Sword Woman and Other Historical Adventures

“God of my fathers!” said the vagabond in the speech of the Cossacks. “What does one of the free brotherhood in this Turk-haunted land?”

“Who are you?” grunted Ivan warily.

“A man who has just seen his people slaughtered,” answered the other with a wild laugh of mad despair. “I was the son of a kral of the Armenians – call me Kral. One name is good as another to an outcast. What do you here?”

“What lies beyond this canyon?” asked Ivan, instead of answering.

“Over yonder ridge which closes the lower end of this defile lies a tangle of gulches and crags. If you thread your way among them, you will come out overlooking the broad valley of Ekrem, which until yesterday was the home of my tribe, and which today holds their charred bones.”

“Is there food there?”

“Aye – and death. A horde of Turkomans hold the valley.”

As Ivan meditated this, a quick step brought him about, to see Togrukh approaching.

“Hai!” Ivan scowled. “You had an order to watch while the kunaks slept!”

“The kunaks are too cursed hungry to sleep,” retorted the saturnine Cossack, eyeing the Armenian suspiciously.

“Devil bite you, Togrukh,” growled the big warrior, “I can’t conjure them mutton out of the air. They must gnaw their thumbs until we find a village to loot – ”

“I can lead you to enough food to feed a regiment,” interrupted Kral.

“Don’t mock me, Ermenie,” scowled Ivan; “you just said the Turkomans – ”

“Nay,” cried Kral, “there is a place not far from here, unknown to the Moslems, where my people stored food secretly. Thither I was going when I saw you coming up the gorge and knew you for a Kazak.”

Togrukh looked at Ivan, who drew a pistol and cocked it.

“Then lead on, Kral,” said the Zaporogian, “but at the first false move – bang! goes a ball through your head.”

The Armenian laughed, a wild scornful laugh, and motioned for them to follow. He made straight toward the nearer cliff, and groping among a cluster of brittle bushes, disclosed what looked like a shallow crack in the wall. Beckoning them after him, he bent and crawled inside.

“Into that wolf’s den?” Togrukh glared suspiciously, but Ivan followed the Armenian, and the other came after him. They found themselves in, not a cave, but a narrow cleft of the cliff, in breathless twilight gloom. Ivan swore and grunted as he levered his huge bulk between the shouldering walls, but within a few paces it widened until the giant could walk with ease. Forty paces further they came out into a wide circular space, surrounded by towering walls that resembled monstrous honey-combs.

“These were the tombs of an ancient, unknown people who held this land before the coming of my ancestors,” said Kral. “Their bones have long turned to dust. The caves were empty, and there my people stored food against times of famine and pillage. Take your fill; there are no Armenians to need it.”

Ivan looked curiously about him. It was like being at the bottom of a giant well. The floor was solid rock, worn smooth and level, as if by the feet of ten thousand generations. The walls, honey-combed with regular tiers of tombs for fifty feet on all sides, rose stupendously, ending in a small circle of blue sky. A vulture hung in the blue disk like a tiny black dot.

“Your people should have dwelt here in these caves,” said Togrukh. “Then when the Turks came – cut, slash! One man could hold that outer cleft against a horde.”

The Armenian shrugged his shoulders. “Here there is no water. When the Turkomans swooped down there was not time to run and hide. My people were not warlike. They only wished to till the soil.”

Togrukh shook his head, unable to understand such natures. Kral was pulling food for man and beast out of the lower caves – leather bags of grain, rice, moldy cheese, and dried meat, skins of sour wine.

“Go get some of the lads to help carry the stuff, kunak,” directed Ivan, bending his massive back toward his heels to gaze up at the higher caves. “I’ll stay here with Kral.”

Togrukh swaggered off, his silver heels rapping on the stone, and Kral tugged at Ivan’s steel-clad arm.

“Now do you believe I am a true man, effendi?”

“Aye, by God,” Ivan answered, gnawing a handful of dried figs. “Any man that leads me to food is a friend of mine. But where were the villages of these ancients? They couldn’t raise grain in that rocky canyon outside.”

“They dwelt in the valley of Ekrem. Long, long ago my ancestors came out of the north and found them tilling the soil there. They slew them all and took their land.”

“Well,” grunted Ivan, “that’s the way it goes. Now the Turks are slaughtering you fellows. But don’t worry; some day we Cossacks will ride over the mountains and cut their throats. Slash, bang! that’s the way it’ll be. But if the old people dwelt in the valley, why didn’t they lay away their dead closer by? It must be a long steep road from here to Ekrem.”

Kral’s eyes gleamed like a hungry wolf’s. “That is the secret locked in the heart of these hills, known only to my people. But I will show you – and more, if you will trust me.”

“Well, Kral,” said Ivan, munching away with relish, “we Zaporogians have no need to lie and hide like a Jew. We’re following that black devil Osman Pasha the corsair, who’s somewhere in these mountains – ”

“Osman Pasha is no more than three hours’ ride from this spot.”

“Ha!” Ivan dashed down the food he was munching, and caught at his sword, his blue eyes ablaze.

“Kubadar – take care!” cried Kral. “There are forty corsairs, armed with matchlocks and entrenched among the boulders of Diva gorge. And they have been joined by Arap Ali and his hundred and fifty Turkomans. How many warriors have you, effendi?”

Ivan twisted his flowing moustache without reply, scowling heavily. He scratched his head, wondering what an ataman would have done under these circumstances. Deep thinking always made him drowsy and he detested the effort. His head swam and his heavy arms ached with the desire to draw his great sword and forget the weariness of meditation in the dealing of gigantic strokes. It was significant that though he was the foremost swordsman of the Sjetsch, he had never before been given the leadership of his comrades. He swore now at the necessity. He was wiser than his kunaks, but he frankly admitted that was no great evidence of wisdom. Like them, he was utterly reckless and improvident. Well led, they were invincible. Without wise leadership they would throw their lives away on a whim. He had made a mistake pushing on after dark, last night, but that fact had probably not occurred to any of them. Kral watched him keenly, reading the big Cossack’s mental workings from the expressions of his broad bluff face.

“Osman Pasha is your enemy?”

“Enemy!” Ivan repeated aggrievedly. “I’ll line my saddle with his hide – ”

“Pekki! Then come with me, Kazak, and I will show you what no man save an Armenian has seen for a thousand years.”

“What’s that?” demanded Ivan suspiciously.

“A secret way – and a road of death for our enemies!”

Ivan took a step forward, then halted. “Wait. Here come the sir brothers. Listen to them swear, the dogs.”

“Send them back into the canyon with the food,” whispered Kral, as half a dozen scalp-locked warriors swaggered out of the cleft and gaped curiously around. Ivan faced them portentously, booted legs wide-straddled, belly thrust out, thumbs hooked into his girdle.

“Take up this stuff and lug it back to the spring, kunaks,” he said with a grand gesture. “I told you I’d find food for you and the nags.”

“And what of you?” queried Togrukh, who was bitten by the devil of curiosity, as he gnawed a strip of pasderma – sun-dried mutton.

“Don’t fret about me,” roared Ivan. “Am I not the essaul? I have words with Kral. Go back to camp and eat beans, devil bite you!”

After the clatter of their boot heels had faded down the cleft, Kral led the way to the opposite wall and showed Ivan a series of steps carved in the rock. Up these he went like a cat, while the Zaporogian followed more slowly,