“The hole which he made opened into a granary.”—Arabic Proverb.
“The hole which he made opened into a granary.”—Arabic Proverb.
She did not dine with the Arabian that night nor any other night, and when, one evening, some seven days later, completely restored to health, she walked out to the edge of the platform to ascertain the cause of the shouting of men, barking of dogs, and occasional firing of rifles, Namlah crept up behind and urged her to go in.
“Orders have come. Her Excellency is to remain inside her chamber until other orders come giving her her freedom.”
“But what is it all about?” inquired Helen, as she reluctantly entered her room.
Namlah spat, or, rather, made a sound as though she spat, before replying.
“Zarah the Merciless makes an excursion into the Robaa-el-Khali.” She pointed towards the cleft through which the desert in the starlight showed like the face of a veiled woman. “Allah grant that she remain there, a food for vultures, as have remained so many. She is a liar, a thief, a murderess. Allah guide the knife through her black heart.”
A spirit of rebellion, of adventure, of recklessness, showed in Helen’s eyes as she questioned the little woman who had repeated all she had heard the night she had spied through the window and had so urgently counselled silence and watchfulness and patience.
“Yea! Excellency! she leads the men. The men and beasts laden with provision and water and ammunition wherewith to make a camp between this and the scene of the fighting have departed these many hours. Ah!she is as cunning as the jackal. She relies not upon chance. She has always a place of refuge to fall back on if the fight goes against her, or if the men are in need of food for themselves or their guns. How long she will be gone? I know not; maybe a few hours, a night, a week—who knows?”
“The Nubian, has he gone too?”
Namlah laughed shrilly.
“Ha! the knotter of shoe-strings, the eater of dust, behold he has gone these may days upon some secret journey. He held conclave of great length with the woman who rules us with a rod fashioned in the nethermostJahannam. They sat under the starlight so that I could not approach, Excellency; they spoke softly so that I could not catch their words from the rock behind which I lay concealed.”
She smiled up into Helen’s face when, under the strain of the suspense in which she had lived for the last ten days, she took the servant by the shoulders and shook her none too gently.
“I can’t bear it much longer, Namlah!” she said in her pretty, broken Arabic. “I can’t bear the uncertainty, I can’t bear the silence, the waiting, with nothing to do to kill the terrible hours. I simply cannot bear it. For danger to myself I do not fear, I do not care. Cannot I find the way out so that I can escape? Can I not?”
There was no one in sight, there was certainly no one within hearing, up there in the eyrie so near the stars, but the little woman ran first to the right and then to the left and then into the room before she sidled up to Helen and whispered.
Is not intrigue as the breath of life in the East?
“Her Excellency must take exercise, must walk under the stars to-night whilstsheis abroad.” She spread her fingers wide and down in the direction of the path leading across the quicksands. “Her Excellency must walk, even if it be amongst the rocks where the shadows lie blackest.”
Helen looked intently at the little woman, who gazed out of the doorway with an air of seraphic innocence.
“I could not find my way down there, Namlah! I should fall or get lost or——”
Namlah trotted to the door and stood with her hand shading her eyes, looking out towards the desert.
“Yet is there one, Excellency, who without eyes walketh safely amongst the rocks. One without eyes, but with much wisdom upon his tongue and goodness in his heart, who walketh ever without fear in the great darkness; one who yearneth to help those whose backs have suffered from the whip or whose hearts have suffered from the power wielded by that daughter ofShaitan!” She crept close to Helen and whispered in her ear: “One who likewise craveth to hurt, to wound, to kill, in revenge.”
Helen shivered at the hate in the little woman’s voice, but she understood. She had learned the history of the blind man from Namlah; once when, restless and unable to sleep through anxiety, she had walked out on to the platform she had seen him in the grey light of the dawn, standing midway on the steps, his face raised to her abode; once Namlah had lain a few flowers on the silken coverlet, had whispered, “patience brings victory to the blind and the prisoner,” and had retired to her pots and pans with finger on lips.
The body-woman walked to the edge of the platform and beckoned to the white girl she loved, and pointed to a silvery cloud of sand far out in the desert.
“Yonder she rides,” she whispered. “May the sand choke her! May the scorpion sting her heel! May....” She smiled up at Helen and shrugged her scarred shoulders in the expressive Eastern way. “But of the luck of such, Excellency, is it written, ‘throw him into the river and he will rise with a fish in his mouth.’ Yet will her turn come; the tide cannot remain at the full, the sun must set. Behold! I descend to the river, whilst the men and women make merry in her absence, to fetch water for herExcellency’s bath, leaving her alone, to walk amongst the rocks, in the protection of Allah!”
Helen watched the little woman descend the steep steps, balancing a great earthenware jar skilfully upon her head; noticed that she stopped for a moment near one gigantic boulder which lay to the right of the steps; listened to her singing as she made the rest of the descent down to the water, which looked like a ribbon of silver run through a purple velvet curtain, then entered the room, which was really a prison cell, pulled a sheet of dark blue silk from her bed, and ran out on to the ledge.
She did not hesitate.
That the woman might be a spy did not once enter her head, and if it had, under the strength of her love and her anxiety, she would doubtlessly have thrown caution to the soft night wind and risked her life in an endeavour to find out if there was not some way of escape by which she could return to the man she loved.
Her own clothes, cleansed and pressed by Namlah’s busy fingers, had been returned to her, so that she stood, a beautiful picture of an English girl, in the strangest of strange surroundings, looking down into the shadows out of which, she prayed, help might come to her.
Afraid of her outline against the sky, fearful of dislodging some stone to send it clattering down the steps, she wrapped the blue sheet round herself and descended slowly, carefully, pausing to listen, standing to peer into the ink-black shadows on every side, and down to the plateau where, by the light of torches and of fires, she could see men and women passing to and fro.
She had almost reached the great boulder, when she stopped and drew the dark silk still tighter and peered about uneasily, as she tried to locate a soft hissing sound which came from some spot quite near to her.
Through bitter experience she had learned the ways of Arabia’s scorpions, centipedes, wasps and flies; had fled in terror from the one and onlyaboo hanekeinshe hadencountered, a fat, poisonous brute of a spider with formidable pincers, and wrestled vainly against the great variety of ants which the Peninsula offers; of locusts she had but the slightest acquaintance, and of the deadly vipers, theRuklaand theAfar, which abound in rocks she had only been warned that afternoon.
Yet for fear of someone mounting the steps she dared not remain where she was, and had just decided to risk the few yards which would bring her to the boulder, when once more she caught the hissing sound.
And then from sheer relief she almost laughed.
“Sit!” whispered Yussuf from the shadows. “Ya Sit! Sit!”
She crept forward and round the boulder to where stood the blind man, who had been perfectly aware of her noiseless descent. She did not shrink at the terrible face, twisted and scarred, which looked down upon her; rather did her heart go out to the maimed man as she laid her hand upon his arm and called him by name.
“I trust you, Yussuf,” she said simply, which is quite one of the best ways of winning the heart of an embittered man.
“Her Excellencycantrust me!” whispered Yussuf as he salaamed. “Namlah and I are brother and sister in affliction. I have lost the light of these mine eyes, she has lost the light of her life, her son, in the grievous battle. To ease our hurts we seek to help thee, gracious lady, so that upon her return the woman who rules us may find ashes in the taste of her victory and gall in the wine of her success. The plans are laid, have been laid this long while. I will carry her Excellency over the secret path and out into the desert, then will I return for Namlah and the camels, which are hidden and waiting these many hours, the swiftest and most docilehejeenin the stables.”
“Now? At once?” asked Helen, trembling with excitement. “But how can you guide us across the desert?”
“Thy servant rides by the wind.” He lifted his sightless face to the star-strewn sky and smiled. “’Tis from the east,Sit. Let it blow in our faces, and we go towards the east until the sun sets after the passing of two days, then we go north upon the path to Hutāh, passing the field of the battle where the accursed offspring of the devil lifted the white woman.”
Overpowered with gratitude, almost speechless with amazement as the weight of her fear was lifted from her, Helen trembled, under the shock of the sudden realization of her hopes and, desirous that he should share in her happiness, caught the man’s hand in entreaty.
“You will come with us? You will let me and his Excellency, the man I am going to marry, look after you, make you happy, make you forget, you and Namlah?” She laughed softly, aglow with love and hope. “Gratitude is a small, a very small, word, Yussuf, and it cannot express what I would say in thanks.”
Yussuf smiled as he shook his head. Such words were rare in his ears; of such brotherly love, excepting for that in his own heart, he had had no knowledge.
“I will take thee,Sit, to within sight of the oasis, then must I return. My task is not finished, will not be finished, until the spirit of Zarah the Cruel has returned to theJahannamfrom which it came. We must hasten by a path known only to me. I will lift her Excellency over the rough places and carry her safely across the parts where danger lies. The way is open, the night is clear, we——”
He stopped abruptly at the sound of voices raised in anger, and feeling for Helen, gripped her tight about the wrist.
Namlah’s voice seemed to rise in a screaming crescendo, in ratio to the steps she climbed, accompanied or followed by someone upon whom she poured out the vials of her wrath.
“Nay! thou wine-bibber,” she shrilled. “What if thy mistress did place the safekeeping of the white womanin thy useless hands? Nay! thou shalt not push me to the side of this accursed path so that thy legs, which may Allah strike with numbness, may carry thee with speed to the post thou didst forget in thy drunkenness. Keep thou behind me, lest I break the jar upon thy empty head and waste the precious water upon thy unclean body, which is fit carrion for the birds of prey. What sayest thou? Thou wouldst but look upon the white woman? So that thou mayst see her with thine own eyes? Verily shalt thou, if thou canst see for the wine with which thou hast filled thy vile and accursed body.”
Yussuf lifted Helen bodily into his arms.
“‘If thou seest a wall inclining, run from under it.’” He quoted the proverb as he carried her swiftly up the mountainside by a steep short cut, as sure-footed as a goat, as certain of his path as if he had eyes. “It is not the hour, but let her Excellency remember that Yussuf is her servant in all things.” He put her gently on her feet upon a ledge from which she could climb to the platform. “Remember, too, that when the hour does strike, then will Yussuf strike also. ‘Patience brings victory to the blind and to the prisoner.’”
A few moments later Helen stood just inside the doorway, listening to the violent altercation upon the steps.
There came the crash of a breaking jar, torrents of execration and imprecation, then silence, and, in spite of her disappointment, she smiled as she watched Namlah, slowly and with much dignity, climbing the steps, with a dripping wet individual in the rear.
“Seest thou the white woman with thine own eyes? Yea! Then sit thou there, thou dog!” cried Namlah at the top of her voice. “Nay, upon the second step. Wouldst force thy company upon thy betters? And may Allah strike thee with cold for having forgotten thy duty to thy mistress, so that thou diest of palsy before the dawn.”
There was a twinkle of laughter in the depths of the brown eyes as she combed the prisoner’s golden hair.
Is not intrigue as the breath of life to the Oriental?
“He swims in a span of water.”—Arabic Proverb.
“He swims in a span of water.”—Arabic Proverb.
At that very hour Al-Asad, disguised as a holy man, sat in the camp of the Bedouins who had befriended Ralph Trenchard.
True, the holy man’s body was somewhat well covered, as though he had not unduly deprived himself of food in the ecstasy of his religion, and his feet in fairly good trim, considering the length of the pilgrimage he was making on foot to Mecca; also, upon close inspection, might the rents in his one garment be attributed to a blunt knife rather than to time.
But there are many kinds of holy men criss-crossing desert places, depending entirely upon the charity of chance-met Arabs for sustenance and the will of Allah for a safe arrival at their journey’s end. The tattered handkerchief fluttering from the end of the staff can be traced by the keen-eyed, approaching or retreating, for miles in the desert’s clear atmosphere, and heartbeats never fail to quicken at the chance encounter with the solitary human who wends his way across the burning sands, alone with his God.
As to others, so to Ralph Trenchard, sitting outside his tent, came that feeling of great respect which the sudden appearance of these mystics arouses in those who have the wherewithal to allay their hunger, and a place upon which to lay their heads at night; and with the respect, a great curiosity to read the secrets of a mind which allows so emaciated a body to endure and survive days of endless wandering and starvation and nights under heaven’s starlit roof. Al-Asad sat motionless, his eyes fixed upon space, whilst his stomach rebelled againstthe rice in the wooden bowl at his feet, and his whole being longed to get back to the spot, in the far distance, where he had hobbled his well-laden camel.
Fearful of news of his search being transmitted through space to the ears of those he sought, he had been forced to act up to his disguise and to travel many weary, sandy miles on foot to various Bedouin camps, and to eat many bowls of insipid rice, washed down his gasping throat with muddy coffee, whilst abstracting the news he wanted from his unsuspicious host by subtle questioning.
He had rejoiced to the innermost part of his being when, whilst humbly asking alms from the Bedouin chief, he had seen Ralph Trenchard out of the corner of his eye.
His quest was at an end. He had but to get into communication in some way with the white man and arouse his interest, then leave the rest to the foolishness of a race which, as his mistress had told him, taught its men to look upon women as an almost sacred charge. He rose, and with hands uplifted turned to the four quarters of the globe, his keen eyes sweeping the camp for sign of the lynx-eyed Abdul, whilst the Bedouins drew back out of respect for his holiness.
On catching sight of the servant at the back of his master’s tent, Al-Asad squatted upon his haunches and muttered to himself, letting the beads of Mecca run swiftly through his fingers whilst his crafty mind searched for the best way to start the business without arousing the servant’s suspicions.
He scraped up the last handful of rice, being careful not to leave one single grain, and forced it down his rebelling throat, then rose and crossed slowly to a black patch of shadow, in which he sat himself, well aware that the eyes of the whole camp, especially those of the white man, were upon him. He sat motionless for awhile as though in thanksgiving for the nauseating meal, thenmade a gesture, upon which, with little cries and great jostling, the whole camp, men, women and many children, crowded about him, then, with the chief in the centre, sat themselves down in a semicircle at the respectful distance demanded by the holy one’s piety.
Ralph Trenchard strolled to the extreme end of the right side of the semicircle. He was wholly restored to health, a prey to intense anxiety, and upon the eve of his departure for Hutah, where he intended calling upon the aid of the entire Peninsula for the recovery of Helen, and felt thankful for anything which might serve to distract his tormented mind. Abdul gave a final look round his master’s tent, which consisted of camel-skins thrown over four upright poles, and ran quickly to his master’s side.
He had done his best to dissuade his master from the rash proceeding of trying to discover her Excellency’s whereabouts, had preached the doctrine of fatalism as known in the East, and had at last resigned himself to the inevitable and sworn, in the secret places of his faithful heart, to stick to the white man through thick and thin.
The visit of a holy man creates a welcome diversion in a camp where meals of dates, muddy coffee, and, if luck is in, a sickly mess of boiled camel flesh aspièce de résistanceform the only break in the long, monotonous hours when fighting is not toward; the advent of a holy man who deigned to open his lips except in prayer was to be reckoned a miracle.
Abdul moved close to Ralph Trenchard at the holy one’s first words.
“Are any of thy children wounded, O my Son?” The words came faint and slow, as though spoken by one who had almost lost the power of speech. “I have with me an ointment of great power.” Al-Asad searched amongst his rags and produced an alabaster pot, which had once contained rouge and had been bought by Zarah in Cairo,but which now reeked to high heaven of rancid camel fat mixed with aniseed.
“Nay! Father!” replied the chief, whilst his children whispered amongst themselves. “Those that were wounded are healed, those that were sick are recovered. Whyfore asketh thou? How knowest thou that they have been in battle?”
Al-Asad barely suppressed a chuckle as he pressed the lid down upon the distressing concoction and stored it once more about his person. He made no answer. He sat motionless, as though lost in meditation, until Ralph Trenchard could have fallen upon and shaken him back to a consciousness of his surroundings.
“A moon ago I prayed upon the site of a great battle, O my Son!” murmured Al-Asad slowly, after some long while and as though he had but just heard the question. “There was naught but bones and this.” He once more searched amongst his rags and looked at some object, which he did not disclose to view, and took no notice of a quickly suppressed movement at the right end of the circle as Abdul gripped Ralph Trenchard by the arm. “I have asked those I have met upon my path if they knew aught about that combat. Nay, my Son! interrupt me not, the hour is slipping into eternity and I must be gone.” The chief, who had been anxious to tell whatheknew of the fight from personal experience, bowed in obedience and spread his hands. “It was a fight between white men and the woman of whose dire deeds the desert rings. All were killed but a white woman, who, grievously wounded and nigh unto death, was made prisoner and taken to the mountains known as the Sanctuary, which lie but a day’s journey and a night’s journey to the south of the spot where they fought, and where dwells the woman of evil repute.”
He rose as he spoke, standing a dim and arresting figure in the shadows, and stretched out his hand.
“This I perceived glittering in the sun, midway betweenthe mountains and the battlefield, upon a path marked in the sand by the swift passing of two camels. It is of too great a value for one who lives upon the words of the Prophet of Allah, the one and only God. Perchance wilt thou, my son, take it in return for thy charity to the humble pilgrim.”
He placed the locket in the chief’s hands, and in the scramble of the entire camp to get a better view of the gift, crept behind the tent and disappeared into the night, where, once sure that he was beyond the chief’s range of vision, he emulated the ostrich in speed until he reached the spot where he had left his well-laden camel.
“This is not the bishop’s square.”—Arabic Proverb.
“This is not the bishop’s square.”—Arabic Proverb.
Abdul removed the locust from his bowl, laid it on one side with three of its brethren for future consumption, and looked at Ralph Trenchard, who sat, eating his evening meal, some yards away. Then he wet his finger and held it up, frowned, looked across the red sand ridges and over to the scene of the disastrous battle, and shook his head.
“Bad!” he said, removing yet another locust from his shoulder. “Bad locust, bad wind from the east, bad omen of death.” He spread his fingers against the power of dead bones and, a victim of superstition, twisted himself round from north to south as he sat. “All bad for the beginning of a second journey into this bad desert.”
He placed an iron plate, spread with camel fat, to heat upon the top of the up-to-date brazier, which was the joy of his life, spread a thin layer of dough made ofdurraupon it, and whilst waiting for it to brown, prepared the five large, dark locusts for frying, praying inwardly that his master would reject the succulent savoury.
“Five!” he commented, as he salted the insects and rolled them up in the thin, buttered cake. “Praise be to Allah that we have one good omen.Aï!Six, nay, seven.” He plucked two more from his skirts, and, fearful of finding the eighth, which would bring the ill-luck of an even number, ran swiftly across to his master with his offering.
For two reasons Ralph Trenchard turned the savoury over with his fork. He had just finished an excellentlycooked meal of a highly spiced variety of the ubiquitoussamhbroth, and as highly spiced and as excellently cooked partridge, and a handful of dates; also had he become extremely suspicious of any fresh addition to the larder and of any new culinary effort on the part of his servant.
He refused the crisp, well-browned roll at first, then, thinking it only kind to reward the man for his devotion, bit off an end and finished the lot.
“Topping, Abdul! I’ll have one every day. What’s it made of?”
Abdul hid his hands in his sleeves as he lied with the ease which comes from long practice.
“Little bits of meat and fat and vegetables fried in butter, Excellency. The servant is rewarded by the light of pleasure in his master’s eye.”
Ralph Trenchard rose and shook himself.
“We’d better be starting, Abdul,” he said, flicking a locust from his sleeve. “The journey of a day and the journey of a night, that means the journey of two nights as we cannot travel in the sun, and then—and then I shall know, I shall be certain. And look here, my friend, don’t you go cooking any of these disgusting beasts and serving them up as fried dates or something.”
He plucked one of the disgusting beasts from his shirt sleeve and flung it away, then looked at his servant, who stood motionless, a cloud of despondency dimming the habitually merry countenance.
“Well? And what’s the matter now? Have the camels stampeded or the water-skins burst?”
Abdul suddenly knelt and touched the ground with his forehead.
“Give ear unto thy servant, O master! Hasten not the journey, linger yet one more night and yet one more day. The omens are not propitious for the starting. We are surrounded by death, by the bones of our brethren. The east blows the wind from her mouth and from thenorth comes a puff of breath, so that the wind will blow slantwise towards the west and the south.”
“Well? Why not? As long as it doesn’t blow straight from the south like a furnace, I should say that we ought to be jolly well pleased.”
Abdul gathered three locusts from the ground, stored them surreptitiously in his voluminous sleeve, and rose to his feet, then walked close up to Ralph Trenchard, salaamed, and clasped his hands in fervent beseeching.
“These few disgusting beasts, O Excellency, are the forerunners, maybe, of a great storm of many disgusting beasts, which in time of stress or famine are thankfully eaten by the Arab and the camel. If the wind were otherwise set, Excellency, if it were but the locust wind from the east unto the west, then would I cry haste, haste, so that we should pass on and leave the storm behind. But, Excellency, the puff of breath from the north will cause the disgusting beasts to follow us even southwards, so that we are like to drown in a sea of crawling, disgusting beasts, or to flee before them into the heart of the bad desert, there to be fallen upon by the evil spirits which dwell therein. Excellency, the omens are bad. The locust is bad, the wind is bad, likewise the bones, and”—he paused to allow the dread of the last and worst omen to sink thoroughly into the white man’s mind—“and the servant’s camel has pulled the amulet of good luck from about the neck of the master’s camel and”—followed another pause for the same good purpose—“has eaten it!”
Ralph Trenchard laughed heartily, being one of the thrice blessed few who are absolutely free from the faintest trace of superstition, the greatest curse of modern days.
“Look here, Abdul.” He put his hand on the faithful man’s shoulder and turned him in the direction of the south. “Not so very far ahead, in an almost straight line from here, is the range of mountains in which the woman Zarah dwells....” Abdul spat with vindictive vigour in a southward direction. “That woman hasknowledge of her Excellency, who is to be my wife....” Abdul, remembering the holy man’s statement about her Excellency’s health, spread his fingers westward in the direction of the bones glistening on the battlefield. “And if you think locusts or bones or amulet-eating camels can prevent me from starting when I said we would start, and that is in an hour’s time, then are you thrice mistaken....” Abdul pushed one of the disgusting beasts, afflicted with an inclination to stray, back into his sleeve. “And I should advise you, my son, to heave those thoughts out of your mind or you’ll have us wading up to our necks in locusts, or the bones getting up and following us, or the camels bursting from an overdose of good luck. Besides, remember your prophecy about the holy man, who, you said, was a bad holy man. He hasn’t brought us bad luck so far. You were mistaken, and you were, and youare, afraid and....”
There was a limit to Abdul’s capacity for holding his tongue. He made finger gestures towards the four quarters of the globe, then shook his fist in the direction where lay the Bedouin camp which they had left behind many days ago.
“Mistaken! O master! Mistaken! Why did the holy man run, run like the ostrich, so that the marks of his holy feet showed hardly upon the soft sand? Why did I, thy servant, find the footmarks of a camel far out in the desert just where the feet of the holy man made no more marks upon the sand?”
“I expect someone was waiting to give him a lift, Abdul.”
“Then why not lift him to the gate of the Bedouin camp, O my master?”
Ralph Trenchard took his servant by the shoulder and turned him in the direction where lay the camels.
“I expect he didn’t want the others to know that he was living in the lap of luxury, my son. Go and eat, because I am coming to overhaul everything and see thatall is shipshape before we start on the last bit of the journey, at the end of which this uncertainty will be lifted from me.”
In spite of its pleasantry, Abdul recognized the one tone in his master’s voice which always caused him to obey with alacrity.
He salaamed and departed to do his master’s bidding, gathering a good sleeveful of locusts as he went, and sat, making finger gestures towards the east and returning thanks to Allah for the tasty addition to the meal, while the disgusting beasts browned nicely upon the iron plate spread with camel fat.
But a few hours later he turned in his saddle, then raised his hands to the heavens, which showed black as with thunder towards the east.
“May Allah burn them with the fire of His wrath! May His right hand crush the life from them! May He speak words of anger so that they are swept from the white man’s path.”
From his seat upon the first of seven camels he looked at Ralph Trenchard, who rode at his side, and back along the six beasts which, fastened muzzle to scrimpy tail by rope, had leisurely followed each other up and down the great ridges, whilst the menacing cloud spread rapidly across the sky.
Ralph Trenchard turned and looked back.
“I am sorry I have been the cause of your getting into this frightful danger, Abdul,” he said quietly. “Still, I have been in tighter corners than this and won out, so we won’t despair. You see, the swarm may pass well over our heads as there is nothing green for it to settle on within miles. Besides, if we had stayed where we were it would have been the same thing. We haven’t got so very far from the camp. Still, I’m sorry, and I....”
The rest of the sentence was jerked from him as his camel stumbled to its knees, half rose, fell, and with aninfuriated scream got to its feet with the curious back jump exclusive to a fallen camel. They proceeded in silence for almost a quarter of a mile, when there came a shout from Abdul which was lost in a chorus of shrieks and groans and lamentations from the string, as the middle camel crashed, pulling its brother behind to its knees by the rope attached to its halter, and its sister in front to a sitting position by the rope attached to her skimpy tail, until at last the seven beasts sprawled upon the ground.
Ralph Trenchard followed Abdul’s pointing finger. Lost in his thoughts and without looking at the ground over which he travelled, he had passed up and down the ridges which were soon to end in a great flat space. He looked down now, and shuddered at the sight. A thin layer of brown and crawling locusts lay upon the sands as far as eye could see—a terrible, living sheet of slipperiness upon which no biped or quadruped could hope to remain upright for long. He did not hesitate. He shook out the feet-long leather thong of the camel-whip and flicked the sides of the nearest fallen camel, against which was already forming a drift of locusts. And as the camel tried to rise he flicked the others, whilst Abdul alternately shouted encouragement and prayed to Allah. And when at last the beasts had been forced to their feet, to stand indifferent and contemptuous, he took his camel slowly across to where Abdul sat upon the leader and looked him in the face, whilst locusts, hurled by the ever-increasing wind, rattled like hailstones upon his topee, and caught and clung and crawled over his shirt and breeches and over his servant’s robes.
“You must decide, Abdul,” he said quietly. “You belong to the desert. You have seen a locust storm many times. Do we go forward or back, or do we stay here and wait, praying that it will pass before we die of suffocation?”
Abdul did not hesitate. Already the insects had coveredthe camels’ feet and were clinging in bunches to their sides; already the camels were moaning like children in pain, a sure sign that fear utterly possessed them and that panic pressed them close.
“We will move forward. And will his Excellency fasten his shirt lest the disgusting beasts crawl about his person. We are in the hands of Allah, O my master, and we must follow the path marked out for us, even if it be spread with a carpet of locusts. The heart of the storm has not yet reached us. Kismet! it is the will of Allah. Forward, my master, for that way the future always lies.”
Inch by inch, with the leather-thonged whip curling backwards and forwards over the string, and Abdul alternately shouting encouragement, praying to Allah, and calling upon the aid of the great Prophet, the camels climbed the next ridge, which rose high above its fellows owing to a mass of volcanic rock beneath it, whilst the locust cloud spread across the heavens. With its forefeet just over the edge on the downward steep descent, Ralph Trenchard’s camel slipped, threw him clear over its head down to the bottom of the dip, then followed in a series of terrible somersaults, to collapse at the bottom with a broken neck.
“Don’t get down, Abdul! For God’s sake, don’t get down!” shouted Ralph Trenchard as he scrambled to his feet just as the seven in a string, well back on their haunches, slid down safely to the bottom, the ridge meanwhile growing higher and higher as the locusts piled upon it. “I’ll cut you loose and take the second camel; it’s got two water-skins. You’ve got to take one—we’ll fix it on somehow.” He hacked at the rope which fastened Abdul’s camel to the second, then cut through the rope connecting the second and third; unfastened the water-skins, pulled the pack off the second camel, wrenched the saddle from the dead beast, and handed it up to Abdul, who threw it across the other camel’s back.
“Jam the brute against the side, Abdul, I’m going underneath. Tight, that’s it, don’t let it move. That’s it. Fling the off-strap further over. My God! That’s it! I’ve done it. Keep him jammed, I’m getting the water-skins on. Oh! my God! one’s burst; one of those fiends has driven its teeth into it. Fasten this one to your saddle—d’you hear what I say? fasten it—I’ve got my water-bottle and—you’ll get the whip across your back if you don’t—I’m going to tighten the strap—jam him still, I’m coming out—you can give me a leg up—I—my....” Abdul bent and hauled him up as he crept from under the camel’s belly and almost threw him into the saddle.
“Come! Master, come! hasten! The camels fight, they are mad with fear; they kill all they see when mad. Nay, master, be not so mad thyself. What matter if they be bound together? They are but camels, and thou, O master, art a son of God! Turn thy camel, Excellency.”
But the camels would not turn. True, they backed in their fear of the other five, which, fastened together, shrieked and fought, tore and snarled, as they vainly tried to climb out of the dip in which the stream of locusts was rising inch by inch; but get them round they could not, however hard they pulled at their cast-iron mouths and struck them on the off shoulder.
Then Abdul yelled and tore off his outer cloak, sitting breathless, in voluminous drawers and vest, ready for the onslaught. The five camels, hopelessly fastened together, had straightened themselves out. The first, clean mad with fear, had seen two of its own kind standing quietly a little way ahead. For a second it stood quite still, excepting for its head, which swung from side to side, with great eyes rolling and long tongue hanging from the foam-flecked mouth, then it shrieked, shrieked as only a camel can, and charged, dragging the others, which rocked from side to side. They slipped and fell, and scrambled to their feet under the spur of the terribleteeth which met in the hindquarters and the agony of the ropes which lashed muzzle and tail together.
The foremost saw the open space on the waiting camel’s off-side and made for it, blindly, drew level with Abdul and swung its head viciously sideways, to find itself enveloped in the man’s coat. Followed a frightful scene, in which it stood quite still, lost in the darkness which had suddenly overtaken it, whilst the other four rushed backwards and forwards and swung themselves round until they jammed in a fighting circle.
“Quick, master! Now! Follow! Allah protect thee in this corner ofJahamman! Fear at last moves my Satan-possessed beast; may Allah cause it to burn in the nethermost pit!” The faithful man leant over and gripped the halter and wrenched Ralph Trenchard’s camel round as his own turned. “We will go apace! We will....”
His words were lost in the screaming of the five camels, as the foremost, freed of the cloak, suddenly charged up the side of the ridge. Up, up, almost to the top, pulling its companions after it, up to the edge where the locusts lay thick, then down, over and over, with its fellow prisoners fighting, struggling, screaming, back to the bottom of the dip, where ’tis wise to leave them to the mercy of Allah.
The two men urged their camels swiftly from the terrible sight, whilst with a softphit-phit-phitthe locusts fell upon each other with the sound of raindrops upon glass. The sky was black with them; they swept above their heads with the whistling sound of a tropical hail storm.
“We will stay here, master, if it be the will of Allah! We will throw the disgusting beasts out as they fill in the space about us. Thou art white and I am black, yet are we brothers in distress and in the sight of Allah.”
Ralph Trenchard held out his hand, which Abdul just touched as he salaamed.
But it was not the will of Allah that they should remainto die, perhaps of suffocation, in the dip filled with locusts; it was His will, perchance, that they should make a last fight for life, which is good when filled with love, love of the woman, love of the master, love of the brother and friend.
Abdul turned for one moment to secure the water-skins more firmly upon his saddle, when his camel stampeded, rushing blindly ahead for no good reason, as is the custom of the brutes. Followed by Ralph Trenchard’s, it turned sharply and scrambled to the top of the ridge, where the men bent double to save their faces from the driving locust rain.
“Master!”
Ralph Trenchard heard his servant’s voice as his camel turned and fled along the top of the ridge until it was swallowed up in the locust storm. “Abdul!” he called, covering his face with his arm. “God keep....” He beat the insects off his shoulders, beat them off as they piled thickly behind him on the saddle, paused for a moment in the ghastly work as a faint “Allah!” came to him from somewhere out of the dark, then beat at the horrible things which crawled all over him with a sickening scratching of their scaly bodies. The camel, crazed with the things which covered it as with a coat of mail, slid, shrieking, down the side of the ridge and scrambled up the farther side, and down and up the next, and yet the next. Ralph Trenchard, with his feet crossed round the pommel of his saddle, bent his head to his knees and rode for mile after mile, clutching the tufts of coarse hair upon the camel’s shoulder, whilst the locusts piled up on his back and neck.
Why should he try to stop the camel? Why should he get down? Why should he not go on and on for ever riding, riding through an endless desert of swarming, crawling, creeping locusts, which stretched across the heavens and the earth from north to south, from east to wrest? Was it not the will of Allah? Was not ...? Uphe went and down, hanging on to the coarse hair just above the camel’s shoulders, up and down, and then on and on, evenly, smoothly, whilst the locusts whistled like a tropical hailstorm and the sky lighted way down in the east as the great curtain of insects swept towards and away to the west.
And he went on and on, shuddering under the feeling of the locusts crawling over him when they had long since taken flight, leaving him and his camel free; on and on through the journey of the scorching day which followed the journey of the night, and still onward in the way which was to lead him to certain knowledge of the girl he loved; on and on, with his head bent to his knees and his hands clutching the coarse hair, mercifully unconscious at last.
On and on, until a range of mountains showed faintly in the far distance and the sun went down behind it, just as, many miles away, two Arabs, journeying towards the Oasis of Hareek, drew Abdul out from under his dead camel and, finding that he breathed, straightened the broken leg between improvised splints, and placed him gently upon the third camel, which carried all their worldly belongings.
“Under every downhanging head dwells a thousand mischiefs.”—Arabic Proverb.
“Under every downhanging head dwells a thousand mischiefs.”—Arabic Proverb.
Namlah had been superseded.
No suspicion whatever attached to her, but, whether her curses had been too potent or the blow of the water-jar too much for him, the man who had partaken of much good red wine the night of Helen’s attempted escape had died.
That, in connexion with certain gossip concerning Namlah’s friendship and enthusiastic praise of the white woman, decided Zarah. She sent her packing, without warning, and in her stead put a villainously ugly, surly negress incapable of speech, much less of a kind thought or deed, who proceeded to follow the prisoner at a distance wherever she went, thereby rendering speech with blind Yussuf impossible.
Knowing that Helen must pass the great rock on her way down to the river to bathe, as was her custom just after sunrise, Yussuf sat himself down in its shadow the morning after Namlah’s dismissal, with intent to tell the prisoner the reason for the change in the body-woman and to warn her to be on her guard. He lifted his head at the sound of her footsteps, then frowned, though no one else could possibly have discerned the other almost noiseless tread made by bare feet, one of which pressed the ground more heavily than the other.
Judging correctly the distance between the two women, he put his finger to his lips and whispered “A’ti balak” as he salaamed.
Be careful!
The change in her body-woman, combined with Yussuf’s warning, caused Helen’s anxiety to increase, until her days became a burden of suspense and her nights a nightmare of troubled dreams in which she saw her lover lying dead or wounded in the desert or a prisoner in the hands of some lawless tribe.
She would not allow herself to think of her position nor of her future, but she made a vow in the depths of her valiant heart that, no matter what was in store for her, no matter how the Arabian might cajole or threaten, she would not show a sign of the anxiety which consumed her, nor write a word of the letter which she knew would bring her lover, if he lived, hot-foot, to her.
Then Zarah, who had not given up hopes of getting the letter from the girl and who waited for the return of Al-Asad from his quest, showed herself suddenly friendly, and Helen gladly responded to her invitations, to visit the kennels and the stables and the rest of the erstwhile monastery.
True, she had been forbidden to wander amongst the rocks or to climb to the beginning of the cleft or to ride either horse or camel; true, also, that the surly negress followed her wherever she went, so that, in spite of the extra liberty, she felt herself more closely guarded and more carefully watched than ever. Still, the days passed more quickly and her friends amongst the dogs and their grooms became almost too numerous to be counted.
Upon her first visit to the kennels, unaccompanied by Zarah, the head groom, who worshipped the dogs, reluctantly offered her the whip without which his mistress would not enter the door when upon her visits of inspection.
“What for?” asked Helen, as she looked over his shoulder to where the famous greyhounds and the dogs of Billi stood watching her.
“Out of fear, Excellency; they may be dangerous.”
“Fear of what?”
The head groom did not reply, but spread his fingers in a gesture against the evil memory of the woman the dogs hated, and rushed to save Helen from them when, barking and leaping, they threw themselves upon her in instant friendliness in response to her call.
In the days following she visited the kennels upon every possible occasion, until even Rādi, the bitch, fawned at her feet in love and the grooms ran to greet her at the kennel door.
Through the order forbidding her to ride, the grooms of the horse and camel stables became smitten of a grievous jealousy as they listened to the tales of the white woman’s graciousness recounted to them by the head groom of the kennels.
“Dogs! Yea! perchance she has knowledge of the dog, butride!pah! O brother, what knows she of the Nejdee? What would she avail against the vagaries of the desert horse?”
“Wilt thou make a bet, O my brother?”
Which is a perfectly absurd question to ask an Arab, who will gamble with his last coffee bean if he has nothing of more value in hand.
The bet spread, dividing the camp into two factions which were ready to fight over it upon the slightest provocation. The grooms of the stables were backed by their friends; the grooms of the kennels had an equal following; they all showed a catholic and reckless taste in stakes, which ranged from marriageable daughters, through money, jewellery and weapons, down to emaciated poultry.
News of the bet came to Zarah’s ears the day upon which Al-Asad returned with the report that Ralph Trenchard was safe, had started for the Sanctuary accompanied by one Abdul, and had been sighted near the scene of the battle, which meant that he was but a day’s journey behind.
She cursed in her heart that interest in Helen shouldhave been aroused at such an inauspicious moment, then instantly, little knowing that the girl’s horsemanship equalled, even surpassed, her own, conceived a diabolically cunning plan by which she could bring about her death before Ralph Trenchard’s arrival, and without, withal, arousing suspicion amongst the men.
Helen wanted to ride, the men wanted her to ride; well, ride she should, and to her death.
Lulah, the black mare, had been pronounced untamable. Descendant of the mare who had brought the Sheikh to safety, likewise descendant of the mare who had been the cause of Yussuf’s blindness, she was as black of temper as she was of coat.
Three people out of the whole camp had been able to ride her the entire length of the plateau.
Zarah, Bowlegs, and the Patriarch.
Not one of the others who had taken the risk even of trying to mount her had escaped injury. Each one had been thrown, considering himself lucky if he escaped with slight concussion; there had been broken bones a-plenty and one broken neck.
That made the beginning and end of the plan.
If Helen succeeded in getting across the saddle she would of necessity be thrown; she must be. She might break her neck, in which case all the trouble would be over; or she might be stunned, in which case she would look like dead, which would serve as well.
Brigands do not worry themselves overmuch about such details as heartbeats; scruples do not exist in a jealous woman’s heart.
Neither was there time to lose.
She sent for the head groom of the stables.
“Lulah the Black, mistress?” The man raised a face of consternation as Zarah finished speaking. “Mistress, she is not fit; she is as wild as a bird on the wing; she is possessed of the devil. One of thy slaves even now lies sick of the meeting of her teeth in his shoulder.”
Zarah put an end to his protestations by the simple method of smiting him across the mouth.
“And I will saddle her with my own hands upon the day of sport to-morrow, O my son, and thou shalt hold her near me until I give the signal. Likewise shalt thou and others make a pretence of mounting her, a pretence only. And see that thou makest no mistake, lest thou beareth the burden of my litter for a space.”
The morrow came, bringing a horseman who carried the news of the disappearance of the white man and his servant in the locust storm.
In her rage against Fate Zarah decided to countermand the sports; then, fearful of angering her men and aching to find an object upon which to vent her fury and the agony of as big a love as she was capable, once more changed her mind and decided to carry out the programme.