The Desert Healer

by E. M. Hull

The Governor, hospitable to his finger tips and still pleasantly excited with the success of the day’s work, was overflowing with good humour. Even General Sanois had relaxed somewhat of his usual gravity and condescended to occasional bursts of heavy pleasantry. But he was obviously distrait and his spasmodic attempts at conversation were punctuated by lengthy silences during which his eyes wandered frequently to Carew who was sitting opposite to him. And towards the close of dinner, when the Arab servants had left the room, he leaned forward with a sudden remark that was fraught with more meaning than the actual words implied.

“Your friends in the Casbar were exigent, it seems.”

But Carew, who knew him, was not to be drawn. General Sanois was usually possessed of more knowledge than he was willing to admit, and his seemingly inocuous questions were often actuated by a deliberate policy and were rarely as guileless as they appeared. And tonight his thinly veiled curiosity met with scant success. Carew had no intention of being trapped into saying more than he wished to say, or of imparting what he preferred to withhold. He met the General’s intent gaze with a tolerant smile.

“Don’t jibe at my friends, mon général,” he replied. “As I said this afternoon, they are useful. They serve you through me and they know it—most of them. But I picked up one piece of information this evening that will interest you—”

“Tomorrow,” interrupted the Governor hastily, “tomorrow, my dear Carew. Business tonight is taboo. If our good Sanois once starts talking of his eternal affairs he will talk all through the opera, and I shall behave badly. Yes, badly, I warn you. I—” The remainder of his protest was lost in the shout of laughter that burst from his irrepressible nephew.

“Latest news from Algeria,” chanted Lemaire in the shrill nasal tones of the street newsvendor. “Regrettable scene witnessed last night at the opera. Fracas in the Governor General’s box. His Excellency and the Commander-in-Chief engaged in mortal combat in the presence of an excited audience. The Governor not expected to recover. General Sanois has fled to the desert and proclaimed himself ‘Emperor of the Sahara’—My dear General, I offer my service as Aide-de-Camp. I’m bored to extinction with writing Uncle Henri’s despatches,” he added with an ironical bow, dodging the dinner napkin the Governor flung at his head. And in the general laugh that followed they rose from the table.

They were late in reaching the opera house and the first act was in progress when the Governor, a music lover at heart, tiptoed silently into his box and settled himself attentively to listen to a work he had already heard a score of times.

Carew, sitting on his left, drew his chair into the shadow of the heavy side curtain and leant back to pursue his own thoughts which the mediocre company on the stage failed to distract. The house was full, one box only—that directly facing the Governor’s—being empty. Carew’s gaze turned to the crowded seats with indifferent interest. It was more than two years since he had last visited the garish little theatre; it would probably be another two years before he was in it again, he reflected, as his mind ranged back to the all absorbing topic of the new expedition he was scheming. And now it seemed possible that his schemes might meet with an unexpected check. The information he had promised General Sanois at dinner, which he had gleaned that afternoon during his interview with the old chief in the Casbar, had in a measure upset his original calculations. It might mean a total change of plan. The needs of the Government had not been included in his forthcoming trip. He had purposed a tour that should be wholly devoted to his own work, and he viewed with some dismay the possibility of further political activity. He was a free lance, of course. He could take or reject any work offered him, but the mere fact of his freedom seemed to make the sense of his moral obligation more binding. He would have to go if it became really necessary—devoutly he hoped that the necessity would not arise. He was tired of intrigue and the endless palavers of political negotiations. He was anxious to pursue his own vocation unhindered, and to travel where inclination took him rather than follow a definite route in furtherance of Government schemes. There was a district, far away in the southwest, he had long wanted to visit. A district inhabited by a tribe he had heard of but with whom he had never yet come in contact. His plans of the last three weeks had centered more and more round this unknown locality that seemed to promise everything he demanded in the way of work and adventure. A strange and hostile people who guarded the secret of their desert fastness with jealous activity, fiercely resenting not only the advent of foreigners but also the encroachment of contiguous tribes. The tales he had heard of the impregnable walled-in city—a medieval survival if all the extraordinary stories anent it were true—had fired him with a desire to penetrate its hidden mysteries, to gain a footing amongst its prejudiced population. His calling had proved a passport to other inhospitable tribes, he counted on it confidently to win his admission to the secret City of Stones—the name by which it was known to the nomads who avoided its vicinity. The thought of it moved him deeply. Surely there was work for him within that rocky fortress could he but once pass its closely guarded gateway. The call seemed imperative, the call of suffering ignorant humanity whose misery he longed to alleviate. The need must be great, and alone he could do so little. Still even the little was worth his utmost endeavour, was worth the hazardous experiment. He could but try, and trying, succeed or fail.

And as he meditated on the chances of the success he earnestly hoped for, the little theatre with its crowded seats seemed to fade before his eyes. He saw instead an endless stretch of undulating waste, sun scorched and shimmering in the burning heat, and a caravan that wound its tortuous length across the wavy ripples of the wind-whipped sand labouring towards the mirage-like battlements of the secret city towering grimly against the radiance of the western sky. The imagery was strangely clear, singularly real. The gloomy pile stood out against his mental vision with almost photographic distinctness, and as he gazed at it wonderingly he seemed to feel between his knees the easy movements of the big bay stallion, to hear the voices of the men who rode behind him, the grunting protests of the lurching camels, the creak of sweat-drenched saddles and the whispering murmur of the shifting sand.

The desert smell was pungent in his nostrils, his eyeballs ached with the blinding glare . . . .