The Dash for Khartoum Part 32

"He is mad, Easton; he is a mad n.i.g.g.e.r who has escaped from a lunatic asylum!" Skinner exclaimed. "Don't go near him; perhaps he bites, and you might get hydrophobia. How is this, sentry?" he asked, turning to the soldier, who had come up to the door. "How is it you let this mad n.i.g.g.e.r come in here?"

"I did not see him come in, sir," the sentry said; "he must have slipped in when my back was turned. I saw an officer come in half an hour ago, but I haven't seen anyone else."

"Well, move him out, sentry; prod him up with your bayonet if he won't go."

The sentry was about to enter the tent when Rupert gasped, "That is enough, Skinner; order him out. You will kill me with laughing."

"Clinton!" The word broke from the lips of Easton and Skinner simultaneously, while the sentry almost dropped his rifle in surprise at hearing his officer thus addressed in pure English by the native.

"It is all right, sentry, you can go," Easton said, recovering himself first from his astonishment; and then saying as soon as they were alone: "What on earth does this masquerade mean, Clinton? have you gone out of your mind?"

"Then you think I shall do, Easton?"

"Do!" Easton repeated, the truth dawning upon him. "You don't mean to say that you are going to carry out that scheme you talked about a month since?"

"Indeed I do, Easton. I have obtained the chief's permission. Major Kitchener is making the arrangements for me, and I hope in another three days to be out on the desert again. At any rate you will allow that as far as appearances go I can pa.s.s fairly as a native."

Skinner had not yet spoken. He now walked round and round Rupert two or three times, and at last gave vent to his feelings: "Well, I am jiggered! There is no doubt about your disguise, Clinton, at least if you are Clinton and not a n.i.g.g.e.r who has stolen his voice. Did you ever see such a head of hair, Easton?"

"Never mind that," Easton said impatiently; "don't you understand, man, that Clinton is going away among those Arabs to search for his brother?"

"No, I did not understand; in fact I did not hear a word that was said.

I was too much stunned to do anything but stare. And you are really going, Clinton, old fellow?"

"Yes, I am off to-morrow at daybreak for Korti. There is a good strong breeze blowing, and I shall go up as quickly as I came down. There was a delay of three or four days before we could get hold of the man I am to go with, if he will take me, so I ran down here partly to get some dyes for my skin in the bazaar here, but princ.i.p.ally to say good-bye to you both. My wig, that so astonishes you, Skinner, I had made at Cairo and sent up."

"Well, there is no fear, Clinton, of anyone recognizing you as an Englishman. You may ride in the middle of them from here to Khartoum, and they would never suspect you as far as looks go. You have abandoned that idea about your tongue, I hope?"

"Yes. I have got a bottle of caustic from one of the surgeons. He put me up to it. He says if I see that I am suspected, if I slip aside and rub one of these little sticks of caustic over my tongue it will make such a sight of it that I have only to open my mouth and let them look at it, and they will believe readily enough that I have got some frightful disease in my tongue and cannot use it. In case of necessity I can mumble out a few words, and the state of my mouth will quite account for any difficulty they may have in understanding me."

"Will that stuff you have got on your skin wash off?" Easton asked.

"Yes, this will with a little difficulty; but I have got some other stuff that my interpreter tells me will only want renewing once a week or ten days."

"Then for goodness' sake set to and get it off, Clinton, and put on your own clothes and let us see you again as you are. I don't seem to be able to talk to you naturally in that disguise, and it will be a long time before we get another talk together."

Rupert at once set to work with soap, water, and a nail-brush, and in a quarter of an hour got his face and hands tolerably white. Then he put on his uniform.

"Now you are yourself again, Clinton. Sit down and tell us all about it.

What are your plans?"

Rupert told him the arrangements that Major Kitchener was making for him, and both his companions greatly approved of the purchase of the fast camels. "That is a capital idea, and if you can get a good start with them you may laugh at Arabs who are mounted on ordinary camels or on foot; but you must mind that there are no fellows with horses about when you make your bolt. You see, all these fellows who led the attacks were mounted, and I suppose you will find that a few of the princ.i.p.al men in every large village have horses. Now a horse will go faster than the fastest camel for a bit, although the camel will beat him in a long-distance race. What are you going to do about arms?"

"I cannot take any arms, Easton; they would betray me at once."

"You cannot show any, I grant, but there is no reason in the world why you shouldn't take a brace of revolvers. They could be stowed away easily enough, with a couple of boxes of cartridges, somewhere in the saddle. There is room to hide anything in one of these great clumsy contrivances. Of course pistols would be of no use to you if you are discovered in the middle of a tribe or a big town; but if you find your brother, and you make a bolt for it together on these camels and are pursued, you could make a pretty good fight against half a dozen mounted men, and the betting is against more than that getting together, if you had a revolver apiece. I should advise you most strongly to take them."

"I think you are right, Easton: I will certainly do so."

"Have you got a brace?"

"No, I have only one."

"Then you shall have mine, old fellow. What calibre is yours?"

"45."

"Ah! that is the same as mine. I have got a couple of boxes of cartridges, and as they are done up in india-rubber they are sure to be all right. By the way, is it true that we are all going down? There was a rumour last night that orders had come."

"Yes, we are to retire to Wady Halfa."

"What! and abandon Dongola?"

Rupert nodded.

"Then I call it a beastly shame. More than that, I call it a downright dishonourable action!" Easton said hotly. "Here we are going to abandon a town of some twenty thousand inhabitants to these fanatics. Not only that, but to give up to their vengeance all the tribes between Wady Halfa and Metemmeh who have trusted in our promises, have thrown in their lot with us, and have for the last four months been doing all our transport. Our fathers used to be proud to call themselves Englishmen, but, by Jove, there is very little reason for us to be. That Boer business was shameful and humiliating enough, but this is worse still. I don't say that we are bound to go on to Khartoum, although it would be the best and cheapest and most satisfactory mode in every way of settling this Mahdi and ensuring order in the Soudan; but I do think that we are bound to hold the river from Korti downwards to protect the tribes that have been friendly to us, and to save this town from ruin and desolation. Not only this town, but all the peaceful villages down the river. Besides, so long as we are here the Arabs will see that the Mahdi is not all-powerful, and may sooner or later rise against his tyranny. Well, I never thought this campaign was going to end in the disgraceful abandonment of the Nile Valley from Korti to Wady Haifa.

However," he went on, checking himself suddenly, "it is of no use talking of that now; we have got to think about your expedition, which to us three is a far more important business. How does your Arabic get on?"

"Fairly well. I don't say that I can talk a great deal, but as I have learnt it by ear I speak with a fair accent, at least so Ibrahim says. I have taken particular pains with what you may call salutations, such as one man gives another as they pa.s.s each other on a journey, or what one says on entering a house or a village. I can ask for food all right, return thanks for hospitality, ask the way, and all that sort of thing; and Ibrahim said that in all these things I could pa.s.s very well as a native, especially as there are slight distinctions and differences between the language of the various tribes. They are a very mixed people, of Arab, Egyptian, and Negro blood. So that as far as it goes my language will pa.s.s, and of course every day I travel I shall improve. I intend, as I have said, to pretend to be dumb whenever we come across strong parties of strangers, and my sheik will shield me as much as possible by sending me out to look after the camels and to gather wood and to fetch water, or on other business, whenever we are with strangers. I really think, Easton, I have a very fair chance of getting through it without being found out. Major Kitchener tells me that the sheik only has two or three of his tribesmen with him, and that he has no doubt picked men he can trust to hold their tongues, otherwise he would get into a mess when he went back again among his people. Of course the men will be promised a reward also if I get safely through.

The trouble on my mind is more the difficulty there will be in finding Edgar and getting him off than about myself. In the first place there is no saying as to the direction in which the men who have got him have gone. They have probably gone to some out-of-the-way place, so as to be out of the way of the Mahdi's people.

"Ibrahim tells me that there are no people more pig-headed than these Arabs, and if they once make up their mind to a thing nothing will turn them. That is all the better, as far as the risk of Edgar falling into the hands of the Mahdi is concerned, only it makes it all the more difficult to find him. There is no saying where he may have moved to; he may have gone far south of Khartoum, he may have pushed away near the borders of Abyssinia, he may be within a few miles of Suakim, he may be in the desert we crossed. I don't disguise from myself that it is likely to be a long search; but that is nothing if I am but successful at last.

Of course the great thing will be to endeavour to pick up a clue near Metemmeh.

"The tribe is a very scattered one, and is to be found dispersed among other tribes all the way from Berber to Khartoum on the eastern side of the river, and I hear that there is a branch of it who live in the desert to the west. Well, it is likely that Edgar's master will have stopped in some of these villages among his own people, if only for a few hours, and it is from them I hope to get some clue as to the general direction at least in which they were travelling. Unless they disguised Edgar, and wrapped him up as a woman, or something of that sort, the fact of a white prisoner pa.s.sing through is certain to have caused talk.

However, it is impossible to say where or how I may find a clue.

"At any rate I shall stick to it. I shall tell my father, that as it may take me a year to find Edgar he need not even begin to feel anxious until the end of that time, and that as I shall be continually improving in my knowledge of the language, the risk of detection will become less and less every month, and that I antic.i.p.ate no difficulty whatever when the time comes in pa.s.sing down to Suakim or Ma.s.sowah, or should any difficulty arise in that direction, in either working down to Wady Halfa or through Abyssinia."

They sat and talked until far into the night, and then lay down for a few hours' sleep, and at daybreak Rupert said good-bye to his friends and took his place in the boat, which, spreading its sails, rapidly made its way up stream. The two friends stood for a long time looking after it.

"By Jove, Clinton has turned out a fine fellow," Skinner said; "a grand fellow! I hardly thought he had it in him. Of course I knew he was plucky, and all that sort of thing; but this is a tremendous undertaking."

"It is," Easton said. "Of course now the die is cast I would not say a word last night to discourage him; but the risk is tremendous. However he is going about it in the right spirit, and somehow I feel almost confident that he will pull through it, and that we shall shake his hand in England again. May G.o.d protect him on his journey!"

Skinner responded with an earnest Amen, and then they walked slowly back to the camp.

As soon as he arrived at Korti Rupert made his way to Major Kitchener's, and was greeted with a cheery welcome by that officer.

"Things are going well, Clinton. I have bought the two riding camels. I was a whole day haggling over the price with the chief. I had to pay a stiff price after all, but that I expected. But it won't come quite so heavy, because he wanted to take it out in goods, and as we don't mean to take all the things back to the coast again, I got an order from the chief for our quarter-master's department to sell me a lot of rugs, cooking pots, and tin goods, and also some powder and ball and a dozen muskets. As I get them cheap the camels won't cost you more than half what they would if you had had to pay in silver for them. In the next place, the sheik arrived yesterday afternoon and I had a long talk with him. He is willing enough to undertake the business and to wander about with you for as many months as you may choose, and to a.s.sist you in getting off your brother if you find him, if he thinks that you can disguise yourself well enough to pa.s.s as a native, but of that he is to be the judge. He won't take you at any price unless you satisfy him in that respect."

"I think I can do that, major," Rupert said. "I will go back to my tent and dress now. I took in my two friends of the Guards, and I think I can pa.s.s inspection even by a native." In half an hour Rupert returned in his native get-up, carrying as usual a spear and a sword and two or three knives stuck into his girdle. Major Kitchener was inside his tent, and Rupert squatted down outside and awaited his coming out. When the major issued from his tent his eye fell upon him.

"Hullo!" he said in Arabic, "what do you want? Where do you come from?"

"I am my lord's servant," Rupert replied in the same language.

"Yes, that is all very well, but I suppose you want some thing."