by Sax Rohmer
The Turquoise Necklace
I
"He is the lord of the desert, Effendi," declared Mohammed the dragoman."From the Valley of Zered to Damascus he is known and loved, but feared.They say"--he lowered his voice--"that he is a great _welee_, and thathe is often seen in the street of the attars, having the appearance of asimple old man; but in the desert he is like a bitter apple, a viper anda calamity! Overlord is he of the Bedouins, and all the sons of thedesert bow to Ben Azreem, Sheikh of the Ibn-Rawallah."
"What is a _welee_, exactly?" asked Graham.
"A man of God, Effendi, favoured beyond other men."
"And this Arab Sheikh is a _welee_?"
"So it is said. He goes about secretly aiding the poor and afflicted,when he may be known by his white beard----"
"There are many white beards in Egypt," said Graham.
But the other continued, ignoring the interruption:
"And in the desert, Ben Azreem, a horseman unrivalled, may be known bythe snow-white horse which he rides, or if he is not so mounted, by hiswhite camel, swifter than the glance of envy, more surefooted than theeager lover who climbs to his enslaver's window."
"Indeed!" said Graham dryly. "Well, I hope I may have the pleasure ofmeeting this mysterious notability before I leave the country."
"Unless you journey across the sands for many days, it is unlikely. Forwhen he comes into Egypt he reveals himself to none but the supremelygood,"--Graham stared--"and the supremely wicked!" added Mohammed.
The poetic dragoman having departed, Graham leaned over to his wife, whohad sat spellbound, her big blue eyes turned to the face of Mohammedthroughout his romantic narrative.
"These wild native legends appeal to you, don't they?" he said, smilingand patting her hand affectionately. "You superstitious littlecolleen!"
Eileen Graham blushed, and the blush of a pretty Irish bride is a verybeautiful thing.
"Don't you believe it at all, then?" she asked softly.
"I believe there may be such a person as Ben Azreem, and possibly he's avery imposing individual. He may even indulge in visits, incognito, toCairo, in the manner of the late lamented Harun er-Rashid of _ArabianNights_ memory, but I can't say that I believe in _welees_ as a class!"
His wife shrugged her pretty shoulders.
"There is something that _I_ have to tell you, which I suppose you willalso refuse to believe," she said, with mock indignation. "You rememberthe Arabs whom we saw at the exhibition in London?"
Graham started.
"The gentlemen who were advertised as 'chiefs from the Arabian Desert'?I remember _one_ in particular."
"That is the one I mean," said Eileen.
Her husband looked at her curiously.
"Your explanation is delightfully lucid, dear!" he said jocularly."My memories of the gentleman known as El-Suleym, I believe, arenot pleasant; his memories of me must be equally unfavourable. Heillustrated the fact that savages should never be introduced intocivilised society, however fascinating they may be personally. Mrs.Marstham was silly enough to take the man up, and because of the way helooked at you, I was wise enough to knock him down! What then?"
"Only this--I saw him, to-day!"
"Eileen!" There was alarm in Graham's voice. "Where? Here, or in Cairo?"
"As we were driving away from the mosque of the Whirling Dervishes. Hewas one of a group who stood by the bridge."
"You are certain?"
"Quite certain."
"Did he see you?"
"I couldn't say. He gave no sign to show that he had seen me."
John Graham lighted a cigarette with much care.
"It doesn't matter, anyway," he said, carelessly. "You are as safe hereas at the _Ritz_."
But there was unrest in the glance which he cast out across the prospecttouched by moon-magic into supernatural beauty.
In the distance gleamed a fairy city of silvern minarets, born, itseemed, from the silvern stream. Beyond lay the night mystery of thedesert, into whose vastness marched the ghostly acacias. The discordantchattering and chanting from the river-bank merged into a humming song,not unmusical. The howling of the dogs, even, found a place in theorchestral scheme.
Behind him, in the hotel, was European and American life--modernity;before him was that other life, endless and unchanging. There wassomething cold, sombre, and bleak in the wonderful prospect, somethingshocking in the presence of those sight-seeing, careless folk, theluxurious hotel, _all_ that was Western and new, upon that threshold ofthe ancient, changeless desert.
A menace, too, substantial yet cloaked with the mystery of themotherland of mysteries, had arisen now. Although he had assured Eileenthat Gizeh was as safe as Piccadilly, he had too much imagination to beunaware that from the Egypt of Cook's to the Egypt of secrets is but astep.
None but the very young or very sanguine traveller looks for adventurenowadays in the neighbourhood of Mena House. When the intrepid GeorgeSandys visited and explored the Great Pyramid, it was at peril of hislife, but Graham reflected humorously that the most nervous old ladiesnow performed the feat almost daily. Yet out here in the moonlight wherethe silence was, out beyond the radius of "sights," lay a land unknownto Europe, as every desert is unknown.
It was a thought that had often come to him, but it came to-night with aforce and wearing a significance which changed the aspect of the sands,the aspect of all Egypt.
He glanced at the charming girl beside him. Eileen, too, was lookinginto the distance with far-away gaze. The pose of her head wasdelightful, and he sat watching her in silence. Within the hotel theorchestra had commenced softly to play; but Graham did not notice thefact. He was thinking how easily one could be lost out upon that greyocean, with its islands of priestly ruins.
"It is growing rather chilly, dear," he said suddenly; "even for furwraps. Suppose we go in?"
II
The crowd in the bazaar was excessive, and the bent old figure whichlaboured beneath a nondescript burden, wrapped up in a blue cloth,passed from the noisiness out into the narrow street which ran atright-angles with the lane of many shops.
Perhaps the old Arab was deaf, perhaps wearied to the point ofexhaustion; but, from whatever cause, he ignored, or was unaware of, theoncoming _arabeeyeh_, whose driver had lost control of his horse. Eventhe shrill scream of the corpulent, white-veiled German lady, who wasone of its passengers, failed to arouse him. Out into the narrow roadwayhe staggered, bent almost double.
Graham, accompanied by Mohammed, was some distance away, haggling with aGreek thief who held the view that a return of three hundred and fiftyper cent. spelled black ruination.
Eileen, finding the air stifling, had walked on in the direction of theless crowded street above. Thus it happened that she, and the poor oldporter, alone, were in the path of the onward-whirling carriage.
Many women so placed would have stood, frozen with horror, have beenstruck down by the frantic animal; some would have had sufficientpresence of mind to gain the only shelter attainable in time--that of adeep-set doorway. Few would have acted as Eileen acted.
It was under the stimulus of that Celtic impetuosity--that generousmadness which seems to proceed, not from the mind, but from theheart--that she leapt, not back, but forward.
She never knew exactly what took place, nor how she escaped destruction;but there was a roaring in her ears, above it rising the Teutonicscreams of the lady in the _arabeeyeh_; there was a confused chorus ofvoices, a consciousness of effort; and she found herself, with wildlybeating heart, crouching back into the recess which once had held a_mastabah_.
From some place invisible, around a bend in the tortuous street, camesounds of shouting and that of lashing hoofs. The runaway was stopped.At her feet lay a shapeless bundle wrapped in a blue cloth, and besideher, leaning back against the whitewashed wall, and breathing withshort, sobbing breaths, was the old porter.
Now, her husband had his arms about her, and Mohammed, with frightenedeyes, hovered in the background. Without un
due haste, all the bazaargradually was coming upon the scene.
"My darling, are you hurt?"
John Graham's voice shook. He was deathly pale.
Eileen smiled reassuringly.
"Not a bit, dear," she said breathlessly. "But I am afraid the poor oldman is."
"You are quite sure you are not hurt?"
"I was not so much as touched, though honestly I don't know how eitherof us escaped. But do see if the old man is injured."
Graham turned to the rescued porter, who now had recovered hiscomposure.
"Mohammed, ask him if he is hurt," he directed.
Mohammed put the question. A curious group surrounded the party. But theold man, ignoring all, knelt and bowed his bare head to the dust atEileen's feet.
"Oh, John," cried the girl, "ask him to stand up! I feel ashamed to seesuch a venerable old man kneeling before me!"
"Tell him it is--nothing," said Graham hastily to Mohammed,"and--er----"--he fumbled in his pocket--"give him this."
But Mohammed, looking ill at ease, thrust aside the proffered_bakshish_--a novel action which made Graham stare widely.
"He would not take it, Effendi," he whispered. "See, his turban liesthere; he is a _hadj_. He is praying for the eternal happiness of hispreserver, and he is interceding with the Prophet (_Salla--'llahu'aleyhi wasellum_), that she may enjoy the delights of Paradise equallywith all true Believers!"
"Very good of him," said Graham, who, finding the danger passed and hiswife safe, was beginning to feel embarrassed. "Thank him, and tell himthat she is greatly indebted!"
He took Eileen's arm, and turned to force a way through the strangelysilent group about. But the aged porter seized the hem of the girl'swhite skirt, gently detaining her. As he rose upon his knees, Mohammed,with marks of unusual deference, handed him his green turban. The oldman, still clutching Eileen's dress, signed that his dirty bundle shouldlikewise be passed to him. This was done.
Graham was impatient to get away. But----
"Humour him for a moment, dear," said Eileen softly. "We don't want tohurt the poor old fellow's feelings."
Into the bundle the old man plunged his hand, and drew out a thin goldchain upon which hung a queerly cut turquoise. He stood upright, raisedthe piece of jewellery to his forehead and to his lips, and held it out,the chain stretched across his open palms, to Eileen.
"He must be some kind of pedlar," said Graham.
Eileen shook her head, smiling.
"Mohammed, tell him that I cannot possibly take his chain," shedirected. "But thank him all the same, of course."
Mohammed, his face averted from the statuesque old figure, bent to herear.
"Take it!" he whispered. "Take it! Do not refuse!"
There was a sort of frightened urgency in his tones, so that both Grahamand his wife looked at him curiously.
"Take it, then, Eileen," said Graham quickly. "And, Mohammed, you mustfind out who he is, and we will make it up to him in some way."
"Yes, yes, Effendi," agreed the man readily.
Eileen accordingly accepted the present, glancing aside at her husbandto intimate that they must not fail to pay for it. As she took the chainin her hands, the donor said something in a low voice.
"Hang it round your neck," translated Mohammed.
Eileen did so, whispering:
"You must not lose sight of him, Mohammed."
Mohammed nodded; and the old man, replacing his turban and making a lowobeisance, spoke rapidly a few words, took up his bundle, and departed.The silent bystanders made way for him.
"Come on," said Graham; "I am anxious to get out of this. Find acarriage, Mohammed. We'll lunch at Shepheard's."
A carriage was obtained, and they soon left far behind them the scene ofthis odd adventure. With Mohammed perched up on the box, Graham and hiswife could discuss the episode without restraint. Graham, however, didmost of the talking, for Eileen was strangely silent.
"It is quite a fine stone," he said, examining the necklace so curiouslyacquired. "We must find some way of repaying the old chap which will notoffend his susceptibilities."
Eileen nodded absently; and her husband, with his eyes upon the daintywhite figure, found gratitude for her safety welling up like a hotspring in his heart. The action had been characteristic; and he longedto reprove her for risking her life, yet burned to take her in his armsfor the noble impulse that had prompted her to do so.
He wondered anxiously if her silence could be due to the after-effectsof that moment of intense excitement.
"You don't feel unwell, darling?" he whispered.
She smiled at him radiantly, and gave his hand a quick little squeeze.
"Of course not," she said.
But she remained silent to the end of the short drive. This was not dueto that which her husband feared, however, but to the fact that she hadcaught a glimpse, amongst the throng at the corner of the bazaar, of thehandsome, sinister face of El-Suleym, the Bedouin.
III
The moon poured radiance on the desert. At the entrance to a camel-hairtent stood a tall, handsome man, arrayed in the picturesque costume ofthe Bedouin. The tent behind him was upheld by six poles. The ends andone side were pegged to the ground, and the whole of that side beforewhich he stood was quite open, with the exception of a portion beforewhich hung a goat-hair curtain.
This was the "house of hair" of the Sheikh El-Suleym, of theMasr-Bishareen--El-Suleym, "the Regicide" outcast of the great tribe ofthe Bishareen. At some distance from the Sheikh's tent were some half adozen other and smaller tents, housing the rascally following of thisdesert outcast.
Little did those who had engaged the picturesque El-Suleym, to displayhis marvellous horsemanship in London, know that he and those that camewith him were a scorn among true sons of the desert, pariahs of thatbrotherhood which extends from Zered to the Nile, from Tanta to the RedSea; little did those who had opened their doors in hospitality to thedashing horseman dream that they entertained a petty brigand, soughtfor by the Egyptian authorities, driven out into ostracism by his ownpeople.
And now before his tent he stood statuesque in the Egyptian moonlight,and looked towards Gizeh, less than thirty miles to the north-east.
As El-Suleym looked towards Gizeh, Graham and his wife were seatedbefore Mena House looking out across the desert. The adventure of themorning had left its impression upon both of them, and Eileen wore thegold chain with its turquoise pendant. Graham was smoking in silence,and thinking, not of the old porter and his odd Eastern gratitude, butof another figure, and one which often came between his mental eye andthe beauties of that old, beautiful land. Eileen, too, was thinking ofEl-Suleym; for the Bedouin now was associated in her mind with the oldpedlar, since she had last seen the handsome, sinister face amid thethrong at the entrance to the bazaar.
Telepathy is a curious fact. Were Graham's reflections _en rapport_ withhis wife's, or were they both influenced by the passionate thoughts ofthat other mind, that subtle, cunning mind of the man who at that momentwas standing before his house of hair and seeking with his eagle glanceto defy distance and the night?
"Have you seen--him, again?" asked Graham abruptly. "Since the other dayat the bridge?"
Eileen started. Although he had endeavoured to hide it from her, she wasperfectly well aware of her husband's intense anxiety on her behalf.She knew, although he prided himself upon having masked his feelings,that the presence of the Bedouin in Egypt had cast a cloud upon hishappiness. Therefore she had not wished to tell him of her secondencounter with El-Suleym. But to this direct question there could beonly one reply.
"I saw him again--this morning," she said, toying nervously with thependant at her neck.
Graham clasped her hand tensely.
"Where?"
"Outside the bazaar, in the crowd."
"You did not--tell me."
"I did not want to worry you."
He laughed dryly.
"It doesn't worry me, Eileen," he said carelessly. "If
I were inDamascus or Aleppo, it certainly might worry me to know that a man, nodoubt actively malignant towards us, was near, perhaps watching; butCairo is really a prosaically safe and law-abiding spot. We are assecure here as we should be at--Shepherd's Bush, say!"
He laughed shortly. Voices floated out to them, nasal, guttural,strident; voices American, Teutonic, Gallic, and Anglo-Saxon. Theorchestra played a Viennese waltz. Confused chattering, creaking, andbumping sounded from the river. Out upon the mud walls dogs bayed themoon.
But beyond the native village, beyond the howling dogs, beyond theacacia ranks out in the silver-grey mystery of the sands hard by, anoutpost of the Pharaohs, where a ruined shrine of Horus bared its secretplaces to the peeping moon, the Sheikh of the Masr-Bishareen smiled.
Graham felt strangely uneasy, and sought by light conversation to shakeoff the gloom which threatened to claim him.
"That thief, Mohammed," he said tersely, "has no more idea than Adam, Ibelieve, who your old porter friend really is."
"Why do you think so?" asked Eileen.
"Because he's up in Cairo to-night, searching for him!"
"How do you know?"
"I cornered him about it this afternoon, and although I couldn't forcean admission from him--I don't think anybody short of an accomplishedK.C. could--he was suspiciously evasive! I gave him four hours toprocure the name and address of the old gentleman to whom we owe theprice of a turquoise necklace. He has not turned up yet!"
Eileen made no reply. Her Celtic imagination had invested the morning'sincident with a mystic significance which she could not hope to impartto her hard-headed husband.
A dirty and ragged Egyptian boy made his way on to the verandah,furtively glancing about him, as if anticipating the cuff of an unseenhand. He sidled up to Graham, thrusting a scrap of paper on to thelittle table beside him.
"For me?" said Graham.
The boy nodded; and whilst Eileen watched him interestedly, Graham,tilting the communication so as to catch the light from the hotelwindows, read the following:
"He is come to here but cannot any farther. I have him waiting the boywill bring you.
"Your obedient Effendi, MOHAMMED."
Graham laughed grimly, glancing at his watch.
"Only half an hour late," he said, standing up, "Wait here, Eileen; Ishall not be many minutes."
"But I should like to see him, too. He might accept the price from mewhere you would fail to induce him to take it."
"Never fear," said her husband; "he wouldn't have come if he meant torefuse. What shall I offer him?"
"Whatever you think," said Eileen, smiling; "be generous with the poorold man."
Graham nodded and signed to the boy that he was ready to start.
The night swallowed them up; and Eileen sat waiting, whilst the bandplayed softly and voices chatted incessantly around her.
Some five minutes elapsed; ten; fifteen. It grew to half an hour, andshe became uneasy. She stood up and began to pace up and down theverandah. Then the slinking figure of the Egyptian youth reappeared.
"Graham Effendi," he said, showing his gleaming teeth, "says you cometoo."
Eileen drew her wrap more closely about her and smiled to the boy tolead the way.
They passed out from the hotel, turned sharply to the left, made in thedirection of the river, then bore off to the right in the direction ofthe sand-dunes. The murmuring life of Mena House died into remoteness;the discordance of the Arab village momentarily took precedence; thenthis, in turn, was lost, and they were making out desert-ward to thehollow which harbours the Sphinx. Great events in our lives rarely leavea clear-cut impression; often the turning-point in one's career is aconfused memory, a mere clash of conflicting ideas. Trivial episodesare sharp silhouettes; unforgettable; great happenings but grey, vaguethings in life's panorama. Thus, Eileen never afterwards could quiterecall what happened that night. The thing that was like to have wreckedher life had no sharp outlines to etch themselves upon the plate ofmemory. Vaguely she wondered to what meeting-place the boy was leadingher. Faintly she was conscious of a fear of the growing silence, ofa warning instinct whispering her to beware of the loneliness of thedesert.
Then the boy was gone; the silence was gone; harsh voices were in herears--a cloth was whipped about her face and strong arms lifted her. Shewas not of a stock that swoon or passively accept violence. She stroveto cry out, but the band was too cunningly fastened to allow of it;she struck out with clenched fists and not unshrewdly, for twice herknuckles encountered a bearded face and a suppressed exclamation toldthat the blows were not those of a weakling. She kicked furiously anddrew forth a howl of pain from her captor. Her hands flew up to thebandage, but were roughly seized, thrust down and behind her, and tiedsecurely.
She was thrown across a saddle, and with a thrill of horror knew herselfa captive. Out into the desert she was borne, into that unknown landwhich borders so closely upon the sight-seeing track of Cook's. And herhelplessness, her inability to fight, broke her spirit, born fighterthat she was; and the jarring of the saddle of the galloping horse, thedull thud of the hoofs on the sand, the iron grip which held her, fear,anger, all melted into a blank.
IV
Mohammed the dragoman, with two hotel servants, came upon Graham sometime later, gagged and bound behind a sand hillock less than fivehundred yards from Mena House. They had him on his feet in an instant,unbound; and his face was ghastly--for he knew too well what the outrageportended.
"Quick!" he said hoarsely. "How long is she gone?"
Mohammed was trembling wildly.
"Nearly an hour, Effendi--nearly an hour. Allah preserve us, what shallwe do? I heard it in Cairo to-night--it is all over the bazaars--theSheikh El-Suleym with the Masr-Bishareen is out. They travel like thewind, Effendi. It is not four days since they stopped a caravan tenmiles beyond Bir-Amber, now they are in Lower Egypt. Allah preserveher!" he ran on volubly--"who can overtake the horsemen of theBishareen?"
So he ran on, wildly, panting as they raced back to the hotel. The placewas in an uproar. It was an event which furnished the guests with such apiece of local colour as none but the most inexperienced tourist couldhave anticipated.
An Arab raid in these days of electric tramways! A captive snatched fromthe very doors of Mena House! One would as little expect an Arab raidupon the _Ritz_!
The authorities at headquarters, advised of the occurrence, foundthemselves at a loss how to cope with this stupendous actuality. Thedesert had extended its lean arm and snatched a captive to its bosom.Cairo had never before entirely realised the potentialities of thatall-embracing desert. There are a thousand ways, ten thousand routes,across that ruin-dotted wilderness. Justly did the ancient peopleworship in the moon the queenly Isis; for when the silver emblem of thegoddess claims the sands for her own, to all save the desert-born theybecome a place of secrets. Here is a theatre for great dramas, wantingonly the tragedian. The outlawed Sheikh of the Bishareen knew this fullwell, but, unlike others who know it, he had acted upon his convictionsand revealed to wondering Egypt what Bedouin craft and a band ofintrepid horsemen can do, aided by a belt of sand, and cloaked by night.
Graham was distracted. For he was helpless, and realised it. Already thenews was in Cairo, and the machinery of the Government at work. But whatmachinery, save that of the Omniscient, could avail him now?
A crowd of visitors flocked around him, offering frightened consolation.He broke away from them violently--swearing--a primitive man who wantedto be alone with his grief. The idea uppermost in his mind was that ofleaping upon a horse and setting out in pursuit. But in which directionshould he pursue? One declared that the Arabs must have rode this way,another that, and yet another a third.
Some one shouted--the words came to him as if through a thickcurtain--that the soldiers were coming.
"What the hell's the good of it!" he said, and turned away, biting hislips.
When a spruce young officer came racing up the steps to gatherparticulars, Gra
ham stared at him dully, said, "The Arabs have gother--my wife," and walked away.
The hoof-clatter and accompanying martial disturbance were faint in thedistance when Mohammed ran in to where Graham was pacing up and down inan agony of indecision--veritably on the verge of insanity. The dragomanheld a broken gold chain in his hand, from which depended a bigturquoise that seemed to blink in the shaded light.
"Effendi," he whispered, and held it out upon trembling fingers, "it isher necklet! I found it yonder,"--pointing eastward. "_Sallee 'a-nebee!_it is her necklet!"
Graham turned, gave one wild glance at the thing, and grasped the manby the throat, glaring madly upon him.
"You dog!" he shouted. "You were in the conspiracy! It was you who sentthe false messages!"
A moment he held him so, then dropped his hands. Mohammed fell back,choking; but no malice was in the velvet eyes. The Eastern understandsand respects a great passion.
"Effendi," he gasped--"I am your faithful servant, and--I cannot write!_Wa-llah!_ and by His mercy, this will save her if anything can!"
He turned and ran fleetly out, Graham staring after him.
It may seem singular that John Graham remained thus inert--inactive. Butupon further consideration his attitude becomes explainable. He knew thefutility of a blind search, and dreaded being absent if any definiteclue should reach the hotel. Meanwhile, he felt that madness was not faroff.
"They say that they have struck out across the Arabian Desert, Mr.Graham--probably in the direction of the old caravan route."
Graham did not turn; did not know nor care who spoke.
"It's four hundred miles across to the caravan route," he said slowly;"four hundred miles of sand--of sand."
V
The most simple Oriental character is full of complexity. Mohammed thedragoman, by birth and education a thief, by nature a sluggard, sparedno effort to reach Cairo in the shortest space of time humanly possible.The source of his devotion is obscure. Perhaps it was due to a humbleadmiration which John Graham's attempt to strangle him could not alter,or perhaps to a motive wholly unconnected with mundane matters. Certainit is that a sort of religious fervour latterly had possessed the man.From being something of a scoffer (for Islam, like other creeds, dailyloses adherents), he was become a most devout Believer. To what thisshould be ascribed I shall leave you to judge.
Exhausted, tottering with his giant exertions, he made his way throughthe tortuous streets of Old Cairo--streets where ancient palaces andmansions of wealthy Turks displayed their latticed windows, and, at thathour, barred doors to the solitary, panting wayfarer.
Upon one of these barred doors he beat. It was that of an old palacewhich seemed to be partially in ruins. After some delay, the door wasopened and Mohammed admitted. The door was reclosed. And, following uponthe brief clamour, silence claimed the street again.
Much precious time had elapsed since Eileen Graham's disappearance fromthe hotel by the Pyramids, when a belated and not too sober Greek,walking in the direction of Cairo, encountered what his muddled sensesproclaimed to be an apparition--that of a white-robed figure upon asnow-white camel, which sped, silent, and with arrow-like swiftness,past him towards Gizeh. About this vision of the racing camel (a morebeautiful creature than any he had seen since the last to carry theMahmal), about the rider, spectral in the moonlight, white-bearded,there was that which suggested a vision of the Moslem Prophet. Ere thefrightened Greek could gather courage to turn and look after the phantomrider, man and camel were lost across the sands.
Mena House was in an uproar. No one beneath its roof had thoughtof sleep that night. Futile searches were being conducted in everydirection, north, south, east, and west. Graham, feeling that anotherhour of inactivity would spell madness, had succumbed to the fever tobe up and doing, and had outdistanced all, had left the boy far behindand was mercilessly urging his poor little mount out into the desert,well knowing that in all probability he was riding further and furtheraway from the one he sought, yet madly pressing on. He felt that tostop was to court certain insanity; he must press on and on; he mustsearch--search.
His mood had changed, and from cursing fate, heaven, everything andevery one, he was come to prayer.
He, then, was the next to see the man on the white camel, and, likethe Greek, he scarcely doubted that it was a wraith of his torturedimagination. Indeed, he took it for an omen. The Prophet had appearedto him to proclaim that the desert, the home of Islam, had taken Eileenfrom him. The white-robed figure gave no sign, looked neither to theright nor to the left, but straight ahead, with eagle eyes.
Graham pulled up his donkey, and sat like a shape of stone, until thesilver-grey distance swallowed up the phantom.
Out towards the oasis called the Well of Seven Palms, the stragglingmilitary company proceeded in growing weariness. The officer in chargehad secured fairly reliable evidence to show that the Arabs had struckout straight for the Red Sea. Since he was not omniscient, he could notknow that they had performed a wide detour which would lead them backan hour before dawn to the camp by the Nile beside the Temple of Horus,where El-Suleym waited for his captive.
It was at the point in their march when, to have intercepted theraiders, they should have turned due south instead of proceeding towardthe oasis, that one of them pulled up, rubbed his eyes, looked again andgave the alarm.
In another moment they all saw it--a white camel; not such a camelas tourists are familiar with, the poor hacks of the species, but aswan-like creature, white as milk, bearing a white-robed rider whoignored utterly the presence of the soldiers, who answered by no word orsign to their challenge, but who passed them like a cloud borne along bya breeze and melted vaporously into the steely distances of the desert.The captain was hopelessly puzzled.
"Too late to bring him down," he muttered, "and no horse that was everborn could run down a racing camel. Most mysterious."
Twenty miles south of their position, and exactly at right-angles totheir route, rode the Bishareen horsemen, the foremost with EileenGraham across his saddle. And now, eighteen miles behind the Bishareen,a white camel, of the pure breed which yearly furnishes the statelybearer of the Mahmal, spurned the sand and like a creature of air gainedupon the Arabs, wild riders though they were, mile upon mile, leagueupon league.
Within rifle-shot of the camp, and with the desert dawn but an hourahead, only a long sand-ridge concealed from the eyes of the Bishareentroupe that fleet shape which had struck wonder to the hearts of allbeholders. Despite their start of close upon two hours, despite the factthat the soldiers were now miles, and hopeless miles, in their rear, theracer of the desert had passed them!
Eileen Graham had returned to full and agonizing consciousness. Forhours, it seemed, her captives had rode and rode in silence. Now acertain coolness borne upon the breeze told her that they were nearingthe river again. Clamour sounded ahead. They were come to the Arabcamp. But ere they reached it they entered some lofty building whichechoed hollowly to the horses' tread. She was lifted from her painfulposition, tied fast against a stone pillar, and the bandage wasunfastened from about her head.
She saw that she was lashed to one of the ruined pillars which oncehad upheld the great hall of a temple. About her were the crumblingevidences of the sacerdotal splendour that was Ancient Egypt. The moonpainted massive shadows upon the debris, and carpeted the outer placewith the black image of a towering propylaeum. Upon the mound which oncehad been the stone avenue of approach was the Bedouin camp. It wasfilled with a vague disturbance. She was quite alone; for those who hadbrought her there were leading their spent horses out to the camp.
Eileen could not know what the hushed sounds portended; but actuallythey were due to the fact that the outlaw chief, wearied with that mostexhausting passion--the passion of anticipation--had sought his tent,issuing orders that none should disturb him. Many hours before he knewthey could return, he had stood looking out across the sands, but atlast had decided to fit himself, by repose, for the reception of hisbeautiful capt
ive.
A sheikh's tent has two apartments--one sacred to the lord and master,the other sheltering his harem. To the former El-Suleym had withdrawn;and now his emissaries stood at the entrance, where the symbolic spearwas stuck, blade upward, in the sand. Those who had thrown in their lotwith El-Suleym, called the Regicide, had learnt that a robber chiefwhose ambitions have been whetted by a sojourn in Europe is a hardmaster, though one profitable to serve. They hesitated to arouse him,even though their delicate task was well accomplished.
And whilst they debated before the tent, which stood alone, as is usual,at some little distance from the others, amid which moved busy figuresengaged in striking camp, Eileen, within the temple, heard a movementbehind the pillar to which she was bound.
She was in no doubt respecting the identity of her captor, and theauthor of the ruse by which she had been lured from the hotel, and now,unable to turn, it came to her that this was _he_, creeping to herthrough the moon-patched shadows. With eyes closed, and her teethclenched convulsively, she pictured the sinister, approaching figure.Then, from close beside her, came a voice:
"Only I can save you from him. Do not hesitate, do not speak. Do as Itell you."
Eileen opened her eyes. She could not see the speaker, but the voice wasoddly familiar. Her fevered brain told her that she had heard it before,but speaking Arabic. It was the voice of an old man, but a strong,vibrant voice.
"It is the will of Allah, whose name be exalted, that I repay!"
A lean hand held before her eyes a broken gold chain, upon whichdepended a turquoise. She knew the voice, now: it was that of the oldpedlar! But his English, except for the hoarse Eastern accent, wasflawless, and this was the tone of no broken old man, but of one to befeared and respected.
Her reason, she thought, must be tricking her. How could the old pedlar,however strong in his queer gratitude, save her now? Then the hand cameagain before her eyes, and it held a tiny green phial.
"Be brave. Drink, quickly. They are coming to take you to him. It is theonly escape!"
"Oh, God!" she whispered, and turned icily cold.
This was the boon he brought her. This was the road of escape, escapefrom El-Suleym--the road of death! It was cruel, unspeakably horrible,with a bright world just opening out to her, with youth, beauty, and----She could not think of her husband.
"God be merciful to him!" she murmured. "But he would prefer me deadto----"
"Quick! They are here!"
She placed her lips to the phial, and drank.
It seemed that fire ran through every vein in her body. Then came chill.It grew, creeping from her hands and her feet inward and upward to herheart.
"Good-bye ... dear...." she whispered, and sobbed once, dryly.
The ropes held her rigidly upright.
VI
"_Wa-llah!_ she is dead, and we have slain her!"
El-Suleym's Bedouins stood before the pillar in the temple, and fearwas in their eyes. They unbound the girl, beautiful yet in her marblepallor, and lowered her rigid body to the ground. They looked one atanother, and many a glance was turned toward the Nile.
Then the leader of the party extended a brown hand, pointing to thetethered horses. They passed from the temple, muttering. No one amongthem dared to brave the wrath of the terrible sheikh. As they came outinto the paling moonlight, the camp seemed to have melted magically; forere dawn they began their long march to the lonely oasis in the ArabianDesert which was the secret base of the Masr-Bishareen's depredatoryoperations.
Stealthily circling the camp, which buzzed with subdued activity--eventhe dogs seemed to be silent when the sheikh slept--they came to thehorses. Solitary, a square silhouette against the paling blue, stood thesheikh's tent, on top of the mound, which alone was still untouched.
The first horseman had actually leapt into the saddle, and the others,with furtive glances at the ominous hillock, were about to do likewise,when a low wail, weird, eerie, rose above the muffled stirring of thecamp.
"_Allah el-'Azeen!_" groaned one of the party--"what is that?"
Again the wail sounded--and again. Other woman voices took it up. Itelectrified the whole camp. Escape, undetected, was no longer possible.Men, women, and children were abandoning their tasks and standing,petrified with the awe of it, and looking towards the sheikh's tent.
As they looked, as the frightened fugitives hesitated, looking also,from the tent issued forth a melancholy procession. It was composed ofthe women of El-Suleym's household. They beat their bared breasts andcast dust upon their heads.
For within his own sacred apartment lay the sheikh in his blood--aheadless corpse.
And now those who had trembled before him were hot to avenge him. Ridersplunged out in directions as diverse as the spokes of a wheel. Four ofthem rode madly through the temple where they had left the body of theircaptive, leaping the debris, and circling about the towering pillars, asonly Arab horsemen can. Out into the sands they swept; and before them,from out of a hollow, rose an apparition that brought all four up short,their steeds upreared upon their haunches.
It was the figure of a white-bearded man, white-robed and wearing thegreen turban, mounted upon a camel which, to the eyes of the four,looked in its spotless whiteness a creature of another world. Beforethe eagle-eyed stranger lay the still form of Eileen Graham, and as thecamel rose to its feet, its rider turned, swung something high abovehim, and hurled it back at the panic-stricken pursuers. Right amongsttheir horses' feet it rolled, and up at them in the moonlight from out amass of blood-clotted beard, stared the glassy eyes of El-Suleym!
The sun was high in the heavens when the grey-faced and haggard-eyedsearchers came straggling back to Mena House. Two of them, who had comeupon Graham ten miles to the east, brought him in. He was quite passive,and offered no protest, spoke no word, but stared straight in front ofhim with a set smile that was dreadful to see.
No news had come from the company of soldiers; no news had come fromanywhere. It was ghastly, inconceivable; people looked at one anotherand asked if it could really be possible that one of their number hadbeen snatched out from their midst in such fashion.
Officials, military and civil, literally in crowds, besieged the hotel.Amid that scene of confusion no one missed Mohammed; but when all therest had given up in despair, he, a solitary, patient figure, stood outupon a distant mound watching the desert road to the east. He alone sawthe return of the white camel with its double burden, from a distanceof a hundred yards or more; for he dared approach no closer, but stoodwith bowed head pronouncing the _fathah_ over and over again. He saw itkneel, saw its rider descend and lift a girl from its back. He saw himforce something between her lips, saw him turn and make a deep obeisancetoward Mecca. At that he, too, knelt and did likewise. When he arose,camel and rider were gone.
He raced across the sands as Eileen Graham opened her eyes, andsupported her as she struggled to her feet, pale and trembling.
* * * * *
"I don't understand it at all," said Graham.
Eileen smiled up at him from the long cane chair. She was not yetrecovered from her dreadful experience. "Perhaps," she said softly, "youwill not laugh in future at my Irish stories of the 'good people'!"
Graham shook his head and turned to Mohammed.
"What does it all mean, Mohammed?" he said. "Thank God it means thatI have got her back, but how was it done? She returned wearing theturquoise necklace, which I last saw in your hand."
Mohammed looked aside.
"I took it to him, Effendi. It was the token by which he knew her need."
"The pedlar?"
"The pedlar, Effendi."
"You knew where to find him, then?"
"I knew where to find him, but I feared to tell you; feared that youmight ridicule him."
He ceased. He was become oddly reticent. Graham shrugged his shoulders,helplessly.
"I only hope the authorities will succeed in capturing the Bishareenbrigands," he said grimly.
/>
"The authorities will never capture them," replied the dragoman withconviction. "For five years they have lived by plunder, and laughed atthe Government. But before another moon is risen"--he was warming to hisusual eloquence now--"no Masr-Bishareen will remain in the land, theywill be exterminated--purged from the desert!"
"Indeed," said Graham; "by whom?"
"By the Rawallah, Effendi."
"Are they a Bedouin tribe?"
"The greatest of them all."
"Then why should they undertake the duty?"
"Because it is the will of the one who saved her for you, Effendi! Iam blessed that I have set eyes upon him, spoken with him. Paradise isassured to me because my hand returned to him his turban when it lay inthe dust!"
Graham stared, looking from his wife, who lay back smiling dreamily, toMohammed, whose dark eyes burnt with a strange fervour--the fervour ofone mysteriously converted to an almost fanatic faith.
"Are you speaking of our old friend, the pedlar?"
"I am almost afraid to speak of him, Effendi, for he is the chosen ofheaven, a cleanser of uncleanliness; the scourge of God, who holds Hisflail in his hand--the broom of the desert!"
Graham, who had been pacing up and down the room, paused in front ofMohammed.
"Who is he, then?" he asked quietly. "I owe him a debt I can never hopeto repay, so I should at least like to know his real name."
"I almost fear to speak it, Effendi." Mohammed's voice sank to awhisper, and he raised the turquoise hanging by the thin chain aboutEileen's throat, and reverently touched it with his lips. "He is the_welee_--Ben Azreem, Sheikh of the Ibn-Rawallah!"
_Printed in Great Britain by_ Butler & Tanner Ltd., _Frome and London_
* * * * *
Transcriber's note:
Small capitals have been replaced by all capitals.
The following corrections have been made, on page
48 ...." added (But, Addison....") 74 "he" changed to "her" (looked up into her husband's quivering face!) 97 ' changed to " (and rest, East," I said) 126 . added (lighted his pipe and nodded.) 142 "then" changed to "than" (blushed more furiously than ever when I told her) 144 . added (I asked wearily.) 172 " added ("Nobody else can) 190 "posesssion" changed to "possession" (how it came into my possession, that may) 208 , removed (and avoiding a particularly persistent) 236 "Mahommed" changed to "Mohammed" (when Mohammed ran in to where Graham was).
Otherwise the original has been preserved, including inconsistenthyphenation.