CHAPTER XXIV
THE VULTURE'S NEST
Tash-Kurgan, so called by the tribes of Central Asia, had been erected out of the mountain rock by an Imperial general of the Dragon Throne, to guard the gorge and the caravan track along the opposite cliff against the Tartar foes. This general and his staff, with his foes, were dust in the valleys and gray bones in forgotten tombs long before Tamerlane, the Lame Conqueror, led his armies across the mountains which had repelled so many invasions.
So, the Kurgan resembled roughly a medieval stronghold. It was placed almost at the brink of the cliff that led down into the valley with its steaming riverlet. Its only entrance, consisting of a narrow flight of stone steps running diagonally up the wall, was on the western side, away from the ravine. Around it ran a ditch, once a moat but now half filled with pulverized sandstone and débris.
The sandstone walls with their crenelated tops were much worn by rains and snows. In places the stones had cascaded into the moat. The wall itself was some dozen feet high and three feet in thickness. Within, appeared a courtyard of beaten, level clay. Rude stone shelters, roofless for the most part, were built against the inner ramparts.
Only at one end was there a solid sandstone structure resembling, except for height, the keep of a medi-
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