Burning Sands Read online

  CHAPTER XVII--DESTINY

  Upon the following morning, before eleven o'clock, Muriel installedherself in a hammock slung from the lower branches of a shady sycamore,some yards distant from the rose-bushes and shrubs which screened herfavourite alcove, now appropriated by Daniel. She had brought with herfrom the house a handful of fashion-papers and illustrated journals, butthese she did not read as, with one foot touching the ground, she swungherself gently to and fro. She looked up through the tracery of thefoliage to the brilliant blue of the sky, and her mind was too occupiedwith her thoughts to give its attention to the latest manner in whichthe women of Paris, London, and New York were adorning their nakedness.

  Little shafts of sunlight, like fiery rods, pierced through the coolblue shadow wherein she lay; and beyond the protection of the heavyfoliage the lawn of newly-sown grass gleamed in the radiance of themorning. The faithful northwest wind, which almost daily blows over thedesert from the Mediterranean, was gently rustling the greeneryoverhead, and rattling the hard leaves of the palms; and she could hearthe cry of the circling kites above her, though she could only see thesescavengers of the air when they swooped and tumbled down, as though inplay, to snatch at any edible fragments floating upon the surface of theNile.

  All around her she was aware of the joy of existence, flashing out likelaughter and vibrating like song. The water sprinkled upon the lawn bythe garden hose seemed to be making merry in the sunshine; a black andgrey cow lurching across the grass seemed to be overcome with hilarity;the palm-leaves swaying in the breeze might have been shaking withmirth; and the babbling of the river as it swirled past the terrace waslike an endless lyric of well-being.

  Muriel was too happily content to indulge in any profound self-analysis;but vaguely she was conscious that her life had entered upon a newphase, and shamelessly she asked herself whether the guiding hand werelove. She had realized for some time that Rupert Helsingham had made aspurious impression upon her heart, and during the recent weeks ofamusement she had come to wonder how it was that he had aroused anyemotion in her, except that caused by his tragic death.

  Now, however, she was aglow with buoyant happiness, and she had apersistent feeling that all was well with her. Yesterday, on her returnfrom Daniel's camp, she had spoken to Kate Bindane of this sense ofwell-being, and her friend's reply had set her laughing.

  "My dear," Kate had said, "I'm sure I don't want to mess up your brightpicture of things; but in my opinion, look at it as you will, the joy oflife is always some sort of an itch and the scratching of it."

  But today Muriel felt that the definition was false. Her happiness wasintangible, and all that she could say with certainty was that it wasthe result of her little time of silence yesterday in the desert.

  It had been so quiet and gentle, so entirely opposite to the prehistoricrough-and-tumble which might have been expected. Her thoughts went backto the incident of the curate at Eastbourne, who had banged her about onthe sofa, and would have rolled her on the floor, had not the tencommandments suddenly affrighted him. She thought, too, of Rupert andhis impassioned kisses: he had left red marks on her shoulder.

  But Daniel had been so silent, so tender, and withal so genuine. He hadseemed to be part of the vast sky and desert around him, enfolding her,and harming her not. Yet with a twist of his hand he could have killedher.

  In the distance she heard the murmur of his voice as he talked to hisnative visitors in the alcove; and she had a curious feeling that hisproximity was protective. She was no longer afraid, or even shy of him.

  Presently, across the lawn, she saw him dismissing three silk-robedEgyptians; and, when they had taken their departure, he waved his handto her before returning once more behind the screen of roses and trees.The signal was like the caress of an old friend, and by it her happinesswas enhanced.

  A few minutes later she watched another caller being piloted by a nativeservant across the lawn to the alcove. He was a young _effendi_ wearingEuropean clothes and the usual red _tarboush_ or fez--an unhealthylittle man, who paused once to cough and to spit unpleasantly.

  Lazily she watched the servant return to the house, and she hoped thatDaniel was finding his new visitor interesting.

  She closed her eyes, and sleep was stealing upon her when suddenly shewas startled into full consciousness by the sharp crack of apistol-shot. She sprang out of the hammock and stood for a momentstaring about her, her heart beating.

  The sound had come from the direction of the alcove, but now all wassilent once more. Evidently nobody in the house had heard the shot; andshe might have thought it to have been an illusion of sleep, had it notbeen for the manifest excitement of the birds which had risen from thebranches of the trees around.

  Almost without definite thought she hastened across the lawn, andpaused, listening, near the rose bushes. A whimpering sound of moaningcame to her ears; and at this she ran forward impulsively, and, a momentlater, came to a sudden halt upon the secluded terrace.

  Before her, upon the flagstones, crouched the figure of the youngEgyptian. He was holding his right wrist in his left hand, and wasstaring up, with open mouth, at Daniel who stood over him, fingering arevolver which now he slipped quietly into his pocket as he caught sightof her.

  "Go away, Muriel!" he exclaimed in surprise. "What are you doing here?"

  The Egyptian struggled to his feet, but Daniel caught him by the arm andhalf dragged him to the marble bench.

  "What's happened?" she cried. "I heard a shot."

  "Did anybody else hear it?" he asked, so sharply that his voice startledher.

  "I don't think so," she answered.

  "Good," he said. "This young man's revolver went off by mistake: that'sall. Please go away."

  "O Daniel!" she cried, realizing the truth. "He tried to kill you!"

  "Hush!" he whispered, impatiently. "Here, help me to tie up his wrist:I've broken it, I think."

  The Egyptian rocked himself to and fro, making no resistance as Danieltook hold of his injured arm, talking to him the while in Arabic, asthough bidding him have no fear. With the would-be assassin'shandkerchief he bound up the injured wrist, while Muriel gave all theassistance of which her trembling fingers were capable; and then, withhis own large handkerchief he improvised a sling, never ceasingmeanwhile to soothe the man with soft words of sympatheticconsideration, as though he had been a doctor called in to attend thevictim of an accident.

  When the bandaging had been accomplished, he turned to Muriel. "Nowplease go away, Muriel dear," he said, "and thanks very much for yourhelp. Remember, not a word about this to anybody at all."

  He smiled at her reassuringly, and obliged her to take her departure,again cautioning her to keep the incident secret. She walked across thelawn to the house, dazed and anxious; and thus she went up to her room,where, looking into the mirror, she was surprised to observe thepaleness of her face.

  Meanwhile Daniel sat upon the bench beside the Egyptian, smoking hispipe, and waiting for him to recover his composure. The incident hadbeen so foolish, and the attempt upon his life so bungled, that he feltnothing but pity for the wretched man who, he presumed, had believedhimself to be performing a patriotic act.

  The Secret Service Agents had fully warned him of possible danger, andhe had spotted this youth as a suspicious character as soon as he hadentered the alcove. The man had been trembling visibly, and when hisunsteady hand had fumbled in his pocket, Daniel had gripped his wrist onthe instant that the revolver came into sight. The bullet had struck thebalustrade and had gone singing into the river, while the weapon hadfallen with a clatter upon the pavement.

  Daniel had experienced no alarm, and now he felt no anger. He wasdetermined, however, to get to the root of the plot; and it seemed tohim far wiser to take action here and now, than to await a judicialenquiry.

  As soon, therefore, as his assailant had ceased his moaning and hismonotonous rocking to and fro, Daniel took him by his left arm, and ledhim across the lawn and round to the front gates of the
Residency. Herehe hailed one of the little open carriages from the stand at the otherside of the square, and, helping the Egyptian into it, told the coachmanto drive to the nearest hospital.

  In the consulting room he explained to the doctor that the man was afriend of his who had injured his wrist by a fall; and soon the mischiefwas rectified and the arm put into splints.

  Daniel then announced his intention of seeing him back to his house; butat this the man aroused himself from the silent stupor into which he hadfallen, and vehemently protested.

  "You cannot come with me," he declared. "By God, I shall give noaddress."

  Daniel had been told by his agents an address at which a certain groupof malcontents were known to meet; and, chancing the man's connectionwith this fraternity, he now named the house to the driver. The_effendi_ immediately sank back into the corner of the carriage with alook of terror upon his face which indicated clearly enough that thesurmise had been correct.

  "Do not fear," said Daniel to him, "I mean you no harm. If God iswilling I shall meet some of your friends, and we shall be able to talkover this matter."

  Once during the journey, when their carriage had come to a momentarystandstill, in the crowded Mousky, Daniel observed a certain tension inhis companion's attitude which indicated that he was contemplatingflight; and he was prepared, therefore, when the man made a sudden leapforward.

  "Ass!" he exclaimed, pulling him down on to the seat. The meaning of theexpression in Arabic is much the same as it is in English.

  For the rest of the way Daniel kept an eye upon the injured man; but thesharp twinge of pain consequent upon his attempted flight had led himonce more to prefer a condition of fatalistic apathy, and he made nosecond effort to escape.

  A turning off the Mousky brought them into a winding native street,where a few low-class Greeks were the only European pedestrians to beobserved in the crowd of Orientals; and at last the driver steered hiscarriage into a quiet alley, and pulled up before the arched doorway ofa whitewashed house, the upper storeys of which projected outwards untilthey abutted those of the buildings on the opposite side.

  Daniel assisted the Egyptian to alight, and, as they passed through thearchway into the stone-flagged hall beyond, where the light was dim,warned him against treachery.

  "I still have your loaded revolver in my pocket," he reminded him. "Ihave come to speak to your friends, and if they are here you must leadme to them."

  For a moment the man hesitated, but Daniel accelerated matters byclapping his hands loudly, which is the Egyptian method of summoning aservant; and thereupon a door was opened at the head of the crazy flightof wooden stairs, and an untidy figure of a man in a blue-cotton shirtappeared before them.

  "Are the others here?" asked Daniel, seeing that his companion wasrecognized.

  "Upstairs," the man answered, shortly, pointing to the gallery abovehim, and therewith returned whence he came, his slouching attitudedisplaying all the indifference of which the untrained Egyptian servantis so eminently capable.

  "Lead the way," said Daniel to his companion, who, recognizing the_Kismet al Allah_, the destiny of God, obeyed without protest, mountingthe stairs in silence.

  As they neared the shut door which had been indicated to them, theEgyptian was overcome with a fit of coughing, the rasping sound of whichechoed through the house; and, as though the sound had been recognized,the door before them was immediately opened, and the pock-marked faceand red _tarboush_ of another young native _effendi_ appeared.

  "What's this?" he exclaimed in astonishment, pointing to his friend'sinjured arm. Then, seeing the Englishman, he checked himself warily.

  Daniel took a step forward. "I have brought him back to you," he said,affably. "He is hurt."

  A moment later they were inside the room, and Daniel was fingering thetrigger of the revolver in his pocket, as he glanced from one to anotherof the five men confronting him. They had risen to their feet, and werestanding in attitudes of manifest nervousness. They had evidently beendisturbed at their midday meal, for it was now a little past noon: threeor four dishes of food stood upon the floor, and the mouths of at leasttwo of the men were full. The smell of garlic and stale tobacco smokepervaded the room; and a shaft of sunlight striking through the windowrevealed a mass of flies hovering and buzzing around a plate ofsomething which appeared to be cold minced meat.

  "Peace be unto you!" said Daniel, using the Islamic salutation; and themen muttered the customary response, as though by force of habit.

  Daniel stood with his back to the door which he had closed behind. "Iask your forgiveness for my intrusion," he said, still speaking inArabic, "but I thought the matter urgent. This morning this gentlemancame to the Residency, where I have the honour of being employed, andfired the revolver at me which I am now holding in my pocket. But itpleased God to spare my life, and I immediately came to ask you why youwished my death. You know the words of the Prophet: 'Man is a buildingerected by God, and he who destroys the building of God shall himself bedestroyed.'"

  The injured man had collapsed upon a stiff bench which stood against thewall, and was now rocking himself to and fro once more, the tears ofpain and exasperation streaming down his face.

  "He is in great pain," said Daniel, "for I am sorry to say I have brokenhis wrist. I took him to the hospital, and the bones are set; but hewill require much care. I think you would do well to give him somethingto eat."

  One of the Egyptians, less concerned with his own interests than theothers, fetched a cup of water, and held it to the sufferer's lips; buthis companions still stood like startled sheep, eyeing their muscularvisitor with undisguised dismay. They were all young men--students,perhaps, or clerks in minor employ; and it was evident that they wereentirely nonplussed, for they answered not a word.

  "My object in coming here," Daniel continued, "is simply to learn fromyou the cause of your anger. You must be feeling something very deeplyto resort to assassination; but why should you desire to murder _me_? Iam the only person who can help you."

  He assured them of his desire to understand their point of view, andgradually he was able to break down their anxious reserve, so thatpresently they spoke to him with a certain amount of freedom, and theyheard, probably for the first time, the English attitude expounded interms of idealism. They were fanatical young men whose patriotism wasnothing more than dislike of the foreigner, which, indeed, is a largepart of all patriotism; and though Daniel made little attempt to arguewith them he was able very soon to establish more or less sympatheticrelations with his would-be murderers, and perhaps to convince them thatbloodshed is foolish.

  The situation had a piquancy which amused him vastly; and when,presently, he unloaded the revolver and handed it back to the melancholyfigure upon the divan, he could not refrain from laughter, in which, tohis surprise, the others joined.

  "Cheer up, O son of complaint!" he said. "You ought to be praising Godthat you are not about to be hanged." Then, turning to the others, hetold them how glad he was that they found cause for mirth in thesituation. "Are we not all like the pieces upon a chessboard?" he asked."But do we realize that God is playing both sides of the game? Rememberthe words of the Koran: 'They plotted, and God plotted; and God is thebest of plotters.' Now let us laugh and give thanks that no blood hasbeen spilt, for it is precious stuff; and finally let us agree to forgetthe incident. So far as I am concerned it is _khalas khalas_--absolutelyclosed; and on your part, if you have further cause for hostility, cometo the Residency and ask for me, but do not bring your revolvers withyou or I shall give you no coffee."

  He arrived back at the Residency somewhat late for luncheon, and hishigh spirits were such that Muriel stared at him in amazement. When themeal was finished she took him aside, as the others left the room, andasked where he had been.

  "I took my murderer home," he explained, "and made friends with hisfellow-assassins, and we all had a good laugh together. It seemed to bethe best way of settling the matter."

  "O Daniel," she
whispered, "you're either a hero or else you're crazy."

  "No," he answered, "I'm just a philosopher--that is to say, one who seesthe comic side of life."

  "There's not much comedy about the attempted murder of one's bestfriend," she answered.

  His face became serious and his eyes sought hers. "Am I your bestfriend?" he asked.

  She turned from him and stared out of the window. They were alone in theroom, and he put his hand upon her shoulder, as she nodded her head insilence.

  Suddenly he observed that her eyes were full of tears, and at this hisheart seemed for a moment to stop beating.

  "Muriel," he whispered, but his voice failed him.

  She looked round at him, and smiled; and that which was destined tohappen happened all in a moment. His arms enfolded her, and, bendingdown, he kissed her with the passion of revelation--fervently,exultantly, joyously.