THE SIGN IN THE SKY
"There is a spice of the nomad in all of us," said Irene, pulling up
her hardy Somali pony and allowing him to graze on some prickly plant
from which a grass-fed animal would have turned in hungry disgust.
"Here am I, quite new to desert life, enjoying it to the full. Perhaps
my remote ancestors were gipsies. Do I look like a gipsy, Mr. Royson?"
"My acquaintance with gipsies is limited," said Dick. "Once, being free
from office troubles on Derby Day, I walked over Epsom Downs, and was
beseeched many times to have my fortune told. Most of the
prophetesses--they were all of your sex, Miss Fenshawe--were blessed
with exceedingly fine complexions and beautiful eyes. If these are
marked features of the gipsy tribe--"
"Don't you dare bring me out here in order to pay compliments."
"Indeed, I am but stating the bare truth to your face."
"If you persist, then, I shall be compelled to act the part of a gipsy
and tell your fortune, and I warn you that it will not be very cheerful
hearing."
Royson gazed beyond her towards a white mist which shrouded the eastern
horizon. Overhead, the delicious blue of early morning was yielding to
the noonday tint of molten copper.
"Even if we turn back to-day there are thirty marches between us and
the sea," he said with seeming irrelevance.
But those two were beginning to understand one another, and the girl
colored under the deep tan of sun and air.
"Whenever we are alone now you insist on talking nonsense," she said.
"I really believe the desert has made you light-headed. Please be
serious for a moment. I brought you here to--"
"I am glad you have corrected yourself. A moment ago you charged me
with bringing _you_ here."
"Well, then, we came here, if one must be so accurate, to be away from
the others. At least, I mean--Well, that is a stupid way of putting it,
but it will serve--"
"It has served most admirably," said Royson, glancing back at the long
drawn-out caravan crossing the shallow valley they had just quitted.
"There you go again," she cried, with just a touch of petulance in her
tone. "You know very well that I did not mean what I said."
"Not even when you promised to tell my fortune."
"I can explain myself that way if you like. Your fortune is singularly
like my own at the present moment. You are accompanying a crowd of
people who don't know where they are going, or what they mean to do
when they get there. I am quite sure the Baron is befogged, or, if that
is not a happy expression in this wonderful atmosphere, shall I say
lost? I don't speak Arabic, but I can read that man's face, and I
watched him this morning when he was consulting our so-called guide. In
plain English, Mr. Royson, we are drifting, in the vain hope that
somewhere out there we shall find five hills in a clump. I don't
object, in a sense. It is a very delightful picnic from one point of
view. But I hate uncertainty, and I loathe deceit, and here we are at
the mercy of both, while my grandfather is so taken up with the joy of
arranging everything, which von Kerber very cleverly leaves to him,
that he simply won't listen to me when I suggest the need of more
definite information. And just think of it! Five Hills! With a rocky
desert in front and five thousand hills to the left. What is to be the
end of it all? Are we to go wandering on till we march into Suez, or
Cairo?"
"Our sheikh is a marvel at finding oases," said Dick. "I wonder if
there is a string of them all the way between here and--"
"Mr. Royson," broke in Irene, "you are the only person to whom I can
confide my doubts and fears. They may be silly, but please don't adopt
that tone. It--hurts."
Royson, who had dismounted, slipped his Arab's bridle under an arm and
strode a pace nearer.
"Don't you see that we can do nothing at present?" he said earnestly.
"I am alive to the difficulties which may beset us in the near future;
but what would you have me do, Miss Fenshawe? If your grandfather were
not of the party, I know exactly what I would propose--at least, I
think I know."
"And that is?"
"That Stump and some of our men should escort you and Mrs. Haxton back
to Pajura, and let our Austrian friend ride his hobby to death. And
believe me, I am not consulting my own wishes in saying that."
"Don't you wish to return?"
"No. I love this arid land. I never see the supercilious curl of a
camel's lip or meet the bland contempt of his eye but I imagine him
saying, 'Ah, Feringhi, were it not for your white skin I might whisper
strange secrets into your ear, but you are an unbelieving dog, so
perforce I remain dumb.' Hence, Miss Fenshawe, inclination pulls one
way and common sense the other. As matters stand, I plead guilty to a
profound gladness that common sense has not swayed us to-day, and may
escape us to-morrow. Candidly, I am enjoying myself immensely."
"Then there is nothing more to be said," cried Irene, yielding somewhat
to his buoyancy. "Shall we go on, or wait here for the _kafila_ to
overtake us."
"Unless I am greatly mistaken," said Dick, looking at his watch, "we
shall find the usual oasis hidden in a depression about two miles
ahead. Our excellent sheikh, Abdur Kad'r, times the morning march to
end precisely at ten o'clock. It is now a quarter to nine. Our camels
march two and a half miles per hour, and we are three quarters of a
mile ahead. Therein, Miss Fenshawe, yea have a first-rate example of
deductive reasoning, so I propose that we advance steadily, and look
for a cluster of palms. If, happily, their shade is not taken up by
other wanderers, you will be out of the sun long before the caravan
arrives. What say you?"
"Some day I shall stamp my foot and say 'No'--shriek it at you, in
fact. I hate any one who is always right, and you seem to be utterly
different since we left the _Aphrodite_. I have never seen such a
change in a man. One would think you were born in the desert. And you
are learning Arabic ten times more quickly than I."
"I do not find favor in your eyes this morning, though it is good to
know that I have reformed, since, by your own showing, I must have been
always wrong aboard ship," said Dick, remounting.
"Oh, it is a perfect luxury to have some one to pitch into," cried the
girl, stirring the Somali with her heel.
"But won't you tell me what I have done that vexes you, Miss Fenshawe?"
"You are absurd. You pretend that you see nothing, whereas I am sure
you see more than I, but you refuse to speak."
Royson seemed to be singularly unaffected by this outburst. He caught
the angry flush on the girl's forehead, and, as was his way when the
stubborn fit seized him, threw his head back, with lips set. Irene
stole a look at him, and laughed constrainedly.
"Very well. If you won't talk I must," she said with a great air of
determination. "It is about Mrs. Haxton."
"A most interesting topic," said Royson.
"That is what my grandfather seems to think."
"He told me last night that he considers her a singularly well-informed
woman."
"For well-informed read artful," exclaimed the girl bitterly. "Have you
forgotten what I said to you in the canal? When we began our voyage
Mrs. Haxton and the Baron were as good as engaged. Now they have
reached some agreement which permits Mrs. Haxton to fly for higher
matrimonial game than a penniless adventurer."
"Do you really think that?"
Royson had grown suddenly serious. He half turned in the saddle so as
to seek the added inspiration of Irene's expression, but she kept her
eyes studiously averted, and the broad-brimmed pith hat she wore helped
to conceal her face. But she answered readily.
"I am quite certain of it. How else could I discuss it with you?"
"The view I take is that she merely wishes to give von Kerber every
chance. So long as Mr. Fenshawe remains interested--beguiled, if you
like--she switches his thoughts away from the object of our journey.
Your grandfather is a masterful man, Miss Fenshawe. If he suspected
that we were following a wild-goose chase he would turn south again
this very hour."
"Yet I am sure of my ground," she persisted.
Royson's horse started and shied. A small brown snake, coiled up in the
sunlight, and almost invisible amidst the stones, squirmed rapidly into
a crevice beneath a rock. Such incidents in the desert were too
frequent to demand comment. Dick patted the Arab's neck and soon
soothed him.
"Failing our discovery of this fabled treasure, I can appreciate Mrs.
Haxton's willingness to many a millionaire," he went on. "Yet there are
difficulties in the way. That viper reminds me of one. Would not von
Kerber object?"
"No," said Irene.
They jogged along in silence for some distance. The girl added nothing,
to her emphatic monosyllable. Dick felt a tugging at his heart-strings
which was becoming a dangerously frequent symptom.
"As you have favored me with your confidence thus far, won't you take
the next step, and tell me why you credit Baron von Kerber with such
complaisance?" he demanded.
"A woman should not always be asked for reasons, Mr. Royson," said she
lightly.
"In the graver events of life one wishes for them, nevertheless."
"Perhaps we are deviating from the chief issue," she countered. "If
only I could persuade grandad that he is being wilfully misled, things
might go as I wish. Can't you help, Mr. Royson?"
Then she turned her face to his, and the temptation that had gripped
him many a time of late came back with an intensity that was almost
unendurable. He did not flinch from her steadfast eyes. Though the path
of honor was steep and straight he must tread it to the end.
"If I tell your grandfather what little I know of these people I break
my word," he said harshly. "That is the only reply I can make, Miss
Fenshawe. May I add the ignoble argument that any such breach of faith
on my part would probably be useless? You ought to sympathize with me."
"Why?" she said coldly.
"Because it is not often that a man is tortured as I am by a conflict
between duty and--and desire."
"There is our palm grove," she cried, pointing to a few stunted trees
whose fronds showed above the rock-strewn bank of a small wady, or
ravine, which cut through the center of the shelving plateau they were
crossing. "The ground is fairly clear here. Shall we try a canter?"
Without waiting for a reply she pressed her pony into a steady gallop.
Royson responded to her wayward mood, and followed her lead. Though the
sun was so hot that their hands would have blistered if unprotected by
gloves, the clean, dry air-current created by the rapid motion was
exhilarating in the extreme. They were riding through a lost continent,
yet its savage ruin was sublimely beautiful. The comparatively level
spot that allowed the luxury of a gallop was made up of sand and
stones, with here and there a black rock thrusting its bold contour
above the shingle. A curiously habitable aspect was given to the desert
by numbers of irregular alluvial mounds which, on examination, were
found to consist of caked soil held together by the roots of trees. So,
at one time, this arid plain had borne a forest. To the mind's eye,
here lay the dead earth's burial-place.
Ages ago a torrent had fertilized the surrounding tract, and its
dried-up bed was marked by water-smoothed boulders. Here and there,
small groups of dwarf bushes, covered with dagger-like thorns, drew
sustenance from secret rills of moisture. The camel path they followed
had the distinctness of daily use, though no recognized _kafila_ had
passed that way during the previous year, new trade routes to the
interior having drawn the caravans in other directions. Soon it turned
up the side of the ravine. The _sayall_ bushes began to grow more
densely, and the wady spread to a great width. Beyond a patch of
pebbles lay a brown carpet of tough grass. In the center stood seven
date-trees and a considerable number of stunted bushes, these latter
differing from the _sayall_ only in the size of their thorns, which
were fully two inches long and seemingly untouchable. Yet, next to
water, the thorn-crop constituted the chief wealth of the oasis,
because camels would munch the tough spines with great relish.
The camping-place appeared to be untenanted. Royson found the
footprints of gazelles wherever the sand had collected in a hollow, but
the animals must have scampered away unseen towards the barren hills
near at hand. Through an occasional gap there were glimpses of the
mighty ramparts of Abyssinia. It was hard to realize that the dainty
gazelle could find food in this desolate land. Yet, with the inborn
instinct of the hunter and scout, Royson unslung his carbine and held
it across the saddle-bow as he urged his horse slightly in front of the
short-striding Somali. When he drew rein he rose in the stirrups to
peer through the barrier of thorns.
"First come, first served," he cried joyously. "We have the forage to
ourselves, Miss Fenshawe. I shall be sorry for any others who come this
way after our host has passed. Look at it now. It is an absolute army.
We shall strip this poor little garden of the desert as locusts are
said to eat up a cornfield."
Irene slipped from the saddle, loosened the girths, and then glanced at
the distant caravan, which had just become visible again on the
sky-line of the plateau. It was more than likely that no such mixed
gathering of men and animals had taken that road since the destruction
of forests converted the country into a wilderness. The party from the
yacht numbered eighteen; there were fifty Bedawi Arabs in attendance on
a hundred camels; eight horses, Arabs or Somali ponies, each required a
syce, while the sheikh who had brought the caravan from Pajura was
overlord of a score of hangers-on who figured in his list as servants.
A thin haze of dust rose as this regiment advanced. In that wonderful
light its progress might be marked twenty miles away by keen eyes. The
girl watched it silently for a time, while Royson, knowing the manner
in which the camp would be formed, picketed the two horses so as not to
interfere with the general arrangements.
Then he lit a cigarette and rejoined Irene.
"How far distant is the head of the caravan now?" she asked.
"Nearly two miles. It looks more like two furlongs," said he, divining
her thought, for it was easy to discern Mrs. Haxton, wrapped in a gray
dust-cloak, on a splendid riding camel in advance of the main body;
beside her, on Arab horses, were Mr. Fenshawe and von Kerber, the
latter having just ridden up from the rear.
"Does one's sight become better, then, by residence in this strange
land?" murmured the girl.
Royson deliberately ignored the less obvious significance of the words.
"I think so," he said. "When all is said and done, desert and sea are
akin, and most certainly a sea voyage benefits the eyes. Yet, now that
you mention it, the atmosphere is remarkably clear to-day."
"Are you weather-wise, Mr. Royson? Is not that a sign of storm?"
"I sought instruction from Sheikh Abdur Kad'r on that very point only
this morning. He says that the Kamsin does not blow at this season, and
there is every reason to believe that it has not rained in this
locality during the past three hundred years."
"Dear me! Three--hun-dred--years!"
"Yes. Sorry, but I can't make it any less."
"Then you may give Sheikh Abdur Kad'r my compliments and tell him I
predict either a thunderstorm or some unusual disturbance before night.
Mrs. Haxton has a very effective smile, I admit, but it requires
exceptional charm to make a smile distinctly visible at--how far did
you say?--two miles?"
The lady in question was certainly bending towards Mr. Fenshawe, and
the smile was a reasonable conjecture. But they had tacitly agreed to
forget their earlier conversation. They chatted freely now with the
friendly ease that was their wont ever since the exigencies of camp
life had thrown them together far more than was possible on board ship.
Five weeks ago the _Aphrodite_ dropped anchor off Pajura after crossing
from Aden, where Mr. Fenshawe had despatched his cablegrams and
obtained a portion of the equipment needed for the desert tour. The
arrival of such a large party occasioned no little excitement at the
French port. That tiny station had not seen so many white faces at one
time since its establishment, and, when its polite Commandant recovered
from his voluble surprise, he warned Mr. Fenshawe that the interior was
somewhat unsafe. But stories of Arab unrest were familiar to the
veteran. He had heard them regularly during the preceding thirty years,
and he was more than ever bent on outwitting the jealous rivals who had
placed such obstacles in his path.
The French officers at Pajura thought he was rather cracked to take
ladies with him, yet they were obliged to admit that desert travel was
healthy and enjoyable, provided supplies were ample, and, on this
score, the skilled explorer of Soudan by-ways showed that he had lost
none of his cunning. Before the caravan started news came from Aden
that the _Cigno_ had been dragged off her sandspit. This gave an added
value to the land route, as the coast of Erythrea was assuredly closed
to them; the French authorities, on the other hand, rendered every
assistance in their power.
And now, after a month of steady marching, the caravan was well within
Italian territory. The route lay parallel with the sea, but nearly a
hundred miles distant from it. It traversed the interminable wadys and
shelving table-lands leading down to the coast from the granite and
pink Nubian stone foothills of the inner range of giants which guarded
the fertile valleys of Abyssinia. Thus far, no unexpected difficulties
had cropped up. The few nomads encountered were only too anxious to be
friendly. The weather, scorching by day and intensely cold by night,
was quite bearable. Indeed, to any one in good health, it supplied a
marvelous tonic. Travelers less admirably equipped might have suffered
annoyance from the snakes and scorpions which seem to thrive in the
midst of sunburnt desolation, but these _voyageurs de luxe_ slept in
hammocks slung in roomy tents, and assiduous servants dislodged every
stone before they spread the felt carpets on which the heaven-born
deigned to sit at meals.
Yet--as Irene had guessed correctly--this magnificent progress through
the desert contained a canker that threatened its destruction. Either
von Kerber's calculations were at fault, or the papyrus was a madman's
screed. The caravan was already two marches beyond the point agreed on
by every authority consulted as that fixed by the Greek who survived
the massacre of the Roman legion. The unhappy Austrian could no more
identify the Five Hills mentioned in the papyrus as the essential clue
to the whereabouts of the treasure than a man in an unknown forest can
distinguish a special group of five trees. That is to say, he may
blunder on them by chance, but he cannot find them by using his
judgment. As Irene put it, here were not five, but five thousand hills.
The mortal puzzle before von Kerber was to pick his five.
When the caravan arrived at the halting-place the tense solitude gave
way to pandemonium. Camels grunted and squealed in eager plaint to be
relieved of their loads, horses neighed and fought for the best tufts
of grass, men raged at each other as though the work of preparing the
camp were something new and wholly unexpected.
Through the turmoil strode Abdur Kad'r, a lean, saturnine Arab, who
anathematized all his assistants indiscriminately, only varying his
epithets according to the nationality of the man under the lash of his
tongue at the moment.
"Bestir yourself, illegitimate one. Are we to await the setting sun ere
the tents are fixed?" he shouted at a negro who was bothered by a
knotted rope. A crash behind him told that a too-zealous Arab had
tumbled a box to the ground.
"Oh, you owl, what evil have you done?" roared the Sheikh, transfixing
the culprit with a glittering eye.
"Lo, I loosened a strap, honored one, and the accursed thing fell," was
the explanation.
"It fell, eh? So shall my whip fall, Sidi Hassan, if thou art not more
painstaking." He rushed towards a group of Somali syces.
"Pigs, and children of pigs," he cried, "for what does the Effendi pay
ye? Is there not occupation, ye black dogs? May your fathers' graves be
defiled by curs!"
Stump, whose rubicund visage was burnt brick-red by the desert, took a
keen interest in Abdur Kad'r's daily outpourings. He had no Arabic, but
he appreciated the speaker's fluency.
"He'd make a bully good bo's'n," was his favorite comment, and he would
add sorrowfully, "I wish I knew wot he was sayin'. It 'ud do me a
treat."
In an astonishingly short space of time the camp would be in form,
fires lit with parched shrubs gathered during the last stage of the
journey, a meal cooked, and every one settled down to rest until
sunset, when, if there was no evening march, the Arabs and negroes
would sing, and perhaps indulge in amazingly realistic sword-play,
while the dozen sailors brought from the yacht would watch the
combatants or engage in a sing-song on their own account.
The present encampment offered no exception to the general rule. Abdur
Kad'r, it is true, may have raged a little more extensively than usual
when it was discovered that the well had caved in from sheer disuse,
and several hours' labor would be necessary before some brackish water
could be obtained. He did not trouble the Effendi with this detail,
however. There was another more pressing matter to be dealt with, but,
Allah be praised, that might wait till a less occupied hour, for the
Frank was in no hurry, and he paid like a Kaliph.
About four o'clock Irene was sitting in her tent making some belated
jottings in a diary. Being thirsty, she called a servant, and told him
to bring a bottle of soda-water. A few minutes later she heard a
stumble, a crash, and a loud exclamation in Arabic. The man had fallen
over one of the heavy stones to which the guy-ropes were fastened.
She looked up smilingly, and wondered whether he would understand her
if she said in French that she hoped he had not injured himself. The
glass was broken, but the bottle was intact, for the native had caught
it as he fell.
"Ça ne fait rien," she cried encouragingly. Then she found that the
Somali had risen to his knees, and was gazing skyward with every token
of abject terror. At the same instant a strange commotion broke out in
the camp. Through the open side of the tent she saw Europeans and
natives all looking in the one direction--northwards. The Britons and
Arabs had an air of profound astonishment. They pointed and
gesticulated, but otherwise showed self-control. But the negroes were
in a panic. For the most part they were kneeling. A few prostrated
themselves at full length, and howled dolorously.
The girl was alone, and she naturally felt alarmed. Royson was not far
away, and he, like the rest, was held spellbound by some spectacle the
nature of which she could not guess. Perhaps his thoughts were not far
removed from Irene, because he turned and looked at her.
"Come quickly, Miss Fenshawe," he shouted. "Here is the most wonderful
mirage!"
Was that it--a mirage? Why, then, this hubbub? She had grown so
accustomed to the grim humor of the desert in depicting clear streams
of running water, smooth, tree-bordered lakes, and other delightful
objects of which the arid land dreamed in its sleep of death, that the
excitement caused in the camp was wholly inexplicable.
"What are you doing there?" she cried sharply to the frightened
servant. "Go and get another glass, and take care you do not fall next
time."
If he heard he paid no heed. He continued to stare at the sky with
wide-open eyes.
Conscious of a fresh thrill of fear, she ran towards Royson.
"What in the world--"
Then she saw, and was stricken dumb with the sight, for she was looking
at a spectacle which the desert seldom provides even to those who pass
their lives within its bounds. A thin haze had taken the place of the
remarkable clearness of the morning hours. Away to the north it had
deepened almost into a fog, a low-lying and luminous mist like the
white pall which often shrouds the sea on a calm bright day in summer.
The sky was losing its burnished copper hue and becoming blue again,
and, on the false horizon supplied by the crest of the fog-bank, stood
a brilliantly vivid panorama.
There were military tents, lines of picketed camels and horses, a great
number of Arabs and blacks, and some fifty Italian soldiers, all
magnified to gigantic proportions, but so clearly defined that the
trappings of the animals, the military uniforms, and the gay-colored
burnous of the Arabs were readily distinguishable.
It could be seen, too, that they were working. Mounds of rock and earth
showed that considerable excavations had been made. While those
gathered round the well were yet gazing at this bewildering and
lifelike picture, the moving ghosts in the sky underwent a change which
enhanced their realism. One squad of soldiers and natives marched off
towards the tents while another took their places. Were it not for the
grotesque size of men and animals and the eerie silence of their
movements it was hard to believe that the eyes were not witnessing
actualities. The thing was fantastic, awe-inspiring, stupendous in
design, but faultlessly true in color and treatment. No artist could
ever hope for such a canvas. Its texture was vapor, its background the
empyrean, and nature's own palette supplied the colors.
And this cloud scene was pitiless in its moral. Two of the onlookers,
Mrs. Haxton and von Kerber, knew exactly what it meant, while others
read its message correctly enough. The expedition was forestalled. The
long voyage and longer march, the vast expenditure, the hardships
inseparable from the journey through the desert, the hopes, the fears,
all the planning and contriving, went for nothing, since Alfieri the
dreamer, Alfieri the fool, had apparently succeeded in locating the
treasure of Sheba.