Chapter Eleven.
A Glimpse at a Tragedy.
As the power of the sun increased, Harry Forsyth found that his renewed strength was but partial, and though considerable compared to his weakness before that long sleep, was by no means up to his powers twenty-four hours previously, before he got that cut down through his scalp and lost all that blood. And soon the thirst began; but thirst was his familiar now, and he had learned to bear it as we do what is constantly recurring and inevitable.
But as time passed on the thought would intrude upon his mind. Was he going in the right direction? El Obeid, indeed, must lie to the west, if the guides were to be depended upon, but would not the General diverge very likely on approaching the place? It could not be told beforehand from what side he would find it best to attack it, and Harry might be going quite away from his friends. Still, if he once caught a glimpse of the town, he should feel fresh confidence, for then he would certainly get round to the army, somehow, and in time for the attack. But this last consideration was not so important a matter with him as it had been some hours before. He did not feel particularly keen after fighting just now. A beefsteak and a pot of porter, and then to turn into a comfortable bed, with a lump of ice on the top of his head, would have formed his programme of perfect bliss. And yet, if his friends were in the thick of it, he would like to be there, and take his share in what was going, too.
Pshaw! He must not get nervous, he said to himself. Unless the guides were treacherous, he must sight the minarets of El Obeid soon Unless the guides were treacherous! Was there a chance of that? Experience showed that there was always. And that professed friendly sheikh, who had come in with his scratches and told such a plausible tale, was he to be trusted?
Hark! What was that? Dropping shots away to his right front. Again, others; and now a volley; more single shots, increasing to a continuous roll of musketry.
“They are at it, and I am not there!” Harry cried aloud, as, forgetting fatigue, weakness, even thirst, he pressed forward in the direction of the firing. What surprised him most was that he heard no report of the Krupp guns, no whish of rockets, no continuous grinding of machine-guns. Why did they not use their artillery?
Half an hour brought him to rocks, herbage, and palm-trees, and here were empty preserved meat cans and other débris, showing that the force had bivouacked there the night before. And here, too, deep down in a rocky dell, he found a well of clear, bright, sweet, cool water! He flung himself down, plunged his face in the delicious liquid, and sucked in large draughts of the life-inspiring elixir. When he could drink no more he filled his water-bottle, and then, removing his pith helmet, he unbound the bandage which he had tied over his head. It had of course stuck, and the attempt to remove it was painful, but by wetting it freely he got it off, and then bathed his head and face, saturated his pocket handkerchief, and tied that on as a fresh bandage.
Then, much refreshed, he again hastened forwards, guided by the sound of the still continued firing. The character of the country was now completely changed. It became hilly, and the hills were precipitous and covered with inky black rocks, which lay so thickly about that it seemed as if a shower of enormous aerolites had fallen there.
Harry threaded his way amongst these, some way up a ravine, which wound to the right. The firing now seemed quite close; indeed, he could see smoke floating up to the dear sky. But surely El Obeid could not be there, in the middle of a mountain pass, commanded on all sides by higher ground! The army must surely have been attacked on the march.
He turned a corner, from which the valley ran for some distance straight, and came suddenly on volumes of smoke, pierced by incessant flashes of fire, not a thousand yards in his front, while every now and then a spent bullet came pattering against the rock behind which he crouched, trying to make out whether those nearest him were friends or foes.
Firing was also going on from the higher ground to right and left, and one or two of these points were visible from Harry’s present position. He had no field-glass, but he carried a small pocket telescope of great power, and adjusting this, and holding it steadily with some difficulty against the rock side, for the field of vision was very small, and his hand shook with excitement, he made out that the men holding these were certainly Arabs.
And presently some wounded men of those engaged in the valley to his front falling to the rear, and coming within five hundred yards of him, and clear of the smoke, he perceived that they were Arabs too. And then the fearful truth broke upon him. The spent bullets which fell towards him came from his friends. The army had been enticed into the defile, round which the Mahdi’s troops were posted. When it was hopelessly entangled, a body of Arabs, which had lain in ambush for the purpose, had closed in upon their rear to cut off retreat, and these were the men now in front of him.
Though he felt convinced that this must be the state of the case, Harry did not give up all hope that the Egyptians might fight their way through, though with severe loss, to the other end of the defile, and to ascertain this he went back, and then began mounting the higher ground, trying to work round to the front of the position. This he had to do very cautiously, to avoid falling in with groups of Arabs, whom he was perpetually sighting. Indeed, to get near the edge of the rocks commanding the defile without being observed was impossible, but by making a wide détour he kept clear of them. And thus, after the lapse of some hours, and with occasional difficult climbing, he reached a lofty point, from which he could distinguish the sides of the ravine held by the Arabs and the pall of smoke which covered the doomed square, fighting like a lion at bay, surrounded by the hunters.
For eagerly as he searched with his telescope in every direction he could perceive no line of advance or retreat; every point appeared to be barred by the enemy. There seemed to him only one hope; if General Hicks could hold on till nightfall, perhaps he might push through backwards or forwards under cover of the darkness.
So the hours passed, and the fusillade did not cease; only slackened at times to burst out again, till the sun sank down in all his glory, and the heavenly splendour of the after-glow bathed the sky, just as if all on earth was peace, goodwill, and happiness, and men had ceased to strain all the powers and talents which the God of Mercy has bestowed upon them for their mutual benefit to one another’s destruction; then sudden darkness, and silence broken only at long intervals by a fitful splutter of musketry.
Harry had marked a little cave, where two boulders leaned together, and into this he now crept, for the air was cold. Here he lay, thinking with agony of his friends below there. How many were now living, and what chance had they of getting clear if they had survived thus far?
And his own position, was that any better? Nay, they indeed would die fighting, but he would either probably perish of want, or be barbarously murdered in cold blood. He still wore his uncle the sheikh’s ring on his finger, and carried the silver case containing the parchment in his breast, but since he had thrown in his lot with the Egyptian army, his faith in those talismans had become weakened. Why, he did not know; it was an illogical feeling, for, of course, the circumstances had not altered. Probably it was because it is impossible to trust to two diametrically opposite sources of aid at the same time.
Then his thoughts wandered to home, and his mother and sister, and their terrible anxiety at his long silence, and how they would not know whether or not to mourn him as dead. And then he dropped asleep.
He woke at dawn, wondering how he could have slept when his comrades were in such sore straits. Had they got away? In answer to his thought, the firing recommenced as before, and in the same quarter, answering “No!”
All day long the noise of battle lasted, and Harry watched in vain for a change in the situation.
At one period a body of Arabs came up and crossed the mountain from his rear, and he only just had time to conceal himself in his rocky hole to escape observation.
But they pushed on, and went down into the fight; doubtless carrying ammunition. How Harry got through that long day he could not remember. He made his water-bottle last, but he had no food beyond one biscuit. But anxiety for some time prevented his feeling hungry. There seemed no change in the situation, except that the volume of fire diminished perceptibly; and the cloud of smoke becoming thinner, he could, from one point, just distinguish something of the square. It was still existing, then, and might, perhaps, cut through that night, though it had failed to do so on the preceding.
When darkness fell, Harry crept back to his hole, and again he slept. But he awoke before dawn, roused by the cravings of hunger. It was of no use to stop where he was, and at the first glimpse of daylight he commenced his descent towards the plain, not by the way he had come, but on the opposite side, in the direction he calculated the remains of the army must take if they succeeded in pushing through.
At the foot of the hill, in a rocky, barren-looking dell, not at all the place where you would expect to find it, he chanced upon a spring; and after drinking and replenishing his gourd, he sat down to try and collect his thoughts.
And as he sat there he saw a solitary figure coming towards the spot. It was a camel, with an Arab on his back. Harry concealed himself behind a boulder and watched. The poor beast could hardly move, and, in spite of all urging, presently fell. The rider took certain articles from the saddle, and came to the spring, where he sat down, after drinking; and, pulling out a lump of bread, began to make his breakfast. The sight made Harry feel ravenous; he was determined that he would have a share of that bread. He would probably have been justified in potting him with his pistol, which he might easily have done, for he was almost certainly a hostile Arab with despatches. But he might belong to a friendly tribe, and if he were an enemy, Harry could not murder him like that.
He had a Remington rifle, so Harry must pounce upon him, or he would not have a chance. He did it rather cleverly, and the meal of the Arab was suddenly interrupted by finding the muzzle of a revolver within a yard of his head, while, at the same time, his rifle, which rested against a rock beside him, was thrown to some distance.
“Throw away your sword and pistol, or I will shoot,” said Harry. “But do that, and share your bread with me, and I will not hurt you.”
“My hygeen is dead; I am weary and wounded; and the chance is yours,” said the Arab. “What have I to do but to submit? It is fate,” drawing his highly ornamented and damascened pistols from his waist-band, for he was a considerably dressed Arab, this one. These he laid aside; then he took out his sheathed scimitar, but appeared to hesitate.
“How do I know,” he said, “that you will not kill me when I am completely disarmed?”
“Why should I?” replied Harry. “Could I not have shot you from behind the rock?”
“Fool you were, not to!” cried the Arab with the bound of a wild beast, springing up, flashing the blade out, and uttering the taunt, which in his own idiom was but a couple of words, simultaneously.
So quick and sudden was the movement that it might well have deceived the eye and paralysed the nerve. But the very start made Harry press the trigger with his fore-finger. Even so, and only a yard off, he was as likely to have fired over his shoulder as to have hit him. But he did not. The point of the scimitar just left the scabbard as the owner of it went down on his back motionless as a wax figure.
Harry was perfectly bewildered; he was not conscious of having fired; yet, there lay the Arab, with his face blackened with the powder, and a small hole in the forehead just between the eyes.
I hope you will not think the worse of Harry Forsyth for what he did next. War makes the feelings very callous, for the time being, at all events, with regard to certain things. Besides, Harry had had nothing but biscuits to eat for one hundred and seventy-two hours, about, and not many of them. He pounced upon the bread and devoured it. What to do next?
The conviction had now forced itself upon him that there was no hope for the Egyptian army, but that it was doomed to certain destruction. There was no possibility of surrender; it was war to the knife, for the Arabs neither took nor gave quarter. And thus his mind reverted to the object of his throwing in his lot with that body, which he had in a great measure lost sight of in the company of Howard and the excitement of a totally new life. But, after all, he had not come out to Egypt and the Soudan to fight but to discover Daireh and, if possible, gain possession of the will.
The only chance for him to accomplish this now was obviously through finding his uncle, the Sheikh Burrachee, and to do this he must follow the course he had pointed out: find a dervish or fakir, and show the ring and parchment. Of course the efficacy of these might all be the delusion of a crazy brain, but he must take his chance of that. It was certain, however, that he would never get the chance of a hearing in his present costume. The helmet, the uniform kharkee jacket, would insure his being shot or cut down by the first follower of the Mahdi who saw him. They must be discarded, and the dead Arab lying hard by would supply him with a disguise. For, instead of going nearly naked, like so many of them, this man had a smart turban and a long garment, which came a good bit below the knees, bound round his waist with a sort of shawl of gay colours.
So, after having taken his life and his breakfast, Harry now proceeded to despoil him of his clothes.
There was a fair supply of cartridges in a bag which the ill-fated Arab had worn over his shoulder, so Harry took that and the rifle, and presently he came out of the glen in complete Arab costume, his European clothes being made into a bundle and shoved under a rock. The only article of dress he had retained was a light linen waistcoat, in which were pockets containing the silver case with the parchment, his watch, and his money. The dead man’s pistols, though ornamental, had flint locks and were heavy, so he left them, but the scimitar he stuck, together with his own revolver, in the waist-shawl, and the rifle he slung over his shoulder.
Then he went to the hygeen, or camel, hoping that water might revive it, but the poor beast was past that—its eyes were already glazing.
All this time the roll of musketry in the distant ravine still continued, and with a heavy heart he turned from the spot, and went out into the wilderness.
His idea was boldly to accost the first living being he met, and ask the way to El Obeid, intending to represent himself as a merchant whose caravan had been attacked and robbed by Nubian blacks. He knew that he would be recognised as a European by his speech, and probably arrested as a spy, but then would be the time to test the efficacy of his uncle’s talisman. It might be inefficacious, or he might perish in the desert before he met any one, but he did not give up all hope of a better fate. His being sent out on that scouting expedition, wounded, and so prevented from rejoining the ill-fated column, was so extraordinary that he felt that his hour was not yet come. For it almost seemed to him as if a miracle had been performed in his behalf.
He had not gone a hundred yards before he noticed several black specks in the distant sky. Nearer and larger they came, till he could distinguish two eagles and five vultures hovering lower and lower, till at length they settled down in the dell by the spring which he had just left. And he shuddered. How soon he might lie, helpless and dying, and watching these loathsome birds of prey swooping towards him!
His idea was to keep bearing to the west, which was the direction in which he knew that El Obeid lay, unless indeed he had passed to one side of it, which he did not think probable, or he should most likely have seen it from the mountain-top. Any other high ground he came to he would ascend, so as to get as wide a view as possible. And so he tramped on towards the declining sun till it sank; then he lay down in the solitude and darkness, and fatigue gave him sleep.
When dawn awoke him he was beyond the sound of the firing, or else it had ceased. And though he knew well enough that this was no good sign, the silence was less harrowing. He resumed his weary march till the sun reached its full power. There were some stunted bushes a little out of his track, and he made for them, hoping to find water. In this he was disappointed; so taking a sparing pull at his water-bottle, he crawled under one of them, seeking its shade. There was a slight rustle, and a snake rose on its tail, and darted at him with its forked tongue, but, just missing him, glided away.
Harry then looked more carefully, but there was no other, and he rested. Another escape! Did he, then, bear a charmed life? After about an hour, he grew restless. The sand in that part lay in high ridges or dunes, some of them at least a hundred feet high, and he hoped that on surmounting the next beyond him he would come in sight of the town, or at least of some oasis, with water and human habitations, and with each recurring disappointment he became only the more eager to reach the sand-hill beyond. But he was becoming very faint, and the wound in his head throbbed to agony. He was at last so “beat” that he was on the point of letting himself sink down on the sand to struggle no more, when suddenly there, straight before him, lay the object of his desires! Surely not a mile off, but say a mile and a half, rose towers, fortifications, minarets, palm-trees, and, most grateful sight, all this was reflected in a broad clear sheet of water.
“El Obeid!” he cried aloud, forgetting everything else in the joy of the moment.
He had never heard that it was on a lake, and thus his wildest expectations were surpassed.
No need now to torture himself by refraining from his water-bottle. He seized and drained it, and then falling on his knees he thanked Heaven for this deliverance. For though, when considered calmly at a distance, he had recognised the perils which would attend his adventure in entering the place, which was now the head-quarters of the Mahdi and his fanatics, they seemed as nothing compared with the immediate prospect of perishing of want and thirst, alone, in the desert. Rising to his feet again he hurried onwards, but the place was much farther off than it had first seemed, for when he had gone on for a full twenty minutes, with speed inspired by hope, he seemed to be no whit nearer.
On again, plunging through the loose sand, reeling, staggering. A little more effort; he must be nearing it, though it did not seem so; another ten minutes, say, and he would be able to plunge into that delicious water! And so he fought on, when suddenly all vanished.
He rubbed his eyes and looked again. Had sudden blindness fallen upon him? No, he could see the sand-hills as plainly as possible. But the city, the fortifications, the minarets, the water, which were so distinct a minute ago, where were they? All turned to sand? That could not be. He was giddy, and must have altered his course without knowing it.
He looked all round him, bewildered. Sand, sand, sand, and nothing else. Then the truth flashed across his memory: the mirage! Towers and water were as unreal as the magician’s money in the “Arabian Nights’ Entertainments,” which turned to paper in the drawer where it was. For the first time Harry was stricken with utter despair; without water, without food, alone in the trackless desert, exposed to a fierce sun, he fell, and lay motionless for awhile. Then up and on blindly, in what direction he knew not. His tongue swelled; his throat seemed choked and breathing was difficult.
Soon he lost consciousness of everything but a sense of distress and pain; and after awhile even that left him, and he fell senseless.