Part 48 (2/2)

They obliterated the desert, with its immortal voices, its pa.s.sionate appeals. He was no longer wandering lonely as a cloud. He was happy, he was one with the dancing daffodils, as he watched them

”Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.”

To how many weary minds has the poem brought the same solace, the same spiritual refreshment?

”Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.”

His fingers relaxed their hold on the book. It dropped from his hand.

Margaret stood among the daffodils, Margaret, with her steadfast eyes and dark-brown head, Margaret calling to him in the breeze.

At dawn, when Abdul came to wake his master, he found the candle still burning. It was a little bit of wick floating in melted grease, like a light in a saint's tomb. The book which the Effendi had been reading had fallen to the floor.

Abdul looked at his master anxiously. He must have been reading very late. Why had he not been asleep? He ought to have refreshed himself for his long journey. For many days past he had looked tired and anxious.

Abdul folded his hands while he looked at the sleeping Michael.

”_Al hamdu lillah_ (thank G.o.d),” he said. ”The Effendi has been in pleasant company.”

CHAPTER VIII

The camp had moved on. Two days had pa.s.sed since the saint had been laid to rest. They were now making for a rock-village, which would take them slightly out of their direct route, but from Abdul's account of the place Michael thought that the delay would be well worth while.

A short extension of their journey could make but little difference to the finding of the treasure.

The village was a subterranean one; its streets and dwelling-houses were cut out of the desert-rock. It had been inhabited by desert people since immemorial times. Obviously its origin had been for secrecy and security. Fugitives had probably made it and lived in it just as the early Christians, during their period of persecution, lived in the catacombs in Rome.

Michael had been far from well for some days past. Abdul was anxious about his health. There had been no fresh cases of smallpox in the camp and Michael's present condition indicated a touch of fever rather than any contagious malady. He often felt sick; he was easily tired and his excellent powers of sleeping had deserted him.

He was troubled about Margaret. He had neither heard from her nor was he certain that she had received any of his letters. During the saint's illness he had written her two letters, which his friends at the Bedouin camp had promised to deliver to the next desert mail-carrier who pa.s.sed their hamlet. He had sent a runner to the village to which he had told Margaret that she was to write. The runner returned, bearing no letter.

It was consistent with native etiquette that he should pay a visit to the _omdeh_ of the subterranean village, which he wished to pa.s.s through. Abdul had a slight acquaintance with him and, being more than a little anxious about his master's health, he thought that Michael's visit to him might prove of value should any serious illness overtake him.

It was about three o'clock in the afternoon when they arrived at the entrance of the village, an uninviting underground labyrinth, where the sun never penetrated and where men, women and children lived in homes cut out of the virgin rock. It was, of course, necessary to leave their camels and go through the village on foot. Abdul told the servants that he alone would go with his master; they were to meet them in the desert at the other entrance to the village.

As Michael followed the tall figure of Abdul through the narrow streets, which were as dark as railway tunnels, he felt horribly sick.

He was well accustomed to the torment of Egyptian flies, but these particular flies belonged to the order of things whose deeds, being evil, loved darkness. They covered his face and hands the very moment after he had shaken them off. Do what he would, he could not keep them away from the corners of his mouth or from going up his nostrils.

”Abdul,” he said, ”this gives one a new vision of h.e.l.l. Look at those disgusting children!” He pointed to the groups of pale mites, with yellow skins and frail bodies, who were paying like puppies in the garbage of the narrow pathway; their faces were covered with large black house-flies--they hung in cl.u.s.ters from their eyes and ears and from the corners of their mouths.

”_Aiwah_, Effendi, but these people will live in no other surroundings.

They prefer this darkness, this unwholesome atmosphere.”

”And these awful flies?”

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