The Valley of the Kings Part 16

"Haf batience! Wait a minute! I had counted wrong. See, there are mountains! Surely the wady will be there among them." Inwardly he prayed Allah to make good his words, to save him from the scorn of one he loved so truly.

"Well, come on!" said the Emir, with a shrug; and they toiled in silence towards the range of hills.

"You, who know the way, point out this valley," said the Emir as to a dog, when they were near enough to observe the configuration of those heights.

Iskender pointed to what seemed an opening; but knew that his gesture carried no conviction. The Frank's cold looks askance at him deprived him of the power to play his part.

"We shall see," said the Emir, urging his horse forward. At the entrance to the wady he dismounted, and Iskender, who was then some way behind, could hear derisive laughter. It was no valley at all. The shadow of a big projecting rock had been mistaken in the distance for an opening. The Frank was sitting calmly in that shadow when his friend came up.

"I can see no gold here," he observed politely; "but you have better eyes. Look well about you!"

Three parts unconscious, the unhappy youth obeyed. Alighting off his horse, he scanned the heights above, the ground at his feet, the sandy plain on which their mules were seen at a great distance.

"No gold! no gold!" he murmured idiotically.

"Give up this acting!" cried the Frank with vehemence. "Confess it was all a lie! Say why you brought me here. We are man to man just now, and may as well arrange our business before your friend the muleteer comes up. That missionary told me to look out for villainy."

Iskender bit the dust and wept aloud, calling on Allah to attest his innocence. To be accused of acting, when his heart was broken; to be suspected of a purpose hostile to his patron, when he would have shed his blood to bring a smile to that beloved face!

"Confess!" the Emir repeated; and, hearing the voice of the Father of Ice, Iskender lied, as he had always lied, through fear, to that stern, upright man.

"No, it is true, sir, but we went wrong somehow. My G.o.d, it is true, sir; Elias said so too!"

"Elias is a liar. . . . Confess now that you never knew the way, and that your father never in his life saw any valley such as that you've so often described to me."

But Iskender would not admit that he had lied at all; to do so would have been to justify his patron's cruel scorn. Indeed, the fiction of the gold had grown so natural that he believed, even now, that it was partly true.

"You never knew the way; your father never left you any paper. It is pretty certain that he couldn't read or write. What a fool I was not to think of that before! If there were such a paper you would have it with you. Show it me!" the Emir insisted.

Iskender appealed to Heaven against his lord's unreason. Was it likely that his mother, to whom it of right belonged, would let so important a doc.u.ment out of her own keeping? He had read it through and copied it, but lost the copy yesterday, he knew not how. It was owing to that loss that he had missed the way. His memory had played some devil's trick to shame him. The sand at his feet, the plain, the rocks beside him seemed all flame, reminding him poignantly of his vision of the place of gold. The air upon his face and hands was the breath of an oven, the sky a blackness overhead.

The Emir rose and walked towards his horse. The contemptuous movement stung Iskender like a lash in the face. He clutched at his patron's raiment, sobbing and blubbering, imploring forgiveness for his one mistake. The Emir beat him off with his whip, and, springing into the saddle, rode off slowly. Leading his own horse by the bridle, Iskender followed after him, with piteous appeals. Nothing mattered save their mutual affection. What was truthfulness as compared with human love?

Appalled by the prospect of life, if deprived of his lord's regard, he put forward his limitless devotion as a claim for kindness, and fancied that his friend was listening, not unmoved. It was with disappointment that he heard again, in icy tones:

"You knew from the first that it was all a lie."

Nay, he protested, how could he be certain? He had not been alone in declaring that the gold was there; Elias had said so too. Why should he alone be made responsible?

The Emir deigned not so much as to look on his despair.

Returning thus across the plain, they met the mules. The driver's mouth fell open at the Frank's command to turn back, just when they were near the limit of that arid waste and all the beasts were tired.

It was some time before this man, Mahmud, had mind for aught beyond his own complaints; but when at length he realised that Iskender, his good friend, was in disgrace, he also made entreaty for his pardon. The Emir, with him on one side and Iskender on the other, took alarm. He laid his hand on the revolver at his belt, and commanded both to keep their distance.

Mahmud with a shrug dropped behind, calling out to Iskender that it was the sun, and asking Allah to restore the poor khawajah; but Iskender still adhered to his beloved lord, wishing that he would carry out his threat and shoot him dead. Then perchance his righteous anger would be turned to sorrow; he would regret the blind devotion of his willing slave.

A sudden shout from the muleteer made them both look round.

CHAPTER XXI

A swarm of mounted Arabs, shadows in the sun-haze, was careering towards them, leaving a dust-cloud trailing on the distant plain.

Their lance-points glittered. They were nearing rapidly. Iskender stood gaping, awestruck at the sight, when a whip-lash scored his face.

"You infernal scoundrel!" snarled the Emir through his clenched teeth.

"So this is why you've brought me all this way. They made it worth your while, no doubt. I might have guessed. That missionary warned me plain enough."

Iskender nursed his wounded face, and writhed with pain. For the moment he could neither hear nor think nor see.

The wild hors.e.m.e.n galloped in a herd to within a hundred yards of the travellers, when they fanned out neatly and surrounded them. The Frank had plucked out his revolver.

"Don't do that, sir, for G.o.d-sake!" Iskender shrieked. "You make them cross."

Still with hands pressed to his wounded face he blessed the a.s.sailants loudly, and asked how they did. For answer they told him to make his companion drop the pistol; which, when the order was conveyed to him, the Amir did sullenly. The Arabs then rode near, and stared in the faces of their captives.

They were a ragged-looking troop, clad every one in armour, were it but of leather. Queer helmets showed beneath their dirty head-shawls, and a few wore tattered coats of mail of high antiquity. Only their fierce bold eyes, strong spears, and clean-limbed horses kept the laugh from them. Their husky speech was full of words and phrases strange to Iskender.

When all had satisfied their curiosity, the throng rode off, leaving a sufficient guard to follow with the prisoners. Iskender learnt that they were surprised to find so small a company. Having heard of the approach of a great prince of the English, their chief expected to receive a visit from his Highness, with supplication in due form for leave to journey through his territory. When he learnt that the Emir had entered his realm without so much as a salam aleyk.u.m, he resolved to make the mannerless cub his guest by force. For this purpose he had sent forth all his braves in war trim, supposing that the English chief had power to match his insolence, only to surprise a train which a blind man could have taken single-handed!

Bitterly did Iskender curse his own vain-glory which had led him to boast at every village of his patron's greatness, and the absolute power which he wielded in the land of his birth. He was separated now from his dear one in the cavalcade, catching only an occasional glimpse of his back, which had a sullen hunch. He forgot the pain of his own face in fears for him.

At the end of an hour's slow riding, the barren waste gave place to slopes of coa.r.s.e gra.s.s, where a number of camels, sheep, and goats were feeding peacefully. The camp of the Bedu appeared--a little town of black tents in a hollow, from which shouts, neighs, and much barking of dogs proceeded. Once there, Iskender lost sight of his Emir, who, as the prisoner of importance, was taken straight to the chief's tent. He himself was left standing with Mahmud among the tent ropes, in some peril from the heels of tethered stallions. A smell of hairy beasts defiled the air. Dark-skinned women and children came to stare at them. The girls expressed compa.s.sion for Iskender's wounded face, and cried shame on the man who had disfigured it, supposing him to be one of their own people. The muleteer, a Muslim, made profession of his faith, attesting the Unity of G.o.d and the Mission of Muhammad loudly, in the evident persuasion that his hour had come.

Iskender wondered what his lord was undergoing, and then as the day grew cooler, gave up thinking altogether, happy to lie down and rest.

The women told him he was free to walk about, but for long he felt no call to use the privilege. At last, however, seeing his horse was tethered close at hand, he went and took from the saddle-bags his book and paint-box, and began to make a likeness of the scene; the women gathered round and cried: "Ma sh' Allah!" They took the lines and spots for magic writing, and gathered shyly round them, half expecting apparitions.

He was in this employment when men came in haste and dragged him to the chief's tent. He managed to stow the paint-box in his trousers, but the book was lost.

"Allah have mercy on thee, O Iskender!" groaned Mahmud, as he was led away. "They have slain the khawajah; now they come for thee. Well I am a Muslim, and resign my cause to G.o.d!"

In the tabernacle of the chief, superior only in size to the rest of the tents, the elders of the tribe were set in council, the Emir before them. At the moment of Iskender's entrance there was a puzzled look upon each bearded face, directed towards the Frank in perfect courtesy.

The arrival of an interpreter was hailed with exclamations of relief.

Iskender, having made obeisance, was invited to take a place in the circle. From the join of two camel's hair curtains screening an inner tent, he fancied he could see bright eyes of women peeping.

"Is this the great Emir, of whom report has reached us?" he was asked.

"And if so, how comes he to travel with so small a retinue?"

The Frank's eyes dwelt upon Iskender's face with an intensity of distrust that neighboured actual hatred. He still believed his friend in league with the marauders.

"It is true; he is an Emir of the n.o.blest, O my lords," Iskender answered; "but, may it please your Honours, he has not that wealth to which his rank ent.i.tles him. Indeed, for one in his position, he is poor."

The chieftains of the Bedu nodded comprehension, for poor Emirs were not unknown among them. They murmured of compa.s.sion saying:

"May Allah make him very rich and powerful!"

But one objected: