Full of this new purpose and of the vague hope inspired by it, I was
making my way back to the house of the Consul, when I came upon two
postal couriers newly arrived from Tangier on their way to Fez. They
were drawn up, amid a throng of the townspeople, before the palace of
the Grand Shereef, and with the Moorish passion for "powder-play" they
were firing their matchlocks into the air as salute and signal. Sight of
the mail-bags slung at their sides, and of the Shereef's satchel, which
they had come some miles out of their course to deliver, suggested the
thought that they might be carrying letters for me, which could never
come to my hands unless they were given to me now. The couriers spoke
some little English. I explained my case to them, and begged them to
open their bags and see if anything had been sent forward in my name
from Tangier to Fez. True to the phlegmatic character of the Moor in all
affairs of common life, they protested that they dare not do so; the
bags were tied and sealed, and none dare open them. If there were
letters of mine inside they must go on to Fez, and then return to
Tangier. But with the usual results I had recourse to my old expedient;
a bribe broke the seals, the bags were searched and two letters were
found for me.
The letters, like those that came to Fez, were one from my wife and one
from Wenman. I could not wait till I was alone, but broke open the
envelopes and read my letters where I stood. A little crowd of Moors had
gathered about me--men, youths, boys, and children--the ragged
inhabitants of the streets of the holy city. They seemed to be chaffing
and laughing at my expense, but I paid no heed to them.
Just as before, so now, and for the same reason I read Wenman's letter
first. I remember every word of it, for every word seemed to burn into
my brain like flame.
"My dear fellow," wrote Wenman, "I think it my duty to tell you that
your little son is seriously ill."
I knew it--I knew it; who knew it so well as I, though I was more than a
thousand miles away?
"It is a strange fact that he is down with the very disease of the
throat which you have for so long a time made your especial study. Such,
at least, is our diagnosis, assisted by your own discoveries. The case
has now reached that stage where we must contemplate the possibility of
the operation which you have performed with such amazing results. Our
only uneasiness arises from the circumstance that this operation has
hitherto been done by no one except yourself. We have, however, your
explanations and your diagrams, and on these we must rely. And, even if
you were here, his is not a case in which your own hand should be
engaged. Therefore, rest assured, my dear fellow," etc., etc.
Blockheads! If they had not done it already they must not do it at all.
I would telegraph from Tangier that I was coming. Not a case for my
hand! Fools, fools! It was a case for my hand only.
I did not stop to read the friendly part of Wenman's letter, the good
soul's expression of sympathy and solicitude, but in the fever of my
impatience, sweating at every pore and breaking into loud exclamations,
I tore open the letter from my wife. My eyes swam over the sheet, and I
missed much at that first reading, but the essential part of the message
stood out before me as if written in red:
"We ... so delighted ... your letters.... Glad you are having warm,
beautiful weather.... Trust ... make you strong and well.... We are
having blizzards here ... snowing to-day.... I am sorry to tell you,
dearest, that our darling is very ill. It is his throat again. This is
Friday, and he has grown worse every day since I wrote on Monday. When
he can speak he is always calling for you. He thinks if you were here he
would soon be well. He is very weak, for he can take no nourishment, and
he has grown so thin, poor little fellow. But he looks very lovely, and
every night he says in his prayers, 'God bless papa, and bring him
safely home'...."
I could bear no more, the page in my hands was blotted out, and for the
first time since I became a man I broke into a flood of tears.
O Omnipotent Lord of Heaven and earth, to think that this child is as
life of my life and soul of my soul, that he is dying, that I alone of
all men living can save him, and that we are twelve hundred miles apart!
Wipe them out, O Lord--wipe out this accursed space dividing us;
annihilate it. Thou canst do all, thou canst remove mountains, and this
is but a little thing to Thee. Give me my darling under my hands, and I
will snatch him out of the arms of death itself.
Did I utter such words aloud out of the great tempest of my trouble? I
can not say; I do not know. Only when I had lifted my eyes from my
wife's letter did I become conscious of where I was and what was going
on around me. I was still in the midst of the crowd of idlers, and they
were grinning, and laughing, and jeering, and mocking at the sight of
tears--weak, womanish, stupid tears--on the face of a strong man.
I was ashamed, but I was yet more angry, and to escape from the danger
of an outbreak of my wrath I turned quickly aside, and walked rapidly
down a narrow alley.
As I did so a second paper dropped to the ground from the sheet of my
wife's letter. Before I had picked it up I saw what it was. It was a
message from my boy himself, in the handwriting of his nurse.
"He is brighter to-night," the good creature herself wrote at the top of
the page, "and he would insist on dictating this letter."
"My dear, dear papa--"
When I had read thus far I was conscious again that the yelling,
barking, bleating mob behind were looking after me. To avoid the torment
of their gaze I hurried on, passed down a second alley, and then turned
into a narrow opening which seemed to be the mouth of a third. But I
paid small heed to my footsteps, for all my mind was with the paper
which I wished to read.
Finding myself in a quiet place at length, I read it. The words were my
little darling's own, and I could hear his voice as if he were speaking
them:
* * * * *
"My dear, dear papa, I am ill with my throat, and sometimes I can't
speak. Last night the ceiling was falling down on me, and the fire was
coming up to the bed. But I'm werry nearly all right now. We are going
to have a Thanksgiving party soon--me, and Jumbo, and Scotty, the puppy.
When are you coming home? Do you live in a tent in Morocco? I have a
fire in my bedroom: do you? Write and send me some foreign stamps from
Tangier. Are the little boys black in Morocco? Nurse showed me a picture
of a lady who lives there, and she's all black except her lips, and her
mouth stands out. Have you got a black servant? Have you got a horse to
ride on? Is he black? I am tired now. Good-night. Mama says I must not
tell you to come home quick. Jumbo's all right. He grunts when you shove
him along. So good-night, papa. x x x x. These kisses are all for you. I
am so thin.
"From your little boy,
"NOEL."
* * * * *
Come home! Yes, my darling, I will come home. Nothing shall stop me
now--nothing, nothing! The sun is almost set. Everything is ready. The
men must be saddling the horses again. In less than half an hour I shall
have started afresh. I will ride all night to-night and all day
to-morrow, and in a week I shall be standing by your side. A week! How
long! how long! Lord of life and death, keep my boy alive until then!
I became conscious that I was speaking hot words such as these aloud.
Even agony like mine has its lucidities of that kind. At the same moment
I heard footsteps somewhere behind me. They were slow and steady
footsteps, but I knew them too well. The blood rushed to my head and
back to my heart. I looked up and around. Where was I? Where? Where?
I was in a little court, surrounded by low, white-washed walls. Before
me there was an inner compartment roofed by a rude dome. From the apex
of this dome there floated a tiny white flag. I was in a saint's house.
In the confusion of my mind, and the agonizing disarray of all my
senses, I had stumbled into the sacred place unawares.
The footsteps came nearer. They seemed to be sounding on the back of my
neck. I struggled forward a few paces. By a last mechanical resource of
despair I tried to conceal myself in the inner chamber. I was too late.
A face appeared in the opening at which I had entered. It was Larby's
face, contracted into a grimacing expression.
I read the thought of the man's face as by a flash of light. "Good,
Sidi, good! You have done my work as well as my master's. You are a dead
man; no one will know, and I need never to lift my hand to you."
At the next instant the face was gone. In the moment following I lived a
lifetime. My brain did not think; it lightened. I remembered the death
of the American in the streets of Fez. I recalled the jeering crowd at
the top of the alley. I reflected that Larby was gone to tell the mob
that I had dishonored one of their sanctuaries. I saw myself dragged
out, trampled under foot, torn to pieces, and then smuggled away in the
dusk on a donkey's back under panniers of filth. My horses ready, my men
waiting, my boy dying for want of me, and myself dead in a dunghill.
"Great Jehovah, lend me Thy strength!" I cried, as I rushed out into the
alley. Larby was stealing away with rapid steps. I overtook him; I laid
hold of him by the hood of his jellab. He turned upon me. All my soul
was roused to uncontrollable fury. I took the man in both my arms, I
threw him off his feet, I lifted him by one mighty effort high above my
shoulders and flung him to the ground.
He began to cry out, and I sprang upon him again and laid hold of his
throat. I knew where to grip, and not a sound could he utter. We were
still in the alley, and I put my left hand into the neck of his kaftan
and dragged him back into the saint's house. He drew his dagger and
lunged at me. I parried the thrust with my foot and broke his arm with
my heel. Then there was a moment of horrible bedazzlement. Red flames
flashed before me. My head grew dizzy. The whole universe seemed to reel
beneath my feet. The man was doubled backward across my knee. I had
drawn my knife--I knew where to strike--and "For my boy, my boy!" I
cried in my heart.
It was done. The man died without a groan. His body collapsed in my
hands, rolled from my knee, and fell at my feet--doubled up, the head
under the neck, the broken arm under the trunk in a heap, a heap.
_Oh! oh! Larby! Larby!_
Then came an awful revulsion of feeling. For a moment I stood looking
down, overwhelmed with the horror of my act. In a sort of drunken stupor
I gazed at the wide-open eyes, and the grimacing face fixed in its
hideousness by the convulsion of death. O God! O God! what had I done!
what had I done!
But I did not cry out. In that awful moment an instinct of
self-preservation saved me. The fatal weapon dropped from my hand, and I
crept out of the place. My great strength was all gone now. I staggered
along, and at every step my limbs grew more numb and stiff.
But in the alley I looked around. I knew no way back to my people except
that way by which I came. Down the other alley and through the crowd of
idlers I must go. Would they be there still? If so, would they see in my
face what I had done?
I was no criminal to mask my crime. In a dull, stupid, drowsy, comatose
state I tottered down the alley and through the crowd. They saw me; they
recognized me; I knew that they were jeering at me, but I knew no more.
"Skairi!" shouted one, and "Shairi!" shouted another, and as I staggered
away they all shouted "Skairi!" together.
Father, they called me a drunkard. I was a drunkard indeed, but I was
drunk with blood.
The sun had set by this time. Its last rays were rising off the gilded
top of the highest minaret in a golden mist that looked like flame
leaping out of a kiln. I saw that, as I saw everything, through a
palpitating haze.
When at length I reached the place where I had left my people I found
the horses saddled, the mules with their burdens packed on their
panniers, the men waiting, and everything ready. Full well I knew that I
ought to leap to my seat instantly and be gone without delay; but I
seemed to have lost all power of prompt action. I was thinking of what I
wanted to do, but I could not do it. The men spoke to me, and I know
that I looked vacantly into their faces and did not answer. One said to
another, "Sidi is growing deaf."
The other touched his forehead and grinned.
I was fumbling with the stirrup of my saddle when the English Consul
came up and hailed me with cheerful spirits. By an effort that was like
a spasm I replied.
"Allow me, doctor," he said, and he offered his knee that I might mount.
"Ah, no, no," I stammered, and I scrambled to my seat.
While I was fumbling with my double rein I saw that he was looking at my
hand.
"You've cut your fingers, doctor," he said.
There was blood on them. The blood was not mine, but a sort of
mechanical cunning came to my relief. I took out my handkerchief and
made a pretense to bind it about my hand.
Alee, the guide, was at my right side settling my lumbering foot in my
stirrup. I felt him touch the sheath of my knife, and then I remembered
that it must be empty.
"Sidi has lost his dagger," he said. "Look!"
The Consul, who had been on my left, wheeled round by the horse's head,
glanced at the useless sheath that was stuck in the belt of my jacket,
and then looked back into my stupid face.
"Sidi is ill," he said quietly; "ride quickly, my men, lose no time, get
him out of the country without delay!"