Part 14

Suffocating with the sickness of fear, Gordon said, "What about his daughter?"

"Bearing herself with a strange stoicism, they say. Not a tear on her face, they tell me. But if I know anything of human nature she is suffering all the more for that, poor girl!"

Gordon threw off the counterpane and rose in bed. "I'm better now," he said. "Let me get up. I must go out."

"Impossible!" said the surgeon. "You are far too weak to go into the streets. Besides, you would never reach your destination. Macdonald would take care of that. Haven't I told you? He has given it out that the penalty of military law for the least of your offences is--well, death."

Gordon dropped back in bed, and the surgeon continued, "But if you have a message to send to any one why not write it? Michael will see that it reaches safe hands. I'll send him in. He's cooking some food for you, and I'll tell him to bring paper and pens."

With that the surgeon left him, and a moment later the serving-man's cheery face came into the room behind a smoking basin of savoury broth.

"Here it is! You're to drink it at once," he said, and then taking a writing-pad from under his armpit, he laid it with pens and ink on a table by the bed, saying the doctor had told him he was to deliver a letter.

Gordon replied that he would ring when he was ready, whereupon Michael said, "Good! You'll take your broth first. It will put some strength into you," and he smiled and nodded his simple face out of the room.

In vain Gordon tried to write to Helena. His first impulse was to tell her all, to make a clean breast of everything. "Dearest Helena, I am in the deepest sorrow and shame, but I cannot live another hour without letting you know that your dear father----"

But that was impossible. At a moment when one great blow had fallen on her it was impossible to inflict another. If she suffered now when she thought her father had died by the hand of God, how much more would she suffer if she heard that his death had been due to violence, to foul play, to the hand of the man who said he loved her?

Destroying his first attempt, Gordon began again. "My poor dear Helena, I am inexpressibly shocked and grieved by the news of----"

But that was impossible also. Its hypocrisy of concealment seemed to blister his very soul. He tried again and yet again, but not a word would come that was not cruel or false. Then a great trembling came over him as he realised that being what he was to Helena, and she being what she was to her father, he was struck dumb before her as by the hand of Heaven.

Hours passed, and though the day was bright a deep, impenetrable darkness seemed to close around him. At certain moments he was vaguely conscious of noises in the streets outside, a great scuttling and scurrying of feet, a loud clamour of tongues chopping and ripping the air, the barking and bleating of a mob in full flight, and then the clattering of horses' hoofs and the whistling and shouting of soldiers.

Michael came back at last, having waited in vain to be summoned, and he was full of news. All business in Cairo had been suspended, the Notables had met in the Opera Square to condemn the action of the British Army, a vast multitude of Egyptians had joined them, and they had gone up to the house of the Grand Cadi to ask him to call on the Sultan to protest to England.

"Well, well?" said Gordon.

"The Cadi was afraid, and hearing the crowd were coming he barricaded his doors and windows."

"And then?"

"They wrecked his house, shouting 'Down with the Turks!' 'Long live Egypt!' But the Cadi himself was inside, sir, speaking on the telephone to the officer commanding on the Citadel, and the soldiers came galloping up and took a hundred and fifty prisoners."

In spite of his better feelings Gordon felt a certain joy in the bad news Michael brought him. He had been right! Everybody would see that he had been right! What, then, was his duty? His duty was to deliver himself up and say, "Here I am! Court-martial me now if you will--if you dare!"

Plain, practical sense seemed to tell him that he ought to go to the Agency, where his father (the highest British authority in Egypt, even though a civil one), seeing the turn events had taken, the chaos into which affairs had fallen, and the ruin which Macdonald's brutality threatened, and having witnessed the utterly illegal circumstances which had attended his arrest, would place him in command, pending instructions from the War Office, and trust to his influence with the populace to restore peace. He could do it, too. Why not?

But the General? A sickening pang of hope shot through him as he told himself that no one knew he had killed the General, that even if he had done so it had only been in self-defence, that the veriest poltroon would have done what he did, and that the mind that counted such an act as crime was morbid and diseased.

Helena? She thought her father had died by the visitation of God--why could he not leave her at that? She was suffering, though, and it was for him to comfort her. He would fly to her side. All their differences would be over now. She, too, would see that he had been right and that her jealousy had been mistaken, and then death with its mighty wing would sweep away everything else.

Thus in the blind labouring of hope he threw off the counterpane again and got out of bed, whereupon Michael, whose garrulous tongue had been going ever since he came into the room, first asking for the letter which the surgeon had told him to deliver, then protesting in plaintive tones that the broth was untouched and now it was cold, laid hold of him and said--

"No, brother, no! You cannot get up to-day. Doctor says you must not, and if you attempt to do so I am to tell the Patriarch."

But Michael's voice only whistled by Gordon's ear like the wind in a desert sand-storm, and seeing that Gordon was determined to dress, the good fellow fled off to fetch his master.

Hardly had Michael gone when the barrenness of his hope was borne down on Gordon's mind, and he was asking himself by what title he could go out as a champion of the right, being so deeply in the wrong. Even if everything happened as he expected; if his threefold offence against the letter of military law could be overlooked in the light of his obedience to its spirit; if the Consul-General were able to place him in command, pending instructions from the War Office; and if he were capable of restoring order in Cairo by virtue of his influence with the inhabitants--what then?

What of his conscience, which had clamoured so loudly, in relation to his own conduct? Could he continue to plead extenuation of his own offence on the ground of the General's unjustifiable and unsoldierly conduct? or to tell himself that what he had done in the General's house had been in self-defence? Had it been in self-defence that he had returned to the Citadel after he was ordered to his own quarters? or that he had hurled hot and insulting words at the General, such as no man could listen to without loss of pride or even self-respect?

"No, no; my God, no!" he thought.

And then Helena? With what conscience could he comfort her in her sufferings, being himself the cause of them? With what sincerity could his tongue speak if his pen refused to write? And if he juggled himself into deceiving her, could he go on, as his affections would tempt him to do--now more than ever since her father was gone and she was quite alone--to carry out the plans he had made for them before these fearful events befell?

"Impossible! utterly impossible!" he told himself.

A grim vision rose before him of a shameful life, corrupted by hypocrisy and damned by deceit, in which he was married to Helena, having succeeded to her father's rank and occupying his house, his room, his office, with one sight standing before his eyes always--the sight of the General's body lying on the floor where he had flung it.

"O God, save me from that!" he thought.

Gordon dropped back to the bed and sat on the edge of it, doubled up and with his hands covering his face. How long he sat there he never knew, for his mind was deadened to all sense of time, and only at intervals of lucidity was he partly conscious of what was going on outside the little pulseless place in which he was hidden away while the world went on without him.

At one moment he heard the bells of the Coptic Cathedral ringing for evensong; then the light pattering as of rain when the people passed over the pavement into the church; and then suddenly there came a sound that seemed to beat on his very soul.

It was the firing of the guns at the Citadel, and as a soldier he knew what they were--they were the minute guns for the General's funeral. _Boom--boom_! He could see what was taking place as plainly as if his eyes beheld it; the square of the mosque lined up with troops--two battalions of Infantry, one regiment of Cavalry, and two batteries of Artillery. _Boom--boom_! The coffin on the gun-carriage covered with the silken Union Jack and with the General's sword and his plumed white helmet on the top of all. _Boom--boom_! The General's charger immediately behind the body, with his spurred boots in the stirrups reversed. _Boom--boom--boom_! The officers of the Army of Occupation drawn up by the door of the General's house, every one of them that could be spared from duty except himself, who ought, above all others, to be there. Then the carriages of the Consul-General and of the Egyptian Prime Minister, and then _boom--boom--boom--boom_, as the cortege moved away to the slow squirling of the funeral march, through the square of the mosque and under the gate of the old fortress.

The firing ceased, and in the dumb emptiness of the air Gordon saw another sight that tore at his heart still more terribly. It was a room in the General's house, dark and blind, with curtains drawn, and Helena sitting there, alone for the first time, and no one to comfort her. Seeing this, and thinking of the barrier that was between them, of the blood that was dividing them, and that they could never again come together, all his manhood went down at last, and he burst into tears like a boy.

"Forgive me, Helena! I am alone too! Forgive me, forgive me!"

Then over the sound of his own voice he heard the innocent voices of the choir-boys singing their evening hymn--"Remove my sin from before Thy sight, O God!"--and at the next moment he was conscious of an old and wrinkled hand being laid on his bare arm and of somebody by his side who was saying huskily--

"Peace, my son! God is merciful!"

Then the sharp rattle of three volleys of musketry coming from far away.

The body of the General had been committed to the grave.

*CHAPTER VI*

Helena had been in the act of sending out her letter when the General's Aide-de-camp came in with news of the doings of the night before--the riot at El Azhar, Gordon's assault on Colonel Macdonald, and then his disappearance, before the troops could recover from their surprise, as suddenly and unaccountably as if he had been swallowed up by the earth.

"Of course Macdonald acted like a brute," said the young Lieutenant, "and the Colonel did exactly what might have been expected of him under the circumstances. He would have done the same if the offender had been the Commander-in-Chief himself. But now he has to pay the penalty, and it cannot be a light one. Macdonald is scouring the city to find him--every nook and corner of the Mohammedan quarter. He has two motives for doing so, too--ambition and revenge."

As Helena tore up her letter and dropped it bit by bit into the waste-paper basket she felt as if the last of her hopes dropped with it. But they rose again with the thought that though Gordon might be in danger he could not be afraid, and that his love for her was so great, so unconquerable, that it would bring him back to her now, in her time of trouble, in the teeth of death itself.

"He'll come--I'm sure he'll come," she thought.

In this confidence she sat in the semi-darkness of her room during the preparations for the military funeral, hearing all that was being done outside with that supernatural acuteness which comes to the bereaved--the marching of troops, the rolling of the gun-carriage and the arrival of friends, as well as the soul-crushing booming of the minute gun. She was waiting to be told that Gordon was there, and was listening for his name as her black boy darted in and out with whispered news of Egyptian Ministers, English Advisers, Inspectors, and Judges, and finally the Consul-General himself.

When the last moment came, and the band of the Guards had begun to play "Toll for the Brave," and it was certain that Gordon had not come, her heart sank low; but then she told herself that if he ran the risk of arrest, that was reason enough why he should not show himself at the fortress.

"He will be at the chapel instead," she thought, and though she had not intended to be present at the funeral she determined now that she would go.

She was put into a carriage with the Consul-General and sat by his side without speaking, merely looking through the windows at the crowds that stood in the streets, quietly, silently, but without much grief on their faces, and listening to the slow squirling of the "Dead March" and the roll of the muffled drums over the dull rumbling of the closed coach.

When they reached the cemetery in the desolate quarter of Old Cairo, and the band stopped and the drumming ceased and she stepped out of the carriage, and the breathing silence of the open air was broken by the tremendous words, "I am the Resurrection and the Life," she was sure, as she took the arm of the Consul-General and walked with him over the crackling gravel to the door of the chapel, that the moment she crossed its threshold the first person she would see would be Gordon.

Her heart sank lower than ever when she realised that he was not there, and after she had taken her seat and the chill chapel had filled up behind her, and the service began, she tried in vain, save at moments of poignant memory, to fix her mind on the awful errand that had brought her.

"He will be at the graveside," she thought. No one would arrest him at a place like that. English soldiers were English gentlemen, and if the Arab nobleman in the desert could allow the enemy who had stumbled into his tent at night to get clear away in the morning. Gordon would be allowed to stand by the grave of his friend and General, and no one would know he was there.

When the short service was over and the Consul-General drew her hand through his arm again, and they walked together over the gravel and through the grass to the open grave behind the rose-bushes that grew near to the wall, she thought she knew she had only to raise her eyes from the ground and she would see Gordon standing there, shaken with sobs.

She knew, too, that the moment she saw him she would break down altogether, so she kept her head low as long as she could. But when the troops had formed in a rectangle, and the Chaplain had taken his place and the last words had been spoken, and through a deeper hush the bugle had led the voices of the soldiers with--

"Father, in Thy gracious keeping Leave we now Thy servant sleeping,"

and she looked up at last and saw that Gordon had not come at all, she felt as if something that had been soft and tender within her had broken, and something that was hard and bitter had taken its place.

While the volleys were being fired over the grave the officers of the army came up to her one by one--brave men all of them, but many of them hardly able at that moment to speak or see. Still she did not weep, and when the Consul-General, with twitching lips, said, "Let us go," she gave him her hand again, though it was limp and nerveless now, and, under her long black glove, as cold as snow.

The blinds were drawn up in her room when she returned to the Citadel, and with eyes that did not see she was staring out on its far view of the city, the Nile, the Pyramids, and the rolling waves of desert beyond, when a knock came to the door and the Consul-General entered. He was clearly much affected. His firm mouth, which often looked as if it had been cast in bronze, seemed now to be blown in foam.

"Helena," he said, "the time has come to speak plainly. I am sorry. It is quite unavoidable."

After the first salutation she continued to stand by a chair and to stare out of the window.

"Gordon has gone. I can no longer have any doubt about that. Others, with other motives, have been trying to find him and have failed. I have been trying, too, with better purposes perhaps, but no better results."

His voice was hoarse; he was struggling to control it.

"I am now satisfied that when he left this house after the scene ... the painful, perhaps unsoldierly, scene of his ... his degradation, he took the advice your father gave him--to fly from Egypt and hide his shame in some other country."

He paused for a moment and then said--

"It was scarcely proper advice, perhaps; but who can be hot and cold, wise and angry, in a moment? Whatever the merits of your father's counsel, I think Gordon made up his mind to follow it. Only as the conduct of a despairing man who knew that all was over can I explain his last appearance at El Azhar."

Again he paused for a moment, and then, after clearing his throat, he said--

"I do not think we shall see him again. I do not think I wish to see him. A military court would probably hold him responsible for the blood that has been shed during the past twenty-four hours, thinking the encouragement he gave the populace had led them to rebel. Therefore its judgment upon his offences as a soldier could hardly be less than ... than the most severe."

His voice was scarcely audible as he added--

"That would be harder for me to bear than to think of him as dead. Therefore, whatever others may be doing, his mother or ... or yourself, I am cherishing no illusions. My son is gone. His career is at an end. Let us ... please let us say no more on the subject."

Helena did not reply. Her bosom was stirred by her rapid breathing, but she continued to stare out of the window. After a moment the Consul-General said more calmly--

"Have you any plans for the future?"

Helena shook her head.

"No desire to remain in Egypt?"

"Any relatives or friends in England?"

"All the same I think it will be best for you to return home."

Helena bowed without speaking.

"The sooner the better, perhaps."

"This is Sunday. There is a steamship from Alexandria on Saturday--will it suit you to sail by that?"

"One of my secretaries shall make arrangements and see you safely aboard. Meantime have no anxieties. England will take care of your father's daughter."

Then he rose, and taking her ice-cold hand, he said--

"I think that is all. I'll come up on Saturday morning to see you off. Good-bye for the present." And then, in the same hoarse voice as before, looking steadfastly into her face for a moment, "God bless you, my girl!"

For some minutes Helena did not move from the spot on which Lord Nuneham left her. A sense of double bereavement had fallen on her for the first time with a crushing blow. That some day she would lose her father was an idea to which her mind had long been accustomed, but never for one moment until then--not even in the bitter hour in which they had parted at the door--had she allowed herself to believe that a time would come when she would have to live on without Gordon. It was here now. The past and the future alike were closed to her. A black curtain had fallen about her life. If Gordon could not return without the risk of arrest, what right had she to expect him to come back to her at all? He was gone. He was lost to her. She was alone.

The city, which had been lying hot in the quivering sun, began to grow red and hazy, and in the gathering twilight Helena became conscious of criers in the streets below. The black boy, who was always bustling about her, interpreted their cries. They were crying the funeral of the students who had fallen at El Azhar. It was to take place that night. Ishmael Ameer called on the people to gather in the great market-place of Mohammed Ali and walk up by torchlight to the Arab cemetery outside the town.

"Would lady like Mosie go and see? Then Mosie come back and tell lady everything," said the black boy, and in the hope of being alone Helena allowed him to go.

But hardly had the boy gone when a timid knock came to her door and the Army surgeon entered the room. The man's thin lips were twitching, and he was clearly ill at ease.

"Excuse me," he said, "but hearing you were soon to leave for home ... I thought it only fair to myself ... In fact, I have come to make an explanation."

"What is it?" asked Helena, without a trace of interest in her tone.

The surgeon gnawed the ends of his moustache for an instant, and then, looking uneasily at Helena, he said--

"When you come to turn things over in your mind you may perhaps think I was to blame in keeping your dear father's secret. His condition, however, was not so serious but that under ordinary circumstances ... I say _ordinary_ circumstances ... he might have lived five years, ten years, even fifteen. The truth is, though----"

"Well?"

"I want to prove the sincerity of my friendship, Miss Graves. I am sure you prefer that I should speak plainly."

"The truth is--what!" asked Helena, who was now listening with strained attention.

"That ... that your dear father's death ... I am now fully convinced of it ... was due--partly due at all events ... to circumstances that ... that were _not_ ordinary."

Helena's pale face turned white, but she made no answer, and after a moment the surgeon said--

"It would have been cruel to tell you this last night immediately after the shock of your bereavement but ... but now that you are going away ... Besides, I spoke to Lord Nuneham. I mentioned my surmises. But you know what he is ... a great man, undoubtedly a great man, but incapable of taking counsel. Always has been, always will be, we all of us find it so."

Helena, seized with an indefinable fear, was speechless, but the surgeon's blundering tongue went on--

"'Better not speak of it,' said Lord Nuneham. 'Drop it! Don't let us weaken our case against the man and rouse popular fury by an accusation we cannot possibly bring home. Wait! We'll get hold of him to better purpose by-and-by.'"

Helena's heart was beating violently, but she only said, with laboured breathing--

"Can't we dispense with all this? You have come to tell me that my father did not die from natural causes--isn't that it?"

"Yes ... that is to say ... pardon me ... we are alone?"

Helena assented impatiently.

"Then, to tell you the truth ... I am satisfied that violence ... as a contributing cause, at all events ... I looked at him again this morning, when ... at the last moment, in fact ... and the marks were even plainer than before."

"Marks?"

"Marks of a man's hand about the throat."

"A man's hand?" said Helena, with her lips rather than with her voice.

"I thought at first it might have been the General's own hand, but there was one peculiarity which forbade that inference."

"Tell me."

"It was the left hand, and while the thumb and the first, second, and fourth fingers were plainly indicated, there was no impression made by the third."

"So?"

"So I concluded that the marks about the throat must have been made by somebody who had lost the third finger of his left hand."

Helena gazed a long time blankly into the surgeon's face, until at length, frozen by fear, having said all, he tried to convey the impression that he had said nothing.