"No, it is not necessary, and we shall do without it. What says the Lord
of the Christians? 'Swear not at all; neither by heaven, for it is
God's throne; nor by the earth, for it is His footstool.'"
The lady drew a long breath of relief and went on with her foreign
newspapers.
*CHAPTER IV*
Hardly had "the Princess" gone for the day when the Arab woman, Zenoba,
with all her dusky face contracted into lines of jealousy, came to
Ishmael to warn him.
"Forgive me, O Master," she said, "if the thing I say displeases you."
"What is it, O Zenoba?" asked Ishmael.
"Is it well to trust the secrets of God and of His people to two tongues
and four eyes?"
Ishmael's face darkened visibly, but he held himself in check and
answered with dignity--
"Zenoba, ask pardon of God for a suspicious mind. The least of all noble
traits is to keep a secret, the greatest is to forget that you have
confided it."
The Arab woman was stung by the rebuke, but assuming the meekest
expression of face she changed her course entirely.
"Master, I beg of you to listen to me until I have done," she said, and
then she began to talk of the visits of the white lady.
The lady was young and beautiful. Evil minds were many. If she were to
come to Ishmael's house every day and to be closeted alone with him,
what would people say?
"Forgive me, O Master; it is nothing to me, and I have no right to
speak," said the Arab woman, with the agony of a jealous spirit
imprinted on every feature of her face. "I only wish to put you on your
guard against the slanderous tongues that would love to injure you."
Ishmael listened to her with the look of a man who had never once
reflected on the interpretation that might be put upon his conduct, and
then he said--
"You are right, O Zenoba, and I thank you for reminding me of something
I had permitted myself to forget."
When the white lady came next day, Ishmael began to speak to her about
her position in his house.
"My sister," he said, "I have been thinking this is not good. The
thoughts of the world are evil, and if you continue to come here
according to the agreement we made together your pure name will be
tarnished."
The lady's brows contracted slightly, for it flashed upon her that
Ishmael was about to send her away. But that was not his intention, and
in the winding way of Eastern explanations he proceeded to propound his
plan.
"When the Prophet (to him be prayer and peace) lost his first wife,
Khadija, the mother of Islam, and took a second wife, it was a widow,
well stricken in years and without wealth or beauty. Why did the
Prophet marry her? That he might care for her and protect her and
shield her from every ill."
The lady looked on the ground and listened. A strange sensation of joy
mingled with fear took possession of her, for she saw what Ishmael was
going to say.
"If the Prophet did this for her who was so far removed from the
slanders of evil tongues, shall not his servant do as much for one who
is young and beautiful?"
The lady's head began to swim, and the ground to sway under her feet as
if she were at sea on a rolling ship, but Ishmael saw nothing in her
agitation but modesty, and he went on in a soft voice to tell her what
he wished to do.
He wished to marry her, that is to say, to _betroth_ himself to her, to
make her his wife, his spiritual wife, his wife in name only--never to
be claimed of him as a husband, for, besides his consecration to the
great task he had undertaken for God, there was a vow he had made to the
memory of one who was dead, and both forbade him ever to think again of
the joys of the life of a man.
The lady was now totally unable to conceal her agitation, and taking out
her handkerchief she kept running her trembling fingers along the hem.
She was asking herself what she could do, how she could reply, for she
could plainly see that the Oriental in Ishmael had never for one instant
allowed him to think that if he were willing to give her the protection
of his name she could have any possible objection.
It was the still hour of noon, and, pale with fear, she sat silent for a
moment looking into the palpitating air that floated over the glistening
waters of the Nile. Then assuming, as well as she could, an expression
of humility and confusion, she said, while her heart was beating
violently--
"Master, it is too much honour--I can hardly think of it."
He could see by her face how hard she fought with herself, but still
taking her agitation for maidenly modesty, he dropped his voice and
whispered--
"Do not decide at once. Wait a little. Go away now, and think of what
I have said."
He held out his hand to help her to her feet, and she went off with an
unsteady step, first stopping, then going quickly, as if she had an
impulse to speak again and could not do so, because of the feeling, akin
to terror, which seemed to stifle her.
If any one, following the white lady to her lodging in the Greek widow's
house, had been able to look into the depths of her soul, he would have
found a tragic struggle going on there. A score of conflicting voices
were clamouring to be heard at once. "What am I doing?" "Where am I?"
"Am I myself or some one else?" "Don't take on this fearful
responsibility to such a man." "But I must do so, or I can do nothing."
"I must go on or else go back." "But isn't this going too far?"
"Nonsense, this is no marriage; it is merely a nominal union--a
betrothal. I shall only be his wife _pro forma_. According to an alien
faith, too, a faith that does not bind my conscience." "It must be
done--it shall!"
When the white lady returned to Ishmael's house on the following day it
was with a firm, decided step, as if she were lifted up and sustained by
some invisible power. With a strange light in her eyes and an
expression in her face that he had never seen there before, she told him
that she agreed to his proposal.
He received her consent with a glad cry, and clapping his hands to
summon his household he announced the good news to them with a bright
look and a happy voice.
The old uncle was overjoyed, and little Ayesha leapt into the lady's
arms and kissed her, but Zenoba, with a face full of confusion, drew
Ishmael aside and began to stammer out objections and difficulties. The
house was small, there was no separate room for the white lady. Then,
her black boy--there was not even a corner that could be occupied by
him.
"Put the Rani in the room with the child, and let the boy sleep on the
mat at her door," said Ishmael, and without more ado he went on to make
arrangements for the wedding.
The arrangements were few, for Ishmael determined that the marriage
should be concluded immediately and conducted without any kind of pomp.
But in order that all his world might know what he was doing he invited
the Cadi of Khartoum to make the contract, and then, having sent the
lady to her lodging, he set out to fetch her back on the milk-white
camel he usually rode himself.
It was Sunday, and the sun had gone down in a blaze of red as he walked
by the camel's side through the native quarter of the town with the
white lady, the Rani, the Princess, wearing a gold-edged muslin shawl
over her head and descending to her shoulders, riding on the crimson
saddle fringed with cowries.
By the time they reached old Mahmud's house it was full of guests in
wedding garments, and gorgeous with crimson curtains hanging over all
the walls, and illuminated by countless lamps both large and small.
But the ceremony was of the simplest.
First, the Fatihah (the first chapter of the Koran) recited by the whole
company standing, and then the bride and bridegroom sitting on the
ground, face to face, grasping each other's hands.
Down to this moment the white lady had been sustained by the same
invisible power, as if clad in an impenetrable armour of defiance which
no emotion could pierce; but when the Cadi stepped forward and placed a
handkerchief over the clasped hands and began to say some words of
prayer, she felt faint and could scarcely breathe.
With a struggle, nevertheless, she recovered herself when the Cadi,
leaning over her, told her in a low voice to repeat after him the words
that he should speak.
"I betroth myself to thee--to serve thee and to submit to thee----"
"I betroth myself to thee ... to serve ... to serve thee ... and to ...
to submit to thee----"
With an effort she got the words spoken, feeling numb at her heart and
with a sense of darkness coming over her, but being spurred at last by
sight of the Arab woman's glittering eyes watching her intently.
But when the Cadi turned from her to Ishmael, and the bridegroom, in his
throbbing voice, said loudly--
"And I accept thy betrothal and take thee under my care, and bind myself
to afford thee my protection, as ye who are here bear witness," she felt
as if the tempest of darkness had overwhelmed her and she were falling,
falling, falling into a bottomless abyss.
When the lady came to herself again the Arab woman was holding a dish of
water to her mouth, and her own black boy, with big tears like beads
dropping out of his eyes, was fanning her with a fan of ostrich
feathers.
But now the people, who had been saying among themselves, in
astonishment at such maimed rites, "Is this a widow or a divorced
woman?" being determined not to be done out of such marriage fetes as
they considered only decent, had begun to gather in front of the house,
the men in their brown skull-caps and blue galabeahs, the married women
in their black silk habarahs with silver rings in their noses, and the
unmarried girls in their white scarves with coins in their hair and with
big silver anklets.
And while the Sheikhs and Notables within, sitting on the dikkahs around
the guest-room, listened to a blind man's chanting of the Koran, the
peasant people, squatting on the sand, under the stars, employed
themselves after their own fashion with the beating of drums, big and
little, the playing of pipes, and the singing of love-songs. And
through and among them as they huddled together, with their faces to the
illuminated house of joy, and both the bride and the bridegroom before
them, a water-carrier, a sakka, went about with his water-skin and a
brass cup, distributing drinks of water; a girl, with jingling jewels,
squirted scent; and Abdullah and Black Zogal, showing their shining
white teeth in their happiness and pride, handed round sweetmeats and
cups of thick coffee.
Meantime the white lady sat, with her flushed face uncovered and her
gold-edged veil thrown back, where Ishmael had placed her, near to the
threshold, in order that, contrary to bad custom, the people might see
her, and the child, with its sweet olive-brown face, sat by her side,
almost on her lap, amusing herself by holding her hand and drawing off
and putting on a beautiful diamond ring which she wore on the third
finger of her left hand.
This innocent action of the sweet child seemed to torture the lady at
certain moments, and never more than when one of the male singers,
sitting close beneath her, sang a camel-boy's song of love. He was far
away on the desert, but the soft eyes of the gazelle recalled the timid
looks of his beloved. And when he reached the oasis in the midst of the
wilderness the song of the bird in the date-tree brought back the voice
of his darling.
As soon as the singer finished, the women on the ground made their
shrill, quavering cry of joy, the zaghareet, and then the white lady
drew her hand away from the child with an abrupt and almost angry
gesture.
After that, she sat for a long hour without stirring, merely gazing out
on the people in front of the house as if she saw and comprehended
nothing. A taste of bitterness was in her mouth, and as often as she
was recalled to herself by some question addressed to her she looked as
if she wished to disappear from sight altogether.
At length she thought her torture was at an end, for the Cadi rose and
said in a loud voice--
"If your friend is sweet do not eat him up," whereupon the tom-toms were
silenced and with a laugh everybody rose, and then, all standing, the
whole company chanted the Fatihah--
"Praise be to God, the Lord of all creatures, the most merciful,
the King of the Day of Judgment. Thee do we worship and of Thee
do we beg assistance. Direct us in the right way, in the way of
those to whom Thou hast been gracious; not of those against whom
Thou art incensed, nor of those who go astray."
The solemn words died away like a receding wave on the outskirts of the
crowd, and then the people broke up and went back to their houses and
tents, leaving Ishmael and his household together. A little later the
household also separated for the night, the child, now very sleepy,
being carried to bed by her nurse, and old Mahmud shuffling off to his
room after saying to the white lady--
"An old man's blessing can do you no harm, my daughter, therefore God
bless you and bring you joyful increase."
The white lady was now alone with Ishmael, and her agitation increased
tenfold.
"Let us sit again for a while," he said in a soft voice, and leading her
to one of the wooden benches, covered with carpet, which faced the open
front of the house, he placed himself beside her.
There the moon was on their faces, and from time to time there was a
silvery rain of southern stars. They sat for a while in silence, she
with a sense of shame, he with a momentary thrill of passion that came
up from the place where he was no longer a prophet but a man.
She felt that he was trying to look into her face with his lustrous
black eyes, and she wished to turn away from him. This brought the hot
colour of blood into her cheeks, and only made her the more beautiful.
A sense of physical fear began to take possession of her, and a storm of
thoughts and memories came in rapid succession. She could not express
even to her own mind the intricacies of her emotions. This man was an
Oriental, and she believed him to be capable of treachery and guilty of
violence. Yet she was his wife, according to his own view, and what at
this moment, when they were alone, was the worth of the pledge whereby
she (for her own purposes) had consented to be his wife in name only,
his betrothed!
Her nervousness increased every moment. When he touched her arm she
recoiled slightly and felt her skin creep. He seemed to be conscious of
this, for he sat by her side a little longer without speaking.
The silence of night was on the desert and along the moon-track across
the river, as far as to the ruined dome of the Mahdi's tomb, which
seemed so threatening and so near.
At length in a soft voice he said, "Come," and held out his hand to help
her to rise.
She rose, trembling all over with fright and a sort of physical
humiliation--she who had always been so proud, so strong, so brave.
He led her to the women's side of the house, without speaking a word
until they got there, and then, almost in a whisper, he said--
"You sleep here with little Ayesha. May your night be happy and your
morning good!"
She looked up at him as he recommended her to God, and was amazed at the
calm, luminous face that now met her own. At the next moment he was
gone.
It was an immense relief to find herself in her bedroom, where a little
open lamp was burning, and there was no sound but the soft and measured
breathing of the child, who was asleep in bed.
At the first moment the sleeping child was like a great protector, but
when she became calmer, and began to think of this, she felt the more
ashamed.
"What impossible, terrible thing has happened?" she thought, and then
she asked herself again, "Am I really myself or some one else?"
"Oh, what have I done?" she thought, and a sense of sin took possession
of her, which was almost like that which a good woman feels when she has
committed adultery.
"It is terrible, but it is inevitable," she thought, and then she fought
against the sentiment of shame which oppressed her, by telling herself
that Ishmael was a crafty hypocrite, whose soft words were a sham, whose
religion was a lie, whose wicked deeds deserved punishment at any price
whatever.
"But no, I cannot think of that now," she thought, and after a while she
turned the light bedclothes aside, and putting out the lamp, got into
bed by the side of the child, who was smelling sweet with the soft
odours of sleep.
She lay a long time motionless, with her eyes open, and still the horror
of what she had done weighed on her like a nightmare. Then she covered
her eyes with her hands, and the image of another filled her with
emotions that were at once sweet and bitter. With a woman's sense of
injustice she was blaming the absent one for the position of shame in
which she found herself.
"Why did he choose this man instead of me?" she thought, and then, at
last, in the fiercest fire of jealousy and hatred, weeping bitter tears
in the darkness, she reconciled her tormented conscience to everything
she had done, everything she intended to do, by saying to herself with
quivering lips--
"_He killed my father!_"
At that moment she was startled by a voice outside that broke sharp and
harsh upon the silence of the night--
"There is no god but God! There is no god but God!"
It was Black Zogal, the half-witted Nubian, crying the confession of
faith at the door of Ishmael's house.
The Lady, the White Lady, the Rani, the Princess, was Helena Graves.
*CHAPTER V*
While Ishmael's followers had been squatting on the sands to celebrate
his betrothal the Sirdar had been having a dinner-party in the Palace,
composed of the chief officers of his military government and the cream
of the British society at Khartoum.
Towards ten o'clock the large after-dinner group of ladies in low-cut
corsage, showing white arms and shoulders, and officers in full-dress
uniform, had come out on the terrace with its open arches and its
handsome steps sweeping down to the silent garden.
Below were the broad lawns, the mimosa trees filling the night air with
perfume, the trembling sycamores and the tall dates, sleeping under the
great deep heaven with its stars. Behind was the lamp-lit palace, from
which native servants in gold-embroidered crimson were carrying silver
trays laden with decanters and glasses and small cups and saucers.
It was almost the spot on which "the martyr of the Soudan" fell under
the lances of the dervishes, yet one of the Sirdar's servants,
Abdullahi, with three cross-cuts on his cheeks, his tribal mark as a son
of the bloodthirsty Baggara, and with the pleasantest of smiles on his
walnut-coloured face, was drawing corks, pouring out whisky and
soda-water, and striking matches to light the men's cigarettes.
The company was full of the gaiety and animation which comes after a
pleasant dinner, with a little of the excitement which follows when
people have partaken of wine. The eyes of the ladies sparkled and the
faces of the men smiled, and both talked freely and laughed a good deal.
The conversation was made up of trifles until one of the ladies--it was
the wife of the Governor of the city, clad in the lightest of
lace-chiffon gowns and wearing yellow satin slippers--inquired the
meaning of the sounds of rejoicing, the blowing of pipes and the beating
of tom-toms, which had come through the wide-open windows of the Palace
from the direction of the native quarter.
To this question the Inspector-General of the Soudan--an English Pasha,
whose gold-laced tunic was half covered with medals--replied that the
new prophet who had lately arrived in Khartoum had that day taken to
himself a wife.
"How _interesting_!" cried the ladies in chorus, with a note of laughter
that was intended to belie the word, and then the lady in the yellow
slippers turned to the Inspector-General and said--
[Illustration: "How interesting!" cried the ladies in chorus]
"Of course he has as many as the Mahdi already--but who is the new one,
I wonder?"
"No, he has only one wife at present--runs 'em tandem, I hear--and the
new bride is the beautiful person in Parsee costume who arrived here
about the same time as himself."
"The Mohammedan Rani, you mean? My husband tells me she is perfectly
lovely. But they say she will never let a European get a glimpse of her
face--puts down her Parsee veil, I suppose--so goodness knows how _he_
knows, you know."
"Perhaps your husband is a privileged person, my dear," said one of the
other ladies, whereupon there was a trill of laughter and the little
feet in satin slippers were beaten upon the floor.
"But a Rani! Think of that! Who can she be, I wonder?" said another of
the ladies, and then the mistress of the Palace, Lady Mannering, hinted
that she believed the Sirdar knew something about her.
"Oh, tell us! tell us!" cried a dozen female voices at once; but the
Sirdar, a shrewd and kindly autocrat who had been smoking a cigarette in
silence, merely answered--
"Time will tell you, perhaps." Then turning to the Inspector-General he
said--
"She has _married_ the man, you say?"
"That's so, your Excellency."
"There must be some mistake about that, surely."
The company broke up late, and the ladies went on in light wraps and the
men bare-headed through the soft, reverberant air of the southern night.
But the Sirdar had asked certain of his officers to remain for a few
moments, and among them were the Inspector-General, the Financial
Secretary, and the Governor of the town. To the latter came his Zabit,
a police officer, whose duty it was to report to his chief early and
late, and as soon as the men had seated themselves the Sirdar said--
"Any further news about this man, Ishmael Ameer?"
"None, your Excellency," said the Governor.
"You've discovered nothing about his object in coming here?"
"Nothing at all."
"He is not sowing dissension between Moslems and Christians?"
"No! On the contrary, he professes to be opposed to all that, sir."
"Then you see no reason to think that he is likely to be a danger to the
public peace?"
"Unfortunately no, sir, no!"
The Sirdar laughed. "He hasn't yet given 'divine' sanction for your
removal, Colonel?"
"Not that I know of, at all events."
"Then you and your wife may sleep in peace for the present, I suppose."
There was a little general laughter, and then the Inspector-General, a
sceptic with a contempt for holy men of all kinds, said--
"All the same, your Excellency, I should make short work of this
pseudo-Messiah."
"Without plain cause we cannot," said the Sirdar, who was the friend of
all faiths and the enemy of none. "Indeed, a broad-minded Mohammedan
such as this man is said to be might possibly be of service in directing
the religion of the Soudan."
"Yes, sir, but too many of these religious celebrities are contaminated
by Mahdism."
"Surely Mahdism is dead, my dear fellow."
"Not yet, sir! Only yesterday I saw a man kneeling by the Mahdi's
tomb--so hard do religions die! As for this man, Ishmael, he may be
preaching peace while he is gathering his followers, but wait till
they're numerous enough to fight and you'll see what he will do.
Besides, isn't there evidence enough already that the tranquillity of
the Soudan has been disturbed?"
"What evidence do you mean?"
"I mean ... my informers all over the country tell me the people are no
longer pleading poverty as an excuse for remission of taxation--they are
boldly _refusing_ to pay."
The Financial Secretary corroborated this statement, saying that the
taxes due on the land and the date-trees had not yet been collected, and
that he had heard from Cairo that the same difficulty was being met with
in Egypt in respect of the taxes on berseem and wheat.
"You mean," said the Sirdar, "that a conspiracy of passive resistance
against the Government has been set afoot?"
"It looks like it, sir," said the Inspector-General. "A pretty insidious
kind of conspiracy it is, too, and I think all the signs are that
Ishmael Ameer is at the head of it."
There was silence, for some minutes, during which the Sirdar was telling
himself that, if this was so, the rule of England in Egypt was face to
face with a most subtle enemy--subtler far than the Mahdi and
immeasurably more dangerous.
"Well, the first thing we've got to do is to find out the truth," he
said, and thereupon he gave the Zabit an order to summon the Ulema of
Khartoum, the Cadi, the Notables, and Sheikhs to a meeting in the
Palace.
"Let it be soon," he said.
"Yes, sir."
"And secret."
"Certainly, your Excellency."
The Governor and the Financial Secretary went off with the police
officer, but for some minutes longer the Inspector-General remained with
the Sirdar.
"If the man were likely to cause a disturbance," said the Sirdar, "it
would be easy to deal with him, but he's not. Public security is in no
present danger. On the contrary, everything I hear of the man's teaching
is calculated to promote peace."
"As to that, sir, if you believe all he says, he is the prince of peace
himself, and his Islam isn't Islam at all as we know it, but something
quite different."
"If he were claiming 'divine' authority, and telling people to resist
the Government----"
"Oh, he is far too clever for that, sir, and his conspiracy is the
deep-laid plan of a subtle impostor, not the unpremeditated action of a
lunatic."
"All I hear about his personal character is good," said the Sirdar. "He
is tender to children, charitable to the poor, and weeps like a woman at
a story of distress."
The Inspector-General laughed. "Pepper in his finger-nails--the hoary
old trick, sir! Good-night, Sirdar!"
"Good-night, Colonel!" And the Inspector-General descended the steps.
Being left alone, the Sirdar walked for a long hour to and fro on the
terrace, trying to see what course he ought to take in dealing with a
religious leader who differed so dangerously from the holy men that were
more troublesome, but hardly more deadly, than the sand-flies of the
desert.
At midnight he found himself standing on the very spot on which General
Gordon met his death, and in an instant, as by a flash of mental
lightning, he saw the scene that had been enacted there only a few years
before--the grey dawn, the mad rush of the howling dervishes in their
lust of blood, up from the dim garden to the top of these steps, on
which stood, calmly waiting for them, the fearless soul that had waited
for his own countrymen in vain. "Where is your Master, the Mahdi?" he
cried. Then a barbarous shriek, the flash of a score of lances, and the
martyr of the Soudan fell.
Was this to be another such revolt, more subtle if not more bloody,
turning England out of the valley of the Nile by making it impossible
for her to meet the expense of governing the country, and thereby
destroying the seeds of civilisation that had been sown in the Soudan
through so many toilsome years?
On the other hand, was it the beginning of a great spiritual revolution
that was intended by God to pass over the whole face of the world? It
might even be that, though the Soudan was only a brown and barren
wilderness, for had not all great faiths and all great prophets sprung
out of the desert--Moses, Mohammed, Christ!
This brought the Sirdar back to a memory that had troubled him deeply
for many weeks--the memory of the disgrace that had fallen in Cairo on
his comrade of long ago, the son of his old friend Nuneham, young Gordon
Lord.
Then it dawned upon him for the first time that, however serious his
offence as a soldier, the son of his friend had done no more and no less
than his great namesake did before him when he resisted authority
_because authority was in the wrong_!
Good God! could it be possible that young Gordon was in the right after
all, and that this movement of the man Ishmael was the beginning of a
world-wide revolt against the materialism, the selfishness, the
venality, and the oppression of a corrupt civilisation that mocked
religion by taking the name of Him who came to earth to destroy such
evils?
If that were so, could any Christian country in these days dare to
repeat the appalling error of the Roman Empire in Palestine two thousand
years ago--the error of trying to put down moral forces by physical
ones?
The Sirdar laughed when he thought of that, so grotesque seemed the
mysterious law of the mind by which he had coupled an olive-faced Arab
like Ishmael Ameer with Christ!
The southern night was silent. Not a sound came up from the moonlit
garden except the croaking of frogs in the pond. Presently a voice that
was like a wave of wind came sweeping through the breathless air--
"There is no god but God! There is no god but God!"
The Sirdar shuddered and turned into the house.
*CHAPTER VI*
Being betrothed to Ishmael, and therefore in effect his wife, Helena had
now no difficulty in reading the secret he had so carefully hidden from
British eyes. Every morning she sat with him in the guest-room while he
received his messengers and agents, and if they demurred at her
presence, being distrustful of her because she was a woman, he would
say--
"Have no fear. My wife is myself. Think of her as you think of me."
Thus little by little she realised what the plan of his opposition to
the Government had been, when, in Cairo, after the closing of El Azhar,
he had sent out his hundred emissaries. It was to tell the people in
every village of Egypt and the Soudan to pay no taxes until their faith
was free and the Government took its hand off the central seat of their
religion.
She also realised that the people had obeyed Ishmael and had suffered as
the consequence. Agents were coming every day with secret letters and
messages concealed in their turbans, telling of the pains and penalties
already endured by those who had boldly refused to pay the taxes due at
that season of the year.
At first these lamentations were couched after Eastern manner in the
language of metaphor. Pharaoh was laying intolerable burdens upon the
people--what were they to do? God had once sent Moses, a man of prayer,
to plead with Pharaoh to loosen his hand--would He not do so again?
But as the people's sufferings increased the metaphors were dropped, and
the injustices they laboured under were stated in plain terms.
Hitherto, when a summons had been taken out against a man for the
non-payment of his taxes, the magistrate might remit or cancel or
postpone, but now there was nothing but summary execution everywhere,
with the result that stock and crops were being sold up by the police,
and neither the Mudirs (the governors) nor their Sarrafs (cashiers)
cared what price was realised so long as the amount of the taxes was
met.
"Is there no redress, no remedy, no appeal? What are we to do?" asked
the people, in the messages that came in the turbans.
"Be patient!" replied Ishmael. "It is written, 'God is with the
patient.'"
A hundred times Helena wrote this answer at Ishmael's dictation, on
pieces of paper hardly bigger than a large postage stamp, and it was
hidden away in some secret place in the messenger's clothes.
As time went on the messages became more urgent and painful. The law
said that at times of distraint the clothes of the debtor, his
implements of cultivation, and the cattle he employed in agriculture
were to be exempt from seizure, but the district officers were seizing
everything by which the people worked, and yet requiring them to pay
taxes just the same.
"What are we to say?" asked the messengers.
"Say nothing," answered Ishmael. "Suffer and be strong. Not for the
first time on the banks of the Nile have people been required to make
bricks without straw. But God will avenge you. Wait!"
This message, also, Helena wrote a hundred times, wishing it had been
more explicit, but Ishmael committed his signature to no compromising
statement, no evidence of conspiracy, and that deepened Helena's
conviction of his cunning and duplicity.
The intensity of her feeling against Ishmael did not abate by coming to
close quarters. Day by day, as she sat in the guest-room, she poisoned
her mind and hardened her heart against him. She even found herself
taking the side of his people in the sufferings he continued to impose
upon them. She was sure, too, that in addition to his plan of passive
resistance he had some active scheme of vengeance against the
Government. What was it? She must wait and see.
After a while letters began to arrive from Cairo. They were from the
Chancellor of El Azhar, and contained the messages of the Ulema.
The Ulema had appealed to the representatives of the Powers, who had
answered them that they could do nothing unless it became clear to all
the world that the action of England was imperilling the peace of Egypt
and thereby the lives of the Europeans--what were they to say?
"Fools!" cried Ishmael. "Don't you see that they _want_ you to rebel?
Grasp every hand that is held out to you in good will, but fly from the
finger that would point you into the fire."
Helena thought she saw light at last. Having expelled England from
Egypt by making it impossible for her to govern the country, Ishmael
intended to establish, like the Mahdi, an entirely worldly and temporal
power with himself at the head of it.
The second letter from the Ulema at Cairo contained a still more serious
message. Having met and concluded that the action of the Government
justified the proclamation of a Jehad, a holy war, on the just ground
that the unbelievers were trying to expel them from their country, they
had solemnly sworn on the Koran to turn England out of Egypt or die in
the attempt. To this letter Ishmael sent an instant answer, saying--
"No! What will it profit you to turn England out of Egypt while she
holds the Soudan and the sources of the Nile? O blind and weak! If you
have forgotten your souls, have you no thoughts for your stomachs?"
Then came further letters from the Chancellor of El Azhar saying that
the fellaheen were being evicted from their houses and lands, and that
their sufferings were now so dire that no counsels could keep them from
revolt. Even the young women were calling upon the young men to fight,
saying they were not half the men their fathers had been, or they would
conquer or die for the homes that were being taken from them and for the
religion of God and His prophet.
To this message also Ishmael returned a determined answer.
"War is mutual deceit," he said. "Avoid it! Fly from it! I will
countenance no warfare! That is my unalterable mind! Hear it, for
God's sake!"
But hardly had Ishmael's answer gone from Khartoum when messengers began
to arrive from all parts of Egypt saying that the fellaheen had already
risen in various places, and that battalions of the British army had
been sent out to repress them; that the people had been put down with
loss of life and suffering, and that many were now trooping into the
cities, homeless and hopeless, and crying in their despair, "How long, O
Lord, how long?"
It was a black day in Khartoum when this news came, for among Ishmael's
immediate following there were not a few who had lost members of their
own families. Some of these, that night when all was still, went out
into the desert, far away from the tents, and sang a solemn dirge for
the dead. It was a melancholy sight in that lonesome place, for they
were chiefly women, and their voices, under the deep blue sky with its
stars, made a most touching lamentation, like that of the sobbing of the
sea.
Helena heard it, and, with her heart still poisoned against Ishmael, it
made her yet more bitter against him, as one who for his own ends was
holding the poor, weak people under their cruel fate by the spell of
superstitious hopes and fears.
Knowing the Moslem ethics of warfare, that it is only wicked when it is
likely to fail, she convinced herself that Ishmael was merely biding his
time for the execution of some violent scheme, and remembering his
secret (the secret of the crime he thought he had hidden from
everybody), the idea took possession of her that he was laying some
personal plot against the Consul-General.
One day a lanky fellow, with a short-cut Moslem beard, arrived by train,
and, after the usual Arabic salutations, produced a letter. It ran--
"The bearer of this is Abdel Kader, and he is our envoy to you with a
solemn message which is too secret to commit to paper. Trust him. He
is honest and his word is true.--Your friends, who wait for you in Cairo
with outstretched arms----"
And then followed the names not only of many of the Ulema of Cairo but
of most of the Notables as well.
Abdel Kader proved to be a sort of Arab Don Quixote, full of fine
language and grand sentiments. Much of this he expended upon Ishmael in
the secrecy of the carefully guarded guest-room before he came to the
substance of his message, which was to say that as a great doctor of
Moslem law, Gamal-ed-Deen, had upheld assassination itself as a last
means of righting the wrongs of the people, the leaders had reluctantly
concluded that the English Lord (Lord Nuneham) must be removed in order
that his heavy foot might be lifted from the necks of the oppressed. To
this end they had decided that he should be assassinated some day as he
passed in his carriage on his afternoon drive over the Kasr-el-Nil
bridge, but lacking a person capable of taking the lead in such an
affair they appealed to Ishmael to return to Cairo for this purpose.
Having discharged himself of the burden of his message, the Arab Don
Quixote was proceeding with many large words, that were intended to show
how safely this act of righteous vengeance might be executed by one whom
the law dared not touch for fear of the people, when Ishmael, who had
listened breathlessly, burst out on him and cried--
"No, no, I tell you, no! Return to them that sent you and say, 'Ishmael
Ameer is no murderer.' Say, too, that the world has no use for patriots
who would right the people by putting them in the wrong. Away with you!
Away!"
At that, he rose up and went out of the guest-room with a flaming face,
leaving the envoy to strike his forehead, and to curse the day that had
brought him.
Helena, who, with old Mahmud, had been present at this interview, found
herself utterly shaken at the end of it by a storm of conflicting
feelings, and from that time forward her heart was constantly being
surprised by emotions which she had hitherto struggled to suppress.
Day by day, as messengers came thronging into Khartoum with sadder and
yet sadder stories of the people's sufferings--how, living under the
shadow of the sword, impoverished by the law and by the cruel injustice
of the native officers, the Omdehs and the Sarrafs, sold up and evicted
from their homes, they were tramping the deserts, men, women, and
children, hungry and naked, and with nothing of their own except the
sand and the sky--Helena saw that Ishmael's face grew paler and paler,
as if his sleep had left him, and under the burden of his responsibility
for what had befallen the country as the consequence of its obedience to
his will, his heart was bleeding and his life ebbing away.
"Master, is there no help for us?" the messengers would ask, with tears
in their half-witted eyes. "You are our father, we are your
children--what are we to do? We are sheep without a shepherd--will you
not lead us?"