The Eye of Zeitoon Part 42

"What's the use of cavalry four abreast?" demanded Fred, in no mood to be satisfied with anything.

"Rustum Khan is concentrating all his energy on teaching that one maneuver," Monty answered. "We come-"

"Thought it 'ud be 'we!' Your place is at the rear, giving orders!"

"We come down the track at top speed, and the impetus will carry us clear across the ramp. Some of the horses'll go down, because the slope is slippery. But the remainder will front form squadron, and charge down hill in line. Then watch!"

"All right," Fred grumbled. "But how about you rear while all that's going on? The Turk must have worked his way around Beirut Dagh on former occasions-or how else could he ever have built and held that dismantled fort? What's to stop him from doing it again?"

"It's a fifteen-mile fight ahead of him," Monty answered, "with riflemen posted at every vantage-point all the way-"

"Who is in charge of the riflemen?"

Kagig leaned back until he looked in danger of falling, and tapped his breast significantly three times.

"I-I have picked the men who will command those riflemen and women!"

"Well," Fred grumbled, "what are your plans for us?"

"For the last time, Fred, I want you, old man, to help me to persuade these others to escape into the hills while there's still a chance, and I want you to go with them."

"I also!" exclaimed Kagig. "I also desire that!"

"Now you've got that off your chest, Didums, suppose you talk sense," suggested Fred. "What are your plans?"

Monty recognized the unalterable, and set his face.

"You first, Miss Vanderman. There's one way in which we can always use a gentlewoman's services."

"Mayn't I fight?" she begged, and we all laughed.

"'Fraid not. No. The women have cleared out several houses for a hospital. Please go and superintend."

"d.a.m.n!" exclaimed Gloria, Boston fas.h.i.+on, not in the least under her breath.

"I am sending word," said Kagig, "that they shall obey you or learn from me!"

"The rest of us," Monty went on, "will know better what to do when we know what the Turk intends, but I expect to send all of you from time to time to wherever the fighting is thickest. Kagig, of course, will please himself, and my orders are subject to his approval."

"I'll go, then," said Gloria. "Good-by!" And she kissed Will on the mouth in full view of all of us, he blus.h.i.+ng furiously, and Kagig cracking all his finger-joints.

"Go with her, Will!" urged Monty, as she disappeared down the steps.

"Go and save yourself. You're young. I've notions of my own that I've inherited, and the world calls me a back number. You go with Miss Vanderman!"

I seconded that motion.

"Go with her, Will! I've warned you she's unsafe alone! Go and protect her!"

Will grinned, wholly without malice.

"Thanks!" he said. "She's a back number, too. So'm I! If I left Monty in this pinch she'd never look at me, and I'd not ask her to! Inherited notions about merit and all that kind of thing, don't you know, by gos.h.!.+ No, sir! She and I both sat into this game. She and I both stay! Wish Esau would open the ball, though. I'm tired of talking."

Chapter Nineteen "Such drilling as they have had-such little drilling!"

ICH DIEN

Is honor out of fas.h.i.+on and the men she named Fit only to be buried and defamed Who dared hold service was true n.o.bleness And graced their service in a fitting dress?

Are manners out of date because the scullions scoff At whosoever shuns the common trough Liking dry bread better than the garbled stew Nor praising greed because the style is new?

Let go the ancient orders if so be their ways Are trespa.s.sing on decency these days.

So I go, rather than accept the trampled spoil Or gamble for what great men earned by toil.

For rather than trade honor for a mob's foul praise I'll keep full fealty to the ancient ways And, hoistinq my forebear's banner in the face of h.e.l.l, Will die beneath it, knowing I die well!

Fifteen minutes after Gloria Vanderman left us I saw a banner go jerkily mounting up the newly placed flag-pole on the keep. A man blew a bugle hoa.r.s.ely by way of a salute. I raised my hat. Monty raised his. In a moment we were all standing bare-headed, and the great square piece of cloth caught the wind that whistled between two crags of Beirut Dagh.

Fred, our arch-iconoclast, stood uncovered longest.

"Who the devil made it for you?" he inquired.

St.i.tched on the banner in colored cloth were the two wheat-sheaves and two s.h.i.+ps of the Montdidiers, and a scroll stretched its length across the bottom, with the motto doubtless, although in the wind one could not read it.

"The women. Good of 'em, what? Miss Vanderman drew it on paper.

They cut it out, and sat up last night sewing it."

"I suppose you know that's filibustering, to fly your private banner on foreign soil?"

"They may call it what they please," said Monty. "I can't well fly the flag of England, and Armenia has none yet. Let's go below, Fred, and see if there's any news."

"Yes, there is news," said Kagig, leading the way down. "I did not say it before the lady. It is not good news."

"That's the only kind that won't keep. Spit it out!" said Will.

Kagig faced us on the stable roof, and his finger-joints cracked again.

"It is the worst! They have sent Mahmoud Bey, against us. I would rather any six other Turks. Mahmoud Bey is not a fool. He is a young successful man, who looks to this campaign to bolster his ambition. He is a ruthless brute!"

"Which Turk isn't?" asked Will.

"This one is most ruthless. This Mahmoud is the one who in the ma.s.sacres of five years ago caused Armenian prisoners to have horse-shoes nailed to their naked feet, in order, he said, that they might march without hurt. He will waste no time about preliminaries!"

Kagig was entirely right. Mahmoud Bey began the overture that very instant with artillery fire directed at the hidden defenses flanking the clay ramp. Next we caught the stuttering chorus of his machine guns, and the intermittent answer of Kagig's riflemen.

"Now, effendim, one of you down to the defenses, please! There is risk my men may use too many cartridges. Talk to them-restrain them. They might listen to me, but-" His long fingers suggested unhappy fragments of past history.

"You, Fred!" said Monty, and Fred hitched his concertina to a more comfortable angle.

Fred was the obvious choice. His gift of tongues would enable him better than any of us to persuade, and if need were, compel. We had left our rifles leaning by the wall at the castle entrance, and in his cartridge bag was my oil-can and rag-bag. I asked him for them, and he threw them to me rather clumsily. Trying to catch them I twisted for the second time the ankle I had hurt that morning. Fred mounted and rode out through the echoing entrance without a backward glance, and I sat down and pulled my boot off, for the agony was almost unendurable.

"That settles your task for to-day," laughed Monty. "Help him back to the top of the tower, Will. Keep me informed of everything you see. Will-you go with Kagig after you've helped him up there."

"All right," said Will. "Where's Kagig bound for?"