Hawk of the Hills | Page 3

through my warriors. Courage? Any fool can have courage. I have
wits, which is better."
"You talk like a Persian," muttered Gordon. He was caught fairly, his
scabbards empty, his knife arm hanging at his side. He knew Ali would
shoot at the slightest motion.
"My brother Afdal Khan will praise me when I bring him your head!"
taunted the Orakzai. His Oriental vanity could not resist making a
grandiose gesture out of his triumph. Like many of his race,
swaggering dramatics were his weakness; if he had simply hidden
behind a rock and shot Gordon when he first appeared, Ali Bahadur
might be alive today.
"Why did Afdal Khan invite us to a feast and then murder my friends?"
Gordon demanded. "There has been peace between the clans for years."
"My brother has ambitions," answered Ali Bahadur. "The Afridis stood
in his way, though they knew it not. Why should my brother waste men
in a long war to remove them? Only a fool gives warning before he
strikes."

"And only a dog turns traitor," retorted Gordon.
"The salt had not been eaten," reminded Ali. "The men of Kurram were
fools, and thou with them!" He was enjoying his triumph to the utmost,
prolonging the scene as greatly as he dared. He knew he should have
shot already.
There was a tense readiness about Gordon's posture that made his flesh
crawl, and Gordon's eyes were red flame when the sun struck them. But
it glutted Ali's vanity deliriously to know that El Borak, the grimmest
fighter in all the North, was in his power--held at pistol muzzle, poised
on the brink of Jehannum into which he would topple at the pressure of
a finger on the trigger. Ali Bahadur knew Gordon's deadly quickness,
how he could spring and kill in the flicker of an eyelid.
But no human thews could cross the intervening yards quicker than
lead spitting from a pistol muzzle. And at the first hint of movement,
Ali would bring the gratifying scene to a sudden close.
Gordon opened his mouth as if to speak, then closed it. The suspicious
Pathan was instantly tense. Gordon's eyes flickered past him, then back
instantly, and fixed on his face with an increased intensity. To all
appearances Gordon had seen something behind Ali-- something he did
not wish Ali to see, and was doing all in his power to conceal the fact
that he had seen something, to keep Ali from turning his head. And turn
his head Ali did; he did it involuntarily, in spite of himself. He had not
completed the motion before he sensed the trick and jerked his head
back, firing as he did so, even as he caught the blur that was the
lightninglike motion of Gordon's right arm.
Motion and shot were practically simultaneous. Ali went to his knees as
if struck by sudden paralysis, and flopped over on his side. Gurgling
and choking he struggled to his elbows, eyes starting from his head,
lips drawn back in a ghastly grin, his chin held up by the hilt of
Gordon's knife that jutted from his throat. With a dying effort he lifted
the pistol with both hands, trying to cock it with fumbling thumbs.
Then blood gushed from his blue lips and the pistol slipped from his
hands. His fingers clawed briefly at the earth, then spread and stiffened,

and his head sank down on his extended arms.
Gordon had not moved from his tracks. Blood oozed slowly from a
round blue hole in his left shoulder. He did not seem to be aware of the
wound. Not until Ali Bahadur's brief, spasmodic twitchings had ceased
did he move. He snarled, the thick, blood-glutted snarl of a jungle cat,
and spat toward the prostrate Orakzai.
He made no move to recover the knife he had thrown with such deadly
force and aim, nor did he pick up the smoking pistol. He strode to the
stallion which snorted and trembled at the reek of spilt blood, untied
him and swung into the gilt-stitched saddle.
As he reined away up the winding hill path he turned in the saddle and
shook his fist in the direction of his enemies--a threat and a ferocious
promise; the game had just begun; the first blood had been shed in a
feud that was to litter the hills with charred villages and the bodies of
dead men, and trouble the dreams of kings and viceroys.

II
GEOFFREY WILLOUGHBY SHIFTED himself in his saddle and
glanced at the gaunt ridges and bare stone crags that rose about him,
mentally comparing the members of his escort with the features of the
landscape.
Physical environment inescapably molded its inhabitants. With one
exception his companions were as sullen, hard, barbarous and somber
as the huge