The Witch of Aleppo/Chapter 4
IV
AYUB CASTS A NET
“MAD is he, the Falcon—aye, and yonder his mate is mad.”
So said Captain Balaban, whispering under his twisted lip as he watched Michael Rohan casting dice, one hand against the other. Michael shaded his eyes to look down upon the strip of beach and the dark line of the Black Sea.
The Cossack detachment had arrived at the shore and quartered itself upon a Tatar fishing village on the sheltered side of a long headland that stretched like a giant’s finger out into the waters. The score of natives who lived on the neck of land had been rounded up and placed in the care of Togrukh, the essaul, who counted them promptly and let them understand that if one were found missing from the village the rest would be wrapped up in the great fishing-nets of twisted hemp weighted with stones, and dropped into the sea.
“I can read the signs in the sky,” went on Balaban, who had discovered that Michael understood much Turki and could speak some. “When we rode at the heels of the Cossacks through the snow wilderness, spirits howled in our wake.”
He glanced sidewise at Demid who sat near them, apparently asleep, his back against a side of a hut, his sword across his knees. The Cossack chief understood Balaban perfectly, and knew that the howling had been from bands of Tatars who had hit upon their trail at times and pursued, with out coming up with the swift-moving warriors. The first stage of the journey had been made safely.
“Aye,” resumed Balaban, “on horses the brethren do well enough. If they could swim their beasts across to the Asia shore—” he laughed and continued—
“You have more wit than these Cossacks, and it is time you and I took thought for what the morrow would bring us, of evil or good.”
Michael cast his dice and picked them up in the other hand. Never in his twenty- five years of life had he taken thought for the morrow. If he had!
Before his mind’s eye appeared his home in the fens, the stone house with the thatched roof, the bare-footed, long-tressed maids who served him and his, the fold of the countryside listening to the prayers of the old priest—the mist of the sea, and within the house a glowing fire, a nuggin of spirits—talk of other days, over the clay pipes—a comfortable pension from the British king, who would have made him deputy over his clan. Peace and fulness of the body, yet sickness in the spirit.
A deputy, to administer the king’s writ, upon his own people! Better the fortune of the road than that! Michael cast down the dice, his eyes somber.
Then his lips twitched and he laughed. For the first time he saw what the Cossacks on the beach were about. Ayub and some others were heating tar and plastering the sides of the half-dozen fishing skiffs with it. They had been gathering reeds from the salt marshes of the shore, and these they stuck into the warm tar, making a thick fringe upon the sides of the skiffs. Others were rolling up the heavy fishing-nets and laying them beside the boats.
The Levantine looked askance at the Irishman. A Moslem at heart, he considered himself the superior of Christians, who were savages and dolts—although the women of the Franks were fair and spirited. Balaban knew to a dirhem the price they fetched in the slave markets of the Turks, who sought them at some pains—so much for the dark-browed Greek women, so much for the pallid French. A high price for the Venetian maidens, who were better skilled at the guitar and the needle. Once he had sold a French duchess to the captain-pasha of the Turkish galleys in the Mediterranean. A good price, that.
So, a shrewd man, Balaban failed to weigh Michael well. He could not understand a spirit that laughed at the tarred reed skiffs and yet would set foot in the leaky and unseaworthy craft. Still, he felt his way with care, for he wanted some thing that Michael had—the safe conduct of the Sultan.
“Aye, they are mad,” he said again. “I know them. Half a moon have we been here, resting on our heels, and their chief sits and looks at the sea. He has not a plan in his head.”
Thinking that Demid was asleep, Balaban spat on the ground and shook his head.
“Why will not the Falcon tell his plan, if he has one? Did he hope to gain passage in a ship, so that he could raid into Asia? He has posted a look-out, yet the galleys, the caiques and the barkentines that have passed along this cursed strip are under command of the Turks.”
“Taib,” said Michael, in his broken Turkish. “True. What is that craft yonder?”
Against the gray of the sea and the blue of the late afternoon sky a two-masted galley was drawing up to the headland. Balaban had observed it long ago, but had seen fit to keep his knowledge to himself.
“A fast galley out of Constantinople, under oars,” he said, squinting against the glare on the water.
“Why,” asked Michael, “do these craft keep along shore?”
“The Equinox is long past, and the run across, from north to south, is against the prevailing winds—dangerous in this season. The Sultan’s vessels are coasting.”
Michael nodded; with his eyes shut he could vision what was happening as the black ship turned slowly into the half-moon of the protecting headland. It was customary when coasting to anchor at night in such a spot, and perhaps to go ashore for fresh water. But no boat put off from the galley, which now swung idly as the oars ceased moving and were lashed to the rowers’ benches for the night.
The anchor splashed down, and the thick rope to which it was attached ran out through the tunnel-hole at the prow. On the high poop of the galley figures gathered under the canopy to gaze at the shore, and the setting sun picked out the red and green of caftans, the steel of helmet and spear-head.
Along the strip of bridge that ran the length of the vessel a turbaned figure walked, and Michael knew that one of the overseers of the slaves was tossing to the rowers their evening meal—biscuits soaked in oil and vinegar. Plainly the galley was anchored for the night, half a mile from shore.
Demid had been studying it leisurely.
“How many fighters does that craft carry?” he asked Balaban.
“’Tis a one-bank galley, a courier ship, without cannon. Forty slaves at the oars, a score in the crew, wardens, helmsmen and officers—perchance thirty in yonder company on the poop.”
“Come,” said the Cossack, “here is metal for our welding.”
He turned toward the fires over which the pots of gruel were heating, but the Levantine plucked Michael by the sleeve.
“A wager, O Frank. My sapphire girdle against the scroll you carry in your wallet—'tis worthless to you, now.”
“Can you read the writing?”
Balaban shrugged.
“I have a mind to it. One cast of the dice”
“For the bearer, the seguro is a death warrant.”
Now the mind of the Levantine read into this response that Michael valued the paper and would not hazard it. So his desire for it grew the more. Time pressed and he spoke under his lip. “Hearken, O Aga—leader of warriors— You and I have our feet in the same path. If the Cossacks are cut up we must look to ourselves. I can serve you, and you me.”
“How?”
“What will be, will be. A pity if this Falcon falls under the sword, for he would be worth a thousand gold pieces alive—and a prisoner.”
“On which side are you, in this war?”
Balaban raised his eye to the evening sky and lifted both hands.
“Am I not with the Christians, O my Aga?” Adding under his breath—
“May Allah the All-Knowing cast me down, but I give them cause to remember me!”
Michael studied him a moment and suppressed a grin.
“Be it so. My safe conduct against your girdle upon one cast of the dice.”
Gathering up the dice carelessly, he tossed them down on the earth.
“Bi’llah!” Balaban muttered, for the adventurer had made a good throw.
His eye dwelt watchfully on Michael, who, grave of face, turned to glance at the galley. And in that second the Levantine cupped the dice in his hand, rolling them off his fingers as if awkwardly as Michael looked down upon them.
“A main!” cried the Irishman. “The paper is yours.”
Satisfying himself that no one was aware of the transfer, Balaban thrust it into his girdle and strode off, well-pleased with himself and utterly unthinking that the Christian had permitted himself to be cheated. Michael considered him philosophically.
“What will be, will be, quoth’a. Yon swashbuckler hath rarely the air of a Grand Turk.”
From the beach the Cossacks were running up to where Demid stood in the center of the village street. The hamlet itself was half hidden from the galley and already mist veiled the outline of the beach.
“My children,” said Demid, when the last man stood within hearing, “we have come far, and now our path lies upon the sea. Before now, I have not said what was in my mind. We are going against yonder galley with our sabers. What do you say?’
“Good, father,” muttered Togrukh. “We will pound mightily with our blades.”
“That is not all. It is not my plan to frolic on the black waters. What will it avail us to take the chaff that floats on the waters? Word came to me in Kudak that, over the Black Sea, is a treasure city of the Turks, where the caravans from Arabia and Persia unload. In command of this city is a pasha, to whose fingers stick the red gold and the gleaming jewels that pass through Aleppo. This pasha is Sidi Ahmad.”
“True, ataman,” observed Balaban readily. “My silver girdle against your scabbard that you do not come upon Sidi Ahmad unaware.”
Demid looked at his men thoughtfully.
“It is far to Aleppo. We do not know what we will find on the way. For some of us there will be a grave dug; others will taste of the torture stake. God only knows who will see the Siech again, or when.”
The warriors nodded, stroking their mustaches, and eyeing Demid expectantly. Not quite understanding his plan, they were assured that the young chief would lead them to the place where they might set hands on treasure.
Balaban’s eye glittered mockingly. He knew more of Aleppo and the road thither than his companions.
“If any one of you,” Demid glanced at Michael and Balaban, “has no heart for the stake, let him take his horse out of the line and fill his saddle-bags with fodder. No blame to him.”
Togrukh ran his eye over his detachment menacingly, but the warriors did not draw back.
“Then,” went on Demid, “from here, we are on the march. If one of you is found drunk—a pistol-ball in the forehead. If a brother turns aside to gather up silks or trinkets or silver, his saber will be broken.”
“Father, we hear! Shall we go against the ship before dinner or after?”
“After.”
Demid took Michael aside.
“It will not be like snaring birds—tackling the galley. You are not one of us and you need not go in the boats. Two men must guard the horses”
“Not I, ataman.”
The adventurer smote his hip with relish of a sudden thought.
“With your leave—I will snare some birds. Aye, the nets are ready.”
While the chief listened, he explained carefully what was in his mind. Demid considered a while, with deepening interest.
“But who would cast the nets?” he asked at length.
Near them, outlined against the sunset, the giant form of Ayub stood. The Cossack, with his companions, was praying before the evening meal, his arms raised, facing in turn to each quarter of the horizon.
“There is one who could do it.” Michael pointed him out.
WHEN the Great Bear, glittering overhead, indicated midnight, the Cossacks embarked. All the clumsy arquebuses were left with the horse guard, and Demid gave command that no pistol was to be fired until they gained the galley’s deck; he himself took one of the caiques, the long skiffs, that were to approach the stern—Togrukh the other. Ayub, with ten warriors guided the third skiff toward the bow of the Turkish ship and with him went Michael.
In the waist of the skiff the Tatar fishermen, brought for that purpose by the Cossacks, moved the oars slowly through the water; the warriors, with drawn sabers, knelt in the bow, their heads concealed by the fringe of rushes fastened to the skiff’s side. Michael made himself comfortable on the great fishing-net at Ayub’s knees.
The night was bright—too bright for concealment—yet, obscure against the loom of the shore, the skiffs covered two-thirds of the distance to the galley without being observed.
Michael made out the tall mast, with the clewed-up lateen sail, the hanging pennons and burgees; he could hear the low voices of men in the lookout over the beak of the galley, mingled with the tinkle of a guitar from the poop where colored lanterns gleamed. A figure passed slowly back and forth along the bridge above the slaves, snoring on their benches.
A faint breath of wind, and he caught the odor of the rowing-benches which is not easily forgotten—the stench of sweated rags, of foul water and human flesh. The skin on his back prickled over the healed scars that had been given him by a warden’s whip. Another scent came to him, the incense and rose-perfume of the poop that served to keep the stink of the rowing-benches from the masters of the galley.
By its rig and the cut of the beak he was now satisfied that the galley was from Barbary—an Algerine, most likely, on business of the Sultan—a swift craft, adapted for fighting. This meant that a good watch would be kept, and that the two fight cannon in the forepart would be shotted.
This fact he could not make known to Ayub. Besides, it was then too late to withdraw. A voice hailed them sharply—
“What is there?”
Ayub muttered under his breath, and a Tatar made answer as instructed.
“We have fish for the noble lords.”
The sounds from the poop ceased, and a man in gilt mail and a green turban stood up by the lanterns.
“Kubardar—have care! We will make fishes of you, filth eaters. Be off!”
But the skiff rowed nearer, more swiftly now, and there was a moment’s silence while the watchers on the galley puzzled over the screen of rushes. A lanthorn was thrust over the forward rail, hardly eight feet above the surface of the black water. By its gleam Michael made out the muzzles of two perriers peering over the beak, and Ayub thrust the tiller to one side, turning the skiff to avoid the ram.
A shout from the look-out, a pattering of feet, and the clash of cymbals, as the Cossacks crouching in the skiff were seen. Pitch torches began to sizzle over their heads.
“Mud-fish!” bellowed Ayub, dropping the tiller and catching up one end of the long net. “Wriggle out of this if you can. U-ha!”
“U-ha!” roared the warriors, springing up. The giant Cossack was swinging a length of net over his head. Weighted as it was with stones in the corners, it gained momentum slowly, but soon whistled through the air like one of the lassos of the Cossacks. Michael stepped clear of the other end as Ayub grunted and released the net just when the skiff drifted abreast the low forecastle of the galley, a spear’s stretch away.
The twisted hempen mesh spread out in the air and the stones thumped on the deck as arrows began to flash toward the skiff. Pulling on his end of the net, Ayub drew the boat against the galley’s quarter.
Entangled in the mesh, several Moslems struggled to win clear of it. Taken completely by surprize, their efforts only served to draw the strands tighter. As many more—sailors roused from sleep—drew simitars and sprang to the rail barely in time to oppose the Cossacks who climbed up aided by the strands of the net, by the beak, and the muzzle of the cannon that gaped at them silently.
One pitched into the net on the deck, an arrow through his jaw, but the rest cut down the Moslems before they could flee to the runway leading aft. The sailors caught under the net were despatched at once.
Meanwhile torches flared up, and bedlam burst forth in the waist of the ship. The slaves, awakened by the fight, were howling, cursing and praying in a dozen tongues. Lacking time to chain their arms, the Moslem wardens who had sprung to the bridge were hewing down the bolder spirits who had stood up. Plying long blades, the guards thrust and cut down into the shadows until Ayub sighted them and leaped upon the runway his broadsword gripped in both hands.
“Death to the sheep-slayers!” he roared, striding forward.
The runway, serving as a platform for the! overseers, was wide enough for only one man to wield a weapon, and the first Moslem who faced Ayub set his back to the mast around which the bridge ran. The big Cossack swept aside the warden’s steel and hewed back. Biting into the man’s ribs, the heavy blade turned down, ground through the spine and sank to the hip bone on the other side.
Michael, at Ayub’s shoulder, saw the doomed Moslem actually fall apart, his body dropping over upon the slave’s bench, his legs twisting on the runway. At once the rowers were on their feet, their hairy faces gleaming, their hands straining at the chains that bound their ankles to the deck.
Three of the guards now formed abreast on the runway; the two, in the rear thrust their long spears past the center man, who glared at Ayub from behind his round shield.
The prospect of having to deal with three weapons instead of one did not halt Ayub, whose blood was up. Luckily for him the Cossacks on the foredeck used their pistols and the leading Moslem stumbled forward to his knees. Then the broadsword flashed and Michael saw the two remaining guards knocked over the rail of the runway as if the mast had fallen upon them.
They fell into the upstretched hands of the slaves, and Michael was glad to look away, toward the poop where a hot fight was in progress.
Demid, in his shirt-sleeves, had climbed over the rail of the afterdeck followed by a dozen warriors. Long pistols flashed from behind him, and cleared a space for the Cossacks to set their feet. A score of white turbaned janizaries faced them, plying simitar and dagger, while nearly as many under the reis of the galley defended the other rail against Togrukh and his men.
As more of the Moslem swordsmen came up from the cabins, where they had been asleep, the captain of the galley drove back Togrukh, casting him bodily into the water.
“Yah Allah!” they cried, triumphantly.
“U-ha! Christ!” echoed Ayub’s men, pushing forward along the bridge.
This shout drew the attention of the reis, who, experienced in hand-to-hand fighting aboard ship, determined to clear the run way. He feared the slaves who were striving desperately to win free of their bonds and take their share in the fray now that the slave guards had been slain.
For the moment the Moslems had the upper hand. Good swordsmen all, they were fired with the ardor of their race, and to Michael it seemed as if they were a picked lot, and the galley no ordinary merchant craft.
When a dozen of them swarmed down the steps to the runway after the reis, Ayub stepped forward to meet them. But he felt an elbow in his ribs, and looked down to see Michael slip past him. The cavalier took his stance in the center of the narrow bridge, and the light from the spluttering torches glittered on the slender rapier. Perforce the big Cossack hung back, for to press against Michael would be to throw him off balance, and already a youthful warrior was rushing upon the rapier point.
Gliding rather than running, the Turk struck down at the slender weapon of the cavalier. Then, leaping bodily through the air as a panther springs, he brought down his left arm that held a curved dagger.
Quickly as the Turk attacked, the wrist of the swordsman forestalled him. Michael’s rapier flickered around the simitar and passed through the heart of the Turk, who fell heavily to the planks.
Drawing his blade clear at once, Michael faced the bearded captain who came on crouching, shield advanced before his throat, mail encasing his body.
Thus, he presented no opening for a thrust. His black eyes over the round, leather shield glittered. Twice he cut powerfully at Michael’s head, and twice the curved blade slithered off the rapier that moved only in tiny circles before his eyes.
“Reload your hand-guns, dog brothers,” snarled Ayub over his shoulder to his men who pressed close behind him.
Michael studied the eyes of his foeman, and when the reis lunged three inches of steel passed into his knotted forearm, and withdrew, all in the same instant. Pain maddened the Moslem who began to slash fiercely, yet as he did so, felt the burning dart of the rapier point into his biceps.
Foam flew out on his beard, and he lunged with all his remaining strength. In so doing he let the shield drop just a little, and, swifter than the eyes of the intent spectators could follow, the rapier flashed into the beard of the Moslem and its point came out at the nape of his neck.
He coughed once convulsively and straightened to the toes. Then Ayub thrust the cavalier aside and rushed with his mates upon the captain’s followers. Long pistols barked in the Cossacks’ hands, and smoke swirled around the twisting figures.
A shout of dismay went up from the poop at the fall of the reis, and Michael, satisfied with what he had accomplished, saw that more Cossacks had come up under Togrukh who dripped blood and water alike as he moved. All hope of victory now left the janizaries who fought stubbornly in knots and were cut down by the heavier weapons of the Cossacks.
To the astonishment of the Moslems, when a score of them were still on their feet, Demid held up his arm and offered quarter.
“Mashallah!” cried one, his lips snarling. “Are we to be thrown to the rowers?”
“On my head,” Demid made answer in their tongue, “it shall not be.”
First a few and then many, the simitars clattered to the deck and Togrukh gathered them up. Above decks, resistance on the galley was at an end.
TAKING with him one of the unwounded janizaries Demid made his way down the steps into the after-castle, the long, narrow cabin that perched on the upward slope of the galley’s stern. Several Cossacks hastened after him, to ransack the castle.
A great lanthorn, gleaming with many colors, revealed a confusion of carpets and mattresses, tabourets that still bore little bowls of coffee, garments and the chests of the Moslem warriors. Incense was burning and its pungent scent mingled with the acrid odor of powder.
The cabin seemed deserted, and the Cossacks, listening, heard only the splash of bodies thrown over the galley’s rail and the thumping of booted feet overhead.
What held their attention at once was the pair of glistening black forms erect against a heavy teak lattice at the upper end of the cabin. Two Ethiopians stood here, upon a kind of dais. They were naked to the waist and they held drawn simitars; only the sweat that shone on their skin and their rolling eyes marked them as living beings, so still did they stand.
“What men are these?” Demid asked the captive.
“Eunuchs of the mighty, the merciful Protector of the Faith. They are a guard set over the treasure.”
“Bid them throw down their weapons.”
“O my lord, a higher command has been laid upon them by one greater than I.” The soldier lifted his hands indifferently. “Also, they are deaf mutes.”
Impatiently Demid ordered his men to disarm the mutes without slaying them, and the Cossacks sprang forward obediently. The slaves struck out wildly, and defended themselves with fingers and teeth after they were thrown to the deck. It was more difficult to break down the wooden bars that had been built into place without any door as far as Demid could see. He tore down a damask hanging within the lattice, and stared in silence at the treasure of the galley.
At the end of the cabin and raised above it by several steps was a large recess made comfortable with silk rugs, draperies of cloth sewn with gold, and pillowed couches.
“Women!” Balaban’s voice was exultant.
Straight as a spear, a young girl stood beside an older woman who crouched, wailing and tearing at her hair. One glance the serving maid cast at the Cossacks, and straightway ripped off her jade armlets, her rings and even the long earrings. These trinkets she pushed toward them, on the floor, and fell to beating her forehead against the rug.
The Cossacks glanced inquiringly at Demid who shook his head without speaking.
Balaban stepped forward and thrust his knee against the attendant, rolling her over on the floor; then, turning up her face with his foot, he pulled off her veil and stared at her, scowling.
“Wrinkled as a quince,” he observed in disgust, “and boney as a camel, by the Unshriven One. A scavenger of would flee from her if she smiled.”
And he stooped to pick up the ornaments, muttering at their poor quality as he put them into his pocket. His eyes gleamed as he contemplated the young girl.
“A veritable moon of delight,” he leered. “Surely the angel Riwah hath opened the gates of paradise and let out this houri.”
And he made a motion to pull aside the yasmaq, the veil which all Moslem women must wear before the eyes of men.
“It is death to touch me,” the girl cried, in a clear, high voice.
Balaban, a little disconcerted, glanced at her robe of flowered silk, her tiny slippers, embroidered with diamonds, and the long sleeves that concealed her hands.
“On her girdle—the writing on her girdle!”
He pointed at several Turkish words sewn upon the length of green silk that wrapped the body of the girl under the breast.
“‘The treasure of the lord of lords.’ Ohai, my Falcon, that means the Sultan and this is one of his women.”
Even Balaban hesitated to set a rude hand on one who had been taken into the household of Mustapha, knowing that to do so would be to place upon his own head a price so great that life would be sought of him in the uttermost corners of the earth.
“What is your name?” Demid asked the girl.
“Lali el Niksar—Lali, the Armenian.”
“Are you a sultana?”
She shook her head, the dark eyes watchful and defiant.
“A slave?”
“Taib—true.”
Hereupon the maid saw fit to voice the importance of her mistress, hoping to impress it upon the Cossacks. “Yah khawand—my lord, she is a pearl of the palace, a favorite singing girl. How many times has she been given a robe of honor! How often have noblemen offered a thousand dinars for her! She knows the rarest Persian verses, aye, the blandishments of the Greeks, and the dances of the Cairenes. The child can wag her tongue with priests, even as she can confound the wits of the young warriors”
“Peace, or your tongue will wag no more. Is she a captive?”
The old woman hesitated for a bare instant.
“O captain of a host, it is not so with her. They call her the Armenian, but she was raised from childhood in the imperial seraglio. May I burn, but that is truth. Now she is sent as a gift to Sidi Ahmad, Pasha of Aleppo, as a token of the favor of the Sultan to that great lord.”
“Was a writing sent with the girl?” asked Balaban, frowning.
“Beyond a doubt, the aga of the janizaries had it upon him. He was our leader.”
Demid gave command to his followers to search for the body of the officer and retrieve all papers before it was thrown into the sea; also to ransack the quarters of the reis. The serving woman grew bolder because no harm had been done to her mistress, and plucked Demid’s sleeve.
“O thou captain of men, take thought for the profit thou canst garner. Turn the ship back to Constantinople; ask what ransom thou wilt of the Grand Signior, and it will be granted if the hand of an unbeliever is not laid upon the singing girl. Aye, even to two thousand pieces of gold, it will be granted.”
The lidless eyes of Balaban blinked shrewdly, as he tried to gain a glimpse of the letter that one of the men brought to Demid presently. Two thousand pieces of gold would tempt most men.
“The price is not sufficient,” responded the Cossack chief, who was scanning the parchment.
It was not, as he had hoped, a pass for the janizaries, nor did it contain directions as to the route to be taken to Aleppo. But it gave Demid food for thought, in that it contained a veiled reproach from Mustapha because Sidi Ahmad had not sent the revenues from the captured provinces of Armenians or the tax from the caravans for the last year.
Mustapha said that a general campaign was to be undertaken against the war-scarred nations of Christian Europe in the Spring—that he, Mustapha, had broken the power of the Cossacks, and concluded a secret treaty with the nobles of Poland by which the Poles were excused from paying tribute to Constantinople, so that the way into the cities and monasteries of Hungary and Russia was opened.
“Gold,” muttered Demid angrily to himself. “When will gold buy peace? Nay, the point of the sword is surer.”
The letter concluded with an order for Sidi Ahmad to set out from Aleppo over the mountain passes to the Black Sea, as soon as the snow melted, with horses and men and the revenues of the Sultan. As surety of the favor of Mustapha to the first of the pashas, the singing girl was sent.
“The Sidi must be a strong prince,” Demid reflected, “for the Grand Signior uses soft words with him. Aye, and Aleppo is far from Constantinople. That is well, for us.”
THE kohl-darkened eyes of the singing girl did not appear to look at Demid, but under the long lashes they studied covertly the face of the young chief. In it she wished to read her fate. And it piqued her that she could read little.
Demid had dismissed every one else from the women’s cabin; he had stationed the two blacks on guard again at the broken lattice, and now stood looking out of the oval port, apparently listening to the sounds on the upper deck where the captives were being chained to the rowers’ benches.
The girl, too, heard the uproar of the slaves who were being freed from their chains. Her eyes, over the silk veil, were stoic, although the flowered robe quivered where her heart beat thuddingly.
Suddenly the muscles of her slender arms tensed, and her eyes snapped angrily. Demid had reached out swiftly and grasped both her wrists under the wide sleeves. A moment she strained, gasping, and then, feeling the power of the man, ceased struggling. From the limp fingers of one hand he took a dagger that had been hidden by the sleeve.
“Yah shatir—captain of thieves! Prince of hyenas, father of treachery!” she cried. “Can a dog change his hide? Eh, wah! He can not. Nor can a son of ill-born robbers stay his fingers!”
Between those same muscular fingers Demid snapped off the blade of the poniard and tossed the steel out of the port, returning to Lali the hilt, set with sapphires and gold bands.
“Keep all your jewels, singing girl,”, he observed, “for the time will come when you will need them.”
“And how, my ruffian?”
“To make you beautiful.”
“Boar of the steppe, what know ye of beauty? I have heard of your people; they spend their days digging in the ground for roots, or feeling hens for eggs. Aye, Kazaks, vagabonds, eaters of filth—ye ride two on a horse, ye suck the juice of one weed and swallow the smoke of another!”
Her tongue was barbed with the caustic wit of the seraglio women, and yet Lali was not a woman in years. Robbed of her dagger, she resorted to her readiest weapon, but even this failed her for very rage when Demid ran his hand over her girdle and dress to satisfy himself that she had not a second weapon concealed about her.
“You have put your hand upon me, O caphar—O, unbeliever! For that they will draw you on the stake with horses. I have seen it.”
“And what are you?”
The gray eyes of the Cossack gleamed from his dark face, and Lali caught her breath to study the splendid head of the warrior. He towered over her, unmoving, and unwearied. She had felt the strength of his hands, and now she answered the challenge of the gaze that searched her thoughts.
“I am the daughter of a cral—a chief.”
“Then you were not born in the seraglio, as your woman said.”
Lali considered for a second or two, which was long for her.
“Nay, I was born in the mountains, among my father’s people, the Armenians. He was killed in a raid, and the Turks carried me off with the other children. But what is that? I say to you that you are a fool, if you spare me, for you will be tortured when the soldiers take you.”
A flash of memory, and she saw how to make the Cossack flinch.
“Ohai, my captain of rogues, I have seen your warriors in chains in the city of the Sultan, aye, and dying on the rowers’ benches. Your chief I saw, when Mustapha paraded the captives before the palace. He was like the grandfather of the eagles and his hair was white.”
“Rurik!” cried Demid.
“So they named the Kazak. They hold him and his comrades for ransom of which the Grand Signior has need—otherwise their Kazak heads would have been salted and set up outside the gates. The shoulders of Rurik were bent by shame and he walked slowly like an ailing ox.”
So said Lali, fiercely, delighting in the shadow that passed over the brow of the young warrior.
“If you would not share his fate, free me and go back to your fishing-boats. There is time.”
“Time,” mused Demid. “Aye, but little for what is to be done.”
“Yet enough, O youth,” she added softly, “to serve the king of kings, whose memory is long—-who can reward you with a province. A thousand amirs ride in his suite, and the Frankish kings bend low their heads to him. Only your cral stands apart from the court,” she added, “chained.”
Lali laughed under her breath, seeing Demid turn to a couch and sit down, holding his head in his hands. She was quite surprized when he remarked presently that she should fetch food and set it before him. Even her forehead flushed at the command.
“I, to serve a boar of the steppe! I, who go to the pasha of a kingdom? What words are these words?”
“A command, Lali.”
Togrukh or Balaban could have told the girl that the Cossack had a habit of never repeating an order; nor, once given, did he change the order. Experience had taught them the value of obeying Demid at once, and discussing the wherefore later. But Lali had come from a narrow world where her sisters were mistresses of numberless slaves. Slaves themselves, they often ruled the Moslem men through beguilement and flattery.
In the world of this child, the person of Mustapha and all that belonged to him was sacred. She had her share of the instinctive wisdom of her race and sex where men were concerned, and had decided against flattering Demid. Moreover, she had the pride of her birth.
“I will not. You will be torn in pieces.”
“First, Lali, bring that tabouret and set out whatsoever you have.”
The girl grew quiet, staring round-eyed at the motionless Cossack.
“If I do not?”
Demid looked up.
“I will bind you, little song-bird, and put you through yonder port. Once the sea embraces you, there will be no more song.”
He meant what he said, Lali decided at once. In her unfledged spirit there was no great fear of death. What was ordained would come to pass, and not even a favorite of the palace could outwit the Severer of Society, the Ender of Days. Even before she had been taught by the instructors of the seraglio to walk with the swaying step of a gazelle, or to sing, low-voiced, she had seen women led away to be strangled, and once a sultana had been poisoned at her side during a feast. But the sea!
Lali shivered, and glanced at the curtain behind which she knew the negroes were standing. Little use to call them, now, when the Cossack had his sword. She thrust forward the tabouret with a slippered foot.
She wondered if she was finding favor in the eyes of the chief. It was possible. So Lali changed visibly. She rolled up sleeves, disclosing slender arms bearing the finest of bracelets, and went briskly to work fetching sugared fruits and rice and saffron and bowls of preserves from the cabinet that served as a larder.
Demid eyed the array of dishes with disgust, and she made a sign ordering one of the negroes to go for wine.
“Bid the other,” suggested the warrior, “draw back the curtain. Let him summon hither some of my men and also the galley slaves.”
“Fool,” she whispered, “would you have them set eyes on me?”
As Demid made no further remark she concluded reluctantly that he meant what he said.
In a moment there came trooping to the lattice bearded Cossacks, weapon in hand, and gaunt, shambling figures reeking of sweat and wine. They thrust aside the blacks and pressed close to the openings. As a swift current draws flotsam upon a stream, the singing girl drew their eyes.
“This captive,” said Demid, putting his hand on the girl’s arm, “is mine. If any of you venture to the lattice again, a ball in the forehead. Have you heard?”
“We hear, father!” cried the Cossacks, who stood erect, arms at their side.
As they were trooping away Ayub came swaggering up, his duties on the upper deck at an end. He sniffed at the negroes; then his glance wandered through the lattice and his jaw dropped when he beheld Demid at ease on the couch, emptying the goblet of wine.
“Oho!” he roared, thrusting his great head through the aperture, “Sultan Demid, it is! May the fly away with me, but I thought your sconce had been cracked by a simitar, so long were you below. Aye, that would have been better than this, for your writs would not be covered up by a petticoat.”
A smile curved Demid’s thin lips. Ayub had a deep conviction that all women were witches—the more beautiful, the more dangerous.
“You wall be safe from my men who have seen that you serve me,” he said gravely to the flushed girl. “Meanwhile, consider this, Lali. Our road leads to Aleppo, and thither we will take you. You have a mind to stratagems, so beat your wings against the cage, if you wish, but do not forget that you must please Sidi Ahmad, or the Sultan’s gift would be vain.”
Lali bowed, deeply puzzled.
“When will my lord visit his slave again?”
“When the slave summons the boar of the steppe.”
The curtain fell behind him and though Lali ran to it and listened she could not make out what the Cossacks said to each other. She contemplated the untouched dainties, frowning. Then tripped to an ivory chest and drew out from a pile of garments a mirror of burnished bronze.
Glancing around to be sure that she was unobserved, she snatched the veil from her cheeks and stared at the image in the mirror—at the delicately moulded cheeks, the fair, white throat and the lips that had been termed rose-petals by her women. She pushed back the strands of dark hair, to see the better.
Lali had believed in her soul and her women had assured her that the first man to look upon her unveiled would become her slave. And the Cossack had not so much as touched the veil.
“HAVE you eaten opium? Has a vampire settled upon you and sucked your brain dry?”
Ayub walked around his comrade and contemplated him from all sides with the greatest amazement.
“Did I hear you say you would take that peacock to—Aleppo?”
“You heard.”
Ayub’s head had room within for only one idea at a time. Now he scratched his skull with stubby fingers, caked with dried blood.
“With the Don Cossacks? With me?”
“You will have her under your care, for she is valuable to me.”
The big Cossack crossed himself and breathed heavily.
‘T would rather shepherd yonder turtle-doves of the rovers’ benches. Nay, kunak, in what way have I crossed you? Has the young witch begun to make play with you already—like a fish on a line? Hearken, Demid, I was with Rurik when he stormed a galleon of Constantinople in other days, and when he found a nest of these Turkish girls in the hold, he weighted them down with shot and dropped them over the side. That is the best way.”
“Nay, kunak, she is our passport to Aleppo.”
That night Ayub in common with the other Cossacks drank heavily, for Demid had given leave. But, though he sought enlightenment in wine, he did not grasp what Demid had in mind. How could a woman serve as a safe-conduct? His experience had been otherwise.
“It can not be,” he remarked after long brooding to Togrukh. “If she had been a horse, that would be well, because a horse can be managed even at sea, and, besides, is worth more than a woman. Even our ataman can not make any good come out of a woman on a journey.”
The sergeant sighed and moistened his mustache in a nuggin of mead. He was a melancholy man, and he had troubles enough, at present.
“If the Father says she will be a passport, she will be.”
“A passport to purgatory!” Ayub snorted. “Your horse has more intelligence than you, Togrukh, because he shies at a petticoat. I say the girl is a witch! If you say otherwise I will pound you.”
Togrukh sighed again.
“Then, ataman, let us drink to the witch.”
“Well, this is rare good mead: there is sense in you, sergeant, if a man digs enough to get at it. Let us drink to the witch.”