by Sax Rohmer
I
LORD OF THE JACKALS
In those days, of course (said the French agent, looking out acrossthe sea of Yussuf Effendis which billowed up against the balcony towhere, in the moonlight, the minarets of Cairo pointed the way toGod), I did not occupy the position which I occupy to-day. No, I wasyounger, and more ambitious; I thought to carve in the annals of Egypta name for myself such as that of De Lesseps.
I had a scheme--and there were those who believed in it--for extendingthe borders of Egypt. Ah! my friends, Egypt after all is but a doublebelt of mud following the Nile, and terminated east and west by thedesert. The desert! It was the dream of my life to exterminate thatdesert, that hungry gray desert; it was my plan--a foolish plan as Iknow now--to link the fertile Fayum to the Oases! How was this to bedone? Ah!
Why should I dig up those buried skeletons? It was not done; it nevercould be done; therefore, let me not bore you with how I had proposedto do it. Suffice it that my ambitions took me far off the beatentracks, far, even, from the caravan roads--far into the gray heart ofthe desert.
But I was ambitious, and only nineteen--or scarcely twenty. Atnineteen, a man who comes from St. Remy fears no obstacle which Fatecan place in his way, and looks upon the world as a grape-fruit to besweetened with endeavor and sucked empty.
It was in those days, then, that I learned as your Rudyard Kipling hasalso learned that "East is East"; it was in those days that I cameface to face with that "mystery of Egypt" about which so much iswritten, has always been written, and always will be written, butconcerning which so few people, so very few people, know anythingwhatever.
Yes, I, Rene de Flassans, saw with my own eyes a thing that I knew tobe magic, a thing whereat my reason rebelled--a thing which my poorEuropean intelligence could not grapple, could not begin to explain.
It was this which you asked me to tell you, was it not? I will do sowith pleasure, because I know that I speak to men of honor, andbecause it is good for me, now that I cannot count the gray hairs inmy beard, to confess how poor a thing I was when I could count everyhair upon my chin--and how grand a thing I thought myself.
One evening, at the end of a dreadful day in the saddle--beneath a skywhich seemed to reflect all the fires of hell, a day passed upon sandssimply smoking in that merciless sun--I and my native companions cameto an encampment of Arabs.
They were Bedouins[C]--the tribe does not matter at the moment--and,as you may know, the Bedouin is the most hospitable creature whom Godhas yet created. The tent of the Sheikh is open to any traveller whocares to rest his weary limbs therein. Freely he may partake of allthat the tribe has to offer, food and drink and entertainment; and toseek to press payment upon the host would be to insult a gentleman.
[C] This incorrect but familiar spelling is retained throughout.
That is desert hospitality. A spear that stands thrust upright in thesand before the tent door signifies that whosoever would raise hishand against the guest has first to reckon with the Sheikh. Equallyit would be an insult to erect one's own tent in the neighborhood ofa Bedouin encampment.
Well, my friends, I knew this well, for I was no stranger to thenomadic life, and accordingly, without fear of the fierce-eyed throngwho came forth to meet us, I made my respects to the Sheikh SaidMohammed, and was reckoned by him as a friend and a brother. His tentwas placed at my disposal and provisions were made for the suitableentertainment of those who were with me.
You know how dusk falls in Egypt? At one moment the sky is a brilliantcanvas, glorious with every color known to art, at the next thecurtain--the wonderful veil of deepest violet--has fallen; the starsbreak through it like diamonds through the finest gauze; it is night,velvet, violet night. You see it here in this noisy modern Cairo. Inthe lonely desert it is ten thousand times grander, ten thousand timesmore impressive; it speaks to the soul with the voice of the silence.Ah, those desert nights!
So was the night of which I speak; and having partaken of the farewhich the Sheikh caused to be set before me--and Bedouin fare is notfor the squeamish stomach--I sipped that delicious coffee which,though an acquired taste, is the true nectar, and looked out beyondthe four or five palm trees of this little oasis to where the graycarpet of the desert grew black as ebony and met the violet sweep ofthe sky.
Perhaps I was the first to see him; I cannot say; but certainly he wasnot perceived by the Bedouins, although one stood on guard at theentrance to the camp.
How can I describe him? At the time, as he approached in the moonlightwith a shambling, stooping gait, I felt that I had never seen his likebefore. Now I know the reason of my wonder, and the reason of mydoubt. I know what it was about him which inspired a kind of horrorand a revulsion--a dread.
Elfin locks he had, gray and matted, falling about his angular face,shading his strange, yellow eyes. His was dressed in rags, in tatters;he was furtive, and he staggered as one who is very weak, slowlyapproaching out of the vastness.
Then it appeared as though every dog in the camp knew of his coming.Out from the shadows of the tents they poured, those yapping mongrels.Never have I seen such a thing. In the midst of the yellowish,snarling things, at the very entrance to the camp, the wretched oldman fell, uttering a low cry.
But now, snatching up a heavy club which lay close to my hand, Irushed out of the tent. Others were thronging out too, but, first ofthem all, I burst in among the dogs, striking, kicking, and shouting.I stooped and raised the head of the stranger.
Mutely he thanked me, with half-closed eyes. A choking sound issuedfrom his throat, and he clutched with his hands and pointed to hismouth.
An earthenware jar, containing cool water, stood beside a tent buta few yards away. Hurling my club at the most furious of the dogs,which, with bared fangs, still threatened to attack the recumbent man,I ran and seized the _dorak_, regained his side, and poured waterbetween his parched lips.
The throng about me was strangely silent, until, as the poor old manstaggered again to his feet, supported by my arm, a chorus arose aboutme--one long, vowelled word, wholly unfamiliar, although my Arabic wasgood. But I noted that all kept a respectful distance from myself andthe man whom I had succored.
Then, pressing his way through the throng came the Sheikh SaidMohammed. Saluting the ragged stranger with a sort of grim respect,he asked him if he desired entertainment for the night.
The other shook his head, mumbling, pointed to the water jar, and bydint of gnashing his yellow and pointed teeth, intimated that herequired food.
Food was brought to him hurriedly. He tied it up in a dirty cloth,grasped the water jar, and, with never a glance at the Arabs, turnedto me. With his hand he touched his brow, his lips, and his breast insalute; then, although tottering with weakness, he made off again withthat queer, loping gait.
The camp dogs began to howl, and a strange silence fell upon the Arabsabout me. All stood watching the departing figure until it was lost ina dip of the desert, when the watchers began to return again to theirtents.
Said Mohammed took my hand, and in a few direct and impressive wordsthanked me for having spared him and his tribe from a grave dishonor.Need I say that I was flattered? Had you met him, my friends, thatfine Bedouin gentleman, polished as any noble of old France, fearlessas a lion, yet gentle as a woman, you would know that I rejoiced inbeing able to serve him even so slightly.
Two of the dogs, unperceived by us, had followed the weird old manfrom the camp; for suddenly in the distance I heard their savagegrowls. Then, these growls were drowned in such a chorus ofhowling--the howling of jackals--as I had never before heard in all mydesert wanderings. The howling suddenly subsided ... but the dogs didnot return.
I glanced around, meaning to address the Sheikh, but the Sheikh wasgone.
Filled with wonder, then, respecting this singular incident, I enteredthe tent--it was at the farther end of the camp--which had been placedat my disposal, and lay down, rather to reflect than to sleep. With mymind confused in thoughts of yellow-eyed wanderers, of dogs,
and ofjackals, sleep came.
How long I slept I cannot say; but I was awakened as the cool fingersof dawn were touching the crests of the sand billows. A gray anddismal light filled the tent, and something was scratching at theflap.
I sat up immediately, quite wide awake, and taking my revolver, ranto the entrance and looked out.
A slinking shape melted into the shadows of the tent adjoining mine,and I concluded that a camp dog had aroused me. Then, in the earlymorning silence, I heard a faint call, and peering through the gloomto the east saw, in black silhouette, a solitary figure standing nearthe extremity of the camp.
In those days, my friends, I was a brave fellow--we are all brave atnineteen--and throwing a cloak over my shoulders I strode intrepidlytowards this figure. I was within ten paces when a hand was raised tobeckon me.
It was the mysterious stranger! Again he beckoned to me, and Iapproached yet nearer, asking him if it was he who had aroused me.
He nodded, and by means of a grotesque kind of pantomime ultimatelymade me understand that he had caused me to be aroused in order tocommunicate something to me. He turned, and indicated that we were towalk away from the camp. I accompanied him without hesitation.
Although the camp was never left unguarded, no one had challenged us;and, a hundred yards beyond the outermost tent, this strange old manstopped and turned to me.
First, he pointed back to the camp, then to myself, then out alongthe caravan road towards the Nile.
"Do you mean," I asked him--for I perceived that he was dumb or vowedto silence--"that I am to leave the camp?"
He nodded rapidly, his strange yellow eyes gleaming.
"Immediately?" I demanded.
Again he nodded.
"Why?"
Pantomimically he made me understand that death threatened me if Iremained--that I must leave the Bedouins before sunrise.
I cannot convey to you any idea of the mad earnestness of the man.But, alas! youth regards the counsels of age with nothing butcontempt; moreover, I thought this man mad, and I was unable to chokedown a sort of loathing which he inspired in me.
I shook my head then, but not unkindly; and, waving my hand, preparedto leave him. At that, with a sorrow in his strange eyes which did notfail to impress me, he saluted me with gravity, turned, and passed outof sight.
Although I did not know it at the time, I had chosen of two paths theone that led through fire.
I slept little after this interview--if it was a real interview andnot a dream--and feeling tired and unrefreshed, I saw the sun risepurple and angry over the distant hills.
You know what _khamsin_ is like, my friends? But you cannot know what_simoom_ is like--_simoom_ in the heart of the desert! It came thatmorning--a wall of sand so high as to shut out the sunlight, so denseas to turn the day into night, so suffocating that I thought I shouldnever live through it!
It was apparent to me that the Bedouins were prepared for the storm.The horses, the camels and the asses were tethered in an enclosurespecially strengthened to exclude the choking dust, and with theircloaks about their heads the men prepared for the oncoming of thisterror of the desert.
My God! it was a demon which sought to blind me, to suffocate me,and which clutched at my throat with strangling fingers of sand! This,I told myself, was the danger which I might have avoided by quittingthe camp before sunrise.
Indeed, it was apparent to me that if I had taken the advice sostrangely offered, I might now have been safe in the village of theGreat Oasis for which I was bound. But I have since seen that the_simoom_ was a minor danger, and not the real one to which this weirdbeing had referred.
The storm passed, and every man in the encampment praised the mercifulGod who had spared us all. It was in the disturbance attendant uponputting the camp in order once more that I saw her.
She came out from the tent of Said Mohammed, to shake the sand froma carpet; the newly come sunlight twinkled upon the bracelets whichclasped her smooth brown arms as she shook the gaily colored mat atthe tent door. The sunlight shone upon her braided hair, upon herslight robe, upon her silver anklets, and upon her tiny feet.Transfixed I stood watching--indeed, my friends, almost holding mybreath. Then the sunlight shone upon her eyes, two pools of mysteriousdarkness into which I found myself suddenly looking.
The face of this lovely Arab maiden flushed, and drawing the corner ofher robe across those bewitching eyes, she turned and ran back intothe tent.
One glance--just one glance, my friends! But never had Ulysses' bowpropelled an arrow more sure, more deadly. I was nineteen, remember,and of Provence. What do you foresee! You who have been through theworld, you who once were nineteen.
I feigned a sickness, a sickness brought about by the sandstorm, andtaking base advantage of that desert hospitality which is unbounded,which knows no suspicion, and takes no count of cost, I remained inthe tent which had been vacated for me.
In this voluntary confinement I learned little of the doings of thecamp. All day I lay dreaming of two dark eyes, and at night when thejackals howled I thought of the wanderer who had counseled me toleave. One day, I lay so; a second; a third again; and the women ofSaid Mohammed's household tended me, closely veiled of course. But invain I waited for that attendant whose absence was rendering myfeigned fever a real one--whose eyes burned like torches in my dreamsand for the coming of whose little bare feet across the sand to mytent door I listened hour by hour, day by day, in vain--always invain.
But at nineteen there is no such thing as despair, and hope hasstrength to defy death itself. It was in the violet dusk of the fourthday, as I lay there with a sort of shame of my deception strugglingfor birth in my heart, that she came.
She came through the tent door bearing a bowl of soup, and the rays ofthe setting sun outlined her fairy shape through the gossamer robe asshe entered.
At that my poor weak little conscience troubled me no more. How myheart leaped, leaped so that it threatened to choke me, who had comesafe through a great sandstorm.
There is fire in the Southern blood at nineteen, my friends, whichleaps into flame beneath the glances of bright eyes.
With her face modestly veiled, the Bedouin maid knelt beside me,placing the wooden bowl upon the ground. My eager gaze pierced the_yashmak_, but her black lashes were laid upon her cheek, her gloriouseyes averted. My heart--or was it my vanity?--told me that sheregarded me at least with interest, that she was not at ease in mycompany; and as, having spoken no word, having ventured no glance,she rose again to depart, I was emboldened to touch her hand.
Like a startled gazelle she gave me one rapid glance, and was gone!
She was gone--and my very soul gone with her! For hours I lay, not somuch as thinking of the food beside me--dreaming of her eyes. Whatwere my plans? Faith! Does one have plans at nineteen where two brighteyes are concerned?
Alas, my friends, I dare not tell you of my hopes, yet upon thosehopes I lived. Oh, it is glorious to be nineteen and of Provence; itis glorious when all the world is young, when the fruit is ripe uponthe trees and the plucking seems no sin. Yet, as we look back, weperceive that at nineteen we were scoundrels.
The Bedouin girl is a woman when a European woman is but a child, andSakina, whose eyes could search a man's soul, was but twelve years ofage--twelve! Can you picture that child of twelve squeezing a lover'sheart between her tiny hands, entwining his imagination in the coilsof her hair?
You, my friend, may perhaps be able to conceive this thing, for youknow the East, and the women of the East. At ten or eleven years ofage many of them are adorable; at twenty-one most of them are _passe_;at twenty-six all of them--with rare exceptions--are shrieking hags.
But to you, my other friends, who are strangers to our Oriental ways,who know not that the peach only attains to perfect ripeness for oneshort hour, it may be strange, it may be horrifying, that I loved,with all the ardor which was mine, this little Arab maiden, who, hadshe been born in France, would not yet have escaped from the nursery.But I digress
.
The Arabs were encamped, of course, in the neighborhood of a spring.It lay in a slight depression amid the tiny palm-grove. Here, atsunset, came the women with their pitchers on their heads, gracefulof carriage, veiled, mysterious.
Many peaches have ripened and have rotted since those days of whichI speak, but now--even now--I am still enslaved by the mystery ofEgypt's veiled women. Untidy, bedraggled, dirty, she may be, but thereal Egyptian woman when she bears her pitcher upon her head andglides, stately, sinuously, through the dusk to the well, is a figureto enchain the imagination.
Very soon, then, the barrier of reserve which, like the screen of the_harem_, stands between Eastern women and love, was broken. My trivialscruples I had cast to the winds, and feigning weakness, I would sallyforth to take the air in the cool of the evening; this two days later.
My steps, be assured, led me to the spring; and you who are men of theworld will know that Sakina, braving the reproaches of the Sheikh'shousehold, neglectful of her duties, was last of all the women whocame to the well for water.
I taught her to say my name--Rene! How sweet it sounded from her lips,as she strove in vain to roll the 'R' in our Provencal fashion. Some_ginnee_ most certainly presided over this enchanted fountain, fordespite the nearness of the camp our rendezvous was never discovered,our meetings were never detected.
With her pitcher upon the ground beside her, she would sit with thosewistful, wonderful eyes upraised to mine, and sway before the ardor ofmy impassioned words as a young and tender reed sways in the Nilebreeze. Her budding soul was a love lute upon which I played inecstasy; and when she raised her red lips to mine.... Ah! those nightsin the boundless desert! God is good to youth, and harsh to old age!
Next to Said Mohammed, her father, Sakina's brother was the finesthorseman of the tribe, and his white mare their fleetest steed. Ihad cast covetous eyes upon this glorious creature, my friends, andsecretly had made such overtures as were calculated to win herconfidence.
Within two weeks, then, my plans were complete--up to a point. Sincethey were doomed to failure, like my great scheme, I shall not troubleyou with their details, but an hour before dawn on a certain night Icut the camel-hair tethering of the white mare, and, undetected, ledthe beautiful creature over the silent sands to a cup-like depression,a thousand yards distant from the camp.
The Bedouin who was upon guard that night had with him a gourd of_'erksoos_. This was customary, and I had chosen an occasion when theduty of filling the sentinel's gourd had fallen upon Sakina; to his_'erksoos_ I had added four drops of dark brown fluid from my medicinechest.
It was an hour before dawn, then, when I stood beside the white mare,watching and listening; it was an hour before dawn when she for whommy great scheme was forgotten, for whom I was about to risk the anger,the just anger, of men amongst the most fierce in the known world,came running fleetly over the hillocks down into the little valley,and threw herself into my arms....
When dawn burst in gloomy splendor over the desert, we were still fivehours' ride from the spot where I had proposed temporarily to concealmyself, with perhaps an hour's start of the Arabs. I knew the desertways well enough, but the ghostly and desolate place in which I nowfound myself nevertheless filled me with foreboding.
A seam of black volcanic rock split the sands for a great distance,forming a kind of natural wall of forbidding aspect. In places thiswall was pierced by tunnel-like openings; I think they may have beenprehistoric tombs. There was no scrap of verdure visible, north,south, east or west; only desolation, sand, grayness, and this place,ghostly and wan with that ancient sorrow, that odor of remotemortality which is called "the dust of Egypt."
Seated before me in the saddle, Sakina looked up into my face with anever-changing confidence, having her little brown fingers interlockedabout my neck. But her strength was failing. A short rest wasimperative.
Thus far I had detected no evidence of pursuit and, descending fromthe saddle, I placed my weary companion upon a rock over which I hadlaid a rug, and poured out for her a draught of cool water.
Bread and dates were our breakfast fare; but bread and dates and waterare nectar and ambrosia when they are sweetened with kisses. Oh! theglorious madness of youth! Sometimes, my friends, I am almost temptedto believe that the man who has never been wicked has never beenhappy!
Picture us, then, if you can, set amid that desolation, which for uswas a rose-garden, eating of that unpalatable food--which for us wasthe food of the gods!
So we remained awhile, deliriously happy, though death might terminateour joys ere we again saw the sun, when something ... _something_spoke to me....
Understand me, I did not say that _someone_ spoke, I did not say thatanything _audible_ spoke. But I know that, unlocking those velvet armswhich clung to me, I stood up slowly--and, still slowly, turned andlooked back at the frowning black rocks.
Merciful God! My heart beats wildly now when I recall that moment.
Motionless as a statue, but in a crouching attitude, as if about toleap down, he who had warned me so truly stood upon the highest pointof the rocks watching us!
How long did I remain thus?
I cannot pretend to say; but when I turned to Sakina--she laytrembling on the ground, with her face hidden in her hands.
Then, down over the piled-up rocks, this mysterious and ominous beingcame leaping. Old man though he was, he descended with the agility ofa mountain goat--and sometimes, in the difficult places, _he went onall fours_.
Crossing the intervening strip of sand, he stood before me. You haveseen the reproach in the eyes of a faithful dog whose master hasstruck him unjustly? Such a reproach shone out from the yellow eyes ofthis desert wanderer. I cannot account for it; I can say no more....
It was impossible for me to speak; I trembled violently; such a fearand such a madness of sorrow possessed me that I would have welcomedany death--to have freed me from that intolerable reproach.
He suddenly pointed towards the horizon where against the curtain ofthe dawn black figures appeared.
I fell upon my knees beside Sakina. I was a poor, pitiable thing; themadness of my passion had left me, and already I was within the greatShadow; I could not even weep; I knew that I had brought Sakina outinto that desolate place--to die.
And now the man whose ways were unlike human ways began to babbleinsanely, gesticulating and plucking at me. I cannot hope to make youfeel one little part of the emotion with which those instants wereladen. Sakina clung to me trembling in a way I can neverforget--never, never forget. And the look in her eyes! even now Icannot bear to think of it, I cannot bear----
Those almost colorless lizards which dart about in the desert placeswith incredible swiftness were now coming forth from their nests; andall the while the black figures, unheard as yet, were approachingalong the path of the sun.
My mad folly grew more apparent to me every moment. I realized thatthis which so rapidly was overtaking me had been inevitable from thefirst. The strange wild man stood watching me with that intolerableglare, so that my trembling companion shrank from him in horror.
But evidently he was seeking to convey some idea to me. Hegesticulated constantly, pointing to the approaching Arabs and thenover his shoulder to the frowning rock behind. Since it was too latefor flight--for I knew that the white mare with a double burden couldnever outpace our pursuers--it occurred to me at the moment when themuffled beat of hoofs first became audible, that this hermit of therocks was endeavoring to induce me to seek some hiding-place withwhich no doubt he was acquainted.
How I cursed the delay which had enabled the Arabs to come up with us!I know, now, of course, that even had I not delayed, our ultimatecapture was certain. But at the moment, in my despair, I thoughtotherwise.
And now I cursed the stupidity which had prevented me from followingthis weird guide; I even thought wrathfully of the poor frightenedchild, whose weakness had necessitated the delay and whose fears hadcontributed considerably to this later misunderstanding.
>
The pursuing party, numbering four, and led by Said Mohammed, was nomore than five hundred yards away when I came to my senses. The hermitnow was tugging at my arm with frightful insistence; his eyes wereglaring insanely, and he chattered in an almost pitiable manner.
"Quick!" I cried, throwing my arm about Sakina, "up to the rocks. Thisman can hide us!"
"No, no!" she whispered, "I dare not----"
But I lifted her, and signing to the singular being to lead the way,staggered forward despairingly.
The distance was greater than it appeared, the climb incrediblydifficult. My guide held out his hand to me to assist me to mount theslippery rocks; but I had much ado to proceed and also to supportSakina.
Her terror of the man and of the place to which he was leading usmomentarily increased. Indeed, it seemed that she was becoming madwith fear. When the man paused before an opening in the rocks notmore than fifteen or sixteen inches in height, and wildly wavinghis arms in the air, his elfin locks flying about his shoulder, hiseyes glassy, intimated that we were to crawl in--Sakina writhed freeof my grasp and bounded back some three or four paces down the slope.
"Not in there!" she cried, holding out her little hands to mepitifully. "I dare not! He would devour us!"
At the foot of the slope, Said Mohammed, who had dismounted from hishorse, and who, far ahead of the others, was advancing towards us,at that moment raised his gun and fired....
Can I go on?
It is more years ago than I care to count, but it is fresher in mymind than the things of yesterday. A lonely old age is before me, myfriends--for I have been a solitary man since that shot was fired. Forme it changed the face of the world, for me it ended youth, revealingme to myself for what I was.
Something more nearly resembling human speech than any sound he hadyet uttered burst from the lips of the wild man as the report of SaidMohammed's shot whispered in echoes through the mysterious labyrinthsbeneath us.
Fate had stood at the Sheikh's elbow as he pulled the trigger.
With a little soft cry--I hear it now, gentle, but having in it aworld of agony--Sakina sank at my feet ... and her blood began totrickle over the black rocks on which she lay.
* * * * *
The man who professes to describe to you his emotions at such afrightful moment is an impostor. The world grew black before my eyes;every emotion of which my being was capable became paralysed.
I heard nothing, I saw nothing but the little huddled figure, that redstream upon the black rock, and the agonized love in the blazing eyesof Sakina. Groaning, I threw myself down beside her, and as she sighedout her life upon my breast, I knew--God help me--that what had beenbut a youthful amour, was now a life's tragedy; that for me the lightof the world had gone out, that I should never again know the warmthof the sun and the gladness of the morning....
The cave man, with a dog-like fidelity, sought now to drag me from mydead love, to drag me into that gloomy lair which she had shrunk fromentering. His incoherent mutterings broke in upon my semi-coma; but Ishook him off, I shrieked curses at him....
Now the Bedouins were mounting the slope, not less than a hundredyards below me. In the growing light I could see the face of SaidMohammed....
The man beside me exerted all his strength to drag me back into thegallery or cave--I know not what it was; but with my arms locked aboutSakina I lay watching the pursuers coming closer and closer.
Then, those persistent efforts suddenly ceased, and dully I toldmyself that this weird being, having done his best to save me, hadfled in order to save himself.
I was wrong.
You have asked me for a story of the magic of Egypt, and although,as you see, it has cost me tears--oh! I am not ashamed of those tears,my friends!--I have recounted this story to you. You say, where is themagic? and I might reply: the magic was in the changing of my falselove to a true. But there was another magic as well, and it grew uparound me now at this moment when I lay inert, waiting for death.
From behind me, from above me, arose a cry--a cry. You may have heardof the Bedouin song, the 'Mizmune':
"Ya men melek ana deri waat sa jebb, Id el' ish hoos' a beb hatsa azat ta lebb."
You may have heard how when it is sung in a certain fashion, flowersdrop from their stalks? Also, you may have doubted this, never havingheard a magical cry.
_I_ do not doubt it, my friends! For I _have_ heard a magicalcry--this cry which arose from behind me! It started some chord in mydulled consciousness which had never spoken before. I turned myhead--and there upon the highest point of the rocks stood the caveman. He suddenly stretched forth his hands.
Again he uttered that uncanny, that indescribable cry. It was nothuman. It was not animal. Yet it was nearer to the cry of an animalthan to any sound made by the human species. His eyes gleamed with anawful light, his spare body had assumed a strange significance; he wastransfigured.
A third time he uttered the cry, and out from one of those openings inthe rock which I have mentioned, crept a jackal. You know how a jackalavoids the day, how furtive, how nocturnal a creature it is? but therein the golden glory which proclaimed the coming of the sun, blacksilhouettes moved.
A great wonder possessed me, as the first jackal was followed by asecond, by a third, by a fourth, by a fifth. Did I say a fifth?...By five hundred--by five thousand!
From every visible hole in the rocks, jackals poured forth in packs.Wonder left me, fear left me; I forgot my sorrow, I became a numbedintelligence amid a desert of jackals. Over a sea of moving furrybacks, I saw that upstanding crag and the weird crouching figure uponit. Right and left, above and below, jackals moved ... and all turnedtheir heads towards the approaching Bedouins!
Again--again I heard that dreadful cry. The jackals, in a pack,thousands strong, began to advance upon the Bedouins!...
Not east or west, north or south, could you hope to find a braver manthan was the Sheikh Said Mohammed; but--he fled!
I saw the four horsemen riding like furies into the morning sun. Thewhite mare, riderless, galloped with them--and the desert behind wasyellow with jackals! For the last time I heard the cry.
The jackals began to return!
Forgive me, dear friends, if I seem an emotional fool. But when Irecovered from the swoon which blotted out that unnatural spectacle,the wizard--for now I knew him for nothing less--had dug a deeptrench--and had left me, alone.
Not a jackal was in sight; the sun blazed cruelly upon the desert.With my own hands I laid my love to rest in the sands. No cross, nocrescent marks her resting-place; but I left my youth upon her grave,as a last offering.
You may say that, since I had sinned so grievously, since I hadbetrayed the noble confidence of Said Mohammed, my host, I escapedlightly.
Ah! you do not know!
And what of the strange being whose gratitude I had done so little tomerit but yet which knew no bounds? It is of him that I will tell you.
Years later--how many it does not matter, but I was a man with noillusions--my restless wanderings (I being still a desertbird-of-passage) brought me one night to a certain well but rarelyvisited. It lay in a depression, like another well that I am fatedoften to see in my dreams, and, as one approached, the crowns of thepalm trees which grew there appeared above the mounds of sand.
I was alone and tired out; the next possible camping-place--for I hadno water--was many miles away. Yet it was written that I should presson to that other distant well, weary though I was.
First, then, as I came up, I perceived numbers of vultures in the air;and I began to fear that someone near to his end lay at the well. Butwhen, from the top of a mound, I obtained a closer view, I saw a sightthat, after one quick glance, caused me to spur up my tired horse andto fly--fly, with panic in my heart.
The brilliant moon bathed the hollow in light and cast dense shadowsof the palm stems upon the slope beyond. By the spring, his fallenface ghastly in the moonlight, in a clear space twenty feet across,lay a dead
man.
Even from where I sat I knew him; but, had I doubted, other evidencewas there of his identity. As I mounted the slope, thousands of fieryeyes were turned upon me.
God! that arena all about was alive with jackals--jackals, my friends,eaters of carrion--which, silent, watchful, guarded the wizard dead,who, living, had been their lord!