Page:Harold Lamb--The House of the Falcon.djvu/127

 "Dono-van Khan—John Dono-van."

"The man you call the Falcon?"

Aravang hesitated as if pondering the meaning of her words. Then, with a warning glance at Iskander's back, he nodded.

The tawny head of the girl sank upon her arms as she tried to think. They were taking her to John Donovan. Why? She did not know. The only certainty was that she was being carried to the house of the white man who—so Fraser-Carnie had said—had allied himself with the natives and was a power in these lawless hills.

The why burned into her thoughts. She felt very helpless. It was as if a chain bound her, a chain of many links. The medicine pail that she was to use was one link; the death of Jain Ali Beg, who had been called a faithless servant, was a link; the jealous care of her captors who slew men to safeguard her; the anxiety of Iskander

There were so many links. Abbas Abad, who seemed to be an enemy of Iskander. The Alaman had been seeking her. Again the why confronted her. But of one thing she was certain.

Much as she hated Iskander, she dreaded more the man called Abbas Abad. And she felt a greater hostility toward the unknown Donovan Khan. As the hours passed, she fed her anger against the white man who had been the cause of her abduction from the world of her father and her aunt—the life of her own people.

The chain—as she fancied it—was drawing her into another world, into an environment where the realities of yesterday were the unrealities of to-day—where men knelt daily to pray like children; where hidden