"SHEIKH OMAR BENANI,
"_In the care of_ ISHMAEL AMEER."
At first sight the handwriting struck him like a familiar face, but
before he had time to recognise it he was conscious of a crushing sense
of fatality, a vague but almost heart-breaking impression that while he
had been spending the long, black hours of the night in building up
hopes of flying away with Helena, this little packet of sealed paper had
all the time been waiting outside his door to tell him they could not
go.
He took it and opened it with trembling fingers, and read it at a glance
as one reads a picture. It was from Hafiz, and it told him that his
mother was dead.
Then all the pent-up pain and shame of the night rolled over him like a
breaking wave, and he dropped down on the nearest seat and wept like a
child.
*CHAPTER XXIV*
Contrary to Gordon's surmise, Helena had slept soundly, with the
beautiful calm confidence of one who relied absolutely upon him and
thought her troubles were over; but she awoke at half-past three as
promptly as if an alarum-clock had wakened her.
The arms of Ayesha were then closely encircling her neck, and it was
with difficulty that she liberated herself without awakening the child,
but as soon as she had done so she could not resist an impulse to kiss
the little one, so boundless was her happiness and so entirely at that
moment had she conquered the sense that Ishmael's innocent daughter had
been a constant torture to her.
Then dressing rapidly in her usual mixed Eastern and Western costume,
and throwing a travelling cloak over her shoulders instead of her Indian
veil, but giving no thought to the other belongings which she must leave
behind, she stepped lightly out of the sleeping room.
The moment she entered the guest-room she heard a moan, and before
realising where it came from, she said--
"Who's there?"
Then Gordon lifted his tear-stained face to her face, and, without
speaking, held out the letter which hung from his helpless hand.
She took it and read it with a sense of overwhelming disaster, while
Gordon, with that access of grief which, at the first moment of a great
sorrow, the presence of a loved one brings, heaped reproaches upon
himself, as if all that he had done at the hard bidding of his
conscience had been a sin and a crime.
"Poor mother! My poor, dear mother! It was I who made her last days
unhappy."
Half-an-hour went by in this way, and the time for going passed. Helena
dared not tell him that their opportunity for flight was slipping
away--it seemed like an outrage to think of that now--so she stood by
his side, feeling powerless to comfort him, and dazed by the blow that
had shattered their hopes.
Then Black Zogal, being awakened by the sound of Gordon's weeping, came
in with his wild eyes, and after him came Abdullah, and then Zenoba,
who, gathering an idea of trouble, went off to awaken Ishmael and old
Mahmud, so that in a little while the whole of the Arab household were
standing round Gordon as he sat doubled up on the edge of a divan.
When Ishmael heard what had happened he was deeply moved, and sitting
down by Gordon's side he took one of his hands and smoothed it, while in
that throbbing voice which went to the heart of everybody, and with a
look of suffering in his swarthy face and luminous black eyes, he spoke
some sympathetic words.
"All life ends in death, my brother. This world is a place of going,
not of staying. The mystery of pain--who can fathom it? Life would be
unbearable but for one thought--that God is over all. He rules
everything for the best. Yes, believe me, everything. I have had my
hours of sorrow too, but I have always found it so."
After a while Gordon was able to control his grief, and then Ishmael
asked him if he would not read his letter aloud. With some reluctance
Gordon did so, but it required all his self-control to repeat his
mother's message.