But several days' more terrible marching, with insufficient water, and many a death from sheer hardships, fatigue, or sunstroke, were to elapse before they neared the fortress. At last, however, the time came when, on starting at dawn, the guide assured the General that he should see the sun set behind its walls. After four hours' march one of the senior officers called Harry.

"You and your nag look pretty fit," he said; "that comes of being a light weight. Is your water-bottle full?"

"Yes," replied Harry; "I have not touched it since we left the last wells."

"That is right; I want you to take six men out scouting. You see that rocky hill, with trees, out to the north?"

"Yes."

"The General wants to know if the enemy are behind there in any force. Go cautiously; and if you see no one, pass through the wood, and have a look on the other side of the hill; you can see from here that it cannot be very extensive on the top. But if you find Arabs in the cover, try to draw them; and if you succeed, and they are in force, come back at once. But should they keep in cover, so that you cannot tell whether there are half a dozen or a considerable body, skirt round the hill, and see if there is any sign of a camp, or a large body of the enemy concealed by it. Be cautious, so as not to get cut off. I have selected six of the best mounted Bashi-Bazooks, in case you have to make a bolt for it. Of course, you see the importance of knowing what we have in our rear before attacking the place."

"All right, sir," said Harry; and in another minute he was trotting across the plain, followed by his six picturesque, irregular horsemen.

Of course he did not go fast, as it was most important to reserve the powers of the animal that carried him for the emergency of having to gallop for his life, which it was not at all improbable that he would be called upon to do; but half an hour's steady trot, the ground being fairly free from obstacles, and not so yielding as usual, brought the party to the foot of the hill.

Harry ordered his men to extend, and they threaded their way among the rocks in a line, working cautiously up towards the belt of trees. When they were within a hundred yards, however, a couple of shots were fired from the cover, and the bullets came pattering against the rocks.

Harry had impressed upon the men beforehand what to do in such a case: to retire slowly, halting to return the fire at intervals; and they did it pretty fairly, though not quite so steadily as could be wished. And when they were down on the level plain, a couple of them showed a decided inclination to try the mettle of their steeds in a race in the direction of the column, but Harry managed to stop them; and, withdrawing a little, the party dismounted, and fired a few ineffective shots at the Arabs, who were mounted, and came down towards them.

There were but eight in the party, and Harry could see no more behind them, so he concluded that it was clearly his duty to skirt the hill and see what was on the other side. Besides, seven to eight was not such prodigious odds as to justify bolting without a bit of a fight, he thought.

So he got his men together, and, drawing his sword, told them he meant to charge the moment the Arabs were at the bottom of the hill, so as to overthrow them by the impetus before they could get any pace on, and trotting quietly on with this object, he got within thirty paces, and then, cramming his spurs in, went at them as they got clear of the declivity. And he showed good judgment, in spite of his inexperience; for he bowled one enemy over with the force of the shock, and a Bashi- Bazook on his right served another the same, and got a slice at him as he rolled over, which made the number of combatants level.

But, unfortunately, the other Bashi-Bazooks did not charge home, but swerved, wheeled, withdrew a little, and began firing wildly. Harry was engaged in single combat with another Arab, who could have given him any number of points in sword-play, and presently made a drawing cut at him which would infallibly have taken off his head, had not his horse at that very quarter of a second suddenly fallen, shot dead by one of his own men.

Seeing their officer down, the Bashi-Bazooks fairly turned and galloped as hard as they could go, the Arabs who were otherwise disengaged racing after them—five pursuing six; for the man who had been ridden down had got a broken thigh, the second was killed, and the third was now dismounting in order to polish off Harry comfortably as he lay on the ground.

But our friend, though he was pinned down by the body of his horse, which lay on his left leg, was not hurt, and his right arm was free. He drew his revolver, and when the Arab stood over him he shot him in the breast. The man fell—but not dead—across Harry, with whom he grappled, seeking to clutch him with the left hand by the throat and sabre him with the right. But Harry caught his right wrist, and a struggle took place, in which each strained every muscle.

In his efforts, Harry got his leg from under the dead horse, the sand being loose; but as he did so his enemy got his sword-arm free and cut him over the head—not with much force, for he was weak and in a cramped position, but sufficiently to inflict a nasty wound. It was an expiring effort; he fell over helpless, the blood gushing from his mouth, and Harry had no need to give him another barrel, which he was prepared to do, but rose to his feet to survey the scene of conflict. The Bashi- Bazooks and their pursuers could be seen in the distance, still going at a great pace. The horses of the broken-legged and the two dead Arabs were careering about; his own head-dress had fallen off, which was a serious affair, though the afternoon was waning.

But before putting it on he bound his head with a strip of cotton torn off the garment of the Arab at his feet, for the cut on the scalp was bleeding freely. Then, feeling very thirsty, he took the man's water- bottle, but it was empty. So, picking up his sword, he moved over to the other dead Arab and tried his, and with better success; there was a refreshing draught in it, which Harry was thus able to benefit by without infringing on his own supply. Then he considered that he must get out of sight somewhere before the Arabs returned, which they were sure to do, to look after their missing friends. He had now no horse, and to make his way on foot across the open plain by daylight was to ensure being seen by the returning horsemen and cut off.

The best place to hide in would surely be the wood, where he felt certain that there were no more Arabs, or they would have come out to join in the chevy. He would lie there till nightfall, and then endeavour to make his way to the column, though he did not feel like taking a long walk just at present.

As he was going up the hill, however, he saw the Arab with the broken leg lying helpless. The string which held his water-bottle had broken, and the gourd lay beyond his reach. The man glared like a wild beast when Harry picked it up, and clutched at his waist-band, but there was no weapon in it.

"Don't fear me," said Harry in Arabic, holding out the gourd, which the other snatched viciously; "I am an Englishman, and the English never hit a foe when he is down, unless he is very obstinate and unreasonable, and insists on biting or kicking."

But the wounded man made no reply. It is to be feared that he only thought either that the speaker was a great liar, or else that his countrymen were great fools. It was evident that, so far from being touched, he would be the first to betray the secret of Harry's hiding- place to his returning friends if he knew it. So as Harry did not like to shoot him through the head, or draw his sword across his throat, he made a detour as if going across the desert, and did not commence the ascent until he was out of the other's sight. It was not very steep or very high, but Harry had some difficulty in getting up it. He felt very weak, giddy, and queer, and had hardly got to the wood, and sunk down under the shade of trees behind a big black boulder, than he lost consciousness, for he had bled more than he knew for, and it was that which turned him faint.

How long he lay without consciousness he did not know; and I daresay that you have noticed in story-books that people never do know. Indeed, it would take a very methodical person to look at his watch just as he was going off in a swoon, and refer to it again as he came to. Harry Forsyth certainly never looked at his watch, but he snatched his water-bottle, for one effect of loss of blood is to cause intense thirst. A quantity of liquid being taken out of the body. Nature seems to point out in this way that the loss should be supplied; you know she is said to abhor a vacuum. If he had had all his senses about him, he would merely have taken a sup and held it in his mouth some time before swallowing it; but he was half dazed, and did not know where he was, and he yielded to the instinct of thirst and took a long, deep draught. For the present it was the best thing he could have done, for the effect was that he sank into a sound restoring sleep, which must have lasted many hours, for when he woke again the night was far advanced, and there were streaks of dawn in the east, and it was quite two hours to sunset when he had begun his nap. The wound in his head smarted, but otherwise he felt stronger and more refreshed, only hungry. He had crammed some biscuits into his kharkee jacket the day before, and these he ate, washing them down with what remained in the water-bottle, which he emptied without much compunction, as he reckoned that he would easily strike the trail of the column and come up with it in a short time.

They had reckoned before he left that it was three hours' march at the longest to the wells within sight of El Obeid, where they were to halt for the night, and he thought that he surely ought to be able to walk, alone and unencumbered, at least as fast again as the square moved, and he had little fear of not being in time for the attack. The place could hardly be carried by a coup de main; they would have to breach the walls with artillery first. Of course he might be cut off on his road; that was a risk which could not be helped or avoided.

Directly he could see his way, he retraced his steps down the hill, and went round the base to the side where he had had the skirmish; but he did not look to see whether the dead Arabs had been buried by their comrades, or to inquire after the welfare of his friend, the enemy with the broken leg. No, he stole along that part as quietly as he could.

The orange, purple, violet, old gold flashes shone wider and higher, but the only way in which Harry heeded them was by keeping the point, at which it was evident from the intensity of glory that the sun would rise, at his back, for he knew that El Obeid lay due west of his present position. It was true that he had a compass attached to his watch chain, but for some unknown cause the thing had struck work a fortnight back, and now the black half, which ought always to have turned to the north, perversely remained where you choose to place it. But, after all, the sun in the morning and evening, and the polar star at night, will put you somewhere in the right direction, when you can see them.

As for hitting off the exact track by which he had come on leaving the column, he could no more do that than on the sea, for there were no marks to guide the eye, and the surface of the plain was the same as water. One dead camel's skeleton is uncommonly like another, and they lay about in various directions, showing that caravans converged to or diverged from El Obeid by different routes. When the sun burst forth with all that inconceivable grandeur which drives artists who visit the country to despair, and causes untravelled gazers on their pictures to accuse them of exaggeration, when their efforts have as a fact fallen far short of the reality, Harry's eyes scanned the horizon in every direction for an enemy, but he was alone on the sandy expanse.

No! What were those black figures moving along the side of yonder dune? His hand went to the butt of his revolver as he saw them. But he was presently reassured; they were only vultures and eagles over-gorged by the fruits of war; the only beings besides wolves and hyaenas, who pluck them.



CHAPTER ELEVEN.

A GLIMPSE AT A TRAGEDY.

As the power of the sun increased, Harry Forsyth found that his renewed strength was but partial, and though considerable compared to his weakness before that long sleep, was by no means up to his powers twenty-four hours previously, before he got that cut down through his scalp and lost all that blood. And soon the thirst began; but thirst was his familiar now, and he had learned to bear it as we do what is constantly recurring and inevitable.

But as time passed on the thought would intrude upon his mind. Was he going in the right direction? El Obeid, indeed, must lie to the west, if the guides were to be depended upon, but would not the General diverge very likely on approaching the place? It could not be told beforehand from what side he would find it best to attack it, and Harry might be going quite away from his friends. Still, if he once caught a glimpse of the town, he should feel fresh confidence, for then he would certainly get round to the army, somehow, and in time for the attack. But this last consideration was not so important a matter with him as it had been some hours before. He did not feel particularly keen after fighting just now. A beefsteak and a pot of porter, and then to turn into a comfortable bed, with a lump of ice on the top of his head, would have formed his programme of perfect bliss. And yet, if his friends were in the thick of it, he would like to be there, and take his share in what was going, too.

Pshaw! He must not get nervous, he said to himself. Unless the guides were treacherous, he must sight the minarets of El Obeid soon Unless the guides were treacherous! Was there a chance of that? Experience showed that there was always. And that professed friendly sheikh, who had come in with his scratches and told such a plausible tale, was he to be trusted?

Hark! What was that? Dropping shots away to his right front. Again, others; and now a volley; more single shots, increasing to a continuous roll of musketry.

"They are at it, and I am not there!" Harry cried aloud, as, forgetting fatigue, weakness, even thirst, he pressed forward in the direction of the firing. What surprised him most was that he heard no report of the Krupp guns, no whish of rockets, no continuous grinding of machine-guns. Why did they not use their artillery?

Half an hour brought him to rocks, herbage, and palm-trees, and here were empty preserved meat cans and other debris, showing that the force had bivouacked there the night before. And here, too, deep down in a rocky dell, he found a well of clear, bright, sweet, cool water! He flung himself down, plunged his face in the delicious liquid, and sucked in large draughts of the life-inspiring elixir. When he could drink no more he filled his water-bottle, and then, removing his pith helmet, he unbound the bandage which he had tied over his head. It had of course stuck, and the attempt to remove it was painful, but by wetting it freely he got it off, and then bathed his head and face, saturated his pocket handkerchief, and tied that on as a fresh bandage.

Then, much refreshed, he again hastened forwards, guided by the sound of the still continued firing. The character of the country was now completely changed. It became hilly, and the hills were precipitous and covered with inky black rocks, which lay so thickly about that it seemed as if a shower of enormous aerolites had fallen there.

Harry threaded his way amongst these, some way up a ravine, which wound to the right. The firing now seemed quite close; indeed, he could see smoke floating up to the dear sky. But surely El Obeid could not be there, in the middle of a mountain pass, commanded on all sides by higher ground! The army must surely have been attacked on the march.

He turned a corner, from which the valley ran for some distance straight, and came suddenly on volumes of smoke, pierced by incessant flashes of fire, not a thousand yards in his front, while every now and then a spent bullet came pattering against the rock behind which he crouched, trying to make out whether those nearest him were friends or foes.

Firing was also going on from the higher ground to right and left, and one or two of these points were visible from Harry's present position. He had no field-glass, but he carried a small pocket telescope of great power, and adjusting this, and holding it steadily with some difficulty against the rock side, for the field of vision was very small, and his hand shook with excitement, he made out that the men holding these were certainly Arabs.

And presently some wounded men of those engaged in the valley to his front falling to the rear, and coming within five hundred yards of him, and clear of the smoke, he perceived that they were Arabs too. And then the fearful truth broke upon him. The spent bullets which fell towards him came from his friends. The army had been enticed into the defile, round which the Mahdi's troops were posted. When it was hopelessly entangled, a body of Arabs, which had lain in ambush for the purpose, had closed in upon their rear to cut off retreat, and these were the men now in front of him.

Though he felt convinced that this must be the state of the case, Harry did not give up all hope that the Egyptians might fight their way through, though with severe loss, to the other end of the defile, and to ascertain this he went back, and then began mounting the higher ground, trying to work round to the front of the position. This he had to do very cautiously, to avoid falling in with groups of Arabs, whom he was perpetually sighting. Indeed, to get near the edge of the rocks commanding the defile without being observed was impossible, but by making a wide detour he kept clear of them. And thus, after the lapse of some hours, and with occasional difficult climbing, he reached a lofty point, from which he could distinguish the sides of the ravine held by the Arabs and the pall of smoke which covered the doomed square, fighting like a lion at bay, surrounded by the hunters.

For eagerly as he searched with his telescope in every direction he could perceive no line of advance or retreat; every point appeared to be barred by the enemy. There seemed to him only one hope; if General Hicks could hold on till nightfall, perhaps he might push through backwards or forwards under cover of the darkness.

So the hours passed, and the fusillade did not cease; only slackened at times to burst out again, till the sun sank down in all his glory, and the heavenly splendour of the after-glow bathed the sky, just as if all on earth was peace, goodwill, and happiness, and men had ceased to strain all the powers and talents which the God of Mercy has bestowed upon them for their mutual benefit to one another's destruction; then sudden darkness, and silence broken only at long intervals by a fitful splutter of musketry.

Harry had marked a little cave, where two boulders leaned together, and into this he now crept, for the air was cold. Here he lay, thinking with agony of his friends below there. How many were now living, and what chance had they of getting clear if they had survived thus far?

And his own position, was that any better? Nay, they indeed would die fighting, but he would either probably perish of want, or be barbarously murdered in cold blood. He still wore his uncle the sheikh's ring on his finger, and carried the silver case containing the parchment in his breast, but since he had thrown in his lot with the Egyptian army, his faith in those talismans had become weakened. Why, he did not know; it was an illogical feeling, for, of course, the circumstances had not altered. Probably it was because it is impossible to trust to two diametrically opposite sources of aid at the same time.

Then his thoughts wandered to home, and his mother and sister, and their terrible anxiety at his long silence, and how they would not know whether or not to mourn him as dead. And then he dropped asleep.

He woke at dawn, wondering how he could have slept when his comrades were in such sore straits. Had they got away? In answer to his thought, the firing recommenced as before, and in the same quarter, answering "No!"

All day long the noise of battle lasted, and Harry watched in vain for a change in the situation.

At one period a body of Arabs came up and crossed the mountain from his rear, and he only just had time to conceal himself in his rocky hole to escape observation.

But they pushed on, and went down into the fight; doubtless carrying ammunition. How Harry got through that long day he could not remember. He made his water-bottle last, but he had no food beyond one biscuit. But anxiety for some time prevented his feeling hungry. There seemed no change in the situation, except that the volume of fire diminished perceptibly; and the cloud of smoke becoming thinner, he could, from one point, just distinguish something of the square. It was still existing, then, and might, perhaps, cut through that night, though it had failed to do so on the preceding.

When darkness fell, Harry crept back to his hole, and again he slept. But he awoke before dawn, roused by the cravings of hunger. It was of no use to stop where he was, and at the first glimpse of daylight he commenced his descent towards the plain, not by the way he had come, but on the opposite side, in the direction he calculated the remains of the army must take if they succeeded in pushing through.

At the foot of the hill, in a rocky, barren-looking dell, not at all the place where you would expect to find it, he chanced upon a spring; and after drinking and replenishing his gourd, he sat down to try and collect his thoughts.

And as he sat there he saw a solitary figure coming towards the spot. It was a camel, with an Arab on his back. Harry concealed himself behind a boulder and watched. The poor beast could hardly move, and, in spite of all urging, presently fell. The rider took certain articles from the saddle, and came to the spring, where he sat down, after drinking; and, pulling out a lump of bread, began to make his breakfast. The sight made Harry feel ravenous; he was determined that he would have a share of that bread. He would probably have been justified in potting him with his pistol, which he might easily have done, for he was almost certainly a hostile Arab with despatches. But he might belong to a friendly tribe, and if he were an enemy, Harry could not murder him like that.

He had a Remington rifle, so Harry must pounce upon him, or he would not have a chance. He did it rather cleverly, and the meal of the Arab was suddenly interrupted by finding the muzzle of a revolver within a yard of his head, while, at the same time, his rifle, which rested against a rock beside him, was thrown to some distance.

"Throw away your sword and pistol, or I will shoot," said Harry. "But do that, and share your bread with me, and I will not hurt you."

"My hygeen is dead; I am weary and wounded; and the chance is yours," said the Arab. "What have I to do but to submit? It is fate," drawing his highly ornamented and damascened pistols from his waist-band, for he was a considerably dressed Arab, this one. These he laid aside; then he took out his sheathed scimitar, but appeared to hesitate.

"How do I know," he said, "that you will not kill me when I am completely disarmed?"

"Why should I?" replied Harry. "Could I not have shot you from behind the rock?"

"Fool you were, not to!" cried the Arab with the bound of a wild beast, springing up, flashing the blade out, and uttering the taunt, which in his own idiom was but a couple of words, simultaneously.

So quick and sudden was the movement that it might well have deceived the eye and paralysed the nerve. But the very start made Harry press the trigger with his fore-finger. Even so, and only a yard off, he was as likely to have fired over his shoulder as to have hit him. But he did not. The point of the scimitar just left the scabbard as the owner of it went down on his back motionless as a wax figure.

Harry was perfectly bewildered; he was not conscious of having fired; yet, there lay the Arab, with his face blackened with the powder, and a small hole in the forehead just between the eyes.

I hope you will not think the worse of Harry Forsyth for what he did next. War makes the feelings very callous, for the time being, at all events, with regard to certain things. Besides, Harry had had nothing but biscuits to eat for one hundred and seventy-two hours, about, and not many of them. He pounced upon the bread and devoured it. What to do next?

The conviction had now forced itself upon him that there was no hope for the Egyptian army, but that it was doomed to certain destruction. There was no possibility of surrender; it was war to the knife, for the Arabs neither took nor gave quarter. And thus his mind reverted to the object of his throwing in his lot with that body, which he had in a great measure lost sight of in the company of Howard and the excitement of a totally new life. But, after all, he had not come out to Egypt and the Soudan to fight but to discover Daireh and, if possible, gain possession of the will.

The only chance for him to accomplish this now was obviously through finding his uncle, the Sheikh Burrachee, and to do this he must follow the course he had pointed out: find a dervish or fakir, and show the ring and parchment. Of course the efficacy of these might all be the delusion of a crazy brain, but he must take his chance of that. It was certain, however, that he would never get the chance of a hearing in his present costume. The helmet, the uniform kharkee jacket, would insure his being shot or cut down by the first follower of the Mahdi who saw him. They must be discarded, and the dead Arab lying hard by would supply him with a disguise. For, instead of going nearly naked, like so many of them, this man had a smart turban and a long garment, which came a good bit below the knees, bound round his waist with a sort of shawl of gay colours.

So, after having taken his life and his breakfast, Harry now proceeded to despoil him of his clothes.

There was a fair supply of cartridges in a bag which the ill-fated Arab had worn over his shoulder, so Harry took that and the rifle, and presently he came out of the glen in complete Arab costume, his European clothes being made into a bundle and shoved under a rock. The only article of dress he had retained was a light linen waistcoat, in which were pockets containing the silver case with the parchment, his watch, and his money. The dead man's pistols, though ornamental, had flint locks and were heavy, so he left them, but the scimitar he stuck, together with his own revolver, in the waist-shawl, and the rifle he slung over his shoulder.

Then he went to the hygeen, or camel, hoping that water might revive it, but the poor beast was past that—its eyes were already glazing.

All this time the roll of musketry in the distant ravine still continued, and with a heavy heart he turned from the spot, and went out into the wilderness.

His idea was boldly to accost the first living being he met, and ask the way to El Obeid, intending to represent himself as a merchant whose caravan had been attacked and robbed by Nubian blacks. He knew that he would be recognised as a European by his speech, and probably arrested as a spy, but then would be the time to test the efficacy of his uncle's talisman. It might be inefficacious, or he might perish in the desert before he met any one, but he did not give up all hope of a better fate. His being sent out on that scouting expedition, wounded, and so prevented from rejoining the ill-fated column, was so extraordinary that he felt that his hour was not yet come. For it almost seemed to him as if a miracle had been performed in his behalf.

He had not gone a hundred yards before he noticed several black specks in the distant sky. Nearer and larger they came, till he could distinguish two eagles and five vultures hovering lower and lower, till at length they settled down in the dell by the spring which he had just left. And he shuddered. How soon he might lie, helpless and dying, and watching these loathsome birds of prey swooping towards him!

His idea was to keep bearing to the west, which was the direction in which he knew that El Obeid lay, unless indeed he had passed to one side of it, which he did not think probable, or he should most likely have seen it from the mountain-top. Any other high ground he came to he would ascend, so as to get as wide a view as possible. And so he tramped on towards the declining sun till it sank; then he lay down in the solitude and darkness, and fatigue gave him sleep.

When dawn awoke him he was beyond the sound of the firing, or else it had ceased. And though he knew well enough that this was no good sign, the silence was less harrowing. He resumed his weary march till the sun reached its full power. There were some stunted bushes a little out of his track, and he made for them, hoping to find water. In this he was disappointed; so taking a sparing pull at his water-bottle, he crawled under one of them, seeking its shade. There was a slight rustle, and a snake rose on its tail, and darted at him with its forked tongue, but, just missing him, glided away.

Harry then looked more carefully, but there was no other, and he rested. Another escape! Did he, then, bear a charmed life? After about an hour, he grew restless. The sand in that part lay in high ridges or dunes, some of them at least a hundred feet high, and he hoped that on surmounting the next beyond him he would come in sight of the town, or at least of some oasis, with water and human habitations, and with each recurring disappointment he became only the more eager to reach the sand-hill beyond. But he was becoming very faint, and the wound in his head throbbed to agony. He was at last so "beat" that he was on the point of letting himself sink down on the sand to struggle no more, when suddenly there, straight before him, lay the object of his desires! Surely not a mile off, but say a mile and a half, rose towers, fortifications, minarets, palm-trees, and, most grateful sight, all this was reflected in a broad clear sheet of water.

"El Obeid!" he cried aloud, forgetting everything else in the joy of the moment.

He had never heard that it was on a lake, and thus his wildest expectations were surpassed.

No need now to torture himself by refraining from his water-bottle. He seized and drained it, and then falling on his knees he thanked Heaven for this deliverance. For though, when considered calmly at a distance, he had recognised the perils which would attend his adventure in entering the place, which was now the head-quarters of the Mahdi and his fanatics, they seemed as nothing compared with the immediate prospect of perishing of want and thirst, alone, in the desert. Rising to his feet again he hurried onwards, but the place was much farther off than it had first seemed, for when he had gone on for a full twenty minutes, with speed inspired by hope, he seemed to be no whit nearer.

On again, plunging through the loose sand, reeling, staggering. A little more effort; he must be nearing it, though it did not seem so; another ten minutes, say, and he would be able to plunge into that delicious water! And so he fought on, when suddenly all vanished.

He rubbed his eyes and looked again. Had sudden blindness fallen upon him? No, he could see the sand-hills as plainly as possible. But the city, the fortifications, the minarets, the water, which were so distinct a minute ago, where were they? All turned to sand? That could not be. He was giddy, and must have altered his course without knowing it.

He looked all round him, bewildered. Sand, sand, sand, and nothing else. Then the truth flashed across his memory: the mirage! Towers and water were as unreal as the magician's money in the "Arabian Nights' Entertainments," which turned to paper in the drawer where it was. For the first time Harry was stricken with utter despair; without water, without food, alone in the trackless desert, exposed to a fierce sun, he fell, and lay motionless for awhile. Then up and on blindly, in what direction he knew not. His tongue swelled; his throat seemed choked and breathing was difficult.

Soon he lost consciousness of everything but a sense of distress and pain; and after awhile even that left him, and he fell senseless.



CHAPTER TWELVE.

ABDUL ACHMET.

A body of twenty Arab warriors mounted on camels was crossing the desert, and as they rode in Indian file, and from ten to twenty paces apart, the string was a long one. Probably they did not belong to a tribe that had taken part in any of the numerous routs, assaults on strong places, and massacres, which had supplied so large a portion of the Mahdi's troops with modern arms of precision, for those of them who carried guns had those long-barrelled, short-stocked weapons, which are familiar to us in pictures, and which are so admirable from an artistic, and so worthless from the Wimbledonian, point of view. But the majority carried spears instead of guns, and they were all armed with swords and pistols.

Whatever the actual number of days and hours which elapse between the dates of an Arab's birth and death, his life seems a short one reckoned by sensations and incidents, for he spends so very large a proportion of it in sitting on the hump of a camel as it toils across a country of maddening sameness. The distances he has to travel are so vast, and his means of progression so limited!

Perhaps that is the reason why, when he does come across an occasion of excitement, he is so terribly in earnest. He is months and months without the chance of an emotion, accumulating explosive forces all the while; and when he at last goes off, he does it like dynamite.

And yet, perhaps, the child of the desert, if he visited our shores, might point to a ploughboy plodding up and down, with one foot in the furrow, from dawn till dusk, and ask if his task were lively. Or, still more forcibly, he might take us into an office in a dingy city street where copying clerks sat at their monotonous work, and put it to us how many minutes in the week we supposed they lived.

But still, though it might be difficult to deny that he had reason on his side, there is a certain dreariness about the endless sandy plains which renders it difficult to imagine it possible for a human being to spend his days in traversing them without going mad.

But these present travellers did not seem to mind it. Some of them solaced themselves with the chibouque, as they sat with the comfort which can only be acquired after years of practice on the humps of their camels; the others, though silent and quiescent, did not look bored.

Presently the one in front was attracted by an object a little out of his path, and turned to examine it more closely. Then he spoke to his hygeen, which knelt down, whereupon he dismounted, and went up to the figure of a man lying on the sand. There had been a great deal of fighting and carnage, beyond the ordinary blood-feuds between the different tribes, going on for some months in the country, and the bodies of men were as commonly found as those of camels used to be. So it may seem surprising that the Arab should have taken the trouble to dismount for such a trifle.

But this body was dressed, and had weapons—was worth despoiling, in fact. This particular child of the desert was not more greedy than others; he was a man in some authority, and rich according to his own ideas and those of his people. But still, one does not like to see articles of value unappropriated, and one might as well have them as any one else. Such sentiments might animate you or me, let alone a gentleman who had been brought up to regard all human beings who did not belong to his own particular set much as we look upon beavers, foxes, hares, grouse, pheasants, as creatures that are provided by Providence for our sport or profit.

The body lay on its breast with the arms stretched out; the head a little turned, so that the right cheek lay on the sand. And when the Arab bent over it, it did not look, he thought, quite dead. Well, if he were not, a man with such a good gun as that ought to be when a better man wants it. But still, it has been shrewdly observed that there is a deal that is human about human nature. The Arab might not improbably be in the same position some day, and would he not then require aid himself? And then the Koran enjoined true believers to succour the distressed who fell fainting in the desert; and this was an educated man, who read his Koran; and a religious man, according to his lights, who obeyed its precepts when he happened to remember them, and temptation to the contrary was not too strong. If he had known that the property before him belonged to a pig who did not believe the Prophet, it might have been different; but he could not tell that, and he turned Harry Forsyth over to give him a drink of water.

As he did so he saw the ring on his finger, and his humane intention vacillated. He had a fancy for a ring like that. Never mind; he would compromise matters, he thought—take the ring, rifle, and cartridges first, and give him a drink afterwards. But when he took the hand for the purpose of drawing the ring off it, and saw the stone close, he started back with the exclamation, "Allah is great!" and let the hand drop.

"He bears the signet!" he said to his followers; "and he lives. We must not leave him. We must take him on to El Obeid."

"The Fakir's Oasis is close at hand," said another; "let us bear him there. The holy man will know best what to do with him, and the shorter the journey the better for his life."

"You speak the words of wisdom, Meouf," said the leader; "let us lift him on to your camel; it has the easiest pace."

A cynic might imagine that Meouf knew this, and that his claims to being a good Samaritan were affected by the fact that he would have the trouble of carrying the helpless man, and his wish to do so for as short a distance as possible. But we won't be cynics, and we'll give him all the credit for his forethought which we can.

The Fakir's Oasis was less than an hour's ride off for a good camel. Harry, when some water was poured down his throat, showed decided signs of life, though not regaining consciousness. He was lifted on the camel, and carried forward, his property being scrupulously respected with one exception. The leader of the party considered that, as he was an invalid, and therefore, for the time being, a non-combatant, he could have no immediate use for a Remington rifle, or the cartridges belonging to it, and these he therefore made free to borrow for an indefinite period. It was a small fee for him to pay, after all, for his life.

The oasis they were taking him to was one not known to European travellers, and indeed but few native merchants were aware of its existence, for it was out of the usual caravan routes to El Obeid, from which place it was not more than two hours' journey distant. It was a little patch of fertility in the midst of a plain of undulating sand, and appeared a hundred-fold more luxuriant from the contrast. There was actual herbage on which some goats were feeding; a small patch was even under cultivation, and corn grown there. Fine acacias lent a grateful shade, but not equal to that afforded by a splendid fig-tree which overhung a deep cool well.

The oasis received its name from its having long been the residence of a fakir who was accounted a sort of prophet, and commanded great reverence. His successor, Abdul Achmet, who now lived there, was also in high esteem among the followers of the Mahdi, to whose cause he had given his adherence.

There were three houses, all inhabited by priests or dervishes, of whom Abdul was the chief, and a small mosque, all built of sun-dried bricks, which, retaining the look of clay, are habitually termed by European travellers mud. But this gives rather a false impression, as a mud hut properly consists of wattles with mud plastered all over them, which is a different thing from one regularly built, though the bricks are sun-dried instead of being baked in a kiln. What is the use of having a tropical sun if you do not make it do some fire-work for you beyond nearly roasting you to death?

Abdul Achmet received the party, several of whom he knew, under the shade of his fig-tree. Harry Forsyth was carefully handed down from the camel and laid before the dervish, and the signet-ring was shown to him. Whereupon he said that it was quite right to bring him on to him, and that he would take care of him; and he had him carried into his house and attended to.

The travellers watered themselves and their camels, and were then treated to dates, pipes, and coffee. They rested thus in the oasis, and benefited, it is to be hoped, by the companionship of their clerical entertainers, till the hottest part of the day was passed, and then, once more mounting their camels, went on their way to El Obeid—an easy march for the evening.

Days passed before Harry Forsyth was conscious of anything; then for weeks he had no sense of life but pain and weariness, with intervals of blissful rest. He had no doctor but the first lady who ever practised— Dame Nature, who sometimes, strange to say, pulls her patients through almost as well as if she had a diploma. But he was well nursed, and there is a great deal in that.

At length there came a time when he knew that people moved about and talked, and that he took food and was very weak; but he did not know where he was, nor cared. He had visions, and half knew they were visions; sometimes these were rather pleasant but more often very much the other way. What was the matter with him? As no medical man diagnosed his case, it is impossible to say, though that he was for some time in a high state of fever we may safely assume. He had gone through a good deal, and had had a cut through the scalp of his head right down to the skull. At last he woke one day after a long sleep and recognised his nurse, whom he took to be a demon—a very nice, amiable one, with gleaming white teeth, who grinned from ear to ear with pleasure to see him better.

At last it dawned upon him that it was absurd to suppose an evil spirit would sit there fanning the flies away, or would put cooling drinks to his lips; and he jumped abruptly to the opposite conclusion, that there were such things as black angels, and this was one of them. Though perhaps nearer the mark, he was not quite right yet, for his kind and careful nurse was but a negress—a slave from the interior. Black, white, or brown, women are always more patient and tender when anything is really the matter than men, bless them!

It was rather a shame to have called her Fatima, because that leads one to expect rather prettier lips and a fairer complexion; not that this incongruity ever struck Harry, even when he came to know it, which was not for some time yet. For by that time he had come to associate his nurse's homely features with all that was pleasant and solacing.

He did not know where he was, nor had he any clear perception of past events. He had been very uncomfortable, and there was a dim impression upon his mind of past misfortunes, but he had no care or curiosity with regard to past or future; he was at ease for the present, and that was all that he felt signified.

One day when he opened his eyes after a doze, expecting to see Fatima, he found in her usual place a tall man, with a long white beard, and shaggy white eyebrows, which contrasted curiously with his dark skin, giving him something of an unearthly appearance.

"Oh, long-expected one," he said, when he saw that Harry noticed him, "to whom Allah hath at length restored some degree of understanding, know that you are welcome and among friends. This writing found upon you tells me that you are he of whom the Sheikh Burrachee has often spoken, the Feringhee destined to bring his benighted and hitherto accursed race to the acceptance of the true faith. The sheikh is beyond Om Delgal, far away up the Bahr el Abiad, amongst the heathen whom the All-bountiful One has given to the True Believer for bondsmen. But he will return when the Mahdi—his name be revered—shall need his services. Then shall you join him with renewed health and strength. In the meantime, I, a humble servant of Allah and his Prophet, and one whose eyes have been opened to the divine mission of the Mahdi, which the Turks—may their tongues swell—are slow to receive, even I will expound to you the mysteries of the only True Faith, and from this day forth consider my house, and what poor goods I may possess, as your own."

Harry Forsyth quite followed this speech, and knew that the Sheikh Burrachee alluded to was a relative whom he had seen at some time, and was to rejoin. For anything recalled to him by words he remembered at the time, though it passed from his brain the moment afterwards, neither pleasing him nor distressing him. His mind was like a lake, and ideas suggested in any way resembled clouds passing rapidly above it, reflected for a minute on the surface, and then gone. It was rather a curious thing that what Arabic he had picked up had not passed from him; on the contrary, it sounded more familiar to him than it had done before. Probably that was because of his surroundings at the time of recovering consciousness, and of Arabic being the first sound which fell on his ears.

He replied coherently enough to his fakir host, though his voice was very feeble. He thanked him for his present hospitality, and for the care he had taken of him during his illness, and he expressed the pleasure it would give him to see the Sheikh Burrachee when he came back from the Equator.

And then Fatima brought him food, which he turned to like a baby to its bottle.

From that day Abdul Achmet paid him constant and long visits, reading long passages from the Koran, and expounding to him that, as Mahomet had been sent to convert idolaters, and had accomplished his task, so now the Mahdi had been appointed to teach the truth to Europeans and other civilised races. The means to be employed were the same in both cases, and were simple, consisting merely of the extermination of all who would not be convinced.

"The great and indeed only object is the overthrow of infidelity," he explained; "and if all infidels are killed there will no longer be such a thing."

"QED," replied Harry Forsyth, in a tone of assent which pleased the fakir mightily.

"QED" was not intelligible to him, but it sounded very well indeed, he thought.

Sometimes Harry listened to these long tirades, and sometimes he did not, the latter reception of them being very much more frequent than the former. But he looked politely attentive, and that was sufficient. He was the best listener when Abdul Achmet entered into personal details concerning his heroes, in which he occasionally indulged; as when he told how the Mahdi was brought up as a carpenter at Dongola; how he first came to know of his mission; of the holy men who had taken up his cause; and of his residence and education amongst them. And then he described his miraculous success, and what a boon even in the present life the spread of his authority would be. In proof of which he recounted the extortions and cruelties of the Turks, and how the taxation of the Soudanese was so excessive as to ruin the country itself, while the bribes exacted by the officials who were appointed to rule the country made it impossible to obtain justice. He also waxed very indignant over the unnatural folly and wickedness of those Powers who sought to interfere with the slave trade, which he looked upon as a perquisite provided by Providence for the Arab race. Indeed the fakir showed himself to be a man of some thought and shrewdness, and some people to hear him speak might have fancied that secular interests, such as improving their condition in life by throwing off a burdensome yoke, and maintaining the considerable profits which they derived from imposing such yokes on other people, who happened to be black and to have thick lips, and woolly hair, had something to do with the aptitude shown by the Soudanese to accept the new religion. But Abdul Achmet was an honest fanatic, and neither intended to insinuate this nor thought it.

On the whole, Harry much preferred to hear his black nurse Fatima talk. She told him about her childhood, when she remembered playing about among trees and in long grass with other little darkies; and their fright when they heard the lions roar; and how once, when she had wandered away alone, she saw two fiery eyes glaring at her from a bush, and ran home, expecting to be pounced upon and eaten all the way. And she described her parents' hut, with a low entrance, into which the family had to crawl on their hands and knees. Then, while she was still quite little, her tribe declared war against another tribe, and all the young men went out to battle, and were defeated, and fled back to their village to make a last stand in defence of their wives and children. And she described a night attack, and the horrors of a massacre, the burning of the huts, and the carrying off of the younger women, the youths, and children; how they were sold to Arab merchants, and underwent a fearful desert march; and how she cried for her mother at first, but was bought by a man who treated her kindly, and was happy, and forgot her native language and habits. All this she told in a simple, artless way, and when she found that it amused her invalid she repeated it again and again. But his interest did not flag for the repetition. He was like a little child who has a favourite story, and cries, "Again!" when told it, preferring it to risking a new one, which might not prove so good.

And time flew by, and Harry Forsyth remained in this state of semi- imbecility, free from anxiety about his mother and sister at home, forgetful of all but his animal comforts and the superficial interest he felt in such prattle as this. His bodily health improved before his mental activity; perhaps it was owing to the freedom from worry consequent upon this lethargic state of mind that he was able to pick up some strength.

But he became able to move about and help himself, and wander out to the fig-tree over the well, which the delighted Fatima thought extremely clever of him.

One day, as he sat in his favourite spot, thinking of nothing in particular, a body of horsemen rode up to the oasis, and the leader of it dismounting came up to him, and held out his hand English fashion, though he spoke in Arabic.

"Harry," he said, using the English accent for the name, however, "you remember me?"

Harry looked at him in a troubled way, and pressed his hand on his forehead.

"I told you that you would come to me, for the inward voice, which never errs, declared it to me," he went on. "Struggle as you might, you could not avert your destiny. Our family is called to do a great work. I have commenced it, and it will be yours to complete it. I am growing old, but I can still strike a blow for the cause. May Allah grant me to die when my right arm is powerless: to die on the field of battle, in the moment of victory, with my face to the foe! Yes, you are clearly destined to lead the hosts of Islam. Have you not come out to me alone, leaving home and friends? Have you not traversed the desert without guide, still alone; and though struck down by an unknown hand, have we not met? Have you not miraculously learned the language of the country to which destiny called you? Were you not brought when found, to all appearance dead, to the fakir, Abdul Achmet, the one man of all others I would have directed you to? And the blind fools of Europe would call this chance, as they do everything which they cannot attribute to their own forethought or cunning."

"Yes, I know you," said Harry, at length; "you are my uncle Ralph, the Sheikh Burrachee. But I think I have been ill, and everything is like a dream to me. Were there not a signet-ring, and a paper in a silver case, and jewels of value which you gave me?"

At that instant Abdul Achmet came out of the mosque, and the Sheikh Burrachee advanced to meet him, leaving Harry more bewildered and disturbed in mind than he had been since he was brought to the oasis; and that night he had a relapse of fever. It did not prove serious, however, and when it passed away his mind was clearer than before, though he still seemed like one in a dream, and the past events of his life appeared to him as having happened to some one else.

On the morning after his arrival the Sheikh Burrachee left, but some weeks afterwards he returned with an escort and an easy-paced hygeen to take Harry away with him. He took the announcement of the journey with the placid indifference which now characterised him, only at the moment of starting he showed reluctance to part from his black nurse, Fatima. But whether the sheikh bought her, or only borrowed her, it was arranged that she should go too, and Harry was perfectly reconciled. The hygeen's motions were wonderfully smooth for a camel, and the journey was made easy to him; but still it was trying in his weak state and after so long a confinement.

But it did not last long, and then they reached a town of flat-roofed houses, and entered a spacious courtyard with a portico round it, through which were the living-rooms. There were soldiers here and there under this portico, some of them wearing the turban, but the majority having a skull-cap of blue and white on their heads, and a sentry over the gate had one of them too. Those who wore the bernouse, and most of them did, had similar blue and white patches sewn on different parts of it. These were the Mahdi's colours; I don't know why, for he was never a Third Trinity man, and had no right to their blazer. Like his impudence! It is true that the colours were generally in dice, not regularly striped. Some of the soldiers did not show the colours, but that was because they had nothing to put them on unless they painted their bodies. Passing through a large room with a divan round it, and pushing aside a curtain at the farther end, you came upon another and smaller court, which was a garden with a fountain in the middle, well filled with date and other palms. There was a portico round this too, and this was destined to be the place where Harry Forsyth was to pass the greater part of his life for some time, for it was the dwelling or private part of his uncle's establishment.

Crazy renegade as he was, the Sheikh Burrachee had some old ideas of comfort which the wild life he had led had not dissipated, and being a rich man for the country where he was and the people he had adopted, he could indulge any little fancies he had; and he had made his house both handsome and comfortable.

According to the simple ideas of the natives, indeed, he was possessed of enormous wealth, and this reputation went some way towards the superstitious regard in which he was held. This was the place which Harry now entered, and reposing on a divan, low, with soft cushions on it, and close to the portico, he looked upon the green leaves and listened to the trickle of the fountain, while Fatima brought him a glass of delicious lemonade, squeezed from the fresh-plucked fruit; and the fatigues of the journey were forgotten, and he fell into a long and refreshing sleep. His curiosity, however, had not been one whit aroused; he took everything as a matter of course. Perhaps he was a character in the "Arabian Nights," and not Harry Forsyth at all—who could tell?—all seemed so strange and unreal.



CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

AN UNEXPECTED MEETING.

Gradually Harry Forsyth came back to real life, as it were. First of all he had an uneasy feeling that something was wrong, but he wanted a word or an event to strike the key-note of his memory. His uncle never spoke of home matters; he was kind, and even affectionate, but was much away. He would come out into the large courtyard in the early morning, mount the horse which was held ready for him with an activity worthy of a much younger man, and scour off at a gallop with a troop of his wild retainers racing behind him. He might come back that evening, or not for a week.

And when he was at home he was very busy, seeing different people, who came and went in a great hurry, and writing despatches, which mounted orderlies, or what answered for such, were always in waiting to carry. And when they were together he talked of the wild life of the desert; of the sport to be had further up in the Black Country, but never of England.

He spoke Arabic always, even when they were alone, and never lapsed into his native tongue. Yet his face and the tone of his voice disturbed Harry, causing him to make an effort to get his mind clear.

At length, one morning he awoke with a distinct remembrance of his mother and sister, and the knowledge that he was far away from them in a foreign land, and had not had any communication with them for a long time. And he felt a strong desire to relieve their anxiety, and let them know he was alive, and also to have news of them. But he could not remember what he had come to this part of the world for.

He knew that he had wanted to trace his uncle; but why? He had come out to Egypt in the service of a firm of merchants, and the name of the head of it was Williams; he was confident so far. But had he not returned home since then? And why had he sought out his uncle? Surely not on business connected with the firm, and certainly not because he had turned Mohammedan and wanted to live like an ostrich.

A little longer, and his connection with Hicks Pasha's force, and the disastrous termination of that expedition, came clearly back to him; and with it the necessity of keeping silent about the matter, for he now wanted to get away to a civilised place like Cairo, at all events, if not to England. For though he did not know that the British Government had taken up the Egyptian quarrel, and that war had actually been waged between them and the Soudanese in the neighbourhood of the Red Sea, he knew that an officer of the late expedition would be looked upon with suspicion, if not treated as an open enemy.

Neither was he sure how his uncle would bear the disappointment if he found out that he had been in the ranks of his enemies—the Egyptians. Though he need not have worried himself about that, for the Sheikh Burrachee would only have thought it the method which Destiny had taken to bring him to him.

As Forsyth's mind grew sounder his body kept pace with it, and he was able at last to mount a horse and take short rides; and it amused him to saunter about the bazaar occasionally, though it was not a very extensive or grand one; indeed, the poet who wrote "Man wants but little here below," would have been pleased to see how completely an Arab, as a rule, verifies his theory.

One day he, (Harry, not the poet) was puzzled by some round balls of a frothy appearance, which he could not make out; could it possibly be soap? What sale could there be for such an article? The shopman might just as well have offered straps and stay-laces to the population around him. But it did not smell like soap, either; indeed, the odour was extremely unpleasant.

"That is not an object worthy of your attention," said the owner of the shop, who sat on a cushion in the midst of his goods. "I have a preparation for the hair which is infallible for restoring it if it falls off from age or sickness, for example, and which is as agreeable to the nose as beneficial to the scalp. Those balls of mutton fat are only fit for the poor who can afford no better."

"Oh, it is for the hair, then," observed Harry; "and what makes it look all frothy like that?"

"It is prepared by chewing, and women are employed for the purpose; they cheat me sometimes, and swallow a portion. But deign to come up, oh illustrious one, and partake of a cup of coffee or a glass of sherbet and a chibouque, and allow me the unparalleled and illustrious honour of showing you my poor goods."

Harry consented, not that he wanted to purchase anything, but because something about the man's face struck him as familiar, and he was anxious to remember where and under what circumstances he had seen him before.

"I have here a French pistol, a revolver with six chambers, which I can offer your Excellency almost for nothing, with ammunition to match. It is a weapon which will save your life a hundred times by its accuracy and the rapidity of its fire; and what says the wise man? 'Life is sweet, even to the bravest.'" And all the time he was talking, Harry Forsyth kept thinking, "Where have I seen him? What circumstance does his face recall?"

As he left the shop his eye fell on a bale of goods yet unopened, and on it he read the name *Daireh*!

It acted like a match on a gas-jet. He had come out to seek the will, and Daireh was the man who had abstracted it!

And as he walked home, he remembered everything which had been a puzzle to him. Being still weak, he now grew as much excited as before he had been apathetic, and had his uncle been at home he would have gone to him with the whole story at once. But the sheikh was away, superintending the drill of certain European ruffians in the Mahdi's service who were to man some Krupp guns taken from the Egyptians, and Harry had a forced respite in which to collect his ideas and frame them in the manner best calculated to gain his uncle's attention and assistance.

And now his anxiety about those at home who had no doubt long mourned him as dead grew more poignant, and remembering his uncle's affection for his sister, he regretted not having confided in him and begged him to get a letter conveyed to some point sufficiently civilised to have a post. He tried to find out from Fatima how long he had been laid up at the fakir's residence, and at first she was puzzled. But at last she gave him a clue.

"The Nile had risen and gone back," she said, "when you were brought to us as dead. It rose again, and fell again, and now it will soon rise once more."

Two years! Was it possible? Nearly two years! And he wondered whether his people had gone into mourning for him, or if they still hoped on. He next made inquiries about Daireh, setting Fatima to gossip for him and tell him the result. He seemed to bear a shockingly bad character, and to be very unpopular. The fact was that he was a money-lender, and his extortions caused him to be hated.

Harry was glad of this, since it promised to make his task easier.

The Sheikh Burrachee returned, and was rejoiced to find his nephew so much improved in health.

Harry took the first opportunity of opening his budget.

"Do you mind my speaking to you in English?" he said. "I have got to say things which I should find it difficult to explain in a foreign language, which I have very imperfectly picked up, and which may not have idioms answering to the English."

"I do not love the English tongue," said the sheikh, using it, however. "But what things do you allude to?"

"Family matters, affecting my mother and all of us—you, perhaps."

"When I last went to England," said the sheikh, "I took a final farewell of all relatives, and of everything belonging to the country from which I shook off the dust on my feet, you only excepted, for I saw that you, too, were called out of the seething hotbed of corruption, which is called civilisation, to the natural life of man. Why disturb the ashes of the buried past?"

"I love my mother," replied Harry; "and you, her brother, once loved her too."

His uncle bowed his head. "True," he said; "speak on."

"And besides," added Harry, "justice is justice all the world over, and crime should not prosper. Richard Burke, your brother, died at his home in Ireland. He had made two wills, one leaving the bulk of his fortune to his step-son, Stephen Philipson, and another, and later one, made on the occasion of Philipson turning out badly, leaving him a modest allowance, and bequeathing the bulk of his fortune between his sister and Reginald Kavanagh. This will, which would make my mother and Beatrice comfortable, as they have been brought up to esteem comfort, was not to be found; neither was the other. A dishonest clerk, forced to fly the country because a forgery he had committed must soon be discovered, stole them both out of the lawyer's office where he was employed, for the purpose of levying a sum for giving them to one or the other of the parties interested. But the police were too close on his traces, and he had to fly without a chance of making use of either document. He was an Egyptian, and went home; but not feeling safe at Alexandria or Cairo, and having connections in the Soudan, he came to this country. If both wills are destroyed, part of the property comes to you."

"And the cause has need of funds!" exclaimed the sheikh. "But how shall we find this dog?"

"I saw him the other day in the bazaar; his name is Daireh."

"Daireh, the money-lender, against whom I have had so many complaints, but who always manages to have the law on his side?"

"The very same."

The Sheikh Burrachee clapped his hands; an attendant came. "Bring hither Daireh, the Egyptian usurer," said the sheikh; "and keep him guarded in the outer court."

The Arab inclined his head and departed without a word.

It may seem to you that Harry Forsyth had recovered his wits very rapidly, and this, indeed, was the case. Up to a certain point his progress had been very slow, but that once passed he had come to himself almost at a bound. But as for his clear statement to his uncle, that he had prepared beforehand with great care, writing it out and learning it by heart, feeling that it was necessary to be as concise as possible.

A thoughtful expression came over the Sheikh Burrachee's face, quite different from the wild faraway look which now ordinarily characterised it.

"And so Richard is dead," he murmured to himself; "and Mary has known poverty in a land where there is no kindness for the poor; where all is hard and cold, and people can no longer love or even hate. And this fellow has robbed her. By my beard he shall smart for it!"

When the sheikh swore by his beard the matter was serious, and if Daireh had heard him he would not have walked along between the guards who arrested him with so impudent an air. He had so often been had up, and had got the best of his accusers, that he felt quite safe. For he knew well the customs which had the force of laws in the country, and took care not to violate them, though straining every point to his advantage. And the Sheikh Burrachee was just, and however much he might sympathise with the complainant, would not allow his judgment to be affected by his feelings.

It was indeed a rough-and-ready justice, not always consistent, and such as would not meet entire approval from any civilised persons; he went on the principle that when he could not do what he would, he did what he could, to set things straight according to his judgment and the evidence before him, adopting the habits of the people with whom he had identified himself, who had not the horror of physical pain—for others—or the employment of it to elicit truth, which we have.

He rose from the divan by the garden where he had been sitting with Harry, and, beckoning to the latter to follow him, proceeded to the outer and larger hall, where he took his seat, with his nephew at his side. And hardly had he done so when Daireh was brought in. He salaamed with a confident air, which expressed, "Who will find me tripping? It would take a clever fellow to do that. They are willing enough to agree to my terms when they want to borrow, but when I claim my own, there is all this bother and outcry, and I am dragged before the sheikh forsooth!"

But he looked more serious when the Sheikh Burrachee said to him—

"Daireh, where are the two wills you stole from Burrows and Fagan, the Dublin lawyers, when you ran away from their employ?"

Surely such an incongruous question was never put in an Arab town in the heart of Africa by a sheikh dressed in bernouse and turban, with a jewel-hilted yataghan at his side, sitting cross-legged on a cushion. No wonder Daireh was flabbergasted; such a thunderbolt out of a clear sky has seldom fallen upon any man.

"Your Mightiness is mistaken," he stammered. "I have lived, earning an honest livelihood as a poor merchant, at Khartoum and Berber, Alexandria and Cairo. But what is Dublin? I know it not."

"Is that your photograph?" asked Harry Forsyth, suddenly, in English.

"No!" replied Daireh, startled into answering in the same language; and the moment he did so he could have bitten his tongue out for vexation.

The sheikh took the likeness in his hand; it was unmistakable.

"Here is your portrait, and it was taken in Dublin, for it bears that name upon it. Also you know English," he said.

"I learned that language at Alexandria," replied Daireh, more firmly now he had collected his wits; "and I had a brother very like me who went beyond the seas, and may have lived in the place you speak of, for I never heard of him again."

"You speak the words of Sheytan, the father of lies," said the sheikh sternly; "where are the stolen documents?"

"I never heard of them, your Justice; and I know not what you mean," replied Daireh, striving, but with indifferent success, not to tremble.

"Hassan!" called the sheikh, and a tall, stalwart black stepped forward, with a courbash in his hand. "Twenty lashes to refresh his memory."

"Mercy, great sheikh; oh, favourite of Allah, have mercy, and listen to me!" cried the wretch; but without heeding his cries four men seized him and flung him on the ground face downwards. Two held his legs, one his arms, and a third put a knee on his back between the shoulder-blades to keep him in position. It was all done in a twinkling.

Then Hassan stepped up, courbash in hand, and measured his distance. The courbash is a fearful whip made of hippopotamus' hide, a stroke from which is felt by a bullock as painfully as a cut from an ordinary whip is by a horse.

It whistled through the air, and came down upon the naked flesh of the victim, who screamed with the pain as if he would break a blood-vessel. The wild men in the hall gathered round, their eyes sparkling and their teeth gleaming with enjoyment and laughter. It was good fun to them to see any one flogged, but a money-lender and extortioner, that the punishment should fall upon such an one, was indeed a treat! And Daireh too was particularly disliked. Then the currish way in which he took his licking added to the sport. The little civilisation they had was very superficial, and did not go nearly deep enough to repress the instinct of cruelty.

Another and another lash, and the fellow's howls, yells, and cries for pity were hardly human, but seemed rather those of some powerful spirit in pain. Harry felt quite faint and sick, and looked down so as not to see what was going on. But he could not close his ears, unfortunately, and he counted the strokes, longing for them to be over. He feared being mastered by his feelings, and pleading for the wretch, so displaying a compassion which would be considered by the Arabs as a most despicable weakness, and it was part of his plan now to gain their respect, and appear to enter into his uncle's plans.

No, it served the rascal right; let him have that, and more too. Only he had rather not be present. Eighteen, nineteen, twenty. The screams subsided into a whimpering and wailing, and when Harry looked up he saw Daireh on his feet again, his eyes bloodshot, and his features convulsed with pain and terror.

"Where are the wills you stole?" asked the Sheikh Burrachee, unconcernedly, as if nothing had occurred since he last put the question.

"They are at my house, your Mightiness; send some one with me, and I will give them up."

"I rejoice that your memory has returned; it is one of the choicest gifts of Allah," said the sheikh. "Go with him and get the papers, and bring them back with the prisoner."

"A bad speculation from the first!" reflected Daireh, as he was escorted through the streets, his woe-begone appearance and gingerly gait exciting much mirth and mockery amongst the juvenile population. "I wish I had left the accursed wills alone. And what son of Sheytan is this who has traced them, and had my likeness in his pocket? A detective? No; no English policeman would win upon this mad fool of a sheikh—may the vultures tear his heart out while he is still alive—to treat him like a son. He must be one of the parties interested in the last will. What wretched luck that I did not meet him in a fair way, and make a proper agreement with him! But it is too late for that now. If I could only be revenged upon him, upon all of them—sheikh, torturer, mocking demons, and all! Ugh, how sore I am! If it were but all over! But I fear they may torment me further. I had almost sooner they took my head off at once rather than put me to more of that agony. But no; I hope they won't do that either. There is a remedy for every evil but death." With these reflections, fears, and impotent rages tormenting him, Daireh reached his house, and from a box, which contained what he had of most value, produced the required documents which had cost Harry Forsyth so much anxiety, toil, and suffering to come at. He was strongly tempted to destroy them, and so glean some little vengeance; but the certainty of perishing in fearful pain if he did so deterred him, and when he was brought back, he delivered them to the sheikh, wrapped in the oilskin in which he had carried them about him until he had a fixed residence where he could deposit them in tolerable security.

"Are these the right wills?" asked the Sheikh Burrachee, handing them to Harry.

"I think so," replied the latter, as he looked them over and examined the signatures; "indeed, I feel certain that they are."

"Then," said the sheikh, "since after all it was but infidels, and not true believers, that this rascal robbed, the justice of the case will perhaps be met by fifty lashes of the courbash, those he has already received being allowed to count. Dog!" he added, indignantly, as Daireh, flinging himself on the ground, wallowed, gasping and crying for mercy, "tempt me not, if you are wise, to treat you according to your deserts, but know that you are treated with extreme leniency."

And so saying he rose and withdrew to the inner garden court, whither his nephew gladly followed him, and here they refreshed themselves with pipes and coffee.

But the screams of the miserable felon told with what energy Hassan was performing his duty, and Harry thought the punishment would never be over. If it seemed long to him, you may be certain Daireh thought it an age, and indeed he believed that mortal endurance had reached the acme of suffering, and that one more stroke must drive the soul from the body, some time before the last had cut into his palpitating flesh.

But it takes a good deal to kill, and when all was over he was alive, though unable to stand, and when spurned from the courtyard into the street, managed to crawl and drag himself home, where he obtained the draught of water, the want of which had been his chief torment since the stripes ended.

"And now we have recovered the will, uncle, how are we to send it to my mother?" asked Harry when the distracting cries extracted by the courbash had ceased. "The old one I will destroy, as should have been done before. The money will add to her comfort, but news that I am alive and with you will make her happier still."

This last was a skilful touch, and, I fear, Harry was becoming a bit of a cheat. For, though tidings of her son's own safety would undoubtedly be the best news Mrs Forsyth could receive, the fact that he was domiciled with her crazy brother would as certainly not add to her satisfaction.

"Keep it safely for the present," said the sheikh, after smoking some time in thoughtful deliberation; "we shall find a method of transmitting it. Great events will occur soon. The authority of the Mahdi being established in the Soudan, we shall sweep Egypt like the simoom, and Cairo and Alexandria once in our hands, we shall find no difficulty in communicating with Europe. Or, perhaps, it may be done more quickly by Suakim, should the forces of the Mahdi's lieutenant, Osman Digna, recover from their check," he added, musing and thinking aloud rather than addressing his nephew.

Harry longed to ask what check, but it was part of his newly-formed system not to ask questions or show curiosity, but yield himself passively to the course of events, and watch his opportunity. For the same reason he would not propose taking the will home himself, feeling certain that so obvious a course would be suggested by his uncle himself if he could feel it was practicable. But it was evident what he was driving at now; as his nephew picked up health and strength he began asking him about his connection with the volunteers, and whether he had paid attention to the theory as well as the practice of shooting.

And though Harry pretended not to understand, and parried the questions as well as he could, he saw very well that he wanted him to take an active part in the training of Soudanese soldiers in the use of the Remington rifles which had fallen into their hands.

For never in the history of war had a nation been armed so completely by its enemies. The Egyptians sent out armies with weapons of precision and improved artillery, and they fortified towns, where they massed vast stores of ammunition, suited to both rifles and guns. The soldiers of the Mahdi rushed upon their feeble foes with sword and spear, totally annihilated army after army, and collected the rifles. Then they took the towns and possessed themselves of the cartridges. Napoleon the Great used to say that war should support war; but this was going a step further, and making war supply the means of waging war. The only drawback was this, that the more elaborate the weapons which you put into a soldier's hands, the more skill he requires to use them effectively; and this skill can only be acquired by proper training.

But the Mahdi had never taken the precaution to send any officers to Hythe, and amongst the miraculous powers which he was said by some of his followers to possess, that of creating ready-made musketry instructors was apparently not included. The consequence was that his men were extremely bad shots, and wasted their ammunition in an almost incredible manner. What mischief they were enabled to do, especially with the artillery, was principally owing to the lessons they received from European scoundrels who had been forced to fly from their own countries by their crimes, or reckless adventurers who did not care for cause, nationality, or anything else, so long as they were where fighting and a chance of plunder was going on—men who would have made most excellent mediaeval heroes, and would have had a good chance of living in song and story had they not been born a few centuries too late.

Amongst all these the Sheikh Burrachee was an exception. He was a genuine crack-brained enthusiast, sane and even shrewd enough in many things, but quite crazy upon certain points. Convinced, to begin with, that it was the duty of every Irishman to hate the English, he had imaginary private wrongs of his own to avenge. On the top of all that, he had become a thorough Mohammedan in his sympathetic feelings and habits, and quite sincere in his adoption of the cause of the Mahdi. The appearance of England in the field, which would have caused many to hesitate, was a spur to his enthusiasm, since it offered him an opportunity of having it out with the foes of his predilection.

Harry Forsyth had no idea whatever that England had engaged in hostilities in the Soudan. When he last had any information, she was firmly determined to do nothing of the kind, but to let the Egyptian Government get out of the difficulty in the best way they could. Indeed, it was the last thing he would have guessed. But still he knew well enough that English interests were firmly bound up in Egyptian, since any disturbance of the Government at Cairo might endanger the route to India, and therefore that to assist in any way the enemies of Egypt was to act indirectly against his own country; and he was determined to be of no use, even if he made believe to espouse the cause which his uncle had made his own. And this he suspected more and more he would have to do, if he was to get an opportunity of leaving the country.

His uncle had hinted at an impending advance upon Egypt; if he could join that, and once reach the Nile, surely he would find some opportunity of slipping down the river, and joining the Egyptian troops, who would receive a relic of Hicks Pasha's army with open arms. Then he would get to Cairo, and find friends to assist him to reach England with the will in his pocket.

He did not fear that the Arabs would be able to penetrate far into Egypt proper, for there were probably some English troops still at Cairo, and more would be sent there on the first intimation of danger. The will, by-the-by, had now taken the place which the parchment given to him by his uncle had formerly held, and he seldom laid it aside, not knowing what might happen from day to day.

His health, meantime, became re-established, and he grew rapidly stronger, while his mind was perfectly clear now. At times, indeed, he had violent neuralgic headaches, but these recurred less and less frequently, and he had every prospect of soon losing all ill effects of that wound in his head.

But the stronger and better he became, the more restless he grew. The only amusement he had to pass the time in was riding. He had always been very fond of horses, and now he had a good choice, and as the two he had fancied most had not been often backed, they took some riding; and that was exercise and amusement both. But the bits and the saddles were not to his fancy: the former too severe; the latter heavy, with high peaks before and behind. But one cannot have everything, and he was grateful to be able once more to sit a horse and enjoy a gallop at all. And to watch the wild cavalry at their exercises on a broad plain outside the town was a pretty sight, though it seemed to him that their performances were too much of the circus order.

"Can the English dragoons or hussars do anything like that?" the Sheikh Burrachee asked him one day, when they were together watching a body of horsemen who were supposed to be skirmishing.

They pulled up their horses to a dead halt from a gallop with their cruel bits; went, not over the head, as it seemed they must, but under the body of the animal; fired a shot from that position, and remounted anyhow—one by the neck, another over the tail; a third ran alongside his horse for some way, using him as cover, and then vaulted on his back without checking the pace.

Harry was bound to confess that, to the best of his belief, no British regiment, light or heavy, could rival such equestrian gymnastics.

"No," said the sheikh; "they learn to stick on while the horse keeps his footing, but these cannot be thrown; for should the horse fall, even, he jumps at once to the ground."

"But surely he must reach it head or shoulder first sometimes," objected Harry.

"No," replied his uncle; "he turns a somersault and alights on his feet. The European is as far behind the Asiatic in horsemanship as in everything else which is manly and not demoniac. The use of the sword, for example. The dragoon has a straight weapon, with which he is taught to cut or thrust. If he does the former, and the blow is not parried, he may knock his opponent down, but he seldom inflicts a dangerous wound. If he gives point, he may kill his man indeed, but his weapon will often become so entangled that he is for some time unable to free it, and he remains defenceless against another attack. But with his curved blade of temper, which will not shiver and which takes a razor's edge, the warrior of the East neither strikes nor gives point, but presents the half-moon-shaped sword at his opponent, holding it still if galloping, pushing it forward if motionless, and will so slice off limb or head, or cut deep into the body, without useless expenditure of strength, or the chance of losing even the momentary control of his weapon. I have seen an Arab meet an enemy in full career, and slice his head clean off in this way, with hardly a perceptible movement of the arm."

Having no knowledge on this subject, Harry assented without any mental reserve; but concerning the military utility of acrobatic equestrian performances, or of their being available at all in the hunting field, he entertained the very gravest doubt. But they were good fun to watch, for all that, and one, that of vaulting into the saddle while the horse was in motion, he practised, and to a certain extent caught the knack. He also went in for throwing the spear, which the natives could do for ten yards or so with great force and accuracy; and though he did not make very good practice, it proved an excellent exercise for his muscles after his long confinement.

The Sheikh Burrachee was delighted to see how his nephew took to these martial exercises, and at last he put the question to him point-blank, whether he would not assist in teaching some of the men the use of the Remington rifles they had captured.

Harry, having thought over the best course to pursue in such a contingency, consented with apparent alacrity, but said that he hoped his shortcomings would be excused. His uncle, not knowing how much that hope covered, replied that he must not take the Kor Dofan for Wimbledon, and the most elementary instruction would be esteemed extremely scientific.

So the very next day Harry found himself with a squad of five hundred men to instruct.

"Delightful task, to rear the tender root—to teach five hundred Arabs how to shoot!" he said to himself, when the lot were handed over to him. There was one consolation: do what he would, his instructions to so large a number, without assistance, could not avail much: but he wanted to do nothing at all.

His uncle was not present; he had no one to check him, able to judge whether his instruction was good or bad. So he stuck some stones up for butts, at about twelve hundred yards, and set them all firing at them. He judged that by this he would in the first place accustom them to firing at a comparatively innocuous distance; and in the second, that they would waste a good deal of ammunition.

"His honour rooted in dishonour stood; And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true,"

in the words of Tennyson's famous conundrum.



CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

TRINKITAT.

The Alligator troopship came tearing along the Red Sea, sending the spray flying from her bows, and churning up the historical water with her screw, just as if it were ordinary commonplace sea-water, without any sacred, classical, or poetical associations! The men gathered on the forecastle and the officers on the poop were alike gazing hard at a town of brilliant whiteness, which became more distinct every minute.

"And that is Suakim," said one of the group of officers. "It looks very clean at a distance. What is it made of, doctor?"

Doctor MacBean was a middle-aged man who liked the society of young ones because he had one little weakness: he was very fond of holding forth, and young men were more inclined to listen patiently to him than older ones. He was a naturalist, a sportsman, and had been a great traveller. There are men who go through Greece, as they would through Surrey, gleaning nothing; but the doctor was not one of them. If he were only a day in a place he learned all about it, and what he learned he remembered. So that to be in his company was to have an encyclopaedia conveniently at hand, from which you could learn what you wanted to know without the trouble of turning over the leaves. For the rest, such a boy past forty there never was—ready for anything for sport or fun, even to a spice of practical joking; and with all this a grave Scottish face which imposed upon those who had not found him out. But in matters of information he was trustworthy, his passion for fact overcoming his love of mystification.

"Suakim is built of madrepore," he replied to the above question; "very curious. Houses and mosques all of the same materials as these reefs we are now coming to."

"Madrepore—why, that is a sort of coral—isn't it?"

"Yes, it is coral."

"That's queer though. My shirt-studs are made of coral; fancy a town built of shirt-studs!"

"Shirt-studs are quite a secondary use of the article; the principal being to help babies cut their teeth. Have you got your coral still, Green?"

Green was a very young subaltern, who had not been to a public school, and was somewhat easily imposed upon.

"No," he said; "at least not here. It is somewhere at home, I believe."

"That is right; you will want it when you come to cut your wisdom teeth. You know, I suppose, that you cannot get your company until you have done that?"

"I knew I had to pass an examination," said Green, not convinced that this information was quite bona fide.

"Of course, but this is in addition to that. When a vacancy occurs, you send in your certificate of having passed in tactics, and then you are ordered to go to the Veterinary College, and there they look in your mouth."

"But I am not a horse!" exclaimed Green.

"No, but the rule applies to other animals," said his tormentor, gravely.

"I know you are chaffing me," said Green, and indeed the roars of laughter were alone sufficient to show him that.

"But all the same, it is curious that a town should be built of child's corals."

"That is why it has been selected as a good station for infantry," said a young fellow amidst a chorus of groans.

"I tell you what it is, Tom," said one of the captains; "I will not have you in my company if you do that again. The man who would make a bad pun and a hackneyed pun in such beautiful scenery as this, would—I don't know what enormity he would not commit. Come late on parade, very likely."

"Oh, no!" said Tom Strachan, for the lieutenant was no other then our old friend, "I hope I know better than to infringe on the privileges of my superior officers."

A general grin showed that Strachan had scored there; for Fitzgerald, his captain, was noted for slipping into his place just in time to avoid reprimand, and no sooner. But he could not make any reply without fitting the cap; so he grinned too.