"Take your time, brother."
"She had the consolations of her religion, and I think she passed in
peace. There was only one thing clouded her closing hours. On her
deathbed she was constantly expressing an earnest hope that you might
all be re-united--you and she and your father and Helena, who are now so
far apart."
"Take time, O my brother," said Ishmael, and seeing that Helena also was
moved, he took her hand too, as if to strengthen her.
Thus he sat between them, comforting both, while Gordon in a husky voice
struggled on--
"Not long before she died she wished to send you a message, but the
power of life was low in her, and she could not write, except to sign
her name (as you see below), and then she did not know where you were to
be found. But my mother promised her that I should take care that
whatever she said should come to your hands, and these were the words
she sent: 'Tell my boy that my last thoughts were about him. Though I
am sorry he took the side of the false ... the false prophet----'"
"Go on, brother, go on," said Ishmael in his soft voice.
"'Say I am certain he did what he thought was right. Be sure you tell
him I died happy, because ... because I know I shall see him again. If
I am never to see him in this world I shall do so in the world to come.
Say ... say I shall be waiting for him there. And tell him it will not
seem long.'"
It was with difficulty that Gordon came to the end, for his eyes were
full of tears and his throat was parched and tight, and he would have
broken down altogether but for the sense of Helena's presence by his
side.
Ishmael was now more deeply moved than before.
"How she must have loved you!" he said, and then he began to speak of
his own mother, and what she had done for him.
"She was only a poor, ignorant woman perhaps, but she died to save me,
and I loved her with all my heart."
At that the two black servants, Abdullah and Zogal, who had been
standing before Gordon in silence, tried to utter some homely words of
comfort, and old Mahmud, wiping his wet eyes, said--
"May God be merciful to your mother, my son, and forgive her all her
sins."
"She was a saint--she never had any," replied Gordon, whereupon the Arab
nurse, who alone of all that household had looked on at this scene with
dry and evil eyes, said bitterly--
"Nevertheless she died as a Christian and an unbeliever, therefore she
cannot look for mercy."
Then Helena's eyes flashed like fire into the woman's face, and Gordon
felt the blood rush to his head, but Ishmael was before them both.
"Zenoba, ask pardon of God," he said, and before the thunder of his
voice and the majesty of his glance the Arab woman fell back.
"Heed her not, my brother," said Ishmael, turning back to Gordon; and
then he added--
"We all serve under the same General, and though some of us wear uniform
of red, and some of brown, and some of blue, he who serves best is the
best soldier. In the day of victory will our General ask us the colour
of our garments? No!"
At that generous word Gordon burst into tears once more, but Ishmael
said--
"Don't weep for one who has entered into the joys of Paradise."
When Gordon had regained his composure Ishmael asked him if he would
read part of the letter again, but knowing what part it would be--the
part about the prophet--he tried to excuse himself, saying he was not
fit to read any more.
"Then the Rani will read," said Ishmael, and far as Helena would have
fled from the tragic ordeal she could not escape from it. So in her
soft and mellow voice she read on without faltering until she came to
her own name, and then she stopped and tears began to trickle down her
cheeks.
"Go on," said Ishmael; "don't be afraid of what follows."