King of the Air Part 13

"I tried to climb up," he explained, "but couldn't manage it. I think it could be done, though, with practice."

"Which we haven't time for."

The discovery of the caves had occupied some little time, and furnished material for speculation and talk that helped to relieve the tedium of waiting. But their patience had well nigh given out when night once more descended and still Abdul had not returned. The two were eating their supper in moody silence when they heard suddenly the sound of a stone rattling down the hillside. They seized their revolvers and sprang up, waiting for another sound. Clearly some one, man or animal, was climbing the hill. All was again silent; then, from some point beyond them, came the sound of a high-pitched voice.

"It's Abdul. Thank goodness!" cried Oliphant, with a laugh. "Come on, you laggard, and give an account of yourself."

"You have been a long time, Abdul," said Tom, as that young Moor came through the darkness.

"True, master; but it is with us a saying, 'Every delay is good.'"

"Well, come and have something to eat. You're pretty tired and hungry, no doubt. Then you can tell us what you have done."

But Abdul declined the food offered him, and producing a wallet from beneath his djellab, displayed a heap of dates. He related that he had made his way safely into the village, but as he went through the street towards the house of Hamet Ali-a friend on whose discretion he could rely-he fancied from the manner of an old water-carrier that the man had recognized him. He contrived to slip away among a company of muleteers that happened to be pa.s.sing, and reached his friend's house unmolested; but shortly afterwards he learnt from this friend that the water-carrier had mentioned his suspicions, and that inquiries were being diligently made for him through the village. Every exit was watched; and his friend was in some anxiety lest an emissary of the sheikh should come and search the house. Hamet, however, was an old enemy of the sheikh, though, with true oriental dissimulation, he had hitherto managed to hide the fact. He agreed to give Abdul shelter so long as it was safe to do so, but impressed upon him that he must not venture to show himself out of doors.

He then inquired what had brought Abdul to the village, and the boy thought it advisable to confide in him, taking care to heighten the mystery of the wonderful ship that sailed through the air, and to promise, on the Englishmen's behalf, liberal bakshish to Hamet if he lent all possible a.s.sistance to the enterprise. He wished his friend to send a messenger to Tom, but this Hamet refused to do, for the results to himself, if the messenger were followed and caught, might be disastrous.

On the morning of the same day, when Hamet returned from his usual visit to the sok, he reported that a camel-driver had arrived, bearing a message from a Jew of Rabat, Salathiel ben Ezra by name, who proposed to come in person to see the sheikh, and had sent a swift rider in advance to request a safe-conduct. The Jews are tolerated, scorned, made to do menial work, in the ports; in remote districts of Morocco they carry their lives in their hands. But the message conveyed to the sheikh had been such that Salathiel's request was granted, and a dozen men had been sent on horseback towards the coast as an escort. Hearing this, Abdul decided that at all costs he must return to his employer. Under cover of the night he had contrived to slip away from the village, and had come back by a circuitous route so as to make sure of not being intercepted.

"But what of the prisoner?" asked Tom. "Did you learn anything of him?"

"Yes, master. He is in the sheikh's kasbah."

"What is kasbah?"

"Strong place, master; thick walls; a very bad prison."

"We are on the right track, Oliphant," said Tom.

"It looks bad, though. Ingleton will be pretty well guarded, you may be sure; and I don't for the life of me see how we can break into a strong place and get him out."

"Unless we bribe his jailers. Could we get him away with bakshish, Abdul?"

"No, master. The sheikh would cut hands and feet off, put eyes out, and more."

"Evidently we've got our work cut out, Oliphant. And you may depend upon it our friend Salathiel has somehow found out our errand and is coming to warn the sheikh. I remember now that I saw him talking to one of the Moors who came aboard the yacht."

"That explains it."

"How long will it take him to get here, Abdul?"

"Two three days, master."

"We must be beforehand with him, then. Are you prepared for short rations, Oliphant? Our grub won't last more than another day."

"Plenty dates and figs in woods, master," said Abdul.

"We shan't starve, then. Let's have a good sleep, Oliphant. We shall want all our strength for this job."

"We shall indeed. Poor old pater! Wouldn't he have the blues if he knew where I am!"

CHAPTER VIII-THE SWORDSMITH OF AIN AFROO

The approaching advent of the Jew had introduced a new element of danger into the enterprise. If he should reach the village before Ingleton was released, clearly the game was up. Instead of getting a good sleep, Tom lay awake, talking over the situation with Oliphant. He got Abdul to describe the kasbah, but the description was so vague-the Moor when he lived in the village having taken the stronghold for granted-that he felt incapable of making any plans without seeing the place for himself.

When he made this suggestion Oliphant scouted it.

"For one thing," he said, "it's too dangerous; for another, where do I come in?"

"Of course I should have to take Abdul-or rather he would have to take me; and however dangerous it would be for two, it would be still more dangerous for three. If you'll stay and keep an eye on the airship, I'll take advantage of the moonlight and go and have a look round. Your turn will come, you may be sure of that. If I don't come back, you know how to set the machine going. Scoot back to the yacht, and get Mr. Greatorex to make straight for Tangier."

"There'll be a pretty row about this before we've done with it! All right!-if you _will_ go. But I say, they'll spot you for a foreigner if any one catches sight of you-in those clothes."

"Yes; I forgot that. I wish I'd provided myself with a rig-out in the Moorish style."

Here Abdul produced from the folds of his djellab a small bundle, which, being unrolled, proved to be a long grey garment with a pair of yellow shoes wrapped in it.

"You're a brick, Abdul!" cried Tom. "You guessed I'd want something of this sort, eh?"

"Yes, master. I could only get one."

"So you're out of it for the present, anyhow, Oliphant. Well, good-bye.

If we're lucky we'll be back by the morning; if not-you know what to do."

Five minutes later Tom, swathed in the djellab, disappeared over the brow of the hill with Abdul. He carried his revolver; the Moor had only a knife. In his unfamiliar garment Tom found it by no means easy to make the descent down the rough precipitous path; but Abdul went first, picking the easiest course, and both arrived safely at the bottom.

Then they began their march to the village. It was a toilsome journey, and Tom found the Moorish slippers a very inconvenient footgear. A long tramp, and another steep climb, brought them to the wall of the village, which was built on the slope of the hill. The gates had been shut at sunset, Abdul explained: that was the Moorish fashion. Tom perceived that the wall was utterly dilapidated: in that respect Ain Afroo was typically Moorish. In many parts the parapet had fallen to pieces, and, for any protection it afforded, the wall might as well not have been there. It gave easy foothold to a climber, and Tom indulged a hope that the kasbah might prove to be in equally bad preservation.

From what Abdul had told him, Tom guessed that the stronghold lay at the upper extremity of the village, about eighty or ninety yards from the wall. The Moor's knowledge of the place enabled him to lead Tom to a spot where it would clearly be an easy matter to climb the battlements.

Secure in their remoteness, and in the fact that no hostile force could come within many miles of the village without being instantly announced, the inhabitants kept only a perfunctory watch. A few men, Abdul said, were regularly on guard at the north-east and south-west corners; but no attempt was made to watch the walls in general. Knowing the state of the defences, this fact gave Tom some amus.e.m.e.nt. With walls so ruinous the gates were the last places at which unauthorized ingress or egress would be made. The whole place was still sleeping, and would sleep until the muezzin from the mosque gave the call to prayer. Abdul declared it was quite safe to enter the village so far as its human inhabitants were concerned, though there was a risk that some pariah dog might be wakeful. Taking his courage in both hands, Tom climbed up the wall after Abdul, and descended on the other side; then, keeping in the black shadows cast by the moon, the two made their way through round archways and narrow alleys to the outer wall of the kasbah.

The village was very silent. It might almost have been an abode of the dead. Only the screech of night-birds beyond the walls broke the stillness. Tom held his breath-and his nose, for sanitary authorities are unknown in Morocco, and heaps of refuse here and there spoke forcibly in the night air. The two intruders crept stealthily round the walls of the kasbah, against which small shops and outbuildings that Abdul called _inzella_ were built, except before the princ.i.p.al entrance-a large gateway through which two or three men could ride abreast. In front of this gateway was a wide, open square, with low shops under a colonnade on the other side.

The gateway was shut. It had ma.s.sive iron doors. Stealing to the further side of it, Abdul touched Tom's arm, and pointed to a small dark window, unglazed, scarcely more than a slit in the wall, some twenty-five feet above their heads, and a yard or two back from the parapet, which, as the Moor had already explained, extended right round the kasbah, enclosing a kind of terrace. It was the window of the guest-chamber, and there, Abdul had suggested, the captured envoy was confined.

The entrance to the guest-chamber would be from the terrace within the parapet. The floor above was occupied by the sheikh and his family; the floor below was devoted to the servants and the guard. Even as Tom looked, a figure pa.s.sed slowly along the terrace, and the moonlight glinted on a steel musket barrel. It was clear that the guest-chamber was carefully guarded-a proof, it seemed, that Abdul's suggestion was correct. Drawing Tom out of earshot, Abdul said that special orders must have been given, or the sentry would certainly not tramp up and down at this hour of night. Tom learnt afterwards that the Moorish soldier's idea of sentry-go is a long nap in the nearest doorway.

"Is there no entrance to the guest-chamber from within?" asked Tom.

Abdul confessed that he did not know. He had never set foot within the walls. But he had once taken refuge for the night, on one of his journeys through the country, in a ruined kasbah of somewhat similar appearance, and there a door led from the guest-chamber into a small vestibule, which gave access to the upper floor and the roof above.

Flitting silently across the square, Tom and the Moor took post under the shadow of the colonnade on the farther side, which ran at right angles to the wall of the kasbah. Within it was a row of shops, now shut and barred. There, leaning against one of the stout columns, within the black darkness of the Moorish arch, Tom scanned the kasbah, looming white in the moonlight, and meditated.

To get into communication with the prisoner seemed absolutely hopeless.

No one could force an entrance into the sheikh's strong place. Was it possible to gain the a.s.sistance of some one within? Might not Hamet Ali, Abdul's friend, act as intermediary between Tom and some servant of the sheikh's? The cynical saying, "Every man has his price," was literal truth in Morocco: such was the impression Tom had gained from his reading. But he knew enough of oriental ways to be sure that the fixing of the price would be a long and tedious affair. If the Moor were asked to name it, he would suggest a sum far in excess of what he would ultimately accept; while however large a sum were offered, it would prove only the starting place for long haggling. Indeed, the larger the bribe, the more likely it would be to excite the cupidity of the agent, and to encourage him to stand out for yet higher terms.