THE END OF EVERYTHING.
The journey through the upland country had not been at all a
pleasant one to Cecil, quite irrespective of the continual alarms due
to the attacks of the insurgents. From the very day on which they left
Hillah, Jamileh Khanum’s behaviour had become markedly and
inexplicably disagreeable. She seized every opportunity of heaping
slights on Azim Bey and his governess, and her servants followed her
example. Travelling, as they did, humbly in the rear of the harem
procession, which was headed by the gorgeous _takhtrevan_, with its
velvet cushions and curtains of cloth-of-gold, in which reposed the
Khanum Effendi and her boy, the little band who formed the household
of Azim Bey were exposed to many unpleasantnesses. It became almost a
matter of course that Cecil should find, on reaching the village where
the night was to be spent, that the Khanum Effendi and her household
had appropriated all the accommodation, leaving her and her party no
choice but to camp in the courtyard. She herself would have been
willing to sacrifice much for the sake of peace, but Azim Bey was by
no means like-minded, and the difficulty was generally settled by a
tremendous quarrel between the respective servants, in the course of
which Masûd, armed with a whip and his young master’s authority,
turned out the intruders in sufficient numbers to secure Cecil and the
other women a resting-place where they would be tolerably free from
the attacks of the mosquitoes and other pests of the region.
Disagreeable as these nightly experiences were, they did not at all
exhaust Jamileh Khanum’s opportunities of making herself unpleasant.
It seemed to Cecil that she was doing her best, with a purposeless
malignity, to lower both Azim Bey and his governess in the eyes of the
servants. Not feeling inclined to assist in this process, Cecil did
her best to keep her followers separate from the rest; but Jamileh
Khanum could never pass the group without an insulting word to her, or
an expression of hatred directed against Azim Bey, who was stigmatised
twenty times a day as the supplanter of his little brother. Cecil’s
patience was sorely tasked, for it was a difficult business to
maintain her own dignity without infringing the respect due to the
Khanum Effendi, and there was no redress. Once on the journey, the
Pasha was scarcely ever to be seen, even by Azim Bey; for custom
required that the gentlemen should all ride at a considerable distance
in front of the harem procession, and for Cecil to have left her
companions to lay her grievances before her employer would have been a
breach of etiquette amounting to a crime. One of the most disagreeable
features of the case was that Jamileh Khanum’s servants imitated their
mistress’s behaviour, and even improved upon it. Azim Bey could always
take care of himself, and Cecil had spirit enough to secure tolerable
respect towards her in her presence, but the treatment which their
household received from that of Jamileh Khanum was galling in the
extreme. Headed by the Levantine Mdlle. Katrina, who had been lent to
her daughter-in-law by the Um-ul-Pasha in view of this journey, the
harem attendants did everything in their power to insult and injure
the servants of the Bey.
What reason there could be for this state of affairs Cecil could not
conceive, until it struck her one day, from various signs which she
observed, that her slighted admirer, M. Karalampi, was in
communication with Jamileh Khanum. As had been the case at Baghdad,
the go-between was Mdlle. Katrina. It was of course impossible for her
to have any actual intercourse with M. Karalampi, who was in front
with the Pasha; but Mdlle. Katrina had a nephew, an ill-conditioned
youth of mixed parentage and doubtful nationality, who was continually
to be seen hanging about in the neighbourhood of the harem tents. Once
or twice Cecil came upon this individual talking to his aunt in
secluded corners, a thing which could not have happened if the agas
had not diplomatically turned their backs; but it seemed ridiculous to
suppose that M. Karalampi’s schemes could be in any way forwarded by
the petty persecution which had been set on foot, and she thought
little of the matter. It was Um Yusuf who first let her into the
secret of the mortifications she had endured, but this was not until
Sardiyeh was reached, and they were safe in their own house, and as
free from insult as in their courtyard at Baghdad.
“Come down the hill with me, Um Yusuf,--I want to make a sketch,”
Cecil said to her maid the morning after their arrival, entranced by
the effects of light and shade produced by the sunrise upon the dark
mountains.
“You not go beyond the gate, mademoiselle?” asked Um Yusuf, anxiously.
“Why not?” asked Cecil, in astonishment. “There is a place just
outside the town-wall which has a splendid view. We will take little
Ishak to carry the paint-box, and we shall be in sight of the guard at
the gate. Besides, the Kurds would not venture so near to the town.”
“Mademoiselle,” said Um Yusuf, slowly and impressively, “you not go
one step outside gate without Masûd. Suppose guard looking the other
way; Kurds or any bad men come up quickly, kill you, kill me, run
away. What good guard do?”
“But why should the Kurds be lying in wait for us?” asked Cecil,
laughing.
“I said Kurds _or any bad men_, mademoiselle.”
“What do you mean, Um Yusuf?” asked Cecil, impressed by the woman’s
tone. “Is there any one who wants to kill us?”
“I tell you what I know,” said Um Yusuf, looking fearfully round the
house-top, where they were standing. “Khanum Effendi want get you away
from Azim Bey, mademoiselle. All this time she been rude to you, and
her servants the same, but when you not there they say to Basmeh
Kalfa, to Masûd, to me, ‘You see your Mdlle. Antaza? What she signify
here? Khanum Effendi do what she like with her. Balio Bey big man, but
his arm not reach to Kurdistan. You help Khanum Effendi get rid of
her, you not be punished, get plenty of money. You say she want poison
Azim Bey, Pasha send her away, all right for you.’ That what they say
to us, mademoiselle, we say no, tell Pasha if they do it again. They
laugh at us, but not try it, and I think they kill you if they can.”
Cecil turned pale. It was a horrible thing to feel that her enemies
had tried to bribe her own servants to bear false witness against her,
and to know that she owed her life to their faithfulness. Their safety
as well as her own was now at stake, and she did not need another
warning from Um Yusuf. She kept her pupil with her all day, and did
not attempt to go out unless escorted by Masûd. It did not occur to
her to take further precautions, and she did not know until some time
afterwards that Um Yusuf, fearing poison, made a practice of tasting
beforehand every dish which was to be set before her mistress. All the
food used by the household was purchased separately in the market by
Basmeh Kalfa, and none of the harem slaves were allowed to come near
the kitchen. These measures once taken, Um Yusuf felt that things were
tolerably safe, not knowing that Jamileh Khanum’s messengers had
conveyed to M. Karalampi the news of the failure to corrupt the
members of the household, and also of the precautions which had been
adopted, and that the answer returned was that he had a new plan for
effecting the desired purpose just ready to be put in action.
It afforded a partial relief to Cecil’s anxiety for her pupil when he
was allowed, in answer to his piteous prayers, to accompany his father
and the troops part of the way in their march against the chief
stronghold of the insurgents. He was away for some days, and his
governess employed the time in writing one of the long journal letters
which kept the family at Whitcliffe regularly informed of all her
doings under ordinary circumstances, but had been neglected during the
exciting times of the last few weeks, which were unfavourable to
epistolary composition. But it was still difficult to write, for Cecil
did not dare to say a word on the subject which lay nearest her
heart--that of Charlie’s present whereabouts. The alarm she had felt
on his account in leaving Hillah had increased tenfold now that a
considerable time had elapsed without her hearing from him, and it was
in vain that she tried to comfort herself with the suggestion that the
insurgents might have prevented the passage of any couriers, or that
his letters might have been intercepted once more. She felt sure that
if he had reached Baghdad, he would not have failed to send her some
intimation of his safety through Sir Dugald, with whose letters
neither Azim Bey nor the mountaineers, who cherished a deep veneration
for the British name, would venture to meddle. It was evident, then,
that Charlie was either still in Hillah, or was retracing his steps to
Ispahan by the way he had come--if, at least, he had not been
suspected and seized.
The thought of this last possibility tormented Cecil day and night,
and the more so that no means of solving the mystery presented
themselves to her. Even if she wrote to Sir Dugald to inform him of
her meeting with Charlie and of her fears respecting his safety, and
inquiries were set on foot, it might have just the effect of arousing
suspicion, and endangering him in his journey back to Persia or his
retirement at Hillah, supposing that he had settled down there to
enjoy a taste of Eastern life once more. Cecil longed wearily for some
assurance that this was the case, and wished too late that she had not
set her face so resolutely against her lover’s eccentricities in the
past. Merely to know now that he was safe in the camp of some sheikh
of the Hajar would have been the height of bliss, but it was a bliss
she was not to enjoy.
To write her letter under these circumstances, without alluding to the
subject which filled almost all her waking thoughts, was a difficult
task, but she feared that the epistle might fall into unfriendly
hands, and she wrote it without even mentioning Charlie’s name. The
recital of the alarms and moving incidents which had diversified the
passage of the caravan through the mountains took her so long that she
did not finish the letter until the afternoon of the day on which Azim
Bey was expected back, and she gave a sigh of gratification as she
wrapped the envelope in the strong paper covering which was necessary
to protect it against the rough usage it would probably meet with in
its transit to Baghdad. This operation completed, and the packet
firmly sealed, she went out on the broad _lewan_ or piazza to call one
of the servants, who might give it to the Pasha’s courier before he
started on his journey to the city.
Looking down into the courtyard, without the slightest foreboding of
coming trouble, she saw that the servants had a visitor. Um Yusuf, old
Ayesha, and Basmeh Kalfa were sitting on the ground, entertaining with
coffee and cakes an elderly woman in whom Cecil recognised a former
_kalfa_ of the Um-ul-Pasha’s, who had married a non-commissioned
officer of one of the regiments which formed the guard of honour, and
who had been permitted to accompany her husband on this expedition.
But the cakes stood untasted, and Basmeh Kalfa had paused in the act
of pouring out the coffee, and was holding the pot suspended in the
air, while she and the others stared with eyes of horror at their
visitor, and listened with upraised hands of dismay to some story
which she seemed to be narrating.
“May God visit it upon my own head if it be not true!” concluded the
stranger, and Cecil heard Um Yusuf apostrophising a string of obscure
Syrian saints, while the two other women murmured, “God forbid!” and
“God is great!” in awestruck tones.
“How wilt thou tell thy lady, O Um Yusuf?” asked old Ayesha, just as
Um Yusuf looked up, met her mistress’s eye, and dropped in her
consternation the cup she was holding. A feeling for which she could
not account impelled Cecil to descend the steps leading into the court
and enter the group, the members of which started guiltily when they
found her among them, the visitor alone taking refuge in an assumed
carelessness.
“Is anything wrong? What is the matter?” Cecil asked.
“Oh, nothing, mademoiselle,” replied Um Yusuf, hastily. “You want me?”
“I am sure there is something wrong,” said Cecil. “Latifeh Kalfa has
brought bad news. What is it that you are to tell me, Um Yusuf?”
“You come with me, mademoiselle,” said Um Yusuf, trying to draw her
mistress aside. “That daughter of Shaitan know nothing--she make it
all up.”
“God forbid!” said Latifeh Kalfa, piously.
“O my soul, come with me!” entreated Um Yusuf.
“I insist upon hearing what she has told you,” said Cecil, standing
her ground, although the affectionate epithet from the lips of the
sedate Syrian woman thrilled her with alarm.
“She say, mademoiselle,” said Um Yusuf, unwillingly, “that those two
Armenians from Hillah were with Pasha’s caravan in the mountains, and
Kurds carry them off.”
“Is this true?” demanded Cecil of Latifeh Kalfa.
“I heard it from my husband, who was with the rearguard, O my lady,”
replied the woman; “and more than that, I can testify that though I
had often seen them before, yet they disappeared altogether from that
time.”
“But was it Kurds, not Yezidis?” asked Cecil.
“Kurds, O my lady,” purred the woman. She had a soft, smooth voice,
and a way of fastening her eyes sleepily on the person she addressed.
Cecil, standing for a moment overwhelmed, felt an unreasoning hatred
spring up in her heart against her. It was only for the first instant
that the disaster crushed her, however, and she sought immediate
relief in action.
“I want you to come out with me, Um Yusuf,” she said.
“But, mademoiselle, Masûd not here. You not go without him?”
“Yes, I can’t wait.”
“But they kill us, mademoiselle.”
“Then stay behind and I will go alone. Don’t you see that there is not
a moment to lose?”
“If I perish, I perish,” was Um Yusuf’s mental utterance as she
wrapped her sheet round her and followed her mistress without another
word. She would face all the Kurds in Kurdistan rather than let
mademoiselle go out by herself.
“Where you going, mademoiselle?” she asked, as they approached the
gate.
“To the little Christian village down in the valley,” responded Cecil,
steadily. “The priest there will help us. He can speak English.”
“What! Kasha Thoma?” asked Um Yusuf. “Oh yes, he good man, been with
Melican missionaries at Beyrout. But what you say to him,
mademoiselle?”
“I shall ask him to send off a trustworthy messenger at once to
Baghdad, to tell the Balio Bey what we have heard. If the Pasha were
here, I would go straight to
[*** missing text. See Transcriber’s Notes.]
“What you ’fraid of, mademoiselle?” inquired Um Yusuf.
“That the Kurds may carry Dr Egerton away into the mountains, or take
him to Persia, and perhaps treat him badly,” said Cecil.
Um Yusuf’s own fears were of a darker nature, but she was wise enough
to keep silence concerning them, and presently her mind became
engrossed with the thought of the peril into which she and her
mistress were running by leaving the town unattended. True, almost
every foot of the winding path which led to the Nestorian village was
under the eye of the watchman at the town-gate, and also of the
Turkish sentinels at the fort, but the untoward events of the journey,
and the alarms of the last few weeks, would have shaken the nerves of
most people, and Um Yusuf’s imagination conjured up lurking Kurds
behind every rock. More than once she was on the point of declaring
her conviction that Latifeh Kalfa’s whole story was a fraud, invented
for the very purpose of decoying Cecil out in this way, that she might
fall into the hands of the Kurdish raiders; but the certainty that,
even if she turned back, her mistress would infallibly go on alone,
kept her silent, and she followed on in the spirit of a martyr,
casting timid glances on either side. Fervently she longed for the
protection of Masûd and his stout cudgel, but neither was at hand.
Her greatest trial was still to come, for at the foot of the hill a
man rose suddenly from the shelter of a clump of bushes and ran
towards them. Um Yusuf screamed and clutched Cecil’s arm.
“It is only a beggar,” said Cecil, quickly; and indeed the shrunken
form in its multi-coloured rags could scarcely have been considered
formidable in any case. As he reached them the man tore off the
_kaffiyeh_ which enveloped his head, disclosing a face at sight of
which both women started and turned pale. The wasted features were
those of Hanna, the Armenian lad who had been Charlie Egerton’s
servant at Baghdad, and had accompanied him on his foolhardy
adventure.
“O luckless one!” screamed Um Yusuf, finding her tongue first, “what
evil fate has befallen thee? Where is thy master?”
“What is that to do with thee?” demanded Hanna. “I am here with a
message from him to thy lady.”
“Tell me quickly,” cried Cecil, “is he ill? in prison?”
“He had no time to write,” pursued Hanna, evasively, “but I have
carried his words.”
“But is he--is he----” gasped Cecil. “He is not dead?”
“O my lady, he is dead. I am come unto thee with the last words he
said.”
“Go on,” said Cecil, hoarsely, her tearless eyes searching the man’s
face.
“I can tell thee but little, O my lady, for all was done so quickly.
My master and I left Hillah with our mules in the train of the Pasha,
desiring to pass through the mountains in safety. But on a certain day
there was an attack made upon the rear-guard, and the robbers
succeeded in getting between it and the main body. There was a great
turmoil, for all the traders and their beasts were mixed up with the
soldiers and the enemy upon a narrow ledge of rock, and in the
confusion a band of Kurds separated some of us from the rest, and
dragged us away by force. Among these were my master and I, for he had
bidden me keep close beside him. Then they bound our hands and
fastened us to their saddles, and led us along many steep and winding
paths, going continually farther into the mountains. But my master
said, ‘Courage, Hanna! don’t lose heart. We will yet slip away from
them,’ and I was cheered, knowing his coolness and bravery. But at
last they left the horses behind, and began to climb up rocks such as
the wild goats love, still leading my master and me with them. So then
we came to a valley in the highest part of the mountains, in which
there was a pool of water and some sheep, and when my master saw the
place, he said, ‘Our wanderings are over, O Hanna, for they would
never have shown us this stronghold of theirs had they meant us to
leave it alive.’ Now in this valley were caves, and into one of these
they thrust my master and me, leaving us without food or water for two
days and nights. But on the third day one of the Kurds in passing
called out to us between the stones at the mouth of the cave, ‘Dogs of
Christians, prepare for death!’ Then while my master and I looked at
one another, the rest came and took down the stones and led my master
away. But as he went he turned and said to me, ‘If thou shouldst
escape, seek out Mdlle. Antaza, and say this to her from me’--and
truly, O my lady, I have repeated it night and morning on my fingers,
lest I should forget it, for it was seven English words”--and
spreading out his hand, Hanna read off mechanically,
“‘Good--bye--dar--ling--God--bless--you.’”
A choking sob burst from Cecil, but she signed to the man to continue.
“That was the last time I saw my master alive, O my lady. But that
evening they led me forth also, and I thought that surely my hour of
death was come, but they took me only to the brow of a precipice, and
told me to look down. And looking down, I saw----”
“What?” asked Cecil, sharply.
“I saw my master’s body lying far below, in the Armenian dress he had
worn, in a pit as deep as Jehannam. And the robbers laughed at me, and
bade me mark the place well, saying, ‘Thy master’s turn to-day, thine
to-morrow.’ Then they led me back, more dead than alive with fear; but
behold! before we reached the cave we found coming to meet us certain
other Kurds, who had only just arrived in the stronghold, and those
with me stopped to salute them and to ask them of their welfare. And
after welcoming them they killed a sheep and made a feast, leaving me
in the cave, but with no stone at its mouth. And when they were eating
and were merry, and it was dark and no guard set, I crept out, and
finding the sword of a man who had thrown it aside while he ate, I cut
through my bonds. Then, taking the sword with me, and some bread that
lay near, I stole away, and when I was out of earshot of the Kurds, I
started to run. But how I found the way down the mountain, or how I
did not fall and die, I cannot tell; I know only that I made my way
hither, and for three days have I watched for thee, O my lady, to give
thee the message of the dead. But into the town I could not come, for
the watchman at the gate drove me away.”
“And what wilt thou do now?” asked Um Yusuf.
“I should wish to return to Baghdad and my own people,” he said; “but
how am I to go there, when my master is dead, and the Kurds have
robbed me?”
“Go to Baghdad,” said Cecil, emptying her purse mechanically into his
hands, “and tell the Balio Bey what you have told me. Don’t lose
time--but no, there is no need of any hurry now. Let us go back to
Sardiyeh, Um Yusuf. Kasha Thoma cannot help us.”