In the Mahdi's Grasp Part 31

"What?"

"Take your gla.s.s, and sharpen your powers of observation, my lad. The sooner you learn the desert the better for you."

"I begin to have my suspicions," said Frank sharply.

"If you wait a little longer, and go by there with your eyes shut, my lad, you will have something more than a suspicion."

"Horrible!" said Frank shortly, as he once more raised his gla.s.s to his eyes. "You have given me the clue. I can make it out clearly now.

Some poor camel that has strayed and lost its way, I suppose. Died from hunger and thirst."

"More likely from old age or overwork," replied the professor; "a milestone, only one of the many that mark the caravan tracks across the desert. Some one must have pa.s.sed here within forty-eight hours."

"How do you know?"

"By the appearance of that milestone. If we came by here to-morrow there would be nothing visible but some whitening bones. Look yonder without the gla.s.s. Look straight past the leading camel, low down at the horizon, and now raise your eyes. What can you see?"

"Glare," said Frank.

"Try again."

"Nothing but more glare, and the atmosphere quivering as it rises from the sand."

"Try once more," said the professor. "I can see one--two--three. Look higher."

"Ah, I've got it now; a mere speck," said Frank eagerly--"a crow."

"Make it vulture, and you will be right. I can make out three--four of the loathsome creatures on their way to the feast. They are making a circuit so as to drop down after we have gone by."

"They fulfil a duty, though, I suppose," said Frank.

"Yes, and a very necessary one," replied the professor; and this was evident a short time after, although the leading camel pa.s.sed to windward of the heap, and it seemed to Frank that the animal he rode turned up the corners of its pendulous lips with a look of the most supreme disgust, as it turned its head slightly in the other direction.

"That's fancy, Frank," said the professor, as the young man drew his attention to the camel's aspect. "I believe the poor beasts are so accustomed to the sight that they take it as a matter of course."

"Is it so common, then?"

"Horribly common, and I hope we shall encounter nothing worse, but from what has been going on farther south I have my doubts."

Frank rode on silently, and the professor did not speak for a few minutes. Then--

"Human life has always been held cheap out here. If we were travelling to examine the old records I could show you them cut in stone, as you can see them in the museums in Cairo, or in London when we return, the bragging, boasting blasphemies of this or that conquering king, all to the same tune--'I came, I saw, I conquered; I slew so many thousands of the people--I took so many thousands into captivity--I built this temple to the G.o.ds--I raised this obelisk or that pyramid'--and all by hand labour, with the miserable, belaboured slaves dying by their thousands upon thousands under their taskmasters' lashes, to be cast afterwards into the Nile, or left to the jackals and vultures. These and the crocodiles have always been wanted here, Frank, and as it has been so it is now. There is always an 'I'--a very, very big capital 'I'--who is glorifying himself with slaughter."

"No conquering king now, though," said Frank, "to leave his victories cut in the stones."

"No, the slaughterers here nowadays are more barbarous. Not the city-building monarchs, but the nomadic chiefs who force themselves to the height of power with their horrible religious despotism--your Mahdis. It is a wonder that they find so many followers, but they do."

"Fanaticism, I suppose," said Frank.

"Yes, that and the love of conquest, with its additions in the shape of plunder. For years past these vast tracts of fertile land bordering the river have gone back to waste, village after village of industrious people having been ma.s.sacred or forced to flee for their lives."

"But--I have read so little about the Khedival rule--why has not the Egyptian Government put a stop to all this frightful persecution?"

"From want of power, my lad. The country has been too big, the army too small, and the invading tribes from the south too warlike a fighting race to be withstood. There is the consequence--a smiling land, irrigated by the mighty river which brings down the rich tropic mud from the highlands of the south, utterly depopulated, and strewn with the wretched people's bones."

"And how long is this to last?" said Frank, as he thought of his brother's fate.

"Till England stretches forth her hand to sweep the blasphemous invader from the land he destroys. It is coming, Frank, but the old lion moves slowly and takes some time to rouse."

"But when he does make his spring--!"

"Yes, when he does! The Indian tiger learned his power then. But the sun is getting too hot for a political lecture, my lad. Come, use your gla.s.s again. There's another enemy about to cross our track."

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

RECEIVING THE ENEMY.

As Frank was about to raise the gla.s.s to his eye, the doctor, who was some little distance in advance, checked his camel for them to come up alongside, and pointed the while away to where in the distance about a dozen column-like clouds were spinning round as if upon pivots, while they advanced as if to cross their course.

"A sand-storm," said the professor. "Not much, but unpleasant enough if it comes upon us. Hi! Ibrahim; will those pillars cross before we get near them?"

"I cannot say, Excellency," replied the old man. "I fear not. It will be better to halt."

The preparations for the storm were soon made, the camels crouching down with their necks fully outstretched, while their riders knelt down sheltered by the animals and their packs, and held their thin cotton robes ready to veil their faces should the storm come near.

It was a strange sight, the tall, pillar-like clouds sweeping along over the level sand like so many parts of a vast machine preparing warp and weft for spinning a garment to clothe the earth, and there were moments when the pillars were so regular in distance and motion that it seemed impossible not to believe that they were artificial.

All was still where the travellers stood and knelt, the sun pouring down upon them from a clear sky, and as the Sheikh kept scanning the approaching storm Frank watched him to try and read what he thought.

It was pretty plain, for the old man's eyes brightened and he seemed to breathe more freely, since it was evident that if the whirlwind kept its course the dust pillars would pa.s.s across the track they were making half a mile away.

"But these storms change about so, Excellency," said the Sheikh. "This may suddenly turn back or rush off right away from us. It will, I think, go onward towards the great river away to our left, and sweep across it. No!" he thundered out. "Be ready; it comes," for suddenly a hot blast of air smote the party, fluttering their robes, and the whirling pillars, so distinct and clear a few minutes before, grew misty as if seen through a dense haze; for by one of its sudden changes the storm had swept round almost at right-angles, and the next minute the sky was obscured, the camels were groaning as they buried their heads in the loose sand, and the storm of hot, suffocating dust, borne on a mighty wind, was upon them, shrieking, tearing at everything loose, and buffeting its victims, who could hardly breathe, the dust choking every tiny crevice in the cotton cloth held over the face.

The roar and rush were horrible, the confusion of intellect strange and peculiar, and Frank, as he cowered down behind his camel with his forehead pressed against the saddle to keep his veil in its place, felt as if he were breathing the scorching air out of some open furnace door, while the choking, irritating sensation in the air-pa.s.sages seemed as if it must soon terminate in death.

Doubtless that would have been their fate if the storm had lasted; but as quickly as it had come upon them it pa.s.sed over, and in a few minutes the air about them was clear again, the sky blue, and the sun beating down, while the dust-cloud pillars were careering along, distinctly seen a quarter of a mile away.

"Yes," said the Sheikh calmly, "they are terrible, these hot whirlwinds.

Their Excellencies would be glad to bathe and clear their faces and hair from the thick dust, but there is no water save for drinking. We have never had a worse one than this, Excellency, in our travels."

"Never," said the professor, who knelt in the sand trying to clear his eyes from the impalpable brownish dust, "and I don't want to meet another. This is one of the experiences of a desert journey, Frank.

Why, lad, you are turned from black to brown."

"And you the same, but from white," replied Frank, smiling.

"I suppose so. It's bad for the Hakim's white robes, too. I say, Ibrahim, when shall we strike the river?"

"Not for many days, Excellency; but we shall halt at fountains among the rocks."