Читать книгу Biggles Flies South - W E Johns - Страница 6

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Thus, as the sun went down in a blaze of crimson glory, the mighty Persian host marched out in martial splendour: Parthian pikemen, Mardian archers, Scythian cavalry, Medes and Susians, slingers, bowmen, horse and foot, chariots and baggage-wagons—all moved out across the quivering dunes, confident of victory, never having known defeat.

Mazeus, with his lance at rest, rode beside his father near the royal wardrobe chest, which rested in a chariot beside the records of the historians who accompanied the king so that the story of his prowess might be told. Around this chariot rode the Royal Guard, drawn from the highest born in the noble city of Persepolis.

Swiftly the rim of the sun melted into the sand; the moon came up and a myriad stars blazed down from a sky of purple velvet, while along the line of marching men arose such sounds as the dunes had never heard before; the dull rumble of a hundred thousand feet, the musical jingle of arms and accoutrements, the creaking of wagons, the groans of toiling slaves, and the cracking of the whips of their task-masters.

For three long days and nights the army wound like a gigantic serpent across the brooding sand, halting when the sun was high, the soldiers seeking in vain for shelter where there was none; for not a tree, not a bird, not an animal or blade of grass, nor any other living thing broke the eternal monotony of sand, sand, and still more sand. Yet ever in the distance strange wraiths of smoke pointed upwards to the heavens like accusing fingers, while at night unearthly fire was seen to flicker in the dunes. And the marching men marched on in silence, avoiding each other’s eyes, for in their hearts was fear.

On the evening of the third day, soon after the army had resumed its march, an excited murmur ran along the line. Hills could be seen ahead, so it was said, and the men were as cheered as ship-wrecked mariners when a coast is seen. Mazeus rode forward to the top of a towering dune and looked long and steadily at the line of jagged peaks, which, like a row of broken teeth, rose stark and clear into the sky. They were, he judged, still twenty miles away, but dawn should see the weary soldiers resting in their shade. He paused for a moment to watch the army winding through the sands, then he galloped back to his father to report.

It was nearly four hours later when he noticed, with more curiosity than alarm, that the moon had changed its colour. No longer was it an orb of gleaming silver; it had turned a creamy tint, almost golden; it appeared to be much larger, too, and misty at the edges. He called his father’s attention to it, but all he got by way of answer was a curt ‘Ride on!’

Another hour passed, and he saw that the moon had become a dullish, orange globe, a phenomenon he had never seen before. He noticed, too, that the pace of march had been increased, and that unusual noises now arose from the winding train behind. The crack of whips came faster, and the hoarse cries of the chariot-drivers were nearly drowned in the plaintive groaning of the camels. A breath of wind played for a moment on his cheek, but it brought him no refreshment, for it was as hot as if it had been breathed from the heart of a live volcano, and a thrill of apprehension swept through him.

‘What means this speed, O Father?’ he asked wonderingly, and then ran his tongue over his teeth, for there seemed to be some grit on them, which grated as he spoke.

‘A storm is coming,’ was the brief reply. ‘Look at the moon.’

Mazeus turned, and caught his breath when he saw that it had turned dull brown, with edges blurred, as though a veil were being drawn across it. ‘You mean a sand-storm?’ he asked easily, for now he felt no fear, having seen such things before.

‘Yes. Ride nearer to the chariot.’

‘It will overtake us, you think, before we reach the hills?’ questioned Mazeus, pressing his left leg against his horse’s flank to move it nearer to the chariot.

‘It will.’

‘But we cannot be far away now.’ As he spoke Mazeus turned again in the saddle, eyes seeking the moon, but now in vain. The column moved through a world of utter darkness.

‘Tie your scarf across your mouth and keep close by my side,’ his father told him, and a moment later came the wind.

At first it came quite quietly, a gentle sigh, a moan that crept across the wilderness; but then there came a gust, a howl, a searing, scorching blast, bringing with it a cloud of sand that stung and smarted like the bites of countless ants.

Mazeus bowed his head and swiftly tied his scarf about his mouth, at the same time fighting to check his plunging steed, in such darkness as he had never known. Where was the chariot? He moved, as he thought, towards it, but it was not where he had imagined it to be. Faintly, above the scream of the wind, he heard the groans of slaves and the cursing of the soldiers he could not see. Panic clutched his heart. Where was his father? ‘Father!’ he cried, but the blast, with a shriek of triumph, tore the word from his lips and flung it in the air. ‘Father!’ he called again, shortening his reins to control his frenzied mount. The animal, sensing his fear, reared high, then plunged. The rein snapped like a piece of cotton, and in an instant the maddened creature was racing before the storm.

Blindly, gasping for breath, Mazeus clung to the saddle with his left hand, still gripping in his right, perhaps from force of habit, his lance, for to lose a weapon in Cambyses’ army meant, for the loser, death. And as he rode a thousand demons seemed to clutch him, tearing at his clothes, snatching at his body, scouring his face and hands with sand until they bled. Where he was going, in what direction, he did not know; he only knew that the sand was choking him to death; for he had to breathe, and every time he drew a breath, by nose or mouth, the tiny grains poured in and clogged his throat and lungs.

He was reeling in the saddle when the horse fell, with an almost human scream of terror. Thrown clear, he rose at once, groping for the animal. But it had gone. For a moment or two he stood still, appalled by the calamity, then he began to run. But he seemed to be staggering through a roaring tide which, snatching at his ankles, dragged him down. He fell, rose, and fell again, hardly knowing that he did. ‘It is the end of the world,’ he thought, in a vague, bewildered way as he blundered on only to fall again. This time he remained rigid, his questing hands feeling the earth beneath him. It was no longer sand. It was rock. He had reached the hills! Gradually, like a blind man on a strange road, he felt his way along it until he found the thing he sought, a cleft, a fault in the rocky massif, and into it he tumbled. The sand poured in, but it was not so bad as it was outside, and gradually the storm began to wane.

Came dawn, and he crawled wearily from his refuge, his face all raw and his dry lips cracked and bleeding. A dreadful thirst consumed him and he knew that he must drink or die. No longer could he remove the cloying sand from his mouth. The army? Yes, someone would see him when he raised his lance. Forcing open his aching eyes, he looked out across the desert, but all that met his gaze was sand, billowing yellow dunes of sand as far as the eye could see. Behind him was the mountain, grim and stark, as relentless as death itself. At first he did not understand. Where was the army? The thought repeated itself again and again in his reeling brain. Where could it have gone in so short a time? One thing alone was certain: it was not there.

He was not to know that nearly all the mighty Persian host, fifty thousand horse and foot, horses, carts, and chariots, lay buried in the sand not a mile from where he swayed, so that neither pike nor lance, wheel nor standard remained to mark its mile-square tomb.

‘My father will come back,’ he thought desperately. ‘He will come back to seek me. I must make a mark that he will see. My lance!’ Weakly, the dunes rocking before his eyes, he picked up the weapon and drove the handle deep into the sand, so that the point was skyward. This done, he lay down to wait.

The sun soared upwards, driving bars of living fire into the sterile earth. Silence reigned, the awful silence of the uttermost wilderness. The rays crept round the rock and played upon the huddled body that lay at the foot of the lance. It did not move. It would never move again, for the spirit of Mazeus, son of Hystomannus, the last survivor of Cambyses’ Royal Guard, had gone to seek its comrades in the cloudless blue, above the eternal sand.