Part 9 (1/2)
”Yes, Auntie; don't you fret about me. How are you yourself?”
”Well, I'm stronger in faith than I was.
”They haven't hurt you, Norah, have they?”
”I set you a poor example, Sadie, for I was clean crazed at first at the suddenness of it all, and at thinking of what your mother, who trusted you to me, would think about it. My land, there'll be some headlines in the _Boston Herald_ over this! I guess somebody will have to suffer for it.”
”Poor Mr. Stuart!” cried Sadie, as the monotonous, droning voice of the delirious man came again to their ears. ”Come, Auntie, and see if we cannot do something to relieve him.”
”I'm uneasy about Mrs. Shlesinger and the child,” said Colonel Cochrane.
”I can see your wife, Belmont, but I can see no one else.”
”They are bringing her over,” cried he. ”Thank G.o.d! We shall hear all about it. They haven't hurt you, Norah, have they?” He ran forward to grasp and kiss the hand which his wife held down to him as he helped her from the camel.
[Ill.u.s.tration: They haven't hurt you, Norah, have they p139]
The kind, grey eyes and calm, sweet face of the Irishwoman brought comfort and hope to the whole party. She was a devout Roman Catholic, and it is a creed which forms an excellent prop in hours of danger.
To her, to the Anglican Colonel, to the Nonconformist minister, to the Presbyterian American, even to the two Pagan black riflemen, religion in its various forms was fulfilling the same beneficent office,--whispering always that the worst which the world can do is a small thing, and that, however harsh the ways of Providence may seem, it is, on the whole, the wisest and best thing for us that we should go cheerfully whither the Great Hand guides us. They had not a dogma in common, these fellows in misfortune, but they held the intimate, deep-lying spirit, the calm, essential fatalism which is the world-old framework of religion, with fresh crops of dogmas growing like ephemeral lichens upon its granite surface.
”You poor things,” she said. ”I can see that you have had a much worse time than I have. No, really, John, dear, I am quite well,--not even very thirsty, for our party filled their waterskins at the Nile, and they let me have as much as I wanted. But I don't see Mr. Headingly and Mr. Brown. And poor Mr. Stuart,--what a state he has been reduced to!”
”Headingly and Brown are out of their troubles,” her husband answered.
”You don't know how often I have thanked G.o.d to-day, Norah, that you were not with us. And here you are, after all.”
”Where should I be but by my husband's side? I had much, _much_ rather be here than safe at Haifa.”
”Has any news gone to the town?” asked the Colonel.
”One boat escaped. Mrs. Shlesinger and her child and maid were in it. I was downstairs in my cabin when the Arabs rushed on to the vessel. Those on deck had time to escape, for the boat was alongside. I don't know whether any of them were hit. The Arabs fired at them for some time.”
”Did they?” cried Belmont, exultantly, his responsive Irish nature catching the suns.h.i.+ne in an instant. ”Then, be Jove, we'll do them yet, for the garrison must have heard the firing. What d'ye think, Cochrane?
They must be full cry upon our scent this four hours. Any minute we might see the white puggaree of a British officer coming over that rise.”
But disappointment had left the Colonel cold and sceptical.
”They need not come at all unless they come strong,” said he. ”These fellows are picked men with good leaders, and on their own ground they will take a lot of beating.” Suddenly he paused and looked at the Arabs.
”By George!” said he, ”that's a sight worth seeing!”
[Ill.u.s.tration: Hour of Arab prayer p142]
The great red sun was down with half its disc slipped behind the violet bank upon the horizon. It was the hour of Arab prayer. An older and more learned civilisation would have turned to that magnificent thing upon the skyline and adored _that_. But these wild children of the desert were n.o.bler in essentials than the polished Persian. To them the ideal was higher than the material, and it was with their backs to the sun and their faces to the central shrine of their religion that they prayed.
And how they prayed, these fanatical Moslems! Wrapt, absorbed, with yearning eyes and s.h.i.+ning faces, rising, stooping, grovelling with their foreheads upon their praying carpets. Who could doubt, as he watched their strenuous, heart-whole devotion, that here was a great living power in the world, reactionary but tremendous, countless millions all thinking as one from Cape Juby to the confines of China? Let a common wave pa.s.s over them, let a great soldier or organiser arise among them to use the grand material at his hand, and who shall say that this may not be the besom with which Providence may sweep the rotten, decadent, impossible, half-hearted south of Europe, as it did a thousand years ago, until it makes room for a sounder stock?
And now as they rose to their feet the bugle rang out, and the prisoners understood that, having travelled all day, they were fated to travel all night also. Belmont groaned, for he had reckoned upon the pursuers catching them up before they left this camp. But the others had already got into the way of accepting the inevitable. A flat Arab loaf had been given to each of them--what effort of the _chef_ of the post-boat had ever tasted like that dry brown bread?--and then, luxury of luxuries, they had a second ration of a gla.s.s of water, for the fresh-filled bags of the new-comers had provided an ample supply. If the body would but follow the lead of the soul as readily as the soul does that of the body, what a heaven the earth might be! Now, with their base material wants satisfied for the instant, their spirits began to sing within them, and they mounted their camels with some sense of the romance of their position. Mr. Stuart remained babbling upon the ground, and the Arabs made no effort to lift him into his saddle. His large, white, upturned face glimmered through the gathering darkness.
”Hi, dragoman, tell them that they are forgetting Mr. Stuart,” cried the Colonel.
”No use, sir,” said Mansoor. ”They say that he is too fat, and that they will not take him any farther. He will die, they say, and why should they trouble about him?”