Page:Harold Lamb--The House of the Falcon.djvu/189

 while Edith was still speaking. There he drew a long, first puff at his cigarette and exchanged a low warning with Mahmoud—the hakim being still unseen by the slayer behind the thicket. Not even then did Iskander, experienced in the vicissitudes of mountain warfare, raise his eyes from the surrounding forest.

"How many men, Mees Rand?" he asked quickly. "And where?"

"One, that I can see," breathed the girl. "Behind the ferns under the tamarisks. He was going to shoot you with a rifle."

"Good. Is he a white man or a native?"

For a fleeting instant Edith's newly cherished hope flashed at this mention of the nearness of possible rescuers. Then she reflected that a follower of Major Fraser-Carnie or her father would hardly act in the manner of the skulker behind the ferns.

At her answer, Iskander spoke briefly with Mahmoud.

"It was the will of Allah that I should not have my revolver this morning," he remarked indifferently to the apprehensive girl. "But watch! You will see an unbeliever taste his own fear."

He remained where he was. Mahmoud advanced swiftly from the underbrush, his slits of eyes flickering over the ferns in front of him. He seemed to have no fear. Edith glanced at the slayer, who by now had seen Mahmoud. His broad, ugly face changed. His mouth opened and he gaped as if in the fascination of utter dread. The girl noticed that his hands trembled.

Then, with an animal-like grunt, the Sart sprang up and ran plunging through the thickets up the mountain side.

Iskander smiled and placed his hand to his lips.