The Dash for Khartoum: A Tale of the Nile Expedition, G. A. Henty [ebook offline reader txt] 📗

"He does," the sheik agreed; "he is a willing slave. I am glad I did not give him up to the Mahdi. Kaffir as he is, I think he brings good luck to the village. If he would change his religion and follow the Prophet I would adopt him as my son, seeing that you have only girls."

Edgar made very rapid progress with the language. It was well for him that he had picked up a few words and sentences at Suakim and Cairo, for this enabled him to make far more rapid progress than he would have done had he been ignorant of the language. He attempted to keep up a constant conversation with the negro, and although the latter often went into screams of laughter at his mistakes he was ready to help him, correcting his errors and repeating sentences over and over again until he was able to pronounce them with a proper accent. In two months he was able to converse with tolerable fluency, and the sheik was meditating broaching the subject of his conversion to him when an event occurred that for a time gave him other matters to think of.

One morning when the encampment woke Hamish was found to be missing, and it was ere long discovered that the best camel in the encampment had been stolen, and that two water-skins had been taken from the sheik's tent, and a perfect hubbub arose in the village when this became known. The sheik seizing a stick fell upon the other negro and showered blows[Pg 294] upon him, exclaiming that he must have known of and aided his companion in his flight, although he declared he had not the least idea of his intentions. As soon as his first burst of rage was over the sheik ordered four of the best camels to be saddled and water-bottles to be filled.

"The fellow must be mad," he said as he walked up and down before his tent; "he must know that he cannot escape; he would be known as a slave by the first people he comes upon, and it would only be a change of masters, and he would be long before he finds one so gentle as I have been with him."

"I do not think he has gone away to make a change in masters," Amina said. "It is worse than that, I fear."

"What is it, Amina? What do you mean?"

"I fear that he has made for Khartoum to report that you have a white slave here. He hates Muley, and I think that it is to obtain vengeance on him that he has fled."

"You are right, Amina; that is what the son of Sheitan intends to do. Quick! bring up those camels," he roared.

Three of the men were ordered to accompany him. Then he gave orders that the rest of the camels should be loaded at once with his goods, the valuables of the village, and a portion of the crops, and that they should start without delay to the oasis of Wady El Bahr Nile, or the valley of the Dry River, two days' journey to the west, driving with them the herd of goats.

"If I do not catch him we must break up the donar," he said, "and all who do not wish to be found here by the Mahdi's men had best be in readiness to start when we return. Let half a dozen men and women go to the wady to look after the goats and guard the property. The camels must be brought back as soon as they get there."

Ten minutes later he and his three companions had disappeared from sight over the brow of the nearest sand-hill, while all in the encampment were busy in preparing for their depar[Pg 295]ture. A camel was allotted to each of the ten tents of which the camp consisted; three camels were claimed by Amina for the sheik's possessions; the remaining six were to carry the food. All who were not engaged were at once set to work gathering the maize that was fit to pluck and cutting and tying up into bundles the forage for the camels.

In three hours a great change had been effected in the appearance of the little valley. The sheik's tent and three others remained standing, but the rest were levelled to the ground, their occupants preferring to start at once rather than risk being caught by the Mahdists. It was mid-day when the party started. Edgar could hardly help smiling at the appearance the camels presented, each animal being almost hidden by the pile of baggage, bundles, cooking-pots, and articles of all kinds, at the top of which were perched a woman and two or three children. The men walked, as did many of the younger women and boys and girls.

It would be a fatiguing journey, for they would travel without a halt until morning, then rest until the sun was low again, and again journey all night, when they would reach the wells soon after daybreak. As it was but a two days' journey the camels carried far heavier loads than would have been placed upon them had it been one of longer duration. Amina took the lead in the whole matter. She gave orders to the men, scolded the women, and saw that everything was done in order.

"Do you think that the sheik has any chance of catching Hamish?" Edgar asked her as they stood together watching the retreating line of camels.

She shook her head.

"Very little," she said, "unless the camel breaks down, which is not likely, or he misses the track. When he once gains the cultivated land he will turn the camel adrift and will make his way on foot to Khartoum. He will avoid all villages where he might be stopped and go straight to the city, where he will tell[Pg 296] his story to the first officer of the Mahdi he meets. If the sheik does not overtake him before he gets beyond the limit of the desert he will pursue no further. It would be useless. He would never find him in the fields, where he might lie down among the crops. It would only be waste of time to search for him."

"Does Hamish know of the other wady?"

She nodded. "It may be that the Mahdists will not follow further. It will depend upon the orders they have received. Of course we shall leave someone here to watch, and if they start for the wady he will bring us news before they get there."

"Are there any other wells?"

"None nearer than six days' journey to the south. Then there is a great cultivated country with many villages and towns, but the journey would be terrible. I do not know what we shall do. But do not be afraid, Muley; whatever we do you will not be given up until the last thing. When my lord once sets his face one way he never turns it. He has said the Mahdi shall not have you, for you are his captive and none other's, and he will never go back from that."

"You have been very good to me," Edgar said, "and I would rather run my own risk than that suffering and perhaps death should fall upon the women and children of the douar."

"My lord will never hear of it," she said. "When he has said a thing he has said it. There is nothing to do now but to wait until we learn what force is coming against us. There is another encampment of the tribe in a wady two days' journey to the north, and we may summon help from there if the party is not too strong. The great thing will be to kill Hamish, for the Wady El Bahr Nile is known only to a few of our own tribe, and were he not with them they would not be able to find their way there. Even this wady is known to few, for it lies altogether beyond the track of caravans. But now there is nothing to do but to wait until my lord returns. It will be, I think, on the fourteenth day. You were eight days coming[Pg 297] across the desert. They will do it in six but will be eight on their return, for there will be no occasion for haste. Hamish will take two more days to get to Khartoum; it may be a day or two before a party is sent out from there, and they will take ten days getting here, so that it should be some days at least after my lord's return before they appear."

"I am sorry, indeed, to have been the cause of so much trouble falling upon you," Edgar said.

"It is not your fault. It was the will of Allah that you should be brought here. But anyhow we should not have stopped here much longer. We have been here six months now, and my lord was saying but a few days since that as soon as the rest of the crops were gathered he should send those who are not fit to travel to El Bahr Nile, and should leave you there and should start with the camels to Khartoum, sell our crops there, and then carry merchandise to El-Obeid or some other distant place. He has been waiting for things to settle down; we have only been stopping here so long because trade has been stopped by the siege of Khartoum, and since then he has not ventured to go there lest his camels should be seized by the Mahdi; but, as he said, he must risk something. Of what use is it to have camels if you do not employ them. They are getting fat and lazy; never have they had so long a rest before. It matters nothing our having to leave this wady. The worst is that the Mahdi will be set against us, and that we shall have to move away far from here to get trade."

"It is possible that at the present time Khartoum is in the hands of the English," Edgar said. "We have heard no news from without since I came here three months ago now, and by this time our expedition may have arrived there and the Mahdi's power may be altogether broken."

"I hope it may be so," the woman said; "before the Mahdi came the country was peaceful and prosperous; there was employment and trade for our camels, and all went about their occupations unmolested. Now everything is changed; trade is[Pg 298] at an end, the villages are destroyed, and the fields deserted. I know not how it will end. If the tribes would all turn together against them they would soon drive them out of the land. But there is no hope of this; we have our own quarrels, and cannot unite even when everything is at stake. The Mahdi may be the Mahdi, but what is that to us? He tells his followers that he will lead them to conquer Egypt, and to go to Jerusalem and Roum (Constantinople). But how is he to do it when a handful of white soldiers defeated thousands of his men in the desert? What would it be were he to meet a great army of them? It is one thing to fight the Egyptians as they did at El-Obeid, but another when it is your soldiers. I hear that multitudes of Osman Digma's men were slain down by the sea, and yet they say they fought well."

"They did fight well," Edgar said. "I was there and saw it; no men could have been braver; but we have terrible weapons, and it was impossible for them to stand against them. The Mahdi may say what he likes, but there is no more chance of his taking Egypt as long as we stay there than there is of his flying."

"Well, well!" the woman said, "it will be as Allah chooses. You do not believe in Allah, Muley, you are a Kaffir."

"I beg your pardon," Edgar said; "we and you worship the same God. We call him God, and you call him Allah; but it is the same. Your Prophet acknowledges Moses and Christ to be prophets. The only difference between us is that you believe that Mohammed was also a prophet, and the greatest of all, while we do not acknowledge that, but in other respects there is no great difference between us."

"My lord will talk to you, Muley; I am but a woman, and these things are not for us."

Each morning one of the boys remaining at the douar