A month went by. Lust, robbery, and murder ruled in Omdurman. The river
thickened with its pollution, the trees within the walls sickened of its
poison, the bones of the unburied dead lay in the moat beyond the gates,
and, on the other side of the river, desolate Khartoum crumbled over the
streets and paths and gardens where Gordon had walked. The city was a
pit of infamy, where struggled, or wallowed, or died to the bellowing of
the Khalifa’s drum and the hideous mirth of his Baggaras, the victims of
Abdullah. But out in the desert--the Bayuda desert--between Omdurman and
Old Dongola, there was only peace. Here and there was “a valley of dry
bones,” but the sand had washed the bones clean, the vultures had had
their hour and flown away, the debris of deserted villages had been
covered by desert storms, and the clear blue sky and ardent sun were
over all, joyous and immaculate. Out in the desert there was only the
life-giving air, the opal sands, the plaintive evening sky, the eager
morning breeze, the desolated villages, and now and then in the vast
expanse, stretching hundreds and hundreds of miles south, an oasis as a
gem set in a cloth of faded gold.
It would have seemed to any natural man better to die in the desert
than to live in Omdurman. So thought a fugitive who fled day and night
through the Bayuda desert, into the sandy wastes, beyond whose utmost
limits lay Wady Halfa, where the English were.
Macnamara had conquered. He had watched his chance when two of the
black guard were asleep, and the Khalifa was in a stupor of opium in
the harem, had looted Abdullah’s treasure, and carried the price of the
camels and the pay of the guides to Mahommed Nafar the shoemaker.
His great sprawling camel, the best that Mahommed Nafar could buy of Ebn
Haraf, the sheikh in the Gilif Hills, swung down the wind with a long,
reaching stride, to the point where the sheikh would meet him, and send
him on his way with a guide. If he reached the rendezvous safely, there
was a fair chance of final escape.
Moonlight, and the sand swishing from under the velvet hoofs of the
camel, the silence like a filmy cloak, sleep everywhere, save at the
eyes of the fugitive. Hour after hour they sprawled down the waste, and
for numberless hours they must go on and on, sleepless, tireless, alert,
if the man was to be saved at all. As morning broke he turned his eye
here and there, fearful of discovery and pursuit. Nothing. He was alone
with the sky and the desert and his fate. Another two hours and he would
be at the rendezvous, in the cover of the hills, where he would be safe
for a moment at least. But he must keep ahead of all pursuit, for if
Abdullah’s people should get in front of him he would be cut off from
all hope. There is little chance to run the blockade of the desert where
a man may not hide, where there is neither water, nor feed, nor rest,
once in a hundred miles or more.
For an hour his eyes were fixed, now on the desert behind him, whence
pursuit should come, now on the golden-pink hills before him, where was
sanctuary for a moment, at least.... Nothing in all the vast space but
blue and grey-the sky and the sand, nothing that seemed of the world he
had left; nothing save the rank smell of the camel, and the Arab song
he sang to hasten the tired beast’s footsteps. Mahommed Nafar had taught
him the song, saying that it was as good to him as another camel on a
long journey. His Arabic, touched off with the soft brogue of Erin,
made a little shrill by weariness and peril, was not the Arabic of
Abdin Palace, but yet, under the spell, the camel’s head ceased swaying
nervously, the long neck stretched out bravely, and they came on
together to the Gilif Hills, comrades in distress, gallant and
unafraid.... Now the rider looked back less than before, for the hills
were near, he was crossing a ridge which would hide him from sight for a
few miles, and he kept his eyes on the opening in the range where a few
domtrees marked the rendezvous. His throat was dry, for before the night
was half over he had drunk the little water he carried; but the Arab
song still came from his lips:
“Doos ya lellee! Doos ya lellee!
Tread, O joy of my life, tread lightly!
Thy feet are the wings of a dove,
And thy heart is of fire. On thy wounds
I will pour the king’s salve. I will hang
On thy neck the long chain of wrought gold,
When the gates of Bagdad are before us--
Doos ya lellee! Doos ya lellee!”
He did not cease singing it until the camel had staggered in beneath the
dom-trees where Ebn Mazar waited. Macnamara threw himself on the ground
beside the prostrate camel which had carried him so well, and gasped,
“Water!” He drank so long from Ebn Haraf’s water-bag that the Arab took
it from him. Then he lay on the sands hugging the ground close like a
dog, till the sheikh roused him with the word that he must mount another
camel, this time with a guide, Mahmoud, a kinsman of his own, who must
risk his life-at a price. Half the price was paid by Macnamara to the
sheikh before they left the shade of the palm-trees, and, striking
through the hills, emerged again into the desert farther north.
In the open waste the strain and the peril began again, but Mahmoud,
though a boy in years, was a man in wisdom and a “brother of eagles” in
endurance: and he was the second Arab who won Macnamara’s heart.
It was Mahmoud’s voice now that quavered over the heads of the camels
and drove them on; it was his eye which watched the horizon. The hours
went by, and no living thing appeared in the desert, save a small cloud
of vultures, heavy from feasting on a camel dead in the waste, and a
dark-brown snake flitting across their path. Nothing all day save these,
and nothing all the sleepless night save a desert wolf stealing down
the sands. Macnamara’s eyes burned in his head with weariness, his body
became numb, but Mahommed Mahmoud would allow no pause. They must get so
far ahead the first two days that Abdullah’s pursuers might not overtake
them, he said. Beyond Dongola, at a place appointed, other camels would
await them, if Mahmoud’s tribesmen there kept faith.
For two days and nights Macnamara had not slept, for forty-six hours
he had been constantly in the saddle, but Mahommed Mahmoud allowed him
neither sleep nor rest.
Dongola came at last, lying far away on their right. With Dongola, fresh
camels; and the desert flight began again. Hour after hour, and not a
living thing; and then, at last, a group of three Arabs on camels going
south, far over to their right. These suddenly turned and rode down on
them.
“We must fight,” said Mahmoud; “for they see you are no Arab.”
“I’ll take the one with the jibbeh,” said Macnamara coolly, with a
pistol in his left hand and a sword in his right. “I’ll take him first.
Here’s the tap off yer head, me darlin’s!” he added as they turned and
faced the dervishes.
“We must kill them all, or be killed,” said Mahmoud, as the dervishes
suddenly stopped, and the one with the jibbeh called to Mahmoud:
“Whither do you fly with the white Egyptian?”
“If you come and see you will know, by the mercy of God!” answered
Mahmoud.
The next instant the dervishes charged. Macnamara marked his man, and
the man with the jibbeh fell from his camel. Mahmoud fired his carbine,
missed, and closed with his enemy. Macnamara, late of the 7th Hussars,
swung his Arab sword as though it were the regulation blade and he in
sword practice at Aldershot, and catching the blade of his desert foe,
saved his own neck and gave the chance of a fair hand-to-hand combat.
He met the swift strokes of the dervish with a cool certainty. His
weariness passed from him; the joy of battle was on him. He was wounded
twice-in the shoulder and the head. Now he took the offensive. Once
or twice he circled slowly round the dervish, whose eyes blazed, whose
mouth was foaming with fury; then he came on him with all the knowledge
and the skill he had got in little Indian wars. He came on him, and the
dervish fell, his head cut through like a cheese.
Then Macnamara turned, to see Mahmoud and the third dervish on the
ground, struggling in each other’s arms. He started forward, but before
he could reach the two, Mahmoud jumped to his feet with a reeking knife,
and waved it in the air.
“He was a kinsman, but he had to die,” said Mahmoud as they mounted.
He turned towards the bodies, then looked at the camels flying down the
desert towards Dongola.
“It is as God wills now,” he said. “Their tribesmen will follow when
they see the camels. See, my camel is wounded!” he added, with a gasp.