CHAPTER IX
Early that morning Abdullah had entered Ishmael's room while the Master was still sleeping, for a messenger from Metimmeh, coming by train, had brought an urgent letter.
Ishmael read the letter and rose immediately, and when Helena met him in the guest-room half-an-hour afterwards, she saw that he was excited and disturbed.
"Rani," he said, "I have been thinking about our plan and have certain doubts about it. Better let it rest for a few days at all events."
Helena asked why, and she was told that a stranger was coming whose counsel might be wise, for he knew Cairo, the Government, and the Egyptian army, and he had asked Ishmael to wait until he arrived before committing himself to any course.
"Who is he?" she asked.
"One who loves the people and has suffered sorely for his love of them."
"What is his name?"
"They call him Sheikh Omar Benani."
At that moment she learned no more than that the stranger was a Bedouin chief of great fame and influence, that he had rested at Metimmeh the night before, but was now coming on to Khartoum as fast as a camel could carry him.
"He may be here to-night, to-morrow at latest," said Ishmael, "so let us leave things where they are until our brother arrives."
This news threw Helena into a fever of excitement. She saw the possibility of her scheme coming to nought. The Bedouin who was now on his way might destroy it.
She was afraid of this Bedouin. If he knew Cairo, the Government, and the Egyptian army, he must also know that the plan which Ishmael had proposed to himself was impossible. That being so, he would advise Ishmael against it. His influence with Ishmael would be greater than her own, and as a consequence her plan would fail. Then all she had hoped for, all she had come for, all she had sacrificed so much for, would be lost and wasted.
What was she to do? There was only one thing possible – to cause Ishmael to commit himself to her plan before the Bedouin arrived in Khartoum.
Again fate assisted her. The same train that brought the Bedouin's letter brought another messenger from Cairo. He was an immensely tall Dinka, who had been employed to avert suspicion. As soon as he was alone with Ishmael and his household he slipped off his sandal and tearing open the undersole produced a very small letter.
It was from the Ulema of El Azhar, and gave further particulars of the forthcoming festivities, with one hint of amazing advice that certainly could not have come from men of the world.
The Consul-General had decided to give his annual dinner in honour of the King's Birthday not as usual at the British Agency, but in the Pavilion of the Ghezirah Palace, on the island in front of the city. All the authorities would be there that night, housed under one roof. The British army would still be in the provinces, and the Egyptian army alone would be left in defence of the town. Therefore, to prevent the possibility of bloodshed, there was only one thing to do – turn the key on the Pavilion, in order to imprison the persons in command, and then open the bridge that crossed the Nile, that Ishmael's following, with the consent of the native soldiers, might enter Cairo unopposed!
It was a plot whereof the counterpart could only have been found in the history of Abu Moslim and "Al Mansour," and perhaps for that reason alone it took Ishmael's heart by storm. But it required immediate confirmation, for if the secret scheme was to be carried out, the arrangements were matters of urgency and the reply must be received at once.
There were some moments of tense silence after Ishmael had read the letter, for already he had begun to hesitate, to talk again of waiting for the Bedouin, who knew Egypt better than any one in the Soudan, and was wise and brave and learned in war. But, Helena, seeing her advantage, began to speak, with a flushed face and a trembling tongue, of the train that was to leave Khartoum for Cairo that morning, and of the interval of four days before the departure of another one.
"There can be no time to lose," she said, with a stifling sense of duplicity, "especially if the Ulema are to arrange for your own arrival as well."
At length Ishmael, no longer the man he used to be, strong above all in common-sense, but an enthusiast living in a world of dream, was swept away by the Ulema's scheme. Seeing only one sure way to avoid bloodshed – that of shutting up the British officials in the midst of their festivities while the bridge that crossed the Nile was opened and his followers took peaceful possession of the city – he called on Helena to write his reply. It ran: —
"To his Serenity the Chancellor of El Azhar, from the slave of God, Ishmael Ameer: Good news! In the interests of peace I agree, though liking not for other reasons your plan of imprisoning Pharaoh and his people in their Pavilion lest it should be said of us, 'Behold the true believer resorts to the tricks of the infidels, who trust not in the good arm of God' – praise be to Him, the Exalted One!
"Nevertheless, I send you this word of greeting, giving my consent and saying, 'Shortly I go down to Cairo myself to call upon our brothers under arms to our very great Lord, the Khedive, to refuse, when the day of our deliverance comes, to shed the blood of the children of the Most High.'"
Having dictated this letter, and added the usual Arabic salutations, he signed it, and then, full of a fresh enthusiasm, he went off to mid-day prayers in the mosque, where with greater fervour than before he delivered his new message about the coming of the end.
Helena was now alone, for the Dinka had gone in with Abdullah to eat and to rest. The signed letter lay before her, and she knew that her time had come. In great haste she made a copy of the letter, and without waiting to think what she was doing she added Ishmael's name to it. Then, hiding the original in her bosom, she called for the Dinka, gave him the copy, and hurried him off to the train, which was leaving immediately. After that, with a sense of mingled shame and triumph, she wrote to the Consul-General. Her excitement was so great that she could hardly hold the pen or frame coherent sentences. This was what she wrote: —
"DEAR LORD NUNEHAM. – You will remember that in the letter I wrote to you before I left Cairo I told you that I should write again, and that when I wrote, your enemy and mine and Gordon's as well as England's and Egypt's would be in your hands.
"I am now fulfilling my promise, and you shall judge for yourself whether I am justifying my word. Ishmael Ameer, at the instigation of the Ulema, is about to return to Cairo. His object is to organise a mutiny among the soldiers of the Egyptian army, so that a vast multitude of his followers, coming behind him, may take possession of the city.
"This is to be done during the forthcoming festivities, and it is to reach its climax on the night of the King's Birthday. Proof enclosed. It is the original of a letter to the Chancellor of El Azhar, a copy having been sent instead.
"Ishmael will travel by train – probably within a week – and he will wear the disguise of a Bedouin Sheikh. I leave you to wait and watch for him.
"Did I not say I was not idly boasting? In haste, —
"HELENA GRAVES.
"P.S.– I send this by my boy Mosie. Please keep him in Cairo until you hear from me again."
When she had finished her letter she paused for a moment and looked fixedly before her. Although she said nothing her lips moved as if she were interrogating the empty air. She was asking herself again, "Am I cruel and revengeful and vindictive?" And she was replying to herself as she had replied before: "If so, I cannot help it. I have lost my father and I have lost Gordon and I am alone and my heart is torn."
Strengthened by this thought she took Ishmael's letter from her bosom and folded it inside her own. But while she was in the act of putting both into an envelope she paused again, for a new and more startling memory had flashed upon her. It was the memory of the marks upon her father's throat, and of the missing finger-print which had somehow formed so fatal an evidence of Ishmael's guilt.
How had it happened that she had forgotten this fact until now – that during all the time she had been in Khartoum she had never once remembered to verify it – that even at the moment she could not say whether the third finger of Ishmael's left hand was intact or not?
But no matter! It was not a fact of the greatest consequence, and in any case she had gone too far to think of it now.
She sealed her envelope and addressed it and then called for Mosie. The black boy came running at the sound of her agitated voice.
"Mosie," she said in a breathless whisper, "you have always said that you loved me so much that you would lay down your life for me." The black boy showed his shining white teeth as if from ear to ear. "Do you think you could find your way back to Cairo alone and deliver a letter to the English lord?"
"Let lady try me," said Mosie, who was ablaze with excitement in an instant.
Then she told him how he was to go – by train to Haifa, by Government boat to Shellal, by train again from Assouan to his journey's end, travelling always in compartments occupied by natives. She also gave him strict injunctions against speaking to any one, either in Khartoum or on the way, or in Cairo until he came to the British Agency. There he was to ask for the Consul-General and give into his hands – his only – her private letter.
"The train leaves in half-an-hour, Mosie, so you'll have to be quick," she whispered.
"Yes, lady, yes, yes," said Mosie at every word, and in his eagerness to be gone he almost snatched the letter out of her hand.
"No, give me one of your sandals," she said, and when he had whipped it off she took her scissors and lifting the inner sole she hid her letter underneath.
Then she hurried into her room, and returning with a small canvas bag, which contained nearly all the money she had left in the world, she gave it to the black boy and sent him off.
CHAPTER X
After that she sat down, for her heart was beating violently and she could scarcely breathe. At the same moment she caught sight of her face in a hand-glass that stood on the table at which she wrote, and the features looked so strange that they scarcely seemed to be her own.
If anybody with the eye of the spirit could have gazed at that moment into the deepest recesses of her soul – harder to look into than the obscurity of the sea – he would have seen a battlefield of contending passions. She was reflecting for the first time on the whole meaning of what she had done. She had condemned Ishmael Ameer to death! Or at least, at the very least, to lifelong imprisonment in Damietta or Torah!
When she put it so the furnace of her conscience seemed to consume her, and in order to live with herself she had to oppose that thought with thoughts of Gordon – Gordon gone, she knew not where, an exile, an outcast, his brilliant young life wasted, never to be seen again.
This relieved the riot in her brain, and to ease her heart still further she made herself believe that what she had done had not been to revenge herself but to avenge Gordon, whom Ishmael's evil influence had destroyed.
"Serve him right," she thought. "Let him go to Damietta! What better does he deserve?"
At that moment Ayesha, Ishmael's little daughter, came running with bare feet into the house, and seeing Helena she leapt into her arms and kissed her. The kiss of the child seemed like a blow – it made her dizzy.
At the next moment, while Ayesha was mumbling affectionate play-words which Helena did not hear, and Zenoba, the Arab nurse, stood beating her impatient foot upon the floor, there came from outside the murmur of a crowd. It was the crowd of Ishmael's followers, bringing him home from the mosque.
They were calling upon God and His Prophet to bless him, touching his white caftan as if it were divine and virtue were coming out of him.
He dismissed them with words of rebuke – gentler and more indulgent than before, perhaps – and, entering the house, he called for food.
A few minutes afterwards Ishmael and Helena and old Mahmud were sitting in the guest-room together, drinking new milk and eating soft bread.
"But where is your boy, O Rani?" asked Ishmael, who missed the great fan of ostrich feathers.
Helena made a halting excuse. Mosie had been troublesome – she had sent him back to where he came from – Cairo.
"Cairo?" asked the Arab woman, with a glance of suspicion.
Helena looked confused, but Ishmael saw nothing. He was more than usually excited, enthusiastic, and full of great hopes. After a while he talked of the Bedouin who was coming.
"Our brother is not, in fact, a Bedouin," he said.
"Not a Bedouin?"
"Neither is he a Moslem. He is a Christian and indeed an Englishman."
"An Englishman?"
"All yes, but he is one who loves the Moslems, and has gone through shame and degradation rather than do them a wrong."
Helena was afraid to ask further questions. She could only listen, terrified by a vague apprehension.
"Truly, O lady, he who loveth all the children of God, him God loveth," said Ishmael. "This brave man was a soldier, and if he has suffered rather than do an evil act will God forget him? No!"
Helena shuddered. The idea that was taking shape in her mind seemed incredible. Ishmael was speaking in the softest tones, yet his voice seemed like the subterranean sounds that precede great shocks of earthquake.
"He is coming. Be good to him, my Rani. If we could take his heart out and weigh it we should find it gold."
Helena was struck with a sort of stupor. "Am I dreaming?" she asked herself. "What am I thinking about?" It was one of those mysterious moments on the eve of the great events of life, when murmurs come from we know not where.
The long hours of that day passed in a sort of dark confusion. At last the sun set, and the moon rose over the desert, the golden tropical moon in the purple of the Eastern sky, and lit up the wilderness of sand as with a softer sun.
It grew late and Helena rose to go to her room. As she did so she almost fell from dizziness, and Ishmael helped her to the door of the women's quarters. She had seen his lustrous eyes upon her with the expression that had made her tremble on the night of the betrothal, but again, in the same scarcely audible voice, he said —
"God give you a good morning!" and putting, for the first time, his lips to her hand he went away.
When she was alone a long hour passed in silence. The bedroom was in a state of perfect calm, yet a frightful tumult was going on in her brain. Could it be possible that he who was coming was —
No! The wild irony of that thought was too terrible.
That at the very moment when she thought she was avenging Gordon for the injury he had suffered at the hands of Ishmael – that at that moment, by some sinister eccentricity of destiny, he … he, himself —
In the midst of her hideous pain a sweet and joyous sound fell upon her ear. It was the voice of the child, who had awakened for a moment from her peaceful sleep.
"Will you not come into bed, Rani?"
"Yes, yes, dear, presently," she answered, and at the next moment the child's equal and tranquil breathing, so gentle, so calm, fell on her ear again.
Innocence is the most formidable of all spectacles that can confront an uneasy conscience, and when at length Helena got into bed, and the child, in the blind mists of sleep, nestled up to her, she had to justify herself by thinking that in everything she had done, everything she had tried to do, she had been moved by incidents of the most irresistible provocation.
"After all, he killed my father," she thought.
But nevertheless she felt again, as she was dropping off to sleep, that she was falling, falling, falling over the edge of a yawning precipice.