Page:Harold Lamb--The House of the Falcon.djvu/227

 Some one—the native who had first matched words with him—arose.

"Dono-van Khan," he said slowly, "well are you named the Falcon, if yours is an all-seeing eye, if you can see what passes upon the mountain slope when your body is within the council hall." There was a challenge and mockery in his words. "Why should the khanum be loath to leave Yakka Arik? Does a caged dove struggle against freedom?"

"I will explain that."

A sneer touched the thin lips of the native. Mahmoud's beadlike eyes glittered.

"Does your explaining alter the fact that the veil of secrecy, kept for ten generations, has been torn from Yakka Arik?" he demanded harshly.

Donovan faced him frankly.

"The secret has not been revealed. It was known before this—to the rider who carried off the khanum."

Mahmoud looked up sharply. "Twice, Dono-van Khan, have you said she was carried off. Yet the talk of Kashgar has come to our ears, as such things do, through my servants; and we know that the white man who rode hither for the woman claims her as his bride."

"He lied."

"How may we know it?"

"The khanum loved no man. And soon you will see that this rider is a master of lies."

The hakim looked grave. "Dono-van Khan, another thing have I heard—a thing that is true beyond a doubt. On the heels of this wilayati sowar—foreign rider—who is named Monsey in Kashgar, there came two other effendis, one the father of this woman, the other an English