THE GAPING JAWS
Burnet ascended to the highest point of the _tell_, and, unstrapping a
pair of field glasses, made a careful survey of his surroundings. The
country between himself and the river consisted mainly of swamp and
marsh, dotted with islands of various sizes. There were no dwellings
within view, but Burnet knew that the region was inhabited, though
sparsely, and the flight of the aeroplane, its descent near the _tell_,
its subsequent departure, must have been noticed by a certain number of
Arabs. Curiosity, if no other motive, would impel any who were near to
hasten to the spot; but he saw no movement on all the wide expanse
around except among the birds of the marsh; and reflecting that those
Arabs who had witnessed the return flight of the aeroplane would not
guess that it had left a passenger behind, he restored the glasses to
their case, and prepared to complete the errand that had brought him to
the spot.
Descending to the foot of the _tell_, he made his way to a wady that
bordered it on one side. A sluggish current of muddy water flowed
through the channel, whose banks were thickly overgrown with reeds. A
number of these he cut with his pocket-knife, binding the stalks with
tendrils of a trailing plant. With this faggot of reeds in one hand
and the bundle he had taken from the aeroplane in the other, he
returned to the ruins on the tell. There he stuck the former in the
grinning mouth of one of the grotesque animals at the porch; then he
passed inside, and once more descended into the underground room, this
time, however, letting the stone slab drop into its place above.
A few seconds later the bundle of reeds hanging out of the monster's
mouth disappeared. The animal, so far from being a solid block, as it
appeared, was hollow, and Burnet had climbed into it by means of
notches in the wall at one corner of the cellar. He withdrew the
reeds: next moment they reappeared at a similar orifice on the other
side of the figure, which, like Janus, was double-faced, and with this
roughly extemporised broom he swept a quantity of sand over the slab,
until it was hidden sufficiently to pass unnoticed except by a careful
observer acquainted with its position. This done, he drew the broom
back and took it down with him to the dark and airless chamber below.
If any watching Arab had seen the young British officer disappear into
the earth, he would have been somewhat startled, some twenty minutes
later, when the slab was lifted again and an Arab lad cautiously
emerged. His head was swathed in a strip of parti-coloured cloth held
in position by two thick rings of camel's hair; a dirty, shapeless,
yellowish robe descended to his knees; his legs, remarkably brown, were
bare; his feet were encased in leather-thonged sandals. He carried a
small bundle; across his shoulder was slung a British regulation
water-bottle--the only article by which he could have been
distinguished from the boatmen who might be seen any day on the Tigris.
He lowered the slab, swept sand over it, obliterated the footprints
around, and having thrust his reed-broom into the mouth of the stone
animal, picked his way through the ruins to the north-west corner of
the _tell_, where an uninterrupted view of the country could be
obtained.
He was just turning the corner of a rugged wall when, beneath him at a
distance of barely twenty yards, he saw a young Arab rushing up the
slope, stumbling, recovering himself, his eyes directed always to his
feet. Burnet edged backwards round the corner, and was out of sight
when the Arab gained the top. But there was now only a few yards
between them; in a second or two the Arab would himself turn the
corner, and Burnet saw that if he made a dash for the nearest cover in
his rear he must inevitably be observed by the stranger before he could
reach it. Whipping out a pistol as a precaution--for he knew not
whether the Arab was friend or foe--he stood back. The Arab darted
round the corner at racing speed, saw the pistol pointed at him, and
swerving slightly grabbed at Burnet's wrist. The sudden wrench jerked
the pistol out of his hands and at the same time caused both men to
lose their balance. Burnet, the first to recover himself, freed his
arm with a dexterous twist, and the two men closed, stumbling and
swaying over the broken surface of the _tell_.
[Illustration: THE STRUGGLE ON THE TELL]
As soon, however, as Burnet got a firm hold the issue was not long in
doubt. The Arab wriggled like an eel, but he was no match for the
Englishman either in physical strength or in athletic skill. Moreover
he was already winded by his impetuous rush over the heavy ground.
Burnet freed himself without much difficulty from his opponent's grip:
then, getting his hand behind the Arab's neck in the position known to
the wrestler as the "half-nelson," he forced him downwards and finally
threw him helpless into a pocket of sand. In a few seconds he had
secured the man's weapons--a clumsy pistol and a crooked dagger called
_shabriyeh_--and regained his own pistol. Then he stood above the
Arab, who now lay on his back, staring up at the supposed fellow-Arab
who had thrown him so easily and in a manner so unfamiliar.
The stranger was no older than Burnet himself. He was an Arab of the
best type, with handsome features and intelligent and fearless eyes.
"Rise, I pray you, brother," said Burnet in Arabic. "We have somewhat
to say one to the other."
The Arab got up quickly. Puzzled as he had been by the wrestling
trick, he was still more puzzled by the friendly manner of the man who
had vanquished him, and especially by the slight smile that accompanied
his words. He fixed his keen eyes on Burnet's face, but said nothing.
"I am alone here, as you see," Burnet went on, "and in these times,
when it is hard to know friends from foes, a man must needs take care.
We are strangers, yet it may be that we are also friends."
The Arab assented merely with a word, but did not relax his attitude of
watchfulness. This man who spoke to him used good Arabic, but was more
direct and less given to expletives than the average Arab.
"You are my captive," Burnet continued. "Tell me who you are, whence
you come, and why you ran hither in such headlong haste."
"My lips are dry; give me drink," said the Arab.
"By the grace of Allah I have fresh water--not like the foul water of
the swamp," said Burnet, unscrewing the stopper of his water-bottle.
"Drink, brother."
The young man took a deep draught, returned the bottle with a word of
thanks, and said:
"My tongue will speak true things, and Allah judge between us."
Burnet threw a keen glance around the horizon, then sat down on a
broken block of stone, inviting the Arab to sit opposite him. And then
the young man began his story.
His name was Rejeb, and he was the chief of a clan of the Anazeh whose
territory lay on the far side of the Euphrates. His father, now some
years dead, had been a lifelong rebel against the Turkish rule, and in
his last year had suffered a disastrous defeat through the defection
and treachery of another chief who had been his ally. In this final
battle he had lost his life; his people had escaped extermination only
by fleeing into the desert. Since the outbreak of the Great War they
had gradually reoccupied their old districts, the Turks having enough
to do without taking measures to suppress so unimportant an enemy. It
was otherwise, however, with the treacherous tribe which had been his
father's ruin. For some time its chief, Halil, had made no sign: his
fighting strength was greatly reduced through the fact that many of his
men were with the Turks. But after the British failure to relieve Kut
he had collected a considerable force, and taking advantage of Rejeb's
absence at Kerbela he had first cut off the young man's tribe and then
attacked it. The tribe, after a stout resistance, had made good its
retreat across the Euphrates, to a fastness in the swamps. Rejeb, on
his way back from Kerbela, had been met by a messenger with news of the
reverse, and, changing his route in order to rejoin his people, had
been chased by a party of Halil's horsemen. In eluding them he had
lost touch with the messenger who had hitherto accompanied him; his
horse had foundered, and the only course then open to him was to swim
the Euphrates on a skin. This he had done, and thought himself safe,
when the reappearance of his pursuers revived his anxieties.
Fortunately their horses were useless in the swamps, and on foot he had
reasonable hope of escaping them. An hour or so, however, before his
arrival at the _tell_, he had only just succeeded in giving their main
party the slip. The direction of his flight had been seen by three or
four of their number who had separated from the rest, and he did not
doubt that these three or four, if not the whole body, had tracked him
and before long would reach the _tell_.
Rejeb's story was told rapidly, and with an air of sincerity that would
have disarmed suspicion even in one far more sceptical by nature than
Roger Burnet. The news that men of a hostile tribe in Turkish pay were
hastening to this spot was very disturbing. Burnet knew that he was in
fully as much danger from his captive's pursuers as the captive
himself. His disguise might pass muster; the story he had invented to
account for the presence of a solitary boatman so far from the river,
if he were challenged, was sufficiently plausible; but if he was found
in the company of the young chief whom Halil's men were hounding down
he would certainly be seized and carried to Halil for examination at
least. He had very little time in which to secure himself.
The obvious course was to release Rejeb, who would no doubt continue in
the direction he had been going, and as soon as he was out of sight, to
take refuge in the subterranean room until the chase was past. But the
young chief was jaded, worn out by his hurried flight and the
subsequent struggle on the tell. It was almost certain that he would
be run down. Burnet had taken an instinctive liking to him; he could
not give him up to his enemies, who were at the same time enemies of
the British. After a few moments' reflection he turned suddenly to the
Arab and said:
"If I save you from the hands of Halil, will you swear by the beard of
the Prophet not to play me false?"
Rejeb was apparently staggered by this strange offer from a man with
whom, a few minutes before, he had been locked in fierce struggle--a
man, moreover, who had given no account of himself and about whom there
was something mysterious. He flashed a keen questioning glance at
Burnet, as if fearful of a trap.
"You are no boatman?" he said slowly.
"And if I am not? What is that to you if I am a friend?"
The Arab hesitated for a brief moment. Then perhaps it occurred to him
that his situation could scarcely be worse than it was; perhaps he was
mutually attracted to this young man of his own age. At any rate,
after the slightest pause, he said, raising his hand:
"By the beard of the Prophet I swear it."
During this conversation the two men had remained behind the wall,
Burnet every now and then peering through a gap in the masonry in the
direction from which the Arab had come. He now suggested that Rejeb
should go to the corner and keep watch for the pursuers. Having left
his field glasses with the rest of his equipment in the underground
room, he was less able than the keener-sighted Arab to view the distant
country.
Rejeb went to the corner and flattened himself against the wall with
the instinct for cover natural to a dweller in the wilds. In a few
moments he beckoned to Burnet with one hand, the rest of his body
remaining motionless. When Burnet joined him, he asked him to look at
a large bed of rushes some distance to the north-west. Shading his
eyes with his hand, and careful not to expose himself, Burnet gazed
towards the spot indicated, and was soon able to make out five or six
figures moving among the reeds and advancing straight towards the tell.
Burnet led the Arab to the central ruins and through the porch to the
entrance of the underground room. Raising the slab they descended;
then Burnet mounted into the interior of the colossal animal in which
he had left his broom, and swept sand over the slab and the nearest
footprints as before. He had hardly withdrawn the broom when he heard
shuffling footsteps on the rough ground beyond the wall, and looked out
through the wide mouth of the image. It was almost completely dark
within, and in the unlikely event of any enquirer thinking to peer into
the jaws of the colossus he could escape discovery by stooping.
In a few minutes a tall Arab appeared round the corner of the wall. He
was followed at short intervals by four others. All were stalwart
sinewy warriors of the desert, bristling with arms. They hunted
through the ruins like a pack of dogs that have lost the scent. Here
one would point to the impressions of sandals, and the rest followed
him as he traced them along the wall and up to the portico. Burnet
watched them without much anxiety, for he had taken care that no
tell-tale footmarks remained around the slab; and knowing that the
tracks that were visible led both towards and away from the ruins, he
guessed that the Arabs would suppose that their quarry had come and
returned. Their actions justified him. They traced the marks back to
the wall, then back again to the portico, beneath which they stood to
consult together. From the few words that Burnet caught it was clear
that they had seen Rejeb mount the tell, and they supposed that he had
crossed it and pursued his journey on the other side. Presently one of
them climbed a pile of rubbish from which he could scan the surrounding
country. The fugitive could not have gone any great distance, and he
must become visible on one or other of the open spaces between the beds
of rushes. The scout's four companions meanwhile threw themselves down
in the shade of the portico to rest.
Secure in his hiding-place, Burnet felt some amusement at the
situation. He went down to the chamber beneath, and, warning Rejeb
against making any sound, took him up to his peep-hole and showed him
the figure of his enemy looking for him. It was some time before the
Arab gave up his vain task and returned to his companions. They came
to the conclusion that the fugitive must be lying hidden among the
rushes near the _tell_, and separating, started to scour the vicinity
thoroughly. They went methodically through clump after clump until
Burnet grew tired of watching them. Not until it was getting late in
the afternoon did their perseverance give out. Baffled, weary, and
angry at their failure, they rested awhile on the _tell_ and ate some
of the food they had brought with them; then they set off to return the
way they had come.
Burnet was glad enough to win release at last from his stuffy quarters.
Emerging with Rejeb, he made all secure, and prepared to resume the
mission which the day's events had interrupted. In the underground
chamber he had already returned the young Arab's arms, and discussed
with him his subsequent movements. Rejeb would continue his journey to
his people, who were a march away to the south-east. He was full of
gratitude to his rescuer, and begged to know how he might serve him.
"Surely it is right that I should serve the saviour of my life," he
said; "and my people also: they shall know that in serving him they
serve me."
"We will not talk of service now," replied Burnet. "Who can tell the
future?"
"At least let me know the name of my preserver: how else can I speak of
him rightly to my people, and bid them watch for opportunities of
serving him?"
"Call me Yusuf the boatman," said Burnet, after a slight hesitation.
"By that name I am known to some in Bagdad and elsewhere. It may be
that some day we shall meet again."
As soon as darkness made it safe to leave the _tell_ they parted.
Rejeb took his way to the south-east; Burnet set off north-west through
the swamps, in the direction followed by Rejeb's pursuers.