"THE ARAB SET OFF ALONG A PATH WITHIN SOME TWENTY YARDS OF OUR HEROES"
"Better see where she goes," said Geoff. "We'll slink through the trees and make quite sure that they are both out of sight. Shouldn't wonder if he's a simple shepherd, and has gone to visit his flock somewhere about in this oasis; and it's more than likely that she has gone into Bagdad to buy things for the household. Sounds curious, doesn't it? But you've got to remember that people here are very much the same in many ways as people back in old England. Commodities of every kind don't grow in houses; they have to be bought. And stores and shops don't exist in the country, so Turkish and Arab women, like the folks at home, have to go off on shopping expeditions."
Whatever it was that had taken the woman off, it proved, indeed, to be a godsend to these two wandering and hungry subalterns, for the woman disappeared finally down the road leading towards Bagdad, while careful investigation proved that the man had gone off to the left, where he could be seen trudging over the grass-covered land quite a mile distant. As for the hut, it looked lonely enough when they went back, and uninhabited, though the fire still smouldered in front, and that delightful aroma still reached their nostrils.
"Well, do we stop here in the shade of the trees, and just satisfy ourselves with a sniff of that stew cooking in the pot we're looking at?" exclaimed Philip in somewhat injured, if not impatient, tones, as he looked out into the sunlit arena in which the dilapidated hut was situated. "Um!" he sighed; "it's mutton, or—or—or perhaps goat."
He snuffed at the air and projected his head beyond a leafy stem, his eyes attracted far more by the fire and the cooking-pot above it than by the hut, and his thoughts occupied with a possible chance of a meal rather than with the possibility of the hut harbouring further inhabitants. But the cautious Geoff, even then—his mouth watering at the appetizing odour of the cooking food, and his hunger made twofold by it—even then was not to be led into a position which might be harmful to them. Cautious by nature—as we have inferred already—possessed, that is to say, of a certain amount of discretion, which stood him and his subaltern chum in good stead on many an occasion, he was yet not altogether deficient in that dash and go which are so common in our subalterns, which, indeed, make all of them such a valuable asset to the British army.
"You hang on here," he told his chum. "I'll skirmish round a little and see what's doing. Perhaps there's someone else in the hut, and if so we should look silly, shouldn't we, if we tackled the food and had a fellow firing into us with a blunderbuss when least expected?"
Rapid strides took him along the edge of the palm-trees, the grass rustling at his feet as he trudged through it, and in a little while he was behind the hut, to find it rather less prepossessing in rear than it was in front, dilapidated, broken, and presenting many a ragged opening. Squinting through more than one of these, Geoff could see the interior quite plainly, for the sunlight was streaming in through the open door on the farther side. Then he boldly went round one end and entered, to find, as he had expected, that the place was entirely empty. Turning about, he and Philip met above the fire, their noses thrust over the cooking-pot, sniffing hungrily.
"Jingo! Mutton, I'll swear!"
"Goat'll taste just as good, just the same, no doubt," Geoff laughed heartily. "Hook it off, Phil, while I go and look for some sort of plates," he cried, "and let's be slippy, or else the owners will be coming back to dispute our right to make use of their property."
Hook it off Philip did, with a swish, and conveyed the steaming pot close to the door of the hut, into which Geoff had meanwhile plunged and luckily found a few articles of crockery. Not that the owners of the hut were possessed of a very elaborate suite of furniture, or a very complete equipment of other things usually found in houses in Europe and elsewhere; but the needs of your nomad shepherd in Asiatic Turkey are simple enough—humble enough if you will—and this man and his wife were no exceptions whatever. A couple of plates there were to be found, both scrupulously clean, so that in a matter of two minutes those two escaping subalterns might have been found, seated in the sunlight, careless of their surroundings, making use of their fingers as forks, and eating rapidly and heartily.
"Of course one's sorry to go and eat another fellow's dinner," grinned Philip in the midst of the meal, as though the thought had only just then struck him; "but, don't you know, dear boy, a fellow must eat, mustn't he?"
"Looks like it," grunted Geoff, helping himself a second time; "and mighty good this stuff is too. Let's get finished with it."
It took very little time indeed for these two hungry mortals to empty the steaming pot, whereat Geoff poured some water into it from an earthen vessel which stood outside the hut, and once more slung it over the fire. A deep draught from the same vessel refreshed them both wonderfully, when they were again able to look about them and take some interest in their immediate surroundings.
"'Pon my word, I was so hungry that I couldn't bother about caution any longer," said Geoff, "but now that that's been put all right I'm going to get moving—to do all that is possible so that we shall not again be captured."
"Hear, hear!" came from Philip.
"Then you get off into the trees again and watch for that shepherd returning. I'm going to look round the hut to see if I can discover something which will help us. For look at the two of us; we ain't exactly the sort of people who could march into Bagdad and escape notice now, are we?" asked Geoff, standing in front of Philip.
"Speaking for yourself, I presume?" came the merry answer. "Well, now, to be quite frank, you know, with you, and with every wish to avoid the suspicion of being personal, or rude, or what-not, don't you know, my dear Geoff, one couldn't describe your appearance as exactly attractive, hardly prepossessing; in fact, let's say, a trifle dishevelled, distinctly ragged, and frightfully dirty."
Philip wound up with a hearty roar of laughter which bent him double, and then stood up before his friend for examination, an examination which Geoff made with twinkling eyes and smiles which showed his amusement.
"Dirty has it first with you," he told Philip. "'Pon my word, after that drive last night at the back of the chaise, in clouds of dust all the time, you look rather more like a dust-heap than anything else. My word, wasn't I thirsty! That draught of water was a perfect godsend. But, to go back to what I was saying, we ain't, either of us, exactly the sort of people who could walk into Bagdad in broad daylight and escape the attention of the people. Now, are we? Not likely! They'd spot us at once; these ragged remnants of khaki uniform would tell against us promptly."
"It's a facer," said Phil; "we've either got to get a change of raiment or we shall have to sneak into Bagdad during the darkness."
"When we would probably knock up against sentries at the gates and be promptly captured," said Geoff. "You go and keep a bright look-out whilst I rummage round this place."
Humble though the occupants of that cottage may have been, and, indeed, undoubtedly were, the interior of the place was, like the crockery borrowed from it, kept scrupulously clean, and, wending his way from the main apartment into another, which did service as a sleeping-room, Geoff found it much the same—clean and tidy, with nothing distasteful about it. But, like the other contents of the place, which were few and far between, the store of clothing there was even scantier.
"Sort of shepherd's cloak and hat to match, with sandals for the feet," said Geoff, as he examined the articles hanging on a wooden peg. "They'd do for Philip; he'd look fine in 'em. What's this? Just the ordinary togs worn by a Turkish peasant—perhaps the very things our friend who owns the hut wears when he goes into Bagdad. Well, as Philip says, it's rather rough to deprive him of them; but then, what else is there to do? And are we to put his feelings and his losses before our own safety?"
Without more ado he brought the garments out of the house into the open, and whistled loudly to Philip. Then, for fear lest the owner of the place should return from a different direction and discover them, he crossed the open space, where the fire was still smouldering, and plunged into the trees beyond, where, later on, Philip, returning from the point he had reached, and from which he had been able to view the road beyond and the path taken by the shepherd, joined him.
"Put on those," Geoff told him, "and stick your boots into your belt. We'll sit down here and wait till the afternoon is passed, and then take the road for the city. Slip on the cloak and the hat over your ordinary clothes; I'll do the same with these things. They're scanty enough, so that we shan't be too warmly clad, and therefore there is no necessity to discard our own rags, and perhaps run the risk of having our tracks discovered by the shepherd or his dog coming across them."
Taking the opportunity of their enforced stay in the grove of palm-trees, and of the shade which it afforded them, they slept alternately, thus making up for their lost rest during the preceding night; and it was while Geoff was on watch, and Philip lay full length and sleeping heavily, that our hero saw the shepherd return by the same route that had taken him away and enter his cottage. Minutes passed, and though he came out and stretched himself in the sun, evidently awaiting his midday meal and the return of his wife, not once did he suspect that anyone had been there in the interval. Indeed, there was nothing to rouse his suspicions, for all was as he had left it, and the two subalterns had been careful enough to clean the plates they had used and return them to their respective positions. The dog, too, much to Geoff's delight, curled himself up at his master's feet, though at first he had sniffed round, and had shown some traces of curiosity, if not of momentary excitement.
As for the woman, there was not a sign of her as yet, though when the day had dragged on a little, and the afternoon had nearly waned, Geoff saw her coming along the road from Bagdad, and watched her as she turned off towards the grove of trees and finally entered the sunlit arena in which the hut was situated. It was as good as a play then, though he felt rather sorry for it, to watch the woman's amazement when she took the steaming pot from the fire, and, having brought two basins from the cottage and placed them upon a ledge just outside, poured some water into them from it. He watched as the dame dropped the pot and lifted her hands in amazement; and smiled grimly, too, as the man got languidly to his feet, not as yet understanding the situation, and then finally, when he realized that his midday meal was not forthcoming, clenched his fists and muttered, and showed his anger. Then bewilderment took possession of the two of them, and, having asked questions the one of the other, they stared at the pot as it lay on the sandy ground as if it were a thing possessed, and even edged away from it.
"But it's a strange thing this thing that has happened," the man muttered between his teeth. "By Allah, no such thing have I known in the course of all my journeyings! You say, wife, that you placed some flesh of a sheep within the pot?"
"Say it?" the woman replied in a shrill, angry, and rather frightened tone, glaring at her lord and master. "But, as Allah hears me, you yourself saw me add flesh to the pot ere you went, and after you had gone I added more. What then is this? Ah! A thief, eh?"
That idea had not occurred to either of them before; but now it seized upon their imagination instantly, and roused them to a pitch of anger and excitement.
"A thief! Yes, of course. Why did we not think of that before? Here, dog, find him."
Geoff bent down and shook the sleeping Philip heartily.
"Come along at once," he told him; "let us slip out into the open and run for the road. It will be dusk almost by the time we reach it, and if that dog doesn't trace us we ought to be able to get clear away. I ought to explain that the man and his wife returned while you were asleep, and now, having decided that probably someone has been there at the cottage in their absence, they are sending the dog to search round."
The yelps of the animal could be heard at that moment, as the two slid through the trees and out into the open. Then they took to their heels, and, following a hollow down which water no doubt poured in the rainy season, and which protected them from observation, they gained the high road within a little while—that rough high road, covered inches thick in sandy dust, along which the ruffianly von Hildemaller had passed in the hours of darkness.
"We'll walk along steadily, taking notice of no one," said Geoff. "If we pass people, and they address us, leave it to me to answer, and I'll find some excuse for you. In any case, if I have to stop for a moment, you walk on, for there's nothing else that you can do, and to stop might prove dangerous."
That evening, after dusk had fallen, and just before the gates of the city were closed, two rough shepherds from the desert passed into the city of Bagdad unnoticed, unchallenged, without raising the smallest suspicion. Passing along the main street which leads to the Bazaar, they turned off sharply into a narrow alley, which led them to an even narrower street, over which the rows of houses on either side met almost completely.
"And now?" whispered Philip. "Where to? Here's Bagdad all right, and a fellow begins to feel a little more free. But what's our next move? Besides, there's a meal to be considered."
"And a bed," Geoff told him. "This way. You'll find that we are not entirely without friends in this city. Follow straight up this street and turn off when I turn into another alley."
Proceeding along that other dark and somewhat noisome alley, Geoff suddenly ran into an obstacle—an obstacle which rebounded and which proved to be a man, who was not less startled than himself.
"Pardon!" the man cried, and would have hurried on.
"One moment; your name?" asked Geoff, using the Armenian tongue. "Your name, my friend, for there is something in your voice that reminds me of one I have known."
There was silence perhaps for a whole minute, while Philip slid up behind Geoff, ready to support him, and anticipating trouble. Then suddenly there came a glad cry of surprise from the individual who had cannoned into Geoff, and a hand gripped his arm firmly.
"My master, you are Keith Pasha. Yes?" asked the voice—the voice was Esbul's.
"I am," Geoff told him promptly in tones of relief, for indeed this was a most happy meeting.
"Then come, my master. I have a place of safety for you; there is one who will greet you warmly and find food, and space, and raiment for you. Come, my master, for I also have something which will delight your heart. Listen, Master! I have news of Douglas Pasha."