When Carew reached him and lifting him with practised hands supported him against his knee, the dying man’s eyes rolled upward to the grave face bending over him and his contorted features relaxed in a grin of ghastly amusement.
“This was ordained, lord,” he gasped painfully, a pinkish foam gathering on his lips, “thou or I—and Allah has chosen. To Him the praise,” he added mockingly, and choked his life away on the crimson tide that poured from his mouth.
CHAPTER VII
Silence had settled again over the little oasis which an hour before had been the scene of noisiest activity.
Scattered amongst the palms and thorn trees the debris of a camp evidenced the passing of a caravan, and three or four miles away the train of lurching camels with its escort of mounted Arabs was still visible moving steadily over the rolling waste, heading for the south. Seated cross-legged on the warm ground, idly dribbling sand through his long, brown fingers, Carew watched it with a feeling of envy, longing for the time when he could once more lead his own caravan towards the heart of the great desert whither his thoughts turned perpetually.
But for the promise made to General Sanois he would already have left Algiers. The small attraction the town had once had for him had vanished completely in the mental disturbance that had dominated him during the last few weeks. And Sanois’ preparations dragged interminably. Daily Carew was tempted to put his half-laughing threat into execution and abandon the whole enterprise. But the constant delays were no fault of the General who was straining every nerve to complete his arrangements—and Carew had given his word. There was nothing for it but to wait with what patience he could muster.
Out of tune with himself and his surroundings he had gone for distraction to Biskra to attend the annual race meeting, and for three crowded days he had been able, partially, to forget the strange unrest that beset him. But only partially. The little desert town, filled to overflowing for the great event of the year, was too small for chance meetings to be avoided and several times he had glimpsed Geradine, blustering and insufferable there as in Algiers. But keeping closely to his own circle of acquaintances Carew had escaped coming into contact with the man for whom he had conceived a hatred that was inexplicable. And in Biskra he had other interests besides the racing to engage his attention. Amongst the Arab chiefs who poured into the town from far and wide he had encountered many old friends. And it was in response to the earnest request from one of them, the strangest Arab he had ever known, that Carew had left Biskra early the previous day to ride with him the first couple of stages of a journey that would take the sheik weeks to accomplish.
It was long since they had met and the intervening years had brought startling and unforeseen changes into the life of the man Carew remembered as a light-hearted captain of Spahis who had been more Frenchman than Arab in his tastes and inclinations.
Carew’s gaze turned musingly to the chief who lay stretched on the ground beside him. Wrapped in his burnous, his face hidden in his arms, he had slept, or seemed to sleep throughout the hour of the siesta and not even the clamour and bustle of the departing caravan had roused him. Carew had watched the breaking up of the camp with more than ordinary interest. A headman had superintended the arrangements with precision and despatch that savoured more of military methods than the usual haphazard procedure prevalent among journeying Arabs; and the escort, of whom a dozen or so remained at the further side of the oasis chatting with Hosein, were all obviously fighting men, extraordinarily disciplined and orderly.
Still in disgrace with the Administration for the wiping out of a contiguous tribe ten years before, for what purpose had Said Ibn Zarrarah, ex-captain of Spahis and paramount chief of a large district, not only fostered the warlike instincts of a people with fighting traditions behind them but endeavoured, apparently with success, to engraft on them the European tactics he had himself learnt from the rulers of the country? It was an intriguing question Carew had pondered while his companion slept. In the old days France had had no more devoted adherent than the dashing young Spahi. Was there now any ulterior motive in the militarism he encouraged in his people, or was it merely a means by which he sought to distract his mind from a life that Carew knew to be uncongenial?