"SEEK I but oblivion for a day," said the wise man, "so shorten I the stature of my soul!" But men have sought oblivion since time immemorial, from many things, more notably against fear. In the year 1220 A.D., fear hung over Islam like a naked sword—fear of the thunder of the hoof beats of the hordes of Genghis Khan, poised like an avalanche in the passes leading down from High Asia.

And men were seeking oblivion, in the Shah's city of Merv, when the first rays of the morning sun came weakly through the arrow slits of the room, high in the north tower of the citadel. It strove with the murky rays of the lamps, even now guttering.

All night the flutes had whispered lasciviously, the zithers strummed and the heady little drum had throbbed forth, while the dancing girls swayed and twisted with a rhythmic jangle of golden bracelets and turquoise studded anklets, keeping time with smooth, ?owing, muscular undulations until men's eyes gleamed. Now the girls were curled up, asleep, exhausted, but the wine still flowed freely, despite the admonitions of the Prophet, for Omar the poet made more wisdom, to the minds of the Governor and his boon companions.

These were awake, save the two delicate-faced and feminine mannered Persian youths from Bokhara, who breathed gently in slumber. The fumes of wine were heavy in the heads of Nas'r, the singer of bawdy songs, and Ferruk, the dissolute son of a holy kaid, and Ayub, whom the dancing girls hated for his cruel hands and his love for the pain they inflicted upon them.

The friend and patron of these boon companions, the magnificently humorous Emir Maudud, Governor, by grace of the Shah Muhammad, of the white walled city of Merv, in the sands, was furnishing fresh sport for them.

It had to do with the ministrations of Maudud's huge, impassive executioner, who squatted by his brazier, with the tools of his craft spread neatly on a square of linen beside him and expertly drew another groan from the writhing lips of the nomad merchant, bound upon the floor. It was a matter of serious business for Maudud, short in his accounts for the tax moneys he was required to turn over to his public master, the Shah, short, as well, in his annual contribution to the coffers of his secret master, the dread Ala ad-Din Muhammad, known to the world at large, including the Crusaders, as the "Sheykh el Jabal," the "Old Man of the Mountains," and the Master of the Assassins.

The nomad merchant, bound upon the floor, were he but properly induced, could go far to make up some of those shortages, for the fellow had sold the cargo of his camel caravan in the bazaars of Merv but had refused to pay more than the lawful tax to the rapacious minions of the Governor.

The legal aspects of the matter bothered Maudud not one whit, for was not the nomad an idolater, an infidel, and thereby outside the laws of Islam? and, moreover, being a nomad, from beyond the Gate, there was always the chance that he might be a spy of that strange nomad chieftain, Genghis Khan, now but a small cloud on the horizon of Islam.

It was typical of Maudud, possessing as he did the culture of his Persian mbther and the cruelty and rapacity of his Seljuk Turk father, that he should quote the golden verses of a Persian poet as he watched the writhings of the nomad.

Nas'r and Ferruk giggled drunkenly as he recited the stately couplets, the merchant moaned in pain and then fainted suddenly, sighing and going limp. Maudud raised annoyed eyebrows and dipped his hands in a bowl of water on which floated rose leaves, wiping them on a square of fine linen.

There came a knocking on the door to the anteroom, and the Governor looked up sharply, wondering at the portent of a message so important as to permit any to dare disturb him at his hours of relaxation, but gave Command to open.

THE narrow door swung back in its deep aperture and the light of a swing lamp in the anteroom cast into Sudden high relief the damascened helmet and silvered coat of mail of a Kankali Turk of the inner guard, his drawn scimitar borne upright, showing that he was on duty. There was, he reported, a messenger with important tidings, who demanded instant admittance, and the sentry waited, his eyes flaring at sight of the sprawled forms of the sleeping dancing girls.

"Admit him!" ordered Maudud. There came then, soft footed dressed in white khalat and red boots, a travel stained young Persian, who showed, half concealed in his hand, a square of greasy Moslem bread. Resting on its surface were two small, crossed sticks. At sight of this, Maudud shook his lassitude from him like a cloak, waved the Seljuk Turk of the Guard out, and went into the anteroom closing the door behind him. Not until they were alone together did the messenger start to speak:

"Peace upon thy house, O most excellent Dawi!¹" whispered the Stranger softly.

1: Prior to the secret order of the Assassins. --Author's Note.

"And upon thee, peace . . ." returned Maudud.

". . . . I am sent by One . . ." said the Persian and then paused.

". . . . aided by God!" Meudud completed the phrase.

". . . . the Master of the World . . ." the Persian continued.

". . . . breaks the Chains of the Law!" Maudud made swift response.

". . . . Salute to his Name!" they intoned together, completing the ritual greeting of the secret sect of the Chosen Ones.

"Thou hast a message for me?" asked Maudud, his fingers curling and uncurling, striving to keep the anxiety from out of his voice.

"An urgent message . . . from Alamut, the castle of the Master . . . he sends word that passing there, in time to reach Merv tomorrow, was a Nazarene knight, with a small force of men-at-arms, that this Nazarene knight is an ambassador that hath been sent to the Khalif of Baghdad by the nomad chieftain calling himself Genghis Khan, and is now returning to report to the nomad Chieftain beyond the Gate. The Master sends thee his greetings and commands, saying that thou wilt halt this Nazarene; and exact from him, by torture if need be, the import of the message he hath carried from Genghis Khan to the Khalif of Baghdad!"

Maudud breathed a sigh of relief—he had been expecting the dread summons to render instantly his overdue contribution to the coffers of the Order—or suffer the consequences, which could be swift and terrible.

"Give, O noble Fedawi, my homage to the Master of the World!" said he, "and tell him that to hear is to obey and that in all things I am his slave!"

"There are yet more of the commands of the Master," said the Fedawi tonelessly. Maudud drew in his breath. "It concerns the mutter of the overdue payment to the treasury of the Order . . ." went on the relentless voice, "the Master bids me tell thee that he hath already suggested to thee the means whereby that contribution can be met and surpassed. . . ."

"I know, I know . . . the seizure of the wealth of the Sheykh Saleh ibn Khalil . . ." fine beads of sweat broke out on the forehead of the Governor of Merv. Such was the discipline of the Order that the young Fedawi before him might very well be judge—and executioner—and even now the young Persian's hand rested within the folds of his khalat where the two sharp daggers of the Fedawi were invariably carried.

"The matter is more difficult than appears on the surface," Maudud spoke rapidly, "tell the Master that I have striven diligently, first, to locate the treasure, for there is considerable doubt whether the old man has it here in Merv, and secondly, to devise means to take it from the Sheykh without too much outcry being made by the rabble of Merv, for the Sheykh is esteemed as an exceedingly holyman, and noted for his charity to the poor. Also," he added hurriedly as the eyes of the young Persian grew bleak, "there is the matter of complaint being made to the Shah Muhammad, at whose court the Sheykh hath powerful connections . . . a matter which requires some circumspection . . ."

THE young Persian, his face still impassive glanced upward, avoiding Maudud's eyes.

"These things have already been considered by the Master," he stated coldly. "As to the matter of the location of the treasure, he reminds thee that some slight activity of thy torturer could extract this knowledge; as to the rabble of Merv, the Master bids thee depend upon thy force of soldiery to keep it in order; and as for the matter of any possible outcry at the Shah's court, the Master bids me remind thee that Timur al Molok, the Shah's Wazir, is a Dawi-el-kirbal (a Grand Prior), one of the three men of power in the Order, and can be depended upon to forestall any trouble from the Shah's court . . ."

Maudud nodded, moodily, staring at the rug at his feet. The young Persian went on:

"The Master commands me to tell thee that he expects his orders to be carried out in regard to the Sheykh and his wealth before the setting of the new moon of Shawwul, ten days hence . . ." and without further word, the Fedawi turned and was gone, silent and soft footed as he had come.

"Insh' Allah! but they set me hard tasks!" Maudud muttered gloomily in his beard, and then, after some reflection, sent for his major-domo, and ordered that his retinue be moved to his country house, a few hours' ride from the city, and on the road on which the Nazarene knight would appear enroute to Merv.

For it had occurred to Maudud that the seizure of an ambassador was also a serious business and might better be done away from the many prying eyes and wagging tongues of the city.

CHAPTER II

FAR to the south stretched the Black Sands of the Kara-Kum desert, and nestling on its edge, not three hours from the Shah's walled city of Merv, was the tiny village of Karun, in whose inn men also sought oblivion this night. The more respectable of the villagers, Persian artificers, for the most part, from Ispahan, had long since gone to sleep, but light shone from the village tavern, a red gleam of fire from the brazier that underwent intermittent eclipse as the ample form of the Armenian innkeeper revolved about it bent on his tasks.

An ox hide had been laid on the rugs and upon it there were placed such delicacies as roasted almonds, which supported and flanked white cheese and bread and skewers of kebab, mutton roasted with laurel leaves, but crowning the feast were the baggalis, the glass flasks of brandy, flasks designedly flat, thereby enabling a true believer, mindful of the behests of the Prophet, to hide them under arm and carry them home without exciting the vulgar curiosity of the rabble.

The innkeeper even brought out candles, impelled thereto by the gold dirhem carelessly thrown to him by young Ghulam-Hosain, a personage not ordinarily given to the throwing about of gold dirhems, let alone their lawful possession. In fact up to this evening, the young louti, or brave, had been far more noticeable for the avidity with which he shared the bounty of others than for any largesse of his own. Sharing that largesse were two of his boon companions, swaggering young bravos like himself; also a mullah, of the kind not favorably regarded by the more devout clergy, who could be, with the proper inspiration, induced to issue marriage licenses for a period of twenty-four hours or less; plus two Kurdish tribesmen of evil mien; also a ferrash-bashi, a head servant of the Governor of Merv, the Emir Maudud, and therefore a man of high standing in the community, and lastly, a stranger to the village, but not, as was evident a stranger to young Ghulam-Hosain, a high cheek boned, boney faced nomad out of the North, from above the Sungarian Gate, whence from time immemorial hordes of his nomad ancestors had descended to erupt on the plains.

They had eaten and drunk quietly, and the talk was polite and lofty in tone as was to be expected from such distinguished company, save for one of the Kurds who sang sad songs through his nose.

It was the ferrash-bashi who had broken the momentous news.

"Excellencies, since my eyes are gladdened by beholding so many illustrious faces, I feel impelled to impart to you a secret known only to myself and the head steward . . ." here he paused and looked around the assemblage.

"The magnificence of Your Excellency's condescension fills me with transports of wonder!" exclaimed one of the camel men, dreamy eyed.

"May Allah requite you for your indulgence!" returned the ferrash-bashi somewhat acidly, "know you, then, that my illustrious master, the Emir Maudud, the Governor of Merv, upon whose name be praise, arrives today for a sojourn of several days, to rest and recuperate in his country house from the cares of state."

"Ma sha' Allah! Can this be true!" appropriate interjections of wonder went up from the assembled guests, all except Ghulam-Hosain, who assumed a supercilious air. The innkeeper beamed and added two more baggalis to replace the emptied ones, rubbing his hands at thought of the trade which would be brought by the large entourage of the Governor.

"May Allah punish me if I deviate a hair's breadth from the truth!" continued the ferrash-bashi, "he comes with his favorite wife Zobeide, with musicians and dancers to entertain his officers and guests, and our silent residence will resound once more with merriment and feasting. . . ."

YOUNG Ghulam-Hosain had the effrontery to interrupt at this point. "Yes, Your Highness, granted all that, but it will be the village who pays for it . . ." he stated arrogantly. The eyes of the assemblage, all save those of the nomad from beyond the Gate, turned on him in astonishment. The ferrash-bashi gasped, and stared haughtily at the forward youth.

"The wisdom of a young man is like a bird without a nest!" the jerrash-bashi stated. "The small tax my master exacts from the village protects it from the grasping hand of the Governor of the Province . . . and even that is more than repaid to the village in purchase of food, fruit, and provender for man and beast when he honors us with his presence at the Great House."

"The illustrious ferrash-bashi speaks truly," interposed the mullah placatingly, remembering his duty both to distant higher authority and to present host, "we could have a much worse master than his magnificence, the Governor of Merv, upon whose name be praise!"

"New masters are what we need!" Ghulam-Hosain retorted loudly, "Men who will let us be our own masters . . . men like those in the country of my friend Tuyuk the Torgut here, where everything is held in common, horses, women, weapons, money, and everyone shares alike and no man goes without . . ."

The ferrash-bashi was plainly scandalized to the point of stunned silence. It was the mullah who again attempted to pour oil on the troubled waters, one eye on the unfinished kebab and, the bottles, foreseeing a quarrel that would inevitably end in the ejection of all by the innkeeper and the ending of the feasting. He spoke in measured tones as befitted his calling:

"It is, of course, well known that all empires are ruled by thorough rascals," admitted the mullah. "To kill them all would be but simple justice but to what avail? Worse rascals would succeed them. Glory be to God, who for reasons beyond our comprehension hath ordained that the wicked and the stupid should rule the world. "But," he added, "this is a matter wherein we of this village are blessed above all other people in that we have a kind patron such as your illustrious master," he turned to the ferrash-bashi who had by this time recovered power of speech, but also looked upon the unfinished meats and drinks and considered his reply carefully:

"The words of your Holiness are illumined with singular truth," he inclined his head to the mullah, "and while your friend, O Ghulam-Hosain, from beyond the Gate, may find happiness in sharing and sharing alike with all, it should be asked . . . what has he to share? a tent, and a horse and a goatskin? It is easy to share and share alike when two beggars have but a crust between them . . . but I ask you, who among us would be willing to share his women with all and sundry?" he looked triumphantly about the circle. This was a staggering thought, which cast each and everyone into deep silence save one of the camel men, who put his head upon his hands and wept bitterly at the very thought.

The ferrash-bashi let this grave idea sink in before he moved to switch the conversation to less argumentative channels. Placing his finger on his nose, he leaned forward impressively and spoke:

"But before this disquisition by my learned young friend, Ghulam-Hosain, I had other news of singular potency to impart to this noble company." Everyone looked up, except the camel man who still sobbed.

"Know you then, that my illustrious master, the Governor, comes here for more reasons than a simple rest from the cares of state—as a matter of fact he comes here on matters of vast moment. This I had from Jamal, the chief steward, who had it from Mahound, his cousin, the ferrash-bashi of the Governor's household in Merv, who had it from Safed, the Governor's pishkedmet (personal valet), that the Governor, may his name be glorified! comes hero to halt no less a personage than an ambassador from Genghis Khan, returning from a mission to the Khalif of Baghdad!"

"Ma sh'Allah!" men exclaimed, a babble of talk broke out at this news.

"And you say, Excellency, that this ambassador is doomed to be halted by your illustrious master, the Governor?"

"Aye, and mayhap doomed to worse than that!" the ferrash-bashi hinted at vast mystery, and the guests shivered deliciously, at thus being privy to so great an affair of state. The ferrash-bashi waited for the babble a little to subside and then leaned forward, impressively.

"The strange thing," he stated, "concerning this ambassador is the fact that he is no Mongol but a Nazarene knight, born in Al Kuds (Jerusalem), but nevertheless high in the favor of Genghis Khan . . ." but the ferrash-bashi could go no further such was the hubbub of talk that broke forth.

ONLY the nomad from beyond the Gate, Tuyuk the Torgut, maintained his impassive calm, bending however to speak low-voiced to young Ghulam-Hosain, who thereafter paid the score to the innkeeper and departed quietly, with his strange friend, leaving his guests almost unaware of his going.

"But," questioned the ferrash-bashi, privily removing the last bottle of raki from under the questing hand of one of the camel men, and sharing it with the mullah, "the wonder is not where Gholam-Hosain gets his ideas, which have always been tinged with s touch of madness such as only an afflicted of Allah could surpass, but where he got his gold to nay for this feast?"

The same question had been asked by the Young man's parents to whom, like a good son, the young man had given another gold dirhem, which quite obviously had already been spent when he arrived home near daylight.

There he found his worthy parents with the remnants of a bottle of raki and broken meats and sweets before them. His father was enraptured, playing the rebeck, his mother enthusiastically accompanying him on the tambourine, the two of them singing, loudly:

"My true love, like a vine
My heart and soul entwine . . ."

but ended this at last to announce that they were intoxicated with rapture at his return.

"Tell me, my soul! Tell me my darling, whence came this gold that you have so generously given us, tell your mother, my precious!"

Ghulam-Hosain affected an air of world weariness, wiping -his brow as one overburdened with affairs of immense import.

"'That I cannot do, O my Mother!" he announced, "but there is more gold . . . and today I go to Merv on important State business . . . more I cannot tell!"

His father asked no questions but gratefully took the two gold dirhems handed him. His mother looked at him tenderly.

"You will be appointed an atabeg!" she announced with utmost conviction.

"Or the Governor of a Province!" insisted his father.

Ghulam-Hosain thought it not unlikely, but his present task, which had already brought him ten gold dirhems, would yield another ten once he hied himself to Merv, found out the number of Kankali and Seljuk Turks garrisoning that city, made report to a certain one concerning the reputed arrival of the Nazarene ambassador of Genghis Khan, and returned to the village of Karun.

CHAPTER III

A CLUMP of steel clad men, coming along the road that led from Baghdad, rode steadily toward the village of Karun. Herdsmen and villagers stared at them agape, for they were a strange sight on the borders of Persia, being for the most part fair skinned and blue eyed. Their dark, oiled chain mail was stouter and stronger, if less beautifully made than that of Islam, and they wore upon their surcoats the cross of the Nazarenes.

In the column of Nazarene warriors the men-at-arms, as usual, were grumbling. The desert road was long and hot, their steel caps were hung on the saddle bows but the metal links of their chain mail coifs and shirts were hot to the touch and heavy.

"I'd as lief ha' stayed with John o'Brienne at Damietta, and ta'en my chances with the Mamelukes," growled the heavily thewed, black bearded Thomas Little, so named for the size of him, which was prodigious.

". . . to lead another battle of camp followers against the infidels?" inquired Will the Bowman, referring to what time Thomas, after the siege of Damietta on the Nile was surprised by a Moslem sortie in a house outside the city walls and led the six women camp followers successfully against the attackers.

"Le roi des putains!" jibed Pierre, the French man-at-arms, riding on his near side.

"King of the camp followers yourself!" retorted Peter Lacknose, so named because a Moslem scimitar had sheered off that member at the taking of the Tower of the Chains at Damietta, "never yet was a Frenchie who wouldn't rather battle with a bottle of wine and a girl than with the Saracens—I mind me when we finished fighting the Saracens at Damietta we had to fight the Frenchies to get the girls away from them!"

"Forte en la bataille et forte en l'amour, les Francais!" insisted Pierre, serene.

"Ho! . . ." the lank, dour faced Wat o' Lincoln made heavy ribald play on the words and a roar of laughter went up, with even harsh Diccon, the Sergeant-at-Arms, chuckling in his heard, and young Brian de Lacey, the slim esquire of the Sieur Josselin, bending over his saddle bow in laughter.

Baldwin de Berg, the stout knight with the black cross of the order of the Hospitallers embroidered on his wool surcoat, who rode at the left of the Sieur Josselin, turned in the saddle to inquire the cause of the laughter, looking like a great tun of wine but forebore a smile when it was repeated to him, by Jock the Jongleur, Baldwin's own man, it being Baldwin's custom to laugh at no joke save of his own making.

The Sieur Josselin's rather grim young face twitched as he heard the joke and turning in the saddle he called back to Pierre:

"Be of good cheer, Pierre, battle and love, love and battle, it takes prowess in both to make the perfect soldier-'tis a pity we could not combine Wat o' Lincoln and Jock into one such type . . ."

A deep chuckle went up from the men, in this allusion to Wat who had married a virago of a Flemish wife who was reputed to beat him with her slipper on occasion, and to Jock the Jonslour, adept with song and the cooking pots, and a notorious trifler with women but liable to a certain diffidence in putting himself forward where the sword clash rang most loudly.

They learned this what time the Kurdish marauders galloped down upon them on the borders of the Kara Kum, the Black Sands, not two days since. The little Cavalcade looked like easy pickings to the hard faced Kurds, their eyes gleaming with avarice, their yataghans flashing behind their round shields, but the men-at-arms met them with a steady creek and twang of crossbows, the steel quarrels thudding so emphatically into .Kurdish men and horses that the nomads drew back, only to be beset by the Sieur Josselin and the clump of steel-clad men in a grim charge that scattered the interlopers. It was while despatching the wounded, stripping the slain, and recovering the steel quarrels, that Jock had joined them from the sumpter mules. The others had cursed. him heartily but he was in no wise abashed, It was the first time they had seen the knight Baldwin de Berg in action and they forgave Jock much because of the prowess of his master who wrought like a veritable Trojan, smiting the foe with his Danish axe to the tune of his ear splitting battle cry.

THEY also forgave Jock when he took charge of the cooking pots and concocted a savory stew out of their usual, tasteless, plain boiled mutton.

It was Jock who told them of his long captivity, with his master, among the Arabs and their escape at last to wander night and hide by day until they espied the Sieur Josselin de Beaufort's small clump of lances and threw themselves on his mercy and his store of provisioning, electing to cast their lot with him, with little curiosity expressed as to his mission in High Asia.

Sieur Josselin's men themselves knew little of this mission.

For there was dissension in Islam, between the Khalif of Baghdad, still wearing the black veil and the mantle of the Prophet upon him, and the Khalif of Cairo, that Cairo which Mohammedans called "El Kahira," the Guarded. "The Mark of the Beast," said orthodox Moslems, "is upon her," and reviled the Fatimite sect which had its fountain head on the Nile. And here in the west, the Shah Muhammed of Kharesm ruled over ancient Persia and far outer Turkestan, threatening his neighbors to the east. Along the shores of Palestine, the Christian knights held insecure tenure by the grace of the divisions in Islam. And ready to conquer those warring Islamic elements was a power greater than them all, the Mongol Horde, commended by that shrewd warrior, Genghis Khan, who called himself Master of Men and Khe. Khan, Ruler of Rulers.

But the men-at-arms, riding along that dusty road recked little of these affairs. It sufficed for Josselin's men that the young knight was a good leader who cared for man and horse and held them all to account in severe but kindly fashion, and wrought mightily in battle.

"He was the first knight to o'er leap the rampart of the Tower of the Chain at Damietta," explained Thomas Little, "and the first man of all the army up the ladder when Damietta was stormed, clearing the Moslems single handed, out of the gate tower, himself slaying a. score of them, which afterwards the jongleurs made into a song and sang around the campfires. 'Twas for this that King John sent him on this mission, to go to High Asia and solicit the aid of Genghis Khan against the Saracens. And for his sagacity that Genghis Khan sent him as ambassador to the Khalif of Baghdad. . . ."

"He is sober of mien and grim visaged, that young knight of thine," commented Jock the Jongleur.

"And so wouldst be thyself had thine eyes seen as he hath seen, his father, a baron of Jerusalem, treacherously slain by the Turks, and his mother die of sorrow, and himself captured and held for ransom by the Arabs when he was yet a lad. It was in part to seek for the slayers of his father that he accepted this mission, being set upon avenging that slaying when he can find the guilty one."

Jock the Jongleur shook his head forebodingly.

"He would do better to have as little to do with the Turks as ever he can encompass—treacherous devils and their memories are as sharp as their daggers."

"The Sieur Josselin is a fit match for them, be they man or devil," stated Thomas confidently, but broke off as he saw a stir at the head of the little column.

Young Brian de Lacey, the esquire, had ridden upon on the Sieur Josselin's left hand, handing him, in turn, steel helmet with its nasal; the ten foot ash spear with its pennon of the three leopards rampant on a field azure; and lastly, the tall, kite-shaped shield. Jock the Jongleur rode rapidly forward, performing like service for Baldwin de Berg and as rapidly rode to the rear of the sumpter train, while the men-at-arms loosened swords in scabbards, lifted their steel caps from saddle bows and donned them, and took the leather coverings off their crossbows, all eyes Watching ahead.

A white walled village, set in a grove of olives, lay athwart the road some ten minutes' ride ahead. From the village gates there appeared horsemen and in a cloud of dust they rode towards the clump of armed men.

WHILE there was a temporary truce in effect between Islam and the Christian knights of Outremer, and they were free to come and go in each other's domain, and while moreover, the Sieur Josselin had the safe conduct ordinarily credited to an ambassador, there was always possibility of combat in these troubled lands.

The weight of his armor hung lightly upon Josselin de Beaufort despite the heat of the day, for the promise of excitement was like a draught of wine.

Suddenly he sat erect in his saddle and shifted his great sword more easily to hand as the cloud of dust came rapidly nearer, with the glitter of steel showing through it.

"'Ware, Diccon!" he called over his shoulder, "These be armed men galloping toward us!"

Diccon barked a command. The horses of the men-at-arms trotted up on either side of him so that a solid wall of mail-clad men blocked the road.

The dust cloud drifted rapidly nearer and slowed in its progress, beginning to settle, showing the outlines of a dozen strange horsemen. There were at least eight armed Seljuk Turk soldiers, wearing high pointed damascened helmets, coats of silvered chain mail and carrying small round shields. But their scimitars were sheathed and it was an unarmed Persian, clad in rich turban and khalat of lamb's wool who rode forward.

The Persian put up his weaponless hand in token of friendship.

"Peace be unto you, O Nazarene!"

"And unto you, peace!" the knight replied, letting his lance swing back on its elbow loop.

"I come in friendship, O Nazarene!" said the Persian, no less a personage than the ferrash-bashi of Maudud's country household, "bearing a message of good will and greetings to your Excellency from my Master, the illustrious excellency, the Emir Maudud, the most noble governor of his Majesty, the Shah's city of Merv and commander of the garrison. His Excellency prays that you and your men will be his guests in his country house above the village. . . ."

CHAPTER IV

GOOD Diccon rode up alongside his leader to grumble his suspicions as they rode behind the Turks and entered the village. The streets were lined with the villagers, among them Bulbul-Hanum, the mother, and Mustapha, the father of young Ghulam-Hosain, already on his way to Merv to earn his ten gold pieces. Also there was the mullah, the innkeeper and the village kaid, along with veiled women and staring men and children and camel men, muleteers, farm laborers and servants, with the seller of sherbet doing a good business and the fruit seller's stand almost denuded of its wares, so long had the crowd awaited this spectacle.

"Look ye, Sieur Josselin!" grumbled Diccon, the Sergeant-at-Arms, "All Turks be treacherous past all seeming. But especially treacherous devils are these Kankali Turks, while this Emir Maudud is said to be supreme in deviltry and treachery . . . so Jock the Jongleur tells me."

"Which is a good reason for seeing this redoubtable Emir Maudud," returned Josselin, composedly. "Devil he may be, but in any case it is doubtful if even he would dare harm an ambassador."

Diccon dropped back, muttering. This young baron of his was just like his father, undeterred in the face of danger and if he wanted to put his hand in the lion's mouth, Diccon could do no more than bear with it.

They came to an arched gateway, with slender turrets on either side of it, with the usual rabble of beggars about the gates. Three of these came whining up to the young Nazarene knight.

"Alms, for the love of Allah!" they begged.

The Sieur Josselin reached inside his white lamb's wool surtout and drew forth the stout, heavy leather purse. Dangling outside the purse on a leathern cord, was a flat, oblong piece of bronze less than a man's hand in length and scarce three fingers in width. There was a tiger's head, cunningly inlaid in gold set within the bronze, and strange flowing script in an unknown tongue engraved down its length.

The beggars froze at sight of that piece of bronze and grew still.

"Kai!" they breathed, deeply respectful.

The Sieur Josselin threw them some silver coins.

"Ahatou!" he answered, low voiced, scarce moving his lips.

The three beggars immediately became voluble with loud mouthed gratitude, salaaming deeply as the Sieur Josselin rode on. But the three paid little heed to the coins. They drew together, whispering among themselves as the men-at-arms and the sumpter mules passed by and through the gates.

Stables for the horses abutted from the wall of the compound and were reasonably close to the quarters assigned the men, Josselin noted.

Watching his men at their tasks was the inevitable, curious small boy of some eight or ten years, but this one richly dressed, in white cashmere coat and crimson silk trousers, a heavily jeweled belt about his waist, carrying a small jewel handled dagger. He came up confidently, fingering the great sword that hung at Josselin's belt.

"It is too heavy, thy great sword," piped the youngster authoritatively, "none but a djinn could wield such a great clumsy weapon!"

"Say you so, O Father of Wisdom?" returned Josselin banteringly, "watch this then!" and he slipped the long blade from its sheath with a steely whir and swung it easily and lightly about his head, returning it to its sheath without effort, "Dost say new that I am a djinn?"

"Nay, but truly it is marvelous!" the youngster was agape until the esquire, Brian de Lacey, swept him up into the saddle of a yet unsaddled mount, the heavy Artois mare, ridden by Baldwin do Berg, from whence he boy peered down, proud and pleased, and one too happy to be removed from his perch.

"'Tis the eldest son of the Emir," said one of the ferrashe (groom).

WHEN the fodder for the horses, grain and fresh cut grass was laid down by a squad of ferrashe and copper pots of steaming food began to arrive from the Emir's kitchen for the men, Josselin gave a few low voiced instructions to Diccon and then, after washing off the dust of travel, followed the ferrash-bashi with Baldwin de Berg and Brian de Lacey to whore the lights streamed out from the hospitably opened doorway of the Emir's banqueting hall across the compound, whence the sound of lutes and zithers was already filling the night air with harmonious melody.

The music came to sudden pause as his broad shoulders filled the doorway and he stood for a moment, allowing his eyes to grow accustomed to the light east by candles and oil lamps in colored glass, sensing many eyes upon him from around the divans bordered with low tables, heavy with food and drinks.

From the latticed gallery came sounds like the cooing of many doves and Josselin, knowing the customs of Islam from his boyhood, forebore a single glance in that direction, despite the murmurs of admiration and the soft feminine voices "Insh 'a Allah, what shoulders and thighs!" and "Saw you ever such a chest!" and "A veritable Rustem!"

But one among the throng of jeweled and silken khalated men was stepping toward him and he was greeted by his host, the Emir Maudud, lean, with his wolfish face and cold black eyes.

Josselin gravely returned the greetings in the conventional phrases required in Moslem etiquette, confessing to himself, inwardly, that he liked the yellow's eyes not one whit and measuring the distance to the door and the men and weapons that might bar the way.

But there was Wine of Shiraz, and heady raki, of which he drank sparingly, feeling the need upon him to keep his-head clear, and partook of the roast meats and cheeses, the fruits and sweetmeats while the music of rebecks and zithers and flutes throbbed and tinkled and heady little drums droned and pulsed. There came the dancing girls, supple and slim waisted and the flutes kept up a murmured wailing to their slow graceful movements.

The dancing ended of a sudden while Josselin was listening to a half drunken poet at the next table and staring at the two effeminate Persian youths with him, touching their food daintily.

"Largess! Largess!" the girls begged prettily and men threw them coins. Josselin brought forth his leathern purse. One dancing girl of whiter skin and finer features than the others saw that bronze plaque with its golden tiger's head, hanging on its cord. Suddenly she was beside him, her hand outstretched. Josselin gave her some silver.

"Take heed, O Bearer of the Tiger Tablet!" she whispered swiftly, speaking in the soft slurring Green of Byzantium, "Otrar hath fallen and the armies of the Kha Khan move against Bokhara! And the Governor, thy host, plans treachery against thee! Move from under his roof quickly ere harm befall thee and thy men! If thou shouldst win through, remember me, Theodosia, the Byzantine dancer, who lodgeth above the shop of Hussein Ali, the merchant of perfumes, in the Street of the Makers of Perfumes, in Merv!" And then, in a louder voice, speaking in Turki, she cried, "May Allah shower his blessings upon thee for thy bounty, O most noble Lord!"

Then she was gone, whirling again among the other dancing girls to the plaintive notes of the flutes and the heady throbbing drone of the drums.

Josselin considered these tidings as he sat outwardly serene, Otrar, that northern outpost of the Shah's territories, had fallen to Genghis Khan and Bokhara was under siege! Truly the Kha Khan had kept his word, what time the envoys he had sent to the Shah had been treacherously slain by the Shah's Governor of Otrar! And he, Josselin, was in like danger, being an envoy and the guest of another Governor of the Shah. The dancing girl's warning of treachery only confirmed what he had already sensed. Again he measured the distance to the door, a long way against all these guards of the Governor should he have to fight his way out of that place!

It was then that Josselin noted the silence that had descended upon the latticed galleries above, in itself a strange thing, seeing that it passed the bounds of understanding, that women, in a group, could maintain silence for overlong.

GLANCING at the lattice work without seeming to do so, he saw that the lamps that had heretofore illumined it, were now darkened. There were windows high up in the inner wall, however, through which came moonlight casting some four or five dark shadows against the lattice work of the gallery. One of the shadows moved, ever so slightly and Josselin sensed rather than saw, the glint of moonlight on steel. Then he saw for a second, the gleam of lamplight from the banquet hall, upon a tiny point of steel protruding through the lattice work, an arrow point he reasoned swiftly, nor gave any sign that he saw anything amiss. Now why, in the name of God, he asked himself, should the Emir clear the women's gallery of his harem and station, instead, armed men with arrows on string?

But the Emir turned from talk with Nouredin, the captain of his guard, to Josselin, with some talk of the fighting in Egypt and the taking of Damietta.

"In my youth," said the Emir Maudud, "I fought in the forces of the Khalif of Damascus, winning some small renown in battling against the men of your faith."

"Word has reached me of your renown, wert not at the siege of Acre?" asked Josselin, smoothly.

"Aye, that I was, and it was glorious fighting," the Emir looked gratified. The talk turned to Genghis Khan, that disturbing portent in the north, and the rumours that he contemplated a descent upon Islam. Evidently, reasoned Josselin swiftly, word of the fall of Otrar had not reached him. Maudud was contemptuous of the effrontery of this barbarian nomad, daring to pit himself against the armed might of the Shah Muhammad.

"But men say that this nomad chieftain hath already sent an embassy to the king of the Nazarenes at Acre," said the Emir, his voice languid and sounding totally disinterested. But his eyes were watchful as he awaited the reply. I am tired of fencing with this fool, considered Josselin, there is now need for quick heaving of him into the pit he has dug for me. But aloud he said:

"There are many ambassadors coming and going to King John at Acre," he said, his voice guiltless, "but Whether Genghis Khan hath sent one I do not recall."

The small son of the Emir came into the hall, brave in his white cashmere coat and red silk trousers, to watch some jugglers performing and to munch some sweetmeats taken privily from the nearest table by the door. The jugglers finished and were given back-sheesh and were succeeded by at poet who recited his verses. This bored the young son of the Emir and he departed again into the courtyard, munching cakes sweetened with honey.

Josselin occasionally darted a glance up at the balcony where the shadows of armed bowmen stood grimly watchful and waiting. There was a queer singing elation possessing him, part of the inheritance, perhaps from his Irish mother, which made imminent danger affect him as wine affects some, sharpening rather than dulling the faculties and leading to the taking of seemingly wild but calculated risks.

IT was the entrance of the wrestlers which gave him his lead.

They struggled after the fashion of the Moslem wrestlers, slowly and making more use of weight than of skill. Waiting until the Emir's eye was upon him, he shrugged his shoulders and turned from the spectacle, as though bored with the sight.

"Our wrestlers do not amuse thee?" asked the Emir.

"Oh, they are good enough, in their way," admitted Josselin indifferently.

"They are not, in thy mind, skilled as the wrestlers of the Nazarenes?" The Emir was taking the bait most marvellously, reflected Josselin. His own problem, as he saw it was to get down the length of that long banquet hall without exciting suspicion, near the door, and away from the menace of those steel tipped arrows above him. Baldwin de Berg was already near the door, where he had seated himself near -the greatest roast of mutton he could find. There remained Brian de Lacey seated next him, on his right, He spoke low voiced to young Brian whose eyes betrayed sudden surprise but were quickly veiled, and then turned to the Emir again.

"I was asking my esquire his opinion, it is the same as mine, that the Moslem wrestlers lack swiftness and skill."

"Nay, that cannot be, O Nazarene, tho wrestlers of Islam are renowned for their skill. . . ."

"Against the wrestlers of Islam," interrupted Josselin, "hast ever seen one pitted against one of ours? Methinks any ordinary man could down one of these . . ." he pointed to the men heaving and grunting on the floor.

"Or one of our champions?" asked the Emir, softly.

"Or one of your champions, even I," Josselin was bland, "even I, perhaps could last a round or two, until a better man, among my soldiers could prove the point," and waited, tense inwardly but outwardly calm, for the bait to be swallowed. The Emir was thinking, outwardly and visibly, his hand Pressed to his brow, as is the custom of many Asiatics. He glanced aloft at the gallery above them, and then to a ring on his finger, a great carved amethyst, set in gold. It was upon the Emir's left hand and Josselin, seated at his right, had not noted it before. The Emir took the ring off and placed it in the palm of his hand. Josselin gazing upon it, had all he could do to repress a start, but sat tense and silent for a space.

"A most beautiful ring," he announced finally, "of the finest Byzantine craftmanship . . . may I ask how it came into thy possession, O Emir?" and waited, silent for the answer.

"I had it of the illustrious Timur al Molok who won it fighting against the men of thy faith after Acre. Timur al Molok is now Wazir of the Shah Muhammad, upon whose name be praise! Against it, as wager, I risked two slaves, two very pretty dancing boys of Damascus who found favor in tlle eyes of Timur, but praise be to Allah, my horse won the course against his on the desert outside Kerak. Once more will I risk it in wager . . . a wager that neither thee nor any of thy men can down my champion wrestler. . . ."

"And as wager against it?"

"If dost not win, that thou, O Nazarene, and thy men, remain as my guests, pledged to my service, for one year from this day. . . ."

Josselin's eyes widened. So that was the catch! His mind probed swiftly at reason for this strange penalty. It was not clear to him, therefore dangerous.

"Methinks, O Emir, that thou esteemest but lightly the worth of two Nazarene knights and my men against yon pretty bauble. Let us rather wager like against like," his tone was haughty and offended, showing just the proper degree of pride to create an impression in the mind of a Turk, belonging to a race full of quick pride. The Emir was quick to see wherein he had offended. His eyes flickered in telltale fashion to that gallery above and it was clear to Josselin that wager or no wager it was not Maudud's plan to have him leave that place alive.

But the Emir's voice was smooth.

"I crave pardon, O Nazarene, it was my desire to have goodly company constrained to remain with me that outran discretion and the weighing of values . . . let it be yon ring of thine against mine."

"So be it," Josselin glanced at his own ring, the heavy gold ring set with a single sapphire that had been his grandsire's, and nodded.

The Emir clapped his hands. There came softly, out of the shadows under the balcony, a great hulk of a man, a Stamboul wrestler, clad only in leather loin cloth and quivering with flesh.

"The wager is that either I or one of my men shall down him," Josselin announced, swiftly, "I will send now for one of my wrestlers, more skilled than I . . . although," he caught the gleam of a smile on the Emir's face, "it is my right to engage this mountain of flesh first. And he spoke to Brian de Lacey who departed on his errand.

A STILLNESS fell upon the banquet hall as Josselin rose and the Emir announced the wager. The Nazarene knight strode around the table.

"You will not remove heavy sword and hampering coat of mail?" asked Maudud, eyebrows raised, astonished.

"There is no need!" Josselin made answer, and strode quietly to the center of the hall.

A murmur went up from the divans at the contrast between these two, the hulking bulk of the Stamboul wrestler outweighing the tall but slim Nazarene knight nearly two-to-one, and it was in this wise that the bets were made around the hall against Josselin's chances of victory.

The great Moslem wrestler crouched, ready and waiting. Josselin circled him once, and then moved back, toward the doorway and down the hall, the Moslem wrestler following, growing more confident, shuffling his great bare feet, his great arms, the thickness of an ordinary man's thighs, beginning to creep forward, his hands hooked.

When he had drawn his man some two-thirds the distance down the hall, Josselin began to pace lightly, moving swiftly to the right and left, with knees crooked and hands advanced.

There came a look of indecision in the Moslem wrestler's eyes. Then Josselin, with a sudden dash, so swift and hawklike that the eye could scare follow it, flew in upon his man and locked knee and arm, throwing his full weight against his huge antagonist. Between men of equal weight the sudden attack and swift propelment of muscle would have meant a certain fall, but the Moslem wrestler tore him off as one would tear off a hampering cloak, striving to hold him in the grasp of those mighty hands. A shout went up from the crowded room and the Emir Maudud's eyes glowed. Then silence came once more as they watched Josselin slip adroitly out of the greet bear trap before ever it could close.

The shout encouraged the Moslem to take the offensive. He sprang after Josselin, with a deep bull-throated roar.

It was the very thing for which Josselin had striven. He laughed.

Then he side-stepped the bull-like rush. The knight's hand came out like a quick darting snake and caught the wrist of the Stamboul wrestler. Josselin's right foot locked swiftly around the thick ankle of the Moslem. He gave a sudden tug and his half-naked antagonist pitched forward on his face like some huge sea beast flung helpless upon the sands of the seashore, and lay, silent and still, completely out.

"Bismallah!" the muttered word went around the crowded tables, astonishment on every face save that of the Emir. His eyes grew hot with anger.

BUT he was not lacking in alternatives. He started to raise his hand. Above him sections of lattice swung outward, disclosing half a dozen Kankali Turk archers, their arrows on string. Another signal and they would have loosed them on the Nazarene knight.

"Nay, Maudud, thou father of treachery!" Josselin's voice carried such ring and power of conviction that the Emir, puzzled, halted his signal in mid air.

"Look well, O Maudud, before loosing more treachery . . ." Josselin's voice went on, and he stepped aside, disclosing in the open doorway behind him, three of his mailed men-at-arms' steel quarrels set in their crossbows. They were under the gallery where the Turkish arrows could not reach them and their weapons were aimed at Maudud. The Emir paled and sat silent for a space, then made signal to Nouredin, his captain of the guard, who stepped a pace backward, preparatory to leaving the banquet hall. Baldwin de Berg, his mouth full of sweetmeats, moved disconsolately to join Josselin.

"Nay, . . ." Josselin's voice came again, impatient, "make no move against my men at the stables. They hold thy young son hostage against thy treachery. . . ." Maudud paled to a greenish hue, sweating for fear of harm that might befall his only son. He sat still and silent. One could have heard the dropping of a feather in that banquet hall so still it grew.

"Now, I have fairly won the wager and thine amethyst ring is mine . . . send it to my hand, O Maudud, and add no more chicanery to thy violation of the hospitality of Islam . . ." In this a mutter went up from the hall and black looks were bent upon the hapless Emir, for he had violated the laws of Islam in threatening harm to guests who had eaten his bread and salt.

The Emir slipped the heavy gold ring from his finger and sent it by the hand of a slave who knelt at the feet of the Sieur Josselin de Beaufort, presenting it. Josselin slipped it upon his finger, glancing at the skilled Byzantine engraving upon the amethyst, of the three leopards rampant . . . the armorial bearings of the de Beauforts.

"We depart now, O Maudud, from under thy ill-omened roof, taking with us as hostage thy son. If there be no more treachery nor any pursuit he will be returned to thee unscathed before moonrise tomorrow!" And with that Josselin turned on his heel and with never a backward glance strode through the doorway, followed by Baldwin de Berg and his men-at-arms, good Thomas Little, Wat o' Lincoln, and the saturnine looking Peter Lacknose who could not resist thumbing his nose at the assemblage as he filed out.

"A clever coup—well handled," admitted the fat knight, Baldin de Berg, striding beside Josselin, and then more sadly, "'Twould have been better by far had there been but time to sample that comfit of apricots preserved in honey that was just being served!" and he sighed.

"A murrain upon thee and thy comfits!" Josselin smiled, "but 'twas the manner of coup I like best—wherein one's enemy confounds himself with the measures he hath taken for one's destruction."

"You mean the Turkish wrestler?" asked Baldwin.

"Nay, the Emir Maudud!"

"He meditated thy destruction?" asked Baldwin astounded.

"Had thy mind not been upon the comfits, wouldst have seen the arrow on string in the gallery above," explained Josselin, "now he will be doubly wroth, seeing that he hath been shamed before his guests and seeing, moreover, that there is report that Genghis Khan hath taken Otrar and that his armies are on the march against the Governor's master, the Shah."

"By the Holy Sepulcher . . . there will be blood spilled now!" growled Baldwin, not seeming in the least dismayed at the prospect, "but we will have to tread warily 'til we get away from that evil-eyed Governor—Maudud!"

THEY were in the courtyard, now striding across it, the banquet hall behind them silent, the guests speechless and the music stilled and no man had dared follow, so implacable had been the resolve writ upon the face of the Nazarene knight. The dancing girls had ceased their chatter and sat huddled, whispering, except one, a girl of fairer skin than the others, who slipped out, quietly, unnoted.

At the stables the Sieur Josselin found that, as he had directed, the horses were saddled and the sumpter mules packed and that all was in readiness. Entering the stables to see that there was no piece of gear left behind, he noted above the stable odor, a faint trace of the perfume of attar of roses but gave it little heed, for a voice came to him out of the darkness, the voice of a man, speaking the Mongol tongue.

"Kai!" it gave salutation, in deep respect, "we await thy commands, O lord!"

"Ahatou!" returned Josselin, mechanically, and then "and who mayest thou be and what is the proof of thy loyalty?"

"I am Tuyuk the Torgut, and here is proof, O lord, that I come from Those Whom We Know!" and there was a rustle of silk in the darkness and an Oblong piece of metal was placed in Josselin's hand. It was like his own bronze tablet, save, that, instead of the tiger's head engraved upon it, it carried, as he could well determine by fingering it, the likeness of a falcon's head.

"It is well, then, O Bearer of the Falcon Tablet," acknowledged Josselin, returning the piece of metal, "know ye then that I travel to Him Ye Serve, by way of Bokhara, but before departing on that task I seek one called Timur al Molok, Wazir of the Shah Muhammad and would fain know where he might be found."

"Report hath it that he comes to Merv on the morrow, O lord," returned Tuyuk.

"Now by St. Michael! that is good news!" exclaimed Josselin, in his own tongue, then in Mongol, "Then find us hiding place somewhere near Merv, Tuyuk, for I would see this Timur al Molok before departing to Bokhara."

"It shall be as my lord commands," agreed Tuyuk in the darkness and they moved out to the Waiting group of horsemen.

Again Josselin noted that scent of attar of roses as he approached the door but gave it no heed, his mind being on other matters.

CHAPTER V

THE little clump of spears moved out of the gates of the country house of the Emir Maudud, Governor of Merv, and none dared stay them. For the young son of the Emir rode, joyous, on the saddle bow of Wat o' Lincoln, nor knew that he was hostage for the safe passage of his new found friends.

Tuyuk the Torgut sent with them one of those three beggars, no longer dressed in beggars' rags but in rough wool khalat as befitted a servant. This one was to lead them to suitable hiding place.

The night was far advanced and the Sieur Josselin, his men and animals refreshed, led them swiftly through the darkness at a good sharp trot, the sumpter mules in rear waggling their ears in indignation as they were forced to the gallop to keep up, being encouraged thereto by many stout thwacks from the staves of the three Syrian muleteers. These three, intent upon their tasks, did not note the cloaked figure following them until they mounted after the first halt, when the strange rider drew up beside them, riding along easily on a mettlesome bay mare. The lead muleteer put hand on sword.

"Peace be unto you," came the voice of a woman, "I must on to Merv, and, fearing to ride alone, seek but the protection of thy strength on the road. . . ." There came the clink of coins and the muleteer closed his fist on a handful of silver pieces, "say naught of my presence to the Nazarene, I pray thee! "

". . . and peace be unto you!" exclaimed the muleteer, "it shall be as thou hast wished, O Dispenser of Delights," for what mattered it if a woman rode with them, especially if she paid for the privilege. Allah, who sees all and knows all, surely had put this money in his way, intending that he should have it, reasoned the muleteer.

That the dancing girl, for so he determined her to be, did not leave them when they rode around the walls of Merv and came out on the far side, the muleteer put down to her fear of being alone on the road; also, if the truth be known, he had become bemused by the scent of attar of roses that was wafted to him in the cool air of the night, and hoped for greater reward should he find shelter for her.

Ahead, the man whom Tuyuk had sent as guide rode behind the Sieur Josselin, directing him on the road and bringing them at last, some three hours before dawn, to a white walled village in a grove of poplars, set back of the road that led from Merv to Bokhara. They skirted this, coming at last to a gate set deep within a stone wall.

"It is," said the guide, "the country house of the Sheykh Saleh ibn Khalil, on whose name be praise, now absent in his town house in Merv. The Sheykh, a man of exceeding holiness and good deeds, would give thee shelter were he but here in his absence, his steward, Mustapha, who is my wife's sister's husband's uncle, will gladly shelter thee, seeing especially that thou art in disfavor of the Governor of Merv, may he fry in Gehennal who hates the Sheykh his master as well. I go now to parley with him!"

They waited then, in the darkness hard by the gates of the country place, nor did Josselin note, when they were hidden to enter, that the cloaked rider who had accompanied them, slipped in likewise, riding hidden among the sumpter mules.

They found themselves in a stone paved courtyard wherein a fountain murmured and splashed. Servants, sleepy-eyed but kindly, took their horses and Josselin's men were quartered behind the kitchens, while the Sieur Josselin, Baldwin de Berg and the esquire young Brian, were led into the cool stone rooms of the lower floor of the house, where they were served with golden pomegranates, sweet melons and honey cakes colored with saffron, along with dates and figs and milk from silver pitchers until their hunger was slaked and they were sleepy-eyed.

They were then shown to their chambers, Josselin being led by a slave to a high cool room deep piled with rugs of Bokhara with a great sleeping divan covered with silken coverlets and the slave brought him basins of water in which rose petals floated, and silken sleeping robe and soft slippers of the leather of Damascus.

Laved and refreshed, he stretched out on the soft divan and was almost instantly sunk into soft slumber.

CHAPTER VI

IT STILL lacked an hour of cock crow when he awakened, nor knew that the white cloaked woman who had entered with his train the night before had already departed, unnoted.

His horse was waiting, saddled and by it stood Diccon, the Sergeant-at-arms, to expostulate against his going.

"The place is full of the spies of Maudud, the Governor, my lord," Diccon's seamed face was even more deeply etched with lines of worry, "Thou'lt be gathered up in a trice and put to torture and death . . ."

Baldwin de Berg added his protests.

"Needless sticking of your head into the lion's mouth . . . alone, without even an esquire in that evil city . . . why run the risk?" asked Baldwin.

Josselin busied himself, testing girth and stirrup and comfortable fit of bridle, bit and curb chain, then this rite finished stood while Brian de Lacey placed over his shoulders the great gray khalat, with its hood hiding the chain mail of his coif and steel helmet, and its voluminous folds concealing his great sword. Then, with a lithe and effortless spring, he was in saddle, gathering reins and spreading his cloak about him.

"I go," he explained, "primus, upon my duty, which is to observe this city of Merv, its walls and garrison, the knowledge whereof may stand us in good stead at some not too far distant day, and secundus, to have a look and fix in my memory, if naught more, the face of this Timur al Molok, with whom I have a private score to settle . . . do thou, Baldwin, see that none of our men-at-arms nor servants stray to the village and that none have word of our sojourn here. If I do not return by tomorrow at nightfall, make inquiry concerning me of the shop of the Cathayan seller of silks, hard by the street of the Silversmiths!" and with a wave of farewell, he was gone out of the small rear gate of the garden.

Despite the earliness of the hour, the road, which came from Bokhara, was already crowded with fugitives from that doomed city en route to seek shelter behind the walls of Merv. Theodosia, the Byzantine dancer, had spoken truly, reflected Josselin, as he directed his horse into the press of humanity and of beasts of burden crowding the narrow way.

The road was like a river in flood; men and horses, camels and mules, women in horse litters and camel howdahs swept on, a great fear hanging over them. There were Arabs on slender-legged, desert horses, Jewish merchants in purple shubas with their mule carts, grave hooded desert men on camels, wolfish Turkomans, eyes avid at sight of so much loot so near at hand and strange nomads from beyond the barrens, all pressing on to the shelter of Merv, the Jewel City of the Sands.

Josselin rode on, borne by the current of men and animals, like some tree trunk in a flooded stream, when suddenly there came the blast of a trumpet from far back on the road and men stared behind them to see what it might portend. Then their eyes beheld a rolling cloud of dust and faces about Josselin blanched with fear as the drum beat of innumerable hooves grew steadily louder. Then came a joyful shout as a green banner appeared, the green banner of Islam, and there came the sheen of jeweled head dresses and gold and silver damascened armor. Nearer and nearer came the turmoil and men hastily scrambled off the road, Josselin following and none too soon, for out of the morning mists appeared a veritable torrent of horsemen, in silvered mail and jeweled helmets, with glittering spear points and scimitars, and the ruby and emerald ornaments of emirs and atabegs . . . silken khalats and white turbans, the green banners of Islam and bronze war trumpets, beautiful desert bred horses and lean-faced desert bred men flung by at the gallop. In the center of the array came several squadrons of heavily armed Kankali Turks. On their nearest flank rode a splendid figure gleaming in scarlet and silvered armor. The arrogant figure was a Seljukian Turk, high chested and domineering, wearing a great ruby of Meshed in the clasp that held a snowy aigrette plume in his scarlet silken turban.

Men around Josselin spoke in awed whispers.

"It is the Grand Wazir himself . . . Timur al Molok!" they said.

Josselin stood upright in his stirrups, the better to see as the man came opposite him. There must have been some overmastering quality in the glance which Josselin bent upon the murderer of his father. Either that or some instinct apprised the Turk of some hatred near at hand. Whatever the cause, Timur al Molok's eyes lighted upon the face of the Christian knight, at the very instant that Josselin, in the intensity of his gaze, let the khalat he wore slip open, exposing the sheen of heavy chain mail underneath. For a second the eyes of the two men met and locked. Then the Wazir passed on, leaving Josselin tense and white and shaking at this, his first view of the man whose treachery had made his an orphan.

MORE squadrons of Seljuk Turks thundered by and then the baggage trains and the slaves, even more arrogant than their masters, if that were possible, until finally the empty road was filled again with the fugitives, intent on finishing their journey.

The white walls of Merv came in view. The gates were opened to admit that impressive cavalcade of warriors and as quickly closed again with the rabble of fugitives forced to await the regular hour of entry.

Country carts and mules and loaded camels were already there, carrying store of vegetables and fruits and meats, to the markets, awaiting the opening of the Lion Gate in the dim mists of early dawn. The carters and muleteers and camel drivers stared up to where the bowmen of the watch, arrows on string, kept look-out over the desert from the long, narrow, loopholes above.

Studying the great iron gate, Josselin noted a row of small objects that looked not unlike sun dried melons. It was only in the better light afforded by the rays of the rising sun that he saw them to be severed human heads, their sightless eyes staring unseeing, at the dawn.

It was while awaiting the opening of the gates that he took note of the walls, moving along them, noting the thickness and strength of the crenallated towers, jutting out less than a bow shot length apart, with arrow slits covering the glacis of the curtain walls between them. With the keener vision afforded by the rising sun, he noted, at three bow shot lengths from the Lion Gate, a small postern gate set deeply in under the walls at the base of the third tower from the gate. Curious, he urged his horse nearer.

From somewhere he heard a sudden "Twang" the singing of a bowstring and with the quickness of thought itself, he leaned low on his horse's neck and spurred his mount so that it leaped forward. An arrow whizzed so near him 'hat the wind of its passing fanned his cheek as it went on to bury itself in the ground behind him.

It seemed more discreet to return to the main gate after that exhibition of vigilance and he rode back, keeping safer distance from the walls, to lose himself among the country carts and mules.

As he waited there, there came a chorus of wierd calls from high above and within the walls, from the tall spired minarets that dotted the city, the calls of the iron lunged muezzins, "Allah is Almighty . . . Allah is Almighty . . . Iwltness that there is no other god but Allah . . . I witness that Muhammad is his prophet . . . come to prayer . . . Come to the house of praise. Allah is Almighty . . . Allah is Mighty . . . There is no god but Allah!"

Shortly thereafter the great gates creaked and clanked, slowly opening and coming to rest with a thudding jar. The waiting crowd, to the tune of loud cries and the crack of whips, began to enter, each pausing by the guard of mail-coated bowmen for a quick inspection and the payment of the tax, while a bald-headed scribe, in snuff-colored khalat, made note of each passing man and animal.

Josselin's turn came in due course. He rode up, impassive enough in outward seeming, but strangely tense within. The chief bowman glanced at him indifferently, Josselin paid the copper coin, and the scribe, with scarce an upward glance, noted his passing and the payment of the tax with a brief stroke of his reed pen, nor did Josselin note that the two men whispered together looking after him, as he rode, his horse's hooves' clash re-echoing from the masonry on the great tunnel under the walls, two flaring cressets lighting its gloom.

AT LAST he was out in the crowded rabbit warren of the streets, being careful to take a backward glance, however, observing the two great towers that flanked the gate on the inner side.

So far as he could see, he rode unnoted by the crowd, which thronged the narrow way, ceaselessly flowing underneath the high balconies of the houses on the right and left, latticed balconies that nearly met and touched high above the street. From the babble of the crowd, as he halted at a crowded cross street, he gathered that the Governor of Merv, the Emir Maudud, was expected to arrive within the hour, having cut short his sojourn in his country house. This was not good news . . . the return of all those officers and officials of the Emir's suite, would bring half a hundred pairs of eyes familiar with the appearance and bearing of the Nazarene knight and increase his peril by that much more. But there was naught to do about it, save to find the Street of the Silversmiths, hard by which was the shop of the Cathayan seller of silks to whom he had been directed by Tuyuk the Torgut.

A deepening sense of disquiet was seizing upon him. Too long had he been fighting in a tumultuous land, his good sword and quickness of eye and hand guarding life and limb, to disregard the sixth sense that had been developed thereby.

Beneath the hood of his khalat his eyes sharply ranged over every passing footman and horseman, sweeping up to range over wall, Window, and balcony. It was this last measure that gave him the warning.

For as he entered the Street of the Silversmiths, his eye was caught by the flash of a white silken scarf on the balcony ahead and an answering stirring into life of a group of Seljuk Turk warriors, who came pouring out of an alley ahead, their leader drawing his scimitar and pointing at him with a shouted command.

Josselin drew his horse back on its haunches and swung it about with rein and spur so swiftly as to overturn the stand of a seller of bread and to scatter the brown loaves in the dust of the roadway.

Followed by the execrations of the baker and the ululating howl of the Seljuk Turks, sounding like nothing so much as a pack of wolves in full cry, Josselin, leaning low on his horse's neck, sped his horse through the milling throng about him, scattering everyone in his path.

At the first cross street he turned sharply, his horse slipping on the greasy cobblestones but recovering, as he saw the new group of Seljuks, some ten warriors, barring the way directly ahead. There was no turning back.

With a dry steely whirr, he drew the great sword from beneath his khalat, put spurs to his horse and thundered down upon the flashing scimitars of the waiting Turkish guardsmen.

It was their error to have stood waiting instead of setting their horses in motion against him. For he crashed into them like a thunderbolt, cutting with that great whistling blade, its sharp edge sheering through the flesh and bone of the nearest Turk, to rise again and sweep through shield and shield arm of the second and to knock still a third from the saddle until he was through and beyond the rearing horses and shouting men, unscathed himself save for a slight cut on the cheek from a glancing scimitar, with a few drops of blood spattered on his khalat.

STILL at full gallop, he turned into the next street and then again into the next, seeking to throw off the pursuers in hue and cry behind him. Like a hare pursued by the hounds, he doubled and twisted, finding quieter streets and at the last coming into a broader avenue that, behind high walls, sheltered the houses of the wealthier inhabitants. Down this he reined his horse to a sedate trot, hoping not to arouse the people of this quarters although the noise of the pursuit raged loudly far in rear.

It would be only a matter of minutes until the pursuit caught up with him, he reasoned, and he sought for sanctuary. At the end of this broader street was a high wall with the roof of a great house behind it. Reaching the wall he rode beneath it to where some overhanging poplar trees betokened the presence of an inner garden.

The noise of the pursuit was growing louder. Halting his horse he stood up in the saddle, reaching for the nearest branch, then prodding his horse with a smart blow of his sword scabbard, he swung himself upward as the startled animal, tail and head high, trotted smartly away, affrighted.

CHAPTER VII

THE garden of the Sheykh Saleh ibn Khalil was redolent of the scent of dew-drenched roses this morning. The song birds trilled ecstatically above the pleasant splash and tinkle of the rills and marble fountains. A pet gazelle, the silver bell atinkle on its collar, came bounding over a bed of sweet scented hyacinths to a low marble bench whereon sat, cross-legged in voluminous silken trousers and gold embroidered jacket, a slim maiden of some eighteen summers.

A faint frown creased her white forehead as she studied an illuminated Arabic missal—"The Elucidation of al Farisi"—and plainly got no pleasure from the enforced task, for her eyes wandered from time to time and she made effort to return to her studies, with a sigh.

Her head came up quickly as a pebble dropped on the lip of the marble pool before her. Idly following the little wavelets cast up by its sinking into the pool, she gave no thought as to whence the pebble might have come. But she looked up again from her missal as the soft eyed gazelle, which nosed her silken cushion, suddenly sprang quivering away from her and stared up at the branches of a tree hard by the wall of the garden just behind her. Curious, she half turned, only to have her ears smitten with the sound of the clank of metal and the thud of some heavy form striking the earth.

Startled, she flung her silken veil about the lower half of her face and turned, repressing a faint scream at what she saw.

The branches of the poplar were still agitated as she stared at the tall strange figure of a young man wearing a fashion of clothes and armor she had never seen before. Her fright and amaze were such that she could make no sound but her great eyes took in the picture of a tall, lithely built stranger, carrying a khalat thrown over one shoulder, underneath which was a surtout of white lamb's wool upon which was emblazoned a single red cross. From underneath his steel cap and the steel coif of well-oiled chain mail beneath it, there escaped ringlets of hair that shone reddish gold in the morning sunlight. Even in her fright she noted that he was handsome, with hawklike yet gentle clear-cut features, showing strength in the line of chin and jaw, his skin lighter by far than the swarthy faces of the Turks or the olive tinted skin of the Persians and even lighter than those patricians, the Beni Iskander, those Arab descendants of Alexander the Great, who numbered her father among them. There was a slight cut on the stranger's cheek from which tiny gobs of blood welled forth.

As she continued to stare, her fright lessened as the intruder bowed his head to her in greeting and humility, and she had time to note the great sword he carried, its scabbarded point now resting on the soft earth of the flower bed.

It was not until then that something else obtruded itself upon her ears, a distant clamor and shouting and the piercing note of high-pitched yells, sounds that had nearly been drowned out by the murmur of falling waters in the fountains. At the same instant she noted that the stranger's surcoat had been cut and that there was some dark and sticky substance where his sword hilt entered scabbard.

But his voice fell on her ears, seeming to her wonderfully vibrant and moving her strangely but even more strange was the fact that he was speaking in flawless Arabic:

"I crave pardon for this intrusion," he was saying, "I mean thee no harm, my lady. 'Tis only to seek sanctuary from mine enemies that I so rudely intruded upon thy garden. Wilt thou deign, of your mercy, to show kindness to a stranger who is sore beset?"

Alia, the daughter of the Sheykh Saleh ibn Khalil, had already risen, about her the dignity that became the daughter of an ancient tribe and of a man renowned in Islam for his learning.

"Thou shalt not seek sanctuary in vain," she answered, and Josselin noted that her voice had the same silvery tinkling quality of the falling waters in the garden or of a brook flowing over pebbles, "but it is fair of me to ask who thou art and whence thou earnest."

"My lady, I am the Christian knight Josselin de Beaufort, an ambassador from my king to a ruler of nomad tribes beyond the Gate, wrongfully and discourteously misused by Maudud, the Governor of Merv, and beset by his followers. . ."

"However didst escape from that one!" the girl plainly had no use for Maudud, Josselin reasoned and was encouraged thereby.

"Thanks to a little wit and the sparing use of my good blade, so far I have managed to evade him, but his rabble follow me closely. Hark, even now they clamor at the gates!" the girl clutched hand to throat as she turned her head and listened to the sounds made by the shouting and clamor of many voices coming from beyond the house and the distant gates.

"But they will tear thee to pieces if they come up with thee!" she whispered anxiously, and at the note of concern in her voice the stern face of the young knight relaxed and he nodded.

"Aye, they will that, unless I can find place to hide!" he agreed.

IT WAS probably the first real emergency in her young life, but Alia, daughter of a long line of warriors, rose to the test. She glanced anxiously about the garden, looking for sight of her servants but there were none in view. Rising swiftly, she beckoned to him to follow and turning, fled down a small pathway that wound between rose arbors. The knight strode after her, seeming to carry weight of sword and chain-mail with no effort. At last they came to a small latticed summer house set in the midst of beds of tall herbage which exhaled a rare fragrance. Seeing this small shelter, the Crusader shook his head and halted at the door.

"Nay," he said, "they would seek it out and find me," but she frowned in annoyed fashion and beckoned him within. Inside, a low seat of cool marble extended around the wall, rising up at the end into a wall fountain which sent a trickle of water down into a basin. She stood before this as if undecided a moment, and then stole a glance at the strong face of the Crusader. Seeming to find reassurance in this, she stepped to one side of the fountain, where the outjutting wall tank formed an angle with the wall of the summer house. Here a copper pipe was sunk into the marble. She did something with this. Josselin could not see what it was but the effect was very startling. For the entire tank and fountain swung silently and smoothly out from the wall and disclosed a small arched doorway and some broad flat stone steps that led downwards into the dark. There was the sound of a voice out in the garden and a shout from the direction of the palace-like building at the far end. Josselin did not wait upon his going but stepped down the stairway, bending his tall frame to avoid the low ceiling.

Once he had descended several steps, the light slowly diminished and he found himself in darkness with the entrance closed behind him. He continued down the steps, feeling his way cautiously until he came to level going and found himself in a small, rock walled room. Air came from somewhere but there was no light. His questing hands came into contact with heavy iron bound chests and some few bales, but what these were he could not tell in the dark. All was silent down here and it was cool after his exertions and he sat himself on one of the chests, to await that which should happen, with such patience as he could muster. He was helpless for the nonce, totally at the mercy of the girl. But something steadfast about her gaze comforted him. Odd that she should have gray eyes, he reflected.

IN THE meantime there was much excitement above ground. An officer of the Governors Guard, a swarthy Kankali Turk in khalat of fine wool, conical, steel helmet and gilded coat of mail, was demanding admission to the great gates in front of the house. The swordsman on duty at the gate-sent hurried word to his master, meantime eyeing the raging mob outside at the grilled iron portals with some trepidation. Four more household guards appeared, their broad-bladed scimitars in hand, while the Governor's officer became more and more impatient.

Finally with great dignity, a grave, elderly man clad in flowing silk khalat, his keen eyes questioning but his finely cut features impassive, appeared at the gate.

"What means this rioting and clamor at my doors?" he asked in a firm voice.

"Open in the name of the Governor!" shouted the officer in an excited tone, "open, 'ere I order the gates battered down!"

"Idle words are a hollow drum," returned the older man composedly, "let us not pour the oil of threats upon the fire of anger. What seek ye at my gates?"

"Open the gates then, O Sheykh, in the name of Allah the Destroyer, for I come seeking an Infidel dog who was pursued to thy walls and disappeared therein!"

"Thou shouldst have said so before now, O Hasty One," said the Sheykh, "drive back, then, the rabble with thy soldiers and I will have the gates opened."

"So be it," returned the officer and turning, ordered his men to lay the flat of their scimitars against the backs of the mob. The rabble gave back, howling in fright, as a space was cleared for the gates and the great iron portals were swung open and closed after the officer and his assistants.

"It is in the garden that we should search above all," said the officer, and waved to the guardians of the gate to follow him as he turned towards the entrance to the garden, a small door set within the interior wall.

"But hold a moment!" said the Sheykh, "the garden is used by the women of my house at this hour. Hold until I see that they are within shelter!"

Even an arrogant officer of the Governor's Guard knew better than to force entry to the women's quarters and so he waited while the Sheykh called his major-domo, a huge eunuch, and directed that the garden be cleared of any members of his household. In a few more minutes the eunuch returned, grumbling that all was well and himself opened the small gate, glaring in a none too friendly manner at the swaggering Kankali Turkish officer of the Governor's Guard, as he strode into the garden.

In a few minutes, the officer reappeared, shaking his head.

"Strange," he said, "but the Infidel dog has disappeared! And at least a hundred people saw him lose himself in the direction of thy garden wall," and then he glanced at the house, the huge entrance of which stared at him across the courtyard.

"With thy permission, O Sheykh, I will search the dwelling. Mayhap the dog of an Unbeliever has hidden himself in one of thy chambers."

"As Allah wills!" said the older man, gravely inclining his head, but he motioned the chief eunuch to accompany the officer. This search was longer and it was twenty minutes at least before the Turkish officer returned, frowning and shaking his head.

"It is the will of Allah that I should not find him now," said the Turk, "but I will set a strong guard about the place and no person will be allowed to enter or leave without being scrutinized by my sentinels. And the wrath of the Governor and of the Shah whose power he represents, be upon any man who harbors the Infidel dog!" With this parting threat, he swaggered to the gates and passed through to the outside, where he issued a storm of orders and covered his chagrin at his failure by berating his men. As he stood there, one amongst them led up a stout war horse which was saddled with a plain, high-cantled, high-pommeled saddle and wore a frontlet of steel mesh upon its chest. A heavy battle mace hung from the saddle bow.

"It is the horse of the infidel," called the officer, "have it put in thy stable, O Sheykh, until such time as I send for it," and this matter thus disposed of, the officer continued his placing of a guard about the walls and grounds of the property.

AS FOR the keen-eyed old Sheykh he returned slowly to the portico of his house where he was joined by a younger man clothed in flowing silken robes. There was something foppish about this younger man. His small, black beard was curled and oiled and his hair was pomaded and an odor of perfume came from his person. His face was unusually pale and two exceedingly black eyes stared out of it like the eyes of some unquiet animal.

"Another indignity from Maudud, the Governor," said the younger man with an angry toss of his head, "it is high time, O my uncle, that measures were taken against that dog! I tell thee he is envious of thy wealth and would use any excuse to lay hold upon it. Strike back at him 'ere it be too late!"

"If a dog bites my leg," returned the older man quietly, "does it become my dignity that I in turn should bite the leg of the dog?"

"Wise sayings will not turn aside the arrows of envy," retorted the younger man, "nor will a humble spirit spare thee the wrath of the powerful. I tell thee, O my uncle, that it is wrong to permit this upstart dog to heap indignities upon us."

"What wouldst have me do, O son of my adopted Sister?" asked the Sheykh gently.

"Use thy influence at the Shah's court. Call upon relatives and friends, exert your power to have this Kankali dog put out of office!"

"It may be that thou art right, O son of my adopted sister," returned the older man gently and then in a bland voice and with a quick stabbing side glance at the younger man he went on, smoothly, "but whether I take thy advice or not, I am sensible of the interest shown in my affairs and find it very commendable, thy zeal, as the future husband of Alia, in guarding the wealth which will some day be hers."

The sallow face of the young man flushed darkly but he said naught, abruptly turning on his heel instead and reentering the house.

The sun rose to its zenith and sank. Alia, on pretense of wishing to eat, solitary, in the garden, smuggled food to Josselin in the marble crypt beneath the summer house. Evening came and with it she came again bearing food beneath her cloak and opened the secret wall opening. Josselin came up the steps and they sat above in the darkness. Outside was the tinkle and murmur of falling waters and the rustle of night winds. A low murmur came from beyond the walls where the city rabble still hunted for him, impelled thereto by the price that had been set upon his head. From outside the garden walls came the periodic calls of the Turkish sentries, sworn to capture him on sight. But here, in the cool marble of the summer house was momentary peace, grateful after dust and sweat and fighting.

They talked in whispers, of this and that, of Maudud the Governor and his wickedness and his hatred for her father ". . . and my father is exceedingly wroth because of the shame that Maudud hath put upon him in searching his house and grounds, and," here her voice became grave, "Selim, the son of my father's foster sister, says it is very dangerous for my father, for if Maudud's men should find thee here, Maudud would use it as excuse to throw my father into prison and confiscate all his wealth!"

JOSSELIN paused with a morsel of food half way to his mouth and then slowly placed it back upon the dish.

"Nay, I have been heedless," he stated, "for it is true that I bring much danger upon thy father . . . I had best depart upon the instant!" and he rose, brushing the crumbs from his surtout.

"Nay, nay!" her voice pled with him. "It is impossible. They would tear thee to pieces! Wait until the clamor a little abates, at least, and mayhap the guards will be removed on the morrow."

But as the Koran says so truly, what man can escape his Kismet?

For Selim, the foster nephew of the Sheykh, found his thoughts unsuitable to slumber and walked abroad in the night air, turning toward the coolness of the garden. To his surprise he found the garden gate unlatched. Wondering a little at this neglect, he strolled along the paths, hands behind him and head on chest thinking his thoughts in secret.

Josselin came at last to an end of his repast and quenched his thirst in the clear cold water of the fountain near at hand, returning quickly to that perfumed presence that was but a shadow in the darkness of the summer house. Not yet had he seen her face, naught but her eyes, but the eyes were brave and steadfast and he felt a warm feeling of comradeship for this girl of Islam, herself as slender and finely tempered as a steel blade of Damascus.

The night drew about them like a sable cloak and deepened the pleasant feeling of intimacy between them.

Surprised himself at the breaking down of his usual reserve in talk to women, he found that he was telling her of his wanderings and battles, of his mission to the court of Genghis Khan, that mysterious ruler out of High Asia, a portent of possible invasion.

"And thou dost not fear him, this Genghis Khan?" asked Alia. "I have heard it said that he is the new Scourge of Islam, come to cleanse us of our evil doing. Many of my father's friends say, that he is naught but a barbarian chieftain, swollen with pride of conquest over a few desert maurauders on the Roof of the World, but others say that he is a fiend, incarnate, commanding hordes of blood thirsty and fanatical warriors who are like to rush down from the mountains like a torrent and overwhelm the Shah and all his mighty empire."

"As to that I know not," returned Josselin. "I know only that he is friendly to men of my race and religion and hath before this received embassies and treated them with courtesy. I hope that he . . ."

She interrupted with a warning clutch on his arm.

"S-s-h-h!" she warned tensely. "Hark! Was not that someone stirring without the summer house?"

Silent and with bated breath they listened there in the dark, nor heard any further sound save the soft music of falling waters and the sigh of the night winds in the trees and, afar off, the liquid notes of a nightingale singing his evening hymn to the rose.

"'Twas naught but a falling leaf or some such matter," Josselin gave opinion after a moment or two. Reassured, they continued their whispering, drawn together by the darkness of the night and the thrill of danger that hung over them.

"I have heard the servants and slaves," whispered Alia, "say that the Nazarenes eat little children and commit all manner of excesses, but seeing thee, I cannot believe that," she ended, naively.

"Nay, we are as others," protested Josselin.

He drew both her hands toward him, no doubt with the intention of proving it better. But she slipped her hands out of his, gently but with quiet firmness and drew away from him imperceptibly. There was silence for a moment in the summer house.

THAT silence was broken by the ring of steel against stone. A lantern was suddenly flashed out from beneath a cloak and its rays reflected upon steel and shone back with the glitter of harsh and unfriendly eyes. The summer house was crowded with the sword bearers of the Sheykh's household, at their head the portly chief eunuch, equipped with a huge, broad bladed scimitar.

Josselin de Beaufort's sword had already leaped to his hand and he stood with the girl behind him, her eyes sick with dread.

For a second they stood thus, the opposing swordsmen, and then a querulous, angry but withal triumphant voice came from behind the guards.

"Spoke I not truly, O my Uncle?" it was the voice of Selim, the foster nephew of the Sheykh. "Said I not that she sat here, shameless, alone in the summer house with the infidel dog?"

"Aye, it was truth! " came the weary voice of the Sheykh, and the sword hearers gave aside as he entered the doorway and stood revealed in the lantern's light, white bearded in his silken khalat, in his eyes a great sorrow.

At sight of him, Josselin dropped his sword point to the ground.

"Come ye in friendship or come ye in anger?" asked the knight.

The white bearded Sheykh raised his eyebrows, startled at hearing his own tongue coming from this strange figure in its unfamiliar habiliments.

"I come as a Seeker after Knowledge," returned the Sheykh. "It happens that it is my garden that hath been invaded and that it is my daughter who crouches there behind thee as though needing protection from her own father!"

With a sob, Alia ran to her father and flung herself at his feet, clinging to his knees.

"He was sore beset, O my father!" she cried, "and I did but give him shelter and food."

"Aye, no handsome stranger need fear for lack of food and shelter so long as there are silly girls in the world," returned the old Sheykh dryly. But nevertheless he bent and drew her to her feet, giving her a reassuring pat on the shoulder in all kindness as she clung to him. "And thou, O Stranger, what of thee?"

"Thy daughter has spoken truly," replied Josselin, his bearing high and proud, for he disliked this being caught alone, as at a forbidden tryst with a maiden. "Out of the great goodness of her heart she gave me shelter when I was sore beset and gave me food when I hungered. I would wish that no blame come to her for her gentle courtesy, no matter what evil may be in store for me."

Josselin's voice was grave as he inclined his head toward the girl and then he looked the old Sheykh full in the eye. "Ye have right to question me, and if it be true, as one of thy poets hath said, that one acquires merit by answering the questions of wisdom, then would I answer thy questions in all honesty."

"Where didst learn to speak our tongue with such fluency?" asked the Sheykh, curious.

"While yet a boy I was taken captive and spent five years under the roof of Mahmoud, lord of Hamah at the time, may he rest in peace . . ."

The old Sheykh's eyes kindled but he interposed a swift question.

"Mayhap thou recalleth the name of his head falconer, then . . ." Josselin smiled.

"Gana'im, he who trained al Yashur, the greatest falcon in Islam, and who trained me in the art of falconry . . ." The Sheykh nodded, well pleased.

"I also have followed Al Yashur with my old friend Mahmoud, peace be on his soul. Thou art then the Nazarene boy, whose father was a baron of Al Kuds (Jerusalem) and was treacherously slain by Timur al Molok, now Wazir."

JOSSELIN'S face grew bleak. "I am that one. Today I am an emissary of Genghis Khan but have been harshly used by the Emir Maudud, Governor of Merv, and, hunted like a dog, by his rabble, have sought sanctuary in thy garden. The lady, thy daughter, hath hid me away and brought me food, even as I have said." And Josselin de Beaufort stood very straight and very tall and with no sign of fear upon him. The old Sheykh glanced down at the empty silver dish.

"Ye have eaten my bread and salt, and art in a manner of speaking, the foster son of my dearest friend, who esteemed thee deeply, as I well remember. There is no talk of evil befalling thee while guest under my roof!"

Then, turning to his sword bearers, he commanded them to put away their weapons:

"And let no word of the stranger within our midst go beyond these walls, for if anyone of thee desire to encompass my destruction, he hath only to whisper a word to the Governor's guard at the gate and I am a ruined man!"

"To hear is to obey, O most noble Sheykh!" the sword bearers bowed their heads. The one dissenting voice was that of Selim, the foster nephew of the Sheykh.

"I think it great shame, O my Uncle!" he cried, "that this infidel dog be permitted to remain under thy shelter, risking thy life and property every second that he is within these walls!"

"My life, in any case, hath nearly run its course," returned the Sheykh, "and as for my property it will be disposed of as God wills. In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate, I bid thee welcome, O Nazarene, to my home!"

With that the venerable Sheykh of Islam waved his followers on ahead and with Alia on his arm waited courteously for Josselin de Beaufort to accompany him into the house.

Josselin found his heart touched by this kindly and courteous Moslem, some of which he tried to express as he strode beside him, his sword in sheath upon his arm.

"I had already eaten thy bread and salt before ever coming into thy garden, O Sheykh," he stated and then went on to tell of how he had been led by one he esteemed to be a Mongol agent, to quarter himself and his train of men and animals at the Sheykh's country house outside the walls of Merv.

"Aye, 'tis likely that it was one of the agents of the Mongols who led thee there; I am held in some small esteem by them for my efforts, through the small influence I have at the court of Shah Muhammud, to maintain peace with the Mongols by granting them the little they desire, which is only freedom to trade in the dominions of the Shah . . ."

"So I have heard," nodded Josselin, "but I deem it poor requital of thy hospitality both to me and to my men, to remain longer under thy roof and endanger thy life and goods. Give me but a horse, O Sheykh, and I will cut my way through these guards at the gate and win through to open country."

"Ye speak without knowledge of the difficulties and dangers that beset thee," returned the Sheykh gravely.

"Mayhap it is the will of God that I should suffer misfortune, although I do not believe so, but that gives me no warrant for bringing misfortune upon thee and thine, who have treated me like a very brother and son, so that my heart is nigh to burst with gratitude."

"Rail not at misfortune, my son," advised the Sheykh in kindly fashion. "As the poet hath said, go give thanks that thou ridest not upon a donkey for the moment thou art yet not a donkey upon which men ride."

CHAPTER VIII

SO SAYING they passed into the house by a secret entrance to avoid being seen by any of the Governor's guardsmen at the gates and here the Sheykh bade good night to his daughter. She departed but paused a second by the door, casting a single glance at Josselin, talking with her father and unaware.

Only one person saw the glance and had either the Sheykh or Josselin seen the flash of jealous rage which contorted the face of Selim, the foster nephew, into a thing dreadful to see, they might have found cause for reflection.

But being deep in talk, the two men did not see and scarce indeed noted when Selim excused himself and withdrew from the room.

And while the two talked, discussing the state of Islam and Christendom and the expected arrival of the Emperor Frederick to take over the Crusade, and of the capture of Otrar and the threat of Genghis Khan, poised like a lightning charged cloud above the highlands of Asia, Selim, the nephew, twisting his perfumed beard, walked back and forth among the fluted columns of the entrance hall, his mind a seething mass.

CHAPTER IX

THE Emir Maudud, Governor Merv, was giving a feast this night in his banqueting hall at the citadel of Merv. The guest of honor was no less a personage than His Excellency, Timur al Molok, Wazir of His Majesty, the Shah Muhammad. It was a magnificent feast, with some fifty guests, including the high officers of Maudud's garrison and the atabegs and emirs of Timur al Molok's entourage. The lights of the varicolored lamps glittered on silvered and gilded damascened chain mail, on jewelled sword and dagger hilts, and shone on silk vests and turbans without number. Silver flagons of wine and raki stood at every plate and the music of flutes, zithers, rebecks and drums rose and fell and the talk around the divans behind the low tables rose and fell with it, talk of the attack of Genghis Khan and the taking of Otrar. Men feasted nevertheless.

It should have been a scene to gladden the heart of a host. But Maudud did not look joyous. Timur al Molok sat on his right hand.

The cruel, arrogant face of the Wazir gazed about the assemblage, absently. Only once did his greenish eyes light up and that was when the troupe of dancing boys from Samarkand came out before the tables. They were painted and perfumed, were those boys, and their writhings and posturing were not such as to recommend them to the devout.

But of the devout they were few in that banquet hall. Of the forty or so boon companions of Maudud, most of them Seljuk Turks, there was not one who was not hated by the inhabitants of Merv. For they were oppressors of the people, these Kankali Turks, whom the Shah had seen fit to put in power over the city of Merv.

Once the dancing boys had cleared the floor, Timur al Molok leaned over to his host and spoke low-voiced.

"Touching the matters brought to thy attention by the Fedawi messenger from our Master at Alamut, what progress hath been made?" he asked.

"In the matter of the Nazarene ambassador?" asked Maudud.

". . . and the matter of the Sheykh Saleh ibn Khalil!" Timur added dryly.

Now Timur al Molok was one of the three grand priors of the order of the Assassins, holding the power of life or death over all lesser ranks. Maudud's lips were dry as he made answer.

"May the curse of Allah descend upon that Nazarene knight!" he swore. "Not later than yesternight I had him as a cat holds a mouse, toying with him and his men, my bowmen with arrows on the bowstring ready to overpower him and put him to the torture. . . ."

"And then?" Timur raised his eyebrows.

"He seized my son and held him as hostage and fled with his men, using the form of my little son as shield! Heard you ever of such beastliness?" Timur forbore comment but waited in glacial silence. "And then the fellow hath the temerity to ride alone into Merv, into the face of a trap set for him, and to disappear again after killing two of my men and wounding a third, again escaping my wrath. . . ." Maudud stared moodily at the table before him and then filled his cup with wine and downed it doggedly.

"He must be a djinn so completely to outwit as clever a man as yourself, O Maudud!" Timur's voice was bland, "and to outwit thee not once but twice! Mayhap he is a magician and uses enchantments!" So sunk was Maudud in his dejected thoughts that he missed the irony.

"Nay!" he shook his head, "he is a very devil at stratagems. My men pursued him through the city only to lose him somewhere in the vicinity of the palace of the Sheykh Saleh . . ."

Timur looked up sharply. "Is there aught of chance that the Sheykh Saleh may have harbored him? If so, it may be that thy task will be eased in separating that old bag of bones from his wealth."

"So I thought, so I hoped. The Nazarene's horse was found running loose in the vicinity but after careful search of Saleh's palace and garden by the captain of my guard and his men, not a trace could we find of the Nazarene knight, may he eat the bitter wood of the tree Zaqqum throughout eternity!"

Timur tapped on the table with a delicately manicured finger nail. "It did not occur to thee or thy captain of the guard to—ah—leave some bit of evidence about that would give excuse to seize Saleh?"

"Bismallah!" Maudud placed hand to brow and looked heavenwards, "Fool that I was! I tore with confusion the collar of patience in my anxiety to seize him, and gave no thought to such a. stratagem . . . but perhaps it is not to late even now!" Hope crept into his voice, and turning to a servant he gave order that the captain of the guard should attend him at once.

BUT there was no need of the order. The captain of the guard was even now on his way to his master's side. There was one outside, he reported, who demanded audience with the Governor on important affairs.

"Who is this one who holds before his face the buckler of impudence and dares disturb me at a feast?" Maudud demanded, raising himself angrily.

"It is Selim, Most Noble Governor, the nephew of the Sheykh Saleh ibn Khali1—claiming that he has momentous tidings, for thy private ear, concerning the whereabouts of the Nazarene dog who escaped thy wrath today again!"

And suddenly Maudud's dejection dropped from him as a man's khalat drops from his shoulders and he sat bolt upright, his eyes gleaming.

"And what manner of captain of the guard are ye that he was not brought to me immediately?" he stormed. "Go, dog from a nameless kennel and bring this man immediately!"

Thus it was that the revelers .who were not too bemused by the wine saw the pale face and burning eyes of Selim, the foster nephew of the Sheykh Saleh ibn Khalil, in close proximity to the ear of the Governor of Merv. That worthy listened, his eyes half closed, nodding now and then in deep satisfaction. At last he clapped his hands in signal to the servant and called again for the captain of the guard.

"It shall be as I have said, O Selim," he assured the Sheykh's nephew, "A full third of the treasure and the Sheykh's daughter to thee in marriage."

But Selim noted not that the eyes of the Governor flickered as he spoke and that there was a derisive smile on the l Governor's face as he issued swift orders to the captain of the guard who thereupon silently departed upon his appointed task, the time being half an hour before dawn.

CHAPTER X

MEANWHILE in the luxurious library of the Sheykh's palace Josselin de Beaufort had divested himself of shirt and coif of chain mail and it lay with the steel leg and thigh armor heaped up by his sword and helmet against the divan. He labored under some excitement and no little amazement and disbelief.

"And mine own horse and its housing is stabled here within thy walls?" he asked, incredulous.

"Even so," nodded the Sheykh nibbling on some sugared almonds from a silver platter.

"God and St. Michael!" breathed the knight in his own tongue. "It is a sign from Heaven!"

"I do not understand," remarked the Sheykh politely, and his eyes widened as his guest rose to his feet.

"I said naught," explained Josselin, "save that God hath sent me a sign and a symbol to make me set about my task." And he moved to his weight of weapons and armor.

"Ye would go from here now . . . at once?" the Sheykh was startled. Josselin nodded as he started to array himself in his body armor and to fasten his gilded spurs.

"But it is reckless and impossible beyond all seeming!" protested the Sheykh; "the gates are beset with guards. There would be no winning through them—one man against twenty!"

"But give me my own horse between my knees and my own sword in hand and I will win through hell and back again," said Josselin simply.

The old Sheykh looked at the great frame of the Nazarene knight and the girth of his chest and the breadth of his shoulders and sighed a little wistfully.

"It may be that Allah will grant thee success!" he admitted. "It lacks but a few minutes to midnight and the guards will have relaxed their watch. But ye would leave my roof and ye must carry with thee a gift!" The Sheykh rose to his feet. "While thou art donning thy armor I will bring some small token for thee!"

And with that he was gone, leaving Josselin alone to finish the buckling on of his war harness. He was engaged in putting on the leather baldric that carried his sword sheath when his ear noted a light step behind him and he turned about quickly and his eyes lighted up at sight of Alia.

Her head, with its gray eyes wide above the silken yashmak that covered her face, was held high, like that of a slender, desert-bred horse.

"Thou art departing?" she asked, her voice low, "is not the danger great?"

"I can no longer remain and endanger thee and thy father . . . too much kindness have I had for me to risk harm to thee and thine . . ." he halted lamely, as her eyes sought and held his, something that he could not fathom in their depths.

"But before I depart, I crave one boon, O daughter of Saleh!" he said, gazing at that silk that concealed her features, all save her eyes from his gaze, "I go on my journey afar from here, with many lonely days and nights before me. It would be kind did you let me once behold your face, so that I may carry it on the tablets of my mind, in far journeyings, and keep ever with me, until my dying day, the image of the gracious girl who aided me in my hour of need. Is it asking too much?"

For a space no longer than it might take a feather to eddy from hand to ground did she hesitate, then, with a slight catch in her voice she made answer. "Nay, it is not asking too much," and with a single quick motion she removed the silken scarf and gazed at him, wide eyed and unsmiling, with something questing in her gaze, and a half fear.

Josselin caught his breath and stood silent for a space.

"God and St. Michael!" he whispered and then awkwardly, fumbling for the words, "I am thinking of paintings in the churches at Rome, in Jerusalem and in Bethlehem . . . and the ikons in Byzantium . . . poor and pallid, and lifeless things, it is not among those that I have beheld such loveliness . . . it was on a Greek vase or mayhap a carving in ivory . . . still poor and lifeless things . . . and yet again I bethink me of a slender golden mare . . . desert bred and the treasure of the Nejd . . . save that the mare lacked the beauty of finely carved alabaster, rose tinted, that is thy face. . . ."

The half fear went out of the eyes of the daughter of Saleh and her face crinkled into laughter. "Thou shouldst have been Arab born," she said, "none but an Arab would think of praising a woman by comparing her to a horse!"

"All the same," he said abashed by her laughter, "she was a beautiful thing —that mare, dainty high bred and fleet as the wind of dawn . . ." but there came a step and Alia quickly replaced the scarf about her face.

"Go with God, Sheykh Josselin! she whispered, "We shall always be friends?" again there was that slight catch in her voice.

"Always!" but then the old Sheykh came in, bearing some object wrapped in silk in his hands, nor showed any surprise at seeing his daughter there.

HE HAD gone, moving surprisingly quickly for a man of his years, first past the stables where he had commanded the groom of the night to saddle the Nazarene's horse and bridle it and hold it in readiness. This done, the Sheykh provided himself with a stable lantern and made his way out to the garden, the light concealed under his robe, until he came to the small summer house.

Entering this, he strode to the jutting wall behind the fountain, moved a certain section of copper pipe, swung open the door and descended to the rock walled room beneath. The flickering rays of the lantern disclosed the walls high piled with many cedar chests but the Sheykh paid no heed to these.

He went to a great iron bound chest and with the keys on his belt, undid the outer lock and successively opened two inner covers and drew aside a covering, whereat the light gleamed back from innumerable jeweled facets and the sheen of gold and reflected back from blood-red rubies, and made pearls glow like frozen moonlight and scintillated from sapphires and diamonds. Selecting an object from among these things, the Sheykh carefully relocked the box and returned whence he had come.

Josselin was talking to Alia when her father entered the room.

"Behold!" said the old man and began to unwrap the silk from about the package. Uncovering it at last, the light from the hanging lamp shone blood red on a great Badakshan ruby which graced the hilt of a dagger of fine Damascus steel, its gripe studded with star sapphires and its pommel encrusted with diamonds. It was sheathed in a scabbard of gold and ivory, set with gems, and the whole thing a gift fit for an emperor.

Josselin was astounded at the richness of the thing and demurred strongly at taking away with him a present of such great price in addition to all the kindness he had received.

"It is of little moment," the Sheykh Shrugged the protestations away, "My years are not long in the land and if there is one thing certain in this vale of uncertainty called Life, it is that one cannot take his wealth with him to the hereafter.

"How can the falcon fly to the sky when the stone of avarice is tied to its wing? Take it, my friend, and go, and Allah be with thee . . . here is a woolen khalat that will cover thy great fame . . . wear it and mayhap it will be possible to pass among the guards unobserved, although there is heavy reward on thy head and it is likely they will lust after that."

THE saddled horse was waiting in the shadows of the courtyard, a slave holding its bridle.

"Heed now what I say," advised the Sheykh, "ride straight to the City's western gate. Its guard is less watchful than that of the main gate. Once outside take the road down the river and turn off at the first hamlet and overpass it for so much time as it takes a man to recite the first ten names of Allah and you will come to a little known back road leading to my country house, where are thy men. Remain there throughout the day which is almost upon us. Go, my son, and thank me not. Seldom have I been drawn to a man as I have been to thee!"

"Nor I to thee and thine, O Sheykh," returned Josselin, "so much so that I cannot depart from under the roof of thy country house until I am assured that all is well with thee and that no harm hath befallen thee because of the great kindness thou hast shown to me!"

The servants of the Sheykh had meanwhile brought steaming platters of food to the guards without the gate and enticed them into the gate house where they feasted nor left any man on watch.

Josselin set foot in stirrup and vaulted into the saddle seat from which he bent low, whispering to Alia:

"Farewell, daughter of Saleh, and thank thee for thy kindness and loveliness and may the days be short until again we meet!"

"God be with thee, Sheykh Josselin," she whispered in return, "and keep thee under His care against the day of thy returning!"

The gate opened quietly and Josselin rode forth, feeling it close as silently behind him. Not until then did he hear the trample of hooves near at hand, growing louder as they swept toward him from the direction of the citadel.

CHAPTER XI

SO NEAR as he could determine, the enemy horsemen were still distant, and he swung his horse along under the shadow of the wall. As he passed across the head of that broad avenue by which he had come to the garden of the Sheykh, the trampling of the approaching horsemen grew louder and Josselin sensed that in the darkness they were coming by that route, whereat he sought a smaller street beyond and started to turn into it, when suddenly he reined in his horse. Voices came to him and the clatter of hooves coming rapidly nearer and he sat silent in the darker shadow of the wall, until three or four horsemen, probably a patrol, he reasoned, passed by, unaware and turned in the direction whence he had come.

Dawn was already beginning to pale the East when he arrived at the West Gate, drifting quietly in amongst the carts and mule trains of merchants ready to take the road so soon as the gate was opened a half hour hence.

There came the wild shrill call of the muezzins, the gate slowly opened and press of horsemen and footmen and carts began to push their way through. Josselin, hooded, and with his khalat draped over his saddle housings, came at last to the sleepy bowmen of the guard, who waved him on with scarce a glance. He passed out through the gate, finding that there was a fine sweat gathered on his forehead, and breathed deep of the air of the open country.

From behind him the muezzins reiterated calls to prayer floated down to him from the topmost minaret of the great mosque, hard by the citadel of Merv.

"There is no god but Allah, and Mohammed is his Prophet!" spake the voice of the muezzin, and his words drifted down to an iron bound window set in the wall not twenty paces from the main gate of the Governor's stronghold.

In the dark recesses of the cell behind the barred window, a shadow stirred and a voice murmured the morning devotions, the voice of the Sheykh Salehibn Khalil.

"In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful . . ." whispered the old man as he had made shift to perform his ablutions. Despite the seizure of his person, his family and his property, the old Sheykh was outwardly serene and untroubled.

It was as still and serene and untroubled when, an hour later, there came a clank of steel, the jingle of keys and the tramp of feet in the corridor. The door of his cell was flung open, admitting two guards with drawn scimitars, who stood on either side of the entrance as the form of Maudud, the Governor, entered the door.

"So, my venerable friend, hast become my guest at last!' greeted Maudud, his eyes reddened with the feasting of the night before.

The Sheykh made no reply, regarding his enemy steadfastly. Maudud grew fretful under the calm unimpassioned eyes of the man whom he hated. And then the Sheykh found voice.

"Why hast thou done this to me and mine, O Maudud?" he asked quietly.

"Why! he asks why!" Maudud flung his hands wide and raised his eyes to heaven as if the query transcended earthly understanding. "Thou knowest very well why, O Father of Evil! As if 'twere not enough openly to harbor an enemy to the Shah and to defy my authority, thou hast increased thy crime by conspiring against the peace of the realm!" Maudud's face contorted into an assumption of righteous rage.

"It is not the veins of the neck which stand out in argument—-but the proofs -—which should be full of meaning. And where, O Maudud, are the proofs?" asked the Sheykh, his voice calm.

"Proofs! the dog asks for proofs! Know then, O Father of Misery, that it was out of the mouth of thine own kinsman that I have the proofs, aye, even of thy own nephew, Selim!"

"Selim has told thee this thing?" The Sheykh's face was expressionless.

"Aye, Selim and none other. What think thee of that, thou hoary-headed Father of Lies?"

The Sheykh's face was as if carved in stone.

"I think that to do good to the evil is evil; that only a fool plants trees on barren soil and that a grateful dog is better by far than an ungrateful man."

"EVEN so," grunted Maudud, "but thou art passing bold in thy evil doing, O Saleh, and prate wise proverbs and show no sign of fear. But wilt thou be brave on that day, soon to come, when the executioner brings out his scimitar like the tongue of a thirsty man, and thy head rolls like an over ripe melon on the floor? Wilt thou not tremble then and plead for mercy?"

"Every man's burden, O Maudud, is suited to his strength, and heavy to the ant is the foot of the locust," returned the Sheykh calmly.

But the Governor's brow was knitted in thought—he had only the ten days allotted him to deliver the Sheykh's treasure and already the ten clays were passing swiftly. He broke in on the words of the venerable Sheykh.

"Look thee now, O man of ill omen! as required by the laws of the Shah, I have sequestered thy property and put my seals upon it. But it is reported to me that there is very little treasure to be found and that of thy great wealth, naught but a few dirhems have been seized by my servants. Where, O Saleh, hast thou concealed thy great treasure of gold and jewels?"

"Where indeed?" murmured the Sheykh, and clasped his hands, "Where indeed, but in a place safe from hungry jackals and prowling dogs!"

"So?" Maudud's eyes flared cruelly. "There are ways of making thee talk, the torture of the bowstring and the hot pincers and the wrack have drawn truth from braver man than thou, O Saleh!"

"Perhaps," admitted the Sheykh and brushed a speck of dust from his khalat, "but by the grace of Allah, O Maudud, here is one that hath no fear of thy tortures. Should I die under the bowstring and the hot steel, I die with my lips sealed."

"And my years are many, O Maudud, and my bones are brittle and Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful, would give me quick release from thy tortures."

Maudud frowned. There was truth in the old man's statement. His aged frame would not long survive the rigors of torture and once dead his secret would perish with him. Maudud raged inwardly at the defiance of the old man. But out of his rage came an idea.

"True, O Saleh, but there are other tortures than those of the flesh . . . thou hast an only daughter, now under lock and key with the negress Fatimah to guard her. What sayest thou, O Unfortunate One, if I threw her to my Kurdish soldiers to do with as they will? Ha! now thy face blancheth and thy hands tremble!"

"Dog! Thou wouldst not dare!" the Sheykh's voice quivered and he threw out a hand as though seeking for support.

"Put not thy trust in my lack of daring, O Saleh . . . know now that shouldst thou remain stubborn concerning the hiding place of the treasure, know that, as thy gray head rolls in the dust, thy daughter is being made the sport and plaything of my Kurdish soldiers!"

And with that Maudud turned and left the cell, leaving the old man leaning weakly against the walls of his prison.

FOLLOWING along that river road, as the Sheykh had told him, Josselin passed through the hamlet, and so far beyond it as it took to breathe the ten names of Allah, finding the small road winding through the tamarisks at the last.

A few minutes more of galloping brought him to the edge of the village, beyond which lay the country house of the Sheykh. The village he circled, having no mind to be seen by the villagers, and came up in the fields behind the country house. There, one of his men-at-arms at watch on the wall, espied him and quickly admitted him through the small postern gate.

There was joyous greeting from Baldwin de Berg, and Brian his esquire and Diccon the sergeant and the men-at-arms, and the servants of the Sheykh brought forth fruit and eggs and milk. As he munched this fare he told of his journey and the events that had transpired while his listeners marvelled.

Being aweary, he sought some sleep but it seemed that he had scarce closed his eyes when a knocking on the bedroom door brought him up with a start and for a moment he stared about him, stupid with sleep, not knowing where he was nor how he had come there . . . But the sight of the man who entered, one of the burly sword bearers of the Sheykh's household brought him to instant wakefulness.

The man was woebegone and showed the signs of great strain and suffering.

"What misfortune brings thee here?" asked josselin, already sensing that something had gone amiss at the household of the Sheykh.

"Allah's curse on the dog of a Governor of Merv, and may he burn in Gehenna!" cried the sword bearer, tearing at his beard.

"Quick, tell me what hath happened!" Josselin's voice was impatient and worried.

"Oh, my master!" the man half sobbed, "scarce hadst thou departed from under the roof of my master when the captain of the Governor's guard came with a multitude of swordsmen and forced entry. He dragged forth the Sheykh, and his daughter, whom Allah protect, on excuse that thy glove had been found in one of the chambers! The house was given over to looting and search for my master's treasure and now the Governor hath put his 'seals upon the doors and no man may enter, and a guard stands before the gates. . . ."

"The Sheykh and his daughter!" Josselin's face grew bleak, "What does the Governor intend doing to them?"

"The Governor has condemned the Sheykh to perish at the hands of the executioner eight days hence at the setting of the first new moon of Shawwul. Until that time his daughter will be held in prison. After the Sheykh's death she will be an orphan and can be disposed of as the Governor may please, in marriage or into his own harem!"

Josselin stood stricken as he realized to the full the terrible punishment inflicted upon his friends. Then he was like some raging animal, calling for sword and horse to ride back and rescue them and die fighting if need be, in defense of the man and the girl who had sheltered him in his hour of danger.

But cooler counsel prevailed, led by the sword bearer, Ayoub, who had brought the grave tidings. Ayoub explained, sensibly enough, that it were better to remain alive and plot the rescue of the Sheykh and his daughter and see that justice was done, than to die, fighting hopeless odds, with nothing gained by his death. There was sense in this and Josselin grew calmer while a plan began to form in his head.

Last word was that Genghis Khan was already at Bokhara with the Horde and had taken that city.

"Look ye!" he told those assembled about him, "I ride to Bokhara. I have some small honor with the Kha Khan . . . it may be that he will give me aid in warriors to return and humble this vile Maudud . . . it is a long chance but the only one, as I see it . . . do thou, Baldwin, hold the men-at-arms here in secret and quiet until my return . . . and do thou, Ayoub, return to the city and do all possible to aid the prisoners and ameliorate their harsh lot, if possible getting word of hope to them of my efforts to save them. . . ."

"But it is six days to Bokhara at the least by fast horse," protested Ayoub, "and six days return . . . and there be but eight days counting this day!" the sword bearer shook his head.

"It is not six days traveling Mongolwise!" stated Josselin and called for a horse and the guide who had brought them to this house.

"Knowest thou the way to the first post of the Yam?" asked Josselin.

"Aye, lord, 'tis but a half hour's ride from here."

THAT first post of the Yam, that marvellous Mongol horse express, was hidden under the lee of a hill, hard by a desert well, with what seemed only to a casual observer to be a group of nomad Turkornens scattered about.

Men looked up indifferently as Josselin came galloping down the hill in a rattle of gravel and stones and brought his horse to a halt, leaping off.

Flinging open the cloak he showed the Tiger Tablet.

"Kai!" the nearest man cried, and bowed low, then leaped to his horse's heed. Others came running, with their leader bowing, hand to mouth, one brought water and another food, curried milk and a piece of mutton, while a fresh horse was brought up, saddled and bridled.

In another minute Josselin was mounted and away, the fresh horse forging sturdily up the gravelly slopes and lengthening out into a tireless steady stride on the level going.

Thereafter the successive halts at one yam post after another became a blurred memory of hurrying figures, of stiffly dismounting from one horse and swinging onto the back of another, and of steady and relentless galloping, hour after hour, with the sun dropping out of view and the chill of the desert night coming on, and the stars wheeling in their courses above, while the earth flashed by beneath.

Josselin noted now that the Mongols were no longer disguised but appeared in their lacquered armor and wolf skin coats. Mostly he rode alone but where the way was devious a rider would accompany him to the next post . . .

Just before dawn he snatched an hour's deep slumber upon a pile of sheepskins near a fire and then went on.

As he approached the edge of the barrens, the yam posts became more commodious affairs, set at the edge of villages and with darogas, military governors in charge, but there was no difference in the enormous respect paid to the Tiger Tablet and the quick service its bearer commanded.

In his swift gallop he began to pass compact clumps of Mongol Warriors, parties scouting for the armed forces of the Shah, grim and wolf like men, seated high in their Mongol saddles, the horse-hair tufts of their slender lances streaming in the breeze behind them.

Farther along, he passed groups of prisoners, working under guard on the roads and at the yam stations, and other groups being driven in herds along the roads for what destination or purpose he knew not.

SMOKE still rose from the ruins of villages and hamlets as he kept on the road to Bokhara. By now he was riding like a man in a dream, nor scarce knew when he changed from one horse to the other.

It had come to him that eight days was all too short a time to do what he had to do and the time of the coming of the new moon of Shawwul drew nearer with every day. And he still had the long ride back. When his heavy eyelids refused to stay open he swayed in the saddle, snatching what sleep he could as he was borne along.

It was in nearing Bokhara on the third day of travel, that he ran into the first evidence of the power of Genghis Khan, when he saw the hills and plains covered for miles by the black yurts the felt tents and the boundless horse herds of the Horde.

They were the Yakka Mongols, and they knew him and hailed him as the "Iron Man" and he began once more to feel among friends.

The number of the captives increased, stoic and fatalistic bands of craftsmen for the most part, carpenters, brick makers, sword-smiths, rug weavers and silver smiths, being collected for the long trip ahead of them into the high uplands of Asia and to Karakoram, the capital of the Kha Khan.

Nearing the ordu of the Kha Khan, outside of the walls of Bokhara, Josselin passed the heaped-up treasures secured from the sack of the Islamic cities—long rows of stuff piled up carelessly on felts under sheds and scantily guarded, there being no thieving among the Mongols. There were plates and goblets of silver, there was ivory and gold and crystal and the violet purple of amethysts, and there were finely tempered steel swords and jeweled daggers, damascened armor of chain mail so fine that an entire coat of it could be doubled up in a man's hand, and great store of rubies and pearls. Staring at the heaped up treasure wistfully were some of the captive women, wives and daughters of slain or captive emirs and atabegs, silken clad and dainty creatures, some of them weeping.

Somewhere near here he knew that he would find-his own men, and he inquired for the tumen (the Mongol Division) of Tuli the Orluk, Tuli the Eagle of the Imperial Brood, the youngest son of Genghis Khan, and was directed to a meadow near the great white pavilion of the Kha Khan. The meadow was covered with the black, dome shaped yurts of the Mongols and he soon spied a cheerful Mongol face, that of Toukta, one of his own centurions, the commander of a hundred, a squadron commander of the warriors of the heavily armored Yakka, Chosen Ones of the Body Guard. And others of his squadron commanders came forth to give grave Mongol greeting. He was led to his own yurt where his servant welcomed him and aided him into changing so that shortly he appeared again: from boots to eagle feather he was a Mongol gur-khan again, save that his long blue coat covered the chain mail of a Crusader.

Striding through the yurts he found his men busy oiling weapons, repairing quivers, sharpening arrowheads with the file that each of them carried and testing the spare bow strings for each of the two bows that each of them bore. They were members of a shock division and they were equipped with heavy, red lacquered leather armor, both man and horse, and being the heavy cavalry of the Horde, they were equipped with axe as well as sword.

The squad leaders, the commanders of tens, were checking the arrows, of which each man carried sixty, half of which were light with small sharp points while the other thirty were heavy with larger broader heads, for fighting at close quarters.

His inspection finished Josselin called for a horse, for although the ordu of Genghis Khan was not five hundred paces distant it would have been lacking in Mongol dignity to have made his way there on foot.

THE pavilion of Genghis Khan was of white felt, lined with silk and vast enough to have sheltered several hundred men. A silver table stood at the entrance, so that any who came might eat of the mare's milk, meat and fruit that it held. The Captain of the Night Guard, splendid in black lacquered armor and silver wolf cloak, bowed to the tall gur-khan and raised hand to lips.

"Ahatou!" Josselin greeted him and strode into the great yurt. There was a coming and going of officers two of them bearers of the ivory baton, orkhons or generals, went out, as Josselin entered and there were other officers seated on benches around the walls. A fire of aromatic woods crackled and glowed in a brazier.

On a dais at the far end of the pavillion, on a low bench sat a squat, heavy set figure dressed in a long sable coat with a girdle of gold plates. The face was seamed and lined, and bronzed by the dust and sun of the Gobi desert but there was an impress of calm power about it, and keen, intelligent eyes that missed no movement of the incoming and outgoing men, nor any word of the decorous conversation that went on about him. Genghis Khan gave one the impression of being the war-scarred and wise old wolf, the leader of the wolf pack, as he was.

No sooner had Josselin entered the pavilion than he watched his approach and nodded grave greeting as the Crusader bowed before him.

"What of the Khalif of Baghdad, Iron Man?" asked the Khan in a slow deliberate voice, as though each and every word had value and should not be wasted.

"He sends greeting and homage. He desires alliance with thee-against the Shah Muhammad and against a certain one, known as the Master of the Assassins, who hath struck terror into rulers and officials of Islam by his secret murders and exactions."

The Kha Khan thought on this for a space.

"And what is thy opinion of the Khalif of Baghdad, O Iron Man?" he asked at last.

"An old man, weak, and possessing the shadow of power without the substance!" Josselin made curt report. The Kha Khan nodded.

"So I had reasoned," he commented, then, "And this so called Master of Assassins—what of him?"

"A sinister chief of bandits and murderers, having highly placed officials in his secret order—notably Timur al Molok, the Wazir of Shah Muhammad, and Mandud, Governor of Merv . . ."

"The bow afflicted with dry rot is easily broken!" commented the Kha Khan dryly, "And what of Merv?"

Josselin reported the strength of garrison, of walls and provisioning in few words ". . . it hath a plentitude of strongly built towers and a deep dry moat. . . ."

"Walls are no stronger than the hearts of their defenders," interrupted the Kha Khan, "What of the hearts of the defenders?"

"They are fearful, O Khan. . . ."

"And the Governor? What manner of man is he?"

"Avaricious, lacking in faith and honor. A man not to be trusted under any circumstances!" Josselin made curt reply.

"So?" the Kha Khan made no comment. Josselin cleared his throat and broke the silence:

"If the Kha Khan pleases . . . the bad faith and treachery of this Maudud, Governor Merv, hath brought hardship and suffering and will bring death upon a certain inhabitant of Merv-—the Sheykh Saleh ibn Khalil, who hath sheltered and protected me against the wrath of the Governor and is now in prison with his family under sentence of death for that same. I would fain return and save that one from the Governor's cruelty. He dies four days from now, at the time of the setting of the new moon of Shawwul, if I fail him."

The Kha Khan gazed straight before him, reflective.

"'Tis well," he said at last, "Tomorrow I am sending Tuli with his tumen to pass by the walls of Merv in search of the Shah Muhammad, who hath fled to the westward. If thou canst aid thy friend, with the thousand men of thy regiment, taking not longer than a night and a day, and canst then rejoin the forces of Tuli, ye have my leave. It is highly meritorious to aid those who have aided thee."

Josselin bowed his head, and, seeing the Kha Kahn give sign that the interview was finished, departed from the great yurt, his mind a turmoil, thinking of the great walls of Merv with its garrison of twenty thousand Kankali Turks and wondering in what manner he could save the Sheykh and Alia with such small force and in such short time.

IT SEEMED to Josselin that he had scarce touched head to pillowed coat when the long roll of the drums of the dawn muster thundered in his ears. Sarengi, the impassive-faced Mongol soldier who served him, brought a steaming bowl of parched millet flour boiled with mutton, and hot tea while men were already rolling the felt strips from the frame of the yurt. Even as he finished donning his mail coat and helmet of steel, the lathe like strips of the frame of the yurt were taken down and lashed together, his bed of sheep skins and his chest were carried away for loading upon the pack horses and his first mount saddled and bridled, and his four spare horses galloped up before him.

All about him, as far as his eyes could reach, men and horses were boiling in what seemed to be inextricable confusion, the lean, sharp boned faces of the men covered with grease to protect them against the sun and wind, their squat frames draped with wolf skin cloaks, beneath which glinted the red-lacquered armor worn only by the heavy cavalry of the body guard. Sharp, yelping cries arose from the mass, the muster rolls of the tens and hundred being called and the quick commands of the leaders of the tens and the centurions of the hundreds.

The eddying disorder imperceptibly began to merge into order as clumps of ten men and horses drew together, and these small groups began swiftly to coalesce into greater groups of hundreds and the hundreds grew more solid and massed into heavy columns of a thousand men and horses each, with a breadth of fifty horsemen and a depth of two hundred solid ranks.

Josselin's long triangular shield, and his heavy steel tipped lance had scarcely been handed up to him when his regiment of Yakka Mongols were formed up, ten squadrons deep.

As he rode to the head of his regiment, a thousand slender lances, which had been held, points to the ground, rose up in silent sweeping motion, their red-dyed, horse-hair, plumes fluttering in the keen, cold, air of the dawn and all down the length of the heavy column the right arms of the centurions, the squadron commanders, shot upward, held rigid to show that all was in order, until his own arm acknowledged the signal and the ten arms were as suddenly lowered.

A clump of fifteen horsemen rode up behind him, one carrying the yak-tailed standard, and the others, two black and white signal flags each, which they broke out for his inspection and returned to their cases when he nodded. In their quivers these men carried whistling arrows as well, and tied to their saddles were the lanterns which would show red and white lights for night signaling. With his sign of dismissal, ten of these men galloped away, dropping off two by two to take place behind the leader of each squadron while four men and the standard bearer remained behind him.

A quiver of expectancy came over the whole mass, extending back, squadron by squadron and regiment by regiment, ten thousand lances and ten thousand armored. horsemen and armored horses, the end of the column lost in the half light of early dawn.

There came a jingle and clank and the swift galloping into place of the orkhun and his staff, with the yak tails of the standard of Tuli streaming in the breeze. Joselin made a swift upward motion with the palm of his hand to his own standard bearer who immediately raised the shaft with its cross pieces and fluttering yak tails as high as he could reach. Rippling back through the column the standards of the regiments in rear shot upward in turn until all were poised and waiting.

TULI'S standard was swiftly raised, and then was lowered, quickly, twice. With the last downward motion the other standards dropped down and ten thousand horses moved forward in one great mass.

It was a strange thing, and proof of the training and discipline of the horsemen of Genghis Khan, that after the calling of the rolls of the tens and hundreds, not a single word was spoken and that huge body of cavalry moved out in silence save for the thudding of thousands of hooves and the creak of leather and clink of metal.

In the regiment that preceded Josselin's there was a sudden flurry and five squadrons galloped out ahead, three of them remaining in mass and slowing down to a trot after advancing some two thousand paces, while the two leading squadrons kept on until they were far ahead when they extended out into a great arc, a wide flung semicircle of scouts riding two by two.

And Josselin knew, without looking back, that a flank guard was sent out on either side and that in the rear, behind the great herds of spare led-horses, forty thousand of them, and the pack animals, that there was a rear guard following along behind. It would have taken an extraordinarily alert enemy to have surprised the Mongols on the march.

And thus guarded front, flanks and rear, the Mongol cavalry division settled down and galloped to the southward, pausing only from time to time that men might change to the spare horses, and eating up the miles steadily, hour by hour. Josselin sought for some opportunity to speak to Tuli, riding ahead of him, so that he might acquaint the Mongol prince with the situation in Merv and his own problem in that city but the ceaseless forward surge of the tumen gave him no opportunity. They were galloping now along a river bank fringed by poplars and willows, with white walled villages sheltered among the groves.

The groves thinned out as they climbed the hills back of the river. It was late in the afternoon when Josselin, sensing some stir and movement of the scouts forward, peered through the dusty haze and saw on a hill crest far to the front, the sparkle and flash of sun on naked steel.

Something like a quiver went through the galloping host, the quiver that goes through a pack of hounds at the view halloo.

There was no slackening in the steady gallop but there came a sudden upward motion of the Horned Standard in the lead, followed by a fluttering of black and white battle flags, starting from the head of the column and rippling down its length, and the squadrons which had been galloping in two ranks of fifty horsemen in breadth smoothly narrowed their fronts to a breath of twenty horsemen, five files deep, the battle formation of the Mongol cavalry.

There came then another uplifting of the Horned Standard and a twinkling of the battle signal flags. This time Josselin checked his horse down to a walk, the squadron behind him followed his example, the squadrons in rear kept up the gallop swinging out to right and left until they were up on line, whereas they in turn slowed to a walk and in the space of a few seconds his regiment extended out on either side of him in a long solid line. Behind him he heard the thunder of other regiments closing in, thickening their lines, and galloping in solid masses to the right and left until in a bare few minutes the Mongol host had closed up from column of route into line of battle, and was moving forward at a walk.

THERE were more flurries up forward and scouts came galloping back, appearing suddenly out of the dust and reining in their horses sharply, to report to the officers under the yak-tailed banner ahead.

Far forward, rounding the base of one of the hills, Josselin caught flashes of sun on steel and the flicker of a green silken banner, the green standard of the Prophet, the battle flag of Islam.

There came a sudden drumming of hooves from behind, and pouring through the interval between Josselin's regiment and the neighboring regiment on the right, came a solid clump of Mongol horsemen, the faces of the men lean and bony, set and tense, with eyes looking neither to the right nor the left, and Josselin raised his ten foot lance aloft in salute as they went by. For they were the manguidi, "the God-belonging," the suicide squadron, foredoomed to cast themselves, wolf-like, upon the enemy center and to fight and tear an opening through it without thought of turning back.

And Josselin looked to his own accoutrements, the heavy, ten-foot lance, the long triangular shield, the great long sword, the Mongol bow upon his back with its quiver of arrows, the heavy mesh shirt with its hood, the sleeves, gauntlets and hose of heavy chain mail, and the conical steel cap with its nasal. His horse's head and neck were sheathed in chain mail, with a skirt of light chain mail over lacquered leather extending from the animal's shoulders to its tail and sweeping down to its knees.

He settled into his saddle, twitching his shoulders to bring chain mail more smoothly into place and loosening sword in scabbard as he rode forward, ahead of the center of his regiment. The Mongol battle line surged forward like a thick, steel tipped wave, rising and falling as it dipped into hollows and breasted hillocks.

It came to him then that if he were to meet death in the ensuing battle, that his word to the Sheykh Saleh would be broken, but then, he reasoned, death is no respecter of pledged words and no man can be held in dishonor if Death intervenes between the time of pledging a word and the time of fulfilment thereof.

To his ears, then, borne faintly down the wind, came a thin, high-pitched sound, like the yelping of many hounds, and his nerves and muscles tightened to the familiar shrill battle ullulation of the Moslems.

"Allahu akbar Allah il-allahu! Allah il-allah!" the words came now more clearly, rising out of a great cloud of dust moving towards the Mongol host, a cloud of dust that extended across the plain and rolled down from hillside and swept forward from valley mouth. The flash of sun on steel broke out of it, and as the dust eddied, dimly seen figures of horsemen emerged from it like armed wraiths out of mist.

It was never the Mongol tactics to wait to be attacked and suddenly the manguidi, the "God belonging" squadron, was launched at the center of the dust cloud like a swift arrow.

There came now from the dust clouds ahead the heady, exciting throb of battle drums. Above their hollow thunder came the clash of cymbals and the savage blaring of the nakars, the long battle trumpets of Islam, which, blending with the shrill yelping from thousands of throats, made the very air quiver to the savage clamor.

In contrast to the pulsing roar of the hosts of Islam, the Mongols moved in terrible silence. The manguidi was now nearly upon the center of the advancing dust cloud, and in another second it smashed into it and out of sight. From where it had struck, came a sudden savage sound, a sound of screaming and tending, such a sound as is made by the trampling and screaming of fighting stallions.

In response to a silent drop and sudden lift of the Horned Standard, twice repeated, the heavy line of Mongols broke into a trot. Tuli, the commander of the tumen, and his staff had dropped back on a line with Josselin and suddenly the Horned Standard was passed between the files and galloped to the rear but Tuli and his staff remained.

THEY were almost up into the dust cloud now. "A black and white, battle signal-flag flashed once to the left and once to the right from beside Tuli.

Josselin's right arm swung once in a complete circle and came back to grasp his lance once more. In swift obedience to the signal which flashed right and left along the entire line, the three rear ranks of his regiment galloped through the intervals between troops, the horsemen with reins looped over left elbow and holding the heavy, close-order bow with heavy, broad bladed arrow notched on bowstring and quiver at knee. They rode in loose order, like a mob of runaway horses but they galloped straight at the foe, who could now be seen, emerging from the dust cloud.

The enemy were lithe, wiry men with dark faces gleaming under silvered helmets or white turbans, carrying flashing curved scimitars and round, painted, shields and mounted upon slender spirited horses who danced and reared at the clamor of shouting voices and the roar of drums, cymbals and horns about them.

The silent, seemingly disorderly, mob of Mongol bowmen flung themselves at the enemy only to check and turn just before the shock of collision. And from those nomad warriors came a sudden vibrant twanging of bow strings, and the silent, wasp-like flight of a multitude of swift arrows that thudded and bit deep into quivering horseflesh and sheared through thin chain mail and khalat and quilted cloak until horses screamed and men rocked in the saddles. But the pitiless rain of sharp bladed arrows filled the air and thudded and sank home until the first line of the enemy were thrown into confusion. Wounded and dying men and riderless horses threw confusion into the second line of Moslem warriors. With a final, deadly, fiight of arrows the Mongol-bowmen turned and galloped to the flanks of their advancing squadrons, reforming behind the two ranks that now came on at the gallop, lances low at the charge in the first rank and swords at the ready in the second rank.

Josselin laid lance in rest and, his men behind him thundered into the thick of a milling group of Kankali Turks who loosed a few arrows at him, which glanced harmlessly off his chain mail. There was a flash of heavy scimitars, a glancing upward blow of a curved stabbing knife, a yataghan, and his lance drove home, overbearing a bearded Turk and driving man and horse against their fellows in rear until he had scattered the group and was through on the other side. From behind him he heard the snarling, screaming, rage of his men, fighting like mad stallions, but there came a sudden rush of a howling mob of Seljuk Turks, with their high, damascened helmets and broad sleeved khalats twirling flashing scimitars and battle maces, driving directly at him and he dropped his lance to earth and drew his great sword, whirling it about his head as he drove at the center of their onset.

"Dieu lo vult!" he shouted exultantly, the while he deflected a mace blow on his shield and then sheared off the arm of the mace wielder with one whirring blow and then drove into the press, his great sword biting deep, slashing into chain mail and sheering through light shield and into bone and flesh until the Turks were appalled and gave ground fearfully before that long slashing blade. And suddenly the men of his regiment were up and boiling about him, screaming with rage, stabbing and hewing at the Turks like a pack of starveling wolves and every Turk seemed to have four or five vicious Mongols tearing at him, snarling with blood lust.

BUT there were other dust clouds rolling up from the rear of the Turkish and Persian host and Josselin remembered his Mongol battle training.

Behind him was one of his two signalers, and he motioned to the man, who immediately flashed a black and white flag and emitted a high pitched, long drawn yell, which was taken up by the nearest Mongols and carried from one to the other so that each of them drove a final blow at his nearest antagonist and swung his horse about and followed Josselin back out of the dust and confusion, galloping out in loosely knit tens which swiftly sought and found the three lines of bowmen of their own troops, and wheeling like swallows, in behind the formed ranks and swiftly reformed anew into solid lines.

Again the bowmen launched themselves at the enemy now looming up in masses wearing the white turbans and black burnouses of the desert riders with a thickening of Kankali and Seljuk Turks.

There came a sudden twinkling of battle flags in the formed ranks of the Mongols waiting for the charge of the bowmen to spend itself, and Josselin, reading the signal, stared off to the left and rear where a hill rose behind the enemy forces. Standing out clear and defiant, in the lost rays of the setting sun, rose the Horned Standard with a great multitude of lance points gleaming behind it.

That terrible Mongol maneuver, the tulughma, or "standard sweep," was about to take place. The nearest men in the enemy ranks noted that standard at the same time and a shout of dismay rose and gathered force in the enemy ranks as the Horned Standard, followed by a torrent of avid lance, hurled itself down that hillside upon undefended flank and rear of the enemy host.

A hail of arrows poured in from the clouds of bowmen that now beset the Islamic host in front, and broke what little fighting spirit remained.

When the mailed ranks of the Mongols galloped in to complete the task, the enemy was in full flight, streaming from the battle field in panic and plying whip and spur in desperation.

The Mongols were as methodical and disciplined in victory as in battle. Before even the pursuit squadrons returned, the tumen was reformed under a hill on which stood Tuli and the Horned Standard, and long lines of dismounted men went thoroughly over every inch of the battle field. The enemy wounded were dispatched with bow string or sword, the Mongol wounded were cared for if only lightly wounded. If too gravely injured they stoically accepted the mercifully quick death granted them. Weapons, chain mail, helmets and horse gear were systematically gathered from fallen friend and foe. Arrows were recovered from the ground and from the bodies of the slain men and horses and every article, from an arrow shaft that had lost its point, to the emerald clasp on the aigret of an emir was faithfully turned over to the Cathayan officers in charge of the trains and careful tally made by the Uighrian scribes.

There was a short halt made that night, time for fires to be made and food cooked and horses watered and grazed and for men to snatch a few minutes' slumber.

The long roll of the assembly drums broke forth an hour later and for this Josselin was glad.

BUT there was little time for worry. The ten thousand men of the tumen swiftly rose and shook themselves into marching order and there began again that steady galloping of thousands of horses and the monotonously restful thudding of tens of thousands of hooves, the cadence of which wove itself into a man's thinking and lulled him into short periods of slumber in the saddle, with recurrent periods of day and night and sunlight and starlight and the necessity of halting and dismounting and mounting again on to a fresh horse, as the horsemen of the tumen steadily eat up the leagues, making from seventy to eighty miles a day.

It was the afternoon of the tenth day, that day whose night would see the rising and the setting of the new moon of Shawwul, when Tuli, at the head of his tumen rode up short of bow-shot distance from the main gate of Merv and sent forward heralds, who demanded whether or not the Shah Muhammud was within the walls.

Upon assurance that the Shah had departed for the West, Tuli led his thousands of horsemen, coiling like a great steel-tipped serpent, around the walls of Merv, and disappeared in a cloud of dust into the west, nor did any note that regiment of one thousand of the heavily armored Yakka, Chosen Ones of the Imperial Bodyguard, commanded strangely enough by a Nazarene knight, which dropped off, inconspicuously, to lose themselves to sight and sound in the river bottoms and hollows some two leagues outside of the walls of Merv.

That an hour or so later, a score of these Mongol warriors, grazing their horses, strayed too near the walls of Merv and were swooped down upon and captured by a force of Kankali Turks was regrettable but not fatal. Maudud, the Governor of Merv, remembering the fate of Inaljuk, the Governor of Otrar, who put Mongol prisoners to death and was punished by Genghis Khan by having molten silver poured down his throat, prudently decided to hold these Mongol captives in the great cell of the citadel priS0n rather than slay them outright.

CHAPTER XII

IN THAT same citadel the old Sheykh Saleh ibn Khalil maintained his fortitude until the dusk of the tenth day, whose night would see the rising and the setting of the new moon of Shawwul and mark the ending of his days under the sword of the executioner.

To this was he resigned, it was Kismet, Fate, and what man could escape his fate? But the remembrance of the horror that Maudud, the Governor, had promised for Alia was another matter altogether, and hung over him like a pail.

The old man's iron self-control was near the breaking point, on this the last day of life remaining to him. He sat, huddled, in the corner of his narrow cell, plucking at his beard and anon wringing his hands in anguish.

Unable to remain huddled on the floor, he paced the cell, drawing nigh the barred window. It was from here that he heard the sound and paused a moment, in his striding, puzzled. He had already made up his mind to disclose the hiding place of his treasure to Maudud, although, knowing the faithlessness of the man, he had little hope that even this would avert the fate that hung over his daughter.

But again that sound from below the walls fell upon his ears, a sound that struck a chord of memory. At last he peered through the bars and listened, intent, peering clown at the street below.

Someone sat in the shadows, a cobbler plying his trade and singing.

And, lo! the voice was the voice of Ayoub, his trusted sword bearer! Overwhelmed by this reminder that he was not altogether forgotten, the Sheykh yet managed a trembling cough to let Ayoub know that he listened But the cobbler seemingly paid no heed but went on with his snatches of song. The old Sheykh, his mind working tumultously began to pay heed to the words of those snatches of song.

There was nothing to excite comment in the songs, ancient lays of Persia, of ancient days and of Rustem and Sohrab, ancient heroes, but mixed with his snatches of ancient epics were hints of more immediate matters.

"The Nazarene knight hath come, hath come!" sang Ayoub, lustily if not too tunefully, "and awaits but the coming of darkness to hasten to thy aid . . ." the cobbler changed his song to more ancient matters as he heard the tread of the sentry passing overhead. Once the guard had passed on his rounds, the song resumed its modern note.

"Like a lion is the Nazarene knight with the courage of Sohrab" sang the cobbler, "and like a lion he fears not to enter the city leading some of thy servants. He comes attired as a holy kaid! It is well to be ready, to be ready . . ." sang the cobbler nor noted that one Hashim, the pishkedmet of the Emir Maudud, listened from an embrasure in the walls above, attracted by something strange in the song of the cobbler.

But the heart of the Sheykh lifted within him and he coughed again, signifying that he heard and understood.

Now Kashim, the pishkedmet of the Governor, was quick to seize upon all things that might advance him in his master's favor from below, and then, full of zeal in his master's service, went straightway to report to Maudud.

A HALF hour before the rising of the new moon of Shawwul, at the changing of the guard, there came word to one Gamber Ali, the captain of the guard at the gate of the citadel, that a holy kaid desired speech with him. Gamber Ali pricked up his ears—he had been told to watch out for a Nazarene knight in the guise of a holy man who would ask for the Sheykh Saleh ibn Khalil.

The small wicket gate clanged open and Gamber Ali stared at the face of the venerable kaid before him, who was accompanied by a younger man, a mullah. Certainly there was naught amiss with this kaid, Gamber Ali knew his face, the face of Abou Bakir, who preached at the mosque hard by and was well known for his piety and his learning.

"Peace be unto thee, Gamber Ali!" greeted the kaid.

"And unto thee, O Father of Holiness," returned Gamber Ali perfunctorily, and then concealing a yawn, "In what way can I serve thee?" These holy men were a nuisance, bobbing up at all hours of the day and night.

"I come in the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate!" announced the Kaid.

"May His name be Praised!" grunted Gamber Ali.

"It hath come to my ears that there are certain unfortunate ones imprisoned in the great cell of the prison, some of them followers of the True Faith, doomed to be sent up to the throne of the Most High by tomorrow's sunrise. I would fain exhort these ones that they shall enter the presence of the Compassionate One with their hearts high and their stomachs strong."

GAMBER Ali cast a cursory glance at the tablet hung on the wall, listing the prisoners in the great cage. On the tablet were recorded, below a group enumeration of some score of nameless Mongols, the names of eight condemned, petty thieves and robbers for the most part, due to die by the scimitar at sunrise of the morning following. It was nothing unusual for the condemned to he visited by a holy man.

"A most worthy and devout task, O Father of Piety!" yawned Gamber Ali, sleepy already from mere thought of the long night of duty still before him, and privately wishing that the old Kaid would burn in Gehenna. "Ho! Abdullah! take thou the keys to the great cage and escort these holy ones to the presence of the condemned!"

A stout Kankali Turk, the gaoler, his keys jangling at his leathern belt, and knawing a mutton bone, bade the two holy men to follow him.

Their way led across the courtyard of the citadel, against the walls of which were tethered the saddled horses of the city patrol, munching from their grain bags. Here and there squatted a few knots of Kankali Turks, their shields and scimitars and helmets near at hand.

High above the court rose the tower of the citadel, light shining from the floor which housed the Emir Maudud and his court.

The gaoler, his keys ajangle, waddled to the door that led to the cells and downward, the broad steps of a curving staircase lighted at intervals by smoking cressets. From the regions below rose a low murmur of sound and a most noisome stench.

At last they arrived at the bottom, where another sentry stood on duty, scimitar in hand, near the door of the great iron-barred cage in the midst of the high arched cellar. The prisoners sat or stretched prone within, their haggard faces lighted by the fitful gleams of the torches about the walls.

But the years of the venerable kaid were evidently demanding their toll. He clutched at his throat. "I fear," he murmured, "that the stench and foulness here are too great for my advanced years . . . do thou," he turned to the mullah accompanying him, "carry out my task. Sorrowed as I am to leave thee to carry the burden, I must in the outer air, so great is my faintness . . ." The younger man, the mullah, solicitously aided him to the stairway's foot whence the kaid climbed slowly upward and disappeared from view. The mullah returned as the gaoler, selecting a key, unlocked the gate and stood aside as the mullah entered. The venerable kaid found his way to the postern gate and none remarked that he departed alone, without the mullah.

"Peace be unto ye, O ye unfortunate ones!" the mullah's voice, down below the prisoners' cage, came in the measured tones of the religious man. But the mullah's eyes sought swiftly, hawklike, among the prisoners as here and there a muttered response came to his greeting. Of a sudden his eyes found that which they sought. He moved in stately fashion toward the far corner of the cage where sat a group of a score of men, apart, impassive and silent.

"I seek Ladboga," said the mullah, low voiced, in Mongol.

A man on the edge of the group, alone, raised his head sharply.

"Kai, master," the Mongol underofficer greeted calmly, "It is thou my lord. We had hoped for your coming."

"The time is short, O Ladboga."

JOSSELIN DE BEAUFORT sat down beside the Mongol, speaking quietly. Occasionally, for the benefit of the gaoler he raised his voice in the sing-song intoning of a verse from the Koran. At the last he drew forth from 'neath his robes some three long keen daggers and slid them quietly to the Mongol under-officer.

"It is understood then, O Ladboga?" he asked.

"It is understood, my lord." The Mongol nodded.

Rising, Josselin passed through the groups of prisoners, paying no further heed to the Mongols, but reciting verses from the Koran to the indifferent condemned ones who scarce raised their heads at his passing, being deep sunk in their own misery.

The gaoler, still gnawing at his mutton bone, stood idly by the open door of the cage, nor noted that three Mongols had quietly detached themselves from the shadows at the far end and were aimlessly wandering about, drawing, however, nearer and nearer the door.

The mullah, as if in deep thought, tarried a moment, half in and half out the door. Then he reached within his robe and drew forth something which made a pleasant, tinkling sound. Clinking the gold pieces together, more loudly, the attention of the sentry at the foot of the staircase was aroused and he strolled toward the pleasing tinkle.

"In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful!" intoned the mullah.

"May his name be praised!" cried the gaoler, dropping his mutton bone and gazing tenderly on the gold pieces glinting in the mullah's hands, interrupting this only to cast a baleful glance at the sentry, by now equally rapt in gazing at the pleasing simmer of wealth displayed.

The mullah cleared his throat.

"A wealthy and devout follower of the Prophet, a man of the utmost tenderness of heart, ever sensible of the woes of the unfortunate," he stated, "and ever mindful of the sacred words of the Koran, which saith 'Lol those who give aims, both men and women, and lend unto Allah a goodly loan, it will be doubled for them, and theirs will be a rich reward,' this good man, of his greatness of heart, hath given me this gold for extra food for the unfortunate ones in the prison."

"Verily, the excess of his goodness fills me with transports of amazement!" exclaimed the fat gaoler, eyeing the gold pieces wistfully.

"Such greatness of heart is beyond comprehension!" echoed the sentry, resting his scimitar upon the ground that he might have both hands free to accept any donation that might come his way.

"In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Compassionate, take then, this gold and see that the prisoners received good addition to their meager fare!" directed the mullah, stepping forward so that the doorway might be clear behind him.

The mullah was somewhat clumsy in handing over the gold pieces, else the gaoler was too avid, for two shining coins dropped and rolled upon the floor. Both gaoler and sentry scrambled wildly to retrieve them as they rang so sweetly against the stones.

IT WAS then that a dark form hurled itself silently through the cage door, followed by a second and a third.

There came a coughing grunt and a faint moan.

The bodies of the two Turks lay where they had fallen. Ladboga, the Mongol under-officer, seized the scimitar of the fallen sentry and another Mongol the yataghan from the belt of the dead gaolar.

The startled prisoners, only dimly aware of what had occurred, stood rooted for a space and then as comprehension dawned, they began to rush to the open door, only to be halted by the voice of the mullah.

"Silence!" he commanded and they obeyed. In the stillness there came the sound of tramping feet, descending the staircase and coming ever nearer. The mullah gave quick command that the bodies of the slain be dragged into the cage. "And do ye prisoners seat yourselves within the cage as before. Do thou, Ladboga, and thy men with weapons, range thyselves on either side of the foot of the steps overcoming the guards as they enter—'tis naught but the quarter guard, some eight men, making its rounds!"

All things were done as the mullah bade, men moving swift but silent to their posts.

The descending footsteps neared the bottom of the stairs, the sound of their voices coming now, clear and strong, as they talked among themselves, all unwitting of the welcome awaiting them in the cellar.

For the bodies of the two slain men had been dragged within the great cage and might have been the bodies of sleeping prisoners.

The prisoners themselves were silent, some seated and some reclining. The door of the cage was closed. Standing by it, the better to carry out the illusion, was one of the Mongols, scimitar drawn and wearing the chain mail and pointed helmet of the dead sentry.

Crouching against the walls on either side of the arched portal at the foot of the stairs, were the remainder of the Mongols, armed and unarmed.

Seeing that all was in readiness, the mullah spoke a word to Ladboga, saying, "I go above stairs now—do thou follow when these men are overcome . . ." and he whispered a few more words and went up the staircase, giving to the wall as the Kankali Turks of the quarter-guard brushed pass him.

Scarce had Josselin reached the first turn in the staircase when there came to him muffled by the distance, the sudden snarling voices of the Mongols, quick ended cries, and a clash of steel—followed by silence. And Josselin knew that another eight of the Mongols were provided with weapons.

The door leading to the outside had been left ajar. Pushing it open he stepped forth into the dim lighted courtyard. A new sentry on guard near the door glanced at him incuriously. The small groups of Kankali Turks of the mounted guard, were busy on their own affairs, preparing their evening meals around the cooking fires.

The citadel tower loomed up on the far side of the court. Up there the rooms of Maudud were lighted with the light of many lamps. On the floor above Maudud's quarters, was the cell where the Sheykh Saleh ibn Khalil was confined and at the opposite end of that same floor was the room that held Alia under guard of a huge female slave.

Even now the silvery sickle of the new moon of Shawwul was sinking toward the city walls. Another five minutes and it would have set. As Josselin stood there, watching, the burly form of the executioner, a huge Nubian, his scimitar under his arm, moved.

JOSSELIN, waiting until men's interest had returned to their own affairs, moved quietly across the courtyard, and through the light of the cressets, thereafter mounting the stairs swiftly to the floor above Maudud's chambers. In doing so he passed by the door of Maudud's chamber, where lights streamed out, and there was the sound of men's voices in the inner room. For Maudud, with the cold eyes of Timur al Molok, the Wazir, upon him, was shortening the stature of his soul by seeking oblivion, his own eyes haggard, straying to watch the descending arc of that new moon of Shawwul so near to its setting. Another ten minutes would see it disappear beneath the horizon, a fateful ten minutes, at the end of which, strict accounting would be demanded of him by the implacable Timur al Molok, a ten minutes in which the old Sheykh would either disclose his secret under the shadow of the sword, or that sword would descend upon Maudud himself.

The old Sheykh was there before them, bound and upon his knees, the executioner laying out the tools of his craft, under the cold green eyes of Timur al Molok, the languid eyes of the two feminine looking Persian youths from Bokhara, the sleepy eyes of Nas'r, the singer of bawdy songs, and the insolent eyes of Ferruk, the dissolute son of the holy kaid, and the cruel eyes of Ayub of the cruel hands, detested of the dancing girls. Even the dancing girls were there, all save Theodosia, the Byzantine, she who had accosted Josselin in the country house of the Governor.

Maudud, if Allah decreed his death, meant to die surrounded by his boon companions, but his face grew more haggard as the minutes passed and the old Sheykh stubbornly refused to divulge his secret. Timur al Molok yawned behind his hand, and idly watched the descending moon, now near the horizon—and the fingers of Timur al Molok crept within his silken khalat as he meditatively studied the pulsing vein in the throat of Maudud.

But there came a slight diversion. A young man in the white khalat and red leather shoes affected by the Fedawi, the Faithful Ones, of the secret order of the Assassins, stood for a space in the doorway. Catching the eye of Timur al Molok, the young man showed the palm of his hand in which rested a square of greasy Moslem bread—with two sticks crossed upon it. Timur rose swiftly at that unrefusable summons and went out into the hall leaving Maudud grasping with the hand of desperation, at the straw of hope, and drawing a deep breath of gratitude for the respite.

In the center of the room, where the rugs had been cleared away, was a glowing brazier, surrounded with a variety of grisly tools, pincers and cunningly shaped knives and strange instruments for crushing fingers and cracking ankle bones and all manner of queerly shaped devices whose very queerness was sinister.

In the shadows was a bent and wizened dwarf, huge-headed, the executioner's assistant, holding the broad-bladed scimitar for his master.

Kneeling on the bare floor under the shadow of that sword, was the gray haired Sheykh Saleh ibn Khalil.

Maudud spoke once again to him.

"Ho, thou Father of Stubborness!" he said, "my patience with thee is totally at an end!" Maudud glanced at the open doorway where Timur al Molok had not yet returned and then cast his eyes through the window at the highest tip of the slender new moon of Shawwul even now disappearing beneath the desert edge. "I have come to believe, O Saleh, that perhaps after all, thy treasure is a myth. The penalty, in any case for thy treason, is death, a death which should be quick and painless for thee, but because of thy stubborn silence concerning the treasure I have decreed that thou shalt suffer the pains of the spirit as well as the flesh. I am sending now for thine only daughter!" and he gave signal to two of his guards who went forth into the hall and turned up the stairs to where Alia was held under guard of the slave woman, Fatimah.

MAUDUD started again to speak when a great outcry broke out in the hall and on the stairway above. There was the rush of many feet and the clash of steel and shouting.

"Seize him! The cursed infidel! The Nazarene spy—profaning the sacred robes of a holy man! . . ." the clamor grew in volume. Gamber Ali, the captain of the guard, followed by a score of men, swarmed up the stairs. Down below in the courtyard the tumult spread and a rabble of soldiers and servants added to the press, all yelling and shouting and swarming up the stairs past the Governor's rooms and up toward the floor above.

Maudud ran out of his chamber, followed by his guests and stood amazed.

On the stairway above him, stood the Nazarene, knight, his mullah's robe thrown aside, his oiled chain-mail gleaming in the light of the cressets, with him the shrinking form of a veiled young woman, the daughter of the Sheykh Saleh ibn Khalil, no less!

Maudud let forth a terrific bellow, demanding silence, as men swarmed up at the Nazarene, attempting to reach him with their scimitars and spears.

The bellowing roar of the Governor brought stillness. In that silence the arrogant tones of Maudud thundered forth:

"Dogs! Would ye slay the Nazarene outright and deny me the pleasure of inflicting a lingering death upon him? Bring him to me, forthwith, that his slaying may make sport! Bring also the maiden and quickly!"

In quick obedience the men about Josselin lowered their weapons and seized him, dragging him down the stairs, with the girl, and thrusting them through the anteroom into the inner chamber. Here the executioner, indifferent to the clamor, kept his brazier flame alight and continued to lay out his tools, with the Sheykh, silent, kneeling on the floor nearby.

Maudud, his own peril forgotten for the nonce, in the joy of the capture of this Nazarene knight, was rubbing his hands. He turned to Josselin, guarded by two Kankali Turks with drawn scimitars.

"So!" gloated Maudud, "So! Ye return, O Nazarene, like an Afhgan hunting hound, coming in at the finish, to the smell of blood and death! But unlike the Afhgan hound, thy fate shall catch up with thee so soon as the old stag," and here he pointed at the bound and kneeling Sheykh, "hath drawn his last breath. I trust, O Nazarene," Maudud spoke in unctuous tone, "that thou'lt await thy turn with becoming patience!" at which sally there came a snicker from the divans where sat the Governor's boon companions.

Maudud turned to the guard nearest the girl. "Unveil me that woman!" he commanded. The old Sheykh looked up with lack luster eyes only to tremble with anger as the guard jerked the veil from the face of Alia, so that her clear, imperious, beauty shown forth in that room. A murmur went up from the divans and even Maudud was taken aback at the sight of her loveliness. Alia was pale as she gazed upon her father and turned to Josselin, wide-eyed.

BUT then, a sudden thought came to Maudud. He addressed the girl: "How hath it occurred that this knight brought thee forth from the chamber wherein I had thee under guard of the slave woman, Fatimah?" he asked Alia. She looked at Josselin, who made reply.

"Simple enough, O Maudud, I did but give Fatimah a few gold pieces and she turned over the girl to me, first demanding that I bind and gag her to give the semblance that she hath been overpowered!"

"May she shrivel in Gehenna!" Maudud's face was living with Wrath, and the instinct to kill was upon him. "Ho, thou!" he turned to one of the Kurdish soldiers at the door, "Haste thee up to the cell wherein that great sow lieth hound and gagged and plunge thy dagger into her!" The Kurd, nothing loth, slouched out, drawing forth his sharp pointed yataghan. Maudud stood silent, listening and waiting. Josselin listened also. In a matter of three or four minutes, the Kurd returned wiping blood from ofi his blade and nodded.

"She is even now having converse with Munkar and Nakir, the Questioners of the Dead, O most noble Emir!" said the Kurd, a wolfish grin upon his ill-favored features.

Maudud grunted his satisfaction and turned once more to where Alia stood, steadfast, staring straight to the front.

"I pity thee, O daughter of Saleh," he told her, "for having a father with heart of such flinty hardness that he would rather see thee thrown to my soldiers for their sport than to divulge the hiding place of a paltry treasure, a treasure which he cannot take with him to Paradise in any case . . ." the girl's head went up proudly.

"Nay, it is the truth I tell thee, O daughter of Saleh," Maudud continued, seeing the disbelief in her eyes, "here, thou, and thou, and thou . . ." he beckoned to the Kurdish soldiers who had crowded into the room, the nearest of them a dissolute faced, depraved specimen of evil, his tongue running over his wet lips at sight of the beauty of the girl, "Take thou this maiden and hold her. So soon as that one's gray head falls from his body, do thou and thy companions take her from here and do with her as pleases thee . . ."

The Kurd slouched forward, reaching his hairy hands to grasp Alia. So swiftly that the eye could scarce follow it, she whipped forth from beneath her robe a gold handled dagger and drove its point sharply into the Kurd's questing hand. The man gave back with a howl of pain.

"A daughter of the Beni Iskander suffers death before dishonor!" she said, low voiced, and placed the dagger point against her breast, ready to drive it into her own heart, her face lit with such quiet resolve that no man could doubt her. Maudud bits his nails, his eyes darting from father to daughter, something of desperation in their depths.

The voice of the Sheykh broke the silence, "Nay, my daughter," his face was twisted with anguish but his voice came firm, "nay, my daughter, if this dog gives security for thy safety and happiness, I will willing disclose the hiding place of the treasure . . ."

"Sayest thou?" Maudud's eyes gleamed with a quick, wild hope, "I will have her married here and now to any one whom thou chooseth, O Saleh, the marriage to be performed by the kadi before thy death . . . once thou hast revealed thy secret."

"Nay, before I have revealed my secret!" countered the Sheykh. Maudud frowned and considered this.

"So be it!" he finally gave assent, then "And whom dost choose as husband for thy daughter?"

The old Sheykh looked up and around the cruel faces in that room. His eyes sought and found those of Jjosselin de Beaufort.

"It is my wish that she shall marry yon Nazarene knight!" he stated quietly.

AN ASTONISHED silence fell upon that room. Alia's eyes widened, startled as she turned her gaze upon Josselin. Men began to mutter. Maudud's face flushed with anger. He spoke heatedly:

"Nay, that cannot be—in the first place he is a dog of an infidel and no daughter of Islam would suffer herself to marriage with such a one—and second, he is under sentence of death for indignities he hath heaped on me and mine—even now the executioner heats the iron to blind him before he dies lingeringly under the torture!" and men looked at the grim tools of the torturer and the fine pointed iron rod he had heated to near whiteness in the brazier. Alia gave a low moan.

For his part Josselln kept silent, standing grave-faced.

But the Sheykh was making reply. "Ye have given promise that I shall choose the one who shall marry my daughter. I have chosen! 'Twere better that she die by her own hand than marry any man of thy cruel and dissolute following, O Maudud. I have made my choice. Do thou abide by thy promise or my daughter dies and I die, my secret dying with me!"

Maudud, as could plainly be seen, was raging inwardly, squirming in his mind to find some manner in which he could gain his ends, and biting his fingernails for all to see his perturbation of spirit.

None paid heed to Josselin, who stood, face impassive with that look of one listening to far off sounds. None heard his faint in drawing of breath, nor saw the swell of his muscles as he gathered himself. It was only when he moved that men suddenly took note of him.

For he leaped from between his guards, reached swiftly for the wood handle of the pointed, white-hot iron in the brazier. With his other hand he seized Maudud's arm and twisted it behind Maudud's back, rendering the amazed Governor helpless and cringing with the agony of the pain as he was dragged back to where Josselin placed himself against the wall. Maudud was before him as a shield, the white hot iron held a scant finger length from the Governor's eyes.

So swiftly was it done that men stood rooted to the spot, amazed nor scarce knew what had happened, even when ]osselin's voice broke on their ears.

"Quiet, dog, and cease thy writhing 'ere I blind thee by mischance!" he spoke to Maudud, shaking him as a cat shakes a rat, until the Governor, bent over awkwardly in front of him, stilled his twistings and stood outwardly submissive. "It is high time to bring end to this farce!" continued Josselin, "with this dog of a Governor strutting about like an unwhipped cock on the dung heap. Hark ye, Maudud! Dost hear what I hear?" and men became silent as they strained to listen. From below stairs on a sudden came a strange commotion, shouts and screams and the clash of steel, with men again pounding up the staircase.

"Those be the swords of my Mongol warriors, Yakka Mongols, the Chosen Ones of the Kha Khan's bodyguard!" stated Josselin, his voice impatient, like a schoolmaster with stupid pupils. "They will be here anon, I having freed the score of my men ye imprisoned in thy great cell, Maudud, and roused up thy guard to pursue me here so that the way would be clear to open citadel gates—the west gate of the city having already been entered by others of my men in disguise, who hath seized the gate and admitted a horde of my horsemen . . ."

THERE was a running and the clash of steel in the antechamber and a Kankali Turk of the guard, blood streaming from a sword cut, appeared in the doorway and disappeared again to the clash of arms.

Josselin's voice went on quietly.

"Do thou, Alia, use thy dagger to cut thy father's bonds—let any one raise hand to thee and Maudud's eyes shall be blinded on the instant . . . so-o-o, rise, O Sheykh, thou art free, thee and they daughter, and thy treasure is safe on the backs of sumpter mules and guarded for thee by mine own men—we go now, O Maudud . . ." the doorway suddenly framed the squat, armored figure of Ladboga, the Mongol under-officer, his sword dripping. Behind him were black-armored Yakka Mongols, arrows on string.

"Which of these dost wish slain?" asked Ladboga, unemotionally, pointing to Maudud and the huddled group of his followers.

"None!" Josselin answered flatly.

"At least this dog of a Maudud!" pleaded the old Sheykh, rubbing his wrists whence the bonds had just been cut.

"Nay, O Sheykh, 'twere better to let the dog and his evil companions live against the day when the Mongols return to capture the city—their task will be eased by such a Governor!" Maudud's face flushed darkly at the insult but the arrow points of the Mongols brooked of no reply.

Beside Ladboga there appeared, one, clad in the white khalat and red shoes of the Fedawi, the Chosen Ones of the Order of the Assassins. The Governor, Maudud, tensed, recalled that the Wazir Timur al Molok had departed with this one, and hope began to sing in his heart the hope that aid might be at hand.

But that hope died, like the guttering out of a candle end, leaving the smoke of disappointment in his nostrils, as he saw Josselin put gold pieces in the hands of the young man, nor did Maudud recognize the young louti, Ghulam-Hosain, of his own village of Karon. Nor did Maudud know that Ghulam-Hosain was being paid the gold as reward for having inveigled the Wazir Timur al Molok to the floor above, to the room occupied by Alia, where Josselin had overcome the Wazir swiftly and silently.

"Thou hast done well, O Ghulam-Hosain!" Josselin was saying, low voiced, "But remember now that a fair half of this gold is for Theodosia the Byzantine dancer, for having wheedled Fatimah, the slave woman guard of Alia, out of her keys and clothes."

Maudud, silent, but with the shadow of immediate death averted, began again to take heart of grace, so much so that he summoned courage to pose a question to Josselin:

"I would beg favor of thy grace, O Nazarene, to ask what hath become of Timur al Molok, the Wazir?"

Josselin's grave face showed no hint of laughter, "Oh, that one!" he said, as though in effort to recall, "Remember'st thou the wrestler of Stamboul, and how he defeated himself with but little aid from me, by his own clumsiness? Thou, O Maudud, hast defeated thyself and fallen by thine own clumsiness—in the same fashion—save that in thy fall thou hast incontinently driven home the dagger into the heart of Timur al Molok—the Wazir of the Shah Muhammad what time he lay bound, gagged, and swathed in the robes of Fatimah, thy slave woman!"

THE ghastly import of these tidings began to fill Maudud's comprehension with the black miasma of fear.

But Josselin went on relentless:

"Should the Shah Muhammad overlook thy crime, O Maudud, 'tis unlikely that the Grand Master of thy order will overlook the slaying of his Grand Prior! May thy days be long in the land, O Maudud!" Josselin's voice held no trace of mockery as he turned on his heel.

They left that place, picking their way through the bodies of the slain Kankali Turk guardsmen, down the stairs and then to horse in the courtyard.

"'Twere best we move quickly," Josselin explained, low voiced to the Sheykh, who had thrown aside his years and was like a new man, "I have but a thousand warriors. They can cut their way out before the garrison of the city is assembled but they cannot tarry in the doing of it!"

And so it was. The compact group of Mongol warriors who had forced their way into the citadel, galloped through the streets, and were joined in turn as they came to each cross street by clanking squadrons of armored Yakka Mongols until, like a steel tipped torrent, they overswept the small bands of Kankali Turkish warriors who had begun to appear and swept out through the gates and into the open country to the thunder of the hoof beats of a thousand horses.

At the Sheykh's country house there was Josselin's small force of men-at-arms, the sumpter mules carrying the Sheykh's treasure among them, and they were swept up and into the torrent of Mongol warriors which scarce paused on its way, until Josselin had at last put enough leagues between the Sheykh and his daughter and the fear of pursuit.

They came to a white walled village set far back from the road and easily defended. Here Josselin left his own men-at-arms with the Sheykh and his daughter and the store of treasure.

"I must join my men but I leave thee in good hands!" he said to Alia. She looked up at him, her head high, her eyes questioning.

"Thou wilt return soon, O Sheykh Josselin?" she asked, grave voiced.

"Nay how could I tarry long in returning?" he asked, leaning down from the saddle, "when my heart, O Alia, is between thy two hands!"

So saying, he rode into the west, to join Tuli the Orluk, in pursuit of the Shah Muhammud.