El Borak and Other Desert Adventures by Robert E. Howard Read Free Book Online

American lifting the stone that pinned him down, Ptolemy frowned and involuntarily flexed his own massive thews. He seemed ill-pleased at the approval with which the people openly greeted the tale. Evidently these descendants of Grecian athletes had as much admiration for physical perfection as had their ancient ancestors, and Ptolemy was vain of his prowess.
    “How could he lift such a stone?” the king broke in. “He is of no great size. His head would scarcely top my chin.”
    “He is mighty beyond his stature, oh king,” retorted Bardylis. “Here is the bruise on my leg to prove I tell the truth. He lifted the stone I could not move, and he came down the Road of the Eagles, which few even among the Attalans have dared. He has traveled far and fought men, and now he would feast and rest.”
    “See to it then,” grunted Ptolemy contemptuously, turning back to his dice game. “If he is a Moslem spy, your head shall answer for it.”
    “I stake my head gladly on his honesty, oh king!” answered Bardylis proudly; then taking Gordon’s arm, he said softly, “Come my friend. Ptolemy is short of patience and scant of courtesy. Pay no heed to him. I will take you to the house of my father.”
    As they pushed their way through the crowd, Gordon’s gaze picked out an alien countenance among the frank, blond faces — a thin, swarthy visage, whose black eyes gleamed avidly on the American. The man was a Tajik, with a bundle on his back. When he saw he was being scrutinized he smirked and bobbed his head servilely. There was something familiar about the gesture.
    “Who is that man?” Gordon asked.
    “Abdullah, a Moslem dog whom we allow to enter the valley with beads and mirrors and such trinkets as our women love; we trade ore and wine and skins for them.”
    Gordon remembered the fellow now — a shifty character who used to hang around Peshawur, and was suspected of smuggling rifles up the Khyber Pass. But when he turned and looked back, the dark face had vanished in the crowd. However, there was no reason to fear Abdullah, even if the man recognized him. The Tajik could not know of the papers he carried. Gordon felt that the people of Attalus were friendly to the friend of Bardylis, though the youth had plainly roused Ptolemy’s jealous vanity by his praise of Gordon’s strength.
    Bardylis conducted Gordon down the street to a large stone house with a pillared portico, where he proudly displayed his friend to his father, a venerable patriarch called Perdiccas, and his mother, a tall, stately woman, well along in years. The Attalans certainly did not keep their women in seclusion like the Moslems. Gordon saw Bardylis’ sisters, robust blond beauties, and his young brother. The American could scarcely suppress a smile at the strangeness of it all, being ushered into the every-day family life of two thousand years ago. These people were definitely not barbarians; lower, undoubtedly, in the cultural scale than their Hellenic ancestors, they were still more highly civilized by far than their fierce Afghan neighbors.
    Their interest in their guest was genuine, but none save Bardylis showed much interest in the world outside their valley. Presently the youth led Gordon into an inner chamber and set food and wine before him. The American ate and drank ravenously, suddenly aware of the lean days that had preceded this feast. While he ate, Bardylis talked, but he did not speak of the men who had been pursuing Gordon. Evidently he supposed them to have been Afghans of the surrounding hills, whose hostility was proverbial. Gordon learned that no man of Attalus had ever been more than a day’s journey away from the valley. The ferocity of the hill tribes all about them had isolated them from the world completely.
    When Gordon at last expressed a desire for sleep, Bardylis left him alone, assuring him that he would not be disturbed. The American was somewhat disturbed to find that there was no door to his chamber, merely a