The Haunting of Low Fennel Part 24

It was under the stimulus of that Celtic impetuosity--that generous madness which seems to proceed, not from the mind, but from the heart--that she leapt, not back, but forward.

She never knew exactly what took place, nor how she escaped destruction; but there was a roaring in her ears, above it rising the Teutonic screams of the lady in the _arabeeyeh_; there was a confused chorus of voices, a consciousness of effort; and she found herself, with wildly beating heart, crouching back into the recess which once had held a _mastabah_.

From some place invisible, around a bend in the tortuous street, came sounds of shouting and that of las.h.i.+ng hoofs. The runaway was stopped.

At her feet lay a shapeless bundle wrapped in a blue cloth, and beside her, leaning back against the whitewashed wall, and breathing with short, sobbing breaths, was the old porter.

Now, her husband had his arms about her, and Mohammed, with frightened eyes, hovered in the background. Without undue haste, all the bazaar gradually was coming upon the scene.

"My darling, are you hurt?"

John Graham's voice shook. He was deathly pale.

Eileen smiled rea.s.suringly.

"Not a bit, dear," she said breathlessly. "But I am afraid the poor old man is."

"You are quite sure you are not hurt?"

"I was not so much as touched, though honestly I don't know how either of us escaped. But do see if the old man is injured."

Graham turned to the rescued porter, who now had recovered his composure.

"Mohammed, ask him if he is hurt," he directed.

Mohammed put the question. A curious group surrounded the party. But the old man, ignoring all, knelt and bowed his bare head to the dust at Eileen's feet.

"Oh, John," cried the girl, "ask him to stand up! I feel ashamed to see such a venerable old man kneeling before me!"

"Tell him it is--nothing," said Graham hastily to Mohammed, "and--er----"--he fumbled in his pocket--"give him this."

But Mohammed, looking ill at ease, thrust aside the proffered _baks.h.i.+sh_--a novel action which made Graham stare widely.

"He would not take it, Effendi," he whispered. "See, his turban lies there; he is a _hadj_. He is praying for the eternal happiness of his preserver, and he is interceding with the Prophet (_Salla--'llahu 'aleyhi wasellum_), that she may enjoy the delights of Paradise equally with all true Believers!"

"Very good of him," said Graham, who, finding the danger pa.s.sed and his wife safe, was beginning to feel embarra.s.sed. "Thank him, and tell him that she is greatly indebted!"

He took Eileen's arm, and turned to force a way through the strangely silent group about. But the aged porter seized the hem of the girl's white skirt, gently detaining her. As he rose upon his knees, Mohammed, with marks of unusual deference, handed him his green turban. The old man, still clutching Eileen's dress, signed that his dirty bundle should likewise be pa.s.sed to him. This was done.

Graham was impatient to get away. But----

"Humour him for a moment, dear," said Eileen softly. "We don't want to hurt the poor old fellow's feelings."

Into the bundle the old man plunged his hand, and drew out a thin gold chain upon which hung a queerly cut turquoise. He stood upright, raised the piece of jewellery to his forehead and to his lips, and held it out, the chain stretched across his open palms, to Eileen.

"He must be some kind of pedlar," said Graham.

Eileen shook her head, smiling.

"Mohammed, tell him that I cannot possibly take his chain," she directed. "But thank him all the same, of course."

Mohammed, his face averted from the statuesque old figure, bent to her ear.

"Take it!" he whispered. "Take it! Do not refuse!"

There was a sort of frightened urgency in his tones, so that both Graham and his wife looked at him curiously.

"Take it, then, Eileen," said Graham quickly. "And, Mohammed, you must find out who he is, and we will make it up to him in some way."

"Yes, yes, Effendi," agreed the man readily.

Eileen accordingly accepted the present, glancing aside at her husband to intimate that they must not fail to pay for it. As she took the chain in her hands, the donor said something in a low voice.

"Hang it round your neck," translated Mohammed.

Eileen did so, whispering:

"You must not lose sight of him, Mohammed."

Mohammed nodded; and the old man, replacing his turban and making a low obeisance, spoke rapidly a few words, took up his bundle, and departed.

The silent bystanders made way for him.

"Come on," said Graham; "I am anxious to get out of this. Find a carriage, Mohammed. We'll lunch at Shepheard's."

A carriage was obtained, and they soon left far behind them the scene of this odd adventure. With Mohammed perched up on the box, Graham and his wife could discuss the episode without restraint. Graham, however, did most of the talking, for Eileen was strangely silent.

"It is quite a fine stone," he said, examining the necklace so curiously acquired. "We must find some way of repaying the old chap which will not offend his susceptibilities."

Eileen nodded absently; and her husband, with his eyes upon the dainty white figure, found grat.i.tude for her safety welling up like a hot spring in his heart. The action had been characteristic; and he longed to reprove her for risking her life, yet burned to take her in his arms for the n.o.ble impulse that had prompted her to do so.

He wondered anxiously if her silence could be due to the after-effects of that moment of intense excitement.

"You don't feel unwell, darling?" he whispered.

She smiled at him radiantly, and gave his hand a quick little squeeze.

"Of course not," she said.

But she remained silent to the end of the short drive. This was not due to that which her husband feared, however, but to the fact that she had caught a glimpse, amongst the throng at the corner of the bazaar, of the handsome, sinister face of El-Suleym, the Bedouin.

III

The moon poured radiance on the desert. At the entrance to a camel-hair tent stood a tall, handsome man, arrayed in the picturesque costume of the Bedouin. The tent behind him was upheld by six poles. The ends and one side were pegged to the ground, and the whole of that side before which he stood was quite open, with the exception of a portion before which hung a goat-hair curtain.

This was the "house of hair" of the Sheikh El-Suleym, of the Masr-Bishareen--El-Suleym, "the Regicide" outcast of the great tribe of the Bishareen. At some distance from the Sheikh's tent were some half a dozen other and smaller tents, housing the rascally following of this desert outcast.

Little did those who had engaged the picturesque El-Suleym, to display his marvellous horsemans.h.i.+p in London, know that he and those that came with him were a scorn among true sons of the desert, pariahs of that brotherhood which extends from Zered to the Nile, from Tanta to the Red Sea; little did those who had opened their doors in hospitality to the das.h.i.+ng horseman dream that they entertained a petty brigand, sought for by the Egyptian authorities, driven out into ostracism by his own people.

And now before his tent he stood statuesque in the Egyptian moonlight, and looked towards Gizeh, less than thirty miles to the north-east.