Part 66 (1/2)

Tuthmes smiled and his smile was not pleasant to see.

”G.o.ds and demons work for a bold man,” he said. ”I do not think Tananda was fool enough to have Amboola murdered, however much she desired it. The blacks have been sullen, ever since she cast him into prison. She could not have kept him imprisoned much longer.

”But this matter puts a weapon into our hands. If the Gallahs think she did it, so much the better. Each resentment against the dynasty is a weapon for us. Go, now, and strike before the king can learn of it. First take a detachment of black spearmen to the Red Tower and execute the guards for sleeping at their duty. Be sure you take care to do it by my orders. That will show the Gallahs that I have avenged their commander, and remove a weapon from Tananda's hands. Kill them before she can have it done.

”Then go into Punt and find old Ageera, the witch-finder. Do not tell him flatly that Tananda had this deed done, but hint at it.”

377.

Afari shuddered visibly.

”How can a common man lie to that black devil? His eyes are like coals of red fire that look into depths unnamable. I have seen him make corpses rise and walk, and skulls champ and grind their naked jaws.”

”Don't lie,” answered Tuthmes. ”Simply hint to him your own suspicions. After all, even if a demon did slay Amboola, some human summoned it out of the night. Perhaps Tananda is behind this, after all!”

When Afari had left, mulling intensely over what his patron had told him, Tuthmes drew a silken cloak about his other-wise naked limbs and mounting a short, wide staircase of polished mahogany, he came out upon the flat roof of his palace.

Looking over the parapet, he saw below him the silent streets of the inner city of Shumballa, the palaces and gardens, and the great square, into which, at an instant's notice, a thousand black hors.e.m.e.n could ride, from the courts of adjoining barracks.

Looking further, he saw the great bronze gates, and beyond them, the outer city that men called Punt, to distinguish it from El Shebbeh, the inner city. Shumballa stood in the midst of a great plain, of rolling gra.s.s lands that stretched to the horizons, broken only by occasional low hills.

A narrow, deep river, meandering across the gra.s.s lands, touched the straggling edges of the city. El Shebbeh was separated from Punt by a tall and ma.s.sive wall, which enclosed the palaces of the ruling caste, descendants of those Stygians who centuries ago had come southward to hack out a black empire, and to mix their proud blood with the blood of their dusky subjects. El Shebbeh was well laid out, with regular streets and squares, stone buildings and gardens; Punt was a sprawling wilderness of mud huts; the streets straggled into squares that were squares in name only. The black people of Kush, the Gallahs, the original inhabitants of the country, lived in Punt; none but the ruling caste, the Chagas, dwelt in El Shebbeh, except for their servants, and the black hors.e.m.e.n who served as their guardsmen.

Tuthmes glanced out over that vast expanse of huts. Fires glowed in the ragged squares, torches swayed to and fro in the wandering streets, and from time to time he caught a s.n.a.t.c.h of song, a barbaric chanting that thrummed with an undertone of wrath or bloodl.u.s.t. Tuthmes drew his cloak closer about him and s.h.i.+vered.

Advancing across the roof, he halted by a figure which slept in the shadow of a palm growing in the artificial garden. When stirred by Tuthmes' toe, this man awoke and sprang up.

”There is no need for speech,” cautioned Tuthmes. ”The deed is done. Amboola is dead, and before dawn, all Punt will know he was murdered by Tananda.”

378.

”And the the devil?” whispered the man, s.h.i.+vering.

”Shhh! Gone back into the darkness whence it was invoked. Harken, Shubba, it is time you were gone. Search among the Shemites until you find a woman suitable a white woman.

Bring her here speedily. If you return within the moon, I will give you her weight in silver. If you fail, I will hang your head from that palm tree.”

Shubba prostrated himself and touched his head to the dust. Then rising, he hurried from the roof. Tuthmes glanced again into Punt. The fires seemed to glow more fiercely, somehow, and a drum had begun an ominous monotone. A sudden clamor of b.e.s.t.i.a.l yells welled up to the stars.

”They have heard that Amboola is dead,” he muttered, and again he was shaken by a strong shudder.

.3.

Life flowed on its accustomed course in the filth-littered streets of Punt. Giant black men squatted in the doorways of their thatched huts, or lolled on the ground in their shade. Black women went up and down the streets, with water-gourds or baskets of food on their heads.

Children played or fought in the dust, laughing or squalling shrilly. In the squares the black folk chaffered and bargained over plantains, beer, and hammered bra.s.s ornaments. Smiths crouched over tiny charcoal fires, laboriously beating out spear blades. The hot sun beat down on all, the sweat, mirth, anger, nakedness and squalor of the black people.

Suddenly there came a change in the pattern, a new note in the timbre. With a clatter of hoofs a group of hors.e.m.e.n rode by, half a dozen men, and a woman. It was the woman who dominated the group. Her skin was dusky, her hair, a thick black ma.s.s, caught back and confined by a gold fillet. Her only garment, besides the sandals on her feet, was a short silk skirt girdled at the waist. Gold plates, crusted with jewels, partially covered her dusky b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Her features were straight, her bold, scintillant eyes full of challenge and sureness. She rode and handled her steed with ease and cert.i.tude, the slim Kus.h.i.+te horse, with the jeweled bridle, the reins of scarlet leather, as broad as a man's palm and worked with gilt, and her sandalled feet in the wide silver stirrups.

As she rode by work and chatter ceased suddenly. The black faces grew sullen, and the murky eyes burned redly. The blacks turned their heads to whisper in each other's ears, and the whispers grew to a sullen, audible murmur.

The youth who rode at the woman's stirrup grew nervous. He glanced ahead, along the winding street, measured the distance to the bronze gates, not yet in view among the flat-topped houses,