Part 22 (1/2)
”That is good news,” said I, ”for, as you are aware, I cannot ride long distances for many days together.”
”If I were to tell you,” laughed Sedjur, ”that we were to ride day and night all the way to Damascus, you would not complain. You forget that you have lived in our tents, and that my father and I know you perhaps better than you know yourself.”
It was pleasant to think that my friends had such a high opinion of me, though I hoped that they would not try me too severely. I did not mind a long day in the saddle, if it were all straightforward going, but our ride of this day and of the two following days was a perpetual anxiety.
There were only four of us, and we had to be continuously on the look-out for prowling bands of hostile tribes. Fighting was out of the question; all that we could do was to avoid everyone whom we saw, and to trust to the speed of our horses, if pursued. But we were particularly fortunate, for only once were we really troubled, and then, though followed for some distance, we showed our pursuers that their horses were no match for ours. Still, always having to be on the _qui vive_, like driving a shying horse, is most tiring work; and I was glad enough when, soon after daylight on the fourth day, Sedjur suddenly shouted to me, ”Behold our tents!”
CHAPTER XXII.
BROTHERS AND CONSPIRATORS.
Great was the excitement in the encampment when we were seen to be approaching; some sixty or seventy hors.e.m.e.n, headed by Faris, galloped out to meet us, and wheeling round in front of us, performed a _fantasia_ for my benefit all the way into camp. Then everyone turned out to greet me, and my reception was royal, Faris leading me by the hand to his tent, and paying me the greatest honour. I could see at once that his pleasure at my arrival was genuine; for, as he said, he and I had been in peril together, and had seen stranger things than had any two men of his acquaintance, and though we had met for a few hours outside Hillah, he never had had the opportunity of welcoming me to his tents, since the time of our adventures at the ruins of Katib. He would have it that I had saved his life and that of Sedjur on two occasions, first when I and Edwards gave ourselves up to the Governor of Adiba, and allowed him and his son to escape; and secondly, when at the Birs Nimroud, I had warned him of the Shammar lying in ambush. In vain I tried to persuade him that I had done nothing out of the common; in his eyes I was a hero; and, I think, still a little bit of a magician, though he did not rally me on this point.
”Well, now, Sheik of Sheiks,” I said, after we had settled down to our pipes in private, ”what news of the serpent belt?”
”Much,” he answered, ”and strange.”
”Have you, then, secured it?” I asked.
”Nay!” he replied, ”not yet. But it is yours to take when you will.”
”How so?” said I.
”It is a long story,” said the sheik, ”but I will make it as short as possible. After leaving you that night at Hillah, we returned to our men, and immediately we scoured the whole country, in order to find those two Jews who had carried away the belt, as the sick Ingleezee at the Birs Nimroud had told us. We tracked them to Kerbela, and I sent a message to them with a request that they would meet me at a certain time outside the town, near the bridge, promising them gold for their trouble, well knowing that without some reward they would never come.
They kept their appointment--the two of them--thinking that I had intended to compensate them for having destroyed their dwelling at the Birs Nimroud, of which event they had somehow heard. I paid them a little money, and promised them more if they would permit me to see the golden belt which the sick Ingleezee had bidden them carry away. They vouchsafed that they knew nothing of such a thing; but, unwittingly, one of them inquired how much I would give. I replied that if they would sell me the belt I would pay them 2000 kerans. Then the two men incontinently wept and tore their beards, saying that they would willingly have accepted the price I offered, had it not been that they had been robbed of it by a party of Shammar soon after they had left the Birs Nimroud. They told me, when I had paid them a few more kerans, who the Shammar were. It was the same band whose members had stolen the belt from Raspul on that memorable night, and with whom you are well acquainted. So those men are in possession of the twice-stolen treasure, and we know where they have their tents, not five days' journey from this.”
”Then,” said I, overjoyed at the news, ”the Golden Girdle is indeed mine. If you will show me the way to the Shammar camp, I shall purchase the belt from them for the value which I know they attach to it. They themselves told me that their reward was to be 5000 kerans.”
”Why waste this money,” said Faris, ”when the golden serpents can be had for nothing. Sedjur and I have laid our plans, and, ere half a moon, we shall hand you that which you desire. Then shall the name of Faris-ibn-Feyzul be made known to those who keep the big house wherein lies Shahzadi's shoe. It is a small undertaking to surround and surprise these few Shammar, and, _inshallah_--if G.o.d wills, it shall be accomplished.”
”To obtain it thus, by stratagem and bloodshed,” I replied, ”would be for me to invoke the curses of all the evil spirits which haunt the world. Know you not, sheik, that these very Shammar extended to me full hospitality? How, then, is it possible for me to agree to your proposals?”
”I had forgotten,” said the sheik. ”Those are difficulties. Can you yourself think of any plan by which they may be removed?”
”I shall require time to consider,” I replied. ”Allow me until to-night.”
”So be it,” said Faris, ”and to-night I shall entertain you at a feast.
It is a great occasion.”
Glad of quiet and repose, I lay on the rugs in my tent all the afternoon, and gave myself up to deep thought. That I was bitterly disappointed I need not say. I had fully made up my mind that Faris actually had the Girdle ready to hand over to me. I now learned that it was some two hundred miles away. Truly had Edwards described it as a will-o'-the-wisp. Was I to start again on another interminable ride? It seemed to be my only chance; and yet, when I reached the Shammar tents, I might find that my Golden Girdle had again taken wings. I began to hate the thing; but I had gone through so much in my attempts to obtain it, that I was more than ever determined that it should be mine. So I thought on, and frequently wished that Edwards had been with me, so that I might have had the value of his advice, although I felt that he would have counselled a masterly inactivity, in other words, a retreat to Baghdad. At any rate, I should now have the satisfaction of playing the game off my own bat.
At sundown came the supper party, and it certainly was a great affair, all the princ.i.p.al men of the tribe being invited, and the dishes being of the best. But I was quite unprepared for the honour that awaited me at the conclusion of the feast. Faris rose and made a speech, in which he told his guests that the time had come for him to prove to me, his princ.i.p.al guest, in how high esteem he held me. He then spoke at some length of the courage displayed by me on several occasions when in his company, though I noticed that he was careful not to go into details concerning our doings at Katib. He regretted that his friend the Hakim, an equally brave man, was not also present; but he hoped some day to welcome him to the desert. It was now, he went on, his earnest desire that I, the bravest of the brave, should hold out to him, Faris-ibn-Feyzul, a Sheik of the Jelas Aeniza, the hand of eternal friends.h.i.+p. Throughout his long speech I had been hot and uncomfortable; all eyes were riveted on me, and I felt that each pair of eyes could read, in my crimson face, that I was a rank impostor. Yet they greeted their chiefs appeal for eternal friends.h.i.+p with shouts of acclamation, and not knowing exactly what was required of me, I stood up and spoke.
Thanking the sheik for the kind words which he had used regarding me, but at the same time proclaiming that he had greatly exaggerated my courage, I declared my willingness, and indeed my desire, that we should ever be friends.
”Brothers!” exclaimed Faris.
”Brothers!” shouted everyone in chorus.
Then I knew what was intended. I and Faris were to swear blood-brotherhood, the highest honour that one man can show to another, and by which we should bind ourselves, so long as we lived, to remain true to each other, to fight for each other if necessary, and never to quarrel. There and then, on the spur of the moment, the ceremony was performed, Sedjur, on my other side, prompting me how to act. All stood up in silence, and to the onlookers the scene must have appeared a solemn and impressive one; for my part, I was so nervous that I scarcely knew what I was doing, though Sedjur instructed me that whatever his father did or said, I was to repeat. Facing one another, the sheik grasped my girdle with his left hand, and I grasped his with mine. Then, with our right hands raised to heaven, we pledged ourselves, I repeating the words which Faris spoke, one by one, and each one many times. We called on G.o.d to bear witness; we swore by G.o.d, and through G.o.d, and we declared ourselves to be brothers to-day, to-morrow, and hereafter. It was no light undertaking, and those present regarded the ceremony with much seriousness, remaining silent for some time after it had been concluded.