George Manville Fenn

“ A low murmur of admiration ran along the ranks of the British soldiers, officers and men, as the brothers walked slowly back to where a group was standing, one of whom was a good-looking, sun-browned Hakim in snowy turban and flowing robes, attended by a swarthy man in a fez—a man in white garb with a very English face, and just behind him a venerable Sheikh. For all who were present now had learned the facts, and as the brothers passed, one of the officers of the Sirdar’s guard exclaimed—
“By George! and yet there are people who say we have no heroes now!” ”

“ It was all commonplace, and the spectators waited patiently, seeing the glance up of the slave, the trying of the left stirrup, and the impatient, imperious gesture to the man to adjust the other leather, the rider swinging himself round with his back to the Emir as the white slave darted under the horse’s neck and seized the right stirrup, his face hidden by the horse from every one in the court, while it was perfectly natural that the rider with his back to the Emir should bend down as if watching the alteration being made. ”

“ The dervish warriors had come upon them at an unlucky time, and their insolent, threatening air had roused the quiet British blood in Frank’s veins. The feeling of hatred that had been growing against these people consequent upon the horrors he had seen and heard, and the irritation produced by inactivity and his disappointments, drove away all thought of the risk he might run, and the feeling grew strong that if attacked he must defend himself. ”

“ Here there is law, and if a man steals or raises his hand against his brother man, there is the wise judge waiting, and the judgment bar. But out yonder they make their own laws, and it is but a thrust with a spear, a stroke with a sharp sword, and the sand is ever athirst to drink up the blood, the jackals and the unclean birds to leave nothing but a few bones. ”

“ Frank rode boldly in, unquestioned, and not one of the many men scattered about ran to horse or camel, or grasped his weapons. It did not seem strange to them that the Hakim’s follower should ride in to see their chief, followed by a camel and seven of a friendly Emir’s bodyguard. What took their attention at once—they being men whose lives had been spent in company with the swift horses of the desert—were the bright, gaily ornamented trappings spread on the neck of Ibrahim’s fine camel, and a low murmur of satisfaction arose as they gazed at what was evidently a present for their lord. ”

“ He strode forward haughtily, taking his steps slowly with head thrown back, and as Frank gazed at him with heart throbbing painfully and heavily under the stress of his emotion, he could not help thinking how noble and fierce a warrior the Baggara looked, with his simple white robe, and how dangerous an enemy with the curved dagger in his girdle, and long, keen, crusader-like sword hanging from a kind of baldric from his right shoulder. ”

“ The wave of a hand from a galloping horseman has a wonderful effect in this direction, people darting out of the roadway to right and left in search of safety; but it is nothing to the wave of a keen sword, flashing in the sunshine, and this being a broader thoroughfare, the flying pair had on the whole a clear course, which kept on opening up more and more towards the coming body of horse, who so far had seen nothing, and in their interested staring about the great city, so new to these dwellers of the desert, paid no heed. ”

“ They were simply dressed in closely fitting white cotton garbs which left arms and legs bare, looking in their strong contrast of black and white, mounted as they were upon small, active horses, wild of mane and tail, and as savage of aspect as their riders, effective looking troops for a desert campaign; and as they rode through the streets, loath to give way to anyone, their eyes wandered over every person, place, or thing, as if, as the Sheikh had said, in search of spoil. ”

“ I slew so many thousands of the people—I took so many thousands into captivity—I built this temple to the gods—I raised this obelisk or that pyramid’—and all by hand labour, with the miserable, belaboured slaves dying by their thousands upon thousands under their taskmasters’ lashes, to be cast afterwards into the Nile, or left to the jackals and vultures. These and the crocodiles have always been wanted here, Frank, and as it has been so it is now. There is always an ‘I’—a very, very big capital ‘I’—who is glorifying himself with slaughter. ”

“ The Sheikh felt that he was an old man, and that this journey, which must inevitably last for many months, might be his last. His followers thought of wife or child, and were ready to sigh as they pondered on the perils and dangers ahead; while Hakim, professor, servant, and Frank, each had his feeling of heart-soreness and doubt as to how the adventure would end. ”

“ On the other hand, in the Hakim’s little camp of a couple of tents, there was the knowledge of some five-and-twenty men lying down to rest as they had not lain for many weary days, and that the chief was like another man, for he had been to the Hakim’s tent himself, to bend low to the man of wisdom, and tell him, through the lips of Ibrahim, that the calm that had come over his spirit was marvellous, and that the wound only throbbed now and ached, but in a way that he was man enough to bear. ”

“ Doesn’t he look as if he could cure anything? Just suppose him sitting cross-legged in a tent now, with a big white turban on; what would he look like then?”
“An impostor!” cried the doctor angrily. “Frank, the good news has swollen your head up till it has cracked.”
“That it hasn’t,” cried the professor sharply, “and you would not look like an impostor, sir. Well done, Franky. I say he’d look like what he is—a splendid specimen of a man, and as good a doctor and surgeon as I know of. Impostor, indeed! ”

“ The chief then gave a haughty command or two, and the horse was led close up to Ibrahim’s camel, where it stood as if it were some beautiful piece of statuary, while its bit and bridle were removed and the present quickly adjusted to its head, Harry Frere taking up a hole or two here and there till a perfect adaptation was made, when as if proud of its new finery the noble charger tossed up its head, making the scarlet hanging plume float about in the glowing air, and then stood motionless with head erect. ”

“ So at daybreak on that morning the last camel was laden, the last necessary attached, and amidst the farewell cries of the tribe assembled to bless and thank and pray for a safe journey to all, the leading camels started off, moaning and complaining, and apparently directing angry cries at those of their kin more fortunate than themselves who, instead of having to tramp over the burning, shifting sand, beneath the scorching desert sun, were to stop and browse around those pleasant water-holes, and tend their young, watched over by the women and children of the tribe the while. ”

“ The fugitives were now not fifty paces from the walking dervish front, and in less than a minute they would have been right upon them; but in a flash Frank saw the meaning of his comrade’s movement, for he turned towards him, laughing, waved his sword to the right, and the next moment the two horses swerved round and darted down a narrow way little wider than a court, and tore on in obedience to the urging from their riders’ heels, chased too now by fresh pursuers, whose yells rang out as if they were a vast pack of human hounds—as indeed they were, and as bloodthirsty ”

“ The wandering tribes of the desert, who exist by their sword and spear, live the life of the wild beast of prey whose eyes are ever on the look out for the furtive blow or stroke that shall lay them low. Their swords are ever ready; their spears are constantly in hand; while as an additional safeguard the majority of them carry a dagger bound to the left wrist. Danger is to them always lurking and tracking their steps as closely as their shadow. It is the shadow of their existence, so that a warning cry, the wave of sword or spear by a flying man, is taken as an alarm at once ”

“ There can never be rest for the unfortunate inhabitants till they are swept away.”
“Never,” said the professor gravely. “The land will soon be one wide desolation, for the smiling oases where irrigation could do its part will soon be gone back to a waste of sand.”
“And by the irony of fate,” continued Frank bitterly, “here are we—so many English people, whose hearts bleed for the horrors we are forced to see—doing our best afterwards to restore to health and strength the wretches who have robbed and murdered in every peaceful village they have passed.” ”

“ On that particular day, wearied with his ineffective search, irritable, and hot, the young Englishman felt a strange sense of dislike pervade him as he rode on with his companion, who seemed to share his resentment on encountering party after party of the desert warriors, fine modern Ishmaelites; and before they had gone far there seemed to be every prospect of an encounter, for the rich robe and turban of the young Emir attracted the attention of one thin, wiry-looking black, while his companion fixed his eyes upon the handsome sword and dagger worn by Frank. ”

“ It was no longer the calm, easy-going companion now, but the earnest student of the human frame, straining every mental fibre to the encounter in this emergency.
A minute later he had turned to Frank, and spoke to him earnestly, with the result that the young man shook his head.
“Yes, I know,” said the doctor; “you are unprepared; the difficulties seem out here insuperable; but a man’s life is at stake, so is our reputation amongst these people, for one failure will balance a hundred cures, just as at home one evil deed stands out strongly against so many good which pass unnoticed. ”

“ Frank and his companions knew nothing of this as they were hurried along through the tortuous ways of the vast stretch of hovels, tents, and mud huts, till they reached the outskirts, and then the wide-stretching plain, where they had ample opportunity of learning the truth. For on every side, streaming towards Khartoum, where it lay whitened in the distance, were the routed dervishes, some in troops, displaying military order, but the greater part scattered and flying for their lives on horses, camels, and on foot. ”

“ It was not with regard to the plunder taken in the last village that had been sacked, and the great amount of corn that it was impossible to bring away, and consequently had to be destroyed, but of the wondrous holy man—this prophet—this inspired Hakim, whose touch to the fiery, throbbing wound was softer than that of a woman, and who caused a gentle sleep to fall upon him in whose flesh that ragged bullet lay deep, or in whom the broken spear-top was rankling and stabbing at every movement, while it refused to give way to the cutting and poulticing of their own wise men. ”

“ The old man looked at Frank as he spoke, and the young man gave him an approving nod, after which they rode on through the squalor and horrors of the place till the road grew more straight and wide, the hovels fewer. Then the filth and misery grew scarcer, patches of cultivated land appeared, from which weary-eyed faces looked up, half wondering, here and there, but only to sink listlessly again as their owners toiled on, with taskmasters ready to urge them on with their labour, as they tortured their sluggish oxen toiling at water-wheel or grinding at a mill. ”

“ The old Sheikh bowed, and then turned to Frank.
“Ben Eddin is black,” he said, with a smile, “and the day or night may come when I shall say to him, ‘I have glad tidings for you. Come as one of my camel-drivers, and maybe I can get you past the guard.’”
“Ibrahim!” cried the young man wildly, “don’t promise me too much.”
“I promise nothing, Ben Eddin,” said the old man smiling; “but an Arab Sheikh and the black slave with him can go far unnoticed. Wait and see. Till then go on and be a patient servant to the sick man here, the Emir’s son. He likes you in his way. ”

“ 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. ”

“ You must make him live, and all that the chief has is thine.”
“How can I make the man live?” said the Hakim sternly, and frowning at the chief as he spoke to the interpreter. “Has not all his life-blood been spilled upon the sand as they brought him here? Tell him at once that I am not a prophet, only a simple surgeon; that I have done all that is possible, and that the rest is with God.”
The Sheikh reverently translated the Hakim’s words to the Baggara chief, and those who heard him fully expected to hear some angry outburst; but the chief bent humbly before the Hakim and touched his hand. ”

“ I and my friends are fairly rich, and will gladly spend money over this adventure.”
“Yes, money is as water that we fling upon the sand at such a time as this,” said the Sheikh. “And you are rich. Well, so are we. Our life is simple; we live as we have always lived, in tents, and our riches are in our flocks and herds, our camels and our horses. We have our pride as you have, even if we do work for the rich English for the piastres they pay. But in such a work as this for our wise brother and friend, take money? No; we go to help our brother. It is for love.”
“But Sheikh—” began Frank. ”

“ It was one bright evening, just about dusk, that, utterly exhausted by a long day’s march, the head of the long line of horses, camels heavily laden, and marching men, came within sight of the city that was their goal, and in the glimpse the English party had of the place before night closed in it seemed to be one of the most desolate looking spots they had ever seen.
“But it is not fair to judge it,” said the professor quietly. “We can see next to nothing; it is fully two miles away; and we are all weary and low-spirited with our long march. ”

“ There was the loud hum of voices right away through the camp, from which the fragrant smoke of many fires arose through the grey dawn, and an unwonted stir indicating great excitement prevailed and rapidly increased with the coming light, for the orange and gold streamers announcing the rising of the sun were beginning to flush in the eastern sky, illumining the far-spreading city, and turning the sands where it was built into sparkling gold. ”