The Mating of the Blades/Chapter 13
CHAPTER XIII
In which there is intrigue right and left and in the middle and down the spine, and in which, furthermore, the iron enters the buffalo's soul.
“It's agreed, eh?” Mr. Preserved Higgins asked the stranger. “You're on, wot? Cop the gal, cop the swag, cop the 'ole plurry country—and then a bit o' signed pyper givin' me the right to …”
“Yes, yes.” The stranger, alias The Honorable Tollemache Wade, inclined his head. “As soon as I am—oh—what d'you call it?”
“Ameer of Tamerlanistan,” gently suggested Bansi.
“Thanks, old chap. As soon as I am Ameer, I shall give you the 'concession' you want. That was our agreement.”
“Right-oh!” Mr. Preserved Higgins smiled into his curly, russet-colored beard. “And you won't regret it, nor will Tamerlanistan. I ain't tryin' to deny that I'm goin' to myke a stiff bit o' the ready on my investment. But—live and let live is my motto, and I tells you the country ain't goin' to lose. Them Tamerlanis are goin' to 'ave so much tin, Rolls-Royces are goin' to be as plentiful 'ereabouts as vultures are now. I'm goin' to play fair, sonny, see?”
And Mr. Preserved Higgins meant it. For he was characterized by a peculiar honesty in dishonesty. Money to him was not alone the greatest power—which doubtless it is—but also the greatest aim in life. He had never really moved very far away from the plastic first-times of his infancy in the reeking, gray-blotched London slums where the possession of an extra sixpence had spelled an extra pint of half-and-half and an extra pound of chuck-steak; and, by developing the waste lands and digging into the untouched mineral resources of Tamerlanistan, while primarily interested in his own pocket-book, he fully intended giving to the native Tamerlanis the Oriental equivalent for the extra pint of half-and-half and the extra pound of meat.
Beyond this primitive factor he could not see; and if anybody had told him that in Central Asia, in a land which partly deliberately and partly through a self-protective instinct prefers a simple civilization to the hectic, pinchbeck civilization of the Occident that is nine-tenths mechanical, money is the outer husk, not the inner kernel of life, he would have consigned the speaker to an unmentionable place.
“Bloody cyreful lad, thats wot you are,” he continued. “'Ad to 'ave a look at the gal first, didn't you? Well, there ain't no 'arm done. Seemed to 'ave liked the looks of 'er?”
“I did,” smiled Tollemache.
“Wot else did you find out at the capital?”
“Not much. The army seems to be in good training, but, from all I heard, they can't get ammunition.”
“That's my old pal Rivet-Carnac's fine 'and,” Mr. Preserved Higgins interjected. “'E does a few things besides countersignin' passports. Well—we'll be ready three months from to-d'y, and Al Nakia ain't goin' to 'ave a permit for as much as the importytion of a second-'and machine-gun—not 'e!”
“But he has something else, Higgins,” said Tollemache.
“Wot?”
“The confidence and trust of the people.”
“Blast the people!”
“I tell you the old troublemakers, even Koom Khan and Gulabian, are with him.”
“They won't be after you win jolly bloody victory and make jolly old sizzlin' entrance as the 'Expected One,' saheb,” said the Babu.
“Correct,” the Cockney agreed. “You just give us one victory, as we're sure to 'ave, and then we'll spring the news on them benighted 'eathens that you're the real cheese, and that the other guy ain't nothin' but a smelly bit o' Cheddar rind. You just w'yt. Glad you took my advice and kept aw'y from the palace”—he added—“damned glad.”
He heaved a sigh of relief.
For, shortly after their arrival at Abderrahman Yahiah Khan's headquarters following Bansi's telegram that Al Nakia was on his way to Tamerlanistan, the millionaire had put his cards—most of them—on the table. He had spoken to Tollemache Wade of the ancient prophecy of the swords and had suggested a deal by the terms of which Tamerlanistan should be conquered, Tollemache should marry the princess Aziza Nurmahal and then, to repay his obligations to Mr. Preserved Higgins, grant the Anglo-American corporation of which the latter was the head, certain extensive land development concessions.
But Tollemache had shaken his head.
“I won't marry the girl until I have at least seen her,” he had said.
“Heaven-Born,” the Babu, who had been present at the interview, had exclaimed, “she is like the moon on the fourteenth day! She is a precious casket filled with the arts of coquetry! She is …”
“I don't trust your taste in feminine beauty, dear boy,” Tollemache had smiled; and when Mr. Preserved Higgins had made some sardonic remarks to the effect that, judging from his experiences with Gwendolyn de Vere, Tollemache could do worse than accept somebody else's opinions in affairs of the heart, the younger man had replied that this was just the reason why he was going to be doubly careful in the future.
“I am going to take a look at her,” he had repeated, stubbornly.
“Impossible!” Mr. Higgins had exclaimed, afraid that Tollemache, if he went to Tamerlanistan, might see his brother and recognize him.
“Impossible—rot! I speak Persian like a native. I can easily go to the capital, see the princess—somehow—and incidentally find out a few things about the military situation.”
Finally, after he had raged and threatened for half an hour, but had found Tollemache obdurate, Mr. Preserved Higgins had agreed. But he had made Tollemache promise that, under no conditions, would he go near the palace or in any other way put himself in a position where Al Nakia might see him.
“For,” he had said, mixing truth and lies, “Al Nakia is an Englishman, doubtless an officer—and mebbe 'e knows you and might recognize you—and then the jig'll be bloomin' well up—see?”
And so now Mr. Preserved Higgins felt relieved, and it was with a great deal of zest that he devoted the following days to preparations for the coming at tack against Tamerlanistan. Though not a military man, his advice was sane and constructive. For he had fought many a battle in the shrill arena of finance, and there is a great deal of similarity between the mind which uses the massed battalions of coined gold and the mind which uses bullets and guns and human flesh and blood.
In either case, strategy counts fully as much as brute force. Strategy, patience, ability to wait, to sit tight, to take punishment—and in this respect Mr. Preserved Higgins, in the western marches, was playing practically the same game which Hector Wade was playing in the capital.
“We ain't in no 'urry,” the Cockney said. “We want to win this 'ere war, and we don't want nothin' to miscarry. I'd rather 'ave that Al Nakia blighter attack us 'ere, where we knows the ground, than attack 'im on 'is own ground.”
“I assure you they are short of ammunition,” insisted Tollemache.
“Mebbe. That's just why we should w'yt till we 'ave a surplus of ammunition.”
And he carried his opinions against that of Tollemache who was anxious to see again the little princess' black, hooded eyes, and against that of Abderrahman Yahiah Khan and “The Basin” whose appetite for the rich loot of Tamerlanistan was increasing with each passing day; and he went ahead with his careful, methodical preparations until, nearly a week later, a great wave of excitement surged through the camp of the rebels.
It began with the Arab gunner, a deserter from the Turkish army who was presiding over the destinies of the machine gun that protected the silken tents of the leaders, suddenly shading his eyes, looking steadily down the Darb-i-Sultani, then bending feverishly to his weapon, working the screw-levers with brown, nimble fingers and sliding the gun so that the ugly, blunt muzzle pointed due east, with a wicked, snapping recoil, like a beast of prey sniffing for blood.
Tollemache Wade happened to be passing.
“What's up, Mehmet?” he asked.
The Arab pointed—and gave a shrill, throaty yell of warning which electrified the camp into instant action.
Arabs and Persians and rebel Tamerlanis and riffraff of all Asia that had joined Abderrahman Yahiah Khan came tumbling out of tents and huts, strapping on carbines and revolvers, swords and daggers as they ran … with a babel of cries, in soft, purring Persian, in limpid Turkish, in virile, guttural Arabic and high-pitched Tartar …
“Zid! Zid! Yah Ullah!”—
“Ikhs ya'l khammar—O thou drunkard!” ludicrously to a frenzied, plunging stallion—
“Allahu—Allahu!”—
“Bismillah irrahmân errahmin!”—and, clear above the turmoil, Mr. Preserved Higgins nasal, twangy “I say—wot the 'ell's up?”, then, to a frantic Nubian: “Get off my feet, you bleedin' swine!”, blending fantastically, ridiculously with Abderrahman Yahiah Khan's full-flavored curses as he pushed his way through the crowd with fist and elbow.
“Give way—give way there!”
The governor reached the side of the gunner who, tense, quivering, was still bending over his weapon, drawing a bead straight toward the east, while the soldiers, under Tollemache Wade's sharp commands, were deploying in a half circle, rifles ready for the “Fire!”
By this time Mr. Preserved Higgins, too, had reached the gunner's side.
He looked.
Far in the east, a blast of sirocco wind filled with stabbing, biting particles of desert sand had whirled up on the feathery sky line. A mass of violet-red nimbus, furrowed horizontally by a thin, wavery gray line of mist cloud, and nicked with gold and yellow, as of the sun mirroring on polished weapons, rolled down, steadily gathering momentum.
There was a savage humming and zumming and roaring. Too, sudden, grimly staccato noises—like steel clanking against steel—swords—lance butts—
“War!” Musa Al-Mutasim came running up with great speed, in spite of his huge, amorphous bulk, rifle in hand. “Al Nakia's men—they're attacking us!”
“Yes!” Mr. Preserved Higgins turned on Tollemache. “You are a silly plurry ass, aren't you? Told me, didn't you, they was unprepared? My word—of all the …”
“Keep your hair on!” advised Tollemache. “If these are Al Nakia's soldiers, our spies and scouts would have brought us warning.”
“They may have been overpowered, saheb,” suggested “The Basin.” “Look—look!”
For the cloud grew. Rolling on as mercilessly as Fate, it seemed to spread, to jump into a pattern, brown and black, blotched with white and vivid scarlet. The roaring and zumming increased—
A faint neighing of horses. A tinkling of camels' bells. A thumping of kettle-drums.
Then a flash of lance points and sword blades and metal-bossed arm shields. Shrill cries. The portentous thunder of galloping horses. The soft, rhythmic thud of the dromedaries' padded feet.
Tollemache jerked aside the arm of the Arab gunner who was just about to swing the machine-gun on its swivel and rake the oncoming horde with shot. “Stop it!” he cried; and, to his captains who shouted the order down the deployed lines:
“Hold your fire—hold your fire!”—and he despatched a messenger to a camp beyond the main camp where the few pieces of artillery which Mr. Preserved Higgins had shipped through from the Persian Gulf were served by specially trained men.
“Wot the 'ell are you w'ytin' for?” cried the Cockney, who was nearly hysterical by this time. “Go on—give the order to fire—or …”
“Shut up, you little fool!” Tollemache took him by the collar and shook him. “If they are enemies, I am going to hold my fire until the very last moment. And if they are not enemies …”
“I tell you they are!”
“I am not sure. They wouldn't be such fools as to attack us in mass formation—not if, as you say, Al Nakia used to be in the service …”
And then, quite suddenly, Abderrahman Yahiah Khan raised a hairy, brown hand.
“Listen!” he said. “The saheb is right. These are not enemies. They are friends!”
And, through the sudden, dense silence, out of the mass of people on horse and camel back into which the oncoming cloud had steadily crystallized, a voice drifted forth:
“Marhaba Bik! Yah—Marhaba Bik!—Greetings! Greetings!”
The throaty shout tore clear from the gathering rush. A lonely rider detached himself. At full speed he galloped up, a white flag jerking crazily from the point of his long, tufted bamboo lance; and, a moment later, Abderrahman Yahiah Khan recognized him:
“Koom Khan! Koom Khan!”
“Salaam! A thousand salaams—and one—and yet another one!” replied the other, wheeling his horse so suddenly that it fell on its haunches and slid, squatting, through the soft sand. The next moment he was on his feet and ran the rest of the distance, his dyed beard waving across his shoulder like a crimson flag, and he knelt down in front of the astonished governor of the western marches, hands outspread, forehead touching the dust in sign of supplication.
“I demand protection, my lord!” he implored. “Protection for myself, for the Sheik-ul-Islam”—indicating the priest who had ridden up—“and for my people—my women and children and slaves!”
“Protection against whom?” demanded the other.
“Against Al Nakia.”
And the next moment, according to the ancient Moslem ceremonial, Abderrahman Yahiah Khan pressed Koom Khan to his stout breast, murmuring piously:
“Nahnu malihin—we shall eat salt together!” while “The Basin,” in answer to Mr. Preserved Higgins' whispered suspicion that he did not trust Koom Khan, that perhaps treachery was in the wind, replied that No!—if Koom Khan intended treachery, he would not have been such a fool as to bring his women and slaves and servants and children with him.
And he had.
For, by this time, the rest of the cavalcade had come up and it turned out to be composed of several hundred people, on foot, on horseback, on dromedaries, the servants armed with lances and rifles and metal-bossed shields. But there were many women and children, some mounted behind slaves or astride the large, green painted boxes of the pack animals; a few, doubtless women of high degree, in gaudy, tinsely takht-rawan litters carried by slaves.
Yes—Mr. Preserved Higgins admitted—here was a sure sign that Koom Khan and the Sheik-ul-Islam had come as friends, bringing peace.
Too, there was no doubt whatsoever about the priest's sincerity as, late that night, with the Babu Bansi playing as dragoman, he poured the tale of his grievances into the, if not sympathetic, then at least interested, ears of the eccentric millionaire, telling him how Hector Wade had treated him with contumely and ridicule, making him, a priest, a holy man, a Sheik of the Faith, a doctor of Koranic law, a famous compiler of many learned commentaries on Moslem theology, a laughing-stock before the courtiers and palace slaves.
“Al Nakia is a pig,” he wound up, “with a pig's heart. So was his father a pig before him, and his grandfather before his father.”
A statement in which, after the Babu had translated it, Mr. Preserved Higgins concurred heartily.
“Right-oh!” he replied. “Can't myke it too strong for me, cocky. I was born orf Soho, and I don't like that there Al Nakia bird any more than you do!”—and he clapped the Sheik-ul-Islam familiarly on the shoulder.
The latter could not understand a word of English, but he read in the Cockney's small, blinking eyes that there was no difference of opinion here about the physical and spiritual characteristics of the de facto ruler of Tamerlanistan, and so he added, as a happy afterthought, that he personally—and Allah was his witness that he was a decent and mild man, not given to vituperation-considered Al Nakia hyena spawn without faith or morals or manners—except bad manners!
“Go right ahead, sonny!” encouraged the Cockney. “Shoot off that ugly mouth o' yours. Call 'im bad nymes, if it 'elps your liver any. But”—turning to the Babu—“tell 'is nibs when 'e's through with 'is nytive Billingsgyte about that Al Nakia blighter, that I'd like to talk business to 'im.”
“Business—see?” he addressed the Sheik-ul-Islam direct, making that gesture with thumb and index finger which stands for money the world over, and the other smiled and wagged his carefully curled beard.
And so they did talk business, very much to both gentlemen's satisfaction, while, in a neighboring tent, Koom Khan was entertaining the governor of the western marches with a similar tale of Hector's short comings, winding up softly, ingenuously, with:
“Al Nakia is a saheb, and thou knowest what the sahebs are—all sahebs”—dwelling slightly on the word, and winking rapidly in the direction of the neighboring tent whence drifted the sound of Mr. Preserved Higgins' raucous voice.
Of old, the governor was familiar with his countryman's methods of innuendo.
“Didst thou say—all sahebs, heart of my heart?” he inquired, casually, duplicating the other's wink.
“Yes.” Koom Khan sighed. “Thou knowest the saheb-log. They either give thee three times what thou deservest, or they give thee nothing at all. Strange cattle—I do not trust them.”
And after a pause, a silence broken only by the gurgling sounds of the hubble-bubbles, he went on, with sudden, frank, naïve simplicity:
“Abderrahman—I do not trust thy saheb!”
“Higgins saheb?”
“No. The other saheb—-who looks like a lance at rest.”
“Ah?” breathed the governor, without looking up.
“Indeed. There is about him a lean and nasty wolfishness of expression that, if I had a herd of sheep to protect, would cause me to double my sticks and treble my swords and quadruple my camp fires—that would induce me to surround myself with nine teen times nineteen traps. Good, sound traps that snap the wolf's legs and keep him—where he belongs!”
And when Abderrahman Yahiah Khan raised his eyebrows, questioningly, he stabbed a finger through the half-open tent flap toward the purpling night sky where a big, detached cloud was floating across the face of the moon.
“The moon careth not for the cloud,” he said, “and the saheb-log careth not for me—or thee—unless it be to use us for personal benefit.”
He was silent.
From the outside came a soft, throaty gurgle of camels jerking at their headstalls, and a feeble, dry sound of a sentinel's rifle dragging against the withered, tufted desert grass; and, presently, the tail end of an English song flung to the night in Tollemache Wade's frank, untrained voice:
“Here's to the fox
In his earth below the rocks ...”
“ Decidedly,” went on Koom Khan, “if I were thou, I would cut the saheb's throat.”
He said it with simple, sincere ruthlessness, undisguised, but neither vindictive nor cruel; rather with something which proved beyond all doubt that he was of the Orient, which showed, in a way, how an Asian can hold to the blind belief of his personal will, conviction, or even whim against the opinions, the customs, the saving prejudices, and the codified laws of the rest of the world; something of that profoundly sincere and honest stubbornness, that trust in himself against all odds, which, on the one hand, can turn the leader of a band of nomad cut-throats—an Attila or a Genghiz Khan, a Nadir Shah or a Peshwah Saheb—into a scourge of mankind, and, on the other hand, can change an ordinary peasant or fisherman into a prophet of the faith.
Both ruthlessness, lawlessness, serene contempt and negligence of existing conditions—working for the good or for the bad, as the case may be.
“Kill him, soul of my soul,” Koom Khan repeated, “and let the rest be as Allah willeth.”
The other puffed at his pipe. Of old, he knew Koom Khan; knew, thus, that he was chary of speech and that the blood-thirsty advice was not the result of a sudden racial or cultural animosity against the saheb-log. There must be another, more direct cause.
Finally he decided to ask a frank question—frank, that is, according to the limitations of the Oriental mind.
“Koom Khan,” he said, “I do not love the sahebs any more than thou. Yet am I a reasonable man, washed in thirty-seven buckets of patient wisdom. Tell me,” he went on, dreamily, “if a scorpion could spin a silk cocoon, would I crush it under foot—or would I feed it choice mulberry leaves?”
“But”—came the counter question, “suppose the scorpion weaves a silken net with which to strangle—thee?”
The governor shook his head.
“No, no,” he said. “The saheb intends no treachery. He is my ally. He needs my armed men, my knowledge of the land, as I need his wisdom in war, and the other saheb's money-bags. We made a bargain.”
“And yet,” Koom Khan breathed, softly, “I have heard in the bazaars that the young saheb dreams of mating with the princess Aziza Nurmahal.”
Abderrahman Yahiah Khan looked puzzled.
“Why—of course!” he rejoined. “Such is the understanding. The saheb is the 'Expected One'!”
“Is he?”
Koom Khan laughed long and riotously, his whole body shaken jerkily by the panting, gurgling catches of his breath.
But it was not a merry laughter—bitter it was, grim, sardonic. And grim, too, was his exclamation, as he rose and stretched his stout arms to heaven:
“By the teeth of God—I was a fool, then, to leave the silken security of Tamerlanistan, to brave the dangers of the open road with my women and servants and children, to come to thee and ask thee for the hand of protection and the sweet salt of hospitality! I was a fool—a fool!”
“But—I thought that thou hadst a quarrel with Al Nakia.”
“I did—because of thee, soul of my soul!”
“Because of—me?”
“Yes—because of thee and of thy twin brother, the governor of the eastern marches …”
“May his soul pass quickly into the dark!” the other interjected with brotherly affection. And he asked: “What has that brother of mine, that son of a dog, to do with …”
“Everything. He came to court, speaking slurring words about thee—at least I thought then that they were slurring. He said how first thou hadst sent brave messages that thou wouldst conquer Tamerlanistan and wed the princess, and how afterwards thou didst show thyself a most base-born dog by giving up thy claims to the princess' hand for a turbanful of gold. I called thy brother a liar. There were words. Swords were drawn. Al Nakia took thy brother's part, and I defied him and came here—and now thou dost tell me—that indeed … Bismillah! I was a fool!”
And again he broke into raucous laughter, while the governor looked down, silent, meditative.
“Abderrahman,” said Koom Khan, rising, “it is against the blessed laws of decency for a Moslem to discuss a woman, to speak of her soul and heart and desires. To do so are the manners of infidel pigs. But—thou art my friend. Thou hast opened wide to me the tent of thy hospitality. We have eaten salt and bread together. Thus I shall tell thee!”
“What?”
“About Aziza Nurmahal. She heard of thy one-time boast, that thou wouldst make her a captive to thy bow and spear and marry her, with or against her will. And she said to a slave who is a friend of a dancing girl whom I know well—alas! too well!”—he sighed—“she said that she loves a bold man, a careless man, a free man who takes by force what his passion and love desires. And—thou …” He slurred, stopped, and went on; “If I were thou, I would cut the saheb's throat. But then I am an impulsive man, a man who plunges into the pool of life negligent of its black, frowning depths, a foolish man who always plays the game of his undoing—and not, as thou art, a wise man, a careful counter of gold and silver and other loot!”
And, late that night, he sent a trusted slave up the Darb-i-Sultani, who arrived at the palace of Tamerlanistan three days later, with the metaphorical message to Al Nakia:
“Koom Khan sends many salaams. Too, he sends word that the iron has entered the buffalo's soul. Presently the buffalo will turn and gore to the death the lean saheb who looks like a lance at rest.”
“Good!” cried Gulabian, after Hector had told him the message.
“Good!” croaked the old nurse.
“Good indeed!” echoed Aziza Nurmahal.
But Hector shook his head. It was the latter part of the message which disturbed him. For, while he himself had sent Koom Khan to the rebel camp to spread there the seeds of mistrust and dissension, he had never imagined that the man would elaborate his instructions so as to cause Abderrahman Yahiah Khan to commit murder.
Murder! Deliberate, cold-blooded murder!
No, no! It went against his grain, and he said so to the others:
“I won't have it. It can't be done.”
“Thou art a saheb!” grumbled the old nurse. “Thou art a soft man …”
“And it is the sahebs' softness,” smilingly cut in Hector, “which is their strength. Their softness is the rope by which they dangle the world to their fancy.”
And he sent the messenger back to Koom Khan with the words:
“Al Nakia sends many salaams, and the following explicit instructions: there is no worth in blood; blood forever demands to be wiped out by darkening blood, making the red chain endless. Thus, do not let the buffalo redden his horns with the lean saheb's gore.”