El Borak and Other Desert Adventures by Robert E Howard

Author:Robert E Howard [Howard, Robert E]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Del Rey
Published: 2010-02-09T05:00:00+00:00

VI

Gordon stepped to the door of the nest and said curtly: “Al Wazir’s got away. I’m going to search the caves for him. Stay on the ledge and keep watch.”

“Why waste the last minutes of your life chasing a lunatic?” growled Hawkston. “It’ll be dark soon and the Arabs will be rushing us —”

“You wouldn’t understand,” snarled Gordon, turning away.

The task ahead of him was distasteful. Searching for a homicidal maniac through the darkening caves was bad enough; but the thought of having forcibly to subdue his friend again was revolting. But it must be done. Left to run at large in the caves, Al Wazir might do harm either to himself or to them. A stray bullet might strike him down.

A swift search through the lower tier proved fruitless, so Gordon mounted by the ladder into the second tier. As he climbed through the hole into the cave above he had an uncomfortable feeling that Al Wazir was crouching at the rim to break his head with a rock. But only silence and emptiness greeted him. Dusk was filling the caves so swiftly he began to despair of finding the madman. There were a hundred nooks and corners where Al Wazir could crouch unobserved; and Gordon’s time was short.

The ladder that connected the second tier with the third was in the chamber into which he had come, and glancing up through it Gordon was startled to see a circle of deepening blue set with a winking star. In an instant he was climbing toward it.

He had discovered another unsuspected exit from the caves. The ladder of handholds led through the ceiling, up the wall of the cave above, and up through a round shaft that opened in the ceiling of the highest cave. He went up, like a man climbing up a chimney, and a few moments later thrust his head over the rim.

He had come out on the summit of the cliffs. To the east the rock rim pitched up sharply, obstructing his view, but to the west he looked out over a jagged backbone that broke in gaunt crags outlined against the twilight. He stiffened as somewhere a pebble rattled down, as if dislodged by a groping foot. Had Al Wazir come this way? Was the madman somewhere out there, climbing among those shadowy crags? If he was, he was courting death by the slip of a hand or a foot.

As he strained his eyes in the deepening shadows, a call welled up from below: “I say, Gordon! The blighters are getting ready to rush us! I see them massing among the rocks!”

With a curse Gordon started back down the shaft. It was all he could do. With darkness gathering Hawkston would not be able to hold the ledge alone.

Gordon went down swiftly, but before he reached the ledge darkness had fallen, lighted but little by the stars. The Englishman crouched on the rim, staring down into the dim gulf of shadows below.

“They’re coming!” he muttered, cocking his rifle.

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