meat, near Al Wazir’s hand. An instant later he dodged, as the mad hermit hurled the tins at him with all his power. Shaking his head in despair, Gordon went into the store-room and broke his own fast. He had little heart to eat, with the ruin of that once-splendid personality before him, but the urgings of hunger would not be denied.
It was while thus employed that a sudden noise outside brought him to his feet, galvanized by the imminence of danger.
CHAPTER 5
It was the rattling fall of the stone Gordon had placed in the path that had alarmed him. Someone was climbing up the winding trail! Snatching up his rifle he glided out on the ledge. One of his enemies had come at last.
Down at the pool a weary, dusty camel was drinking. On the path, a few feet below the ledge there stood a tall, wiry man in dust-stained boots and breeches, his torn shirt revealing his brown, muscular chest.
“Gordon!” this man ejaculated, staring amazedly into the black muzzle of the American’s rifle. “How the devil did you get here?” His hands were empty, resting on an outcropping of rock, just as he had halted in the act of climbing. His rifle was slung to his back, pistol and scimitar in their scabbards at his belt.
“Put up your hands, Hawkston,” ordered Gordon, and the Englishman obeyed.
“What are you doing here?” he repeated. “I left you in el-Azem--”
“Salim lived long enough to tell me what he saw in the hut by Mekmet’s Pool. I came by a road you know nothing about. Where are the other jackals?”
Hawkston shook the sweat-beads from his sun-burnt forehead. He was above medium height, brown, hard as sole-leather, with a dark hawk-like face and a high-bridged predatory nose arching over a thin black mustache. A lawless adventurer, his scintillant grey eyes reflected a ruthless and reckless nature, and as a fighting man he was as notorious as was Gordon--more notorious in Arabia, for Afghanistan had been the stage for most of El Borak’s exploits.
“My men? Dead by now, I fancy. The Ruweila are on the war-path. Shalan ibn Mansour caught us at Sulaymen’s Well, with fifty men. We made a barricade of our saddles among the palms and stood them off all day. Van Brock and three of our camel-drivers were killed during the fighting, and Krakovitch was wounded. That night I took a camel and cleared out. I knew it was no use hanging on.”
“You swine,” said Gordon without passion. He did not call Hawkston a coward. He knew that not cowardice, but a cynical determination to save his skin at all hazards had driven the Englishman to desert his wounded and beleaguered companions.
“There wasn’t any use for us all to be killed,” retorted Hawkston. “I believed one man could sneak away in the dark and I did. They rushed the camp just as I got clear. I heard them killing the others. Ortelli howled like a lost soul when they cut his throat--I knew they’d run me down long before I could reach the Coast, so I headed for the caves--northwest across the open desert, leaving the road and Khosru’s Well off to the south. It was a long, dry ride, and I made it more by luck than anything else. And now can I put my hands down?”
“You might as well,” replied Gordon, the rifle at his shoulder never wavering. “In a few seconds it won’t matter much to you where your hands are.”
Hawkston’s expression did not change. He lowered his hands, but kept them away from his belt.
“You mean to kill me?” he asked calmly.
“You murdered my friend Salim. You came here to torture and rob Al Wazir. You’d kill me if you got the chance. I’d be a fool to let you live.”
“Are you going to shoot me in cold blood?”
“No. Climb up on the ledge. I’ll give you any kind of an even break you want.”
Hawkston complied, and a few seconds later stood facing the American. An observer would have been struck by a certain similarity between the two men. There was no facial resemblance, but both were burned dark by the sun, both were built with the hard economy of rawhide and spring steel, and both wore the keen, hawk-like aspect which is the common brand of men who live by their wits and guts out on the raw edges of the world.
Hawkston stood with his empty hands at his sides while Gordon faced him with rifle