Part 27 (2/2)

He had time to antic.i.p.ate and foresee. He felt his heart sinking till he was faint, just as in those distant days when he had heard the hounds scuffling and whining in a covert and he himself had sat shaking upon his horse. He glanced furtively towards the gallows, and foresaw the vultures perched upon his shoulders, fluttering about his eyes. But the man had grown during his years of probation. The fear of physical suffering was not uppermost in his mind, nor even the fear that he would walk unmanfully to the high gallows, but a greater dread that if he died now, here, at Dongola, Ethne would never take back that fourth feather, and his strong hope of the ”afterwards” would never come to its fulfilment. He was very glad of the collar about his neck and the fetters on his legs. He summoned his wits together and standing there alone, without a companion to share his miseries, laughed and sc.r.a.ped and grimaced at his tormentors.

An old hag danced and gesticulated before him, singing the while a monotonous song. The gestures were pantomimic and menaced him with abominable mutilations; the words described in simple and unexpurgated language the grievous death agonies which immediately awaited him, and the eternity of torture in h.e.l.l which he would subsequently suffer.

Feversham understood and inwardly shuddered, but he only imitated her gestures and nodded and mowed at her as though she was singing to him of Paradise. Others, taking their war-trumpets, placed the mouths against the prisoner's ears and blew with all their might.

”Do you hear, Kaffir?” cried a child, dancing with delight before him.

”Do you hear our ombeyehs? Blow louder! Blow louder!”

But the prisoner only clapped his hands, and cried out that the music was good.

Finally there came to the group a tall warrior with a long, heavy spear.

A cry was raised at his approach, and a s.p.a.ce was cleared. He stood before the captive and poised his spear, swinging it backward and forward, to make his arm supple before he thrust, like a bowler before he delivers a ball at a cricket match. Feversham glanced wildly about him, and seeing no escape, suddenly flung out his breast to meet the blow. But the spear never reached him. For as the warrior lunged from the shoulder, one of the four guards jerked the neck chain violently from behind, and the prisoner was flung, half throttled, upon his back.

Three times, and each time to a roar of delight, this pastime was repeated, and then a soldier appeared in the gateway of Nejoumi's house.

”Bring him in!” he cried; and followed by the curses and threats of the crowd, the prisoner was dragged under the arch across a courtyard into a dark room.

For a few moments Feversham could see nothing. Then his eyes began to adapt themselves to the gloom, and he distinguished a tall, bearded man, who sat upon an angareb, the native bedstead of the Soudan, and two others, who squatted beside him on the ground. The man on the angareb was the Emir.

”You are a spy of the Government from Wadi Halfa,” he said.

”No, I am a musician,” returned the prisoner, and he laughed happily, like a man that has made a jest.

Nejoumi made a sign, and an instrument with many broken strings was handed to the captive. Feversham seated himself upon the ground, and with slow, fumbling fingers, breathing hard as he bent over the zither, he began to elicit a wavering melody. It was the melody to which Durrance had listened in the street of Tewfikieh on the eve of his last journey into the desert; and which Ethne Eustace had played only the night before in the quiet drawing-room at Southpool. It was the only melody which Feversham knew. When he had done Nejoumi began again.

”You are a spy.”

”I have told you the truth,” answered Feversham, stubbornly, and Nejoumi took a different tone. He called for food, and the raw liver of a camel, covered with salt and red pepper, was placed before Feversham. Seldom has a man had smaller inclination to eat, but Feversham ate, none the less, even of that unattractive dish, knowing well that reluctance would be construed as fear, and that the signs of fear might condemn him to death. And, while he ate, Nejoumi questioned him, in the silkiest voice, about the fortifications of Cairo and the strength of the garrison at a.s.souan, and the rumours of dissension between the Khedive and the Sirdar.

But to each question Feversham replied:--

”How should a Greek know of these matters?”

Nejoumi rose from his angareb and roughly gave an order. The soldiers seized upon Feversham and dragged him out again into the sunlight. They poured water upon the palm-rope which bound his wrists, so that the thongs swelled and bit into his flesh.

”Speak, Kaffir. You carry promises to Kordofan.”

Feversham was silent. He clung doggedly to the plan over which he had so long and so carefully pondered. He could not improve upon it, he was sure, by any alteration suggested by fear, at a moment when he could not think clearly. A rope was flung about his neck, and he was pushed and driven beneath the gallows.

”Speak, Kaffir,” said Nejoumi; ”so shall you escape death.”

Feversham smiled and grimaced, and shook his head loosely from side to side. It was astonis.h.i.+ng to him that he could do it, that he did not fall down upon his knees and beg for mercy. It was still more astonis.h.i.+ng to him that he felt no temptation so to demean himself. He wondered whether the oft repeated story was true, that criminals in English prisons went quietly and with dignity to the scaffold, because they had been drugged. For without drugs he seemed to be behaving with no less dignity himself. His heart was beating very fast, but it was with a sort of excitement. He did not even think of Ethne at that moment; and certainly the great dread that his strong hope would never be fulfilled did not trouble him at all. He had his allotted part to play, and he just played it; and that was all.

Nejoumi looked at him sourly for a moment. He turned to the men who stood ready to draw away from Feversham the angareb on which he was placed:--

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