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Title: The Weavers, Volume 6.
Author: Gilbert Parker
Release Date: August, 2004 [EBook #6266]
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[This file was first posted on November 14, 2002]
Edition: 10
Language: English
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WEAVERS, BY PARKER, V6 ***
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THE WEAVERS
By Gilbert Parker
BOOK VI.
XL. HYLDA SEEKS NAHOUM
XLI. IN THE LAND OF SHINAR
XLII. THE LOOM OF DESTINY
CHAPTER XL
HYLDA SEEKS NAHOUM
It was as though she had gone to sleep the night before, and waked
again upon this scene unchanged, brilliant, full of colour, a chaos of
decoration--confluences of noisy, garish streams of life, eddies of petty
labour. Craftsmen crowded one upon the other in dark bazaars; merchants
chattered and haggled on their benches; hawkers clattered and cried their
wares. It was a people that lived upon the streets, for all the houses
seemed empty and forsaken. The sais ran before the Pasha's carriage, the
donkey-boys shrieked for their right of way, a train of camels calmly
forced its passage through the swirling crowds, supercilious and heavy-
laden.
It seemed but yesterday since she had watched with amused eyes the
sherbet-sellers clanking their brass saucers, the carriers streaming the
water from the bulging goatskins into the earthen bottles, crying, "Allah
be praised, here is coolness for thy throat for ever!" the idle singer
chanting to the soft kanoon, the chess-players in the shade of a high
wall, lost to the world, the dancing-girls with unveiled, shameless
faces, posturing for evil eyes. Nothing had changed these past six
years. Yet everything had changed.
She saw it all as in a dream, for her mind had no time for reverie or
retrospect; it was set on one thing only.
Yet behind the one idea possessing her there was a subconscious self
taking note of all these sights and sounds, and bringing moisture to her
eyes. Passing the house which David had occupied on that night when he
and she and Nahoum and Mizraim had met, the mist of feeling almost
blinded her; for there at the gate sat the bowab who had admitted her
then, and with apathetic eyes had watched her go, in the hour when it
seemed that she and David Claridge had bidden farewell for ever, two
driftwood spars that touched and parted in the everlasting sea. Here
again in the Palace square were Kaid's Nubians in their glittering armour
as of silver and gold, drawn up as she had seen them drawn then, to be
reviewed by their overlord.
She swept swiftly through the streets and bazaars on her mission to
Nahoum. "Lady Eglington" had asked for an interview, and Nahoum had
granted it without delay. He did not associate her with the girl for
whom David Claridge had killed Foorgat Pey, and he sent his own carriage
to bring her to the Palace. No time had been lost, for it was less than
twenty-four hours since she had arrived in Cairo, and very soon she would
know the worst or the best. She had put her past away for the moment,
and the Duchess of Snowdon had found at Marseilles a silent, determined,
yet gentle-tongued woman, who refused to look back, or to discuss
anything vital to herself and Eglington, until what she had come to Egypt
to do was accomplished. Nor would she speak of the future, until the
present had been fully declared and she knew the fate of David Claridge.
In Cairo there were only varying rumours: that he was still holding out;
that he was lost; that he had broken through; that he was a prisoner--all
without foundation upon which she could rely.
As she neared the Palace entrance, a female fortune-teller ran forward,
thrusting towards her a gazelle's skin, filled with the instruments of
her mystic craft, and crying out: "I divine-I reveal! What is present I
manifest! What is absent I declare! What is future I show! Beautiful
one, hear me. It is all written. To thee is greatness, and thy heart's
desire. Hear all! See! Wait for the revealing. Thou comest from afar,
but thy fortune is near. Hear and see. I divine--I reveal. Beautiful
one, what is future I show."
Hylda's eyes looked at the poor creature eagerly, pathetically. If it
could only be, if she could but see one step ahead! If the veil could
but be lifted! She dropped some silver into the folds of the gazelle-
skin and waved the Gipsy away. "There is darkness, it is all dark,
beautiful one," cried the woman after her, "but it shall be light. I
show--I reveal!"
Inside these Palace walls there was a revealer of more merit, as she so
well and bitterly knew. He could raise the veil--a dark and dangerous
necromancer, with a flinty heart and a hand that had waited long to
strike. Had it struck its last blow?
Outside Nahoum's door she had a moment of utter weakness, when her knees
smote together, and her throat became parched; but before the door had
swung wide and her eyes swept the cool and shadowed room, she was as
composed as on that night long ago when she had faced the man who knew.
Nahoum was standing in a waiting and respectful attitude as she entered.
He advanced towards her and bowed low, but stopped dumfounded, as he saw
who she was. Presently he recovered himself; but he offered no further
greeting than to place a chair for her where her face was in the shadow
and his in the light--time of crisis as it was, she noticed this and
marvelled at him. His face was as she had seen it those years ago. It
showed no change whatever. The eyes looked at her calmly, openly, with
no ulterior thought behind, as it might seem. The high, smooth forehead,
the full but firm lips, the brown, well-groomed beard, were all
indicative of a nature benevolent and refined. Where did the duplicity
lie? Her mind answered its own question on the instant; it lay in the
brain and the tongue. Both were masterly weapons, an armament so
complete that it controlled the face and eyes and outward man into a
fair semblance of honesty. The tongue--she remembered its insinuating
and adroit power, and how it had deceived the man she had come to try and
save. She must not be misled by it. She felt it was to be a struggle
between them, and she must be alert and persuasive, and match him word
for word, move for move.
"I am happy to welcome you here, madame," he said in English. "It is
years since we met; yet time has passed you by."
She flushed ever so slightly--compliment from Nahoum Pasha! Yet she must
not resent anything to-day; she must get what she came for, if it was
possible. What had Lacey said? "A few thousand men by parcel-post, and
some red seals-British officers."
"We meet under different circumstances," she replied meaningly. "You
were asking a great favour then."
"Ah, but of you, madame?"
"I think you appealed to me when you were doubtful of the result."
"Well, madame, it may be so--but, yes, you are right; I thought you were
Claridge Pasha's kinswoman, I remember."
"Excellency, you said you thought I was Claridge Pasha's kinswoman."
"And you are not?" he asked reflectively.
He did not understand the slight change that passed over her face. His
kinswoman--Claridge Pasha's kinswoman!
"I was not his kinswoman," she answered calmly. "You came to ask a
favour then of Claridge Pasha; your life-work to do under him. I
remember your words: 'I can aid thee in thy great task. Thou wouldst
remake our Egypt, and my heart is with you. I would rescue, not destroy.
. . . I would labour, but my master has taken away from me the anvil,
the fire, and the hammer, and I sit without the door like an armless
beggar.' Those were your words, and Claridge Pasha listened and
believed, and saved your life and gave you work; and now again you
have power greater than all others in Egypt."
"Madame, I congratulate you on a useful memory. May it serve you as the
hill-fountain the garden in the city! Those indeed were my words. I
hear myself from your lips, and yet recognise myself, if that be not
vanity. But, madame, why have you sought me? What is it you wish to
know--to hear?"
He looked at her innocently, as though he did not know her errand; as
though beyond, in the desert, there was no tragedy approaching--or come.
"Excellency, you are aware that I have come to ask for news of Claridge
Pasha." She leaned forward slightly, but, apart from her tightly
interlaced fingers, it would not have been possible to know that she was
under any strain.
"You come to me instead of to the Effendina. May I ask why, madame?
Your husband's position--I did not know you were Lord Eglington's wife--
would entitle you to the highest consideration."
"I knew that Nahoum Pasha would have the whole knowledge, while the
Effendina would have part only. Excellency, will you not tell me what
news You have? Is Claridge Pasha alive?"
"Madame, I do not know. He is in the desert. He was surrounded. For
over a month there has been no word-none. He is in danger. His way by
the river was blocked. He stayed too long. He might have escaped, but
he would insist on saving the loyal natives, on remaining with them,
since he could not bring them across the desert; and the river and the
desert are silent. Nothing comes out of that furnace yonder. Nothing
comes."
He bent his eyes upon her complacently. Her own dropped. She could not
bear that he should see the misery in them.
"You have come to try and save him, madame. What did you expect to do?
Your Government did not strengthen my hands; your husband did nothing--
nothing that could make it possible for me to act. There are many
nations here, alas! Your husband does not take so great an interest in
the fate of Claridge Pasha as yourself, madame."
She ignored the insult. She had determined to endure everything, if she
might but induce this man to do the thing that could be done--if it was
not too late. Before she could frame a reply, he said urbanely:
"But that is not to be expected. There was that between Claridge Pasha
and yourself which would induce you to do all you might do for him, to be
anxious for his welfare. Gratitude is a rare thing--as rare as the
flower of the century--aloe; but you have it, madame."
There was no chance to misunderstand him. Foorgat Bey--he knew the
truth, and had known it all these years.
"Excellency," she said, "if through me, Claridge Pasha--"
"One moment, madame," he interrupted, and, opening a drawer, took out a
letter. "I think that what you would say may be found here, with much
else that you will care to know. It is the last news of Claridge Pasha--
a letter from him. I understand all you would say to me; but he who has
most at stake has said it, and, if he failed, do you think, madame, that
you could succeed?"
He handed her the letter with a respectful salutation.
"In the hour he left, madame, he came to know that the name of Foorgat
Bey was not blotted from the book of Time, nor from Fate's reckoning."
After all these years! Her instinct had been true, then, that night so
long ago. The hand that took the letter trembled slightly in spite of
her will, but it was not the disclosure Nahoum had made which caused her
agitation. This letter she held was in David Claridge's hand, the first
she had ever seen, and, maybe, the last that he had ever written, or that
any one would ever see, a document of tears. But no, there were no tears
in this letter! As Hylda read it the trembling passed from her fingers,
and a great thrilling pride possessed her. If tragedy had come, then it
had fallen like a fire from heaven, not like a pestilence rising from the
earth. Here indeed was that which justified all she had done, what she
was doing now, what she meant to do when she had read the last word of it
and the firm, clear signature beneath.
"Excellency [the letter began in English], I came into the desert
and into the perils I find here, with your last words in my ear,
'There is the matter of Foorgat Bey.' The time you chose to speak
was chosen well for your purpose, but ill for me. I could not turn
back, I must go on. Had I returned, of what avail? What could I do
but say what I say here, that my hand killed Foorgat Bey; that I had
not meant to kill him, though at the moment I struck I took no heed
whether he lived or died. Since you know of my sorrowful deed, you
also know why Foorgat Bey was struck down. When, as I left the bank
of the Nile, your words blinded my eyes, my mind said in its misery:
'Now, I see!' The curtains fell away from between you and me, and I
saw all that you had done for vengeance and revenge. You knew all
on that night when you sought your life of me and the way back to
Kaid's forgiveness. I see all as though you spoke it in my ear.
You had reason to hurt me, but you had no reason for hurting Egypt,
as you have done. I did not value my life, as you know well, for it
has been flung into the midst of dangers for Egypt's sake, how
often! It was not cowardice which made me hide from you and all the
world the killing of Foorgat Bey. I desired to face the penalty,
for did not my act deny all that I had held fast from my youth up?
But there was another concerned--a girl, but a child in years, as
innocent and true a being as God has ever set among the dangers of
this life, and, by her very innocence and unsuspecting nature, so
much more in peril before such unscrupulous wiles as were used by
Foorgat Bey.
"I have known you many years, Nahoum, and dark and cruel as your
acts have been against the work I gave my life to do, yet I think
that there was ever in you, too, the root of goodness. Men would
call your acts treacherous if they knew what you had done; and so
indeed they were; but yet I have seen you do things to others--not
to me--which could rise only from the fountain of pure waters. Was
it partly because I killed Foorgat and partly because I came to
place and influence and power, that you used me so, and all that I
did? Or was it the East at war with the West, the immemorial feud
and foray?
"This last I will believe; for then it will seem to be something
beyond yourself--centuries of predisposition, the long stain of the
indelible--that drove you to those acts of matricide. Ay, it is
that! For, Armenian as you are, this land is your native land, and
in pulling down what I have built up--with you, Nahoum, with you--
you have plunged the knife into the bosom of your mother. Did it
never seem to you that the work which you did with me was a good
work--the reduction of the corvee, the decrease of conscription, the
lessening of taxes of the fellah, the bridges built, the canals dug,
the seed distributed, the plague stayed, the better dwellings for
the poor in the Delta, the destruction of brigandage, the slow
blotting-out of exaction and tyranny under the kourbash, the quiet
growth of law and justice, the new industries started--did not all
these seem good to you, as you served the land with me, your great
genius for finance, ay, and your own purse, helping on the things
that were dear to me, for Egypt's sake? Giving with one hand
freely, did your soul not misgive you when you took away with the
other?
"When you tore down my work, you were tearing down your own; for,
more than the material help I thought you gave in planning and
shaping reforms, ay, far more than all, was the feeling in me which
helped me over many a dark place, that I had you with me, that I was
not alone. I trusted you, Nahoum. A life for a life you might have
had for the asking; but a long torture and a daily weaving of the
web of treachery--that has taken more than my life; it has taken
your own, for you have killed the best part of yourself, that which
you did with me; and here in an ever-narrowing circle of death I say
to you that you will die with me. Power you have, but it will
wither in your grasp. Kaid will turn against you; for with my
failure will come a dark reaction in his mind, which feels the cloud
of doom drawing over it. Without me, with my work falling about his
ears, he will, as he did so short a time ago, turn to Sharif and
Higli and the rest; and the only comfort you will have will be that
you destroyed the life of him who killed your brother. Did you love
your brother? Nay, not more than did I, for I sent his soul into
the void, and I would gladly have gone after it to ask God for the
pardon of all his sins--and mine. Think: I hid the truth, but why?
Because a woman would suffer an unmerited scandal and shame.
Nothing could recall Foorgat Bey; but for that silence I gave my
life, for the land which was his land. Do you betray it, then?
"And now, Nahoum, the gulf in which you sought to plunge me when you
had ruined all I did is here before me. The long deception has
nearly done its work. I know from Ebn Ezra Bey what passed between
you. They are out against me--the slave-dealers--from Senaar to
where I am. The dominion of Egypt is over here. Yet I could
restore it with a thousand men and a handful of European officers,
had I but a show of authority from Cairo, which they think has
deserted me.
"I am shut up here with a handful of men who can fight and thousands
who cannot fight, and food grows scarcer, and my garrison is worn
and famished; but each day I hearten them with the hope that you
will send me a thousand men from Cairo. One steamer pounding here
from the north with men who bring commands from the Effendina, and
those thousands out yonder beyond my mines and moats and guns will
begin to melt away. Nahoum, think not that you shall triumph over
David Claridge. If it be God's will that I shall die here, my work
undone, then, smiling, I shall go with step that does not falter, to
live once more; and another day the work that I began will rise
again in spite of you or any man.
"Nahoum, the killing of Foorgat Bey has been like a cloud upon all
my past. You know me, and you know I do not lie. Yet I do not
grieve that I hid the thing--it was not mine only; and if ever you
knew a good woman, and in dark moments have turned to her, glad that
she was yours, think what you would have done for her, how you would
have sheltered her against aught that might injure her, against
those things women are not made to bear. Then think that I hid the
deed for one who was a stranger to me, whose life must ever lay far
from mine, and see clearly that I did it for a woman's sake, and not
for this woman's sake; for I had never seen her till the moment I
struck Foorgat Bey into silence and the tomb. Will you not
understand, Nahoum?
"Yonder, I see the tribes that harry me. The great guns firing make
the day a burden, the nights are ever fretted by the dangers of
surprise, and there is scarce time to bury the dead whom sickness
and the sword destroy. From the midst of it all my eyes turn to you
in Cairo, whose forgiveness I ask for the one injury I did you;
while I pray that you will seek pardon for all that you have done to
me and to those who will pass with me, if our circle is broken.
Friend, Achmet the Ropemaker is here fighting for Egypt. Art thou
less, then, than Achmet? So, God be with thee.
"DAVID CLARIDGE."
Without a pause Hylda had read the letter from the first word to the
last. She was too proud to let this conspirator and traitor see what
David's words could do to her. When she read the lines concerning
herself, she became cold from head to foot, but she knew that Nahoum
never took his eyes from her face, and she gave no outward sign of what
was passing within. When she had finished it, she folded it up calmly,
her eyes dwelt for a moment on the address upon the envelope, and then
she handed it back to Nahoum without a word. She looked him in the eyes
and spoke. "He saved your life, he gave you all you had lost. It was
not his fault that Prince Kaid chose him for his chief counsellor. You
would be lying where your brother lies, were it not for Claridge Pasha."
"It may be; but the luck was with me; and I have my way."
She drew herself together to say what was hard to say. "Excellency, the
man who was killed deserved to die. Only by lies, only by subterfuge,
only because I was curious to see the inside of the Palace, and because I
had known him in London, did I, without a thought of indiscretion, give
myself to his care to come here. I was so young; I did not know life, or
men--or Egyptians." The last word was uttered with low scorn.
He glanced up quickly, and for the first time she saw a gleam of malice
in his eyes. She could not feel sorry she had said it, yet she must
remove the impression if possible.
"What Claridge Pasha did, any man would have done, Excellency. He
struck, and death was an accident. Foorgat's temple struck the corner of
a pedestal.
"His death was instant. He would have killed Claridge Pasha if it had
been possible--he tried to do so. But, Excellency, if you have a
daughter, if you ever had a child, what would you have done if any man
had--"
"In the East daughters are more discreet; they tempt men less," he
answered quietly, and fingered the string of beads he carried.
"Yet you would have done as Claridge Pasha did. That it was your brother
was an accident, and--"
"It was an accident that the penalty must fall on Claridge Pasha, and on
you, madame. I did not choose the objects of penalty. Destiny chose
them, as Destiny chose Claridge Pasha as the man who should supplant me,
who should attempt to do these mad things for Egypt against the judgment
of the world--against the judgment of your husband. Shall I have better
judgment than the chancellories of Europe and England--and Lord
Eglington?"
"Excellency, you know what moves other nations; but it is for Egypt to
act for herself. You ask me why I did not go to the Effendina. I come
to you because I know that you could circumvent the Effendina, even
if he sent ten thousand men. It is the way in Egypt."
"Madame, you have insight--will you not look farther still, and see that,
however good Claridge Pasha's work might be some day in the far future,
it is not good to-day. It is too soon. At the beginning of the
twentieth century, perhaps. Men pay the penalty of their mistakes.
A man's life"--he watched her closely with his wide, benevolent eyes--"is
neither here nor there, nor a few thousands, in the destiny of a nation.
A man who ventures into a lion's den must not be surprised if he goes as
Harrik went--ah, perhaps you do not know how Harrik went! A man who
tears at the foundations of a house must not be surprised if the timbers
fall on him and on his workmen. It is Destiny that Claridge Pasha should
be the slayer of my brother, and a danger to Egypt, and one whose life is
so dear to you, madame. You would have it otherwise, and so would I, but
we must take things as they are--and you see that letter. It is seven
weeks since then, and it may be that the circle has been broken. Yet it
may not be so. The circle may be smaller, but not broken."
She felt how he was tempting her from word to word with a merciless
ingenuity; yet she kept to her purpose; and however hopeless it seemed,
she would struggle on.
"Excellency," she said in a low, pleading tone, "has he not suffered
enough? Has he not paid the price of that life which you would not bring
back if you could? No, in those places of your mind where no one can see
lies the thought that you would not bring back Foorgat Bey. It is not an
eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth that has moved you; it has not
been love of Foorgat Bey; it has been the hatred of the East for the
West. And yet you are a Christian! Has Claridge Pasha not suffered
enough, Excellency? Have you not had your fill of revenge? Have you
not done enough to hurt a man whose only crime was that he killed a man
to save a woman, and had not meant to kill?"
"Yet he says in his letter that the thought of killing would not have
stopped him."
"Does one think at such a moment? Did he think? There was no time. It
was the work of an instant. Ah, Fate was not kind, Excellency! If it
had been, I should have been permitted to kill Foorgat Bey with my own
hands."
"I should have found it hard to exact the penalty from you, madame."
The words were uttered in so neutral a way that they were enigmatical,
and she could not take offence or be sure of his meaning.
"Think, Excellency. Have you ever known one so selfless, so good,
so true? For humanity's sake, would you not keep alive such a man?
If there were a feud as old as Adam between your race and his, would you
not before this life of sacrifice lay down the sword and the bitter
challenge? He gave you his hand in faith and trust, because your God was
his God, your prophet and lord his prophet and lord. Such faith should
melt your heart. Can you not see that he tried to make compensation for
Foorgat's death, by giving you your life and setting you where you are
now, with power to save or kill him?"
"You call him great; yet I am here in safety, and he is--where he is.
Have you not heard of the strife of minds and wills? He represented the
West, I the East. He was a Christian, so was I; the ground of our battle
was a fair one, and--and I have won."
"The ground of battle fair!" she protested bitterly. "He did not know
that there was strife between you. He did not fight you. I think that
he always loved you, Excellency. He would have given his life for you,
if it had been in danger. Is there in that letter one word that any man
could wish unwritten when the world was all ended for all men? But no,
there was no strife between you--there was only hatred on your part. He
was so much greater than you that you should feel no rivalry, no strife.
The sword he carries cuts as wide as Time. You are of a petty day in a
petty land. Your mouth will soon be filled with dust, and you will be
forgotten. He will live in the history of the world. Excellency,
I plead for him because I owe him so much: he killed a man and brought
upon himself a lifelong misery for me. It is all I can do, plead to you
who know the truth about him--yes, you know the truth--to make an effort
to save him. It may be too late; but yet God may be waiting for you to
lift your hand. You said the circle may be smaller, but it may be
unbroken still. Will you not do a great thing once, and win a woman's
gratitude, and the thanks of the world, by trying to save one who makes
us think better of humanity? Will you not have the name of Nahoum Pasha
linked with his--with his who thought you were his friend? Will you not
save him?"
He got slowly to his feet, a strange look in his eyes. "Your words are
useless. I will not save him for your sake; I will not save him for the
world's sake; I will not save him--"
A cry of pain and grief broke from her, and she buried her face in her
hands.
"--I will not save him for any other sake than his own."
He paused. Slowly, as dazed as though she had received a blow, Hylda
raised her face and her hands dropped in her lap.
"For any other sake than his own!" Her eyes gazed at him in a
bewildered, piteous way. What did he mean? His voice seemed to come
from afar off.
"Did you think that you could save him? That I would listen to you, if I
did not listen to him? No, no, madame. Not even did he conquer me; but
something greater than himself within himself, it conquered me."
She got to her feet gasping, her hands stretched out. "Oh, is it true--
is it true?" she cried.
"The West has conquered," he answered.
"You will help him--you will try to save him?" "When, a month ago, I
read the letter you have read, I tried to save him. I sent secretly four
thousand men who were at Wady Halfa to relieve him--if it could be done;
five hundred to push forward on the quickest of the armed steamers, the
rest to follow as fast as possible. I did my best. That was a month
ago, and I am waiting--waiting and hoping, madame."
Suddenly she broke down. Tears streamed from her eyes. She sank into
the chair, and sobs shook her from head to foot.
"Be patient, be composed, madame," Nahoum said gently. "I have tried you
greatly--forgive me. Nay, do not weep. I have hope. We may hear from
him at any moment now," he added softly, and there was a new look in his
wide blue eyes as they were bent on her.
CHAPTER XLI
IN THE LAND OF SHINAR
"Then I said to the angel that talked with me, Whither do these bear
the Ephah?
"And he said unto me, To build it an house in the land of Shinar;
and it shall be established, and set there upon her own base."
David raised his head from the paper he was studying. He looked at Lacey
sharply. "And how many rounds of ammunition?" he asked.
"Ten thousand, Saadat."
"How many shells?" he continued, making notes upon the paper before him.
"Three hundred, Saadat."
"How many hundredweight of dourha?" "Eighty--about."
"And how many mouths to feed?" "Five thousand."
"How many fighters go with the mouths?"
"Nine hundred and eighty-of a kind."
"And of the best?'
"Well, say, five hundred."
"Thee said six hundred three days ago, Lacey."
"Sixty were killed or wounded on Sunday, and forty I reckon in the
others, Saadat."
The dark eyes flashed, the lips set. "The fire was sickening--they fell
back?"
"Well, Saadat, they reflected--at the wrong time."
"They ran?"
"Not back--they were slow in getting on."
"But they fought it out?"
"They had to--root hog, or die. You see, Saadat, in that five hundred
I'm only counting the invincibles, the up-and-at-'ems, the blind-goers
that 'd open the lid of Hell and jump in after the enemy."
The pale face lighted. "So many! I would not have put the estimate half
so high. Not bad for a dark race fighting for they know not what!"
"They know that all right; they are fighting for you, Saadat."
David seemed not to hear. "Five hundred--so many, and the enemy so near,
the temptation so great."
"The deserters are all gone to Ali Wad Hei, Saadat. For a month there
have been only the deserted."
A hardness crept into the dark eyes. "Only the deserted!" He looked out
to where the Nile lost itself in the northern distance. "I asked Nahoum
for one thousand men, I asked England for the word which would send them.
I asked for a thousand, but even two hundred would turn the scale--the
sign that the Inglesi had behind him Cairo and London. Twenty weeks, and
nothing comes!"
He got to his feet slowly and walked up and down the room for a moment,
glancing out occasionally towards the clump of palms which marked the
disappearance of the Nile into the desert beyond his vision. At
intervals a cannon-shot crashed upon the rarefied air, as scores of
thousands had done for months past, torturing to ear and sense and nerve.
The confused and dulled roar of voices came from the distance also; and,
looking out to the landward side, David saw a series of movements of the
besieging forces, under the Arab leader, Ali Wad Hei. Here a loosely
formed body of lancers and light cavalry cantered away towards the south,
converging upon the Nile; there a troop of heavy cavalry in glistening
mail moved nearer to the northern defences; and between, battalions of
infantry took up new positions, while batteries of guns moved nearer to
the river, curving upon the palace north and south. Suddenly David's
eyes flashed fire. He turned to Lacey eagerly. Lacey was watching with
eyes screwed up shrewdly, his forehead shining with sweat.
"Saadat," he said suddenly, "this isn't the usual set of quadrilles.
It's the real thing. They're watching the river--waiting."
"But south!" was David's laconic response. At the same moment he struck
a gong. An orderly entered. Giving swift instructions, he turned to
Lacey again. "Not Cairo--Darfur," he added.
"Ebn Ezra Bey coming! Ali Wad Hei's got word from up the Nile, I guess."
David nodded, and his face clouded. "We should have had word also," he
said sharply.
There was a knock at the door, and Mahommed Hassan entered, supporting an
Arab, down whose haggard face blood trickled from a wound in the head,
while an arm hung limp at his side.
"Behold, Saadat--from Ebn Ezra Bey," Mahommed said. The man drooped
beside him.
David caught a tin cup from a shelf, poured some liquor into it, and held
it to the lips of the fainting man. "Drink," he said. The Arab drank
greedily, and, when he had finished, gave a long sigh of satisfaction.
"Let him sit," David added.
When the man was seated on a sheepskin, the huge Mahommed squatting
behind like a sentinel, David questioned him. "What is thy name--thy
news?" he asked in Arabic.
"I am called Feroog. I come from Ebn Ezra Bey, to whom be peace!" he
answered. "Thy messenger, Saadat, behold he died of hunger and thirst,
and his work became mine. Ebn Ezra Bey came by the river. . . ."
"He is near?" asked David impatiently.
"He is twenty miles away."
"Thou camest by the desert?"
"By the desert, Saadat, as Ebn Ezra effendi comes."
"By the desert! But thou saidst he came by the river."
"Saadat, yonder, forty miles from where we are, the river makes a great
curve. There the effendi landed in the night with four hundred men to
march hither. But he commanded that the boats should come on slowly and
receive the attack in the river, while he came in from the desert."
David's eye flashed. "A great device. They will be here by midnight,
then, perhaps?"
"At midnight, Saadat, by the blessing of God."
"How wert thou wounded?"
"I came upon two of the enemy. They were mounted. I fought them. Upon
the horse of one I came here."
"The other?"
"God is merciful, Saadat. He is in the bosom of God."
"How many men come by the river?"
"But fifty, Saadat," was the answer, "but they have sworn by the stone in
the Kaabah not to surrender."
"And those who come with the effendi, with Ebn Ezra Bey, are they as
those who will not surrender?"
"Half of them are so. They were with thee, as was I, Saadat, when the
great sickness fell upon us, and were healed by thee, and afterwards
fought with thee." David nodded abstractedly, and motioned to Mahommed
to take the man away; then he said to Lacey: "How long do you think we
can hold out?"
"We shall have more men, but also more rifles to fire, and more mouths to
fill, if Ebn Ezra gets in, Saadat."
David raised his head. "But with more rifles to fire away your ten
thousand rounds"--he tapped the paper on the table--"and eat the eighty
hundredweight of dourha, how long can we last?"
"If they are to fight, and with full stomachs, and to stake everything on
that one fight, then we can last two days. No more, I reckon."
"I make it one day," answered David. "In three days we shall have no
food, and unless help comes from Cairo, we must die or surrender. It is
not well to starve on the chance of help coming, and then die fighting
with weak arms and broken spirit. Therefore, we must fight to morrow,
if Ebn Ezra gets in to-night. I think we shall fight well," he added.
"You think so?"
"You are a born fighter, Saadat."
A shadow fell on David's face, and his lips tightened. "I was not born a
fighter, Lacey. The day we met first no man had ever died by my hand or
by my will."
"There are three who must die at sunset--an hour from now-by thy will,
Saadat."
A startled look came into David's face. "Who?" he asked.
"The Three Pashas, Saadat. They have been recaptured."
"Recaptured!" rejoined David mechanically.
"Achmet Pasha got them from under the very noses of the sheikhs before
sunrise this morning."
"Achmet--Achmet Pasha!" A light came into David's face again.
"You will keep faith with Achmet, Saadat. He risked his life to get
them. They betrayed you, and betrayed three hundred good men to death.
If they do not die, those who fight for you will say that it doesn't
matter whether men fight for you or betray you, they get the same stuff
off the same plate. If we are going to fight to-morrow, it ought to be
with a clean bill of health."
"They served me well so long--ate at my table, fought with me. But--but
traitors must die, even as Harrik died." A stern look came into his
face. He looked round the great room slowly. "We have done our best,"
he said. "I need not have failed, if there had been no treachery. . . ."
"If it hadn't been for Nahoum!"
David raised his head. Supreme purpose came into his bearing. A grave
smile played at his lips, as he gave that quick toss of the head which
had been a characteristic of both Eglington and himself. His eyes shone-
a steady, indomitable light. "I will not give in. I still have hope.
We are few and they are many, but the end of a battle has never been
sure. We may not fail even now. Help may come from Cairo even to-
morrow."
"Say, somehow you've always pulled through before, Saadat.
When I've been most frightened I've perked up and stiffened my backbone,
remembering your luck. I've seen a blue funk evaporate by thinking of
how things always come your way just when the worst seems at the worst."
David smiled as he caught up a small cane and prepared to go. Looking
out of a window, he stroked his thin, clean-shaven face with a lean
finger. Presently a movement in the desert arrested his attention. He
put a field-glass to his eyes, and scanned the field of operations
closely once more.
"Good-good!" he burst out cheerfully. "Achmet has done the one thing
possible. The way to the north will be still open. He has flung his men
between the Nile and the enemy, and now the batteries are at work."
Opening the door, they passed out. "He has anticipated my orders," he
added. "Come, Lacey, it will be an anxious night. The moon is full, and
Ebn Ezra Bey has his work cut out--sharp work for all of us, and . . ."
Lacey could not hear the rest of his words in the roar of the artillery.
David's steamers in the river were pouring shot into the desert where the
enemy lay, and Achmet's "friendlies" and the Egyptians were making good
their new position. As David and Lacey, fearlessly exposing themselves
to rifle fire, and taking the shortest and most dangerous route to where
Achmet fought, rode swiftly from the palace, Ebn Ezra's three steamers
appeared up the river, and came slowly down to where David's gunboats
lay. Their appearance was greeted by desperate discharges of artillery
from the forces under Ali Wad Hei, who had received word of their coming
two hours before, and had accordingly redisposed his attacking forces.
But for Achmet's sharp initiative, the boldness of the attempt to cut off
the way north and south would have succeeded, and the circle of fire and
sword would have been complete. Achmet's new position had not been
occupied before, for men were too few, and the position he had just left
was now exposed to attack.
Never since the siege began had the foe shown such initiative and
audacity. They had relied on the pressure of famine and decimation by
sickness, the steady effects of sorties, with consequent fatalities and
desertions, to bring the Liberator of the Slaves to his knees. Ebn Ezra
Bey had sought to keep quiet the sheikhs far south, but he had been shut
up in Darffur for months, and had been in as bad a plight as David. He
had, however, broken through at last. His ruse in leaving the steamers
in the night and marching across the desert was as courageous as it was
perilous, for, if discovered before he reached the beleaguered place,
nothing could save his little force from destruction. There was one way
in from the desert to the walled town, and it was through that space
which Achmet and his men had occupied, and on which Ali Wad Hei might
now, at any moment, throw his troops.
David's heart sank as he saw the danger. From the palace he had sent an
orderly with a command to an officer to move forward and secure the
position, but still the gap was open, and the men he had ordered to
advance remained where they were. Every minute had its crisis.
As Lacey and himself left the town the misery of the place smote him in
the eyes. Filth, refuse, debris filled the streets. Sick and dying men
called to him from dark doorways, children and women begged for bread,
carcasses lay unburied, vultures hovering above them--his tireless
efforts had not been sufficient to cope with the daily horrors of the
siege. But there was no sign of hostility to him. Voices called
blessings on him from dark doorways, lips blanching in death commended
him to Allah, and now and then a shrill call told of a fighter who had
been laid low, but who had a spirit still unbeaten. Old men and women
stood over their cooking-pots waiting for the moment of sunset; for it
was Ramadan, and the faithful fasted during the day--as though every day
was not a fast.
Sunset was almost come, as David left the city and galloped away
to send forces to stop the gap of danger before it was filled by the foe.
Sunset--the Three Pashas were to die at sunset! They were with Achmet,
and in a few moments they would be dead. As David and Lacey rode hard,
they suddenly saw a movement of men on foot at a distant point of the
field, and then a small mounted troop, fifty at most, detach themselves
from the larger force and, in close formation, gallop fiercely down on
the position which Achmet had left. David felt a shiver of anxiety and
apprehension as he saw this sharp, sweeping advance. Even fifty men,
well intrenched, could hold the position until the main body of Ali Wad
Hei's infantry came on.
They rode hard, but harder still rode Ali Wad Hei's troop of daring
Arabs. Nearer and nearer they came. Suddenly from the trenches, which
they had thought deserted, David saw jets of smoke rise, and a half-dozen
of the advancing troop fell from their saddles, their riderless horses
galloping on.
David's heart leaped: Achmet had, then, left men behind, hidden from
view; and these were now defending the position. Again came the jets of
smoke, and again more Arabs dropped from their saddles. But the others
still came on. A thousand feet away others fell. Twenty-two of the
fifty had already gone. The rest fired their rifles as they galloped.
But now, to David's relief, his own forces, which should have moved half
an hour before, were coming swiftly down to cut off the approach of Ali
Wad Hei's infantry, and he turned his horse upon the position where a
handful of men were still emptying the saddles of the impetuous enemy.
But now all that were left of the fifty were upon the trenches. Then
came the flash of swords, puffs of smoke, the thrust of lances, and
figures falling from the screaming, rearing horses.
Lacey's pistol was in his hand, David's sword was gripped tight, as they
rushed upon the melee. Lacey's pistol snapped, and an Arab fell; again,
and another swayed in his saddle. David's sword swept down, and a
turbaned head was gashed by a mortal stroke. As he swung towards another
horseman, who had struck down a defender of the trenches, an Arab raised
himself in his saddle and flung a lance with a cry of terrible malice;
but, even as he did so, a bullet from Lacey's pistol pierced his
shoulder. The shot had been too late to stop the lance, but sufficient
to divert its course. It caught David in the flesh of the body under the
arm--a slight wound only. A few inches to the right, however, and his
day would have been done.
The remaining Arabs turned and fled. The fight was over. As David,
dismounting, stood with dripping sword in his hand, in imagination, he
heard the voice of Kaid say to him, as it said that night when he killed
Foorgat Bey: "Hast thou never killed a man?"
For an instant it blinded him, then he was conscious that, on the ground
at his feet, lay one of the Three Pashas who were to die at sunset. It
was sunset now, and the man was dead. Another of the Three sat upon the
ground winding his thigh with the folds of a dead Arab's turban, blood
streaming from his gashed face. The last of the trio stood before David,
stoical and attentive. For a moment David looked at the Three, the dead
man and the two living men, and then suddenly turned to where the
opposing forces were advancing. His own men were now between the
position and Ali Wad Hei's shouting fanatics. They would be able to
reach and defend the post in time. He turned and gave orders. There
were only twenty men besides the two pashas, whom his commands also
comprised. Two small guns were in place. He had them trained on that
portion of the advancing infantry of Ali Wad Hei not yet covered by his
own forces. Years of work and responsibility had made him master of many
things, and long ago he had learned the work of an artilleryman. In a
moment a shot, well directed, made a gap in the ranks of the advancing
foe. An instant afterwards a shot from the other gun fired by the
unwounded pasha, who, in his youth, had been an officer of artillery,
added to the confusion in the swerving ranks, and the force hesitated;
and now from Ebn Ezra Bey's river steamers, which had just arrived, there
came a flank fire. The force wavered. From David's gun another shot
made havoc. They turned and fell back quickly. The situation was saved.
As if by magic the attack of the enemy all over the field ceased. By
sunset they had meant to finish this enterprise, which was to put the
besieged wholly in their hands, and then to feast after the day's
fasting. Sunset had come, and they had been foiled; but hunger demanded
the feast. The order to cease firing and retreat sounded, and three
thousand men hurried back to the cooking-pot, the sack of dourha, and the
prayer mat. Malaish, if the infidel Inglesi was not conquered to-day,
he should be beaten and captured and should die to-morrow! And yet there
were those among them who had a well-grounded apprehension that the
"Inglesi" would win in the end.
By the trenches, where five men had died so bravely, and a traitorous
pasha had paid the full penalty of a crime and won a soldier's death,
David spoke to his living comrades. As he prepared to return to the
city, he said to the unwounded pasha: "Thou wert to die at sunset; it was
thy sentence."
And the pasha answered: "Saadat, as for death--I am ready to die, but
have I not fought for thee?" David turned to the wounded pasha.
"Why did Achmet Pasha spare thee?"
"He did not spare us, Saadat. Those who fought with us but now were to
shoot us at sunset, and remain here till other troops came. Before
sunset we saw the danger, since no help came. Therefore we fought to
save this place for thee."
David looked them in the eyes. "Ye were traitors," he said, "and for an
example it was meet that ye should die. But this that ye have done shall
be told to all who fight to-morrow, and men will know why it is I pardon
treachery. Ye shall fight again, if need be, betwixt this hour and
morning, and ye shall die, if need be. Ye are willing?"
Both men touched their foreheads, their lips, and their breasts.
"Whether it be death or it be life, Inshallah, we are true to thee,
Saadat!" one said, and the other repeated the words after him. As they
salaamed David left them, and rode forward to the advancing forces.
Upon the roof of the palace Mahommed Hassan watched and waited, his eyes
scanning sharply the desert to the south, his ears strained to catch that
stir of life which his accustomed ears had so often detected in the
desert, when no footsteps, marching, or noises could be heard. Below,
now in the palace, now in the defences, his master, the Saadat, planned
for the last day's effort on the morrow, gave directions to the officers,
sent commands to Achmet Pasha, arranged for the disposition of his
forces, with as strange a band of adherents and subordinates as ever men
had--adventurers, to whom adventure in their own land had brought no
profit; members of that legion of the non-reputable, to whom Cairo
offered no home; Levantines, who had fled from that underground world
where every coin of reputation is falsely minted, refugees from the storm
of the world's disapproval. There were Greeks with Austrian names;
Armenians, speaking Italian as their native tongue; Italians of
astonishing military skill, whose services were no longer required by
their offended country; French Pizarros with a romantic outlook, even in
misery, intent to find new El Dorados; Englishmen, who had cheated at
cards and had left the Horse Guards for ever behind; Egyptian intriguers,
who had been banished for being less successful than greater intriguers;
but also a band of good gallant men of every nation.
Upon all these, during the siege, Mahommed Hassan had been a self-
appointed spy, and had indirectly added to that knowledge which made
David's decisive actions to circumvent intrigue and its consequences seem
almost supernatural. In his way Mahommed was a great man. He knew that
David would endure no spying, and it was creditable to his subtlety and
skill that he was able to warn his master, without being himself
suspected of getting information by dark means. On the palace roof
Mahommed was happy to-night. Tomorrow would be a great day, and, since
the Saadat was to control its destiny, what other end could there be but
happiness? Had not the Saadat always ridden over all that had been in
his way? Had not he, Mahommed, ever had plenty to eat and drink, and
money to send to Manfaloot to his father there, and to bribe when bribing
was needed? Truly, life was a boon! With a neboot of dom-wood across
his knees he sat in the still, moonlit night, peering into that distance
whence Ebn Ezra Bey and his men must come, the moon above tranquil and
pleasant and alluring, and the desert beneath, covered as it was with the
outrages and terrors of war, breathing softly its ancient music, that
delicate vibrant humming of the latent activities. In his uncivilised
soul Mahommed Hassan felt this murmur, and even as he sat waiting to know
whether a little army would steal out of the south like phantoms into
this circle the Saadat had drawn round him, he kept humming to himself--
had he not been, was he not now, an Apollo to numberless houris who had
looked down at him from behind mooshrabieh screens, or waited for him in
the palm-grove or the cane-field? The words of his song were not uttered
aloud, but yet he sang them silently--
"Every night long and all night my spirit is moaning and crying
O dear gazelle, that has taken away my peace!
Ah! if my beloved come not, my eyes will be blinded with weeping
Moon of my joy, come to me, hark to the call of my soul!"
Over and over he kept chanting the song. Suddenly, however, he leaned
farther forward and strained his ears. Yes, at last, away to the south-
east, there was life stirring, men moving--moving quickly. He got to his
feet slowly, still listening, stood for a moment motionless, then, with a
cry of satisfaction, dimly saw a moving mass in the white moonlight far
over by the river. Ebn Ezra Bey and his men were coming. He started
below, and met David on the way up. He waited till David had mounted the
roof, then he pointed. "Now, Saadat!" he said.
"They have stolen in?" David peered into the misty whiteness.
They are almost in, Saadat. Nothing can stop them now."
"It is well done. Go and ask Ebn Ezra effendi to come hither," he said.
Suddenly a shot was fired, then a hoarse shout came over the desert, then
there was silence again.
"They are in, Saadat," said Mahommed Hassan.
.......................
Day broke over a hazy plain. On both sides of the Nile the river mist
spread wide, and the army of Ali Wad Hei and the defending forces were
alike veiled from each other and from the desert world beyond. Down the
river for scores of miles the mist was heavy, and those who moved within
it and on the waters of the Nile could not see fifty feet ahead. Yet
through this heavy veil there broke gently a little fleet of phantom
vessels, the noise of the paddle-wheels and their propellers muffled as
they moved slowly on. Never had vessels taken such risks on the Nile
before, never had pilots trusted so to instinct, for there were sand-
banks and ugly drifts of rock here and there. A safe journey for phantom
ships; but these armed vessels, filled by men with white, eager faces and
others with dark Egyptian features, were no phantoms. They bristled with
weapons, and armed men crowded every corner of space. For full two hours
from the first streak of light they had travelled swiftly, taking chances
not to be taken save in some desperate moment. The moment was desperate
enough, if not for them. They were going to the relief of besieged men,
with a message from Nahoum Pasha to Claridge Pasha, and with succour.
They had looked for a struggle up this river as they neared the
beleaguered city; but, as they came nearer and nearer, not a gun fired at
them from the forts on the banks out of the mists. If they were heard
they still were safe from the guns, for they could not be seen, and those
on shore could not know whether they were friend or foe. Like ghostly
vessels they passed on, until at last they could hear the stir and murmur
of life along the banks of the stream.
Boom! boom! boom! Through the mist the guns of the city were pouring
shot and shell out into Ali Wad Hei's camp, and Ali Wad Hei laughed
contemptuously. Surely now the Inglesi was altogether mad, and to-day,
this day after prayers at noon, he should be shot like a mad dog, for
yesterday's defeat had turned some of his own adherent sheikhs into angry
critics. He would not wait for starvation to compel the infidel to
surrender. He would win freedom to deal in human flesh and blood, and
make slave-markets where he willed, and win glory for the Lord Mahomet,
by putting this place to the sword; and, when it was over, he would have
the Inglesi's head carried on a pole through the city for the faithful to
mock at, a target for the filth of the streets. So, by the will of
Allah, it should be done!
Boom! boom! boom! The Inglesi was certainly mad, for never had there
been so much firing in any long day in all the siege as in this brief
hour this morning. It was the act of a fool, to fire his shot and shell
into the mist without aim, without a clear target. Ali Wad Hei scorned
to make any reply with his guns, but sat in desultory counsel with his
sheikhs, planning what should be done when the mists had cleared away.
But yesterday evening the Arab chief had offered to give the Inglesi life
if he would surrender and become a Muslim, and swear by the Lord Mahomet;
but late in the night he had received a reply which left only one choice,
and that was to disembowel the infidel, and carry his head aloft on a
spear. The letter he had received ran thus in Arabic:
"To Ali Wad Hei and All with Him:
"We are here to live or to die as God wills, and not as ye will. I
have set my feet on the rock, and not by threats of any man shall I
be moved. But I say that for all the blood that ye have shed here
there will be punishment, and for the slaves which ye have slain or
sold there will be high price paid. Ye have threatened the city and
me--take us if ye can. Ye are seven to one. Why falter all these
months? If ye will not come to us, we shall come to you, rebellious
ones, who have drawn the sword against your lawful ruler, the
Effendina.
"CLARIDGE PASHA"
It was a rhetorical document couched in the phraseology they best
understood; and if it begat derision, it also begat anger; and the
challenge David had delivered would be met when the mists had lifted from
the river and the plain. But when the first thinning of the mists began,
when the sun began to dissipate the rolling haze, Ali Wad Hei and his
rebel sheikhs were suddenly startled by rifle-fire at close quarters, by
confused noises, and the jar and roar of battle. Now the reason for the
firing of the great guns was plain. The noise was meant to cover the
advance of David's men. The little garrison, which had done no more than
issue in sorties, was now throwing its full force on the enemy in a last
desperate endeavour. It was either success or absolute destruction.
David was staking all, with the last of his food, the last of his
ammunition, the last of his hopes. All round the field the movement was
forward, till the circle had widened to the enemy's lines; while at the
old defences were only handfuls of men. With scarce a cry David's men
fell on the unprepared foe; and he himself, on a grey Arab, a mark for
any lance or spear and rifle, rode upon that point where Ali Wad Hei's
tent was set.
But after the first onset, in which hundreds were killed, there began the
real noise of battle--fierce shouting, the shrill cries of wounded and
maddened horses as they struck with their feet, and bit as fiercely at
the fighting foe as did their masters. The mist cleared slowly, and,
when it had wholly lifted, the fight was spread over every part of the
field of siege. Ali Wad Hei's men had gathered themselves together after
the first deadly onslaught, and were fighting fiercely, shouting the
Muslim battle-cry, "Allah hu achbar!" Able to bring up reinforcements,
the great losses at first sustained were soon made up, and the sheer
weight of numbers gave them courage and advantage. By rushes with lance
and sword and rifle they were able, at last, to drive David's men back
upon their old defences with loss. Then charge upon charge ensued, and
each charge, if it cost them much, cost the besieged more, by reason of
their fewer numbers. At one point, however, the besieged became again
the attacking party. This was where Achmet Pasha had command. His men
on one side of the circle, as Ebn Ezra Bey's men on the other, fought
with a valour as desperate as the desert ever saw. But David, galloping
here and there to order, to encourage, to prevent retreat at one point,
or to urge attack at another, saw that the doom of his gallant force was
certain; for the enemy were still four to one, in spite of the carnage of
the first attack. Bullets hissed past him. One carried away a button,
one caught the tip of his ear, one pierced the fez he wore; but he felt
nothing of this, saw nothing. He was buried in the storm of battle
preparing for the end, for the final grim defence, when his men would
retreat upon the one last strong fort, and there await their fate. From
this absorption he was roused by Lacey, who came galloping towards him.
"They've come, Saadat, they've come at last! We're saved--oh, my God,
you bet we're all right now! See! See, Saadat!"
David saw. Five steamers carrying the Egyptian flag were bearing around
the point where the river curved below the town, and converging upon
David's small fleet. Presently the steamers opened fire, to encourage
the besieged, who replied with frenzied shouts of joy, and soon there
poured upon the sands hundreds of men in the uniform of the Effendina.
These came forward at the double, and, with a courage which nothing could
withstand, the whole circle spread out again upon the discomfited tribes
of Ali Wad Hei. Dismay, confusion, possessed the Arabs. Their river-
watchers had failed them, God had hidden His face from them; and when Ali
Wad Hei and three of his emirs turned and rode into the desert, their
forces broke and ran also, pursued by the relentless men who had suffered
the tortures of siege so long. The chase was short, however, for they
were desert folk, and they returned to loot the camp which had menaced
them so long.
Only the new-comers, Nahoum's men, carried the hunt far; and they brought
back with them a body which their leader commanded to be brought to a
great room of the palace. Towards sunset David and Ebn Ezra Bey and
Lacey came together to this room. The folds of loose linen were lifted
from the face, and all three looked at it long in silence. At last Lacey
spoke:
"He got what he wanted; the luck was with him. It's better than
Leperland."
"In the bosom of Allah there is peace," said Ebn Ezra. "It is well with
Achmet."
With misty eyes David stooped and took the dead man's hand in his for a
moment. Then he rose to his feet and turned away.
"And Nahoum also--and Nahoum," he said presently. "Read this," he added,
and put a letter from Nahoum into Ebn Ezra's hand.
Lacey reverently covered Achmet's face. "Say, he got what he wanted," he
said again.
CHAPTER XLII
THE LOOM OF DESTINY
It was many a day since the Duchess of Snowdon had seen a sunrise, and
the one on which she now gazed from the deck of the dahabieh Nefert,
filled her with a strange new sense of discovery and revelation. Her
perceptions were arrested and a little confused, and yet the undercurrent
of feeling was one of delight and rejuvenation. Why did this sunrise
bring back, all at once, the day when her one lost child was born, and
she looked out of the windows of Snowdon Hall, as she lay still and
nerveless, and thought how wonderful and sweet and green was the world
she saw and the sky that walled it round? Sunrise over the Greek Temple
of Philae and the splendid ruins of a farther time towering beside it!
In her sight were the wide, islanded Nile, where Cleopatra loitered with
Antony, the foaming, crashing cataracts above, the great quarries from
which ancient temples had been hewed, unfinished obelisks and vast blocks
of stone left where bygone workmen had forsaken them, when the invader
came and another dynasty disappeared into that partial oblivion from
which the Egyptian still emerges triumphant over all his conquerors,
unchanged in form and feature. Something of its meaning got into her
mind.
"I wonder what Windlehurst would think of it. He always had an eye for
things like that," she murmured; and then caught her breath, as she
added: "He always liked beauty." She looked at her wrinkled, childish
hands. "But sunsets never grow old," she continued, with no apparent
relevance. "La, la, we were young once!"
Her eyes were lost again in the pinkish glow spreading over the grey-
brown sand of the desert, over the palm-covered island near. "And now
it's others' turn, or ought to be," she murmured.
She looked to where, not far away, Hylda stood leaning over the railing
of the dahabieh, her eyes fixed in reverie on the farthest horizon line
of the unpeopled, untravelled plain of sand.
"No, poor thing, it's not her turn," she added, as Hylda, with a long
sigh, turned and went below. Tears gathered in her pale blue eyes. "Not
yet--with Eglington alive. And perhaps it would be best if the other
never came back. I could have made the world better worth living in if
I had had the chance--and I wouldn't have been a duchess! La! La!"
She relapsed into reverie, an uncommon experience for her; and her mind
floated indefinitely from one thing to another, while she was half
conscious of the smell of coffee permeating the air, and of the low
resonant notes of the Nubian boys, as, with locked shoulders, they
scrubbed the decks of a dahabieh near by with hempshod feet.
Presently, however, she was conscious of another sound--the soft clip of
oars, joined to the guttural, explosive song of native rowers; and,
leaning over the rail, she saw a boat draw alongside the Nefert. From it
came the figure of Nahoum Pasha, who stepped briskly on deck, in his
handsome face a light which flashed an instant meaning to her.
"I know--I know! Claridge Pasha--you have heard?" she said excitedly,
as he came to her.
He smiled and nodded. "A messenger has arrived. Within a few hours he
should be here."
"Then it was all false that he was wounded--ah, that horrible story of
his death!"
"Bismillah, it was not all false! The night before the great battle he
was slightly wounded in the side. He neglected it, and fever came on;
but he survived. His first messengers to us were killed, and that is why
the news of the relief came so late. But all is well at last. I have
come to say so to Lady Eglington--even before I went to the Effendina."
He made a gesture towards a huge and gaily-caparisoned dahabieh not far
away. "Kaid was right about coming here. His health is better. He
never doubted Claridge Pasha's return; it was une idee fixe. He believes
a magic hand protects the Saadat, and that, adhering to him, he himself
will carry high the flower of good fortune and live for ever. Kismet! I
will not wait to see Lady Eglington. I beg to offer to her my
congratulations on the triumph of her countryman."
His words had no ulterior note; but there was a shadow in his eyes which
in one not an Oriental would have seemed sympathy.
"Pasha, Pasha!" the Duchess called after him, as he turned to leave;
"tell me, is there any news from England--from the Government?"
"From Lord Eglington? No," Nahoum answered meaningly. "I wrote to him.
Did the English Government desire to send a message to Claridge Pasha,
if the relief was accomplished? That is what I asked. But there is no
word. Malaish, Egypt will welcome him!"
She followed his eyes. Two score of dahabiehs lay along the banks of the
Nile, and on the shore were encampments of soldiers, while flags were
flying everywhere. Egypt had followed the lead of the Effendina.
Claridge Pasha's star was in its zenith.
As Nahoum's boat was rowed away, Hylda came on deck again, and the
Duchess hastened to her. Hylda caught the look in her face. "What has
happened? Is there news? Who has been here?" she asked.
The Duchess took her hands. "Nahoum has gone to tell Prince Kaid. He
came to you with the good news first," she said with a flutter.
She felt Hylda's hands turn cold. A kind of mist filled the dark eyes,
and the slim, beautiful figure swayed slightly. An instant only, and
then the lips smiled, and Hylda said in a quavering voice: "They will be
so glad in England."
"Yes, yes, my darling, that is what Nahoum said." She gave Nahoum's
message to her. "Now they'll make him a peer, I suppose, after having
deserted him. So English!"
She did not understand why Hylda's hands trembled so, why so strange a
look came into her face, but, in an instant, the rare and appealing eyes
shone again with a light of agitated joy, and suddenly Hylda leaned over
and kissed her cheek.
"Smell the coffee," she said with assumed gaiety. "Doesn't fair-and-
sixty want her breakfast? Sunrise is a splendid tonic." She laughed
feverishly.
"My darling, I hadn't seen the sun rise in thirty years, not since the
night I first met Windlehurst at a Foreign Office ball."
"You have always been great friends?" Hylda stole a look at her.
"That's the queer part of it; I was so stupid, and he so clever. But
Windlehurst has a way of letting himself down to your level. He always
called me Betty after my boy died, just as if I was his equal. La, la,
but I was proud when he first called me that--the Prime Minister of
England. I'm going to watch the sun rise again to-morrow, my darling. I
didn't know it was so beautiful, and gave one such an appetite." She
broke a piece of bread, and, not waiting to butter it, almost stuffed it
into her mouth.
Hylda leaned over and pressed her arm. "What a good mother Betty it is!"
she said tenderly.
Presently they were startled by the shrill screaming of a steamer
whistle, followed by the churning of the paddles, as she drove past and
drew to the bank near them.
"It is a steamer from Cairo, with letters, no doubt," said Hylda; and the
Duchess nodded assent, and covertly noted her look, for she knew that no
letters had arrived from Eglington since Hylda had left England.
A half-hour later, as the Duchess sat on deck, a great straw hat tied
under her chin with pale-blue ribbons, like a child of twelve, she was
startled by seeing the figure of a farmer-looking person with a shock of
grey-red hair, a red face, and with great blue eyes, appear before her in
the charge of Hylda's dragoman.
"This has come to speak with my lady," the dragoman said, "but my lady is
riding into the desert there." He pointed to the sands.
The Duchess motioned the dragoman away, and scanned the face of the new-
comer shrewdly. Where had she seen this strange-looking English peasant,
with the rolling walk of a sailor?
"What is your name, and where do you come from?" she asked, not without
anxiety, for there was something ominous and suggestive in the old man's
face.
"I come from Hamley, in England, and my name is Soolsby, your grace. I
come to see my Lady Eglington."
Now she remembered him. She had seen him in Hamley more than once.
"You have come far; have you important news for her ladyship? Is there
anything wrong?" she asked with apparent composure, but with heavy
premonition.
"Ay, news that counts, I bring," answered Soolsby, "or I hadn't come this
long way. 'Tis a long way at sixty-five."
"Well, yes, at our age it is a long way," rejoined the Duchess in a
friendly voice, suddenly waving away the intervening air of class, for
she was half a peasant at heart.
"Ay, and we both come for the same end, I suppose," Soolsby added; "and a
costly business it is. But what matters, so be that you help her
ladyship and I help Our Man."
"And who is 'Our Man'?" was the rejoinder. "Him that's coming safe here
from the South--David Claridge," he answered. "Ay, 'twas the first thing
I heard when I landed here, me that be come all these thousand miles to
see him, if so be he was alive." Just then he caught sight of Kate
Heaver climbing the stair to the deck where they were. His face flushed;
he hurried forward and gripped her by the arm, as her feet touched the
upper deck. "Kate-ay, 'tis Kate!" he cried. Then he let go her arm and
caught a hand in both of his and fondled it. "Ay, ay, 'tis Kate!" "What
is it brings you, Soolsby?" Kate asked anxiously.
"'Tis not Jasper, and 'tis not the drink-ay, I've been sober since, ever
since, Kate, lass," he answered stoutly. "Quick, quick, tell me what it
is!" she said, frowning. "You've not come here for naught, Soolsby."
Still holding her hand, he leaned over and whispered in her ear. For an
instant she stood as though transfixed, and then, with a curious muffled
cry, broke away from him and turned to go below.
"Keep your mouth shut, lass, till proper time," he called after her, as
she descended the steps hastily again. Then he came slowly back to the
Duchess.
He looked her in the face--he was so little like a peasant, so much more
like a sailor here with his feet on the deck of a floating thing. "Your
grace is a good friend to her ladyship," he said at last deliberately,
"and 'tis well that you tell her ladyship. As good a friend to her
you've been, I doubt not, as that I've been to him that's coming from
beyond and away."
"Go on, man, go on. I want to know what startled Heaver yonder, what you
have come to say."
"I beg pardon, your grace. One doesn't keep good news waiting, and 'tis
not good news for her ladyship I bring, even if it be for Claridge Pasha,
for there was no love lost 'twixt him and second-best lordship that's
gone."
"Speak, man, speak it out, and no more riddles," she interrupted sharply.
"Then, he that was my Lord Eglington is gone foreign--he is dead," he
said slowly.
The Duchess fell back in her chair. For an instant the desert, the
temples, the palms, the Nile waters faded, and she was in some middle
world, in which Soolsby's voice seemed coming muffled and deep across a
dark flood; then she recovered herself, and gave a little cry, not unlike
that which Kate gave a few moments before, partly of pain, partly of
relief.
"Ay, he's dead and buried, too, and in the Quaker churchyard. Miss
Claridge would have it so. And none in Hamley said nay, not one."
The Duchess murmured to herself. Eglington was dead--Eglington was dead
--Eglington was dead! And David Claridge was coming out of the desert,
was coming to-day-now!
"How did it happen?" she asked, faintly, at last.
"Things went wrong wi' him--bad wrong in Parliament and everywhere, and
he didn't take it well. He stood the world off like-ay, he had no temper
for black days. He shut himself up at Hamley in his chemical place, like
his father, like his father before him. When the week-end came, there he
was all day and night among his bottles and jars and wires. He was after
summat big in experiment for explosives, so the papers said, and so he
said himself before he died, to Miss Claridge--ay, 'twas her he deceived
and treated cruel, that come to him when he was shattered by his
experimenting. No patience, he had at last--and reckless in his chemical
place, and didn't realise what his hands was doing. 'Twas so he told
her, that forgave him all his deceit, and held him in her arms when he
died. Not many words he had to speak; but he did say that he had never
done any good to any one--ay, I was standing near behind his bed and
heard all, for I was thinking of her alone with him, and so I would be
with her, and she would have it so. Ay, and he said that he had misused
cruel her that had loved him, her ladyship, that's here. He said he
had misused her because he had never loved her truly, only pride and
vainglory being in his heart. Then he spoke summat to her that was there
to forgive him and help him over the stile 'twixt this field and it
that's Beyond and Away, which made her cry out in pain and say that he
must fix his thoughts on other things. And she prayed out loud for him,
for he would have no parson there. She prayed and prayed as never priest
or parson prayed, and at last he got quiet and still, and, when she
stopped praying, he did not speak or open his eyes for a longish while.
But when the old clock on the stable was striking twelve, he opened his
eyes wide, and when it had stopped, he said: 'It is always twelve by the
clock that stops at noon. I've done no good. I've earned my end.' He
looked as though he was waiting for the clock to go on striking, half
raising himself up in bed, with Miss Faith's arm under his head. He
whispered to her then--he couldn't speak by this time. 'It's twelve
o'clock,' he said. Then there came some words I've heard the priest say
at Mass, 'Vanitas, Vanitatum,'--that was what he said. And her he'd lied
to, there with him, laying his head down on the pillow, as if he was her
child going to sleep. So, too, she had him buried by her father, in the
Quaker burying-ground--ay, she is a saint on earth, I warrant."
For a moment after he had stopped the Duchess did not speak, but kept
untying and tying the blue ribbons under her chin, her faded eyes still
fastened on him, burning with the flame of an emotion which made them
dark and young again.
"So, it's all over," she said, as though to herself. "They were all
alike, from old Broadbrim, the grandfather, down to this one, and back to
William the Conqueror."
"Like as peas in a pod," exclaimed Soolsby--"all but one, all but one,
and never satisfied with what was in their own garden, but peeking,
peeking beyond the hedge, and climbing and getting a fall. That's what
they've always been evermore."
His words aroused the Duchess, and the air became a little colder about
her-after all, the division between the classes and the masses must be
kept, and the Eglingtons were no upstarts. "You will say nothing about
this till I give you leave to speak," she commanded. "I must tell her
ladyship."
Soolsby drew himself up a little, nettled at her tone. "It is your
grace's place to tell her ladyship," he responded; "but I've taken ten
years' savings to come to Egypt, and not to do any one harm, but good,
if so be I might."
The Duchess relented at once. She got to her feet as quickly as she
could, and held out her hand to him. "You are a good man, and a friend
worth having, I know, and I shall like you to be my friend, Mr. Soolsby,"
she said impulsively.
He took her hand and shook it awkwardly, his lips working. "Your grace,
I understand. I've got naught to live for except my friends. Money's
naught, naught's naught, if there isn't a friend to feel a crunch at his
heart when summat bad happens to you. I'd take my affydavy that there's
no better friend in the world than your grace."
She smiled at him. "And so we are friends, aren't we? And I am to tell
her ladyship, and you are to say 'naught.'
"But to the Egyptian, to him, your grace, it is my place to speak--to
Claridge Pasha, when he comes." The Duchess looked at him quizzically.
"How does Lord Eglington's death concern Claridge Pasha?" she asked
rather anxiously. Had there been gossip about Hylda? Had the public got
a hint of the true story of her flight, in spite of all Windlehurst had
done? Was Hylda's name smirched, now, when all would be set right? Had
everything come too late, as it were?
"There's two ways that his lordship's death concerns Claridge Pasha,"
answered Soolsby shrewdly, for though he guessed the truth concerning
Hylda and David, his was not a leaking tongue. "There's two ways it
touches him. There'll be a new man in the Foreign Office--Lord Eglington
was always against Claridge Pasha; and there's matters of land betwixt
the two estates--matters of land that's got to be settled now," he
continued, with determined and successful evasion.
The Duchess was deceived. "But you will not tell Claridge Pasha until I
have told her ladyship and I give you leave? Promise that," she urged.
"I will not tell him until then," he answered. "Look, look, your grace,"
he added, suddenly pointing towards the southern horizon, "there he
comes! Ay, 'tis Our Man, I doubt not--Our Man evermore!"
Miles away there appeared on the horizon a dozen camels being ridden
towards Assouan.
"Our Man evermore," repeated the Duchess, with a trembling smile. "Yes,
it is surely he. See, the soldiers are moving. They're going to ride
out to meet him." She made a gesture towards the far shore where Kaid's
men were saddling their horses, and to Nahoum's and Kaid's dahabiehs,
where there was a great stir.
"There's one from Hamley will meet them first," Soolsby said, and pointed
to where Hylda, in the desert, was riding towards the camels coming out
of the south.
The Duchess threw up her hands. "Dear me, dear me," she said in
distress, "if she only knew!"
"There's thousands of women that'd ride out mad to meet him," said
Soolsby carefully; "women that likes to see an Englishman that's done his
duty--ay, women and men, that'd ride hard to welcome him back from the
grave. Her ladyship's as good a patriot as any," he added, watching the
Duchess out of the corners of his eyes, his face turned to the desert.
The Duchess looked at him quizzically, and was satisfied with her
scrutiny. "You're a man of sense," she replied brusquely, and gathered
up her skirts. "Find me a horse or a donkey, and I'll go too," she added
whimsically. "Patriotism is such a nice sentiment."
For David and Lacey the morning had broken upon a new earth. Whatever of
toil and tribulation the future held in store, this day marked a step
forward in the work to which David had set his life. A way had been
cloven through the bloody palisades of barbarism, and though the dark
races might seek to hold back the forces which drain the fens, and build
the bridges, and make the desert blossom as the rose, which give liberty
and preserve life, the good end was sure and near, whatever of rebellion
and disorder and treachery intervened. This was the larger, graver
issue; but they felt a spring in the blood, and their hearts were
leaping, because of the thought that soon they would clasp hands again
with all from which they had been exiled.
"Say, Saadat, think of it: a bed with four feet, and linen sheets, and
sleeping till any time in the morning, and, If you please, sir,
breakfast's on the table.' Say, it's great, and we're in it!"
David smiled. "Thee did very well, friend, without such luxuries. Thee
is not skin and bone."
Lacey mopped his forehead. "Well, I've put on a layer or two since the
relief. It's being scared that takes the flesh off me. I never was
intended for the 'stricken field.' Poetry and the hearth-stone was my
real vocation--and a bit of silver mining to blow off steam with," he
added with a chuckle.
David laughed and tapped his arm. "That is an old story now, thy
cowardice. Thee should be more original.
"It's worth not being original, Saadat, to hear you thee and thou me as
you used to do. It's like old times--the oldest, first times. You've
changed a lot, Saadat."
"Not in anything that matters, I hope."
"Not in anything that matters to any one that matters. To me it's the
same as it ever was, only more so. It isn't that, for you are you. But
you've had disappointment, trouble, hard nuts to crack, and all you could
do to escape the rocks being rolled down the Egyptian hill onto you; and
it's left its mark."
"Am I grown so different?"
Lacey's face shone under the look that was turned towards him. "Say,
Saadat, you're the same old red sandstone; but I missed the thee and
thou. I sort of hankered after it; it gets me where I'm at home with
myself."
David laughed drily. "Well, perhaps I've missed something in you. Thee
never says now--not since thee went south a year ago, 'Well, give my love
to the girls.' Something has left its mark, friend," he added teasingly;
for his spirits were boyish to-day; he was living in the present. There
had gone from his eyes and from the lines of his figure the melancholy
which Hylda had remarked when he was in England.
"Well, now, I never noticed," rejoined Lacey. "That's got me. Looks as
if I wasn't as friendly as I used to be, doesn't it? But I am--I am,
Saadat."
"I thought that the widow in Cairo, perhaps--" Lacey chuckled. "Say,
perhaps it was--cute as she can be, maybe, wouldn't like it, might be
prejudiced."
Suddenly David turned sharply to Lacey. "Thee spoke of silver mining
just now. I owe thee something like two hundred thousand pounds, I
think--Egypt and I."
Lacey winked whimsically at himself under the rim of his helmet. "Are
you drawing back from those concessions, Saadat?" he asked with apparent
ruefulness.
"Drawing back? No! But does thee think they are worth--"
Lacey assumed an injured air. "If a man that's made as much money as me
can't be trusted to look after a business proposition--"
"Oh, well, then!"
"Say, Saadat, I don't want you to think I've taken a mean advantage of
you; and if--"
David hastened to put the matter right. "No, no; thee must be the
judge!" He smiled sceptically. "In any case, thee has done a good deed
in a great way, and it will do thee no harm in the end. In one way the
investment will pay a long interest, as long as the history of Egypt
runs. Ah, see, the houses of Assouan, the palms, the river, the masts of
the dahabiehs!"
Lacey quickened his camel's steps, and stretched out a hand to the
inviting distance. "'My, it's great," he said, and his eyes were
blinking with tears. Presently he pointed. "There's a woman riding to
meet us, Saa dat. Golly, can't she ride! She means to be in it--to
salute the returning brave."
He did not glance at David. If he had done so, he would have seen that
David's face had taken on a strange look, just such a look as it wore
that night in the monastery when he saw Hylda in a vision and heard her
say: "Speak, speak to me!"
There had shot into David's mind the conviction that the woman riding
towards them was Hylda. Hylda, the first to welcome him back, Hylda--
Lady Eglington! Suddenly his face appeared to tighten and grow thin.
It was all joy and torture at once. He had fought this fight out with
himself--had he not done so? Had he not closed his heart to all but duty
and Egypt? Yet there she was riding out of the old life, out of Hamley,
and England, and all that had happened in Cairo, to meet him. Nearer and
nearer she came. He could not see the face, but yet he knew. He
quickened his camel and drew ahead of Lacey. Lacey did not understand,
he did not recognise Hylda as yet; but he knew by instinct the Saadat's
wishes, and he motioned the others to ride more slowly, while he and they
watched horsemen coming out from Assouan towards them.
David urged his camel on. Presently he could distinguish the features of
the woman riding towards him. It was Hylda. His presentiment, his
instinct had been right. His heart beat tumultuously, his hand trembled,
he grew suddenly weak; but he summoned up his will, and ruled himself to
something like composure. This, then, was his home-coming from the far
miseries and trials and battle-fields--to see her face before all others,
to hear her voice first. What miracle had brought this thing to pass,
this beautiful, bitter, forbidden thing? Forbidden! Whatever the cause
of her coming, she must not see what he felt for her. He must deal
fairly by her and by Eglington; he must be true to that real self which
had emerged from the fiery trial in the monastery. Bronzed as he was,
his face showed no paleness; but, as he drew near her, it grew pinched
and wan from the effort at self-control. He set his lips and rode on,
until he could see her eyes looking into his--eyes full of that which he
had never seen in any eyes in all the world.
What had been her feelings during that ride in the desert? She had not
meant to go out to meet him. After she heard that he was coming, her
desire was to get away from all the rest of the world, and be alone with
her thoughts. He was coming, he was safe, and her work was done. What
she had set out to do was accomplished--to bring him back, if it was
God's will, out of the jaws of death, for England's sake, for the world's
sake, for his sake, for her own sake. For her own sake? Yes, yes, in
spite of all, for her own sake. Whatever lay before, now, for this one
hour, for this moment of meeting he should be hers. But meet him, where?
Before all the world, with a smile of conventional welcome on her lips,
with the same hand-clasp that any friend and lover of humanity would give
him?
The desert air blew on her face, keen, sweet, vibrant, thrilling. What
he had heard that night at the monastery, the humming life of the land of
white fire--the desert, the million looms of all the weavers of the world
weaving, this she heard in the sunlight, with the sand rising like surf
behind her horse's heels. The misery and the tyranny and the unrequited
love were all behind her, the disillusion and the loss and the undeserved
insult to her womanhood--all, all were sunk away into the unredeemable
past. Here, in Egypt, where she had first felt the stir of life's
passion and pain and penalty, here, now, she lost herself in a beautiful,
buoyant dream. She was riding out to meet the one man of all men, hero,
crusader, rescuer--ah, that dreadful night in the Palace, and Foorgat's
face! But he was coming, who had made her live, to whom she had called,
to whom her soul had spoken in its grief and misery. Had she ever done
aught to shame the best that was in herself--and had she not been sorely
tempted? Had she not striven to love Eglington even when the worst was
come, not alone at her own soul's command, but because she knew that this
man would have it so? Broken by her own sorrow, she had left England,
Eglington--all, to keep her pledge to help him in his hour of need, to
try and save him to the world, if that might be. So she had come to
Nahoum, who was binding him down on the bed of torture and of death. And
yet, alas! not herself had conquered Nahoum, but David, as Nahoum had
said. She herself had not done this one thing which would have
compensated for all that she had suffered. This had not been permitted;
but it remained that she had come here to do it, and perhaps he would
understand when he saw her.
Yes, she knew he would understand! She flung up her head to the sun and
the pulse-stirring air, and, as she did so, she saw his cavalcade
approaching. She was sure it was he, even when he was far off, by the
same sure instinct that convinced him. For an instant she hesitated.
She would turn back, and meet him with the crowd. Then she looked
around. The desert was deserted by all save herself and himself and
those who were with him. No. Her mind was made up. She would ride
forward. She would be the first to welcome him back to life and the
world. He and she would meet alone in the desert. For one minute they
would be alone, they two, with the world afar, they two, to meet, to
greet--and to part. Out of all that Fate had to give of sorrow and loss,
this one delectable moment, no matter what came after.
"David!" she cried with beating heart, and rode on, harder and harder.
Now she saw him ride ahead of the others. Ah, he knew that it was she,
though he could not see her face! Nearer and nearer. Now they looked
into each other's eyes.
She saw him stop his camel and make it kneel for the dismounting. She
stopped her horse also, and slid to the ground, and stood waiting, one
hand upon the horse's neck. He hastened forward, then stood still, a few
feet away, his eyes on hers, his helmet off, his brown hair, brown as
when she first saw it--peril and hardship had not thinned or greyed it.
For a moment they stood so, for a moment of revealing and understanding,
but speechless; and then, suddenly, and with a smile infinitely touching,
she said, as he had heard her say in the monastery--the very words:
"Speak--speak to me!"
He took her hand in his. "There is no need--I have said all," he
answered, happiness and trouble at once in his eyes. Then his face
grew calmer. "Thee has made it worth while living on," he added.
She was gaining control of herself also. "I said that I would come
when I was needed," she answered less, tremblingly.
"Thee came alone?" he asked gently.
"From Assouan, yes," she said in a voice still unsteady. "I was riding
out to be by myself, and then I saw you coming, and I rode on. I thought
I should like to be the first to say: 'Well done,' and 'God bless you!'"
He drew in a long breath, then looked at her keenly. "Lord Eglington is
in Egypt also?" he asked.
Her face did not change. She looked him in the eyes.
"No, Eglington would not come to help you. I came to Nahoum, as I said
I would."
"Thee has a good memory," he rejoined simply. "I am a good friend," she
answered, then suddenly her face flushed up, her breast panted, her eyes
shone with a brightness almost intolerable to him, and he said in a low,
shaking voice:
"It is all fighting, all fighting. We have done our best; and thee has
made all possible."
"David!" she said in a voice scarce above a whisper.
"Thee and me have far to go," he said in a voice not louder than her own,
"but our ways may not be the same."
She understood, and a newer life leaped up in her. She knew that he
loved her--that was sufficient; the rest would be easier now. Sacrifice,
all, would be easier. To part, yes, and for evermore; but to know that
she had been truly loved--who could rob her of that?
"See," she said lightly, "your people are waiting--and there, why, there
is my cousin Lacey. Tom, oh, Cousin Tom!" she called eagerly.
Lacey rode down on them. "I swan, but I'm glad," he said, as he dropped
from his horse. "Cousin Hylda, I'm blest if I don't feel as if I could
sing like Aunt Melissa."
"You may kiss me, Cousin Tom," she said, as she took his hands in hers.
He flushed, was embarrassed, then snatched a kiss from her cheek. "Say,
I'm in it, ain't I? And you were in it first, eh, Cousin Hylda? The
rest are nowhere--there they come from Assouan, Kaid, Nahoum, and the
Nubians. Look at 'em glisten!"
A hundred of Kaid's Nubians in their glittering armour made three sides
of a quickly moving square, in the centre of which, and a little ahead,
rode Kaid and Nahoum, while behind the square-in parade and gala dress-
trooped hundreds of soldiers and Egyptians and natives.
Swiftly the two cavalcades approached each other, the desert ringing with
the cries of the Bedouins, the Nubians, and the fellaheen. They met on
an upland of sand, from which the wide valley of the Nile and its wild
cataracts could be seen. As men meet who parted yesterday, Kaid, Nahoum,
and David met, but Kaid's first quiet words to David had behind them a
world of meaning:
"I also have come back, Saadat, to whom be the bread that never moulds
and the water that never stales!" he said, with a look in his face which
had not been there for many a day. Superstition had set its mark on him
--on Claridge Pasha's safety depended his own, that was his belief; and
the look of this thin, bronzed face, with its living fire, gave him vital
assurance of length of days.
And David answered: "May thy life be the nursling of Time, Effendina.
I bring the tribute of the rebel lions once more to thy hand. What was
thine, and was lost, is thine once more. Peace and salaam!" Between
Nahoum and David there were no words at first at all. They shook hands
like Englishmen, looking into each other's eyes, and with pride of what
Nahoum, once, in his duplicity, had called "perfect friendship."
Lacey thought of this now as he looked on; and not without a sense of
irony, he said under his breath, "Almost thou persuadest me to be a
Christian!"
But in Hylda's look, as it met Nahoum's, there was no doubt--what woman
doubts the convert whom she thinks she has helped to make? Meanwhile,
the Nubians smote their mailed breasts with their swords in honour of
David and Kaid.
Under the gleaming moon, the exquisite temple of Philae perched on its
high rock above the river, the fires on the shore, the masts of the
dahabiehs twinkling with lights, and the barbarous songs floating across
the water, gave the feeling of past centuries to the scene. From the
splendid boat which Kaid had placed at his disposal David looked out upon
it all, with emotions not yet wholly mastered by the true estimate of
what this day had brought to him. With a mind unsettled he listened to
the natives in the forepart of the boat and on the shore, beating the
darabukkeh and playing the kemengeh. Yet it was moving in a mist and on
a flood of greater happiness than he had ever known.
He did not know as yet that Eglington was gone for ever. He did not know
that the winds of time had already swept away all traces of the house of
ambition which Eglington had sought to build; and that his nimble tongue
and untrustworthy mind would never more delude and charm, and wanton with
truth. He did not know, but within the past hour Hylda knew; and now out
of the night Soolsby came to tell him.
He was roused from his reverie by Soolsby's voice saying: "Hast nowt to
say to me, Egyptian?"
It startled him, sounded ghostly in the moonlight; for why should he hear
Soolsby's voice on the confines of Egypt? But Soolsby came nearer, and
stood where the moonlight fell upon him, hat in hand, a rustic modern
figure in this Oriental world.
David sprang to his feet and grasped the old man by the shoulders.
"Soolsby, Soolsby," he said, with a strange plaintive-note in his voice,
yet gladly, too. "Soolsby, thee is come here to welcome me! But has
she not come--Miss Claridge, Soolsby?"
He longed for that true heart which had never failed him, the simple soul
whose life had been filled by thought and care of him, and whose every
act had for its background the love of sister for brother--for that was
their relation in every usual meaning--who, too frail and broken to come
to him now, waited for him by the old hearthstone. And so Soolsby, in
his own way, made him understand; for who knew them both better than this
old man, who had shared in David's destiny since the fatal day when Lord
Eglington had married Mercy Claridge in secret, had set in motion a long
line of tragic happenings?
"Ay, she would have come, she would have come," Soolsby answered, "but
she was not fit for the journey, and there was little time, my lord."
"Why did thee come, Soolsby? Only to welcome me back?"
"I come to bring you back to England, to your duty there, my lord."
The first time Soolsby had used the words "my lord," David had scarcely
noticed it, but its repetition struck him strangely.
"Here, sometimes they call me Pasha and Saadat, but I am not 'my lord,'"
he said.
"Ay, but you are my lord, Egyptian, as sure as I've kept my word to you
that I'd drink no more, ay, on my sacred honour. So you are my lord; you
are Lord Eglington, my lord."
David stood rigid and almost unblinking as Soolsby told his tale,
beginning with the story of Eglington's death, and going back all the
years to the day of Mercy Claridge's marriage.
"And him that never was Lord Eglington, your own father's son, is dead
and gone, my lord; and you are come into your rights at last." This was
the end of the tale.
For a long time David stood looking into the sparkling night before him,
speechless and unmoving, his hands clasped behind him, his head bent
forward, as though in a dream.
How, all in an instant, had life changed for him! How had Soolsby's tale
of Eglington's death filled him with a pity deeper than he had ever felt-
the futile, bitter, unaccomplished life, the audacious, brilliant genius
quenched, a genius got from the same source as his own resistless energy
and imagination, from the same wild spring. Gone--all gone, with only
pity to cover him, unloved, unloving, unbemoaned, save by the Quaker girl
whose true spirit he had hurt, save by the wife whom he had cruelly
wronged and tortured; and pity was the thing that moved them both,
unfathomable and almost maternal, in that sense of motherhood which,
in spite of love or passion, is behind both, behind all, in every true
woman's life.
At last David spoke.
"Who knows of all this--of who I am, Soolsby?"
"Lady Eglington and myself, my lord."
"Only she and you?"
"Only us two, Egyptian."
"Then let it be so--for ever."
Soolsby was startled, dumfounded.
"But you will take your title and estates, my lord; you will take the
place which is your own."
"And prove my grandfather wrong? Had he not enough sorrow? And change
my life, all to please thee, Soolsby?"
He took the old man's shoulders in his hands again. "Thee has done thy
duty as few in this world, Soolsby, and given friendship such as few
give. But thee must be content. I am David Claridge, and so shall
remain ever."
"Then, since he has no male kin, the title dies, and all that's his will
go to her ladyship," Soolsby rejoined sourly.
"Does thee grudge her ladyship what was his?"
"I grudge her what is yours, my lord--"
Suddenly Soolsby paused, as though a new thought had come to him, and he
nodded to himself in satisfaction. "Well, since you will have it so, it
will be so, Egyptian; but it is a queer fuddle, all of it; and where's
the way out, tell me that, my lord?"
David spoke impatiently. "Call me 'my lord' no more. . . . But I
will go back to England to her that's waiting at the Red Mansion, and you
will remember, Soolsby--"
Slowly the great flotilla of dahabiehs floated with the strong current
down towards Cairo, the great sails swelling to the breeze that blew from
the Libyan Hills. Along the bank of the Nile thousands of Arabs and
fellaheen crowded to welcome "the Saadat," bringing gifts of dates and
eggs and fowls and dourha and sweetmeats, and linen cloth; and even in
the darkness and in the trouble that was on her, and the harrowing regret
that she had not been with Eglington in his last hour--she little knew
what Eglington had said to Faith in that last hour--Hylda's heart was
soothed by the long, loud tribute paid to David.
As she sat in the evening light, David and Lacey came, and were received
by the Duchess of Snowdon, who could only say to David, as she held his
hand, "Windlehurst sent his regards to you, his loving regards. He was
sure you would come home--come home. He wished he were in power for your
sake."
So, for a few moments she talked vaguely, and said at last: "But Lady
Eglington, she will be glad to see you, such old friends as you are,
though not so old as Windlehurst and me--thirty years, over thirty la,
la!"
They turned to go to Hylda, and came face to face with Kate Heaver.
Kate looked at David as one would look who saw a lost friend return from
the dead. His eyes lighted, he held out his hand to her.
"It is good to see thee here," he said gently. "And 'tis the cross-roads
once again, sir," she rejoined.
"Thee means thee will marry Jasper?"
"Ay, I will marry Jasper now," she answered. "It has been a long
waiting."
"It could not be till now," she responded.
David looked at her reflectively, and said: "By devious ways the human
heart comes home. One can only stand in the door and wait. He has been
patient."
"I have been patient, too," she answered.
As the Duchess disappeared with David, a swift change came over Lacey.
He spun round on one toe, and, like a boy of ten, careered around the
deck to the tune of a negro song.
"Say, things are all right in there with them two, and it's my turn now,"
he said. "Cute as she can be, and knows the game! Twice a widow, and
knows the game! Waiting, she is down in Cairo, where the orange blossom
blows. I'm in it; we're all in it--every one of us. Cousin Hylda's free
now, and I've got no past worth speaking of; and, anyhow, she'll
understand, down there in Cairo. Cute as she can be--"
Suddenly he swung himself down to the deck below. "The desert's the
place for me to-night," he said. Stepping ashore, he turned to where the
Duchess stood on the deck, gazing out into the night. "Well, give my
love to the girls," he called, waving a hand upwards, as it were to the
wide world, and disappeared into the alluring whiteness.
"I've got to get a key-thought," he muttered to himself, as he walked
swiftly on, till only faint sounds came to him from the riverside. In
the letter he had written to Hylda, which was the turning-point of all
for her, he had spoken of these "key-thoughts." With all the
childishness he showed at times, he had wisely felt his way into spheres
where life had depth and meaning. The desert had justified him to
himself and before the spirits of departed peoples, who wandered over the
sands, until at last they became sand also, and were blown hither and
thither, to make beds for thousands of desert wayfarers, or paths for
camels' feet, or a blinding storm to overwhelm the traveller and the
caravan; Life giving and taking, and absorbing and destroying, and
destroying and absorbing, till the circle of human existence wheel
to the full, and the task of Time be accomplished.
On the gorse-grown common above Hamley, David and Faith, and David's
mother Mercy, had felt the same soul of things stirring--in the green
things of green England, in the arid wastes of the Libyan desert, on the
bosom of the Nile, where Mahommed Hassan now lay in a nugger singing a
song of passion, Nature, with burning voice, murmuring down the unquiet
world its message of the Final Peace through the innumerable years.
GLOSSARY
Aiwa----Yes.
Allah hu Achbar----God is most Great.
Al'mah----Female professional singers, signifying "a learned female."
Ardab----A measure equivalent to five English bushels.
Backsheesh----Tip, douceur.
Balass----Earthen vessel for carrying water.
Bdsha----Pasha.
Bersim----Clover.
Bismillah----In the name of God.
Bowdb----A doorkeeper.
Dahabieh----A Nile houseboat with large lateen sails.
Darabukkeh----A drum made of a skin stretched over an earthenware funnel.
Dourha----Maize.
Effendina----Most noble.
El Azhar----The Arab University at Cairo.
Fedddn----A measure of land representing about an acre.
Fellah----The Egyptian peasant.
Ghiassa----Small boat.
Hakim----Doctor.
Hasheesh----Leaves of hemp.
Inshallah----God willing.
Kdnoon----A musical instrument like a dulcimer.
Kavass----An orderly.
Kemengeh----A cocoanut fiddle.
Khamsin----A hot wind of Egypt and the Soudan.
Kourbash----A whip, often made of rhinoceros hide.
La ilaha illa-llah----There is no deity but God.
Malaish----No matter.
Malboos----Demented.
Mastaba----A bench.
Medjidie----A Turkish Order.
Mooshrabieh----Lattice window.
Moufettish----High Steward.
Mudir----The Governor of a
Mudirieh, or province.
Muezzin----The sheikh of the mosque who calls to prayer.
Narghileh----A Persian pipe.
Nebool----A quarter-staff.
Ramadan----The Mahommedan season of fasting.
Saadat-el-bdsha----Excellency Pasha.
Sdis----Groom.
Sakkia----The Persian water-wheel.
Salaam----Eastern salutation.
Sheikh-el-beled----Head of a village.
Tarboosh----A Turkish turban.
Ulema----Learned men.
Wakf----Mahommedan Court dealing with succession, etc.
Welee----A holy man or saint.
Yashmak----A veil for the lower part of the face.
Yelek----A long vest or smock.
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