She ran to him, but in her haste she crossed the line of fire. In that fleeting moment when her body shielded his, Osman acted. He kicked the table and the candle toppled and went out, and simultaneously he dived for the floor. Gordon’s pistol roared deafeningly just as the hut was plunged into darkness. The next instant the door crashed inward and the sentry bulked against the starlight, to crumple as Gordon’s gun crashed again and yet again.
With a sweep of his arm, Gordon found the girl and drew her toward the window. He lifted her through as if she had been a child, and climbed through after her. He did not know whether his blind slug had struck Osman or not. The man was crouching silently in the darkness, but there was no time to strike a match and see whether he was living or dead. But as they ran across the shadowy plain, they heard Osman’s voice lifted in passion.
By the time they reached the crest of the ridge, the girl was winded. Only Gordon’s arm about her waist, half-dragging, half-carrying her, enabled her to make the last few yards of the steep incline. The plain below them was alive with torches and shouting men. Osman was yelling for them to run down the fugitive, and his voice came faintly to them on the ridge.
“Take them alive, curse you! Scatter and find them! It’s El Borak!” An instant later he was yelling, with an edge of panic in his voice: “Wait. Come back! Take cover and make ready to repel an attack! He may have a horde of Arabs with him!”
“He thinks first of his own desire, and only later of the safety of his men,” muttered Gordon. “I don’t think he’ll ever get very far. Come on.”
He led the way to the camel, helped the girl into the saddle, then leaped up himself. A word, a tap of the camel wand, and the beast ambled silently off down the slope.
“I know Osman caught you at El Awad,” said Gordon. “But what’s he up to? What’s his game?”
“He was a lieutenant stationed at El Ashraf,” she answered. “He persuaded his company to mutiny, kill their commander, and desert. He plans to fortify the Walls of Sulaiman, and build a new empire. I thought at first he was mad, but he isn’t. He’s a devil.”
“The Walls of Sulaiman?” Gordon checked his mount and sat for a moment motionless in the starlight.
“Are you game for an all-night ride?” he asked presently.
“Anywhere! As long as it is far away from Osman!” There was a hint of hysteria in her voice.
“I doubt if your escape will change his plans. He’ll probably lie about Achmet all night under arms expecting an attack. In the morning he will decide that I was alone, and pull out for the Walls.
“Well, I happen to know that an Arab force is there, waiting for an order from Lawrence to move on to Ageyli. Three hundred Juheina camel-riders, sworn to Feisal. Enough to eat Osman’s gang. Lawrence’s messenger should reach them some time between dawn and noon. There is a chance we can get there before the Juheina pull out. If we can, we’ll turn them on Osman and wipe him out, with his whole pack.
“It won’t upset Lawrence’s plans for the Juheina to get to Ageyli a day late, and Osman must be destroyed. He’s a mad dog running loose.”
“His ambition sounds mad,” she murmured. “But when he speaks of it, with his eyes blazing, it’s easy to believe he might even succeed.”
“You forget that crazier things have happened in the desert,” he answered, as he swung the camel eastward. “The world is being made over here, as well as in Europe. There’s no telling what damage this Osman might do, if left to himself. The Turkish Empire is falling to pieces, and new empires have risen out of the ruins of old ones.
“But if we can get to Sulaiman before the Juheina march, we’ll check him. If we find them gone, we’ll be in a pickle ourselves. It’s a gamble, our lives against his. Are you game?”
“Till the last card falls!” she retorted. His face was a blur in the starlight, but she sensed rather than saw his grim smile of approval.
The camel’s hoofs made no sound as they dropped down the slope and circled far wide of the Turkish camp. Like ghosts on a ghost-camel they moved across the plain under the stars. A faint breeze stirred the girl’s hair. Not until the fires were dim behind them and they were again climbing a hill-road, did she speak.
“I know you. You’re the American they call El Borak, the Swift. You came down from Afghanistan when the war began. You were with King Hussein even before Lawrence came over from Egypt. Do you know who I am?”
“Yes.”
“Then what’s my status?” she asked. “Have you rescued me or captured me? Am I a prisoner?”
“Let us say companion, for the time being,” he suggested. “We’re up against a common enemy. No reason why we shouldn’t make common cause, is there?”
“None!” she agreed, and leaning her blond head against his hard shoulder, she went soundly to sleep.
A gaunt moon rose, pushing back the horizons, flooding craggy slopes and dusty plains with leprous silver. The vastness of the desert seemed to mock the tiny figures on their tiring camel, as they rode blindly on toward what Fate they could not guess.
CHAPTER IV
WOLVES OF THE DESERT
Olga awoke as dawn was breaking. She was cold and stiff, in spite of the cloak Gordon had wrapped about her, and she was hungry. They were riding through a dry gorge with rock-strewn slopes rising on either hand, and the camel’s gait had become a lurching walk. Gordon halted it, slid off without making it kneel, and took its rope.
“It’s about done, but the Walls aren’t far ahead. Plenty of water there—food, too, if the Juheina are still there. There are dates in that pouch.”
If he felt the strain of fatigue he did not show it as he strode along at the camel’s head. Olga rubbed her chill hands and wished for sunrise.
“The Well of Harith,” Gordon indicated a walled enclosure ahead of them. “The Turks built that wall, years ago, when the Walls of Sulaiman were an army post. Later they abandoned both positions.”
The wall, built of rocks and dried mud, was in good shape; and inside the enclosure there was a partly ruined hut. The well was shallow, with a mere trickle of water at the bottom.
“I’d better get off and walk too,” Olga suggested.
“These flints would cut your boots and feet to pieces. It’s not far now. Then the camel can rest all it needs.”
“And if the Juheina aren’t there—” She left the sentence unfinished.
He shrugged his shoulders.
“Maybe Osman won’t come up before the camel’s rested.”
“I believe he’ll make a forced march,” she said, not fearfully, but calmly stating an opinion. “His beasts are good. If he drives them hard, he can get here before midnight. Our camel won’t be rested enough to carry us by that time. And we couldn’t get away on foot, in this desert.”
He laughed, and respecting her courage, did not try to make light of their position.
“Well,” he said quietly, “let’s hope the Juheina are still there!”
If they were not, she and Gordon were caught in a trap of hostile, waterless desert, fanged with the long guns of predatory tribesmen.
Three miles further east the valley narrowed and the floor pitched upward, dotted by dry shrubs and boulders. Gordon pointed suddenly to a faint ribbon of smoke feathering up into the sky.
“Look! The Juheina are there!”
Olga gave a deep sigh of relief. Only then, did she realize how desperately she had been hoping for some such sign. She felt like shaking a triumphant fist at the rocky waste about her, as if at a sentient enemy, sullen and cheated of its