III
THE PEOPLE OF ISMAIL

Gordon expected, at each step, to be fired at from the cliffs, although he had seen no sentinels among the rocks at their crest, when he looked from the crag. But he crossed the canyon, reached the foot of the cliff and began mounting the steep road — still flecked here and there with red drops — without having sighted any human being. The trail wound interminably up a succession of ramps, with low heavy walls on the outer edge. He had time to admire the engineering ability which made that road possible. Obviously it was no work of Afghan hillmen, and just as obviously its construction had not been recent. It looked ancient, strong as the mountain itself.

For the last thirty feet the ramps gave way to a flight of steep steps cut into the rock, making a deepening slot as they approached the crest. Still no one challenged him, and he came out on the plateau among a cluster of boulders, from behind which seven men who had been squatting over a game, sprang to their feet and glared wildly at him as if he had been an apparition. They were Kurds to a man, lean, hard-bodied warriors with hawk-beak noses, their slim waists girdled by cartridge-belts, and with rifles in their hands.

These rifles were instantly levelled at him. Gordon made no move, nor did he display either perturbation or surprize. He set his rifle-butt on the ground and eyed the startled Kurds tranquilly.

These cut-throats were undecided as cornered wildcats, and therefore equally dangerous and unpredictable. His life hung on the crook of a nervous trigger-finger. But for the moment they merely glared, struck dumb by his unexpected materialization.

“El Borak!” muttered the tallest of the Kurds, his eyes blazing with fear and suspicion and the instinct to kill. “What do you do here?”

Gordon ran his eyes leisurely over them all before he replied, an easy, relaxed figure standing carelessly before those seven tense shapes.

“I seek your master,” he replied presently.

This did not seem to reassure them. They began to mutter among themselves, never relaxing the vigilance of eye or trigger finger.

The tallest Kurd’s voice rose irascibly, dominating the others: “You chatter like crows! This thing is plain: we were gambling and did not see him come. Our duty is to watch the Stair and see that no one mounts it without permission. We have failed in our duty. If it is known there will be punishment. Let us slay him and throw him over the cliff.”

“Aye,” agreed Gordon equably. “Do so. And when your master asks: ‘Where is El Borak, who brought me important news?’ say to him: ‘Lo, thou didst not consult with us concerning this man, and so we slew him to teach thee a lesson!’”

They winced at the biting irony of his words and tone, and shot uneasy glances at one another.

“None will ever know,” growled one. “Shoot him.”

“Nay, the shot would be heard and there would be questions to answer.”

“Cut his throat!” suggested the youngest of the band, and was scowled at so murderously by his fellows that he fell back in confusion.

“Aye, cut my throat,” advised Gordon, laughing at them. “One of you might survive to tell the tale.”

This was no mere bombast, as most of them knew, and they betrayed their uneasiness in their black scowls. They yearned to slay him, but they dared not use their rifles; and at least the older warriors knew the ghastly price they would pay for attacking him with edged weapons. He would have no compunction about using either the rifle in his hand, or the pistol they knew he carried concealed somewhere.

“Knives are silent,” muttered the youngster, trying to justify himself.

He was rewarded by receiving a rifle butt driven angrily into his belly, which made him salaam involuntarily, and then lift his voice in gasping lamentation.

“Be silent, son of a dog! Would you have us fight El Borak’s guns with naked steel?”

Having worked off some of their dissatisfaction on their unfortunate comrade, the Kurds grew calmer, and one of the others inquired of Gordon, uncertainly: “You are expected?”

“Would I come here if I were not expected? Does the lamb thrust his head unbidden into the jaws of the wolf?”

“Lamb?” The Kurds cackled sardonically. “Thou a lamb? Ha, Allah! Say, rather, does the grey wolf with blood on his fangs seek the hunter!”

“If there is blood on my fangs it is but the blood of fools who disobeyed their master’s commands,” retorted Gordon. “Last night, in the Gorge of Ghosts —”

“Ya Allah! Was it thee the Yezidee fools fought? They knew thee not! They said they had slain an Englishman and his servants in the Gorge.”

So that was why the sentries were so careless; for some reason the Yezidees had lied about the outcome of that battle, and the watchers of the Road were not expecting any pursuit.

“None of you was among those who in their ignorance fell upon me in the Gorge?”

“Do we limp? Do we bleed? Do we weep from weariness and wounds? Nay, we have not fought El Borak!”

“Then be wise and do not make the mistake they made, for which mistake some are dead and the skin shall be taken in strips from the backs of the living. And now, will you take me to him who awaits me, or will you cast dung in his beard by scorning his orders?”

“Allah forbid!” ejaculated the tall Kurd. “No order had been given us. Nay, El Borak, thy heart is full of guile as a serpent’s, and where thou walkest, there swords are crimsoned and men die. But if this be a lie then our master shall see thy death. And if it be not a lie, then we can have no blame. Give up thy rifle and scimitar, and we will conduct thee to him.”

Gordon surrendered the weapons, secure in the knowledge of the big pistol reposing in its shoulder scabbard under his left arm.

The leader then picked up the rifle dropped by the young Kurd, who was still bent double and groaning heartily; straightened him with a resounding kick in the rear; shoved the rifle in his hands and bade him watch the Stair as if his life depended on it; gave him another kick, and a cuff on the ear by way of emphasis, and turned, barked orders to the others.

As they closed in around the apparently unarmed American, Gordon knew their hands itched for a knife-thrust in his back; but he had sown the seeds of fear and uncertainty in their primitive minds, and he knew they dared not strike. They moved out of the clustering boulders and started along the wide, well-marked road that led to the city. That road had once been paved, and in some places the paving was still in fair condition.

“The Yezidees passed into the city just before dawn?” he asked casually, making a swift estimation of the time element.

“Aye,” was the brief reply.

“They could not march fast,” mused Gordon, almost as if to himself. “They had wounded men to carry. And then the Sikh they had prisoner would be stubborn. They would have to beat and prod and drag him.”

One of the men turned his head and began: “Why, the Sikh —”

The leader barked him to silence, and turned on Gordon a gaze baleful with suspicion.

“Let not another man speak. Do not answer his questions. Ask him none. If he mocks us, retort not. He is a serpent for craft. If we talk to him he will have us bewitched before we reach Shalizahr.”

So that was the name of that fantastic city; Gordon seemed to remember the name in some medieval historical connection.

“Why do you mistrust me?” he demanded. “Have I not come to you with open hands?”

“Aye! Once I saw you come to the Turks of Bitlis with open hands; but when you closed those hands the streets of Bitlis ran red and the heads of the lords of Bitlis swung from the saddles of your raiders. Nay, El Borak, I know you of old, from the days when you led your outlaws through the hills of Kurdistan. I fought with you against the Turks, and later, because of a change in politics, I fought with the Turks against you. I can not match my hand against your hand, nor my brain against your brain, nor my tongue against your tongue. But I can keep my tongue between my teeth, and I shall. You need not seek to trap me with cunning words, for I will not speak. I am taking you to the master of Shalizahr. All your dealing shall be with him. That is none of my affair. I am as mute and without thought in the matter as the horse who bears king or outlaw alike. My responsibility is only to bring you before my master. In the meantime you shall not trap me into a snare. I will not speak, and if any of my men answer you, I will break his head with my rifle butt.”

“I thought I recognized you,” said Gordon. “You are Yusuf ibn Suleiman. You were a good fighter.”

The Kurd’s lean, scarred visage lighted at the remark, and he started to speak — then recollected himself, scowled ferociously, swore at one with his men who had not offended in any way, squared his shoulders uncompromisingly, and strode stiffly ahead of the party.

Gordon did not stride; rather he strolled, and his tranquil attitude had its effect on his captors. He had the air of a man walking amidst an escort of honor, rather than a guard, and his bearing reacted upon them, so by the time they reached the city they were shouldering their rifles instead of carrying them at the ready, and allowing a respectful interval between themselves and him.

Details of Shalizahr stood out as they approached. Gordon saw the secrets of the groves and gardens. Soil, doubtless brought laboriously from distant valleys, had been superimposed upon the bare rock in some of the many depressions which pitted the surface of the plateau, and an elaborate system of irrigation canals, deep, narrow channels which presented the minimum surface for evaporation, threaded the gardens, apparently originating in some inexhaustible water supply near the center of the city. The plateau, sheltered by the crumbling peaks which rose on all sides, presented a more moderate climate than was common in those mountains, and the hardy vegetation grew in abundance.

The gardens lay mostly on the east and west sides of the city. The road, as it entered the city, ran between a large orchard on the left, and a smaller garden on the right. Both were enclosed by low stone walls, and Gordon could not foresee the bloody part that orchard was to play in this strange adventure into which he was going. A wide open space separated the orchard from the nearest house, but on the other side of the road a flat-topped three-story stone house adjoined the garden on the south. A few yards on the city proper began — lines of flat-roofed stone houses fronting each other across the wide, paved street, each with an expanse of garden behind it.

There was no wall about the city, and the walls about the gardens and the houses were low, obviously not intended for defense. The plateau itself was a fortress. The mountain which frowned above and behind the city stood at a greater distance than it had seemed when first he saw it. From the crag it had appeared that the city backed up against the mountain slope. Now he saw that nearly half a mile of ravine-gashed plain separated the city from the mountain. The plateau was, however, connected with the mountain; it was like a great shelf jutting out from the massive slope.

Men at work in the gardens and loitering along the street halted and stared at the Kurds and their captive. He saw more Kurds, many Persians, and Yezidees; he saw Arabs, Mongols, Druses, Turks, Indians, even a few Egyptians. But no Afghans. Evidently the heterogenous population of that strange city had no affiliations with the native inhabitants of the land.

The people did not carry their curiosity beyond questioning stares. The street widened into a suk closed on the south side by a broad wall which enclosed the palatial building with its gorgeous dome.

There was no guard at the massive bronze-barred, gold-worked gates, only a gay-clad negro who salaamed deeply as he swung the portals open. Gordon and his escort came into a broad courtyard paved with colored tile, in the midst of which a fountain bubbled and pigeons fluttered about it. East and west the court was bounded by inner walls over which peeped foliage that told of more gardens, and Gordon noticed a slim tower that rose almost as high as the dome itself, its lacy tilework gleaming in the sunlight.

The Kurds marched straight on across the court and were halted on the broad pillared portico of the palace by a guard of thirty Arabs in resplendent regalia — plumed helmets of silvered steel, gilded corselets, rhinoceros-hide shields, and gold-chased scimitars, which archaic accoutrements contrasted curiously with the modern rifles in their hands, and the cartridge-belts which girdled their lean waists.

The hawk-faced captain of the guard conversed briefly with Yusuf ibn Suleiman, and Gordon divined that no love was lost between these members of rival races, whatever circumstances had brought them into alliance.

The captain, whom men addressed as Muhammad ibn Ahmed, presently made a gesture with his slim brown hand, and Gordon was surrounded by a dozen glittering Arabs, and marched among them up the broad marble steps and through the wide arch whose bronze scroll-worked doors stood wide. The Kurds followed, without their rifles, and not looking at all happy.

They passed through wide, dim-lit halls, from the vaulted and fretted ceilings of which hung smoking bronze censers, while on either hand velvet-curtained arches hinted at inner mysteries. Tapestries rustled, soft footfalls whispered, and once Gordon saw a slim white hand grasping a hanging as if the owner peered from behind it. Accustomed as he was to the furtiveness and subdued undertones of Eastern palaces, Gordon sensed here a more than ordinary atmosphere of mystery and secrecy.

Even the swagger of the Arabs — all except their captain — was modified. The Kurds were openly uneasy. Mystery and intangible menace lurked in those dim, gorgeous halls. He might have been traversing a palace of Nineveh or ancient Persia, but for the modern weapons of his escort.

Presently they marched into a broader hall-way and approached a double-valved bronze door, flanked by more gorgeously-clad guardsmen, Persians, these, scented and painted like the warriors of Cambyses, and holding antique-looking spears instead of rifles.

These bizarre figures stood as impassively as statues while the Arabs swaggered by with their captive — or guest — and entered a semicircular room where dragon-worked tapestries covered the walls, hiding all possible doors or windows except the one by which they had entered. The ceiling was lofty and arched, worked in fretted gold and ebony, hung with golden lamps. Opposite from the great doorway there stood a marble dais. On the dais there stood a great canopied chair, scrolled and carved like a throne, and on the velvet cushions which littered the seat lolled a slender figure in a pearl-sewn silk khalat, and cloth-of-gold slippers with turned-up toes. On the rose-colored turban glistened a great gold brooch, set with diamonds, made in the shape of a human hand gripping a three-bladed dagger. The face beneath the turban was oval, the color of old ivory, with a small black pointed beard. The eyes were wide, dark and contemplative. The man was a Persian.

On either side of the throne stood a giant Sudanese, like images of heathen gods carved out of black basalt, naked but for sandals and silken loin-cloths, with broad-bladed tulwars in their hands.

“Who is this?” languidly inquired the man on the throne, speaking Arabic, and gesturing for his henchmen to cease their energetic salaaming.

“El Borak! answered Muhammad ibn Ahmed, with a definite swagger, in his consciousness that the announcement of that name would create something of a sensation — as it would anywhere East of Stamboul.

The dark eyes quickened with interest, sharpened with suspicion, and Yusuf ibn Suleiman, watching his master’s face with painful intensity, drew in a quick breath and clenched his hands so the nails bit into the palms.

“How comes he in Shalizahr unannounced?”

“The Kurdish dogs who are supposed to watch the Stair said he came to them, swearing that he had been sent for by the Shaykh Al Jebal!”

Gordon stiffened as he heard that title. It clinched all his suspicions. It was fantastic, incredible; yet it was true. His black eyes fixed with fierce intensity on the oval face.

He did not speak. There was a time for silence as well as for bold speech. His next move depended entirely on the Shaykh’s next words. A word would brand him as an impostor and defeat his whole plan. But he depended on two things: the belief that no Eastern ruler would order El Borak slain without first trying to learn the reason behind his presence; and the fact that few Eastern rulers either enjoy the full confidence of their followers, or wholly trust those followers in their turn.

The man on the throne gave back Gordon’s burning stare for a space, then spoke at, but not to the Kurd: “This is the law of Shalizahr: the Watchers of the Stair must allow no man to ascend the Stair until he has made the Sign so they can see. If he is a stranger who does not know the Sign, the Warder of the Gate must be summoned to converse with the man before he is allowed to mount the Stair. El Borak was not announced. The Warder of the Gate was not summoned. Did El Borak make the Sign, below the Stair?”

Yusuf ibn Suleiman was pale and sweating, as he plainly wavered between a dangerous truth, and a lie that might be even more dangerous. He shot a venomous glance at Gordon and spoke in a voice harsh with apprehension: “The guard in the cleft did not give warning. El Borak appeared upon the cliff before we saw him, though we stood at the head of the Stair watching like eagles. He is a magician who makes himself invisible at will. We knew he spoke truth when he said you had sent for him, otherwise he could not have known the secret way —”

Perspiration beaded the Kurd’s narrow forehead. The man on the throne did not seem to hear his voice, and Muhammad ibn Ahmed, quick to sense that the Kurd had fallen in disfavor, struck Yusuf savagely in the mouth with his open hand.

“Dog, be silent until the Protector of the Pitiful deigns to command thy speech!”

Yusuf reeled, blood starting down his beard, and looked black murder at the Arab, but he said nothing.

The Persian moved his hand languidly, yet with impatience.

“Take the Kurds away. Keep them under guard until further orders. Even if a man is expected, they should not be surprized. El Borak did not know the Sign, yet he climbed the Stair unhindered. If they had been vigilant not even El Borak could have done this. He is no magician. Send other men to watch the Stair.

“You have my leave to go; I will talk to El Borak alone.”

Muhammad ibn Ahmed salaamed and led his glittering swordsmen away between the silent files of spearmen lined on each side of the door, herding the shivering Kurds before them. These turned as they passed through the door and fixed their burning eyes on Gordon in a silent glare of hate.

Muhammad ibn Ahmed pulled the bronze doors shut behind them. The Persian spoke in English to Gordon.

“Speak freely. These black men do not understand English.”

Gordon, before replying, kicked a divan up before the dais and settled himself comfortably on it, with his feet propped on a velvet footstool. He had not established his prestige in the Orient by meek bearing or timid behavior. Where another man might have tip-toed, hat in hand and heart in mouth, Gordon strode with heavy boots and heavy hand, and because he was El Borak, he lived where other men died. His attitude was no bluff. He was ready at all times to back up his play with hot lead and cold steel, and men knew it, just as they knew that he was the most dangerous man with any sort of weapon between Cairo and Peking.

The Persian showed no surprize that his captive — or guest — should seat himself without asking permission. His first words showed that he had had much dealings with Westerners, and had, for his own purposes, adopted some of their directness. For he said, without preamble: “I did not send for you.”

“Of course not. But I had to tell those fools something, or else kill them all.”

“What do you want here?”

“What does any man want who comes to a nest of outlaws?”

“He might come as a spy,” pointed out the Shaykh.

Gordon laughed at him. “For whom?”

“How did you know the Road?”

Gordon took refuge in the obscurity of Eastern subtlety.

“I followed the vultures; they always lead me to my goal.”

“They should,” was the grim reply. “You have fed them full often enough. What of the Mongol who watched the cleft?”

“Dead; he wouldn’t listen to reason.”

“The vultures follow you, not you the vultures,” commented the Shaykh. “Why did you not send word to me of your coming?”

“Send word by whom? Last night as I camped in the Gorge of Ghosts, resting my horses before I pushed on to Shalizahr, a gang of your fools fell on my party in the darkness, killed one and carried another away. The fourth man was frightened and ran away. I came on alone as soon as the moon rose.”

“They were Yezidees, whose duty it is to watch the Gorge of Ghosts. They did not know you sought me. They limped into the city at dawn, with one man dying and most of the others sorely wounded, and swore that they had slain a sahib and his servants in the Gorge of Ghosts. Evidently they feared to admit that they ran away, leaving you alive. They shall smart for their lie. But you have not told me why you came here.”

“I seek refuge. And I bring news. The man you sent to kill the Amir wounded him and was himself cut to pieces by the Uzbek guardsmen.”

The Persian shrugged his shoulders impatiently.

“Your news is stale. We knew that before the noon of the day after the night the execution was attempted. And we have since learned that the Amir will live, because an English physician cleansed the wounds of the poison which was on the dagger.”

That sounded like black magic, until Gordon remembered the pigeons in the courtyard. Carrier birds, of course, and agents in Kabul to release them with the messages.

“We have kept our secret well,” said the Persian. “Since you knew of Shalizahr and the Road to Shalizahr, you must have been told of it by some one of the Brotherhood. Did Bagheela send you?”

Gordon’s pause before replying was no longer than it took him to flick a bit of dust from his breeches, but in that space he recognized the trap laid for him and avoided it. He had no idea who Bagheela was, and this innocent-appearing question was too obviously a bait an impostor might be tempted to seize.

“I don’t know the man you call Bagheela,” he answered. “No one took me into his confidence. I don’t have to be told secrets. I learn them for myself. I came here because I had to have a hide-out. I’m out of favor at Kabul, and the English would have me shot if they could catch me.”

One of the most persistent legends in circulation about Gordon was that he was an enemy of the English. This had its basis in his refusal to be awed by gold braid and brass buttons, and in his comings and goings in tranquil disregard of all rules and regulations that apply to the general run of folk. He had no reverence for the authority which bedecks itself in pomp and arrogance and arbitrary worship of precedence, and he did have an abiding contempt for certain types of officials, whether civilian or military; so he was violently hated by the latter, and their opinion was sometimes accepted by the unthinking as an index of governmental opinion. But the men who actually rule India, moving unobtrusively behind the scenes, knew El Borak for what he really was, and though they did not always approve of his methods, they were his friends, and had profited by his aid time and again.

But the Persian had no way of knowing this. He knew just enough about Gordon to be readily deceived as to the American’s true character. Much of the tales he had heard about him had been lies, or facts distorted out of all proportion. To the Shaykh El Borak was just another lawless adventurer, not quite gone native, but still beyond the pale of respectability, and therefore quite likely to fall foul of the government at any time.

He said something in scholarly and archaic Persian and Gordon, knowing that he would not change the language of their conversation without a subtle reason, feigned ignorance of the tongue. Sometimes the deviousness of the East is childishly transparent.

The Shaykh spoke to one of the blacks, and that giant stolidly drew a silver hammer from his girdle and smote a golden gong hanging among the tapestries. The echoes had scarcely died away when the bronze doors opened long enough to admit a slim man in plain silken robes who stood bowing before the dais; a Persian, like the Shaykh. The latter addressed him as Musa, and asked him a question in the tongue he had just tested on Gordon.

“You know this man?”

“Aye, ya sidna; he is —”

“Do not speak his name; he does not understand us, but he would recognize his name and know we discussed him. Have our spies included him in their reports?”

“Yes, ya sidna. The last despatch from Kabul bore word of him. On the night that your servant attempted to execute the Amir, this man talked with the Amir secretly, an hour or so before the attack was made. After leaving the palace, he fled from the city with three men, and was seen riding along the road that leads to the village of the outlaw, Baber Khan of Khor. He was pursued by horsemen from Kabul, but whether they gave up the chase or were slain by the men of Khor, I do not know.”

“It would seem he spoke truth, then, when he said he was out of favor at Kabul,” mused the Shaykh.

Gordon, lounging on the divan and showing no sign that he understood, realized two things: the spy system of the Hidden Ones was more elaborate and far-reaching than he had guessed; and a chain of misunderstood circumstances were working in his favor. It was natural for these men to think that he had fled from Kabul under the shadow of royal displeasure. That he should ride for the village of an outlaw would seem to clinch the matter, as well as the fact of his “pursuit” by the royal horsemen.

“You have my leave to go.”

Musa bowed and departed, closing the doors, and the Shaykh meditated in silence for a space. Presently he lifted his head, as if coming to a decision, and said: “I believe you are telling me the truth. You fled from Kabul, to Khor, where no friend of the Amir would be welcome. And your enmity toward the English is well known. The Batinis need such a man as you. But I can not initiate you into the Brotherhood until the lord Bagheela sees and passes on you. He is not in Shalizahr at the present, but he will be here by tomorrow dawn.

“In the meantime, I would like to know how you learned of our society and of our city.”

Gordon shrugged his shoulders.

“What is concealed from me of the mysteries of the Hills? I hear the secrets the wind sings as it blows through the branches of the dry tamarisks. I understand the cry of the kites as they wheel above the gorges of Gomul. I know what tales are whispered about the dung-fires that the men of the caravans build in the crowded serais.”

“Then you know our purpose? Our ambition?”

“I know what you call yourselves. Long ago there was another city on a mountain, ruled by emirs who called themselves Shaykhs Al Jebal — the Old Men of the Mountain. Their followers were called Assassins. They were hemp-eaters, hashish addicts, and their terrorist methods made the Shaykhs feared all over Western Asia.”

“Aye!” a dark fire lit the Persian’s eyes. “Saladin himself feared them. The Crusaders feared them. The Shah of Persia, the emirs of Damascus, the Khalifs of Bagdad, the Sultans of Egypt and of the Seljuks paid tribute to the Shaykhs Al Jebal. They did not lead armies in the field; they fought by poison and fire and the triple-bladed dagger that bit in the dark. Their scarlet-cloaked emissaries of death went forth with hidden daggers to do their bidding. And kings died in Cairo, in Jerusalem, in Samarcand, in Brusa. On Mount Alamut, in Persia, the first Shaykh, Hassan ibn Sabah, built his great castle-city, with its hidden gardens where his followers were permitted to taste the joys of paradise where dancing girls fair as houris flitted among the blossoms and the dreams of hashish gilded all with rapture.”

“The follower was drugged and placed in the garden,” grunted Gordon. “He thought he was in the Prophet’s Paradise. Later he was drugged again and removed, and told that to regain this rapture he had only to obey the Shaykh to the death. No king was ever given such absolute obedience as the fedauis accorded the Shaykhs. Until the Mongols under Hulagu Khan destroyed their mountain castles in 1256, they threatened Oriental civilization with destruction.”

“Aye! And I am a direct descendant of Hassan ibn Sabah!” A fanatical light gleamed in the dark eyes. “Throughout my youth I dreamed of the greatness of my ancestors. Wealth that flowed suddenly from the barren lands of my family — western money that came to me from minerals found there — made the dream become reality. Othman el Aziz became Shaykh Al Jebal!

“Hassan ibn Sabah was a follower of Ismail, who taught that all deeds and men are one in the sight of Allah. The Ismailian creed is broad and deep as the sea. It overlooks racial and religious differences, and unites men of opposing sects. It is the one power that can ultimately lead to a united Asia. The people of my own native hills had not forgotten the teachings of Ismail, nor the gardens of the hashishin. It was from them I recruited my first followers. But others soon flocked to me in the mountains of Kurdistan where I had my first stronghold — Yezidees, Kurds, Druses, Arabs, Persians, Turks — outlaws, men without hope, who were ready even to forswear Muhammad for a taste of Paradise on earth. But the Batini creed forswears nothing; it unites. My emissaries travelled throughout Asia, drawing followers to me. I chose my men carefully. My band has grown slowly, for each member was tested to prove that he was fit for my service. Race and creed makes no difference; I have among my fedauis Moslems, Hindus, worshippers of Melek Taus from Mount Lalesh, worshippers of Erlik from the Gobi.

“Four years ago I came with my followers to this city, then a crumbling mass of ruins, unknown to the hillmen because their superstitious legends kept them far from it. Centuries ago it was a city of the Assassins, and was laid waste by the Mongols. When I came the buildings were crumbled stone, the canals filled with rubble, the groves grown wild and tangled. It took three years to rebuild it, and most of my fortune went into the labor, for bringing material here secretly was tedious and dangerous work. We brought it out of Persia, from the west, over the old caravan route, and up an ancient ramp on the western side of the plateau, which I have since destroyed. But at last I looked upon forgotten Shalizahr as it was in the days of the ancient Shaykhs.

“Look!” He rose and beckoned Gordon to follow him. The giant blacks closed in on each side of the Shaykh, and he led the way into an alcove unsuspected until one of the negroes drew aside a tapestry behind the throne. They stood in a latticed balcony looking down into a garden enclosed by a fifteen-foot wall, which wall was almost completely masked by thick shrubbery. An exotic fragrance rose from masses of trees, shrubs and blossoms, and silvery fountains tinkled musically. Gordon saw women moving among the trees, unveiled and scantily clad in filmy silk and jewel-crusted velvet — slim, supple girls, Arab and Persian and Hindu, mostly, and he suddenly saw the explanation of the mysterious disappearances of certain Indian girls, which of late years had increased too greatly to be explained by casual kidnappings by native princelings. Men, looking like opium-sleepers, lay under the trees on silken cushions, and native music wailed melodiously from unseen musicians. It was easy to understand how an Oriental, his senses at once drugged and inflamed by hashish, would believe himself to be in the Prophet’s Paradise, upon awakening in that fantastic garden.

“I have copied, and improved upon, the hashish garden of Hassan ibn Sabah,” said the Shaykh, at last closing the cleverly disguised casement and turning back into the throne-room. “I show you this because I do not intend to have you ‘taste Paradise’ like these others. I am not such a fool as to believe that you would be duped like them. It is not necessary. It does no harm for you to know these secrets. If Bagheela does not approve of you, your knowledge will die with you; if he does, then you have learned no more than you will learn in any event as one of the Sons of the Mountain.

“You can rise high in the empire I am building. I shall become as powerful as my ancestor was. Three years I was preparing. Then I began to strike. Within the last year my fedauis have gone forth with poisoned daggers as they went forth in the old days, knowing no law but my will, incorruptible, invincible, seeking death rather than life.”

“And your ultimate ambition?”

“Have you not guessed it?” The Persian almost whispered it, his eyes wide and blank with his strange fanaticism.

“Who wouldn’t? But I’d rather hear it from your lips.”

“I will rule all Asia! Sitting here in Shalizahr I will control the destinies of the world! Kings on their thrones will be but puppets dancing on my strings. Those who dare disobey my commands shall die suddenly. Soon none will dare disobey. Power will be mine. Power! Allah! What is greater?”

Gordon did not reply. He was comparing the Shaykh’s repeated references to his absolute power, with his remarks concerning the mysterious Bagheela who must decide Gordon’s status. This would seem to indicate that the Shaykh’s authority was not supreme in Shalizahr, after all. Gordon wondered who this Bagheela was. The term merely meant panther, and was probably a little like his own native name of El Borak.

“Where is the Sikh, Lal Singh?” he demanded abruptly. “Your Yezidees carried him away, after they murdered Ahmed Shah.”

The Persian’s expression of surprize and ignorance was overdone.

“I do not know to whom you refer. The Yezidees brought back no captive with them from the Gorge of Ghosts.”

Gordon knew he was lying, but also realized that it would be useless to push his questioning further at that time. He could not imagine why Othman should deny knowledge of the Sikh, whom he was sure had been brought into the city, but it might be dangerous to press the matter, after a formal denial by the Persian.

The Shaykh motioned to the black who again smote the gong, and again Musa entered, salaaming.

“Musa will show you to a chamber where food and drink will be brought you,” he said. “You are not a prisoner, of course. No guard will be placed over you. But I must ask you not to leave your chamber until I send for you. My men are suspicious of Feringhi, and until you are formally initiated into the society —”

He left the sentence unfinished.