The White Prophet, Volume I (of 2)

Back in his room, with the window down to shut out the noises from the river and the bridge, he tried to come to a conclusion as to what he ought to do the following day if the Ulema decided to resist. They would resist, he had no doubt about that, for where men were under the influence of gusts of religious passion, they might call on God, but God's answer was always the same.

If the Ulema were to decide not to close their sacred place they would intend to die in defence of it, and, seeing the issue from the Moslem point of view, that El Azhar was the centre of their spiritual life, Gordon concluded that they would be justified in resisting. If they were justified the order to evict them would be wicked, and the act of eviction would be a crime. "I can't do it," he told himself. "I can't and I won't!"

This firm resolve relieved him for a moment, and then he began to ask himself what would happen if he refused to obey. The bad work would be done all the same, for somebody else would do it. "What, then, will be the result?" he thought.

The first result would be that he himself would suffer. He would be tried for insubordination, and of course degraded and punished. As a man he might be in the right, but as a soldier he would be in the wrong. He thought of his hard-fought fights and of the honours he had won, and his head went round in a whirl.

The next result would be that he would bring disgrace upon his father as well. His refusal to obey orders would become known, and if the consequences he expected should come to pass he would seem to stand up as the first of his father's accusers. He, his father's only son, would be the means of condemning him in the eyes of England, of Europe, of the world! In his old age, too, and after all he had done for Egypt!

Then above all there was Helena! The General would side with the Consul-General, and Helena would be required to cast in her lot with her father or with him. If she sided with him she would have to break with her father; if she sided with her father she would have to part from him. In either case the happiness of her life would be wasted —he would have wasted it, and he would have wasted his own happiness as well.

This thought seemed to take him by the throat and stifle him. He leapt from the bed on which he had been lying in restless pain and threw open the window. The river and the bridge were quiet by that time, but through the breathless night air there came the music of a waltz. It was the last dance of the visiting season at an hotel near by – a number of British officers were dancing on the edge of the volcano.

Gordon shut the window and again threw himself on the bed. At length the problem that tormented him seemed to resolve itself into one issue. His father did not realise that the Moslems would die rather than give up possession of their holy place, and that, in order to turn them out of it, he would have to destroy them – slaughter them. A man could not outrage the most sacred of human feelings without being morally blind to what he was doing. His father was a great man – a thousand times greater than he himself could ever hope to be – but in this case he was blind, and somebody had to open his eyes.

"I'll go and bring him to reason," he thought. "He may insult me if he likes, but no matter!"

The last cab had rattled home and the streets were silent when Gordon reached the entrance to the Agency. Then he saw that it was late, for the house was in darkness and not even the window of the library showed a light. The moon was full and he looked at his watch. Good heavens! It was two o'clock!

The house-dog heard his footsteps on the gravel path and barked and bounded towards him; then, recognising him, it began to snuffle and to lick his hands. At the same moment a light appeared in an upper window. It was the window of his mother's room, and at sight of it his resolution began to ebb away and he was once more seized with uncertainty.

Strife between himself and his father would extinguish the last rays of his mother's flickering life. He could see her looking at him with her pleading, frightened eyes.

"Am I really going to kill my mother – that too?" he thought.

He was as far as ever from knowing what course he ought to take, but the light in his mother's window, filtering through the lace curtains that were drawn across it, was like a tear-dimmed, accusing eye, and with a new emotion he was compelled to turn away.

CHAPTER XXI

As two o'clock struck on the soft cathedral bell of a little clock by the side of her bed Fatimah rose with a yawn, switched on the electric light, and filled a small glass from a bottle on the mantel-piece.

"Time to take your medicine, my lady," she said in a sleepy voice.

Her mistress did not reply immediately, and she asked —

"Are you asleep?"

But her lady, who was wide awake, whispered, "Hush! do you hear Rover? Isn't that somebody on the path?"

Fatimah listened as well as she could through the drums of sleep that were beating in her ears, and then she answered —

"No, I hear nothing."

"I thought it was Gordon's footstep," said the old lady, raising herself in bed to take the medicine that Fatimah was holding out to her.

"It's strange! Gordon's step is exactly like his grandfather's."

"Don't spill it, my lady," said Fatimah, and with a trembling hand the old lady drank off her dose.

"He's like his grandfather in other things, too. I remember when I was a girl there was a story of how he struck one of his soldiers in the Civil War, thinking the man was guilty of some offence. But afterwards he found the poor fellow was innocent, and had taken the blow for his brother without saying a word. Father never forgave himself for that – never!"

"Shall I put on the eider-down? The nights are cold if the days are hot, you know."

"Yes – no – just as you think best, nurse… I'm sure Gordon will do what is right, whatever happens. I'm sorry for his father, though. Did you hear what he said when he came to bid me good-night? – 'They think they've caught me now that they've caught my son, but let them wait – we'll see.'"

"Hush!" said Fatimah, and she pointed to the wall of the adjoining room. From the other side of it came the faint sound of measured footsteps.

"He's walking again – can't sleep, I suppose," said Fatimah in a drowsy whisper.

"Ah, well!" said the old lady, after listening for a moment. And then Fatimah put out the light and went back to her bed.

"God bless my boy!" said a tremulous voice in the darkness.

After that there was a sigh, and then silence – save for the hollow thud of footsteps in the adjoining room.

CHAPTER XXII

Before Gordon was out of bed next morning Hafiz rang him up on the telephone. He had just heard from his uncle, the Chancellor, that as a result of their night-long deliberation and prayer, the Ulema had decided to ask the Consul-General to receive Ishmael Ameer and listen to a suggestion.

"What will it be?" asked Gordon.

"That the Government should leave El Azhar alone on condition that the Ulema consent to open it, and all the mosques connected with it, to public and police inspection, so as to dissipate the suspicion that they are centres of sedition."

"Splendid! To make the mosques as free as Christian churches is a splendid thought – an inspiration! But if the Government will not agree – what then?"

"Then the order to close El Azhar will be resisted. 'Only over our dead bodies,' they say, 'shall the soldiers enter it.'"

Gordon went about his work that morning like a man dazed and dumb, but after lunch he dressed himself carefully in his full staff uniform, with his aiguilettes hanging from his left shoulder, his gold and crimson sash, his sword, and his white, be-spiked helmet. He put on all his medals and decorations – his Distinguished Service Order: his King's and South African War medal with four clasps: his British Soudan medal: his Medjidieh: and his Khedive's medal with four clasps. It was not for nothing that he did this, nor merely because he was going to an official conference, but with a certain pride as of a man who had won the right to consideration.

Taking a cab by the gate of the barracks he drove through the native quarters of the city, and saw crowds surging through the streets in the direction of El Azhar. The atmosphere seemed to tingle with the spirit of revolution, and seeing the operation of the sublime instinct of humanity which leads people in defence of their faith to the place where danger is greatest, he felt glad and proud that what was best in him was about to conquer.

Arriving at the Citadel he found Helena's black boy waiting for him at the door of the General's house with a message from his mistress, saying the gentlemen had not arrived and she wished to see him. The city below lay bright under the warm soolham of the afternoon sun, and the swallows were swirling past the windows of Helena's sitting-room, but Helena herself was under a cloud.

"I see what it is – you are angry with me for going to El Azhar last night," said Gordon.

"No, it isn't that, though I think you might have kept faith with me," she answered. "But we have no time to lose, and I have something to say to you. In the first place I want you to know that Colonel Macdonald, your Deputy Assistant Adjutant, has been ordered to stand by. He will be only too happy to take your place if necessary."

"He's welcome!" said Gordon.

Her brows were contracted, her lips set. She fastened her eyes on him and said —

"Then there is something else I wish to tell you."

"What is it, Helena?"

"When my father asked me if I could marry a man who had disobeyed and been degraded, I said … But it doesn't matter what I said. My father has hardly spoken to me since. It is the first cloud that has come between us – the very first. But when I answered him as I did, there was something I had forgotten."

"What was it, dearest?"

"I cannot tell you what it was – I can only tell you what it comes to."

"What does it come to, Helena?"

"That whatever happens to-day I can never leave my father – never as long as he lives."

"God forbid that you should be tempted to do so – but why?"

"That is what I cannot tell you. It is a secret."

"I can think of no secret that I could not share with you, Helena."

"Nor I with you – if it were my own – but this isn't."

"I cannot understand you, dear."

"Say it is somebody else's secret, and that his life, his career, depends upon it. Say it couldn't be told to you without putting you in a false position – involving you in responsibilities which you have no right to bear."

"You puzzle me, bewilder me, Helena."

"Then trust me, dear – trust me for the present at all events, and some day you shall know everything," she said; whereupon Gordon, who had not taken his eyes off her, said —

"So what it really comes to is this – that whatever course your father takes to-day I must take it also, under pain of a violent separation from you! Isn't that it, Helena? Isn't it? And if so, isn't it like sending a man into battle with his hands tied and his eyes blindfolded?"

She dropped her head but made no reply.

"That is not what I expected of you, Helena. The Helena who has been living in my mind is a girl who would say to me at a moment like this, 'Do what you believe to be right, Gordon, and whether you are degraded to the lowest rank or raised to the highest honour, I will be with you – I will stand by your side.'"

Her eyes flashed and she drew herself up.

"So you think I couldn't say that – that I didn't say anything like it when my father spoke to me? But if you have been thinking of me as a girl like that, I have been thinking of you as a man who would say, 'I love you, and do you know what my love means? It means that my love for you is above everything and everybody in the world.'"

"And it is, Helena, it is."

"Then why," she said, with her eyes fixed on his, "why do you let this Egyptian and his interests come between us? If you take his part after what I have just told you, will it not be the same thing in the end as choosing him against me?"

"Don't vex me, Helena. I've told you before that your jealousy of this man is nonsense."

The word cut her to the quick, and she drew herself up again.

"Very well," she said, with a new force; "if it's jealousy and if it's nonsense you must make your account with it. I said I couldn't tell you why I cannot leave my father – now I won't. You must choose between us. It is either that man or me."

"You mean that if the General decides against Ishmael Ameer you will follow your father, and that I – whatever my conscience may say – I must follow you?"

Her eyes blazed and she answered, "Yes."

"Good God, Helena! What is it you want me to be? Is it a man or a manikin?"

At that moment the young Lieutenant who was the General's Aide-de-camp came in to say that the Consul-General and the Prime Minister had arrived, and required Colonel Lord's attendance.

"Presently," said Gordon, and as soon as the Lieutenant had gone he turned to Helena again.

"Helena," he said, "there is not a moment to lose. Remember, this is the last time I can see you before I am required to act one way or the other. God knows what may happen before I come out of that room. Will you send me into it without any choice?"

She was breathing hard and biting her under lip.

"Your happiness is dearer to me than anything else in life, dear, but I am a man, not a child, and if I am to follow your father in order not to lose you, I must know why. Will you tell me?"

Without raising her eyes Helena answered, "No!"

"Very well!" he said. "In that case it must be as the fates determine," and straightening his sword-belt, he stepped to the door.

Helena looked up at him and in a fluttering voice called "Gordon!"

He turned, with his hand on the handle. "What is it?"

For one instant she had an impulse to break her promise and tell him of her father's infirmity, but at the next moment she thought of the Egyptian, and her pride and jealousy conquered.

"What is it, Helena?"

"Nothing," she said, and fled into her bedroom.

Gordon looked after her until she had disappeared, and then – hot, angry, nervous, less able than before to meet the ordeal before him – he turned the handle of the door and entered the General's office.

CHAPTER XXIII

The Consul-General, the General, and the Egyptian Pasha in his tarboosh were sitting in a half-circle; the General's Military Secretary, Captain Graham, was writing at the desk, and his Aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Robson, was standing beside it. Nobody was speaking as Gordon entered, and the air of the room had the dumb emptiness which goes before a storm. The General signalled to Gordon to sit, and requested his Aide-de-camp to step out and wait in his own office, and then said, speaking in a jerky, nervous way —

"Gordon, I have an order of the utmost importance to give you, but before I do so your father has something to say."

With that he took a seat by the side of the desk, while the Consul-General, without changing the direction of his eyes, said slowly and deliberately —

"I need hardly tell you, Gordon, that the explanation I am about to make would be quite unnecessary in the case of an ordinary officer receiving an ordinary command, but I have decided to make it to you out of regard to the fact of who you are and what your relation to the General is to be."

Gordon bowed without speaking. He was struggling to compose himself, and something was whispering to him, "Above all things, be calm!"

"I regret to say the Ulema have ignored the order which his Excellency sent to them," said the Consul-General, indicating the Pasha.

"Ignored?"

"That's what it comes to, though it's true they asked me to receive the man Ishmael Ameer and to consider a suggestion."

"You did, sir?"

"I did. The man came, I saw him, and heard what he had to say – and now I am more than ever convinced that he is a public peril."

"A peril?"

"First, because he advises officers and men to abstain from military service on the ground that war is incompatible with religion. That is opposed to the existing. order of society, and therefore harmful to good government."

"I agree," said the General, swinging restlessly in his revolving chair.

"Next, because he tells the Egyptian people that where the authority of the law is opposed to what he is pleased to consider the commandments of God they are to obey God and not the Government. That is to make every man a law to himself, and to cause the rule of the Government to be defied."

The Pasha smiled and bowed his thin face over his hands, which were clasped at his breast.

"Finally, because he says openly that in the time to come Egypt will be a separate state with a peculiar mission, and that means Nationalism and the end of the rule of England in the valley of the Nile."

Gordon made an effort to speak, but his father waved him aside.

"I am not here to argue with you about the man's teaching, but merely to define it. He is one of the mischievous people who, taking no account of the religious principles which lie at the root of civilisation, would use religion to turn the world back to barbarism. What is true in his doctrines is not new, and what is new is not true. As for his reforms of polygamy, divorce, seclusion of women, and so forth, I have no use for the people who, in Cairo or in London, are for ever correcting the proof-sheets of the Almighty by reading their holy book as they please, whether it is the Koran or the Bible. And as for his prophecies, there are such things as mental strong drinks, and a man like this is providing them."

"You spoke of a suggestion, sir," said Gordon, who was still struggling to keep calm.

"His suggestion," said the Consul-General with icy composure, "his suggestion was an aggravation of his offence. He proposed that we should leave El Azhar unmolested on condition that the Ulema opened it to the public. That meant that the Government must either countenance his sedition or suppress it by the stupid means of discussing his principles in courts of law."

The Pasha smiled and the General laughed, and then in a last word the Consul-General said quietly —

"General Graves will now tell you what we require you to do."

The General, still jerky and nervous, then said —

"All the necessary preparations have been made, Gordon. The – the Governor of the City will call you up at your quarters, and on – on receiving his message you will take a regiment of cavalry which is ready here in the Citadel and one battalion of infantry which is under arms at Kasr-el-Nil and accompany him to El Azhar. There – as – as commander of the troops you – at the request of the Governor – you will take such military steps as in your opinion will be required to enter the University – and – and clear out its students and professors. You will cause ten rounds of ammunition to be served out to the men, and you will have absolute discretion as to the way you go to work, and as to the amount of force necessary to be used – but you – of course you will be responsible for everything that is done – or not done – in carrying out your order. I – I ask you to attend to this matter at once, and to report to me to-night if possible."

When the General's flurried words were spoken there was silence for a moment, and then Gordon, trying in vain to control his voice, said haltingly —

"You know I don't want to do this work, General, and if it must be done I beg of you to order some one else to do it."

"That is impossible," replied the General. "You are the proper person for this duty, and to give it to another officer would be to – to strengthen the party of rebellion by saying in so many words that there is disaffection in our own ranks."

"Then permit me to resign my appointment on your staff, sir. I don't want to do so – God knows I don't. My rank as a soldier is the one thing in the world I'm proudest of, but I would rather resign it – "

"Resign it if you please – if you are so foolish. Send in your papers, but until they are accepted you are my officer, and I must ask you to obey my order."

Gordon struggled hard with himself, and then said boldly —

"General, you must pardon me if I tell you that you don't know what you are asking me to do."

The three old men looked sharply round at him, but he was now keyed up and did not care.

"No, sir – none of you! You think you are merely asking me to drive out of El Azhar a number of rebellious students and their teachers. But you are really asking me to kill hundreds, perhaps thousands of them."

"Fudge! Fiddlesticks!" cried the General, and then, forgetting the presence of the Pasha, he said, "These people are Egyptians – miserable, pigeon-livered Egyptians! Before you fire a shot they'll fly away to a man. But even if they stay the responsibility will be their own – so what the dev – "

"That's just where we join issue, General," said Gordon. "There isn't a worm that hasn't a right to resent a wrong, and this will be a wrong, and the people will be justified in resenting it."

The General, who was breathing hard, turned to the Consul-General and said, "I'm sorry, my lord, very sorry, but you see – "

There was a short silence, and then the Consul-General, still calm on the outside as a frozen lake, said, "Gordon, I presume you know what you will be doing if you refuse to obey your General's order?"

Gordon did not answer, and his father, in a biting note, continued —

"I dare say you suppose you are following the dictates of conscience, and I don't question your sincerity. I'm beginning to see that this empire of ours is destined to be destroyed in the end by its humanitarians, its philanthropists, its foolish people who are bewitched by good intentions."

The sarcasm was cutting Gordon to the bone, but he did not reply, and presently the old man's voice softened.

"I presume you know that if you refuse to obey your General's order you will be dealing a blow at your father – dishonouring him, accusing him. Your refusal will go far. There will be no hushing it up. England as well as Egypt will hear of it."

A deep flush overspread the Proconsul's face.

"For forty years I've been doing the work of civilisation in this country. I think progress has received a certain impetus. And now when I am old, and my strength is not what it once was, my son – my only son – is pulling the lever that is to bring my house down over my head."

The old man's voice trembled and almost broke.

"You've not thought of that, I suppose?"

Gordon's emotions almost mastered him. "Yes, sir," he said, "I have thought of it, and it's a great grief to me to oppose you. But it would be a still greater grief to help you – to help you to undo all the great work you have ever done in Egypt. Father, believe me, I know what I am saying. There will be bloodshed, and as sure as that happens there will be an outcry all over the Mohammedan world. The prestige of England will suffer – in India – in Europe – America – everywhere. And you, father, you alone will be blamed."

At that the General rose in great wrath, but the Consul-General interposed.

"One moment, please! I am anxious to make allowances for fanaticism, and at a moment of tension I could wish to avoid any act that might create a conflagration. Therefore," he said, turning to Gordon, "if you are so sure that there will be bloodshed I am willing to hold my hand on one condition – that the man Ishmael, the mouthpiece of the sedition we wish to suppress, should leave Egypt without delay."

Gordon did not reply immediately, and his father continued, "Why not? It is surely better that one man should go than that the whole nation should suffer. Send him out, drive him out, walk him over the frontier, and for the present I am satisfied."

"Father," said Gordon, "what you ask me to do is impossible. The Egyptians believe Ishmael to be one of the prophets who are sent into the world to keep the souls of men alive. He is like the Mahdi to them, and – who knows? – they may come to think of him as the Redeemer, the Christ, who is to pacify the world. Rightly or wrongly, they think of him already as a living protest against that part of Western civilisation which is the result of force and fraud. Therefore to drive him out of the country would be the same thing to them as to drive out religion. In their view, it would be a sin against humanity – a sin against God."