"The leaves are all off, Prosper."
"Yeah, so they are. But if we can find some sort of hide-out during the day, we can sneak down to the water front tonight. Jones said he'd be there to pick us up—"
The shrubbery, which up till then had been so accursedly dense, suddenly looked so sparse as to be practically nonexistent.
"They'll be hunting for us around here anyway," said Nash."Let's hike up north a mile or so."
That procedure went well until they came to a big open weedy field."Too risky to cross," said Nash."Let's skirt it—"
Around they went, flitting from tree to tree. Halfway around—
"Halt!"
They jumped and whirled. Fifty feet away an Aryan sat on an outcropping of rock, covering them with his rifle. He was in the plainest of plain sight, but the fugitive pair had been watching the field so closely as to overlook him completely.
Nash, without a word, seized Alicia's hand and set off at a clumping run. Ka-pow! went the rifle; ka-pow!
Alicia, once started, quickly got ahead of Nash, but did not run away from him altogether. The rifle crashed twice more, and the sentry shouted. Other shouts came through the bare trees from different directions.
"Rotten bad shooting," panted Nash."This way—"
"No, this way! There's an Arry over that way—"
It made little difference, for another Aryan hove in sight, running, and then another. A bullet went whick close to their heads.
"Hi, partner!"
The voice came from nowhere visible, until Nash noticed that the curtain of ivy that cascaded down over a granite outcrop was parted at the base, and a lantern-jawed face looked out: that of Arizona Bill Averoff.
They did not need instructions, but ducked down out of sight of their pursuers and went through the ivy on hands and knees. After a few knee-bruising irregularities, the tunnel expanded to walkable size. It was no longer a natural cave entrance but a man-made passageway.
"What's this, Arizona?" asked Nash, after a quick handshake.
"This yere," said Averoff, "is an old tunnel that leads out from the cellar of the old Arsenal. I shore hope them Arries don't find the exit, because they's several of us hidin' out in that there cellar."
"Say, Arizona, what's this I heard about your going astray with the message I gave you?"
"It's so," said Averoff gloomily."You shoulda wrote the boid's name down, mister. Now I gotta watch out for both the Arries and my own government, which says it's gonna hang me and you if it catches us. Course in time they'll see it was bad luck 'steada our fault, but that won't do us no good if we been already suspendered."
"Thanks for them kind words, partner," said Nash."Is that your cellar ahead?"
"Yeah." There were a couple of empty hinges on the side of the tunnel where a door had once been, and a ten-by-sixteen concrete-floored chamber lit by one candle. Five men and a woman sat around the wall. Rickety steps led up to a closed trapdoor.
"Folks," said Averoff, "I got a coupla recruits: Miss Woodson and Mr. de Nêche. The lady is Mrs. Russell, the soldier is General Leeds, and the Turkish gent is Sultan Arslan—oh, do you boys know each other already?"
Arslan Bey got to his feet and said heavily: "In view of the fact that M. de Nêche just robbed us of everything we had, even our women, we—think —we do!"
Chapter XV.
"Wait a minute, Arslan," said Nash."Why do you say I robbed you?"
"Ha! Our faithful Kutluk"—the sultan jerked his head toward a second Turk, also rising and un-limbering his chopper—"was one of those whom you treacherously threw into the North River. Since the Aryans stopped our barges at the mouth of Minetta Brook, we were unable to leave Manhattan, and Kutluk returned hither at risk of life to acquaint us with your perfidy. You even have the impudence to confront us with our favorite wife, No. 307—"
"Sh! Don't be a fool; you'll bring the Aryans down—"
"Yah!" screamed Arslan."Die, you dog!"
Since Alicia was standing beside Nash when Arslan launched his attack, Nash's first concern was to get her out of the way. But in sweeping her behind him he allowed Arslan to get between him and the tunnel entrance.
Nash had never experienced anything like the demoniac fury of the sultan's attack; the slashes came so fast that he had no time for ripostes. Kutluk took a position back to back with his master, with his scimitar ready in case anyone else was minded to take a hand, but as none of the others was armed, they simply watched.
The weight of Arslan's assault pushed Nash back toward a corner. Then under the hail of blows Nash's blade snapped.
The jeweled scimitar whistled round and hit Nash's neck. Nash, instead of parting company with his body as he expected to do, felt a dull, heavy blow that staggered him— Then another on his scalp, and another on his shoulder. The Shamir!
He dropped the remains of his rapier and dove for Arslan's body; got a hand under the sultan's thigh and heaved him off the floor—the animal must weigh a ton—and sat him down heavily. When he tried to pin his opponent, Arslan pulled Nash down on top of him, and they rolled about, kicking and gouging. Kutluk spun around to do his part, but Arizona Bill climbed on his back and fastened his bow legs around the soulless one's waist in a scissors.
"Hey!" cried one of the noncombatants, "The Aryans! They must have found the tunnel!"
Nash had secured a three-quarter nelson on his antagonist and was trying without success to break Arslan's bull neck. He heard Alicia's voice: "Turn him over, Prosper, so I can get at his eyes—"
"Don't bother! Take the Shamir off my neck! Unh!"
"What? But then you'll be vulner—"
"Do as I say! And get that paper out of my rear inside coat pocket!"
"But—"
"Now blow on the Shamir and magic yourself down to the mundane plane... unh... and look up—"
"I won't leave you! Up the ladder, quick—"
The general had climbed the steps leading to the main floor of the arsenal and was pounding on the lower side of the trapdoor. The tramp of Aryan feet came down the tunnel.
"Don't argue!" yelled Nash."Go look up my friend Montague Allen Stark, unh, at the Central Park Y. M. C. A.! Maybe he can help—"
"Halt! You are under arrest!"
The trapdoor flew open, and the gold-braided soldier scrambled out, followed by Mrs. Russell.
"Shtop or you vill be shot!" The shrill bark was close.
Alicia's voice penetrated Nash's consciousness: "—great Adonai, Elohim, and Jehovam, conjure-—"
Arizona Bill Averoff's chaps disappeared through the trapdoor. A gun roared, and the civilian following him groaned, doubled up, and fell down the steps. The cellar suddenly swarmed with Aryans. They hauled Nash to his feet and kicked him, and did likewise with the ex-sultan.
Kutluk was stretched out, not quite conscious. The Aryans kicked him. He stirred and groaned but did not rise. When a few more kicks failed to bring him to his feet, an Aryan fired a bullet through his head. Kutluk quivered and began to fade out. The civilian had already done so; Alice had disappeared completely. That left Nash, Arslan Bey, and the other civilian in the bag.
The Aryans handcuffed their prisoners together and kicked them up the cellar steps and out the door of the arsenal.
The sun was cool and bright on the field, which was> much like the one Nash and Alicia had been trying to skirt when they had flushed their first Aryan. A section of Aryans stood at ease, and in front of them slouched several dejected-looking non-Aryans.
"Guess we'll fade out in good company," said Nash.
"You've got nerve, Chevalier," said the civilian.
Nash lowered his voice: "I'm scared half to death, but don't tell—"
"Silence, sub-man!" A kick followed the admonition. Nash painfully guessed that his hams must be all the colors of the rainbow by now.