“A person sat demanding from God the rise of morn—when morn rose he became blind.”—Arabic Proverb. “I wish the stars could be seen,” Sir Richard said irritably, three nights later, as he looked up at the sky, across which hung a heavy purple cloud. Due to the intense heat, it obliterated the stars, thereby trying the patience of the old man to the uttermost. “This delay is simply abominable. To think, just to think, that this wind has been blowing for nearly a week, clouding the sky and blotting out the stars—the stars by which, if they could have been seen, I could have proved, absolutely proved, that we are camped upon the exact spot, between the mountains of Hareek and the Jebel Akhaf, from where the Holy Fathers turned due south. We could have followed in their footsteps, started to-night; think of it, could have started to-night, if only this wind hadn’t blown. What? Try to find out what the firing meant the other night? Nonsense, man, nonsense! We don’t want to go over all that again. Some Arab, a solitary one. Sound carries for miles, miles in the desert, the slightest sound. If you let a pin drop it could be almost heard in Hutah. Absurd! The thing to do is to get on.” He spread out, with an angry slap, the copy he had made of the vellum inscribed by the Holy Palladius, and read out the Latin words by the light of an electric torch. “It absolutely tallies,” he cried enthusiastically. “You see, ab-so-lutely tallies! Another week, perhaps a little less, perhaps a little more, and we should see the Sanctuary before us, if we could only start!”
“But, Grandad,” interrupted Helen, who sat fanning[104] herself with her topee in an endeavour to bear with the terrible heat, which had encircled her eyes with deep violet shadows and caused her collar bones to show with undue prominence. “How can you be sure that that range of mountains is the one in which the water is hidden? It seems to me to be too near the beginning of the desert not to have been discovered before, if it is. In fact, Abdul told me that his own brother had been within five miles of it.”
“And why, when so close, did he not go closer still?”
“Because of the great barrier of evil the bad spirits, which live in the mountains, have built to keep people away.”
“Exactly,” said the old man triumphantly. “We are not going to break new ground, my dear child; we are going to break through the barrier of superstition erected by the Arabs themselves, and which alone has kept them from the water of which they stand so badly in need in this terrible spot.”
“It is rather appalling, I must say, without the camp fires,” said Ralph Trenchard, who, in shorts and a silk shirt, wrestled unceasingly with insects of all sizes and shapes which flew and crawled about them, attracted by the light of the torch.
“However did those poor beggars get through without oils of lavender and lemon, kerosene and smoke of sulphur to protect them from these brutes?” He speared a spider as he spoke and flung it into the night, then took Helen’s hand in both of his. “Why not turn in, dearest? You look tired out, and we can’t move until the stars come out, either late to-night or to-morrow night.”
She shook her head as she looked first at the sullen sky, then at the huddled figures of the Arabs, sitting with their heads buried in their burnous, and at the camels lying with their muzzles hidden in each other’s sides. She put her finger to her lips and shook her head again, as she glanced at her grandfather poring over the map, then[105] at the sentries who paced the four sides of the rough square.
The square was small and compact, with their Excellencies’ tents in the middle, and the camels so stabled that there could be no confusion between them and their drivers if danger should arise. To mark the four sides of the square a tent had been pitched at each angle. In the shadow of the one to the south a man lay with his ear to the ground. He lay like one asleep or dead until the sentry turned, when he crawled upon his belly back to the lines where, with the help of two others such as he, he unhobbled certain camels and fastened them together by means of long leather thongs buckled above the knee of the right forelegs, then let them loose. It is an invention of Satan himself to create confusion in a herd of camels, and has never been known to fail in the annals of the turbulent Peninsula.
“Yes, why don’t you go and get some sleep, child?” said Sir Richard, who paid no attention to the passing of the hours himself, having acquired the Oriental’s gift of falling asleep when and where he wished. “Two o’clock already! Dear me! How quickly time does pass when one is pleasantly occupied!” He evicted something that crawled from the vicinity of his neck and patted his granddaughter’s hand. “There’ll be plenty of time for love-making, little one, when we get back to east winds and frosts, so run along and take off your boots and comb your hair and wheedle a basinful of water from Hassin. I don’t know what I should have done without you, and I’m glad to think that there is a man almost good enough to look after you. Ah! I thought so. We’re in for a thunderstorm. That accounts for the sky and this oppressiveness.”
He turned and looked due south, childishly pleased that he had caught the distant rumbling before the others; then looked up at Ralph Trenchard, who had leapt to his feet, jerking Helen up beside him.
[106]
“Do you hear it now? Of course, the storm may pass us by.”
“The storm’s not going to pass us by!” answered Ralph Trenchard sharply. “That sound has nothing to do with thunder; it’s the sound of horses galloping on sand. Remember I did my bit in Egypt and know what I’m talking about, and they’re not far off either. Take Helen to your tent and stay there, so that I can know where you are. Don’t leave it. Quick! Oh, damn the fool!”
A sentry had fired into the pitchy darkness.
The Arab is inclined to impulsiveness with firearms when left to himself, but he is a born fighter and a magnificent fighter when properly armed and led. He will fight to the death for a cause, for a bet, for nothing at all; he loves fighting, and does not own himself beaten until death overtakes him or he is rendered incapable of movement through wounds.
The camp seethed.
Now that the danger was upon them the men were in high fettle at the prospect of a fight. If they died—well, kismet! It would be because their hour had come. If they lived, the great English Sheikh would reward them bounteously for having so well defended her Excellency their mistress. They were well armed, the ammunition plentiful, and the young English Sheikh a man among men to lead them into battle. So they yelled in response to the yelling of the distant enemy, and loosened their knives and examined their rifles whilst calling upon the Prophet to allow the battle to be long and bloody and the reward great.
The camp had not been caught unprepared, and all might have gone exceeding well if it had not been for the half-dozen camels which the spies had fastened together with leather thongs. Panic-stricken, they rushed amongst the others standing helpless on account of the hobbles, entangling them, binding them one to the other as they fought to get free.
[107]
“Rifle all right, darling? And yours, sir?”
Ralph Trenchard paused for an instant at the tent, then ran to take his place amongst the men who watched the magnificent picture before them, withholding their fire by his orders.
A torch flared suddenly in the far distance, and another, and yet another, until a line of orange flame swept across the sky towards the camp, rising and falling at regular intervals as though borne upon the crest of some gigantic wave.
From underneath the flaming line came the thunder of many hoofs and the shouting of many men, invisible in the darkness. Then showed dimly the shape of a white horse ridden by a woman, and behind her horses and men sweeping down to the attack.
Glittering from head to foot with jewels, shouting with her men, Zarah the Cruel, the mysterious woman of the desert, rode her favourite stallion native-wise, guiding him with her knees, ripping his satiny sides with golden spur to keep him a length ahead of those she led.
“Ista’jil! Zarah! Ista’jil! Zarah!”
The men shouted the battle-cry and the Arabian’s name unceasingly as they drove their horses at full gallop over the billows of sand, holding aloft their throwing spears, upon the points of which lighted torches flared. Little cared she that the line of light made a splendid target for the enemy hidden in the darkness; little cared she what happened to those around her so long as tales of mystery and power about her were carried throughout the Peninsula, across to Egypt, and up to Turkey and far away to India.
She raised her spear when a volley from the camp brought men and horses crashing to the ground, and turning to Al-Asad, who rode at her right hand, shouted an order, which he repeated, whilst the men yelled “Wah! Wah!” as they raised their spears and whirled them above[108] their heads, until the sky seemed full of great circles of fire and the earth possessed of demons.
There came the crash of a second volley from the camp just as Al-Asad raised his hand, and the spears, with flaming torch upon the points, flashed like meteors in a semicircle through the air, to fall in the centre of the camp.
“They surround us, Excellency!” shouted Abdul, who had left the screaming, fighting camels to their fate so as to stand by the side of the white man he had learned to love and respect during the long weeks they had passed together. “Watch her, that thrice accursed daughter of pigs; she makes the point from which her men deploy.”
As the men spread out on each side of her Zarah reined the stallion in, holding him, rearing and plunging, upon one spot, seemingly indifferent to the bullets which rained about her, spitting up the sand at the animal’s feet, bringing her men and her horses to the ground. She laughe............