Page:Harold Lamb--The House of the Falcon.djvu/304

 camels walking patiently in the wake of their conductor.

Seeing that only two men were seated on the beasts and they unarmed, the Garhwalis drew back. The two riders who were bound tightly between the humps of the camels, their heads bobbing with the walk of the animals, stared stolidly before them.

"Monsey!" said Rand under his breath.

"And Abbas," nodded Fraser-Carnie.

The rusty bells clanked; the beasts—indifferent as ever—passed majestically by the watchers. Monsey and Abbas swayed in their seats. When the last camel had passed, wending its way among the trees, Fraser-Carnie turned to his friend:

"That was Mahmoud, the Sayak. So my Garhwalis say. Rand, these legends of the Hills sometimes assume the form of rather ghastly reality. I'm glad Donovan took your daughter away."

Arthur Rand replaced the revolver he had drawn. "I know a dead man when I see one—or two, for that matter. Is it a kind of burial?"

"It is," observed the major thoughtfully, "the caravan of the dead. It will go from hill village to hill village. It is the custom of the Sayaks in dealing with their enemies. The tribes, of course, say it comes from nowhere and goes—nowhere. Strange, what?"

On a hillock among the aspens that concealed the brook and the passing of the caravan Edith had turned to Donovan, pausing in her walk.

"Was it Iskander with his camels?" she asked.

"The son of Tahir," he responded gravely, "is no more."

Edith made a little, sorrowing sound. Iskander had