Read El Borak and Other Desert Adventures for Free Online Page A

Gordon, sheathing his pistol. To try to go down those towering cliffs looked like suicide, but it was sure death to try to outrun Hunyadi’s rifles along the trail. At any minute he expected the Magyar and his men to break cover.
    “I will go first and guide you,” said Bardylis rapidly, kicking off his sandals and letting himself over the cliff edge. Gordon did likewise and followed him. Clinging to the sharp lip of the precipice, Gordon saw a series of small holes pitting the rock. He began the descent slowly, clinging like a fly to a wall. It was hair-raising work, and the only thing that made it possible at all was the slight convex slant of the cliff at that point. Gordon had made many a desperate climb during his career, but never one which put such strain on nerve and thew. Again and again only the grip of a finger stood between him and death. Below him Bardylis toiled downward, guiding and encouraging him, until the youth finally dropped to the earth and stood looking tensely up at the man above him.
    Then he shouted, with a note of strident fear in his voice. Gordon, still twenty feet from the bottom, craned his neck upward. High above him he saw a bearded face peering down at him, convulsed with triumph. Deliberately the Turk sighted downward with a pistol, then laid it aside and caught up a heavy stone, leaning far over the edge to aim its downward course. Clinging with toes and nails, Gordon drew and fired upward with the same motion. Then he flattened himself desperately against the cliff and clung on.
    The man above screamed and pitched headfirst over the brink. The rock rushed down, striking Gordon a glancing blow on the shoulder, then the writhing body hurtled past and struck with a sickening concussion on the earth below. A voice shouting furiously high above announced the presence of Hunyadi at last, and Gordon slid and tumbled recklessly the remaining distance, and, with Bardylis, ran for the shelter of the trees.
    A glance backward and upward showed him Hunyadi crouching on the cliff,leveling a rifle, but the next instant Gordon and Bardylis were out of sight, and Hunyadi, apparently dreading an answering shot from the trees, made a hasty retreat with the four Turks who were the survivors of his party.

III

    “You saved my life when you showed me that path,” said Gordon.
    Bardylis smiled. “Any man of Attalus could have shown you the path, which we call the Road of the Eagles; but only a hero could have followed it. From what land comes my brother?”
    “From the west,” answered Gordon; “from the land of America, beyond Frankistan and the sea.”
    Bardylis shook his head. “I have never heard of it. But come with me. My people are yours henceforth.”
    As they moved through the trees, Gordon scanned the cliffs in vain for some sign of his enemies. He felt certain that neither Hunyadi, bold as he was, nor any of his companions would try to follow them down “the Road of the Eagles.” They were not mountaineers; including Hunyadi, they were more at home in the saddle than on a hill path. They would seek some other way into the valley. He spoke his thoughts to Bardylis.
    “They will find death,” answered the youth grimly. “The Pass of the King, at the southern end of the valley, is the only entrance. Men guard it with matchlocks night and day. The only strangers who enter the Valley of Iskander are traders, merchants with pack-mules.”
    Gordon inspected his companion curiously, aware of a certain tantalizing sensation of familiarity he could not place.
    “Who are your people?” he asked. “You are not an Afghan. You do not look like an Oriental at all.”
    “We are the Sons of Iskander,” answered Bardylis. “When the great conqueror came through these mountains, long ago, he built the city we call Attalus, and left hundreds of his soldiers and their women in it. Iskander marched westward again, and after a long while word came that he was dead and his empire divided. But the people