The White Prophet, Volume II (of 2)

Helena's eyes flashed with anger, but she compelled herself to smile and to say —

"He is, I assure you he is." And before the big Highlander knew what he was doing he had written to headquarters at Helena's dictation, to say that inasmuch as his own quarrel with Colonel Gordon Lord had been composed, that count in the offence might, so far as he was concerned, be wiped out.

The sweet double-face told him how good and noble and even Christ-like this was of him, and then, marching off with the letter, said to herself, "The brute!"

Meantime Hafiz, acting through his uncle the Chancellor, got the Ulema of El Azhar to send a message to the Foreign Minister saying, with many Eastern flourishes, that what General Graves had ordered Gordon to do, what his subordinate had done, was a deep injury to the religious susceptibilities of the Mohammedan people.

Besides this, the Sirdar sent a secretary with Gordon's letters, and reams of written explanations of his conduct to the permanent head of the War Office, a friend – a firm disciplinarian but a man of strong humanity. Why had the prisoner refused to plead? Because he did not wish to accuse his dead General. Why had he made no explanation of his desertion and of his conduct at the time of his arrest? Because he did not wish to impeach his father. Why had he intercepted an order of the Army? Because he had been inspired solely by a desire to prevent the tumultuous effusion of blood, and he had prevented it.

Finally, as a technical point of the highest importance, could it be deemed that the troops in Egypt were on active service when there was no such declaration to that effect as Section 189(2) of the Army Act required?

Within two days everything was done, and then there was nothing left but to await results. Helena wanted to go up to see Gordon, but she was afraid to do so. When sorrow is shared it is lessened, but suspense that is divided is increased.

After five days the Sirdar began to hear from London and to send his news to Helena over the telephone. The matter was to be submitted to his Majesty personally – had she any objection to the King seeing Gordon's letters? So very intimate? Well, what of that? The King was a good fellow, and there was nothing in the world that touched him so nearly as a beautiful woman, except a woman in love and in trouble.

Then came two days of grim, unbroken silence and then – a burst of great news.

In consideration of Colonel Lord's distinguished record as a soldier and his unblemished character as a man; out of regard to the obvious purity of his intentions and the undoubted fact that the order he disobeyed had led to irreparable results; remembering the great provocation he had received and not forgetting the valuable services rendered by his father to England and to Egypt, the King had been graciously pleased to grant him a free pardon under the Great Seal!

This coming first as a private message from the head of the War Office, threw the Sirdar into an ecstasy of joy. He called up the Consul-General immediately, and repeated the glad words over the telephone, but no answer came back to him except the old man's audible breathing as it quivered over the wires.

Then he thought of Helena, but with a soldier's terror of tears in the eyes of a woman, even tears of joy, he decided to let Hafiz carry the news to her.

"Tell her to go up to the Citadel and break the good tidings to Gordon," he said, speaking to Egyptian headquarters.

Nothing loath, Hafiz went bounding along to the house of the Princess and blurted out his big message, expecting that it would be received with cries of delight, but to his bewilderment, Helena heard it with fear and trembling, and, becoming weak and womanish all at once, she seemed to be about to faint.

Hafiz, with proper masculine simplicity, became alarmed at this, but the Princess began to laugh.

"What!" she cried. "You that have been as brave as a lion with her cub while your man's life has been in danger, to go mooing now —now– like a cow with a sick calf!"

Helena recovered herself after a moment, and then Hafiz delivered the Sirdar's mandate, that she was to go up to the Citadel and break the good news to Gordon.

"But I daren't, I daren't," she said, still trembling.

"What!" cried the Princess again. "Not go and get the kisses and hugs that … Well, what a dunce I was to have that silver grey of yours made so tight about the waist! For two pins I would put on your black veil and go up myself and take all the young man has to give a woman."

Helena smiled (a watery smile) and declared she would go if Hafiz would go with her. Hafiz was ready, and in less than half-an-hour they were driving up to the Citadel in the Princess's carriage with the footmen and saises and eunuch which her Highness, for all her emancipation, thought necessary to female propriety in public.

Everything went well until they reached the fortress, and then, going up the stone staircase to Gordon's quarters, Helena began to tremble more than ever.

"Oh! Oh! I daren't! I must go home," she whispered.

"Lord, no! not now," said Hafiz. "Remember, – up there is some one who thinks he is going to die, while here are we who know he isn't, and that life will be doubly sweet if it's you that takes it back to him. Come, sister, come!"

"Give me your arm, then," said Helena, and, panting with emotion and perilously near to the point of tears, she went up, on shaking limbs, to a door at which two soldiers, armed to the teeth, were standing on guard.

At that moment Gordon, in the officer's bright room which had been given to him as a cell, was leaning on the sill of the open window looking steadfastly down at some object in the white city below. During the past six days he had known what was being done on his behalf, and the desire for life, which he had thought dead in him, had quickened to suspense and pain.

To ease both feelings he had smoked innumerable cigarettes and made pretence of reading the illustrated papers which his brother-officers had poured in upon him, out of their otherwise dumb and helpless sympathy. But every few minutes of every day he had leaned out of the window to look first, with a certain pang, at the heavy-lidded house which contained his father; next, with a certain sense of tears, at a green spot covered with cypress trees which contained all that was left of his mother, and finally, with a certain yearning, at the trellised Eastern palace of the Princess Nazimah, which contained Helena.

This is what he was doing at the moment when Helena and Hafiz were ascending the stairs, and just as he was asking himself for the hundredth time why Helena did not come to see him, he heard his guard's gruff tones mingled with a woman's mellow voice.

A deep note among the soft ones sent all the blood in his body galloping to his heart, and turning round he saw the door of his room open and Helena herself on the threshold.

One moment she stood there, with her sweet, care-worn face growing red in her passion of joy, and then she rushed at him and fell on his breast, throwing both arms about his neck, and crying —

"Such news, Gordon! Oh, my Gordon, I bring you such good, good news! Such news, dear! Such news, oh such good news!"

Thus trying to tell her tidings at a breath, she told him nothing, but continued to laugh and sob and kiss, and say what good news she brought him.

Yet words were needless, and before Hafiz, whose fat wet face was shining like a round window on an April day, could whisper "the King's Pardon," Gordon, like the true lover he was, had said, and had meant it —

"But you bring me nothing so good as yourself, dearest – nothing!"

CHAPTER XV

Helena was with Gordon the following morning when one of the guard came in hurriedly and announced, amid gusts of breath, that the Consul-General was coming upstairs.

Not without a certain nervousness Gordon rose to receive his father, but he met him at the door with both hands outstretched. The old man took one of them quietly, with the air of a person who was struggling hard to hold himself in check. He took Helena's hand also, and when she would have left the room he prevented her.

"No, no," he said; "sit down, my child – resume your seat."

It seemed to Gordon that his father looked whiter and feebler, yet even firmer of will than ever, like a lion that had been shot and was dying hard. His lips were compressed as he took the chair which Gordon offered him, and when he spoke his voice was hard and a little bitter.

"First, let me give you good news," he said.

"Is it the Pardon?" asked Gordon.

"No, something else – perhaps, in a sense, something better," said the old man.

He had received an unofficial message from the War Office to say that the King, taking no half measures, intended to promote Gordon to the rank of Major-General, and appoint him to the command of the British Forces in Egypt.

Helena could hardly contain her joy at this fresh proof of good fortune, but Gordon made no demonstration. He watched the pained expression in the old man's face, and felt sure that something else was coming.

"It's a remarkable, perhaps unparalleled instance of clemency," continued the Consul-General, "and under the circumstances it may be said to open up as momentous a mission as was ever confided to a military commander."

"And you, father?" asked Gordon, not without an effort.

The old man laughed. A flush overspread his pale face for a moment. Then he said —

"I? Oh, I … I am dismissed."

"Dismissed?"

Gordon had gasped. Helena's lips had parted.

"That's what it comes to – stated in plain words and without diplomatic flourishes. True, I had sent in my resignation, but … the long and the short of it is that after a debate on the Address, and the carrying of an amendment, Downing Street has agreed that the time has come to associate the people of Egypt with the government of the country."

"Well, sir?"

"Well, as that is a policy against which I have always set my face, a policy I have considered premature, perhaps suicidal, the Secretary of State has cabled that, being unable to ask me to carry into effect a change that is repugnant to my principles, he is reluctantly compelled to accept my resignation."

Gordon could not speak, but again the old man tried to laugh.

"Of course the pill is gilded," he continued, clasping his blue-veined hands in front of his breast. "The Foreign Secretary told Parliament that my resignation (on the ground of age and ill health, naturally) was the heaviest blow that had fallen on English public life within living memory. He also said that while other methods might be necessary for the future, none could have been so good as mine in the past. And then the King – "

"Yes, father?"

A hard, half-ironical smile passed over the old man's face.

"The King has been graciously pleased to grant me an Earldom, and even to make me a Knight of the Garter."

There was a moment's painful silence, and then the Consul-General said —

"So I go home immediately."

"Immediately?"

"By to-night's train to take the P. & O. to-morrow,"' said the old man, bowing over his clasped hands.

"To-morrow?"

"Why not? My Secretaries can do without me. Why should I linger on a stage on which I am no longer a leading actor but only a supernumerary? Better make my exit with what grace I can."

Under the semi-cynical tone Gordon could see his father's emotion. He found it impossible to utter a word.

"But I thought I would come up before going away and bring you the good news myself, though it is almost like a father who is deposed congratulating the son who is to take his place."

"Don't say that, sir," said Gordon.

"Why shouldn't I? And why should I gird at my fortune? It's strange, nevertheless, how history repeats itself. I came to Egypt to wipe out the misrule of Ismail Pasha, and now, like Ismail, I leave my son behind me."

There was a moment of strained silence and then —

"I have often wondered what took place at that secret meeting between Ismail and Tewfik, when we made the son Khedive and sent the father back to Constantinople. Now I think I know."

The old man's emotion was cutting deep. Gordon could scarcely bear to look at him.

"I wish you well, Gordon, and only hope these people may be more grateful to you than they have been to me. God grant it!"

Gordon could not speak.

"I confess I have no faith in the proposed change. I think all such concessions are so many sops to sedition. I also think that to have raised the masses of a subject race from abject misery to well-being, and then to allow them to fall back to their former condition, as they surely will, and to become the victims of the worst elements among themselves, is not only foolish but utterly wrong and wicked."

The old man rose, and in the intensity of his feelings, began to pace to and fro.

"They talk about the despotism of the One-Man rule," he said. "What about the despotism of their Parliaments, their Congresses, their Reichstags – the worst despotisms in the world. Fools! Why can't they see that the difference between the democracy of Europe and America, and the government proper to the ancient, slavish, and slow-moving civilisation of the East is fundamental?"

The old man's lips stiffened and then he said —

"But perhaps I am only an antiquated person, behind the new age and the new ideas. If so, I'm satisfied. I belong to the number of those who have always thought it the duty of great nations to carry the light of civilisation into dark continents, and I am not sorry to be left behind by the cranks who would legislate for all men alike. Pshaw! You might as well tailorise for all men alike, and put clothes of the same pattern on all mankind."

Again the old man laughed.

"It's part and parcel of the preposterous American doctrine that all men are born free and equal – the doctrine that made the United States enfranchise as well as emancipate their blacks. May the results be no worse in this case!"

There was another moment of strained silence and then the Consul-General said —

"I suppose they'll say the man Ishmael has beaten me."

He made a contemptuous but almost inaudible laugh, and then added, "Let them – they're welcome; time will tell. Anyhow I do not lament. When a man is old his useless life must burn itself out. That's only natural. And after all, I've seen too much of power to regret the loss of it."

Still Gordon could not speak. He was feeling how great his father was in his downfall, how brave, how proud, how splendid.

The old man walked to the window and looked out. with fixed eyes. After a moment he turned back and said —

"All the same, Gordon, I am glad of what has happened for your sake – sincerely glad. You've not always been with me, but you've won, and I do not grudge you your victory. Indeed," he added, and here his voice trembled perceptibly, "I am a little proud of it. Yes, proud! An old man cannot be indifferent to the fact that his son has won the hearts of twelve millions of people, even though – even though he himself may have lost them."

Gordon's throat was hurting him and Helena's eyes were full of tears. The old man, too, was struggling to control his voice.

"You thought Nunehamism wasn't synonymous with patriotism. Perhaps you were right. You believed yourself to be the better Englishman of the two. I don't say you were not. And it may be that in her present mind England will think that one secret withheld from me has been revealed to you – namely, that an alien race can only be ruled by … by love. Yes, I'm glad for your sake, Gordon; and as for me – I leave myself to Time and Fate."

The old man's pride in his son's success was fighting hard with his own humiliation. After a while Gordon recovered strength enough to ask his father what he meant to do in England.

"Who can say?" answered the Consul-General, lifting one hand with a gesture of helplessness. "I have spent the best years of my life in Egypt. What is England to me now? Home? No, exile."

He had moved to the window again, and following the direction of his eyes Gordon could see that he was looking towards the cypress trees which shaded the English cemetery of Cairo.

A deep and profound silence ensued, and, feeling as if his mother's spirit were passing through the room, Gordon dropped his head and tears leapt to his eyes.

It was the first time father and son had been together since the tenderest link that had bound them had been broken, but while both were thinking of this, neither of them could trust himself to speak of it.

"Janet, your dream has come true! How happy you would have been!" thought the Consul-General, while Gordon, unable to unravel the intricacies of his emotions, was saying to himself, "Mother! My sweet mother!"

The last moment came, and it was a very moving one. Up from some hidden depths of the old man's oceanic soul there came a certain joy. In spite of all that he in his blindness had done to prevent it, by the operation of the inscrutable powers that had controlled his destiny, the great hope of his life was about to be realised. Gordon and Helena had been brought together, and as he looked at them, standing side by side when they rose to bid farewell to him, the man so brave and fearless, the girl so beautiful and superb, he thought, with a thrill of the heart, that, whatever might happen to himself – old, worn-out, fallen perhaps, his life ended – yet would his line go on in the time to come, pure, clean, and strong, and the name of Nuneham be written high in the history of his country.

Holding out a hand to each, he looked steadily into their faces for a moment, while he bade his silent good-bye. Not a word, not the quiver of an eyelid. It was the English gentleman coming out top in the end, firm, stern, heroic.

Before Gordon and Helena seemed to be aware of it, the old man was gone, and they heard the rumble of the wheels of his carriage as it passed out of the courtyard.

CHAPTER XVI

At nightfall the great Proconsul left Cairo. He knew that all day long the telegraphic agencies had been busy with messages from London about his resignation. He also knew that after the first thunderclap of surprise the Egyptian population had concluded that he had been recalled – recalled in disgrace, and at the petition of the Khedive to the King.

It did not take him long to prepare for his departure. In the course of an hour Ibrahim was able to pack up the few personal effects – how few! – which during the longest residence gather about the house of a servant of the State.

Perhaps the acutest of his feelings on leaving Egypt came to him as he drove in a closed carriage out of the grounds of the Agency, and looked up for the last time at the windows of the room that used to be occupied by his wife. At that moment he felt something of the dumb desolation which rolls over the strongest souls when, after a lifetime of comradeship, the asundering comes and they long for the voice that is still.

Poor Janet! He must leave all that remained of her behind him under the tall cypress trees on the edge of the Nile. Yet no, not all, for he was carrying away the better part of her – her pure soul and saintly memory – within him. None the less, that moment of parting brought the old man nearer than he had ever been to the sense of tears in mortal things.

The Sirdar had accompanied him, but though the fact of his intended departure had become known, having been announced in all the evening papers, there was nobody at the station to bid adieu to him – not a member of the Khedive's entourage; not one of the Egyptian Ministers, not even any of the Advisers and Under-Secretaries whom he had himself created.

Never had there lived a more self-centred and self-sufficient man, but this fact cut him to the quick. He had done what he believed to be his duty in Egypt, and feeling that he was neglected and forgotten at the end, the ingratitude of those whom he had served went like poison into his soul.

To escape from the sense of it he began to talk with a bitter raillery which in a weaker man would have expressed itself in tears, and seemed indeed to have tears – glittering, frozen tears – behind it.

"Do you know, my dear Reg," he said, "I feel to-night as if I might be another incarnation of your friend Pontius Pilate. Like him, I am being withdrawn, you see, and apparently for the same reason. And – who knows? – perhaps like him too, I am destined to earn the maledictions of mankind."

The Sirdar found the old man's irony intensely affecting, and therefore he made no protest.

"Well, I'm not ashamed of the comparison, if it means that against all forms of anarchy I have belonged to the party of order, though of course there will be some wise heads that will see the finger of Heaven in what has happened."

The strong man, with his fortunes sunk to zero, was defiant to the very end and last hour of calamity. But standing on the platform by the door of the compartment that had been reserved for him, he looked round at length and said – all his irony, all his raillery suddenly gone —

"Reg, I have given forty years of my life to those people and there is not one of them to see me off."

The Sirdar tried his best to cheer him, saying —

"England remembers, though, and if – " but the old man looked into his face and his next words died on his lips.

The engine was getting up steam, and its rhythmic throb was shaking the glass roof overhead when Gordon and Hafiz, wearing their military greatcoats, came up the platform. They had carefully timed it to arrive at the last moment. A gleam of light came into the father's face at the sight of his son. Gordon stepped up, Hafiz fell back, Lord Nuneham entered the carriage.

"Well, good-bye, old friend," said the old man, shaking hands warmly with the Sirdar. "I may see you again – in my exile in England, you know."

Then he turned to Gordon and took his outstretched hand. Father and son stood face to face for the last time. Not a word was spoken. There was a long, firm, quivering hand-clasp – and that was all. At the next moment the train was gone.

The Sirdar stood watching it until it disappeared, and then he turned to Gordon, and, thinking of the England the Consul-General had loved, the England he had held high, he said, speaking of him as if he were already dead —

"After all, my boy, your father was one of the great Englishmen."

Gordon could not answer him, and after a while they shook hands and separated. The two young soldiers walked back to the Citadel, through the native streets. The "Nights of the Prophet" were nearly over, and the illuminations were being put out.

Hafiz talked about the Khedive – he had just arrived at Kubbeh; then about Ishmael – the Prophet had shut himself up in the Chancellor's house and was permitting nobody to see him.

"His Highness has asked Ishmael to be Imam to-morrow morning, but it is thought that he is ill – it is even whispered that he is going mad." said Hafiz.

Gordon did not speak until they reached the foot of the hill. Then he said —

"I must go up and lie down. Good-night, old fellow! God bless you!"

CHAPTER XVII

Half-an-hour earlier, Gordon's guard, now transformed into his soldier servant, had been startled by the appearance of an Egyptian, wearing the flowing white robes of a Sheikh, and asking in almost faultless English for Colonel Lord.

"The Colonel has gone to the station to see his lordship off to England, but I'm expecting him back presently," said the orderly.

"I'll wait," said the Sheikh, and the orderly showed, him into Gordon's room.

"Looks like a bloomin' death's-head! Wonder if he's the bloomin' Prophet they're jawrin' about!"

Since coming into Cairo Ishmael had been a prey to thoughts that were indeed akin to madness. Perhaps he was seized by one of those nervous maladies in which a man no longer belongs to himself. Certainly he suffered the pangs of heart and brain which come only to the purest and most spiritual souls in their darkest hours, and seem to make it literally true that their tortured spirits descend into hell.

Now that his anxiety for his followers was relaxed and their hopes had in some measure been realised, his mind swung back to the sorrowful decay and ruin that had fallen upon himself. It was no longer the shame of the prophet but the bereavement of the man that tormented him. His lacerated heart left him no power of thinking or feeling anything but the loss of Helena.