Part 2 (2/2)
He seemed to read d.i.c.ky's thoughts--the clairvoyance of an overwrought mind: ”To--to a.s.souan?” The voice had a curious far-away sound.
”You shall go beyond a.s.souan,” said d.i.c.ky. ”To--to Gordon?” Heatherby's voice was husky and indistinct.
”Yes, here's Fielding; he'll give you the tip. Sit down.” d.i.c.ky gently forced him down into a chair. Six months later, a letter came to d.i.c.ky from an Egyptian officer, saying that Heatherby of the Buffs had died gallantly fighting in a sortie sent by Gordon into the desert.
”He had a lot of luck,” mused d.i.c.ky as he read. ”They don't end that way as a rule.”
Then he went to Fielding, humming a certain stave from one of Watts's hymns.
THE PRICE OF THE GRINDSTONE--AND THE DRUM
He lived in the days of Ismail the Khedive, and was familiarly known as the Murderer. He had earned his name, and he had no repentance. From the roof of a hut in his native village of Manfaloot he had dropped a grindstone on the head of Ebn Haroun, who contended with him for the affections of Aha.s.sa, the daughter of Haleel the barber, and Ebn Haroun's head was flattened like the cover of a pie. Then he had broken a cake of dourha bread on the roof for the pigeons above him, and had come down grinning to the street, where a hesitating mounted policeman fumbled with his weapon, and four ghaffirs waited for him with their naboots.
Seti then had weighed his chances, had seen the avenging friends of Ebn Haroun behind the ghaffirs, and therefore permitted himself to be marched off to the mudirieh. There the Mudir glared at him and had him loaded with chains and flung into the prison, where two hundred convicts arrayed themselves against myriad tribes which, killed individually, made a spot on the wall no bigger than a threepenny-bit! The carnage was great, and though Seti was sleepless night after night it was not because of his crime. He found some solace, however, in provoking his fellow-prisoners to a.s.saults upon each other; and every morning he grinned as he saw the dead and wounded dragged out into the clear suns.h.i.+ne.
The end to this came when the father of Seti, Abou Seti, went at night to the Mudir and said deceitfully: ”Effendi, by the mercy of Heaven I have been spared even to this day; for is it not written in the Koran that a man shall render to his neighbour what is his neighbour's? What should Abou Seti do with ten feddans of land, while the servant of Allah, the Effendi Insagi, lives? What is honestly mine is eight feddans, and the rest, by the grace of G.o.d, is thine, O effendi.”
Every feddan he had he had honestly earned, but this was his way of offering backsheesh.
And the Mudir had due anger and said: ”No better are ye than a Frank to have hidden the truth so long and waxed fat as the Nile rises and falls.
The two feddans, as thou sayest, are mine.”
Abou Seti bowed low, and rejoined, ”Now shall I sleep in peace, by the grace of Heaven, and all my people under my date-trees--and all my people?” he added, with an upward look at the Mudir.
”But the rentals of the two feddans of land these ten years--thou hast eased thy soul by bringing the rentals thereof?”
Abou Seti's glance fell and his hands twitched. His fingers fumbled with his robe of striped silk. He cursed the Mudir in his heart for his bitter humour; but was not his son in prison, and did it not lie with the Mudir whether he lived or died? So he answered:
”All-seeing and all-knowing art thou, O effendi, and I have reckoned the rentals even to this hour for the ten years--fifty piastres for each feddan--”
”A hundred for the five years of high Nile,” interposed the Mudir.
”Fifty for the five lean years, and a hundred for the five fat years,”
said Abou Seti, and wished that his words were poisoned arrows, that they might give the Mudir many deaths at once. ”And may Allah give thee greatness upon thy greatness!”
”G.o.d prosper thee also, Abou Seti, and see that thou keep only what is thine own henceforth. Get thee gone in peace.”
”At what hour shall I see the face of my son alive?” asked Abou Seti in a low voice, placing his hand upon his turban in humility.
”To-morrow at even, when the Muezzin calls from the mosque of El Ha.s.san, be thou at the west wall of the prison by the Gate of the Prophet's Sorrow, with thy fastest camel. Your son shall ride for me through the desert even to Farafreh, and bear a letter to the bimbas.h.i.+ there. If he bear it safely, his life is his own; if he fail, look to thy feddans of land!”
”G.o.d is merciful, and Seti is bone of my bone,” said Abou Seti, and laid his hand again upon his turban. That was how Mahommed Seti did not at once pay the price of the grindstone, but rode into the desert bearing the message of the Mudir and returned safely with the answer, and was again seen in the cafes of Manfaloot. And none of Ebn Haroun's friends did aught, for the world knew through whom it was that Seti lived--and land was hard to keep in Manfaloot and the prison near.
But one day a kava.s.s of the Khedive swooped down on Manfaloot, and twenty young men were carried off in conscription. Among them was Seti, now married to Aha.s.sa, the fellah maid for whom the grindstone had fallen on Ebn Haroun's head. When the fatal number fell to him and it was ordained that he must go to Dongola to serve in the Khedive's legions, he went to his father, with Aha.s.sa wailing behind him.
”Save thyself,” said the old man with a frown.
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