Burning Sands Part 46

[Ill.u.s.tration: _A SCENE FROM THE PHOTOPLAY-BURNING SANDS_]

They found the Sheikh lying upon a couch in the whitewashed upper room, into which the sun struck through the open cas.e.m.e.nts. He was propped up upon the hard square pillows taken from an ordinary native divan, and his laboured breathing sounded ominously in their ears. His son Ibrahim, a grave, black-bearded man of middle age, stood by his side, drumming the fist of one hand into the palm of the other in his great distress.

"See," said Daniel, speaking to the patient in Arabic, "I have brought her Excellency to nurse you. Let me put this soft pillow under your head; and, look, here is a stove to keep off the chill of night. In two or three days, my father, we shall bring you back to health."

The old man shook his head. "No, my dear," he whispered, "I am going to my G.o.d. G.o.d has said, 'I am a hidden treasure. I have made man that he might find Me!' I go now to find Him."

Daniel knelt down by his side, and, taking the thin hand in his, remained silent for some moments, his eyes shut, his brows knitted.

Muriel watched him in surprise. It was evident that he was praying; and she had never before seen anybody pray, though in church she had known people go through the correct postures and outward formalities of prayer.

Presently he rose to his feet, and at once became businesslike and practical. He took the patient's temperature; dexterously pinned the native shawl about him; arranged the pillows under his head; opened a bottle of meat-extract and administered a little of its contents; and, sending for milk and eggs, made Muriel go out on the rickety landing to beat up the eggs into the milk.

When she returned with the beverage she found that he and Ibrahim had fastened gra.s.s matting across the windows to check the glare of the sun, and now were standing in the subdued light talking in quiet cheerful tones to the sick man.

Presently Daniel turned to her. "I think the best thing you can do," he said, "is to sit beside him and fan away the flies when you see them bothering him."

He handed her a fly-whisk, and placed a small stool beside the couch; and here she sat herself, while her patient closed his eyes and drowsed in some degree of comfort.

They went back to the house for luncheon, and during the meal Daniel told her of the troubles which might ensue in the Oasis if the Sheikh were to die. He spoke of the feud between the sick man's family and that of their rivals; and he explained how Sheikh Ali desired to be succeeded in his office as headman by his son Ibrahim, and that there was a danger of the other party taking advantage of the absence of so many of the Sheikh's adherents, who had gone to El Khargeh.

"If Sheikh Ali dies," he pointed out, "the other faction may carry out a _coup_, and establish their candidate in power while all these men are away. That would be a disaster; for the man they wish to set up is a crook, if ever there was one. He would be just the sort of fellow to play into Benifett Bindane's hands and sell himself to the Company."

"But," said Muriel in surprise, "aren't you in favour of this Company?"

"No," he answered. "I have come to the conclusion that it is not in the best interests of the natives. They are happier as they are, for their products are sufficient to their needs, and are pretty evenly distributed. I don't trust these Stock Exchange fellows: they'll exploit the Oasis to fill their own pockets. That's what I'm going to tell your father when I get back to Cairo."

"Poor Mr. Bindane!" Muriel smiled. "He has set his heart on this business."

In the afternoon they returned to the sick-room, where she made herself very useful, and showed a remarkable apt.i.tude for nursing; and the sun was setting before they came back to the house once more. Muriel was very tired by now, and as soon as the evening meal was over Daniel advised her to go to bed.

"What about yourself?" she asked.

"Oh, I'll go back to him for a bit," he answered, but he would not accept her proffered help.

She therefore went early to her room and soon fell asleep, nor did she awake again until Hussein aroused her at sunrise with his clattering preparations for her bath.

She found herself alone at breakfast, and it was explained to her by signs that Daniel was with Sheikh Ali. Presently, therefore, she went down to the sick man's house, a little ashamed of herself for not having risen earlier.

As she entered the upper room she caught sight of Daniel's face, and its expression of weary sorrow checked her. He was seated beside the couch, his hand on the patient's pulse, his eyes fixed upon the old man, who lay panting for breath, the beads of perspiration upon his wrinkled forehead.

"Is there anything I can do?" she whispered.

He raised his head and gazed at her: she had never seen him look so haggard before. "No," he answered, "he is beyond human aid. It's only a question of minutes now."

"I ought to have come to help you sooner," she said. "How long have you been here?"

"All night," he replied. "I couldn't leave my _friend_, could I?" There was something in the inflection of his voice which very much touched her.

The Sheikh turned his head slightly, and Daniel bent forward to catch the laboured words.

"Ibrahim," he whispered.

Muriel understood, and, at a nod from Daniel, went out of the room to find the dying man's son, whom she had seen at the doorway of the house, on her arrival, kneeling upon the praying-carpet, his hands extended towards the East. He had just risen to his feet as she came now to him, and she made signs to him to go upstairs.

When she entered the sick room once more she saw the younger man kneeling beside his father's couch. Daniel was holding the feeble old hand, so that it rested upon Ibrahim's turbaned head. She heard and seemed almost to understand the whispered words of the old man's blessing, and presently, to her surprise, she observed the tears start from Daniel's eyes, and their quick brushing away, with the back of his hand. She had not thought him capable of tears.

Then suddenly she saw the dying man raise himself; she saw Daniel and Ibrahim leaning forward to support him. She heard the rattling of his breath, and she recognized the words that he uttered as those of the Moslem formula which Daniel had more than once repeated to her: "I testify that there is no G.o.d but G.o.d...." They came rolling now from his lips with pa.s.sionate energy: it was as though the sum of his whole life were being expressed in these guttural, rhyming sounds. But the declaration remained unfinished. The voice ceased upon the name of Allah, the mouth dropped open, and the patriarchal head fell back.

Muriel had only once before stood at a deathbed; and later, as she walked back to the monastery, she compared the scene of her mother's death with that from which she had just come.

In the one case there had been the big four-poster bed, with its hangings of embroidered velvet; the sombre room, lit by a shaded bedside lamp and by the flickering of the fire in the wide Tudor grate; the tapestried walls with their designs of dim huntsmen pursuing phantom deer through the time-worn twilight of forgotten forests; the faded Jacobean painting upon the ceiling, representing the fat back-view of a reclining Venus and the fat front-view of naked Cupid. There had been the pompous family doctor and the frigid specialist in their black frock coats, and in the bed, between the embroidered sheets, her mother had lain inert, her dyed hair, tidy to the end, framing her carefully powdered face.

"Come here, my dear," she had whispered to Muriel. "Tell me, do you believe in a G.o.d?"

"Yes, I think I do," she had replied.

"Well, I don't," was her mother's reply; and those were almost her last words.

And, in contrast, there was this patriarchal scene in the bare, whitewashed room, the sun beating upon the gra.s.s matting, the palms rustling outside, and the flies droning: the old, saintly face of the dying man, his withered hand laid upon the head of his beloved son, and the fervent affirmation of his faith in G.o.d upon his lips.

Muriel was in a very subdued and reflective mood when she returned, and as she stood at the window of the living-room, listening to the wailing of the mourners in the distance, she wondered how best she could show her sympathy with Daniel in his loss, without in other respects unbending to him. He relieved her of the difficulty, however, when he came in; for he showed no outward signs of his grief, and seemed in no wise to be asking for her condolence. He spoke of the beauty of the Sheikh's life, and of the serenity of his death; and when Muriel made some remark in regard to the sadness of the event he quietly corrected her.

"Death," he said, "is not a calamity when a man has reached old age. It is like the ripeness of corn, as Marcus Aurelius says, when the soul drops out of the husk almost of its own accord. It is a natural action, just as birth is. It is only we who are left behind who are unhappy-because we have lost a friend; and as for that, why, I am not going to let my loss make me wretched."

"That sounds extremely selfish," she remarked, coldly.

"No," he answered, "sorrow is selfish, not happiness. There's never any use in pulling a long face."

CHAPTER x.x.x-THE REVOLT

The funeral took place next morning, as is the native custom, and it was during the great gathering of the Sheikh's friends that the adherents of the opposing faction made their feared _coup_. The event, and its serious consequences for Muriel and Daniel, was upon them so quickly that there was no time for preparation or retreat.

Muriel had not gone to the funeral, and she was sitting quietly writing in the living-room when Daniel flung open the door.

"Quick!" he said. "Get ready to start at once. Leave your dressing-case: you just want your water-bottle and a tin or two of food from the cupboard. We've got to ride like the wind. I'm just going to get the camels."

She stared at him in amazement as he hastened away, and thought how extremely inconsiderate he was; but the realization that her extraordinary fortnight with him was now at an end led her to obey his instructions with alacrity. She was soon ready, but for some time she waited impatiently for his reappearance.

At last he came in, this time slowly and with careful serenity.

"I'm afraid the journey's off," he said.

Muriel was angry, and she tapped her foot sharply on the floor. "Oh, you're impossible!" she exclaimed. "I'm all ready to start, and now you say you're not going."