The Way of the Spirit

THE WAY OF THE SPIRIT

Bakhita, Mea, and their servant, and seeing that it led out into the desert beyond, followed swiftly. All that day they rode till they came to the water-pool that was marked upon the map, and here, being very weary after their desperate fight and long travelling, the Arabs would go no further, although their sheik urged them to do so. So they camped there by the water, and ate dates and cakes of flour, some of which were given to Rupert.

Whilst they ate, an old man and two old women, one of them blind – wanderers who were hidden in the scrub near the water – crept out and begged for food. It was given to them, and when they had filled themselves, Ibrahim asked them if two women and a man mounted on camels had passed that way.

They answered, yes, about thirty hours before. By this time they must be far away, as, after only a short rest to water their camels and to eat, they had departed very swiftly.

Now Ibrahim understood that his prey had escaped him. Indeed, the Arabs refused to follow them any further into the desert, where they feared they might be trapped by Mea’s people, and die like their brethren in the pass. His rage knew no bounds, since he was well aware the booty that he had taken could not in the least compensate for the death of so many of his best men; whose loss in a private quarrel, moreover, would be bitterly resented by the tribe, and especially by the women. He was sure, also, that as Rupert had said, the Government would avenge this great murder by sending an expedition against him, which could only be avoided by his escaping with the remainder of his people to join the Khalifa.

201

H. RIDER HAGGARD

Lastly, all had been done in vain, since the woman, Mea, whom he desired with the fierce intensity which is characteristic of the inhabitants of the Soudan, had got away safely to her own land of Tama which was far too strong for him to attack. All these ills and others had been brought upon him, he reflected, by his old enemy, the English Bey, who had protected Mea, and with his small band fought so stubbornly in the pass that he had been unable to pursue and capture her. Hate of this dogged infidel boiled up in Ibrahim’s black and cruel heart, till with a flash of joy he remembered that at least he could make him pay for these misfortunes.

Suddenly he gave orders that the prisoner should be led before him. Accordingly he was brought to where Ibrahim sat near the cooking fire under the shadow of an ancient and wide-spreading thorn.

“What is your pleasure with me, Sheik?” asked Rupert calmly. “Is the appointed hour at hand? If so, be swift, for I am tired and wish to sleep.”

“Not yet, dog,” answered Ibrahim; “and perhaps not at all, for I remember the saying: ‘He is merciful who forgives.’ Though an infidel, you are a brave man.”

“I do not ask your forgiveness; it is you who should ask mine, who have again broken faith with your master the Khedive, and murdered my people without cause,” answered Rupert proudly.

“Nor do I offer it,” said Ibrahim; “but Allah offers, and I am his servant. Once – do you remember? – I promised you that a day would come when I should command you to make choice between death and Islam. It is here. Choose now. Accept the

202

THE WAY OF THE SPIRIT

faith publicly, which should not be hard to you, seeing that already you wear the garb and travel under the holy name of the Prophet; write it in a letter to your masters at Cairo that you renounce them and are one of the faithful, and that you blame me not, and go free. Or refuse and die an infidel. I have said.”

Rupert laughed in his face.

“Have done with such idle talk,” he answered. “Am I a child or a woman that I should be frightened by death which I have faced a score of times since yesterday? Traitor Ibrahim, you can bind my body, but not my spirit. I have chosen.”

So he spoke and stood still, awaiting death. But it did not come. Ibrahim turned aside and consulted with some of his people. Then with a cruel smile he said:

“I will not be provoked. I will still show mercy and give your stubborn spirit time for repentance, that it may not lose the joys of Paradise. Throw him down.”

They obeyed, and as he lay on his back staring through the branches of the tree at the tender sky above, Rupert saw one man, whom he had heard speaking of himself as a butcher by trade, draw his sword, while another heated the broad blade of a spear in the fire. Then for the first time he felt afraid. Death he did not fear – but mutilation!

* * *

Fourteen hours had gone by and Rupert was still living. Yes, although they had hacked off his right foot, and in the morning when again he refused to accept the Koran, burnt out his left eye and scored his cheek with a hot iron, being strong, he still lived. Now he was seated in the saddle of a dromedary beneath the thorn tree, a noose about his neck, the rope to

203

H. RIDER HAGGARD

which it was attached being thrown over a bough of the tree. They were about to hang him, but first, again in the name of mercy, gave him a little while to change his mind and accept the faith.

The agonies of his body and his soul were very great, but Rupert still sat there proudly, the ruin of a man, uttering no complaint, making no plea for pity. Only in his heart he wondered humbly what he had done that these terrors should come upon him. Then he remembered that in this bloodstained Soudan, the home of fanaticism and devilry, many a man as good or better than himself – yes, and many a woman also, had been called upon to suffer even worse things, and bowed his mangled head in submission to the decree of Destiny. Never once during those long hours of torment had he dreamed of purchasing its remission, as by a word he could have done. For this he took no credit to himself, whose faith and pride were both too deeply rooted to permit him even to entertain the thought.

This world was ended for him; none would ever know even the hideous fashion of his farewell to the sun. Now he had but one desire left – to show no sign of pain or fear to his tormentors, and brave and loyal to the last, to enter on the next. Even those heartless fiends marvelled at his courage, and grew half ashamed of their red work. They wished to let him go, but Ibrahim said nay, it was too late, he must die for their safety’s sake. Indeed, even had Rupert been weak and entered Islam, it was still his intention that he should die. Only the Arab wished to break his spirit first as he had broken his body.

204

THE WAY OF THE SPIRIT

They had left him alone a while, knowing that he could not stir, and were saddling their beasts. Now they came back, all of them, and stood in front of him, watching him with curious eyes. God be thanked! the end was at hand, and soon he would feel no more of those racking pains. There they stood, grave and silent, pitying him in their hearts, all except Ibrahim, who chose this moment to expound to his victim the principal doctrines of the Koran, and to assure him that he must certainly go to hell.

Rupert made no answer, only looked over the heads of his tormentors, with the eye that was left to him, at the little slope of land opposite, of which the crest ran not more than a hundred yards away. Was he mad, or was he altogether blind, and did he perhaps see visions in his blindness? If not, coming over the brow of that hill were horsemen, armed with spears, and amongst them a woman, who also held in her hand a spear. They looked, they halted, they spread out, but the murderers, intent upon the face of the dying man, never heard the sound of them on that soft sand and against the strong desert wind.

“It is without avail,” Ibrahim said. “The infidel dog rejects the cup of mercy; let him die the death of a dog,” and he seized the rope.

“One moment,” broke in Rupert, in a thick voice; “that last point of yours, Sheik, touches my reason; light breaks upon me from on high. Repeat it, I pray you.”

Ibrahim smiled cruelly. He had triumphed, the gallant English chief turned coward at the last. Then he began to repeat his argument.

205

H. RIDER HAGGARD

The horsemen came on in a semi-circle, a hundred of them at least, or Rupert dreamed that they did. No, by Heaven! it was no dream, for hark now to that shrilling battle-cry of “Tama, Tama!” and hark the thunder of the hoofs as the spurred horses sprang forward wildly and galloped down upon them. The Arabs wheeled round and saw their doom. With mad shouts of terror they fled this way and that, rushing towards the camels. As he went, Ibrahim hurled a spear at Rupert, but again it only grazed his head.

Then came the swift and sudden vengeance. Some were cut down and some were captured, Ibrahim among them. In two minutes it was over. A horse was dragged to its haunches almost in front of him, and from its back leapt a woman – Mea. She cast down her spear, she ran to him and threw her arms about him; she kissed him on the brow, and seeing what were the nature of his hurts, wept and cursed in English and in Arabic. Then, those soft eyes of hers flashing terribly, she turned and screamed an order:

“Bring them hither, every one of them that lives.”

They haled them up, a score of them or more; yes, even the dying; blood-stained, with rent garments and head-dresses gone, they dragged them before her.

“Now,” she said, in a voice of icy fury, “do unto them as they have done to the English lord, only from Ibrahim cut off both hands and both feet before you hang him to the tree.”

The miserable men flung themselves upon the ground, pleading for mercy. Yes, even Ibrahim prostrated himself at her feet and prayed to be slain at once. As well might he have prayed to a stone idol of slaughter. Indeed, drawn up to her

206

CHAPTER XIV

MEA MAKES A PROPOSAL

That sight of the corpses of his tormentors hanging to the thorn trees was the last that Rupert was destined to see for many a day. Indeed for weeks, so far as any subsequent memory was concerned, he remained quite unconscious. Unconscious they bore him in a litter across the desert to the Black Pass of the further mountains where no white man had set foot, and on through the heart of them to the hidden oasis around which they stood like sentinels. Here placed by the waters, beneath the shade of palms and near to the towering pylons of the ruined temple, stood the town, Tama, over which by right of descent the lady Mea held her rule. It was not a large town, for the tribe was small, not numbering more than four hundred men who could bear arms for, proud of their ancient blood and hating strangers, they would intermarry with no other folk, and therefore the old race dwindled. But the land was very rich, and the houses were well built and stored, since being so few in number there was little poverty among the children of Tama.

Mea brought Rupert to her own home, which was large, comfortable and built of stone taken from the ruined temple;

208

THE WAY OF THE SPIRIT

surrounded also by gardens. Here she and Bakhita nursed him as a man has seldom been nursed before. There were doctors in the tribe who, as is sometimes the case among African natives, had a certain rude knowledge of surgery.

These men drew the seared flesh over his severed bone so that in this pure air, and kept clean with astringent ointment, it healed without mortifying or other complications. They doctored his head also, but in such matters their skill was little, nor could anything they were able to do prevent the inflammation from spreading to the other eye. This passed in time, but its sight was affected so much that when at length Rupert woke up from his wanderings, he thought that it must be night-time, for dense darkness hung before him like a veil.

For a long while he could not remember or guess where he was, but by degrees recollection returned, only he thought it must be that left by a nightmare.

It was Mea’s voice which in the end opened the closed doors of his understanding. She had seen the change in Rupert’s face and trembled with hope, believing that at last his reason had come back to him. For a while she watched him as he groped about aimlessly with his hands until she learnt that as they had feared, he was blind. At length, able to bear the suspense no more, she spoke to him in her quaint English.

“You sleep very long, Rupert Bey. Now you awake, yes?” He turned his head, listening intently, then said:

“Is that not Mea’s voice, the lady Mea who poured a libation to the gods at Abu-Simbel?”

“Yes, yes,” she answered eagerly, “of course. No one else have voice like Mea. All of them stupid and can’t talk English.

209

H. RIDER HAGGARD

But,” she went on, again watching him, for she wished to know how much he remembered, “I pour that cup over your feet, not over the god, and Bakhita say that why everything go upside down, and you lose your poor foot.”

Her voice trembled as she spoke the words, and it was only with an effort that she could add:

“But I think Bakhita silly old woman who talk confounded nonsense. Gods only old stones, and which way cup tumbled nothing to do with luck.”

Even then and there Rupert laughed, and oh! how she rejoiced to hear him. Then his poor twisted face grew grave and he said:

“Tell me, Mea, all about my foot and eyes, and what happened. Don’t be afraid, I can bear it now.”

So she took his hand and told him everything, speaking in her rich and native Arabic, for the resources of the English language, as she knew it, were not equal to that tale. Yet in its essence it was short. Bakhita and she and their attendant travelled the pass of Jebal Marru in safety, and journeyed on at great speed, for their camels were as good as any in the desert, pausing a little while at the wells, as the old wanderers had said. When they drew near the Black Gate, as the gully was called, by which they approached the oasis, to their joy they met a hundred of their own men who, summoned by the messenger that they had sent forward, were coming out to seek them.

At once they returned upon their tracks. Bakhita and the emirs had wished her, Mea, to go on to her home, but this she refused to do. Indeed she asserted her authority and took com-

210