The Tragedy of the Korosko Part 15

The Frenchman stepped forward, and raising his hand he took a large, shining date out of the Moolah's beard. This he swallowed and immediately produced once more from his left elbow. He had often given his little conjuring entertainment on board the boat, and his fellow-pa.s.sengers had had some good-natured laughter at his expense, for he was not quite skilful enough to deceive the critical European intelligence. But now it looked as if this piece of obvious palming might be the point upon which all their fates would hang. A deep hum of surprise rose from the ring of Arabs, and deepened as the Frenchman drew another date from the nostril of a camel and tossed it into the air, from which, apparently, it never descended. That gaping sleeve was obvious enough to his companions, but the dim light was all in favour of the performer. So delighted and interested was the audience that they paid little heed to a mounted camel-man who trotted swiftly between the palm trunks. All might have been well had not Fardet, carried away by his own success, tried to repeat his trick once more, with the result that the date fell out of his palm, and the deception stood revealed. In vain he tried to pa.s.s on at once to another of his little stock. The Moolah said something, and an Arab struck Fardet across the shoulders with the thick shaft of his spear.

"We have had enough child's play," said the angry priest. "Are we men or babes, that you should try to impose upon us in this manner? Here is the cross and the Koran--which shall it be?"

Fardet looked helplessly round at his companions.

"I can do no more; you asked for five minutes. You have had them," said he to Colonel Cochrane.

"And perhaps it is enough," the soldier answered. "Here are the Emirs."

The camel-man, whose approach they had heard from afar, had made for the two Arab chiefs, and had delivered a brief report to them, stabbing with his forefinger in the direction from which he had come. There was a rapid exchange of words between the Emirs, and then they strode forward together to the group around the prisoners. Bigots and barbarians, they were none the less two most majestic men, as they advanced through the twilight of the palm grove. The fierce old greybeard raised his hand and spoke swiftly in short, abrupt sentences, and his savage followers yelped to him like hounds to a huntsman. The fire that smouldered in his arrogant eyes shone back at him from a hundred others. Here were to be read the strength and danger of the Mahdi movement; here in these convulsed faces, in that fringe of waving arms, in these frantic, red-hot souls, who asked nothing better than a b.l.o.o.d.y death, if their own hands might be b.l.o.o.d.y when they met it.

"Have the prisoners embraced the true faith?" asked the Emir Abderrahman, looking at them with his cruel eyes.

The Moolah had his reputation to preserve, and it was not for him to confess to a failure.

"They were about to embrace it, when--

"Let it rest for a little time, O Moolah." He gave an order, and the Arabs all sprang for their camels. The Emir Wad Ibrahim filed off at once with nearly half the party. The others were mounted and ready, with their rifles unslung.

"What's happened?" asked Belmont.

"Things are looking up," cried the Colonel. "By George, I think we are going to come through all right. The Gippy Camel Corps are hot on our trail."

"How do you know?"

"What else could have scared them?"

"O Colonel, do you really think we shall be saved?" sobbed Sadie.

The dull routine of misery through which they had pa.s.sed had deadened all their nerves until they seemed incapable of any acute sensation, but now this sudden return of hope brought agony with it like the recovery of a frost-bitten limb. Even the strong, self-contained Belmont was filled with doubts and apprehensions. He had been hopeful when there was no sign of relief, and now the approach of it set him trembling.

"Surely they wouldn't come very weak," he cried. "Be Jove, if the Commandant let them come weak, he should be court-martialled."

"Sure we're in G.o.d's hands, anyway," said his wife, in her soothing, Irish voice. "Kneel down with me, John, dear, if it's the last time, and pray that, earth or heaven, we may not be divided."

"Don't do that! Don't!" cried the Colonel anxiously, for he saw that the eye of the Moolah was upon them. But it was too late, for the two Roman Catholics had dropped upon their knees and crossed themselves.

A spasm of fury pa.s.sed over the face of the Mussulman priest at this public testimony to the failure of his missionary efforts. He turned and said something to the Emir.

"Stand up!" cried Mansoor. "For your life's sake, stand up! He is asking for leave to put you to death."

"Let him do what he likes!" said the obstinate Irishman; "we will rise when our prayers are finished, and not before."

The Emir stood listening to the Moolah, with his baleful gaze upon the two kneeling figures. Then he gave one or two rapid orders, and four camels were brought forward. The baggage-camels which they had hitherto ridden were standing unsaddled where they had been tethered.

"Don't be a fool, Belmont!" cried the Colonel; "everything depends upon our humouring them. Do get up, Mrs. Belmont! You are only putting their backs up!"

The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders as he looked at them.

"_Mon Dieu!_" he cried, "were there ever such impracticable people?

_Voila!_" he added, with a shriek, as the two American ladies fell upon their knees beside Mrs. Belmont. "It is like the camels--one down, all down! Was ever anything so absurd?"

But Mr. Stephens had knelt down beside Sadie and buried his haggard face in his long, thin hands. Only the Colonel and Monsieur Fardet remained standing. Cochrane looked at the Frenchman with an interrogative eye.

"After all," said he, "it is stupid to pray all your life, and not to pray now when we have nothing to hope for except through the goodness of Providence." He dropped upon his knees with a rigid, military back, but his grizzled, unshaven chin upon his chest. The Frenchman looked at his kneeling companions, and then his eyes travelled onwards to the angry faces of the Emir and Moolah.

"_Sapristi!_" he growled. "Do they suppose that a Frenchman is afraid of them?" and so, with an ostentatious sign of the cross, he took his place upon his knees beside the others. Foul, bedraggled, and wretched, the seven figures knelt and waited humbly for their fate under the black shadow of the palm-tree.

The Emir turned to the Moolah with a mocking smile, and pointed at the results of his ministrations. Then he gave an order, and in an instant the four men were seized. A couple of deft turns with a camel-halter secured each of their wrists. Fardet screamed out, for the rope had bitten into his open wound. The others took it with the dignity of despair.

"You have ruined everything. I believe you have ruined me also!" cried Mansoor, wringing his hands. "The women are to get upon these three camels."

"Never!" cried Belmont. "We won't be separated!" He plunged madly, but he was weak from privation, and two strong men held him by each elbow.

"Don't fret, John!" cried his wife, as they hurried her towards the camel. "No harm shall come to me. Don't struggle, or they'll hurt you, dear."

The four men writhed as they saw the women dragged away from them.

All their agonies had been nothing to this. Sadie and her aunt appeared to be half senseless from fear. Only Mrs. Belmont kept a brave face.

When they were seated the camels rose, and were led under the tree behind where the four men were standing.

"I've a pistol in me pocket," said Belmont, looking up at his wife.

"I would give me soul to be able to pa.s.s it to you."

"Keep it, John, and it may be useful yet. I have no fears. Ever since we prayed I have felt as if our guardian angels had their wings round us." She was like a guardian angel herself as she turned to the shrinking Sadie, and coaxed some little hope back into her despairing heart.

The short, thick Arab, who had been in command of Wad Ibrahim's rearguard, had Joined the Emir and the Moolah; the three consulted together, with occasional oblique glances towards the prisoners.

Then the Emir spoke to Mansoor.

"The chief wishes to know which of you four is the richest man?" said the dragoman. His fingers were twitching with nervousness and plucking incessantly at the front of his covercoat.

"Why does he wish to know?" asked the Colonel.

"I do not know."

"But it is evident," cried Monsieur Fardet. "He wishes to know which is the best worth keeping for his ransom."

"I think we should see this thing through together," said the Colonel.

"It's really for you to decide, Stephens, for I have no doubt that you are the richest of us."

"I don't know that I am," the lawyer answered; "but in any case, I have no wish to be placed upon a different footing to the others."

The Emir spoke again in his harsh rasping voice.

"He says," Mansoor translated, "that the baggage-camels are spent, and that there is only one beast left which can keep up. It is ready now for one of you, and you have to decide among yourselves which is to have it. If one is richer than the others, he will have the preference."

"Tell him that we are all equally rich."

"In that case he says that you are to choose at once which is to have the camel."

"And the others?"

The dragoman shrugged his shoulders.