"DEAREST HELENA,—Dreadfully disappointed I cannot dine with you to-night, having to go to Alexandria to-morrow, and finding it necessary to begin preparations immediately."You must really be a witch—your prediction proved to be exactly right—itwasabout the new Mahdi, the new prophet, my father wished to speak to me."The Governor thinks the man is making mischief, inciting the people to rebellion by preaching sedition, so with the General's consent I am to smash him without delay."Hafiz is to go with me to Alexandria, and strangely enough, he tells me over the telephone that the new prophet, as far as he can learn, is not a firebrand at all; but I am just off to see his uncle, the Chancellor of the University, and he is to tell me everything about him."Therefore think of me to-night as penned up in the thick atmosphere of El Azhar,tête-à-tête, with some sallow-faced fossil with pock-marked cheeks perhaps, when I hoped to be in the fragrant freshness of the Citadel, looking into somebody's big black eyes, you know."But really, my dear Nell, the way you know things without learning them is wonderful, and seems to indicate an error of nature in not making you a diplomatist, which would have given you plenty of scope for your uncanny gift of second sight."On second thoughts, though, I prefer you as you are and am not exactly dying to see you turned into a man."Maa-es-salamah! I kiss your hand!"GORDON."P.S.—Your father would get a letter from the Consul-General suggesting my task, but of course I must go up for his formal order, and you might tell him I expect to be at the Citadel about tea-time to-morrow, which will enable me to kill two birds with one stone, you know, and catch the evening train as well."Strange if it should turn out that this new Mahdi is a wholesome influence after all, and not a person one can conscientiously put down! I have always suspected that the old Mahdi was a good man at the beginning, an enemy created by our own errors and excesses. Is history repeating itself? I wonder! And if so, what will the Consul-General say? I wonder! I wonder!"Gordon was sealing and addressing his letter when his soldier servant brought in Hafiz, a bright young Egyptian officer, whose plump face seemed to be all smiles."Helloa! Here you are!" cried Gordon, and then giving his letter to his servant, he said, "Citadel—General's house, you know.... And now, Hafiz, my boy, let's be off."CHAPTER VIIEl Azhar is a vast edifice that stands in the midst of the Arab quarter of Cairo like a fortress on an island rock, being surrounded by a tangled maze of narrow, dirty, unpaved streets, with a swarming population of Mohammedans of every race; and the Christian who crosses its rather forbidding portals feels that he has passed in an instant out of the twentieth century and a city of civilisation into scenes of Bible lands and the earliest years of recorded time.It is a thousand years old, and the central seat of Moslem learning, not for Egypt only but for the whole of the kingdoms and principalities of the Mohammedan world, sending out from there the water of spiritual life that has kept the Moslem soul alive through centuries of persecution and pain.As you approach its threshold a monotonous cadence comes out to you, the murmur of the mass of humanity within, and you feel like one who stands at the mouth of some great subterranean river whose waters have flowed with just that sound on just that spot since the old world itself was young.It was not yet full sunset when the two young soldiers reached El Azhar, and after yellow slippers had been tied over their boots at the outer gate they entered the dim, bewildering place of vast courts and long corridors, with low roofs supported by a forest of columns, and floors covered by a vast multitude of men and boys, who were squatting on the ground in knots and circles, all talking together, teachers and pupils, and many of them swaying rhythmically to and fro to a monotonous chanting of the Koran whose verses they were learning by heart.Picking their way through the classes on the floor, the young soldiers crossed an open quadrangle and ascended many flights of stairs until they reached the Chancellor's room in the highest roof, where the droning murmur in the courts below could be only faintly heard and the clear voice of the muezzin struck level with their faces when he came out of a minaret near by and sent into the upper air, north, south, east, and west, his call to evening prayers.They had hardly entered this silent room, with its thick carpets on which their slippered feet made no noise, when the Chancellor came to welcome them. He was a striking figure, with his venerable face, long white beard, high forehead, refined features, graceful robes, and very soft voice, a type of the grave and dignified Oriental, such as might have walked out of the days of the prophet Samuel."Peace be on you!" they said."And on you too! Welcome!" he said, and motioned them to sit on the divans that ran round the walls.Then Hafiz explained the object of their visit—how Gordon was ordered to Alexandria to suppress the riots there, and, if need be, to arrest the preacher who was supposed to have provoked them."I have already told him," said Hafiz, "that so far as I know Ishmael Ameer is no firebrand; but, hearing through the mouth of one of our own people that he is another Mahdi, threatening the rule of England in Egypt——""Oh, peace, my son," said the Chancellor. "Ishmael Ameer is no Mahdi. He claims no divinity.""Then tell me, O Sheikh," said Gordon, "tell me what Ishmael Ameer is, that I may know what to do when it becomes my duty to deal with him."Leisurely the Chancellor took snuff, leisurely he opened a folded handkerchief, dusted his nostrils, and then, in his soft voice, said—"Ishmael Ameer is a Koranist—that is to say, one who takes the Koran as the basis of belief and keeps an open mind about tradition.""I know," said Gordon. "We have people like that among Christians—people who take the Bible as the basis of faith and turn their backs on dogma.""Ishmael Ameer reads the Koran by the spirit, not the letter.""We have people like that too—the letter killeth, you know, the spirit maketh alive.""Ishmael Ameer thinks Islam should advance with advancing progress.""There again we are with you, O Sheikh—we have people of the same kind in Christianity.""Ishmael Ameer thinks slavery, the seclusion of women, divorce, and polygamy are as much opposed to the teaching of Mohammed as to the progress of society.""Excellent! My father says the same thing.Wallahi! (I assure you!) Or rather, he holds that Islam can never take its place as the religion of great progressive nations until it rids itself of these evils.""Ishmael Ameer thinks the corruptions of Islam are the work of the partisans of the old barbaric ideas, who are associating the cause of religion with their own interests and passions.""Splendid! Do you know the Consul-General is always saying that, sir?""Ishmael Ameer believes that if God wills it (praise be to Him, the Exalted One!) the day is not distant when an appeal to the Prophet's own words will regenerate Islam, and banish the Caliphs and Sultans whose selfishness and sensuality keep it in bondage to the powers of darkness.""Really," said Gordon, rising impetuously to his feet, "if Ishmael Ameer says this, he is the man Egypt, India, the whole Mohammedan world, is waiting for. No wonder men like the Cadi are trying to destroy him, though that's only an instinct of self-preservation—but my father, the Consul-General ... What is there in all this to create ... Why should such teaching set Moslem against Christian?""Ishmael Ameer, O my brother," the Chancellor continued with the same soft voice, "thinks Islam is not the only faith that has departed from the spirit of its founder.""True!""If Islam for its handmaidens has divorce and polygamy, Christianity has drunkenness and prostitution.""No doubt—certainly.""Coming out of the East, out of the desert, Ishmael Ameer sees in the Christianity of the West a contradiction of every principle for which your great Master fought and suffered."Gordon sat down again."His was a religion of peace, but while your Christian Church prays for unity and concord among the nations your Christian States are daily increasing the instruments of destruction. His was a religion of poverty, but while your Christian priests are saying 'Blessed are the meek,' your Christian communities are struggling for wealth and trampling upon the poor in their efforts to gain it. Ishmael Ameer believes that if your great Master came back now He would not recognise in the civilisation known by His name the true posterity of the little church He founded on the shores of the Lake of Galilee.""All this is true, too true," said Gordon, "yet under all that ... Doesn't Ishmael Ameer see that under all that——""Ishmael Ameer sees," said the Chancellor, "that what is known to the world as Christian civilisation is little better than an organised hypocrisy, a lust of empire in nations and a greed of gold in men, destroying liberty, morality, and truth. Therefore he warns his followers against a civilisation which comes to the East with religion in one hand and violence and avarice in the other.""But surely he sees," said Gordon, "what Christian civilisation has done for the world, what science has done for progress; what England, for example, has done for Egypt?""Ishmael Ameer thinks," replied the Chancellor in the same slow, soft voice, "that the essential qualities of national greatness are moral, not material; that man does not live by bread alone; that it is of little value to Egypt that her barns are full if the hearts of her children are empty; that Egypt can afford to be patient, for she is old and eternal; that many are the events which have passed before the eyes of the crouching Sphinx; that the life of man is threescore and ten years, but when Egypt reviews her past she looks back on threescore and ten centuries."There was silence for a moment, during which the muezzin's voice was heard again, calling the first hour of night, and then Gordon, visibly agitated, said—"You think Ishmael Ameer a regenerator, a reformer, a redeemer of Islam; and if his preaching prevailed it would send the Grand Cadi back to his Sultan—isn't that so?" But the Chancellor made no reply."It would also send England out of Egypt—wouldn't it?" said Gordon, but still the Chancellor gave no sign."It would go farther than that perhaps—it would drive Western civilisation out of the East—wouldn't that be the end of it?" said Gordon, and then the Chancellor replied—"It would drive a corrupt and ungodly civilisation out of the world, my son.""I see!" said Gordon. "You think the mission of Ishmael Ameer transcends Egypt, transcends even Europe, and says to humanity in general, 'What you call civilisation is killing religion, because the nations—Christian and Moslem alike—have sold themselves to the lust of empire and the greed of gold'—isn't that what you mean?"The Chancellor bowed his grave head, and in a scarcely audible voice said, "Yes.""You think, too," said Gordon, whose breathing was now quick and loud, "that Ishmael Ameer is an apostle of the soul of Islam—perhaps of the soul of religion itself without respect of creed—one of the great men who come once in a hundred years to call the world back from a squalid and sordid materialism, and are ready to live, aye, and to die for their faith—the Savonarolas, the Luthers, the Gamal-ed-Deens—perhaps the Mohammeds and" (dropping his voice) "in a sense the Christs?"But the Egyptian soul, like the mirage of the Egyptian desert, recedes as it is approached, and again the Chancellor made no reply."Tell me, O Sheikh," said Gordon, rising to go, "if Ishmael Ameer came to Cairo, would you permit him to preach in El Azhar?""He is an Alim" (a doctor of the Koran); "I could not prevent him.""But would you lodge him in your own house?""Yes.""That is enough for me. Now I must go to Alexandria and see him for myself.""May God guide you, O my son," said the Chancellor, and a moment afterwards his soft voice was saying farewell to the two young soldiers at the door."Let us walk back to barracks, Hafiz," said Gordon. "My head aches a little, somehow."CHAPTER VIIIIt was night by this time; the courts and corridors of El Azhar were empty, and even the tangled streets outside were less loud than before with the guttural cries of a swarming population, but a rumbling murmur came from the mosque of the University, and the young soldiers stood a moment at the door to look in. There, under a multitude of tiny lanterns, stood long rows of men in stockinged feet and Eastern costume, rising and kneeling in unison, at one moment erect and at the next with foreheads to the floor, while the voice of the Imam echoed in the arches of the mosque and the voices of the people answered him.Then through narrow alleys, full of life, lit only by the faint gleam of uncovered candles, with native women, black-robed and veiled, passing like shadows through a moving crowd of men, the young soldiers came to the quarter of Cairo that is nick-named the "Fish Market," where the streets are brilliantly lighted up, where the names over the shops are English and French, Greek, and Italian, and where girls with painted faces wave their hands from barred windows and call to men who sit at tables in front of the cafés opposite, drinking wine, smoking cigarettes, and playing dominoes. The sound of music and dancing came from the open windows behind the girls who glittered with gold brocade and diamonds; and among the men were young Egyptians in the tarboosh and British soldiers in khaki, who looked across at the women in the flare of the coarse light and laughed.At the gate of the Kasr-el-Nil barracks the young men parted."Tell me, Hafiz," said Gordon, "if a soldier is ordered to act in a way he believes to be wrong, what is he to do?""His duty, I suppose," said Hafiz."His duty to what—his Commander or his conscience?""If a soldier is under orders I suppose he has no conscience?""I wonder!" said Gordon, and promising to write to Hafiz in the morning, he went up to his quarters.The room was in darkness, save for the moonlight with its gleam of mellow gold, which seemed to vibrate from the river outside, and Gordon stood by the window, with a dull sense of headache, looking at the old Nile that had seen so many acts in the drama of humanity and still flowed so silently, until he became conscious of a perfume he knew, and then, switching on the light, he found a letter in a scented envelope lying on his desk. It was from Helena, and it was written in her bold, upright hand, with the gay raillery, the passionate tenderness, and the fierce earnestness which he recognised as her chief characteristics:—"MISTER, most glorious and respected, the illustrious Colonel Lord, owner of Serenity and Virtue, otherwise dear old Gordon—"It was wrong of you not to come to dinner, for though Father over-excited himself at Ghezirah to-day and I have had to pack him off to bed, I made every preparation to receive you, and here I am in my best bib and tucker, wearing the crown of pink blossom which my own particular Sultan says suits my gipsy hair, and nobody to admire it but my poor little black boy Mosie—who is falling in love with me, I may tell you, and is looking at me now with his scrubby face all blubbered up like a sentimental hippopotamus."I am not surprised that the Consul-General talked about the new 'holy man,' and I do not wonder that he ordered you to arrest him, but I am at a loss to know why you should take counsel with that old fossil at El Azhar, and you can tell Master Hafiz I mean to dust his jacket for suggesting it, knowing your silly old heart is like wax, and they have only to recite something out of the 'noble Koran' and you'll be as weak as—well, as a woman."As for holy men generally, I agree with the Princess that they are holy humbugs, which is the title I would give to a good many of thegenusat home as well as here, so I say with your namesake of glorious memory (who wasn't an ogre, goodness knows!),Smash the Mahdi!"A thousand to one he is some ugly, cross-eyed old fanatic, who would destroy every germ of civilisation in Egypt and carry the country back to barbarity and ruin, so I say again,Smash the Mahdi!"As for your 'conscience,' I cry 'Marry-come-up!' by what right does it push its nose where it isn't wanted, seeing it is the conscience of the Consul-General that will be damned if the work is wrong and wicked and there won't be so much as a plum of Paradise for yours if it is right and good, so once again I say,Smash the Mahdi!"Moreover, and furthermore, and by these presents, I rede ye beware of resisting the will of your father, for if you do, as sure as I'm a 'witch' and 'know things without learning them,' I have a 'mystic sense' there will be trouble, and nobody can say where it will end or how many of us may be involved in it, so again and yet again I say,Smash the Mahdi!"The Consul-General's letter has come, but I shall not read it to Father until morning, and meantime, if I ever pass through your imagination, think of me as poor Ruth sitting on the threshing-floor with Boaz, and dreaming of Zion—that is to say, of stuffy old El Azhar, where somebody who ought to know better is now talking to an old frump in petticoats instead of to me."Inshallah! The slave of your Virtues.—HELENA."P.S.—Dying for to-morrow afternoon, dear."P.P.S.—IMPORTANT—Smash the Mahdi!"CHAPTER IXHelena Graves was everything to her father, for the General's marriage had been unhappy, and it had come to a tragic end. His wife, the daughter of a Jewish merchant in Madras, had been a woman of strong character and great beauty but of little principle, and they had been married while he was serving as senior Major with a battalion of his regiment in India, and there, Helena, their only child, had been born.Things had gone tolerably between them until the Major returned to England as Lieutenant-Colonel commanding the battalion of his regiment at home, and then, in their little military town, they had met and become intimate with the Lord-Lieutenant of the county, a nobleman, a bachelor, a sportsman, a breeder of racehorses, and a member of the Government.The end of that intimacy had been a violent scene, in which the husband, in his ungovernable rage, had flung the nobleman on the ground and trampled on him, torn the jewels out of his wife's breast and crushed them under his heel, and then, realising the bankruptcy his life had come to, had gone home and had brain fever.Helena, like her father, was passionate and impetuous, and her mother had neglected and never really loved her. With the keen eyes of a child who is supposed to see nothing, she had observed from the first what was going on at home, and all her soul had risen against her mother and her mother's lover with a hatred which no presents could appease. Being now a girl of eighteen, well grown and developed, and seeing with what treachery and cruelty her father had been stricken down, her heart went out to him, and she became a woman in one day.When the brain fever was gone, the General, weak both in body and mind, was ordered rest and change. Somebody suggested the Lake Country, as his native air, so Helena, who did everything for him, took him to a furnished cottage in Grasmere, a sweet place bowered in roses, with its face to the sedgy lake, and with the beautiful river, the Rotha, laughing and babbling by the garden at the back.There he recovered bodily strength, but it was long before his mind returned to him, and meantime he had strange delusions. Something, perhaps, in the place of their retreat brought ghosts of the past out of a world of shadows, for he thought he was a boy again and Helena was his mother, who was thirty years dead and buried in the little churchyard lower down the stream, where the Rotha was deep and flowed with a solemn hush.Helena played up to his pathetic delusion, took the tender endearments that were meant for the grandmother she had never known, and as his young days came to the surface with the beautiful persistence of old memories ha the human mind, she fell in with them as if they had been her own. Thus on Sunday morning, when the bells rang, she would walk with him to church, holding his hand in her hand as if she were the mother and he the child.It was very sweet to look upon, for, in the sleep of the General's brain, he was very happy, and only to those who saw that the brave girl, with her eyes of light and her lips of dew, was giving away her youth to her old father, was it charged with feeling too deep for tears.But at length the stricken man came out of the twilight land, and his dream faded away. Helena had to play their little American organ every evening that he might sing a hymn to it, for that was what his mother had always done, when she was putting her boy to bed and thinking, like a soldier's wife, of his father who was away at the wars. It was always the same hymn, and one breathless evening, when the sun had gone down and the vale was still, they had come to—"Hide me, O my Saviour, hide,Till the storms of life be past"—and then his voice stopped suddenly, and he shaded his eyes as if something were blinding them.At that moment the past, which had been dead so long, seemed to rise from its grave, with all its mournful incidents—his wife and his shattered home—and Helena was not his mother but his daughter, and he was not a happy boy but an old soldier, with a broken life behind him.Seeing by the look in his eyes that he was coming to himself, Helena tried to comfort him, and when he gasped, "Who is it?" she answered in a voice she tried to render cheerful, "It is I. It is Helena. Don't you know me, Father?" And then the years rolled back upon him like a flood, and he sobbed on her shoulder.The awakening had been painful, but it was not all pain. If he had lost a wife he had gained a daughter, and she was the strongest, staunchest creature in the world. For her sake he must begin again. Having had so much shadow in her young life, she must now have sunshine. Thus Helena became her father's idol, the one thing on earth to him, and he was more to her than a father usually is to a daughter, because she had seen him in his weakness and mothered him back to strength.Two years after the breakdown they were in London, and there Helena met Lord Nuneham on one of his few visits to England. The great Proconsul, who had heard what she had done, was most favourably impressed by her, and as she talked to him, he said to himself, "This girl has the blood of the great women of the Bible, the Deborahs who were mothers in Israel, aye, and the Jaels who avenged her." At that time the post of Major-General to the British Army in Egypt was shortly to become vacant, and by Lord Nuneham's influence it was offered to Graves. Six months later father and daughter arrived in Cairo.It had been an exciting time, but Helena had managed everything, and the General had borne up manfully until they took possession of the house assigned to them, a renovated old palace on the edge of the Citadel. Then in a moment he had collapsed, and fallen from his chair to the floor. Helena had lifted him in her strong arms, laid him on the couch, and sent his Aide-de-camp for the Medical Officer in charge.Consciousness came back quickly, and Helena laughed through the tears that had gathered in her great eyes, but the surgeon continued to look grave."Has the General ever had attacks like this before?" he asked."Never that I know of," said Helena."He must be kept quiet. I'll see him in the morning."Next day the Medical Officer had no doubts of his diagnosis—heart-disease, quite unmistakably. The news had to be broken to the General, and he bore it bravely, but thinking of Helena he made one request—that nothing should be said on the subject. If the fact were known at the War Office he might be retired, and there could be no necessity for that until the army was put on active service."But isn't the army always on active service in Egypt, sir?" said the surgeon."Technically perhaps, not really," said the General. "In any case I'm not afraid, and I ask you to keep the matter quiet.""As you please, sir.""You and I and Helena must be the only ones to know anything about it.""Very well, but you must promise to take care. Any undue excitement, any over-exertion, any outburst of anger even——""It shall not occur—I give you my word for it," said the General.But it had occurred, not once but frequently during the twelve months following. It occurred after Gordon asked for Helena, and again last night, the moment the General reached his bedroom on his return from the Khedivial Club.He was better next morning, and then Helena took up the letter from Lord Nuneham. "Read it," said the General, and Helena read—"DEAR GENERAL,—Gordon is here, and I will send him up to tell you what I think it necessary to do in order to put an end to the riots at Alexandria and make an example of the ringleaders."The chief of them is the Arab preacher, Ishmael Ameer, and I propose that we bring him up to Cairo immediately, try him by Special Tribunal, and despatch him without delay to our new penal settlement in the Soudan."For that purpose (as the local police are chiefly native and therefore scarcely reliable, and your Colonel on the spot might hesitate to act on his own initiative in the possible event of a rising of the man's Moslem followers), I propose that you send some one from Cairo to take command, and therefore suggest Gordon, your first staff officer, and the most proper person (always excepting yourself) to deal with a situation of such gravity.—Yours in haste, NUNEHAM."While Helena was reading the letter the General could hardly restrain his excitement."Just as I thought!" he said. "I knew the Consul-General would put down that new Mahdi. Wonderful man, Nuneham! And what a chance for Gordon! By Gad, he'll have all Europe talking about him. He deserves it, though. Ask the staff. Ask the officers. Ask the men. I see what Nuneham's aiming at—making Gordon his successor! Well, why not? Why not Gordon Lord the Consul-General? I ask, why not? Good for Egypt and good for England too. Am I wrong?"Then, remembering to whom he was addressing these imperative challenges, he laughed and said, "Ah, of course! I congratulate you, my child! I'll live to see you proud and happy yet, Helena. Now go—I'm going to get up."And when Helena warned him that he was over-exciting himself again, he said, "Not a bit of it. I'm all right now. But I must write to Alexandria immediately and see Gordon at once.... Coming up this afternoon, you say? That will do. Splendid fellow! Fine as his father! Father and son—both splendid!"CHAPTER XWhen Gordon reached the General's house at five o'clock that day there was for a while a clash of opposing wills. Thinking of Helena's peremptory advice,Smash the Mahdi, he was determined to tell her what the Chancellor of El Azhar had said of Ishmael Ameer, and she was resolved that he should say nothing about him. So while Gordon stood by the shaded window, looking down on the city below, which still lay hot under the sun's fierce eye, Helena talked of his mother, her father, and of the Princess Nazimah, who had invited her, in a funny letter, to join the ladies' council for the emancipation of Egyptian women and the abolition of polygamy, saying among other things, "The needle carries but one thread, my dear, and the heart cannot carry two." But at length she said—"When do you leave for Alexandria?""To-night at half-past six. My servant is to take my bag to the railway station, and Hafiz and two other Moslems are to meet me there.""Good gracious! No time to lose, then. Mosie!" she cried, and a small black boy with large limpid eyes, wearing a scarlet caftan and blue waistband, came into the room."Tea, Mosie, quick! Tell the cook the Colonel has to catch a train."The black boy kissed her hand and went bounding out, whereupon she talked again to prevent Gordon from talking."Didn't I tell you that boy was falling in love with me? I found him fighting in the market-place. That was a week ago, since when he has adopted me, and now he is always kissing my hand or the hem of my gown, as who would say, 'I have none but her, and I love her like my eyes.' A most dear little human dog, and I do believe—yes, I really do believe—if I wished it he would go to his death for me."Gordon, who was gloomy and dejected, and had been drumming on the window-pane without listening, then said—"Helena, can you imagine what it is to a soldier to feel that he is on the wrong side in battle? If he is to fight well he ought to feel that he is fighting for his country, his flag, and—justice. But when the position is the reverse of that; when, for example——"But at that moment the General came into the room and welcomed Gordon with a shout."Just been writing to Alexandria, telling Jenkinson to keep a force in readiness for you night and day," he said. "Only way, my boy! Force is the one thing the Easterns understand. Of course we don't want bloodshed, but if these rascals are telling the people that the power is not in our hands, or that England will not allow us to use it—we must let them see—we can't help it. Glorious commission, Gordon! I congratulate you! My job, though, and there's only one man I could give it up to—only one man in the world."And then Gordon, who had been biting his underlip, said, "I almost wish you could do it yourself, General.""Why, what the deuce——""Gordon has been taking counsel with the Chancellor of El Azhar," said Helena, "and the old silly seems to have given him 'the eye' or talked nonsense out of the noble Koran.""Not nonsense, Helena, and not out of the Koran, but out of the book of life itself," said Gordon, and after the black boy had brought in the tea, he told them what the Chancellor had said."So you see," he said, "the preaching of this new prophet has nothing to do with England in Egypt—nothing more, at least, than with England in India, or South Africa, or even Canada itself. It transcends all that, and is teaching for the world, for humanity. Isn't it true, too? Take what he says about the lust of empire, and look at the conduct of the Christian countries. They are praying in their churches 'that it may please Thee to give to all nations unity, peace, and concord,' yet they are increasing their armaments every day. What for—defence? Certainly! But what does that mean?—fear of aggression. So, while in our King's speeches and our President's messages, in our newspapers and even in our pulpits we keep up the pretence that we are at peace with the world, we are always, according to the devil's code of honour, preparing for the time when two high-spirited nations may find it convenient to fly at each other's throats. Peace with the world! Lies, sir, all lies, and barefaced hypocrisy! The nations never are at peace with the world, never have been, never want to be."The General tried to protest, but Gordon, who was now excited, said—"Oh, I know—I'm a soldier too, sir, and I don't want to see my country walked upon. It may be all right, all necessary to the game of empire, but for Heaven's sake let us call it by its right name—conquest, not Christianity—and put away the cant and quackery of being Christian countries."Again the General tried to protest, but Gordon did not hear."Think of it! Kaisers and Kings and Presidents asking God's blessing on their Ministries of War! Bishops and Archbishops praying for more battleships! Christians? Followers of Christ? Why, in the name of God, do they not tear the scales from their eyes and stand revealed to themselves as good, upright, honest, honourable Pagans, bent on the re-paganisation of the world and the destruction of Christian civilisation? I'm a soldier, yes, but I hope to Heaven I'm not a hypocrite, and show me the soldier worth his salt who is not at heart a man of peace."The General's face was growing scarlet, but Gordon saw nothing of that."Then take what this new preacher says about the greed of wealth—isn't that true, too? We pretend to believe that 'it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God,' yet we are nearly all trying, struggling, fighting, scrambling to be rich."He laughed out loud and then said—-"Look at America—I'm half an American myself, sir, so I've a right to say it—where a man may become a millionaire by crushing out everybody else and appropriating the gifts of nature which God meant for humanity! But America is a Christian country, too, and its richest men build, of their abundance, churches in which to glorify the giving of the widow's mite! Is the man to be silenced who warns the world that such sordid and squalid materialism is swallowing up religion, morality, and truth? Such a man may be the very soul of a country, yet what do we do with him? We hang him or stone him or crucify him—that's what we do with him, sir."Gordon, who had been walking up and down the room and talking in an intense and poignant voice, stopped suddenly and said—"General, did you ever reflect upon the way in which Jesus Christ was brought to His death?""Good gracious, man, what has that subject to do with this?" said the General."A good deal, I think, sir. Did you ever ask yourself who it was that betrayed Jesus?""Judas Iscariot, I suppose.""No, sir, Judas was only the catspaw—scorned through all the ages and burnt in a million effigies, but nearly as innocent of the death of his Master as you or I. The real betrayer was the High Priest of the Jews. He was the head of the bad system which Christ came to wipe out, and he saw that if he did not destroy Jesus, Jesus would destroy him. What did he do? He went to the Governor, the Consul-General of the Roman Occupation, and said, 'This man is setting himself up against Cæsar. If you let him go you are not Cæsar's friend.'""Well?""That's what the High Priest of Islam is doing in Egypt now. As I was going into the Agency yesterday I met the Grand Cadi coming out. You know what he is, sir—the most fanatical supporter of the old dark ways—slavery, divorce, polygamy, all the refuse of bad Mohammedanism.""Well, well?""Well, my father told me the Grand Cadi had said, 'If you let Ishmael Ameer go on it will be death to the rule of England in Egypt.'""And what does it all come to?""It comes to this, sir—that if the Chancellor of El Azhar has told me the truth—if, I sayif—when we take Ishmael Ameer and shut him up in prison for life with nothing but a desert around him, we shall be doing something that bears an ugly resemblance to what the Romans did in Palestine."Then the General, who had not once taken his eyes off Gordon, rose in visible agitation and said—"Gordon Lord, you astonish me! If what you say means anything it means that this man Ishmael is not only preaching sedition but is justified in doing so. That's what you mean! Am I wrong?"In his excitement he spoke so rapidly that he stammered, and Helena cried, "Father!""Leave me alone, Helena. I'm calm, but when a man talks of ... When you talk of conquest you mean England in Egypt—yes, you do—and you refuse to see that we have to hold high the honour of our country and to protect our dominions in the East."His voice sounded choked, but he went on—"More than that, when you compare our Lord's trial and death with that of this—this half-educated Arab out of the desert—this religious Don Quixote who is a menace not only to Government but to the very structure of civilised society—it's shocking, it's blasphemous, and I will not listen to it."The General was going out in white anger when he stopped at the door and said—"Gordon Lord, I take leave to think this man an impostor, and if you want my view of how to deal with him and with the credulous simpletons who are turning sedition into crime and crime into bloody anarchy, I give it to you—'Martial law, sir, and no damned nonsense!'"Save for one word Helena had not yet spoken, but now with tightly-compressed lips, and such an expression on her face as Gordon had never before seen there, she said—"I hate that man! I hate him! I hate him!"Her eyes blazed, and she looked straight into Gordon's face, as she said, "I hate him because you are allowing yourself to be influenced in his favour against your own father, and your own country. An Englishman's duty is to stand by England, whatever she is and whatever she does. And the duty of an English soldier is to fight for her and ask no questions. She is his mother, and to inquire of himself whether she is right or wrong, when her enemies are upon her, is not worthy of a son."The colour rushed to Gordon's face and he dropped his head."As for this man's teaching, it may transcend Egypt but it includes it, and these people will take out of it only what they want, and what they want is an excuse to resist authority and turn their best friends out of the country. As for you," she said, with new force, "your duty is to go to Alexandria and bring this man back to Cairo. It begins and ends there, and has nothing to do with anything else."Then Gordon raised his head and answered, "You are right, Helena. You are always right. A son is not the judge of his father. And where would England be to-day if her soldiers had always asked themselves whether she was in the right or the wrong? I thought England would be sinning against the light if she sent Ishmael Ameer to the Soudan and so stifled a voice that might be the soul of the East, but I know nothing about him except what his friends have told me.... After all, grapes don't grow on pine trees, and the only fruit we see is ... I'll see the man for myself, Helena, and if I find he is encouraging the rioters ... if even in his sermons in the mosques ... Hafiz and the Moslems are to tell me what he says in them.... They must tell me the truth, though ... Whatever the consequences ... they must tell me the truth. They shall—my God, theymust."
"DEAREST HELENA,—Dreadfully disappointed I cannot dine with you to-night, having to go to Alexandria to-morrow, and finding it necessary to begin preparations immediately.
"You must really be a witch—your prediction proved to be exactly right—itwasabout the new Mahdi, the new prophet, my father wished to speak to me.
"The Governor thinks the man is making mischief, inciting the people to rebellion by preaching sedition, so with the General's consent I am to smash him without delay.
"Hafiz is to go with me to Alexandria, and strangely enough, he tells me over the telephone that the new prophet, as far as he can learn, is not a firebrand at all; but I am just off to see his uncle, the Chancellor of the University, and he is to tell me everything about him.
"Therefore think of me to-night as penned up in the thick atmosphere of El Azhar,tête-à-tête, with some sallow-faced fossil with pock-marked cheeks perhaps, when I hoped to be in the fragrant freshness of the Citadel, looking into somebody's big black eyes, you know.
"But really, my dear Nell, the way you know things without learning them is wonderful, and seems to indicate an error of nature in not making you a diplomatist, which would have given you plenty of scope for your uncanny gift of second sight.
"On second thoughts, though, I prefer you as you are and am not exactly dying to see you turned into a man.
"Maa-es-salamah! I kiss your hand!
"GORDON.
"P.S.—Your father would get a letter from the Consul-General suggesting my task, but of course I must go up for his formal order, and you might tell him I expect to be at the Citadel about tea-time to-morrow, which will enable me to kill two birds with one stone, you know, and catch the evening train as well.
"Strange if it should turn out that this new Mahdi is a wholesome influence after all, and not a person one can conscientiously put down! I have always suspected that the old Mahdi was a good man at the beginning, an enemy created by our own errors and excesses. Is history repeating itself? I wonder! And if so, what will the Consul-General say? I wonder! I wonder!"
Gordon was sealing and addressing his letter when his soldier servant brought in Hafiz, a bright young Egyptian officer, whose plump face seemed to be all smiles.
"Helloa! Here you are!" cried Gordon, and then giving his letter to his servant, he said, "Citadel—General's house, you know.... And now, Hafiz, my boy, let's be off."
CHAPTER VII
El Azhar is a vast edifice that stands in the midst of the Arab quarter of Cairo like a fortress on an island rock, being surrounded by a tangled maze of narrow, dirty, unpaved streets, with a swarming population of Mohammedans of every race; and the Christian who crosses its rather forbidding portals feels that he has passed in an instant out of the twentieth century and a city of civilisation into scenes of Bible lands and the earliest years of recorded time.
It is a thousand years old, and the central seat of Moslem learning, not for Egypt only but for the whole of the kingdoms and principalities of the Mohammedan world, sending out from there the water of spiritual life that has kept the Moslem soul alive through centuries of persecution and pain.
As you approach its threshold a monotonous cadence comes out to you, the murmur of the mass of humanity within, and you feel like one who stands at the mouth of some great subterranean river whose waters have flowed with just that sound on just that spot since the old world itself was young.
It was not yet full sunset when the two young soldiers reached El Azhar, and after yellow slippers had been tied over their boots at the outer gate they entered the dim, bewildering place of vast courts and long corridors, with low roofs supported by a forest of columns, and floors covered by a vast multitude of men and boys, who were squatting on the ground in knots and circles, all talking together, teachers and pupils, and many of them swaying rhythmically to and fro to a monotonous chanting of the Koran whose verses they were learning by heart.
Picking their way through the classes on the floor, the young soldiers crossed an open quadrangle and ascended many flights of stairs until they reached the Chancellor's room in the highest roof, where the droning murmur in the courts below could be only faintly heard and the clear voice of the muezzin struck level with their faces when he came out of a minaret near by and sent into the upper air, north, south, east, and west, his call to evening prayers.
They had hardly entered this silent room, with its thick carpets on which their slippered feet made no noise, when the Chancellor came to welcome them. He was a striking figure, with his venerable face, long white beard, high forehead, refined features, graceful robes, and very soft voice, a type of the grave and dignified Oriental, such as might have walked out of the days of the prophet Samuel.
"Peace be on you!" they said.
"And on you too! Welcome!" he said, and motioned them to sit on the divans that ran round the walls.
Then Hafiz explained the object of their visit—how Gordon was ordered to Alexandria to suppress the riots there, and, if need be, to arrest the preacher who was supposed to have provoked them.
"I have already told him," said Hafiz, "that so far as I know Ishmael Ameer is no firebrand; but, hearing through the mouth of one of our own people that he is another Mahdi, threatening the rule of England in Egypt——"
"Oh, peace, my son," said the Chancellor. "Ishmael Ameer is no Mahdi. He claims no divinity."
"Then tell me, O Sheikh," said Gordon, "tell me what Ishmael Ameer is, that I may know what to do when it becomes my duty to deal with him."
Leisurely the Chancellor took snuff, leisurely he opened a folded handkerchief, dusted his nostrils, and then, in his soft voice, said—
"Ishmael Ameer is a Koranist—that is to say, one who takes the Koran as the basis of belief and keeps an open mind about tradition."
"I know," said Gordon. "We have people like that among Christians—people who take the Bible as the basis of faith and turn their backs on dogma."
"Ishmael Ameer reads the Koran by the spirit, not the letter."
"We have people like that too—the letter killeth, you know, the spirit maketh alive."
"Ishmael Ameer thinks Islam should advance with advancing progress."
"There again we are with you, O Sheikh—we have people of the same kind in Christianity."
"Ishmael Ameer thinks slavery, the seclusion of women, divorce, and polygamy are as much opposed to the teaching of Mohammed as to the progress of society."
"Excellent! My father says the same thing.Wallahi! (I assure you!) Or rather, he holds that Islam can never take its place as the religion of great progressive nations until it rids itself of these evils."
"Ishmael Ameer thinks the corruptions of Islam are the work of the partisans of the old barbaric ideas, who are associating the cause of religion with their own interests and passions."
"Splendid! Do you know the Consul-General is always saying that, sir?"
"Ishmael Ameer believes that if God wills it (praise be to Him, the Exalted One!) the day is not distant when an appeal to the Prophet's own words will regenerate Islam, and banish the Caliphs and Sultans whose selfishness and sensuality keep it in bondage to the powers of darkness."
"Really," said Gordon, rising impetuously to his feet, "if Ishmael Ameer says this, he is the man Egypt, India, the whole Mohammedan world, is waiting for. No wonder men like the Cadi are trying to destroy him, though that's only an instinct of self-preservation—but my father, the Consul-General ... What is there in all this to create ... Why should such teaching set Moslem against Christian?"
"Ishmael Ameer, O my brother," the Chancellor continued with the same soft voice, "thinks Islam is not the only faith that has departed from the spirit of its founder."
"True!"
"If Islam for its handmaidens has divorce and polygamy, Christianity has drunkenness and prostitution."
"No doubt—certainly."
"Coming out of the East, out of the desert, Ishmael Ameer sees in the Christianity of the West a contradiction of every principle for which your great Master fought and suffered."
Gordon sat down again.
"His was a religion of peace, but while your Christian Church prays for unity and concord among the nations your Christian States are daily increasing the instruments of destruction. His was a religion of poverty, but while your Christian priests are saying 'Blessed are the meek,' your Christian communities are struggling for wealth and trampling upon the poor in their efforts to gain it. Ishmael Ameer believes that if your great Master came back now He would not recognise in the civilisation known by His name the true posterity of the little church He founded on the shores of the Lake of Galilee."
"All this is true, too true," said Gordon, "yet under all that ... Doesn't Ishmael Ameer see that under all that——"
"Ishmael Ameer sees," said the Chancellor, "that what is known to the world as Christian civilisation is little better than an organised hypocrisy, a lust of empire in nations and a greed of gold in men, destroying liberty, morality, and truth. Therefore he warns his followers against a civilisation which comes to the East with religion in one hand and violence and avarice in the other."
"But surely he sees," said Gordon, "what Christian civilisation has done for the world, what science has done for progress; what England, for example, has done for Egypt?"
"Ishmael Ameer thinks," replied the Chancellor in the same slow, soft voice, "that the essential qualities of national greatness are moral, not material; that man does not live by bread alone; that it is of little value to Egypt that her barns are full if the hearts of her children are empty; that Egypt can afford to be patient, for she is old and eternal; that many are the events which have passed before the eyes of the crouching Sphinx; that the life of man is threescore and ten years, but when Egypt reviews her past she looks back on threescore and ten centuries."
There was silence for a moment, during which the muezzin's voice was heard again, calling the first hour of night, and then Gordon, visibly agitated, said—
"You think Ishmael Ameer a regenerator, a reformer, a redeemer of Islam; and if his preaching prevailed it would send the Grand Cadi back to his Sultan—isn't that so?" But the Chancellor made no reply.
"It would also send England out of Egypt—wouldn't it?" said Gordon, but still the Chancellor gave no sign.
"It would go farther than that perhaps—it would drive Western civilisation out of the East—wouldn't that be the end of it?" said Gordon, and then the Chancellor replied—
"It would drive a corrupt and ungodly civilisation out of the world, my son."
"I see!" said Gordon. "You think the mission of Ishmael Ameer transcends Egypt, transcends even Europe, and says to humanity in general, 'What you call civilisation is killing religion, because the nations—Christian and Moslem alike—have sold themselves to the lust of empire and the greed of gold'—isn't that what you mean?"
The Chancellor bowed his grave head, and in a scarcely audible voice said, "Yes."
"You think, too," said Gordon, whose breathing was now quick and loud, "that Ishmael Ameer is an apostle of the soul of Islam—perhaps of the soul of religion itself without respect of creed—one of the great men who come once in a hundred years to call the world back from a squalid and sordid materialism, and are ready to live, aye, and to die for their faith—the Savonarolas, the Luthers, the Gamal-ed-Deens—perhaps the Mohammeds and" (dropping his voice) "in a sense the Christs?"
But the Egyptian soul, like the mirage of the Egyptian desert, recedes as it is approached, and again the Chancellor made no reply.
"Tell me, O Sheikh," said Gordon, rising to go, "if Ishmael Ameer came to Cairo, would you permit him to preach in El Azhar?"
"He is an Alim" (a doctor of the Koran); "I could not prevent him."
"But would you lodge him in your own house?"
"Yes."
"That is enough for me. Now I must go to Alexandria and see him for myself."
"May God guide you, O my son," said the Chancellor, and a moment afterwards his soft voice was saying farewell to the two young soldiers at the door.
"Let us walk back to barracks, Hafiz," said Gordon. "My head aches a little, somehow."
CHAPTER VIII
It was night by this time; the courts and corridors of El Azhar were empty, and even the tangled streets outside were less loud than before with the guttural cries of a swarming population, but a rumbling murmur came from the mosque of the University, and the young soldiers stood a moment at the door to look in. There, under a multitude of tiny lanterns, stood long rows of men in stockinged feet and Eastern costume, rising and kneeling in unison, at one moment erect and at the next with foreheads to the floor, while the voice of the Imam echoed in the arches of the mosque and the voices of the people answered him.
Then through narrow alleys, full of life, lit only by the faint gleam of uncovered candles, with native women, black-robed and veiled, passing like shadows through a moving crowd of men, the young soldiers came to the quarter of Cairo that is nick-named the "Fish Market," where the streets are brilliantly lighted up, where the names over the shops are English and French, Greek, and Italian, and where girls with painted faces wave their hands from barred windows and call to men who sit at tables in front of the cafés opposite, drinking wine, smoking cigarettes, and playing dominoes. The sound of music and dancing came from the open windows behind the girls who glittered with gold brocade and diamonds; and among the men were young Egyptians in the tarboosh and British soldiers in khaki, who looked across at the women in the flare of the coarse light and laughed.
At the gate of the Kasr-el-Nil barracks the young men parted.
"Tell me, Hafiz," said Gordon, "if a soldier is ordered to act in a way he believes to be wrong, what is he to do?"
"His duty, I suppose," said Hafiz.
"His duty to what—his Commander or his conscience?"
"If a soldier is under orders I suppose he has no conscience?"
"I wonder!" said Gordon, and promising to write to Hafiz in the morning, he went up to his quarters.
The room was in darkness, save for the moonlight with its gleam of mellow gold, which seemed to vibrate from the river outside, and Gordon stood by the window, with a dull sense of headache, looking at the old Nile that had seen so many acts in the drama of humanity and still flowed so silently, until he became conscious of a perfume he knew, and then, switching on the light, he found a letter in a scented envelope lying on his desk. It was from Helena, and it was written in her bold, upright hand, with the gay raillery, the passionate tenderness, and the fierce earnestness which he recognised as her chief characteristics:—
"MISTER, most glorious and respected, the illustrious Colonel Lord, owner of Serenity and Virtue, otherwise dear old Gordon—
"It was wrong of you not to come to dinner, for though Father over-excited himself at Ghezirah to-day and I have had to pack him off to bed, I made every preparation to receive you, and here I am in my best bib and tucker, wearing the crown of pink blossom which my own particular Sultan says suits my gipsy hair, and nobody to admire it but my poor little black boy Mosie—who is falling in love with me, I may tell you, and is looking at me now with his scrubby face all blubbered up like a sentimental hippopotamus.
"I am not surprised that the Consul-General talked about the new 'holy man,' and I do not wonder that he ordered you to arrest him, but I am at a loss to know why you should take counsel with that old fossil at El Azhar, and you can tell Master Hafiz I mean to dust his jacket for suggesting it, knowing your silly old heart is like wax, and they have only to recite something out of the 'noble Koran' and you'll be as weak as—well, as a woman.
"As for holy men generally, I agree with the Princess that they are holy humbugs, which is the title I would give to a good many of thegenusat home as well as here, so I say with your namesake of glorious memory (who wasn't an ogre, goodness knows!),Smash the Mahdi!
"A thousand to one he is some ugly, cross-eyed old fanatic, who would destroy every germ of civilisation in Egypt and carry the country back to barbarity and ruin, so I say again,Smash the Mahdi!
"As for your 'conscience,' I cry 'Marry-come-up!' by what right does it push its nose where it isn't wanted, seeing it is the conscience of the Consul-General that will be damned if the work is wrong and wicked and there won't be so much as a plum of Paradise for yours if it is right and good, so once again I say,Smash the Mahdi!
"Moreover, and furthermore, and by these presents, I rede ye beware of resisting the will of your father, for if you do, as sure as I'm a 'witch' and 'know things without learning them,' I have a 'mystic sense' there will be trouble, and nobody can say where it will end or how many of us may be involved in it, so again and yet again I say,Smash the Mahdi!
"The Consul-General's letter has come, but I shall not read it to Father until morning, and meantime, if I ever pass through your imagination, think of me as poor Ruth sitting on the threshing-floor with Boaz, and dreaming of Zion—that is to say, of stuffy old El Azhar, where somebody who ought to know better is now talking to an old frump in petticoats instead of to me.
"Inshallah! The slave of your Virtues.—HELENA.
"P.S.—Dying for to-morrow afternoon, dear.
"P.P.S.—IMPORTANT—Smash the Mahdi!"
CHAPTER IX
Helena Graves was everything to her father, for the General's marriage had been unhappy, and it had come to a tragic end. His wife, the daughter of a Jewish merchant in Madras, had been a woman of strong character and great beauty but of little principle, and they had been married while he was serving as senior Major with a battalion of his regiment in India, and there, Helena, their only child, had been born.
Things had gone tolerably between them until the Major returned to England as Lieutenant-Colonel commanding the battalion of his regiment at home, and then, in their little military town, they had met and become intimate with the Lord-Lieutenant of the county, a nobleman, a bachelor, a sportsman, a breeder of racehorses, and a member of the Government.
The end of that intimacy had been a violent scene, in which the husband, in his ungovernable rage, had flung the nobleman on the ground and trampled on him, torn the jewels out of his wife's breast and crushed them under his heel, and then, realising the bankruptcy his life had come to, had gone home and had brain fever.
Helena, like her father, was passionate and impetuous, and her mother had neglected and never really loved her. With the keen eyes of a child who is supposed to see nothing, she had observed from the first what was going on at home, and all her soul had risen against her mother and her mother's lover with a hatred which no presents could appease. Being now a girl of eighteen, well grown and developed, and seeing with what treachery and cruelty her father had been stricken down, her heart went out to him, and she became a woman in one day.
When the brain fever was gone, the General, weak both in body and mind, was ordered rest and change. Somebody suggested the Lake Country, as his native air, so Helena, who did everything for him, took him to a furnished cottage in Grasmere, a sweet place bowered in roses, with its face to the sedgy lake, and with the beautiful river, the Rotha, laughing and babbling by the garden at the back.
There he recovered bodily strength, but it was long before his mind returned to him, and meantime he had strange delusions. Something, perhaps, in the place of their retreat brought ghosts of the past out of a world of shadows, for he thought he was a boy again and Helena was his mother, who was thirty years dead and buried in the little churchyard lower down the stream, where the Rotha was deep and flowed with a solemn hush.
Helena played up to his pathetic delusion, took the tender endearments that were meant for the grandmother she had never known, and as his young days came to the surface with the beautiful persistence of old memories ha the human mind, she fell in with them as if they had been her own. Thus on Sunday morning, when the bells rang, she would walk with him to church, holding his hand in her hand as if she were the mother and he the child.
It was very sweet to look upon, for, in the sleep of the General's brain, he was very happy, and only to those who saw that the brave girl, with her eyes of light and her lips of dew, was giving away her youth to her old father, was it charged with feeling too deep for tears.
But at length the stricken man came out of the twilight land, and his dream faded away. Helena had to play their little American organ every evening that he might sing a hymn to it, for that was what his mother had always done, when she was putting her boy to bed and thinking, like a soldier's wife, of his father who was away at the wars. It was always the same hymn, and one breathless evening, when the sun had gone down and the vale was still, they had come to—
"Hide me, O my Saviour, hide,Till the storms of life be past"—
"Hide me, O my Saviour, hide,Till the storms of life be past"—
"Hide me, O my Saviour, hide,
Till the storms of life be past"—
and then his voice stopped suddenly, and he shaded his eyes as if something were blinding them.
At that moment the past, which had been dead so long, seemed to rise from its grave, with all its mournful incidents—his wife and his shattered home—and Helena was not his mother but his daughter, and he was not a happy boy but an old soldier, with a broken life behind him.
Seeing by the look in his eyes that he was coming to himself, Helena tried to comfort him, and when he gasped, "Who is it?" she answered in a voice she tried to render cheerful, "It is I. It is Helena. Don't you know me, Father?" And then the years rolled back upon him like a flood, and he sobbed on her shoulder.
The awakening had been painful, but it was not all pain. If he had lost a wife he had gained a daughter, and she was the strongest, staunchest creature in the world. For her sake he must begin again. Having had so much shadow in her young life, she must now have sunshine. Thus Helena became her father's idol, the one thing on earth to him, and he was more to her than a father usually is to a daughter, because she had seen him in his weakness and mothered him back to strength.
Two years after the breakdown they were in London, and there Helena met Lord Nuneham on one of his few visits to England. The great Proconsul, who had heard what she had done, was most favourably impressed by her, and as she talked to him, he said to himself, "This girl has the blood of the great women of the Bible, the Deborahs who were mothers in Israel, aye, and the Jaels who avenged her." At that time the post of Major-General to the British Army in Egypt was shortly to become vacant, and by Lord Nuneham's influence it was offered to Graves. Six months later father and daughter arrived in Cairo.
It had been an exciting time, but Helena had managed everything, and the General had borne up manfully until they took possession of the house assigned to them, a renovated old palace on the edge of the Citadel. Then in a moment he had collapsed, and fallen from his chair to the floor. Helena had lifted him in her strong arms, laid him on the couch, and sent his Aide-de-camp for the Medical Officer in charge.
Consciousness came back quickly, and Helena laughed through the tears that had gathered in her great eyes, but the surgeon continued to look grave.
"Has the General ever had attacks like this before?" he asked.
"Never that I know of," said Helena.
"He must be kept quiet. I'll see him in the morning."
Next day the Medical Officer had no doubts of his diagnosis—heart-disease, quite unmistakably. The news had to be broken to the General, and he bore it bravely, but thinking of Helena he made one request—that nothing should be said on the subject. If the fact were known at the War Office he might be retired, and there could be no necessity for that until the army was put on active service.
"But isn't the army always on active service in Egypt, sir?" said the surgeon.
"Technically perhaps, not really," said the General. "In any case I'm not afraid, and I ask you to keep the matter quiet."
"As you please, sir."
"You and I and Helena must be the only ones to know anything about it."
"Very well, but you must promise to take care. Any undue excitement, any over-exertion, any outburst of anger even——"
"It shall not occur—I give you my word for it," said the General.
But it had occurred, not once but frequently during the twelve months following. It occurred after Gordon asked for Helena, and again last night, the moment the General reached his bedroom on his return from the Khedivial Club.
He was better next morning, and then Helena took up the letter from Lord Nuneham. "Read it," said the General, and Helena read—
"DEAR GENERAL,—Gordon is here, and I will send him up to tell you what I think it necessary to do in order to put an end to the riots at Alexandria and make an example of the ringleaders.
"The chief of them is the Arab preacher, Ishmael Ameer, and I propose that we bring him up to Cairo immediately, try him by Special Tribunal, and despatch him without delay to our new penal settlement in the Soudan.
"For that purpose (as the local police are chiefly native and therefore scarcely reliable, and your Colonel on the spot might hesitate to act on his own initiative in the possible event of a rising of the man's Moslem followers), I propose that you send some one from Cairo to take command, and therefore suggest Gordon, your first staff officer, and the most proper person (always excepting yourself) to deal with a situation of such gravity.—Yours in haste, NUNEHAM."
While Helena was reading the letter the General could hardly restrain his excitement.
"Just as I thought!" he said. "I knew the Consul-General would put down that new Mahdi. Wonderful man, Nuneham! And what a chance for Gordon! By Gad, he'll have all Europe talking about him. He deserves it, though. Ask the staff. Ask the officers. Ask the men. I see what Nuneham's aiming at—making Gordon his successor! Well, why not? Why not Gordon Lord the Consul-General? I ask, why not? Good for Egypt and good for England too. Am I wrong?"
Then, remembering to whom he was addressing these imperative challenges, he laughed and said, "Ah, of course! I congratulate you, my child! I'll live to see you proud and happy yet, Helena. Now go—I'm going to get up."
And when Helena warned him that he was over-exciting himself again, he said, "Not a bit of it. I'm all right now. But I must write to Alexandria immediately and see Gordon at once.... Coming up this afternoon, you say? That will do. Splendid fellow! Fine as his father! Father and son—both splendid!"
CHAPTER X
When Gordon reached the General's house at five o'clock that day there was for a while a clash of opposing wills. Thinking of Helena's peremptory advice,Smash the Mahdi, he was determined to tell her what the Chancellor of El Azhar had said of Ishmael Ameer, and she was resolved that he should say nothing about him. So while Gordon stood by the shaded window, looking down on the city below, which still lay hot under the sun's fierce eye, Helena talked of his mother, her father, and of the Princess Nazimah, who had invited her, in a funny letter, to join the ladies' council for the emancipation of Egyptian women and the abolition of polygamy, saying among other things, "The needle carries but one thread, my dear, and the heart cannot carry two." But at length she said—
"When do you leave for Alexandria?"
"To-night at half-past six. My servant is to take my bag to the railway station, and Hafiz and two other Moslems are to meet me there."
"Good gracious! No time to lose, then. Mosie!" she cried, and a small black boy with large limpid eyes, wearing a scarlet caftan and blue waistband, came into the room.
"Tea, Mosie, quick! Tell the cook the Colonel has to catch a train."
The black boy kissed her hand and went bounding out, whereupon she talked again to prevent Gordon from talking.
"Didn't I tell you that boy was falling in love with me? I found him fighting in the market-place. That was a week ago, since when he has adopted me, and now he is always kissing my hand or the hem of my gown, as who would say, 'I have none but her, and I love her like my eyes.' A most dear little human dog, and I do believe—yes, I really do believe—if I wished it he would go to his death for me."
Gordon, who was gloomy and dejected, and had been drumming on the window-pane without listening, then said—
"Helena, can you imagine what it is to a soldier to feel that he is on the wrong side in battle? If he is to fight well he ought to feel that he is fighting for his country, his flag, and—justice. But when the position is the reverse of that; when, for example——"
But at that moment the General came into the room and welcomed Gordon with a shout.
"Just been writing to Alexandria, telling Jenkinson to keep a force in readiness for you night and day," he said. "Only way, my boy! Force is the one thing the Easterns understand. Of course we don't want bloodshed, but if these rascals are telling the people that the power is not in our hands, or that England will not allow us to use it—we must let them see—we can't help it. Glorious commission, Gordon! I congratulate you! My job, though, and there's only one man I could give it up to—only one man in the world."
And then Gordon, who had been biting his underlip, said, "I almost wish you could do it yourself, General."
"Why, what the deuce——"
"Gordon has been taking counsel with the Chancellor of El Azhar," said Helena, "and the old silly seems to have given him 'the eye' or talked nonsense out of the noble Koran."
"Not nonsense, Helena, and not out of the Koran, but out of the book of life itself," said Gordon, and after the black boy had brought in the tea, he told them what the Chancellor had said.
"So you see," he said, "the preaching of this new prophet has nothing to do with England in Egypt—nothing more, at least, than with England in India, or South Africa, or even Canada itself. It transcends all that, and is teaching for the world, for humanity. Isn't it true, too? Take what he says about the lust of empire, and look at the conduct of the Christian countries. They are praying in their churches 'that it may please Thee to give to all nations unity, peace, and concord,' yet they are increasing their armaments every day. What for—defence? Certainly! But what does that mean?—fear of aggression. So, while in our King's speeches and our President's messages, in our newspapers and even in our pulpits we keep up the pretence that we are at peace with the world, we are always, according to the devil's code of honour, preparing for the time when two high-spirited nations may find it convenient to fly at each other's throats. Peace with the world! Lies, sir, all lies, and barefaced hypocrisy! The nations never are at peace with the world, never have been, never want to be."
The General tried to protest, but Gordon, who was now excited, said—
"Oh, I know—I'm a soldier too, sir, and I don't want to see my country walked upon. It may be all right, all necessary to the game of empire, but for Heaven's sake let us call it by its right name—conquest, not Christianity—and put away the cant and quackery of being Christian countries."
Again the General tried to protest, but Gordon did not hear.
"Think of it! Kaisers and Kings and Presidents asking God's blessing on their Ministries of War! Bishops and Archbishops praying for more battleships! Christians? Followers of Christ? Why, in the name of God, do they not tear the scales from their eyes and stand revealed to themselves as good, upright, honest, honourable Pagans, bent on the re-paganisation of the world and the destruction of Christian civilisation? I'm a soldier, yes, but I hope to Heaven I'm not a hypocrite, and show me the soldier worth his salt who is not at heart a man of peace."
The General's face was growing scarlet, but Gordon saw nothing of that.
"Then take what this new preacher says about the greed of wealth—isn't that true, too? We pretend to believe that 'it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God,' yet we are nearly all trying, struggling, fighting, scrambling to be rich."
He laughed out loud and then said—-
"Look at America—I'm half an American myself, sir, so I've a right to say it—where a man may become a millionaire by crushing out everybody else and appropriating the gifts of nature which God meant for humanity! But America is a Christian country, too, and its richest men build, of their abundance, churches in which to glorify the giving of the widow's mite! Is the man to be silenced who warns the world that such sordid and squalid materialism is swallowing up religion, morality, and truth? Such a man may be the very soul of a country, yet what do we do with him? We hang him or stone him or crucify him—that's what we do with him, sir."
Gordon, who had been walking up and down the room and talking in an intense and poignant voice, stopped suddenly and said—
"General, did you ever reflect upon the way in which Jesus Christ was brought to His death?"
"Good gracious, man, what has that subject to do with this?" said the General.
"A good deal, I think, sir. Did you ever ask yourself who it was that betrayed Jesus?"
"Judas Iscariot, I suppose."
"No, sir, Judas was only the catspaw—scorned through all the ages and burnt in a million effigies, but nearly as innocent of the death of his Master as you or I. The real betrayer was the High Priest of the Jews. He was the head of the bad system which Christ came to wipe out, and he saw that if he did not destroy Jesus, Jesus would destroy him. What did he do? He went to the Governor, the Consul-General of the Roman Occupation, and said, 'This man is setting himself up against Cæsar. If you let him go you are not Cæsar's friend.'"
"Well?"
"That's what the High Priest of Islam is doing in Egypt now. As I was going into the Agency yesterday I met the Grand Cadi coming out. You know what he is, sir—the most fanatical supporter of the old dark ways—slavery, divorce, polygamy, all the refuse of bad Mohammedanism."
"Well, well?"
"Well, my father told me the Grand Cadi had said, 'If you let Ishmael Ameer go on it will be death to the rule of England in Egypt.'"
"And what does it all come to?"
"It comes to this, sir—that if the Chancellor of El Azhar has told me the truth—if, I sayif—when we take Ishmael Ameer and shut him up in prison for life with nothing but a desert around him, we shall be doing something that bears an ugly resemblance to what the Romans did in Palestine."
Then the General, who had not once taken his eyes off Gordon, rose in visible agitation and said—
"Gordon Lord, you astonish me! If what you say means anything it means that this man Ishmael is not only preaching sedition but is justified in doing so. That's what you mean! Am I wrong?"
In his excitement he spoke so rapidly that he stammered, and Helena cried, "Father!"
"Leave me alone, Helena. I'm calm, but when a man talks of ... When you talk of conquest you mean England in Egypt—yes, you do—and you refuse to see that we have to hold high the honour of our country and to protect our dominions in the East."
His voice sounded choked, but he went on—
"More than that, when you compare our Lord's trial and death with that of this—this half-educated Arab out of the desert—this religious Don Quixote who is a menace not only to Government but to the very structure of civilised society—it's shocking, it's blasphemous, and I will not listen to it."
The General was going out in white anger when he stopped at the door and said—
"Gordon Lord, I take leave to think this man an impostor, and if you want my view of how to deal with him and with the credulous simpletons who are turning sedition into crime and crime into bloody anarchy, I give it to you—'Martial law, sir, and no damned nonsense!'"
Save for one word Helena had not yet spoken, but now with tightly-compressed lips, and such an expression on her face as Gordon had never before seen there, she said—
"I hate that man! I hate him! I hate him!"
Her eyes blazed, and she looked straight into Gordon's face, as she said, "I hate him because you are allowing yourself to be influenced in his favour against your own father, and your own country. An Englishman's duty is to stand by England, whatever she is and whatever she does. And the duty of an English soldier is to fight for her and ask no questions. She is his mother, and to inquire of himself whether she is right or wrong, when her enemies are upon her, is not worthy of a son."
The colour rushed to Gordon's face and he dropped his head.
"As for this man's teaching, it may transcend Egypt but it includes it, and these people will take out of it only what they want, and what they want is an excuse to resist authority and turn their best friends out of the country. As for you," she said, with new force, "your duty is to go to Alexandria and bring this man back to Cairo. It begins and ends there, and has nothing to do with anything else."
Then Gordon raised his head and answered, "You are right, Helena. You are always right. A son is not the judge of his father. And where would England be to-day if her soldiers had always asked themselves whether she was in the right or the wrong? I thought England would be sinning against the light if she sent Ishmael Ameer to the Soudan and so stifled a voice that might be the soul of the East, but I know nothing about him except what his friends have told me.... After all, grapes don't grow on pine trees, and the only fruit we see is ... I'll see the man for myself, Helena, and if I find he is encouraging the rioters ... if even in his sermons in the mosques ... Hafiz and the Moslems are to tell me what he says in them.... They must tell me the truth, though ... Whatever the consequences ... they must tell me the truth. They shall—my God, theymust."