The Talbot Mundy Megapack. Talbot Mundy

moment. It did not differ particularly from a thousand others dotted here and there within a radius of a few miles; there was a sort of porch, perhaps a dozen feet deep, roughly hewn out of the hillside without any significant figures; and down in a corner of that was a dark hole of not more than half a man’s height, leading no doubt into a natural cave beyond.

      But while he looked, wondering what attracted him, a distinct sound emerged from the hole. Noises in the night, propelled from a cave by the echoing walls, are not easy to recognize; but if it sounded like anything familiar it was a human hiccough.

      Any of a number of creatures might have made the noise; owls, jackals, hyenas, badgers, rats—for those old tombs, once robbers have plundered them, make the handiest imaginable dens for wild beasts, provided their opening stands above the waterline, as this one did.

      They business of being a hunter, whether of animals or men, produced two salient characteristics; a tendency to form opinion in advance as to what the hunted will most likely do, and an equally alert ability to throw preformed opinion to the winds at the first hint.

      Jim had made up his mind that the leper would hardly risk waiting at the rendezvous, and for several reasons. In the first place the cave was almost certainly a trap, with only one opening. Whoever waited inside it could form no notion of what was passing outside, and would be at the mercy of superior numbers; men who had risked their lives to steal rifles might likely balk at surrendering the booty to one lone individual within the narrow compass of a grave.

      To be morally afraid of a dervish dancing like a devil on a hill was one thing; to fear him at all when face to face within four walls would be another. A man with the knowledge of Arab human nature that the leper had displayed would appreciate that certainty.

      On the other hand, to wait at a little distance, watch for returning plunderers, perhaps even warn them sternly from an overlooking point of vantage, and come down to collect the booty after they had placed it in the cave and after making sure that the coast was clear, would be safe, circumspect and sane—cynical, in fact, in keeping with the cynicism that made use of the leprosy and religious emotion for unlawful ends.

      Jim’s first idea consequently was to wait at a point of vantage, too, and descend on the leper in turn and catch him red-handed whenever he should descend to possess the loot.

      But there is no accounting for the recklessness of criminals, or the arrogance of men who think that fear gives them a hold over their accomplices. Cunning though he is, and careful though he is in a thousand ways, the charlatan who practices on superstition is once in a while more incautious than a sheep-fed wolf; like the wolf he takes outrageous chances after use has made the game seem simple.

      Jim sat down in front of the tomb and listened, while Suliman clung to him in the hysteria of small-boy terror of bogies. For a long time the only movement was Suliman’s trembling, and the only sound the footfall of some small night animal borne on an almost imperceptible breeze. But then the cough, or sneeze, or belch, or whatever it was, was repeated and Suliman hid his face in Jim’s abyi (long-sleeved Arab cloak), shuddering as if he hoped to crawl out of his skin.

      “Now,” said Jim, “we decide whether or not you wear girl’s clothes for a year. I’m going in there. Are you coming too?”

      * * * *

      It was an awful test of courage for a child of eight, with a shameful alternative. But Jim, whose own youth had been one long adventure with hardship and disadvantage, in which the only penalty he had learned to loathe was self-contempt, was not friend of compromise. Shameful alternatives were things he faced and turned his back on in New England at such an early age that decision had become a habit; and what a man has done repeatedly himself he finds it hard to believe another cannot do. Suliman knew perfectly well from grim experience that Jim would be as good as his word.

      “I am a man, not a woman. I will not wear girl’s garments. Must I go in first?”

      “No; I’ll lead.”

      “Lead on then, Jimgrim.”

      “Good for you, youngster.”

      But Jim was minded to test him to the utmost.

      “Seeing you’re willing, you may stay outside if you like.”

      “No. I am a man. Lead on.”

      “All right. But listen; not a word to me in English. Hold your tongue—listen with all your might—and try to take your cue from me. Now are you ready?”

      Jim produced a pocket electric torch and, stooping beside the black hole, flashed the light across the opening. Little by little, as nothing happened, he directed the light down into the hole, keeping himself out of the path of possible bullets. But it was a long passage and not straight, high enough inside for a man to stand without stooping and wide enough to carry in a body on a bier, but turning so abruptly after fifteen or twenty feet that there was nothing to be gained by peering in.

      The fact that the flashlight had not scared out any animal was possibly presumptive proof that a man was in there who had scared the usual denizens to flight already; but in that case all that he had certainly done so far was to give the man notice of his coming.

      So he crouched into the opening and stepped down and forward without further preliminary, flashing the light again and trusting to its glare to spoil the aim of any man or beast disposed to murder. Suliman, forgetting the solace of the kukri, clung to the skirts of his abyi and followed breathlessly.

      He took the turn in a hurry, for there is nothing to be gained by giving your enemy time to think until you have the weather gage of him so surely that thinking may induce him to surrender. But again nothing happened, and Suliman’s teeth were chattering so loudly that Jim could not be sure whether or not he heard something moving in the darkness.

      Immediately beyond the turn the passage sloped steeply into a natural cave, with a sheer drop at the end of three or four feet to the cave floor. Somebody might easily be crouching there, so he switched the light off suddenly and took the last lap with a run and a jump, leaving Suliman at the corner, scared out of his wits but grimly silent. The instant his feet touched the floor he faced about and turned on the light again, rather expecting to see the leper rise from beneath the opening and start to scramble away. But again nothing happened, except that Suliman took hold of courage with clenched teeth and came charging down after him, blinded by the torchlight in his eyes and pitching into the cave head foremost, unhurt by a miracle.

      The tomb proved to be low, but long and wide—thirty feet at least each way, with a smooth floor showing traces of the chisel, although the roof was in its natural state. A swift examination of the walls by the torchlight showed deep recesses cut into the sides about four feet above the floor, each one doubtless in its day a separate sepulcher. Jim started to examine them one by one, commencing from the nearest to the entrance, and got no farther. His man was there—alive, alert, apparently amused.

      Squatting in the mouth of a hole that once held human bones, like an Indian idol, except that most of the Indian gods lack humor, the leper smiled and said nothing, resting his chin in the hollow of one hand and his elbow on one knee, blinking at the light.

      He looked abominably leprous. Whole patches of his skin from face to heels were glistening white and scaly. Yet his muscles seemed as firm as a horse’s and as magnificently molded underneath the skin, while the expression on his face was not that of a man grown used to gnawing agony or the leprous local anesthesia. His eyes shown healthy in the torchlight, and except for the disgusting state of parts of his skin he looked more like an athlete in condition than a sick man.

      For two minutes no one spoke. Then the leper reached behind him with his left hand, and Jim covered him instantly with his pistol.

      But all that the groping hand brought forth was a candle-end and a match. The iblis set the candle-end on a ledge in the broken wall of the recess and lit it, never moving the rest of his body or shifting the position of his chin. So Jim put out the torch, to save the meager battery.

      “Shoot him, Jimgrim,” Suliman whispered unable to bear the tension any longer.

      “Sa’id,