CHAPTER XVIAt nightfall the great Proconsul left Cairo. He knew that all day long the telegraphic agencies had been busy with messages from London about his resignation. He also knew that after the first thunderclap of surprise the Egyptian population had concluded that he had been recalled—recalled in disgrace, and at the petition of the Khedive to the King.It did not take him long to prepare for his departure. In the course of an hour Ibrahim was able to pack up the few personal effects—how few!—which during the longest residence gather about the house of a servant of the State.Perhaps the acutest of his feelings on leaving Egypt came to him as he drove in a closed carriage out of the grounds of the Agency, and looked up for the last time at the windows of the room that used to be occupied by his wife. At that moment he felt something of the dumb desolation which rolls over the strongest souls when, after a lifetime of comradeship, the asundering comes and they long for the voice that is still.Poor Janet! He must leave all that remained of her behind him under the tall cypress trees on the edge of the Nile. Yet no, not all, for he was carrying away the better part of her—her pure soul and saintly memory—within him. None the less, that moment of parting brought the old man nearer than he had ever been to the sense of tears in mortal things.The Sirdar had accompanied him, but though the fact of his intended departure had become known, having been announced in all the evening papers, there was nobody at the station to bid adieu to him—not a member of the Khedive'sentourage; not one of the Egyptian Ministers, not even any of the Advisers and Under-Secretaries whom he had himself created.Never had there lived a more self-centred and self-sufficient man, but this fact cut him to the quick. He had done what he believed to be his duty in Egypt, and feeling that he was neglected and forgotten at the end, the ingratitude of those whom he had served went like poison into his soul.To escape from the sense of it he began to talk with a bitter raillery which in a weaker man would have expressed itself in tears, and seemed indeed to have tears—glittering, frozen tears—behind it."Do you know, my dear Reg," he said, "I feel to-night as if I might be another incarnation of your friend Pontius Pilate. Like him, I am being withdrawn, you see, and apparently for the same reason. And—who knows?—perhaps like him too, I am destined to earn the maledictions of mankind."The Sirdar found the old man's irony intensely affecting, and therefore he made no protest."Well, I'm not ashamed of the comparison, if it means that against all forms of anarchy I have belonged to the party of order, though of course there will be some wise heads that will see the finger of Heaven in what has happened."The strong man, with his fortunes sunk to zero, was defiant to the very end and last hour of calamity. But standing on the platform by the door of the compartment that had been reserved for him, he looked round at length and said—all his irony, all his raillery suddenly gone—"Reg, I have given forty years of my life to those people and there is not one of them to see me off."The Sirdar tried his best to cheer him, saying—"England remembers, though, and if—" but the old man looked into his face and his next words died on his lips.The engine was getting up steam, and its rhythmic throb was shaking the glass roof overhead when Gordon and Hafiz, wearing their military greatcoats, came up the platform. They had carefully timed it to arrive at the last moment. A gleam of light came into the father's face at the sight of his son. Gordon stepped up, Hafiz fell back, Lord Nuneham entered the carriage."Well, good-bye, old friend," said the old man, shaking hands warmly with the Sirdar. "I may see you again—in my exile in England, you know."Then he turned to Gordon and took his outstretched hand. Father and son stood face to face for the last time. Not a word was spoken. There was a long, firm, quivering hand-clasp—and that was all. At the next moment the train was gone.The Sirdar stood watching it until it disappeared, and then he turned to Gordon, and, thinking of the England the Consul-General had loved, the England he had held high, he said, speaking of him as if he were already dead—"After all, my boy, your father was one of the great Englishmen."Gordon could not answer him, and after a while they shook hands and separated. The two young soldiers walked back to the Citadel, through the native streets. The "Nights of the Prophet" were nearly over, and the illuminations were being put out.Hafiz talked about the Khedive—he had just arrived at Kubbeh; then about Ishmael—the Prophet had shut himself up in the Chancellor's house and was permitting nobody to see him."His Highness has asked Ishmael to be Imam to-morrow morning, but it is thought that he is ill—it is even whispered that he is going mad." said Hafiz.Gordon did not speak until they reached the foot of the hill. Then he said—"I must go up and lie down. Good-night, old fellow! God bless you!"CHAPTER XVIIHalf-an-hour earlier, Gordon's guard, now transformed into his soldier servant, had been startled by the appearance of an Egyptian, wearing the flowing white robes of a Sheikh, and asking in almost faultless English for Colonel Lord."The Colonel has gone to the station to see his lordship off to England, but I'm expecting him back presently," said the orderly."I'll wait," said the Sheikh, and the orderly showed, him into Gordon's room."Looks like a bloomin' death's-head! Wonder if he's the bloomin' Prophet they're jawrin' about!"Since coming into Cairo Ishmael had been a prey to thoughts that were indeed akin to madness. Perhaps he was seized by one of those nervous maladies in which a man no longer belongs to himself. Certainly he suffered the pangs of heart and brain which come only to the purest and most spiritual souls in their darkest hours, and seem to make it literally true that their tortured spirits descend into hell.Now that his anxiety for his followers was relaxed and their hopes had in some measure been realised, his mind swung back to the sorrowful decay and ruin that had fallen upon himself. It was no longer the shame of the prophet but the bereavement of the man that tormented him. His lacerated heart left him no power of thinking or feeling anything but the loss of Helena.Again he saw her beaming eyes, her long black lashes, and her smiling mouth. Again he heard her voice, and again the sweet perfume of her presence seemed to be about him. That all this was lost to him for ever, that henceforth he had to put away from him all the sweetness, all the beauty, all the tenderness of a woman's life linked with his, brought him a paroxysm of pain in which it seemed as if his heart would break and die.He recalled the promises he had made to himself, of taking up the life of a man when his work was done. His work was done now—in some sort ended, at all events—but the prize he had promised himself had been snatched away. She was gone, she who had been all his joy. An impassable gulf divided them. The infinite radiance of hope and love that was to have crowned his restless and stormy life had disappeared. Henceforth he must walk through the world alone."O God, can it be?" he asked himself, with the startled agony of one who awakes from single-pillowed sleep and remembers that he is bereaved.If anything had been necessary to make his position intolerable, it came with the thought that all this was due to the treachery of the man he had loved and trusted, the man he had believed to be his friend and brother, the one being, besides the woman, who had gone to his heart of hearts. The Rani had confessed to him that she loved "Omar," and notwithstanding that all his life he had struggled to liberate himself from the prejudices of his race, yet now, in the melancholy broodings of his Eastern brain, he could not escape from the conclusion that the only love possible between a man and the wife of another was guilty love.When he thought of that both body and soul seemed to be afire, and he became conscious of a feeling about "Omar" which he had never experienced before towards any human creature—a feeling of furious and inextinguishable hatred.He began to be afraid of himself, and just as a dog will shun its kind and hide itself from sight when it feels the poison of madness working in its blood, so Ishmael, under the secret trouble which he dared reveal to none, shut himself up in his sleeping-room in the old Chancellor's house.It was a small and silent chamber at the back, overlooking a little paved courtyard containing a well, and bounded by a very high wall that shut off sight and sound of the city outside. Once a day an old man in a blue galabeah came into the court to draw water, and twice a day a servant of the Sheikhs came into the room with food. Save for these two, and the old Chancellor himself at intervals, Ishmael saw no one for nine days, and in the solitude and semi-darkness of his self-imposed prison a hundred phantoms were bred in his distempered brain.On the second day after his retirement the Chancellor came to tell him that his emissary, his missionary, "Omar Benani," had been identified on his arrest, that in his true character as Colonel Lord he was to be tried by his fellow-officers for his supposed offences as a soldier at the time of the assault on El Azhar, and that the only sentence that could possibly be passed upon him would be death. At this news, which the Chancellor delivered with a sad face, Ishmael felt a fierce but secret joy."God's arm is long," he told himself. "He allowed the man to escape while his aims were good, but now he is going to punish him for his treachery and deceit."Three days afterwards the old Chancellor came again to say that Colonel Lord had been tried and condemned to death, as everybody had foreseen and expected, but nevertheless the sympathy of all men was with him, because he was seen to have acted from the noblest motives, withstanding his own father for what he believed to be the right, and exposing himself to the charge of being a bad son and a poor patriot in order to prevent bloodshed; that he had indeed prevented bloodshed by preventing a collision of the British and Native armies; that it had been by his efforts that the pilgrimage had been able to enter Cairo in peace; and that in recognition of the great sacrifice made by the Christian soldier for the love of humanity, the Ulema were joining with others in petitioning his King to pardon him.At this news a chill came over Ishmael. His heart grew cold as stone, and when the Chancellor was gone, he found himself praying—"Forbid it, O God, forbid it! Let not Thy justice be taken out of Thine awful hand."Four days later the old Chancellor came yet again to say that the King's Pardon had been granted; that Colonel Lord was free; that the people were rejoicing; that everybody attributed the happy issue of the Christian's case mainly to zealous efforts on his behalf of the woman who loved him, the daughter of the dead General whose unwise command had been the cause of all his trouble; and finally that it was expected that these two would soon heal their family feud by marriage.At this news Ishmael's tortured heart was aflame and his brain was reeling. The thought that "Omar" was not to be punished, that he was to be honoured, that he was to be made happy, filled him with passions never felt before. Behind the strongest and most spiritual soul there lurks a wild beast that seems to be ever waiting to destroy it, and in the torment of Ishmael's heart the thought came to him that, as his earthly judges were permitting the guilty one to escape, God called on him to punish the man.Irresistible as the thought was, it brought a feeling of indescribable dread. "I must be going mad," he told himself, remembering how he had spent his life in the cause of peace. All day long he fought against a hatred that was now so fierce that it seemed as if death alone could satisfy it. His soul wrestled with it, battled for life against it, and at length conquered it, and he rose from his knees saying to himself—"No, vengeance belongs to God! When did He ask for my hand to execute it?"But the compulsion of great passion was driving him on, and after dismissing the thought of his own wrongs he began to think of the Rani's. Where was she now? What had become of her? He dared not ask. Ashamed, humiliated, abased, he had become so sensitive to pain on the subject of the woman whom he had betrothed, the woman who had betrayed him, the woman he still loved in spite of everything, that he was even afraid that some one might speak of her.But in the light of what the Chancellor had said about the daughter of the General, he pictured the Rani as a rejected and abandoned woman. This thought was at first so painful that it deprived him of the free use of his faculties. He could not see anything plainly. His mind was a battlefield of confused sights, half hidden in clouds of smoke. That, after all the Rani had sacrificed for "Omar"—her husband, her happiness, and her honour—she should be cast aside for another—this was maddening.He asked himself what he was to do. Find her and take her back? Impossible! Her heart was gone from him. She would continue to love the other man, whatever he might do to her. That was the way of all women—Allah pity and bless them!Then a flash of illumination came to him in the long interval of his darkness. He would liberate the Rani,and the man she loved should marry her! No matter if she belonged to another race—he should marry her! No matter if she belonged to another faith—he should marry her! And as for himself—his sacrifice should be his revenge!"Yes, that shall be my revenge," he thought.This, in the wild fire of heart and brain, was the thought with which Ishmael had come to Gordon's door, and being shown into the soldier's room he sat for some time without looking about him. Then raising his eyes and gazing round the bare apartment, with its simple bed, its table, its shelves of military boots, its stirrups and swords and rifles, he saw on the desk under the lamp a large photograph in a frame.It was the photograph of a woman in Western costume, and he told himself in an instant who the woman was—she was the daughter of the General who was dead.He remembered that he had heard of her before, and that he had even spoken about her to her father when he came to warn the General that the order he was giving to Colonel Lord would lead to the injury of England in Egypt and the ruin of his own happiness. From that day to this he had never once thought of the girl, but now, recalling what the old Chancellor had said of her devotion, her fidelity, her loyalty to the man she loved, he turned his eyes from her picture lest the sight of it should touch him with tenderness and make harder the duty he had come to do."No, I will not look at it," he told himself, with the simplicity of a sick child.Trying to avoid the softening effects of the photograph under the lamp, he saw another on the table by his side and yet another on the wall. They were all pictures of the same woman, and hastily as he glanced at them, there was something in the face of each that kindled a light in his memory. Was it only a part of his haunting torment that, in spite of the Western costume that obscured the woman in the photographs, her brilliant, beaming eyes were the eyes of the Rani?A wave of indescribable tenderness broke over him for a moment, an odour of perfume, an atmosphere of sweetness and delicacy and charm, and then, telling himself that all this was gone from him for ever, and that every woman's face would henceforth remind him of her whom he had lost, the hatred in his heart against Gordon gave him the pain of an open wound."O God, let me forget, let me forget!" he prayed.Then suddenly, while he was in the tempest of these contrary emotions which were whirling like hot sand in a sandstorm about his brain, he heard a footstep on the stairs, followed by a voice outside the door. It was the voice of Colonel Lord's soldier servant, and he was telling his master who was within—an Arab, a Sheikh, in white robes and a turban."He's coming! He's here," thought Ishmael.With choking throat and throbbing heart he rose to his feet and stood waiting. At the next moment the door was thrown open and the man he had come to meet was in the room.CHAPTER XVIIIWith all his heart occupied by thoughts of his father, Gordon had hardly listened to what Hafiz had been saying about Ishmael, but walking up the hill and to the Citadel he began to think of him, and of Helena, and of the bond of the betrothal which still bound them together."Until that is broken there can be nothing between her and me," he told himself, and this was the thought in his mind at the moment when he reached his quarters and his servant told him who was waiting within."Ishmael Ameer! Is it you?" he cried, as he burst the door open, and stepping eagerly, cheerfully, almost joyfully forward, he stretched out his hand.But Ishmael drew back, and then Gordon saw that his eyes were swollen as if by sleeplessness, that his lips were white, that his cheeks were terribly pale, and that the expression of his face was shocking."Why, what is this? Are you ill?" he asked."Omar Benani," said Ishmael, "you and I are alone, and only God is our witness. I have something to say to you. Let us sit."He spoke in a low, tremulous tone, rather with his breath than with his voice, and Gordon, after looking at him for an instant, and seeing the smouldering fire of madness that was in the man's face, threw off his greatcoat and sat down.There was a moment in which neither spoke, and then Ishmael, still speaking in a scarcely audible voice, said—"Omar Benani, I am a son of the Beni Azra. Honour is our watchword. When a traveller in the Libyan desert, tired and weary, seeks the tent of one of my people, the master takes him in. He makes him free of all that he possesses. Sometimes he sends the stranger into the harem itself that the women may wash his feet. He leaves him there to rest and to sleep. He puts his faith, his honour, the most precious thing God has given him, into his hands. But," said Ishmael, with suppressed fire flashing in his eyes, "if the stranger should ever wrong that harem, if he should ever betray the trust reposed in him, no matter who he is or where he flies to, the master will follow him andkill him!"Involuntarily, seeing the error that Ishmael had fallen into, Gordon rose to his feet, whereupon Ishmael, mistaking the gesture, held up his hand."No," he said, "not that! I have not come to do that. I putmyhonour inyourhands, Omar Benani. I made you free of my family. Could I have done more? You were my brother, yet you outraged the sacred rights of brotherhood. You tore open the secret chamber of my heart. You deceived me, and robbed me and betrayed me, and you are a traitor. But I am not here to avenge myself. Sit, sit. I will tell you what I have come for."Breathless and bewildered, Gordon sat again, and after another moment of silence, Ishmael, with the light of a wild sorrow in his face, said—"Omar Benani, there is one who has sacrificed everything for you. She has broken her vows for you, sinned for you, suffered for you. That woman is my wife, and by all the rights of a husband I could hold her. But her heart is yours, and therefore ... therefore Iintend to give her up."Involuntarily Gordon rose to his feet again, and again Ishmael held up his hand."But if I liberate her," he said, "if I divorce her, you must marry her.Thatis what I have come to say."Utterly amazed and dumbfounded, Gordon could not at first find words to speak, whereupon Ishmael, mistaking his silence, said—"You need not be afraid of scandal. My people know something about the letter that was sent into Cairo, but neither my people nor yours know anything of the motives that inspired it. Therefore nobody except ourselves will understand the reason for what is done."He paused as if waiting for a reply, and then said in a voice that quavered with emotion—"Can it be possible that you hesitate? Do you suppose I am offering to you what I do not wish to keep for myself? I tell you that if that poor girl could say that her feeling for me was the same as before you came between us.... But no, that is impossible! God, who is on high, looks down on what I am doing, and He knows that it is right."Gordon, still speechless with astonishment, twisted about to the desk, which was behind him, and stretched out his hand as if with the intention of taking up the photograph; but at that action, Ishmael, once more mistaking his meaning, flashed out on him in a blaze of passion."Don't tell me you cannot do it. You must, and you shall! No matter what pledges you may have made—you shall marry her. No matter if she is of another race and faith—you shall marry her. She may be an outcast now, but you shall find her and save her. Or else," he cried, in a thundering voice, rising to his feet, and lifting both arms above Gordon's head with a terrible dignity, "the justice of God shall overtake you, His hand shall smite you, His wrath shall hurl you down."Seeing that all the wild blood of the man's race was aflame, Gordon leapt up, and laying hold of Ishmael's upraised arms he brought them, by a swift wrench, down to his sides.The two men were then face to face, the Arab with his dusky cheeks and flashing black eyes, the Englishman with his glittering grey eyes and lips set firm as steel. There was another moment of silence while they stood together so, and then Gordon, liberating Ishmael's arms, said, in a commanding voice—"I have listened to you. Now you shall listen to me. Sit down."More than the strength of Gordon's muscles, the unblanched look in his face compelled Ishmael to obey. Then Gordon said—"You believe you have been deceived and wronged, and you have been deceived and wronged, but not in the way you think. The time has come for you to learn the truth—the whole truth. You shall learn it now. Look at this," he said, snatching up the photograph from the desk and holding it out to Ishmael.Ishmael tried to push the photograph away."Look at it, I say. Do you know who that is?"At the next moment Ishmael was trembling in every limb, and without voice, almost without breath, he was stammering, as he held the photograph in his hand—"The Rani?""Yes, and no," said Gordon. "That is the daughter of our late General."It seemed to Ishmael that Gordon had said something, but he tried in vain to realise what it was."Tell me," he stammered, "tell me."Then, rapidly but forcibly, Gordon told him Helena's story, beginning with the day on which Ishmael came to the Citadel—how she had concluded, not without reason, that he had killed her father, he being the last person to be seen with him alive, and how, finding that the law and the Government were powerless to punish him, she had determined to avenge her father's death herself.Ishmael listened with mouth open, fixing on Gordon a bewildered eye."Was that why she came to Khartoum?" he asked."Yes.""Why she prompted me to come into Cairo?""Yes.""Why she wrote that letter?""Yes."Overwhelmed with the terrible enlightenment, Ishmael fumbled his beads and muttered, "Allah! Allah!"Then Gordon told his own story—how he, too, acting under the impulse of an awful error, had fled to the Soudan, leaving an evil name behind him rather than kill his dear ones by the revelation of what he believed to be the truth; how, finding the pit that had been dug for the innocent man, he had thought it his duty as the guilty one to step into it himself; and how, finally, being appeased on that point, he had determined to come into Cairo in Ishmael's place in order to save both him from the sure consequences of his determined fanaticism and his father from the certain ruin that must follow upon the work of liars and intriguers.By this time Ishmael was no longer pale but pallid. His lips were trembling, his heart was beating audibly. Again without voice, almost without breath, he stammered—"When you offered to take my place you knew that the Rani ... Helena ... had sent that letter?"Gordon bowed without speaking."You knew, too, that you might be coming to your death?"Once more Gordon bowed his head."Coming to your death, that I ... that I might live?"Gordon stood silent and motionless."Allah! Allah!" mumbled Ishmael, who was now scarcely able to hear or see.Last of all, Gordon returned to the story of Helena, showing how she had suffered for the impulse of vengeance that had taken possession of her; how she had wanted to fly from Ishmael's camp, but had remained there in the hope of helping to save his people, and how at length shehadsaved them by going to the Consul-General to prove that the pilgrims were not an armed force, and by ordering the light that had led them into the city.Ishmael was deeply moved. With an effort, he said—"Then ... then she was yours from the first, and while I hated you because I thought you had come between us, it was really I ... I who ... Allah! Allah!"Gordon having finished, a silence ensued, and then Ishmael, looking at the photograph which was still in his trembling hands, said, in a pitiful voice—"God sees all, and when He tears the scales from our eyes—what are we? The children of one Father fighting in the dark!"Then he rose to his feet, a broken man, and approaching Gordon, he tried to kneel to him; but in a moment Gordon had prevented him, and was holding out his hand.Nervously, timidly, reluctantly, he took it, and said, in a voice that had almost gone—"God will reward thee for this, my brother—for kissing the hand of him who came to smite thy face."With that he turned and staggered towards the door. Gordon opened it, and at the same moment called to his servant—"Orderly, show the Sheikh to the gate, please.""Yes, Colonel.""No, I beg of you, no," said Ishmael, and, while Gordon stood watching him, he went heavily down the stairs.CHAPTER XIXThat night at the house of the Chancellor of El Azhar Ishmael was missing. Owing to the state of his health the greatest anxiety was experienced, and half the professors and teachers of the University were sent out to search. They scoured the city until morning without finding the slightest trace of him. Then the servant who had attended upon him remembered that shortly before his disappearance he had asked if the English Colonel who had lately been pardoned by his King still lived on the Citadel.This led to the discovery of his whereabouts, and to some knowledge of his movements. On leaving Gordon's quarters he had crossed the courtyard of the fortress to the mosque of Mohammed Ali. It was then dark, and only the Sheikh in charge had seen him when, after making his ablutions, he entered by the holy door.It was certain that he had spent the entire night in the mosque. The muezzin, going up to the minaret at midnight, had seen a white figure kneeling before the kibleh. Afterwards, when traditions began to gather about Ishmael's name, the man declared that he saw a celestial light descending upon the White Prophet as of an angel hovering over him. There was a new moon that night, and perhaps its rays came down from the little window that looks towards Mecca.The muezzin also said that at sunrise, when he went up to the minaret again, the Prophet was still there, and that an infinite radiance was then around him as of a multitude of angels in red and blue and gold. There are many stained glass windows in the mosque of Mohammed Ali, and perhaps the rising sun was shining through them.Certainly Ishmael was kneeling before the kibleh at eleven o'clock in the morning when the people began to gather for prayers. It was Friday, and the last of the days kept in honour of the birthday of the Prophet, therefore there was a great congregation.The Khedive was present. He had come early, with his customary bodyguard, and had taken his usual place in the front row close under the pulpit. The carpeted floor of the mosque was densely crowded. Rows and rows of men, wearing tarbooshes and turbans and sitting on their haunches, extended to the great door. The gallery was full of women, most of them veiled, but some of them with uncovered faces.The sun, which was hot, shone through the jewelled windows and cast a glory like that of rubies and sapphires on the alabaster pillars and glistening marble walls. Three muezzins chanted the call to prayers, two from the minarets facing towards the city, the other from the minaret overlooking the inner square of the Citadel where a British sentinel in khaki paced to and fro.While the congregation assembled, one of the Readers of the mosque, seated in a reading-desk in the middle, read prayers from the Koran in a slow, sonorous voice, and was answered by rather drowsy cries of "Allah! Allah!" But there was a moment of keen expectancy and the men on the floor rose to their feet, when the voice of the muezzin ceased and the Reader cried—"God is Most Great! God is Most Great! There is no god but God. Mohammed is His Prophet. Listen to the preacher."Then it was seen that the white figure that had been prostrate before the kibleh had risen, and was approaching the pulpit. People tried to kiss his hand as he passed, and it was noticed that the Khedive put his lips to the fringe of the Imam's caftan.Taking the wooden sword from the attendant, Ishmael ascended the pulpit steps. When he had reached the top of them he was in the full stream of the sunlight, and for the first time his face was clearly seen.His cheeks were hollow and very pale; his lips were bloodless; his black eyes were heavy and sunken, and his whole appearance was that of a man who had passed through a night of sleepless suffering. Even at sight of him, and before he had spoken, the congregation were deeply moved."Peace be upon you, O children of the Compassionate," he began, and the people answered according to custom—"On you be peace, too, O servant of Allah."Then the people sat, and, sitting himself, Ishmael began to preach.It was said afterwards that he had never before spoken with so much emotion or so deeply moved his hearers; that he was like one who was speaking out of the night-long travail of his soul; and that his words, which were often tumultuous and incoherent, were not like sentences spoken to listeners, but like the secrets of a suffering heart uttering themselves aloud.Beginning in a low, tired voice, that would barely have reached the limits of the mosque but for the breathlessness of the people, he said that God had brought them to a new stage in the progress of humanity. Islam was rising out of the corruption of ages. Egypt was having a new birth of freedom. God had whitened their faces before the world, and in His wisdom He had willed it that the oldest of the nations should not perish from the earth."Ameen! Ameen!" replied a hundred vehement voices, whereupon Ishmael rose from his seat and raised his arm.It was an hour of glory, but let them not be vainglorious. Let them not think that with their puny hands they had won these triumphs. Allah alone did all."Beware of boasting," he cried, "it is the strong drink of ignorance. Beware of them that would tell you that by any act of yours you have humbled the pride or lowered the strength of the great nation under whose arm we live. Only God has changed its heart. He has given it to see that the true welfare of a people is moral, not material. And now, steadily, calmly, out of the spirit that has always inspired its laws, its traditions and its faith, it shows us mercy and justice.""Ameen! Ameen!" came again, but less vehemently than before.Then speaking of Gordon without naming him, Ishmael reminded his people that some of the great nation's own sons had helped them."One there is who has been our warmest friend," he cried. "To him, the pure of heart, the high of soul, although he is a soldier and a great one, may Peace herself award the crown of life! Christian he may be, but may God place His benediction upon him to all eternity! May the God of the East bless him! May the God of the West bless him! May his name be inscribed with blessings from the Koran on the walls of every mosque!"This reference, plainly understood by all, was received with loud and ringing shouts of "Allah! Allah!"Then Ishmael's sermon took a new direction. For thirteen centuries the children of men, forgetting their prophets, Mohammed and Jesus and Moses, had been given over to idolatry. They had worshipped a god of their own fashioning. That god was gold. Its temples were great cities given up to material pursuits, and under them were the dead souls of millions of human beings. Its altars were vast armies which spilled the rivers of blood which had to be sacrificed to its lust. As men had become rich they had become barbarous, as nations had become great they had become pagan. Islam and Christianity alike had had to fight against some of the powers of darkness which called themselves civilisation and progress. But a new era had begun, and the human heart was raising its face to God."Once again a voice has gone out from Mecca, from Nazareth, from Jerusalem, saying, 'There is no god but God.' Once again a voice has gone out from the desert, crying, 'Thou shalt have no other god but Me!'"At this the people were carried out of themselves with excitement, and loud shouts again rang through the mosque.Then Ishmael spoke of the future. The world had been in labour, in the throes of a new birth, but the end was not yet. Had he promised them that the Kingdom of Heaven would come when they entered Cairo? Let him bend his knee in humility and ask pardon of the Merciful. Had he said the Redeemer would appear? Let him fall on his face before God. Not yet! Not yet!"But," he cried, leaning out of the pulpit, with a look of inspiration in his upturned eyes, "I see a time coming when the worship of wealth will cease, when the governments of the nations will realise that man does not live by bread alone; when the children of men will see that the things of the spirit are the only true realities, worth more than much gold and many diamonds, and not to be bartered away for the shows of life; when the scourge of war will pass away; when, divisions of faith will be no more known; when all men, whether black or white, will be brothers, and in the larger destiny of the human race the world will be One."That time is near, O brothers," cried Ishmael, "and many who are with us to-day will live to witness it.""You, Master, you!" cried a voice from below, whereupon Ishmael paused for a perceptible moment, and then said, in a sadder voice—"No; with the eyes of the body I shall not see that time."Loud shouts of affectionate protest came from the people."God forbid it!" they cried."Godhasforbidden it," said Ishmael. "I pass out of your lives from this day forward. Our paths part. You will see me no more."Again came loud shouts of protest—not unusual in a mosque—with voices calling on Ishmael to remain and lead the people."My work here is done," he answered. "The little that God gave me to do is finished. And now He calls me away.""No, no!" cried the people."Yes, yes," replied Ishmael; and then in simple, touching words he told them the story of the Prophet Moses—how, by reason of his sin, he was forbidden to enter the Promised Land."Many of us have our promised land which we may never enter," he said. "This is mine, and here I may not stay."The protests of the people ceased; they listened without breathing."Yet Moses was taken up into a high mountain, and from there he saw what lay before his people; and from a high mountain of my soul I see the Promised Land which lies before you. But to me a voice has come which says, 'Enter thou not!'"The people were now deeply moved."We are all sinners," Ishmael continued."Not thou, O Master," cried several voices at once."Yes, I more than any other, for I have sinned against you and against the Merciful."Then, raising his arms as if in blessing, he cried—"O slaves of God, be brothers one to another! If you think of me when I am gone, think of me as of one who saw the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth as plainly as his eyes behold you now. If I leave you I leave this hope, this comforter, behind me. Think that Azrael, the angel of death, has spread his wings over the desert track that hides me from your eyes. And pray for me—pray for me with the sinner's prayer, the sinner's cry."Then, in deep, tremulous tones which seemed to be the inner voice of the whole of his being, he cried—"O Thou who knowest every heart and hearest every cry, look down and hearken to me now! One sole plea I make—my need of Thee! One only hope I have—to stand at Thy mercy-gate and knock! Penitent, I kneel at Thy feet! Suppliant, I stretch forth my hands! Save me, O God, from every ill!"The words of the prayer were familiar to everybody in the mosque, but so deep was their effect as Ishmael repeated them in his trembling, throbbing voice, that it seemed as if nobody present had ever heard them before.The emotion of the people wras now very great. "Allah! Allah! Allah!" they cried, and they prostrated themselves with their faces to the floor.When the cold, slow, sonorous voice of the Reader began again, and the vast congregation raised their heads, the pulpit was empty and Ishmael was gone.
CHAPTER XVI
At nightfall the great Proconsul left Cairo. He knew that all day long the telegraphic agencies had been busy with messages from London about his resignation. He also knew that after the first thunderclap of surprise the Egyptian population had concluded that he had been recalled—recalled in disgrace, and at the petition of the Khedive to the King.
It did not take him long to prepare for his departure. In the course of an hour Ibrahim was able to pack up the few personal effects—how few!—which during the longest residence gather about the house of a servant of the State.
Perhaps the acutest of his feelings on leaving Egypt came to him as he drove in a closed carriage out of the grounds of the Agency, and looked up for the last time at the windows of the room that used to be occupied by his wife. At that moment he felt something of the dumb desolation which rolls over the strongest souls when, after a lifetime of comradeship, the asundering comes and they long for the voice that is still.
Poor Janet! He must leave all that remained of her behind him under the tall cypress trees on the edge of the Nile. Yet no, not all, for he was carrying away the better part of her—her pure soul and saintly memory—within him. None the less, that moment of parting brought the old man nearer than he had ever been to the sense of tears in mortal things.
The Sirdar had accompanied him, but though the fact of his intended departure had become known, having been announced in all the evening papers, there was nobody at the station to bid adieu to him—not a member of the Khedive'sentourage; not one of the Egyptian Ministers, not even any of the Advisers and Under-Secretaries whom he had himself created.
Never had there lived a more self-centred and self-sufficient man, but this fact cut him to the quick. He had done what he believed to be his duty in Egypt, and feeling that he was neglected and forgotten at the end, the ingratitude of those whom he had served went like poison into his soul.
To escape from the sense of it he began to talk with a bitter raillery which in a weaker man would have expressed itself in tears, and seemed indeed to have tears—glittering, frozen tears—behind it.
"Do you know, my dear Reg," he said, "I feel to-night as if I might be another incarnation of your friend Pontius Pilate. Like him, I am being withdrawn, you see, and apparently for the same reason. And—who knows?—perhaps like him too, I am destined to earn the maledictions of mankind."
The Sirdar found the old man's irony intensely affecting, and therefore he made no protest.
"Well, I'm not ashamed of the comparison, if it means that against all forms of anarchy I have belonged to the party of order, though of course there will be some wise heads that will see the finger of Heaven in what has happened."
The strong man, with his fortunes sunk to zero, was defiant to the very end and last hour of calamity. But standing on the platform by the door of the compartment that had been reserved for him, he looked round at length and said—all his irony, all his raillery suddenly gone—
"Reg, I have given forty years of my life to those people and there is not one of them to see me off."
The Sirdar tried his best to cheer him, saying—
"England remembers, though, and if—" but the old man looked into his face and his next words died on his lips.
The engine was getting up steam, and its rhythmic throb was shaking the glass roof overhead when Gordon and Hafiz, wearing their military greatcoats, came up the platform. They had carefully timed it to arrive at the last moment. A gleam of light came into the father's face at the sight of his son. Gordon stepped up, Hafiz fell back, Lord Nuneham entered the carriage.
"Well, good-bye, old friend," said the old man, shaking hands warmly with the Sirdar. "I may see you again—in my exile in England, you know."
Then he turned to Gordon and took his outstretched hand. Father and son stood face to face for the last time. Not a word was spoken. There was a long, firm, quivering hand-clasp—and that was all. At the next moment the train was gone.
The Sirdar stood watching it until it disappeared, and then he turned to Gordon, and, thinking of the England the Consul-General had loved, the England he had held high, he said, speaking of him as if he were already dead—
"After all, my boy, your father was one of the great Englishmen."
Gordon could not answer him, and after a while they shook hands and separated. The two young soldiers walked back to the Citadel, through the native streets. The "Nights of the Prophet" were nearly over, and the illuminations were being put out.
Hafiz talked about the Khedive—he had just arrived at Kubbeh; then about Ishmael—the Prophet had shut himself up in the Chancellor's house and was permitting nobody to see him.
"His Highness has asked Ishmael to be Imam to-morrow morning, but it is thought that he is ill—it is even whispered that he is going mad." said Hafiz.
Gordon did not speak until they reached the foot of the hill. Then he said—
"I must go up and lie down. Good-night, old fellow! God bless you!"
CHAPTER XVII
Half-an-hour earlier, Gordon's guard, now transformed into his soldier servant, had been startled by the appearance of an Egyptian, wearing the flowing white robes of a Sheikh, and asking in almost faultless English for Colonel Lord.
"The Colonel has gone to the station to see his lordship off to England, but I'm expecting him back presently," said the orderly.
"I'll wait," said the Sheikh, and the orderly showed, him into Gordon's room.
"Looks like a bloomin' death's-head! Wonder if he's the bloomin' Prophet they're jawrin' about!"
Since coming into Cairo Ishmael had been a prey to thoughts that were indeed akin to madness. Perhaps he was seized by one of those nervous maladies in which a man no longer belongs to himself. Certainly he suffered the pangs of heart and brain which come only to the purest and most spiritual souls in their darkest hours, and seem to make it literally true that their tortured spirits descend into hell.
Now that his anxiety for his followers was relaxed and their hopes had in some measure been realised, his mind swung back to the sorrowful decay and ruin that had fallen upon himself. It was no longer the shame of the prophet but the bereavement of the man that tormented him. His lacerated heart left him no power of thinking or feeling anything but the loss of Helena.
Again he saw her beaming eyes, her long black lashes, and her smiling mouth. Again he heard her voice, and again the sweet perfume of her presence seemed to be about him. That all this was lost to him for ever, that henceforth he had to put away from him all the sweetness, all the beauty, all the tenderness of a woman's life linked with his, brought him a paroxysm of pain in which it seemed as if his heart would break and die.
He recalled the promises he had made to himself, of taking up the life of a man when his work was done. His work was done now—in some sort ended, at all events—but the prize he had promised himself had been snatched away. She was gone, she who had been all his joy. An impassable gulf divided them. The infinite radiance of hope and love that was to have crowned his restless and stormy life had disappeared. Henceforth he must walk through the world alone.
"O God, can it be?" he asked himself, with the startled agony of one who awakes from single-pillowed sleep and remembers that he is bereaved.
If anything had been necessary to make his position intolerable, it came with the thought that all this was due to the treachery of the man he had loved and trusted, the man he had believed to be his friend and brother, the one being, besides the woman, who had gone to his heart of hearts. The Rani had confessed to him that she loved "Omar," and notwithstanding that all his life he had struggled to liberate himself from the prejudices of his race, yet now, in the melancholy broodings of his Eastern brain, he could not escape from the conclusion that the only love possible between a man and the wife of another was guilty love.
When he thought of that both body and soul seemed to be afire, and he became conscious of a feeling about "Omar" which he had never experienced before towards any human creature—a feeling of furious and inextinguishable hatred.
He began to be afraid of himself, and just as a dog will shun its kind and hide itself from sight when it feels the poison of madness working in its blood, so Ishmael, under the secret trouble which he dared reveal to none, shut himself up in his sleeping-room in the old Chancellor's house.
It was a small and silent chamber at the back, overlooking a little paved courtyard containing a well, and bounded by a very high wall that shut off sight and sound of the city outside. Once a day an old man in a blue galabeah came into the court to draw water, and twice a day a servant of the Sheikhs came into the room with food. Save for these two, and the old Chancellor himself at intervals, Ishmael saw no one for nine days, and in the solitude and semi-darkness of his self-imposed prison a hundred phantoms were bred in his distempered brain.
On the second day after his retirement the Chancellor came to tell him that his emissary, his missionary, "Omar Benani," had been identified on his arrest, that in his true character as Colonel Lord he was to be tried by his fellow-officers for his supposed offences as a soldier at the time of the assault on El Azhar, and that the only sentence that could possibly be passed upon him would be death. At this news, which the Chancellor delivered with a sad face, Ishmael felt a fierce but secret joy.
"God's arm is long," he told himself. "He allowed the man to escape while his aims were good, but now he is going to punish him for his treachery and deceit."
Three days afterwards the old Chancellor came again to say that Colonel Lord had been tried and condemned to death, as everybody had foreseen and expected, but nevertheless the sympathy of all men was with him, because he was seen to have acted from the noblest motives, withstanding his own father for what he believed to be the right, and exposing himself to the charge of being a bad son and a poor patriot in order to prevent bloodshed; that he had indeed prevented bloodshed by preventing a collision of the British and Native armies; that it had been by his efforts that the pilgrimage had been able to enter Cairo in peace; and that in recognition of the great sacrifice made by the Christian soldier for the love of humanity, the Ulema were joining with others in petitioning his King to pardon him.
At this news a chill came over Ishmael. His heart grew cold as stone, and when the Chancellor was gone, he found himself praying—
"Forbid it, O God, forbid it! Let not Thy justice be taken out of Thine awful hand."
Four days later the old Chancellor came yet again to say that the King's Pardon had been granted; that Colonel Lord was free; that the people were rejoicing; that everybody attributed the happy issue of the Christian's case mainly to zealous efforts on his behalf of the woman who loved him, the daughter of the dead General whose unwise command had been the cause of all his trouble; and finally that it was expected that these two would soon heal their family feud by marriage.
At this news Ishmael's tortured heart was aflame and his brain was reeling. The thought that "Omar" was not to be punished, that he was to be honoured, that he was to be made happy, filled him with passions never felt before. Behind the strongest and most spiritual soul there lurks a wild beast that seems to be ever waiting to destroy it, and in the torment of Ishmael's heart the thought came to him that, as his earthly judges were permitting the guilty one to escape, God called on him to punish the man.
Irresistible as the thought was, it brought a feeling of indescribable dread. "I must be going mad," he told himself, remembering how he had spent his life in the cause of peace. All day long he fought against a hatred that was now so fierce that it seemed as if death alone could satisfy it. His soul wrestled with it, battled for life against it, and at length conquered it, and he rose from his knees saying to himself—
"No, vengeance belongs to God! When did He ask for my hand to execute it?"
But the compulsion of great passion was driving him on, and after dismissing the thought of his own wrongs he began to think of the Rani's. Where was she now? What had become of her? He dared not ask. Ashamed, humiliated, abased, he had become so sensitive to pain on the subject of the woman whom he had betrothed, the woman who had betrayed him, the woman he still loved in spite of everything, that he was even afraid that some one might speak of her.
But in the light of what the Chancellor had said about the daughter of the General, he pictured the Rani as a rejected and abandoned woman. This thought was at first so painful that it deprived him of the free use of his faculties. He could not see anything plainly. His mind was a battlefield of confused sights, half hidden in clouds of smoke. That, after all the Rani had sacrificed for "Omar"—her husband, her happiness, and her honour—she should be cast aside for another—this was maddening.
He asked himself what he was to do. Find her and take her back? Impossible! Her heart was gone from him. She would continue to love the other man, whatever he might do to her. That was the way of all women—Allah pity and bless them!
Then a flash of illumination came to him in the long interval of his darkness. He would liberate the Rani,and the man she loved should marry her! No matter if she belonged to another race—he should marry her! No matter if she belonged to another faith—he should marry her! And as for himself—his sacrifice should be his revenge!
"Yes, that shall be my revenge," he thought.
This, in the wild fire of heart and brain, was the thought with which Ishmael had come to Gordon's door, and being shown into the soldier's room he sat for some time without looking about him. Then raising his eyes and gazing round the bare apartment, with its simple bed, its table, its shelves of military boots, its stirrups and swords and rifles, he saw on the desk under the lamp a large photograph in a frame.
It was the photograph of a woman in Western costume, and he told himself in an instant who the woman was—she was the daughter of the General who was dead.
He remembered that he had heard of her before, and that he had even spoken about her to her father when he came to warn the General that the order he was giving to Colonel Lord would lead to the injury of England in Egypt and the ruin of his own happiness. From that day to this he had never once thought of the girl, but now, recalling what the old Chancellor had said of her devotion, her fidelity, her loyalty to the man she loved, he turned his eyes from her picture lest the sight of it should touch him with tenderness and make harder the duty he had come to do.
"No, I will not look at it," he told himself, with the simplicity of a sick child.
Trying to avoid the softening effects of the photograph under the lamp, he saw another on the table by his side and yet another on the wall. They were all pictures of the same woman, and hastily as he glanced at them, there was something in the face of each that kindled a light in his memory. Was it only a part of his haunting torment that, in spite of the Western costume that obscured the woman in the photographs, her brilliant, beaming eyes were the eyes of the Rani?
A wave of indescribable tenderness broke over him for a moment, an odour of perfume, an atmosphere of sweetness and delicacy and charm, and then, telling himself that all this was gone from him for ever, and that every woman's face would henceforth remind him of her whom he had lost, the hatred in his heart against Gordon gave him the pain of an open wound.
"O God, let me forget, let me forget!" he prayed.
Then suddenly, while he was in the tempest of these contrary emotions which were whirling like hot sand in a sandstorm about his brain, he heard a footstep on the stairs, followed by a voice outside the door. It was the voice of Colonel Lord's soldier servant, and he was telling his master who was within—an Arab, a Sheikh, in white robes and a turban.
"He's coming! He's here," thought Ishmael.
With choking throat and throbbing heart he rose to his feet and stood waiting. At the next moment the door was thrown open and the man he had come to meet was in the room.
CHAPTER XVIII
With all his heart occupied by thoughts of his father, Gordon had hardly listened to what Hafiz had been saying about Ishmael, but walking up the hill and to the Citadel he began to think of him, and of Helena, and of the bond of the betrothal which still bound them together.
"Until that is broken there can be nothing between her and me," he told himself, and this was the thought in his mind at the moment when he reached his quarters and his servant told him who was waiting within.
"Ishmael Ameer! Is it you?" he cried, as he burst the door open, and stepping eagerly, cheerfully, almost joyfully forward, he stretched out his hand.
But Ishmael drew back, and then Gordon saw that his eyes were swollen as if by sleeplessness, that his lips were white, that his cheeks were terribly pale, and that the expression of his face was shocking.
"Why, what is this? Are you ill?" he asked.
"Omar Benani," said Ishmael, "you and I are alone, and only God is our witness. I have something to say to you. Let us sit."
He spoke in a low, tremulous tone, rather with his breath than with his voice, and Gordon, after looking at him for an instant, and seeing the smouldering fire of madness that was in the man's face, threw off his greatcoat and sat down.
There was a moment in which neither spoke, and then Ishmael, still speaking in a scarcely audible voice, said—
"Omar Benani, I am a son of the Beni Azra. Honour is our watchword. When a traveller in the Libyan desert, tired and weary, seeks the tent of one of my people, the master takes him in. He makes him free of all that he possesses. Sometimes he sends the stranger into the harem itself that the women may wash his feet. He leaves him there to rest and to sleep. He puts his faith, his honour, the most precious thing God has given him, into his hands. But," said Ishmael, with suppressed fire flashing in his eyes, "if the stranger should ever wrong that harem, if he should ever betray the trust reposed in him, no matter who he is or where he flies to, the master will follow him andkill him!"
Involuntarily, seeing the error that Ishmael had fallen into, Gordon rose to his feet, whereupon Ishmael, mistaking the gesture, held up his hand.
"No," he said, "not that! I have not come to do that. I putmyhonour inyourhands, Omar Benani. I made you free of my family. Could I have done more? You were my brother, yet you outraged the sacred rights of brotherhood. You tore open the secret chamber of my heart. You deceived me, and robbed me and betrayed me, and you are a traitor. But I am not here to avenge myself. Sit, sit. I will tell you what I have come for."
Breathless and bewildered, Gordon sat again, and after another moment of silence, Ishmael, with the light of a wild sorrow in his face, said—
"Omar Benani, there is one who has sacrificed everything for you. She has broken her vows for you, sinned for you, suffered for you. That woman is my wife, and by all the rights of a husband I could hold her. But her heart is yours, and therefore ... therefore Iintend to give her up."
Involuntarily Gordon rose to his feet again, and again Ishmael held up his hand.
"But if I liberate her," he said, "if I divorce her, you must marry her.Thatis what I have come to say."
Utterly amazed and dumbfounded, Gordon could not at first find words to speak, whereupon Ishmael, mistaking his silence, said—
"You need not be afraid of scandal. My people know something about the letter that was sent into Cairo, but neither my people nor yours know anything of the motives that inspired it. Therefore nobody except ourselves will understand the reason for what is done."
He paused as if waiting for a reply, and then said in a voice that quavered with emotion—
"Can it be possible that you hesitate? Do you suppose I am offering to you what I do not wish to keep for myself? I tell you that if that poor girl could say that her feeling for me was the same as before you came between us.... But no, that is impossible! God, who is on high, looks down on what I am doing, and He knows that it is right."
Gordon, still speechless with astonishment, twisted about to the desk, which was behind him, and stretched out his hand as if with the intention of taking up the photograph; but at that action, Ishmael, once more mistaking his meaning, flashed out on him in a blaze of passion.
"Don't tell me you cannot do it. You must, and you shall! No matter what pledges you may have made—you shall marry her. No matter if she is of another race and faith—you shall marry her. She may be an outcast now, but you shall find her and save her. Or else," he cried, in a thundering voice, rising to his feet, and lifting both arms above Gordon's head with a terrible dignity, "the justice of God shall overtake you, His hand shall smite you, His wrath shall hurl you down."
Seeing that all the wild blood of the man's race was aflame, Gordon leapt up, and laying hold of Ishmael's upraised arms he brought them, by a swift wrench, down to his sides.
The two men were then face to face, the Arab with his dusky cheeks and flashing black eyes, the Englishman with his glittering grey eyes and lips set firm as steel. There was another moment of silence while they stood together so, and then Gordon, liberating Ishmael's arms, said, in a commanding voice—
"I have listened to you. Now you shall listen to me. Sit down."
More than the strength of Gordon's muscles, the unblanched look in his face compelled Ishmael to obey. Then Gordon said—
"You believe you have been deceived and wronged, and you have been deceived and wronged, but not in the way you think. The time has come for you to learn the truth—the whole truth. You shall learn it now. Look at this," he said, snatching up the photograph from the desk and holding it out to Ishmael.
Ishmael tried to push the photograph away.
"Look at it, I say. Do you know who that is?"
At the next moment Ishmael was trembling in every limb, and without voice, almost without breath, he was stammering, as he held the photograph in his hand—
"The Rani?"
"Yes, and no," said Gordon. "That is the daughter of our late General."
It seemed to Ishmael that Gordon had said something, but he tried in vain to realise what it was.
"Tell me," he stammered, "tell me."
Then, rapidly but forcibly, Gordon told him Helena's story, beginning with the day on which Ishmael came to the Citadel—how she had concluded, not without reason, that he had killed her father, he being the last person to be seen with him alive, and how, finding that the law and the Government were powerless to punish him, she had determined to avenge her father's death herself.
Ishmael listened with mouth open, fixing on Gordon a bewildered eye.
"Was that why she came to Khartoum?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Why she prompted me to come into Cairo?"
"Yes."
"Why she wrote that letter?"
"Yes."
Overwhelmed with the terrible enlightenment, Ishmael fumbled his beads and muttered, "Allah! Allah!"
Then Gordon told his own story—how he, too, acting under the impulse of an awful error, had fled to the Soudan, leaving an evil name behind him rather than kill his dear ones by the revelation of what he believed to be the truth; how, finding the pit that had been dug for the innocent man, he had thought it his duty as the guilty one to step into it himself; and how, finally, being appeased on that point, he had determined to come into Cairo in Ishmael's place in order to save both him from the sure consequences of his determined fanaticism and his father from the certain ruin that must follow upon the work of liars and intriguers.
By this time Ishmael was no longer pale but pallid. His lips were trembling, his heart was beating audibly. Again without voice, almost without breath, he stammered—
"When you offered to take my place you knew that the Rani ... Helena ... had sent that letter?"
Gordon bowed without speaking.
"You knew, too, that you might be coming to your death?"
Once more Gordon bowed his head.
"Coming to your death, that I ... that I might live?"
Gordon stood silent and motionless.
"Allah! Allah!" mumbled Ishmael, who was now scarcely able to hear or see.
Last of all, Gordon returned to the story of Helena, showing how she had suffered for the impulse of vengeance that had taken possession of her; how she had wanted to fly from Ishmael's camp, but had remained there in the hope of helping to save his people, and how at length shehadsaved them by going to the Consul-General to prove that the pilgrims were not an armed force, and by ordering the light that had led them into the city.
Ishmael was deeply moved. With an effort, he said—
"Then ... then she was yours from the first, and while I hated you because I thought you had come between us, it was really I ... I who ... Allah! Allah!"
Gordon having finished, a silence ensued, and then Ishmael, looking at the photograph which was still in his trembling hands, said, in a pitiful voice—
"God sees all, and when He tears the scales from our eyes—what are we? The children of one Father fighting in the dark!"
Then he rose to his feet, a broken man, and approaching Gordon, he tried to kneel to him; but in a moment Gordon had prevented him, and was holding out his hand.
Nervously, timidly, reluctantly, he took it, and said, in a voice that had almost gone—
"God will reward thee for this, my brother—for kissing the hand of him who came to smite thy face."
With that he turned and staggered towards the door. Gordon opened it, and at the same moment called to his servant—
"Orderly, show the Sheikh to the gate, please."
"Yes, Colonel."
"No, I beg of you, no," said Ishmael, and, while Gordon stood watching him, he went heavily down the stairs.
CHAPTER XIX
That night at the house of the Chancellor of El Azhar Ishmael was missing. Owing to the state of his health the greatest anxiety was experienced, and half the professors and teachers of the University were sent out to search. They scoured the city until morning without finding the slightest trace of him. Then the servant who had attended upon him remembered that shortly before his disappearance he had asked if the English Colonel who had lately been pardoned by his King still lived on the Citadel.
This led to the discovery of his whereabouts, and to some knowledge of his movements. On leaving Gordon's quarters he had crossed the courtyard of the fortress to the mosque of Mohammed Ali. It was then dark, and only the Sheikh in charge had seen him when, after making his ablutions, he entered by the holy door.
It was certain that he had spent the entire night in the mosque. The muezzin, going up to the minaret at midnight, had seen a white figure kneeling before the kibleh. Afterwards, when traditions began to gather about Ishmael's name, the man declared that he saw a celestial light descending upon the White Prophet as of an angel hovering over him. There was a new moon that night, and perhaps its rays came down from the little window that looks towards Mecca.
The muezzin also said that at sunrise, when he went up to the minaret again, the Prophet was still there, and that an infinite radiance was then around him as of a multitude of angels in red and blue and gold. There are many stained glass windows in the mosque of Mohammed Ali, and perhaps the rising sun was shining through them.
Certainly Ishmael was kneeling before the kibleh at eleven o'clock in the morning when the people began to gather for prayers. It was Friday, and the last of the days kept in honour of the birthday of the Prophet, therefore there was a great congregation.
The Khedive was present. He had come early, with his customary bodyguard, and had taken his usual place in the front row close under the pulpit. The carpeted floor of the mosque was densely crowded. Rows and rows of men, wearing tarbooshes and turbans and sitting on their haunches, extended to the great door. The gallery was full of women, most of them veiled, but some of them with uncovered faces.
The sun, which was hot, shone through the jewelled windows and cast a glory like that of rubies and sapphires on the alabaster pillars and glistening marble walls. Three muezzins chanted the call to prayers, two from the minarets facing towards the city, the other from the minaret overlooking the inner square of the Citadel where a British sentinel in khaki paced to and fro.
While the congregation assembled, one of the Readers of the mosque, seated in a reading-desk in the middle, read prayers from the Koran in a slow, sonorous voice, and was answered by rather drowsy cries of "Allah! Allah!" But there was a moment of keen expectancy and the men on the floor rose to their feet, when the voice of the muezzin ceased and the Reader cried—
"God is Most Great! God is Most Great! There is no god but God. Mohammed is His Prophet. Listen to the preacher."
Then it was seen that the white figure that had been prostrate before the kibleh had risen, and was approaching the pulpit. People tried to kiss his hand as he passed, and it was noticed that the Khedive put his lips to the fringe of the Imam's caftan.
Taking the wooden sword from the attendant, Ishmael ascended the pulpit steps. When he had reached the top of them he was in the full stream of the sunlight, and for the first time his face was clearly seen.
His cheeks were hollow and very pale; his lips were bloodless; his black eyes were heavy and sunken, and his whole appearance was that of a man who had passed through a night of sleepless suffering. Even at sight of him, and before he had spoken, the congregation were deeply moved.
"Peace be upon you, O children of the Compassionate," he began, and the people answered according to custom—
"On you be peace, too, O servant of Allah."
Then the people sat, and, sitting himself, Ishmael began to preach.
It was said afterwards that he had never before spoken with so much emotion or so deeply moved his hearers; that he was like one who was speaking out of the night-long travail of his soul; and that his words, which were often tumultuous and incoherent, were not like sentences spoken to listeners, but like the secrets of a suffering heart uttering themselves aloud.
Beginning in a low, tired voice, that would barely have reached the limits of the mosque but for the breathlessness of the people, he said that God had brought them to a new stage in the progress of humanity. Islam was rising out of the corruption of ages. Egypt was having a new birth of freedom. God had whitened their faces before the world, and in His wisdom He had willed it that the oldest of the nations should not perish from the earth.
"Ameen! Ameen!" replied a hundred vehement voices, whereupon Ishmael rose from his seat and raised his arm.
It was an hour of glory, but let them not be vainglorious. Let them not think that with their puny hands they had won these triumphs. Allah alone did all.
"Beware of boasting," he cried, "it is the strong drink of ignorance. Beware of them that would tell you that by any act of yours you have humbled the pride or lowered the strength of the great nation under whose arm we live. Only God has changed its heart. He has given it to see that the true welfare of a people is moral, not material. And now, steadily, calmly, out of the spirit that has always inspired its laws, its traditions and its faith, it shows us mercy and justice."
"Ameen! Ameen!" came again, but less vehemently than before.
Then speaking of Gordon without naming him, Ishmael reminded his people that some of the great nation's own sons had helped them.
"One there is who has been our warmest friend," he cried. "To him, the pure of heart, the high of soul, although he is a soldier and a great one, may Peace herself award the crown of life! Christian he may be, but may God place His benediction upon him to all eternity! May the God of the East bless him! May the God of the West bless him! May his name be inscribed with blessings from the Koran on the walls of every mosque!"
This reference, plainly understood by all, was received with loud and ringing shouts of "Allah! Allah!"
Then Ishmael's sermon took a new direction. For thirteen centuries the children of men, forgetting their prophets, Mohammed and Jesus and Moses, had been given over to idolatry. They had worshipped a god of their own fashioning. That god was gold. Its temples were great cities given up to material pursuits, and under them were the dead souls of millions of human beings. Its altars were vast armies which spilled the rivers of blood which had to be sacrificed to its lust. As men had become rich they had become barbarous, as nations had become great they had become pagan. Islam and Christianity alike had had to fight against some of the powers of darkness which called themselves civilisation and progress. But a new era had begun, and the human heart was raising its face to God.
"Once again a voice has gone out from Mecca, from Nazareth, from Jerusalem, saying, 'There is no god but God.' Once again a voice has gone out from the desert, crying, 'Thou shalt have no other god but Me!'"
At this the people were carried out of themselves with excitement, and loud shouts again rang through the mosque.
Then Ishmael spoke of the future. The world had been in labour, in the throes of a new birth, but the end was not yet. Had he promised them that the Kingdom of Heaven would come when they entered Cairo? Let him bend his knee in humility and ask pardon of the Merciful. Had he said the Redeemer would appear? Let him fall on his face before God. Not yet! Not yet!
"But," he cried, leaning out of the pulpit, with a look of inspiration in his upturned eyes, "I see a time coming when the worship of wealth will cease, when the governments of the nations will realise that man does not live by bread alone; when the children of men will see that the things of the spirit are the only true realities, worth more than much gold and many diamonds, and not to be bartered away for the shows of life; when the scourge of war will pass away; when, divisions of faith will be no more known; when all men, whether black or white, will be brothers, and in the larger destiny of the human race the world will be One.
"That time is near, O brothers," cried Ishmael, "and many who are with us to-day will live to witness it."
"You, Master, you!" cried a voice from below, whereupon Ishmael paused for a perceptible moment, and then said, in a sadder voice—
"No; with the eyes of the body I shall not see that time."
Loud shouts of affectionate protest came from the people.
"God forbid it!" they cried.
"Godhasforbidden it," said Ishmael. "I pass out of your lives from this day forward. Our paths part. You will see me no more."
Again came loud shouts of protest—not unusual in a mosque—with voices calling on Ishmael to remain and lead the people.
"My work here is done," he answered. "The little that God gave me to do is finished. And now He calls me away."
"No, no!" cried the people.
"Yes, yes," replied Ishmael; and then in simple, touching words he told them the story of the Prophet Moses—how, by reason of his sin, he was forbidden to enter the Promised Land.
"Many of us have our promised land which we may never enter," he said. "This is mine, and here I may not stay."
The protests of the people ceased; they listened without breathing.
"Yet Moses was taken up into a high mountain, and from there he saw what lay before his people; and from a high mountain of my soul I see the Promised Land which lies before you. But to me a voice has come which says, 'Enter thou not!'"
The people were now deeply moved.
"We are all sinners," Ishmael continued.
"Not thou, O Master," cried several voices at once.
"Yes, I more than any other, for I have sinned against you and against the Merciful."
Then, raising his arms as if in blessing, he cried—
"O slaves of God, be brothers one to another! If you think of me when I am gone, think of me as of one who saw the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth as plainly as his eyes behold you now. If I leave you I leave this hope, this comforter, behind me. Think that Azrael, the angel of death, has spread his wings over the desert track that hides me from your eyes. And pray for me—pray for me with the sinner's prayer, the sinner's cry."
Then, in deep, tremulous tones which seemed to be the inner voice of the whole of his being, he cried—
"O Thou who knowest every heart and hearest every cry, look down and hearken to me now! One sole plea I make—my need of Thee! One only hope I have—to stand at Thy mercy-gate and knock! Penitent, I kneel at Thy feet! Suppliant, I stretch forth my hands! Save me, O God, from every ill!"
The words of the prayer were familiar to everybody in the mosque, but so deep was their effect as Ishmael repeated them in his trembling, throbbing voice, that it seemed as if nobody present had ever heard them before.
The emotion of the people wras now very great. "Allah! Allah! Allah!" they cried, and they prostrated themselves with their faces to the floor.
When the cold, slow, sonorous voice of the Reader began again, and the vast congregation raised their heads, the pulpit was empty and Ishmael was gone.