MAHOMED OFFERS FREEDOM
Fortune had slept, but only after hours of watchful terror. The
slightest sound outside the tent sent a scream into her throat, but she
succeeded each time in stifling it. Once the evil laughter of a hyena
came over the dead and silent sands, and she put her hands over her
ears, shivering. Alone! She laid her head upon the wadded saddle-bags
and wept silently, and every sob tore at her heart. She must keep up the
farce of being brave when she knew that she wasn't. The men must not be
discouraged. Her deportment would characterize theirs; any sign of
weakness upon her side would correspondingly depress them the more. She
prayed to God to give her the strength to hold out. She was afraid of
Mahomed; she was afraid of his grim smile, afraid of his mocking eyes;
she could not sponge out the scene wherein he had so gratuitously kicked
Horace in the side. Horace! No, she did not believe that she would ever
forgive him for this web which he had spun and fallen into himself. Two
things she must hide for the sake of them all: her fear of Mahomed and
her knowledge of Ryanne's trickery.
What part in this tragedy had the Arab assigned her? Her fingers twined
and untwined, and she rocked and rocked, bit her lips, lay down, sat up
and rocked again. But for the exhaustion, but for the insistent call of
nature, she would never have closed her eyes that night.
And her mother! What would her mother believe, after the scene that had
taken place between them? What could she believe, save that her daughter
had fulfilled her threat, and run away? And upon this not unreasonable
supposition her mother would make no attempt to find out what had become
of her. Perhaps she would be glad, glad to be rid of her and her
questions. Alone! Well, she had always been alone.
The only ray of sunshine in all was the presence of Jones. She felt,
subtly, that he would not only stand between her and Mahomed, but also
between her and Ryanne.
* * * * *
"Hush!" whispered George. "Don't let her see you like this. She mustn't
know."
"You don't understand," replied Ryanne miserably.
"I believe I do." George's heart was heavy. This man was in love with
her, too.
Ryanne struck the tears from his eyes and turned aside his head. He was
sick in soul and body. To have walked blindly into a trap like this, of
his own making, too! Fool! What had possessed him, usually so keen, to
trust the copper-hided devil? All for the sake of one glass of wine!
With an effort entailing no meager pain in his side, he stilled the
strangling hiccoughs, swung round and tried to smile reassuringly at the
girl.
"You are better?" she asked.
There was in the tone of that question an answer to all his dreams. One
night's work had given him his ticket to the land of those weighed and
found wanting. She knew; how much he did not care; enough to read his
guilt.
It appeared to George that she was accepting the situation with a
philosophy deeper than either his or Ryanne's. Not a whimper, not a
plaint, not a protest so far had she made. She was a Roland in
petticoats.
"Oh, I'm bashed up a bit," said Ryanne. "I'll get my legs in a day or
so. Fortune, will you answer one question?"
"As many as you like."
"How did you get here?"
"Don't you know?"
George wasn't certain, but the girl's voice was cold and accusing.
"I?"
"Yes. Wasn't it the note that you wrote to me?"
Ryanne took his head in his hands, wearily. "I wrote you no note,
Fortune; I have never written you a note of any kind. You do not know my
handwriting from Adam's. In God's name, why didn't you ask your mother
or your uncle? They would have recognized the forgery at once. Who gave
it to you?"
"Mahomed himself."
"Damn him!" Ryanne grew strong under the passing fit of rage. "No, don't
tell me to be silent. I don't care about myself. I'm the kind of a man
who pulls through, generally. But this takes the spine out of me. I'm to
blame; it's all my fault."
"Say no more about it." She believed him. She really hadn't thought him
capable of such baseness, though at the time of her abduction she had
been inclined to accuse him. That he was here, a prisoner like herself,
was conclusive evidence, so far as she was concerned, of his innocence.
But she knew him to be responsible for the presence of Jones; knew him
to be culpable of treachery of the meanest order; knew him to be lacking
in generosity and magnanimity toward a man who was practically his
benefactor. "What does Mahomed want?"
"The bally rug, Fortune. And Jones here, who had it, says that it is
gone."
"Vanished, magic-carpet-wise," supplemented George.
"And Jones would have given it up."
"And a thousand like it, if we could have bought you out of this."
"Jones and I could have managed to get along."
"We shouldn't have mattered."
"And would you have returned to Mr. Jones his thousand pounds?"
"Yes, and everything else I have," quite honestly.
"Don't worry any more about the rug, then. I know where it is."
"You?" cried the two men.
"Yes. I stole it. I did so, thinking to avert this very hour; to save
you from harm," to George, "and you from doing a contemptible thing," to
Ryanne. "It is in my room, done up in the big steamer-roll. And now I am
glad that I stole it."
Ryanne laughed weakly.
Said George soberly: "What contemptible thing?" He recollected Mahomed's
words in regard to Ryanne as the latter lay insensible in the sand.
Ryanne, quick to seize the opportunity of solving, to his own advantage,
the puzzle for George, and at the same time guiding Fortune away from a
topic, the danger of which she knew nothing, raised a hand. "I bribed
Mahomed to kidnap you, Jones. Don't be impatient. You laughed at me when
I laid before you the prospectus of the United Romance and Adventure
Company. I wished to prove to you that the concern existed. And so here
is your adventure upon approval. I thought, of course, you still had the
rug. Mahomed was to carry you into the desert for a week, and by that
time you would have surrendered the rug, returned to Cairo, the hero of
a full-fledged adventure. Lord! what a mess of it I've made. I forgot,
next to his bally rug, Mahomed loved me."
The hitherto credulous George had of late begun to look into facts
instead of dreams. He did not believe a word of this amazing confession,
despite the additional testimony of Fortune, relative to Ryanne's
statements made to her in the bazaars.
"The biter bitten," was George's sole comment.
Ryanne breathed easier.
"Why not tell Mahomed at once, and have him send a courier back for the
rug?" suggested Fortune.
"By Jove, that clears up everything. We'll do it immediately." George
felt better than he had at any stage of the adventure. Here was a
simple way out of the difficulty.
"Softly," said Ryanne. "Let us come down to the lean facts. If that rug
is in your room, Fortune, your mother has discovered it long before now.
She will turn it over to your estimable uncle. None of us will ever see
it again, I'm thinking. The Major knows that Jones gave me a thousand
pounds for it." Struck by a sense of impending disaster, Ryanne began to
fumble in his pockets. Gone! Every shilling of it gone! "He's got that,
too; Mahomed; the cash you gave me, Jones. Wait a moment; don't speak;
things are whirling about some. Over nine hundred pounds; every shilling
of it. We mustn't let him know that I've missed it. I've got to play
weak in order to grow strong.... But they will at least start up a row
as to your whereabouts, Fortune."
"No," thoughtfully; "no, I do not think they will."
The undercurrent was too deep for George. He couldn't see very clearly
just then. The United Romance and Adventure Company; was that all? Was
there not something sinister behind that name, concerning him? He
looked patiently from the girl to the adventurer.
Ryanne stared at the yellow desert beyond. His brain was clearing
rapidly under the stimulus of thought. He himself did not believe that
they would send out search-parties either for him or for Fortune. He
could not fathom what had given Fortune her belief; but he realized that
his own was based upon the recollection of that savage mood when he had
thrown down the gauntlet. Now they would accept it. He had run away with
Fortune as he had boldly threatened to do. The mother and her precious
brother would proceed at once to New York without him. He had made a
fine muddle of it all. But for a glass of wine and a grain too much of
confidence, he had not been here this day.
Mahomed, himself astir by this time, came over to the group, leisurely.
The three looked like conspirators to his suspicious eye, but unlike
conspirators they made no effort to separate because he approached. He
understood: as yet they were not afraid of him. That was one of the
reasons he hated white men; they could seldom be forced to show fear,
even when they possessed it. Well, these three should know what fear
was before they saw the last of him. He carried a _kurbash_, a cow-hide
whip, which he twirled idly, even suggestively. First, he came to
George.
"If you have the Yhiordes, there is still a chance for you. Cairo is but
fifty miles away. Bagdad is several hundred." He drew the whip
caressingly through his fingers.
"I do not lie," replied George, a truculent sparkle in his eyes. "I told
you that I had it not. It was the truth."
A ripple of anxiety passed over Mahomed's face. "And you?" turning upon
Ryanne, with suppressed savageness. How he longed to lay the lash upon
the dog!
"Don't look at me," answered Ryanne waspishly. "If I had it I should not
be here." Ah, for a bit of his old strength! He would have strangled
Mahomed then and there. But the drug and the beating had weakened him
terribly.
"If I give you the rug," interposed Fortune, "will you promise freedom
to us all?"
Mahomed stepped back, nonplussed. He hadn't expected any information
from this quarter.
"I have the rug," declared Fortune calmly, though she could scarcely
hear her own voice, her heart beat so furiously.
"You have it?" Mahomed was confused. Here was a turn in the road upon
which he had set no calculation. All three of them!
"Yes. And upon condition that you liberate us all, I will put it into
your hands. But it must be my writing this time."
A white man would have blushed under the reproach in her look. Mahomed
smiled amiably, pleased over his cleverness. "Where is the _kisweh_?"
"The _kisweh_?"
"The Holy Yhiordes. Where is it?"
"That I refuse to tell you. Your word of honor first, to bind the
bargain."
Ryanne laughed. It acted upon Mahomed like a goad. He raised the whip,
and had Ryanne's gaze swerved the part of an inch, the blow would have
fallen.
"You laugh?" snarled Mahomed.
"Why, yes. A bargain with your honor makes me laugh."
"And _your_ honor?" returned Mahomed fiercely. He wondered why he held
his hand. "I have matched trickery against trickery. My honor has not
been called. I fed you, I gave you drink; in return you lied to me,
dishonored me in the eyes of my friends, and one of them you killed."
"It was my life or his," exclaimed Ryanne, not relishing the recital of
this phase. "It was my life or his; and he was upon my back."
Fortune shuddered. Presently she laid her hand upon Mahomed's arm.
"Would you take my word of honor?"
Mahomed sought her eyes. "Yes. I read truth in your eyes. Bring me the
rug, and my word of honor to you, you shall go free."
"But my friends?"
"One of them." Mahomed laughed unpleasantly. It was an excellent idea.
"One of them shall go free with you. It will be for you to choose which.
Now, you dog, laugh, laugh!" and the tongue of the _kurbash_ bit the
dust within an inch of Ryanne's feet.
"What shall I do?" asked Fortune miserably.
"Accept," urged Ryanne. "If you are afraid to choose one or the other
of us, Jones and I will spin a coin."
"I agree," said George, very unhappy.
"Have you any paper, Jones?"
George searched. He found the dance-card to the ball at the hotel. In
another pocket he discovered the little pencil that went with it.
"You write," said Mahomed to Fortune.
"I intend to." Fortune took the card and pencil and wrote as follows:
"MOTHER:
"Horace, Mr. Jones and I are prisoners of the man who owned the
rug, which you will find in the large steamer-roll. Give it to the
courier who brings this card. And under no circumstances set spies
upon his track." In French she added: "We are bound for Bagdad. In
case Mahomed receives the rug and we are not liberated, wire the
embassy at Constantinople and the consulate at Bagdad.
"FORTUNE."
She gave it to Mahomed.
"Read it out loud," he commanded. While he spoke English fluently, he
could neither read nor write it in any serviceable degree. The note he
had given to Fortune had been written by a friend of his in the bazaars
who had upon a time lived in New York. Fortune read slowly, slightly
flushing as she evaded the French script.
"That will do," Mahomed agreed.
He shouted for one of his boys, bade him saddle the _hagin_ or
racing-camel, which of all those twelve, alone was his, and be off to
Cairo. The boy dipped his bowl into the kettle, ate greedily, saddled
the camel, and five minutes later was speeding back toward Cairo at a
gait that would bring him there late that night.
Fortune and George and Ryanne watched him till he disappeared below a
dip and was gone from view. In the minds of the three watchers the same
question rose: would he be too late? George was cheerful enough
thereafter, but his cheerfulness was not of the infectious kind.
At noon the caravan was once more upon its way. Ryanne was able to ride.
The fumes of whatever drug had been administered to him had finally
evaporated, and he felt only bruised, old, disheartened. An evil day for
him when he had set forth for Bagdad in quest of the rug. He was
confident that there would be no rug awaiting the courier, and what
would be Mahomed's procedure when the boy returned empty-handed was not
difficult to imagine. Mahomed was right; so far honor had not entered
into the contest. According to his lights, the Arab was only paying coin
for coin. But for the girl, Ryanne would have accepted the situation
with a shrug, to await that moment when Mahomed, eased by the sense of
security, would naturally relax vigilance. The presence of Fortune
changed the whole face of the affair. Mahomed could have his eyes and
heart if he would but spare her. He must be patient; he must accept
insults, even physical violence, but some day he and Mahomed would play
the final round.
His past, his foolish, futile past: all the follies, all the petty
crimes, all the low dissipations in which he had indulged, seemed
trooping about his camel, mocking and gibbering at him. Why hadn't he
lived clean like Jones there? Why hadn't he fought temptation as he had
fought men? Environment was no excuse; bringing-up offered no
palliation; he had gone wrong simply because his inclinations had been
wrong. On the other hand, no one had ever tried to help him back to a
decent living. His mother had died during his childhood, and her
influence had left no impression. His father had been a money-maker,
consumed by the pleasure of building up pyramids of gold. He had never
reasoned with his youngest-born; he had paid his bills without protest
or reproach; it was so much a month to be written down in the expense
account. And the first-born had been his natural enemy since the days of
the nursery. Still, he could not acquit himself; his own arraignment was
as keen as any judge could have made. Strong as he was physically,
brilliant as he was mentally, there was a mortal weakness in his blood;
and search as he might the history of his ancestors, their lives shed no
light upon his own.
In stating that his face had been granted that dubious honor and concern
of the perpetrators of the rogues' gallery, he had merely given rein to
a seizure of soul-bitterness. But there was truth enough in the
statement that he had been short in his accounts many thousands at his
father's bank; gambling debts; and in making no effort to replace the
loss, he was soon found out by his brother, who seemed only too glad to
dishonor him. He was given his choice: to sign over his million, due
him a year later (for at this time the father was dead), or go to
prison. The scandal of the affair had no weight with his brother; he
wanted the younger out of the way. Like the hot-headed fool he was, he
had signed away his inheritance, taken a paltry thousand and left
America, facing imprisonment if he returned. That was the kind of a
brother he had. Once he had burned his bridges, there came to him a
dozen ways by which he could have extricated himself. But once a fool,
always a fool!
Disinherited, outcast, living by his wits, ingenious enough; the finer
senses callousing under the contact with his inferiors; a gambler, a
hard drinker periodically; all in all, a fine portrait for any gallery
given over to rogues. And he hadn't worried much over the moral problem
confronting him, that the way of the transgressor is hard. It was only
when love rent the veil of his fatuity that he saw himself as he really
was.
Love! He gazed ahead at Fortune under the _mahmal_. That a guileless
young girl as she was should enchain him! That the sight of her should
always send a longing into his soul to go back and begin over! His jaws
hardened. Why not? Why not try to recover some of the crumbs of the fine
things he had thrown away? At least enough to permit him to go again
among his fellows without constantly looking behind to note if he were
followed? By the Lord Harry! once he was out of this web of his own
weaving, he _would_ live straight; he swore that every dollar hereafter
put in his pocket should be an honest one. Fortune could never be his
wife. He came to this fact without any roundabout or devious byways. In
the first place, he knew that he had not touched her; she had only been
friendly; and now even her friendship hung by a thread. All right. The
love he bore her was going to be his salvation just the same; and at
this moment he was deadly in earnest.
It was after nine when they were ferried across the two canals, the
fresh-water and the salt, several miles below Serapeum. The three weary
captives saw a great liner slip past slowly and majestically upon its
way to the Far East. She radiated with light and cheer and comfort; and
all could hear faintly the pulsations of her engines. So near and yet so
far; a cup of water to Tantalus! At midnight they made camp. There were
no palms this time; simply a well in the center of a jumble of huge
boulders. The tents were pitched to the southwest, for now the wind
blew, biting from the land of northern snows; and a fire was a welcome
thing. This was Arabia; Africa had been left behind. Here they awaited
the return of the courier, who arrived two days later, dead tired. The
persons to whom the card had been sent had sailed for Naples with the
steamer _Ludwig_. Mahomed turned upon the three miserables.
"I have you three, then; and by the beard of the Prophet, you shall pay,
you shall pay! You have robbed and beaten and dishonored me; and you
shall pay!"
"Am I guilty of any wrong toward you?" faltered the girl. Her mother had
gone. She had hoped against hope.
"No," cried Mahomed. He laughed. "You are free to return to Cairo ...
alone! Free to take your choice of these two men to accompany you. Free,
free as the air.... Well, why do you hesitate?"