"Hit hard, and Jesus bless you."
Again the chain fell, a tempered blow, but hard enough. Sparrows taut body grew limp as a child's in slumber.
There followed a little pause. It was caused by the sudden arrest of the violent movements of Holgar's body; it was deliberate and in some way ceremonial. It put a period to the preceding action; it ushered Sparrow out. We waited in silence and immobility for what would follow.
Holgar wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and turned glittering eyes and a half-grin on Kerry.
"I say, Tipperary?"
"Kerry, not Tipperary," my workmate answered.
"I can speak Arabic as well as you can, but I want to talk to the big Yank before I go up the spout, so tell 'em you need him to help interpret something of great importance to Yussuf Pasha."
"Right."
"Now tell Ibrim that I'll submit to arrest. I could break some bones and maybe kill one or two, but I haven't the inclination."
"Ibrim Effendi!" Kerry intoned in Arabic.
"Ah!"
"I cannot understand the mutineer very well, for his accents difter from mine, even as the accents of Somaliland differ from those of Oman. Although I believe he said that he would surrender, I entreat that I may ask Omar known as Sittash, who knows that dialect, if I heard aright."
It was flawless, classical Arabic punctuated by Kerry's right forefinger in the palm of his left hand. His quick-thinking amazed me no more than his histrionics in the wake of horror and in presence of the blood-drenched dead. Nothing could be more Irish and at the same time better calculated to impress the Arab guards and gain our point.
"You have my leave to speak to Omar known as Sittash."
"If you've got anything to tell Holgar, you'd better blab it now," he said to me. "I'm doubtful if you'll have another chance."
"Holgar, I'll get you the pure resin of the hemp if I possibly can," I answered, looking at Kerry. "If I live and am able, I'll pay your debts and honor your memory and pray for your soul. Kerry, bring in about his important message for the Pasha."
Kerry responded instantly in Arabic.
"Ibrim Effendi, my workmate understood the Englishman well. He will surrender to you and he has secret tidings to tell you of great moment to Yussuf Pasha."
"They will have to be short," Ibrim answered grimly.
At that moment a panting guard appeared in the open door, followed in the next few seconds by our foreman and Jim's friend Zimil and several husbandmen of the plantation. There was a curious lack of excitement; they only stopped and stared. Last to come was the quarry master, Sidi el Akir, in the company of his gray-bearded scribe. Tremblingly, Ibrim told him what had happened.
The master acted quickly. Kerry, Holgar under guard, and I were led out the gate, followed by the free men. The gate was shut and its log dropped behind us, penning in the file of slaves; and we heard them howl as we tramped around to the western side of the building. Well they knew the business to be done there. An iron hook six feet long jutted out from the wall, eight feet above the ground. The guards had shown it to me when I first came to the Sepulcher seven years before; because our march to the quarry and back was by way of the eastern side of the stockade, I had not laid eyes on it since.
We stopped, and the master spoke.
"Which of you is Omar known as Sittash?" he asked.
Fearful that I would speak, Kerry pointed to me.
"Bid Omar speak to the slayer of Caidu and discover what are his tidings of concern to my Pasha, if indeed they are not a dog's trick to delay his doom. These Omar may recite to you to convey to me in Arabic."
Kerry looked at me, but spoke to Holgar.
"This must sound good, or they'll take it out on us. How about a big meteorite you could have found when skipping from Misda to Nulat with the paymaster's chest? Meteorites are greatly venerated by these Moslems. The Black Stone of the K'uba is one."
"Holgar, would there be any use to ask Sidi to reprieve you, while you lead a party to the meteorite?" I asked in English. "At least you'd have a chance to cut your throat—"
"For the love of God, don't do it. That's what they're expecting me to ask, then my eyes and ears and tongue would go before they hang me."
I would have known that, too, if my mind had not failed me.
"The prisoner will now give important tidings to Omar known as Sittash," Kerry told the Sidi in Arabic.
"I wanted to put you on to something, Yank," Holgar went on. "At first I decided against it—why torment you with it when old brother vulture would soon be on your bones? But you've survived and I think you alone, of all the gangs, may live to go free—"
"Make a few gestures as though describing a scene—"
"I heard all kinds of rumors when I was with the Mamelukes. The renegade pirate skipper who attacked your ship and his brother, called Hamed in Morocco, were American Tories who served as officers under Captain Tarlton in the American War. Tarlton was in Malta when your ship put out from there. He's my countryman and I hope to hell there was no connection—"
I could not bear for him to stand there, facing death by torture, using his last breath to tell me what I already knew or could find out.
"I'll attend to it, Holgar, without fail."
"Righto."
"The master's getting impatient. You've got one more turn to speak, so be ready to tell me what I can do to pay part of my debt."
Then I described to Kerry an imaginary scene near the foot of a wadi, the biggest Holgar had crossed on his third day's run from Misda. The hills looked so-and-so. The tamarisk thickets grew here and yon. The stone lay in a little crypt fashioned by afrites. . . Touching hands to forehead with a rattle of chains, Kerry repeated all this, with various embellishments, to Sidi el Akir. The Sidi could not conceal his excitement; but at the end of the recital, he smiled haughtily into his grizzled beard.
"Have Omar known as Sittash ask the mutineer what reward he expects for this guidance to a lost stone from heaven?" he commanded.
"This is the last round, I think," Kerry told me.
"Holgar, you said there was something I could do for you if I live and go free. What is it?"
"You've got to take another name to go after what you want," Holgar answered. "Why not take mine? I'd be proud to have you wear it. Make a good showing for me in Tavistock."
"I'll take it and keep it and live up to it until I can go home."
I turned to Kerry, tried to speak, and could only shake my head. There was something upon me that had come from afar, and the fresh dawn air was sharp in my nostrils, and it seemed I went a little distance into death. Kerry turned white, then spoke with great resource.
"I understand what Holgar said then, O Sidi el Akir. He will ask no reward or no mercy, for he is a Frank of a great clan, brave as a dervish of Jahad. Why he has told us of the stone I know not, for it comes to me it will never be found, but it may be the spirit of the very Omar, whose name is akin to his, spoke through his lips."
"If he had asked for mercy, he would have received none," the Sidi answered. "He would be flayed, blinded, his tongue cut off, his eardrums broken, then thrown so that the hook would pierce his belly, and all day tomorrow he would dangle there, the cup of death brought close to his lips, but ever snatched away. But since he did not ask, this mercy shall I grant him. He will be thrown for the hook to pierce his chest, whereby the cup of death shall be brought speedily to his lips, and he shall empty it without respite. More, his body will not hang there until it falls, a shame and torment to the men within the walls, but it shall be taken down and dragged to the hill where the birds of death will quickly strip its bones."
"That will be a great mercy, O Sidi, if your men can throw straight."