Page:Weird Tales v15n01 1930-01.djvu/53

child's voice—or a woman's. Billy stopped. A moment or two he listened in indecision; his reason told him not to interfere—no native would, even had that beating occurred in the open street instead of behind the high wall. Native or white, either knew better than to interfere openly with other's private affairs in this swarming land of vice and crime and intrigue.

"Chûp," ordered a gruff voice; "Chûp—be still—or I break thy head." Followed the soft whimpering of a child, then the sound of blows again.

A red mist swam before Billy's eyes. In a flash he leaped upward and grasped the coping of the wall, heedless of the broken glass that might be imbedded thickly along its top, drew himself lithely up and dropped softly into the blackness on the other side. A little way before him, in the yellow rectangle of light streaming from an open door, stood a turbaned, bearded figure with upraised bamboo cane above a crouching, whimpering child—a boy it was, a boy of twelve or thirteen, certainly not more, who raised a tear-stained, terrorized face at this incredible apparition from out the inky night.

"Let be," Billy growled in Urdu. The tall native made a swift move toward his deep embroidered Bokhariot belt, and like a flash Billy's hard brown fist flashed up to land square on the point of the bearded chin. The native dropped like a poleaxed Brahminee bull and his turban rolled to Billy's feet.

Mechanically Billy picked it up; just as automatically he lifted the shrieking Kunjiri child to his feet. He clapped the turban on the child's head, still more or less thoughtlessly.

"Come thou," he said in the verhe said in the vernacular, as he slipped back to the wall. Swiftly he swung the slight form to its top; quickly he hauled himself over. Both dropped lightly into the black alley and Billy strode quickly to its farther end, the urchin at his heels.

Why under the sun had he acted so? What damnable impulse had prompted him to act in this quixotic fashion? Where would he take the lad—or what would he do with him when he got there? Mechanically he strode to his hotel and, still buried in thought, went up to his room, the lad hard at his heels.

"Thy name, Kunjiri (low caste)?" as the boy squatted on the floor.

"Chota Lal, oh Lion of the Helpless, Defender of the Weak."

"And he that beat thee?"

"Was Sikhandar Khan, oh, great Maharaja of the Feringhi."

Billy pondered. Doubtless the boy was lying; all natives do when a white man questions them—or any other for that matter.

"Why did he beat thee?" he asked suddenly.

"Because I saw that which he had done to Mahbub Ali, the horse-trader," whispered the little Hindoo, and in his eyes dawned a growing terror.

"What!" shouted Billy, thoroughly aroused.

"Oh, do not beat me, master, wailed the lad, throwing himself at Billy's feet while his hands fluttered at Billy's ankles.

"What talk is this of beating?" growled Billy. "I do not beat beggar brats—if their talk is true. What talk is this of Mahbub the Afghan?"

"Last night it was, ere the first cockcrow, in the black night beside the train. Sikhandar Khan and one other"—the boy's face worked pitifully—"Sikhandar Khan and that other———" Wordlessly he pantomimed what he feared to tell.

"Dead?" whispered Billy.

The lad nodded solemnly.

So this explained Mahbub Ali's failure to appear! Dead! Waylaid beyond the railroad station that shouldered the Kashmir Serai at its other end. end. Waylaid and robbed, no doubt,