Part 69 (2/2)
”Are the camels ready, Abdul? We must get away, get away from the woman. It's the only way. And you thought I cared, you came in sorrow to tell me that the little beast had slipped away, just while Margaret was standing among the daffodils. I heard her calling, calling in the breeze. I was in England with Margaret.”
Abdul saw that he had been mistaken. His master had never been sensible; he was declaiming again, in his high-pitched, unnatural voice.
”I was a Christian--they wouldn't allow me to see the holy man buried.
But he gave me the jewel, the gem precious beyond all rubies. Abdul covered his poor body with quick-lime; he said it would prevent infection. Freddy won't believe it, Margaret, so we won't tell him--he would only laugh. 'A child of G.o.d shall lead you'--that is what the old African said. But I never told Freddy; he thinks I stand on my head . . . Abdul! Abdul!” Michael's cry was ringing forlorn. ”Do you see the Government flag? It's all up, Abdul, it's all moons.h.i.+ne!
We're too late, too late. Freddy will say that Millicent detained me!
Is it the fluttering flag of the saint? It was Millicent who saw it in the sunlight.”
In despair Abdul recited a _sura_ from the Koran. ”The G.o.d Who gives a good reward for the good deeds of His creatures, and does not waste anyone's labour.”
Michael took up the last words of Abdul's prayer, in the way in which a delirious mind will often carry on a sentence which drifts to the brain.
”Nothing is ever wasted, Freddy--I've told you that over and over again. You say I waste my time. You won't say so, when you see the jewels. The saint kept it in his ear, Abdul--wasn't that clever for a child of G.o.d? Look, look, Abdul!” Michael stared into the distance; his eyes became transfixed; he was excited, strong physically.
”Millicent's small b.r.e.a.s.t.s are so white, so white and fair. Her two b.r.e.a.s.t.s are like two fawns that are twins of a roe, that feed among the lilies. They are covered with jewels, they catch the sunlight. How beautiful she is! Do you see her, Abdul? She is walking in the air in front of me, all the way, Mohammed Ali's 'golden lady.'”
Abdul applied a wet towel to his master's burning temples. He sank back on his pillow exhausted; his voice became low and feeble.
”The little white tent, it is always calling, calling, its open door is always inviting me. Why does it say, all day long, 'Turn in, my lord, turn in'? But Margaret came to me, she saved me. Listen--can you hear the bells, Abdul? I heard them in the night, they sounded like the bubbling of water. Then peace came, peace, when the woman had sneaked away. Freddy always said I walked on my head, Abdul; he always declared that the whole affair was moons.h.i.+ne, no one in their senses would believe it. I always believe in people who have no sense, for G.o.d gives finer _senses_ to people who have no sense. Sense never sees beyond, Abdul.”
Often he became very wild; broken sentences would pour from his lips, the foolish, unmeaning ravings of a fevered brain.
After these wild outbursts intervals of exhaustion would set in, in which he would lie in a semi-conscious state of stillness. On one such occasion the stillness was suddenly broken by the solemn recitation, in exactly Abdul's devout tones, of the Mohammedan rosary. When he reached the sixty-third attribute of G.o.d, he repeated it with great unction. Then his pious tones suddenly changed to a querulous cry.
”Abdul, why do you go on saying 'O Source of Discovery'? You know that we've discovered nothing, nothing at all. It's all mere moons.h.i.+ne. I wish Abdul would stop--he's sitting in the sky above the horizon, repeating those same silly words over and over again! If I could only get at him . . . but the horizon never gets any nearer.” He laughed vulgarly and hoa.r.s.ely, and then lost the trend of his thoughts. ”It was a crimson amethyst--he always kept it in his ear. They buried me, Meg, beside the saint. The sand drifts very quickly, it runs and runs along the surface of the desert, so quickly and silently, like oozing water over a dry river-bed.” He gazed wildly at Abdul. ”Will you tell my old friend at el-Azhar that I have been dead for a long time? Tell him that the sands drift very quickly. Margaret mustn't cry. The wind is the desert grave-digger. Take your wicked hands away!” Abdul had touched his wrist. ”You'll never, never tempt me any more, because I'm dead, I tell you. I was go tired, I got off my camel, and lay down, and you ran away, you little coward. And the sands covered me, and I'm dead, thank G.o.d!”
Abdul waited and watched and trusted in Allah. His devotion was complete; he surrendered himself to his master in his material life as completely as he surrendered himself spiritually to his G.o.d. And he had his reward, for gradually Michael's youth and splendid const.i.tution a.s.serted themselves; the fever abated--natives have their own wise methods of treating it. There were days when he seemed almost well, far on the way to recovery, but they were often followed by hours of reaction and high delirium. These reactions were familiar to Abdul; they did not depress him. Nevertheless they required time and patience. It was Michael's first attack of fever, and therefore he was able to throw it off more completely than if his system had been undermined by it.
To Abdul his convalescent stage was a time of perfect content. As is often the case with Orientals, he loved his European master with a sentiment and romance which finds no equivalent in Western natures.
This sentiment and romance had increased intensely during Michael's illness. Abdul now looked upon him as a personal possession; he had nursed him back to life and health; he was a gift which Allah had placed in his hands. He had no sons of his own, so his master filled the unforgettable void. His conversion to Islam was Abdul's most earnest prayer.
The only cloud in his blue sky was the knowledge that Michael was disappointed and distressed by the fact that he had not, in some manner or other, let the Effendi Lampton know that he was seriously ill.
Abdul could not have written himself, for he could neither read nor write English; he always spoke to Michael in Arabic. It was therefore impossible for him to write to the Effendi Lampton, and to the native mind time was of so little account that one day was as good as another.
Besides, deep down in his heart there was a pool of jealousy; he wished to nurse his beloved master back to life and health with his own hands.
If the Effendi Lampton knew that he was ill, he would come to him or send someone to wait upon him who would rob him of his sweet work. And to do Abdul justice, he did not know if his master would like any stranger, or even the Effendi Lampton himself, to know all the secrets of his heart which his ravings revealed. Michael had so often expressed the wish to Abdul that it should be from his own lips, or from his own letters, that the Effendi Lampton should hear that the harlot had been with them in the desert, and the whole story of their desert journey.
Abdul was quite convinced that his master's letters had not yet been delivered at the hut in the Valley. It did not seem to him a very long time for a letter to take to travel across the desert and the Nile.
The carrying of news was a different matter; he had a native's knowledge of how that can be transmitted with great rapidity. A letter belonged to a widely-different means of communication. And so he let the matter rest.
To the hospitable _Omdeh_ he confided nothing. The old man was pleased and delighted to have Michael as his guest. During the patient's rapid recovery, after his first weeks of intermittent convalescence, he was as pleased as a child to be allowed to entertain Michael with all the delights which he had held out before his eyes when he had invited him to spend two or three days with him, before he journeyed to the camp in the hills.
During that time Michael became learned in the points of well-bred gazelles. He saw some native dancers, both male and female, who charmed him with their beauty and their art. And he listened so many times to celebrated _A'laleeyeh_ (professional musicians) that, with the help of the _Omdeh_, be became familiar with the remarkable peculiarity in the Arab system of music--its division of tones into thirds. Egyptian musicians consider that the European system of music is deficient in sounds. This small and delicate gradation of sound gives a peculiar softness to the performance of good Arab musicians.
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