Part 139 (2/2)

But it was all dark to d.i.c.k. He could only smell the camels, the hay-bales, the cooking, the smoky fires, and the tanned canvas of the tents as he stood, where he had dropped from the train, shouting for George. There was a sound of light-hearted kicking on the iron skin of the rear trucks, with squealing and grunting. George was unloading the mules.

The engine was blowing off steam nearly in d.i.c.k's ear; a cold wind of the desert danced between his legs; he was hungry, and felt tired and dirty--so dirty that he tried to brush his coat with his hands. That was a hopeless job; he thrust his hands into his pockets and began to count over the many times that he had waited in strange or remote places for trains or camels, mules or horses, to carry him to his business. In those days he could see--few men more clearly--and the spectacle of an armed camp at dinner under the stare was an ever fresh pleasure to the eye. There was colour, light, and motion, without which no man has much pleasure in living. This night there remained for him only one more journey through the darkness that never lifts to tell a man how far he has travelled. Then he would grip Torpenhow's hand again--Torpenhow, who was alive and strong, and lived in the midst of the action that had once made the reputation of a man called d.i.c.k Heldar: not in the least to be confused with the blind, bewildered vagabond who seemed to answer to the same name. Yes, he would find Torpenhow, and come as near to the old life as might be. Afterwards he would forget everything: Bessie, who had wrecked the Melancolia and so nearly wrecked his life; Beeton, who lived in a strange unreal city full of tin-tacks and gas-plugs and matters that no men needed; that irrational being who had offered him love and loyalty for nothing, but had not signed her name; and most of all Maisie, who, from her own point of view, was undeniably right in all she did, but oh, at this distance, so tantalisingly fair.

George's hand on his arm pulled him back to the situation.

”And what now?” said George.

”Oh yes of course. What now? Take me to the camel-men. Take me to where the scouts sit when they come in from the desert. They sit by their camels, and the camels eat grain out of a black blanket held up at the corners, and the men eat by their side just like camels. Take me there!”

The camp was rough and rutty, and d.i.c.k stumbled many times over the stumps of scrub. The scouts were sitting by their beasts, as d.i.c.k knew they would. The light of the dung-fires flickered on their bearded faces, and the camels bubbled and mumbled beside them at rest. It was no part of d.i.c.k's policy to go into the desert with a convoy of supplies. That would lead to impertinent questions, and since a blind non-combatant is not needed at the front, he would probably be forced to return to Suakin.

He must go up alone, and go immediately.

”Now for one last bluff--the biggest of all,” he said. ”Peace be with you, brethren!” The watchful George steered him to the circle of the nearest fire. The heads of the camel-sheiks bowed gravely, and the camels, scenting a European, looked sideways curiously like brooding hens, half ready to get to their feet.

”A beast and a driver to go to the fighting line tonight,” said d.i.c.k.

”A Mulaid?” said a voice, scornfully naming the best baggage-breed that he knew.

”A Bisharin,” returned d.i.c.k, with perfect gravity. ”A Bisharin without saddle-galls. Therefore no charge of thine, shock-head.”

Two or three minutes pa.s.sed. Then--”We be knee-haltered for the night.

There is no going out from the camp.”

”Not for money?”

”H'm! Ah! English money?”

Another depressing interval of silence.

”How much?”

”Twenty-five pounds English paid into the hand of the driver at my journey's end, and as much more into the hand of the camel-sheik here, to be paid when the driver returns.”

This was royal payment, and the sheik, who knew that he would get his commission on this deposit, stirred in d.i.c.k's behalf.

”For scarcely one night's journey--fifty pounds. Land and wells and good trees and wives to make a man content for the rest of his days. Who speaks?” said d.i.c.k.

”I,” said a voice. ”I will go--but there is no going from the camp.”

”Fool! I know that a camel can break his knee-halter, and the sentries do not fire if one goes in chase. Twenty-five pounds and another twenty-five pounds. But the beast must be a good Bisharin; I will take no baggage-camel.”

Then the bargaining began, and at the end of half an hour the first deposit was paid over to the sheik, who talked in low tones to the driver.

d.i.c.k heard the latter say: ”A little way out only. Any baggage-beast will serve. Am I a fool to waste my cattle for a blind man?”

”And though I cannot see”--d.i.c.k lifted his voice a little--”yet I carry that which has six eyes, and the driver will sit before me. If we do not reach the English troops in the dawn he will be dead.”

”But where, in G.o.d's name, are the troops?”

<script>