miles, as far as a certain well, and there I should have to decide
definitely. It was late in the afternoon when we reached the spot
again, and a wind which threatened simoom had covered the heart-shaped
footmarks made by our own and other camels, as with a tidal wave. The
sky was overcast, and of a faint copper colour, clouded with greyish
veils of blowing sand. The desert was empty, or so I thought at first;
but as I turned my field-glasses north, south, east and west, I saw
something very far off which moved uncertainly towards us. Presently I
made out that this something was a camel, alone, and without pack or
rider: yet he must, it seemed, have broken loose from a caravan.
As he came nearer--perhaps sighting us from afar off and wishing for
our company--we saw that he was white, or a very pale grey. He was not
an ordinary pack-camel, but was of the aristocratic type, a _mehari_,
well bred, with graceful swaying movements and long slender legs. My
first year in the army I had spent in Egypt, where I'd picked up some
Arabic and Turkish, and had been enough impressed with the strangeness
of native life to remember many customs and superstitions. As the
white _mehari_ approached, a timid air of wildness mingling with its
longing for society, I realised that it had been a pampered beast, dear
to the heart of its vanished owner. Round its neck was an elaborate
collar of beads and shells, with dangling fetishes of all sorts: brass
and silver "Hands of Fatma," metal tubes for texts from the Koran,
horns of coral and lumps of amber.
It seemed to me that there was something strange about the beast. It
held its head in a singular way, shaking it from time to time, and my
camel man thought as I thought. "This animal has been looked on by the
Evil Eye," he said. "It brings misfortune where it goes. Perhaps it
has had a fit of madness, and how comes to us in a quiet interval, only
to deceive and then attack us. I have seen such things in the desert.
A camel goes mad, kills its master, and seeks other victims for the
demon that has entered into it. I will drive it off."
"No," I said, as the Arab would have threatened the camel with his
stick. "Keep out of the creature's way if you like. I'm going to see
if it will let me touch it."
Very cautiously, in order not to frighten the wild-looking beast, I
urged my own mount a few steps forward, and held out a handful of
dates. The camel eagerly fixed its eyes on the food and moved towards
me as if magnetised. It stretched its neck so that the queer,
purse-like nostrils and loose lips quivered above the dates: it
hesitated: in another instant it would have snatched a mouthful had I
not exclaimed aloud at a thing I saw.
Among the tubes and horns and Hands of Fatma hung a gold bangle with
the name "Maida" in emeralds, Madeline Odell's birthstone. I
recognised the ornament at a glance. She wore it always, even with the
uniform of the Grey Sisterhood. I knew she had ridden this camel and
that this was her call for help. She had hoped desperately that I
might follow, and feeble as was the chance that I should ever see the
bangle, she had snatched it because there was no other.
"Good God!" I cried sharply--and foolishly, for the camel took fright,
and went loping away into the cloud of sand. "Come along!" I yelled to
my man, and rode after it. "We must keep up with the beast. We must
see where it goes."
I explained no more. Doubtless the Arab thought me as mad as the white
camel, but I didn't care. The _mehari_ had come to me as a messenger
from Maida, and to lose sight of it would be, I felt, to lose her.
Fortunately, after the first sprint, the creature slackened speed, even
turning its long neck now and then to see if we followed. So we went
on, behind the shadowy form in the sand-cloud, until we came to the
high adobe wall of a desert inn, a borg which my camel-man knew well.
Outside the closed gate our quarry paused: as we drew closer it bounded
away, stopped and hovered as if watching to see whether the gate would
be opened to let us in. It was opened; and we were greeted by the
landlord, a dull-faced fellow, half Arab, half French, who looked as if
his favourite tipple were absinthe. In the act of letting us into the
big, bare courtyard he spied the white camel in the distance. "Oh,
it's you again, is it?" he muttered, and would have shut the gate
quickly as my camel leader and I with the three animals of our tiny
caravan entered.
"Is that white _mehari_ yours?" I inquired.
The landlord shook his head. "But no!" he protested. "It is mad. It
is a beast of evil omen."
"What did I tell the honoured gentleman?" said my man, delighted. But
I was obstinate. "Don't shut the beast out," I directed. "It doesn't
seem dangerous. I will pay you well to let it in, and for its food--or
any damage it may do."
The landlord shrugged his shoulders; and when we had passed into the
courtyard, he left the gate standing open. A moment later the white
camel walked in, and instead of joining my animals, or another which
was squatting on the ground to munch a pile of green alfalfa, it moved
with a queer air of purposeful certainty to a window of the inn. The
shutters of this window were closed, but the camel pressed its face
against them as if it were trying to peer in.
"Ah, that is what the brute always does!" exclaimed the landlord in his
_patois_ of Arabic and the worst _Marseillais_ French. "One would say
his master was there. But the room is empty."
"Tell me about this animal and what is the matter with it?" I said,
when I had got off my mount and it had been led away with the others by
my Arab.
"All I know I will tell willingly," replied the man. "This white camel
was one of a caravan that stopped here perhaps ten days ago. There was
no other _mehari_. The rest were of the ordinary sort. I noticed this
one and wondered, for such fine animals are rare among my clients. But
soon I saw it was not right in its head. It was not mad in the
dangerous way, which kills; but it was restless and strange. As we
say, it had been looked on by the Evil Eye. Perhaps the leader of the
caravan had got the brute cheap for that reason. Unless he wished some
misfortune to fall upon the person who rode the white camel."
"What sort of person rode it?" I asked.
The man shrugged his shoulders. "I cannot remember which one rode it,
coming here. There were several men and several ladies, the family of
the leader. They stopped here for the night--a night of simoom."
"One of the ladies may have ridden the _mehari_?" I suggested.
"May have: yes, monsieur."
"And did one of the ladies occupy that room with the closed shutters?"
I persisted.
"I do not know," said the landlord. "It was one of the rooms taken by
the party. We do not pry into the arrangements of a family when they
are clients for a night."
I divined from his manner, despite an assumed carelessness, that on the
night in question something had happened to set that night apart from
other nights: so I carried on my catechism. I learned that the
travelling company had consisted of two Egyptian women, one possibly a
maid, under the protection of an elderly, bearded man who was in
bearing and speech a gentleman though his costume was that of a
well-to-do Bedouin; a long cloak and hood such as Arab camel-leaders
wear. His face had hardly been visible. Food had been sent to his
room, also to the women, one of whom seemed to be weak and ill. They
were both veiled and cloaked. She who was ill had not spoken. She had
been helped into the house by her companion. There had been a scream,
and some commotion in the night caused no doubt by the illness of this
lady. The landlord had been out attending to a sick camel in the
_fondouk_, and returning he saw the shutters of a window thrown back.
The window itself was open, and this mad _mehari_ was staring in. Then
the window had been suddenly closed, in the camel's face. The creature
had seemed frightened, and had galloped wildly about the courtyard,
refusing to rest in the _fondouk_ with its fellows, even when food was
offered as an inducement. It had returned again and again to the same
window, as if determined to look through the shutters. Early in the
morning, the travellers had made ready to start. The sick lady had
been worse. The old gentleman and his servants, of whom there were
several, all negroes, had to make a kind of couch for her on the
_mehari's_ back, but the brute kept jumping up and refusing to be
touched. At last the old gentleman grew angry and struck the animal on
the head and face. It "went for" him furiously, and had to be caught
and chastised by the negroes. No further attempt was made to use it
after that. The leader of the caravan bought a good, steady pack-camel
from the landlord, and left the white aristocrat at the borg. At first
the proprietor thought that he was in luck to come into possession of
such a fine creature, but it soon proved worse than useless. It
refused food: it would not sit down. It was constantly at the window
into which it had previously stared, or else at the gate trying to
escape. After a day or two the Arabs employed about the _fondouk_ said
it was accursed, and asked the _patron_ to get rid of the brute, lest
misfortune fall upon the place. Accordingly the once valuable _mehari_
was driven out into the desert, disappearing in the distance. But
apparently it had not gone far. Since then it had returned several
times with caravans, entering the courtyard with them, and walking at
once to the window in which it was so strangely interested. "That is
why," explained the landlord, "I now keep the shutters closed. I fear
this accursed animal may break the glass before we have time to drive
it away. There is not much travel at this time of year, and we have
plenty of other rooms."
"All the same I should like to be put into that room to-night," I said.
"And as you tell me the white _mehari_ is not wicked, there can be no
danger in your letting it stay in the courtyard till morning. I'm
curious about the creature, and should like to see what it will do."
The man tried to persuade me that there was nothing in the seeming
mystery. He had rooms more comfortable than the one with the closed
shutters. That had not been properly cleaned since the last
occupation. As for the white camel, it would probably roar and make a
disturbance in the night. I silenced these objections, however, in the
one effectual and classic way: and I refused to wait for the room to be
swept and dusted. I wished to go in immediately, I said, and later the
bed could be got ready while I dined. Reluctantly the landlord gave
his consent to this arrangement, and himself escorted me to the room in
question, bringing my bag and a lighted lamp. I watched him as we
entered, and noticed that he glanced about anxiously as if he feared I
might see something which it would be better for me not to see. But,
either he found nothing conspicuously wrong, or else he decided that it
was a case of "kismet."
When he had gone, I didn't open the shutters at once. I wanted to have
a look round, unobserved. Indeed, I took the precaution of stuffing
paper into the keyholes of the two doors: one which opened into the
corridor; another which communicated with the next room.
I knew it would be useless to ask the fellow whether the room had been
occupied since the departure of the caravan which first brought the
white camel. He would lie if it suited him to lie: and if there were
anything to find out, I must find it out for myself. Never in my life,
however, had I felt so strong an impression as I felt now that Maida's
wish, Maida's prayers, had brought me to this place. I was certain
that she had at last suspected treachery in the woman she had
worshipped: that she had prayed I might follow and search for her: that
she had made friends with the white camel in order to add a souvenir of
herself to his neck-adornment: that she had some reason to hope he
might be left behind at this desert borg when she continued her
journey: that she had been in this room (where I seemed distinctly to
feel her presence) and that something had happened there which the
landlord either knew or suspected. Anyhow, the white camel knew, and I
said to myself that I would give all I had in the world if the animal's
half-crazyed intelligence could communicate its knowledge to me.
This borg, like most crude desert halting-places for men and beasts,
was a one storey building which enclosed a large courtyard on three
sides. The fourth side of the yard was composed of an ordinary wall
nearly as high as the roof of the house. One wing of the latter
contained a row of bedrooms for travellers, each room having a window
that looked on the court. The middle part, or main building, consisted
of dining-room and kitchens: the remaining wing was the dwelling-place
of the landlord's family, and at the end had a large open shed for
camels and horses. My room, therefore, was on the ground floor. It
was roughly paved with broken tiles, and had in front of the bed a
strip of torn Spanish matting with a pattern of flowers splashed on it
in black and red. There was very little furniture: a tin wash-hand
stand: a deal table: an iron bedstead: and two chairs; but what there
was had been left in a state of disorder since the flitting of the last
occupant. Both chairs had fallen: the table, which had evidently stood
in the middle of the room, was pushed askew, its cotton covering on the
floor, its legs twisted up in a torn woollen rug: and--significant sign
of a struggle--a curtain of pink mosquito netting had been wrenched
from its fastenings and hung, a limp rag, at the side of the window.
The wretched paraffin lamp served only to make darkness visible; but
taking it in my hand I walked round, examining everything: and my heart
missed a beat as I saw that, among the scarlet flowers on the matting,
were spots of brownish red--that tell-tale red which cannot be
mistaken. They were few and small, and therefore had passed unnoticed,
perhaps, by the landlord: yet to me they cried aloud. I tried to tell
myself that the stains might be old: that I had no reason to connect
them with danger for Maida: that as she had been brought so far,
doubtless there was a further destination to which it was intended to
take her. But as I finished my examination of the disordered room,
turned out the light, and threw open the shutters my soul was sick.
"What happened here?" I asked myself for the twentieth time; and as if
in answer to my question the white camel came glimmering towards me
through the dusk. It stopped at my window, and thrusting its neck
through the opening, stared into the room. The faint light gleamed in
its yellow eyes, and gave the illusion that they moved as if following
with emotion _something they saw_. The creature paid no attention to
me, though it could have seen me standing near the window. Even when I
spoke, coaxingly, it did not turn its head; and when I walked back and
forth, it remained indifferent. Its gaze concentrated on that part of
the room nearest the door leading to the corridor; and a shiver ran
through my nerves to see the white head float from right to left on its
long neck, as though eagerly watching a scene to me invisible. I felt
the impulse to chase the beast away, but I checked myself. I had a
queer conviction that what it could see I ought to see also: that if it
remained it might _make_ me see.
I turned up the wick of the lamp, and walked slowly towards the door,
glancing back to see what the camel would do. Its head was poked far
into the room. It looked like a queer white ghost, with glinting eyes.
For the first time they seemed to meet mine, and I felt that the animal
had become conscious of my presence in the picture its memory
constructed. Close to the door, in a crack between red tiles, I saw
something round and white which I took for a button; but picking it up,
it proved to be an American ten cent piece. Not far off lay an
Egyptian piastre, but it was the "dime" which thrilled me. The tiny
silver coin proved that an occupant of this room had lately come from
the United States. A little farther away I discovered broken bits of a
small bottle, with a torn label. Matching scraps of paper together I
made out part of a word which told its own sinister story. "Morph":
the missing syllable was not needed. And the label had the name--or
part of the name--of a New York druggist:
"C. Sarge----"
"Broadw----"
Already I began to visualise what the scene near the door might have
been. I went out hastily and questioned the landlord again as to the
destination of the white camel's caravan. I offered him so big a bribe
for information that, if he had known anything definite, he could
hardly have resisted the temptation to tell. But he had only vague
suggestions to make. Perhaps the party might have been bound for
Hathor Set, a small oasis-town with one or two country houses of rich
men on its outskirts. It was twenty miles distant, and he could think
of no other place within a day's march where persons of importance
lived. Farther away, however, there were oases where merchants and
officials owned houses which they occupied now and then, and where
their families sometimes stayed for months.
If it had been possible I would have travelled on that night, but to do
so would have been madness. I must wait till dawn: and though I did
not expect to sleep I went back to my room when I had eaten some vile
food, and arranged for the start at five o'clock.
"Weather permitting," added the landlord, with an ear for the moan of
the sickly south wind.
"Weather must permit," I answered.
My side of the house was somewhat sheltered from the blowing sand;
still, on such a night most desert dwellers would have shut their
windows. I kept my window open, however; and lying on the bed, the
lamp burning dimly, I faced it. The head of the white camel, on its
long, swaying neck, was always framed in the aperture. I had brought
from the dining-room a plateful of dates to tempt the animal, but it
refused to touch them; and the landlord had told me that, so far as he
knew, the _mehari_ had eaten no food for ten days, since it first
appeared at the borg. This accounted in a normal way for its thinness
and the wild look of its eyes; but according to the man and his
servants the "mysterious curse" upon the beast was destroying it. "A
camel accursed can live twice as long as others with nothing to eat,
and even with no water," the landlord had announced gravely, as if
stating a well-known fact. "Then, suddenly, when the evil spirit is
ready to leave its body, the creature will fall dead."
I was anxious that the _mehari_ should not fall dead until I had
finished making use of it: therefore I was glad to see it staring
bleakly through the window, hour after hour. I hoped that, in the
morning, it might lead me along the way its lost caravan had gone, and
whereever it went I intended to follow. It was making me superstitious.
Now and then I dozed for a few minutes, to wake with a start and look
for the watching face at the window, but at last I fell heavily asleep;
and I dreamed.
I dreamed of the camel: and it seemed as if I dreamed _into_ it. My
intense wish to see what it had seen, no doubt accounted for this
impression, but it could not account entirely for what followed. It
was as though the light of the lamp burned down, and blazed suddenly up
in the brain of the animal. I saw through its eyes, as by two
searchlights illuminating the sordid room.
Maida Odell was led in by a taller woman. Both wore Arab costumes,
with cloaks and veils, as if they had been travelling. Maida moved
languidly. She let her companion take off her wraps. Her face was
white, her eyes dazed. I knew, in the dream, that she had been
drugged, and I hated the woman who touched her. The girl walked
unsteadily to the window and threw it open, drawing in long breaths;
and then the white camel came. I felt that it had been waiting for
this moment: that it loved and was grateful to the girl for kindness,
as no camel save a _mehari_ ever can be. She took lumps of sugar from
her pocket and fed it. The animal accepted them daintily. The woman
ordered it away, closed the shutters, and drew the ragged mosquito
curtain across the window. Darkness fell between me and the two
figures. I saw no more; but after an interval of blankness I was
conscious that Maida, left alone in the room, had opened the shutters,
leaving only the mosquito-netting between her and the night. The
camel, which had refused to rest with its fellows in the _fondouk_,
came sliding towards the girl and let her caress it. Apparently they
were the best of friends. She slipped a bangle from her arm, and tied
it to the _mehari's_ collar. She patted the white head, and whispered
in the flat ear. The animal was in an ecstasy. At last Maida pushed
it away gently, and leaning out of the window searched the courtyard.
I had the impression, in my dream, that she thought of climbing out and
attempting to escape on the _mehari_ whose confidence she had gained
for that very purpose. But at this moment a tall, bent figure in a
hooded cloak walked slowly past, and turning his head, looked at Maida.
His face was so deeply shadowed by the hood that I could not see the
features. There was a glimpse of venerable whitish beard tucked into
the cloak; but I knew, in my dream, that the man was Rameses posing as
the leader of the caravan. I tried to speak, to call Maida's name, to
ask her how it was that she had trusted these people: but I was
powerless to make the girl feel my presence. "I must wait," I said to
myself. "Some day she will explain why she consented to sail for
Naples, and why she went on to Egypt."
"Some day!" the words echoed in my brain. Would the day come in this
world, or must I solve the greatest secret of all before I solved
Maida's?
The dream went on, but I saw nothing when the girl closed the shutters.
Soon, however, she flung them wide again; and though she had put out
the light, the moon was shining in. I could see her moving about. She
listened at the door, as if she heard something in the corridor. She
had fastened the bolt, but now she discovered that it was broken. The
door could be opened from the outside. She placed a chair against it,
with the back caught under the handle. Then she went and sat down
close to the window. The camel was there, and she spoke to it, as if
she were comforted by its nearness. For a time she was very still.
Her head drooped; but it was impossible to sleep for long in the high,
uncomfortable chair. Now and then the girl started awake, always
turning to glance at the door: but at last she fell into a deeper doze.
Slowly the door opened, almost without noise. Maida remained
motionless: but the watching _mehari_ uttered a snarl. The girl sprang
to her feet, not knowing what to do. A cloaked figure which had
slipped in attempted to hide behind the open door, but was too late.
Maida saw the gliding shadow, shrieked, and would have run into the
corridor, but the man in the Arab cloak caught her on the threshold,
and muffled her head in his mantle. She struggled in his grasp, and
almost escaped. Chairs were overturned: the rug under the table was
twisted round the man's feet: I thought that he would trip and fall,
but he saved himself. Holding Maida with one hand, with the other he
drew a bottle from some pocket, and pulled out the cork with his teeth.
The girl freed an arm, but before she could push the bottle away the
man emptied a quantity of the liquid over the cloth that covered her
face. A sickly scent of chloroform filled the air. Still she fought
bravely, her freed hand seized the bottle, and dashed it on the floor,
where it broke with a crash. At this instant a woman in Arab dress
came swiftly into the room. She was very tall, as tall as the man, and
I noticed a likeness between their figures, a remarkable breadth of
shoulder, something peculiar in their bearing. The woman's face was
unveiled, but in the darkness I could not make out its features.
She shut the door hastily. The two spoke to each other in a language I
could not understand. Maida struggled no more. The chloroform had
taken effect. In my dream I felt that the two did not wish her to die:
the time had not come. There was a climax towards which they were
working, had been working for a long time. Now it was close at hand.
The woman held a much smaller bottle than the one which lay broken.
She had also a glass with a little water, and a spoon. These she
placed on the wash-hand stand, and went swiftly to the window. Driving
away the camel with a threatening gesture, she closed the shutters. It
seemed as if they slammed in my face. I waked with a great start, and
found myself sitting up in bed, my face damp with sweat.