Oriental Stories/Volume 1/Issue 1/The Black Camel
The Black Camel
By G. G. Pendarves
The Englishman attempted to wrest from their owners in the desert city of El Zoonda a string of gems that dated back to Tyre and Sidon
The "L" train roared and rattled on downtown past Bleecker Street, bearing its load of weary passengers still farther on into the forbidding gloom ahead.
But it was not the inclement weather which caused one man to alight with such evident reluctance at Bleecker Street. Skulking in the shadows, he allowed his fellow-passengers to precede him through the clanking exit-barriers, and several times he glanced back apprehensively over his shoulder to make certain that no one followed him down the stairway to the street level.
The whites of his eyes gleamed as he found himself held up by a stream of traffic going south; and, rather than wait, he sped along under the "L," crossed over two blocks farther up and returned to Bleecker Street on the other side; then once more he turned his back on it and hurried downtown, dodging along Wooster Street for several blocks, turning east and finally returning uptown again by way of Greene Street.
He slipped and twisted through the crowd—commuters hurrying for homeward-bound trains, errand boys, shoppers, together with that indefinite drifting mass of humanity which form the neutral background of New York. Abel Gissing merged himself into this background without effort, for there was nothing in his slim body, his thin face and shadowed eyes to distinguish him from the hundreds of under-nourished men and women who washed to and fro, up and down the streets, like refuse drifting on the bosom of a great tidal wave.
Only the glint of terror in his eyes, the nervous tension of his body, the quick hiss of an indrawn breath as a passer-by jostled him roughly, set him definitely apart from the mob. Here was a hunted thing seeking sanctuary!
Coming to Bleecker Street for the third time, Gissing looked furtively about him, hesitated, crossed the street, recrossed it; then, abruptly making up his mind at last, he pushed open the door of a dim little shop, entered and closed it quickly behind him, and stared speechlessly at the man who rose to face him.
Isaac Volk grasped the situation with the intelligence of one who has long lived by his wits, and was accustomed to turn all kinds of situations, no matter how complicated, to his own advantage.
Here was a man in the last extremity of terror! Evidently he had something to get rid of, or he would not have sought refuge in a pawn-shop; obviously he wished to be rid of it immediately and would not stay for long argument or bargaining.
The Jew's eyes narrowed, every instinct in him alert and keen; here was a bird to his hand for the plucking, and his fingers itched for the job.
Danger? A fig for the danger! Isaac Volk had been cradled and bred in the very lap of hazard; for one does not trade with the underworld, or hobnob with poisoners, thieves and cutthroats without
risk. Danger. . . he had come to need "His shot was followed by a fierce hiss of rage."
the taste of it as a sailor craves the tang of salt on his lips, or as a desert wanderer desires limitless horizons. He put his dirty claw-like hands on the counter in front of him, leaned over it, and watched his visitor in silence.
Yellow gleams of light, from a flickering oil lamp hung from the low-raftered ceiling, half revealed and half concealed the faces of the two men as they stood frozen into immobility, distrust warring with utter panic on Abel Gissing's pallid features; greed, craft, and infinite patience puckering the sallow, dirt-begrimed visage of the Jew.
Suddenly, with a light nervous tread, Gissing crossed swiftly to the counter, and drew a packet from under his coat.
"Take it!" he said in a low shaking voice. "Take it! I've heard of you. . . I know you fear nothing—no one! Take it, and may you never"
He broke off as the door-latch rattled violently, and, leaping over the low counter, he crouched down between it and the wall, clutching Volk by the legs. A loud hoarse voice was audible from without, cursing the shop and everything in it, including the owner. Gissing rose with an audible sigh of relief.
"I thought it was. . . him!" he muttered.
Volk, meanwhile, was unwrapping the package, taking no notice at all of his client's behavior or of the noisy profanity which continued outside his locked door.
Removing the oilskin cover, Volk revealed a square box of sandalwood inset with ivory and carved about with Arabic lettering in relief. The "Hand of Fatima" was exquisitely cut where a keyhole might have been expected, and, turning this with eager exploring fingers, Volk found the box open in his hands, and even his hard eyes softened at sight of the treasure within.
He drew it forth deftly enough, holding the long shining string up to the light, and the blood coursed hot and quick in his veins as a man's might do after a draft of rare, long-mellowed wine.
"Rubies?"
"No," answered Gissing in a whisper, "Rose-emeralds! The Arabs call it the Wrath of Allah. . . the Wrath of Allah! It has a history, that string of stones. . . too long to tell you all now. It came from the East, the far East, in ancient times. . . long before the Arabs got hold of it."
"And you. . . where did you pick it up?" asked Volk, his black eyes boring into the shifting eyes of his companion. "From. . . from. . . North Africa. . . the desert."
"So!" responded Volk. "And the clasp?"
"I never discovered," said Gissing. "It's not part of the original string, of course. I've never seen a black stone like it before, it's cut in the shape of a camel because the stones belong now to a secret society called the Black Camels. My God!. . . the Black Camels!" was Gissing's despairing whisper.
Volk retired to the back of his den, and remained there for a long time, examining the jewels and testing them, while the other man waited muttering and shivering by the counter.
"They seem to be genuine," was Volk's verdict at last.
"Genuine!" Gissing's voice cracked on a high note of hysteria. "Would I go through hell for a string of glass beads? They're worth more than you or any man in this city can pay. They're beyond all price! There's nothing like them in the whole world, I tell you! They date back to the days of Tyre and Sidon, and the period when the Phenicians built Tarsh-ish, and owned silver mines in Spain. These stories were brought by them from Syria, and passed from their keeping to king after king. Now they belong to the Black Camels and their leader"
"Who is he?"
"No names—not even here! I see his face everywhere. . . I hear his voice! He is a ruler in the desert. . . ruler of a terrible race in the desert. Their stronghold is a vast walled city, built of salt, and black with age. That string of stones was the glory of his people."
"But who are his people?" persisted the Jew.
"Touaregg Arabs. . . the scum of the desert. . . outlaws, murderers, robbers, bandits of every description, who have banded themselves together and call themselves the Black Camels because death walks ever at their side. The desert city is their headquarters, but their followers are everywhere. They are a very strong, very terrible secret society—followers of Zoroaster—fire-worshippers!"
Volk stared blankly and unbelievingly at this fantastic story. Silence fell in the little dusty shop. The owner of the voice outside had gone off with a last parting curse, and there was a lull in the roar of the traffic. Only the bubbling flicker of the lamp-flame overhead was audible.
"That clasp means danger. . . it is a symbol of death!" Gissing continued in a whisper. "Death to any one who violates the sanctuary of the jewels! Death to those who touch the Wrath of Allah with profane hands! Death to me. . . to you. . . to every one, I tell you!"
A wild laugh rose to Gissing's lips, but the Jew clapped a dirty hand over his mouth.
"Death for you, if you like! For me, I am not afraid of your Arabs and your secret societies. Besides—what has the desert to do with us here?"
"The Black Camel is death, I tell you! Does not death walk here as well as in the desert?"
"And how did you manage to get away with this?"
Gissing's eyes, which were fixed in unwilling, passionate admiration on the gleaming rose-red stones, darted fearfully toward his interlocutor.
"Don't ask me, man," he said heavily. "That's my business, not yours. I wish to God I'd never seen it, never heard of the Black Camels and their sacred jewels! Never seen an Arab—or been near the desert! If only I could"
"Stow that!" interrupted the Jew roughly. "I'll give you my own price for these stones as you"
"Your price!" a note of contempt strengthened the other's voice. "They're priceless. . . priceless! But yes—yes—take them," he added hurriedly, as a gust of wind rattled the crazy dwelling, hooting savagely through vents and holes in the roof and walls. "Hide them quickly before I change my mind. To think of the long years I spent in the desert to get hold of those cursed jewels. . . death almost every step of the way. . . and now"
"Now you don't want them."
"I'm afraid. . . afraid!" The husky voice sank to its lowest note. "The Black Camels are on my track. He has followed me. . . he's here in this city. . . in this street perhaps. He is a devil—more awful than death itself. I dare not keep the stones. I dare not keep them. . . but. . . but"
His hands went out to the wonderful shimmering length of jewels, each stone the glowing living heart of a rose—the very fire and essence of that perfect flower!
Isaac Volk dropped the jewels into the box, shut it, and wrapped the oilskin about it abruptly.
"Two thousand dollars," he said, his thin curved mouth closing over the words like a steel trap. "That'll take you a few miles from your Black Camels and all the rest of your fancy zoo, I reckon."
Gissing made no reply. As the shining rose jewels vanished from his sight, the last flicker of energy died out of him, and he collapsed amongst the greasy garments which hung against the wall behind the long counter.
The Jew brought a thimbleful of vile brandy and forced it down the other's throat; then he counted a roll of bills and gave it to Gissing.
"Better get out," Volk said. "I don't want any of your Camels in here—black or white! To say nothing of the cops. Come on now—out of this!"
Roughly assisting him, the Jew half carried, half pushed the unfortunate Gissing across the dusty room, drew back the bolt, and deftly deposited his visitor on the slimy uneven steps outside his door.
"Don't come near this place again," he warned. "What you've done, I don't know—or care. But don't bring your troubles here—that's all."
He re-entered his house, bolting the door on the inside again; and going straight to the box of sandalwood, he drew out the jewels, and sat down to examine them at leisure.
"Fellow was crazy, I guess!" he muttered at length. "I'd be hanged by my thumbs before I'd give them away like that. That yarn of his about the Black Camels! How the did he think that up? What was he running from, anyhow? Black Camels—huh! This beauty"—and he touched the clasp—"is the only camel I'll have round here, I guess."
It was rather more than twenty-four
hours later when Gissing returned to
the pawn-shop.
Midnight had passed, and although in more fashionable quarters the glare of lights, the whirring of cars, the hooting of many horns still continued, down in Bleecker Street a heavy leaden silence enveloped the dingy neighborhood. The endless rows of gray roofs, the dreary windows, the towering factories, the flyblown stores, the vast warehouses, the gaudy picture-houses, and the lots of waste ground littered with bricks and paper and timber, all these were cloaked in merciful shadow by a setting moon, whose slanting silver beams lent romance even to the unbeautiful environs of Bleecker Street.
Lights shone dimly here and there as Gissing hurried along, but the small square window of Isaac Volk's house was in darkness, and the door was uncompromisingly shut.
Gissing put out a cautious hand and lifted the rusty latch of the battered door, and to his amazement found that the bolt had not been drawn within. The door opened slowly inward as he pushed it from him, and, as he stood hesitating, the murky fetid atmosphere of the room within rose like an evil cloud to his face.
Very cautiously he stole inside, very softly he closed the door behind him, and stood listening intently, his eyes wide and strained, trying to pierce the inky evil-smelling darkness of the den.
Gradually his heart slowed down, and he licked his dry lips and swallowed convulsively. He got out his torch and sent a slender pencil of light athwart the gloom, moving it across and across the dirty place as he grew bolder.
Suddenly the moving light was still, pointing at an obscure corner where Volk had stowed away an ancient four-post bed on which was piled some unspeakable bedding and a few mangy-looking fur coats.
Paralyzed by shock, Gissing held the light steady for an appreciable time, his eyes on the bold outline of a drawing sketched in black charcoal on the wall by the bed. It was the presentment of a camel—a black camel—which his torch revealed.
Not only that. . . there was something else. . . something at which Gissing stared and stared with dropped jaw and a cold sickness in his breast.
He began to back to the door at last, with a queer sobbing catch of his breath, afraid to turn his back on what he saw. When, with groping hand behind, his cold fingers touched the latch, he dashed down his torch, flung open the door, and, leaving it to swing to and fro in the night wind, he fled under the shadow of the iron roof of the "L" until he could run no farther.
He knew without shadow of a doubt who possessed the Wrath of Allah now!
It was Buzak, ruler of El Zoonda—that Arab city in the desert, the stronghold of the terrible brethren of the Black Camels.
Buzak the White-footed One, so called because of his burned foot, the skin of which was permanently bleached and wrinkled by its injury.
Buzak, who had pursued over desert and plain, across cities and the broad ocean, until he had found his jewels again.
Gissing's hands stole trembling to his throat as he recalled the bloated, distorted features of Isaac Volk, as he had dangled dreadfully from his own rafters. Volk had died slowly—inch by inch—the breath squeezed out of his body by infinitesimal degrees—with many pauses between the torture that the victim's lungs might fill again. Yes! Volk had died many deaths that night, Gissing knew well.
The latter had lived long enough in El Zoonda to be horribly familiar with Buzak's methods: for there, protected by his clever disguise, his intimate knowledge of the ways and speech of the Arabs, and above all by his painful initiation to the membership of the Black Camels, he had witnessed many unforgettable crimes of the White-footed One.
And yet. . . yet the shimmering red radiance of the lost jewels began to beckon him again—to shine like a false marsh-light luring him to destruction.
That incomparable loveliness. . . the light and warmth of the whole world was imprisoned in those stones!
He forgot Isaac Volk. . . he forgot past perils. . . he forgot the almost superhuman strength and cunning of Buzak his enemy.
He only remembered that Buzak had pursued him, had deprived him of a treasure he held dearer than life, and was bearing this treasure farther and farther away from him every passing minute.
Gissing's fear dropped from him like a cloak.
"I will track him as he tracked me," he resolved. "I will find him and kill him before he reaches his desert city, and the jewels shall be mine. . . mine once more."
2
It was a transformed Gissing who disembarked at Algiers and took train for a little white-walled city on the edge of the desert.
Transformed outwardly by a beard and spectacles, a tweed suit of remarkable design, gaiters, thick boots, and a greenish velour hat with a feather stuck in its band, he was the picture of an untravelled tourist from the land of Wagner and beer.
But inwardly the transformation was far more devastating. The whole character of the man was altered astoundingly from that of the Gissing who had skulked, shivering with fear, into that pawn-shop in Blcecker Street only three short weeks ago.
An alienist would have realized that here was a man whose reason tottered to a fall; a man obsessed and driven by a fixed idea; a man who had ceased to reflect or consider, and was rushing in blind hurrying circles toward the center of that whirlpool which would presently engulf him into its vortex of insanity and death.
His fear of Buzak was utterly swamped by the overmastering fury of desire which drove him like a demon. Blind, thwarted, sick desire which reached out to his lost treasure and burned up the obstacles in his way, as a devouring flame licks up wood and straw.
The following evening Gissing made
his way through the high-walled tortuous
ways of the city until he stood
before a nail-studded door which was
very familiar to him. He lifted its heavy
iron knocker, and, after a short interval,
the door was opened to him. There was a
swift question, an answer, and an exclamation
in joyous guttural Arabic, as
the door was held wide open for Gissing
to enter.
It was fully an hour before he re-emerged, wrapped in a voluminous burnous with the hood drawn well down over his head and face, completely hiding the strange dress and mask he wore beneath. It was the Dress of Ceremony which every member of the Black Camels wore when assembling for any public function. At these meetings, brother disguised himself from brother as cautiously as from an enemy, and they were known to each other by numbers only. Even Buzak, the Arch-devil of them all, mingled with the lesser brethren as a number too, and no man could say what that number was.
Buzak alone held the key to each brother's identity, and that was why Gissing had skilfully altered the Arabic numerals sewn in silver thread on the veil he wore, and was now 901.
He had to risk the possibility of the genuine 901 being present at the gathering for which he was bound, but his whole life was now one gigantic risk—details did not worry him!
On and on he went through the evil-smelling labyrinthin native streets until he reached a dark tree-shaded avenue, and a massive iron gate set in a high white wall.
"The Black Camel walks swiftly," he said in Arabic, as a tall form approached, wrapped in a burnous like his own.
"Where does it walk?"
"Over the gray face of the desert," was Gissing's prompt reply.
The guardian of the gate waved him on, and in a few moments Gissing was unburdening himself of his heavy burnous, and stood in the rich black silk robes of his order.
Around him were dozens of similar figures, all in black, all wearing a headdress in the likeness of a camel, all with a long black silk veil falling straight from beneath the eyes to the hem of their robes, and on each veil was blazoned a silver number. Even voices were disguised, and Gissing, with the rest, spoke through a little mouthpiece which rendered speech curiously shrill and sibilant.
Gissing knew that Buzak was in the city, getting together men and camels and provisions for the long journey across the desert to El Zoonda. This fact had been easy to ascertain. And, as leader of the Black Camels, his enemy would almost certainly be present at this, the most important function of the year.
Gissing mixed freely with the crowd, so eager to find Buzak that he lost sight of the danger of meeting his own number face to face. How to discover Buzak? How to distinguish him in this mass of black-robed brethren?
In pairs, in groups, sometimes singly, the brethren were beginning to settle like a flock of blackbirds about the great domed hall, reclining on piles of soft cushions, or squatting cross-legged on wonderful silken rugs which were strewn over the mosaic floor. Incongruous enough they looked—somber macabre figures in the spacious brilliant place, with its white carven pillars and Moorish arches, its Oriental lavishness of color, its perfume of incense and attar of roses, and its general air of ease and voluptuousness.
Then luck—blind luck—led Gissing to sink down in a certain alcove. Several other brethren already sat there, exchanging remarks in the peculiar speech their mouthpieces produced.
One of the occupants of the alcove moved slightly to give the latest corner room, and in so doing, he dragged the robe of a man by his side, exposing the sandalled foot of his neighbor for a moment. It was only a fleeting glimpse that Gissing had, but it was enough. He recognized that foot, with its bleached wrinkled skin, puckered and drawn up like the hand of a washerwoman.
This was the White-footed One himself—Buzak the White-footed One who sat within reach of his hand! Gissing trembled with the shock of his sudden discovery, and for a moment the silver number on his enemy's veil wavered and melted dizzily before his eyes.
He fought the blind swimming sensation desperately, afraid that his good luck would vanish before he could take advantage of it, and that Buzak and his number would disappear like a mirage in the desert. Clenching his hands under the long loose sleeves of his robe, he forced himself to calm. Slowly the blood stopped pounding and rushing in his ears, slowly his vision cleared, and he saw the glittering number sharp and distinct once more.
"27."
Gissing leaned back heavily against a yielding mass of cushions and closed his eyes.
"I've got him!" he told himself, tremendous exultation surging up within him. "I've got him! I'll claim my privilige tonight, while the luck's with me. . . it can't fail me now! What luck. . . what staggering colossal luck. . . in another hour the jewels. . . no, no. . . I mustn't think of them yet."
"Brethren of the Black Camel!"
The strange sibilant twittering of many voices ceased abruptly, as brother 901 mounted a dozen steps to a dais at the east end of the great hall, and stood outlined against a heavy saffron-hued brocade curtain.
"Brethren of the Black Camel!" Gis-sing's voice was audible, even in its disguise, from end to end of the room. "I claim a boon and a privilege at your hands."
"Speak, brother!" voices answered from every direction.
"Tonight in this place hath my face been blackened, and the greatest insult that one man can offer to another have I suffered. Only death can wipe out the memory of my shame."
"Speak further," commanded shrill voices.
"I overheard talk between two of the brethren here tonight, as I sat in the deep shadow behind a pillar. One brother boasted to another that he is my wife's lover, and he cast mud and filth on my name for an old half-witted fool, not able to guard his own treasure."
One of the brethren, an exceptionally tall man, stood up and hissed:
"Great wrong has been done thee. What boon dost thou crave at our hands?"
"The privilege of the Hunt!"
A babel broke out at these words. Rarely indeed was this deadly privilege demanded, and the thought of the grim spectacle they were to witness roused the primitive emotions of the Arabs to feverheat.
The tall brother spoke again:
"It is thy right, brother 901. Hast thou well considered the penalty of thy failure—should thy aim be untrue?"
Gissing's inflamed imagination was incapable of dealing with failure or penalty, and he answered:
"I can not fail."
"Speak then, brother 901. Who is he thou wilt hunt in the darkness. . . who shall flee before thy wrath in the shadows of the night?"
"He who hath brought shame and dishonor on my house is number—27!"
"Brother 27—27—27!"
The cry went hissing from mouth to mouth, all the grotesque camel-heads turning and bobbing furiously, as each brother sought to identify the owner of the fatal number.
Then a wide lane opened to disclose number 27 standing in a little space apart, very still and quiet and ominous. Eager hands seized him, jostled him, pushed him until he was standing on the platform opposite his accuser.
Brother 27 was indeed cornered! Only a genius or a madman could have conceived such a plaft of checkmating him. As one of the brethren, even Buzak could not refuse the challenge of the Hunt, without breaking a most sacred and binding vow. To break his vows was to lose face irrevocably before the brethren, to lose prestige, and power, and ultimately leadership; and that also meant the end of him as ruler of El Zoonda, for the Black Camels were the power behind his throne and they alone kept the cruel inhuman chief safe in his own city.
The Hunt must proceed—and Buzak must creep like a jungle thing at the mercy of the Hunter, unless chance delivered him from his implacable foe.
Gissing laughed in his newly grown beard as he calmly stared at the black figure confronting him.
"What madness hath seized thee?" hissed a voice from beneath the veil of 27. "I spoke no word of thy wife—or of any woman."
"Wallahi! Thy memory is short as thy remaining life!" "'Tis thou shale lie cold under the moon tonight," was the answer."A hunted thing has teeth and claws!"
"Thou sayest well! Claws too long and sharp, therefore will I cut them for thee!" was Gissing's retort.
During this brief duologue all the silent-footed brethren had withdrawn, melting like flakes of soot from the spacious hall, but their rapid speech could be heard from all sides where the deep balconies ran round the four walls.
The lights went out with the swift suddenness of a blow, and only a red crescent moon, high in the central dome of the splendid roof, shed a portentous glow on the scene. The tall brother—spokesman for the evening, and chosen for that office by purely arbitrary method—now joined the two on the platform.
"I will recite the Rule, Brethren of the Black Camel!" He presented a revolver to Gissing. "Thou—the Hunter—receive this weapon. May thy aim be true if thy cause is just. Swear now to shoot only at the signal of the bell. . . swear by the Sacred Fires of thy oath, brother 901!"
"By the Red Fire of Eblis,
By the White Fire of Sun, Moon, and
Stars,
By the Fires of Love and Hate,
By the sacred undying Fire on the
Altar of Zoroaster—I swear!"
The spokesman turned to brother 27:
"This for thee, O Hunted One! This to warn the Hunter that his prey walks abroad to kill or be killed. Ring it when they dost hear my word of command. Swear now by thy oath to obey my voice!"
Brother 27 took the little brass bell from the tall Arab, and swore as Gissing had done.
"O Hunter!" went on the speaker, "only at the sound of the bell shalt thou shoot. Three times shall thy prey give warning of his nearness to thee. . . three times shall thy vengeance speak. But if thou dost fail to kill, then art thou proved a liar and accurst, and shalt die the death of the Seven Flames this night.
"O Hunted One!" continued the voice, "three times shalt thou sound thy bell at my word of command. May thy teeth and claws protea thee if thou art innocent!"
Taking Buzak by the arm, the spokesman led him to the west wall and withdrew, leaving the combatants facing each other across the length of the hall. In a brief time the voice sounded again from a balcony.
"The Moon sets! The Hunter and his prey are abroad in the darkness. Let the Hunt begin!"
The red crescent light blinked out, and the great hall was plunged into absolutely impenetrable darkness.
Time seemed to stand still. Not a
whisper, not a breath was audible.
The brethren might have been changed
into black marble, so profoundly still
were they, while in the hall below them
death stalked on noiseless foot.
As Gissing moved forward, the scented air seemed to be roaring past his ears with the booming fury of a New England blizzard; fiery comets flashed and whizzed before his straining eyes as he stared and stared into the hot thick blackness. His head felt like a balloon blown up to bursting-point and filled with scorching air, while his feet were heavy and cold and dragged at his ankles like bags of wet sand.
"Give warning, Hunted One!"
The command was like an electric shock. A bell tinkled, a spun of light was followed by a sharp report; then there was the sound of falling glass, and Gissing realized his shot had found its billet in one of the great mirrors panelling the walls.
Again the darkness of the Pic, the awful silence, the terrifying sound of his own heartbeats, and the click of his dry tongue in his mouth. For years and endless years it continued, this walking in a hot black world, where hands stretched out to seize him by the throat! The hands of the Strangler feeling in the dark for him. . . feeling. . . feeling!
"Give warning, Hunted One!"
Again the bell—again the flash and the report! Again the soft thick silence fell, while Hunter and Hunted moved blindly to and fro in hell.
Gissing's instinct, tuned to abnormal sensitivity by his maddened brain, held him still, with his back against the wall one outstretched hand had touched. He stood there like a thing of stone, while the centuries slipped past him; he stood and suffered there alone—most awfully alone—while around him all the souls whizzed past and were released from hell, while he must stay alone. . . alone!
"Give warning, Hunted One!"
The bell rang almost ac Gissing's elbow, and his shot was followed by a fierce hiss of rage and the thud of a fall. Swift as light, he was at Buzak's side, feeling the inert helpless body, patting—probing—searching frantically! Ah!. . . here in the armpit was something! A jerk. . . another. . . and Gissing pulled a small chamois leather bag from under the broad bandage which had held it close to Buzak's body, and thrust it into his own girdle.
Then he ascertained with deft sure touch that his bullet had injured but not killed the Strangler, for the heart beat slow and strong. As the red moon glowed overhead once more, he dashed to meet the brethren, who were swarming back into the hall.
He ran like some swift fire in their midst, and with mad fury snatched off veil after veil from before the faces of the paralyzed brethren. His own, too, he tore off and trampled under foot, and as the unveiled began to shout and run and gesticulate as madly as Gissing himself, in a few seconds none could say who had begun the assault, for Gissing ran to and fro bewailing and crying out his unveiled state like the rest.
The confusion was appalling. Torn veils were picked up from the ground at random by the outraged brethren, each one seeking to cover his features, no matter how. Gissing, alone, chose his veil with an eye to the number he picked up, and that number was not 901!
He had fastened it securely, and stood quietly fingering that packet in his girdle, when suddenly the place was bathed in all the colors of a desert sunrise, as one tinted globe after another filled with light.
The spokesman came forward, and after ascertaining that brother 27 was wounded, but not killed, he accepted the situation with the true fatalism of the East, and took the most convenient way out of his predicament.
"This is the deed of some Shaitan [demon] who is amongst us tonight!" he said at last. "Who may strive against fate? It was written that we should be afflicted by this terrible devil. . . what is written, is written! Let us invoke the aid of the Mighty Ones, that this Shaitan shall be driven from our midst."
This idea diverted the braver of the brethren; but the majority were too shaken to linger under a roof which sheltered so evil a spirit, Gissing being among the latter, and with them he hastened to escape before worse ills befell.
3
And now that the marvelous jewels were in his hands once more, Gissing knew again the cold shadow of a monstrous fear.
Buzak still lived—and where, under the broad arch of heaven, was there a place of safety and peace for the man who had twice stolen from him the sacred Wrath of Allah?
Gissing's thoughts turned hungrily toward America—to his own place and his own people; but the threat of Isaac Volk's dangling body lay like a hideous shadow over that vast continent, darkening and blotting out his pictured return to his native land as fast as his longing painted it.
Gradually, after sleepless hours of torturing indecision, he realized that only the thought of the great mysterious desert brought any peace to his mind. The haunting loveliness of the silent wilderness attracted him more and more strongly, as his mind threshed everlastingly in red-hot circles which seemed always to bring him nearer and nearer to Buzak.
In the reaction from his late ordeal, following the three weeks planning and striving to regain the jewels, he now magnified his enemy's omnipotence, and his own danger, as passionately as he had recently ignored both.
At last, in burnous and sandals, his skin stained to a desert swarthiness, the blue littram of the Touaregg fastened over nose and mouth, he went down to the souk [market] to hear the latest news and gossip of the city.
"Maleish! Wouldst thou have me grow oranges the size of watermelons? Lo, these of my orchard are beyond praise! Like honey and dew they cool the parched throat, and"
Gissing put a piece of money in the merchant's hand, and taking the oranges, dropped them into the hanging peak of his hood.
"A caravan?" he asked indiffferently, jerking his head toward a busy group of men in a far corner of the market.
"Thou sayest," replied the merchant. "It is the Sheik Daouad el Wahab who returns to his tents in the Tueyk mountains."
"That is a far journey, by the prophets!" exclaimed Gissing.
"He hath bought him a new wife, for the first one is angry that she, having born him two sons, must yet do all the work of his household. She gives Daouad no peace, clamoring day and night!"
"So he will double his cause of unrest!"
"Wah! He becomes old and fat, and Kirfa, his first wife, doth not dip her tongue in honey."
"He starts now, this Sheik Daouad?"
"Even this night," replied the merchant. "But another and a greater caravan goes south ere the new moon rises."
Gissing's heart beat slow and heavy in his breast as he looked questioningly at his companion.
"This is not a good time for any caravan, small or great," he commented.
"By Allah, thou hast wisdom behind thy teeth. This caravan goes to El Zoonda."
"Buzak!" was Gissing's hoarse exclamation.
"Who else!" agreed the merchant.
"He goes in haste."
"Swift as the hot south wind when it blows across the desert. Moreover, he pursueth one who hath done him some evil turn."
Gissing wandered on through the souk, receiving confirmation and denial of the fruit-merchant's tale on every hand; the market buzzed with Buzak's name, but no two reports of him agreed.
At last he noticed a camel-driver watering his beasts, and from his unusual activity Gissing judged him to be one of Buzak's slaves; and, being far apart from the rest, the white man approached him with caution.
"Thou art in haste," he remarked.
"There is need," was the surly response; then, melting instantly as his willing fingers dosed over a coin—"Buzak the Sheik will start at dawn."
"Whither, my brother?"
The slave hesitated, and another and larger coin was dropped into his hand.
"I will tell thee, because thou hast named me brother, who am but a slave beneath thy feet. Moreover, with thy gold, perchance I may yet win freedom."
"Speak, in Allah's name!" implored Gissing.
"The caravan will start at dawn, but Buzak the Sheik doth not ride forth with it! This is a thing I heaxd by chance, while I lay chained and forgotten in the courtyard—but it is the truth. Buzak, my master, will remain secretly in this city, that he may search for an enemy who hath done him great evil."
Gissing's red-rimmed bloodshot eyes looked long into the pock-marked wretched face of the slave.
"Thou dost swear, by Allah?"
"By Allah, and by Allah. May my bones rot in the wilderness, and jackals pick them if I lie! May my soul go down to Eblis, and Shaitans torment me forever if I hide the truth from thee. Moreover it is a white man who hath injured Buzak, one who speaks with the tongues of the desert, and is like us in all points. All this came to my cars as Buzak spoke with one—Hassan ibn Shesh. This Hassan is to lead the caravan to El Zoonda, and is to learn aught he can on the journey, if perchance Buzak's enemy hath already fled into the desert."
"Hassan ibn Shesh!" A new stab of fear went through Gissing, as he recalled the obscene mass of flesh and the very evil face of the owner of that name. This was Buzak's chief councillor, the courtjester extraordinary, whose business it was to administer fresh zest and amusement to life in El Zoonda by devising new and spectacular deaths for Buzak's victims.
Under the littram he wore, Gissing's face was distorted by his panic, and his impulse was to run. . . and run. . . and run! To get away from this city where Buzak was, to run blindly somewhere. . . anywhere. . . at all costs to run!
Violently he restrained himself, and, with shaking hands, dropped a third piece of money into the slave's eager hand.
"Allah's peace be with thee!" he murmured hoarsely, and, turning from the well, he began to make his way unostentatiously to the caravan of Daouad el Wahab. Mechanically he threaded his way among the booths, and pyramids of red-gold oranges, to where the venerable Sheik in snowy turban, blue and scarlet burnous and gold slippers, sat peacefully directing his servants.
"Thou dost journey south, O Sheik?" asked Gissing, after the customary greeting.
"Even so," was the dignified response. "Who art thou, and why dost thou ask?"
"I am a physician—Fahd el Raschid—and would return in haste to Aufiz, where my wife lies sick. I came to this city for certain drugs and must journey swiftly back to her. I would pay thee well for thy company and protection, and for aught else thou dost demand."
The old Sheik deliberated in his long snowy beard, while Gissing's hands worked nervously under his sheltering sleeves. Lengthy argument and haggling followed, in which Gissing forced himself to take part with the zest proper to a born Arab, and the bargain was struck at last.
All the long hot hours until noon, Gissing sat in one of Daouad's tents, watching the souk, and especially that pan of it where Buzak's caravan was preparing for its journey.
It was during the siesta that the shadow of the colossal bulk of Hassan ibn Shesh, councillor of El Zoonda, fell across the opening of the tent where Gissing sat.
Gissing looked directly up into Hassan's little black eyes, buried in rolls of flesh, and the shock of it steadied the whirling thoughts that were driving him insane. The need for action was a vast relief, and his distraught mind grew suddenly cold and clear. Drawing the knife at his girdle he plunged it again and again into the quivering flabby body of the councillor.
No outcry had disturbed the profound quiet of the hot noontide hour, and Gissing dragged the mountainous body into his tent without observation, and looked at it dispassionately.
For long he sat gravely considering his problem, his brain finding relief in the concentration necessary. Presently he let down the flap of his tent, and kneeling, began to dig furiously in the soft sand. All through the grilling hours of the afternoon he toiled, and the sun was setting red and low in the west before he had accomplished his task.
Then he untied his tent flap, and sat once more in the opening—the sandy floor smooth under his feet—and of Hassan ibn Shesh there was no sign whatever. Gissing scarcely felt the terrible exhaustion of his body, for his brain burnt like a hot coal in his head, and his eyes stared glassily from under his twitching brows.
Darkness fell, and Daouad and his little retinue set out at last: the line of camels moving with protesting roars toward the south and the illimitable desert, and Gissing's hot fingers were clasped round a certain little chamois leather bag which hung suspended from a chain at his neck, as he watched the terraced lights of the white-walled city grow dim behind him.
It was at dawn on the tenth day out that Daouad discovered the physician Fahd el Raschid was not in his tent, nor was his camel tethered with the rest. For as long as he dared delay on that weary waterless route, the old Sheik waited, while his slaves rode forth to discover some trace of the missing man. They searched in vain, however, and at last, very reluctantly, the old Sheik with his new wife and his slaves set out without the physician.
And far out over the wide-flung sea of sand, Gissing rode on and on, holding in his hands a rose-red shining string of beauty.
He was alone at last—alone with his treasure . . . that matchless splendor of ancient days. Here he could worship it . . . drink in its glowing life . . . feel the blood beat strongly within him once more as the terrible glorious thing he had won flashed in the sunlight.
His treasure . . . his life . . . his own!
He rode on and on across the blinding sands—on and on by sunlight and starlight—on and on until neither food nor water remained, and his camel sank down to her knees and never rose again.
It was all one to Gissing. He huddled down against the dying beast, and smiled at his rose-red jewels and whispered hoarsely to his treasure.
He never felt the bitter night wind that blew through his very bones, for the flame at the heart of each perfect stone he held warmed him to the soul. At dawn his rapid whispering voice failed, and the cold hands which held his jewels before his darkening vision dropped heavily to his sides.
Very cold and still sat Gissing, as the last pale stars glimmered and vanished—unable any more to see the sun touch to life the dancing magic flames of the Wrath of Allah . . . for the shadow of the Black Camel was dark and heavy on his eyelids.
But the Wrath of Allah flashed and flashed again in the eye of the rising sun.