THE MEM-SAHIB SPEAKS
It was nearly a week later, on the border of the Gobi, that Gray and
Mirai Khan sighted the caravan. The day was rainy. During a space
when the rain thinned, the Kirghiz pointed out a group of _yurts_
surrounded by camels and ponies a mile away.
Gray scanned the encampment through his glasses, and made out that
the caravan numbered a good many men, and that the _yurts_ were being
put up for the night. The rain began again, and cut off his view.
It was then late afternoon. Both men were tired. They had pushed
ahead steadily from Liangchowfu, killing what they needed in the way
of game, and occasionally buying goat's milk or dried fruit from a
wayside shepherd. The few villages they met they avoided. Gray had
not forgotten Wu Fang Chien, or the fears of Delabar.
"They are Kirghiz _yurts_," said Mirai Khan when the American
described what he had seen. "And it is a caravan on the march, or we
would have seen sheep. Many tribes use our _yurts_. They are taken
down and put up in the time it takes a man to smoke a pipe. But
these people are not Kirghiz. My kinsmen have not wealth to own so
many camels."
"What do you think they are?"
"Chinese merchants, Excellency, or perhaps Turkestan traders from
Kashgar."
Mirai Khan's respect for his companion had increased with the last
few days. Gray's accurate shooting inspired his admiration, and the
fortitude of the man surprised him.
On his part, Gray trusted the Kirghiz. If Mirai Khan had meant to
rob him, he had enjoyed plenty of chances to do so. But the
Kirghiz's code would not permit him to steal from one who was sharing
his bread and salt.
"If they are Chinese," meditated the American, "it will not be wise
to ride up to their camp. What say you, Mirai Khan?"
The Kirghiz puffed tranquilly at his noisome pipe.
"This. It is the hour of sunset prayer. When that is ended you and
I will dismount, Excellency, and stalk the encampment. By the favor
of God we will then learn if these people are Chinese or Turkomans.
If the last, we shall sleep in a dry _aul_, which is well, for my
bones like not the damp."
Whereupon Mirai Khan removed his pipe and kneeled in the sand, facing
toward the west, where was the holy city of his faith. So
poverty-stricken was he that he did not even own a prayer carpet.
Gray watched, after tethering the three animals.
"Remember," he said sternly when Mirai Khan had finished the prayer,
"there must be no stealing of beasts from the camp, whatever it may
be."
The Kirghiz's weakness for horseflesh was well known to him. The
hunter agreed readily and they set out under cover of the rain. By
the time they were half way to the caravan the sudden twilight of the
Gobi concealed them.
Guided by the occasional whinny of a horse, or the harsh bawl of a
camel, Mirai Khan crept forward, sniffing the air like a dog.
Several lights appeared out of the mist, and Gray took the lead.
He could make out figures that passed through the lighted entrances
of the dome-shaped felt shelters. Drawing to one side he gained the
camels which rested in a circle, apparently without a watcher.
Mirai Khan had been lost to view in the gloom and Gray walked slowly
forward among the camels, trying to gain a clear glimpse of the men
of the caravan. The few that he saw were undoubtedly servants, but
their dress was unfamiliar.
Gray could almost make out the interior of one of the _yurts_,
lighted by candles, with silk hangings and an array of cushions on
the floor. He rose to his full height, to obtain a better view, and
paused as he saw one of the figures look toward him.
The camels were moving uneasily. Gray could have sworn he heard a
muffled exclamation near him. He turned his head, and a form uprose
from the ground and gripped him.
Gray wrenched himself free from the man and struck out. The newcomer
slipped under his arm and caught him about the knees. Other forms
sprang from among the camels and lean arms twined around the American.
"Look out, Mirai Khan!" he cried in Chinese. "These are enemies."
A powerful white man who can handle his fists is a match for a round
half dozen Mongolians, unarmed--if he has a clear footing and can see
where to hit. Gray was held by at least four men; his rifle slung to
one shoulder by a sling hampered him. He was cast to earth at once.
His face was ground into the sand, and his arms drawn behind his
back. He heard his adversaries chattering in a strange tongue. Cold
metal touched his wrists. He felt the click of a metal catch and
realized that handcuffs had been snapped on him.
He wondered vaguely how handcuffs came to be in a Central Asian
caravan, as he was pulled roughly to his feet. In the dark he could
not make out the men who held him. But they advanced toward one of
the tents--the same he had been trying to see into.
Gray, perforce, made no further resistance. He was fully occupied in
spitting sand from his mouth and trying to shake it from his eyes.
So it happened that when he stood in the lighted _yurt_, he was
nearly blind with the dust and the sudden glare. He heard excited
native gutturals, and then----
"Why, it's a white man."
It was a woman's voice, and it spoke English. Moreover the voice was
clear, even musical. It reflected genuine surprise, a tinge of
pity--inspired perhaps by his damaged appearance--and no little
bewilderment.
"Yes, _chota missy_," echoed a man near him, "but this, in the dark,
we knew it not. And he cried out in another tongue."
Gray reflected that his warning to Mirai Khan had been ill-timed.
His eyes still smarted with the sand. It was not possible for him to
use his hands to clear them, because of the handcuffs which bound his
wrists behind his back. Not for the world would Gray have asked for
assistance in his plight.
He winked rapidly, and presently was able to see the others in the
tent clearly. The men who had brought him hither he made out to be
slender, dark skinned fellows. By their clean dress, and small,
ornamented turbans draped over the right shoulder he guessed them to
be Indian natives--most probably Sikhs. This surprised him, for he
had been prepared to face Dungans or Turkomans.
A portable stove gave out a comfortable warmth, beside a take-down
table. The rough felt covering of the _yurt_ was concealed behind
hangings of striped silk. Gray stared; he little expected to find
such an interior in the nomad shelter.
The table was covered with a clean cloth. Behind it hung a canvas
curtain, evidently meant to divide one corner from the rest of the
tent, perhaps for sleeping purposes. In front of the partition,
behind the table, was a comfortable steamer chair. And in the chair,
watching him from wide, gray eyes was a young woman.
He had not seen a white woman for months. But his first glance told
him that the girl in the chair was more than ordinarily pretty--that
she would be considered so even in Washington or Paris. She was
neatly dressed in light tan walking skirt and white waist, a shawl
over her slender shoulders.
She was considering him silently, chin on hand, a slight frown
wrinkling her smooth brow. The bronze hair was dressed low against
the neck in a manner that Gray liked to see--at a distance, for he
was shy in the presence of women.
The eyes that looked into his were clear, and seemed inclined to be
friendly. Just now, they were dubious. The small nose tilted up
from a mouth parted over even teeth. She was deeply sunburned, even
to throat and arms. Ordinarily, women take great pains to protect
their skin from exposure to the sun.
There was the stamp of pride in the brown face, and the head poised
erect on strong young shoulders. Gray knew horses. And this woman
reminded him of a thoroughbred. Later, he was to find that his
estimate of her pride was accurate; for the present, he was hardly in
the mood to make other and stronger deductions concerning the girl.
He flushed, hoping that it did not show under the sand.
"Right," he admitted with a rueful smile. "Beneath the mud and dirt,
I happen to be an Aryan."
"An Englishman?" she asked quickly, almost skeptically, "Or American?"
"American," he admitted. "My name is Robert Gray."
Her glance flickered curiously at this. He was not too miserable to
wonder who she was. What was a white woman doing in this stretch of
the Gobi? A white woman who was master, or rather mistress of a
large caravan, and seemed quite at home in her surroundings?
He wondered why he had flushed. And why he felt so uncomfortable
under her quiet gaze. To his utter surprise the frown cleared from
her brow, and her lips parted in a quick smile which crept into her
eyes. Then she was serious again. But he found that his pulses were
throbbing in wrist and throat.
"Where did you find this _feringhi_, Ram Singh?" she asked curiously.
"Among the camels, _mem-sahib_," promptly answered the man who had
spoken before. "His servant was making off the while with our
horses."
Gray looked around. At the rear of the group, arms pinioned to his
sides and his bearded face bearing marks of a struggle, was Mirai
Khan. The Kirghiz wore a sheepish expression and avoided his eye.
"The servant," explained Ram Singh in stern disapproval, "had
untethered two of the ponies. One he had mounted when we seized him.
Said I not the plain was rife with horse thieves?"
Gray glared at Mirai Khan.
"Did I not warn you," he asked angrily, "that there was to be no
stealing of animals?"
The Kirghiz twisted uneasily in his bonds.
"Aye, Excellency. But the ponies seemed unguarded and you had need
of one to ride. If these accursed Sikhs had not been watching for
horse lifters we would have gone free."
The officer swore under his breath, beginning to realize what an
unenviable position Mirai Khan had placed him in. Robbing a caravan
was no light offense in this country. And the horses had belonged to
the woman!
Gray silently thrust his manacled hands further out of sight, wishing
himself anywhere but here. Covered with the grime of a week's hike
across the plain, with a stubby beard on his chin, eyes bleared with
sand, and his hat lost, he must look the part of a horse lifter--and
Mirai Khan's appearance did not conduce to confidence.
"Is this true?" the girl asked. Again the elfin spirit of amusement
seemed to dance in the gray eyes.
"Every word of it," he said frankly. Searching for words to explain,
his shyness gripped him. "That is, Mirai Khan was undoubtedly taking
your ponies, but I didn't know what he was up to----"
He broke off, mentally cursing his awkwardness. It is not easy to
converse equably with a self-possessed young lady, owner of a
damaging pair of cool, gray eyes. Especially when one is battered
and bound by suspicious and efficient servants.
"Why didn't you come direct to the _yurt_?" she observed tentatively.
"Because I thought you might be--a Chinaman."
"A Chinaman!" The small head perched inquisitively aslant. "But I'm
not, Captain Gray. Why should I be? Why should you dislike the
Chinese?"
Two things in her speech interested Gray. She seemed to be an
Englishwoman. And she had given him his army rank, although he
himself had not mentioned it. Most certainly there could be nothing
in his appearance to suggest the service.
"I have reason to dislike one Chinaman," returned Gray. "So I was
obliged to take precautions," he blundered, and then strove to remedy
his mistake. "If I had known you were the owner of the _yurt_, I
would have come straight here."
Too late, he realized that he had made his blunder worse. The girl's
brows went up, also her nose--just a trifle.
"Why should you be so cautious, Mr. Gray?"
The civilian title was accented firmly. Yet a minute ago she had
addressed him as "captain." "Surely"--this was plainly ironical--"the
Chinese are harmless?"
Gray thought grimly of Liangchowfu.
"Sometimes," he said, "they are--inquisitive." The girl glanced at
him. Surely she did not take this as a personal dig? Gray did not
understand women. "Miss"--he hesitated--"_Memsahib_"--she
stared--"you see, I've gone beyond the limits mentioned in my
passport." He was unwilling, placed in such circumstances, to tell
the whole truth of his mission and rank. So he compromised. Which
proved to be a mistake. "And the governor fellow of Liangchowfu is
anxious to head me off."
"Really? Perhaps the official," and she glanced fleetingly at Mirai
Khan, "thinks you do not keep good company. Will you show me your
passport? You don't have to, you know."
No, he did not have to. But in his present plight he felt that a
refusal would be a mistake. He moved to reach the papers in his
breast pocket, and was checked by the handcuffs. He glanced at Ram
Singh angrily. The native looked at him complacently. It was an
awkward moment.
"Ram Singh!" The girl spoke sharply. "Have you bound the white
man's hands?"
The Sikh grunted non-committally. She pointed at Gray.
"Undo his hands. Is a white man to be tied like a horse-stealing
Kirghiz?"
Reluctantly, Ram Singh obeyed, and stood near vigilantly. Gray felt
in his pocket with stiffened fingers and produced his passport. This
the girl scanned curiously.
"I want to apologize," ventured Gray, "for Mirai Khan's attempt on
your horses. He was acting contrary to orders. But I take the blame
for what he did."
He spoke formally, even stiffly. The woman in the chair glanced at
him swiftly, studying him from under level brows. He felt a great
wish that he should be absolved from the stigma of guilt before her.
And, man-like, he pinned his trust in formal explanation.
She seemed not to heed his words. She returned his papers, biting
her lip thoughtfully. He would have given much to know what she was
thinking about, but the girl's bright face was unreadable.
"Ram Singh," she ordered absently, "the _Sahib's_ rifle must be
filled with sand. See that it is cleaned. Take him to the store
tent where he can wash the sand from his eyes. Will you come back
here, Captain Gray? I would like ever so much to talk to you."
While Gray washed gratefully, and while the natives brushed his coat
and shoes, his mind was on the girl of the _yurt_. He told himself
savagely that he did not desire to be sympathized with. Like a
woman, he thought, she had taken pity on his discomfort. Of course,
she had to treat him decently, before the natives.
In this, he was more right than wrong.