“The winged bulls of Nineveh! The bulls with men’s heads! By the saints, Ali, the old tales are true! The ancient Assyrians did build this city! The whole tale’s true! They must have come here when the Babylonians destroyed Assyria — why, this scene’s a dead ringer for pictures I’ve seen — reconstructed scenes of old Nineveh! And look!”
He pointed down the broad street to the great building which reared at the other end, a colossal, brooding edifice whose columns and walls of solid black stone blocks defied the winds and the sands of time. The drifting, obliterating sea washed about its foundations, overflowing into its doorways, but it would require a thousand years to inundate the whole structure.
“An abode of devils,” muttered Yar Ali, uneasily.
“The temple of Baal!” exclaimed Steve. “Come on! I was afraid we’d find all the palaces and temples hidden by the sand and have to dig for the gem. But this was the highest point in the city.”
They strode up the broad way, and Yar Ali, utterly fearless in the face of human foes, glanced nervously to right and left, half expecting to see a horned and fantastic face leering at him from behind a column. Steve himself felt the sombre antiquity of the place, and almost found himself fearing a rush of bronze war chariots down the forgotten street, or to hear the sudden menacing flare of bronze trumpets. The silence in dead cities was so much more intense, he reflected, than that on the open desert.
They came to the portals of the great temple. Rows of immense columns flanked the wide doorway, which was ankle deep in sand, and from which sagged massive bronze frameworks that had once braced mighty doors, whose polished woodwork had centuries ago rotted away. They passed into a mighty hall of misty twilight, whose shadowy stone roof was upheld by columns like forest trees. The whole effect of the architecture was one of awesome magnitude, and sullen, breathtaking splendor, like a temple built by sombre giants for the abode of dark gods.
Yar Ali walked fearfully as if he expected to awake sleeping gods, and Steve, without the Afridi’s superstitions, yet felt the gloomy majesty of the place lay sombre hands on his soul.
No trace of a footprint showed in the deep sand on the floor; half a century had passed since the affrighted and devil-ridden Turk had paced these silent halls. That there were Bedouins in the littoral Steve knew, but it was easy to see why those superstitious sons of the desert avoided this haunted city — and haunted it was, not by actual ghosts, perhaps, but by the shadows of lost splendors.
As they trod the sand of the hall which seemed endless, Steve pondered many questions: how did those fugitives from the wrath of frenzied rebels build this city? Why did they choose this spot? How did they pass through the country of their foes — for Babylonia lay between Assyria and the Arabian desert. Yet there had been no other place for them to go, reflected Steve; east lay Syria and the sea and north and west swarmed “the dangerous Medes,” those fierce Aryans whose aid had stiffened the arm of Babylon to smite her foe to the dust.
And whence came the stone that went into this city’s building? Surely, as Yar Ali had said, once this was fertile country, watered by oases; and doubtless in the broken country they had passed over the night before, there had been quarries in the old days.
Then what had caused the city’s downfall? Did the encroachment of the sands and the filling up of the springs cause the people to abandon it, or was it already a city of silence before the sands crept over the walls? Did the downfall come from within or without? Did civil war blot out the inhabitants, or were they overthrown by some powerful foe from the desert? Steve shook his head in baffled chagrin. The answers to those questions were hidden and lost in the mazes of forgotten ages.
“Allaho akbar!” They had traversed the great shadowy hall and at its further end they came upon a hideous black stone altar, behind which loomed an ancient god, bestial and horrific. Steve shrugged his shoulders as he recognized the monstrous aspect of the image — aye, that was Baal, on whose black altar in other ages many a screaming, writhing naked victim had offered up the quivering soul. The idol embodied in its utter, abysmal and sullen bestiality the whole soul of this demoniac city. Surely, thought Steve, the builders of Nineveh and Kara-Shehr were cast in another mold than the people of today. Their art and culture were too ponderous, too grimly barren of the lighter aspects of humanity, to be wholly human. Their architecture was of highest skill, yet of a massive, sullen and brutish nature beyond the ken of modern man.
The adventurers went through a narrow door that opened in the end of the hall close to the idol, and came into a series of wide chambers, connected by column-flanked corridors. Along these they strode, and came at last to a wide stairway. Here Yar Ali halted.
“Wait a bit, sahib, we have dared much. Is it wise to dare more?”
Steve, a-quiver with eagerness, yet understood the Afghan’s mind.
“You mean we shouldn’t go up these stairs?”
“We have wandered into the castle of devils, Steve sahib; any moment a djinn may bite our heads off.”
“Well,” said Steve, “we’re dead men anyhow. But I tell you — you go on back through the hall and watch for Arabs while I go upstairs.”
“Watch for a wind on the horizon,” responded the Afghan gloomily, shifting his rifle and loosening his long knife in its scabbard. “No Bedouin comes here. Lead on, sahib. Thou’rt mad after the manner of all Franks, but I would not have thee face the djinn alone.”
So the companions mounted the massive stairs, leaving their footprints in the dust that sifted deeply there. At the top they came into a wide circular chamber. This was lighted much better than the rest of the temple, by windows and by light that poured in from the high, pierced ceiling. But another light lent itself to the illumination. Both saw it at the same instant and both shouted in amazement.
A marble throne stood on a sort of stone dais, at the top of a short flight of broad steps, and on this throne glimmered something that caught the light of the sun and shed a crimson glow all about. The Fire of Asshurbanipal!
Even after they had found the city, Steve had not really allowed himself to believe that they would find the stone. Yet there it was, shimmering among a heap of bones on the marble throne — a great ruby, as big as a pigeon’s egg!
Steve sprang across the chamber and up the steps. Yar Ali was at his heels, yet when Steve would have taken up the ruby, the Afghan laid a hand on his arm.
“Let us not be hasty, Steve sahib,” said the big Muhammadan. “A curse lies on these ancient things. Else why has this rare gem lain here untouched in a country of thieves for so many centuries? It is not well to disturb the possessions of the dead.”
“Bosh,” this from Steve. “Superstitions. The Bedouins were scared by the tales that have come down to them from their ancestors. They mistrust cities anyway, and no doubt this one had an evil reputation in its lifetime. And nobody except Bedouins have ever seen this place before — except that Turk, who was probably half-demented with suffering.
“You can see for yourself that the ‘skeleton hand’ stuff was an embellishment — those bones are crumblin’. They may be the bones of a king — maybe not. Anyway, no tellin’ how long they’ve been here. The dry desert air preserves such things indefinitely. May be Assyrian, or most likely Arab — some beggar that got the gem and then died on that throne, for some reason or other. Look, only the skull is anything like whole, and it’ll turn to dust if I touch it.”
He stretched forth his hand, but again Yar Ali halted him; the Afghan’s eyes were uneasy. He seemed to be listening.
“I heard a sound, sahib,” he muttered. “For the last few minutes I have heard stealthy noises as if ghosts or dead men were stealing upon us. Harken! Is that not the sound of beings mounting the stairs?”
Steve wheeled, alert.
“By Judas, Ali,” he snapped, “something is out there —”
The ancient walls re-echoed to a chorus of wild yells as a horde of savage figures flooded the chamber. For one dazed, insane insta
nt Steve believed, wildly, that they were being attacked by re-embodied warriors of a vanished age, then the spiteful crack of a bullet past his ear and the acrid smell of powder told him that their foes were material enough. Clarney cursed; in their fancied security they had been caught like rats in a trap by the pursuing Arabs.
Even as the American threw up his rifle, Yar Ali fired point-blank from the hip, hurled his empty rifle into the horde and leaped down the steps yelling, his long Khyber knife shimmering in his hairy hand. Into his gusto for battle went real relief that his foes were human. A bullet ripped the turban from his head, but an Arab went down with a split skull beneath the hillsman’s first, shearing stroke.
A tall Bedouin clapped his gun muzzle to the Afghan’s side, but before he could pull the trigger, Clarney’s bullet scattered his brains. The number of the attackers hindered them, and the tigerish quickness of the big Afridi made shooting as dangerous to themselves as to him. Some of them swarmed about him while others charged up the steps after Steve, who had expended his second bullet with deadly effect. At that range there was no missing.
Now in a flashing instant Clarney saw two things — a tall Arab, who with froth on his beard and a heavy scimitar uplifted, was almost upon him, and another who crouched on the floor drawing a careful bead on the plunging Yar Ali. Steve made an instant choice and fired over the shoulder of the charging swordsman, killing the rifleman. Steve had voluntarily forfeited his own life to save his friend, for the scimitar was swinging at his own head, but at that instant the wielder slipped on the marble steps and the curved blade, swinging erratically from its arc, clashed on Steve’s rifle barrel. In an instant the American clubbed his rifle and as the Arab recovered his balance and again raised the scimitar, Clarney struck with all his power, shattering stock and skull together.
And then a heavy ball smacked into his shoulder, sickening him with the shock and almost flooring him with the impact. As he staggered, a Bedouin whipped a noose about his feet and jerked heavily. Clarney pitched headlong down the steps to strike with stunning force. A gun-stock went up to dash out his brains, but an imperious command halted the blow.
“Slay him not, but bind him hand and foot.”
As Steve struggled dazedly against many gripping hands, it seemed to him that the voice was faintly familiar.
The American’s downfall had occurred in a matter of seconds. Even as Steve’s second shot had cracked, Yar Ali had slashed a raider across the face and received a numbing blow from a rifle stock on his left arm. His sheepskin coat, worn in spite of the heat, saved his hide from half a dozen slashing knives. One was hacking at him with a scimitar, but Yar Ali engaged and locked blades, disarming his foe with a savage wrench. A rifle was discharged so close to his face that the powder burnt him, eliciting a blood-thirsty yell from the maddened Afghan. The rifleman paled and as Yar Ali swung up his blade, the Arab lifted his rifle above his head in both hands to parry the downward blow, whereupon the Afridi, with a yelp of exultation, shifted as a jungle cat strikes and plunged his long knife into the Arab’s belly. But at that instant a rifle stock, swung with all the hearty ill will its wielder could evoke, crashed against the giant’s head, laying open his scalp and dashing him to his knees.
With the dogged and silent ferocity of his breed, Yar Ali staggered blindly up again, slashing at foes he could scarcely see, but a shower of blows dropped him again, nor did his attackers cease beating him until he lay still. They would have finished him in short order but for another peremptory order from their chief. They bound the unconscious knifeman and flung him alongside Steve, who was fully conscious, though the bullet in his shoulder hurt him savagely.
He glared up at the tall Arab who stood looking down at him.
“Well, sahib,” said this one in perfect English, “do you not remember me?”
Steve scowled in the effort of concentration.
“You look familiar — by the devil! — you are — Nuredin el Mekru!”
“The sahib remembers,” Nuredin salaamed mockingly. “And you remember, no doubt, the occasion on which you made me a present of — this?”
The dark eyes shadowed with bitter menace and the sheikh indicated a thin white scar on the angle of his jaw.
“I remember,” snarled Clarney, whom pain and anger did not tend to make docile. “It was in Somaliland, years ago. You were in the slave trade then. A wretch of a negro escaped from you and took refuge with me. You walked into my camp one night in your high-handed way, started trouble and got a butcher knife across your face. I wish I’d cut your lousy throat.”
“You tried hard enough,” answered the Arab. “But now the tables are turned.”
“I thought your stampin’ ground lay west,” growled Clarney. “Yemen and the Somali country.”
“I quit the slave trade long ago,” returned the sheikh. “It is an outworn game. I led a band of raiders in Yemen for a time — then again I was forced to change my location. I came here with a few faithful followers. By Allah, these wild men nearly cut my throat at first! But I overcame their suspicions and now I lead more men than have followed me in years.
“Those you fought off yesterday were my men. They were scouts I had sent out ahead, and who rode back to report to me after you had beaten them off. My oasis lies far to the west. We have ridden many days, for I was on my way to this very city. When my scouts told me of two wanderers, I altered not my course, for I had business first in Beled-el-Djinn. We rode into the city from the west and saw your tracks in the sand. Tracking you was easy then.”
Steve growled angrily.
“You wouldn’t have caught us so easy, only we thought no Bedouin would dare to come into Kara-Shehr.”
Nuredin nodded. “But I am no Bedouin. I have traveled far and seen many lands and many races. I have talked with many men and have read in the books of the Rhoumi, the Turks and the Franks as well as those of my own race. I know that fear is smoke, that the dead are dead, and that djinn and ghosts and curses are mists that the wind blows away. I had heard the tale of the Fire of Asshurbanipal; that is why I came to this part of Arabia. But it has taken months to persuade my men to ride here with me. They fear the curse of the ancient ones who dwelt here.
“But — I am here! And your presence is an added pleasure. No doubt you have guessed why I had my men take you alive — I have a more elaborate entertainment planned for you and that Pathan swine. Now — I take the Fire of Asshurbanipal and we will go.”
He turned toward the throne and one of his men, a bearded giant with but one eye, exclaimed: “Hold, my lord! Bethink ye — this city is very old, and old cities are foul. Ancient evil reigned here before the days of Muhammad. The djinn howl through these halls when the winds blow and men have seen ghosts dancing on the walls beneath the moon. No man of mortals has dared this black city for a thousand years — save one, half a century ago, who fled shrieking.
“In the old, old days men of the desert ventured here, and many died strangely, who sought to take the jewel, and on those who even looked upon it, a curse was laid. You have come here from Yemen; you do not understand that this city and that red stone are accursed. We have followed you here against our judgment because you have proved yourself a mighty man and have said you hold a charm against all evil beings. You said you but wished to look on this evil gem, but now we see it is your intention to take it for yourself.
“Beware, my lord! Courage and war-skill overcome not the powers of darkness, and that gleaming jewel is stronger than any charm. Do not offend the djinn!”
“Nay, Nuredin, do not dare the wrath of the djinn!” chorused the other Bedouins; the sheikh’s own hard-bitten scoundrels said nothing. Hardened to crimes and impious deeds, they were less affected by the superstitions of the local Bedouins, to whom the curse on the dead city had been repeated, a dread tale, for centuries. Steve, even while hating Nuredin with unusually concentrated venom, realized the power of the man, the innate leadership that had enabled him to thus far overcome the fears
and traditions of ages.
“The curse is laid on infidels who invade the city,” answered Nuredin, “not on the Faithful; see, we have overcome our foes in this chamber. Now behold: unharmed I take the Fire of Asshurbanipal!”
And striding boldly up the marble steps he took up the great gem which gleamed and shimmered like a living flame in his hand. The Arabs held their breath; Yar Ali, conscious at last, groaned dismally, and Steve cursed sickly to himself. Worse than the threat of torture and death, worse than the throbbing of his wounded shoulder was the sight of his enemy seizing the treasure of which he had dreamed — for which he and Yar Ali had striven and bled.
God, what a barbaric scene — the thought came to him, even in his rage and savage disappointment — bound captives on the marble floor, wild warriors clustered about, gripping their weapons, the acrid scent of blood and burnt powder still lingering in the air, corpses strewn in a horrid welter of blood, brains and entrails — and on the dais, upon whose red-stained steps sprawled the body of the Arab that Steve had brained, beside the skull-adorned throne — the hawk-faced sheikh, oblivious to all except the evil crimson glow in his hand.
Nuredin was like one hypnotized, as all the slumbering mysticism and mystery of his Semitic blood were stirred to the deeps of his strange soul.
“The heart of all evil,” murmured the sheikh, holding the magnificent stone up to the light where its gleams almost dazzled the eyes of the awed beholders. “How many princes died for thee in the dawns of the Beginnings of Happenings? What fair bosoms didst thou adorn, and what kings held thee as now I hold thee? Surely, blood went into thy making, the blood of kings surely throbs in thy shining and the heart-flow of queens in thy splendor. The brazen trumpets flared and the standards flamed in the sun; the deserts shook to the chanting of the chariots; sultans roared and revelled. Thou blazed above all. The worm gnawed the root, the sword cleft the bosom, the lizard crawled in the palaces of kings. Thy owners and they that wore thee, princesses and sultans and generals, they are dust and are forgotten, but thou blazest with majesty undimmed, fire of the world. Thou art Life itself, deathless and undying, as thou shalt be when I, thy master now, am as this moldering skull —”