CHAPTER XLV.
THE DEATH WRESTLE.
Tidings had come, as stated, to the zereba of Sheikh Moussa of the deportation of his kinsman Zebehr in a British ship of war as a State prisoner to Gibraltar, and Malcolm Skene—no longer cared for as a hostage—found himself in greater peril than before among his unscrupulous captors.
He was conscious that his movements by day were watched more closely than ever now, and by night he was always placed in a close prison beyond the court wherein the lions were chained.
Other Sheikhs came and went, with their standard-bearers and horsemen; conferences were evidently held with Moussa Abu Hagil; Skene found himself an object of growing hostility, and suspected 'that something, he knew not what,' was in progress; that Gordon had actually been victorious or rescued at Khartoum, or some great battle had been lost by the Mahdi.
He could gather from his knowledge of the language, and the remarks that were let fall unwittingly in his hearing that the zereba was to be abandoned for a general movement on Khartoum, or for another fortified post farther up the country—a move worse for him; and the consequent preparations, therefore, packing tents, provisions, and spoil, had begun.
To save further trouble, and gratify the lust of blood which forms a part of the Oriental nature, he might be assassinated after all—after having found protection under the roof and eaten the salt of Moussa—killed as poor Hector MacLaine was killed after the battle of Candahar, two or three years before this time.
The expression of Moussa's face as he regarded him occasionally now, was neither pleasant nor reassuring; his deep set eyes, when he was excited, glared with fire, like lights in the sockets of a skull; and Malcolm Skene never knew when the supreme moment might come.
In the morning he had no assurance that he should see night—in the night that he would be a live man in the morning.
Anything—death itself—were better than this keen and cruel suspense.