For Fortune and Glory Part 17

The Fakir's Oasis was less than an hour's ride off for a good camel.

Harry, when some water was poured down his throat, showed decided signs of life, though not regaining consciousness. He was lifted on the camel, and carried forward, his property being scrupulously respected with one exception. The leader of the party considered that, as he was an invalid, and therefore, for the time being, a non-combatant, he could have no immediate use for a Remington rifle, or the cartridges belonging to it, and these he therefore made free to borrow for an indefinite period. It was a small fee for him to pay, after all, for his life.

The oasis they were taking him to was one not known to European travellers, and indeed but few native merchants were aware of its existence, for it was out of the usual caravan routes to El Obeid, from which place it was not more than two hours' journey distant. It was a little patch of fertility in the midst of a plain of undulating sand, and appeared a hundred-fold more luxuriant from the contrast. There was actual herbage on which some goats were feeding; a small patch was even under cultivation, and corn grown there. Fine acacias lent a grateful shade, but not equal to that afforded by a splendid fig-tree which overhung a deep cool well.

The oasis received its name from its having long been the residence of a fakir who was accounted a sort of prophet, and commanded great reverence. His successor, Abdul Achmet, who now lived there, was also in high esteem among the followers of the Mahdi, to whose cause he had given his adherence.

There were three houses, all inhabited by priests or dervishes, of whom Abdul was the chief, and a small mosque, all built of sun-dried bricks, which, retaining the look of clay, are habitually termed by European travellers _mud_. But this gives rather a false impression, as a mud hut properly consists of wattles with mud plastered all over them, which is a different thing from one regularly built, though the bricks are sun-dried instead of being baked in a kiln. What is the use of having a tropical sun if you do not make it do some fire-work for you beyond nearly roasting you to death?

Abdul Achmet received the party, several of whom he knew, under the shade of his fig-tree. Harry Forsyth was carefully handed down from the camel and laid before the dervish, and the signet-ring was shown to him.

Whereupon he said that it was quite right to bring him on to him, and that he would take care of him; and he had him carried into his house and attended to.

The travellers watered themselves and their camels, and were then treated to dates, pipes, and coffee. They rested thus in the oasis, and benefited, it is to be hoped, by the companionship of their clerical entertainers, till the hottest part of the day was pa.s.sed, and then, once more mounting their camels, went on their way to El Obeid--an easy march for the evening.

Days pa.s.sed before Harry Forsyth was conscious of anything; then for weeks he had no sense of life but pain and weariness, with intervals of blissful rest. He had no doctor but the first lady who ever practised-- Dame Nature, who sometimes, strange to say, pulls her patients through almost as well as if she had a diploma. But he was well nursed, and there is a great deal in that.

At length there came a time when he knew that people moved about and talked, and that he took food and was very weak; but he did not know where he was, nor cared. He had visions, and half knew they were visions; sometimes these were rather pleasant but more often very much the other way. What was the matter with him? As no medical man diagnosed his case, it is impossible to say, though that he was for some time in a high state of fever we may safely a.s.sume. He had gone through a good deal, and had had a cut through the scalp of his head right down to the skull. At last he woke one day after a long sleep and recognised his nurse, whom he took to be a demon--a very nice, amiable one, with gleaming white teeth, who grinned from ear to ear with pleasure to see him better.

At last it dawned upon him that it was absurd to suppose an evil spirit would sit there fanning the flies away, or would put cooling drinks to his lips; and he jumped abruptly to the opposite conclusion, that there were such things as black angels, and this was one of them. Though perhaps nearer the mark, he was not quite right yet, for his kind and careful nurse was but a negress--a slave from the interior. Black, white, or brown, women are always more patient and tender when anything is really the matter than men, bless them!

It was rather a shame to have called her Fatima, because that leads one to expect rather prettier lips and a fairer complexion; not that this incongruity ever struck Harry, even when he came to know it, which was not for some time yet. For by that time he had come to a.s.sociate his nurse's homely features with all that was pleasant and solacing.

He did not know where he was, nor had he any clear perception of past events. He had been very uncomfortable, and there was a dim impression upon his mind of past misfortunes, but he had no care or curiosity with regard to past or future; he was at ease for the present, and that was all that he felt signified.

One day when he opened his eyes after a doze, expecting to see Fatima, he found in her usual place a tall man, with a long white beard, and s.h.a.ggy white eyebrows, which contrasted curiously with his dark skin, giving him something of an unearthly appearance.

"Oh, long-expected one," he said, when he saw that Harry noticed him, "to whom Allah hath at length restored some degree of understanding, know that you are welcome and among friends. This writing found upon you tells me that you are he of whom the Sheikh Burrachee has often spoken, the Feringhee destined to bring his benighted and hitherto accursed race to the acceptance of the true faith. The sheikh is beyond Om Delgal, far away up the Bahr el Abiad, amongst the heathen whom the All-bountiful One has given to the True Believer for bondsmen. But he will return when the Mahdi--his name be revered--shall need his services. Then shall you join him with renewed health and strength. In the meantime, I, a humble servant of Allah and his Prophet, and one whose eyes have been opened to the divine mission of the Mahdi, which the Turks--may their tongues swell--are slow to receive, even I will expound to you the mysteries of the only True Faith, and from this day forth consider my house, and what poor goods I may possess, as your own."

Harry Forsyth quite followed this speech, and knew that the Sheikh Burrachee alluded to was a relative whom he had seen at some time, and was to rejoin. For anything recalled to him by words he remembered at the time, though it pa.s.sed from his brain the moment afterwards, neither pleasing him nor distressing him. His mind was like a lake, and ideas suggested in any way resembled clouds pa.s.sing rapidly above it, reflected for a minute on the surface, and then gone. It was rather a curious thing that what Arabic he had picked up had not pa.s.sed from him; on the contrary, it sounded more familiar to him than it had done before. Probably that was because of his surroundings at the time of recovering consciousness, and of Arabic being the first sound which fell on his ears.

He replied coherently enough to his fakir host, though his voice was very feeble. He thanked him for his present hospitality, and for the care he had taken of him during his illness, and he expressed the pleasure it would give him to see the Sheikh Burrachee when he came back from the Equator.

And then Fatima brought him food, which he turned to like a baby to its bottle.

From that day Abdul Achmet paid him constant and long visits, reading long pa.s.sages from the Koran, and expounding to him that, as Mahomet had been sent to convert idolaters, and had accomplished his task, so now the Mahdi had been appointed to teach the truth to Europeans and other civilised races. The means to be employed were the same in both cases, and were simple, consisting merely of the extermination of all who would not be convinced.

"The great and indeed only object is the overthrow of infidelity," he explained; "and if all infidels are killed there will no longer be such a thing."

"QED," replied Harry Forsyth, in a tone of a.s.sent which pleased the fakir mightily.

"QED" was not intelligible to him, but it sounded very well indeed, he thought.

Sometimes Harry listened to these long tirades, and sometimes he did not, the latter reception of them being very much more frequent than the former. But he looked politely attentive, and that was sufficient. He was the best listener when Abdul Achmet entered into personal details concerning his heroes, in which he occasionally indulged; as when he told how the Mahdi was brought up as a carpenter at Dongola; how he first came to know of his mission; of the holy men who had taken up his cause; and of his residence and education amongst them. And then he described his miraculous success, and what a boon even in the present life the spread of his authority would be. In proof of which he recounted the extortions and cruelties of the Turks, and how the taxation of the Soudanese was so excessive as to ruin the country itself, while the bribes exacted by the officials who were appointed to rule the country made it impossible to obtain justice. He also waxed very indignant over the unnatural folly and wickedness of those Powers who sought to interfere with the slave trade, which he looked upon as a perquisite provided by Providence for the Arab race. Indeed the fakir showed himself to be a man of some thought and shrewdness, and some people to hear him speak might have fancied that secular interests, such as improving their condition in life by throwing off a burdensome yoke, and maintaining the considerable profits which they derived from imposing such yokes on other people, who happened to be black and to have thick lips, and woolly hair, had something to do with the apt.i.tude shown by the Soudanese to accept the new religion. But Abdul Achmet was an honest fanatic, and neither intended to insinuate this nor thought it.

On the whole, Harry much preferred to hear his black nurse Fatima talk.

She told him about her childhood, when she remembered playing about among trees and in long gra.s.s with other little darkies; and their fright when they heard the lions roar; and how once, when she had wandered away alone, she saw two fiery eyes glaring at her from a bush, and ran home, expecting to be pounced upon and eaten all the way. And she described her parents' hut, with a low entrance, into which the family had to crawl on their hands and knees. Then, while she was still quite little, her tribe declared war against another tribe, and all the young men went out to battle, and were defeated, and fled back to their village to make a last stand in defence of their wives and children.

And she described a night attack, and the horrors of a ma.s.sacre, the burning of the huts, and the carrying off of the younger women, the youths, and children; how they were sold to Arab merchants, and underwent a fearful desert march; and how she cried for her mother at first, but was bought by a man who treated her kindly, and was happy, and forgot her native language and habits. All this she told in a simple, artless way, and when she found that it amused her invalid she repeated it again and again. But his interest did not flag for the repet.i.tion. He was like a little child who has a favourite story, and cries, "Again!" when told it, preferring it to risking a new one, which might not prove so good.

And time flew by, and Harry Forsyth remained in this state of semi- imbecility, free from anxiety about his mother and sister at home, forgetful of all but his animal comforts and the superficial interest he felt in such prattle as this. His bodily health improved before his mental activity; perhaps it was owing to the freedom from worry consequent upon this lethargic state of mind that he was able to pick up some strength.

But he became able to move about and help himself, and wander out to the fig-tree over the well, which the delighted Fatima thought extremely clever of him.

One day, as he sat in his favourite spot, thinking of nothing in particular, a body of hors.e.m.e.n rode up to the oasis, and the leader of it dismounting came up to him, and held out his hand English fashion, though he spoke in Arabic.

"Harry," he said, using the English accent for the name, however, "you remember me?"

Harry looked at him in a troubled way, and pressed his hand on his forehead.

"I told you that you would come to me, for the inward voice, which never errs, declared it to me," he went on. "Struggle as you might, you could not avert your destiny. Our family is called to do a great work. I have commenced it, and it will be yours to complete it. I am growing old, but I can still strike a blow for the cause. May Allah grant me to die when my right arm is powerless: to die on the field of battle, in the moment of victory, with my face to the foe! Yes, you are clearly destined to lead the hosts of Islam. Have you not come out to me alone, leaving home and friends? Have you not traversed the desert without guide, still alone; and though struck down by an unknown hand, have we not met? Have you not miraculously learned the language of the country to which destiny called you? Were you not brought when found, to all appearance dead, to the fakir, Abdul Achmet, the one man of all others I would have directed you to? And the blind fools of Europe would call this chance, as they do everything which they cannot attribute to their own forethought or cunning."

"Yes, I know you," said Harry, at length; "you are my uncle Ralph, the Sheikh Burrachee. But I think I have been ill, and everything is like a dream to me. Were there not a signet-ring, and a paper in a silver case, and jewels of value which you gave me?"

At that instant Abdul Achmet came out of the mosque, and the Sheikh Burrachee advanced to meet him, leaving Harry more bewildered and disturbed in mind than he had been since he was brought to the oasis; and that night he had a relapse of fever. It did not prove serious, however, and when it pa.s.sed away his mind was clearer than before, though he still seemed like one in a dream, and the past events of his life appeared to him as having happened to some one else.

On the morning after his arrival the Sheikh Burrachee left, but some weeks afterwards he returned with an escort and an easy-paced hygeen to take Harry away with him. He took the announcement of the journey with the placid indifference which now characterised him, only at the moment of starting he showed reluctance to part from his black nurse, Fatima.

But whether the sheikh bought her, or only borrowed her, it was arranged that she should go too, and Harry was perfectly reconciled. The hygeen's motions were wonderfully smooth for a camel, and the journey was made easy to him; but still it was trying in his weak state and after so long a confinement.

But it did not last long, and then they reached a town of flat-roofed houses, and entered a s.p.a.cious courtyard with a portico round it, through which were the living-rooms. There were soldiers here and there under this portico, some of them wearing the turban, but the majority having a skull-cap of blue and white on their heads, and a sentry over the gate had one of them too. Those who wore the bernouse, and most of them did, had similar blue and white patches sewn on different parts of it. These were the Mahdi's colours; I don't know why, for he was never a Third Trinity man, and had no right to their blazer. Like his impudence! It is true that the colours were generally in dice, not regularly striped. Some of the soldiers did not show the colours, but that was because they had nothing to put them on unless they painted their bodies. Pa.s.sing through a large room with a divan round it, and pushing aside a curtain at the farther end, you came upon another and smaller court, which was a garden with a fountain in the middle, well filled with date and other palms. There was a portico round this too, and this was destined to be the place where Harry Forsyth was to pa.s.s the greater part of his life for some time, for it was the dwelling or private part of his uncle's establishment.

Crazy renegade as he was, the Sheikh Burrachee had some old ideas of comfort which the wild life he had led had not dissipated, and being a rich man for the country where he was and the people he had adopted, he could indulge any little fancies he had; and he had made his house both handsome and comfortable.

According to the simple ideas of the natives, indeed, he was possessed of enormous wealth, and this reputation went some way towards the superst.i.tious regard in which he was held. This was the place which Harry now entered, and reposing on a divan, low, with soft cushions on it, and close to the portico, he looked upon the green leaves and listened to the trickle of the fountain, while Fatima brought him a gla.s.s of delicious lemonade, squeezed from the fresh-plucked fruit; and the fatigues of the journey were forgotten, and he fell into a long and refreshing sleep. His curiosity, however, had not been one whit aroused; he took everything as a matter of course. Perhaps he was a character in the "Arabian Nights," and not Harry Forsyth at all--who could tell?--all seemed so strange and unreal.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

AN UNEXPECTED MEETING.

Gradually Harry Forsyth came back to real life, as it were. First of all he had an uneasy feeling that something was wrong, but he wanted a word or an event to strike the key-note of his memory. His uncle never spoke of home matters; he was kind, and even affectionate, but was much away. He would come out into the large courtyard in the early morning, mount the horse which was held ready for him with an activity worthy of a much younger man, and scour off at a gallop with a troop of his wild retainers racing behind him. He might come back that evening, or not for a week.

And when he was at home he was very busy, seeing different people, who came and went in a great hurry, and writing despatches, which mounted orderlies, or what answered for such, were always in waiting to carry.

And when they were together he talked of the wild life of the desert; of the sport to be had further up in the Black Country, but never of England.

He spoke Arabic always, even when they were alone, and never lapsed into his native tongue. Yet his face and the tone of his voice disturbed Harry, causing him to make an effort to get his mind clear.

At length, one morning he awoke with a distinct remembrance of his mother and sister, and the knowledge that he was far away from them in a foreign land, and had not had any communication with them for a long time. And he felt a strong desire to relieve their anxiety, and let them know he was alive, and also to have news of them. But he could not remember what he had come to this part of the world for.

He knew that he had wanted to trace his uncle; but why? He had come out to Egypt in the service of a firm of merchants, and the name of the head of it was Williams; he was confident so far. But had he not returned home since then? And why had he sought out his uncle? Surely not on business connected with the firm, and certainly not because he had turned Mohammedan and wanted to live like an ostrich.

A little longer, and his connection with Hicks Pasha's force, and the disastrous termination of that expedition, came clearly back to him; and with it the necessity of keeping silent about the matter, for he now wanted to get away to a civilised place like Cairo, at all events, if not to England. For though he did not know that the British Government had taken up the Egyptian quarrel, and that war had actually been waged between them and the Soudanese in the neighbourhood of the Red Sea, he knew that an officer of the late expedition would be looked upon with suspicion, if not treated as an open enemy.

Neither was he sure how his uncle would bear the disappointment if he found out that he had been in the ranks of his enemies--the Egyptians.

Though he need not have worried himself about that, for the Sheikh Burrachee would only have thought it the method which Destiny had taken to bring him to him.

As Forsyth's mind grew sounder his body kept pace with it, and he was able at last to mount a horse and take short rides; and it amused him to saunter about the bazaar occasionally, though it was not a very extensive or grand one; indeed, the poet who wrote "Man wants but little here below," would have been pleased to see how completely an Arab, as a rule, verifies his theory.

One day he, (Harry, not the poet) was puzzled by some round b.a.l.l.s of a frothy appearance, which he could not make out; could it possibly be soap? What sale could there be for such an article? The shopman might just as well have offered straps and stay-laces to the population around him. But it did not smell like soap, either; indeed, the odour was extremely unpleasant.

"That is not an object worthy of your attention," said the owner of the shop, who sat on a cushion in the midst of his goods. "I have a preparation for the hair which is infallible for restoring it if it falls off from age or sickness, for example, and which is as agreeable to the nose as beneficial to the scalp. Those b.a.l.l.s of mutton fat are only fit for the poor who can afford no better."