V
The ways of the sea are blind ways; whosoever follows them knoweth not the end of the road.
The caravanserai of the sea is a place of sleep; whosoever sleepeth within it is not seen again of his fellows. Arab Proverb.
THE Cossacks had learned by long experience on the road to make the most of whatever came to hand. Being skilled carpenters, they were able to remove the central bridge and build horse-pens around the main mast, sufficient for two dozen ponies. This done, they set up larger water-butts at the break of the poop.
Embarking the horses was a problem. Ayub built with the timbers taken from the galley, a narrow jetty at the deepest point of the shore and the vessel was brought up to this during a calm.
The rowers’ benches were rearranged—half a dozen before the horses, as many behind. Three men were put to an oar instead of two, the captured janizaries near the poop on which the Don Cossacks quartered themselves.
Balaban shook his head.
“If we run into a storm, the horses will break loose and bring terror among the rowers. The galley will steer badly, and how is the sail to be lowered?”
“That is your affair,” pointed out Ayub. “What would we do without horses when we set foot in Asia?”
“They will die of thirst before then, because the water will suffice only for a week. Your chief has ordered me to strike out across the main sea instead of coasting. It is a hundred leagues to the southern shore—eight days sailing if the wind holds fair. But what if we have a bonanza, a dead calm? Take thought of this: the oars will not drive the galley against a head wind, nay, nor a cross wind.”
Fortunately the galley was well stocked with foodstuffs, and in the sleeping compartment of the dead reis they found an astrolabe, and an old Venetian compass. No charts, however, were discovered and when they shipped the anchor and set out from the half-moon bay, they were forced to rely on Ayub’s knowledge of the coast line, and Balaban’s reckoning.
The surviving Christian captives—Greeks, Genoese, Spaniards, with a smattering of French and Dutch—pulled willingly, for Demid had promised that once the Asian shore was reached, the galley and all in it would belong to them. They preferred to take their chances in some trading port of the southern shore, rather than land on the bleak Tatar steppe off which the fight had taken place. Moreover their toil was lightened because now they rowed in shifts, and as they labored, their eyes dwelt gleefully on the naked backs of the janizaries once their masters, now chained to the benches.
In such fashion did El Riman, the swift galley, set out to sea.
“Faith,” grinned Michael, casting his eye down the deck, “’tis Jason and his Argonauts, come to life again.”
Leaning his weight on one of the long steering-oars—he and Ostrog shared this duty with Ayub who alone of the Cossacks had voyaged on a galley—he bethought him of the saga of Jason and his men, the first of the adventurers of the sea.
Surely, the Argonauts had been the first to come into this sea, and they, too, had steered for Asia and the court of an unknown king.
“If we had a Medea aboard, now,” Michael meditated, following his whim, “the company would be complete. Aye, we have no sorceress.”
Now it happened then, the day being fair, and the sun warm, Lali in her cabin below was minded to song. The thin note of her guitar seemed to come from the water itself, and the voice of the girl rose clearly to the listening men.
It was a love song of Persia, wild and plaintive. Hearing it, the man who had been sounding the drum to time the stroke of the oars, ceased his efforts, and the Cossacks who had been washing out their wounds with salt water, lifted their heads.
The rush of water and the creaking of the oars did not drown the voice of Lali. The song deepened, sounding the ring of weapons, the thudding of horses’ hoofs, and mellowed to a note of grief, dwindling so that long after she had ceased the warriors strained their ears to catch her voice.
The eyes of the ataman, Demid, sweeping the stretch of gray water, were moody. He was thinking of the steppe, the homeland of the Cossacks, and of another voice. So Ileana, the granddaughter of Rurik had sung to him when he was weary.
Michael, who alone of the ship’s company had known nothing of Lali, gripped his oar hard.
“Medea! Child of Ætes, and mistress of the black arts! By the blessed saints, what other woman aboard this vessel would have a song in her heart?”
The whim seized him again. Here were the Argonauts and he was one of them. They were in search of the Golden Fleece. He wondered what they would find.
“In the name of the Horned One!” The harsh voice of Balaban bellowed at him. “Would you drive us upon the rocks?”
Glancing over the rail, Michael thrust on the sweep, straightening the galley on its course. The drum resumed its beat, but the older Cossacks shook their heads sagely. This singing girl to them was an omen of evil fortune.
During the next week their uneasiness grew. While Balaban was clearly heading south by southeast—between the signs of Sirocco and Levant on the ancient compass—they raised land continually on the port bow. When they should have been, to the best of their knowledge, out in the open sea, they encountered numerous sails passing along the bare headlands of this strange coast.
The aspect of it was not familiar to Ayub, but Balaban, after questioning some of the Genoese, announced that they were passing along the peninsular of the Krim Tatars.[1] Several of the passing vessels were flying the Turkish colors, but Demid kept his distance from them, and no effort was made to speak the galley. He made several attempts to find water along the coast, and was at last successful.
This replenished the water-butts, and Balaban assured them that only some seventy leagues remained to be covered, across the main sea. Ostrog pointed to the sunset that evening—a red glow, centered in drifting cloud banks.
“A wind on the morrow,” he said to Balaban.
“Aye, wind.”
“Surely we must put in to shore and drop anchor.”
“Nay, the Falcon will not.” Balaban shrugged.
“A falcon is at home on the land; he is not a gull. Bah!”
Oaths flowed from the thick lips of the seaman.
“Aye, pray if you will. It is the hour of the namaz gar, the evening prayer.”
Balaban pointed to the rows of Moslem warriors who were kneeling, facing the East, and going through the motions of washing.
“The wench brings us ill fortune.”
“What will be, will be. My luck still holds.”
The Levantine gave the order to pull away from the lee shore. Two men were sent up the mast to the spar, and the great triangular sail loosed its folds for the first time. But Balaban did not yet make fast the lower corner, to which the sheet was attached.
CLOUDS rose higher against the stars. The glow of a lanthorn fell on the bronze disc of the compass, over which, in the shadows, Demid stood. The surface of the waters was dull and oily, and the galley rolled, so that the Cossacks could not sleep.
Still the oars creaked, as exhausted men pulled in time to the monotone of the drum. It was hard work, for the swells were running strong, but the slaves knew the danger of a lee shore. From time to time a cold breath of air came from the northwest.
“The sea is restless” muttered the Cossacks.
“Soon it will begin to prance and then you will know sorrow,” spoke up Ayub from the darkness.
Suddenly the sail snapped, as if a giant had cracked invisible fingers. The stays hummed, and the galley leaned to port, ceasing its rolling. Balaban had made the sheet fast.
“Lash the oars with the blades aft!” he shouted.
The slaves, expecting this command, hastened to obey, and shouted with relief when the two banks of oars were secured and their labor at an end.
The bonanza had ceased and the wind had come. The galley, deep of keel and slender of beam, rushed ahead through the darkness like a fish-hawk, skimming the surface of the waters, ready to rise into the air.
By the next evening the wind had risen to a gale. Balaban, glancing to the north with the last of the light, ordered the oars inboard and lashed to the rail. White gleamed on the crest of the swells, and a roaring was in the air. Foam flecked the faces of the men and spray, dashed up by the prow, drenched the chilled bodies of the rowers, stretched on their benches.
“It is a maestro wind,” explained Ostrog wisely. “For two days it will lash us. Slay the horses while there is time.”
But the Cossacks would not do that. The ponies staggered against the dip of the vessel and jerked at their halters. One screamed, and another, plunging, broke its halter. The men nearest the frantic animals began to barricade themselves behind piled-up benches.
Balaban and Ayub took one of the steering sweeps, Ostrog and Michael held to the other. A dull creaking began in the depth of the galley, and before the third watch the sail ripped loose from its sheet. Snapping and lurching, it whipped forward from the slanting spar. But the braces held.
The mishap to the sail brought about what the seamen on El Riman had been dreading—the stampede of the ponies. Rearing on each other, and crashing against the rail, half of them were loose in a moment. Demid, running to the break in the poop saw what had happened and went down with Togrukh and a half-dozen Cossacks. They climbed over the barricade of benches, and worked in among the horses, half swept from their feet when a roller came over the windward rail.
Several of the beasts were lost in this wave, borne over the side. Cursing and straining every muscle, the Cossacks worked to get the rest in hand. To add to the confusion on the galley many of the long oars had broken from their lashings. These had to be secured, and the heads of the ponies bound in sacks. With their heads muffled the beasts quieted somewhat, but the gray light of morning revealed the Cossacks still among them, silent and blue with cold.
They were driving ahead in high seas, the tatters of the sail on the spar serving to keep the prow of the galley steady. Rain, in gusts, lashed them, and the whine of the wind sank to a moan.
From the depth of the galley came again the song of Lali, barely to be heard, fitful as the cry of a ghil of the waste. The Cossacks crossed themselves. One of their mates had been washed from the waist and another lay crippled among the horses.
LATE the next afternoon they sighted a Moslem war-galley. Only a mild swell was running, and for some time they had been drawing in to a new shore.
An irregular coast, with jutting head lands and dense forests first appeared and, later, the white walls of houses and the cupolas and minarets of mosques. They had not observed the town until they rounded a long point and found themselves almost in the mouth of a narrow harbor where a score of carracks and galleys had assembled to ride out the storm.
Balaban perhaps, could have told them what they would come upon, but he kept his own counsel, and Demid, after a glance into the bay, gave order to row on, without haste. He made out the ramparts of a fort, and noticed that one of the galleys had its anchor up.
They had no choice but to try to steal past, trusting that no one would think it worth while to send after them.
Sight of a half-dismantled Algerine galley passing the port without putting in proved to be too much for the curiosity of the commander of the war-vessel, and the Cossacks saw its prow appear around the headland before they were two miles distant. Presently smoke puffed from a port in the foredeck of the pursuer, and Ayub swore under his breath.
“Yonder serpent of the seas carries half a dozen barkers, and four-score warriors. Demid, kunak, we must put spurs to El Riman, and outstrip the dogs, or they will pound us with iron balls and sprinkle us with arrows.”
“Aye,” assented Balaban, “nor can you close with them, for the war-galley is handier and by the way the oars dip, the rowers are fresh.”
Demid nodded, observing everything with care, as was his jyay when matters went ill. His own rowers were tired after the two days’ battle with the storm; water had seeped into the hull of El Riman and the galley moved sluggishly. The Moslem craft was covering two spans to their one, and in an hour they would be overtaken. Never before now had he been called upon to defend a galley and his mind misgave him, as to what should be done.
“What is our best course?” he asked Balaban, who stood with Ostrog at the steering oars.
“Row on, lash the slaves and gain what time we may. The sun is near to setting, and when darkness falls we may run the galley ashore and shift, each for himself, in the forest.”
“Better,” growled Ayub, who liked this counsel little, “to turn in our tracks and fall on them with our sabers.”
“They are no lack-wits, to be taken so,” the Levantine pointed out. “Rather, they will comb us over with cannon and bows, and your men will die like sheep.”
There was truth in this, and Ayub glanced helplessly at Demid, muttering that their plight was the work of the witch. Had she not summoned up the storm with her song, and had not the tempest made El Riman like a foundered horse, fit only to drop into a ditch and be plucked by kites?
Demid’s keen eyes studied the polished poop of the pursuer, outlined clearly in the setting sun, and the steady beat of the long oars. Now he could hear the measured throbbing of the drum on the Moslem ship—could make out the lateen sail clewed up skilfully. Every warrior except the helms man and the reis was stretched prone on the deck, to offer less resistance to the air.
“Aye,” Balaban noticed his gaze, “’tis a corsair from Barbary, on cruise in the Black Sea to collect wealth for the Sultan, doubtless. Those know the art of racing a galley. Better for you, if it had been a Turk.”
The commander of the corsair was still in doubt as to El Riman, which flew a Moslem pennant; but the fact that she avoided him made him suspicious; in a few moments he would be able to see the Cossacks, and then all doubt would vanish. The distance between the two galleys had been cut in half.
“Lash the slaves!” Balaban whispered to Demid, who gave the order to Togrukh.
The sergeant had picked up a nagaika, a Cossack whip, and was running to the break in the poop when a shout from Ayub arrested him.
Simultaneously, Balaban and Ostrog had let fall the steering-sweeps, and had sprung to the rail at the stern. Leaping far out, they disappeared into the foaming wake, while the galley, without a hand at the helm, lurched in its course.
“Akh!”
The sergeant, in. whose care the prisoners had been, ran to the rail, plucking out the long pistols from his belt and staring down at the swirling water. When the heads of the swimmers came to view, they were a cable’s length away.
Togrukh steadied his hand and fired at the broad skull of Ostrog, the seaman. No splash in the water followed the report, but Ostrog flinched and sank from sight quietly. Togrukh took the second pistol in his right hand and sighted with care.
The weapon flashed, and this time the bullet struck spray a foot from Balaban’s ear. Togrukh, peering through the smoke, muttered to himself, and came to attention before Demid. The renegades had been in his charge, and, except during the storm, he had not left them unguarded a moment. True, he had an excellent excuse, but among the Cossacks excuses were not in favor.
Demid saw Balaban raise an arm and wave it, in taunt, and then strike out toward the onrushing corsair. The Levantine had taken a desperate chance, that the Moslems would pause to pick him up, for the shore was beyond reach at this point. He was able, however to make some signal that caught the attention of the reis, for the oars were lifted, the galley slowed as its momentum ceased, and a rope was cast to the swimmer who hauled himself to the rail.
Turning, Demid was aware of the sergeant, standing at attention, and realized that Togrukh considering himself at fault, expected a blow from his saber or denunciation before the warriors which to a man of Togrukh’s long service was as bad.
“You had an order, essaul. Go forward with the whip.”
“Then there is no blame, father?”
“No blame to you.”
Togrukh’s eyes brightened and he cracked his whip, glancing around to make certain that the Cossacks had heard. Meanwhile the galley gained speed again, for Ayub and Michael had caught up the steering-sweeps. There was now no seaman on El Riman, and a distant shout from the corsair announced that Balaban had lost no time in making known the identity of the fleeing galley.
He had chosen well the moment to make his hazard, for he would be honored for boldness in escaping from the Nazarenes, as well as for the news he brought. Ayub glared back resentfully.
“That fellow has turned his coat so often, alone knows which is the lining and which the color. May he burn!”
“We have not done with him,” responded Demid. “A barb is in him that will goad him against us.”
“See the Turk reins in, and slows from a gallop to a trot. He seeks to tire out our men at the oars, knowing that we can not hide our trail from him.”
So said Ayub, and in fact the pursuer settled down to a long stroke that kept him about a mile distant. Aware by now of the exact strength of the men he was following and their lack of seamanship, he could afford to choose his own time to attack. El Riman had drawn closer inshore, but the coast was rocky and bare of cover. They searched it with their eyes, rounding a cliff-like headland, but saw no place for a landing.
It was Michael who first noticed that around the headland the shore fell away and the mouth of a river showed. With a cry he swung hard upon his sweep, motioning for Ayub to do the same, and the prow of El Riman entered the shadows between the hills.
The river was not wide, but it was deep and tortuous, between shelving clay banks. No landing place offered, and Demid gave order to cast over anything that would lighten the galley—water-butts, anchor, and such of the stores as were on deck. Some of the warriors walked among the benches thrusting biscuits soaked in wine into the mouths of the rowers, while others saddled the ponies—to the amazement of the slaves—and filled the saddle-bags hastily.
“The saints grant us a place to land,” muttered Ayub, ‘‘before the Turk comes up.”
But by the time they had passed through the range of hills on the coast and were approaching open country darkness had fallen, and the pursuers were within gun-shot. El Riman limped along while Ayub and Michael strained their sight ahead, making out the channel by the break in the trees that lined each bank.
So the race had been lost, and they were forced to listen to the mocking shouts of the pursuers who were clearly to be seen under lighted flares and torches, set in place on the corsair’s rail.
“They are taking their daggers in their teeth, father,” Togrukh pointed out. “They are ready to attack.”
Demid’s indecision vanished at the prospect of action. Making sure that his leaders understood what they were to do, he explained that El Riman must be run to shore —beached, so that one side should be toward the river. Meanwhile Ayub was to issue to the Chrisitan captives the weapons taken from the janizaries, and the starboard rail was to be cut away in one place, to allow the ponies to jump from the deck and make their way ashore. The defense of the poop he entrusted to Togrukh with a dozen of the Cossacks who had arquebuses and pistols.
“Can you beach the galley?” he asked the cavalier quietly.
“I think so, if you will take the other sweep and do as I do.”
Michael leaned forward to peer into the dark lane of the river. Behind them, the corsair was coming up quickly, her beak cutting into the wake of their galley—so swiftly that already the glare of the torches shone on the water. This light enabled Michael to make out a short sand-bar and the glint of rushes along the shore to the right. Where rushes grew he knew the bank must be muddy and low.
“Weigh starboard oars!” he barked, and thrust his back against the steering oar. Demid followed his example.
“Pull, all!” he commanded, moving his sweep over sharply.
El Riman glided in, diagonally, toward the rushes, and Michael, glancing over his shoulder, saw the corsair duplicate the maneuver.
“Weigh, all!”
Once more he leaned his weight on the steering-oar, bringing the drifting galley parallel to the shore, and braced himself for the shock. The beak of El Riman plowed into the mud and sand of the bar, at the same time that the keel grated over rocks and came to rest in the ooze. Slowly the deck inclined a few degrees toward the land, so that the starboard waist was nearly level with the water.
Red flashes rent the darkness and thudding reports deafened the Cossacks who were scrambling to their feet. The corsair had raked the stranded galley with its cannon, and now checked its course. Its ram ripped slanting along the ribs of the galley, splintering the long oars, and bringing the forecastle abreast the poop of the galley.
“Yah Allah!” howled a hundred throats.
The Cossacks answered with a discharge from their firearms, and Demid sprang to the rail as lithe figures swarmed upon it. Togrukh and his men stood shoulder to shoulder with him and sabers rang against simitars.
“Slash, slash!” roared the Cossacks.
Arrows whizzed down from the higher after-castle of the corsair, and Ayub, running aft, saw several of his comrades fall. The big warrior was in a seething rage because the Christian slaves would not touch the weapons he offered them. Aware that the Cossacks were bound to lose in the fight, they sat passively on the rowing benches, choosing for the most part to go back to their lot as slaves rather than be cut down by the Moslems. Some jumped into the water and waded ashore with the ponies who stampeded as soon as the firing began.
Barely half a dozen followed Ayub to the poop. He was met by Demid who had cleared a space on the after deck for the moment, aided by the cavalier. The eyes of the young ataman were dark with excitement, and his lips snarled. The hot blood raced in his veins, and he longed to cast himself back into the thick of his foes and strike with the sword that served him so well, until he could strike no more.
Upon him, however, rested the fate of his men, and a quick glance fore and aft told him the fight was lost, on the galley. The janizaries were shouting and breaking from their bonds in the waist, and behind them scores of bowmen were wading through the rushes from the corsair, to cut them off from the shore.
“To the bank with the horses!” he ordered Ayub. “Hold the shore.”
With that he sprang down into the after cabin and darted to the lattice, sweeping aside the quivering negroes. Here was gloom, relieved only by a flickering lamp—gloom where smoke swirled around the form of Lali, erect beside the couch, and the wailing maid. Since the capture of the galley these two had not met, and now the fine eyes of the girl stared at him tauntingly.
“Come out!” Demid cried.
“Nay, O captain of thieves, shall I flee when dogs are whipped? Said I not the hand of the Sultan would cast you down?”
Demid stepped through the opening in the lattice and grasped at her waist. Lali evaded him deftly, and laughed as he stumbled over the rug. Then his fingers caught her shoulder and she squirmed, beating at his throat and trying to set her teeth in his forearm.
Her veil was torn away and for the first time the young chief looked into the flushed face. The scent of musk was in his nostrils and the breath of the girl warmed his lips. Tears of sheer rage made her dark eyes brilliant as they flew to his, questioningly.
With the flat of his simitar Demid struck Lali in the side, driving the breath from her lungs. An instant she quivered, and her eyes widened, then half closed as he caught her behind the knees with his left arm, throwing her over his shoulder. He could feel the throbbing of her heart against his throat.
Turning back through the lattice, he raced for the steps, expecting to have to hew his way through the throng of Turks upon the poop. But here Togrukh still stood with one of the warriors, back to back. And Michael, who had seen Demid go down into the cabin, was poised over the stair-head, his rapier making play against three simitars, his lean face expressionless as a mask.
Signing to him to follow, Demid made his way down to the waist of the galley, struck the hilt of his sword into the eyes of a foe who was climbing over the wale, and leaped bodily down into the darkness and rushes. He went into water up to his waist, but kept his footing with an effort. Michael splashed beside him.
Arrows whistled overhead, and once Michael went headlong into the shallows, just as the giant form of Ayub loomed up before them.
“This way. We have the horses.”
He pulled the slender Michael bodily after him, and covered Demid with his long broadsword. On firm ground, under a net work of trees a group of Cossacks were rounding up a dozen ponies.
Demid mounted the first that was offered him, and placed Lali before him.
“To saddles!” he commanded, and as he spoke, beheld Togrukh and the old Cossack in the center of a ring of Moslem swords men on the slanting deck of the galley.
The sergeant caught the voice of his leader over the uproar, and lifted his left hand.
“Farewell, father. Tell—of Togrukh”
Demid started in his saddle and tightened his rein. Then, realising that he could not leave his men, who were now about him to go to the sergeant’s aid, he whirled his horse and trotted back into the shadows. Once he glanced back, at a shout from the Moslems and saw Togrukh’s head, the eyes still quivering, stuck upon a spear.
“He had an order to hold the after-deck!”
The thought tortured him, and he drove his spurs into the beast under him in silent fury. The Cossacks, accustomed to finding their way about in darkness seemed to cluster about him by instinct. One spurred forward to seek out an opening in the trees. The rest muttered satisfaction. They were ashore, at a heavy cost, but upon the earth again, with horses under them.
NINE times in ten, a company of soldiers thoroughly thrashed and dispersed in strange country would have scattered helplessly through the forest. The cry, “Each man for himself,” would have meant death for all at the hands of the Moslems.
In fact the warriors from the corsair had kindled torches and were searching the wood in bands, expecting to hunt down the fugitives.
On every hand, however, as the Turks advanced, the cries of beasts arose in the brush. The yelp of a jackal answered the whining snarl of a panther, and, more distant than the rest, the howling of a wolf rose steadily. Here and there the thickets ahead of the searchers were shaken by the rush of a four-footed animal.
But no forest animals were there. The men from the Don were at home in timber, and this was their fashion of calling to each other. Single warriors joined together, evaded the torches and made their way to the howling of the wolf, where Demid had assembled the nucleus of their band.
By the time the animal calls had ceased, some score of men, half of them mounted, had gathered about their ataman in a clearing by a ruined farm, and Demid knew that no more were alive, to come.
He satisfied himself that Lali was living and not much hurt, before he handed over the girl to Michael, whom he had kept at his stirrup during the flight from the beach. Then he called the roll softly and discovered that two of the riders were Christian slaves from the galley—an Armenian and a Syrian who had found themselves horseflesh as promptly and skilfully as a Jew pouched ducats. These he ordered to give their mounts to Cossacks.
Without troubling to learn if his men still had their weapons—a Cossack of the Don is separated from the skin of his body as easily as from his saber—Demid asked a question quietly.
“Have we sword strokes for the who took Togrukh’s head?”
“Aye, father,” spoke up the oldest of the Cossacks—he who wore two shirts and was called Broad Breeches. “We have sword strokes and we are ready. Once our mothers bore us,” he added reflectively, and a trifle indistinctly, for his upper lip and some teeth had been shot away by an arrow.
The dark line of the forest was kindled by oncoming torches, and the main party of the Moslems who had followed the trail of the horses came into sight, loud-voiced and flushed with slaying. They had put to death the unfortunate galley slaves who had decided to await their coming, and were reinforced by the liberated janizaries.
The bowmen, eyes on the trail they were following, ran forward into the clearing, and halted at the sound of hoofs thudding toward them in the dark. They snatched up their bows and loosed arrows hastily, without seeing clearly what was coming upon them.
Rising in their stirrups and striking on each side, the Cossacks broke through the archers and wheeled about among the scattered groups. In the saddle and on open ground they were different men from the dogged crew that had been beaten from the galley, and so the Turks found them.
Wherever a knot of swordsmen still stood together, Ayub galloped, his broadsword whistling over his head, and the massive blade cut into flesh and bone as a sycthe passes through the stalks of wheat. Half seen in the elusive torchlight, the tall riders assumed gigantic proportions in the eyes of the corsair’s warriors who began to flee into the brush, leaving a score of bodies in the clearing.
More torches were coming up, as the bodyguard of the Moslems with their leaders, deployed from the trees. Demid lifted his head and howled, and the Don men wheeled their horses and trotted back in a dozen different directions, so that the Turks could not be sure where they were headed.
Demid, the last to go, circled his horse within arrow shot of the torches, looking for Balaban. He saw the Levantine, but in the center of a mass of swordsmen. He saw, too, something that gave him food for thought.
The Levantine was armed with a silver-edged shield, and a fine simitar and he was directing the array of the Moslems, although officers of the corsair were at hand. It was more than strange that he should have been put in command, almost at once, of men who had not seen him until he was hauled out of the water like a fish.
“Wing me that hawk!” Balaban shouted to his archers, recognizing Demid.
A dozen shafts whistled in the air, and as the first one reached him the young Cossack was seen to cast up his arms and fall back from his saddle. His body slumped over the pony’s rump, until it was held up only by his feet, caught in the stirrups and his knee crooked over the saddle.
His scalp-lock and sword-arm dragged on the ground, as the horse swept past the torches.
“Shoot, O dullards—O dolts fathered by fools! See you not the man has tricked you?” cried Balaban in wrath as the archers held their shafts to watch the Cossack drop to earth.
He gritted his teeth as Demid, out of range, twisted up his body and caught the saddle-horn.
“Allah grant thee to live until I come up with thee again.
A voice answered, out of the darkness, laughingly—
“And thee, also.”
The sharp about-face of the Cossacks slowed up pursuit that night, and when the next day the Turks moved forward from the farm they followed the trail of the horses to a small village. Here was found no living thing, for the inhabitants had fled to the hills and the Cossacks had made off with a dozen head of horse.
By now mounted men were arriving from the nearest castles of the Turks, and couriers were sent to the outlying begs and chieftains with word to gather swordsmen and take up the trail of the infidels.
Before nightfall the pursuit was on in earnest, and the pursuers were confident because on the sky-line, ahead of the Cossacks, uprose the lofty snow slopes of Charkahna, the Mountains of the Wolves, known today as a spur of the Caucasus.
While the levies of the neighboring begs were coming up, separate riders—Turkomans, on picked horses—were sent ahead to gain touch with the fleeing Cossacks. These reported that the unbelievers were changing horses at each village, and were stocking up with provisions as well as grain and dried camel’s flesh for the horses when they should reach the snow line.
Once they passed into the higher altitudes, the fertile hamlets of the fruit and vine growers and rug makers of the shore of the Black Sea were left behind, and the Cossacks headed in a direct line for the nearest break in the barren peaks that rose, like a bulwark of the giants, in their path.
So the outriders reported and there was satisfaction in the camp of the Turks when word came that the Cossacks had entered this gorge. Because, unwittingly, the fugitives had chosen a blind valley. Here the Mountains of the Wolves could be entered, but the gorge ended in an impasse.
Into this cañon the Turks pressed, sounding their nakars—cymbals—and kettledrums—because some of the Turkoman tribesmen believed that the Mountains of the Wolves were inhabited by ghils. By ghils and by other spirits of waste places.
They remembered these things all the more because snow flurries smote them, and bitter winds buffeted them. They pounded the cymbals and smote the drums, until the wind died down and the flurries ceased and they came to the sheer walls of rock on two sides and a frozen waterfall at the end of the ravine. Whereat they yelled aloud in amazement.
The Cossacks were not in the gorge. Several lame ponies huddled together, but not a human being was in the trap. Upon the ground was only the white sheet of new-fallen snow.
The trap had been sprung and the victims had escaped.
It was vain to look for tracks, and the ponies were palpably left behind as useless. The Turks eyed the wall of rock on three sides with misgivings; no ponies could climb the cliff here, and yet the Cossacks were gone.
“Dil i yarana—be of stout hearts, comrades,” they said, one to another. “The ghils have taken the infidels and without doubt we shall behold them of nights. Aye, fire will rush out of their nostrils, as they spur their ponies through the air while the spirits whip them on.”
With this wonder to relate in the villages they hastened back rather more quickly than they came. Only Balaban smiled his wry smile—
“The time is not yet.”
- ↑ The Crimea, on modern maps.