Page:Harold Lamb--The House of the Falcon.djvu/230

 tribes of Central Asia did likewise. Yet the agreement was"

"That I was not to leave the Hills until your enemy, the man you called the Vulture, was hunted down. And at Srinagar I learned his name."

At this every Sayak straightened and complete silence fell.

"The Vulture and the Alaman, Abbas Abad, were the leader of the slave caravans. And the Vulture was the real head of the slave merchants. He was once a Russian officer: stripped of his rank because of an intrigue with a Russian woman. Now, concealed behind this name, he directs the activities of his thousand servants, from Kashgar to Samarkand. Oh, he is powerful. When he despoiled the hill villages of our friends"

"We followed close upon the dust of his going." So spoke a Sayak, a Pathan chieftain, who had been silent until now.

"Aye," assented Donovan, "from the Mustagh Ata to the Caucasus. Yet he escaped us. The mirs of the cities sold him their aid. Lawless Tartar and Russian detachments, leaderless after the end of the Great War, took his gold for their services. And he is the friend of Esad Pasha. When fear of the Sayaks came upon him, he fled to America."

"But now he is once more in the hills," murmured Iskander. "And our vengeance"

"You stood within sword's reach of him in Srinagar, son of Tahir. The Vulture is Monsey, the Russian."

"Ah!"

The Arab started, and his hand went to his scimitar hilt. Fifty eyes turned to him. "Dares the dog return to the scene of his crime, to Yakka Arik?" he