SANCTUARY OF THE TOWER
By now the aspect of the courtyard had changed. Alamans, Kurds, and
Tartars were lying on their sides behind the ramparts, mostly to the
west. Others stood by the horses, and still others by the unlit flares.
The trap was set.
Edith, as she made her way to the hold, saw Abbas, lantern in hand,
talking to one of the groups of men. He looked at her keenly, but
seeing the figure of a native shadowing her, was content to call out.
"You don' forget me, Abbas Abad. You watch for me, yess, by Allah!"
With a sigh of relief the girl gained the semi-gloom of the room under
the tower. In her absence a lantern had been brought to the Tartar
on guard--a broad Mongol wearing a round black hat, a bandoleer of
cartridges over his shoulder.
Beside him Donovan leaned against the table. Edith advanced toward the
ladder slowly, wondering how the armed sentry was to be dealt with.
Donovan must be freed. It was for that she had come to the room.
Apparently the prisoner had not noticed her; but his eyes had
quickened and he stood with both feet planted firmly on the floor.
Here, however, was a situation which Aravang felt himself competent to
master without any assistance. He grinned and seated himself on the
sizable packing case on which the Tartar loafed.
The man scanned him with some suspicion and without making room for
the burly native. Edith paused, holding her breath. She saw Aravang
turn toward the guard as if to say something. The man stared at him
from slant, cruel eyes that widened and started from their sockets as a
steel-like hand flew up and closed about his throat.
No cry was uttered. Aravang still sat on the box. But in his two hands
he held the writhing Tartar helpless.
Releasing one hand, Aravang thrust the other's bulletlike head against
the stone wall. There was a dull _crack_ and the figure of the guard
slumped upon the box.
"Some one is coming," said Donovan quietly, first in English then in
Turki. Aravang stood up with knotted hands, as if prepared to face and
conquer new enemies for the sake of his mistress. Edith, however, had
seen Monsey and a party of his men walking toward the tower. They were
armed and seemed in haste.
Urgent need spurred the girl's aroused wit. She could explain nothing
to Aravang. Instead, she sprang forward, turned over the box and
pointed into its empty depths.
Donovan caught her purpose at once and barked a short command at
Aravang. Their powerful friend moved slowly, but with two motions of
his great arms he had lifted the unconscious sentry from the floor
where the man had slipped into the box. Then he turned the box right
side up, over the body, concealing all trace of his victim.
Yet not before Edith had pulled the bandoleer from the Tartar's
shoulder, and the round cap from his head. She stripped off Aravang's
heavy woolen hat and flung it into a corner, planting the Tartar's cap
in its place and the cartridge belt over his arm. Meanwhile Aravang
picked up the rifle, which he handled clumsily--not being accustomed to
possession of such modern weapons.
Edith faced about as Monsey strode into the door, flung her a quick
glance and moved toward Donovan.
"I can spare only a moment," the Russian smiled. "But after I have kept
an appointment with the Sayaks I intend to return----" he broke off.
"Where is the other guard?"
He looked quickly from Donovan to the girl. His men watched from the
doorway. Aravang, not understanding, was mute. Before Donovan could
speak, Edith answered.
"Ask Abbas," she said. "He wants me to wait for him--after your
appointment."
"The devil!"
"I think he is," Edith smiled.
Knowing Abbas, Monsey did not question her. And then there was the dull
report of a rifle from the plateau. The Tartars stirred uneasily.
"Announcing our visitors," observed Monsey. He felt Donovan's bonds,
muttering that he liked to be sure of his reception when he called
again.
"One can never be too sure," nodded Donovan affably.
The Russian ordered the girl curtly up the ladder to the tower. "And
no tricks, my lady." Edith obeyed with surprising readiness. After
glancing around and making sure that all was as he wished, Monsey
strode toward the door as a scattered burst of firing resounded nearer
the _Kurgan_.
When he left the room his men followed. Edith, in the upper chamber,
waited impatiently until Aravang's shaggy head was thrust up into the
opening. Behind him came Donovan, stroking the wrists that the cords
had numbed. The three faced each other silently in the gloom. It was
Edith who spoke first.
"Come," she said thoughtfully, "to the tower top."
Donovan had taken the native's weapon and the bandoleer. He jerked
open the breech, made sure that a cartridge was inserted, and ordered
Aravang to surrender his revolver to Edith.
"Why?" he frowned. "I rather like it here--as a base of operations."
"Because I want you to," insisted the girl.
Familiar by now with the damaged stairway, she advanced up to the open
air. Donovan followed more slowly.
Night had fallen. But splinters of light were thrusting into the gloom
of the _Kurgan_ as the waiting men began to light the kerosene-soaked
flares. First one and then another pine bundle crackled and blazed.
By the growing light they could see dark figures running up the
_Kurgan's_ entryway, and the line of Monsey's men standing behind the
parapet. These had not yet begun to fire. The reports Edith had heard
came from the patrols as they were driven back to the moat.
Near the rocks on the further plateau she thought she saw the light
robes of groups of men moving. Overhead the stars had claimed the sky
and the half-moon was shedding a hazy light Donovan took it all in.
"Monsey is no man's fool," he muttered. "He knows his men are liable
to stampede under the old fear of the Sayaks, in the dark. Those
flares----"
"Quick!" cried Edith. "We must do something before it is too late."
The man paid her a tribute of admiration in a swift glance. Then his
eyes hardened with recollection of the peril below. The whole vista
of the courtyard was fast being revealed by the sputtering flares.
The door leading to the hold and the tower where they stood must be
clearly outlined to any one who chanced to look that way. It would be
difficult, practically impossible, to escape from the door into the
courtyard without being seen.
Still, that was their only chance of safety, Donovan reasoned. A quick
sally, a rush to one of the breaks in the wall on a side away from the
Sayak attack--a gantlet of bullets----
He knelt down, resting his rifle on a fallen timber, waist-high, and
searched for Abbas. Edith tugged at his shoulder vigorously.
"What, dear?" he asked, without shifting his position.
"Not that, Donovan Khan," the girl exclaimed. "That is not why I
brought you here."
"Righto!" he murmured cheerily. "But it will help, you know----"
"No--not that." She crouched beside him, her face close to his. "Don't
you see? We can do more than that!"
A ragged volley came out of the gloom, two hundred yards across the
plateau. Under cover of the swirling smoke that rose over the ground,
they saw groups of Sayaks advancing. Behind the parapet the waiting
cohorts held their fire, as Monsey, running back and forth, swore at
them angrily. The Englishman knew that when an answering volley came
from the _Kurgan_ it must do deadly execution among the attackers, who,
besides the disadvantage of numbers and inferior arms, had the glare of
the pine torches in their eyes.
"We must warn the Sayaks, Donovan Khan."
His eye fixed on Monsey, he did not grasp at first the full
significance of her words. She shook him impatiently. "Call to
Iskander. Or it will be too late."
"Too late? Ah!"
The instant Donovan understood her purpose, its whole meaning was clear
to the mind of the soldier. Laying down his weapon he took the girl's
hand in his and studied her anxiously.
"Hurry!" she whispered.
"You do not know it all, Edith. Our warning might check the Sayak
attack, but it would bring all these beggars of Monsey's on us, at the
tower. It would cut us off. Our only chance is a surprise sally--and we
would be throwing that chance away----"
"I understand."
"During the fighting, if we keep silence, we might slip away. Edith, I
will not throw aside your chance."
Her eyes held him. He could see every shade of expression in her eager
face by the glare below. And he saw no fear--only pride and urgent need.
"Donovan Khan, you told me that the Sayaks would continue to storm the
_Kurgan_ until they are utterly cut to pieces." She did not wait for
his answer. "We can save the lives of a hundred men. And then Yakka
Arik----"
Edith sighed. "I am thinking of the women of Yakka Arik.
"We can save them, Donovan Khan, perhaps. Now, hurry." The girl gave
him a little push as a second volley--harmless as the first--came from
the scattered muskets of the oncoming natives. "Don't you see? It
doesn't matter--you and I. We will have each other; they can't change
that, now, can they?"
Donovan had seen men, before now, fling their bodies into the face of
death. It was something of a miracle to him, this settled purpose of
the girl at his side. He rose, with a laugh that had much gladness in
it.
"By Jove! You _are_ playing the game, Edith."
Donovan, once convinced, was a man of action. He cupped his hands to
his mouth and faced the gloom of the plateau in which he could now make
out the Sayaks not a hundred yards away.
"Iskander, son of Tahir!" His shout rang out clearly over the bustle
below and the confused sounds from the near-by natives. "Go back!"
He had spoken in Turki. Men stared up from the courtyard at the tower
in astonishment. Hands were withdrawn from rifles. Monsey seemed turned
to a graven image of attention. Donovan continued in English.
"Iskander, Donovan Khan is speaking. A trap has been set. Twice your
numbers are in the _Kurgan_ with magazine rifles."
_Crack--crack!_ Monsey's revolver spat at the tower summit, the bullets
thudding into the beams overhead. Edith fancied that the Sayaks had
halted. Donovan paid no attention to the shots.
"'Ware the ditch!" he shouted, in the silence that now held the
castle. "It is dug out and staked, in front of you. Monsey has prepared
for you. Go back!"
A pause, in which Edith strained her ears. Then came Iskander's
answering hail out of the dark:
"Dono-van Khan, I hear."
In response to a command the girl could not distinguish, the forms
of the Sayaks began to melt back into the rocks and trees. As if
to confirm the warning, a heavy volley burst from the wall of the
castle--too late now to do serious harm. Confused firing was kept up
by Monsey's men, who seemed to have been startled by the voice from
the tower and were emptying their weapons across the plateau. Faintly,
Edith heard the Arab's second hail.
"I hear ... and will not forget ..."