The Way of the Spirit

THE WAY OF THE SPIRIT

“Yes, Bakhita; but how do you know that?”

“Oh!” she replied evasively; “I heard his angry voice coming down the wind from the top of yonder hill. I think that he was threatening and cursing you.”

Rupert nodded.

“I am sorry. I have known this man from childhood and his father before him, for he has done much hurt to my people, and would do more. That is why I live here; to watch him. He is a very evil man, cruel and full of the spirit of revenge. Also, it would have been well to speak him soft, for his tribe is strong and he may give trouble to the Government. It is true, as he says, that the soldiers did handle him with roughness, for one of them had grudges against him.”

“What is said, is said,” answered Rupert indifferently. “But tell me, mother, how do you come to know so much – about many things?”

“I? Oh! I sit by the river and listen, and the river tells me its tidings – tidings from the north, tidings from the south; the river tells me all. Although you white men cannot hear it, that old river has a voice for those whose ears are opened.”

“And how about tidings from east and west where the river does not run?” asked Rupert, smiling.

“Tidings from the east and west? Oh! thence and thither blow the winds, and those whose eyes are opened, see more in them than dust. They have their voices too, those old, old winds, and they tell me tales of the kings of my people who are dead, and of the loves and wars of long ago.”

Rupert laughed outright.

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“You are a very clever woman, mother,” he said; “but be careful that they don’t arrest you as a Mahdist spy, for you won’t be able to call the Nile and the Campsine wind as witnesses.”

“Ah! you laugh at me,” she answered, shaking her old head; “but you wonderful white folk have still much to learn from the East that was grey with time when the first of your forefathers yet lay within the womb. I tell you, Rupert Bey, that all Nature has its voices, and that some of them speak of the past, some of the present, and some of the future. Yes; even that moving sand down which you climbed but now has its own voice.”

“I know that well enough, for I heard it, but I can’t explain to you the reason in Arabic.”

“You heard it; yes, and you would tell me that it is caused by sand rubbing up against rocks, or by rocks singing to the sound of the sand like a harp to the wind, and so, without doubt, it is. You heard the voice, wise white father, but tell me, did you understand its talk? Listen!” she went on, without waiting for an answer. “I, seated here watching you as you climbed, I heard what the sand said about you and others with whom your life has to do. Oh, no; I am not a common fortuneteller. I do not look at hands and make squares in the dust, or throw bones and pebbles, or gaze into pools of ink. Yet sometimes when the voice speaks to me, then I know, and never so well as of him whose feet are set upon the Singing Sand.”

“Indeed, mother; and what was its song of me?”

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“I shall not tell you,” she answered, shaking her head. “It is not lawful that I should tell you, and if I did, you would only set me down as a common cheat – of whom there are many.”

“What had the song of the sand to say of me?” he repeated carelessly, for he was only half-listening to her talk.

“Much, Rupert Bey,” she answered; “much that is sad and more that is noble.”

“Noble! That should mean the peerage at least. Well, everything considered, it is a pretty safe prophecy,” he muttered to himself, with a laugh, and turned to leave her, then checked himself and asked; “Tell me, Bakhita, what do you know of the lost temple in the desert yonder?”

Instantly she became very attentive, and answered him with another question:

“How can I know anything of it, if it is lost? But what do you know?”

“I, mother? Nothing; I am interested by the story and in old temples, that is all, and I was certain that a person who can interpret the voices of the river, the winds, and the sands, must know all about it.”

“Well, perhaps I do,” she answered coolly. “Perhaps I would tell you also to whom I am so grateful. Come to my hut and we will see.”

“No,” he said, “not to-night. I must go back to my camp; I have letters to write. Another time, Bakhita.”

“Very well, another time, and afterwards perhaps we may visit that temple together. Who can say? But I think that you will have letters to read as well as to write this evening. Listen!” and she held up her hand and bent her head towards the river.

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CHAPTER II

TWO LETTERS

When Rupert reached his camp beyond the great temple, he asked the sergeant of his guard whether the Sheik Ibrahim had been there with his servants. The soldier answered that he had seen no sheik.

“He must have been watching to find me alone; lucky I had my pistol with me,” thought Rupert to himself.

Then he ate his dinner, and afterwards sat down and wrote a report of this and other matters to his superiors in Cairo. As he finished copying the paper, to his surprise he heard a steamer hoot, and next minute his orderly informed him that a boat coming up stream was making fast opposite to the temple.

“So old Bakhita was right, after all. What long ears she must have,” thought Rupert, as he started to board the steamer.

She proved to be a Government boat from Assouan, carrying a company of Egyptian troops under the command of a brother-officer of his own, who brought him despatches and private letters. Though one of the latter was in the handwriting of his mother, from whom he was most anxious to hear, as no letter of hers had reached him for some time, it was characteristic of Rupert that he read the despatches first. Amongst

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other things, these contained an order that he should proceed at once to Cairo, there to advise with his chiefs on certain matters connected with the state of affairs in the Wady-Halfa district. They informed him also that the officer who brought them would stay to carry on his work at Abu-Simbel.

As the boat was to start down the Nile at dawn, Rupert spent most of the night in making arrangements with his successor, and in instructing him as to the political position. When this duty was finished, and the company of soldiers had been disembarked and camped, his own packing claimed attention, so that, in the end, he did not get aboard the steamer till nearly four o’clock in the morning – that is, about an hour before she cast off. Going at once to his cabin, Rupert opened his mother’s envelope, to find that the letter within was written with pencil, and in a very shaky hand. Consumed by anxiety, he began to read. It ran as follows:

“My Dearest Son, – My last letter to you was that which I wrote to say how thankful I was to hear that by God’s mercy you had safely passed the great dangers of the battle of Toski, and the delight with which I saw you so favourably spoken of in the official despatches reporting the victory.

“That was five weeks ago, and I have not written since because, dear Rupert, I have been somewhat seriously ill and was not able to do so. Nor would I let anyone else write lest you should be frightened. One night, Rupert, whilst reading my Bible before going to bed, a very strange feeling suddenly came over me, and I remember no more for two days. When I recovered consciousness the doctor told me that I had had a stroke, I could not quite make out of what kind, nor does it matter. He

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added, not then but afterwards, that for a while my condition was precarious, and intimated to me that although all danger had passed for the present and I might live for years, this was without doubt a warning. Of course I understood what he meant and asked no more.

“My dearest boy, as you know, I do not fear death, especially if it should come in so merciful a form. But on the other hand, I do not wish to die without seeing you again. So, if it is possible, and your career will not be greatly injured thereby, I wrote to ask you to come to England as soon as you can, for, Rupert, it is now well over eleven years since you left home, during all which time I have not seen your face except in dreams.

“I cannot write much, for my left arm is paralysed, and all that side of my body very stiff and helpless, which makes it difficult for me to sit up, so I am asking your cousin, Edith Bonnythorne, to tell you what news there is. One piece, however, I must mention, since a young woman might not like to speak of it in writing to a gentleman.

“There has been another of those sad disappointments in Lord Devene’s family, the sixth, I think, since his re-marriage. This time the child, a boy, was born at seven months. Every possible effort was made to save his life; indeed I am told that the poor little thing was put into a kind of incubator, the latest invention, which is said to be very successful in such cases. But it was of no use, the child died. So, although I know you care nothing about it, you are once more his heir, and I think likely to remain so.

“Poor Lady Devene has been to see me. She is a good sort of woman, although very narrow in her religious views. I think

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she calls herself a Calvinist (fancy his marrying a Calvinist!). She grieves more over the fact that the child was not christened than because of its sad death. Indeed, speaking half in German and half in English, as is her way when moved, she said right out that she believed it died because Lord Devene would not have the ceremony performed lest it should catch a chill, and added that she was sure no child of theirs would ever live unless her husband abandoned his godless and freethinking ways. Lastly, she declared that she wished she had never married him, but supposed that it was so ordained as a punishment of her sins, the worst of which was that being dazzled by the prospect of so brilliant a match, she had accepted what he told her about his religious principles without satisfying herself that he spoke the truth. I hear that there was a great quarrel between them as to this matter of the christening, in which she seems to have had the best of it, although he would not give way, for Tabitha (that is her name) is very stolid and strong-willed when she likes. At any rate, he lost his temper and became violent, saying he wished that either she or he were dead, to which she answered that she would not take chloral. I tell you all this because I think you ought to know. It is a sad story, and I cannot help believing that there is something in what poor Lady Devene says. Do try to come and see me, my dearest, dearest Rupert. – Your ever loving mother,

“Mary Ullershaw.”

Rupert was deeply moved by the contents of this letter. His mother was the one being whom he really loved upon earth; and although of course he always contemplated such a possibility in a vague fashion, the fact that she might die at any mo-

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ment, that she had indeed been very near to death, absolutely overwhelmed him. He had never taken any leave heretofore: first, because he shrank from returning to England and the inevitable meeting with Lord Devene, and secondly, for the reason that his career had moved forward so rapidly from point to point and from place to place, that at no given time had it been convenient so to do without the loss of some considerable opportunity.

Now he knew that in this matter he had been wrong and selfish, also that it might be too late to repair his fault. Rupert determined then and there that he would sail for home by the first steamer, even if he had to resign his commission in the Egyptian Army in order to do so. His mind made up on this point, he took up the second envelope directed in clear and fastidious-looking writing to Lieutenant-Colonel Ullershaw, C. B., D. S.O., etc., etc., Egyptian Army.

“Well, she has got it all in – just like Edith,” he thought to himself, as his eye fell upon this somewhat elaborate superscription. Then he opened and read the letter.

Like all that came from her – and he received several every year, since it seemed that Edith Bonnythorne did not wish her absent relative to forget her – it was long, well-balanced and worded, giving the idea that it had been carefully composed and perhaps copied. It began with warm congratulations to her dear Cousin Rupert upon his escape from harm in the battle of Toski, of which she said she had read the accounts with her heart in her mouth, and on the credit that he had won, which, she added, made her even prouder of him than she had been before.

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Then it told him all the details of his mother’s illness, whereof the issue, she said, had been awaited with the greatest anxiety, since, for a few hours, it was thought that she must die.

Next she passed on to general news, informing him that horse-racing, gambling debts and general extravagance had involved Dick Learmer, who was a cousin of both of them, in such difficulties that bankruptcy proceedings had been commenced against him. In the end, however, Lord Devene had come to the rescue and compounded with his creditors. Moreover, he had appointed him his private secretary, with good pay – for he earned nothing at the Bar – and as he was a capital speaker and popular, talked of putting him up to contest, in the Liberal interest, that division of the county in which the Devene estates were situated, as he disliked the sitting member, a Conservative, and wished to oust him.

“So,” added Edith, “Dick has fallen on his feet again when it seemed all over with him. I confess that I am glad both for his own sake and because these family scandals are very disagreeable.”

Lord Devene himself, she continued, was in a dreadful state of mind over the death of the baby boy. Indeed she could never have believed that anything would have moved him so much. Also, his domestic relations appeared to be very unhappy, as he and his wife constantly quarrelled over religious questions. What was more, on the whole she had the best of it, since his gibes and sarcasms took not the slightest effect upon her and she seldom lost her temper. What would be the end of it Edith could not guess, but he was growing to look quite old and ill. The letter ended by imploring Rupert to come home to visit

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