Chapter XI: Among the Dwellers in Tents

With waking each morning Allan's miserable thoughts returned, and, undeterred by the threat of being shot if he attempted to escape, he thought of nothing else, and closely inspected the Bedouin camp and its vicinity with that view, despite the warning of the principal Bedouin, whose name he ascertained to be Abdallah, or 'the servant of God,' who repeatedly told him that he hoped 'the English would have their faces confounded,' the exclamation of the Angel Gabriel when he threw a handful of gravel against the foe at the battle of Bedr.

As the Bedouins never reside in towns or occupy houses, they live in encampments, pitching their tents wherever they can find pasturage for their horses and camels, changing the site of their abode as often as the support of their cattle or the vicinity of a more powerful and hostile tribe may compel them. Sometimes they sow a little Indian corn, and return to reap it when grown. The milk of their cattle and a few esculents found in the desert are their chief food.

All are trained to the use of arms, and are skilled in horsemanship, and Allan could perceive that the care of the flocks and herds was committed mostly to the women, while the youth of the tribe--all fellows spare of form, light of limb, and active as their native gazelles--were in their saddles scouring round the camp, and practising the use of the javelin, the spear, and the Remington rifle, with which many in Lower Egypt were now armed, as they had been flung away in thousands by the fugitive soldiers of Arabi.

The innate love of freedom which is fostered by the facilities for a nomadic life, and the desert-locomotion which his horses and camels afford him, impart to the Bedouin a dignified and haughty bearing, which contrasts powerfully with the servility and pusillanimity of the rustic sons of Egypt.

Unchanged from unknown generations, they are the same as when Volney wrote of them--'Pacific in their camp, they are everywhere else in a habitual state of war. The husbandmen whom they pillage hate them; the travellers whom they despoil speak ill of them; and the Turks, who dread them, endeavour to divide and corrupt them.'

Their wandering life affords more freedom to their women than usually falls to the lot of Moslem females, and the wild desert, where they always dwell, becomes in many cases the actual scene of those keen and passionate love adventures which are depicted in the tales and poems of the Arabians.

If Allan would escape from these Bedouins, he would require to have all his wits about him, and not risk the slightest mistake.

'The child of the desert, reared in continual wandering, possesses in the fullest degree the activity of _sense_,' says a writer. 'His spirit is all abroad in his perceptive organs; he is voluble and sagacious, quick, passionate, and sympathetic, but by no means intellectual. Quickness of perception and strength of imagination are mental characteristics of the Bedouin, and superstition, the child of ignorance, is nowhere more powerful than among the wanderers of the desert.'

But in what direction was Allan to bend his steps, if he contrived to elude his captors? He might only wander into the barren desert--a sea of sand--there to perish of hunger and thirst, or be overtaken to suffer a cruel death.

Reflection showed him that it would be better to temporise--to await the return of the sheikh, and endeavour to treat about a ransom.

Beyond the encampment of rude tents, which they carry with them from wadi to wadi--the male portion employing their horses and camels in the transport from one oasis to another--Allan could see the desert, traversed by the camel-route to Suez by Regum-el-Khel, spreading far away to the north-east, the horizon enveloped in fog in the morning and evening, for the season was moist now.

Near the camp was the tomb of a santon, or holy man, surmounted by a little white dome, and shaded by date-trees.

Had the camp been pitched on higher ground, instead of in a green hollow, Allan might have known his precise whereabouts, as he would have seen in the distance to the south Mount Mokattam, crowned by the citadel of Cairo, with the many minarets of the great capital at its base.

On the third day, a commotion was caused by the arrival of the sheikh, who rode in, accompanied by an escort, all well armed and mounted. Allan was at once brought before him, full of natural anxiety to learn his fate, and great was his satisfaction to discover in him Zeid-el-Ourdeh, the Bedouin whom he had found wounded and bleeding near the camp of the Black Watch, and whom he had succoured and sent rearward to the hospital at Ismailia.

The recognition was mutual. He sprang from his horse, tossed the bridle to an attendant, and welcomed Allan to his tents, adding,

'I called you my brother when, after Kassassin, I thought the hand of death was upon me; and you are not the less my brother now that you have eaten bread and salt with my people.'

He had quite recovered from his sword-wound apparently, and as he moved about in his long, flowing dress, with the ends of his shawl-turban floating over his shoulders, his bearing and aspect were stately and graceful.

Allan, encouraged to find that his personal safety was now so far secured, ventured to speak of his liberty; but Zeid shook his head, while a glitter, suggestive, not of cruelty, but unmistakably of greed and avarice, came into his eyes; and he informed his prisoner that he would have to accompany the tribe further into the desert, to another oasis, where the grass was green.

His heart sank on hearing this.

Whether Zeid-el-Ourdeh meant to retain him as a species of hostage, in the hope of a ransom, or in the absurd idea of attaching him to his own fortunes, as useful from his knowledge of arms and European tactics, Allan could not divine. Anyway, his life for the present was safe in his hands, though Zeid's power might fail to protect him from other Bedouins, or the exasperated fellaheen of Arabi Pasha.

Zeid gave him back his claymore, which Allan greatly valued, as it was a family heirloom--an old Ferrara blade, which his father and grandfather had worn in the Black Watch long before him.

Zeid's own sword was a very remarkable one, which he had found in the sand near the Red Sea. It was long, straight, and double-edged, with a cross-guard of the middle ages, and had evidently been the trusty blade of some pious crusader, who had lost it, with his life perhaps, on the way to Jerusalem; and, like the sword of the Cid, it was inscribed, _Ave Maria gratia plena dominus tecum_.

'You look half-starved!' said Zeid, as he regarded Allan's face.

'I am wholly starved. I have had only some dates and milk for three days,' replied Allan, who, with some satisfaction, heard him order a kid to be killed, that they might have a repast together, and then he ordered the other Frankish prisoner to be brought before him.

'Holcroft!' exclaimed Allan, in a breathless voice, and scarcely able to believe his senses, when one, who seemed undoubtedly that obnoxious personage, was dragged before the sheikh with a sullen and defiant air scarcely suited to the situation. His European surtout and trousers were discoloured, tattered, and torn; he had on a scarlet tarboosh, and wore his fair beard at some length now.

'Holcroft!' exclaimed Allan again, 'you here? Here in Egypt--what miracle is this?'

'Your words express more surprise than pleasure,' replied Holcroft, while Zeid-el-Ourdeh looked from one to the other in some surprise at their evident sudden recognition. 'Ah,' he continued, with a malevolent grimace, 'you thought I was drowned, no doubt, and feeding the fishes in the Solent!'

'You are reserved for a drier and more deserved death, I presume,' said Allan.

'Sneer as you may over me and my misfortunes----'

'Misfortunes, you miscreant! But how in the name of wonder----'

'If you care to know how I come to be here, in the same unpleasant and unsavoury hands with yourself--a gunboat picked me up off Southsea, for I am a strong swimmer, but, for all that, was too exhausted to be sent ashore. I was put into the sick-bay and brought on here, all the way to Ismailia, and then turned adrift to live by my wits. I made my way to Cairo, and was fain to become billiard-marker at the hotel where I saw you, and once again at the review before the Abdin palace. The 196hotels, and cafes too, tired of me. I was setting out on foot to overtake some of your invalids en route to Ismailia when these infernal Bedouins nabbed me, and I am here.'

'And now that you are here, may I inquire what you mean to do with your precious self?'

'Take office under the Khedive's government. There will be no end of nice pickings for Europeans now that the shindy is over.'

'Office--as what?'

'Oh, anything--I am not particular--Inspector-General of Harems would suit me to a hair--down to the ground, in fact.'

'Bantering villain! And how about those diamonds you stole from Miss Raymond--a luckless heirloom in our family, always bringing evil to the holder or wearer?'

'Well, they have brought no evil to me yet,' replied Holcroft, with a defiant grin--a dogged one too; 'I have them safe here,' he added, slapping his breast pocket, 'and don't mean to part with them. They are quite a fortune to me.'

And he had the folly, the madness, in mere bravado, to show them for a moment.

'Keep these, fellow--they are certain to bring you ill-luck in some way.'

Allan was nearer the truth than he thought, as the sharp eyes of the sheikh saw the flash of the stones, and the spirit of acquisition was instantly kindled in his breast.

'Well,' thought Allan, 'this unexpected meeting is a strange coincidence; but, as Miss Braddon says, "life is made up of curious coincidences."'