Part 19

Hafiz was waiting for him there, and he was in a state of still greater terror than before. The moment Gordon had gone, a light footstep, trying to make itself noiseless, had come crackling over the gravel from the direction of the gate. It was that of the Soudanese, and he had crept along the path like a serpent, half doubled up and with his eyes and his lantern to the ground. After a while he had returned to where he came from, and Hafiz had followed him, walking stealthily in the shadow of the trees, in order to hear what he had to say. "Your Bedouin is a child of Cairo and his boots were made in England," he had said, and then chuckling to himself he had hurried away.

"Are you wearing your military boots, Gordon? Did you forget the slippers? Or was it Osman who forgot them? It can't be helped, though. The man was a tracker--I told you so--and now he has gone for the others and we shall be followed by the whole troop of them. Let us be off."

But still Gordon was in no hurry to go. The sense of stealing like a stranger from a spot that was dear to him by a thousand memories seemed to be more than he could bear. Leaving Hafiz on the path, he went round the house until he reached a place from which he could see the light in his mother's window. His mother, his sweet and sainted mother, innocent of everything yet the victim of all! God forgive him! Was it worth while to go away at all? A gentle breeze had risen by this time, and Hafiz was starting at every leaf that rustled over his head.

When at length they left the Agency they were going in the right direction, but Gordon was once more choosing the lighter and more crowded thoroughfares. Again the hawkers, the pedlars, the water-carriers, the shrouded black forms of women and the blue figures of men. Again the salutations, the pious ejaculations, the silent Eastern greetings. It was almost as if Gordon were tempting Providence, as if he were trying to leave time for the trackers to overtake him.

"Every moment we lose fills me with fear--can't we go faster now?" whispered Hafiz in English, but Gordon continued to walk with the same even step.

"I know it might look like fright and arouse suspicion, but still----"

As often as he dared to do so, Hafiz looked back to see if they were pursued.

"Nothing in sight yet--God has delivered, us thus far--but must we walk so slow?"

In the agony of his impatience every noise in the streets was like the sound of a pursuer. If a boy shouted to his playmate, he shuddered; if a hawker yelled over his tray, he trembled. When they had passed out of the busy thoroughfares into the darker streets, where watchmen call to each other through the hours of the night, the cry of a ghafir far ahead (_Wahhed!_) seemed to Hafiz like the bay of a bloodhound, and the answer of another close behind was like the shrill voice of some one who was pouncing upon his shoulders.

"It would be a pity to be taken now--at the last moment, too," he whispered, and he strained his ear to catch the faintest sound of footsteps behind them.

After that no more was said until they came to the open space under the heights of the Citadel where one path goes up to the Mokattam Hills and another crosses the arid land that lies on the east bank of the Nile. Then suddenly Hafiz, who had been panting and gasping, began to laugh and crow.

"I know what we've got to do," he said. "Good Lord alive! why didn't I think of it before?"

With that he stooped and whipped off the slippers he wore over his boots and called on Gordon to hold up his foot.

"What for?" asked Gordon.

"I have a reason--a good one. Hold up! The other one! Quick!"

In a moment the slippers he had taken off his own boots had been pulled over Gordon's.

"Right! And now, my dear Gordon, you and I are going to part company."

"Here?" said Gordon.

"Yes, here," said Hafiz, and then pointing with one hand to the hill and with the other to the waste, he said, "You are going that way--I am going this."

"Why so?"

"Why? Do you ask me why? Because the trackers are after us--because they may be here at any moment--because they know there are two of us, but when they find we have separated they'll follow up the man who wears the military boots."

"Hafiz!"

"Well, I wear them, don't I?"

"Do you mean it, Hafiz--that you are going to turn the trackers on to yourself?"

"Way shouldn't I? Lord God! what can they do to me? If they catch me I'll only laugh in their dirty black faces. I'll give them a run before that, though. Bedrasheen, Sakkara, Mena, Gizeh--a man wants some fun after a night like this, you know."

He was laughing as if he were beside himself with excitement.

"By that time you'll be far away from here, please God! Six hours at least--I'll see it's six, Gordon; six hours' start on good camels--across the desert, too--and not a black devil of them all to know what the dickens has become of you."

His fear was as great as ever, but it had suddenly become heroic.

"Hafiz!" said Gordon. His voice was faltering, and he was holding out both hands, but Hafiz, unable to trust himself, was pretending not to hear or see.

"No time to lose, though! Time is life, brother, and you mustn't stay here a moment longer. Over the hill--first village beyond the fort--Osman will be waiting for you."

"Hafiz!"

"Can't wait for farewells, Gordon. Besides, you're not going for good, you know. Lord, no, not a bit of it! You'll come back some day--Ishmael too--and then there'll be the deuce to pay by some of them."

He was running a few paces away, then stepping back again.

"Why don't you go? I'm going, anyway! It's a race for life or death to-night, my boy! Such fun! I'll beat the brutes! Didn't I tell you to leave everything to Hafiz? I said you couldn't depend on a better man."

"Hafiz!"

"Good-night, old chap! Good-night, Charlie! Charlie Gordon Lord has been a good old chum to me, but damn it all, I'm going to be quits with him!"

With that he went bounding away, laughing and crying and swearing and sobbing at the same time, and in a moment he had disappeared in the darkness.

*CHAPTER XV*

Being left alone, Gordon looked up at the Citadel and saw that a light was burning in the window of Helena's sitting-room. That sight brought back the choking sense of shame which he had felt some days before at the thought of leaving Helena behind him.

"I cannot go without seeing her," he thought. "It is impossible--utterly impossible."

Then back to his mind, as by flashes of mental lightning, came one by one the reasons which he had forged for not seeing Helena, but they were all of no avail. In vain did he ask himself what he was to say to her, how he was to account for his past silence, and what explanation he was to give of his present flight. There was no answer to these questions, yet all the same an irresistible impulse seemed to draw him up to Helena's side. He must see her again, no matter at what risk. He must take her in his arms once more, no matter at what cost.

"I must, I must," he continued to say to himself, while the same animal instinct which had carried him away from the Citadel on the night of the crime was now carrying him back to it.

Almost before his mind had time to tell him where he was going he found himself ascending the hill that leads up to the Bab-el-Gedid. The sight of the gate of the Citadel suggested fresh considerations that might have acted as warnings, but he paid no heed to them. It was nothing to him in his present mood that he was like a man who was putting his head into a noose, walking deliberately into a trap, marching straight into the camp of the enemy whose first interest it was to destroy him. The image of Helena and the sense of her presence so near to him left little else to think about.

The gate was still open, for it was not yet twelve o'clock, and in deference to the ritual of the Moslem faith, the muezzin, who lived outside the walls, was permitted to pass through that he might chant the midnight call to prayers from the minaret of the mosque inside the fortress.

"Goin' to sing 'is bloomin' song, I suppose," thought the sentry, a private of a Middlesex regiment, when Gordon, as one having authority, walked boldly through the gateway.

Being now within the Citadel, Gordon began to be besieged by thoughts of the trackers, who would surely keep watch upon the General's house also if, as Hafiz had said, there was a suspicion that Helena and he intended to go away together. But again the vision of Helena rose before him, and all other considerations were swept away.

"To leave Cairo while Helena remains in it would be cowardly," he told himself; and emboldened by this thought he walked fearlessly across the square of the mosque and round the old arsenal to the gate of the General's house without caring whom he met there.

He met no one. The gate was standing wide open, and the door of the house, when he came to it, was open also, and there was nobody anywhere about. With a gathering sense of shame, such as he had never felt before, he stood there for a moment, wondering what course he ought to take, whether to ring for a servant or to walk through as he had been wont to do before the dread events befell. Suddenly the walls of the house within resounded to a peal of raucous laughter, followed by a burst of noisy voices in coarse and clamorous talk.

Utterly bewildered, he stepped forward in the direction of Helena's boudoir, and then he realised that that was the room the voices came from. After a moment of uncertainty he knocked, whereupon somebody shouted to him in Arabic to enter, and then he opened the door.

Helena's servants, being paid off, and required to leave the house in the morning, had invited certain of their friends and made a feast for them. Squatting on the floor around a huge brass tray, which contained a lamb roasted whole and various smaller dishes, they were now regaling themselves after the manner of their kind with the last contents of the General's larder, washed down by many pious speeches and by stories less devotional.

"A little more, O my brother?" "No, thanks be to God, I have eaten well." "Then by the beard of the Prophet (to whom prayer and peace!), coffee and cigarettes, and the tale of the little dancing girl."

At the height of their deafening merriment the door of the room opened and a man in Bedouin dress stood upon the threshold, and then there was silence.

Gordon stood for a moment in amazement at sight of this coarse scene on a spot associated with so many delicate memories. Then he said--

"You don't happen to know if ... if the boy Mosie is about?"

"Gone!" shouted several voices at once.

"Gone?"

"Yes, gone, O Sheikh," said one of the men--he was the cook--pausing to speak with a piece of meat between his finger and thumb, half way to his mouth. "Mosie has gone to England with the lady Helena. They left here at six o'clock to catch the night train to Alexandria, so as to be in good time for to-morrow's steamer."

Gordon stood a moment longer, looking down at the grinning yellow faces about the tray, and then, with various apologies and after many answering salaams, he closed the door behind him, whereupon he heard the buzz of renewed conversation within the room, followed by another but more subdued burst of laughter.

Alone in the corridor, he asked himself why, since Helena was gone, he had been brought back to this place. Was it for punishment, for penance? It must have been so. "All that had to be expiated," he told himself, and then he turned to go.

But walking through the outer hall he had to pass the door of the General's office, and thinking it would be a sort of penance to enter the room itself he persuaded himself to do so.

The room seemed naked and dead now, being denuded of the little personal things that had made it live. It was dark, too, save for a ray of light that came from a lamp outside, but the first thing that met Gordon's eyes was the spot on which the General fell. He forced himself to look at that spot; for some moments he compelled himself to stand by it, though his hair rose from his crown and beads of perspiration broke from his forehead.

"All that had to be expiated," he told himself again, and again he turned to go.

But back in the hall he was on the spot where he had last parted from Helena, and there a new penance awaited him. He remembered that in the hideous moment when he had tried in vain to reply to her reproaches he had been telling himself that if she loved him as he loved her she would be trying to see things with his eyes. That thought had helped him to leave her then, but it brought him no comfort now. Why had he not seen that the girl's love was fighting with her pride? Why had he not followed her into the house when in her pleading, sobbing voice she had called after him?

"Yes, everything had to be expiated," he told himself, and once more he turned to go.

But passing through the garden he caught sight of the arbour on the edge of the ramparts, and it seemed to him that the deepest penance of all would be to stand for an instant on that loved spot. Giving himself no quarter, abating nothing of the bitterness of his expiation, drinking to the dregs the cup that fate had forced to his lips, he entered the arbour, and there the image of the girl he had loved, the girl he still loved, rose most vividly of all before him.

He could almost feel her bodily presence by his side--the gleam of her eyes, the odour of her hair, the heaving of her bosom. He could see the caressing smile that broke from her face, he could hear the echo of her ringing laugh. Her proud strength and self-reliance; her energy and grace; her passionate daring and chivalry, and the gay raillery that was her greatest charm--everything that was Helena appeared to be about him now.

"Love is above everything--I shall only think of that," she had said.

The moon was shining, the leaves were rustling, the silvery haze of night-dew was in the near air, while the lights of the city were blinking below and the river was flowing silently beyond. How often on such a night had he walked on the ramparts with Helena leaning closely on his arm and springing rightly by his side! It almost seemed as if he had only to turn his head and he would see her there, with her light scarf over her head, crossed under her chin and thrown over her shoulders.

"Could nothing separate you and me?" she had asked, and he had answered, "Nothing in this world."

His grief was crushing. It was of that kind, unequalled for bitterness and sweetness combined, which comes to the strong man who has been robbed of the woman he loves by a fate more cruel than death. Helena was not dead, and when ha thought of her on her way to England while he was a homeless wanderer in the desert, shut out from love and friendship, the practice of his profession, and the progress of the world, the pain of his position was almost more than he could bear.

After a while he was brought back to himself by another burst of raucous laughter--the laughter of the servants inside the house--and at the next moment he saw a light running along the ground in the dark market-place below--the light of the trackers who were going off on the wrong scent, with a company of mounted police, in the direction taken by Hafiz.

*CHAPTER XVI*

Gordon left the Citadel unchallenged and unobserved, and in less than half-an-hour he was climbing the yellow road--white now in the moonlight--that goes up to the Mokattam Hills. By this time he was beginning to see the meaning of that night's experience. Unconsciously he had been putting Providence to the proof. Unwittingly he had been asking the fates to say if the path he had marked out for himself had been the right one when he had decided to follow Ishmael Ameer to Khartoum, to work by his side, and to come back at last when his sin had been forgiven and his redemption won.

Providence had decided in his favour. If destiny had determined that he should not leave Cairo he might have been taken a hundred times. Because he had not been taken it was clear to him that it was intended that he should go.

He had tried to see his mother, and if he could have done so he must have stayed with her at all hazards, since she was so ill and perhaps so near to death. He had tried to see Helena also, and if she had not gone to England already he must have clung to her at all costs and in spite of all consequences. On the other hand he had seen his father, and heard from his very lips that nothing--not even the liberty nor yet the life of his own son--could stand between him and his duty to the law.

What did it mean that he should be so cut off, so stripped naked, so deprived of his place as son and lover and soldier and man, that all that had hitherto stood to him as himself, as Gordon Lord, was gone? It meant that another existence was before him--another work, another mission. Destiny was carrying him away from his former life, and he had only to go forward without fear.

Thus once again on the heights of his great resolve he pushed on with a quick step, not daring to look back lest the sense of seeing things for the last time should be more than he could bear, lest the thought of leaving the city he loved, the people who loved him, his men and his brother officers, his mother and the memory of his happiness with Helena, his father and the consciousness of having wrecked the hopes of a lifetime, should drag him back at the last moment.

In the midst of these emotions he was startled by a loud, sharp voice that was without and not within him.

"Enta meen?" (Who are you?)

Then he realised that he had reached the fort on the top of the hill, and that the Egyptian sentry at the gate was challenging him. For a moment he stood speechless, trying in vain to remember the name by which he was henceforward to be known.

"Who are you?" cried the sentry again, and then Gordon answered--

"Omar."

"Omar--what?" cried the sentry.

Again Gordon was speechless for a moment.

"Answer!" cried the sentry, and he raised his rifle to his shoulder.

"Omar Benani the Bedouin," said Gordon at last, and then the sentry lowered his gun.

"Pass, Omar Benani. All's well!"

But Gordon had a still greater surprise awaiting him. As he was going on, he became aware that the Egyptian soldier was walking by his side and speaking in a low tone.

"Have they taken him?" he was saying.

"Taken whom?" asked Gordon.

"Our English brother--the Colonel--Colonel Lord. Have they arrested him?"

It was not at first that Gordon could command his voice to reply, but at length he said--

"Not yet--not when I came out of Cairo."

"El Hamdullillah!" (Praise be to God!) said the sentry, and then in a louder voice he cried--

"Peace to you, O brother!" Whereupon Gordon answered as well as he could for the thickening of his throat which seemed to stifle him--

"And to you!"

More sure than ever now that God's hand was leading him, he walked on with a quicker step than before, and presently he saw in the distance a dark group which he recognised as Osman and the camels.

"Allah be praised, you've come at last," whispered Osman.

He was a bright and intelligent young Egyptian, and for the last hour he had lived in a fever of alarm, thinking Gordon must have fallen into the hands of the police.

"They got wind that you were hiding at the Coptic Patriarch's house," he said, "and were only waiting for the permission of the Agency to raid it at eleven o'clock."

"I left it at ten," said Gordon.

"Thank God for that, sir," said Osman. "The Prophet must have taken a love for you to carry you off so soon. We must start away now, though," he whispered. "It's past twelve, and the village is fast asleep!"

"Is everything ready?" asked Gordon.

"Everything--water, biscuits, dates, durah, rifles----"

"Rifles?"

"Why not, sir? Two good Bedouin flintlocks. Even if we never have occasion to use them they'll help us to divert suspicion."

"Let us be off, then," said Gordon.

"Good," said Osman. "If we can only get away quietly our journey will be as white as milk."

In the shadow of a high wall the camels sat munching their food under their saddles covered with green cloth and decorated with fringes of cowries, and with their sahharahs (square boxes for provisions) hanging on either side. They were restive when they had to rise, and it was as much as Osman could do to keep them from grunting, being so fresh and so full of corn. But he held their mouths closed until they were on their feet, and then mounted his own camel by climbing on its neck. A moment afterwards the good creatures were gliding swiftly away into the obscurity of the night, with their upturned, steadfast faces, their noiseless tread, and swinging motion.

Both men were accustomed to camel-riding, and both knew the track before them, therefore they lost no time in getting under weigh. The first village was soon left behind, and as they came near to other hamlets the howling of dogs warned them of their danger, and they skirted round and quickened their pace.

A little beyond Helwan they came upon a Bedouin camp with its long, irregular, dark tents and an open fire around which a company of men sat talking, but Gordon pushed forward with his flintlock swung across his saddle-bow, while Osman, thinking to avoid suspicion, hung back for a moment to exchange news and greetings.

Then on and on they went, up and down the yellow hills, across sandy plains that were still warm with the heat of the day, and over rocky gorges that seemed to echo a hundred times to the softest footfall.

In less than three hours they were out on the open desert, lonely and grand, without a soul or yet a sound, save the faint thud of the camels' tread on the sand and the dice-like rattle of the cowries that hung from the saddles.

"Allah khalasna!" (God has delivered us!) said Osman at last, as he wiped the cold sweat of fear from his forehead.

But never for a moment had Gordon felt afraid. No more now than before did he know what fate was before him, but if a pillar of fire had appeared in the dark blue sky he could not have been more sure that--sinful man as he was--God's light was leading him.

He had fallen in the dark, but he was about to rise again. God's wrath had burnt against him, but he was soon to be forgiven. After the emotions and experiences of that night he knew of a certainty that the path he had chosen was the path which it was intended that he should take. Somewhere--he knew not where--and somehow--he knew not how--Heaven had uses for him still.

As he rode over the sandy waste it became fixed in his mind that, being rejected by all the world now, and stripped of everything that man holds dear, it was meant by God that he should offer his life in some great cause. That thought did not terrify him at all. It delighted and inspired him, and stirred every passion of the soldier in his soul.

To be, perhaps, a link between East and West, to carry the white man's burden into the black man's country for higher ends than greed of wealth or lust of empire, he would die, if need be, a thousand deaths.

How did he come to think of this as the fate before him? Who can know? Who can say? There are moments when man feels the influence of invisible powers which it is equally impossible to explain and to control. Such a moment was this to Gordon. He was flying away as a homeless fugitive, yet he was going with a full heart and a high resolve. Somewhere his great hour waited for him--he could only follow and obey.

But meanwhile there was nothing before him except the rolling waves of the desert, nothing about him except the silence of immensity, and nothing above him but the unclouded glory of the moon.

*CHAPTER XVII*