CHAPTER XVIIIFive days after the death of Lady Nuneham the Consul-General was reading at his breakfast the last copy of theTimesto arrive in Cairo. It contained an anticipatory announcement of a forthcoming Mansion House Banquet in honour of the King's Birthday. The Foreign Minister was expected to speak on the "unrest in the East, with special reference to the affair of El Azhar."The Consul-General's face frowned darkly, and he began to picture the scene as it would occur. The gilded hall, the crowd of distinguished persons eating in public, the mixed odours of many dishes, the pop of champagne corks, the smoke of cigars, the buzz of chatter like the gobbling of geese on a green, and then the Minister, with his hand on his heart, uttering timorous apologies for his Proconsul's policy, and pouring out pompous platitudes as if he had newly discovered the Decalogue.The Consul-General's gorge rose at the thought. Oh, when would these people, who stayed comfortably at home and lived by the votes of the factory-hands of Lancashire and Yorkshire, and hungered for the shouts of the mob, understand the position of men like himself, who, in foreign lands, among alien races, encompassed by secret conspiracies, were spending their strength in holding high the banner of Empire?"Having chosen a good man, why can't they leave him alone?" thought the Consul-General.And then, his personal feelings getting the better of his patriotism, he almost wished that the charlatan element in Ishmael Ameer might develop speedily; that he might draw off the allegiance of the native soldiers in the Soudan and break out, like the Mahdi, into open rebellion. That would bring the Secretary of State to his senses, make him realise a real danger, and see in the everlasting "affair of El Azhar" if not light, then lightning.The door of the breakfast-room opened and Ibrahim entered."Well, what is it?" demanded the Consul-General with a frown.Ibrahim answered in some confusion that a small boy was in the hall, asking to see the English lord. He said he brought an urgent message, but would not tell what it was or where it came from. Had been there three times before, slept last night on the ground outside the gate, and could not be driven away—would his lordship see the lad?"What is his race? Egyptian?""Nubian, my lord.""Ever seen the boy before?""No ... yes ... that is to say ... well, now that your lordship mentions it, I think ... yes I think he came here once with Miss Hel ... I mean General Graves's daughter.""Bring him up immediately," said the Consul-General.At the next moment a black boy stepped boldly into the room. It was Mosie. His clothes were dirty, and his pudgy face was like a block of dark soap splashed with stale lather, but his eyes were clear and alert and his manner was eager."Well, my boy, what do you want?" asked the Consul-General.Mosie looked fearlessly up into the stern face with its iron jaw, and tipped his black thumb over his shoulder to where Ibrahim, in his gorgeous green caftan, stood timidly behind him.At a sign from the Consul-General, the Egyptian servant left the room, and then, quick as light, Mosie slipped off his sandal, ripped open its inner sole, and plucked out a letter stained with grease.It was the letter which Helena had written in Khartoum.The Consul-General read it rapidly, with an eagerness which even he could not conceal. So great, indeed, was his excitement that he did not see that a second paper (Ishmael's letter to the Chancellor of El Azhar) had fallen to the floor until Mosie picked it up and held it out to him."Good boy," said the Consul-General—the cloud had passed and his face bore an expression of joy.Instantly apprehending the dim purport of Helena's hasty letter, the Consul-General saw that what he had predicted and half hoped for was already coming to pass. It was to be open conspiracy now, not passive conspiracy any longer. The man Ishmael was falling a victim to the most fatal of all mental maladies. The Mahdist delusion was taking possession of him, and he was throwing himself into the Government's hands.Hurriedly ringing his bell, the Consul-General committed Mosie to Ibrahim's care, whereupon the small black boy, in his soiled clothes, with his dirty face and hands, strutted out of the room in front of the Egyptian servant, looking as proud as a peacock and feeling like sixteen feet tall. Then the Consul-General called for one of his secretaries and sent him for the Commandant of Police.The Commandant came in hot haste. He was a big and rather corpulent Englishman, wearing a blue-braided uniform and a fez—naturally a blusterous person with his own people, but as soft-voiced as a woman and as obsequious as a slave before his chief."Draw up your chair, Commandant—closer; now listen," said the Consul-General.And then in a low tone he repeated what he had already learned from Helena's letter, and added what he had instantly divined from it—that Ishmael Ameer was to return to Cairo; that he was to come back in the disguise of a Bedouin Sheikh; that his object was to draw off the allegiance of the Egyptian army in order that a vast horde of his followers might take possession of the city; that this was to be done during the period of the forthcoming festivities, while the British army was still in the provinces, and that the conspiracy was to reach its treacherous climax on the night of the King's Birthday.The Commandant listened with a gloomy face, and, looking timidly into the flashing eyes before him, he asked if his Excellency could rely on the source of his information."Absolutely! Infallibly!" said the Consul-General."Then," said the Commandant nervously, "I presume the festivities must be postponed?""Certainly not, sir.""Or perhaps your Excellency intends to have the British army called back to Cairo?""Not that either.""At least you will arrest the 'Bedouin'?""Not yet at all events."The policy to be pursued was to be something quite different.Everything was to go on as usual. Sports, golf, cricket, croquet, tennis-tournaments, polo-matches, race-meetings, automobile-meetings, "all the usual fooleries and frivolities"—with crowds of sight-seers, men in flannels and ladies in beautiful toilets—were to be encouraged to proceed. The police-bands were to play in the public gardens, the squares, the streets, everywhere."Say nothing to anybody. Give no sign of any kind. Let the conspiracy go on as if we knew nothing about it. But——""Yes, my lord? Yes?""Keep an eye on the 'Bedouin.' Let every train that arrives at the railway-station and every boat that comes down the river be watched. As soon as you have spotted your man, see where he goes. He may be a fanatical fool, miscalculating his 'divine' influence with the native soldier, but he cannot be working alone. Therefore find out who visit him, learn all their movements, let their plans come to a head, and, when the proper time arrives, in one hour, at one blow we will crush their conspiracy and clap our hands upon the whole of them.""Splendid! An inspiration, my lord!""I've always said it would some day be necessary to forge a special weapon to meet special needs, and the time has come to forge it. Meantime undertake nothing hurriedly. Make no mistakes, and see that your men make none.""Certainly, my lord.""Investigate every detail for yourself, and above all hold your tongue and guard your information with inviolable secrecy.""Surely, my lord.""You can go now. I'm busy. Good-morning!""Wonderful man!" thought the Commandant, as he went out at the porch. "Seems to have taken a new lease of life! Wonderful!"The Consul-General spent the whole of that day in thinking out his scheme for a "special weapon," and when night came and he went upstairs—through the great echoing house that was like the bureau of a department of state now, being so empty and so cheerless, and past the dark and silent room whereof the door was always closed—he felt conscious of a firmer and lighter step than he had known for years.Fatimah was in his bedroom, for she had constituted herself his own nurse since his wife's death. She was nailing up on the wall the picture of the little boy in the Arab fez, and, having her own theory about why he had taken it down in the library, she said—"There! It will be company for your lordship, and nobody will ask questions about it here."When Fatimah had gone the Consul-General could not but think of Gordon. He always thought of him at that hour of the night, and the picture of his son that rose in his mind's eye was always the same. It was a picture of Gordon's deadly white face with its trembling lower lip, as he stood bolt upright while his medals were being torn from his breast, and then said, in that voice which his father could never forget: "General, the time may come when it will be even more painful to you to remember all this than it has been to me to bear it."Oh, that Gordon could be here now and see for himself what a sorry charlatan, what a self-deceived quack and conspirator, was the man in whose defence he had allowed his own valuable life to rush down to a confused welter of wreck and ruin!As the Consul-General got into bed he was thinking of Helena. What a glorious, courageous, resourceful woman she was! It carried his mind back to Biblical days to find anything equal to her daring and her success. But what was the price she had paid for them? He remembered something the Sirdar had said of "a marriage, a sort of betrothal," and then he recalled the words of her first letter: "I know exactly how far I intend to go, and I shall go no farther. I know exactly what I intend to do, and I shall do it without fear or remorse."What had happened in the Soudan? What was happening there now? In what battle-whirlwind had that splendid girl's magnificent victory been won?CHAPTER XIXMeantime Helena in Khartoum was feeling like a miserable traitress.She had condemned an innocent man to death! Ishmael hadnotkilled her father, yet she had taken such steps that the moment he entered Cairo he would be walking to his doom!One after another sweet and cruel memories crowded upon her, and in the light of the awful truth as Gordon had revealed it, she began to see Ishmael with quite different eyes. All she had hitherto thought evil in his character now looked like good; what she had taken for hypocrisy was sincerity; what she had supposed to be subtlety was simplicity. His real nature was a rebuke to every one of her preconceived ideas. The thought of his tenderness, his modesty, his devotion, and even the unselfishness which had led to their betrothal, cut her to the heart. Yet she had doomed him to destruction. The letter she had written to the Consul-General was his death-warrant.That night she could fix her mind on nothing except the horror of her position, but next morning she set herself to think out schemes for stopping the consequences of her own act.The black boy was gone; it was not possible to overtake him; there was no other train to Egypt for four days, but there was the telegraph—she could make use of that."I'll telegraph to the Consul-General to pay no attention to my letter," she thought.Useless! The Consul-General would ask himself searching questions and take his precautions just the same."I'll telegraph that my letter is a forgery," she thought.Madness! The Consul-General would ask himself how, if it was a forgery, she could know anything about it."I'll go across to the Sirdar and tell him everything, and leave him to act for both of us as he thinks best!"Impossible! How could she explain her position to the Sirdar without betraying Gordon's identity and thereby leading to his arrest?That settled everything. There was no escape from the consequences of her conduct, no way to put an end to the network of dangers by which she had surrounded Ishmael. Mosie was now far on his way to Cairo; he carried to the Consul-General not only her own letter but also the original of Ishmael's letter to the Chancellor of El Azhar. The hideous work was done.Two days passed, during which her over-excited feelings seemed to paralyse all her powers of thought. Then a new idea took possession of her, and she set herself to undo what she had done with Ishmael himself. Little by little, in tremulous tones, and with a still deeper sense of duplicity than before, she began to express halting doubts of the success of their enterprise."I have been thinking about it," she said nervously, "and now I fear——""What do you fear, O Rani?" asked Ishmael."I fear," said Helena, trembling visibly, "that the moment the Government learn from the Sirdar, as they needs must, that the great body of your people have left Khartoum, and are travelling north, they will recall the British army to protect the capital and thus——"But Ishmael interrupted her with a laugh."If the day of the Redeemer has come," he said, "will human armies hinder him? No!"It was useless! Ishmael was now more than ever an enthusiast, a fanatic, a visionary. His spiritual ecstasy swept away every obstacle, and made him blind to every danger.Helena felt like a witch who was trying to undo the effects of her charm. She could not undo them. She could not destroy the potency of the spell she herself had raised, and the effort to do so put her into a fever of excitement.Two days more passed like this, and still Helena was in the toils of her own actions. From time to time she saw Gordon as he sat at meals or moved about the house. He did not speak to her, and she dropped her head in shame as often as they came close together. But at length she caught a look in his face which seemed to her to say, "Are you really going to let an innocent man walk into the jaws of death?"That brought her wavering mind to a quick conclusion. Gordon was waiting for her to speak. She must speak! She must confess everything! She must tell Ishmael what she had done, and by what tragic error she had done it. At any cost, no matter what, she must put an end to the false situation in which she lived, and thus redeem herself in Gordon's eyes and in her own.At noon that day, being Friday, Ishmael preached in the mosque, delivering a still more fervent and passionate message. The kingdom of heaven which the Lord Isa had foretold was soon to come! When it came God would lend them legions of angels, if need be, to protect the oppressed and to uphold the down-trodden! Therefore let the children of God fear nothing from the powers and principalities of the world! Their pilgrimage was safe! No harm could come to them, for however their feet might slip the arms of the Compassionate would bear them up!As Ishmael's ecstasy had increased so had the devotion of his people, and when he returned home they followed him in a dense crowd through the streets shouting the wildest acclamations."Out of the way! The Master is coming! The Messenger is here! Allah! El Hamdullillah!"Helena heard them, but she did not hear Ishmael reprove them, as in earlier days he had been wont to do. She was standing in the guest-room, and the noise of the approaching crowd had brought Gordon from his bedroom, at the moment when Ishmael, surrounded by a group of his people, stepped into the house.Ishmael was in a state of excitement amounting to exaltation, and after holding out hands both to Helena and Gordon he turned to his followers to dismiss them. "Go back now," he said, "and to-night, two hours after sunset, let the Ulema and the Notables come to me that we may decide on the details of our pilgrimage.""Allah! El Hamdullillah!" cried the people.More than ever they were like creatures possessed. Hungry and ragged as many of them were, the new magnificence that was to be given to their lives appeared to be already shining in their eyes.Helena saw this, and her heart was smitten with remorse at the thought of the cruel confession she had decided to make. She could not make it in sight of the hopes it must destroy. But neither could she look into Gordon's searching face and remain silent, and as soon as the crowd had gone, she made an effort to speak."Ishmael," she said, trembling all over, "there is something I wish to say—if it will not displease you.""Nothing the Rani can say will displease me," said Ishmael.He was looking at her with the expression of enthusiastic admiration which she had seen in his eyes before. It was hard to go on."Your intentions are now known to everybody," she said. "You have not hidden them from any of your own people. That has been very trustful, very noble, but still——""Still—what, my sister?""If somebody ... should betray your scheme to the Government, and ... and the moment you set foot in Cairo——"Again Ishmael interrupted her with a laugh."Impossible!" he said, smiling upon her with his bright and joyous eyes. "Islam has only one heart, one soul, one mind."Then taking her quivering hand and leading her to the door, he pointed to the camp outside and said—"Look! Ten thousand of our poor unhappy people are there. They have come to me from the tyrannies of cruel taskmasters and have been true to me through the temptations of hunger and thirst. Some of them are from Cairo and are waiting to return home. All are the children of Islam, and are looking for the coming of the Expected who brings peace and joy. Is there one of them who will betray me now? Not one! Treachery would injure me, but it would hurt the betrayer more."Then with the same expression of enthusiastic admiration, and in a still tenderer and softer voice, he began to laugh and to rally her, saying he knew well what was going on in his sweet sister's mind—that though her brave spirit had devised the plan they had adopted, yet now that the time was near for carrying it into execution her womanly heart was failing her, and affectionate anxiety for his own safety was making her afraid."But have no fear at all," he said, standing behind her and smoothing her cheek with a light touch of his tapering fingers. "If this is God's work will God forget me? No!"With a sense of stifling duplicity Helena made one more effort and said—"Still, who knows, there may be some one——""None, O Rani!""But don't you know——""I don't want to know anything except one thing—that God guides and directs me."Again he laughed, and asked where was the kufiah (the Bedouin head-dress) which she had promised to make for his disguise."Get to work at it quick," he said; "it will be wanted soon, my sister."And then, clapping his hands for the mid-day meal, he went into his room to prepare for it, leaving Gordon and Helena for some moments alone together.Gordon had been standing aside in the torment of a hundred mixed emotions, and now he and Helena spoke in whispers."He is determined to go into Cairo," she said."Quite determined.""Oh, is therenoway to prevent him?""None now—unless——""Unless—what?" she asked eagerly."Let us ... Let us wait and see," said Gordon, and then Abdullah came in to lay the table.CHAPTER XXAs soon as the mid-day meal was over Gordon escaped to his room—the room he shared with Ishmael—and throwing himself down on the angerib with his hands clasped across his face, he tried to think out the situation in which he found himself, to gaze into the depths of his conscience, and to see where he was and what he ought to do.So violent was the state of his soul that he sat there a long time before he could link together his memories of what had happened since he arrived in Khartoum."Am I dreaming?" he asked himself again and again, as one by one his thoughts rolled over him like tempestuous waves.The first thing he saw clearly was that Ishmael was not now the same man that he had known at Alexandria; that the anxieties, responsibilities, and sufferings he had gone through as a religious leader had dissipated his strong common sense; and that as a consequence the caution whereby men guard their conduct had gone.He also saw that Ishmael's spiritual ecstasy had reached a point not far removed from madness; that his faith in divine guidance, divine guardianship, divine intervention had become an absolute obsession.Therefore it was hopeless to try to move him from his purpose by any appeals on the score of danger to himself or to his people."He is determined to go into Cairo," thought Gordon, "and into Cairo he will go."The next thing Gordon saw, as he examined the situation before him, was that Helena was powerless to undo the work which by the cruel error of fate she had been led to do; that her act was irrevocable; that there was no calling it back, and that it would go from its consequences to the consequences of its consequences.Helena's face appeared to him, and his heart bled for her as he thought of how she passed before him—she who had always been so bold and gay—with her once proud head bent low. He remembered her former strength and self-reliance; her natural force and grace; her fearless daring and that dash of devilry which had been for him one of her greatest charms; and then he thought of her false position in that house, brought there by her own will, held there by her own act—a tragic figure of a woman in the meshes of her own net."She cannot continue to live like this. It is impossible. Yet what can the end be?" he asked himself.Hours passed like this. His head under his hot hands burned and his temples throbbed, yet no ray of light emerged from the darkness surrounding him.But at length the man in him, the soldier and the lover, swept down every obstacle, and he told himself that he must save Helena from the consequences of her own conduct whatever the result might be."I must! I must!" he kept on repeating as Helena's face rose before him; and after a while this blind resolution brought him at one stride to a new idea.Ishmael was determined to go into Cairo, but there was one way to prevent him doing so—that he, Gordon himself, should go instead!When he first thought of that his temples beat so violently that it seemed as if they would burst, and he felt as if he had been brought to the very brink of despair. Seeing nothing before him but instant arrest the moment he entered the city, it seemed to be a pitiful end to his long journey across the desert, a poor sequel to his fierce struggle with himself, and to the mystic hopes with which he had buoyed up his heart, that immediately after he had reached Khartoum he should turn back to his death.Work, mission, redemption—all that had so recently had a meaning for him had disappeared. But his heart rose when he remembered that if he did what he had determined to do he would break the cruel error of fate whereby Ishmael had been doomed to die for an offence he did not commit.What was the first fact of this cruel situation? That Helena had believed Ishmael to be guilty of the death of her father. But Ishmael was innocent, whereas he, Gordon, was guilty! Could he allow an innocent man to die for his crime?That brought him to the crisis of his conscience. It settled everything. Destiny, acting under the blind force of a poor girl's love for her father, was sending Ishmael to his death. But destiny should be defeated! He should pay his own penalty! Ishmael should be snatched from the doom that threatened him, and Helena should be saved from lifelong remorse."Yes, yes, I must go into Cairo instead," he told himself.It had grown late by this time, and the bedroom had become dark when Abdullah knocked at the door and said that the Sheikhs were in the guest-room and Ishmael was asking for Omar.Under its roof thatched with stalks of durah, lit by lamps suspended from its rafters, the Ulema and Notables of Khartoum—the same that visited the Sirdar—had gathered soon after sunset, and squatting on the divans covered by carpets and cushions, had drunk their coffee and talked in their winding, circuitous Eastern way of the business before them, and particularly of the White Lady's part in it, while they waited for Ishmael, who was still at the mosque."Yes," the vivacious old Pasha had said, "no matter how great a man may be, when he undertakes an enterprise like this he should always consult ten of his friends.""But great ones are not great in friends," said a younger Sheikh. "What if he has not got ten?""Then let him consult one friend ten times over.""Nay, but if he stands so high that he has not got even one friend?""Then," said the old man, with a sly look over his shoulder towards the women's side of the house, "let him consult his wife, and, whatever she advises, let him do the contrary."When Gordon in his Bedouin dress entered the guest-room, Ishmael was sitting in the midst of his people, and he called to him to take the seat by his right side."But where is the Rani?" he asked, looking round, whereupon Abdullah answered that she was still in her room, and the old Pasha hinted that in the emancipation of the Eastern woman perhaps women themselves would be the chief impediment."I know! I know!" said Ishmael. "But all the same we must turn our backs on the madness of a bygone age that woman is inferior to man, and her counsel is not to be trusted. Bring her, Abdullah."A few minutes afterwards Helena, wearing her Indian veil but with her face uncovered, entered the guest-room with downcast eyes, followed by the Arab woman and the child.It cut Gordon to the heart to see her look of shame and of confusion, but Ishmael saw nothing in Helena's manner except maidenly modesty under the eyes of so many men, and making a place for her on his left, he began without further delay on the business that had brought them together.They were about to win a dear victory for God, but it was to be a white war, a bloodless revolution. The heartless festivities that were to be held in honour of the birthday of the King who lived across the seas while people perished in Egypt, were to reach their climax something more than a month hence. Therefore the great caravan of God's children who were to cross the desert by camel and horse and ass, in order that they might meet the Expected One when he appeared in Cairo, should start within a week. But the messenger of God who had to prepare the path before them must go by train, and he ought to leave Khartoum in four days.Other preliminaries of the pilgrimage there were to arrange, and after the manner of their kind the Sheikhs talked long and leisurely, agreeing finally that Ishmael should go first into Cairo in the disguise of a Bedouin Sheikh to make sure of the success of their mission, and that Omar (Gordon) should follow him in command of the body of the people.At length there was silence for a moment, and then Ishmael said—"Is there anything else, my brothers?"And at that Gordon, who had not spoken before, turned to him and answered, in the style as well as the language of the Arabs—"Listen, I beg of you, to my words, and forgive me if what I say is not pleasing to you or yours.""Speak, Omar Benani, speak," said Ishmael, laying his right hand, with an affectionate gesture, on Gordon's left.There was a moment of silence, in which Gordon could distinctly hear the sound of Helena's breathing. Then lie said—"Reverse your order, O my brother, and let me go first into Cairo."A tingling electrical current seemed to pass through the air of the room, and again Gordon heard the sound of Helena's laboured breathing, but no one spoke except Ishmael, who said in a soft voice—"But why, Omar, why?"Gordon braced himself up and answered—"First, because it best becomes a messenger of God to enter Cairo in the company of his people, not alone and in disguise.""And next?""Next, because I know Cairo better than Ishmael, and all that he can do I can do, and more."There was another moment of tense silence, and then Ishmael said—"I listen to your sincere proposal, O my brother, but before I answer it I ask for the counsel of my friends."Then raising his voice he cried, "Companions, you have heard what Omar Benani has said—which of us is it to be?"At that the tense atmosphere in the room broke into eager and impetuous speech. First came, as needs must in an Eastern conclave, some gusts of questions, then certain breezes of protest, but finally a strong and unbroken current of assent."Master," said one of the Sheikhs, "I have eaten bread and salt with you, therefore I will not deceive you. Let Omar go first. He can do all that Ishmael can do and run no risk.""Messenger of the Merciful," said another, "neither will I deceive you. Omar knows Cairo best. Therefore let him go first."After others had answered in the same way Ishmael turned to Mahmud, his uncle, whereupon the old man wiped his rheumy eyes and said—"Your life is in God's hand, O son of my brother, and man cannot escape his destiny. If it is God's will that you should be the first to go into Cairo you will go, and God will protect you. But speaking for myself, I should think it a shame and a humiliation that the father of his people should not enter the city with his children. If Omar says he can do as much as you, believe him—the white man does not lie."No sooner had the old man concluded than the whole company with one voice shouted that they were all of the same opinion, whereupon Ishmael cried—"So be it, then! Omar it shall be! And do not think for one moment that I grudge your choice.""El Hamdullillah!" shouted the company, as from a sense of otherwise inexpressible relief.Meantime Gordon was conscious only of Helena's violent agitation. Though he dared not look at her, he seemed to see her feverish face and the expression of terror in her lustrous eyes. At length, when the shouts of the Sheikhs had subsided, he heard her tremulous voice saying hurriedly to Ishmael—"Do not listen to them.""But why, my Rani?" Ishmael asked in a whisper.She tried to answer him and could not. "Because ... because——""Because—what?" asked Ishmael again."Oh, I don't know—I can't think—but I beg you, I entreat you not to let Omar go into Cairo."Her agitated voice caused another moment of silence, and then Ishmael said in a soft, indulgent tone—"I understand you, O my Rani. This may be the task of greatest danger, but it is the place of highest honour too, and you would fain see no man except your husband assigned to it. But Omar is of me and I am of him, and there can be no pride nor jealousy between us."And then, taking Gordon by the right hand, while with his left he was holding Helena, he said—"Omar, my friend, my brother!""El Hamdullillah!" cried the Sheikhs again, and then one by one they rose to go.Helena rose too, and with her face aflame and her breath coming in gusts she hurried back to her room. The Arab woman followed her in a moment, and with a mocking smile in her glinting eyes, she said—"How happy you must be, O lady, that some one else than your husband is to go into that place of danger!"But Helena could bear no more."Go out of the room this moment! I cannot endure you! I hate you! Go, woman, go!" she cried.Zenoba fled before the fury in her lady's face, but at the next moment Helena had dropped to the floor and burst into a flood of tears.When she regained possession of herself, the child, Ayesha, was embracing her and, without knowing why, was weeping over her wet cheeks.CHAPTER XXINow that Gordon was to take Ishmael's place, Helena found herself deeper than ever in the toils of her own plot. She could see nothing but death before him as the result of his return to Cairo. If his identity were discovered, he would die for his own offences as a soldier. If it were not discovered, he would be executed for Ishmael's conspiracies as she had made them known."Oh, it cannot be! It must not be! It shall not be!" she continued to say to herself, but without seeing a way to prevent it.Never for a moment, in her anxiety to save Gordon from stepping into the pit she had dug for Ishmael, did she allow herself to think that, being the real cause of her father's death, he deserved the penalty she had prepared for the guilty man. Her mind had altered towards that event since the man concerned in it had changed. The more she thought of it the more sure she became that it was a totally different thing, and in the strict sense hardly a crime at all.In the first place, she reminded herself that her father had suffered from an affection of the heart which must have contributed to his death, even if it had not been the principal cause of it. How could she have forgotten that fact until now?Remembering her father's excitement and exhaustion when she saw him last, she could see for the first time, by the light of Gordon's story, what had afterwards occurred—the burst of ungovernable passion, the struggle, the fall, the death.Then she told herself that Gordon had not intended to kill her father, and whatever he had done had been for love of her. "Helena was mine, and you have taken her from me, and broken her heart as well as my own." Yes, love for her and the torment of losing her had brought Gordon back to the Citadel after he had been ordered to return to his quarters. Love for her, and the delirium of a broken heart, had wrung out of him the insults which had led to the quarrel that resulted in her father's death.In spite of her lingering tenderness for the memory of her father, she began to see how much he had been to blame for what had happened—to think of the gross indignity, the frightful shame, the unmerciful and even unlawful degradation to which in his towering rage he had subjected Gordon. The scene came back to her with horrible distinctness now—her father crying in a half-stifled voice, "You are a traitor! A traitor who has consorted with the enemies of his country!" and then tearing Gordon's sword from its scabbard and breaking it across his knee.But seeing this, she also saw her own share in what had occurred. At the moment of Gordon's deepest humiliation she had driven him away from her. Her pride had conquered her love, and instead of flinging herself into his arms as she ought to have done, whether he was in the right or in the wrong, when everybody else was trampling upon him, she had insulted him with reproaches and turned her back upon him in his disgrace.That scene came back to her, too—Gordon at the door of the General's house, with his deadly white face and trembling lips, stammering out, "I couldn't help it, Helena—it was impossible for me to act otherwise," and then, bareheaded as he was, and with every badge of rank and honour gone, staggering across the garden to the gate.When she thought of all this now it seemed to her that, if anybody had been to blame for her father's death, it was not Gordon, but herself. His had been the hand, the blind hand only, but the heart that had wrought the evil had been hers."Oh, it cannot be! it shall not be!" she continued to say to herself, and just as she had tried to undo her work with Ishmael when he was bent on going into Cairo, so she determined to do the same with Gordon, now that he had stepped into Ishmael's place. Her opportunity came soon.A little before mid-day of the day following the meeting of the Sheikhs, she was alone in the guest-room, sitting at the brass table that served her as a desk—Ishmael being in the camp, Zenoba and the child in the town, and old Mahmud still in bed—when Gordon came out of the men's quarter and walked towards the door as if intending to pass out of the house.He had seen her as he came from his bedroom, with one of her hands pressed to her brow, and a feeling of inexpressible pity and unutterable longing had so taken possession of him, with the thought that he was soon to lose her—the most precious gift life had given him—that he had tried to steal away.But instinctively she felt his approach, and with a trembling voice she called to him, so he returned and stood by her side."Why are you doing this?" she said. "You know what I mean. Why are you doing it?""You know quite well why I am doing it, Helena. Ishmael was determined to go to his death. There was only one way to prevent him. I had to take it.""But you are going to death yourself—isn't that so?"He did not answer. He was trying not to look at her."Or perhaps you see some way of escape—do you?"Still he did not speak—he was even trying not to hear her."If not, why are you going into Cairo instead of Ishmael?""Don't ask me that, Helena. I would rather not answer you."Suddenly the tears came into her eyes, and after a moment's silence she said—"I know! I understand! But remember your father. He loves you. You may not think it, but he does—I am sure he does. Yet if you go into Cairo you know quite well what he will do.""My father is a great man, Helena. He will do his duty whatever happens—what he believes to be his duty.""Certainly he will, but all the same, do you think he will not suffer! And do you wish to put him into the position of being compelled to cut off his own son? Is that right? Can anything—anything in the world— make it necessary?"Gordon did not answer her, but under the strain of his emotion he tightened his lips, and his pinched nostrils began to dilate like the nostrils of a horse."Then remember your mother, too," said Helena. "She is weak and ill. It breaks my heart to think of her as I saw her last. She believes that you have fled away to some foreign country, but she is living in the hope that time will justify you, and then you will be reconciled to your father, and come back to her again. Is this how you would come back? ... Oh, it will kill her! I'm sure it will!"She saw that Gordon's strong and manly face was now utterly discomposed, and she could not help but follow up her advantage."Then think a little of me too, Gordon. This is all my fault, and if anything is done to you in Cairo it will be just the same to me as if I had done it. Do you wish me to die of remorse?"She saw that he was struggling to restrain himself, and turning her beautiful wet eyes upon him and laying her hand on his arm, she said—"Don't go back to Cairo, Gordon! For my sake, for your own sake, for our love's sake——"But Gordon could bear no more, and he cried in a low, hoarse whisper—"Helena, for heaven's sake, don't speak so. I knew it wouldn't be easy to do what I intended to do, and it isn't easy. But don't make it harder for me than it is, I beg, I pray."She tried to speak again, but he would not listen."When you sent the message into Cairo which doomed Ishmael to death you thought he had killed your father. If he had really done so he would have deserved all you did to him. But he hadn't, whereas I had. Do you think I can let an innocent man die for my crime?""But, Gordon—" she began, and again he stopped her."Don't speak about it, Helena. For heaven's sake, don't! I've fought this battle with myself before, and I can't fight it over again—with your eyes upon me too, your voice in my ears, and your presence by my side."He was trying to move away, and she was still clinging to his arm."Don't speak about our love, either. All that is over now. You must know it is. There is a barrier between us that can never——"His voice was breaking and he was struggling to tear himself away from her, but she leapt to her feet and cried—"Gordon, youshallhear me—youmust!" and then he stopped short and looked at her."You think you were the cause of my father's death, but you were not," she said.His mouth opened, his lips trembled, he grew deadly pale."You think, too, that there is a barrier of blood between us, but there is no such thing.""Take care of what you are saying, Helena.""What I am saying is the truth, Gordon—it is God's truth."He looked blankly at her for a moment in silence, then laid hold of her violently by both arms, gazed closely into her face, and said in a low, trembling voice—"Helena, if you knew what it is to live for months under the shadow of a sin—an awful sin—an unpardonable sin—surely you wouldn't ... But why don't you speak? Speak, girl, speak!"Then Helena looked fearlessly back into his excited face and said—"Gordon, do you remember that you came to my room in the Citadel before you went in to that ... that fatal interview?""Yes, yes! How can I forget it?""Do you also remember what I told you then, that whatever happened that day I could never leave my father?""Yes, certainly, yes.""Do you remember that you asked me why, and I said I couldn't tell you because it was a secret—somebody else's secret?""Well?" His pulses were beating violently; she could feel them throbbing on her arms."Gordon," she said, "do you know what that secret was? I can tell you now. Do you know what it was?""What?""That my father was suffering from heart-disease, and had already received his death-warrant."She waited for Gordon to speak, but he was almost afraid to breathe."He didn't know his condition until we arrived in Egypt, and then perhaps he ought to have resigned his commission, but he had been out of the service for two years, and the temptation to remain was too much for him, so he asked me to promise to say nothing about it."Gordon released her arms and she sat down again. He stood over her, breathing fast and painfully."I thought you ought to have been told at the time when we became engaged, but my father said, 'No! Why put him in a false position, and burden him with responsibilities he ought not to bear?'"Helena's own voice was breaking now, and as Gordon listened to it he was looking down at her flushed face, which was thinner than before but more beautiful than ever in his eyes, and a hundredfold more touching than when it first won his heart."I tried to tell you that day, too, before you went into the General's office, so that you might see for yourself, dear, that if you separated yourself from my father I ... I couldn't possibly follow you, but there was my promise, and then ... then my pride and ... and something you said that pained and wounded me——""I know, I know, I know," he said."But now," she continued, rising to her feet again, "now," she repeated, in the same trembling voice, but with a look of joy and triumph, "now that you have told me what happened after your return to the Citadel, I see quite clearly—I am sure—perfectly sure—that my dear father died not by your hand at all, but by the hand and the will of God.""Helena! Helena!" cried Gordon, and in the tempest of his love and the overwhelming sense of boundless relief he flung his arms about her and covered her face with kisses.One long moment of immeasurable joy they were permitted to know, and then the hand of fate snatched at them again.From their intoxicating happiness they were awakened by a voice. It was only the voice of the muezzin calling to mid-day prayers, but it seemed to be reproaching them, separating them, tearing them asunder, reminding them of where they were now, and what they were, and that God was over them.
CHAPTER XVIII
Five days after the death of Lady Nuneham the Consul-General was reading at his breakfast the last copy of theTimesto arrive in Cairo. It contained an anticipatory announcement of a forthcoming Mansion House Banquet in honour of the King's Birthday. The Foreign Minister was expected to speak on the "unrest in the East, with special reference to the affair of El Azhar."
The Consul-General's face frowned darkly, and he began to picture the scene as it would occur. The gilded hall, the crowd of distinguished persons eating in public, the mixed odours of many dishes, the pop of champagne corks, the smoke of cigars, the buzz of chatter like the gobbling of geese on a green, and then the Minister, with his hand on his heart, uttering timorous apologies for his Proconsul's policy, and pouring out pompous platitudes as if he had newly discovered the Decalogue.
The Consul-General's gorge rose at the thought. Oh, when would these people, who stayed comfortably at home and lived by the votes of the factory-hands of Lancashire and Yorkshire, and hungered for the shouts of the mob, understand the position of men like himself, who, in foreign lands, among alien races, encompassed by secret conspiracies, were spending their strength in holding high the banner of Empire?
"Having chosen a good man, why can't they leave him alone?" thought the Consul-General.
And then, his personal feelings getting the better of his patriotism, he almost wished that the charlatan element in Ishmael Ameer might develop speedily; that he might draw off the allegiance of the native soldiers in the Soudan and break out, like the Mahdi, into open rebellion. That would bring the Secretary of State to his senses, make him realise a real danger, and see in the everlasting "affair of El Azhar" if not light, then lightning.
The door of the breakfast-room opened and Ibrahim entered.
"Well, what is it?" demanded the Consul-General with a frown.
Ibrahim answered in some confusion that a small boy was in the hall, asking to see the English lord. He said he brought an urgent message, but would not tell what it was or where it came from. Had been there three times before, slept last night on the ground outside the gate, and could not be driven away—would his lordship see the lad?
"What is his race? Egyptian?"
"Nubian, my lord."
"Ever seen the boy before?"
"No ... yes ... that is to say ... well, now that your lordship mentions it, I think ... yes I think he came here once with Miss Hel ... I mean General Graves's daughter."
"Bring him up immediately," said the Consul-General.
At the next moment a black boy stepped boldly into the room. It was Mosie. His clothes were dirty, and his pudgy face was like a block of dark soap splashed with stale lather, but his eyes were clear and alert and his manner was eager.
"Well, my boy, what do you want?" asked the Consul-General.
Mosie looked fearlessly up into the stern face with its iron jaw, and tipped his black thumb over his shoulder to where Ibrahim, in his gorgeous green caftan, stood timidly behind him.
At a sign from the Consul-General, the Egyptian servant left the room, and then, quick as light, Mosie slipped off his sandal, ripped open its inner sole, and plucked out a letter stained with grease.
It was the letter which Helena had written in Khartoum.
The Consul-General read it rapidly, with an eagerness which even he could not conceal. So great, indeed, was his excitement that he did not see that a second paper (Ishmael's letter to the Chancellor of El Azhar) had fallen to the floor until Mosie picked it up and held it out to him.
"Good boy," said the Consul-General—the cloud had passed and his face bore an expression of joy.
Instantly apprehending the dim purport of Helena's hasty letter, the Consul-General saw that what he had predicted and half hoped for was already coming to pass. It was to be open conspiracy now, not passive conspiracy any longer. The man Ishmael was falling a victim to the most fatal of all mental maladies. The Mahdist delusion was taking possession of him, and he was throwing himself into the Government's hands.
Hurriedly ringing his bell, the Consul-General committed Mosie to Ibrahim's care, whereupon the small black boy, in his soiled clothes, with his dirty face and hands, strutted out of the room in front of the Egyptian servant, looking as proud as a peacock and feeling like sixteen feet tall. Then the Consul-General called for one of his secretaries and sent him for the Commandant of Police.
The Commandant came in hot haste. He was a big and rather corpulent Englishman, wearing a blue-braided uniform and a fez—naturally a blusterous person with his own people, but as soft-voiced as a woman and as obsequious as a slave before his chief.
"Draw up your chair, Commandant—closer; now listen," said the Consul-General.
And then in a low tone he repeated what he had already learned from Helena's letter, and added what he had instantly divined from it—that Ishmael Ameer was to return to Cairo; that he was to come back in the disguise of a Bedouin Sheikh; that his object was to draw off the allegiance of the Egyptian army in order that a vast horde of his followers might take possession of the city; that this was to be done during the period of the forthcoming festivities, while the British army was still in the provinces, and that the conspiracy was to reach its treacherous climax on the night of the King's Birthday.
The Commandant listened with a gloomy face, and, looking timidly into the flashing eyes before him, he asked if his Excellency could rely on the source of his information.
"Absolutely! Infallibly!" said the Consul-General.
"Then," said the Commandant nervously, "I presume the festivities must be postponed?"
"Certainly not, sir."
"Or perhaps your Excellency intends to have the British army called back to Cairo?"
"Not that either."
"At least you will arrest the 'Bedouin'?"
"Not yet at all events."
The policy to be pursued was to be something quite different.
Everything was to go on as usual. Sports, golf, cricket, croquet, tennis-tournaments, polo-matches, race-meetings, automobile-meetings, "all the usual fooleries and frivolities"—with crowds of sight-seers, men in flannels and ladies in beautiful toilets—were to be encouraged to proceed. The police-bands were to play in the public gardens, the squares, the streets, everywhere.
"Say nothing to anybody. Give no sign of any kind. Let the conspiracy go on as if we knew nothing about it. But——"
"Yes, my lord? Yes?"
"Keep an eye on the 'Bedouin.' Let every train that arrives at the railway-station and every boat that comes down the river be watched. As soon as you have spotted your man, see where he goes. He may be a fanatical fool, miscalculating his 'divine' influence with the native soldier, but he cannot be working alone. Therefore find out who visit him, learn all their movements, let their plans come to a head, and, when the proper time arrives, in one hour, at one blow we will crush their conspiracy and clap our hands upon the whole of them."
"Splendid! An inspiration, my lord!"
"I've always said it would some day be necessary to forge a special weapon to meet special needs, and the time has come to forge it. Meantime undertake nothing hurriedly. Make no mistakes, and see that your men make none."
"Certainly, my lord."
"Investigate every detail for yourself, and above all hold your tongue and guard your information with inviolable secrecy."
"Surely, my lord."
"You can go now. I'm busy. Good-morning!"
"Wonderful man!" thought the Commandant, as he went out at the porch. "Seems to have taken a new lease of life! Wonderful!"
The Consul-General spent the whole of that day in thinking out his scheme for a "special weapon," and when night came and he went upstairs—through the great echoing house that was like the bureau of a department of state now, being so empty and so cheerless, and past the dark and silent room whereof the door was always closed—he felt conscious of a firmer and lighter step than he had known for years.
Fatimah was in his bedroom, for she had constituted herself his own nurse since his wife's death. She was nailing up on the wall the picture of the little boy in the Arab fez, and, having her own theory about why he had taken it down in the library, she said—
"There! It will be company for your lordship, and nobody will ask questions about it here."
When Fatimah had gone the Consul-General could not but think of Gordon. He always thought of him at that hour of the night, and the picture of his son that rose in his mind's eye was always the same. It was a picture of Gordon's deadly white face with its trembling lower lip, as he stood bolt upright while his medals were being torn from his breast, and then said, in that voice which his father could never forget: "General, the time may come when it will be even more painful to you to remember all this than it has been to me to bear it."
Oh, that Gordon could be here now and see for himself what a sorry charlatan, what a self-deceived quack and conspirator, was the man in whose defence he had allowed his own valuable life to rush down to a confused welter of wreck and ruin!
As the Consul-General got into bed he was thinking of Helena. What a glorious, courageous, resourceful woman she was! It carried his mind back to Biblical days to find anything equal to her daring and her success. But what was the price she had paid for them? He remembered something the Sirdar had said of "a marriage, a sort of betrothal," and then he recalled the words of her first letter: "I know exactly how far I intend to go, and I shall go no farther. I know exactly what I intend to do, and I shall do it without fear or remorse."
What had happened in the Soudan? What was happening there now? In what battle-whirlwind had that splendid girl's magnificent victory been won?
CHAPTER XIX
Meantime Helena in Khartoum was feeling like a miserable traitress.
She had condemned an innocent man to death! Ishmael hadnotkilled her father, yet she had taken such steps that the moment he entered Cairo he would be walking to his doom!
One after another sweet and cruel memories crowded upon her, and in the light of the awful truth as Gordon had revealed it, she began to see Ishmael with quite different eyes. All she had hitherto thought evil in his character now looked like good; what she had taken for hypocrisy was sincerity; what she had supposed to be subtlety was simplicity. His real nature was a rebuke to every one of her preconceived ideas. The thought of his tenderness, his modesty, his devotion, and even the unselfishness which had led to their betrothal, cut her to the heart. Yet she had doomed him to destruction. The letter she had written to the Consul-General was his death-warrant.
That night she could fix her mind on nothing except the horror of her position, but next morning she set herself to think out schemes for stopping the consequences of her own act.
The black boy was gone; it was not possible to overtake him; there was no other train to Egypt for four days, but there was the telegraph—she could make use of that.
"I'll telegraph to the Consul-General to pay no attention to my letter," she thought.
Useless! The Consul-General would ask himself searching questions and take his precautions just the same.
"I'll telegraph that my letter is a forgery," she thought.
Madness! The Consul-General would ask himself how, if it was a forgery, she could know anything about it.
"I'll go across to the Sirdar and tell him everything, and leave him to act for both of us as he thinks best!"
Impossible! How could she explain her position to the Sirdar without betraying Gordon's identity and thereby leading to his arrest?
That settled everything. There was no escape from the consequences of her conduct, no way to put an end to the network of dangers by which she had surrounded Ishmael. Mosie was now far on his way to Cairo; he carried to the Consul-General not only her own letter but also the original of Ishmael's letter to the Chancellor of El Azhar. The hideous work was done.
Two days passed, during which her over-excited feelings seemed to paralyse all her powers of thought. Then a new idea took possession of her, and she set herself to undo what she had done with Ishmael himself. Little by little, in tremulous tones, and with a still deeper sense of duplicity than before, she began to express halting doubts of the success of their enterprise.
"I have been thinking about it," she said nervously, "and now I fear——"
"What do you fear, O Rani?" asked Ishmael.
"I fear," said Helena, trembling visibly, "that the moment the Government learn from the Sirdar, as they needs must, that the great body of your people have left Khartoum, and are travelling north, they will recall the British army to protect the capital and thus——"
But Ishmael interrupted her with a laugh.
"If the day of the Redeemer has come," he said, "will human armies hinder him? No!"
It was useless! Ishmael was now more than ever an enthusiast, a fanatic, a visionary. His spiritual ecstasy swept away every obstacle, and made him blind to every danger.
Helena felt like a witch who was trying to undo the effects of her charm. She could not undo them. She could not destroy the potency of the spell she herself had raised, and the effort to do so put her into a fever of excitement.
Two days more passed like this, and still Helena was in the toils of her own actions. From time to time she saw Gordon as he sat at meals or moved about the house. He did not speak to her, and she dropped her head in shame as often as they came close together. But at length she caught a look in his face which seemed to her to say, "Are you really going to let an innocent man walk into the jaws of death?"
That brought her wavering mind to a quick conclusion. Gordon was waiting for her to speak. She must speak! She must confess everything! She must tell Ishmael what she had done, and by what tragic error she had done it. At any cost, no matter what, she must put an end to the false situation in which she lived, and thus redeem herself in Gordon's eyes and in her own.
At noon that day, being Friday, Ishmael preached in the mosque, delivering a still more fervent and passionate message. The kingdom of heaven which the Lord Isa had foretold was soon to come! When it came God would lend them legions of angels, if need be, to protect the oppressed and to uphold the down-trodden! Therefore let the children of God fear nothing from the powers and principalities of the world! Their pilgrimage was safe! No harm could come to them, for however their feet might slip the arms of the Compassionate would bear them up!
As Ishmael's ecstasy had increased so had the devotion of his people, and when he returned home they followed him in a dense crowd through the streets shouting the wildest acclamations.
"Out of the way! The Master is coming! The Messenger is here! Allah! El Hamdullillah!"
Helena heard them, but she did not hear Ishmael reprove them, as in earlier days he had been wont to do. She was standing in the guest-room, and the noise of the approaching crowd had brought Gordon from his bedroom, at the moment when Ishmael, surrounded by a group of his people, stepped into the house.
Ishmael was in a state of excitement amounting to exaltation, and after holding out hands both to Helena and Gordon he turned to his followers to dismiss them. "Go back now," he said, "and to-night, two hours after sunset, let the Ulema and the Notables come to me that we may decide on the details of our pilgrimage."
"Allah! El Hamdullillah!" cried the people.
More than ever they were like creatures possessed. Hungry and ragged as many of them were, the new magnificence that was to be given to their lives appeared to be already shining in their eyes.
Helena saw this, and her heart was smitten with remorse at the thought of the cruel confession she had decided to make. She could not make it in sight of the hopes it must destroy. But neither could she look into Gordon's searching face and remain silent, and as soon as the crowd had gone, she made an effort to speak.
"Ishmael," she said, trembling all over, "there is something I wish to say—if it will not displease you."
"Nothing the Rani can say will displease me," said Ishmael.
He was looking at her with the expression of enthusiastic admiration which she had seen in his eyes before. It was hard to go on.
"Your intentions are now known to everybody," she said. "You have not hidden them from any of your own people. That has been very trustful, very noble, but still——"
"Still—what, my sister?"
"If somebody ... should betray your scheme to the Government, and ... and the moment you set foot in Cairo——"
Again Ishmael interrupted her with a laugh.
"Impossible!" he said, smiling upon her with his bright and joyous eyes. "Islam has only one heart, one soul, one mind."
Then taking her quivering hand and leading her to the door, he pointed to the camp outside and said—
"Look! Ten thousand of our poor unhappy people are there. They have come to me from the tyrannies of cruel taskmasters and have been true to me through the temptations of hunger and thirst. Some of them are from Cairo and are waiting to return home. All are the children of Islam, and are looking for the coming of the Expected who brings peace and joy. Is there one of them who will betray me now? Not one! Treachery would injure me, but it would hurt the betrayer more."
Then with the same expression of enthusiastic admiration, and in a still tenderer and softer voice, he began to laugh and to rally her, saying he knew well what was going on in his sweet sister's mind—that though her brave spirit had devised the plan they had adopted, yet now that the time was near for carrying it into execution her womanly heart was failing her, and affectionate anxiety for his own safety was making her afraid.
"But have no fear at all," he said, standing behind her and smoothing her cheek with a light touch of his tapering fingers. "If this is God's work will God forget me? No!"
With a sense of stifling duplicity Helena made one more effort and said—
"Still, who knows, there may be some one——"
"None, O Rani!"
"But don't you know——"
"I don't want to know anything except one thing—that God guides and directs me."
Again he laughed, and asked where was the kufiah (the Bedouin head-dress) which she had promised to make for his disguise.
"Get to work at it quick," he said; "it will be wanted soon, my sister."
And then, clapping his hands for the mid-day meal, he went into his room to prepare for it, leaving Gordon and Helena for some moments alone together.
Gordon had been standing aside in the torment of a hundred mixed emotions, and now he and Helena spoke in whispers.
"He is determined to go into Cairo," she said.
"Quite determined."
"Oh, is therenoway to prevent him?"
"None now—unless——"
"Unless—what?" she asked eagerly.
"Let us ... Let us wait and see," said Gordon, and then Abdullah came in to lay the table.
CHAPTER XX
As soon as the mid-day meal was over Gordon escaped to his room—the room he shared with Ishmael—and throwing himself down on the angerib with his hands clasped across his face, he tried to think out the situation in which he found himself, to gaze into the depths of his conscience, and to see where he was and what he ought to do.
So violent was the state of his soul that he sat there a long time before he could link together his memories of what had happened since he arrived in Khartoum.
"Am I dreaming?" he asked himself again and again, as one by one his thoughts rolled over him like tempestuous waves.
The first thing he saw clearly was that Ishmael was not now the same man that he had known at Alexandria; that the anxieties, responsibilities, and sufferings he had gone through as a religious leader had dissipated his strong common sense; and that as a consequence the caution whereby men guard their conduct had gone.
He also saw that Ishmael's spiritual ecstasy had reached a point not far removed from madness; that his faith in divine guidance, divine guardianship, divine intervention had become an absolute obsession.
Therefore it was hopeless to try to move him from his purpose by any appeals on the score of danger to himself or to his people.
"He is determined to go into Cairo," thought Gordon, "and into Cairo he will go."
The next thing Gordon saw, as he examined the situation before him, was that Helena was powerless to undo the work which by the cruel error of fate she had been led to do; that her act was irrevocable; that there was no calling it back, and that it would go from its consequences to the consequences of its consequences.
Helena's face appeared to him, and his heart bled for her as he thought of how she passed before him—she who had always been so bold and gay—with her once proud head bent low. He remembered her former strength and self-reliance; her natural force and grace; her fearless daring and that dash of devilry which had been for him one of her greatest charms; and then he thought of her false position in that house, brought there by her own will, held there by her own act—a tragic figure of a woman in the meshes of her own net.
"She cannot continue to live like this. It is impossible. Yet what can the end be?" he asked himself.
Hours passed like this. His head under his hot hands burned and his temples throbbed, yet no ray of light emerged from the darkness surrounding him.
But at length the man in him, the soldier and the lover, swept down every obstacle, and he told himself that he must save Helena from the consequences of her own conduct whatever the result might be.
"I must! I must!" he kept on repeating as Helena's face rose before him; and after a while this blind resolution brought him at one stride to a new idea.
Ishmael was determined to go into Cairo, but there was one way to prevent him doing so—that he, Gordon himself, should go instead!
When he first thought of that his temples beat so violently that it seemed as if they would burst, and he felt as if he had been brought to the very brink of despair. Seeing nothing before him but instant arrest the moment he entered the city, it seemed to be a pitiful end to his long journey across the desert, a poor sequel to his fierce struggle with himself, and to the mystic hopes with which he had buoyed up his heart, that immediately after he had reached Khartoum he should turn back to his death.
Work, mission, redemption—all that had so recently had a meaning for him had disappeared. But his heart rose when he remembered that if he did what he had determined to do he would break the cruel error of fate whereby Ishmael had been doomed to die for an offence he did not commit.
What was the first fact of this cruel situation? That Helena had believed Ishmael to be guilty of the death of her father. But Ishmael was innocent, whereas he, Gordon, was guilty! Could he allow an innocent man to die for his crime?
That brought him to the crisis of his conscience. It settled everything. Destiny, acting under the blind force of a poor girl's love for her father, was sending Ishmael to his death. But destiny should be defeated! He should pay his own penalty! Ishmael should be snatched from the doom that threatened him, and Helena should be saved from lifelong remorse.
"Yes, yes, I must go into Cairo instead," he told himself.
It had grown late by this time, and the bedroom had become dark when Abdullah knocked at the door and said that the Sheikhs were in the guest-room and Ishmael was asking for Omar.
Under its roof thatched with stalks of durah, lit by lamps suspended from its rafters, the Ulema and Notables of Khartoum—the same that visited the Sirdar—had gathered soon after sunset, and squatting on the divans covered by carpets and cushions, had drunk their coffee and talked in their winding, circuitous Eastern way of the business before them, and particularly of the White Lady's part in it, while they waited for Ishmael, who was still at the mosque.
"Yes," the vivacious old Pasha had said, "no matter how great a man may be, when he undertakes an enterprise like this he should always consult ten of his friends."
"But great ones are not great in friends," said a younger Sheikh. "What if he has not got ten?"
"Then let him consult one friend ten times over."
"Nay, but if he stands so high that he has not got even one friend?"
"Then," said the old man, with a sly look over his shoulder towards the women's side of the house, "let him consult his wife, and, whatever she advises, let him do the contrary."
When Gordon in his Bedouin dress entered the guest-room, Ishmael was sitting in the midst of his people, and he called to him to take the seat by his right side.
"But where is the Rani?" he asked, looking round, whereupon Abdullah answered that she was still in her room, and the old Pasha hinted that in the emancipation of the Eastern woman perhaps women themselves would be the chief impediment.
"I know! I know!" said Ishmael. "But all the same we must turn our backs on the madness of a bygone age that woman is inferior to man, and her counsel is not to be trusted. Bring her, Abdullah."
A few minutes afterwards Helena, wearing her Indian veil but with her face uncovered, entered the guest-room with downcast eyes, followed by the Arab woman and the child.
It cut Gordon to the heart to see her look of shame and of confusion, but Ishmael saw nothing in Helena's manner except maidenly modesty under the eyes of so many men, and making a place for her on his left, he began without further delay on the business that had brought them together.
They were about to win a dear victory for God, but it was to be a white war, a bloodless revolution. The heartless festivities that were to be held in honour of the birthday of the King who lived across the seas while people perished in Egypt, were to reach their climax something more than a month hence. Therefore the great caravan of God's children who were to cross the desert by camel and horse and ass, in order that they might meet the Expected One when he appeared in Cairo, should start within a week. But the messenger of God who had to prepare the path before them must go by train, and he ought to leave Khartoum in four days.
Other preliminaries of the pilgrimage there were to arrange, and after the manner of their kind the Sheikhs talked long and leisurely, agreeing finally that Ishmael should go first into Cairo in the disguise of a Bedouin Sheikh to make sure of the success of their mission, and that Omar (Gordon) should follow him in command of the body of the people.
At length there was silence for a moment, and then Ishmael said—
"Is there anything else, my brothers?"
And at that Gordon, who had not spoken before, turned to him and answered, in the style as well as the language of the Arabs—
"Listen, I beg of you, to my words, and forgive me if what I say is not pleasing to you or yours."
"Speak, Omar Benani, speak," said Ishmael, laying his right hand, with an affectionate gesture, on Gordon's left.
There was a moment of silence, in which Gordon could distinctly hear the sound of Helena's breathing. Then lie said—
"Reverse your order, O my brother, and let me go first into Cairo."
A tingling electrical current seemed to pass through the air of the room, and again Gordon heard the sound of Helena's laboured breathing, but no one spoke except Ishmael, who said in a soft voice—
"But why, Omar, why?"
Gordon braced himself up and answered—
"First, because it best becomes a messenger of God to enter Cairo in the company of his people, not alone and in disguise."
"And next?"
"Next, because I know Cairo better than Ishmael, and all that he can do I can do, and more."
There was another moment of tense silence, and then Ishmael said—
"I listen to your sincere proposal, O my brother, but before I answer it I ask for the counsel of my friends."
Then raising his voice he cried, "Companions, you have heard what Omar Benani has said—which of us is it to be?"
At that the tense atmosphere in the room broke into eager and impetuous speech. First came, as needs must in an Eastern conclave, some gusts of questions, then certain breezes of protest, but finally a strong and unbroken current of assent.
"Master," said one of the Sheikhs, "I have eaten bread and salt with you, therefore I will not deceive you. Let Omar go first. He can do all that Ishmael can do and run no risk."
"Messenger of the Merciful," said another, "neither will I deceive you. Omar knows Cairo best. Therefore let him go first."
After others had answered in the same way Ishmael turned to Mahmud, his uncle, whereupon the old man wiped his rheumy eyes and said—
"Your life is in God's hand, O son of my brother, and man cannot escape his destiny. If it is God's will that you should be the first to go into Cairo you will go, and God will protect you. But speaking for myself, I should think it a shame and a humiliation that the father of his people should not enter the city with his children. If Omar says he can do as much as you, believe him—the white man does not lie."
No sooner had the old man concluded than the whole company with one voice shouted that they were all of the same opinion, whereupon Ishmael cried—
"So be it, then! Omar it shall be! And do not think for one moment that I grudge your choice."
"El Hamdullillah!" shouted the company, as from a sense of otherwise inexpressible relief.
Meantime Gordon was conscious only of Helena's violent agitation. Though he dared not look at her, he seemed to see her feverish face and the expression of terror in her lustrous eyes. At length, when the shouts of the Sheikhs had subsided, he heard her tremulous voice saying hurriedly to Ishmael—
"Do not listen to them."
"But why, my Rani?" Ishmael asked in a whisper.
She tried to answer him and could not. "Because ... because——"
"Because—what?" asked Ishmael again.
"Oh, I don't know—I can't think—but I beg you, I entreat you not to let Omar go into Cairo."
Her agitated voice caused another moment of silence, and then Ishmael said in a soft, indulgent tone—
"I understand you, O my Rani. This may be the task of greatest danger, but it is the place of highest honour too, and you would fain see no man except your husband assigned to it. But Omar is of me and I am of him, and there can be no pride nor jealousy between us."
And then, taking Gordon by the right hand, while with his left he was holding Helena, he said—
"Omar, my friend, my brother!"
"El Hamdullillah!" cried the Sheikhs again, and then one by one they rose to go.
Helena rose too, and with her face aflame and her breath coming in gusts she hurried back to her room. The Arab woman followed her in a moment, and with a mocking smile in her glinting eyes, she said—
"How happy you must be, O lady, that some one else than your husband is to go into that place of danger!"
But Helena could bear no more.
"Go out of the room this moment! I cannot endure you! I hate you! Go, woman, go!" she cried.
Zenoba fled before the fury in her lady's face, but at the next moment Helena had dropped to the floor and burst into a flood of tears.
When she regained possession of herself, the child, Ayesha, was embracing her and, without knowing why, was weeping over her wet cheeks.
CHAPTER XXI
Now that Gordon was to take Ishmael's place, Helena found herself deeper than ever in the toils of her own plot. She could see nothing but death before him as the result of his return to Cairo. If his identity were discovered, he would die for his own offences as a soldier. If it were not discovered, he would be executed for Ishmael's conspiracies as she had made them known.
"Oh, it cannot be! It must not be! It shall not be!" she continued to say to herself, but without seeing a way to prevent it.
Never for a moment, in her anxiety to save Gordon from stepping into the pit she had dug for Ishmael, did she allow herself to think that, being the real cause of her father's death, he deserved the penalty she had prepared for the guilty man. Her mind had altered towards that event since the man concerned in it had changed. The more she thought of it the more sure she became that it was a totally different thing, and in the strict sense hardly a crime at all.
In the first place, she reminded herself that her father had suffered from an affection of the heart which must have contributed to his death, even if it had not been the principal cause of it. How could she have forgotten that fact until now?
Remembering her father's excitement and exhaustion when she saw him last, she could see for the first time, by the light of Gordon's story, what had afterwards occurred—the burst of ungovernable passion, the struggle, the fall, the death.
Then she told herself that Gordon had not intended to kill her father, and whatever he had done had been for love of her. "Helena was mine, and you have taken her from me, and broken her heart as well as my own." Yes, love for her and the torment of losing her had brought Gordon back to the Citadel after he had been ordered to return to his quarters. Love for her, and the delirium of a broken heart, had wrung out of him the insults which had led to the quarrel that resulted in her father's death.
In spite of her lingering tenderness for the memory of her father, she began to see how much he had been to blame for what had happened—to think of the gross indignity, the frightful shame, the unmerciful and even unlawful degradation to which in his towering rage he had subjected Gordon. The scene came back to her with horrible distinctness now—her father crying in a half-stifled voice, "You are a traitor! A traitor who has consorted with the enemies of his country!" and then tearing Gordon's sword from its scabbard and breaking it across his knee.
But seeing this, she also saw her own share in what had occurred. At the moment of Gordon's deepest humiliation she had driven him away from her. Her pride had conquered her love, and instead of flinging herself into his arms as she ought to have done, whether he was in the right or in the wrong, when everybody else was trampling upon him, she had insulted him with reproaches and turned her back upon him in his disgrace.
That scene came back to her, too—Gordon at the door of the General's house, with his deadly white face and trembling lips, stammering out, "I couldn't help it, Helena—it was impossible for me to act otherwise," and then, bareheaded as he was, and with every badge of rank and honour gone, staggering across the garden to the gate.
When she thought of all this now it seemed to her that, if anybody had been to blame for her father's death, it was not Gordon, but herself. His had been the hand, the blind hand only, but the heart that had wrought the evil had been hers.
"Oh, it cannot be! it shall not be!" she continued to say to herself, and just as she had tried to undo her work with Ishmael when he was bent on going into Cairo, so she determined to do the same with Gordon, now that he had stepped into Ishmael's place. Her opportunity came soon.
A little before mid-day of the day following the meeting of the Sheikhs, she was alone in the guest-room, sitting at the brass table that served her as a desk—Ishmael being in the camp, Zenoba and the child in the town, and old Mahmud still in bed—when Gordon came out of the men's quarter and walked towards the door as if intending to pass out of the house.
He had seen her as he came from his bedroom, with one of her hands pressed to her brow, and a feeling of inexpressible pity and unutterable longing had so taken possession of him, with the thought that he was soon to lose her—the most precious gift life had given him—that he had tried to steal away.
But instinctively she felt his approach, and with a trembling voice she called to him, so he returned and stood by her side.
"Why are you doing this?" she said. "You know what I mean. Why are you doing it?"
"You know quite well why I am doing it, Helena. Ishmael was determined to go to his death. There was only one way to prevent him. I had to take it."
"But you are going to death yourself—isn't that so?"
He did not answer. He was trying not to look at her.
"Or perhaps you see some way of escape—do you?"
Still he did not speak—he was even trying not to hear her.
"If not, why are you going into Cairo instead of Ishmael?"
"Don't ask me that, Helena. I would rather not answer you."
Suddenly the tears came into her eyes, and after a moment's silence she said—
"I know! I understand! But remember your father. He loves you. You may not think it, but he does—I am sure he does. Yet if you go into Cairo you know quite well what he will do."
"My father is a great man, Helena. He will do his duty whatever happens—what he believes to be his duty."
"Certainly he will, but all the same, do you think he will not suffer! And do you wish to put him into the position of being compelled to cut off his own son? Is that right? Can anything—anything in the world— make it necessary?"
Gordon did not answer her, but under the strain of his emotion he tightened his lips, and his pinched nostrils began to dilate like the nostrils of a horse.
"Then remember your mother, too," said Helena. "She is weak and ill. It breaks my heart to think of her as I saw her last. She believes that you have fled away to some foreign country, but she is living in the hope that time will justify you, and then you will be reconciled to your father, and come back to her again. Is this how you would come back? ... Oh, it will kill her! I'm sure it will!"
She saw that Gordon's strong and manly face was now utterly discomposed, and she could not help but follow up her advantage.
"Then think a little of me too, Gordon. This is all my fault, and if anything is done to you in Cairo it will be just the same to me as if I had done it. Do you wish me to die of remorse?"
She saw that he was struggling to restrain himself, and turning her beautiful wet eyes upon him and laying her hand on his arm, she said—
"Don't go back to Cairo, Gordon! For my sake, for your own sake, for our love's sake——"
But Gordon could bear no more, and he cried in a low, hoarse whisper—
"Helena, for heaven's sake, don't speak so. I knew it wouldn't be easy to do what I intended to do, and it isn't easy. But don't make it harder for me than it is, I beg, I pray."
She tried to speak again, but he would not listen.
"When you sent the message into Cairo which doomed Ishmael to death you thought he had killed your father. If he had really done so he would have deserved all you did to him. But he hadn't, whereas I had. Do you think I can let an innocent man die for my crime?"
"But, Gordon—" she began, and again he stopped her.
"Don't speak about it, Helena. For heaven's sake, don't! I've fought this battle with myself before, and I can't fight it over again—with your eyes upon me too, your voice in my ears, and your presence by my side."
He was trying to move away, and she was still clinging to his arm.
"Don't speak about our love, either. All that is over now. You must know it is. There is a barrier between us that can never——"
His voice was breaking and he was struggling to tear himself away from her, but she leapt to her feet and cried—
"Gordon, youshallhear me—youmust!" and then he stopped short and looked at her.
"You think you were the cause of my father's death, but you were not," she said.
His mouth opened, his lips trembled, he grew deadly pale.
"You think, too, that there is a barrier of blood between us, but there is no such thing."
"Take care of what you are saying, Helena."
"What I am saying is the truth, Gordon—it is God's truth."
He looked blankly at her for a moment in silence, then laid hold of her violently by both arms, gazed closely into her face, and said in a low, trembling voice—
"Helena, if you knew what it is to live for months under the shadow of a sin—an awful sin—an unpardonable sin—surely you wouldn't ... But why don't you speak? Speak, girl, speak!"
Then Helena looked fearlessly back into his excited face and said—
"Gordon, do you remember that you came to my room in the Citadel before you went in to that ... that fatal interview?"
"Yes, yes! How can I forget it?"
"Do you also remember what I told you then, that whatever happened that day I could never leave my father?"
"Yes, certainly, yes."
"Do you remember that you asked me why, and I said I couldn't tell you because it was a secret—somebody else's secret?"
"Well?" His pulses were beating violently; she could feel them throbbing on her arms.
"Gordon," she said, "do you know what that secret was? I can tell you now. Do you know what it was?"
"What?"
"That my father was suffering from heart-disease, and had already received his death-warrant."
She waited for Gordon to speak, but he was almost afraid to breathe.
"He didn't know his condition until we arrived in Egypt, and then perhaps he ought to have resigned his commission, but he had been out of the service for two years, and the temptation to remain was too much for him, so he asked me to promise to say nothing about it."
Gordon released her arms and she sat down again. He stood over her, breathing fast and painfully.
"I thought you ought to have been told at the time when we became engaged, but my father said, 'No! Why put him in a false position, and burden him with responsibilities he ought not to bear?'"
Helena's own voice was breaking now, and as Gordon listened to it he was looking down at her flushed face, which was thinner than before but more beautiful than ever in his eyes, and a hundredfold more touching than when it first won his heart.
"I tried to tell you that day, too, before you went into the General's office, so that you might see for yourself, dear, that if you separated yourself from my father I ... I couldn't possibly follow you, but there was my promise, and then ... then my pride and ... and something you said that pained and wounded me——"
"I know, I know, I know," he said.
"But now," she continued, rising to her feet again, "now," she repeated, in the same trembling voice, but with a look of joy and triumph, "now that you have told me what happened after your return to the Citadel, I see quite clearly—I am sure—perfectly sure—that my dear father died not by your hand at all, but by the hand and the will of God."
"Helena! Helena!" cried Gordon, and in the tempest of his love and the overwhelming sense of boundless relief he flung his arms about her and covered her face with kisses.
One long moment of immeasurable joy they were permitted to know, and then the hand of fate snatched at them again.
From their intoxicating happiness they were awakened by a voice. It was only the voice of the muezzin calling to mid-day prayers, but it seemed to be reproaching them, separating them, tearing them asunder, reminding them of where they were now, and what they were, and that God was over them.