For Love of a Bedouin Maid

by Voleur

To explain their presence on a trading vessel a brief retrospect is necessary.

When last before the reader, St. Just lay unconscious in the boat, with a dreadful injury to his head. His companions, seeing that he made no attempt to rise, picked him up and laid him on the beach. Then a cloth was bound tightly round his head to check the bleeding, and they did their best to bring him round. But all their efforts were unavailing; St. Just remained in a state of stupor.

What was to be done? They did not like to leave him, and Theodori and Mahmoud would not hear of it, the latter saying that nothing would induce him to forsake the wounded man. On the other hand, to carry him into the town, would call attention to them and might lead to their arrest. Their intention had been to disperse on landing, and make their way thither by different routes in twos and threes. After some discussion, it was decided that four of them should remain with him, until a place of shelter had been found for him. The main body then separated, taking different directions. Mahmoud, of course, and Theodori were among those left behind.

When the others had cleared off, the latter started in search of help. A little way inland, was a village, and thither Theodori bent his steps. He had gone not far, when he met one whose dress showed him to be a priest. The very man, opined the Greek, and he approached him and told what had occurred. He was familiar with all the tongues in use about the Mediterranean, of which Italian was the most prevalent, and in this language he addressed him. Naturally, all he told him was that, in landing from a boat, a man had been seriously hurt, and was in dire need of surgical assistance. The padre's sympathies were enlisted, and he at once set off with Theodori to the shore and instructed the men to bear the wounded man to his own house. This done, the Greek and the two other men departed, leaving Mahmoud with St. Just. Then the good priest fetched a doctor, a friend of his, and St. Just's injuries were attended to.

He made steady progress towards recovery, so far as concerned the wound, which in a month healed up; when, in bodily health, he was as well and strong as ever.

But the injury to his head had had a strange effect upon his brain. When he regained consciousness, his memory had wholly left him; he was oblivious of everything that had occurred before the accident; the past was an absolute blank to him. Even Mahmoud he did not recognize; had he been asked his own name, or Mahmoud's, he could not have given either. The lad had told the priest that his master's name was St. Just and his own Mahmoud, and St. Just hearing the names so used, accepted them. It was strange that this should not have aroused some memories in his dormant brain; but so it was.

Mahmoud had begged so hard to be allowed to remain and serve St. Just, that the padre could not find it in his heart to say him nay; he was touched by the young man's devotion. The lad was both amazed and shocked at the condition of his master's mind, and, for a long time, tried every means to awake his sleeping memory.

He talked of Halima and the old sheik; of his accident, of Cairo, of Black Ali, of the treasure, of the French Army, and of every circumstance known to St. Just that he thought likely to take his mind back to the past; but, with all his efforts, he failed to strike one responsive chord. St. Just would give him all his attention, looking wonderingly in Mahmoud's face, would seem to be striving hard to dig into the recesses of the past, and then would answer wearily, "It is useless, Mahmoud; my mind in regard to what is in the past is dead. I recollect nothing that occurred before I woke up to find myself in bed in this good man's house. I do not even remember having ever seen you before that moment. I do not doubt the truth of what you tell me, but I remember nothing of it, nothing."

So, seeing its uselessness, and that it even gave his master pain, Mahmoud rarely made any reference to the past, and, after a month, ceased altogether.

Both the padre and the surgeon were much interested in the case, especially the latter; he had never met with such a one before. At first he thought St. Just was shamming, that he had done something that would not bear the light, and had artfully assumed his rôle of ignorance, to shelve unpleasant questions. But he soon abandoned this idea; there was no pretense about his patient's loss of memory. Then he brought other medical men to see St. Just, and all were as puzzled as himself. They talked of depression of the skull, of lesions, and abscesses on the brain; but all agreed that nothing could be done; time only might effect a cure. Should the lesion, or abscess heal, or whatever was the mischief, be removed, most likely his memory would return. They could say and do no more; in those days surgical and medical science had not attained the position it holds to-day.