King--of the Khyber Rifles Part 28

"Aye!" lied Darya Khan, fearful of Ismail's elbow.

"Then, enter!" said the priest resignedly, as one admits a communicant against his better judgment.

He turned his back on them so as to face the Prophet's bed-sheet and the rear wall, and in that minute a hairy hand gripped King's arm from behind, and Ismail's voice hissed hot-breathed in his ear.

"Ready of tongue! Ready of wit! Who told thee I would lie to save thy skin? Be thy kismet as thy courage, then-but I am hers, not thy man! Hers, thou light of life-though G.o.d knows I love thee!"

The mullah seized the Prophet's bed-sheet and its covering rugs in both hands, with about as much reverence as salesmen show for what they keep in stock. The whole lot slid to one side by means of noisy rings on a rod, and a wall lay bare, built of crudely cut but very well laid stone blocks. It appeared to reach unbroken across the whole width of the mosque's interior.

On the floor lay a mallet, a peculiar thing of bronze, cast in one piece, handle and all. The mullah took it in his band and struck the stone floor sharply once-then twice again-then three times-then a dozen times in quick succession. The floor rang hollow at that spot.

After about a minute there came one answering hammer-stroke from beyond the wall. Then the mullah laid the mallet down and though King ached to pick it up and examine it he did not dare.

Excitement now was probably the least of his emotions. It had been swallowed in interest. But in his guise of hakim he had to beware of that superficial western carelessness, that permits folk to acknowledge themselves frightened or excited or amused. His business was to attract as little attention to himself as possible; and to that end he folded his hands and looked reverent, as if entering some Mecca of his dreams. Through his horn-rimmed spectacles his eyes looked far-away and dreamy. But it would have been a mistake to suppose that a detail was escaping him.

The irregular lines in the masonry began to be more p.r.o.nounced. All at once the wall shook and they gaped by an inch or two, as happens when an earthquake has shaken buildings without bringing anything down. Then an irregular section of wall began to move quite smoothly away in front of him, leaving a gap through which eight men abreast could have marched.

As it receded be observed that the lowest course stones was laid on a bronze foundation, that keyed in wide bronze grooves. There was oil enough in the grooves to have greased a ship's ways and there neither squeak nor tremor as the tons of masonry slid back.

At the end of perhaps three minutes that section of the wall had become the fourth side of a twenty-foot-wide island that stood fair in the middle of a tunnel, splitting it in two to right and left. Judging by the angle of the two divisions they became one again before going very far.

The mullah stood aside and motioned King to enter. But the one-eyed guide who had led them to the mosque thrust himself between Darya Khan and Ismail, pushed King aside and took the lead.

"Nay!" he said, "I am responsible to her."

It was the first time he had spoken and he appeared to resent the waste of words.

The tunnel that led to the left was pierced in twenty places in the roof for rifle-fire; a score of men with enough ammunition could have held it forever against an army. But the right-hand way looked undefended. Nevertheless, the guide led to the left, and King followed him, filled with curiosity.

"Many have entered!" sang the lashless mullah in a sing-song chant. "More have sought to enter! Some who remained without were wisest! I count them! I keep count! Many went in! Not all came out again by this road!"

"Then there is another road?" King wondered, but he held his tongue and followed the guide.

It proved to be fifty yards through part natural, part hand-hewn, tunnel to the neck of the fork where the left-and right-hand pa.s.sages became one again. He stopped at the fork and looked back, for none of his men was following.

He caught the sound of scuffling of clattering hoofs, and grunts and shouted oaths-and started to run back, since even a native hakim may protect his own, should he care to, even in the "Hills."

For the sake of principle he chose the other pa.s.sage, for c.o.c.ker says, "Look! Look! Look!" But the guide seized him by the arm from behind and swung him back again.

"Not that way!" he growled. But he offered no explanation.

In the "Hills" it is not good to ask "why" of strangers. It is good to be glad one was not knifed, and to be deferent until more suitable occasion. King started to run again, but this time along the same defended pa.s.sage down which they had come. And now the guide made no objection but leaned on his long gun and waited.

The charger proved to be making the trouble-the horse that King had exchanged with the jezailchi in the Khyber. The terrified brute was refusing to enter the pa.s.sage, and all the men, including Ismail and the mullah, were shoving, or else tugging at the reins.

At the moment King appeared the united strength of six men was beginning to prevail. The mullah let go the reins, and in that instant the horse saw King advance toward him out of the tunnel; so, after the manner of horses, he chose the other pa.s.sage. King ran at full speed round the corner after him, remembering that the guide had admitted responsibility, and therefore that the chances were he would be rescued should he run into a trap.

Suddenly, ten yards in the lead down the dark tunnel the horse threw his weight back with a clatter of sparks and screamed as only a horse can. After that there was neither sight nor sound of him.

Creeping forward with both arms outstretched against the left-hand wall, he reached the spot where, the horse had been, and shuddered on the smooth dark edge of a hole that went the full width of the floor. There came whispering up out of it, and a dank wet smell, as if there were running water a mile away below. He could feel that a little air flowed downward into it. Twenty yards away on the far side the path resumed, but there was neither hand nor foothold on the smooth damp walls between. He went back to his men with a shiver between his shoulder-blades, and the mullah, standing in the gap of the mosque wall, blinked at him with lashless eyes.

"Many have entered," he chanted maliciously. "Some went out by a different road!"

"Come!" Ismail growled at the other men, seizing the mule's bridle himself and leading to the left. "The ghosts will have a charger now for their captain to ride! Lead on, Hakim sahib!"

"Come!" called the one-eyed guide from the neck of the fork ahead. And as they all pressed forward after King the hairless mullah gave a signal and the great stone door slid slowly into place. It was like a tombstone. It was as if the world that mortals know were a thing of the forgotten past and the underworld lay ahead.

"Lead along, Charon!" King grinned. He needed some sort of pleasantry to steady his nerves. But even so he wondered what the nerves of India would be like if her millions knew of this place.

Chapter IX

Oh, Abdul trod with a martial tread, Swinging his scimiter's weight.

"I am overlord here," he said, "And he who wishes may chance his head, "For my blade is long, and my arm is strong, "And the goods of the world to the bold belong!"

So Abdul guarded the gate.

Many a head did Abdul cleave, Turban and crown and chin, For all the 'venturers sought to know What it could be he guarded so.

And since none give but eke receive, A thrust in his ribs made Abdul grieve For good blood outpourin'.

His men wept, watching Abdul bleed And life's light waning dim, Till he cursed them. "Open the fort gate wide!

To saddle, and scour the countryside For a leech!" he swore. "G.o.d rot ye, ride!"

'Twas thus, in the guise of a friend in need, His enemy came to him.

The second gap closed up behind them and the tunnel began to echo weirdly. The mule was the next to be panic-stricken. The noise of his plunging increased the echoes a thousand times and multiplied his fright, until the poor brute collapsed into meek obedience at last. But the guide strode on unconcerned with his easy Hillman gait, neither deigning to glance back nor making any verbal comment.

Over their heads, at irregular intervals, there were holes that if they led as King presumed into caves above, left not an inch of all the long pa.s.sage that could not have been swept by rifle-fire. It was impregnable; for no artillery heavy enough to pound the mountain into pieces could ever be dragged within range. Whatever hiding place this entrance guarded could be held forever, given food and cartridges!

The tunnel wound to right and left like a snake, growing lighter and lighter after each bend; and soon their own din began to be swallowed in a greater one that entered from the farther end. After two sharp turns they came out unexpectedly into the blaze of blue day, nearly stunned by light and sound. A road came up from below like that of an ocean in the grip of a typhoon.

When his wits recovered from the shock, King struggled with a wild desire to yell, for before him, was what no servant of British India had ever seen and lived to tell about, and that is an experience more potent than unbroken rum.

They had emerged from a round-mouthed tunnel-it looked already like a rabbit-hole, so huge was the cliff behind-on to a ledge of rock that formed a sort of road along one side of a mile-wide chasm. Above him, it seemed a mile up, was blue sky, to which limestone walls ran sheer, with scarcely a foothold that could be seen. Beneath, so deep that eyes could not guess how deep, yawned the stained gorge of the underworld, many-colored, smooth and wet.

And out of a great, jagged slit in the side of the cliff, perhaps a thousand feet below them, there poured down into thunderous dimness a waterfall whose breadth seemed not less than half a mile. It spouted seventy or eighty yards before it began to curve, and its din was like the voice of all creation.

Ismail came and stood by King in silence, taking his hand, as a little child might. Presently he stooped and picked up a stone and tossed it over.

"Gone!" he said simply. "That down there is Earth's Drink!"

"And this is the 'Heart of the Hills' men boast about?"

"Nay! It is not!" snapped Ismail.

"Then, where-"

But the one-eyed guide beckoned impatiently, and King led the way after him, staring as hakim or prisoner or any man had right to do on first admission to such wonders. Not to have stared would have been to proclaim himself an idiot.