Ralph Trenchard strolled to the extreme end of the right side of the semicircle. He was wholly restored to health, a prey to intense anxiety, and upon the eve of his departure for Hutah, where he intended calling upon the aid of the entire Peninsula for the recovery of Helen, and felt thankful for anything which might serve to distract his tormented mind. Abdul gave a final look round his master’s tent, which consisted of camel-skins thrown over four upright poles, and ran quickly to his master’s side.
He had done his best to dissuade his master from the rash proceeding of trying to discover her Excellency’s whereabouts, had preached the doctrine of fatalism as known in the East, and had at last resigned himself to the inevitable and sworn, in the secret places of his faithful heart, to stick to the white man through thick and thin.
The visit of a holy man creates a welcome diversion in a camp where meals of dates, muddy coffee, and, if luck is in, a sickly mess of boiled camel flesh as pièce de résistance form the only break in the long, monotonous hours when fighting is not toward; the advent of a holy man who deigned to open his lips except in prayer was to be reckoned a miracle.
Abdul moved close to Ralph Trenchard at the holy one’s first words.
“Are any of thy children wounded, O my Son?” The words came faint and slow, as though spoken by one who had almost lost the power of speech. “I have with me an ointment of great power.” Al-Asad searched amongst his rags and produced an alabaster pot, which had once contained rouge and had been bought by Zarah in Cairo, but which now reeked to high heaven of rancid camel fat mixed with aniseed.
“Nay! Father!” replied the chief, whilst his children whispered amongst themselves. “Those that were wounded are healed, those that were sick are recovered. Whyfore asketh thou? How knowest thou that they have been in battle?”
Al-Asad barely suppressed a chuckle as he pressed the lid down upon the distressing concoction and stored it once more about his person. He made no answer. He sat motionless, as though lost in meditation, until Ralph Trenchard could have fallen upon and shaken him back to a consciousness of his surroundings.
“A moon ago I prayed upon the site of a great battle, O my Son!” murmured Al-Asad slowly, after some long while and as though he had but just heard the question. “There was naught but bones and this.” He once more searched amongst his rags and looked at some object, which he did not disclose to view, and took no notice of a quickly suppressed movement at the right end of the circle as Abdul gripped Ralph Trenchard by the arm. “I have asked those I have met upon my path if they knew aught about that combat. Nay, my Son! interrupt me not, the hour is slipping into eternity and I must be gone.” The chief, who had been anxious to tell what he knew of the fight from personal experience, bowed in obedience and spread his hands. “It was a fight between white men and the woman of whose dire deeds the desert rings. All were killed but a white woman, who, grievously wounded and nigh unto death, was made prisoner and taken to the mountains known as the Sanctuary, which lie but a day’s journey and a night’s journey to the south of the spot where they fought, and where dwells the woman of evil repute.”
He rose as he spoke, standing a dim and arresting figure in the shadows, and stretched out his hand.
“This I perceived glittering in the sun, midway between the mountains and the battlefield, upon a path marked in the sand by the swift passing of two camels. It is of too great a value for one who lives upon the words of the Prophet of Allah, the one and only God. Perchance wilt thou, my son, take it in return for thy charity to the humble pilgrim.”