The Heath Hover Mystery Part 26

"The King's head," was the answer.

"Good. Let one of them throw up the rupee," said Helston, handing it over.

A tall, hook-nosed barbarian came forward, and taking the coin, sent it spinning high in the air. It came down with a clink, rebounded, and settled. The King's head was undermost.

"'Tails.' We've won," said Helston, looking up. "But if they'd like two out of three, we can call again."

But the sirdar shook his head.

"It is child's play," he said. "Still--a test is a test--and a game a game. We keep to it."

And to the intense relief of at any rate two of them, he turned his camel round, and retraced his way up the _tangi_, followed by his retinue.

"Well I'm d.a.m.ned!" was all that Coates could muster.

"No you're not. We've got round that hobble," answered his kinsman placidly. "It was rather a funny situation though, wasn't it. Fancy tossing for priority of way, bang, so to speak, in the heart of the earth. Well, Allah-din Khan is a sportsman anyhow."

"Is he? Wait a bit. We haven't _pa.s.sed_ him yet." And the answer carried a potential suggestiveness, which, under the circ.u.mstances, was unpleasant.

However, such was not borne out by events. A few hundred yards higher up, the _tangi_ widened out considerably, and here they found the sirdar and his following awaiting them. Helston said a few pleasant and courteous words as they pa.s.sed, which were gravely but not sullenly, received. But the hostile stare on the faces of the chief's following, there was no mistaking.

"That's what comes of sending the escort on ahead," said Varne Coates.

"If they'd been along we needn't have stood any nonsense from Mr Allah-din Khan. It would have been man for man then, or very nearly, and a good deal more than rifle for rifle."

"Don't know it isn't a good thing that we did," answered the other with some conviction. "The evenness of numbers would probably have brought on a row. And I'm perfectly certain any one of those chaps is equal to any two of ours, if not three."

"But the rifles?"

"Even then, they wouldn't have given us time to use them. No. I think we're well out of that racket, Coates."

"All right. I shall be glad to see camp anyhow. I'm yearning for a long, stiff, cool peg. Wrangling and getting into a wax is very dry work. Well, we're not far off now, thank the Lord."

The _tangi_ was widening out considerably. The cliffs no longer rose sheer and facing each other, but had changed into tumbling crags and pinnacles, and terraced ledges, while beyond lay a glimpse of more open country. But on one hand the mouth of the pa.s.s was dominated by a huge, magnificent cliff wall.

"Look there," cried Coates, glancing at a point halfway up this where some objects were moving. "Markhor--three of them! But they are wild.

At that height they ought to be standing calmly staring at us, and they're off already as if the devil was after them."

And as the words left his mouth, the answer--the explanation--came, startlingly, unpleasantly.

For an echoing roar broke from the cliff front just below the point they had been scanning, and something heavy and vicious and convincing thudded hard with a "klopf" against a boulder just to the right of Helston. The rock face was marked as with the splatter of blue lead.

"We're being sniped, by G.o.d?" exclaimed Coates, reining in. The syce had instinctively drawn behind the nearest boulder, and had dismounted.

Again came the crash, together with a score of bellowing reverberations as the echoes tossed from crag to crag. This time the missile shaved the neck of Helston's horse so close as to set that n.o.ble animal snorting and curvetting in such wise that the rider was put to some trouble to keep his seat.

"This is d.a.m.n silly," growled Coates. "Well, there's nothing for it but to take cover and think it out. If we could only get a glimpse of the _soor_."

There were many loose boulders at the entrance to the chasm, and only in the nick of time did they get behind two of these. For a third bullet hummed over the very spot, now in empty air, a fraction of a second ago occupied by Helston and his horse.

"He's getting our range now, and no mistake," went on Coates. "Now we must try and get his. Just about halfway up the _khud_ there, below where we sighted the markhor."

For some minutes there was no further sign. The sniper seeing now nothing to snipe at, did not snipe. Meanwhile he was enjoying the fun of keeping two of the ruling race crouching behind rocks for their lives. He had the best part of the day before him to enjoy it in, for it was quite early afternoon, and his time was all his own. When they came out into the open, as sooner or later they would be sure to do--for they were but scantily endowed with the saving grace of patience, these infidels--then he would have them; the whole three, with good fortune; only he would spare the syce perhaps, because he was a believer.

"This is a nice cheerful country, Coates, and a fairly eventful day of it," remarked Helston. "First, we as nearly as possible have a hand to hand sc.r.a.p for the right to pa.s.s an exceedingly cut-throat looking gang of ruffians, then no sooner are we clear of that than we have to slink behind stones like scared rabbits, because some sportsman unknown takes it into his head that we make very good moving targets at a given distance. And I don't quite see the way out, that's the worst of it.

Do you?"

"Not unless we can get a sight on the _budmash_," was the reply. "I've put mine at four hundred yards."

"Yes. That would do it," agreed Helston. "Stop. I've got an idea-- give me a leg up to the top of this boulder. There are several loose stones there that I can get behind, and use as sort of loopholes."

"Better not. He'll have you there to a dead cert," warned the other.

"I'll chance that. So. That's it."

Whether the sniper had seen this move, or whether he himself was tired of inaction, another bullet now pinged hard and viciously against the boulder itself. This just suited Helston Varne. He was able in that moment's flash to locate the lurking place of their enemy, and himself, lying flat, was able to get his piece forward, and cover it. With the aid of a loophole-like formation of the stones he felt that he could not miss.

"Work the dummy trick, Coates," he called back, in a low voice. "Draw his fire somehow. I've got the spot exactly covered, and--I think we shall soon be on our road again."

"All right," came back the answer. "I'll give a cough when I'm all ready to show the lure."

It was a strange drama this duel between hidden foes, and for its setting one of the wildest scenes of wild Nature. The mountain side opposite, rising in huge terraced cliffs, the ledges affording spa.r.s.e hold for a scanty growth of pistachio shrub. Beneath, the stones and boulders of the now dry watercourse, and behind, the craggy entrance to the great _tangi_. No vegetation either, save coa.r.s.e dry gra.s.s, no sign of life, unless a cloud of kites, wheeling in circles high overhead, against the blue. And, facing each other, unseen, two units of humanity lay there, each bent on relieving the human race of one. Then Varne Coates coughed.

But simultaneously, with the echoing roar from the cliff face, Helston pressed trigger. The sound from opposite was not that of a missile striking a hard substance.

"Got him," he said, quietly. "Yes. He's done. I could see it plainly.

He got it just under the chin, as he was watching the effect of his pull-off."

"The effect of his pull-off," said Coates, "is that he's got the range plumb by now, and if anything had been inside the boot I stuck out, its owner would have gone very lame for life. Look hereat it." And he held it up showing a hole neatly drilled just above the ankle. "Sure you've got him though?"

"So sure that--Well, look."

Helston had slid down from his coign of vantage, and now deliberately walked forth into the open. Here he stood for a few moments, gazing up at the cliff.

"That's practical faith at any rate," said Coates, grimly. "Yes, you certainly must have 'got him,' or he'd have got you by this. Still, it's risky. There might have been two of them."

"There might, but there weren't."

"How the deuce could you tell that?"

"By the systematic way the _one_ was getting the range."

"Oh, good old Sherlock Holmes again!" laughed Coates. "Now we can head for that 'peg' I was yearning for just now, and in dry fact--devilish _dry_--have been ever since."

"What are we going to do about--that?" said Helston, with a nod in the direction of their late menace.

"Do? Why, not say a d.a.m.n thing about it to anybody. Gholam Ali won't for his own sake. He's half a Pathan himself and knows better than to advertise trouble. Yes, as you were saying--it's a nice cheerful country this, not dull by any means."

The other laughed significantly.