SNOW UPON THE DESERT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21345, 21 November 1932, Page 15

SNOW UPON THE DESERT

By J. RUSSELL WARREN

CHAPTER vni.—(Continued) In a little while they came to a sort of cave—a hollow between two enormous boulders, with another one in front of it, concealing it. Corcoran set tlie girl very gently on the ground, and then squatted behind the fallen boulder, peering round the side.

"Now, tell me," he said, "what happened ? Where is Lady Susan ? Elisabeth, sitting up with her back against tjie wall, told him as briefly as she could. As she spoke of the attack on the camp, and their march as prisoners to the Wali's stronghold, and their interview with the man, she saw Corcoran s eyes flame, his hands clench as if he wore with difficulty controlling an outburst of fury. She was surprised; she had not suspected that beneath his quiet, calm manner lay a capacity for such intense and easily stirred emotion. She told him. too. of her reluctance to leave poor Lady Susan's body lying out there in the ravine. Ho shook his head emphatically. " We can't do anything for her," he said. " It's you we must think of now. Keep quite still, while I look out. We'll have to stay here a while, you know; perhaps all day. It's only safe to move in the dark." He paused. " By the way, you must be hungry," he said. " I've got some biscuit and meat paste. . .

Afterwards, looking hack, Elisabeth was ashamed of the way she wolfed two hard biscuits spread with meat paste, and sho had no idea that such an emergency ration could taste so delicious.

For quite some timo nothing happened. Thn> ravine remained empty and silent. Elisabeth now had recovered from hor stupefaction at Corcoran'* almost miraculous appearance, and was full of curiosity. Sim presently asked him how he came to find her. A slow, indulgent smile softened his sharply-cut face. " Well, I couldn't feel satisfied." he said, "that you were properly guarded; I didn't like the look of your Persian escort. And I know a bit more than most people about your friend the Wali. Of course, I couldn't come, across the border officially; I'm here as a privato individual." " Alone?" Elisabeth asked him, amazed. " Arent' your men anywhere handy?" He shrugged his shoulders. " I couldn't bring them unofficially, too. It would have been too much of a good thing. And they wouldn't have been much use; there are just enough of them to attract attention and not enough to put up a fight against all the Wali's horses and all the Wali's men."

" Do you mean to say," Elisabeth demanded, " that you followed us, alone and on foot—all the way up here?"

He nodded. " I wish to God I'd followed you half a day closer. I didn't come upon tho remains of your camp until yesterday afternoon. Of course, I could soe what had happened, and I guessed where you'd been taken. I had to come along pretty gingerly, for I didn't know if the Wali had left any outposts about. I choso this ravine instead of the road. I heard you moving about, and went to investigate. I heard boot-heels, anil guessed it was either you or Lady Susan. " Oh," said Elisabeth. Sho really did nob know what else to say, and so fell silent. She was wondering at Corcoran taking so deep an interest in the expedition as to run the risks he had undoubtedly done in following it; she was tremendously impressed by his courage, his capability and his resource, and by his air of taking everything that happened as part of the day's work.

Then at last she heard a faint drumming sound from up the valley, rapidly become louder. On her hands and kneos she crept to Corcoran's side, peering out. " Keep down," he told her, " and keep still. It's movement that catches the eye. There are horsemen coining along the road."

In a very little while the drumming of hoofs had become quite loud, and held a sharper, ringing note that echoed back from the rock walls behind her. Soon, on the road on ihe opposite side of the ravine, half a dozen horsemen came into view, riding hard. The air was so clear, the light so sharp, that Elisabeth could see every detail of horses and riders; fluttering brown garments, dancing black curls, rusty stirrups and bits, swinging swords; quite easily she recognised Lady Susan's mare and her own pony. The little group went by at full gallop, apparently not even glancing aside. " They'll go to the end of the road," Corcoran said, '"and then come back. And men on foot will comb the ravine. We'll have to lie doggo." There being nothing further to watch, Elisabeth sat back against the rock, and in spite of the peril of their position, and her sorrow for the loss of Susan Dangerfield, she dozed.

But so light was her sleep, so .quickly was her mind adapting itself to this perilous life in the wild, that a movement from Corcoron awakened her. Ho had done no more than stiffen in'his crouching attitude and lift a large, jagged stone in his right hand. She watched him for a moment, crouched tensely, staring straight ahead. She was just about to ask him, in a whisper, what was the matter, when she heard a faint movement, a soft footstep among the boulders just outside. A moment later, over Corcoron's shoulder, she saw the black hat and dark face of a hillman. The bright black eyes seemed to be staring straight at her; certainly they must have seen Corcoran, but probably without, for the moment, connecting him with the escaped Englishwomen he had been sent to find.

It was a moment of terrifying suspense. She thought the man was going to shout; raise the alarm. She wondered why Corcoran did not shoot him (he explained to her afterward that, of course, the sound of a shot would have brought the whole tribe down on them). There was just that instant's pause, and then Corcoran's arm swung, bowling the stone. There was a sharp smacking sound, and the Persian's head dropped out of her view. The next moment Corcoran was on his feet and running forward. Elisabeth saw him bend over the . man, then take him by the heels and drag him out of her view behind a boulder.

Sho waited, squatting there behind the boulder. There was nothing else she could do. And she seemed to wait for hours. Every moment the sun was rising higher and higher, the still air in the ravine was becoming hotter and hotter; already the rocks were beginning to shimmer in the heat hazo. Away on tho further side of the ravinfc, and on the road, and on the steep hill slope beyond, she could see an occasional dark figure moving, disappearing, appearing again slowly; often they seemed to flicker in the haze, to ass imo strange shades an»i odd sizes, they looked like droam figures, and it was actually difficult, for her to realise that they were real men, that they were searching for her, and that if they found her they would drag her back to the Wali, the man who had brought torture, physical and mental, to a fine art. At last a figure came round the corner of the boulder behind which Corcoran had dragged the hillman, and for a moment Elisabeth felfc terror impossible to describe. She wanted to scream, but could not; she wanted to run, but her limbs would not movej it was as if she were stricken with a sudden paralysis. She could only squat.there and wait for the man in the black hat and the rough brown clothos to come and take her. As he approached, she saw that ho was carrying a tightlyroped galabeah and aba and headgear—close against his chest, and her soul fell to the very bottom of the pit of fear and horror and despair. ' And then she realised that the man was Corcoran dressed in the clothes of

AN INTRIGUING STORY OF THE EAST

(COPTMGHT)

the dead hillman. He advanced slowly, peering about liitn from side to side. At last lie came right up to the cave, dropped the bundle of clothes in front of Elisabeth, and said, in a hoarse whisper: " Get back, and put these on. Keep hidden. I won't be long." Arid turning away as if he had seen nothing of interest there, he passed on. Elisabeth was not the kind of girl to spoil everything, and draw the attention of the searchers on the hillside, by demanding explanations, or refusing to be left alone, or anything of the kind. She was a sensible littlo tiling, and instinctively obedient. She did exactly as Corcoran told her without asking questions. She slipped the galabeah and aba over her drill suit and pulled the kefieh and argal over her head, and, though the tension must h;ive been almost unendurable, she sat still in her corner, waiting patiently for his return.

He came back at last. Bent almost double, ho rounded the coiner of the boulder and slid into the hiding-place. He looked at her up and down critically and said quietly, " You'll do, in the dark. A pity about your boots, but it can't bo helped. You couldn't go barefooted; you'd be lame in half a mile." She noticed that he had taken off his own riding boots, but rather gathered that he was q;iite used to going barefooted; his feet and legs were as brown as coffee, lie looked at her again critically, as if trying to estimate her strength. " Better sleep all you can," he said. "We shall be marching all night." He wriggled over into his watchful position. But, tired though she was, Elisabeth felt too much apprehension to sleep. She asked if the oilier hillmen would not come to look for the one who had found them, and whom Corcoran had only silenced just in time. He shrugged his shoulders. " If they do." he said, " they won't find him; he's down a good deep hole. And I don't think they'll look for him here. I showed myself pretty plainly further down. They'll think I hey last saw him quil<> half a mile away."

To little Elisabeth. Corcoran seemed a wonderful man She reflected that ho had come, alone and barefoot, all those miles into the hills to try and guard two women who meant nothing to him—for Lady Susan could not have inspired any feeling of affection, and, Elisabeth was sure, only thought of her as a dull, uninteresting chit of a girl. She slill could not understand how he had found her that night; it seemed to her miraculous.

To Elisabeth that day seemed years long. Sometimes she could have screamed with the tension of it, or cried with hunger and misery. Every time she thought of poor Lady Susan, she wanted to weep, but she would not let herself give way. She wanted to show Corcoran that she couhii endure stoically. He might think no more of her than a kind-hearted man docs of a stray kitten he has found and is taking home but Elisabeth wanted him to say, afterwards, that she was a courageous kitten.

Looking back, Elisabeth could not remember very many of the further details of their escape. Perhaps mercifully, the memory of il was somewhat blurred. Tho hillmeu went 011 hunting for her all day. Onco she heard a commotion further up the ravine, and guessed that they had found Lady Susan's body. After that the search became more concentrated amongst tho boulders; but either Corcoran had chosen their hiding-place with consummate skill, or Providenco was still granting Elisabeth a very special protection; for though more than onco Wali's men passed very near, tho fugitives were not seen. Corcoran told her afterwards that she owed a good deal to Lady Susan for choosing to escape by way of tho ravine. On the hard stony ground, he explained, she left no trail that even an expert tracker could follow. Corcoran had to wake her to continue the journey when darkness fell. That journey through tho dark was a nightmare; in spite of Corcorau's presence it was worse than the first night of her flight, for now she was positively faint with hunger, and she lost the elation, tho excitement of escape, while her grief for Lady Susan weighed down upon her, depressing her spirits unutterably. As she picked her way among the boulders, behind Corcoran, the ravine did not. seem like a real place; it seemed more like a fantastic dream. In the moonlight it looked no more than a patchwork of light and black patches that did not appear solid at all, but only parts of an insane pattern. She kept seeing things that were not there at all; the impossible, unattainable things that, she longed to see: thatched cottages that promised cosy shelter; brass bedsteads, like the one in tho room at tho Wali's house, standing about inviting her to creep into them and sleep. Time after time she felt that she could not walk another step; sho only wanted to lio down and sleep; but, of course, she could not say so. She kept going on, somehow. Corcoran, she found, was unfailingly patient and considerate. Every now arid again they stopped for a rest, and each timo Elisabeth dropped down where slio was, and slept until 110 awoke her. He told her, afterward, that the Wali's men were still prowling about, and that it took him all he knew to elude them, for they had eyes like cats and ears like dugs. Ho himself moved like a shadow in the shadows, and somehow kept the girl from accidentally making a noise. Every timo sho was about to stumble, perhaps to fall, his hand was on her arm, steadying her, holding her up, and sheer instinct kept her walking carefully and silently. Cut that valley of rocks seemed to her to go on to all eternity. Quito how they came down through the hills, Elisabeth could not afterwad remember. But Corcoran, realising that the road was an absolute deathtrap for them, worked ln's way across country, through ravines and gullies, wherever ho could find si passage. Elisabeth retained hazy recollections of being helped to climb down dizzy cliffs that in ordinary circumstances and in a normal frame of mind she would not have had tho nerve oven to attempt. As they drew further away from the road, they travelled a little by daylight, early in the morning, as weil as by night— Elisabeth had ono or two misty recollections of clambering about in sunshine, and seeing mountain peaks at sunrise—but during the heat of the day they lay in one ibiding-place or another. Elisabeth slept; Corcoran sometimes slept too, for there are limits to the endurance of any man, but only when ho felt convinced that he could do so with safetv.

Certainly, lie was a remarkable man. When she was thirsty, lie found springs of water in the rocks. Occasionally, too, he found food of sorts; when she awoke she would find it beside her. Sometimes there were wild berries from bushes which grew here and there in deep ravines; once there were chupatties and some very sour cheese (Corcoran came across a village, lind trusted to his disguise and the girl not being with him, risked buying food), and sometimes there was meat that had a curious flavour and was dreadfully touch, but that she chewed ravenously (actually, it was the raw flesh of a goat that Corcoran had caught and slaughtered; he dare not light a fire to cook it). And so untraced and unpursued, they came at last to the foothills, where they found a party of herdsmen, who sold them food and helped them on their way. Refreshed, they crossed the foothills and came to the edge of the desert, and there they hailed to appreciate the situation. They were still by no means safe. They had come down miles away from the place where Corcoran had left his men; quite how far even ho did riot know, but at least he was sure that no signal ho could make would reach them. And in front of them Jay miles of flat and parched desert, with no well, no spring, no water of any kind anywhere upon it. And Elisabeth was still dreadfully tired and footsore, for the soles of her riding boots had dropped off. " \

.{Jo be continued daily).