Cossacks, of course, never wash (although they brush their coats daily with immense care) and I wasn"t allowed to either, so by the time we were rolling east into the half-frozen steppe beyond Rostov I was filthy, bearded, tangled, and itchy beyond belief, stinking with the garlic of their awful food, and only praying that I wouldn"t contract some foul disease from my noisome companions - for they even slept either side of me, with their nagaikas knotted into my chains. It ain"t like a honeymoon at Baden, I can tell you.
There were four hundred miles of that interminable plain, getting worse as it went on; it took us about five days, as near as I remember, with the telegues going like blazes, and new horses at every post-house. The only good thing was that as we went the weather grew slightly warmer until, when we were entering the great salt flats of the Astrakhan, the snow vanished altogether, and you could even travel without your tulup.
Astrakhan city itself is a h.e.l.l-hole. The land all about is as flat as the Wash country, and the town itself lies so low they have a great d.y.k.e all round to prevent the Volga washing it into the Caspian, or t"other way round. As you might expect, it"s a plague spot; you can smell the pestilence in the air, and before we pa.s.sed through the d.y.k.e Ignatieff ordered everyone to soak his face and hands with vinegar, as though that would do any good. Still, it was the nearest I came to making toilet the whole way.
Mark you, there was one good thing about Astrakhan: the women. Once you get over towards the Caspian the people are more slender and Asiatic than your native Russian, and some of those dark girls, with their big eyes and long straight noses and pouting lips had even me, in my unkempt misery, sitting up and dusting off my beard. But of course I never got near them; it was into the kremlin for Flash and his heavenly twins, and two nights in a steaming cell before they put us aboard a steamer for the trip across the Caspian.
It"s a queer sea, that one, for it isn"t above twenty feet deep, and consequently the boats are of shallow draught, and bucket about like canoes. I spewed most of the way, but the Cossacks, who"d never sailed before, were in a fearful way, vomiting and praying by turns. They never let go of me, though, and I realized with a growing sense of alarm that if these two watch-dogs were kept on me all the way to Kabul, I"d stand little chance of giving them the slip. Their terror of Ignatieff was if anything even greater than mine, and in the worst of the boat"s heaving one of them was always clutching my ankle chains, even if he was rolling about the deck retching at the same time.
It was four days of misery before we began to steam through cl.u.s.ters of ugly, sandy little islands towards the port of Tishkandi, which was our destination. I"m told it isn"t there any longer, and this is another strange thing about the Caspian - its coastline changes continually, al-most like the Mississippi sh.o.r.es. One year there are islands, and next they have become hills on a peninsula, while a few miles away a huge stretch of coast will have changed into a lagoon.
Tishkandi"s disappearance can have been no loss to any-one; it was a dirty collection of huts with a pier, and beyond it the ground climbed slowly through marshy salt flats to two hundred miles of arid, empty desert. You could call it steppe, I suppose, but it"s dry, rocky heart-breaking country, fit only for camels and lizards.
"Ust-Yurt," says one of the officers, as he looked at it, and the very name sent my heart into my boots.
It"s dangerous country, too. There was a squadron of lancers waiting for us when we landed, to guard us against the wild desert tribes, for this was beyond the Russian frontiers, in land where they were still just probing at the savage folk who chopped up their caravans and raided their outposts whenever they had the chance. When we made camp at night it was your proper little laager, with sangars at each corner, and sentries posted, and half a dozen lancers out riding herd. All very business-like, and not what I"d have expected from Ruskis, really. But this was their hard school, as I was to learn, like our North-west Frontier, where you either soldiered well or not at all.
It was five days through the desert, not too uncomfortable while we were moving, but freezing h.e.l.lish at night, and the dromedaries with their native drivers must have covered the ground at a fair pace, forty miles a day or thereabouts. Once or twice we saw hors.e.m.e.n in the distance, on the low rocky barchans, and I heard for the first time names like "Kazak" and "Turka", but they kept a safe distance. On the last day, though, we saw more of them, much closer, and quite peaceable, for these were people of the Aral coast, and the Russians had them fairly well in order on that side of the sea. When I saw them near I had a strange sense of recognition - those swarthy faces, with here and there a hooked nose and a straggling moustache, the dirty puggarees swathed round the heads, and the open belted robes, took me back to Northern India and the Afghan hills. I found myself stealing a look at my Cossacks and the lancers, and even at Ignatieff riding with the other officers at the head of our caravan, and thinking to myself - these ain"t your folk, my lads, but they"re mighty close to some I used to know. It"s a strange thing, to come through hundreds of miles of wilderness, from a foreign land and moving in the wrong direction, and suddenly find yourself sniffing the air and thinking, "home". If you"re British, and have soldiered in India, you"ll understand what I mean.
Late that afternoon we came through more salty flats to a long coastline of rollers sweeping in from a sea so blue that I found myself muttering through my beard "Thala.s.sa or thalatta, the former or the latter?," it seemed so much like the ocean that old Arnold"s Greeks had seen after their great march. And suddenly I could close my eyes and hear his voice droning away on a summer afternoon at Rugby, and smell the cut gra.s.s coming in through the open windows, and hear the f.a.gs at cricket outside, and from that I found myself dreaming of the smell of hay in the fields beyond Renfrew, and Elspeth"s body warm and yielding, and the birds calling at dusk along the river, and the pony champing at the gra.s.s, and it was such a sweet, torturing longing that I groaned aloud, and when I opened my eyes the tears came, and there was a hideous Russian voice clacking "Aralskoe More!",*(*"Aral Sea!") and bright Asian sunlight, and the chains galling my wrist and ankle-bones, and foreign flat faces all round, and I realized that my earlier thoughts of home had been an illusion, and this was alien, frightening land.
There was a big military camp on the sh.o.r.e, and a handy little steamer lying off, and while the rest of us waited Ignatieff was received with honours by a group of senior officers - and he only, a captain, too. Of course, I"d realized before this that he was a big noise, but the way they danced attendance on him you"d have thought he was the Tsar"s cousin. (Maybe he was, for all I know.) They put us aboard the steamer that evening, and I was so tuckered out by the journey that I just slept where I lay down. And in the morning there was a coast ahead, with a great new wooden pier, and a huge river flowing down between low banks to the sea. As far as I could see the coast was covered with tents, and there was another steamer, and half a dozen big wooden transports, and one great warship, all riding at anchor between the pier and the river mouth. There were bugles sounding on the distant sh.o.r.e, and swarms of people everywhere, among the tents, on the pier, and on the ships, and a great hum of noise in the midst of which a military band was playing a rousing march; this is the army, I thought, or most of it, this is their Afghan expedition.
I asked one of the Russian sailors what the river might be, and he said: "Syr Daria," and then pointing to a great wooden stockaded fort on the rising land above the river, he added: "Fort Raim."35 And then one of the Cossacks pushed him away, cursing, and told me to hold my tongue.
They landed us in lighters, and there was another delegation of smart uniforms to greet Ignatieff, and an orderly holding a horse for him, and all around tremendous bustle of unloading and ferrying from the ships, and gangs of orientals at work, with Russian non-corns bawling at them and swinging whips, and gear being stowed in the newly-built wooden sheds along the sh.o.r.e. I watched gun limbers being swung down from a derrick, and cursing, half-naked gangs hauling them away; the whole pier was piled with crates and bundles, and for all the world it looked like the levee at New Orleans, except that this was a temporary town of huts and tents and lean-to"s. But there were just as many people, sweating and working in orderly chaos, and you could feel the excitement in the air.
Ignatieff came trotting down to where I was sitting between my Cossacks, and at a word they hauled me up and we set off at his heels through the confusion, up the long, gradual slope to the fort. It was farther off than I"d expected, about a mile, so that it stood well back from the camp, which was all spread out like asand-table down the sh.o.r.e-line. As we neared the fort he stopped, and his orderly was pointing at the distant picket lines and identifying the various regiments - New Russian Dragoons, Romiantzoff"s Grenadiers, Astrakhan Carabiniers, and Aral Hussars, I remember. Ignatieff saw me surveying the camp, and came over. He hadn"t spoken to me since we left Arabat.
"You may look," says he, in that chilling murmur of his, "and reflect on what you see. The next Englishman to catch sight of them will be your sentry on the walls of Peshawar. And while you are observing, look yonder also, and see the fate of all who oppose the majesty of the Tsar."
I looked where he pointed, up the hill towards the fort, and my stomach turned over. To one side of the gateway was a series of wooden gallows, and from each one hung a human figure - although some of them were hard to recognize as human. A few hung by their arms, some by their ankles, one or two lucky ones by their necks. Some were wasted and blackened by exposure; at least one was still alive and stirring feebly. An awful carrion reek drifted down on the clear spring air.
"Unteachables," says Ignatieff. "Bandit sc.u.m and rebels of the Syr Daria who have been unreceptive to our sacred Russian imperial mission. Perhaps, when we have lined their river with sufficient of these examples, they will learn. It is the only way to impress recalcitrants. Do you not agree?"
He wheeled his horse, and we trailed up after him towards the fort. It was bigger, far bigger, than I"d expected, a good two hundred yards square, with timber ramparts twenty feet high, and at one end they were already replacing the timber with rough stone. The Russian eagle ensign was fluttering over the roofed gatehouse, there were grenadiers drawn up and saluting as -Ignatieff cantered through, and I trudged in, clanking, to find myself on a vast parade, with good wooden barracks around the walls, troops drilling in the dusty square, and a row of two-storey administrative buildings down one side. It was a very proper fort, something like those of the American frontier in the "seventies; there were even some small cottages which I guessed were officers" quarters.
Ignatieff was getting his usual welcome from a tub-by chap who appeared to be the commandant; I wasn"t interested in what they said, but I gathered the commandant was greatly excited, and was babbling some great news.
"Not both of them?" I heard Ignatieff say, and the other clapped his hands in great glee and said, yes, both, a fine treat for General Perovski and General Khruleff when they arrived.
"They will make a pretty pair of gallows, then," says Ignatieff. "You are to be congratulated, sir. Nothing could be a better omen for our march through Syr Daria."
"Ah, ha, excellent!" cries the tubby chap, rubbing his hands. "And that will not be long, eh? All is in train here, as you see, and the equipment arrives daily. But come, my dear Count, and refresh yourself."
They went off, leaving me feeling sick and hang-dog between my guards; the sight of those tortured bodies outside the stockade had brought back to me the full horror of my own situation. And I felt no better when there came presently a big, brute-faced sergeant of grenadiers, a coiled nagaika in his fist, to tell my Cossacks they could fall out, as he was taking me under his wing.
"Our necks depend on this fellow," says one of the Cos-sacks doubtfully, and the sergeant sneered, and scowled at me.
"My neck depends on what I"ve got in the cells already," growls he. "This offal is no more precious than my two birds. Be at peace; he shall join them in my most salubrious cell, from which even the lizards cannot escape. March him along!"
They escorted me to a corner on the landward side of the fort, down an alley between the wooden buildings, and to a short flight of stone steps leading down ,to an iron-shod door. The sergeant hauled back the ma.s.sive bolts, thrust back the creaking door, and then reached up, grabbing me by my wrist-chains.
"In, tut!" he snarled, and yanked me headlong down into the cell. The door slammed, the bolts ground to, and I heard him guffawing brutally as their footsteps died away.
I lay there trembling on the dirty floor, just about done with fatigue and fear. At least it was dim and cool in here. And then I heard someone speaking in the cell, and raised my head; at first I could make nothing out in the faint light that came from a single window high in one wall, and then I started with astonishment, for suspended flat in the air in the middle of the cell, spread-eagled as though in flight, was the figure of a man. As my eyes grew accustomed to the dimness I drew in a shuddering breath, for now I could see that he was cruelly hung between four chains, one to each limb from the top corners of the room. More astonishing still, beneath his racked body, which hung about three feet from the floor, was crouched another figure, supporting the hanging man on his back, presumably to take the appalling strain of the chains from his wrists and ankles. It was the crouching man who was speaking, and to my surprise, his words were in Persian.
"It is a gift from G.o.d, brother," says he, speaking with difficulty. "A rather dirty gift, but human - if there is such a thing as a human Russian. At least, he is a prisoner, and if I speak politely to him I may persuade him to take my place for a while, and bear your intolerable body. I am too old for this, and you are heavier than Abu Ha.s.san, the breaker of wind."
The hanging man, whose head was away from me, tried to lift it to look. His voice, when he spoke, was hoa.r.s.e with pain, but what he said was, unbelievably, a joke.
"Let him . . . approach .. then . . . and I pray ... to G.o.d . . . that he has . . . fewer fleas . . . than you . . . Also ... you are . . . a most . . . uncomfortable . . . support ... G.o.d help . . . the . . . woman . . . who shares . . . your bed."
"Here is thanks," says the crouching man, panting under the weight. "I bear him as though I were the Djinn of the Seven Peaks, and he rails at me. You, nasrani,"*(*Christian.) he addressed me: "If you understand G.o.d"s language, come and help me to support this ingrate, this sinner. And when you are tired, we shall sit in comfort against the wall, and gloat over him. Or I may squat on his chest, to teach him grat.i.tude. Come, Ruski, are we not all G.o.d"s creatures?"
And even as he said it, his voice quavered, he staggered under the burden above him, and slumped forward unconscious on the floor.
The hanging man gave a sudden cry of anguish as his body took the full stretch of the chains; he hung there moaning and panting until, without really thinking, I scrambled forward and came up beneath him, bearing his trunk across my stooped back. His face was hanging backward beside my own, working with pain.
"G.o.d . . . thank you!" he gasped at last. "My limbs are on fire! But not for long - not for long - if G.o.d is kind." His voice came in a tortured whisper. "Who are you - a Ruski?"
"No," says I, "an Englishman, a prisoner of the Russians."
"You speak ... our tongue . . . in G.o.d"s name?"
"Yes," says I, "Hold still, curse you, or you"ll slip!"
He groaned again: he was a devilish weight. And then: "Providence . . . works strangely," says he. "An angliski ... here. Well, take heart, stranger . . . you may be . . more fortunate . . . than you know."
I couldn"t see that, not by any stretch, stuck in a lousy cell with some Asiatic n.i.g.g.e.r breaking my back. Indeed, I was regretting the impulse which had made me bear him up - who was he to me, after all, that I shouldn"t let him dangle? But when you"re in adversity it don"t pay to antagonize your companions, at least until you know what"s what, so I stayed unwillingly where I was, puffing and straining.
"Who . . . are you?" says he.
"Flashman. Colonel, British Army."
"I am Yakub Beg, "36 whispers he, and even through his pain you could hear the pride in his voice. "Kush Begi, Khan of Khokand, and guardian of . . . the White Mosque. You are my . . . guest ... sent to me . . . from heaven. Touch . . . on my knee . . . touch on my bosom ... touch where you will."
I recognized the formal greeting of the hill folk, which wasn"t appropriate in the circ.u.mstances.
"Can"t touch anything but your a.r.s.e at present," I told him, and I felt him shake - my G.o.d, he could even laugh, with the arms and legs being drawn out of him.
"It is a ... good answer," says he. "You talk ... like a Tajik. We laugh . . . in adversity. Now I tell you .. . Englishman . . . when I go hence . . . you go too."
I thought he was just babbling, of course. And then the other fellow, who had collapsed, groaned and sat up, and looked about him.
"Ah, G.o.d, I was weak," says he. "Yakub, my son and brother, forgive me. I am as an old wife with dropsy; my knees are as water."
Yakub Beg turned his face towards mine, and you must imagine his words punctuated by little gasps of pain.
"That ancient creature who grovels on the floor is Izzat Kutebar, "37 says he. "A poor fellow of little substance and less wit, who raided one Ruski caravan too many and was taken, through his greed. So they made him "swim upon land", as I am swimming now, and he might have hung here till he rotted - and welcome - but I was foolish enough to think of rescue, and scouted too close to this fort of Shaitan. So they took me, and placed me in his chains, as the more important prisoner of the two - for he is dirt, this feeble old Kutebar. He swung a good sword once, they say - G.o.d, it must have been in Timur"s time!"
"By G.o.d!" cries Kutebar. "Did I lose Ak Mechet to the Ruskis? Was I whoring after the beauties of Bokhara when the beast Perovski ma.s.sacred the men of Khokand with his grapeshot? No, by the pubic hairs of Rustum! I was swinging that good sword, laying the Muscovites in swathes along Syr Daria, while this fine fighting chief here was loafing in the bazaar with his darlings, saying "Eyewallah, it is hot today; give me to drink, Miriam, and put a cool hand on my forehead." Come out from under him, feringhee, and let him swing for his pains."
"You see?" says Yakub Beg, craning his neck and trying to grin. "A dotard, flown with dreams. A badawi zhazhkayan*(*A wild babbler.) who talks as the wild sheep defecate, at random, everywhere. When you and I go hither, Flashman bahadur, we shall leave him, and even the Ruskis will take pity on such a dried-up husk, and employ him to clean their privies - those of the common soldiers, you understand, not the officers."
If I hadn"t served long in Afghanistan, and learned the speech and ways of the Central Asian tribes, I sup-pose I"d have imagined that I was in a cell with a couple of madmen. But I knew this trick that they have of reviling those they respect most, in banter, of their love of irony and formal imagery, which is strong in Pushtu and even stronger in Persian, the loveliest of all languages.
"When you go hither!" scoffs Kutebar, climbing to his feet and peering at his friend. "When will that be? When Buzurg Khan remembers you? G.o.d forbid I should depend on the goodwill of such a one. Or when Sahib Khan comes blundering against this place as you and he did two years ago, and lost two thousand men? Eyah! Why should they risk their necks for you - or me? We are not gold; once we are buried, who will dig us up?"
"My people will come," says Yakub Beg. "And she will not forget me."
"Put no faith in women, and as much in the Chinese," says Kutebar cryptically. "Better if this stranger and I try to surprise the guard, and cut our way out."
"And who will cut these chains?" says the other. "No, old one, put the foot of courage in the stirrup of patience. They will come, if not tonight, then tomorrow. Let us wait."
"And while you"re waiting," says I, "put the shoulder of friendship beneath the backside of helplessness. Lend a hand, man, before I break in two."
Kutebar took my place again, exchanging insults with his friend, and I straightened up to take a look at Yakub Beg. He was a tall fellow, so far as I could judge, narrow waisted and big shouldered - for he was naked save for his loose pyjamy trousers - with great corded arm muscles. His wrists were horribly torn by his manacles, and while I sponged them with water from a chatti*(*Water jug.) in the corner I examined his face. It was one of your strong hill figureheads, lean and long jawed, but straight-nosed for once - he"d said he was a Tajik, which meant he was half-Persian. His head was shaved, Uzbek fashion, with a little scalp-lock to one side, and so was his face, except for a tuft of forked beard on his chin. A tough customer, by the look of him; one of those genial mountain scoundrels who"ll tell you merry stories while he stabs you in the guts just for the fun of hearing his knife-hilt bells jingle.
"You are an Englishman," says he, as I washed his wrists. "I knew one, once, long ago. At least I saw him, in Bokhara, the day they killed him. He was a man, that one - Khan Ali, with the fair beard. "Embrace the faith," they said. "Why should I?" says he, "since you have murdered my friend who forsook his church and became a Muslim. Ye have robbed; ye have killed; what do you want of me?" And they said, "Blood". Says he: "Then make an end." And they killed him. I was only a youth, but I thought, when I go, if I am far from home, let me go like that one. He was a ghazi, *(*Champion.) that Khan Ali. "38 "Much good it did him," growled Kutebar, underneath. "For that matter, much good Bokhara ever did anyone. They would sell us to the Ruskis for a handful of millet. May their goats" milk turn to urine and their girls all breed Russian b.a.s.t.a.r.ds - which they will do, no doubt, with alarming facility."
"You spoke of getting out of here," says I to Yakub Beg. "Is it possible? Will your friends attempt a rescue?"
"He has no friends," says Kutebar. "Except me, and see the pa.s.s I am brought to, propping up his useless trunk."
"They will come," says Yakub Beg, softly. He was pretty done, it seemed to me, with his eyes closed and his face ravaged with pain. "When the light fades, you two must leave me to hang - no, Izzat, it is an order. You and Flashman bahadur must rest, for when the Lady of the Great Horde comes over the wall the Ruskis will surely try to kill us before we can be rescued. You two must hold them, with your shoulders to the door."
"If we leave you to hang you will surely die," says Kutebar, gloomily. "What will I say to her then?" And suddenly he burst into a torrent of swearing, slightly m.u.f.fled by his bent position. "These Russian apes! These sc.u.m of Muscovy! G.o.d smite them to the nethermost pit! Can they not give a man a clean death, instead of racking him apart by inches? Is this their civilizing empire? Is this the honour of the soldiers of the White Tsar? May G.o.d the compa.s.sionate and merciful rend the bowels from their bodies and -"
"Do you rest, old groaner," gasps Yakub, in obvious pain from the pa.s.sionate heaving of his supporter. "Then you may rend them on your own account, and spare the All-wise the trouble. Lay them in swathes along Syr Daria - again."
And in spite of Kutebar"s protests, Yakub Beg was adamant. When the light began to fade he insisted that we support him no longer, but let him hang at full stretch in his chains. I don"t know how he endured it, for his muscles creaked, and he bit his lip until the blood ran over his cheek, while Kutebar wept like a child. He was a burly, grizzled old fellow, stout enough for all his lined face and the grey hairs on his cropped head, but the tears fairly coursed over his leathery cheeks and beard, and he d.a.m.ned the Russians as only an Oriental can. Finally he kissed the hanging man on the forehead, and clasped his chained hand, and came over to sit by me against the wall.
Now that I had a moment to think, I didn"t know what to make of it all. My mind was in a whirl. When you have been tranquil for a while, as I had been at Starotorsk, and then dreadful things begin to happen to you, one after another, it all seems like a terrible night-mare; you have to force your mind to steady up and take it all in, and make yourself understand that it is happening. That flight through the snow with East and Valla - was it only four weeks ago? And since then I"d been harried half-way round the world, it seemed, from those freezing snowy steppes, across sea and desert, to this ghastly fort on the edge of nowhere, and here I was - Harry Flashman, rank of Colonel, 17th Lancers, aide-de-camp to Lord Raglan (G.o.d, this time last year I"d been playing pool in Piccadilly with little w.i.l.l.y) - here I was, in a cell with two Tajik-Persian bandits who talked a language39 I hadn"t heard in almost fifteen years, and lived in another world that had nothing to do with Raglan or w.i.l.l.y or Piccadilly or Starotorsk or - oh, aye, it had plenty to do with the swine Ignatieff. But they were talking of rescue and escape, as though it were sure to come, and they chained in a stinking dungeon - I had to grip hard to realize it. It might mean - it just might - that when I had least right to expect it, there was a chance of freedom, of throwing off the horrible fear of the death that Ignatieff had promised me. Freedom, and flight, and perhaps, at the end of it, safety?
I couldn"t believe it. I"d seen the fort, and I"d seen the Russian host down on the sh.o.r.e. You"d need an army - and yet, these fellows were much the- same as Afghans, and I knew their way of working. The sudden raid, the surprise attack, the mad hacking melee (I shuddered at the recollection), and then up and away before civilized troops have rubbed the sleep from their eyes. There were a thousand questions ,l wanted to ask Kutebar- but what was the use? They had probably just been talking to keep their spirits up. Nothing would happen; we were stuck, in the grip of the bear, and on that despairing conclusion I must have fallen asleep.
And nothing did happen. Dawn came, and three Russians with it bearing a dish of nauseating porridge; they jeered at us and then withdrew. Yakub Beg was half-conscious, swinging in his fetters, and through that inter-minable day Kutebar and I took turns to prop him up. I was on the point, once or twice, of rebelling at the work, which didn"t seem worth it for all the slight relief it gave his tortured joints, but one look at Kutebar"s face made me think better of it. Yakub Beg was too weak to joke now, or say much at all, and Kutebar and I just crouched or lay in silence, until evening came. Yakub Beg somehow dragged himself back to sense then, just long enough to order Kutebar hoa.r.s.ely to let him swing, so that we should save our strength. My back was aching with the strain, and in spite of my depression and fears I went off to sleep almost at once, with that stark figure spread horribly overhead in the fading light, and Kutebar weeping softly beside me.
As so often happens, I dreamed of the last thing I"d seen before I went to sleep, only now it was I, not Yakub Beg, who was hanging in the chains, and someone (whom I knew to be my old enemy Rudi Starnberg) was painting my backside with boot blacking. My late father-in-law, old Morrison, was telling him to spread it thin, because it cost a thousand pounds a bottle, and Rudi said he had gallons of the stuff, and when it had all been applied they would get Narreeman, the Afghan dancing-girl, to ravish me and throw me out into the snow. Old Morrison said it was a capital idea, but he must go through my pockets first; his ugly, pouchy old face was leering down at me, and then slowly it changed into Narreeman"s, painted and mask-like, and the dream became rather pleasant, for she was crawling all over me, and we were floating far, far up above the others, and I was roaring so l.u.s.tfully that she put her long, slim fingers across my lips, cutting off my cries, and I tried to tear my face free as her grip grew tighter and tighter, strangling me, and I couldn"t breathe; she was murmuring in my ear and her fingers were changing into a hairy paw - and suddenly I was awake, trembling and sweating, with Kutebar"s hand clamped across my mouth, and his voice hissing me to silence.
It was still night, and the cold in the cell was bitter. Yakub Beg was hanging like a corpse in his chains, but I knew he was awake, for in the dimness I could see his head raised, listening. There wasn"t a sound except Kutebar"s hoa.r.s.e breathing, and then, from somewhere outside, very faint, came a distant sighing noise, like a sleepy night-bird, dying away into nothing. Kutebar stiffened, and Yakub Beg"s chains clinked as he turned and whispered: "Bhisti-sawad!* (*Heavenly!) The sky-blue wolves are in the fold!"
Kutebar rose and moved over beneath the window. I heard him draw in his breath, and then, between his teeth, he made that same strange, m.u.f.fled whistle - it"s the kind of soft, low noise you sometimes think you hear at night, but don"t regard, because you imagine it is coming from inside your own head. The Khokandians can make it travel up to a mile, and enemies in between don"t even notice it. We waited, and sure enough, it came again, and right on its heels the bang of a musket, shattering the night.
There was a cry of alarm, another shot, and then a positive volley culminating in a thunderous roar of explosion, and the dim light from the window suddenly increased as with a lightning flash. And then a small war broke out, shots, and shrieks and Russian voices roaring, and above all the hideous din of yelling voices - the old Ghazi war-cry that had petrified me so often on the Kabul road.
"They have come!" croaked Yakub Beg. "It is Ko Dali"s daughter! Quick, Izzat - the door!"
Kutebar was across the cell in a flash, roaring to me. We threw ourselves against the door, listening for the sounds of our guards.
"They have blown in the main gate with barut,"* (*Gunpowder.) cries Yakub Beg weakly. "Listen - the firing is all on the other side! Oh, my darling! Eyah! Kutebar, is she not a queen among women, a najud?* (*A woman of intelligence and good shape.) Hold fast the door, for when the Ruskis guess why she has come they will -"
Kutebar"s shout of alarm cut him short. Above the tumult of shooting and yelling we heard a rush of feet, the bolts were rasping back, and a great weight heaved at the door on the other side. We strained against it, there was a roar in Russian, and then a concerted thrust from without. With our feet scrabbling for purchase on the rough floor we held them; they charged together and the door gave back, but we managed to heave it shut again, and then came the sound of a m.u.f.fled shot, and a splinter flew from the door between our faces.
"Bahnanas!"t(*Apes.) bawled Kutebar. "Monkeys without muscles! Can two weak prisoners hold you, then? Must you shoot, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d sons of filth?"
Another shot, close beside the other, and I threw myself sideways; I wasn"t getting a bullet in my guts if I could help it. Kutebar gave a despairing cry as the door was forced in; he stumbled back into the cell, and there on the threshold was the big sergeant, torch in one hand and revolver in the other, and two men with bayoneted muskets at his heels.
"That one first!" bawls the sergeant, pointing at Yakub Beg. "Still, you!" he added to me, and I crouched back beside the door as he covered me. Kutebar was scrambling up beyond Yakub Beg; the two soldiers ignored him, one seizing Yakub Beg about the middle to steady him while the other raised his musket aloft to plunge the bayonet into the helpless body.
"Death to all Ruskis!" cries Yakub. "Greetings, Timur -"
But before the bayonet could come down Kutebar had launched himself at the soldier"s legs; they fell in a thrashing tangle of limbs, Kutebar yelling blue murder, while the other soldier danced round them with his musket, trying to get a chance with his bayonet, and the sergeant bawled to them to keep clear and give him a shot.
Old dungeon-fighters like myself- and I"ve had a wealth of experience, from the vaults of Jotunberg, where I was sabre to sabre with Starnberg, to that Afghan prison where I let dear old Hudson take the strain - know that the thing to do on these occasions is find a nice dark corner and crawl into it. But out of sheer self-preservation I daren"t - I knew that if I didn"t take a hand Kutebar and Yakub would be dead inside a minute, and were would c.o.c.k Flashy be then, poor thing? The sergeant was within a yard of me, side on, revolver hand extended towards the wrestlers on the floor; there was two feet of heavy chain between my wrists, so with a silent frantic prayer I swung my hands sideways and over, lashing the doubled chain at his fore-arm with all my strength. He screamed and staggered, the gun dropping to the floor, and I went plunging after it, scrabbling madly. He fetched up beside me, but his arm must have been broken, for he tried to claw at me with his far hand, and couldn"t reach; I grabbed the gun, stuck it in his face, and pulled the trigger - and the b.l.o.o.d.y thing was a single-action weapon, and wouldn"t fire!
He floundered over me, trying to bite - and his breath was poisonous with garlic - while I wrestled with the hammer of the revolver. His sound hand was at my throat; I kicked and heaved to get him off, but his weight was terrific. I smashed at his face with the gun, and he released my throat and grabbed my wrist; he had a hold like a vice, but I"m strong, too, especially in the grip of fear, and with a huge heave I managed to get him half off me - and in that instant the soldier with the bayonet was towering over us, his weapon poised to drive down at my midriff.
There was nothing I could do but scream and try to roll away; it saved my life, for the sergeant must have felt me weaken, and with an animal snarl of triumph flung himself back on top of me - just as the bayonet came down to spit him clean between the shoulder blades. I"ll never forget that engorged face, only inches from my own - the eyes starting, the mouth snapping open in agony, and the deafening scream that he let out. The soldier, yelling madly, hauled on his musket to free the bayonet; it came out of the writhing, kicking body just as I finally got the revolver c.o.c.ked, and before he could make a second thrust I shot him through the body.
As luck had it, he fell on top of the sergeant, so there was Flashy, feverishly c.o.c.king the revolver again beneath a pile of his slain. The sergeant was dead, or dying, and being d.a.m.ned messy about it, retching blood all over me. I struggled as well as I could with my fettered hands, and had succeeded in freeing myself except for my feet - those d.a.m.ned fetters were tangled among the bodies - when Yakub shouted: "Quickly, angliski! Shoot!"
The other soldier had broken free from Kutebar, and was in the act of seizing his fallen musket; I blazed away at him and missed - it"s all too easy, I a.s.sure you - and he took the chance to break for the door. I snapped off another round at him, and hit him about the hip, I think, for he went hurtling into the wall. Before he could struggle up Kutebar was on him with the fallen musket, yelling some outlandish war-cry as he sank the bayonet to the locking-ring in the fellow"s breast.
The cell was a shambles. Three dead men on the floor, all bleeding busily, the air thick with powder smoke, Kutebar brandishing his musket and inviting G.o.d to admire him, Yakub Beg exulting weakly and calling us to search the sergeant for his fetter keys, and myself counting the shots left in the revolver - two, in fact.
"The door!" Yakub was calling. "Make it fast, Izzat - then the keys, in G.o.d"s name! My body is bursting!"
We found a key in the sergeant"s pocket, and released Yakub"s ankles, lowering him gently to the cell floor and propping him against the wall with his arms still chained to the corners above his head. He couldn"t stand - I doubted if he"d have the use of his limbs inside a week - and when we tried to unlock his wrist-shackles the key didn"t fit. While Izzat searched the dead man"s clothes, fuming, I kept the door covered; the sounds of distant fighting were still proceeding merrily, and it seemed to me we"d have more Russian visitors before long. We were in a d.a.m.ned tight place until we could get Yakub fully released; Kutebar had changed his tack now, and was trying to batter open a link in the chain with his musket b.u.t.t.
"Strike harder, feeble one!" Yakub encouraged him. "Has all your strength gone in killing one wounded Ruski?"
"Am I a blacksmith?" says Kutebar. "By the seven pools of Eblis, do I have iron teeth? I save your life - again - and all you can do is whine. We have been at work, this feringhi and I, while you swung comfortably - G.o.d, what a fool"s labour is this!"
"Cease!" cries Yakub. "Watch the door!"
There were feet running, and voices; Kutebar took the other side from me, his bayonet poised, and I c.o.c.ked the revolver. The feet stopped, and then a voice called "Yakub Beg?" and Kutebar flung up his hands with a crow of delight.
"Inshallah! There is good in the Chinese after all! Come in, little dogs, the work is done! Come and look on the b.l.o.o.d.y harvest of Kutebar!"
The door swung back, and before you could say Jack Robinson there were half a dozen of them in the cell - robed, bearded figures with grinning hawk faces and long knives - I never thought I"d be glad to see a Ghazi, and these were straight from that stable. They fell on Kutebar, embracing and slapping him, while the others either stopped short at the sight of me or hurried on to Yakub Beg, slumped against the far wall. And foremost was a lithe black-clad figure, tight-turbaned round head and chin, with a flowing cloak - hardly more than a boy. He stooped over Yakub Beg, cursing softly, and then shouted shrilly to the tribesmen: "Hack through those chains! Bear him up - gently - ah, G.o.d, my love, my love, what have they done to you?"
He was positively weeping, and then suddenly he was clasping the wounded man, smothering his cheeks with kisses, cupping the lolling head between his hands, murmuring endearments, and finally kissing him pa.s.sionately on the mouth.
Well, the Pathans are like that, you know, and I wasn"t surprised to find these near-relations of theirs similarly inclined to perversion; bad luck on the girls, I always think, but all the more skirt for chaps like me. Disgusting sight, though, this youth s...o...b..ring over him like that.
Our rescuers were eyeing me uncertainly, until Kutebar explained whose side I was on; then they all turned their attention to Oscar and Bosie. One of the tribesmen had hacked through Yakub"s chains, and four of them were bearing him towards the door, while the black-clad boy flitted alongside, cursing them to be careful. Kutebar motioned me to the door, and I followed him up the steps, still clutching my revolver; the last of the tribesmen paused, even at that critical moment, to pa.s.s his knife care-fully across the throats of the three dead Russians, and then joined us, giggling gleefully.