Page:Harold Lamb--The House of the Falcon.djvu/176

 his own chest. "Me—kul! Dono-van Khan—manaps." "What is that?"

Aravang was stumped. He could not explain. He shook his shaggy head and extended a pleading hand, to show his helplessness and his desire to serve his mistress. Then his broad face brightened.

"Manaps," he repeated and pointed to the hawk.

"A falcon?" She recalled that Iskander had termed him this, and she thought of the blue letter that had come to Monsey—"The Falcon is on the wing."

So, Monsey had been warned that Donovan was alive.

At this, Aravang excelled himself. He drew an imaginary sword and swung it viciously at an invisible enemy, repeating the native word, as if it were a charm. He darted a scarred finger at the mosque from which the throng of men and women was still emerging.

"Iskander, Dono-van Khan, manaps. Mees effendi, thus—you look!"

Abruptly, he whisked the hood off the goshawk and slipped the silver chain from its claw. For a second the falcon hesitated. Then, with a whirr of wings, it soared up from the balcony.

Edith watched it circle into the sky with the velocity of an arrow. The only other winged thing in sight was the black vulture, a carrion bird. Ordinarily, perhaps, the hawk would not have attacked such a thing. But now it was ravenous, having been starved by Aravang to the proper point. And the native had trained his birds well.

In the space of a few swift moments the falcon had got above the vulture, which now began to fly toward