Page:Harold Lamb--The House of the Falcon.djvu/274

 Edith sighed. "I am thinking of the women of Yakka Arik.

"We can save them, Donovan Khan, perhaps. Now, hurry." The girl gave him a little push as a second volley—harmless as the first—came from the scattered muskets of the oncoming natives. "Don't you see? It doesn't matter—you and I. We will have each other; they can't change that, now, can they?"

Donovan had seen men, before now, fling their bodies into the face of death. It was something of a miracle to him, this settled purpose of the girl at his side. He rose, with a laugh that had much gladness in it.

"By Jove! You are playing the game, Edith."

Donovan, once convinced, was a man of action. He cupped his hands to his mouth and faced the gloom of the plateau in which he could now make out the Sayaks not a hundred yards away.

"Iskander, son of Tahir!" His shout rang out clearly over the bustle below and the confused sounds from the near-by natives. "Go back!"

He had spoken in Turki. Men stared up from the courtyard at the tower in astonishment. Hands were withdrawn from rifles. Monsey seemed turned to a graven image of attention. Donovan continued in English.

"Iskander, Donovan Khan is speaking. A trap has been set. Twice your numbers are in the Kurgan with magazine rifles."

Crack-crack! Monsey's revolver spat at the tower summit, the bullets thudding into the beams overhead. Edith fancied that the Sayaks had halted. Donovan paid no attention to the shots.

"’Ware the ditch!" he shouted, in the silence that