The Blood-Red Road to Petra Read online

  The Blood-Red Road to Petra

  George L. Eaton

  The Blood-Red Road to Petra

  George L. Eaton

  Hideous treachery fed embers of hate that smoldered still within ancient, evil ruins — treachery that threatened to blast Bill Barnes from the sky!

  By

  A HALF DOZEN little puffs of dust, that were running ostriches, fled before the slow-moving caravan. Heat rose from the hot desert sands like blasts from a fiery furnace. The only sounds were the rustle of the camels' feet and the dull, dead shifting of the sand as it crept slowly westward before the hot, dry wind.

  As the sun plunged toward the sea of sand the breathless wind became a half gale. It whipped sand eddies into the cracked lips and chapped faces of the two men who led that long, thin line of pack camels. The Bedouins astride the baggage and riding camels drew their head cloths tighter across their noses, pulled the brow folds forward like visors, leaving only a slit from which their granular, burning eyes peered.

  Their cartridge belts held their brightly colored cloaks tight at the waist to keep out the swirling sands. They wore their long rifles slung across their shoulders, and from their belts protruded the hilts of their ever-present daggers.

  There was only the shifting of the sands, the padding of the camels' feet, the creaking saddles, the tinkle of bells to disturb the peace and quiet of dusk. No living thing moved across the desert wastes to disturb the solitude of that lone caravan.

  Yet; something that was almost tangible, something like a tangible wave of terror crept the length of that long, thin line of camels, as the blood-red sun disappeared and the desert night plummeted down upon the caravan. The camels, seeming to sense that fear, nervously tossed their heads from left to right and bawled their uneasiness.

  The two men in the lead glanced furtively at one another and licked their shriveled lips with tongues that were dry and swollen. They shifted in their saddles and glanced back at the rest of the caravan as the desert night swallowed them up. The long, thin line became a sinuous snake, the head or tail of which could not be seen from the center because of the dungeon blackness.

  In an hour the wind died and the sky became calm and black and full of stars. Ahead they could see Sand hills coated with tamarisk in the glow of the moon.

  Beyond that first rim of sand hills the camels' feet padded on a floor of mud that was baked hard and was as flat as a lake. It extended to the first low hills of limestone that became great peaks against the sky in the distance.

  “We shall find water within the Bab es Siq,” one of the leaders said to his companion, in Arabic. His words came in the dull, rasping voice of a man who is parched. His companion acknowledged the words with a guttural grunt.

  He was thinking of that long, desperate trek across the burning sands of the Great Nefud that lay behind them. He was thinking that now after the finger of Eternity had flicked them a half hundred times they should be safe. He was thinking of the riches they would divide once when they had marketed their cargo, if they got it safely home. His cracked lips twisted into a snarl at that word. If. Nothing, he told himself, could stop them now. He touched his hand to the bag of pearls that had come from the Persian Gulf. Sweet visions of his future life formed in his mind. His snarl became a smile.

  In two hours they came to Es Siq, a cleft in the red sandstone hills. A Bedouin carried a blazing torch to lead the line of baggage and pack camels. Stupendous walls, in some places only twenty feet apart, and towering so high that in daytime the caravan would have looked like a line of ants from the top, hemmed them in on both sides.

  Even the camels ceased their grumbling and became quiet, afraid to flaunt their smallness in this gigantic work of Nature. Now and again, a single star twinkled in the dungeon of blackness overhead. The sweet odor of oleander was heavy in the air. It floated down the gorge of the Wadi Musa like the scent of ancient caravans bearing perfumes, frankincense, and myrrh.

  They crawled along the bed of the Wadi Musa with weary, aching bodies. The half-conscious riders brought their camels' heads up with a jerk as they stumbled. The only thing that kept the riders in their saddles was the thought 'that soon they would feel cool, delicious water trickling down their throats. Then they could sleep the sleep of the weary. A few more days would bring an end to their long journey. There would be pay and a bonus, and the soft laughter of women, and that nameless fear would be behind them.

  Because they were half-asleep, they were unprepared when that first blast of gun fire crashed down the gorge and reverberated against the high sandstone walls.

  Es Siq became a place of flao1ing guns, screaming animals and mad fanatics. Those two in the lead went off their camels with the first fusillade, their heads, literally, ripped from their bodies by a storm of machine-gun bullets.

  The Bedouin riders, astride the camels, screamed for mercy as they were shot out of their saddles by the cloaked and turbaned madmen who poured out of the crannies and fissures that lined Es Siq.

  The man who led them was tall and slender, with deep-set eyes that burned like twin fires. A black beard covered half his colorless face. His long, white silk robe streamed out behind him as he shouted orders. His brown head cloth, bound, with a scarlet-and-gold cord, stood out as torches blazed in the gorge. His face became as mad as the faces of his men as he slashed the clothing off the two leaders of the caravan with his dagger and searched it for treasure.

  The thing that took place in Es Siq that night was horrible to behold. As each man fell from his camel an Arab dagger was slashed across his throat until his blood gushed out and his life departed. Their rifles and daggers and all their belongings were stripped from them.

  A solid line of men stood at each end of the caravan, a line of grim, bearded men dressed in the robes of the nomad Bedouin. They were so placed to see that not one man of that caravan escaped to tell the tale.

  When the pack and baggage camels were hobbled and quieted, Serj el Said, the leader of the bandits, shouted a command. Two lean, bronzed Europeans, wearing sun helmets, slacks, and automatics strapped around their waists, leaped to his side.

  “Kill that dog who is trying to cut the ropes of the first pack!” he directed them.

  One of them brought his automatic up. It barked three times. The Bedouin's body jerked as the bullets tore into him. His scream rose above the babble of his mates, then died as he plunged to the ground. The other Bedouins watched his body twitch convulsively. It was their custom that with victory came the right to plunder. They had become a pack of screaming, clawing zealots. Their hands sped toward the daggers in their belts.

  Serj el Said watched them with an expression of contempt on his colorless face. Then he lashed them with words in Arabic.

  “Are you men or dogs?” he asked them. “Do you snarl and claw and spit in your filthy greed while there was work yet to be done? We must lash those carrion to their camels and take them to the gorge of the Wadi es Siyagh. They must not be found here. Only Douglas, the infidel, will be found here by the British.”

  The Bedouins, grumbling, began tying the dead camel riders to the backs of their camels. Serj el Said spoke to his two European lieutenants in precise English.

  “Bring Douglas,” he said, sneering. “He will be what you call a red herring drawn across the trail of our countrymen.”

  They disappeared into one of the fissures that lined the mighty gorge. When they came into view again they were half-leading and half dragging a man between them.

  The man's face and head were bruised and discolored. His clothes were in tatters. Anyone could see that each step cost him agony beyond description. But his eyes were bright and unafraid. He carried his head high as he tried t
o laugh at the men on either side of him. There was an air of youth and courage and clean perfection about him.

  “If I must die,” he said, “I'm glad I learned what dirty rats framed me. No lower form of life ever existed.”

  “Shut up!” one of the men snarled. He was a huge bulk of a man with a thatch of sandy hair, and a scar that ran from temple-to chin. His voice was a deep roar that became louder and louder as he spoke. His ham-like hands pressed cruelly into the shoulder of Douglas.

  “MacTavish and Sneed,” Douglas sneered. “ A disgrace to-their king and country. Two of the foulest traitors that ever wore the uniform.”

  Sneed's pig-like eyes narrowed to mere slits as he banged the back of his hand across Douglas' mouth.

  “Shut up, you swine!” he grated. “How would you like to have me turn you over to those mad Bedouins over there? They'd teach you how to be still by cutting out your tongue and staking you down in the desert sand.”

  They flung the white-faced Douglas against a wall of the gorge as Serj el Said came over beside them. His dark eyes gleamed malevolently as he gazed at Douglas.

  “You'll be one less Englishman for me to cope with,” he said. He turned to MacTavish and Sneed. “Well,” he asked them, “why don't you kill him?”

  A smile flitted across Douglas' face as he saw the momentary hesitation of the two Englishmen. He knew it would do him no good to plead for mercy. Nor would he have pleaded if he knew it would save his life. He was cast from a different mold than those other two.

  It gave him no 'little satisfaction to see that they hesitated to murder a man who had been their fellow officer. He watched them with a smile on his lips and in his eyes. He was determined to die as he had lived, with his head up, afraid to look no man in the eye.

  As MacTavish and Sneed drew their guns from their holsters, he spoke:

  “ A fitting job for two brave and noble officers,” he said, almost lightly. “You should receive a citation from your greasy leader. You're not fit to associate with vermin. You

  His body jerked and spun half around as MacTavish fired two bullets into his heart.

  “That'll stop his mealy mouth!” MacTavish roared.

  It did.

  MacTavish rolled him over with his boot. Blood welled out of the two wounds and spread in a pool around him, His face was serene, as strong and determined in death as it had been in life.

  WING COMMANDER Norton Kestrel, M. C., D. F. C., raised his eyes from the book he was trying to read and shook his head angrily. He was aware that he had read the same paragraph at least a dozen times and did not know yet what he had read. He threw the book down and glanced around his comfortable quarters on the Royal Air Force field at Ma'an in Trans-Jordan.

  His mind flitted back to the disturbing reports he had received from British intelligence units in his area. Those reports might have something to do with the eight I single-seater fighters that had been stolen from under his nose. And for the sabotage that had occurred.

  He got to his feet and began to pace back and forth across the room, his rugged chin out-thrust, his teeth clenched. He ran a hand through his fast-graying hair and across his lined cheek.

  He had turned all of Trans-Jordan upside down trying to locate those eight ships. They had all disappeared at one time while he had been in Alexandria, Egypt, receiving secret instructions. One night the eight ships had been in their hangars. The next morning they had been gone. Other ships had been damaged. British and native intelligence men had worked on the case without results.

  What he asked himself, was the connection between the theft of British air force planes and the restlessness of the natives? Who had been able to make those planes vanish like a magician slipping things up his sleeve?

  The only result of his investigations had been the cashiering of young James Douglas, a flight officer under his command.

  Kestrel's heart ached as he remembered the expression of anguish on Douglas' face when his wings had been ripped from his tunic. He would not have believed Douglas guilty of theft if the evidence had not been annihilating. But he had not been able to justify Douglas' connection with the theft of the eight fighters.

  Beads of perspiration came out on Kestrel's head as he sat down and began to remove his boots. He could feel that some insidious thing was hemming him in, fastening invisible tentacles around his throat so that he could feel them in his sleep, bringing him to consciousness with his body dripping, his face twisted in horror.

  He began to realize that when he found out what this insidious thing was it would be too late. When the screws began to turn he would be helpless.

  He pulled off one boot and started on the other one when he heard staggering footsteps scuffing in the hallway. He started toward the door, then stopped. It would be one of his men, drunk, he thought. He didn't want any more trouble to think about. He sat down again as something thumped against his door and he heard a scraping sound as it slipped to the floor.

  The thing that lay there, when he opened the door, wore the usual mantle and head cloth of the native. But the clothes of this man were saturated with blood. The man's face was twisted in agony. ,

  Kestrel shouted for help and dropped to his knees. , When he opened the man's mantle he found that his chest was horribly shot away. He tried to stanch the flow of blood as the man opened his eyes. The man's lips moved slowly, but no sound came from them. He was trying desperately to speak before he died. Kestrel lifted his head and held his ear close to the man's lips. The man spoke to him in Arabic; his swarthy face became convulsed with pain. Blood gurgled in his throat and spurted out of his mouth.

  “Es Siq,” he whispered, in Arabic. “Caravan-murder!”

  That was all. His body went limp in Kestrel's arms as life left him.

  “Get him to a doctor, quick!” Kestrel barked to the men who came running. “He is one of our native intelligence men.”

  He was cursing as he got his adjutant on the telephone. Why couldn't the man have lived to tell his story?

  “Order McCoy to get a fully equipped and armed camel corps ready for departure immediately,” he snapped. “Tell him to use his fastest he-camels and take a medical unit along-and to saddle a camel for me.”

  II-THE ANCIENT CITY

  THE Imperial Camel Corps rose from their knees and bellowed as Major Duff McCoy, astride a tall, large-boned beast, roared, “Walk-march!” to his men.

  They thundered out of Ma'an into a bitter north wind. The slopes ahead were silent and black. There was something searching and almost dangerous in that steady desert wind that blew in their faces.

  The tough, lean desert Bedouins astride the camels rode them as though they had been born on their backs. The camels were trained to walk Arab fashion, with that bent-kneed gait that made their stride a little longer and a little quicker than the normal. They were finely bred beasts, but bad-tempered and half-wild. With noses high and wind-stirred hair they jigged along at an uneasy dance that took them over the night sands swiftly.

  “Was the Arab who gave you the warning one of our men?” McCoy shouted at Kestrel above the wail of the wind.

  “Yes,” Kestrel answered. “He had been working among the natives, trying to find out something about the disappearance of those half dozen caravans that have vanished around Petra. He must have attached himself to this caravan to see what he could find out. He could only say four words before he died”

  “He'll never tell what he found out,” McCoy said.

  It was dawn when the camel corps entered Es Siq, that-cleft in the red limestone hills that was a trail of the ancient world. Centuries ago the Romans tapped the wealth of Petra by building two roads to it. When Rome fell, Petra was abandoned except for a few desert tribesmen who lived miserably in its tombs and caves.

  A poet sang of ancient Petra a hundred years ago: “The rose-red city, half as old as time.” Its first written history is to be found in the Bible when it was the home of the Horites, cave dwellers whose progenitor was Hori,
the grandson of Seir.

  For centuries Petra was the rich crossroads of the world. The Arabian peninsula was a network of caravan routes. The products of Africa, Arabia, and India were taken through Petra and re-routed to the valley of the Nile, Palestine, Phoenicia, and the Euphrates-Tigris valley.

  On this morning the descendants of those same desert tribesmen, who occupied the tombs and caves of Es Siq a thousand years ago, gazed down on the Imperial Camel Corps as it made its way between the massive ramparts, of red and purple and yellow.

  Traces of the arch and gate, that once made Petra impregnable, faded away into mammoth clumps of oleander blossoms. The unbroken walls were like gigantic skyscrapers along two sides of a street. Caverns high up on the sides were like huge windows. Dark stains that were sometimes red and sometimes purple jetted down the sides.

  The Imperial Camel Corps was silent, as had been that caravan the night before, as it gaped at the wonders of Es Siq.

  McCoy and Kestrel were taut and tense as they watched for some sign of the slaughter of the night before. For a half mile nothing came to their gaze except the ominous walls of the cleft and the pebbled floor.

  As they came abruptly around a corner they saw a thing huddled on the limestone floor. It was as red as the sandstone rocks above it. A half dozen huge and ugly vultures scurried away and winged into the air.

  Kestrel's face was white and was trembling as he spoke to McCoy a few moments later.

  “It looks as though our court-martial was right,” he said. “Douglas must have been a thief and a murderer, too, if he was mixed up in this thing. I've always thought until now that we might have been wrong.”

  “This settles that,” McCoy replied. “But where is the caravan? Where are the bodies of the men who were murdered? Where are the camels?”

  “We'll leave the majority of the men here and take a half dozen on into Petra, with a machine gun,” Kestrel said grimly. “This thing of caravans disappearing completely is giving me the creeps, McCoy. I'll dispatch two I messengers back to Ma'an with orders for three of our ships to search from the air in this vicinity. They'll probably find nothing. This thing is tied up to the theft of our planes and the sabotage.”