Read the book: «The White Prophet, Volume I (of 2)», page 16

CHAPTER XIII

Gordon, in the meantime, living on the heights of his new resolve, had been waiting impatiently for the opportunity of departure. No prisoner looking forward to the hour of his escape ever suffered more from the slow passage of time. He lost all appetite for food, sleep deserted him, and as the week went on he was in an ever-increasing fever of excitement. On the Tuesday he received through Michael a letter from Hafiz saying —

"We must be careful. I'll tell you why. I was right about the trackers. That beast Macdonald, having sworn that he would find you if you were above ground, and being sure that you were still in Cairo and that the people were concealing you, employed the services of a couple of serpents from the Soudan. These human reptiles, with green eyes like the eyes of boa-constrictors, had no difficulty in tracing your footsteps to a side street in the neighbourhood of El Azhar, but there your footsteps failed them as absolutely as if you had sunk into the earth.

"Perplexed and baffled, they were on the point of giving up the search when in the soft mud of the disgusting thoroughfare they found the marks of horses' hoofs and of the hoops of wheels, and from these they concluded that you had been carried off in a conveyance of some sort. But track of the carriage was lost the moment they reached the paved way which passes through the Mousky, and now they are again bewildered.

"In this extremity, however, they have thought of another device for your discovery which is – what do you think? To watch me! Under the impression that I know where you are, they are dogging my footsteps every moment I am off duty. No matter! I'll beat the beasts! As a bloodhound is nothing but a nose, so a tracker is nothing but an eye, and he has hardly as much brain as would stuff a mushroom. Therefore wait! Trust yourself to Hafiz! Why not? You cannot depend on a better man."

Next day, Wednesday, the doctor, with his bright face and cheery voice, came again to dress the wounded finger.

"Wonderful!" he cried. "Almost healed already! That's what youth and decent living do for a man."

"I have no money at present, Doctor," said Gordon, "but I expect to receive some very soon, and before I go your fee will be paid."

"Of course it will – when I ask for it. But 'go'? Not yet, I think."

The streets were like a sackful of eyes, and every eye seemed to be looking for Gordon – either to attack or to protect him.

"But wait! Things don't seem to be going too smoothly for the Government."

Cables at the clubs made it clear that England was not very pleased with the turn events had taken in Cairo. There had been questions in Parliament, and the Foreign Minister was at his wits' end to defend the Consul-General. Mention of Gordon himself too, and some of the Liberal Opposition up in arms for him.

"So wait, I say! Who knows? You may walk out without danger by-and-by."

Thursday passed heavily with Gordon, who was alone all day long save for the visits of old Michael when bringing the food which went away untouched, but towards midnight Hafiz arrived with his eyes full of mischief and his fat cheeks wreathed in smiles.

"Look!" he said, "that's the way to beat the brutes," and holding up one foot he pointed to a native yellow slipper which he wore over his military boots. He had made a circuit of six miles to get there, though – it was like taking a country walk in order to cross the street.

"But no matter! Trust yourself to Hafiz."

He carried a small bundle under his arm, and throwing it on a chair he said —

"Your Bedouin clothes, my boy – you'll find them all right, I think."

Gordon caught the flame of his eagerness, and was asking a dozen questions at once when Hafiz said —

"A moment, old chap! Let us speak of everything in its place. First," taking a roll of bank notes out of his pocket, "here's your money – short of what I've spent for you. Tommy got it. Couldn't get anything else, though."

Thinking civilian clothes might be useful, Hafiz had told Gordon's soldier servant to smuggle a suit out also, but it had been found impossible to do so.

"That comes of taking up your quarters in a barracks instead of at the Club or at a private house, as Staff Officers always do," said Hafiz, and when Gordon gave some hint of explanation he added, "Oh, I know! You wanted to make common cause with the men, but now you have to pay the price of it."

"What about the man to go with me?" asked Gordon.

"I've got him. You remember the two Sheikhs who went with us to Alexandria. It's one of them."

His name was Osman. He had been tutor to the Khedive's children, but he wished to become a teacher of Mohammedan law in the college at Khartoum, so the journey suited his book exactly.

"And the camels?"

"I've got them also. Young ones, too, with ripping big humps! They'll want their humps before they've crossed that desert."

"Where and when am I to meet them, Hafiz?"

"At the first village beyond the fort on the Gebel Mokattam at eleven o'clock to-morrow night. But I'll come for you at ten and see you safely started."

Gordon looked up in alarm.

"Don't be afraid for me. Leave everything to Hafiz. You can't depend on a better man."

"I'm sure I can't," said Gordon, and then in a lower tone, "But, Hafiz?"

"Well?"

"What about Helena?"

"Packed up and ready to go. The Consul-General's secretary booked her berth to-day, and she sails, as I said she would, on Saturday."

Next day, Friday, the hours went by with feet of lead, but Gordon's impatience to get away from Cairo had now begun to abate. More easily could he have reconciled himself to go if Helena had gone before him, but to leave her behind, if only for a few hours, was like cowardice. Little by little his spirit fell from the elevation on which it had lived for the better part of a week, and in the face of his flight he felt ashamed.

Towards nightfall, nevertheless, he began to make preparations for his departure, and, opening the bundle of clothes which Hafiz had left for him, he found that they consisted of a Bedouin's outer garments only, caftan, skull-cap, kufiah (head-shawl), and head-rope, but no underclothing and no slippers. This seemed for a moment like an insurmountable difficulty, but at the next instant, with the sense of a higher power ruling everything, he saw the finger of God in it, compelling him to wear his soldier's clothes and military boots beneath his Bedouin costume, lest leaving them behind him might lead to trouble for the good people who had befriended him.

By ten o'clock he had finished his dressing, and then the door of his room was opened by a man in the flowing silk garments of a Sheikh, with the light of a smile on his chubby face and a cautionary finger to his lip.

"Here I am – are you ready?"

It was Hafiz, tingling with excitement but chuckling with joy, and having looked at Gordon in his head-shawl descending to his shoulders, with the head-rope coiled about it, he said —

"Marvellous! Your own father wouldn't know you!"

The disguise was none too good though, for the trackers were keenly on the trail that night, having got it into their heads that Gordon would try to leave Egypt with Helena in the morning.

"So the sooner we are on the safe side of the Gebel Mokattam the better, my boy… One moment, though."

"What is it?"

"Remember – your name is Omar – Omar Benani."

"Omar Benani."

The last moment having come, Gordon, who seemed now to catch at every straw that would delay his departure, was unwilling to leave the house that had been his refuge without bidding farewell to the Patriarch. Hafiz tried to dissuade him from doing so, saying that the Patriarch, who knew all, wished to be blind to what was going on. But Gordon was not to be gainsaid, and after a while Michael was called and he led the way to the Patriarch's room.

The old man had just finished his frugal supper of spinach and egg, and he was lifting his horn-rimmed spectacles from his nose to wipe his rheumy eyes with his red-print handkerchief when Michael opened the door.

"A poor traveller asks your blessing, Patriarch," said Michael, and then Gordon, in his Bedouin costume, stepped forward and knelt at the old priest's feet.

The Patriarch rose and stood for a moment with a look of perplexity on his wrinkled face. Then, lending himself to the transparent deception, the saintly old man laid his bony hand, trembling visibly, on Gordon's head, and speaking in a faltering voice, with breath that came quickly through his toothless jaws, he said —

"God bless you, my son, and send you safely to your journey's end and to your own place and people."

But seeing at the next instant how pathetic was the error which in his momentary confusion he had unwittingly made, he corrected himself and added —

"Fear not, my son, neither in the days of thy life, nor in the hour of death, for God will go with thee and He will bring thee back."

A moment later Gordon, with Hafiz by his side, had passed out of the echoing harbour of the little cathedral close into the running tides of the streets without.

CHAPTER XIV

The Coptic Cathedral stands in the midst of the most ancient part of Cairo, and it is coiled about by a cobweb of close and narrow thoroughfares. Through these thoroughfares, lit by tin lanterns and open candles only, and dense with a various throng of native people – hawkers, pedlars, water-carriers, fruit-sellers, the shrouded black forms of women gliding noiselessly along and the blue figures of men lounging at coffee-stalls or squatting at the open mouths of shops – Gordon in his Bedouin costume walked with a long, slow step and the indifference to danger which he had learned in war, while Hafiz, who was now quivering with impatience, and trembling with the dread of detection, slackened his speed to keep pace with him.

"Can't we go faster?" whispered Hafiz, but Gordon did not seem to hear. Slowly, steadily, with a rhythmic stride that might have come out of the desert itself, he pushed his way through the throng of town-dwellers, always answering the pious ejaculations of the passers-by and returning their Eastern greetings.

Before Hafiz was aware of the direction they were taking they had passed out of the dim-lit native streets, where people moved like shadows in a mist, into the coarse flare of the Esbekiah (the European) quarter, where multitudes of men in Western dress sat drinking at tables on the pavement, while girls in gold brocade and with painted faces smiled down at them from upper windows.

"Why should we go this way?" said Hafiz in Arabic, but still Gordon made no reply.

Two mounted police who were standing at guard by the entrance to a dark alley craned forward to peer into their faces, and a group of young British officers, smoking cigarettes on the balcony of an hotel, watched them while they passed and broke into a subdued trill of laughter when they were gone.

"Are we not exposing ourselves unnecessarily?" whispered Hafiz, but Gordon only gripped the hand that hung by his side and went on without speaking.

Presently they crossed the Opera Square and turned down an avenue that led to the Nile, and then Hafiz's impatience could contain itself no longer.

"We are going in the wrong direction," he whispered. "It's nearly eleven o'clock, and Osman is waiting for us."

"Come on," said Gordon, and he continued to walk steadily forward.

At length it dawned on Hafiz that, in spite of all possible consequences, Gordon intended to go to the Agency before he left Cairo, and having assured himself that this was so, he began to pour out a running whisper of passionate entreaties.

"But, Gordon! My dear Gordon! This is madness. It cannot be done," he said.

"It must!" said Gordon.

"The trackers will be there if they are anywhere."

"Hush!"

"It is the one place they'll keep watch upon to-night."

"I can't help that," said Gordon without stopping; and Hafiz had no choice but to follow on.

A few minutes later the good fellow, whose heart was now panting up to his throat, walked close to Gordon's side and whispered in a breaking voice —

"If you have any message to send to your mother I'll take it – I'll take it after you are gone."

"I must see her myself," said Gordon; and then Hafiz could say no more.

They passed through populous places into thoroughfares that were less and less crowded, and came out at last by the barracks on the banks of the Nile. There the broad street was empty and silent, and the white moonlight lay over the river which flowed like liquid steel. Under the dark window of his own quarters Gordon paused for a moment, for it was the spot on which he had first seen Helena. He could see it still as he saw it then, with its tide of clamorous traffic from the bridge – the camels, the cameleers, the blue-shirted fellaheen, the women with tattooed chins and children astride on their shoulders, and then the girl driving the automobile, with the veil of white chiffon about her head and the ruddy glow of the sunset kissing her upturned face as she lifted her eyes to look at him.

Hafiz was choking with emotion by this time, but his sense of Gordon's danger came uppermost again when they turned into the road that led to the Consul-General's house and caught sight of a group of men who were standing at the gate.

"There they are," he whispered. "What did I tell you? Let us go back. Gordon, I implore you! I entreat you! By all you love and who love you – "

"Come on," said Gordon again, and though quaking with fear, Hafiz continued to walk by his side.

There were only three men at the gate of the Agency, and two of them were the native porters of the house, but the third was a lean and lank Soudanese, who carried by a cord about his neck a small round lantern whereof the light was turned against his breast. A cold glitter in the black man's eyes was like the gleam of a dagger to Hafiz, but Gordon paid no heed to it. He saluted the porters, saying he had come to see Ibrahim, the Consul-General's servant, and then, without waiting for permission, he walked through.

Hafiz followed him into the garden, where the moonlight lay over the silent trees and made blotches of shadow on the path.

"Stay here," he said, and leaving Hafiz in the darkness he stepped up to the door.

Ibrahim himself opened it, and the moment he had done so, Gordon entered the outer hall.

"Tell Fatimah I come from her son and wish to see her at once," he said.

Ibrahim looked searchingly at the stranger, and a shade of doubt and anger crossed his face.

"I can't do that, my man," he answered.

"Why can't you?" asked Gordon.

"I won't," said Ibrahim.

There was a little lodge at the right of the hall, where visitors to the Consul-General wrote their names in a book. Into this lodge Gordon drew Ibrahim by the arm and whispered a few hasty words in his ear. The man's lips whitened and quivered, and he began to stutter and stammer in his fright.

"Are you, then … can it be … is it really – "

"Hush! Yes. Ibrahim," said Gordon, "I wish to see my mother."

Ibrahim began to wring his hands. It was impossible. Yes, impossible. Quite impossible. Her ladyship was ill.

"Ill?"

"She went up to the Citadel yesterday, sir, and came home utterly exhausted."

"Do you mean that my mother is very ill – dangerously ill, Ibrahim?"

"I don't know, sir. I can't say, sir. I fear she is, sir."

"Then all the more I wish to see her," said Gordon.

But again Ibrahim wrung his hands. The doctor had been there four times that day and ordered absolute rest and quiet. Only Fatimah was permitted to enter the patient's room – except the Consul-General, and he went up to it every hour.

"It would be a shock to her, sir. It might kill her, sir. Wallahi! I beg of you not to attempt it, sir."

Ibrahim was right, plainly right, but never until that moment had Gordon known the full bitterness of the cup he had to drink from. Because his mother was ill, dangerously ill, dying perhaps, therefore he must not see her – he of all others! He was going far, and might never see her again. Was another blank wall to be built about his life? It was monstrous, it was impossible, it should not be!

In the agony of his revolt a wild thought came to him – he would see his father! Why not? Back to his memory across the bridge of so many years came the words which his father had written to him when he came of age: "You are twenty-one years of age, Gordon, and your mother and I have been recalling the incidents of the day on which you were born… From this day forward I am no longer your father, I am your friend – perhaps the best friend you will ever have; let nothing and no one come between us." Then, why not? What was there to be afraid of?

"Ibrahim," said Gordon, "where is the Consul-General now?"

"In the library with his secretary, sir," replied Ibrahim.

"Then tell him – " began Gordon, but just at that moment there was a flat and deadened step on the soft carpet of the landing above, and then a cold voice that chilled his ear came from the upper hall.

"Ibrahim!"

It was the Consul-General himself with a letter in his hand.

"Hush!" said Ibrahim, and, leaving the lodge, he walked up the three or four steps to meet his master.

"Take this to the office of the Commandant of Police – take it yourself and see it safely delivered."

"Yes, my lord."

"If the Commandant has gone home for the night you will ask for his Deputy and say my answer is, 'Yes, I let nothing come between me and the law. If you suspect that the person you refer to is still in Cairo you will deal with him as you would deal with anybody else.' You understand me?"

"Yes, my lord," said Ibrahim, but he was staring stupidly at the letter as if he had lost his wits.

"Who is that in the lodge with you?" asked the Consul-General, and then Ibrahim, fumbling the letter until it almost fell out of his fingers, seemed unable to reply.

The wild thought had gone from Gordon by this time, and he said in a voice which he did not recognise as his own, "Tell Fatimah that her brother will come again to see her," and then, feeling ashamed of his sorry masquerade, and less than a servant in his father's house, he stumbled out into the garden.

Hafiz was waiting for him there, and he was in a state of still greater terror than before. The moment Gordon had gone, a light footstep, trying to make itself noiseless, had come crackling over the gravel from the direction of the gate. It was that of the Soudanese, and he had crept along the path like a serpent, half doubled up and with his eyes and his lantern to the ground. After a while he had returned to where he came from, and Hafiz had followed him, walking stealthily in the shadow of the trees, in order to hear what he had to say. "Your Bedouin is a child of Cairo and his boots were made in England," he had said, and then chuckling to himself he had hurried away.

"Are you wearing your military boots, Gordon? Did you forget the slippers? Or was it Osman who forgot them? It can't be helped, though. The man was a tracker – I told you so – and now he has gone for the others and we shall be followed by the whole troop of them. Let us be off."

But still Gordon was in no hurry to go. The sense of stealing like a stranger from a spot that was dear to him by a thousand memories seemed to be more than he could bear. Leaving Hafiz on the path, he went round the house until he reached a place from which he could see the light in his mother's window. His mother, his sweet and sainted mother, innocent of everything yet the victim of all! God forgive him! Was it worth while to go away at all? A gentle breeze had risen by this time, and Hafiz was starting at every leaf that rustled over his head.

When at length they left the Agency they were going in the right direction, but Gordon was once more choosing the lighter and more crowded thoroughfares. Again the hawkers, the pedlars, the water-carriers, the shrouded black forms of women and the blue figures of men. Again the salutations, the pious ejaculations, the silent Eastern greetings. It was almost as if Gordon were tempting Providence, as if he were trying to leave time for the trackers to overtake him.

"Every moment we lose fills me with fear – can't we go faster now?" whispered Hafiz in English, but Gordon continued to walk with the same even step.

"I know it might look like fright and arouse suspicion, but still – "

As often as he dared to do so, Hafiz looked back to see if they were pursued.

"Nothing in sight yet – God has delivered, us thus far – but must we walk so slow?"

In the agony of his impatience every noise in the streets was like the sound of a pursuer. If a boy shouted to his playmate, he shuddered; if a hawker yelled over his tray, he trembled. When they had passed out of the busy thoroughfares into the darker streets, where watchmen call to each other through the hours of the night, the cry of a ghafir far ahead (Wahhed!) seemed to Hafiz like the bay of a bloodhound, and the answer of another close behind was like the shrill voice of some one who was pouncing upon his shoulders.

"It would be a pity to be taken now – at the last moment, too," he whispered, and he strained his ear to catch the faintest sound of footsteps behind them.

After that no more was said until they came to the open space under the heights of the Citadel where one path goes up to the Mokattam Hills and another crosses the arid land that lies on the east bank of the Nile. Then suddenly Hafiz, who had been panting and gasping, began to laugh and crow.

"I know what we've got to do," he said. "Good Lord alive! why didn't I think of it before?"

With that he stooped and whipped off the slippers he wore over his boots and called on Gordon to hold up his foot.

"What for?" asked Gordon.

"I have a reason – a good one. Hold up! The other one! Quick!"

In a moment the slippers he had taken off his own boots had been pulled over Gordon's.

"Right! And now, my dear Gordon, you and I are going to part company."

"Here?" said Gordon.

"Yes, here," said Hafiz, and then pointing with one hand to the hill and with the other to the waste, he said, "You are going that way – I am going this."

"Why so?"

"Why? Do you ask me why? Because the trackers are after us – because they may be here at any moment – because they know there are two of us, but when they find we have separated they'll follow up the man who wears the military boots."

"Hafiz!"

"Well, I wear them, don't I?"

"Do you mean it, Hafiz – that you are going to turn the trackers on to yourself?"

"Way shouldn't I? Lord God! what can they do to me? If they catch me I'll only laugh in their dirty black faces. I'll give them a run before that, though. Bedrasheen, Sakkara, Mena, Gizeh – a man wants some fun after a night like this, you know."

He was laughing as if he were beside himself with excitement.

"By that time you'll be far away from here, please God! Six hours at least – I'll see it's six, Gordon; six hours' start on good camels – across the desert, too – and not a black devil of them all to know what the dickens has become of you."

His fear was as great as ever, but it had suddenly become heroic.

"Hafiz!" said Gordon. His voice was faltering, and he was holding out both hands, but Hafiz, unable to trust himself, was pretending not to hear or see.

"No time to lose, though! Time is life, brother, and you mustn't stay here a moment longer. Over the hill – first village beyond the fort – Osman will be waiting for you."

"Hafiz!"

"Can't wait for farewells, Gordon. Besides, you're not going for good, you know. Lord, no, not a bit of it! You'll come back some day – Ishmael too – and then there'll be the deuce to pay by some of them."

He was running a few paces away, then stepping back again.

"Why don't you go? I'm going, anyway! It's a race for life or death to-night, my boy! Such fun! I'll beat the brutes! Didn't I tell you to leave everything to Hafiz? I said you couldn't depend on a better man."

"Hafiz!"

"Good-night, old chap! Good-night, Charlie! Charlie Gordon Lord has been a good old chum to me, but damn it all, I'm going to be quits with him!"

With that he went bounding away, laughing and crying and swearing and sobbing at the same time, and in a moment he had disappeared in the darkness.