"The hallal!"*(*Ritual throat-cutting.) says he. "Is it not fitting, for the proper despatch of animals?"

"Blasphemer!" says Kutebar. "Is this a time for jest?"

The boy hissed at them, and they were silent. He had authority, this little spring violet, and when he snapped a command they jumped to it, hurrying along between the buildings, while he brought up the rear, glancing back towards the sound of shooting from the other side of the fort. There wasn't a Russian to be seen where we were, but I wasn't surprised. I could see the game - a sudden attack, with gunpowder and lots of noise, at the main gate, to draw every Russian in that direction, while the lifting party sneaked in through some rear bolt-hole. They were probably inside before the attack began, marking the sentries and waiting for the signal - but they hadn't bargained, apparently, for the sergeant and his men having orders to kill Yakub Beg as soon as a rescue was attempted. We'd been lucky there.

Suddenly we were under the main wall, and there were figures on the cat-walk overhead; Yakub Beg's body, grotesquely limp, was being hauled up, with the boy piping feverishly at them to be easy with him. Not fifty feet away, to our left, muskets were blazing from one of the guard towers, but they were shooting away from us. Strong lean hands helped me as I scrambled clumsily at a rope-ladder; voices in Persian were muttering around us in the dark, robed figures were crouching at the embrasures, and then we were sliding down the ropes on the outside, and I fell the last ten feet, landing on top of the man beneath, who gave a brief commentary on my parentage, future, and personal habits as only a hillman can, and then called softly: "All down, Silk One, including the clown Kutebar, your beloved the Atalik Ghazi, and this misbegotten pig of a feringhi with the large feet."

"Go!" said the boy's voice from the top of the wall, and as they thrust me forward in the dark a long keening wail broke out from overhead; it was echoed somewhere along the wall, and even above the sound of firing I heard it farther off still. I was stumbling along in my chains, clutching at the hand of the man who led me.

"Where are we going?" says I. "Where are you taking me?"

"Ask questions in the council, infidel, not in the battle," says he. "Can you ride, you feringhi who speaks Persian? Here, Kutebar, he is your friend; do you take him, lest he fall on me again."

"Son of dirt and dung," says Kutebar, lumbering out of the dark. "Did he not a.s.sist me in slaying Ruskis, who would undoubtedly have cut our throats before your tardy arrival? What would the Silk One have said to you then, eh? A fine rescue, by G.o.d! The wh.o.r.es of Samarkand market could have done it better!"

I thought that a trifle hard, myself; it had been as neat a jail clearance, for my money, as heart could desire, and I doubt if ten minutes had pa.s.sed since I'd woken with Kutebar's hand on my mouth. I'd killed one man, perhaps two, and their blood was still wet on my face - but I was free! Whoever these fine chaps were, they were taking me out of the clutches of that rascal Ignatieff and his beastly knouts and nagaikas - I was loose again, and living, and if my fetters were galling me and my joints aching with strain and fatigue, if my body was foul and fit to drop, my heart was singing. You've sold 'em again, old son, I thought; good for you - and these accommodating n.i.g.g.e.rs, of course.

About half a mile from the fort there was a gully, with cypress trees, and horses stamping in the dark, and I just sat on the ground, limp and thankful, beside Kutebar, while he reviled our saviours genially. Presently the boy in black came slipping out of the shadows, kneeling beside us.

"I have sent Yakub away," says he. "It is far to the edge of the Red Sands. We wait here, for Sahib Khan and the others - G.o.d grant they have not lost too many!"

"To build the house, trees must fall," says Kutebar complacently. I agreed with him entirely, mind you. "And how is His Idleness, the Falcon on the Royal Wrist - G.o.d, my back is broken, bearing him up! How many days did I carry his moping carcase, in that filthy cell, with never a word of complaint from my patient lips? Has my labour been in vain?"

"He is well, G.o.d be thanked," says the boy, and then the furious little pansy began to snivel like a girl. "His poor limbs are torn and helpless - but he is strong, he will mend! He spoke to me, Kutebar! He told me how you - cared for him, and fought for him just now - you and the feringhi here. Oh, old hawk of the hills, how can I bless you enough?"

And the disgusting young lout flung his arms round Kutebar's neck, murmuring gratefully and kissing him, until the old fellow pushed him away - he was normal, at least.

"Shameless thing!" mutters he. "Respect my grey hairs! Is there no seemliness among you Chinese, then? Away, you bare-faced creature - practise your grat.i.tude on this angliski if you must, but spare me!"

"Indeed I shall," says the youth, and turning to me, he put his hands on my shoulders. "You have saved my love, stranger; therefore you have my love, forever and all." He was a nauseatingly pretty one this, with his full lips and slanting Chinese eyes, and his pale, chiselled face framed by the black turban. The tears were still wet on his cheeks, and then to my disgust he leaned forward, plainly intending to kiss me, too.

"No thank'ee!" cries I. "No offence, my son, but I ain't one for your sort, if you don't mind ..."

But his arms were round my neck and his lips on mine before I could stop him - and then I felt two firm young b.r.e.a.s.t.s pressing against my chest, and there was no mistaking the womanliness of the soft cheek against mine. A female, bigad - leading a Ghazi storming-party on a neck-or-nothing venture like this! And such a female, There are some parts of my life that I'd be glad to relive any time - and some that I don't care to remember at all. But there aren't many that I look back on and have to pinch myself to believe that they really happened. The business of the Khokandian Horde of the Red Sands is one of these, and yet it's one of the few episodes in my career that I can verify from the history books if I want to. There are obscure works on Central Asia by " anonymous surveyors and military writers,40 and I can look in them and find the names and places - Yakub Beg, Izzat Kutebar and Katti Torah; Buzurg Khan and the Seven Khojas, the Great and Middle Hordes of the Black Sands and the Golden Road, the Sky-blue Wolves of the Hungry Steppe, Sahib Khan, and the remarkable girl they called the Silk One. You can trace them all, if you are curious, and learn how in those days they fought the Russians inch by inch from the Jaxartes to the Oxus, and if it reads to you like a mixture of Robin Hood and the Arabian Nights - well, I was there for part of it, and even I look back on it as some kind of frightening fairy-tale come true.

And when I've thumbed through the books and maps, and mumbled the names aloud as an old man does, looking out of my window at the cabs clopping past by the Park in twentieth-century London, and the governesses stepping demurely with their little charges (deuced smart, some of these governesses), I'll go and rummage until I've found that old clumsy German revolver that I took from the Russian sergeant under Fort Raim, and for a threadbare scarf of black silk with the star-flowers embroidered on it - and I can hear again Yakub's laughter ringing behind me, and Kutebar's boastful growling, and the thunder of a thousand hooves and the shouting of the turbaned Tajik riders that makes me shiver still. But most of all I smell the wraith of her perfume, and see those slanting black eyes - "Lick up the honey, stranger, and ask no questions." That was the best part.

On the night of the rescue from Fort Raim, of course, I knew next to nothing about them - except that they were obviously of the warlike tribes constantly warring with the Russians who were trying to invade their country and push the Tsar's dominions south to Afghanistan and east to the China border. It was a b.l.o.o.d.y, brutal business that, and the wild people - the Tajiks, the Kirgiz-Kazaks, the Khokandians, the Uzbeks and the rest - were being forced back up the Syr Daria into the Hungry Steppe and the Red Sands, harrying all the way, raiding the new Russian outposts and cutting up their caravans.

But they weren't just savages by any means. Behind them, far up the Syr Daria and the Amu Daria, were their great cities of Tashkent and Khokand and Samarkand and Bokhara, places that had been civilized when the Russians were running round bare-a.r.s.ed - these were the spots that Moscow was really after, and which Ignatieff had boasted would be swept up in the victorious march to India. And leaders like Yakub and Kutebar were waging a desperate last-ditch fight to stop them in the no-man's-land east of the Aral Sea along the Syr Daria.

It was to the brink of that no-man's-land that they carried us on the night of our deliverance from Fort Raim - a punishing ride, hour after hour, through the dark and the silvery morning, over miles of desert and gully and parched steppe-land. They had managed to sever my ankle chain, so that I could back a horse, but I rode in an exhausted dream, only half-conscious of the robed figures flanking me, and the smell of camel-hair robes, and sinking on to a blessed softness to sleep forever.

It was a good place, that - an oasis deep in the Red Sands of the Kizil k.u.m, where the Russians still knew better than to venture. I remember waking there, to the sound of rippling water, and crawling out of the tent in bright sunlight, and blinking at a long valley, crowded with tents, and a little village of beautiful white houses on the valley side, with trees and gra.s.s, and women and children chattering, and Tajik riders everywhere, with their horses and camels - lean, ugly, bearded fellows, bandoliered and booted, and not the kind of company I care to keep, normally. But one of them sings out: "Salaam, angliski!" as he clattered by, and one of the women gave me bread and coffee, and all seemed very friendly.

Somewhere - I believe it's in my celebrated work, Dawns and Departures of a Soldier's Life - I've written a good deal about that valley, and the customs and manners of the tribesfolk, and what a little Paradise it seemed after what I'd been through. So it was, and some fellows would no doubt have been content to lie back, wallowing in their freedom, thanking Providence, and having a rest before thinking too hard about the future. That's not Flashy's way; given a moment's respite I have to be looking ahead to the next leap, and that very first morning, while the local smith was filing off my fetters in the presence of a grinning, admiring crowd, I was busy thinking, aye, so far so good, but where next? That Russian army at Fort Raim was still a long sight too close for comfort, and I wouldn't rest easy until I'd reached real safety - Berkeley Square, say, or a little ale-house that I know in Leicestershire.

Afghanistan looked the best bet - not that it's a place I'd ever venture into gladly, but there was no other way to India and my own people, and I figured that Yakub Beg would see me safe along that road, as a return for services rendered to him in our cell at Fort Raim. We jail-birds stick together, and he was obviously a man of power and influence - why, he was probably on dining-out terms with half the badmashes*(*Ruffians.) and cattle-thieves between here and Jallalabad, and if necessary he'd give me an escort; we could travel as horse-copers, or something, for with my Persian and Pushtu I'd have no difficulty pa.s.sing as an Afghan. I'd done it before. And there would be no lousy Russians along the road just yet, thank G.o.d - and as my thoughts went bounding ahead it suddenly struck me, the magnificent realization - I was free, within reach of India, and I had Ignatieff s great secret plan of invasion! Oh, East might have taken it to Raglan, but that was nothing in the gorgeous dream that suddenly opened up before me - the renowned Flashy, last seen vanishing into the Russian army at Balaclava with boundless energy, now emerging in romantic disguise at Peshawar with the dreadful news for the British garrison.

"You might let the Governor-General know," I would tell my goggling audience, "that there's a Russian army of thirty thousand coming down through the Khyber shortly, with half Afghanistan in tow, and if he wants to save India he'd better get the army up here fairly smart. Yes, there's no doubt of it - got it from the Tsar's secret cabinet. They probably know in London by now - fellow called East got out through the Crimea, I believe - I'd been wounded, you see, and told him to clear out and get the news through at any price. So he left me - well, you take your choice, don't you? Friendship or duty? - anyway, it don't signify. I'm here, with the news, and it's here we'll have to stop 'em. How did I get here? Ha-ha, my dear chap, if I told you, it wouldn't make you any wiser. Half-way across Russia, through Astrakhan, over the Aral Sea (Caspian, too, as a matter of fact) and across the Hindu Kush - old country to me, of course. Rough trip? No-o, not what I'd call rough, really - be glad when these fetter-marks have healed up, though - Russian jailers, I don't mind telling you, have a lot to learn from English chambermaids, what? Yes, I a.s.sure you, I am Flashman - yes, the Flashman, if you like. Now, do be a good fellow and get it on the telegraph to Calcutta, won't you? Oh, and you might ask them to forward my apologies to Lord Raglan that I wasn't able to rejoin him at Balaclava, owing to being unavoidably detained. Now, I'd give anything for a bath, and a pair of silk socks and a hairbrush, if you don't mind ..."

Gad, the Press would be full of it. Hero of Afghanistan, and now Saviour of India - a.s.suming the d.a.m.ned place was saved. Still, I'd have done my bit, and East's scuttle through the snow would look puny by comparison. I'd give him a careful pat on the back, of course, pointing t.i.t that he'd only done his duty, even if it did mean sacrificing his old chum. "Really, I think that in spite of everyything, I had the easier part," I would say gravely. "I didn't have that kind of choice to make, you see." Modest, off-hand, self-deprecatory - if I played it properly, I'd get a knighthood out of it.

And all I had to do to realize that splendid prospect was have a chat with Yakub Beg, as soon as he had recovered from his ordeal, point out that the Russians were our mutual enemies and I was duty bound to get to India at once, thank him for his hospitality, and be off with his blessing and a.s.sistance. Not to waste time, I broached the thing that afternoon to Izzat Kutebar, when he invited me to share a dish of kefir with him in the neighbouring tent where he was recovering, noisily, from his captivity and escape.

"Eat, and thank Providence for such delights as this, which you infidels call ambrosia," says he, while one of his women put the dish of honey-coloured curds before me. "The secret of its preparation was specially given by G.o.d to Abraham himself. Personally, I prefer it even to a Tashkent melon - and you know the proverb runs that the Caliph of the Faithful would give ten pearl-breasted beauties from his hareem for a single melon of Tashkent. Myself, I would give five, perhaps, or six, if the melon were a big one." He wiped his beard. "And you would go to Afghanistan, then, and to your folk in India? It can be arranged - we owe you a debt, Flashman bahadur, Yakub and I and all our people. As you owe one to us, for your own deliverance," he added gently.

I protested my undying grat.i.tude at once, and he nodded gravely.

"Between warriors let a word of thanks be like a heart-beat - a small thing, hardly heard, but it suffices," says he, and then grinned sheepishly. "What do I say? The truth is, we all owe our chief debt to that wild witch, Ko Dali's daughter. She whom they call the Silk One." He shook his head. "G.o.d protect me from a wayward child, and a wanton that goes bare-faced. There will be no holding her in after this - or curbing Yakub Beg's infatuation with her, either. And yet, my friend, would you and I be sitting here, eating this fine kefir, but for her?"

"Who is she?" I asked, for I'd seen - and felt - just enough of that remarkable female last night to be thoroughly intrigued. She'd have been a phenomenon any-where, but in a Muslim country, where women are kept firmly in their place, and never dream of intruding in men's work, her apparent authority had astounded me. "Do you know, Izzat, last night until she . . . er, kissed me - I was sure she was a man."

"So Ko Dali must have thought, when the fierce little b.i.t.c.h came yelping into the world," says he. "Who is Ko Dali? - a Chinese war lord, who had the good taste to take a Khokandian wife, and the ill luck to father the Silk One. He governs in Kashgar, a Chinese city of East Turkestan a thousand miles east of here, below the Issik Kul and the Seven Rivers Country. Would to G.o.d he could govern his daughter as well - so should we be spared much shame, for is it not deplorable to have a woman who struts like a khan among us, and leads such enterprises as that which freed you and me last night? Am I, Kutebar, to hold up my head and say: "A woman brought me forth of Fort Raim jail'? Aye, laugh, you old cow," he bellowed at the ancient serving-woman, who had been listening and cackling. "You daughter of shame, is this respect? You take her side, all you wicked s.l.u.ts, and rejoice to see us men put down. The trouble with the Silk One," he went on to me, "is that she is always right. A scandal, but there it is. Who can fathom the ways of Allah, who lets such things happen?"

"Well," says I, "it happened among the Ruskis, you know, Kutebar. They had an empress - why, in my own country, we are ruled by a queen."

"So I have heard," says he, "but you are infidels. Besides, does your Sultana, Vik Taria, go unveiled? Does she plan raid and ambush? No, by the black tomb of Timur, I'll wager she does not."

"Not that I've heard, lately," I admitted. "But this Silk One - where does she come from? What's her name, anyway?"

"Who knows? She is Ko Dali's daughter. And she came, on a day - it would be two years ago, after the Ruskis had built that devil's house, Fort Raim, and were sending their soldiers east of the Aral, in breach of all treaty and promise, to take our country and enslave our people. We were fighting them, as we are fighting still, Yakub and I and the other chiefs - and then she was among us, with her shameless bare face and bold talk and a dozen Chinese devil-fighters attending on her. It was a troubled time, with the world upside down, and we scratching with our fingernails to hold the Ruskis back by foray and ambuscade; in such disorders, anything is possible, even a woman fighting-chief. And Yakub saw her, and . . ." He spread his hands. "She is beautiful, as the lily at morning - and clever, it is not to be denied. Doubtless they will marry, some day, if Yakub's wife will let him - she lives at Julek, on the river. But he is no fool, my Yakub - perhaps he loves this female hawk, perhaps not, but he is ambitious, and he seeks such a kingdom for himself as Kashgar. Who knows, when Ko Dali dies, if Yakub finds the throne of Khokand beyond his reach, he may look to Ko Dali's daughter to help him wrest Kashgar province from the Chinese. He has spoken of it, and she sits, devouring him with those black Mongolian eyes of hers. It is said," he went on confidentially, "that she devours other men also, and that it was for her scandalous habits that the governor of Fort Raim, Engmann the Ruski - may wild hogs mate above his grave! - had her head shaved when she was taken last year, after the fall of Ak Mechet. They say -"

"They lie!" screeched the old woman, who had been listening. "In their jealousy they throw dirt on her, the pretty Silk One!"

"Will you raise your head, mother of discord and ruiner of good food?" says Izzat. "They shaved her scalp, I say, which is why she goes with a turban about her always - for she has kept it shaved, and vowed to do so until she has Engmann's own head on a plate at her feet. G.o.d, the perversity of women! But what can one do about her? She is worth ten heads in the council, she can ride like a Kazak, and is as brave as . . . as . . . as I am, by G.o.d! If Yakub and Buzurg Khan of Khokand - and I, of course - hold these Russian swine back from our country, it will be because she has the gift of seeing their weaknesses, and showing us how they may be confounded. She is touched by G.o.d, I believe - which is why our men admit her, and heed her - and turn their heads aside lest they meet her eye. All save Yakub Beg, who has ever championed her, and fears nothing."

"And you say she'll make him a king one day, and be his queen? An extraordinary girl, indeed. Meanwhile she helps you fight the Ruskis."

"She helps not me, by G.o.d! She may help Yakub, who fights as chief of the Tajiks and military governor under Buzurg Khan, who rules in Khokand. They fight for their state, for all the Kirgiz-Kazak people, against an invader. But I, Izzat Kutebar, fight for myself and my own band. I am no statesman, I am no governor or princeling. I need no throne but my saddle. I," says this old ruffian, with immense pride, "am a bandit, as my fathers were. For upwards of thirty years - since I first ambushed the Bokhara caravan, in fact - I have robbed the Russians. Let me wear the robe of pride over the breastplate of distinction, for I have taken more loot and cut more throats of theirs since they put their thieving noses east of the Blue Lake* than any -"

"And a chit of a girl had to lift you from Fort Raim prison," cries the crone, busy among her pots. "Was it an earthquake they had in Samarkand last year - nay, it was Timur turning in his grave for the credit of the men of Syr Daria!*(*The Aral Sea.) Heh-heh!"

"... and it is as a bandit that I fight the Ruskis," says he, ignoring the interruption. "Shall I not be free to rob, in my own country? Is that not as just a cause as Yakub's, who fights for his people's freedom, or Buzurg's, who fights for his throne and his fine palace and revenue and dancing-women? Or Sahib Khan, who fights to avenge the slaughter of his family at Ak Mechet? Each to his own cause, I say. But you shall see for yourself, when we go to greet Yakub tonight - aye, and you shall see the Silk One, too, and judge what manner of thing she is. G.o.d keep me from the marriage-bed of such a demon, and when I find Paradise, may my houris not come from China."

So that evening, when I had bathed, trimmed my beard, and had the filthy rags of my captivity replaced by shirt, pyjamy trousers, and soft Persian boots, Kutebar took me through the crowded camp, with everyone saluting him as he strutted by, with his beard oiled and his silver-crusted belt and broad gold medal worn over his fine green coat, and the children crowding about him for the sweets which he carried for them. A robber he might be, but I never saw a man better liked - mind you, I liked him myself, and the thought struck me that he and Pencherjevsky and old Scarlett would have got on like a house on fire. I could see them all three hunting in Rutland together, chasing poachers, d.a.m.ning the government, and knocking the necks off bottles at four in the morning.

We climbed up to the white houses of the village, and Izzat led me through a low archway into a little garden where there was a fountain and an open pillared pavilion such as you might find in Aladdin's pantomime. It was a lovely little place, shaded by trees in the warm evening, with birds murmuring in the branches, the first stars beginning to peep in the dark blue sky overhead, and some flute-like instrument playing softly beyond the wall. It's strange, but the reality of the East is always far beyond anything the romantic poets and artists can create in imitation.

Yakub Beg was lying on a pile of cushions beneath the pavilion, bare-headed and clad only in his pyjamys, so that his shoulders could be ma.s.saged by a stout woman who was working at them with warmed oil. He was tired and hollow-eyed still, but his lean face lit up at the sight of us - I suppose he was a bit of a demon king, with his forked beard and skull-lock, and that rare thing in Central Asia, which they say is a legacy of Alexander's Greek mercenaries - the bright blue eyes of the European. And he had the happiest smile, I think, that ever I saw on a human face. You only had to see it to understand why the Syr Daria tribes carried on their hopeless struggle against the Russians; fools will always follow the Yakub Begs of this world.

He greeted me eagerly, and presented me to Sahib Khan, his lieutenant, of whom I remember nothing except that he was unusually tall, with moustaches that fell below his chin; I was trying not to look too pointedly at the third member of the group, who was lounging on cushions near Yakub, playing with a tiny Persian kitten on her lap. Now that I saw her in full light, I had a little difficulty in recognizing the excitable, pa.s.sionate creature I had taken for a boy only the night before; Ko Dali's daughter this evening was a very self-possessed, consciously feminine young woman indeed - of course, girls are like that, squealing one minute, all a.s.sured dignity the next. She was dressed in the tight-wrapped white trousers the Tajik women wear, with curled Persian slippers on her dainty feet, and any illusion of boyishness was dispelled by the roundness of the cloth-of-silver blouse beneath her short embroidered jacket. Round her head she wore a pale pink turban, very tight, framing a striking young face as pale as alabaster - you'll think me susceptible, but I found her incredibly fetching, with her slanting almond eyes (the only Chinese thing about her), the slightly-protruding milk-white teeth which showed as she teased and laughed at the kitten, the determined little chin, and the fine straight nose that looked as though it had been chiselled out of marble. Not as perfectly beautiful as Montez, perhaps, but with the lithe, graceful gift of movement, that hint of action in the dark, unfathomable eyes which - aye, well, well. As Yakub Beg was saying: "Izzat tells me you are eager to rejoin your own people in India, Flashman bahadur. Before we discuss that, I wish to make a small token sign of my grat.i.tude to you . . . well, for my life, no less. There are perhaps half a dozen people in the world who have saved Yakub Beg at one time or another - three of them you see here ..."

"More fool us," growls Kutebar. "A thankless task, friends."

". . . but you are the first feringhi to render me that service. So" - he gave that frank impulsive grin, and ducked his shaven head -" if you are willing, and will do me the great honour to accept ..."

I wondered what was coming, and caught my breath when, at a signal from Sahib Khan, a servant brought in a tray on which were four articles - a little bowl containing salt, another in which an ember of wood burned smokily, a small square of earth with a shred of rank gra.s.s attaching to it, and a plain, wave-bladed Persian dagger with the snake-and-hare design on its blade. I knew what this meant, and it took me aback, for it's the ultimate honour a hillman can do to you: Yakub Beg wanted to make me his blood brother. And while you could say I had saved his life - still, it was big medicine, on such short acquaintance.

However, I knew the formula, for I'd been blood brother to young Ilderim of Mogala years before, so I followed him in tasting the salt, and pa.s.sing my hand over the fire and the earth, and then laying it beside his on the knife while he said, and I repeated: "By earth, and salt, and fire; by hilt and blade; and in the name of G.o.d in whatever tongue men call Him, I am thy brother in blood henceforth. May He curse me and consign me to the pit forever, if I fail thee, my friend."

Funny thing - I don't hold with oaths, much, and I'm not by nature a truthful man, but on the three occasions that I've sworn blood brotherhood it has seemed a more solemn thing than swearing on the Bible. Arnold was right; I'm d.a.m.ned beyond a doubt.

Yakub Beg had some difficulty, his shoulders were still crippled, and Sahib Khan had to lift his hand to the tray for him. And then he had to carry both his hands round my neck as I stooped for the formal embrace, after which Kutebar and Ko Dali's daughter and Sahib Khan murmured their applause, and we drank hot black coffee with lemon essence and opium, sweetened with sherbet.

And then the serious business began. I had to recite, at Yakub Beg's request, my own recent history, and how I had come into the hands of the Russians. So I told them, in brief, much of what I've written here, from my capture at Balaclava to my arrival in Fort Raim - leaving out the discreditable bits, of course, but telling them what they wanted to hear most, which was why there was a great Russian army a.s.sembling at Fort Raim, for the march to India. They listened intently, the men only occasionally exploding in a "Bismillah!" or "Eyah!", with a hand-clap by way of emphasis, and the woman silent, fondling the kitten and watching me with those thoughtful, almond eyes. And when I had done, Yakub Beg began to laugh - so loud and hearty that he hurt his torn muscles.

"So much for pride, then! Oh, Khokand, what a little thing you are, and how insignificant your people in the sight of the great world! We had thought, in our folly, that this great army was for us, that the White Tsar was sending his best to trample us flat - and we are just to be licked up in the bygoing, like a mosquito brushed from the hunter's eye when he sights his quarry. And the Great Bear marches on India, does he?" He shook his head. "Can your people stop him at the Khyber gate?"

"Perhaps," says I, "if I get word to them in time."

"In three weeks you might be in Peshawar," says he, thoughtfully. "Not that it will profit us here. The word is that the Ruskis will begin their advance up Syr Daria within two weeks, which means we have a month of life left to us. And then -" he made a weary little gesture. "Tashkent and Khokand will go; Perovski will drink his tea in the serai by Samarkand bazaar, and his horses will water in the See-ah stream. The Cossacks will ride over the Black Sands and the Red." He smiled wryly. "You British may save India, but who shall save us? The wise men were right: "We are lost when Russia drinks the waters of Jaxartes'. They have been tasting them this four years, but now they will sup them dry."

There was silence, the men sitting glum, while the Silk One toyed with her cat, and from time to time gave me a slow, disturbing glance.

"Well," says I, helpfully, "perhaps you can make some sort of . . . accommodation with them. Terms, don't you know."

"Terms?" says Yakub. "Have you made terms with a wolf lately, Englishman? Shall I tell you the kind of terms they make? When this sc.u.m Perovski brought his soldiers and big guns to my city of Ak Mechet two years ago, invading our soil for no better reason than that he wished to steal it, what did he tell Mahomed Wali, who ruled in my absence?" His voice was still steady, but his eyes were shining. "He said: "Russia comes not for a day, not for a year, but forever'. Those were his terms. And when Wali's people fought for the town, even the women and children throwing their kissiaks*(*Hard dung b.a.l.l.s used as missiles.) against the guns, and held until there was no food left, the swords were all broken, and the little powder gone, and the walls blown in, and only the citadel remained, Wali said: "It is enough. We will surrender'. And Perovski tore up the offer of surrender and said: "We will take the citadel with our bayonets'. And they did. Two hundred of our folk they mowed down with grape, even the old and young. That is the honour of a Russian soldier; that is the peace of the White Tsar."'"

"My wife and children died in Ak Mechet, beneath the White Mosque," says Sahib Khan. "They did not even know who the Russians were. My little son clapped his hands before the battle, to see so many pretty uniforms, and the guns all in a row."

They were silent again, and I sat uncomfortably, until Yakub Beg says: "So you see, there will be no terms. Those of us whom they do not kill, they will enslave: they have said as much. They will sweep us clean, from Persia to Balkash and the Roof of the World. How can we prevent them? I took seven thousand men against Ak Mechet two winters since, and saw them routed; I went again with twice as many, and saw my thousands slain. The Russians lost eighteen killed. Oh, if it were sabre to sabre, horse to horse, man to man, I would not shirk the odds -: but against their artillery, their rifles, what can our riders do?"

"Fight," growls Kutebar. "So it is the last fight, let it be one they will remember. A month, you say? In that time we can run the horse-tail banner to Kashgar and back; we can raise every Muslim fighting-man from Turgai to the Killer-of-Hindus, *(*Hindu Kush range.) from Khora.s.san to the Tarm Desert." His voice rose steadily from a growl to a shout. "When the Chinese slew the Kalmucks in the old time, what was the answer given to the faint hearts: 'Turn east, west, north, south, there you shall find the Kirgiz'. Why should we lie down to a handful of strangers? They have arms, they have horses - so have we. If they come in their thousands, these infidels, have we not the Great Horde of the far steppes, the people of the Blue Wolf,42 to join our jihad?*(*Holy war.) We may not win, but by G.o.d, we can make them understand that the ghosts of Timur and Chinghiz Khan still ride these plains; we can mark every yard of the Syr Daria with a Russian corpse; we can make them buy this country at a price that will cause the Tsar to count his change in the Kremlin palace!"

Sahib Khan chimed in again: "So runs the proverb: 'While the gun-barrel lies in its stock, and the blade is unbroken'. It will be all that is left to us, Yakub."

Yakub Beg sighed, and then smiled at me. He was one of your spirited rascals who can never be glum for more than a moment. "It may be. If they overrun us, I shall not live to see it; I'll make young bones somewhere up by Ak Mechet. You understand, Flashman bahadur, we may buy you a little time here, in Syr Daria - no more. Your red soldiers may avenge us, but only G.o.d can help us."

"And He has a habit of choosing the winning side, which will not be ours," says Kutebar. "Well, I'm overdue for Paradise; may I find it by a short cut and a b.l.o.o.d.y one."

Ko Dali's daughter spoke for the first time, and I was surprised how high and yet husky her voice was - the kind that makes you think of French satin sofas, with the blinds down and purple wall-paper. She was lying p.r.o.ne now, tickling the kitten's belly and murmuring to it.

"Do you hear them, little tiger, these great strong men?

How they enjoy their despair! They reckon the odds, and find them heavy, and since fighting is so much easier than thinking they put the scowl of resignation on the face of stupidity, and swear most horribly." Her voice whined in grotesque mimicry. "'By the bowels of Rustum, we shall give them a battle to remember - hand me my scimitar, Gamal, it is in the woodshed. Aye, we shall make such-and-such a slaughter, and if we are all blown to the ends of Eblis - may G.o.d protect the valorous! - we shall at least be blown like men. Eyewallah, brothers, it is G.o.d's will; we shall have done our best.' This is how the wise warriors talk, furry little sister - which is why we women weep and children go hungry. But never fear - when the Russians have killed them all, I shall find myself a great, strong Cossack, and you shall have a l.u.s.ty Russian tom, and we shall live on oranges and honey and cream forever."

Yakub Beg just laughed, and silenced Kutebar's angry growl. "She never said a word that was not worth listening to. Well, Silk One, what must we do to be saved?"

Ko Dali's daughter rolled the kitten over. "Fight them now, before they have moved, while they have their backs to the sea. Take all your hors.e.m.e.n, suddenly, and scatter them on the beach."

"Oh, cage the wind, girl!" cries Kutebar. "They have thirty thousand muskets, one-third of them Cossack cavalry. Where can we raise half that number?"

"Send to Buzurg Khan to help you. At need, ask aid from Bokhara."

"Bokhara is lukewarm," says Yakub Beg. "They are the last to whom we can turn for help."

The girl shrugged. "When the Jew grows poor, he looks to his old accounts. Well, then, you must do it alone."

"How, woman? I have not the gift of human multiplication; they outnumber us."

"But their ammunition has not yet come - this much we know from your spies at Fort Raim. So the odds are none so great - three to one at most. With such valiant sabres as Kutebar here, the thing should be easy."

"Devil take your impudence!" cries Kutebar. "I could not a.s.semble ten thousand swords within a week, and by then their powder and cartridge ships will have arrived."

"Then you should have a.s.sembled them before this," was the tart rejoinder.

"Heaven lighten your understanding, you perverse Chinese b.i.t.c.h! How could I, when I was rotting in jail?"

"That was clever," says she, "that was sound preparation, indeed. Hey, puss-puss-puss, are they not shrewd, these big strong fellows?"

"If there were a hope of a surprise attack on their camp succeeding, I should have ordered it," says Yakub Beg. "To stop them here, before their advance has begun ..." He looked at me. "That would solve your need as well as ours, Englishman. But I see no way. Their powder ships will arrive in a week, and three days, perhaps four thereafter, they will be moving up Syr Daria. If something is to be done, it must be done soon."

"Ask her, then," says Kutebar sarcastically. "Is she not waiting to be asked? To her, it will be easy."

"If it were easy, even you would have thought of it by now," says the girl. "Let me think of it instead." She rose, picking up her cat, stroking it and smiling as she nuzzled it. "Shall we think, little cruelty? And when we have thought, we shall tell them, and they will slap their knees and cry: 'Mashallah, but how simple! It leaps to the eye! A child could have conceived it.' And they will smile on us, and perhaps throw us a little jumagi, *(*Pocket-money.) or a sweetmeat, for which we shall be humbly thankful. Come, butcher of little mice."

And without so much as a glance at us, she sauntered off, with those tight white pants stirring provocatively, and Izzat cursing under his breath.

"Ko Dali should have whipped the demons out of that baggage before she grew teeth! But then, what do the Chinese know of education? If she were mine, by death, would I not discipline her?"

"You would not dare, father of wind and grey whiskers," says Yakub genially. "So let her think - and if nothing comes of it, you may have the laugh of her."

"A bitter laugh it will be, then," says Kutebar. "By Shaitan, it will be the last laugh we have."

Now their discussion had been all very well, no doubt, but it was of no great interest to me whether they got themselves cut up by the Russians now or a month hence. The main thing was to get Flashy on his way to India, and I made bold to raise the subject again. But Yakub Beg disappointed me.

"You shall go, surely, but a few days will make no difference. By then we shall have made a resolve here, and it were best your chiefs in India knew what it was. So they may be the better prepared. In the meantime, Flashman bahadur, blood brother, take your ease among us."

I couldn't object to that, and for three days I loafed about, wandering through the camp, observing the great coming and going of couriers, and the arrival each day of fresh bands of hors.e.m.e.n. They were coming in from all parts of the Red Sands, and beyond, from as far as the Black Sands below Khiva, and Zarafshan and the Bokhara border - Uzbeks with their flat yellow faces and scalp-locks, lean, swarthy Tajiks and slit-eyed Mongols, terrible-looking folk with their long swords and bandy legs - until there must have been close on five thousand riders in that valley alone. But when you thought of these wild hordes pitted against artillery and disciplined riflemen, you saw how hopeless the business was; it would take more than the Silk One to think them out of this.

An extraordinary young woman that - weeping pa.s.sionately over Yakub's wounds on the night of the rescue, but in council with the men as composed (and bossy) as a Mayfair mama. A walking temptation, too, to a warm-blooded chap like me, so I kept well clear of her in those three days. She might be just the ticket for a wet week-end, but she was also Yakub Beg's intended - and that apart, I'm bound to confess that there was something about the cut of her shapely little jib that made me just a mite uneasy. I'm wary of strong, clever women, however beddable they may be, and Ko Dali's daughter was strong and too clever for comfort. As I was to find out to my cost - G.o.d, when I think what that Chinese-minded mort got me into!

I spent my time, as I say, loafing, and getting more impatient and edgy by the hour. I wanted to get away for India, and every day that pa.s.sed brought nearer the moment when those Russian brutes (with Ignatieff well to the fore, no doubt) came pouring up the Syr Daria valley from Fort Raim, guns, Cossacks, foot and all, and spread like a tide over the Khokand country. I wanted to be well away before that happened, bearing the glad tidings to India and reaping the credit; Yakub Beg and his hairy fellows could fight the Russians how they liked, for although I'll own I'd conceived an affection for him and his Tajiks and Uzbeks, and wished them no harm, it was all one to me how they fared, so long as I was safely out of it. But Yakub still seemed uncertain how to prepare for the fight that was coming; he'd tried his overlord, Buzurg Khan, for help, and got little out of him, and egged on by Kutebar, he was coming round to the Silk One's notion of one mad slash at the enemy before they had got under way from Fort Raim with their magazines full. It was a doomed enterprise, of course, but he figured he'd do them more damage on the beach than when they were upcountry on the march; good luck, thinks I, just give me a horse and an escort first, and I'll bless your enterprise as I wave farewell.

And it would have fallen out like that, too, but for the infernal ingenuity of that kitten-tickling besom - Kutebar was right: Ko Dali should have whaled the wickedness out of her years ago.

It was the fourth day, and I was lounging in the camp's little market, improving my Persian by learning the ninety-nine names of G.o.d (only the Bactrian camels know the hundredth, which is why they look so deuced superior) from an Astrabad caravan-guard-turned-murderer, when Kutebar came in a great bustle to take me to Yakub Beg at once. I went, thinking no evil, and found him in the pavilion with Sahib Khan and one or two others, squatting round their coffee table. Ko Dali's daughter was lounging apart, listening and saying nothing, feeding her kitten with sweet jelly. Yakub, whose limbs had mended to the point where he could move with only a little stiffness, was wound up like a fiddle-string with excitement; he was smiling gleefully as he touched my hand in greeting and motioned me to sit.

"News, Flashman bahadur! The Ruski powder boats come tomorrow. They have loaded at Tokmak, the Obrucheff steamer and the Mikhail, and by evening they will be at anchor off Syr Daria's mouth, with every grain of powder, every cartridge, every pack for the artillery in their holds! The next day their cargoes will be dispersed through the Ruski host, who at the moment have a bare twenty rounds to each musket." He rubbed his hands joy-fully. "You see what it means, angliski? G.o.d has put them in our hands - may his name be ever blessed!"

I didn't see what he was driving at, until Sahib Khan enlightened me.

"If those two powder boats can be destroyed," says he, "there will be no Ruski army on the Syr Daria this year. They will be a bear without claws."

"And there will be no advance on India this year, either!" cries Yakub. '"What do you say to that, Flashman!"

It was big news, certainly, and their logic was flawless - so far as it went: without their main munitions, the Russians couldn't march. From my detached point of view, there was only one small question to ask.