CHAPTER VII.
BROTHERS OF THE BLOOD.
The Cossacks rode in a wide circle, ’round and ’round the settled aeroplanes, at which the wild ponies snorted and seemingly feared to approach.
When, however, Salisky and Marovitch each gave vent to one of those weird calls peculiar to the denizens of the desert, the tribesmen drove their shaggy mounts full speed toward the searching party.
Nikita was the first to dismount. He knew the scouts, and gave them guttural greeting. The question in his keen eyes, though, did not sound from the lips. He had caught a glimpse of the boys, still seated in the biplanes. The tall chief was instantly a-quiver with a certain fierce joy of possession—that which he desired had apparently been delivered into his hands.
“You bring these young dogs to me?”
“We bring to you, chief, brave lads who have risked much for your welfare—for your life, chief, for your very life!”
Salisky, who had no knowledge of that past, wherein had crossed the paths of Nikita and these boys, and sizing only the present purpose of his young friends, was inclined to indignantly resent the address of the Cossack.
“With my life what have they to do?”
To the red rider the reply of Salisky was a riddle.
“They are but spies,” he continued accusingly, “and upon the heads of their kind is the blood of my brother.”
The speaker supplemented his words with a menacing movement toward the young pilots, who were wholly ignorant of the nature of this parley.
“Hold!”
The voice of Salisky had a hard note, and conveyed no double meaning.
Marovitch ranged alongside of his comrade, and each of the scouts rested a hand on the holsters attached to their belts.
The Cossacks, with lowered lances, closed in behind their chief.
Anything might have happened in the next minute if Billy, noting the trend of action, had not pushed himself to the front, and made eloquent plea to Salisky to avoid the threatened encounter.
“Explain to him,” cried the boy; “tell him right off the bat what we are here for; ask him about the ring; spar for time; scout, spar for time!”
Nikita, seeing this new breeze blow into the squall, was curious to know what the pleading was about. He grounded his lance, and his companions followed suit. The scouts relaxed their grip on their side arms.
The atmosphere had cleared a bit.
Acting upon the urgent suggestion of Billy, the scout, Salisky took the straight line in his talk to the Cossack.
“You bought a ring in Warsaw, chief?”
Nikita nodded, tapping a leather pouch at his girdle.
“He is not wearing it,” whispered Henri to his chum.
“We are on time then,” said Billy, with a sigh of relief.
“Of what concern of yours is this bauble?” Nikita was asking. He had taken the jewel from the pouch, and the glittering circlet was exposed in the open palm of his gauntlet.
“It is beautiful enough for a courtier to offer to his emperor,” murmured Marovitch.
“Save the thought!” exclaimed Salisky. “There is death in it!”
Nikita, holding the ring between thumb and forefinger, as if admiring its brilliancy, awaited further speech from Salisky.
“Of what concern, I say,” he repeated, “is it of yours that I paid my roubles for this shining thing?”
“Of this concern, chief,” impressively declared the scout addressed, “that with it on your finger you would be pointing your way to the grave; that with it on your finger in a few days the wolves might be snarling over your swollen corpse.”
The Cossack shook his head, and turned to his comrades, with a significant shrug of the shoulders, as much as to say that somebody’s mind was wandering.
“Tell him that the man of whom he bought the ring,” urged Billy, “had sworn revenge for a blow inflicted.”
Salisky put the information in form of understanding to the Cossack.
Nikita dropped his manner of incredulity like a shot.
“A blow. Now I remember; it was in the place where led the trail of these spies.”
“Drop that last, chief,” angrily challenged Salisky. “These boys, as I told you, have sought you day and night to save your life. Were they what you claim, is it likely that they would so desperately attempt to overturn that which would quietly remove one who hungered to lay them low? Have a thought, chief.”
Nikita was thinking, the savage in him was receding. He looked attentively at the death ring poised in his finger.
Then he cast the jewel downward to the ice-encrusted surface at his feet, and ground its shimmering facets under the pointed heel of his cavalry boot.
The Cossack had accepted as the whole truth the story of the ancient ring, and as fully realized the stated intent of these strange boys, who had raced with death that he, their deadly enemy, might retain the boon of life.
He spoke rapidly to his comrades, queer phrases that even the scouts did not comprehend.
That some sort of ceremony was under way was demonstrated by the next move of the tribesmen, when Billy and Henri became centerpieces in the parti-colored cluster of lance bearers.
The scouts, showing no disposition to interfere, the boys were convinced that the attentions paid to them were now wholly of a friendly nature.
But a severe test of such belief was furnished by Nikita, as the latter drew near to the lads, carrying in his right hand a dagger, with the point turned forward.
Only a reassuring glance from Salisky kept the young aviators from giving ground before the threatening advance.
Nikita, pausing before Billy, reached for the latter’s wrist, lifted it, made a tiny puncture near a smaller artery, and with the same dagger point slightly scarified his own wrist.
With Henri identically the same transfer of blood corpuscles passed from himself to the Cossack.
Upon each of the boys the Cossack then bestowed an amulet—lance points of flint, curiously marked, and with holes in the center, through which thongs had been drawn.
Translating the words of presentation, Salisky with due solemnity advised the young friends that “now and thereafter they were protected from anything that cuts or points, knives or daggers, carbines, long or short rifles, lances, against all kinds of metal, be it iron or steel, brass or lead, ore or wood, when in the hands of the Don Cossacks. This day and forever they were the adopted of the tribesmen of Southern Russia.”
“All the degrees at once,” said Billy, in undertone to Henri, while the latter was alternating a wondering eye between the thonged charm he was holding and the stern-visaged giver thereof.
“You never can tell but what these things might prove useful in a pinch around here,” was the side remark of the French boy, who had taken the ceremony more seriously than his chum.
He had occasion later on to remind Billy of this observation.
“How do you suppose he resisted the temptation of decorating his fist with that showy band?” was a new query that just occurred to the irrepressible one. “Put it across, Salisky.”
The scout, in his own way, made the inquiry.
“To one of our great, far away, had I planned to give it—and woe to me if I had.”
Salisky satisfied Billy’s curiosity by rewording the answer.
“There is one thing I am sorry about, now that the deck is cleared,” said Henri, “and that is the forced implication of Hamar—he’s a gone gosling, I fear.”
“Don’t worry about that,” replied Billy; “from the way things looked when we skipped the shop, I am pretty sure that the whole outfit has disappeared by this time. We could not help it, anyhow.”
While the boys were exchanging confidences, the Cossacks had mounted their ponies, preparatory to resuming their interrupted journey. As a last reminder of their new relations, the red riders, headed by the chief, rode in single file past the initiated brethren, giving each the sign of the lifted lance—the “high sign,” as Billy put it.
“Good-by, old top,” sang out the boy from Bangor; “glad everything is on the square now.”
The scouts looked reproof at this manner of address, but as the Cossack did not understand a word of it, no harm was done.
“Farewell, brothers,” called Henri, with more decorum.
“It is our turn now,” briskly broke in Salisky, “and I want some speeding to make our faces good at headquarters.”
“You will get it,” was Billy’s comeback when the young aviators started the buzz in the biplanes.
“It will take a week to get the water out of my eyes,” laughed Marovitch, when the machines dipped that evening into the camp at Brest Litovsk.
Expected orders for the dash back to Warsaw were not forthcoming.
The aviators were destined to view the river Vistula at an entirely different point—to see it again tumbling down from the snow-dad Carpathians, where the titanic war struggle raged with unabated vigor.