"'I have finished,' I said, 'but you must lie quiet, for some time. The slightest movement now might cause the flow of blood to burst out.'
"The Emir had stood staring at his son's quiet face, as if amazed beyond the power of speech. Four Dervishes had held the patient's limbs, so as to prevent any accidental movement. A female slave had held a large basin of warm water, and another handed me the things I pointed to. I had begged the hakims to keep their attention fixed on what I was doing, in order that these also might see how the white doctor did such things.
"When his son spoke, the Emir gave a gasp of relief. 'He lives,' he murmured, as if even now he could scarcely believe that this was possible; and as he put his hand upon my shoulder it trembled with emotion.
"'Truly the ways of the white infidels are marvellous. Abu, my son, Allah has been merciful! He must have meant that you should not die, and thus have sent this man, who has seen the white hakims at work, to save your life!
"What is to be done now?' he went on, turning to me.
"'He should be raised very gently, and clothes put under his shoulder and head. Then he should be carried, on the angareb, to the coolest place in the house. He may drink a little juice of fruit, but he had best eat nothing. The great thing is to prevent fever coming on. With your permission I will stay with him, for if one of the threads you saw me tie, round these little white tubes in the arm, should slip or give way, he would be dead in five minutes; unless this machine round the arm is tightened at once, and the tube that carries the blood is tied up. It would be well that he should have a slave to fan him. I hope he will sleep.'
"The Emir gave orders for the bed to be carried to the room adjoining his harem.
"'His mother and his young wife will want to see him,' he said to me, 'and when the danger that you speak of is past, the women will care for him. You will be master in the room, and will give such orders as you please.'
"Then he turned off, and walked hastily away. I could see that he had spoken with difficulty, and that, in spite of his efforts to appear composed and tranquil, his mouth was twitching, and his eyes moist.
"As soon as the bed had been placed, by my directions, near the open window, the four Dervishes left the room. The hakims were on the point of doing so, when I said:
"'I will stay here for a few minutes, and will then come out and talk this matter over with you. I have been fortunate, indeed, in remembering so well what I saw. I heard a white hakim explain how he did each thing, and why, to the sheik of the wounded man's party; and I will tell you what I remember of it, and you, with your wisdom in these matters, will be able to do it far better than I.'
"When they had retired, the door leading into the harem opened, and a woman, slightly veiled, followed by a younger woman and two slave girls, came in. I stopped her, as she was hurrying towards her son.
"'Lady,' I said, 'I pray you to speak very quietly, and in few words. It is most important that he should not be excited, in any way, but should be kept perfectly quiet, for the next two or three days.'
"'I will do so,' she said. 'May I touch him?'
"'You may take his hand in yours, but do not let him move. I will leave you with him for a few minutes. Please remember that everything depends upon his not being agitated.'
"I went out and joined the hakims.
"'Truly, Mudil, Allah has given you strange gifts,' one of them said. 'Wonderful is it that you should have remembered so well what you saw; and more wonderful still is it, that you should have the firmness to cut and saw flesh and bone, as if they were those of a dead sheep, with the Emir standing by to look at you!'
"'I knew that his life, and perhaps mine, depended upon it. The Emir would have kept his oath, I doubt not; but when it became known in the town that Abu, who is known to all for his bravery and goodness, died in my hands, it would not have been safe for me to leave this house.'
"I then explained the reason for each step that I took. They listened most attentively, and asked several questions, showing that they were intensely interested, and most anxious to be able to perform so wonderful an operation themselves. They were greatly surprised at the fact that so little blood flowed.
"'It seems,' I said, 'from what I heard the white hakim say, that the blood flowed through those little white tubes. By twisting the tourniquet very tight, that flow of blood is stopped. The great thing is to find those little tubes, and tie them up. As you would notice, the large ones in the inside of the arm could be seen quite plainly. When they cannot be seen, the screw is unloosed so as to allow a small quantity of blood to flow, which shows you where the tubes are. You will remember that I took hold of each, with the bent point of a small wire or a pair of these nippers; and, while you held it, tied the thread tightly round it. When that is done, one is ready to cut the bone. You saw me push the flesh back, so as to cut the bone as high up as possible; that is because the white doctor said the flesh would shrink up, and the bone would project. I cut the flesh straight on one side, and on the other with a flap that will, when it is stitched, cover over the bone and the rest of the flesh, and make what the hakim called a pad. He said all cutting off of limbs was done in this way, but of course the tubes would not lie in the same place, and the cutting would have to be made differently; but it was all the same system. He called these simple operations, and said that anyone with a firm hand, and a knowledge of where these tubes lie, ought to be able to do it, after seeing it done once or twice. He said, of course, it would not be so neatly done as by men who had been trained to it; but that, in cases of extreme necessity, anyone who had seen it done once or twice, and had sufficient nerve, could do it; especially if they had, ready at hand, this stuff that makes the wounded man sleep and feel no pain.
"'I listened very attentively, because all seemed to me almost like magic, but I certainly did not think that I should ever have to do such a thing, myself.'
"'But what would be done if they had not that sleep medicine?'
"'The hakim said that, in that case, the wounded man would have to be fastened down by bandages to the bed, and held by six strong men, so that he could not move in the slightest. However, there is enough of that stuff to last a hundred times or more; for, as you see, only a good-sized spoonful was used.'
"The Emir, who had passed through the harem rooms, now opened the door.
"'Come in,' he said. 'My son is quiet, and has not moved. He has spoken to his mother, and seems quite sensible. Is there anything more for you to do to him?'
"'I will put a bandage loosely round his arm, and bind it to his body so that he cannot move it in his sleep, or on first waking. It will not be necessary for me to stay with him, as the ladies of the harem can look after him; but I must remain in the next room, so as to be ready to run in, at once, should they see that the wound is bleeding again. I have asked the hakims to make a soothing potion, to aid him to sleep long and soundly.'
"As I went up to the side of the bed, Abu smiled. I bent down to him, and he said in a low voice:
"'All the pain has gone. May Allah bless you!'
"'I am afraid that you will feel more pain, tomorrow, but I do not think it will be so bad as it was before. Now, I hope you will try to go to sleep. You will be well looked after, and I shall be in the next room, if you want me. The hakims will give you a soothing draught soon, and you can have cool drinks when you want them.'
"Things went on as well as I could have wished. In four or five days the threads came away, and I loosened the tourniquet slightly, and strapped up the edges of the wound, which were already showing signs of healing. For the first twenty-four hours I had remained always on watch; after that the hakims took their turns, I remaining in readiness to tighten up the tourniquet, should there be any rush of blood. I did not leave the Emir's house, but slept in a room close by that of the patient.
"There was now, however, no longer need for my doing so. The splendid constitution of the young Baggara had, indeed, from the first rendered any attendance unnecessary. There was no fever, and very little local inflammation; and I was able to gladden his heart by telling him that, in another fortnight, he would be able to be up.
"The day I was intending to leave, the Emir sent for me. He was alone.
"'The more I think over this matter,' he said, 'the more strange it is that you should be able to do all these wonderful things, after having seen it done once by the white hakim. The more I think of it, the more certain I feel that you are not what you seem. I have sent for Saleh and Abdullah. They have told me what you did for them, and that you gave up your horse to them, and dressed their wounds, and brought them in here. They are full of praise of your goodness, and but few of my people would have thus acted, for strangers. They would have given them a drink of water, and ridden on.
"Now, tell me frankly and without fear. I have thought it over, and I feel sure that you, yourself, are a white hakim, who escaped from the battle in which Hicks's army was destroyed.'
"'I am not a hakim. All that I said was true--that although I have seen operations performed, I have never performed them myself. As to the rest, I answer you frankly, I am an Englishman. I did escape when the black Soudanese battalion surrendered, three days after the battle. I was not a fighting officer. I was with them as interpreter. I may say that, though I am not a hakim, I did for some time study with the intention of becoming one, and so saw many operations performed.'
"'I am glad that you told me,' the Emir said gravely. 'Your people are brave and very wise, though they cannot stand against the power of the Mahdi. But were you Sheitan himself, it would be nothing to me. You have saved my son's life. You are the honoured guest of my house. Your religion is different from mine, but as you showed that you were willing to aid followers of the Prophet and the Mahdi, although they were your enemies, surely I, for whom you have done so much, may well forget that difference.'
"'I thank you, Emir. From what I had seen of you, I felt sure that my secret would be safe with you. We Christians feel no enmity against followers of Mahomet--the hatred is all on your side. And yet, 'tis strange, the Allah that you worship, and the God of the Christians, is one and the same. Mahomet himself had no enmity against the Christians, and regarded our Christ as a great prophet, like himself.
"Our Queen reigns, in India, over many more Mohamedans than are ruled by the Sultan of Turkey. They are loyal to her, and know that under her sway no difference is made between them and her Christian subjects, and have fought as bravely for her as her own white troops.'
"'I had never thought,' the Emir said, 'that the time would come when I should call an infidel my friend; but now that I can do so, I feel that there is much in what you say. However, your secret must be kept. Were it known that you are a white man, you would be torn to pieces in the streets; and even were you to remain here, where assuredly none would dare touch you, the news would speedily travel to my lord the Mahdi, and he would send a troop of horse to bring you to him. Therefore, though I would fain honour you, I see that it is best that you should, to all save myself, continue to be Mudil. I will not even, as I would otherwise have done, assign you a house, and slaves, and horses in token of my gratitude to you for having saved the life of my son.
"'Something I must do, or I should seem utterly ungrateful. I can, at any rate, give you rooms here, and treat you as an honoured guest. This would excite no remark, as it would be naturally expected that you would stay here until my son is perfectly cured. I shall tell no one, not even my wife; but Abu I will tell, when he is cured, and the secret will be as safe with him as with me. I think it would please him to know. Although a Baggara like myself, and as brave as any, he is strangely gentle in disposition; and though ready and eager to fight, when attacked by other tribes, he does not care to go on expeditions against villages which have not acknowledged the power of the Mahdi, and makes every excuse to avoid doing so. It will please him to know that the man who has saved his life is one who, although of a different race and religion, is willing to do kindness to an enemy; and will love and honour you more, for knowing it.'
"'I thank you deeply, Emir, and anything that I can do for members of your family, I shall be glad to do. I have a knowledge of the usages of many of the drugs in the chest that was brought here. I have not dared to say so before, because I could not have accounted for knowing such things.'
"So at present I am installed in the Emir's palace, and my prospects grow brighter and brighter. After the great victory the Mahdi has won, it is likely that he will be emboldened to advance against Khartoum. In that case he will, no doubt, summon his followers from all parts, and I shall be able to ride with the Emir or his son; and it will be hard if, when we get near the city, I cannot find some opportunity of slipping off and making my way there. Whether it will be prudent to do so is another question, for I doubt whether the Egyptian troops there will offer any resolute resistance to the Dervish hosts; and in that case, I should have to endeavour to make my way down to Dongola, and from there either by boat or by the river bank to Assouan.
"A month later. I have not written for some time, because there has been nothing special to put down. All the little details of the life here can be told to my dear wife, if I should ever see her again; but they are not of sufficient interest to write down. I have been living at the Emir's house, ever since. I do not know what special office I am supposed to occupy in his household--that is, what office the people in general think that I hold. In fact, I am his guest, and an honoured one. When he goes out I ride beside him and Abu, who has now sufficiently recovered to sit his horse. I consider myself as medical attendant, in ordinary, to him and his family. I have given up all practice in the town--in the first place because I do not wish to make enemies of the two doctors, who really seem very good fellows, and I am glad to find that they have performed two or three operations successfully; and in the second place, were I to go about trying to cure the sick, people would get so interested in me that I should be continually questioned as to how I attained my marvellous skill. Happily, though no doubt they must have felt somewhat jealous at my success with Abu, I have been able to do the hakims some service, put fees into their pockets, and at the same time benefited poor people here. I have told them that, just as I recognized the bottle of chloroform, so I have recognized some of the bottles from which the white hakims used to give powder to sick people.
"'For instance,' I said, 'you see this bottle, which is of a different shape from the others. It is full of a white, feathery-looking powder. They used to give this to people suffering from fever--about as much as you could put on your nail for men and women, and half as much for children. They used to put it in a little water, and stir it up, and give it to them night and morning. They call it kena, or something like that. It did a great deal of good, and generally drove away the fever.
"'This other bottle they also used a good deal. They put a little of its contents in water, and it made a lotion for weak and sore eyes. They called it zing. They saw I was a careful man, and I often made the eye wash, and put the other white powder up into little packets when they were busy, as fever and ophthalmia are the two most common complaints among the natives.'
"The hakims were immensely pleased, and both told me, afterwards, that both these medicines had done wonders. I told them that I thought there were some more bottles of these medicines in the chest, and that when they had finished those I had now given them, I would look out for the others. I had, in fact, carried off a bottle both of quinine and zinc powder for my own use, and with the latter I greatly benefited several of the Emir's children and grandchildren, all of whom were suffering from ophthalmia; or from sore eyes, that would speedily have developed that disease, if they had not been attended to.
"I had only performed one operation, which was essentially a minor one. Abu told me that his wife, of whom he was very fond, was suffering very great pain from a tooth--could I cure her?
"I said that, without seeing the tooth, I could not do anything, and he at once said:
"'As it is for her good, Mudil, I will bring her into this room, and she shall unveil so that you can examine the tooth.'
"She was quite a girl, and for an Arab very good looking. She and the Emir's wife were continually sending me out choice bits from their dinner, but I had not before seen her face. She was evidently a good deal confused, at thus unveiling before a man, but Abu said:
"'It is with my permission that you unveil, therefore there can be no harm in it. Besides, has not Mudil saved my life, and so become my brother?'
"He opened her mouth. The tooth was far back and broken, and the gum was greatly swelled.
"'It is very bad,' I said to Abu. 'It would hurt her terribly, if I were to try and take it out; but if she will take the sleeping medicine I gave you, I think that I could do it.'
"'Then she shall take it,' he said at once. 'It is not unpleasant. On the contrary, I dreamt a pleasant dream while you were taking off my arm. Please do it, at once.'
"I at once fetched the chloroform, the inhaler, and a pair of forceps which looked well suited for the purpose, and probably were intended for it. I then told her to lie down on the angareb, which I placed close to the window.
"'Now, Abu,' I said, 'directly she has gone off to sleep, you must force her mouth open, and put the handle of your dagger between her teeth. It will not hurt her at all. But I cannot get at the tooth unless the mouth is open, and we cannot open it until she is asleep, for the whole side of her face is swollen, and the jaw almost stiff.'
"The chloroform took effect very quickly. Her husband had some difficulty in forcing the mouth open. When he had once done so, I took a firm hold of the tooth, and wrenched it out.
"'You can withdraw the dagger,' I said, 'and then lift her up, and let her rinse her mouth well with the warm water I brought in. She will have little pain afterwards, though of course it will take some little time, before the swelling goes down.'
"Then I went out, and left them together. In a few minutes, Abu came out.
"'She has no pain,' he said. 'She could hardly believe, when she came round, that the tooth was out. It is a relief, indeed. She has cried, day and night, for the past three days.'
"'Tell her that, for the rest of the day, she had better keep quiet; and go to sleep if possible, which I have no doubt she will do, as she must be worn out with the pain she has been suffering.'
"'I begin to see, Mudil, that we are very ignorant. We can fight, but that is all we are good for. How much better it would be if, instead of regarding you white men as enemies, we could get some of you to live here, and teach us the wonderful things that you know!'
"'Truly it would be better,' I said. 'It all depends upon yourselves. You have a great country. If you would but treat the poor people here well, and live in peace with other tribes; and send word down to Cairo that you desire, above all things, white hakims and others who would teach you, to come up and settle among you, assuredly they would come. There are thousands of white men and women working in India, and China, and other countries, content to do good, not looking for high pay, but content to live poorly. The difficulty is not in getting men willing to heal and to teach, but to persuade those whom they would benefit to allow them to do the work.'
"Abu shook his head.
"'That is it,' he said. 'I would rather be able to do such things as you do, than be one of the most famous soldiers of the Mahdi; but I could never persuade others. They say that the Mahdi himself, although he is hostile to the Turks, and would conquer Egypt, would willingly befriend white men. But even he, powerful as he is, cannot go against the feelings of his emirs. Must we always be ignorant? Must we always be fighting? I can see no way out of it. Can you, Mudil?'
"'I can see but one way,' I said, 'and that may seem to you impossible, because you know nothing of the strength of England. We have, as you know, easily beaten the Egyptian Army; and we are now protectors of Egypt. If you invade that country, as the Mahdi has already threatened to do, it is we who will defend it; and if there is no other way of obtaining peace, we shall some day send an army to recover the Soudan. You will fight, and you will fight desperately, but you have no idea of the force that will advance against you. You know how Osman Digna's tribes on the Red Sea have been defeated, not by the superior courage of our men, but by our superior arms. And so it will be here. It may be many years before it comes about, but if you insist on war, that is what will come.
"'Then, when we have taken the Soudan, there will come peace, and the peasant will till his soil in safety. Those who desire to be taught will be taught; great canals from the Nile will irrigate the soil, and the desert will become fruitful.'
"'You really think that would come of it?' Abu asked, earnestly.
"'I do indeed, Abu. We have conquered many brave peoples, far more numerous than yours; and those who were our bitterest enemies now see how they have benefited by it. Certainly, England would not undertake the cost of such an expedition lightly; but if she is driven to it by your advance against Egypt, she will assuredly do so. Your people--I mean the Baggaras and their allies--would suffer terribly; but the people whom you have conquered, whose villages you have burned, whose women you have carried off, would rejoice.'
"'We would fight,' Abu said passionately.
"'Certainly you would fight, and fight gallantly, but it would not avail you. Besides, Abu, you would be fighting for that ignorance you have just regretted, and against the teaching and progress you have wished for.'
"'It is hard,' Abu said, quietly.
"'It is hard, but it has been the fate of all people who have resisted the advance of knowledge and civilization. Those who accept civilization, as the people of India--of whom there are many more than in all Africa--have accepted it, are prosperous. In America and other great countries, far beyond the seas, the native Indians opposed it, but in vain; and now a great white race inhabit the land, and there is but a handful left of those who opposed them.'
"'These things are hard to understand. If, as you say, your people come here some day to fight against us, I shall fight. If my people are defeated, and I am still alive, I shall say it is the will of Allah; let us make the best of it, and try to learn to be like those who have conquered us. I own to you that I am sick of bloodshed--not of blood shed in battle, but the blood of peaceful villagers; and though I grieve for my own people, I should feel that it was for the good of the land that the white men had become the masters.'"
"Khartoum, September 3rd, 1884.
"It is a long time since I made my last entry. I could put no date to it then, and till yesterday could hardly even have named the month. I am back again among friends, but I can hardly say that I am safer here than I was at El Obeid. I have not written, because there was nothing to write. One day was like another, and as my paper was finished, and there were no incidents in my life, I let the matter slide.
"Again and again I contemplated attempting to make my way to this town, but the difficulties would be enormous. There were the dangers of the desert, the absence of wells, the enormous probability of losing my way, and, most of all, the chance that, before I reached Khartoum, it would have been captured. The Emir had been expecting news of its fall, for months.
"There had been several fights, in some of which they had been victorious. In others, even according to their own accounts, they had been worsted. Traitors in the town kept them well informed of the state of supplies. They declared that these were almost exhausted, and that the garrison must surrender. Indeed, several of the commanders of bodies of troops had offered to surrender posts held by them.
"So I had put aside all hope of escape, and decided not to make any attempt until after Khartoum fell, when the Dervishes boasted they would march down and conquer Egypt, to the sea.
"They had already taken Berber. Dongola was at their mercy. I thought the best chance would be to go down with them, as far as they went, and then to slip away. In this way I should shorten the journey I should have to traverse alone; and, being on the river bank, could at least always obtain water. Besides, I might possibly secure some small native boat, and with the help of the current get down to Assouan before the Dervishes could arrive there. This I should have attempted; but, three weeks ago, an order came from the Mahdi to El Khatim, ordering him to send to Omdurman five hundred well-armed men, who were to be commanded by his son Abu. Khatim was to remain at El Obeid, with the main body of his force, until further orders.
"Abu came to me at once, with the news.
"'You will take me with you, Abu,' I exclaimed. 'This is the chance I have been hoping for. Once within a day's journey of Khartoum, I could slip away at night, and it would be very hard if I could not manage to cross the Nile into Khartoum.'
"'I will take you, if you wish it,' he said. 'The danger will be very great, not in going with me, but in making your way into Khartoum.'
"'It does not seem to me that it would be so,' I said. 'I should strike the river four or five miles above the town, cut a bundle of rushes, swim out to the middle of the river, drift down till I was close to the town, and then swim across.'
"'So be it,' he said. 'It is your will, not mine.'
"Khatim came to me afterwards, and advised me to stay, but I said that it might be years before I had another chance to escape; and that, whatever risk there was, I would prefer running it.
"'Then we shall see you no more,' he said, 'for Khartoum will assuredly fall, and you will be killed.'
"'If you were a prisoner in the hands of the white soldiers, Emir,' I said, 'I am sure that you would run any risk, if there was a chance of getting home again. So it is with me. I have a wife and child, in Cairo. Her heart must be sick with pain, at the thought of my death. I will risk anything to get back as soon as possible. If I reach Khartoum, and it is afterwards captured, I can disguise myself and appear as I now am, hide for a while, and then find out where Abu is and join him again. But perhaps, when he sees that no further resistance can be made, General Gordon will embark on one of his steamers and go down the river, knowing that it would be better for the people of the town that the Mahdi should enter without opposition; in which case you would scarcely do harm to the peaceful portion of the population, or to the troops who had laid down their arms.'
"'Very well,' the Emir said. 'Abu has told me that he has tried to dissuade you, but that you will go. We owe you a great debt of gratitude, for all that you have done for us, and therefore I will not try to dissuade you. I trust Allah will protect you.'
"And so we started the next morning. I rode by the side of Abu, and as all knew that I was the hakim who had taken off his arm, none wondered. The journey was made without any incident worth recording. Abu did not hurry. We made a long march between each of the wells, and then halted for a day. So we journeyed, until we made our last halt before arriving at Omdurman.
"'You are still determined to go?' Abu said to me.
"'I shall leave tonight, my friend.'
"'I shall not forget all that you have told me about your people, hakim. Should any white man fall into my hands, I will spare him for your sake. These are evil times, and I regret all that has passed. I believe that the Mahdi is a prophet; but I fear that, in many things, he has misunderstood the visions and orders he received. I see that evil rather than good has fallen upon the land, and that though we loved not the rule of the Egyptians, we were all better off under it than we are now. We pass through ruined villages, and see the skeletons of many people. We know that where the waterwheels formerly spread the water from the rivers over the fields, is now a desert; and that, except the fighting men, the people perish from hunger.
"'All this is bad. I see that, if we enter Egypt, we shall be like a flight of locusts. We shall eat up the country and leave a desert behind us. Surely this cannot be according to the wishes of Allah, who is all merciful. You have taught me much in your talks with me, and I do not see things as I used to. So much do I feel it, that in my heart I could almost wish that your countrymen should come here, and establish peace and order.
"'The Mohamedans of India, you tell me, are well content with their rulers. Men may exercise their religion and their customs, without hindrance. They know that the strong cannot prey upon the weak, and each man reaps what he has sown, in peace. You tell me that India was like the Soudan before you went there--that there were great conquerors, constant wars, and the peasants starved while the robbers grew rich; and that, under your rule, peace and contentment were restored. I would that it could be so here. But it seems, to me, impossible that we should be conquered by people so far away.'
"'I hope that it will be so, Abu; and I think that if the great and good white general, Governor Gordon, is murdered at Khartoum, the people of my country will never rest until his death has been avenged.'
"'You had better take your horse,' he said. 'If you were to go on foot, it would be seen that there was a horse without a rider, and there would be a search for you; but if you and your horse are missing, it will be supposed that you have ridden on to Omdurman to give notice of our coming, and none will think more of the matter.'
"As soon as the camp was asleep, I said goodbye to Abu; and took my horse by the reins and led him into the desert, half a mile away. Then I mounted, and rode fast. The stars were guide enough, and in three hours I reached the Nile. I took off the horse's saddle and bridle, and left him to himself. Then I crept out and cut a bundle of rushes, and swam into the stream with them.
"After floating down the river for an hour, I saw the light of a few fires on the right bank, and guessed that this was a Dervish force, beleaguering Khartoum from that side. I drifted on for another hour, drawing closer and closer to the shore, until I could see walls and forts; then I stripped off my Dervish frock, and swam ashore.
"I had, during the time we had been on the journey, abstained from staining my skin under my garments, in order that I might be recognized as a white man, as soon as I bared my arms.
"I lay down till it was broad daylight, and then walked up to the foot of a redoubt. There were shouts of surprise from the black soldiers there, as I approached. I shouted to them, in Arabic, that I was an Englishman; and two or three of them at once ran down the slope, and aided me to climb it. I was taken, at my request, to General Gordon, who was surprised, indeed, when I told him that I was a survivor of Hicks's force, and had been living nine months at El Obeid.
"'You are heartily welcome, sir,' he said; 'but I fear that you have come into an even greater danger than you have left, for our position here is well-nigh desperate. For months I have been praying for aid from England, and my last news was that it was just setting out, so I fear there is no hope that it will reach me in time. The government of England will have to answer, before God, for their desertion of me, and of the poor people here, whom they sent me to protect from the Mahdi.
"'For myself, I am content. I have done my duty as far as lay in my power, but I had a right to rely upon receiving support from those who sent me. I am in the hands of God. But for the many thousands who trusted in me, and remained here, I feel very deeply.
"'Now the first thing is to provide you with clothes. I am expecting Colonel Stewart here, every minute, and he will see that you are made comfortable.'
"'I shall be glad to place myself at your disposal, sir,' I said. 'I speak Arabic fluently, and shall be ready to perform any service of which I may be capable.'
"'I thank you,' he said, 'and will avail myself of your offer, if I see any occasion; but at present, we have rather to suffer than to do. We have occasional fights, but of late the attacks have been feeble, and I think that the Mahdi depends upon hunger rather than force to obtain possession of this town.
"This evening, I will ask you to tell me your story. Colonel Stewart will show you a room. There is only one other white man--Mr. Power--here. We live together as one family, of which you will now be a member.'
"I felt strange when I came to put on my European clothes. Mr. Power, who tells me he has been here for some years, as correspondent of the Times, has this afternoon taken me round the defences, and into the workshops. I think the place can resist any attacks, if the troops remain faithful; but of this there is a doubt. A good many of the Soudanese have already been sent away. As Gordon said at dinner this evening, if he had but a score of English officers, he would be perfectly confident that he could resist any enemy save starvation.
"September 12th:
"It has been settled that Colonel Stewart and Mr. Power are to go down the river in the Abbas, and I am to go with them. The General proposed it to me. I said that I could not think of leaving him here by himself, so he said kindly:
"'I thank you, Mr. Hilliard, but you could do no good here, and would only be throwing away your life. We can hold on to the end of the year, though the pinch will be very severe; but I think we can make the stores last, till then. But by the end of December our last crust will have been eaten, and the end will have come. It will be a satisfaction to me to know that I have done my best, and fail only because of the miserable delays and hesitation of government.'
"So it is settled that I am going. The gunboats are to escort us for some distance. Were it not for Gordon, I should feel delighted at the prospect. It is horrible to leave him--one of the noblest Englishmen!--alone to his fate. My only consolation is that if I remained I could not avert it, but should only be a sharer in it.
"September 18th:
"We left Khartoum on the 14th, and came down without any serious trouble until this morning, when the boat struck on a rock in the cataract, opposite a village called Hebbeh. A hole has been knocked in her bottom, and there is not a shadow of hope of getting her off. Numbers of the natives have gathered on the shore. I have advised that we should disregard their invitations to land, but that, as there would be no animosity against the black crew, they would be safe; and that we three whites should take the ship's boat, and four of the crew, put provisions for a week on board, and make our way down the river. Colonel Stewart, however, feels convinced that the people can be trusted, and that we had better land and place ourselves under the protection of the sheik. He does not know the Arabs as well as I do.
"However, as he has determined to go ashore, I can do nothing. I consider it unlikely, in the extreme, that there will be any additions to this journal. If, at any time in the future, this should fall into the hands of any of my countrymen, I pray that they will send it down to my dear wife, Mrs. Hilliard, whom, I pray, God may bless and comfort, care of the Manager of the Bank, Cairo."
Gregory had, after finishing the record, sat without moving until the dinner hour. It was a relief to him to know that his father had not spent the last years of his life as he had feared, as a miserable slave--ill treated, reviled, insulted, perhaps chained and beaten by some brutal taskmaster; but had been in a position where, save that he was an exile, kept from his home and wife, his lot had not been unbearable. He knew more of him than he had ever known before. It was as a husband that his mother had always spoken of him; but here he saw that he was daring, full of resource, quick to grasp any opportunity, hopeful and yet patient, longing eagerly to rejoin his wife, and yet content to wait until the chances should be all in his favour. He was unaffectedly glad thus to know him; to be able, in future, to think of him as one of whom he would have been proud; who would assuredly have won his way to distinction.
It was not so that he had before thought of him. His mother had said that he was of good family, and that it was on account of his marriage with her that he had quarrelled with his relations. It had always seemed strange to him that he should have been content to take, as she had told him, an altogether subordinate position in a mercantile house in Alexandria. She had accounted for his knowledge of Arabic by the fact that he had been, for two years, exploring the temples and tombs of Egypt with a learned professor; but surely, as a man of good family, he could have found something to do in England, instead of coming out to take so humble a post in Egypt.
Gregory knew nothing of the difficulty that a young man in England has, in obtaining an appointment of any kind, or of fighting his way single handed. Influence went for much in Egypt, and it seemed to him that, even if his father had quarrelled with his own people, there must have been many ways open to him of maintaining himself honourably. Therefore he had always thought that, although he might have been all that his mother described him--the tenderest and most loving of husbands, a gentleman, and estimable in all respects--his father must have been wanting in energy and ambition, deficient in the qualities that would fit him to fight his own battle, and content to gain a mere competence, instead of struggling hard to make his way up the ladder. He had accounted for his going up as interpreter, with Hicks Pasha, by the fact that his work with the contractor was at an end, and that he saw no other opening for himself.
He now understood how mistaken he had been, in his estimate of his father's character; and wondered, even more than before, why he should have taken that humble post at Alexandria. His mother had certainly told him, again and again, that he had done so simply because the doctors had said that she could not live in England; but surely, in all the wide empire of England, there must be innumerable posts that a gentleman could obtain. Perhaps he should understand it better, some day. At present, it seemed unaccountable to him. He felt sure that, had he lived, his father would have made a name for himself; and that it was in that hope, and not of the pay that he would receive as an interpreter, that he had gone up with Hicks; and that, had he not died at that little village by the Nile, he would assuredly have done so, for the narrative he had left behind him would in itself, if published, have shown what stuff there was in him.
It was hard that fate should have snatched him away, just when it had seemed that his trials were over, that he was on the point of being reunited to his wife. Still, it was a consolation to know he had died suddenly, as one falls in battle; not as a slave, worn out by grief and suffering.
As he left his hut, he said to Zaki:
"I shall not want you again this evening; but mind, we must be on the move at daylight."
"You did not say whether we were to take the horses, Master; but I suppose you will do so?"
"Oh, I forgot to tell you that we are going to have camels. They are to be put on board for us, tonight. They are fast camels and, as the distance from the point where we shall land to the Atbara will not be more than seventy or eighty miles, we shall be able to do it in a day."
"That will be very good, master. Camels are much better than horses, for the desert. I have got everything else ready."
After dinner was over, the party broke up quickly, as many of the officers had preparations to make. Gregory went off to the tent of the officer with whom he was best acquainted in the Soudanese regiment.
"I thought that I would come and have a chat with you, if you happened to be in."
"I shall be very glad, but I bar Fashoda. One is quite sick of the name."
"No, it was not Fashoda that I was going to talk to you about. I want to ask you something about England. I know really nothing about it, for I was born in Alexandria, shortly after my parents came out from England.
"Is it easy for anyone who has been well educated, and who is a gentleman, to get employment there? I mean some sort of appointment, say, in India or the West Indies."
"Easy! My dear Hilliard, the camel in the eye of a needle is a joke to it. If a fellow is eighteen, and has had a first-rate education and a good private coach, that is, a tutor, he may pass through his examination either for the army, or the civil service, or the Indian service. There are about five hundred go up to each examination, and seventy or eighty at the outside get in. The other four hundred or so are chucked. Some examinations are for fellows under nineteen, others are open for a year or two longer. Suppose, finally, you don't get in; that is to say, when you are two-and-twenty, your chance of getting any appointment, whatever, in the public service is at an end."
"Then interest has nothing to do with it?"
"Well, yes. There are a few berths in the Foreign Office, for example, in which a man has to get a nomination before going in for the exam; but of course the age limit tells there, as well as in any other."
"And if a man fails altogether, what is there open to him?"
The other shrugged his shoulders.
"Well, as far as I know, if he hasn't capital he can emigrate. That is what numbers of fellows do. If he has interest, he can get a commission in the militia, and from that possibly into the line; or he can enlist as a private, for the same object. There is a third alternative, he can hang himself. Of course, if he happens to have a relation in the city he can get a clerkship; but that alternative, I should say, is worse than the third."
"But I suppose he might be a doctor, a clergyman, or a lawyer?"
"I don't know much about those matters, but I do know that it takes about five years' grinding, and what is called 'walking the hospitals,' that is, going round the wards with the surgeons, before one is licensed to kill. I think, but I am not sure, that three years at the bar would admit you to practice, and usually another seven or eight years are spent, before you earn a penny. As for the Church, you have to go through the university, or one of the places we call training colleges; and when, at last, you are ordained, you may reckon, unless you have great family interest, on remaining a curate, with perhaps one hundred or one hundred and fifty pounds per annum, for eighteen or twenty years."
"And no amount of energy will enable a man of, say, four-and-twenty, without a profession, to obtain a post on which he could live with some degree of comfort?"
"I don't think energy would have anything to do with it. You cannot drop into a merchant's office and say, 'I want a snug berth, out in China;' or 'I should like an agency, in Mesopotamia.' If you have luck, anything is possible. If you haven't luck, you ought to fall back on my three alternatives--emigrate, enlist, or hang yourself. Of course, you can sponge on your friends for a year or two, if you are mean enough to do so; but there is an end to that sort of thing, in time.
"May I ask why you put the question, Hilliard? You have really a splendid opening, here. You are surely not going to be foolish enough to chuck it, with the idea of returning to England, and taking anything that may turn up?"
"No, I am not so foolish as that. I have had, as you say, luck--extraordinary luck--and I have quite made up my mind to stay in the service. No, I am really asking you because I know so little of England that I wondered how men who had a fair education, but no family interest, did get on."
"They very rarely do get on," the other said. "Of course, if they are inventive geniuses they may discover something--an engine, for example, that will do twice the work with half the consumption of fuel that any other engine will do; or, if chemically inclined, they may discover something that will revolutionize dyeing, for example: but not one man in a thousand is a genius; and, as a rule, the man you are speaking of--the ordinary public school and 'varsity man--if he has no interest, and is not bent upon entering the army, even as a private, emigrates if he hasn't sufficient income to live upon at home."
"Thank you! I had no idea it was so difficult to make a living in England, or to obtain employment, for a well-educated man of two or three and twenty."
"My dear Hilliard, that is the problem that is exercising the minds of the whole of the middle class of England, with sons growing up. Of course, men of business can take their sons into their own offices, and train them to their own profession; but after all, if a man has four or five sons, he cannot take them all into his office with a view to partnership. He may take one, but the others have to make their own way, somehow."
They chatted now upon the war, the dates upon which the various regiments would go down, and the chance of the Khalifa collecting another army, and trying conclusions with the invaders again. At last, Gregory got up and went back to his hut. He could now understand why his father, having quarrelled with his family, might have found himself obliged to take the first post that was offered, however humble, in order to obtain the advantage of a warm climate for his wife.
"He must have felt it awfully," he mused. "If he had been the sort of man I had always thought him, he could have settled down to the life. But now I know him better, I can understand that it must have been terrible for him, and he would be glad to exchange it for the interpretership, where he would have some chance of distinguishing himself; or, at any rate, of taking part in exciting events.
"I will open that packet, but from what my mother said, I do not think it will be of any interest to me, now. I fancy, by what she said, that it contained simply my father's instructions as to what she was to do, in the event of his death during the campaign. I don't see what else it can be."
He drew the curtains he had rigged up, at the doorway and window, to keep out insects; lighted his lantern; and then, sitting down on the ground by his bed, opened the packet his mother had given him. The outer cover was in her handwriting.
"My dearest boy:
"I have, as I told you, kept the enclosed packet, which is not to be opened until I have certain news of your father's death. This news, I trust, you will some day obtain. As you see, the enclosed packet is directed to me. I do not think that you will find in it anything of importance, to yourself. It probably contains only directions and advice for my guidance, in case I should determine to return to England. I have been the less anxious to open it, because I have been convinced that it is so; for of course, I know the circumstances of his family, and there could be nothing new that he could write to me on that score.
"I have told you that he quarrelled with his father, because he chose to marry me. As you have heard from me, I was the daughter of a clergyman, and at his death took a post as governess. Your father fell in love with me. He was the son of the Honorable James Hartley, who was brother to the Earl of Langdale. Your father had an elder brother. Mr. Hartley was a man of the type now, happily, less common than it was twenty years ago. He had but a younger brother's portion, and a small estate that had belonged to his mother; but he was as proud as if he had been a peer of the realm, and owner of a county. I do not know exactly what the law of England is--whether, at the death of his brother, your grandfather would have inherited the title, or not. I never talked on this subject with your father, who very seldom alluded to matters at home. He had, also, two sisters.
"As he was clever, and had already gained some reputation by his explorations in Egypt; and was, moreover, an exceptionally handsome man--at least, I thought so--your grandfather made up his mind that he would make a very good marriage. When he learned of your father's affection for me, he was absolutely furious, told his son that he never wished to see him again, and spoke of me in a manner that Gregory resented; and as a result, they quarrelled.
"Your father left the house, never to enter it again. I would have released him from his promise, but he would not hear of it, and we were married. He had written for magazines and newspapers, on Egyptian subjects, and thought that he could make a living for us both, with his pen; but unhappily, he found that great numbers of men were trying to do the same; and that, although his papers on Egyptian discoveries had always been accepted, it was quite another thing when he came to write on general subjects.
"We had a hard time of it, but we were very happy, nevertheless. Then came the time when my health began to give way. I had a terrible cough, and the doctor said that I must have a change to a warmer climate. We were very poor then--so poor that we had only a few shillings left, and lived in one room. Your father saw an advertisement for a man to go out to the branch of a London firm, at Alexandria. Without saying a word to me, he went and obtained it, thanks to his knowledge of Arabic.
"He was getting on well in the firm, when the bombardment of Alexandria took place. The offices and stores of his employers were burned; and, as it would take many months before they could be rebuilt, the employees were ordered home; but any who chose to stay were permitted to do so, and received three months' pay. Your father saw that there would be many chances, when the country settled down, and so took a post under a contractor of meat for the army.
"We moved to Cairo. Shortly after our arrival there he was, as he thought, fortunate in obtaining the appointment of an interpreter with Hicks Pasha. I did not try to dissuade him. Everyone supposed that the Egyptian troops would easily defeat the Dervishes. There was some danger, of course; but it seemed to me, as it did to him, that this opening would lead to better things; and that, when the rebellion was put down, he would be able to obtain some good civil appointment, in the Soudan. It was not the thought of his pay, as interpreter, that weighed in the slightest with either of us. I was anxious, above all things, that he should be restored to a position where he could associate with gentlemen, as one of themselves, and could again take his real name."
Gregory started, as he read this. He had never had an idea that the name he bore was not rightly his own, and even the statement of his grandfather's name had not struck him as affecting himself.
"Your father had an honourable pride in his name, which was an old one; and when he took the post at Alexandria, which was little above that of an ordinary office messenger, he did not care that he should be recognized, or that one of his name should be known to be occupying such a station. He did not change his name, he simply dropped the surname. His full name was Gregory Hilliard Hartley. He had always intended, when he had made a position for himself, to recur to it; and, of course, it will be open to you to do so, also. But I know that it would have been his wish that you, like him, should not do so, unless you had made such a position for yourself that you would be a credit to it.
"On starting, your father left me to decide whether I should go home. I imagine that the packet merely contains his views on that subject. He knew what mine were. I would rather have begged my bread, than have gone back to ask for alms of the man who treated his son so cruelly. It is probable that, by this time, the old man is dead; but I should object as much to have to appeal to my husband's brother, a character I disliked. Although he knew that his father's means were small, he was extravagant to the last degree, and the old man was weak enough to keep himself in perpetual difficulties, to satisfy his son. Your father looked for no pecuniary assistance from his brother; but the latter might, at least, have come to see him; or written kindly to him, when he was in London. As your father was writing in his own name for magazines, his address could be easily found out, by anyone who wanted to know it. He never sent one single word to him, and I should object quite as much to appeal to him, as to the old man.
"As to the sisters, who were younger than my husband, they were nice girls; but even if your grandfather is dead, and has, as no doubt would be the case, left what he had between them, it certainly would not amount to much. Your father has told me that the old man had mortgaged the estate, up to the hilt, to pay his brother's debts; and that when it came to be sold, as it probably would be at his death, there would be very little left for the girls. Therefore, certainly I could not go and ask them to support us.
"My hope is, my dear boy, that you may be able to make your way, here, in the same manner as your father was doing, when he fell; and that, someday, you may attain to an honourable position, in which you will be able, if you visit England, to call upon your aunts, not as one who has anything to ask of them, but as a relative of whom they need not feel in any way ashamed.
"I feel that my end is very near, Gregory. I hope to say all that I have to say to you, before it comes, but I may not have an opportunity; and in that case, some time may elapse before you read this, and it will come to you as a voice from the grave. I am not, in any way, wishing to bind you to any course of action, but only to explain fully your position to you, and to tell you my thoughts.
"God bless you, my dear boy, prosper and keep you! I know enough of you to be sure that, whatever your course may be, you will bear yourself as a true gentleman, worthy of your father and of the name you bear.
"Your loving Mother."
Gregory sat for some time before opening the other enclosure. It contained an open envelope, on which was written "To my Wife;" and three others, also unfastened, addressed respectively, "The Hon. James Hartley, King's Lawn, Tavistock, Devon"; the second, "G. Hilliard Hartley, Esquire, The Albany, Piccadilly, London;" the third, "Miss Hartley," the address being the same as that of her father. He first opened the one to his mother.
"My dearest Wife,
"I hope that you will never read these lines, but that I shall return to you safe and sound--I am writing this, in case it should be otherwise--and that you will never have occasion to read these instructions, or rather I should say this advice, for it is no more than that. We did talk the matter over, but you were so wholly averse from any idea of ever appealing to my father, or family, however sore the straits to which you might be reduced, that I could not urge the matter upon you; and yet, although I sympathize most thoroughly with your feelings, I think that in case of dire necessity you should do so, and at least afford my father the opportunity of making up for his treatment of myself. The small sum that I left in your hands must soon be exhausted. If I am killed, you will, perhaps, obtain a small pension; but this, assuredly, would not be sufficient to maintain you and the boy in comfort. I know that you said, at the time, that possibly you could add to it by teaching. Should this be so, you may be able to remain in Egypt; and when the boy grows up, he will obtain employment of some sort, here.
"But should you be unsuccessful in this direction, I do not see what you could do. Were you to go to England, with the child, what chance would you have of obtaining employment there, without friends or references? I am frightened at the prospect. I know that, were you alone, you would do anything rather than apply to my people; but you have the child to think of, and, painful as it would be to you, it yet seems to me the best thing that could be done. At any rate, I enclose you three letters to my brother, father, and sisters. I have no legal claim on any of them, but I certainly have a moral claim on my brother. It is he who has impoverished the estate, so that, even had I not quarrelled with my father, there could never, after provision had been made for my sisters, have been anything to come to me.
"I do not ask you to humiliate yourself, by delivering these letters personally. I would advise you to post them from Cairo, enclosing in each a note saying how I fell, and that you are fulfilling my instructions, by sending the letter I wrote before leaving you. It may be that you will receive no reply. In that case, whatever happens to you and the child, you will have nothing to reproach yourself for. Possibly my father may have succeeded to the title and, if for no other reason, he may then be willing to grant you an allowance, on condition that you do not return to England; as he would know that it would be nothing short of a scandal, that the wife of one of his sons was trying to earn her bread in this country.
"Above all, dear, I ask you not to destroy these letters. You may, at first, scorn the idea of appealing for help; but the time might come, as it came to us in London, when you feel that fate is too strong for you, and that you can struggle no longer. Then you might regret, for the sake of the child, that you had not sent these letters.
"It is a terrible responsibility that I am leaving you. I well know that you will do all, dear, that it is possible for you to do, to avoid the necessity for sending these letters. That I quite approve, if you can struggle on. God strengthen you to do it! It is only if you fail that I say, send them. My father may, by this time, regret that he drove me from home. He may be really anxious to find me, and at least it is right that he should have the opportunity of making what amends he can. From my sisters, I know that you can have little but sympathy; but that, I feel sure, they will give you, and even sympathy is a great deal, to one who has no friends. I feel it sorely that I should have naught to leave you but my name, and this counsel. Earnestly I hope and pray that it may never be needed.
"Yours till death,
"Gregory Hilliard Hartley."
Gregory then opened the letter to his grandfather.
"Dear Father,
"You will not receive this letter till after my death. I leave it behind me, while I go up with General Hicks to the Soudan. It will not be sent to you, unless I die there. I hope that, long ere this, you may have felt, as I have done, that we were both somewhat in the wrong, in the quarrel that separated us. You, I think, were hard. I, no doubt, was hasty. You, I think, assumed more than was your right, in demanding that I should break a promise that I had given, to a lady against whom nothing could be said, save that she was undowered. Had I, like Geoffrey, been drawing large sums of money from you, you would necessarily have felt yourself in a position to have a very strong voice in so important a matter. But the very moderate allowance I received, while at the University, was never increased. I do not think it is too much to say that, for every penny I have got from you, Geoffrey has received a guinea.
"However, that is past and gone. I have been fighting my own battle, and was on my way to obtaining a good position. Until I did so, I dropped our surname. I did not wish that it should be known that one of our family was working, in an almost menial position, in Egypt. I have now obtained the post of interpreter, on the staff of General Hicks; and, if he is successful in crushing the rebellion, I shall be certain of good, permanent employment, when I can resume my name. The fact that you receive this letter will be a proof that I have fallen in battle, or by disease.
"I now, as a dying prayer, beg you to receive my wife and boy; or, if that cannot be, to grant her some small annuity, to assist her in her struggle with the world. Except for her sake, I do not regret my marriage. She has borne the hardships, through which we have passed, nobly and without a murmur. She has been the best of wives to me, and has proved herself a noble woman, in every respect.
"I leave the matter in your hands, Father, feeling assured that, from your sense of justice alone, if not for the affection you once bore me, you will befriend my wife. As I know that the Earl was in feeble health, when I left England; you may, by this time, have come into the title, in which case you will be able, without in any way inconveniencing yourself, to settle an annuity upon my wife, sufficient to keep her in comfort. I can promise, in her name, that in that case you will never be troubled in any way by her; and she will probably take up her residence, permanently, in Egypt, as she is not strong, and the warm climate is essential to her."
The letter to his brother was shorter.
"My dear Geoffrey,
"I am going up, with General Hicks, to the Soudan. If you receive this letter, it will be because I have died there. I leave behind me my wife, and a boy. I know that, at present, you are scarcely likely to be able to do much for them, pecuniarily; but as you will someday--possibly not a very distant one--inherit the title and estate, you will then be able to do so, without hurting yourself.
"We have never seen much of each other. You left school before I began it, and you left Oxford two years before I went up to Cambridge. You have never been at home much, since; and I was two years in Egypt, and have now been about the same time, here. I charge my wife to send you this, and I trust that, for my sake, you will help her. She does not think of returning to England. Life is not expensive, in this country. Even an allowance of a hundred a year would enable her to remain here. If you can afford double that, do so for my sake; but, at any rate, I feel that I can rely upon you to do at least that much, when you come into the title. Had I lived, I should never have troubled anyone at home; but as I shall be no longer able to earn a living for her and the boy, I trust that you will not think it out of the way for me to ask for what would have been a very small younger brother's allowance, had I remained at home."
The letter to his sisters was in a different strain.
"My dear Flossie and Janet,
"I am quite sure that you, like myself, felt deeply grieved over our separation; and I can guess that you will have done what you could, with our father, to bring about a reconciliation. When you receive this, dears, I shall have gone. I am about to start on an expedition that is certain to be dangerous, and which may be fatal; and I have left this with my wife, to send you if she has sure news of my death. I have had hard times. I see my way now, and I hope that I shall, ere long, receive a good official appointment, out here. Still, it is as well to prepare for the worst; and if you receive this letter, the worst has come. As I have only just begun to rise again in the world, I have been able to make no provision for my wife. I know that you liked her, and that you would by no means have disapproved of the step I took. If our father has not come into the title, when you receive this, your pocket money will be only sufficient for your own wants; therefore I am not asking for help in that way, but only that you will write to her an affectionate letter. She is without friends, and will fight her battle as best she can. She is a woman in a thousand, and worthy of the affection and esteem of any man on earth.
"There is a boy, too--another Gregory Hilliard Hartley. She will be alone in the world with him, and a letter from you would be very precious to her. Probably, by the same post as you receive this, our father will also get one requesting more substantial assistance, but with that you have nothing to do. I am only asking that you will let her know there are, at least, two people in the world who take an interest in her, and my boy.
"Your affectionate Brother."
There was yet another envelope, with no address upon it. It contained two documents. One was a copy of the certificate of marriage, between Gregory Hilliard Hartley and Anne Forsyth, at Saint Paul's Church, Plymouth; with the names of two witnesses, and the signature of the officiating minister. The other was a copy of the register of the birth, at Alexandria, of Gregory Hilliard, son of Gregory Hilliard Hartley and Anne, his wife. A third was a copy of the register of baptism of Gregory Hilliard Hartley, the son of Gregory Hilliard and Anne Hartley, at the Protestant Church, Alexandria.
"I will write, someday, to my aunts," Gregory said, as he replaced the letters in the envelopes. "The others will never go. Still, I may as well keep them.
"So I am either grandson or nephew of an earl. I can't say that I am dazzled by the honour. I should like to know my aunts, but as for the other two, I would not go across the street to make their acquaintance."
He carefully stowed the letters away in his portmanteau, and then lay down for a few hours' sleep.
"The day is breaking, master," Zaki said, laying his hand upon Gregory's shoulder.
"All right, Zaki! While you get the water boiling, I shall run down to the river and have a bathe, and shall be ready for my cocoa, in twenty minutes."
"Are we going to put on those Dervish dresses at once, master? They came yesterday evening."
"No; I sha'n't change till we get to the place where we land."
As soon as he had breakfasted, he told Zaki to carry his portmanteau, bed, and other belongings to the house that served as a store for General Hunter's staff. He waited until his return, and then told him to take the two rifles, the packets of ammunition, the spears, and the Dervish dresses down to the steamer. Then he joined the General, who was just starting, with his staff, to superintend the embarkation.
Three steamers were going up, and each towed a barge, in which the greater part of the troops was to be stowed, and in the stern of one of these knelt two camels.
"There are your nags, Mr. Hilliard," the General said. "There is an attendant with each. They will manage them better than strangers, and without them we might have a job in getting the animals ashore. Of course, I shall take the drivers on with us. The sheik told me the camels are two of the fastest he has ever had. He has sent saddles with them, and water skins. The latter you will probably not want, if all goes well. Still, it is better to take them."
"I shall assuredly do so, sir. They may be useful to us, on the ride, and though I suppose the camels would do well enough without them, it is always well to be provided, when one goes on an expedition, for any emergency that may occur."
An hour later, the steamer started. The river was still full, and the current rapid, and they did not move more than five miles an hour against it. At the villages they passed, the people flocked down to the banks, with cries of welcome and the waving of flags. They felt, now, that their deliverance was accomplished, and that they were free from the tyranny that had, for so many years, oppressed them.
The banks were for the most part low; and, save at these villages, the journey was a monotonous one. The steamers kept on their way till nightfall, and then anchored.
They started again, at daybreak. At breakfast, General Hunter said:
"I think that in another two hours we shall be pretty well due west of El Fasher, so you had better, presently, get into your Dervish dress. You have got some iodine from the doctor, have you not?"
"Yes."
"You had better stain yourself all over, and take a good supply, in case you have to do it again."
Gregory went below, and had his head shaved by one of the Soudanese; then re-stained himself, from head to foot, and put on the Dervish attire--loose trousers and a long smock, with six large square patches, arranged in two lines, in front. A white turban and a pair of shoes completed the costume. The officers laughed, as he came on deck again.
"You look an out-and-out Dervish, Hilliard," one of them said. "It is lucky that there are none of the Lancers scouting about. They would hardly give you time to explain, especially with that rifle and spear."
Presently they came to a spot where the water was deep up to the bank, which was some six feet above its level. The barge with the camels was brought up alongside. It had no bulwark, and as the deck was level with the land, the camels were, with a good deal of pressing on the part of their drivers, and pushing by as many Soudanese as could come near enough to them, got ashore.
None of the Soudanese recognized Gregory, and looked greatly surprised at the sudden appearance of two Dervishes among them. As soon as the camels were landed, Gregory and Zaki mounted them.
"You had better keep, if anything, to the south of east," General Hunter's last instructions had been. "Unless Parsons has been greatly delayed, they should be two or three days' march farther up the river, and every mile you strike the stream, behind him, is so much time lost."
He waved his hand to them and wished them farewell, as they started, and his staff shouted their wishes for a safe journey. The black soldiers, seeing that, whoever these Dervishes might be, they were well known to the General and his officers, raised a cheer; to which Zaki, who had hitherto kept in the background, waved his rifle in reply. As his face was familiar to numbers of the Soudanese, they now recognized him, and cheered more heartily than before, laughing like schoolboys at the transformation.