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With some of his old agility the English boy sprang fromthe pannier, which rested on the ground.
At the periods of rest, the young Englishman saw much of the Persian who, smoking his narghillah, or occasionally reciting stanzas of Oriental verse, indulged in what the Italians call the dolce far niente, yet without appearing to enjoy it, for Ali took actual pleasure in nothing. If anything roused him to interest, it was hearing passages of Scripture repeated by Robin; but Ali seldom commented upon them.
At last the halting-place nearest to Djauf was reached by the travellers, and there they had the satisfaction of meeting with merchants who readily exchanged fruit, sherbet, and other much needed supplies for the silver pieces of the Persian.
"We shall be in Djauf to-morrow," said Ali; as he came, as usual, to superintend the lifting down of the invalid. But Robin, who was in joyous spirits, would suffer no one to help him; with something of his old agility, the English boy sprang from the pannier, which, from the crouching position of the dromedary, rested upon the ground. Ali held out his hand to aid Robin, who grasped the hand with grateful affection.
"You have been very, very good to me!" he exclaimed. "I will never forget your kindness. I have found you a friend indeed!"
That warm grasp, that grateful look, those few words uttered from the heart, were to the cold embittered spirit of the Persian, like spring's warm breath on frost. Ali felt that he had not only found one whom it was possible to trust and even to love, but one who could return kindness with disinterested gratitude, and love with unfeigned affection. Ali had been accustomed to flattery, eye-service, ready proffers of assistance, and profuse assurances of devotion, but to him the English boy's look, words, and grasp were worth more than them all.
"Would that I could keep him always beside me," thought Ali; "what a contrast he is to what Hassan was! The one a black shadow, the other a sunbeam!"
DISCLOSURES.
IT might be the last time that Ali and young Hartley would be alone in that tent together. They were resting through the heat of the day, fur the last stage of the journey to Djauf was to be performed at night, that the city might be entered at sunrise. What lay in the future who could tell? Ali felt intuitively that if Harold were found, the elder brother's society and influence would quite supersede his own. The Persian experienced a pang of jealousy in regard to this rival whom he never had seen, and secretly wished that the search for him might be made in vain.
Robin's spirit was buoyant with hope; he was too eager, too impatient to own himself weak. If Robin rested, it was but that with more untiring energy he might on the morrow pursue his search for his brother. Nor were poor Miss Petty and Shelah forgotten by the Knight of St. John. Their helplessness was quite sufficient to make him their champion. Robin's thoughts and hopes took the form of fervent though unuttered prayer, and this made him much more silent than usual.
Ali, on the contrary, felt inclined to be more than usually communicative to his companion. The Amir had for years been supporting a secret burden, all the heavier because he shared its weight with no one. There are times when, even with proud natures, sorrow longs to find a vent, when pain seeks relief in some outward expression; it was such a time now with the reserved and haughty Amir. Perhaps he was even moved by some desire, unacknowledged even to himself, to know whether another would think his case as desperate as he himself thought it. Thus Ali felt impelled to impart his dark secret to a stranger of a different race and religion; the Amir could hardly have done so to one of his own.
"You look more than usually joyous to-day, Feringhee!" remarked the Persian, after he had been for some minutes watching the expression on the face of his English companion.
"Yes; I am rejoicing in hope," was the cheerful reply.
"It seems to be your nature to hope and rejoice," observed Ali. "I have been comparing you in my mind to a stream that goes sparkling in sunshine, through whose waters one can see every pebble that lies on its bed."
"Because it is so shallow?" asked Robin gaily.
"No; because it was so clear," was the grave reply.
Ali paused, and then went on, not as if addressing himself to Robin, but as if soliloquising to himself, "I have seen a pool, and a deep one, which returns no sparkle to the sun though he shine with noonday brightness upon it. There is a thick mantle of dank vegetation over it, and if it give out anything it is an exhalation which makes men sicken and die."
"I have seen many such pools," observed Robin; "they ought to be cleared out at once."
Ali went on, without taking apparent notice of the interruption: "And if the mantle which covers the pool could be drawn aside—if human eye could pierce its dark depths, it would see a ghastly skeleton below."
Robin looked surprised at this unexpected conclusion to the description. He suspected that it had some horrible meaning, and determined to ask no questions. But his very reticence made Ali less reluctant to speak.
"Did you ever hear anything of my earlier days?" asked the Amir.
"No; hardly any of your party could speak English but yourself," replied Robin, "and I am but beginning to pick up a little Persian. What information I glean must be through my eyes."
"What do they tell you concerning me?" asked Ali.
"That you are not happy," was the reply.
"Happy!" repeated Ali bitterly, as if mockery were in the word. "Listen to the story of my life, and then judge as to my right to be happy. I was the child of very wealthy parents, and as their first-born, and for more than four years their only child, was indulged in every luxury. I was splendidly dressed and richly fed; my very toys were of silver and gold. I knew no law but my will, and amongst our numerous servants none ever dared to oppose it. I could not cross the room without my movements being watched with admiration, nor prattle nonsense without its being repeated by a dozen mouths, as if every word that fell from my lips were a gem."
"That was bad for you," said practical Robin. "When I was a naughty little chap, I used to be put in a corner or sent early to bed."
"I was my mother's idol," continued Ali, "and if I ever loved any one but myself, I truly loved her. She never denied me anything; I was her one darling, her little Shazada (prince) until—until Faiz ul Din was born."
"I am afraid that you did not welcome your little brother," said Robin.
"I regarded the babe as a dethroned monarch might regard a usurper. I could no longer engross my mother's attention; she seemed to me to lavish it all on a troublesome child who did nothing but cry. Faiz ul Din for some months was sickly, and the restoration of his health seemed to be the first—the one object of my mother's desire. Night and day my mother had no thought but for him. If he fancied my toys, he must have them; if he struck me, I must never strike again. As he grew older, the evil grew worse. When we quarrelled, Faiz ul Din's part was always taken. Once when he kicked me, I hit him, and for the first time in my life, I was overwhelmed with reproaches, my indignant mother even struck me on the face with her slipper! A sense of injustice rankled in my mind; jealousy and dislike towards my brother grew with my years. Faiz ul Din was to me as a rival; and if a rival, a foe!"
Robin silently thanked Heaven that he had been brought up in a Christian home, and by one whose justice and good sense equalled her tenderness and her love.
"The mashale may be filled gradually," continued Ali, "but filled till at last it burst. What followed was but the sudden overflow of what had been gathering long. Faiz ul Din was talented; my education had at first been retarded by my dislike to learning anything which cost me trouble; but I was intensely mortified when my younger brother passed me in the race in which I had had more than four years the start. My father was fond of manly exercises, and his sons inherited his taste. After our parent's death, Faiz ul Din and I continued to pursue the sports of hunting and shooting.
"On one too memorable occasion, we made a hunting expedition into a wild part of the country. After a very difficult and prolonged chase, I succeeded in killing a small deer; Faiz ul Din, more fortunate, brought back in triumph the skin of a tiger, slain by his own hand. We both presented the spoils of the chase to our mother. The deer skin was thrown aside; but my mother had the tiger's skin made into a handsome rug, with the head stuffed and jewels put in the place of eyes! In a jealous fit, I struck out these eyes with my dagger, and contemptuously kicked the rug into the verandah. Faiz ul Din came in at the moment, and flew at me as if possessed by the tiger's spirit. There was a struggle between us; though the younger, he was the stronger. Enough—I slew him with the dagger, which was still in my hand."
Robin uttered an exclamation of horror, and intuitively drew himself a little farther away from the murderer of a brother. There had been a ghastly skeleton indeed, at the bottom of the dark pool.
A painful, oppressive silence followed; broken at last by Robin's inquiry, "Did you ever see your poor mother again?"
"No," was Ali's reply; "I fled from the palace as soon as I had secured about me a large sum in gold, and some of my more portable treasures. Hassan, who followed me a day or two afterwards, brought me many more things of value. I made it worth his while to keep silent, and began a series of journeys in various parts of the world, partly to carry on trade in horses and jewels, partly—as I once said to you before—to flee from myself."
Robin could understand the latter reason better than the first. It was to him inexplicable that a man with such a burden of guilt on his soul should care to make money by trading. But Robin was not an Oriental.
"Did your mother know who did the terrible deed?" asked the lad.
"She knew all; the dagger which I left behind, and my sudden flight, were sufficient evidence against me," replied Ali. "My mother cursed me in the presence of her servants! I can never, never meet her again; she is now childless indeed."
"And you can never return to Persia?"
"I do not think that I should incur personal risk by going," replied Ali, in a more indifferent tone; "these things are not looked upon in our land as they are in yours. My countrymen think little of blood being shed in a hasty quarrel, and I have that which would make my peace. But I should hate to return to Persia, bearing with me the weight of a brothers blood and a mother's curse."
Young Hartley felt sickened with horror. He could hardly endure to remain in the presence of one who had committed so terrible a crime. Robin was not sufficiently well read in Oriental history to know how fearfully common fratricide has been amongst Asiatics of the highest rank; nor did he make sufficient allowance for the lowering of the moral standard caused by following a religion that in some cases not only palliates murder, but raises it into a merit. Robin was more given to feel acutely than to calculate deeply. He had not acquired the callousness in regard to sin which often follows familiarity with its loathsome details, like the insensibility to vitiated air which comes from perpetually breathing it. The emotion in the breast of our young Knight of St. John after hearing Ali's story might be well expressed by one most forcible line from Shakespeare—
"Oh! I am sickened with this smell of sin!"
Ali saw the impression made by his words, he had noticed the slight shrinking back from his person, he felt that the only human being whom he had sought to make his friend was lost to him for ever. Tenfold bitterness returned to his spirit. With the haughty air of one who is offended, rather than conscious of having given offence, the Persian rose from his reclining position, and, standing erect, said to young Hartley, who had covered his eyes with his hand, "Enough—you have my secret; can I trust to your honour not to betray it?"
"I will never divulge it; but would that I had never heard it!" was Robin's reply.
The Amir strode out of the tent, heedless of the heat and the glare. His attendants, after taking their noonday repast of fruit, under what shelter the camels and piled luggage afforded, were indulging in a siesta. Ali was the only being awake.
"So it is gone, and never to return, that glimpse of brightness which beguiled me into idle hope!" muttered the Amir to himself. "The very boy who owes his life to me, whom I have watched over, nursed, almost loved, regards me with unconcealed loathing! Well, I will soon liberate him from the presence which he hates; I will keep my promise to take him to Djauf, and then we part, to see each other no more in this world—or the next!"
Ali was not far from the tent, and in the midst of his gloomy reflections, his ear caught low sounds of distress issuing from it. He went nearer and listened. The Persian heard Robin pouring out the anguish of his young loving heart in tones that Ali had never before heard bursting from human lips. The words were uttered between broken sobs, for Robin was too weak to restrain his emotions, and he thought himself quite alone. Ali could distinguish such sentences as these:
"O Lord! Remember Thine own Word; is it not written that, if any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and Thou wilt give him life, for them that sin not unto death. I know not whether this sin is such, but, oh most pitying, most loving Saviour! Have mercy—have mercy on my poor guilty brother! Save him, for Thou only canst save. Thou dost hate sin, but, oh Thou dust love the sinner! Let not my brother perish; give Ali eternal life. Didst Thou not die for him as well as for me?"
Robin's tears were falling fast; his were not the only tears that fell. Ali's eyes, that had never wept since the days of his childhood, were moistened now; the knee that had never been bent in real supplication for mercy was now on the earth, the hard heart was throbbing, and what had been but stern remorse was softening into repentance.
"The Feringhee is pleading for me, God will hear him! The boy calls me brother, the name which he denied to me before, he gives me now! If the disciple think me yet within reach of mercy, will the Master cast me out?"
A BITTER CUP.
IT is now time to return to Harold, and those whom circumstances had placed under his care. Harold's was a strong, firm spirit, but it could hardly bear up under the accumulated afflictions which had so suddenly been heaped upon him. All, indeed, would have been calmly endured, but for the last crushing weight of anguish caused by the loss of his brother. It was terrible to make a calculation as to how long Robin's youth, fine constitution, and brave spirit would be able to maintain a lingering struggle against famine, heat, and thirst—how long it would take to transform the suffering mortal into the rejoicing saint. To have known that Robin had actually died would have been a kind of relief, for Harold was of a less hopeful temperament than his brother. The elder brother did not look for miraculous deliverance from the fiery furnace, but rather for strength to endure the flames.
In his state of deep depression, Miss Petty's thoughtless tongue inflicted perpetual wounds on Harold, as one with a limb crushed under a fragment of rock might yet be sensible to the petty annoyance of an insect's buzz and sting.
"Where do you think that they are dragging us, Harold? Is not this a round-about way to India? Won't the Queen send an army to free us? Do you think we'll be sold as slaves? Are there cannibals in this horrid Arabia?" These, and many other such questions, repeated again and again till a brief reply was extracted, tried sorely the patience of Harold. Whilst, with weary limbs and blistered feet, the young missionary paced the desert way behind the camel, he had to endure this infliction.
After hours of walking, Harold was relieved from his bonds and suffered to mount a camel. This was chiefly an alleviation to misery, because, for a while it relieved him from the necessity of closely following his talkative companion. There was no halt until night, for oases were few and far between; but the excessive length of the stage, which had cost the life of one camel, and the exhausted state of the other unfortunate beasts of burden, compelled a longer rest than usual.
The description of the evening meal need not be repeated. There was little variety in the halts. There was here, however, no sheep to slaughter and no tent to accommodate poor Miss Petty. She and her Lammikin had to bivouac on the bare ground, under the sky. Harold, who was not far from his charges, was startled in the night by shriek upon shriek. Were the Arabs murdering their unfortunate captives? Harold hurried to the spot in time to set his heel on one of the small dark reddish scorpions found in the desert, which had crawled on Shelah's dress.
"Horrible creature! And there's another! I declare that I can't and won't sleep on the sand!" cried Miss Petty, furiously shaking her clothes lest one of the hideous reptiles should be concealed in some fold. But there was nothing else on which to sleep!
Harold returned to his own place near Tewfik, the Bedouin who had first seized him, and who consequently seemed to regard the captive as his own special property. Weariness might have enabled the missionary to find some relief from sorrow in sleep, had he not been kept awake by the loud talking of the Arabs near him. From the few words which he made out, Harold felt assured that he himself was the subject of conversation. What Harold could not understand in the following dialogue, his imagination tolerably well supplied, though gaps of ignorance remained to perplex the mind of the hapless captive.
"We have won poor spoil this time," said the chief of the Shararat band. "These kafirs had hardly a piastre amongst them, the jewels are tinsel and glass; two of the party are dead already, and two of those left are not worth a handful of date-stones."
"Kismat" (fate), was Tewfik's characteristic reply.
"What shall we do with the tall Feringhee?" inquired the chief, glancing towards the spot where Harold was lying.
"Sell him, if we can get a purchaser. It will be strange if no one in Djauf be in want of a slave."
"But he is white; slaves in Arabia are usually curly-headed blacks from the African coast."
"He'll be a choice rarity then, like a white camel," was the laughing reply. Bedouins are fond of a joke.
"The worth of a camel is certainly not in its colour but in its power of bearing burdens," said the chief.
"The Feringhee has plenty of bone and muscle, and spirit too," observed the Bedouin robber; "I have felt the strength of his arm. I should say that he could lift three maund." *
* A maund is 80 lbs.
"No, he's slight—not two," said the chief.
"He's worth forty tomauns of any one's money," cried Tewfik.
"I say thirty; we'll be lucky if we get them," rejoined the other.
There was a little squabbling over this matter of Harold's price. The voices became louder, the manner of the Arabs more excited, especially hot grew the dispute when the subject was how far Tewfik was entitled to the purchase money of his captive, or whether the coveted tomauns should not be divided amongst the band.
"Son of an ass!" exclaimed the chief angrily. "Three such as you could not have mastered that Feringhee had not we been near to aid!"
"A slave! A price to be given for me—an Englishman! This is the last drop in my bitter, bitter cup!" thought Harold. "Was it for this that I left my country and devoted myself to work for souls? Could I not have been spared such misery, such humiliation as this? But I see before me the footprints of One who drank of a cup yet more bitter, who submitted to degradation yet deeper. It was through anguish that the Master passed to glory, shall the disciple shrink back? But is it cowardice to hope that the misery may be short, that I may in mercy be soon permitted to rejoin my dear lost brother!"
The wrangling amongst the Bedouins ended in compromise; Tewfik was to keep a third of the money paid for his unhappy slave, and the Arab's good temper being restored, he laughingly told the chief that he would freely throw the old woman and her child into the bargain.
"I would not give a lame ass for the two," quoth the chief.
DESERT DANGERS.
IF poor Miss Petty had been wretched when she had at last stretched herself on her hard sandy bed, to be pursued even in her dreams by scorpions, she awoke to a joyful surprise.
"Look, look, Shelah!" exclaimed Theresa, rousing her tired little companion. "We've got to the end of horrid Arabia at last! No more brackish wells, with water not fit for a pig to bathe in; no more barren sand! See these shady trees before us—no doubt they are laden with fruit,—see the clear delicious water! It was horrid to have only a rub of hot dry sand in the place of good soap and water!"
Shelah rubbed her sleepy eyes, then jumped up, clapped her hands with delight, and shouted for joy. No wonder that the poor wanderers over barren wastes, under a blazing, scorching sun, with scarcely any vegetation visible but a few stunted trees, or prickly bushes in favoured spots, should be transported at the beautiful view which now met their delighted eyes. Great was the joy of beholding a large clear lake, dotted with verdant isles, which looked as if they must be the homes of bright-plumaged birds, and butterflies without number!
"It's India—I know it's India!" cried Shelah. "For papa told me that Bombay is an island, and that he would feast me on lots of mangoes and plantains. I'll just go on eating fruit from morning till night, and stuff some under my pillow to take as soon as I open my eyes!"
"And we'll be rowed about in gay boats," began Miss Petty, then, interrupting herself as she caught sight of Harold approaching, she exclaimed, "Oh! Is not this a sight to make one dance with joy!"
"A deceitful joy," said Harold sadly; "you are looking on a mirage. What appears like water is only sand."
"I don't believe it!" cried Miss Petty. "Can't I trust my own eyes?"
"I'm sure that's water!" exclaimed little Shelah.
Harold was at the moment called away by Tewfik, who wanted to make trial of his captive's strength and skill in loading a camel. Before obeying the call, Hartley repeated to Miss Petty his assertion that the supposed island-studded lake was but an optical delusion common in desert lands.
"Harold is perked up with his book-learning," observed Miss Petty, "but he's not so much wiser than his elders. Don't I know a lake when I see one!"
"I'm going to have a dip, a jolly good dip!" cried Shelah, whose spirits rose like an india-rubber ball when pressure is removed. Off she rushed, impelled by charming hopes of splashing about in the water, followed by Miss Petty, who half forgot weariness and misery in her eagerness to reach—what did not exist!
Poor Theresa! That search after the supposed lake was an emblem of what her whole life had been; impelled by vanity, worldliness, selfishness, her hair had grown grey, her years had been wasted in the pursuit of the world's deceitful mirage.
In the meantime, Harold joined the group of Arabs who were standing in a semi-circle round a collection of mashales, filled almost to bursting with a supply of water which was to last the whole party for three long days. Each of these brown water-bags was made of the entire skin of a sheep, the head and legs excepted, the place where the neck had been, serving, when unfastened, as a channel through which the water could flow.
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The Arabs laughed to see the Feringhee take up in his armswhat ought to be borne on the back.
"Lift that!" said Tewfik to Harold, in a tone of command.
The Englishman's pride rose in arms; he was no slave of a dirty ignorant Bedouin, to do for him the work of a bihiste! But common-sense showed Harold that such pride was worse than folly; he was not told to do anything wrong, and he had no power to resist with success. The stately form was bowed, and Harold raised the heavy weight by an effort of sheer strength, for he had not the professional skill of a water-carrier. The Arabs laughed to see the Feringhee take up in his arms, as he would have done a child, what ought to be borne on the back.
"Put another mashale upon him, where a mashale should be!" shouted Tewfik.
As Harold was about to drop the first heavy skin, the Bedouin bade him forbear. "You shall carry a double load!" exclaimed the Arab. "One in your own way and one in mine. Bend your proud back to receive it."
"It is beyond my strength," said Harold, in what Arabic he could command.
"We will soon see if such be the case!" cried Tewfik, raising a staff which he had in his hand, as if with intention to strike.
But the stick did not descend, nor was the double burden lifted by the pale-faced captive.
A sudden exclamation from the chief caused all eyes to be suddenly turned towards the south, from which came a gust of wind so oppressively hot, that it seemed as if it had come direct from a roaring furnace. Every Arab, as if by instinct, muffled his face in his mantle, and then threw himself on the ground; the camels, which had been kneeling, stretched themselves out, and lay with their long necks extended, and their noses resting on the sand. Not a word was spoken save the exclamation, "The simoom! Allah save us!" which burst from the chief, as he placed himself so that his camel should be between him and the poisonous blast which was sweeping towards the encampment. The sky had almost suddenly become terribly dark, with a livid tint of purple towards the south. Harold dropped the mashale, and crouched behind it, resting his brow against the moist skin.
Then swept the deadly simoom of the desert upon the party, almost suffocating them with the burning sand which, it has been said, sometimes not only kills, but so effectually buries its victims that no traces remain to tell where they lie! To Harold the scorching blast felt like the breath of the angel of death, and he was tempted to pray that to him it might be such indeed. But life was strong within the young Englishman still: the rushing simoom came and passed over the prostrate men and beasts, as the heaviest trials sometimes come, and pass away.
The cloud of hot sand went sweeping on, and—though with garments clagged with what it had left behind—the Arabs were able to rise from the ground, uttering ejaculations which—at least from Harold's lips—took the form of thanksgiving. Yes, the poor captive could thank God, he scarcely knew why, that his life was prolonged; perhaps there was some undefined hope that it had been spared for some gracious purpose, if for suffering, still for service. Some blows might yet be struck in the good cause by the Knight of St. John.
But the simoom of the Arabian desert had had its message for one who had indeed suffered but never served. Theresa Petty, lured by the mirage, had wandered from the encampment, and had been overtaken by the poisonous blast. Being utterly unprepared for it, the unhappy woman had been smitten down, as if laid low by a scythe. The accident, as it seemed, of her lying half over Shelah O'More, and so forming a kind of screen to the terrified child, had been the means of preserving the poor little girl.
It was Shelah's bitter cry which guided the Arabs to the spot, as they were passing on their way towards Djauf. They had indeed missed their captives from the party, but Harold could not persuade the Bedouins to make any search for those whom they deemed of little value. Hartley, who was on foot, went up to the place where Shelah sat crying in helpless distress.
"Where is Miss Petty?" he hastily inquired of the child.
"She's there," said Shelah, pointing to what looked like a low, a very low mound of sand.
Harold hastily removed some of the sand, uncovering enough to ascertain that life was quite extinct.
"Dead!" he said in an undertone, but it caught the ear of Shelah.
"Dead!" repeated Shelah in turn. "The good lady is dead, and Robin, and now she is dead—I think it will be my turn next!"
"I hope not," said Harold gently.
"Would you mind?" asked Shelah.
The artless question touched Harold's heart. "Yes, I should mind very much, Shelah," he said.
The poor child, sobbing, threw herself into his arms, and clung to the only being near who cared whether she lived or died.
Harold had not a minute even to utter a prayer by Miss Petty's corpse. The Arabs, who had been already delayed in their journey by the simoom, insisted on his instantly joining the march, and, had Harold lingered, would have used force to compel submission. Gently young Hartley raised Shelah, so that, without dismounting, an Arab could place her before him on his camel. Harold himself had to go on foot.
The caravan moved slowly on, leaving the corpse of Miss Petty behind. There was a strange similarity between the fate of Grace Evendale and that of Theresa, both dying in an Arabian desert with but a single human being near, both left in unknown, unmarked graves. And yet the difference between them was as that between the convict and the conqueror; one going into endless exile, the other departing to receive a crown. The comparison suggests less of similarity than of contrast.
ONLY ONE LAMB.
THERE is a beautiful story, with which many are familiar, of a good missionary who, when too aged to go on with the work which he loved, was found meekly teaching the alphabet to a little child, thankful that he had still power to perform this humble labour for God. Harold was reminded of this anecdote by the position in which he found himself in relation to poor little Shelah.
The child, desolate and helpless in a land of strangers, where the name of Christian was scarcely known, had no one to whom to look for kindness and protection but Harold. He had regarded her as unlovely and unloveable; Shelah, in her merrier days, had excited no sympathy in his mind; but Christian pity now touched a chord, and that chord wakened something like music in young Hartley's desolate spirit. As he marched on painfully in the heat, keeping as near as he could to the camel on which poor Shelah was perched, Harold thought much of the future fate of the young Irish girl. She was of good family, her father a distinguished officer in the army, and Shelah was his only child. When the news of her having been carried off by Arabs should reach India, efforts, and strenuous ones, would doubtless be made for her deliverance. But Arabia was a large country in which to search, without newspapers for advertisements, or postal system for letters, or wires to flash messages with lightning speed.
"Were I to be separated from Shelah, which is likely enough," thought Harold, "or were anything to happen to me, all trace of the child might be utterly lost. Shelah would be buried in some Mahomedan zenana, and childish and thoughtless as she is, would probably soon forget everything about her family and her language. I doubt whether the poor girl would remember her own name for a month. I wish that I had some means of stamping it—either on her form or her memory."
Harold glanced up at the little girl, who still wore her cardinal's hat, though its colour had almost entirely faded. The motion of the camel made Shelah appear as if being rocked on waves; she was clinging to the large bundles strapped on the camel, in order to feel the motion less. Harold raised his voice that it might reach the child.
"What is your name?" he asked, to see how far she was able to identify herself with the daughter of Sir Patrick O'More.
"Lammikin," cried Shelah, looking down from her perch.
"Tell me your other name," said Harold.
"I don't want another name; I'm just Lammikin; that is what Robin used to call me."
"This will never do," thought Harold. Again he raised his voice:
"Do you know the name of your father?"
"Papa," was the ready reply, and Harold could draw no other.
"Do you know, my child, where he lives?"
"In some island; but I don't like islands—they are nothing but sand."
"And like sand is your memory," thought Harold, realising how short a time it would take to obliterate almost everything from a mind such as Shelah O'More's. The young man compassionated the misery to be endured, perhaps for many long years, by loving parents making a wearisome, never-ending, useless search in these wild regions after an only child, hope growing fainter and fainter, and at last dying away in despair.
A thought occurred to the missionary's mind.
"Shelah, you love singing," he said; "shall I make a little song for you to sing as you travel along?"
"It's hard to sing with the big beast bumping me up and down like this," replied Shelah. "But I do like songs, most of all if they're funny."
Harold, to an easy, popular air, which he had often heard the child humming, gave the following jingling rhyme. How strange it was to find himself singing:
"Shelah O'More; I'm Shelah O'More;Take me to India's bright, beautiful shore."
The little device had instant success. Shelah for a few moments loosened her clinging hands in order to clap them.
"I like that song!" she exclaimed, and instantly began to sing it. Then she paused to ask a question.
"Shall I find the good woman and Robin on India's bright, beautiful shore?" said the child.
"No," replied Harold, with a quivering lip; "they have gone to heaven's shore, which is more bright and beautiful by far."
"Then I'll change the song!" cried Shelah, and she instantly sang out:
"Take me to heaven's bright, beautiful shore."
Harold took the hint unconsciously given. He who had hoped to gather in a Christian flock from amongst the heathen, had here his charge confined to that of one child, a single lamb to feed for the Master.
"I want you to try something besides singing, poor Lammikin," he said. "I want to teach you a little prayer to be said night and morning. It will, I hope, help you to reach the beautiful place."
Shelah again loosened her grasp, and clasped her little sunburnt hands together.
"Say—'Please, Lord, make Shelah a good child, for Christ's sake,'" said Harold, choosing the simplest petition which rose to his mind.
"I know a better prayer than that," said Shelah.
"'O God, teach me to love Thee, for the sake of the Lord Jesus.'
"The kind lady taught me to say that, and Robin gave me a verse:
"'God is love.'"
"Keep those two precious remembrances of them!" exclaimed Harold, his dry, heated eyes relieved by unwonted moisture. "Sing them daily, say them again and again, till we all meet on the beautiful shore."
Harold himself was no longer utterly wretched. That calm spirit of submission had come over his mind, which has been compared to the bending down of the ripe, golden corn, the sign that the harvest time is near.
So onward proceeded Hartley with the Arab banditti towards Djauf; whilst Robin, with the Persians, was from another quarter impatiently pressing on in the same direction. But the little delay which had been occasioned by Hassan's flight on Firdosi had prevented the two movements from coinciding in point of time. In the city of Djauf the two young Knights of St. John were never to meet.
SLAVERY.
THE pen of an eloquent traveller has thus described the city which Harold and the Shararat Bedouins entered after their painful journey through the desert.
"A broad deep valley, descending ledge after ledge, till its innermost depths are hidden from sight amid far-reaching shelves of reddish rock; below, everywhere studded with tufts of palm-groves, and clustering fruit-trees in dark green patches down to the farthest end of its windings; a large brown mass of irregular masonry crowning a central hill; beyond, a tall and solitary tower overlooking the opposite bank of the hollow, and farther down small round turrets and flat house-tops half buried amid the garden foliage."
"Is this India, bright beautiful India at last!" exclaimed Shelah, looking on the lovely scene with delight. To her, at least, the sight of houses and fruit-trees gave unmingled pleasure; the child, enjoying the present, neither took thought for the future, nor felt regret for the past.
Djauf presented an unusually gay appearance on the morning when it was entered by Harold and the Bedouin band. It was the day closing the grand festivities with which were celebrated the marriage of the Arabian Governor's eldest daughter. The bazaars were crowded with people in the gayest of Oriental costumes, and noisy with drums and other instruments unpleasing to European ears, with vociferous shouting and gabbling in half-a-dozen different tongues. The inhabitants of the city were easily distinguished from the wild sons of the desert, being taller in stature, lighter in complexion, and franker in manner, with long curling black locks; the Djaufites showed to advantage beside the suspicious-looking Bedouins.
Here Persians went prancing by on their high-mottled steeds, there Arabs, wearing red cotton vests with large hanging sleeves, their heads enwrapped in kerchiefs striped red and yellow, lounged along or chattered at the numerous stalls piled with sweetmeats for which Djauf is famed. Bihistes, bending under their burdens were with difficulty making their way through the crowds, stopping frequently to impart "the gift of God" to the thirsty. Camels, donkeys, cattle, helped to block up the roads, but no one seemed to be in a hurry. The day was one intended for pleasure, and Shelah enjoyed the bright changing scene and the noise, as if all the tamasha had been got up for her special amusement.
The centre of all the excitement and gaiety is the castle in which the governor dwells, and from which the bridal procession is in a short time to emerge. This castle is a large mass of irregular masonry, with a thick tower in the centre, suggestive rather of strength than of beauty. We will enter through the arched gate, and cross the large paved court, which is crowded with the bridegroom's followers and the governor's armed retainers. A hundred sabres flash in the sun, intermingled with guns, and weapons of ruder construction. Turbans of various hues, high caps, the fez, the kerchief twisted round the head, embroidered cloaks bordered with silver and gold, here a red mantle, there a costly shawl, with glitter of sparkling jewels which, in the East, are by no means left to the exclusive use of women, make the scene suggestive of one read of in the "Arabian Nights."
An inner court brings us into the Governor's large reception room called the Khawah, where the potentate of Djauf sits in state, propped on his gold-striped cushions, to receive the congratulations of his numerous guests. The bride is not visible; we must imagine her dressed in red and gold, and almost weighed down with jewels, the central point of interest in the zenana, which is as densely crowded with chattering women as the court and banqueting room are with men.
But in the midst of the brilliant scene, a cloud is on the Governor's face. He had promised to his son-in-law the gift of a favourite Nubian slave, skilled in music, perfect in the art of preparing coffee, something of a jester withal, and behold! On the very day of the departure of the wedded pair, Barahat has fallen down and broken his leg, after—oh! shameful sound to Mahomedan ears!—too free indulgence in the forbidden!
"Let not his Highness's mind be disturbed," said a courtier, whose head was encircled with a kerchief adorned with a broad band of camels' hair, skilfully entwined with bright coloured silk. "If the Nubian fell, it was kismat (fate), the loss of a slave is more easily supplied than that of a good horse. Some Shararat Bedouins came into the city at daybreak, bringing with them a handsome slave, of the complexion of a Circassian and the mien of a prince, and a white child with hair red as the beard of the Prophet. The slaves are both for sale."
"Of what race? Where found? What price do the robbers demand?" asked the ruler of Djauf.
"They come from some Wiliyati (European) land," said the Arab; "no robber tells where he found his spoil, these slaves may have been taken from some wreck on the coast. Sixty gold tomauns are asked for the young man, and twenty for the girl."
"What can they do?" asked the Governor, after for a brief space turning over the subject in his mind, whilst leisurely sipping his coffee.
The courtier gave a list of accomplishments to which Harold certainly laid no claim. The white slave was a poet, a musician; the girl who accompanied him danced to his playing.
The Arab would not have dared to have declared all this had he not thought that, the bridal party being on the point of starting for a place distant hundreds of miles from Djauf, there was no danger of detection. The sinfulness of fraud and falsehood never troubled the conscience of the Arab, for he could not be said to possess one. He had been nurtured on lies, and felt rather pride than shame at success in cheating his employer.
After obtaining from the governor the eighty pieces of gold, the courtier hurried off to make his purchases from the Shararat Arabs. It brought the hot blood to Harold's pale cheek when, standing silently by, he heard the wrangling, the eager bargaining, the noisy asseverations, the blasphemous appeals to heaven, over the sale of an Englishman. It was humiliating to have his price beaten down, as if he had been some mere beast of burden.
"What are they saying? Why are they so angry? What are they quarrelling about?" asked Shelah. "And why are they looking so hard at me?" Harold could not give utterance to a reply to the questions asked by the poor little slave.
"After all," thought Harold, "I am not the first one of the Lord's people to have to endure the humiliation of having a price put upon me." Harold remembered Joseph; he remembered One far more exalted than Israel's son, for whose sacred person pieces of silver had been counted down. It is only in sin that there is shame.
The courtier was skilful in the art of bargaining, and, after at least half-an-hour given to noisy disputing, he paid down forty tomauns for Harold, Shelah being thrown in as a make-weight by Tewfik, who considered the baronet's child as a thing of no value at all.
The first result of a change of masters was a very welcome one to the slaves. Harold had been unable to change his garments since the day when he had fallen into Bedouin hands; and this, with the impossibility of bathing, had been to the English gentleman one of the most unsupportable of his trials. But, having become a gift from the Governor of Djauf to his high-born son-in-law, the slave must appear in befitting guise, with not a grain of dust upon him. Hartley had at once the luxury of a bath, and then was clothed from head to foot in spotless white, a muslin turban was wound around his head, and around his waist was twisted a kamarband of crimson and gold.
Given over to the charge of some Arab women, Shelah also underwent a transformation. Greatly enchanted with her finery, Shelah met Harold about an hour afterwards. The Lammikin was attired in yellow gauze, spangled with silver, her red locks hidden under a large veil of the same gaudy material.
"Am I not grand?—Like a queen!" exclaimed Shelah. "And are not these people kind to dress me like this! But oh, Mr. Hartley!" added the Lammikin, as she looked up with wondering admiration at Harold in his Oriental costume. "You are quite beautiful! You look like one of the angels in the book of Bible pictures! You want nothing but white wings! Do you think that they will grow?" asked the child.
The faintest of smiles rose to Harold's lips at the artless question. He thought, with a sigh, of the verse:
"'Oh, that I had wings like a dove, then would I flee away and be at rest!'"
A PROMISE.
"How beautiful the hour of early dawn,When the first rays glance up the Eastern sky,When the bright fingers of the fresh'ning mornDraw back the veil of dark obscurity,And give all Nature's beauties to the eye,Her fairest scenes unfolding to the view;The lark with buoyant pinion mounts on high,And on the emerald lawn the pure soft dewSparkles with every beam which breaks the bright cloudsthrough."Thus on the night of ignorance and sinThe radiant morning of Conversion breaks,A beam from heaven seems to shine within;And, as the lark his earthly nest forsakesAnd upward soars towards the source of light,—From bonds of sin the soul enraptured breaks,And—winged by Faith—springs on her upward flightTill that clear day when Faith itself is lost in sight!"
A CHANGE, something like that described above, had come over the spirit of Ali, the Persian. The Amir had never been an enthusiastic follower of the False Prophet, and what Ali had heard and seen during his travels in various lands had extinguished any respect that he had felt for the Mahomedan faith. He had long suspected the Koran to be a tissue of lies palmed upon Arabian credulity by an impostor, a book unworthy of comparison with the Bible, which Ali had sometimes read in a cursory manner. But to leave hold of a false religion is a very different thing from grasping a true one. To extinguish smoky lamps is not a means of calling in the radiant day.
Ali, till he met a simple, true-hearted Christian, was an unbeliever as regarded the power of any faith to change the life. The Amir had been unfortunate in meeting with several nominal Christians, had shrewdly compared their conduct with their creed, and rejected the latter because inconsistent with the former. Ali had, as many do, found a refuge against the shafts of conscience in carping criticism of others; he was not worse, so he thought, than many who believe themselves certain of heaven through the merits of One whose example they do not follow, whose commands they do not obey.
But Ali's eyes were now opened; he looked on himself as stained with sin, and saw in Christianity, such as the Hartleys had embraced, the only means of being saved from eternal condemnation. No longer the Persian listened to Robin's recitals from Scripture in the spirit of a critic; for Ali was thirsting for the water of life, and could not pause to comment on the form of the cup which held it. Robin was delighted, but not surprised, to find that his prayers had been heard, for had he not pleaded with One whom Scripture describes as the Hearer of prayer?
It was at night, during the last halt made before Djauf would be reached, that Ali confessed to Robin his own desire to become a Christian.
Robin's eyes sparkled with joy.
"I will accompany you and your brother to India as soon as it is possible to do so," said the Amir, "study your Scriptures thoroughly, and then receive baptism without delay."
The expressive face of Robin was suddenly shaded, as if by a doubt.
"How, do you not desire me to become a Christian?" asked the Persian quickly.
"I wish it intensely!" cried Robin.
"And have I not already given myself to the Saviour, has Christ not entered my heart?"
"Have you given yourself to Him out and out?" asked the youth. "If Christ have entered your heart are you ready to do His will in all things?"
"My future conduct will show it."
"But what of the past?" said the younger Hartley, looking on the ground as he spoke, for he felt pain in giving pain.
"The past cannot be recalled—you have said that all is forgiven."
"Yes—as far as regards God; but we must make what amends we can to man also. When Christ came to Zacchaeus, the publican received free salvation, but still he said, 'Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor, and if I have done wrong to any man I restore him fourfold.'"
"I do not understand you, boy!" said Ali, and very deep grew the furrow on his brow. "I have taken one life, and I cannot restore it; God does not require an impossibility."
Robin was silent, he knew not how to express what was on his mind: but Ali was resolved to have an explanation.
"If you were in my place what would you do?" asked the Amir.
"I do not know what I should do, but I know what I should feel that I ought to do," replied Robin, with some reluctance.
"What might that be?" asked Ali, looking the young Englishman full in the face with his keen, piercing eyes.
Robin met the gaze as he made reply, "Go to my mother, entreat her forgiveness, and then give myself up to justice."
This was so contrary to any idea which had ever been entertained by the Oriental, that his first emotion was that of astonishment at the childish simplicity which could make so absurd a suggestion. However, Robin was evidently in earnest, the warm blood was mantling even to his brow, and he intuitively clenched his hand as if realising what an effort it would cost him, what courage he felt that it would require to do what he deemed to be right in so terrible a case.
Ali did not lose his temper, but his voice sounded harsh as, after a pause of some minutes, he expressed himself as follows:
"There is no justice—I mean according to English ideas—in Persia. If I became my own accuser, I should but be regarded as a fool. I should not be injured in life or limb, but every hanger on at a corrupt court would seize on the opportunity of robbing me of every piastre that I possess. I should be stripped of all that I have inherited, all that I have made by skilful speculations in jewels and horses since leaving Persia. I should simply be reduced to a penniless beggar; unless, indeed, by speaking out my opinion regarding Mahomet, I should be promoted to the rank of a martyr."
"But surely you should visit your mother?"
"It would be more tolerable to me to own myself a murderer in the palace of the Shah, than to face her whom I have bereaved of her favourite son!" exclaimed Ali. "I would rather enter the den of a lion than the presence of my mother!"
"Would you not enter the den of a lion if the Lord bade you do so?" asked the Knight of St. John.
The struggle in Ali's mind was only shown by the deepening shade on his face, and the slight convulsive movement of the lip. Then he demanded, "Does the Lord command me to go to the mother who cursed me."
"She would forgive you—"
"Never; she would trample me under foot!" interrupted Ali, passionately.
Robin would not, could not believe that any mother could act thus to a penitent son. The English youth had been brought up to feel uneasy until he had asked forgiveness of any one whom he had wronged. He could not imagine how it could be possible for a son to remain year after year under the wrath of a deeply injured mother without imploring her pardon.
"Even if she spurned you," said Robin, "if she refused to listen to you, at least you would have the satisfaction of feeling that you had done what you could."
This was as a new light on the dark pathway of the Persian Amir. That feeling would be a satisfaction, and to obtain it was worth some risk. But still Ali shrank back from so painful a test of obedience to his newly found Lord. There was again a pause of silence, and then the Persian said, "I would only go, if you, my young brother, would consent to go with me."
Such a condition startled Robin; it was almost equivalent to asking him for his freedom or life. He had never anticipated a request to go to Persia, and entirely alter the plans for his future career.
Yet it was not strange—nor even unreasonable—that Ali should desire a Christian companion, and it was important that one so young in the faith should have one. Robin did not stop to weigh consequences, any more than he had paused to reflect on the risk before plunging into the sea to rescue Shelah; holding out his hand to Ali, he cried, "Only set Harold and the others free, and I will go with you—wherever you will!"
Ali grasped the proffered hand, and the compact was silently sealed by that action; the Persian felt that the Englishman would never recall his plighted word. Ali quitted the tent to give orders, and left Robin Hartley to his reflections.
Very, very bitter were those reflections. Poor Robin's thoughts flowed somewhat as follows:—
"Oh! What have I done—what have I said? What a mad promise I have made! It was just like me; always blundering and doing the wrong thing! If I have not some one wiser than myself at my side I am perpetually playing the fool! What! When I have just succeeded in finding Harold, in the first joy of our embrace, must I say to him we only meet to part? I am going to a land which I never expected or wished to visit, with an acquaintance whom I met but a few days ago, one whose character I scarcely understand, and by no means altogether like! Go, Harold, go alone to our beloved father, and tell him that Robin has thrown away his freedom, that he has sold himself to a stranger! And what has induced me to do so?—why have I acted the part of a madman, and sacrificed all my hopes of doing missionary work in India?"
Perhaps Robin's self-reproach was greater than the occasion required. Blundering zeal is sometimes wiser than calculating prudence. Robin's greatest error was that of giving himself no time for reflection, and acting without consideration and prayer. No important step should ever be taken by God's servants without first humbly asking the question, "Lord, what will Thou have me to do?"
MEETINGS AND GREETINGS.
ROBIN'S painful reflections were broken in upon by a medley of confused noises, first faintly heard in the distance, then coming nearer and nearer, until the whole air was filled with the beating of drums, the harsh sounds of Oriental music, the tramp of horses, the crack of guns fired off in sport, and the uproar of many voices breaking the silence of night.
Surprised at such sounds in the desert, Robin hastened outside the tent, and saw a cavalcade advancing towards the encampment, bearing many torches, which made darkness almost as clear as day. There was a string of camels, the foremost gay with trappings of scarlet, bearing aloft shrouded forms on which the eye of man must not gaze; the animals were connected with each other by a long rope passed through their nostrils, and were led by drivers who, with long switches in their hands, walked beside their camels. Robin admired the picturesque appearance of the bridal procession, for such it was, which had just accomplished the first stage of the journey from the city of Djauf. Little did the English youth guess who they were who travelled in that gay cavalcade.
Ali's party, already encamped by the wells, were by no means inclined to give place to the newly arrived, though much more numerous than themselves. There was great probability of a noisy dispute at least between the camel-drivers, which might end in strife and bloodshed. Scarcely had the head of the procession reached the encamping ground, ere the retainers of the respective noblemen began to engage in noisy wrangling regarding the place nearest to the wells.
Robin went forward to see what was going on. The youth had not gone many steps when he suddenly stopped short with an exclamation, his whole soul in his eyes,—looking like a man who beholds an apparition. Before him, in the yellow torch-light, stood Harold Hartley, clad in snowy Oriental garments, looking even more startled than himself, for Harold recognised in the form before him, dressed in Persian costume, the brother for whose supposed death he had so bitterly mourned! The pause was a very brief one, each of the Hartleys uttered the name of the other, and then the brothers were locked in such an embrace as might be given to a beloved one newly raised from the dead.
Entirely absorbed in the delight of the meeting, neither of the Hartleys even heard the shrill voice of Lammikin calling down from a camel's height, "Oh! There is Robin at last!"
"How is this, Harold? How came you here?" exclaimed Robin, drawing back a step to look in delighted wonder on his brother, so strangely transformed.
"I am a slave; no free Englishman," was Harold's reply.
"But not another hour shall you remain in slavery!" exclaimed his brother, and Robin darted away to find Ali, whom he met with the joyful exclamation, "He is found! Harold is found!"
"'Where is he?" asked the Persian Amir.
"Here, close by; you will buy him, you will free him," was the excited reply. "Or let me be a slave in his place!"
"I can neither buy nor free your brother without the consent of his master," said Ali, who foresaw difficulties which had not occurred to the eager Robin. "I promise to do what I can, but I cannot ensure success. Present my salaams, the Amir Ali's salaams to your lord," said the Persian in a tone of command to one of the bridal train.
"My lord is yonder; he has just dismounted," said the retainer, with difficulty making his reply heard above the noises around.
Ali strides towards the indicated spot, and approaches the splendidly attired bridegroom, whose back is turned towards him; but who turns round suddenly to confront the stranger? Why do the Amir's knees tremble, why does his face assume so ghastly a hue? Is it joy or terror that is stamped on a countenance usually so stoically calm? Faiz ul Din stands before him. Has the grave given up the dead?
The recognition is mutual; it is no recognition of fraternal love. With fierce countenance and hand on sword hilt, the Persian bridegroom faces the man who once stabbed him. Very different indeed is the meeting between the Oriental brothers from that between the Hartleys.
There was the silence of surprise; but not for long. Ali looked upon one whom he had wronged, one whose blood he had shed, one to whom reparation should be made and vengeance offered. The Amir drew his dagger, held its hilt towards his brother, and bared his own breast. "Faiz ul Din! Strike if thou wilt; I resist not!" he said.
Faiz ul Din haughtily waved his hand. "We strike not the unresisting," he said. "I take no revenge; for our mother's dying charge was that I should pardon thee, O Ali, as she had done."