Sword Woman and Other Historical Adventures (75 page)

The provisions with which they had filled their saddle-bags before leaving the village on the creek were exhausted. The Algerians had taken heavy toll of its store-houses and granaries, and the Cossacks, coming after, had stripped them. There was little grass in those mountains for grazing. Now the Cossacks were without food, and they had lost the trail of the corsairs.

The previous nightfall had found them rapidly overhauling their prey, as shown by the freshness of the spoor, and they had recklessly pushed on, thinking to come upon the Algerian camp in the night. But with the setting of the young moon, they had lost the trail in a maze of gullies and crags, and had wandered blindly and at random. Now at dawn they had found water, but their horses were worn out, and they themselves completely lost. This would never have occurred had they been led by a real
sotnik
or
essaul
. But they had no word of blame for Ivan, whose thoughtless recklessness had gotten them into their present situation.

“Get some sleep,” growled Ivan. “Togrukh, you and Stefan and Vladimir take the first watch. When the sun’s over that fir tree, wake three others to watch. I’m going to scout a bit up this gorge.”

He strode away up the canyon, soon lost among the straggling growth. Soon the way tilted upward, and the slopes on either hand changed to towering cliffs that rose sheer from the rock-littered floor. And with heart-stopping suddenness, from a tangle of bushes and broken boulders, a wild shaggy figure sprang up and confronted the Cossack. Ivan’s breath hissed through his teeth as his sword glittered high in the air; then he checked the stroke, seeing that the apparition was weaponless. It was a lean gnome-like man in sheepskins. His eyes, glaring wildly from a tangle of lank hair, took in every detail of the giant Cossack, from his scalp-lock to his silver-heeled boots. They took in the stained mail shirt tucked into his wide nankeen breeches, the pistol butts jutting from his broad silken girdle, the sword in his huge hand.

“God of my fathers!” said the vagabond in the speech of the Cossacks. “What does one of the free brotherhood in this Turk-haunted land?”

“Who are you?” grunted Ivan warily.

“A man who has just seen his people slaughtered,” answered the other with a wild laugh of mad despair. “I was the son of a
kral
of the Armenians – call me Kral. One name is good as another to an outcast. What do you here?”

“What lies beyond this canyon?” asked Ivan, instead of answering.

“Over yonder ridge which closes the lower end of this defile lies a tangle of gulches and crags. If you thread your way among them, you will come out overlooking the broad valley of Ekrem, which until yesterday was the home of my tribe, and which today holds their charred bones.”

“Is there food there?”

“Aye – and death. A horde of Turkomans hold the valley.”

As Ivan meditated this, a quick step brought him about, to see Togrukh approaching.

“Hai!”
Ivan scowled. “You had an order to watch while the
kunaks
slept!”

“The
kunaks
are too cursed hungry to sleep,” retorted the saturnine Cossack, eyeing the Armenian suspiciously.

“Devil bite you, Togrukh,” growled the big warrior, “I can’t conjure them mutton out of the air. They must gnaw their thumbs until we find a village to loot – ”

“I can lead you to enough food to feed a regiment,” interrupted Kral.

“Don’t mock me,
Ermenie
,” scowled Ivan; “you just said the Turkomans – ”

“Nay,” cried Kral, “there is a place not far from here, unknown to the Moslems, where my people stored food secretly. Thither I was going when I saw you coming up the gorge and knew you for a
Kazak
.”

Togrukh looked at Ivan, who drew a pistol and cocked it.

“Then lead on, Kral,” said the Zaporogian, “but at the first false move – bang! goes a ball through your head.”

The Armenian laughed, a wild scornful laugh, and motioned for them to follow. He made straight toward the nearer cliff, and groping among a cluster of brittle bushes, disclosed what looked like a shallow crack in the wall. Beckoning them after him, he bent and crawled inside.

“Into that wolf’s den?” Togrukh glared suspiciously, but Ivan followed the Armenian, and the other came after him. They found themselves in, not a cave, but a narrow cleft of the cliff, in breathless twilight gloom. Ivan swore and grunted as he levered his huge bulk between the shouldering walls, but within a few paces it widened until the giant could walk with ease. Forty paces further they came out into a wide circular space, surrounded by towering walls that resembled monstrous honey-combs.

“These were the tombs of an ancient, unknown people who held this land before the coming of my ancestors,” said Kral. “Their bones have long turned to dust. The caves were empty, and there my people stored food against times of famine and pillage. Take your fill; there are no Armenians to need it.”

Ivan looked curiously about him. It was like being at the bottom of a giant well. The floor was solid rock, worn smooth and level, as if by the feet of ten thousand generations. The walls, honey-combed with regular tiers of tombs for fifty feet on all sides, rose stupendously, ending in a small circle of blue sky. A vulture hung in the blue disk like a tiny black dot.

“Your people should have dwelt here in these caves,” said Togrukh. “Then when the Turks came – cut, slash! One man could hold that outer cleft against a horde.”

The Armenian shrugged his shoulders. “Here there is no water. When the Turkomans swooped down there was not time to run and hide. My people were not warlike. They only wished to till the soil.”

Togrukh shook his head, unable to understand such natures. Kral was pulling food for man and beast out of the lower caves – leather bags of grain, rice, moldy cheese, and dried meat, skins of sour wine.

“Go get some of the lads to help carry the stuff,
kunak
,” directed Ivan, bending his massive back toward his heels to gaze up at the higher caves. “I’ll stay here with Kral.”

Togrukh swaggered off, his silver heels rapping on the stone, and Kral tugged at Ivan’s steel-clad arm.

“Now do you believe I am a true man,
effendi
?”

“Aye, by God,” Ivan answered, gnawing a handful of dried figs. “Any man that leads me to food is a friend of mine. But where were the villages of these ancients? They couldn’t raise grain in that rocky canyon outside.”

“They dwelt in the valley of Ekrem. Long, long ago my ancestors came out of the north and found them tilling the soil there. They slew them all and took their land.”

“Well,” grunted Ivan, “that’s the way it goes. Now the Turks are slaughtering you fellows. But don’t worry; some day we Cossacks will ride over the mountains and cut their throats. Slash, bang! that’s the way it’ll be. But if the old people dwelt in the valley, why didn’t they lay away their dead closer by? It must be a long steep road from here to Ekrem.”

Kral’s eyes gleamed like a hungry wolf’s. “That is the secret locked in the heart of these hills, known only to my people. But I will show you – and more, if you will trust me.”

“Well, Kral,” said Ivan, munching away with relish, “we Zaporogians have no need to lie and hide like a Jew. We’re following that black devil Osman Pasha the corsair, who’s somewhere in these mountains – ”

“Osman Pasha is no more than three hours’ ride from this spot.”

“Ha!”
Ivan dashed down the food he was munching, and caught at his sword, his blue eyes ablaze.

“
Kubadar
– take care!” cried Kral. “There are forty corsairs, armed with matchlocks and entrenched among the boulders of Diva gorge. And they have been joined by Arap Ali and his hundred and fifty Turkomans. How many warriors have you,
effendi
?”

Ivan twisted his flowing moustache without reply, scowling heavily. He scratched his head, wondering what an
ataman
would have done under these circumstances. Deep thinking always made him drowsy and he detested the effort. His head swam and his heavy arms ached with the desire to draw his great sword and forget the weariness of meditation in the dealing of gigantic strokes. It was significant that though he was the foremost swordsman of the
Sjetsch
, he had never before been given the leadership of his comrades. He swore now at the necessity. He was wiser than his
kunaks,
but he frankly admitted that was no great evidence of wisdom. Like them, he was utterly reckless and improvident. Well led, they were invincible. Without wise leadership they would throw their lives away on a whim. He had made a mistake pushing on after dark, last night, but that fact had probably not occurred to any of them. Kral watched him keenly, reading the big Cossack’s mental workings from the expressions of his broad bluff face.

“Osman Pasha is your enemy?”

“Enemy!” Ivan repeated aggrievedly. “I’ll line my saddle with his hide – ”

“
Pekki!
Then come with me,
Kazak
, and I will show you what no man save an Armenian has seen for a thousand years.”

“What’s that?” demanded Ivan suspiciously.

“A secret way – and a road of death for our enemies!”

Ivan took a step forward, then halted. “Wait. Here come the sir brothers. Listen to them swear, the dogs.”

“Send them back into the canyon with the food,” whispered Kral, as half a dozen scalp-locked warriors swaggered out of the cleft and gaped curiously around. Ivan faced them portentously, booted legs wide-straddled, belly thrust out, thumbs hooked into his girdle.

“Take up this stuff and lug it back to the spring,
kunaks
,” he said with a grand gesture. “I told you I’d find food for you and the nags.”

“And what of you?” queried Togrukh, who was bitten by the devil of curiosity, as he gnawed a strip of
pasderma
– sun-dried mutton.

“Don’t fret about me,” roared Ivan. “Am I not the
essaul
? I have words with Kral. Go back to camp and eat beans, devil bite you!”

After the clatter of their boot heels had faded down the cleft, Kral led the way to the opposite wall and showed Ivan a series of steps carved in the rock. Up these he went like a cat, while the Zaporogian followed more slowly, suspicious of the hand-holds. High above the last tier of tombs the dim ladder ended at the mouth of a cavern Ivan had not noticed from below. It was much larger than the others; in it Ivan could stand upright. He saw that, instead of being a mere notch in the cliff like the others, this cave ran back and disappeared in darkness.

“Up this shaft came the ancients bearing their dead,” said Kral. “It leads to the vale of Ekrem. Once another shaft led down from tier to tier to the floor of this place, but that has been long choked with the falling in of the walls. If you follow this tunnel, you will come out behind the castle of the Kurd, El Afdal Shirkuh, that overlooks Ekrem.”

“How shall it profit us?” grunted Ivan.

“Listen, and I will tell you a tale!” exclaimed Kral, squatting in the semi-darkness, his back against the cave-wall. “Yesterday when the slaughtering began, I strove for awhile with the Turki dogs; then when my comrades had been cut down, I fled, and leaving the valley, ran down the gorge of Diva. In the midst of this gorge there is a great heap of boulders, masked by thickets. I sought refuge there, only to find it occupied by a strange band of warriors. I was among them before I was aware of them, and they beat me down with the barrels of their pistols, and bound me, asking me questions as to what went on in the valley – for as they rode down the gorge, they had heard the shots and shouting, and had halted and entrenched themselves on the knoll, and were about to send scouts forward. They were Algerian pirates and they called their
emir
Osman Pasha.

“While they questioned me, a girl came riding like one mad, with the Turkomans at her heels. When she sprang from her horse and begged aid of Osman Pasha I recognized her as the Persian dancing-girl who dwells in the castle. He and his men scattered the Turkomans with a volley from their matchlocks, and then he talked with the girl, Ayesha. They had forgotten me and I lay near, bound, and heard all they said.

“For more than a year, Shirkuh has held a captive in his castle. I know, because I have taken grain and sheep to the castle, to be paid for after the Kurdish fashion – with curses and blows.
Kazak
, the prisoner is Orkhan, brother of Murad
Padishah
!”

The Cossack grunted in surprize.

“This Ayesha disclosed to Osman, and he swore to aid her in freeing the prince. As they talked the Turkomans returned in full force and reined in at a distance, wishful to attack, yet fearing the matchlocks. Osman hailed them, and they had speech, he and their chief Arap Ali who commands since their
khan
was slain, and at last the Turkoman came among the rocks and squatted at Osman’s fire and shared bread and salt. And the three plotted to rescue Prince Orkhan, and put him on the Ottoman throne.

“Ayesha had discovered the secret way from the castle. This day, just before sunset, the Turkomans are to attack the castle openly, and while they thus attract the attention of the Kurds, Osman and his Algerians are to come to the castle by the secret way. Ayesha will have returned to Orkhan, and will open the secret door for them. They will take the prince away, and ride into the hills, recruiting warriors. As they talked night fell, and I gnawed through my cords and slipped away.

“You wish vengeance – here is a chance for both vengeance and profit,
yah kahwand
! I will show you how to trap Osman. Slay him – slay the girl – and their followers – take Orkhan and wring a mighty price from Safia. She will pay you richly to keep him out of the way, or to slay him.”

“Show me,” grunted the Cossack incredulously. Kral nodded. Groping into a pile of goods in a corner, he produced a torch, which he lighted with flint and steel. Then beckoning Ivan, he started off down the cavern. The Zaporogian drew his broadsword and followed.