CHAPTER XXI
A swarm of mounted Arabs, shadows in the sun-haze, was careering towards them, leaving a dust-cloud trailing on the distant plain. Their lance-points glittered. They were nearing rapidly. Iskender stood gaping, awestruck at the sight, when a whip-lash scored his face.
"You infernal scoundrel!" snarled the Emîr through his clenched teeth. "So this is why you've brought me all this way. They made it worth your while, no doubt. I might have guessed. That missionary warned me plain enough."
Iskender nursed his wounded face, and writhed with pain. For the moment he could neither hear nor think nor see.
The wild horsemen galloped in a herd to within a hundred yards of the travellers, when they fanned out neatly and surrounded them. The Frank had plucked out his revolver.
"Don't do that, sir, for God-sake!" Iskender shrieked. "You make them cross."
Still with hands pressed to his wounded face he blessed the assailants loudly, and asked how they did. For answer they told him to make his companion drop the pistol; which, when the order was conveyed to him, the Amir did sullenly. The Arabs then rode near, and stared in the faces of their captives.
They were a ragged-looking troop, clad every one in armour, were it but of leather. Queer helmets showed beneath their dirty head-shawls, and a few wore tattered coats of mail of high antiquity. Only their fierce bold eyes, strong spears, and clean-limbed horses kept the laugh from them. Their husky speech was full of words and phrases strange to Iskender.
When all had satisfied their curiosity, the throng rode off, leaving a sufficient guard to follow with the prisoners. Iskender learnt that they were surprised to find so small a company. Having heard of the approach of a great prince of the English, their chief expected to receive a visit from his Highness, with supplication in due form for leave to journey through his territory. When he learnt that the Emîr had entered his realm without so much as a salâm aleykum, he resolved to make the mannerless cub his guest by force. For this purpose he had sent forth all his braves in war trim, supposing that the English chief had power to match his insolence, only to surprise a train which a blind man could have taken single-handed!
Bitterly did Iskender curse his own vain-glory which had led him to boast at every village of his patron's greatness, and the absolute power which he wielded in the land of his birth. He was separated now from his dear one in the cavalcade, catching only an occasional glimpse of his back, which had a sullen hunch. He forgot the pain of his own face in fears for him.
At the end of an hour's slow riding, the barren waste gave place to slopes of coarse grass, where a number of camels, sheep, and goats were feeding peacefully. The camp of the Bedû appeared—a little town of black tents in a hollow, from which shouts, neighs, and much barking of dogs proceeded. Once there, Iskender lost sight of his Emîr, who, as the prisoner of importance, was taken straight to the chief's tent. He himself was left standing with Mahmûd among the tent ropes, in some peril from the heels of tethered stallions. A smell of hairy beasts defiled the air. Dark-skinned women and children came to stare at them. The girls expressed compassion for Iskender's wounded face, and cried shame on the man who had disfigured it, supposing him to be one of their own people. The muleteer, a Muslim, made profession of his faith, attesting the Unity of God and the Mission of Muhammad loudly, in the evident persuasion that his hour had come.
Iskender wondered what his lord was undergoing, and then as the day grew cooler, gave up thinking altogether, happy to lie down and rest. The women told him he was free to walk about, but for long he felt no call to use the privilege. At last, however, seeing his horse was tethered close at hand, he went and took from the saddle-bags his book and paint-box, and began to make a likeness of the scene; the women gathered round and cried: "Ma sh' Allah!" They took the lines and spots for magic writing, and gathered shyly round them, half expecting apparitions.
He was in this employment when men came in haste and dragged him to the chief's tent. He managed to stow the paint-box in his trousers, but the book was lost.
"Allah have mercy on thee, O Iskender!" groaned Mahmûd, as he was led away. "They have slain the khawâjah; now they come for thee. Well I am a Muslim, and resign my cause to God!"
In the tabernacle of the chief, superior only in size to the rest of the tents, the elders of the tribe were set in council, the Emîr before them. At the moment of Iskender's entrance there was a puzzled look upon each bearded face, directed towards the Frank in perfect courtesy. The arrival of an interpreter was hailed with exclamations of relief.
Iskender, having made obeisance, was invited to take a place in the circle. From the join of two camel's hair curtains screening an inner tent, he fancied he could see bright eyes of women peeping.
"Is this the great Emîr, of whom report has reached us?" he was asked. "And if so, how comes he to travel with so small a retinue?"
The Frank's eyes dwelt upon Iskender's face with an intensity of distrust that neighboured actual hatred. He still believed his friend in league with the marauders.
"It is true; he is an Emîr of the noblest, O my lords," Iskender answered; "but, may it please your Honours, he has not that wealth to which his rank entitles him. Indeed, for one in his position, he is poor."
The chieftains of the Bedû nodded comprehension, for poor Emîrs were not unknown among them. They murmured of compassion saying:
"May Allah make him very rich and powerful!"
But one objected:
"Why then does he travel? The rich among the Franks come hither for adventure and to rest their stomachs after too much feasting; their learned come to find out ancient ruins, and study the writings of the idolaters which are found here and there among the rocks. But why should this poor noble youth have wandered hither?"
"Aye, answer us that, O Nazarene! Why, why, and for what reason?" came the chorus.
Iskender found himself at a loss, being loth to revive his lord's anger by naming the valley of the gold in his hearing; he was looking up and down in the vain search for inspiration, when the Emîr himself came unexpectedly to his relief. With an ironical glance at the interpreter, the Englishman mustered all his Arabic and, turning to a sheykh who was his neighbour, asked:
"Is there a wady named Wady 'l Mulûk?"
"Wady 'l Mulûk!" cried all the elders in surprise; and then, in the twinkling of an eye, their foreheads cleared from all bewilderment. Wady 'l Mulûk! Ah to be sure! The vale in which lay scattered all the treasure of the ancient kings. So that was what his Honour came to seek!
Iskender was no less perplexed than was his lord by all this outcry, when the chief of all the tribe leaned towards him, saying:
"I understand. He seeks the Valley of the Kings," and touched his forehead meaningly. "May Allah heal him! The Lord forbid that we should plunder such a one, or detain him beyond his pleasure. All such are favoured of Allah! Be our guests from now."
And he gave his orders for a feast to be prepared.
All the old men fell to petting and caressing the Emîr, grieving to think that one so young and comely was spoilt for the commerce of life by a deranged intelligence. Iskender, too, they treated as a friend. Their original intention, they confessed, had been to hold his Honour up to ransom; but now they offered gifts instead of claiming them.
Iskender, the moment he could do so with politeness, went out and searched the camp till he regained his sketch-book. Mahmûd, the muleteer, called to him from the mouth of a tent where he was feasting as the guest of a tall Bedawi. He proclaimed the safety of their lives a miracle, attributable solely to the fact that he himself had not ceased to assert the Unity of God from the moment he was taken captive till men came and blessed him. All gave praise to Allah.