There was no denying this; war is of necessity a game for two to play at, or else it would be sheer murder.
He was questioned about Gordon’s death, but, though he was willing enough to talk on the subject, his information was at third or fourth hand, and did not profess to be personal, like the other account.
“Ah! That was a man, Gordon Pasha!” he said. “If He had declared himself a prophet, or the great sheikh of the Soudan, the Mahdi would have lost all his followers but a few slave hunters, and all would have gathered under Gordon’s standard. He was just, and when he said a thing every one knew that it was true. The Turks were never just; they took bribes, and they sought by word and deed to deceive. But Gordon Pasha was the wisest and the most just ruler that ever came into the country, and he feared nothing except to offend Allah. The highest and the lowest were the same to him, and it was a pity to kill him. There will never be such another.”
“Why, then, was he murdered?”
“The Mahdi knew that he was a rival, and must overthrow him if he could, or else lose his power himself. And he was betrayed by those who had sinned against him, and been forgiven, but did not believe in the forgiveness. And besides that, the Mahdi offered them money from the first, and when you got so near Khartoum he increased this to a large sum. But all this would not have availed if men had known that Gordon was going to remain as their sheikh; but where was the use of joining a sheikh who was leaving to-morrow against another who was sure to stop?”
He was a shrewd fellow, this prisoner of Grady’s, and knew how to trim his sails to the prevailing wind. The marches of the convoy were slow, as the patients could not bear the jolt of a camel’s trot; and the old medical direction, “When taken to be well shaken,” would have been death to most of them, so the halts were fixed at various intermediate wells, where zerebas had been formed and held till the last load had passed, when the detachment performing that duty likewise retired. The body of Binks was carried on to the bivouac for that night, and decently buried there.
On the following morning the captured Arab was nowhere to be seen, and it was at first feared that he had escaped in the night. But he was soon discovered, the cause of his disappearance being that he had discarded his Mahdi uniform, which was now a little bundle about the size of a cocoa-nut, hanging from a projection of a camel’s harness. Such clothing as he wore fitted well, nature herself having measured him for it; and since he was still a young man, there were no wrinkles in it. You know how difficult it is to recognise a fellow if you come upon him down a back-water bathing, and will understand why the prisoner was missed at first. He came up presently and offered to take service, and tend a camel. It appeared to him that he had to go along with the party anyhow, and might as well improve the shining hour and earn a little money.
Earlier in the march one of the natives in charge of camels had been killed by one of the scattered volleys which every now and then harassed them on their journey, and two others had taken the opportunity of deserting, so that the new volunteer’s services were gladly accepted. And there was the little bundle, ready to be shaken out and put on again should the fortune of war land him to-morrow amongst the adherents of the Mahdi. Quite a man of the world, this Arab.
In the course of his long talk with the interpreter the day before, Kavanagh, who was riding at his side, rifle in hand, having been made responsible for his safe custody, heard a name repeated several times which struck him as familiar, and which he yet could not associate with anything in particular. Burrachee! Whereon earth had he ever heard the word Burrachee? He had dreamt it, or fancied it, or was thinking of that word which expresses the taste given to wine by the skin in which it is stored in some places. And he tried to drive it from his head. But that night he was for guard, and while doing his tour of sentry it flashed upon him in a second.
Burrachee, the Sheikh Burrachee; that was the name of the Mohammedan uncle of Harry Forsyth, who lived amongst the Arabs of the Soudan, and to whom Harry meant to have recourse in finding the portentous will, the absence of which was the cause that he, Reginald Kavanagh, was tramping up and down a narrow path under the stars, with a chance of being shot or sprung upon every minute, instead of being snugly tucked up between the sheets, snoring to the nightingales.