"O slaves of God, be brothers one to another! If you think of me when I
am gone, think of me as of one who saw the coming of the Kingdom of
Heaven on earth as plainly as his eyes behold you now. If I leave you I
leave this hope, this comforter, behind me. Think that Azrael, the angel
of death, has spread his wings over the desert track that hides me from
your eyes. And pray for me--pray for me with the sinner's prayer, the
sinner's cry."
Then, in deep, tremulous tones which seemed to be the inner voice of the
whole of his being, he cried--
"O Thou who knowest every heart and hearest every cry, look down and
hearken to me now! One sole plea I make--my need of Thee! One only
hope I have--to stand at Thy mercy-gate and knock! Penitent, I kneel at
Thy feet! Suppliant, I stretch forth my hands! Save me, O God, from
every ill!"
The words of the prayer were familiar to everybody in the mosque, but so
deep was their effect as Ishmael repeated them in his trembling,
throbbing voice, that it seemed as if nobody present had ever heard them
before.
The emotion of the people wras now very great. "Allah! Allah! Allah!"
they cried, and they prostrated themselves with their faces to the
floor.
When the cold, slow, sonorous voice of the Reader began again, and the
vast congregation raised their heads, the pulpit was empty and Ishmael
was gone.
*CHAPTER XX*
Meantime the General's house on the edge of the ramparts was being made
ready for its new tenant. Fatimah, Ibrahim and Mosie, with a small army
of Arab servants, had been there since early morning, washing, dusting,
and altering the position of furniture. Towards noon the Princess had
arrived in her carriage, which, with her customary retinue of gorgeously
apparelled black attendants, was now standing by the garden gate.
Helena had come with her, but for the first time in her life she was
utterly weak and helpless. Just as a nervous collapse may follow upon
nervous strain so a collapse of character may come after prolonged
exercise of will. Something of this kind was happening to Helena, who
stood by the window in the General's office, looking down at the city
and running her fingers along the hem of her handkerchief, while the
Princess, bustling about, laughed at her and rallied her.
"Goodness me, girl, you used to have some blood in your veins, but
now--_Mon Dieu_! To think of you who went down _there_, and did _that_,
and used to drive a motor-car through the traffic as calmly as if it had
been a go-cart, trembling and jerking as if you had got the jumps!"
Meantime the Princess herself, full of energy, was ordering the servants
about, and, by a hundred little changes, was giving to the General's
office a look that almost obliterated its former appearance.
"We'll have the desk here and the sofa there ... what do you say to the
sofa there, my sweet?"
"Hadn't you better ask Gordon himself, Princess?" asked Helena.
"But the man isn't here, and how can I.... Never mind, leave them where
they are, Ibrahim. And now for the pictures--nothing makes a room look
so fresh as a lot of pictures."
Ibrahim had brought up from the Agency a number of pictures which had
belonged to Gordon's mother, and the Princess, using her lorgnette,
proceeded to examine them.
"What's this? 'Charles George Gordon.' I know! The White Pasha. Put
him over the General's desk. 'Ecce Homo.' Humph! A man couldn't wish
to have a thing like this in his office, and a natural woman can't want
it over her bed. Mosie! Take 'Ecce Homo' to a nice dark corner of the
servants' hall."
At that moment Fatimah came from the kitchen, which had been shut up
since the day after Helena's departure for the Soudan, to say that half
the cooking-tins had disappeared.
"Just what I expected! Stolen by those rascally Egyptian cooks, no
doubt. Rascally Egyptians! That's what I call them. Excuse the word,
my dear. I speak my mind. They'd steal the kohl from your eyes--if you
had any. And these are the people who are to govern the country! But I
say nothing--not I, indeed! The virtue of a woman is in holding her
tongue.... Fatimah, now that you are here, you might make yourself
useful. Dust that big picture of the naked babies. What's it called?
'Suffer little children.' Goodness! He looks as if he were giving away
clothes. Helena, my moon, my beauty, you really must tell me where to
put this one."
"But hadn't you better ask Gordon himself, Princess? It's to be his
house, you know," repeated Helena, whereupon the Princess, wheeling
round on her, said--
"Gracious me, what's come over you, girl? Here you are to be mistress
of the whole place within a month, I suppose, and yet----"
"Hush, Princess!"
There were footsteps in the hall, and at the next moment, Gordon, in his
frock-coat uniform, looking flushed and excited, and accompanied by
Hafiz, whose chubby face was wreathed in smiles, had entered the room.
After he had shaken hands with the Princess the servants rushed upon
him--Mosie, who had come behind kissing his sword, Ibrahim his hand, and
Fatimah struggling with an impulse to throw her arms about his neck.
"So you've come at last, have you?" said the Princess. "Time enough,
too, for here's Helena of no use to anybody. Your father has gone back
to England, hasn't he? He might have come up to see me, I think. He
wrote a little letter to say good-bye, though. It was just like him. I
could hear him speaking. 'My goodness,' I said, 'that's Nuneham!'
Well, we shall never see his equal again. No, never! He might have
left Egypt with twenty millions in his pocket, and he has gone with
nothing but his wages. I suppose they're slandering him all the same.
Ingrates! But no matter! The dogs bark, but the camel goes along. And
now that I've time, let me take a look at you. What a colour! But what
are you trembling about? Goodness me, has _everybody_ got the jumps?"
Helena was the only one in the room who had not come forward to greet
Gordon, and seeing his sidelong look in her direction, the Princess
began to lay plans for leaving them together.
"Ibrahim," she cried, "hang up these naked babies in the bathroom--the
only place for them, it seems to me. Fatimah, go back and look if the
cooking-tins are not in the kitchen cupboard."
"They're not--I've looked already," said Fatimah.
"Then go and look again. Mosie, you want to inspect my horses--I can
see you do."
"No, lady, I _have_ i'spected them."
"Then i'spect them a second time. Off you go! ... where's my lorgnette?
Oh, dear me. I fancy I must have left it in the boudoir."
"Let me go for it, Princess," said Helena.
"Certainly not! Why should you? Do you think I'm a cripple that I
can't go myself? Hafiz Effendi, where are your manners that you don't
open this door for me? That's better. Now, the inner one."
At the next moment Gordon and Helena were left together. Helena was
still standing by the window looking down at the city which seemed to
lie dazed under the midday sun. Gordon stepped up and stood by her
side. It was hard to realise that they were there again. But in spite
of their happiness there was a little cloud over both. They knew what
caused it.
While they stood together in silence they could hear the low
reverberation of the voices of the people who were praying within the
mosque.
"They are chanting the first Surah," said Gordon.
"Yes, the first Surah," said Helena.
Their hands found each other as they stood side by side.
"I saw Ishmael last night. He came to my quarters," said Gordon in a
low tone.
"Well?" asked Helena faintly.
"It was most extraordinary. He came to tell me that ... to compel me
to----"
"Hush!"
There was a soft footstep behind them. It was the step of some one
walking in Oriental slippers. Without turning round they knew who it
was.
It was Ishmael. Notwithstanding his dusky complexion, his face was very
pale--almost as white as his turban. His eyes looked weary, their light
was almost extinct. Perhaps his sermon had exhausted him. It was
almost as if there was no life left in him except the life of the soul.
But he smiled--it was the smile of a spectre--as he stepped forward and
held out his hand
Gordon's heart shuddered for pity. "Are you well?" he asked.
"Oh yes."
"But you look tired."
"It's nothing," said Ishmael; and then, with a touching simplicity, he
added, "I have been troubled in my heart, but now I am at peace and all
is well."
They sat, Ishmael on the sofa, Helena on a chair at his right, Gordon on
a chair at his left, the window open before them, the city slumbering
below.
Ishmael's face, though full of lines of pain, continued to smile, and
his voice, though hoarse and faint, was cheerful. He had come to tell
them that he was going away.
"Going away?" said Gordon.
"Yes, my work here is done, and when a man's work is done he stands
outside of life. So I am going back."
"Back? You mean back to Khartoum?" asked Helena timidly.
"Perhaps there, too. But back to the desert. I am a son of the desert.
Therefore what other place can be so good for me?"
"Are you going alone?"
"Yes! Or rather, no! When a man has lived, has laboured, he has always
one thing--memory. And he who has memory can never be quite alone."
"Still you will be very lone----"
Ishmael turned to her with an almost imperceptible smile.
"Perhaps, yes, at first, a little lonely, and all the more so for the
sweet glimpse I have had of human company."
"But this is not what you intended to ... what you hoped to----"
"No! It's true I nourished other dreams for a while--dreams of living a
human life after my work was done. It would have been very sweet, very
beautiful. And now to go away, to give it up, never more to have part
and lot in ... never again to see those who ... Yes, it's hard, a little
hard."
Helena turned her head aside and looked out at the window.
"But that is all over now," said Ishmael. "Love is the crown of life,
but it is not for all of us. Your great Master knew that as He knew
everything. Some men have to be eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven's
sake. How true! How right!"
His pallid face struggled to smile as he said this.
"And then what does our Prophet say (to him be prayer and peace)? 'The
man who loves and never attains to the joy of his love, but renounces it
for another who has more right to it, is as one who dies a martyr.'"
Still looking out at the window, Helena tried to say she would always
remember him, and hoped he would be very happy.
"Thank you! That also will be a sweet memory," he said. "But happy
moments are rare in the lives of those who are called to a work for
humanity."
Then, coming gently to closer quarters, he told them he was there to say
good-bye to them. "I had intended to write to you," he said, turning
again to Helena, "but it is better so."