The Project Gutenberg eBook of Lord of Samarcand
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: Lord of Samarcand
Author: Robert E. Howard
Illustrator: Margaret Brundage
Joseph Doolin
Release date: October 16, 2026 [eBook #79801]
Language: English
Original publication: Indianapolis, IN: Popular Fiction Publishing Company, 1932
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79801
Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LORD OF SAMARCAND ***
Lord of Samarcand
By ROBERT E. HOWARD
_A stirring tale of Tamerlane and the
shock of Tatar troops that overwhelmed the
Turkish sultan, Bayazid--a vivid story of
the last days of the lord of Samarcand._
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Oriental Stories Spring 1932.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The roar of battle had died away; the sun hung like a ball of crimson
gold on the western hills. Across the trampled field of battle no
squadrons thundered, no war-cry reverberated. Only the shrieks of the
wounded and the moans of the dying rose to the circling vultures whose
black wings swept closer and closer until they brushed the pallid faces
in their flight.
On his rangy stallion, in a hillside thicket, Ak Boga the Tatar
watched, as he had watched since dawn, when the mailed hosts of the
Franks, with their forest of lances and flaming pennons, had moved out
on the plains of Nicopolis to meet the grim hordes of Bayazid.
Ak Boga, watching their battle array, had chk-chk'd his teeth in
surprize and disapproval as he saw the glittering squadrons of mounted
knights draw out in front of the compact masses of stalwart infantry,
and lead the advance. They were the flower of Europe--cavaliers of
Austria, Germany, France and Italy; but Ak Boga shook his head.
He had seen the knights charge with a thunderous roar that shook the
heavens, had seen them smite the outriders of Bayazid like a withering
blast and sweep up the long slope in the teeth of a raking fire from
the Turkish archers at the crest. He had seen them cut down the archers
like ripe corn, and launch their whole power against the oncoming
spahis, the Turkish light cavalry. And he had seen the spahis buckle
and break and scatter like spray before a storm, the light-armed riders
flinging aside their lances and spurring like mad out of the mêlée.
But Ak Boga had looked back, where, far behind, the sturdy Hungarian
pikemen toiled, seeking to keep within supporting distance of the
headlong cavaliers.
He had seen the Frankish horsemen sweep on, reckless of their horses'
strength as of their own lives, and cross the ridge. From his
vantage-point Ak Boga could see both sides of that ridge and he knew
that there lay the main power of the Turkish army--sixty-five thousand
strong--the janizaries, the terrible Ottoman infantry, supported by the
heavy cavalry, tall men in strong armor, bearing spears and powerful
bows.
And now the Franks realized, what Ak Boga had known, that the real
battle lay before them; and their horses were weary, their lances
broken, their throats choked with dust and thirst.
Ak Boga had seen them waver and look back for the Hungarian infantry;
but it was out of sight over the ridge, and in desperation the knights
hurled themselves on the massed enemy, striving to break the ranks by
sheer ferocity. That charge never reached the grim lines. Instead a
storm of arrows broke the Christian front, and this time, on exhausted
horses, there was no riding against it. The whole first rank went down,
horses and men pin-cushioned, and in that red shambles their comrades
behind them stumbled and fell headlong. And then the janizaries charged
with a deep-toned roar of "Allah!" that was like the thunder of deep
surf.
All this Ak Boga had seen; had seen, too, the inglorious flight of
some of the knights, the ferocious resistance of others. On foot,
leaguered and outnumbered, they fought with sword and ax, falling one
by one, while the tide of battle flowed around them on either side and
the blood-drunken Turks fell upon the infantry which had just toiled
into sight over the ridge.
There, too, was disaster. Flying knights thundered through the ranks of
the Wallachians, and these broke and retired in ragged disorder. The
Hungarians and Bavarians received the brunt of the Turkish onslaught,
staggered and fell back stubbornly, contesting every foot, but unable
to check the victorious flood of Moslem fury.
And now, as Ak Boga scanned the field, he no longer saw the serried
lines of the pikemen and ax-fighters. They had fought their way back
over the ridge and were in full, though ordered, retreat, and the Turks
had come back to loot the dead and mutilate the dying. Such knights as
had not fallen or broken away in flight, had flung down the hopeless
sword and surrendered. Among the trees on the farther side of the
vale, the main Turkish host was clustered, and even Ak Boga shivered
a trifle at the screams which rose where Bayazid's swordsmen were
butchering the captives. Nearer at hand ran ghoulish figures, swift
and furtive, pausing briefly over each heap of corpses; here and there
gaunt dervishes with foam on their beards and madness in their eyes
plied their knives on writhing victims who screamed for death.
"Erlik!" muttered Ak Boga. "They boasted that they could hold up the
sky on their lances, were it to fall, and lo, the sky has fallen and
their host is meat for the ravens!"
He reined his horse away through the thicket; there might be good
plunder among the plumed and corseleted dead, but Ak Boga had come
hither on a mission which was yet to be completed. But even as he
emerged from the thicket, he saw a prize no Tatar could forego--a tall
Turkish steed with an ornate high-peaked Turkish saddle came racing by.
Ak Boga spurred quickly forward and caught the flying, silver-worked
rein. Then, leading the restive charger, he trotted swiftly down the
slope away from the battlefield.
* * * * *
Suddenly he reined in among a clump of stunted trees. The hurricane
of strife, slaughter and pursuit had cast its spray on this side of
the ridge. Before him Ak Boga saw a tall, richly clad knight grunting
and cursing as he sought to hobble along using his broken lance as
a crutch. His helmet was gone, revealing a blond head and a florid
choleric face. Not far away lay a dead horse, an arrow protruding from
its ribs.
As Ak Boga watched, the big knight stumbled and fell with a scorching
oath. Then from the bushes came a man such as Ak Boga had never seen
before, even among the Franks. This man was taller than Ak Boga, who
was a big man, and his stride was like that of a gaunt gray wolf.
He was bareheaded, a tousled shock of tawny hair topping a sinister
scarred face, burnt dark by the sun, and his eyes were cold as gray icy
steel. The great sword he trailed was crimson to the hilt, his rusty
scale-mail shirt hacked and rent, the kilt beneath it torn and slashed.
His right arm was stained to the elbow, and blood dripped sluggishly
from a deep gash in his left forearm.
"Devil take all!" growled the crippled knight in Norman French, which
Ak Boga understood; "this is the end of the world!"
"Only the end of a horde of fools," the tall Frank's voice was hard and
cold, like the rasp of a sword in its scabbard.
The lame man swore again. "Stand not there like a blockhead, fool!
Catch me a horse! My damnable steed caught a shaft in its cursed hide,
and though I spurred it until the blood spurted over my heels, it fell
at last, and I think, broke my ankle."
The tall one dropped his sword-point to the earth and stared at the
other somberly.
"You give commands as though you sat in your own fief of Saxony, Lord
Baron Frederik! But for you and divers other fools, we had cracked
Bayazid like a nut this day."
"Dog!" roared the baron, his intolerant face purpling; "this insolence
to me? I'll have you flayed alive!"
"Who but you cried down the Elector in council?" snarled the other, his
eyes glittering dangerously. "Who called Sigismund of Hungary a fool
because he urged that the lord allow him to lead the assault with his
infantry? And who but you had the ear of that young fool High Constable
of France, Philip of Artois, so that in the end he led the charge
that ruined us all, nor would wait on the ridge for support from the
Hungarians? And now you, who turned tail quicker than any when you saw
what your folly had done, you bid me fetch you a horse!"
"Aye, and quickly, you Scottish dog!" screamed the baron, convulsed
with fury. "You shall answer for this----"
"I'll answer here," growled the Scotsman, his manner changing
murderously. "You have heaped insults on me since we first sighted the
Danube. If I'm to die, I'll settle one score first!"
"Traitor!" bellowed the baron, whitening, scrambling up on his knee and
reaching for his sword. But even as he did so, the Scotsman struck,
with an oath, and the baron's roar was cut short in a ghastly gurgle as
the great blade sheared through shoulder-bone, ribs and spine, casting
the mangled corpse limply upon the blood-soaked earth.
"Well struck, warrior!" At the sound of the guttural voice the slayer
wheeled like a great wolf, wrenching free the sword. For a tense moment
the two eyed each other, the swordsman standing above his victim,
a brooding somber figure terrible with potentialities of blood and
slaughter, the Tatar sitting his high-peaked saddle like a carven image.
"I am no Turk," said Ak Boga. "You have no quarrel with me. See, my
simitar is in its sheath. I have need of a man like you--strong as a
bear, swift as a wolf, cruel as a falcon. I can bring you to much you
desire."
"I desire only vengeance on the head of Bayazid," rumbled the Scotsman.
The dark eyes of the Tatar glittered.
"Then come with me. For my lord is the sworn enemy of the Turk."
"Who is your lord?" asked the Scotsman suspiciously.
"Men call him the Lame," answered Ak Boga, "Timour, the Servant of
God, by the favor of Allah, Amir of Tatary."
The Scotsman turned his head in the direction of the distant shrieks
which told that the massacre was still continuing, and stood for an
instant like a great bronze statue. Then he sheathed his sword with a
savage rasp of steel.
"I will go," he said briefly.
The Tatar grinned with pleasure, and leaning forward, gave into his
hands the reins of the Turkish horse. The Frank swung into the saddle
and glanced inquiringly at Ak Boga. The Tatar motioned with his
helmeted head and reined away down the slope. They touched in the spurs
and cantered swiftly away into the gathering twilight, while behind
them the shrieks of dire agony still rose to the shivering stars which
peered palely out, as if frightened by man's slaughter of man.
CHAPTER 2
"Had we twa been upon the green,
And never an eye to see,
I wad hae had you, flesh and fell;
But your sword shall gae wi' me."
--_The Ballad of Otterbourne._
Again the sun was sinking, this time over a desert, etching the spires
and minarets of a blue city. Ak Boga drew rein on the crest of a rise
and sat motionless for a moment, sighing deeply as he drank in the
familiar sight, whose wonder never faded.
"Samarcand," said Ak Boga.
"We have ridden far," answered his companion. Ak Boga smiled. The
Tatar's garments were dusty, his mail tarnished, his face somewhat
drawn, though his eyes still twinkled. The Scotsman's strongly
chiselled features had not altered.
"You are of steel, bogatyr," said Ak Boga. "The road we have traveled
would have wearied a courier of Genghis Khan. And by Erlik, I, who was
bred in the saddle, am the wearier of the twain!"
The Scotsman gazed unspeaking at the distant spires, remembering the
days and nights of apparently endless riding, when he had slept swaying
in the saddle, and all the sounds of the universe had died down to
the thunder of hoofs. He had followed Ak Boga unquestioning: through
hostile hills where they avoided trails and cut through the blind
wilderness, over mountains where the chill winds cut like a sword-edge,
into stretches of steppes and desert. He had not questioned when Ak
Boga's relaxing vigilance told him that they were out of hostile
country, and when the Tatar began to stop at wayside posts where tall
dark men in iron helmets brought fresh steeds. Even then there was no
slacking of the headlong pace: a swift guzzling of wine and snatching
of food; occasionally a brief interlude of sleep, on a heap of hides
and cloaks; then again the drum of racing hoofs. The Frank knew that
Ak Boga was bearing the news of the battle to his mysterious lord, and
he wondered at the distance they had covered between the first post
where saddled steeds awaited them and the blue spires that marked their
journey's end. Wide-flung indeed were the boundaries of the lord called
Timour the Lame.
They had covered that vast expanse of country in a time the Frank would
have sworn impossible. He felt now the grinding wear of that terrible
ride, but he gave no outward sign. The city shimmered to his gaze,
mingling with the blue of the distance, so that it seemed part of the
horizon, a city of illusion and enchantment. Blue: the Tatars lived in
a wide magnificent land, lavish with color schemes, and the prevailing
motif was blue. In the spires and domes of Samarcand were mirrored the
hues of the skies, the far mountains and the dreaming lakes.
"You have seen lands and seas no Frank has beheld," said Ak Boga, "and
rivers and towns and caravan trails. Now you shall gaze upon the glory
of Samarcand, which the lord Timour found a town of dried brick and
has made a metropolis of blue stone and ivory and marble and silver
filigree."
The two descended into the plain and threaded their way between
converging lines of camel-caravans and mule-trains whose robed drivers
shouted incessantly, all bound for the Turquoise Gates, laden with
spices, silks, jewels, and slaves, the goods and gauds of India and
Cathay, of Persia and Arabia and Egypt.
"All the East rides the road to Samarcand," said Ak Boga.
* * * * *
They passed through the wide gilt-inlaid gates where the tall spearmen
shouted boisterous greetings to Ak Boga, who yelled back, rolling in
his saddle and smiting his mailed thigh with the joy of homecoming.
They rode through the wide winding streets, past palace and market and
mosque, and bazars thronged with the people of a hundred tribes and
races, bartering, disputing, shouting. The Scotsman saw hawk-faced
Arabs, lean apprehensive Syrians, fat fawning Jews, turbaned Indians,
languid Persians, ragged swaggering but suspicious Afghans, and more
unfamiliar forms; figures from the mysterious reaches of the north,
and the far east; stocky Mongols with broad inscrutable faces and the
rolling gait of an existence spent in the saddle; slant-eyed Cathayans
in robes of watered silk; tall quarrelsome Vigurs; round-faced
Kipchaks; narrow-eyed Kirghiz; a score of races whose existence the
West did not guess. All the Orient flowed in a broad river through the
gates of Samarcand.
The Frank's wonder grew; the cities of the West were hovels compared
to this. Past academies, libraries and pleasure-pavilions they rode,
and Ak Boga turned into a wide gateway, guarded by silver lions. There
they gave their steeds into the hands of silk-sashed grooms, and walked
along a winding avenue paved with marble and lined with slim green
trees. The Scotsman, looking between the slender trunks, saw shimmering
expanses of roses, cherry trees and waving exotic blossoms unknown to
him, where fountains jetted arches of silver spray. So they came to
the palace, gleaming blue and gold in the sunlight, passed between
tall marble columns and entered the chambers with their gilt-worked
arched doorways, and walls decorated with delicate paintings of Persian
and Cathayan artists, and the gold tissue and silver work of Indian
artistry.
Ak Boga did not halt in the great reception room with its slender
carven columns and frieze-work of gold and turquoise, but continued
until he came to the fretted gold-adorned arch of a door which opened
into a small blue-domed chamber that looked out through gold-barred
windows into a series of broad, shaded, marble-paved galleries. There
silk-robed courtiers took their weapons, and grasping their arms, led
them between files of giant black mutes in silken loin-cloths, who held
two-handed simitars upon their shoulders, and into the chamber, where
the courtiers released their arms and fell back, salaaming deeply. Ak
Boga knelt before the figure on the silken divan, but the Scotsman
stood grimly erect, nor was obeisance required of him. Some of the
simplicity of Genghis Khan's court still lingered in the courts of
these descendants of the nomads.
The Scotsman looked closely at the man on the divan; this, then, was
the mysterious Tamerlane, who was already become a mythical figure in
Western lore. He saw a man as tall as himself, gaunt but heavy-boned,
with a wide sweep of shoulders and the Tatar's characteristic depth
of chest. His face was not as dark as Ak Boga's, nor did his black
magnetic eyes slant; and he did not sit cross-legged as a Mongol sits.
There was power in every line of his figure, in his clean-cut features,
in the crisp black hair and beard, untouched with gray despite his
sixty-one years. There was something of the Turk in his appearance,
thought the Scotsman, but the dominant note was the lean wolfish
hardness that suggested the nomad. He was closer to the basic Turanian
root-stock than was the Turk; nearer to the wolfish, wandering Mongols
who were his ancestors.
"Speak, Ak Boga," said the Amir in a deep powerful voice. "Ravens have
flown westward, but there has come no word."
"We rode before the word, my lord," answered the warrior. "The news is
at our heels, traveling swift on the caravan roads. Soon the couriers,
and after them the traders and the merchants, will bring to you the
news that a great battle has been fought in the west; that Bayazid
has broken the hosts of the Christians, and the wolves howl over the
corpses of the kings of Frankistan."
"And who stands beside you?" asked Timour, resting his chin on his hand
and fixing his deep somber eyes on the Scotsman.
"A chief of the Franks who escaped the slaughter," answered Ak Boga.
"Single-handed he cut his way through the mêlée, and in his flight
paused to slay a Frankish lord who had put shame upon him aforetime. He
has no fear and his thews are steel. By Allah, we passed through the
land outracing the wind to bring thee news of the war, and this Frank
is less weary than I, who learned to ride ere I learned to walk."
"Why do you bring him to me?"
"It was my thought that he would make a mighty warrior for thee, my
lord."
"In all the world," mused Timour, "there are scarce half a dozen men
whose judgment I trust. Thou art one of those," he added briefly, and
Ak Boga, who had flushed darkly in embarrassment, grinned delightedly.
"Can he understand me?" asked Timour.
"He speaks Turki, my lord."
"How are you named, oh Frank?" queried the Amir. "And what is your
rank?"
"I am called Donald MacDeesa," answered the Scotsman. "I come from the
country of Scotland, beyond Frankistan. I have no rank, either in my
own land or in the army I followed. I live by my wits and the edge of
my claymore."
"Why do you ride to me?"
"Ak Boga told me it was the road to vengeance."
"Against whom?"
"Bayazid the Sultan of the Turks, whom men name the Thunderer."
Timour dropped his head on his mighty breast for a space and in the
silence MacDeesa heard the silvery tinkle of a fountain in an outer
court and the musical voice of a Persian poet singing to a lute.
Then the great Tatar lifted his lion's head.
"Sit ye with Ak Boga upon this divan close at my hand," said he. "I
will instruct you how to trap a gray wolf."
As Donald did so, he unconsciously lifted a hand to his face, as if
he felt the sting of a blow eleven years old. Irrelevantly his mind
reverted to another king and another, ruder court, and in the swift
instant that elapsed as he took his seat close to the Amir, glanced
fleetingly along the bitter trail of his life.
* * * * *
Young Lord Douglas, most powerful of all the Scottish barons, was
head-strong and impetuous, and like most Norman lords, choleric when
he fancied himself crossed. But he should not have struck the lean
young Highlander who had come down into the border country seeking
fame and plunder in the train of the lords of the marches. Douglas was
accustomed to using both riding-whip and fists freely on his pages and
esquires, and promptly forgetting both the blow and the cause; and
they, being also Normans and accustomed to the tempers of their lords,
likewise forgot. But Donald MacDeesa was no Norman; he was a Gael, and
Gaelic ideas of honor and insult differ from Norman ideas as the wild
uplands of the North differ from the fertile plains of the Lowlands.
The chief of Donald's clan could not have struck him with impunity, and
for a Southron to so venture--hate entered the young Highlander's blood
like a black river and filled his dreams with crimson nightmares.
Douglas forgot the blow too quickly to regret it. But Donald's was the
vengeful heart of those wild folk who keep the fires of feud flaming
for centuries and carry grudges to the grave. Donald was as fully
Celtic as his savage Dalriadian ancestors who carved out the kingdom of
Alba with their swords.
But he hid his hate and bided his time, and it came in a hurricane
of border war. Robert Bruce lay in his tomb, and his heart, stilled
forever, lay somewhere in Spain beneath the body of Black Douglas, who
had failed in the pilgrimage which was to place the heart of his king
before the Holy Sepulcher. The great king's grandson, Robert II, had
little love for storm and stress; he desired peace with England and he
feared the great family of Douglas.
But despite his protests, war spread flaming wings along the border
and the Scottish lords rode joyfully on the foray. But before the
Douglas marched, a quiet and subtle man came to Donald MacDeesa's tent
and spoke briefly and to the point.
"Knowing that the aforesaid lord hath put despite upon thee, I
whispered thy name softly to him that sendeth me, and sooth, it is well
known that this same bloody lord doth continually embroil the kingdoms
and stir up wrath and wo between the sovereigns----" he said in part,
and he plainly spoke the word, "Protection."
Donald made no answer and the quiet person smiled and left the young
Highlander sitting with his chin on his fist, staring grimly at the
floor of his tent.
Thereafter Lord Douglas marched right gleefully with his retainers
into the border country and "burned the dales of Tyne, and part of
Bambroughshire, and three good towers on Reidswire fells, he left
them all on fire," and spread wrath and wo generally among the border
English, so that King Richard sent notes of bitter reproach to King
Robert, who bit his nails with rage, but waited patiently for news he
expected to hear.
Then after an indecisive skirmish at Newcastle, Douglas encamped in a
place called Otterbourne, and there Lord Percy, hot with wrath, came
suddenly upon him in the night, and in the confused mêlée which ensued,
called by the Scottish the Battle of Otterbourne and by the English
Chevy Chase, Lord Douglas fell. The English swore he was slain by Lord
Percy, who neither confirmed nor denied it, not knowing himself what
men he had slain in the confusion and darkness.
But a wounded man babbled of a Highland plaid, before he died, and an
ax wielded by no English hand. Men came to Donald and questioned him
hardly, but he snarled at them like a wolf, and the king, after piously
burning many candles for Douglas' soul in public, and thanking God for
the baron's demise in the privacy of his chamber, announced that "we
have heard of this persecution of a loyal subject and it being plain
in our mind that this youth is innocent as ourselves in this matter we
hereby warn all men against further hounding of him at pain of death."
So the king's protection saved Donald's life, but men muttered in their
teeth and ostracized him. Sullen and embittered, he withdrew to himself
and brooded in a hut alone, till one night there came news of the
king's sudden abdication and retirement into a monastery. The stress
of a monarch's life in those stormy times was too much for the monkish
sovereign. Close on the heels of the news came men with drawn daggers
to Donald's hut, but they found the cage empty. The hawk had flown, and
though they followed his trail with reddened spurs, they found only a
steed that had fallen dead at the sea-shore, and saw only a white sail
dwindling in the growing dawn.
Donald went to the Continent because, with the Lowlands barred to
him, there was nowhere else to go; in the Highlands he had too many
blood-feuds; and across the border the English had already made a noose
for him. That was in 1389. Seven years of fighting and intriguing in
European wars and plots. And when Constantinople cried out before
the irresistible onslaught of Bayazid, and men pawned their lands to
launch a new Crusade, the Highland swordsman had joined the tide that
swept eastward to its doom. Seven years--and a far cry from the border
marches to the blue-domed palaces of fabulous Samarcand, reclining on
a silken divan as he listened to the measured words which flowed in a
tranquil monotone from the lips of the lord of Tatary.
CHAPTER 3
"If thou'rt the lord of this castle,
Sae well it pleases me:
For, ere I cross the border fells,
The tane of us shall dee."
--_Battle of Otterbourne._
Time flowed on as it does whether men live or die. The bodies rotted
on the plains of Nicopolis, and Bayazid, drunk with power, trampled
the scepters of the world. The Greeks, the Serbs and the Hungarians
he ground beneath his iron legions, and into his spreading empire he
molded the captive races. He laved his limbs in wild debauchery, the
frenzy of which astounded even his tough vassals. The women of the
world flowed whimpering between his iron fingers and he hammered the
golden crowns of kings to shoe his war-steed. Constantinople reeled
beneath his strokes, and Europe licked her wounds like a crippled wolf,
held at bay on the defensive. Somewhere in the misty mazes of the
East moved his arch-foe Timour, and to him Bayazid sent missives of
threat and mockery. No response was forthcoming, but word came along
the caravans of a mighty marching and a great war in the south; of the
plumed helmets of India scattered and flying before the Tatar spears.
Little heed gave Bayazid; India was little more real to him than it was
to the Pope of Rome. His eyes were turned westward toward the Caphar
cities. "I will harrow Frankistan with steel and flame," he said.
"Their sultans shall draw my chariots and the bats lair in the palaces
of the infidels."
Then in the early spring of 1402 there came to him, in an inner court
of his pleasure-palace at Brusa, where he lolled guzzling the forbidden
wine and watching the antics of naked dancing girls, certain of his
emirs, bringing a tall Frank whose grim scarred visage was darkened by
the suns of far deserts.
"This Caphar dog rode into the camp of the janizaries as a madman
rides, on a foam-covered steed," said they, "saying he sought Bayazid.
Shall we flay him before thee, or tear him between wild horses?"
"Dog," said the Sultan, drinking deeply and setting down the goblet
with a satisfied sigh, "you have found Bayazid. Speak, ere I set you
howling on a stake."
"Is this fit welcome for one who has ridden far to serve you?"
retorted the Frank in a harsh unshaken voice. "I am Donald MacDeesa
and among your janizaries there is no man who can stand up against me
in sword-play, and among your barrel-bellied wrestlers there is no man
whose back I can not break."
The Sultan tugged his black beard and grinned.
"Would thou wert not an infidel," said he, "for I love a man with a
bold tongue. Speak on, oh Rustum! What other accomplishments are thine,
mirror of modesty?"
The Highlander grinned like a wolf.
"I can break the back of a Tatar and roll the head of a Khan in the
dust."
Bayazid stiffened, subtly changing, his giant frame charged with
dynamic power and menace; for behind all his roistering and bellowing
conceit was the keenest brain west of the Oxus.
"What folly is this?" he rumbled. "What means this riddle?"
"I speak no riddle," snapped the Gael. "I have no more love for you
than you for me. But more I hate Timour-il-leng who has cast dung in my
face."
"You come to me from that half-pagan dog?"
"Aye. I was his man. I rode beside him and cut down his foes. I climbed
city walls in the teeth of the arrows and broke the ranks of mailed
spearmen. And when the honors and gifts were distributed among the
emirs, what was given me? The gall of mockery and the wormwood of
insult. 'Ask thy dog-sultans of Frankistan for gifts, Caphar,' said
Timour--may the worms devour him--and the emirs roared with laughter.
As God is my witness, I will wipe out that laughter in the crash of
falling walls and the roar of flames!"
Donald's menacing voice reverberated through the chamber and his eyes
were cold and cruel. Bayazid pulled his beard for a space and said,
"And you come to me for vengeance? Shall I war against the Lame One
because of the spite of a wandering Caphar vagabond?"
"You _will_ war against him, or he against you," answered MacDeesa.
"When Timour wrote asking that you lend no aid to his foes, Kara Yussef
the Turkoman, and Ahmed, Sultan of Bagdad, you answered him with words
not to be borne, and sent horsemen to stiffen their ranks against him.
Now the Turkomans are broken, Bagdad has been looted and Damascus lies
in smoking ruins. Timour has broken your allies and he will not forget
the despite you put upon him."
"Close have you been to the Lame One to know all this," muttered
Bayazid, his glittering eyes narrowing with suspicion. "Why should I
trust a Frank? By Allah, I deal with them by the sword! As I dealt with
those fools at Nicopolis!"
A fierce uncontrollable flame leaped up for a fleeting instant in the
Highlander's eyes, but the dark face showed no sign of emotion.
"Know this, Turk," he answered with an oath, "I can show you how to
break Timour's back."
"Dog!" roared the Sultan, his gray eyes blazing, "think you I need the
aid of a nameless rogue to conquer the Tatar?"
Donald laughed in his face, a hard mirthless laugh that was not
pleasant.
"Timour will crack you like a walnut," said he deliberately. "Have
you seen the Tatars in war array? Have you seen their arrows darkening
the sky as they loosed, a hundred thousand as one? Have you seen their
horsemen flying before the wind as they charged home and the desert
shook beneath their hoofs? Have you seen the array of their elephants,
with towers on their backs, whence archers send shafts in black clouds
and the fire that burns flesh and leather alike pours forth?"
"All this I have heard," answered the Sultan, not particularly
impressed.
"But you have not seen," returned the Highlander; he drew back his
tunic sleeve and displayed a scar on his iron-thewed arm. "An Indian
tulwar kissed me there, before Delhi. I rode with the emirs when the
whole world seemed to shake with the thunder of combat. I saw Timour
trick the Sultan of Hindustan and draw him from the lofty walls as a
serpent is drawn from its lair. By God, the plumed Rajputs fell like
ripened grain before us!
"Of Delhi Timour left a pile of deserted ruins, and without the broken
walls he built a pyramid of a hundred thousand skulls. You would say I
lied were I to tell you how many days the Khyber Pass was thronged with
the glittering hosts of warriors and captives returning along the road
to Samarcand. The mountains shook with their tread and the wild Afghans
came down in hordes to place their heads beneath Timour's heel--as he
will grind _thy_ head underfoot, Bayazid!"
"This to me, dog?" yelled the Sultan. "I will fry you in oil!"
"Aye, prove your power over Timour by slaying the dog he mocked,"
answered MacDeesa bitterly. "You kings are all alike in fear and folly."
Bayazid gaped at him. "By Allah!" he said, "thou'rt mad to speak thus
to the Thunderer. Bide in my court until I learn whether thou be rogue,
fool, or madman. If spy, not in a day or three days will I slay thee,
but for a full week shalt thou howl for death."
* * * * *
So Donald abode in the court of the Thunderer, under suspicion, and
soon there came a brief but peremptory note from Timour, asking
that "the thief of a Christian who hath taken refuge in the Ottoman
court" be given up for just punishment. Whereat Bayazid, scenting
an opportunity to further insult his rival, twisted his black beard
gleefully between his fingers and grinned like a hyena as he dictated
a reply, "Know, thou crippled dog, that the Osmanli are not in the
habit of conceding to the insolent demands of pagan foes. Be at ease
while thou mayest, oh lame dog, for soon I will take thy kingdom for an
offal-heap and thy favorite wives for my concubines."
No further missives came from Timour. Bayazid drew Donald into
wild revels, plied him with strong drink and even as he roared and
roistered, he keenly watched the Highlander. But even his suspicions
grew blunter when at his drunkest Donald spoke no word that might hint
he was other than he seemed. He breathed the name of Timour only with
curses. Bayazid discounted the value of his aid against the Tatars, but
contemplated putting him to use, as Ottoman sultans always employed
foreigners for confidants and guardsmen, knowing their own race too
well. Under close, subtle scrutiny the Gael indifferently moved,
drinking all but the Sultan onto the floor in the wild drinking-bouts
and bearing himself with a reckless valor that earned the respect of
the hard-bitten Turks, in forays against the Byzantines.
Playing Genoese against Venetian, Bayazid lay about the walls of
Constantinople. His preparations were made: Constantinople, and after
that, Europe; the fate of Christendom wavered in the balance, there
before the walls of the ancient city of the East. And the wretched
Greeks, worn and starved, had already drawn up a capitulation, when
word came flying out of the East, a dusty, blood-stained courier on a
staggering horse. Out of the East, sudden as a desert-storm, the Tatars
had swept, and Sivas, Bayazid's border city, had fallen. That night
the shuddering people on the walls of Constantinople saw torches and
cressets tossing and moving through the Turkish camp, gleaming on dark
hawk-faces and polished armor, but the expected attack did not come,
and dawn revealed a great flotilla of boats moving in a steady double
stream back and forth across the Bosphorus, bearing the mailed warriors
into Asia. The Thunderer's eyes were at last turned eastward.
CHAPTER 4
"The deer runs wild on hill and dale,
The birds fly wild from tree to tree;
But there is neither bread nor kale,
To fend my men and me."
--_Battle of Otterbourne._
"Here we will camp," said Bayazid, shifting his giant body in the
gold-crusted saddle. He glanced back at the long lines of his army,
winding beyond sight over the distant hills: over 200,000 fighting
men; grim janizaries, spahis glittering in plumes and silver mail,
heavy cavalry in silk and steel; and his allies and alien subjects,
Greek and Wallachian pikemen, the twenty thousand horsemen of King
Peter Lazarus of Serbia, mailed from crown to heel; there were troops
of Tatars, too, who had wandered into Asia Minor and been ground into
the Ottoman empire with the rest--stocky Kalmucks, who had been on the
point of mutiny at the beginning of the march, but had been quieted by
a harangue from Donald MacDeesa, in their own tongue.
For weeks the Turkish host had moved eastward on the Sivas road,
expecting to encounter the Tatars at any point. They had passed Angora,
where the Sultan had established his base-camp; they had crossed the
river Halys, or Kizil Ir-mak, and now were marching through the hill
country that lies in the bend of that river which, rising east of
Sivas, sweeps southward in a vast half-circle before it bends, west of
Kirshehr, northward to the Black Sea.
"Here we camp," repeated Bayazid; "Sivas lies some sixty-five miles to
the east. We will send scouts into the city."
"They will find it deserted," predicted Donald, riding at Bayazid's
side, and the Sultan scoffed, "Oh gem of wisdom, will the Lame One flee
so quickly?"
"He will not flee," answered the Gael. "Remember he can move his host
far more quickly than you can. He will take to the hills and fall
suddenly upon us when you least expect it."
Bayazid snorted his contempt. "Is he a magician, to flit among the
hills with a horde of 150,000 men? Bah! I tell you, he will come along
the Sivas road to join battle, and we will crack him like a nut-shell."
So the Turkish host went into camp and fortified the hills, and there
they waited with growing wrath and impatience for a week. Bayazid's
scouts returned with the news that only a handful of Tatars held Sivas.
The Sultan roared with rage and bewilderment.
"Fools, have ye passed the Tatars on the road?"
"Nay, by Allah," swore the riders, "they vanished in the night like
ghosts, none can say whither. And we have combed the hills between this
spot and the city."
"Timour has fled back to his desert," said Peter Lazarus, and Donald
laughed.
"When rivers run uphill, Timour will flee," said he; "he lurks
somewhere in the hills to the south."
Bayazid had never taken other men's advice, for he had found long ago
that his own wit was superior. But now he was puzzled. He had never
before fought the desert riders whose secret of victory was mobility
and who passed through the land like blown clouds. Then his outriders
brought in word that bodies of mounted men had been seen moving
parallel to the Turkish right wing.
MacDeesa laughed like a jackal barking. "Now Timour sweeps upon us from
the south, as I predicted."
Bayazid drew up his lines and waited for the assault, but it did
not come and his scouts reported that the riders had passed on and
disappeared. Bewildered for the first time in his career, and mad to
come to grips with his illusive foe, Bayazid struck camp and on a
forced march reached the Halys river in two days, where he expected
to find Timour drawn up to dispute his passage. No Tatar was to be
seen. The Sultan cursed in his black beard; were these eastern devils
ghosts, to vanish in thin air? He sent riders across the river and they
came flying back, splashing recklessly through the shallow water. They
had seen the Tatar rear-guard. Timour had eluded the whole Turkish
army, and was even now marching on Angora! Frothing, Bayazid turned on
MacDeesa.
"Dog, what have you to say now?"
"What would you?" the Highlander stood his ground boldly. "You have
none but yourself to blame, if Timour has out-witted you. Have you
harkened to me in aught, good or bad? I told you Timour would not await
your coming, nor did he. I told you he would leave the city and go
into the southern hills. And he did. I told you he would fall upon us
suddenly, and therein I was mistaken. I did not guess that he would
cross the river and elude us. But all else I warned you of has come to
pass."
Bayazid grudgingly admitted the truth of the Frank's words, but he was
mad with fury. Else he had never sought to overtake the swift-moving
horde before it reached Angora. He flung his columns across the river
and started on the track of the Tatars. Timour had crossed the river
near Sivas, and moving around the outer bend, eluded the Turks on the
other side. And now Bayazid followed his road, which swung outward from
the river, into the plains where there was little water--and no food,
after the horde had swept through with torch and blade.
The Turks marched over a fire-blackened, slaughter-reddened waste.
Timour covered the ground in three days, over which Bayazid's columns
staggered in a week of forced marching; a hundred miles through the
burning, desolated plain, strewn with bare hills that made marching a
hell. As the strength of the army lay in its infantry, the cavalry was
forced to set its pace with the foot-soldiers, and all stumbled wearily
through the clouds of stinging dust that rose from beneath the sore,
shuffling feet. Under a burning summer sun they plodded grimly along,
suffering fiercely from hunger and thirst.
So they came at last to the plain of Angora, and saw the Tatars
installed in the camp they had left, besieging the city. And a roar of
desperation went up from the thirst-maddened Turks. Timour had changed
the course of the little river which ran through Angora, so that now
it ran behind the Tatar lines; the only way to reach it was straight
through the desert hordes. The springs and wells of the countryside had
been polluted or damaged. For an instant Bayazid sat silent in his
saddle, gazing from the Tatar camp to his own long straggling lines,
and the marks of suffering and vain wrath in the drawn faces of his
warriors. A strange fear tugged at his heart, so unfamiliar he did not
recognize the emotion. Victory had always been his; could it ever be
otherwise?
CHAPTER 5
"What's yon that follows at my side?--
The foe that ye must fight, my lord,--
That hirples swift as I can ride?--
The shadow of the night, my lord."
--_Kipling._
On that still summer morning the battle-lines stood ready for the
death-grip. The Turks were drawn up in a long crescent, whose tips
overlapped the Tatar wings, one of which touched the river and the
other an entrenched hill fifteen miles away across the plain.
"Never in all my life have I sought another's advice in war," said
Bayazid, "but you rode with Timour six years. Will he come to me?"
Donald shook his head. "You outnumber his host. He will never fling his
riders against the solid ranks of your janizaries. He will stand afar
off and overwhelm you with flights of arrows. You must go to him."
"Can I charge his horse with my infantry?" snarled Bayazid. "Yet you
speak wise words. I must hurl my horse against his--and Allah knows his
is the better cavalry."
"His right wing is the weaker," said Donald, a sinister light burning
in his eyes. "Mass your strongest horsemen on your left wing, charge
and shatter that part of the Tatar host; then let your left wing close
in, assailing the main battle of the Amir on the flank, while your
janizaries advance from the front. Before the charge the spahis on your
right wing may make a feint at the lines, to draw Timour's attention."
Bayazid looked silently at the Gael. Donald had suffered as much as
the rest on that fearful march. His mail was white with dust, his lips
blackened, his throat caked with thirst.
"So let it be," said Bayazid. "Prince Suleiman shall command the left
wing, with the Serbian horse and my own heavy cavalry, supported by the
Kalmucks. We will stake all on one charge!"
And so they took up their positions, and no one noticed a flat-faced
Kalmuck steal out of the Turkish lines and ride for Timour's camp,
flogging his stocky pony like mad. On the left wing was massed the
powerful Serbian cavalry and the Turkish heavy horse, with the
bow-armed Kalmucks behind. At the head of these rode Donald, for they
had clamored for the Frank to lead them against their kin. Bayazid
did not intend to match bow-fire with the Tatars, but to drive home a
charge that would shatter Timour's lines before the Amir could further
out-maneuver him. The Turkish right wing consisted of the spahis; the
center of the janizaries and Serbian foot with Peter Lazarus, under the
personal command of the Sultan.
Timour had no infantry. He sat with his bodyguard on a hillock behind
the lines. Nur ad-Din commanded the right wing of the riders of high
Asia, Ak Boga the left, Prince Muhammad the center. With the center
were the elephants in their leather trappings, with their battle-towers
and archers. Their awesome trumpeting was the only sound along the
widespread steel-clad Tatar lines as the Turks came on with a thunder
of cymbals and kettle-drums.
Like a thunderbolt Suleiman launched his squadrons at the Tatar right
wing. They ran full into a terrible blast of arrows, but grimly they
swept on, and the Tatar ranks reeled to the shock. Suleiman, cutting
a heron-plumed chieftain out of his saddle, shouted in exultation,
but even as he did so, behind him rose a guttural roar, "_Ghar! ghar!
ghar!_ Smite, brothers, for the lord Timour!"
With a sob of rage he turned and saw his horsemen going down in
windrows beneath the arrows of the Kalmucks. And in his ear he heard
Donald MacDeesa laughing like a madman.
"Traitor!" screamed the Turk. "This is your work----"
The claymore flashed in the sun and Prince Suleiman rolled headless
from his saddle.
"One stroke for Nicopolis!" yelled the maddened Highlander. "Drive home
your shafts, dog-brothers!"
The stocky Kalmucks yelped like wolves in reply, wheeling away to avoid
the simitars of the desperate Turks, and driving their deadly arrows
into the milling ranks at close range. They had endured much from
their masters; now was the hour of reckoning. And now the Tatar right
wing drove home with a roar; and caught before and behind, the Turkish
cavalry buckled and crumpled, whole troops breaking away in headlong
flight. At one stroke had been swept away Bayazid's chance to crush his
enemy's formation.
As the charge had begun, the Turkish right wing had advanced with a
great blare of trumpets and roll of drums, and in the midst of its
feint, had been caught by the sudden unexpected charge of the Tatar
left. Ak Boga had swept through the light spahis, and losing his head
momentarily in the lust of slaughter, he drove them flying before him
until pursued and pursuers vanished over the slopes in the distance.
Timour sent Prince Muhammad with a reserve squadron to support the
left wing and bring it back, while Nur ad-Din, sweeping aside the
remnants of Bayazid's cavalry, swung in a pivot-like movement and
thundered against the locked ranks of the janizaries. They held like
a wall of iron, and Ak Boga, galloping back from his pursuit of the
spahis, smote them on the other flank. And now Timour himself mounted
his war-steed, and the center rolled like an iron wave against the
staggering Turks. And now the real death-grip came to be.
Charge after charge crashed on those serried ranks, surging on and
rolling back like onsweeping and receding waves. In clouds of fire-shot
dust the janizaries stood unshaken, thrusting with reddened spears,
smiting with dripping ax and notched simitar. The wild riders swept in
like blasting whirlwinds, raking the ranks with the storms of their
arrows as they drew and loosed too swiftly for the eye to follow,
rushing headlong into the press, screaming and hacking like madmen as
their simitars sheared through buckler, helmet and skull. And the Turks
beat them back, overthrowing horse and rider; hacked them down and
trampled them under, treading their own dead under foot to close the
ranks, until both hosts trod on a carpet of the slain and the hoofs of
the Tatar steeds splashed blood at every leap.
Repeated charges tore the Turkish host apart at last, and all over the
plain the fight raged on, where clumps of spearmen stood back to back,
slaying and dying beneath the arrows and simitars of the riders from
the steppes. Through the clouds of rising dust stalked the elephants
trumpeting like Doom, while the archers on their backs rained down
blasts of arrows and sheets of fire that withered men in their mail
like burnt grain.
All day Bayazid had fought grimly on foot at the head of his men. At
his side fell King Peter, pierced by a score of arrows. With a thousand
of his janizaries the Sultan held the highest hill upon the plain, and
through the blazing hell of that long afternoon he held it still, while
his men died beside him. In a hurricane of splintering spears, lashing
axes and ripping simitars, the Sultan's warriors held the victorious
Tatars to a gasping deadlock. And then Donald MacDeesa, on foot, eyes
glaring like a mad dog's, rushed headlong through the mêlée and smote
the Sultan with such hate-driven fury that the crested helmet shattered
beneath the claymore's whistling edge and Bayazid fell like a dead man.
And over the weary groups of blood-stained defenders rolled the dark
tide, and the kettle-drums of the Tatars thundered victory.
CHAPTER 6
"The searing glory which hath shone
Amid the jewels of my throne,
Halo of Hell! and with a pain
Not Hell shall make me fear again."
--POE: _Tamerlane_.
The power of the Osmanli was broken, the heads of the emirs heaped
before Timour's tent. But the Tatars swept on; at the heels of the
flying Turks they burst into Brusa, Bayazid's capital, sweeping the
streets with sword and flame. Like a whirlwind they came and like a
whirlwind they went, laden with treasures of the palace and the women
of the vanished Sultan's seraglio.
Riding back to the Tatar camp beside Nur ad-Din and Ak Boga, Donald
MacDeesa learned that Bayazid lived. The stroke which had felled him
had only stunned, and the Turk was captive to the Amir he had mocked.
MacDeesa cursed; the Gael was dusty and stained with hard riding
and harder fighting; dried blood darkened his mail and clotted his
scabbard mouth. A red-soaked scarf was bound about his thigh as a rude
bandage; his eyes were blood-shot, his thin lips frozen in a snarl of
battle-fury.
"By God, I had not thought a bullock could survive that blow. Is he to
be crucified--as he swore to deal with Timour thus?"
"Timour gave him good welcome and will do him no hurt," answered the
courtier who brought the news. "The Sultan will sit at the feast."
Ak Boga shook his head, for he was merciful except in the rush of
battle, but in Donald's ears were ringing the screams of the butchered
captives at Nicopolis, and he laughed shortly--a laugh that was not
pleasant to hear.
To the fierce heart of the Sultan, death was easier than sitting a
captive at the feast which always followed a Tatar victory. Bayazid
sat like a grim image, neither speaking nor seeming to hear the crash
of the kettle-drums, the roar of barbaric revelry. On his head was the
jewelled turban of sovereignty, in his hand the gem-starred scepter of
his vanished empire.
He did not touch the great golden goblet before him. Many and many a
time had he exulted over the agony of the vanquished, with much less
mercy than was now shown him; now the unfamiliar bite of defeat left
him frozen.
He stared at the beauties of his seraglio, who, according to Tatar
custom, tremblingly served their new masters: black-haired Jewesses
with slumberous, heavy-lidded eyes; lithe tawny Circassians and
golden-haired Russians; dark-eyed Greek girls and Turkish women with
figures like Juno--all naked as the day they were born, under the
burning eyes of the Tatar lords.
He had sworn to ravish Timour's wives--the Sultan writhed as he saw
the Despina, sister of Peter Lazarus and his favorite, nude like
the rest, kneel and in quivering fear offer Timour a goblet of wine.
The Tatar absently wove his fingers in her golden locks and Bayazid
shuddered as if those fingers were locked in his own heart.
And he saw Donald MacDeesa sitting next to Timour, his stained dusty
garments contrasting strangely with the silk-and-gold splendor of the
Tatar lords--his savage eyes ablaze, his dark face wilder and more
passionate than ever as he ate like a ravenous wolf and drained goblet
after goblet of stinging wine. And Bayazid's iron control snapped. With
a roar that struck the clamor dumb, the Thunderer lurched upright,
breaking the heavy scepter like a twig between his hands and dashing
the fragments to the floor.
All eyes turned toward him and some of the Tatars stepped quickly
between him and their Amir, who only looked at him impassively.
"Dog and spawn of a dog!" roared Bayazid. "You came to me as one in
need and I sheltered you! The curse of all traitors rest on your black
heart!"
MacDeesa heaved up, scattered goblets and bowls.
"Traitors?" he yelled. "Is six years so long you forget the headless
corpses that molder at Nicopolis? Have you forgotten the ten thousand
captives you slew there, naked and with their hands bound? I fought you
there with steel; and since I have fought you with guile! Fool, from
the hour you marched from Brusa, you were doomed! It was I who spoke
softly to the Kalmucks, who hated you; so they were content and seemed
willing to serve you. With them I communicated with Timour from the
time we first left Angora--sending riders forth secretly or feigning to
hunt for antelopes.
"Through me, Timour tricked you--even put into your head the plan of
your battle! I caught you in a web of truths, knowing that you would
follow your own course, regardless of what I or any one else said. I
told you but two lies--when I said I sought revenge on Timour, and when
I said the Amir would bide in the hills and fall upon us. Before battle
joined I knew what Timour wished, and by my advice led you into a trap.
So Timour, who had drawn out the plan you thought part yours and part
mine, knew beforehand every move you would make. But in the end, it
hinged on me, for it was I who turned the Kalmucks against you, and
their arrows in the backs of your horsemen which tipped the scales when
the battle hung in the balance.
"I paid high for my vengeance, Turk! I played my part under the eyes of
your spies, in your court, every instant, even when my head was reeling
with wine. I fought for you against the Greeks and took wounds. In the
wilderness beyond the Halys I suffered with the rest. And I would have
gone through greater hells to bring you to the dust!"
"Serve well your master as you have served me, traitor," retorted the
Sultan. "In the end, Timour-il-leng, you will rue the day you took this
adder into your naked hands. Aye, may each of you bring the other down
to death!"
"Be at ease, Bayazid," said Timour impassively. "What is written, is
written."
"Aye!" answered the Turk with a terrible laugh. "And it is not written
that the Thunderer should live a buffoon for a crippled dog! Lame One,
Bayazid gives you--hail and farewell!"
And before any could stay him, the Sultan snatched a carving-knife from
a table and plunged it to the hilt in his throat. A moment he reeled
like a mighty tree, spurting blood, and then crashed thunderously
down. All noise was hushed as the multitude stood aghast. A pitiful
cry rang out as the young Despina ran forward, and dropping to her
knees, drew the lion's head of her grim lord to her naked bosom,
sobbing convulsively. But Timour stroked his beard measuredly and half
abstractedly. And Donald MacDeesa, seating himself, took up a great
goblet that glowed crimson in the torch-light, and drank deeply.
CHAPTER 7
"Hath not the same fierce heirdom given
Rome to the Cæsar--this to me?"
--POE: _Tamerlane_.
To understand the relationship of Donald MacDeesa to Timour, it is
necessary to go back to that day, six years before, when in the
turquoise-domed palace at Samarcand the Amir planned the overthrow of
the Ottoman.
When other men looked days ahead, Timour looked years; and five years
passed before he was ready to move against the Turk, and let Donald
ride to Brusa ahead of a carefully trained pursuit. Five years of
fierce fighting in the mountain snows and the desert dust, through
which Timour moved like a mythical giant, and hard as he drove his
chiefs, he drove the Highlander harder. It was as if he studied
MacDeesa with the impersonally cruel eyes of a scientist, wringing
every ounce of accomplishment from him, seeking to find the limit of
man's endurance and valor--the final breaking-point. He did not find it.
The Gael was too utterly reckless to be trusted with hosts and armies.
But in raids and forays, in the storming of cities, and in charges
of battle, in any action requiring personal valor and prowess, the
Highlander was all but invincible. He was a typical fighting-man of
European wars, where tactics and strategy meant little and ferocious
hand-to-hand fighting much, and where battles were decided by the
physical prowess of the champions. In tricking the Turk, he had but
followed the instructions given him by Timour.
There was scant love lost between the Gael and the Amir, to whom Donald
was but a ferocious barbarian from the outlands of Frankistan. Timour
never showered gifts and honors on Donald, as he did upon his Moslem
chiefs. But the grim Gael scorned these gauds, seeming to derive his
only pleasures from hard fighting and hard drinking. He ignored the
formal reverence paid the Amir by his subjects, and in his cups dared
beard the somber Tatar to his face, so that the people caught their
breath.
"He is a wolf I unleash on my foes," said Timour on one occasion to his
lords.
"He is a two-edged blade that might cut the wielder," ventured one of
them.
"Not so long as the blade is forever smiting my enemies," answered
Timour.
After Angora, Timour gave Donald command of the Kalmucks, who
accompanied their kin back into high Asia, and a swarm of restless,
turbulent Vigurs. That was his reward: a wider range and a greater
capacity for grinding toil and heart-bursting warfare. But Donald made
no comment; he worked his slayers into fighting shape, and experimented
with various types of saddles and armor, with firelocks--finding them
much inferior in actual execution to the bows of the Tatars--and with
the latest type of firearm, the cumbrous wheel-lock pistols used by the
Arabs a century before they made their appearance in Europe.
Timour hurled Donald against his foes as a man hurls a javelin, little
caring whether the weapon be broken or not. The Gael's horsemen would
come back blood-stained, dusty and weary, their armor hacked to
shreds, their swords notched and blunted, but always with the heads
of Timour's foes swinging at their high saddle-peaks. Their savagery,
and Donald's own wild ferocity and superhuman strength, brought them
repeatedly out of seemingly hopeless positions. And Donald's wild-beast
vitality caused him again and again to recover from ghastly wounds,
until the iron-thewed Tatars marvelled at him.
As the years passed, Donald, always aloof and taciturn, withdrew more
and more to himself. When not riding on campaigns, he sat alone in
brooding silence in the taverns, or stalked dangerously through the
streets, hand on his great sword, while the people slunk softly from in
front of him. He had one friend, Ak Boga; but one interest outside of
war and carnage. On a raid into Persia, a slim white wisp of a girl had
run screaming across the path of the charging squadron and his men had
seen Donald bend down and sweep her up into his saddle with one mighty
hand. The girl was Zuleika, a Persian dancer.
Donald had a house in Samarcand, and a handful of servants, but only
this one girl. She was comely, sensual and giddy. She adored her master
in her way, and feared him with a very ecstasy of fear, but was not
above secret amours with young soldiers when MacDeesa was away on the
wars. Like most Persian women of her caste, she had a capacity for
petty intrigue and an inability for keeping her small nose out of
affairs which were none of her business. She became a tale-bearer for
Shadi Mulkh, the Persian paramour of Khalil, Timour's weak grandson,
and thereby indirectly changed the destiny of the world. She was
greedy, vain and an outrageous liar, but her hands were soft as
drifting snow-flakes when she dressed the wounds of sword and spear on
Donald's iron body. He never beat or cursed her, and though he never
caressed or wooed her with gentle words as other men might, it was well
known that he treasured her above all worldly possessions and honors.
Timour was growing old; he had played with the world as a man plays
with a chessboard, using kings and armies for pawns. As a young chief
without wealth or power, he had overthrown his Mongol masters, and
mastered them in his turn. Tribe after tribe, race after race, kingdom
after kingdom he had broken and molded into his growing empire, which
stretched from the Gobi to the Mediterranean, from Moscow to Delhi--the
mightiest empire the world ever knew. He had opened the doors of the
South and East, and through them flowed the wealth of the earth. He
had saved Europe from an Asiatic invasion, when he checked the tide
of Turkish conquest--a fact of which he neither knew nor cared. He
had built cities and he had destroyed cities. He had made the desert
blossom like a garden, and he had turned flowering lands into desert.
At his command pyramids of skulls had reared up, and lives flowed out
like rivers. His helmeted war-lords were exalted above the multitudes
and nations cried out in vain beneath his grinding heel, like lost
women crying in the mountains at night.
Now he looked eastward, where the purple empire of Cathay dreamed away
the centuries. Perhaps, with the waning of life's tide, it was the old
sleeping home-calling of his race; perhaps he remembered the ancient
heroic khans, his ancestors, who had ridden southward out of the barren
Gobi into the purple kingdoms.
* * * * *
The Grand Vizier shook his head, as he played at chess with his
imperial master. He was old and weary, and he dared speak his mind even
to Timour.
"My lord, of what avail these endless wars? You have already subjugated
more nations than Genghis Khan or Alexander. Rest in the peace of your
conquests and complete the work you have begun in Samarcand. Build more
stately palaces. Bring here the philosophers, the artists, the poets of
the world----"
Timour shrugged his massive shoulders.
"Philosophy and poetry and architecture are good enough in their way,
but they are mist and smoke conquest, for it is on the red splendor of
conquest that all these things rest."
The Vizier played with the ivory pawns, shaking his hoary head.
"My lord, you are like two men--one a builder, the other a destroyer."
"Perhaps I destroy so that I may build on the ruins of my destruction,"
the Amir answered. "I have never sought to reason out this matter. I
only know that I am a conqueror before I am a builder, and conquest is
my life's blood."
"But what reason to overthrow this great weak bulk of Cathay?"
protested the Vizier. "It will mean but more slaughter, with which you
have already crimsoned the earth--more wo and misery, with helpless
people dying like sheep beneath the sword."
Timour shook his head, half absently. "What are their lives? They die
anyway, and their existence is full of misery. I will draw a band of
iron about the heart of Tatary. With this Eastern conquest I will
strengthen my throne, and kings of my dynasty shall rule the world for
ten thousand years. All the roads of the world shall lead to Samarcand,
and there shall be gathered the wonder and mystery and glory of the
world--colleges and libraries and stately mosques--marble domes and
sapphire towers and turquoise minarets. But first I shall carry out my
destiny--and that is Conquest!"
"But winter draws on," urged the Vizier. "At least wait until spring."
Timour shook his head, unspeaking. He knew he was old; even his iron
frame was showing signs of decay. And sometimes in his sleep he heard
the singing of Aljai the Dark-eyed, the bride of his youth, dead for
more than forty years. So through the Blue City ran the word, and men
left their love-making and their wine-bibbing, strung their bows,
looked to their harness and took up again the worn old road of conquest.
Timour and his chiefs took with them many of their wives and servants,
for the Amir intended to halt at Otrar, his border city, and from
thence strike into Cathay when the snows melted in the spring. Such of
his lords as remained rode with him--war took a heavy toll of Timour's
hawks.
As usual Donald MacDeesa and his turbulent rogues led the advance.
The Gael was glad to take the road after months of idleness, but he
brought Zuleika with him. The years were growing more bitter for the
giant Highlander, an outlander among alien races. His wild horsemen
worshipped him in their savage way, but he was an alien among them,
after all, and they could never understand his inmost thoughts. Ak Boga
with his twinkling eyes and jovial laughter had been more like the men
Donald had known in his youth, but Ak Boga was dead, his great heart
stilled forever by the stroke of an Arab simitar, and in his growing
loneliness Donald more and more sought solace in the Persian girl,
who could never understand his strange wayward heart, but who somehow
partly filled an aching void in his soul. Through the long lonely
nights his hands sought her slim form with a dim formless unquiet
hunger even she could dimly sense.
* * * * *
In a strange silence Timour rode out of Samarcand at the head of his
long glittering columns and the people did not cheer as of old. With
bowed heads and hearts crowded with emotions they could not define,
they watched the last conqueror ride forth, and then turned again
to their petty lives and commonplace, dreary tasks, with a vague
instinctive sense that something terrible and splendid and awesome had
gone out of their lives forever.
In the teeth of the rising winter the hosts moved, not with the speed
of other times when they passed through the land like wind-blown
clouds. They were two hundred thousand strong and they bore with them
herds of spare horses, wagons of supplies and great tent-pavilions.
Beyond the pass men call the Gates of Timour, snow fell, and into the
teeth of the blizzard the army toiled doggedly. At last it became
apparent that even Tatars could not march in such weather, and Prince
Khalil went into winter quarters in that strange town called the Stone
City, but Timour plunged on with his own troops. Ice lay three feet
deep on the Syr when they crossed, and in the hill-country beyond
the going became fiercer, and horses and camels stumbled through the
drifts, the wagons lurching and rocking. But the will of Timour drove
them grimly onward, and at last they came upon the plain and saw the
spires of Otrar gleaming through the whirling snow-wrack.
Timour installed himself and his nobles in the palace, and his warriors
went thankfully into winter quarters. But he sent for Donald MacDeesa.
"Ordushar lies in our road," said Timour. "Take two thousand men and
storm that city that our road be clear to Cathay with the coming of
spring."
When a man casts a javelin he little cares if it splinter on the
mark. Timour would not have sent his valued emirs and chosen warriors
on this, the maddest quest he had yet given even Donald. But the Gael
cared not; he was more than ready to ride on any adventure which might
drown the dim bitter dreams that gnawed deeper and deeper at his heart.
At the age of forty MacDeesa's iron frame was unweakened, his ferocious
valor undimmed. But at times he felt old in his heart. His thoughts
turned more and more back over the black and crimson pattern of his
life with its violence and treachery and savagery; its wo and waste and
stark futility. He slept fitfully and seemed to hear half-forgotten
voices crying in the night. Sometimes it seemed the keening of Highland
pipes skirled through the howling winds.
He roused his wolves, who gaped at the command but obeyed without
comment, and rode out of Otrar in a roaring blizzard. It was a venture
of the damned.
In the palace of Otrar, Timour drowsed on his divan over his maps and
charts, and listened drowsily to the everlasting disputes between the
women of his household. The intrigues and jealousies of the Samarcand
palaces reached to isolated Otrar. They buzzed about him, wearying him
to death with their petty spite. As age stole on the iron Amir, the
women looked eagerly to his naming of a successor--his queen Sarai
Mulkh Khanum; Khan Zade, wife of his dead son Jahangir. Against the
queen's claim for her son--and Timour's--Shah Ruhk, was opposed the
intrigue of Khan Zade for her son, Prince Khalil, whom the courtezan
Shadi Mulkh wrapped about her pink finger.
The Amir had brought Shadi Mulkh with him to Otrar, much against
Khalil's will. The Prince was growing restless in the bleak Stone City
and hints reached Timour of discord and threats of insubordination.
Sarai Khanum came to the Amir, a gaunt weary woman, grown old in wars
and grief.
"The Persian girl sends secret messages to Prince Khalil, stirring
him up to deeds of folly," said the Great Lady. "You are far from
Samarcand. Were Khalil to march thither before you--there are always
fools ready to revolt, even against the Lord of Lords."
"At another time," said Timour wearily, "I would have her strangled.
But Khalil in his folly would rise against me, and a revolt at this
time, however quickly put down, would upset all my plans. Have her
confined and closely guarded, so that she can send no more messages."
"This I have already done," replied Sarai Khanum grimly, "but she is
clever and manages to get messages out of the palace by means of the
Persian girl of the Caphar, lord Donald."
"Fetch this girl," ordered Timour, laying aside his maps with a sigh.
They dragged Zuleika before the Amir, who looked somberly upon her as
she grovelled whimpering at his feet, and with a weary gesture, sealed
her doom--and immediately forgot her, as a king forgets the fly he has
crushed.
They dragged the girl screaming from the imperial presence and hurled
her upon her knees in a hall which had no windows and only bolted
doors. Grovelling on her knees she wailed frantically for Donald and
screamed for mercy, until terror froze her voice in her pulsing throat,
and through a mist of horror she saw the stark half-naked figure and
the mask-like face of the grim executioner advancing, knife in hand....
Zuleika was neither brave nor admirable. She neither lived with dignity
nor met her fate with courage. She was cowardly, immoral and foolish.
But even a fly loves life, and a worm would cry out under the heel that
crushed it. And perhaps, in the grim inscrutable books of Fate, even
an emperor may not forever trample insects with impunity.
CHAPTER 8
"But I have dreamed a dreary dream,
Beyond the Vale of Skye;
I saw a dead man win a fight,
And I think that man was I."
--_Battle of Otterbourne._
And at Ordushar the siege dragged on. In the freezing winds that swept
down the pass, driving snow in blinding, biting blasts, the stocky
Kalmucks and the lean Vigurs strove and suffered and died in bitter
anguish. They set scaling-ladders against the walls and struggled
upward, and the defenders, suffering no less, speared them, hurled down
boulders that crushed the mailed figures like beetles, and thrust the
ladders from the walls so that they crashed down, bearing death to men
below. Ordushar was actually but a stronghold of the Jat Mongols, set
sheer in the pass and flanked by towering cliffs.
Donald's wolves hacked at the frozen ground with frost-bitten raw
hands which scarce could hold the picks, striving to sink a mine under
the walls. They pecked at the towers while molten lead and weighted
javelins fell in a rain upon them; driving their spear-points between
the stones, tearing out pieces of masonry with their naked hands. With
stupendous toil they had constructed makeshift siege-engines from
felled trees and the leather of their harness and woven hair from the
manes and tails of their war-horses. The rams battered vainly at the
massive stones, the ballistas groaned as they launched tree-trunks and
boulders against the towers or over the walls. Along the parapets the
attackers fought with the defenders, until their bleeding hands froze
to spear-shaft and sword-hilt, and the skin came away in great raw
strips. And always, with superhuman fury rising above their agony, the
defenders hurled back the attack.
A storming-tower was built and rolled up to the walls, and from the
battlements the men of Ordushar poured a drenching torrent of naphtha
that sent it up in flame and burnt the men in it, shriveling them in
their armor like beetles in a fire. Snow and sleet fell in blinding
flurries, freezing to sheets of ice. Dead men froze stiffly where
they fell, and wounded men died in their sleeping-furs. There was no
rest, no surcease from agony. Days and nights merged into a hell of
pain. Donald's men, with tears of suffering frozen on their faces,
beat frenziedly against the frosty stone walls, fought with raw hands
gripping broken weapons, and died cursing the gods that created them.
The misery inside the city was no less, for there was no more food. At
night Donald's warriors heard the wailing of the starving people in the
streets. At last in desperation the men of Ordushar cut the throats of
their women and children and sallied forth, and the haggard Tatars fell
on them weeping with the madness of rage and wo, and in a welter of
battle that crimsoned the frozen snow, drove them back through the city
gates. And the struggle went hideously on.
Donald used up the last wood in the vicinity to erect another
storming-tower higher than the city-wall. After that there was no more
wood for the fires. He himself stood at the uplifted bridge which was
to be lowered to rest on the parapets. He had not spared himself. Day
and night he had toiled beside his men, suffering as they had suffered.
The tower was rolled to the wall in a hail of arrows that slew half the
warriors who had not found shelter behind the thick bulwark. A crude
cannon bellowed from the walls, but the clumsy round shot whistled over
their heads. The naphtha and Greek fire of the Jats was exhausted. In
the teeth of the singing shafts the bridge was dropped.
[Illustration: "_Drawing his claymore, Donald strode out upon the
bridge._"]
Drawing his claymore, Donald strode out upon it. Arrows broke on his
corselet and glanced from his helmet. Fire-locks flashed and bellowed
in his face but he strode on unhurt. Lean armored men with eyes like
mad dogs' swarmed upon the parapet, seeking to dislodge the bridge,
to hack it asunder. Among them Donald sprang, his claymore whistling.
The great blade sheared through mail-mesh, flesh and bone, and the
struggling clump fell apart. Donald staggered on the edge of the wall
as a heavy ax crashed on his shield, and he struck back, cleaving the
wielder's spine. The Gael recovered his balance, tossing away his riven
shield. His wolves were swarming over the bridge behind him, hurling
the defenders from the parapet, cutting them down. Into a swirl of
battle Donald strode, swinging his heavy blade. He thought fleetingly
of Zuleika, as men in the madness of battle will think of irrelevant
things, and it was as if the thought of her had hurt him fiercely
under the heart. But it was a spear that had girded through his mail,
and Donald struck back savagely; the claymore splintered in his hand
and he leaned against the parapet, his face briefly contorted. Around
him swept the tides of slaughter as the pent-up fury of his warriors,
maddened by the long weeks of suffering, burst all bounds.
CHAPTER 9
"While the red flashing of the light
From clouds that hung, like banners, o'er,
Appeared to my half-closing eye
The pageantry of monarchy."
--POE: _Tamerlane_.
To Timour on his throne in the palace of Otrar came the Grand Vizier.
"The survivors of the men sent to the Pass of Ordushar are returning,
my lord. The city in the mountains is no more. They bear the lord
Donald on a litter, and he is dying."
They brought the litter into Timour's presence, weary, dull-eyed men,
with raw wounds tied up with blood-crusted rags, their garments and
mail in tatters. They flung before the Amir's feet the golden-scaled
corselets of chiefs, and chests of jewels and robes of silk and silver
braid; the loot of Ordushar where men had starved among riches. And
they set the litter down before Timour.
The Amir looked at the form of Donald. The Highlander was pale, but his
sinister face showed no hint of weakness in that wild spirit, his cold
eyes gleamed unquenched.
"The road to Cathay is clear," said Donald, speaking with difficulty.
"Ordushar lies in smoking ruins. I have carried out your last command."
Timour nodded, his eyes seeming to gaze through and beyond the
Highlander. What was a dying man on a litter to the Amir, who had seen
so many die? His mind was on the road to Cathay and the purple kingdoms
beyond. The javelin had shattered at last, but its final cast had
opened the imperial path. Timour's dark eyes burned with strange depths
and leaping shadows, as the old fire stole through his blood. Conquest!
Outside the winds howled, as if trumpeting the roar of nakars, the
clash of cymbals, the deep-throated chant of victory.
"Send Zuleika to me," the dying man muttered. Timour did not reply;
he scarcely heard, sitting lost in thunderous visions. He had already
forgotten Zuleika and her fate. What was one death in the awesome and
terrible scheme of empire.
"Zuleika, where is Zuleika?" the Gael repeated, moving restlessly
on his litter. Timour shook himself slightly and lifted his head,
remembering.
"I had her put to death," he answered quietly. "It was necessary."
"Necessary!" Donald strove to rear upright, his eyes terrible, but fell
back, gagging, and spat out a mouthful of crimson. "You bloody dog, she
was mine!"
"Yours or another's," Timour rejoined absently, his mind far away.
"What is a woman in the plan of imperial destinies?"
For answer Donald plucked a pistol from among his robes and fired
point-blank. Timour started and swayed on his throne, and the courtiers
cried out, paralyzed with horror. Through the drifting smoke they saw
that Donald lay dead on the litter, his thin lips frozen in a grim
smile. Timour sat crumpled on his throne, one hand gripping his breast;
through those fingers blood oozed darkly. With his free hand he waved
back his nobles.
"Enough; it is finished. To every man comes the end of the road. Let
Pir Muhammad reign in my stead, and let him strengthen the lines of the
empire I have reared with my hands."
A rack of agony twisted his features. "Allah, that this should be the
end of empire!" It was a fierce cry of anguish from his inmost soul.
"That I, who have trodden upon kingdoms and humbled sultans, come
to my doom because of a cringing trull and a Caphar renegade!" His
helpless chiefs saw his mighty hands clench like iron as he held death
at bay by the sheer power of his unconquered will. The fatalism of his
accepted creed had never found resting-place in his instinctively pagan
soul; he was a fighter to the red end.
"Let not my people know that Timour died by the hand of a Caphar," he
spoke with growing difficulty. "Let not the chronicles of the ages
blazon the name of a wolf that slew an emperor. Ah God, that a bit
of dust and metal can dash the Conqueror of the World into the dark!
Write, scribe, that this day, by the hand of no man, but by the will of
Allah, died Timour, Servant of God."
The chiefs stood about in dazed silence, while the pallid scribe took
up parchment and wrote with a shaking hand. Timour's somber eyes were
fixed on Donald's still features that seemed to give back his stare, as
the dead on the litter faced the dying on the throne. And before the
scratching of the quill had ceased, Timour's lion head had sunk upon
his mighty chest. And without the wind howled a dirge, drifting the
snow higher and higher about the walls of Otrar, even as the sands of
oblivion drifted already about the crumbling empire of Timour, the Last
Conqueror, Lord of the World.
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LORD OF SAMARCAND ***
Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will
be renamed.
Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United
States without permission and without paying copyright
royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part
of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™
concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following
the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use
of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for
copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very
easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation
of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project
Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may
do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected
by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark
license, especially commercial redistribution.
START: FULL LICENSE
THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
Project Gutenberg License available with this file or online at
www.gutenberg.org/license.
Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg
electronic works
1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg electronic works in your
possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
Project Gutenberg electronic work and you do not agree to be bound
by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person
or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg electronic works if you follow the terms of this
agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg
electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.
1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the
Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
of Project Gutenberg electronic works. Nearly all the individual
works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the
United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
that you will support the Project Gutenberg mission of promoting
free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg
works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
Project Gutenberg name associated with the work. You can easily
comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg License when
you share it without charge with others.
1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
other Project Gutenberg work. The Foundation makes no
representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
country other than the United States.
1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other
immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg License must appear
prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg work (any work
on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the
phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed,
performed, viewed, copied or distributed:
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg™ License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you
are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws
of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg electronic work is
derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not
contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the
copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in
the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply
either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or
obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg
trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
will be linked to the Project Gutenberg License for all works
posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the
beginning of this work.
1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg.
1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg License.
1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access
to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg work in a format
other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official
version posted on the official Project Gutenberg website
(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain
Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the
full Project Gutenberg License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg electronic works
provided that:
• You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
the use of Project Gutenberg works calculated using the method
you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed
to the owner of the Project Gutenberg trademark, but he has
agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid
within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are
legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty
payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in
Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation.”
• You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™
License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue
all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™
works.
• You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of
any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
receipt of the work.
• You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.
1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project
Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than
are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of
the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set
forth in Section 3 below.
1.F.
1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project
Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™
electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may
contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate
or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or
other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or
cannot be read by your equipment.
1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right
of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.
1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium
with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you
with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in
lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person
or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If
the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing
without further opportunities to fix the problem.
1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO
OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement
violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the
agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or
limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or
unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
remaining provisions.
1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in
accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the
production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™
electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,
including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of
the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this
or any Project Gutenberg work, (b) alteration, modification, or
additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg work, and (c) any
Defect you cause.
Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It
exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations
from people in all walks of life.
Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg’s
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg collection will
remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg and future
generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see
Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org.
Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by
U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws.
The Foundation’s business office is located at 41 Watchung Plaza #516,
Montclair NJ 07042, USA, +1 (862) 621-9288. Email contact links and up
to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website
and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation
Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread
public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.
The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND
DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state
visit www.gutenberg.org/donate.
While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.
International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation
methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To
donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate.
Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg electronic works
Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
Gutenberg concept of a library of electronic works that could be
freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
distributed Project Gutenberg eBooks with only a loose network of
volunteer support.
Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
edition.
Most people start at our website which has the main PG search
facility: www.gutenberg.org.
This website includes information about Project Gutenberg,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
