Afterwards Part 51

"In that case I'll go at once," said Sir Richard more briskly. "Which is the better horse? Yours, I think--and if so I'll take it and hurry back to Cairo. But first let's have a look at the provisions--I'm a tough old fellow and can do without a lot of stuff, but I daren't risk failing on the way. Luckily we are lavishly provided."

Hearing this speech the Arab smiled gleefully and produced from some mysterious recess in his robe a square package, tied with string, and handed it, still smiling, to Sir Richard, who took it with a rather mystified expression.

"It's food--what you call grub," explained Ha.s.san proudly. "The ladees make it--say it carry the Effendi back to _le Caire_"--in common with many Arabs he gave the city its French name--"and it _good_ grub too!"

Sir Richard slipped the packet into his pocket with a rather uncertain smile, and turned to the matter of transit without loss of time.

Anstice's horse was the fresher of the two, and it was decided that Sir Richard should start at once, and when at a safe distance dismount and rest until moonrise, after which the night hours might profitably be spent in journeying onwards, since night-riding in the desert is infinitely preferable to riding by day.

"With luck you should make Cairo very early on the day after to-morrow,"

said Anstice, who had been making a calculation. "And if you could get started again without loss of time you could be here in just under three days. But that would mean hard riding, I'm afraid----"

"I'm pretty tough," said Sir Richard again. "And after all you'll have the harder part. I suppose"--he turned to Ha.s.san--"I suppose there is no possibility of getting help nearer than Cairo--no village or settlement to which I might apply?"

No, Ha.s.san opined, it was of no use seeking help elsewhere. The one or two native villages within call were quite inadequate to render a.s.sistance, and to apply to them would be a loss of time which would have no practical result.

When once Sir Richard was a.s.sured of the impossibility of procuring help nearer than Cairo he wasted no further time in discussion, but mounted his horse with a businesslike air and proceeded to take leave of Anstice with a heartiness which but thinly disguised his real and gnawing anxiety.

"I will make all possible speed," he said, as he settled himself st.u.r.dily in his saddle. "And with luck three days should see me back. In the meantime"--for a moment his voice faltered, but he pulled himself together pluckily--"I leave my girl in your care. And I know"--Sir Richard spoke very slowly--"I know you will guard her, if need be, with your life...."

"Thank you for your trust, Sir Richard." In Anstice's hand-grip Sir Richard read the measure of his resolve. "I will not fail you--nor your daughter--so long as I am alive."

Sir Richard wrung his hand, tried to speak, and failed, utterly, to articulate a syllable. But the look which the two men exchanged spoke more eloquently than words, and Sir Richard, as he rode away on his mission, knew that so far as mortal man might compa.s.s success his daughter's safety was a.s.sured at this man's hands.

When Sir Richard had ridden away, sitting squarely in his saddle, with never a backward look, Anstice turned to Ha.s.san.

"Now," he said, "how do we proceed? I mean"--he remembered that the man understood little English--"do we go straight back to the village--and what do we do with this horse?"

Ha.s.san's explanation was necessarily somewhat unintelligible, being couched in a polyglot mixture of French and English, with a few words of Arabic thrown in, but by dint of patient inquiry Anstice presently made out the drift of his involved speech. Briefly, his plan was as follows.

It would be useless, so Ha.s.san a.s.serted, to attempt to return to the village and enter the Fort until darkness covered the land. The Bedouins, it seemed, already surrounded the place so that Ha.s.san's escape had been a matter of some difficulty, and it would be necessary to proceed cautiously, with careful strategy, in order to re-enter the place in safety.

When once it was comparatively dark--if possible before the moon rose--the attempt must be made; and in the meantime Ha.s.san considered the wisest thing to do was to shelter somewhere and rest in preparation for the evening's adventures.

The horse, he decided, must be turned loose outside the village. The Bedouins, as he pointed out, would be likely to snap up readily a horse of such good appearance, and in any case Ha.s.san was plainly of the opinion that a horse's existence was of very little importance when graver matters were at stake.

Although, as an Englishman, Anstice was inclined to rate the horse's value as a living creature more highly than the Arab was disposed to do, he saw the reason of the plan, and agreed to follow Ha.s.san's advice in every particular.

Having come to this wise resolve, he invited Ha.s.san to choose a place where the time of waiting might be pa.s.sed, and the native deciding on a little sandy hollow between two low, round-backed hills, he proceeded to ensconce himself more or less comfortably on the loose and drifting sand, and prepared to endure the waiting-time with what patience he might.

CHAPTER III

"Dr. Anstice! Is it really--_you_?"

Iris stood opposite to him with an expression of wondering surprise in her wide grey eyes, and as he held her hand in his Anstice noted the beating of a little blue vein in her temple--a sure sign, with this girl, of some inward agitation which could not be altogether concealed.

"Yes. It is really I." Although he spoke calmly he was to the full as agitated as she, and he could not keep his eager eyes from studying her face, in which he found a dozen new beauties for which their separation had not prepared him. She was a little thinner than he remembered her, but the African sun had kissed her fine skin so warmly that any pallor which might well distinguish her in these troublous days was effectually disguised.

With an effort he relinquished her hand and spoke with well-simulated indifference.

"It was by the merest chance that Sir Richard and I met in Port Said,"

he said. "I was taking a holiday--the first I've had for years"--he smiled--"and was only too glad to see a familiar face in a strange land."

"And you have given up your holiday to come to our help," she said in a low voice. "You don't know how thankful I am to see you--but for your own sake I wish you had not come."

"That's rather unkind," he said, with a smile. "Here have I been flattering myself that you would welcome me--well, warmly--and you as good as tell me I am not wanted!"

"Indeed I did not mean that." She too smiled, but quickly grew grave again. "If you only knew _how_ glad I am to see you. We--we are in rather a bad way here, you know, Dr. Anstice, and--and your help will be valuable in more ways than one."

"I hope it may prove so," he said. Anstice and Ha.s.san had made a perilous, but successful, entry into the little Fort, pursued, it is true, by a shower of bullets, for the Bedouins were armed with a strange collection of weapons, ranging from antique long-barrelled guns to modern rifles. "May I see him at once? The sooner the better, as I am here at last."

"Yes. I want you to see him as soon as possible." Iris hesitated, and in her eyes was the shadow of a haunting dread. "You will find him very ill, I am afraid. We have done what we could--Mrs. Wood has been splendid--but he doesn't seem to get any better. Of course in ordinary circ.u.mstances we should not have dared to move him, but we had to do it, and I am sure it has been very bad for him."

"Well, we must see what we can do now," said Anstice in as rea.s.suring a tone as he could muster. "Where is he? On this floor, I suppose?"

"Yes. Next door. One of the rooms which the artist used is furnished, more or less, as a bedroom, and it is fairly comfortable. The other rooms--this and the ones downstairs--are almost empty except for a few chairs and a kind of bench we use for a table."

"I see." Anstice looked round the room, noting the rough stone walls, the ancient, uneven floor, uncovered by so much as a piece of matting; and then his glance returned to the large modern window which looked so incongruous in its mediaeval setting.

The room into which a moment later Iris showed him was of the same shape and size as the one they had just quitted; and boasted the second of the windows which might, were help too long delayed, prove the undoing of the little garrison. It was, however, roughly furnished, though it was evident that the Frenchman, for all his reputed wealth, had been no Sybarite by inclination. The bed was of a common pattern, and the few other things scattered about on the scantily matted floor were of the most primitive description.

As a room for an invalid the apartment certainly left much to be desired; but Anstice did not waste time over his surroundings. He moved quickly towards the bed; and stood looking down upon the man who lay thereon in silence.

And as he looked at the wreck of the once gallant Bruce Cheniston, his heart sank within him; for if ever Death had printed his sign-manual on a living man's face, it was written here too legibly for even an untrained eye to miss its significance.

Cheniston was wasted to a shadow by fever and suffering. From his haggard face his sunken eyes looked out with an expression of anguish which was surely mental as well as physical; and though he evidently recognized his visitor, he was too weak to do more than move one fleshless hand an inch or two towards Anstice by way of greeting.

Hiding the shock Cheniston's appearance had given him as well as he might, Anstice sat down beside the bed and took the painfully thin hand in his own.

"Cheniston, I'm sorry to see you in such a bad way." He spoke very gently, his eyes on the other's face the while. "It was hard luck falling ill out here--but I've brought up several things from Cairo that will give you relief in no time."

Over Cheniston's face flitted the ghost of a smile; and his voice, when he replied, gave Anstice a fresh shock, so thready and devoid of all tone was it.

"Thanks--very much--Anstice." He spoke slowly, with s.p.a.ces between the words. "I'm very ill--I know--I think I'm going--to peg out--but I can't bear--to think--of Iris."

He stopped, quite exhausted by the effort of speech; and Anstice, more moved than he cared to show, laid the thin hand back on the bed, and took his patient's temperature, his heart sinking still lower as he read the thermometer's unimpeachable testimony.

Strive as he might, he could not rid himself of a fear that Bruce Cheniston's earthly race was ran; and catching sight of Iris' face as she stood on the opposite side of the bed, he felt, with a quick certainty, that she too realized that only by a miracle could her husband be restored to the health and vigour to which his young manhood surely ent.i.tled him.

"Come, Cheniston," he said presently, in answer to Bruce's last words, "you mustn't talk of pegging out. You have been bad, I can see that, but you know dozens of travellers in Egypt enjoy a taste of enteric and come through it as good as new. You got this through drinking polluted water, I understand?"

"Yes." Bruce smiled, haggardly, once more. "Too bad, wasn't it, that after playing with water ever since I came out here it should turn on me in the end. Serves me right--for--trusting an Arab--I suppose."