The Heath Hover Mystery Part 34

But with the small hours of the morning came a change, and with it anxiety. For a mist was arising, blotting out the stars; whose light indeed they required in that labyrinthine winding through chaotic rocks, or along this or that steep mountain side with a precipitous drop not far down the slope. Hussein Khan, the hard, lifelong mountaineer, who was guiding, shook a gloomy head as he looked upward and around. None knew better than he what it might portend. None knew better than he that the most practised mountaineer might become helpless as a child when plunged in thick mist. And this mist, though not yet thick, showed every tendency to become so. Added to which a slight drizzle began to fall, and none knew better than Hussein Khan the perilous effect, on their none too safe paths, of slimy moisture. And they direly needed all the start they could obtain.

But the occurrence would equally check the pursuit of their enemies, for there was no doubt but that they would be pursued, and hotly, at the earliest available moment? No, it would not--that is, not necessarily-- for these knew their way, and would take a line which would have the effect of cutting the fugitives off from Mazaran, did the latter lose much of the start they had obtained. For to Hussein Khan, practised mountaineer that he was, this was after all more or less strange country, and he was shaping his course only by reckoning.

The small hours pa.s.sed into daybreak, but with the lightening of the atmosphere there came no light from without. The fugitives were swathed within dank, heavy, bewildering mist. They could hardly see each other at further than a horse's length apart. Helston Varne and the s.h.i.+kari conferred hurriedly together, and in the result decided that there was nothing for it but to call a halt and wait until chance should enable them to obtain their bearings.

But chance seemed not inclined to befriend them. An hour had gone--a whole precious hour--and, if anything, the cloud seemed to settle down thicker than ever. There was no wind either, not enough stirring in the air to enable those experienced men to form the slightest idea of the lay of their course, by that not always reliable method of feeling on which side of their face the wind stirred. Mervyn had more than begun to feel gloomy--and looked it. Helston Varne was feeling nearly as gloomy, and did not show it. But Melian, looking from one to the other, felt--well, confident. Where Helston Varne was taking a hand there was no room for failure, had become part of her creed, as we have said.

Another hour went by--two precious hours--eating into the none too wide margin of the start they had attained--and that alarmingly. And then-- relief showed in their quickly exchanged glances. The mist had begun to roll away.

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.

THE VALLEY OF THE MUD-SLIDE.

A puff of damp air came down the slope, driving the vapour before it, and bringing a hard, unpleasant downpour. But this mattered little now.

The great thing was to be able to distinguish their way. Girths were tightened, and in a moment they were prepared to resume the march.

Even yet they had to move slowly. The paths, for one thing, were extremely slippery, for another, the further side of the valley had not begun to show at all. Then, when it did, and that suddenly, there lay a couple of low, mud-walled villages, below, but not very far from their way.

Could they pa.s.s unseen? It was in the highest degree important that they should. But as if to put this hope to flight, several dogs, great fierce brutes, such as were used by the native herdsmen to protect their flocks, came rus.h.i.+ng forth, yelling and baying with frantic clamour.

Their owners were not long in following. But they stopped suddenly.

The sight of Hussein Khan, and Helston, whose disguise made him look every inch a sirdar of the Gularzai--in which capacity, by the way, Melian had greatly admired him--allayed their natural suspiciousness.

Under such escort these Feringhi could not be interfered with, and they came no nearer. But the discovery was untoward, if only on account of information these could supply to eventual pursuers.

The villages were left behind, but travelling became perforce slow-- deadly slow. The path along the well nigh precipitous slope had become so slippery and dangerous, that more than once it was deemed expedient to dismount and proceed on foot. And then, as they rounded the spur in front, an exclamation escaped Hussein Khan and his tone took on a note of blank dismay.

"Now I see where we have come," he said. "_Hazur_, it was written that we should stray from our course in yonder accursed cloud, which a.s.suredly was the breath of Shaitan himself. Here before us lies the Valley of the Mud-slide. And we must cross that, for there is no turning back."

"It is written," was the answer. "Therefore we will cross it, since there is no other way."

In front lay the same steep gigantic slope, sheering upward to a great height, and along this they were threading, like flies upon a wall. The other side of this long and narrow gorge was precipitous, being composed of tier upon tier of terraced cliff. And the rain, beating pitilessly down, lent huge vastness to the serrated crags rearing black against an unbroken murk of sky. In front, right across their way, sweeping down the slope from the high _kotal_ to its base, spreading like a gigantic peac.o.c.k's tail, was the result of a former mud-slide. It was as though the whole mountain side had at one time--and that not so very long since, fallen away, bringing millions of tons of blue grey soil with it.

The base of it filled the bottom of the gorge, though a watercourse had drilled its way through, and the sombre thunder of this they could now hear, far down between its perpendicular walls of solidified mud.

There was misgiving in the hearts of all three men as they reached the edge of this. Would they be able to cross it. They were familiar with similar freaks in the wild mountain country, but this one was of gigantic proportions. In the regular wet season they might as well try to cross a quaking mora.s.s, but there had been little rain of late, still even that little was enough to turn such a place into a slough. But there was nothing for it. It was the only way through. The alternative was to retrace their steps right into the teeth of their enemies. And one consolation was theirs. Once on the other side they knew where they were now, and could make up for lost time.

There was no path. Selecting what to his practised eye seemed the firmer ground, Hussein Khan led the way. Soon the horses were laboriously dragging their weighted fetlocks out of the stiff, clinging stuff--only to plunge them in deeper with the next step. Then it became manifest that the right course was to dismount, and proceed on foot.

Helston Varne looked at Melian, so too, did Mervyn.

"I should think Miss Seward could keep the saddle," said the former.

"She's lighter than we are, and it's infernally laborious going for a lady on foot and hampered with skirts."

"Of course she can," came the answer, gustily. "Lord, I'd like to get Mr Allah-din Khan over the sights of this rifle. I'd drill his parchment hide for him. Ya Mahomed! I would."

And then, as if in answer to the invocation, something happened. The gloomy, Dantesque valley bellowed to the echoes of a resounding roar, the reverberations of two _jezail_ shots behind. The missiles hummed by, rather wide, and sploshed into the ooze of the mud-slide. Every head turned.

Coming along the way they had fled, strung out like hounds, were a number of mounted figures. The dirty white flowing garments, the reckless rush of their advance proclaimed their unmistakable ident.i.ty.

The time lost in the mist, the deflection from the right track, possibly that Helston Varne had miscalculated the duration of the effects of the drug which his s.h.i.+kari had deftly inserted into so many hookahs and other things--had handicapped the fugitives--and now here was Allah-din Khan, and all his cut-throats hot foot behind them, fired, too, with baffled hate and the disgrace which had been put upon them. The _malik_ of the villages they had pa.s.sed had not only supplied the chief with information, but had turned out his own men--and they very willing--to aid in the pursuit. Two of these indeed, had slipped on in advance, and had discharged their jezails, with the result foregiven.

The bulk of the pursuers were still some way behind. Quickly Helston Varne's mind had framed a plan, but it, he saw was but a shadow of a one. Once they were through this slough of despond he would send the others on, and himself remaining behind would take cover on its edge, and deliberately pick off every one of them as they struggled through the semi-mora.s.s. But even he knew that in view of the state of fiery exaltation to which they were worked up, his chances of success were not great. They would rush it somehow, just as his own party had themselves done, and--there were too many of them. He sent one look back.

"Hurry on," he urged. "Mount now, and push the horses for all they're worth. It's our only chance."

And it was done. How--they knew not. Perhaps the animals themselves caught some of the fever heat excitement of being chased, but floundering, plunging, snorting, they found safe, firm foothold at last on the other side, and stood panting, and streaming, and utterly blown.

Here was no safety. It would take half an hour at least before they had sufficient go in them to resume a race for life, and the pursuers had time to cross the mud-slide at their leisure.

Mervyn's heart was filled with black, gloomy despair. It was fated they were not to escape. Well, at the last it would be soon over. With the recollection of that h.e.l.lish cavern of torture, and the words spoken therein, he had made up his mind that Melian should not fall into their hands. They had shown him what they were capable of, and that was enough. One quick merciful shot for her, and the next for himself, and that the moment he realised that all hope and chances were gone.

"Now," said Helston Varne. "You press on to the _kotal_, Mervyn. I'm going to take cover here and keep them back--and directly they get into the mud-slide I'm going to ma.s.sacre them like holy Shaitan. _Jao_ Hussein Khan. Go on Mervyn," he added, more peremptorily, seeing him hesitate. "You've got to take Miss Seward out of this, and I've got plenty of ammunition. I'll catch you up, by and by."

"Well, don't be long," said the other queerly, as he obeyed.

Now two or three more shots straggled across from beyond. The main body of the pursuers came racing up, urging their steeds mercilessly over the cruel, stony ground. Now they were on the edge of the mud-slide. Wild, yelling, threatening shouts went up from them, as they drew their tulwars and flashed them furiously in the direction of the fugitives.

Helston looked back. The result was not unsatisfactory. If only he could hold up these. He would try parley. It would gain a modic.u.m of time.

"Brothers," he shouted. "Go back. I would not shed your blood, for we have eaten together. But no man reaches this side of the mud-slide alive."

For answer, a fierce, blood-thrilling yell of vengeance, as they discovered his presence, for they had missed his manoeuvre. And shouting out the torments of h.e.l.l to which he, and all with him, were destined when once more in their hands, they pushed their steeds furiously into the slough.

In the chaotic splas.h.i.+ng and floundering that ensued, Helston's rifle spoke. The man who rode beside the chief toppled from his saddle.

Again came the roaring detonation, tossing to and fro from crag to crag.

Another saddle was emptied, but so far, for reasons of his own, the marksman had spared Allah-din Khan. In the sudden confusion, he poured another shot into "the brown," but nothing seemed available to stop that rush. They were mad with revenge and fanaticism. As a sheer matter of time he would not be able to destroy anything like all of them before they should cross. Well, this time the chief must go. He had been given every chance, and the stake being contested was too great.

"Once more go back!" he shouted. But only a renewed and fiend-like scream came in reply, and horses, floundering fetlock deep, were making surprising headway, and the wild savage faces were alarmingly nearer.

He put up the rifle again, and--it swayed in his hands. He could not get the sighting. The earth under his feet was swaying. What did it mean, in Heaven's name?

There came a deep, growling, rumbling roar. He looked upward. Heavens!

Was the whole world falling over upon him? In the flash of a moment, abandoning all thought of human enemies--of human forces, Helston had wrenched his horse from behind the great hump of earth where he had sheltered it, and mounting, spurred with hot haste onward and upward in the track of those who had gone before. At the end of a couple of hundred yards or so he alighted from his saddle just in time to avoid being hurled therefrom in the rocking swaying horror of a moving world, and looked back. A cracking roar, painful to the drums of his ears, split the air. He took in the enormous ma.s.s curling over, the volume of mud and earth and stones, at least two score of feet high, pouring like a gigantic flood down the face of the slide. He took in the frantic struggling crowd of hors.e.m.e.n right in the centre of its road, and then, the whole slope took on a new formation as half a mountain side poured down it, roaring up stones and mud ma.s.ses high in the air. And--of the three score and odd Gularzai--pressing on in hate and vengeance to destruction--there remained no more trace than there had been before their arrival there at all. That gigantic mud-slide had in a moment found a common sepulchre for the lot.

"Well, Miss Seward," Helston remarked, as somewhat shaken by the stupendous awesomeness of the phenomenon, he rejoined the fugitive group, higher up. "Allah is on our side this time anyhow."

"Yes," she said in an awed tone. "What a sight! But what was it? An earthquake?"

"Another mud-slide, like the one which formed the first--or a little of both. Maybe a touch of earthquake that started it off. But we were through just in time, and--good-bye to Allah-din Khan and Co."

"Whom I hope are grilling in their Jehanum," growled Mervyn, with the recollection of his own ordeal fresh upon him.

"Well, there's nothing between us and Mazaran now," p.r.o.nounced Helston Varne, "and the sooner we get there the better. No, Miss Seward. You'd better not look back. Get it out of your mind."

For Melian's gaze seemed riveted on the gloomy Dantesque gorge, now half barred up by the tremendous convulsion of Nature which had taken effect right under her very eyes, and the thought of the buried men lying there--even though they were fierce barbarians and fanatical enemies, still they had been engulfed in the horrible cataclysm right under her eyes. But she recognised the other's advice was sound, and laid herself out to follow it. And the reaction of feeling that they were all in comparative safety largely helped.

CHAPTER THIRTY.

ENVOI.

John Seward Mervyn lay back in his accustomed armchair and puffed very contentedly at his pipe. The fire burned clearly in the deep, old-fas.h.i.+oned fireplace, and the room looked exactly the same as when we first discovered him in it. Even the wind, swirling boisterously around the gables of Heath Hover, seemed to sound the same note, but it was not snow-laden this time, for autumn had not yet fairly gone out. The same little black kitten, though it was no longer a kitten now, still it had grown not much larger, and was as fluffy and almost as playful as ever, had jumped up on to his knee and sat there purring.