A puff of damp air came down the slope, driving the vapour before it,
and bringing a hard, unpleasant downpour. But this mattered little now.
The great thing was to be able to distinguish their way. Girths were
tightened, and in a moment they were prepared to resume the march.
Even yet they had to move slowly. The paths, for one thing, were
extremely slippery, for another, the further side of the valley had not
begun to show at all. Then, when it did, and that suddenly, there lay a
couple of low, mud-walled villages, below, but not very far from their
way.
Could they pass unseen? It was in the highest degree important that
they should. But as if to put this hope to flight, several dogs, great
fierce brutes, such as were used by the native herdsmen to protect their
flocks, came rushing forth, yelling and baying with frantic clamour.
Their owners were not long in following. But they stopped suddenly.
The sight of Hussein Khan, and Helston, whose disguise made him look
every inch a sirdar of the Gularzai--in which capacity, by the way,
Melian had greatly admired him--allayed their natural suspiciousness.
Under such escort these Feringhi could not be interfered with, and they
came no nearer. But the discovery was untoward, if only on account of
information these could supply to eventual pursuers.
The villages were left behind, but travelling became perforce slow--
deadly slow. The path along the well nigh precipitous slope had become
so slippery and dangerous, that more than once it was deemed expedient
to dismount and proceed on foot. And then, as they rounded the spur in
front, an exclamation escaped Hussein Khan and his tone took on a note
of blank dismay.
"Now I see where we have come," he said. "_Hazur_, it was written that
we should stray from our course in yonder accursed cloud, which
assuredly was the breath of Shaitan himself. Here before us lies the
Valley of the Mud-slide. And we must cross that, for there is no
turning back."
"It is written," was the answer. "Therefore we will cross it, since
there is no other way."
In front lay the same steep gigantic slope, sheering upward to a great
height, and along this they were threading, like flies upon a wall. The
other side of this long and narrow gorge was precipitous, being composed
of tier upon tier of terraced cliff. And the rain, beating pitilessly
down, lent huge vastness to the serrated crags rearing black against an
unbroken murk of sky. In front, right across their way, sweeping down
the slope from the high _kotal_ to its base, spreading like a gigantic
peacock's tail, was the result of a former mud-slide. It was as though
the whole mountain side had at one time--and that not so very long
since, fallen away, bringing millions of tons of blue grey soil with it.
The base of it filled the bottom of the gorge, though a watercourse had
drilled its way through, and the sombre thunder of this they could now
hear, far down between its perpendicular walls of solidified mud.
There was misgiving in the hearts of all three men as they reached the
edge of this. Would they be able to cross it. They were familiar with
similar freaks in the wild mountain country, but this one was of
gigantic proportions. In the regular wet season they might as well try
to cross a quaking morass, but there had been little rain of late, still
even that little was enough to turn such a place into a slough. But
there was nothing for it. It was the only way through. The alternative
was to retrace their steps right into the teeth of their enemies. And
one consolation was theirs. Once on the other side they knew where they
were now, and could make up for lost time.
There was no path. Selecting what to his practised eye seemed the
firmer ground, Hussein Khan led the way. Soon the horses were
laboriously dragging their weighted fetlocks out of the stiff, clinging
stuff--only to plunge them in deeper with the next step. Then it became
manifest that the right course was to dismount, and proceed on foot.
Helston Varne looked at Melian, so too, did Mervyn.
"I should think Miss Seward could keep the saddle," said the former.
"She's lighter than we are, and it's infernally laborious going for a
lady on foot and hampered with skirts."
"Of course she can," came the answer, gustily. "Lord, I'd like to get
Mr Allah-din Khan over the sights of this rifle. I'd drill his
parchment hide for him. Ya Mahomed! I would."
And then, as if in answer to the invocation, something happened. The
gloomy, Dantesque valley bellowed to the echoes of a resounding roar,
the reverberations of two _jezail_ shots behind. The missiles hummed
by, rather wide, and sploshed into the ooze of the mud-slide. Every
head turned.
Coming along the way they had fled, strung out like hounds, were a
number of mounted figures. The dirty white flowing garments, the
reckless rush of their advance proclaimed their unmistakable identity.
The time lost in the mist, the deflection from the right track, possibly
that Helston Varne had miscalculated the duration of the effects of the
drug which his shikari had deftly inserted into so many hookahs and
other things--had handicapped the fugitives--and now here was Allah-din
Khan, and all his cut-throats hot foot behind them, fired, too, with
baffled hate and the disgrace which had been put upon them. The _malik_
of the villages they had passed had not only supplied the chief with
information, but had turned out his own men--and they very willing--to
aid in the pursuit. Two of these indeed, had slipped on in advance, and
had discharged their jezails, with the result foregiven.
The bulk of the pursuers were still some way behind. Quickly Helston
Varne's mind had framed a plan, but it, he saw was but a shadow of a
one. Once they were through this slough of despond he would send the
others on, and himself remaining behind would take cover on its edge,
and deliberately pick off every one of them as they struggled through
the semi-morass. But even he knew that in view of the state of fiery
exaltation to which they were worked up, his chances of success were not
great. They would rush it somehow, just as his own party had themselves
done, and--there were too many of them. He sent one look back.
"Hurry on," he urged. "Mount now, and push the horses for all they're
worth. It's our only chance."
And it was done. How--they knew not. Perhaps the animals themselves
caught some of the fever heat excitement of being chased, but
floundering, plunging, snorting, they found safe, firm foothold at last
on the other side, and stood panting, and streaming, and utterly blown.
Here was no safety. It would take half an hour at least before they had
sufficient go in them to resume a race for life, and the pursuers had
time to cross the mud-slide at their leisure.
Mervyn's heart was filled with black, gloomy despair. It was fated they
were not to escape. Well, at the last it would be soon over. With the
recollection of that hellish cavern of torture, and the words spoken
therein, he had made up his mind that Melian should not fall into their
hands. They had shown him what they were capable of, and that was
enough. One quick merciful shot for her, and the next for himself, and
that the moment he realised that all hope and chances were gone.
"Now," said Helston Varne. "You press on to the _kotal_, Mervyn. I'm
going to take cover here and keep them back--and directly they get into
the mud-slide I'm going to massacre them like holy Shaitan. _Jao_
Hussein Khan. Go on Mervyn," he added, more peremptorily, seeing him
hesitate. "You've got to take Miss Seward out of this, and I've got
plenty of ammunition. I'll catch you up, by and by."
"Well, don't be long," said the other queerly, as he obeyed.
Now two or three more shots straggled across from beyond. The main body
of the pursuers came racing up, urging their steeds mercilessly over the
cruel, stony ground. Now they were on the edge of the mud-slide. Wild,
yelling, threatening shouts went up from them, as they drew their
tulwars and flashed them furiously in the direction of the fugitives.
Helston looked back. The result was not unsatisfactory. If only he
could hold up these. He would try parley. It would gain a modicum of
time.
"Brothers," he shouted. "Go back. I would not shed your blood, for we
have eaten together. But no man reaches this side of the mud-slide
alive."
For answer, a fierce, blood-thrilling yell of vengeance, as they
discovered his presence, for they had missed his manoeuvre. And
shouting out the torments of hell to which he, and all with him, were
destined when once more in their hands, they pushed their steeds
furiously into the slough.
In the chaotic splashing and floundering that ensued, Helston's rifle
spoke. The man who rode beside the chief toppled from his saddle.
Again came the roaring detonation, tossing to and fro from crag to crag.
Another saddle was emptied, but so far, for reasons of his own, the
marksman had spared Allah-din Khan. In the sudden confusion, he poured
another shot into "the brown," but nothing seemed available to stop that
rush. They were mad with revenge and fanaticism. As a sheer matter of
time he would not be able to destroy anything like all of them before
they should cross. Well, this time the chief must go. He had been
given every chance, and the stake being contested was too great.
"Once more go back!" he shouted. But only a renewed and fiend-like
scream came in reply, and horses, floundering fetlock deep, were making
surprising headway, and the wild savage faces were alarmingly nearer.
He put up the rifle again, and--it swayed in his hands. He could not
get the sighting. The earth under his feet was swaying. What did it
mean, in Heaven's name?
There came a deep, growling, rumbling roar. He looked upward. Heavens!
Was the whole world falling over upon him? In the flash of a moment,
abandoning all thought of human enemies--of human forces, Helston had
wrenched his horse from behind the great hump of earth where he had
sheltered it, and mounting, spurred with hot haste onward and upward in
the track of those who had gone before. At the end of a couple of
hundred yards or so he alighted from his saddle just in time to avoid
being hurled therefrom in the rocking swaying horror of a moving world,
and looked back. A cracking roar, painful to the drums of his ears,
split the air. He took in the enormous mass curling over, the volume of
mud and earth and stones, at least two score of feet high, pouring like
a gigantic flood down the face of the slide. He took in the frantic
struggling crowd of horsemen right in the centre of its road, and then,
the whole slope took on a new formation as half a mountain side poured
down it, roaring up stones and mud masses high in the air. And--of the
three score and odd Gularzai--pressing on in hate and vengeance to
destruction--there remained no more trace than there had been before
their arrival there at all. That gigantic mud-slide had in a moment
found a common sepulchre for the lot.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Well, Miss Seward," Helston remarked, as somewhat shaken by the
stupendous awesomeness of the phenomenon, he rejoined the fugitive
group, higher up. "Allah is on our side this time anyhow."
"Yes," she said in an awed tone. "What a sight! But what was it? An
earthquake?"
"Another mud-slide, like the one which formed the first--or a little of
both. Maybe a touch of earthquake that started it off. But we were
through just in time, and--good-bye to Allah-din Khan and Co."
"Whom I hope are grilling in their Jehanum," growled Mervyn, with the
recollection of his own ordeal fresh upon him.
"Well, there's nothing between us and Mazaran now," pronounced Helston
Varne, "and the sooner we get there the better. No, Miss Seward. You'd
better not look back. Get it out of your mind."
For Melian's gaze seemed riveted on the gloomy Dantesque gorge, now half
barred up by the tremendous convulsion of Nature which had taken effect
right under her very eyes, and the thought of the buried men lying
there--even though they were fierce barbarians and fanatical enemies,
still they had been engulfed in the horrible cataclysm right under her
eyes. But she recognised the other's advice was sound, and laid herself
out to follow it. And the reaction of feeling that they were all in
comparative safety largely helped.