Idris

“ Death, cruel and relentless, had entered these beloved walls. An old servant, who had nursed Idris in infancy, and who lived with us more on the footing of a revered relative than a domestic, had gone a few days before to visit a daughter, married, and settled in the neighbourhood of London. On the night of her return she sickened of the plague. From the haughty and unbending nature of the Countess of Windsor, Idris had few tender filial associations with her. ”

“ They carefully surveyed the eastern curve of the base, Beatrice probing with the point of her sunshade, and Idris with the ferule of his walking-stick, among the long grass and bracken that grew in profusion at the foot of the hillock. Their search, however, was without result.
"I am at fault, it seems," said Idris, "or, it may be, the rain of centuries has washed down so much earth from the side of the mound that the guide-stones at its foot have become buried. We can do nothing without proper tools." ”

“ To endeavour to ascertain the identity of the victim by pulling at the withered hand, and thus bringing the decayed form to view, was an act that not only Idris shrank from, but even Godfrey, the surgeon, familiar with the disjecta membra of the dissecting room.
Then Idris, bending forward to examine the hand more closely, gave vent to a peal of laughter.
"Brave heroes we are to be frightened by a plant! It is nothing but the root of the mandrake." ”

“ She is!—I had not time yet to analyze my feeling, to take myself to task, and leash in the tameless passion; all was one idea, one feeling, one knowledge—it was my life!
But the die was cast—Raymond would marry Idris. The merry marriage bells rung in my ears; I heard the nation's gratulation which followed the union; the ambitious noble uprose with swift eagle-flight, from the lowly ground to regal supremacy—and to the love of Idris. Yet, not so! She did not love him; she had called me her friend; she had smiled on me; to me she had entrusted her heart's dearest hope, the welfare of Adrian. ”

“ Idris, panic-struck, but animated and strengthened even by her excessive fear, dressed herself hurriedly, and going down a flight of back-stairs, avoiding the vicinity of her mother's apartment, she contrived to escape from the castle by a low window, and came through snow, wind, and obscurity to my cottage; nor lost her courage, until she arrived, and, depositing her fate in my hands, gave herself up to the desperation and weariness that overwhelmed her. ”

“ In that pestilent enclosure only the myriad vermin lived lives of comfort. No news filtered in from the world outside. They fed upon their own thoughts, so that the sight of a lizard upon the wall became an occasion for excitement. They were stung by scorpions at night; they were at times flogged by their gaolers by day. They lived at the mercy of the whims of Idris-es-Saier and that peculiar spirit Nebbi Khiddr, who always reported against them to the Khalifa just at the moment when Idris was most in need of money for his starving family. ”

“ He ran to Idris es Saier, told his own tale, and Idris, approaching me, ordered me to get up—for I had again sat down—and assist in the unloading of the boats. I refused, and accused the gaoler of trying to extort monies from me. Upon this Idris struck me with his “safarog” (an instrument almost the exact counterpart of the Australian boomerang, and used by the Soudan tribes for precisely similar purposes) ; the blow he gave smashed the safarog and stunned me, and while only partly conscious I was turned over and condemned to receive there and then five hundred lashes. ”

“ Well may I tremble! but, I am happy, mine own Idris, most happy."
"I understand thee, my kind love," said Idris, "thus—pale as thou art with sorrow at our loss; trembling and aghast, thou wouldest assuage my grief by thy dear assurances. I am not happy," (and the tears flashed and fell from under her down-cast lids) , "for we are inmates of a miserable prison, and there is no joy for us; but the true love I bear you will render this and every other loss endurable."
"We have been happy together, at least," I said; "no future misery can deprive us of the past. ”

“ Idris, therefore, determined to scale the face of an almost perpendicular cliff, and passing, as it were, above the heads of the watchers, come out in their rear. When he was three-fourths of the way up the cliff his heart almost leaped into his mouth as he caught a glimpse of a Bashi-Bazouk, dagger in hand, waiting for him at the top. The shades of twilight were falling: to descend was impossible: to go upward was to meet certain death: yet upward he continued to pull himself, little by little, hoping that by some good fortune he might be able to outwit the armed watcher. ”

“ Idris paced uneasily to and fro, assigning the skull in turn to each of those who, to his knowledge, had been in any way connected with the runic ring—his father, Lorelie's father, the unknown assassin of Duchesne, and lastly the masked man of Quilaix.
"Whoever the victim was," said Beatrice, slowly and thoughtfully, "he must have been murdered by a woman."
"A woman!" ejaculated Idris. ”

“ Having received all the assurances possible from Idris that he would live and die with us, after having repeated the prayer of peace, we put on the best countenance possible, and committed ourselves to the desert. There were Ismael the Turk, two Greek servants besides Georgis, who was almost blind and useless. Two Barbarins, who took care of the camels, Idris, and a young man, a relation of his, who joined him at Barbar, to return home; in all nine persons, eight only of whom were effective. ”

“ But it is nothing to Mulai Idris. There are no consools in Mulai Idris.”
All through his talk the name of Mulai Idris, the sacred city on the slope of Jebel Zarhon, came and went like a shuttle of a loom.
5The Sherarda Moor thought highly of the life in Mulai Idris, since it was possible to live there without work.
Pilgrims came to visit the shrine of the founder of the Moorish Empire, with offerings in their hands; and the whole township lived, and lived well, upon those offerings. Moreover, there were no Europeans, or “consools,” as he termed them. ”

“ There in the city of Idris, the home of exacting science, fanatical faith and debauch that is deceitfully shrouded in mysticism and mystery, the population is pressed together in narrow streets and small squares tucked away among mosques, frowning dars, the homes of merchants and the dens of the poor ”

“ Certain past events were now seen by Idris in a new light.
"Mother, I know in what prison father is. It is the one on the moorland over there," he exclaimed, indicating the direction with his hand.
"You are right, Idie: and now you know why I live at Quilaix. It is that I may be near your father. I am happier here—if indeed I may use the word happy in speaking of myself—than in any other place. I have a beautiful house at Nantes, but I cannot live there in ease and luxury while your father is deprived of everything that makes life bright. ”

“ Do not catechise me, Lionel; I will do my duty by her, be assured. Love! I must steel my heart against that; expel it from its tower of strength, barricade it out: the fountain of love must cease to play, its waters be dried up, and all passionate thoughts attendant on it die—that is to say, the love which would rule me, not that which I rule. Idris is a gentle, pretty, sweet little girl; it is impossible not to have an affection for her, and I have a very sincere one; only do not speak of love —love, the tyrant and the tyrant-queller; love, until now my conqueror, now my slave ”

“ Idris breathed a malediction. As he himself had attended to the putting up of their paraphernalia, the omission was his own, and no blame attached to Godfrey.
The neglect seemed irremediable. It was out of the question to return to Ormsby for the lantern, and yet, without a light, it would be hazardous to grope their way through darkness to the interior of the hillock. To be so near the point of discovery, and yet so far off, was maddening.
"I shall not return without some attempt at exploration," cried Idris. "We'll have to grope about in the dark and try what we can discover in that way." ”

“ Lorelie turned to Idris. "How long have you been here?"
"From the beginning of your experiment," he answered.
"Then Beatrice shall learn the story from you."
"But the story lacks completion. You left the experiment unfinished at its most interesting point.—Lady Walden," continued Idris, gravely, "you know now, if you did not know before, that a murder was committed within the interior of Ormfell. Justice requires that the murderer should be punished." ”

“ Idris was well content with this resolve of mine. Her native sprightliness needed no undue excitement, and her placid heart reposed contented on my love, the well-being of her children, and the beauty of surrounding nature. Her pride and blameless ambition was to create smiles in all around her, and to shed repose on the fragile existence of her brother. In spite of her tender nursing, the health of Adrian perceptibly declined. Walking, riding, the common occupations of life, overcame him: he felt no pain, but seemed to tremble for ever on the verge of annihilation. ”

“ See here!" replied Idris, plucking a weed beside her. "Samphire! It never grows below salt water. We are quite safe."
Mademoiselle Rivière clasped her hands: her lips moved, and Idris knew that she was breathing a silent prayer. ”

“ I counted the hours that must elapse before I saw Idris again. Wherefore should this be? What evil might not happen in the mean time? Might not her mother take advantage of Adrian's absence to urge her beyond her sufferance, perhaps to entrap her? I resolved, let what would befall, to see and converse with her the following day. This determination soothed me. To-morrow, loveliest and best, hope and joy of my life, to-morrow I will see thee—Fool, to dream of a moment's delay! ”

“ I have detailed the perfections of my sister; and yet she was utterly unlike Idris. Perdita, even where she loved, was reserved and timid; Idris was frank and confiding. The one recoiled to solitude, that she might there entrench herself from disappointment and injury; the other walked forth in open day, believing that none would harm her. Wordsworth has compared a beloved female to two fair objects in nature ”

“ Fair as a star when only one
Is shining in the sky.
Such a violet was sweet Perdita, trembling to entrust herself to the very air, cowering from observation, yet betrayed by her excellences; and repaying with a thousand graces the labour of those who sought her in her lonely bye-path. Idris was as the star, set in single splendour in the dim anadem of balmy evening; ready to enlighten and delight the subject world, shielded herself from every taint by her unimagined distance from all that was not like herself akin to heaven. ”

“ Idris becoming more puzzled at this compulsory state of labour, returned to the moral character of the workers.
"Are they all bad—every one?"
"No; not all," exclaimed his mother, with an energy that quite surprised the little fellow. "There is one there who is the best, the truest, the noblest of men."
Her eyes sparkled, and a beautiful colour burned on her cheek. She sat with a proud air as if defying the world to say the contrary.
"Is he as good as father was?"
"About the same," replied Mrs. Breakspear, her features softening into a smile. ”

“ I am sure they are perfectly in our power now, as long as they stand where they are." Idris then told me that he was married to one of the Ababdè of Shekh Ammer, and he would go and get a sure word from them. Tell them from me, said I, that I, too, am the friend of Nimmer their Shekh, and his two sons, and of Shekh Hammam of Furshout; that I am going into Egypt, have been followed by the Bishareen, and trust nobody; have twenty men armed with firelocks, and will do them no harm, provided they consent to pass, one by one, and give a man for a hostage. ”

“ You need not wonder that I freely discover Adrian's abode. Do not suppose that I am wicked or foolish enough to found my purposed sovereignty on a fraud, and one so easily discovered as the truth or falsehood of the Earl's insanity. I am just come from him. Before I decided on my marriage with Idris, I resolved to see him myself again, and to judge of the probability of his recovery.—He is irrecoverably mad. ”

“ He took a seat beside Lorelie, and proceeded to roll a cigarette, remarking as he did so, "You do not object?"
Lorelie assented with a smile that evoked the jealousy of the foolish Idris. If a woman may not smile upon her husband, upon whom may she smile?
Concluding that he and Beatrice were better away, Idris now arose, but Lorelie opposed their departure.
"Going after so short a stay?" she remonstrated. "Now you are here you must remain for the evening, and—and Mr. Breakspear as well," she added, glancing at Idris. ”

“ Idris, as I have already pointed out, was the incarnation of superstition and credulity, and it was only necessary for Shwybo to tell him that his faithful gold jinns could convert lead into gold, to set Idris collecting dollars from the prisoners on the Nebbi Khiddr account. With these he set up a special laboratory for Shwybo in the house of Wad Farag, one of the gaolers — and a reputed son of Idris. ”

“ This coming of the second ruler of the house of Idris took place on February third, 808 A.D., when the quarters of Adua el-Andaluse and Adua el-Kairween were begun and soon encircled with walls to defend them against the attacks of the terrible Negro, Khabal, who then ravaged the country. The courageous Sais, one of the generals of Idris, fought and vanquished the Negro and brought under the sultan's domination all the tribes located in the valleys of the Fez and Sbu rivers. ”