And now to return to Michael. During the weary weeks of anxiety and suffering which Margaret spent in Egypt before she sailed for England, Michael lay hovering between life and death in the Omdeh's house near the subterranean village in the Libyan Desert.
Abdul had taken him there when he gathered him up in his strong arms on the eventful evening when he left the excavation-tent in the hills. A violent attack of fever, made more serious and difficult to throw off by the overwrought condition of his nerves, kept Michael a helpless exile in the hands of the hospitable but somewhat ignorant Omdeh and the devoted Abdul.
When the fever was at its height, Michael was very often delirious; in his ramblings he let the discreet Abdul see deep down into the secret hiding-places of his heart. Sometimes he spoke in English, and sometimes in Arabic. Abdul could understand a great deal more English than he could speak, and as Michael often repeated the same things in Arabic—when he thought he was addressing Abdul—he soon found the key to much which, without the Arabic translation and constant reiteration, might have escaped his understanding. Arabs learn a language with extraordinary rapidity; it is no unusual thing to meet a dragoman who can understand three or four languages, and speak a fair smattering of each; the same man is probably unable to read or write in any one of the four. From the deep waters of affliction came strange and terrible revelations, of desires and temptations which the conscious man had not allowed himself to recognize. In his helplessness they leapt forth and proclaimed themselves unmistakably. He innocently betrayed the nature of the woman who had earned Abdul's hatred.
At other times he called upon Margaret and implored her forgiveness, denouncing the woman who had followed him. He cursed her in horrible words. Even Abdul was surprised at their impiety. Once, when Abdul laid his fine fingers on his burning forehead, Michael took his hand eagerly and tried to kiss it. The next instant he rejected it and with the strength of delirium threw it from him and tried to get out of bed.
"That's not Margaret's hand?" he said angrily. "And I want no other woman than Margaret. I have told you that before—I belong to Margaret, I am Margaret's body and soul. I told you that the first time we ate our meal together, even before your white tent went up."
When Abdul managed to subdue his master's fears, he laughed wildly and idiotically. "Of course it is only you, Abdul. I had forgotten. I seem to forget everything . . . I thought that . . ." here his words became incoherent. "I was so tired, Abdul, and you were sitting up in the sky above the horizon . . . so very tired."
Abdul fanned his babbling master and offered him a cooling drink.
Michael swallowed it eagerly; his bright eyes gazed pitifully into
Abdul's after the last drain was swallowed.
"Don't let the other woman come near me," he pleaded. "She is wearing all Akhnaton's precious stones—they are hung round her neck, her breasts are covered with them. But her skin is so white and tender, the sun is burning it—I must lend her my coat." He laughed horribly. "Mean little beast, Abdul, how frightened she was! The saint gave me the amethyst—it's for Margaret."
Abdul listened to these strange outpourings with the philosophy and trust of a devout Moslem. If Allah willed it, He would let his master recover. He had put the Effendi in his care, and no trouble was anything but a pleasure to him if it brought some sense of ease and comfort to the delirious Michael.
The Omdeh was the very soul of hospitality. He observed the teachings of the Koran in the spirit as well as in the letter. He spoke no English, so he was ignorant of all that Michael's delirious words conveyed to Abdul. On his master's concerns, Abdul was a well of secrecy.