“Harry,” he said, using the English accent for the name, however, “you remember me?”
Harry looked at him in a troubled way, and pressed his hand on his forehead.
“I told you that you would come to me, for the inward voice, which never errs, declared it to me,” he went on. “Struggle as you might, you could not avert your destiny. Our family is called to do a great work. I have commenced it, and it will be yours to complete it. I am growing old, but I can still strike a blow for the cause. May Allah grant me to die when my right arm is powerless: to die on the field of battle, in the moment of victory, with my face to the foe! Yes, you are clearly destined to lead the hosts of Islam. Have you not come out to me alone, leaving home and friends? Have you not traversed the desert without guide, still alone; and though struck down by an unknown hand, have we not met? Have you not miraculously learned the language of the country to which destiny called you? Were you not brought when found, to all appearance dead, to the fakir, Abdul Achmet, the one man of all others I would have directed you to? And the blind fools of Europe would call this chance, as they do everything which they cannot attribute to their own forethought or cunning.”
“Yes, I know you,” said Harry, at length; “you are my uncle Ralph, the Sheikh Burrachee. But I think I have been ill, and everything is like a dream to me. Were there not a signet-ring, and a paper in a silver case, and jewels of value which you gave me?”
At that instant Abdul Achmet came out of the mosque, and the Sheikh Burrachee advanced to meet him, leaving Harry more bewildered and disturbed in mind than he had been since he was brought to the oasis; and that night he had a relapse of fever. It did not prove serious, however, and when it passed away his mind was clearer than before, though he still seemed like one in a dream, and the past events of his life appeared to him as having happened to some one else.
On the morning after his arrival the Sheikh Burrachee left, but some weeks afterwards he returned with an escort and an easy-paced hygeen to take Harry away with him. He took the announcement of the journey with the placid indifference which now characterised him, only at the moment of starting he showed reluctance to part from his black nurse, Fatima. But whether the sheikh bought her, or only borrowed her, it was arranged that she should go too, and Harry was perfectly reconciled. The hygeen’s motions were wonderfully smooth for a camel, and the journey was made easy to him; but still it was trying in his weak state and after so long a confinement.
But it did not last long, and then they reached a town of flat-roofed houses, and entered a spacious courtyard with a portico round it, through which were the living-rooms. There were soldiers here and there under this portico, some of them wearing the turban, but the majority having a skull-cap of blue and white on their heads, and a sentry over the gate had one of them too. Those who wore the bernouse, and most of them did, had similar blue and white patches sewn on different parts of it. These were the Mahdi’s colours; I don’t know why, for he was never a Third Trinity man, and had no right to their blazer. Like his impudence! It is true that the colours were generally in dice, not regularly striped. Some of the soldiers did not show the colours, but that was because they had nothing to put them on unless they painted their bodies. Passing through a large room with a divan round it, and pushing aside a curtain at the farther end, you came upon another and smaller court, which was a garden with a fountain in the middle, well filled with date and other palms. There was a portico round this too, and this was destined to be the place where Harry Forsyth was to pass the greater part of his life for some time, for it was the dwelling or private part of his uncle’s establishment.
Crazy renegade as he was, the Sheikh Burrachee had some old ideas of comfort which the wild life he had led had not dissipated, and being a rich man for the country where he was and the people he had adopted, he could indulge any little fancies he had; and he had made his house both handsome and comfortable.
According to the simple ideas of the natives, indeed, he was possessed of enormous wealth, and this reputation went some way towards the superstitious regard in which he was held. This was the place which Harry now entered, and reposing on a divan, low, with soft cushions on it, and close to the portico, he looked upon the green leaves and listened to the trickle of the fountain, while Fatima brought him a glass of delicious lemonade, squeezed from the fresh-plucked fruit; and the fatigues of the journey were forgotten, and he fell into a long and refreshing sleep. His curiosity, however, had not been one whit aroused; he took everything as a matter of course. Perhaps he was a character in the “Arabian Nights,” and not Harry Forsyth at all—who could tell?—all seemed so strange and unreal.