The Four Feathers

by AEW Mason

The six months came to an end. The seventh began; a fortnight of it passed, and the boy who brought Feversham food could never cheer their hearts with word that Abou Fatma had come back.

  "He will never come," said Trench, in despair.

  "Surely he will—if he is alive," said Feversham. "But is he alive?"

  The seventh month passed, and one morning at the beginning of the eighth there came two of the Khalifa's bodyguard to the prison, who talked with Idris. Idris advanced to the two prisoners.

  "Verily God is good to you, you men from the bad world," he said. "You are to look upon the countenance of the Khalifa. How happy you should be!"

  Trench and Feversham rose up from the ground in no very happy frame of mind. "What does he want with us? Is this the end?" The questions started up clear in both their minds. They followed the two guards out through the door and up the street towards the Khalifa's house.

  "Does it mean death?" said Feversham.

  Trench shrugged his shoulders and laughed sourly. "It is on the cards that Nebbi Khiddr has suggested something of the kind," he said.

  They were led into the great parade-ground before the mosque, and thence into the Khalifa's house, where another white man sat in attendance upon the threshold. Within the Khalifa was seated upon an angareb, and a grey-bearded Greek stood beside him. The Khalifa remarked to them that they were both to be employed upon the manufacture of gunpowder, with which the armies of the Turks were shortly to be overwhelmed.

  Feversham was on the point of disclaiming any knowledge of the process, but before he could open his lips he heard Trench declaring in fluent Arabic that there was nothing connected with gunpowder which he did not know about; and upon his words they were both told they were to be employed at the powder factory under the supervision of the Greek.

  For that Greek both prisoners will entertain a regard to their dying day. There was in the world a true Samaritan. It was out of sheer pity, knowing the two men to be herded in the House of Stone, that he suggested to the Khalifa their employment, and the same pity taught him to cover the deficiencies of their knowledge.

  "I know nothing whatever about the making of gunpowder except that crystals are used," said Trench. "But we shall leave the prison each day, and that is something, though we return each night. Who knows when a chance of escape may come?"

  The powder factory lay in the northward part of the town, and on the bank of the Nile just beyond the limits of the great mud wall and at the back of the slave market. Every morning the two prisoners were let out from the prison door, they tramped along the river-bank on the outside of the town wall, and came into the powder factory past the storehouses of the Khalifa's bodyguard. Every evening they went back by the same road to the House of Stone. No guard was sent with them, since flight seemed impossible, and each journey that they made they looked anxiously for the man in the blue robe. But the months passed, and May brought with it the summer.

  "Something has happened to Abou Fatma," said Feversham. "He has been caught at Berber perhaps. In some way he has been delayed."

  "He will not come," said Trench.

  Feversham could no longer pretend to hope that he would. He did not know of a sword-thrust received by Abou Fatma, as he fled through Berber on his return from Omdurman. He had been recognised by one of his old gaolers in that town, and had got cheaply off with the one thrust in his thigh. From that wound he had through the greater part of this year been slowly recovering in the hospital at Assouan. But though Feversham heard nothing of Abou Fatma, towards the end of May he received news that others were working for his escape. As Trench and he passed in the dusk of one evening between the storehouses and the town wall, a man in the shadow of one of the narrow alleys which opened from the storehouses whispered to them to stop. Trench knelt down upon the ground and examined his foot as though a stone had cut it, and as he kneeled the man walked past them and dropped a slip of paper at their feet. He was a Suakin merchant, who had a booth in the grain market of Omdurman. Trench picked up the paper, hid it in his hand and limped on, with Feversham at his side. There was no address or name upon the outside, and as soon as they had left the houses behind, and had only the wall upon their right and the Nile upon their left, Trench sat down again. There was a crowd about the water's edge, men passed up and down between the crowd and them. Trench took his foot into his lap and examined the sole. But at the same time he unfolded the paper in the hollow of his hand and read the contents aloud. He could hardly read them, his voice so trembled. Feversham could hardly hear them, the blood so sang in his ears.

  "A man will bring to you a box of matches. When he comes trust him.—Sutch." And he asked, "Who is Sutch?"

  "A great friend of mine," said Feversham. "He is in Egypt, then! Does he say where?"

  "No; but since Mohammed Ali, the grain merchant, dropped the paper, we may be sure he is at Suakin. A man with a box of matches! Think, we may meet him to-night!"

  But it was a month later when, in the evening, an Arab pushed past them on the river-bank and said: "I am the man with the matches. To-morrow by the storehouse at this hour." And as he walked past them he dropped a box of coloured matches on the ground. Feversham stooped instantly.

  "Don't touch them," said Trench, and he pressed the box into the ground with his foot and walked on.

  "Sutch!" exclaimed Feversham. "So he comes to our help! How did he know that I was here?"

  Trench fairly shook with excitement as he walked. He did not speak of the great new hope which so suddenly came to them, for he dared not. He tried even to pretend to himself that no message at all had come. He was afraid to let his mind dwell upon the subject. Both men slept brokenly that night, and every time they waked it was with a dim consciousness that something great and wonderful had happened. Feversham, as he lay upon his back and gazed upwards at the stars, had a fancy that he had fallen asleep in the garden of Broad Place, on the Surrey hills, and that he had but to raise his head to see the dark pines upon his right hand and his left, and but to look behind to see the gables of the house against the sky. He fell asleep towards dawn, and within an hour was waked up by a violent shaking. He saw Trench bending over him with a great fear on his face.

  "Suppose they keep us in the prison to-day," he whispered in a shaking voice, plucking at Feversham. "It has just occurred to me! Suppose they did that!"

  "Why should they?" answered Feversham; but the same fear caught hold of him, and they sat dreading the appearance of Idris, lest he should have some such new order to deliver. But Idris crossed the yard and unbolted the prison door without a look at them. Fighting, screaming, jammed together in the entrance, pulled back, thrust forwards, the captives struggled out into the air, and among them was one who ran, foaming at the mouth, and dashed his head against the wall.

  "He is mad!" said Trench, as the gaolers secured him; and since Trench was unmanned that morning he began to speak rapidly and almost with incoherence. "That's what I have feared, Feversham, that I should go mad. To die, even here, one could put up with that without overmuch regret; but to go mad!" and he shivered. "If this man with the matches proves false to us, Feversham, I shall be near to it—very near to it. A man one day, a raving, foaming idiot the next—a thing to be put away out of sight, out of hearing. God, but that's horrible!" and he dropped his head between his hands, and dared not look up until Idris crossed to them and bade them go about their work. What work they did in the factory that day neither knew. They were only aware that the hours passed with an extraordinary slowness, but the evening came at last.

  "Among the storehouses," said Trench. They dived into the first alley which they passed, and turning a corner saw the man who had brought the matches.

  "I am Abdul Kader," he began at once. "I have come to arrange for your escape. But at present flight is impossible;" and Trench swayed upon his feet as he heard the word.

  "Impossible?" asked Feversham.

  "Yes. I brought three camels to Omdurman, of which two have died. The Effen
di at Suakin gave me money, but not enough. I could not arrange for relays, but if you will give me a letter to the Effendi telling him to give me two hundred pounds, then I will have everything ready and come again within three months."

  Trench turned his back so that his companion might not see his face. All his spirit had gone from him at this last stroke of fortune. The truth was clear to him, appallingly clear. Abdul Kader was not going to risk his life; he would be the shuttle going backwards and forwards between Omdurman and Suakin as long as Feversham cared to write letters and Sutch to pay money. But the shuttle would do no weaving.

  "I have nothing with which to write," said Feversham, and Abdul Kader produced them.

  "Be quick," he said. "Write quickly, lest we be discovered." And Feversham wrote; but though he wrote as Abdul suggested, the futility of his writing was as clear to him as to Trench.

  "There is the letter," he said, and he handed it to Abdul, and, taking Trench by the arm, walked without another word away.

  They passed out of the alley and came again to the great mud wall. It was sunset. To their left the river gleamed with changing lights—here it ran the colour of an olive, there rose pink, and here again a brilliant green; above their heads the stars were coming out, in the east it was already dusk; and behind them in the town, drums were beginning to beat with their barbaric monotone. Both men walked with their chins sunk upon their breasts, their eyes upon the ground. They had come to the end of hope, they were possessed with a lethargy of despair. Feversham thought not at all of the pine trees on the Surrey hills, nor did Trench have any dread that something in his head would snap and that which made him man be reft from him. They walked slowly, as though their fetters had grown ten times their weight, and without a word. So stricken, indeed, were they that an Arab turned and kept pace beside them, and neither noticed his presence. In a few moments the Arab spoke:—

  "The camels are ready in the desert, ten miles to the west."

  But he spoke in so low a voice, and those to whom he spoke were so absorbed in misery, that the words passed unheard. He repeated them, and Feversham looked up. Quite slowly their meaning broke in on Feversham's mind; quite slowly he recognised the man who uttered them.

  "Abou Fatma!" he said.

  "Hoosh!" returned Abou Fatma, "the camels are ready."

  "Now?"

  "Now."

  Trench leaned against the wall with his eyes closed, and the face of a sick man. It seemed that he would swoon, and Feversham took him by the arm.

  "Is it true?" Trench asked faintly; and before Feversham could answer Abou Fatma went on:—

  "Walk forwards very slowly. Before you reach the end of the wall it will be dusk. Draw your cloaks over your heads, wrap these rags about your chains, so that they do not rattle. Then turn and come back, go close to the water beyond the storehouses. I will be there with a man to remove your chains. But keep your faces well covered and do not stop. He will think you slaves."

  With that he passed some rags to them, holding his hands behind his back, while they stood close to him. Then he turned and hurried back. Very slowly Feversham and Trench walked forwards in the direction of the prison; the dusk crept across the river, mounted the long slope of sand, enveloped them. They sat down and quickly wrapped the rags about their chains and secured them there. From the west the colours of the sunset had altogether faded, the darkness gathered quickly about them. They turned and walked back along the road they had come. The drums were more numerous now, and above the wall there rose a glare of light. By the time they had reached the water's edge opposite the storehouses it was dark. Abou Fatma was already waiting with his blacksmith. The chains were knocked off without a word spoken.

  "Come," said Abou. "There will be no moon to-night. How long before they discover you are gone?"

  "Who knows? Perhaps already Idris has missed us. Perhaps he will not till morning. There are many prisoners."

  They ran up the slope of sand, between the quarters of the tribes, across the narrow width of the city, through the cemetery. On the far side of the cemetery stood a disused house; a man rose up in the doorway as they approached, and went in.

  "Wait here," said Abou Fatma, and he too went into the house. In a moment both men came back, and each one led a camel and made it kneel.

  "Mount," said Abou Fatma. "Bring its head round and hold it as you mount."

  "I know the trick," said Trench.

  Feversham climbed up behind him, the two Arabs mounted the second camel.

  "Ten miles to the west," said Abou Fatma, and he struck the camel on the flanks.

  Behind them the glare of the lights dwindled, the tapping of the drums diminished.

  Chapter XXX - The Last of the Southern Cross

  *

  The wind blew keen and cold from the north. The camels, freshened by it, trotted out at their fastest pace.

  "Quicker," said Trench, between his teeth. "Already Idris may have missed us."

  "Even if he has," replied Feversham, "it will take time to get men together for a pursuit, and those men must fetch their camels, and already it is dark."

  But although he spoke hopefully, he turned his head again and again towards the glare of light above Omdurman. He could no longer hear the tapping of the drums, that was some consolation. But he was in a country of silence, where men could journey swiftly and yet make no noise. There would be no sound of galloping horses to warn him that pursuit was at his heels. Even at that moment the Ansar soldiers might be riding within thirty paces of them, and Feversham strained his eyes backwards into the darkness and expected the glimmer of a white turban. Trench, however, never turned his head. He rode with his teeth set, looking forwards. Yet fear was no less strong in him than in Feversham. Indeed, it was stronger, for he did not look back towards Omdurman because he did not dare; and though his eyes were fixed directly in front of him, the things which he really saw were the long narrow streets of the town behind him, the dotted fires at the corners of the streets, and men running hither and thither among the houses, making their quick search for the two prisoners escaped from the House of Stone.

  Once his attention was diverted by a word from Feversham, and he answered without turning his head:—

  "What is it?"

  "I no longer see the fires of Omdurman."

  "The golden blot, eh, very low down?" Trench answered in an abstracted voice. Feversham did not ask him to explain what his allusion meant, nor could Trench have disclosed why he had spoken it; the words had come back to him suddenly with a feeling that it was somehow appropriate that the vision which was the last thing to meet Feversham's eyes as he set out upon his mission he should see again now that that mission was accomplished. They spoke no more until two figures rose out of the darkness in front of them, at the very feet of their camels, and Abou Fatma cried in a low voice:—

  "Instanna!"

  They halted their camels and made them kneel.

  "The new camels are here?" asked Abou Fatma, and two of the men disappeared for a few minutes and brought four camels up. Meanwhile the saddles were unfastened and removed from the camels Trench and his companion had ridden out of Omdurman.

  "They are good camels?" asked Feversham, as he helped to fix the saddles upon the fresh ones.

  "Of the Anafi breed," answered Abou Fatma. "Quick! Quick!" and he looked anxiously to the east and listened.

  "The arms?" said Trench. "You have them? Where are they?" and he bent his body and searched the ground for them.

  "In a moment," said Abou Fatma, but it seemed that Trench could hardly wait for that moment to arrive. He showed even more anxiety to handle the weapons than he had shown fear that he would be overtaken.

  "There is ammunition?" he asked feverishly.

  "Yes, yes," replied Abou Fatma, "ammunition and rifles and revolvers." He led the way to a spot about twenty yards from the camels, where some long desert grass rustled about their legs. He stooped and dug into the soft sand with his hands.

&
nbsp; "Here," he said.

  Trench flung himself upon the ground beside him and scooped with both hands, making all the while an inhuman whimpering sound with his mouth, like the noise a foxhound makes at a cover. There was something rather horrible to Feversham in his attitude as he scraped at the ground on his knees, at the action of his hands, quick like the movements of a dog's paws, and in the whine of his voice. He was sunk for the time into an animal. In a moment or two Trench's fingers touched the lock and trigger of a rifle, and he became man again. He stood up quietly with the rifle in his hands. The other arms were unearthed, the ammunition shared.

  "Now," said Trench, and he laughed with a great thrill of joy in the laugh. "Now I don't mind. Let them follow from Omdurman! One thing is certain now: I shall never go back there; no, not even if they overtake us," and he fondled the rifle which he held and spoke to it as though it lived.

  Two of the Arabs mounted the old camels and rode slowly away to Omdurman. Abou Fatma and the other remained with the fugitives. They mounted and trotted northeastwards. No more than a quarter of an hour had elapsed since they had first halted at Abou Fatma's word.

  All that night they rode through halfa grass and mimosa trees and went but slowly, but they came about sunrise on to flat bare ground broken with small hillocks.

  "Are the Effendi tired?" asked Abou Fatma. "Will they stop and eat? There is food upon the saddle of each camel."

  "No; we can eat as we go."

  Dates and bread and a draught of water from a zamsheyeh made up their meal, and they ate it as they sat their camels. These, indeed, now that they were free of the long desert grass, trotted at their quickest pace. And at sunset that evening they stopped and rested for an hour. All through that night they rode and the next day, straining their own endurance and that of the beasts they were mounted on, now ascending on to high and rocky ground, now traversing a valley, and now trotting fast across plains of honey-coloured sand. Yet to each man the pace seemed always as slow as a funeral. A mountain would lift itself above the rim of the horizon at sunrise, and for the whole livelong day it stood before their eyes, and was never a foot higher or an inch nearer. At times, some men tilling a scanty patch of sorghum would send the fugitives' hearts leaping in their throats, and they must make a wide detour; or again a caravan would be sighted in the far distance by the keen eyes of Abou Fatma, and they made their camels kneel and lay crouched behind a rock, with their loaded rifles in their hands. Ten miles from Abu Klea a relay of fresh camels awaited them, and upon these they travelled, keeping a day's march westward of the Nile. Thence they passed through the desert country of the Ababdeh, and came in sight of a broad grey tract stretching across their path.