serious mistake in judgment,” Neal told her lightly.

As he finished speaking a hinge creaked faintly behind him. Then a suave icy voice said:

“A very serious mistake, indeed!”

Neal didn’t turn. Instead he watched Jane Manners. Her eyes looking over his shoulders were filled with a sudden, shocked fear.

“Max!” she whispered.

Neal stood up and turned slowly. Unconsciously his big hands tightened into hard, blocky fists. In the doorway, smiling without humor, stood Max Zaraf. The trailing smoke from the cigarette in his hand curled up past his lean, saturnine face, dimming slightly the cold, deadly glitter of his eyes. But Neal, watching the man closely, was sure there was disappointment in those eyes. Disappointment and a slight trace of uncertainty.

“Are you all right, my dear?” Zaraf asked softly, ignoring Neal.

Neal grinned, a tight mirthless grin. Zaraf acted as if he hadn’t been expecting to find things quite as they were.

“Why shouldn’t she be?” Neal asked, before Jane could answer.

Zaraf shrugged and stepped into the room. His eyes flicked meaningly to the shattered lock of the door.

“Logical question, isn’t it?” he asked silkily. “Door forced open. Room upset. A tempestuous young American violating the privacy of a young woman’s room. It all adds up, does it not?”

“Max!” Jane said sharply. “You’re being insulting.

“You’re also being very careless of your health,” Neal said pointedly.

Zaraf turned slightly and looked straight at Neal. The slight smile vanished from his features. Neal saw a new, wary look creep into Zaraf’s cold eyes, and he realized that the man had just recognized him as the American he had encountered at the curio shop.

“What is your game, my young friend?” he asked coolly. “This couldn’t possibly be a coincidence. If it is, let me assure you that it might be a most unlucky one—for you.”

“It is not a coincidence,” Jane said quietly. “I asked Mister—” she faltered, and Neal realized that he hadn’t told her his name.

“Kirby,” he said quickly. “Neal Kirby. You must have forgot.”

“Thank you,” Jane said gratefully. “I asked Mr. Kirby to come here,” she resumed, “because I thought I might need him.”

“For what?” Zaraf asked.

Neal wondered what reason the girl would give for asking him here. To tell the truth would reveal to Zaraf her suspicions concerning him. He looked at her, and her eyes met his in an imploring glance, before she faced Zaraf. Her slender body stiffened and her chin raised slightly as she said:

“I have hired Mr. Kirby,” she said clearly, “as consulting archaeologist. He will leave with us tomorrow morning.”

Zaraf’s steely calm was shaken. “Are you out of your mind?” he asked hoarsely.

Neal stared at Jane in amazement. It was preposterous, out of the question, completely unthinkable. He didn’t know a thing about archaeology in the first place, and secondly, why should he be wandering over the desert looking for lost cities? It didn’t make sense.

Then he looked at Jane, and suddenly it did make sense. For some crazy reason it became the most logical thing in the world for him to go anywhere, do anything this girl wanted. She was looking at him beseechingly, hope and confidence shining in her eyes.

He turned to Zaraf, smiling faintly at the man’s obvious consternation.

“That’s right,” he said cheerfully. “I’m the new archaeologist. I’m not such a hot archaeologist, but I’m a pretty good shot and I hear the desert is just full of snakes and rats.”

Zaraf struggled to restrain his anger. His cheeks were touched with red and his cold eyes were twin pools of hate. But his voice was as soft as silk as he said:

“You have to shoot a snake before it stings you. Remember that my young friend.” He turned then, and with a mocking bow to the girl, left the room.

“Lovely fellow,” Neal murmured.

“He’s dangerous and cruel,” Jane said worriedly. “I—I shouldn’t have gotten you into this. I have a terrible feeling that I’ll hate myself for it. If anything should happen to you, I’d feel as if it were my fault.”

Neal picked up his hat and smiled down at her.

“Forget it,” he said. He sauntered to the door, and grinned back at her. “I wasn’t kidding, you know, when I told our chum that I was a pretty good shot. The fact is I’m a damn good shot. See you tomorrow.”

* * * *

The tiny caravan of four camels and three attendants wound its way from Cairo the following day, as the blazing morning sun served notice that the day would be scorching hot.

Each camel carried a passenger, and was led by a native attendant at the end of a stout rope. The fourth camel carried huge leather sacks of water. It was roped to the last camel in the train and clumped awkwardly along, apparently unimpressed by the fact that it carried the most precious commodity of the desert—water.

On the lead camel rode Max Zaraf. Behind him rode Jane Manners and bringing up the rear was Neal Kirby, swaying awkwardly o n h i s lurching steed, and feeling uncomfortable and strange in his pith helmet and breeches and boots.

Zaraf had the map in his possession and gave the directions of travel to the native guides. For two days the trip was monotonously uneventful, varying little in detail from hour to hour. They traveled for the most part in the cool of the morning and evening and laid up during the blistering heat of the day. The terrain was endlessly unchanging. Slight rises of sand gave way to sloping valleys that led only to still another hill.

On the evening of the third day Zaraf waved them to a stop and Neal climbed stiffly from his camel, glad to ease his muscles after a hard four-hour stretch. He walked through the soft sifting sand and assisted Jane Manners to alight. Zaraf was walking back toward them from his camel. They had stopped just below the summit of a rather high hill, and the fine top sand was blowing down on them in swirling, uncomfortable clouds.

“We stop here,” Zaraf announced, coming up to them.

“Here?” Neal echoed. “Let’s go over the hill to the valley. We’ll get out of this wind that way.”

The native drivers, dark-skinned and inscrutable, waited stolidly for orders. They were a proud, silent breed of men, neither volunteering information, nor expecting it. As long as they received their money for the day’s work, it didn’t matter what their white-skinned masters did.

Zaraf glared bale fully at Neal.

“I have said we will stop here,” he repeated angrily. “I’m deciding on our course and if I decide to stop here it’s because I have excellent reasons for doing so.”

Neal shrugged. It seemed a small matter to argue about. Maybe Zaraf did have a good reason for stopping here.

“Okay,” he said, “if you can stand the sand I guess Jane and I can put up with it.”

Zaraf turned without a word and walked back to his camel. The natives went to work building a shelter, and preparing the evening meal. The camels, relieved of their packs, settled placidly down on their haunches, like so many quiet cows.

Darkness fell swiftly. Neal said good-night to Jane and turned in early. The fires burned out in a few hours and before the moon came up the tiny camp was slumbering.

* * * *

Neal awoke the following morning as the first rays of the rising sun slanted into his eyes. He blinked sleepily and yawned. His first thought was of water. Every morning he awoke thirsty, for the desert’s searing heat dried out the moisture in his body as he slept. He climbed to his feet, stuck his feet into his boots and pulled on his shirt. Then he crawled out of the narrow pup tent, straightened up and looked around.

For an instant he stared about unbelievingly. The camels and the native guides were nowhere in sight. The black ashes of the evening’s fire still showed as cancerous spots against the whiteness of the sand, but the natives’ sleeping gear and packs—and more vital, the camels—w ere vanished as completely as if the earth had opened and swallowed them.

For seconds Neal was too stupefied to act. All he could do was stare in numbed bewilderment at the bleak expanse of the desert.

When his dazed senses finally recovered, he wheeled and charged toward the other two sleeping tents.

“Zaraf! Jane!” he shouted. “On your feet. Our guides have pulled a fade-out with the equipment and camels.”

He was so excited that he did not notice the abysmal silence that seemed to stretch over the desert like a Vast tight blanket.

Reaching Zaraf’s tent he jerked open the flap. He opened his mouth but the excited words on his lips died there. For Zaraf’s sleeping pad was undisturbed. It had obviously not been used that night.

Neal felt the cold of panic close over his heart. For a silent, timeless instant he stared incredulously at Zaraf’s empty tent—then he was racing madly through the thick sand toward Jane’s tent. He shouted her name wildly and the hills threw back the mockery of an echo.

He ripped open the flap without waiting for an answer to his shout. One glance showed him it was empty. The sleeping pad had been used, for it was twisted and tossed into a jumbled heap. Neal’s eyes picked quickly about the interior, noticing the generally disarrayed condition of the sleeping articles and clothes. One corner of the tent sagged drunkenly inward, and he could see that the rope and peg had pulled out of place. Everything pointed to a struggle or rough house of some sort. Neal stood up, a frantic fear clawing at his attempted calmness. As far as his eye could reach, the desert sands spread in a never-varying, never-ending expanse of sun and heat.

“Jane!” he shouted desperately.

“Jane!…Jane!”

The echo mocked him.

Neal peered into Jane’s tent again. A comb and hair brush were lying on the canvas floor, along with her wrist watch and a ring she usually wore. Neal’s frown deepened. Jane wouldn’t have left things like that if—if—

One inevitable conclusion forced itself on him. Zaraf had taken Jane by force, and with the camels and water, deserted in the dark of the night. There was no other conclusion possible. Neal realized then, with sickening abruptness, that in all probability this had been in Zaraf’s mind from the outset.

Neal rested on his haunches in Jane’s tent and thought carefully for a few moments. He had no water, no food and no means of transportation. His revolver had three shots left in it. The rest of the ammunition was in the camel packs. Except for the sun he had not the slightest means of gauging direction or ascertaining a definite course even if he had one to follow.

Approximately, he had thirty-six hours to live.

“Okay,” he muttered to himself. The pleasantness had gone from his features; leaving his face a stiff, expressionless mask. “It’s a slim chance, but I’ll take it. I may not find you, Max Zaraf but God help you if I do!”

He was crawling from Jane’s tent when his hand touched the rent in the canvas. It was an inch-long rip close to the flap opening.

Obeying a strange impulse, Neal examined it closely. He shoved his finger through the tear and wiggled it about in the warm sand beneath the flooring. Suddenly his finger touched something that was not sand. Something that was as cool and hard and smooth as—steel!

Quickly Neal ripped the canvas flooring aside and dug into the sand with both hands. A second later he drew from the sand a glittering object which he recognized instantly.

It was the be-jeweled knife which he had accidently stumbled on in the curio shop in Cairo. He recognized it instantly by the handle, formed as a human torso, and the human head which topped it. The flashing necklace of diamonds scintillated brilliantly in the dim light of the tent.

Neal laughed bitterly and shoved it into his pocket. It was worth a great amount of money, men had probably fought and died over it, but it couldn’t buy him a drop of water now.

He retrieved his pith helmet from his own tent and started out. Plowing awkwardly through the burning sand, he headed for the top of the hill, that led, he knew with bitter irony, to just another hill. But still he had to keep on. There was something inside of him, as strong as life itself, which would drive him on until…

* * * *

Neal Kirby had given himself thirty-six hours of life. Now, he realized vaguely, as he lurched forward, he was twelve hours past that limit already. Living on borrowed time so to speak. His face was matted with sand-clogged beard and his red-rimmed eyes were like hot points of fire in the blackness of his face.

For two days he had staggered through the blinding heat of the desert without food, without water. He had passed the limits of human endurance, but still he lurched on, some inner voice lashing him forward when his flagging body would quit.

He fell often. Sometimes he lay stretched on the burning sands for minutes before he could crawl back to his feet and stagger on again.

It was almost noon, now, and the sun seemed to be hanging suspended in the sky about a hundred feet above his aching head. He could actually feel the weight of the heat settling on him like a dense, smothering pall. Overhead soaring vultures were converging on his stumbling figure in ever narrowing circles.

Staggering over the top of a hill Neal saw the first sight to relieve the deadly monotony of the desert. Just what it was he couldn’t tell, but it looked like a bundle of rags thrown together in a pile at the foot of the slight rise. With a strange flickering hope burning in his breast, Neal made a pathetic effort to run. He fell and slid most of the way, but at the foot of the hill he regained his feet and staggered on. Suddenly from the cluttered dark bundles which he had seen there arose a small cloud of birds, their hideously flapping wings carrying them away from this one other thing on the desert that lived beside themselves.

Neal stopped short, almost gagging. He was close enough to recognize the bundles now as three human forms. Numbly he approached them. Sprawled on the sand with bullet holes in their heads, were the three native guides who had accompanied Zaraf into the desert. Neal stared at them for seconds in dumb silence. Zaraf’s treachery had not ended with deserting him in the desert. Here was mute testimony of that.

In spite of everything Neal felt a vicious satisfaction course through him. The bodies of the native guides were unmistakable signposts telling him that he was at least on the right track. The canteens of the native guides were empty so he staggered on again, somehow strengthened by the realization that he couldn’t be many hours behind Jane and Zaraf.

* * * *

An hour later, he fell. He was on top of another hill overlooking a broad, sloping valley, identical to the other interminable valleys he had crossed, except that this one seemed longer and wider than most of the others. For a half-hour he lay on his stomach trying to find the will and the strength to go on. He heard a faint whirr above and turned weakly just as a huge cadaverous vulture was settling on him. With a hoarse croak of fright the bird veered off and glided down into the valley. Neal hoisted himself painfully to his knees and drew his gun. Why he was so bent on killing the bird he couldn’t have told himself. He rested the revolver on his forearm and sighted carefully. The bird was gliding into the valley soaring within six feet of the ground when Neal fired.

He missed. The bird flapped great wings and climbed into the sky to resume his endless circling. But a strange reverberating echo had started across the valley. It magnified the report of the pistol a dozen times until it seemed as if mighty hammers were drumming maddeningly on the ground. Neal listened wonderingly.

Suddenly he noticed a peculiar distortion of the heat waves that were dancing in front of his eyes. Their gossamer lightness and fantastically odd shapes were dissolving and reassorting themselves before his eyes. It was as if all the light waves and heat waves of the valley were broken to bits by the crescendoing clamor of the echoes which were booming across the valley.

The entire atmosphere of the valley, he noticed, was vibrating visibly. Crazy lances of light shot into the sky and the distorted refractions of sun and heat waves merged together into what looked like solid blocks of light. In the center of the valley there appeared a shining shaft of pure white light that was growing wider by the second.

Neal climbed shakily to his feet, stunned.

The shaft continued to widen and he saw then that it was not composed of light, but some material that looked like white marble.

The thunderous drumming of the echo culminated in one great crash that seemed mighty enough to shatter the heavens. Then silence settled oppressively over the valley.

The white shaft of marble was widening swiftly now, as if some vast invisible curtain was being drawn back in front of it. Neal watched in fascination as a mighty structure of marble appeared before his eyes, filling the entire valley and almost piercing the clouds with its majestic peak of glittering white. It was formed in the shape of a pyramid, alabaster white, incredibly huge.

The silence was complete now and the fantastic distortions of the atmosphere had ceased. The valley was quiet and tranquil as when he first saw it. Everything was the same except for the appearance of the magnificent white pyramid towering into the heavens.

Neal sagged to his knees. If it was a mirage, it was the most impressive and authentic he’d ever heard of. He was still looking at the gigantic pyramid when he saw the orange bolt of flame flash from its base. It seemed a whip of flame with a large ball of some brightly burning matter attached to it. When he saw that it was heading for him he tried to run, as a man runs from the unknown, but it was too late. Something caressed the back of his head like a hot breath and he stumbled onto his face. The next instant a smothering blanket of blackness settled over him and everything faded out abruptly.

* * * *

When Neal came to he was lying on a narrow cot in a small room.

There were no windows that he could see, only one small opening that might be a door. He struggled to a sitting position on the cot. The first thing he realized was that he wasn’t thirsty. His lips were still cracked and tender, but he knew from their feel that water had passed over them. His hand touched his matted three-day beard experimentally, and his eyes traveled in mild disgust over his dirty, ragged breeches and scuffed boots.

He leaned back and wondered where he was. Thinking accurately was a difficult proposition. His conscious memory was that of a fantastic white pyramid which had materialized before him on the desert. Before that he had been close on the trail of Max Zaraf and Jane Manners. That thought jolted him.

He climbed to his feet and looked around. The walls were of a peculiar porous material and they seemed to be the source of the pale, glareless illumination that flooded the tiny room. There was no furniture other than the narrow cot, and the small door was locked in some manner from the outside. The problem of getting out, he decided, was not going to be easy.

He sank back onto the cot despairingly. All he could do was wait. An hour passed before he heard a clicking on the outside of the door. Then it swung inward. Neal saw a highly polished boot, white whipcord breeches, and then the tall, gaunt figure of Max Zaraf filled the narrow doorway. His freshly shaven features were touched with a mocking smile and his cold eyes gleamed with sardonic amusement.

“This is a pleasure I hadn’t counted on,” he said, smiling.

For a stunned instant Neal was too dazed to speak. Even in his astonishment, however, one thing was obvious. Zaraf was in the saddle now or he wouldn’t be so completely cool and nonchalant. Every instinct in his body urged him to hurl himself at Zaraf’s relaxed figure and throttle the life from the man, but a bump of common sense warned him to proceed cautiously and wait for an opportunity.

“I don’t imagine you had counted on seeing me again,” he said as easily as he could. “Most men stranded in the desert die there.”

“But you didn’t,” Zaraf smiled. “How persistent of you.”

“I had something to live for,” Neal answered quietly.

Zaraf shrugged.

“The past is dead,” he said, still smiling. “Since you lived through the desert I might give you the chance to continue living. However, that is up to you. If you are willing to do as I say, it can be arranged. If not,” he spread his hands in an expressive gesture, “your gallant fight through the desert will be of no avail.”

“It is my great pleasure,” Neal said recklessly, “to tell you to go to hell. If I had nine lives I’d sacrifice ’em all before I’d lower myself to bargain with a treacherous, rotten snake like you.” Zaraf continued to smile, but two hot flags of color fluttered in his cheeks.

“I came here to offer you a chance for your life. You could have helped me here but that is not to be. For your information we are approximately five hundred feet underground right now. We are in the lost city which Professor Manners discovered. It was never actually a lost city, but rather a hidden city. A strange race of people have developed here, many of them childishly simple in many ways. It is to be my privilege to teach them the benefits of commercialization. You might have helped me and done very well for yourself. It was only an accident that you discovered the secret of the pyramid, but it is an accident which might have been profitable to you.” He smiled blandly down at Neal. “Many of the charmingly simple people love pageantry and drama so I’ll have to devise a spectacular manner in which to usher you into the Great Beyond.”

“Where is Jane?” Neal asked suddenly.

“Ahh,” Zaraf smiled. “That worries you, does it? Well Jane is not too happy, but I have strong hopes that under my persuasive technique I can make her learn to enjoy the existence I’ve planned for her.”

As he finished speaking he bowed slightly and stepped through the door. It closed immediately behind him.

* * * *

Neal paced the narrow room nervously for the next hour. The realization that Jane was near him, possibly within a few hundred feet of him, was maddening. Maddening too, was the realization that she was in Zaraf’s hands, helpless. Another hour, as nearly as he could judge, had passed when he heard the faint click of the lock. He paused and watched the door carefully. It swung inward, an inch at a time, until it stood open.

Neal doubled his fists and spread his legs. If a chance to smash his way out of this cell presented itself he was going to grab it.

Seconds later a young girl stepped cautiously into the room. Her skin was a pallid white in color and her large eyes were twin mirrors of fright. She was small and her thin body was trembling under the loose white garment she wore. Her hair was long, and would have been considered beautiful, were it not so dull and lustreless.

Neal unclenched his fists slowly. He had been prepared for just about anything, but this peculiar looking, frightened girl stopped him completely. Her eyes were on his now, and she seemed trying desperately to make him understand something. Finally she held her fingers over her mouth and Neal gathered that she wanted him to keep silent.

Then she reached out and took his hand in her own and pointed through the doorway with her other hand. Her meaning was clear enough to Neal. She wanted him to follow her, but why? Neal didn’t stop to argue the question with himself. It might be a trap, but it wasn’t likely that they would go to such elaborate lengths to lure him from the cell. Anyway it was better than doing nothing. He decided to follow the girl.

“Lead on, sister,” he whispered. “If you’re on the level, God bless you.”

The girl led him into the corridor that flanked the room in which he had been confined. Looking about he could tell nothing about where he was or where he was going. The walls were blue, and of the same porous composition that constituted the walls of the room he had just left. The corridor stretched ahead endlessly and Neal noticed that every six feet or so a door was built into the wall, identical with the one that led to the room which he had just left. The ceiling was high and vaulted, but was without ornamentation of any sort.

The girl crept softly ahead of him, glancing frequently back to see that he was still following. In another hundred feet they turned at right angles and followed another corridor. For fifteen or twenty minutes they continued, twisting and turning through the labyrinthine passages that interlaced each other at odd angles. Finally the girl stopped at a door, that seemed to Neal identical to the hundreds of others they had passed, and pressed her ear against its surface.

After a silent interval she opened the door cautiously and motioned for Neal to go in. Neal hesitated an instant. If there was anything phoney about the set-up this was where the pay-off would be. With a mental shrug he stepped over the threshold and into the room.

“Neal, darling!” a wonderfully familiar voice cried.

“Jane!” Neal whispered unbelievingly. For an instant he stood rooted to the spot, too amazed to move. This had been the farthest thing from his thoughts. She was standing at the opposite side of the room, and in her eyes was relief and joy that made his heart pound faster. She was wearing a loose flowing gown of white and it gave her blonde beauty an almost ethereal quality.

Recovering he crossed to her, took her hands in his.

“Honey,” he said fervently, “you’re the most welcome sight I’ve seen in all my life. Are you all right? Has that swine done anything to you?”

“I’m all right,” she said breathlessly. “I heard that you had been brought here and the little girl who is my attendant was willing to take a message to you. Finally she thought she could bring you here easier. She’s watching in the hall now so we have a few minutes to talk.”

“What’s this all about?” Neal asked. “Where are we?”

“We’re in the city my father discovered,” she answered. “It’s underground. A whole tribe of people—offshoots of some highly cultivated desert group—built it as a retreat against their more savage neighbors centuries ago. Here they have progressed amazingly well along certain lines, in electricity for instance, but in other fields they are childishly ignorant.

“Zaraf knew my father years ago and knew that he made this discovery. So his offer to help me was because he wanted access to this city for purposes of exploitation. We arrived here just a few days ahead of you, but fortunately for Zaraf, an evil element of the natives has been planning a revolution against the established ruling system. Being an opportunist Zaraf jumped right in with the revolters and helped them overthrow their ruler.”

“And that makes him ace-high with the new management,” Neal said reflectively.

Jane nodded.

“He told me all his plans the day after he kidnaped me and left you stranded in the desert. He was sure you were out of the picture forever. He intends to work himself into a position of power, regiment these natives, sell their produce and electrical equipment to the highest bidders. He must be stopped, Neal, he must. These natives are, for the most part, simple and kindly, but they’re easily influenced by white people because they worshipped my father. He was very kind and good to them during the years he stayed here, and Zaraf is trading on that.”

“Our big job,” Neal said, “is to get out of here as fast as we can. Do you have any idea of the size of this place? Or where we are now in relation to the nearest exit?”

Jane shook her head.

“I’m completely lost,” she confessed. “I know, however, that we are in one of the larger sleeping sections now. Everyone is up at the throne hall at this time to hear the new instructions from the new ruler. His name is Horjak. That’s why it was safe to bring you here through the halls. All the rooms are deserted now. Most of the natives here aren’t sympathetic with the new regime, but they are helpless because they have no leader or weapons.”

Neal started to speak but a shrill terrified shriek from beyond the door interrupted him. It was followed instantly by a loud banging on the panels.

Neal heard a harsh voice snapping commands and he knew that Zaraf was outside.

Jane was clinging to his arm desperately.

“You’ve got to get out of here, darling,” she cried.

This was the grim truth, Neal admitted, but there was no other exit from the room. He disengaged Jane’s frantic grip on his arm and shoved her into a corner, just as the door crashed inword.

Three small, but heavily muscled men, with the same pallid expression and lusterless hair of the young native girl, spilled into the room. They wore crimson tunics that dropped to the middle of their thighs and sandals with soft spongy soles. They sprang at Neal with a concerted ferocity that amazed him. The first soldier went down under a sledge hammer right hook that carried all of Neal’s heavy shoulder behind it. But before he could swing again the other two grabbed his arms. More of the crimson-tuniced guards poured into the room and the struggle was over. Panting, he was dragged from the room into the corridor to face the coldy sneering presence of Max Zaraf.

“I gave you your chance,” Zaraf snapped. “You refused it. Now you can accept your alternate choice.” He motioned imperiously to the guards. “To the throne room. Quickly!”

Before the guards could move to obey his order Jane rushed into the corridor and blocked their path with outstretched hands.

“You can’t do this,” she cried to Zaraf. “I won’t let you.”

Zaraf smiled at her, cynically.

“Since you are so perturbed as to his fate,” he said silkily, “I think it would be interesting if you would witness the execution yourself. There’s nothing like the presence of a lovely woman to inspire a man to die a hero’s death.” He nodded to two of the guards. “Take her along.”

The husky, crimson-tuniced guards sprang to obey, and after a brief, unequal struggle, the girl was carried away after Neal.

* * * *

The throne room was a vast hall lined with tier upon tier of seats extending up to the highest reaches of the amphitheater. In the center of the throne room a huge unadorned dias was erected and on it sprawled a corpulent figure with an overly large head and dense stupid features.

Neal saw all this in one quick glance as he was shoved through a lower tier aisle and led to the large oval enclosure that faced the throne. The entire hall was brilliantly illuminated by the same sort of indirect lighting he had noticed before. Standing next to the figure on the throne was Max Zaraf, a gloating smile of anticipation on his face.

The throne room was quiet, but the tiers of seats were jammed with the native population of the underground city. Neal noticed the silence particularly. It was the brooding silence of a death block before an execution.

Zaraf bowed slightly to the figure on the dias and stepped down to face Neal.

“Very shortly,” he said, “you are going to die in a quite spectacular manner. You are a fool and you deserve it. These people are incredibly brilliant in many things, many things which the outside world will pay steeply for. Their invisibility screen with which they surround their central pyramid is one instance. Your pistol shot accidentally disrupted the force field and thus you accidentally stumbled onto the pyramid.

“The blue death, which they can send for fifty feet or fifty miles is one of the most destructive weapons the world will ever know. In your case they used a light charge which knocked you out, but they can use it to wipe out whole cities.

“Things like that are more valuable than diamonds in the world today. With clever exploitation who knows how far I can go?” Zaraf smiled and there was a sinister ugliness in the effort. “You, however, Mr. Meddler are not going any farther at all. At my demand Horjak, the new ruler, has ordered your execution. It will be followed by wholesale executions of those who oppose the reign of Horjak.”

“A very nice set-up,” Neal said quietly. “Those you don’t approve of, or who don’t approve of you, just get wiped out. It may work, Zaraf, but you’ll find living with yourself quite a job.”

“I can stand it, I think,” Zaraf chuckled mirthlessly. “Now to get down to business. My real reason in coming down here was to point out the highly ingenious method I have selected for your elimination.”

He pointed to a rack-like affair that was raised from the floor six or seven feet.

“In words of one syllable,” Zaraf continued with relish, “you will be spread-eagled there, tied hand and foot to each of the four posts. Then at a signal from me, the executioner cuts a very slender cord and the most amazing thing happens.”

He pointed up to the right and left of the rack, and Neal saw for the first time that a half dozen huge knives were suspended by ropes from the ceiling, parallel to the rack.

“The knives swing down,” Zaraf said softly. “They are heavy and will travel very fast. They will pass through your suspended body and that will be that! Your wrists and ankles will still be attached to the posts but the rest of your body will be sliced as neatly as a sausage. Clever, isn’t it?”

In Spite of himself, Neal felt a horrible revulsion crawling over him. To die was one thing. But to die like a butchered hog in front of a howling mob of savages was quite another.

His eyes circled the arena desperately. Every exit was guarded with a dozen men, every aisle clogged with spectators. His gaze swung back to Zaraf and he used every ounce of will power in his control to force a smile over his features.

“Am I supposed to be frightened?” he asked softly. “Am I supposed to be trembling and begging for mercy now? Sorry to disappoint you, Zaraf, but it doesn’t worry me that much.”

Zaraf’s face flushed an angry red, but without another word, he turned and marched up the steps to the dais. Neal’s eyes followed him and then he saw Jane.

Pale and regal, she was standing next to the dais, her arms bound behind her. Neal felt a cold sweat break out on his body. They couldn’t let her watch. It wasn’t human.

Zaraf turned and smiled down at Neal.

“Remember to be your most heroic,” he said mockingly. “We have distinguished company present.”

The crimson-tuniced guards stepped forward now and grabbed Neal by the arms. His eyes were on Jane, and he hardly felt them shoving him toward the rack. He was trying desperately, frantically to tell her with his eyes that he loved her and would always love her, wherever he might be. He had never said the things he wanted to say to her and this was his last opportunity.

Suddenly a clear, terrible scream of anguish sounded through the vast, packed throne room.

“You can’t! You can’t! Let me die with him!” It was Jane sobbing and crying frantically, stumbling down the steps of the dais toward the execution rack.

“You fool!” shouted Zaraf. “Come back here!”

Leaping from his chair he plunged down the steps after her. Shouts and yells sounded through the throne room, as the natives lent their voices to the excitement.

Neal turned at Jane’s scream. The two guards holding him relaxed their grip in the general confusion. With a sudden writhing twist Neal was free. He was weakened from his exposure in the desert, but his right hook was still a dangerous weapon. His first swing caught the guard off balance and dumped him in a complete somersault to the ground. Two more guards rushed at him, but he sidestepped them with a quick leap. As he landed he felt something jab into his thigh with an agonizing pain. Instinctively his hand moved to the spot, his fingers touched a slim, hard object close to his thigh. A surge of hope shot through him, not that he could hope to win, but that at least he could put up an excellent account for himself.

The two guards were closing in on him now, but before they could grab him, his hand flashed from his pocket grasping the strange, diamond-studded knife that he had first seen in the Cairo curio shop and secondly, when he had found it under the canvas flooring of Jane’s tent. He had shoved it into his pocket then and forgotten it. His hand closed about the torso-handle of the knife now, and the diamond necklace that topped the torso flashed in a thousand scintillating sparkles as he drew his arm back to slash out at the two guards who were pressing him.

But his arm did not fall! It remained rigidly aloft as though frozen.

* * * *

For the two guards were staring at the knife, fearfully, tremblingly. Hoarse, guttural pleas sounded inarticulately from their throats as they backed away from him, terror-stricken. When they were eight feet from him they suddenly hurled themselves to the floor and grovelled there, mouthing strange incantations. Neal wheeled, and as he flashed the knife about his head, the other guards dropped to their knees, their voices blending with the first two guards.

Taking advantage of this sudden, but inexplicable break, Neal leaped toward the base of the dais where Jane was struggling helplessly with Zaraf.

Horkak, the new ruler, saw Neal charge toward the dais brandishing the scintillating knife in his hand like an avenging angel. With a soft moan of terror he sank to his knees, babbling incoherently.

Zaraf flung Jane to one side and leaped past Neal. He sprinted to the oval enclosure where the guards were moaning and grovelling on their faces.

“Get up!” he screamed. “Get up you yellow hounds. Grab the prisoner and tear him apart with your hands. Get up! Get up!”

But he might have been talking to lumps of clay or sodden logs for all the attention the guards paid his hysterical commands. There was a swelling moaning noise coming now from the rows of packed seats. On their knees and on their faces the natives moaned and chanted their mysterious mumbling incantations.

Neal clasped Jane to him and slashed her bonds with the glittering knife, then he jumped from the dais and started after Zaraf.

Zaraf saw him coming. With one last frantic scream at the oblivious natives, he turned blindly and dashed under the rack. His foot caught on a silken cord and hurled him to the ground, but he clambered quickly to his feet.

Then he screamed—madly and hysterically, once.

Neal saw it happen, saw the complete, incredibly horrible death by which Max Zaraf paid for his sins.

His foot had tripped the knife release under the rack, and when he sprang to his feet, the heavy, speeding knives—poised for Neal’s execution—flashed downward with the devastating force of razor-sharp cleavers. Twelve blades there were, and each one found at least part of its target.

* * * *

Shaken, Neal made his way to Jane’s side. She was slumped at the foot of the dais, sobbing. He slipped his arm around her shoulder.

“It’s all over darling,” he murmured softly. “I think we can straighten things out now.”

He looked up as a calm, wise looking old man with long white hair approached slowly.

“I am a friend,” the old man said softly. “I am not afraid of the knife of Sali, the Goddess of Death. For I gave it to Professor Manners when he was here so many years ago. It was a pledge of our friendship and he always promised that he would bring it with him on his return.”

“Why are the people afraid of it?” Neal asked.

The old man shrugged.

“People are afraid of things they do not understand. Years, centuries ago, it was believed by my people that Death was a woman who chose her victims in the dark and killed them with just such a knife as you hold in your hand. That knife was venerated by our people and prayed to, that it might spare them its sting. It was believed invincible.

“As ruler, I discouraged such outmoded beliefs, and to further eliminate the belief I gave the sacred knife of Sali to Professor Manners. But I have been deposed as ruler, and under the influences of barbaric customs once again, you see how quickly,my children revert to the beliefs and customs of their fathers.”

“A lucky thing for us they did,” Neal said. “What goes now? Will you take your job back as ruler around here?”

The white haired old man smiled.

“If my people want me,” he said simply, “I will be happy to retain my authority.”

Neal put his hand under Jane’s chin and lifted her head up.

“No more crying now,” he whispered. “Everything’s all set. The regular ruler is stepping back into the job and he’s a great old guy. Why—why I’ll bet he can even marry people!”