THE HOUSE OF
THE FALCON
HAROLD LAMB
[Illustration: "THE WHITE WOMAN MUST LIVE"]
THE HOUSE OF
THE FALCON
By HAROLD LAMB, Author of "Marching Sands," etc.
_"The stars are setting and the Caravan
Starts for the Dawn of Nothing. Oh, make haste!"_
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
NEW YORK: LONDON: MCMXXI
COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
Copyright, 1920, by The Frank A. Munsey Company
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
TO
MY WIFE
CONTENTS
I. THE ROOF OF THE WORLD
II. THE LISTENER
III. THE GATE
IV. THE SELLER OF RUGS
V. ALAI BALA SLEEPS
VI. THE GARDEN
VII. INTO THE UNKNOWN
VIII. EVENTS OF A DAY
IX. ABBAS ARRANGES
X. CONCERNING A "YASHMAK"
XI. EDITH RIDES ALONE
XII. THE COUNTRY OF THE FALCON
XIII. A LAMP GOES OUT
XIV. THE BRONZE BOWL
XV. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
XVI. PANDORA'S BOX
XVII. ARAVANG EXPLAINS
XVIII. THE STONE CHAMBER
XIX. NEW ARRIVALS
XX. IN THE SHADOW OF THE TEMPLE
XXI. A VEIL IS DRAWN
XXII. A PLEDGE
XXIII. THE PLEDGE IS BROKEN
XXIV. THE VULTURE'S NEST
XXV. CARDS ON THE TABLE
XXVI. AN HOUR AFTER DARK
XXVII. SANCTUARY OF THE TOWER
XXVIII. THE VOICE OF MAHMOUD
XXIX. THE SAYAK FURY
XXX. THE PASSING OF THE CARAVAN
THE HOUSE OF THE FALCON
HAROLD LAMB
THE HOUSE OF THE FALCON
CHAPTER I
THE ROOF OF THE WORLD
Men drop out of sight there. This one did. Or, no, I shouldn't say
that. He went up out of sight. You see, he was carried.
Yes, right out of the city up toward the top of the world--at least
that's what the natives thereabouts call the mountains, where the spurs
of the Thian Shan meet the Himalayas. About five thousand men saw him
go.
And not one of 'em cared to follow.
They were natives of course, all sorts--Chinese, beggarly Sarts,
Mussulman traders, Kirghiz shepherds and what not. He was a white man.
The other Europeans in Kashgar were all in the new city, the Chinese
city, where the _taotai_ and the missionaries are. He had come to the
old city of Kashgar, by the dried-up river. He rode--uncommonly well,
they say--across the wooden drawbridge and under the arch into the
thick of the bazaar section.
Not that he'd lost his way. In fact he seemed to be looking for some
one in the bazaar where he must have known there were no foreign
barbarians--only the natives. His horse was dark with sweat and he was
covered with dust. There was a good rifle slung over his shoulder and
a native servant followed him. So the white men in Kashgar, when they
heard what had happened to him, thought he must have been a big game
hunter.
Still, they couldn't understand why a hunter should off-saddle and go
wandering through the bazaar as this one did, guided by his servant.
White men, even _ovis poli_ and wapiti hunters, are not frequent
visitors in Kashgar, you know. It's a city on the old caravan route
from China into India and Persia. It's sort of stuck up there under
the hills that overlook Tibet, Turkestan and Kashmir, and the hills
themselves are rather a no man's land--tribal areas.
I have said he was looking for something, or some one. And he didn't
find what he was looking for. That seems to be clear. So he let his
servant take him to a _serai_, an inn for travelers in the bazaar
quarter. For a hunter he was traveling awfully light, and with no heads
at all in his baggage. He'd made a long trek, too, judging by the
condition of his beasts.
It sounds just like a story, of course. The white man--we'll call him
that for want of a better name--was sitting in a corner of the _serai_
with his back to the mud wall smoking a pipe and watching the other
inmates--a fine lot they were, too--when a big black-faced native in
sheepskins, blind in one eye, got up and went over to him.
"_Effendi_," the fellow said, "your slave who is the dust beneath your
feet (he meant himself) has heard that there is danger and trouble in
store for you here. Will the _effendi_ ride hence at once and swiftly?"
The white man laughed and said he liked it where he was. At this the
chap of the sheepskins went out of the _serai_ and began to run as if
the devil were after him, through the twisting alleys of the bazaar,
out past the mosque and up the road to the hills.
He didn't stop running as long as he was visible from the balcony where
the _taotai_, the governor, was having dinner. They noticed that,
because those natives never run unless necessary, and then they ride.
In an hour, after he'd eaten a little dinner, the white man was knocked
out. Not actually, of course, but by fever or food poisoning. It was so
quick in coming, it must have been poisoning.
He still sat in the corner of the _serai_ with his rifle across his
knees and his face drawn with pain. He couldn't move except to put his
finger on the trigger of his piece and watch the crowd in the _serai_
with his eyes. This was necessary, because his servant had left him and
he hadn't tried to get word to the few Europeans who were near by in
the new Kashgar.
Perhaps he did try to get word to them; still, there was no evidence
that he did. A Kashgar crowd is harmless for the most part; but not
when a foreign barbarian with his kit and rifle is helpless in their
hands. Well--this chap kept watching the crowd and the crowd watched
him. Waiting for him to die, most likely, so they could appropriate his
kit and rifle.
Evidently while he was still alive they didn't dare touch him. And it
wasn't dark yet. The Chinese governor, who was very conscientious--a
fine fellow and a scholar, too--and investigated the affair to the best
of his ability, says that this was before the _namaz gar_, the time of
evening prayer for the Moslems who made up the greater part of Kashgar.
Apparently the white man made only one remark.
"Where is Jain Ali Beg?" he asked--referring to his servant.
The _serai_ keeper swore afterward to the governor that the servant had
run away, perhaps because he scented trouble in the air.
So the white man sat there, poisoned perhaps by the Moslems of the
bazaar. So the governor said; but a Chinese official hates all
Mussulmans. Then a curious thing happened.
Those in the _serai_ heard the trample of the camels of a caravan
outside, in the alley. They heard the bells of the camels. And the
leader of the caravan, the man who holds the nose cord of the first
animal in the line, was the one-eyed chap in sheepskins.
The caravan had come down the road from the hills. Nothing unusual in
that, of course, because caravan transport is the only way of moving
goods in Central Asia and a half dozen of 'em go through Kashgar every
day. But this particular caravan didn't have any boxes or anything but
a score of dark-skinned hillmen for riders.
It might have come in to the bazaar to load up--only it didn't. The
caravan moved down out of the hills in the dust, to enter the bazaar.
It stopped just for a moment outside the _serai_, and the riders took
the white man away with them.
That was exactly what they did. Set him on a camel; then the whole
string turned and went off with the one-eyed beggar in the lead. They
had crossed the old bridge over the moat and disappeared into the dust
before the bazaar knew what was happening.
At that, the natives of Kashgar gave the caravan a wide berth. There
wasn't a soul in the alleys when it went away. Every one had popped
into the open shop fronts or under the sun mats. They seemed to be
superstitious about it and the Mussulmans related something to the
_taotai_ about a caravan that came from nowhere and went nowhere.
Yes, that particular white man went up out of sight. At least, he was
never seen again.
Now, what do you think of it all?