The White Prophet, Volume I (of 2)

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

As midnight had struck on the soft cathedral-bell of the clock in Lady Nuneham's room the old lady had raised herself in bed and looked round with bright and joyful eyes.

"Fatimah!"

"Yes, my heart," said Fatimah, rising hurriedly from the chair in which she had been knitting and stopping up to the bedside.

"Has he gone, Fatimah?"

"Has who gone, O my lady?"

The bright eyes looked at the Egyptian woman with a reproving smile.

"Why, you know quite well, Fatimah. You saw him yourself, didn't you?"

"You mean his lordship?"

"No, no, but – "

The old lady paused, looked round again, and said —

"Can it be possible that you didn't see him, Fatimah?"

"See whom, my lady?"

"Why, Gordon."

Fatimah made an upward gesture with her hand.

"When, my heart?"

"Just now – not a moment ago."

Fatimah raised both hands and seemed for a moment unable to speak.

"He knocked at the door – I knew his knock immediately. Then he said outside, 'Don't be afraid' – I knew his voice too. And then he opened the door and came in, and I thought at first it was a Bedouin, for he wore Eastern clothes, but he whispered, 'Mother,' and it was Gordon himself."

"O my dear eyes, you have been dreaming," said Fatimah, whereupon the old lady looked reproachfully at her and said —

"How can you say that, Fatimah? I clasped my arms around his neck, and he put his arms about me and kissed me, and then – "

"Well?"

The old lady thought for a moment. "I think I must have fainted," she said. "I cannot remember what happened then."

"O my lady, O my heart, you have been sleeping for nearly an hour," said Fatimah.

"Sleeping?"

"Yes, but a little after eleven o'clock you were restless and threw out your arms and I covered them up again."

The joyful gleam had now gone from the old lady's eyes, and a troubled look had taken the place of it.

"Do you say that Gordon has not been here, Fatimah?"

"Alas, no, my lady."

"Has nobody been?"

"Nobody at all, my lady, since his lordship was up last."

"But I could have been sure that – "

She stopped; a smile crossed her bewildered face, and she said in a soft, indulgent voice —

"My poor Fatimah! I wear you out. I wear out everybody. You must have dozed off at that moment, and so – "

"Oh no, my lady, no! Wallahi! I've not closed my eyes since yesterday."

"How strange!"

"But Ibrahim ought to know if anybody has come upstairs. Should I call him, my lady?"

"Yes … no … that is to say … wait!"

There was silence for a moment, and then, all the sweet illusion being gone, the old lady said in a sadder tone —

"Perhaps you are right, Fatimah. But it was so dear to think that … Hush!"

She had heard her husband's footsteps on the stairs, and she began to straighten her lace cap with her delicate white fingers.

The Consul-General had gone through a heavy and trying day. In the morning he had received from the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs a despatch which was couched in terms more caustic than had been addressed to him from London at any time during his forty years in Egypt. He had spent the night in dictating an answer to this Despatch, and his reply, though framed in diplomatic form, had been no less biting and severe.

Having finished his work in some warmth, he was now on his way to bed, and thinking of the humiliation to which he had been exposed in England by the late disturbance in Cairo, he was blaming his son for the worst of it. Every step of his heavy foot as he went upstairs was like a word or a blow against Gordon. It was Gordon who had encouraged the people to rebel; it was Gordon's name that was being used (because it was his own name also) by pestilent prattlers in Parliament to support the accusation that he had outraged (contrary to the best traditions of British rule) the religious instincts of an Eastern people; therefore it was Gordon who had poisoned the source of his authority in Egypt and the fount of his influence at home.

In this mood he entered his wife's room, and there Fatimah, who had been frightened for all her brave show of unbelief, fell at once to telling him of her mistress's delusion.

"But this is wrong of you, Janet – very, very wrong," said the Consul-General with a frown. "These visions and dreams are doing more than anything else to destroy your health, and they will kill you if you continue to encourage them. Gordon is gone. You must make up your mind to it."

"Is it quite certain that he is gone, dear?" said the old lady, who was now nervously plucking at the counterpane. "For instance, Fatimah told me to-day that there was a story in town – "

"Fatimah has no business to repeat such idle rumours," said the Consul-General sharply. He was walking to and fro in the room with a face that was hard and furrowed.

"As for the story you speak of, they sent it up to me as late as ten o'clock to-night, saying Gordon was being sheltered in a certain place, and asking what steps they were to take with respect to him."

The old lady fixed her frightened eyes on her husband's face and began to ask in a whisper —

"And what did you – "

"The rumour was groundless," said the Consul-General. "I've just heard so from the Commandant of Police. Gordon was not there. There was no sign that he ever had been."

The old lady wept silently, and the Consul-General continued to walk to and fro at the foot of her bed as if he were trying to avoid her face.

"You still think he left Cairo on the night of the riot, dear?"

"I trust he did. I trust, too, that he is far from here by this time – on his way to America, India, Australia, anywhere. And as he has broken the law, and his career is at an end, I think the kindest thing we can do is to hope that he may never come back again."

The old lady tried to speak but her voice failed her.

"More than that," continued the Consul-General, "as he deliberately took sides against us, I also think it is our duty – our strict and bounden duty – to dismiss all further thought of him."

Saying this with heat and emphasis, he caught sight of his wife's wet eyes and his conscience began to accuse him.

"I don't say it is easy to do," he said, taking a chair by the side of the bed. "Perhaps it is the reverse of easy – especially for you – for his mother."

At that the sweet old woman wished to take the part of her absent son – to say that if he had taken the wrong course, and allowed himself to be led away by some one, he could not have counted on any gain in doing so, and must have been moved by the most unselfish motives – but her tears prevented her, and still she could not speak.

"Why should we continue to think of him if he never thinks of us– of either of us?" asked the Consul-General.

He was calmer now, and was speaking with less anger.

"Was he thinking of you when he took the step which broke up your health like this? Was he thinking of me when he took the side of my enemies – of one of my enemies, at all events – perhaps the worst of them – and left me to the mercy of … in my old age, too – a childless man?"

There was a moment in which nothing was spoken, and then in a voice that quivered perceptibly the Consul-General said —

"Let us trifle with ourselves no longer, Janet. Our son has gone. He has abandoned us. We have to think no more about him."

After that there was a long silence, during which the Consul-General sat with his head down and his eyes tightly closed. Then a voice came softly from the bed.

"John!"

"Well?"

"It is harder for you, dear."

The old man turned his head aside.

"You wanted a son so much, you know."

Fatimah, who had been sitting out of sight, now stepped into the boys' room and closed the door noiselessly behind her, leaving the two old people alone together with the sanctities of their married life, on which no other eye should look.

"I thought at first that God was not going to give me any children, but when my child came, and it was a boy, how happy we both were!"

The old man closed his eyes still more tightly and stiffened his iron lip.

"Foolish people used to think in those days that you didn't love our little one because you couldn't pay much heed to him. But Fatimah was telling me only to-night that you never went to bed without going into her room to see if it was well with our child."

The tears were now forcing themselves through the old man's eyelids.

"And when our dear boy had the fever, and he was so ill that we had to shave his little head, you never went to bed at all – not until the crisis came, and then – don't you remember? – just when we thought the wings of death were over us, he opened his beautiful blue eyes and smiled. I think that was the happiest moment of all our lives, dear."

She was on her husband's side at last – thinking for him – seeing everything from his point of view.

"Then all the years afterwards you worked so hard, and won such high honours and such a great name, only to leave them behind to our son, and now … now – "

The Consul-General laid one of his wrinkled hands on the counterpane, and in a moment the old lady had put her delicate white hand over it.

"Yes, it's harder for you, dear."

"No, Janet, no! … But it's hard for both of us."

There was another moment of silence, and then, pressing the hand that lay under her hand, the old lady said —

"I think I know now what people feel when they are old and their children die before them. They feel that they ought to be more to each other than they have ever been before, and keep together as long as they can."

The Consul-General drew his hand away and covered his face with it. He was asking himself why, through so many years, he had buried his love for his wife so deep in his heart and sealed it as with a seal. Presently a more cheerful voice came from the bed.

"John!"

"Yes!"

"I'm going to get up to-morrow."

"No, no!"

"But I must! Mohammed" (the cook) "is so forgetful when there's no mistress about – I must see that he gives you good food, you know. Besides, it must be lonely to eat your meals by yourself – I must make it a rule to go down to lunch at all events."

"That is nothing, Janet. You are weak and ill – the doctor will not permit you to disturb yourself."

There was a sigh, and then in a faltering voice the old lady said —

"You must forgive me, dear – I've not been what I ought to have been to you."

"No, Janet, no, it is I – "

He could not utter another word, but he rose to his feet, and, clasping his wife in his arms, he kissed her on her wrinkled forehead and her whitened hair more fervently than he had ever done in their youth.

At the next moment the old lady was speaking about Helena. The Consul-General would see her off in the morning, and he was to give all her motherly love to her. He was also to warn her to take good care of herself on the voyage, and not to be anxious or to repine.

"Tell her to remember what I said, dear. She is going back to England, but that doesn't matter in the least. God keeps all His promises, and He will keep His promise in this case too – I'm sure He will. Tell her that, dear."

The Consul-General answered "Yes" and "Yes" to all her messages, but he did not hear them. Bent almost double, with the light of his wearied eyes almost extinct, he stumbled out of the room. He was no longer angry with Gordon, but he was choking with hatred and scorn, and above all, with jealousy of the man who had robbed him of his son, the man who had robbed his wife of her only pride and joy, and left them, hopeless and old and lone.

At the door of his bedroom one of his secretaries was waiting for him with a paper in his hand.

"Well, well, what is it now?" he asked.

"An important telegram from, the Soudan, sir," said the secretary. "Ishmael Ameer has turned up in Khartoum."

Then the austere calm of the stern old man deserted him for a moment, and the pent-up agony of the broken and bankrupt hopes of a lifetime broke into a shout.

"Damn him! Damn him! Tell the Sirdar to kill him like a dog," he cried, and his secretary fled in a fright.

CHAPTER XVIII

Hours passed before the Consul-General slept. He was telling himself that there were now two reasons why he should suppress and destroy the man Ishmael Ameer.

First because "this madman, this fanatic, this false prophet," under the cloak of religion and the mantle of prophecy, was a cover for the corruption and the self-seeking which in the name and the guise of Nationalism were trying to drive England out of the valley of the Nile; because he was the rallying-point of the retrograde forces which were doing their best to destroy whatever seeds of civilisation had been implanted in the country during forty sleepless years; because he was trying to turn prosperity back to bankruptcy, order back to anarchy, and the helpless millions of the unmoving and the uncomplaining peasantry back to slavery and barbarity; because, in a word, he was the head centre of the schools and nurseries of sedition which were undoing the hard labour of his lifetime and striving to wipe his name out of Egypt as utterly as if he had never been.

This was the first of the Consul-General's two reasons why he should suppress and destroy Ishmael Ameer, and the second was still more personal and more intimate.

His second reason was because "this madman, this fanatic, this false prophet" had stepped in between him and the one hope of his life – the hope of founding a family. That hope had been a secret which he believed he had never betrayed to any one, not even to his wife, but all the more on that account it had been sweet and sacred. Born in a moment of fierce anger and in a spirit of revenge, it had grown to be his master passion. It had cheered his darkest hours, brightened his heaviest labour, exalted his drudgery into duty, given joy to his success, and wings to his patriotism itself.

That, at the end of his life of hard work, and as the reward and the crown of it, he should see the name he had made for himself among the great names of the British nation, and that his son should succeed to it, and his son's son, and his son's son's son, being all peers of the realm and all Nunehams – this had been the cherished aspiration of his soul.

But now his high-built hope was in the dust. By robbing him of his son – his only son – "this madman, this fanatic, this false prophet" had turned his one aim to ashes. When he was old, too, and his best powers were spent, and his life was behind him, and there was nothing before him but a few short years of failing strength and then – the end.

"Damn him! Damn him!" he cried again in the darkness as he rolled about in his bed.

But when he tried to think out some means, some swift and secret tribunal, perhaps, by which he could suppress and destroy the man Ishmael, who had laid waste his life and was joining with the worst elements in Egypt to make the government of the country impossible, he had to tell himself how powerless after all was the machinery of Western civilisation against the hypocritical machinations of Eastern fanaticism.

On the one side the clogs and impediments of representative government, and on the other the subtlety, secrecy, duplicity, and deceit of men like Ishmael Ameer. If he could only scotch these troubles once for all by a short and sharp military struggle – how different the results would be!

But with every act of his life watched from Whitehall, and with operations of frightful urgency kept back by cable; dogged by foreign diplomats who, professing to be England's friends, were yet waiting to find their opportunity in the hour of England's need; vilified by boobies in Parliament who did not know the difference between the East and the West, between the Mousky and the Mile End Road, and were constantly sending the echo of their parrot-like prattle down the Mediterranean to add to the difficulties of his position in Cairo; scolded by Secretaries of State who were appointed to their places for no better reason than their power to command votes; gibed at by journalists at home who could not see that a free press and a foreign occupation were things that could never exist together; and preached at by religious milksops in the pulpit who were so simple as to suppose that the black man and the white man were one flesh, that all men were born free and equal, and that it was possible to govern great nations according to the precepts of the Sermon on the Mount – what could he do against the religious delirium of an ignorant Eastern populace, who were capable of mistaking a manifest impostor, practising his spiritual legerdemain, for a Prophet, a Redeemer, a Mahdi, a Messiah, a Christ? Nothing!