Part 9 (1/2)
”That Arab had a strange story to tellof 1884, eighteen ave him a letter which he was to take to Berber, whence the contents were to be telegraphed to Cairo But Berber had just fallen when the er arrived there He was seized upon and i the one day which he had free he hid the letter in the wall of a house, and so far as he knows it has not been discovered”
”He would have been questioned if it had been,” said Mather
”Precisely, and he was not questioned He escaped froo The story is curious, eh?”
”And the letter still re lies”
”He had the chain mark on his ankles,” said Durrance
The cavalcade turned to the left into the hills on the northern side of the plateau, and cliain over shale
”A letter fro voice, ”scribbled perhaps upon the roof-top of his palace, by the side of his great telescope--a sentence written in haste, and his eye again to the lens, searching over the palm trees for the smoke of the steamers--and it comes down the Nile to be buried in a mud wall in Berber Yes, it's curious,” and he turned his face to the west and the sinking sun Even as he looked, the sun dipped behind the hills The sky above his head darkened rapidly, to violet; in the west it flalory of colours rich and iridescent The colours lost their violence and blended delicately into one rose hue, the rose lingered for a little, and, fading in its turn, left a sky of the purest eht froo last year ard to the Nile,” he said with a sort of passion ”Before Khartum had fallen, before Berber had surrendered But they would not”
The hts The story of the letter had struck upon a chord of reverence within hireat, impracticable soldier, who, despised by officials and thwarted by intrigues, a ly about his work, knowing the while that the moment his back was turned the as in an instant all undone
Darkness came upon the troops, the camels quickened their pace, the cicadas shrilled frorass The detach awake that night on his caot the letter in thein the sky, above hilittered the curve of the Great Bear In a week he would sail for England; he lay awake, counting up the years since the packet had cast off froood
Kassassin, Tel-el-Kebir, the rush down the Red Sea, Tokar, Tamai, Tamanieb--the crowded moments came vividly to his mind He thrilled even now at the recollection of the Hadendowas leaping and stabbing through the breach of McNeil's zareba six miles from Suakin; he recalled the obdurate defence of the Berkshi+res, the steadiness of the Marines, the rallying of the broken troops The years had been good years, years of plenty, years which had advanced him to the brevet-rank of lieutenant-colonel
”A week more--only a week,” murmured Mather, drowsily
”I shall coh
”Have you no friends?”
And there was a pause
”Yes, I have friends I shall have three months wherein to see them”
Durrance had written no word to Harry Feversha these years Not to write letters was indeed a part of thenow that he would surprise his friends by a visit to Donegal, or he ain in the Row But in the end he would come back
For his friend was married, and to Ethne Eustace, and as for himself his life's work lay here in the Soudan He would certainly co on his side, he slept dreamlessly while the hosts of the stars trampled across the heavens above his head
Now, at thisunder a boulder on the Khor Gwob He rose early and continued along the broad plains to the white city of Suakin There he repeated the story which he had told to Durrance to one Captain Willoughby, as acting for the tiovernor After he had coain, but this time in the native bazaar He told it in Arabic, and it happened that a Greek seated outside a cafe close at hand overheard so of as said The Greek took Abou Fatma aside, and with a promise of much merissa, ith to intoxicate himself, induced him to tell it a fourth tiain?” asked the Greek
Abou Fatra his imprisonment the town of Berber had been steadily pulled down by the Mahdists and rebuilt to the north
”It will be wise to speak of this to no one except nificant dollars, and for a long while the two ether The Greek happened to be Harry Fevershaal Captain Willoughby was Deputy-Governor of Suakin, and after three years of waiting one of Harry Feversham's opportunities had come
CHAPTER VIII
LIEUTENANT SUTCH IS TEMPTED TO LIE