The hitherto glowering, menacing countenances, had all of a sudden taken
on a heavy, vacuous expression. The stare of the fierce eyes had become
dull and lack-lustre. Even the forms were swaying. And then--what
marvel was this? The whole group seemed to collapse as one man,
subsiding to the ground. There they lay, breathing with a heavy,
stertorous kind of snore. All save one.
This was the stranger who had taken so vindictive and ruthless a part in
the questioning. He still kept his upright seat, and over his face had
come no change. Now he arose, and strode over to the man who kept the
entrance, deftly manoeuvring between him and the latter.
The Gularzai stared at the towering, authoritative form, but said
nothing.
"Take this, brother, and swallow it," said the stranger. "Have no fear.
It is not death, only short sleep. But to hesitate will be death."
And the speaker produced a Browning pistol in one hand, and something
quite small in the other.
This particular believer was in no hurry to taste the joys of Paradise
just yet, possibly through some misgiving as to whether he had
sufficiently earned them. He glanced at the weapon, then at his
unconscious tribesmen. Without a word he reached forth his hand, took
what was placed therein and--did as directed. But the effect upon him
was well nigh instantaneous. He swayed, staggered, then collapsed upon
the ground. There remained now only the man who was engaged in the
preparation of the bath of torment. To him, too, were the same
instructions given. And he, too, with Oriental stoicism, succumbed to
the inevitable. There remained now, in full possession of their
faculties, only two--Mervyn and the tall sirdar.
"I think, on the whole, I've managed that rather well--so far," said the
latter, in excellent and refined English.
More than ever did Mervyn think his brain was clean gone.
"Good God!" he ejaculated, giving a violent start and staring at the
other in the wildest, blankest amazement.
"I don't wonder you've got--er--something of a shock," said Helston
Varne, looking at him with a touch of concern. "It was a beastly
ordeal, but it had to be gone through with."
"But--why didn't you contrive to let me know--to tip me the wink
somehow?" asked Mervyn helplessly.
"It'd never have done. It'd have bungled the whole show. These
worthies' faculties are much too keen to take any risks with. But now
there's no time to talk. We must get along, and every blessed yard of
start we steal is worth a lot. The effect of what I've given them may
last three hours, but not many minutes longer. But it was the only
chance. Come now. We shall find your niece all ready--Hussein Khan
will have taken care of that--also of the residue of the Gularzai."
"Well, Varne! Of all the geniuses this world ever produced,"--began
Mervyn, as they got outside--"you're that one. But, I had no idea you
could patter the lingo, let alone so faultlessly."
"I was caught young, you see. Born in this country. Now let's lose no
time."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
When Melian, seated in her sleeping quarters, eagerly and with a
deepening anxiety, listening for the return of her uncle, heard herself
softly hailed by an English voice which was not his--and stepped forth
to find herself confronted by a tall Gularzai, her astonishment was not
much less than that of Mervyn had been. Him, too, she promptly
descried, standing behind the other.
"What on earth does it all mean?" she began. "Why--Mr Varne!"
"Quite right, Miss Seward. And now, are you ready to start?"
"Perfectly."
"Come along then, and we'll go and get the horses. It'll save time, and
Hussein Khan has his hands pretty full as it is."
The girl drew back in instinctive alarm as they literally stepped over
the slumbering forms of their fierce enemies. Arrived at the picket
ropes, their horses were promptly bitted and saddled. To Mervyn's
suggestion that the Gularzai steeds should be cut loose and turned
adrift, Helston objected that it would do more harm than good to set
them stampeding in all directions, would raise the countryside on them
perhaps even sooner than it would take their captors to recover from the
effects of the drug. But already, in obedience to his direction,
Hussein Khan had secured as much ammunition as he could find, and was
hurling it over the _khud_. The Pathan was thoroughly enjoying himself
now; would have enjoyed himself more, had he been allowed to send a few
of these his fellow believers to Paradise--or Jehanum--but this he was
not.
And as they fared forth beneath the stars, which fortunately shone with
sufficient brilliancy to enable them to distinguish the narrow,
treacherous, ledgelike paths which they mostly had to thread--conversing
only in whispers, and that sparingly--the three Europeans at any rate,
had food for thought. Mervyn was marvelling at the superhuman, and
consummate cleverness of this friend in need. Why, the make-up alone
was a work of genius, and he said as much.
"It was the easier," answered Helston, "because of the beard. That's
genuine. I let it grow when I started to come out here--not altogether
by accident either, but because I foresaw circumstances under which I
might want to `make up'--not your case, incidentally. A sham one you
know, would never have humbugged these people for a moment."
"Well, you're a miracle all the same," said the other.
Helston Varne felt justified in being rather pleased with himself. His
unexpected and startling discovery that these two were being carried
away prisoners into the fastnesses of this wild and lawless band, had
entailed upon him such a shock as he had seldom, if ever quite,
experienced. And with it had come the chilling, stunning thought as to
how he, with all his infinite and practised resource, was going to
rescue them, and at first it certainly seemed almost hopeless. But born
and bred in the East, he had made an especial study of all its dark and
undercurrent systems. And he held an important clue.
That find he had made in the old lumber room at Heath Hover he had by no
means dismissed from his thoughts. He had pondered over it long and
deeply, and had not failed to connect it with some episode of Mervyn's
earlier life. And the missing link in the chain had been, half
unconsciously, placed within his grasp by his shikari, Hussein Khan, for
the latter himself belonged to the Brotherhood of the Star.
But if Hussein Khan was bound to the Brotherhood of the Star, he was
bound to his European master by an even stronger tie still. The former
might take his life, and indeed sooner or later, under the existing
circumstances would. For that he cared nothing. But should he fail the
latter, in any point, at any crisis, why then his eternal weal, was not
merely at stake--but doomed. For who shall explain the mysterious
ravellings of the dim unfathomable East? Given these conditions, and
Helston Varne's unlimited powers of resource and unfailing intrepidity
availed to do the rest.
Now, under the starlight, he looked at the figure of the girl riding
next in front of him along the single-file, narrow path. This was the
prize for which he had thrown the stake--and he had won. His nerves
thrilled exultantly within him at the thought. It was a trifle
unsteadying even to him. There had been no hesitation in his reply when
his kinsman had put the matter to him point blank. The time for that
had gone by. Now he had saved her--from a fate of which she was in
blissful ignorance, fortunately, but whose purport he had gleaned during
his brief sojourn with Allah-din Khan--and his own mind was telling him
that he had saved her for himself.
From their first meeting on the day when he had been imprisoned in the
chill mysterious vault at Heath Hover, her image had remained fixed upon
his mind. He had not striven to resist the growing fascination; he
preferred to watch its development--or the reverse--as a matter of
psychological study; for as we have seen, he did not err on the side of
coming to Heath Hover too often. And now, would he win? He thought he
would.
Was it by a subtle telepathy that as they fared thus forward through the
night, and in silence, that she should be thinking exclusively of him?
Yet she was. She recalled how she had been looking forward to meeting
him again--out here, in this wild, strange, and to her, new land. How,
too, during the startling, then alarming occurrence of their captivity,
her thoughts had flown at once to his propinquity as to a tower of
refuge--she liked that simile and it would often recur. How, too, she
had tried to impart that element of hope to her uncle, only to be told
that their entanglement was even beyond Helston Varne's powers of
unravelment. Yet the reverse had befallen. She had proved right, and
Helston Varne had come to the rescue, and brought them forth
triumphantly. Indeed, that everything was bound to come right if he had
the settling of it had now become an article of faith with her.
A short halt was made to rest the horses, then on again. It will be
remembered that the course of the freebooters had been set so as to
bring them much nearer to Mazaran, and now with luck, they hoped to
reach that station in about twenty-four hours' journeying. Why, Coates
himself, who had started thither simultaneously with his kinsman's
venture, would hardly have arrived by then, even if he did not decide to
wait at Fort Shabal, a small post which lay between his camp and
Mazaran--for safety's sake.
But with the small hours of the morning came a change, and with it
anxiety. For a mist was arising, blotting out the stars; whose light
indeed they required in that labyrinthine winding through chaotic rocks,
or along this or that steep mountain side with a precipitous drop not
far down the slope. Hussein Khan, the hard, lifelong mountaineer, who
was guiding, shook a gloomy head as he looked upward and around. None
knew better than he what it might portend. None knew better than he
that the most practised mountaineer might become helpless as a child
when plunged in thick mist. And this mist, though not yet thick, showed
every tendency to become so. Added to which a slight drizzle began to
fall, and none knew better than Hussein Khan the perilous effect, on
their none too safe paths, of slimy moisture. And they direly needed
all the start they could obtain.
But the occurrence would equally check the pursuit of their enemies, for
there was no doubt but that they would be pursued, and hotly, at the
earliest available moment? No, it would not--that is, not necessarily--
for these knew their way, and would take a line which would have the
effect of cutting the fugitives off from Mazaran, did the latter lose
much of the start they had obtained. For to Hussein Khan, practised
mountaineer that he was, this was after all more or less strange
country, and he was shaping his course only by reckoning.
The small hours passed into daybreak, but with the lightening of the
atmosphere there came no light from without. The fugitives were swathed
within dank, heavy, bewildering mist. They could hardly see each other
at further than a horse's length apart. Helston Varne and the shikari
conferred hurriedly together, and in the result decided that there was
nothing for it but to call a halt and wait until chance should enable
them to obtain their bearings.
But chance seemed not inclined to befriend them. An hour had gone--a
whole precious hour--and, if anything, the cloud seemed to settle down
thicker than ever. There was no wind either, not enough stirring in the
air to enable those experienced men to form the slightest idea of the
lay of their course, by that not always reliable method of feeling on
which side of their face the wind stirred. Mervyn had more than begun
to feel gloomy--and looked it. Helston Varne was feeling nearly as
gloomy, and did not show it. But Melian, looking from one to the other,
felt--well, confident. Where Helston Varne was taking a hand there was
no room for failure, had become part of her creed, as we have said.
Another hour went by--two precious hours--eating into the none too wide
margin of the start they had attained--and that alarmingly. And then--
relief showed in their quickly exchanged glances. The mist had begun to
roll away.