The Palace of Darkened Windows Part 35

She answered, after a moment, "There's another close behind him. I just saw him on top of a little hill. I suppose they can see us?"

"Probably." Billy's face was grave. If they continued their winding path in from the desert to the intervening hills that shut them from the Nile valley, and the hors.e.m.e.n continued their course along the base of those hills, they would soon meet.

"Do you mind speeding up a little?" he asked. "I'd rather like to cross to the Nile ahead of that gentry."

But as they speeded up the pursuers did the same, and from mere dots they grew to tiny figures, clearly discernible, furiously galloping over the sands.

Billy thought hard about his cartridges, wis.h.i.+ng he had more in his clothes. When he had left the hotel that Tuesday evening he had thrust the loaded revolver in his pocket, but he had already discharged it twice at the beginning of their flight.... And then he startlingly reflected that the Captain could easily cause their arrest for stealing those camels, and wild and dreadful thoughts of native jails and mixed tribunals darted into his hara.s.sed and anxious mind. As a long ridge of sand intervened between them and their pursuers he made a sudden decision.

"Let's turn off," he said quickly, and from the little winding path, edging southeast, they struck directly south over the trackless sand.

"You see, they'll expect us to make a railroad station as soon as possible," he explained, "and they are probably trying to nab us on the way to it--if those men have anything to do with us at all." He said nothing about his vivid fear of arrest for the camels and the tool such an arrest would be for Kerissen's designs. He merely added, "I think we'd better try to give them the slip and steer clear of all the little native joints until we get to Girgeh, which is big enough to give us some protection. There must be an English something-or-other there.... I really think we ought to go as fast as we can now, and when the way is clear, hurry across the hills into the Nile valley."

But the way did not become clear. Disconcerted by that unexpected dash off the path, and reduced for a time to mere dots again, the hors.e.m.e.n, three in a row now, hung persistently upon their left flank, keeping a parallel course between them and the hills.

The day had dawned with a promise of sultry heat, and as the sun rose higher and higher in the heavens the heat grew more and more intolerable to their ill-protected heads and thirsty tongues. The gaiety of yesterday was gone; the enchantment had vanished from the waste s.p.a.ces, and the desert was less a friend now than an enemy.

Chokingly the dust rose about them, and glaringly the gold of the burning sands beat back the glare of the down-pouring sun. From such a heat the landscape seemed to shrink and veiled itself with a faint and swimming haze.

By noon the flask of water in Billy's pocket was empty. By noon their mouths were parched and their skins burning. And still on their left there hung the hounding dots, like prowling jackals.

Anxiously Billy looked at Arlee. This was an ordeal of a ride that tried the stuff the girl was made of. She was no princess of mystery now, crossing the moonlit sands; she was no gossamer wraith of a girl miraculously with him for a time; she was a very hot and human companion, worried and tired, shutting her dry mouth over any word of complaint, smiling pluckily at him with dusty lips from the shrouding hood of her veil. She was completely and thoroughly a brick.

And Billy's heart ached for her, even while his spirit exulted in her spirit.

"Beastly hot, isn't it?" he gasped, pulling his insufficient cap down over his bloodshot eyes.

Valiantly she smiled. "What's a little--heat?" came joltingly back.

"And rough going."

"What's a little--roughness?"

There wasn't any word good enough for her. There wasn't any word good enough to describe such superhuman courage and sweetness. Billy had credited all beauties with being spoiled. All he had known had been distinctly spoiled, even the near-beauties, and the not-so-near ones, yet here was the most radiantly lovely girl he had ever seen behaving like an angel of grit.

He didn't quite know what else he expected her to do--have hysterics, perhaps, or weep, or reproach him for having taken a wrong way and elected a rash course. He had known that this girl could be a very minx when piqued. But in the graver crises of life she proved herself a thoroughbred. She would go till she dropped and never whimper.

He thought of all she must have been through in that horrible palace, and he marvelled at the swiftness with which her spirit had reverted to blitheness again. The disaster, that might have been so stunning, so irremediable, had pa.s.sed over her head like lightning that had not struck.... Even the horror of it had seemed yesterday to fade in her like the horror of an evil dream. That was what it had been to her--an evil dream. She was so young, so much of her was still a child, that the full terror had not touched her.

They had come to a road at last, a road which seemed to be leading in from the desert very gradually to the hills upon their left, and it seemed to Billy that it must be a caravan road to Girgeh, and he felt themselves upon the right track. They must keep their lead, and when that lead seemed sufficient, they must put on all possible speed to make the crossing through the hills into the Nile valley ahead of their pursuers. Once more he stirred their lagging camels into a jogging trot....

It was around the middle of the afternoon now, and it had been noon since their tongues had tasted water. Arlee felt her mouth parched and her tongue dry and curling; her skin was feverishly hot; her whole body burned and ached, and her head was giddy with the heat and the hunger. But she thought how little a thing it was to be hot and hungry and tired--when one was free. And she drew the silver shawl closer over her head and wrapped the silken tunic of her frock about her scorching shoulders, and clung tight to the pommel of her big saddle as her beast pounded on and on in his lurching stride.

It had been some time since they had seen the dots, and now the road ahead of them, like the former path they had abandoned, was turning more and more to the left, winding in and out the low and broken foothills, and as they followed its course with increasing security, Billy began to tell himself that their fears had been unfounded and the alarming hors.e.m.e.n were merely following their own route south.

And then he heard a whistle.

A prescience of danger shot through him. His fears returned a hundredfold. Sharply he scanned the way about them, but nothing was in sight. The whistle was not repeated; he could have imagined that he dreamed it. An utter stillness possessed the wilderness.

And then around the corner of a jutting rock ahead of them a horseman trotted, a big black man on a gray horse, and reined in, waiting, facing them. Arlee gave a choking cry.

"The eunuch!" she gasped out.

Behind them Billy flung a lightning glance, and over the heads of the dunes two more riders appeared, converging down upon them from the rear. Three in sight--how many more behind the rocks?

Desperately Billy gripped his bridle rope, and with a wrenching pull and a whack of his guiding stick he turned his camel sharply to the left, s.n.a.t.c.hing at Arlee's bridle rope as the beasts b.u.mped against each other in their surprise.

"Quick--this way," Billy commanded, and with the left hand clutching the girl's rope, with the right he wielded the stick furiously. Out over the sand both camels plunged, goaded into wild speed by such violent measures, and a cheated yell broke from the hors.e.m.e.n and the outcries of pursuit.

While rage at such unreason lasted the camels went like mad, but such speed could not be for long. They had been hard ridden for two days and they were nearly spent. The hors.e.m.e.n behind had drawn together and hung on their trail like three hounds, riding cautiously in the rear, but easily keeping the distance. It occurred to Billy that these pursuers could have changed horses on the way, and must inevitably tire them out. And then?

On and on he beat his poor beasts, racing toward the hills that, just ahead of them, rose sharply from the broken ground, seeking among them some fortress of rocks for a defiant stand.

A tug on the bridle rope nearly jerked it from his hand. Arlee's camel had stumbled; the poor thing was lurching wearily.

"He can't go--any more," the girl cried out pitifully. "He--he's sobbing. Don't beat him--I won't have him beaten!"

"We must get there," he called back, waving at the cliff-like rocks.

"Then go--on foot. I could--run faster."

"No, you couldn't," he shouted fiercely back.

She flared. "Don't you hit him again!"

The maddening absurdity of the quarrel in the face of hostile Africa filled Billy with the futile fury of exasperation. He ground his teeth, glowering at her, and wound her halter rope about his smarting hand. All his hope was concentrated upon the necessity of winning to that rocky shelter before their pursuers overtook them.

To him the camels were nothing in the face of such necessity.

They were going slower and slower; his blows had no avail now on either beast. They plodded on. He turned suddenly in his saddle and saw the three riders spreading fan-shape around them, the one in the center nearest. He whipped out his gun and fired at the horse.

His own motion made the ball fly wild, but the horseman drew up instantly, and the other edged discreetly away. And in the ensuing moments the two fugitives gained the base of those cliff-like hills and perceived the dark oblong of a cave mouth.

Down from their exhausted camels they flung themselves, and hand in hand raced to the entrance of the cave. Coolness and blackness received them. Their eyes discovered nothing of the tunnel-like interior.

Putting Arlee some distance within, Billy went to the mouth and stood, his gun in his hand, peering watchfully out. He saw the hors.e.m.e.n draw together for a parley, then one remained on guard while the others circled on separate ways beyond his range of sight.

His fear was that one of them might steal alongside the cave and leap unexpectedly into its very mouth upon him, so with taut nerves he crouched expectant.

Behind him Arlee gave a sudden shriek.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Billy went to the mouth, peering watchfully out"]

CHAPTER XX