“He may have hidden it among the rocks where we first came upon these English,” suggested another.
“It is well thought of; I will have the place searched,” said Abd-ur-Rahim. “But mark me—my opinion is that none of those here know where it is. It has been given to the youth who is missing, and he is to escape with it or to hide it. Therefore let the youth be pursued and taken. The rest are trying to lead us to think that they have it concealed among them here, that so he may get away in safety.”
This explanation of their defeat appeared to satisfy the Ethiopians, and they returned to the outer rooms, accompanied by Dick and Stratford, who were almost as much mystified as they were.
CHAPTER XX.
FOR THE HONOUR OF ENGLAND’S SAKE.
Half an hour later, Georgia stepped out of the great latticed window on the terrace, and kneeling beside the parapet, rested her arms on it, and looked away over the desert. There in the distance rose the walls and towers of Bir-ul-Malikat, Fath-ud-Din’s second fortress, which crowned the top of a conical hill some four miles from Bir-ul-Malik. Within those walls old Khadija, the sorceress, bore rule, and held in her grasp the knowledge which alone could save Sir Dugald’s life. Lady Haigh’s intuition had been a true one, although there was no outward change in her husband’s condition. Whether the sand-storm and the hurried journeyings of the day had brought about a loss of vitality, or whether they had merely rendered perceptible a failure which had hitherto been too gradual to be noticed, it was undeniable that the pulse was less regular, and the action of the heart more feeble than before. The insidious poison administered by Fath-ud-Din was sapping Sir Dugald’s life away, and, unless the mysterious antidote could be obtained, his protracted unconsciousness would before long pass into death.
“I must see this Khadija,” said Georgia to herself, as her eyes wandered over the desert, “and find out whether anything will induce her to sell her secret. I might introduce myself to her as a sister in the craft—Abd-ur-Rahim and his men would bear me out—and suggest an interchange of ideas. There must be quite a number of things I could tell her, and I could set her up with a few medicines. The effects would be wonderful to her. But then, she might not care for remedies, and I am certainly not going to put more poisons into her hands. I fancy that killing is more in her line than curing. What was it that Rahah told me she said when a girl asked her for a love-philtre? ‘I shall make no love-philtre but one, and that will be for my Rose of the World to give her bridegroom on the marriage-night.’ I’m afraid she would not care about the opportunity of doing kindnesses. She must be fond of the girl Zeynab—perhaps it might be possible to work upon her feelings through her. At any rate, I must see her; but how am I to manage it? Dick would be very angry if I went without telling him, and yet I am sure he would prevent my going if he knew of it. But I will go, even if I have to break with Dick about it. To leave Sir Dugald to die, and make Lady Haigh a widow, when I knew where the remedy was to be found, just for fear of vexing Dick, would be shameful. I shall be obliged to oppose him some day, and it is a good thing to do it for the first time in such an absolutely righteous cause. There can be no doubt whatever as to my being in the right this time, but I’m sure he won’t see it. I do wish people would be a little more reasonable!”
She was tapping her stethoscope impatiently against the stones as she spoke, and it slipped suddenly from her fingers and rolled over the edge of the parapet. Looking after it, she saw that, instead of dropping or rolling down into the plain, as she had expected, it had lodged on a projection in the cliff, not more than twenty feet below the parapet, where a few tufts of withered-looking grass had found holding-ground. Still, it was quite beyond her power to reach it.
“How careless of me!” she said, with deep vexation. “My dear old hospital stethoscope! I wonder whether it could be reached from here? I think a man with a rope might be able to get it. How much astonished Dick would be if I asked him to go down for it! I wonder whether he would go? He would send one of the servants, I should think. It would be quite easy to let him down and draw him up again. What a convenient little shelf that is! It would be rather a good place to put the treaty in, for if they catch Mr Anstruther and find he has not got it, they may come back and make another search. I wonder whether it would be safe? I don’t think the cover would show among that grass.”
Leaning over the parapet, she scanned the face of the cliff, and raised herself to her former position with some disappointment.
“It would be very difficult to drop it just in the right place,” she went on meditatively; “and, if there was a storm, the rain would be sure to wash it away. Of course, it might lodge somewhere lower down—or it might not; and, if it did, we might not be able to get at it. Why, it looks as though there might be a path right up the cliff to the shelf! It is quite a series of steps and ledges, and projecting stones, and tufts of grass. It would need a very cool head to climb it, and a sure foot too, but I believe it could be done. It might be very dangerous, for any one could get in and attack us without our knowing. They could hide among those ruined huts at the foot of the cliff, and choose a time when none of us were out here. Of course, they couldn’t very well get up as far as this from the shelf, for the cliff overhangs just at the top, and there are no projections; but they might have a rope-ladder with a hook at the top to throw up and catch in something, or some other way of doing it. It doesn’t feel a bit safe. I know I shall dream that there are men getting up here all night; but I won’t be silly and frighten the rest. It’s all nonsense! No one could climb this last piece of the cliff.”