THE LAST OF THE SOUTHERN CROSS
The wind blew keen and cold from the north. The camels, freshened by it,
trotted out at their fastest pace.
"Quicker," said Trench, between his teeth. "Already Idris may have
missed us."
"Even if he has," replied Feversham, "it will take time to get men
together for a pursuit, and those men must fetch their camels, and
already it is dark."
But although he spoke hopefully, he turned his head again and again
towards the glare of light above Omdurman. He could no longer hear the
tapping of the drums, that was some consolation. But he was in a country
of silence, where men could journey swiftly and yet make no noise. There
would be no sound of galloping horses to warn him that pursuit was at
his heels. Even at that moment the Ansar soldiers might be riding within
thirty paces of them, and Feversham strained his eyes backwards into the
darkness and expected the glimmer of a white turban. Trench, however,
never turned his head. He rode with his teeth set, looking forwards. Yet
fear was no less strong in him than in Feversham. Indeed, it was
stronger, for he did not look back towards Omdurman because he did not
dare; and though his eyes were fixed directly in front of him, the
things which he really saw were the long narrow streets of the town
behind him, the dotted fires at the corners of the streets, and men
running hither and thither among the houses, making their quick search
for the two prisoners escaped from the House of Stone.
Once his attention was diverted by a word from Feversham, and he
answered without turning his head:--
"What is it?"
"I no longer see the fires of Omdurman."
"The golden blot, eh, very low down?" Trench answered in an abstracted
voice. Feversham did not ask him to explain what his allusion meant, nor
could Trench have disclosed why he had spoken it; the words had come
back to him suddenly with a feeling that it was somehow appropriate that
the vision which was the last thing to meet Feversham's eyes as he set
out upon his mission he should see again now that that mission was
accomplished. They spoke no more until two figures rose out of the
darkness in front of them, at the very feet of their camels, and Abou
Fatma cried in a low voice:--
"Instanna!"
They halted their camels and made them kneel.
"The new camels are here?" asked Abou Fatma, and two of the men
disappeared for a few minutes and brought four camels up. Meanwhile the
saddles were unfastened and removed from the camels Trench and his
companion had ridden out of Omdurman.
"They are good camels?" asked Feversham, as he helped to fix the saddles
upon the fresh ones.
"Of the Anafi breed," answered Abou Fatma. "Quick! Quick!" and he
looked anxiously to the east and listened.
"The arms?" said Trench. "You have them? Where are they?" and he bent
his body and searched the ground for them.
"In a moment," said Abou Fatma, but it seemed that Trench could hardly
wait for that moment to arrive. He showed even more anxiety to handle
the weapons than he had shown fear that he would be overtaken.
"There is ammunition?" he asked feverishly.
"Yes, yes," replied Abou Fatma, "ammunition and rifles and revolvers."
He led the way to a spot about twenty yards from the camels, where some
long desert grass rustled about their legs. He stooped and dug into the
soft sand with his hands.
"Here," he said.
Trench flung himself upon the ground beside him and scooped with both
hands, making all the while an inhuman whimpering sound with his mouth,
like the noise a foxhound makes at a cover. There was something rather
horrible to Feversham in his attitude as he scraped at the ground on his
knees, at the action of his hands, quick like the movements of a dog's
paws, and in the whine of his voice. He was sunk for the time into an
animal. In a moment or two Trench's fingers touched the lock and trigger
of a rifle, and he became man again. He stood up quietly with the rifle
in his hands. The other arms were unearthed, the ammunition shared.
"Now," said Trench, and he laughed with a great thrill of joy in the
laugh. "Now I don't mind. Let them follow from Omdurman! One thing is
certain now: I shall never go back there; no, not even if they overtake
us," and he fondled the rifle which he held and spoke to it as though it
lived.
Two of the Arabs mounted the old camels and rode slowly away to
Omdurman. Abou Fatma and the other remained with the fugitives. They
mounted and trotted northeastwards. No more than a quarter of an hour
had elapsed since they had first halted at Abou Fatma's word.
All that night they rode through halfa grass and mimosa trees and went
but slowly, but they came about sunrise on to flat bare ground broken
with small hillocks.
"Are the Effendi tired?" asked Abou Fatma. "Will they stop and eat?
There is food upon the saddle of each camel."
"No; we can eat as we go."
Dates and bread and a draught of water from a zamsheyeh made up their
meal, and they ate it as they sat their camels. These, indeed, now that
they were free of the long desert grass, trotted at their quickest pace.
And at sunset that evening they stopped and rested for an hour. All
through that night they rode and the next day, straining their own
endurance and that of the beasts they were mounted on, now ascending on
to high and rocky ground, now traversing a valley, and now trotting fast
across plains of honey-coloured sand. Yet to each man the pace seemed
always as slow as a funeral. A mountain would lift itself above the rim
of the horizon at sunrise, and for the whole livelong day it stood
before their eyes, and was never a foot higher or an inch nearer. At
times, some men tilling a scanty patch of sorghum would send the
fugitives' hearts leaping in their throats, and they must make a wide
detour; or again a caravan would be sighted in the far distance by the
keen eyes of Abou Fatma, and they made their camels kneel and lay
crouched behind a rock, with their loaded rifles in their hands. Ten
miles from Abu Klea a relay of fresh camels awaited them, and upon these
they travelled, keeping a day's march westward of the Nile. Thence they
passed through the desert country of the Ababdeh, and came in sight of a
broad grey tract stretching across their path.
"The road from Berber to Merowi," said Abou Fatma. "North of it we turn
east to the river. We cross that road to-night; and if God wills,
to-morrow evening we shall have crossed the Nile."
"If God wills," said Trench. "If only He wills," and he glanced about
him in a fear which only increased the nearer they drew towards safety.
They were in a country traversed by the caravans; it was no longer safe
to travel by day. They dismounted, and all that day they lay hidden
behind a belt of shrubs upon some high ground and watched the road and
the people like specks moving along it. They came down and crossed it in
the darkness, and for the rest of that night travelled hard towards the
river. As the day broke Abou Fatma again bade them halt. They were in a
desolate open country, whereon the smallest protection was magnified by
the surrounding flatness. Feversham and Trench gazed eagerly to their
right. Somewhere in that direction and within the range of their
eyesight flowed the Nile, but they could not see it.
"We must build a circle of stones," said Abou Fatma, "and you must lie
close to the ground within it. I will go forward to the river, and see
that the boat is ready and that our friends are prepared for us. I shall
come back after dark."
They gathered the stones quickly and made a low wall about a foot high;
within this wall Feversham and Trench laid themselves down upon the
ground with a water-skin and their rifles at their sides.
"You have dates, too," said Abou Fatma.
"Yes."
"Then do not stir from the hiding-place till I come back. I will take
your camels, and bring you back fresh ones in the evening." And in
company with his fellow-Arab he rode off towards the river.
Trench and Feversham dug out the sand within the stones and lay down,
watching the horizon between the interstices. For both of them this
perhaps was the longest day of their lives. They were so near to safety
and yet not safe. To Trench's thinking it was longer than a night in the
House of Stone, and to Feversham longer than even one of those days six
years back when he had sat in his rooms above St. James's Park and
waited for the night to fall before he dared venture out into the
streets. They were so near to Berber, and the pursuit must needs be
close behind. Feversham lay wondering how he had ever found the courage
to venture himself in Berber. They had no shade to protect them; all day
the sun burnt pitilessly upon their backs, and within the narrow circle
of stones they had no room wherein to move. They spoke hardly at all.
The sunset, however, came at the last, the friendly darkness gathered
about them, and a cool wind rustled through the darkness across the
desert.
"Listen!" said Trench; and both men as they strained their ears heard
the soft padding of camels very near at hand. A moment later a low
whistle brought them out of their shelter.
"We are here," said Feversham, quietly.
"God be thanked!" said Abou Fatma. "I have good news for you, and bad
news too. The boat is ready, our friends are waiting for us, camels are
prepared for you on the caravan track by the river-bank to Abu Hamed.
But your escape is known, and the roads and the ferries are closely
watched. Before sunrise we must have struck inland from the eastern bank
of the Nile."
They crossed the river cautiously about one o'clock of the morning, and
sank the boat upon the far side of the stream. The camels were waiting
for them, and they travelled inland and more slowly than suited the
anxiety of the fugitives. For the ground was thickly covered with
boulders, and the camels could seldom proceed at any pace faster than a
walk. And all through the next day they lay hidden again within a ring
of stones while the camels were removed to some high ground where they
could graze. During the next night, however, they made good progress,
and, coming to the groves of Abu Hamed in two days, rested for twelve
hours there and mounted upon a fresh relay. From Abu Hamed their road
lay across the great Nubian Desert.
Nowadays the traveller may journey through the two hundred and forty
miles of that waterless plain of coal-black rocks and yellow sand, and
sleep in his berth upon the way. The morning will show to him, perhaps,
a tent, a great pile of coal, a water tank, and a number painted on a
white signboard, and the stoppage of the train will inform him that he
has come to a station. Let him put his head from the window, he will see
the long line of telegraph poles reaching from the sky's rim behind him
to the sky's rim in front, and huddling together, as it seems, with less
and less space between them the farther they are away. Twelve hours will
enclose the beginning and the end of his journey, unless the engine
break down or the rail be blocked. But in the days when Feversham and
Trench escaped from Omdurman progression was not so easy a matter. They
kept eastward of the present railway and along the line of wells among
the hills. And on the second night of this stage of their journey Trench
shook Feversham by the shoulders and waked him up.
"Look," he said, and he pointed to the south. "To-night there's no
Southern Cross." His voice broke with emotion. "For six years, for every
night of six years, until this night, I have seen the Southern Cross.
How often have I lain awake watching it, wondering whether the night
would ever come when I should not see those four slanting stars! I tell
you, Feversham, this is the first moment when I have really dared to
think that we should escape."
Both men sat up and watched the southern sky with prayers of
thankfulness in their hearts; and when they fell asleep it was only to
wake up again and again with a fear that they would after all still see
that constellation blazing low down towards the earth, and to fall
asleep again confident of the issue of their desert ride. At the end of
seven days they came to Shof-el-Ain, a tiny well set in a barren valley
between featureless ridges, and by the side of that well they camped.
They were in the country of the Amrab Arabs, and had come to an end of
their peril.
"We are safe," cried Abou Fatma. "God is good. Northwards to Assouan,
westwards to Wadi Halfa, we are safe!" And spreading a cloth upon the
ground in front of the kneeling camels, he heaped dhurra before them. He
even went so far in his gratitude as to pat one of the animals upon the
neck, and it immediately turned upon him and snarled.
Trench reached out his hand to Feversham.
"Thank you," he said simply.
"No need of thanks," answered Feversham, and he did not take the hand.
"I served myself from first to last."
"You have learned the churlishness of a camel," cried Trench. "A camel
will carry you where you want to go, will carry you till it drops dead,
and yet if you show your gratitude it resents and bites. Hang it all,
Feversham, there's my hand."
Feversham untied a knot in the breast of his jibbeh and took out three
white feathers, two small, the feathers of a heron, the other large, an
ostrich feather broken from a fan.
"Will you take yours back?"
"Yes."
"You know what to do with it."
"Yes. There shall be no delay."
Feversham wrapped the remaining feathers carefully away in a corner of
his ragged jibbeh and tied them safe.
"We shake hands, then," said he; and as their hands met he added,
"To-morrow morning we part company."
"Part company, you and I--after the year in Omdurman, the weeks of
flight?" exclaimed Trench. "Why? There's no more to be done. Castleton's
dead. You keep the feather which he sent, but he is dead. You can do
nothing with it. You must come home."
"Yes," answered Feversham, "but after you, certainly not with you. You
go on to Assouan and Cairo. At each place you will find friends to
welcome you. I shall not go with you."
Trench was silent for a while. He understood Feversham's reluctance, he
saw that it would be easier for Feversham if he were to tell his story
first to Ethne Eustace, and without Feversham's presence.
"I ought to tell you no one knows why you resigned your commission, or
of the feathers we sent. We never spoke of it. We agreed never to speak,
for the honour of the regiment. I can't tell you how glad I am that we
all agreed and kept to the agreement," he said.
"Perhaps you will see Durrance," said Feversham; "if you do, give him a
message from me. Tell him that the next time he asks me to come and see
him, whether it is in England or Wadi Halfa, I will accept the
invitation."
"Which way will you go?"
"To Wadi Halfa," said Feversham, pointing westwards over his shoulder.
"I shall take Abou Fatma with me and travel slowly and quietly down the
Nile. The other Arab will guide you into Assouan."
They slept that night in security beside the well, and the next morning
they parted company. Trench was the first to ride off, and as his camel
rose to its feet, ready for the start, he bent down towards Feversham,
who passed him the nose rein.
"Ramelton, that was the name? I shall not forget."
"Yes, Ramelton," said Feversham; "there's a ferry across Lough Swilly to
Rathmullen. You must drive the twelve miles to Ramelton. But you may not
find her there."
"If not there, I shall find her somewhere else. Make no mistake,
Feversham, I shall find her."
And Trench rode forward, alone with his Arab guide. More than once he
turned his head and saw Feversham still standing by the well; more than
once he was strongly drawn to stop and ride back to that solitary
figure, but he contented himself with waving his hand, and even that
salute was not returned.
Feversham, indeed, had neither thought nor eyes for the companion of his
flight. His six years of hard probation had come this morning to an end,
and yet he was more sensible of a certain loss and vacancy than of any
joy. For six years, through many trials, through many falterings, his
mission had strengthened and sustained him. It seemed to him now that
there was nothing more wherewith to occupy his life. Ethne? No doubt she
was long since married ... and there came upon him all at once a great
bitterness of despair for that futile, unnecessary mistake made by him
six years ago. He saw again the room in London overlooking the quiet
trees and lawns of St. James's Park, he heard the knock upon the door,
he took the telegram from his servant's hand.
He roused himself finally with the recollection that, after all, the
work was not quite done. There was his father, who just at this moment
was very likely reading his _Times_ after breakfast upon the terrace of
Broad Place among the pine trees upon the Surrey hills. He must visit
his father, he must take that fourth feather back to Ramelton. There was
a telegram, too, which must be sent to Lieutenant Sutch at Suakin.
He mounted his camel and rode slowly with Abou Fatma westwards towards
Wadi Halfa. But the sense of loss did not pass from him that day, nor
his anger at the act of folly which had brought about his downfall. The
wooded slopes of Ramelton were very visible to him across the shimmer of
the desert air. In the greatness of his depression Harry Feversham upon
this day for the first time doubted his faith in the "afterwards."