But even worse than all this was the thought that Helena had betrayed him—she who had seemed to sacrifice so much. Pitiful delusion! Cruel snare!
It was maddening to think of the merely human side of his betrayal—that between the guilty wife and her lover he was only the husband who had to be got rid of—but the spiritual aspect was still more terrible. He who had allowed himself to believe that he was specially guided by God, that the Merciful had made him His messenger, had been deceived and duped, and was no more than a poor, weak, helpless man, who had been led away by his love for a woman.
The shame of his betrayal was stifling, the sense of his downfall was crushing, but still more painful was the consciousness of the penalty which his people would have to pay for the pride and blind love which had misled him. They had followed him across the desert, suffering all the pains of the long and toilsome journey, buoyed up by the hopes with which he had inspired them; they had trusted and loved and looked up to him, hardly distinguishing between his word and the word of God, and now—their leader was deceived, their hopes were dead, the mirage of their dreams had disappeared.
Thinking of this in the agony of his despair, he asked himself why God had permitted it to come to pass that not himself only, but the whole body of his people should suffer. "Why, O God, why?" he cried, lifting up his arms to the sky.
For some moments a cloud passed between him and the faith which had so long sustained him. He began to deplore his lofty mission, and to remember with regret his earlier days in Khartoum with the simple girl who loved him and lay on the angerib in his arms. He had been humble then—content to be a man; and recalling one by one the touching memories of his life with Adila—in their prison, brightened by rays of love, in their poor desert home, illuminated more than a palace by the expectation of the child that was to come—his heart failed him, and he wanted to curse the destiny which had led him to a greatness wherein all was vain.
The wild insurrection in his soul had left him no time to think which course he was taking, but wandering across the Sakkara desert he had by this time come to the foot of the Sphinx.
Calm, immovable, tremendous, the great scarred face was gazing in passionless meditation into the luminous starlight, asking, as it had asked through the long yesterday of the past, as it will continue to ask through the long to-morrow of the future, the everlasting question, the question of humanity, the question of all suffering souls—
"Why?"
Why should man aim higher than he can reach? Why should he give up the joys of humanity for divine dreams that can never be realised? Why should he be a victim to the devilish powers, within and without, which are always waiting to betray and destroy him? Why should God forsake him just when he is striving to serve Him best?
"Allah! Allah! Why? Why?" he cried.