The Tragedy of the Korosko Part 7

The red head-gear, patched jibbehs, and yellow boots had already shown to the Colonel that these men were no wandering party of robbers, but a troop from the regular army of the Khalifa. Now, as they struck across the desert, they showed that they possessed the rude discipline which their work demanded. A mile ahead, and far out on either flank, rode their scouts, dipping and rising among the yellow sand-hills. Ali Wad Ibrahim headed the caravan, and his short, st.u.r.dy lieutenant brought up the rear. The main party straggled over a couple of hundred yards, and in the middle was the little, dejected clump of prisoners. No attempt was made to keep them apart, and Mr. Stephens soon contrived that his camel should be between those of the two ladies.

"Don't be down-hearted, Miss Adams," said he. "This is a most indefensible outrage, but there can be no question that steps will be taken in the proper quarter to set the matter right. I am convinced that we shall be subjected to nothing worse than a temporary inconvenience. If it had not been for that villain Mansoor, you need not have appeared at all."

It was shocking to see the change in the little Bostonian lady, for she had shrunk to an old woman in an hour. Her swarthy cheeks had fallen in, and her eyes shone wildly from sunken, darkened sockets.

Her frightened glances were continually turned upon Sadie. There is surely some wrecker angel which can only gather her best treasures in moments of disaster. For here were all these worldlings going to their doom, and already frivolity and selfishness had pa.s.sed away from them, and each was thinking and grieving only for the other. Sadie thought of her aunt, her aunt thought of Sadie, the men thought of the women, Belmont thought of his wife--and then he thought of something else also, and he kicked his camel's shoulder with his heel, until he found himself upon the near side of Miss Adams.

"I've got something for you here," he whispered. "We may be separated soon, so it is as well to make our arrangements."

"Separated!" wailed Miss Adams.

"Don't speak loud, for that infernal Mansoor may give us away again.

I hope it won't be so, but it might. We must be prepared for the worst.

For example, they might determine to get rid of us men and to keep you."

Miss Adams shuddered.

"What am I to do? For G.o.d's sake tell me what I am to do, Mr. Belmont!

I am an old woman. I have had my day. I could stand it if it was only myself. But Sadie--I am clean crazed when I think of her. There's her mother waiting at home, and I--" She clasped her thin hands together in the agony of her thoughts.

"Put your hand out under your dust-cloak," said Belmont, sidling his camel up against hers. "Don't miss your grip of it. There! Now hide it in your dress, and you'll always have a key to unlock any door."

Miss Adams felt what it was which he had slipped into her hand, and she looked at him for a moment in bewilderment. Then she pursed up her lips and shook her stern, brown face in disapproval. But she pushed the little pistol into its hiding-place, all the same, and she rode with her thoughts in a whirl. Could this indeed be she, Eliza Adams, of Boston, whose narrow, happy life had oscillated between the comfortable house in Commonwealth Avenue and the Tremont Presbyterian Church? Here she was, hunched upon a camel, with her hand upon the b.u.t.t of a pistol, and her mind weighing the justifications of murder. Oh, life, sly, sleek, treacherous life, how are we ever to trust you? Show us your worst and we can face it, but it is when you are sweetest and smoothest that we have most to fear from you.

"At the worst, Miss Sadie, it will only be a question of ransom," said Stephens, arguing against his own convictions. "Besides, we are still dose to Egypt, far away from the Dervish country. There is sure to be an energetic pursuit. You must try not to lose your courage, and to hope for the best."

"No, I am not scared, Mr. Stephens," said Sadie, turning towards him a blanched face which belied her words. "We're all in G.o.d's hands, and surely He won't be cruel to us. It is easy to talk about trusting Him when things are going well, but now is the real test. If He's up there behind that blue heaven--"

"He is," said a voice behind them, and they found that the Birmingham clergyman had joined the party. His tied hands clutched on to his Makloofa saddle, and his fat body swayed dangerously from side to side with every stride of the camel. His wounded leg was oozing with blood and clotted with flies, and the burning desert sun beat down upon his bare head, for he had lost both hat and umbrella in the scuffle.

A rising fever flecked his large, white cheeks with a touch of colour, and brought a light into his brown ox-eyes. He had always seemed a somewhat gross and vulgar person to his fellow-travellers. Now, this bitter healing draught of sorrow had transformed him. He was purified, spiritualised, exalted. He had become so calmly strong that he made the others feel stronger as they looked upon him. He spoke of life and of death, of the present, and their hopes of the future; and the black cloud of their misery began to show a golden rift or two. Cecil Brown shrugged his shoulders, for he could not change in an hour the convictions of his life; but the others, even Fardet, the Frenchman, were touched and strengthened. They all took off their hats when he prayed. Then the Colonel made a turban out of his red silk c.u.mmerbund, and insisted that Mr. Stuart should wear it. With his homely dress and gorgeous headgear, he looked like a man who has dressed up to amuse the children.

And now the dull, ceaseless, insufferable torment of thirst was added to the aching weariness which came from the motion of the camels. The sun glared down upon them, and then up again from the yellow sand, and the great plain shimmered and glowed until they felt as if they were riding over a cooling sheet of molten metal. Their lips were parched and dried, and their tongues like tags of leather. They lisped curiously in their speech, for it was only the vowel sounds which would come without an effort. Miss Adams's chin had dropped upon her chest, and her great hat concealed her face.

"Auntie will faint if she does not get water," said Sadie. "Oh, Mr.

Stephens, is there nothing we could do?"

The Dervishes riding near were all Baggara with the exception of one negro--an uncouth fellow with a face pitted with small-pox.

His expression seemed good-natured when compared with that of his Arab comrades, and Stephens ventured to touch his elbow and to point to his water-skin, and then to the exhausted lady. The negro shook his head brusquely, but at the same time he glanced significantly towards the Arabs, as if to say that, if it were not for them, he might act differently. Then he laid his black forefinger upon the breast of his jibbeh.

"Tippy Tilly," said he.

"What's that?" asked Colonel Cochrane.

"Tippy Tilly," repeated the negro, sinking his voice as if he wished only the prisoners to hear him.

The Colonel shook his head.

"My Arabic won't bear much strain. I don't know what he is saying,"

said he.

"Tippy Tilly. Hicks Pasha," the negro repeated.

"I believe the fellow is friendly to us, but I can't quite make him out," said Cochrane to Belmont. "Do you think that he means that his name is Tippy Tilly, and that he killed Hicks Pasha?"

The negro showed his great white teeth at hearing his own words coming back to him. "Aiwa!" said he. "Tippy Tilly--Bimbashi Mormer--Boum!"

"By Jove, I've got it!" cried Belmont. "He's trying to speak English.

Tippy Tilly is as near as he can get to Egyptian Artillery. He has served in the Egyptian Artillery under Bimbashi Mortimer. He was taken prisoner when Hicks Pasha was destroyed, and had to turn Dervish to save his skin. How's that?"

The Colonel said a few words of Arabic and received a reply, but two of the Arabs closed up, and the negro quickened his pace and left them.

"You are quite right," said the Colonel. "The fellow is friendly to us, and would rather fight for the Khedive than for the Khalifa. I don't know that he can do us any good, but I've been in worse holes than this, and come out right side up. After all, we are not out of reach of pursuit, and won't be for another forty-eight hours."

Belmont calculated the matter out in his slow, deliberate fashion.

"It was about twelve that we were on the rock," said he. "They would become alarmed aboard the steamer if we did not appear at two."

"Yes," the Colonel interrupted, "that was to be our lunch hour.

I remember saying that when I came back I would have--O Lord, it's best not to think of it!"

"The reis was a sleepy old crock," Belmont continued, "but I have absolute confidence in the promptness and decision of my wife.

She would insist upon an immediate alarm being given. Suppose they started back at two-thirty, they should be at Halfa by three, since the journey is down stream. How long did they say that it took to turn out the Camel Corps?"

"Give them an hour."

"And another hour to get them across the river. They would be at the Abousir Rock and pick up the tracks by six o'clock. After that it is a clear race. We are only four hours ahead, and some of these beasts are very spent. We may be saved yet, Cochrane!"

"Some of us may. I don't expect to see the padre alive to-morrow, nor Miss Adams either. They are not made for this sort of thing either of them. Then again we must not forget that these people have a trick of murdering their prisoners when they see that there is a chance of a rescue. See here, Belmont, in case you get back and I don't, there's a matter of a mortgage that I want you to set right for me." They rode on with their shoulders inclined to each other, deep in the details of business.

The friendly negro who had talked of himself as Tippy Tilly had managed to slip a piece of cloth soaked in water into the hand of Mr. Stephens, and Miss Adams had moistened her lips with it. Even the few drops had given her renewed strength, and now that the first crushing shock was over, her wiry, elastic, Yankee nature began to rea.s.sert itself.

"These people don't look as if they would harm us, Mr. Stephens," said she. "I guess they have a working religion of their own, such as it is, and that what's wrong to us is wrong to them."

Stephens shook his head in silence. He had seen the death of the donkey-boys, and she had not.

"Maybe we are sent to guide them into a better path," said the old lady.

"Maybe we are specially singled out for a good work among them."

If it were not for her niece her energetic and enterprising temperament was capable Of glorying in the chance of evangelising Khartoum, and turning Omdurman into a little well-drained broad-avenued replica of a New England town.

"Do you know what I am thinking of all the time?" said Sadie.

"You remember that temple that we saw--when was it? Why, it was this morning."

They gave an exclamation of surprise, all three of them. Yes, it had been this morning; and it seemed away and away in some dim past experience of their lives, so vast was the change, so new and so overpowering the thoughts which had come between. They rode in silence, full of this strange expansion of time, until at last Stephens reminded Sadie that she had left her remark unfinished.

"Oh yes; it was the wall picture on that temple that I was thinking of.

Do you remember the poor string of prisoners who are being dragged along to the feet of the great king--how dejected they looked among the warriors who led them? Who could--who _could_ have thought that within three hours the same fate should be our own? And Mr. Headingly--"

She turned her face away and began to cry.

"Don't take on, Sadie," said her aunt; "remember what the minister said just now, that we are all right there in the hollow of G.o.d's hand.