Chapter XI: Part 11

He rose to receive her, and she looked at him for a moment without speaking--almost as if she had for an instant lost the power of speech, being at last face to face with a man whom she had long thought of and long sought.

On his side, too, there was a momentary silence and a look of enthusiastic admiration which he tried in vain to control. The lady seemed to see this in an instant, and an expression of joy which she could not restrain shone in her face.

Then, gathering confidence, she began to tell him the object of her visit to Khartoum--how, hearing so much about him, she had wished to see him for herself, and now begged to be allowed to serve him in any way whatever that lay within her power.

He listened to her with the same expression of enthusiastic admiration in his face, and it would have been obvious to an observer that the lady was congratulating herself upon the power of the impression she had made. But at the next moment he set her a very humble task, namely that of seeing to the welfare of the women who were employed at sixpence a day by the Government to draw and carry water for the public streets.

The lady looked surprised and a little chagrined, but finding it impossible to recede from the unconditional offer she had made she went away to the work that had been given to her.

It was ugly and thankless work enough, for the water-women of Khartoum were among the coarsest and most degraded of their sex, being chiefly of the black tribes from south of Kordofan, going about bare from the waist upwards and herding like animals in the brown huts that were beyond the barracks outside the town.

After a little while "the Princess" came to Ishmael again, and this time he was sitting with old Mahmud, his uncle, in the guest-room which divided the women's side from the men's side in their house.

She was dressed still more attractively than before, in a gold-embroidered bodice and a clinging diaphanous gown, and was attended by her black boy. Ishmael salaamed and the old man struggled to his feet as, with a certain air of embarrassment, she stepped forward and begged to be pardoned if what she came to ask should displease the Master.

Ishmael looked at her with the same expression of enthusiastic ecstasy which she had observed before, and said--

"No, no, my sister cannot displease me. What is the request she wishes to make?"

Then she told him that the work he had given her was good and necessary, but was there nothing she could do for himself? She had been educated in India by English governesses and could read English, French, and German--could she act as his translator or interpreter? Having lived so long among Arabs of the higher classes she had also taught herself to write as well as speak Arabic--could she not serve him as his secretary?

Ishmael remembered his busy mornings with the messengers, agents, emissaries, and missionaries who came to him from all corners of Egypt and the Soudan, bringing many letters and foreign newspapers; and before he had time to reflect on what he was doing, he had answered--

"Yes, such help is exactly what I need."

If any eyes less dim than old Mahmud's had been there at that moment they would have seen a look of triumph in the lady's face which she vainly struggled to conceal. But at the next moment it was full of humility and gratitude as she bowed herself out and promised to come again the following day.

Hardly had the lady gone when Ishmael's simple nature began to recover itself from the spell of her sex and beauty, but the old uncle's admiration was quite ungovernable, and he began to hint at the possibility of yet more intimate relations between his nephew and the devoted young Muslemah.

"I have always told you that you ought to marry again, a good woman and a believer," he said; whereupon Ishmael, with the ecstasy created by "the Princess's" loveliness still shining in his eyes, answered--

"No! I have always said, 'No, no, by Allah! One wife I had, and though she was a Christian and had been a slave I loved her, and never, never shall another woman take her place.'"

"Ah, well, God knows best what to do with us," said the old man. "But life is a passing shadow and youth a departing guest."

Next morning the white lady came according to appointment, and Ishmael set her to read some European newspapers containing accounts of recent doings in Cairo.

She was translating these newspapers aloud when Ishmael's little daughter Ayesha came bounding into the house, followed by her nurse, the Arab woman Zenoba--the child barefoot as her mother used to be, and with her mother's beautiful, erect confidence as she moved about, lightly clad, with her middle small-girt by a scarlet sash over her pure white shirt--the woman in her blue habarah and with a silver ring in her nose.

Ishmael presented both of them to the lady, whereupon the child, by an instinctive impulse, ran over to her and kissed her hand and held it, but the Arab woman only bowed with a look of suspicion, and, as long as she remained in the guest-room, continued to watch out of the sidelong slits of her eyes.

The Arab woman's obvious mistrust made more impression upon Ishmael than his daughter's spontaneous liking, for as soon as he was alone with the lady again he began to talk to her of the gravity of the task he had undertaken, and of the need for caution and even secrecy with respect to all his doings.

The lady's brilliant eyes glistened under their long black lashes as she listened to him, and she answered his warnings with assuring words, until, coming to closer quarters, he proposed that for his people's sake rather than his own she should take an oath of fidelity to him and to his cause.

At that she looked startled, and could with difficulty conceal her agitation. And when he went on to recite the terms of the oath to her--solemn terms, taking God and His prophet to witness that she would never reveal anything which came to her knowledge within the walls of that house--she seemed to be stifling with a sense of fear or shame.

Not as such, however, did Ishmael's unsuspecting nature recognise the lady's embarrassment, but setting it down to the heat of the day, for the khamseen, the hot wind, was blowing, he clapped his hands for water.

The Arab woman brought it in, although it was Abdullah's task to do so, and she lingered long in the room, and looked searchingly at the lady while Ishmael again recited his oath.

The lady did not at first respond, but continued to look out at the open door on to the slow waters of the White Nile, and there was silence in the air both within and without, save for the far-off hammering from the dockyards across the river.

At length she asked in a tremulous voice--

"Master, is this necessary?"

Ishmael reflected for a moment and then said--

"No, it is not necessary, and we shall do without it. What says the Lord of the Christians? 'Swear not at all; neither by heaven, for it is God's throne; nor by the earth, for it is His footstool.'"

The lady drew a long breath of relief and went on with her foreign newspapers.

*CHAPTER IV*

Hardly had "the Princess" gone for the day when the Arab woman, Zenoba, with all her dusky face contracted into lines of jealousy, came to Ishmael to warn him.

"Forgive me, O Master," she said, "if the thing I say displeases you."

"What is it, O Zenoba?" asked Ishmael.

"Is it well to trust the secrets of God and of His people to two tongues and four eyes?"

Ishmael's face darkened visibly, but he held himself in check and answered with dignity--

"Zenoba, ask pardon of God for a suspicious mind. The least of all noble traits is to keep a secret, the greatest is to forget that you have confided it."

The Arab woman was stung by the rebuke, but assuming the meekest expression of face she changed her course entirely.

"Master, I beg of you to listen to me until I have done," she said, and then she began to talk of the visits of the white lady.

The lady was young and beautiful. Evil minds were many. If she were to come to Ishmael's house every day and to be closeted alone with him, what would people say?

"Forgive me, O Master; it is nothing to me, and I have no right to speak," said the Arab woman, with the agony of a jealous spirit imprinted on every feature of her face. "I only wish to put you on your guard against the slanderous tongues that would love to injure you."

Ishmael listened to her with the look of a man who had never once reflected on the interpretation that might be put upon his conduct, and then he said--

"You are right, O Zenoba, and I thank you for reminding me of something I had permitted myself to forget."

When the white lady came next day, Ishmael began to speak to her about her position in his house.

"My sister," he said, "I have been thinking this is not good. The thoughts of the world are evil, and if you continue to come here according to the agreement we made together your pure name will be tarnished."

The lady's brows contracted slightly, for it flashed upon her that Ishmael was about to send her away. But that was not his intention, and in the winding way of Eastern explanations he proceeded to propound his plan.

"When the Prophet (to him be prayer and peace) lost his first wife, Khadija, the mother of Islam, and took a second wife, it was a widow, well stricken in years and without wealth or beauty. Why did the Prophet marry her? That he might care for her and protect her and shield her from every ill."

The lady looked on the ground and listened. A strange sensation of joy mingled with fear took possession of her, for she saw what Ishmael was going to say.

"If the Prophet did this for her who was so far removed from the slanders of evil tongues, shall not his servant do as much for one who is young and beautiful?"

The lady's head began to swim, and the ground to sway under her feet as if she were at sea on a rolling ship, but Ishmael saw nothing in her agitation but modesty, and he went on in a soft voice to tell her what he wished to do.

He wished to marry her, that is to say, to _betroth_ himself to her, to make her his wife, his spiritual wife, his wife in name only--never to be claimed of him as a husband, for, besides his consecration to the great task he had undertaken for God, there was a vow he had made to the memory of one who was dead, and both forbade him ever to think again of the joys of the life of a man.

The lady was now totally unable to conceal her agitation, and taking out her handkerchief she kept running her trembling fingers along the hem. She was asking herself what she could do, how she could reply, for she could plainly see that the Oriental in Ishmael had never for one instant allowed him to think that if he were willing to give her the protection of his name she could have any possible objection.

It was the still hour of noon, and, pale with fear, she sat silent for a moment looking into the palpitating air that floated over the glistening waters of the Nile. Then assuming, as well as she could, an expression of humility and confusion, she said, while her heart was beating violently--

"Master, it is too much honour--I can hardly think of it."

He could see by her face how hard she fought with herself, but still taking her agitation for maidenly modesty, he dropped his voice and whispered--

"Do not decide at once. Wait a little. Go away now, and think of what I have said."

He held out his hand to help her to her feet, and she went off with an unsteady step, first stopping, then going quickly, as if she had an impulse to speak again and could not do so, because of the feeling, akin to terror, which seemed to stifle her.

If any one, following the white lady to her lodging in the Greek widow's house, had been able to look into the depths of her soul, he would have found a tragic struggle going on there. A score of conflicting voices were clamouring to be heard at once. "What am I doing?" "Where am I?" "Am I myself or some one else?" "Don't take on this fearful responsibility to such a man." "But I must do so, or I can do nothing." "I must go on or else go back." "But isn't this going too far?" "Nonsense, this is no marriage; it is merely a nominal union--a betrothal. I shall only be his wife _pro forma_. According to an alien faith, too, a faith that does not bind my conscience." "It must be done--it shall!"

When the white lady returned to Ishmael's house on the following day it was with a firm, decided step, as if she were lifted up and sustained by some invisible power. With a strange light in her eyes and an expression in her face that he had never seen there before, she told him that she agreed to his proposal.

He received her consent with a glad cry, and clapping his hands to summon his household he announced the good news to them with a bright look and a happy voice.

The old uncle was overjoyed, and little Ayesha leapt into the lady's arms and kissed her, but Zenoba, with a face full of confusion, drew Ishmael aside and began to stammer out objections and difficulties. The house was small, there was no separate room for the white lady. Then, her black boy--there was not even a corner that could be occupied by him.

"Put the Rani in the room with the child, and let the boy sleep on the mat at her door," said Ishmael, and without more ado he went on to make arrangements for the wedding.

The arrangements were few, for Ishmael determined that the marriage should be concluded immediately and conducted without any kind of pomp. But in order that all his world might know what he was doing he invited the Cadi of Khartoum to make the contract, and then, having sent the lady to her lodging, he set out to fetch her back on the milk-white camel he usually rode himself.

It was Sunday, and the sun had gone down in a blaze of red as he walked by the camel's side through the native quarter of the town with the white lady, the Rani, the Princess, wearing a gold-edged muslin shawl over her head and descending to her shoulders, riding on the crimson saddle fringed with cowries.

By the time they reached old Mahmud's house it was full of guests in wedding garments, and gorgeous with crimson curtains hanging over all the walls, and illuminated by countless lamps both large and small.

But the ceremony was of the simplest.

First, the Fatihah (the first chapter of the Koran) recited by the whole company standing, and then the bride and bridegroom sitting on the ground, face to face, grasping each other's hands.

Down to this moment the white lady had been sustained by the same invisible power, as if clad in an impenetrable armour of defiance which no emotion could pierce; but when the Cadi stepped forward and placed a handkerchief over the clasped hands and began to say some words of prayer, she felt faint and could scarcely breathe.

With a struggle, nevertheless, she recovered herself when the Cadi, leaning over her, told her in a low voice to repeat after him the words that he should speak.

"I betroth myself to thee--to serve thee and to submit to thee----"

"I betroth myself to thee ... to serve ... to serve thee ... and to ... to submit to thee----"

With an effort she got the words spoken, feeling numb at her heart and with a sense of darkness coming over her, but being spurred at last by sight of the Arab woman's glittering eyes watching her intently.

But when the Cadi turned from her to Ishmael, and the bridegroom, in his throbbing voice, said loudly--

"And I accept thy betrothal and take thee under my care, and bind myself to afford thee my protection, as ye who are here bear witness," she felt as if the tempest of darkness had overwhelmed her and she were falling, falling, falling into a bottomless abyss.

When the lady came to herself again the Arab woman was holding a dish of water to her mouth, and her own black boy, with big tears like beads dropping out of his eyes, was fanning her with a fan of ostrich feathers.

But now the people, who had been saying among themselves, in astonishment at such maimed rites, "Is this a widow or a divorced woman?" being determined not to be done out of such marriage fetes as they considered only decent, had begun to gather in front of the house, the men in their brown skull-caps and blue galabeahs, the married women in their black silk habarahs with silver rings in their noses, and the unmarried girls in their white scarves with coins in their hair and with big silver anklets.

And while the Sheikhs and Notables within, sitting on the dikkahs around the guest-room, listened to a blind man's chanting of the Koran, the peasant people, squatting on the sand, under the stars, employed themselves after their own fashion with the beating of drums, big and little, the playing of pipes, and the singing of love-songs. And through and among them as they huddled together, with their faces to the illuminated house of joy, and both the bride and the bridegroom before them, a water-carrier, a sakka, went about with his water-skin and a brass cup, distributing drinks of water; a girl, with jingling jewels, squirted scent; and Abdullah and Black Zogal, showing their shining white teeth in their happiness and pride, handed round sweetmeats and cups of thick coffee.

Meantime the white lady sat, with her flushed face uncovered and her gold-edged veil thrown back, where Ishmael had placed her, near to the threshold, in order that, contrary to bad custom, the people might see her, and the child, with its sweet olive-brown face, sat by her side, almost on her lap, amusing herself by holding her hand and drawing off and putting on a beautiful diamond ring which she wore on the third finger of her left hand.

This innocent action of the sweet child seemed to torture the lady at certain moments, and never more than when one of the male singers, sitting close beneath her, sang a camel-boy's song of love. He was far away on the desert, but the soft eyes of the gazelle recalled the timid looks of his beloved. And when he reached the oasis in the midst of the wilderness the song of the bird in the date-tree brought back the voice of his darling.

As soon as the singer finished, the women on the ground made their shrill, quavering cry of joy, the zaghareet, and then the white lady drew her hand away from the child with an abrupt and almost angry gesture.

After that, she sat for a long hour without stirring, merely gazing out on the people in front of the house as if she saw and comprehended nothing. A taste of bitterness was in her mouth, and as often as she was recalled to herself by some question addressed to her she looked as if she wished to disappear from sight altogether.

At length she thought her torture was at an end, for the Cadi rose and said in a loud voice--

"If your friend is sweet do not eat him up," whereupon the tom-toms were silenced and with a laugh everybody rose, and then, all standing, the whole company chanted the Fatihah--

"Praise be to God, the Lord of all creatures, the most merciful,
the King of the Day of Judgment. Thee do we worship and of Thee
do we beg assistance. Direct us in the right way, in the way of
those to whom Thou hast been gracious; not of those against whom
Thou art incensed, nor of those who go astray."

The solemn words died away like a receding wave on the outskirts of the crowd, and then the people broke up and went back to their houses and tents, leaving Ishmael and his household together. A little later the household also separated for the night, the child, now very sleepy, being carried to bed by her nurse, and old Mahmud shuffling off to his room after saying to the white lady--

"An old man's blessing can do you no harm, my daughter, therefore God bless you and bring you joyful increase."

The white lady was now alone with Ishmael, and her agitation increased tenfold.

"Let us sit again for a while," he said in a soft voice, and leading her to one of the wooden benches, covered with carpet, which faced the open front of the house, he placed himself beside her.

There the moon was on their faces, and from time to time there was a silvery rain of southern stars. They sat for a while in silence, she with a sense of shame, he with a momentary thrill of passion that came up from the place where he was no longer a prophet but a man.

She felt that he was trying to look into her face with his lustrous black eyes, and she wished to turn away from him. This brought the hot colour of blood into her cheeks, and only made her the more beautiful.

A sense of physical fear began to take possession of her, and a storm of thoughts and memories came in rapid succession. She could not express even to her own mind the intricacies of her emotions. This man was an Oriental, and she believed him to be capable of treachery and guilty of violence. Yet she was his wife, according to his own view, and what at this moment, when they were alone, was the worth of the pledge whereby she (for her own purposes) had consented to be his wife in name only, his betrothed!

Her nervousness increased every moment. When he touched her arm she recoiled slightly and felt her skin creep. He seemed to be conscious of this, for he sat by her side a little longer without speaking.

The silence of night was on the desert and along the moon-track across the river, as far as to the ruined dome of the Mahdi's tomb, which seemed so threatening and so near.

At length in a soft voice he said, "Come," and held out his hand to help her to rise.

She rose, trembling all over with fright and a sort of physical humiliation--she who had always been so proud, so strong, so brave.

He led her to the women's side of the house, without speaking a word until they got there, and then, almost in a whisper, he said--

"You sleep here with little Ayesha. May your night be happy and your morning good!"

She looked up at him as he recommended her to God, and was amazed at the calm, luminous face that now met her own. At the next moment he was gone.

It was an immense relief to find herself in her bedroom, where a little open lamp was burning, and there was no sound but the soft and measured breathing of the child, who was asleep in bed.

At the first moment the sleeping child was like a great protector, but when she became calmer, and began to think of this, she felt the more ashamed.

"What impossible, terrible thing has happened?" she thought, and then she asked herself again, "Am I really myself or some one else?"

"Oh, what have I done?" she thought, and a sense of sin took possession of her, which was almost like that which a good woman feels when she has committed adultery.

"It is terrible, but it is inevitable," she thought, and then she fought against the sentiment of shame which oppressed her, by telling herself that Ishmael was a crafty hypocrite, whose soft words were a sham, whose religion was a lie, whose wicked deeds deserved punishment at any price whatever.

"But no, I cannot think of that now," she thought, and after a while she turned the light bedclothes aside, and putting out the lamp, got into bed by the side of the child, who was smelling sweet with the soft odours of sleep.

She lay a long time motionless, with her eyes open, and still the horror of what she had done weighed on her like a nightmare. Then she covered her eyes with her hands, and the image of another filled her with emotions that were at once sweet and bitter. With a woman's sense of injustice she was blaming the absent one for the position of shame in which she found herself.

"Why did he choose this man instead of me?" she thought, and then, at last, in the fiercest fire of jealousy and hatred, weeping bitter tears in the darkness, she reconciled her tormented conscience to everything she had done, everything she intended to do, by saying to herself with quivering lips--

"_He killed my father!_"

At that moment she was startled by a voice outside that broke sharp and harsh upon the silence of the night--

"There is no god but God! There is no god but God!"

It was Black Zogal, the half-witted Nubian, crying the confession of faith at the door of Ishmael's house.

The Lady, the White Lady, the Rani, the Princess, was Helena Graves.

*CHAPTER V*

While Ishmael's followers had been squatting on the sands to celebrate his betrothal the Sirdar had been having a dinner-party in the Palace, composed of the chief officers of his military government and the cream of the British society at Khartoum.

Towards ten o'clock the large after-dinner group of ladies in low-cut corsage, showing white arms and shoulders, and officers in full-dress uniform, had come out on the terrace with its open arches and its handsome steps sweeping down to the silent garden.

Below were the broad lawns, the mimosa trees filling the night air with perfume, the trembling sycamores and the tall dates, sleeping under the great deep heaven with its stars. Behind was the lamp-lit palace, from which native servants in gold-embroidered crimson were carrying silver trays laden with decanters and glasses and small cups and saucers.

It was almost the spot on which "the martyr of the Soudan" fell under the lances of the dervishes, yet one of the Sirdar's servants, Abdullahi, with three cross-cuts on his cheeks, his tribal mark as a son of the bloodthirsty Baggara, and with the pleasantest of smiles on his walnut-coloured face, was drawing corks, pouring out whisky and soda-water, and striking matches to light the men's cigarettes.

The company was full of the gaiety and animation which comes after a pleasant dinner, with a little of the excitement which follows when people have partaken of wine. The eyes of the ladies sparkled and the faces of the men smiled, and both talked freely and laughed a good deal.

The conversation was made up of trifles until one of the ladies--it was the wife of the Governor of the city, clad in the lightest of lace-chiffon gowns and wearing yellow satin slippers--inquired the meaning of the sounds of rejoicing, the blowing of pipes and the beating of tom-toms, which had come through the wide-open windows of the Palace from the direction of the native quarter.

To this question the Inspector-General of the Soudan--an English Pasha, whose gold-laced tunic was half covered with medals--replied that the new prophet who had lately arrived in Khartoum had that day taken to himself a wife.

"How _interesting_!" cried the ladies in chorus, with a note of laughter that was intended to belie the word, and then the lady in the yellow slippers turned to the Inspector-General and said--

"Of course he has as many as the Mahdi already--but who is the new one, I wonder?"

"No, he has only one wife at present--runs 'em tandem, I hear--and the new bride is the beautiful person in Parsee costume who arrived here about the same time as himself."

"The Mohammedan Rani, you mean? My husband tells me she is perfectly lovely. But they say she will never let a European get a glimpse of her face--puts down her Parsee veil, I suppose--so goodness knows how _he_ knows, you know."

"Perhaps your husband is a privileged person, my dear," said one of the other ladies, whereupon there was a trill of laughter and the little feet in satin slippers were beaten upon the floor.

"But a Rani! Think of that! Who can she be, I wonder?" said another of the ladies, and then the mistress of the Palace, Lady Mannering, hinted that she believed the Sirdar knew something about her.

"Oh, tell us! tell us!" cried a dozen female voices at once; but the Sirdar, a shrewd and kindly autocrat who had been smoking a cigarette in silence, merely answered--

"Time will tell you, perhaps." Then turning to the Inspector-General he said--

"She has _married_ the man, you say?"

"That's so, your Excellency."

"There must be some mistake about that, surely."

The company broke up late, and the ladies went on in light wraps and the men bare-headed through the soft, reverberant air of the southern night. But the Sirdar had asked certain of his officers to remain for a few moments, and among them were the Inspector-General, the Financial Secretary, and the Governor of the town. To the latter came his Zabit, a police officer, whose duty it was to report to his chief early and late, and as soon as the men had seated themselves the Sirdar said--

"Any further news about this man, Ishmael Ameer?"

"None, your Excellency," said the Governor.

"You've discovered nothing about his object in coming here?"

"Nothing at all."

"He is not sowing dissension between Moslems and Christians?"

"No! On the contrary, he professes to be opposed to all that, sir."

"Then you see no reason to think that he is likely to be a danger to the public peace?"

"Unfortunately no, sir, no!"

The Sirdar laughed. "He hasn't yet given 'divine' sanction for your removal, Colonel?"

"Not that I know of, at all events."

"Then you and your wife may sleep in peace for the present, I suppose."

There was a little general laughter, and then the Inspector-General, a sceptic with a contempt for holy men of all kinds, said--

"All the same, your Excellency, I should make short work of this pseudo-Messiah."

"Without plain cause we cannot," said the Sirdar, who was the friend of all faiths and the enemy of none. "Indeed, a broad-minded Mohammedan such as this man is said to be might possibly be of service in directing the religion of the Soudan."

"Yes, sir, but too many of these religious celebrities are contaminated by Mahdism."

"Surely Mahdism is dead, my dear fellow."

"Not yet, sir! Only yesterday I saw a man kneeling by the Mahdi's tomb--so hard do religions die! As for this man, Ishmael, he may be preaching peace while he is gathering his followers, but wait till they're numerous enough to fight and you'll see what he will do. Besides, isn't there evidence enough already that the tranquillity of the Soudan has been disturbed?"

"What evidence do you mean?"

"I mean ... my informers all over the country tell me the people are no longer pleading poverty as an excuse for remission of taxation--they are boldly _refusing_ to pay."

The Financial Secretary corroborated this statement, saying that the taxes due on the land and the date-trees had not yet been collected, and that he had heard from Cairo that the same difficulty was being met with in Egypt in respect of the taxes on berseem and wheat.

"You mean," said the Sirdar, "that a conspiracy of passive resistance against the Government has been set afoot?"

"It looks like it, sir," said the Inspector-General. "A pretty insidious kind of conspiracy it is, too, and I think all the signs are that Ishmael Ameer is at the head of it."

There was silence, for some minutes, during which the Sirdar was telling himself that, if this was so, the rule of England in Egypt was face to face with a most subtle enemy--subtler far than the Mahdi and immeasurably more dangerous.

"Well, the first thing we've got to do is to find out the truth," he said, and thereupon he gave the Zabit an order to summon the Ulema of Khartoum, the Cadi, the Notables, and Sheikhs to a meeting in the Palace.

"Let it be soon," he said.

"Yes, sir."

"And secret."

"Certainly, your Excellency."

The Governor and the Financial Secretary went off with the police officer, but for some minutes longer the Inspector-General remained with the Sirdar.

"If the man were likely to cause a disturbance," said the Sirdar, "it would be easy to deal with him, but he's not. Public security is in no present danger. On the contrary, everything I hear of the man's teaching is calculated to promote peace."

"As to that, sir, if you believe all he says, he is the prince of peace himself, and his Islam isn't Islam at all as we know it, but something quite different."

"If he were claiming 'divine' authority, and telling people to resist the Government----"

"Oh, he is far too clever for that, sir, and his conspiracy is the deep-laid plan of a subtle impostor, not the unpremeditated action of a lunatic."

"All I hear about his personal character is good," said the Sirdar. "He is tender to children, charitable to the poor, and weeps like a woman at a story of distress."

The Inspector-General laughed. "Pepper in his finger-nails--the hoary old trick, sir! Good-night, Sirdar!"

"Good-night, Colonel!" And the Inspector-General descended the steps.

Being left alone, the Sirdar walked for a long hour to and fro on the terrace, trying to see what course he ought to take in dealing with a religious leader who differed so dangerously from the holy men that were more troublesome, but hardly more deadly, than the sand-flies of the desert.

At midnight he found himself standing on the very spot on which General Gordon met his death, and in an instant, as by a flash of mental lightning, he saw the scene that had been enacted there only a few years before--the grey dawn, the mad rush of the howling dervishes in their lust of blood, up from the dim garden to the top of these steps, on which stood, calmly waiting for them, the fearless soul that had waited for his own countrymen in vain. "Where is your Master, the Mahdi?" he cried. Then a barbarous shriek, the flash of a score of lances, and the martyr of the Soudan fell.

Was this to be another such revolt, more subtle if not more bloody, turning England out of the valley of the Nile by making it impossible for her to meet the expense of governing the country, and thereby destroying the seeds of civilisation that had been sown in the Soudan through so many toilsome years?

On the other hand, was it the beginning of a great spiritual revolution that was intended by God to pass over the whole face of the world? It might even be that, though the Soudan was only a brown and barren wilderness, for had not all great faiths and all great prophets sprung out of the desert--Moses, Mohammed, Christ!

This brought the Sirdar back to a memory that had troubled him deeply for many weeks--the memory of the disgrace that had fallen in Cairo on his comrade of long ago, the son of his old friend Nuneham, young Gordon Lord.

Then it dawned upon him for the first time that, however serious his offence as a soldier, the son of his friend had done no more and no less than his great namesake did before him when he resisted authority _because authority was in the wrong_!

Good God! could it be possible that young Gordon was in the right after all, and that this movement of the man Ishmael was the beginning of a world-wide revolt against the materialism, the selfishness, the venality, and the oppression of a corrupt civilisation that mocked religion by taking the name of Him who came to earth to destroy such evils?

If that were so, could any Christian country in these days dare to repeat the appalling error of the Roman Empire in Palestine two thousand years ago--the error of trying to put down moral forces by physical ones?

The Sirdar laughed when he thought of that, so grotesque seemed the mysterious law of the mind by which he had coupled an olive-faced Arab like Ishmael Ameer with Christ!

The southern night was silent. Not a sound came up from the moonlit garden except the croaking of frogs in the pond. Presently a voice that was like a wave of wind came sweeping through the breathless air--

"There is no god but God! There is no god but God!"

The Sirdar shuddered and turned into the house.

*CHAPTER VI*

Being betrothed to Ishmael, and therefore in effect his wife, Helena had now no difficulty in reading the secret he had so carefully hidden from British eyes. Every morning she sat with him in the guest-room while he received his messengers and agents, and if they demurred at her presence, being distrustful of her because she was a woman, he would say--

"Have no fear. My wife is myself. Think of her as you think of me."

Thus little by little she realised what the plan of his opposition to the Government had been, when, in Cairo, after the closing of El Azhar, he had sent out his hundred emissaries. It was to tell the people in every village of Egypt and the Soudan to pay no taxes until their faith was free and the Government took its hand off the central seat of their religion.

She also realised that the people had obeyed Ishmael and had suffered as the consequence. Agents were coming every day with secret letters and messages concealed in their turbans, telling of the pains and penalties already endured by those who had boldly refused to pay the taxes due at that season of the year.

At first these lamentations were couched after Eastern manner in the language of metaphor. Pharaoh was laying intolerable burdens upon the people--what were they to do? God had once sent Moses, a man of prayer, to plead with Pharaoh to loosen his hand--would He not do so again?

But as the people's sufferings increased the metaphors were dropped, and the injustices they laboured under were stated in plain terms. Hitherto, when a summons had been taken out against a man for the non-payment of his taxes, the magistrate might remit or cancel or postpone, but now there was nothing but summary execution everywhere, with the result that stock and crops were being sold up by the police, and neither the Mudirs (the governors) nor their Sarrafs (cashiers) cared what price was realised so long as the amount of the taxes was met.

"Is there no redress, no remedy, no appeal? What are we to do?" asked the people, in the messages that came in the turbans.

"Be patient!" replied Ishmael. "It is written, 'God is with the patient.'"

A hundred times Helena wrote this answer at Ishmael's dictation, on pieces of paper hardly bigger than a large postage stamp, and it was hidden away in some secret place in the messenger's clothes.

As time went on the messages became more urgent and painful. The law said that at times of distraint the clothes of the debtor, his implements of cultivation, and the cattle he employed in agriculture were to be exempt from seizure, but the district officers were seizing everything by which the people worked, and yet requiring them to pay taxes just the same.

"What are we to say?" asked the messengers.

"Say nothing," answered Ishmael. "Suffer and be strong. Not for the first time on the banks of the Nile have people been required to make bricks without straw. But God will avenge you. Wait!"

This message, also, Helena wrote a hundred times, wishing it had been more explicit, but Ishmael committed his signature to no compromising statement, no evidence of conspiracy, and that deepened Helena's conviction of his cunning and duplicity.

The intensity of her feeling against Ishmael did not abate by coming to close quarters. Day by day, as she sat in the guest-room, she poisoned her mind and hardened her heart against him. She even found herself taking the side of his people in the sufferings he continued to impose upon them. She was sure, too, that in addition to his plan of passive resistance he had some active scheme of vengeance against the Government. What was it? She must wait and see.

After a while letters began to arrive from Cairo. They were from the Chancellor of El Azhar, and contained the messages of the Ulema.

The Ulema had appealed to the representatives of the Powers, who had answered them that they could do nothing unless it became clear to all the world that the action of England was imperilling the peace of Egypt and thereby the lives of the Europeans--what were they to say?

"Fools!" cried Ishmael. "Don't you see that they _want_ you to rebel? Grasp every hand that is held out to you in good will, but fly from the finger that would point you into the fire."

Helena thought she saw light at last. Having expelled England from Egypt by making it impossible for her to govern the country, Ishmael intended to establish, like the Mahdi, an entirely worldly and temporal power with himself at the head of it.

The second letter from the Ulema at Cairo contained a still more serious message. Having met and concluded that the action of the Government justified the proclamation of a Jehad, a holy war, on the just ground that the unbelievers were trying to expel them from their country, they had solemnly sworn on the Koran to turn England out of Egypt or die in the attempt. To this letter Ishmael sent an instant answer, saying--

"No! What will it profit you to turn England out of Egypt while she holds the Soudan and the sources of the Nile? O blind and weak! If you have forgotten your souls, have you no thoughts for your stomachs?"

Then came further letters from the Chancellor of El Azhar saying that the fellaheen were being evicted from their houses and lands, and that their sufferings were now so dire that no counsels could keep them from revolt. Even the young women were calling upon the young men to fight, saying they were not half the men their fathers had been, or they would conquer or die for the homes that were being taken from them and for the religion of God and His prophet.

To this message also Ishmael returned a determined answer.

"War is mutual deceit," he said. "Avoid it! Fly from it! I will countenance no warfare! That is my unalterable mind! Hear it, for God's sake!"

But hardly had Ishmael's answer gone from Khartoum when messengers began to arrive from all parts of Egypt saying that the fellaheen had already risen in various places, and that battalions of the British army had been sent out to repress them; that the people had been put down with loss of life and suffering, and that many were now trooping into the cities, homeless and hopeless, and crying in their despair, "How long, O Lord, how long?"

It was a black day in Khartoum when this news came, for among Ishmael's immediate following there were not a few who had lost members of their own families. Some of these, that night when all was still, went out into the desert, far away from the tents, and sang a solemn dirge for the dead. It was a melancholy sight in that lonesome place, for they were chiefly women, and their voices, under the deep blue sky with its stars, made a most touching lamentation, like that of the sobbing of the sea.

Helena heard it, and, with her heart still poisoned against Ishmael, it made her yet more bitter against him, as one who for his own ends was holding the poor, weak people under their cruel fate by the spell of superstitious hopes and fears.

Knowing the Moslem ethics of warfare, that it is only wicked when it is likely to fail, she convinced herself that Ishmael was merely biding his time for the execution of some violent scheme, and remembering his secret (the secret of the crime he thought he had hidden from everybody), the idea took possession of her that he was laying some personal plot against the Consul-General.

One day a lanky fellow, with a short-cut Moslem beard, arrived by train, and, after the usual Arabic salutations, produced a letter. It ran--

"The bearer of this is Abdel Kader, and he is our envoy to you with a solemn message which is too secret to commit to paper. Trust him. He is honest and his word is true.--Your friends, who wait for you in Cairo with outstretched arms----"

And then followed the names not only of many of the Ulema of Cairo but of most of the Notables as well.

Abdel Kader proved to be a sort of Arab Don Quixote, full of fine language and grand sentiments. Much of this he expended upon Ishmael in the secrecy of the carefully guarded guest-room before he came to the substance of his message, which was to say that as a great doctor of Moslem law, Gamal-ed-Deen, had upheld assassination itself as a last means of righting the wrongs of the people, the leaders had reluctantly concluded that the English Lord (Lord Nuneham) must be removed in order that his heavy foot might be lifted from the necks of the oppressed. To this end they had decided that he should be assassinated some day as he passed in his carriage on his afternoon drive over the Kasr-el-Nil bridge, but lacking a person capable of taking the lead in such an affair they appealed to Ishmael to return to Cairo for this purpose.

Having discharged himself of the burden of his message, the Arab Don Quixote was proceeding with many large words, that were intended to show how safely this act of righteous vengeance might be executed by one whom the law dared not touch for fear of the people, when Ishmael, who had listened breathlessly, burst out on him and cried--

"No, no, I tell you, no! Return to them that sent you and say, 'Ishmael Ameer is no murderer.' Say, too, that the world has no use for patriots who would right the people by putting them in the wrong. Away with you! Away!"

At that, he rose up and went out of the guest-room with a flaming face, leaving the envoy to strike his forehead, and to curse the day that had brought him.

Helena, who, with old Mahmud, had been present at this interview, found herself utterly shaken at the end of it by a storm of conflicting feelings, and from that time forward her heart was constantly being surprised by emotions which she had hitherto struggled to suppress.

Day by day, as messengers came thronging into Khartoum with sadder and yet sadder stories of the people's sufferings--how, living under the shadow of the sword, impoverished by the law and by the cruel injustice of the native officers, the Omdehs and the Sarrafs, sold up and evicted from their homes, they were tramping the deserts, men, women, and children, hungry and naked, and with nothing of their own except the sand and the sky--Helena saw that Ishmael's face grew paler and paler, as if his sleep had left him, and under the burden of his responsibility for what had befallen the country as the consequence of its obedience to his will, his heart was bleeding and his life ebbing away.

"Master, is there no help for us?" the messengers would ask, with tears in their half-witted eyes. "You are our father, we are your children--what are we to do? We are sheep without a shepherd--will you not lead us?"

To all such pleading Ishmael would show a brave face and say--

"Not yet! Wait! The clouds that darken your sky will lift. Be patient! The arm of our God is long! Never despair! Allah feeds the worm that lies between the stones. Will He not feed you also? Yet better your bodies should starve than your souls should perish! Hold fast to the faith! Your children and your children's children will bless you!"

But sometimes in the midst of his comforting his voice would fail, and like Joseph, whose bowels yearned over his brethren, he would stop suddenly and hasten away to his room lest he should break down altogether. Helena saw all this, and it was as much as she could do to withstand it, when one night she was awakened in the small hours by Mosie, who was whispering through the door of her bedroom--

"Lady, lady, Master sick; come to him."

Then she walked across to the men's side of the house and heard Ishmael in his own room, calling on God to forgive him and crying like a child.

At that moment, in spite of herself, Helena felt a wave of pity take possession of her; but at the next, being back in her bedroom, she remembered her own secret and asked herself again--

"What pity had he for me _when he killed my father_?"

*CHAPTER VII*

Down to this time Ishmael's conduct had been marked by the most determined common-sense; but now came an incident that seemed to change the trend of his mind and character.

One day a man of the Jaalin tribe arrived with a letter in the sole of his sandal.

"God give you greeting, Master," he said in his west-country dialect and a tone that seemed to foretell trouble.

With trembling fingers Ishmael tore open the letter and read that, to drown the cries of distress and to throw dust in the eyes of Europe (for so the Ulema understood the otherwise mysterious object), the Consul-General was organising a general festival of rejoicing to celebrate the --th anniversary of the British occupation of Egypt.

At this news Ishmael was overwhelmed. Helena saw his lips quiver and his cheeks grow pale as he held the crinkling paper in his trembling hands. In the absence of other explanation the cold-blooded cruelty of the scheme seemed to be almost devilish.

That day he disappeared, escaping from the importunities of his people into the desert. He did not return at night, and at sunrise next morning Black Zogal went in search of him. But the Nubian returned without him, telling some wild, supernatural tale of having come upon the Master in the midst of an angelic company. His face was shining with a celestial radiance, so that at first he could not look upon him. And when at length he was able to lift his eyes the Master, who was alone, sent him back, saying he was to tell no man what he had seen.

Four days afterwards Ishmael returned to Khartoum, and there was enough in his face to explain Black Zogal's story. His eyes, which seemed to stare, had a look of unearthly joy. This was like flame to the fuel of his people's delirium, for they did not see that under the torment of his private sufferings the dauntless courage and hope of the man had begun to turn towards madness.

He began to preach in the mosque a wild new message. The time of the end had come! Famine and pestilence, poverty and godless luxury, war and misery--were not these the signs foretold of the coming of the latter day?

Lo, the cup of the people's sufferings was full! Behold, while the children of Allah wept, men feasted and women danced! Never since the black night when the first-born of Egypt were slain had Egypt been so mocked! Egypt, the great, the ancient, the cradle of humanity--what was she now but a playground for the idle wealthy of the world!