E. Hoffmann Price's War and Western Action Page 13

  Diane turned away, and without a sound, Zohra and Jauhara led her back toward the tunnel. Slade got up and said to Shir Dil, “Once more, give me a hand. Yasmini and the captain, we bury them in the dead city.” Then, to the Sikhs, “Take bars, and roll the road block away.”

  Slade turned Diane’s pack animals loose to join the horses of the fallen bandits. Later he pulled up at the foot of Akbar Khan’s hill to let Zohra and Jauhara go up to the khelat to find shelter until they could return to the Wali and tell him he’d have to make other plans for a traveling medical service. And before Akbar Khan’s dogs scented strangers, Slade was back at the wheel, booting the truck and its cargo of loot toward the frontier.

  Diane sat with him, saying nothing until dawn grayed the summit of Malakand Pass. Her first words were, “I’m glad he knew that Yasmini finally—well—quit selling him out—I’ll never forgive myself—for speaking so bluntly—that’s why—he got crazy drunk—and—but his wounds sobered him—he knew she’d tried—”

  “He wasn’t drunk. He’d poured it all over himself, but he didn’t drink any. His eyes didn’t have the hasheesh stare. When I bent over to hear some of the things he said, there wasn’t a trace of it on his breath.”

  “All the more, then, it was having seen that Hand of Fat’ma, that drove him to suicide.”

  Slade shook his head. “It was knowing he’d quit his post to help a thief. Knowing he’d pulled us all into danger. He couldn’t stay, and he couldn’t go back.”

  After a mile downgrade, Diane spoke. “I heard what he said, right at the last.”

  “He was confused, wandering.”

  “No, Dave, he was talking sense. He was happy that Yasmini was finally on the level, and that he didn’t have to worry any more about what people would say.”

  Several hours later, when the sun was blazing down on Peshwar, and Sir Pratap Singh Bahadur had finished checking his treasure, Slade sat in his hotel room, frowning at the report he had not quite finished. “Didn’t know it was loot, so he wasn’t an accessory for stowing it,” he muttered. “Obeyed ordered when inspector told him to get it off the reservation. This after having bucked up his outfit. Was lawfully—um—well—lawfully ex post facto anyway—on—leave—died gallantly upholding the honor of the service—that sounds too much like a citation for an award, but the fool deserves a good epitaph—can’t give him the court martial he deserves—oh, hell!”

  He was reaching for the phone to call Diane; he needed help, and needed it badly. Kellam, if one skipped a few details, had died in the line of duty, but how to put it across? He got no answer, either from Diane, or from himself; then, before he could get back to his task, his own phone rang. Sir Pratap Singh Bahadur begged permission to call.

  When Slade went to receive the Rajput dignitary, he met more than he had expected. Diane was with Sir Pratap, and she was smiling.

  After ceremonious courtesies, the hard-bitten Rajput offered a small enameled box with a hinged cover. Slade accepted it with both hands, and opened it. An unset ruby, the bluish-red of pigeon blood, gleamed against the white satin. The gem was nearly the size of the nail of his little finger, and cut in the ancient fashion. “Permit me the honor, Major Slade, to offer this, along with my apologies.”

  “I don’t blame you for having suspected me, Sir Pratap.”

  The Rajput smiled. “I did not suspect you. My apology if for using you to inform me as to the late Captain Kellam’s general and special destinations. You were covering his trail, and for but one purpose.”

  “I had to. But this—being in the service, I can’t accept it.”

  “As Major Slade, perhaps not. But as David Slade?”

  “The two become terribly confused.” He pointed to the papers. “That report, trying to prove that a deceased comrade died in the line of duty—if I accepted a gift, it’d cast reflections on—no, it’s not a false report, but still—”

  Sir Pratap gestured and bowed. “I think I understand. When you tell an honorable lie, it must be its own reward. Miss Crawford led me to expect as much.”

  “I did,” Diane said, “but Sir Pratap insisted. He offered me a gift, which I had to decline. Because I’d come so near bundling your effort.”

  Sir Pratap still smiled, wisely now, and to match the gleam in his deep-set eyes. “Listen, please. Major Slade, I take this from your hand. Now, Miss Crawford, you have it in your hand. Though it is not yours. It belongs to him as much now as before. Just as it once belonged to me, even while far from my house.” He closed his hands over the box. “So! Not yours—but since he never accepted it, who but I could say he received a gift?” Before either could answer, he bowed and said, “With your permission, I leave.”

  When he had gone, Diane and Slade regarded each other for a long time before either could speak. “I can keep it, because it isn’t mine, and it’s all right as far as you’re concerned because you never accepted it!”

  “He’s a very smart man—listen—you said you’d heard Steve’s last words, and you insisted he’d not been wandering at the time—umh—uh—I mean—sit down while I finish that report—damn it, that’s something that takes Sir Pratap’s wits.”

  Diane laughed softly, through small tears which jeweled her eyes. “Sir Pratap didn’t think of a thing! I told him you could not possibly accept, and figured out a way. Or must I go back to tell the Wali that I insist on doctoring the hill women?”

  Slade glanced again at the fool’s epitaph. “Tell you what, darling, nothing in the articles of war or the traditions of the service keep me from having a ring made to fit a ruby which isn’t mine.”

  “Oh, marvelous!” She caught his arm. “Let’s go right now, we’ll go to the goldsmith’s bazaar, and watch him make it.”

  Slade blinked, and shook his head to clear it. “I was wondering, all the way back, how soon it’d be right to ask you.” Then he caught her with both arms, and lifted her to her tiptoes. “This is something you’re not being asked about, now or ever!”

  “I’m not complaining,” she answered. “Now, or ever.”

  HASHEESH WISDOM

  Originally appeared in Spicy Mystery Stories, Sept. 1936, under the pseudonym “Hamlin Daly.”

  Three sots had just been jailed in Cairo:

  “Let us break out!” stormed the drunkard, kicking the bars.

  “Better sleep here till they let us out,” said the opium eater.

  But the hasheesh smoker smiled craftily and said,

  “Follow me, Brethren—we will crawl through the keyhole.”

  —Wisdom of Ashraf Ali.

  There might have been a fouler dive than Zorayda’s Garden, down in the Muski Quarter of Cairo, but thus far Burton had not found it. His pupils were dilated to great black discs, and his face was an aquiline, deeply lined mask, the color of seasoned leather, but his beard was curled and oiled, his turban was clean, and his white robe was spotless.

  He drew again at the long-stemmed pipe whose bowl contained a little tobacco and a great deal of hasheesh. The acrid fumes made him cough, but they gave him uncommon wisdom. They made him master of time and space, made him see the point of jests far too subtle for ordinary comprehension.

  They left him above fearing the hawk-nosed, white-bearded little man with eyes like black fires who said in a low, grim voice: “The Grand Master sent me from Bagdad to get the five thousand Egyptian pounds you have collected for the revolt against the King of Iraq.”

  Long silence. Haste is of Satan. Burton had not the least idea what had happened to the money he had collected in behalf of the Ismailian Society.

  Finally he spoke.

  “The Peace upon you, uncle. I will have it for you after the sunrise prayer.”

  The sour-faced little man stalked out to the narrow street, frowning and stroking his beard. He seemed to suspect.

  Egypt was a hotbed of revolt. Collecting
money from radical scholars eager to see the British-owned King of Iraq die of insomnia had been easy, until work began to interfere with hasheesh smoking.

  Burton’s position was deadly. The Brotherhood of Ismailians, which he had joined in Bagdad, had a long arm that reached across the Moslem world, with dagger and strangler’s noose. What was just as bad, old Abbas had but to denounce Burton to the British rulers of Cairo.

  Five thousand pounds, Egyptian, or else. Yet Burton had the answer: simple as crawling through a keyhole…

  He rose, disdainfully stepped over the snoring sots, and with stately paces stalked down the narrow alley whose gloom even the blistering Egyptian sun could not dispel. When he reached Khan el Khalili, his dignified deliberation clove a path through the confused tangle of tourists and peddlers and donkey boys that thronged the bazaar.

  They did not know that that hawk-faced, handsome man with the strangely glittering eyes was an Englishman whose business was overturning a throne.

  Who else would have had the cunning to lounge around Zorayda’s place, masking his true quality by drinking smoke from sunrise to sunset? A lesser man would have acted the spy, furtive and cautious—but not Burton, the renegade.

  A dozen courses were possible, but two seemed brilliant. Sell the house, and the costly trinkets he had bought for Salima, the exquisite Syrian girl whose sultry kisses and smoldering, heavy-lidded eyes had convinced him of the folly of squandering hard-earned money to overthrow a king. Thrones crumble from top heaviness anyway…

  Better yet, denounce old Abbas to the secret police, collect a reward for his head, and carry the proceeds directly to the Grand Master as proof of the cunning that had outwitted the invisible network that enveloped Cairo.

  That would be crawling through the keyhole!

  At the coppersmith’s bazaar Burton turned into an alley. He wanted Salima to enjoy the laugh with him.

  He wanted to surprise her. He moved with leopard stealth as the door silently closed behind him. She was not in the orange-clustered courtyard, nor was she singing to the somnolent strumming of her eight-stringed oudh.

  Nevertheless, he heard enough to know that he had indeed surprised Salima…though not as he had intended.

  Crouched in the angle of a pilaster, he peered between the bars and into the shadowed room.

  Salima was a length of golden bronze loveliness in the shifting shadows. Her legs were amber-tinted modulations that tapered from the smoke-wisp gauze about her hips to the gazelle ankles encircled by ruby-clustered golden bands.

  Her anklets were no longer joined by the slender golden chains that permitted her no more than an eight inch pace. Her legs were free, and luxuriously extended against the wine-colored Boukhara rug that covered the lounge.

  The slender curve of her waist was not enclosed by the massive girdle whose trailing pendants should be caressing her sleek hips…and her haughty young breasts were poorly confined in their cupped silver guards. Her wanton lips were like pomegranate blossoms.

  If Salima had anticipated Burton’s return, the gray-haired British major whose saber and spurs were carelessly scattered at the foot of the mastaba would not be so deliberate about extricating himself from her serpentine arms.

  The insidious smoke distorts all sense of time. Burton did not know whether he had watched for seconds or months…nor even whom he saw…

  Years ago, he recollected, he himself had worn a khaki uniform and a saber. That was before regimental funds, and a woman he did not know was a colonel’s wife had combined permanently to relieve him of military honors.

  But that man with Salima could not be Burton. His hair was too gray.

  No, Burton was not at the moment standing apart from his body and regarding it as another person would. Though that was very easy to do when you faithfully smoke hasheesh…

  He drew a long, curved knife. But first, listen for a moment.

  “Don’t be silly, darling,” Salima was murmuring. “He won’t be back for hours…”

  The British officer, however, snapped his saber to his belt, and spoke of returning later that night.

  He did not know that a robed man was following him toward the Ezbekiyah quarter. The sun had set, and gloom was invading the narrower alleys.

  Burton ducked down a cross passage, looped around. Presently he was waiting in an archway near the gate through which the officer must pass.

  The muezzin was calling true believers to prayer. The street was deserted. Moslems were in the mosque, or in their houses, kneeling as they bowed to holy Mecca. No one would see.

  It was cunningly done, as prescribed by the Ismailian Brotherhood of Assassins. There was no outcry. Just a silvery flash that ended in a ruddy, red throat; a gurgling smothered by Burton’s free hand, a sodden chunk and a tinkle of scabbard and saber chains as the officer toppled into the dusky lurking place.

  Presently he ceased shuddering. The red froth bubbling from his mouth subsided. Burton deliberately probed his tunic. It was easy, when you timed it right. It made no difference, but he wanted to know the major’s name.

  He learned that, and more. He found a list of trouble-makers the secret police of Cairo were watching. Burton’s own was on the document.

  As he thrust wallet and papers into his belt, he smiled at Salima’s futile treachery. He was entirely above wrath. The red testimony of his superiority lay at his feet.

  Burton circled back toward his own quarter. There was scarcely any blood on his hands. He washed them at a shadowed fountain.

  At the nearest mosque he paused to pray. It was the polite thing to do. Maybe it would help. Cairo was now doubly perilous. It would be dangerous to try to betray old Abbas. Better just take Salima’s jewels and steal from the city.

  The major would not be missing until morning. Neither would Abbas strike before then. He did not want to kill the old fellow.

  Somehow, Salima’s sweetness outweighed her treachery. He would slay no more. There were better uses for his last hours in Cairo.

  Salima’s loveliness aroused a consuming hunger. He had left her that morning to go to Zorayda’s den, but it was now as if he had spent years in the lonely desert.

  Salima had done him no wrong. She really could not. Burton was omniscient. The major’s body proved that.

  When Salima ran across the court to meet Burton, she moved with mincing steps and sensuously swaying hips. Her ankles were again locked together with short golden chains, and her breasts in their small silver hemispheres were like the halves of oranges.

  She was dizzyingly fragrant, and her body against him was like a silken serpent. Her lips were a consuming fire, and the entire supple length of her was a multitude of questing tongues of flame. When her breath sighed tremulously in his ear, all the mighty wisdom and subtle hasheesh knowledge that burned in Burton’s brain shifted, centering in a single desire.

  Peril made her kisses sweeter, and hasheesh infinitely prolonged each exquisite moment into hours…that was one of the marvels of that potent herb which can be smoked, or eaten in confection, or infused into wine.

  The last night in Cairo. Sorrow finally invaded the ecstasy of the moon-dappled room that faced the courtyard. Old Abbas would be disagreeable. And someone else from the rear major’s office would carry on.

  But a caravan would clear the eastern gate of Cairo at dawn. It would go down the Red Sea coast. There would be pilgrims bound for Mecca, and traders for the Soudan. That was the next step: the great desert, or holy Mecca. The last would be especially appealing. Making the pilgrimage as his namesake had done, three quarters of a century ago…

  Leaving Salima was intolerable. Tears dimmed Burton’s eyes as he drank in the exquisite beauty of that silk-veiled Syrian girl. Her dark eyes widened in wonder, not contempt. To express grief is not unmanly in Moslem lands.

  “You are distracted, beloved,” she murmured. “What is wro
ng?”

  “I am looking into the future,” said Burton. “I see everything. I know everything. Even that you and I part at dawn. That there will be no more love beneath the orange tree by moon, no more kisses when the moonbeams seek the fountain mist. That is over, and I go out on the roads of Allah.”

  She was silent. Her eyes shifted. She stared at his sandals.

  An inner voice warned Burton. A thin whisper spoke to his mind’s ear: “She sees the blood stains. She knows you have slain someone.”

  When her eyes rose, they alarmed him.

  “Let me go with you,” she finally said.

  Burton knew that she was dissimulating. She was too cunning to accuse him. She was waiting for him to fall asleep from drinking wine mingled with hasheesh. Then she expected to tell the major.

  He laughed immoderately.

  “By Allah, we two will go!” he said.

  “That is good.” Salima’s eyes were bright again. “I saw an old man in the bazaar. Twice these past two days. An evil-faced old man with a long beard and cruel eyes. He looked at me. I am afraid.”

  “Perhaps I should slay the old man first,” pondered Burton.

  He peeled an orange, then cast it aside. Its acid juice would cut the hasheesh fumes. It would rob him of the wisdom he needed.

  Salima was wearing only a few of her jewels. None of them were the costly gifts he had brought her with money won by betraying his trust. For a moment his blood was a bitterness. For years now he had been betraying trusts for the sake of some woman…

  Regimental funds…corporation funds…and now the money of a society of Ismailian assassins who planned to overthrow a king. For the first time, the wisdom of hasheesh let Burton see how evil his life had been.

  “But it was unintentional,” he said to the shrilly fluting voice that piped in his ear. He sharply looked up, but saw that Salima’s expression had not changed. She could not have heard.

  Yet she might listen to the debate that Burton was now carrying on as his lips planned with her for the flight in the morning. This was a new gift, being able to converse with two persons at once. He decided that it would be safer if he answered the unseen speaker in…well, Tamil—a language Salima could not understand.