This was an awkward discovery.
'But you escaped?'
'Yes; thanks to an amulet I wear—a verse of the Koran bound round my left arm.'
To trust such a rascal as Skene now supposed this fellow must be was full of peril. To return and seek another guide, when he had proceeded so far upon his way, would argue timidity, and tempt the 'chaff' of the more heedless spirits of the mess; thus it was not to be thought of.
He could but continue his journey with his despatches, and watch well every movement of his guide; but to have as such one of the ruffians and bullies of Pietro Girolamo was certainly an unpleasant discovery—one with whom he had already that which in these parts of the world is termed a blood feud, seemed to be the first instalment of his gloomy presentiment.
Hassan Abdullah had been—he could not conceive how or why—chosen or recommended as a guide by those in authority; and if false, or disposed to be so, he veiled it under an elaborate bearing of servility and attention to every wish and hint of Skene. Thinking that he could not make any better of the situation now, Malcolm was fain to accept that bearing for what it might be worth, and, to veil his mistrust, adopted a new tone with Hassan, and instead of listening to directions from him, began to give orders instead. But, ignorant as he was of the route, this system could not long be pursued.
As he rode on he thought of Hester Maule, and how she would view or consider his letter. Would she answer it? He scarcely thought she would do so—nay, became certain she would not. Under the circumstances in which they had parted after that interview in the conservatory at Earlshaugh, and with the grim presentiment then haunting him, it was beseeming enough in him perhaps to have written as he did to her; but not for her to write him in reply unless she meant to hold out hopes that might never be realized.
What amount of ground they had traversed when the sun verged westward Malcolm scarcely knew, as the way had been most devious, rough, and apparently, to judge of the guide's indecision more than once, very uncertain; but the former judged that it could not have been more than thirty miles from Memphis as the crow flies.
Dhurra reeds, date, and cotton-trees had long since been left behind, and before the camel-riders stretched a pale yellow waste of sand, strewed in places by glistening pebbles. Malcolm Skene thought they were now entering the lower end of the Wady Faregh, between El Benat and the Wady Rosseh, and on consulting his pocket-compass supposed the Dayr Macarius Convent must be right in his front, but distant many miles, and the post of Dayr-el-Syrian, for which he was bound, must be about ten miles further on; but Hassan Abdullah knew better; and when near sunset that individual dismounted and spread his dirty little square carpet whereon to say his orisons, with his face towards Mecca, his head bowed, his beads in his dingy hands, and his cunning eyes half closed. None would have thought that a Mussulman apparently so pious had only hate and perfidy in his heart for the trusting but accursed infidel, or Frenchi, as he called Skene—the general name in Egypt for all Europeans—as the latter seated himself by the side of a low wall half buried in the drifted sand—the fragment of some B.C. edifice—and partook of his frugal meat, supper and dinner combined.
Far, far away in the distance Memphis and the Valley of the Nile were lost in haze and obscurity; westward the sun, like a ball of fire—a blood-red disc of enormous proportions—shorn of every ray, was setting amid a sky of gold, crimson, and soft apple-green, all blending through each other, yet with light strong enough to send far along the waste they had traversed the shadows of the two camels of Skene and of Hassan.