THE END OF THE FIGHT
Now during all these weary hours Rupert had been taking counsel with
himself. He was skilled in Arab warfare, and guessed that Ibrahim’s plan
was not to attempt to rush him in the daylight, which at best would cost
him many more men and might mean defeat, but to get among his little
band with the spear under cover of the night, or perhaps just at the
break of dawn. Utterly outnumbered as they were, to such a move as this
there could be but one end—annihilation. It was, however, possible that
it would not be made; that the Arabs would be content to continue their
present tactics, knowing that Rupert had no hope of succour, and that
soon or late thirst must conquer him. Therefore it would seem that he
was driven to choose between two alternatives—surrender or retreat. He
gathered his men together and addressed them through the darkness, not
hiding from them how desperate he thought their plight.
Under the circumstances, he said, if they wished to surrender he would
not forbid them, only then he believed that whatever promises were made,
they would all be killed, or at the best taken away and sold as slaves
to the Khalifa, or his emirs, with whom, doubtless, Ibrahim was in
league. For himself, however, he should certainly not surrender, but
choosing the best place he could find, fight on till he was killed like
Gordon.
With one voice the soldiers said they would not suffer this; their
business was to die with their captain, not desert him: they were
Soudanese and men, not Fellaheen.
He thanked them simply, and put before them the second alternative—that
of retreat. The pass behind them was open, though none of them had ever
travelled it, and a map he had showed a water-hole about some thirty
miles away in the desert beyond, which they might reach. Or failing
that, when they were clear of the pass they could turn and skirt along
the mountains, taking their chance of water and of safety. Or they could
try to cut their way back to Wady-Halfa, a thing however that seemed
hopeless, since if they got through, they would be overtaken, surrounded
and picked off in the open desert.
Having discussed the matter among themselves the men announced their
decision that flight was best. For the rest, they said, they resigned
themselves to _el Mektub_ which means “to that which is written”; or in
other words, to Destiny. Then Rupert called the roll to see that all
were present. Two did not answer to their names—the dead man and the
sergeant Abdullah. At first it was thought that the latter had been
killed also, till someone remembered that early in the afternoon he had
gone to tend and feed the camels, since when he had not been seen.
Afterwards it was discovered that, anticipating his commander’s plan, he
had already retreated—with the best camel—an act of cowardice which, it
will be seen, produced very grave results to Rupert, and indeed
profoundly influenced his subsequent career. For here it may be said at
once that Abdullah got back to the Nile in safety by skirting round the
mountains, and needless to add, made his own report to the authorities,
which, as it happened, there was no one to contradict.
Now, their counsel taken, the little band set themselves to carry it out
as best they could without delay, since they knew not at what moment the
attack might be delivered. First they built a fire of whatever material
they could collect and lit it, so as to suggest to the Arabs that they
remained in camp there. Also, having said the prayers for the dead over
him, they set their fallen companion behind a stone, above which one
hand and his rifle projected, in such a position that the light of the
fire fell upon them. Two of the worst camels also they left behind, that
their roaring might deceive the enemy into the belief that the caravan
had not moved. This done they started as noiselessly as possible, only
to find that their task was more difficult even than they thought.
The moon not being up, the darkness in that narrow gorge was intense;
moreover, the pass was strewn with boulders and pitted with holes washed
out by water, in one of which a camel soon broke its leg and had to be
killed with a knife and left with its valuable load. Not half a mile
further on another camel fell over a bank or precipice—they could not
tell which—and vanished, while a man twisted his ankle, and a second,
stumbling, struck his forehead against a stone and cut it badly. After
this Rupert ordered a halt till the moon rose since to proceed was
practically impossible. At length the moon came, but the sky was cloudy,
also she was on the wane; so they found themselves but little better off
in that deep gulf. Still they struggled on, praying for daylight, and
taking comfort from the thought that if the Arabs followed, matters
would be equally bad for them.
The sky turned grey, the dawn broke, and then with the startling
suddenness that will be familiar to all travellers in the Egyptian
desert, the sun rose, and by its light they pushed forward. For a mile
or so all went well till they came to a place where the pass opened out,
and its sides, no longer precipitous, were clothed with scrub and
boulders. Then suddenly from behind one of these boulders rang out a
rifle shot. A few yards ahead, in the centre of the valley, was a little
hill or kopje, also boulder-strewn, and understanding at once what had
happened, namely, that the Arabs, foreseeing this retreat, probably on
the previous afternoon, had sent most of their force over the mountains
to waylay them, Rupert shouted to his band to make for this kopje and
hold it.
They did so under a fierce fire, but as the Arab shooting was bad and
the mist still hung at the bottom of the valley, without much loss. On
the kopje were two or three of the enemy’s marksmen whom they dislodged
and killed. Then taking the best positions they could find, the little
company prepared itself to inflict all the damage it could upon its foes
before it met its inevitable doom. Although a man fell now and again
this was delayed for several hours, until at length the rest of the
Arabs, who had followed them down the pass, arrived.
Then came the last bitter struggle. Such things sound heroic to tell
of—the forlorn stands of the few against the many always do—but in
practice they are only dreadful; the glory is naught but a residuum
deposited in the cauldrons of their sanguinary and seething horror by
the powerful precipitants of distance, romance, and time.
Thus this last desperate fight of a few wearied men against many may be
noble to read of, but in fact it was merely hideous. Brave things were
done by these black Soudanese, who, if they are well led and trust their
leader, will not surrender with a loss of about five per cent in killed
and wounded; indeed surrender was talked of no more. But though it was
emphasised thereby, who could think of gallantry when a man shot through
the bowels lay writhing on the ground beside him, cursing and praying by
turns, but still loading his gun, and, in the pauses of his paroxysms,
bringing other men to their death. When the tongue is hanging from the
jaws with thirst, when the brows throb with fatigue and pain, and the
heart is well-nigh bursting with rage, grief for those who will be seen
no more, and apprehensions of the dreadful end, who can think of the cup
and chaplets of fame, and the empty trappings of honour?
At least Rupert could not. He fought on grimly; he did his best. Two
rushes he repelled, for now that their fire slackened, the Arabs were
trying to make an end of them with the spear. In the intervals that
followed these rushes Rupert thought of Edith. He wondered what she was
doing, and remembered that without doubt she would be comfortably in bed
and asleep, dreaming no dreams of him and his sore plight. He wondered
if when he died, as he must do in a few minutes, it would wake her, or
whether she would still sleep on as his spirit passed. Then he
remembered the other woman, that strange, high-bred native girl, and it
came into his mind that _she_ would wake however sound she slept, and
that there would be vengeance taken for this death of his, the wild
vengeance of the desert. Next he forgot all such things, and shook a
dying comrade by the hand.
“_Kismet!_” said the man, with a ghastly smile, “and we have killed more
of them than they can kill of us. The water of the Sweet Wells will be
bitter for a while. Allah is good and Paradise pleasant. Are you hurt,
Bey?”
“Not yet,” he answered, “but wait, I come presently. Ah! that got him
fair.”
“No, don’t come,” answered the man, “live on if you may. He who lives
long sees much, and amongst other things vengeance on his enemies. Live
on, and you will see the sheik Ibrahim hanging to the bough of a thorn.”
Then the soldier grunted, rolled on to his face, and was dead.
Puffs of smoke spurted from behind rocks; spears shone in the sunlight;
hoarse voices announced the fact which nobody contradicted—that Allah
was great and Mahomet was his prophet; here and there men fell forward
or backward, still declaring that Allah was great, and instantly
departed from the body to put the argument to proof. Blood ran in thin,
black streams, and was soaked up by the thankful soil; men died beneath
the hands of their fellow-men as in this devil-ridden world they have
done from the beginning, and will do till the end. Untouched by some
miracle, Rupert still fought on. His rifle was empty; a tall, bearded
Arab had fallen before its last shot. Then quite close to him he saw
Ibrahim, and remembering his revolver, drew it, when suddenly a heavy
blow from behind felled him to the ground.
Rupert came to himself again, and by degrees understood dimly that he
was not dead, since he lay where he had fallen, and all about him were
slain and wounded men. Near by, also, stood two of his own people,
captives, with their hands tied behind them. The sheik Ibrahim was
questioning them, promising them life if they would tell him where they
had hidden away the gipsy Bakhita and her companion, the lady Mea. They
answered that they accepted his terms, and would do so with pleasure.
They were hidden in the desert, whither they had departed before the
beginning of the fight, so if he wanted them he had best go look for
them there.
This answer seemed to infuriate the sheik, who called to some of his
people to kill “these dogs.” They came, whereon the two men, putting
down their heads, butted at them like rams, and knocking one of them
down, jumped and trampled on his face until the cruel swords did their
work with them and they died there. Then the wounded were killed also,
so that presently, of all his company, Rupert alone was left alive.
Now they caught hold of him and asked him questions about the women, but
he pretended not to be able to speak because of thirst, pointing to his
throat and mouth. The artifice succeeded, for they brought him water, of
which he stood in terrible need. The bowl was large, but he emptied all
of it, and felt his life come back to him. Now Ibrahim addressed him.
“Dog of an unbeliever,” he said, “you see that your cunning and courage
have not availed against the decrees of Allah who has destroyed all your
band!”
“It is so,” answered Rupert; “but he seems to have destroyed many of
yours also. Here I count over twenty of your dead, and thirty wounded.
Allah is just, and takes life for life.”
“Blaspheme not, dog! Of Allah I will speak to you afterwards. Tell
me—where are the women?”
“Those brave men whom you murdered after promising them their lives have
told you; they are in the desert. Go; search for them there. Come; I
tire of this talk. Murder me also, and begone to meet the doom that God
prepares in this world and the next for the traitor and the liar.”
“You wish to die, then?” asked Ibrahim, lifting his spear.
“Aye; why not? My people are slaughtered; I would join them. Also, I
must make report of you and your deeds, and prepare you a place.”
The Arab dropped his spear; Rupert’s words seemed to frighten him.
“Not yet, nor so swiftly,” he said. “Bind him and put him on a camel. He
shall see us catch these women, and after that we will judge him
according to the law.”
So they tied Rupert with ropes, and set him on his own dromedary.
Presently he started forward with the Arabs—about forty of them. The
rest were either dead or wounded, or had been left to convey the latter
and the rich booty, including the thousand pounds in gold, back to the
Sweet Wells. At the mouth of the pass, a few miles further on, they
searched, and in some soft soil found the spoor of the camels ridden by
Bakhita, Mea, and their servant, and seeing that it led out into the
desert beyond, followed swiftly. All that day they rode till they came
to the water-pool that was marked upon the map, and here, being very
weary after their desperate fight and long travelling, the Arabs would
go no further, although their sheik urged them to do so. So they camped
there by the water, and ate dates and cakes of flour, some of which were
given to Rupert.
Whilst they ate, an old man and two old women, one of them
blind—wanderers who were hidden in the scrub near the water—crept out
and begged for food. It was given to them, and when they had filled
themselves, Ibrahim asked them if two women and a man mounted on camels
had passed that way.
They answered, yes, about thirty hours before. By this time they must be
far away as, after only a short rest to water their camels and to eat,
they had departed very swiftly.
Now Ibrahim understood that his prey had escaped him. Indeed, the Arabs
refused to follow them any further into the desert, where they feared
they might be trapped by Mea’s people, and die like their brethren in
the pass. His rage knew no bounds, since he was well aware the booty
that he had taken could not in the least compensate for the death of so
many of his best men; whose loss in a private quarrel, moreover, would
be bitterly resented by the tribe, and especially by the women. He was
sure, also, that as Rupert had said, the Government would avenge this
great murder by sending an expedition against him, which could only be
avoided by his escaping with the remainder of his people to join the
Khalifa.
Lastly, all had been done in vain, since the woman, Mea, whom he desired
with the fierce intensity which is characteristic of the inhabitants of
the Soudan, had got away safely to her own land of Tama which was far
too strong for him to attack. All these ills and others had been brought
upon him, he reflected, by his old enemy, the English Bey, who had
protected Mea, and with his small band fought so stubbornly in the pass
that he had been unable to pursue and capture her. Hate of this dogged
infidel boiled up in Ibrahim’s black and cruel heart, till with a flash
of joy he remembered that at least he could make him pay for these
misfortunes.
Suddenly he gave orders that the prisoner should be led before him.
Accordingly he was brought to where Ibrahim sat near the cooking fire
under the shadow of an ancient and wide-spreading thorn.
“What is your pleasure with me, Sheik?” asked Rupert calmly. “Is the
appointed hour at hand? If so, be swift, for I am tired and wish to
sleep.”
“Not yet, dog,” answered Ibrahim; “and perhaps not at all, for I
remember the saying: ‘He is merciful who forgives.’ Though an infidel,
you are a brave man.”
“I do not ask your forgiveness; it is you who should ask mine, who have
again broken faith with your master the Khedive and murdered my people
without cause,” answered Rupert proudly.
“Nor do I offer it,” said Ibrahim; “but Allah offers, and I am his
servant. Once—do you remember?—I promised you that a day would come when
I should command you to make choice between death and Islam. It is here.
Choose now. Accept the faith publicly, which should not be hard to you,
seeing that already you wear the garb and travel under the holy name of
the Prophet; write it in a letter to your masters at Cairo that you
renounce them and are one of the faithful, and that you blame me not,
and go free. Or refuse and die an infidel. I have said.”
Rupert laughed in his face.
“Have done with such idle talk,” he answered. “Am I a child or a woman
that I should be frightened by death which I have faced a score of times
since yesterday? Traitor Ibrahim, you can bind my body, but not my
spirit. I have chosen.”
So he spoke and stood still, awaiting death. But it did not come.
Ibrahim turned aside and consulted with some of his people. Then with a
cruel smile he said:
“I will not be provoked. I will still show mercy and give your stubborn
spirit time for repentance, that it may not lose the joys of Paradise.
Throw him down.”
They obeyed, and as he lay on his back staring through the branches of
the tree at the tender sky above, Rupert saw one man, whom he had heard
speaking of himself as a butcher by trade, draw his sword, while another
heated the broad blade of a spear in the fire. Then for the first time
he felt afraid. Death he did not fear—but mutilation!
Fourteen hours had gone by and Rupert was still living. Yes, although
they had hacked off his right foot, and in the morning when again he
refused to accept the Koran, burnt out his left eye and scored his cheek
with a hot iron, being strong, he still lived. Now he was seated on the
saddle of a dromedary beneath the thorn tree, a noose about his neck,
the rope to which it was attached being thrown over a bough of the tree.
They were about to hang him, but first, again in the name of mercy, gave
him a little while to change his mind and accept the faith.
The agonies of his body and his soul were very great, but Rupert still
sat there proudly, the ruin of a man, uttering no complaint, making no
plea for pity. Only in his heart he wondered humbly what he had done
that these terrors should come upon him. Then he remembered that in this
blood-stained Soudan, the home of fanaticism and devilry, many a man as
good or better than himself—yes, and many a woman also, had been called
upon to suffer even worse things, and bowed his mangled head in
submission to the decree of Destiny. Never once during those long hours
of torment had he dreamed of purchasing its remission, as by a word he
could have done. For this he took no credit to himself, whose faith and
pride were both too deeply rooted to permit him even to entertain the
thought.
This world was ended for him; none would ever know even the hideous
fashion of his farewell to the sun. Now he had but one desire left—to
show no sign of pain or fear to his tormentors, and brave and loyal to
the last, to enter on the next. Even those heartless fiends marvelled at
his courage, and grew half ashamed of their red work. They wished to let
him go, but Ibrahim said nay, it was too late, he must die for their
safety’s sake. Indeed, even had Rupert been weak and entered Islam, it
was still his intention that he should die. Only the Arab wished to
break his spirit first as he had broken his body.
They had left him alone a while, knowing that he could not stir, and
were saddling their beasts. Now they came back, all of them, and stood
in front of him, watching him with curious eyes. God be thanked! the end
was at hand, and soon he would feel no more of those racking pains.
There they stood, grave and silent, pitying him in their hearts, all
except Ibrahim, who chose this moment to expound to his victim the
principal doctrines of the Koran, and to assure him that he must
certainly go to hell.
Rupert made no answer, only looked over the heads of his tormentors,
with the eye that was left to him, at the little slope of land opposite,
of which the crest ran not more than a hundred yards away. Was he mad,
or was he altogether blind, and did he perhaps see visions in his
blindness? If not, coming over the brow of that hill were horsemen,
armed with spears, and amongst them a woman, who also held in her hand a
spear. They looked, they halted, they spread out, but the murderers,
intent upon the face of the dying man, never heard the sound of them on
that soft sand and against the strong desert wind.
“It is without avail,” Ibrahim said. “The infidel dog rejects the cup of
mercy; let him die the death of a dog,” and he seized the rope.
“One moment,” broke in Rupert, in a thick voice, “that last point of
yours, Sheik, touches my reason; light breaks upon me from on high.
Repeat it, I pray you.”
Ibrahim smiled cruelly. He had triumphed, the gallant English chief
turned coward at the last. Then he began to repeat his argument.
The horsemen came on in a semi-circle, a hundred of them at least, or
Rupert dreamed that they did. No, by Heaven! it was no dream, for hark
now to that shrilling battle-cry of _“Tama, Tama!”_ and hark to the
thunder of the hoofs as the spurred horses sprang forward wildly and
galloped down upon them. The Arabs wheeled round and saw their doom.
With mad shouts of terror they fled this way and that, rushing towards
the camels. As he went, Ibrahim hurled a spear at Rupert, but again it
only grazed his head.
Then came the swift and sudden vengeance. Some were cut down and some
were captured, Ibrahim among them. In two minutes it was over. A horse
was dragged to its haunches almost in front of him, and from its back
leapt a woman—Mea. She cast down her spear, she ran to him and threw her
arms about him; she kissed him on the brow, and seeing what were the
nature of his hurts, wept and cursed in English and in Arabic. Then,
those soft eyes of hers flashing terribly, she turned and screamed an
order:
“Bring them hither, every one of them that lives.”
They haled them up, a score of them or more; yes, even the dying;
blood-stained, with rent garments and head-dresses gone, they dragged
them before her.
“Now,” she said, in a voice of icy fury, “do unto them as they have done
to the English lord, only from Ibrahim cut off both hands and both feet
before you hang him to the tree.”
The miserable men flung themselves upon the ground, pleading for mercy.
Yes, even Ibrahim prostrated himself at her feet and prayed to be slain
at once. As well might he have prayed to a stone idol of slaughter.
Indeed, drawn up to her full height, every nerve in her quivering, her
soft and lovely face alive with rage and horror, she looked more like a
goddess of vengeance than a woman.
“Spare them, lady,” said Rupert hoarsely; “they are but fanatic
barbarians. Spare them for my sake.”
She turned on him.
“Be silent, Bey,” she answered roughly. “Shall I not do vengeance for
your sake who were made thus for me?”
Then at length he swooned away, and when an hour later he came to
himself again to find his head lying on Mea’s lap, while Bakhita
doctored his hurts with cloths and ointments, he saw that the awful
decree had been executed, for there upon the thorns those murdering
Arabs hung, every one of them.