Swords From the East by Harold Lamb Read Free Book Online

domain of God. No man would go there, for he would be skinned alive and roasted by pagans."
    "Permit me to correct you. I would go there. These burghers and butchers are but tedious society. The domain of the Devil would at least be entertaining."
    In these words, Pierre knew, monsieur le comte had declined a colonelcy to go to search for his brother. And from place to place as far as the Urkhogaitu they had had news of Paul, for few Franks passed over the caravan route that led from Moscow to Tartary.
    Pierre came out of his stupor with a rattle in his throat. He caught his master's hand.
    "You will be-alone, monsieur le comte," he whispered. "There will be no one to laugh at your jests. If Monsieur Paul, your brother, had not left you-"
    "The conversation of Monsieur Paul ceased to interest me years ago. These savages are, at the worst, originals. I learned somewhat of their speech in the Polish campaigns, and more from the dog who led us on our way."
    On their way hither! Pierre groaned at memory of the endless steppe where wild Cossack bands attacked them, cutting down the rest of their followers, of the gaunt mountains that led to a desert of sand and clay, and then the snow of the Altai. All at once his eyes started, and he pointed toward the interior of the hut.
    "A cross! I see the cross of the Redeemer hanging on yonder wall."
    He closed his eyes and clasped his frail hands.
    "Monsieur-a holy spot to which we-have come."
    As his master continued to stare idly at the sunlight in the door at Pierre's back, a sudden anxiety clouded the pallid face of the old servant.
    "Look, monsieur, and tell me if it is not true-what I see. There, in the shadows, over your shoulder. It is so dark I did not see the blessed cross before. And, look, Monsieur Hugo, there is the figure of the Mother of Christ and the silver candlesticks-on the altar. See-"
    The count turned his head casually. He felt that the fever-ridden old man must be the victim of a hallucination.
    And actually his eyes, dimmed by the sunlight at which he had been staring, saw nothing in the shadows.
    "There is-"
    He was on the point of saying there was nothing to be seen. But the cold hand of the dying man was on his wrist. Again Hugo shrugged and made up his mind anew.
    "There is the cross indeed," he responded. "And the altar, as you have said."
    So Hugo, to his own mind, deceived Pierre. It would make the dying man rest easier.
    "Ah, monsieur, you have never lied," the servant muttered. "Now I can believe the miracle."
    He began a litany under his breath. When his voice ceased his lips moved. Presently Hugo glanced at him, reached over, and closed the eyes of the dead man. He freed his wrist from the grip of the clay that had been Pierre.
    After drawing the cloak over the other's face he rose to seek some tool with which to dig a grave. A gleam of metal came from the interior of the cabin, and he strode toward it. He saw for the first time two silver candlesticks standing on a rude altar of wood.
    "Peste!" was his thought. "Pierre has cast a spell over me, that is all."
    Still, a closer inspection disclosed the wooden effigy of Mary beside the skillfully carved cross on which hung the figure of Christ. Untold labor must have gone into the making of it.
    Hugo glanced from it to the body of his servant, to the cabin of logs with the thatched roof, made after the fashion of peasants on his old estate. The floor was earth, strewn with pine needles.
    He was glad that he had said what he did to the dying man. Probably, he reflected, there were some Christians among the Tatars here. Yes, that old Ostrim, the falconer up the mountain, was one. Well, this was their chapel.
    And Aruk had said something about another Frank! That might well have been Paul. What had the Tatar hunter said? An ambassador from God? There was no one here, and the place bore no traces of occupancy.
    Suddenly Hugo raised his head and adjusted the pistols in his belt, looked briefly to the priming, and