The Dash for Khartoum Part 29

The sheik's wife was evidently pleased with Edgar, and regarded him as her special property. Darkness had fallen long before the examination of the booty had concluded, and as soon as he had carried the sheik's share into the tent, she gave him a bowl of camel's milk and some meal in a gourd, and also bestowed on him one of the black blankets, and pointed out to him a place where he was to sleep just outside the tent.

"It might be a great deal worse," Edgar said to himself as he ate his supper; "the sheik himself does not seem to be a bad fellow; and at any rate I owe him my life for his obstinacy in sticking to me, instead of handing me over to the Mahdi's people. His wife is evidently disposed to be kind, and my work will be no harder than an agricultural labourer's, at any rate as long as we stay here. This is an out-of-the-way sort of place, and if it does not lie on the route between any two places, is not likely to be much visited. It certainly looks as if the sheik regarded it as his private property, which he would not do if it were a regular caravan halting-place.

"It is likely enough that there are very few people who know of its existence. We travelled something like fifty miles a day, and must be three hundred miles to the west of the Nile. What I have got to do now is to work willingly, so as to keep in the good graces of the sheik and his wife, and to learn the language so as to speak it fluently. It is no use my thinking about escaping until I can pa.s.s as a native, unless, of course, I hear that we have gone up and taken Khartoum. I wonder how they are getting on at Metemmeh, and whether they have found the sergeant. If they have, it is likely enough when he finds that I have never reached the camp he will go to Rupert and tell him who the trumpeter of his troop was. I hope he won't; it is much better that they should wonder for some years what has become of me, and at last gradually forget me, than know that I am a slave among the Arabs. I am sure that would be a great grief to them all, and I hope they will not know anything about it until I return some day and tell them."

He was very glad of his blanket, for the nights were cold; and when he had finished his supper he wrapped himself up in it and was soon asleep.

He was awoke at daylight by voices inside the tent, and a few minutes later the sheik and his wife came out, and seeing Edgar standing there the sheik ordered him to go and a.s.sist the other slaves; but Amina pouted: "I thought you had brought him home as a present to me; what use will he be to me if he is to work in the field all day with the others?"

"But the Kaffir must do some work, Amina; he cannot have his food for nothing."

"Of course he shall work when I don't want him," the woman said, "but I shall find much for him to do. He will draw the water, he will fetch the fuel, he will grind the meal when I have anything else for the women to do. When he has done all I require of him, then he can go and work in the fields. It is no use your giving me a slave and then taking him away again."

"Well, well!" the sheik said, "do with him as you will; women are always pleased with novelties. You will soon get tired of having this Kaffir about the tent, but keep him if you will."

Amina took one of the large hospital kettles, and putting it into Edgar's hands pointed to the well which lay a hundred yards away and told him to fetch water. When he returned with it she bade him go out and gather fuel. The last order was by no means easy to execute. The Arab fuel consisted almost entirely of dried camels' dung, as the scrub very speedily becomes exhausted for a considerable distance from a camp.

Edgar took a rough basket to which Amina pointed and was away for some hours, following the track by which he had arrived and making a circuit of the oasis, and returned with the basket piled up with the fuel.

Amina was evidently well satisfied with the result of his work, for fuel is one of the great difficulties of Arab life in the desert. She rewarded him with a calabash of meal.

"Has my lady anything more for me to do?" he asked when he had finished his food.

"Not now," she replied.

"Then I will go out and help the others in the field;" and he walked off to where the negroes were engaged in watering a plantation of maize. The process consisted of drawing water from the well in leathern buckets and pouring it into channels by which it was conducted to the plantation.

The negroes looked at him sourly as he took hold of the rope attached to the long swinging beam that acted as a lever to bring the bucket to the surface, and one of them muttered in Arabic, "Kaffir dog!" Slaves as they were they despised this white Christian.

"Well, look here," Edgar said in English, letting go the rope, "the sooner we come to an understanding the better. I am not going to stand any nonsense from you fellows; and if you don't keep a civil tongue in your heads I will give you such a licking as will teach you to do so in future."

Although they did not understand his words they guessed the import of them, and the biggest of the men, a powerful negro, repeated the word Kaffir and spat upon him. Edgar's right arm flew out from his shoulder, the blow struck the negro on the nose, and in an instant he was upon his back upon the ground. His comrade stood for a moment stupefied, and then with loud yells ran towards the tents, leaving the negro to pick himself up at his leisure. Edgar continued the work of raising and emptying the bucket until the negro returned, followed by the sheik, his wife, and all the inhabitants of the village. By this time the negro who had been knocked down had risen to his feet and was roaring like a bull at the top of his voice, while the blood was streaming from his nose.

"What is this?" the sheik shouted in great anger.

The negro volubly explained that the Kaffir slave had struck down their comrade.

"Why is this?" the sheik demanded of Edgar.

"I am my lord's slave," Edgar said; "but this fellow is a slave also. He called me a Kaffir dog and spat upon me. I knocked him down; and if any other slave does the same I will punish him also."

As the woman whose child had been ill had a short time before reported that the fever had left her, and that having drunk two basins of the arrow-root she was much better, the sheik had been greatly pleased with the idea that he had made a far more valuable capture than he had antic.i.p.ated; he therefore received Edgar's explanation in his broken Arabic favourably.

"The white slave has done right," he said. "Who are you that you are to insult him? He came to work on my business, and you would have interfered with and hindered him. Hamish has been rightly punished, though truly the white man must have hit hard, for his nose is flattened to his face. Mashallah it must have been a wonderful blow. The white men are Kaffirs, but they have marvellous powers. Now go to work again and let me hear of no more quarrels."

"The white man is my slave," Amina said, stepping forward and addressing the negroes, "and if anyone insults him I will have him flogged until he cannot stand. He is a Hakim, and his medicines have saved the life of Hamid's child. He is worth a hundred of you." And bestowing a vigorous and unexpected box on the ears to the negro standing next to her she turned and walked back to her tent, accompanied by her husband, while the rest of the villagers remained for some time staring at the negro, and commenting upon the wonderful effect of the white man's blow.

CHAPTER XV.

BAD NEWS.

No sooner was work over in the afternoon of the day after that on which Rupert had heard of his brother's loss than Skinner came across with Easton to see him.

"My dear Skinner, surely you are not fit to be walking about," he said as he saw them approaching.

"Oh! it won't do me any harm, Clinton; my arm is all in splints, and, as you see, bandaged tightly to my side. The doctor seemed to say that I had better not move, but I promised to take care of myself. I should have come, old man, if I had been ten times as bad. Easton has just been telling me of this horrible business, so of course I came over to see you. I think from what he says you take too dark a view of it. There is no doubt in my mind that he is a prisoner, and that is bad enough; but these Arabs don't slaughter their prisoners in cold blood, they are not such fools as that, they make them useful. I own it must be disgusting to be a slave, especially to these Arabs, and of many fellows I should say they would never stand it any time. Easton wouldn't, for example. In the first place he wouldn't work, and in the next place, if they tried to make him he would be knocking his master down, and then of course he would get speared. But I have great hopes of your brother; he was always as hard as nails, and I should have no fear of his breaking down in health. Then he is a chap that can look after himself. Look how well he has been going on since he bolted from Cheltenham. Then he is a beggar to stick to a thing, and I should say the first thing he will make up his mind to do will be to escape some day, and he will be content to wait any time till the opportunity occurs. You see he has learnt a lot since he left school. He has been roughing it pretty severely. He has had over a year in this beastly hot climate, and will be able to make himself at home pretty near anywhere. I tell you, Clinton, I would lay odds on his turning up again even if he is left to himself. Besides that, if we go on to Khartoum and thrash the Mahdi, these Arabs will all be coming in and swearing that they are most grateful to us for freeing them from him, and you may be sure that any slaves they have will be given up at once. I don't say your brother is not in a hole; but I do say that he is just the fellow to get out of it."

"I have thought of everything you say, Skinner, and I do think that Edgar is as likely to make his escape some day as anyone would be under the circ.u.mstances; but I doubt whether anyone could do it."

"Why not?" Skinner asked, almost indignantly. "I don't suppose he could make his way down the Nile, although he might do that; but there are several caravan routes down to the Red Sea, and then there is Abyssinia. The people are Christians there, and, they say, fighting against the Mahdi's Arabs now; so if he got there he would be pretty sure to be treated well. I should say that there were lots of ways that he could escape. I don't mean now; but when he has got accustomed to the country, it seems to me a fellow with pluck and energy such as he has got ought to find no great difficulty in giving the people he is with the slip, and making his way somewhere. I do think, Clinton, there is no occasion to feel hopeless about your brother. It may be a long time before you see him again, but I do honestly believe he will turn up some time or other."

"I begin to hope he will," Rupert said. "At first I did not think so for a moment; but now I have had time to look at it calmly I think that there is a chance of his getting off some day; besides, when we are once at Khartoum and have scattered the Mahdi's army, I have no doubt General Gordon will send orders through the land for all Egyptian and European slaves to be brought in. You know it is still hoped that some of Hicks'

officers may be alive, and there is such a feeling for Gordon throughout the country that his orders will be sure to be obeyed."

"That is right, Clinton," Easton said; "that is the view I take of it myself, and I am very glad to see that you have come to see it in that light. And now will you tell us what there was in that letter that gave us the news of your brother's being out here. How came the sergeant to write to you? How did he know you were his brother? It seems an unaccountable business all through."

"I have not looked at the letter since," Rupert said. "It would have been very important if it had not been for Edgar's loss. As it is, it does not seem to matter one way or the other. Still, as you say, it is very singular altogether its coming into my hands;" and he took out the letter. It began: "Sir, two days ago I was with the trumpeter of my troop when you pa.s.sed by with two other officers. One of them called you Clinton, and as I had an interest in the name it attracted my attention, and I found that it also attracted the attention of the young fellow with me. I questioned him, and he acknowledged that he had been to school with you and the two officers with you."

"Good heavens!" Skinner broke in; "to think that we three should have pa.s.sed close to your brother and that none of us should have recognized him! How awfully unfortunate!"

"It is terrible to think of now," Rupert agreed, and then continued reading the letter: "I then told Smith, which is the name the trumpeter went by, that my interest in you consisted of the fact that for aught I knew I was your father. He exclaimed, that in that case it was probable that I was his father, as he had been brought up with you. He then told me how he came to enlist, namely, that my wife, whom I have not seen since she left India, and who was, I thought, dead long ago, had been to him and had told him all about the change of infants, and said that she had done it on purpose for his good, and that she knew that he was her son because you had a mole on your shoulder; and she wanted him to go on pretending to be Captain Clinton's son, and offered to swear that the other one was hers, so that he might get all the money.

"That is why I write this. My name is Humphreys. I was a sergeant in the 30th, and it was at Agra, when we were stationed there, that the change of infants took place. My wife went over to England. I took to drink and disgraced myself, and five years afterwards deserted. I stayed in England for some years and then enlisted again in the 5th Dragoon Guards, and being young-looking gave my age as eight years younger than I was. I now go by the name of Bowen, and am a sergeant and bear a good character in the regiment. The lad did not wish me to say anything about this, at any rate until the campaign was over; but as we shall be marching in a day or two, and it may be that I shall be killed, I write a letter to you and one to Captain Clinton, so that in case I am killed the truth may be known.

"I affirm most solemnly that the statement made by my wife was a lie.

Whether she did intend to change the children or not is more than I can say. Sometimes she said she did, sometimes she said she didn't; but at any rate, she herself did not know which child was which, and did not discover the little mark on the shoulder until after the babies got mixed up. Over and over again I have seen her cry and wring her hands because she could not say which was which. She acknowledged that she meant to make money out of it, and lamented that she had lost her chance because she could never herself tell which was which. Of this I am ready to take my oath in any court of justice, and if she says she knows now, she is a liar. I have read this letter over to Troop-sergeant Matthews, and have in his presence sworn on a Bible to its truth. He will place his name by the side of mine as witness to that and to my signature. I remain, your obedient servant, John Humphreys, now known as John Bowen.

The letter to your father is word for word the same as this. I have written it in duplicate in case you should be killed before I am."

"Well, that is plain enough," Easton said when Rupert had finished. "It is just what you said all along. The woman did not know which was her son, and you and Edgar stand in the same relation to Captain Clinton that you always did."

"Thank G.o.d for that!" Rupert said. "We want no change, and my father has said, talking it over with me again and again, he has two sons and loves us both equally, and it would be a deep grief to him now to know for certain that one of us is not his son. I will walk across to the hospital and ask how the sergeant is going on. I am strangely placed towards him now."

"It is a curious position," Easton said; "but in any case you do but stand towards him as a son would do towards a father who had given him up in infancy to be adopted by someone else."

Rupert did not reply, but, saying, "Wait here until I come back," walked over to the hospital lines. He returned in a few minutes.

"The doctor says he is sinking," he said gravely. "I shall go over there and remain until all is over."

"Will he be sensible at the last?" he asked the surgeon as he stood by the litter.

"Possibly," the surgeon said.

"I have a great interest in asking, doctor; I am most anxious to have a few words with him if possible before he dies."

"If you will call me if he opens his eyes," the surgeon said, "I will do what I can to rouse him. His pulse is getting weaker and weaker; I do not think the end is far off."

Half an hour later the dying man opened his eyes. Rupert beckoned to the surgeon, who came across at once and poured a few drops of spirits between his lips, and moistened his forehead with a sponge dipped in vinegar and water.