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‘Yes! Yes, it is, curse you!’
‘You are the leader of the men who have been attacking caravans?’
‘Yes.’
‘And on whose orders did you do this?’
The bandit laughed. It wasn’t a humour-filled laugh. ‘Him? What makes you think an old desert dog like me would k
now the name of a man like that?’
‘Then what does he look like?’
‘Tall. Blonde. A nose like hawk’s beak and eyes that can burn your soul away!’ He laughed again. ‘By all means, go after him! You haven’t seen what he’s capable of. He’ll cut you down like a thin little reed. You have no idea who you’re dealing with!’
‘On the contrary.’ Mr Ambrose cocked his head. ‘I know him better than anyone alive.’
‘Is that so?’
‘Oh yes.’ Mr Ambrose nodded. ‘And you are going to take a message for me. A message to my old friend, to your employer.’
Impossible hope flickered in the man’s eyes. ‘You’re going to send me to him? You’re going to let me live?’
‘No.’ With a movement so quick I almost missed it, Mr Ambrose raised his sabre, and let it swing down again. There was a thud, as metal met flesh, and another, softer, one, as the bandit leader’s severed head fell to the ground. Not even glancing at the corpse sprawled on the cave floor, Mr Ambrose wiped his blade again. ‘Leaving you alive would send quite the wrong message. Dead you’ll do fine.’
For a moment, everything in the cave was still and silent as a grave. Even the blood seemed to stop dripping for a moment. I looked around. Men were staring at Mr Ambrose, the expressions on their faces inscrutable. I guess even if you were a mercenary, or whatever most of these men called their profession, you didn’t see someone decapitated in cold blood every day. Some part of me wondered whether I shouldn’t feel horrified. After all, the man had been defenceless. But then, so had the hundreds of caravan merchants he had killed.
Putting away my dagger, I stepped forward and marched over to Mr Ambrose. Without asking, I slid my hand into his - the one that was still holding the sabre - and squeezed.
He glanced down at me, coolly. ‘Why are you applying pressure to my fingers?’
‘It’s a thing some people like to do. It’s called “comforting”.’
His fingers opened slightly, letting me in, and squeezing back. Then, seeming to realize what he was doing, he hurriedly let go.
‘Well, cease it immediately,’ he ordered. ‘It is a waste of valuable time.’
I couldn’t help smiling, just a little.
In that very moment, a shrill whistle sounded through the cave. Everybody whirled around, bringing up their rifles to where the sound had come from.
‘Stop!’ Youssef shouted. ‘Stop! It’s one of my men!’
And indeed, up in the high tunnel entrance from which Youssef’s troops had come, I could see an anxious face, clearly not an enemy.
‘I posted him up there to warn us if any more bandits came down the tunnel,’ Youssef explained. ‘We didn’t know if any of them might still have been outside somewhere.’
‘A reasonable idea.’ Mr Ambrose nodded, then gestured at the lookout. ‘And? What did you see? Report!’
‘Men, Effendi. A lot of armed men!’
‘Bandits?’
‘I don’t think so, Effendi. They are wearing uniforms in red, blue and white!’
Red? That had to be the English! I knew that French uniforms contained a lot of blue, and the white had to be the Egyptians. They’d know how to dress sensibly for the desert.
‘Can we get out back through the gorge without them seeing us?’ Mr Ambrose demanded.
