Читать книгу The Ruby Sword - Mitford Bertram - Страница 7

“We love to roam, the wide world our home,

As the rushing whirlwind free;

O’er sea and land, and foreign strand,

Who would not a wanderer be!

“To the far off scenes of our youthful dreams

With a lightsome heart we go;

On the willing hack, or the charger’s back,

Or the weary camel slow.”

Thus sang the wayfarer to himself as he urged a potentially willing, but certainly very tired hack along the stony, sandy road which wound gradually up the defile; now overhanging a broad, dry watercourse, now threading an expanse of stunted juniper—the whole constituting a most depressing waste, destitute alike of animal, bird—or even insect—life.

The wayfarer sang to keep up his spirits, for the desolation of the surroundings had already begun to get upon his nerves. He was thoroughly tired out, and very thirsty, a combination of discomfort which is apt to get upon one’s temper as well. His steed, a sorry quadruped at best, seemed hardly able to put one leg before another, wearied out with a long day’s march over arid plains, where the sun blazed down as a vast burning-glass upon slabs of rock and mounds of dry soil, streaked white here and there with gypsum—and now the ascent, gradual as it was, of the mountain defile had about finished both horse and rider.

Twice had the latter dismounted, with a view to sparing his worn-out steed by leading it. But the exasperating quadruped, in shameful disregard of the superabundant intelligence wherewith popular superstition persists in endowing that noble—but intensely stupid—animal the horse, flatly refused to be led; standing stockstill with every attempt. So his efforts in the cause of combined humanity and expediency thus defeated, the wayfarer had no alternative but to keep his saddle, where, sitting wearily, and with feet kicked limply from the stirrups, he now and then swung a spur-armed heel into the bony ribs—which incentive had about as much effect as if applied to an ordinary jog the while he went on half singing, half humming, to himself:

“There’s a charm in the crag, there’s a charm in the cloud,

There’s a charm in the earthquake’s throe;

When the hills are wrapt in a moonlit shroud

There’s a charm in the glacier’s snow.

“We bask in the blaze of the sun’s bright rays

By the murmuring river’s flow;

And we scale the peak of the mountain steep,

And gaze on the storms below.

“For use around a snug camp fire, that would be an excellent traveller’s song,” said this one to himself—“But in the present instance I fear it will be ‘gaze on the storms above,’ and I don’t like it.”

Away up the pass a dark curtain of cloud, ominous and now growing inky black in the subdued light following upon sunset, seemed to justify the wayfarer’s foreboding. It was distant enough as yet, but hung right over what would surely be the said wayfarer’s path.

“No, I don’t like it,” he went on, talking out loud to himself as he frequently did when travelling alone. “It looks very like a night in the open; nothing to eat, though there’ll be plenty to drink presently in the shape of rain-water, no shelter unless one can light upon an overhanging rock. A sweet country to be landed down in without any of the appliances of civilisation, and, from all accounts, not altogether a safe one for the homeless wanderer. Decidedly the prospect is gaudy. It positively corruscates with cheerfulness.”

For which grim irony there was ample justification. Sundown had brought no abatement of the boding oppressive heat, wherein not a breath of air was stirring. Great hills shot up to the fast glooming sky on either hand; now from the edge of the road itself, now from the valley bottom, in no part of great width—beyond the stony bed of the dry watercourse; their sides cleft here and there from base to summit by a jagged, perpendicular rift—black and cavernous—their serrated ridges piled on high in a confused jumble of sharp peak and castellated formation—the home of the markhoor and mountain sheep. Here a smooth, unbroken slab of rock, sloping at the well nigh precipitous angle of a high-pitched roof—there, at an easier slant, a great expanse of rock face, seamed and criss-crossed with chasms, like the crevasses on a glacier. No vegetation, either, to relieve the all pervading, depressing greyness, save where a ragged juniper or pistachio had found anchor along a ledge, or fringed the lip of some dark chasm aforesaid.

No turn of the road brought any relief to the eye—any lifting of the unconscious oppression which lay upon the mind; ever the same hills, sheering aloft, fearsome in their dark ruggedness, conveying the idea of vast and wellnigh untrodden fastnesses, grim, repellent, mysterious. Nor below did variety lie; the same lifeless juniper forest, its dreary trees set wide apart, its stoniness in places concealed by a coarse growth of grass, or sparse and stunted shrub. For of such are the wild mountain tracts of Baluchistan.

From an adjacent crag a raven croaked. The hoarse “cauk-cauk” cleft the air with a startling suddenness, breaking in as it did upon the lifeless and boding silence. High overhead a huge bird of prey circled in the now glooming twilight, as though searching with lingering reluctance for some sign of life, where there was no life, ere seeking its roost among the black recesses of yon cliff-walled chasm.

“The sole signs of life emblems of fierce predatoriness and death—” thought the wayfarer to himself. Very meet, indeed, for the surroundings in which they were set. Below, ere leaving the plain country, he had passed flocks of black-haired goats grazing, in charge of armed herdsmen; or now and again a string of camels and asses—the motive power of a party of wandering Baluchis. Some had given him the “Salaam,” and some had scowled resentfully at him as an intruder and an infidel; but even of these he would almost gladly have welcomed the sight now, so entirely depressing was the utter lifelessness of this uninhabited land. Yet it could not be entirely uninhabited, for here and there he had passed patches of corn land in the valley bottom, which must have been under cultivation at one time, though now abandoned.

The cloud-curtain away in front began to give forth red fitful gleams, and once or twice a low boom of distant thunder stirred the atmospheric stillness. But the double crash that burst from the hillside now—those red jets of flame—meant no war of the elements. At the same time, with a buzzing, humming noise, something passed over the wayfarer’s head.

Even the weary, played out steed was startled into a snort and a shy. The rider, on his part, was not a little startled too, as he recalled the evil reputation of the hill tribesmen, and realised that he himself was at that moment constituting a target to some of these. Still, he would not show alarm if he could help it.

“Salaam!” he shouted, raising his right hand with the palm outward and open; a peace sign recognised by other barbarians among whom he had at one time moved. “Salaam!” And his gaze was fixed anxiously upon the group of boulders whence the shots had been fired.

For a moment there was no answer—Then it came—took shape, indeed, after a fashion that was sufficiently alarming. Five figures sprang from their place of concealment—five tall, copper-coloured, hook-nosed barbarians, their fierce eyes gleaming with fanatical and racial hatred—their black hair flowing in long locks beneath their ample white turbans. Each held aloft a wicked looking, curved sword, and two carried jezails, whose muzzles still smoked from the shots just fired from them.

All this the wayfarer took in as in a lightning flash, as these wild beings whirled down upon him. Their terrific aspect—the white quiver of the naked swords, their ferocious yells stunning his ears, conveyed meaning enough. He realised that this was a time to run—not to fight.

Luckily the horse, forgetting for the moment its weariness in the terror of this sudden onslaught, sprang forward without waiting for the spurs now rammed so hard and deep into its ribs. But the assailants had chosen their ground well. The road here made a sudden descent—and was rough and stony withal. The fleet-footed mountaineers could travel as fast as the horse. Their flight over that rugged ground seemed as the flight of a bird.

The foremost, wellnigh alongside, held his sword ready for a fatal sweep. The awful devilish look on the face of this savage appalled the traveller. It was now or never. He put his hand behind him; then, pointing the revolver straight at his assailant, pressed the trigger. The pistol was small, but hard driving. At such close quarters it could not miss. The barbarian seemed to double up—and fell backwards on to his head, flinging his arms in the air—his sword falling, with a metallic clang, several yards away among the stones.

Just that brief delay saved the traveller. His assailants, now reduced to four, halted but momentarily to look at their stricken comrade, and by dint of rowelling the sides of his steed until the blood flowed freely, he was able to keep the exhausted animal as near to a gallop as it was capable of attaining. But the respite was brief. Their bloodcurdling yells perfectly demoniacal now, the barbarians leaped forward in pursuit. They seemed to fly. The tired horse could never hope to outstrip them.

And as he thus fled, the wayfarer felt the cold shadow of Death’s portal already chill upon his brow, for he realised that his chances were practically nil. He had heard of the “Ghazi” mania, which combined the uncontrollable fighting frenzy of the old Norse Berserk with the fervid fury of religious fanaticism. There was no warfare then existing with any of the tribes of Baluchistan. These people, therefore, were Ghazis, the most desperate and dangerous enemies to deal with, because utterly fearless, utterly reckless. He had still five chambers in his pistol, but the weapon was small, and quite unreliable, save at point blank—in which case his enemies would cut him down before he had time to account for more than one of themselves.

All this flashed through his mind. Then he realised that the ferocious yelling had ceased. He looked back. A turn in the road hid the pursuers from view, and now it was nearly dark. But the darkness brought hope. Had they abandoned the pursuit? Or could he not conceal himself in some of the holes and crevices on the stony hillside until they should be tired of searching?

Still keeping his steed at its best speed—and that was not great—so as to ensure a good start, he held on, warily listening for any sound of his pursuers—and thus covered about two miles. A thunder peal rolled heavily—its echoes reverberating from crag to crag—and the cloud-curtain in front was alive with a dazzle of sheeting flame, which lit up the road and the dreary landscape like noonday. By its light he looked back. Still no sign of the pursuers, whose white flowing garments could not have failed to catch his eye. Hope—strong hope—rekindled within him.

But not for long. His horse, thoroughly blown, dropped into a walk. A walk? A crawl rather, for the poor beast staggered along, its flanks heaving violently, swaying at times, as though the mere effort to drag one leg after another would bring it down, and once down well its rider knew there would be no more rising. And then? One man—alone, dismounted, inadequately armed—in the vast heart of an unknown country, tracked down by fleet-footed pitiless destroyers, stung to a frenzy of massacre by a twofold incentive—blood feud for a comrade slain, and the fanatical dictates—or supposed dictates—of the most merciless religion in the world. There could be but one end.

Again he dismounted. The horse, relieved of so much weight, seemed to pant less distressingly. Every moment thus lost was a moment gained by his bloodthirsty enemies to come up with him, yet he felt it to be the wisest policy to spare his steed to the very utmost. Then he climbed into the saddle once more.

Now the storm was wellnigh overhead. The thunder roared and crashed, and great drops of rain shone like silver in the momentary dazzle of the lightning gleam—In that livid flare, too, the peaks stood forth on high, silhouetted against the heavens, and every bough of the ragged juniper trees was clearly and delicately defined.

Something else, too, was clearly but appallingly defined—to wit, four white-clad figures—with bronzed faces and flowing hair and flaming eyes; and the sheen and flash of four curved naked swords. They had been running in silence hitherto—but now—with a deafening howl they hurled themselves forward on their prey—

Without even cocking his revolver, the hunted man dropped it to the present and pressed the trigger. It would not move. Then he drew up the hammer—no—tried to—It, too, would not move. The cylinder was jammed. The cartridges—which he had purchased at one of those large co-operative stores, where they sell many things, but nothing reliable—were too tight a fit. The weapon was as useless as a bit of stick.

With a bitter curse upon the pettifogging dishonesty of his trading fellow countrymen, the now desperate man wrenched off one of the stirrups—not a bad weapon at a pinch—But once more fortune befriended him. The horse, spurred by terror to one more effort, plunged down the road, which now made a sudden descent. The stunning report of a jezail, which the Ghazis had presumably stopped to reload, added to its terror, but the missile hummed harmlessly by. And now in the ceaseless gleam of the lightning, the fugitive saw right before him at the base of the slope, the wide stony bed of a watercourse.

On, on, on, anyhow—though where safety lay was too great a hope to enter his despairing brain—Then, drawing nearer and nearer from the hills on his right came a strange, swirling, rushing roar. It was not the thunder. It had a note of its own as it boomed louder and louder with every second. It was as the breaking of surf against the base of an echoing cliff. And as another vivid lightning flash lit up the whole landscape with a noonday flare, the traveller beheld a sight that was appalling in its wild terror.

A wall of water was sweeping down the dry nullah—a vast brown muddy wave, many feet high. His escape was cut off. Yet not. So far it had not reached the point where the road crossed. Could he be before it there was safety. Otherwise death, either way.

In the nullah now, the slipping, stumbling horsehoofs were flashing up showers of sparks in the blackness—Then another lightning gleam. The fugitive glanced to the right, then wished he had not. The advancing flood, tossing against the livid sky, was so awful as to unnerve him, and he was just half way across. The four Ghazis arrived on the bank, but even they shrank back from the roaring terror of that wave wall. But the remaining loaded jezail spoke—and the miserable steed, stricken by the missile, plunged forward, throwing the rider hard upon his head.

The wild triumph scream of the furious fanatics, leaping like demons in the lightning’s glare, was drowned by the bellowing voice of the flood. It poured by—and now the whole wide bed of the watercourse was a very hell of seething roaring waves. But on the further side from the bloodthirsty Ghazis lay the motionless form of a man—He lay at full length, face downwards, and the swirling eddies on the extreme edge of the furious flood were just washing the soles of his riding boots, and leaving little wisps of twigs and straws sticking in his upturned spurs.