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Roy Glashan's Library
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Adventure, February 1915, with "No Name!"
IT rained, as the high-piled Elburz Mountains understand it, straight up and down. The earth drummed to it. Pools in the rock hollows seethed and boiled. A vapor rose six feet or so to meet the downpour—to be mushroomed, swallowed, and beaten down again. Trees, clean green, drooped under the weight of water, and man-high grass lay flattened, so that the rocks rose bald and wet between. Growing treacherous where the cracks had been, the warm earth glistened between new strips of green; and through it all a thousand brooks boiled noisily between the rocks, galloping and thundering to the plains and the Caspian, thousands of feet below.
Like shadows in the wet mist, nearly noiseless because of the myriad other sounds, two Afghans pressed their horses forward uphill at a wheezy jog-trot, dispirited and fagged out, horse and man.
The horses were plains-bred, evidently out of Turkestan and no friends of mountains; nor did it need genius to guess how their riders longed for the cold dry winds of Kabul. One man rolled a little in the saddle; there was a blood-soaked bandage on his neck.
Two hundred yards behind them rode another man, red-headed this one, six feet five in his socks, built bull-wise, broad in the beam, heavy of neck and hip and thigh. He too rolled in the saddle, but not from weakness, for he looked as if he could have crushed the tired horse between his legs. Face, manner, seat in the saddle betrayed him no horseman; his big, broad feet crammed ankle-deep into the stirrups seemed better suited to the earth, or to be set against a squeaking thwart while his iron arms labored at an oar. He seemed to guide his horse with rudder-lines, and the drumming rain neither worried him nor made him ache.
Two hundred yards again behind this giant, invisible to him or the Afghans through the downpour, but audible to them when his charger's hoofs sucked out of mud or clattered on the wet rock, there rode yet another man with red hair—bareheaded and with no more dejection about him than the dawn wears when it bursts red-angry through a bank of cloud.
This last man halted every now and then, and waited to listen for pursuit. They would have been ten brave men who dared pick him for their quarry then, for, from horse that was fresh in spite of climbing, to sword that shook loose in the scabbard and automatic pistols that were dry but ready in unbuttoned holsters, he looked like the danger-god himself. He smiled as he rode and listened, and there was sadness as well as humor at the corners of his mouth and eyes; it was a smile of the rare type that carries consternation to its owner's enemies as well as confidence to all his friends.
Over and again he stopped to listen, but there was no sound of pursuit. A jog-trot, long kept up by horses used to it, is a pace that will make even a mountain trail reel out, and brings clouds down and ever downward until they hang draped around the climbers.
Pursuing horsemen, had there been any, must have been coming fast, and their din would have been audible through that of the elements.
NOW and then, when broader streams were reached, and the Afghans hesitated on the bank to toss in stones and judge the depth of water from the splash, he would catch up. Then backs would stiffen. Then, besides the difference that race and creed had made between the two Afghans and the Scotsman, another, subtler, absoluter difference would show itself, that had neither race nor creed in it. Dick Anthony of Arran was a leader. The other three, Scotsman and Afghan alike, were merely, though entirely, men.
Dick's character showed best when such difficulties intervened. Without a word, and with no fuss or swagger, he would plunge ahead into the stream, leading his horse or riding as seemed best, and, without "babying" his men or seeming to underrate their nerve, never forgetting that he showed the way as well as found one for himself.
Once, where a more than usually savage stream boiled by them and defied all daring, he cut down a fifty-foot-high nine-inch sapling with his sword so that it fell across from bank to bank. Then, when he had shifted it so that the far end lay wedged tight between two rocks and the near end was against a tree trunk, he showed them how a man of spunk could cling to it and hold both himself and horse upstream while struggling hand-over-hand across. And, since he stood then on the far bank, and they loved him, they showed that they had spunk. The big Scotsman proved he had enough for two, for he came back twice—once for the wounded Afghan, once for the Afghan's horse.
They rode in the same order, until at last the air grew less saturated and the pine trees were more frequent. Seven thousand feet above sea-level Dick was near his own now, and pursuit would have been serious business for any less than a brigade or two. There was no need any more to guard the rear; he had reached an altitude where he was king. He rode alone, ahead then, with Andry Macdougal laboring behind him and the Afghans last.
"How-ut!" came a challenge from the summit of an overhanging crag.
"Friend!" called Dick in a voice that hit the crag and came echoing back from it.
"Salaam, Dee-k-Anthonee bahadur!"
There was no pause, nor any silence after that. Crag after crag, skyline after skyline barked the news, until a far-off aerie, perched in what once had been a crater, caught it and exulted. Soon a guard of honor, fifty strong, of men who would have thought it meanness to be more than civil to an ordinary man, swooped down a gully glade and brought their horses to a thundering halt in front of him. Fifty sabers swept out of the scabbards and whistled to an emperor's salute, and a graybeard in command gave tongue for all of them.
"Salaam aleikoum, Anthonee bahadur!"
"Salaam aleikoum!" answered Dick.
No other word was spoken. The gray-beard flung an arm up and the fifty wheeled. Now Dick rode between two twenty-four-man columns, preceded by the escort's officer; and when the glade grew narrow near the top Andry was squeezed out to the rear and rode there, muttering to himself about the "domned impudence o' black men."
IN an hour they reached a stream that boiled and gurgled through a gap by which the trail entered Dick's headquarters. There was none other like it in the world. No other mountains than the Elburz hold any such amphitheater, fringed and draped by such giant trees. No other crater has a level floor on which fifty thousand men could drill, yet to the outer rim of which one strong man's voice will carry while the fifty thousand march. No other crater ever gave forth quite such energy as waited pent up now to burst from the Elburz and strike at tyranny, behind Dick Anthony.
The gap wound around beside the stream, until it narrowed to twenty feet, and stream and track filled up the whole of it. There on a big horse sat a black-bearded Afghan, staring ahead of him with an eye that claimed authority.
"Salaam, bahadur!" he said, saluting.
"Salaam, Beg Ali Khan!" said Dick, returning the salute.
"I have kept my trust!"
"I never doubted it!"
"Is all well, bahadur?"
"No," said Dick.
"All is well here!"
"Excellent!" said Dick.
"Is it peace or war, bahadur?"
"War!" said Dick.
The Afghan's eyes blazed, for he was a man of war, born in the babel of it. War-songs had been his lullabies when his mother cradled him in Kabul.
He wheeled his horse, and led at a trot into the huge amphitheater. And now Dick's eyes blazed in turn, as any leader's must whose command waits ready for him, better and more numerous than he had dared to hope, and greets him with a braver shout than ever greeted Caesar. Caesar's men were men who must, or mercenaries. These men were free, and their pay was to be Persia's freedom.
"Zindabad Dee-k-Anthonee Shah!" they roared, and the tree-draped crater-sides took up the yell, to send it crashing heavenward.
"They have come in droves, bahadur!" explained Beg Ali Khan in a voice that rang pridefully. "Many have been drilled in one force or another. There are Turkomans, and Afghans, besides Persians. We have gunners enough! There are nine men here from Samarkand, who fought against Russia and were later drilled in the Russian artillery. And I have kept faith! I have obeyed! By the blood of God, I have made them sweat blood! I have drilled them until the mountains shook, and they fell asleep all standing!"
BEG ALI KHAN and Dick rode side by side down a living lane of men, who breathed in silence for fear of missing the first word Dick might utter.
"How many are they?"
"Eight thousand, sahib, all but eight."
"Are they sworn in?"
"Partly, sahib."
"How partly?"
"They have sworn to swear! They await the privilege. The veterans will swear anew."
"Very well," said Dick quietly, riding to the exact center of the amphitheater. The swish of his charger's tail could be heard by the last man of the farthest company, so tense was the silence. Through a gap between tall trees on the cleft ring summit of the amphitheater the dying sun glared angry crimson, lighting his red head until his hair seemed fire. The jewel in the hilt of his strange old-fashioned claymore blazed and flashed.
"Persians!" he shouted, seeming to face three ways at once. The silence multiplied itself, so that his voice was lonely as a star in outer space, and as distinct. "The whole world is at war! Faranghistan is rent apart! Germany and Austria are at the throats of England, France, and Russia! Now, then, is Persia's opportunity!"
He paused for the information to sink in. There came a little gasp from the serried ranks that was checked instantly. Beg Ali Khan, sitting on his charger behind Dick to the right, grew rigid and betrayed a line of milk-white teeth between his black beard and mustache. But there was no spoken comment. The tales that had gone abroad about Dick Anthony had been too many, and amazing, for these fatalists to doubt a new tale now or show surprise. The men who had already fought behind him knew him far too well to doubt him ever. The gasp meant interest. The succeeding silence meant respect.
"A little while ago I was a British officer. I rode to ask British recognition of your cause. I have been refused. They say Dick Anthony is dead, and that I am an impostor. I am free, then—as the dead are free—to serve a new cause and a new covenant. Ye asked me to be leader. Some of you have fought behind me. Now, new men as well as old, think deep and choose again, for after this there shall be no more choosing!"
He drew his claymore, and it shone in the sunset like a flame. There came a clatter and a little murmur from the ranks, as each man made his weapon ready and apostrophised his God.
"Our cause is Persia's, not our own. Our lives are our own to give!"
There were idealists among that eight thousand men who may have understood him. The stupidest, loot-hungriest among them knew that he spoke of something loftier than their dreams had ever hinted at.
"Those who are afraid to follow me—or who do not care to follow me—may go!"
There was no movement anywhere—no answering noise.
"Now," said Dick, waving with his sword, "ye have my leave to go!"
ABOUT eight thousand men drew breath together in a sea of sound. The sun went down and darkness shut on them with Eastern mountain suddenness. Then Beg Ali shouted and at once a hundred lanterns flickered. At another shout there were fifty flaring torches brought, and Dick sat his horse in the midst of them, looking more than ever like the spirit of Red Danger. The torchlight danced on the watching eyes of thousands.
"Nay! There are some among you—must be men among you—who have no stomach for this business! Who sets his own life above Persia's freedom? Speak!"
A score swaggered forward from the ranks out into the torchlight, Tekke Turkomans, each with a horse's rein across his arm. Their fathers and their grandfathers had terrorized the Persian border; their brothers' and their cousins' heads had graced Persian city gates; their lips curled with the pride of men whose greatest shame is peace.
"What care we Turkomans for Persia?" asked their leader, not with insolence but with the air of one who wants to know. "We heard of Dee-k-Anthonee. We came. We see. Lead on!"
It swept over Dick's mind in that moment that the loyalest man to Persia in all that host was himself, who owed Persia nothing. Even his veterans who had fought behind him for the sake of Persia, and had been in outlawry among the mountains when he came and found them, were men who were at war for private grievance and private enmity. He was sure that half the men would swear, if asked, that they loved Persia better than themselves; but he knew that the truth was that they hated Russia. They were there for revenge, and for the plunder.
And Dick was a real leader. It was no part of his policy to swim with a stream and claim the credit. To his view Persia needed rescuing from Russia, and these men stood ready to his hand, ready to follow him for one cause, and that a wrong one. He dared lead them for another. And he knew himself man enough to make them see the truth of it before the end.
"My sword is Persia's," he said quietly, looking at the smug face and beady eyes of the Turkoman as though he read what lay beneath. "Who follows me fights in the same cause!"
"Lead on!" said the Turkoman.
Dick understood the Eastern mind better than many men with fifty times his experience of it, but he had not guessed a tenth of the effect of Beg All's tales. He did not realize that these men believed him Alexander of Macedon reincarnated. The sword that had been given to his ancestor by Alexander, King of Scotland, they believed to have been the great Alexander's; and they were ready now to follow the man, and not the cause, just as Alexander the Great's men had been ready.
"Are there any other men who follow me, and care not whither?" Dick demanded. "Let them step two paces from the ranks!"
"Forward—march!" roared Beg Ali; and before Dick could turn his head the whole force, nearly eight thousand strong, had thundered two steps forward!
"Zindabad!" they yelled. "Zindabad Dee-k-Anthonee!"
THEN Dick had an inspiration. If their loyalty was personal to him he had better make it more so! If their imagination had been kindled by imaginary tales about his ancestry, he would fan the flame with a true tale. If he served Persia, and they served him, so Persia would be better served than by a horde whose counsels were divided or whose leader meant no more to them than some mere figurehead.
"Listen!" he thundered, and a silence fell as if his sword had severed the string that held it. "Ye would follow whom? Me? Who am I? What is my name?"
"Dee-k-Anthonee!" they shouted; and his sword went up again amid the torch-smoke until the amphitheater grew still as the heart of night.
"Dick Anthony is dead!" he told them. "I am a dead man by the letter of the English law!"
They gasped. This was a new phase of him, that appealed more than all the rest. By creed, in name, they were Mohammedans; in fact they were superstitious to a man and to the last absurdest stage of it.
"Russia robbed me of my name. I ride to win it back. I now have no name. Ye must follow No Name! Russia shall give me back my name; and in return, as payment, I will win you Persia's freedom! Who agrees?"
"Allah!" The word was a gasp of astonishment and acquiescence.
"I asked you who agrees?"
He had touched the right chord unerringly, only he had gone a little shade too fast for their thoughts to follow. Persia, whose modern history so saddened Dick, was much too materially real to them—too commonplace and crude—to be able to stir up their enthusiasm. They knew only that Persian soil had grown uncomfortable, but that Russian would be worse. They were weary of Persia, and of her name; there seemed to them nothing picturesque or even respectable about either. But they believed this man come from the dead to lead them.
Suddenly, as their thoughts caught up with his, they hove their weapons high in air and thundered an ovation to Dick Anthony, the man, that went crashing skyward multiplied by half a million echoes. He sat his horse dead still between the torches, waiting for the tumult to die down, and bitting with an iron will the human inclination to be foolish and exult. In that dangerous moment of personal triumph his humility came to the rescue, and when the roar hoarsened—rose to a climax—fell away and died—his voice was calm, his words reasoned out and clear.
"Then—at present—Russia is the enemy," he said slowly, "and your captain is —No Name! Hear me first! I swear to lead you as I would be led myself, without fear or favor. I swear to turn aside for nothing until the end is gained!"
They heard him in silence, and when he paused, their breathing seemed like the voice of an unseen sea; the torches threw dancing shadows that were waves of darkness; the answering glint on human eyes and on the weapons might be foam.
"Now, swear ye!" Dick ordered.
At the word Beg Ali spurred his horse, and brought him to a plunging halt again in front of Dick, facing him.
In the West, and given opportunity, Beg Ali Khan could have developed into a magnificent stage manager or an impresario. He had staged this act. He had every detail of it ready. He had known, though not what Dick would say, at least how Dick would say it, and he had the answer to Dick's speech all ready. He had drummed and drilled the answer into them, and now eight thousand men raised up their weapons at a sign from him and thundered:
"We obey! In the name of Allah, we obey!"
"Dismiss them!" ordered Dick. "That will do. Andry! Where's Andry?"
There was no answer, and Dick frowned for he had grown used to a giant who was more patient and useful than the general run of shadows.
Then memory came, and he smiled. A moment later he rode off into the gloom, to where he knew the wounded lay and women tended them.
UNDER a tree whose age, if size means anything, went back to the Beginning—black like a shadow, though unshadowlike, giving the impression of terrific strength—the big man stood still, whispering. His attitude—bowed head, arms held out in front of him that evidently circled somebody or something else—was more expressive than a sermon-length of words; and there was an air of peace and happiness, almost of religion, that neither darkness nor the clatter of an armed camp could conceal. The first words that Dick recognized were French, and the voice was French, not Andry's.
"Do you remember—what I taught you —J'aime, tu aimes, il aime?"
"Aye, aye. I mind. But I ken ma ain speech best. I love ye!"
There was a little scream, checked suddenly from lack of breath. Dick sat his horse as still as night.
"You cur-r-r-rush like a bear!" a woman panted.
"Na—na!"
"But you do! You did!"
"I wouldna hur-r-rt ye for a' the wor-r-rld!"
Dick rode away unnoticed. He could do without Andry for the moment; Beg Ali Khan was the man to see, and there were fifty or a hundred things he had to ask him. The captured Russian tent, in which Beg Ali made his temporary home, was pitched on a mound from which nearly the whole encampment could be overlooked, and he guided his horse instinctively toward it.
He halted before he reached the tent, for it seemed he had interrupted another conversation. All the light came from a camp-fire before the tent. Between it and the tent sat Beg Ali Khan, with his saber still strapped on but with his military boots pulled off and his feet stretched out toward the flame. Beside him, one on either hand, stood the two Afghans who had ridden home with Dick, one of whom had a bloody bandage on his neck.
"So she—the Princess—waylaid you!" snarled Beg Ali. "Bismillah! That woman's soul is made of hell-fire! Her men put you two out of action, and he and that giant of his turned the tide again, killing all the Russians, eh? He had her at his mercy, had he? That must make the dozenth time! And—he showed her mercy?"
"Aye!" said the Afghan with the bandage.
"Nay!" vowed the other one. "He showed her none. As I lay, I heard her beg him take her with him; I heard her sob because he left her there alone. She loves him, and he despises her; if that is mercy and not hell for her, I have neither eyes nor ears nor understanding!"
"Allah give him all three!" swore Beg Ali. "Why did the addle-pate not kill her when he could? Her maid is with us, and that giant is so in love with the maid that he thinks her shoe-lace good to eat! The maid knows more secrets of the Princess' than I know of my own, and as long as she lives the Princess must scheme to get the maid back, or else kill her! And may Allah pull my beard out hair by hair if the maid isn't talking treason to the Persian women, and the women to the wounded, and the wounded to the whole ones! Mark me! Women will be the end of this adventure! as a woman was the beginning of it! So, ye have my leave to go!"
"Salaam, bahadur!" said the two, retiring.
"Salaam!" said Beg Ali.
"Find a man for me to take my horse," commanded Dick, coming forward to the fire, and Beg Ali started like a man shot. "Never mind your boots, Beg Ali; come over to my tent and talk."
"Talk or fight, it is all one, bahadur! To hear is to obey!"
"Come on, then," answered Dick, leading the way.
DICK'S tent, that had been a Russian officer's not long ago, was fenced about with branches, so that he had some privacy; he could speak above a whisper without being overheard, unless some eavesdropper were crouching in the shadows, and that was a matter attended to exactly by sentries. They thrust bayonets into every likely lurking-place at frequent and uncertain intervals.
That incessant guarding against spies was none of Dick's ordering, for he was satisfied if the outer and inner pickets were well placed and wide awake; but Beg Ali Khan knew his East from the inside outward, and did not need to guess where the greater danger lay. By Beg Ali's orders, Dick and he and Andry could approach Dick's tent unchallenged, but no other man could try the trick and live.
There was a fire set inside the brushwood fence, and a couple of rough chairs stood by-it in proof that Dick had not learned yet to prefer the Eastern squat, or sprawl. The last thing that an Asiatic calls for is a chair; it is almost the first thing that a Briton demands about him. Dick sat down with evident relief that yet did not lack dignity, and Beg Ali at a sign from him took the other chair with a painstaking effort to imitate his manner. Dick crossed one leg above the other, and though the attitude cramped all his Eastern muscles Beg Ali followed suit.
"We must move at once," said Dick, "before—"
He lapsed into silence, half-way through a sentence as his habit sometimes was when his thoughts were serious and swift, seeming to credit his listener with brain enough to finish the sentence for himself. He stretched his legs toward the blaze now, staring straight into it, and the firelight danced, reflected in his eyes until there seemed fire behind them.
Beyond, in the distance, the call of sentries cut the silence up into sub-sections, each shouting in his turn, in English or what he thought was English, to assure the next man and the main guard that he lived and was awake.
"Nahmah—see-kas—a-a-a-a-s—well!"
"Nummah—sare-vin—a-a-a-a-s—well!"
"Hah! Bismallah yes!" said Beg Ali suddenly, squinting upward at the stars. "Surely I understand! Before she—that woman—makes more trouble we must move!"
Dick did not answer him at once, though his eyes signaled that he had heard and was listening. He too seemed interested in the weather.
"Would God, bahadur, that her pretty throat was slit, and bled pale-dry these weeks gone! Then our plans could have been men's plans fit for fighting men, and not contingent on a woman's whim. May Allah blight her, sleeping and awake! I beg Allah's pardon that I mention her name and His!"
"I meant," said Dick, "we must move before the rain makes the roads too sticky. Enough to mire the Russians hub-deep will suit our purpose, for with only six guns we can travel light. But it's time to move!"
"Aye, before we are ready, because a woman moves first!" "We are ready," answered Dick. "Aye! Ready again to run from a woman!"
If Beg Ali thought that by aggravating Dick he could make him argue, or disclose his plan a little sooner, or perhaps change whatever his plan might he into one that suited the Afghan better, he had yet to begin to understand Dick. All that his retort drew was a smile of amusement that was so evidently genuine it riled Beg Ali to the verge of being insolent.
"Aye!"
"Aye! Surely it is a great jest, bahadur! By Allah, a jewel of a jest! It was a jest when she flung her knife and missed but by so much! It is a jest that she warns the Russians now, and gathers an army for our undoing! Aye! I have laughed at it until my sides ache—even as I would surely weep above her grave!"
Dick took no notice, so the Afghan's voice changed and he leaned forward to touch Dick's knee for emphasis.
"Bahadur! What good ever came of listening to women, or of treating them as more than women? What good came yet of talking to them about anything but women's matters, or of making bargains with them? Tell me, bahadur, what good—what tiny, one small atom of the least good thing has come of your acquaintance with the Princess Olga Karageorgovich, or of the mercy you have shown her again and again? Prove to me that it would not have been good to split her down the middle like a carcass of veal with that great sword of thine!"
DICK patted his shirt, and something bulky showed for a second, bulging underneath. The Afghan, all eyes and ears and interest for the point at issue, did hot see Dick shudder, or remark from under the protection of his sheepskin coat that the mountain air was chill. But a shadow moved out of the shadows at Dick's back.
"Put this on ye, Mr. Dicky," said a voice, and a Russian military-cloak evolved from gloom, suspended like a deeper shadow in the black night between the fire and the enormous man who held it.
"Thought you were otherwise engaged, Andry!"
"Aye! I've been verra much preoccupied. An' then it tuk me several meenits to get this. The chiel wha stripped it fram a Roosian corrrpse fancied his ownership an' his skill f'r fechtin'."
"And?"
"He'll recover by-an'-by I hae no doot!"
Dick took the overcoat and Andry backed away. Third in command, the big man had not once foregone the privilege of fixing up Dick's bed for him, and he had thrashed more than one Persian for daring to forestall him. Some one had forestalled him now, and Dick could hear him muttering like a discontented boar-hound as he pulled the bed to pieces and began arranging it anew.
Overhead a few stars shone like incandescent lights between the racing clouds. The drone of voices that had mingled hitherto into one noise that was silence died now, and lesser sounds that were inaudible before began to assert themselves. Night birds and night animals broke silence. Bats flitted on soft wings amid the smoke of waning fires, and flames that leaped in a last dance before they died lit up a hundred tents irregularly. Always, in a circle that knew no end or no beginning, the wakeful pickets called their numbers each to each.
"Nummah—twain-tee-see-kas—a-a-a-a-s-well!"
"Nurmor—twennee-sarvin—a-a-a-a-s--well!"
"If we had not met the Princess," said Dick, "Andry would not have met her maid. If I had killed the Princess, as you say you wish I had, she could not have slipped and given her maid the chance to get this to Andry,"
He drew a bulky package from inside his shirt, and laid it on his knee. Beg Ali's eyes sparkled at once, and the flow of mere words failed him, for he was a soldier down to his iron-boned core; it needed but a very little glimpse of the road ahead to lift him out of pessimism to its opposite.
"Spread it out, bahadur!" he urged, for he recognized on Dick's knee what the whole secret government of Russia would have given all it could give to recover, and in Dick's eye and attitude he saw the birth of plans. He remembered now Dick's habit of making plan by plan as he went on, and of never looking very far ahead. That instant he understood. The understanding dawned on him that he was present now when the first firm outline of a plan was being drawn, confided in the minute there was anything Dick could confide.
"Bring something for a table," ordered Dick.
Darkness had cars again, and it was Andry who replied—
"Ou-ay!"
THERE were men of all trades with that host of Persians, not fewest of them carpenters, and in Dick's absence Beg Ali Khan had set as many of them to work at their own trades as could be used to good advantage. The table that Andry brought out of black space was big and firm. Dick laid the packet on it and drew a map out of the envelope.
The firelight danced and glowed then on three men's faces, for Andry came and laid gnarled fists on the table-edge, leaning between Dick and Beg Ali Khan to pore over the details and wonder at the intricacy of the drawings. "Bring a lamp!"
Andry obeyed, setting a lantern in the middle of the part marked "Caspian Sea," and then bending close by Dick again, breathing heavily. He and Beg Ali Khan took turns to swipe dead night-insects away with wide impatient arm-sweeps.
"See?" said Dick. "See Russia's game? See the treachery? While the fighting goes on in Europe Russia moves southward into Persia, square by square. It's like a game of chess. There's the old camp where the troops were concentrated years ago for the war against the Turkomans; they've turned it into a huge base, ready for the swoop southward, and our rebellion has given them excuse. See their lines of march—here, and here, and here? No stopping at Teheran! The Persian Gulf or nothing, and along this way westward into Asia Minor afterward! The occupation will be an accomplished fact before whoever wins in the big war will have time to remonstrate!"
"Aye!" said Beg Ali, studying the map with eyes that seemed likely to burn holes in it. "But see these marks drawn across the Caspian Sea—these, and this—these are where the transports are to come, and there are no more transports; we—you, bahadur—smashed them all!"
"They'll come overland," said Dick. "They can't afford to wait for new ships; they'll hurry. They'll swoop down these dotted lines in such force that we'd be trodden under and scarcely noticed if we stood directly in the way. There are half a million men camped to the north of the Atrak River, and any number more ready to reinforce them if needed. We can't stand in the way of half a million and expect to do anything worth mentioning."
"But Persia," objected Beg Ali. "Persia is with us! Persia will rise at a word from us!"
"Persia must!" Dick answered grimly. "Unless she prefers to bend under a Russian yoke she must rise and guard our backs."
"Our backs?" Beg Ali Khan and Andry each said the word together, and looked up from the map at Dick.
"Backs!" said Dick. "Would you suggest invading Russia in the teeth of all those army corps? Look, one here—two here—one here—another one here, look."
"Nay, not invade, but—"
"They'd roll over us like a boat caught beam-on if we stood and waited for them!"
"Aye." Beg Ali Khan's chin had dropped, and all the pugnacity seemed gone from him. He looked like a man succumbing to the iron logic of events, yet hating to acknowledge it. "And if we retreated to the southward, we would be a living army that could make terms."
"Maybe," Dick answered, and Beg Ali Khan looked glummer yet. Andry, though, was actually smiling. Dick looked from one man to another, betraying no symptom of emotion of any kind, except that his fingers were clenched tight on his sword-hilt.
"Have you any suggestion, Andry?"
"Na-na! I'll hauld ma breath to fecht wi'. I ken weel there'll be fechtin'!"
"Where, then? In which direction?"
"I dinna ken, an' I dinna fash masel'. I'm ready, an' that's enough! Point y'r finger, an' I'll gang alang an' fecht!"
"Have you no plan, Usbeg Ali?"
THE Afghan knitted his brows above the map as if he would devour it, shifting the lantern this way and that for a better view. Whichever way he looked, along whichever route, there seemed nothing but Cossack preparations for invasion. If they left the Elburz Mountain range behind, there would be no place that he could see where seven or eight thousand men could slip themselves and hide from Russia's swarms.
"Let us march straight across north Persia, then, bahadur, by forced marches, and rest with our backs against Afghanistan. There will be thousands from the fighting tribes of northern India to hurry to our aid, if only for the loot and the fun of a dig at Russia's ribs!"
"Not bad," said Dick. His hilt was clutched more tightly than ever, and Andry with a sidelong glance at it grinned to himself. He had known Dick in the schooldays, and he knew the child was father to the man.
"But that would be giving Russia a clear road, Beg Ali. They'd cut us off from the whole of Persia. Defeat would be inevitable sooner or later, and our only chance then would be to retire into Afghanistan or India. In either case we would have to surrender to the British Government, for the Amir wouldn't dare recognize us officially."
"Then wait for their advance, bahadur, and swoop down on their flanks as they go by! Let us do all the damage that eight thousand can do before we die like men!"
"Better, but not good enough!"
Andry had to put a hand over his mouth, to keep his chuckles to himself. One by one he recognized the signs, and knew that while Dick talked his brain was working out the last plan anybody else would think of, yet by miles the best.
"See here, Beg Ali. The Russian plans are for an invasion of Persia from the north and east of the Caspian. The troops from the northwest were to cross the Caspian, and they can't do that now because we've sunk their ships. But their objective remains the same. They will go by train around the north end of the Caspian and come down on the eastern side with the others, or behind them, if they're needed."
"That is evident, bahadur."
"They've made no plans on the basis of a possible reverse. They've calculated on swamping everything. These camps up here, where they're concentrated, aren't fortified; there are practically no forts anywhere that amount to anything. And the western side of the Caspian is open to us."
"Allah!"
Beg Ali Khan saw Dick's plan now, and gasped at the daring of it. "There's an enormous difference," said Dick, "between eight thousand men and five hundred thousand. We can live off the country. We can travel forty miles a day, which half a million can't do. We'll invade Russia! Raid like a whirlwind up the western shore of the Caspian! We may have the luck to capture Baku! In any case, Russia must send troops back around the north end again to meet us. Before they reach Baku if we want to run we can race back here, where we'll be stronger than ever. If we succeed at all, there'll be hundreds of thousands eager to join us when we get back. See the point? A raid, that will take Russia off her guard!"
"By the blood of God, but that will be the greatest wonder of the world!"
"If we stay in Persia, the Russians will use us as excuse for invasion," Dick continued, thinking out aloud. "But if we invade Russia we can at least delay their advance; and if Persia can't rise behind us then, Persia is too dead to care for!"
"And Persia is not dead!" swore Beg Ali. "She has only eaten Russian bribes until she is stupefied. A happening or two would awaken her!"
"Good! Get me twenty gallopers!" said Dick. "Twenty must start at dawn and pass the word all through the north! Pick me the best two hundred men we have to smut to the westward. Let our advance scouts leave at dawn; we'll follow them as soon as maybe! There are five hundred miles of trail ahead, and after that—the fighting!"
"Allah!" muttered Beg Ali as Dick folded up the map. He sat still, leaning against the table thinking and listening.
IT was barely midnight, but the darkness seemed awake, and the far-spaced pickets now shouted words that were not mere numbers. The tang of the camp-fire smoke grew stronger as some sleepers moved, listened to the shouting, and began to stir the embers. In a minute more the whole camp listened with held breath. There even came the sound of breech-blocks snapping home.
Dick heard a sharp command to halt, and an answering voice that was not East-em. The vowels of the farther West are unmistakable, even when midnight adds mystery to distance and unexpectedness robs men of their judgment.
"All right!" somebody remonstrated, in an accent that was neither clubland English nor yet less than gentlemanly. "They're up! Can't you see?"
There followed loud-growled orders and some crashing of the outer ring of forest, that proved precaution; by the sound, two or three hundred men passed to the rear of the arrival before Dick heard him ordered to advance. Then a horseman came careering out of blackness and reined in on his horse's haunches two yards from Dick's private hedge, with a bayonet exactly one-eighth of an inch away from his naked throat.
"Let him come!" commanded Dick.
The bayonet withdrew, and its wielder held the horse while the man dismounted.
"Amerikani!" said the horseman, salaaming low to Dick. Then, in broken English, "An American—he says—he has message." Then in Persian, "The commander of the guard says, 'Shall we bring him in or shoot him?'—"
"Bring him in," said Dick.
At a shout from Beg Ali some one came and threw fresh fuel on the fire; the sparks leaped up heavenward so that Dick's enclosure was all golden, and the three within it were silhouetted black against the night. Dick sat, and the others stood, as a rather fat man dressed in well-cut khaki was brought forward between a dozen guards.
"Whose are those?" demanded Dick.
"His pistols," said a Persian, laying down two automatics on Dick's table.
"Yours? asked Dick.
"Yes," said the American.
"Take them, then."
Only the care with which he did not betray surprise was evident as the man replaced his pistols in the holsters at his belt.
"Go!" commanded Dick, and the guard hurried away, back to the outer ring of gloom.
"My name is Jenison," said the newcomer, "Morgan L. Jenison."
Dick did not answer, but appeared to make a mental note.
"Am I right in supposing you are Richard Anthony?"
Again Dick did not answer. To a man whose only pride was in his worthiness to bear the name of Anthony the subject of his namelessness was painful, under all the circumstances.
"His name is No Name!" Beg Ali boomed; his voice was like an echo from the dead, so that the American could not resist a shudder.
"It was that that I came to speak about," he said, looking straight at Dick.
Dick did not answer. He could wait. Every line of his strong face, each bump and contour of his red head was a written proof that he could wait, and pass swift judgment when the right time came.
"I'm deliberately risking the charge of not minding my own business—of butting in!"
The American spoke like a gentleman. His voice was well controlled, and he had plenty of assurance without the least suspicion of ill-breeding. The only fault Dick found with him as yet was that, to use his own expression, he had butted in.
So far Dick had not addressed one word to him, either of encouragement or disapproval, yet the man had sufficient command of himself to seem at ease. Dick liked that, but did not choose to show it. Andry clucked behind him in dour Scots disregard. Beg Ali Khan looked savage, since he believed himself handsomest and most impressive so; he made a point of looking savage always, when there seemed nothing else particular to do.
"I've become acquainted with a lady who calls herself the Princess Olga Karageorgovich," said Jenison, watching Dick's face with lynx eyes, that yet were not inquisitive enough to arouse resentment. "She's in a bad way. She made me an offer which I accepted, and I've come to tell you what it is."
"I've nothing to do with her," said Dick at once.
"It's I who am offering to bargain," answered Jenison. "I've bought control, you must deal with me if you want to do business."
"I don't!" said Dick.
"Let me tell you what the business is? You might change your mind."
Dick nodded, The American looked left and right, at Andry and Beg Ali Khan.
"I've no secrets from these two men," said Dick.
"Well, that's your affair. I was in Teheran on business until recently, and I may say I've heard from a dozen sources about your campaign against the Russians. You've had my sympathy from the start. In America we don't admire Russian methods much. The man who told me most about you was named Lancaster; I understand you rescued him from a Russian jail in Astrabad. I don't know why he has it in for you, but I disagreed with several things he said, and we ended by differing entirely. But before we fell out he told me a lot, and I spent a good deal of thought shaking out what I took to be facts from what seemed imagination."
Dick looked very interested, which was proof that the American had made a good impression. Further proof was Dick's signal to Andry. The huge man carried up a chair.
"Take a seat," said Dick, and Jenison sat down, not failing to notice Andry's forethought; the chair was set where the brightest firelight would fall directly on him. At once Jenison turned the apparent disadvantage into gain, letting all his natural, national vivacity betray itself and giving Dick full view of a face that could not have played so freely and extravagantly had he been lying
"So, when this news of a European war came you seemed to me the most likely man within reach who could help me take a hand in it. At the American Legation they're in a state of nervous exhaustion trying to be neutral, and I'd have been arrested if I'd let out a hint of my intentions. But I managed to round up ten Americans, and what with their servants and some Englishmen we knew, and their servants, and some Afghans who had come through from Kabul to do business with me, I got together a party, fifty strong.
"We slipped out of Teheran at night before they had shut the lid down quite so tight as they've got it now. We headed straight in your direction, and on the way the boys agreed to elect me captain of the force. I accepted. I'm Captain Jenison at present, in command of fifty men."
Dick looked up, and stared at Beg Ali. The Afghan did not move.
"Didn't I give you orders?" Dick inquired. "Are those gallopers ready, and the scouts?"
"Pardon, bahadur!"
BEG ALI hurried out of the enclosure, and almost at once his voice split the night apart as he shouted for company commanders. The camp awoke and the amphitheater roared as the night roars over the bazaars of Nizhni Novgorod, or in Port Said when the battle fleets are coaling; it was the roar of will-be-readiness, that makes men and animals half drunk with eagerness to start.
"On the way," said Jenison, "I learned that we were close behind you. At all the villages we were told you were just ahead, preaching a 'jehad' against Russia—and you may believe me, Mr. Anthony, you've preached to some purpose! There was no pretense of enthusiasm! Man, they're, crazy to join you! I could have brought ten thousand with me, and I'd have done it if I'd been quite sure of my reception! Once I'd satisfied them we were riding to aid you, they treated us like princes!"
Dick, thinking, as his habit was, two for anybody else's one, and seeming to carry on two separate sets of thoughts at once, held up his hand for a pause. Then he took paper and a pencil and wrote in Persian.
"Give that to Beg Ali," he ordered, and Andry marched out of the enclosure.
"Go on," said Dick, and the American smiled, for that was Dick's first admission of real interest.
"I came on the Princess on the way. She was destitute in the hands of Persians in a filthy village about half way between Teheran and Astrabad. They had her in chains and I had a hard job; and we came as close to fighting as we could and miss. Finally I persuaded 'em I had your orders, and told 'em I'd burn the village if they refused. I gave them nearly all the cash I had into the bargain."
Something that might have been an oath escaped Dick, and Jenison allowed a grin to spread across his face. He was rather too fat but very good-looking when he grinned, and somehow one could not associate a lie or a meanness with his expression.
"On the way here she opened up to me, and I understand your sentiments toward her are not exactly cordial." He paused to chuckle, and Dick swore softly to himself. "She told me a lot. Said you would rather eat her alive than be polite to her. But I discounted that at rather more than the usual rate per cent, and conceded from what I've heard of you that you're not the man to leave any woman at the mercy of savages, or expect anybody else to do it! Am I right?"
Dick did not answer. He detested mere words about chivalry—believed only in the uttermost, far-fetched, quixotic deed. He loathed the Princess—shuddered at the mention of her name—wished her dead—and approved of this man's action. There was nothing to be said.
"She told me she daren't go back to Russia, because things she did for you have cost her the pull she had with the secret government. She says the least they'd do to her would be to send her to Siberia. I saw what the Persians were likely to do to her if I hadn't come on the scene. There was nothing for it but to take her under my protection. And I did."
He said the last three words with an inflection that meant more than a half dozen sentences. This man and Dick were almost as much foreigners as if one had been German and the other French. Their education had been different, their up-bringing, environment, and rules of the game; yet they arrived at the same conclusion in much the same way, and understood each other instantly.
"I don't envy you!" said Dick.
"It occurred to me you'd take that attitude. So I played safe. I've made quite a story about my being your man. They ended by believing me your deputy. If we can't come to terms now, I shall raise the whole countryside—not against you, you understand, but under my command and independent of you—and you'll find that awkward. My men are less than a half-mile away. I'll lead them away again if you prefer it, and—"
DICK'S eyes were twinkling, and Jenison cut short his argument. He recalled now that this strange, strong-faced man with the tawny hair was an outlaw, who had put to sea on stolen Russian ships and sunk a Russian fleet—scarcely a man to take chances with. And he had made no bargain in advance, nor made use of a white flag! He was a prisoner, unless Dick proved magnanimous! He turned at the sound of a heavy footfall approaching from behind, and saw Andry loom enormous into the firelight. Andry handed Dick his note back, and Jenison's sharp eyes detected writing scrawled across its face.
"Very well," said Dick, and Andry took stand again behind Dick's chair. Dick looked at Jenison and smiled with quiet amusement that was very aggravating. "In about ten minutes, Mr, Jenison, your men will be here."
"You mean you've taken advantage of my being here to capture them?"
"Exactly that," said Dick.
"Am I a prisoner?"
"Not at all," said Dick. "You may go if you wish."
"I call that quibbling!" said the American.
"You're free to call it anything you like!"
"Well. My case isn't stated yet. As I understand it, there is just one person in the world, or in this part of the world, who can swear to your identity. She is the Princess Olga Karageorgovich, and she has made terms with me. She can prove you are who you say you are, and that'll make the British Government see sense. Am I right?"
Dick did not even nod, but he looked very interested, and Jenison grew more and more certain of his ground.
"The Princess—who dares not go back to Russia because she is in possession of tremendous Russian secrets, and because of things she did for you—needs protection. For the time being her case and mine are one."
Dick smiled, but Jenison went on.
"Provided, then, that you accept me and my fifty, give us a fling at Russia, and recognize the Princess as a member of my party under my protection, I will guarantee that at the first opportunity she shall swear to your identity and to the details of Russia's treatment of you. Further she shall hand to you, to hand over to the British Government, all the official secrets in her possession in return for British Government protection for her later. Is it a bargain?"
"No," said Dick, evidently listening with both ears.
Jenison's face fell, for he was making no attempt to mask emotion. Evidently he was speaking truth, and offering terms he would abide by; just as evidently Dick was not so much as hesitating. The refusal was pointblank. Then Jenison too caught sound of the approaching tramp of men and horses, and the lines of his face showed speculation.
DICK left him sitting where he was and walked through the gap in his enclosure into outer darkness. In two minutes he was standing before a weary little crowd, who eyed him distrustfully, leaderless and out of heart.
Their weapons had not been taken away from them, and their rifles were all loaded, but they were surrounded at close range by so many men that fighting would have been suicide; only in front, where Dick stood smiling at them, was there room to move.
"Are you men Jenison's?" Dick asked.
"We are," said an Englishman with that voiced disregard of consequences that is the trade-mark of his kind and breed.
A woman—surely the Princess, even through her rags, for no woman in the world could sit a horse with half her grace—thrust her horse forward through the crowd.
"Dick!" she said; but Dick took no notice of her.
"Are you all Jenison's?" asked Dick.
There was a murmur of assent.
"Any man of you who would rather leave Jenison, hold up his hand and speak!"
There was neither voice nor movement.
"You really wish to be identified with him? You Afghans too? You Persians too?"
There was no possibility of mistake about the answer; their regard for Jenison was sound and steady.
"Very well. See that they have rations, Beg Ali. Quarter them beyond the artillery lines."
He strode back, in through the gap in his hedge into the firelight, and found Andry standing over Jenison, growling at him like a watch-dog at a tramp.
"I've warned ye! Move, an' y'r nex' move's tae y'r grave!" Andry was close enough to crush the American if he so much as looked at his pistols. "Ye're a fat man—y'r ribs are flabby—ye'd give inwards like a bladder! Hae a care!"
"That'll do," said Dick, and Andry stepped away. Unbidden, Jenison stood up, for he was aware of a new atmosphere that was as obvious as it was unexplainable. Without knowing why, he was certain that Dick had readied some conclusion, and he almost expected to be hustled away and shot.
"It's a pity you took such a high hand," said Dick, "and committed yourself so hopelessly with the Princess."
"I did what no gentleman could have helped doing," said Jenison testily. "It was because I understood you to be a gentleman that I left Teheran and led those good fellows to find you."
"Yes," said Dick. "And that's my reason for what I say now."
Jenison stared.
"You're responsible for the Princess, and I shall hold you so. Keep her under guard; see that she doesn't interfere with me, my men, or the woman who used to be her maid. On those terms, if you wish to follow me on this expedition I'll take your oath now. I warn you, it won't be a picnic party! Better think twice!"
"I'll come!" said Jenison.
"Hold up your right hand, then," said Dick. "Now, swear your own bond."
"I give my word of honor to obey you, and to lead my men as you direct, so long as your efforts are against Russia."
"Very well," said Dick, and Andry ducked as the two shook hands and looked into each other's eyes.
"He's a fat man!" muttered Andry. "He's no gude at a'!"
"Could your men handle guns?" asked Dick.
"I've four ex-British soldiers, and six Americans who've served in the States; I've two Americans who've actually made guns."
"Then, we're well met! I needed you! But I shall hold you strictly responsible for her! You understand?"
PROOF of the charm that the Princess Olga Karageorgovich possessed was that even in her tattered clothes, awry, wet and travel-stained, she still looked lovely. Proof of her tireless deviltry and unassuageable ambition was that even at midnight, in the armed camp of her enemies, she set about new mischief.
She seemed so constituted that the world must center on herself, revolve around her, and obey her whim if she were to have any peace at all; and her energy was such that even at peace she must be scheming for the mastery. Peace could only come of conquest. She was autocracy incarnate, out of date.
Dick too. was out of date in one way. His sense of chivalry was older than the everlasting hills, and equally untouched by "progress;" but he was ahead of his age in nearly all other things. He chafed at the hint of despotism—hated personal rule of any kind at all—and only accepted the leadership that had been thrust on him because he saw no other way of leading Persia on to liberty.
Watching him from the shadows cast by a crackling camp-fire, loving him with all the passion in her savage heart, yet hating him because he dared despise her, the Princess let her quick brain leap from point to point of impudent idea, until in a dozen minutes she was ready with a scheme which should reestablish her and either ruin Dick or else humble him and make him hers. He had put her out of mind.
Her nerve was back again. She knew herself better off as virtual prisoner in Dick's camp than as a fugitive at large in an uprisen Persia. And because the devil loves his own and does his best for them, circumstances seemed to play into her hands at once. As she sat on a rough-hewn camp-stool, looking like a humble Cinderella with her toes in the ashes, a woman passed her whom she recognized at the first swift glance.
"Marie!" she whispered; but the woman hurried on.
"Marie Mouquin!"
Now the wide world in its every social and national phase knows to its enduring sorrow what the weight of the temptation is to turn and talk. The old proverb about a scorched child not playing with the flame is even a bigger lie than most. Marie Mouquin, free from the Princess and beyond her reach, turned—just to sneer at her, and prove she was not afraid—turned, and was caught.
"Bah!" said Marie, with a lip that curled. There were no words, even in French, that were able to embody her contempt. Besides, in Dick's camp there was always a tendency to imitate his economy of words.
"Was I never good to you?" the Princess asked. "Did you ever go hungry in my service?"
Mother-pity took possession instantly of Marie Mouquin's will, whispering to her plausible bad logic about gratitude. She recalled, in a swift-flashed moving-picture reel, the thousand and one meals the Princess had shared with her, and what the little delicacies often had meant. How much more, then, must the lack of them mean now to her erstwhile mistress? She looked down at an untouched mess of greasy rice on a dirty wooden platter, and a second later she hurrying through the darkness, dodging here and there between the groups of armed men.
WITHIN five minutes she had snatched and put together half a dozen different sorts of food that had been prepared under her supervision for the wounded; and she arranged them on a white plate that was her own particular prerogative. Even Dick Anthony ate from native platters in that camp.
She called a messenger, gave him the dish, and then thought better of it. Curiosity and pity blended. Wisdom went to the winds, pushed out. She brought the food to the Princess with her own hands, and stood to watch her eat it—still with a sneer on her face. Perhaps flies sometimes sneer at spiders, when they go to see how ugly and how obvious a web can be.
The Princess did not look up. She ate daintily, and thrilled Marie Mouquin's generous little soul by the evident relish with which she ate. Her right foot came out from under a tattered skirt with a movement that seemed so unstudied that Marie Mouquin did not even notice it until more than the shoe appeared. Then—slave of habit as we all are—Marie Mouquin checked a little scream.
It had been her duty—more, her pride—year after year since the Princess was a girl, to see her most beautiful figure and shapeliest of limbs clad properly in garments fit for a Princess of Russia.
"Have you no stockings?" she gasped.
"One torn one," said the Princess between mouthfuls.
"Oh!"
Marie Mouquin had only one pair of her own, that she washed daily at a stream. She had them on that minute. They were darned nearly all over, yet so skilfully that they were soft still, and shapely. Without a second's hesitation she sat down on the earth and pulled them off. The Princess pulled them on with a matter-of-fact air, that did not lack gratitude but did not suggest the possibility of any other course.
Years of intimacy, during which no questions had ever needed to be asked, had taught Marie Mouquin just what questions to ask now; and since charity must follow understanding, the Princess's utter want of clothing appealed to her ex-maid more keenly than a wound would have done, or tears, or handcuffs.
"But I have no other clothes!" she wailed, wringing her hands in agonized gestures as she used to do when a milliner, perhaps, was twenty minutes late with some "creation." Sheer shame would not permit her to leave the Princess in such predicament, yet she could not take her own clothes off and go naked.
"There are only a Persian woman's clothes," she said after a moment; and she might have noticed, had she not been too distracted, that the violet eyes glowed brighter at the news.
"I could make shift," said the Princess. "I would be grateful."
ALMOST before the words had died Marie Mouquin was gone again, barefoot, at a run through the noisy camp. Andry, hurrying across the amphitheater with giant strides on some errand for Dick, intercepted her, picked her off the ground, and demanded to know what the bare toes meant. But she struggled free, slapped his face for his trouble, and ran away laughing.
She pounced on a Persian woman who was sleeping near the quiet lines when he wounded lay, and shook her into consciousness. She jabbered French to her, not a word of which the Persian woman understood. Suddenly she spied the woman's bundle of possessions, jumped on it, and hurriedly undid the string. The woman screamed and remonstrated, but Marie Mouquin's agile fingers opened the soiled cloth bag and drew a motley assortment of Eastern clothes out one by one.
Some she discarded instantly, as far too soiled or shabby. Some were too ostentatious. Some she threw into a little heap, and knelt on to prevent the woman from recovering them. At last there was a complete set of Persian clothing all together, and she began to bargain for it.
The woman would not trade—said so in pantomime—claimed that the clothes were her treasures, heirlooms, all she had, and priceless. Marie Mouquin dived into a hidden pocket, drew money out, and pressed it on the Persian woman without troubling to count how much it was; then she left the woman murmuring amazement, and hurried back. In a very few more moments there sat a Persian woman, veiled and mute, where the Princess Olga Karageorgovich, had been.
There were several who had seen the change, but few who noticed it, and there was nobody who thought it necessary to say a word about it to Dick Anthony, or even to Jenison in whose charge the Princess was known to be. Men were too busy talking to the other newcomers, packing their haversacks or whatever campaign food conveyance each had improvised, speculating, cheering one another—too busy lighting fresh torches to replace the old ones, and searching for lost comrades at other camp-fires—to worry about one woman, and she a prisoner.
There were horses to be cold-shod in the dancing, uncertain torchlight. Men whom Dick chose from among a hundred picked by Beg Ali went riding out of camp at dawn, downward toward the plains and Astrabad with a message of red rebellion for a waiting countryside. The word they were to preach was, "Tides turn! Russia's tide flows back!" The name they were to whisper, to be shouted again from village on to village, was, "No Name!" They bore the hot breath of excitement with them, and left greater excitement yet aboil in the caldron that had spewed them out.
And before the first pale rays of morning lit the peaks near by, two hundred men drew up, each standing beside his horse, to listen to a homily from Dick. .They were armed men—light men—horsed on the finest cattle yet looted from the Russian array. The Turkoman horses, girthed and loaded as a cavalryman's mount must be in spite of all his theories on riding light, strained at the bridles to fight one another as horse and man from Turkestan seem ever bound to do. The men, with the reins bound twice around wrists for safety's sake, stood still and silent. At their head was an Afghan, picked by Beg Ali from among his own personal following, the pride of being chosen for a post of danger exuding from him like X-rays.
"You men are scouts," said Dick, "not skirmishers. What I need to know is where the roads are, where are food and water. Later, I shall want to know where there are bodies of the enemy, but for the present we shall move too fast to need trouble about anything except what lies ahead. So, ride and report! Ride and report! And remember that the fate of this expedition lies for the present on your individual wakefulness!" "Salaam!" said the Afghan.
"Salaam!" said Dick.
"Salaam!" said the scouts together, and Dick answered their salute.
Then, up and over one ridge and then another one that walled one end of Dick's strange amphitheater, the advance of his amazing expedition rode in single file, westward, to turn northward when the south end of the Caspian was passed; and the camp roared a farewell to them that continued until the last horse stumbled over the rise and dipped beyond it.
It was then that Andry caught Marie Mouquin in his arms and lifted her again, for both went about their new day's duties at the first pale peep of day.
"Where are y'r stockin's, lass?" he asked her.
"Gone!"
"Gone where?"
"They were worn out."
"Ye didn't gie them tae a woundit man?"
She shook her head.
"Nor to a Perrrrsian wumman?"
"No."
"I hae ma doots o' the brand o' truth y're tellin'," he assured her. "Wuil. I'll steal ye a new pair at the first opportunity I get—mebbe a month fram noo! Now, listen to me—are ye listenin'?"
She nodded.
"Keep awa fra the Princess!" She nodded again, and he kissed her until she sobbed for breath.
THERE was a whole day yet before the real start was made—a long day—the longest and the least enjoyable in all Dick's life. Great men, for a reason that only they could tell of but that is itself reason enough for silence, seem to be gifted with unhappiness on the eve of their greatest effort. It is the quiet that goes before a storm. Perhaps it is the stage of receptivity in which they wait for strength.
There were things to be seen to by the hundred, each of them likely to be better done beneath Dick's eye, but not a fraction of which he could spare time for. He was busy each waking second, yet all he could do was superintend the supervision. He seemed never still; the men, busy with their preparations, saw him cross and recross the camp a hundred times, and each appearance was the signal for a new outburst of cheering. He was niggard of words, as ever; and almost for the first time since they knew him there was no smile to illuminate his face. Yet, no man in the amphitheater guessed what hell was raging in his heart; no man could understand him or be sorry for him. They exulted while he groaned inwardly.
True, Andry guessed a little of it, for he had held the boy Dick in his arms and had sat by the grown man's sick-bed. To him Dick dropped a word or two that were like drops of blood squeezed out of him. But Andry felt too much enthusiasm for the game ahead, and the blood of ever-raiding ancestors was coursing far too freely in his veins for him to have more than a very little sympathy for sorrow of any kind. His own heart was aflame with love; his love was near; and love is selfish.
Jenison guessed a little too, but only a very little. His confidence in Dick was growing apace, for a man of business can read character ten times more quickly than a mere diplomatist, and can read the outward signs of storm twenty times more quickly. But he misjudged the cause, while detecting the state of mind.
"Sore!" he told himself. "Sore as a bear! Sore at me—don't want me here, and can't get rid of me! Sorer still at the Princess, and can't get rid of her! Sorest of all because he can't see what the end'll be! Well—I'm in it for what comes of it—may as well die one way as another—but if he liked his chance better I'd like mine twice as well!"
To himself, in the loneliness that only great men ever know, and that is more terrible than that of outer space, Dick Anthony was praying just for comradeship—for one man who could look him in the eye and understand. He was thinking of the regiment of kilted men his father once had led, and that somewhere in Europe was being led now by some other man—he could name the man—against the Germans!
He was thinking of his rightful place in the van of Britain's army, of the quiet, astonishing humor of the mess, and of the hum of Scots ranks that is so different from all the other noises in the world. He would have rather been a subaltern in that one regiment of his dream, shot in the first fight, than commander-in-chief of any other army in the world. But he sweated his grief savagely, and saw to it that others sweated too, including Jenison.
JENISON proved to be a gift from the god of war to a man who could use gifts to their best advantage. His knowledge of Persian was deep—like Dick's, won in a university at home. His system of business—pugnacious was the word that he applied to it—made him in every essential except training a good soldier; and his keen mind, trained to follow pointers instantly and reason out the other fellow's likeliest next move, served him in better stead than his few months' training would a conscript.
He took charge of the guns, and set to work at once to pick the brains of all the men in the force who knew anything about them. Then he discovered things and taught them what they did not know; and at the end of a long grueling day he knew that he was ready to make men do what he never could have done himself. Dick, watching him without betraying the fact, coming on him unannounced, and asking shrewd unexpected questions, began to trust him; before night came he knew he had a man whom he dared order and then leave to find out how to put the order through.
It was obvious to anybody of discernment that there were spies in camp, Jenison thrashed one within an ace of his life for tampering with a gun-breech mechanism. Beg Ali Khan, released from his care of the guns and wandering about the camp with an eye for everything, pounced on several of them, and cut down one who tried to run, splitting his head from crown to chin.
But Dick expected to move too fast when he once got started to need to worry over what news filtered to his rear; there were almost no Russians now to the south of the Atrak river, and those few were scattered in small detachments that would dare do no more than pass the news along.
He gave out in the afternoon that he meant to swoop eastward for Teheran in three days' time; so at dusk some six or seven spies departed to carry that information, and no one was at any pains to follow them. By night there were not more than three suspicious characters remaining; they were hanging on, shamming enthusiasm for Dick's cause in case of a change of plan, and they were allowed to remain for exactly the same reason, since there is no surer way of fooling the enemy than by fooling his delvers after information.
Neither Dick nor yet Jenison made the mistake of overlooking the Princess Olga Karageorgovich. Beg Ali Khan rode over in her direction twenty times that day. Andry sought Marie Mouquin every half hour or so, kissed her, and asked questions. The Princess was the best-suspected woman in all Persia. Only they made the mistake of imagining their wits and watchfulness a match for hers.
Dick, sad to the verge of sickness, understood her sadness and respected it. He was neither surprised nor disappointed to learn that she was staying shut up in the tent assigned to her, and speaking to nobody. He gave orders that her ring of guards should keep a decent distance, and took good care not to cross her line of vision through the opening of the tent.
Jenison was just as pleased, and though he considered himself obliged to call to her occasionally as he passed and ask whether she lacked anything, he too kept himself aloof and out of sight.
DRESSED as a Persian woman—talking Persian reasonably well—and keyed to the highest pitch of cunning by desperation, the Princess, however, was a different creature, in a different mood, to the forlorn, disheveled woman who had ridden into camp With a knowledge that was half instinct and half the result of observation, she began almost at once to take advantage of the Eastern veil behind which women rule the East.
Within an hour of her change of costume she had overheard and guessed all of Dick's arrangements about women. It was as good as signing his own death warrant for any man in that camp to interfere with any woman; the women came and went unquestioned, so long as they kept within the limits of the camp.
There was nothing to be said, nor anything for the guard to report to Dick, when the woman whose clothing Marie Mouquin had commandeered came next day to see her dress on its new owner. It was no business of the guard or of anybody else that the woman stayed with the Princess in her tent and talked.
But on the other hand, it was a logical corollary that one of the remaining spies should be hand in glove with the Princess before the middle of the afternoon, and that without seeing her or trespassing within earshot of her tent. He would not have been dangerous had he been one of the suspected.
The woman came out of the tent, took a bucket of water, and asked a man to fill it for her after the strange new order of things that Dick had set on foot. The man, laughing at the thought of doing menial work in public for any woman, obeyed her; and on his return she whispered a word to him that set his ears tingling and his brain agog for a means of hearing more.
A little later he was carried to the hospital between the trees, where the wounded lay on rough beds under any kind of shelter that could be improvised. He was suffering by that time from a new disease whose nature Marie Mouquin could not diagnose. His chief symptom seemed to be terrific pain, that made him writhe and robbed him of the power of speech.
Gentle massage appeared to afford him some relief, and he was handed over to a woman presently with orders to massage him until he fell asleep. But after a little while her 'attentions began to aggravate the pain; and it was then, when he screamed with agony, that another woman—she whose clothes the Princess wore and for whom he had carried water—crossed over to suggest a different method.
Under the gentle ministration of her fingers the pain appeared to leave him; soon the second woman had him in charge altogether while the first looked on; soon Marie Mouquin saw the first woman sitting doing nothing, and sent her packing to attend to another case.
So, under a tremendous walnut tree whose steady drip-drip-drip drowned whispering and precluded eavesdropping—protected fully by Dick's stern prohibition of approach—under the very eyes of Marie Mouquin and the guards who hedged the hospital about—a man in the secret pay of Russia got in touch with the Princess who but a little while ago had been the mainspring of Russia's secret influence.
He happened to be a veteran in his service—one whom other spies obeyed by reason of a master-word he knew. And since spying, as Russia uses it, is a blending of iron system-with fine elastic art, he was not without resources on the spot nor means of using them. The spies who had left camp with the news Dick gave out for a blind were mere independent units such as any laud under the sun can furnish for any occasion at a moment's notice—mere pariahs eager to snatch at the penny bribes, The two remaining, though, were system underlings, known to the spy-chief if not knowing him.
So, when he begged to be carried down to the stream that he might wash himself, four men were pressed into the service of whom one knew enough to jump at a word let fall by the said-to-be-sick man—and enough more to resume his placid, uninterested look immediately afterward; then he listened with both ears, and unlike the others he did not draw aside while the said-to-be-sick man washed, He happened to be one of the men on night-guard duty. His place was by a dark rock in the middle of the far-spaced outer ring of pickets.
So he established communication that night with another man whose specialty was existence on the outer edge—a man who never trespassed into traps, but who could run like the desert wind and carry a message between a camel and his shadow;. and the result was that when Dick Anthony moved off at break of the following day there was a little train of very tired men, dusty and foot-sore, who followed at a distance, eating the jettison that always lies in an army's wake, and ready to run with as many messages as might be given them.
But long before that arrangement was complete, another and more complex one had been made within the camp. Messengers without messages would have been useless as messages without a meaning or authoritative source. There was need of a master-mind within the camp, free to make use of these links with the outer world. So at dusk, when the tired men lay by their arms and stared into the fires or talked or sang, and nobody within the camp was very-watchful, the woman whose clothes the Princess wore entered the tent and stayed there. And the Princess passed out among the shadows.
DICK ANTHONY, striding by five minutes later, asked a guard if all was well and was answered in the affirmative. Jenison, crossing the camp to sup with Dick by invitation, called out to the Princess by name; he received an answer from within the tent and went on satisfied.
"Poor devil!" he muttered. "She may have been a devil, but she's lost her nerve, and a devil without nerve has no more chance than a four-card straight."
But the devil, poor as Jenison had called her, in borrowed plumes, was making use that minute of borrowed liberty to find out for herself what chance she had. All she needed was one little chance, that a man perhaps might overlook. Princess of Russia, she was not greedy just then, nor over self-assertive. She was quite content to take advantage of Dick's quixotic blanket orders about women, and to shelter her identity beneath a Persian veil.
Men passed her, and some greeted her; but it was none of their affair whither she was going nor why she did not answer; it was conceded to be safest in that camp not to have anything at all to say to any woman, so the men did not turn their heads to look twice at her. Sincere imitation of Dick Anthony was half their reason; fear of him the other half. Under men like Dick, good women have a chance to be good, but the bad ones may find advantages to seize.
Andry, who ate by himself in a hurry, gnawing a big bone like a hound and hurling it away into the darkness for the jackals to find and quarrel for, sat later swearing at Dick's order that forbade visiting his sweetheart after dark. Good Calvinistic morals had been beaten into him before he was old enough to fight back, and Scots regard for the outside of propriety was his birthright ; he would have been the first to cite Holy Writ had anybody else dared hint at love when the light had waned. But his Marie seemed different from anybody else's girl, and his love far truer than the ordinary mortal's.
So he grew disgruntled; and there was only one remedy for that. From a bag that was growing shabby he drew out Dick's bagpipes, and the dark began to hum like an angry hornet-swarm as the drones gave tongue. Then a melody tripped forth from the chanter, picked gladsomely by dancing fingers that could each have snapped an ordinary fellow's wrist. The men beside the camp-fires, some of whom had long grown used to Highland tunes, took up the refrain and thundered words to it that Robbie Burns never so much as dreamed of. Within ten minutes the camp was alive with song, and aglow with fires that threw leaping, ghoulish shadows.
Rain came down—not the steady downpour of a couple of thousand feet below, but a swishing, ice-cold savagery that shrieked through the lines in advance of a whip-lash wind and boiled in the smoky fires. But the song continued and the bagpipes skirled and shrieked. More fuel was heaped on the discouraged fires, and the din became jollier because there was more need of joy, and they were soldiers.
The shadows grew blacker and the men less watchful. All eyes were for the bright spots where the fires glowed hot—even Dick Anthony's. He sat beneath a canopy outside his tent, with his chin on a hand, in no brown study but fighting hard with the homesickness that had him by the throat, and the even greater sick yearning for recognition by men whose personal opinion of him mattered. Nothing could have induced him to turn his back now and forget his promise to lead the little army; but he was bitter with the knowledge that whatever came of it his own motives were sure to be misconstrued.
His guards, thrusting their bayonets in here and there, were the only men on the alert within the amphitheater, and even they kept a less bright lookout than before the cold rain came. At intervals they shrugged up underneath whatever shelter they could find, to warm themselves, and when at last they saw Dick Anthony draw out a plan, lay it on a table at his side and grow absorbed in it, they almost ceased from their activity.
IT was not very difficult then for a woman in dark Persian costume to crawl close to the hedge and peer through it undetected. It was not very difficult for the two clearest, most desperate violet eyes in Asia to recognize a map—nor presently, when Dick raised it to see better, to recognize—the map. The Princess gasped and nearly gave herself away.
She was so astonished that she tripped and made a noise, and she was so unnerved by her discovery that she all but let herself be caught by the sentry who ran and thrust his bayonet into a place still warm from her body heat. She lay in a mud-pool, with her breath held tight, for longer than seemed possible; and when she crept away at last her knees trembled and she staggered through the darkness, all but overwhelmed.
For it is traitors who are most affected when they find themselves .betrayed.
She had thought Marie Mouquin's love for the giant Andry the sole reason for her presence in Dick's camp, and she had thought the woman's seizure in front of Astrabad due to no more than Andry's wishfulness. But if a map to which only the maid, besides herself, could ever have had access was in Dick's hands, what other secrets might not be his? How was she not unarmed? What had she to bargain with, if Dick knew all already?
She hurried now. Numbness gave place to exasperation, and her quick wit goaded her to take the only line left that held out any chance of her succeeding. It was she who must succeed, not anybody else. She could not, for instance, have let Dick succeed, uninterfered with, and have trusted to his generosity to shield her afterward. It must be she who held the reins and she who doled out pardons—she who dictated terms in the end. And, as her wit returned in a hot wave while she dodged among the shadows, she thought she saw a way of stealing a march on Dick and bringing him at last to beg of her.
She blushed, all muddied and bedraggled and unseen, as she reflected how long Dick Anthony would have to beg.
She regarded her given word to Jenison, provided she thought of it at all, as subterfuge. She was thinking of nothing but the game she had to play, and as she fell panting into her tent and lay on the earth inside, she clutched at the Persian woman and held her tight, as if she could draw strength from the plump warm body.
Andry's bagpipes were still skirling, and Dick sat poring yet above his plan under a canopy that rested on smoke-blackened poles, too full of the thoughts that burn a man to endure the confines of his tent. Jenison slept, dog-weary. The men thundered songs that some one improvised to Andry's tune. The outer pickets yelled their numbers at the night.
"No Name!" she muttered, refusing to let the frightened Persian woman go. "He is No Name, is he?"
She had seen the villages along the road from Teheran aburst with enthusiasm for Dick Anthony. Before Jenison had rescued her she had heard the Persians boast. So, though she did not believe that the information given out would be exactly right, she nevertheless believed that Dick intended a swoop on Teheran. In Teheran was the British Minister—the man whose recognition of Dick Anthony would be enough to establish his identity and his unblemished honor. In Teheran was the only available market-place for Russian official secrets.
Her Golden Rule, that told her "Impute to others what you certainly would do yourself," assured her that Dick Anthony intended to offer those Russian plans to the British Minister in return either for forgiveness or some form of recognition. And since that map and those plans were the essence of the contemplated Russian treachery there would he no more market after that for anything that she herself could tell.
"Go! Send me Marie Mouquin!" she said grimly, and the Persian woman started as if whipped, for the words came from between thin lips, propelled by desperation.
THE woman disappeared between the tent-flap and the Princess rose, to stand waiting beside the entrance in an attitude that changed each instant as she hesitated between a choice of force or soft persuasion. Finally, pattering through the dark slush, Marie Mouquin caught her undecided and checked a little scream as she saw the Princess's face by the lantern light.
"Mother of God!" she murmured. "Are you ill?"
"No," said the Princess. "Come! Listen to me! No, don't be afraid! Come in!"
She pushed and pulled her in; then stood with her back to the entrance, holding the lantern she had snatched out of Marie's hand.
"You love, don't you?"
Marie Mouquin did not try to suppress her instinct to glance sideways. She was listening to the lilt of Andry's tune that came from the far side of the camp.
"Ah! You are lucky! You have won your love! He takes you in his strong arms, doesn't he? How many times?"
"I—what do you mean? I—"
"How did you win your love?"
"He won me! What do you mean?"
"Whose maid were you when you met him? Under whose protection? In whose pay?"
The maid shuddered at the recollection, but her eyes stared straight into the Princess, and there was creeping over her a sensation she remembered all too well—of inability to disobey—of disinclination to think for herself—of reason running away from her and leaving mental lethargy behind.
"How did you reward your love? Think! With whose property? Was that right? Was that honest? Was that likely to cause happiness? Was that well omened? Was it wise to steal to make a present to your lover? Was it grateful of you to steal those plans from me, and send them to my enemy? Yes! Your lover—your Andry MacDougal—is my enemy! But for him and his dog-watchfulness, I might have won my lover long ago!"
The maid shrank back from her, but the Princess held the lantern up and followed, pressing close.
"Do you know why I dare not go to Russia?"
"No," said the maid, and it was the truth,
"Do you know why I am here?"
Marie Mouquin thought she knew the answer to that. Just as Andry MacDougal would be lode enough to draw her anywhere, she had no doubt but that the Princess Olga Karageorgovich had followed Dick, and would follow him until the end. But she chose to hold her tongue for, as she thought, a picture of Dick Anthony came up before her brain—of a sad Dick Anthony, whose eyes were weary for something that she knew neither she nor the Princess could understand.
"I dare not go to Russia because Anthony has that map. I am here—to—get—the map!"
"No-no! I will not listen! I must get out of here! Let me pass!"
"It was you, Marie Mouquin, who stole that map! It was you who sent it to Andry MacDougal; he who gave it to Anthony! I am responsible for it; I am ordered to recover it. So I am here—to deal with you and your man Andry! Yes—you hear me rightly—you and your man Andry! Listen! No, listen! Andry MacDougal dies tonight, unless I get that map first and the plans that go with it!"
IT was Beg Ali Khan, weary of telling tales to men who would have listened eagerly to twice as many, who took upon himself to hurry the army off to bed.
"Tomorrow a long, hard march! Battles ahead of us!" he warned, striding in and out between the fires with the lower end of a scabbard showing under his long military cape. "To bed! To sleep! Allah bless me, are ye flies, to buzz where the light is? Flies, moths, or women—which?"
Constant reiteration of that reference to women brought the Princess Olga Karageorgovich to mind, and with thought of her there came uneasiness. Uneasiness, to a man of his martial type, was the same thing exactly as an inspiration to investigate. Inspiration meant prompt action.
Beg Ali Khan splashed hurriedly across the camp, taking no notice now of men who greeted him from under rough bough shelters or who poked their heads from under blankets to offer to march sleepless on the morrow if he would but stay and tell them another tale. His eyes were on a tent in which a light shone low, and cast an unexpected shadow. Used to the dark, he saw what the tent guards seemed to miss, a figure that slipped out of darkness and dived through the tent-flap on all fours.
As he hurried he saw the light inside begin to move, and almost as he came abreast of the tent he saw a Persian woman leave it in a hurry, running as if a ghost were after her. The light inside went out, so he knew that the tent had another occupant; she might be Princess, and she might be a substitute, but he chose to wait and see yet what the minutes might explain.
"I am not here! I am a shadow—" he growled at the guard who showed signs of wanting to speak to him. He knew what the guard would say, word for word, about Dick's orders relative to women.
Soon Marie Mouquin came, carrying a lintern. He heard her checked scream as she passed inside the tent. He saw her swing round and pushed backward, and the snatched lantern held nearly level with her eyes. And he heard words in Russian, that *ere enough for him. In another second he was gone, as the bats go, swift and dumb.
He loosed a horse from the long line, staked down the middle of the camp, and spurred him bareback to Dick's tent to save urgent seconds.
"Bahadur!" he urged, falling from the horse and stumbling forward. "Come, Come and listen! Come and see!"
"What?" demanded Dick, folding the map.
"Come! I said from the first it is foolishness to trust a woman! Come and see! Come and listen!"
Dick pocketed the map, and his face was eloquent of utter detestation of the business on which Beg Ali summoned him.
"If this proves a bubble, Beg Ali, I'll prick your pride as well!" he threatened.
"A bargain, bahadur!"
"Lead on!" commanded Dick.
So the two strode back through whistling darkness, sheltered from the rain under cloaks that could not hide them, for there was no other man in all Persia who could walk like Dick, nor any who could swagger more than Usbeg Ali Khan even in a hurry. They were recognizable on the instant to men so far away that only their faintest outline could be glimpsed against the light of a dull red fire. But Dick had a hand up as he came, and no one challenged or saluted him.
He passed within the circle of the guards and came to a stand six feet from the tent, on the side where a double shadow moved in time to a wavering light. He heard Russian voices, talking Russian; and not by any means for the first time he thanked the instinct which had warned him to conceal his knowledge of Russian from everybody. Not even Andry or Beg Ali Khan knew that he knew Russian. Had the Princess known the fact, she would surely have chosen some other tongue in which to twist her skein of intrigue while in Dick's camp.
Beg Ali Khan, listening with both ears closer to.the tent than Dick, writhed with anxiety because he feared Dick would miss the true meaning of it all. What was an interpretation afterward from memory compared to the true tale carried by a man's own ears and understanding? He sweated with hot rage because Dick knew no Russian!
And Dick stood still, convinced, yet quite in control of himself. He held his sword-hilt tight, as if to remind himself that he was still a gentleman although eavesdropping by a woman's tent. Word for word, threat added on to threat, persuasion piled on argument, and coaxing intertwined through all of it, he heard each word that passed.
"Andry MacDougal dies tonight," he heard, "unless I get that map and the plans that go with it!"
"I dare not! I won't! I will warn Andree—you can not kill him then!"
"Russia has a long arm, Marie! Also—the night has eyes—"
"And ears!" thought Dick, hating himself because he had to listen. "Why doesn't Marie Mouquin call for help?" he wondered, not knowing what mental ascendancy the Princess had reasserted for the moment.
"But what will you use them for?" asked Marie, and Dick saw one half of the moving shadow stiffen, as if the Princess felt encouraged.
"For what but to rehabilitate myself? I dare not go back without them! They would kill me if I did! Listen, woman—I do not care to rob you of your man—you may have him! I am done with you, ingrate! But are you such an ingrate that you can withhold my chance from me? Get me that map—those plans—and you shall never see nor hear from me again! I swear it!"
"But you never tell the truth!" said Marie Mouquin, and Dick smiled grimly in the dark.
"You don't believe me? Listen! Look me in the eyes! So! Now, you don't believe me? Or—do you believe me, Marie Mouquin?"
"No!" said a brave voice.
"Ingrate!" said the Princess savagely. "Then listen! It will be enough if you bring me the package sealed. You shall see me give it to a man who will deliver it leagues away to the right people. Do that, and I will call off the man who has orders to kill Andry MacDougal tonight—Marie!"
"I can not! I do not even know where it is!"
"He is reading the map—under the canopy before his tent. Oh yes he is, for I have seen him—yes, I, with these eyes tonight! He is reading what he should not read! He is reading what was meant for Russia's eyes alone! He is reading what must not reach the eyes of the British Government! And the price of what he is reading, Marie Mouquin, is the life of your man Andry now, tonight!"
Andry's bagpipe music that had been skirling loud and angry over all the camp ceased suddenly, as if it had been cut off sharp at its source. Nor did it resume. Its absence, and the fact that every voice in camp ceased suddenly in sympathy, made the night seem a wall of silence. Only the horses stamped at their picket-ropes, and one horse neighed like a great ghoul laughing. The voices in the tent died down, though Dick could hear whispering, and in a minute more Marie Mouquin crept from the tent stealthily, leaving the lantern behind her.
DICK watched her go, then beckoned Beg Ali, and the two strode off in a slightly different direction, keeping in shadow and behind the maid. Then after a moment Dick began to hurry, striding along on the arc of a short circle through the camp so fast that Usbeg Ali could not speak for trying to keep pace.
"Did you hear what was said, bahadur? Did you understand any of it? Or shall I tell?" he managed to gasp.
But Dick, with his eyes on the alert to pierce each shadow, did not seem to hear him. He reached his own enclosure, and passed in. He seemed surprised, though not displeased, to find Andry there waiting for him; and the fact that a miserable-looking Persian shrunk away from Andry, held in a grasp from which two men his size could never have won free, amused him.
"Already?" he asked aloud, and not a soul knew what he meant. "Now, Beg Ali!"
He went through a form of listening while the Afghan told him word for word, with dozens of added words, what had transpired in the tent, and he did not even smile at the wild insertions.
"What is it, Andry?" he asked, when the Afghan had finished.
"This—" he shook his captive, and the poor wretch screamed—"mus' be a spy. He'd a knife on him—here 'tis—this. I snatched it."
"Did he try to knife you?"
"Na-na! He was waitin' crouched up close behind me i' the shadow."
"Stand him here!" commanded Dick.
The shrinking wretch was swung off his feet and planted again in front of Dick, and Dick took his elbow off the table to stare at him better and more sternly.
"Tell me!" he commanded, sitting upright suddenly and speaking with a voice that was a series of quick explosions. "Had you orders to kill this man?"
"No, no, no!" said the Persian. "None! The order was to wait, and not to kill until a word was given!"
"What word?"
"One was to call out 'Aieeieeiee, my head, my head!"
Dick smiled.
"He would shout that from the hospital, of course?"
"Aye, from where the sick lie." Dick smiled again.
"Andry," he ordered, "get your girl!"
Andry's jaw dropped and he hesitated in amazement.
"You'll find her behind the hedge at my back! Quick man!"
Big as a bull, and heavy for his size, Andry could move like a landslide when he chose, or Dick's order called for it. He hurled himself past Dick, and took the branch fence at a bound, turning sharp back as he landed and pouncing on somebody who squealed.
"It's her!" he gasped, more astounded than his captive.
"Bring her in!"
There was a struggle as he lifted her—a sharp smack as she slapped his face—a squeal as she was crushed into subjection in great iron arms that could have held four of her helpless. Then Andry jumped the fence again with his girl held tight against his breast, and in another moment he had set her on her feet in front of Dick.
"Wasn't there a man," asked Dick quite casually, "who went into hospital today with something unusual the matter with his head?"
Marie was inclined to pout and sulk, for it is not the acme of delight for a woman—and she in sole charge of a whole department of a camp—to be caught in the act of skulking near the commander's tent. Shame gripped her, so she began to behave like a spoiled child. But Dick's manner disarmed her before she had begun, and she found herself answering him naturally, without reserve.
"He'll recover before the morning," Dick assured her.
"I think he is very ill," said Marie.
Dick took no notice of her answer. He was staring into the fire and drumming on the table with his finger-ends, humming softly to himself.
"Send Jenison!" he ordered suddenly. "Yes, you Andry. Hand your prisoner to the guard and have him held in irons. Go and wake Jenison, and hurry!"
FOR five minutes Marie Mouquin stood beside Dick under his smoke-blackened canopy, studying his face and forgetting that she herself had been caught in the act of spying. Long ago she had ceased to wonder why Andry, and other men, loved Dick better than their lives or their own girls. But she wondered why she did not feel afraid. Andry, her own love, was a giant of strength, and of more than mere strength of muscle; but she dared slap Andry's face. She had to feel reverent to Dick, though Dick was younger than herself!
She was startled out of reverie by the approach of Jenison, screwing his face up and unscrewing it to get the sleep out of his eyes. He did not speak; he stood still in front of Dick, looking from him to Marie Mouquin and then back again.
"About the Princess," said Dick, and Jenison looked startled.
"I'm responsible!" he answered, the sleep not quite yet gone from him; he was game, even if he was only half awake.
"I know you are! She's making trouble. It has got to stop!"
Jenison began to look exceedingly uncomfortable, and Beg Ali Khan's white teeth displayed themselves in a wide grin of amusement. Andry clucked softly to himself. Dick waited for an answer, but Jenison was wise and held his tongue.
"If the Princess gets what she wants," said Dick, "and asks to be let go, will you be content to let her go? I mean, will you consider yourself absolved from the duty of protecting her?"
"Yes, if I get your meaning rightly. If there's no rider to it—if you mean exactly what you say—yes—of course yes."
"That's all," said Dick.
"No, it's not all! I've a right to know what's going on! If I'm answerable for her, I'm answerable for what you do to her!"
"I'll do nothing to her," said Dick quietly, and Jenison began to let his temper rise.
"Then, what d'you mean?" he asked with the tone of a man who would draw his sword for twopence.
Dick ignored the tone of voice completely, but answered him at once.
"Whatever is done will be done by her."
"I'll have to withdraw my consent," said Jenison. "I dare say I made a mistake, but I gave her my word that I'd protect her. My word's good."
There was no doubt that Dick liked the man, any more than that Andry did not like him. Andry was jealous, as he was of every one who made a favorable impression on his master; he stood clucking and muttering about the weaknesses of fat men.
Dick smiled, so enigmatically that none—¦ neither Beg Ali Khan, nor Andry, nor the maid, nor Jenison—knew what he would say or do.
"If she left the camp of her own free will," said Dick, "would you feel it your duty to follow her?"
"I don't know what you're driving at!" said Jenison.
"I'll tell you. Tomorrow she'll be begging us to let her go, supposing that she hasn't given us the slip in the meanwhile. Will you agree to let her go?"
"That would depend. If I thought she were being frightened away, why no, I wouldn't. I want it understood I'm her friend until she can find a better."
Dick drummed on the table again with his finger-ends, and the dancing firelight showed that there was laughter in the comers of his eyes. His mouth quivered a little, as if he had checked a grin.
"All right," he said suddenly. "The arrangement suits me. Would you like to change the guard around her tent, or anything like that?"
"What for?"
"To satisfy yourself that I do nothing to her?"
"No. Why should I?"
"You're responsible," smiled Dick.
"D'you mean to try to frighten her?" asked Jenison, looking Dick straight in the eyes; and Dick said "No."
"Then, what's it all about?"
"I wished you'd satisfy yourself no wrong was being done her, that's all."
"I remember I have your word on that," said Jenison stiffly.
"Good night," said Dick. "You may take my word for it implicitly."
Jenison stalked off.
"I'll see her in the morning, first thing," he said curtly over his shoulder.
In the space of ten short minutes he had rather lost conceit with Dick. It struck him Dick bad had him called from well-earned sleep for nothing.
"LISTEN, bahadur! This is madness!"
Beg Ali Khan leaned over the table and rapped his fist on it for emphasis. His white teeth showed between his beard in what was not a smile, and the whites of his eyes gleamed savagely. Andry MacDougal took a step toward him, with his fingers spread and crooked for action, but Dick made a sign to him and he stepped back again beside his girl.
"I have told you what she said, and here is the other woman to confirm my words! Put her to the question. Make her tell what the Princess said to her! Why harbor two spies—two snakes—two—?" He used a word that should not pass a man's lips in the presence of a woman.
"That'll do!" said Dick.
"The camp is lousy with spies!" swore Beg Ali, lapsing into his own tongue.
"There will be two spies less by dawn!" Dick assured him. "Go to the hospital and take a look at the man who pretends to have pains in the head. Take a few men with you, and take care that he doesn't notice that you're looking at him. I want to be certain that the man gets well away when he makes a run for it. I don't want him shot or captured. Understand?"
"Bahadur, give me leave to make a fire—a big one!"
"What for?" asked Dick.
"I would throw the Princess, and this woman here, and that spy in it who has a pain in his head! There would be an end of nine-tenths of our trouble!"
It was well for Beg Ali that he spoke in a tongue which Andry could not understand, for Andry was a literal-minded man who would have taken him in earnest; and when Andry struck a man, most often something broke. But Dick laughed.
"You have your orders," he said quietly, and the Afghan swaggered away muttering.
Then Dick turned on Marie Mouquin, and for a second she felt her heart jump to her throat, for he looked sterner than she had ever seen him. It might have been the firelight and the gloom that made his face seem so inhuman, but she trembled in her skin and even the touch of Andry's hand did not put her at her ease.
"Whose side are you on?" he asked her suddenly, and she did not know how to answer him, for she was spellbound.
"That woman's? Russia's?"
She shook her head. Words would not come.
"Then do exactly what I say! Understand? Exactly! Go to her tent one hour from now. Tell her you've watched me. Tell her I'm reading what she wants. Bring her here and show her. Then offer to steal the plans. Steal them, when you see the chance. Yes, steal them. But keep her to her terms! Insist that the plans leave camp within an hour! Give her no time to make any other disposition of them. Threaten to tell me otherwise. D'you understand?"
"Yes sir."
"Then, repeat what I've told you." Word for word she repeated his orders. "Go and do it!"
"Yes sir."
"Good night, Andry!"
"Mr. Dicky!"
"Well?"
"Wull there be no risk o' a sentry jabbin' his bayonet into Marie?"
"No! I'll see to that."
"Gude nicht then, Mr. Dicky!"
ANDRY strode away into the night, his great feet sploshing into pools and squelching out again, marching like a dozen men. Two hundred yards from Dick's enclosure he found his bed, stowed snug beneath a tent-fly stretched over a machine-gun. Five minutes later he was snoring in it, with his wet boots on, making the most of opportunity and perfectly content to leave his girl in Dick's hands.
The minute he was gone, Dick sent his sentries all away. Nothing loath, they hurried to snuggle into blankets by the different fires that claimed them. Then Dick went inside his tent and stayed there for ten minutes.
The rain was coming down again in torrents, and the wind shrieked through the camp as if mountain furies were out hunting for lost souls; but he came out with his cloak on, and. sat down beneath the fluttering canopy by a fire that spat and sputtered. He pulled out a bulky package from beneath his cloak presently—extracted a paper from it—spread it on the table—and settled down, or seemed to, to a night of study.
It is possible that he was listening as well as studying. He may have been only listening. He was certainly awake. It seemed a very long time before he arose at last and folded up the paper; and then he did a very strange thing.
He slipped the paper back into the package, and tied the package with a string. Next he put the whole into a little steel cash-box that had lain on the table under the cape of his great cloak. It was a very strong steel box that once had held the papers of a Russian regiment. He locked the cash-box, and put the key into his pocket.
Then, leaving the steel box on the table, in the full light of a lantern and the flickering fire-blaze, he walked out of his enclosure, not troubling to look behind him once. He did not even turn or start when something caught in a projecting twig of his bough fence. He walked straight ahead, and was swallowed by the many-shadowed night. Men said later that he went to the horse lines and was seen there giving orders.
MAIDS—since there first were maids and mistresses—have made a study of the art of small deceit, and Marie Mouquin had enjoyed so many opportunities when maid to the Princess of applying the art she learned that she had reached adeptness. She knew the Princess—knew what would arouse suspicion, what contempt, and what exasperation. Above all she knew exactly how to be convincing.
Wet to the skin and shivering, she ran through the dark to her own tent, where she took off her clothes and wrung them. A minute or two before the hour had passed she pulled on the still damp garments, and ran out into the night with all her speed to make sure she would be out of breath.
"Imbecile!" the Princess hissed at her, as she dived into the tent, under the eyes of guards whom Beg All had instructed to see nothing. "How long have you been? Where are they? Where are the plans? Give them me!"
"He reads them yet! I have watched him all this time; he sits and reads them. Can I snatch them from him? Bah! You are mad! And I am wet through! I am not afraid of you—I am afraid of him—of Anthonee—I will do no more!"
"Did you kiss your dear Andry a last farewell?" the Princess asked her sweetly. "Have you thought how he will look with a knife in his back?"
Marie Mouquin burst out sobbing, and threw herself on her knees.
"I am afraid!" she moaned. "I am afraid! What shall I do? What can I do?"
"There is only one thing you can do," the Princess assured her pleasantly, prying loose the fingers that clutched at her Persian trousers.
"There is nothing I can do!" sobbed Marie. "Come with me and I will prove it to you."
"The tent is guarded," said the Princess.
"The guards are asleep."
"Are you sure?"
"I know it. They sleep leaning on their arms."
The Princess drew the tent-flap open and peered out, but all was black darkness except for the glow of a fire a hundred yards away. Against it, with his face toward it, she could see a rifleman squatted on the ground with his rifle up-ended in front of him; if he were not asleep he was imitating sleep extremely thoroughly.
"Come! Show me!"
The Princess slipped through the opening, not flinching for a second when the cold rain came driving into her face. Marie slipped out after her, seeming to drag back, and not needing to pretend to be afraid, but after twenty yards of hurrying through whirling, whistling, wet blackness Marie gathered courage and began to lead, and presently they lay together very close to the place where the Princess had escaped a bayonet thrust not long before.
They lay for ten minutes, watching Dick Anthony; and he sat still, studying what lay before him on the table. They saw him rise—saw him lock the papers in the small steel box—and saw him walk away, leaving the steel box on the table.
"Now!" said the Princess savagely, gripping Marie Mouquin's arm with fingers that seemed to burn, so that the maid barely repressed a scream. "Now, imbecile! Go get it! Bring that box and save your man!"
MARIE made a dash for it, for the Princess might forestall her otherwise, and she was afraid too that she might laugh unless action brought relief. Hysterical excitement had her in its grip. Her dress caught in a twig and tore; she heard the Princess curse her in fierce whispers; but she hurried—on through the gap in the fence through which Dick Anthony had passed—straight past the fire, to the table—grabbed the box, and ran!
She ran as she had never moved in all her life—as if grim death himself were after her—back by the way she came, past the Princess, on into the night.
"Stop!" the Princess ordered her, "Give it me!"
But Marie Mouquin hurried on, and the Princess had to follow. The direction she took was toward the hospital where her own tent stood not far from the other women's. The cold rain beat in her face, and the wind snatched away her breath; there was a stitch in her side that felt like the dagger meant for Andry, and the shoes chafed her stockingless feet until she seemed to run on spikes. But she fled like a ghost, afraid—afraid that the Princess would discover she was laughing!
She took a header into her own tent, and fell prone on the rough bough bed, clutching at the blankets and biting them. The Princess burst in after her, too out of breath to speak. She sprang on Marie, clutched her neck, and groped for the box with her other hand.
So desire to laugh died out of Marie Mouquin to give place to desperation. She fought for a minute like a tiger-cat. She struck the wrist that tried to hold her, bruising it with the edge of the steel box. What she fought for was breath—time to get her breath, and name her terms.
"Listen!" she hissed, throwing the Princess free and gasping as she stared through the dark to guess her enemy's next move. The pains each woman took to fight in silence made the tension doubly terrible.
"You said—" Marie gasped so that her words were like explosions, and the Princess shuddered at the risk of being overheard—"you would be satisfied—if this—if these papers—go away—by messenger. Who is your messenger?"
"Give me the box! I will give it him!"
"No! No! No! I will not! I will give it to your messenger. I—with my own hands—I will give it him! I will not have this in camp—a minute! It shall not be found on you or on me! It must be sent away—at once!"
"Imbecile! Ingrate! I tell you I will send it away at once!"
"I don't believe you! I have heard too many lies! Move toward me and I scream! Yes—I will scream! I will warn Anthonee! I will tell him all! Then you will not kill my man, and will have no plans!"
There were beginning to be symptoms of hysterics that were recognizable even in the darkness of that tent, with the rain drumming on the outside to drown all minor sounds. And the Princess knew enough of her maid to know when her ultimatum had been reached.
"Have it your own way!" she panted. "Find me the man who has a bad head—Hussein Khalil—find him!"
"Stand back, then! No—out of the tent! Outside with you!"
The Princess walked out, seeing she had no alternative, and followed Marie through the mud and rain at what the maid considered a safe distance.
"There is your man!" said Marie suddenly, pointing to an open-sided hut of boughs and mud, within the deeper gloom of which a man swore horribly at dripping water. "Go and give him directions! I wait here."
So the Princess went ahead, and what she said inside the hut was whispered too low for Marie to overhear, though she tried her best. In about a minute the Princess and her man came out together, the man still swearing at the rain. It was much too dark far any one to recognize them. They both approached Marie, but she stepped backward.
"No!" she commanded, raising her voice louder than was comfortable for either of the other two. "One at a time!"
"Let me kill her!" swore the man in Persian.
"No, no, she will scream!"
"If you have given him his orders," said Marie, "let him come alone. Go you away—back to my tent!"
TREMBLING with fury, for obedience was not her favorite vice, fiercely though she exacted it from others, the Princess did as ordered. Then the man approached Marie, and she held the box out to him. He snatched it and made a swipe at her with his closed fist, but she stepped back and be missed her. With an oath that only filthy lips could mouth, he ran then for the horse lines and found his way there in the dark with a speed and accuracy that were proof of preparation. He seemed surprised to find the end horse ready saddled and bridled, but he did not stop to quarrel with his luck, nor to notice that the next horse happened to be ready too. He loosed the end horse, led him a little way, and mounted carefully, then legged him forward through the darkness to the one main entrance that was practicable after dark. Being one of the outer line of guards when not in hospital, he knew the password of the night before, and proposed to take a chance on Dick's not having changed it.
"Halt!" came an order as he reached the narrow camp end of the exit. So he halted.
"Who are you?" asked somebody in Persian, in a voice that seemed husky from the chilly dampness.
"I ride according to instructions. Let me by!"
"Have you the password?"
"Surely."
"Give it!"
"Freedom!" he replied in English.
"Pass, then. Go your way!"
He rode on in silence, and did not know that two men talked about him from behind.
"Are you sure you warned all the pickets to let him by whatever word he gives?" asked Dick.
"Aye, bahadur," said Beg Ali. "I attended to it. I did more. The men he will pass are the men I took to the hospital to have a good look at him."
"Very well," said Dick. "I'll wait here. Go on ahead, keeping behind that man. Warn them in case a woman follows to let her through too—and watch which way she goes! I want her tracked!"
"Bahadur—"
Beg Ali's face was close to Dick's; he laid a hand on Dick's arm, and shook it fiercely.
"Do better than that! If she makes a bolt for it—and what else can she do—let them shoot her! None will know! They can drag her body into the jungle and leave it there—the jackals will eat it in a few hours! Let me order them!"
"No!" said Dick.
"But why? Why not?"
Suddenly Dick took him by the throat and shook him till his eyes saw nothing but a streak of fire that zigzagged and reversed.
"Because, you blood-thirsty villain, she's a woman! Because—incidentally—I've given my word. Because you've got your orders! Go and obey!"
He hurled the Afghan backward in the direction he had ordered him to take; and then, as if no such trivial incident could claim room in his memory, he started to pace toward the camp slowly, with his arms behind him, pausing every little while to listen.
He was not smiling, but on the other hand there was no trace of anger on his face. Beg Ali Khan, swaggering in the opposite direction, muttering blasphemies to himself, would have been amazed and might have learned another lesson could he have met Dick face to face that minute; the swash-buckling second-in-command imagined Dick was swearing too and smoothing ruffled feathers!
IN ten minutes' time, after pacing the distance twice between the exit and the nearest tents, Dick heard another horse, and this one was not coming at a walking gait. He had just time to step into a shadow before a horse, whose white foreleg he recognized, came cantering toward him and he saw go by, astride of a high-built Cossack saddle, none other than the Princess Olga Karageorgovich. She was looking straight ahead of her, and she did not see him, nor suspect his presence.
He waited and listened. He heard her horse increase the pace from a canter to a gallop—heard him leap the stream lower down where it crossed the trail—and then heard him settle down to do his best. But no man challenged, and no shot was fired. Beg Ali had obeyed.
He stood in a brown study, wondering whether that was the last he would ever see of the sole originator of his chain of undeserved misfortune. For the moment his thoughts were away from the campaign, wandering in channels that were personal; they were brought back quickly by a woman's scream from the center of the camp and the shouts of a hundred men who seemed to awake at once and yell the alarm because they did not know what else to do.
Dick bent his head and hurried, forcing his way by sheer strength through crowds who pressed, only half awake, to see what the matter might be. His own stern orders had made women's screams a matter of life and death in that camp, and where not one man would have troubled himself about a fight, or have crossed the camp to prevent an ordinary murder, the whole camp awoke and was divided now between curiosity and caution—by the need of choosing whether to interfere or play for safety by remaining still.
Dick's method and Andry's were widely different, and yet they met at the same instant at the end of the mid-camp horse-lines. Andry had hewn himself a passage through the swarm big-bearwise, reckless of life and limb, his own or others', so that he reached the author of the scream. As he sprang from his bed beneath the machine-gun he had recognized it, and his own answering roar was far more terrible because it presaged wrath to come, whereas the scream was unmistakably the result of something done and over with.
His head crashed into Dick's as the two stooped down opposite each other above the body of Andry's girl, and they both reeled back, for they were strong men and their heads hard in proportion. Blinking through a million red stars each recognized the other, and Dick drew back to let Andry have his right.
"If she can speak, ask her what happened," he ordered.
"Man—she's babblin' French—I dinna understan'. Come an' listen!"
So Dick bent over her and made out little by little while Andry stanched a knife-wound in her shoulder how the Princess had run for the horse lines and the maid had followed to prevent her from she did not know what new outrage. Marie had stopped when she saw what the plan was, for she could imagine nothing more desirable than the Princess's escape; but the Princess had mounted and then ridden the horse straight at her, so swiftly and unexpectedly that she had had no time to dodge.
The impact of the horse's shoulder sent her stumbling backward—the Princess followed—drove a knife into her—and cantered off.
"Did she say nothing?" Dick asked her.
"Rien du tout!"
"Why didn't you scream the moment you were stabbed?"
"Your orders! Some man might have got the blame before I could explain! And then—and then it hurt too badly—and she was gone now—and I must scream—and I screamed!"
"Damn!" muttered Dick.
Andry had the dress wrenched from the white round shoulder and was sucking at the wound, spitting out mouthfuls of good blood, until Dick laughed at him.
"Put something on to stop the bleeding!" he ordered. "Then run and get some women."
SO Andry listened to reason, and within ten minutes Marie Mouquin lay in the arms of women on whom she had been instrumental in conferring privileges that none of their own nation had so much as dreamed of for them. Then Andry forgot reason and was swayed by the passion for revenge, that was the curse of his wild Highlands for so many centuries; it began to boil in him and, out of all proportion to Marie Mouquin's wound and his regard for her, loomed the mask of the god of vengeance that is all empty nothingness but looks like the face of a gentleman in front.
Marie Mouquin's blood was on his lips yet as he returned from the hospital; and he stood by Dick's fire trembling in atavistic savagery, no longer the faithful, decent fighting man, but an ugly, blood-beastly animal whose gray eyes glinted in the firelight and whose lumpy muscles played and twitched beneath his skin.
"Did she tell ye, Mr. Dicky, where that —— went?" he demanded, and he used a word that a prophet had once used to Jezebel, with provocation that is not recorded to have been much worse.
"No."
"Wull—that's a peety, f'r I'm off tae find her, an' I'll no come back until her neck is snappit 'tween these fingers! Aye! I'll track her doon! I've come tae bid ye good-by until I've done it, an' tae ask a favor of ye."
"What favor?"
"Twenty or thir-r-r-rty men!"
"We strike camp at dawn, Andry."
"Strike awa'! I ken naethin' tae prevent ye!"
"Marie Mouquin is not very seriously hurt. She can be carried with the column, or be left behind with some women and a guard—cached in fact."
"Aye. An' of the two, I'd rayther see her carried wi' the column."
"Please yourself, Andry, on that point, or please her. But—" Dick leaned forward and looked very hard at him—"you come with us, my man!"
"Na-na!"
Andry shook his head violently, as if to get blood out of his eyes, and spat to get real blood from his mouth. He was ready to voice and do mutiny, to sacrifice his loyalty to Dick, and to make a beast of himself for the sake of what seemed honor at the moment.
Dick had an answer on his lips, but at that moment Jenison drew near in a hurry and swore loud at the guard who would not let him pass. He ran through the opening in the fence when Dick ordered him admitted, and wasted no time on preliminary courtesies or beating about the bush.
"Where's the Princess?"
"Gone," said Dick.
"How? When? In which direction?"
"On a stolen horse, with other stolen property of mine, after doing her best to murder Marie Mouquin," Dick told him quietly.
"D'you suppose I had a hand in it?" asked Jenison.
"I know you hadn't."
"I'm glad of that."
"At the same time," said Dick, "it's possible you may feel at a disadvantage. Hadn't you some agreement with her that you proposed to turn to account?"
"What of it?"
"If you'd rather take back your promise to me you may."
"Wouldn't think of it!" said Jenison. He paused a moment, eying Dick's face so narrowly that Andry began to forget a little of his rage and cluck jealously. "But—she was one of my party all right, and if she's gone off with any of your property I'm answerable for it. I'll take some men and do what I can to get whatever it is back. What did she get away with?"
"A steel cash-box."
"Anything in it?"
"Papers."
"Of importance?"
Dick said nothing; he was looking at Andry.
THE big man was trembling again with rage and excitement; in the light cast by the fire his face was horrible, for his teeth were exposed in a devil's grin and his eyes blazed out of a maze of wrinkles. His fists were knotted up like enormous, hairy clubs, but he opened one of them and laid it on Jenison's shoulder with a grip that made the American shrink back and wince.
"Aye! Tak' twenty o' y'r ain men, an' come wi' me! Mr. Dicky'll no let me hae a few men, but y're a man o' per-r-r-spicas-s-sity, an' ye'll save the day, I ken. Come alang! We'll catch her, an' I'll kill her! Ye may have whatever ye find on her, an' welcome, when I've torn her thrapple oot!"
It seemed that Andry was correct when he dubbed this Jenison a man of "perspicacity." The American looked once at him, and once at Dick, and understood. Also he remembered the big man's childish jealousy. And he recalled that he looked fattest when standing sideways. So that the critic might have a better view of a growing paunch, he turned sideways to Andry and half faced Dick.
"I'll let MacDougal have twenty of my men to hunt with," he said without a vestige of a smile, "provided you'll give me his place. I mean I should expect to be third in command, and wait on you as well. He can have all my men on those terms."
Dick looked pleased, but did not look at Andry. He seemed to be considering the offer. But suddenly a shadow warned him, and a sense that is not classified but that is much surer than any of the five men recognize by name. He sprang to his feet, upsetting the table, and saved Jenison by a fraction of a second.
Andry's fist, knotted again like an iron club, ascended, whirled once and descended in the general direction of his would-be rival's head. Jenison reeled away from the impact of Dick's body. And Dick's forearm took the full weight of the blow. He winced under it and staggered backward into the fire.
It was Andry who dragged him out again, plunging in and standing on the coals until his boots were a scorched offense. It was Andry—huge, ungainly Andry of the child's heart—who seized his arm and kissed it—who knelt beside him, sobbing, begging for forgiveness, swearing he would never move an inch away from Dick, and offering his eye as a mark for Dick's fist in return.
"Laddie! Laddie! Help y'r sel'! Smite! Smite here! Laddie, I was fey—dementit! I didna ken what I was doin'. I meant tae smite yon Yankee!"
"Beg his pardon then!" commanded Dick. "Get up and beg his pardon!"
Andry demurred, for there are limits to the amount of humble pie a man will eat. He would have let Dick walk on him, but the American was different.
"Beg his pardon or get out of camp!"
Andry arose, with legs that no longer trembled but that were weak with the lees of rage. He looked at Dick and read inflexibility. He looked at the American and read humor wrestling to hide itself. Deep answered deep.
"I'm glad I didna swat ye," he said meekly. "F'rye're a fat mon. Ye'd ha' gane off pop! An' that wouldna' du because Mr. Dicky seems tae want ye, though why he wants ye an' what he'll du wi' ye I dinna ken. Ye're tae conseeder y'rsel' apologized tae."
"Do you accept it?" asked Dick.
"Yes," said Jenison. "I'm satisfied if you are."
"Ye'd better be!" grinned Andry. "Ye ken a fat mon has nae muckle chance agin' a mon like me!"
"Get to your gun!" commanded Dick, and Andry went.
THE peaks on every hand were being tinted by the earliest red rays of dawn, heralding a day of downpours, when Dick turned to order the first trumpet blown that should announce the start of his raid into Russia. He stopped with the word on his lips, for at that instant there was a commotion down at the main entrance. Two dismounted scouts were brought in, dead dog-weary, and hurried along to where he stood by Jenison, Beg Ali Khan and Andry.
"Which way did she go?" Dick asked, for there was only one question uppermost in his mind; and though Andry certainly did not understand his words, for he spoke Persian, all three leaned forward to catch the answer or its import; all three were at one with Dick in fearing nothing but the Princess, and in attaching utmost importance to her whereabouts.
"To the west," one man answered, hawking to get the dryness from his throat.
Dick offered him a drink from his own water-gourd, and the fellow let about three quarts go gurgling down his gullet, while his companion watched jealously.
"To the west? How d'you know? Do you know where the west lies?"
The man was standing with his back to the rising sun, so he nodded in the direction that he faced. Beg Ali Khan swore darkly in his beard at that, Jenison looked puzzled, and Andry incredulous.
"To the west! She rode down to the plain through the forest at a speed that frightened even me who am no scareling. He who rode ahead of her with the stolen box waited for her after a while, and I heard her call to him to bring the box to her, but he refused. Then I settled down to ride hard, for she took the lead, he following, and the pace was of the kind that kills. Both knew well that I followed, for the thunder of my horse was like a landslide coming after them.
"It was black dark after a while, for great trees overhung the trail, and soon she lost her way; but she galloped on until at last we came to an end of forest at the bottom of the foothills. Then I saw where I could spare my horse, and make believe to cease from following, for I know the trails of these forests well; that track makes a very wide detour at that point, curving back again to a point not ten feet lower down; it curls to avoid a great sheer rock and a ravine. And I, leaving my horse behind, lay on the rock and waited while they galloped on.
"Soon they galloped around the curve and came below me, I holding my breath. She stopped under the rock and called to him. He had galloped past, but he reined his horse and turned. She told him her girth was loose and the saddle like to slip round under the horse's belly. She bade him dismount and alter it. He obeyed, as it seemed to me unwillingly, keeping the steel box in his hand until he reached her horse, and then setting it on the ground between his feet while he took her girth-strap in his teeth.
"Then being very close, bahadur, and above her, I saw her draw a knife and drive it—so—down into his shoulder behind the collar-bone. He died without a groan, and she dismounted. I heard her chuckle. I saw her pick up the box. And I heard her try to break it by beating it against the rock whereon I lay. But it was a stout box and she failed.
"Then she searched the corpse and found a pistol and some money, taking both. I lay still and wondered whether your excellency would be satisfied and would reward me if I rolled a great stone on her; but while I lay wondering she was already on the horse again and off, due westward along the plain. I followed at a distance lest she hear the drumming of my horse's feet, and after a while I met this man. We two came back together. Let him speak."
"Speak!" commanded Dick, and the second fellow cleared his throat.
"Bahadur, I am of the scouts who set out yesterday at dawn. I was made to memorize my message, lest I be captured and my message fall into wrong hands. Last night between the first and second hours of the night, as we turned to advance northward, having completed our western course without adventure of any kind, we came unexpectedly on men who seemed to us also to be scouts, riding toward us. They were Russian—Cossacks. The roads are worse than none, and the lay of the land is like the floor of the Pit, so there was no difficulty in escaping notice. The men rode on ignorant of our presence and bivouacked a little later among trees."
"How far from here?" demanded Dick.
"A long march. As far as a good horse—my horse—can gallop between midnight and the dawn."
"Continue."
"Three of our men who are able to speak Russian, including myself, were ordered to crawl close to them and listen; and as we lay there listening, bahadur, we recognized men who but a day or two ago were in this camp; doubtless they have reported the word given out that we will march eastward. I say doubtless, for it is evident that these men are incautious; they behave as men who expect to catch up with a rear-guard, and not at all as men who need beware of an advancing enemy."
"How many were they?" Dick demanded.
"Five officers and fifty men."
"Continue."
"As I lay, bahadur, I heard the senior officer warn the others and the men that they must look out for the Princess, for she had sent word by a spy she might be coming and with information of importance. I heard laughter then that did not sound respectful, as men laugh at a champion who has lost at last. I heard, too, conversation that hinted at a very large force not far behind them, and an officer remarked how excellent it was that there was no infantry to delay the march. They spoke of ten thousand men, all cavalry."
"You have my leave to go," said Dick, and the two departed to get food.
Then Dick turned to the three beside him and gave them an inkling of the swift deductions passing through his mind.
"Whether or no the Princess knew before last night that those plans were in my possession," he said, "I suspect that the Russian government knew that they were missing not very long after I received them. They must have changed their plan at once, and have changed it again after the destruction of their fleet.
"Their main plan now is likely to be what it was originally; this force of ten thousand—or whatever the number may be—is for our express benefit, to take us in the rear; the half million will swoop down on the east side of the Caspian as arranged, and we're to be caught between the upper grindstone and the nether."
"Bright lookout!" said Jenison.
"A chance for gentlemen to die like gentlemen!" said Beg Ali Khan.
Andry said nothing. He was watching Dick's face, knowing as always that the child is father to the man. The boy Dick had always set his jaw in just that way when new problems were presented and a new tangle must be straightened out.
"You understand, of course—" Dick was talking to himself, in English; he seemed unconscious of the others' presence—"these ten thousand are marching in strict secrecy. Russia dare not send troops openly down the west side; it would open England's eyes too soon. They can not be many more than ten thousand, because all the big divisions must be wanted for the war with Austria and Germany. The main force ready for the swoop on Persia is still hidden to the east of the Caspian, if it has not started southward yet—"
HE turned to look for the trumpeter, and saw him waiting patiently ten feet away. "Sound the advance!" he ordered. "Beg Ali Khan, take the lead! Capture their advanced scouts if you can! But push on fast and get in touch! Then try to look like a rear-guard—do you understand?"
"I will prove I understand!"
"Then lead off with all the mounted men. Mr. Jenison!"
"Yes."
"Get your guns moving, please! The thing I want most is speed just at this juncture. I want you to follow me so fast that by the time I've found a suitable position you'll be near enough to take advantage of it. Andry!"
"Aye!"
"Send your machine-gun along with Jenison. Bring along the infantry. I've a notion they'll need stiffening for the fight that's coming; your pipes'll do more good than the machine-gun if the enemy looks too strong for us!"
"And Marie?"
"What about her?"
"Aye! What aboot her?"
For a minute they faced each other while Dick's thoughts flashed from point to point of his plan. He seemed to have forgotten Marie altogether.
"Ye said I might do as I pleased wi' her, carry her alang or leave her wi' a guard."
"Well? Why don't you?"
"Verra gude! I'll bring her wi' the innnnfantry!"
Andry raced like a runaway herd of buffaloes in the direction of the hospital, where the wounded lay all ready on bough litters. In Persia, today as a thousand years ago, the wounded do not relish being left at the mercy either of the enemy or of the lawless of their own land, and the big Scotsman found himself received with more acclamation than he cared for.
"I'm no' y'r Antie Jane!" he told them. "Ye'd ha' stayed here an' be domned tae the lot o' ye, but f'r this gir-r-r-rl o' mine!"
And not understanding one word of what he said they cheered him again and again, until he had maneuvered them into the middle of his infantry brigade.
Then when he knew that his Marie was safe enough for the present, he got to the head of his men. His pipes went up over his shoulder, and "Bonnie George Campbell" skirled out of the chanter until the forest shook to the tramp of men who never knew how to march in time or do anything together until Dick and he had come to show them.
Ahead of him the guns jerked and jolted, reeled and rolled, crashed and jingled downhill, braked and urged alternately by sweating men, half crazy under the goad of Jenison.
Ahead of all—away and away ahead— Beg Ali and his men careered like the smoke of a forest fire, in a wide half-circle with its ends advanced. Behind Andry's infantry there trudged a few hundred bearers and some Russian mules, each laden to the limit with provisions for the fighting men.
And somewhere between Beg Ali Khan and Andry's infantry, alone but for three gallopers, Dick Anthony sent his horse up shoulder after shoulder of bold hill, studying the lay of the land and searching for a battle-field that suited him. Time and again he picked out a spot, only to reject it on second or third consideration; time and again he considered and rejected points of vantage pointed out by some man left behind by Beg Ali for the purpose.
It was four in the afternoon of a squashy rain-swept day before Beg Ali Khan sent word back that the enemy were now in touch, and that their scouts had escaped to give the warning. It was half-past four when Dick found a gorge between two hills that seemed to suit his purpose. And it was four forty-five exactly, by Dick's watch, when a man came galloping from Jenison's command to say that the guns were stuck fast in the mud and could not budge another centimeter.
"Tell Jenison I've got to have 'em here!" aid Dick. "Tell him there's no alternative!"
DICK did good choosing when he picked Beg Ali Khan to fight a pretended rear-guard action. The Russians seemed inclined at first to let him be; they were tired, and their horses more so; the prospect that appealed to them best was a good supper, a sleep by hot camp-fires, and a furious pursuit at dawn. Beg Ali Khan sent word back by galloper to Dick that such seemed their intention.
"Sting them into action, then!" Dick answered, scrawling the words across the face of Beg Ali's note.
So Beg Ali stung them. His fierce riders swept down through the rain on Russians who were gathering fuel, and cut off others who were riding down to water horses. In an hour he had captured a hundred remounts, that would be fresh again and up to work by dawn. He sent them back to Dick.
Others of Beg All's men, taking advantage of every piece of cover of whatever kind, crept close to the Russians to count them and discover what guns they had.
"About ten thousand," was the word that Beg Ali sent to Dick before dark, "and ten machine-guns. No artillery."
"Engage!" commanded Dick. "But be a rear-guard!"
Trust the Afghan! Trust him to neglect no tiniest detail of deceit! He built a bivouac—lit the fires and let them die—trampled the mud until the stream-banks looked like fords where a brigade had crossed; and he sent a stout good man to let himself be captured.
"Dee-k-Anthonee is in full retreat," this man admitted. "His wagon-wheels and gun-wheels are hub-deep in mud. He heard of you, and rode to attack—then heard how many you are and fled. We mounted men were told to protect his rear for long enough to let him dig the wheels out."
"Protecting Dick's rear" seemed to include, however, the most desperate expedients known to war. Night closed in early, mingled with sweeping rain, and the whole countryside was shut in gloom an hour before the sun's time to dip under the horizon. Out of the gloom and the murk swept little knots of reckless warriors, with the strangest war-cry on their lips that ever a Persian battle-field had heard.
"No name!" they yelled at the Cossacks; and the yelling of it seemed to give them superhuman skill, or luck, or courage, or all three. Cossacks make good winners; but when they lose the first few rounds they lose heart as well, and sulk or run. It was only a very little while after dark shut down before Beg Ali had established such a state of mind in the Russian force that its commander had no choice; he must attack or else retire, and he did not dare retire. If he retired he might lose Dick Anthony, and the credit of taking him dead or alive.
His scouts gave him a lot of information, and no doubt he had a military map, for long ago the Russians mapped out every inch of land they covet, from Constantinople to Bengal. By that time he had five prisoners; and they all vowed that Dick's force was small as well as in difficulties.
"His men are deserting to the southward," said each prisoner; for Beg Ali Khan had cautioned all of them before the fighting became serious.
THE Russians were on low land, in a position that could not very well be worse; to storm higher land, even in black darkness, seemed better by a long way than to wait for demoralization to get foothold and increase. And if there is one time better than another for a superior force to attack, and keep on attacking, it is when the enemy's men are reported to be deserting and the enemy is bogged hub-deep.
"Forward!" was the order.
Half of the men were ordered to dismount and fight on foot, with a screen of cavalry on either flank to guard against surprise, and the machine-guns were pushed forward, spaced apart at intervals but with orders to concentrate their fire the minute a considerable body of the enemy was sighted. It was only a very little while now before Beg Ali was compelled to draw off; but he drew off over the ground he had prepared, and the Russians were convinced Dick Anthony had just struck camp and was in full flight. They pressed forward without more caution than was forced on them by Beg Ali's men.
Behind them they left a commissariat train that was generously large and scandalously undefended. Two or three hundred men were drawn around it in a spaced-out line, and Beg Ali had to bridle his fierce riders sternly once they had discovered that fact.
"But the loot, bahadur!" they insisted.
"By the Blood of God!" he thundered. "Are my orders questioned? Is there any who refuse to obey? Are ye thieves, or fighting-men?"
So, in fear of him, they refrained from circling around the Russian flank in force and plundering the camp.
To Dick Anthony Beg Ali wrote—
Their rear is the place to smite, as one smites oxen on the rump!
But Dick wrote back—
Send ten men in a hurry with orders to find the telegraph wire and cut it in their rear.
Dick was having no picnic party. The hillsides he had chosen to defend were sticky and slippery at once. In the pitchy blackness whole companies would lose their way and cross the path of other companies that were marking time, bewildered, until his whole command seemed but a milling mess of wet and weary humans who needed a nurse rather than a general.
So Dick turned nurse, and where a lesser man would have shown exasperation, or at best would have tried to roar and bellow understanding into men who could not see, he called on his fund of patience and good humor. He seemed to see grim humor in it all; jokes came from his lips, where men expected reprimands, and, as seemed his uncanny habit, he was here, there, and everywhere apparently at once, always knowing where the north was as if he had a compass in his head.
He found Jenison laboring with the guns like a Titan, not wasting his own small strength, nor rushing about too much, but doing a decent fellow's best to lend his men courage. Dick called him away, and left the guns leaderless for twenty minutes.
He showed Jenison exactly where the guns were to be when the fight began in earnest. He gave him a line two hundred yards long by exact measure.
"When the fighting starts there'll be plenty of light to see by," Dick said. "There'll be bursting shells, and the flash of rifle fire. So pick your own marks and measure the range exactly."
He left six men with Jenison to help him, and then rode back to the guns. He was no gunner; he knew no more of guns than a man may learn who has ambition to be a soldier and would qualify himself for whatever may eventuate. Nor was he an engineer. He could see in the dark no farther than any of his own men, and physically he made no material addition to a team of men and horses.
But when he urged, the guns came forward. When he laughed, men's tempers seemed to die as their spirits rose. He was the same Dick Anthony of Arran who had led the lower school in the old days and ended bullying—the same Dick Anthony who knew what fear and discouragement were, and how to conquer them in himself and others. His voice, ringing through the night, worked greater wonders than the rain that drove into the oncoming Cossacks' faces and dampened their ardor until their numbers no longer gave them an advantage.
IN an hour, while Beg Ali stung the Cossacks again and again to hamper their advance, Dick had the guns on a hill-brow. In an hour more he had placed them, and had built protection for the gunners. In another hour Jenison was back in charge of them, with the ranges memorized. Dick left him explaining to his men.
"Now mark! Five thousand yards is exactly at the broad stream, where the nine big trees stand in a line. Wait for a flash of lightning. There! See it? Six thousand's an easy one to remember too. At the next flash look for a—"
Dick left him, satisfied. He rode along the whole long front now, past wet companies who marked time to the tune of Andry's skirling pipes, shoulder to shoulder lest they lose one another in the dark. He led them forward a quarter of a mile.
Uninvited, Jenison tried a shot then at the five-thousand-yard mark, and the shell burst nearly at the foot of the marker trees. Its flash betrayed the Russian line, that seemed to hesitate on the far side of the stream. Ten minutes later Beg Ali sent word back that the Russians seemed disposed again to wait for dawn.
"Sting them hard!" commanded Dick, scrawling across the written note in the same bold hand.
Strict obedience was the key-note to Beg Ali's behavior that night. He had lost but few men, owing to the darkness and the boldness of his plan, so his men were full of fight. He led them back over the stream, and rode a charge full pelt at the Russian center, bursting through the hesitating ranks of the advance guard, wheeling, and charging back again, with a loss so slight that it amazed himself.
The Russian advance fell back, and machine-guns began to stutter at the gloom; but the rain proved better than an earthwork to screen Beg Ali's men and the hail of bullets mowed down grass instead of horses.
The flash of the machine-guns gave Jenison the range, and he and his men opened in earnest with the whole battery, not hitting much but letting the Russians know that the guns were on high ground for a certainty and this was battle, not pursuit.
Then Dick took one-fifth of the infantry, and left the rest in Andry's charge.
"See they don't shoot us from behind, Andry," he ordered. "Keep 'em steady, for me to fall back on when the time comes, and send me up reinforcements a few at a time—say fifty at a time—when I send word. Send fifty men every ten minutes from the time when I order the first half-company up!"
"Aye, aye!" said Andry, folding away his pipes; and as Dick advanced the big man started to walk up and down, up and down in front of the reserves, talking broad Scots to them that they did not understand at all, but that brought them a world of comfort.
"It was Bobbie Burrns," he told them, "who said 'A man's a man f'r a' that.' But, marrk ye, he said naethin' aboot Roosians, and Roosians are not men at a'; they're reptiles! Noah had two o' them in the Arrrk, and they were verra proleefic! Tonight is the occasion when the reptiles meet their Waterloo, an' the water that's fa'in doon fra heaven is symbolical o' the firrrst half o' what is due them!"
He joked, as his ancestors had done before him, ponderously, and he was at no pains to translate any of his words into a language they could understand. But within ten minutes he had them all singing, and when the first volley ripped out from Dick's advanced extended line he had some difficulty in restraining them; they wanted to surge forward and join in. From then, on through the night, his task was mainly one of keeping the brakes on hard, and there were times when he had to use his fists and the flat of a wooden slat to do it.
DICK'S plan shaped itself out of chaos as the night wore on and the storm continued. He let Beg Ali rest his men now, setting them to guard his flanks while he attacked. The guns under Jenison pounded the oncoming Russians until there was no choice left the Russian commander but to try to take them; and Dick fell back slowly toward them, growing every minute stronger as the reinforcements reached him from the rear and putting up a stronger resistance.
Now the firing lines were well defined by the blaze of rifles and the hell-fire sputtering of machine-guns that sought for a human target but could find none. A few of Dick's men fell, but not enough to sap the courage of the rest and not nearly enough to counteract the dribbling supply of reinforcements; and the machine-guns proved an easy mark as they blazed into the gloom.
Soon the Russian advance was checked, facing the guns that pounded them from a hill three thousand yards away. The Russian commander sent two thousand mounted men on the right flank, to turn what he imagined was Dick's left, and Beg Ali Khan reported the new move to Dick, stirring his own men meanwhile to new effort.
That was Dick's cue. He sent word at once to Andry, and the big man came hurrying, striding through the dark like the trunk of a tree on legs.
"Take command of these men now, Andry. I'll take over yours. Hold this position. If you must retire, fall back as slowly as you can toward the guns."
"Aye, aye!" said Andry, and he began that minute to insinuate himself among the Persians, until he was part of their firing line and in control of it without their noticing the change. In the heat of an action, when men squint down hot rifle-barrels at the flash of an oncoming foe, a change of commanders is not so noticeable as when it takes place on parade.
Dick rode headlong to the main body of infantry that Andry had just left, and reached them in time to stop a rush toward the front. They were chafing at inaction and disgusted with the task of lying still in the rain without appreciable return. But now Dick gave them more to think about than they had looked for. He made them wheel so that they changed front in black darkness, through which each had to feel his neighbor since he could not see him; he sent them forward, into deeper darkness yet, abreast, in touch, and silent. The far end of the line could hear his orders, but there was no light to see by since no enemy was firing in their front; Dick kept their whole attention fixed on preserving the alignment.
Proof that his own thoughts were occupied with something else as well was the perfect working of his plan. A hell of rifle-fire burst out on his right front, as the Cossacks dismounted to blaze at Beg Ali. The Afghan sent a man back for orders; Dick ordered a retreat at top speed.
Back came Beg Ali's men, spurring like the wind. A volley followed them, and then the Cossacks mounted to pursue them. They came on, hell-bent-for-leather, to be met at a hundred yards' range by a volley that screeched into them and by its very impact stunned them. They reeled, and wheeled, and fled!
Tentatively, cautiously; Dick followed, until his left was all infantry, stretched out in one long line. In the center, now, was his cavalry under Beg Ali Khan, and Andry was on the right. From behind on the hill the shrapnel belched and burst, and the flame from the guns, and the lightning seemed to show the Russians a clear road, or nearly clear road, to their capture. There was only Andry in the way, and the volume of fire from Andry's men betrayed his numerical weakness.
The Russian machine-guns were ordered to concentrate on Andry's men, while the Russian commander tried a turning movement, over ground he had studied only from a map. It was a move that was intended to be desperate—that must certainly be costly—that had to be made in column for the sake of speed. He marched a full half of his men, dismounted, in a column aimed for Andry and the guns beyond him.
Dick ordered Beg Ali out of the way then. The Afghan led his men in a half-circle until they were once more on Dick's far left, Dick swung his whole command again, and pushed it forward until the guns and Andry were on his right and the Russians marched across his front. Beg Ali galloped up to him in the minute when the new maneuver was accomplished, and he gave the order then which was the climax of his tactics.
"The minute I open fire, Beg Ali, charge home and strike for the Russian rear. They're headed for the guns; the guns are the bait. I want them pushed past the guns—hurled past them! I want them pushed forward into Persia. Not one of them must get back into Russia by the way he came. Don't waste time looting their camp; it's ours in any event; drive them! Just drive them past the guns!"
Dick opened fire at about eight hundred yards' range on the Russian column, and it squirmed on itself like a snake stung in the side. It changed front instantly, to find itself then outflanked by Andry and in the way of the machine-guns that should have had clear play. Dick advanced; the guns overhead squandered ammunition, and Andry's contingent kept up a steady fusillade. The Cossacks could not help but fall back, and could not fall back on their own reserves.
Whoever commanded the attacking column was a Rupert of daring. He rallied his men, and faced them on their original objective, the guns. Then he charged Andry uphill in a savage effort to reach the guns before Dick could do anything to stop him, and trusting his commander and the reserves to deal with Dick.
But Dick trusted Andry, and with reason. The great Scot fell back slowly, stubbornly, with his back to the hill and the belching guns; and Dick thrust his men between the Russian column and its oncoming supports. A hellish fusillade from the Russian rear told him that Beg Ali had got around them and had begun the drive. The rest was a debacle.
Most of the column on the hill surrendered in the dark, rather than be shot down. Dick ordered their weapons taken from them, and then sent them marching, past and under the hill toward Persia; he had no time to waste on prisoners, nor men whom he could spare to guard them.
The Russian commander made a terrific effort to break back toward his commissariat with his main body and regain the road to Russia, but Beg Ali blocked the way, and he wasted thirty valuable minutes trying to save some of his supplies.
By that time Dick had sent two thousand men to add heft to the drive, and the prelude to the dawn, played by pale shafts of reflected sunlight on a saturated sky, showed the commander of the Russians cut off from his fleeing men, surrounded, and at bay.
THE field was a shambles. The confusion of the night had led to hand-to-hand conflicts in a dozen places, and nearly a thousand of Dick's men lay dead in tangled masses, mixed up with Cossacks who had charged them in the dark. Sick at heart with the sight of it, Dick gazed about him trying to see something that would cheer. It was the road to Russia, open and undefended, that gave him at last thoughts that were not so drear; and Andry came on him at gaze, staring northward, planning the next move in the game.
"Yon's their commander!" he said pointing. "He will na' surrender. What'll we du? Wad ye shoot the body in cauld bluid?"
"Order him off the field!" said Dick. "Send him after his fugitives into Persia!"
Andry grinned and walked off to obey. It was not for ten minutes that it dawned on Dick he had been ill-advised. A Russian commander, loose in Persia even without a command, might be a nuisance at his rear; as a prisoner of war he might be of certain use; as a hostage he would be good company. He sprang on his horse and cantered toward the hillock, on which the Russian and his staff had elected to make their last stand. As he rode he saw something that appalled him, and he spurred his tired charger into frantic effort.
The Russian commander appeared to have changed his mind; he could see him standing by Beg Ali Khan, and he saw that Beg Ali had the Russian's sword. They were standing at the foot of the hillock, looking upward, and shouting all together, prisoners and captors alike. He could see, even from that distance, that Beg Ali yelled approval, while most of the Russians roared dissent.
On the little hill stood Andry, at the brow of a twenty-five foot drop. He stood astride, his great thigh-muscles strained to the bursting point, and his knotted arms aloft. Gripped in his iron fingers up above his head he held the Princess Olga Karageorgovich, and she fought like a tiger-cat to free herself, in vain. She might as well have fought with Fate.
Deliberately, slowly, Andry whirled her around, and arched his huge muscles into one tremendous effort. He had begun to hurl her downward; she had actually started on the way to instant death when Dick galloped within pistol range, and his voice cracked like a whip.
"Stop!"
Andry stopped, and his grin of rage died as he saw Dick's pistol leveled at him—died and changed to a look of stupid grief.
"Set her down!"
The giant obeyed, and Dick lowered his pistol.
"Go!"
ANDRY stumbled down the hill and slunk away with his chin low on his breast. Dick rode closer to the hill, and the Princess looked down at him from its edge. She looked from him to a steel box at his feet, lying where Andry had hurled it preparatory to sending her after it.
"I'll bribe you," said Dick.
"With what, monsieur le bandit?"
"With that box and its contents. I don't want you as prisoner, or with me on any terms. You may go. You may follow those fugitives that are being herded into Persia by my cavalry. I'll give you a horse. And as a reward for going you may take that box."
"Monsieur le bandit is crazy, but I will accept his terms!" she said in English.
She came down from the hill, picked up the box, and mounted a horse Dick ordered brought for her. Then she rode off with a merry laugh at him, and it was not until she was out of earshot that Beg Ali Khan found tongue, standing beside a Russian General who was his prisoner.
"She spoke of craziness, bahadur! For the first time I am tempted to agree with the daughter of Destruction!"
"Has the strain been too much for you, Beg Ali?"
It was difficult to judge the meaning of the note in Dick's voice. He, too, sounded a little strained.
"Bahadur! What is it less than madness to save that she-devil's life and on top of it to give her back the map and plans that are our key to victory? That box is worth a Rajah's ransom—nay, an Amir's! And you give it her! Those plans and that map are—"
Dick felt inside his shirt and pulled a package out.
"Here are the map and plans," he said.
"Bahadur, I—"
"That box contains blank paper and a few out-of-date muster-rolls."
"Bahadur! Sahib! I eat dirt! Bats shall be in my hair and beard until I am forgiven! Thou art a prince of wise men—nay, a wizard! Bahadur, beat me and I will endure it! Do anything, if only I am forgiven in that I called thee mad! Never will I offend again!"
"Count the dead!" said Dick. "Go around and shoot the injured horses. And if you see Andry MacDougal, order him to get his infantry in hand. I'm off to check the loot Will you ride with me?" he asked, saluting the Russian General.
Beg Ali Khan saluted both of them and rode away; but he did not see Andry MacDougal. The big man was on his knees beside a girl's litter, sobbing into his hands.
"Lassie," he moaned, "if I'd murdered her so I'd ne'er ha'forgiven masel! An' noo it's waur an' that, f'r Mr. Dicky saw, an' won't forget or forgive!"
"Poor little fellow!" she purred to him in French, patting his huge shoulder with a thin white hand.
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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