Part 13

He went farther down the path, asking at every two or three paces whether we could see him. When our eyes had become accustomed to following his white clothes we could distinguish them at quite a distance.

At last he had gone too far.

"We can't see you!" I called.

He retraced his footsteps until he was again visible. Then he seemed to rise in the air.

"I stand on rock by side of path!" he shouted; "path is under my feet--to my right--very narrow--Bedouin must pass one by one--I speak to them--make them throw away rifles--if no give up rifle I strike match--you see match--fire below match--kill Bedouin."

"Come back!" I yelled. "It's too dangerous!"

"No! I stay!" and nothing would induce him to give up his plucky scheme.

Plucky! Why, it was the bravest job any man could have taken on himself.

Quite close beneath us men began shouting. I hoped these were the camel men warning the armed Arabs to throw away their rifles if they wanted to save their lives. I knew that in a few minutes the first of them would reach Jaffa, and that then the crisis would come. Webster was fidgeting with the bolt of his breech-block and breathing hard.

Already Jaffa was beginning to call out: "Khalli bunduk 'ak! Khalli bunduk 'ak! Ma kattle kum! Ist agel! ist agel!"

Our nerves were very much on edge.

Then footsteps began to approach, softly, cautiously. Jaffa altered his tone of voice. One could almost imagine that he was imploring someone, for his own safety, to throw away his rifle, just as a father might have done. We heard the noise of a rifle falling on to the rocks, then another and another, and, before Webster and I realized it, dim, cloaked figures came up to the gap and stopped there, as if frightened and uncertain what to do.

My heart was in my mouth then, and I said as firmly as I could: "Ma kattle kum! Ist agel!" Webster chipping in with a quaver in his voice, and the two marines and Griffiths bellowing these words behind and above us.

For a moment the Arabs still hesitated, but then they commenced to pass through the gap between Webster and myself.

One, two, half a dozen, a dozen panting figures glided through, and more came--twenty or thirty more--and all the time Jaffa's voice sounded--as calmly as if he were aboard the "_B.A._"--"Khalli bunduk 'ak! khalli bunduk 'ak! Ma kattle kum! ma kattle kum!"

Then I heard Griffiths moving among the rocks overhead, probably shifting himself into a more comfortable position, and the fool must have had his finger on his trigger, because his rifle went off, right in our faces, almost blinding us.

Of course the approaching Arabs thought that we were firing at those who had passed through the gap, and believed that they were going to be murdered.

I cursed Griffiths, and shouted: "Ma kattle kum! ma kattle kum!"

Jaffa yelled to us not to shoot--but no more Arabs came.

Out of the darkness Jaffa's voice sounded, higher pitched now: "Khalli bunduk 'ak," and voices at his feet answered him, angry voices, despairing voices; a crowd of Arabs seemed to be collecting all along the path, and people were calling up from below. I realized that they were refusing to part with their rifles, preferring to have a chance for their lives, or to die, if they had to, with them in their hands.

We were all shouting: "Ma kattle kum! Ist agel!" The two marines, knowing that something was wrong, ran to us.

"Stand by to fire! Be very careful; fire below, and to right of the match, if Jaffa strikes one."

There was a very ominous murmur now. Jaffa was haranguing, expostulating; then he stopped.

"Stand by!" I shouted, bringing my rifle to my shoulder.

A tiny light showed. Jaffa had struck a match.

"Fire!" I yelled, and our four rifles went off together.

We heard groans, a yell of pain, and a body falling. Some of our bullets had gone home.

Jaffa's pistol flashed once; we fired again; it flashed a second time, and then, with a glare and a startling roar, a shell burst not fifty yards below us, and for a second or two lighted up the whole scene--Jaffa on the rock, and those Arabs, a whole line of them, surging up to him. Wild screams came up from a lower path, and told us that men there had been wounded; and Jaffa began in his old voice of calm assurance, "Ma kattle kum! Khalli bunduk 'ak"--he never once stopped talking.

"No shoot," he called to us; "they throw away rifles--they come:" and with the most intense relief from the strain of those few awful seconds I heard the welcome clatter of rifles on the rocks, and that weird procession began again to pass between us.

In their hurry to escape this new terror of the bursting shells the Arabs actually swept the two marines back to the farther end of the gap.

Another shell burst, some way from us, but near enough for all to hear the fragments smashing against the rocks, and enough to break the nerves of any who had already suffered as those poor wretches had done.

I realized now that they were absolutely panic-stricken; they were throwing away their rifles long before they reached Jaffa. They came in one continuous line through the gap, struggling with each other to escape those shells, and to escape from that awful inferno below them.

They were mere terror-stricken fugitives, with no more fight left in them, and Webster and I had to step aside, out of the mouth of the gap, to prevent them carrying us along with them in their flight. We were shouting: "Ist agel! Ma kattle kum!" more to let them know the way to the gap than anything else, for the glare of those shells (which burst dangerously close to us every four or five minutes) blinded everyone, and they could not see the way. In fact, we four standing there, and Jaffa on his rock, were now doing nothing more dangerous than a policeman does in calling out to a crowd to pass along. The marines at the farther end of the gap had forgotten their Arabic words, and forgotten their fright--if they had been frightened--and were shouting: "'Urry up there! keep a-moving! 'Ere, you won't get no front seat if you don't 'urry. Pass along, please! First turn to the right takes you to the 'orses. 'Urry up! 'urry up! The show's about to begin."

Griffiths, on the rocks above, had altered "Ma kattle kum," into "Call the cattle home," and was droning this out under the impression that he was talking the proper "lingo".

As one shell burst I had seen a group of men on one of the paths apparently bearing a comrade. In time they came up to Jaffa, and I heard the sound of voices entreating something. Jaffa called to me that it was the sheikh's son, badly wounded and asking for water.

With shuffling footsteps they bore him up to the gap, and laid him on a rock.

I could well imagine the awful experience he must have had whilst being carried up there amongst his terrified followers, and the tremendous pluck of those who had stuck to him.

They now began crying "Pani! ma!" and Jaffa called out that the sheikh's son wanted water. He, poor chap, did not deign to ask; but for a half-suppressed groan, when they laid him on the rocks, he was absolutely silent.

We had no water (our water-bottles had been emptied long ago), but I remembered that brass cooking bowl in which the rear-guard had started to cook coffee.

It had been placed between some rocks, so had not been upset, and I groped round and found it. There was still some liquid "of sorts" in it. I gave the bowl to the men, and they scooped up a little fluid with their hands and poured it into his mouth. They finished the remainder themselves. Then they picked him up and bore him through the gap as he muttered something, apparently to me--though whether a blessing or a curse I did not know.

The two marines hurried them on with cruel jests, and, before they had passed through, the blaze of another shell lighted up the mournful little band and the red-stained beard of the sheikh. I looked for the green turban, but that was gone.

During the next few minutes perhaps twenty limping, hard-breathing men passed us. After that, though we waited and watched the zigzag path whenever a shell burst, not a single man could be seen.

It was time to stop those shells. They were meant well, but they had done their work and had scared the Arabs; now we should be very relieved if no more came, because many were unpleasantly close.

I ordered the two marines, Webster and Griffiths, to fire three volleys into the air, giving them the word of command, and firing myself. Whether the _Intrepids_ saw these volleys or not, or whether they understood that we were "all correct" or not, I did not know, but they ceased firing.

Then, at last, we knew that we had won, that the morning would show us our prize--the caravan of living camels strung along the zigzag path and the dead ones below. But we were too worn out with the strain of that day's work, and that last hour or more in the gap, to feel any exultation. All we wanted to do was to lie down and sleep, and all we wanted to see was the rising of the blessed sun. We had cursed it a good many times during the last three months; now, how we did long to see it again!

Jaffa came back to us, and we made much of him, praised him, and told him that it was he who had saved us and captured the caravan, that all the credit was due to him.

He simply lay down and slept. Praise from us seemed to mean nothing to him. I let every one of them sleep. I only had to say the word, and they simply subsided where they stood, and straightway fell asleep.

Backwards and forwards by myself I paced from one end to the other of that gap, my rifle in my hand, looking down into the black obscurity as I came to the opening on each side.

Away down in the valley which had swallowed up those panic-stricken Arabs I sometimes heard voices, gradually growing fainter and fainter in the distance. Below, in the "coffee-cup", occasionally weird noises came up, perhaps from those poor wretched camels still huddled on that awful path, with their unwieldy burden of rifles flattened against the rocks. Once or twice a momentary twinkle of light flickered far below; probably the bluejackets were striking matches to light their pipes. It was a comfort to think that someone down there still kept watch.

Presently a land-breeze began gently sweeping through the gap, on its way to the sea; so warm and heavy was it that it made the desire to sleep an agony. How I could have remained awake without my pipe, I do not know; that, and perhaps my hunger, kept me going.

Hyenas, jackals, or wolves began howling in the valley; others, along the walls of the "coffee-cup", answered them. They must have scented blood, and appeared to be gathering all along the ridge, but did not venture down, staying there howling and whining in piercing cadences. I set their hateful music to a tune of "Keep awake! keep awake! one turn more! twelve paces! one turn more!"

There was no means of judging the time, but perhaps it was an hour after I had been left to myself when two wretched Arabs came stumbling up, or hopping up, dragging broken legs after them, and supporting each other. Poor, wretched, miserable creatures! the agony they must have suffered would have made me feel pity for them had not my brain been absolutely numbed with the craving for sleep, and unable to think of anything except the necessity for fighting it.

At last, when I thought that I must have done more than my share of "sentry-go", I simply collapsed on top of Webster. I remember him scrambling to his feet, but I am certain that I was sound asleep before I lay flat on the ground. It was no use being ashamed of myself; I was not. It was physically impossible for me to keep awake any longer, and, as it turned out, it was physically impossible for any of us to keep awake.

When I did awake it was broad daylight; the sun was just appearing over the opposite rim of the "coffee-cup", and dear old Popple Opstein was bending over me, shaking me. The gap was full of the _Intrepid's_ bluejackets, and they were trying to shake life into the others. Jaffa was leaning against a rock.

"Water! water!" was the first thing I said, and Popple Opstein, with his face that strange violet colour, his eyes ablaze with excitement, gave me his water-bottle.

"We couldn't climb the path in the dark, Martin, old chap," he burst out. "We tried, but we couldn't do it. Two of our chaps fell over and broke legs or arms, so the commander brought us back.

"Thank goodness that he did call you back!" I said. "You would have all been killed. It's bad enough in daylight, with nothing blocking it."

"It took us three hours to get up," he said. "We counted more than a hundred camels on the path, and you knocked over any number. They are lying in heaps at the bottom!"

He gave me a ship's biscuit. Nothing I have ever tasted tasted so appetizing as that did, and he spared me another mouthful of water to wash the last crumbs down my throat.

Then I lighted a cigarette, and together we walked through the gap to see if there were any traces of the disarmed Arabs. The valley was empty and silent, shrouded in shadow. Not a single living thing could we see except a few vultures.

We walked back again and looked into the "coffee-cup". The zigzag path was now swarming with villagers and bluejackets trying to restore order among the camels. Close to the rock where Jaffa had stood, rifles lay scattered everywhere.

"We must have captured a couple of thousand rifles and thirty or forty thousand rounds of ammunition," my chum said exultingly. "It's the finest haul, they tell me, that's been made for years."

I don't mind saying that if he had told me that there was a steaming hot dish of bacon and eggs and a potful of coffee waiting for me round the corner I should have been much more excited--just at this time.

*CHAPTER XI*

*The Cobra Bracelet Again*

Take the whole world over, and you would not have found a more happy group than we made that morning, sitting in the gap, yarning whenever our jaws were not busy crunching the ship's biscuits the _Intrepids_ had brought us; Webster, Griffiths, Jaffa, and the two marines surrounded by a crowd of bluejackets eager to learn every detail of the adventure, and the Baron and myself squatting on a rock, he beaming at me like an old mother hen who had just found her long-lost chick, and watching me munch his biscuit as if it was the most pleasant sight in the world.

"When darkness came on," he was saying, "We gave you up for 'finish'. We thought they'd rush you; we thought you'd have not the slightest chance of escape. You remember firing rifles--at the beginning--when it first got dark? We were waiting for them. We tried to help you with those shells of ours--it was the only thing we could do--but we made so certain that it was the beginning of the end for you that, when no more rifle flashes showed up, we thought you all were killed. We felt sick that we couldn't climb up and kill a few Arabs to revenge you, so we kept plugging away with the nine-pounder in sheer desperate anger. Man! we never guessed for a moment what was really happening. Look down there at that litter of rifles; the path and the rocks for a hundred yards are simply smothered with them. It's splendid! splendid, old chap!"

In his excitement my chum leant forward and gripped my shoulder till I winced.

"If you'd seen Jaffa standing there on his rock, and heard him calling out: 'Khalli bunduk 'ak. Ma kattle kum! Ist agel!' you'd have thought him splendid. He's the hero of the affair," I said, pointing to Jaffa, who was extricating himself from the crowd of his admirers and stalking solemnly away to perch himself on a rock, where no one could come and worry him with questions. "We shall never forget those words; we shouted them till we were hoarse. Didn't we, Webster?"

Webster smiled. "Pretty ticklish work--part of the time, sir!"

"Those shells of yours just did the trick," I went on, telling him how Griffiths's rifle going off accidentally had nearly brought about a catastrophe. "They were simply hideous in the darkness; the chasm looked a perfect hell, and the half-crazed wretches fled through the gap from them like a flock of sheep. How the dickens did you manage to train the gun and aim it? That's what beat me."

He explained that before it was too dark to see the gap from the bottom of the "coffee-cup" they had found a rock which gave, more or less, the proper elevation when the muzzle of the gun rested on it, and when the trail of the carriage was pushed up against another, the gun pointed somewhere in the right direction. After every shot they had had to drag it back, feel about for the rocks, and trust to luck. That was why the shells were so erratic and the firing so slow.

"We were very nearly as frightened of them as the Arabs were," I laughed, "and were mighty glad when you stopped your fireworks and bits of ironmongery flying round us."

Recollecting those volleys we had fired when all was over, I asked my chum whether they had seen them, and how they knew what we meant.

The Baron shook his head. "Too much smoke down there; we saw nothing. We only stopped firing for the simple reason that we'd fired every blessed shell we had. Why, my dear old chap, we thought you'd been 'deaders' long before. Even this morning we thought we should have to fight our way here; it was a kind of a forlorn hope; the commander didn't want me to come, and it was not until we were halfway up without being fired on that we had a glimmer of an idea that the Arabs had 'hoofed' it during the night. And you and your fellows were so fast asleep you never heard us cheering as we scrambled up the last fifty yards.

"When we saw you six huddled here we thought it was a burial party wanted--nothing else. Why, dear old ass, I was just turning you over to see where you'd been killed, when you began muttering some outlandish gibberish."

"Ma kattle kum!" I suggested, smiling.

"Something like that," he grinned. "Ugh! it was a bit of a shock," and his cheeks flushed that curious violet colour.

"What was a shock?" I asked. "Finding me alive?"

"No, you fool! Thinking we'd have to bury the lot of you, and not an inch of ground where we could stick a pickaxe, let alone a spade, for miles."

The Baron lifted his helmet and wiped his forehead.

The sight of his yellow hair reminded me of Miss Borsen, and I told him how I had managed to silence her tormenting little tongue. "Just picked her up like a feather, carried her twenty yards before she could say 'knife', and never a word more did she say. I thought I'd got the best of her for once, but she only thought me a horrid cad, and wouldn't even let me apologize, wouldn't even let me see her again. So she came off best after all."

"Women always do," the Baron grinned. "Irritating things, women."

We were both agreed on that point.

Then he told me his part of the yarn. It was just as I had thought. Some skunk of an Arab with a grievance had come along to Muscat and sneaked, given the whole show away, and the plan of taking all the rifles and ammunition still remaining at Jeb to Kalat al Abeid (the little village whose head-man had brought me up here to shoot leopards). That was why the _Intrepid_ had hurried round. Even before Commander Duckworth had heard from Mr. Scarlett that I was up in the mountains he was preparing to land his men, and when he received my scribbled note it had been a case of hurrying ashore in double-quick time, to try to take possession of the mouth of the ravine leading to the "coffee-cup" before the Arabs reached it.

As you know, they did not, in spite of the villagers clapping on to the nine-pounder and Maxim and dragging them up those baking slopes. They had been met with a very fierce fire, and it was not till the resistance began to weaken (when many Arabs had been withdrawn to defend the camels from us) that the _Intrepids_ could make any impression. But once an Arab leaves his first position for one farther in the rear, his chief anxiety is to keep his eye on a still safer place behind him; so, once they had begun to retire, the job was comparatively easy.

Before they gained the mouth of the ravine the _Intrepids_ had lost two men killed and five wounded. My chum told me that Nicholson, the staff surgeon, did not expect one of those to pull through safely.

"It's jolly hard luck on them," the Baron said, his face falling.

We sat silent for some time, looking into the "coffee-cup" and watching the very tedious and dangerous work of getting the remaining camels safely down to the bottom.

Then a message was semaphored that the commander wanted to see me and my party; so I gathered them together and left the Baron and his men to keep watch at the gap in case the Arabs recovered from their fright and came back. There was precious little chance of this.

The zigzag path was the most extraordinary sight, littered with rifles, bandoliers, water-bags, turbans, and cloaks, showing how hurriedly the poor wretches had tried to escape. It was dangerous work there, and worse still when we reached the camels. Each poor brute thought we were bringing him food, and was furious when he saw we were not, swaying his neck and making an angry rumbling noise somewhere from halfway down his neck, scraping his bundle of rifles or ammunition-boxes against the rock. We had to squeeze past each one very carefully indeed, with an eye on his head and neck and a hand gripping at his bundle. Lower down we came to the villagers trying their best to shift the camels, make them get on their feet if they were kneeling, or turn them round if they were facing upwards. Poor devils, they were only fishermen, and were evidently making a poor job of this. Among them was my old friend the head-man, shouting orders by the dozen. He smiled affably, and gabbled a lot of weird words as I squeezed past him. Jaffa explained that he was comparing me "to the sun for strength and the jackal for cunning". I smiled back, and as Jaffa followed he commenced another long rigmarole, which I did not stay to listen to, but which Jaffa afterwards told me was to the effect that the Bedouin would be very angry, and would come back presently, when the _Bunder Abbas_ and _Intrepid_ had gone away, and kill them all.

That was the worst of it. I knew enough about the temper of those gun-running fellows--hadn't I seen what had happened at Bungi and Sudab?--and the Arabs are no whit less ferocious and revengeful than the Afghans. It seemed such hard luck to get those villagers to help us and then leave them to certain vengeance. These especial people were so simple, and had been so useful, that it would be a shame to leave them unprotected. But what could we do? Neither the _Bunder Abbas_ nor the _Intrepid_ could stay there for ever.

Lower down still, quite close to the bottom of the zigzag, I met the commander, very pleased with himself and with me too.

"You should get promotion out of this," he said, as I saluted; "it's the finest haul that's been made for years--three thousand rifles at least, and more ammunition than we've destroyed in the last twelve months."

He made me tell him the whole yarn over again, and then ordered me to take my men back to the _Bunder Abbas_. I did not want to go, but had to.

At the bottom of the "coffee-cup" I saw the mangled remains of many of the camels which had fallen down the precipice. Rifles from their burst bundles were scattered round them, and some of the _Intrepids_ were still moving about among the boulders, searching for dead or wounded Arabs. Then at the very entrance to the gorge, round the corner where the Arabs had taken up their first position, I found Nicholson busy with the wounded, and showing some natives how to make litters.