It was the Year of the Lion at the very end of the sixteenth century when Khlit guided his horse into Astrakhan. No sentries challenged him in the streets of Astrakhan, for the Cossacks were masters here and no Cossack would dishonor himself by taking precautions against danger. There were many Mohammedans in the streets of Astrakhan, but it was evening and the followers of Allah were repeating the last of their prayers, facing, as was the law, toward the city of Mecca.

Sitting his steppe pony carelessly, Khlit allowed the beast to take its own course. The night, in Midsummer, was warm and his heavy svitza was thrown back on his high shoulders. A woolen cap covered one side of his gray head, and his new pair of costly red Morocco boots were smudged with tar to show his contempt for appearances. Under his shaggy mustache a pipe glowed and by his side hung the strangely shaped saber which had earned the Cossack the name of “Khlit of the Curved Saber.”

Khlit rode alone, as he had done since he left the Siech, where Cossack leaders had said that he was too old to march with the army of the Ukraine. He paid no attention to the sprawling, drunken figures of Cossacks that his horse stepped over in the street. Clouds of flies from fish houses, odorous along the river front, buzzed around him. Donkeys driven by naked Tatar urchins passed him in the shadows. Occasionally the glow from

the open front of an Isphahan rug dealer’s shop showed him cloaked Tatars who swaggered and swore at him.

Being weary Khlit paid no heed to these. A dusty armorer’s shop under an archway promised a resting place for the night, and here he dismounted. Pushing aside the rug that served as a door he cursed as he stumbled over the proprietor of the shop, a Syrian who was bowing a yellow face over a purple shawl in prayer.

“Lailat el kadr,” the Syrian muttered, casting a swift side glance at the tall Cossack.

Khlit did not know the words; but that night thousands of lips were repeating them—lailat el kadr, night of power. This was the night which was potent for the followers of the true faith, when the d jinns smiled upon Mohammed and Marduk was hung by his heels in Babylon. It is so written in the book of Abulghazi, called by some Abulfarajii, historian of dynasties.

It was on such a night of power, say the annals of Abulghazi, that Hulagu Khan, nephew of Gengis Khan and leader of the Golden Horde, overcame the citadel of Alamut, the place of strange wickedness, by the river Shahrud, in the province of Rudbar. It was on that night the power of Hagen ben Sabbah was broken.

But the power of Hagen ben Sabbah was evil. Evil, says Abulghazi, is slow to die. The wickedness of Alamut lived, and around it clung the shadow of the power that had belonged to Hagen ben Sabbah—power not of god or man—who was called by some sheik, by others the Old Man of the Mountain, and by himself the prophet of God.

It was also written in the book of Abulghazi that there was a prophecy that the waters of the Shahrud would be red with blood, and that the evil would be hunted through the hidden places of Alamut. A strange prophecy. And never had Khlit, the Cossack of the Curved Saber, shared in such a hunt. It was not of his own seeking—the hunt that disclosed the secret of Alamut. It was

chance that made him a hunter, the chance that brought him to the shop of the Syrian armorer, seeking rest.

So it happened that Khlit saw the prophecy of Abulghazi, who was wise with an ancient wisdom, come to pass—saw the river stair flash with sword blades, and the banquet-place, and the treasure of Alamut under the paradise of the Shadna.

“Lailat el kadr,” chanted the Syrian, his eye on the curved blade of Khlit, “Allah is mighty and there is no god but he.”

“Spawn of Islam,” grunted Khlit, who disliked prayer, “lift your bones and find for me a place to spend the night. And food.”

The Cossack spoke in Tatar, with which language he was on familiar terms. The response was not slow in coming, although from an unexpected quarter. A cloaked figure rose from the shadows behind the one lamp which lighted the shop and confronted him. The cloak fell to the floor and disclosed a sturdy form clad in a fur-tipped tunic under which gleamed a coat of mail, heavy pantaloons, and a peaked helmet. A pair of slant, bloodshot eyes stared at Khlit from a round face.

Khlit recognized the newcomer as a Tatar warrior of rank, and noted that while the other was short, his shoulders were wide and arms long as his knees. Simultaneously Khlit’s curved saber flashed into view, with the Tatar’s scimitar.

As quickly, the Syrian merchant darted into a corner. Cossack and Tatar, enemies by instinct and choice, measured each other cautiously. Neither moved, waiting for the other to act. Khlit’s pipe fell to the floor and he did not stoop to pick it up.

“Toctamish!”

It was a woman’s voice, shrill and angry, that broke the silence. Khlit did not shift his gaze. The Tatar scowled sullenly, and growled something beneath his breath.

“Toctamish! Fool watch dog! Is there no end to your quarrel?

ing? Do your fingers itch for a sword until you forget my orders?”

The curtains were pushed aside from a recess in the shop, and

out of the corner of his eye Khlit saw a slender woman dart for?

ward and seize the Tatar by his squat shoulders. Toctamish tried in vain to throw off the grip that pinned his arms to his side.

“One without understanding,” the Tatar growled, “here is a dog of a Cossack who would rather slay than eat. This is the Khlit I told of, the one with the curved sword. Are you a child at play?”

“Nay, you are the child, Toctamish,” shrilled the woman, “for you would fight when the Cossack would eat. He means no harm. Allah keep you further from the wine cask! Put up your sword. Have you forgotten you are man and I am mistress?”

To Khlit’s amusement Toctamish, who whether by virtue of wine or his natural foolhardiness was eager to match swords, dropped his weapon to his side. Whereupon Khlit lowered his sword and confronted the woman.

Beside the square form of Toctamish, she looked scarcely bigger than a reed of the river. A pale-blue reed, with a flower-face of delicate olive. Above the blue garment which covered her from foot to throat, her black hair hung around a face which arrested Khlit’s attention. Too narrow to be a Tatar, yet too dark for a Georgian, her head was poised gracefully on slender shoulders. Her mouth was small, and her cheeks tinted from olive to pink. The eyes were wide and dark. Under Khlit’s gaze she scowled. Abruptly she stepped to his side and watched him with frank curiosity.

“Do you leave courtesy outside when you enter a dwelling, Cossack?” she demanded. “You come unbidden, with dirty boots, and you flourish your curved sword in front of Toctamish who would have killed you because he is crafty as a Kurdish farsang, and feared you. I do not fear you. You have a soiled coat and you carry a foul stick in your mouth.”

Khlit grunted in distaste. He had small liking for women. This one was neither Tatar nor Circassian nor Georgian, yet she spoke fair Tatar.

“Devil take me,” he said, “I had not come had I known you were here, oh loud voiced one. I came for food and a place to sleep.”

“You deserve neither,” she retorted, following her own thoughts. “Is it true that you are Khlit, who fought with the Tatars of Tal Taulai Khan? Toctamish is the man of Kiragai Khan who follows the banners of Tal Taulai Khan and he has seen you before. It seems he does not like you. Yet you have gray hair.”

The Cossack was not anxious to stay, yet he did not like to go, with Toctamish at his back. While he hesitated, the girl watched him, her lips curved in mockery.

“Is this the Wolf you told me of?” said she to Toctamish. “I do not think he is the one the Tatar fold fear. See, he blinks like an owl in the light. An old, gray owl.”

Toctamish made no reply, eyeing Khlit sullenly. Khlit was fast recovering from his surprise at the daring of this woman, of a race he had not seen before, and very beautiful, who seemed without fear. The daughter of a chieftain, he meditated; surely she was one brought up among many slaves.

“Aye, daughter,” he responded moodily. “Gray, and therefore forbidden to ride with the free Cossacks, my brothers of the Siech. Wherefore am I alone, and my sword at the service of one who asks it. I am no longer a Cossack of Cossacks but one alone.”

“I have heard tales of you.” The black-eyed woman stared at him boldly, head on one side. “Did you truly enter here in peace, seeking only food?”

“Aye,” said Khlit.

“Wait, then,” said she, “and the nameless one whose house this is will prepare it for you. Meanwhile, sheath the sword you are playing with. I shall not hurt you.”

Motioning Toctamish to her side, the woman of the blue cloak withdrew into a corner of the curtained armorer’s shop. The Cos-sack, who had keen eyes, noted that the Syrian was bending his black-capped head over a bowl of stew which he was stirring in another corner. No others, he decided, were in the shop.

Toctamish seemed to like his companion’s words little. He muttered angrily, at which the girl retorted sharply. Khlit could not catch their words, but he guessed that an argument was tak?

ing place, at which the Tatar was faring ill. The argument seemed to be about himself. Also, he heard the name Berca repeated.

Although Khlit was not of a curious nature, the identity of the girl puzzled him. With the beauty of a high-priced slave, and the manner of a king’s daughter, she went unveiled in a land where women covered their faces from men. Moreover she was young, being scarce eighteen, and of delicate stature.

Khlit bethought him, and it crossed his memory that he had heard of dark-haired and fair-skinned women of unsurpassed beauty whose land was at the far end of the Sea of Khozar, the inland, salt sea. They were Persians, of the province of Rudbar. Yet, fair as they were in the sight of men, none were bought as slaves. Berca, if that were her name, might well be one of these. If that was the case, what was she doing in Astrakhan, alone save for one Tatar, who while he was a man of rank and courage, was not her equal?

II

The Cossack’s meditation was interrupted by the girl, who motioned to the Syrian to set his stew before Khlit.

“Eat,” she cried impatiently, pointing to the steaming bowl. “You are hungry, Father of Battles, and I would speak with you. Aman speaks ill on an empty belly, although a woman needs not food nor wine to sharpen her wits. Eh, look at me and say, Father of Battles, is it not true I am beautiful, that men would die for me? It is given to few to look at me so closely.”

She stepped near the Cossack, so the edge of her silk garment touched his shaggy face where he crouched over the bowl. Khlit sniffed, and with the odor of lamb stew he smelled, although he knew not its nature, the scent of rose leaves and aloes. He dipped his hand into the bowl and ate.

“Speak, Khlit, Cossack boor,” shrilled the woman, shaking his shoulder impatiently, “and say whether it is in your mind I am beautiful. Other men are not slow to say that Berca of Rudbar and Kuhistan is shapely, and tinted as the rose.”

Khlit’s hand paused midway to his mouth.

“Toctamish has a handsome harlot,” he said and swallowed. The girl stepped back hastily.

“Clown!” she whispered softly. “Nameless one of a dog’s breeding. You shall remember that word. It was in my mind to bid you come with me, and be companion to Toctamish—”

“Am I a man for a Tatar’s wench?” Khlit was making rapid inroads into the stew.

“Nay, a boor of the steppe. Remember, your speech is not to be forgotten. I am a chief’s daughter, with many horsemen.”

Berca was watching the Cossack half-angrily, half -anxiously. Toctamish moved his bulk to the bowl, regarding the disappearing contents with regret.

“How can one man be courteous, Berca of Rudbar,” he asked gruffly, “when the tribe is without breeding? It were better to cut the throat of this caphar, dog without faith, before he ate of our bread and salt.”

“Nay, eat also of the food, Toctamish,” said Berca, “and let me think.”

The Tatar’s brown face wrinkled in distaste.

“Am I to share bread with a caphar?” he snarled. “Truly, I promised to obey you, but not thus. Bid the Cossack be gone and I will eat. Otherwise he will be brother in arms, and his danger shall be my danger.”

Berca stamped her slippered foot impatiently.

“Has Allah given me a donkey to follow me? Eat your share of the stew, Toctamish, and cease your braying. Is it not written in the Koran that the most disagreeable of voices is the voice of asses?”

Toctamish remained sullenly silent. He was very hungry. Like-wise, Khlit was an enemy of his blood.

“Eat, Flat-Face,” chuckled Khlit, who was beginning to enjoy himself, “the stew is rarely made. But the bottom of the bowl is not far off.”

The odor of the food tormented the Tatar. And Berca, for reason of her own, allowed him no chance to back away from the bowl.

Finally, in desperation, he squatted opposite Khlit and dipped his hand into the stew.

“Remember the law, Flat-Face,” guffawed Khlit, as the other ate greedily. “We have shared bread and salt together—I would give a hundred ducats for a mouthful of wine.”

“It is not I who will forget, caphar,” retorted Toctamish with dignity. Tugging at his girdle, he held out a small gourd. “Here is arak; drink heartily.”

“Aye,” said Khlit.

He had tasted the heady mare’s milk of the Tatars before and he sucked his mustache appreciatively after the draft. Pulling pipe and tobacco from a pouch he proceeded to smoke.

“Observe,” said Toctamish to Berca, to show that he was not softened by what had passed, “that the caphar dog is one who must have two weeds to live. He sucks the top of one and drinks the juice of the other.”

“Still your tongue,” said Berca sharply, “and let me think.”

She had seated herself cross-legged by the bowl, and her bird-like glance strayed from Khlit to Toctamish. The Cossack, en-grossed in his pipe, ignored her.

“Why did you name me a harlot?” she asked abruptly, a flush deepening the olive of her cheeks.

“Eh, I know not, Sparrow. Devil take it, a blind man would see you are not kin to Toctamish. He is not of your people. And there is no old woman at hand to keep you out of mischief. You have said you were a chief’s daughter. If that is not a lie, then the chief is dead.”

The girl’s eyes widened, and Toctamish gaped.

“Have you a magician’s sight, caphar?” she cried. “It is true that the sheik, my father is dead. But I did not tell you.”

“Yet you are alone, Berca, across the Sea of Khozar, without attendants. A wise sheik will keep his girl at home, except when she is sent to be married. Is it not true that another sent you out of Rudbar?”

Berca’s dark eyes closed and she rested her chin quietly on her folded hands. One hand she thrust into the folds of her cloak at the throat and drew it out clasped around a small object which hung by a chain from her slender neck. Opening her fingers she disclosed a sapphire of splendid size and brilliancy, set in carved gold. The jewel was of value, and appeared to be from the work-shops of skilled jewelers of Tabriz. Khlit eyed it indifferently and waited.

“It is true that another sent me from Rudbar, Khlit, ” said Berca softly, “and it was to be married. The one who sent me sent also some slaves and an attendant. He swore that a certain chief, a khan of the Kallmarks, had asked me for his wife, and I went, not desiring to stay in Rudbar after my father died.”

“The Kallmarks?” Khlit frowned. “Why, you are a Persian, and the Kallmark Tatars make war on Persians as did their fathers. A marriage would be strange. Eh, who sent you?”

Berca lowered her voice further and glanced at the Persian armorer who was snoring in his corner.

“One it was who is better not named,” she whispered. “He is neither sheik nor khan. Listen, Cossack. This is a jewel of rare value. It has no mate this side of Damascus. Would you like to own it?”

“Aye,” said Khlit indifferently, “at what price?”

“Service.”

“Do you want another Toctamish? Buy him in the streets of Astrakhan. Is a free Cossack to be bought?”

“Nay, Khlit,” whispered Berca leaning close to him until her loose curls touched his eyes, “the service is for one who can use his sword. We heard in Tatary how you escaped from Tal Taulai Khan and his myriad horsemen. Men say that you are truly the father of battles. I have work for such a one. Listen! I was sent from Rudbar to Kiragai Khan, up the Sea of Khozar, and across the Jaick River, with one attendant and a box which the attendant said held jewels and gold bars for my dowry. I came to the court of Kiragai Khan—”

“Bah, Sparrow,” Khlit yawned sleepily, “you are tiresome. I want sleep, not words. In the morning—”

“We will be gone from Astrakhan.” Berca held up the sapphire. “You must listen, Cossack. I told Kiragai Khan my mission, for there were no others to speak, and opened the box in the hands of the attendant. The jewels were poor pearls and no gold was in the box. Then Kiragai Khan, before whom I had unveiled my face, laughed and said that he had not sent for me. At first it came to my mind that it was because the jewels were worthless. But it was the truth.”

“Aye,” said Toctamish suddenly, “it was the truth.”

“I went quickly from the country of Kiragai Khan, aided by Toctamish, who pitied me when others tried to sell me as a slave—of a race that are not slaves. At Astrakhan we learned the whole truth, for here word came to us that the one who sent me in marriage had killed my father. I was sent to be out of the way, for it would not do to sell one of my blood as slave. Such is not the law. He who killed my father heeds no law, yet he is crafty.”

“Then,” inquired Khlit, “you would slay him? Give Toctamish a dagger and a dark night and it is done.”

Berca shook her head scornfully.

“No dagger could come near this man,” she said bitterly. “And he is beyond our reach. He has many thousand hidden daggers at his call. His empire is from Samarkand to Aleppo, and from Tatary to the Indian Sea. He is more feared than Tal Taulai Khan, of the Horde.”

“Then he must be a great sheik,” yawned Khlit.

“He is not a sheik,” protested Berca, and her eyes widened. “And his stronghold is under the ground, not on it. Men say his power lies in his will to break all laws, for he has made his followers free from all law. What he wants, he takes from others. And he is glad when blood is shed. Do you know of him?”

“Aye,” said Khlit, grinning, “the steppe fox.”

“They call you the Wolf,” pleaded Berca, “and I need your counsel and wisdom. This man I am seeking has a name no one makes a jest of—twice. He is called by some the arch prophet, by others the Old Man of the Mountain, and by others the Shadna of the Refik folk. He is the head of an empire that lays tribute on every city in Persia, Kurdistan, Khorassan, Syria, and Anatolia. If Allah decreed that I should be his death I should be content.”

“More likely dead,” responded Khlit. “Truly, if these are not lies, your Old Man of the Mountain must be a good fighter and I would cross swords with him. Can you show him to me?”

“Aye, Khlit,” said Berca eagerly, “if you come with me. There is the sapphire if you will come to Rudbar with me.”

Khlit stretched his tall bulk lazily.

“One way is as good as the other to me, if there is fighting,” he muttered sleepily. “Only talk not of rewards, for a Cossack takes his pay from the bodies of enemies. I will kill this Master of the Mountain for you. Let me sleep now, for your voice is shrill.”

When Toctamish and Berca had left the shop of the armorer, the former to seek a shed outside, and the Persian girl to sleep in her recess, Khlit’s snores matched those of the Syrian shopkeeper in volume. For a while only. Then it happened that the snores of the Syrian ceased.

Without disturbing Khlit who was stretched full length on the floor, the Syrian silently pushed past the hangings over the door. Once outside he broke into a trot, his slippers pad-padding the dark street. Nor did he soon slacken his pace.

III

Khlit and Toctamish did not make the best of bedfellows. Berca, however, was careful to see that no serious quarrel broke out between the two. In a bark that went from Astrakhan, the day after their meeting, to the south shore of the Sea of Khozar, the two warriors of different races occupied a small cupboard which adjoined the cabin of the sheik’s daughter.

Khlit had embarked not altogether willingly. When the fumes of arak had cleared from his head the next morning, he had half-repented of his bargain. Curiosity to see the other side of the salt tea, which he had known as the Caspian, rather than the pleadings of Berca, finally brought him aboard the bark with his horse from which he refused to be separated.

The girl had bought their passage with the last of her pearls and some gold of Toctamish’s, and had remained in her cabin since, to which Toctamish brought food. The Cossack, after a survey of the small vessel which disclosed his fellow-voyagers as some few Syrian silk merchants, with the Tatar crew, took possession of a nook in the high poop deck, and kept a keen lookout for the islands and other vessels they passed, and for Bab-al-abuab, the lofty gate of gates, as the ship made its way southward. Toctamish, who had not set foot on a ship before, was very ill, to Khlit’s silent satisfaction.

One day, when the wind was too high for comfort on deck, the Cossack sought Toctamish in the cupboard where the latter lay, ill at ease on some skins.

“Hey, Flat-Face,” Khlit greeted him, sitting opposite against the side of the dark recess, “you look as if the devil himself was chewing at your entrails. Can you speak as well as you grunt? I have a word for you. Where is the little Berca?”

“In her cabin, oh dog without breeding,” snarled the Tatar, who was less disposed to speak, even, than usual, “looking at silks of a Syrian robber. This sickness of the sea is a great sickness, for I am not accustomed.”

“You will not die.” Khlit stroked his saber thoughtfully across his boots. “Toctamish, gully-jackal, and dog of an unbelieving race, you have been a fool. Perhaps a greater one than I. How did it happen that you became the follower of the little Berca? Has she bewitched you with her smooth skin and dark eyes?”

“Nay, that is not so,” Toctamish growled. “She has told you her story. It is true that Kiragai Khan, my master, did not know of her coming. Her attendant and slaves ran away and she felt

great shame. Yet she did not lose courage. When her shame was the greatest she begged me to take her to Astrakhan, saying that I should be head of her army. She did not say her army was beyond the Salt Sea. Then she made me promise to take her to her people. As you know, her tongue is golden.”

“Aye,” said Khlit. “Then you are even a greater fool than I had thought. Have you heard of this emperor she is taking us to?”

Toctamish rolled his eyes, and shook his head vaguely.

“His name is not known in our countries. Mongol Tatars say that their great-grandfathers who followed the banners of Hulagu Khan made war on one calling himself the Old Man of the Mountain and slew many thousands with much booty, beside burning the citadel of Alamut, which was his stronghold. They gave me a dagger which came from Alamut. It is a strange shape.”

“If the power of the Old Man of the Mountain was broken in the time of Hulagu Khan,” said Khlit idly, “how can it exist now? Have you the dagger?”

The Tatar motioned to his belt with a groan, and Khlit drew from it a long blade with heavy handle. The dagger was of tempered steel, curved like a tongue of fire. On it were inscribed some characters which were meaningless to Khlit. He balanced it curiously in his bony hand.

“I have seen the like, Flat-Face,” he meditated idly. “It could strike a good blow. Hey, I remember where I have seen others like it. In the shop of the Syrian armorer, at Astrakhan. Who brought you to the shop?”

“We came, dog of a Cossack. The Syrian bade us stay, charging nothing for our beds, only for food.”

“Does he understand Tatar language?”

“Nay, Berca spoke with him in her own tongue.”

“Aye. Did she speak with you of this Old Man of the Mountain?”

“Once. She said that her people had come under the power of the Old Man of the Mountain. Also that her home was near to Alamut.” Toctamish hesitated. “One thing more she said.”

“Well, God has given you a tongue to speak.”

“She said that your curved sword was useless against him who is called the Old Man of the Mountain.”

With this the Tatar rolled over in his skins and kept silence. Wearying of questioning him, Khlit rose and went to the door of Berca’s cabin. Toctamish, he meditated, was not one who could invent answers to questions out of his own wit. Either he spoke the truth, or he had been carefully taught what to say. Khlit was half-satisfied that the girl’s and the Tatar’s story was true in all its details, strange as it seemed. Yet he was wise, with the wisdom of years, and certain things troubled him.

It was not customary for a Tatar of rank to follow the leadership of a woman. Also, it was not clear why Berca should have been so eager for the services of Khlit, the Wolf. Again, she had declared that the Old Man of the Mountain was not to be met with, yet, apparently, she sought him.

Pondering these things, Khlit tapped lightly on the door of the girl’s cabin. There was no response and he listened. From within he could hear the quiet breathing of a person in sleep.

He had come to speak with Berca, and he was loath to turn back. Pushing open the door he was about to step inside, when he paused.

Full length on the floor lay Berca, on the blue cloak she always wore. Her black curls flowed over a silk pillow on which her head rested. Her eyes were closed and her face so white that Khlit wondered it had ever been pink.

What drew the Cossack’s gaze were two objects on the floor beside her. Khlit saw, so close that some of the dark hairs were caught in them, two daggers sticking upright on either side of the girl’s head. The daggers were curved, like a tongue of fire.

Khlit’s glance, roaming quickly about the cabin, told him that no one else was there. Berca had not carried two weapons of such size. Another had placed them there. As he noticed the silk cushion, he remembered the Syrian silk merchant who had been with Berca.

With a muttered curse of surprise, Khlit stepped forward, treading lightly in his heavy boots. Leaning over the girl he scanned her closely. Her breathing was quiet and regular, and her clothing undisturbed. Seeing that she was asleep, the Cossack turned his attention to the weapons.

Drawing the latter softly from the wood, he retreated to the door. Closing this, he climbed to the deck and scanned it for the Syrian merchant. Almost within reach he saw the one he sought, in a group of several ragged traders, squatting by the rail of the ship. No one noticed him, their black sheepskin hats bent together in earnest conversation.

With the daggers under his arm, Khlit swaggered over to the group, the men looking up silently at his approach.

“Hey, infidel dogs,” he greeted them, “here is a pair of good daggers I found lying by the steps. Who owns them? Speak!”

His eye traveled swiftly over the brown faces. None of the group showed interest beyond a curl of the lips at his words. If he had expected the owner to claim his property, he was disappointed. The Syrians resumed their talk together.

“So be it,” said Khlit loudly. “They are useless to me. Away with them.”

Balancing the weapons, he hurled them along the deck. As he did so, he glanced at the traders. Their conversation was uninterrupted. Yet Khlit saw one of the group look hastily after the flying daggers. It was only a flash of white eyeballs in a lean face, but Khlit stared closer at the fellow, who avoided his eye.

Something in the man’s face was familiar to the Cossack. Khlit searched his memory and smiled to himself. The man who had watched the fate of the daggers Khlit had seen in Astrakhan. The man had changed his style of garments, but Khlit was reasonably sure that he was no other than the Syrian armorer who had offered his shop to Berca and Toctamish.

Fingering his sword, the Cossack hesitated. It was in his mind to ask at the sword’s point what the other had been doing in Berca’s cabin. Yet, if the fellow admitted he had left the daggers

by the girl, and Khlit did not kill him, the Syrian would be free to work other mischief. And Khlit, careless as he was of life, could see no just reason for killing the Syrian. Better to let the man go, he thought, unaware that he was suspected, and watch.

As an afterthought, Khlit went to where the twisted daggers lay on the deck and threw them over the side.

IV

in the Year of the Lion, there was a drought around the Sea of Khozar, and the salt fields of its south shore whitened in the sun. Where the caravan route from Samarkand to Baghdad crossed the salt fields, the watering places were dry, all save a very few.

The sun was reflected in burning waves from the crusted salt, from which a rock cropped out occasionally, and the wind from the sea did not serve to cool the air. In the annals of Abulghazi, it is written that men and camels of the caravans thirsted in this year, the year in which the waters of Shahrud, by the citadel of Alamut, were to be red with blood.

At one of the few watering places near the shore, Berca’s party of three, with a pack-donkey, came to a halt, at the same time that a caravan coming from the east stopped to refresh the animals.

The Persian girl watched the Kurdish camel drivers lead their beasts to kneel by the well silently. Khlit, beside her, gazed attentively, although with apparent indifference at the mixed throng of white-and-brown-robed traders with their escort of mounted Kurds. Many looked at Berca, who was heavily veiled, but kept their distance at sight of Khlit.

“It is written, Abulfetah Harb Issa, Father of Battles,” spoke the girl softly, “that a man must be crafty and wise when peril is ’round his road; else is his labor vain, he follows a luck that flees. Truly there is no luck, for Allah has traced our lives in the divining sands, and we follow our paths as water follows its course. Are you as wise as the masters of evil, oh Cossack?”

The words were mocking, and Khlit laughed.

“Little sparrow,” he said, “I have seen ever so much evil, and there was none that did not fade when a good sword was waved in front of it. Yet never have I followed a woman.”

“You will not follow me much further, Cossack. I will leave you at the foothills to go among my people, the hillmen, where I shall be safe. You and Toctamish will go alone the rest of the way. My face is known to the people of Alamut, who suppose that I am dead or a slave. In time they shall see me, but not yet. Meanwhile it is my wish that you and Toctamish seek the citadel of Alamut, which lies a two days’ journey into the interior.”

Khlit shaded his eyes with a lean hand and gazed inland. Above the plain of salt levels he could see a nest of barren foothills which surrounded mountains of great size and height.

“Where lies the path to this Alamut—” he had begun, when Berca shook his arm angrily.

“Not so loud, fool of the steppe! Do you think we are still by the Volga? We are already in the territory of the Old Man of the Mountain. Listen, to what I have already told Toctamish. Two days’ travel to the south will bring you to the district of Rudbar. You will find yourself near the River Shahrud which flows from the mountains. There will be hillmen about who do not love the Old Man of the Mountain.

“So do not speak his name, until you come to a bend in the Shahrud where the river doubles on itself, so, like a twisted snake. Across the river will be a mountain of rock which will appear to be a dog kneeling, facing you. Remain there until armed men ride up and question you. Then say you are come to join the ranks of Sheik Halen ibn Shaddah, who is the Old Man of the Mountain.”

Khlit shook his head and tapped his sword thoughtfully.

“Nay, little Berca,” he said reproachfully, “you have told me lies. You said it was your wish to slay one who had slain your father. And because it was a just quarrel and I was hungry for sight of the world below the Salt Sea, I came to aid you. Are you one, oh Sparrow, to fight alone against a powerful chief? Where

are your men that you told Toctamish of? Devil take me, if I’ll put my head in the stronghold of any sheik, as you call him.”

Berca bent nearer, rising on tiptoe so her breath was warm in his ear.

“My men are hillmen who will not attack until they see an enemy flee. Also, they have seen men who opposed Halen ibn Shaddah set over a fire, with the skin of their feet torn off. The master of Alamut is all powerful here. Are you afraid, whom they call the Wolf?”

“Nay, little sparrow, how should I be afraid of women’s tales and a mysterious name? Tell me your plan, and I will consider it. How can this sheik be reached?”

“Halen ibn Shaddah is safe from the swords of his enemies. Yet there is a way to reach him, in Alamut. The time will come when you and Toctamish will find yourselves at the head of many swords. How can I tell you, who are a fool in our way of fighting, and know not Alamut, what is in my mind? I swear that soon Halen ibn Shaddah will be attacked. Do you believe my word?”

“Wherefore should I?”

Khlit tugged at his mustache moodily. He was accustomed to settle his quarrels alone, and he liked little to move in the dark. Yet the woman spoke as one having authority, and Toctamish believed in her blindly.

“If this Sheik Halen is powerful and crafty—”

“Still, I am a woman, and wronged by a great wrong. I was sent to offer myself unveiled to a man who had not sought me; and at the same time my father was murdered, so that the hillmen, of whom he was sheik, might come under the shadow of Alamut.” The girl’s voice was low, but the words trembled with passion and the dark eyes that peered at the Cossack over her veil were dry as with fever, and burning. “Halen ibn Shaddah shall pay for his evil; for he is cursed in the sight of Allah. Wicked—wicked beyond telling is Alamut and therefore cursed.”

“Chirp shrilly, little sparrow,” laughed Khlit, “while your white throat is still unslit. This Sheik Halen has no love for you,

for one of his men on the bark placed two daggers, one on each side of your black head. Devil take me, if I did not think you would never chirp again. It was the Syrian who took you in for so little pay at Astrakhan—”

“Fool! Stupid Cossack!” Berca’s eyes suddenly swam with laughter, “did you think I was asleep when you tiptoed in like a bear treading nettles? Or that I did not see the dirty Syrian, who thought to catch me asleep? Look among the men of the caravan, and tell me if you see the Syrian?”

Cautiously, Khlit scanned the groups about the well. Among the Kurdish riders and Tatars who were brown with the dust of the desert trail from Samarkand, he recognized a bent figure in a long gray cloak and black kollah. As he watched the figure, it bent still further over a box of goods, and lifted some silks to view. It was the Syrian, without doubt. Khlit felt a thrill, as of one who is hunted and hears the cry of the chase. He stepped forward with an oath, when Berca’s grasp tightened on his arm.

“That is a fedavie of Alamut,” she whispered. “I saw the curved daggers, and they are the weapons of the Refik folk of Halen ibn Shaddah. He must have overheard us in his shop at Astrakhan, and has followed to slay, as is the law of Alamut. Probably there are more of the fedavie among the men of the caravan.”

“Then we must deal with the Syrian before he can speak to them,” muttered Khlit, but again Berca tugged him back.

“Did I not say you were a fool among my people, oh Wolf,” she whispered. “Watch. The Syrian shall have his reward. Your folly is very great, yet I need a man who is blunt and brave and knows not my plans. It is written that none knows where his grave is dug, yet the Syrian’s grave is here. Watch, and do not move.”

Khlit waited. The fedavie had stooped over his box. One or two Kurds gathered to look at its contents. Among the group Khlit noticed Toctamish who had come up quietly. The Tatar pushed past the others, heedless of their muttered curses until he stood

directly in front of the trader. The Syrian looked up, and, seeing Toctamish, was motionless.

Khlit saw the Kurds stare and draw back as if they sensed trouble. The Syrian, still watching Toctamish, rose with a swift, cat-like movement, his hand hidden in the silks. Toctamish grunted something and spat upon the silks.

“See,” whispered Berca softly, “his grave is dug, and the name-less one sees it.”

Toctamish thrust his yellow, scarred face near the Syrian’s. Around him a crowd pressed, watching with attention. With a cry, the Syrian, who seemed to have found the suspense too much for him, drew a pistol from the silks in which it had been concealed.

Instantly two giant arms were flung ’round him. Toctamish was on him with a speed that baffled him, and the Tatar’s huge bulk pressed the Syrian backward to the ground. Writhing impotently, the Syrian saw Toctamish draw a dagger from his girdle. And Khlit grunted as he noted that it was the one he had seen with blade like a curved flame. While he held the smaller man powerless with one arm, Toctamish lifted the dagger and thrust it carefully into his foe’s body, into stomach and chest.

Then, rising, he wiped the curved dagger on a handful of the trader’s silks. For a moment the arms and legs of the unhappy Syrian stirred on the ground. And Khlit saw a strange thing. For, before life had gone from the body, several men of the caravan, Khirghiz warriors by their dress, pushed through the throng with daggers like that of Toctamish and struck at the Syrian. Not until the body was still did they cease to strike.

Then the Khirghiz men looked around for Toctamish, but the stocky Tatar had disappeared in the throng. Khlit, who had missed nothing of what happened, thought to himself that it was well that the dagger had been in the hand of Toctamish, not of the Syrian. Plainly, he thought, the Khirghiz murderers had been fellows, without knowing, to the Syrian. And he wondered how

men of many races came to be banded together, not knowing that he was to wonder soon, and very greatly, at other things.

V

Berca had disappeared; and when Khlit strode through the crowd of the caravan seeking her, his horse at his elbow, he met Toctamish. The Tatar was mounted and leading the pack mule.

“Mount,” he said gruffly, “and follow.”

“And what of the girl?” queried Khlit, who was unwilling to take orders from Toctamish.

“She has told us to go on, as you know, caphar,” snarled the Tatar, who disliked to talk. “Later, she will send word to us. Come.”

“We are both fools. You, to be the slave of a painted girl, and I to seek for an empire which is not to be found, to slay a man who is hidden.”

Khlit’s words were silenced by a sudden uproar in the caravan. Men sprang to their feet and hauled at the camels who had kneeled in weariness. Traders who had been eating gave shouts of lamentation. Laden slaves ran together in confusion.

Toctamish stared at the uproar, until Khlit touched his shoulder.

“Look!” he said.

From the south, over the salt desert a cloud of dust was threading in and out among the rocks. It was advancing swiftly toward them, and the Cossack could see that it was made by mounted men riding very fast. He made out turbans and spearpoints in the dust. The horsemen were headed directly toward the caravan.

“Robbers,” said Toctamish briefly; “there will be a fight.”

“A poor one, it seems,” growled Khlit. “The Kurds are leaving us as fast as their horses can take them and your countrymen like the looks of things little—they have not drawn sword or bow.”

In truth, the Tatars who were acting as guard sat their horses stolidly, while the dismayed traders added to the confusion by rushing about frantically, trying to assemble their goods. Khlit

turned his attention in disgust to the oncoming horsemen, and counted a bare two score. In numbers, the caravan was three times as strong; yet no attempt at defense was made.

Instead the traders were anxiously spreading out their bales of goods, so that all were displayed. Camels and donkeys were stripped and their burden placed on the ground. In the mean-time the horsemen who had come up were trampling recklessly through the confusion.

A fat Greek merchant held out an armful of rugs to one of the riders who stared at it insolently and pointed to the heavy packs behind the merchant. Other riders jerked out the contents of these packs, and ranged them in nine piles.

Khlit, watching them, saw that they were men of varied race. He guessed at Persian, Kurd, Circassian, Turk and others with whom he was not familiar—dark skinned and heavily cloaked, who sat their horses as a swallow rides the wind. Also, the Khirghiz men of the caravan had joined the newcomers.

The first rider flung some words at the Greek, who was cowering on the ground, and Khlit thought he caught the phrase “Alamut.” Then the horsemen picked up three of the nine piles of goods and flung them over packhorses. Other riders who had been similarly occupied joined them. All the while the Tatar guardians of the caravan watched without interest, as men who had seen the like before.

It was not until the horsemen were well away over the salt plain that Khlit recovered from his astonishment at the sight of few robbing many.

“Better the mountain folk than these,” he growled, spitting in the direction of the merchants who were putting their goods away amid lamentations.

So it came to pass that a Cossack rode into the foothills of Rudbar where, in the words of the historian Abulghazi, none set foot who held Allah or Christ for their true God, and with him rode a Tatar who under other circumstances would gladly have slain him.

They rode in silence, as rapidly as the pack animal could move, and by nightfall had gained the edge of the salt deposits that made that part of Persia like a frozen lake.

Each made camp after his fashion. And two fires were lighted instead of one. Khlit produced some barley cakes and wine and made a good meal. Toctamish took some raw meat from under his saddle where he had placed it for seasoning and washed it down with his favorite arak. Both kindled pipes and sat in silence in the darkness.

Toctamish’s pipe went out first, and Khlit knew that the Tatar had swallowed the smoke until with the burning arak he had lost consciousness. The Cossack was soon asleep.

His sleep was unbroken, except that, near dawn, he thought he heard the trampling of many horses’ feet, which sounded until the rays of the sun, slipping into his eyes, awoke him. He made out at some distance the track of a cavalcade in the dust, and considered that it might have been a caravan. Yet it was out of the path of caravans. Moreover, he was reasonably sure the track had not been there the night before. Toctamish, when wakened, yawned in bad spirits and told Khlit he was an old woman, of great fear and unmentionable descent.

When they resumed their path, it led upward through the foothills of Rudbar. A few date trees and some thorn bushes lined the way, but for the most part there was little foliage and many rocks. The grass, however, was good, and this was, perhaps, the reason why groups of horses were met with under the care of single, mounted horsemen who watched Khlit and his companion with curiosity.

They rode apart and silently, as before. Khlit’s thoughts dwelt on Berca’s last words. The girl had spoken as one having authority. She was no ordinary sheik’s daughter, living out of sight of men, he thought. She was daring, and he wondered if she came from one of the hill tribes where the women ride with men.

Berca had told him they were in the land of Halen ibn Shaddah, in the territory of the Refik folk, yet Khlit saw no signs of a

town or city. He did see the tracks of multitudes of horses in the mountains where caravans were unknown. And the horses themselves puzzled him. For he could see nothing of their riders.

Toctamish, apparently, wasted no thought on his surroundings. He rode warily, but kept his thoughts to himself and pressed onward rapidly. Thus it was that the two came to a wide, shallow river, and followed the bank along a valley that seemed to sink further into the hills as they advanced.

Until sunset they rode, making detours to avoid waterfalls and fording the river where it curved—for it was very shallow—and then Khlit who was in the lead came to a halt as they rounded a bend.

“By the bones of Satan,” he swore, “here is the place Berca told us of. Devil take me, if it does not look like a dog with his front paws in the river.”

Like an arched bow the river curved, with the two riders standing at the end of the bow looking inward. Across from them rose a high point of rock, serried and overgrown with bushes, several hundred feet. No trees were on the summit of the rock. Instead, Khlit could make out masses of stones tumbling together and overgrown. A few pillars stood up through the debris.

Around the summit ran the semblance of a wall. So great was the waste of stone that it was hard to see any semblance of order in it, but Khlit judged that a citadel as big as a good-sized town had once crowned the dog-promontory. The rock jutted out to make the massive head of the beast, and ridges suggested paws.

“Here is no Alamut, Toctamish,” growled Khlit in disgust. “Truly, we are fools—the little sparrow, Berca, has made game of

us. ”

“Wait, caphar,” retorted Toctamish, dismounting. “She said we would find the dog sitting in the river, thus, and we have found it. We will wait here and see what happens.”

“Well, we will wait,” laughed Khlit, “and see if the dog will give birth to a tribe.”

VI

Little Khlit suspected how true his chance word was to be. The sun had dropped behind the furthest mountain summit, and the night cold of the high elevation had wrapped around the two watchers when they saw a sight that made their blood stir.

The Cossack had stretched on the ground a little distance from Toctamish, who had subsided into snores. He watched the last light melt from the ruins on the summit of the cliff, and as he watched he thought he heard echoes from across the river, as from far off. Straining his ears, he could catch bursts of music and shouting. Remembering his experience with the horses the previous night, he wondered if the mountains were playing tricks with his ears.

The sounds would come in bursts as though a gate had been opened to let them out, followed by silence. Khlit was not at home in the hills, and he did not recognize the peculiar resonance of echoes. What he thought he heard were songs and shouts repeated from mouth to mouth, as by giants, in the heart of the rock opposite him.

Lighting his pipe and cursing himself for a dreaming fool, Khlit sat up and scanned the darkness over the river. As if to mock him, the burst of shouting became clearer. And then the skin moved along Khlit’s back of its own accord and his jaw dropped. He shook his head angrily, to make sure he was still awake.

Out of the rock across the river a multitude of lights were flickering. The lights came toward him rapidly, and the shouting grew. There were torches, moving out on the river, and by their glare he could see a mass of moving men armed with spears and bows. Splashing through the water, they were fording the shallow river.

Khlit could see that they were men of varied race, turbaned and cloaked, armed for the most part with bow and arrows, much like those who had robbed the caravan. As the throng came nearer, he shook Toctamish and stood up.

“Loosen your sword, Father of Swine,” he grunted, “here are men who are not triflers.”

Several of the leaders, who had caught sight of the two, closed around them. The torchlight was thrown in their faces, and for a moment the shouting of the band was silenced as they surveyed Khlit and his companion. One, very lean and dark of face, dressed in a white coat bossed with gold, and wearing a tufted turban of the same colors, spoke in a tongue Khlit did not understand.

“Hey, brothers,” swore Khlit genially, laughing, for the presence of danger pleased him, “have you any who speak like Christians? Khlit, called the Wolf, would speak with you.”

After some, delay, a dirty tribesman was thrust beside the man of white and gold.

“Wherefore are you here?” the tribesman, who seemed to be a Kurd, asked in broken Russian, “and what is your purpose? Be brief, for the Dais are impatient to march. Are you a Christian, Cossack?”

“Say that you are not,” whispered Toctamish, who had caught what was said, “for none with a god can go into the mountain.”

“A dog will give up his faith,” snarled Khlit, “but a Cossack does not deny God and the Orthodox Church. Aye,” he responded to the Kurd, “I am a Christian. I have come to Rudbar, or to Alamut, whatever you call the place, to seek him who is called the Old Man of the Mountain. What is your name and faith?”

A peculiar look of fear crossed the face of the Kurd.

“Seek you the Master of the Mountain, Sheik Halen ibn Shaddah, Cossack? My name is Iba Kabash, And I was once a Christian. What is your mission with the Lord of Alamut?”

“Tell the unbeliever we have come to join the Refik, where there is no law—” began Toctamish, but Khlit motioned him to silence.

“Take us to Sheik Halen ibn Shaddah, and we will tell him our mission, Iba Kabash,” he retorted. “We are not men to parley with slaves.”

The man of white and gold had grown impatient, and spoke a few angry words to Iba Kabash, who cringed. Several of the bowmen ranged themselves beside them, and the throng pushed past, leaving a single torch with the Kurd, who motioned to Khlit to follow him. Leaving their horses with an attendant, Khlit and Toctamish made their way after Iba Kabash to the river. The cur-rent was not overswift, and the water came barely to their knees.

“It is the wish of the Dai, Cossack, that you shall enter Alamut. What is your mission? Tell me and I shall be a true friend. I swear it. Surely you have a strong reason for your coming.” The Kurd’s greasy head was thrust close to the Cossack’s. “Let me hear but a word.”

“If the Dai named you guide; Iba Kabash, of the mangy beard, lead us, and talk not.”

In his heart Khlit distrusted the offered friendship of the Kurd. And he watched closely where they went, across the Shahrud, into the shadows of the further bank. And he saw how it was the Dai’s followers had come from the mountain.

Concealed by the shadows were grottoes, where the water had eaten into the rock, grottoes which ran deep into the mountain. The torch reflected from the dark surface of the water, as they splashed forward, with the river becoming shallower. Presently they stood on dry rock. Here they were in a cave, of which Khlit could not see the top.

Iba Kabash pulled impatiently at his arm and they went for-ward, and up. Khlit saw that now they were on rock which was the handiwork of man. They were ascending broad steps, each one a pace in width, and so broad that the torch barely showed rows of stone pillars on either side.

Khlit had counted fifty steps when Iba Kabash came to a halt, grinning. Lifting the torch overhead, he pointed to a square stone set in the rocky roof of the stairs. On this rock were lines of writing strange to Khlit, and blackened with age and the dampness of the place.

“The gateway of Alamut, oh, Cossack,” laughed the Kurd. “And the writing of one who was as great as Mohammed, prophet of Allah. And the message:

With the help of God

The ruler of the world

Loosened the bands of the law,

Blessed be his name.”

Khlit was silent. He had not expected to find himself in a cave in the heart of a mountain. The darkness and damp, rising from the river, chilled him. Glancing ahead, he saw a rocky passage, wide and lofty. The passage had been made by the river, perhaps in a former age, when it had risen to that level. But the hands of men had widened it and smoothed the walls. Toctamish, he saw, was scrutinizing his surroundings, his slant eyes staring from a lined, yellow face.

“Come,” said Iba Kabash, who seemed to enjoy the silence of his visitors, “this was not the gateway of Alamut always, in the days of the first Master of the Mountain. And Alamut has changed. It has sunk into the mountain. Men say the old Alamut was destroyed.”

“Aye,” said Toctamish suddenly, “by Hulagu Khan.” The Kurd stared at him curiously.

“Come,” he muttered, and led the way up the winding rock passage.

Khlit followed closely. Other passages joined the one they were in. At times, sounds came down these passages—distant rumblings, and strains of music. Occasionally a figure armed with a spear stepped from them and scanned the group. Always a wind whipped around them, cold, in spite of the heat of the air outside.

After a time, Khlit saw that they were no longer in the passage. The torch did not reveal walls, and the footing was regular, of stone slabs. They had entered a chamber of some kind. Other torches made their appearance suddenly. The sound of voices came to them clearly.

They approached a fire around which lay several armed men. Khlit guessed from their dress that they were Khirghiz men; furthermore, that they appeared drunk. Only one or two looked up, without interest. Iba Kabash led them past many fires and men until they came to narrow stone stairs which led away from the rock chambers. Here, a giant Turk spoke with Iba Kabash before letting them pass.

“We will speak with Rashideddin,” whispered the Kurd, “the astrologer of Halen ibn Shaddah. Tell me now your mission? I can help you.”

Toctamish would have spoken, fingering a money pouch at his belt on which the Kurd’s gaze fastened greedily, but Khlit shook his head. With a sneer, their guide stepped on the stairway. Khlit climbed after him, and noted that the stairs wound up still further. He guessed that they had ascended several hundred feet since leaving the bed of the river.

Then, leaving the stair, he found himself in a round chamber, hung with tapestries and rugs of great beauty. Several oil lamps suspended from the ceiling lighted the place. A warm breath of air caused him to look up. A circular opening formed the center of the ceiling, and through this he could see the stars and the velvet vault of the sky.

Two of the dark-faced men, strange to Khlit, like the Dai of white and gold, stood by the wall, wearing mail and resting on spears. A small ebony table was loaded with parchments and instruments which the Cossack had never seen before. In the center of the floor was a chessboard, and sitting on either side of the chessboard were two men.

One Khlit recognized by his tufted turban and brilliant white coat to be of the kind Iba Kabash had called Dai. The other wore a close-fitting skullcap and a gray cloak without a sash. He looked at Khlit and the latter saw a lean face, gray, almost as the cloak, with close-set black eyes, and a loose-lipped mouth, very pale.

“Oh, Rashideddin,” said Iba Kabash, “here are the two who have just come, of whom I have sent word. The Cossack is a Christian and insolent. The other is altogether a fool.”

VII

Rashideddin is mentioned in the annals of Abulghazi as a savant of the caliphate of Baghdad and Damascus. He was a Persian, trained in the arts of astrology and divination, who could recite from memory the works of Jelaleddin Rumi. He was acquainted with many languages including Russian and Tatar. It is believed that he possessed all the works of the Alamut library which escaped the destructive hands of Hulagu Khan.

Inscrutable, and gifted, Rashideddin made a mockery of the Koran. He kept his truly great wisdom to himself, except for certain poems which he sent to princes of Persia and Arabia, who gained no happiness thereby. So it was not strange that Rashideddin, the savant of dark knowledge, came to a place of evil, of strange and very potent evil. So say the annals of Abulghazi.

Rashideddin did not look at his visitors. He lifted a piece with care and replaced it on the chessboard. The Dai, who, Khlit observed, was drunk, as were the men around the fires, yet very pale, did likewise. Khlit, who had small liking for chess, watched the players rather than the board. Especially did he watch Rashideddin. The pale-lipped astrologer sat with half-closed eyes, intent and motionless. The gray cloak seemed not to move with his breathing. When he spoke, his deep and musical voice startled them.

“Have you a god, Cossack? Is your faith firm in the Christian cross you wear around your neck?”

Startled, Khlit moved his hand to his throat, where hung a small, gold cross. Iba Kabash was making hasty signs to him which he did not see.

“Aye, Rashideddin,” said he gravely, “the batko has told me about the cross which I carry, and it is a talisman against evil.

Hey, it has been good, that cross, because I have killed many and am still living.”

“Evil?” said Rashideddin, and moved a jeweled chessman to another square. “The earth is evil. If a saint handles earth it be-comes gold. Yet who has seen a saint? Do you seek to bring your cross into Alamut?”

“Not so, Rashideddin,” vouchsafed Khlit, crossing his arms. “I bring a sword to Alamut, to Halen ibn Shaddah. The cross is my own. If you can see it through my svitza then you must have good eyes. I am outcast from my people of the Ukraine, and men told me there was work for swords with Halen ibn Shaddah.”

“And you call yourself Khlit, the Wolf?” queried the astrologer. “How did you find the gate of Alamut?”

Khlit was bewildered at the astrologer’s knowledge of his name until he remembered that he had told it to Iba Kabash.

“Aye. There was a caravan by the Sea of Khozar that a band from Alamut robbed. We,” Khlit bethought him swiftly, “followed the riders to the mountains and waited by the gate.”

Rashideddin considered the chessboard silently.

“You came over the Sea of Khozar,” he murmured, “from Astrakhan? That must have been the way. There is another way around by land that the caravans take. They are our prey. What the Kallmark Tatars leave the merchants, we share. Did you see a Syrian armorer in Astrakhan?”

“Aye, a bearded fellow. We stayed at his house. He told us we might find use for our swords with Halen ibn Shaddah.”

With a delicate movement, Rashideddin lifted one of his opponent’s pieces from the board.

“And your companion?” he said.

“A Tatar horseman who has quarreled with his kin,” spoke up Toctamish bluntly. “I’m tired of laws, noble sir, and I—”

“Laws are too complex, Tatar. If a man has an enemy, slay him. If a man desires a certain thing, take it. Are not these the only laws? In Alamut you are free from all laws except those of the Refik. You have an image of Natagai in your girdle, Tatar.”

Rashideddin had not looked at Toctamish since the first moment. “Take it and throw it on the floor.”

Toctamish hesitated. He glanced irresolutely at Khlit; then drew out a small cloth figure painted like a doll and tossed it on the stones. The Cossack saw that it was ragged and worn by much use. He had not suspected that his companion cherished any holy image.

“Spit on it,” directed Rashideddin softly.

With a muttered curse Toctamish did so. His lined face was damp with perspiration, and Khlit saw that his hands were trembling. The shifting eyes of Iba Kabash gleamed mockingly.

“The armorer at Astrakhan must have told you that Alamut is no place for one who has a god,” went on Rashideddin. “There is one here who is greater than Mohammed. We are his servants. Yet our ahd says that none go forth who are not of us. Think, Khlit, and decide. Meanwhile—”

The astrologer spoke to Iba Kabash in another tongue and the Kurd went to a corner of the room where a pile of rugs and cloths lay. Selecting a long, white cloth, he laid it in front of Khlit. This done, he stepped back, licking his thick lips softly.

“Tell the Cossack what you have done, Iba Kabash,” said Rashideddin.

“This cloth,” whispered the Kurd, “is a shroud, Khlit. The astrologer may call his men and lay you in it dead, unless you say you have no god. Do as your friend—remember I have given you good advice. You are in a place where your life is worth no more than a dagger thrust. Your sword will be useless.”

With a beating heart, Khlit glanced around the chamber. The two mailed Tatars were watching him silently. He thought he could see the dim forms of other men in recesses in the wall. And for all Rashideddin’s unconcern, he felt that the astrologer was alive to every move he made. He felt as he had once when the Krim Tatars had bound his limbs, leaving him powerless.

“Aye,” he said.

Without looking at Rashideddin, he moved to the pile of cloths and selected another shroud. This he brought back and placed beside the other. Iba Kabash watched him with staring eyes. The Dai frowned and fingered a dagger at his girdle. Khlit drew his curved sword and stood over the white cloths.

“Tell Rashideddin, Iba Kabash,” he said, “what this other shroud is for.”

“What—how do you mean?” muttered the Kurd.

“It is for the man who first tries to kill me, dog,” snarled Khlit.

The astrologer bent over the chessboard impassively. Apparently he was blind to what passed in the room and to the words of Iba Kabash. The others watched him, and there was silence. Until Rashideddin raised his head suddenly and compressed his pale lips.

“You fool,” he smiled, “blunderer of the steppes! This is not Russia. Here there is one law, and punishment; murder! See!”

He pointed a white hand at one of the mailed Tatars. The man started forward, and drew back shivering.

“Kill thyself, fellow,” said Rashideddin quietly.

The Tatar stared at him and cast a helpless glance around the room. Khlit saw his right hand go to his girdle and tremble convulsively.

“Fedavie!” the astrologer’s voice was gentle, “show the Russian our law. By the oath of the Refik, kill thyself!”

With a grunt of sheer terror the man dropped his spear. His right hand rose from the girdle, gripping a dagger curved like a flame, rose, and sank it into his throat. With the hilt of the dagger wedged under his chin, the Tatar sagged to the floor, quivered and was still. One bloodstained hand had fallen among the chessmen.

There was silence in the room for a moment, broken by Toctamish. The Tatar stepped to Khlit’s side.

“You and I are brothers, Cossack,” he growled, “and your danger is my danger.”

Rashideddin, who had given a sigh of pleasure at the death of the attendant, studied the disordered chessmen impassively. The

Dai sprang to his feet with an oath. For several heartbeats no one moved. Iba Kabash stared in fascination at a red pool which had formed under the dead Tatar’s head.

VIII

The astrologer, apparently giving up as hopeless the attempt to replace the chessmen, stood up. And Khlit, who was watching, wondered at his figure. The man was bent so that his back was in the form of a bow. His head stuck forward, pale as a fish’s belly, topped by the red skullcap. His gray cloak came to the ground. Yet when he moved, it was with a soft quickness.

“You see,” he said, as if nothing had happened, “the oath of Alamut—obedience, and—”

He stirred the shroud contemptuously with his foot. Then, as if arriving at a decision, he turned to Iba Kabash.

“Take these clowns to the banquet-place, and give them food. See that they are not harmed.”

With that he motioned to the Dai and retreated through one of the recesses. Toctamish wiped his brow on which the perspiration had gathered and touched the dead man with his foot.

“The good Rashideddin will not kill you,” chanted the Kurd eagerly. “It must be a miracle, for you are both fools. You have me to thank for your safety. I have given good advice, have I not?”

Toctamish eyed him dubiously. He did not feel oversure of safety. Khlit, however, whispered to him. Rashideddin was not the man to play with them if he desired their death. It might be that the astrologer’s words were in good faith—Khlit learned later that the latter never troubled to lie—and if so they would gain nothing and lose much by staying where they were.

So it happened that both warriors sheathed their swords with apparent good grace and followed Iba Kabash, who led them through empty rooms until they came out on a balcony overlooking the banquet-place of Alamut. And Khlit was little prepared for what he saw now.

The warm wind touched their faces again. Iba Kabash pointed up. In the center of the lofty ceiling of the place a square opening let in the starlight. A crescent moon added to the light which threw a silver sheen over the great floor of the ball. Toctamish grunted in surprise.

At first it seemed as if they were looking on the camp of an army from a hillside. Dozens of fires smoldered on the floor below them, and a hundred oil lamps sprinkled the intervening space. About the lamps men were lying, around small tables on which fruit, wine, and dishes massed. A buzz of voices echoed down the hall, and Khlit was reminded of bees stirring about the surface of a hive.

The sound of eating and drinking drowned the noise of voices. Along the stone balcony where they stood other tables were placed with lamps. Numerous dark figures carried food and drink to these and carried away the refuse left at other tables.

“Slaves,” said the Kurd, “captives of the Refik. Let us find a table and eat. It is a lucky night that I met you, for I shall go into the paradise of Alamut.”

Khlit paid little attention to the last phrase. Later, he was to remember it. Being very hungry he sat down with Toctamish at a convenient table and took some of the bread and roasted meat which he found there. Toctamish was less restrained, and gulped down everything with zest.

As he ate Khlit considered his companions, and the banquet-place. All of them, he noticed, seemed drowsy, as if drunk, or very gay. In the lamplight their faces showed white. They lay in heaps about the tables, sometimes one on the other.

To the Cossack drunkenness was no sin, yet there was some-thing about the white faces and limp figures of the men that stirred his blood. And the smell of the place was unpleasant; a damp, musky odor seemed to rise from the hall under them, as of beasts. Piles of fruit lay rotting about the floor.

“It is time,” chattered the Kurd, who was sipping at a goblet of wine, “Halen ibn Shaddah showed himself. He comes to the

banquet-place every night, and we drink to him. Drink, Khlit— are not Cossacks born with a grape in their mouths? You are lucky to be alive, for Rashideddin is a viper without mercy.”

“Who is this Rashideddin?” asked Khlit, setting down the wine, for it was not to his liking.

“Oh, he is the wise man of the arch-prophet—the master of Alamut. He knows more magic than all the Greeks and dervishes put together. He reads the stars, and tells our master when it is time to send out expeditions. They say he has servants in every city of the world. But I think he learns everything from the magic sands.” Iba Kabash’s tongue was outstripping his wit. “There is nothing that goes on in Persia and Tatary that he does not see. How did he know you wore a cross?”

“He saw the chain at my neck, fool,” retorted Khlit.

He began to feel strangely elated. He had had only a little wine, but his head was whirling and he had a curious languor in his limbs. The trouble extended to his eyes, for as he looked at the banquet-place, it seemed to have grown wider and lighter. He could see that Toctamish was half-unconscious.

Thus it was that Khlit, the Wolf, in the banquet-place of Alamut came under the influence of the strange evil that gripped the place. And came to know of the great wickedness, which set Alamut apart from the world, as with a curse.

Khlit, turning the situation over in his mind, saw that it was best to play the part he had taken on himself. He doubted if it were possible to escape past the guards by the river stairway, even if he could free himself from the guardianship of Iba Kabash. Rashideddin, he felt, had not left his visitors unwatched. Also, he was curious to see further of the strange world of Alamut, which was a riddle of which he had not found the key. He had seen a Tatar kill himself at a word from the astrologer, and Iba Kabash, who was a man without honor, speak with awe of the master of Alamut. Who was Halen ibn Shaddah? And what was his power over the men of Alamut?

As it happened, it was not long before Khlit saw the man he was seeking, and whom he was sworn to kill. There came a pause in the murmur of talk and Iba Kabash clutched his shoulder.

“Look!” be whispered. “Here is Sheik Halen ibn Shaddah, who will choose those to go into paradise tonight. You are newcomers in Alamut and he may choose you, whereon I shall follow behind without being seen. Pray that his eye may fall on us, for few go to paradise.”

Across the banquet-place, on the stone balcony, Khlit saw a group of torches. The bearers were Dais. In the center of the torches stood a tall man, dressed as the Dais except that he wore no turban, a cloak covering his head, drawn down so that nothing could be seen of his face. The sheik’s shoulders were very broad and the hands that rested on his girdle were heavy.

As Khlit watched, Halen ibn Shaddah moved along the balcony among the eaters. On the banquet floor a murmur grew into a shout—

“Blessed be he that has unmade all laws; who is master of the akd; chief of chiefs, prophet of prophets, sheik of sheiks; who holds the keys of the gate of paradise.”

Iba Kabash shouted as if in ecstasy, rising on his knees and beating his palms together, as the group of the sheik came nearer them. Once or twice Khlit saw Halen ibn Shaddah beckon to a man who rose hastily and followed the Dais. Iba Kabash, he thought, was drunk, yet not in a fashion known to Cossacks. Khlit himself felt drowsy, although clear in mind. He saw that the noise had wakened Toctamish who was swaying on his haunches and muttering.

Halen ibn Shaddah stood over them, and Khlit thought that one of the Dais whispered to him. The Cossack had fastened his gaze greedily on the cloaked face, for he wished to see the face of the master of Alamut. He could make out only a round, dark countenance, and eyes that showed much white. Vaguely he remembered that he had seen others who had faces like that,

but he could not think who they were. The sight of Halen ibn Shaddah affected him like the foul smell of the banquet-place and the rat-eyes of Iba Kabash. Halen ibn Shaddah beckoned to him and Toctamish.

Khlit supported his companion to his feet, but found that the wine had taken away all his own strength. Hands belonging, he suspected, to slaves, helped him after the white figures of the Dais. They passed from the banquet-place through passages that he could see only dimly. The torchlight vanished, and there came a silence, which was broken by music, very sweet. Khlit’s head was swimming strangely, and he felt himself moving forward through darkness. Darkness in which the music echoed, being repeated softly as he had heard the voices repeated when they first came into the passages of Alamut.

IX

If it was a dream, Khlit asked himself, why should he be able to taste the red wine that trickled down his throat? Yet if it were not a dream, why should a torrent of the red wine issue from a rock? And sunlight burn on the red current, when Khlit was in the passages of Alamut, under the ground?

Truly, it must be a dream, he thought. It seemed that he was lying on his side near the flowing wine, with the sun warm on his face. Whenever he wanted to drink, he did not need to sit up, for he raised his hand and a girl with flowers around her head and breast came, and filled some vessel which she held out to him. Khlit was very thirsty and the wine was good.

The girl, he felt, sat by him, and her fingernails and the soles of her bare feet were red. He had never seen such a maiden, for her hair also was red, and the sun glinted through it as she drew it across his face. Her hair must be perfumed, he thought, like the harlots of Samarkand, for it smelled very good.

The music came to his ears from time to time, and he snorted, for Khlit was no lover of soft sounds. Neither did he fully relish

the wine, which was oversweet. He was well content to be in the sun, and too drowsy to wonder how it happened.

The dream, if it was that, changed, and Khlit was in a boat lying on some rugs. The boat was drifting along a canal. From time to time it would pass under a porcelain kiosk, tasselled and inlaid with ivory. From these kiosks girls laughed down at him and threw flowers. One of the tinted faces was like Berca’s, and Khlit thought then it was surely a dream.

One other thing he remembered. It was in a grove of date trees where young boys ran, shouting, and pelted each other with fruit. In spite of the warmth and pleasantness, Khlit felt very tired. He was in the shade of one of the date trees with his sword across his knees. The music was very faint here, for which he was glad. He seemed very wakeful. The air was clear, and looking up he could see the sky, between jagged walls of stone. He had seen other walls of stone like these. That was when he and Toctamish had stood at the Shahrud looking up at the dog rock that was Alamut.

Even in the dream, Khlit felt ill. He saw the damsel of the red hair and flowers and beckoned to her, for he was thirsty. She ran away, probably at the sight of his sword. Khlit felt angry, for she had given him drink for what seemed many years.

Then he saw the gray-cloaked figure of Rashideddin, the astrologer of Alamut, beside him, and the white face stared at him until Khlit fidgeted. He heard Rashideddin speak, very faintly.

“Where art thou?”

Khlit was too tired to answer at first.

“I know not,” he said finally.

“Thou art in paradise, and by favor of Halen ibn Shaddah. Do not forget.”

Truly, Khlit had not forgotten. There were other things he re-membered. Vistas of blue pools where dark-skinned men bathed, and date groves where bright-colored birds walked, dragging their tails on the ground. He saw girls pass, hand in hand, singing. And the music did not cease.

If it had been a dream, Khlit said to himself, how could the taste of the strange wine stick to his palate? Or the warmth of the sun be still burning on his skin? Nay, surely it must have been a dream. And the waking was disagreeable.

The place where he found himself on waking was dark, wet, and smelled strongly of wine dregs. Khlit rose to his knees cautiously and felt about him with his hand. He could feel the outline of something round and moist on all sides except overhead. Also he came upon the body of a man lying by him, which he identified by its fur tunic and peaked helmet as Toctamish. The Tatar was snoring heavily.

“Wake, Flat-Face and son of an unclean animal,” he growled, shaking him. “We are no longer in paradise. Devil take me, if it ain’t a wine cask.”

Toctamish roused at length and sat up reluctantly.

“Is it you, caphar?” he asked, stretching himself. “Many times have I been drunk as an ox, but never such as this. May the devil bite me, if there was ever such wine! Let us find some more.”

“Then you have been dreaming, also,” meditated Khlit. “Did you imagine that you saw Berca?”

“Berca? Nay, but she said that she would visit us here. That was no dream, caphar, for there was sunlight, and much feasting. Did Rashideddin tell you it was paradise? I met other Tatars there. They told me what it was.”

“Were they also men who dishonored their god at Rashideddin’s bidding? What said they concerning this paradise of yours?”

Toctamish snarled in anger, at the memory of the scene by the chessboard.

“You are one without brains, Cossack, and it is well that we are here alive. My companions said this: that all who came to Alamut were admitted to the paradise by Halen ibn Shaddah, if they were worthy. Then, if they were killed in the ranks of the Refik their souls returned to the paradise. That was a lie, for how can there be a soul in a man?”

Khlit said nothing. But he thought that he had found the key to the riddle. Halen ibn Shaddah’s power lay in the lusts of his men. They looked on him, even so shrewd a man as Iba Kabash, as one who held the secret of paradise. And, although he did not know it, Khlit’s thought had come near to the evil of Alamut, which was a plague spot on the face of the world.

X

In the next few days the two warriors, bound together by mutual interest, although cordially hating each other, made frequent explorations of the chambers of Alamut. In the daytime sunlight filtered in at the banquet-place, the round chamber of Rashideddin and other places, but at night the only light was from lamps or torches. The chambers were large enough to hold a hundred men in each and there were many. Khlit, who had keen eyes, learned several things, including the place of the Refik treasure.

First, a certain area was guarded against intrusion by picked Tatars and Arabs. Into the guarded chambers he had seen Dais and other higher dignitaries called Dailkebirs go, and he guessed they were occupied by Halen ibn Shaddah and his court, where was kept the gold that flowed into Alamut as tribute money.

Also, there was no exit from the chambers of Alamut save by way of the stairway and the river, which was guarded. Frequently armed bands went in and out, also messengers of many races, but all were closely watched. Moreover, few except old residents of the place, like Iba Kabash, the Kurd, knew the way to the river stairway.

The slaves, he learned, brought food not from the river stair-way but from another source. Also wood for the fires. The warriors of Alamut, fedavie, as they were called, lived as they chose, under the eyes of the Dais, ornamenting their quarters with spoil taken in raids or from caravans. Each man was richly decked in whatever suited his fancy, of silks or jewels. The Dais who com-

manded them took interest in them only when it was time to take an expedition out of Alamut.

So much Khlit saw, and more he learned from the talkative Iba Kabash, who had won some gold at dice from Toctamish, and was inclined to be friendly. The slaves, he said, brought the food from the side of Alamut away from the river, where they drew it up in baskets to the summit of a wall that barred all egress from the citadel.

Iba Kabash had not been beyond the walls of Alamut since his entry. Yet he had heard much of the empire of the Refik that stretched its power from Samarkand to Aleppo and from Astrakhan to Basra. The murderers of the Refik were feared so greatly, he explained, that tribute was paid by the cities to Alamut. Questioned by Khlit, he admitted that in numbers any of the caliphates were superior to Alamut. The power of Halen ibn Shaddah lay in the daggers of his men. No enemy escaped assassination once he was marked. And many were marked.

“Then there is no way to leave save by the river stair?” asked Khlit, who had listened attentively.

Iba Kabash stared and shook his head.

“Where is the fool who would escape, Khlit?” he responded. “Thrice lucky are we who are here. There was a caliph who marched against us with horsemen from Irak. We rained down stones and baked clay on his men; then sallied forth, and the Shahrud was red with blood.”

“Aye,” said Toctamish sullenly. “There are no better fighters than those of Irak. Remember Hulagu Khan and his horsemen.” “Nay, I knew them not.”

Iba Kabash glanced at the Tatar curiously, and Khlit laughed to distract his mind, for he did not trust the Kurd.

“There was another who opposed us,” continued Iba Kabash. “That was a sheik of the hillmen in the mountains around Alamut. Him we killed by tearing out his belly and bowels. He had a daughter, who was a spitfire. Rashideddin dealt with her.”

“How?” asked Khlit carelessly, recognizing the description as Berca.

“Cleverly, very cleverly,” chuckled the Kurd, rubbing his hands together. “He had Halen ibn Shaddah order her off to marry some Tatar chief who knew her not. It was when she had gone that we slew the old chief slowly, and scattered his tribe.”

“Truly a shrewd trick.” Khlit gave Toctamish a warning blow in the ribs that made the stocky warrior grunt. “How fared the chief’s daughter at the hands of the Tatar? Your knowledge is greater than that of others, Iba Kabash. Can you tell me that?”

“Nay, that is a hard one,” laughed the Kurd. “I have heard, from a slave that the chief’s daughter, Berca, was seen in Astrakhan. Also that she was taken as a slave by some caravan not far from here. I know not.”

“Was the one who told you a slave in Alamut?” demanded Toctamish, who was becoming restive.

“Where else, offspring of a donkey?” muttered Iba Kabash. “I suppose you will also ask how he came to hear of the girl.”

“Nay,” interrupted Khlit. “Toctamish wondered at the power of Alamut. He is a clown. You and I, Iba Kabash, are men of wisdom.”

So it happened that Khlit was not astonished when, as he came from the floor of the banquet-place one night, his head hazy with the fumes of the strange wine, a girl slave leaned close to him and whispered briefly.

“By the far corner of the balcony,” she repeated, “in an hour.”

He looked thoughtfully at an object the slave had thrust into

his hand. It was the sapphire which Berca had once offered him.

He did not tell Toctamish of the message. And he was at some

pains to get rid of Iba Kabash before the time appointed in the

message. So he was alone when he went slowly along the stone

balcony to a dark corner. The slaves had retired from the banquet?

place and the fedavie were watching for Halen ibn Shaddah to

come from his quarters. Standing so that he could not be seen by

those below, Khlit waited. Waited until the torches came, with

the Dais and the huge figure of Halen ibn Shaddah. He felt a touch on his coat, and turned.

“Follow,” whispered the soft voice of the Persian, “and do not tread clumsily.”

Khlit found that this was not so easy. Berca carried no light. He could barely see her cloaked form by the reflection of an occasional candle as she passed swiftly through chambers and rock passages. His head was light from the wine, although his mind was clear.

Berca kept to passages where there were few persons, and these Khlit saw to be slaves. She was taking him through the slave quarters where he had not been before. Through corridors that narrowed until he had to turn sideways to pass; by sunken walls which smelled evilly. Through a corridor that led out of the chambers of Alamut into the paradise of Halen ibn Shaddah.

Khlit paused in amazement and felt of his head which was throbbing. A half-moon glimmered down at him, and a cool night wind played in his hair. The branches of date trees stirred lazily. Under his feet he could feel grass, and he saw one of the strange birds that dragged its tail come from the shadow of the date trees.

Berca shook him angrily by the arm.

“One without sense, eater of swine flesh!” she hissed. “Are you a clown to gape at strange things?”

A fountain threw its spray on the wind into Khlit’s face, with a scent like the roses of Isphahan. Below the fountain was a canal, which Khlit remembered vaguely, with a boat attached to the shore. In the water he could see the reflection of the moon gleaming at him. And he was dizzy.

“This is the paradise of Halen ibn Shaddah,” he muttered unsteadily, “where I came by his favor. So Rashideddin told me.”

Berca peered up at him silently. Her cloak fell back and Khlit saw the dark masses of hair which fell on either shoulder, and the white throat under the curved dark mouth that was twisted in scorn.

“A weak fool,” she stormed, shaking him. “Toctamish is a better man than you.”

“Toctamish is drunk. Nay, little sparrow, it is my head. It will be better presently. This is no dream. How did you come to Alamut, little Berca?”

For answer the girl drew Khlit, who was fighting the dizziness in his head, to the canal, and into the boat. Pushing it from the shore, she paddled in the water until it floated into the shadows. Not content with this Berca urged the craft along the bank quietly, and Khlit who was flat on his back saw the shadow of a bridge fall over them.

“Nay,” he said drowsily, “the stars are good. It is good to see them again. Where are we now? How did you bring me here?”

Berca came and sat by Khlit’s head, feeling his hot forehead with a small hand. She wrapped her thin cloak tightly about her and rested her chin on her two hands, gazing at the round moon in the water.

“Aman must be crafty and wise,” she repeated softly, “yet, lo, it is a weak girl, a creature of the false prophet’s paradise, who leads him. They told me you were very shrewd, oh, my Abulfetah Harb Issa, gray Father of Battles. Soon there will be a great battle and the waters of Shahrud will be red again. Have you ever seen wolves of the steppe tear jackals of the mountains into bits, foam-flecked? Have you ever run with the pack of wolves, oh, one called the Wolf? Nay, they have clipped your fangs.”

“That is a lie, Sparrow,” growled Khlit surlily, “give me a horse and freedom to swing a sword, and I shall trounce some of these evil fedavies for you. Bah, it is a hotbed of sin, a reeking plague-house. Show me the way out of Alamut.”

“And your promise,” queried Berca, “to cut off the head of Halen ibn Shaddah?”

Khlit was silent. True, he had promised, and was in honor bound to Berca.

“Likewise, Berca,” he said moodily, “you said that there was a plan. Why do you keep the plan hidden in your mind, if there is

one? Better be in good faith with me. Say how Halen ibn Shaddah can be killed.”

“How should I kill so strong a man?” she laughed softly. “The Koran reads that Allah weakens the stratagems of misbelievers. Also that they who store up evil shall taste what they store up. Such are the words of wisdom, despised by Rashideddin. Nay, destruction shall come upon Alamut like the storm from a cloud, quick as poison from a serpent’s fang, and Halen ibn Shaddah—”

“Halen ibn Shaddah,” chuckled Khlit, “is not easily to be found.” Abruptly, he gripped the girl’s wrist. Beside the round orb of the moon in the water he saw the reflection of a turbaned man. It was a stout man, carrying a sword as broad as a horse’s neck, or the reflection lied. Khlit rose on one elbow fingering his saber. At the same time the boat moved backward silently under impulse of the girl’s paddling and passed from the bridge along the canal under date trees.

“A eunuch, one of the tribe who guard the creatures of the paradise,” Berca whispered. “I have seen them often, because I am, also, a celestial houri—while it pleases me. I saw you when you came here a few days ago. Listen—” her voice changed—“for you must serve me, and the time is near.”

Khlit nodded. The fresh night air had cleared some of the poi-son from his brain.

“I shall take you back to the chambers of Alamut, Khlit, by way of the slaves’ quarters. We are on the top of Alamut, now, where Halen ibn Shaddah, whom may Allah lay in the dust, has built an evil paradise on the ruins of the old citadel to beguile his men. Verily what they have made—he and Rashideddin—is a magician’s trick. The men who come here are drugged with a strange poison that I know not. I have tasted it in the wine—may Allah grant me mercy—and it is evil.”

Khlit grunted in assent.

“It is some secret of Rashideddin’s,” she resumed. “The fedavie are foul with it, until they lose fear of death. This drug chains them to Halen ibn Shaddah. That and their lusts. And

they have chained others by fear of the Refik. Yet their doom is near. It is coming from there—” pointing in the direction which Khlit thought to be north—“and it is swift as the hunting falcon on the wing.”

“Another riddle, Berca,” muttered Khlit. “Where have you seen a falcon?”

“Where you have seen them, Cossack,” she laughed, “and Toctamish has hunted with them. Where swords are sharpened for the cutting down of the fedavie. In the land of the Kallmark Tatars, north of the Salt Sea. Oh, the doom of Alamut will be very great, and Munkir and Nakir, the dark angels that flay dead men in their graves, will grow big with power.”

“Another riddle, little Berca. It is many generations since Tatar horsemen rode into Persia for conquest.”

“The answer is under your blind eyes, Father of Battles. Am I not beautiful as the rose garden of Tiflis in Spring? Is not my hair dark as the mantle of Melik, and my skin white as aloes under the dew?” Berca moved her perfumed head close to Khlit, and the Cossack drew away. “Nay, others have eyes; so, Allah has willed that my honor shall be cleared and the doom of Alamut shall come.”

“The Tatars are marching on Alamut?” Khlit bit his mustache in glee. “Devil take me, that is good news—”

“Hush, fool.” Berca drew in her breath eagerly. “Twenty thou-sand horsemen are riding along the Salt Sea toward Alamut. They will not stop to plunder or gather spoil. Oh, it will be a good battle. My father shall see it from the footstool of Mohammed. Aye, it will gladden his eyes. I shall open the gate of Alamut to twenty thousand Kallmark horsemen. The gate that leads to the banquet-place, where I bring food every night with the slaves. Here is what you must do, Father of Battles—”

She listened intently for a moment. The paradise of Halen ibn Shaddah was still, and only the birds with long tails moved.

“On the third night, Father of Battles,” she whispered, “the Dai who is in command at the river stair will change his sentries at

the second watch. Do you and Toctamish get among the sentries of the river gate. I have seen you with Iba Kabash, who is one without honor. Pay him and it may be done. Two sentries are as is the custom, in the river, outside the gate. On the third night, those two must be you and Toctamish, none other. That is your task. Then will you have a horse to ride, you and Toctamish. Meanwhile, keep out of sight of Rashideddin—”

“Aye,” said Khlit, pondering, “Rashideddin.”

XI

It is written in the annals of Abulghazi that as the Year of the Lion drew to its close, very great riches came to the treasury of Halen ibn Shaddah from the cities which lived in the shadow of fear. Save from the North, by the Salt Sea, where the tithes came not. Nor any riders. And in the North, said Abulghazi, a storm was gathering, swift as wind, rolling up all in its path. Yet no murmur of the storm came to Alamut, to the man who named himself prophet of God, to the banquet-place of the fedavie, to the man of wisdom, Rashideddin.

It was the second day after the visit of Berca that Khlit, who had been thinking deeply, sought out Iba Kabash where the Kurd lay sleeping on the floor of the banquet-place and roused him from his stupor.

“I have news for the ear of Halen ibn Shaddah himself,” he said, squatting and lighting his pipe, “none other. He will surely reward me.”

Iba Kabash ceased yawning and into his lined face came the look of a crafty fox.

“Halen ibn Shaddah will not see you, Khlit. He will see nobody except a few old fellows of Alamut, of whom I am one. Verily, I have the ear of the master of Alamut. Tell me your message and I will give it, for you are a man of brains. You, Khlit, are of the chosen. The others are ones without understanding.”

Khlit knew that Iba Kabash lied, for the most part. He considered his pipe gravely and shook his head.

“My news is not to be repeated. Halen ibn Shaddah would pay a good price. How can you get such a good price for it as I?”

“Nay,” remonstrated the Kurd, “I shall get a better price. For I know well the value of news. Tell me and we shall both profit, you and I.”

Khlit grinned under his mustache. For a while he played, with the skill of one who understood the game well, with the growing inquisitiveness of his companion. Iba Kabash steadily raised the reward he assured Khlit, as he sensed the interest of the Cossack.

“Then,” stated Khlit slowly, “you will do this. You will go direct to the master of Alamut and tell him my news. To no other. For here, a man takes what credit he can. And as the price of the good you will get for the telling, you will aid me in the plan I have. The plan concerns a girl that Halen ibn Shaddah would give a finger of his left hand to see brought before him.”

“I swear it,” said the Kurd readily, “on my ahd, the oath of a fedavie. Now tell me the news, and it shall go to Halen ibn Shaddah as you have said.”

Khlit nodded. That much the Kurd would do, he was sure. Whether Iba Kabash would tell the source of his message was dubious. Khlit felt in his heart that if the news was important Iba Kabash would keep the credit for himself. Which was what Khlit wanted.

“Tel, Halen ibn Shaddah this,” he said slowly, “that Khlit, the Cossack, called the Wolf, has learned that Berca, the Persian girl who was sent from Rudbar by Rashideddin, has returned, and is in Alamut. He will be very curious. Say no more, for you and I, Iba Kabash, can find the girl and take her to him. If you help me, it can be managed. That is my message.”

Khlit watched the Kurd depart nimbly. Iba Kabash had sensed the importance of the Cossack’s words. It would be a rare tale to pour into the ears of the master of Alamut. And, nimbly as the Kurd took his way from the banquet-place, Khlit was as quick to follow, keeping in the shadows of the passages, but well within sight of the other.

So it happened that Iba Kabash did not see Khlit when he turned into the winding stair that led to the room of Rashideddin, but the Cossack saw him and waited by the outer chamber. If Iba Kabash had looked behind, he might not have gone where he did. Yet he did not look behind, and Khlit waited patiently.

Presently one of the Khirghiz men came from the winding stair, walking idly, and Khlit halted him, asking if the Khirghiz had seen aught of a certain Kurd called Iba Kabash.

The man had seen him. Iba Kabash had come to the astrologer’s chamber. Of a certainty, he had spoken to Rashideddin. Why else had he come? Was the astrologer one to stare at? They had talked together, and he had not heard what was said, although he listened carefully, for it was in another tongue.

Rashideddin, swore Khlit, was a man to be feared. Doubtless he was the one that spoke most often to Halen ibn Shaddah, the holy prophet. Nay, he surely had the ear of Halen ibn Shaddah, who held the keys to the blessed paradise.

The Khirghiz swore even more fluently. It was a lie that Rashideddin spoke with Halen ibn Shaddah more than others. Rashideddin was favored by the dark powers, for he read books. The Khirghiz knew that, for he was one of the chosen fedavie of the astrologer.

Khlit turned, at a step on the stair. Instead of Rashideddin, he saw the stout figure of Iba Kabash who halted in surprise.

“Listen, Cossack,” the Kurd whispered with a glance around the chamber. “I have not yet delivered your message, for Rashideddin stopped me on my way to Halen ibn Shaddah and ordered me to bring you to him. But do not tell Rashideddin what you know. I shall see that you get a good reward, I swear it. We must try to get the girl. If you know a way tell me, and it shall be done. Remember, say nothing to Rashideddin.”

Khlit weighed the words of Kurd for their gist of truth and found very little. He little liked to face the astrologer, but he ascended the stair at once, swaggering, and stamping his boots.

In the round chamber of the astrologer he halted. It was night and candles were lighted around the tapestried walls. Rashideddin was crouched over rolls of parchment and instruments the like of which Khlit had not seen. In a cleared space on the floor in front him the wise man of Alamut had ranged a number of images, silver and cleverly wrought, of stars.

The stars formed a circle and in the circle was a bag. Rashideddin sat quietly, arms crossed on knees, staring in front of him. Around the walls of the chamber silk hangings had been placed, on which were woven pictures of scenes which Khlit recognized as belonging to the paradise of Halen ibn Shaddah.

“Seat yourself, Cossack,” said Rashideddin, in his slow, deep voice, “in front of me, and watch.”

The astrologer’s eyes were half-closed. Looking into them, Khlit could see nothing. The room was still and deserted except for the two. Khlit wished that others had been there. He felt ill at ease, and sucked at his pipe loudly.

“In the place of darkness, of the spirit Munkir,” said Rashideddin, “there are no stars. Yet when men are alive they can look on the stars. Few can read them. From Alamut I have seen them, and learned many things. Do they read the stars in your country, Cossack?”

“Nay,” said Khlit, “we know them not.”

Rashideddin contemplated his circle thoughtfully. His hands, yellow and very clean, took up a pair of dividers with which he measured the distance between the silver stars.

“In the heart of Alamut, we have burned the law books of the Persians and the code books of the Medes. They were very old; yet is the dust of age a sacrament? What is there about an old law that makes it graven as on stone in the minds of men? One prophet has said that he who takes a tooth for a tooth is lawful; another has said that he who injures another for his own sake shall suffer greatly. Which is the truth?”

“Nay,” answered Khlit, “I know not.”

“It was written that when one man kills another the kin of that man shall kill the first. So I have seen many in the world outside Alamut kill each other without cause. Yet in Alamut, we kill only for a reason.”

Khlit thought of the dead Tatar who had fallen where Rashideddin sat and was silent.

“Watch,” said the astrologer. Putting aside his dividers, he took up the bag. Opening the top of this slightly he held it over the circle in both hands. Tipping it to one side, he allowed a thin stream of sand to fall in the space enclosed by the stars. The sand heaped itself in mounds, which Rashideddin considered carefully, setting down the bag.

“There are laws in the stars, Cossack,” he repeated, tracing idly in the sand with his dividers. “And I have read them. Is it not true that when a man has found the sum of wisdom, he has none? The poet has said that no beauty is in the world save that of power over other men. The stars watch the evil and idleness of men. One who reads them learns many things. I shall tell you what I learned of you, Cossack.”

“Aye,” said Khlit grimly, “tell.”

Under the cover of his bushy eyebrows he studied his companion. Rashideddin was a magician, and in Khlit’s mind a magician was not to be trusted. Was the astrologer playing with him, using him as a chess player moves a piece on the board? What had Iba Kabash told Rashideddin? Khlit waited, paying no attention to the stars or the sand, watching only the eyes of the other.

“From the land of Ukraine you came, Khlit,” said the astrologer. “Alone, and met Toctamish in Astrakhan. When the wolf runs with the jackal over the steppe, the stars have a riddle to solve. Perhaps the wolf is hungry. And the jackal is useful.”

“Aye,” said Khlit, “Iba Kabash.”

Rashideddin’s expression did not change as he stirred the sands with his dividers. “At Astrakhan there was a fedavie who is dead. You and the jackal Toctamish were under his roof. You came with him to a ship. And the fedavie was slain. Aye, the wolf was

hungered. Much have I learned from the stars. There was a girl with you on the ship. She did not come with you to Alamut.”

Khlit made no response, and Rashideddin continued to stir the sands.

“The girl was not one easy to forget. You have not forgotten her. The jackal is drunk. But you have an ear for wisdom. The girl might be found in Alamut. Aye, by one who knows her, in the thousands of slaves.”

Khlit shook the ashes from his pipe. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the hangings move behind him. Well he knew the chamber of Rashideddin was pregnant with danger. The pallid astrologer toyed with men’s lives as he did with the magic sands. He made no move, waiting for what was to come.

It came in a blinding flash. A burst of flame, and the sands leaped upward. Smoke and a wrenching smell filled Khlit’s eyes and throat. The skin of his face burned hotly. Blinking and gasping, he rocked back on his haunches.

“The wolf is wise in the ways of the steppe,” purred the astrologer. “Yet he came to Alamut, the vulture’s nest. It is a pity. The girl, too, is missing. Perhaps she can be found.”

The face of Rashideddin stared at him through thinning clouds of powder smoke, and Khlit wiped the tears of pain from his eyes. Rapidly, he thought. Rashideddin wanted Berca. Halen ibn Shaddah would pay a high price for the girl, who was dangerous, being not as other girls.

“Aye,” he muttered, coughing, for the flame had burned his face, “she may be found.”

“Tomorrow, there will be an audience by Halen ibn Shaddah for the fedavie. She will be there. I shall send for you before evening. Fail, and the fedavie will break your bones slowly, with stones, or tear the skin from your back.”

Khlit rose to his feet without obeisance.

“Have the stars,” he asked, “any other message for me?”

For a long moment Rashideddin studied him through narrowed lids. Idly, the dividers traced patterns in the powder ash in the

circle of stars. And Khlit cursed himself softly. For in the eyes of the other was the look of one who measures swords. Once too often he had drawn the attention of the astrologer on himself.

Dismissed from the round chamber, Khlit sought out Iba Kabash, and secured the promise of the Kurd that he would be put with Toctamish among the sentries for the next night, for being admitted to the paradise of Alamut this was their privilege. To gain this point, it was necessary to assure the Kurd that Berca could be found. Once more, Iba Kabash swore Khlit would get a good price, whereupon Khlit had the thought that the other was too glib with a promise.

Then he found Toctamish, and told the Tatar enough of what had passed in the garden of Halen ibn Shaddah to keep him sober overnight. This done, Khlit seated himself in a corner of the banquet-place and took out his sword. Placing it across his knees he began to whet it with the stone he always carried. As he did so, men near him stared curiously, for Khlit was singing to himself in a voice without music.

And Rashideddin sat over the circle of silver stars, tracing and retracing patterns in the ashes of powder, with the look of one in whose soul there is no peace.

XII

Came the time of the divan, the assembly of the Refik, and closed gates that guarded the apartments of Halen ibn Shaddah in the cellars of Alamut swung open. In poured the followers of the Refik; fedavie, hillmen of Persia, men of the Khirghiz steppe, janissaries of Yussouf, prince of princes. Scattered in the crowd were magicians of Rashideddin in white tunics and red girdles, in company with white and gold Dais. Also came Khlit with the Khirghiz chief who had seen fit to keep at his side.

The throng moved in silence, and Khlit waxed curious at this, until he questioned the Khirghiz. For reply, he received a hard blow in the ribs.

“You are surely a fool, Cossack,” growled the other, “to bray at what is strange. We are walking through the talking chambers of the Shadna, built by Ala-eddin. Harken.” He lifted his voice in a shrill syllable. “Aie!”

Instantly the sound was taken up and repeated through the corridors. A hundred echoes caught the word and flung it back. Shrilly, gruffly, it rang further into the caverns. Men near them stared and cursed. Khlit observed that the corridors were lofty and vaulted, with pillars of stone.

“It is said,” whispered the Khirghiz, gratified by the effect of his experiment, “that before the time of Rashideddin, when the Refik prayed to Allah, these were the chambers of prayer. A man could pray a thousand times with one word.”

“And now?”

“We do not pray.”

Pushing a way through the crowd recklessly with his elbows, the Khirghiz gained a place where he and Khlit could see the array of the divan. In the center of a cleared space in one of the larger chambers stood Halen ibn Shaddah, easily marked by his great height and the cloak that shadowed his face. Around him were grouped certain men in heavy turbans and green embroidered coats. These Khlit recognized as Daikebirs, emissaries of the master of Alamut. At his side was the bent figure of Rashideddin.

These were talking in a tongue that Khlit did not know, not loudly, for fear of disturbing the echoes. His eye wandered over the throng. Wandered and halted. A woman’s figure stood out from the crowd and he swore under his breath. Arm’s length from Rashideddin among the Dais, her blue cloak closely wrapped on her slender form, stood Berca. Her black curls were pushed under a fold of the cloak; her brown eyes, darting from under fringed lashes, swept about the gathered Refik and passed Khlit by in unconcern. Yet he felt that she had seen him.

No other woman was present. Khlit saw that the eyes of many

searched her, and he touched the Khirghiz on the shoulder.

“Is there talk about the woman?” he asked softly. “Tell me.” The chief listened, tolerantly, for a space.

“Aye,” he said, “there is idle talk. The woman is the daughter of a hill sheik. She was sent to be the wife of Kiragai Khan. That is a good jest, for Kiragai Khan loves not the Refik. She has said that she was sent without a dowry. So, the painted flower has come to one who tramples on flowers, to ask that the dowry be given her.”

“And will it be done?”

“Will the tiger give up its slain victim? Nay, you are without understanding, Cossack. Halen ibn Shaddah does not play with such. The sheik’s daughter will find a place among the slaves, not otherwise.”

“Such is not the law.”

“There is no law in Alamut but one—the word of Halen ibn Shaddah. And the law that the curved dagger must avenge a wrong.”

Khlit made no reply, considering carefully what had been said. Rashideddin, then, had found Berca as he had declared he would.

Was it Berca’s purpose to come before Halen ibn Shaddah? Had she forgotten the cunning and cruelty of the man who had dishonored her? Perhaps the girl’s pride had impelled her to appeal for justice and a wedding dowry to give the khan to whom she had offered herself. Yet Berca had not forgotten the manner of her father’s death, of that Khlit was sure. Wise in the ways of men, the heart of the sheik’s daughter was a closed book to him. He looked around for Toctamish. The Tatar was not to be seen.

Meanwhile, Rashideddin had been speaking to the girl.

“What said the astrologer?” asked Khlit.

“The old one is crafty,” grunted the Khirghiz. “Aye, he has learned the secrets of magic where Marduk hangs by his heels in

the hell of Babylon. He asked why a girl so fair in face and form should bear a gift in offering herself in marriage.”

Berca, who seemed to ignore her peril, lifted her dark head and answered quickly in tones that stirred the echoes.

“Hah, the painted flower has a sharp tongue,” grunted the chieftain. “She says that her beauty has moved the heart of Kiragai Khan as wind stirs fire. The khan, who desires her, would have taken her for his favorite wife. Yet would she not, being ashamed for reason of the trick Halen ibn Shaddah played her. So she has come back to ask a dowry from the hand of the master of Alamut, who is her lawful ruler now that her father is dead.”

The giant form of Halen ibn Shaddah turned on Berca, and a peculiarly shrill voice reached the ears of Khlit. Once more he wondered what kind of man was the master of Alamut, of the giant figure and shrill voice.

“Halen ibn Shaddah says,” whispered the other, “that Berca belongs to Alamut. She has returned to Alamut and here she must stay.”

Khlit thought of the paradise of the master of evil, and under-stood why the eyes of the fedavie in the throng burned as they stared at the girl’s slender figure outlined in the blue cloak.

“She asked for justice—” he began.

“Nay,” interrupted the Khirghiz carelessly, “her father was slain by Halen ibn Shaddah. How is she then to be trusted?”

Khlit did not answer. For the gaze of Berca had met his. In it he read anxiety, and a warning. Slowly her glance crept to Rashideddin and back. Again. And Khlit saw the astrologer turn to leave the chamber.

Truly, he considered, the sheik’s daughter was daring and proud. And, obeying her look, he followed Rashideddin, slipping away from the Khirghiz.

So it happened that when the astrologer left the divan, Khlit did likewise. Rashideddin made his way quickly and alone down one of the corridors without waiting for a light. Khlit followed

him, keeping as close as he could without being seen. Presently both halted.

A voice called through the corridor clearly, and seemingly very near.

“A man must be crafty and wise,” the voice of Berca came to their ears, “when danger is ’round his path, else is his labor vain.”

Khlit crossed himself in astonishment. For a moment he had forgotten the echoes of the corridors of Ala-eddin.

XIII

Rashideddin went straight to the winding stairs that led to his own apartment. At the foot of these stairs Khlit, who had traced the astrologer closely, paused. It would not be easy to go farther without being seen. And this Khlit wanted to avoid. He believed that Rashideddin was having him watched, and that the Khirghiz had attended him to the divan under orders. And at all costs he must be free to act that night.

Rashideddin, thought Khlit, sensed something impending. In some way the magician of Alamut kept himself informed of what went on in the citadel. His spies were everywhere. And on the night when Berca planned to admit the enemies of the Refik, both were under watch. Where was Toctamish?

Khlit wasted no time by the foot of the winding stair. There were other entrances to the circular chamber where Rashideddin kept his henchmen, and the Cossack cast about until he came to one of these. A passage led upward, unlighted in the direction he sought, and this Khlit followed until he came to a curtain which he suspected divided it from the chamber of the astrologer. Beyond the curtain he could hear voices.

Lifting one edge of the hanging, Khlit looked out cautiously. Candlelight in the chamber dazzled him for a moment. He made out a dozen figures, Rashideddin not among them, dressed in the red and white of the magicians’ cult. They were grouped around a man prone on the floor. This man was Toctamish.

The Tatar’s coat and shirt had been removed. Two fedavie held each of his arms outstretched on the floor. His thick chest was strangely red, and he gasped as if in pain, not once or twice, but long, broken gasps that shook his body.

As Khlit watched, startled, one of the fedavie, a gaunt Tatar with a pocked face, placed some brown dust on the chest of the prostrate man. Khlit recognized the dust. It was the same that had singed his face when he sat opposite Rashideddin.

Thrusting aside the hanging, Khlit stepped into the room. The fedavie took no notice of him, believing that he was one of Rashideddin’s henchmen stationed in the passage. Toctamish, however, lifted his eyes, which gleamed as they fell on the Cos-sack. Khlit saw that his brow was covered with sweat, and that blood ran from his mouth.

The man of the pitted face lifted some brown powder and sifted it on the chest of his victim. Another pushed a torch into his hand. Khlit realized then how his companion was being tortured. The smell of burning in the air came from singed flesh. And Toctamish was feeling the angry hand of Rashideddin.

Khlit stepped to the side of the fedavie with the torch, and peered closely at Toctamish. He saw then what made the Tatar’s chest red, of a strange shade. Strips of skin had been torn off over the lungs, and here the powder was laid. Khlit swore and his hand strayed to his sword. And fell to his side. The fedavie numbered a full dozen, armed, and able-bodied. To draw his sword would be to bring ten whirling around him.

Khlit had no love for Toctamish. Yet in this room the other had stood with his sword drawn beside him. And they had shared bread and salt. Toctamish was standing the torture with the stark courage which was his creed. The lips of the sufferer moved and Khlit bent closer.

“Kiragai Khan—Khan of the Horde,” the cracked lips gasped, “tell him. Blood for blood. We have shared bread—and salt, and arak. Tell him.”

The Cossack nodded. Toctamish was asking him to report how he had endured torture to Kiragai Khan who was advancing on Alamut at the head of his men, and claiming vengeance. He was weak, and seemed to have no hope of living.

“What said the dog?” muttered the fedavie with the torch who had been trying to catch what Toctamish whispered. He spoke in a bastard Tatar with a strange lisping. “He will not speak and Rashideddin has said that he must or we will hang by the heels.”

“He is out of his mind,” answered Khlit carelessly. “What must he tell?”

“He stuck a dagger into a fedavie, a Syrian, on the shore of the Salt Sea. A girl, Berca, the sheik’s daughter, was there also. This yellow-faced fool must tell if the girl ordered him to do it. Bah! His skin is tough as oxen hide, and his flesh is senseless as swine.”

“And he has not spoken?”

“Nay. Rashideddin was here and questioned him, but the Tatar cursed him.”

Khlit scanned the face of Toctamish. The yellow skin was dark and moist with sweat. The eyes were bloodshot and half-closed. The mouth lifted in a snarl, disclosing teeth pointed as an animal’s. He felt that Toctamish would not yield to the torture. And great love for the man whose courage was proof against pain rose in the heart of Khlit whose own courage was such that men called him the Wolf.

“Aye,” he growled, “blood for blood. That is the law of Alamut. And Kiragai Khan shall know.”

He saw by a quick opening of the eyes that Toctamish caught his words.

“What say you?” queried the fedavie. “Kiragai Khan?” Toctamish’s knotted figure writhed under the hands of his cap-tors. He spat, blood and foam combined, at the other.

“Aye,” he groaned, “Kiragai Khan—lord of fifty thousand spears—chief of a hundred ensigns—master of Alamut.”

“He speaks,” interpreted Khlit swiftly, “of one Hulagu Khan who conquered Alamut. Tell Rashideddin. And cease the torture, for the man has nothing to confess.”

The fedavie stared at Khlit suspiciously.

“Nay,” he snarled, “shall we hang by the heels?”

He thrust the torch near the powder. There was a hissing flash, a smell of burning flesh. Toctamish’s body quivered spasmodically and sank back. The eyes closed.

Under cover of the flare and smoke Khlit slipped back through the circle and sought the stair. Gaining this he did not pause until he had reached the inner gate of the underground citadel where a Dai was assembling his men to guard the outer gate by the river.

When Khlit, who was nursing in his brain the sight he had just left, went down the river stairs to his post in the River Shahrud, he found that his companion was the bearded Khirghiz chieftain.

The outer post of the guard around the citadel of Alamut was in a small nest of rocks several hundred paces from the entrance, and midway in the stream. So shallow was the river that they could wade out to the rocks. The Khirghiz led the way.

It was not yet the middle of the night, and a bright moon lighted the winding ribbon of the Shahrud that twisted between the rocky heights of Rudbar. The mass of Alamut showed dark, giving no sign of the evil world it concealed. A wind from the heights brushed Khlit’s face and he breathed it in deeply, for he was nauseated by the stench of the caverns.

“You and I, Cossack,” said the Khirghiz, seating himself unsteadily on a ledge of the rocks, for he had been drinking, “will keep the outer post.”

“Aye,” said Khlit, “you and I.”

He stared out into the moonlight haze that hung over the river.

Berca had said that he and Toctamish were to hold the outer

post. From some quarter the horsemen of Kiragai Khan were near?

ing the gate of Alamut. Khlit realized that unless the attack came

as a surprise the citadel was impregnable. A surprise might carry

the Tatar horde into the entrance. Berca had said there was a

way. And this was it. Yet, if a surprise was to succeed the Khirghiz must be disposed of. He had been drinking, but he was still watchful. No movement of the Cossack escaped him.

Quietly Khlit drew out a small vial. From this he poured a few grains of a white powder into his hand. Lifting his hand he made as if to take the powder into his mouth. The Khirghiz bent forward, and his face lighted with evil desire.

“Have you—” he began.

“Come, Brother,” whispered Khlit genially, “we will be comfortable on the rocks. Is not the bread of the Refik the vintage of the Shadna to be eaten? Come.”

The Khirghiz swore softly and held out his hand. In wine and food, the vintage of the Shadna was often in the hands of the Refik men. But not, except on expeditions of the Master of Alamut or by costly bribery of the Dais was the pure powder of hashish to be had, the hashish that brought bright dreams of paradise and lulled the mind with pleasures, that hardened the souls of the men of Alamut, and steeled their hands to the dagger.

Khlit, who had discovered the secret of the drug through the babblings of Iba Kabash, quietly dropped his portion back into the vial. Later, he knew, the Khirghiz would want more and he had but a little.

XIV

It was not long before Khlit was alone. The Khirghiz lay at his side on the rocks, muttering to himself with enough hashish inside him to make an imbecile of an ordinary man. Khlit sat by his side, saber across his knees, and watched the moonlit sides of the heights that frowned down on him. On the slopes he could make out the shadowy outlines of droves of horses, and he wondered if the Dais were planning an expedition that night.

Usually, Khlit was not given to forebodings. Yet the black mass of Alamut rising at his back gave him the feeling of approaching danger, and when he scanned the shadows along the river they moved as if filled with the bands of drug-crazed fedavie. Especially, Khlit wondered if the spies of Rashideddin were watching

him. Rashideddin had learned of the murder of the Syrian, had connected Berca with it, and Toctamish with Berca. Toctamish, at his order, had been tortured with such devilish cruelty that even the Tatar’s fortitude might break down.

How much did the astrologer know of Berca’s secret? Once the alarm was raised in Alamut a thousand swords would block the stairs at the river gate and the rope hoists of the slaves at the rear would be drawn up. There were no signs of activity that Khlit could see, but few ever saw the movements of the fedavie. Accustomed as he was to war on the steppe, he was skeptical of horsemen taking such a stronghold as Alamut.

Once the Tatar horde forced the entrance there would be a battle such as Khlit had never seen before. Himself a Cossack, he cared little whether Refik or Khan were the victor—except that he had sworn an oath, a double oath, that the life of the Master of Alamut, Halen ibn Shaddah, would fall to his sword. Wherefore, he waited patiently, eyes searching the road by the river where the invaders might come.

Berca had told him that twenty thousand Tatars were riding through the hills to Alamut. Yet the road was narrow and the way twisted. It would be hard to move quickly. And there were the horse-tenders on the hills who would give the alarm. Khlit had come to grant a grudging admiration to the sheik’s daughter who had defied Halen ibn Shaddah. But she was in Rashideddin’s hands, and the astrologer was the man Khlit had marked as most dangerous of the Refik.

Rising suddenly, Khlit drew in his breath sharply. Outlined against the summit of a hill he saw a horse and rider moving very swiftly. The man was bent low in his saddle and Khlit thought he saw the long cloak of the fedavie before the rider came over the brow of the hill. Halfway down the descent the horse stumbled and fell.

Khlit saw a dark object shoot from the rolling horse and lie passive, clear in the moonlight. The messenger, if such it was, of the fedavie would not reach his destination. And at the same

time Khlit saw something else. Before his eyes as if by magic he beheld Kiragai Khan and thousands of his horsemen.

Then Khlit, surnamed the Wolf, buckled tight his belt and drew on his sheepskin hat firmly. There was to be a battle that would redden the waters of the Shahrud, and among the swords of the fedavie Halen ibn Shaddah was to be found.

Apparently there was nothing stirring on the mountain slopes of Rudbar except the shapes of the horse droves that drew down to the river as was their custom, awaiting the bands of the Dais which came out for mounts. Tonight there were no men issuing from Alamut. And it was only when one of the herds moved across the face of the moon that Khlit saw the tips of Tatar helmets moving among the horses, and understood why the horses seemed more numerous than before.

Even as Berca had promised, the Tatar horde was approaching the gate of Alamut. One of the herds reached the river’s edge and pressed on, in the shadow of the hillside. Khlit could see the faces of men peering at him, and catch the glint of their spears. He gave a hasty glance at his companion. The man was sleeping heavily.

Familiar with the ways of the Tatars, the Cossack could guess how their whirlwind rush into Rudbar had cut off all news being sent to the citadel, and how, after dark, the Refik horse-tenders on the pastures had been singled out and cut down. One had broken away with the news that was to carry the doom of Alamut, only to fall by the river.

The foremost warriors had reached him, clinging closely to the sides of their horses. A low voice called out to him cautiously. “You are the Cossack who will guide us?”

“Aye,” said Khlit, “but the moon is bright here and there are others within the caverns. Are you ready to rush forward at once?”

“Lead,” said the voice, “and we will follow. Lead us to the gate of Alamut and we will purge the devil’s hole of its filth.”

Khlit cast a quick glance at the hillsides. Other bodies were moving down. Some were nearly at the river. Thousands were

coming over the hillcrest. More were coming by the river road. On the far flanks detachments were moving to the rear of Alamut.

Drawing his sword, he sprang down into the river and splashed toward the shore. Dark forms closed in beside him, and the welcome stench of sweat and leather filled his nose. The river was full of moving forms, and horses that dashed, riderless, to either side. Khlit’s heart leaped, and his clasp tightened on his sword. One of the foremost caught him roughly by the arm. Khlit had a quick glimpse of a dark, lined face and flashing eyes.

“I am Kiragai Khan, Cossack. Where is Toctamish? He was to stay by the side of Berca!”

“She sent him to watch with me. Yet, very likely he is dead by now.”

The other swore, as they gained the shelter of the caverns. “Take me to her, then,” he snarled.

So it happened that before the light of day touched the date trees on the summit of Alamut, citadel of the Refik, and place of plague and evil, the first of the horde that had ridden from the shores of the Salt Sea entered the river gate, overcoming a few guards, forced their way up the stair, and spread through the pas-sages of Alamut, making no sound but silently, as tigers seeking their prey.

XV

In the annals of Abulghazi it is written how, in the Year of the Lion, came the doom of Alamut. The Refik folk were cornered in the cellars of the citadel, and taken by surprise. The swords of the Kallmarks Tatars flashed in the passages, and their sharp arrows sped through the corridors. And, as the prophecy said, the waters of the Shahrud were red.

Yet in the book of Abulghazi and the annals of the Persian dynasties there is nothing said of the fate of Halen ibn Shaddah, who was the last leader of the Refik. The followers of Kiragai Khan sought through Alamut from the wine chambers to the gardens among the ruins on the summit, and they did not find Halen ibn Shaddah.

The battle was not over for many hours. Separate bands of mounted Tatars had surrounded the height on which Alamut stood, and when throngs of slaves and the eunuchs with the houris of the gardens swept out from hidden tunnels and were lowered over the wall, they were cut down. They were not spared, for that was the word of Kiragai Khan. The fedavie, cornered, and led by their Dais, rallied and attacked the columns of invaders which were penetrating to the heart of Alamut.

The Tatars without their horses and fighting in the gloom of the caverns were at a disadvantage, which was offset by greater numbers and the leadership of Kiragai Khan. For the fedavie had no leader. Messengers who sought through the tapestried apartments of the Shadna for Halen ibn Shaddah found none but panic-struck Daikebirs. The tide of battle flung the fedavie back to the banquet-place, and to the treasure house beyond. If there had been a leader they might have held the dark passages until the Tatars were sickened by the slaughter of their men.

Such was the doom of Alamut. Torches flaring through chambers hung with gold cloth and littered with jeweled statuary from Trebizond, with silk rugs of Isphahan. Swords flashing in dark tunnels, where naught was heard but the gasping of men bitten by steel and the sound of bodies falling to the earth. Wailing and lamentation in the gardens under the date trees which were the evil paradise of Halen ibn Shaddah, and the splash of stricken women in the canals. Dark-faced, squat men in mail and fur cloaks trampling through treasure rooms where the riches of a thousand caravans and a hundred cities stood.

Never had the followers of Kiragai Khan taken spoil so rich. Pearls from Damascus, golden fish from Che-ting, emeralds and sapphires from Tabriz, urns of gold shekels from the merchants of Samarkand and ornaments from the caliphate of Baghdad that would grace the court of a Mongol emperor. Slant eyes of the Kallmark horsemen widened, and they urged their dogs into the rivers of wine in the gardens, ripping into shreds rugs and hang-

ings, splintering porcelain kiosks with rocks, and trampling on the bodies of the dead. Few lived.

And still the Master of Alamut was not found. Once Iba Kabash, who had attached himself to the winning side, and was spared because he brought Berca safe to Kiragai Khan, paused beside the body of a very large man, cloaked and jeweled. But he spurned it with his foot when he turned it over, for the giant face was that of a black eunuch.

Yet there was one who said he had found Halen ibn Shaddah. Iba Kabash, who was eager to find favor with his new lord, offered, trembling, to take him to the circular chamber of Rashideddin. Berca came with them, for she was not one to leave the side of Kiragai Khan in battle, being the daughter of a hill sheik and not a Tatar woman.

They climbed the winding stairs escorted by the renegade with torch-bearers and armed Kallmarks. In the circular chamber of the astrologer they saw a strange sight. The room had been dark. By the flare of their torches they made out three men, two dead, and the third sitting on the floor. Kiragai Khan paused for a moment by the body of Toctamish, burned and bloody, for the man had been one of his lieutenants, and very brave.

“He died under torture, lord and Celestial Master,” gibbered Iba Kabash, pointing. “For he would not tell of the queenly Berca, or the coming of the noble Tatars.”

Kiragai Khan said nothing, passing to the next body, and pressing the hand of Berca when the girl cried out. This one was Rashideddin, his gray robe stained with red, and his lean face convulsed. His arms hung wide, and sightless, leering eyes staring upward through the opening to the stars, the astrologer had died in the grip of anger. Berca, leaning over him, watched vainly for a breath to stir the gray cloak. Seated beside Rashideddin she saw Khlit, wiping his sword calmly with a corner of the dead man’s cloak.

“Have you seen Halen ibn Shaddah?” demanded Iba Kabash officiously. “The noble Kiragai Khan has missed you since he came into the entrance of Alamut. Was it you that killed Rashideddin?”

“Aye,” answered Khlit, looking up indifferently. “Have the Kallmarks or the Refik the upper hand? I have seen Halen ibn Shaddah.”

“The battle is over, Khlit,” exclaimed Berca pressing forward, but keeping the hand of the Tatar leader. Her eyes were shining, and she held her head proudly. “The doom of Alamut has come, as I swore it would. It was my will that it should, mine and my lord’s. For I came to him without a gift and was ashamed. Yet did he marry me in spite of that. And I swore to him that if he would avenge my father such a gift should be his as no other bride could bring. Alamut would be his, with the treasure of the Refik. And now he has seen that the gift is rich. All that Halen ibn Shaddah had.”

Khlit’s glance sought that of the Tatar leader, and they measured each other silently.

“The way is long from Tatary,” went on Berca, tossing her head, “but I am very beautiful in the sight of my lord, and he consented to my plan—to come to open the gate to him—saying only that Toctamish should come. I picked you, Cossack, as my father of battles. Yet I am grieved. You swore that you would slay for me Halen ibn Shaddah—”

“Have you seen,” broke in Kiragai Khan gruffly, “the one who is called Master of Alamut?”

“Aye, he was here.”

“Which way did he go? Speak.”

“He did not go.”

The khan looked around the chamber. It was empty except for the two bodies. A sudden blast of air from the opening overhead made the flame of the torches whirl, and cast a gleam on the face of Rashideddin as if the dead man had moved. Berca drew back with a smothered cry.

“The man who was called Halen ibn Shaddah,” said Khlit, “was a eunuch of great size. The real Master of Alamut was an-other. He concealed his identity to avoid the daggers of those who would slay him. Yet is he slain. And I have kept my oath, Berca, princess.”

The eyes of the others strayed to the body of Rashideddin and rested on the red stains that garnished the gray cloak with the red ribbons of death. The blind eyes of Halen ibn Shaddah were fixed on the stars visible through the opening in the ceiling. And Khlit, seeing this, knew that he would be very glad to turn his horse again toward the steppe and away from Alamut.