El Borak and Other Desert Adventures by Robert E. Howard

abductors had anticipated no interference. He wondered how much of a hand Bardylis had had in the plot. He did not like to think that the youth had betrayed him. But in any event, he would have to return to the house of Perdiccas, to obtain the packet he had concealed in the wall. He went down the street, still feeling a bit sick and giddy from that blow that had knocked him senseless, now that the fire of battle had cooled in his veins. The street was deserted. It seemed, indeed, more like an alley than a street, running between the backs of the houses.
    As he approached the house, he saw someone running toward him. It wasBardylis, and he threw himself on Gordon with a cry of relief that was not feigned.
    “Oh, my brother!” he exclaimed. “What has happened? I found your chamber empty a short time ago, and blood on your couch. Are you unhurt? Nay, there is a cut upon your scalp!”
    Gordon explained in a few words, saying nothing of the letters. He allowed Bardylis to suppose that Abdullah had been a personal enemy, bent on revenge. He trusted the youth now, but there was no need to disclose the truth of the packet.
    Bardylis whitened with fury. “What a shame upon my house!” he cried. “Last night that dog Abdullah made my father a present of a great jug of wine, and we all drank except yourself, who were slumbering. I know now the wine was drugged. We slept like dogs.
    “Because you were our guest, I posted a man at each outer door last night, but they fell asleep because of the wine they had drunk. A few minutes ago, searching for you, I found the servant who was posted at the door which opens into this alley from the corridor that runs past your chamber. His throat had been cut. It was easy for them to creep along that corridor and into your chamber while we slept.”
    Back in the chamber, while Bardylis went to fetch fresh garments, Gordon retrieved the packet from the wall and stowed it under his belt. In his waking hours he preferred to keep it on his person.
    Bardylis returned then with the breeches, sandals and tunic of the Attalans, and while Gordon donned them, gazed in admiration at the American’s bronzed and sinewy torso, devoid as it was of the slightest trace of surplus flesh.
    Gordon had scarcely completed his dressing when voices were heard without, the tramp of men resounded through the hall, and a group of yellow-haired warriors appeared at the doorway, with swords at their sides. Their leader pointed to Gordon, and said: “Ptolemy commands that this man appear at once before him, in the hall of justice.”
    “What is this?” exclaimed Bardylis. “El Borak is my guest!”
    “It is not my part to say,” answered the chief. “I but carry out the commands of our king.”
    Gordon laid a restraining hand on Bardylis’s arm. “I will go. I want to see what business Ptolemy has with me.”
    “I, too, will go,” said Bardylis, with a snap of his jaws. “What this portends I do not know. I do know that El Borak is my friend.”
    The sun was not yet rising as they strode down the white street toward the palace, but people were already moving about, and many of them followed the procession.
    Mounting the broad steps of the palace, they entered a wide hall, flanked with lofty columns. At the other end there were more steps, wide and curving, leading up to a dais on which, in a throne-like marble chair, sat the king of Attalus, sullen as ever. A number of his chiefs sat on stone benches on either side of the dais, and the common people ranged themselves along the wall, leaving a wide space clear before the throne.
    In this open space crouched a vulture-like figure. It was Abdullah, his eyes shining with hate and fear, and before him lay the corpse of the man Gordon had killed in the deserted house. The other two kidnapers stood near by, their bruised features sullen and ill at ease.
    Gordon was conducted into the open space before the dais, and the guards fell back on either side of him. There was