"I've shocked you, haven't I, nay dear? Women in the West don't do
these things, do they? No, they are civilised, and when they have been
wronged by men they take them into the courts and make them pay. Faugh!
There can be no red blood in women's veins in your countries."
The Princess rummaged in her bag for her powder puff, used it
vigorously, put away her smelling bottle, and then rose to go, saying--
"I don't mean you, my sweet. Your mother was Jewish, wasn't she?--and
it was a Jewish woman who destroyed the captain of the Assyrians and
smote off his head with his own falchion. Women can't fight their
battles with swords, though. But," laughing and patting Helena's hand
again, "what has Allah given them such big black eyes for? Adieu, my
dear! Adieu!"
Helena stood in the middle of the floor where the Princess had left her
and slowly looked around. For a long time she remained there thinking.
Was woman so utterly helpless as she had supposed? And when she was
deeply wronged, when her dear ones were torn from her, when she was a
victim of cruel violence and heartless hypocrisy, and the law failed
her, and the State--having its own ends to serve--tried to shuffle her
off, was she not justified in using against her enemy the only weapons
which God had given her?
At that she grew hot and then cold, and then a sense oL shame came over
her and she covered her face with her hands. "What am I thinking of?"
she asked herself, and the floor seemed to slide from under her feet.
The thought which the Princess had put into her mind was treason to her
love for Gordon. That love was a sacred thing to her, and it would
always remain so, even though she might never see Gordon again. Love
itself was sacred, and she who gave it away for any gain of vengeance or
revenge was a bad woman.
Helena sat down with her elbows on the desk and her chin resting on her
hands and stared out of the window. After a while a kind of relief came
to her. She began to recall some of the Princess's parting words. "She
will do more for Egypt than all the Nunehams and Sirdars put together."
That seemed to justify the thought that had taken possession of her. She
began to feel herself the champion of justice, and to find the good
conscience for which she sought.
This man Ishmael, who had killed her father, and by hypocritical
pretences had deceived Gordon and caused him to be carried away from
her, was an impostor who would turn England out of Egypt by playing on
the fanaticism of an ignorant populace. He was another Mahdi, who, with
words of peace in his mouth, would devastate the country and sow the
very sands of its deserts with blood. When law failed to defeat an
enemy like that, and the machinery of civilised government proved to be
impotent against him, were there any means, any arts, which it was not
proper to use?
Love? It was quite unnecessary to think about that. This man pretended
to be an emancipator of the Eastern woman. Therefore a woman might go
to him and offer to help him, and while helping him she might possess
herself of all his secrets. "Follow the holy man no farther than his
threshold," said the Arabs. She would do it nevertheless, and in doing
it she would be serving England and Egypt, and even the world.
Thus she fought with herself in a fierce effort to hold on to her good
conscience. But staring out of the window she felt as if something from
the river were stretching out its evil hands to her. The red streak in
the rising Nile was now wider than before, and it looked more than ever
like blood.
Ishmael Ameer would not know her. During the single moment in which she
had stood in the same room with him he had never so much as looked in
her direction. The Sirdar and the British officers of the Soudan had not
yet seen her. If there were any danger of their asking questions the
Consul-General could set them at rest. "I can do it," she thought. "I
can, and I will."
The black boy, who had been creeping in and out of her room, looking
more and more miserable as he found her always in the same position, now
approached her and said, pointing to the labels under her elbows--
"Mosie tie them on to boxes, lady?"
She looked round at him, and the utter slavishness in his little soul
touched her pity. It also stirred her caution, for she told herself
that she might need the boy's help, and that he would die for her if
need be.
"Mosie," she said, "would you like to go away with me?"
Mosie, in his delirious joy, could hardly believe his ears.
"Lady take Mosie to England with her?"
"No, to your own country--to the Soudan."
Mosie first leapt off the floor as if he wanted to fly up to the ceiling
and then began to make himself big, saying Mosie was a good boy, lie was
lady's own boy from one hand to the other, and what would have become of
lady if she had gone away without him?
"Then bring up two cabs immediately, one for the luggage and the other
for ourselves, and don't say a word to anybody," said Helena, who had
risen to consult a railway time-table and was now tearing up her labels.
Hugging himself with delight, the black boy shot away instantly. Helena
heard his joyous laughter as it rippled like a river along the garden
path, and then she sat down at the desk to write to the Consul-General.
*CHAPTER XIII*
Gordon, in the meantime, living on the heights of his new resolve, had
been waiting impatiently for the opportunity of departure. No prisoner
looking forward to the hour of his escape ever suffered more from the
slow passage of time. He lost all appetite for food, sleep deserted
him, and as the week went on he was in an ever-increasing fever of
excitement. On the Tuesday he received through Michael a letter from
Hafiz saying--
"We must be careful. I'll tell you why. I was right about the
trackers. That beast Macdonald, having sworn that he would find you if
you were above ground, and being sure that you were still in Cairo and
that the people were concealing you, employed the services of a couple
of serpents from the Soudan. These human reptiles, with green eyes like
the eyes of boa-constrictors, had no difficulty in tracing your
footsteps to a side street in the neighbourhood of El Azhar, but there
your footsteps failed them as absolutely as if you had sunk into the
earth.
"Perplexed and baffled, they were on the point of giving up the search
when in the soft mud of the disgusting thoroughfare they found the marks
of horses' hoofs and of the hoops of wheels, and from these they
concluded that you had been carried off in a conveyance of some sort.
But track of the carriage was lost the moment they reached the paved way
which passes through the Mousky, and now they are again bewildered.
"In this extremity, however, they have thought of another device for
your discovery which is--what do you think? To watch _me_! Under the
impression that I know where you are, they are dogging my footsteps
every moment I am off duty. No matter! I'll beat the beasts! As a
bloodhound is nothing but a nose, so a tracker is nothing but an eye,
and he has hardly as much brain as would stuff a mushroom. Therefore
wait! Trust yourself to Hafiz! Why not? You cannot depend on a better
man."
Next day, Wednesday, the doctor, with his bright face and cheery voice,
came again to dress the wounded finger.
"Wonderful!" he cried. "Almost healed already! That's what youth and
decent living do for a man."
"I have no money at present, Doctor," said Gordon, "but I expect to
receive some very soon, and before I go your fee will be paid."
"Of course it will--when I ask for it. But 'go'? Not yet, I think."
The streets were like a sackful of eyes, and every eye seemed to be
looking for Gordon--either to attack or to protect him.
"But wait! Things don't seem to be going too smoothly for the
Government."
Cables at the clubs made it clear that England was not very pleased with
the turn events had taken in Cairo. There had been questions in
Parliament, and the Foreign Minister was at his wits' end to defend the
Consul-General. Mention of Gordon himself too, and some of the Liberal
Opposition up in arms for him.
"So wait, I say! Who knows? You may walk out without danger
by-and-by."
Thursday passed heavily with Gordon, who was alone all day long save for
the visits of old Michael when bringing the food which went away
untouched, but towards midnight Hafiz arrived with his eyes full of
mischief and his fat cheeks wreathed in smiles.
"Look!" he said, "that's the way to beat the brutes," and holding up one
foot he pointed to a native yellow slipper which he wore over his
military boots. He had made a circuit of six miles to get there,
though--it was like taking a country walk in order to cross the street.
"But no matter! Trust yourself to Hafiz."
He carried a small bundle under his arm, and throwing it on a chair he
said--
"Your Bedouin clothes, my boy--you'll find them all right, I think."
Gordon caught the flame of his eagerness, and was asking a dozen
questions at once when Hafiz said--
"A moment, old chap! Let us speak of everything in its place. First,"
taking a roll of bank notes out of his pocket, "here's your money--short
of what I've spent for you. Tommy got it. Couldn't get anything else,
though."
Thinking civilian clothes might be useful, Hafiz had told Gordon's
soldier servant to smuggle a suit out also, but it had been found
impossible to do so.
"That comes of taking up your quarters in a barracks instead of at the
Club or at a private house, as Staff Officers always do," said Hafiz,
and when Gordon gave some hint of explanation he added, "Oh, I know! You
wanted to make common cause with the men, but now you have to pay the
price of it."
"What about the man to go with me?" asked Gordon.
"I've got him. You remember the two Sheikhs who went with us to
Alexandria. It's one of them."
His name was Osman. He had been tutor to the Khedive's children, but he
wished to become a teacher of Mohammedan law in the college at Khartoum,
so the journey suited his book exactly.
"And the camels?"
"I've got them also. Young ones, too, with ripping big humps! They'll
want their humps before they've crossed that desert."
"Where and when am I to meet them, Hafiz?"
"At the first village beyond the fort on the Gebel Mokattam at eleven
o'clock to-morrow night. But I'll come for you at ten and see you
safely started."
Gordon looked up in alarm.
"Don't be afraid for me. Leave everything to Hafiz. You can't depend on
a better man."
"I'm sure I can't," said Gordon, and then in a lower tone, "But, Hafiz?"
"Well?"
"What about Helena?"
"Packed up and ready to go. The Consul-General's secretary booked her
berth to-day, and she sails, as I said she would, on Saturday."
Next day, Friday, the hours went by with feet of lead, but Gordon's
impatience to get away from Cairo had now begun to abate. More easily
could he have reconciled himself to go if Helena had gone before him,
but to leave her behind, if only for a few hours, was like cowardice.
Little by little his spirit fell from the elevation on which it had
lived for the better part of a week, and in the face of his flight he
felt ashamed.
Towards nightfall, nevertheless, he began to make preparations for his
departure, and, opening the bundle of clothes which Hafiz had left for
him, he found that they consisted of a Bedouin's outer garments only,
caftan, skull-cap, kufiah (head-shawl), and head-rope, but no
underclothing and no slippers. This seemed for a moment like an
insurmountable difficulty, but at the next instant, with the sense of a
higher power ruling everything, he saw the finger of God in it,
compelling him to wear his soldier's clothes and military boots beneath
his Bedouin costume, lest leaving them behind him might lead to trouble
for the good people who had befriended him.
By ten o'clock he had finished his dressing, and then the door of his
room was opened by a man in the flowing silk garments of a Sheikh, with
the light of a smile on his chubby face and a cautionary finger to his
lip.
"Here I am--are you ready?"
It was Hafiz, tingling with excitement but chuckling with joy, and
having looked at Gordon in his head-shawl descending to his shoulders,
with the head-rope coiled about it, he said--
"Marvellous! Your own father wouldn't know you!"
The disguise was none too good though, for the trackers were keenly on
the trail that night, having got it into their heads that Gordon would
try to leave Egypt with Helena in the morning.
"So the sooner we are on the safe side of the Gebel Mokattam the better,
my boy.... One moment, though."
"What is it?"
"Remember--your name is Omar--Omar Benani."
"Omar Benani."
The last moment having come, Gordon, who seemed now to catch at every
straw that would delay his departure, was unwilling to leave the house
that had been his refuge without bidding farewell to the Patriarch.
Hafiz tried to dissuade him from doing so, saying that the Patriarch,
who knew all, wished to be blind to what was going on. But Gordon was
not to be gainsaid, and after a while Michael was called and he led the
way to the Patriarch's room.
The old man had just finished his frugal supper of spinach and egg, and
he was lifting his horn-rimmed spectacles from his nose to wipe his
rheumy eyes with his red-print handkerchief when Michael opened the
door.
"A poor traveller asks your blessing, Patriarch," said Michael, and then
Gordon, in his Bedouin costume, stepped forward and knelt at the old
priest's feet.
The Patriarch rose and stood for a moment with a look of perplexity on
his wrinkled face. Then, lending himself to the transparent deception,
the saintly old man laid his bony hand, trembling visibly, on Gordon's
head, and speaking in a faltering voice, with breath that came quickly
through his toothless jaws, he said--
"God bless you, my son, and send you safely to your journey's end and to
your own place and people."
But seeing at the next instant how pathetic was the error which in his
momentary confusion he had unwittingly made, he corrected himself and
added--
"Fear not, my son, neither in the days of thy life, nor in the hour of
death, for God will go with thee and _He will bring thee back_."
A moment later Gordon, with Hafiz by his side, had passed out of the
echoing harbour of the little cathedral close into the running tides of
the streets without.
*CHAPTER XIV*
The Coptic Cathedral stands in the midst of the most ancient part of
Cairo, and it is coiled about by a cobweb of close and narrow
thoroughfares. Through these thoroughfares, lit by tin lanterns and
open candles only, and dense with a various throng of native
people--hawkers, pedlars, water-carriers, fruit-sellers, the shrouded
black forms of women gliding noiselessly along and the blue figures of
men lounging at coffee-stalls or squatting at the open mouths of
shops--Gordon in his Bedouin costume walked with a long, slow step and
the indifference to danger which he had learned in war, while Hafiz, who
was now quivering with impatience, and trembling with the dread of
detection, slackened his speed to keep pace with him.
"Can't we go faster?" whispered Hafiz, but Gordon did not seem to hear.
Slowly, steadily, with a rhythmic stride that might have come out of the
desert itself, he pushed his way through the throng of town-dwellers,
always answering the pious ejaculations of the passers-by and returning
their Eastern greetings.
Before Hafiz was aware of the direction they were taking they had passed
out of the dim-lit native streets, where people moved like shadows in a
mist, into the coarse flare of the Esbekiah (the European) quarter,
where multitudes of men in Western dress sat drinking at tables on the
pavement, while girls in gold brocade and with painted faces smiled down
at them from upper windows.
"Why should we go this way?" said Hafiz in Arabic, but still Gordon made
no reply.
Two mounted police who were standing at guard by the entrance to a dark
alley craned forward to peer into their faces, and a group of young
British officers, smoking cigarettes on the balcony of an hotel, watched
them while they passed and broke into a subdued trill of laughter when
they were gone.
"Are we not exposing ourselves unnecessarily?" whispered Hafiz, but
Gordon only gripped the hand that hung by his side and went on without
speaking.
Presently they crossed the Opera Square and turned down an avenue that
led to the Nile, and then Hafiz's impatience could contain itself no
longer.
"We are going in the wrong direction," he whispered. "It's nearly eleven
o'clock, and Osman is waiting for us."
"Come on," said Gordon, and he continued to walk steadily forward.
At length it dawned on Hafiz that, in spite of all possible
consequences, Gordon intended to go to the Agency before he left Cairo,
and having assured himself that this was so, he began to pour out a
running whisper of passionate entreaties.
"But, Gordon! My dear Gordon! This is madness. It cannot be done," he
said.
"It must!" said Gordon.
"The trackers will be there if they are anywhere."
"Hush!"
"It is the one place they'll keep watch upon to-night."
"I can't help that," said Gordon without stopping; and Hafiz had no
choice but to follow on.
A few minutes later the good fellow, whose heart was now panting up to
his throat, walked close to Gordon's side and whispered in a breaking
voice--
"If you have any message to send to your mother I'll take it--I'll take
it after you are gone."
"I must see her myself," said Gordon; and then Hafiz could say no more.
They passed through populous places into thoroughfares that were less
and less crowded, and came out at last by the barracks on the banks of
the Nile. There the broad street was empty and silent, and the white
moonlight lay over the river which flowed like liquid steel. Under the
dark window of his own quarters Gordon paused for a moment, for it was
the spot on which he had first seen Helena. He could see it still as he
saw it then, with its tide of clamorous traffic from the bridge--the
camels, the cameleers, the blue-shirted fellaheen, the women with
tattooed chins and children astride on their shoulders, and then the
girl driving the automobile, with the veil of white chiffon about her
head and the ruddy glow of the sunset kissing her upturned face as she
lifted her eyes to look at him.
Hafiz was choking with emotion by this time, but his sense of Gordon's
danger came uppermost again when they turned into the road that led to
the Consul-General's house and caught sight of a group of men who were
standing at the gate.
"There they are," he whispered. "What did I tell you? Let us go back.
Gordon, I implore you! I entreat you! By all you love and who love
you----"
"Come on," said Gordon again, and though quaking with fear, Hafiz
continued to walk by his side.
There were only three men at the gate of the Agency, and two of them
were the native porters of the house, but the third was a lean and lank
Soudanese, who carried by a cord about his neck a small round lantern
whereof the light was turned against his breast. A cold glitter in the
black man's eyes was like the gleam of a dagger to Hafiz, but Gordon
paid no heed to it. He saluted the porters, saying he had come to see
Ibrahim, the Consul-General's servant, and then, without waiting for
permission, he walked through.
Hafiz followed him into the garden, where the moonlight lay over the
silent trees and made blotches of shadow on the path.
"Stay here," he said, and leaving Hafiz in the darkness he stepped up to
the door.
Ibrahim himself opened it, and the moment he had done so, Gordon entered
the outer hall.
"Tell Fatimah I come from her son and wish to see her at once," he said.
Ibrahim looked searchingly at the stranger, and a shade of doubt and
anger crossed his face.
"I can't do that, my man," he answered.
"Why can't you?" asked Gordon.
"I won't," said Ibrahim.
There was a little lodge at the right of the hall, where visitors to the
Consul-General wrote their names in a book. Into this lodge Gordon drew
Ibrahim by the arm and whispered a few hasty words in his ear. The
man's lips whitened and quivered, and he began to stutter and stammer in
his fright.
"Are you, then ... can it be ... is it really----"
"Hush! Yes. Ibrahim," said Gordon, "I wish to see my mother."
Ibrahim began to wring his hands. It was impossible. Yes, impossible.
Quite impossible. Her ladyship was ill.
"Ill?"
"She went up to the Citadel yesterday, sir, and came home utterly
exhausted."
"Do you mean that my mother is very ill--dangerously ill, Ibrahim?"
"I don't know, sir. I can't say, sir. I fear she is, sir."
"Then all the more I wish to see her," said Gordon.
But again Ibrahim wrung his hands. The doctor had been there four times
that day and ordered absolute rest and quiet. Only Fatimah was
permitted to enter the patient's room--except the Consul-General, and he
went up to it every hour.
"It would be a shock to her, sir. It might kill her, sir. _Wallahi_!
I beg of you not to attempt it, sir."
Ibrahim was right, plainly right, but never until that moment had Gordon
known the full bitterness of the cup he had to drink from. Because his
mother was ill, dangerously ill, dying perhaps, therefore he must not
see her--he of all others! He was going far, and might never see her
again. Was another blank wall to be built about his life? It was
monstrous, it was impossible, it should not be!
In the agony of his revolt a wild thought came to him--he would see his
father! Why not? Back to his memory across the bridge of so many years
came the words which his father had written to him when he came of age:
"You are twenty-one years of age, Gordon, and your mother and I have
been recalling the incidents of the day on which you were born.... From
this day forward I am no longer your father, I am your friend--perhaps
the best friend you will ever have; let nothing and no one come between
us." Then, why not? What was there to be afraid of?
"Ibrahim," said Gordon, "where is the Consul-General now?"
"In the library with his secretary, sir," replied Ibrahim.
"Then tell him--" began Gordon, but just at that moment there was a flat
and deadened step on the soft carpet of the landing above, and then a
cold voice that chilled his ear came from the upper hall.
"Ibrahim!"
It was the Consul-General himself with a letter in his hand.
"Hush!" said Ibrahim, and, leaving the lodge, he walked up the three or
four steps to meet his master.
"Take this to the office of the Commandant of Police--take it yourself
and see it safely delivered."
"Yes, my lord."
"If the Commandant has gone home for the night you will ask for his
Deputy and say my answer is, 'Yes, I let nothing come between me and the
law. If you suspect that the person you refer to is still in Cairo you
will deal with him as you would deal with anybody else.' You understand
me?"
"Yes, my lord," said Ibrahim, but he was staring stupidly at the letter
as if he had lost his wits.
"Who is that in the lodge with you?" asked the Consul-General, and then
Ibrahim, fumbling the letter until it almost fell out of his fingers,
seemed unable to reply.
The wild thought had gone from Gordon by this time, and he said in a
voice which he did not recognise as his own, "Tell Fatimah that her
brother will come again to see her," and then, feeling ashamed of his
sorry masquerade, and less than a servant in his father's house, he
stumbled out into the garden.
Hafiz was waiting for him there, and he was in a state of still greater
terror than before. The moment Gordon had gone, a light footstep,
trying to make itself noiseless, had come crackling over the gravel from
the direction of the gate. It was that of the Soudanese, and he had
crept along the path like a serpent, half doubled up and with his eyes
and his lantern to the ground. After a while he had returned to where
he came from, and Hafiz had followed him, walking stealthily in the
shadow of the trees, in order to hear what he had to say. "Your Bedouin
is a child of Cairo and his boots were made in England," he had said,
and then chuckling to himself he had hurried away.
"Are you wearing your military boots, Gordon? Did you forget the
slippers? Or was it Osman who forgot them? It can't be helped, though.
The man was a tracker--I told you so--and now he has gone for the others
and we shall be followed by the whole troop of them. Let us be off."
But still Gordon was in no hurry to go. The sense of stealing like a
stranger from a spot that was dear to him by a thousand memories seemed
to be more than he could bear. Leaving Hafiz on the path, he went round
the house until he reached a place from which he could see the light in
his mother's window. His mother, his sweet and sainted mother, innocent
of everything yet the victim of all! God forgive him! Was it worth
while to go away at all? A gentle breeze had risen by this time, and
Hafiz was starting at every leaf that rustled over his head.
When at length they left the Agency they were going in the right
direction, but Gordon was once more choosing the lighter and more
crowded thoroughfares. Again the hawkers, the pedlars, the
water-carriers, the shrouded black forms of women and the blue figures
of men. Again the salutations, the pious ejaculations, the silent
Eastern greetings. It was almost as if Gordon were tempting Providence,
as if he were trying to leave time for the trackers to overtake him.
"Every moment we lose fills me with fear--can't we go faster now?"
whispered Hafiz in English, but Gordon continued to walk with the same
even step.
"I know it might look like fright and arouse suspicion, but still----"
As often as he dared to do so, Hafiz looked back to see if they were
pursued.
"Nothing in sight yet--God has delivered, us thus far--but must we walk
so slow?"
In the agony of his impatience every noise in the streets was like the
sound of a pursuer. If a boy shouted to his playmate, he shuddered; if
a hawker yelled over his tray, he trembled. When they had passed out of
the busy thoroughfares into the darker streets, where watchmen call to
each other through the hours of the night, the cry of a ghafir far ahead
(_Wahhed!_) seemed to Hafiz like the bay of a bloodhound, and the answer
of another close behind was like the shrill voice of some one who was
pouncing upon his shoulders.
"It would be a pity to be taken now--at the last moment, too," he
whispered, and he strained his ear to catch the faintest sound of
footsteps behind them.
After that no more was said until they came to the open space under the
heights of the Citadel where one path goes up to the Mokattam Hills and
another crosses the arid land that lies on the east bank of the Nile.
Then suddenly Hafiz, who had been panting and gasping, began to laugh
and crow.
"I know what we've got to do," he said. "Good Lord alive! why didn't I
think of it before?"
With that he stooped and whipped off the slippers he wore over his boots
and called on Gordon to hold up his foot.
"What for?" asked Gordon.
"I have a reason--a good one. Hold up! The other one! Quick!"
In a moment the slippers he had taken off his own boots had been pulled
over Gordon's.
"Right! And now, my dear Gordon, you and I are going to part company."
"Here?" said Gordon.
"Yes, here," said Hafiz, and then pointing with one hand to the hill and
with the other to the waste, he said, "You are going that way--I am
going this."
"Why so?"
"Why? Do you ask me why? Because the trackers are after us--because
they may be here at any moment--because they know there are two of us,
but when they find we have separated they'll follow up the man who wears
the military boots."
"Hafiz!"
"Well, I wear them, don't I?"
"Do you mean it, Hafiz--that you are going to turn the trackers on to
yourself?"
"Way shouldn't I? Lord God! what can they do to me? If they catch me
I'll only laugh in their dirty black faces. I'll give them a run before
that, though. Bedrasheen, Sakkara, Mena, Gizeh--a man wants some fun
after a night like this, you know."
He was laughing as if he were beside himself with excitement.
"By that time you'll be far away from here, please God! Six hours at
least--I'll see it's six, Gordon; six hours' start on good
camels--across the desert, too--and not a black devil of them all to
know what the dickens has become of you."
His fear was as great as ever, but it had suddenly become heroic.
"Hafiz!" said Gordon. His voice was faltering, and he was holding out
both hands, but Hafiz, unable to trust himself, was pretending not to
hear or see.
"No time to lose, though! Time is life, brother, and you mustn't stay
here a moment longer. Over the hill--first village beyond the
fort--Osman will be waiting for you."
"Hafiz!"
"Can't wait for farewells, Gordon. Besides, you're not going for good,
you know. Lord, no, not a bit of it! You'll come back some
day--Ishmael too--and then there'll be the deuce to pay by some of
them."
He was running a few paces away, then stepping back again.
"Why don't you go? I'm going, anyway! It's a race for life or death
to-night, my boy! Such fun! I'll beat the brutes! Didn't I tell you to
leave everything to Hafiz? I said you couldn't depend on a better man."
"Hafiz!"
"Good-night, old chap! Good-night, Charlie! Charlie Gordon Lord has
been a good old chum to me, but damn it all, I'm going to be quits with
him!"
With that he went bounding away, laughing and crying and swearing and
sobbing at the same time, and in a moment he had disappeared in the
darkness.
*CHAPTER XV*
Being left alone, Gordon looked up at the Citadel and saw that a light
was burning in the window of Helena's sitting-room. That sight brought
back the choking sense of shame which he had felt some days before at
the thought of leaving Helena behind him.
"I cannot go without seeing her," he thought. "It is
impossible--utterly impossible."
Then back to his mind, as by flashes of mental lightning, came one by
one the reasons which he had forged for not seeing Helena, but they were
all of no avail. In vain did he ask himself what he was to say to her,
how he was to account for his past silence, and what explanation he was
to give of his present flight. There was no answer to these questions,
yet all the same an irresistible impulse seemed to draw him up to
Helena's side. He must see her again, no matter at what risk. He must
take her in his arms once more, no matter at what cost.
"I must, I must," he continued to say to himself, while the same animal
instinct which had carried him away from the Citadel on the night of the
crime was now carrying him back to it.
Almost before his mind had time to tell him where he was going he found
himself ascending the hill that leads up to the Bab-el-Gedid. The sight
of the gate of the Citadel suggested fresh considerations that might
have acted as warnings, but he paid no heed to them. It was nothing to
him in his present mood that he was like a man who was putting his head
into a noose, walking deliberately into a trap, marching straight into
the camp of the enemy whose first interest it was to destroy him. The
image of Helena and the sense of her presence so near to him left little
else to think about.
The gate was still open, for it was not yet twelve o'clock, and in
deference to the ritual of the Moslem faith, the muezzin, who lived
outside the walls, was permitted to pass through that he might chant the
midnight call to prayers from the minaret of the mosque inside the
fortress.
"Goin' to sing 'is bloomin' song, I suppose," thought the sentry, a
private of a Middlesex regiment, when Gordon, as one having authority,
walked boldly through the gateway.
Being now within the Citadel, Gordon began to be besieged by thoughts of
the trackers, who would surely keep watch upon the General's house also
if, as Hafiz had said, there was a suspicion that Helena and he intended
to go away together. But again the vision of Helena rose before him,
and all other considerations were swept away.
"To leave Cairo while Helena remains in it would be cowardly," he told
himself; and emboldened by this thought he walked fearlessly across the
square of the mosque and round the old arsenal to the gate of the
General's house without caring whom he met there.
He met no one. The gate was standing wide open, and the door of the
house, when he came to it, was open also, and there was nobody anywhere
about. With a gathering sense of shame, such as he had never felt
before, he stood there for a moment, wondering what course he ought to
take, whether to ring for a servant or to walk through as he had been
wont to do before the dread events befell. Suddenly the walls of the
house within resounded to a peal of raucous laughter, followed by a
burst of noisy voices in coarse and clamorous talk.
Utterly bewildered, he stepped forward in the direction of Helena's
boudoir, and then he realised that that was the room the voices came
from. After a moment of uncertainty he knocked, whereupon somebody
shouted to him in Arabic to enter, and then he opened the door.
Helena's servants, being paid off, and required to leave the house in
the morning, had invited certain of their friends and made a feast for
them. Squatting on the floor around a huge brass tray, which contained
a lamb roasted whole and various smaller dishes, they were now regaling
themselves after the manner of their kind with the last contents of the
General's larder, washed down by many pious speeches and by stories less
devotional.
"A little more, O my brother?" "No, thanks be to God, I have eaten
well." "Then by the beard of the Prophet (to whom prayer and peace!),
coffee and cigarettes, and the tale of the little dancing girl."
At the height of their deafening merriment the door of the room opened
and a man in Bedouin dress stood upon the threshold, and then there was
silence.
Gordon stood for a moment in amazement at sight of this coarse scene on
a spot associated with so many delicate memories. Then he said--
"You don't happen to know if ... if the boy Mosie is about?"
"Gone!" shouted several voices at once.
"Gone?"
"Yes, gone, O Sheikh," said one of the men--he was the cook--pausing to
speak with a piece of meat between his finger and thumb, half way to his
mouth. "Mosie has gone to England with the lady Helena. They left here
at six o'clock to catch the night train to Alexandria, so as to be in
good time for to-morrow's steamer."
Gordon stood a moment longer, looking down at the grinning yellow faces
about the tray, and then, with various apologies and after many
answering salaams, he closed the door behind him, whereupon he heard the
buzz of renewed conversation within the room, followed by another but
more subdued burst of laughter.
Alone in the corridor, he asked himself why, since Helena was gone, he
had been brought back to this place. Was it for punishment, for
penance? It must have been so. "All that had to be expiated," he told
himself, and then he turned to go.
But walking through the outer hall he had to pass the door of the
General's office, and thinking it would be a sort of penance to enter
the room itself he persuaded himself to do so.
The room seemed naked and dead now, being denuded of the little personal
things that had made it live. It was dark, too, save for a ray of light
that came from a lamp outside, but the first thing that met Gordon's
eyes was the spot on which the General fell. He forced himself to look
at that spot; for some moments he compelled himself to stand by it,
though his hair rose from his crown and beads of perspiration broke from
his forehead.
"All that had to be expiated," he told himself again, and again he
turned to go.
But back in the hall he was on the spot where he had last parted from
Helena, and there a new penance awaited him. He remembered that in the
hideous moment when he had tried in vain to reply to her reproaches he
had been telling himself that if she loved him as he loved her she would
be trying to see things with his eyes. That thought had helped him to
leave her then, but it brought him no comfort now. Why had he not seen
that the girl's love was fighting with her pride? Why had he not
followed her into the house when in her pleading, sobbing voice she had
called after him?
"Yes, everything had to be expiated," he told himself, and once more he
turned to go.
But passing through the garden he caught sight of the arbour on the edge
of the ramparts, and it seemed to him that the deepest penance of all
would be to stand for an instant on that loved spot. Giving himself no
quarter, abating nothing of the bitterness of his expiation, drinking to
the dregs the cup that fate had forced to his lips, he entered the
arbour, and there the image of the girl he had loved, the girl he still
loved, rose most vividly of all before him.
He could almost feel her bodily presence by his side--the gleam of her
eyes, the odour of her hair, the heaving of her bosom. He could see the
caressing smile that broke from her face, he could hear the echo of her
ringing laugh. Her proud strength and self-reliance; her energy and
grace; her passionate daring and chivalry, and the gay raillery that was
her greatest charm--everything that was Helena appeared to be about him
now.
"Love is above everything--I shall only think of that," she had said.
The moon was shining, the leaves were rustling, the silvery haze of
night-dew was in the near air, while the lights of the city were
blinking below and the river was flowing silently beyond. How often on
such a night had he walked on the ramparts with Helena leaning closely
on his arm and springing rightly by his side! It almost seemed as if he
had only to turn his head and he would see her there, with her light
scarf over her head, crossed under her chin and thrown over her
shoulders.
"Could nothing separate you and me?" she had asked, and he had answered,
"Nothing in this world."
His grief was crushing. It was of that kind, unequalled for bitterness
and sweetness combined, which comes to the strong man who has been
robbed of the woman he loves by a fate more cruel than death. Helena was
not dead, and when ha thought of her on her way to England while he was
a homeless wanderer in the desert, shut out from love and friendship,
the practice of his profession, and the progress of the world, the pain
of his position was almost more than he could bear.
After a while he was brought back to himself by another burst of raucous
laughter--the laughter of the servants inside the house--and at the next
moment he saw a light running along the ground in the dark market-place
below--the light of the trackers who were going off on the wrong scent,
with a company of mounted police, in the direction taken by Hafiz.
*CHAPTER XVI*
Gordon left the Citadel unchallenged and unobserved, and in less than
half-an-hour he was climbing the yellow road--white now in the
moonlight--that goes up to the Mokattam Hills. By this time he was
beginning to see the meaning of that night's experience. Unconsciously
he had been putting Providence to the proof. Unwittingly he had been
asking the fates to say if the path he had marked out for himself had
been the right one when he had decided to follow Ishmael Ameer to
Khartoum, to work by his side, and to come back at last when his sin had
been forgiven and his redemption won.
Providence had decided in his favour. If destiny had determined that he
should not leave Cairo he might have been taken a hundred times.
Because he had not been taken it was clear to him that it was intended
that he should go.
He had tried to see his mother, and if he could have done so he must
have stayed with her at all hazards, since she was so ill and perhaps so
near to death. He had tried to see Helena also, and if she had not gone
to England already he must have clung to her at all costs and in spite
of all consequences. On the other hand he had seen his father, and
heard from his very lips that nothing--not even the liberty nor yet the
life of his own son--could stand between him and his duty to the law.
What did it mean that he should be so cut off, so stripped naked, so
deprived of his place as son and lover and soldier and man, that all
that had hitherto stood to him as himself, as Gordon Lord, was gone? It
meant that another existence was before him--another work, another
mission. Destiny was carrying him away from his former life, and he had
only to go forward without fear.
Thus once again on the heights of his great resolve he pushed on with a
quick step, not daring to look back lest the sense of seeing things for
the last time should be more than he could bear, lest the thought of
leaving the city he loved, the people who loved him, his men and his
brother officers, his mother and the memory of his happiness with
Helena, his father and the consciousness of having wrecked the hopes of
a lifetime, should drag him back at the last moment.
In the midst of these emotions he was startled by a loud, sharp voice
that was without and not within him.
"Enta meen?" (Who are you?)
Then he realised that he had reached the fort on the top of the hill,
and that the Egyptian sentry at the gate was challenging him. For a
moment he stood speechless, trying in vain to remember the name by which
he was henceforward to be known.
"Who are you?" cried the sentry again, and then Gordon answered--
"Omar."
"Omar--what?" cried the sentry.
Again Gordon was speechless for a moment.
"Answer!" cried the sentry, and he raised his rifle to his shoulder.
"Omar Benani the Bedouin," said Gordon at last, and then the sentry
lowered his gun.
"Pass, Omar Benani. All's well!"
But Gordon had a still greater surprise awaiting him. As he was going
on, he became aware that the Egyptian soldier was walking by his side
and speaking in a low tone.
"Have they taken him?" he was saying.
"Taken whom?" asked Gordon.
"Our English brother--the Colonel--Colonel Lord. Have they arrested
him?"
It was not at first that Gordon could command his voice to reply, but at
length he said--
"Not yet--not when I came out of Cairo."
"El Hamdullillah!" (Praise be to God!) said the sentry, and then in a
louder voice he cried--
"Peace to you, O brother!" Whereupon Gordon answered as well as he
could for the thickening of his throat which seemed to stifle him--
"And to you!"
More sure than ever now that God's hand was leading him, he walked on
with a quicker step than before, and presently he saw in the distance a
dark group which he recognised as Osman and the camels.
"Allah be praised, you've come at last," whispered Osman.
He was a bright and intelligent young Egyptian, and for the last hour he
had lived in a fever of alarm, thinking Gordon must have fallen into the
hands of the police.
"They got wind that you were hiding at the Coptic Patriarch's house," he
said, "and were only waiting for the permission of the Agency to raid it
at eleven o'clock."
"I left it at ten," said Gordon.
"Thank God for that, sir," said Osman. "The Prophet must have taken a
love for you to carry you off so soon. We must start away now, though,"
he whispered. "It's past twelve, and the village is fast asleep!"
"Is everything ready?" asked Gordon.
"Everything--water, biscuits, dates, durah, rifles----"
"Rifles?"
"Why not, sir? Two good Bedouin flintlocks. Even if we never have
occasion to use them they'll help us to divert suspicion."
"Let us be off, then," said Gordon.
"Good," said Osman. "If we can only get away quietly our journey will
be as white as milk."
In the shadow of a high wall the camels sat munching their food under
their saddles covered with green cloth and decorated with fringes of
cowries, and with their sahharahs (square boxes for provisions) hanging
on either side. They were restive when they had to rise, and it was as
much as Osman could do to keep them from grunting, being so fresh and so
full of corn. But he held their mouths closed until they were on their
feet, and then mounted his own camel by climbing on its neck. A moment
afterwards the good creatures were gliding swiftly away into the
obscurity of the night, with their upturned, steadfast faces, their
noiseless tread, and swinging motion.
Both men were accustomed to camel-riding, and both knew the track before
them, therefore they lost no time in getting under weigh. The first
village was soon left behind, and as they came near to other hamlets the
howling of dogs warned them of their danger, and they skirted round and
quickened their pace.
A little beyond Helwan they came upon a Bedouin camp with its long,
irregular, dark tents and an open fire around which a company of men sat
talking, but Gordon pushed forward with his flintlock swung across his
saddle-bow, while Osman, thinking to avoid suspicion, hung back for a
moment to exchange news and greetings.
Then on and on they went, up and down the yellow hills, across sandy
plains that were still warm with the heat of the day, and over rocky
gorges that seemed to echo a hundred times to the softest footfall.
In less than three hours they were out on the open desert, lonely and
grand, without a soul or yet a sound, save the faint thud of the camels'
tread on the sand and the dice-like rattle of the cowries that hung from
the saddles.
"Allah khalasna!" (God has delivered us!) said Osman at last, as he
wiped the cold sweat of fear from his forehead.
But never for a moment had Gordon felt afraid. No more now than before
did he know what fate was before him, but if a pillar of fire had
appeared in the dark blue sky he could not have been more sure
that--sinful man as he was--God's light was leading him.
He had fallen in the dark, but he was about to rise again. God's wrath
had burnt against him, but he was soon to be forgiven. After the
emotions and experiences of that night he knew of a certainty that the
path he had chosen was the path which it was intended that he should
take. Somewhere--he knew not where--and somehow--he knew not
how--Heaven had uses for him still.
As he rode over the sandy waste it became fixed in his mind that, being
rejected by all the world now, and stripped of everything that man holds
dear, it was meant by God that he should offer his life in some great
cause. That thought did not terrify him at all. It delighted and
inspired him, and stirred every passion of the soldier in his soul.
To be, perhaps, a link between East and West, to carry the white man's
burden into the black man's country for higher ends than greed of wealth
or lust of empire, he would die, if need be, a thousand deaths.
How did he come to think of this as the fate before him? Who can know?
Who can say? There are moments when man feels the influence of
invisible powers which it is equally impossible to explain and to
control. Such a moment was this to Gordon. He was flying away as a
homeless fugitive, yet he was going with a full heart and a high
resolve. Somewhere his great hour waited for him--he could only follow
and obey.
But meanwhile there was nothing before him except the rolling waves of
the desert, nothing about him except the silence of immensity, and
nothing above him but the unclouded glory of the moon.
*CHAPTER XVII*
As midnight had struck on the soft cathedral-bell of the clock in Lady
Nuneham's room the old lady had raised herself in bed and looked round
with bright and joyful eyes.
"Fatimah!"
"Yes, my heart," said Fatimah, rising hurriedly from the chair in which
she had been knitting and stopping up to the bedside.
"Has he gone, Fatimah?"
"Has who gone, O my lady?"
The bright eyes looked at the Egyptian woman with a reproving smile.
"Why, you know quite well, Fatimah. You saw him yourself, didn't you?"
"You mean his lordship?"
"No, no, but----"