There was a King in Egypt Part 37

Most surely he would have said so to-night." Michael's thoughts flew to the morning at whose dawn he had first recited to Margaret Akhnaton's hymn to the rising sun.

Millicent did not guess that Margaret was present while they stood together in silence, watching the blood tones grow fainter and fainter.

As they stood looking towards the horizon until all violence had left the heavens, the desert figure drew nearer. Millicent knew him by his long, unkempt hair. Even at a distance his fine white teeth gleamed against his tanned skin.

"He's a mere skeleton," Millicent said. "Look at him! He's all eyes and hair and teeth!"

"Poor creature!" Michael said. "_He_ has certainly no flesh left to subdue."

As they spoke, the fanatic suddenly tottered, strode forward and fell, face downwards, on the sand of the desert. Instinctively Michael hurried forward to his a.s.sistance. There was little doubt but that he was famished and exhausted for want of food; the distances between desert villages are immense.

"Don't go!" Millicent cried. "Don't, Mike! He's probably filthy and crawling with vermin; he looked awful this morning. I'll send two of my men to him and I'll tell Ha.s.san to prepare some food for him.

Ha.s.san! Ha.s.san!" Her voice was clear and far-reaching.

Abdul instantly appeared. Ha.s.san was busy giving orders to the men for pitching the tents. So quickly did Abdul come that he might have sprung up out of the desert at her very feet. This immediate response to her call always made Millicent suspicious of eavesdropping.

"Abdul," she said, "the holy man we met this morning is ill. Tell the bearers to go to him--don't let the Effendi touch him, Ha.s.san."

"_Aiwah, Sitt_, I will attend." With the same breath Abdul screamed for two of the men to come and help the saint. They came with flying leaps towards him.

"Mike, oh Mike!" Millicent cried. "Please, please come back! You are so rash. Abdul, don't let the Effendi touch that man. He's filthy. I saw him this morning--he's a dreadful creature."

Abdul looked at the Effendi Amory's mistress, the Christian harlot.

Such a woman dared to speak in this manner of one who was favoured of G.o.d, a blessed saint, of one to whom the devout women of his country would willingly give themselves as an act of grace! This child of G.o.d, beloved of Islam, was filthy in her vile eyes!

It was in this manner that Millicent unconsciously earned the vengeance of Abdul. Nothing of his hatred or scorn was noticeable. Millicent was under the impression that all Easterns are sensualists and slaves to beauty; she was ignorant of their profound contempt for all women; that their vilest thoughts are for Christians. With an outward approval of her anxiety that Michael should run no risks by touching the sick man, Abdul left her and hurried after the Effendi.

But Michael had already reached him; the fleshless figure lay bathed in the dying light of the afterglow. Hanging round his neck, a neck which looked like the neck of the dried mummy in Freddy's wonderful tomb, there were many strings of cheap beads, and suspended from a bright green cord--the Prophet's green--was one white cowrie sh.e.l.l. Half covered by his garment of many colours, and jealously enclosed in a small black cloth bag, was the most precious article of his scanty possessions. Michael knew that this pouch contained nothing less valuable than a few grains of sand from the Prophet's tomb at Mecca.

At Michael's approach the fanatic raised himself and recited in half-delirious tones the _Fat'hah_, or the opening chapter of the Koran:

"In the Name of G.o.d, the Merciful, the Gracious. Praise be unto G.o.d, the Lord of the worlds, the Merciful, the Gracious, the Ruler of the day of judgment. Thee do we wors.h.i.+p, and of Thee do we beg a.s.sistance.

Direct us in the right way, in the way of those to whom Thou hast been gracious, upon whom there is no wrath, and who have not erred."

When the _sura_ was finished the man fell back; his strength failed him. Michael knelt down beside him in the desert. He raised his head; his wild eyes and emaciated face touched his heart. He knew something of the zeal of these religious Moslems, these desert sons of Allah.

This man had obviously wasted himself to a skeleton. Truly, his reasoning powers were in heaven; his religious ecstasies had well-nigh bereft him of his senses.

Michael asked him if he was ill or if he was only faint from want of food. The saint did not know; physical exhaustion overpowered him. At intervals he called loudly upon the name of Allah, in almost the same phraseology as the ancient Egyptians called upon Amon-Ra, the Lord of all worlds, whose seat was in the heavens. In the unchanging East, expressions never die. Akhnaton taught his disciples to pray to "Our Father, which art in Heaven."

As Michael listened to his appeals to Allah, he felt totally at a loss to know what to do for the material benefit of the zealot. He was afraid that he would die from exhaustion. He was relieved when Abdul and the bearers came to his a.s.sistance. Abdul soon persuaded the man to drink some of the water which he had brought in a cup. As he did so, he noticed with satisfaction that the saint's head was resting on Michael's arm, that his master was totally self-forgetful in his act of charity. Christian though he was, he was sincerely obeying the teaching of the Prophet Jesus, the one sinless Prophet of Islam, the Prophet Who, next to Mohammed, is best beloved of the faithful.

Mohammed considered Jesus sinless; to his own unrighteousness he often alluded. In this act of grace, at least, the Effendi had not failed Him.

When Michael offered the man another cooling drink, he swallowed it eagerly. It was like the waters of paradise to his parched throat.

His flaming eyes tried to express his grat.i.tude to his deliverer. Who was this heretic whose fingers had the gift of healing, from whose heart flowed the divine waters of charity?

Michael understood. Inspired by the love in his heart for all suffering humanity, with something akin to the graceful imagery of words which comes naturally to the humblest native's lips, he spoke to the man in a suitable manner. Rendered into English it would sound absurd.

The servants appeared with some food which was sustaining and appetizing, but the effort necessary for swallowing anything solid proved too much for the exhausted pilgrim.

"Bring him to the camp, Abdul," Michael said. "I will give him some brandy. As a medicine it is not forbidden?"

"No, Effendi, it is not forbidden."

The total absence of the sun had made the desert seem inhospitable and dreary. The saint was too weak to protest and so he was carried to the camp. Millicent watched the slow procession with anger and amazement.

She knew that Michael was rash and impetuous, but she had not given him credit for being such a fool.

While he was being put to bed in a tent, and carefully attended to, Michael tried to discover if the saint was really ill, if he was suffering from some specific malady, or if he was merely worn out with fatigue. He administered a drug to him which he hoped would soothe his nerves and allow him to sleep.

In a dog-like manner the man's tragic eyes eloquently expressed both his astonishment and grat.i.tude. It was long since he had slept in a comfortable bed, under sheets and blankets. He rarely spoke, except to mutter or loudly chant in a half-delirious manner _suras_ from the Koran.

When Michael had attended to his simple wants and seen to it that his servants were not only willing but eager to nurse him, he left him to their care and immediately hurried off to his own tent to change his clothes and disinfect himself as thoroughly as possible--a necessary precaution, although the man had not been as dirty as Millicent had depicted. His _dilk_, or Joseph's coat, was indeed tattered and his turban in the last stages of decay, but they were clean. His person was not offensive. A pathetic figure, fleshless and worn and neurotic; yet in the sands of the desert he had performed his ablutions before prayer, as prescribed by the Prophet in the Holy Book. The untrodden sands of the desert are as cleansing and purifying as the waters of Jordan.

When Michael at last returned to Millicent, she said quite gently, although her inward woman burned with anger, "Mike, are you mad or a saint? How could you touch him?"

"I'm far from being a saint!" he said.

"You are as much one as that wretched creature, who has pretended he is one for so long that he now believes he is."

"Or his Moslem brethren do, perhaps you mean!"

"Well, he acts up to their superst.i.tious ideas."

"I can't tell. He is too ill to speak. He is probably as sincere a Moslem as St. Jerome was a Christian--why not?"

"What's the matter with him?" A little fear clutched at Millicent's heart.

"I don't know--Abdul couldn't discover. The man is too exhausted to talk. I'll speak to him in the morning and find out."

"I hope it's nothing infectious--you were very rash, Mike!"

"It's probably only physical exhaustion. He couldn't eat anything, but he drank the water I gave him. I poured a little brandy in it--he wouldn't have touched it if he had known."

"Oh, wouldn't he?" Millicent's voice expressed her disbelief.

"The Koran forbids the drinking of spirits."

Millicent laughed. "You wouldn't think so when you pa.s.s the native cafes in Cairo! I thought you said they lived up to the letter of their religion, and missed the spiritual essence of it?"

"There are Moslems and Moslems. Do we all live up to the spirit of Christ's teachings? Have you always seen Christ-like Christians?"

Millicent shrugged her shoulders. "Well, I don't pretend to live up to the spirit of my religion. There's the comforting reflection of a death-bed repentance for all Christians--it's never to late to mend, Mike!"

"What about battle and murder and sudden death?"

"I take that risk. But, honestly, dear, are you going to adopt that fanatic, take him on with you?"

"I'm going to look after him until he's better," Michael said, "if that's what you mean."

"You've got one _protege_ in el-Azhar. I wonder where this one will find his home?"