The Ruby Sword Part 25

Then a desperate resolve took hold of Campian's mind. He was unbound, and, to all appearances, unguarded--why should he not make the attempt?

Any death was preferable to the horrible prospect which morning light would bring. He might be cut down or shot in the attempt. Equally great was the probability of coming to a violent end among the cliffs and chasms of this savage mountain waste. No sooner resolved upon than he arose, and, drawing his poshteen tighter round him, walked deliberately forth; stepping over the unconscious forms of the sleeping Baluchis. His very boldness aided him. None moved. In a moment he was alone in the darkness outside.

A thrill of exultation ran through his veins. Yet what was there to exult over? He was alone upon the wild mountain side--unarmed, and without food--in a perfectly unknown land. Every step he took fairly bristled with peril. The wind increased in volume; the rain pattered down harder. He could not see an inch in front of him. Any moment might find him plunging from some dizzy height to dash himself into a thousand fragments and Eternity. Here again his very desperation saved him. Trusting entirely and blindly to luck, he skirted perils that would have engulfed a more careful and less desperate man. Anything rather than a repet.i.tion of his experience of that day.

On through the darkness--on ever. The howl of a wolf ranging the mountain side was now and then borne to his ears upon the wind and rain: and more than once the dislodgment of a loose stone or two, and its far away thud, after a momentary s.p.a.ce of silence, told that he was skirting some vast height, whether of cliff or _tangi_--but even that failed to chill his blood. He was moving--his energies were in action. That was the great thing. He was no longer cold now. The exertion had warmed him. He felt more and more exultant.

Yet with morning light his enemies would be upon his track. Here, among their native rocks and crags, what chance had he against these persistent, untiring hillmen? The savage hatred of Umar Khan, enhanced by being deprived of a sure and certain prey, would strain every source to effect his recapture. Well, he had the long night before him, and the darkness and turbulence of the night were all in his favour.

If only he had some idea of his locality. The tidings of the outrage would have reached Shalalai, and by now a strong military force would have been moved up to Mehriab station to investigate the scene of the ma.s.sacre, and follow up its perpetrators. But he had no idea in which direction Mehriab station lay, or what mountain heights might have to be crossed before he could gain it.

Morning dawned. Weary eyed, haggard, exhausted with many hours of the roughest kind of walking, stumbling over boulders and stones, bruised, faint for want of food, the fugitive still held on. He was descending into a long, deep valley, whose sides were covered with juniper forest.

Shelter, at any rate, its spa.r.s.e growth might afford him. Ha! He knew now where he was. It was the Kachin valley.

Yes, in the widening dawn every familiar feature was made more plain.

He had come over the high _kotal_ which he and Bhallu Khan had climbed to when stalking markhor. There was the spur which shut out Chirria Bach, and away up yonder the forest bungalow. Could he gain the latter he could obtain food, of which he stood sorely in need, as well as arms and ammunition. Some of the servants were still there. They would have heard nothing of the tragedy on the railway line, and would be momentarily expecting the return of the household. Turning to the right he struck off straight for the house, full of renewed hope.

But that huge, practical joke ent.i.tled Life is, in its pitiless irony, fond of dashing such. He had barely travelled half a mile when a rattle of stones on the mountain side above arrested his attention. A score of turbaned figures were clambering down the rocks. Spread out in a half circle formation they were nearly upon him. There was no escape. Umar Khan and his savage freebooters were not going back on their reputation just yet. The fugitive's long night of peril, and labour, and perseverance, had all gone for nothing. Several of the Ghazis were already pointing their rifles, and in loud, harsh tones were calling on him to halt.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

"MOHAMMED ER RASOUL ALLAH?"

"Ping-ping!" The bullets sang around him--splattering the rocks with blue lead marks. Not for a moment did he think of stopping. They might shoot him dead, but alive he would not yield. Besides there was one last desperate chance, and he meant to try it.

The markhor cave! A final spurt would bring him to that. It was just round yon shoulder of cliff, which at present concealed it. His pursuers would not even see him enter it, and there were smaller holes and crannies around which would puzzle them. Besides, he remembered there were superst.i.tions attaching to it. These might possibly deter them from entering at all. It was a straw, but a slender one.

One great and final effort. He penetrated its normally forbidding but now welcome blackness, and sank down panting on the rock-floor. For some minutes he thus crouched, listening intently. He heard the rattle of stones outside; now and then the tones of a deep voice, or the clink of rifle-barrel or scabbard against the rock. The search was proceeding right merrily, yet, why had it not begun here?

Some minutes went by. To the hunted man, crouching there, they meant hours. Then the sound of steps approaching. They were going to search the markhor cave. His last chance had failed.

The footsteps outside halted. Then he heard the voice of their owner calling, and receiving answers from several other voices. He was calling to his comrades to come and aid in the search. Superst.i.tion, evidently, disinclined him to prosecute it alone. It could not be the fugitive that he feared, seeing that the latter was unarmed, and probably quite exhausted.

Then a wild and daring idea came into Campian's mind--in fact, so utterly desperate a plan that were he allowed time to think of it, the bare thought would suffice to send a cold shiver through his frame. The chasm--into which he had so nearly stepped on the occasion of his first and last visit to this place! The chasm--into whose black depths he and Vivien had stood gazing, side by side. It was his last and only chance, but--what a chance!

His matchbox contained a few wax vestas. The pursuers, probably still collecting to explore the cave in force, had not begun to enter.

Groping his way round a rock corner which would partially or entirely shield the light from those without, he struck a vesta, deadening, so far as he was able, the sound with his hollowed hands. It flamed forth--a mere flicker in the cavernous gloom. But it was sufficient for his purpose.

There lay the black rift, like the great serpent for which he had at first taken it. He was right at its brink. Then flinging into it the spent vesta, he grasped the edge and let himself carefully down, hanging by the grasp of his two hands alone on the lip of the fissure, in the pitchy darkness over that awful unfathomable depth which seemed to go down into the very heart of the earth.

The tension was fearful. He must let go. Every muscle was strained and cracking. And now a glow of light told that his enemies were entering with torches. Ha! he had overlooked that contingency. The light would reveal his strained fingers grasping the rock. One cut of a tulwar-- and--

Then his feet came in contact with something--something that clinked faintly as with the sound of metal. Groping carefully with both feet, lo! they closed on what felt like an iron chain.

Heavens! it was a chain--a ma.s.sive iron chain depending in some way from the rock above. In the increasing glow of the torches he could make out that. Here was a Heaven-sent chance. Grasping the great links firmly with knees and feet, he let go, first with one hand, then the other, and seized the chain. It, with its rough links, afforded a safe and solid resting place for a time.

The pursuers had now arrived right at the brink. Their bizarre, turbaned shadows on the opposite rock wall looked gnome-like in the smoky glare of the torches. But in the said glare he recognised, with a rush of hope, that unless they peered right over they could not see him, for the chain hung from an iron bolt let into the rock, which here projected just above his head.

The weird shadows on the rock danced and tossed, the guttering light grotesquely exaggerating every movement. He who hung there could hear the deep-toned voices right over him. The chain to which he clung swayed and shivered with the concussion of the tramp of many feet above.

They held out a torch or two over the abyss, and dropped a few pebbles down--even as he himself had done when with Bhallu Khan. He could hear their exclamations as the stones struck far below with a faint thud.

Could he have understood them, his relief would have been greater still.

Among them, however, he thought to recognise the harsh, snarling voice of Umar Khan.

"If the dog has gone down here," that worthy was saying, "why, then, he is already suffering the torments of h.e.l.l. If he entered this place at all, how should he not have fallen in, seeing that it is darker than night within the cave, and this hole is a pitfall to the unwary, and a very entrance to the abode of devils?"

"In here he entered without doubt," said Ihalil Mohammed, "for every other hole have we searched thoroughly."

To this the others a.s.sented. Their prisoner had undoubtedly given them the slip. Dead or alive he would never be seen again.

All this the hunted man, thus hanging there, could not understand.

Would they never give up the search, he was wondering. Well for him that he was in hard form and training--yet he was not so young as he used to be, he recognised bitterly, as every joint and muscle ached with the convulsive tension involved in thus supporting his own weight, for an apparently unlimited period, entirely by compression. Well for him, too, that the links were rough with red, flaky rust, thus affording increased facility of hold. Yet would these h.e.l.l hounds never give up the search?

They were forced to at last. The red glow of the torches grew fainter, then died out--so, too, did the sound of footsteps and voices. Campian was in pitch darkness, suspended over this awful and unknown depth.

Now that the more active peril was withdrawn, and his attention thus drawn inwards, he was able to think, to realise the full horror of his position. How was he to return? Cramped, aching, exhausted, he felt as though he could hardly hold on, let alone work his way upward. His blood ran cold too as he realised what would have been his fate but for this solid and substantial means of support right to his hand. Half a yard further on either side, and--No, it would not bear thinking of, and no sooner had he arrived at this conclusion than one foot, unconsciously lowered, came in contact with something.

Something hard, wide, horizontal it was, for as he cautiously increased the pressure he felt it sway and tilt slightly. Then, with equal caution, he lowered the other foot on the other side of the chain. It, too, met with like support. Carefully, with both feet, he increased the pressure so as to test the weight, still preserving his hand-hold.

Nothing gave way, and his heart leaped within him as he found he had secured a firm resting place whereon to recruit his strength against his return climb.

And now, safe for the time being, his thoughts were busy with speculation as to this structure hung here in the black depths of the gulf. A great ma.s.sive iron chain supporting a convenient swinging platform, had not found its way there expressly to afford him a secure refuge in the hour of peril, that much was certain. Then his nerves thrilled and tingled as the conjecture uttered by Vivien in this very place came back to his mind: "_What if the things are at the bottom of that cleft_?" Heavens! Had this structure to do with the hidden treasure--the priceless ruby sword?

Instinctively he sought his matchbox. No. That would be madness. His pursuers might not even have left the entrance of the cave. Not for hours would it be safe to strike a light.

And for hours, indeed, he hung there and waited. He groped around the platform, first with one foot then with the other, and it dawned upon him that the structure was no ordinary board, or it would have tilted.

It was a solid block of wood--no--a box.

A box? A chest! That was it. What if it held the treasure itself?

And then by a strange fatality the conviction that this would prove to be the case took firm hold of his mind--and if so, by what a terrible sequence of tragic events had he been const.i.tuted its finder. Would not the recent dread experiences be worth going through to have led up to this splendid discovery? All would yet be well. The best of life was before him yet Vivien's last look, as he descended from their place of refuge to purchase her safety by delivering himself into the hands of their enemies, burned warm within his soul. When he returned safe, as one who returned from the dead, what would not her welcome be? Surely the glow of the old days would be as nothing to this.

These and other such thoughts coursed through his mind as he hung there in the pitchy blackness--and indeed it was well for him that such was the case. Nothing is more utterly unnerving than any s.p.a.ce of time spent in an absolutely silent and rayless gloom, but when, in addition to that, the subject is swung on a hanging platform, whose very stability he can vouch for with no degree of cert.i.tude, over a chasm of unknown depth, and that for hours, why, he needs a mental stimulus of a pretty strong and exalted type.

Judging it safe at last to do so, Campian struck a light. Feeble enough it seemed in the vast gloom, and not until it had burned out were his eyes capable of seeing anything after being for hours in black darkness.

Then, stooping as low as he dared, he lit another. Yes. It was even as he had conjectured. The platform he was standing on was a box or chest.

It was of very old and hard grained wood, almost black, and clamped together with solid bra.s.s bindings. It showed no sign of having suffered from the ravages of time, and the upper part, which was all he could see, was covered with Arabic characters, curiously inlaid-- probably texts from the Koran. He had no doubt but this was what had occupied so much of his thoughts, the hidden and forgotten treasure chest of the fugitive Durani chief, Dost Hussain Khan. Little is it to be wondered at if even there he felt thrilled with exultation as he remembered what priceless valuables it certainly contained.

But that thrill of exultation sustained a rude shock--in fact died away.

For happening to glance up while lighting another match it came home to him that whether the chest contained valuables or not, the probability that he would ever be in a position to put that contingency to the test was exceedingly slender; for to gain the brink of the chasm, and the outer air again, looked from there an absolute impossibility. The chain, and that which it supported, depended from a solid bolt let into the rock, but the latter overhung it in a cornice or lip, which projected nearly half a yard. He would never be able to worm himself over this. And then it came home to him that he was beginning to feel quite faint with hunger, and that his strength was leaving him fast.

Well, the feat must be attempted. Lighting another match--and he had few left now--he sent a long steady look at the projection, the fastening of the chain, and the distance from the edge. Then he began his climb.

This was not great. The rock lip projected only about half a yard above his hands at their highest tension. He drew himself up. He was under the projection--groping outward along it in the darkness. Now he gripped it firmly with both hands--still clinging to the chain with feet and legs. He was about to swing himself off. One hand half-slipped away. No, he could not do it. His strength failed him, likewise his nerve. He was barely able to seize the chain again and let himself down to the vantage ground of the box, where he stood literally trembling.

This would not do at all. He must rest for a few moments and recruit his strength, must quell this shaky fit by sheer force of will. It could not be--he argued with himself--that he had come through all this, had made this royal discovery, by a chain of coincidences signal and tragic, only to fail at the last; to be swept into nothingness; to disappear from all human sight as completely as though dead and buried already. He was a bit of a fatalist, too, and this partially supported him now. If he was to come through safely, why he would--if not--! And with this thought, as by an inspiration, came another idea.

He could never raise himself above the rock projection from which the chain hung--that much was certain. But--the point whence he had let himself down was only a foot to the right. There the edge did not overlap.

Steadying his over-wrought nerves, he drew himself up once more.