"How know you?" asked the man.
"How I know matters not," I answered. "But I know it, and, furthermore, I know that you stole from his dead body that golden belt, which undoubtedly has proved as great a curse to you as it has to all men who have touched it."
"Since you know these things," said he, "you and Faris must have watched us from some hiding-place."
"True," said I.
"Then you saw all?"
"We saw you break in the roof of the temple, and kill Raspul; and we saw a man descend by a rope."
The Shammar opened his eyes wide, drew a deep breath, and sighed.
"Come now," said I, "tell me what happened to you afterwards."
"There were eleven of us," said he, "and that Ingleezee. As we fled from the ruins, my horse tripped and rolled over with me, leaving me with an injured leg, and galloping loose after the others. It was then that I lay among the stones for many hours, and after a time I saw you and Faris go by. Next day three of my friends came back to fetch me, and we went together to the place where they had left the Ingleezee and the others. All had disappeared. We found the horses" hoof marks, and we followed them up. They were galloping fast, and though we rode rapidly we could not overtake them. At length, after several days, we found the body of one of our friends, lying in the desert. He had been shot by a bullet from the Ingleezee"s pistol. Farther on, we came on another of our men, who had also been shot, but was not yet dead; and from him, before he died, we learned all that had occurred. How the Ingleezee had seized that serpent belt, refusing to pay anything that he had promised; how he had ridden away with it; how my people had pursued him; and how when they were overtaking him, he turned upon them and shot them with his pistol. But that was not all the evil that he did; for as we journeyed on, we overtook the rest of the men in a _wadi_, four of them had been wounded, three, as it proved, mortally, and the others had abandoned farther pursuit, in order to attend to their friends. Then we all bound ourselves by an oath that we would not rest again in our tents until we had buried our knives in the body of that Ingleezee. Whither he escaped we could never discover, for shortly afterwards a great sand-storm blew over us, and we were unable to again find the footprints of his horse. It may be that he perished in the storm, but we continued to search for him in all directions. After some weeks, we heard that two Ingleezee were living at Adiba, and I and my two companions started for that place; but, before we had gone very far, we met some Bedouins who told us that the town had been captured by Hayil, and that the Governor and the two Ingleezee were fleeing in our direction. So we halted near the marsh of the great lake, and the rest you are acquainted with. But when I am again free, I shall continue the search for your countryman, and one day, if it please Allah, I shall see him die."
I had purposely refrained from interrupting the Shammar as he told his tale, though I frequently wished to break in and ask questions. Now, however, I could satisfy my curiosity.
"What manner of man," I asked, "is that Ingleezee?"
"A fat man," was the reply, "and dark, not of a red colour like you two."
"Are you sure that he is an Englishman? May he not be a native of some other country of Europe?"
"That I cannot say. I know nothing of the distinctions between the inhabitants of one country and of another. I only know that he is a European."
"Did you not know," I asked, "why he came with your sheik from Kerbela?"
"At first, we were told that he came to see the desert, as Europeans do sometimes. Then, one day, Sheik Abbas called us together and told us that the seer at Katib possessed a gold belt, which the Ingleezee desired to buy; that he would give 5000 kerans for it, and that two of us should go and ask Raspul to sell it. So I and another went to the ruins, and interviewed the seer. He told us that he had no belt, but afterwards he brought it and showed it to us, and expressed his willingness to part with it. We arranged with him that the price should be 2000 kerans, so that we might all share with Sheik Abbas the other 3000, and he agreed to bring the belt to a certain spot near Babil on a certain day. Proudly, we returned to our tents, and told the sheik what we had done, and the Ingleezee, on hearing it, gave each of us some gold money as bakhshish."
"But," I inquired, "had the Ingleezee 5000 kerans with him, so that he might purchase the belt?"
"No," said the Bedouin, "he had only a little money, but a Jew in Kerbela had told our sheik that, if the Ingleezee wrote on a piece of paper the amount of any sum that he required, then Yusuf Mersina, the Baghdad merchant, would pay it. So the Ingleezee wrote down 5000 kerans and gave the paper to the sheik, and it was agreed that when Raspul delivered over the belt, Sheik Abbas should take it and the paper to Baghdad, and receive the money, and we were to ride with the Ingleezee to Bussorah."
"Why was not the Ingleezee to take the belt?" I asked.
"Because Sheik Abbas would not let it go out of his possession until he received the money, since he was to be responsible to the seer for the payment of the 2000 kerans."
"I understand," said I. "But tell me, did the seer bring the belt to the appointed place?"
"No," said the man, "a curse on him! We waited for him for three hours: in his stead came your Faris; and Sheik Abbas fell at his hands. Then the Ingleezee spoke to Sheik Ahmed, and said that if he procured the belt he would give 5000 kerans. Ahmed went to Katib to see Raspul, taking with him two men; and those three we have never seen since. It was thus that the rest of us went to the ruins, and carried off the belt, hoping to obtain the 5000 kerans from the Ingleezee. But my friends tell me that he took the belt and sewed it up in his cloak, and when they demanded the money, he told them that he had already paid Sheik Abbas 5000 kerans, and that he could pay no more. It was then that he rode away, as I have already related."
The man was so exhausted by talking, that Edwards now insisted on his taking a draught and going to sleep. We ourselves sat up for some time, discussing matters, and trying to unravel the mystery of the stranger who had defeated me over the Golden Girdle. As we worked it out, the whole thing seemed clear enough. Some foreigner knew as much as I did about the Girdle, and had somehow learned that it was in existence above ground. He had apparently discovered this from someone at Kerbela, who had handed him over to the Shammar. The German note which we had read was, of course, his order for the payment of the 5000 kerans to Sheik Abbas. The courage of the man astounded us; he made up his mind to annex the Girdle; to keep it, he had made free use of his revolver, and though I did not admire his bloodthirsty methods, it was a bitter thing to me to have to acknowledge that I was not in the running with such a man.
"I am afraid it is all up with the prize now, George," I said.
"Yes, I am afraid so," said Edwards. "But we will get back to Baghdad, and put the screw on this Yusuf Mersina, until he divulges the name of the villain."
"That will not help much," I said. "He has probably reached Bussorah long ago, and is half way to Europe by now."
"A wire will stop him at Karachi, or Aden, or somewhere, and have him arrested for murdering Turkish subjects," said Edwards.
"That would not be very sporting," I replied. "I expect the best thing will be to say nothing of what we have heard."
We were both soon asleep, and of what actually happened after that, and when it happened, I have no knowledge. All I can say is that at some time in the night I was aroused by a slight rustling noise in the tent, and before I was half awake I felt myself being smothered by something like a rug being held over my face. Thinking that I was suffering from nightmare, I kicked and struggled, and wondered when I was going to wake up, but the comforting feeling that it was only a dream never came.
Instead of it, several hands seemed to hold me down, and presently, as I still struggled, they gripped me harder and harder, and I found that my legs and arms were being bound with ropes. Then suddenly, fingers pa.s.sed across my face, under the rug; my mouth was prised open, and, before I could utter a sound, a great wooden gag was thrust between my teeth, and secured by a string behind my neck. In this state, and in total darkness, I was left for a few minutes; then two men quietly lifted me up, and carried me outside the tent, away into the black night, at a jog-trot One man had his arms round my knees, while the other supported my shoulders; and I soon found that by no amount of struggling could I free myself. After travelling in this uncomfortable manner for, it may have been, half a mile, I was deposited on the ground, and a moment later was hoisted on to the back of a squatting camel, and secured with ropes to one side of a pannier-like framework. What weight on the other side balanced mine I could not see, as, although there was a certain amount of light from the stars, the great hump of the beast blocked my view. Several men held on to me as the camel was made to rise, and it was as well; for otherwise, in all probability, I should have had many broken bones. A lurch backwards, a lurch forwards, and a final lurch sideways, brought me high above the ground; then came a frantic plunge, and I knew that the "ship of the desert" had set sail.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE TRAIL OF THE SERPENT.
The pace was rapid, and the motion painful in the extreme. So uncomfortable was I, that I found it quite impossible to collect my thoughts, and I could not understand why I was being subjected to this hideous torture. My bones ached all over, my body was becoming numbed, and the gag in my mouth almost choked me. Yet I was powerless to do anything, except gaze upwards at the stars, which appeared to swish wildly backwards and forwards, as if attempting to fall in with the gait of the camel. Was I another Mazeppa? Was I to be thus carried about the desert until death came to my relief? Had all this been brought about by the G.o.ddess Sophana, wrathful at my desire to possess her sacred girdle?
Such thoughts pa.s.sed rapidly through my brain, and became jumbled up with countless other thoughts. I lost consciousness, and regained it only to find the same eternal condition of affairs, to hear the same thud of the camel"s feet, and to feel the same dipping plunge, as the legs on my side of the beast flew forward. At last, I felt that I could stand it no longer, and I prayed fervently that I might die before I went mad. I thought that my prayer was about to be answered; I thought that I was dying, when suddenly I heard shouting, and, without any warning, the camel"s legs appeared to scatter in all directions. The "ship of the desert" had cast anchor, and so severe was the shock to my feeble body, that every atom of breath was knocked out of it.
When I recovered, I found myself lying in a delightfully shady grove of date trees, my arms and legs free, and a saddle-bag supporting my head.
I looked listlessly around, and saw a few camels and horses, and, at a little distance, a group of Arabs squatting round a fire, and eating their food. I turned over, and looked on the other side, and there, to my surprise and delight, I saw George Edwards lying peacefully asleep, within a yard of me. I tried to speak, but my jaw was stiff, and my tongue would not move; so I sank back, and, utterly exhausted, dropped off to sleep again. When next I awoke, Edwards was sitting by my side, and our Shammar patient was holding a vessel of water to my parched lips. How I drank! And, as I drank, new life seemed to enter into me.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "WHEN NEXT I AWOKE EDWARDS WAS SITTING BY MY SIDE."]
"If this is a dream, George," I remarked, "it is the most beastly nightmare that I have ever a.s.sisted at."
"It is no dream, old chap," he said. "It is a stern reality. Thank goodness that it is over."
"What has been going on, then?" I asked.
"I have just been hearing about it from our sick friend here," said Edwards. "Unbeknown to him, his pals planned a rescue, and it seems that they had been watching us for days. They managed to bring away all three of the supposed horse-thieves, as well as their three horses and two others, so they did pretty well."
"Why did they bother to bring _us_?" I asked.
"They have apologised most humbly," said Edwards, "but they say that it was absolutely necessary that Ali Khan should be induced to believe that we had a.s.sisted in the escape of the prisoners."
"Rather rough," said I, "that we should be made the scape-goats, considering all the trouble you took about the sick man. Nice sort of Englishmen old Ali Khan will think us, eating of his salt and accepting his hospitality, and then a.s.sisting to rob him of his lawful prisoners and his horses."
"I know," said Edwards; "but we will look up Ali Khan some day, and set matters right. How are you feeling after that awful jolting?"
"Limp," I answered, "disgustingly limp. Were you also trussed up on the side of a camel?"
"Much like yourself," said he. "I was on the same beast as yourself--only that mountain of a hump between us. But I did not discover it until I was taken down. I expect we shall be stiff for days."
Then we talked over all that had occurred, and I found that our experiences had been very similar, except that our kidnappers very nearly did for Edwards by keeping the cloth too tight over his face while they were tying him up. In fact, he had no recollection of anything until he felt the cold air rushing across his face, as the camel bore him along. We congratulated each other on having weathered the tempestuous voyage, and we actually laughed over it--so ludicrous did it seem, now that it was all over. According to what Edwards had heard from the men, we must have come sixty or seventy miles straight on end, as they were afraid of being followed; and how our sick man had survived the journey we could not understand. There did not, however, seem to be much the matter with him, and while we were talking he appeared on the scene, bringing us some food.
"We were just wondering, Daud," said Edwards, addressing him, "why you are alive. Surely you must be feeling ill after the long ride."