“Shut up!” one of the men snarled. He was a huge bulk of a man with a thatch of sandy hair, and a scar that ran from temple-to chin. His voice was a deep roar that became louder and louder as he spoke. His ham-like hands pressed cruelly into the shoulder of Douglas.
“MacTavish and Sneed,” Douglas sneered. “ A disgrace to-their king and country. Two of the foulest traitors that ever wore the uniform.”
Sneed's pig-like eyes narrowed to mere slits as he banged the back of his hand across Douglas' mouth.
“Shut up
They flung the white-faced Douglas against a wall of the gorge as Serj el Said came over beside them. His dark eyes gleamed malevolently as he gazed at Douglas.
“You'll be one less Englishman for me to cope with,” he said. He turned to MacTavish and Sneed. “Well,” he asked them, “why don't you kill him?”
A smile flitted across Douglas' face as he saw the momentary hesitation of the two Englishmen. He knew it would do him no good to plead for mercy. Nor would he have pleaded if he knew it would save his life. He was cast from a different mold than those other two.
It gave him no 'little satisfaction to see that they hesitated to murder a man who had been their fellow officer. He watched them with a smile on his lips and in his eyes. He was determined to die as he had lived, with his head up, afraid to look no man in the eye.
As MacTavish and Sneed drew their guns from their holsters, he spoke:
“ A fitting job for two brave and noble officers,” he said, almost lightly. “You should receive a citation from your greasy leader. You're not fit to associate with vermin. You
His body jerked and spun half around as MacTavish fired two bullets into his heart.
“That'll stop his mealy mouth!” MacTavish roared.
It did.
MacTavish rolled him over with his boot. Blood welled out of the two wounds and spread in a pool around him, His face was serene, as strong and determined in death as it had been in life.
WING COMMANDER Norton Kestrel, M. C., D. F. C., raised his eyes from the book he was trying to read and shook his head angrily. He was aware that he had read the same paragraph at least a dozen times and did not know yet what he had read. He threw the book down and glanced around his comfortable quarters on the Royal Air Force field at Ma'an in Trans-Jordan.
His mind flitted back to the disturbing reports he had received from British intelligence units in his area. Those reports might have something to do with the eight I single-seater fighters that had been stolen from under his nose. And for the sabotage that had occurred.
He got to his feet and began to pace back and forth across the room, his rugged chin out-thrust, his teeth clenched. He ran a hand through his fast-graying hair and across his lined cheek.
He had turned all of Trans-Jordan upside down trying to locate those eight ships. They had all disappeared at one time while he had been in Alexandria, Egypt, receiving secret instructions. One night the eight ships had been in their hangars. The next morning they had been gone. Other ships had been damaged. British and native intelligence men had worked on the case without results.
What he asked himself, was the connection between the theft of British air force planes and the restlessness of the natives? Who had been able to make those planes vanish like a magician slipping things up his sleeve?
The only result of his investigations had been the cashiering of young James Douglas, a flight officer under his command.
Kestrel's heart ached as he remembered the expression of anguish on Douglas' face when his wings had been ripped from his tunic. He would not have believed Douglas guilty of theft if the evidence had not been annihilating. But he had not been able to justify Douglas' connection with the theft of the eight fighters.
Beads of perspiration came out on Kestrel's head as he sat down and began to remove his boots. He could feel that some insidious thing was hemming him in, fastening invisible tentacles around his throat so that he could feel them in his sleep, bringing him to consciousness with his body dripping, his face twisted in horror.
He began to realize that when he found out what this insidious thing was it would be too late. When the screws began to turn he would be helpless.
He pulled off one boot and started on the other one when he heard staggering footsteps scuffing in the hallway. He started toward the door, then stopped. It would be one of his men, drunk, he thought. He didn't want any more trouble to think about. He sat down again as something thumped against his door and he heard a scraping sound as it slipped to the floor.
The thing that lay there, when he opened the door, wore the usual mantle and head cloth of the native. But the clothes of this man were saturated with blood. The man's face was twisted in agony. ,
Kestrel shouted for help and dropped to his knees. , When he opened the man's mantle he found that his chest was horribly shot away. He tried to stanch the flow of blood as the man opened his eyes. The man's lips moved slowly, but no sound came from them. He was trying desperately to speak before he died. Kestrel lifted his head and held his ear close to the man's lips. The man spoke to him in Arabic; his swarthy face became convulsed with pain. Blood gurgled in his throat and spurted out of his mouth.
“Es Siq,” he whispered, in Arabic. “Caravan-murder!”
That was all. His body went limp in Kestrel's arms as life left him.
“Get him to a doctor, quick!” Kestrel barked to the men who came running. “He is one of our native intelligence men.”
He was cursing as he got his adjutant on the telephone. Why couldn't the man have lived to tell his story?
“Order McCoy to get a fully equipped and armed camel corps ready for departure immediately,” he snapped. “Tell him to use his fastest he-camels and take a medical unit along-and to saddle a camel for me.”
II-THE ANCIENT CITY
THE Imperial Camel Corps rose from their knees and bellowed as Major Duff McCoy, astride a tall, large- boned beast, roared, “Walk-march!” to his men.
They thundered out of Ma'an into a bitter north wind. The slopes ahead were silent and black. There was something searching and almost dangerous in that steady desert wind that blew in their faces.
The tough, lean desert Bedouins astride the camels rode them as though they had been born on their backs. The camels were trained to walk Arab fashion, with that bent-kneed gait that made their stride a little longer and a little quicker than the normal. They were finely bred beasts, but bad-tempered and half-wild. With noses high and wind-stirred hair they jigged along at an uneasy dance that took them over the night sands swiftly.
“Was the Arab who gave you the warning one of our men?” McCoy shouted at Kestrel above the wail of the wind.
“Yes,” Kestrel answered. “He had been working among the natives, trying to find out something about the disappearance of those half dozen caravans that have vanished around Petra. He must have attached himself to this caravan to see what he could find out. He could only say four words before he died”
“He'll never tell what he found out,” McCoy said.
It was dawn when the camel corps entered Es Siq, that-cleft in the red limestone hills that was a trail of the ancient world. Centuries ago the Romans tapped the wealth of Petra by building two roads to it. When Rome fell, Petra was abandoned except for a few desert tribesmen who lived miserably in its tombs and caves.
A poet sang of ancient Petra a hundred years ago: “The rose-red city, half as old as time.” Its first written history is to be found in the Bible when it was the home of the Horites, cave dwellers whose progenitor was Hori, the grandson of Seir.
For centuries Petra was the rich crossroads of the world. The Arabian peninsula was a network of caravan routes. The products of Africa, Arabia, and India were taken through Petra and re-routed to the valley of the Nile, Palestine, Phoenicia, and the Euphrates-Tigris valley.
On this morning the descendants of those same desert tribesmen, who occupied the tombs and caves of Es Siq a thousand years ago, gazed down on the Imperial Camel Corps as it made its way between the massive ramparts, of red and purple and yellow.
