Suddenly something fell heavily upon the ground before the beyt and rolled into the mukaad among them. It was the severed head of a man! Glaring up at them were the dead eyes of their fellow, whose corpse they had left lying in the trail earlier in the day.
Horror struck, spellbound, they sat staring at the gruesome thing when, from out of the dark forest, came the hollow voice again: “For every jewel a drop of blood!”
Ibn Jad shook as a man with ague. The men of the camp gathered close together in front of the beyt of the sheik. Each grasped a musket in one hand and searched for his hijab with the other, for each carried several of these amulets, and that in demand this night was the one written against the jan, for certainly none but a jin could have done this thing.
Hirfa stood half within the mukaad staring at the dead face of her fellow while Ateja crouched upon a sleeping mat in the quarters of the women. She did not see the back curtain rise, nor the figure that crept within. It was dark in the quarters of the hareem since little light filtered in from the lanterns in the mukaad.
Ateja felt a hand clapped across her mouth at the same instant that another grasped her by the shoulder. A voice whispered in her ear. “Make no sound! I shall not hurt thee. I am a friend to Zeyd. Tell me the truth and no harm will befall you or him. Where is the woman Ibn Jad brought from the valley?”
He who held her placed his ear close to her lips and removed his hand from them. Ateja trembled like a leaf. She had never seen a jin. She could not see the creature that leaned close to her, but she knew that it was one of those fearsome creatures of the night.
“Answer!” whispered the voice in her ear. “If thou wouldst save Zeyd, speak and speak the truth!”
“Fahd took the woman from our menzil last night,” she gasped. “I do not know where they went.”
As it came, in silence the presence left the side of the terrified girl. When Hirfa sought her a moment later she found her in a swoon.
XXII
Bride of the Ape
Blake squatted upon the stone floor in the utter darkness of his dungeon. After his jailers had left he had spoken to his fellow prisoners, but only one had replied and his jibbering tones assured the American that the poor wretch had been reduced to stark insanity by the horrors of imprisonment in this foul hole.
The young man, accustomed to freedom, light, activity, already felt the hideousness of his position and wondered how long it would be before he, too, jibbered incoherently at the end of a rusting chain, how long before he, too, was but mildewed bones upon a clammy floor.
In utter darkness and in utter silence there is no time, for there is no means by which one may compute the passage of time. How long Blake crouched in the stifling air of his dank dungeon he could not know. He slept once, but whether he had dozed for an instant or slept the clock around he could not even hazard a guess. And of what moment was it? A second, a day, a year meant nothing here. There were only two things that could mean anything to Jim Blake now—freedom or death. He knew that it would not be long before he would welcome the latter.
A sound disturbed the silence of the buried vault. Footsteps were approaching. Blake listened as they came nearer. Presently he discerned a flickering light that grew in intensity until a pine torch illuminated the interior of his prison. At first it blinded his eyes so that he could not see who came, bearing the light, but whoever it was crossed and stopped before him.
Blake looked up, his eyes more accustomed to the unwonted brilliance, and saw two knights standing before him.
“It be he,” said one.
“Dost thou not know us, Sir Black Knight?” demanded the other.
Blake looked at them closely. A slow smile lighted his face, as he saw a great bandage wrapped about the neck of the younger man.
“I suppose,” he said, “here is where I get mine.”
“Get thine! What meanest thou?” demanded the older man.
“Well, you two certainly haven’t come to pin any medals on me, Sir Wildred,” said Blake, with a wry smile.
“Thou speakest in riddles,” said Wildred. “We have come to free thee that the young king may not bring disgrace upon the Knights of the Sepulcher by carrying out his wicked will with thee. Sir Guy and I heard that he would burn thee at the stake, and we said to one another that while blood flowed in our bodies we would not let so valorous a knight be thus shamelessly wronged by any tyrant.”
As he spoke Wildred stooped and with a great rasp commenced filing upon the iron rivets that held the hinged anklet in place.
“You are going to help me to escape!” exclaimed Blake. “But suppose you are discovered—will not the king punish you?”
“We shall not be discovered,” said Wildred, “though I would take that chance for so noble a sir knight as thee. Sir Guy be upon the outer barbican this night and ’twill be no trick to get thee that far. He can pass thee through and thou canst make thy way down the mountain side and cross to Nimmr. We cannot get thee through the city gates for these be held by two of Bohun’s basest creatures, but perchance upon the morrow Sir Guy or I may find the way to ride out upon the plain with a led horse, and that we shall if so it hap that it be possible.”
“Tell us
