Gradually Harry Forsyth came back to real life, as it were. First of
all he had an uneasy feeling that something was wrong, but he wanted a
word or an event to strike the key-note of his memory. His uncle never
spoke of home matters; he was kind, and even affectionate, but was much
away. He would come out into the large courtyard in the early morning,
mount the horse which was held ready for him with an activity worthy of
a much younger man, and scour off at a gallop with a troop of his wild
retainers racing behind him. He might come back that evening, or not
for a week.
And when he was at home he was very busy, seeing different people, who
came and went in a great hurry, and writing despatches, which mounted
orderlies, or what answered for such, were always in waiting to carry.
And when they were together he talked of the wild life of the desert; of
the sport to be had further up in the Black Country, but never of
England.
He spoke Arabic always, even when they were alone, and never lapsed into
his native tongue. Yet his face and the tone of his voice disturbed
Harry, causing him to make an effort to get his mind clear.
At length, one morning he awoke with a distinct remembrance of his
mother and sister, and the knowledge that he was far away from them in a
foreign land, and had not had any communication with them for a long
time. And he felt a strong desire to relieve their anxiety, and let
them know he was alive, and also to have news of them. But he could not
remember what he had come to this part of the world for.
He knew that he had wanted to trace his uncle; but why? He had come out
to Egypt in the service of a firm of merchants, and the name of the head
of it was Williams; he was confident so far. But had he not returned
home since then? And why had he sought out his uncle? Surely not on
business connected with the firm, and certainly not because he had
turned Mohammedan and wanted to live like an ostrich.
A little longer, and his connection with Hicks Pasha's force, and the
disastrous termination of that expedition, came clearly back to him; and
with it the necessity of keeping silent about the matter, for he now
wanted to get away to a civilised place like Cairo, at all events, if
not to England. For though he did not know that the British Government
had taken up the Egyptian quarrel, and that war had actually been waged
between them and the Soudanese in the neighbourhood of the Red Sea, he
knew that an officer of the late expedition would be looked upon with
suspicion, if not treated as an open enemy.
Neither was he sure how his uncle would bear the disappointment if he
found out that he had been in the ranks of his enemies--the Egyptians.
Though he need not have worried himself about that, for the Sheikh
Burrachee would only have thought it the method which Destiny had taken
to bring him to him.
As Forsyth's mind grew sounder his body kept pace with it, and he was
able at last to mount a horse and take short rides; and it amused him to
saunter about the bazaar occasionally, though it was not a very
extensive or grand one; indeed, the poet who wrote "Man wants but little
here below," would have been pleased to see how completely an Arab, as a
rule, verifies his theory.
One day he, (Harry, not the poet) was puzzled by some round balls of a
frothy appearance, which he could not make out; could it possibly be
soap? What sale could there be for such an article? The shopman might
just as well have offered straps and stay-laces to the population around
him. But it did not smell like soap, either; indeed, the odour was
extremely unpleasant.
"That is not an object worthy of your attention," said the owner of the
shop, who sat on a cushion in the midst of his goods. "I have a
preparation for the hair which is infallible for restoring it if it
falls off from age or sickness, for example, and which is as agreeable
to the nose as beneficial to the scalp. Those balls of mutton fat are
only fit for the poor who can afford no better."
"Oh, it is for the hair, then," observed Harry; "and what makes it look
all frothy like that?"
"It is prepared by chewing, and women are employed for the purpose; they
cheat me sometimes, and swallow a portion. But deign to come up, oh
illustrious one, and partake of a cup of coffee or a glass of sherbet
and a chibouque, and allow me the unparalleled and illustrious honour of
showing you my poor goods."
Harry consented, not that he wanted to purchase anything, but because
something about the man's face struck him as familiar, and he was
anxious to remember where and under what circumstances he had seen him
before.
"I have here a French pistol, a revolver with six chambers, which I can
offer your Excellency almost for nothing, with ammunition to match. It
is a weapon which will save your life a hundred times by its accuracy
and the rapidity of its fire; and what says the wise man? `Life is
sweet, even to the bravest.'" And all the time he was talking, Harry
Forsyth kept thinking, "Where have I seen him? What circumstance does
his face recall?"
As he left the shop his eye fell on a bale of goods yet unopened, and on
it he read the name *Daireh*!
It acted like a match on a gas-jet. He had come out to seek the will,
and Daireh was the man who had abstracted it!
And as he walked home, he remembered everything which had been a puzzle
to him. Being still weak, he now grew as much excited as before he had
been apathetic, and had his uncle been at home he would have gone to him
with the whole story at once. But the sheikh was away, superintending
the drill of certain European ruffians in the Mahdi's service who were
to man some Krupp guns taken from the Egyptians, and Harry had a forced
respite in which to collect his ideas and frame them in the manner best
calculated to gain his uncle's attention and assistance.
And now his anxiety about those at home who had no doubt long mourned
him as dead grew more poignant, and remembering his uncle's affection
for his sister, he regretted not having confided in him and begged him
to get a letter conveyed to some point sufficiently civilised to have a
post. He tried to find out from Fatima how long he had been laid up at
the fakir's residence, and at first she was puzzled. But at last she
gave him a clue.
"The Nile had risen and gone back," she said, "when you were brought to
us as dead. It rose again, and fell again, and now it will soon rise
once more."
Two years! Was it possible? Nearly two years! And he wondered whether
his people had gone into mourning for him, or if they still hoped on.
He next made inquiries about Daireh, setting Fatima to gossip for him
and tell him the result. He seemed to bear a shockingly bad character,
and to be very unpopular. The fact was that he was a money-lender, and
his extortions caused him to be hated.
Harry was glad of this, since it promised to make his task easier.
The Sheikh Burrachee returned, and was rejoiced to find his nephew so
much improved in health.
Harry took the first opportunity of opening his budget.
"Do you mind my speaking to you in English?" he said. "I have got to
say things which I should find it difficult to explain in a foreign
language, which I have very imperfectly picked up, and which may not
have idioms answering to the English."
"I do not love the English tongue," said the sheikh, using it, however.
"But what things do you allude to?"
"Family matters, affecting my mother and all of us--you, perhaps."
"When I last went to England," said the sheikh, "I took a final farewell
of all relatives, and of everything belonging to the country from which
I shook off the dust on my feet, you only excepted, for I saw that you,
too, were called out of the seething hotbed of corruption, which is
called civilisation, to the natural life of man. Why disturb the ashes
of the buried past?"
"I love my mother," replied Harry; "and you, her brother, once loved her
too."