The Wheel O' Fortune Part 29

If he heard he paid no heed. He continued to stare at the sky with wide-open eyes.

Conscious of a fresh thrill of fear, she ran towards Royson.

"What in the world--"

Then she saw, and was stricken dumb with the sight, for she was looking at a spectacle which the desert seldom provides even to those who pa.s.s their lives within its bounds. A thin haze had taken the place of the remarkable clearness of the morning hours. Away to the north it had deepened almost into a fog, a low-lying and luminous mist like the white pall which often shrouds the sea on a calm bright day in summer.

The sky was losing its burnished copper hue and becoming blue again, and, on the false horizon supplied by the crest of the fog-bank, stood a brilliantly vivid panorama.

There were military tents, lines of picketed camels and horses, a great number of Arabs and blacks, and some fifty Italian soldiers, all magnified to gigantic proportions, but so clearly defined that the trappings of the animals, the military uniforms, and the gay-colored burnous of the Arabs were readily distinguishable.

It could be seen, too, that they were working. Mounds of rock and earth showed that considerable excavations had been made. While those gathered round the well were yet gazing at this bewildering and lifelike picture, the moving ghosts in the sky underwent a change which enhanced their realism. One squad of soldiers and natives marched off towards the tents while another took their places. Were it not for the grotesque size of men and animals and the eerie silence of their movements it was hard to believe that the eyes were not witnessing actualities. The thing was fantastic, awe-inspiring, stupendous in design, but faultlessly true in color and treatment. No artist could ever hope for such a canvas. Its texture was vapor, its background the empyrean, and nature's own palette supplied the colors.

And this cloud scene was pitiless in its moral. Two of the onlookers, Mrs. Haxton and von Kerber, knew exactly what it meant, while others read its message correctly enough. The expedition was forestalled. The long voyage and longer march, the vast expenditure, the hardships inseparable from the journey through the desert, the hopes, the fears, all the planning and contriving, went for nothing, since Alfieri the dreamer, Alfieri the fool, had apparently succeeded in locating the treasure of Sheba.

CHAPTER XIV

WHEREIN A BISHARIN CAMEL BECOMES USEFUL

To the Arab every white man is a Frank. The European invader was given that name during the First Crusade, and the Paynim does not change appreciably with the centuries. But he has learnt to differentiate between certain varieties of Frank, and Abdur Kad'r murmured maledictions on the Italian species as he watched the mirage slowly fading into nothingness. Though no one had told him the ultimate objective of the caravan, he felt that the presence of Italian soldiers at the nearest stopping-place put a bar to further progress. The mere fact that the _kafila_ came from French territory was unanswerable.

There were difficulties enough already, difficulties which must be discussed that evening, but this obstacle was wholly unforeseen.

Under his bent brows the gaunt sheikh had noted Mr. Fenshawe's manner when he turned excitedly to demand an explanation from von Kerber. The Effendi's change of tone told its own tale. Abdur Kad'r, true believer and desert-born, remarked to a brother Arab that Allah was Allah and Mahomet was undoubtedly the Prophet, but that of all the misbegotten produce of swine now c.u.mbering the earth the Italians ranked easily first--or words to that effect. Then he relieved his feelings by objurgating the panic-stricken Somalis, whose superst.i.tious minds interpreted the appearance of the air-borne host as a sure indication of war. He was in the midst of an eloquent outburst when his employer summoned him.

"How far is it to the next oasis?" came the dreaded query.

Abdur Kad'r, shrewd judge of men, knew that he must be explicit.

"Sixty kilometers, honored one," he replied.

"What! Nearly forty English miles?"

"It may be so, Effendi. In our reckoning it is twenty kos and one kos is three kilometers."

"But these Italians--in the mirage--they must be camped near water?"

"There is none nearer than the Well of Suleiman, Effendi."

"Is it possible that a mirage would reveal so clearly a scene taking place at such a distance?"

"Strange things happen in the desert, Effendi. I have seen a village in the sky which my camels were four hours in reaching, and I have been told of sights even more wonderful."

"You are sure about the sixty kilometers?"

"Quite sure, O worthy of honor."

Mr. Fenshawe was skeptical. Mirage-phenomena were familiar to him, but never had they dealt with natural objects beyond a range of a few miles. For the most part, the mirage of the desert is a baseless illusion, depending on the bending of light-rays by air strata of differing densities. The rarer "looming," witnessed occasionally in more northerly lat.i.tudes, shows scenes actually in existence, and the best authenticated instance of a long-range view is that testified to by the inhabitants of Hastings, who during three hours on July 26, 1798, saw the whole coastline of France, from Calais to Dieppe, with a distinctness that was then regarded as miraculous.

But, whether Abdur Kad'r's figures were correct or not, there was no gainsaying the evidence of the mirage itself. The collapse of the undertaking was imminent, and the millionaire's tone was exceedingly curt when he called von Kerber to conference.

"There are certain matters which must be cleared up, now that nature has a.s.sumed the role of guide," he said dryly. "I have been well aware during the past few days that you were not able to fix on the exact place described in the papyrus. I could pardon that. We are in a country where landmarks are bewilderingly alike, and therefore apt to cause confusion. But how comes it that our rivals can go straight to the place we are in search of, while we wander blindly in the desert?

You a.s.sured me that yours was the only copy of the papyrus extant with the sole exception of the photographic reproductions supplied to me. Is that true? And, if it is true, who gave these others the information that has brought about our failure?"

Mr. Fenshawe's pride was wounded. All the wrath of the disappointed connoisseur welled forth in his contemptuous words. Their very calmness and precision showed the depth of his anger, and von Kerber, like Abdur Kad'r, felt that the time for specious pretext had gone. So he answered, with equal exactness of phrase:

"I gave you that a.s.surance months ago in Scotland, and repeated it in London, but I have not said it since we met on board the yacht, for the very good reason that the papyrus was stolen from me at Ma.r.s.eilles."

"Stolen!"

"Yes, I was waylaid and robbed while driving from the station to the harbor."

"Purposely, do you mean? Was the papyrus the object of the attack?"

"Yes."

"Then this man, Alfieri, knew of it?"

"I have never concealed that from you."

"It is hard to say what you have or have not concealed, Baron von Kerber. My confidence in you is shaken. How am I to know that this latest version of Alfieri's amazing interference in your affairs is the true one?"

No man is so sensitive of his honor as he who is conscious of by-gone lapses. Von Kerber started as though the other had stabbed him.

"That is an unworthy imputation," he cried. "Mr. Royson can tell you that the papyrus was stolen. He rescued me from my a.s.sailants, yes?

Mrs. Haxton is aware of it, and, unless I am mistaken, Miss Fenshawe also is no stranger to the news, seeing that our second mate is so greatly in her confidence."

The older man, still watching the last wraiths of the mirage, seemed to be deaf to the Austrian's biting allusion to Irene.

"I did not look for such a web of deceit," he murmured. "The papyrus was genuine, and I sought no other proof of honesty. You say Mrs.

Haxton and my granddaughter are in this pact of silence. Let us have their testimony."

Irene, as might be expected, indignantly disclaimed any sympathy with von Kerber's methods.

"I heard, by chance, of the part Mr. Royson took in the affair at Ma.r.s.eilles," she said. "My maid told me. It was the gossip of the ship.

Yet, when I questioned Mr. Royson himself, he refused to discuss the matter, owing to some pledge of secrecy drawn from him by Baron von Kerber. You forget, grandad, how often you have told me that I did not understand this undertaking sufficiently to justify my hostility to it.

I have never believed in it, not for one moment. If you wish to know what happened at Ma.r.s.eilles, why not ask Mr. Royson himself?"

"Yes," said Mr. Fenshawe quietly, "that will be well. Send for him, Irene."

It was noteworthy that he addressed no question to Mrs. Haxton. That lady, nervous and ill-at-ease, could not guess how far the rupture between von Kerber and his patron had gone. She felt intuitively that the Austrian was puzzled, perhaps alarmed, by the presence of an official expedition in the very territory he had hoped to explore without hindrance--yet his manner hinted at something in reserve.

Though he quivered under Irene's outspoken incredulity, his aspect was that of a man whose schemes have been foiled by sheer ill-luck. A rogue unmasked will grovel: von Kerber was defiant. For the moment, Mrs.

Haxton was struck dumb with foreboding. Mr. Fenshawe's. dejected air showed that a deadly blow had been dealt to the project to which she had devoted all her resources since the beginning of the march. She, too, had begun to doubt. Here, in the desert, the buried treasure was an intangible thing. In England, the promises of the Greek's dying message were satisfying by their very vagueness. In Africa, face to face with the tremendous solitude, they became unbelievable, a dim fable akin to the legends of vanished islands and those mysterious races to be found only in unknown lands, which have tickled the imaginations of mankind, ever since the dawn of human intelligence. So, a live millionaire being a more definite a.s.set than the h.o.a.rd of a forgotten city, she had coolly informed von Kerber that if he wished to improve his fortunes, he would do well to pay attention to Miss Fenshawe, and leave her free to win a wealthy husband. It was a villainous pact, but it might have succeeded, at any rate in Mrs.

Haxton's case, for no woman could be more gracious and deferentially flattering than she when she chose to exert herself. And now, reality seemed to yield to unreality. The substantial fabric of close friendship between Fenshawe and herself had crumbled before the fiery breath of the wilderness. What a turn of fortune's wheel! Here were all her plans shattered in an instant, and the man on whom depended the future changed into a hostile judge.

Royson found a queer conclave awaiting him. Irene, distressed by the injustice of her grandfather's suspicion that she was sharing in a conspiracy of silence, had retired to a corner of the tent, and wore an air of indifference which she certainly did not feel. Mrs. Haxton, pallid, striving desperately to regain her self-possession, draped herself artistically in a comfortable camp chair. Von Kerber, scowling and depressed, stood near the entrance, and Mr. Fenshawe was seated in the center of the tent. The red light of the declining sun was full on his face, and d.i.c.k fancied that he had aged suddenly. Nor was this to be wondered at. No enthusiast, not even a wealthy one, likes to have his hopes of realizing a great achievement dashed to the ground, nor is it altogether gratifying that a woman who has won one's high esteem should be a.s.sociated with a piece of contemptible trickery.