“Now I see where we have come,” he said. “Hazûr, it was written that we should stray from our course in yonder accursed cloud, which assuredly was the breath of Shaitan himself. Here before us lies the Valley of the Mud-slide. And we must cross that, for there is no turning back.”
“It is written,” was the answer. “Therefore we will cross it, since there is no other way.”
In front lay the same steep gigantic slope, sheering upward to a great height, and along this they were threading, like flies upon a wall. The other side of this long and narrow gorge was precipitous, being composed of tier upon tier of terraced cliff. And the rain, beating pitilessly down, lent huge vastness to the serrated crags rearing black against an unbroken murk of sky. In front, right across their way, sweeping down the slope from the high kotal to its base, spreading like a gigantic peacock’s tail, was the result of a former mud-slide. It was as though the whole mountain side had at one time—and that not so very long since, fallen away, bringing millions of tons of blue grey soil with it. The base of it filled the bottom of the gorge, though a watercourse had drilled its way through, and the sombre thunder of this they could now hear, far down between its perpendicular walls of solidified mud.
There was misgiving in the hearts of all three men as they reached the edge of this. Would they be able to cross it. They were familiar with similar freaks in the wild mountain country, but this one was of gigantic proportions. In the regular wet season they might as well try to cross a quaking morass, but there had been little rain of late, still even that little was enough to turn such a place into a slough. But there was nothing for it. It was the only way through. The alternative was to retrace their steps right into the teeth of their enemies. And one consolation was theirs. Once on the other side they knew where they were now, and could make up for lost time.
There was no path. Selecting what to his practised eye seemed the firmer ground, Hussein Khan led the way. Soon the horses were laboriously dragging their weighted fetlocks out of the stiff, clinging stuff—only to plunge them in deeper with the next step. Then it became manifest that the right course was to dismount, and proceed on foot. Helston Varne looked at Melian, so too, did Mervyn.
“I should think Miss Seward could keep the saddle,” said the former. “She’s lighter than we are, and it’s infernally laborious going for a lady on foot and hampered with skirts.”
“Of course she can,” came the answer, gustily. “Lord, I’d like to get Mr Allah-din Khan over the sights of this rifle. I’d drill his parchment hide for him. Ya Mahomed! I would.”
And then, as if in answer to the invocation, something happened. The gloomy, Dantesque valley bellowed to the echoes of a resounding roar, the reverberations of two jezail shots behind. The missiles hummed by, rather wide, and sploshed into the ooze of the mud-slide. Every head turned.
Coming along the way they had fled, strung out like hounds, were a number of mounted figures. The dirty white flowing garments, the reckless rush of their advance proclaimed their unmistakable identity. The time lost in the mist, the deflection from the right track, possibly that Helston Varne had miscalculated the duration of the effects of the drug which his shikari had deftly inserted into so many hookahs and other things—had handicapped the fugitives—and now here was Allah-din Khan, and all his cut-throats hot foot behind them, fired, too, with baffled hate and the disgrace which had been put upon them. The malik of the villages they had passed had not only supplied the chief with information, but had turned out his own men—and they very willing—to aid in the pursuit. Two of these indeed, had slipped on in advance, and had discharged their jezails, with the result foregiven.
The bulk of the pursuers were still some way behind. Quickly Helston Varne’s mind had framed a plan, but it, he saw was but a shadow of a one. Once they were through this slough of despond he would send the others on, and himself remaining behind would take cover on its edge, and deliberately pick off every one of them as they struggled through the semi-morass. But even he knew that in view of the state of fiery exaltation to which they were worked up, his chances of success were not great. They would rush it somehow, just as his own party had themselves done, and—there were too many of them. He sent one look back.