Who can lift the veil of the unseen? And who can read the hand-writing of Fate?

Jhilam the Mighty, the stronghold of the hills, had been fief of the sires of Sattar Singh since the time of Ram. Now Sattar Singh, Lord of Jhilam, was dead.

And Rani Begum, wearing the white robe of widowhood for Sattar Singh, brought the keys of Jhilam castle and laid them before Jahangir, the Mogul, as was the law. But her heart was heavy.

“Lord of the World,” cried Rani Begum—and her fear was a great fear at sight of the mask of anger that overspread the face of the Mogul—“my Lord Sattar Singh swore that the keys of Jhilam of the Hills should be held by none but our son Rao Singh. Such is our right.”

“Is the oath of a hill chief greater than the word of the Mogul?” said Jahangir. So it came to pass that Jahangir the Mogul, Lord of the Pun jab, of the Dekkan, of Sind and all Hindustan, gave the fief of Jhilam to one Shaista Mirza, a Persian. But the allegiance of the men of Jhilam he could not give.

Allah in his mercy laid the hand of death upon Rani Begum. It was written that this should be.

Who can look beyond the veil of the future? Yet the thought came to mein a vision that the treasure of Jhilam should be found. And in the vision was the dark form of the Angel of Death.

From the tale of Ahmad Rumi

The hour of sunset prayer was past. Ahmad Rumi, teller of leg-ends, folded his prayer-carpet neatly and placed it within his bundle and seated himself at the side of the caravan-track. This was the trail from the Wular lake to the southern border of Kashmir. And it was the year 1609 of the Christian era.

Carefully the legend-teller adjusted the folds of his white turban and ate sparingly of dates which he took from his girdle, leaning on his staff the while. The sun had gone down behind the willows at his back; the shadows lengthened, dwindled and formed again under the pale light of a new moon.

Except for the loom of the turban against the underbrush, touched by the faint fingers of moonlight, the form of Ahmad Rumi was invisible. He sat very quiet, sensing the change of hour by the night chill. For Ahmad Rumi was blind.

He lifted his head at a sound from above him on the caravan-track. Other sounds reached him, blended and confused, but clear to the blind man. Three horses were approaching.

Three Arabian horses, bearing heavy men perhaps in armor. So reasoned Ahmad Rumi and drew farther back into the willows. Years had taught him the different tread of a Turkoman’s pony, a Kirghiz’s quick-moving horse and the stolid gait of a Kabul stallion. He could distinguish between the bell-bearing mules of a Bokharan caravan and the laden beasts of Chinese merchants.

Slowly the three Arabs passed. They minced along after the manner of their kind, and their riders spoke Persian. The horse-men did not perceive Ahmad Rumi.

“Fresh horses, held in check,” muttered the legend-teller to himself, “and going warily. Aye, verily, the tale of the Wular peas-ants was true. Insh ’allah!”

He leaned slightly forward, facing up the trail expectantly and stroking the gray beard that fell to his girdle. His wide, brown eyes were closed, and the moonlight outlined shadows under his high cheekbones. Then he lifted his head again eagerly.

This time he scrambled to his feet, aided by his staff, and stepped into the highroad to confront the rider who trotted swiftly under the willows.

“Back, beggar,” cried a high voice, not unkind nor harsh. “I have no silver—”

“I am blind,” responded the teller of legends quickly.

He felt for the bridle of the horse that had been reined in sharply. His lean hand touched the bridle and the silk shoulder-straps, halting at the wrought silver ornaments.

“The Wular stallion,” he muttered. “Allah is merciful.” A quick indrawing of breath escaped the rider.

“Back, Muslim. I must pass.”

“Nay, Rao Singh. Not until you and I have spoken together.”

For a space the rider was silent, peering at the fragile form in his path. He sat his mount easily, a slender figure nervously erect, in a plain white tunic with silk girdle bearing a light sword and a small, peaked turban.

“What seek you? How knew you my name?” he demanded suspiciously.

Ahmad Rumi felt for the hand of Rao Singh and pressed it to his forehead.

“Thrice blessed is this hour!” he exclaimed joyfully. “Aie— should I not know the name of the son of my lord? It is sweeter than the wind in the pine-tops in the hills and more fragrant than the scent of the lotus by the lake.

“Dismount, Rao Singh; dismount! At a distance of a bowshot wait those who would slay you and scatter your ashes on the wind of death. By the ford they watch—three, with arms and perhaps coats of mail.”

Rao Singh lifted his dark head and glanced warily about into the thickets. In that age it was well to keep to horse on the caravan-routes, even within sight of the camp of the Mogul, as he then was.

But Ahmad Rumi was alone. Youth and aged man seated them-selves on the bank by the willows.

“How know you this thing?”

Rao Singh spoke with the directness of a boy—which he was, barely attained to man’s figure.

“You could not see them?”

Suspicion was in the last words and Ahmad Rumi smiled gently.

“They spoke Persian, which I know. They will wait at the ford for the one they seek. I heard the rattle of their weapons. Death is in the air tonight—for Rao Singh.”

“Whence came the three?”

“From the Jhilam path.”

“How knew you I should come?”

The teller of legends sighed, stroking his beard.

“Many are the mouths that will utter evil. The master of horse of the Lord of Jhilam spake to the slaves, the stable slaves, and they whispered to the cutters of wood, who bore the news to the forest men. Hence I, who wait at the Wular gate, heard that this night Rao Singh was to be slain at the ford near the outpost of the Mogul camp.

“So I came hither with a caravan from Khoten, bound for the camp. Even as I heard the thing has come to pass.”

“Three common retainers from Jhilam,” meditated Rao Singh. “Nay; one was noble, for I caught the scent of musk as they passed.”

“Nevertheless I must ride on.”

The boy glanced up anxiously at the moon. “May the gods reward you for your tidings—”

“Aie, say not thus, my lord! For the space of four Winters since the death of Sattar Singh, who was master of Jhilam, I have lived but for one thing—to embrace the hand of the son of Sattar Singh, telling him the while that there are those at Jhilam who have not forgotten. It was our fate to suffer, and we have endured much, but we have not forgotten—”

“Peace!” whispered the boy.

Ahmad Rumi’s keen ears had caught the sound—the swift clatter of horse’s hoofs down the trail. But this time his memory was at fault. The gait was not that of Arab or Persian beast, nor yet that of a steppe pony.

Rao Singh had sprung to his feet, hand on sword. He saw a black horse sweep by bearing a tall form in sheepskin khalat and black hat. The rider glanced at him but did not pause.

“A hillman,” he whispered to Ahmad Rumi, “perhaps a Kir?

ghiz, yet I think not. Presently he will be at the ford.”

“The trees are thick there, I have heard. It may be written that

this one should be attacked and perish in your place—” “Then must I mount and warn,” cried the boy.

“You are too late, my lord.”

The teller of legends raised his hand. From below came the sound of horses plunging in shallow water, a cry and the sharp clash of weapons.

“Siva! It is one against three.”

Shaking off the protesting beggar, Rao Singh leaped to saddle and spurred down the track, drawing his sword as he went. Again the noise of steel striking steel, again a cry of pain, followed this time by the sound of a heavy body breaking through brush.

In the edge of the stream Rao Singh reined his mount and stared about him. A riderless horse, trembling with excitement, stood nearby, its reins tangled in a human body stretched on the grass.

Under the surface of the shallow water where a moonbeam pierced the curtain of trees he saw a second form that seemed to move as he watched. Then it was still. Silence held the ford, and he wondered at the swift change from tumult to quiet.

Not more than two minutes had passed since the first shout, and two men were dead and two had fled beyond sight and hearing. Into the silence, however, crept a tap-tap. It came nearer and Rao Singh’s eyes widened as he gripped his weapon.

The tap-tap changed to a rustle, and as Rao Singh was about to voice a prayer to ward off the evil influence of a rakzhas—a malignant demon—he saw Ahmad Rumi’s lean figure approach along the way he had come.

Reassured, the boy dismounted and guided the Muslim to the edge of the stream.

“Heard you the sword-blows, Ahmad Rumi?” he questioned uneasily. “All was over ere I reached the ford. ’Tis like to demonwork, for here be two slain as by magic. By Kali and Durga, protectress of the two worlds, ’twas magic!”

“Nay,” returned the beggar calmly, “there is no enchantment save the will of Allah and the handwriting of fate, lord. I heard steel strike upon steel. Is the rider who passed us by slain?”

Rao leaned over the body by the horse. It was that of a commoner—a harsh face stared up at him above a blood-stained quilted tunic. Satisfied as to this, the boy inspected the form in the water. Caste prevented him from touching the dead. A strong smell of musk assailed him.

“The noble who rode with the three,” Ahmad Rumi informed him promptly.

“Aye, he wears a gold chain, and the moonlight shows mother-of -pearl inlaid upon the scabbard at his girdle.”

The blind man had run his delicate hand over the features of the bearded soldier. He drew in his breath sharply.

“Bairam, master of horse of Shaista Mirza, will breed no more foals,” he muttered. “Just so was his beard ever trimmed and this is his Damascus steel cap. Little it availed him.”

The two were silent a space, pondering what had passed at the ford. Plainly the rider of the black horse had been set upon by the three Persians ambushed at this spot. In all probability he had been mistaken in the deep shadows under the trees for Rao Singh. Yet he had fought off the three sharply, killing two, and had passed on his way.

“Truly a swordsman, he,” sighed the boy. “Would I had seen him more closely and that he had joined his blade to mine, for I have need of such a one.”

“You have many foes, lord,” mused Ahmad Rumi, seating him-self, for his aged limbs were not strong. “There be jackals aplenty who would pull down the lion cub of Jhilam. Aye, in the Mogul camp. After what has passed, is it safe to draw your reins thither?”

Rao Singh smiled, his white teeth flashing gaily from his dark face. His countenance was immature; the chin weak, the mouth delicate, the eyes somber. Like his slender figure, it bespoke ner-

vous energy and willfulness rather than strength. There was pride in the lines of the thin nostrils, and the imprint of sorrow in the creased brow.

Rao Singh was eighteen years of age, yet he bore the cares of a man of thirty—not an uncommon thing in the Mogul era, when fortune or exile hung upon the fancy of an emperor and death was the reward of a slight offense.

“Nay,” he laughed, “have not the gods favored me, Ahmad Rumi, this night? It is well, for I must accomplish a great thing before dawn—” He broke off to stare at the placid beggar suspiciously.

“Ho, Ahmad Rumi, how shall I trust you? You have come upon my path like a spy. You—a follower of the Prophet—claim allegiance to my father, who holds sacred the books of the Veda and the many-armed gods. That is not wonted.”

The legend-teller leaned on his staff, his blind eyes seeking the boy with uncanny exactitude. Rao Singh fingered his sword nervously.

“Siva!” he muttered. “You have not the look of one who is blind.”

Ahmad Rumi smiled patiently.

“Your temper, lord,” he said slowly, “is like to that of noble Sattar Singh. He was ever swift to draw weapon, and heedless of danger. Wherefore his followers loved him and his name is still whispered among the forest men of Jhilam, who are of his faith.”

He nodded slowly, pondering as the aged will on events that were past.

“I am not one of them, Rao Singh. That is true. But there was a day when I journeyed barefoot to Mecca, to the holiest of the holy. It was the sacred month of Ramadan.

“There came a Mogul noble with his followers—one who was hunting with falcons and had had poor sport. He mocked me and set his dogs upon me, who was in rags. With my staff I slew

one of the dogs, wherefore the noble grew great in anger, and his servants pierced my eyes with the fire pencil.”

Rao Singh leaned uneasily against his horse, glancing from the lean face of the beggar to the dead body in the shallow water, and up to where the round sphere of the moon showed through the trees.

“Came one who rode hastily and cried out in hot accusation against the noble,” continued the teller of legends. “He cried that I had been wronged, and weapons clashed. I heard little, for the pain was great.

“Then the rider spake to me gently and had a skilled hakim make me a healing bandage. Eh—for that I blessed him and asked that I might be the servant at his doorpost.”

There was a silence while Ahmad Rumi paused as if listening —a silence broken by the whimper of the stream and the rustle of the bushes in the night wind.

“I thought footsteps sounded,” he observed. “Nay, what is written is written. It was written that I should be blind.

“Since that day I learned that the noble who hunted was Shaista Mirza of Rudbar, and the one who took up my quarrel was Sattar Singh; and men said that both had long been enemies at the court of Akbar, on whom be peace.”

“Did you ask punishment for the wrong done?”

“Am I a paladin of Mogulistan or Hindustan to accuse those of high blood? Nay; Shaista Mirza is a Persian and the Mogul favors his race for their learning and their political power.

“But since then I have had a hut where the Jhilam road joins the Wular lake, and the fishers of the Wular have brought me food—until the evil day when Shaista Mirza became master of Jhilam. Since then there has been little food and my hunger has been great.”

He stretched a trembling hand toward the boy.

“Come to the Wular lake, Rao Singh. I have heard evil spoken of you at Jhilam. Those who hold the fortress are powerful. The

sword-arm of Shaista Mirza is long—enough to reach to the court of the Mogul. He and his astrologer, Nureddin, are very shrewd.

“In the Wular forest you will be safe, for there are those who will guard the path to your hut and watch while you sleep. The forest men and the fishers—who are Kashmiris—remember Sat-tar Singh. And they ask for Rao Singh, his son.”

He salaamed before the youth.

“To those who asked I said that Rao Singh would come. The lion cub of Jhilam would come, and with their own eyes they would see he was like to his father. This thing I have sworn upon the kaaba and the holy names of Omar and Welid.

“I have told them the legends of Jhilam. Yet they have doubted. They have not seen the face of Rao Singh. Shaista Mirza they see and know his power. Aie, too well!”

“Has the Persian put hardships on the bent neck of the Jhilam people?”

“Aye, it was our fate that he should do so. The slaves he brought with him have been made overseers with whips in their hands. The eunuchs who guard his women have the power of life and death.”

Words tumbled eagerly from the beggar’s beard.

“The tithes of rice are doubled; men no longer work the soil, for the tithes are ruinous; instead they have turned wolf-like into robbers and as such are slain daily by the retainers of the Persian. The village oxen are taken without pay—”

“How could I alter this, Ahmad Rumi?” cried the boy. “Am I one to share the lot of peasants?”

“They ask but to see you. They would look upon the face of the son of Sattar Singh who was their lord.”

And the boy laughed with bitterness.

“Truly a poor sight that, Ahmad Rumi—to see the blank eyes and woeful mouth of him who is a poverty-ridden hostage to Jahangir the Mogul.”

The beggar touched the other’s foot hopefully.

“Nay, lord. Is it not written that an omen may bring good? It would be an omen—for the forest men and the outcasts of Jhilam. They would know that you live, and their hearts would be lifted up as flowers at sight of the sun.

“This was the message I was to bring. And—our need is great.”

He waited patiently while Rao bent his head in thought. Once he looked up hastily at the moon as if to mark the passage of time.

“Men starve in the forests of Jhilam, and the hills that are sacred to you and yours, Rao Singh, see nightly hunting of men like beasts along the lake. A pavilion of pleasure has been built by Shaista Mirza on the floating garden of the Wular and there Kashmiri women die slowly so their agony shall be longer and the pleasure of their lord the greater—”

In his earnestness Ahmad Rumi did not hear the slight crackle of brush that drew nearer the two.

“Verily, Rao Singh,” he rose to his full height and extended an imploring hand,” Jhilam cries for the son of Sattar Singh!”

The boy did not move, nor did his expression change. Meditating as he was, he did not hear the sounds in the thicket.

Rao Singh had the faults and the splendid virtues of his race. Proud, intolerant of personal wrong, and brave in battle to the point of folly, he was passionate, short-tempered and as yet in-different to the misfortunes of those of baser birth.

His years of semi-captivity at the Mogul court had not made him a satellite of the throne, bred to flattery and intrigue, but they had branded suspicion into him, and boyish selfishness. And one other thing.

He was unwilling to take up the cause of his hereditary vassals as Ahmad Rumi had hoped; yet he saw in the suggestion of the blind man a possibility of obtaining new followers. The inbred restriction of caste kept him from association with outlaws and the poorer orders; yet his hopes were stirred of taking up arms against Shaista Mirza.

“Whither lies the place I should come—to the Wular?” he asked.

“At the end farthest from the palace and the pleasure island, lord,” chanted Ahmad Rumi. “Up the course of a stream, an hour’s fast ride, to where the pines give way to a cleared place. There is a place of many rocks called the Wular davan—where I have my hut.”

Again the boy laughed softly.

“I have prayed to the many-armed gods, Ahmad Rumi. The time has come when I am no longer child but man. Tonight I ride to claim what is mine—”

“Allah is merciful—”

“Nay, it is a woman. There is one in the Mogul camp who has looked at me, and in her eyes burned the fire of love. I also feel love, and it is strange. I will take her from her guards, and I shall turn my horse from the court. If Jahangir’s men would seek me they must come into the hills.”

The teller of legends plucked at his beard, considering this. He shook his head doubtfully. Rao Singh had no friends in the court— such was the weight of Jahangir’s displeasure—and women were ever the harbingers of strife.

Moreover the boy had not said that the woman was to be given him; he had declared that he would take her in spite of guards. Whoever stole the woman of another ran a great risk, for the Mogulis were even more jealous of their womenkind than the Hindus. “A slave, lord?” he questioned.

“Nay.”

Rao Singh threw back his head proudly.

“A free-born maiden, fairer than the lotus.”

“A concubine?” persisted the blind man.

“Not so. Kera of Kargan is hostage for her tribe. Her lot is like to mine.”

“Aie!” Ahmad Rumi wrung his hands against his lean chest. “The maiden of Kargan Khan, hill chief of the Kirghiz, master of

a thousand riders and lord of the northern hills beyond Jhilam. Aie! Verily Allah has thrown the dust of madness into the pool of your wisdom.”

Rao Singh paid little attention. The rustle in the thicket had ceased save for a dull impact that might have been the stamp of a horse’s foot.

“Kera of Kargan,” he murmured. “Beautiful as the solitary moon at midnight. Fragrant as the jasmine—her lips like coral, teeth white as water-lilies.

“Her figure is slender as the young pine. And her eyes—dark as shadows in a forest pool at night.”

“Hostage for the allegiance of Kargan Khan, who is ruthless as the storm-wind—”

“A pearl set in base silver. And Cheker Ghar, her buffoon, brought me word that she would mount my horse and go where I willed.”

“Kargan Khan esteems the maiden as the jewel in the hilt of his sword. Only when Jahangir pledged her safety did he render her to the Mogul.”

“Tonight I will seek her among the tents, and she will come.” Ahmad Rumi tore at his beard as he grasped the meaning of this.

“Eh—then she must be in the imperial seraglio. She is among those in the red imperial tents. Rao Singh, snatch from the jaws of a lion the calf which it is devouring, touch the fang of an angered cobra, but do not raise your eyes to a woman of the Mogul’s tents!”

“Nay, she put on her ornaments that she should be fair in my eyes. Twice I saw her face, for she is not like the veiled mistresses of the Muslims.”

“Kargan Khan will hunt you, and when he has found you cut you in many pieces which he will throw to the fish of a mountain lake.”

“I have sworn to the conjurer that I would come this night to the imperial tents.”

Ahmad Rumi sighed, hearing the willful pride that rang in the youth’s words.

“It was the way of Sattar Singh to be rash,” he mused, “yet this is madness—and death for the sake of a woman. Surely there be slave girls that can be bought—”

“I have spoken,” said Rao Singh shortly. “It is late—”

He had turned to his horse when his figure tensed and his hand flew to his sword.

“Siva!” he cried softly.

Not ten paces away a man stood in the shadows, afoot, one hand holding the bridle of a horse, the other closed over the beast’s muzzle. He was a tall man with high shoulders, wearing a long-sleeved sheepskin khalat, heavy horsehide boots and a black sheepskin hat.

“It is he of the black horse,” the boy whispered to Ahmad Rumi, who had turned his head inquiringly.

The stranger had made no move. He stood with powerful legs wide apart, the set of the shoulders suggesting strength, although his figure was spare. The hat was perched on one side of his head. Rao Singh could make out that the stranger had long gray mustaches, and a beard.

Both men measured glances in silence. The boy was the first to speak.

“Whence came you?” he cried shrilly. “What seek you here?” He had whipped out his sword and poised watchfully, one foot in stirrup.

“A jackal comes in silence,” he repeated angrily, for he was startled.

“And jackals lie in wait,” responded the other.

He spoke slowly in the deep voice of one well on in years, yet almost indifferently. He seemed careless of the threatening attitude of Rao Singh.

“What mean you? I wait for no one.”

“This.”

The man by the black horse spoke Mogholi somewhat brokenly. He moved forward and touched the dead Bairam with his foot.

Out in the moonlight his true height was revealed. He towered over the boy and the legend-teller. He glanced at the Hindu’s mount appraisingly.

“A good horse, that,” he grunted. “Yet the other three were ill-mounted and worse swordsmen.”

Rao Singh hesitated. The swaggering, powerful figure was that of a warrior conscious of his power—resembling somewhat a Turkoman or Kirghiz. But the man’s eyes did not slant, nor had he the furtive manner of a hill bandit.

His dress was rough, yet the curved sword in his leather girdle was richly chased and he had besides two costly Turkish pistols. His skin was lighter than that of an Afghan. Moreover his speech was strange.

“Dog of the devil,” he observed meditatively, “this is a cursed spot. Here the three set upon me in the stream. When two were slain the third fled and won free in the thickets. I saw you and yonder beggar standing at the ford and returned to see whether you were kin to the three—”

“Nay, they waited here to set upon me.”

The stranger looked at the boy keenly, but held his peace. Rao Singh wondered how much of their talk he had heard. The man had come from the brush with uncanny quietness, after the manner of one who was at home in such paths.

“Warrior,” spoke Ahmad Rumi, “this youth mounted and rode to aid you when you were attacked.”

“He came not overswiftly.”

Rao Singh bit his lip.

“No fault of mine—you rode with speed.”

He frowned.

“Are you a Muslim?”

“Nay.” The stranger spat into the stream indifferently. “Perchance a man of the Mogul.”

“Nay.”

Rao Singh sheathed his sword with sudden decision.

“Verily you are blunt of speech. Yet you did me a service. And,” condescendingly, “ ’ tis plain you are not an ill swordsman. Will you enter my service? I have need of a keen sword this night.”

At this the owner of the black horse tugged at his mustache thoughtfully. From far below the three came the shrill cry of the Mogul’s sentries. The wind bore a faint echo of the imperial kettledrums and brass cymbals playing a festive measure.

“Harken, stripling,” growled the stranger abruptly, “I like not many words. I eat the bread of Jahangir—”

Rao Singh stepped back instinctively, but the other waved a gnarled hand impatiently.

“I am no follower of the Mogul. In the Summer I came to his court from—another court. Because of a service Jahangir, who is lord of these lands, gave some horses and gold. Despite that his minions came near to slaying me.”

He pointed down to the South, where lay the border of Kashmir.

“I saw some elephants bearing gilt castles, surrounded by fat horsemen, and watched, for I had not seen the elephants before. Then the horsemen and slaves with staffs began to strike me, crying that the Mogul’s women rode upon the elephants.

“Blood of Satan! I cared not to see the women. The Mogul is tenderer of his women than a bear of a bruised paw. Bethink you and molest them not.”

“Then you heard?”

Rao Singh gnawed his lip and sprang suddenly to saddle. “Ho—wait here and you will see Kera of Kargan. Eunuchs are fat; they will make good slicing with a sharp sword!”

The stranger grunted, either in agreement or dislike.

“Wait here, Ahmad Rumi,” cried the boy, fired with his purpose. “And at dawn you shall hear the music of the voice of the Flower of Kashmir. Aye, then we shall ride to the hills.”

He spurred forward with a wave of the hand and vanished down the caravan path.

“Allah be kind to the youth!” cried the blind man.

“A pity,” mused the stranger, “to hazard such a horse for a woman.”

The stranger stared after Rao Singh, then glanced at the legendteller’s blind countenance. He tethered his horse carefully, then led Ahmad Rumi to a seat against a rock by the brook bed. He sat nearby, leaning upon the trunk of a fallen willow, his long, booted legs stretched idly before him. Here he could see both up and down the trail. Although his posture indicated idleness, even physical laziness, his eyes under tufted brows were keenly watchful.

Ahmad Rumi squatted passively on his heels, his gentle face turned upward, as was his wont, to the stars he could not see, and waited what was to come with the calm of a fatalist. He made a strange contrast to the scarred, moody face of the warrior.

“Ho, Ahmad Rumi,” said the stranger at length, “you spoke of Jhilam and its lord. Something I have heard of it in the prattle of yonder courtiers. What is the true tale?”

Thus did Khlit, the wanderer and the seeker after battles, hear the story of Jhilam. While the two waited the return of Rao Singh they talked, and Khlit learned much of what went on in the hills by the Wular lake and how Shaista Mirza scourged the villages of Jhilam with the whip of fear.

II

It was the beginning of the third watch of the night and the revelers had retired from the imperial kanates when Cheker Ghar poked his head from his ragged shelter.

He scrambled nimbly to his feet, then drew a heavy pack wrapped in leopard-skin tenderly from the tent. Cheker Ghar was a wiry, bare-legged man of uncertain age with a crafty, fox face whitened with powder as a mark of his profession—conjuring.

With a sigh he shouldered his pack and began to trot through the tents, keeping well in the shadows and avoiding the slaves who guarded the barriers of each noble’s camping-site.

The dense smoke rising from fires of dried dung and green wood had cleared away with the advent of early morning but a faint mist hung about the tents. Cheker Ghar sniffed the air as a dog does.

He marked the position of the Light of Heaven—the lantern on the lofty pole erected beside the imperial yak-tail standard at the gate of the Mogul’s pavilions. Toward this he made his way, skipping over tent-ropes and avoiding snarling dogs with the skill of one familiar with encampments.

He avoided the avenue of torches by the imperial gate, and the tent of the ameer who was on guard that night. His way led to the kanate—the barrier of cotton cloth printed with flowers and supported by gilded poles—which surrounded the Mogul’s enclosure. And to that portion of the cotton wall which veiled the tents of the seraglio.

Outside the kanate were no sentries, for the ameer on guard was supposed to make the rounds with a troop of horsemen from time to time. Within, however, were stationed wakeful eunuchs, armed. Cheker Ghar shivered. He knew the cruelty of the eunuchs.

But a stronger impulse than his own will drew him to the barrier. Here he listened attentively. Occasional voices reached him, showing that the guardians of the women were awake. Cheker Ghar glanced swiftly behind him to reassure himself as to his position.

About the kanate was a cleared space; on the farther side of this the horse artillery that always accompanied the Mogul was parked. Through the mist reared the summits of the tents of the ameers and mansabdars, illumined by the pallid moonlight. For several miles the camp extended, to the hills.

The only sounds were the measured cries of the outer sentries, the howl of a dog, the mutter of the hunting-beasts prisoned in the Mogul’s menagerie, or the snort of a horse. The air was chill with a hint of coming dawn.

There was no time to be lost. Satisfied as to his position, Cheker Ghar bared his teeth and, taking his pack in his arms, slipped under the kan ate.

He crept slowly into the moonlight on the farther side. A stout eunuch poised not twenty feet away saw him and squealed shrilly—then his warning cry changed to a laugh.

“El Ghias,” the guard called softly to his companions. “The buffoon.”

“Aye, gracious masters,” bowed the conjurer; “aye, here is poor El Ghias. Eh—I starve for food. There is scanty picking among the dogs this night, and my belly yearns. I remember the gracious masters who gave me silver—”

“Begone,” warned the eunuch carelessly. “Misgotten cur— mongrel of a jackal’s begetting! We have no silver for you. En-trance here is forbidden—”

“O unutterable vileness, bred of dishonorable fathers and unknown mothers,” said Cheker Ghar to himself. Aloud:

“By the gods, ’tis a dreary night, masters. See, I would beguile the hour with a clever trick. A rare sight, noble swordbearers of Jahangir!”

He shifted his pack from his shoulders to the ground, prostrating himself before the guardians. It was not the first time he had come, for he had prepared craftily for this night. The eunuchs had been amused at his arts.

“O thrice-defiled maggot of a dung-hill,” he whispered under his breath, adding:

“Bara, grant me but a moment. I have an artful trick, taught me by my father’s wisdom. The hour is fitting for such a feat. Watch in silence—”

He swiftly unstripped his pack, disclosing a pot of earth and a white silk cloth. Bara and the others drew near, fired with curios-

ity. They ran great risk in allowing the conjurer to stay, but his cleverness had whiled away weary hours before this, and now he promised a rare trick.

“In this pot,” said Cheker Ghar solemnly, “aided by Hanuman, the monkey-face, and Ganesh, the elephant-head, I can make to grow—a tree. Name what tree you will, noble masters, and it will grow and bear fruit.”

He squatted behind the pot, glancing up at them. From the corner of his eye he saw a shadow appear under the awning of the tent nearest on the right—the one that sheltered the women in attendance on the seraglio. Four eunuchs now stood about him, leaving a bare space of some two hundred yards along the tent-line.

“A lie,” chattered Bara. “A tree! Nay, it cannot be, base-born.” “Even as I say,” nodded Cheker Ghar, “it will appear. Name but the tree.”

Incredulity, curiosity and uneasiness were in the black faces that bent over the conjurer.

“A plane-tree,” hazarded one.

“Nay, a mulberry,” broke in Bara, grinning. “Wretched one, sweeping of the offal-heap, noisome breeder of evil smells, grow me a mulberry tree with fruit! Six silver dinars if I taste of the fruit. The bastinado if you fail.”

The others laughed and pressed closer.

Cheker Ghar did not laugh. Nor did he look up at Bara. Perhaps —for the conjurer had a way of hearing all the news of the imperial bazaars—Cheker Ghar had known Bara was fond of mulberries.

“Take heed, exalted ones,” he muttered, “and speak not.”

Whereupon he cast the white cloth over the pot. The trick was a favorite with Hindu conjurers but so difficult that it was not performed on ordinary occasions. The eunuchs had never witnessed it although they had heard of it.

Cheker Ghar raised his bare, brown arms and lifted the cloth. A tiny green shoot was disclosed.

“Nay,” shrilled Bara, “that is no tree but a weed—”

“It is the seed-shoot of the mulberry,” reproved the conjurer sternly.

Again he replaced the cloth with tense face. His half-closed eyes shot to the tent on the right. The slender shadow was still there. Without the enclosure sounded the trot of horses.

“The horsemen make their rounds,” observed Bara.

He was unconcerned, for none of the outer guard would have dared look within the kan ate.

“Behold!”

Cheker Ghar’s bare arms writhed above his head and the cloth seemed to rise of itself into his hand. A young tree perhaps three feet in height stood in the pot.

“Karamet, karamet!” cried the onlookers. “A miracle!”

The conjurer’s keen ears had noted that one horse lagged behind the others. A gleam of moonlight appeared against the kanate as if a weapon wielded from without had slit the cotton fabric. The eunuchs, absorbed in the tree, had sensed nothing untoward.

“Pluck the fruit, noble Bara,” he wheedled. “See, within the leaves. The six dinars are mine.”

Incredulously the chief eunuch, who bore the honorary title of Purified One of Paradise, felt among the branches of the tree. He plucked craftily at the stem, but it did not yield. The tree was in fact a mulberry.

He stared angrily at the ripe fruit he had found and fumbled in his girdle for coins which he flung down with an oath. Cheker Ghar clutched them eagerly.

Then the shadow flitted from the canopy toward the barrier. In the moonlight it was revealed as a veiled woman.

A eunuch saw her and cried out. At once with incredible swiftness Cheker Ghar clutched his pot, thrust it into the pack and gained his feet, holding the leopard-skin.

“Fools!” he chattered. “Offspring of swine!”

Bara’s sword whirled at him but the conjurer leaped back, still reviling his enemies, and scurried under the barrier with crab-like agility.

The woman who had fled from the tent had passed through the opening in the cotton wall. Bara sprang after her, storming curses. As he plunged into the slit cloth a hand appeared in the aperture—a hand that grasped a dagger.

Bara staggered back with the haft of the dagger sticking from his broad girdle. He gripped the haft moaning and sank to his knees. His companions hesitated, making the night shrill with their screams. Others ran up.

On the outer side of the kanate the girl had been caught up in strong, young arms.

“Kera! Flower of my heart!”

She lay trembling in Rao Singh’s grasp as the boy ran to his horse and swung into the saddle. He set spurs to his horse and wheeled away from the imperial enclosure as the beat of approaching hoofs neared them—but not before a diminutive figure had secured a firm hold on his stirrup and raced beside him, barelegged, a leopard-skin on its shoulders.

“Into the cannon, noble lord,” warned Cheker Ghar. “The ameer’s guard is close behind.”

Rao Singh swerved and traced his way among the picketed horses. Slaves started up to gaze, but hung back perceiving a nobleman with a woman on his saddle peak.

Behind them echoed the shouts of pursuers. Eunuchs and soldiers swept through the parked cannon, questing for the horse-man they had glimpsed for a moment.

Out of the red imperial tents came women slaves who gathered together and stared at a fat figure prone on the earth, hands clasped about a dagger-hilt and wide eyes staring up into the moon with a kind of helpless surprise.

III

Khlit was making his morning meal at the ford in the Jhilam caravan-trail. The sky overhead had changed from gray to blue and the stars had paled before a rush of crimson into the eastern sky.

The wanderer had drawn rice-cakes and portions of dried mutton from his saddlebags and was eating hungrily, cutting the food with his dagger. He was alone at the ford. Fresh hoof prints showed on the farther bank. But here two trails crossed and the marks could not be traced beyond the stream edge.

Khlit eyed the stream meditatively. Often he frowned. He had much to think about.

From the Cossack steppe he had journeyed to the Tatar plains, where he had found men to his liking—indeed of his own blood. He had liked the life on the open steppe, where men lived on horseback and there were no cities.

Here matters were different. Wherever Jahangir the Mogul went, there was a city of tents. And myriad courtiers, ambassadors from outlying tribes, trade cities, and kingdoms.

Khlit had been interested at first in the splendor of the palaces and the temples of the Land of the Five Rivers (The Punjab). He had never seen such an array of soldiery assembled in one place. The very numbers oppressed him. Here was luxury, food in plenty. Here beat the pulse of the southern Asiatic world.

He had been favored with gifts at first—slaves, which he gam-bled away, and horses, which he liked and kept. But since the affray with the guards of the seraglio he had been ignored, al-though he might still claim the favor of Jahangir in memory of the deed that had brought the wanderer to Hindustan.

The heat of the plain had annoyed him and he was glad when the Mogul’s court moved to the cool hills of Kashmir. And Khlit had been thinking. He saw unending caravans bear wealth to the Mogul, but he had noticed that Jahangir drained the nobles of their wealth to pay his enormous army.

He had seen a fortunate Rájput chief raised at a word to the rank of two thousand horse; yet another of the same clan had been beheaded as promptly for a whispered word against the Mohammedans. He had listened while emissaries from Khorassan called Jahangir monarch of the world to his face and debated

among themselves whether they should shake off the Mogul’s yoke and throw their fortunes with the Persians.

Curiously he had noted that Jahangir and his followers uttered their prayers even while drunk, yet massacred the garrison of a hill town with bland treachery when inviolability had been promised.

Khlit perceived the greatness of the empire of Hindustan, and marveled. Yet these hive-like human beings were not of his race. And he was weary of the silken luxury which enwrapped the camp.

The high civilization of the court held no interest for him. Khlit had seen too much of the evil ambition of the priests—for the most part—the astrologers and the physicians. With very few exceptions each man had his price.

These matters and others Khlit considered while the light grew in the East and he listened to the approach of a large body of horse-men. They came swiftly, but Khlit was not disturbed. He was not accustomed to yielding his place at the approach of strangers. Furthermore he had a purpose in staying where he was.

The leaders of the cavalcade swept up to the ford and reined in with a shout.

“Ho, graybeard!” one cried. “Saw you a horseman with a woman in his arms pass this way?”

Others appeared—cavalry of the imperial guard, eunuchs, archers, and one or two ameers of rank gorgeously clad and profane in their anger and haste.

“Speak, dullard!” exclaimed another. “A woman has been stolen from the exalted seraglio. Men will die for this. Saw you the traitorous rider?”

Khlit surveyed them in silence. He had watched while Rao Singh with Kera and Ahmad Rumi, mounted behind Cheker Ghar, had taken the upper turn to the hills. Both horses—they had availed themselves of the animal belonging to the slain Persian master of horse—had been carrying double and they had but a brief start.

If the pursuers were set on their tracks, at once they must be over-hauled. But Khlit was not minded that this should happen. His talk with Ahmad Rumi had not been in vain. Moreover, he had been pleased with the youthful Rao Singh.

“How should I know?” he growled. “I am no stealer of women.”

The ranking ameer glanced anxiously at the divided trails and gnawed his lip. He had been commander of the guard when Kera escaped.

“Perchance this will quicken your memory, warrior,” he cried, fingering a gold mohar.

Khlit’s eyes gleamed shrewdly under their shaggy brows.

“Aye, that is well spoken,” he responded. “A rider with a woman across his knees passed this way and took the lower turn.”

He pointed to where the cross-trail led into the thickets, away from the path to the hills where Rao Singh had gone.

The ameer who was leader of the party was about to sign for an advance after tossing Khlit the coin when a small, dun Arab pushed in front of him and a high voice not unlike a woman’s addressed him.

“Lord, I, all unworthy, have a word for your ear.”

Khlit looked up swiftly, sensing a new development. He saw a withered, bent frame of a man with a singularly light complexion and sharp eyes. He wore a skull-cap, and his frail figure was enveloped in a white cloak, a garment of rich texture, with bracelets of pearls at the wrists.

“Speak, Bember Hakim—waste no words.”

The ameer glanced at the newcomer half-scornfully.

“Lord, I spake with one who was sentry at the foot of this path. He said that when the moon was very bright there came two who stood on the hill above him and looked toward the camp. One wore the turban of an Afghan, the other was yonder graybeard.

“They watched, lord. For what? Perchance for the coming of one in haste from the camp.”

The ameer glanced at Khlit, fingering his sword. The wanderer met his gaze squarely.

“This one remained at the ford,” continued Bember Hakim shrewdly. “Wherefore if not to turn us aside from the fleeing rider? It is written that the evil-doers shall trip in their own snare. Why should the man we seek take the lower turn, which leads but to villages? Nay, we shall find him riding into the hills—”

“By the beard of the Prophet!”

The ameer’s dark face twisted in a snarl. He signed to his men. “Seize me this traitor and squeeze his gullet until blood or the truth come from his lips.”

Khlit saw that others rode past him to the farther side of the ford to hem him in. His horse stood behind him, but he was surrounded save for the stream.

He did not move as two warriors approached, looking up in-stead at Bember Hakim.

“You be men of the Mogul’s,” he said slowly. “Know you Jahangir has promised me safeguard? Aye, his safeguard to Khlit. I have his oath.”

The soldiers hesitated, but the ameer scanned Khlit sharply and bared his teeth in a grim smile.

“A favorite of Jahangir? In common garments? Nay, you be no Muslim.”

“Nevertheless it is the truth. I give you warning.”

“A woman has been taken from the imperial seraglio,” broke in the Arab. “This man is a caphar, an unbeliever, by dress and speech. What matters a safeguard if he be a traitor?”

Khlit rose and faced the two.

“Take me then to Jahangir,” he ventured. “He will remember the one who befriended Nur-Jahan.”

“Spawn of an unbeliever!”

The ameer gripped his sword.

“Nay, I waste not words with such. Speak us the truth and you may save your life. Jahangir’s memory is short.”

“I have spoken.”

Khlit noted that the ring of men pressed closer, and he saw a smile creep upon the thin face of the hakim. In a calmer mood perhaps the horsemen would not have dealt so harshly with him; yet it was a vital matter—since favor at court rested with the outcome—that they should find Kera and Rao Singh. Moreover the nobles of Jahangir were scarcely tolerant.

“We waste time!”

The ameer reined his horse forward.

“Bind me this wretch—”

“And the word of Jahangir?”

“Is a thing that is past. If you have aided the misdeed this night you will be given to the elephants to trample.”

Khlit had been thinking while he talked. In fact he had played with words while he considered the situation. To his ability to weigh chances and to act swiftly in the face of danger he owed his long life.

If the ameer’s men had realized the character of the wanderer they would not have given him the chance to mount his horse. Khlit’s enemies frequently underestimated his strength, and still more frequently his intelligence.

“Stay!”

Khlit grasped the reins of the leader’s horse, forcing the beast back on its haunches.

“Behold what lies underfoot!”

Before this the newcomers had not observed the body in the deep pool where the current had washed it. The body of the Persian. They were startled, and their eyes were drawn to it for a brief second.

Time enough for Khlit to spring bodily into the saddle of his horse and plunge spurs into flank. Perfect rider as he was, trained in the Cossack school, it was no difficult feat to avoid the other horses and gallop up the bed of the stream.

A pistol echoed behind him. He bent low, avoiding the sweep of the branches overhead. The others were after him at once. But his course had surprised them, and the footing was of the poorest.

Khlit had chosen his present horse with care, and by keeping well in to the bank he drew ahead of his pursuers, who were on spent beasts. Their pistol-shots went wide.

Only one kept close to him. After an interval Khlit looked behind.

He saw the little Arab galloping through the brush by the stream, and he put spurs again to the black horse.

The stream turned into an open glade. Once this was passed, and the thicket on the farther side, Khlit reined in sharply. He drew a pistol from his belt and awaited the approach of the hakim, satisfied that the others had been left in the rear.

The Arab came into view and the rider slowed to a walk as he neared the Cossack. He seemed to be unarmed, wherefore Khlit did not fire his weapon but waited alertly.

The little man in the cloak surveyed him shrewdly and held up an open hand.

“Peace!” he cried.

He sighed, glancing back the way he had come.

“Aie—you can slay me if you will. By the holy names of Allah, I am a doomed man.”

He faced Khlit with the calm of a fatalist and smiled. The Cossack lowered his weapon, frowning.

“By the delay,” explained Bember Hakim, “the rider and the maiden will win free, and you also are safe—although you had best ride farther. But I am doomed.”

“Wherefore?”

“Eh—you know not the Mogul. The girl is lost. And I was the physician, chosen last night to minister to the ills of the women. By the will of Allah I spoke blindfolded with Kera of Kargan. This will come to the ears of Jahangir, and I—”

He drew a lean finger across his throat and sighed.

“Caphar,” he added reflectively, “I would have accomplished your death. That is a thing like to writing on the sand when the wind has passed. Will you grant me the hand of friendship? We be both branded men.”

Khlit surveyed him with some surprise. Verily Bember Hakim was a strange philosopher. Then he laughed. The offer appealed to his fancy.

“Come then, if you will,” he said gruffly and wheeled his horse into the brush.

The physician trotted after moodily on his small horse.

Thus did Khlit leave the camp of the Mogul and lose the favor of Jahangir. But as he put the miles between himself and the imperial pavilions his contentment grew, so that he laughed. Whereupon Bember Hakim looked at him curiously, not knowing Khlit was glad to be his own master again with a horse between his knees and open spaces ahead.

IV

In the lake waters glimmer the snow-crests of the mountain peaks. In a mirror a woman looks upon her beauty and smiles.

Within a mirage over the desert are caravans that leave no trace, and wells that are barren of water.

But how shall we see the faces of the gods? Hindu saying

The Wular lake was very old, older than the floating island and older than the pillared halls of Jhilam. Older than the first myths of the Hindus—than the ancient story of the Ram ayana.

It was high in the mountains north of the pastureland of Kashmir. Yet it was below the Summer snow-line—low enough in altitude to escape freezing in Winter. It was a sheet of turquoise-blue water fed by cascades descending from the snow-line.

The southern end of the lake was occupied by the castle of Jhilam with its gardens and the native village. At this point of the lake was the floating island on which Shaista Mirza had built his pleasure pavilion. Around Jhilam were the rice-fields, the beehives—famous in Kashmir—and the fruit-groves that had once belonged to the natives and now were the property of the Persian lord.

At the northern tip of the Wular rose the mountains which formed the foothills of the Himalayas—pine-clad and rocky, yet

richly verdant. Of late years many of the Hindus of the Jhilam village, as told by Ahmad Rumi, had forsaken their huts to flee from the ruinous taxes of their overlord and to take refuge in the pine forest, where game was moderately plentiful.

So it happened that the village of Jhilam came to be overrun by slaves of the Persian and in the castle proper were only adherents of Shaista Mirza—soldiers, Khorassanis, a few Pathans, Hazaras and the Persians. And as Jhilam was the fortress of northern Kashmir, all the province from the lowlands to the boundary of Kargan Khan’s territory had come under the Persian’s sway.

It was a clear morning in early Winter with a hint of snow in the air when a man in armor on an exhausted horse rode up the avenue of aspens through the gardens and dismounted hastily at the castle gate.

He was recognized by the guards and passed into the main hall by a gigantic Turk, Jaffar, sword-bearer of Shaista Mirza.

“The master!” cried the rider. “The master! I bear ill news.”

Jaffar grunted as he parted the satin hangings over the portal of Shaista Mirza. The soldier, dust-stained and streaked with sweat, prostrated himself.

“Lord,” he cried, “may your shadow ever be over us. Lord, I bring word from the Jhilam road.”

Jaffar eyed him eagerly, but Shaista Mirza did not look up from his study of the chess-board. He sat on his heels on the tiled floor by the ivory chessmen—a lean man, wasted by illness, pock-marked and pallid with the expressionless gaze that is sometimes seen in animals.

Shaista Mirza was neither Muslim nor sun-worshiper. Some said that he was a survivor of the Refik, a follower of the Assassins, the secret order that had held power in northern Persia during the twelfth century. Shaista Mirza never admitted this, and those who knew him best—among them the astrologer Nureddin—said that the Mirza liked the title of Assassin yet did not belong to the order.

He was a man who chose to inspire fear among his followers and his enemies. He did this in a number of ways—availing him-self sometimes of the arts of Nureddin, who was skilled in the magic of the time, and maintaining a network of spies among the Kashmir hills as well as in the Mogul court. He had chosen Jaffar with this end in view, and Jaffar’s congenital cruelty fitted well with the needs of his master.

Such was Shaista Mirza’s shrewdness that Jahangir saw fit to conciliate the Persian, fearing him more than a little and allowing him to accomplish his own ends in Kashmir. This was what the Mirza sought, and he sent the Mogul a small yearly tribute from the rich fief of Jhilam.

Beside the chessboard burned a brazier, tended by Nureddin, giving out the scent of sandal-paste and aloes. The Persian’s gaze shifted from the mimic warriors of the board to the smoke of the brazier—a fixed, cold stare that resembled the unblinking scrutiny of a snake.

Beyond the brazier stood a small mirror, and in this mirror Shaista Mirza could watch the prostrate soldier.

“You have no weapon,” he said slowly, and the man squirmed, for the mirza—so he thought—had not glanced at him. How then was he to know that of which he spoke?

“Akh!” he cried. “Lord of Exalted Mercy and River of Forgiveness, my sword was taken from me by a demon on a black horse. Verily it was a demon, for it slew Bairam with one stroke and my comrade with another. In the time it takes to draw breath it slew the twain. Verily it was a demon.”

Jaffar grunted at this, and Nureddin glanced up fleetingly. The astrologer was a handsome man, ruddy of cheeks, with black beard curled and scented—a man of manifest vitality. Some who stood in awe of Shaista Mirza whispered that the wasted master of Jhilam sucked blood and strength from the strong body of Nureddin.

Shaista Mirza did not look up, but toyed with the links of a gold chain about his lean throat.

“Akh,” protested the soldier volubly, “the demon warrior flung a black cloak of darkness about him—and how was I to see where to strike? By the ashes of death, I struck, and fire darted from the nostrils of the black horse and turned the blade, which fell into the stream.”

Jaffar scowled, but the expression of the pale Persian did not change.

“Verily—” the soldier plucked courage from the silence, “a troop of accursed spirits were abroad in the night. At one stroke was Bairam slain—his head hanging to his shoulder by the wind-pipe. I rode without stopping for drink or meat until I should bear the news to my lord.”

Shaista Mirza signed to the Turk.

“This man thirsts,” he whispered. “See that he has drink. Wine he may not drink because of his faith, but water; ah, water, Jaffar. Bind a rope about his ankles and tie the rope to a branch of a tree overhanging the lake in the pear-garden. Thus may his head hang in the water, and he will drink—much.”

A wail from the suppliant was interrupted by the sword-bearer, who jerked the soldier to his haunches. Jaffar had learned to obey Shaista Mirza swiftly—hence he was alive and in favor.

Fear lent the soldier brief courage.

“Lord,” he cried, “Lord of Rudbar—I have further news. Grant me release from this punishment and you shall hear it.”

Shaista Mirza lifted an ivory castle delicately from the board and set it down on another square.

“Wretched one,” he said softly, “you and the twain were sent to slay me the stripling Rao Singh. Yet did you attack another man. The twain have atoned for their mistake. Shall you fare better?”

“Lord, I have rare news.”

The Persian glanced at him fleetingly and the man shivered. “Speak!”

“Lord, will your exalted mercy pledge me life—”

“Speak!”

“Give tongue, dog.”

Jaffar struck his prisoner with a heavy fist.

“My lord of Jhilam loves not to wait.”

“This is the word, master,” the man exclaimed, his eyes rolling from one to another of the group in feverish supplication. “In the third watch of last night Rao Singh did seize the woman Kera of Kargan from the imperial tents and bear her away.”

Nureddin sucked in his breath with sudden interest and was silent, watching his master.

“He escaped?” demanded Shaista Mirza.

“Aye, lord.”

“How heard you this?”

“From certain eunuchs who rode in pursuit.”

“Whither went Rao Singh?”

“North into the hills, they knew not where.”

“How large a following?”

“Lord, they knew not. A wild figure clung to his stirrup. Perhaps others went also. Allah alone knows the truth.”

“Darkness doubles numbers—if they be enemies,” smiled Nureddin, speaking his limpid mother-tongue. “Also—creates demons, my lord.”

Shaista Mirza turned to Jaffar.

“Strip this scion of purgatory and bind him upon an ass with his face to the tail. Then summon the archers to feather him thick as a falcon is feathered with their shafts. Let the body be led through the village as a warning.”

“Akh! My life was pledged—”

“Fool and nameless one,” pointed out Nureddin coolly, “Shaista Mirza did but grant your prayer that the punishment be altered.”

When Jaffar and his prisoner had gone—the man silent with the hopelessness of the fatalist—Nureddin lowered his voice.

“’Tis well, my lord. Wisdom teaches that a broken arrow should not be kept in the quiver. Rao Singh has scant friends, yet it were not well to have knowledge of your attempt on his life get abroad.”

Shaista Mirza made no reply, whereupon Nureddin glanced at him appraisingly and bent over the chessboard.

Not until the last move had been made and the mirza’s king had been mated beyond all doubt—it was significant of the relations between the two men that the Persian would have flown into a rage had Nureddin not played his utmost, oblivious of the result—that Shaista Mirza leaned back on his cushions and al-lowed his mind to wander from the game.

“Aye,” he mused, “the stripling lacks favor at Jahangir’s court. Eh, at one stroke he has flown from his gilded cage and taken a mate. What think you of that?”

Nureddin smiled, stroking his beard.

“Never, my lord,” he responded slowly, “will you occupy Jhilam in peace until the last of the brood of Sattar Singh has been laid in death. And now Kera of Kargan is one of the brood.

“The blood of youth is traitor to its own cause, lord. Rao Singh has stepped to the brink of a deadly cliff, whence by good for-tune and some small arts of ours he shall doubtless tumble to his death.”

Shaista Mirza was silent for a space. Then:

“Jahangir will give much for his punishment. Yet the Mogul departs with his following for the plains of Hindustan. It is my thought that Rao Singh will escape capture—by the Mogul’s men.”

Nureddin bowed assent, thrusting his hands—now that the game was ended—in his wide sleeves, as etiquette prescribed.

“The essence of truth, my lord. Yet perchance he will not es-cape us.”

Shaista Mirza tapped his chain meditatively.

“Nor will Kera of Kargan. Verily the fool has dug a pit in which he shall be caught. Know you Kargan Khan?”

“Aye, being sharer of the wisdom of the Lord of Rudbar. A brainless hill chief blind in one eye because of a spear-thrust and likewise blind in his brain. Kin to his own clumsy yaks, my lord, he has room but for one thought at a time.”

“And that thought?”

“To rend the man who has carried off his child. Kargan has love for his daughter.”

Shaista Mirza made no response. Love was a feeling he had never possessed. Wasting sickness had stripped him of vitality, leaving a burning sense of injury—a craving to overmaster the happiness and the lives of others. Ambition and cruelty were the twin forces that gripped the Persian’s keen brain.

Yet he was shrewd enough to make allowance for such feelings —in others. He had studied the human emotions, aided by Nureddin’s knowledge of the sciences, of Avicenna’s Law, and Galen’s, and even Aristotle.

“Nureddin, you boast the foreknowledge of the stars. Can you answer me this: Where will a fox flee when pursued?”

“Nay,” smiled the astrologer, “no divination is needed to speak you that. To his burrow.”

“And when the goshawk mates, where will you find the female bird?”

“In the eyrie of her mate.”

“Aye, Nureddin. Now while the heat of love, rising from the center of life in the human body, which is the stomach—”

“Nay; the kidneys.” This was a debated point between the two.

“Nay; the Frankish philosophers claim the heart, yet the wisdom of Arabia, allied to the lore of Avicenna, proclaims it the stomach. The heat of love dulls the keenness of the brain. Yet Aristotle, who is the master of learning, proves by experiment that when animals mate the male is rendered doubly alert and jealous of danger. So with human beings, Nureddin—for we are naught but higher beasts—”

“The Buddhist priests claim we are animals reincarnate—”

“Then Kargan is a buffalo reborn. Yet what I would say is this: Rao Singh will be thrice as wary now as heretofore, on behalf of Kera, whom he has taken to himself. Therefore he will be crafty

in selecting a retreat. Yet his instincts will lead him to flee near his homeland.”

Nureddin raised his brows. “Jhilam?”

“Not near the castle. That were madness. Or supreme cleverness, such as—”

“Only Shaista Mirza possesses.”

“Nay, but near to Jhilam are barren hills.”

“Aye, lord; north of the lake.”

“Yet he will not ride to the country of Kargan Khan. So per-chance Rao Singh may be found north of the lake. Send riders out to over-cast the countryside.”

Shaista Mirza stretched back on his cushions, his eyes closed. Frequently he was in bodily pain bred of his disease.

“Send a messenger to the Mogul saying that by his favor I, Shaista Mirza, will hunt down the lawless defiler of the seraglio.” “And Kargan Khan?”

The Persian opened his eyes, and their stare was baneful. “Nureddin, I have a thought that mighty omens are foreboding events in my favor. I ask for your wisdom, gleaned from the stars. Are the coming days favorable to me? Is my star ascendant?”

There was genuine anxiety in his voice. Like many men of genius Shaista Mirza trusted much in the potent element of destiny. Nureddin considered.

“The season of Taurus is past, lord,” he responded. “Yet the days of Capricorn, of the Goat, are auspicious. Aye, your birth-star is high. Great events may be forthcoming.”

“Then,” cried Shaista Mirza, “we will deal with Kargan Khan —not now but later. First we will find Rao Singh.”

V

It was cold among the deodars midway up the long slope that led to the Himalaya peaks. Animals here bore a thicker coat than those south of the Wular lake.

Yet in the Wular davan—valley—towered precipices, and in the base of these were caves. It was at the upper end of the davan

where the gorge terminated in a rock-tangle that Ahmad Rumi had his hut, and the hut was but cedar slabs placed across the entrance of a cavern with skins of mountain sheep within to lie upon, and a cleft in the rock overhead to carry off the smoke from the fire.

Not that Ahmad Rumi could cut himself firewood. The Kashmiris of the forest saw to that—and likewise brought fish at intervals. But now in the first moon of the early Winter of the year 1609 they brought also smoke-cured mutton and goat’s milk.

For instead of one there were now four in the Wular davan. And the Kashmiris ran from a great distance a few at a time to look upon the face of the son of Sattar Singh and his bride.

They were small squat men in ragged gray woolen tunics and round hats, and their women in shawls. They came a few at a time in spite of the cold. They came from their mountain nests, from the caverns by the lake and from the valleys as far distant as the border of Baramula, which was the land of Kargan Khan and his Kirghiz.

In fact many of them were Kirghiz—those that boasted ponies and felt yurts, and were of the breed of the northern steppe. And so it happened that Kera of Kargan, who was the mate of Rao Singh, felt no terror at sight of the ragged groups, for they were like to her own people, the Kirghiz, whom she remembered from her child-days.

They asked no gifts from Rao Singh, knowing the tale of his misfortune—how he had been kept as a prisoner at the Mogul’s camp. In that Winter the verdant land of Jhilam was rife with poverty, arisen from the tithes of Shaista Mirza, and few but the aksakals of the Kirghiz yurts possessed two horses.

It was a strange court that Rao Singh held. His bride, daughter of a Kha Khan and a beauty among the women of the Mogul, had no better quarters than the hut of Ahmad Rumi, which had been given up to her and her lord. She lacked the jewels and the perfumes bestowed upon their women by the southern ameers.

Her lord owned but two horses, and only one of these better than the average—and his sword. He had no wealth, for he had

been shown no favors by Jahangir—consequently none by the nobles of the empire, to whom Jahangir’s disfavor was a potent ban.

Yet Kera of Kargan did not complain. She was happy in Rao Singh. Kera was barely at the verge of womanhood—a shy, dark-faced girl with splendid black hair that matched her eyes and a free spirit bred of her early life on the steppe. She was round of arms, with strength in her youthful limbs. This was well, since a woman of the hotter climate, accustomed to the luxuries of Hindustan, could not have survived the days in the hills.

She sang to herself and bound her silver ornaments in her long hair by aid of the mirror of the spring near the cavern. This she did to make herself fair in the sight of Rao Singh, who was her lord.

“Eh, my lord,” she had said, “may it not be that we can ride to the encampment of Kargan? It would be well that we should do this, for evil tales will be whispered to him and he will hear naught that is good of you if I am not the messenger. Yet great is his love for me, and he will take heed when I speak.”

“Nay; you are mine, no longer Kargan’s,” Rao Singh had replied fiercely.

He did not add that patrols of horsemen had been seen near the lake, or that the Kashmiris had reported search being made for the two. It would have been courting danger to venture from the valley.

Here the forest men kept guard vigilantly, and they were reasonably safe. Moreover the chance of discovery was lessened if they stayed in one spot.

“Who shall safeguard you, Light of my World,” whispered Rao Singh, his dark eyes aflame with the beauty of the girl, “but me?”

Kera sighed. “We have many enemies, my lord. I have a woman’s thought and wish that we could seek the Baramula and the might of Kargan. He has many horsemen—and his anger is quick. Who can pen the waters when the dam has burst? Let me speak with him and win his pride to our favor.”

“Nay,” said Rao Singh again, “will the Khan of Baramula look with favor on one who is an outcast? The time will come—so says the wise Ahmad Rumi—when I shall ride to meet Kargan with horsemen at my back as one chief to another.”

So it happened that the pride of the youth kept Kera from sending a messenger to the Kirghiz. In this he blundered perhaps. If Kera had had her way it might have altered the events that came to pass in Jhilam during the space of that moon.

Kera was content to obey her lover. Cheker Ghar, who liked the cold little, still bestirred himself to amuse her—saying naught of his disappointment at the poor fortunes of Rao Singh.

“Ho, Flower of the Hills,” he would cry, “when had a woman such rare followers? Here is Ahmad Rumi, who is councilor of owl-like wisdom and can repeat his Muslim proverbs and legends with the art of one who is schooled in chronicles and books. And I, my lady—behold the chosen buffoon of the imperial bazaar!”

He waved his lean hand toward his precious leopard-skin and salaamed.

“Aye, even unworthy I—unworthy in the fragrant splendor of your beauty—yet a paladin among conjurers, buffoon and mimic without a peer—”

Whereupon he gathered his cloak about his scant form and strode about in the semblance of an ameer until Kera clapped her hands in delight.

“Behold,” he chattered, rejoiced to see her merriment, “a eunuch of the royal seraglio.”

He puffed out his dark cheeks and bound his voluminous turban in the Turk fashion and clutched a stick, which he bore before him like a scimitar, scaling his voice to the shrill pitch of one of those unfortunate creatures. Rao Singh, even, smiled at his performance, and Ahmad Rumi turned his sightless eyes toward the mimic in gentle approval.

Secretly Cheker Ghar turned up his nose at association with the blind Muslim; yet he spoke not of this dislike, nor of the

many things he did in defiance of the dictates of his caste for the sport of Kera of Kargan.

“If,” ventured Rao Singh, “that was the likeness of him you named Bara, you need not fear he will call you to account. I left my knife in the chief eunuch’s ribs.”

“Ho, verily?”

Cheker Ghar smiled broadly.

“Then my heart is light, for the Purified One was such but in name, and he was like to a thriced-defiled swine that has eaten of filth.”

The conjurer had an uncanny knack at mimicry. So great was his skill that he frequently confounded Ahmad Rumi, who thought that Rao Singh or another addressed him when Cheker Ghar spoke.

With others than the light-hearted Kera he took his profession with grave seriousness. He was at such times not so much the buffoon as the Hindu master of magic. Only for her would he powder his face white and make idle sport. Cheker Ghar loved her as a dog loves its mistress, and this love was to bear fruit in due course.

Often he would sit squatted opposite the fire from the legend-teller while Kera and Rao were together on the hillside and their Kashmiri followers were on watch.

“Harken, Son of the Owl,” Cheker Ghar whispered to the Muslim, “and tell me what is this you hear—”

A plaintive cry floated through the cavern, coming apparently from the cleft overhead.

“It is kulan, the wild ass, calling.”

The cry changed to a grunting, snapping torrent of sound, echoing from a corner of the cave.

“The wild pig of the jungle!” muttered the blind man. “Bismillah—does such an animal of filth approach?”

“Nay,” said the mimic seriously, “have no fear; I will guard you from defilement.”

He bellowed suddenly, hoarsely.

“The mountain buffalo, the yak, calling to its mates, Cheker Ghar.”

A shrill, grunting moan issued from the Hindu in such a fashion as to appear as from a distance. Ahmad Rumi lifted his white head.

“A camel complains under its load as the pack is bound on by the camel man.”

“Aye,” assented Cheker Ghar, pleased. “Yet there is no yak, and no camel in the valley. Is it not magic then?”

“There is no magic but the will of Allah.”

And so the days passed under the cloud of danger with scant food and comforts until Bember Hakim found his way to the hut; and with him came Khlit.

The wanderer entered quietly into the life of the valley, asking nothing from Rao Singh and providing his own meat, which he obtained in ways best known to himself.

He constructed a shelter of sheepskins not far from the cavern. Khlit disliked to live under a roof, and so pitched his yurt in a pine grove where his horse could be picketed.

Ahmad Rumi removed his prayer-carpet and skins to the yurt, where he fell to talking much with Khlit. The life suited the Cos-sack, and the davan provided good concealment from the riders who searched the hills.

The Kashmiris had reported that the Mogul cavalry were no longer questing for Rao Singh, but others kept up the pursuit. So well chosen was the hiding-place in the valley that it had not been noticed. The rock walls were sheer on one side, and on the other was dense forest. Nothing was to be seen from the lake side, and from the overhanging peaks the davan appeared nothing more than a break in the forest.

By now the searchers were striking farther afield to the North, and Rao Singh felt that they had escaped discovery. He himself began to make excursions to the haunts of the Kashmiris at the urging of Ahmad Rumi, who felt that the coming of Rao Singh

would work a miracle of some kind and aid the suffering peasants of Jhilam.

“Verily,” he assured Khlit, “is he not the son of Sattar Singh, who extended the hand of mercy to the wound of my suffering?”

“He is a man half-grown,” grunted Khlit, “who loves a woman. What skill has he in warfare?”

“Eh, he may adorn the pearl of love with the diamond of mercy,” said the legend-teller wistfully. “Allah grant I may see him Lord of Jhilam. I have prayed much, but the span of my life draws to an end.”

He showed the Cossack a white garment wrapped beneath his clean tunic. It was a winding-sheet.

Except with Ahmad Rumi Khlit talked little. Rao Singh and Kera were wrapped up in each other, and Cheker Ghar in Kera. Khlit from long habit made no advances and kept to himself.

Rao Singh and his small colony entertained no distrust of the wanderer, for the reason that Khlit was an outcast such as they. They had heard from the Kashmiris that he was banned by the Mogul, and they knew that, having slain by chance two men of Shaista Mirza’s, he could claim no alliance with the Persian.

As for Bember Hakim, he occupied himself in collecting herbs, a task which took him away from the valley for long intervals, and otherwise accepted his hard lot with characteristic philosophy.

“Now, my lady,” quoth Cheker Ghar, squatting at the feet of Kera, “we have a physician of the court. What lack we now?”

He rose and began to move around, limping after the manner of Bember Hakim and uttering pseudo-learned remarks on the Arabic sciences until he saw her smile.

“Naught save the protection of Kargan Khan,” she said, leaning her smooth chin on her arms. “Would I might send Khlit to him with word from me!”

“The rider of the black horse performs errands for no one, Flower of the Hills. His look fills me with a fear. It is like a wolf, looking into the distance.”

He shook his turbaned head moodily. “A wolf—aye, for he is not one of us. And when did a wolf do a kindness to others?”

He sighed. “As for Kargan Khan, methinks the Kirghiz would welcome you to his yurt, my lady, but we others would have our blood let from our veins by his sharp sword.”

Now it happened that it was night when Cheker Ghar said this, and they were seated by the fire in the cavern, Rao Singh being absent on one of his rides.

The hour grew late, and Kera, wearied with the tricks of the conjurer and becoming anxious for her lover, left the fire and sought the sheep path by which Rao Singh would ride back to the davan. She walked swiftly for the night was cold and she knew the way leading to a rock—a favorite resting-place of their guards—by the trail. But recently the Kashmiris had given over their vigil as the pursuing bands had not visited the vicinity.

Kera wrapped her sheepskin khalat about her slender shoulders and tripped along in her light leather boots. Unlike the women she had lived with in Hindustan, the solitudes of the forest held no fear for her. She passed between giant pine-trunks and slipped around trailing junipers. A scanty fall of snow had rendered it easy to follow the trail, outlining the bulk of tree and rock.

She seated herself on the stone she sought, drawing up her knees under her chin for warmth. Then she lifted her head alertly. She had heard a heavy tread along the sheep path. Her pulse quickened at the sound.

She had been moody that night, perhaps because of the absence of Rao Singh, perhaps because of the tales of Ahmad, who had been depressed in spirit. The legend-teller had said that he had a premonition of danger.

Kera stared at the dark form that paced toward her, coming from the valley. Opposite the rock it halted, and she heard Khlit’s voice.

“Have you a fear, little girl?”

It was a deep voice without pretense of anything but gruffness. Kera sat up straight, her heart still beating swiftly.

“What seek you?”

Up to now she had felt more uncertainty than pleasure at Khlit’s presence. The Cossack was not one to impress women favorably. Yet Kera was not afraid of him. She watched—seeing him dimly—while he scanned the trail, then leaned against the rock with folded arms, his head on a level with her own.

“I seek that which is a thorn in the side of Rao Singh,” he said slowly.

Kera hissed angrily.

“I? A thorn? Dolt! One without understanding!”

She fumbled in her girdle for the dagger that she carried, but Khlit did not move, nor did he look at her. He was watching where the pine-branches took shape slowly against the sky and the gleam of the many stars paled as the moonlight flooded the vast spaces of the air from a hidden quarter somewhere behind the hills.

The snow summits were turning from dull gray to silver, and the shadows deepened. Shafts of silver shot through the branches, forming a tracery in the snow, outlining the sticks and rocks that had been invisible before.

“A thorn, Kera of Kargan. You are a woman and you love. See you not that Rao Singh is brooding?”

The girl considered this silently, peering at Khlit as if she tried to read his meaning in his face. She no longer felt disturbed at his presence.

“Aye, Khlit, my heart has told me that. Yet it is for me that Rao Singh has a foreboding.”

“Ahmad Rumi has talked much. He is full of words. He has told me you left a silk couch in a velvet tent to be by the side of Rao Singh. Yonder hut is a poor shelter for a woman—they are like to birds who seek a soft nest. Is it not so?”

The Kirghiz girl laughed softly. “Who does not like the touch of silk? Yet with Rao Singh lies my path and my heart. My pride is his strength; he is a mighty lord.”

“Without a follower save for yonder mummers. Kera, would you ride back to the tents of the Mogul? Then your body would again lie in ease.”

Again Kera laughed, resting her face sidewise on her arms, which were clasped over her knees.

“Ho, the fool is a mighty fool,” she whispered softly. “He is blinder than the poor Muslim. He has the wisdom of the dullard yak. Aye, though Ahmad Rumi said that he had once been Khan of the Horde. Nay, Ahmad Rumi lied, for you, Khlit, are the one that is—” again her laugh echoed softly—“blind. More blind than the teller of legends.”

She glanced up the trail hopefully at the sound of a falling twig, and sighed.

“Aye, Ahmad Rumi is like to one that sits in the dark; still in his spirit there is a lamp by whose rays he sees an assemblage wherever he looks. So he said, and I wondered. Now I understand that he has within him a vision, while you—”

She broke off in contempt. Other women of her race perhaps would have cursed Khlit, being angry. Kera however was gentle.

“Where Rao Singh goes I guide my horse,” she added as he did not speak. “His smile opens my heart like a flower. Why should it be otherwise?”

Khlit was satisfied. He had thought to test the girl’s feeling for the Hindu. He had done so crudely. But it did not occur to him to explain this to her. He was indifferent to what she might think of him.

He returned to the thought that had impelled him to follow her along the sheep path.

“Kera, the thorn of unrest is in the side of the son of Sattar Singh. He has seen the evil that is wrought upon his people. And he is angry. He knows not the path he should follow.”

The Cossack spoke gruffly.

“Likewise his thoughts are bound up in a woman.” The girl made no response, and Khlit went on.

“What has the stripling learned of war? He can think of naught but to find the path to your hut and to lie with your arms about

him. Yet it is time he should mount and take up his sword. There be those who will follow.”

“Nay.”

Timidity—the shrinking of a woman who loves—gave Kera speech. “Here he is safe. If he rode far the men of Shaista Mirza would hear of it.”

“The time must come, little sparrow,” growled Khlit, “when your lord will try sword-strokes with this same mirza. It would be well were he to strike first.”

“It may not be, baba-ji. Aie, how should that come to pass? The Persian is friend to Jahangir.”

“Not so. The master of Jhilam—whatever name he bear—will be well treated by Jahangir. For Jhilam is a key to the hills. It lies too far to the north for the Mogul to muster his banners to attack it. So ’tis said, but I have a thought the Mogul fears to leave the Delhi court, and those who would plot against him, so far in his rear. So he must conciliate him who is lord of the fortress.”

Out of his wisdom, hard-won in dealing with merciless foes, Khlit spoke. Out of her love for Rao Singh—blind love—the girl responded. “Does a hunting-dog walk into the den of a lion?”

“Aye, when death awaits him without.”

“No danger lies about the davan. The riders have drawn their reins from these hills.”

Khlit moved angrily.

“It is not I who am blind, Kera. Hide of Satan, see you not that Rao Singh must slay Shaista Mirza, or the Persian will sprinkle the cub’s blood on the snow of his native hills?”

Kera drew back with a shiver.

“Aie—it is cold! Nay, baba-ji, it is said you are wise in battle. The gods may have so willed. Yet it is but the space of a short day I have Rao Singh at my side.

“The time for sword-strokes has not yet come; he lacks followers—perchance time will bring Kargan’s riders to his aid, then proudly shall I gird the belt of war on the twain. Ahmad Rumi has said that this would come to pass.”

Khlit would have turned away angrily, not knowing that the words of the woman were to come true. Yet in a manner such as he had not conceived. Ahmad Rumi possessed something of the gift of prescience which is found at times in men of frugal life and intensity of thought.

“Stay!” The girl touched his shoulder. “Shaista Mirza has five hundred horsemen under Jaffar his sword-bearer. I pray the gods that he will fall in the dust of defeat.

“I have heard it said that you are a father of battles. Will you ride with Rao Singh against Shaista Mirza when it is his fate that this should come to pass?”

The Cossack shook off the girl’s hand impatiently.

“When Rao Singh is—a man,” he growled.

“My lord will be a great ghazi conqueror,” she cried proudly. “He is one among a thousand, and like to his father. So Ahmad Rumi swore.”

Her mood changed swiftly and she looked up beyond the trees where the stupendous mountain peaks of the Himalayas were coming into view under the silver torch of the moon like sentinels taking their posts. A breath of the cold air from the heights above brushed her long hair across her face and she pushed it back, gazing up with eyes dark as fate.

“Aie—on the high places of the hills live the gods. Who knows what is in the heart of the gods? Who can pierce the cloud that covers the will of the many gods?

“I have prayed that they will be kind to Rao Singh! I have bent my head on the footstools of the gods, but they will not answer— save to send the wind and the cold.”

She stretched up her slim arms.

“Why will the gods not answer? They hide their faces. Once I thought that they were near. Aie—they are cold, and I have naught to offer them. There is no mountain sheep to be slain for their pleasure. If they had an offering then they would turn the sun of their kindness on Rao Singh—”

She broke off in a moan that changed to a cry of delight as a rider came trotting down the trail on a spent horse, passing swiftly under the changing shadows of the moon.

Long after Rao Singh and Kera had gone, Khlit leaned against the rock, pondering many things. And in his thought Kera and her plaint had no place.

Khlit was not content with their position in the valley. The next day he went on a tour of inspection down to the lake. As usual, he went alone. The ride warmed his blood, and he sought for a fishing settlement that Ahmad Rumi had mentioned.

He was unable to locate it and wasted several hours, so it was late in the afternoon when he returned, hungry, for he had not eaten that noon. He was in high spirits, being naturally suited by a cold climate, and he had formed a plan which he intended to confide to Rao Singh.

The sun had set and Khlit had put his horse to a swift trot when he halted abruptly at sight of a body in the path. It was a peasant, an arrow projecting from his side. The man had been dead some time.

Khlit passed him by silently after observing that the trail of several horsemen led from the body away in the direction of the lake.

He was now in the davan, and scented smoke from the fire in the hut. He pushed his horse forward, rounded the turn by the spring, and then set spurs to flank.

Prone on his face in the snow lay Cheker Ghar, his small limbs twisted strangely. Beside the body of the conjurer were the tracks of many horses. Yet the valley was silent, strangely so. Khlit uttered a gruff exclamation. He was now before the cave entrance. Here the horse tracks ran, and among them the imprint of booted men. These footsteps led to the cavern.

The snow was gray with early twilight and trampled in spots as if men had struggled. And here and there were dark blotches of blood.

Just outside the door lay Ahmad Rumi, his white beard ominously stained. His turban was askew over one ear and the front of his tunic was slashed in a dozen places. From the pallor of his thin face Khlit knew that he was dead.

And beside the legend-teller was the form of Kera.

Khlit dismounted and stepped to the girl’s side. Her dark hair flooded over the snow. She lay on her back, one hand clenched on her breast. And Khlit saw that her dark eyes were half-closed, the small, red mouth half-shut as if in a deep breath.

A scimitar stroke had slashed the base of her throat, severing the jugular vein. Her khalat was thrown back, revealing the grim message of death embodied in her torn and pierced chest:

Shaista Mirza has found those whom he sought.

Bember Hakim hobbled from the nearby thicket fearfully and stared at the form of the girl and the blind man.

The story written in the snow was plain for Khlit to read. A group of horsemen had ridden swiftly up the valley, encountering Cheker Ghar on the way, and had surrounded the hut entrance. Some had dismounted and dragged Ahmad Rumi from the cavern.

Kera seemed to have attempted to flee but had been struck down beside the blind man. Her slender dagger lay near her clenched hand.

Then the riders had passed out by the way they came in, leaving the valley desolate with its dead. Of the Hindu youth there was no sign.

“Eh,” cried the Arab, “I was at the cliff summit—Allah be praised—and I saw Jaffar and his men ride hither. It was an ill deed—”

“Rao Singh?” questioned Khlit sharply.

“He ran from the cavern at the cry of Cheker Ghar. Two horse-men rode him down and his weapon broke upon the sword-hilt of one. Then many seized him and he was bound. Allah the merciful laid the shadow of a swoon upon the youth—for he was struck

heavily on the head with the flat of a blade—and he saw not the fate of Kera. Eh, it was a deed of shame—”

“They took Rao Singh?”

Bember Hakim’s shrewd, dark eyes searched Khlit’s face. “Aye. Jaffar cried that Shaista Mirza would take pleasure in the sight of his foe.”

Khlit said no more but walked heavily to the cavern, glancing within at the embers of the fire. Ahmad Rumi’s prayer-carpet was in its place by the coals, and there also lay the sack of the conjurer. The Cossack stared at them meditatively. Then he flung up his head.

From down the valley came a mournful cry, rising and falling. It was like the cry of a madman. As it neared him Khlit could distinguish words:

“Wretched one, child of a thieving slave! O faithless and thrice accursed! O traitor to thy bread and salt! O snake that crawled from defiled flesh!”

It was a voice shrill, incoherent with rage. It panted as it cursed. And Khlit, striding from the cavern, swore in surprise.

Cheker Ghar was running up to the cavern, his puny fists clenched overhead. In the failing light his features showed distorted with anger. He was looking not at Khlit but at a form that climbed the opposite rock wall, where a cleft offered foothold.

Khlit peered doubtfully at the climber and recognized Bember Hakim, who passed from view behind boulders on the summit as he watched.

“O unutterable filth! O blood-guilty, and dog without a name!” Cheker Ghar shook his fists at the spot where the fugitive had vanished.

Abruptly he fell silent and sank on his knees by the body of Kera. He raised a twisted face to Khlit.

“Thus does one without honor reward the hand of mercy. I have seen what I have seen. The Turk and his men were led to this spot by Bember Hakim, accursed by the gods. Aye, for when the

slaying was done he crept like a lizard from behind the warriors and smiled.”

The conjurer moaned, touching the garment of his mistress.

“Bember Hakim set his foot upon the breast of the slain Flower of the Hills. For that I will follow the pursuit of blood. Aye, if the gods are kind I will tear open his breast and let his life run forth like water. Traitor to his salt—”

“Stay!” broke in Khlit gruffly. “Hide of the devil, how comes it that you live? With my eyes I saw you dead.”

“A simple feat, lord, for one of my profession. When I saw the riders sweep up the valley I cried out. They would have seized me in their hands, but I slipped away. When they bore off Rao Singh I ran after, keeping to the forest, until my strength was spent.

“When I came hither again to bury my mistress I heard hoofs and lay like one dead. I saw not it was you until you had passed—”

“Then Bember Hakim was a man of Shaista Mirza?”

“Aye, yet we knew it not.”

Khlit thought of the meeting at the ford when Bember Hakim had ridden after him. Seldom had Khlit been tricked by the art of another. But the physician was crafty and quick of wit and had told his lies readily.

Bember Hakim had guessed that the Cossack knew the hiding-place of Rao Singh. And his pretended search after herbs had afforded the opportunity to communicate with his master. Khlit had wondered when the other spoke the name how Bember Hakim had known it was Jaffar who led the riders.

Mechanically he seated himself by the fire and added fuel to the embers while Cheker Ghar labored at digging a grave with a Kashmiri tool.

Khlit had not eaten but he felt no desire for food. As was his habit when thinking deeply he drew his curved sword and laid it across his knees, stroking it absently. He felt no immediate fear that Jaffar and his party would return, for they must take Rao Singh to Jhilam. It was useless to follow Bember Hakim, who

had gained a good start among the rocks, where there was little snow to reveal his course.

Several things puzzled Khlit. Why had Bember Hakim remained in the valley? Perhaps the Arab sought to trap him— believing all the others dead.

If so, why? Shaista Mirza would not want a living witness to the deed in the valley—one like Khlit who might bear the news to others.

Still Khlit was not satisfied with this reasoning. And it was not likely that Bember Hakim had remained to guard the bodies from the beasts.

Why had the Arab told Khlit the truth—in part—of what had happened? It seemed illogically cruel moreover that Kera should have been slain as she was. Why had she not been kept as a hostage? Surely by all accounts Kargan Khan was not lightly to be made an enemy of.

Khlit perceived that the Persian was a crafty foe. And his servants were like to him. In reasoning thus the Cossack came near to the truth. But he did not yet understand the masterly mind of Shaista Mirza.

He rose presently and aided Cheker Ghar in his toil. They worked in silence by the glow from the cavern mouth. Snow began to fall lightly. There was no moon.

When they had buried the two, they rolled rocks to the spot to protect it from the prying claws of jackals. This done, Khlit touched the shoulder of the conjurer, who squatted by the mound.

“We cannot stay,” he pointed out. “By dawn Bember Hakim will bring others with him to search us out.”

Cheker Ghar prostrated himself in the snow and clasped the boot of the Cossack.

“Lord,” he whispered, “I heard it said in the Mogul’s camp that you were crafty as the steppe fox and wise in war. Aid me to bear tidings of this thing to Kargan Khan over the Baramula trail. He will mount for vengeance, for Kera was his child.”

“Nay,” said Khlit.

Then, seeing the despair in the conjurer’s dark face, he added: “Kargan Khan will not believe our tale. Shaista Mirza will send emissaries to the Kirghiz tribe. They would say that we lied.” He withdrew his foot from the other’s grasp.

“Come, Cheker Ghar. Gird on your pack.”

“Aie, lord! Whither should I go, if not in the pursuit of blood? I have sworn an oath to the gods—”

“And I, too, swear an oath, Cheker Ghar, though to another God.” Khlit’s voice deepened with involuntary feeling.

“This thing I swear: I will not turn my horse’s head from the Wular lake until Shaista Mirza be laid in death.”

VI

In the end, a lion’s cub becomes a lion, although brought up a

slave. Hindu proverb

The floating island of the Wular lake had been built by human hands. The stalks of the rushes that lined its banks had been cut and fastened into bundles by withes. Rows of these bundles had been laid one upon the other, and over all earth. Under the reed bundles were the trunks of trees.

So it was that a grass carpet covered the floating island. And gardens bloomed with jasmine and wild rose in the Summer— gardens built upon the roofs of the arbors that surrounded the kiosk. This kiosk had been fashioned by artisans from Persia.

Slender pillars of marble—delicate, so that the foundation of the pleasure island should not be overbalanced—supported a cedar roof, the underside of which was enameled. Between the pillars were ranged gilded squares of wood upon which were blazoned certain words of the poets, and paintings from the Persian annals.

The porticoes were hung with brocaded silk. In the center chamber were placed brass braziers and incense pots that filled the air with a hot scent. Also they served to lessen the chill of the kiosk, for snow lay without on the bare rose-bushes; and

Shaista Mirza had chosen to visit the pleasure island alone with Nureddin.

“By slitting the tongue, O learned interpreter of the stars,” he confided, “men may be made voiceless, and by piercing the inner ear, deaf. Yet it is well sometimes to go where there are none to hear or to speak.”

Satisfied that the slaves had stocked the braziers well, Shaista Mirza lay back on his cushions, eyeing the vista of the lake through the open portal. The Persian was habitually watchful, for he did not fail to credit others with his own crafty nature. By virtue of this he was still alive.

Moreover he was well content this day. He scanned the kneeling astrologer through half-closed eyes, and Nureddin did not re-turn his gaze. The astrologer had partaken of bhang to stimulate his brain.

Shaista Mirza however did not use opium, hashish or bhang. He was sparing of wine, for he would say that a man was witless to soften his brain with false pleasures.

“Verily, Nureddin,” he mused, “my star is ascendant. Rao Singh lies in chains in the tower of Jhilam. Aye, the lion cub has dragged his limbs to the den of his sire. And his mate is where she will work us no harm.”

“It was fated.”

“Nay, I willed it. What is fate, Nureddin, but the whine of the low-born? When I placed my yoke on the neck of the Kashmiris, behold, they cried that it was fate. Believing this thing, they will not attempt to rise against me.”

“Men do not rebel, my lord, without a leader. And you have the body of him they call master.”

“A stripling, Nureddin; a broken pine that leans to the wind— aye, a weakling who found his happiness in the arms of a woman.”

He stirred the coals of a brazier with his dagger and drew his cloak about his shoulders. He loved better the sun of Persia than the winds of Kashmir.

“Sattar Singh was a man, Nureddin,” the high, soft voice went on, “a man of strength whose greatest foes were his own passions. Rao Singh is a child. I feared his mother more than the boy. So it happened that she partook of hashish from Rudbar in Persia—”

He broke off with a wave of the thin hand. The astrologer started. He had not thought until then that Shaista Mirza had conceived the death of the woman. He was not sure whether this was the case or not. The Persian, a master of intrigue, liked to be mentioned as the author of violence in which he had no hand, and likewise was silent about many deeds of which he was the author.

“Power, Nureddin, is built upon a multitude of swords. Sword-arms can be bought. Wealth we must have, and it comes from the labor of the low-born who are the peasants of Jhilam, and now—”

“The Kashmiris mutter and shirk, feeling the breath of the wind of rebellion, my lord.”

“Aye, due to sight of Rao Singh, who is of the accursed brood of Sattar Singh. Verily they shall not see him long.”

He leaned closer to the astrologer.

“The Mogul must have his tribute—silver coins, while gold mohars accumulate in the treasury of Jhilam.”

He threw back his head with a silent laugh that changed to a grimace of hate.

“Nureddin, how shall we deal with the lion cub of Jhilam?”

The courtier meditated, seeking a clue in the face of his master.

“’Tis plain, my lord, the scoundrel came to Jhilam to stir the fires of strife. Is he not then a rebel against the Mogul? Should he not be impaled upon a spear and left to rot where the kites and the low-born may find him?”

Shaista Mirza smiled grimly.

“The stars have not taught you—policy, Nureddin. Nay, is it well to mention the Kashmiris to Jahangir? He is their overlord— though he keeps his army south of the hills.

“Harken—Rao Singh has outraged the seraglio of the Mogul. So shall we send a rider in haste with news of his capture and a prayer that Jahangir name the manner of his punishment. Thus

will we have the sanction of the Mogul for our action. And the Kashmiris shall know this.”

The astrologer bent his head and touched the floor with the tips of his fingers as a sign of mute admiration.

“O wise reader of men! ’Tis an excellent plan. But if the punishment be not death?”

“A simple matter. The boy will sicken and—follow the shadow of his mother. He mourns for Kera—the wanton. So shall he welcome the false contentment of hashish.”

“And Kera of Kargan?” Nureddin looked up curiously. He had not understood why Shaista Mirza had ordered Jaffar to slay the girl brutally.

Moreover Nureddin was a trifle anxious concerning Kargan Khan. If the truth were known the Kirghiz could muster a force of warriors who were hardy men, bold riders and fearless.

“Jaffar mutilated the maiden as I bade him,” responded the Persian softly. “Already I have decided to send a messenger to the Kirghiz tribe, relating how Kera was laid in the dust of death by—a certain one. Bember Hakim, our worthy physician, saw the deed.”

The astrologer glanced admiringly at his lord. Truly Shaista Mirza was a master of human fate.

“Then will come Kargan Khan to Jhilam like the breath of the storm-wind to see vengeance done. And when he comes he will look upon the body of the slayer of Kera. Because of this he will yield me the hand of friendship which he has withheld until now—”

Sudden suspicion flared in the cold eyes of the mirza and an oath trembled on his lips as he stared through the portal. A fisher-boat had drawn in to the landing-stage of the floating island.

Then he saw that the figure in the boat was Bember Hakim, escorted by the mighty Jaffar.

The physician performed the triple salaam as he came into the presence of his master. As a mark of favor Shaista Mirza bade him be seated on the carpet. Bember Hakim’s white cloak with

the pearls was stained with mud and his thin face was blue with cold.

“Wherefore are you late?” demanded Nureddin sharply.

“Lord, and Monarch of Exalted Mercy,” said the physician to Shaista Mirza, “as you bade me, I awaited the gray rider of the steppe. The words that you were divinely pleased to utter I repeated to him.”

“What thinks the unbeliever?”

“Lord, one escaped death, a wretched Cheker Ghar, the buffoon. He upbraided me with treachery, and barely I escaped with my life. Yet even in the cold—and the snow fell—I crept back to the cavern from the rocks above and heard the Cossack vow—”

He hesitated in fear of the man who watched him silently. “What, fool?”

“He vowed, lord, to seek vengeance for Kera, and to—slay the master of Jhilam.”

Nureddin laughed, but Shaista Mirza moved no muscle of his face. “It is well, Bember Hakim,” he said, and the Arab knew he was pleased.

After a moment’s thought he continued.

“Thus we have two alive who are our foes. Of Khlit of the Curved Saber I have heard some talk. A wandering Christian who was once khan of a northern clan. He dares not ride to the Mogul with his news, for he is under the ban of outcast.”

He played with the golden chain at his throat, frowning slightly.

“’Tis unlikely that this aged unbeliever will seek Kargan Khan, yet—shall we leave no hole through which the fox could creep. Mount, Bember Hakim, this day, and ride by the Baramula caravan-trail to the Kirghiz tribe.

“Seek Kargan and say to him that if he would look upon the murderer of his daughter to come to the Wular davan with speed. Your tongue is shrewd, Hakim—speak him well, but haste.”

He sighed and fell to stirring the brazier.

“Nureddin, the dice fall as we wish—since we have doctored them. For who would play with life with unloaded dice? A fool! And who would invoke a god to aid him? A simpleton.

“Yet is this Khlit crafty after a fashion. Nureddin, talk with Rao Singh. The youth saw not the death of his wanton. Declare that Khlit sabered her. Thus will we plant a seed that may bear fruit.”

“If he doubts, my lord—”

“Eh—remind him that Khlit owes his outlawry to Kera—” Bember Hakim had told his master all that had passed—“also that Khlit escaped hurt when Jaffar attacked Rao Singh.”

“Yet the fight at the ford—”

“He saw it not.”

Shaista Mirza turned to the waiting sword-bearer. “Jaffar, choose a following—nay, t’were best to ride alone. Fear you the Curved Saber?”

The broad Turk bared his teeth and touched his scimitar significantly.

“Then seek the man about the northern end of the lake. Take with you some trinket from Rao Singh. Say that the youth sends a message to the ear of Khlit, having promised you the jewel as reward. If he is puzzled in spirit by this and relaxes his guard— slay him. Do not fail this time.”

Now as the four were ascending the bare gardens of Jhilam over the terraces to the palace proper, Jaffar espied in the distance on the crest of a hill something that might have been a rider on a dark horse.

Whereupon, after marking the position of the watcher at the forest edge, he mounted hastily without waiting to don his armor and spurred to the spot.

Here he found tracks in the snow made apparently by two animals. Doubtful now of what he had seen, he went forward into the pines, following the tracks leisurely. After a while they separated.

Jaffar turned his horse after one trail, taking the precaution of poising a primed pistol in his free hand. He was an experienced warrior, yet too vain of his strength, which was bred more of flesh than of spirit.

He hastened forward at a curious sound. It resembled the groan of a man. It proved to be but a mule.

A sick mule, wasted and trembling upon its legs. On its back was bound the blackened body of a man long, long dead, with arrows sticking from its chest. Jaffar’s eyes widened and he cursed aloud until he remembered the soldier slain by order of Shaista Mirza a fortnight ago.

Then he thrust his pistol back into his girdle and had turned homeward something hastily, for the sight of his own handiwork was not pleasant, when he saw a strange form creeping from the thicket at his side.

It was a lean man in a green cloak, a knife between his teeth, which were set in a grin of hate. Seeing that he was observed, the man leaped forward, running with bent knees, silently intent.

Jaffar plucked the pistol from his belt and fired, only to see one corner of the cloak jerk. He had no time to draw a second weapon.

A black horse burst from the farther side of the thicket, snorting under the spur.

The Turk whirled to meet the rider of the black horse. Another second and his own mount had been knocked from its feet by the impact of the other’s horse and Jaffar with a shrill cry of terror fell headlong.

For an instant before the creeping man with the knife reached him, Jaffar’s eyes rolled in fear while he fumbled with his sword. Then Cheker Ghar with a low chuckle of joy sprang upon the powerful Turk, knife in hand.

That night Jaffar returned on his horse to his lord and to Jhilam. His horse wandered back to its stable by instinct. Yet slowly, for tied to the saddle-girth of Jaffar was the halter of the mule. Upon the back of the mule was the victim of Shaista Mirza.

And, as Nureddin observed sagely, the one was not more dead than the other.

Thus did Khlit throw down the gage of war to Shaista Mirza and did Cheker Ghar avenge her to whom he had given his allegiance and whom he still praised as the Flower of the Hills.

It was long before the conjurer was seen in the vicinity of the Wular.

VII

Jaffar’s death did not disturb Shaista Mirza, after the first moment when the body of his sword-bearer was brought to him. His anger had blazed up at sight of the dead Turk and he spurned the body with a slippered foot.

“Fool,” he whispered, “to be outwitted by a mummer and a graybeard. Waste not a dinar on burial, but cast this carrion into the lake.”

Whereupon he fell silent and retired to his chamber, playing long games of chess with Nureddin while he awaited word from his messengers.

The first to arrive was the rider he had dispatched to the Mogul. Jahangir was rejoiced at the capture of Rao Singh. In the royal firman were many words of flattery and praise for Shaista Mirza.

Jahangir ordered that Rao Singh be confined in the prison cells of Jhilam. Death was the penalty for breaking into the imperial seraglio, but the cautious monarch suggested that the Kashmiris might resent the infliction of such a punishment on the son of Sattar Singh. Hence the decree of imprisonment.

Shaista Mirza spat upon the firman, then tossed it contemptuously to the astrologer.

“Behold the word of a monarch who is bound by the cords of his fear! Still it must suffice. When Bember Hakim returns, bid him prepare the drug that eats into the brain and creates a fever in the limbs—a wasting sickness. Did not the hakim prepare this physic for Rani Begum?”

Nureddin bowed in understanding. So the mirza had been the author of Rani Begum’s death! After all, the astrologer reflected,

it was wise, for so long as the brood of Sattar Singh lived, the Persian’s seat upon the throne of Jhilam was not secure.

But Bember Hakim was slow in making his appearance. Knowing the uncertainty of travel over the northern passes where only the horns of mountain sheep and stags marked the caravan trails, Shaista Mirza was not disturbed. The man’s patience where his schemes were involved was as great as his anger at the failure of a subordinate.

Yet he did not go again to the floating island, having in mind perhaps the death of Jaffar. He sat on the carpet of his sleeping chamber, hearing the reports of his vizier, the treasurer of the Jhilam fief, and playing at chess often—sometimes discussing with Nureddin the science of the stars.

Although a keen watch was kept around the outer gardens of Jhilam, Khlit was not to be seen. Shaista Mirza had issued a firman declaring death the penalty for any Kashmiri to give food or shelter to the outcast, also promising a mohar of rupees to whoever would bring tidings of Khlit.

No one came to claim the gold, and it is certain that the Cos-sack was given fodder for his horse at the Wular villages. The Cos-sack kept to the forest, pitching his yurt where he could watch Jhilam without danger of discovery.

This course of action suited Khlit well. He was accustomed to playing a lone hand, and the numerous followers of the Persian gave him no cause for concern. He hunted occasionally when he needed meat, and slept little, sitting in the door of his yurt, his sword across his knees and the brace of pistols on a sheepskin at his side. And he groomed and fed his horse painstakingly.

“Hey, black imp of hell,” he observed caressingly, “eat well— yet not too much; for the day will come when you must gallop with the dogs of Satan at heel. Hey, that will be a ride of rides.”

So Khlit waited in his yurt overlooking the fortress, and Shaista Mirza sat in an inner room and meditated.

Then came Nureddin to his master, smiling, with news on his bearded lips.

“O Lord of Exalted Wisdom,” he announced, “there came Bember Hakim alone and pale with the cold of the hill passes. Verily the thin blood has dried in his veins and the fingers of one hand are scourged with frost. Barely he could whisper his message—”

“What said he, parrot-tongue?”

“This, my lord. He gave me a signet from Kargan Khan—” Nureddin handed the mirza a ring which his master scanned keenly and placed in his girdle, satisfied—“and reported that the wrath of the Kirghiz hill chief was like the blind rage of a wounded tiger—”

“Nay, a witless buffalo!”

“Aye, my lord. Kargan Khan musters his riders and girds on the sword of vengeance. In spite of the snow he will ride down the Baramula trail to the Wular davan, even as you advised.”

The hard eyes of the Persian gleamed.

“Furthermore Kargan Khan would look upon the body of his child, so that the edge of his anger shall be sharp. Even now he tears his beard and cries upon his gods to speed the arrow-stitches of retribution.”

Shaista Mirza stroked the wrinkled skin of his forehead reflectively.

“Why do men utter the name of a god when they feel pain? ’Tis like to the vain cry of a child newborn, Nureddin. Aye—not even the hand of a god may lift the shadow of destiny. Say on.”

“On the fifth day will Kargan Khan be at the Wular davan by the grave of Kera. So said he at the border of his land. For three days Bember Hakim rode hither.”

“Then,” calculated the mirza, “on the second day from now will we meet with Kargan Khan. It is well. You have talked with Rao Singh?”

“Aye. Yet not as if there was a purpose in my mind. I spoke as if by chance, saying that Khlit had slain the woman. At first he believed not.”

Shaista Mirza frowned, but Nureddin raised his hand deprecatingly.

“Not in vain have I knelt at the feet of the master of wisdom of Rudbar, and disciple of the Refik. A thought came to me, and I had slaves fetch the body of Jaffar—before it was thrown to the Wular—as if by chance. And the slaves told the boy that Khlit had slain Jaffar. They told how the unbeliever was an outcast in the hills.”

Shaista Mirza leaned forward expectantly.

“My lord,” continued Nureddin smilingly, “the slaves were simple folk and Rao Singh saw that they lied not. Wherefore a doubt seized upon his spirit as the first sore of disease appears upon the body.”

“And then—”

“I sought out Bember Hakim’s accursed store of herbs and powders. I bade the warders give him opium, a little at a time. And Rao Singh began to brood. His doubt is heavy upon him. He re-members little of the fight in the valley, for his brain is dulled with the blow and with mourning for Kera of Kargan.”

Nureddin stroked his beard tranquilly, aware that Shaista Mirza was pleased.

“One thing further shall I do before the day of triumph. Bember Hakim now lies abed, gripped by the demons of sickness, for his body is frail and he has endured much.

“The malady has affected his tongue, but he is doctoring him-self with rank smelling herbs and by the second day he will re-cover. Then shall I send him to the chamber of Rao Singh, and his words will bear out my tale.”

“Aye,” assented Shaista Mirza; “Rao Singh knows that the Arab saw the affray in the Wular davan.”

“The boy is feverish with his grief. Truly it is strange that he should grieve for one woman. Are there not round-faced maids of Persia to be bought as slaves? Or pale and handsome maidens from Georgia? And even the Kashmiris are not ill shaped, for I have seized certain—”

Shaista Mirza waved his hand impatiently and the astrologer was silent.

“Rao Singh is not like to Sattar Singh, Nureddin,” he meditated.

“He is empty of mind and foolish as a young stag—eh, thereby we shall profit. For by your arts Rao Singh will believe Khlit slew the woman.”

He glanced up at the water-clock that marked the passage of the hours.

“Soon, Nureddin, we shall take Rao Singh to the Wular davan, and with him Bember Hakim. Then shall they bear witness that Khlit is the slayer of Kera. And Kargan Khan shall hear.”

“Most wise lord!” mouthed the astrologer.

“Take care that the Hindu is plied well with opium. Thus by the arts of Bember Hakim he shall say what we will that he should. And Kargan Khan with his steppe wolves will scour Kashmir until he hunts down Khlit.”

“Aye, lord, and with Rao Singh gone to the portals of death you will be purged of the brood of Sattar Singh.”

“And sole master of Jhilam, in favor both with the Mogul and Kargan Khan.”

He looked up where the sky showed through an embrasure in the wall. Suspense crept into his crafty face. “The omens are good, Nureddin? My star will be ascendant in the constellation of the East?”

“Lord, the star of your birth will rise that night, foretelling a mighty event.”

In a bed-chamber of the Jhilam palace a wizened man coughed and muttered on the cushions of the floor, wrapped in his cloak, while he prepared certain mixtures of powders, which smoked in a brass pot over the flames.

He ordered his trembling slaves to fetch a young goat, living, and to let some of its blood run into a dish. Whereupon he consulted the book of the two hundred and sixty medicinal sub-stances, as written by the Arab scientists. He prepared a broth of the goat-blood and the contents of the vials at his girdle.

The slaves cringed and choked in the smoke from the foul mixture in the pot. Then he drank the broth and sighed, announcing that the elements of disease had been vitiated and that he would sleep until Shaista Mirza summoned him.

During that night and the next day fur-clad riders threaded through the lower passes of the Himalayas on ponies that stumbled ahead in blinding snow and a sharp wind that swept in their faces like a keen sword.

The riders bore spears at their shoulders, and under their furs wore shirts of Kallmark mail. They stopped only to make an offering of food before the shrine of the Altai-Nor god—a felt image fastened to a tree-trunk beneath a rough wooden roof—to insure their safe descent of the dangerous pass.

They dismounted only to run beside their horses and stir the heat of their bodies. They ate sparingly of dried horseflesh and frozen mare’s milk.

Kargan Khan, who led the troop, had said that they would not rest until they reached the davan where his daughter was buried.

And during that interval Khlit sat by his horse in the snow-storm, having raised one side of the sheepskin shelter so that it partly covered the black stallion. His food was nearly exhausted but he did not venture abroad for more, having decided that the next day was the one in which he would seek out Shaista Mirza.

During the last week Khlit had formulated a plan. He had pondered it carefully and was content. It was a bold venture, depending for success upon the speed of his horse. Yet in his plan Khlit had been unaware of one thing—the consummate cleverness of the Persian, and the craft of his servants.

Khlit had faced many enemies and had lived while they had died by virtue of his shrewd brain. In Shaista Mirza, however, he had a foe who was no less shrewd, who planned as carefully, and who was master of many swords.

Yet Khlit did not intend to trust to his sword. Rather he put his trust in his horse, and in a thing that Shaista Mirza would have scorned—the faith of another man.

VIII

When the dead are placed in the earth or upon the burial-fire, they are not. Then is the burial-place a place of shadows. The caravan will pass by and see not the shadows. The singer will strike upon the guitar, and heed them not. The women will bear jars to the nearby well and know them not.

Yet there is one who will heed the shadows. Aye, the slayer of the dead!

Kirghiz proverb

The snow ceased not long after dawn, leaving its carpet over the breast of the Jhilam hills and its tracery upon the laden branches of the pines. With the clearing of the weather, Shaista Mirza ordered the kettledrums of the fortress to sound the muster of his forces.

The riders assembled in the snow-covered gardens—Persians in elaborate armor, Pathan mercenaries in cloak and hood, lean Hazaras in quilted corselets with quivers slung at the saddles.

The mirza inspected his men with care to see that they were well-armed and mounted. It was well, he thought, to make a good showing of force before Kargan Khan.

He was mounted on a beautiful Arab, his thin body wrapped in furs that covered all but his sharp face. Nureddin accompanied him, a handsome figure with jeweled saddle-peak and sword-belt.

Only a small force was left with the slaves in the fortress. Shaista Mirza completed his muster. He selected a group of heavily armed Persians—among them a few musket-men—as body-guard for himself. Others he told off under Nureddin to escort Rao Singh and the master of physics, who was muffled in his soiled white cloak because of his recent malady.

The Pathan mercenaries Shaista Mirza placed in the vanguard, and he threw out two flanking parties of Hazara archers. In this manner they set out along the Jhilam road around the lake, leaving only slaves, servants, and a few soldiers under a Persian captain to guard the castle. On that day the mirza’s riders numbered twenty-five score.

They rode through the village, flinging gibes at the few emaciated women who with children clinging to their shawls came to look impassively at the cavalcade. The men of the village were not to be seen.

Along the lakeshore the huts of the fishermen were empty; so noted the sharp-eyed vizier whose duty was to assess the taxes. Here the road wound into the pines.

The sun was high by now, giving out a cheering warmth. The riders, now that the early-morning chill had been shaken from their limbs, laughed and sang snatches of ballads, restraining their fresh horses with difficulty. Shaista Mirza smiled and plucked at his cheeks. He was treading the path of his destiny, and his plans were well laid.

Rao Singh, his arms bound behind him, rode with head down-cast, saying nothing and only looking up at intervals to stare at the thickets that bordered the road. He paid no heed to the witticisms of Nureddin, who was in a high good humor.

Then Khlit rode into the path ahead of the vanguard.

A shout went up from the Hazaras, a shout which was repeated back until it reached Shaista Mirza.

“Let the archers pursue!” he cried shrilly. “Yet not more than a ten—all others keep to their files.”

The black horse wheeled under spur as the nearest Hazaras urged their mounts forward. Khlit waved his arm as if making a sign to someone hidden from view. He bent low in the saddle, for the archers had sped a few haphazard shafts, and gave the black horse its head.

Rao Singh had raised his head dully at the shout, but seemed not to grasp its meaning.

“Eh, the wolf is seen by the pack, Bember Hakim,” chuckled the astrologer. “The stars are kind to Shaista Mirza.”

“Nay, ’tis a shrewd wolf,” muttered the other, “and Jaffar sleeps with the fish for bedfellows.”

Nureddin shrugged his plump shoulders, yawned, and glanced appraisingly at Rao Singh. “Gave you the youth opium?” he whispered.

“He is made ready for what is to come. See, where he reels in his saddle.”

Khlit rode well ahead of the pursuers, keeping beyond bow-shot. His horse was fresh and had the legs of the others. Little by little he increased his lead, turning easily in the saddle to measure the distance.

He had lost sight of the main body of his enemies. He rose in his stirrups, plucking his curved sword from its scabbard and swinging it around his head, feeling the exhilaration of being again in the saddle and tasting the keen delight of peril.

Yet as he did so—obeying one of the instincts that were his heritage from his Cossack forebears—he sheathed his weapon and crouched forward watchfully. In the snow before him he had seen the tracks of many horses.

Into the broad trail left by these riders he urged his own mount, and a cry went back from the speeding archers to the men around Shaista Mirza.

“The outcast has turned into the Wular davan.”

The Persian laughed, then scowled and snapped an order angrily. “Summon back the archers! Form in close files.”

He was wary of riding haphazard into the valley where the men of Kargan Khan were waiting. And he knew that Khlit once in the davan was between his own men and the Kirghiz and could not escape without leaving his horse and climbing the slope—a course of action that would leave him afoot and consequently an easy prey.

Shaista Mirza was willing to believe that sheer good fortune had thrown the Cossack before his men. Yet his suspicions were sharp and he had heard how Khlit had once led two bands of soldiers into conflict with each other by just such a trick. He knew his own strength and the weapons he could employ to sway the mind of Kargan, and he could afford to be cautious.

“Perchance the outcast thought to bait a trap,” he muttered to the leader of his musket-men. “If so he must be without hope, for he has ridden ahead of us into the davan.”

It occurred to Shaista Mirza that Khlit might have hoped that Rao Singh could escape in the excitement that arose on his appearance. But the Hindu was in his place, leaning heavily on the peak of his saddle.

“If we find the Cossack in the davan,” he called to Nureddin, “make no move to seize him until I command.”

Whereupon he set his men in motion in orderly ranks, close-knit now that they ascended the slope that led from the lakeshore to the davan.

Meanwhile Khlit had not slackened the pace of his horse. The way was familiar, and those who had gone before him had tram-pled the snow crust into a compact footing.

He passed two sentinels—bearded men mounted on shaggy steppe ponies—without pause, only shouting the name of Kargan Khan. The two, seeing that he was alone, permitted him to ride on.

Now he saw slender blue spirals of smoke rising from the head of the valley and caught the stamp of horses’ hoofs and the jangle of bits. Rounding the turn where he had once passed the form of Cheker Ghar, he came full upon the Kirghiz.

They filled the valley-head from cliff to cliff, squatting in circles around the fires, yet with their horses’ bridles near at hand and their weapons across their knees—stalwart men roughly clad in furs and horsehide boots, their broad faces set with slant eyes that turned inquiringly upon Khlit.

The Kirghiz had come in peace to the Wular; still the tribesmen had no love for the mercenaries of Jhilam and they trusted no man’s word—save only Kargan Khan’s.

And Khlit reined in sharply, beholding one who sat upon a stone and watched him under shaggy brows. It was a man whose heavy head seemed sunk into massive shoulders, whose bent and mightily thewed frame was enclosed in a supple corselet of Turkish mail without the customary khalat.

A bronzed and hairy hand gripped each knee of the sitter, and Khlit saw that one eye was closed beneath a vivid scar that ran

from chin to brow. By this Khlit knew that he faced Kargan, chief of the Baramula horde.

But already he had seen where the rocks over the grave had been rolled aside and the earth upturned. The khalat of the khan lay on the snow before him, and under the khalat the outline of a slender figure.

Thus did Khlit ride to meet Kargan Khan on the day that gave to the Wular valley the name of Kizil Yar, or Red Pass, in the tongue of the Kirghiz.

He lifted his right hand to show that he held no weapon and walked his horse forward slowly. The warriors on either side of the khan observed him intently but made no hostile move. “Dismount!” cried one gruffly.

Khlit made no move to do so.

“Shall a kha khan dismount before a khan, even the chief of a horde?” he asked, speaking directly to Kargan. “I am Khlit, called by some the Curved Saber, and once the yak-tail standard of the Jungar horde followed me.”

A murmur went through the assembled warriors at this. The southern Kirghiz had never seen Khlit, but his name was known by hearsay. Many tales concerning the Cossack had been repeated throughout the nomad tribes.

Kargan Khan’s harsh face showed no indication of his thoughts. “What seek you, Khlit?”

“I ride to Kargan Khan with a message. Behind me, in the space milk takes to boil, will come the slayer of Kera.”

The muscles under the jaw of the Kirghiz tightened and the skin of his face darkened.

“It is well,” he rumbled, the words rolling from his thick chest—the only sign of his emotion. “For I have come in the pursuit of blood. I have looked upon the dead body of Kera.”

Shaista Mirza took in the scene at the valley-head with a swift glance. He sought out Khlit, noting his position a few yards from and slightly back of Kargan Khan.

He saw that the Kirghiz had mounted but were not formed in any order. They sat silently on their wearied ponies, staring at the gaudily attired Persians. Shaista Mirza reflected smilingly that they resembled a pack of wolves.

Whether Khlit was Kargan’s prisoner or not Shaista Mirza could not guess. He considered it a stroke of rare good fortune that Khlit should have walked into the trap. Perhaps, he reasoned swiftly, the Cossack planned to denounce him—Shaista Mirza.

For this Shaista Mirza was prepared. Hidden among his followers, he reflected, were Rao Singh and Bember Hakim, whose testimony united to his own would overbear anything the solitary outcast might say.

So Shaista Mirza smiled and bent his head slightly in greeting to the khan.

“Hail, Kargan Khan,” he began smoothly, “master of the Baramula and lord of the Kara Kirghiz. Auspicious is the day we can meet in friendship. Favorable are the omens for this day, and fain would Jahangir himself have been present to greet the chieftain he holds in honor.”

He paused for a response, but Kargan Khan spoke not. The single eye of the Kirghiz roved over the Persian ranks as if seeking that which he found not.

“Happy am I, Kargan Khan, to bid you and your followers welcome to Jhilam, and to the castle.”

Shaista Mirza’s courteous words thinly veiled the scorn in which he held the clumsy figure on the rock. His glance wandered to the khalat and the form beneath it, and wavered. Then he summoned a ready smile.

“Think not, Kargan Khan, because I sent a single man to your encampment that I am unmindful of the honor due the Lord of the Baramula. Nay, Bember Hakim is the trusted servant of the Mogul himself, and a worthy messenger.”

The Kirghiz lifted his shaggy head impatiently. “Aye,” he responded, “the hakim swore that when I rode to this spot I would set hand on the slayer of my child. Name the man!”

The last words echoed forth as if torn from the muscles of the warrior’s chest.

Shaista Mirza bent his head and glanced sidelong at Khlit. The Cossack sat his horse impassively, apparently indifferent to what was said. He also was scanning the Persian ranks.

In spite of himself the mirza wondered at the outcast’s calm. He reflected that Khlit must be in truth dull of wit and not as the tales had painted him. Once Kargan Khan heard Shaista Mirza speak the name of Khlit, the Cossack would die as swiftly and mercilessly as a cornered roe deer is torn by dogs.

Wherefore Shaista Mirza smiled—a smile that ended in a sneer. He liked well to play with a victim, to tie slowly the knot of death upon the condemned.

Truly, he would have preferred to see a woman die rather than the gray-haired warrior. He regretted that he had not seen Jaffar deal with Kera. It would have been a dainty sight.

“My heart is heavy with your sorrow, O khan, ” he lisped. “And I have come prepared to see vengeance done. Aye, to see the end of the pursuit of blood. Yet you are a chief and a judge.

“Behold then, I would have the matter clear and purged of the cloud of doubt, so that none may whisper Kargan Khan slew wrongly.”

He turned in his saddle.

“Nureddin!”

The astrologer pushed forward.

“Fetch Rao Singh and Bember Hakim.”

Softly he added—“You have made certain the stripling is heavy with opium?”

“Aye, my lord. These past six hours has Bember Hakim been plying him with noxious physics and nostrums, so that he knows not his right hand from his left.”

Satisfied, Shaista Mirza watched his two witnesses dismount and advance until they stood beside the khalat. Rao Singh, whose arms had been freed, stumbled, and was supported by the other. Khlit was watching not Rao Singh but the face of Kargan.

By now the sun was well down behind the mountain peaks and the shadows were gathering under the pines. Sometimes the shadows shifted as if wind had moved the pine-branches. But there was no wind.

From a cleft in the rock—the same as that by which Bember Hakim had made his escape—yellow rays of the sun shot across the ravine, falling athwart the figure of Rao Singh.

Kargan Khan had gripped his weapon spasmodically as the boy stood before him, wondering if the Hindu who had carried Kera from the seraglio was the one he sought.

Rao Singh looked up, and father and lover of Kera stared long into each other’s eyes. Then the boy’s drooping figure straightened and he flung back his head, crossing his arms on his chest.

Nureddin frowned, for he could see that a change had come over the face of Rao Singh. The lips had drawn firmly together. Suffering had wiped out the lines of youthful indolence. The eyes were level and purposeful.

Into the face of Rao Singh had come the stamp of grief and the strength that changes boy to man. Nureddin moved uneasily and would have spoken, but Rao Singh was before him.

“Kargan Khan,” he said slowly, “the Flower of the Hills was my bride. Aye, she was the rose that made fragrant the garden of my heart. And she called me lord.”

In the dark eyes of the Hindu shone a steadfast purpose. Kargan Khan stared at him with fierce intentness, his savage anger challenging the pride of the Hindu.

Shaista Mirza had not thought to find Rao Singh master of his senses and would have spoken, but the Kirghiz motioned him aside without taking his gaze from the Hindu.

“You feared to ride to me—Kargan—with Kera upon your saddle-peak.”

“Nay,” retorted the Hindu proudly, “that I could not do until Kera was mistress of Jhilam as was Rani Begum, my mother.”

Long and steadily the Kirghiz measured Rao Singh, and a new gleam crept into his single eye.

“By the gods—name me the slayer of my child!” he roared, whipping out his sword.

Shaista Mirza put out his hands, then licked his dry lips softly, studying his prisoner craftily—as a man who scans the dice he is about to cast.

Rao Singh wheeled and pointed.

“Shaista Mirza,” he said.

A rising mutter of anger from the ranks of the Kirghiz, a quick flash of weapons; ponies capered under the spur, an exclamation from the Persians, and Kargan Khan sprang to his feet. Then Shaista Mirza lifted his hand. Except for a quick spasm his face showed nothing of the rage he felt.

“Stay,” he cried harshly, his high voice rising over the tumult. “Would you listen to one who speaks in the stupor of opium? Rao Singh has partaken of the drug. He knows not what he is saying.”

The Persian would have urged his horse upon Rao Singh, but the Hindu leaped back and the Kirghiz interposed his bulk between them. The sword that the chief held was a heavy blade, but it trembled with the force of his anger and the strength that held the anger in check.

Khlit had not moved. Nor did he seem surprised by the speech of the boy.

“Nay, Kargan Khan,” pursued Shaista Mirza swiftly, “is not Rao Singh my foe? Did he not seize your child? His false lips frame lies.”

He clutched the khan’s massive shoulder and whispered: “Yonder sits the scoundrel. Aye, Khlit—he of the Curved Saber—is the man you seek!”

The Kirghiz shook his head angrily like the buffalo that Shaista Mirza was fond of calling him.

“Death of the gods!” he cried. “Would the slayer of Kera ride alone into my array?”

Then for the first time Shaista Mirza felt the chill of doubt, and paled. His voice broke as he called for Bember Hakim.

“Aye,” said Khlit.

This was the only time he spoke during the judgment in the Wular davan.

“Let us hear Bember Hakim.”

“Bember Hakim is the man of the Mogul,” shrilled Shaista

Mirza. “He is the faithful servant of Jahangir. His words are as

the pearls of truth, for he saw the death in this valley—”

“He will say that Rao Singh is in a stupor,” cried Nureddin. “Let him speak!” growled the khan.

The wizened figure in the white cloak fell on its knees before the Kirghiz. “Rao Singh spoke not the truth,” he cried.

Shaista Mirza smiled while the witness crawled closer to the khan and embraced his boots.

“Aie,” chanted the figure at the feet of Kargan Khan, “I have seen what I have seen. I saw the fair head of the Flower of the Hills sink in death under the sword of the miserable Jaffar. I have heard Shaista Mirza boast that he ordered the death.

“Aie! My spirit is parched with the thirst of vengeance. Jaffar is slain. But Shaista Mirza lives—”

The pale face of Shaista Mirza flushed and his eyes widened. “Traitor! False to your bread—”

Shaista Mirza struck at the prostrate form with his dagger, realizing that the man had betrayed him and understanding now why Rao Singh, who had been placed in his care, was free from opium. The Persian’s dark brow was rife with hatred and fear as he thought how Bember Hakim must have fallen in with Khlit at the Baramula trail on his quest to Kargan Khan. Kargan Khan read this swiftly.

The next instant Shaista Mirza reined back sharply among his bodyguard, who had pressed forward. For Kargan Khan had bounded upon him and struck down a shield that was interposed. His second blow felled the holder of the shield to earth and he sprang after the Persian, slashing at the spears of the riders who sought to ward him off and bellowing his war-cry.

And after Kargan came Rao Singh, who had snatched up the weapon of the felled rider. And upon his heels came the mass of the Kirghiz, fearful for their chief.

In an instant the valley resounded with the clash of steel, the frenzied snorts of horses and the cry of the injured.

The Kirghiz had attacked with fury, led by Kargan, who had mounted. In the confined space was no room for maneuvering or for the use of arrows. The compact bands of horsemen made one struggling mass, where knee pressed knee and shield clashed against shield.

Khlit had set spurs to his horse and forced his way into the center of the ranks. He found Rao Singh and drew the Hindu away from the Persian files, protesting.

“Have you forgotten?” the Cossack cried sternly. “There are those who await your coming.”

At that Rao Singh had turned and sped to the cleft in the slope where he disappeared behind the rocks.

One other man had parted from the battle. Nureddin, after a glance around, had wheeled his horse and slipped back through the array of the Persians. Once clear of the valley he set out swiftly down the Jhilam road.

Kargan Khan had flung himself into battle with the sole thought of finding and striking down the mirza. His men had attacked readily, savagely, but without plan or formation.

The Persian’s forces had given back at first, then closed in with the armored horsemen in front. Shaista Mirza, safe behind the cordon of his men, directed the fight craftily.

In the narrow quarters the Kirghiz could not employ their favorite tactics of enveloping their foe, and were forced to fight hand to hand. They had little armor, and their horses were wearied. The fury of their first onset waned, and they split up into knots of horsemen, wheeling and plunging at superior numbers.

All this Khlit noticed, and frowned.

Then that for which he watched came to pass. Down the cleft in the ravine, down the rock-slope, even down the cliff it?

self, swarmed dark figures chattering with eagerness and bearing knives, rusted spears, clubs or stones. And at their head was Rao Singh.

They raced behind the Hindu brandishing their makeshift weapons, and fell upon the flanks and rear of the Persians.

Thus did Rao Singh put himself at the head of the forest men of Jhilam even as his father Sattar Singh had done before him, though under different circumstances.

The Kashmiris were unskilled warriors but they had the agility of their kind, and their anger against the Persians was a great anger. With their coming the Kirghiz pressed in, raising their war-cry anew. Khlit could see the broad figure of Kargan Khan at their head, his weapon flashing.

“Hey,” he meditated, “it is a good fight. Yet it is the fight of Rao Singh and Kargan Khan.”

He fingered his sword, swearing anxiously. Never before had he been a spectator of a battle. Then he sheathed his sword and sighed.

The fight—the first phase of it—was over. The Persians, their ranks broken, were streaming back toward the valley entrance. By their flanks, clutching and stabbing, went the Kashmiris, and in their rear the Kirghiz struck down the fleeing riders. Half of Shaista Mirza’s men lay in the davan.

Khlit, galloping among the Kirghiz, caught up with Kargan Khan at the edge of the lake. Twilight had fallen, and the cries of the stricken mercenaries were growing fainter down the Jhilam road.

Kargan Khan with a band of his men had halted to stare at a red glow on the lake. In the dusk it flickered from the surface of the water.

“’Tis witchcraft!” muttered Kargan Khan.

“Nay,” laughed Khlit, “ ‘tis but the pleasure island of Shaista Mirza gone up in flames after the visit of the fisher-folk. The villagers have attacked the castle and overcome the scanty garrison.”

“Praise be to the gods!”

Kargan Khan looked at Khlit curiously.

“Nay, did you plan this rising of the Kashmiris? It served us well.”

“Rao Singh leads them,” said Khlit, and was silent.

Then he laughed. “Nureddin—I saw the rascal flee—will be well greeted at the castle. And those of Shaista Mirza who reach there will fare little better.”

While he trotted beside the Kirghiz after the fugitives Kargan Khan looked at Khlit long, wondering how much Khlit had fore-known of what came to pass at the Kizil Yar.

There were few of the Persians who escaped from Jhilam that night, and Shaista Mirza was not among them. And that night Rao Singh took the chair of his father in the council-hall of Jhilam.

Concerning Bember Hakim there is a strange tale. A forest man of Jhilam tells the tale. It was the day after the battle, at dawn, and he saw Khlit and Bember Hakim go into the forest along the Baramula trail.

Being curious, the man followed. He saw the two come to a heap of stones that seemed to mark a grave. There, so says the Kashmiri, Bember Hakim threw off his cloak, tunic, and sandals and washed some stains from his face with snow.

Then—such is the tale—Bember Hakim rewound his turban in a different fashion and took from the rocks a green cloak and other garments, which he put on, shouldering also a heavy leopard-skin pack.

Thus Bember Hakim the Arab physician became in the eyes of the Kashmiri Cheker Ghar, the conjurer and mimic—Cheker Ghar, who pressed Khlit’s hand to his forehead and departed to the South, while Khlit rode alone to the North.

This tale of the Kashmiri was adjudged a lie by those who heard. For how could one man be like to two?

Doubtless, said those who heard, the Kashmiri had partaken of the good wine of Shiraz, for that night there had been great feasting in Jhilam, and much rejoicing among the men of Jhilam.