Chapter Seven.
By Moonlight.
The people at the hotel were too much occupied with their own affairs to pay much heed to three ordinary visitors and their servant. It was rumoured that one of them was a famous Egyptologist, but plenty of scientists came and went in this city of change, so that in a few hours Frank’s anxiety as to the risk of their expedition being stopped, died out, and the visits of the Sheikh excited no more notice than those of a dragoman or letter of boats and donkeys who waited upon the tourists and arranged to take them to the pyramids, the river, or other objects of interest within easy reach.
When Ibrahim appeared again about midday, he inquired anxiously about the amount of baggage the party intended to take, and seemed pleased with the narrow compass into which, under the professor’s superintendence, it was to be condensed. He then had a long discussion with the doctor, and when this was over it was announced that the Arab was going to be busy in the bazaar for the rest of the day, and that in the evening he would be at the door of the hotel with four camels and attendants to take the baggage that was ready, the rest being placed in the care of the manager ready for them upon their return from an expedition with the Sheikh.
“That’s prompt,” said the professor. “Are you satisfied, Frank?”
“More than satisfied. But about our disguises, our provisions for the journey, and other preparations? We have done nothing yet.”
“There is nothing to do,” said the professor quietly.
“But our disguises?” said the doctor anxiously.
“Ibrahim will see to all that. We don’t want to draw anyone’s attention to the task we have in hand. If we did the news would spread, and run like wildfire amongst the people, perhaps reach the enemy’s camp.”
“But can we leave everything to this Arab Sheikh?”
“Everything,” said the professor, “as I have left things again and again. Here is our position: I am known here, and it is no novelty for me to go upon an expedition with this old guide. So all we have to do is to eat our dinner in peace, and when Ibrahim comes, mount our beasts and go off in the moonlight and silently steal away through the further parts of the city, and in a very short time be swallowed up in the mysterious gloom, travelling onward over the sand.”
“All night?” said the doctor.
“Yes, all night, and in good time in the morning we shall have reached the tents of the Sheikh, where we shall have an early meal and sleep. When we shall go on depends upon the preparations there. These will be extremely simple, but they will be sufficient. Make your minds easy, and throw all the arrangement of the journey upon Ibrahim and me. He will do his best, but as he said to me an hour ago, the success of our adventure must be left to fate.”
“But our preparations seem so small,” said Frank uneasily.
“Preparations for desert journeys are small from an Englishman’s point of view. A man here takes his camel, a bag of meal and another of dates, with a waterskin to fill when it is more than a day’s journey to the next well. The Sheikh expressed himself satisfied with our baggage, but in his eyes it is very large.”
“Well,” said the doctor, “I have said very little, but I share Frank’s uneasiness. We seem to be making ridiculously small preparations. Surely we ought to go better prepared if we are to get to our journey’s end.”
“We shall never get to it if we do,” said the professor gruffly, “and the sooner you two try to fit yourselves to the necessities of a desert journey the better.”
“I’m ready to do anything,” said the doctor, “but I do not want to fail from doing too little.”
“What more would you do than Ibrahim is doing?”
“I can hardly say on the spur of the moment, but with the exception of my medicines and instruments, and Frank’s chemicals and things, we seem as if we are going on the march in the clothes we stand up in.”
“Yes,” said the professor coolly, “and those we are going to leave behind in Ibrahim’s tents.”
“Is all this true, Frank?” said the doctor.
“I suppose so,” was the reply; “but certainly things are moving far more rapidly than I anticipated.”
“It is what you wished,” said the professor.
“Then all we have to do now is to be ready?”
“Yes, that is all.”
It was in furtherance of this that directly after dinner Frank summoned Sam and told him that they were to start in about an hour.
“So the guv’nor’s been telling me, sir; but he says we’re to leave nearly everything behind.”
“Yes, Sam; it will be safe enough here.”
“Well, it caps me, sir, that it do! Mr Landon took pretty well everything away that I thought we wanted, and now he says that we’re to leave the miserable little lot he chose himself.”
“Yes,” said Frank quietly.
“The only thing we’re taking plenty of, it seems to me, is physic.”
“But you’ve packed the shaving tackle, Sam?” said Frank hastily.
“Oh, yes; that goes in my pockets, sir; but one can’t live on a wash and brush-up, and one wants something else on a journey besides soap. Seems to me, sir, that the doctor thinks a little physic’s the best thing to have with us, because it spoils the appetite and keeps people from wanting to eat. He’s taken plenty of care of the people out yonder, but I should have liked to see him provide a little more for us.”
“Don’t be alarmed. I daresay we shall find plenty.”
“From what the people here tell me about the desert, sir, I don’t think we shall; but there, I’m not going to grumble, sir. An hour’s time, eh?”
“Yes, in less now. Then the Sheikh will be here with the camels.”
“To take us right away into the desert, sir. Do you think he’s safe?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Well, I hope he is, sir; but if he means mischief and plays any games when he’s got us right away from the police, I just hope he won’t ask me to shave his head again.”
“Why?” said Frank, smiling.
“Why, sir? Well, because it won’t be safe.”
It was about nine o’clock, the moon past the full, rising, richly golden of hue, in the east, and the air moist and fragrant with the cloying scent of the orange trees, when with a strange feeling of unreality about the whole proceeding, the little English party passed the groups of visitors smoking and chatting in the garden, or listening to the strains of a very excellent band. It almost seemed to the doctor that he ought to go and occupy the seat he had found so pleasant on the previous night; but the professor was by his side talking earnestly of the peculiarities of a night ride in the desert, and Frank was close behind with Sam.
In another minute they were in an open court, where, looking mysterious and strange, were a group of about a dozen camels and their leaders, in front of whom stood the figure of the Sheikh, his white robes and turban looking thoroughly in keeping with the strangely formed animals, four of which were keeping up a peculiar, querulous, discontented whining grunt, and turning their heads from side to side in their disgust at being laden with portmanteaus and bags, while their fellows had been allowed to go scot-free.
And now all seemed more unreal than ever; and anything less like a start upon so dangerous an expedition it would have been impossible to imagine.
“Ready, Ibrahim?” said the professor.
“Yes, Excellency,” replied the Sheikh; “it is past the time, and the camels are loaded.”
Frank looked round the court, where a couple of servants were standing beneath an arcade, while the moon was just peering over the house in a one-eyed fashion as if watching what was going on; but no one came from within to see the night start being made, and with the feeling of dreamy unreality increasing, the young man replied to the Sheikh’s indication by stepping to the kneeling camel he was to ride.
“Beg pardon, Mr Frank,” whispered Sam, coming close to his side. “Am I to ride one of them long-legged things?”
“Yes, of course. You’re not afraid?”
“Afraid, sir? Not me. I’ve rid most everything, and I meant to have gone up to the Zoo for a lesson in camels, only there warn’t time. I’m not afraid, and I’m going to do it, but I do begin to feel as if I ought to be tied on.”
However, Sam climbed to his strange saddle, as did the rest, and a few minutes later the silent-pacing, long-legged animals were following their leader out of the court and into the lighted road, down which they stole on in the moonlight like strange creatures in a picture, passing people, but taking no one’s attention, while more than ever the whole scene appeared to the party like a portion of some dream.
Chapter Eight.
The Desert.
“How are you getting on, Sam?” said Frank, after they had progressed about a mile, during which the outskirts of the city had given place to garden, cultivated field, trees dotted here and there, and then hedges which looked weird, ghastly, and strange in the moonlight, being composed of those fleshy, nightmare-looking plants of cactus growth, the prickly pears, with their horrible thorns, while more and more the way in front began to spread out wild, desolate and strange in the soft, misty, silvery grey of the moonlight, through which the long-legged animals stalked, casting weird shadows upon the soft, sandy road, and save for one thing the passing of the little train would have been in an oppressive silence, for the spongy feet of the birdlike animals rose and fell without a sound.
“How’m I getting on, sir?” was the reply. “Well, about as bad as a man can. Look at me, sir; there I am. That’s my shadder. I don’t know what our servants at home would say to see me going along over the sand this how. Look at my shadder, sir; looks like a monkey a-top of a long-legged shed.”
“The shadows do look strange, Sam.”
“Strange, sir? They look horrid. Just like so many ghosts out for a holiday, and it’s us. And look at what makes the shadders. They look creepy in the moonshine. Why, if we was out on a country road now in dear old England, and the police on duty saw us we should give ’em fits.”
“Rather startling, certainly,” said Frank. “It does look a weird procession.”
“Seems a mad sort of a set out altogether, sir: three British gentlemen and a respectable servant going out for a ride in the night in a place like this a-top of these excruciating animals, along with so many silent blacks dressed in long white sheets. It all seems mad to me, sir, and as if we ought to be in bed. I fancy I am sometimes, and having uncomfortable dreams, like one does after cold boiled beef for supper, and keep expecting to wake up with a pain in the chest. But I don’t, for there we are sneaking along in this silent way with our tall shadders seeming to watch us. Ugh! It’s just as if we were going to do something wicked somewhere.”
“It’s all so strange, Sam,” said Frank quietly. “You are not used to it.”
“That’s true enough, sir, and I don’t feel as if I ever should be. Just look at this thing! It’s like an insult to call it a saddle. Saddle! why it’s more like—I don’t know what; and I’ve been expecting to have an accident with this stick-up affair here in front. How do you get on with your legs, sir?”
“Pretty well,” said Frank, smiling. “I’ve managed better during the past ten minutes.”
“I wish you’d show me how you do it, sir, for I get on awfully, and I’m that sore that I’m beginning to shudder.”
“It’s a matter of use, Sam. Try and sit a little more upright, like this.”
“Like that, sir?” said the man, excitedly. “No, thankye, sir. It’s bad enough like this. I suppose I must grin and bear it. Here, I’ve tried straightforward striddling like one would on a donkey, but this beast don’t seem to have no shape in him. Then I’ve tried like a lady, sitting left-handed with my legs, and then after I’ve got tired that way for a bit, and it don’t work comfortable, I’ve tried right-handed with my legs. But it’s no good. Bit ago I saw one of these niggers shut his legs up like a pocket foot-rule, and I says to myself, ‘That’s the way, then;’ so I began to pull my legs up criss-cross like a Turk in a picture.”
“Well, did that do?” said Frank, listening to the man, for the remarks kept away his own troubled thoughts.
“Nearly did for me, sir. I had to claw hold like a kitten to the top of a basket of clothes, or I should have been down in the sand, with this wicked-looking brute dancing a hornpipe in stilts all over me. Ugh, you beast! don’t do that.”
“What’s the matter?” said Frank, as the man shuddered and exclaimed at the animal he rode.
“Oh, I do wish he wouldn’t, sir. It’s just as if he don’t like me, and does it on purpose.”
“Does what?”
“Turns his head and neck round to look at me, just like a big giant goose, and he opens and shuts his mouth, and leers and winks at me, sir. It gives me quite a turn. It’s bad enough when he goes on steady, but when he does that I feel just as I did when we crossed the Channel, and as if I must go below. I say, sir, can a man be sea-sick with riding on a camel?”
“I don’t know about sea-sick, Sam,” said Frank, laughing outright, “but I really did feel very uncomfortable at first. The motion is so peculiar.”
“Ain’t it, sir?” cried Sam eagerly. “Beg your pardon sir, for saying it, but I am glad you felt it too. It upset me so that I got thinking I’d no business to have left my pantry, because I wasn’t up to this sort of thing.”
“Cheer up, and make the best of it,” said Frank quietly. “You’ll soon get accustomed to what is very new to us all.”
“I will, sir. I’ll try, but everything seems to be going against me. Ugh! Look at that now. Ugh! the smell of it!”
“Smell? Why, I only notice the professor’s pipe.”
“Yes, sir, that’s it. It seems horrid now, and there he sits with that long, snaky pipe and his legs twisted in a knot, smoking away as comfortably as the old Guy Fox in the tablecloth that I shaved. He went to sleep and nodded, for I watched him, and he keeps on see-sawing and looking as if he’d tumble off; but he seems to be good friends with his camel, for it kept on balancing him and keeping him up. I wish I could go to sleep too.”
“Well, try,” said Frank.
“Try, sir? What, to wake up with a bump, and sit in the sand seeing this ridgment of legs and shadows going off in the distance? No, thank you, sir. They tell me there’s lions and jackals and hyaenas out here. No, thankye, sir; I’m going to fight it out.”
Just then the professor checked his camel and tried to bring it alongside of the pair behind, when a struggle ensued, the quaint-looking creature refusing to obey the rein or to alter its position in the train, whining, groaning, and appealing against force being used to place it where it made up its mind there must be danger.
“That’s how those brutes that are carrying the luggage went on, sir,” whispered Sam to Frank. “Groaning and moaning and making use of all sorts of bad language. One of ’em kep’ it up just like a human being, and it was as if he was threatening to write to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals for them to put a stop to our ill-using him and tying heavy things on his back and making creases with ropes on his front—I mean his underneath, sir.”
Just then one of the Sheikh’s followers, who had seen the trouble, came from where he was walking beside the baggage camels, and led the obstinate animal to where it was required to go, and it ceased its objections.
“Fine animals for displaying obstinacy, Frank,” said the professor.
“Yes; they’d beat donkeys of the worst type.”
“I daresay they would; but they have plenty of good qualities to make up for their bad ones. How do you like the riding?”
“I’ll tell you when I’ve had some more experience. At present it would not be fair.”
“Perhaps not,” said the professor. “How do you get on, Sam?”
The butler groaned.
“Hullo! Is it as bad as that?”
“Worse, sir, ever so much. Couldn’t I have a donkey, sir? I saw some fine ones in Cairo well up to my weight.”
“I’m afraid not, Sam. But you’ll soon get used to the animal you are riding.”
“Never, sir, never,” said Sam.
“Nonsense, man! Once you get used to the poor creatures you will think it delightful. I could go to sleep on mine, and trust it to keep ambling along.”
“Do what, sir?”
“Ambling gently.”
“Then yours is a different sort, sir, to mine. Ambling’s going like a lady’s mare does in the Park, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Sam; that’s quite correct, I believe.”
“This one don’t, sir, a bit. If you shut your eyes and hold tight, sir, you forget that he’s an animal, but begin thinking he must be what he seems like to me—a sort of giant sea-goose with you on his back and him swimming in rough water and going up and down horrid.”
“Oh, that’s the peculiarity of the creature’s pace. I’m used to it, and I find the elasticity most enjoyable.”
“Elastic, sir? Yes, that’s just it, sir; elastic. A bit back he was going on like an Indy-rubber ball; one o’ that sort, sir, as is all wind and skin. Made me wish he was one, and that I’d got a pin in my hand.”
“Oh, never mind, my lad,” said the professor good-humouredly; “its rough work to learn riding a horse, but once you’ve mastered the task it’s pleasant enough. What do you think of the desert, Frank?”
“Do you consider that we have reached the desert now?” was the reply, as Sam fell back a little, leaving them to converse.
“Oh, yes; we’ve left the cultivated ground behind, and right away south and west now, saving a few oases, there’s nothing but the sand covering all about here the ruins of ancient cities. I believe if we dug anywhere here we should find traces—buildings, temples, or tombs.”
“Has there been cultivation, too, here?”
“No doubt. It only wants water, sandy as it is, for it to break out blushing with soft green.”
“Where does the Nile lie from here?”
“Away to the left.”
“Shall we see its waters when the morning comes?”
“No; we are going farther and farther away to a bit of an oasis where the Sheikh’s people are gathered with their flocks. They find pasture there at this time of year, and a little employment with the travellers who come to Cairo. In the summer time, when the city is pretty well empty, they go right away to some high ground where it is rocky and fairly fertile. We shall reach the present camp before the sun gets hot in the morning.”
“How is the doctor getting on?” asked Frank, after a pause.
“Pretty well. It makes him a little irritable, so I don’t think I’d ask him. He is enjoying the night ride, though.”
Sam sighed and said to himself—
“He says that because he wants to make the best of it, but I’m not going to believe my poor guv’nor’s enjoying this. He’s wishing himself back in Wimpole Street, I know.”
“What’s that?” said Frank suddenly.
“What? I see nothing.”
“No, no. I mean that wild cry.”
“Only a jackal. I daresay if you listen you will hear another answer it. Pleasant note, isn’t it?”
“Horrible! It sounded like some poor creature in pain.”
“Hungry, perhaps,” said the professor coolly. “Fine, wild, weird prospect, this, eh?”
“It seems very dream-like and strange.”
“Yes, it impressed me like that at first. After a while you begin to think of how delightful it is, and what a change from pacing over the burning sand in the daylight with the sun making the air quiver and glow like a furnace, and your mouth turn dry and lips crack with the parching you have to undergo.”
“Shall we have to journey much by night?”
“Oh, yes; we shall do most of our marching then, but we need not trouble about that. Ibrahim will do what is best. I have had a long talk with him, and he proposes to go in a roundabout way for the enemy’s camp.”
“What! not go straight there?”
“No; it would mean suspicion. We must not go there unasked.”
“Landon!” said Frank appealingly.
“It is quite right, and even if it takes time it will be the surest way. Ibrahim says that if the Hakim performs a few cures as we get nearer, the news thereof will reach the Khalifa’s camp, where men die off in hundreds, and after a time he will be sure to send for us. Just think of the difference in our reception.”
Frank nodded.
“In the one case we should be received with suspicion and most probably turned back, perhaps be made prisoners; while, if at the new Mahdi’s wish we are sent for, we go there in triumph, and are respected and well treated by everyone.”
“Yes, yes; but the time will be passing away so swiftly, and that poor fellow lying in agony and despair.”
“Yes, but the more reason for being cautious. We must not build the castle of our hopes upon the sand, Frank. I know it seems very hard, and no doubt I sound cold-blooded for agreeing so readily to this Arab’s proposals, but I speak from ten years’ experience of the old fellow. He has thrown himself heart and soul into the adventure, and he is well worthy of our trust; so, even at the expense of going against your own wishes now and then, give way and follow out the old man’s advice, even when he would be ready to give way to you.”
“I’ll do my best,” said Frank; “but it seems to me that I have already bound myself down to profound obedience in all things by undertaking to go as a slave.”
“Well, yes, that does bind you, certainly,” said the professor.
“But what about these men that the Sheikh is taking with us? They will be in the secret.”
“Of course.”
“Suppose they betray what I am.”
“That would mean betraying their Sheikh. You need have no fear of that.”
“Well, let’s talk about something else. We are bound now for the Sheikh’s encampment. What is going to be done first when we get there?”
“We put off Europe and put on Africa as far as is necessary.”
“Hah!” said Frank, with a sigh.
“What does that mean, my lad?” said the professor sternly. “Are you beginning to repent?”
“Repent!” said Frank between his teeth. “What a question! I am longing to commence, for so far everything has been preparation.”
“And a very brief preparation,” said the professor, “if you come to think of how short a time it is since you dashed in upon us after dinner that evening with your news.”
“Well, don’t reproach me, Landon.”
“Not I, my lad. I know what you must feel. All I want of you now is for you to play the stoic. Make up your mind that you have done your utmost to set the ball rolling; now let it roll, and only give it a touch when you are asked. Believe me that you will be doing your best then.”
“I will try,” said Frank firmly. “Only give me time. I am schooling myself as hardly as I can. It is a difficult part to play.”
The professor reached out his hand and gripped his young companion’s shoulder firmly, riding on for some minutes without relaxing his grasp, the touch conveying more in the way of sympathy than any words would have done, while the discomforts of the novel ride seemed to die away, and the soft dreaminess of the night grew soothing; the vast silvery grey expanse, melting away in its vastness, became lit-up with a faint halo of hope, and with his spirits rising, Frank seemed another man when the professor spoke again—
“Bob Morris will be feeling neglected.”
“Go to him, then,” said Frank quietly.
“No; you go first. But there’s nothing like making a beginning at once.”
“In what way?” asked Frank, for his companion paused.
“Begin treating him as what he is to be till our task is done—the learned Hakim; and begin to school yourself into acting as his slave.”
“Now?”
“Why not? I spoke of him just now as Bob Morris. That’s the last time till we are safely under the British flag again.”
“Yes, you are right,” said Frank, and urging on his camel the animal stepped out and passed of its own accord alongside that of the doctor, who uttered a sigh of relief as he saw who it was.
“That’s better, Frank,” he said. “I was beginning to feel a bit lonely, for this ride is not very cheerful, and the bringing of fresh muscles into play is producing aches and pains.”
Frank raised his hands to his head, and bowed down.
“Humph!” ejaculated the doctor; “not such a very bad imitation of a salaam. What have you two been talking about?”
Frank raised his hand, and saw that his tall shadow was repeating the action, as he pointed straight ahead.
“About our journey’s end, eh?” said the doctor. “That’s right. I shall be glad to get there and lie down, if it is only upon the sand. How do you get on with your camel?”
Frank made a despairing gesture.
“Same here,” said the doctor. “I wish we could have had some lessons first. But use is second nature, and I suppose this weary, aching sensation of being waved about in the air will soon pass off. But I say, Frank, my lad.”
Frank turned to him.
“There, that will do for to-night,” said the doctor pettishly. “I haven’t cut your tongue out yet, so just talk like a Christian. This vast open place seems to sit upon my spirits, especially now that we’re making this night journey instead of lying comfortably in our beds. Talk to me. You’ve done acting enough for the present.”
“Very well,” said Frank quietly; “but Landon thinks with me, that the sooner I begin to play my part the sooner I shall make myself perfect.”
“Well, yes, of course,” grunted the doctor; “but leave it till we put on our costumes. I say, I think this Sheikh is all right.”
“Yes; I have perfect faith in him now.”
“So have I. He’s a fine old fellow; there is no doubt about that. But Frank, my lad, I don’t think I could have kept this up much longer if you had gone on with that dumb-motion business. It only wanted that to give me the horrors, for this night ride seems to be about the most mysteriously weird business possible to conceive. Just look at the ghostly appearance of the camels and their leaders, the long, strongly marked shadows, and the mysterious light! I can’t get away from the idea that it is all a dream.”
“That is how it has been impressing us,” replied Frank.
“And no wonder. Everything is terribly unreal, and between ourselves I am beginning to lose heart.”
“You?” said Frank reproachfully. “You, the calm, grave surgeon, accustomed to terrible scenes, to awful emergencies where men’s lives depend upon your coolness and that calm, firm manner in which you face all difficulties!”
“Yes, at home and in my proper place. But here I seem to be masquerading—playing, as it were.”
“Playing!” said Frank reproachfully.
“Well, I hardly mean that, my dear boy,” said the doctor softly; “but all this is so strange and—well, yes—risky.”
“Yes, it is risky,” said Frank sadly, “but—”
“Yes, I know,” said the doctor, interrupting; “I do think of why we are doing it, and I can’t help shrinking a bit and doubting my nerve to carry it all through. If I break down in any way I shall sacrifice the liberty if not the lives of you all. It is this that makes me feel doubts about my nerve.”
“I have none whatever,” said Frank quietly. “You know how often you have talked to me about the operations you have performed.”
“Well, yes, I have talked to you a good deal both before and after some of them. Harry and I always opened out our hearts to one another, and when he went away he asked me to make you his substitute—to take his place with you.”
“So like Hal,” said Frank softly. “Well, and so you have.”
“Have I, lad? Well, I have tried, and it has been very pleasant to have you come to me to chat over your experiences and successes and failures, and to tell you mine.”
“You have made more of a man of me,” said Frank softly; “often and often when I have felt that I was only an ignorant, blundering boy.”
“I never saw much of the ignorance or blundering,” said the doctor quietly. “You were always too enthusiastic over your studies for that.”
“Never mind about my qualities,” said Frank, with a little laugh; “it is like trying to put me off from talking about you. As I was going to say, don’t you remember telling me that whenever you were going to perform an operation upon some poor suffering fellow-creature you always felt a strong sensation of shrinking and want of nerve?”
“Of course. I always do.”
“And that you always prayed that your efforts might be rightly guided?”
“Yes,” said the doctor, very softly and slowly.
“And that the next day when you went into the operating theatre and stood there with the patient before you, the students and surgeons with your assistants about you ready for the task, you always felt as calm and cool as possible, and that your nerves were like steel?”
“Yes! It is so.”
“Then why should you feel doubt now? I have none.”
The doctor was silent for a few minutes as they rode on through the mysterious-looking night, their shadows bowing and undulating on the sand.
“I suppose it is the same,” he said at last, “with the soldiers going into some engagement. There is the feeling of nervousness which they suffer from till the stern work begins, and then—well, they act as brave men do act.”
“Even if they are generals in the great fight with disease and death,” said Frank gravely. “I wish I could feel as sure of our ultimate success as I do of your being perfectly calm and self-contained in all you do.”
“I should be, my dear boy,” said the doctor, “if I could only get rid of the feeling that I shall be an impostor.”
Frank laughed pleasantly.
“That feeling troubling you again?” he said. “How absurd! Are you going to cheat the poor creatures you attend with sham medicines?”
“Am I going to do what?” said the doctor indignantly.
“And play tricks with the wounds they are suffering from?”
“My dear Frank!”
“And make believe to extract bullets and sew up wounds, or set broken bones?”
“My good lad, are you talking in your sleep? Did I ever do anything but my very best for the poor creatures to whom my poor skill was necessary—did I ever give less attention to the humblest patient than I do to the wealthiest or highest in position?”
“Never,” said Frank warmly. “That big, generous disposition of yours would never have allowed it.”
“Then why did you talk in so absurd a strain?” Frank laughed merrily, and for the time being he was the schoolboy again.
“Please, sir,” he said mockingly, “it wasn’t me. Answer me first,” he cried. “Why do you talk about feeling like an impostor? Why,” continued the young man warmly, “I feel as if through my plan I am going to heap blessings upon mine enemy’s head. I am taking you through this country, amongst these cruelly savage people, to do nothing but good. Wherever you go your name will be blessed; they will think of the Great Hakim as long as they live.”
“Look here, young man,” said the doctor playfully, “I’ve made a mistake to-night. You began to play your part very nicely, and you were as quiet as a dumb waiter—that old black mahogany one in the dining-room at home. Then for company’s sake I stopped you, and here is the consequence. You took advantage of the liberty given you, and at once developed into a base flatterer, putting your adulation into all the flowery language you could muster. Now, no more of it, if you please. There, to speak soberly and well: Frank, lad, I am not the great, learned Hakim of your young imagination, but the hard-working student who tries his best to acquire more and more knowledge of our fallen human nature so as to fight against death like an earnest man. I know something of my profession, and I work hard, and always shall, to know more, so as to apply my skill in the best way. Please God, I hope to do a great deal of good during this our journey, and I promise you that I will think only of this application of my knowledge. Yes, I feel now that I can go on and face all that I have to do, for I shall not be such a sorry impostor, after all.”
“Isn’t it my turn now for a chat?” said the professor. “You two seem to be having a most interesting discussion, and it’s very dull back here. The Sheikh is fast asleep on his camel, and poor Sam has become speechless with misery, in spite of all I could say to him about mastering the art of camel-riding. He says he can’t get over the feeling that he is at sea. How are you two getting on?”
“Better, I suppose,” said the doctor, “for I have not thought so much of the motion lately. I suppose I’m getting used to it.”
“And you, Frank?”
“I had forgotten it too till you spoke. But I am utterly tired out. How long will it be before we get to the tents?”
“Oh, hours yet,” said the professor cheerfully.
“What!” cried the doctor and Frank in a breath.
“Not till well on in the morning,” said the professor; and then, as his companions turned to gaze at one another in dismay, “but we’re going to halt soon, to rest the camels and—ourselves.”
Chapter Nine.
The Hakim Begins.
The professor had hardly finished speaking when something dark loomed up through the silvery gloom, and the camels began making a peculiar, complaining sound, while they slightly increased their pace and soon after stopped short, craning their necks and muttering and grumbling peevishly.
A water-hole had been reached, where the beasts were refreshed, after they had been relieved of their living burdens—those which were loaded with the travellers’ baggage having to be content with a good drink and then folding their legs to crouch in the sand and rest.
“Yes, it’s all very well, Mr Frank,” said Sam, “but I don’t believe that thing which carries me is half so tired as I am. Oh my! See-sawing as I’ve been backwards and forwards all these hours, till my spinal just across the loins feels as if it had got a big hinge made in it and it wanted oiling.”
“Lie flat down upon your back and rest it.”
“But won’t the grass be damp, sir?”
“Grass?” said Frank, smiling. “Where are you going to find it?”
“I forgot, sir,” said the man wearily. “No grass; all sand. That comes of being used to riding in a Christian country.”
“That’s right,” said the professor, joining them, for Frank had set Sam the example and was lying flat on the soft sand. “I’ve just been telling the Hakim to do so. Don’t sit down to rest out here; lie flat whenever you get a chance. It does wonders. Are you thirsty, Frank?”
“Oh no,” was the reply.
“That comes of travelling by night. If we had come this distance under the burning sun we should have been parched.”
“Better move, hadn’t we?” said Frank, a minute or two later, as he glanced significantly towards Sam.
“I think we had,” replied the professor, laughing. “I thought it was one of the camels.”
The sound that came regularly was not unlike that uttered by one of the grumbling creatures, but it was due to their man’s ways of breathing in his sleep, for not many seconds had elapsed before he had forgotten all his weariness, and the troubles of the first lesson in camel-riding, in a deep slumber which lasted through the two hours’ halt, during which the Sheikh and his men had sat together and smoked in silence, while Frank and his companions had lain chatting in a low tone about the beauty of the moon-silvered rocks and the soft, transparent light which spread around.
At last the Sheikh rose and stalked softly towards them in his long white garments, looking thoroughly in keeping with the scene, and made his customary obeisance.
“Are their Excellencies rested?” he asked gravely.
“Oh, yes; let us get on,” said the professor, looking at his watch. “Four o’clock. I did not know it was so late. How are you, Frank? Stiff?”
“Terribly.”
“Yes,” said the doctor, stretching himself. “We have been giving some idle muscles work to do that they had never had before.”
“Their Excellencies will soon be as much used to it as their friend,” said the Sheikh; and he led the way towards where the camels crouched, some moving their under jaws, chewing after their fashion, others with their long necks stretched straight out and their heads nestling in the sand.
“Here, Sam,” cried the professor, breaking the silence that reigned around, and his words were echoed from the rocks on the far side of the water-holes.
But the man’s reply was only a gurgling, camel-like snore.
“Sound enough,” said the professor; and he was stepping towards him, but Frank interposed.
“I’ll wake him,” he said. “The poor fellow feels fagged and low-spirited. We must not be hard upon him. He hasn’t our motive to spur him on.”
“No,” said the professor, “but he must try and brace himself up a bit.”
“Give him time,” replied Frank, and he bent down on one knee—pretty stiffly too—and laid his hand upon the sleeper’s breast.
“Come, Sam,” he said; “we’re ready to start.”
But there was no reply, and the touch had to be followed up by a shake, and that by one far more vigorous, before there was a loud yawn, and two fists were thrown out in a vigorous stretch.
“What’s the matter? Night bell?”
“Wake up, man.”
“Eh? Who is it?—Where am I?—You, Mr Frank?”
“Yes. Your camel is waiting for its load. Up with you!”
“Oh, Mr Frank,” moaned the poor fellow, “never mind me. I’m about done for.”
“Nonsense, man! Don’t let the professor see how weak you are.”
“But I can’t help it, sir. I’m that sore all over that it’s just as if I’d been broken. Go on and leave me; I ain’t a bit o’ good.”
“Leave you here in the desert to die?”
“Yes, sir; it don’t matter a bit. I’m regularly done for.”
“Nonsense! Rouse yourself like a man.”
“I couldn’t do it, sir. I only want to lie still and die decently. Daresay the next people who come along will cover me over with a bit of sand.”
Frank laughed.
“I do call that unfeeling of you, sir,” moaned the poor fellow. “It’s heartless, that it is!”
“I can’t help it, Sam,” said Frank merrily; “the idea is so absurd.”
“What, me dying out here in the desert?”
“No, what you said about being covered over with the sand.”
“I don’t see anything absurd, sir. It’s very horrible.”
“Not a bit,” said Frank. “There wouldn’t be anything to bury.”
“What!” said Sam, rising up on one elbow and staring wildly at the speaker.
“You see, there are the vultures to begin with, and then there would be the jackals.”
“Ugh! Don’t, Mr Frank,” cried the poor fellow, shuddering. “I never thought about them. That’s worse than the camel.”
“Ever so much,” said Frank. “Come, be a man. How do you spell ‘pluck’?”
“I dunno, sir,” whined the poor fellow. “I suppose it would be with a very small ‘p’.”
“Try and spell it with a big capital, Sam. Come, don’t let the doctor feel ashamed of you.”
“But I don’t seem to mind anything now, sir.”
“Yes, you do, Sam. You came to help us, didn’t you?”
“Yes, sir, I did, but—”
“Are you going to break down over the first difficulty.”
“No, I ain’t, sir. I—oh dear!—oh my!—I—ugh! what a scrunch!—Hah! Would you mind lending me a hand, sir?”
“Not a bit, Sam,” said Frank. “I’ll help you in any way, as you will me; but I want to see you master all this.”
“That’s right, sir. Here goes, then.”
The next moment the man had made a brave effort, and he walked at once to his camel and mounted, Frank standing by as the ungainly beast see-sawed to and fro and sprawled out its legs, and grumbled and snarled as it rose upright.
“Don’t make that row!” cried Sam. “You ought to be used to it by this time. That’s done it, Mr Frank. Don’t tell the doctor what I said.”
“Not I, Sam. Bravo! You have plenty of pluck, you see.”
“Have I, sir?” said the man pitifully. “I began to think I hadn’t a bit. It had got to the bottom somewhere.”
“Yes,” said Frank; “now keep it up at the top.”
In another minute the little camel train was steadily pacing on again over the sands, with the air feeling fresher. The moon, too, was beginning to cast the shadows in a different direction, while the whole party had become silent, no one feeling the slightest inclination to talk.
But it did not seem long now before the silvery radiance of the moon began to grow pale before the soft opalescence in the east, and the far-spreading desert sands took a less mystic tint. Then all at once far on high there was a soft, roseate speck, which grew orange and then golden as if it were the advance guard of the gathering array of dazzling hues which now rapidly advanced till the east blazed with a glory wondrous to behold.
“Your first desert sunrise, Frank,” said the professor quietly, as he saw the young man’s rapt gaze. “Ah, we have some splendid sky effects here to make up for the want of flower and tree! The desert has glories of its own, as you will see.”
For the next half hour Frank forgot his weariness, the want of sleep, and his anxieties in the grandeur of the scene around, as the glories of the day expanded till the sun rose well above the horizon, sending the shadows of the camels long and strange over the yielding sand. Then hour after hour the monotony increased, and the silence grew more oppressive, the heat harder to bear, and but for the calm, contented ease exhibited by the Sheikh and his men, and the example they felt bound to show to their followers, both the Doctor and Frank would have put in a plea for another halt.
As it was they sat firmly as they could, swaying to and fro with the monotonous motion of the camels, and growing more and more faint, while at last Frank spoke to the Sheikh to set one of his young men to keep an eye upon Sam, for he felt at times too much irritated to meet the poor fellow’s pleading eyes, and followed close behind the professor, who kept turning in his seat to make some remark to cheer him up.
Then apparently all at once, after he had been straining his eyes vainly over the far-spreading, interminable plain in search of their halting-place, the Sheikh rode alongside, smiling and apparently as fresh as when they had started, to point away in the direction they were going.
“The tents, Excellency,” he said.
Frank felt as if he had taken a draught of renewed life, as he raised his hand to his brow and shaded his eyes from the sun.
“I see nothing,” he said.
“Look again, Excellency. Your eyes are not used to the desert. There, straight past the Hakim’s camel.”
“Ah, yes! I can see something like a heap of sand.”
“Look again in half an hour,” said the Sheikh smiling, “and that which you see will have changed to something more than a heap of sand.”
“Can you make out the tents, Landon?” said Frank.
“Oh, no; my eyes are not like Ibrahim’s,” was the reply; “but I take it for granted, and I shall be very glad to get there. I want my breakfast badly. I say, Ibrahim, there will be some coffee?”
“I sent one of my sons yesterday with two camel-loads of necessaries, Excellency,” replied the old Arab. “They can see us coming, for they will have been watching, and there will be all their Excellencies need.”
“Come, Frank, that does you good, doesn’t it?” said the professor.
“Oh, yes; and I shall, I hope, make a better show of endurance after a day or two.”
“The young Excellency has done well,” said the Sheikh, smiling pleasantly. “The way is long; he is not accustomed to travelling like this, and his mind is not at rest. He and the Hakim have borne the ride well.”
“Does the Hakim know that we are in sight?” said Frank, who was watching the bent, weary figure in front.
“No, Excellency.”
“I’ll go and cheer him up with the news,” said the professor, urging on his camel, while Frank checked his to let Sam’s long-legged steed come abreast, and boldly now met the poor fellow’s appealing eyes.
“It’s you at last, Mr Frank,” said the man faintly. “I’ve been asking that native chap how long a man could go on like this before he’s knocked over by the sun.”
“And what does he say?” replied Frank cheerily.
“Only grunted like this beast does. I might just as well have asked it.”
“Feel very tired, then?”
“Tired, sir? I feel as if—as if—as if—”
“As if you wanted rest and a good breakfast.”
“Rest?—breakfast?” said Sam faintly. “Oh, don’t talk about such things, sir! if it’s only to keep me lingering on for another hour, sir. Mr Frank, I used to grumble sometimes in Wimpole Street about my pantry being dark and made mizzable by the iron bars and the old, yellowish, wobbly glass; but it seems a sort of place now as I’d give anything to get back to—parrydicey, and that sort of thing. Rest—breakfast! There can’t be either of them out here, only sand. Oh, sir, you’re a-laughing. I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to make jokes about the breakfast, and say we’re to have the sand which is there.”
“Wrong, Sam,” replied Frank laughing; “but I’m glad to see that you can think about jokes. There, sit up, man, and look yonder straight ahead. The tents are in sight.”
“Tents? Where?” cried the man, changing his tone. “I can’t see ’em.”
“They are not very plain yet, but there they are.”
“White uns, sir, with flags flying, and that sort of thing? What are they—marquees, or bell-tents like the soldiers have?”
“I don’t suppose they are either, but native tents,” said Frank, shading his eyes again. “They look very low and small, right away on the horizon, and they seem to be brown.”
“On the horizon, sir? Why, that means out at sea, and we sha’n’t be there before night.”
“Well, right away on the horizon of this sea of sand,” said Frank cheerfully; “but I don’t think we are above a mile or two away.”
“Oh!” groaned Sam. “Say two miles, then, and chuck in another because places are always farther away than you think. Three miles, and we’re going a mile an hour. Mr Frank, sir, have you got a pencil and a bit o’ paper?”
“Yes, in my pocket-book. Will you have them now?”
“Me, sir,” said the man faintly. “I couldn’t write, sir; I want you to do it for me.”
“A letter? Well, when we get to the tents.”
“No, sir, now. I sha’n’t live to see no tents. There ain’t much, sir; only a silver watch and chain, a bit in the Post Office Savings Bank, and my clothes, as my brother ’ll be very glad to have.”
“Oh, I see! you want to make your will, Sam,” said Frank seriously.
“That’s it, sir; and you’d better write it as plain as you can, sir, so as there sha’n’t be no mistakes after, and I dessay I can manage to make my cross.”
“A will made on a camel in the desert, Sam!” said Frank seriously. “Rather a novelty in wills, eh? Better wait till after breakfast.”
“Breakfast, sir?”
“The Sheikh says there’ll be coffee.”
“Coffee out here, sir?”
“Yes, and these people know what good coffee is.”
“Yes, sir; it was very good at the hotel. ’Most as good as ours at home.”
“And he said that he sent two camel-loads of necessaries on before us yesterday.”
“He did, sir?” said Sam, whose voice sounded stronger.
“Yes, and look now: the tents are getting quite plain. They look peculiar, and there are camels about them, and there are green trees—palms, I think. There must be a water-hole there, I suppose.”
“Yes, I can see the trees, sir—toy-shop sort o’ trees.”
“Here’s a man coming to meet us on a camel too—a man all in white.”
There was a pause for a few minutes, during which period the camels stepped out more freely, as they blinked and looked from under their eyelids in a supercilious way, drooping their lips and sniffing as if they smelt water.
“Think there’s likely to be a pen and ink yonder, sir?”
“There is with the doctor’s medicine chest, I know.”
“These camels do move about in a dreadful, wobbly way, sir, don’t they?”
“Yes; but I’m growing more accustomed to the motion already.”
“That’s because you’re young, sir, and not set like I am. But I was thinking that it would be rather hard to write plain, going as we are.”
“Very, Sam.”
“And there are so many troubles about wills when the lawyers get hold of ’em, and often just about a word or two.”
“Quite true, Sam,” said Frank seriously.
“You see, there’s a nice bit of money I’ve saved up, sir—over fifty pound—and I shouldn’t rest easy if it all went in law through the will being made hasty like. P’r’aps it would be better if we stopped till we got to the tents. What do you say, sir? Might be a table there for you to write on.”
“Well, I feel very doubtful about the table, Sam; but I can’t help thinking that I could write a good deal more clearly lying on the sand with the paper on a box or a biscuit-tin.”
“Yes, sir, I feel sure it would be better to wait now, and I’ll risk it.”
“Risk what—the writing?”
“No, sir; holding out till we get to the tents. Seems as if we shall get there a bit sooner than I thought for.”
“Oh, yes! we shall be there in less than half an hour.”
“Soon as that, sir?”
“Yes.”
“Think I can hold out till then?”
“If you try very hard, Sam,” said Frank seriously. “You seem terribly knocked up; but I feel in hope that a good breakfast and a few hours’ sleep will do you a lot of good, and then if the doctor takes you in hand, you will feel a different man by to-morrow.”
“To-morrow, sir? Think I shall ever see to-morrow?”
“I hope so. Ah, here’s the man from the tents! What a good-looking young Arab he seems, and what a clean-limbed, swift camel he is on—a beauty!”
“Ugh! Don’t say that, sir. They seem to me the most unnatural-looking, big, birdy creatures I ever set eyes on; and oh, Mr Frank! do you think it’s possible for a man to get to ride them and like it?”
“Look at that fellow,” said Frank; “he seems as if he were part of the beast he rides.”
“P’r’aps he is, sir; being a native.”
“Oh, come, Sam, you’re getting better,” cried Frank cheerily. “Look, there’s a fire outside that tent—two fires. That means cooking, and cooking means breakfast. I feel as if I shall be ready for some after all. Look at the place here.”
Sam began to grow interested, for they were approaching an oasis of some two or three hundred acres in extent, where, consequent upon the welling up of a spring of water at the foot of a clump of rocks, a few dom and date palms rose up gracefully, and the ground was covered pretty liberally with closely nibbled-off herbage, and dotted with sheep and goats, a few camels lying about here and there close to the group of booth-like tents, while for three or four hundred yards the course of the flowing water which rose from the spring could be clearly traced, by the richness of the plants and shrubs which owed their existence to its presence.
The clump of tents proved to be more extensive than they had seemed to be at a distance, and the Sheikh’s little patriarchal family greater than the travellers had anticipated. Children could be seen staring curiously at the newcomers; dark-eyed women stole from tent to tent, and quite twenty tall, dark, well-featured men came forward to bid them welcome and relieve the laden camels of their loads; while when the Sheikh led the way to the largest tent, into whose shadowy gloom the party entered with a feeling of relief, it was to find ample traces of the fact at which the old man had hinted in conversation, that he was comparatively wealthy. For the tent boasted divans; handsome carpets were spread over the sand, and upon one there was that European luxury, a white linen cloth, upon which was already prepared, simple and good, all that was necessary for the welcome breakfast, while in a little side tent, greatest luxury of all, there were brass basins, towels, and great earthen vessels full of clear, cool water.
“Hah, Sheikh,” said the doctor, with a sigh of relief, “this is grand! I’m coming to life again.”
“I am glad the learned Hakim is satisfied with his servant’s preparations,” said the Sheikh humbly. “There will be breakfast in a very short time. It was hastened by the women as soon as the camels came in sight.”
“But of course we cannot travel with tents like this,” said the doctor.
“Oh, no, Excellency,” replied the Sheikh; “only two that will be smaller; but everything necessary for their Excellencies’ comfort will be done. It will be right, and impress the Baggara and others of the Mahdi’s followers. For the Hakim is not a poor dervish who tries to cure; he is a great Frankish doctor who travels to do good. He does not treat the sick and wounded to be paid in piastres, or to receive gifts, but because he loves to cure the suffering.”
“Quite right,” said the doctor gravely.
“Then it is right and fit that he should travel with good tents and camels, and such things as suit his dignity.”
“But this will be travelling like an eastern prince,” said the doctor, who was beaming with satisfaction, after a refreshing sluice in some cool water.
“A learned Hakim such as his Excellency Landon assures me that you are, is greater than any eastern prince,” said the Sheikh, handing a fresh bath-towel; “and I have a petition to make to his Excellency.”
“A petition? What is it, Ibrahim?”
“I have a son here, Excellency; he is my youngest, and the light of my old eyes, but he is weak and sickly, and there are times when I feel that I am fighting against fate, and that it would be better that I should let him die in peace. But I love him, and I would have him live. Will the Hakim see the boy and say whether he is to live or die?”
“Yes. What is his ailment?”
“It was through a fall from a camel. A fierce old bull rushed at the young one he rode, and fell upon him and crushed him.”
“Ah, I see,” said the doctor. “That is in my way.”
“Then the learned Hakim will see the boy?”
“Yes, at once. Where is he?”
“No, no, not at once,” said the Sheikh. “Poor Hassan has waited three years; he can wait another hour till the Hakim has eaten and rested. Then his Excellency will be refreshed, his eyes will see more clearly, and may be then he will be able to make an old man’s heart rejoice. If it is not to be—well, His will be done.”
“Yes,” said the doctor gravely, as he laid his hand upon the Sheikh’s arm.
“And there are other sufferers here, Excellency, who would pray to you for help, for we are not free from the ills which afflict mankind. A mother would ask you if her little one will live. There is a little girl whose sight is nearly gone, and one of my young men whose broken leg does not grow together again. Shall we be asking too much of the Hakim if we say, look at these sufferers and give them words of comfort if you can give them nothing more, not even hope?”
“I am a learned Hakim, you say, Sheikh, and I have come out here to use my knowledge without fee or reward. Heaven helping me, I hope to do much good, and I place myself in your hands. You will lead us where you think best, and you will bring the people whom I ought to see. That is enough.”
“Yes, Excellency, and as soon as your friends are ready the breakfast waits.”