Chapter Thirteen.
An Unexpected Meeting.
Gradually Harry Forsyth came back to real life, as it were. First of all he had an uneasy feeling that something was wrong, but he wanted a word or an event to strike the key-note of his memory. His uncle never spoke of home matters; he was kind, and even affectionate, but was much away. He would come out into the large courtyard in the early morning, mount the horse which was held ready for him with an activity worthy of a much younger man, and scour off at a gallop with a troop of his wild retainers racing behind him. He might come back that evening, or not for a week.
And when he was at home he was very busy, seeing different people, who came and went in a great hurry, and writing despatches, which mounted orderlies, or what answered for such, were always in waiting to carry. And when they were together he talked of the wild life of the desert; of the sport to be had further up in the Black Country, but never of England.
He spoke Arabic always, even when they were alone, and never lapsed into his native tongue. Yet his face and the tone of his voice disturbed Harry, causing him to make an effort to get his mind clear.
At length, one morning he awoke with a distinct remembrance of his mother and sister, and the knowledge that he was far away from them in a foreign land, and had not had any communication with them for a long time. And he felt a strong desire to relieve their anxiety, and let them know he was alive, and also to have news of them. But he could not remember what he had come to this part of the world for.
He knew that he had wanted to trace his uncle; but why? He had come out to Egypt in the service of a firm of merchants, and the name of the head of it was Williams; he was confident so far. But had he not returned home since then? And why had he sought out his uncle? Surely not on business connected with the firm, and certainly not because he had turned Mohammedan and wanted to live like an ostrich.
A little longer, and his connection with Hicks Pasha’s force, and the disastrous termination of that expedition, came clearly back to him; and with it the necessity of keeping silent about the matter, for he now wanted to get away to a civilised place like Cairo, at all events, if not to England. For though he did not know that the British Government had taken up the Egyptian quarrel, and that war had actually been waged between them and the Soudanese in the neighbourhood of the Red Sea, he knew that an officer of the late expedition would be looked upon with suspicion, if not treated as an open enemy.
Neither was he sure how his uncle would bear the disappointment if he found out that he had been in the ranks of his enemies—the Egyptians. Though he need not have worried himself about that, for the Sheikh Burrachee would only have thought it the method which Destiny had taken to bring him to him.