men hesitated, staring wide-eyed at the somber black shape standing silently before them.
“Your pardon!” entreated the captain of the guard, saluting. “We could not recognize--in the shadow--we did not know an order had been given.”
A ghostly hand, half muffled in the black cloak, gestured toward the door, and the guardsmen opened it in stumbling haste, salaaming deeply. As the black figure moved through, they closed the door and made fast the chain.
“The mob will see no show in the suk after all,” muttered one.
CHAPTER 7
In the cell where Brent and his companions lay, time dragged on leaden feet. Hassan groaned with the pain of his broken arm. Suleiman cursed Ali Shah in a monotonous drone. Achmet was inclined to talk, but his comments cast no light of hope on their condition. Alafdal Khan sat like a man in a daze.
No food was given them, only scummy water that smelled. They used most of it to bathe their wounds. Brent suggested trying to set Hassan’s arm, but the others showed no interest. Hassan had only another day to live. Why bother? Then there was nothing with which to make splints.
Brent mostly lay on his back, watching the little square of dry blue Himalayan sky through the barred window.
He watched the blue fade, turn pink with sunset and deep purple with twilight; it became a square of blue-black velvet, set with a cluster of white stars. Outside, in the corridor that ran between the cells, bronze lamps glowed, and he wondered vaguely how far, on the backs of groaning camels, had come the oil that filled them.
In their light a cloaked figure came down the corridor, and a scarred sardonic face was pressed to the bars. Achmet gasped, his eyes dilated.
“Do you know me, dog?” inquired the stranger.
Achmet nodded, moistening lips suddenly dry.
“Are we to die to-night, then?” he asked.
The head under the flowing headdress was shaken.
“Not unless you are fool enough to speak my name. Your companions do not know me. I have not come in my usual capacity, but to guard the prison to-night. Ali Shah fears El Borak might seek to aid you.”
“Then El Borak lives!” ejaculated Brent, to whom everything else in the conversation had been unintelligible.
“He still lives.” The stranger laughed. “But he will be found, if he is still in the city. If he has fled--well, the passes have been closed by heavy guards, and horsemen are combing the plain and the hills. If he comes here tonight, he will be dealt with. Ali Shah chose to send me rather than a squad of riflemen. Not even the guards know who I am.”
As he turned away toward the rear end of the corridor, Brent asked:
“Who is that man?”
But Achmet’s flow of conversation had been dried up by the sight of that lean, sardonic face. He shuddered, and drew away from his companions, sitting cross-legged with bowed head. From time to time his shoulders twitched, as if he had seen a reptile or a ghoul.
Brent sighed and stretched himself on the straw. His battered limbs ached, and he was hungry.
Presently he heard the outer door clang. Voices came faintly to him, and the door closed again. Idly he wondered if they were changing the guard. Then he heard the soft rustle of cloth. A man was coming down the corridor. An instant later he came into the range of their vision, and his appearance clutched Brent with an icy dread. Clad in black from head to foot, a spired helmet gave him an appearance of unnatural height. He was enveloped in the folds of a black cloak. But the most sinister implication was in the black mask which fell in loose folds to his breast.
Brent’s flesh crawled. Why was that silent, cowled figure coming to their dungeon in the blackness and stillness of the night hours?
The others glared wildly; even Alafdal was shaken out of his daze. Hassan whimpered:
“It is Dhira Azrail!”
But bewilderment mingled with the fear in Achmet’s eyes.
The scar-faced stranger came suddenly from the depths of the corridor and confronted the masked man just before the door. The lamplight fell on his face, upon which played a faint, cynical smile.
“What do you wish? I am in charge here.”
The masked man’s voice was muffled. It sounded cavernous and ghostly, fitting his appearance.
“I am Dhira Azrail. An order has been given. Open the door.”
The scarred one salaamed deeply, and murmured: “Hearkening and obedience, my lord!”
He produced a key, turned it in the lock, pulled open the heavy