The Eye of Istar: A Romance of the Land of No Return

When the cry was raised that the town was in sight, my guards held consultation and halted. Then Shu’ba, drawing up his camel close to mine, exclaimed, —

“Thou hast performed the journey within the time stipulated by our lord the Sultan, therefore we now leave thee to continue thy way alone.”

“Wilt thou not rest yonder for a while before returning?” I asked, surprised.

“Nay,” he answered, shrugging his shoulders significantly. “The people of Bornu are our enemies. We would rather take our ease upon the plains than within the city of those who seek our overthrow” – a speech that was greeted by low, guttural sounds of approbation by the others perched on their camels around. Then, continuing, he said, “It is our Sultan’s will that the meheri thou ridest shall be given unto thee, together with this rifle, ammunition and jambiyah,” and as he uttered these words he handed me the gun he carried, together with his pouch and a crooked knife in a silver scabbard he drew from his sash.

“Alone in these regions thou mayest require them,” observed a light-hearted young negro, with a broad grin.

“Unto thy Sultan, whose dignity be increased, render thanks in my name. Tell him that Zafar-Ben-A’Ziz is his grateful servant, and that he beareth neither malice nor hatred,” I answered.

“Behold, I am also charged with a further duty,” said Shu’ba, with a solemnity quite unusual to him. “Before we left the Fada one of the eunuchs of the Courts of Enchantment gave this unto me to deliver into thine hands,” and he drew from the breast of his gandoura a small box of delicately-chased gold, securely sealed.

“Whence didst thou obtain it?” I asked, in surprise, taking it in my hands.

“From Hisham, the eunuch. He refused to tell who had given it unto him, but gave me strict command to place it in thine hands at the moment when we parted, with an injunction that it must not be opened until thou art actually within the walls of Kukawa.”

“May I not investigate its contents now?” I asked, puzzled.

“Nay, curb thine impatience. Behold, the sun is already declining,” he answered, glancing around. “Spur onward, or, of a verity, thou wilt not obtain entrance to yonder city ere its gate is closed.”

His prompting influenced me to make hurried adieu, and, as with one accord they gave me “Peace,” I sped away in the direction of the town, turning once to wave back a farewell. As I rode forward, four armed horsemen, their white burnouses flying in the wind, sped across the plain to meet me. With rifles held high in air with threatening gesture, they in a few minutes pulled their horses to their haunches before me, loudly demanding whence I came.

“I am Zafar-Ben-A’Ziz of the Ansar of thine ally, the Khalifa of Omdurman,” I replied, laughing a moment later at the effect my words had produced.

“From Omdurman?” they gasped. “How earnest thou hither in company with horsemen of the Sultan ’Othman, who fled at our approach?”

Briefly, I told them how I had been held prisoner, and subsequently expelled by the Sultan.

“Allah hath indeed covered thee with the cloak of protection,” observed one of the men, “None who descends to the terrible dungeons beneath the Fada of Kano ever comes forth alive.”

“Yea, thou hast assuredly narrowly escaped,” agreed another, and, as they turned to ride back with me, they related news of how, on the advance of the Khalifa’s troops towards Sokoto, the iron cymbals of war had been silenced, for the Dervishes had been attacked and routed by the Kanouri and Tuaregs in the swamps outside Massenya, after which it was believed the survivors had returned in confusion to Omdurman. Thus I found myself in sorry plight, without resources, and with a thousand miles of gloomy forest and burning desert between myself and the Dervish headquarters beside the Nile. With my companions I entered the ponderous gate which was being kept open for our arrival, and, passing the little daily market (the dyrriya), which was crowded, we rode along the deudal, or promenade, past groups of Arabs and native courtiers in all the finery of their dress and of their brightly-caparisoned horses, until we came to the house of the sheikh, a spacious place with a single chedia or caoutchouc-tree in front. But the sand into which we had floundered as if it were a mire pursued us everywhere – in the streets, in the houses. The lounging slaves stared at my ragged attire, but the Sheikh Mohammed Ben Bu-Sad, to whom I was conducted, was very gracious, and after hearing the story of the defeat of my comrades-in-arms, my captivity, and my narrow escape, gave orders that for the present I should be lodged with one of the horsemen who had met me, and whom I discovered was named Lamino (properly El-Amin), his confidential officer. Thus, an hour later, I found myself installed in a small, clay-built house in the billa gedibe, or eastern town, and when alone I drew forth the small, golden box Shu’ba had given me. It was square, about the length of the middle finger, covered with quaintly-graven arabesques, and securely sealed with yellow wax.

Chapter Eight

Veiled Men of the Desert

Eagerly I broke the seals and tremblingly opened the lid of the tiny casket, taking out a folded piece of paper covered with lines of Arabic hastily-scrawled in yellow ink. These, in the dim twilight, I deciphered only with difficulty, and found they read as follows: —

“Know, O Stranger, now thou hast escaped from the wrath of our lord the Sultan, that thy presence within the walls of the Fada hath placed Azala, Princess of Sokoto, in deadly Peril. If thou wilt lend her thine aid, return, for thou alone canst solve the mysterious symbol of the asps, rescue her from death, and bring her unto the garden of happiness. Know, O Stranger, that even though she cannot communicate or have speech with thee, that she loveth thee; that each hour of thine enforced absence is as a year, and that the gilded pavilion wherein she dwelleth is but a house of sorrow because of thy departure. Keep the seal of silence ever upon thy lips and obey the command of Azala Fathma quickly, that thine endeavours may be approved. Return unto her speedily in such disguise that thou canst not be recognised; then will she tear aside the veil of secrecy and reveal unto thee strange marvels. Pause not in thine efforts to return, for each day bringeth her nearer unto cruel and ignominious Certainty. May the rose-grove of thy prosperity and good fortune be increased daily in freshness and magnificence, and the foundation of thy belief in the purity of thy One of Beauteous Countenance be more firmly established from hour to hour. – Thy Friend.”

After the heat and burden of the long African day the respite at twilight always gives one a sensation of physical solace, yet nevertheless it brings with it a feeling of intense sadness and melancholy.

Again and again I read the curious missive. Evidently at Azala’s instigation it had been penned in order to reassure me, and to induce me to return so that I could assist her in solving the mysterious problem to which she had hinted so pointedly when we had been alone. But foreseeing plainly the serious risk I should run if I attempted to re-enter Kano, and the absolute impossibility of obtaining access to the innermost courts of the Fada, I regarded the suggestion as utterly hopeless. Had not the Sultan warned me that if I again set foot within his empire my life would pay the penalty? Might not his dread of the mysterious evil that I might bring upon him cause him to take my life, notwithstanding his daughter’s fervent supplications?

Yet Azala was in sore need of help, and sought my aid. Her promise to “tear aside the veil of secrecy” I felt inclined to construe into a pledge to render me explanation of the curious marks that both of us bore. Was it not more than an extraordinary coincidence that with a thousand miles of arid, stony desert, and a similar distance of fertile land separating us at our birth, we should each bear the Brand of the Asps – the mystic symbol the sight of which terrified even the powerful Ruler of Sokoto.

From the demeanour of both the Sultan and his daughter I felt that the strange device was the key of some greater secret underlying it, and the thought of Azala in peril, and trusting in me alone for assistance, urged me to a resolution to obey the injunctions of my anonymous correspondent. I had both a stout heart and a strong arm. My true Bedouin parentage had imparted to me the reckless nonchalance of the vagabond adventurer, and my life during the past ten years had been a strange series of nomadic ups and downs, desert wandering, fighting, slave-raiding, trading; in fact, I had picked up a precarious livelihood in the same manner as the majority of Sons of the Desert whose camels are their only wealth, and whose ragged tents their only dwelling-place.

The Mystery of the Asps seemed inexplicable, but in that cool night beneath the stars in the little open court I made solemn determination to return to Kano and seek its solution, even though compelled to risk my life in the attempt.

Until the going down of the sun on the Nahr-el-arba following my arrival at Kukawa was I the guest of Lamino; then, refreshed by rest, I prayed my Fatiha in the Great Mosque, and assuming the loose robe of dark blue cotton, wrapping a white litham around my face and twisting some yards of camel’s hair around my head, set out upon my meheri to accompany a caravan of Buzawe conveying merchandise to El Fasher, whence I intended to travel alone back to Omdurman, there to report the annihilation of my comrades.

In the whole of that vast region from Lake Tsad to El Fasher, comprising thousands of square miles, there is not a single carriage road, not a mile of navigable waters, not a wheeled vehicle, canoe or boat of any kind. There are scarcely any beaten tracks, for most of the routes, though followed for ages without divergence to right or left, are temporarily effaced with every sandstorm, and recovered only by means of the permanent landmarks – wells, prominent dunes, a solitary knoll crowned with a solitary bush, or perchance a ghastly line of bleached bones of men and animals, the remains of slaves, camels, or travellers that may have perished of thirst or exhaustion between the oases. Few venture to travel alone, or even in small parties, which could offer but little resistance to the bands of marauders hovering about all the main lines of traffic. Hence the caravans usually comprise hundreds and even thousands of men and pack animals, all under a kebir, or guide, whose word is law. Under him are assistants, armed escorts and scouts to reconnoitre the land in dangerous neighbourhoods, besides notaries to record contracts and agreements, sometimes even public criers, and an imam to recite the prescribed prayers.

The caravan, belonging to Abu Talib, a wealthy merchant of Yô, was a small one, consisting of about one hundred camels heavily laden with ivory, kola nuts, spices, and other goods from the far south, destined for the great market at El Fasher, and was guarded by twenty fierce-looking Arabs and a number of negro and Arab drivers, all well-armed, for the country through which we were to pass was infested by the marauding Tuaregs, those black-veiled terrors of the plains, who know nothing of anything but the desert and the implacable sun.

Abu Talib, who accompanied us in person, was an aged, good-hearted man of the tribe of Aulad Hamed, who had spent the greater part of his life trading between In Salah and Timbuktu, or between Yô and Mourkouk, over the boundless Sahara, and in the darkness, as we rode together and our camels with silent tread loomed like phantoms in the midnight air, we told each other of our journeys and adventures. His companions were true sons of the sands, active, vigorous and enterprising, inured to hardships, and with the mental faculties sharpened almost to a preternatural degree by the hard struggle for existence in their arid, rocky homes. In making their way across those trackless solitudes they seemed endowed with that “sense of direction,” the existence of which has recently been discussed by students of psychology. In the whole of the Great Sahara no race is more shrewd or cunning than the Buzawe, and their tact and skill enable them to get the better both of Arabs and negroes in the markets of the oases. Greed and harshness were stamped upon their hard features, but nevertheless they treated me, a lonely wanderer, with considerable kindness.

On leaving Kukawa we passed across a great plain, then through a dense forest, afterwards entering a fine, undulating country, covered with a profusion of herbage, with here and there large gamshi-trees with broad, fleshy leaves of brightest green. The moon shone bright as day, and as our file of camels strode on with slow, rhythmic movement under their burdens, the drivers would now and then sing snatches of wild songs of daring in the Hausa tongue.

Thus, resting by day and journeying by night, we moved forward around the marshy shore of Lake Tsad to Missene, thence through the cool, shady forest of Dekena Kreda, enlivened by many birds, along the densely-populated valleys of Boulala to the strange little town of Amm Chererib situate in the hollow formed between four great mountains, at length, when the moon was again at the full, reaching Abecher, at the foot of the hills of Outoulo, without much exciting incident. Halting for one day under the fortified walls to fill our camels’ kewas with provisions, we again pushed forward unceasingly in order to accomplish the two hundred and fifty miles of barren, waterless land unmercifully scorched and burnt by a devouring sun, that stretches between the capital of Darmaba and El Fasher. This portion of the journey was the most difficult we had encountered, for the rough stones played terrible havoc with the spongy feet of our camels, and the heat was insufferable, even at night, on account of the poison-wind sweeping across us continuously. For five days we pushed forward by short stages only, until at sunrise one day we espied an oasis, and, encamping in the small shade it afforded, Abu Talib decided to give the animals rest. The packs were therefore removed, our tents erected, and having eaten our dakkwa, a dry paste made of pounded Guinea-corn with dates and pepper, washed it down with some giya made of sorghum, we reclined and slept during the warm, drowsy hours of the siesta.

Some noise had awakened me, and lighting my keef-pipe I was squatting in the shadow cast by one of the camel’s packs, deep in my own sad thoughts, when the crack of a rifle startled me. Next second, even before my companions could seize their arms, the whole neighbourhood was alive with yelling Tuaregs on horseback, armed to the teeth, with their draperies floating in the wind. I saw they all wore the black litham about their faces. One, as he advanced on foot, levelled his gun at me and fired, but missed. In a moment I threw myself full length upon the sand behind a camel’s pack, and opened fire upon our enemies. With deliberate aim I had picked off three with as many shots, when suddenly I heard old Abu Talib cry, —

“Lost are we! Our enemies are the Aoulemidens!”

Almost before the words died upon his lips a bullet struck the old man full in the breast; he staggered back and fell, within a few yards of me, a corpse. To resist these fierce outlaws, the most relentless tribe of Tuaregs who lived in the depths of that arid, desolate country, with no knowledge of the outside world, was, we knew, hopeless, for there were fully three hundred of them, and as they found our little band disinclined to surrender, they began shooting us down ruthlessly. Already four of our party had been captured and bound, while three were lying dead, nevertheless our rapid fusillade kept at bay those preparing to dash in and seize our camels’ packs.

Fiercely we fought for life. We knew that if we fell into the hands of this brigandish tribe who called themselves “The Breath of the Wind,” by which their victims were to understand that they might as well seek the wind as hope to recover their stolen property, we should either be sold at the nearest market, or placed under some horrible and fiendish torture to die a slow, agonising death. Suddenly a wild yell rent the air, and before we were aware of it a troop of some fifty horsemen dashed in among us, so quickly that resistance was impossible. Hand-to-hand we struggled, straining every muscle to evade our enemies, but ere long the obstinate, heroic courage of my companions could no longer blind them to the approach of the inevitable, and we were each secured and bound, captives in the hands of the merciless veiled men of the desert, whose fierce brutality was feared alike by slaves and Sultans throughout the sun-parched land.

Our arms were twisted from our grasp, our camels’ packs seized, and, linked together ignominiously by chains around our necks, we were secured to three palm trunks, under a strong guard with loaded rifles, to wait while our captors investigated their booty and reloaded our camels. Nearly two hours this occupied, when at length the grey-bearded, sinister-faced leader of the band of free-booters gave the order to mount, and before long the party, numbering nearly three hundred horsemen armed to the teeth, moved away into the sandy wilderness, compelling us to trudge over the hot, stony ground on foot under the fiery rays of the blazing sun. It was evident that we were to be sold as slaves. One unfortunate camel-driver, who had been wounded, fell from sheer exhaustion within the first hour, and was left to die, for slave-raiders like “The Breath of the Wind” regard the wounded only as an encumbrance, and as they will not sell they are either put out of their misery by a shot, or left to die of thirst and become food for the vultures. Fortunately, with the exception of a slight cut on the left hand received from a jambiyah with which one of my captors had slashed at me, I sustained no injury, and with my companions, a little band of silent, despairing men, I plodded wearily onward – onward to be sold into slavery.

Upon all the perpendicular rays of the sun beat down with a heat as burning and intense as that of a fiery furnace, and always – always for a horizon – the desert, the infinite breadth of glaring sands.

Chapter Nine

An Audience of the Khalifa

Those days of burning heat were full of horrors. Treated with scant humanity, we were half-starved, allowed only sufficient water to slake our thirst once a day, and beaten mercilessly with thongs of rhinoceros hide whenever one, more faint and weary than the rest, lagged behind. Eastward we travelled for six days, until, at the well of Lassera Dar Abd-er-Rahman, we were sold for two small bags of gold to some nomad Dasas encamped there. The Tuaregs dare not enter a town in the Eastern Soudan, although, in the West, they are universally dreaded on account of their depredations; therefore they always sell their captives to other slavers, who dispose of their human wares at the nearest trade centre. Hence, by our new masters we were conveyed to Dara, a town one day’s journey south of El Fasher, placed in the slave market, and, after considerable haggling, disposed of.

My new master was a well-dressed, keen-eyed, wizen-faced old Arab of the tribe known as Jalin, who, after inspecting me and looking into my mouth as he would a horse, handed payment with ill grace to the black-faced scoundrel who sold me, and ordered me to follow him. Together we passed out of the busy, bustling crowd, when he addressed me, asking my name.

“Art thou an Arab from the North?” he exclaimed in surprise, when I had told him who I was, and the place of my birth. “How earnest thou hither?”

“I fell into the hands of the Tuaregs, upon whom may the curse of Eblis rest!” I answered, hesitating to inform him at present that I was a Dervish.

As we walked to the city gate, where he said his camels were tethered, he told me his name was Shazan, and, judge my extreme satisfaction when he added that he was about to return to Omdurman, where he lived opposite the Beit-el-Amana. Hence, my stroke of ill-fortune turned out advantageous, for within a week I found myself once again within the great walls of the Khalifa’s stronghold. Then my new master having treated me harshly, I resolved at last that he should suffer, therefore I applied to the Kaid for release from slavery, on the ground that I was a member of the Ansar of the Khalifa. Old Shazan, amazed that his latest purchase should turn out to be one of his great ruler’s bodyguard, rated me soundly for not informing him at first, but I laughed, telling him that I had desired to get to Omdurman, and kept my own counsel, until such time as it suited me. Knowing that he would lose the money he had paid for me, the close-fisted old merchant refused to comply with the order made by the Kaid for my release, but the rumour of my escape from Kano, coming to the ears of the great Abdullah, the latter one day sent six of his personal attendants with orders to release me, and to bring me before him.

The shadows were lengthening in the marble courts of the “Bab,” or great palace of the Mahdi’s tyrannical successor, when I was conducted across the outer square, where brightly-dressed guards were lounging on their rifles, or playing damma beneath the cool, vine-veiled arches. Never before had I been permitted to set foot inside the court, although many times had I passed under the shadow of the Iron Mosque near by, and gazed with curiosity at the high walls, smeared with red sand, which encircled the marble courts, gilded pavilions and cool gardens of the ruler of the Soudan – the ruler whose only idea was self-aggrandisement. The extent of the palace amazed me, for, even if it was scarcely as luxurious as the wonderful Fada at Kano, it was assuredly quite as large. Through one open, sunlit court after another we passed, until we were challenged by four of the royal bodyguard with drawn swords, but a word propitiated them, and a few seconds later I found myself in the great, marble-built Hall of Audience, in the presence of the stout, sinister-faced man of middle age and kingly bearing, with black, scraggy beard, whose name was a power throughout the Soudan. He wore a robe of bright purple, embroidered with gold, a turban of white silk, and his fat, brown hands were loaded with rings of enormous value.

Beneath a great baldachin of bright yellow silk, with tassels and fringes of gold, surmounted by the standard of the Mahdi, the powerful Abdullah, the ruler before whom all trembled, reclined upon his luxurious silken divan, fanned by black slaves on either side, while a negro lad sat at his feet, ready to hand him a pipe, the mouth-piece of which was studded with diamonds. Around him were grouped his body-servants, the mulazimin, and officers, while near him was Abdel Gayum, the chief eunuch, his hand resting upon his sword, and Ali Wad Helu, chief of the Baggara, who had led the ill-fated expedition of which I had been a member.

Conducted by my guides up to the scarlet mat spread before the potentate, who thought himself master of the whole world, I fell upon my knees in obeisance, expressing thanks for my rescue from bondage.

“Let him be seated,” the Khalifa ordered, turning to his slaves, and in an instant cushions were brought, and I sat myself, cross-legged, awaiting questions to fall from his lips. “What, I wondered, had I done that I was allowed to sit in the royal presence?”

“So thou art the Arab Zafar-Ben-A’Ziz, the horseman who alone escaped death at the well of Sabo-n-Gari?” exclaimed the vain, cruel, quick-tempered man who ruled the Soudan under the guise of Mahdiism.

“I am, O King,” I answered, bowing until my forehead touched the carpet.

“Of a verity will I punish those enemies who attacked my Jehadieh,” he cried suddenly, in fiercest rage. “Where be those owls, those oxen of the oxen, those beggars, those cut-off ones, those aliens, those Sons of Flight? Withered be their hands! palsied be their fingers! the foul moustachioed fellows! basest of the Arabs who ever hammered tent-peg! sneaking cats! goats of Al-Akhfash! Truly will I torture them with the torture of oil, the mines of infamy, the cold of countenance! By Allah, and by Allah, and by Allah, we will crush those sons of Ach Chaitan like snakes, and throw their bodies to the dogs!” Then, turning to me in calmer mood, the autocrat of the Soudan exclaimed, “Some of thine adventures have already reached mine ear, and I would hear from thine own lips how thou didst escape and how farest thou in the Fada of ’Othman of Sokoto. Let not thy tongue hurry, but relate carefully in thine own words what things occurred to thee.”