The Veiled Raiders Page 9

  which was reasonable enough, Rick thought, since the entire desert served as a guard. They were fed and shown to their cave, then left for the night.

  That morning they had been roused early, given breakfast, and taken to a field where women and children were collecting millet grains. But Tony, in a burst of inspiration, had pointed to the sun, then their heads, and had crumpled to the ground in a convincing charade of what would happen to them if forced to work in the fields. Their apparent owner- the one who had guarded them by himself-thought it over, consulted with others, then led them to the cave. He had shown them that the thin veins of salt, mixed with sand, could be dug out with a tool of ancient iron, and left them to sack it in goatskin bags. They had found out it was salt by tasting it.

  Rick had seen cakes of salt, dark brown and shaped like pancakes, in the market atKano . Now he knew where the cakes came from. The salt “ore” was dissolved in water, and some of the minerals in the sandstone dissolved with it. Then the brine was placed in saucers of red pottery and left to evaporate.

  The cakes were the result. Mining the veins, a relic of the days when theSahara had been part of a great ocean, was their part of the salt production line.

  Atnoon their owner had come and led them to the place where the slaves ate. The Spindrifters identified four as Emir’s men who had been captured. They knew at least three others had been killed, along with two Tuaregs, and others had been wounded.

  The slaves were easily identified because, except for the Spindrifters, they were all black-skinned. The Tuaregs were not. Many of them were blue or hazel-eyed, and they were clearly of Caucasian origin.

  After the meal, their master had simply pointed to the cave and left them to resume work on their own.

  This was normal behavior in the Tuareg culture, Tony recalled. A slave accepted his status as a slave, and on the whole, it was not a bad life. Slaves had certain rights and privileges, and under some circumstances, could even own property.

  Apparently the slaves were allowed to wander freely around the camp, so Rick and Tony followed as Scotty led the way.

  They ambled among the tents, returning the smiles of the children, stopping now and then to pet one of the goats that nuzzled them. They kept sharp eyes open, taking in every visible detail of the camp.

  The tents were large enough to accommodate big families, and they saw the interiors were divided into rooms by curtains. The floors were of clean sand. Nearly everything in sight was made of goatskins.

  The veiled men seated before the tents stared at them with cool interest, or with indifference. Their master-a tall, gray-eyed man who wore a white head-covering and veil-nodded at them and they nodded back.

  Scotty led them through the village to two tents set slightly apart from the rest. Before one of them, an unveiled man with bronzed skin and sharply Semitic features, was seated, cross-legged, punching holes in the edge of a goatskin.

  “These must be ‘smith’ tents,” Tony said. “The smiths have a special status with the Tuaregs. They’re slaves, but of a distinct caste. They do all the handiwork.”

  Rick had peered into the tent. “This one makes saddles!” he exclaimed. There were six on a sort of saw-horse inside the tent.

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  Near the tent entrance was a crude workbench, and on its front was a leather apron containing many pockets. Each pocket held a tool.

  “Strike up a conversation,” Scotty said swiftly. “Keep his attention.”

  Tony squatted before the workman and tried to converse in French, Italian, and German with no success. He tried the few words he knew of Spanish. The man was amiable. He listened closely, but to each question he could only say something in the local dialect, which Tony classified as one of the Berber languages. So far as they knew, no one in the camp spoke any European language.

  While Tony tried to make conversation, Rick put himself in a position to shield Scotty. His pal stepped into the tent and right out again, hand in pocket. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  They continued their stroll, not hurrying. The sun was setting rapidly, and soon darkness would fall. It was time to return to their cave.

  As they reached it, Scotty disclosed what he had stolen. It was a knife with a blade only an inch long, but it was razor-sharp.

  “What’s your idea?” Tony asked.

  “We have a knife, we have goatskins, and we have plenty of stones. So we have weapons.”

  The light dawned.“Slings!” Rick exclaimed. “That’s great, Scotty! They may not outreach a rifle, but they for sure can outreach one of those two-edged swords!”

  CHAPTER XIV

  The Salt Mine

  The salt mine in which the three worked was one of many caves at the base of the escarpment that rose above the camp. Tony examined some of the empty ones and found drawings on the wall, primitive but unmistakable, of lions, rhinoceroses, and other animals of the African plains.

  “Those drawings give you some idea of the age of this salt camp,” Tony said. “It’s obvious they were made when such animals were found in this vicinity. How many centuries ago might that be, I couldn’t even hazard a guess. It may even have been before the pyramids inEgypt were built.”

  The scientist wished aloud for the simplest of recording tools-a pencil and a sheet of paper with which to make notes. The discovery obviously excited him. “I’ve heard of similar findings farther north, but nothing about these caves. We may have a new discovery on our hands!”

  Rick and Scotty couldn’t share his excitement.

  They appreciated the significance of the find, but were too preoccupied with the need for escaping to Page 53

  devote much thought to antiquities.

  The Tuareg boss had furnished them with torches and what Scotty called “a Buzo match,” which consisted of a block of hard wood with a groove in it, and a hard stick. The Tuaregs made fire in the ancient way, by rubbing the stick along the groove until friction built up enough heat to ignite kindling.

  Tony’s inspection of the drawings was by torchlight, but the torch was needed on the job in the salt cave.

  The boys finally persuaded the scientist to forget the primitive art temporarily and come to work.

  “If we’re ever going to escape,” Rick pointed out, “we have to give the impression that we’re amiable types who don’t need watching. That includes doing enough work to keep the boss happy.”

  There was no difference between the other caves and the one in which they worked, except that the thin veins containing salt deposits had been worked out in the others. All of the caves were piled deep in rubble, the “tailings” that had produced no salt. Only in one there were drawings.

  By agreement, Rick and Tony got to work digging out salt while Scotty selected the best goatskins and started making slings. The boys had become interested in the ancient weapon when a friend, Steve Ames of the intelligence agency JANIG, had showed them how to make and use one. Both boys had become expert with the weapons-the same kind with which David slew Goliath in the Biblical story.

  While Scotty cut the leather thongs, Rick started digging and Tony dumped the salty material into a goatskin sack. Later Tony took over the digging while Rick filled the sack. By then Scotty had cut two thongs a quarter of an inch wide and nearly three feet long. He put them aside and started cutting out a rectangular piece for the pouch, making it about four inches wide and twice as long.

  The torch flickered, and Tony lighted another one from the dying flame and propped it up between two chunks of sandstone. Rick picked up the iron tool and took another turn at gouging salt from the cave wall. He was working at one side of the cave’s inner end when a wallop with the tool rang hollowly.

  “Hey! Listen!” He hit the wall again, and a piece cracked and fell into a black hole that suddenly appeared. Both Tony and Scotty were at his side now.

  “Must be a natural inner cave of some kind,” Rick said, prying to enlarge the opening.

  “I doubt it,” Tony replie
d. “Natural caves don’t commonly occur in this kind of formation. All the others were dug to get salt.”

  Rick dug chunks of the soft stone. He made an opening big enough to look through and called for the torch. He thrust it through the hole and it flickered. There was air inside, but it was pretty stale, with little oxygen in it. He thrust his head through to take a look, then let out an involuntary yell. There was a mummy inside, dried lips drawn back from grinning teeth!

  Rick stepped back and bumped into Scotty.

  “There’s a dead man in there,” he said shakily.“A mummy, sort of. Except that it isn’t wrapped like one.”

  “Let me see.” Tony grabbed the torch and thrust it and his head through the hole. He stayed in that position for so long Rick thought he must be unconscious for lack of oxygen and pulled him back. Tony wasn’t unconscious. He protested vigorously. “This is fascinating! Let me go, Rick.”

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  “Nothing doing,” Rick stated firmly. “If you want to see more, we’re going to enlarge that hole and let some fresh air through. What’s in there?”

  “Artifacts of all kinds, and at least two more mummies.It’s a large cave, much larger than most of the ones we’ve seen. It must have been sealed for a thousand years or more. The mummies are completely desiccated, and I saw pots that are surely Persian!”

  It took only fifteen minutes of hard work to break a hole big enough to walk through, if bent over. Tony wanted to go in right away, but the boys were firm. They insisted on sacking ore for a while until the inner cave had a chance to ventilate a little.

  Finally the three went in. As Tony had said, it was a treasure-trove for an archaeologist, or anthropologist, although there was nothing resembling real treasure at first glance. There were five mummies, completely dried out by centuries of bone-dry desert air. And, Rick pointed out, it was clear how they got there. Tumbled rock, jammed in what had once been the entrance, showed they had been sealed in by a rockfall . Had it been an accident, or had the rock been tumbled deliberately? There wasn’t a single clue.

  Scotty said slowly, “They must have died of thirst and starvation.”

  “Very probably,” Tony agreed.

  Rick looked around at the scene of the ancient tragedy and suddenly felt a little sick. The air still wasn’t good. “I’m going outside,” he said. “I need fresh air.”

  He went back through the opening into the salt mine, and walked through the passage to the open air.

  The brilliant glare of the day made him blink, and he squinted until his eyes adjusted. Below, the camp was quiet in the heat of late morning. A slave emerged from one of the other caves, gave a friendly wave of greeting,then walked along the path in front of the caves. Rick watched him go. The path passed in front of all the caves, then descended gradually to the floor of the valley just beyond the end of the village, quite close to the well.

  The slave passed the well, took a full skin of water and slung it on a pole, rigged a second skin to balance the first, and lifted the pole to his shoulder. He walked up the valley to where the horses were penned. He was going to water the stock, Rick decided.

  Suddenly he stood up straight, and his eyes scanned the path again. It had been beaten down by centuries of feet, and was nearly six feet wide. He turned. In the opposite direction it ran downhill into the village. But from itbranched a less well-traveled path that continued to skirt the lower edge of the cliff, or escarpment, until it wound upward-out of the valley!

  Rick turned and ran back into the cave. Scotty was just emerging from the inner cave, carrying the torch.

  Tony followed, hands full of small pieces of pottery and bronze that was green with age.

  “I found a couple of souvenirs,” Scotty said, and held up two identical rings of ancient, green patinaed bronze, both coiled into the form of hooded cobras.

  “That’s great,” Rick said hurriedly. “But I’ve found something even more important. Listen to this I” He quickly outlined what he had seen, and the plan that had followed naturally from what he described as

  “the geometry of the situation.”

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  When he was finished, Scotty clapped him on the shoulder. “The old bean never stops ticking, does it?

  It will work- if.”

  “If what?” Rick demanded.

  “If we have some kind of a diversion at the right moment.”

  Rick thought about it. “You’re right,” he conceded. “Any idea what it could be?”

  Scotty shook his head. “We’ll think of something. But your plan means we’ll have to cover up the hole.

  We don’t want the boss to find it if he comes in here.”

  “No,” Tony chimed in, and added, “He’s apt to, unless we’ve done a good morning’s work and have the bags stacked at the entrance.”

  No further advice was needed. The three got to work, first piling debris until the hole was covered again, then digging salt from the opposite wall of the cave and sacking it as fast as they could work.

  When the boss arrived, they had already filled twice as many bags as on the entire previous day. He beamed at them from above the veil, and said something that was probably complimentary in the Tuareg language.

  “We’ve made him happy,” Scotty said with a grin.

  “There’s nothing like pleasing the master to make a slave’s road a smooth one.”

  “Especially the road to home,” Rick added.

  The boss led them to what Scotty called “the chow tent,” then left them to eat lunch with the other slaves.

  Lunch, again, was a gourd full of goat’s milk for each, a chunk of goat cheese, and four millet cakes.

  There were baskets of dates, from which the slaves could help themselves at any time. Rick drank deeply, then observed, “Never thought I’d drink goat’s milk with pleasure.”

  “No reason why not,” Tony replied. “It’s rich, nourishing, easy to digest, and the only milk that comes already homogenized. If the goat could manage to package it in a plastic container, he’d-I mean she’d-put the cows out of business.”

  The village children had discovered that the three were eating, and gathered around to watch. White men without veils or robes were apparently still a novelty.

  Two adults also paused when they saw the children gathered silently watching the three Americans. The veiled men wore cartridge bandoliers crisscrossed over their shoulders and carried old British Enfield rifles that had been oiled and polished with loving care.

  Scotty whispered urgently, “Listen! I’m going to attract a crowd, and I hope it includes those two. If I do, crowd them and slip some of those cartridges out of the bandoliers. Four apiece would be perfect.”

  One of the children carried a thin bamboo cane about two feet long. Scotty smiled at the youngster and reached out for the stick. He tugged it gently, and the boy yielded. Scotty held up the stick in one hand, Page 56

  then reached into his pocket and brought out one of the cobra rings. He showed both stick and ring to the children, making a big thing of it, gesturing with both hands.

  Rick didn’t know what Scotty was doing, but he was alert. He saw the two veiled raiders pause to watch. Rick and Tony got to their feet, and Rick moved quietly to take his place in Scotty’s audience.

  Scotty slid the stick through his palm until he was grasping it in the middle. Then he held out one end to the stick’s owner, who took it. Scotty nodded approval. He took the hand with the ring in it, caught a little girl’s hand, and clamped it over the free end of the stick. Both ends of the stick were now held by children, and Scotty still had hold of the middle. With his other hand he showed them the ring again, held between thumb and forefinger.

  Rick watched, as fully interested as the children. He still didn’t know what Scotty had in mind.

  Scotty lowered the ring toward the stick, one, two, three times. Then, suddenly, he snapped the ring down against the stick and let go. There was the ring, spinning freely on the stick!

&
nbsp; The children gasped, then let out yells of glee. The little girl took the ring from the stick and studied it, her cute face bewildered. The boy who owned the bamboo cane bent it and tested it, as though disbelieving his own eyes, then he held the stick out to Scotty again.

  The slaves had gathered around now, and the two veiled men joined them. Scotty had quite an audience.

  Rick moved quietly until he was behind the veiled men. Tony went aroundto take a similar position.

  Scotty bowed to the crowd, took the stick from the little boy, and held it up. He handed it to one of the veiled men with a smile. The Tuareg tested it, bending the cane between his hands. He said something in the dialect and handed it back. Scotty took the ring from the little girl, bowed, and handed it to the other veiled man to examine. The slaves pressed in so they could see, too, and pushed Rick against the bandolier of cartridges. It was all he needed.

  The veiled man examined the ring, tested it to make sure there was no break in it, and handed it back.

  Again Scotty slid the bamboo cane through his palm until he gripped the middle, but this time he held it out to the Tuaregs. Each veiled man gripped one end. Scotty held up the ring, brought it down sharply and drew away, leaving the ring spinning on the stick. The audience shouted its pleasure, and the veiled men again examined ring and stick, and shook their heads in bewilderment.

  As though addressing them, Scotty said with a smile, “Tony, you have some rings you collected. Let me have them, but be sure there are no duplicates. I’m sure you have the ammo by now, so come on around.”

  Scotty held up his hand, and beckoned to Tony. The scientist reached into his pocket and produced three rings, simple circles of bronze that had once been carved with delicate designs. Cleaning would probably restore the designs.

  Scotty looked around and spotted the smith from whom he had stolen the knife. He beckoned to him, made signs of sewing,then pretended to hold a piece of something in his hand that he couldn’t break.