"I'm going to have another try at him," he said.
She nodded, but without any particular enthusiasm.
George worked over Ryanne for the better part of an hour, and finally the battered man moved. He made an effort to speak, but this time no sound issued from his lips. At the end of the hour he opened his eyes and smiled. It was more like the grin George had once seen upon the face of a boxer who had returned to the contest after having been floored half a dozen times.
"Can you hear me?" asked George.
Ryanne stared into his face. "Yes," thickly. "Where are we?"
"In the desert."
"Which one?"
"Arabian."
Ryanne tried to sit up alone.
"Better not try to move. They banged you up at a great rate. Best thing you can do is to go to sleep. You'll be all right in the morning."
Ryanne sank back, and George bundled him up snugly. Poor devil!
"He'll pull himself together in the morning," he said to Fortune. "I did not know that you knew him well."
"I have known him for eight or nine years. He used to visit my uncle at our villa in Mentone." She smiled. "You look very odd."
"No odder than I feel," with an ineffectual attempt to bring together the ends of his collar-band. "I must be a sight. I was in too much of a hurry to get here. Did you eat the soup and fish?"
"The soup, yes; but I'm afraid that it will be some time before I can find the dried fish palatable. I hope my courage will not fail me," she added, the first sign of anxiety she had yet shown. She was very lonely, very tired, very sad.
It is quite possible that Mahomed, coming over,spoiled a pretty scene; for George had some very brave words upon the tip of his tongue.
"Come," said Mahomed to Fortune. "You will sleep in the little tent. No one will disturb you."
"Good night, Mr. Jones. Don't worry; I am not afraid."
George was alone. He produced one of his precious cigars and lighted it. Then he drew over his feet one of the empty saddle-bags, wrapped his blanket round him, and sat smoking and thinking till the heat of the fire, replenished from time to time, filled him with a comfortable drowsiness; and the cigar, still smoking, slipped from his nerveless fingers, as he lay back upon the hard clay and slept. Romance is the greatest thing in the world; but for all that, a man must eat and a man must sleep.
The cold dew of dawn was the tonic that recalled him from the land of grotesque dreams. He sat up and rubbed his face briskly with his hands, drying it upon the sleeve of his coat, as hasty and as satisfying a toilet as he had ever made. There was no activity in camp; evidently they were not going to start early. The cook alone was busy. The fire was crackling, the kettle was steaming, anda pot of pleasant-smelling coffee leaned rakishly against the hot ashes. The flap to Fortune's tent was still closed. And there was Ryanne, sitting with his knees drawn up under his chin, his hands clasped about his shins, and glowering at no visible thing.
"Hello!" cried George. "Found yourself, eh?"
Ryanne eyed him without emotion.
"When and how did they get you?" George inquired.
"About three hours before they got you. Something in a glass of wine. Dope. I'd have cleaned them up but for that."
"How do you feel?"
"Damned bad, Percival."
"Any bones broken?"
"No; I'm just knocked about; sore spot in my side; kicked, maybe. But it isn't that."
George didn't ask what "that" was. "Where do you think he's taking us?"
"Bagdad, if we don't die upon the way."
"I don't think he'll kill us. It wouldn't be worth his while."
"You did not give him the rug?"
"Not I!"
"It comes hard, Jones, I know, but your giving it up will save us both many bad days. He asked you for it?"
"He did."
"Then why the devil didn't you give it to him? What's a thousand pounds against this muddle?"
"For the simple reason I didn't have it to give up."
"What's that?"
"When I went up to my room, night before last, some one had been there ahead of me. And at first I had given you the credit," said George, with admirable frankness.
"Gone!" There was no mistaking the dismay in Ryanne's voice.
"Absolutely."
"Well, I be damn!" Ryanne threw aside the blanket and got up. It was a painful moment, and he swayed a little. "If Mahomed hasn't it, and I haven't it, and you haven't it, who the devil has, then?"
George shook his head.
"Jones, we are in for it. If that cursed rug isMahomed's salvation, it is no less ours. If we ever reach the palace of Bagdad and that rug is not forthcoming, we'll never see the outside of the walls again."
"Nonsense! There's an American consul at Bagdad."
"And Mahomed will notify him of our arrival!" bitterly.
"Isn't there some way we two might get at Mahomed?"
"Perhaps; but it will take time. Don't bank upon money. Mahomed wants his head. If the rug...." But Ryanne stopped. He looked beyond George, his face full of terror. George turned to see what had produced this effect. Fortune was coming out of her tent. "Fortune? My God!" Ryanne's legs gave under and he sank, his face in his hands. "I see it all now! Fool, fool! He's going to get me, Jones; he's going to get me through her!"
Fortune had slept, but only after hours of watchful terror. The slightest sound outside the tent sent a scream into her throat, but she succeeded each time in stifling it. Once the evil laughter of a hyena came over the dead and silent sands, and she put her hands over her ears, shivering. Alone! She laid her head upon the wadded saddle-bags and wept silently, and every sob tore at her heart. She must keep up the farce of being brave when she knew that she wasn't. The men must not be discouraged. Her deportment would characterize theirs; any sign of weakness upon her side would correspondingly depress them the more. She prayed to God to give her the strength to hold out. She was afraid of Mahomed; she was afraidof his grim smile, afraid of his mocking eyes; she could not sponge out the scene wherein he had so gratuitously kicked Horace in the side. Horace! No, she did not believe that she would ever forgive him for this web which he had spun and fallen into himself. Two things she must hide for the sake of them all: her fear of Mahomed and her knowledge of Ryanne's trickery.
What part in this tragedy had the Arab assigned her? Her fingers twined and untwined, and she rocked and rocked, bit her lips, lay down, sat up and rocked again. But for the exhaustion, but for the insistent call of nature, she would never have closed her eyes that night.
And her mother! What would her mother believe, after the scene that had taken place between them? What could she believe, save that her daughter had fulfilled her threat, and run away? And upon this not unreasonable supposition her mother would make no attempt to find out what had become of her. Perhaps she would be glad, glad to be rid of her and her questions. Alone! Well, she had always been alone.
The only ray of sunshine in all was the presenceof Jones. She felt, subtly, that he would not only stand between her and Mahomed, but also between her and Ryanne.
"Hush!" whispered George. "Don't let her see you like this. She mustn't know."
"You don't understand," replied Ryanne miserably.
"I believe I do." George's heart was heavy. This man was in love with her, too.
Ryanne struck the tears from his eyes and turned aside his head. He was sick in soul and body. To have walked blindly into a trap like this, of his own making, too! Fool! What had possessed him, usually so keen, to trust the copper-hided devil? All for the sake of one glass of wine! With an effort entailing no meager pain in his side, he stilled the strangling hiccoughs, swung round and tried to smile reassuringly at the girl.
"You are better?" she asked.
There was in the tone of that question an answer to all his dreams. One night's work had given him his ticket to the land of those weighed and foundwanting. She knew; how much he did not care; enough to read his guilt.
It appeared to George that she was accepting the situation with a philosophy deeper than either his or Ryanne's. Not a whimper, not a plaint, not a protest so far had she made. She was a Roland in petticoats.
"Oh, I'm bashed up a bit," said Ryanne. "I'll get my legs in a day or so. Fortune, will you answer one question?"
"As many as you like."
"How did you get here?"
"Don't you know?"
George wasn't certain, but the girl's voice was cold and accusing.
"I?"
"Yes. Wasn't it the note that you wrote to me?"
Ryanne took his head in his hands, wearily. "I wrote you no note, Fortune; I have never written you a note of any kind. You do not know my handwriting from Adam's. In God's name, why didn't you ask your mother or your uncle? Theywould have recognized the forgery at once. Who gave it to you?"
"Mahomed himself."
"Damn him!" Ryanne grew strong under the passing fit of rage. "No, don't tell me to be silent. I don't care about myself. I'm the kind of a man who pulls through, generally. But this takes the spine out of me. I'm to blame; it's all my fault."
"Say no more about it." She believed him. She really hadn't thought him capable of such baseness, though at the time of her abduction she had been inclined to accuse him. That he was here, a prisoner like herself, was conclusive evidence, so far as she was concerned, of his innocence. But she knew him to be responsible for the presence of Jones; knew him to be culpable of treachery of the meanest order; knew him to be lacking in generosity and magnanimity toward a man who was practically his benefactor. "What does Mahomed want?"
"The bally rug, Fortune. And Jones here, who had it, says that it is gone."
"Vanished, magic-carpet-wise," supplemented George.
"And Jones would have given it up."
"And a thousand like it, if we could have bought you out of this."
"Jones and I could have managed to get along."
"We shouldn't have mattered."
"And would you have returned to Mr. Jones his thousand pounds?"
"Yes, and everything else I have," quite honestly.
"Don't worry any more about the rug, then. I know where it is."
"You?" cried the two men.
"Yes. I stole it. I did so, thinking to avert this very hour; to save you from harm," to George, "and you from doing a contemptible thing," to Ryanne. "It is in my room, done up in the big steamer-roll. And now I am glad that I stole it."
Ryanne laughed weakly.
Said George soberly: "What contemptible thing?" He recollected Mahomed's words in regard to Ryanne as the latter lay insensible in the sand.
Ryanne, quick to seize the opportunity of solving, to his own advantage, the puzzle for George, and at the same time guiding Fortune away from a topic, the danger of which she knew nothing, raiseda hand. "I bribed Mahomed to kidnap you, Jones. Don't be impatient. You laughed at me when I laid before you the prospectus of the United Romance and Adventure Company. I wished to prove to you that the concern existed. And so here is your adventure upon approval. I thought, of course, you still had the rug. Mahomed was to carry you into the desert for a week, and by that time you would have surrendered the rug, returned to Cairo, the hero of a full-fledged adventure. Lord! what a mess of it I've made. I forgot, next to his bally rug, Mahomed loved me."
The hitherto credulous George had of late begun to look into facts instead of dreams. He did not believe a word of this amazing confession, despite the additional testimony of Fortune, relative to Ryanne's statements made to her in the bazaars.
"The biter bitten," was George's sole comment.
Ryanne breathed easier.
"Why not tell Mahomed at once, and have him send a courier back for the rug?" suggested Fortune.
"By Jove, that clears up everything. We'll do it immediately." George felt better than he had atany stage of the adventure. Here was a simple way out of the difficulty.
"Softly," said Ryanne. "Let us come down to the lean facts. If that rug is in your room, Fortune, your mother has discovered it long before now. She will turn it over to your estimable uncle. None of us will ever see it again, I'm thinking. The Major knows that Jones gave me a thousand pounds for it." Struck by a sense of impending disaster, Ryanne began to fumble in his pockets. Gone! Every shilling of it gone! "He's got that, too; Mahomed; the cash you gave me, Jones. Wait a moment; don't speak; things are whirling about some. Over nine hundred pounds; every shilling of it. We mustn't let him know that I've missed it. I've got to play weak in order to grow strong.... But they will at least start up a row as to your whereabouts, Fortune."
"No," thoughtfully; "no, I do not think they will."
The undercurrent was too deep for George. He couldn't see very clearly just then. The United Romance and Adventure Company; was that all? Was there not something sinister behind that name,concerning him? He looked patiently from the girl to the adventurer.
Ryanne stared at the yellow desert beyond. His brain was clearing rapidly under the stimulus of thought. He himself did not believe that they would send out search-parties either for him or for Fortune. He could not fathom what had given Fortune her belief; but he realized that his own was based upon the recollection of that savage mood when he had thrown down the gauntlet. Now they would accept it. He had run away with Fortune as he had boldly threatened to do. The mother and her precious brother would proceed at once to New York without him. He had made a fine muddle of it all. But for a glass of wine and a grain too much of confidence, he had not been here this day.
Mahomed, himself astir by this time, came over to the group, leisurely. The three looked like conspirators to his suspicious eye, but unlike conspirators they made no effort to separate because he approached. He understood: as yet they were not afraid of him. That was one of the reasons he hated white men; they could seldom be forced to show fear, even when they possessed it. Well,these three should know what fear was before they saw the last of him. He carried akurbash, a cow-hide whip, which he twirled idly, even suggestively. First, he came to George.
"If you have the Yhiordes, there is still a chance for you. Cairo is but fifty miles away. Bagdad is several hundred." He drew the whip caressingly through his fingers.
"I do not lie," replied George, a truculent sparkle in his eyes. "I told you that I had it not. It was the truth."
A ripple of anxiety passed over Mahomed's face. "And you?" turning upon Ryanne, with suppressed savageness. How he longed to lay the lash upon the dog!
"Don't look at me," answered Ryanne waspishly. "If I had it I should not be here." Ah, for a bit of his old strength! He would have strangled Mahomed then and there. But the drug and the beating had weakened him terribly.
"If I give you the rug," interposed Fortune, "will you promise freedom to us all?"
Mahomed stepped back, nonplussed. He hadn't expected any information from this quarter.
"I have the rug," declared Fortune calmly, though she could scarcely hear her own voice, her heart beat so furiously.
"You have it?" Mahomed was confused. Here was a turn in the road upon which he had set no calculation. All three of them!
"Yes. And upon condition that you liberate us all, I will put it into your hands. But it must be my writing this time."
A white man would have blushed under the reproach in her look. Mahomed smiled amiably, pleased over his cleverness. "Where is thekisweh?"
"Thekisweh?"
"The Holy Yhiordes. Where is it?"
"That I refuse to tell you. Your word of honor first, to bind the bargain."
Ryanne laughed. It acted upon Mahomed like a goad. He raised the whip, and had Ryanne's gaze swerved the part of an inch, the blow would have fallen.
"You laugh?" snarled Mahomed.
"Why, yes. A bargain with your honor makes me laugh."
"Andyourhonor?" returned Mahomed fiercely. He wondered why he held his hand. "I have matched trickery against trickery. My honor has not been called. I fed you, I gave you drink; in return you lied to me, dishonored me in the eyes of my friends, and one of them you killed."
"It was my life or his," exclaimed Ryanne, not relishing the recital of this phase. "It was my life or his; and he was upon my back."
Fortune shuddered. Presently she laid her hand upon Mahomed's arm. "Would you take my word of honor?"
Mahomed sought her eyes. "Yes. I read truth in your eyes. Bring me the rug, and my word of honor to you, you shall go free."
"But my friends?"
"One of them." Mahomed laughed unpleasantly. It was an excellent idea. "One of them shall go free with you. It will be for you to choose which. Now, you dog, laugh, laugh!" and the tongue of thekurbashbit the dust within an inch of Ryanne's feet.
"What shall I do?" asked Fortune miserably.
"Accept," urged Ryanne. "If you are afraid tochoose one or the other of us, Jones and I will spin a coin."
"I agree," said George, very unhappy.
"Have you any paper, Jones?"
George searched. He found the dance-card to the ball at the hotel. In another pocket he discovered the little pencil that went with it.
"You write," said Mahomed to Fortune.
"I intend to." Fortune took the card and pencil and wrote as follows:
"Mother:"Horace, Mr. Jones and I are prisoners of the man who owned the rug, which you will find in the large steamer-roll. Give it to the courier who brings this card. And under no circumstances set spies upon his track." In French she added: "We are bound for Bagdad. In case Mahomed receives the rug and we are not liberated, wire the embassy at Constantinople and the consulate at Bagdad.
"Mother:
"Horace, Mr. Jones and I are prisoners of the man who owned the rug, which you will find in the large steamer-roll. Give it to the courier who brings this card. And under no circumstances set spies upon his track." In French she added: "We are bound for Bagdad. In case Mahomed receives the rug and we are not liberated, wire the embassy at Constantinople and the consulate at Bagdad.
"Fortune."
She gave it to Mahomed.
"Read it out loud," he commanded. While he spoke English fluently, he could neither read nor write it in any serviceable degree. The note he had given to Fortune had been written by a friend ofhis in the bazaars who had upon a time lived in New York. Fortune read slowly, slightly flushing as she evaded the French script.
"That will do," Mahomed agreed.
He shouted for one of his boys, bade him saddle thehaginor racing-camel, which of all those twelve, alone was his, and be off to Cairo. The boy dipped his bowl into the kettle, ate greedily, saddled the camel, and five minutes later was speeding back toward Cairo at a gait that would bring him there late that night.
Fortune and George and Ryanne watched him till he disappeared below a dip and was gone from view. In the minds of the three watchers the same question rose: would he be too late? George was cheerful enough thereafter, but his cheerfulness was not of the infectious kind.
At noon the caravan was once more upon its way. Ryanne was able to ride. The fumes of whatever drug had been administered to him had finally evaporated, and he felt only bruised, old, disheartened. An evil day for him when he had set forth for Bagdad in quest of the rug. He was confident that there would be no rug awaiting the courier, andwhat would be Mahomed's procedure when the boy returned empty-handed was not difficult to imagine. Mahomed was right; so far honor had not entered into the contest. According to his lights, the Arab was only paying coin for coin. But for the girl, Ryanne would have accepted the situation with a shrug, to await that moment when Mahomed, eased by the sense of security, would naturally relax vigilance. The presence of Fortune changed the whole face of the affair. Mahomed could have his eyes and heart if he would but spare her. He must be patient; he must accept insults, even physical violence, but some day he and Mahomed would play the final round.
His past, his foolish, futile past: all the follies, all the petty crimes, all the low dissipations in which he had indulged, seemed trooping about his camel, mocking and gibbering at him. Why hadn't he lived clean like Jones there? Why hadn't he fought temptation as he had fought men? Environment was no excuse; bringing-up offered no palliation; he had gone wrong simply because his inclinations had been wrong. On the other hand, no one had ever tried to help him back to a decent living. Hismother had died during his childhood, and her influence had left no impression. His father had been a money-maker, consumed by the pleasure of building up pyramids of gold. He had never reasoned with his youngest-born; he had paid his bills without protest or reproach; it was so much a month to be written down in the expense account. And the first-born had been his natural enemy since the days of the nursery. Still, he could not acquit himself; his own arraignment was as keen as any judge could have made. Strong as he was physically, brilliant as he was mentally, there was a mortal weakness in his blood; and search as he might the history of his ancestors, their lives shed no light upon his own.
In stating that his face had been granted that dubious honor and concern of the perpetrators of the rogues' gallery, he had merely given rein to a seizure of soul-bitterness. But there was truth enough in the statement that he had been short in his accounts many thousands at his father's bank; gambling debts; and in making no effort to replace the loss, he was soon found out by his brother, who seemed only too glad to dishonor him. He was given his choice: to sign over his million, duehim a year later (for at this time the father was dead), or go to prison. The scandal of the affair had no weight with his brother; he wanted the younger out of the way. Like the hot-headed fool he was, he had signed away his inheritance, taken a paltry thousand and left America, facing imprisonment if he returned. That was the kind of a brother he had. Once he had burned his bridges, there came to him a dozen ways by which he could have extricated himself. But once a fool, always a fool!
Disinherited, outcast, living by his wits, ingenious enough; the finer senses callousing under the contact with his inferiors; a gambler, a hard drinker periodically; all in all, a fine portrait for any gallery given over to rogues. And he hadn't worried much over the moral problem confronting him, that the way of the transgressor is hard. It was only when love rent the veil of his fatuity that he saw himself as he really was.
Love! He gazed ahead at Fortune under themahmal. That a guileless young girl as she was should enchain him! That the sight of her should always send a longing into his soul to go back andbegin over! His jaws hardened. Why not? Why not try to recover some of the crumbs of the fine things he had thrown away? At least enough to permit him to go again among his fellows without constantly looking behind to note if he were followed? By the Lord Harry! once he was out of this web of his own weaving, hewouldlive straight; he swore that every dollar hereafter put in his pocket should be an honest one. Fortune could never be his wife. He came to this fact without any roundabout or devious byways. In the first place, he knew that he had not touched her; she had only been friendly; and now even her friendship hung by a thread. All right. The love he bore her was going to be his salvation just the same; and at this moment he was deadly in earnest.
It was after nine when they were ferried across the two canals, the fresh-water and the salt, several miles below Serapeum. The three weary captives saw a great liner slip past slowly and majestically upon its way to the Far East. She radiated with light and cheer and comfort; and all could hear faintly the pulsations of her engines. So near and yet so far; a cup of water to Tantalus! At midnightthey made camp. There were no palms this time; simply a well in the center of a jumble of huge boulders. The tents were pitched to the southwest, for now the wind blew, biting from the land of northern snows; and a fire was a welcome thing. This was Arabia; Africa had been left behind. Here they awaited the return of the courier, who arrived two days later, dead tired. The persons to whom the card had been sent had sailed for Naples with the steamerLudwig. Mahomed turned upon the three miserables.
"I have you three, then; and by the beard of the Prophet, you shall pay, you shall pay! You have robbed and beaten and dishonored me; and you shall pay!"
"Am I guilty of any wrong toward you?" faltered the girl. Her mother had gone. She had hoped against hope.
"No," cried Mahomed. He laughed. "You are free to return to Cairo ... alone! Free to take your choice of these two men to accompany you. Free, free as the air.... Well, why do you hesitate?"
Fortune, without deigning to reply, walked slowly and proudly to her tent, and disappeared within. She looked neither at Ryanne nor at George. She knew that George, his soul filled with that unlucky quixotic sense of chivalry which had made him so easy a victim to her mother, would not accept his liberty at the price of Ryanne's, Ryanne, to whom he owed nothing, not even mercy. And if she had had to ask one of the two, George would have been the natural selection, for she trusted him implicitly. Perhaps there still lingered in her mind a recollection of how charmingly he had spoken of his mother.
She could have set out for Cairo alone: even as she could have grown a pair of wings and sailedthrough the air! The fate that walked behind her was malevolent, cruel, unjust. She had wronged no one, in thought or deed. She had put out her hand confidently to the world, to be laughed at, distrusted, or ignored. Was it possible that a little more than a month ago she wandered, if not happy, in the sense she desired, at least in a peaceful state of mind, among her camelias and roses at Mentone? Her world had been, in this short time, remolded, reconstructed; where once had bloomed a garden, now yawned a chasm: and the psychological earthquake had left her dizzy. That Mahomed, now wrought to a kind of Berserk rage, might begin reprisals at once, did not alarm her; indeed, her feeling was rather of dull, aching indifference. Nothing mattered now.
But Ryanne and George were keenly alive to the danger, and both agreed that Fortune must go no farther.
Ryanne, under his bitter raillery and seeming scorn for sacred things, possessed a latent magnanimity, and it now pushed up through the false layers. "Jones, it's my funeral. Go tell her. You two can find the way back to the canal, and oncethere you will have no trouble. Don't bother your head about me."
"But what will you do?"
"Take my medicine," grimly.
"Ryanne, you are offering the cowardly part to me!"
"You fool, it's the girl. What do you and I care about the rest of it? You're as brave as a lion. When you put up your fists the other night, you solved that puzzle for yourself. For God's sake, do it while I have the courage to let you! Don't you understand? I love that girl better than my heart's blood, and Mahomed can have it drop by drop. Go and go quickly! He will give you food and water."
"You go. She knows you better than me."
"But will she trust me as she will you? Percival, old top, Mahomed will never let me go till he's taken his pound of flesh. Fortune!" Ryanne called. "Fortune, we want you!"
She appeared at the flap of the tent.
"Jones here will go back with you. Go, both of you, before Mahomed changes his mind."
"Miss Chedsoye, he is wrong. He's the one togo. He was hurt worse than I was. Pride doesn't matter at a time like this. You two go," desperately.
Fortune shook her head. "All or none of us; all or none of us," she repeated.
And Mahomed, having witnessed and overheard the scene, laughed, a laughter identical to that which had struck the barmaid's ears sinisterly. He had not studied his white man without gathering some insight into his character. Neither of these men was a poltroon. And when he had made the offer, he knew that the conditions would erect a barrier over which none of them would pass voluntarily. So much for pride as the Christian dogs knew it. Pride is a fine buckler; none knew that better than Mahomed himself; but a wise man does not wear it at all times.
"What is it to be?" he demanded of Fortune.
"What shall I say to him?"
"Whatever you will." Ryanne was tired. He saw that argument would be of no use.
"All or none of us." And Fortune looked at Mahomed with all the pride of her race. "It is not because you wish me to be free; it is because youwish to see one of my companions made base in my eyes. I will not have it!"
"The will of Allah!" He could not repress the fire of admiration in his own eyes as they took in her beauty, the erect, slender figure, the scorn upon her face, and the fearlessness in her great, dark eyes. Such a woman might have graced the palace of the Great Caliph. He had had in mind many little cruelties to practice upon her, that he might see the men writhe, impotent and helpless to aid her. But in this tense and dramatic scene, a sense of shame took possession of him; his pagan heart softened; not from pity, but from that respect which one brave person gives free-handed to another.
Mahomed was not a bad man, neither was he a cruel one. He had been terribly wronged, and his eastern way had but one angle of vision: to avenge himself, believing that revenge alone could soothe his outraged pride and reëstablish his honor as he viewed it from within. Had the courier returned with the Holy Yhiordes, it is not impossible that he would have liberated them all. But now he dared not; he was not far enough away. To Bagdad, then, and as swiftly as the exigencies of deserttravel would permit. One beacon of hope burned in his breast. The Pasha might be deposed, and in that case he could immediately dispose of his own goods and chattels and seek new pastures. It would come hard, doubly hard, since he never could regain the position he was to lose.
Nine hundred pounds English, and a comfortable fraction over; the yellow-haired dog would have nothing in the end for his pains. It would be what the Feringhi called a good joke.
A week passed. Christmas. And not one of them recalled the day. Perhaps it was because years had passed since that time when it meant anything to them. The old year went out a-lagging; neither did they take note of this. Having left behind civilization, customs and habits were forgotten.
Sometimes they rode all day and all night, sometimes but half a day, and again, when the water was sweet, they rested the day and night. Never a human being they saw, never a caravan met or crossed them. In this week, the secret marvels of the desert became theirs. They saw it gleam and waver and glitter under skies of brass, when the north wind let down and a breeze came over fromthe Persian Gulf. They saw it covered with the most amazing blues and greys and greens. They saw it under the rarest azure and a stately fleet of billowy clouds; under the dawn, under the set of sun, under the moon and the stars; and unfailingly the interminable reaches of sand and rock and scrubby bush, chameleon-like, readjusted its countenance to each change in the sky. George, who was a poet without the gift of expression, never ceased to find new charms; and nothing pleased his fancy more than to see the cloud-shadows scud away across the sands. Once, toward the latter end of day, Fortune cried out and pointed. Far away, palely yet distinctly, they saw an ocean liner. She stood out against the yellowing sky as a magic-lantern picture stands out upon the screen, and faded similarly. It was the one and only mirage they saw, or at least noticed.
Once another caravan, composed wholly of Arabs, passed. What hope the prisoners had was instantly snuffed out. Before the strangers came within hailing, Mahomed hustled his captives into his tent and swore he would kill either George or Ryanne if they spoke. He forgot Fortune, however.As the caravan was passing she screamed. Instantly Mahomed clapped his hand roughly over her mouth. The sheik of the passing caravan looked keenly at the tent, smiled grimly and passed on. What was it to him that a white woman lay in yonder tent? His one emotion was of envy. After this the prisoners became apathetic.
Upon the seventh day, they witnessed the desert's terrifying anger. The air that had been cool, suddenly grew still and hot; the blue above began to fade, to assume a dusty, copperish color. The camels grew restless. Quickly there rose out of the horizon saffron clouds, approaching with incredible swiftness. Little whirlwinds of sand appeared here and there, rose and died as if for want of air. Mahomed veered the caravan toward a kind of bluff composed of sand and precipitous boulders. All the camels were made to kneel. The boys muffled up their mouths and noses, and Mahomed gave instructions to his captives. Fortune buried her head in her coat and nestled down beside her camel, while George and Ryanne used their handkerchiefs. George left his camel and sought Fortune's side, found her hand and held it tightly. He scarcelygave thought to what he did. He vaguely meant to encourage her; and possibly he did.
The storm broke. The sun became obscured. Pebbles and splinters of rock sang through the pall of whirling sand. A golden tone enveloped the little gathering.
Had there been no natural protection, they must have ridden on, blindly and desperately, for to have remained still in the open would have been to await their tombs. It spent its fury in half an hour; and the clearing air became cold again. The caravan proceeded. The hair of every one was dimly yellow, their faces and their garments.
When camp was made that night it found the captives untalkative. The girl and the two men sat moodily about the fire. Fatigue had dulled their bodies and hopelessness their minds. The men were ragged now, unkempt; a stubble of beard covered their faces, gaunt yet burned. George had lost his remaining pump, and as his stockings were now full of holes, he had, in the last flicker of personal pride, wound about them some cast-off cloths he had found. There was not enough water forablutions; there was scarcely enough to assuage thirst.
By and by, Ryanne, without turning his head, spoke to George. "You say you questioned the courier?"
"Yes."
"He says he showed the note to no one?"
"Yes."
"And so no one will try to find us?
"No."
Ryanne had asked these questions a dozen times and George had always given the same answers.
Up and away at dawn, for they must reach the well that night. It was a terrible day for them all. Even the beasts showed signs of distress. And the worst of it was, Mahomed was not quite sure of his route. Fortunately, they found the well. They drank like mad people.
Ryanne, who had discovered a pack of cards in his pocket, played patience upon a spot smoothed level with his hand. He became absorbed in the game; and the boys gathered round him curiously. Whenever he succeeded in turning out the fifty-two cards, he would smile and rub his hands together.The boys at length considered him unbalanced mentally, and in consequence looked upon him as a near-holy man.
Between Fortune and George, conversation dwindled down to a query and an answer.
"Can I do anything for you?"
"No, thanks; I am getting along nicely."
To-night she retired early, and George joined Ryanne's audience.
"It averages about nine cards to the play," he commented.
Ryanne turned over an ace. Ten or fifteen minutes went by. In the several attempts he had failed to score the full complement.
George laughed.
"What's in your mind?" cried Ryanne peevishly. "If it's anything worth telling, shoot it out, shoot it out!"
"I was thinking what I'd do to a club-steak just about now."
Ryanne stared beyond the fire. "A club-steak. Grilled mushrooms."
"Sauce Bordelaise. Artichokes."
"No. Asparagus, vinaigrette."
"What's the matter with endives?"
"That's so. Well, asparagus with butter-sauce."
"Grilled sweets, coffee, Benedictine, and cigars."
"And a magnum of '1900' to start off with!" Ryanne, with a sudden change of mood, scooped up the cards and flung them at George's head. "Do you want us both to become gibbering idiots?"
George ducked. He and the boys gathered in the fluttering paste-boards.
"You're right, Percival," Ryanne admitted humbly. "It will not hurt us to talk out loud, and we are all brooding too much. I am crazy for the want of tobacco. I'd trade the best dinner ever cooked for a decent cigar."
George put a hand reluctantly into his pocket. He brought forth, with extreme gentleness, a cigar, the wrapper of which was broken in many places. "I've saved this for days," he said. With his pen-knife he sawed it delicately into two equal parts, and gave one to Ryanne.
"You're a good fellow, Jones, and I've turned you a shabby trick. I shan't forget this bit of tobacco."
"It's the last we've got. The boys, you know, refuse a pull at the water-pipe; defiles 'em, they say.Funny beggars! And if they gave us tobacco, we shouldn't have paper or pipes."
"I always carry a pipe, but I lost it in the shuffle. I never looked upon smoking as a bad habit. I suppose it's because I was never caught before without it. And it is a bad habit, since it knocks up a chap this way for the lack of it. Where do you get your club-steaks in old N. Y.?"
And for an hour or more they solemnly discussed the cooking here and there upon the face of the globe.
By judicious inquiries, George ascertained that the trip to Bagdad, barring accidents, would take fully thirty-five days. The daily journeys proceeded uneventfully. Mahomed maintained a taciturn grimness. If he aimed at Ryanne at all, it was in trifling annoyances, such as forgetting to give him his rations unless he asked for them, or walking over the cards spread out upon the sand. Ryanne carried himself very well. Had he been alone, he would have broken loose against Mahomed; but he thought of the others, and restrained himself—some consideration was due them.
But into the blood of the two men there crept apetty irritability. They answered one another sharply, and often did not speak. Fortune alone seemed mild and gentle. Mahomed, since that night she had braved him, let her go and come as she pleased, nor once disturbed her. Had she shown weakness when most she needed courage, Mahomed might not have altered his plans. Admiration of courage is inherent in all peoples. So, without appreciating it, that moment had been a precious one, saving them all much unpleasantness.
By the twentieth day, the caravan was far into the Arabian desert, and early in the afternoon, they came upon a beautiful oasis, nestling like an emerald in a plaque of gold. So many days had passed since the beloved green of growing things had soothed their inflamed eyes, that the sight of this haven cheered them all mightily. Once under the shade of the palms, the trio picked up heart. Fortune sang a little, George told a funny story, and Ryanne wanted to know if they wouldn't take a hand at euchre. Indeed, that oasis was the turning-point of the crisis. Another week upon the dreary, profitless sands, and their spirits would have gone under completely.
This oasis was close to the regular camel-way, there being a larger oasis some twenty-odd miles to the north. But Mahomed felt safe at this distance, and decided to freshen up the caravan by a two-days' rest.
George immediately began to show Fortune little attentions. He fixed her saddle-bags, spread out her blanket, brought her some ripe dates of his own picking, insisted upon going to the well and drawing the water she was to drink. And oh! how sweet and cool that water was, after the gritty flat liquid they had been drinking! Just before sundown, he and Fortune set out upon a voyage of discovery; and Ryanne paused in his game of patience to watch them. There was more self-abnegation than bitterness in his eyes. Why not? If Fortune returned to her mother, sooner or later the thunderbolt would fall. Far better that she should fall in love with Jones than to go back to the overhanging shadow. A smile lifted the corners of his lips, a sad smile. Percival didn't look the part of a hero. His coat was variously split under the arms and across the shoulders; his trousers were ragged, and he walked in his cloth pads like a manwho had gout in both feet. A beard covered his face, and the bare spots were blistered and peeling. But there was youth in Percival's eyes and youth in his heart, and surely the youth in hers must some day respond. She would know this young man; she would know that adversity could not crush him; that the promise of safety could not make a coward of him; that he was loyal and brave and honest. She would know in twenty days what it takes the average woman twenty years to learn, the manner of man who professed to love her. Ryanne left the game unfinished, stretched himself upon the ground with his face hidden in the crook of his arms. Oh, the bitter cup, the bitter cup!
Round the fire that night, the camel-boys got out their tom-toms and reeds, and the eerie music affected the white people hauntingly and mysteriously. For thousands of years, the high and low notes of the drums (hollow earthen-jars or large gourds covered with goat-skin at one end) and the thin, metallic wail of the reeds had echoed across the deserts, unchanged. The boys swayed to and fro to the rhythm, gradually working themselves into an ecstatic frenzy.
Fortune always remembered that night. Wrapped in her blanket, she had lain down just outside the circle, and had fallen into a doze. When the music stopped and the boys left the prisoners to themselves, George and Ryanne talked.
"I never forget faces," began George.
"No? That's a gift."
"And I have never forgotten yours. I was in doubt at first, but not now."
"I never met you till that night at the hotel."
"That's true. But you are Horace Wadsworth, all the same, the son of the millionaire-banker, the man I used to admire in the field."
"You still think I'm that chap?"
"I am sure of it. The first morning you gave yourself away."
"What did I say?" anxiously.
"You mumbled foot-ball phrases."
"Ah!" Ryanne was vastly relieved. He seemed to be thinking.
"Do you persist in denying it?"
"I might deny it, but I shan't. I'm Horace Wadsworth, all right. Fortune knows something about that chapter, but not all. Strikes you odd,eh?" continued Ryanne, iron in his voice. "Every opportunity in the world; and yet, here I am. How much do you know, I wonder?"
"You took some money from the bank, I think they said."
"Right-O! Wine, Percival; cards, wine and other things. Advice and warning went into one ear and out of the other. Always so, eh? You have heard of my brother, I dare say. Well, he wouldn't lend me two stamps were I to write for the undertaker to come and collect my remains. Beautiful history! I've been doing some tall thinking these lonely nights. Only the straight and narrow way pays. Be good, even if you are lonesome. When I get back, if I ever do, it's a new leaf for mine. Neither wine nor cards nor women."
Silence. The fire no longer blazed; it glowed.
"Who is Mrs. Chedsoye?" George finally began anew.
"First, how did you chance to make her acquaintance?"
"Some years ago, at Monte Carlo."
"And she borrowed a hundred and fifty pounds of you."
"Who told you that?" quickly.
"She did. She paid you back."
"Yes."
"And she hadn't intended to. You poor innocent!"
"Why do you call me that?"
"To lend money at Monte Carlo to a woman whose name you did not know at the time! Green, green as a paddy field! I'll tell you who she is, because you're bound to learn sooner or later. She is one of the most adroit smugglers of the age; jewels and rare laces. And never once has the secret-service been able to touch her. Her brother, the Major, assists her when he isn't fleecing tender lambs at all known games of chance. He's a card-sharp, one of the best of them. He tried to teach me, but I never could cheat a man at cards. Never makes any false moves, but waits for the quarry to offer itself. That poor child has always been wondering and wondering, but she never succeeded in finding out the truth. Brother and sister have made a handsome living, and many a time I have helped them out. There; you have me in the ring, too. But who cares? The father, so I understand,married Fortune's mother for love; she married him for his money, and he hadn't any. Drink and despair despatched him quickly enough. She is a remarkable woman, and if she had a heart, she would be the greatest of them all. She has as much heart as this beetle," as he filliped the green iridescent shell into the fire. "But, after all, she's lucky. It's a bad thing to have a heart, Percival, a bad thing. Some one is sure to come along and wring it, to jab it and stab it."
"The poor little girl!"
"Percival, I'm no fool. I've been watching you. Go in and win her; and God bless you both. She's not for me, she's not for me!"
"But what place have I in all this?" evasively.
"What do you mean by that?"
"Why did Mrs. Chedsoye pay me back, when her original intention had been not to pay me?"
"You'll find all that written in the book of fate, as Mahomed would say. More, I can not tell you."
"Will not?"
"Well, that phrase expresses it."
They both heard the sound. Fortune, her face white and drawn, stood immediately behind them.
It was as if the stillness of the desert itself had encompassed the two men. In their ears the slither of the brittle palm-leaves against one another and the crackle of the fire were no longer sounds. They stared at Fortune with that speechless wonder of men who had come unexpectedly upon a wraith. What with the faint glow of the fire upon one side of her and the pallor of moonshine upon the other, she did indeed resemble man's conception of the spiritual.
Ryanne was first to pull himself together.
"Fortune, I am sorry; God knows I am. I'd have cut out my tongue rather than have hurt you. I thought you were asleep in the tent."
"Is it true?"
"Yes." Ryanne looked away.
"I had not quite expected this: the daughter of a thief."
"Oh, come now; don't look at it that way. Smuggling is altogether a different thing," protested Ryanne. (Women were uncertain; here she was, apparently the least agitated of the three.) "Why, hundreds of men and women, who regularly go to church, think nothing of beating Uncle Sam out of a few dollars. Here's Jones, for instance; he would have tried to smuggle in that rug. Isn't that right, Jones?"
"Of course!" cried George eagerly, though scarcely knowing what he said. "I'd have done it."
"And you wouldn't call Percival a thief," with a forced laugh. "It's like this, Fortune. Uncle Sam wants altogether too much rake-off. He doesn't give us a square deal; and so we even up the matter by trying to beat him. Scruples? Rot!"
"It is stealing," with quiet conviction.
"It isn't, either. Listen to me. Suppose I purchase a pearl necklace in Rome, and pay five-thousandfor it. Uncle Sam will boost up the value more than one-half. And what for? To protect infant industries? Bally rot! We don't make pearls in the States; our oysters aren't educated up to it." His flippancy found no response in her. "Well, suppose I get that necklace through the customs without paying the duty. I make twenty-five hundred or so. And nobody is hurt. That's all your mother does."
"It is stealing," she reiterated.
How wan she looked! thought George.
"How can you make that stealing?" Ryanne was provoked.
"The law puts a duty upon such things; if you do not pay it, you steal. Oh, Horace, don't waste your time in specious arguments." She made a gesture, weariness personified. "It is stealing; all the arguments in the world can not change it into anything else. And how about my uncle who fleeces the lambs at cards, and how about my mother who knows and permits it?"
Ryanne had no plausible argument to offer against these queries.
"Is not my uncle a thief, and is not my motheran abettor? I do not know of anything so vile." Her figure grew less erect. To George's eyes, dimmed by the reflecting misery in hers, she drooped, as a flower exposed to sudden cold. "I think the thief in the night much honester than one who cheats at cards. A card-sharp; did you not call it that? Don't lie, Horace; it will only make me sad."
"I shan't lie any more, Fortune. All that you believe is true; and I would to God that it were otherwise. And I've been a partner in many of their exploits. But not at cards, Fortune; not at cards. I'm not that kind of a cheat."
"Thank you. I should have known some time, and perhaps only half a truth. Now I know all there is to know." She held her hands out before her and studied them. "I shall never go back."
"Good Lord! Fortune, you must. You'd be as helpless as a babe. What could you do without money and comfort?"
"I can become a clerk in a shop. It will be honest. Bread at Mentone would choke me;" and she choked a little then as she spoke.
"My dear Fortune," said Ryanne, calling intolife that persuasive sweetness which upon occasions he could put into his tones, "have you ever thought how beautiful you are? No, I don't believe you have. Some ancestor of your father's has been reincarnated in you. You are without vanity and dishonesty; and I have found that these usually go together. Well, at Mentone you had a little experience with men. You were under protection then; protection it was of a sort. If you go out into the world alone, there will be no protection; and you will find that men are wolves generally, and that the sport of the chase is a woman. Must I make it plainer?"
"I understand," her chin once more resolute. "I shall become a clerk in a shop. Perhaps I can teach, or become a nurse. Whatever I do, I shall never go back to Mentone. And all men are not bad. You're not all bad yourself, Horace; and so far as I am concerned, I believe I might trust you anywhere."
"And God knows you could!" genuinely. "But I can't help you. If I had a sister or a woman relative, I could send you to her. But I have no one but my brother, and he's a worse scoundrelthan I am. I at least work out in the open. He transacts his villainies behind closed doors."
George listened, sitting as motionless as a Buddhist idol. Why couldn'thethink of something? Why couldn'thecome to the aid of the woman he loved in this her hour of trial? A fine lover, forsooth! To sit there like a yokel, stupidly! Could he offer to lend her money? A thousand times, no! And he could not ask her to marry him; it would not have been fair to either. She would have misunderstood; she would have seen not love but pity, and refused him. Neither she nor Ryanne suffered more in spirit than he did at that moment.
"Jones, for God's sake, wake up and suggest something! You know lots of decent people. Can't you think of some one?"
But for this call George might have continued to grope in darkness. Instantly he saw a way. He jumped to his feet and seized her by the hands, boyishly.
"Fortune, Ryanne is right. I've found a way. Mr. Mortimer, the president of my firm, is an old man, kindly and lovable. He and his wife arechildless. They'll take you. Why, it's as easy as talking."
She leaned back against the drawing of his hands. She was afraid that in his eagerness he was going to take her in his arms. She wondered why, of a sudden, she had become so weak. Slowly she withdrew her hands from his.
"I'll cable the moment we reach port," he said, as if reaching port under the existing conditions was a thing quite possible. "Will you go to them? Why, they will give you every care in the world. And they will love you as ... as you ought to be loved!"
Ryanne turned away his head.
Fortune was too deeply absorbed by her misery to note how near George had come to committing himself. "Thank you, Mr. Jones; thank you. I am going to the tent. I am tired. And I am not so brave as you think I am."
"But will you?"
"I shall tell you when we reach port." And with that she fled to the tent.
Ryanne folded his arms and stared at the sand. George sat down and aimlessly hunted for thestub of the cigar he had dropped; a kind of reflex action.
The two men were all alone. The camel-boys were asleep. Mahomed had now ceased to bother about a guard.
"I can't see where she gets this ridiculous sense of honesty," said Ryanne gloomily.
George leaned over and laid his hand upon Ryanne's knee. "She gets it the same way I do, Ryanne—from here," touching his heart; "and she is right."
"I believe I've missed everything worth while, Percival. Till I met you I always had a sneaking idea that money made a man evil. The boot seems to be upon the other foot."
"Ryanne, you spoke about becoming honest, once you get out of this. Did you mean it?"
"I did, and still do."
"It may be that I can give you a lift. You worked in your father's bank. You know something about figures. I own two large fruit-farms in California. What do you say to a hundred and fifty a month to start with, and begin life over again?"
Ryanne got up and restlessly paced. Nonchalance had been beaten out of him; the mercurial humor which had once been so pleasant to excite, which had once given him foothold in such moments, was gone. He had only one feeling, a keen, biting, bitter shame. At length he stopped in front of George, who smiled and looked up expectantly.
"Jones, when you stick your finger into water and withdraw it, what happens? Nothing. Well, the man who gives me a benefit is sticking his finger into water. I'm just as unstable. How many promises have I made and broken! I mean, promises to myself. I don't know. This moment I swear to be good, and along comes a pack of cards or a bottle of wine, and back I slip. Would it be worth while to trust a man so damned weak as that? Look at me. I am six-foot two, normally a hundred and eighty pounds, no fat. I am as sound as a cocoanut. There isn't a boxer in the States I'm afraid of. I can ride, shoot, fence, fight; there isn't a game I can't take a creditable hand in. So much for that. There's the other side. Morally, I'm putty. When it's soft you canmold it any which way; when it's hard, it crumbles. Will you trust a man like that?"
"Yes. Out there you'll be away from temptation."
"Perhaps. Well, I accept. And if one day I'm missing, think kindly of the poor devil of an outcast who wanted to be good and couldn't be. I'm fagged. I'm going to turn in. Good night."
He picked up his blanket and saddle-bags and made his bed a dozen yards away.
George set his gaze at the fire, now falling in places and showing incandescent holes. A month ago, in the rut of commonplace, moving round in the oiled grooves of mediocrity. Bang! like a rocket. Why, never had those liars in the smoke-rooms recounted anything half so wild and strange as this adventure. Smugglers, card-sharps, an ancient rug, a caravan in the desert! He turned his head and looked long and earnestly at the little tent. Love, too; love that had put into his diffident heart the thrill and courage of a Bayard. Love! He saw her again as she stepped down from the carriage; in the dining-room at his side, leaning over the parapet; ineffably sweet, hauntinglysad. Would she accept the refuge he had offered? He knew that old Mortimer would take her without question. Would she accept the shelter of that kindly roof? She must! If she refused and went her own way into the world, he would lose her for ever. She must accept! He would plead with all the eloquence of his soul, for his own happiness, and mayhap hers. He rose, faced the tent, and, with a gesture not unlike that of the pagan in prayer, registered a vow that never should she want for protection, never should she want for the comforts of life. How he was going to keep such a vow was a question that did not enter his head. Somehow he was going to accomplish the feat.
What mattered the ragged beard upon his face, the ragged clothes upon his body, the tattered cloths upon his feet, the grotesque attitude and ensemble? The Lord of Life saw into his heart and understood. And who might say with what joy Pandora gazed upon this her work, knowing as she did what still remained within her casket?
From these heights, good occasionally for any man's soul, George came down abruptly andhumanly to the prosaic question of where would he make his bed that night? To lie down at the north side of the fire meant a chill in the morning; the south side, the intermittent, acrid breath of the fire itself; so he threw down his blanket and bags east of the fire, wrapped himself up, and sank into slumber, light but dreamless.
What was that? He sat up, alert, straining his ears. How long had he been asleep? An hour by his watch. What had awakened him? Not a sound anywhere, yet something had startled him out of his sleep. He glanced over the camp. That bundle was Ryanne. He waited. Not a movement there. No sign of life among the camel-boys; and the flaps of the two tents were closed. Bah! Nerves, probably; and he would have lain down again had his gaze not roved out toward the desert. Something moved out there, upon the misty, moonlit space. He shaded his eyes from the fire, now but a heap of glowing embers. He got up, and shiver after shiver wrinkled his spine. Oh, no; it could not be a dream; he was awake. It was a living thing, that long, bobbing camel-train, coming directly toward the oasis, no doubtattracted by the firelight. Fascinated, incapable of movement, he watched the approach. Three white dots; and these grew and grew and at length became ... pith-helmets! Pith-helmets! Who but white men wore pith-helmets in the desert? White men! The temporary paralysis left him. Crouching, he ran over to Ryanne and shook him.
"What...."
But George smothered the question with his hand. "Hush! For God's sake, make no noise! Get up and stand guard over Fortune's tent. There's a caravan outside, and I'm going out to meet it. Ryanne, Ryanne, there's a white man out there!"
George ran as fast as he could toward the incoming caravan. He met it two or three hundred yards away. The broken line of camels bobbed up and down oddly.
"Are you white men?" he called.
"Yes," said a deep, resonant voice. "And stop where you are; there's no hurry."
"Thank God!" cried George, at the verge of a breakdown.
"What the devil.... Flanagan, here's awhite man in a dress-suit! God save us!" The speaker laughed.
"Yes, a white man; and there's a white woman in the camp back there, a white woman! Great God, don't you understand? A white woman!" George clutched the man by the foot desperately. "A white woman!"
The man kicked George's hand away and slashed at his camel. "Flanagan, and you, Williams, get your guns in shape. This doesn't look good to me, twenty miles from the maingamelieh. I told you it was odd, that fire. Lively, now!"
George ran after them, staggering. Twice he fell headlong. But he laughed as he got up; and it wasn't exactly human laughter, either. When he reached camp he saw Mahomed and the three strangers, the latter with their rifles held menacingly. Fortune stood before the flap of her tent, bewildered at the turn in their affairs. Behind the leader of the new-comers was Ryanne, and he was talking rapidly.
"Well," the leader demanded of Mahomed, "what have you to say for yourself?"
"Nothing!"
"Take care! It wouldn't come hard to put a bullet into your ugly hide. You can't abduct white women these days, you beggar! Well, what have you to say?"
Mahomed folded his arms; his expression was calm and unafraid. But down in his heart the fires of hell were raging. If only he had brought his rifle from the tent; even a knife; and one mad moment if he died for it! And he had been gentle to the girl; he had withheld the lash from the men; he had not put into action a single plan arranged for their misery and humiliation! Truly his blood had turned to water, and he was worthy of death. The white man, always and ever the white man won in the end. To have come this far, and then to be cheated out of his revenge by chance!Kismet!There was but one thing left for him to do, and he did it. He spoke hurriedly to his head-boy. The boy without hesitation obeyed him. He ran to the racing-camel, applied a kick, flung on the saddle-bags, stuffed dates and dried fish and two water-bottles into them, and waited. Mahomed walked over to the animal and mounted.