"A word in haste to say that he who came here as your missionary and representative has within the hour been arrested by the officials of the Government, having, so far as we can yet learn and surmise, been most treacherously and maliciously betrayed into their hands by means of a letter to the English lord from one who stands near to you in your camp."In sadness and tears, with faces bowed to the earth and ashes on our heads, we send our sympathy to you and to your stricken followers, entreating you on our knees, in the name of the Compassionate, not to attempt to carry out your design of coming into Cairo, lest further and more fearful calamities should occur."This by swift and trusty messenger to your hands at Sakkara.—The Slave of your Virtues,"ABDUL ALI."END OF FOURTH BOOKFIFTH BOOKTHE DAWNCHAPTER IThe day that Ishmael had looked for, longed for, prayed for—the day that was to see the fulfilment not only of his spiritual hopes but of his rapturous dream of bliss, the day of his return to Cairo—had come at last.But the Ishmael Ameer who was returning to Cairo was by no means the same man as the Ishmael who had gone away. In a few short months he had become a totally different person. Two forces had changed him—two forces which in their effect were one.By the operation of the first of these forces he had become more of a mystic; by the operation of the second he had become more of a man; by the operation of both together he had become a creature who was controlled by his emotions alone.When he left Cairo he had been a man of elevated spirit but of commanding common sense. He had looked upon himself as one whose sole work was to call men back to God and to righteousness. But little by little the tyranny of outward events, the pressure of responsibility, and, above all, the heartfelt and prostrate but dim and perverted adulation of his followers, had led him to believe that he was a being apart, specially directed by the Almighty and even permitted to be His mouthpiece.Insensibly Ishmael had come to look upon himself as a "Son of God." When he first saw that the crowds who came to him from east and west were beginning to believe that he was the Redeemer, the Deliverer, the Expected One whom he foretold, he was shocked, and he protested. But when he perceived that this belief helped him to comfort and console and direct them, he ceased to deny; and when he realised that it was necessary to his people's confidence that they should think that he who guided them was himself guided by God, he permitted himself, by his silence, to acquiesce.From allowing others to believe in his divinity, he had come to believe in it himself. His burning, boundless influence over his people had seemed to his deep heart to be only intelligible as a thing given to him from Heaven, and then the "miracle" in the desert, the raising of the Sheikh's daughter from the dead, had swept down the last of his scruples. God had given him supernatural powers and made him the mouthpiece of His will.And now, at the end of his pilgrimage, if he did not accept the idea that he was in very fact the Redeemer who was to bring in the golden age, the Kingdom of God, he succumbed to a delusion that was nearly akin to it—that just as the lord of the Christians, being condemned by the Roman Governor, had permitted another to take his form and face and bodily presence and to die on the cross instead of him, so the Messiah, the Mahdi, the Christ who was to come, was now using him as His substitute to lead and control His poor, oppressed, and helpless people until the time came for Him to appear in His own person.Such was the operation of the force that had made Ishmael more of a mystic; and the force that had made him more of a man had been playing in the same way upon his heart.It had played upon him through Helena.When Helena entered into his life and he betrothed himself to her, he honestly believed that he was doing no more than protecting her good name. For some time afterwards he continued to deceive himself, but the constant presence of a beautiful woman by his side produced its effect, and little by little he came to know that his heart was touched.As soon as he became conscious of this he remembered the vow he had made when his Coptic slave-wife died, that no other woman should take her place, and he also reminded himself of his mission, his consecration to the welfare of humanity. But the more he tried to crush his affection for Helena, the more it grew.He was like a boy in the first beautiful morning light of love. The moment he was alone, after parting from Helena at the door of her sleeping-room, he would kiss the hand that had touched her hand, and find a tingling joy in stepping afresh over the places on which her feet had trod. A glance from her beaming eyes made his pulse beat rapidly, and when, one day, he saw her combing out her hair, with her round white arm bare to the elbow, his breathing came quick and loud.His passion was like a flower which had sprung up in the parched place of the desert of his desolate soul, and everything that Helena did seemed to water it. Reading her conduct by the only light he had, he thought she loved him. Had she not followed him from India, breaking from her own people to live by his side? Had she not betrothed herself to him without a thought of any other than spiritual joys?Her pride in him, too, was no less than her affection. Had she not proposed that he should go into Cairo in advance, because that being the place of the greatest danger was the place of highest honour also? In her womanly jealousy for her husband's rank, had she not resisted and resented the substitution of another when it was decided by the Sheikhs that "Omar" should go instead? And, notwithstanding her illness at Khartoum, had she not insisted on following him across the desert and, weak as she was, enduring the pains of his pilgrimage in order to continue by his side?Allah bless and cherish her! Was there anything in the world so good as a sweet, unselfish, devoted woman?During the journey Ishmael's love for Helena grew hour by hour until it filled his whole being, and made his wild heart a globe of infinite radiance and hope. Her beauty, her gifts of mind as well as of body, took complete possession of him. Whenever he saw her, everything brightened up. Whenever he turned on his camel, and caught sight of her dromedary at the tail of the caravan, he became excited. Whenever evil things befell, he had only to think of the Rani and his troubles died away. All that was good and beautiful in the world seemed to centre in the litter that held her by day and in the tent that covered her by night.Then, in spite of his mission and the burden of his work, he began to remember that all this loveliness, all this sweetness, belongedto him. The Rani washis wife, and he could not help but think of the possibility of nearer relations between them.When this thought first came to him he repelled it as a species of treachery. Had he not pledged himself to a spiritual union? Would it not be wrong to break that pledge—wrong to the Rani, wrong to his own higher nature, wrong to God?But, nevertheless, the temptation to claim the rights of a husband became stronger day by day, and he struggled to reconcile his faith with his affection. He reminded himself that renunciation was no part of Islam, that it was a Christian error, that "monkery" had been condemned by the Prophet, that it was contrary to the clear law of nature, and that as soon as his task was finished it was his duty to live a human life, with woman and with children.This seemed to solve the Sphinx-like problem of existence, but when he tried to talk of it to the Rani, in order to break the ground with her, his tongue would not utter the words that were in his heart, and something made him stop in confusion and hasten away.Yet his self-denial only intensified his desire. Keeping away from Helena by day, he was with her in his dreams by night. One rapturous, incredible, almost impossible and even terrible dream of bliss was always stirring within him. A little longer, only a little longer. The hour in which he would lay down his task as leader, as prophet, would be the hour in which he would take up his new life as a man.That hour was now near. He was outside the gates of Cairo. Nothing would, nothing could, intervene at this last stage to prevent him from entering the city, and once within, his work would be at an end. O God, how good it was to live!All that day at Sakkara, Ishmael had been in the highest state of religious exaltation, and when night came he walked about the camp as if demented both in heart and brain.The camp stretched from the hanks of the Nile at Bedrasheen over the black ruins of Memphis to the broad sands before the Step Pyramid, and everywhere the people sat in groups about their fires, eating, drinking, playing their pipes, tambourines and drums, and singing, to tunes that were like wild dance music, their songs of rejoicing.They were singing about himself, his wise words, his miracles, his miraculous birth (born of a virgin), his good looks, which made all women love him, and his divinity, which would save him from death. Ishmael heard this, yet he had no misgivings, no fear of what the coming day would bring forth. A sort of spiritual lightning blinded him to possible danger, and his heart swelled with love for his people. God bless them! God bless everybody! Bless East and West, white man and black man, sons of one Father, soon to be united in one hope, one love, one faith!Ishmael felt as if he wanted to take the whole world in his arms. Above all, he wanted to take the Rani in his arms. It was not that the lower man, the animal man, was conquering the higher man, the spiritual man, but that both body and soul were aflame, that a sense of fierce joy filled his whole being at the thought of entering into a new life, and that he wished to find physical expression for it.Before he was aware of what he was doing, he was walking in the direction of Helena's tent. Striding along in the darkness, which was slashed here and there with shafts of light from the camp fires, he approached the tent from the back, the mouth being towards the city. Close behind it, he stumbled upon some one who was crouching there. It was a boy, and he rose hastily and hurried away without speaking, being followed immediately by a woman who seemed to have been watching him.Ishmael's heart was beating so violently by this time that he had only a confused impression of having seen this, and at the next instant, treading softly on the silent sand, he was in front of the tent, looking at Helena, who was within.She was sitting on her camp-bed, her angerib, writing on a pad that rested upon her lap, by the light of a lamp which hung from the pole that upheld the canvas. Though her face was down, Ishmael could see that it was suffused by a rosy blush, and when at one moment she raised her head, her bright and shining eyes seemed to him to be wet with tears, but full, nevertheless, of joy and love.Ishmael thought he knew what she was doing. She was thinking of him, and writing, as she loved to do, the immortal story of his pilgrimage, happy in the near approach of his great triumph.Standing in the darkness to look at her, he could hardly restrain himself any longer. He wanted to burst in upon her and to be alone with her.Behind and about him were the lights of the camp and its many sounds of rejoicing, but he did not see or hear them now. His heart was afire. He was intoxicated with love. What had been for so long his almost unconquerable dream of bliss was about to be fulfilled."Rani!" he whispered, in a quivering voice, and then, plunging into the tent, he caught her up in his arms.CHAPTER IIHalf blind with tears which belied her brave words, Helena had been writing the letter to Gordon which Mosie was waiting to take away. She had told him not to think of her, for she was quite able to take care of herself whatever happened. Then wiping the tears from her eyes, she had smiled as she told him to forget the nonsense she had written about Jezebel and her Jewish blood, and to remember that until Ishmael's work was "finished" and he entered Cairo she ran no risk by remaining in his camp.She had got thus far when she thought she heard a step on the sand outside, but raising her eyes to look and seeing nothing except the red and white stars from the rockets that rained through the air at Ghezirah, she resumed her letter, telling herself, as she did so, that if the worst came to the worst and matters reached an unexpected crisis with Ishmael, she could defeat him again, as she had done before, by diplomacy, by finesse, and by woman's wit."I suppose you are in the thick of it by this time, for I see that the illuminations at Ghezirah have already begun. My dear, my dear, my——"Her last word was not yet written when she heard Ishmael's tremulous whisper of the name he knew her by, and, starting up as if she had received an electric shock, she saw the Egyptian coming into her tent with the glittering eyes of one who was about to accomplish some joyous task. At the next moment, before she knew what was happening, she found herself clasped in his arms."My life! My heart! My eyes! My own!" he was saying in hot and impetuous whispers, and, raising her face to his face, he was kissing her on the lips.She struggled to liberate herself, but felt like a helpless child in his strong, irresistible grasp."Leave me! Let me go!" she said, with heat and anger, but he did not seem to hear her or to be conscious of her resistance."Oh, how glad I am!" he said. "Our journey is at an end! Our new life is about to begin! How happy we shall be!"All the blood in Helena's body rushed to her cheeks, and, putting up her hands between their faces, she demanded angrily—"What do you mean by this? What are you doing?"Yet still he did not hear her, for his passion was overpowering him, its intoxicating voice was ringing through his whole being, and he continued to pour into her ears a torrent of endearing words."Yes, yes, our new life is about to begin! It is to begin to-night—now!"Helena was overwhelmed with fear, but suddenly, by the operation of an instinct which she did not comprehend, she smiled up into Ishmael's smiling face—a feeble, frightened, involuntary smile—and, pointing to the open mouth of the tent, she said, with a sense of mingled cunning and confusion—"Be careful! Look!"Ishmael loosened his hold of her, and, stepping back to the tent's mouth, he began to close and button it.While he did so, Helena watched him and asked herself what she ought to do next. Cry for help? It would be useless. There were none to hear her except Ishmael's own people, and they worshipped him and looked upon her as his wife, his property, his slave, his chattel. Escape? Impossible! More than ever impossible for what (at her own direction) he was doing now."Then what am I to do?" she asked herself, and before she had found an answer Ishmael, having sealed up the tent, was returning with outstretched arms, as if with the intention of embracing and kissing her again.She read in his great wild eyes the light of a passion which she had never seen in a man's face before, but she put on a bold front in spite of the terror which possessed her, thrust out her right hand to keep him off, looked him full in the face, and cried—"No, no! You shall not! On no account! No!"At that he dropped his outstretched arms, but, still smiling his joyous smile, he continued to approach her, saying, as he did so, in a tone of affectionate surprise and remonstrance—"Why, what is this, O my Rani? Have we not joined hands under the handkerchief? Are you not my wife? Am I not your husband? It is true that I pledged myself to renunciation. But renunciation is wrong. It is against religion—against God."He came nearer. She could feel his hot breath upon her face. It made her shiver with the race-feeling she had experienced before."And then, how can I continue to deny myself?" he said. "I am like one who has been dying of hunger in the sight of food. You are my joy, my flower, my treasure. God has given you to me. You are mine."With that he threw his irresistible arms about her again, and, bringing his glittering eyes close to her eyes, he whispered—"My Rani! My wife!"Helena knew that the hour she had looked forward to with dread had come at length; she saw that the diplomacy, the finesse, the woman's wit she had counted upon to save her, were useless to quell the passion which flashed from Ishmael's eyes and throbbed in his voice, and she made one last and violent effort to escape from his arms."Let me go! Let me go!" she cried."Am I doing wrong?" he said. "No, no! I would not harm you for all the kingdoms of the world. But every wife must submit to her husband.""No, no, no!" she cried, in tones of repulsion and loathing."Yes, yes, yes!" he replied, still more tenderly, still more passionately. "But if she is a good woman she has her modesty, her shield of shame. That is only right, only natural. It makes her the more sweet, the more dear, the more charming——"Helena felt his arms tightening about her; she knew that he was lifting her off her feet, and realised that she was beins carried across the tent.Then she remembered the assurances she had given to Gordon, the promises she had made to herself; and hardly conscious of what she did until it was done, or what she was saying until it was said, she brought her open hands heavily down upon his face, and cried in a fury of wrath and scorn—"Let me go, I tell you! You shall! You must! Can't you see that you are hateful and odious to me—that you are a black man and I am a white woman?"At the next moment she felt Ishmael's arms relax, and she found herself on her feet. A sense of immense, immeasurable relief came over her. A sense of triumph, too, for what she had said she would do she had done.When she recovered herself sufficiently to look at Ishmael again, he was standing apart from her and his head was down. He could no longer deceive himself. A whirlwind of chaotic darkness had swept over him. The storm of his passion was gone.Helena saw that he was deeply wounded, and, notwithstanding the aversion he had inspired in her a moment before, she pitied him from the bottom of her heart."I am sorry for what I said just now," she murmured in a low tone. "It was hateful of me, and I ask your pardon."She was still panting, and she had to pause for breath, but he did not reply, and after a moment she began to excuse herself, saying falteringly—"But you must see that ... that there could never have been anything between you and me, because ... because——"Raising his eyes, he looked not into her face but at the veil that was fixed to her hair, and she found it difficult to go on."Did you not say yourself," she said, "that marriage was not joining hands under a handkerchief, or repeating words after a Cadi, but a sacrament of love, mutual love, and that everything else was sin? Therefore——""Well?""Therefore if ... if I do not love you——""And you do not?""No.""Allah! Allah!" he muttered, in a voice that seemed to come up out of the depths of his soul, and at the next moment he sank down on to the angerib which was close behind him.But hardly had he done so when he leapt to his feet again, and in a voice that rang with wrath he said—"Then why did you betroth yourself to me? I put no constraint upon you. If you had told me that your heart was far from me, I should have gone no further. But I gave you time to consider, and you came to me of your own free will. Why was this? Answer me. I have a right to know that, at all events."It came into her mind to reply that when they were betrothed he did not ask her if she loved him, and she did not understand that she was to belong to him. But what was the use of defending herself? On what ground could she justify her conduct?"Or if," he said, and his voice shook with the intensity of his emotion—"if it was after our betrothal that your heart left me—if something I said or did lost me your love—why did you follow me from Khartoum? You might have stayed there. I was willing to leave you behind me. Why did you follow me over the desert? Why did you come with my company? Why are you here now?"She found it impossible to answer him, and feeling how deeply she had wronged him, yet how impossible, how unthinkable, how inconceivable it was that she could have acted otherwise than she had, in the light of her great and undying love for Gordon, she clasped her hands in front of her face and burst into a flood of tears.Her tears drove away his anger in a moment, for he mistook the cause of them, and, deeply and incurably wounded as he was, a wave of sympathy and compassion passed over him. Drawing her hands from her face and holding them in his own, he looked steadfastly into her wet eyes, and said in a softer voice—"I see how it has been, O my Rani. You followed the teacher, not the man; the message, not the poor soiled volume it was written in, and perhaps you were right—quite right."Every word he uttered went like iron into Helena's soul."I thought a woman lived by her heart alone," he said, "and that when she betrothed herself it must be for love, not from any higher and nobler motive, but it seems I was wrong—quite wrong. I thought, too," he said, "that where love was," and here his voice thickened and almost broke, "there was neither black nor white, neither race nor caste; but it seems I was wrong in that also. Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me!"He lifted her hands in his own long and delicate ones and put them to his lips, and then gently let them fall."But God knows best what is good for us," he said, "and perhaps ... perhaps He has sent me this as a warning and a punishment, lest ... lest I forget ... in the love of home and wife and children, the task the great task He has laid upon me. In-sha-allah! In-sha-allah!"With that he turned to leave the tent, a shaken and agitated and totally different man from the man who had entered it; and Helena, notwithstanding that she was deeply moved, again felt a sense of immense, immeasurable relief.But at the next moment a feeling akin to terror seized her, for while Ishmael was unbuttoning the canvas at the tent's mouth there came, over the dull rumble of many sounds outside, a clear, sharp voice, crying—"Ishmael Ameer! Ishmael Ameer! Urgent news! Where are you?"Helena's heart stood still. She seemed to know in advance what was coming. The hour of Ishmael's downfall had arrived, and he was to hear that he had been betrayed. She had escaped from her physical danger—what, now, of her moral peril?CHAPTER IIIA moment later Ishmael had torn the mouth of the tent open. An Egyptian was standing there in the turban and farageeyah of an Alim. The man, who was solemnly making his salaams, held a lantern in one hand and a letter in the other. Behind him, against the dark sky, were a number of Ishmael's own people. Their mouths were open, and fear was on their faces."What words are these, oh my brother?" asked Ishmael.Without speaking, the Alim offered him the letter. It was that of the Chancellor of El Azhar, written immediately after the arrest of Gordon.Ishmael took it, and standing under the lamp that hung from the pole of the tent he read it. For some moments he did not move or raise his eyes, but little by little his face assumed a death-like rigidity, and at length the paper crinkled in his trembling fingers.So strong had been his faith in his mission, and so firm his conviction that God would not allow anything to interfere with its fulfilment, that it was almost impossible for him to take in the truth—that his cause was lost, that his pilgrimage was wasted, that his people could not enter Cairo, and their hope was at an end.When at length he raised his eyes he looked with an expression of blank bewilderment into Helena's face."See," he said, in a tone of piteous helplessness, and he put the letter into her reluctant hand.The blood rushed to Helena's head, stars danced before her eyes, and it was with difficulty that she could see to read. But there was little need to do so, for already she knew, as by a sense of doom, what the letter contained.In a moment the people behind the Alim grew more and more numerous. The mouth of the tent became choked with them, and their faces were blotched with lights and shadows from the lamp within. They were talking eagerly among themselves, in low tones, full of dread. At length one of them spoke to Ishmael."Is it bad news, O Master?" he asked, but with the expressionless voice of one who knew already what the answer would be.There was a moment of strained silence, and then Ishmael turned again to Helena, and said in the same tone of piteous helplessness as before—"Read it to them. Let them know the worst, O Rani."Helena could find no escape. With a fearful effort she began to read the letter aloud. But hardly had she finished the first clause of it—telling Ishmael that his messenger and missionary had been betrayed into the hands of the Government by means of a message sent into Cairo from some one who stood near to him in his own camp—than a deep groan came from the people at the mouth of the tent.Black Zogal was there with his wild eyes, and by his side stood old Zewar Pasha with his suspicious looks."Who is the traitor, O Master?" asked the old man in his rasping voice, and it seemed to Helena that while he spoke every eye, except Ishmael's, was fixed upon her face.Then a fearful thing befell. Ishmael, the man of peace, whom none had ever seen in any mood but one of tenderness and love, broke into a torrent of fierce passion."Allah curse him whoever he is!" he cried. "Curse him in his lying down, and in his getting up! Curse him in the morning splendour, and in the still of night! Curse him in the life that now is, and in the life that is to come!"Helena felt as if the tent itself as well as the black and copper-coloured faces at the mouth of it were reeling around her. But it was not alone the terror of Ishmael's curse, with its unrevealed reference to herself, that created her confusion. She was thinking of Gordon. What did his arrest imply? Did it mean that he had succeeded in the perilous task he had undertaken? Or did it mean that he had failed?When she recovered consciousness of what was going on about her she heard, above a wild tumult of voices outside, the voice of a woman and the voice of a boy. She knew that the woman was Zenoba and the boy was Mosie. At the next moment both were coming headlong into the tent, the one dragging the other through a way that had been made for them. The boy's shaven black head was bare, his caftan was torn open at the breast, and his skin was bleeding at the neck as if vindictive fingers had been clutching him by the throat. The woman's swarthy face was bathed in sweat, twitching with excitement and convulsed with evil passions."There!" she cried. "There he is, O Master, and if you want to know who took the letter to the English lord, ask him.""Who is he?" asked Ishmael."Your Rani's servant," replied the Arab woman, with a curl of her cruel lip. "He left Khartoum for Cairo a month ago and has not been seen until to-day."Another deep groan came from the people at the tent's mouth, and again it seemed to Helena that every eye, except Ishmael's, was looking into her face.Meantime Mosie, thinking the groan of the people was meant for him, and that his life was in danger from their anger, had broken away from the woman's grasp and flung himself at Ishmael's feet, crying—"Mercy, O Master! I kiss your feet. I take refuge with God and with you. Save me, and I will tell you every thing."Ishmael, who by this time had regained his self-command, motioned to the Arab woman to stand back. Then he questioned the boy calmly, and the boy answered him in a fever of fear, gasping and sobbing at every word."My boy, you have come out of Cairo?""Yes, O Master, yes.""You went there from Khartoum?""Yes, yes, O Master, yes.""You took a letter to the English lord?""Yes, Master, a letter to the English lord.""From some one in Khartoum?""Yes, I will tell my Master everything—from some one in Khartoum.""What treacherous man sent you with that letter?""No man at all, O Master. You see, I am telling my Master everything.""Was it a woman?""Yes, Master, a woman. See, I kiss your feet. I keep nothing back from my Master."Another groan came from the people at the tent's mouth, and the black boy clutched at Ishmael's white caftan as if to protect himself from their wrath. Ishmael himself had a confused sense of something terrible that had not yet taken shape in his mind. He looked round at Helena who was standing by the angerib at the back, but her head was down and her thoughts were far away."What woman, then?" he asked in a sterner voice."No, no, I cannot tell you that," said the boy."Speak, boy. You shall be safe. I will protect you from all harm. What woman was it?""Master, do not ask me. I dare not tell you.""Listen," said Ishmael, and his voice grew hard and hoarse. "There is a traitor in my camp, and I must find out who it is. What treacherous woman sent you into Cairo with that letter?"The boy struggled hard. His ugly black face under his shaven poll was distorted by fear. He hesitated, began to speak, then stopped altogether.At that moment Helena came forward as if she had suddenly awakened from a dream, and Mosie saw her for the first time since he had been dragged into the tent. In another instant all fear had gone from his face and his eyes were blazing with courage."Tell me, I command you," said Ishmael."No, no, I willnevertell you," said the boy.Again a groan—this time a growl—came from the people at the tent's mouth."Torment would make his tongue wag," said one."Beat the innocent until the guilty confess—it is a good maxim, O Master," said Zewar in his rasping tones.Black Zogal, with his wild eyes, stepped out as if to lay hold of the lad, but Ishmael waved him back."Wait!" he said.He was looking at Helena again, and his face had undergone a fearful change."My boy," he said, still keeping his eyes on Helena, "if you do not tell me I must give you back to the people."At that the boy broke into a paroxysm of hysterical sobs."No, no, my Master will not do that. But see," he said, tearing wider his torn caftan so as to expose his breast, "my Master himself shall kill me."At the next moment Helena's hand was on Ishmael's arm."Let the boy go," she said. "I can tell the rest."A gloomy chill traversed Ishmael's heart. He had a sense of spiritual paralysis—as if everything in the world were crumbling and crashing down to impotent wreck and ruin.His people at the tent's mouth were muttering among themselves. He dismissed them, sending everybody away including the boy and the Arab woman. Most of them went off grudgingly, ungraciously, for the first time reluctant to obey his will.Then he closed up the mouth of the tent, and was once more alone with Helena.CHAPTER IVIn spite of the dread with which, for more than a month, Helena had looked forward to the hour in which Ishmael should hear of his betrayal, she felt none of the terror from that cause which she had feared and expected.She could think of nothing but Gordon. Where was he now? What were they doing to him? It seemed to be the only possible explanation of his arrest that his scheme for the salvation of the people had failed. Would he be handed over to the military authorities? Would he be tried by court-martial? And what would be the punishment of his offences as a soldier? Sinking down on the angerib she pressed her hands over her brow and over her eyes that she might think of this and shut out everything else.Meantime the mind of Ishmael was going through a conflict as strange and no less cruel. Although the plain evidences of his senses had already told him that he had been betrayed by the woman he loved, yet the dread of discovering the traitor in his own tent, in his own wife, filled him with terror, and he tried to escape from it.Having fastened up the tent, he walked to and fro for some moments without speaking, and then sitting down by Helena's side and taking her hand and smoothing it, he said, in his throbbing, quivering voice—"Rani, we have eaten bread and salt together. Be faithful with me—what woman sent that letter?"Helena hardly heard what he was saying. She was still thinking of Gordon. "They will condemn him to death," she told herself."Rani," said Ishmael again, "we have lived under the same roof; you have shared with me the closest secrets of my soul. Tell me—what woman sent that letter?"Helena looked at him and tried to listen, but Gordon's doom was ringing in her ears, and it drowned all the other sounds of life."Rani," said Ishmael once more, "though you denied me the rights of a husband, yet you are my wife. Our lives have been united not by man but by God, and in the presence of Him, whose name be exalted—of Him who reads all hearts—I ask you—what woman sent that letter?"Helena heard him, yet terrible as his question was, and perilous as she knew her answer must be, she felt no fear. "If I tell him," she thought. "Why not? It does not matter now.""Rani," said Ishmael yet again, "God gives me the right to command you. Idocommand you. What woman sent that letter?""Idid," said Helena, and though the words were spoken in a faltering whisper they seemed to Ishmael like a deafening roar."Allah! Allah!" he cried, leaping to his feet, for though he had expected that reply he reeled under it as under a blow.Helena realised what her answer meant to him, and again, from the bottom of her heart, she pitied him, but at the next moment her thoughts swung back to her own trouble.She remembered that her father had admitted that the British army in Egypt was always on active service, and she asked herself what would happen to Gordon if the military authorities lost their heads in fear of insurrection. Would they try him by Field General Court-Martial? In that case would the Court be called instantly? Would the inquiry last only a few minutes? Would the sentence be carried into immediate effect?"O God, can it be possible that it is all over already?" she asked herself.Meantime Ishmael, after moments of suffering which seemed hours of eternity, was again struggling to resist the only conclusion the facts had left to him. It was true that the Rani had confessed to sending the letter which had led to the arrest of his messenger, but all his heart rebelled against the inference that she had intended to betray his cause and his people. Had she not cast in her own lot with them? Had she not come from a distant country and a richer home to live in their poor house in Khartoum? And had she not endured the hardship of the desert journey in their company?Like a man who has been shipwrecked in a whirlwind of darkness, he was groping blindly through tempestuous waves for some means of rescue. At length a sort of raft of hope came to him, a helpless, impotent thing, but he clung to it, and sitting down by Helena's side again, he said, in the same piteous voice as before—"I see how it has been, O my Rani. You did not intend to betray my people—my poor people whose sufferings you have seen, whose faith and hopes and dreams you have shared and witnessed. It was Omar you were thinking of. Your heart has never forgiven him for taking the place you meant for your husband. You were jealous of him for my sake, and your jealousy got the better of your judgment. 'I will punish him,' you thought. 'I will make his mission of no effect.' And so you sent that letter. But you did not reflect that in destroying Omar you would be destroying my people also. It was wrong, it was cruel, but it was a woman's fault, and you have seen it and suffered for it ever since. Jealousy of Omar, perhaps hatred of Omar—that was it, was it not, O my Rani?"His voice was breaking as he spoke, for the pitiful explanation he had lighted upon was failing to bring conviction to his own mind, yet he fixed his sad eyes eagerly on Helena's face and repeated—"Jealousy of Omar, perhaps hatred of Omar—that was what caused you to send that letter?"Helena could not speak. The pathos of his error was choking her. But she replied to him with a look which it required no words to interpret."No?" he said. "Not of Omar? Of whom, then?"Helena could not lie. "He must know some day," she thought."Of whom, then?" he repeated, in his helpless confusion."Yourself," she replied."Allah! Allah! Myself! Myself!" he said, in a breathless whisper, rising to his feet again and striding across the tent.At the first moment after Helena's confession it seemed to Ishmael that both sun and moon had suffered eclipse and the world was in total darkness. Why had the Rani betrayed him? From what motive? For what object? He tried to follow her thoughts, and found it impossible to do so.There was a short period of frightful silence, and then, feeling as if he wanted to cry, he drew up before Helena again, and said in a husky voice, his swarthy face trembling and twitching—"But why, O Rani? I had done you no wrong. From the day you came to me I did all I could for you—all I could to make your nights peaceful and your mornings happy. Why has your heart been so far away from me?"Helena felt that the time had come to tell him everything. Yet in order to do so she must begin with the death of her father, and she could not speak of that without involving Gordon. "But that is impossible," she thought, "absolutely impossible.""Speak," said Ishmael. "When you sent your letter to the English lord, you must have known that you were dooming me to death—what had I done to deserve it?""I cannot tell you—I cannot, I cannot," she answered."It is unnecessary," said Ishmael.In the moment of Helena's silence a terrible explanation of her conduct had come to him, and he thought he saw, as by flashes of lightning, into the dark abyss that was at his feet.His manner, which had been gentle down to that moment, suddenly became harsh, and his voice, which had been soft, became hard."When did you send that letter?" he demanded.She saw the stern closing of his lips, and for an instant she felt afraid."Was it before the meeting of the Sheikhs at which Omar was chosen?""Yes," she replied. If Gordon was to be condemned to death, it was of no consequence what became of her."You told the English lord that Ishmael was coming to Cairo?""Yes." His deep, impenetrable eyes seemed to be looking through and through her."With what object and in—in what disguise?""Yes." She knew she was dashing herself to destruction, but no matter."When you sent your letter you said to yourself, 'Ishmael will go into Cairo, but my letter shall go before him.' Yes?""Yes." In the lowest depths of her soul she felt that if he killed her now she did not care."And when Omar stepped into the place you had meant for me you thought, 'The letter I wrote to destroy Ishmael will destroy Omar instead'?""Yes.""Was that why you tried to prevent Omar from going?""Yes." Tears were choking her utterance."Why you were unwilling to make the kufiah?""Yes.""Why you fainted in the mosque?"She bowed her head, being unable to utter another word."Then," said Ishmael, and his voice rose to a husky cry—"then it was love of Omar, not hatred of him, that inspired your letter?"She made no reply. Filled as she was with shame for what she had done to Ishmael, the image of Gordon was still in her mind. Even at that moment, when terrible consequences threatened her, she could not help thinking of him. If he were tried by Field General Court-Martial to-night he might be executed in the morning!That thought carried her back to the Citadel. She was on the drilling-ground in the dead grey light of dawn. A regiment of soldiers was drawn up in line. Six of them stood out from the rest with rifles to their shoulders. And before them, standing alone, with his back to the ramparts, was one condemned but dauntless man. "My last thoughts are about you," he was saying to her, and living in that cruel dream she burst into tears.Again Ishmael misunderstood her weeping, and again a wave of compassion passed over him."It is possible I am wrong," he said. "I may be judging you unjustly. In that case tell me so, and I will kiss your feet. I will ask your pardon."Sho could not speak. "This will end in some way," she thought."In the name of Heaven, speak! Tell me you do not love this man. Tell me I am wrong," he cried."No, you are not wrong," she said. "I do love him, and I am in despair. All you have said is true, but I cannot help it. I am a wicked woman, and my life by your side has been a deception from the first."With that she burst into another flood of tears, and falling face downward on the angerib, she buried her head in the pillow."Allah! Allah!" said Ishmael, and all the blood in his body seemed to flush his heart. He was passing through the supreme phase of his agony—perhaps the cruellest that man can suffer—the agony of knowing that the woman he loved, the woman he worshipped, loved and worshipped another man.In the cloud of maddening thoughts which sprang to his brain he imagined he read the mystery of Helena's conduct from the first. Remembering that she had called him a black man, the wild deep heart in him rose to a fever of jealous wrath."I see how it has been," he said. "The white man came to my tent. I welcomed him. I loved him. I trusted him. He was my brother, and he slept by my side. I made him free of my harem. I put my honour in his hands. And how did he repay me? By robbing me of the love that was my love, the heart that was my heart."She tried to speak, to protest, but in a torrent of wrath he bore her down."Your white man has over-reached himself, though. 'I will outdo Ishmael in her eyes,' he thought. But he has only fallen into the pit that was dug for me. Let him perish there, and the curse of God be upon him!"Again she tried to protest, and again in the blind hurricane of his anger he silenced her."And you—it was nothing to you that in betraying me you were betraying my people also—my poor people, who have suffered so much and followed me so faithfully."His face was terrible—it had the sullen glow of the Western sky before a storm."You have wrecked my hopes in the hour of their fulfilment. You have made dust and ashes of the expectations of my people. You have uncovered my nakedness, and made me a thing to point the finger at and to scorn. You have turned my heart to stone."Then the wild anguish of the jealous man became united to the fierce wrath of the fanatic, and going nearer to Helena, and leaning over her, he said—"Worse than that—a hundredfold worse—you have made the plans and promises of God of no avail. You have allowed the Evil One to enter into your heart, and to use your guilty passions to defeat the schemes of the Most High. Therefore," he said, raising his quivering voice until it rang through the tent like a tortured cry—"therefore, as the instrument of Satan you have no right to live. I say you have no right even to live. And I ... I, who have loved you ... I, whose heart has been wrapped about you like the rope about the wheel of the well ... I, whom you have betrayed and destroyed, and ... and my people with me ... it is I ... yes, it is I who must ... who must——"Helena heard him stammering and sobbing over her. At the same time she felt that his trembling, ferocious hands were laying hold of her. She felt that the long Eastern veil that had hung down her back was being wrapped around her throat. She felt that its folds were growing tighter and yet tighter, and that she was being strangled and was losing consciousness.Then suddenly she became aware that Ishmael's formidable grasp had slackened, that he had stepped back from the angerib on which she lay, and was saying to himself in a tremulous whisper—"Allah! Allah! what is this I am doing? Allah! Allah! Allah!"And at the next moment she realised that in horror of his own impulse he had turned and fled out of the tent.
"A word in haste to say that he who came here as your missionary and representative has within the hour been arrested by the officials of the Government, having, so far as we can yet learn and surmise, been most treacherously and maliciously betrayed into their hands by means of a letter to the English lord from one who stands near to you in your camp.
"In sadness and tears, with faces bowed to the earth and ashes on our heads, we send our sympathy to you and to your stricken followers, entreating you on our knees, in the name of the Compassionate, not to attempt to carry out your design of coming into Cairo, lest further and more fearful calamities should occur.
"This by swift and trusty messenger to your hands at Sakkara.—The Slave of your Virtues,
"ABDUL ALI."
END OF FOURTH BOOK
FIFTH BOOK
THE DAWN
CHAPTER I
The day that Ishmael had looked for, longed for, prayed for—the day that was to see the fulfilment not only of his spiritual hopes but of his rapturous dream of bliss, the day of his return to Cairo—had come at last.
But the Ishmael Ameer who was returning to Cairo was by no means the same man as the Ishmael who had gone away. In a few short months he had become a totally different person. Two forces had changed him—two forces which in their effect were one.
By the operation of the first of these forces he had become more of a mystic; by the operation of the second he had become more of a man; by the operation of both together he had become a creature who was controlled by his emotions alone.
When he left Cairo he had been a man of elevated spirit but of commanding common sense. He had looked upon himself as one whose sole work was to call men back to God and to righteousness. But little by little the tyranny of outward events, the pressure of responsibility, and, above all, the heartfelt and prostrate but dim and perverted adulation of his followers, had led him to believe that he was a being apart, specially directed by the Almighty and even permitted to be His mouthpiece.
Insensibly Ishmael had come to look upon himself as a "Son of God." When he first saw that the crowds who came to him from east and west were beginning to believe that he was the Redeemer, the Deliverer, the Expected One whom he foretold, he was shocked, and he protested. But when he perceived that this belief helped him to comfort and console and direct them, he ceased to deny; and when he realised that it was necessary to his people's confidence that they should think that he who guided them was himself guided by God, he permitted himself, by his silence, to acquiesce.
From allowing others to believe in his divinity, he had come to believe in it himself. His burning, boundless influence over his people had seemed to his deep heart to be only intelligible as a thing given to him from Heaven, and then the "miracle" in the desert, the raising of the Sheikh's daughter from the dead, had swept down the last of his scruples. God had given him supernatural powers and made him the mouthpiece of His will.
And now, at the end of his pilgrimage, if he did not accept the idea that he was in very fact the Redeemer who was to bring in the golden age, the Kingdom of God, he succumbed to a delusion that was nearly akin to it—that just as the lord of the Christians, being condemned by the Roman Governor, had permitted another to take his form and face and bodily presence and to die on the cross instead of him, so the Messiah, the Mahdi, the Christ who was to come, was now using him as His substitute to lead and control His poor, oppressed, and helpless people until the time came for Him to appear in His own person.
Such was the operation of the force that had made Ishmael more of a mystic; and the force that had made him more of a man had been playing in the same way upon his heart.
It had played upon him through Helena.
When Helena entered into his life and he betrothed himself to her, he honestly believed that he was doing no more than protecting her good name. For some time afterwards he continued to deceive himself, but the constant presence of a beautiful woman by his side produced its effect, and little by little he came to know that his heart was touched.
As soon as he became conscious of this he remembered the vow he had made when his Coptic slave-wife died, that no other woman should take her place, and he also reminded himself of his mission, his consecration to the welfare of humanity. But the more he tried to crush his affection for Helena, the more it grew.
He was like a boy in the first beautiful morning light of love. The moment he was alone, after parting from Helena at the door of her sleeping-room, he would kiss the hand that had touched her hand, and find a tingling joy in stepping afresh over the places on which her feet had trod. A glance from her beaming eyes made his pulse beat rapidly, and when, one day, he saw her combing out her hair, with her round white arm bare to the elbow, his breathing came quick and loud.
His passion was like a flower which had sprung up in the parched place of the desert of his desolate soul, and everything that Helena did seemed to water it. Reading her conduct by the only light he had, he thought she loved him. Had she not followed him from India, breaking from her own people to live by his side? Had she not betrothed herself to him without a thought of any other than spiritual joys?
Her pride in him, too, was no less than her affection. Had she not proposed that he should go into Cairo in advance, because that being the place of the greatest danger was the place of highest honour also? In her womanly jealousy for her husband's rank, had she not resisted and resented the substitution of another when it was decided by the Sheikhs that "Omar" should go instead? And, notwithstanding her illness at Khartoum, had she not insisted on following him across the desert and, weak as she was, enduring the pains of his pilgrimage in order to continue by his side?
Allah bless and cherish her! Was there anything in the world so good as a sweet, unselfish, devoted woman?
During the journey Ishmael's love for Helena grew hour by hour until it filled his whole being, and made his wild heart a globe of infinite radiance and hope. Her beauty, her gifts of mind as well as of body, took complete possession of him. Whenever he saw her, everything brightened up. Whenever he turned on his camel, and caught sight of her dromedary at the tail of the caravan, he became excited. Whenever evil things befell, he had only to think of the Rani and his troubles died away. All that was good and beautiful in the world seemed to centre in the litter that held her by day and in the tent that covered her by night.
Then, in spite of his mission and the burden of his work, he began to remember that all this loveliness, all this sweetness, belongedto him. The Rani washis wife, and he could not help but think of the possibility of nearer relations between them.
When this thought first came to him he repelled it as a species of treachery. Had he not pledged himself to a spiritual union? Would it not be wrong to break that pledge—wrong to the Rani, wrong to his own higher nature, wrong to God?
But, nevertheless, the temptation to claim the rights of a husband became stronger day by day, and he struggled to reconcile his faith with his affection. He reminded himself that renunciation was no part of Islam, that it was a Christian error, that "monkery" had been condemned by the Prophet, that it was contrary to the clear law of nature, and that as soon as his task was finished it was his duty to live a human life, with woman and with children.
This seemed to solve the Sphinx-like problem of existence, but when he tried to talk of it to the Rani, in order to break the ground with her, his tongue would not utter the words that were in his heart, and something made him stop in confusion and hasten away.
Yet his self-denial only intensified his desire. Keeping away from Helena by day, he was with her in his dreams by night. One rapturous, incredible, almost impossible and even terrible dream of bliss was always stirring within him. A little longer, only a little longer. The hour in which he would lay down his task as leader, as prophet, would be the hour in which he would take up his new life as a man.
That hour was now near. He was outside the gates of Cairo. Nothing would, nothing could, intervene at this last stage to prevent him from entering the city, and once within, his work would be at an end. O God, how good it was to live!
All that day at Sakkara, Ishmael had been in the highest state of religious exaltation, and when night came he walked about the camp as if demented both in heart and brain.
The camp stretched from the hanks of the Nile at Bedrasheen over the black ruins of Memphis to the broad sands before the Step Pyramid, and everywhere the people sat in groups about their fires, eating, drinking, playing their pipes, tambourines and drums, and singing, to tunes that were like wild dance music, their songs of rejoicing.
They were singing about himself, his wise words, his miracles, his miraculous birth (born of a virgin), his good looks, which made all women love him, and his divinity, which would save him from death. Ishmael heard this, yet he had no misgivings, no fear of what the coming day would bring forth. A sort of spiritual lightning blinded him to possible danger, and his heart swelled with love for his people. God bless them! God bless everybody! Bless East and West, white man and black man, sons of one Father, soon to be united in one hope, one love, one faith!
Ishmael felt as if he wanted to take the whole world in his arms. Above all, he wanted to take the Rani in his arms. It was not that the lower man, the animal man, was conquering the higher man, the spiritual man, but that both body and soul were aflame, that a sense of fierce joy filled his whole being at the thought of entering into a new life, and that he wished to find physical expression for it.
Before he was aware of what he was doing, he was walking in the direction of Helena's tent. Striding along in the darkness, which was slashed here and there with shafts of light from the camp fires, he approached the tent from the back, the mouth being towards the city. Close behind it, he stumbled upon some one who was crouching there. It was a boy, and he rose hastily and hurried away without speaking, being followed immediately by a woman who seemed to have been watching him.
Ishmael's heart was beating so violently by this time that he had only a confused impression of having seen this, and at the next instant, treading softly on the silent sand, he was in front of the tent, looking at Helena, who was within.
She was sitting on her camp-bed, her angerib, writing on a pad that rested upon her lap, by the light of a lamp which hung from the pole that upheld the canvas. Though her face was down, Ishmael could see that it was suffused by a rosy blush, and when at one moment she raised her head, her bright and shining eyes seemed to him to be wet with tears, but full, nevertheless, of joy and love.
Ishmael thought he knew what she was doing. She was thinking of him, and writing, as she loved to do, the immortal story of his pilgrimage, happy in the near approach of his great triumph.
Standing in the darkness to look at her, he could hardly restrain himself any longer. He wanted to burst in upon her and to be alone with her.
Behind and about him were the lights of the camp and its many sounds of rejoicing, but he did not see or hear them now. His heart was afire. He was intoxicated with love. What had been for so long his almost unconquerable dream of bliss was about to be fulfilled.
"Rani!" he whispered, in a quivering voice, and then, plunging into the tent, he caught her up in his arms.
CHAPTER II
Half blind with tears which belied her brave words, Helena had been writing the letter to Gordon which Mosie was waiting to take away. She had told him not to think of her, for she was quite able to take care of herself whatever happened. Then wiping the tears from her eyes, she had smiled as she told him to forget the nonsense she had written about Jezebel and her Jewish blood, and to remember that until Ishmael's work was "finished" and he entered Cairo she ran no risk by remaining in his camp.
She had got thus far when she thought she heard a step on the sand outside, but raising her eyes to look and seeing nothing except the red and white stars from the rockets that rained through the air at Ghezirah, she resumed her letter, telling herself, as she did so, that if the worst came to the worst and matters reached an unexpected crisis with Ishmael, she could defeat him again, as she had done before, by diplomacy, by finesse, and by woman's wit.
"I suppose you are in the thick of it by this time, for I see that the illuminations at Ghezirah have already begun. My dear, my dear, my——"
Her last word was not yet written when she heard Ishmael's tremulous whisper of the name he knew her by, and, starting up as if she had received an electric shock, she saw the Egyptian coming into her tent with the glittering eyes of one who was about to accomplish some joyous task. At the next moment, before she knew what was happening, she found herself clasped in his arms.
"My life! My heart! My eyes! My own!" he was saying in hot and impetuous whispers, and, raising her face to his face, he was kissing her on the lips.
She struggled to liberate herself, but felt like a helpless child in his strong, irresistible grasp.
"Leave me! Let me go!" she said, with heat and anger, but he did not seem to hear her or to be conscious of her resistance.
"Oh, how glad I am!" he said. "Our journey is at an end! Our new life is about to begin! How happy we shall be!"
All the blood in Helena's body rushed to her cheeks, and, putting up her hands between their faces, she demanded angrily—
"What do you mean by this? What are you doing?"
Yet still he did not hear her, for his passion was overpowering him, its intoxicating voice was ringing through his whole being, and he continued to pour into her ears a torrent of endearing words.
"Yes, yes, our new life is about to begin! It is to begin to-night—now!"
Helena was overwhelmed with fear, but suddenly, by the operation of an instinct which she did not comprehend, she smiled up into Ishmael's smiling face—a feeble, frightened, involuntary smile—and, pointing to the open mouth of the tent, she said, with a sense of mingled cunning and confusion—
"Be careful! Look!"
Ishmael loosened his hold of her, and, stepping back to the tent's mouth, he began to close and button it.
While he did so, Helena watched him and asked herself what she ought to do next. Cry for help? It would be useless. There were none to hear her except Ishmael's own people, and they worshipped him and looked upon her as his wife, his property, his slave, his chattel. Escape? Impossible! More than ever impossible for what (at her own direction) he was doing now.
"Then what am I to do?" she asked herself, and before she had found an answer Ishmael, having sealed up the tent, was returning with outstretched arms, as if with the intention of embracing and kissing her again.
She read in his great wild eyes the light of a passion which she had never seen in a man's face before, but she put on a bold front in spite of the terror which possessed her, thrust out her right hand to keep him off, looked him full in the face, and cried—
"No, no! You shall not! On no account! No!"
At that he dropped his outstretched arms, but, still smiling his joyous smile, he continued to approach her, saying, as he did so, in a tone of affectionate surprise and remonstrance—
"Why, what is this, O my Rani? Have we not joined hands under the handkerchief? Are you not my wife? Am I not your husband? It is true that I pledged myself to renunciation. But renunciation is wrong. It is against religion—against God."
He came nearer. She could feel his hot breath upon her face. It made her shiver with the race-feeling she had experienced before.
"And then, how can I continue to deny myself?" he said. "I am like one who has been dying of hunger in the sight of food. You are my joy, my flower, my treasure. God has given you to me. You are mine."
With that he threw his irresistible arms about her again, and, bringing his glittering eyes close to her eyes, he whispered—
"My Rani! My wife!"
Helena knew that the hour she had looked forward to with dread had come at length; she saw that the diplomacy, the finesse, the woman's wit she had counted upon to save her, were useless to quell the passion which flashed from Ishmael's eyes and throbbed in his voice, and she made one last and violent effort to escape from his arms.
"Let me go! Let me go!" she cried.
"Am I doing wrong?" he said. "No, no! I would not harm you for all the kingdoms of the world. But every wife must submit to her husband."
"No, no, no!" she cried, in tones of repulsion and loathing.
"Yes, yes, yes!" he replied, still more tenderly, still more passionately. "But if she is a good woman she has her modesty, her shield of shame. That is only right, only natural. It makes her the more sweet, the more dear, the more charming——"
Helena felt his arms tightening about her; she knew that he was lifting her off her feet, and realised that she was beins carried across the tent.
Then she remembered the assurances she had given to Gordon, the promises she had made to herself; and hardly conscious of what she did until it was done, or what she was saying until it was said, she brought her open hands heavily down upon his face, and cried in a fury of wrath and scorn—
"Let me go, I tell you! You shall! You must! Can't you see that you are hateful and odious to me—that you are a black man and I am a white woman?"
At the next moment she felt Ishmael's arms relax, and she found herself on her feet. A sense of immense, immeasurable relief came over her. A sense of triumph, too, for what she had said she would do she had done.
When she recovered herself sufficiently to look at Ishmael again, he was standing apart from her and his head was down. He could no longer deceive himself. A whirlwind of chaotic darkness had swept over him. The storm of his passion was gone.
Helena saw that he was deeply wounded, and, notwithstanding the aversion he had inspired in her a moment before, she pitied him from the bottom of her heart.
"I am sorry for what I said just now," she murmured in a low tone. "It was hateful of me, and I ask your pardon."
She was still panting, and she had to pause for breath, but he did not reply, and after a moment she began to excuse herself, saying falteringly—
"But you must see that ... that there could never have been anything between you and me, because ... because——"
Raising his eyes, he looked not into her face but at the veil that was fixed to her hair, and she found it difficult to go on.
"Did you not say yourself," she said, "that marriage was not joining hands under a handkerchief, or repeating words after a Cadi, but a sacrament of love, mutual love, and that everything else was sin? Therefore——"
"Well?"
"Therefore if ... if I do not love you——"
"And you do not?"
"No."
"Allah! Allah!" he muttered, in a voice that seemed to come up out of the depths of his soul, and at the next moment he sank down on to the angerib which was close behind him.
But hardly had he done so when he leapt to his feet again, and in a voice that rang with wrath he said—
"Then why did you betroth yourself to me? I put no constraint upon you. If you had told me that your heart was far from me, I should have gone no further. But I gave you time to consider, and you came to me of your own free will. Why was this? Answer me. I have a right to know that, at all events."
It came into her mind to reply that when they were betrothed he did not ask her if she loved him, and she did not understand that she was to belong to him. But what was the use of defending herself? On what ground could she justify her conduct?
"Or if," he said, and his voice shook with the intensity of his emotion—"if it was after our betrothal that your heart left me—if something I said or did lost me your love—why did you follow me from Khartoum? You might have stayed there. I was willing to leave you behind me. Why did you follow me over the desert? Why did you come with my company? Why are you here now?"
She found it impossible to answer him, and feeling how deeply she had wronged him, yet how impossible, how unthinkable, how inconceivable it was that she could have acted otherwise than she had, in the light of her great and undying love for Gordon, she clasped her hands in front of her face and burst into a flood of tears.
Her tears drove away his anger in a moment, for he mistook the cause of them, and, deeply and incurably wounded as he was, a wave of sympathy and compassion passed over him. Drawing her hands from her face and holding them in his own, he looked steadfastly into her wet eyes, and said in a softer voice—
"I see how it has been, O my Rani. You followed the teacher, not the man; the message, not the poor soiled volume it was written in, and perhaps you were right—quite right."
Every word he uttered went like iron into Helena's soul.
"I thought a woman lived by her heart alone," he said, "and that when she betrothed herself it must be for love, not from any higher and nobler motive, but it seems I was wrong—quite wrong. I thought, too," he said, "that where love was," and here his voice thickened and almost broke, "there was neither black nor white, neither race nor caste; but it seems I was wrong in that also. Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me!"
He lifted her hands in his own long and delicate ones and put them to his lips, and then gently let them fall.
"But God knows best what is good for us," he said, "and perhaps ... perhaps He has sent me this as a warning and a punishment, lest ... lest I forget ... in the love of home and wife and children, the task the great task He has laid upon me. In-sha-allah! In-sha-allah!"
With that he turned to leave the tent, a shaken and agitated and totally different man from the man who had entered it; and Helena, notwithstanding that she was deeply moved, again felt a sense of immense, immeasurable relief.
But at the next moment a feeling akin to terror seized her, for while Ishmael was unbuttoning the canvas at the tent's mouth there came, over the dull rumble of many sounds outside, a clear, sharp voice, crying—
"Ishmael Ameer! Ishmael Ameer! Urgent news! Where are you?"
Helena's heart stood still. She seemed to know in advance what was coming. The hour of Ishmael's downfall had arrived, and he was to hear that he had been betrayed. She had escaped from her physical danger—what, now, of her moral peril?
CHAPTER III
A moment later Ishmael had torn the mouth of the tent open. An Egyptian was standing there in the turban and farageeyah of an Alim. The man, who was solemnly making his salaams, held a lantern in one hand and a letter in the other. Behind him, against the dark sky, were a number of Ishmael's own people. Their mouths were open, and fear was on their faces.
"What words are these, oh my brother?" asked Ishmael.
Without speaking, the Alim offered him the letter. It was that of the Chancellor of El Azhar, written immediately after the arrest of Gordon.
Ishmael took it, and standing under the lamp that hung from the pole of the tent he read it. For some moments he did not move or raise his eyes, but little by little his face assumed a death-like rigidity, and at length the paper crinkled in his trembling fingers.
So strong had been his faith in his mission, and so firm his conviction that God would not allow anything to interfere with its fulfilment, that it was almost impossible for him to take in the truth—that his cause was lost, that his pilgrimage was wasted, that his people could not enter Cairo, and their hope was at an end.
When at length he raised his eyes he looked with an expression of blank bewilderment into Helena's face.
"See," he said, in a tone of piteous helplessness, and he put the letter into her reluctant hand.
The blood rushed to Helena's head, stars danced before her eyes, and it was with difficulty that she could see to read. But there was little need to do so, for already she knew, as by a sense of doom, what the letter contained.
In a moment the people behind the Alim grew more and more numerous. The mouth of the tent became choked with them, and their faces were blotched with lights and shadows from the lamp within. They were talking eagerly among themselves, in low tones, full of dread. At length one of them spoke to Ishmael.
"Is it bad news, O Master?" he asked, but with the expressionless voice of one who knew already what the answer would be.
There was a moment of strained silence, and then Ishmael turned again to Helena, and said in the same tone of piteous helplessness as before—
"Read it to them. Let them know the worst, O Rani."
Helena could find no escape. With a fearful effort she began to read the letter aloud. But hardly had she finished the first clause of it—telling Ishmael that his messenger and missionary had been betrayed into the hands of the Government by means of a message sent into Cairo from some one who stood near to him in his own camp—than a deep groan came from the people at the mouth of the tent.
Black Zogal was there with his wild eyes, and by his side stood old Zewar Pasha with his suspicious looks.
"Who is the traitor, O Master?" asked the old man in his rasping voice, and it seemed to Helena that while he spoke every eye, except Ishmael's, was fixed upon her face.
Then a fearful thing befell. Ishmael, the man of peace, whom none had ever seen in any mood but one of tenderness and love, broke into a torrent of fierce passion.
"Allah curse him whoever he is!" he cried. "Curse him in his lying down, and in his getting up! Curse him in the morning splendour, and in the still of night! Curse him in the life that now is, and in the life that is to come!"
Helena felt as if the tent itself as well as the black and copper-coloured faces at the mouth of it were reeling around her. But it was not alone the terror of Ishmael's curse, with its unrevealed reference to herself, that created her confusion. She was thinking of Gordon. What did his arrest imply? Did it mean that he had succeeded in the perilous task he had undertaken? Or did it mean that he had failed?
When she recovered consciousness of what was going on about her she heard, above a wild tumult of voices outside, the voice of a woman and the voice of a boy. She knew that the woman was Zenoba and the boy was Mosie. At the next moment both were coming headlong into the tent, the one dragging the other through a way that had been made for them. The boy's shaven black head was bare, his caftan was torn open at the breast, and his skin was bleeding at the neck as if vindictive fingers had been clutching him by the throat. The woman's swarthy face was bathed in sweat, twitching with excitement and convulsed with evil passions.
"There!" she cried. "There he is, O Master, and if you want to know who took the letter to the English lord, ask him."
"Who is he?" asked Ishmael.
"Your Rani's servant," replied the Arab woman, with a curl of her cruel lip. "He left Khartoum for Cairo a month ago and has not been seen until to-day."
Another deep groan came from the people at the tent's mouth, and again it seemed to Helena that every eye, except Ishmael's, was looking into her face.
Meantime Mosie, thinking the groan of the people was meant for him, and that his life was in danger from their anger, had broken away from the woman's grasp and flung himself at Ishmael's feet, crying—
"Mercy, O Master! I kiss your feet. I take refuge with God and with you. Save me, and I will tell you every thing."
Ishmael, who by this time had regained his self-command, motioned to the Arab woman to stand back. Then he questioned the boy calmly, and the boy answered him in a fever of fear, gasping and sobbing at every word.
"My boy, you have come out of Cairo?"
"Yes, O Master, yes."
"You went there from Khartoum?"
"Yes, yes, O Master, yes."
"You took a letter to the English lord?"
"Yes, Master, a letter to the English lord."
"From some one in Khartoum?"
"Yes, I will tell my Master everything—from some one in Khartoum."
"What treacherous man sent you with that letter?"
"No man at all, O Master. You see, I am telling my Master everything."
"Was it a woman?"
"Yes, Master, a woman. See, I kiss your feet. I keep nothing back from my Master."
Another groan came from the people at the tent's mouth, and the black boy clutched at Ishmael's white caftan as if to protect himself from their wrath. Ishmael himself had a confused sense of something terrible that had not yet taken shape in his mind. He looked round at Helena who was standing by the angerib at the back, but her head was down and her thoughts were far away.
"What woman, then?" he asked in a sterner voice.
"No, no, I cannot tell you that," said the boy.
"Speak, boy. You shall be safe. I will protect you from all harm. What woman was it?"
"Master, do not ask me. I dare not tell you."
"Listen," said Ishmael, and his voice grew hard and hoarse. "There is a traitor in my camp, and I must find out who it is. What treacherous woman sent you into Cairo with that letter?"
The boy struggled hard. His ugly black face under his shaven poll was distorted by fear. He hesitated, began to speak, then stopped altogether.
At that moment Helena came forward as if she had suddenly awakened from a dream, and Mosie saw her for the first time since he had been dragged into the tent. In another instant all fear had gone from his face and his eyes were blazing with courage.
"Tell me, I command you," said Ishmael.
"No, no, I willnevertell you," said the boy.
Again a groan—this time a growl—came from the people at the tent's mouth.
"Torment would make his tongue wag," said one.
"Beat the innocent until the guilty confess—it is a good maxim, O Master," said Zewar in his rasping tones.
Black Zogal, with his wild eyes, stepped out as if to lay hold of the lad, but Ishmael waved him back.
"Wait!" he said.
He was looking at Helena again, and his face had undergone a fearful change.
"My boy," he said, still keeping his eyes on Helena, "if you do not tell me I must give you back to the people."
At that the boy broke into a paroxysm of hysterical sobs.
"No, no, my Master will not do that. But see," he said, tearing wider his torn caftan so as to expose his breast, "my Master himself shall kill me."
At the next moment Helena's hand was on Ishmael's arm.
"Let the boy go," she said. "I can tell the rest."
A gloomy chill traversed Ishmael's heart. He had a sense of spiritual paralysis—as if everything in the world were crumbling and crashing down to impotent wreck and ruin.
His people at the tent's mouth were muttering among themselves. He dismissed them, sending everybody away including the boy and the Arab woman. Most of them went off grudgingly, ungraciously, for the first time reluctant to obey his will.
Then he closed up the mouth of the tent, and was once more alone with Helena.
CHAPTER IV
In spite of the dread with which, for more than a month, Helena had looked forward to the hour in which Ishmael should hear of his betrayal, she felt none of the terror from that cause which she had feared and expected.
She could think of nothing but Gordon. Where was he now? What were they doing to him? It seemed to be the only possible explanation of his arrest that his scheme for the salvation of the people had failed. Would he be handed over to the military authorities? Would he be tried by court-martial? And what would be the punishment of his offences as a soldier? Sinking down on the angerib she pressed her hands over her brow and over her eyes that she might think of this and shut out everything else.
Meantime the mind of Ishmael was going through a conflict as strange and no less cruel. Although the plain evidences of his senses had already told him that he had been betrayed by the woman he loved, yet the dread of discovering the traitor in his own tent, in his own wife, filled him with terror, and he tried to escape from it.
Having fastened up the tent, he walked to and fro for some moments without speaking, and then sitting down by Helena's side and taking her hand and smoothing it, he said, in his throbbing, quivering voice—
"Rani, we have eaten bread and salt together. Be faithful with me—what woman sent that letter?"
Helena hardly heard what he was saying. She was still thinking of Gordon. "They will condemn him to death," she told herself.
"Rani," said Ishmael again, "we have lived under the same roof; you have shared with me the closest secrets of my soul. Tell me—what woman sent that letter?"
Helena looked at him and tried to listen, but Gordon's doom was ringing in her ears, and it drowned all the other sounds of life.
"Rani," said Ishmael once more, "though you denied me the rights of a husband, yet you are my wife. Our lives have been united not by man but by God, and in the presence of Him, whose name be exalted—of Him who reads all hearts—I ask you—what woman sent that letter?"
Helena heard him, yet terrible as his question was, and perilous as she knew her answer must be, she felt no fear. "If I tell him," she thought. "Why not? It does not matter now."
"Rani," said Ishmael yet again, "God gives me the right to command you. Idocommand you. What woman sent that letter?"
"Idid," said Helena, and though the words were spoken in a faltering whisper they seemed to Ishmael like a deafening roar.
"Allah! Allah!" he cried, leaping to his feet, for though he had expected that reply he reeled under it as under a blow.
Helena realised what her answer meant to him, and again, from the bottom of her heart, she pitied him, but at the next moment her thoughts swung back to her own trouble.
She remembered that her father had admitted that the British army in Egypt was always on active service, and she asked herself what would happen to Gordon if the military authorities lost their heads in fear of insurrection. Would they try him by Field General Court-Martial? In that case would the Court be called instantly? Would the inquiry last only a few minutes? Would the sentence be carried into immediate effect?
"O God, can it be possible that it is all over already?" she asked herself.
Meantime Ishmael, after moments of suffering which seemed hours of eternity, was again struggling to resist the only conclusion the facts had left to him. It was true that the Rani had confessed to sending the letter which had led to the arrest of his messenger, but all his heart rebelled against the inference that she had intended to betray his cause and his people. Had she not cast in her own lot with them? Had she not come from a distant country and a richer home to live in their poor house in Khartoum? And had she not endured the hardship of the desert journey in their company?
Like a man who has been shipwrecked in a whirlwind of darkness, he was groping blindly through tempestuous waves for some means of rescue. At length a sort of raft of hope came to him, a helpless, impotent thing, but he clung to it, and sitting down by Helena's side again, he said, in the same piteous voice as before—
"I see how it has been, O my Rani. You did not intend to betray my people—my poor people whose sufferings you have seen, whose faith and hopes and dreams you have shared and witnessed. It was Omar you were thinking of. Your heart has never forgiven him for taking the place you meant for your husband. You were jealous of him for my sake, and your jealousy got the better of your judgment. 'I will punish him,' you thought. 'I will make his mission of no effect.' And so you sent that letter. But you did not reflect that in destroying Omar you would be destroying my people also. It was wrong, it was cruel, but it was a woman's fault, and you have seen it and suffered for it ever since. Jealousy of Omar, perhaps hatred of Omar—that was it, was it not, O my Rani?"
His voice was breaking as he spoke, for the pitiful explanation he had lighted upon was failing to bring conviction to his own mind, yet he fixed his sad eyes eagerly on Helena's face and repeated—
"Jealousy of Omar, perhaps hatred of Omar—that was what caused you to send that letter?"
Helena could not speak. The pathos of his error was choking her. But she replied to him with a look which it required no words to interpret.
"No?" he said. "Not of Omar? Of whom, then?"
Helena could not lie. "He must know some day," she thought.
"Of whom, then?" he repeated, in his helpless confusion.
"Yourself," she replied.
"Allah! Allah! Myself! Myself!" he said, in a breathless whisper, rising to his feet again and striding across the tent.
At the first moment after Helena's confession it seemed to Ishmael that both sun and moon had suffered eclipse and the world was in total darkness. Why had the Rani betrayed him? From what motive? For what object? He tried to follow her thoughts, and found it impossible to do so.
There was a short period of frightful silence, and then, feeling as if he wanted to cry, he drew up before Helena again, and said in a husky voice, his swarthy face trembling and twitching—
"But why, O Rani? I had done you no wrong. From the day you came to me I did all I could for you—all I could to make your nights peaceful and your mornings happy. Why has your heart been so far away from me?"
Helena felt that the time had come to tell him everything. Yet in order to do so she must begin with the death of her father, and she could not speak of that without involving Gordon. "But that is impossible," she thought, "absolutely impossible."
"Speak," said Ishmael. "When you sent your letter to the English lord, you must have known that you were dooming me to death—what had I done to deserve it?"
"I cannot tell you—I cannot, I cannot," she answered.
"It is unnecessary," said Ishmael.
In the moment of Helena's silence a terrible explanation of her conduct had come to him, and he thought he saw, as by flashes of lightning, into the dark abyss that was at his feet.
His manner, which had been gentle down to that moment, suddenly became harsh, and his voice, which had been soft, became hard.
"When did you send that letter?" he demanded.
She saw the stern closing of his lips, and for an instant she felt afraid.
"Was it before the meeting of the Sheikhs at which Omar was chosen?"
"Yes," she replied. If Gordon was to be condemned to death, it was of no consequence what became of her.
"You told the English lord that Ishmael was coming to Cairo?"
"Yes." His deep, impenetrable eyes seemed to be looking through and through her.
"With what object and in—in what disguise?"
"Yes." She knew she was dashing herself to destruction, but no matter.
"When you sent your letter you said to yourself, 'Ishmael will go into Cairo, but my letter shall go before him.' Yes?"
"Yes." In the lowest depths of her soul she felt that if he killed her now she did not care.
"And when Omar stepped into the place you had meant for me you thought, 'The letter I wrote to destroy Ishmael will destroy Omar instead'?"
"Yes."
"Was that why you tried to prevent Omar from going?"
"Yes." Tears were choking her utterance.
"Why you were unwilling to make the kufiah?"
"Yes."
"Why you fainted in the mosque?"
She bowed her head, being unable to utter another word.
"Then," said Ishmael, and his voice rose to a husky cry—"then it was love of Omar, not hatred of him, that inspired your letter?"
She made no reply. Filled as she was with shame for what she had done to Ishmael, the image of Gordon was still in her mind. Even at that moment, when terrible consequences threatened her, she could not help thinking of him. If he were tried by Field General Court-Martial to-night he might be executed in the morning!
That thought carried her back to the Citadel. She was on the drilling-ground in the dead grey light of dawn. A regiment of soldiers was drawn up in line. Six of them stood out from the rest with rifles to their shoulders. And before them, standing alone, with his back to the ramparts, was one condemned but dauntless man. "My last thoughts are about you," he was saying to her, and living in that cruel dream she burst into tears.
Again Ishmael misunderstood her weeping, and again a wave of compassion passed over him.
"It is possible I am wrong," he said. "I may be judging you unjustly. In that case tell me so, and I will kiss your feet. I will ask your pardon."
Sho could not speak. "This will end in some way," she thought.
"In the name of Heaven, speak! Tell me you do not love this man. Tell me I am wrong," he cried.
"No, you are not wrong," she said. "I do love him, and I am in despair. All you have said is true, but I cannot help it. I am a wicked woman, and my life by your side has been a deception from the first."
With that she burst into another flood of tears, and falling face downward on the angerib, she buried her head in the pillow.
"Allah! Allah!" said Ishmael, and all the blood in his body seemed to flush his heart. He was passing through the supreme phase of his agony—perhaps the cruellest that man can suffer—the agony of knowing that the woman he loved, the woman he worshipped, loved and worshipped another man.
In the cloud of maddening thoughts which sprang to his brain he imagined he read the mystery of Helena's conduct from the first. Remembering that she had called him a black man, the wild deep heart in him rose to a fever of jealous wrath.
"I see how it has been," he said. "The white man came to my tent. I welcomed him. I loved him. I trusted him. He was my brother, and he slept by my side. I made him free of my harem. I put my honour in his hands. And how did he repay me? By robbing me of the love that was my love, the heart that was my heart."
She tried to speak, to protest, but in a torrent of wrath he bore her down.
"Your white man has over-reached himself, though. 'I will outdo Ishmael in her eyes,' he thought. But he has only fallen into the pit that was dug for me. Let him perish there, and the curse of God be upon him!"
Again she tried to protest, and again in the blind hurricane of his anger he silenced her.
"And you—it was nothing to you that in betraying me you were betraying my people also—my poor people, who have suffered so much and followed me so faithfully."
His face was terrible—it had the sullen glow of the Western sky before a storm.
"You have wrecked my hopes in the hour of their fulfilment. You have made dust and ashes of the expectations of my people. You have uncovered my nakedness, and made me a thing to point the finger at and to scorn. You have turned my heart to stone."
Then the wild anguish of the jealous man became united to the fierce wrath of the fanatic, and going nearer to Helena, and leaning over her, he said—
"Worse than that—a hundredfold worse—you have made the plans and promises of God of no avail. You have allowed the Evil One to enter into your heart, and to use your guilty passions to defeat the schemes of the Most High. Therefore," he said, raising his quivering voice until it rang through the tent like a tortured cry—"therefore, as the instrument of Satan you have no right to live. I say you have no right even to live. And I ... I, who have loved you ... I, whose heart has been wrapped about you like the rope about the wheel of the well ... I, whom you have betrayed and destroyed, and ... and my people with me ... it is I ... yes, it is I who must ... who must——"
Helena heard him stammering and sobbing over her. At the same time she felt that his trembling, ferocious hands were laying hold of her. She felt that the long Eastern veil that had hung down her back was being wrapped around her throat. She felt that its folds were growing tighter and yet tighter, and that she was being strangled and was losing consciousness.
Then suddenly she became aware that Ishmael's formidable grasp had slackened, that he had stepped back from the angerib on which she lay, and was saying to himself in a tremulous whisper—
"Allah! Allah! what is this I am doing? Allah! Allah! Allah!"
And at the next moment she realised that in horror of his own impulse he had turned and fled out of the tent.