In the outer hall with its pair of Corinthian columns of polished black marble Lord Elphin was handing his overcoat to the footman, when he saw the drawing-room door move slightly, revealing a tiny chink, immediately closed again; a thin line of brilliant light, instantly eclipsed.
Through the momentary opening slipped a slim agile figure, and a voice-a woman's voice, of singularly clear intonation and a remarkable full and seductive quality, exclaimed:
"Morning, James! Here am I ... I always know your knock, you know,-right, every time! ... Banged the door quick, did I? Well I beg pardon; but mother doesn't want her little preparations spied on. She wants everybody to be dazzled by the sudden revelation of the magnificent tout ensemble. Five minutes, and all will be ready. The gong will sound, and all the house may come to feast their eyes on the table laid out for to-morrow's festivities."
James looked at the girl without saying a word. How pretty and how charming she was,-his Grace, his future wife, with her delicate features, her rosy complexion and her aureola of yellow-gold hair,-to say nothing of the soft, undulating lines of her young, strong body, and the chaste promises they gave of pleasures to come. He stood silent, watching her gay smile and the happy look shining in her bright eyes. Long after she had finished speaking, he could still hear the crystal-clear vibrations of her musical voice. How full it was of feeling,-something far better than a host of words.
She really loved him fondly then? But if so, why? ... yes! why? His brow puckered under the stress of thought, while doubt and bitterness twisted his lips awry.
The girl noted these symptoms, and a sudden alarm blanched her sensitive face.
"For heaven's sake, James, what is wrong? Tell me what is the matter; please, please, tell your little girl ... Tell me everything. I am brave, you know I am ... But there! It's all a mistake, isn't it? Nothing serious has befallen you? ... No! you can't be angry because I shut the door in your face just now. No! it can't be that ... Can't you speak, James? You're driving me mad!"
"Silly child! why! what a taking you're in! I was only a bit disappointed, because I came for you, and now I've got to wait,-wait ages! I know what your mother's five minutes mean; two of 'em go to the hour! ... Uncle Dick's come; the very first thing he did was to ask for you, and he gave me no peace till I came off to fetch you."
"And I'm only too impatient to make his acquaintance ... But five minutes, what is five minutes? You may laugh, but you're quite wrong; it's all but ready, really, and mother counts so on her surprises. Think how vexed she would be, if you were not there to compliment her on the way she'd laid out the Christmas dinner ... Come, never spoil her pleasure. A little patience,-if not for my sake, then for my people's."
"Little coax!"
"Ah! there's your dear old smile back again ... Fie, sir! what an ogre you are for terrifying little girls. How awfully cross you looked! Come along now! I am going to take you upstairs into the drawing-room. I want your advice about the presents I have bought to give away to folks to-morrow."
In the drawing-room, as they were going under the chandelier, from which depended a branch of mistletoe, James suddenly threw his arms round Grace's neck. The girl straggled, pushing him away with a laugh,-a merry, ringing laugh, clear and sweet as a linnet's pipe.
"Oh! you little rebel ... How dare you break the good old custom?"
Blushing, with downcast lids, she put up her lips to be kissed. Lord Elphin stooped, and took a lover's kiss, a proper lover's kiss, wet and intimate.
The girl sprang back, grown suddenly pale and solemn-faced.
"Oh! James!. . . "
And a flood of tears drowned her cheeks, while with her handkerchief she began to rub her lips furiously, as if she would never leave off.
The same thoughts that had filled the man's mind just before, once more corrugated his brow with lines of chagrin and ill-humor. He shrugged his shoulders, and turning his back, pretended to be examining a picture on the wall, while Grace went on crying silently and soundlessly.
But at this moment the gong made itself heard, beaten by a rapid, peremptory, impatient hand. Grace began dabbing her pocket-handkerchief:
"That's Mamma telling us everything is ready. Shall we go down?"
"Grace,. . . you don't love me, then?"
"How can you say such things?"
"Well! but how do you account for your tears, your terror,-I might say, your disgust? How you started back! . ... If you loved me, you would have returned my kiss ... Don't you know you will very soon be my wife, my dear, delicious little wife! ... When we are married, will you still be so particular! ... Kissing, real kissing, shall you always loathe it! ... No! perhaps not! But then, I shall be justified in thinking it's a sense of duty, not love at all, has changed you ... Oh! you don't realize the pleasures of kissing,-because you don't love me the same way I love you. Perhaps someone else..."
"James! for God's sake, not another word. How can you imagine such a thing! ... It's only that I am a poor ignorant little girl, who does not understand things. I did not mean to wound you, believe me, James; I would not hurt you for the world ... But there are some things that frighten me ... I know it's got to be done; and it shall be done ... Forgive me, James for talking like this; it shakes me up more than I can tell you, merely to speak of it and I would never dare to say one word to my mother. I know, James, I must obey you, when I'm your wife; and will obey, joyfully, with all the joy of sacrifice ... For I do think it is the greatest sacrifice a woman can make. A woman must indeed be wretched to consent to such things with a man she does not love..."
"You see, my dear . .
"Let me finish! ... Alas! why force me to say such things? ... You pretend not to understand me, and all the while you know far better than I do what I want to express ... Oh! I say it very badly; it's all so difficult! We must wait, James,-wait till we're married!"
"Wait! how you say the word; how calmly and quietly you argue away! ... You're composed enough, you have no feelings ... If only you knew how I suffer!"
The girl shuddered, and a sharp pain shot through her clean, healthy flesh and pierced her maiden, but not insensible bosom. Her voice took a serious and infinitely gentle cadence, as she said:
"And don't I suffer?"
"Really? No! no! that's foolishness ... Your disgust! your wry face! the way you rubbed and rubbed your lips!"
"Oh! hush, hush! How should I know? ... Oh! what a thing to talk about! ... Don't you hear the gong? it's just like thunder all over the house! Come along quick, if you don't want mother to be coming after me to scold me."
Her clear eyes glittered with good humor and innocent fun. Her anger was gone already, without leaving a trace of ill-will behind it. Her lover stood awkward and embarrassed, quite nonplussed at her changing moods. But the old frown remained. The blood was beating hard in the man's veins, and his breathing was heavy and oppressed.
Erect at the dining-room door, her arms extended in an attitude of proud proprietorship, Mrs. Marjoribanks stood waiting to be complimented. The servants were ranged in a row along the wall, silent and lost in admiration. Indeed from one end of the United Kingdom to the other this Christmas Eve, you could hardly have found a table better ordered for to-morrow's feast, and sideboards more elegantly arranged, than in this dining-room in a pretty little bijou house in Pembroke Square, Earl's Court,-a quarter of town nevertheless where every household realizes to the full the obligations incident to the great national festival, Christmas Day, that time of open hearted hospitality and exuberant good cheer. Solemnly the good lady received the compliments paid her by her husband, by her sons, and by James her future son-in-law. Then followed a torrent of words, as she drew attention to each separate detail, from the arrangement of the rare orchids, which meandered all round the board in and out amidst the glass and silver, to the huge plum-pudding that stood round and imposing as the centerpiece of all these wonders.
In a short while Grace returned, mued in her furs.
"I am going with James. He wants to introduce me to his Uncle Dick, who only arrived this evening."
"Very well, my dear! Only don't stay too late."
"It is only nine o'clock," observed James. "It's a goodish step, I know, from here to Portland Place, but all the same I shall bring her back before midnight, never fear."
A hansom was standing at the front-door. The two young people got in and without a word said, the driver whipped up his horse and started off at a good pace. The streets were filled with a busy, swarming crowd of pedestrians, each loaded with numerous parcels. The shops were brilliantly lighted up, and their doors opening and shutting continually, while the clerks darted to and fro, eager to serve the throng of customers whose serried ranks overflowed even on to the pavements outside. All the wage-earners, who for months past had been economizing on their expenses, depositing their savings shilling by shilling at the "Club," had just withdrawn this money, and were now bent on spending it in provisions for the Christmas dinner and presents to give away on Boxing Day to family and friends.
However, on this particular Christmas Eve of 1883, amid all this exuberance of life and gaiety, there yet occurred moments of sad pause and reflexion, whenever the shrill voices of the street Arabs were heard crying the evening papers. At such moments an eddy appeared in the human tide that beat along the fronts of the tall houses. At that date everybody, from the roughest "docker" to the most elegant "languid swell," was eagerly interested in the Sudan, mad for news from the seat of war. It was only a short six weeks since the day Hicks Pacha had been defeated and slain. The unfortunate General's head had been sent to the Malidi, and was now grinning from a gibbet, while his body lay rotting on the field of battle. The ten thousand men he led against the Dervishes had let themselves be massacred without striking a blow, paralyzed by panic and terror. Egyptian dogs! the debris of the rebellious Arabi Pasha's troops, old enemies of England lately vanquished by her soldiers, whom the British Power would fain have turned to account to stay the dreaded Malidi's advance. Poor fighting stuff, those Egyptian battalions!
But General Hicks, an Englishman, and many other English officers, had perished with them. While the cowardly rabble were throwing away their rifles and bolting, a handful of brave men, a sacred band, had gathered round the chief. They had stood shoulder to shoulder, sabring the blacks, to the last man; not one had surrendered. Their heads lined the banks of the Nile,grim trophies the Malidi displayed to encourage the riverside population, murderous Arabs, cruel negroes, to undertake a Jehad, a "Holy War," for the extermination of the hated British. All England was boiling with indignation, and demanded instant reprisals.
The cab rolled swiftly along Bond Street, where the jewellers' windows glittered under the electric lamps. James had taken Grace's hand, and was softly caressing it.
He gazed long and fixedly at her elegant profile, as graceful as an old fashioned ivory miniature, till she smiled back at him. Yes, she was indeed a charming creature, so pretty, so very pretty,-and so good and kind into the bargain. But ... why did she make him suffer so atrociously? She was cruel, she was a flirt! what a provoking smile she had, what a way of nestling up to him! ... After all said and done, was she really quite so simple as she seemed! ... Chaste physically beyond a doubt; but some of these little ways were too knowing by half for an ingenue, they meant refinement, since ... Ah! how it pinched him, this impatience to possess her! And she! did she feel nothing at all? Still when they were dancing together, her clear gray eyes would swim in an ecstasy of pleasure, deep pools dark as the sea under a stormy sky! They flashed and sparkled like the lightning, while her nostrils would dilate and quiver. Her supple form abandoned itself voluptuously to his arm, in such a way that had he relaxed his hold, she would have fallen. He could feel her whole body tremble in his embrace ... Then surely! ... Sometimes too, when he held her hand in his, as he was doing now, she would blush up and the hot blood mantle in her cheeks ... Then the things she had said just now, when he kissed her,-a real kiss, the true kiss, the only one that counts in love? ... So she had said just now, when he kissed her.-a real kiss, the true kiss, the only one that counts in love? ... So she had some heat in her after all? Yes! yes! that was plain enough; there was fire lurking underneath the snow. Only the affected minx, like every other young miss, said no! when she meant yes! He must just have her willy nilly,-just have her without a word,-love her and no beating about the bush, postponing all excuses till afterwards ... Afterwards?-but then, as they were going to be married!"
The hansom was swinging down Piccadilly by this time. In spite of the lateness of the hour the shops were blazing with light, and rows of vehicles stood waiting, drawn up along the sidewalks. They soon reached Piccadilly Circus and the cab turned down Coventry Street. Using the end of her umbrella, the girl was just pushing up the little trap in the roof; but James grasped her arm, and the lid fell to again. Still she persisted in her endeavor to stop the driver.
"Don't you see he is going all out of the way?"
"He is going all right where I told him. I've got something to tell you, Grace; I've been waiting a long time to have a talk with you,-a talk on which our happiness, both our happiness, depends, believe me!"
"You really frighten me! You look so strange, and your voice is quite changed. Why all this mystery? I have never seen you before like you are to-night ... You are nervous and full of fancies. Have I not always listened to you, when you wished to say anything? What in the world can you have to tell me? We are all alone together; why don't you speak out now?"
Presently, dear. Where I am going to take you, we can talk more at ease."
She shook her head, while her eyes, searched James's face, trying to divine his real thoughts.
"Very well! I know you're a gentleman, utterly incapable of anything felonious. Wherever you please to take me, I'm ready to go with you."
Nevertheless she withdrew the hand he was stroking gently as he spoke. Her heart felt oppressed, she could not tell why, and she experienced a malaise and a sort of shuddering fear that grew more accentuated every moment.
Internally she blamed herself for not better resisting these ever increasing anxieties, which appeared to her childish in the extreme.
The cab turned yet another corner and entered the narrow thoroughfare of Wardour Street, stopping finally in front of a small hotel. The hall-porter came forward quickly with an expectant look, and a bearing at once self important and obsequious. Grace noted every detail with nervous eagerness. The house seemed to her decent enough in appearances, but yet with a certain over accentuated look of extreme respectability, the door too shiny with immaculate varnish, the entrance hall too luxuriously cozy, and above all its furniture too loud and obtrusive. You could not help thinking the heavy hangings had been specially chosen to drown cries for help, while underneath the porter's fawning manner lurked a soupcon of familiarity that seemed to bespeak him an accomplice in some proposed act of scoundrelism. Grace was filled with uneasiness and a sinister melancholy. Still she raised no objection, but obediently followed James as he climbed the stairs in tow of the landlord, who had run out to welcome his customers.
A curious type, this landlord,-a little, meagre, bald-headed Swiss, with enormous hands,-the malefactor's hands, having abnormally exaggerated thumbs, excellent tools for midnight assassination. At the same time the best fellow in the world, useful, obliging and liberal,-particularly in giving advice, the sort of advice that rascals bestow on other people, always contriving to keep just to windward of the law themselves. And what a practical head to be sure! when the Marlborough Street police magistrate fined him for admitting travelers without luggage, he would calmly proceed to make up the amount by petty additions to his guests' daily bills. In the same fashion he recouped himself for the compensation he paid to his
"man of straw," the supposed Manager, when on a repetition of the offence Justice supplemented the fine with a term of imprisonment.
Arriving at the first floor, this gentleman drew aside and threw open a door. James let his companion enter first, and following her in, turned the key in the lock and shot to a bolt. The electric light revealed a bright, clean bedroom with a fresh looking paper and curtains. But the first thing that drew Grace's attention was the bed, which with its copper rods and mother-of-pearl rings and its embroidered silk counterpane, had a certain air of furtive coquetry about it.
Grace stood still in the middle of the room, struck dumb, refusing to understand. James, very red and round-eyed, suddenly took her in his arms. She shook herself free, and without a word, her figure held very stiff and upright, made for the door. He grasped her by the two wrists, crushing them brutally and hurting her very much ... The girl grew paler and paler, and a cloud seemed to come before her eyes; but still her silence remained unbroken. He slipped his hands up along her arms, and pushing her by the shoulders, winding one arm meanwhile round her waist, drew her towards the bed. Then he tried to kiss her. At this her open hands contracted like a bird's claws and she planted her nails in the skin of his face, screaming;
"I would rather you killed me!"
"Silly little fool! Aren't you going to be my wife? You don't know what it is . . , Come now, and I'll show you ... Look here; own up, you would be very vexed, if I were to take you at your word and let you off? . . .You would make fine fun of me,-and you would be great well right too!"
She made no answer, only continued to exhaust herself in unavailing struggles, bent on breaking away from his hold. Then she gave a sudden cry of agony:
"Oh! James, James! Have mercy! Respect my honor!"
Without a word; he went on striving to push her down on the bed. She could hear the panting of his lungs, and feel on her neck the hot burning moisture of his laboring breath, the thick strong-smelling breath of an animal in heat ... It was beyond bearing. She threw her body sideways and lowered her head, only one thought left to be rid of this moist breath, this odious vapour that scorched her neck behind.
The man pushed and pushed. Already she was bent backwards over the edge of the bed, when she noticed he was holding her now with one hand only. The other was occupied making ready for the act. She uttered a howl of rage, and with a sudden bound was once more free.
Then ensued a wild chase round and round the centre table. The girl ran on and on in a circle without an attempt to deviate, her arms held up in front of her face. Giddy and distraught, she would crash into a piece of furniture, stagger and fall; then up again with a bound, only to fall again heavily against the wall bruise herself. The man, at once hideous and ridiculous with his frantic gestures and disordered dress, pursued his victim with might and main,-and overtook her at last. He was just preparing to lift her in his arms and bear her to the bed, when he staggered and turned ghastly pale. His features were drawn and rigid, while the eyes turned in his head and grew dim and glassy ... She failed to comprehend and remained standing there like a woman of stone, bursting with terror and disgust.
Then he began to re-arrange his dress, and going for a towel, moistened it in the water-jug. She bent her head forward and watched him at work, without word or gesture, her eyes half glazed.
Yet when he stood upright again, it was she who spoke first, with slow articulation and a curious gentleness of utterance:
"I want to go away ... to go away from here ... Are you coming?"
She went to the looking-glass, and examined her face suspiciously. He patted his hair into place. Then they left the house. But Grace made him dismiss the cab. They could walk up Regent Street as far as Portland Place, where he lived and where Uncle Dick was expecting them. On the way she talked to him in a friendly enough way. Only now and again her voice failed her, shaken by a nervous trembling. And it was only at the very door of his house, just as he was inserting the latch-key in the lock, that she laid her hand on his arm, and said:
"It is quite understood all is over between us ... You realize that, I trust?"
Lord Elphin started back, and stood there before her on the broad pavement, so strongly moved he could not speak. Then suddenly he burst out in a tearful, broken voice, clasping his hands together and vehemently protesting:
"Oh! Grace ... my darling Grace! Forgive me!"
She shook her head in sign of refusal, with a nervous staccato movement again and again repeated.
"But I love you ... I tell you, I love you ... My darling! if I did not love you..."
No lies! The thing's impossible. Love! no! no! Sensuality, if you like,-and beastliness! The first condition of true love is respect."
"Love admits no conditions. Passion..."
She gave a gesture expressive of extreme weariness interrupting him:
"I beg and pray you, James, nave some pity on me ... Say no more! not a word more! ... I am utterly broken down. If you still care anything for my feelings, you will open that door at once."
Lord Elphin turned the key in the lock and threw open the front-door.
Uncle Dick dropped his fork to run forward and greet his "future niece." Without interrupting the flow of his words of welcome, he soon resumed his favorite instrument. For the worthy gentleman was a gourmand, and just now moreover he was by way of swallowing double mouthfuls, to make up for the compulsory abstinence occasioned him by sea-sickness. But he possessed a gift of speaking quite distinctly with his mouth full, and could dispose of his food excellently well, talking good, sensible, pleasant talk all the while.
"God bless you both! ... You have chosen well, James! I said so, directly I saw her photograph; and I say the same thing now, on fuller and completer information. She will be an honor to the family! I am a bit of a physiognomist, and I tell you the girl is as good as she is pretty ... Now I'll tell you what you should do, James. With Her Gracious Majesty's permission, you must take service in Egypt and join us fellows in the Sudan,-come to Khartoum, where it won't be long before General Gordon will be badly wanting some brave English swords. For they are mightily mistaken over yonder, I'm convinced, if they think they are going to finish off those black devils with nothing better than their cowardly Egyptians. The fellaheen are brave enough as long as the enemy is out of sight. All very well to set Englishmen to officer them, but when the push comes, they lose their heads ... What earthly good cocking a good jockey on the back of an arrant screw, eh?"
James gazed at him with delighted eyes, sorely tempted to throw himself into his arms and start kissing him madly. However he restrained his enthusiasm and asked him with a smile:
"And Grace?"
"Oh! take her with you! take her with you! Be quick and get spliced, and come along. There's room enough for both of you in my house. You will be as welcome as Khartoum as the flowers in May. And I don't think she will stand idle either, our dear Grace: I have a shrewd notion those pretty little hands are clever ones too. She shall help look after the wounded. Nothing in the world so good for a sick man as a woman's care, a kind gentle woman's care. I have seen old war-dogs, hard-bitten wild fellows, fly into a passion, snatch the medicine bottle out of the Surgeon Major's hands and smash it against the wall. But the instant they heard a woman's coaxing voice, they would smooth down. Nothing like women for finding 'the soft answer that turneth away wrath,' and good words that go straight home to a poor chap's heart and bring tears of comfort to his eyes ... The mere presence of a woman at their bedside raises the morale of the wounded,-and you know as well as I do, there's nothing like a wholesome moral tone to make wholesome wounds."
Grace gazed at Uncle Dick all the while he was speaking, smiling at him in an approving way. His chatter relieved the tension of her nerves, the feverish activity of her overwrought brain. She listened, and remembered every word Uncle Dick said, while an internal voice went on repeating over again within her, the words, "Never! never! never!" and for the twentieth time she recalled the whole evening once more before her mind's eye. While helping her mother to arrange the Christmas dinner, she had grown impatient at James's delay in coming. When at last she heard the firm blows on the knocker, quick peremptory, incisive blows, she had instantly recognized her lover's hand, and had run out to welcome him, her heart leaping with joy ... Ah! she understood now why he had that strange look that had frightened her ... And that kiss! that horrible kiss! ... And then the betrayal, the trap! ... that odious room, in the odious hotel! It had witnessed some fine scenes before now no doubt that room, that villainous room! ... And once more she saw James, frantic, his dress disordered his face contracted by hideous spasms...
Meantime she went on smiling at Uncle Dick, as it were endorsing all he said. "Besides," he continued "the voyage would infallibly do you both a world of good,-physically and morally ... Just look at me, I've only been here three hours, and I am bound to confess the London winter is a poor thing for the lungs ... Then another point. Your English education is excellent,-on the whole. It is solid; it develops a girl's physique and turns out good housewives who are at the same time admirable ladies of society,-but there is a reverse side to the medal ... On the Continent young girls are taught to be afraid of man; the English miss is encouraged to trust him, and boys and girls share the same sports and games. Now excess is always a bad thing. You see, our English girls get too much accustomed to camaraderie, and our young men being gentlemanly and polite, let them gain a certain ascendancy. Later on, flirtation comes in. This is worse still; young girls are naturally cruel, because they are ignorant, and make men suffer. Seeing their admirers so humble and supplicatory, they imagine themselves in some way their superiors ... Highly civilized all this, I allow; but it is not natural. Woman must always be the passive party, she is man's inferior. Try and persuade her anything different, and you expose her to much misery and mistake. Up their very wedding-day, English young ladies have not a suspicion of what awaits them; then,-what a shock, what a humiliation, they undergo! Many remain unhappy all their lives after, without ever being able to say precisely why they suffer ... You take my advice, and choose the Sudan for your wedding trip!"
James was delighted. Bravo, good Uncle Dick! Surely a special Providence had sent him just then, and had told him just what to say! But time was flying. Grace called attention to the lateness of the hour, and James accompanied her home. Again she declined a cab; so they took the Underground, and had only a few steps to walk to reach Pembroke Square.
Grace was still gentle and pleasant-mannered, and on the way found indifferent subjects to talk about. James thought he might venture some further excuses for his behavior, and just as the front-door was opened and she was reaching him her hand, he stammered:
"Once more, Grace I. . . Forget and forgive . . "Not a word more of that!"
"Yes! one word ... one word, giving me a little hope!"
"Alas, James! if I said the word, it could only come from my lips, not from my heart ... You ask me to forget? Well! let us both forget. Here's my hand, James! I give it to you as a friend ... Goodbye!" and the door closed between them.
She walked upstairs with a firm step, holding herself stiff and erect. But the instant she was alone in her own room,-her virginal chamber, so carefully arranged and prettily decorated, she threw a wild look round her, her highly strung nerves relaxed, and she had barely time to dismiss her maid before she burst into a tempest of tears. Elbows on the table and head buried in her hands, she wept long and copiously. Great was the relief, her bursting heart over-flowing in water and mechanically easing the pressure of her feelings. A numbness came over her brain, and she cried and cried, without any very precise idea remaining as to the true reason of her grief. Filtering through her fingers, the light of the fight electric lamp tormented her retina. When she looked up, her tears blurred the light, which flashed and sparkled, vaguely diffused in long straggling rays that diverged in all directions. Hardly knowing what she did. Grace fixed her eyes on the incandescent centre of dazzling light. A feeling of languor overcame her, and she began to experience impulses of excessive generosity, a longing for self-abnegation and self-sacrifice. Instantly the thought of James appealed to her; but as suddenly a nauseating feeling of repulsion dissipated the vision. Grace discovered she bore within her henceforth a horror of the male, a profound contempt and loathing for the flesh. It was humanity as a whole she would fain cherish, in an infinite craving after impersonal love, impersonal tenderness. By charity, she longed to turn to the benefit of all the world the affection that filled her heart to overflowing.
Poignant was her distress, the very irresolution and uncertainty of her fate driving her to despair. Winking her eyelids, she withdrew her gaze from the vivid point of light that had riveted her attention. Looking round the room, they fell upon her Bible where it lay on a side table. She reached for the sacred volume and opening it at hazard, read: "All these things have I pondered. And considering how the sun shineth alike on the just and on the unjust, how he enlighteneth the sufferings which the good man suffereth, and turneth not away from the triumph of the evil man, lol I did conceive in mine heart the bitterness of a doubting spirit." Then she fell back again into her former attitude, sobbing wildly.
Outside in the garden, a cat was crying his love plaint, a long wail of impatience and distress, again and again repeated more and more insistently. Grace went to the chimney, took down her fowling-piece, and walking to the open window, was raising the weapon to her shoulder, when by a sudden revulsion of purpose she desisted and replaced the gun in its accustomed place.
Seated once more in her lounging-chair, she instantly fell again under the domination of the one brilliant point of vivid light, while all else around her appeared fugitive, vague and indefinite, as though wrapped in fog. She saw the sky studded with stars. Her straining gaze pierced further yet and embraced the infinite. She heard the celestial concert, the harmony of the spheres,-the choir of assembled angels surrounding the Lord's throne and hymning His praises. She saw Jesus, of a superhuman beauty shining in glory, His smile awaking Faith and spreading Blessedness abroad. And He pointed her to the road that leads to the Kingdom of the Elect, by the paths of Charity and Self-Effacement.
Then she rose stiffly and walked with a firm tread to her secretaire. Slowly and deliberately she began to write, the silence of night only broken by the scratching of her pen, accompanied by the strident clamours of the torn and tabby outside, frenziedly proclaiming the fierce sting of desire, the ardent agony of the concupiscent flesh. And this is what she wrote:
"Dear Uncle,-if you will let me call you so. I want to hold your niece; yet I shall never be James's wife! I shall never marry,-neither him, nor anyone else. Do not ask me why; no questions, I beseech you, dear Uncle. Will you take me with you to Khartoum? I should love to go there to tend the poor wounded soldiers.
Grace Marjoribanks
CHAPTER II
Under Burning Skies
At Berber, above the Fifth Cataract, a dehabieh lay waiting for the travelers,-a long spacious vessel with lofty masts and heavy sweeps.
Grace was delighted at the change, having enjoyed more than enough of the violent shaking inseparable from camel-riding. The huge, high-stepping beast is a hard trotter; let the rider hold on as desperately as he may, the shocks are like to dislocate every bone in his body.
Then the dahabieh,-like all boats of its kind,-had such a fine classical air about it. It recalled Cleopatra's bark breasting the waters of Cydnus. This gabarit has not changed a whit for two thousand years or more. This particular dahabieh had its English improvements and modifications, and was well provided with deck-chairs and every luxury. It was a delight merely to sit still and watch the banks of the river glide past, with their clumps of mimosas and slender date-palms, lying back the while in the deep reclining seat sheltered from the blazing sun by the canvas awning kept continually wet.
Above all when they came to the Nubian desert, did the hard dry sand reverberate a sky of molten fire. Not a breath of wind ruffled the surface of the stream, while the rowers, bent over their oars with a slow, rhythmical movement, pulling a long, lazy stroke that was anything but fatiguing. The passage promised to be a lengthly one; but Grace manifested no signs of impatience. The departure from London, her farewells to her family, had racked her nerves. Train, and steamboat, and train, again had been extremely harassing; all the way to Brindisi she had been feverish, falling into a restless doze the instant she sat down. The Mediterranean with its short ground swell and chopping seas had made her ill. But no sooner was she fairly disembarked at Alexandria than she grew interested, charmed with the East and its marvels of light and color.
With all a child's curiosity she had gazed at the first negro she came across, for all the world as if she had never seen such a phenomenon in London. The particular black in question was a tall Nubian, slender and supple as a snake, with an eye at once suppliant and insolent, dressed in a patchwork of filthy, many-colored rags,-a loafer about the quays, dock-hand when he could find nothing to steal, at other times procurer and professional bully. Noticing the interest he aroused in the beautiful white lady, a lady actually wearing real jewelry, the negro smiled a broad-lipped smile, that revealed the ivory of a magnificent set of teeth. Wriggling fawningly, he drew near to beg bakhsheesh. He even ventured on a suggestive gesture of more than doubtful decency.
Possibly before now he had had to do with some vicious European lady, a rich merchant's or tourist's wife. For caprices are sudden and strange in this land of the Pharaohs, and tales are told of consuls', even of ambassadors' wives, who have been fain to try what a negro was like,-and a dirty negro at that, fellows the stench of foul sweat about whose persons is enough to make a common sailor's doxy sick!
Grace was terrified, and beat a hasty retreat to put herself under her Uncle Dick's protection, who with uplifted stick dashed forward incontinently to chastise the scoundrel.
"Insolent blackguard! that's how they all are!" growled Uncle Dick, as he gazed after the Nubian making good his escape among the bales that encumbered the quay. But henceforth Grace knew better, and took good care how she made eyes at niggers.
Once on the Nile, aboard the dahabieh, she reveled luxuriously in the delicious coolness of the nights. All day long, beneath the blazing sun, a heavy lassitude weighed down body and soul. The suffocating subtle heat penetrated through wood and clothing, and scorched even in the shade. But at night, beneath the moonlight that sparkled round the oars, it was pure happiness to sit out on the deck and listen to Uncle Dick's yarns. The worthy man was a garrulous talker, though by no means devoid of wit and intelligence, and possessed of great powers of observation. Too much of a gentleman to ask any direct question, he expected from day to day Grace would explain to him the reason of her quarrel with James. Still Uncle had his little eccentricities; and was to the last degree inquisitive and obstinate. He took care to guide the conversation the road he wished it to go, and to lead it back by the most devious paths towards the subject he longed to hear more about.
Grace had made a deep impression on the old bachelor's heart, cold and a trifle selfish as it was. He had begun to feel a very tender, though restless and anxious, affection for the young girl, and invariably treated her like a spoilt child, object of inexhaustible indulgence. Sometimes, after a good supper, he would shake his head and murmur half audibly to himself:
"All the same, if only I'd married! ... I might have had a daughter like Grace, flesh of my flesh and blood of my blood ... Yes! but then, I must have got married first!"
Meantime, on the upper deck, swinging rhythmically in her rocking-chair, her little bare feet playing in her loose Eastern slipper, looking almost transparent in the silvery light under the diaphanous clouds of flowing muslin that formed her frock, her yellow hair a pale gold in the moonbeams, Grace would ask for story after story.
"But Uncle Dick, you are unkind! You're like all the great geniuses, and require no end of pressing. It's ages since first you promised to tell me the story of the Malidi."
"Little tease! Be good enough to inform me when I could have told it you. All the way to Italy, you were dreamy and melancholy. I quite understood; one does not quit country, friends and home, without leaving a bit of one's heart behind,-particularly when you're no great traveler ... On the boat, you were making horrid faces all the time, sea-sickness positively made you look almost plain. Was that a time to crave your attention for a yarn? ... Then when we were perched up on our respective camels, you and I, talking was out of the question ... Now, I am perfectly willing, if you are.
"In the first place, you must know the word 'Malidi, means Saviour, Messiah; the Mahommedans, like the Jews, are still expecting their Messiah. Only these rascally blacks of the Sudan are an exception; they believe him to have already arrived under the form of this negro Malidi,-a Dervish, that is to say a sort of errant monk. A kind of Mussulman Franciscan friar. What makes them the more firmly convinced is their unfaltering belief in his powers of prophecy and miracle-working ... has told them some fine crackers, which they have swallowed with the most unbounded credulity! ... Cannon balls aimed at his men melt away like water! He can send the plague on whomsoever he pleases! Lions lie down and lick his feet! ... His adherents one and all are persuaded, that if they fall in the cause of this odious imposter,-the holy cause, as they call it,-they will go straight to paradise, where they will taste every kind of carnal delight ... I could tell you a lot about his,-but there, it would hardly do for your ears, Miss Grace.
"Now I am coming to matters of history. I am able to speak as an authority, as I have been living at Khartoum for the last twenty years. When first I came, Kordofan was a safer country to five in than it is nowadays, and I think I may make bold to say there are few Europeans who know men and things in the Sudan as thoroughly as I do. In former days the country was independent, divided up into a number of miniature kingdoms, the different Sultans of which were forever at war with one another. Egypt brought them all to one mind, by dispossessing the lot. But you can form no sort of idea of all the cruel exactions, all the hateful acts of injustice, committed by the Egyptian functionaries,-who be it observed, were every bit as bad in their own country. Discontent was universal.
"But there was yet another cause of exasperation. Hitherto the traffic in 'black ivory' had been openly carried on in the Sudan, and Khartoum itself was famous as a slave market throughout the East. The Arab chiefs regularly started out, accompanied by well armed bands of followers. Establishing their headquarters in the Bahr-el-Gazal, on the borders of the Sudan, they used systematically to harry the neighbouring districts,-at once plunderers, thieves, traffickers and murders. Their merchandise cost them little to come by; a few changes of power, the hardships of the road, such was the price of their stock-in-trade. After appropriating whatever gold dust, ostrich feathers, ivory, gum, rubber, they could lay their hands on, they would set fire to the village. The old men they massacred; those in the prime of life they utilized as porters, loading them up with booty they had just acquired. They formed their captives into a long line, fastening them to each other, to guard against any attempts at escape,-a course they also adopted with the women and children. Then with many a savage lash of their cruel whips, the slavers would drive before them these herds of wretched human cattle. I had rather not tell you about the atrocities that occurred en route. Three quarters of the slaves perished on the march. Indeed this was precisely what the slave-hunters calculated upon; the tortures they made the negroes undergo were a test. Only the strong survived,-the only ones-likely to have a merchantable value.
"Khartoum was the depot where the ruffians sold to European dealers the merchandise resulting from these raids. And I am bound to admit that in business these same scoundrels showed a degree of punctuality and straightforward honesty not invariably to be met with among the merchant princes of the City of London. As for the slaves, these were bought up by middlemen, and were dispatched to Cairo, Constantinople and even Persia.
"Such a state of things could not possibly last. Ever since the days when Mis. Beecher Stowe wrote 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' what gallons of ink have been shed on behalf of the poor nigger! Europe could not remain indifferent. The Government of her Britannic Majesty had made remonstrances to the Sultan and to the Khedive, who in due accordance with Turkish precedent and the customary duplicity of Orientals, at Constantinople as at Cairo, had replied by a series of fine promises,-and the traffic went on exactly as it had always done before.
"At last one man, one single man, set himself resolutely to the task, and undertook to put a definite end to the abominable trade. You know Gordon,-the same who is now known as Gordon Pacha? Originally an English Officer, he went over to the Egyptian service with the consent and encouragement of the British Government. He is a man of extraordinary energy of character. A chronic sufferer from angina pectoris,-a very terrible complaint,-he is none the less a gallant soldier, a bold and sagacious leader of men, and a shrewd diplomatist, albeit he has never told a lie in his life, but is always straightforward and above-board, even when dealing with scamps. Gordon has done more for the abolition of slavery than all the European Congresses rolled into one. But established customs are not overthrown without creating malcontents. I tell you, my girl, of all grievances a man may have to put up with, the most intolerable and the one most certain to drive him into rebellion is any injury done to his self-interest. The slave-dealers were ready to a man to rise in revolt against Egypt, which was by way of decreeing their financial ruin. The only thing wanting was a leader. There was no lack of arms, but a head was to seek. Surely among all these section leaders, there must be some one qualified to take chief command. The fact is there were too many; each was as good as his neighbour, and all the rival claims mutually cancelled each other. They wanted a man to reconcile all competitors, a man of prestige so overwhelming that all might bow the head before him without humiliation or derogation of their individual authority.
"In this emergency a Dervish,-or wandering monk, began to attract public attention. This individual was a negro from Dongola, who made it his business to travel up and down the Sudan preaching. He penetrated even to the most insignificant villages, everywhere proclaiming that the Faith of Mahomet was on the wane, and that its decay and ruin was due to contact with the Christians. The simple populace fell readily under the spell of his rude eloquence, while Sheiks and traders approved his sentiments and swore to consecrate their persons and property to the holy cause.
"The Dervish came to El-Obeid, where dwelt a Marabout,-or Sage,-possessed of much influence and reputed to be a veritable Saint. This man withstood the new doctrines, recommending toleration of the Christians, and the building of more Mosques as a sufficient palliation. The reformer, who had hoped, under the Marabout's auspices, to begin the revolt at El-Obeid, left that holy city in dudgeon and disappointment. He went further afield, preaching hatred of the English and the Turk,-the abhorred Egyptian that is to say. He bewailed the calamities of Religion, and threatened the people with God's anger. Seconded by a mere handful of faithful followers, he seized the Isle of Abba in the White Nile, and proclaimed himself 'Malidi,' that is to say Saviour.
"Raouf Pacha was Governor of the Sudan on behalf of the Egyptian Government, and dispatched a trustworthy messenger to Mohammed-Ahmed,-such was the Malidi's name,-ordering him to repair to Khartoum, where the Governor of the Sudan wished to confer with him. Possibly the Malidi might have obeyed the summons,-and a whole host of calamities would have been avoided,-had not his adherents prevented any such step. As a matter-of-fact, he refused in such contemptuous terms that the Governor felt himself constrained to send two companies of Egyptian troops to seize his person. The bad feeling between the two Captains paralysed their men's activity. The Malidists fell upon the Egyptians with sticks, slaughtered them to the last man, and armed themselves with their muskets. Thus were the predictions of the Malidi confirmed,-to wit: That by God's good pleasure, he would communicate to his followers a superhuman strength that would enable them to scatter their enemies, like jackals, with sticks, and fill the souls of all who should resist him with terror. The disaster threw all Egypt into consternation. Large bodies of troops were sent against the Malidi; but the Officer in command was afraid to venture an attack, wasting his time in endless marches and countermarches, looking for the Malidists wherever he was quite sure they could by no possibility be found.
"The Dervishes presently evacuated the Isle of Abba and advanced to Tagalla without experiencing the smallest check. Pursuing their victorious march thence, they encamped before long at the foot of the mountain, the Djebel Guebir, the lofty plateau of which is inhabited by the Kawaklas. It is the site of a stone famous throughout Islam, a stone whereon the Prophet Mahomet is traditionally reported to have knelt and prayed. In humble imitation of the mighty Prophet, the Dervish, the monk errant Mohammad-Ahmad, fell to his knees on the sacred stone and prayed fervently; and this simple act of devotion confirmed the people in their belief that here indeed was the veritable 'malidi,' the Prophet's successor. His reputation grew and grew. Men kept pouring in from the remotest borders of the land to swell the numbers of his faithful adherents. All the thieves, robbers, outlaws, of the Sudan, came flocking to his banner. To all alike he promised booty galore, happiness in this world, and in that to come the joys of paradise, of Mahomet's paradise,-joys well within the comprehension of such-like ruffians, whose blood is heated red-hot by the African sun, joys of a totally different complexion from our Christian beatitudes ... You understand what I mean, eh?
"But it was the vile mob of slave-dealers that grew delirous with enthusiasm when they heard of the Malidi's first victory. There was not one of the traffickers but what made haste to submit to his rule. He was their ideal chieftain. Lacking all military talent, his prestige and authority arose merely from religion.
"The most powerful among all the slave hunters, Suleiman, had just been defeated in the Bahr-el-Gazal district by the Egyptian troops and his forces destroyed and scattered. His colleagues recognised that they must immediately band together.
"The first oattle was fought in December 1881-three years ago already. How times passes! The Egyptians, under the command of Rashid Bey, Mudir of Fashoda, were cut to pieces. The Malidi was thus able to increase the scope and spread of his proselytism without let or hindrance. Preaching Holy War, he unceasingly increased the number of his followers. Rifles and held-pieces captured from the Egyptians served to arm a chosen body of picked men. The others dashed into the fray with sabres and pikes.
"In June 1882, four thousand Egyptian soldiers sent to attack the Dervishes were again mowed down. So unexpected was the onslaught of the Malidists that very few of the Egyptians managed to escape. This meant another gain of 4000 Remingtons, besides cannon and munitions of war in abundance, all going to arm the Sectaries of Mohammad-Ahamd. By forced marches the Malidi advanced upon El-Obayd, the key of the Kordofan region. The town made a gallant defence, but its garrison proved unequal to resisting the advance of these hordes of desperate fanatics. Then followed a series of unparalleled atrocities and an indiscriminate massacre! It was at El-O-bayd that the Malidi established his capital. But simultaneously his emissaries spread in all directions, preaching his cause; they are to be found in the Sudan itself, and even in Egypt, while Khartoum swarms with the gentry. With all possible solemnity he adopted the title of "Malidiar Ra-soul," which means, Successor of the Prophet. His adherents call him "Saiyid,"-Tfte Master. In all respects, down to the smallest detail, he makes a point of copying the Prophet.
"A truly remarkable man, this same Malidi! I have seen him and talked with him. What is the origin of the influence he wields, I cannot say; but about the fact there is no question. I felt this magnestism myself. In spite of myself,-for I know him to be a mere imposter,-I came under the charm of his strange personality.
"He smiles unceasingly,-not the meaningless smile of man who does not know what to say, but a benevolent smile, expressive of intelligence and good nature. Moreover he has a definite purpose in thus parting his lips in an everlasting smile, as by this means he affords everybody ocular demonstration of the fact that in the upper row of his teeth, just in the centre, there is a slight gap or opening. In the Sudan this is a certain warranty of success according to the universally received popular superstition. His voice is soft and insinuating, and singularly pure in tone, while his conversation is cultured and expressed in carefully chosen language. He declares himself the messenger of God, and asserts that every order he gives is a direct inspiration from on high. In this way he fosters an unfaltering belief that to resist his will is to go counter to the authority of the Almighty.
"Just as Mahomed fled to Medina, so the Malidi withdrew to Guebir, where he prayed and worshipped, kneeling on the sacred stone. There it was he nominated his Khalifs, or Viceregents. He selected three from among those headsmen of tribes who were his earliest adherents,-all three desperate ruffians familiar with every form of robbery and murder. But the worst of the lot is Abdullahi, the chief of the Baggaras, the cattle-lifters. He is no mere negro, but a pure-bred Arab, cunning and cruel. And he is the Madhi's right-hand man! Each Khalif has under his orders a number of Emirs, or subordinate officers. Thus is organized a numerous and admirably disciplined army. Their weapons are of American manufacture,-the Remington rifles captured from the Egyptians.
So formidable has the Malidi's power grown that Europe will have to reckon with him. Now they are talking of sending out Gordon to Khartoum. But what in the world can he do single-handed? No doubt his prestige is enormous; the Arabs say he is a lion, which is their highest expression of praise, and the negroes laud his generosity and good nature. His worst enemies cannot but admit his admirable qualities. But in Africa no less than in Europe, reputation depends primarily on success,-and how can anybody reasonably expect Gordon to impress the enemy with the means at his disposal? Can anybody suppose he is going to crush the Malidi's forces, practically unaided? The Egyptians, his only allies, do not count; they will run away at the first blow, and leave Gordon to be massacred, just as they left Hicks Pacha. Ere peace is restored to this unhappy country, I foresee torrents of blood must yet be shed ... I am afraid,-I am afraid for you, Grace; I ought never to have dragged you here in my wake, into the midst of all these devils,-yellow and black!"
"What are you talking about, Uncle? Didn't I ask you myself?"
"Yes! after I had invited you, seeing that James ... Would to God James were with us..."
"But what are you afraid of? El-Obayd is a long way from Khartoum."
"Who knows what may happen? When the Malidi learns Gordon has come out all alone, as-likely as not he will want to make him prisoner; and to do that, he must begin by getting possession of Khartoum. Then..."
"Then what?..."
"Why! you poor child ... don't you know what happened at El-Obayd? In that city there was a Catholic Mission,-Monks and Nuns. To begin with, the Dervishes wanted badly to massacre them, had not the Malidi personally interfered and guaranteed their lives. Meantime he distributed the Nuns among his Emirs,-all except two who were deemed too ugly and who were left under the protection of their Confessor, Father Ohrwalder. As soon as these pious ladies found themselves in the camp of the Dervishes, and gathered what was expected of them, their despair was heart-breaking. I would rather not relate all they had to undergo. But one of the Khalifs, the Khali Sheriff, used the pair of scissors one of the Sisters carried at her girdle to sever the cartilage separating the two nostrils of the poor woman!"
"The barbarous wretch! ... But, dear Uncle, why so down-hearted? Despair is not like you at all. Besides, anyway, you have nothing to reproach yourself with. Did not I beg you myself to take me with you?"
"True for you! and it needed all your spells, you little witch, to win my consent. ... Still I repeat it, it is all my fault. I ought never to have suggested to James to come and spend his honeymoon in the Sudan ... Poor James! I should not be a big surprised to see him land at Khartoum one fine day, all unexpectedly!"
"Oh! Uncie, you wrong him. He is far too much oi a gentleman ever to aare..."
"But, Great Scott, why not? There you go, you little
European gals! For a word, a look, a nothing, you take offence. Then, out with the big words, the sounding phrases! He would be no gentleman, if he dared to come? Maybe; but very certain, he would not be a man, if he didn't!"
"Ah, Uncle! here are things you don't know...! "
"No! I don't know. I don't ask your confidence, my lady. It's not the right thing for an old grey beard like me to be posing as a pretty girl's confidant. But I am very sure nothing very serious can have happened between James and you."
"On the contrary, Uncle, something extremely serious happened. And come what may, we must never, never see each other again."
"Come what may ... Do you quite realize the import of the words? I only wish you may never have to regret them! ... Now shall I tell you something? ... I have a sort of notion I did wrong,-yes! very wrong ... You quarreled with James the very evening I arrived in London, did you not? Surely I was wrong to force James to keep me company that night, when we emptied those two or three bottles of old sherry his people had reserved in a special bin against my homecoming ... No doubt about it, James was a rifle heated with the wine, and you thought him a big over ardent a lover. Quite enough to scare a young Englishwoman, and make her think the end of the world is come!"
He stopped abruptly, for Grace had suddenly burst into a fit of hysterical sobbing. Presently Uncle Dick resumed in a consoling tone:
"I don't tell you this to vex you, my dear..."
"Oh, no! Only I see now, James has been talking."
"Not one word! I take my oath, he has been as mom as you have yourself. But I'm sadly afraid that with your European bringing up, you look at a great many things from an entirely false point of view. There is a French saying tell us, every man has inside him a sleeping pig. A woman does wrong to wax indignant when the said pig awakes; it is almost invariably because she gave the animal a nudge herself."
"Oh! Uncle! can you really think . .
"I think you are the purest-minded girl in all the United Kingdom, but at the same time one of the prettiest and most attractive. Well! it's mighty heady, all that, for a young cavalry officer of thirty ... And then ... I think further that the most innocent of English girls, without one bad thought in her head, will often push flirtation to the extremest limits of propriety! ... What wonder if the man, once started, is for overpassing these last limits? ... Civilisation is a mighty fine thing,-but without a doubt it has transmogrified women into singularly artificial creatures."
A silence ensued. Presently the boatman hoisted the sails, and the dahabieh began slipping through the water, bending over before the night wind. From the shore came a song, a slow, melancholy chant. The voice, a woman's, sounded soft and melting through the darkness. The distance gradually increased, but the same clear voice still broke in on the calmness of the night, mounting up and up towards the star-strewn expanse of heaven.
"It is a funeral chant," Uncle Dick explained. "The poor woman is bewailing one of her kinsfolk."
The diahabieh kept tacking. Now and again a rattle of cordage would be heard, and the straining of the canvas as it bellied to the wind; besides the never ceasing lapping of the water along the vessel's sides. Crocodiles rose to the surface, and showed their monstrous misshapen heads above water. Along the banks, between the tall stems of the date-palms, scurried troops of jackals. Sudden bursts of wild, discordant, sardonic laughter echoed afar, the note of a prowling hyena. A mighty roar drowned all other sounds,-followed by a silence. Presently the roar was repeated, indignant, mournful and insistent. The Hon in heat was calling to his mate the lioness.
Bending gently to the breeze, the dahabieh slid softly over the Nile waters on her way to the Sixth Cataract.
CHAPTER III
Black Lust
The sun was setting in splendour behind the crest of the hills. There was a moment of pale, fleeting twilight, then a sort of fluttering shudder, the death agony of the expiring day, and in an instant all was dark. The sombre heavens, which had assumed an almost greenish hue, were studded with stars, among which rode the circle of the full-orbed moon.
The flat terrace roofs on the tops of the houses grew populous with moving shadows. Then presently the voice of the Meuzzin was heard melodiously calling the Faithful to evening prayer, while the bells of the Mission Church rang out the Angelus. Instantly the streets were thronged with a hurrying multitude making for the Mosque; the great doors swallowed the crowd of True Believers, and once more the streets fell silent and lonely. A crowd of vultures come flying over the city. Every night they arrived without fail, crossing the Blue Nile from the Island of Tuti and descending on Khartoum. Their bald necks craned eagerly forward, and their hooked beaks rattled against the bones of the carrion they fed on. Nothing came amiss to these birds of prey; greedily they turned over the heaps of offal and garbage in the roadways and battened their fill. Passers-by were few and far between, and paid little heed. In fact their voracity made them excellent scavengers, and rather than interrupt their horrible banquet, every good Mussulman made a point of stepping out of their way.
Grace sat on the housetop, her arms resting on the parapet, gazing out into space. She felt weary and full of self-pity. In her Uncle's house, in this far-off land of Africa, she had found a mere copy of common-place European society in full swing, with all its faults and defects unaltered,-a sham sociability and an artificial, self-interested hospitality. Society was made up of consuls and merchants,-and their wives, most of whom had been highly educated in fashionable schools. Identically the same conventional ideas prevailed,-what was the proper thing to do and not to do, and identically the same petty preoccupations as in London or Paris, the same entertainments, with their vapid phrases and studied attitudes. These things, together with rivalries of dress; bitter-sweet compliments and feline amenities; spite masquerading as good-nature and envy as ardent admiration, filled up the days. Snobbery, more or less modified and mitigated, was the dominant key-note.
For instance, there was Mrs. Watson, the rich American trader's wife, who wore diamonds in her mouth!-yes! real, actual diamonds. Indeed she was for ever laughing without rhyme or reason merely in order to display them, as women do who have pretty teeth. She come from the South of the States, as the smallness of her hands and feet testified. The excessive use of candies and other sugary sweetmeats had ruined her teeth. The gaps were stopped with gold, gold everywhere, in which she had had diamonds set,-three solitaire stones, a big one in the middle and two smaller ones as pendants on either side! And a more hideous sight could hardly be seen than as displayed by a pretty woman thus smiling her yellow smile, shot with the iridescent flash of the gems her mouth was paved with!
Then there were others. The Austrian Consul's wife could think of nothing else in the world but her husband's indigestions. The poor man's diet was limited to different kinds of soups, and she was forever in eager and anxious search for new recipes. The Greeks talked Music, and nothing else in all the wide world! As for the native ladies, they knew no language but their own. Grace learned Arabic for the sake of being able to converse with them, but found them utterly devoid of ideas. Moreover she was always uncomfortable in their vicinity, on account of the heavy perfumes with which they saturated their hair and indeed the whole of their persons.
The men were more extraordinary still. The Sudanese were invariably grave, solemn, and taciturn; while the consuls on the other hand were by way of setting up for wits. Watson was a mere uneducated boor, without a thought beyond money and figures; his sole and only concern was with the current price of cotton! Garilopoulos, the Greek merchant, affected the most ludicrous airs of an Adonis bent on conquest. The only man of them all who was really at all agreeable was Dufour, a Parisian banished to the Sudan in the interest of a Marseilles house of business. He was bright and amusing, and Grace was glad of his company. There was certainly nothing whatever here to make her realize any change from the old commonplace Europe she had left behind.
On the other hand the negroes exercised and interested her greatly, causing her to feel attraction and repugnance at one and the same time. A curiosity, which she fully realized to be morbid, kept urging her to spy upon their life and habits. She knew enough colloquial Arabic by this time to talk to the servants without difficulty. Sometimes she would pry into every household detail, while at others she would get in a sudden panic and for whole days together avoid all intercourse with her black dependents. Somehow she could not get to like them, they were such mere animals. Sensual gratifications were the sole and only object of their ambition. Even their Religion aimed merely at the ultimate attainment of Mahomet's Paradise of purely physical delights. All their cupidity, their simple-minded worship of wealth and power, were directed simply towards the satisfaction of the cravings of the belly. At the same time their calm, deliberate cruelty revolted her; and she could make nothing of the passive resignation of the women, their timid, cringing humility before man, the undisputed lord and master of their lives.
A sudden clamour without made her start, and leaning over the parapet, she looked down into the street. A tall Nubian, clad in Rowing white robes, had just knocked a woman down. He had then lifted up her petticoats, and was now engaged in thrashing her on the buttocks with a huge kourbash, a heavy thong of hippopotamus hide. The victim was howling and praying for mercy. When the policeman had methodically completed her dozen lashes, he gave her a sound kiuk, and the woman, suddenly sobered, got to her feet, and crying and groaning, made off with all possible speed. Grace knew the poor old woman by sight. She had had two sons killed in the war against the Malidi, while serving in the Khedive's army, and had for years been a widow. The moment she had succeeded in amassing by dint of importunity,-her trade was begging,-a few small coins than she was off to drink: "marissa," the date wine of the country, and was soon reeling about the streets quite drunk. She would hurl imprecations at every passerby, until a police officer came across her and promptly administered the regulation dozen. Then she would make tracks for home, screaming and crying all the way and rubbing her poor backside.
Grace watched the scene with mingled feelings of pity and amusement, and could not help recalling a somewhat similar sight she had witnessed one Sunday in London,-likewise during the hours of divine service. On that occasion also a drunken woman had come into contact with the police. A tiny, emaciated creature, weakened by poor living, she was horribly and abominably intoxicated. Some of the neighbouring goodwives, standing at their house doors, had dared to laugh at her. The woman replied by a torrent of abuse, standing tottering on her feet and storming. Her balance was uncertain, but her tongue went nineteen to the dozen, and a fine flow of choice Billingsgate poured from her lips. The neighbours only laughed the louder. Suddenly a policeman, a huge, solidly built fellow, with a phlegmatic air, appeared round the corner of the street, his hands behind his back, and approached with a slow and steady tread that never quickened in the least.
"Aren't you ashamed of yourself?" he said to the drunken woman. "Co along home with you! That's the best thing you can do."
"Yes, sir! certainly, sir! You're quite right, sir, quite right ... Now I'll tell you all about it....."
But her sentence was never finished. His hands still behind his back, the colossus, with one shove of his big stomach, had sent her staggering ten yards down the street. Knocked silly for a moment, she soon recovered her footing and began again:
"Please, sir! you must know, sir!. . . " Corporation well to the front, the man overtook her again. She stumbled, recovered her balance, tried once more to have her say, but was a second time cut short by the big-bellied policeman with a repetition of the ames manoeuvre. And so it went on, till the woman had turned the angle of the street, and was out of sight and beyond reach of the voices of her sarcastic neighbours. Then, right about face, and the good-natured constable left the poor woman, in spite of all her protests and objurgations, to make the best of her way home. The absurd recollection made Grace laugh. What a wide difference between the two cities!. . . Oh! for the chivalrous respect strong, manly men owe to women's weakness!
Meantime Uncle Dick had appeared on the terrace. He sank down on a heap of cushions, and crossed his legs a la Turque. A servant brought him his nargileh, stuffed it full of latakieh, the black tobacco of Smyrna, and finally laid on top of the bowl a lighted pastille of scented charcoal.
Kneeling down and puffing out his cheeks, the man blew hard to get the pipe well alight. Uncle Dick breathed in the fragrant smoke with a smile if placid content. All the same he had news to tell, and presently removing the flexible tube from his lips, he announced:
"He arrives to-morrow."
"Who?" inquired Grace. "Gordon?"
"Gordon be hanged! Everybody knows,-and you know quite well yourself,-he is not even expected till next week. And he would be doing just as well not to come at all!"
"Why?"
"Because he is coming alone."
"But you said he was as good as an army in himself. His prestige..."
"Yes! yes! his prestige! ... Only the Malidi's eclipses it now! The pacificator of the Sudan, as they call Gordon, reckons on the gratitude of those he benefited in former days, and no doubt their numbers would constitute an army. But if he relies seriously on any help from them, how little he understands the Arab, and still less the negro, character ... For advantages to come they are ready enough to devote themselves, as good Apostles should but for advantages received already..., never! never!"
"Still all this does not tell me who is arriving to-morrow."
"You can't guess?"
"I'm afraid to!"
"Well! for my part, I can make nothing of your fears! Now come ... honor bright ... is there any way of arranging these little difficulties?"
Seeing she did not answer, he went on:
"I tell you again, I know nothing whatever about the nature of your disagreement. James has been just as discreet as you. At the same time I have my shrewd suspicions as to what it may have been ... and when I spoke to you on the subject on board the dahabieh as we were coming up the Nile, you said nothing ... So then my conjectures are right. But in that case, why so desperately obstinate? You love him still, now don't you? As for him, he worships the very ground..."
"Enough, Uncle, enough! Please stop! ... If I imagined for one instant you had asked him to come, I should start home this very night."
"My dear girl, how silly you are! Do you think you can leave Sudan just as if you were walking out of one room into another? And you're not over complimentary to me, either. I assure you, I never asked him to come. Besides, he is full of delicacy, is Elphin. He writes me, he is coming to pay us his respects, if this is agreeable to you; but if not, he will keep away altogether and entirely. He says moreover he is going to live at the Palace, where Gordon has had sleeping quarters prepared for him ... Now what answer am I to give him?"
"Do as you think best, Uncle."
"What an answer for a girl to give! Say yes or no!. . . Would it wound you to see him and talk to him?"
"Very well! let him come."
"Is there any hope for him? Time, you know..."
"Never! I will never marry him..."
All her apathy was gone, as with quivering nostrils and trembling lips, her graceful head thrown proudly back, she stood there, a picture of determination.
Uncle Dick was more amused than convinced, and indulged in a rather sceptical smile. He waved the flexible stem of his nargileh and muttered between his teeth:
"Good! good! the fine fellow has only to plead his own cause to gain the day. The moment she is ready to give him a fair hearing, the battle's more than half won."
But at this instant loud cries made themselves heard, a series of appalling screams coming from the compounds at the end of the garden. Uncle Dick signaled to the man who stood behind him using an enormous palm-leaf as a fan to keep the flies away. After a while the cries ceased and they heard loud laughing instead, the wild, noisy, bestial laugh of negroes scrimmaging amongst themselves. The servant now returned, pushing before him a gigantic negress and a little, thin, lank, long-legged Copt lad, a wee, puny, olive-skinned creature of eight. The child was crying bitterly, with half-stifled, frightened sobs, his whole small body trembling violently, as he lifted a pair of soft eyes full of terror to the negress's face. The woman, an enormous Dinka, with the muscular limbs of an athlete, stood stiff and motionless in contemptuous silence. Her great eyes, two balls of jet, sparkled in her pale face, while her white teeth flashed between her thick lips.
The native servant explained what had happened. Instead of yielding to love, like ordinary women, it appeared she preferred to impose it on others. She appropriated whatever man pleased her imagine, roughly repulsing all who tried to have their will of her. Not one of her lovers but had had to complain of her violence, brutality forming an essential part of lovemaking in her eyes. In her hands the roughest and coarsest fellows became supple and submissive instruments of her pleasure, which were never complete till she saw the blood flowing. Some days ago she had cast sheep's eyes on the wretched little Copt lad, whose virginity she coveted. She had begun by fondling and making much of the lad, till he never willingly left her side. This evening she had determined to make her final assault. It was rape, nothing more nor less. The instant she laid hands on the boy she set to work to effect her purpose roughly and brutally. The little fellow, terrified to death, dared not do a single thing to defend himself, but lay passive, and dumb with surprise and horror. Soon however the fury began to bite and scratch and tear his tender flesh like some beast of prey. This set him howling, in spite of her having thrust a gag of two into his mouth. Without paying the least heed to the negroes who had run up at the lad's screams, she went steadily on with her work, in which lust and cruelty played about equal parts. The strange thing was that in all this crowd of men and women, not a soul ever dreamt of interfering; they found the spectacle a great deal too diverting for that, and laughed till their sides ached. After all, the lad had reached the age of puberty, and what did it matter whether he was initiated into the mysteries by Aisha, or went out and turned up some little girl of his own age? Later on he would take full revenge, never fear, for having been roughly handled himself the first time,-there could be no doubt about that!
Uncle Dick shrugged his broad shoulders, while Grace, trembling with pity, wiped the poor little chap's eyes, casting looks of anything but affection at the tall Negress. The latter looked at her in turn, a flash of hate beaming in her eyes and setting her thick lips quivering. Meantime Uncle Dick gave sentence; the negress was to be ironed, and on the morrow, before the assembled servants, to receive her twenty strokes of the kourbash. The savage looking Dinka's stature seemed actually to increase, as scornful and contemptuous, she enveloped in one comprehensive glance of hatred the detested Christians who witnessed her degradation. Just before stepping from the terrace, she turned round once more and seemed to dart a silent curse of special malignity on Grace's unoffending head.
"Bah! that's how they all are!" exclaimed her Uncle, "beasts I call them rather than human beings. Simply a huge mistake, thinking of giving them their freedom!"
Grace was still agitated and trembling, when visitors were announced. First of all, came Anser, the Austrian consul, and his wife. The latter was beaming. Cutting short the ordinary greetings of politeness, she dashed into an explanation of her state of delight. She had been given a recipe for a new soup, she said, and her husband's digestion was saved! There was no end to the details and all the precautions to be taken to ensure success. On Mrs. Watson's appearing presently on the terrace, accompanied by her husband, she was for beginning the whole story over again. But the lady of the diamonds talked her down, interrupting her again and again, till all the ingredients got hopelessly mixed up together. Next Carilopoulos, the young Greek merchant, arrived. He was a nightly visitor, and insisted on recounting in detail all his commercial operations, and giving all the particulars of every bargain that had turned out to his advantage. All the while he would be casting fond, languorous looks from his dark, velvety eyes at poor Grace, displaying an eagerness to oblige her and a degree of obsequiousness that made her fingers itch to box his ears. On this lofty terrace, beneath the deep, star-spangled sky of the East, it was all a mere repetition of a common-place, tiresome European evening party!
Presently the men began to speak of Gordon and the Malidi.
"What do you think about it?" inquired Uncle Dick of the company generally.
"What do you?" retorted the consul. "I am too anxious to know your opinion to trouble you with mine. For there is no one so capable as you of forming a sound judgment about things in the Sudan."
"For my own part," Garilopoulos interrupted in his headlong way, "I firmly believe the black fellows will be in only too great a hurry to make what amends they can. The instant they are assured Gordon is at Khartoum, all these valiant Emirs, all these ragged Princes, will desert their Malidi, and make the best of their way here, to give in their submission to the Egyptian Government."
"I am very much afraid you are mistaken. These 'Blacks,' as you call them, are a set of fanatics who believe in their Malidi as firmly as the Old Guard did in their Emperor. Moreover these same fanatics are brave and war-like men armed and eager for plunder. Gordon can do nothing."
"Just what I think," declared the consul; "I believe myself Gordon's coming will merely serve to precipitate the catastrophe."
Watson nodded assent, and put in his word:
"Now supposing my cotton plantations are wasted, what I want to know is, can I make either of the governments responsible, eh?"
"The British Government is on the best of terms with that of Egypt," Uncle Dick went on, "but you see all these excellent diplomatists are acting at a distance from the scene of action, depending entirely on what documents tell them. They are buoyed up, one and all, with false hopes, and utterly fail to realize how deep-seated the trouble here is. Upon my word! You would almost think Gordon himself does not suspect the truth! How can he suppose that after Hicks Pacha's disaster, diplomacy can be of the very slightest use? And if he means fighting, it's not with our garrison of Egyptians Gordon is going to repulse the malidi and his hordes, I can tell you!"
At the opposite end of the terrace the ladies were also engaged in conversation. Grace, still nervous and troubled at the look Aisha had given her, was relating the incident of that evening.
"I tell you, it was awful ... Think of it, a huge great devil of a Dinka woman! She frightened me to death, though I cannot say she's exactly ugly; for all her huge great limbs, she's like a statue to look at. Her arms are enormous; how strong she must be!-And wicked! it's positively disgusting. This very evening, she has been amusing herself torturing a child, a poor little Copt boy. You should have seen how he shook with terror! Whatever could she have been doing to him?"
The two married women exchanged a smile. Mrs. Watson answered:
"Oh! it was surprise, you know, my dear!"
"They are worse than the beasts that perish," continued Grace..."Now I have not the slightest desire to see a whipping given; I really believe each blow would hurt me as much as if it were laid on my own back. Nevertheless when it comes to that Aisha, I would like to see her flayed alive. Rather than such a wretch should escape punishment, I would take the executioner's place myself!"
"Shall we come and see her punished?" asked Mrs. Watson. "It amuses me to watch them being whipped; I never miss the sight, whenever I have one of our house servants thrashed. The faces they make strike me as so funny; and then, I can hardly explain how it is, but it is somehow pleasant to sit comfortable yourself and see someone else suffering ... When we lived at New-York, I was horribly afraid of the cold; yet when I was seated by a good fire, I loved to look out of window and watch the people in the street tramping through the snow."
"It's a vile country this" observed the consult's wife "but at any rate you can punish your servants properly. Now in America, venture on the smallest word of blame to a maid-servant, and she'll pitch her apron at your head, and as-likely as not a plate to follow."
"Well! it's settled then," insisted Mrs. Watson; "tomorrow morning we are to come to see the little Copt's tormentress whipped."
But on the morrow, when Grace and the two other ladies would have assisted at Aisha's punishment, they were informed the negress had found means to break her chains, and had escaped, no one could say where.
CHAPTER IV
Forebodings
It was flood time. The waters of the Nile were thick and green in color, deeply impregnated with rich slime. Great clods of mud came floating down the current from the Abyssinian highlands, swirling round and round on the swollen stream, and away down the river, from cataract to cataract, to fertilize the valley of Egypt. A dull, never-ceasing roar, the sound of rushing waters, filled the streets of Khartoum, and the "Khors," or affluents of the main stream, dry in summer time, rolled along in wild, tumbling torrents.
Grace had started out, accompanied by a domestic, to see the sight, which was grandly impressive. Having looked her fill at last, she decided to make a detour and so return home by the negro quarter of the city, which lay quite close at hand. Soon she entered a labyrinth of narrow, gloomy alleys, William, the English footman, having assured her he knew the way out again. At the very first step, the stench seized her by the throat, and she was obliged to call a halt and resort to her smelling bottle. The same smell reigned everywhere in Khartoum, an indescribably mixture of putrefaction and perfume, but here it was positively suffocating. Seated at the doors of their houses, which were mere mud-walled huts, the women were busy, weaving with lengths of alfa grass, mats, baskets and a thousand similar articles. Others were making fishing nets or even painting pottery, while others again were engaged in combing out their coarse hair and weaving it into a host of tiny ringlets.
The men, on the contrary, lay full length in happy idleness, blocking up the narrow path. Grace was continually stepping over their prostrate forms, and turning aside to avoid heaps of garbage and filth. She felt angry at their laziness, leaving all the heavy work to the women and forcing them to work, while they indulged in one long, interminable siesta. The scenes she saw of coarse animality astounded her. These niggers were far from particular; in the open street, without a thought for either neighbours or passers-by, they would kiss and cuddle the women in the most outrageously indecent fashion. At the same time she was surprised to find the felt little or no indignation; surely if she had beheld white folks behaving so, she would have been filled with insurmountable disgust and indignation. Somehow these negroes seemed more like animals, altogether unamenable to the ordinary rules applying to men and women.
Then she began to think of James. He was on the point of arriving; any moment she might find him standing before her. What would her feeling be, when that moment came? Presently she asked herself what they were at this present instant, a question the answer to which was both very complex and very simple. Under all the superficial varnish of civilization, with all his dignified carriage and handsome manly face, with all his external marks of education and elaborate training, he was no better really than these filthy negroes. In the space of a few minutes, that fatal Christmas Eve, in that vile house off Leicester Square, the veil had been rent away, and her respect for him annihilated by the details of that odious scene. She simply despised him, with a cold, calm disdain, that was quite free from the smallest active resentment. She did not even feel any anger at him for having scattered her illusions to the winds, delicious as these had been! Apparently he possessed every quality to flatter the pride of the woman of his choice; and on an assured basis, as she thought, of honest love, she had constructed a whole delightful edifice of hope and future felicity. But all this was over and done with! Even had she wished to forget those awful minutes, she could not do it. When she tried to force herself, and urged every argument she knew in favor of a reconciliation, there she saw him, hideous, brutal, at once terrible and ridiculous, as she had beheld him at the moment he overtook her after chasing her round the table in that room of evil associations.
On reaching home, she found James already there, sitting with Uncle Dick and young Dufour, the French merchant, over a bottle of sherry. He rose instantly and ran forward to greet her. She reached him her hand at arm's length, throwing her head and bust well back at the same time. James pressed her hand softly and meaningly, putting at once a caress and a prayer into this simple action, while his eyes implored forgiveness and the kiss he had hoped to receive. But Grace remained merely polite and gentle in her manner, though really and truly she was not without a certain feeling of proud aloofness.
Her Uncle looked hard at her. He had frowned when he saw her avoid the expected kiss, but now he was smiling, his eyes sparkling with mischief.
"So you were saying, James, you had left Gordon at Metemmeh," he inquired, "at the capital of the Djaalin?"
"Yes, Uncle! Just as I came away, he was issuing a proclamation, of the effect of which he entertains high hopes."
"Proclamations! a fig for proclamations!"
"But why?" struck in Dufour. "Everywhere, in the Sudan no less than elsewhere, it is with phrases men govern events. Don't tell me these Blackamoors are more clear-sighted than Europeans! A well-worded proclamation is the best panacea yet discovered for soothing malcontents."
"I daresay!" Uncle Dick agreed. "Come, let us have a look at this chef-d'oeuvre of Gordon's."
"I do not think it over and above judicious, to tell you the truth," added James. "He states in it that he is come armed with full and unlimited powers and is ready to grant entire and unconditional amnesty."
"Perfect! excellent! admirable!"
"Wait till you hear the rest ... He proclaims further that Egypt, renouncing all authority over the Sudan, proposes to withdraw her troops and that all the Egyptian garrisons are ready to evacuate the country. He adds that, if he has himself returned to the country, it is in the capacity of Governor General, with a view to pacification merely."
"You don't mean that? What a piece of folly-of downright, doltish stupidity, I should say!"
"How so?" persisted Dufour. "It seems to me on the contrary that, with a view to make men believe in his character as pacificator, Gordon has acted very sagaciously in promising a withdrawal of the troops. It shows he has no wish for hostilities. After all, what is it these Sudanese ask for? Is it not their independence? Well! we give it them; what more have they to do but hold their tongues?"
"You think so, do you? Yes truly, a fine piece of work, this unfortunate proclamation ... And what a singularly happy thought, to go and issue it at Metemmeh of all places, the very headquarters of slavery!"
"But really I fail to see precisely what harm it can do."
"You fail to see?. . . Why the Sheiks, the Chiefs of Tribes, even such as are hostile to the Malidi, who see through his selfish objects and dread the despotism he wishes to establish, even these, do you see, will be forced to tremble for their safety now. Once the Egyptian garrisons are withdrawn, who is to protect them against the Dervishes' fury, I should like to know?"
"Why of course," put in James, in support of his Uncle.
"And that's not all!" the latter went on, showing more and more clearly his true opinions. "This fine harangue, I tell you, is an open invitation to treason. I do not say there are traitors among the garrison of Khartoum itself, but among the populace-and among the merchant classes too, just as much as among the mere proletariat,-the Malidi already possesses only too many partisan. Now he is going to have a good many more! ... Shall I tell you what I think? I have half a mind to pack up my traps and take Grace out of it all; I have a shrewd notion we are in for a very bad time ... Come what may, we are bound to have to stand a siege."
"A siege,-well! what can be more amusing than a siege?" cried Dufour excitedly. "Why! it breaks the monotony of things first-rate ... During the siege of Paris, was just twenty then,-I found plenty of diversion. The food certainly left something to be desired; but the excitement was fine, and of endless variety, though always coming from the same causes!"
"Bosh!" exclaimed the astonished Uncle Dick, who had never yet been able to fathom the Frenchman's persiflage. "But you forget the end of it all, if things turn out ill. And besides, the Prussians barely entered Paris at all, whereas if the Dervishes once take Khartoum, you may take your oath they will behave quite differently from what European belligerents are accustomed to."
Grace slipped out of the room, under pretence of having orders to give to the servants.
"In the first place," retorted Dufour, "what is there to prove the Dervishes will ever take Khartoum? It is open to doubt even if they will come to try. As for drawing fine distinctions between belligerents, that is mere playing with words; in war all men are savages, whether their skin is black or white."
"You will allow, I presume, that Europeans are more highly civilized than the Sudanese?"
"If you mean by civilization refinement in art, ingenuity in talk, hypocrisy in conduct, why certainly! But it's only a veneer."
"The same cruelty then?"
"Undoubtedly! The same barbarous cruelty exactly! What is it you reproach them with, your Arabs, and negroes? Why! their greed, and their sensuality! Europeans are built differently, I suppose? Is it their respect for brute force? But Darwin has proved in so many words that the 'struggle for life,' as he calls it, has existed always and in all societies. Only in Europe, among our dense agglomerations of population, it is fiercer than ever."
"At any rate we have abolished slavery!"
"Indeed? And the wage-earning classes, what of them? What are they better than slaves? A poor devil works, works from morning to night, all day and every day, while all the joys of life pass in front of his nose, without his so much as getting a whiff of them. His labor goes to enrich his master, who has only to enjoy it all, and do a trifle of superintendence. If the laborer kicks against the pricks and is for stopping work, hunger twists his guts. Is hunger any more tolerable than the lash? No such thing as fulsome respect for power and wealth in Europe? Why! the blackest of all crimes in our code, is the crime of poverty!"
"Bah! theories!"
"Confirmed alas! by the facts we see around us every day."
"At any rate, in war time, Europeans respect women!"
"No! not even their own countrywomen! Look here, I must tell you a thing I saw with my own eyes, a scene I played an active part in myself ... It was just after the surrender of Paris ... As soon as the armistice had been signed, the French ladies were allowed to circulate freely ... Those by-the bye who sought outrage, found they had to take considerable trouble to attain their end!. . . At that first news of the Prussian advance, our fashionable cocottes had taken wing. Brussels swarmed with them; but still a goodish few were left. Now during the siege, as you may suppose, these young ladies' trade was far from flourishing. Men were not much disposed just then for light amusement,-and the less so, as you never knew if a Prussian shell might not any moment explode in the night and change the bed of pleasure into a funeral couch! Besides foreigners were of course entirely absent,-always these fair creatures' best customers. Well there were two cocottes who had had a most excellent time with German officers they had made the acquaintance of in 1867, at the date of King William's visit to the Paris Exhibition. So now, four years afterwards, these same Officers, who were handsome, wealthy, open-handed fellows, sick of war's alarms and thirsting for all the pleasures they had been so long deprived of, recall to mind their little friends. They had preserved their address, and it so happened the ladies were there still! The instant the armistice was concluded, they dispatched a message, begging the fair ones to come out and sup with them at St. Cloud. The ladies kept the appointment; but unfortunately they had chattered to their concierge, who spread the news in the neighborhood. From the street the information extended to the whole district; and it was not long before all Paris knew that two ladies, two Frenchwomen, heedless of the misfortunes of their country, had gone to make diversion for a couple of the hated enemy. A crowd gathered to greet their return; and when at length they appeared, they were astounded to see a host of people waiting their arrival. However they were not given much time to recover from their surprise. Each was taken between two strong men, and so forced to tramp on, with petticoats well tucked up. Then ensued a wild storm of howls and laughter; all who would might let fly at their exposed posteriors. The majority were good-natured and only gave a light slap; but others, impressed by the importance of their functions, struck with all their might and the full weight of their heavy hands. The poor girls were soon reduced to tears, and begged and prayed to be released; but the sport was far too diverting for their tormentors to give it up so quickly. They had to endure a full hour of public smacking,-to say nothing of the surreptitious caresses sundry naughty-minded patriots took the opportunity of applying ... Alas for their poor bottoms, so plump and round they looked like two full moons amid the light clouds of delicate lace and fine linen ... and their satiny skin, all bruised and showing the marks of rough, coarse fingers."
"How abominable!" ejaculated Grace, who had returned to the apartment in time to hear the tale, and whose face was pale and her teeth clenched with horror and indignation. "How can men possibly..."
"Ah-Miss Grace, I did not know you were there!" exclaimed Dufour, with much contrition. "Otherwise, believe me..."
"Oh! you may talk freely before me ... In this awful country, I have seen such horrible atrocities I am not-likely to be offended by mere words. But such things ... in Europe! odious! horrible!"
However she quitted the room again, leaving the gentlemen to converse without the constraint of her presence.
"You are sitting right facing the door," cried Dufour reproachfully to Uncle Dick; "you might have given me a word of warning."
"Nay! it's not so easy to stop you, when once you are started! But anyway, what does your story prove?"
"Oh! nothing; I did not want to prove anything; but I thought it was worth telling for its own sake. After all, perhaps the young women were not so much aggrieved as all that. There are plenty who quiver deliciously under men's brutality. However, you see this, crowds are the same everywhere."
"They took the chances of their trade; if they had chosen a better..."
"Listen to me!. . . At Berber there is a brothel, kept by an Egyptian official, a functionary in the Revenue department. He recruits his boarders among slave-women, whom he buys from the Djaalin. As an official of the Egyptian Government he discountenances slavery, but as keeper of a house of ill-fame he profits by the institution. If it should happen that one of the poor girls revolts against the caprices of a customer, she is brought to reason by a few good strokes of the kourbash judiciously applied ... This brings me round to what I was saying just now,-the lash or starvation, the two come to very much the same thing after all. In France, in England, in any European country, there's many a poor girl would be only too glad to live decently, but is forced to live a life of sin by circumstances..."
"Because they have no proper pride! If they really wished..."
"Proper pride!" broke in Dufour sarcastically. "Women and proper pride! ... I've known pretty women, and proud women enough,-and they let themselves be seduced by an unscrupulous fellow, who drilled them for the trade of gallantry, living on the gains his mistress for the time being brought in. A woman's pride makes no sort of a show against the ascendancy of a man who means business. And the curious thing is, they one and all like it, ... they want to be bullied, humiliated! Women become what men wish them to be..."
"What!" protested James, while Uncle Dick merely laughed. "Do you go so far as to tell me that a girl of birth, a young lady, well brought up and well educated, would ever come to love a mere brute?"
"Will I go so far? Why certainly! ... You amaze me, you English! ... Here we have a Cavalry Officer, a man of thirty, with plenty of good looks, who ... Why! my good man, you are just as simple as a child! It is only in the old romances of Chivalry you find brave and strong men playing the part of timid lovers. Your sweet, tender maid accepts a lover's respectful homage with a degree of coldness that in our day would mean a good box on the ear ... And then ... Courts of love, there were Courts of love in those days, weren't there!. . . Mere literature, and nothing else; I am quite convinced the manners and customs of the time bore no sort of resemblance to these insipid descriptions ... Your English habit of flirtation is all very well; but let me tell you, a coquette always finds her master in the long run. All the while she is keeping one admirer sighing at her feet, she's sighing herself for someone else. The thing of all others a woman abominates in this world is a chilly lover ... And, by Jove! she is perfectly right too!"
"You make too sweeping assertions, surely. There are women and women."
"So you think,-honest women, and the other sort ... Do you seriously believe all that stuff? ... Even the women we describe as having no spunk are astonishingly like those we credit with the largest supply of that article ... Everything depends on the man!"
"Bravo! what a display of philosophy!" cried Uncle Dick, interrupting. "You are a past master, monsieur Dufour, in the art of wandering from the point ... So it appears, according to you, we shall not be attacked at all."
"Upon my word, I know nothing about it. . . But I can't help thinking that as Egypt gives them all they wanted, the Malidi's partisans have nothing left to ask."
"They won't ask, they'll take!"
"I don't think Khartoum anyway will be very easy to take," James remarked.
"You've only just come; you've not had time to see anything yet. Go and take a walk in the streets, particularly in the evening, when the people are coming out of the Great Mosque. Then you will see them gathering in groups, always with a fellow speechifying in the middle of each, with imposing gestures and appalling grimaces and all the mimicry of Orientals, who rely as much on action as on actual words to make their meaning plain. The rest stand round, drinking in his words, now and again indulging in a grunt of approbation, but nothing more. Should a European come on the scene, or even an Egyptian, the orator stops dead, while the audience pretend to have nothing to do with him. But all the while they are looking askance at the intruder from under their brows, and directly his back is turned and they see him well round the corner of the street, they are at it again. I tell you it's treason hatching! the city swarms with adherents of the Malidi."
"Why, yes! it's all perfectly true," Dufour declared. "And the worst of't is, it's not merely the populace lets itself be over persuaded, but among the rich traders there are many who keep up a secret correspondence with
El-Obayd---After all, if the Dervishes do come, we shall know how to receive them. The guns of Omdurman are not there simply as a raree-show, I presume."
CHAPTER V
The City of Danger
Gordon arrived with a mere handful of men, making no pretence to be anything more than an escort; nevertheless his entry into Khartoum had all the outward appearance of a triumph. The garrison band and its war-like strains were enough to kindle the enthusiasm of the negroes, and cheers and acclamations were the order of the day. With characteristic coolness and careful orderliness, he instantly set to the work in hand, as was his invariable custom. Every man had his allotted task, and was bound to do it, and do it methodically. The previous friction and small jealousies between Officers ceased as if by magic, discipline and a fine spirit of emulation taking their place.
At the same time, though he acted diplomatically towards the enemy, Gordon indulged no false hopes. He understood perfectly he would have to fight before long, and that no time was to be lost in putting Khartoum in a proper state of defense. Still he suffered no sign of his anxieties to appear, but showed a smiling face to all men, and lost no opportunity of re-affirming his mission to be that of a pacificator.
He dispatched a message to the Malidi, whom he invested with the title of Sultan of Kordofan. Moreover he declared the traffic in human flesh, the capture of slaves and slave-dealing, to be free and lawful, proposing to the Malidi to enter into negotiations, and demanding the release of the European captives he had with him in his camp. He sent him a number of presents,-superb stuffs of Eastern manufacture, as well as magnificent brocades and satins woven expressly by Liberty. But the messenger returned from El-Obayd with a discouraging reply. The Malidi was no fool, and pointed out that he was only being offered what he had already won for himself. He warned Gordon in so many words, that if he wished to save his life, he must immediately surrender at discretion.
Simultaneously with the departure of Gordon's estafet, emissaries left El-Obayd, who dispersed themselves throughout Khartoum, busily fomenting treason amongst its inhabitants. The merchants and chief citizens reproached Gordon with acting for their ruin. Resistance, they urged, could do nothing but exasperate the Dervishes. Better surrender at once, since in any case surrender was inevitable. If only Gordon had brought reinforcements with him! The great man listened to their complaints and prognostications with a kindly and rather enigmatical smile, and told them to hope for the best, admitting at the same time that the town would have to stand a siege.
As for the Malidi, he had pressing reasons for beginning war-like operations at the earliest practicable moment. The huge agglomeration of warriors, with their wives, children, and slaves, the whole immense population he had gathered together round El-Obayd, were suffering from want of water. Loudly they demanded to be led to the waters of the Nile, to set out to the immediate attack of Khartoum! To soothe and distract their attention, he detached an expedition under command of Abu-Anga, the most valiant of his Emirs. Affecting to make light of Gordon, he sent off these considerable forces against the Nubian Highlanders, who had refused to pay the "usher," or tax of one fifth, and had welcomed with sticks and stones the revenue officers the Malidi had sent to collect it.
Meantime Gordon proceeded with the training of his garrison of Egyptians and the strengthening of the city walls. James had no definite duties assigned him, and had plenty of time on his hands. In the main the town, while showing somewhat more animation than usual owing to the continual movement of troops to and from the parade grounds, looked much as usual, and Grace felt no hesitation about consenting to walk out with James.
For some time past, without her vigorous health being seriously affected, she had felt unlike herself. The blazing African sun heated her blood. She experienced sudden and unaccountable paroxysms of exaltation, during which all her sensations were exaggerated abnormally. She had fits of laughing, an uncontrollable laughter that hurt her, during which her throat seemed to be closed, as if she were going to choke. Or else she would start crying, without any apparent reason or any special grief to account for her tears. Yet for hours together the drops would course unceasingly down her cheeks, while her heart swelled miserably in irresistible melancholy. The fit always left her prostrate in a state, of supreme languor, without a thought in her head, or power to stir a limb, legs and arms feeling as if they were broken at the joints.
But on James appearing on the scene, her only sentiment was one of sarcastic irony. Beneath all her politeness, her cordiality and camaraderie, lurked contempt and scorn. She accompanied him all the same in long, wandering expeditions up and down the city, without any idea of danger from him. But one day, while exploring the Negro quarter, suddenly she seized his arm, her nails piercing the light stuff of his coat sleeve and entering the flesh. He looked down at her in amazement, terrified at her ghastly paleness, and followed the direction of her eyes, which were fixed and staring; for some moments she was too much agitated to speak. When finally she recovered her calmness and was able to explain, she laughed and made light of her alarm. The fact is she believed herself to have recognized standing with a group of other natives, the tall Dinka, Aisha the Negress who had escaped and run away.
She was a head taller than the men about her, but Grace allowed she might very possibly have been mistaken, for the head she had seen wore a man's turban. And even supposing it were Aisha, there was nothing to be afraid of. There was no sort of sense in being so nervous.
In the meantime water getting scarcer and scarcer, the Malidi had moved his camp from El-Obayd to Rahad, while Mohammed Abu Girgh, with an imposing force of men, was sent to attack the ramparts of Khartoum. He was not without cannon, guns captured from Hicks Pacha's army. Above all others, the Djaalin were filled with enthusiasm and exultation at the advance. They were Gordon's bitterest enemies, and had never forgotten his former efforts to stop the slave-trade. A war-like tribe they had once been rich and prosperous as the result of traffic in their fellow men; now, ruined for the most part, they dragged out a wretched existence of dire poverty. The Madhi was their only hope.
Grace dressed in black and wearing the regulation white apron, had taken her place at the hospital. When the first wounded man was brought in, she turned pale, and stood an instant hesitating, her eyes lowered and her heart sick with disgust. A dread of blood and pain and suffering held her paralyzed. She was afraid to look, but mastering her nerves, she overcame her aversion and was soon in command of herself once more. The wounded man, an Egyptian fellah, spare and muscular, had had both legs crushed under a mass of masonry thrown down by a shot. Rapidly the surgeon, anxious to attend the others, and without any very elaborate precautions, worked away at the mangled wreck of flesh and bones, that seemed only to hang together by the threads of clotted blood. Two turns of the saw, and the amputation was complete. But he took his time to give Grace her directions, and show her how she should set about dressing the wound. The patient showed keen attention, listening eagerly, for all the world as if he understood English. He was livid, while his glassy eyes told only too well the agonies he suffered, and his clenched teeth gnawed the pipe he had obstinately persisted in pulling at, but which had gone out in spite of him.
Others followed, and before long Grace grew accustomed to her duties and proved herself a capable nurse, working well with a quick, light touch. Soon every bed was occupied, and it became necessary to put down "angarebs," the little string beds in use among the Sudanese. Indeed the native soldiers found themselves more comfortable on these, preferring them to beds of the European pattern. Among the wounded were some who broke down altogether, thinking of mothers and sweethearts, and wept and sobbed unrestrainedly. Others, in a crisis of black despair, would wring their hands and even tear off the dressings from their wounds, and gaze at the flowing blood with wild, savage eyes. Then Grace would seat herself at their bedside, and find soothing words that never failed to bring comfort. Often they grew gentle and affectionate, and would tell her of their homes and lives, details in which she showed the greatest interest. So she made herself obeyed, and a look was enough to ensure their complete docility. Grace would scold them like children, till they gave in, which they invariably did at last.
The life gave her a sensation of gentle pleasure and satisfaction. Especially when looking after a convalescent, every time she observed an improvement, her heart would beat with real delight. Alternately peremptory and persuasive, she made the wounded men do everything she pleased, whereas they remained deaf and contemptuously silent, when their own officers spoke to them. The great difficulty was to keep off the flies. In spite of lumps of camphor and basins of carbolic acid, they flew buzzing everywhere about the wards. The noise they made and the bites they inflicted fevered the patients' sleep, the insects penetrating even under the mosquito curtains. Long rods coated with glue were set up in jars full of earth, and proved good fly-catchers. For hours at a time Grace used to watch their efforts to extricate themselves, watch them dragging at their tiny legs, imprisoned in the stickiness, waving their wings in vain, and falling back again exhausted. Somehow their agony pleased Grace, as if the pain of these tiny creatures was a set-off against that of suffering humanity. Her heart was filled with joy, and she felt happier than for many a day in the hospital ward, the huge, bare room with its white-washed walls and muslin curtains and the long lines of mosquito nets. She was a mother to her poor wounded boys, always ready to help, and quick to be at their side at the first murmur of complaint, the first sigh of pain.
Yet in spite of all her charity the negro soldiers still inspired her with a disgust and repulsion she reproached herself for feeling. She strove to overcome her repugnance and redoubled her affectionate care, but the feeling was too strong for her. Spite of camphor and phenic acid, the smell of Negro filled the whole place, a combination of dead body, wet dog and close air, and whatever is most fetid and foul and provocative of nausea. Grace was obliged to draw out her smelling salts and take a long breath of them, before returning to the beds, speaking kindly to the patients and washing their sores. But every time she saw blood flowing, she was seized with the same repulsion and terror she had experienced the first day, and which she could only get the better of by dint of an energetic exertion of the will.
The siege dragged on indecisively, and Gordon resolved to try a bold stroke. He made a vigorous sortie, which took the enemy completely by surprise. Abu-Girgeh, who commanded the besiegers, was wounded, and the Egyptian troops made a great massacre of the Dervishes. The siege was raised in all haste, the Malidists retreating in the utmost disorder.
James specially distinguished himself on the occasion, sabring the black fellows with a will and bringing back an
Emir's standard as spoil of war. Yet in Grace's presence all his confidence failed him. All he could do was to gaze at he with humble looks of entreaty, while his voice, when he spoke, was broken, hoarse, and trembling. She smiled complacently, though at the mere thought she might once have been his, her whole flesh shuddered in revolt. Meantime he continued undiscouraged to pay his court tenderly and humbly. He lived at the palace with Gordon; but whenever duty allowed him, he would run over to his Uncle's, where now that fighting was not going on, Grace was more frequently to be found.
At such times Uncle James redoubled his good-natured fun and frolic, and was lavish of chaff and champagne. A great lover of practical jokes, he understood the art of being extremely amusing without offence. He would suddenly turn off the switch of the electric light, leaving the dining-room in utter darkness,-then as suddenly flood it with light. His surprise was extreme, when he found James had never stirred from his place and had made no sort of attempt to kiss Grace. Still he never directly interfered, holding that in love the best advocate is the one who speaks for himself. All the same he considered such procrastination utterly ridiculous; James seemed to be only at the first steps of lovemaking, and to be so shy and circumspect that any further progress appeared out of the question, while Grace wore an air of coquettish light-heartedness, as if quite ready to lend herself to a little flirtation, provided always nothing serious was to come of it. Uncle Dick however still stuck firmly to his notion that Grace was more deeply in love with his nephew than ever; only the devil take him! nothing would induce him to speak out. He sighed to think James was such a timid, shilly-shally lover!
Meantime the Malidi was busy at Rahad preparing his revenge. His enormous camp looked like a sea of haystacks, with its crowds of "tokuls," or staw huts roofed with thatch. Every Friday was Review day. From earliest dawn the war drums were heard beating hoarsely, followed by the harsh tones of the ear-splitting "ombeya," an instrument made of a hollow elephant's tusk, and audible from one end of the camp to the other. Instantly the troops took order under the different banners. The Khalif Abdul-lahi was "Reis-el-Gesh," or Generalissimo. His Division, the "Raya ez Zargha," carried a blue standard. The "Raya el Khadra," or green flags, were commanded by the Khalif Ali Wad Helu, while the red flags, or "Raya el Ashraf," (banner of the nobles) belonged to the Division of the Khalif Mohammed Sherif. Besides this, each individual Emir or Prince had his own special flag. No sooner had the great war drums sounded, accompanied by the melancholy notes of the ombeya, then the Emirs hurried to their posts, and aided by the "Mukkudums," or subordinate officers, marshalled their men in due order. The division of the Raya ez Zargha, its banners flapping in the wind, deployed into line, facing to the east; next the division of the Raya el Khadra took on a position opposite the former, looking therefore West; finally came the Ashraf, front to the North.
Thus the Dervish hordes found themselves drawn up in a vast square, open on one side, ready to acclaim their Prophet, who mounted on a white camel, passed slowly along their front, greeting them with the sacramental phrase, "Allah yebarek Kum!"-May Allah bless you!
Many strange stories passed from mouth to mouth. After each of these reviews held on Friday, the holy day, each of these military displays, which they called "Arda or Tarr," the soldier invariably had some new wonder to repeat. One would declare he had seen the Holy Prophet Mahomet in the flesh, riding alongside the Malidi and conversing familiarly with him. Another would announce he had heard celestial voices, angels chanting, songs of victory, and blessing the "Ansar,"-the Army. Yet others would have it they had noticed clouds, plainly formed out of angels' wings and evidently intended to guard the Malidi's host against the heat of the sun.
The Malidi meantime was doing something else than hold reviews. Berber had been taken by storm, and that place once in the hands of the Dervishes, meant the whole Northern Sudan being in their power, and Gordon's retreat absoluely cut off. At Khartoum the surrender of Berber caused wide-spread terror, though Gordon himself never flinched, confident of eventual success and expecting the speedy arrival of an English army of rescue. But those red coats, how long they were in coming! Steamers were dispatched up stream and down, furrowing the waters of the White Nile and peppering the Malidi's partisans with shot and shell. Confidence was restored, and Gordon succeeded in convincing his Egyptian auxiliaries of the prime necessity of winning the day.
Yet treason was all about him. From the high terrace roof of his Palace, he had been able with his sea glass to see the chiefs he had dispatched against the rebel actually fraternising with the foe. On their return to the city, they were immediately shot. In this way Gordon had made himself fresh enemies out of the friends and partisans of the men he had doomed to death. The whole army of the Malidi was moving on Khartoum by forced marches, and again investing the doomed city. Abu-Anga won the first advantage: pushing forward his trenches between the river bank and the Fort of Ondurman, he forced the best of Gordon's Captains to capitulate. This Abu-Anga was a negro of the Tribe of the Dongolas, the same to which the Malidi himself belonged. He was the son of a liberated slave, and the one of the three Khalifs whom the false Messiah had named as his own successor.
The siege grew closer and closer, and the hardships of garrison more and more atrocious. People were living on preserves, and the starving inhabitants frequently rushed out into the streets to beseech the soldiers to open the gates to the Malidi. Still Gordon kept up a feverish hope; for all its interminable delay, he was convinced the army of rescue was on its way, that the English troops were coming up the Nile. Any moment they might fall, like a thunderclap, on the Dervishes; then he would make a sortie himself, and overwhelm the Malidi in irretrievable disaster. To keep up the spirits of his men, he kept the military bands continually playing, and gave concerts in the gardens of the Residency, to which he invited the population, regardless of the ceaseless thunder of the cannonade.
All the fashionables of Khartoum were crowded under the old lemon-trees and tall sycamores of the Palace gardens, turning in an everlasting round about the kiosque in the centre. Conversation was only interrupted for an instant when the heavy guns boomed. At the moment the orchestra was playing a sentimental air coming originally from the Rhine, but which was so universally popular just then in England that few Englishmen could hear it without the refrain rising to their lips. Uncle Dick, stirred perhaps by some old memory, hummed over tenderly to himself the rather silly and commonplace English version:
"Thou pretty eye, thou lovely star, Thou art so near, and yet so far!"
"Ah! yes!" sighed James, "Thou pretty eye, thou lovery star, thou art so near, and yet my lips can never, never reach thee!"
He had taken Grace by the hand, and went on in a voice that was restrained, yet trembling with emotion:
"Grace! my darling Grace! ... Are you never going to take pity on me?"
She looked astonished; it was the first time he had yet ventured on such a speech. Then she shook her head in a playful, teasing way, feeling an irresistible impulse to coquet, to play with the grief she recognized in the man's voice.
"Now, don't you think Gordon is a real gentleman, down to the smallest details? Evidently it is to raise our courage, he invites us all to this garden party..."
"Grace, I do beseech you, be serious ... Please, answer my question."
"I'm perfectly serious ... Only your question is an indiscreet one."
"Is there any hope?"
"Hope of what?"
"Cruel girl! ... Will you drive a man to despair?"
"But a man who despairs, is not worth calling a man!"
"Speak more plainly. I know we are in the land of the Sphinx, but I am not good at guessing riddles..."
"The Sphinx is dumb!"
"Yes! but you are not. Speak! Tell me what I am to think."
"How should I know?"
"If you don't know now, perhaps you will know soon; so that I can still hope."
"Hope away! Everybody can find in their own heart food enough for their fond dreams."
"It is all a fond dream then, is it?"
"How should I know?"
"Oh! Grace, for pity's sake ... You are so cold, and at the same time so alluring ... You don't realize how cruel your sport is to others."
"Hush!-James. You can't think how this awful country frightens me ... I am afraid of pain, desperately afraid, and I don't want to give anybody pain."
"Well, then! tell me..."
"I have nothing to tell you,-no answer to give you!' "It was all mere flirtation, then?"
"Perhaps so!"
CHAPTER VI
Violated!
One moonless night Khartoum was taken by the Dervishes. In dead silence the swarming hosts had crossed the Nile. Admirably served by their spies, they had discovered a ford exactly in front of the breach. At this point the last flood had undermined the rampart, and embankment and wall had given way and disappeared in the swollen stream. Not a soul had informed Gordon of the damage, which had been deemed of no importance and left unrepaired, so that a gaping hole was there, as if to invite attack ... The breach was perfectly practicable, and through it the Malidists had been able to enter at their leisure. The guard was taken by surprise and massacred before they could raise an alarm. Fifty thousand assailants spread themselves through the city, destroying and devastating, with loud cries of "Lil Kenisa! Lil Saraya!" (To the Church! To the palace!) greedy for booty, eager to appropriate the treasures they hoped to find in the ill-fated town.
Traversing the gardens, they made straight for the Palace, and beat down its doors. Gordon came forward to meet them,-alone, for such had been his own wish. At the first alarm, he had given orders that every man should leave him and see to his own personal safety.
The door opened, and the assailants stood back. Gordon appeared on the threshold, and paused a moment there. Then he started to descend the steps, walking with a firm, manly step. Then he stopped again, and made signs he wished to speak. But with one bound a gigantic Negro was upon him. There was a flash of steel, and the man's cutlass pierced the hero to the heart. He fell forward, his face striking the ground. The howling mob flew upon their prey; not a Dervish but longed to have his share in sacrificing the idolater, not a fanatic but was eager to bury his dagger in the flesh of the Christian dog.
But some of the Emirs drove back the assassins with savage blows, and they stood looking on in sullen silence. One of the Officers gave a brief order. A soldier stepped forward, and lifting his naked sabre in both hands, beheaded the corpse with a single stroke. The officers, lowering a pikeman's lance, stuck the pale head on its point, while the blood trickling down the shaft, gleamed scarlet in the light of the torches. This done, the procession marched off in search of the Malidi.
From a distant hiding-place, James saw it pass by. Concealed by the darkness, he saluted the grim trophy in military fashion. At first he had resisted, and expressed his intention of staying beside his General, and Gordon had had to repeat his order in a dry peremptory tone. Then he had shaken James by the hand, and in a voice strangely gentle and caressing, had said: "Away! quick, to defend your future wife!"
So James had left him to his fate. Already the gardens were full of Dervishes, who guarded all the exits. He slipped through some bushes, reached the enclosing wall, against which he found a tree-trunk that helped him to climb over. He dropped into the street, falling on his feet. Without waiting to answer the sentinels who challenged him, he ran with all his speed towards his Uncle's house. At the corner of the street he heard the rapid steps of a man flying for his life, and a torrent of threats and insults in the thick, guttural tones of the Negro. Evidently a party of Dervishes in pursuit of a white man. James stood still and listened; there was nothing to be heard behind him, and he waited in motionless expectancy. Already the fugitive, noticing him, was trying a dodging movement to avoid him, when he exclaimed, "Halloa! Dufour'"
"Halloa! is it you, James? You gave me a fright ... Sorry, but there's no time to talk."
"Why hardly! With these devils on your track ... Shall we join company? Right?"
"Right!"
And they started running side by side, with quick rapid strides, elbows in and fist clenched. "Where are we bound?" asked Dufour. "To my Uncle Dick's!" replied James. "I thought so!"
"Quiet! We want all our breath to distance..."
However they did distance the Dervishes. Better still, they succeeded in putting them off the scent. Hidden under a porch, they heard their pursuers making off in quite a wrong direction.
Arrived at Uncle Dick's, they found it no easy matter to gain admission. Succeeding at last, they found that gentleman pondering deeply. Who was there he could trust for the defense? Nobody whatever,-save and except William, the English footman! But here was a reinforcement, James and Dufour, making four men in all, ready and willing to die to save Grace.
"And you know," cried he, "they haven't caught us yet. They've first got to find us ... We are going to lie low."
He struck the gong, and the room quickly filled, the servants readily answering the summons. But there were vacant places, some having already made off to fraternize with the victorious Malidists.
"No time to lose!" growled Uncle Dick..."Well; here we are! All the live stock left in the establishment is now in this room."
Then raising his voice and speaking in Arabic:
"My children, I've always been a good master to you ... If anyone thinks otherwise, let him speak up. Nobody has a word to say? Very well! Now I have a piece of bad news to tell you. I am leaving you. The town is in the hands of the enemy, and we are going to fly. We have camels waiting, and are off directly. But I don't intend anyone to know in what direction. So I am going to take the liberty of locking you all up in this room! A few hours, and you will be free!"
There was a murmur of protest, and one or two negroes stepped forward in a threatening attitude. But the four white men had revolvers in heir hands, and the party got in motion without further resistance, enclosing Grace in their midst. No sooner were they outside than Uncle Dick turned the key in the door, muttering. "There! Before they think of breaking down the door, we shall be safe in our hiding-place-My friends, I am going to conduct you into the bowels of the earth."
The little band now began to descend a staircase, a winding stone stair that led downwards under the floor. Uncle Dick was an epicure in the matter of good wine and cool beer and when he had the house built, he had paid the utmost attention to the cellars. There was nothing like them in all Khartoum; even the palace cellars could not be compared with them. Of solid brickwork, heavily and massively constructed, with vaults as high as the aisle of a Cathedral, they extended far beneath the house, deep and cool.
Soon they were traversing a long passage, William going first with a lantern. Suddenly the man sopped, and began hauling at an enormous bottle rack, a mighty erection loaded with dusty wine bottles. The huge mass of iron and glass slid on rails laid for the purpose, and a secret door was revealed. The good Uncle burst out laughing, as he explained the dodge. He was now going to open this door, and by the act of shutting it again he drew back the rack once more into its place. You might pass the spot a dozen times without guessing there was anything concealed. For months, ever since he had known Gordon was coming without bringing any troops with him, he had been at work with William, storing up arms in plenty and provisions enough to last a year-dry Captain's biscuits and preserved foods, not to mention some of his finest wine and the various strong waters he was so fond of. Nor had he omitted a supply of the most indispensable articles of furniture, even including an electric stove, for cooking purposes, which could be heated without producing any smoke to betray the secret.
"No fear of rheumatism!" he cried in high good humor. "It's just as dry as the sands of the desert, though there's no lack of water, neither."
So saying, he opened a tap, from which flowed an abundant jet of water.
"And now, to await developments ... Will you have a cigar, James? And you, Dufour? No need to offer you one, William; you, sneak 'em, whether or no!"
James had gone up to Grace, and was gazing at her with a submissive glance, such as a faithful dog casts at his mistress. Seeing him looking thus, she blushed; and presently took his hand boldly and pressed it hard:
"I was a wretch, James, last night-at the concert, you know, in the Palace gardens ... Can you forgive me?"
He answered the pressure of her hand, so strongly moved he could only stammer out her name:
"Grace! ... my own Grace!"
"You told me you still wished me to be your wife ... That was what you meant, was it not?"
For only answer he pressed her hand again, and his eyes softened in an unspoken prayer.
"If ever we get out of here, we will be married, James-whenever you wish."
Uncle Dick was leering at them out of the corner of his eye. He had drawn Dufour on one side, and was getting him to institute a comparison between his old port and his old sherry, William serving them with an expression of compunction on his face at such ill-timed indulgence.
Meantime from the upper world and the street outside, came muffled shouts, indistinct rumblings and half-heard explosions. They were the sounds of massacre, conflagration and the shooting down of men,-faint echoes of the sack of Khartoum.
Grace laid her two hands on James's shoulders, and said with a slow, solemn voice:
"If they reach us here, I trust they will never have been alive, James."
He smiled mournfully, while his voice rang out calm and manly:
"I swear they shall not; when I can no longer defend you, I will kill you."
A half deadened rumbling made itself heard, coming nearer and nearer, and soon they could distinguish men's steps echoing from the hollow vaulting.
"They're coming," whispered Uncle Dick. "Hunt away, my boys! I wish you joy of your search!"
"Nobody knows the hiding-place," added William; "though one day I certainly did catch Aisha, the tall Kinka negress, spying on us. I drove her off with a stick soundly applied ... Foul brute! can she have discovered our secret? ... I don't think she can. And after all, what matter? she's far enough away, now, in Aisha."
However the noise approached closer and closer. Suddenly there was a crash, a cataract of broken glass thrown headlong on the floor. The Dervishes had overturned the bottle-rack, and unmasked the door! Grace turned pale, while the men leapt to seize their guns. Heavy blows were now heard, the butt-ends of muskets smashing down on the solid woodwork. These were reinforced by hatchets, and soon the door split beneath their edge,-and showed an open gap. At this a negro showed his grinning face, but instantly fell back, beating the air with his arms, a bullet in his temple. Then through the narrow opening the four men began a steady fire, Grace handing them the loaded rifles one by one from the row along the wall. Among the assailants, there was a moment of indecision but it was of the briefest. Why fear death? They ought rather to long for it; for had not the Malidi promised all who should fall the sensual joys of Paradise? Were not forty houris, fairest among the fair, awaiting them-forever young and beautiful, expert in the arts of love, and whose Virginity is miraculously renewed as often as required!
They were not slow to return the fire, and suddenly William was seen to whirl round and measure his length on the floor, shot through the heart. Next it was Uncle Dick's turn to fall mortally wounded. Dufour and James were left alone to defend the entrance, revolver in hand, firing repeatedly, into the mass of the enemy. But a rush on the part of the Dervishes drove them from their post. Dufour had fired six shots from his revolver, hitting his man every time; he was shouting wildly, "Ha, ha! I defy you to kill me six times over," when he collapsed under a blow from a hatchet, which knocked his brains out.
Only Lord Elphin was left, on his feet and unwounded. But the chambers of his revolver were all empty, and he threw away the now useless weapon. With one bound he dashed at his nearest assailant and grasped him by the throat. The negro tossed his arms wildly, clutching the air with his hands. He let his sabre fall, and James instantly took possession of it.
But in doing so, he had unmasked Grace. In a moment the Blacks had their hands upon her, and held her firmly, in spite of her frantic efforts to escape. Their great eyes rolled full of savage admiration, while their thick lips murmured outspoken compliments.
James fell on them like a thunderbolt, his sword working like a windmill. They shrank back before the naked steel; but just as he was laying hold of Grace, he staggered, stunned by a blow from the butt. He was down; and a dozen hands were busy holding him fast and tying his arms. Through the blood that poured over his forehead, he caught sight of Grace, with clasped hands, surrounded by a mob of ruffians, who were laughing a harsh, guttural laugh of triumph.
There was a surging to and fro of the crowd; an Emir was pressing his way to the front, pushing back with vigorous blows all who stood in his road. He was a superb specimen of humanity, a perfect type of the Nubian negro. He was well over six feet, and his crisp hair uniting with his beard gave him what looked like a lion's mane. The man threw his arms round Grace, who drew back in terror and disgust, shrinking as far as possible from the black, shiny face on which a horrid smile showed a row of flashing teeth as white as milk. Slowly and gradually, with his strong hand on her shoulder, the negro forced her face forward nearer and nearer to his own. She uttered a wild cry of distress, immediately stifled under a vigorous kiss...
Oh, the horrors, the abominations of that kiss! ... She all but fainted, as with dilated eyes and nostrils filled with the stench of the negro, she breathed in the odious, greasy smell, the fetid goaty stink! ... It was foul beyond words; her mouth turned sour, while a spasm of nausea seized her by the throat!
Then she gave vent to a more bitter cry still, a cry deeper and more terrible, biting desperately at the hideous, thick lips of her ravisher ... Oh, the pain of it! the sharp, sickening pain! (I) The poor girl screamed aloud, her wild cries, that grew louder and louder, telling her horror of the brutal male, her abhorrence of the agony she was made to endure.
Her nerves were at the highest tension, and now began to quiver with a feeling of intense, delirious pleasure
(i) In a work by an anonymous author (Dr. Jacobus X.), a book equally remarkable for the charm of its manner and the erudition of its matter, entitled. "L'Ethnologie du sens genital: Etude de l'Amour Normal et ses Abus, Perversions, Folies et Crimes, dans l'Especc Hu-maine," (Paris, Carrington, iqoi), is to be found the explanation of this terrible penalty which Nature exacts from women.
Shuddering under the virile efforts of the muscular Negro, she no longer saw her assailant; it was James she saw, the man of her choice, the man who loved her, and to whom she had just plighted her troth afresh ... There he stood, motionless, propped up against the wall, bound baud and foot by these savages ... Yes! he saw her I he was looking at her with eyes starting out of his head, the wild eyes of a madman ... What a look, a look of farewell, full of despair and frantic anger!..."James! James" ... the name sprang to her lips in a cry of ardent voluptuous ecstasy; it was James she loved, and James only,-for him it was she felt her nerves vibrate so delightfully, for him she was enduring this exquisite pain, this joy of joys, born of blood and torment.
Half swooning with excess of pleasure, she beheld James roughly dragged forward and forced to his knees, while a sword flashed in the air. An instant after his head came rolling to her feet. She gazed at the ghastly object, her eyes wandering from the huddled body, which spouted blood in torrents, to the pale face, a white blotch in a red pool. It was handsome still, in spite of the dreadful expression, the grimace of impotent anger the features yet wore m death.
Grace fainted away, and still in a condition of torpor felt herself being carried off and moving through the streets of Khartoum. All round her were the sounds of guns going off, the prayers of victims and the cries and groans of wretches under torture. She could hear bursts of savage laugher, and see flames ascending amid whirlwinds of sparks. Then her conductor crossed a stretch of open country, bordering on the Nile, a sandy plain dotted with clumps of parched alfa grass. The sun was blazing high in a sky of deepest blue.
Presently they pushed her into an enclosed space of open yard, where she found herself among a number of other women, captives,-Copts, Nubians, and Greeks. All were silent, and deadly pale, grief and anxiety were depicted on every face, the majority sitting squatted on their heels, resting.
Further off, was a crowd of warriors, agitated, noisy and busy. Fresh Dooty was continually arriving, while fighting was still going on here and there, single explosions and isolated volleys rending the air at intervals. Underneath all was a never ceasing clamour of shouting coming from the camp, mingled with the rolling of the great war drums and the harsh tones of the ombeya, the elephant's tusk hollowed to form a trumpet, die clarion of these noble knights.
Beside a clump of mimosas, surrounded by his Emirs, the Malidi was seated on a sheep-skin, breakfasting. The fare consisted of watermelons, and slices of flesh cut from a young camel, which he ate raw. Swarms of flies eddied round the food, and kept drowning themselves in the cups. All the while he was eating, the Malidi was giving brief peremptory orders-dividing the plunder, distributing the women among his followers, always reserving the handsomest for himself, deciding disputes, giving sentence and assigning the punishment, which was carried out there and then.
A Copt, an old man, was tied up to a tree, while four soldiers were thrashing him systematically with kourbashes, heavy flexible whips cut bodily from a hippopotamus hide. The four lashes whirled in the air, and fell rhythmically with a dull thud, cutting open the skin at every blow. At short intervals all four with one consent stopped beating. Then an Emir would question the victim, trying to discover where the old man had hidden his treasures, for he was known to be wealthy. The Copt, maddened by pain, did not even hear; then at a sign from the Emir, the kourbashes rose again, whistled whirling through the air and wrapped the miserable creature, as it were, in their horrid net. It was not long before the unhappy man's belly was cut open, and the bowels tumbled out in a green-looking mass, followed by a torrent of blood.
A woman was undergoing the same punishment. By a refinement of licentious cruelty she had been tied up with the two legs drawn wide apart, so that the kourbash drawn from below upwards, caught the sexual parts with its flexible tip, making the tender mucous membrane of that delicate organ swell up hideously. Grace recognized the victim, to whom she had often carried a cup of tea in her Uncle Dick's' drawing-room. She was the widow of Musta-pha Tiranis, a rich Circassian lady, who had supplied Gordon with money by the ass load, and whom the grateful General had decorated with the Khartoum medal. Now, to punish her and to extort anything she might still possess, the Malidists were deliberately thrashing her to death.
But Grace trembled in every limb when she saw Aisha, the tall Dinka negress, who dressed in a man's "jibbeh," or Dervishes' long robe, and brandishing a drawn sword, was mounting guard over two Nubians, bound naked to stakes and facing one another. They were still alive, though the horrible contraction of their features showed death was not far off. From the lower part of their belly the blood was oozing, trickling down their thighs, while tatters of bloody skin and flesh made their thick lips to which they were fastened with thorns, look more swollen still.
They were soldiers of the Malidi's bodyguard, of the "Jedehiah," magnificent fellows, tall and slim, with beautifully moulded limbs, negroes of Kordofan, vigorous and muscular to the last degree. Both came from El-Obayd, and they had been friends from inimagine. Their fathers were neighbours, who from the very beginning had embraced the Malidi's cause with the savage zeal of fanatics, and were anxious for their children to serve in his armies and contribute something to his triumph.
For some time now their comrades had had their suspicions. The elder always displayed towards the younger an ardent attachment, lavishing all a lover's cares upon him.
On the march it was he who carried the baggage of both, while in difficult places he would hold out his long lance, to which the other would cling and so surmount the ruggedness of the road. After the massacre was completed and the camp pitched, drunk with butchery and satiated with laughter, they had slipped away together into a neighboring thicket. But sharp eyes were spying their actions, and some of their comrades caught them in the act, before they had time so much as to re-arrange their clothes. Dragged before the Malidi, they were ordered by him to be given up to the women's tender mercies. Aisha had acted as mistress of the ceremonies, and under her directions the Furies had torn off their garments, spitting in their face, scratching and beating the two wretches. Then with shouts of "Mot! Mot!" (Kill them! Kill them!), they had hurried them away and bound them fast, each to a stake, facing one another. First Aisha put a hard pad under their loins, so as to throw out the belly into prominence. Then the women, taking turns, proceeded to inflict an endless, ceaselessly renewed caress on the criminals. This went on four hours, the spasms of ejaculation being repeated again and again and again.
At first the victims had apparently experienced a pleasurable sensation, and had laughed and joked with the women surrounding them; but under the persevering, merciless hands of their tormentors, the nerves stiffened in intolerable cramps, and they felt their very life was being drained away. Before long, the ever repeated caress, now gently applied by expert fingers, now rough and brutal, started the blood spurting, and every feeling annihilated save one of anguish, they had begged and prayed and besought to be released. Presently they had fallen into a condition of torpor, which made them insensible to all their torturers' efforts. Seeing this, Aisha severed the testicles, and driving a big thorn through them, pinned them to their lips, in a long kiss of shame and agony. Thus they left them, bound to their stakes, to affront naked the burning sun, the torment of the flies and the derision of the camp.
Grace looked on at all these horrors with a dull sense of utter wretchedness. One thought, and one only, filled her mind, and she saw continually before her eyes the pale face and bleeding head of the unfortunate James, the man who had loved her so. Now she reproached herself with having caused his death. She recalled the scene in the hotel in Wardour Street, near Leicester Square, when he had looked so abject and ridiculous. But why? He was really showing energy, and he was so strong, if he had persisted, he could have forced her to submit,-as easily as the wretched vile negro, who had hurt her so. It was because he loved her that he had stopped short, recoiling at the violence she compelled him to employ. She stretched herself on the sand, her whole body racked with disabling pain. A sharp, shooting agony tortured her, and presently another sensation, a sharp hunger, each moment growing more violent, more intolerable, was added to her sufferings.
Suddenly she started violently at the touch of a rough hand on her shoulder, and she found herself pushed rather than led into the Malidi's presence. Her appearance was greeted with a murmur of astonishment and delight from the Emirs, and all gazed at her with eyes that sparkled with unholy desire. She was pale and hungry, and could hardly stand. So fierce were the pangs of hunger she forgot everything else, her shame and disgrace as a woman, and the hot pain she still felt from the violation she had undergone.
The Malidi looked long at her without a word, while all his officers stood round panting with concupiscence. No doubt he would keep this woman also for himself, this white woman with the soft skin and bright eyes and pretty head in its aureole of gold! He would send her off to his "Beit-el-Maal," his treasure-house, where he collected all that pleased him among the booty,-gold, silver, arms, precious stuffs, food, slaves, even the heads of his vanquished foes. But Grace seemed to see nothing. She was stupid with hunger, and everything sank into insignificance before the one imperious craving,-even the awful sights she had seen, the atrocious outrage she had endured, the head of the man she loved rolling at her feet, while the hideous stinking negro bruised her flesh and tore her inwards. Her eyes were blood-shot and dizzy with horror, and the people about her seemed like demons in an evil dream. She felt only one clear and definite desire, the wish to eat,-to eat anything, no matter what, but now directly! She never thought they would give her food, or she would have asked for it. Doubtless it was the sequel of her other tortures, of which hunger was to form a part. They must know what she was suffering, and they were glad of it, the same as just now, when for all their pretended indifference, they no doubt found a vile pleasure in seeing the old man's bowels gush out under the lash, and in watching the agonies of the two wretches whose organs were torn away piecemeal by the women.
They had plenty to eat, the scoundrels; she could see no end of good cheer, and appetizing dishes, fowls, rice, beautiful with rice that smelt deliciously of the fresh milk it had been cooked in. And there were noble joints of roast meat, all browned by the fire, red meat with rich gravy, juicy meat so tender it would surely melt under the teeth, and cakes of dourrha, all hot, exhaling a lovely odor that showed they were cooked to a turn!
But lo! an arm stretched out to her, reaching her one of those very cakes, with a slice of rich, succulent meat, the gravy soaking into the cake on which it lay! She simply threw herself upon the food, seized with both hands, and hurriedly carrying it to her mouth, swallowed it ravenously. The Emirs burst out laughing; and generously, at the v prayer of the Khalif Abdullahi, the Generalissimo of his army, the Madhi presented Grace to Abu-Anga, the most valiant of his Emirs.
CHAPTER VII
A Woman's Hand
Fardji, Abu-Anga's Chief Eunuch, took possession of the new slave. The said Fardji was a Copt, yellow and ample in proportions, very tall and very fat. He was perfectly bald, for every morning it was his custom with orpiment to depilate minutely chin, and skull and everything. His voice was treble, like a child's, and kept always to the same note, sometimes imperious, sometimes merely shrill. He always affected an air of calm dignity and mastery tempered by moderation, that became his important office.
He now laid a hand on Grace's shoulder and bade her follow him to his master's harem. The girl looked at him without a word of reply, given up entirely to the satisfaction of eating, of appeasing at last the terrible hunger that had made her suffer such torments. She went off after Fardji, still holding fast to the cake, which she was eagerly devouring. The eunuch led her to a "zariba," an enclosure of thorny cactus, where in regular rows were ranged thirty or forty tokuls, or straw huts, clustering round the residence of Abu-Anga.
First came the presentation to the favorite wife, a huge Negress of Dongola, sharp-tempered and jovial at the same time, who without condescending to speak a word to her, looked Grace up and down for a quarter of an hour. Her examination ended, she gave a short, sharp order, which Fardji received crossing his hand over his breast and bowing deeply. Then taking Grace by the hand, he conducted her to another hut of more spacious dimensions. The floor was of fine sand and strewn with mats and sheepskins. In one corner stood a full-sized European bath, doubtless the result of some pillaging expedition. A number of women were seated on the mats or lounging on piles of cushions, chattering incessantly.I Without for a moment interrupting their talk, they were indulging all the while in various dainty morsels, dipping their hands into huge bowls containing various forms of sugary sweetmeats, rice cooked in milk, and conserves of fruit of a soft and sticky nature. Amongst them were Circassians fair as lilies, with great, limpid eyes; tall, slender Nubians, with skins of ebony, at once slim and fleshy; copper-colored Abyssin-ians, gracefully moulded as if by a sculptor's hand; Copts, yellow skinned and chubby cheeked. One and all, they went on laughing and talking and stuffing themselves with bonbons, without showing any sign of having noticed Grace's arrival. But at an order from the Eunuch, they suddenly took their departure, scared and struck dumb. In an instant the whole place was cleared.
Fardji clapped his hands together twice peremptorily. A maid appeared at the signal, a Fellah woman with a Greek profile and a graceful, undulating walk. Taking possession of the English girl, she began to undress her. Grace was surprised and asked the reason, but the other only continued her task without a word. Much annoyed, Grace escaped from her hands; but the Eunuch now interfered, warning her to be more obedient. He said she must take a bath, have her person anointed with precious essences and be dressed out in fine clothes, in order to appear before the master. Grace listened attentively, weighing every word. Then suddenly her eyes dilated, the black of the pupil encroaching on the gray iris, and her cheeks grew scarlet. Her whole nature shuddered in a spasm of supreme repulsion and revolt. "The master?" Then she was a slave!-she, the daughter of proud Albion, a free Englishwoman, slave to a Negro! The scenes of the past night passed in review before her mind's eye, rape, and murder, and the horrid punishments she had witnessed! ... Yes! indeed she was a slave, a captive, at the mercy of these accursed barbarians! Her head drooped, and big tears rolled down her cheeks.
But Fardji, his hand resting on the handle of the heavy kourbash, the pliant lash of hippopotamus hide, which was passed through his belt like a sword, Fardji was still exhorting her to be reasonable in his rasping, discordant voice. Why be silly and spoil everything, when all promised so well? The master himself had told him to look after her. She had every motive to wish to please; but the first thing was to do as she was bid, this came before everything else! If she refused, well! he, Fardji, would know how to break her spirit; he had tamed more difficult cases before now,-and it wouldn't take long, neither!
She thought the position over. A bath; well-what a luxury it would be after all, if only to remove the blood that plastered her thighs and the great clots that clogged her elsewhere. But before that man! Meantime that man was still playing with his kourbash, the tip of which hung down twisting and writhing like some slimy, supple reptile. Finally she decided to let them undress her, and stepping into the bath, sank down in the tepid water that seemed to caress her sore and wounded body. She turned this way and that submissively, just as the maid wished, who rubbed her with soap, which she afterwards lathered with a sponge. With equal docility Grace let herself be shampoo'd and anointed with oil scented with sandalwood and afterwards with attar of roses.
Crouched motionless in a corner, Fardji had watched the whole operation. Now he got up, and going to a coffer, drew from it a linen frock, a broad girdle of Indian silk, a necklace of pearls and sandals of green morocco embroidered with gold thread. These articles of dress were soon donned, turning the English girl into the complete-likeness of a Sudanese maiden. But the servant found herself in a difficulty, and turned to consul the Eunuch. How about j her hair? surely it would be a pity to dress and plait her I beautiful silky locks, that made a golden aureole about her head, in the native fashion, and tie it all up in little, thin, wiry curls! Fardji did not vouchsafe an immediate reply, but stood pondering in much perplexity of mind. Seeing this, Grace smiled slyly, and snatching the comb from the servant's hand, herself took down the airy structure of her hair, and winding it in one thick heavy roll, fixed it in a mass on the top of her head, leaving the neck behind and j the brow quite unencumbered. Fardji nodded his approval, and gazed at her with evident pride.
The slave was ready, the master might approach,-and this he presently did. Hamdam Abu-Anga, the bravest of the Malidi's Emirs, was forty-eight at this time. He was a Negro of the Dongola country, the same district from , which the Malidi himself came. Tall, strong and well built, he was an imposing figure, while a perpetual smile, full of gentleness and good-nature, rested on his lips, slightly parting them asunder and revealing the white teeth. Originally, like his father, he had been a slave of Abdullahi's, the Malidi's especial favorite among his three Khalifs, and whom he had publicly proclaimed as a second self. Well treated and admitted to his master's table, Abu-Anga, I adroit and fearless, was first from inimagine in every task I calling for strength and intrepidity. Brought up among the Baggaras, a tribe renowned for their bold horsemanship, he could break the most difficult horses, which the best riders had given up as a bad job, while in swordsmanship, his skill had passed into a proverb.
Abu-Anga made a sign, and the Eunuch left the room. Grace had never stirred from where she sat crouching on the sheepskin Fardji had pointed her to. On her lips was a smile, a hard, mechanical smile, that served to hide her anguish; but her eyes were fixed and excessively wide open in a terrified stare. A hundred wild thoughts hurried through her brain. She was filled with panic fear and a desire to cry and laugh at the same time,-a nervous, hysterical laugh that tore her throat and would not out, while hot, burning feverish tears scorched her eyeballs, but refused to fall. Of all the sensations she had endured in the dreadful night just ended, one only was clear and precise in her recollection-the smell of negro, the appalling, sickening stench of grease and sweat, the deadly savor, the sour, nauseating saliva that had filled her mouth so odiously, when the black Emir kissed her. Was it all to be repeated again? ... No! her shaking head, twitching in quick, emphatic spasms of negation, said: No!-never, never again! . . But now Abu-Anga was drawing near, and she smiled at him, smiled a silly, idiotic, stereotyped smile. Abu-Anga smiled back, his face radiant with good humor and the satisfaction of a strong man, in the maturity of his powers, indulgent towards a woman's weakness, though delighted at the pretty charms of his slave, the adequacy of his new instrument of pleasure.
He came and sat by her side on the sheepskin, and taking her hand, caressed the fingers softly. But the odious touch instantly roused a passion of revolt in her. She felt no more terror, finding the man so amenable; on the other hand, a sudden impulse of mad anger sent the blood racing to her heart; her face grew livid, while her clear, gray eyes became two black abysses, of depth unfathomable, stormy as a wild Northern sea under a tempestuous sky. The vile negro, the vile soft-spoken, insinuating negro! She could have beaten the creature,-have bitten, I scratched and torn the vigorous features, trampled on the I mighty form! What joy to mangle that vigorous frame, and I plunge her nails in the flesh, lacerating the muscles that I stood out in such relief, and the sturdy, massive neck.
Abu-Anga spoke to her, praising her beauty, and slip-I ping his hand within the bosom of her dress, began softly squeezing and caressing one of her breasts. At this the I woman's eyes grew blacker and deeper yet, and she fixed I her gaze steadily, sternly, more and more insistently, on the other's face. Without moving a muscle, she continued smiling, the same forced, rigid smile. On the contrary the smile had died away on the Negro's lips, and an ashy, earthy pallor disfigured his countenance. His eyes were now fixed, riveted on those of the white girl beside him. But they expressed submission, subjugation under another's will, and his hand had slipped down and was now feebly and timidly stroking Grace's arm.
Then she had a sudden intuition. Without any very exact idea of what she ought to do, she felt she could somehow tame and vanquish this colossus, prevent his possessing her body and polluting her mouth with his fetid kisses. Instinctively she reached out her hand, and took the initiative. Her smile changed, and grew masterful, domineering, full of ironical triumph and maliciousness. With a slow, persistent, enervating caress, she worked on the man's nerves till they were near breaking point, filling him with a treacherous, penetrating languor, a painful, feverish torpor, that stimulated desire, yet annihilated the will to satisfy it. Abu-Anga lay on his back with open mouth, sighing deeply and begging for the embrace she refused him. His mighty chest rose and fell, and his breath came in hoarse, difficult gasps, while the eyes, convulsed with inordinate passion, were obstinately fixed on Grace's. The giant positively writhed and roared under her hand, which never ceased its maddening office, till finally he fell back exhausted, lost in a dismal, sterile reverie of useless regret.
Suddenly grasping her by the wrist and dragging her to her feet, then roughly pushing her to her knees, he said in his grave, guttural voice, that had a powerful sonority like that of metal:
"Woman, who are you? Whence comes your strange power over me? Beneath your gaze, I was like to faint ... Never have I trembled before; but in your presence, I am weak as a babe. What is the spell?"
"Love!. . . You love me."
"Perhaps! But you? ... Do you not love me?"
"I am your slave!"
"You prevaricate instead of answering..."
"Why! what care you to know whether or no they love you, the women you lust after?"
"True, I have scarce thought of such a thing till now. Love is like fighting ... to win, a man must strike good knock-down blows!"
"Then strike!"
But he only gazed at her in silence, with a wonder that was not without fear. Presently she heard him mutter:
"Strange! All this is very strange ... I will return tomorrow. But I will not have them do you any hurt."
He pushed his great black face near her small white one; but Grace shrank back instantly, and he made no further effort to kiss her or constrain her in any way. Then he withdrew, slowly and as it were, regretfully. Just as he was crossing the threshold, he turned round and threw a wild, passionate look at the woman he was leaving. Soon the Eunuch reappeared, and brought the other women back again, who immediately fell into their old indolent attitudes, and began idly chattering as before, devouring their sweetmeats and laughing loudly at nothing.
Such was Grace's initiation into the life of an Eastern harem. Long she remained without a word, lost in thought, or rather haunted by one ever recurring sentiment,-one of regret at having resisted James, of having refused him those first fruits of love that had been so roughly plucked by her negro ravisher. Oh! that negro, that odious nameless savage who had disappeared in the confusion, vanishing with a hideous laugh, after his vile, his abominable kiss! For Grace, he was the representative of the whole black race, the accursed race with bestial faces and putrid odor, the ignoble race of Ham, condemned from of old to be servants and beasts of burden.
In the midst of her gloomy thoughts, she was startled by sound of firing. The butchery was not yet ended in Khartoum; the Dervishes, in search of plunder, were still ransacking the captured city, dragging out the inhabitants to the doors of their houses and torturing them. Still there were of course others who barricaded their dwellings, resolved to sell their lives dearly. These the Malidists were now engaged in besieging, rushing wildly and savagely to the assault. None except the girls and young women were spared, these being led away to the Beit-el-Maal, the Malidi's treasure hoard, where closely packed and jealously guarded, they awaited his good pleasure. Such as caught his imagine, he dispatched to his own harem; the rest he divided, first among his Khalifs, then among his Emirs. Even after the Mukkudums, or subordinate officers, and the common soldiers had had their share, there were women left over, who were sold as slaves.
But the married women and mothers received more summary treatment from the Dervishes. After forcing them to strip and tearing away the last fragment of clothing, they would make mock of their fat stomachs and distorted limbs. Taking aim with their lances at the belly, they pierced and mangled the loose, flabby flesh, disfigured by age and motherhood.
As for the men, surrender or no surrender made small difference in their fate. Greeks appeared at the windows of their houses crying out, "Aman," that is "Quarter!"-but the Dervishes shot them down from the street. In this way was killed the son-in-law of George Bey, one of the best known merchants of the city. Another prominent Greek was massacred with pike-thrusts, after the Malidists had burst in the door of his residence. They split open the skull of a lad of twelve with a hatchet, and the brains spurting out, actually bespattered his mother, where she lay half fainting in a chair. She sprang up, crying that the child she held in her arms was a girl, by this means saving the life on her youngest boy, a child of six months old. The streets broken by the hurried movements of the Dervish troops were swimming with blood, while red, stagnant pool collected wherever the surface was of harder and more stony character. Dead bodies, often headless, encumbered the thoroughfares in all directions. Tortures everywhere,but comparatively few cases of rape. Orders were peremptory; every woman was first to pass through the Beit-el-Maal, the Malidi's treasury.
I But flagellation was practised with savage cruelty. Slaves were whipped along with their masters, to force them to reveal the places where the money was hidden. The bastinado was always methodically administered. With the obstinate fatalism of Orientals, they bore up under the first blows without a murmur. It was not long however before they began to speak, but without telling the whole truth. Then the blows began again, till they revealed something more. In this fashion their fortune would disappear shred by shred, as their tortured flesh did. The executioner never finally left off, till everything had been disgorged. Often the torture lasted several days. The victim was bound to a date-palm, his hands fastened above his head, and the tormentor proceeded to apply twenty lashes, duly and rhythmically laid on. Directly the victim began to speak, he left off, but beyond this he remained stone deaf to all his groans and supplications; the man was bound to declare something definitive and positive, something that could be verified. On his revealing the actual locality of a hoard, he was granted a respite and food was given him; but no sooner was the money secured, than the torture recommenced, and was continued systematically till he vouchsafed another piece of information.
Moreover they had many ways of varying the torment, to induce the possessors of hidden treasure to speak out. Sometimes they roasted their victims, a brazier of lighted, charcoal being set nearer or further from the spies of the men's feet, according as he showed himself willing to speak or persisted in a contumacious silence. Others were hung up by the thumbs. Round these was passed a strong but slender cord, and attached by means of a slip-knot; this done, they hauled their man aloft, kicking frantically all the while. Instantly the two thumbs were purple and bursting with blood, horribly swollen and the nails ready to fly off. Then they would start laying on heavy strokes of the lash, the swinging body following each impulse of the kourbash. Still this particular torture was seldom of much avail, for almost invariably, after the first few seconds the victim suspended in this agonizing manner fainted away and felt no more.
A more refined torture, and one better adapted for the speedy discovery of treasure, was the reed crown. In this case two pieces of reed, cut into thin longitudinal slices, were laid on the two temples; then over the forehead in front and behind at the back of the head, the two ends were brought together and firmly tied. Then using a flexible and elastic cane as if it were the bow of a violin, they set the reeds vibrating, drawing it backwards and forwards and tapping lightly. The agony was indescribable. The whole skull quivered and vibrated; and the ears were filled with a loud buzzing like that of a whole swarm of bees, and the patient seemed to feel a thousand wasps flying about inside his head and feeding on his brains. Every membrane of the head shook and shuddered. The majority of those subjected to this torment suffered serious lesions in the brain, and were mad or imbecile for the rest of their lives.
Death was busy everywhere. Aser, the Austrian consul, died of terror on seeing his brother beheaded. Leontides, the Greek consul, was stabbed by his "kavass," or official attendant. The American consul fared no better, being betrayed by his own servants, who hurried to meet the Malidists to tell them where the money was hidden and get their share of the booty. Treachery was the willing handmaid of murder.
Even animals were not spared, dogs in particular being hunted down and killed, as being impure. In one instance a carpenter was soaked with alcohol together with his dog and his parrot. The three bodies were tied together, an
Arab set fire to the group, which after whirling round and round for an instant in the street in a frantic dance, staggered and fell, a blazing heap that gave out a thick heavy smoke. At the sight an Austrian, Klein, a tailor, made the sign of the cross. Immediately a Derivish standing by brandished a huge cutlass, the great knife Mussulmans use to slaughter beast intended for food according to the rite of their religion, and with one blow cut the poor fellow's throat from ear to ear. Then the horde of fanatics broke into the tailor's house. First seizing the man's eldest son, a lad of seventeen, they drove their spike through his breast and tossed the bleeding corpse at his mother's feet. This done, they held a council of war to determine in what more diverting fashion they could kill the next, a boy of fifteen.
But these tragedies were not unrelieved by comic incidents. The protection of the Catholic Mission had been intrusted to a lay brother, Domenico Polinari; but at the first alarm he bolted and hid himself in a haystack. A band of Arabs happened to pass that, and in fun they pricked the haystack with their long lances. Feeling the cold steel, poor Domenico was for calling out and begging mercy; but terror had paralyzed his tongue and not a sound came from his throat. Presently the Dervishes went on their way. After long and anxious waiting and listening, and only when every noise had ceased, with a host of cautions, now putting out his head, now drawing it in again precipitately at the smallest suspicion of danger, he made up his mind at last to sally forth. He proceeded to the house of a woman living in the neighborhood, a pious person and a former protegee of the good Fathers, to claim hospitality. She agreed to receive him; but the moment Domenico was asleep, ran off to denounce him. Imagine his awakeningl A good bang over the buttocks, and poor Domenico was up and on his feet. In two twos he had all his wits about him, and did not wait for a second blow to make him tell where the worthy Monks had buried their treasure!
According to orders all loot was to be brought in to Beit-el-Maal. Nevertheless there were not a few among the Dervishes ready to run the risk of eternal damnation; in spite of all the master had taught them, in spite of the curses he had threatened and the promises he had made of the joys of Paradise, a man's sexual vigor for ever renewed under the ineffable caresses of the houris, in spite of everything, they preferred to keep the money they both once laid their hands on! Some stuck to the pockets both of Emirs and Mukkudums, and even of common soldiers. The feel of gold made the most credulous disciples of the Prophet wily and circumspect.
The sack of Khartoum was complete. Of the Copts, nearly all the males had been massacred, as well as most of the Europeans. The women, among whom were the Nuns of the Catholic Mission, were all confined in the enclosure, the sacred zariba of the Beit-el-Maal feebly defended by a simple fence of thorny cactus, but which superstition surrounded with an impassible barrier. When at length the Malidi ordered the butchery to cease, the streets were blocked with dismembered coipses, rotting in the blazing sun, a myriad of flies circling and swarming round them. The dead were pitched into the river, which bore along from cataract to cataract this poor human offal to mingle with the Nile mud and fertilize the plains of Egypt.
The Emirs partitioned Khartoum between them, each planting his flag in the middle of the particular district conquered by his own men. Next the Malidi ordered an enumeration to be made of the survivors, in the course of which many more women were discovered, who had cut off their long hair and dressed up as men, but who were now denounced by some of the chief inhabitants as a means of currying favor with the Dervishes. One and all they were sent off to the Beit-el-Maal, and divided amongst the men of the Ansar, the Malidi's host. The soldiers were not slow to take possession of their prisoners, and in a rough and ready way to try what they were good for. Their cries were pitiful, especially those of the white women; but the negroes went on quite unconcerned, forcing them to become instruments of their brutal pleasure. The older women and matrons were given a few rags to cover themselves with, and massed in an assigned place in the camp, where they suffered sadly from hunger and thirst, and were left exposed without any shelter to the hot sun by day and the bitter cold at night. Some weeks later, such as had contrived to survive these hardships were driven off with whips,-a half-naked, emaciated crew, to prowl about the markets and beg for such scraps of food as they could get to keep Dody and soul together.
CHAPTER VIII
The Power of the Lash
Abu-Anga appeared in the zariba, or harem enclosure, looking grave and walking slowly and pensively. Fardji the Eunuch ran forward to welcome him; then at a curt word from the Emir, hurriedly retired the way he had come, re-entered the tokul,-the thatched hut of straw, and sent the women about their business, at the same time informing Grace of the master's arrival.
At the entrance he stopped short, his tall form and broad shoulders almost completely blocking up the narrow doorway. Grace crouching on her mat in the same place as before, greeted him with the old, unvarying smile on her lips. Instantly, by the man's measured gait and constrained attitude, cringing and suspicious both at once, she knew he was still under the spell. For some time he stood undecided on the threshold, and nothing could well be more piteously grotesque than his athletic frame thus frozen in a posture so expressive of hesitation and timidity.
Eventually he came forward and sat down in front of her, but looking at her askance, evidently anxious to avoid her fascinating gaze and the domination of her eyes. Presently he spoke, and his hoarse, guttural voice assumed tones of exquisite tenderness:
"How is it with you? Have they carried out my orders? Have you been well treated?"
"Yes!"
"Are you happy?"
"As happy as a captive can be, who has seen her friends all fall around her, massacred by your warriors."
"Nay! forget! ... Begin a new life,-one you can make splendid or wretched at your own good will and pleasure. I am great and powerful; have you never heard speak of Abu-Anga?"
"Yes! Gordon feared you. I know you are a brave man ... and yet you tremble in my presence!"
The Emir looked round him with a scared expression. Then he rose to his feet, breathing heavily, and began walking up and down the hut in extreme agitation.
"Not another word! ... Your silence is scornful, but your words are open insults. Not another word, I say!"
A silence ensued; presently he came up to her again.
"Why this everlasting smile? Is it gladness makes you smile?"
"And you, why do you smile no more? Once, like the Malidi, you smiled unceasingly; your looks were full of kindness. Now you wear a perpetual frown."
The great man made no answer, and she went on:
"Shall I tell you why? ... Because you are afraid!"
He grinned a scornful smile; then in a cold, commanding tone:
"Up, slave! ... Come here, and sit you on my knees."
She obeyed,-the more willingly for a cunning, una-vowed thought that suggested itself to her mind. Already her hand was creeping forward; but he grasped the wrist, his strong hand closing on it as if it would break the joint. She uttered a sharp cry and fell upon her knees. But now her eyes were getting dark and stormy again, the sombre pupil encroaching on the lighter iris. The man's will fainted and failed before their expression, and his hold relaxed. She made another effort to have her way, and administer the disabling, demoralizing caress; but he brushed her arm aside with a rough, rapid gesture.
"Not! I tell you."
"But I want to!"
"Silence! I command you. Did you not understand before? I told you to be silent! ... How dare you speak so to your lord and master? No woman ever showed such insolence before..."
"If you are my master, what hinders you from making yourself obeyed?"
"I cannot tell! truly I cannot tell what ails me ... I want you! You are mine ... I covet you,-as I never yet coveted woman before! You belong to me ... And I dare not have you! Once upon a time ... when a woman pleased me, I took her and had her. What easier? and besides, is it not the law of Nature? The lion mounts his mate, when he feels the rut of love. Sometimes the lioness tries to get away, but the male, by his superior speed and strength, forces her to yield, and soon makes her share his own heat. . . "
"You are as strong and brave as a lion ... And I am only a poor, weak woman!"
"But you have some strange spell in you that destroys my strength,-some weird fascination in your eyes! ... I cannot bear to see them; cover them with this veil! ... No! I will confront them boldly! I love to gaze into their depths; when your eyes were hid, I thought night was come. Now it is broad day, the sun is shining again!. . . Yet they have none of the velvety softness, the languishing pleading of our women's eyes. They are cold as steel, and of the same pale, polished hue ... But they brim over with gentleness and soft seduction ... Yes! you said true,-I am afraid of you, or rather of your compelling eyes!"
"Shall I cover them again?"
"No!"
"Why do you push my hand away?"
"Take care, woman! Else I will have you whipped."
"Now you talk like a master! As you are so proud and masterful, why not deal with me as you did with the women you spoke of just now, who were so ready to fulfill your pleasure?"
"I would have you yield yourself freely and frankly!"
"Nay! you told me so yourself, it would be against the law of Nature. The lion..."
He interrupted her to interject:
"But you are my slave, my concubine..."
"There you see! ... You have every right over me ... to say nothing of your superior strength,-your well-trained, vigorous muscles of a man of war."
He advanced upon her, with fierce, determined looks, his hands open, ready to seize and hold. But the instant he touched her, his weakness returned, and he sunk down; his head resting on his knees, sobbing as if his heart would break. Grace smiled mischievously, and began with her delicate fingers gently caressing his massive neck at the back, slowly swaying her body backwards and forward with a soft, rhythmic movement. Her voice took on a tone of tenderness, as she asked:
"Then you love me true?"
"Yes! yes! I love you, indeed I love you ... It is the pain of loving that makes me weep ... Tell me, what can I do to prove my love?"
"I want you to love me,-to love me well and deeply, better than you do now ... It is my pleasure to give you pain!"
"Have mercy!"
"Not! not now ... Your pain comes not from love, but baulked desire. You have women enough and to spare; why me rather than another?"
"Because it is you I want!"
"Wait, wait ... and you shall see. Delay exasperates desire. I am for keeping unknown delights in store for you ... Only you must wait!"
"I will not wait!"
"Listen to me! Have another woman; have her before my eyes..."
"What! indulge in such debauchery, such odious debauchery at that!. . . If the Master, the Malidi, were to hear of it! He holds such-like refinements in abomination!"
"It you were a common soldier, you might fear his anger. But what has Abu-Anga to dread, Abu-Anga the most valiant of the Emirs, the Malidi's chief mainstay and support?"
"Say no more of this!..."
Some minutes passed, Grace still smiling seductively in his face. Abu-Anga gazed at her; his nostrils began to quiver and his great chest to heave and fall, while from his half shut eyes shot a look of love, an adoring gaze of ardent admiration. At last he stammered:
"You wish it?"
"Yes!"
"So be it then!"
"What woman will you send for?"
"What care I? So it is not you, what matter which it is! Come, help me; do you choose for me!"
"Have Zorah the Nubian. She is strong and tall; her body is like mine."
"Why not a white woman? I would rather have a white woman."
"No! I will not have it!"
"Now you storm! Can it be you are jealous?"
"Perhaps so!"
"What! jealous of a white woman, and not of a negress? You puzzle me ... But, if you are jealous ... it means you love me?"
"You ask to know too much! Call in the Eunuch, and old him bring Zorah to us!"
The Nubian girl manifested no sign of astonishment, but passively satisfied the master's caprice. It was a strange embrace,-the black woman's long slender oody under Abu-Anga's massive bulk, which she enlaced and enfolded in her supple, coiling limbs, while he lay covering Grace's hands with kisses!
The same scene was repeated on many other occasions, sometimes Zorah, sometimes some other woman from the harem being requisitioned as assistant,-always at Graces choosing. Nor was it long before the lawful wife, the head of the household, learned what was going on. She was mad with indignation and remonstrated earnestly with her husband; but Abu-Anga was in no humor to listen to reason, and his whip caressed the shoulders of the angry negress to such purpose that she swore with the most terrific oaths not to betray the secret. A secret,-known to a whole tribe of women, not to mention the chief eunuch Nay! the very look of Abu-Anga's face was enough to arouse suspicion. All his former gaiety and his pleasant smile had quite disappeared; he was morose and seemed to take no interest in anything.
Abdullahi, the Khalif, was the first to notice the change and soon afterwards the Malidi himself questioned the Emir, anxious to discover the reason of his obvious melancholy. Abu-Anga made what excuses he could, attributing his condition to ennui and the dislike he had for a state o: idleness. The Malidi comforted his officer, declaring i hard fighting was what he wanted, he should very soon be satisfied to his heart's content. All his enemies were not vanquished yet; there was many a good blow to be struck yet in the sacred cause.
In fact an alarm had occurred already to disturb the Dervishes' triumph. Two days after the capture of Khartoum, two steamers were signalled on the Nile, to the East of the Island of Tuti. It was the English, the expedition o: rescue so feverishly expected by poor Gordon. They advanced cautiously under half steam, not knowing whether the town was still in Gordon's hands or had been taken by the Dervishes. But very soon the Forts of Omdurman dissipated all doubt by opening fire, while the Dervishes rushed wildly to the river bank. The women were specially excited, brandishing sticks and shouting shrilly, "Mot lil Inglez,"-Death to the English! The two steamers swung round and moved off, soon disappearing in the distance, pursued by the long, luminous trail of the shells.
For the moment the question was the reduction of such tribes as still remained recalcitrant. The whole Sudan was to be brought under and forced to recognize the Malidi's power; then they would see about the conquest of Egypt. Abu-Anga listened to these brave words with a face of delight. The moment there was good hard fighting to be done, he was willing and ready. At the head of his "Dejeadieh," his chosen band of black soldiers, he felt equal to subduing the whole world.
But one thing cut him to heart, the thought of Grace. Before setting out for fresh battles, he longed to possess her. He sighed gloomily.
"What is the reason of your sadness?" inquired the Malidi. "You suffer, like a man tortured by the bile; yet your eyes are clear, your liver healthy ... Come, my son, hide nothing from me. Ask what you will of me, and I will grant it."
"Master!" replied Abu-Anga; "your generosity is without bounds, but there is nothing I desire, no boon I crave."
"Your grief is manifest; what must be done to dissipate it? May be, good advice would help you in your need. Speak then! in the name of God, Almighty and All Merciful, I command you, speak!"
Abu-Anga trembled, but still persisted in his efforts to deceive his chief.
"How can I speak, when I do not know myself the reason for my sadness?"
"No lies! ... Falsehood belongs to women and cowards. Speak! God bids you speak, by my voice!"
The Abu-Anga related simply and straightforwardly the incidents that had befallen in his harem. The Malidi listened to the tale without interruption but with frowning brows; breaking silence at length, he spoke eagerly and emphatically:
"You must needs be one of those that chant our holy prayers mechancially, with wandering wits, and never seek to fathom the meaning of the words they idly repeat.
Remember how the men say, 'Be praised oh! Lord, Thou which hast created me in Thine own image, which hast thought good to make me a man;' whereas the women declare resignedly, 'Be praised oh! Lord, Thou which hast made me according to thy good pleasure!' God in his inscrutable wisdom, his infinite kindness, has decreed woman to be the handmaiden, the slave of man. This is why he has created the female in all respects inferior to the male; her muscles are feeble, and her brain small, she is slow and inept in thought as she is in action. Her part is passive,-to submit; and love, the craving to perpetuate the species, while a stimulus and a delight to the man, is for the woman the primary source of all her sufferings. She suffers at the rupture of her maidenhood, she suffers in childbirth; and motherhood, her chief aim in life, destroys her beauty. Humble and timid before the male, she desires, yet fears, his caresses. She longs for sexual satisfaction, yet her pleasure is never full and complete, unless it is put on her by force. But she has kept all the cunning the serpent taught our first mother Eve; and by her fascinations she endeavours to soften the heart and enervate the vigor of the opposite sex ... Woe to the man that suffers himself to come under the seduction of any, woman's beauty! Better were it for him, if he had never been born! Hell is his inheritance; even in this world he endures already the torments of Gehenna! More artfully than all the Djinns, the demons of Satan, does a woman, that creature of falsehood and cruelty, know how to break and ruin a man's heart! Let a man once declare himself her thrall, and her joy is to make him undergo tortures the most refined."
"But pain is good sometimes!" muttered Abu-Anga. "Pleasure is rekindled by suffering!"
"Oh! my son, what impious words are here! What! is your heart so spiritless-you the brave soldier, the indomitable warrior! Believe me, a woman never forgives the man who has once groveled at her feet. She abhors him; it is tor the tyrant who bullies her she reserves her sweetest caress ... The chalice of a woman's love contains happiness supreme, the only bliss that for a brief moment brings the creature into comparison with his Creator, and gives him a foretaste of the delights the Almighty reserves in Paradise for the Elect. But his bliss must be enjoyed without wasting one thought on the instrument ... If you would pluck a rose, do you fall on your knees and make prayer and supplication to the rose-tree? If you stretch out a timid, hesitating hand, the thorns will tear you; but if only you will pluck the flower boldly, its perfume shall delight your nostrils, and never a scratch hurt you."
"Has she cast a spell upon me, think you, Master?"
"Nay! I think not. But to be sure, my presence is needful. Go, Abu-Anga, return to your harem. If the Englishwoman asks you to have another woman, pretend to consent ... Go, I will be with you anon!"
Abu-Anga left the Malidi's presence, his heart beating high with hope.
"To-day, I wish you have Meryem the Abyssinian; she is stately as a statue and her skin is smooth and red as copper."
Abu-Anga clapped his hands, and gave orders accordingly.
With slow and stately step the Malidi entered the tokul His everlasting smile still on his lips, he addressed the Emir in a tone of fatherly remonstrance, not deigning so much as to notice the presence of the woman:
"What is toward in this harem? We have heard of strange doings; they say that you, Abu-Anga, the gallant warrior, have put your neck beneath the shameful yoke of a slave woman. Is this woman she? ... So it would seem our generosity has proved your undoing? We thought by giving you this woman but to add to your pleasures. What arts has this concubine used to gain the mastery of a man such as you? Can she be a witch? If this be so, she shall
I undergo the doom we have seen fit to pronounce against all casters of spells and makers of amulets; her right hand and left foot shall be cut off."
He spoke slowly, sounding each word separately and distinctly, anxious that Grace should understand all he said. The simple eloquence and savage emphasis that had won him the hearts of his warriors, vibrated in every sentence. Grace, frantic with terror, fixed her wide, tightened eyes on the Malidi, her teeth chattering with apprehension.
Abu-Anga threw himself at the Malidi's feet, humbly kissing the sleeve of his djibbeh,-or Dervishes' frock,-and crying:
"I am the one to blame! She is no witch. Her power comes only from my feebleness!"
"If this be so, she must be taught the power her master wields; she must be humiliated! You shall have her Abu-Anga, here and now,-directly, in my presence. But first her proud spirit must be chastened! Let the Eunuch thrash her!"
Grace lay without a word, her eyes wide with horror; fixed on the Malidi's face. She clasped her hands in sign of supplication, and suddenly throwing herself at his feet, kissed the hem of his robe. But he snatched it from her with a haughty gesture, and pushing Grace from him with his foot, struck his hands together. Fardji entered at the summons.
"Give this woman twenty lashes. Thrash her as they thrash women that are cold and barren."
"Shall I take her away, and chastise her before the other women?"
"No! here, and at once."
So saying the Malidi seated himself on the sheepskin, inviting Abu-Anga to sit beside him. The giant trembled in every limb and great drops of sweat stood out on his forehead. He kept his head down, so as to avoid Grace's eyes. The Eunuch laid hold of the girl, who was now livid, so stunned with terror she actually helped Fardji to take off her clothes, never ceasing all the while to cast imploring glances at Abu-Anga.
It was not till she found herself stark naked that the shame of her nudity before the men struck her, and she made an abortive movement with her hands, which Fardji prevented her from completing. He tied her two wrists together, and laid her across the angareb, or native bedstead, her face outwards. To each foot he attached a thong, taking care to have the legs well stretched asunder.
Then began the punishment. Fardji measured his distance, and the flexible end of the Kourbash, after describing a figure of eight over his head, fell whistling on Grace's loins. She uttered a piercing scream; but already a second blow, answered by a howl of agony, was biting into her posteriors. Unceasing and unremitting the lash descended again and again on the delicate flesh, blow following blow in regular cadence till ten had been administered. The heavy kourbash scarified her buttocks, while the pliant tip kept catching her thighs on the inside, just where the skin is so tender! Grace sobbed and screamed, in hoarse unintermitting cries of pain, now in English, now in Arabic:
"Enough ... enough! ... Stop! I implore you, stop! ... I shall go mad ... You say you love me, Abu-Anga,-and you let them kill me! Show you love me, now ... . Help! help! Save me from this torment, I ask you to save me! ... No! no ... . Don't,-don't for heaven's sake!. . . Oh! I will love you so ... I will kiss you ... such kisses ... Oh! I love you, I do love you..."
But the only answer was the whistle of the kourbash through the air, and the dull thud with which it came down on the victim's flesh. And Grace with groans and incoherent phrases broke by sobs and sighs, breathed out her agony:
"Oh! the pain-oh! the pain!. . . Anything,-I will do anything ... Yes! anything you wish! ... I will, I swear I will ... Mercy! mercy!"
Not a doubt of it, she suffered; but in the midst of the pain, was an incipient sense of voluptuous pleasure. She groaned with anguish, but there was an undercurrent of sexual desire. The blows kindled a strange ardour, and she gasped with a languorous craving as much as from mere pain. She was wild for the embraces of a man,-the strong, vigorous male whose power she was feeling. For him she was ready to lavish all the delights of her flesh, ready and willing to show him every sign of the most abject submission.
The executioner, after a short rest, set himself to his task afresh. First came a sharp stroke on either calf, and Grace shuddered, throwing herself back as far as the play of her bonds allowed. Next the lash, drawn from below upwards, wound round her, its tip reaching as high as her navel, rasping the tender flesh. This was followed by a storm of hoarse inarticulate cries, screams in which the words were no longer distinguishable. But the blows fell regularly and methodically, beating always on the same place, touching up the thighs, the tip striking along the belly up as high as the navel.
Meantime the Malidi examined Abu-Anga with a cold and critical gaze. The colossus, eyes half closed and nostrils quivering, stood as it were fascinated. His whole body was a-tremble, and his clenched fists seemed to announce an instant and savage onslaught. The malidi made a sign to the Eunuch, who unbound the woman and left the hut. Then with the word "Now!" he pushed Abu-Anga towards Grace.
With a roar like a wild beast, the Negro threw himself on the white woman, straining her in his arms as if he would stifle her, and kissing her frantically. Now she returned his kisses. Their savor seemed no longer sour; her nostrils quivered as they drank in the odor of the male. The smell of negro seemed a heady perfume, strong and delicious.
Abu-Anga enfolded her in his stalwart and passionate embrace, and the shock of his flesh against her tortured body, all swollen under the lash, appeared to Grace a torture of ineffable delight. She gave herself to her lover in wild pangs of frenzied voluptuousness.
CHAPTER IX
The Malidi's Lechery
Abu-Anga withdrew to attend the Malidi home. Grace was left in tears, cowering on the angareb, pondering her shame and pain and pleasure. Soon the harem filled again and began to re-echo as before with the chatter and laughter of the other women. At first they looked askance at Grace; but presently, forgetting all constraint, they paired off together according to their several preferences. A young Copt girl, a cunning, mischievous-looking child with sharp eyes, was posted as sentinel near the door, to give warning of the possible approach of the eunuch or the master.
Then the little game began,-first of all mere frolic, sounding kisses, playful slaps and furtive ticklings, accompanied by peals of laughter and deep, long-drawn sighs of wantonness. Eyes were already sparkling with expectation and the promise of pleasure, and when a great she-devil of a Dongola negress tumbled a pretty little Circassian on her back and threw herself head first upon her, screams of merriment greeted the exploit. The sentinel hushed the tumult with a warning gesture; and each couple set to work to follow the good example on their own account.
But one of them wanted Grace to share the amusement with her,-Meryem, the copper-colored Abyssinian, the woman of the statuesque outline and pure, classical profile. She now came and crouched at the foot of Grace's bed, took the Englishwoman's hand and smiled tenderly at her.
Lost in thought, Grace took no notice, and the Abyssinian plucking up confidence, gave her a kiss. In an instant the white girl sprung from the angareb and was flying to the opposite extremity of the room. The other let her go, in sheer astonishment, and stood there dumbfounded, a figure of utter surprise and crestfallen disappointment, so funny was the sight that, in spite of their preoccupation with what they were after themselves, the women one and all burst out laughing. Instantly however recovering their seriousness, they held a rapid consultation, in which they decided unanimously they must act together and bring this intruder to reason, mitigate the fastidiousness of this minx who looked askance at the good old customs of the harem.
They chased Grace round the room and soon caught her; then grasped by a dozen willing hands, enfolded in a dozen women's arms and imprisoned between their thighs, she was thrown on her back. She fought and struggled and bit, protesting at the top of her voice and threatening to tell the authorities every thing ... After a while she was released...
The girl returned to her own angareb, while all round her the women resumed their pranks, without giving a thought to her presence. Amongst them were black women and white, copper-colored and yellow, all young, nearly all pretty. Husband, father, had been killed by Abu-Anga's soldiers, and he had driven them before him with the whip like cattle into his harem. Now gay and indifferent, they had recourse to artifice to console each other for the scarcity of the male element, the enjoyment of these pleasures and the keenness of their naughty transports being doubled by their fear of discovery by the dreaded eunuch. Confusedly Grace saw a hundred wanton postures, and half heard the smack of kisses, the cries of passion and music of amorous sighs. She felt little or no disgust; provided they left her alone, she cared for nothing else. Her body was utterly weary and sore, still aching painfully from the blows she had received. Yet all the time her flesh was quivering and palpitating in hot, voluptuous dreams, and she both desired and feared Abu-Anga might come back.
Presently she began to remember the corrections her school-mistresses in England had administered. These punishments always took place before the assembled pupils, while the maid-servants were called in to help in the proceedings. They would take hold of the girl to be punished and tie her hands; then laying her, head forwards, on a desk and holding her in that position, they lifted up her petticoats, which they pinned to the shoulders of her frock, and took down her drawers. Then the Mistress came forward armed with the birch rod, the instrument of execution. But first she gave an address; in cold, lady-like accents she would reprimand the erring girl, tell her her faults, urge her to repentance and enlarge on the painfulness and shamefulness of the punishment. The poor child, whose nakedness was all this time exposed to the jeers of her companions, longed for the whipping to begin, and be done with. But the good dame was in no hurry, but went on choosing her words, rounding off her phrases, making her points, in a slow tone of much solemnity.
Strange to say, the girl, feverish with waiting, lying there with her naked skin exposed to the air and in a constrained position, actually felt an impulse of naughty thoughts stirring pleasantly within her. But by this time the Mistress had finished her harangue, and proceeded to apply the rod, the birch twigs stinging and wealing the flesh, till the blood began to spurt. The other girls had left off laughing now; pale and their teeth clenched, they listened to the victim's cries and watched her convulsive struggles. One and all were excited, the sight of pain rousing a confused sense of gratification mingled with terror. Then they saw the blood flow, they felt a curious tingling in a certain place, while even the victim herself found her pangs mitigated by undefined, yet pleasurable, cravings, which presently, when the punishment was over, would culminate in a fit of languorous reverie. The girl would have dreams of young men, with proud looks and gallant bearing, but who to pleasure her, would grow soft and submissive swains, full of tenderness and gentle humility.
Grace smiled a sad little smile at the recollection of these childish sensations.
How utterly puerile, appeared that birch rod wielded by a feeble woman's hand, now she had felt the tremendous kourbash, its heavy, pliant lash aimed by the Eunuch's practiced arm mangling the tender flesh and kindling a fire of fierce, feverish desire in the very focus of sensual pleasure. Moreover shame tormented her, the bitter shame of her abject nakedness before those men, those vile negroes she had so despised, the humiliation of a punishment inflicted before the eyes of the lover she thought she had tamed so completely to her will.
All these thoughts flashed through her brain, but the dominant note was love of Abu-Anga, the puissant but gentle hero who had won her admiration by his virile energy,-an adoring love that was half fear, an ardent longing that was half terror. When the master returned to his harem, and once more threw the handkerchief to Grace, she opened wide her arms to him with many a fond, wheedling word and gesture. She became a perfect slave, a "saraya," a concubine of concubines, complacent to every wish, docile to every caprice of her lord and master, but she consistently repelled the advances of the women, and kept herself rigorously to herself. Meantime all about her, the other inhabitants of the harem, passive and resigned, dragged about in Abu-Anga's train, packed on camel back with the rest of the baggage, accustomed to scenes of pillage and murder, enjoyed the delights of peace and charmed the long hours of waiting and indolence with artificial indulgences, their pleasures only heightened by the dread of discovery.
Outside a gust of mad folly breathed over the camp of the Dervishes. Even the Malidi, while still preaching indifference to the good things of this world and exhorting his people to austerity and chastity, gave himself up to the pleasures of the flesh. Now was the culminating point of his power. In his Beit-el-Maal was a pit, where were heaped pell-mell the heads of his enemies, which the sun had tanned like mummies. Among the black, grinning faces the pale features of the chivalrous Gordon and the unfortunate General Hicks were conspicuous. European prisoners, heavily ironed, groaned pitifully for a crust of bread, while Aisha, the great Dinka negress, dressed as a man and brandishing a naked sabre, passed up and down in front of the captives, now and again mocking them in her deep, harsh voice.
Smallpox having broken out, the Malidi proclaimed that God was angry with those who had kept back loot instead of carrying it to the Beit-el-Maal, and was punishing them with a well merited death. Demolishing Khartoum, he had the material transported to the other bank of the Nile, where he beautified and enlarged Omdurman and made it into his capital. Little by little he had acquired a taste for luxury, a barbarous, yet refined luxury. It was now the sacred month of Ramadan, and while the days were devoted to fasting and prayer, the instant the sun had disappeared, there ensued a wild scene of feasting, with debauchery to follow. All who contravened these rites were punished with death. So far the Mosque was nothing more than a vast zariba, an enclosure open to the sky, formed of thorny cactus and mimosa trunks. Thousands of Dervishes crowded under the blazing sun into the enormous square, where they pushed and fought to secure a place near the "mihrab," or prayer niche, where the Malidi was to officiate.
But while the people stand eagerly awaiting his appearance at the Mosque, the Malidi is tasting all the delights of his harem. Its court is crammed with women, from little
Turkish girls not eight years old, with frail, slender limbs, to enormous Dinka women, tall and sturdy, with the arms of Hercules. The harem contains women by hundreds, all trained to give the master pleasure. But these are merely slaves, spoils of war, the "ghenima," the despised band of concubines. These the Malidi caresses, and is fondled by them in turn; they are his instruments, his tool of pleasure.
He has four lawful wives, and among the four one in especial who gives orders to the others. This is Aisha, whom the people call "Om el Muminin,"-the mother of True Believers. She had been his faithful companion in his days of indigence, when a poor wandering Dervish, the Malidi entertained no suspicion as yet of his future greatness. This old Negress is the chief fountain of favor to all aspirants for place and power. Round the inner enclosure of the harem runs an outer space, and near the entrance there is always an eager crowd, Dervishes and men of the Ansar, waiting for the Malidi to appear, in anxious anticipation of his blessing.
Inside the harem the Master is stretched full length on a magnificent Kurdistan carpet, his head resting on a heap of cushions covered in embroidered silk; he is dressed in a shirt of fine linen and wide Turkish trousers, a silken "tekia" covering his shaven head. Thirty women, at the lowest computation, crowd round him, some to fan him and keep off the flies, for which purpose they wave great feathers about his face, others to tickle the soles of his feet and palms of his hands softly. Little by little the Malidi slips from a gentle doze into deep sleep, when Aisha pushes and shakes him, finally waking him to tell him the people await only his presence to begin their prayers. The women raise and support him, while sandals of red morocco are brought and put on his feet. Then they take off his fine shirt and silken tekia, and Aisha dresses him in his Dervish costume,-a dirty djibbeh surmounted by a foul, muddy turban.
Slowly and solemnly he moves to the Mosque, the passers-by throwing themselves on the earth and devoutly kissing his footprints. Presently, the service ended; the Malidi returns to the inner rooms of his harem, donning once more his sumptuous garments. There he enjoys the pleasures of the table, and among the swarm of women dancing attendance upon him, appreciates the refined delights and rarely tasted sensations of an elaborate sensuality. But the very facility of these enjoyments makes his mind more and more capricious, his body more and more jaded. He seeks satisfaction in abnormal pleasures, resorts to aphrodisiacs to revive his fainting nerves and people his brain with wanton imaginings. Punishments abound; for the smallest fault, women and children are stripped naked and whipped in his presence. It charms him to hear their cries of pain, and the sight of blood flowing tickles and revivifies his appetites.
Sometimes, when he is tired of a slave-woman, he chooses from the Ansar four strong men. Then, in a closely barred tokul, he shuts himself up with the four soldiers and the poor creature to be tortured. They tear off her clothing, and though terror has already paralyzed her and made the incapable of resistance, they would have her still more submissive to their will and pleasure; they laugh and swear, jeer and threaten her, promising the most atrocious punishments. The Malidi excites them to every excess, and in obedience to the Master's wishes, they exaggerate their natural brutality, turning the wretched woman this way and that, and playing all sorts of abominable pranks with her poor panting body. They buffet her savagely with the palms of their hands on her cheeks, the soft parts of the arms, the inside of the thighs. The victim weeps and implores, dragging herself to the feet of her tormentors. This is the signal for them to require all sorts of ridiculous postures and unnatural attitudes of pleasure. But do what she will, they say she is awkward and must be punished. Torture and the lash alternate with love. Finally, with quivering flesh, bruised and swollen under the blows and rough caresses of the soldiers, mad with pain and intoxicated with lust, the woman is dismissed to the Beit-el-Maal, till the Malidi sees fit to have her sold or otherwise disposed of.
The other Emirs copy their Master; peace saps their vigor, and they seek in the joys of the harem a solace for their enforced inaction. But through it all Abu-Anga remains faithful to Grace, scorning his other women and slighting his lawful wives. His attitude now is that of a master, and at once vigorous and gentle, captivates the girl's heart. She shows herself fond and submissive, prodigal in wheedling wiles and soft caresses. Nevertheless an underlying disquietude possess" her; an element she cannot precisely define is wanting to complete her satisfaction. Certainly the notion of tasting the Kourbash again offers small attractions,-and yet she finds a strange joy in recalling the memory of the anguish endured.
One day, Abu-Anga took his brother Fadl-el-Maula to see his harem, and sent the Eunuch to fetch Grace, who trembling and agitated could scarcely repress a cry ... The negro's looks seem to her sly and his bearing at once cunning and cruel, and she instantly recognizes the Emir, the brutal soldier who had ravished her in the sack of Khartoum. The whole scene comes back again,-James held captive by the savages, while she is straggling in the arms of Fadl-el-Maula. Poor James!. . . But now it is Abu-Anga she loves, her lion-hearted master, so gentle and so strong! ... She presses timidly to her tyrant's side, fearfully watching what her ravisher will do. He too remembers her, for a smile parts his thick lips, and a gleam of mischief lights up his great eyes. But Abu-Anga is speaking:
"She is the only woman I love ... I cannot tell yet what I mean to do ... Perhaps I may divorce my lawful wife, and marry this white woman!"
"What recklessness! Think what the Malidi would say!"
"I consider I have done him services enough for him to approve my acts, be they what they may ... Now remember what I am going to say; forget not my words. The fortune of war is precarious. If I am killed, you will keep the Law ... You understand my meaning? You will announce this woman to be my widow, and you will marry her."
"This is foolish talk! You will see us all in our graves; you are invulnerable."
"Whose talk is vain and foolish now? ... Before Azrael, the Angel of Death, we are all equal ... Tell me, have you any repugnance to the woman, that you hesitate?"
"Repugnance,-no! ... Well! as you insist, it shall be so; I swear I will do your will. Nay! to make my task easier, to avoid all claims from your other wives, would it not be well, think you, to repeat my oath upon the Koran, in presence of the Cadi?"
"Let us go see to it at once!"
Grace was left shuddering with fear, filled with apprehension and sick disgust. But soon she reflected that Abu-Anga was vigorous and strong, not at all the sort of man to die easily. Never, she was convinced she would never be at Fadl-el-Maula's mercy.
But as Abu-Anga had said, all men are equal before the Angel of Death. The Malidi fell sick. Little by little he had grown enormously fat, and his heart beat weakly and uncertainly. The quacks whom he had round him as his body physicians diagnosed fatty degeneration of that organ; but the truth was he was being slowly poisoned. For some time past he had been infatuated with a European captive, wife of the Austrian tailor, who together with all her sons had been killed by the Malidists before her eyes during the sack of Khartoum.
How had this woman contrived to procure a supply of arsenic, and keep it undetected? How did she manage to mix the poison successfully with the sweetmeats the Master stuffed himself with? With her Italian guile, she knew how to set about the thing cautiously and mysteriously. With a smile on her lips, she was working the tyrant's death, administering the drug in small but constantly repeated doses. At first the Malidi had never seemed so well. His breathing was deep and free, his appetite excellent, while he held himself erect and all his body felt light and active. Every vital function was intensified, and never had he felt himself in such vein for love. He thought it was due to some virtue in the fair Venetian, some charm she possessed superior to those of other women. He redoubled his caresses; she increased the dose of poison.
Soon his vitals were eaten away; he vomited constantly and his brain was on fire. The heart especially was terribly affected, and he declared he felt it shrinking within him hour to hour. He died in the mortuary hut he had had constructed, conjuring those about his bedside to remain faithful to the Khalif Abdullahi, his successor. The body was washed and wrapped in a winding-sheet. The women wailed and lamented, the Venetian in particular raising heart-broken cries, tearing her hair and in every way making an admirably acted pretence of the deepest grief.
At the very foot of the angareb, his couch of death, the Malidi's uncle, Abmed-ouad Suleiman, dug the grave, assisted by the three Khalifs. Without a long-drawn tumult of groans and lamentations rose to heaven,-the people bewailing their lost Leader, their departed Prophet. The corpse was sprinkled with perfumes and lowered into the grave, on which each mourner cast his shovelful of earth, murmuring. "Ya Rahman! Ya Rahim!" (Merciful God! Gracious God!)
CHAPTER X
Dreams of Desire
In his dying moments the Malidi had repeated again and again:
"The Prophet has designated my successor. You will submit to the orders of the Khalif Abdullahi, as you have obeyed mine. He is a second me!"
So saying and folding his arms over his breast, he had breathed his last, murmuring the sacred formula, "La Illaha ilia Illahi; Mohammed Rasul Allahi!" Beside the Master's corpse, still warm with vital heat, those present had sworn fidelity to the Khalif Abdullahi; his colleagues, the two other Khalifs being the first to proffer the oath of allegiance.
The lawful wife of the dead Chief, the Dongola negress who in company with the poor "Fiki," the wandering Dervish, had endured his days of indigence, was there. "Sidina Aisha Un el Muminin,"-Our Lady Aisha, Mother of True Believers, lay crouched in a corner, wound about wiih her veils, the thick "feridjeh" drawn high up to hide her grief. Presently she rose to her full height, and with howls and cries and lamentations, went to announce the death to the other wives and to the whole harem.
The populace had already learned the mournful news. But it was generally maintained that if the Malidi had left this world, it was of his own free will and pleasure. He had besought God to design to recall him to Himself, to receive him in His Paradise; and the Almighty had granted the prayer of the just Man.
In the beginning, the new Malidi consolidated the wprk and confirmed the legislation of his predecessor,-especially in all matters connected with the form of service and other rites and ceremonies. The customary ablutions were simplified, and the pilgrimage to Mecca forbidden altogether. The "Mahr," or price which the bridegroom is bound to pay to the father of the bride, remained at the rate the former Malidi had fixed, viz., ten dollars and two sets of robes, when the bride was a virgin, five dollars and two sets, when she was a widow. Also the new custom of a meal of dates and milk in lieu of the nuptial banquet previously in vogue, a feast both profuse and costly. The prohibition of dancing and gaming was renewed, under penalty for offenders of the kourbash and confiscation of goods. Blasphemers, as before, were to be punished with seven days' imprisonment. The Khalif confirmed the prohibition, decreed by the Malidi, of all fermented liquors, such as marissa,-or palm wine, and tobacco. All drunkards, and all smokers or snuff-takers, were to be thrashed and imprisoned for eight days, their property moreover being confiscated to the Beit-el-Maal, the Khalif's treasure.
Previously in the Sudan, the religious orders only had been in the habit of removing the hair of the head, laymen, and especially the nomad Arabs, letting it grow, and indeed wearing it very long. But the Malidi had ordered the men of his Ansar to shave their heads, just as he had made them wear the djibbeh, or Dervishes' frock, and these injunctions were maintained by his successor. A death was declared to be a cause for rejoicing, for it is the liberation of the True Believer, and marks for him the beginning of an era of bliss. To bewail a death or organize funeral ceremonials were offences punishable by confiscation. The pilgrimage to Mecca was forbidden, on account of the inevitable contact with the Gentiles on the journey.
To make up for this, that to Omdurman, to the Malidi's tomb, was made obligatory. Workmen were set to work on the erection of a gigantic Mausoleum, a regular temple crowned by a dome that was to rise to a height of a hundred feet from the ground, the whole surmounted by a lance carrying three golden balls one above the other, and threatening the heavens with its point.
Meantime many and divers ambitions and intrigues came into existence about the new Monarch. For some time now various tribal chiefs had been aiming at independence and watching for an opportunity of throwing off the yoke of Malidism, while among the Ashraf, the Malidi's '. own kinsmen, not a few, in spite of the dead chiefs injunctions, held the new Sovereign to be an intruder and an outsider, and were already plotting to dispossess him I for their own advantage. At the earliest opportunity Abu-Anga was sent against the rebels, and his expedition was j crowned with complete success. The campaign was a mere F march of victory, which ended in his bringing in the vanquished chiefs in chains to Omdurman This preference for Omdurman was no new thing; the old Malidi had begun to manifest the same predilection for the little town built on the rocks just peeping above the sand, opposite Khartoum on the other bank of the Nile. To humiliate the Ashraf, who had chosen the best quarters of Khartoum to establish themselves in, the Khalif ordered the demolition of their stately houses, the materials to be carried over to Omdurman to build fresh ones with. Soon streets were laid out, lined with spacious mansions of red brick, while on either side, to right and left, a huddle of narrow tortuous alleys grew up where gradually little f houses of sun-dried clay replaced the former straw huts and sheltered a dense population. From all quarters of the Sudan, Abu-Anga's soldiers were driving in upon Omdurman such tribes as were of doubtful fidelity, and the inhabitants grew daily more numerous. The town increased at a rate to compare with the great capitals of
Europe; but in spite of all laws and regulations it continued abominably filthy. Carrion lay everywhere, rotting in the sun, the stench of fever and uncleanness filled even the nobles' palaces, and flies swarmed in myriads.
Every time Abu-Anga returned from one of his victories, he went straight to Grace's side, whom he still cherished with a tender and ardent love. Though he had hundreds of women in his harem, and never went on an expedition but he brought more to join them, it was always for Grace he reserved the best nights. She quivered deliciously in his strong arms, a devoted slave of the mighty man with the gentle ways whom she had fascinated.
Nevertheless there was another sentiment, morbid and born of sheer dislike, fermenting within her bosom ever since the day she had recognized in Fadl-el-Maula, Abu-Anga's brother, the brutal ravisher of her maidenhood. On first seeing him again, she had experienced only terror and abhorrence; but presently curiosity gained the upper hand, and she would have liked Fad-el-Maula to come again. She wanted to look at him once more, wondering what she would say to him, if he began making love. He had been obliged to force her, that was certain; she would never, never have consented, if she had been a free agent! Thinking thus, she felt a spasm of renewed disgust; she once more breathed the insipid, deadly smell, and her tongue curled as she recalled the evil sourness of that kiss. These thoughts refused to leave her, though they only caused her pain and anguish, and she would fly into wild rages, muttering imprecations on this Fadl-el-Maula whom she loathed. Still she could not get rid of her thoughts, as she lay there dreaming in the idleness of the harem, heedless of the other women, whose laughter and chatter she scarcely heard.
She racked her brains to discover a means of involving Abu-Anga in a quarrel with his brother. It would have been easy enough once; but now she no longer dared try the magic of her glance. She knew only too well the charm was broken for ever under the Eunuch's kourbash. Abu-Anga was calm and self-possessed, and everything showed he was another man now. He loved Grace for the joy of bodily satisfaction, but his will was out of her reach and altogether unassailable. He always spoke gently to her; but if by chance she put on her imperious airs again for a moment he would only laugh, and with a touch of his iron finger force her to do his wish.
For all that, he had granted her more freedom than it was his habit to allow his concubines. She could go abroad in the city, and so escape the deadly stagnation of the harem and hear some news of the outside world. In the markets she had an opportunity of meeting people she could talk to. Of these markets there were several, at long distances from each other. The slave market was the most important and much the most frequented. Rich men would visit it, even when they had no immediate intention of buying; but women were excluded. The grain market also was crowded, whereas the square where the peasants came to sell their vegetables was patronized only by cooks, nearly always slaves, and women of the people.
In the neighborhood of the prison there was invariably much movement and animation, as it was a favorite lounging place, idlers resorting thither to see the victims of the Khalif's displeasure pass by in chains.
Quite close to the prison lived Slatin-Bey. He had been an officer in the Austrian service when at the prompting of an adventurous disposition, he had asked his Government for permission to enter the Egyptian army. He had fought gallantly against the Dervishes, and won a number of victories; but had finally been shut up in Dara, and forced eventually to capitulate. He was spoil of war, and became the slave of the Khalif Abdullahi, who enrolled him in his "Muzalemin," or body-guards. But fearing he might resort to some extreme measure, he set a watch on poor Slatin, and for the slightest offense he would throw him into prison, his body bent double under the weight of his fetters. All the Austrian could do was to affect a resignation he was far from feeling, meanwhile impatiently gnawing the bit and only waiting a favorable chance to escape.
He had known James, whose gallantry and good humor he greatly admired. He was acquainted with all Grace's tragic story,-except the fact that she was still alive. Suddenly, her hair rippling in golden waves above her brow, and the transparent feridjeh only heightening the brilliance of her clear eyes, Grace accosted him, speaking in English. Tall and well built, with straightforward, easy, gentlemanly manners, the ex-officer exclaimed in wonder:
"What! you here! ... Poor young lady, how you must have suffered! ... But patience,-the English cannot be much longer; they are bound to avenge Gordon, the noblest and most disinterested of their heroes. They will soon be here, and smoke out these wild cats in their holes ... But suppose I were to rescue you? Eh? ... But when? Why! I have not the faintest notion, upon my word! ... But soon perhaps, for indeed they seem to me to have very much the look of flying at each other's throats, our Dervish friends, before very long ... You may rest assured, the very first opportunity that offers, I shall take French leave and be off."
"And my best wishes go with you!"
"Better it were yourself ... It cuts me to the heart to see you prisoner among-these Blackamoors ... If you knew how sick I am of playing the Mussulman and True Believer and trusty muzalemin! Look here, ... shall I pass you the word, when everything is ready?"
"By no means! You would only ruin your plans without helping me!"
She gave him her hand, which he shook in the English way, and then went off with her active step to loiter in the quarter of the jewelers' shops. True the Malidi had prohibited their trade. Worldly pomps and vanities were all forbidden, and women could only wear ornaments of paltry value, mother-of-pearl and coral being the only materials tolerated. But gradually the strictness of the rule had been relaxed, and all along the river bank, the jewelers and ornament-makers filled a whole street, vending gew-gaws of gold and silver filagree work, to say nothing of gems and pearls. The traders were delighted to bring out their most precious wares and make the stones flash to tempt the favorite slave of Abu-Anga, chief of the Djedediah, that ever victorious troop of negro braves.
But Grace was pensive, and threw only a careless glance at the sparkling gems and iridescent pearls. Her encounter with Slatin-Bey had stirred a whole host of memories.
"Poor James!. . . Yes! poor James! But there, he ought to have been more respectful. Or else he ought to have set about it differently altogether ... Now these negroes, they were savages; granted! ... but they were no fools, far from it! They knew remarkably well how to get what they wanted with women ... If only names ... Well, it must be allowed he was to blame for it all! For how was she to know?"
No doubt she still pitied James, and thought of him with no small tenderness. Yet she ended by holding him to have been little better than a fool. Her senses were strongly stirred, and under the burning African sun were ever on the alert. She found herself sighing for the return of Abu-Anga, and gave way to long hours of languor and reverie. She thought of her native land and her life as a young girl, and was filled with an intense craving for affection. Her heart would swell with melancholy, till she was on the point of weeping. In her loneliness and desolation she decided exactly what it was she longed for,-she would fain be loved by a young man, quite young, who would offer her an artless, timid affection, an ardent affection, yet tempered with fear and respect!
At these times she would like to have gone to see Slatin again, to tell him to make haste as she wished now to escape with him. But what chance had any such enterprise of meeting with success? They would have been retaken, for a certainty; horsemen would be sent off in pursuit, who must very soon come up with the fugitives. Then would follow punishment, the odious, humiliating, detestable lash! But this time the lash applied without mercy or pity,-her body degraded by the marks of permanent disfigurement ... Worse perhaps,-mutilation, or even death? Death! Her teeth chattered with terror at the idea, which she fought against with all the intense vitality of twenty, all the lusty vigor of strong and healthy youth.
However, as Slatin had observed, the Blackamoors had very much the look of soon coming to blows among themselves. The Malidi's name still continued to inspire a fierce fanaticism. The Ansar, the army, rallied round the successor of his choice, and the Khalif Abdullahi took for motto, "Ed Din, mansour,"-To conquer by the Faith.
The two other khalifs on the contrary, for their first oaths of allegiance, were anxious, envious and ill-content. First came various manifestations of slight importance, mere childish displays of pride. They delighted to parade the city with a numerous escort and make display of their magnificence. They loved to draw the populace about their persons, and at all hours of the day the great war drums might be heard beating. It was not long before the crowd took sides, and Omdurman was divided into two hostile camps.
On the one side the Ashraf, the kinsmen of the dead Malidi; on the other the partisans of Abdullahi, the successor of the Prophet, declared such by the Malidi himself. The two Khalifs, Mohammed Sherif and Ali Ouad Helu, openly announced themselves ready to maintain by force the rights of the Ashraf, whose prerogatives had been passed over. Among the people, each man espoused one side or the other in the quarrel, according to his individual preferences. Not a day passed without disputes breaking out in the market and degenerating into personal conflicts. Uneasiness and anxiety pressed heavy on all hearts, and both parties were making preparations for the coming contest. Abdullahi's faction included his own tribe, the Ba garas, olive-complexioned Arabs, chiefly engaged in cattle breeding, and the negro soldiers of the Djedediah, commanded, in Abu-Anga's absence, by Fad-el-Maula, without counting his muzalemin, or body-guards. The Dongolawi and the Gellabas marched under the banner of the Ashraf.
No sooner, however, were the two rival hosts in position than the imposing array and unflinching attitude of the black troops quite intimidated Abdullahi's enemies. The Khalif Ouad Helu was the first to wish to come to terms, and after sundry negotiations, surrendered at discretion. At this the other, the Khalif Sherif, feeling no inclination to fight single-handed with so formidable an antagonist, also laid down his arms.
He was forced to hand over to Abdullahi his troops with arms, munitions of war and flags complete, besides,-and this was the most bitter blow of all-his great war drums. The victorious Abdullahi allowed him merely a guard of fifty men, to serve as personal escort, while to mark the humiliation of the Ashraf, the two uncles of the late Malidi, Abdul Kerim and Abdul Kader, were thrown into chains.
CHAPTER XI
Savage Warfare
Breaking the silence of night, two hours before the dawn, a rolling of drums made itself heard, getting louder and louder till the sound was like thunder. Perched on a platform in front of the noble facade of the Palace, two strong-armed slaves were beating rhythmically on the great war-drum of the Khalif Abdullahi, known as "El Mansoura,"-The Victorious. Soon its deep, slow note was answered by the more lively voices of smaller instruments, answering from the four corners of the city, though the solemn, sonorous roar of El Mansoura, the enormous kettle-drum with sides of solid copper, still dominated all other sounds. The people came trooping up at the summons in high spirits, accompanying the roll of the drums with a monotonous chant of defiance to the foe, "Nakel-koum,"-You will be eaten up, "Naktoulkoum,"-You will be cut to pieces!
The great black banner of the Khalif floated on the wind, surrounded by the other flags, while every man of the Ansar ran to take up his appointed place. Presently the four enormous kettle-drums, the daughters as they were called of El Mansoura, huge war drums of copper, were hoisted on the backs of camels to head the march. Next came the four ombeya players, blowing with might and main into the great elephant, tusks. Soon the Khalif himself appeared, perched on a magnificent camel with white coat as soft as silk and led by Ouad Beschir, the gigantic Arab
Abdullahi had chosen for his squire. His body-guards, the muzalemin, followed him, mounted and all wearing coats of mail and polished helmets wrapped round with a red turban. Then came the regular cavalry, and then the infantry, thirty thousand muskets, the bayonets flashing in the beams of the rising sun. Last of all a countless host of irregulars, armed with pikes and cutlasses, brought up the rear.
The regular Friday review of all arms on the Parade ground had been countermanded, and to take its place, Abdullahi was to march out at the head of his troops to meet Abu-Anga, who was returning victorious after triumphing over Khaled, the rebel, and the negro soldiers of El-Obayd. These had mutinied, cut to pieces an army of Dervishes and killed the Emir in command. But what most especially roused the Khalif's gratitude was the fact that Abu-Anga had brought Zogal to his knees. What terrible anxiety and trouble he had occasioned, this redoubtable Zogal! With his band of marauders, all brave and tried soldiers, he had sacked Bara, and established his camp on its ruins. He mocked openly at the Malidi and his law; his followers drank like fishes,-marissa, or palm-wine, and even mastik and arrak, smoked, snuffed and chewed as much as ever they chose. The abuse of tobacco was held no crime, and his men danced publicly with women. He was a jovial man, Zogal, and often said that when the Prophet promised a Paradise of sensual delights, he obviously had not intended this world to be a hell of self-denial. Tall and stout, with a flowing silver beard, he would promenade his camp from end to end, urging his fellows to enjoy themselves and regretting that with the weight of his sixty years upon him, he found women less easy to tackle. Now Abu-Anga had taken his camp, and enrolled his soldiers under his own banner, while Zogal himself had been led in irons to the prison of El-Obayd. From end to end the Sudan was coming under the yoke of Malidism and acknowledging the sovereignty of Abdullahi.
The army set forward across the plain, which was tufted with alpha grass, towards the hills of Herreri, where, so said tradition, the Djinns,-or Evil Spirits,-dwell in caverns. The Ansar venerated these genii, for every man was firmly convinced they fought for him and his. On the sandy level, among the scanty clumps of mimosa, the cavalry deployed, the horsemen dashing forward with loud shouts, prancing and caracoling, and playing with their muskets. With a whirl of dust, a glimpse of half-seen forms and a flash of steel, the fantasia dashed past. Presently a distant blare of trumpets, coming nearer and nearer,-and Abu-Anga was seen approaching at full gallop to meet the Khalif. His accoutrement brought out his gallant bearing and length of limb; he wore a coat of mail of close and pliant texture, and round his copper helm was knotted a red turban in which nodded a plume of ostrich feathers held in place by a great diamond. Behind him galloped his Mukkudum and his escort, the pick of his troops. He leapt from his courser in full career and ran to kiss the Khalifs hand, who bade him remount and ride beside him.
The crowd surrounding the army made its way back to Omdurman amid salvos of artillery, and were presently filling the streets with noisy acclamations and shouts of triumph. The Khalif publicly declared it was to his trusty Abu-Anga he owed all this success. He conversed with him smilingly, sketching out mighty deeds to come,-first and foremost the humiliation of Abyssinia, then the conquest of Egypt, later on the invasion of Syria; for it was at Damascus he longed to establish the Khalifate and restore the great days of Islam.
Grace, who was listening eagerly, heard the cheers of the populace, and her heart swelled and beat high with enthusiasm. Abu-Anga's victory made her proud and glad, and she thought herself a happy woman to be loved by such a hero. Presently she fell to questioning herself, asking if she too loved him in return; but to her surprise, pride and sensual satisfaction were the only genuine feelings she could discover. Yet she quivered deliciously in her lover's arms; her nerves trembled and her pleasure almost verged in ecstasy. When finally Abu-Anga appeared in the harem, she threw herself into his arms, and resting her head on the negro's bosom, burst into a torrent of tears. He held her pressed against him, long and silently, plaiting her golden curls between his fingers, then clearing them from her brow and kissing her fondly.
After a while he informed her he was going to take command against the Abyssinians and that he meant to take her with him on the expedition. The Khalif realized to the full the difficulties of the enterprise, deeming Abyssinia a stronger and more formidable power than Egypt, and eagerly hurried on his preparations.
Indeed the utmost haste was necessary to anticipate the enemy. Spies reported that the Negus, King John, was already mobilizing his army, which the Ras Adal was to lead to the invasion of the Sudan. The best course was evidently to take the offensive, and be the first to strike a decisive blow. Already, soon after his accession, the Khalif had written a letter to King John, in which he had urged him to abjure Christianity, "he and his subjects, and embrace the Mussulman Faith, the only true religion. Besides which, he must perform homage, and recognize him as his Overlord, as being the true successor of the Prophet, the Malidi." This haughty epistle had not been deemed worthy of an answer by the Abyssinian King; but he had summoned his Ras, his Viceroys of Provinces, to his capital, where all had sworn abhorrence to the Khalif, war to the Dervishes, and fidelity to the Negus.
Meantime the Abyssinians continued their trade relations with the Dervishes. Numbers crossed the frontier and penetrated into the Sudan as far as the market of Galabat, to which they were in the habit of bringing slaves, mules, large supplies of the little Abyssinian horses, besides ostriches, coffee, honey, wax and tomatoes, taking in exchange cotton fabrics and money. Among these Abyssinian traders were both "Guebertas," who are Moslems, and "Makadas," who are Christians. The latter however, for all their love of gain, were afraid to come alone, and counted on the Guebertas to help them keep the peace with the Dervishes.
One day there arrived a rich caravan, loaded with large quantities of merchandise, which seemed so valuable to Yunis, the Emir commanding at Galabat on behalf of the Khalif, that he could not resist the dictates of greed. Inventing a pretext, that the traders had come to Galaban from the Ras Adal and were his spies, he seized the goods, and had the Abyssinians thrown into irons, Moslems and Christian alike. Then without losing a moment he dispatched horsemen, who crossing the frontier, sacked the nearest Abyssinian villages and carried off any young girls they could lay hands on. The prettiest of these Yunis sent as a present to the Khalif, urging him to declare war against the Abyssinians. The Khalif consented, being still angry at the insulting silence preserved by King John. After many prayers in the Great Mosque of Omdurman, Abdullahi proclaimed Yunis "Afrit el Mush rikinn," The Demon of the idolatrous Christians, and "Mismar ed Din," The Nail of the True Faith. Yet in spite of these sounding titles, Yunis was disgracefully beaten, and left the enemies' country quicker than he had entered it. Meantime the Ras Adal had begun great preparations against Galabat.
Abdullahi counted on Abu-Anga's gallantry to avenge the disaster and stay the threatened invasion, though at the same time he advised him to be cautious. As far as Abu Haraz, the spot where the Khor Rahad mingles its clear waters with the muddy ones of the Nile, Abu-Anga accompanied the advance of his troops on a steamer. Sitting in her cabin, Grace could still close her eyes to the realities of the war, surrounded as she was by all the refinements of English comfort. At intervals she would mount on deck, and watch the flying banks as they sped past. High above the slender, sloping date-palms, relieved against the deep blue of the sky, hung a flock of flamingoes dressed out in white and scarlet, while giraffes, then-long necks extended, tried to race the boat.
At Galabat the levies raised in the Ghezireh awaited the General, bringing up the total of Abu-Anga's forces to eighty-one thousand men,-nearly all negroes. The new recruits were armed with pikes and assegais. The Messalit were in the habit of flaying the enemies they had killed, and tanning the skin to make water-bottles. But the Negroes were cannibals; from the game-bag they carried always dangled some human fragment, a foot with contracted toes or a flaccid hand. An angareb was hoisted on a camel's beak, on which Grace sat in state. Soon, leaving Galabat behind, Abu-Anga boldly entered at the head of his army the "mihtok," the gorge or vast depression which pierces the mountain barrier separating the Sudan from Abyssinia and offering a hollow, rock-strewn way to an invader. The army advanced by forced marches, the ground continually getting more and more difficult, bristling with boulders between which grew rough brushwood and cactus with sharp-edged leaves. The horses' legs had to be specially protected, while the camels suffered even more pitiably. At one time the line would be winding along the mountain side, on the right hand the rock, sloping sheets of basalt on which the sun beat fiercely, on the left a blue abyss where the gorge lay far below their feet. Then would come miles of forest, dark, humid and treacherous, where they had to fight with long, trailing creepers and use the axe to cut a passage. A wealth of life lurked in the heaps of dead leaves, under the bark of the trees, in the smallest twig. Reptiles slipped past with a faint rustling, and myriads of insects scuttled underfoot, buzzing and humming. High up among the leaves birds flew terrified from their perches, while monkeys hung grinning or ran to hide among the topmost boughs. From the jungle could be heard the heavy tramp of a herd of elephants or the light scurry of antelopes; sometimes, its long neck stretched forward and head erect, a giraffe would shoot past like a flash of lightning. Then there would be a roar like thunder, and all nature hushed at the lion's voice. The air was full of strange, heavy scents, and strange flowers with monstrous animal shapes displayed their blossoms in the shade. In every clearing clouds of mosquitos buzzed and eddied in the sunbeams.
One night, after a halt had been called and the great camp-fires kindled, Grace awoke with a start and saw a huge, shadowy form standing motionless beside her angar-eb. The crackling wood darted a momentary flame, and she recognized Aisha, the tall Donga negress.
Next morning the army resumed its march as usual, and suddenly entered upon a fertile land with wide clearings richly cultivated and well stocked with cattle. Moreover on these high table-lands the climate was more temperate, and the sun's rays had lost their ardent fierceness. But the villages were deserted, the peasants flying at the approach of the Dervishes, with such precipitation they had left the cattle in the fields, the poultry in the farmyard, and the wheat in the barn.
About the middle of the sixth day's march however the Dervishes found themselves unexpectedly face to face with the Abyssinian army. The Ras Adal with all his troops was quietly waiting for the enemy in the great plain of Dabra-Sin, at the foot of the mountains. So confident was he of victory, so certain of advance, that he had actually taken up his position with a torrent immediately in his rear. Just as the recruits, forming the left wing, debouched from the pass, the Abyssinians delivered their attack. Helter-skelter their cavalry dashed forward. Up they came on their sturdy little beasts at full gallop, stopped an instant to fire their muskets, then pointing their lances and lying low on their horses' necks, they charged with horrible yells. The poor raw recruits suffered terribly, and began to fall back.
But at this moment Abu-Anga hurried to the front, and drew up his Djedediah in battle order under the fire of the enemy. Straight and upright in the saddle, he sat there stem and impassive amid the uproar, giving orders in stentorian tones that were audible above the rattling of musketry and the yells of the Abyssinians. Instantly things began to wear a different complexion. The Abyssinians fought with desperate valour, their war-like ardour raised to fever heat in a struggle with the hated Moslem, the treacherous invader of their fatherland. But perfectly calm and rigidly disciplined, the Dervishes fired all together as one man, their serried ranks forming a compact mass, that little by little pushed back the Abyssinians and finally hurled them into the torrent, the Khof, that was al their backs. It was nothing more nor less than a massacre, men and horses in inextricable confusion rolling over and over in the foaming waves, soon to be carried away by the swift current and drowned.
The army of the Ras Adal was annihilated. At the same time the Dervishes had suffered considerable losses, the Ghezireh levies in particular having been almost cut to pieces. The Abyssinian troops opposed to them already deemed victory to be theirs, and instead of hurrying to reinforce their comrades engaged with the black soldiers of Abu-Anga, they had amused themselves with mutilating the prisoners they had made. They sliced off noses and ears and put out eyes. With shouts of brutal laughter, curious to see how a Mussulman was made, they would point out to each other the marks of circumcision on the members they had amputated with their sabres. When the battalion of Abu-Anga fell upon their rear, they were so panic-stricken they never so much as thought of defending themselves.
The camp of the Ras fell bodily into the hands of the Dervishes. In it they found tents in plenty, munitions of war, and even two big guns, besides a considerable number of beasts of burden, asses and mules. There were women too, among them the wife of the Ras Adal and the Princess his daughter,-both so ugly not a soldier in all the army would look at them. All this booty pleased Abu-An greatly, and he immediately decided to push on and carry the war into the Amhara, and so attack the Negus in the very heart of his Empire. From the plain where he now was, only thirty miles divided him from Gondar, the ancient capital of Abyssinia, where no doubt an accumulation of treasure would be found to compensate the victor for all his toils.
The only difficulty was the beasts, the asses and mules; these would only be an embarrassment to the troops on the march. So the massacre of men was succeeded by the butchery of animals, and they fell on them, cutting their throats and felling them with pole-axes. But so great was the number that the Dervishes, already wearied with fighting, could do no more. Then they drove the remaining animals into a wood of acacias, where they hobbled them and tied them to the trees, and the grass being dry and the wood inflammable, they set the place on fire. Soon it was a roaring furnace, showers of sparks billowing upward and the flames shooting far aloft. The kicks and struggles of the poor beasts could be heard, as they fought to break away .while the asses brayed long and loud, to express their pain and terror. But the cruel negroes only laughed, a shrill, cackling laugh of enjoyment.
CHAPTER XII
Cruel Carnality
Some of the mules had been spared, enough to form two gun-teams, and the guns found in the Abyssinian camp were dragged off after the victorious army. It was their shot that opened the breach in the walls of Gondar. The assault was short, sharp and decisive. The Abyssinians fought obstinately, but without discipline, whereas the Dervishes, despite the impetuosity of their attack, still retained that closeness of formation, elbow to elbow, which is indispensable to vigorous and effective unity of action. Very soon the garrison were massacred to a man, after which the Dervishes, posting a guard at every issue, ransacked the town, killing with bayonet or lance all the Makadas,-or male Christians. The Guebertas, or Musulmans, on the other hand were spared, and were brought in, their hands tied behind them, to headquarters to be eventually sold as slaves.
Then the sack began. The Dervishes found warehouses containing large stores of coffee, wax and honey. But they thought little of these supplies, for how could they carry them away with them? What they wanted was gold and silver, whether coined or in ingots. They attacked the Churches, and the crosses surmounting their roofs and towers were hurled down. In some cases the Priest was bound to the cross, and pitched into space along with it from the summit of the edifice. They set fire to the cathedral, and to make it burn better, threw into the flames the thatched roofs they had torn from the neighbouring huts. Cakes of honey were also used to feed the fire, the wax as it burned spreading an odor like that of altar tapers through the sacred building.
The Dervishes were still watching the flames, their hands behind their backs, when a mighty roar sent a shudder through their ranks. Turning round, they were struck with amazement to see a horde of lions invade the Cathedral square. In the days of the great Negus, the animals had been suffered to wander at will about the Palace; but since King Theodore's death, a keeper had been appointed to look after them and they had been confined to a lion-pit. Inoffensive and docile to the man who fed them, they were still fierce and untamed to others. No woman's hand had ever degraded them, and they kept their spirit intact. Their keeper, a Makada, a Christian, mortally wounded, had managed to drag himself as far as the lion-pit, and rousing them to fury with word and gesture, had set them on the Dervishes. There were eighteen of them in all,-eleven lions with great black manes, seven slim, lithe lionesses.
Reaching the square, they gave a roar, then crouched and began lashing the ground with their tufted tails. Suddenly and all together they gave a spring, and eighteen negroes fell, skulls crushed and breasts torn open. Nor would they leave their prey, but worried the dead bodies, holding them between their great paws, now biting off a head or an arm with their powerful teeth, now pounding their muzzles into a gaping belly and drawing them out again all dripping with blood. But by this time the soldiers had recovered from their surprise, and closed their ranks as if in face of the enemy. The muskets gave voice in a simultaneous volley, and the lions fell dead, their huge, tawny carcasses stretched motionless on the dead men.
All this butchery however had wearied the muscles and over-stimulated the nerves of the Dervishes. The lust of slaughter was succeeded by a craving for sensual pleasures; nostrils that were still quivering with the sickly odor of death, now began to sniff after another and a different scent. For the moment Abu-Anga hardly thought of Grace. What he wanted was a virgin to deflower, a little girl just barely marriageable, a child with bright complexion and tender flesh. He craved more blood,-the savage pleasure that is born of blood, the warm dew, the rupture of all barriers before the triumphant assault of love, the breaking down of opposing walls under the vigorous, determined pressure, in a word the victory of the male, amid cries and tears and the agonized supplications of the victim! He seized by the hand an Abyssinian girl, a child with clear-cut features and a graceful figure, twelve years old at the outside. She had small, well-turned shoulders; little round bosom; narrow, but prominent buttocks, while the arms were slender; the thighs long and thin. He enclosed the weak little fist in his powerful hand, at which the girl threw herself back in futile resistance, her delicate face convulsed with terror. With a vigorous kick he burst in the door of a hut, and lifting the child in his arms, threw her on an angareb, and fastened the door from inside. A sound of screams was heard, a long, heart-rending cry of pain...
Others however, Emirs and Mukkudums, were not so particular, and took no sort of trouble to seek retirement but just had the woman they desired in the open street. The soldier would swagger up with a coarse laugh, a foul word between his teeth. The girl would run away, to be caught almost immediately; after which the negro would fall upon her, aim a savage blow at any part that came convenient, shoulder, arm or bosom. The woman would yell and measure her length on the ground, still screaming, while the soldier laughed and swore. Then, using a dead body as a bolster, the fellow would set roughly and brutally about his work. Louder and louder would grow her cries, soon stifled under fierce kisses. But a low moaning still went on, and a nervous shuddering, a quiver that ran from the soles of her feet to her head. The legs would kick like a frog's, and the whole body shiver and shake, every nerve writhing with pain and poignant, agonizing pleasure. When at last the men let them go, all without exception in their haste to fly, sprung up quickly, and dashed straight before them, never attaining any great speed. Soon they would stagger, or stumble over a dead body, or with a shriek of horror slip in a pool of blood, only to spring up again and off once more, pursued with jeers and shouts of ribald laughter. One soldier hurled a stone after a young girl he had just had, as she was running away. The aim was good, and she rolled over with a fractured skull.
But just at present what they wanted was something else, something funny, to amuse them without being too fatiguing. So they laid hold of the older women, matrons of twenty-five and upwards, who shuddering and speechless with fear, had looked on at these scenes of violence. They began by making signs to them to strip. If a woman did not obey at once, she was stunned by a torrent of blows, and her clothing torn off in ribbons. Then they began pricking them in the legs with the points of their bayonets, and lances, and whistling an air for them to dance to. Next, sprinkling a few grains of gunpowder over the hair of the privates, they would set it afire. Presently they would drive the bayonets in further and turn the lances in the wounds; with the pike-staves and the butts of their guns they stirred up the entrails and dug out bleeding morsels and green scraps of intestine.
Meantime a cavalry man was still only at the first course. He had set his heart on a big girl of fifteen, and had seized her in his arms. But tall and slender, she seemed to be made of steel, at once strong and supple, and succeeded in slipping from his hold. She dashed away, the soldier after her. She had the best of the race, running with short, but rapid strides, and dodging cleverly. Already the negro was out of breath and almost hopeless of catching her, when he saw a horse pass by. With one bound he was in the saddle. The girl tripped and fell to her knees, and before she could regain her feet, the horseman had hauled her up and laid her across his saddle. No sooner had he secured her thus than he pitched her roughly to the ground again, and unfastening his belt, fell to whipping her savagely with it. She never uttered a cry, though big tears streamed down her cheeks. When he had finished beating her, he kissed her on the mouth, and she returned his kiss; humble and submissive, she seemed glad and happy to yield herself to his wishes!
But he was soon done with her, and ran off to join his comrades again, who were now intent on another game. They had tied some women up to trees, and using them as targets at twenty paces, shied at them with cactus balls. Every time the thorny mass tore the flesh, or stuck on to breast or bosom, there were shouts of merriment. But the mirth was inextinguishable, if a player, more skilful than the rest, succeeded in plugging a woman between the legs.
Grace, kept in the background, trembling from head to foot at these horrors, her hands clasped in an attitude of prayer but unable to articulate a word. So intense were her feelings of pity and terror, she did not dare make any appeal to the ruffians' compassion. She experienced at once an exaltation and a weak nervous trembling,-and above all else an eager craving; she longed to fly for refuge to the arms of Abu-Anga. There she stood with quivering nostrils and parted lips. The camel-men thought she was laughing at the spectacle, but were astonished to see her suddenly stagger, while deadly pale, she restrained with both hands the wild beating of her heart.
But soon the Dervishes judged the time was come for thinking of more serious matters. The first question was to pen up the prisoners, women and children, that were to be carried away into slavery. A zariba was hastily constructed, in which they were shut up, fettered and chained together in files. Next the booty had to be further added to, and concealed hoards discovered,-all the money the
Priests and Notables of the city had found means to hide on the first approach of the Dervishes.
They had already tried what they could do with the Bishop. Two men, at Abu-Anga's order, thrashed him with heavy kourbashes. After a while the General signed to the soldiers to desist, and proceeded to question the aged Prelate, who answered he had no treasure beyond the sacred vessels, and these the Dervishes bad already looted in the Cathedral. He was then untied, and laid full length on the ground, his feet in front of a brazier, towards which they gradually moved him nearer and nearer. First the flesh smoked, then it began to shrivel up, till soon there was nothing left but two stumps burned to the bone. Abu-Anga gave up the attempt and left the victim alone, but a mukkudum took his place, and in order to avenge Abyssinian soldiers who had been mocked by the Mussulmans, he had the Bishop of Gondar circumcised. The operator used his sabre for the purpose, while the men standing round, uttered loud shouts of triumph, crying. "Bismillahi! Bismillahi!"
Now the Bishop was at his last gasp, a stream of blood flowing from the open wound. He was dying. But the Priests of his Chapter were still left, as well as the chief men of the city, those who lived in houses of stone. Emirs deputed for the purpose questioned them mildly, lavishing promises and constraining their voices to caressing accents. But the prisoners remained dumb, with a far off look in their eyes. For a while the Emirs preserved a forced calm; but still meeting the same contemptuous silence, they broke out in imprecations and threats. Then they ordered the bastinado; but though the blood flowed in streams, the torture was ineffectual, not an Abyssinian uttered so much as a cry. Not one yielded to the Emirs' appeals, when at their command the executioner redoubled his efforts.
So a council of war was held. It so happened that quite near the town, between two hills, in a depression of the ground there was a marsh, where bamboos flourished, straight, stiff and sharp,-a forest of natural lances. In the hot mud of the swamp the bamboos grew with extraordinary rapidity. At dawn you could barely see the young shoot, level with the earth; by evening it would be up to a child's waist. Thither they carried the prisoners, stripped of all clothing. Meantime the soldiers had nailed a number of laths together in the form of crosses. These served as trestles or supports,-a cross under each armpit, and another under the bend of the knees. Thus each victim hung in the air, perched above a bamboo, the ground for some space all round having been cleared. There were thirty or so of them altogether, ranged in a row, each man tied to his props with head hanging down. On the borders of the marsh the Dervishes stood grinning, promising themselves a treat presently.
In less than an hour the bamboos were touching the skin, the tender tip pressing in with a gentle, gentle tickling. The Abyssinians who had not stirred till then, now raised their heads and a look of anguish convulsed their features. Now the bamboo pushed its way in, producing a sensation at first almost pleasurable, like a gentle caress, but growing rougher and rougher, more and more unbearable. By this time every prisoners sat up straight, his head thrown stiffly back. Eyes dilated and flashing, nostrils quivering, they appreciated all the voluptuous agony of the atrocious torture. Meantime the Dervishes were laughing and exchanging obscene pleasantries amongst themselves; but their delight reached its height when they saw Aisha, the gigantic negress, preparing for action. Turning up the sleeves of her djibbeh and displaying her enormous arms, she walked into the marsh, stepping high with her sturdy legs, as she splashed through the mire. She went systematically along the line, inflicting on each victim in succession a short, rough and mortal caresses Clenching their teeth, the Abyssinians died without a cry. A shudder trembled along the body, the head fell back upon the shoulder, and all was over.
Eventually the Dervishes had to be satisfied with the booty already in their possession, which was considerable. All the precious stuffs, the coined money, the Maria Theresa dollars, and the like, were brought in to Abu-Anga for him to make the final division. A fifth was reserved for the Beit-el-Maal, the Kalifs treasury, the rest distributed among the different battalions, each man receiving his share, according to his rank, valour and exploits. This arranged, the troops enjoyed a well earned rest.
Grace had now an opportunity of seeing Abu-Anga; but he recieved her with indifference, reserving his caresses for the little Abyssinian girls he had selected to reinforce his harem. Indeed there was no lack of women; after a large number of the prettiest had been set aside for the Khalif, enough were still left both to supply every soldier and to fill to overflowing the slave-market at Omdurman.
Meantime at that place great anxiety prevailed. Even Abdullahi could not conceal his uneasiness, knowing as he did how brave the Abyssinians were and what powerful forces they had at their disposal. Had Abu-Anga met with the same fate as Yunis? Had his troops been cut to pieces? Since the month he had crossed the Nile, not a word of news! And the Dervishes recalled a prophecy of the late Malidi, that it would be well for them to refrain from attacking the Abyssinians, unless first challenged by them. The Khalif spent the day at the Mosque in prayer. His anxiety was making an old man of him; though barely forty-nine, his beard was grown quite white.
Abu-Anga had his suspicions of these alarms. So the roads being open, he dispatched messengers bearing presents for the Khalif-two of the prettiest of the Abyssinian girls, adorable little creatures of twelve, with delicate features and finely moulded shapes, and a dozen heads of vanquished enemies, amongst them that of the Bishop of Gondar, to further increase the pile of heads in the pit of the Beit-el-Maal. The enthusiasm was prodigious, and indeed such news, a victory followed by a whole series of triumphs, the capture and pillage of Gondar, the destruction of the time-honoured Cathedral, the symbol of Christianity in Africa, the blow struck at the very heart of the Abyssinian power, all this was surely enough to account for the frantic joy of the Dervish populace.
Presently, when his troops were rested, Abu-Anga took the road on his way back to Omdurman. His army drove before it the vast horde of slaves, men, woman and children, chained together in a long line, and urged forward with great whips whose long lashes curled round a whole group at once. When any fell out from weariness and exhaustion, the kourbash would often succeed in giving them a short lease of fresh life, and they would get to their feet again and struggle on a while longer. If on the other hand they remained insensible to the blows, and still lay stretched on the sand, sullen and motionless, the Dervishes would cut off their ears, to carry them to Omdurman as a proof of death. When the army arrived at that place, there was a full camel's load of these, amongst which the ears of the Ras Adal's wife and those of the Princess his daughter, both having died between Galabat and Abu-Haraz, where the desert was strewn thick with corpses.
The guns of Omdurman thundered a welcome, and the people went out in their thousands to meet the conquering hero. Abdullahi paid Abu-Anga the greatest honours, and criers went abroad through all the city, proclaiming in street and market-place, that henceforth, such was the Khalif's good pleasure, Abu-Anga was to be surnamed "Sidi Hamdan," that is to say The Lord of Victory.
CHAPTER XIII
New Love
Grace was filled with chagrin, wounded to the quick in her self-respect. All through this Abyssinian campaign she had been dragged along in the wake of the troops, amongst the baggage, and had hardly ever set eyes on Abu-Anga. Once or twice he had come to see her, and they had exchanged a few words. On these occasions he had spoken to her gently, his eternal smile on his lips, and then away again to his fighting,-and his debauchery. She was profoundly vexed, and she began to feel certain pangs of jealousy. All the old ideas she owed to her English education came back to her clearly,-mutual honor and the rights of woman in matters of love. Fain would she have recovered her hold over Abu-Anga, and have had him all her own, as in the old days of his infatuation, when she held him panting with agitation under her gaze, and he would lie at her feet frantically appealing to her pity, while she forced him to have other women as her caprice dictated. But those times were over, departed forever under the lashes of the Eunuch's kourbash. The Malidi's astute intervention had reversed the parts, and her eyes had lost their power over Abu-Anga. Besides, ever since the first time she had quivered in his embrace, she had found himself incapable of throwing any severity into her looks. The moment she tried, she felt timid and hesitating; her eyelids fluttered, and it was she who turned her eyes away, no longer able to meet the other's gaze.
The girl's emotion attracted small attention from Abu-Anga, who had little leisure to think about such trifles! For the present he was taking his fill of the pleasures afforded him by his Abyssinian captives. A fifth part of all the plunder; the "Khums," as it was called, belonged to the Khalif, and Abdullahi had appropriated one female to every five. The prettiest were kept for his harem, the remainder going to increase the stock in the Beit-el-Maal, whence he would draw them when he thought good to make presents, or when in order to raise money he supplied the slave-market. Abu-Anga for his part had kept material enough for many and varied pleasures; his Emirs-likewise had each received a good share, and still women were left over for every man of the host that had taken part in the capture of Gondar. Even then there were a good few remaining, whom the soldiers put up for auction, and as they were nearly all good-looking, they sold well. In this way the men got money with which to support the concubines they had one and all supplied themselves with.
But apart from pleasure altogether, Abu-Anga had many serious matters to occupy his attention. Every day he visited the miniature Palace the Khalif had built himself near the bank of the Nile. After entering the outer door, which was decorated with hippopotamus heads he would be met by a little slave lad and ushered into the Khalif's presence. Then ensued endless confabulations, at the end of which Abdullahi's face looked as gay and smiling as it had been overclouded before. Soon a fresh piece of success yet further confirmed his good humor; the Abyssinian populations on the frontier, who were Makadas, Christians, now embraced Islamism and declared themselves subjects of the Khalif. Moreover Todros Kasa, the son of the Emperor Theodore, who had been killed by the English at the battle of Magdala, arrived at Omdurman, hoping with Abu-Anga's help to reconquer the throne of his fathers.
However before thinking of the conquest of Abyssinia, there was rebellion nearer home to be suppressed. The Khalif favored his own tribe, the Bagaras, breeders of stocks, unduly, and had induced them to settle en masse at Omdurman. They affected to despise all the world but themselves, and the other tribes had been so deeply hurt, their sheiks had fled from Omdurman to go and raise their men in revolt against the authority of Abdullahi. This was the case with the Kababish. Between Dongola and the country of Kordofan extends the open desert, with oasis scattered here and there. Here was the home of the Kababish, a tribe rich in sheep and camels. The men were one and all cameldrivers, and used to travel with their beasts transporting merchandise between the two districts. When first the Malidi had seized El-Obayd, Saleh Bey, Sheik of the Kababish, had gone thither to make submission, afterwards returning to the desert and his oasis. But finding he could realize a good thing, he had gladly enough given aid to the Egyptians, carrying the baggage attached to their expeditions on the backs of his camels. These rebels the Khalif had long had it in mind to punish.
Saleh Bey, learning from his spies that he was going to be attacked, dispatched fifty slaves on a mission to Wadi-Halfa, the frontier town of Egypt and the terminus of the railway the Khedive had hoped to push forward as far as Khartoum. The Egyptians provided the little band with a supply of arms and money. Moreover a German trader, a man of a bold and adventurous disposition, Charles Neu-feld by name, chanced at that moment to be at Wadi-Hal-fa, waiting to see how things would turn out, and volunteered to join the expedition. His idea was to get into relations with the Arab Sheiks of the Kordofan Country, and buy up their stocks of gum arabic and ostrich feathers. He had been assured that with Saleh Bey's help, he could easily get the merchandise removed. Nejumi, one of the principal of the Khalifs Emirs was then at Dongola, and his emissaries warned him of Saleh Bey's proceedings. He started without a moment's delay, and pitched his camp by the fountains of Selima. Men were detached to draw water, and had just filled their water-skins at the fountains, when a volley of musketry opened upon them, while like a thunderbolt the soldiers of Nejumi fell upon the remainder of the Kababish, who were waiting on the track for the return of their comrades.
At the first shot Neufeld had seized his rifle, and posting himself on a hillock of sand, awaited the attack, resolved to sell his life dearly. But the Dervishes left him where he was, and contented themselves with killing all the Kababish. They were delighted to discover the money and the two hundred Remingtons supplied by the Egyptians, and only when they had secured these, did they turn their attention to Neufeld. They offered him his life, on which he surrendered and was sent to Omdurman. What explained the Khalif's good humor was that simultaneously with Neufeld's arrival, he received the further news that his troops had defeated and slain Saleh,-as well as that the soldiers of Nejumi had not only captured the arms and ammunition sent by the Egyptians but had also taken prisoner an English officer, for such they supposed Neufeld to be. The Khalif saw no reason to conceal the good news, and had the information published abroad. Soon all the city was in an uproar, retailing and commenting upon the facts. The tidings even penetrated to the harems and set the women talking; so that Grace, whose curiosity was excited, took care to be by the wayside when the prisoner made his entry.
He arrived, perched on a camel, and surrounded by a howling mob. His head was superb, with its gentle look and melancholy Christ-like features. Hair and beard were a sunny blonde,-exactly the same shade as Grace's. The crowd shouted and gesticulated all about him, some jeering, some shaking their fists at him and screaming insulting remarks; but the prisoner passed on, perched high above their heads, sitting straight in the saddle with dreamy eyes that seemed to see nothing. As he went by, Grace, at the risk of getting herself beaten, lifted her feridjeh. Their eyes met, and the man trembled and grew pale, while a flame, a sudden flash of passion, lighted up his gaze. Grace, blushing hotly and drooping her head slightly, was adorable as she stood there in a singularly charming attitude, her arm bent and one hand holding back her veil. But already a virago in the crowd, the wife of a mukku-dum, was shouting at her; so she let her feridjeh fall back in place again and disappeared in the press.
Neufeld was confined in the "rekuba," the barracks of the Muzalemin, on the great Square of the Palace. Here he spent the night in the courtyard, behind the fence of brambles, fettered and watched by a guard. Next morning he was taken before the Khalif, whom he found seated on a sheepskin thrown over an angareb. His elbow rested on a piece of muslin rolled up to form a pillow, while above his head was a canopy of palm mats. The Emirs were still standing, with eyes dropped and hands crossed on the breast, awaiting his permission to be seated. This was presently accorded and they took their places on mats spread on the floor. Then the interrogatory began. Neufeld could speak Arab perfectly, and had an answer always ready; but he was too garrulous, and above all too outspoken, though the letters found among his baggage confirmed all he said. In spite of all evidence to the contrary Abdullahi believed him to be a spy sent by the English. The Emirs voted for death. Siatin, the Austrian Officer, member of the Khalif's bodyguard, did all her could to save him, pleading his cause with much diplomacy, without displaying too great eagerness.
Neufeld was led under the gallows, in the market square, and told to get on to an angareb. At this moment he caught sight of Grace amid the throng that pressed round the scaffold. She had not withdrawn her feridjeh, but in spite of the veil he knew her face. Great tears were dropping from her eyes, and trickling down behind the muslin. With a smile he offered his neck to the running noose the executioner had just tied. But still the angareb remained in place. A quarter of an hour passed, the crowd standing in speechless wonder, unable to understand what was toward. At last a herald appeared to proclaim that the Khalif granted a pardon, commuting the punishment of death into imprisonment. So Neufeld was handed back to Saier, the gaoler, a huge negro from the Kordofan country, a brutal fellow possessed of only one idea: how to make prisoners' lives as hard as possible. Formerly the gaol had been nothing more than a vast zariba, an enclosure of brambles and thorny shrubs, but Saier had had a wall built, both high and thick. In this work his workmen were his boarders, the prisoners, their pay being the lash. Finding building to his taste, he had-likewise had a strange sort of house erected, a very low, but long and spacious construction. For building materials he had found plenty of the debris of mud walls, straw and broken stones. There was only one storey, and a man of medium height, standing upright touched the roof with his head. This house was denominated "Abu-Haggar," that is The house of stone. In it neither bed nor mattress of any kind; these were forbidden by Saier, though by special favor allowed some of the prisoners to sleep on mats. The place was never swept out, and vermin swarmed. Flies attracted by the sour-smelling exhalations of so many human bodies fouled the food and drowned themselves by hundreds in the water jugs, while centipedes crawled everywhere and scorpions, with tail aloft ready to sting, roamed about among the sleepers. All the prisoners wore the "makia," the chain, though its length and weight varied according to the severity of the punishment to be inflicted. There were some that coiled several times round the body and weighed thirty pounds. They were riveted to the ankles, and sometimes attached to the wrists as well. Some men were in receipt from the Beit-el-Maal of scanty rations or even a few small coins, but the great majority had to provide for their own subsistence. It was well for such as had a wife or friends in the city; at fixed hours anyone who wished could enter the prison, and relations would bring in meals all ready cooked. But many had nothing to hope from anybody, and lived on scanty mouthfuls given them now and again by their companions.
They spent their day wandering up and down with staggering, uncertain tread, the feverish eye ceaselessly on the look out, the cheek-bones prominent and the whole body emaciated to the last degree,-poking into every corner, turning over every heap of refuse, devouring putrid scraps of indescribably filthy offal! At last one day they would sink down in some corner, their back against the wall, at first talking wildly, loudly describing copious feasts, good things they had eaten in former days, naming the dishes one by one and repeating recipes for cooking them. Presently under the blazing sun they would huddled lower and lower, the head falling forward on the bent knees, dropping little by little into a dull motionless condition of torpor. If the gaoler passed that way on his rounds, he would give them a shove with his foot that sent diem tumbling over sideways, the body still preserving in the stiffness of death the same contracted attitude. They were buried in a winding-sheet the Beit-el-Maal was always ready to provide, and carried to the cemetery which was close to the prison, where they were buried under a think layer of sand so carelessly spread that at the faintest breath of wind a foot or a hand would protrude above the surface. Then came the hyenas and worried the corpse, tearing away scraps to devour at their leisure, and finally the ants, which cleared off the smallest atom of flesh left and polished the bones.
Grace was in despair, not knowing how to help Neufeld. She still had the same freedom of coming and going, but Saier would never have allowed her to enter the prison enclosure. But unless the Beit-el-Maal supplied Neufeld with food, the Khalif's clemency was a mere snare; the unhappy man was condemned to a more dreadful death than ever, death by slow starvation. The girl shuddered at the thought that perhaps this was the tyrants' intention; for he had forbidded Slatin to hold any communication with Neufeld. She invented a long story, which she related to Abu-Anga-about a brother she had in England, but whom she had never mentioned, though professing to have told her lover all about her earlier life. When she saw Neufeld on his camel, he had seemed to recognize her and in spite of all that had been stated since, she still doubted it might be her brother, who naturally was afraid to avow himself an Englishman. Abu-Anga was profoundly interested and listened without making a single interruption. The tale ended, he spoke of informing the Khalif, but Grace Josing her head in her terror begged and prayed him to wait. He agreed to do so, but insisted on going with her to the prison.
There they found Neufeld, half naked and his arms and shoulders furrowed with blue weals. Every evening, as soon as the sun had disappeared below the horizon, Saier, lantern in one hand and kourbash in the other, made his rounds, chasing his prisoners into the stone hovel. There were no windows and the only door was kept shut, and very soon under the low roof the air grew foul and thick to suffocating. For want of sufficient room the prisoners were squeezed together, almost piled atop of each other. Oaths and wrangling soon ended in blows, and a pitched battle would ensue, a dreadful hand-to-hand struggle, in which men fought and bit and used their heavy chains to strike one another to the earth. Neufeld had passed one night in this inferno. Next morning he remonstrated with Saier, saying he would rather sleep in the open air, on which the gaoler ordered his men to give him a hundred lashes. They pulled down his djibbeh,-the Dervishes's frock in which he was dressed up,-and baring his body to the waist, began the flagellation. In measured time, as butchers hack meat, two soldiers lashed shoulders, back and loins. Neufeld stood firm and upright and never uttered a cry, till even his tormentors, astonished at his unflinching endurance, asked him:
"Why! how is it you do not cry out under the whip?"
" Tis not worth the while," was the answer. "You may kill me, but you will not make me cry out ... "
One of the fellows went on whipping, but with weakened blows; the other, throwing down his kourbash, declared he had been at work all day long, and had no feeling left in his arms. Even Saier appeared surprised; and went off without saying a word, leaving Neufeld in the open, as he wished.
The prisoner smiled tenderly, when he noticed Grace approaching. She handed him a basket of food, but turned pale when she perceived Aisha, the negress, who brandishing a naked sword and halting before Neufeld exclaimed:
"Allahu Akbar alal Kufar,-The hand of God be heavy on the miscreant!"
Grace said hurriedly in English:
"Be careful! This man beside me is my husband,-or rather my master. I have told him I think I recognize you for my brother. But it would be dangerous for you to pass as an Englishman. What can I do for you?"
"Everything, if only I may see you again! Nothing, if you do not return!"
"Talk sense! ... Perhaps we might contrive your escape."
"I will never go without you ... Just think!. . . I entered the town a captive, perched aloft on a ridiculous camel, exposed to the mockery and insults of the mob. I beheld only a confused huddle of bodies and grinning heads, when suddenly I caught sight of you ... You drew aside your veil and bestowed the benison of your smile on me. Ah! ... that smile! How it went to my heart ... All I saw now was you ... The celestial vision of your beauty ... I care for nothing now; I assure, you with the thought of you in my heart, the knowledge I am near you, the hope of seeing you once more, I defy them to make me miserable!"
Delightedly she listened to those words of romantic tenderness, so much moved that nervous shaking of her head disturbed the folds of her veil. At last she was able to articulate:
"Tell me, tell me, I beseech you ... What must be done?"
"See Slatin."
But Abu-Anga now drew nearer, asking Grace:
"What is he saying about Slatin? He is speaking of
Abd-el-Kadei, the Khalif's muzalemin; he was formerly called Slatin,-before he embraced the true Faith . . .
Well! is the man your brother?"
By means of a strong effort she steadied her voice:
"No! And he confirms all he said to Slatin before the
Khalif. He is a German, a merchant, and came to the
Sudan to trade."
"Well and good! In that case we have nothing more to do here."
But he stopped for a moment in front of a tall, corpulent prisoner, who had lost his right hand and left foot. This was Zogheir, the most famous thief in all the Sudan. Abu-Anga a connoisseur in courage admired the man's intrepidity, of which astounding tales were told. So many times had he escaped he was believed to be untakable. Nevertheless on one occasion he was brought before the judge, the "Sheik es suk." But the magistrate in question was in want of money,-as he always was!and Zoghier offered him fifty dollars for his liberty. Unfortunately he had not the money with him; but asked for an hour to get it. Off he marches to the Market, where he observes a "dammur," a draper, who had just sold his supply of cloth and was weighing the purse containing the proceeds in his hand. It was the work of a moment for Zogheir to get hold of this, and going back to the Judge, he gave him the purse just as it was,-sixty-six dollars instead of the stipulated fifty, but begging him at the same time to send him to prison for a day. So the Judge had him conveyed there, Zogheir further demanding to be put in chains. Presently arrived the merchant to lodge complaint, accusing Zoghier of the robbery, whom all the town knew to be a thief. The Judge declared it was a false accusation, and ordered him to be taken to the gaol, where he beheld Zogheir safely chained and in no condition to do anybody any harm.
One day in the Market he noticed some Arabs who had just disposed of a quantity of "dourrha," or grain, and were counting the money they had been paid, seven hundred dollars, before popping it in their bag. Zogheir went up and addressed them civilly, asking them if they had any more grain at home, as he was a purchaser. While talking to them, he sent off an accomplice to get some dates, which he no sooner had in his hands than he began to throw them about right and left, shouting, "Karama! Karama!"-An alms an alms The markets of Omdurman always swarmed with poor wretches on the lookout for something to eat, and the starving creatures dashed for the fruit. In the confusion that followed, Zogheir had little difficulty in securing the bag with the dollars, and passing it on to an accomplice; and when the Arabs perceived their loss and raised a cry of lamentation, he was the first to sympathize with them and pretend to hunt everywhere for the missing article.
But complaints grew more and more frequent; and though no one could positively prove he had ever committed a single theft, Zogheir was condemned to have the right foot and left leg cut off. He underwent the punishment without a groan, and as he would never submit to the humiliation of carrying a crutch, he now came forward hy means of series of hops. Abu-Anga passed some jests with the man, and finally took his departure.
Grace followed him in silence, her thoughts in such wild confusion she could not make sure of any single one; she only knew her heart was bursting with bitter grief and blissful happiness at one and the same time. She was under the dominion of a new and resistless attraction, replete with an exquisite tenderness and charm, and still further heightened by a feeling of hatred,-hatred for the vile, brutal negro at her side, her master! She spoke to him, and he answered as if he had scarcely heard her; and this indifference still further increased her aversion,-to which was added a bitter sense of lost opportunity. For why might she not have tried to escape with Neufeld? She could have put on a djibbeh, a Dervishes' frock, such as every man in the Sudan wore, and by draping her "farda" or cloak, in such a way as to hide her face she could easily have deceived those they met as to her sex. For the actual flight, horse or camel, all was one to her. She stretched her muscles, and found them far from being altogether flabby after her four years of harem life. They still kept the elasticity and powers of endurance imparted to them by her English training in athletics. They might have made their way out of the city along with Slatin, and by little frequented roads eventually reached Egypt. Once there, they were safe ... Then she would take Neufeld with her to England. Her people could hardly refuse their consent to her marriage ... With her saviour! For she reversed the roles; indeed had he not already saved her from the moral degradation into which she had fallen? She felt a renewal of her self-respect, a return of proper personal dignity; and the more this was so, the more she experienced a poignant, bitter loathing of all the brutal animality around her.
Then she pondered who to see Neufeld again, what pretext too she could invent to secure another visit to the prison. The best thing seemed to be to communicate first with Slatin and find out whether he had discovered any chances of escape, and if they might take advantage of them with him.
Abu-Anga now left her, saluting her with his good-humored smile, a flame of concupiscence flashing in his dark eyes. Grace felt her heart sink within her ... No! no! anything but that now! But all the same the Eunuch came to the women's sleeping room for her, and carried her to the chambei where Abu-Anga was waiting for her. She gave herself to him with a feeling of disgust, although she could not help quivering amorously in the actual embrace. But the horrible sour savor of his kisses twisted her mouth with loathing, and the smell of negro, the odious, greasy stench, turned her stomach.
Next morning Abu-Anga started for Galabat, the frontier town, the Khalif having entrusted him with a confidential mission.
CHAPTER XIV
Torture and Intrigue
At Galabat the Emir Yunis held command in the name of the Khalif. He was a very vain man, inordinately proud of his own person, and terribly envious of others in the bargain. He had begun hostilities against the Abyssinians and had got himself ignominiously beaten. The superior success of Abu-Anga wounded him like a deliberate insult. Pretending not to know that Abdullahi had long since given him his freedom, he always spoke of him as "the slave," and never missed an opportunity of making him feel his own higher rank. Abu-Anga who scorned all such pettiness, only redoubled his politeness, and set himself resolutely to the task of carrying out his instructions.
His enquiry had hardly begun before he was convinced the spies had not been misleading the Khalif. A conspiracy was undoubtedly maturing in Galabat. An Arab, one Takruri, was giving himself out as the "Sayidna laa," that is, The Lord Jesus. He declared an avatar had taken place, and that in his body was incarnated the soul of Jesus. He was the Messiah, he said, the Saviour announced by the Malidi, and he was come to snatch the dominion from the hands of the Khalif and to punish all unbelievers. He had the gift of the gab highly developed, and made folk listen to him. Some of the Emirs even, who are discontented with Yunis and angered at his insolence and rapacity, became apostles of the impostor, hoping by this means to bring together a band of partisans. Of all this Yunis knew nothing and suspected nothing.
Abu-Anga waited patiently, watching for the most favorable moment to take action. He began by conciliating popularity, winning all hearts by his openhandedness. Above all his spirit of justice delighted everybody; and as it so happened, he found an occasion on this visit to Galabat to give a proof of it. He had forbidden his soldiers to pillage the inhabitants. One day he was at table when his slave came to inform him that a woman of the people sought earnestly to speak to him. The woman was introduced trembling all over, and told her tale. All the fortune she possessed, she declared, was a measure of milk; but a soldier of Abu-Anga's escort had broken into her hut, had laid hold of her milk pail, and after drinking some, had in pure mischief thrown the rest on the floor.
"Should you be able to recognize the thief?" asked Abu-Anga.
"Of a surety!" answered the old woman, "among a thousand! Never shall I forget his dog's face."
Instantly Abu-Anga orders his war drum to be beaten to call the troops together. Then, the old woman by his side, he goes along the front, till she stopped short.
"Are you sure it is the man?"
"I would swear to him on the Koran."
"What have you to say to that?" asked Abu-Anga of the soldier.
"I never saw the woman before! As for her milk, I have not drunk milk for more than a week."
"You hear what he says? My good woman, you have made a mistake."
"He is a bold and accomplished liar ... that is all!"
"Hum! very well! . ... So you persist in saying he is tne man who drank your milk? When was it?"
"Less than an hour ago."
"As you are so positive, I will order his belly to oe opened. If we then find milk in his stomach, you shall be indemnified; if not, I will deliver you up to his comrades, you content to have it so?"
"I know what I say; if I have lied, there is no torment I do not deserve."
The soldier having been duly bound, a butcher was sent for, who cut open the man's belly. Then he plunged his hand into the wound, groped among the inwards and tore out the stomach. He slit it open, and the milk ran out. The woman had looked on without displaying any emotion, but directly she saw the stomach disgorge her stolen property, she cried out;
"Ah! my poor milk; I never thought I should see you again. But what good is it now?"
"The man has robbed you of all you had; all he leaves behind him belongs to you. Go, you are is heiress."
The soldier had made the Abyssinian campaign, and his share of plunder, both in money and slaves, was almost intact, so that the old woman inherited quite a little fortune.
Everybody praised Abu-Anga's wisdom. The Emirs respected him for his gallantry and lordly manners, while they loved him for his generosity. The result actually was that one of the conspirators was filled with repentance and came to warn him to be on his guard, as it had been determined to assassinate him that very evening, along with Yunis. It was a Friday, the holy day, and as they left the Mosque after prayers, sixteen Emirs were arrested. Yunis was for interfering; but when Abu-Anga had shown him the plenary powers he held from the Khalif, he had nothing to do but submit.
"Tell me, at any rate, why you have my Emirs arrested?"
"To hinder them from killing you."
And unsealing his eyes, he made him acquainted with the whole plot.
For Yunis, it was only another reason the more for hating Abu-Anga, his paltry character holding no place in it for gratitude. Nor was it long before he found a pretext to account for his resentment. Directly the Emirs were arrested, Abu-Anga had dispatched an estafet to Omdurman, to ask the Khalif's orders. Abdullahi assembled his council, and the vote of the majority was for death. Three days had already elapsed since the departure of the courier charged to deliver this sentence when the Khalif changed his mind and dispatched a second messenger bearing orders to keep the rebellious Emirs in chains and only execute the impostor Takruri, the man who had posed as Jesus. This second courier was unable to overtake the first; when he rode into Galabat on his exhausted camel, seventeen corpses hung suspended from the gibbet. Thus Yunis could reproach Abu-Anga for undue precipitation. The latter's patience however had its limits, and fearing he might give way to some sudden burst of anger, he informed the Khalif of his difficulties with Yunis, and the Governor was summoned to Omdurman in disgrace. He started with a heart full of rage and disappointment, though he was leaving behind him at Galabat a number of friends who swore to espouse his cause.
Arrived at Omdurman, where he had everything to fear, he found the Khalif disposed to clemency. He had just received a letter from King John of Abyssinia,-an imposing document written on parchment in the Amharic language and bearing enormous seals. The King sent greetings to the Khalif and proposed a treaty of peace with him. He argued that the Sudanese and Abyssinians had one and the same origin, both being descended from Ham. Besides which, it seemed the more reasonable course to unite the forces of the two peoples against the common enemy-the European.
The Khalif bursting with pride, could hardly contain his joy. He made answer to King John that if he and all his subjects would abjure Christianity and become good Mussulmans, he, the Khalif would consider him as friend and ally. But that if he intended to continue obstinately in his errors, continuing to be the enemy of God and His holy prophet, Abyssinia should be put to fire and sword.
As if on purpose to tickle his vanity yet further, the
Khalif was gratified by yet another flattering incident in the course of the same day. An Egyptian camel-driver, who had been brought before his throne, was questioned as to affairs in Egypt, and the wily Arab answered:
"All good Mussulmans hate and loathe the Turk that oppresses them. They rejoice at your triumphs, and are waiting impatiently for the moment it shall please you to send your troops into Egypt, when they will instantly join your soldiers. The very Christians are forced to recognize your merit; at Wadi-Halfa I talked with one of their monks, who asked me: 'Is it to Omdurman you are rebound? Doubtless you will see the Khalif Abdullahi there?'-I told him, 'yes!'-'Is he not a tall, strong man, his beard all white though he is but forty-nine, limping a little and seamed with smallpox?'-'You have drawn his portrait to a line!"-Go, tell him, I have it in a book that soon he shall conquer Egypt, and then Arabia, after which he shall set up the seat of his Empire at Damascus. A greater glory still is reserved for his descendants?"
This story met with high appreciation, and the artful camel-man received a present, an Abyssinian slave-woman and a bag of dollars being handed over to him by the Beit-el-Maal. As a matter-of-fact he had been sent to Omdurman by Slatin's friends to help him to escape. His camels were not beasts of burden at all, but fine-limbed racers.
Meantime Grace was in despair. Neither could she communicate with Slatin nor see Neufeld again, while to add to her difficulties, she found she was being watched. Go where she would, she found Aisha, the tall negress, in her path. Whenever she went near the prison or loiteied round the barracks of the Muzalemin, suddenly Aisha would appear, but always without seeming to see her.
Nevertheless she had discovered an intermediary to open communication with Neufeld. This was Father Ohr-walder, the Austrian missionary, who had been a prisoner since the capture of El-Obayd, and was living at Omdurman on his scanty earnings as a weaver. She would slip into his hand a few pieces of money, which by Abu-Anga's orders the Eunuch never let her be without, and the good Father would convey these to Neufeld to enable him to supply himself with food. When at length Grace succeeded in exchanging a few words with Slatin, she learned how a camel-driver had arrived from Egypt to help him to escape, how at first he had managed to win the Khalif's confidence, but afterwards on a mere suspicion, had been thrown into prison, loaded with fetters, and the gaoler strictly enjoined to allow him no communication whatever with anyone, the result being that, left without money or any possible assistance, the poor man had died of hunger. For Slatin it was another bitter disappointment, another instance of hope deferred,-deferred for many a long day,-making the heart sick. Grace also felt it keenly. Her longing to return to England and marry Neufeld had become a fixed idea with her. A passionate, but in this case pure and chaste love had sprung into existence and now filled all her heart. Now she lived in continual terror, unable to say from what quarter precisely the danger was to be expected.
More than ever a system of spying and counter-spying was in vogue at Omdurman. The city had been embellished and adorned with many fine buildings, but it was even richer in gibbets. These were everywhere, in the marketplaces, in front of the prison, along the Nile, in the trading quarters. No matter how many were erected, they were never enough. The same gallows often carried as many as a score of corpses. There they were left exposed, the limbs still twisted and contracted as the death struggle had left them, the wind knocking them one against another. Simultaneously beheading was in full swing, being an even more popular and convenient mode of execution, inasmuch as it took up less room. The victim was made to kneel down; then the executioner, grasping his sword in both hands and whirling it round his head, brought it down on the extended neck, very seldom missing his stroke, the head generally falling at the first blow. The trunk sank together in a huddled mass, and was pushed into the Nile, where the crocodiles had it before it could touch the bottom. As for the head, this went to swell the pile of skulls that lay whitening in the Bei-el-Maal,-the skulls of all the rebels, all the enemies of Malidism.
The populace delighted in these numerous executions, and came in crowds to look on. To vary the pleasure, there was also the operation of cutting off hands and feet to be viewed very frequently. Right hand and left foot was the regular thing. It was always done in the market-place, and a butcher acted as executioner. He knew exactly where to hit the joint, and with the big knife he used for cutting the animals' throats in accordance with the Moslem rite, he went about the work without the smallest hesitation. At the same time some pity was shown, and the presence of friends and relations was allowed close to the sufferer. These could make their preparations without any interference,-bands of linen for bandages and a brazier over which a kettle of oil was simmering. The patient was held by soldiers, while the butcher rapidly sliced off the hand extended to him, and then the foot, passing on at once to another victim. Then the man's friends would bandage the stumps, after plunging them in boiling oil to stop the bleeding and prevent gangrene. Perfect silence almost always prevailed; executioner, soldiers, friends and kinsmen all were dumb, including the condemned man himself. Not a cry, nothing more than a convulsion of the features, when he felt the cold steel, and a change of the color of the skin from soot to a cindery gray. Sitting on the ground with head thrust out, he would watch the blood flowing with a dull, stupid stare, rolling his great eyes and gazing now at one stump, now at the other. Only when the boiling oil made the flesh shrivel up, did drops of agony start out on his forehead. If he screamed, the crowd would burst out laughing, jeering at him for being so poor-spirited.
As to flogging, it was so liberally administered that enough men could not be found to carry out the sentences. Every man of the Ansar now had his regular turn at it, and there were days when whole battalions were at work together. A hundred lashes was a minimum punishment which argued well of the Judge's clemency. Sometimes the total named was a thousand. This meant death, for no man could bear so many and survive. When five hundred had been applied, there was no skin left; the body seemed to be completely flayed, and blood was flowing in streams. Before long the belly would be laid open, letting the entrails tumble out in a mass.
There came a time when, in spite of the enormous number of gibbets, hangings had to be temporarily suspended for want of accommodation. Such was the case with the Batahin,-a tribe of robber Arabs established in the open country near Omdurman on the banks of the Blue Nile. They had refused to pay the "ushr," the tax of one tenth. When the collectors had presented themselves in the Khalif's name, the Batahin had laughed at them and driven them off with showers of stones. But soon the tax-collectors returned with a body of soldiers, and the tribesmen were carried in chains to Omdurman. For two days they were kept waiting to receive their doom, while new gibbets were being erected, all duly provided with new ropes of camel's hair. Sixty-nine were hanged in one batch, the remainder dying under the lash or perishing of hunger within Saier's prison walls. In the gray of dawn the war drums sounded and the ombeya was blown; then the sixty-nine Arabs who were to be executed marched out to the gallows. Eighteen angarebs below the beam were ranged in a row, on which they made the condemned men stand. Bringi, the executioner, a huge Dinka negro, arranged the slip knot, the patient making no sort of protest, at most muttering between his teeth, "El mektub,"-It teas written! Then Bringi shoved away the angareb with his foot, and went on to the next. In less than five minutes the eighteen bodies were dancing at the end of the ropes, the pressure of which on the cerebellum reacted on the nerves of the virile member. Still warm, the dead bodies were cut down to make way for the other Batahin, who stood by awaiting their turn in silence.
All this delighted the mob; but there came a time when they were less well pleased. This was on the occasion of the execution of Ouad-Adlan by the Khalifs orders. He had been the superintendent of the Beit-el-Maal, an honest man of marked intelligence and ability. He had considerably increased the Khalifs revenues by establishing a monopoly of the traffic in ivory and gum arabic, the Beit-el-Maal buying up the latter at five dollars the hundredweight and re-selling at twenty. So great was his credit that if ever the Beitel-Maal ran short of cash, he had only to apply to the traders of the city, and they would at once club together and lend whatever sum he required. This popularity was displeasing to the Khalif, and even more so to his brother Yokub, who gave clear tokens of hostility. First came a series of humiliations and reprimands, till finally things came to a head in connection with the famine that was raging at Dongola. The Khalif blamed Ouad-Adlan for procrastination in sending dourrha to the starving population. The Superintendent took the rebuke with a very bad grace, and was eventually arrested and taken to the gaol, where Saier had him duly fettered, and so placed that no one could enter into communication with him. On the third day of his imprisonment a messenger arrived to say the Khalif offered him the choice of two alternatives,-to be hanged, or else to lose his right hand and left foot. Ouad-Adlan chose death: and amid the rolling of drums and the deep note of the ombeya he was led to the place of execution. A squadron of Bagara cavalry formed a square enclosing the scaffold, which the condemned man mounted with a firm step. In a loud voice, so clearly articulated he could be heard at the furthest corner of the Great Square, he recited the "Shaha-da," the Moslem creed, and leapt with one bound on to the angareb, which Bringi instantly pushed from under him. The body swung to and fron in space, while the Bagaras drew their swords and waved them above their heads, threatening the like doom to all other malefactors. But the people maintained a silent and sullen attitude. The body had been exposed only half an hour when it was removed by Yokub, the Khalif's brother. He had it shrouded and borne to the cemetery, following the funeral procession himself with looks of contrition. The same night came robbers, who dug up the corpse for the sake of the clothes; and after them the hyenas, who tore the body into fragments.
A reign of terror prevailed at Omdurman. There was no mistaking the Khalif's game,-which was to rule as an irresponsible despot, counting on his faithful Bagaras to bring all the Sudan under a yoke of iron. More than ever were men afraid of spies; and each learned to bridle his tongue, and let none but trivial and indifferent words escape him.
CHAPTER XV
War and Women
Grace exhausted her imagination in vain and impracticable projects, but in spite of the activity of her brain, the time seemed interminable. The idle, indolent life of the harem had never appeared so unbearable. She had seen Slatin again; but there was nothing to be done, nothing to be attempted for the present. Other things were going badly too, especially for Grace. The comparative freedom granted to women was being restricted more and more; every day brought narrower espionage, more numerous reports to the cadis. The Khalif had given express orders on the point.
The fact is women had ended by securing too high a degree of importance. When the husband was rotting in prison, it was the wife who worked for the meal she brought him. The majority worked at a trade or kept a shop. True the husband contributed the big sums, came home loaded with booty after a battle; but the daily bread, the small daily profits, these the wife supplied. Thus they had come by degrees to rid themselves of all restraint. When the husband was at the wars, the wife denied herself nothing, and found in adultery a compensation for the loss of conjugal delights. The sufferers crowded to the Cadi. The husband would put away his guilty spouse and the judge order her to be whipped,-which meant a double allowance for her, as before dragging her to the court, the husband invariably gave her a sound thrashing on his own account.
Moreover the spies who were prowling everywhere in search of a seditious conversation to report, or a tobacco smoker or drinker of marissa to hunt down, had received orders to keep an eye on the women. This task they undertook con amore, taking a pride in outwitting the cunning of the most experienced intriguers of the sex. Nor did their surveillance confine itself solely to the wives, but not unfrequently included concubines as well, all their skill not always enabling them to distinguish the two classes. The worst of it was these spies were so clever and their proceedings so adroit, it was not possible to find out who you had to deal with. Otherwise with a trifle of money it would have been easy enough to buy them off.
In the case of the Judge this was not to be thought of. In other directions the Cadi was nothing if not corruptible. Drinkers of marissa, smokers of tobacco, could enjoy their pet vices as much as ever they pleased, provided it was not in public and on condition of paying a recognized tax to the Judge, on receipt of which he became deaf to all evidence whatsoever. But where adultery was concerned, he was adamant; neither gold nor silver would induce him to acquit the unfaithful wife. After one extra conscientious day's work on the part of these gentry, more than eight hundred women were crowded in the city gaol.
The Khalif was furious on hearing the monstrous total, and ordered that an example should be made. Now a woman whose husband had been for two years on garrison duty at Berber had a lover, from whose embraces two children had been born. So she was taken from prison, and led into the Market-place. A child was put in either arm, and fastened there with cords. Then a pit was dug, and the group of three placed in it in such a way as to leave the children, and the woman from the waist upwards, above ground, the ground being trodden hard all round so that the legs were secured as if in a case or sheath. Heaps of stones were duly provided, all the bigger ones having been picked out to make amusement last the longer, and only round pebbles left no bigger than walnuts. From these heaps everybody took a supply for stoning the adultress and her little ones. Customers interrupted their buying, and shopkeepers closed their doors, all anxious to have their share of the pleasure provided. Each clever shot was greeted with shouts of laughter and delight. The children's moans and their mother's sobs were inaudible, but the faces they pulled could be seen, and this was enough to cause great merriment. The first pebble was thrown by a Dongola negro after taking long and careful aim, but his shot only grazed the woman's shoulder. The second was more fortunate and knocked one of the babies' eyes out. The mother gave a howl, and struggled wildly with her arms, striving to throw the child away from her, out of the murderous range of fire. But the knots had been drawn tight, and the three bodies were inseparable. It was not long before only a bleeding mass of mangled flesh was left. The very bones had been broken and shattered by the jagged flints.
About the same time occurred an extraordinary instance of conjugal devotion that shocked all Omdurman. One morning the daughter of a gravedigger appeared before the Cadi, accusing her father of violating graves and committing foul atrocities on women's dead bodies. The Cadi telling the girl to say nothing to anyone else, had the man watched, with the result that he was caught in the act. In the night he had left his hut, and using his spade as a weapon had driven off the cowardly hyenas. Then he proceeded to dig up a woman's body, and seated on the ground, took the dead woman on his knees, enfolding her in his arms. He kissed her greedily and pressed her to him murmuring words of love and phrases expressive of ecstasy and pleasure. Brought before the Cadi, he gave the following account of himself. He had had two wives; when he married the second, she was just sixteen, while he was getting on for fifty. He seemed as if he could never tire of describing the adorable child,-how pretty she was, how loving, how the scent of her was sweeter than the odor of sandalwood, and the least touch of her turned him mad with delight! He had loved her beyond words!
But alas! they had not been wed more than six months before he lost her. In the morning she was smiling and gay, and the same evening she lay dead in his arms. At the time he was a merchant at Khartoum,-before the Malidi's days. He thought he was going mad. But the cruelest moment of all was when he saw the earth cover the form he loved so well. What a wrench it was; his heart seemed to go with the dead girl, to be buried in the same grave with her!. . . That night a temptation that was stronger than his will assailed him ... His head said no! no! no! but his feet started of their own accord and carried him to the cemetery. He climbed the wall and disinterred the corpse. He held his beloved in his arms; he spoke to her; he began to fondle her and caress her tenderly,-and she came to life again! He was positive she did,-a brief and partial life, it is true,-but she did live, ... and gave him back his kisses,-kisses such as she alone knew how to give.
He went again and again. Finally he gave money to the gravedigger to leave the country, and obtained his situation. The Egyptian functionary he bribed was not a little surprised to see so insignificant a post sought for so eagerly, especially as he knew the man was well to do. The answer was another fistful of dollars slipped into his hand, which made it impossible to refuse. Every night was given up to orgies,-orgies of love that strain the nerves and exhaust the limbs and leave the brain empty,-empty of everything, but a sense of delirious, delicious pleasure! He used to dig up his beloved and only return her to the grave towards dawn, when the night was waning, the moment when the first shudder of coming day sets the tops of the date-palms quivering. Meantime putrefaction was at work; the flesh began to crawl with worms, and the orbits of the eyes were now empty. The cheeks hung in ribbons, and the lips half eaten away wore a fixed smile,-the smile of death; but the teeth shone so white, with nothing to hinder his smothering them with his kisses! ... To him the carrion still displayed the pretty features, the fair face of his lost love. He would bite the dead woman in his paroxysms, and his teeth would penetrate to the bone in the frenzied kiss. For a brief moment he hesitated before the advances of decay, the foul stench of putrefaction. But soon he shook off this feeling of repulsion; for underneath the fetid odor he had found again in the dead girl the soft, penetrating perfume she had breathed out when alive.
But one night, as he was pressing her to his bosom, showering frantic kisses on the poor disfigured face, the head fell off! ... This was the end, the end of all, come at last! It took him some time to find the head, which had rolled away, but eventually he laid it piously in the tomb, beside the body. He would go no more! What good now? Yet two weeks later, he was constrained to open the grave once more; the temptation was more than he could resist. He worked as if in a dream, and found ... a heap of bones! Then black melancholy overwhelmed him, and enforced continence began to torment him grievously, for no living woman could find favor; what pleasures could she have offered him comparable to the transports he had enjoyed with his dead bride?
"The wrath of God be upon you!" cried the Cadi, breaking in on his narrative. "No man can live with the dead,-but to claim of them the pleasures of life, is madness, horrible madness!"
"If love is madness, mad I am!" the gravedigger answered. "Yet it is a madness common enough! ... I dug up other women, and always in their corpses it was Fatma I saw,-Fatma, my darling, my beloved! I knew it! I was sure of it!. . . How,-by what miracle, I cannot tell; but when I fell to fondling them, little by little they would quit their torpor ,and grow alive and render me back my kisses!"
"You are mad,-thrice mad! What prodigy can bring the dead to life again?"
"What can you know of such things, Cadi? Wiser men than you confess their ignorance ... Can you tell me why pain heightens and intensifies pleasure! can you tell me that?. . . Life springs out of death, and whatsoever lives must die. All things come and go, and new vigor arises from the ruins of the old. Life and death commingle and embrace, and love makes them fruitful. 'Tis not you, wretched Cadi, that shall separate them! Think you, you can alter the work of the Almighty?"
With these words on his lips, he fell foaming at the mouth, writhing in a fit of epilepsy. The Cadi dismissed him unpunished, but forbade his going near the graveyard. The same night he was scaling its wall, when he dropped dead, shot by one of the soldiers on guard. The Khalif took the event for the text of a sermon which he preached at the Great Mosque one Friday, and in which he inveighed against adultery, and swore to punish all women guilty of such sinfulness.
What troubled Abdullahi more than anything else was the ravages committed by syphilis, which had even made inroads among his Bagaras. Under that sky of fire the disease took the most malignant forms, and especially among negroes, found a favorable soil. The quacks had nothing to oppose to it but drugs entirely incapable of arresting the progress of so terrible a malady, and Omdurman was full of persons maimed by the horrid complaint. The Khalif of course realized that everybody could not do as he did, shut up their wives in the harem and never let them leave it.
He had four hundred, of whom four were lawful wives; and of these four he was constantly changing three, repudiating whichever had ceased to please him. Sarah, his first wife, the chosen bride of his youth, the companion of his evil days, was the only one he firmly refused to put away. Even from her he had narrowly escaped divorce.
Formerly Sarah had cooked his meals; but in the days of his magnificence he had wished to taste of whatever was most exquisite, and had dishes prepared for him after Turkish and Egyptian receipts, and in all sorts of elaborate ways. One day or another, she declared, he would get himself poisoned, that was certain! and scolded him sharply, adopting the same tone she had employed when he was only a wandering Arab, a rough Bagara tribesman, a poor raiser of stock. But he was no longer disposed to put up with reproaches; and the letter of divorce was already made out, when his brother Yakub interfered. Sarah was retained, but her active service was held to be at an end. For physical pleasures he relied chiefly on his concubines, who were also four hundred in number, parked in little huts scattered about a large garden surrounded by a high wall. Soldiers were on guard duty day and night, while all domestic offices were performed by little Eunuch boys under the superintendence of the Chief Eunuch, a great, fat Copt, always ready to flourish the kourbash at the smallest provocation. This enclosure the concubines could never leave; for them the world ended at the wall, before which paced sentinels with loaded muskets.
The Khalif did not require his subjects to follow his own example; but he directed that women should be granted as little freedom as possible. Grace shared this curtailment of liberty, and one day when she wished to enter the prison, the gaoler, Saier, had turned her back. On her way home from this expedition, she noticed a great gathering of crowds in the street, people collecting in groups with an air of melancholy, shaking their heads and apparently discussing some mournful news. Many she saw opening wide, startled eyes, throwing out their arms, then drawing them in again with a rough gesture of annoyance, indulging in all the free mimicry and exuberant gestures of Orientals. Every moment the throng increased, getting more dense and compact. Now it filled the street, which re-echoed with sounds of lamentation that spread rapidly from one to another.
Grace was already congratulating herself, for in her present state of mind anything that was bad for the Dervishes was good for her, when suddenly at a street corner appeared Aisha, the tall Dinka. The negress came straight up to her, accosted her and almost without looking at her, said coldly:
"Go back to the house; they are waiting for you!"
For four years, since the day she ran away from Uncle Dick's house, this was the first time she had ever spoken to Grace.
The latter, much frightened, asked her:
"What is the matter? Who is waiting for me?"
But Aisha, drawing up her tall figure, only looked down at her contemptuously without a word. This calm, superior attitude seemed mere insolence to the European girl, and such scorn on the part of a servant touched her more nearly than all the humiliations she had hitherto undergone. Aisha still stood motionless in the same spot; her lace was calm, but her eyes flashed fire. Grace began to tremble before her gaze, and hurried off to obey. After a few steps she turned round, and saw that Aisha had vanished. She drew near a group of talkers, and listened; and it was in this way she learned the death of Abu-Anga.
He had died at Galabat, after only a day or two's illness. Some said it was typhus; others had a tale that, in order to check the corpulency that was increasing upon him, he had been in the habit of taking nux vomica, that he had exceeded the dose, and the poison had killed him. The latter were not far from the truth; poison had killed him. The friends of Yunis had kept their promise; Yunis was avenged, and might now return in security. But they were alone in their satisfaction. Everywhere else was weeping and lamentation; the people loved Abu-Anga for his generosity, and with him at its head the Ansar deemed themselves invincible. Already there was talk of santifying his memory; the Khalif, so report affirmed, was going to build him a mausoleum more beautiful than the Malidi's tomb itself.
On turning to the harem, Grace found Fadl-el-Maula, Abu-Anga's brother, already there, busily conferring with Fardji the Eunuch, and a Cadi. He had lost no time; barely had the news of his brother's death arrived before he was on the spot and in process of taking possession of the inheritance. To Grace the earth seemed to be crumbling away beneath her feet; her temples beat wildly and her heart felt like lead. Fadl-el-Maula however made as though he did not even see her; and next day the news was known that the Khalif had ordered his arrest. Although he held the command of the Djedadieh, the picked troop of negro soldiers, he had been chained and delivered into Saier's hands. This was another success to Yunis, who had insinuated to the Khalif that Fadl-el-Maula had been keeping back, to sell again, a large part of the dourrha issued to him by the Beit-el-Maal as rations for his men.
Abdullahi, who was always disposed to be suspicious, believed that Fadl-el-Maula wanted to get together a private store of money with a view to ambitious projects. But this was to misread his character, for in truth all he thought about was his pleasures. Wherever and whenever he set eyes on a pretty girl, he tried to get hold of her to clap her in his harem. Not a bad sort of man!-though he was too ready with the kourbash, whipping his women for nothing at all, for the mere pleasure of doing it. Under these circumstances he always declined the help of the Eunuch in charge, making a point of administering such chastisements with his own hand. Some time before, he had been seriously ill from an attack of syphilis, effluxions in the head having affected his brain. A "Fiki," or savant, had been consulted, and had pronounced him under the influence of the evil eye, declaring some ill-wisher must have cast a spell over him. And the funny thing was the Fiki spoke the exact truth for once! Among Fadl-el-Maula's wives was a Djaalin woman, quite a girl, a Negress of superb beauty. Fadl-el-Maula had fallen desperately in love with her, and she could do with him what she wished. But he had grown weary of her,-an event that soon befell so blase an individual,-and the girl's mother, who had been making a good thing out of the Emir's infatuation, attempted to stir up his passion afresh. She applied to a Fiki and paid him handsomely. The man gave her certain amulets, rolls of paper covered with mysterious writing, which had to be laid in accordance with his injunctions on the floor of the oven where the bread Fadl-el-Maula ate was cooking. This piece of sorcery however being discovered, its originator was easily traced, and the woman was condemned to the proper punishment reserved for practises of the black art,-amputation of the right hand and left foot. In the end his strong constitution got the upper hand, and Fadl-el-Maula was restored to health.
But now the calumnies of Yunis had brought him to a sorry pass. Grace was glad of it, though really his imprisonment caused no improvement in her circumstances. The first time she tried to leave the harem, to take the walk Abu-Anga had always permitted, Fardji sent her back again to her angareb, and with his favorite gesture, dropping his hand on the kourbash that hung from his belt, had forbidden her to pass the gate henceforth. The days passed in tedious monotony, Grace sitting dull and morose, wrapped up in fruitless reveries, amid the mirth and chatter of the other women.
Meantime Omdurman was exulting over fresh news from Galabat. On Abu-Anga's death, the Khalif had appointed Zeki Tummal to succeed to the command of the Fortress of Galabat. The new Commandant was a man of action, and at once set to work to strengthen the fortifications. Nor was it long before he had good reason to congratulate himself on these precautions. Advancing by forced marches, King John of Abyssinia was making for the frontier. He was accompanied by all his Ras, his
Viceroys of Provinces, each with his contingent,-in all an army of fifty thousand men, including no less than twenty thousand cavalry. The Ras Adal marched with the vanguard. He had sworn to slay as many Emirs as his wife and daughter counted years between them on the day they had been tom from him by Abu-Anga. Great was the alarm; the men sent out to reconnoiter reported that the enemies' forces were beyond counting, that their march raised the dust in whirling clouds that darkened the sun. As soon as the Abyssinians had crossed the frontier, King John sent a messenger bearing a flag of truce to say that his master had no intention of coming by stealth like a thief, to formally announce his approach and to warn the Dervishes he would give no quarter, but intended to exterminate the Malidists, the foes of Christianity. Very soon he made his appearance, at the head of his numerous army, which was followed by crowds of women,-wives and sweethearts of his soldiers. The assault was delivered with the utmost impetuosity, and the Dervishes poured a murderous fire into the serried masses. But the Abyssinians swarmed like ants up the slope and hurled themselves against the barrier of thorns, which they tried to set on fire. At last by a supreme effort, they succeeded in penetrating within the ramparts, and spread themselves through the town. They slew all they met on their way. The Dervish women fled before them with fearful screams, but they ran after them and spitted them on their long pikes. Soon the Abyssinians were in possession of the Beit-el-Maal, and in occupation of Abu-Anga's house, where they set to work to search for his body, thinking to dig it up and give it to the flames, in revenge for the burning of Gondar.
The Dervishes had lost heart; they were short of ammunition and their case seemed already desperate, when the report spread, like a train of gunpowder, among the assailants that their King had just been killed, shot with a rifle-bullet through the heart. A hasty retreat ensued, and in an instant the town was free of the foe, though as he retired, each Abyssinian took anything he could lay his hands on. They also carried off a large number of women, whom they drove before them, spurring them on with the points of their lances. The Dervishes were able to seize a few stragglers, whom Zeki Tummal beheaded and sent the heads to Omdurman together with the news of this fresh victory. Still they could not get over their surprise, and entirely failing to understand why the Abyssinians had beaten a retreat at the very moment of victory, they looked for a second attack. Presently however their scouts told them the real state of the case, and without another moment's delay, they dashed in pursuit. At the first onset the Abyssinians fled, leaving their women in the hands of the enemy. Next the Dervishes came upon a long box fastened and sealed, where they hoped to discover treasure, but all it contained was a dead man,-the half embalmed corpse of King John. Immediately they cut off the dead monarch's head, and dispatched it to the Khalif, along with a fine lot of booty,-King John's throne, gold and silver crosses richly worked and set with jewels, and innumerable captives.
Abdullahi was radiant with delight. He ordered the war drums to be beaten and the ombeya to sound, while the guns on the walls thundered to proclaim the victory. King John's head was set on a camel and taken round the marketplaces, a herald going before, who described the battle, announced the death of the puissant Negus and called upon the people to rejoice. Then the Khalif had the head packed in a piece of leather, and a camel-driver carried the parcel to Dongola, whence it was forwarded on to Wadi-Halfa, the nearest of the Egyptian garrisons. No writing was sent with it, Abdullahi deeming the message of death sufficiently eloquent by itself. Unless they made haste to humiliate themselves before the-Khalif, the Khedive of Egypt and Queen Victoria of England might expect a like fate.
And there were yet other causes of rejoicing to delight the people of Omdurman, for the Khalif was marrying his son Osman, who had just attained his seventeenth year, to the daughter of his brother Yakub. The betrothal had already taken place with much mangificence. Chafing dishes loaded with perfumes smoked day and night, and after the conclusion of the ceremony, musicians of the Dar-Fertit, and Niam-Niam singers, scraped the "nekuba," or native guitar, and intoned songs of war and triumph, while Abyssinian dancing girls delighted the eye. Now a procession of rich merchants and Emirs was announced at the Palace, each of whom was followed by a number of slaves bearing gifts,-costumes, precious stuffs and jewels. Others offered provisions, quintals of sugar, ardebs of dourrha, butter and honey, while there were some who came driving stock before them, fat oxen, swift racing camels, good goats and big sheep with fine fleeces. According to custom, the father of the bride presented this great store of food to the bride on the day of the "tefail," when women only are admitted to the festival. This is the occasion when the matrons of experience lavish their advice and warnings on the maid so soon to be a wife, and instruct her how to answer the husband's caresses, specially urging upon her that while over much expertness will suggest a doubt of her virginity, extreme awkwardness may cool the bridegroom's ardour for ever. After this the bride's hands were stained red with henna, and her feet as well. Each ceremonial was succeeded by a banquet, Abdullahi and Yukub keeping open house for the Emirs, while dates were distributed among the people in profusion.
This union showed clearly the Khalif was determined to found a dynasty. He had now reached the zenith of his power; and his own tribe, the Bagaras, prospered to the detriment of all the others in the Sudan. Once these stock-breeders had been held in contempt; the Aulad-Be-lad, that is to say the Djaalin, the Dongolawi and the
Barabras, the earliest adherents of the Malidi, felt the same scorn for the Bagaras as they lavished upon the fellahin of Egypt. And lo! these nomads, these uncouth rustics, transported from their native sands to Omdurman, had quickly assimilated all the qualities of town dwellers, inhabitants of the great densely populated centres of industry. They proved themselves both brave in battle and skilful in affairs,-but always and invariably greedy after gain. Booty of war and profit of commerce tempted them alike. Even their womanfolk seconded them well in the race of supremacy. Clever and keen after a bargain, they nearly all kept shop, gathering together in the hands of the tribe all the coin in the Sudan.
But the never ending wars had diminished the number of males, and every victory only further increased the preponderance of women. Every soldier had his concubine, and marriage was altogether at a standstill. Under these circumstances the Khalif decreed that three days were allowed, and three days only, to all girls over sixteen years of age, within which to get married. This respite once exceeded, she became the property, the slave of a Bagara. Never before had the Cadis been so busy; the couples were waiting in long files till their turn came to be made one. The Khalif was in joyous humor, and disposed to clemency, and he ended by pardoning Fadl-el-Maula.
CHAPTER XVI
Graces Subjugation
A single luminous point in a colored lamp pierced the darkness with a reddish gleam. Grace sat lounging on her mat wrapped in her own thoughts. In spite of every disappointment she was still hopeful. What was Slatin doing? No doubt he was not idle, while Father Ohrwalder had-likewise promised his help. All that was wanted was a friendly disposed camel-driver. Only how was she to manage her escape from the harem? Neufeld was similarly situated, and must remain a prisoner in the gaol, unless assistance came to him from outside. She devised plan after plan, but each was rejected as soon as formed. She ended by resting all her expectations on Slatin. She knew him to be determined, cool, courageous, and nothing if not practical, not the man to leave anything to chance. Fertile as he was in the ruses of war, he was bound to have more than one shot in his locker, when it came to contriving their liberation.
She was listening to the sounds proceeding from the sleeping women round her, some snoring,-a deep hollow note, others breathing softly and lightly, others making a short, panting whistle as if in pain, while at the other extremity of the vast sleeping apartment half stifled giggles and sighings could be heard. But now footsteps echoed in the vestibule. It was the Eunuch Fardji, who coming straight to Grace, ordered her to dress. She obeyed, her fingers trembling so they would hardly perform their task, for she had a shrewd idea of why he came for her. Still she would not despair, but still hope for the best. As she followed the eunuch, she was forced to cling to the wall for support; her limbs shook under her, her heart throbbed as if it would burst, and her brain was clouded and seemed utterly incapable of thought.
The Eunuch pushed her into the little chamber she knew so well,-the chamber where Abu-Anga had been wont to receive the chosen concubine. Now Fadl-el-Maula was there, lying on an angareb. He did not move at her entrance, and she stood motionless, waiting his pleasure. Some minutes passed thus before he rose, and looking her hard in the face, grinned an odious smile that reached from ear to ear. Then he ordered her to undress, and half mad with fear she obeyed. He sprang forward and took her in his arms. Suddenly she uttered a scream, a wild cry of anger and distress. All her resignation, all her passivity, vanished before the indignant resentment this last abominable outrage roused. The Negro, blas' and satiated with women, was trying to have her in the other, the filthy way. Her very flesh revolted, and an innate loathing of such bestiality drove her to resistance ... She struggled fiercely, scratching and biting, fighting as if for life. Blows, mutilation, death, anything seemed preferable to such vile humiliation.
Fadl-el-Maula let go, and still smiling, looked her up and down. Firm on her feet, her fists thrown forward, she was superb in her slim muscularity, her naked body a dead white and her loosened hair wrapping her about in a golden mantle. He put two fingers to his mouth and whistled. Aisha came in at the summons, and going straight to Grace, seized her breasts one in each of her big hands and began to twist them. The girl yelled with the pain, grasping the negress's wrists and struggling to make her let go. Then Aisha shifted her hands a little and got hold of the two nipples, which she pinched and dragged at with her fingers of iron. Grace stooped forward, moaning piteously. Her eyes seemed turning in her head, and she could see nothing but the negress's huge, black, vigorous arms and their swelling muscles. Under the steady pull of the relentless fingers, she was forced to bend her spine and stoop more and more, so that the posteriors were tightly strained, and thrown out in conspicuous prominence. Suddenly she gave a wail of agony; a fierce pain tortured her entrails and was repeated in her brain,-a pain so poignant and intense it even made her forget her disgust for the moment. Then Fadl-el-Maula left her, laughing his cackling laugh, followed by Aisha, while Grace sank down at the foot of the angareb, overwhelmed with shame and exhaustion, longing for death to end her misery!
Presently the Eunuch came to fetch her, and led her back to the sleeping room. She could scarcely walk; her cheeks were burning and she kept her eyes fixed on the ground. She heard Fardji say something to her, as if in a dream:
"The master is not pleased with you. He says tomorrow you shall be taken to the slave-market and sold."
She made no reply, and directly she found herself back again on her own angareb, she experienced a sort of joy, a childish feeling of satisfaction at being alone once more. But she could not sleep; a whole world of wild, disordered thoughts besieged her brain. She thought she must pass through the fire to be purified! But all her indignation and disgust culminated in one horrid thought, one anxiety that troubled her more and more. She was to be sold! sold! Yet is was simple enough! Abu-Anga's concubine to begin with, she now belonged to Fadl-el-Maula. She was a slave,-what else? She said the word over and over again, striving to extort its real meaning. Yet had she not been already a slave of the Dervishes for pretty well five years now? Then she exhausted herself in guessing who was-likely to buy her,-a rich merchant, or possibly an Emir? She passed in review all such she had known or had heard spoken of, deciding which she would prefer. She ended by calling herself a fool for her pains, for what useful purpose could her suppositions possibly serve, when chance was sure to overthrow them every one?
Grace shuddered with feverish apprehension when she thought of the peril of being bought by a married man whose wife should be jealous. On this head she had heard some appalling stories told of the atrocities committed by the Sudanese ladies. They would tolerate a caprice, but when it came to a serious attachment, then they interfered and exacted vengeance with a barbarous and refined cruelty. They always inflicted the punishment with their own hands. The victim was presented to them bound and extended on a wooden support, arms stretched out as if on a cross and legs wide apart. The ball opened with the Kourbash,-a hail of blows on face, bosom, arms, belly and thighs, till the blood spurted. Then the mistress would stop beating, and laying down her whip, go to a great jar of salt, take great handfuls from it and rub this well into the wounds. The pain was said to be beyond everything, the revival of the dulled sensibility and the further exasperation of the pangs being intolerable. Every nerve was touched, and quivered in palpitations of indescribable agony.
Next the Fury armed herself with a razor, and began hacking the flesh in little jags on the breasts, the thick of the arm, the cheeks, the inside of the thighs, always stopping at intervals to rub in salt, rub it in with all her might, in great handfuls. Then there was a short respite, very short,-after which with delicate manipulation, the fingers now stroking lightly now rubbing vigorously, she administered a hideous caress. Do what she might to refrain, the victim's nerves ended by tightening in the venereal spasm under the unwearying hands. Then quick between thumb and forefinger the jealous woman would take all she could get hold of and lop it off with a sweep of the razor. Excited by what she had done, she would now proceed to further mutilations, cutting off the nipples, then the nose, ears and lips. When she saw the blood flow and smelt its heavy, insipid odor, her cruelty changed into hysterical fury. She was as if intoxicated, and her razor was wielded at random, amputating a finger or a toe as happened, slicing through the flesh like butter.
Other wives under like circumstances contented themselves with the infliction of one wound, and one wound only. They carefully refrained from touching the face and left its prettiness intact; but pressing heavily on the razor they cut a great gash, uniting two openings in one huge cloaca of abominations. The great majority succumbed under the consequences of this hideous injury, though some who seemed to have a hundred lives survived. Mutilated, incapable of love, they dragged out a miserable existence, the supremest pleasure denied them, the ecstasies of passion abolished for ever.
Grace was led off to the "Suk er Rekik," the Slave-market, a great square enclosed with brick walls not far from the Beit-el-Maal. The Eunuch pushed her forward into the interior, which consisted of a courtyard, with an open shed or penthouse of thatch running all round, supported by slender pillars. There in a row along the walls, raised on rough platforms carried on trestles, were the slaves. Among them were old decrepit women, half naked, their skins greasy, sun burnt and covered with wounds. These were house-slaves, domestic servants, driven to perform hard menial work by fear of the lash. Others were young, dressed out in silks and looking bright and smart in their gay apparel,-the "Sarayas," well practiced concubines, choice instruments of pleasure, spoiled and made much of, so long as their charms lasted. Unless indeed the lawful wife, in a fit of jealousy, destroyed their beauty for ever in one fatal moment.
When all were set in order, each on her little stand, the doors of the market were thrown open, and the buyers came in, each followed by a slave urging an ass before him, intended to carry off the purchase if it so happened the master invested in a pretty girl. Solemnly the customers made the circuit of the enclosure. If a slave-girl pleased them, they would halt in front of her in silence. Then the merchant would run up, and endless discussions ensue, the vendor praising his merchandise and enumerating each point. As he spoke he would be giving the woman little taps and pokes all the while on her arms and posteriors, to show how firm the flesh was; then he would make her walk, to prove the ease of her movements, and speak to her, to display her wit and to assure the customer she knew Arabic. But the client always discovered something to find fault with. Besides it was not at all the sort of article he really wanted. Still, if the price were not too heavy, they might perhaps come to terms. Then more long speeches from the dealer, who would make the slave step forward and then draw back again, displaying all sorts of attitudes and airs and graces. Finally he would make up his mind to say something definite and actually name the price. Instantly the customer, with a look of indignant surprise, would execute a turn to the right about, in shocked silence,-at which the dealer would pluck the sleeve of his djibbeh, signing with the other hand to the slave-girl to come down from her stand, and strip, to show she was really worth the money asked. Then followed more haggling. Eventually if they managed to agree, the pieces were counted down on the spot, and the master carried off his purchase directly the Cadi had had the deed of sale, which was already written out, signed by the two parties.
Many stopped before Grace, but the price asked put all purchasers to flight, and that without Fardji uttering one word to detain them. Ahmed-Ouad-Ali however, one of the richest merchants of the city, seemed disposed to pay the fifteen hundred dollars demanded,-more than double what was usually paid for the prettiest Sarayas. But first he wished to know whether she had any defect to prevent his buying, to make sure she did not snore, that she was not a thief. Then he demanded permission to convince himself she was well made. Grace turned pale, but she had to strip under the peremptory eye of the Eunuch, whose hand lay caressingly on the handle of his kourbash.
But at this crisis the market was thrown into sudden confusion by the arrival fo Fadl-el-Maula, who rushed in like a whirlwind, pushing people right and left. He halted in front of Fardji, and with arms crossed on his breast, fiercely apostrophized him:
"Miserable slave! How have you dared to go beyond my orders like thus? Take the woman back to my harem this instant!"
In vain Ahmed-Ouad-Ali protested:
"You are breaking the recognized customs! I am ready to pay the price asked; here is my money; hand me over the slave!"
But Fadl-el-Maula only laughed in his face, and cried:
"As long as the deed of sale is not signed, there's nothing settled!"
And wheeling nimbly about, he turned his back, and away after Fardji, who with a chastened air was walking Grace off the premises.
The girl was brought back to the harem; and in spite of everything that had occurred, she experienced a certain feeling of satisfaction, when she saw the familiar angareb again, a pleasure to the renewal of old habits and the postponement of the plunge into an unknown future. When the same evening Fardji arrived to lead her to Fadl-el-Maula's presence, she called up all her resignation, though her heart sank within her and her lips quivered with disgust. The moment she was undressed, her master seized her by the back of the neck and threw her down on the angareb. Then he tied her two feet, passing the cords round the bed in such a way that her back was offered to the kourbash, posteriors thrown out prominently and legs widely separated. The heavy thong described a figure of eight, then came down with a whistle and met the flesh with a dull thud. Grace howled and begged for mercy, her voice interrupted by sobs, while under the biting lash the blood spurted out. She struggled to avoid the blows, shirking back all she could, but the kourbash drawn cleverly from below upwards, cut the tenderest parts, its tip teaching as far up as the navel. Her cries were desperate,-shrill, harsh shrieks of agony; but Fadl-el-Maula only chuckled.
At last he untied her, and at once she fell into the negro's arms and put up her lips to his. He advanced his great, thick lips and saluted her with a long, clinging kiss ... But poor Grace's heart now felt nothing but an impulse of abject and complete submission; she ached all over, and had to confess herself entirely subjugated, absolutely under the domination of the superior male. It was grievous, but at the same time delicious; and her nerves, stimulated by pain, craved strong, fierce emotions. Henceforth Fadl-el-Maula often thrashed her, she knew not why,-for the first time had utterly broken her spirit and she was ready to do anything, whatever he required. Introduced by the Eunuch to the usual little room, she would see her master sitting on the angareb, playing with his kourbash. Then she would kneel down before him and remain in the same posture till she received his order to rise. He held out his feet to her, and she took off his sandals, and humbly and fondly kissed his naked feet. Then he stripped, and lying motionless full length on the angareb, received her caresses, which, with senses keenly excited and shuddering deliciously under the threat of the kourbash, she lavished on his passive body in every variety a perverted ingenuity could suggest. If on the contrary the negro took her in his arms, every nerve in her body quivered, and with eyes turned back in her head and muscles stiffened in a spasm of pleasure, she fell into a very ecstasy of enjoyment. She would scream with excess of delight, and experience transports such as she had never dreamed of as possible to a human being. She could not tell what to do to testify her submissiveness; the more she exaggerated her servility, the more overjoyed was she with a happiness full of intense voluptuousness...
In England, her dreams of love had always been ethereal; her senses had never been really awakened. The night of Khartoum had seemed only a horrid nightmare, in spite of the instant of pleasure that had momentarily interrupted her agonies. Later again, she had enjoyed a satisfaction to her pride, when she saw Abu-Anga at her feet, begging an alms of love, so deeply smitten she could keep him starving without his finding any resistance possible. Then when he withdrew degraded and humiliated, she had known a delightful feeling of gratification, but one that was purely mental. Only afterwards, when she had to do his will, after the Malidi had condemned her to the Eunuch's kourbash, had she felt the real mastery of the male. But now it was something different altogether! Fadl-el-Maula had conquered her by sheer terror and excess of torment; and she felt herself devoured by carnal appetites he alone could appease. She exhausted heringenuity in efforts to please him,-and she succeeded. Almost every night Fardji came to summon her and conduct her to the master's chamber, and he began to neglect his other women, and took no more pains to increase their number. At the same time he kept all his empire over her, and still inspired her with dread. No sooner was she in his presence than a shudder ran through her; her throat was dry, her heart convulsed with anguish, so that she could scarcely speak. Her wish to leave the harem enclosure was a thing of the past, and she was quite content to remain inside its guarded walls. Outside events became indifferent to her, and she hardly listened now to the chatter of the other women, her companions in captivity, who spent the whole day in endless gossip, and were posted in everything that occurred in the city.
At this time famine was raging in Omdurman, and throughout the Sudan. Never ending wars had destroyed the harvests, and men were wanting to sow the fields. Moreover since the death of King John nothing now came from Abyssinia, a country from which the Dervishes had previously drawn so many supplies. Locusts had devoured all the vegetation, and the drought seemed as though it would never end. Had it not been for wheat imported from the district of Fashoda, the whole population of Omdurman would have perished of starvation. But the distance was great and the cost of transport excessive. Prices went up fast, and soon the distress became intense. The town swarmed with beggars; gaunt and thin, they were everywhere to be seen gazing about them with glassy eyes and prowling around in search of food. Above all other places they haunted the markets, where they sharpened the pangs of hunger by looking at the leaps of provisions there displayed. In a sudden access of frenzy some poor wretch would spring upon the food, seize hold of all he could, and instantly fall to devouring it. The stall-keeper would lash out with savage blows, but the hungry thief seemed insensible to pain and went on gorging himself regardless of the other's efforts. At the slaughter-houses, they used to wait till the butchers cut an animal's throat, when every man would dash up to catch a cupful of the blood. In the scramble some of the precious fluid would spirt on to the ground, and men would actually kneel down and lick the soil, stuffing their bellies with the moistened sand. Corpses strewed the streets, while the living were mere walking skeletons, the skin scarce covering the bones. With feverish eyes and staggering steps, they would hold by the walls to save themselves from falling; then suddenly they would topple over and sink down, never to rise again.
Still things continued to go from bad to worse, as the country population came flocking in to increase the number of those dying of famine in the city. Never were thefts so numerous. Many of the inhabitants had covered the roofs of their huts with the skins of the camels captured from the Batahin; these starving wretches would drag off, boil down and then drink the atrocious mess. Children were kidnapped for the pot; and a woman was actually caught in the act of carving up her own son. Meantime the Khalif ordered that corn should be sold to the Bagaras at six dollars the ardeb, while to the men of all other tribes and dealers were vending it at twenty or even as much as forty dollars. Then everybody started robbing the Bagaras. Even Emirs trained their slaves to steal; if they were detected, they immediately disavowed them, the evidence of a slave being held inadmissible by the Judges.
One night the harem of Fadl-el-Maula had been attacked. The assailants surprised the soldiers on guard, and promptly gagged and bound them, while Fardji was rendered helpless in the same way. The Eunuch, his fat person trembling all over, had made his usual gesture of intimidation, laying his hand on his kourbash. But he was not allowed to finish it; in next to no time he found himself stretched on his mat, his arms tied behind his back and his turban unwound and knotted across his mouth. He was even treated to a few lashes with his own kourbash. The miscreants disappeared without further injury; but they took Grace with them. A tall sunburnt Arab grasped her by the arm, showing her a sharp cutlass; and she followed him obediently, so terrified she would have walked straight into the fire, if such had been his orders. She now left the house leaning on the tall Arab's arm. They crossed the garden, and as they passed through the outer door opening on the street, Grace saw the soldiers of the guard securely tied and propped like so many packages against the wall. Then her guide told her to step out briskly, and they proceeded some distance, keeping close along the walls and as much in the shade as possible. When finally he halted before a house of imposing exterior, she at once recognized it as the dwelling of Ahmed-Ouad-Ali, the rich merchant who had wished to buy her in the slave-market. The Arab knocked at the door, which was half opened stealthily, and the man slipped in, drawing the girl after him. She found herself in darkness, and stood hesitating, but her conductor's strong hand dragged her on. Suddenly her eyes were dazzled by a brilliant light, and she found herself in a room. For furniture it held nothing beyond an angareb covered with embroidered silks and a small table inlaid with mother-of-pearl, on which was a display of dainties on silver dishes, while the floor was spread with rich Kurdistan carpets.
Presently Ahmed-Ouad-Ali entered. He seemed embarrassed, though he smiled amiably; and appeared to think himself bound to offer an explication of his conduct:
"Fadl-el-Maula acted very meanly ... But then he is a ruffian, and everybody knows how he goes on. He thinks to make women love him by the lash. You cannot but esteem yourself lucky to have changed masters ... And thenl his conduct was outrageous altogether ... Did he not send you to the slave-market?. . . I acted in perfect good faith, and see no reason why I should not have done as I did. I could afford it, and I think I have as much right to be in love as he has! ... And I am in love, believe me,-as I have never been before! ... I will soon show you how good I am to women that please me."
He spoke eagerly, with extreme volubility, but Grace listened to him without a word of reply. Even after he had finished, she found nothing to say. The man looked at her hard, startled somewhat at her silence; but presently, laughing no doubt at his own weakness, he assumed a "conquering hero" air, and tried to kiss her. She slipped gently from his embrace, and holding out her hands, kept him at arm's length.
Then her dark sombre pupils began to dilate strangely, and her gray eyes, those eyes of steel, grew black and threatening. The old man bowed his neck, while his gaze became riveted on hers. Before long he dropped to the floor before Grace, kneeling and gluing his lips to the hand she abandoned to him. She only smiled a haughty smile that was full both of malice and contempt.
CHAPTER XVII
Joy in Submission
Thus Ali-Ouad Hamed, wealthy merchant and man of weight and influence as he was, a patriarch with a white beard to boot, knelt covering Grace's hand with frantic kisses. Crouched at her feet, he besought her love with broken voice, and tender, stammering words, at once poetical and obscene, while she looked down at him with her vague, indeterminate smile, where pride and scorn were equally represented.
But of a sudden a knocking sounded through the house, a loud, violent knocking at the outer door. The merchant sprang to his feet, and stood, his head inclined in an attitude of anxious listening. Then came shouts, the footsteps of a troop of men, a repetition of the knocking, but louder still. The soldiers were using the butts of their guns to break down the house door, in the same way as that of the harem enclosure had been burst open a little before. The old man laid his finger on his lip to impose silence on Grace, while his eyes searched anxiously in every corner to discover a hiding-place. Then the tumult approached yet nearer, and the voice of Fadl-el-Maula could be distinguished. Hearing it, Grace began to shout, "This way! Help! help!"
In an instant the door was shivered to atoms, and Ali-Ouad-Hamed seized and tied up like a package, while Fardji the Eunuch carried off Grace. She could hear the merchant groaning, as she was dragged away, and praying for mercy under the soldiers' rough hands, and Fadl-el-Maula's chuckles of triumph. She did not know herself why she had cried out; she almost regretted she had done so. At this very moment she was asking herself the question whether she was sorry or whether she ought to be glad, at having fallen again into her master's power. Then as she recollected the old merchant's scared face, and his cries and supplications when the soldiers were hustling him, she burst out into a fit of laughter.
All the same she shuddered when she considered that in this adventure Fadl-el-Maula would certainly find another pretext for flogging her; and as a matter-of-fact he did make her bend beneath the lash, chiding her for her coquetry. After all it was what she most wished, for blows had now grown a necessity of her existence; the mere apprehension of the kourbash set her quivering delightfully, and her terror was transformed promptly into wanton desire. She felt an imperious need of humiliating herself before her master, of falling into attitudes of utter submission and fond caress. When she was screaming madly, sobbing and supplicating under the lash, then it was desire bit fiercest, and all her body quivered with pain,-and concupiscence. Fadl-el-Maula had guessed this, and knew that flogging time was the true psychological moment. It invariably ended up with a crisis of the nerves, a tempest of feverish kisses, interspersed with sobs and moans. He never said a word, but would look at her with a curious expression, in which satisfaction and pride were both present. His excitement was hardly less than hers, but he invariably preserved his attitude of dignified mastery through it all. Gradually he grew more and more attached to Grace, and remained as nearly as may be strictly faithful to her.
Still the demands of duty forced him sometimes to leave her,-for instance when he had to spend the night under arms, ready at a moment's notice to lead out his Djede-diah, his legion of black troops, to battle. The fact is, that never since the accession of the Khalif, had Omdurman been in such a disturbed condition. As long ago as the days of the late Malidi, at the time Hicks Pacha's army had just been annihilated, every Dervish knew perfectly well that the most formidable enemy of Malidism was England. Patiently and doggedly the English were reorganizing the Khedive's forces, her army instructors showing such ability they positively succeeded in instilling some spirit into the chicken-hearted fellahin. Meantime the Khalif, in his inordinate conceit, had decreed the conquest of Egypt. Ouad-Nejumi, one of his high Emirs, had come near losing his command and being thrown into chains, because he had delayed his forward march. Starting from Berber with an imposing force, he was greatly hampered by the multitude of women and children the Dervishes carried with them in their train. But the Khalif had wished it so, in order that the men might have more spirit in battle. The desert was choked with the bodies of those who had died of thirst. Mad with its pangs, the women would bite and scratch and fight round the water-skins, often upset'ing the camels that carried them. To defend the precious liquid, the soldiers would gallop up with their long lances, and spear mother and child with one thrust. When at lust on the borders of the desert, on the frontier line, the Egyptian soldiers came out to meet the invaders, they found nothing but an army of phantoms, and had no difficulty in massacring the poor emaciated wretches. Ouad-Nejumi himself was killed, and only a handful of Dervishes made good their escape to Omdurman to bring the fatal news.
The Khalif quite realized that if the Egyptians had beaten his troops, it was to their English officers they owed their success. Henceforward in every misfortune to his arms he saw the effect of English activity,-which was indeed energetic and unceasing. Kitchener, a British officer who had entered the Egyptian service, had compelled Osman-Digna, one of the Dervish Emirs, to raise the siege of Saukim. Subsequently he was appointed Sirdar, and was now in supreme command. He pushed on the reorganization of the army with greater zeal than ever, accustomed the Egyptian soldiers to endure hardships, and taught them to look boldly in the face of those terrible Dervishes before whom they had been used to tremble. Nor was this all; he was also a diplomatist, and understood how to turn discontent to his own advantage. He succeeded in detaching several Sudanese tribes from the cause of Malidism. By this means he still further increased the army he was preparing, and incorporated in it a nucleus of men as brave as the enemies it had to fight, seeing they came from their ranks.
Fadl-el-Maula was busily occupied. The Khalif had sent him in pursuit of Father Ohrwalder, who had at last found a camel-driver after his own heart, and had made good his escape, taking with him the two sisters of the Mission,two such plain women not a soldier had wished to have anything to do with them. Fadl-el-Maula was already galloping after the fugitives, when an estafet recalled him to Omdurman. Rebellion, which had long been hatching underground, was giving ominous signs,-a regular plot, skillfully combined, that would have burst on the government like a thunder-clap, had it not been betrayed and so brought to an abortive termination. The Malidi had left two sons who were now grown up to manhood. Indignant at finding themselves treated by Abdullahi as mere noblemen of little importance, they had been urging the two other Khalifs to dispossess the Chief, their powerful rival. The moment was well chosen. The famine had ruined a number of persons who saw in revolution the only means of mending their fortunes, while the Dongolawi and Djaalin, declared enemies of the Bagaras, had joyfully accepted the overtures made them by conspirators.
But an Emir of the Djaalin betrayed the plot. This man had sworn he would not say a word to anybody, except his kinsmen and his best friends. He wrote a letter to the
Khalif, in which he gave full particulars, and supplied all names, down to that of the most insignificant participator, ending up his letter by boasting of not having broken his oath. For he considered the Khalif, his master, as his best friend, and thought it a sacred duty to warn him of the danger that menaced him. Abdullahi resolved to feign ignorance, though at the same time he increased his guard, and ordered the Muzalemin to be on duty day and night. The Conspirators assembled in the immediate vicinity of the Palace, near the Mausoleum of the Malidi, a vast building with an immense dome.
There were women in the plot too. All the harem of the deceased Malidi had been left as it was. The Beit-el-Maal provided for the needs of his widows and concubines,with not a little sordid parcimony, while their captivity was as strict as ever. They were overjoyed to hear a rising was to be attempted against the oppressor. The favorite wife, she the people had sumamed "Um el Muminin," Mother of Ture Believers, girded on a sword. Of the Malidi's four lawful wives she was the chief and best beloved, for had she not been the one to share his days of adversity? The Ashraf, and indeed all the Ansar, held her in deep veneration, and when she appeared before the assembly, drawing her blade, which flashed in the sun, and exhorting all true defenders of the Faith to rise against the unrighteous usurper, the enthusiasm knew no bounds. Arms unfortunately were conspicuous by their absence; if the conspirators had a hundred muskets at their disposal, this was the outside. But numbers and resolution were to supply the lack of arms, and they reckoned moreover on the defection of many of the Khalif's troops.
It was on the Monday, after evening prayers, that the Khalif, massing his troops about the Great Mosque, ordered them to surround the people of the Ashraf. Meantime, before joining battle, he dispatched messengers to the Khalif Sherif and the Malidi's sons. He had the proclamation read in which the deceased potentate had invested him, Abdullahi, with the supreme power; and commanded them to submit and so avoid needless bloodshed. For all reply, they declared themselves ready to fight it out. The struggle was conducted with dignity. Soon the Ashraf, who were badly led, showed signs of being beaten; and instantly the Khalif sent flags to treat of peace, who were better received than the former had been. The rebels were not so averse now to open negotiations, but were informed the first condition was that they must lay down their arms. On the other hand, Abdullahi promised to accord more importance to the Khalif Mohammed Sherif and the two sons of the Malidi. Pourparlers continued to be exchanged for several days; but they finally resulted in an agreement, and the Khalif undertook to grant a general amnesty.
By degrees the Ashraf all brought in their rifles to the "Beit-el-Amana," or Arsenal. As soon as he was convinced they had no more in their possession, Abdullahi invited the two Khalifs, the Cadis and Emirs of the Dongilawi, as well as the Chiefs of the Ashraf, to appear before him. After making them renew the oath of allegiance, he proceeded to speak to them of everything except their late mutiny, reproaching them with lukewarmness in religion and neglect of the orthodox prayers, declaring that even on Friday he did not invariably see them at the Mosque. He had the proclamation of the Malidi announcing him as his Successor read out again; and assuming the air of one inspired, assured them that the prophet had appeared to him in a dream and commanded the punishment of the guilty. Mahomet had told him the names; which he, Abdullahi, as a humble servant of the Prophet, would not repeat.
Slowly he repeated them one by one, and the instant any of those present was designated, the soldiers of the bodyguard, according to the instructions they had received, came forward, tied his hands behind him and drove him out of the assembly with heavy blows of the butt in his back. Thirteen of the rebels were thus apprehended, and sent under strong escort to Fashoda, along with secret instructions addressed to Zeki Tummal, the former Emir of Galabat, who had changed his tactics and could now be thoroughly relied on. On their arrival they were put in chains, and shut up in a confined Zariba. Here for eight days they were fed on a handful of corn and a small cup of water, purposely chosen brackish and foul. Tied up to stakes, they roasted by day under the blazing sun, while the night chills set them shivering. The soldiery pestered them with insults, and the women and children threw out sand in their eyes. Even at night, if the sentinels saw them drooping exhausted from their stakes and asleep, they would come and prick them up with their lances.
Finally they were led out to punishment. The troops were drawn up in line, and they were taken in front of the battalion. Each soldier was armed with a switch of green wood, freshly cut, pliant as a rush and bristling with strong thorns curving back like a cat's claws. Each of the condemned men was surrounded by four men, who stripped off his clothes and fastened a rope round his middle. By this the prisoners were dragged along the front, each man in the line holding his switch ready and striking as they passed. The cruel thorns tore the victim's flesh, who went by,-thirteen dancing, leaping forms that left a long stream of blood behind them. Almost at the first blows, first one, then another, sank helpless to the ground, and very soon all were incapable of advancing; but their conductors hauled them on, till the last man of the line had struck his blow at the bleeding mass presented to him,-a mere lump by this time of mud, and blood, and mangled flesh. At Omdurman, Abdullahi put to death the Malidi's uncles, ordering their skulls to be split open with hatchets, and deemed himself strong enough to decree the arrest of his colleague, the Khalif Sherif. In spite of the latter's protests and appeals to the oath taken, he was led off to the gaol, where ankles and wrists were secured with six iron rings riveted round them and attached to a heavy chain of many coils that was fastened about his middle. Throughout the Sudan, the Ashraf were dispossessed of their porperty, the men flogged, and the women and children sold into slavery. Thus by sheer terror did the Khalif Abdullahi confirm his supremacy.
Grace, closely confined within the harem, remained indifferent to outside events. Years went by, Fadl-el-Maula now having her, now neglecting her, as the imagine took him. For months together she would never see him; then one evening he would send the eunuch to summon her. On these occasions her heart would still beat loudly, as she hurried to join him in the little room. She dreaded being flogged,-and she hoped she would be! But he very seldom now resorted to the kourbash. His ironical look and cruel smile, cold and domineering as ever, were quite enough; and Grace, shuddering with fear and lust, was ready to lavish on him the most humiliating and odious of caresses.
She hardly gave a thought to the possibility of her becoming a mother, and felt no surprise at remaining barren. No doubt her transports were too extravagant, the fire of the flesh must surely scorch up the germ. Still her flesh was firm, her figure full and blooming in the ripe maturity of her thirty years, while her ample hips seemed made for times of pregnancy. It was a month since she had seen Fadl-el-Maula, when she discovered she was with child. She tried not to be sure, hardly knowing whether to be glad or sorry. When she found herself forced to allow the evidence, she hoped it would be a boy. The very idea it might turn out a girl, made her ill; rather would she have contrived abortion than give life to a slave-girl! She endured all the malaise and nervousness incident to the first months of pregnancy; and when Fadl-el-Maula required her presence, she was so agitated she could not immediately follow the Eunuch. But Fardji reassured her, telling her the master knew of her condition. The emotion she experienced was still mingled with lustful ideas,-the terror and hope of the kourbash; but this was at once corrected by maternal instinct,-the dread of compromising the little life hidden within her. As a matter-of-fact, Fad-el-Maula was very gentle with her and attempted no wantonness whatever. In speaking to her, he kept his eyes fixed on the exaggerated curve of her belly, and affected a contrite and regretful air.
She was delivered of a boy, who was named Yossouf. It was twelve years since the Dervishes took Khartoum, and eight since she had become the concubine of Fadl-el-Maula.
CHAPTER XVIII
Conquered for Life
At Wadi-Halfa, near the Second Cataract, begins the land of thirst, the Great Desert of Nubia,-a land of shifting sands that roll in eddying waves on days of storm, under a burning sky of horror and desolation, in which the tarnished sun looks like a pale moon,-a grim plain only relieved by a few oases lying far apart, where beside a niggard well, grow two or three stunted palm-trees. The Nile leaves it far on one side, at this point making an enormous bend. Through this desert travel all caravans, and all troops going from Egypt to the Sudan. The railway ended at Wadi Haifa, the further advance of the rails blocked by the waste of sand.
Kitchener, the English officer in the Egyptian service, who has been already mentioned, thought the time was come at last to avenge Gordon's death. Fourteen years had passed since the taking of Khartoum, and the reorganization of the Khedive's army was now complete. On the other side Abdullahi, the bloodthirsty, had alienated the most valiant of the tribes by his persistent efforts to establish the preeminence of the Bagaras over all the rest. After the massacre of the Batahin, of the Ashraf and the Dongolawi, had begun a systematic persecution of the Dinkas and the Djaalin.
Fadl-el-Maula was no longer in command of the Djede-diah,-the negro soldiers of the body-guard. He was now reduced to the rank of a plain Emir; but the prestige of his dead brother Abu-Anga sufficed to protect him against any extreme humiliations, saved him from death or confiscation of property. He lived in almost poverty, and had been forced to make up his mind to a diminution of his harem. On the birth of his son, he had regularized Grace's position, who became his fourth lawful wife. At the present moment he had just been thrown into prison, without being able to hazard a guess why he was sent there.
Yet in spite of all defections, the power of the Dervishes remained formidable. Apart from the Bagaras, Abdullahi still had in his service large numbers of negro soldiers, brave veterans well tried in war. Only their rifles were Remingtons, weapons originally captured from the Egyptians in the days of the late Malidi. Capital guns no doubt,-when modern improved gunpowders were all but unknown! Worse still, under the idea they were too heavy for long marches, the Khalif had them cut down,-the barrels shortened, without giving a thought to the altered trajectory that inevitably spoiled the shooting. Moreover the ammunition captured from the enemy was long ago exhausted. The Dervishes had to learn how to make powder,-old fashioned black powder according to the obsolete formulas, and after many attempts had succeeded in producing a very mediocre article. Neufeld was employed to attend to the extraction of the necessary saltpetre. Next the cartridges had to be filled, and every kitchen utensil, every copper pot in the place had been called into requisition. They possessed some artillery too, Krupp cannon of an old type; but their gunners were impatient and unskilfull and served the pieces clumsily.
Kitchener, appointed Sirdar, generalissimo of the Egyptian army, had systematically and methodically drawn recruits to his standard. All the discontented elements of Malidism were attracted to his army, in which the Djaalin formed a picked regiment. Besides he had at his disposal detachments of British troops, lancers, Highlanders and infantry. All these had long ago given up weapons of tne Remington period, and were armed with the Lee-Metford, a quick-firing magazine rifle, burning smokeless powder, while their guns were Maxims and Nordenfelds, the projectile of which will hit a man beyond the range of possible vision. After fourteen years of preparation, Kitchener set about striking the decisive blow. But he was not going to leave anything to chance. The Desert was the great factor that had given the Dervishes victory; amid its deep sands, under a burning sun, invading armies wore out their powers of endurance. Now Kitchener carried on the abortive railway from the point where it had been abandoned in face of the desert sand, and the track was pushed on from Wadi-Halfa to Abu-Hammek, where the Nile is again encountered with its comforting waters and fertile land on its banks. A few hours, and the iron horse spared the men weeks of laborious marching, transporting along with them munitions of war, and the victuals and drink the British soldier is accustomed to and without which he goes into action spiritless and depressed. By the same means gunboats were sent forward in sections, which gallantly patrolled the river between the cataracts, making a good show with excellent quick-firing guns served by picked artillerymen. Kitchener marched steadily on, and every step he advanced into the enemies' country, the expedition was followed by the iron road, the pair of rails that assured its commissariat, and in case of defeat, its retreat.
Eventually his army came in touch with the Dervishes on the Atbara. The Khalifs troops had intrenched themselves in a vast zariba, a perfect fortress of thorny tree-trunks. The batteries unlimbered before this primitive fortification, and in a few seconds the lyddite shells had swept the obstacle away. The cavalry had only to push the Dervishes on to the muzzles of Tommy Atkins' magazine rifles. The road thus cleared, the march had been resumed at a slow pace, leaving the sappers, under protection of the rearguard, time enough to lay sleepers, nail down chairs and adjust rails.
The Sirdar entered Berber in triumph, Mahmoud, the Emir he had just beaten, walking in chains beside his horse. He occupied Metemmeh, the capital town of the Djaalin, a city in ruins. Hitherto the Khalif had always ordered the Djaalin to the front against the English, and in all his vain attacks on Egypt these brave negroes had been in the vanguard acting as shields to the Bagaras. They had had enough of such treatment, and now sent messages to Wadi-Halfa, asking that arms might be sent them to be used against the Khalif. Abdullahi hearing of this from his spies, ordered an immediate attack on the rebels. The Djaalin made a gallant resistance, but the Bagaras had all the guns. On the walls of Metemmeh were still to be seen great black splotches, the traces left by smoke and soot, and on the ground heaps of calcined bones. Here it was the Bagaras had burned in batches their Djaalin prisoners. Everywhere too lay the carcases of beasts! They were the sole riches of the vanquished tribesmen, but had been remorselessly slaughtered and now strewed the streets. Camels, asses, lay dead with their throats cut; the sun had tanned their hides and whitened their bones, and the jackals and hyenas had gnawed the flesh. At these sights the men of the Djaalin regiment waved their guns and pointed fiercely Southwards, in the direction of Omdurman.
The forward march was resumed. The column had now come to the Nile again, and the gunboats protected its flank, sweeping the enemy away with shell fire the instant they dared to show themselves. Meanwhile behind the troops, the thin ribbon of iron was creeping on and on, the rails being firmly fixed in the soil of the Nubian desert. At Omdurman the necessary measures were being taken for defence. The Emirs favored an advance to meet the foe; but the Khalif preferred remaining entrenched behind the walls. However at the first shells that fell, he changed his mind,-seeing there would soon be no walls left.
The whole Dervish army sallied out from Omdurman during the night. The English occupied the village of Agaiga, near the heights of Kerreri, on their left being a conspicuous isolated peak, the Jebel Sourgham. The battle went through several successive phases, and lasted many hours. Already the English thought they had settled matters, and were advancing over the plain, which was thickly strewn with corpses. Here a Bagara had taken off his red sandals and put them under his head as a last pillow, where he lay dead, his face to the foe,-the foe he had never been able to come to grips with. Further on were mounds of human remains, masses of flesh torn to shreds by artillery fire. All along the march, Dervishes the English troops thought dead, kept springing to their feet and plunging their lances into any of the enemy within their reach. But suddenly firing broke out again in the rear, and the force had to wheel to the right about. It was the supreme effort. The Khalifs great black flag was unfurled from the mountain top, and the Dervishes threw themselves headlong on the foe, mowed down in their wild rush by the rapid fire of the English rifles. In spite of everything there were some who got to close quarters. These would fire off their Remington, burn their cartridge of bad powder and have the satisfaction of seeing an Egyptian or an English soldier fall, then die uttering a yell of triumph. The artillery swept away whole rows of men at once; but about the black flag they held their ground to the end, the last survivor waiting till the enemy was at arm's length to discharge his musket in their faces.
Kitchener's way lay open to enter Omdurman, but it was to find the town in utter confusion. It was said the Khalif had fled along with Beshir his squire and Sarah his wife. Before leaving, he had endeavoured to set fire to his harem, for rather than suffer them to fall into the enemies' hands, he had resolved to roast his four hundred wives.
But in his haste he had laid his combustibles badly and the slow-match had gone out. Nearly all the Bagaras had fallen in the battle, and the few survivors joined the Khalif in his flight. The Arabs and Negroes on the contrary determined to offer no further resistance. They saw they were beaten, and with characteristic confidence in whatever luck fate might have in store for them, thought only of making all they could out of the Englishmen.
In Fadl-el-Maula's harem the women awaited events without inordinate anxiety. On a sudden the door opened and Aisha, the huge Dinka negress, appeared on the threshold. She could barely stand, and the man's djibbeh she wore was all stained with blood. She put one knee to the ground, and lowering a gun, levelled it at Grace, crying:
"God has suffered your brethren to triumph! They are coming, coming to look for you ... But they shall never find you alive!"
The weapon trembled in her hand, as she pulled the trigger, and a nervous jerk spoiling the aim, Grace was not touched. Then dropping the gun, Aisha began crawling with the help of her hands towards the angareb where Grace lay crouching, paralyzed with terror, hissing out as she came:
"You shall die all the same; you shall never go with them ... Oh! how I hate you! If you only knew! But you can never know ... I felt it the first time, the very first time I ever saw you, do you remember?-when you came to Khartoum,-in your Uncle's house? ... I was there, among the slaves,-for slaves we were, whatever you may have called us! ... And you, ... you looked us over with a careless, indifferent look; you saw us all, and yet seemed to see nobody! But you looked at me and your eyelids trembled ... Oh! I hate you, I hate you!. . . No! it is not true; I love you! Don't you know I do? It is possible you have not guessed? ... Why! haven't I kept always near you, dogged your footsteps everywhere? Yes! yes! I love you, I love your beauty! How it stirs me, how it burns my eyes and sets all my blood boiling! ... Once only I had some satisfaction,-a poor meagre satisfaction! Eh! do you remember? when you writhed under my hands that time I held you for Fadl-el-Maula. But that was nothing! I wanted you all to myself, all to myself,-do you hear? Ah! the tortures I imagined, the new, terrific tortures I invented, all for you,-tortures so appalling you should have counted every minute an eternity! ... And my caresses! my caresses, ever more and more intimate, more and more irresistible! ... I would have fingered,-fingered your very marrow, your very bones should have cracked open! What I would have made you suffer,-agonies of pleasure so intense that screams would not have sufficed to express your pangs! ... You would have nothing to say to the other women of the harem? But you should not have put me off! Look you, I am strong, strong-built as a man! But far better than any man, I know where to strike to wake the keenest pain, set quivering the sharpest stings of pleasure! ... And you would have loved me' For pain, I tell you, is the dew that makes love bloom and blossom! Without it, passion is dull, and soon declines and dies ... Ah! my darling! the exquisite pangs I should have given you,-how sweetly in slow torment my hand would have slain you with fierce caresses and tortures never dreamed of before!"
The words came in gasps, while a red froth foamed at the negress's lips. She came on slowly but surely, crawling painfully with brief halts to recover breath. Now she was close to the bed, with one hand clutching the edge of the angareb, in the other grasping a flashing knife. Grace lay motionless, her eyes wide with horror, watching the fury's ineffectual struggles to get at her: but the woman could not raise herself from the floor, and fell back with a loud and bitter cry.
At this moment an English Lieutenant entered the room, calling out, "Miss Grace Marjoribanksl Miss Grace Marjoribanks!"
Grace signed to him to approach, not daring to get down from her angareb and step over the negress's dead body.
The Officer took her to Kitchener, to whom she had to relate the history of her adventures. The General condoled with her in courteous and sympathetic terms, saying finally:
"Weill your misfortunes are at an end now. You must forget it all like a bad dream..."
"What do you mean, General? You don't intend to take me away against my will, I suppose."
"What! Can you dream of still remaining in this country?"
"Certainly I shall remain! Why! what should I do in England? I am thirty-four,-almost an old woman. And you know the Arab proverb: Who has drunk Nile water, goes back for more! Besides, where would be the good of going? ... Then, I think differently from what I did ... Do what a woman may, she cannot alter her fate. She cannot even govern her own heart. The man who forces her to bow to his will is her master! She loves the despot who can make himself obeyed!"
