What astonished the sheik more than anything was the recovery of his own two horses, which we had lost at the ruins of Katib; and, as Edwards had foretold long before, he ascribed it to my dealings with magic.
"One thing is certain," said Faris, after he had heard all our adventures, "and that is that we cannot remain here. Hillah is too near, and the Turkis are in a restless state just now. Our tents are but four days' journey away; our riding camels we can reach to-night; the Jews who have made away with your heart's desire we shall yet reckon with; so you and the good Hakim shall come once again to the Jelas tents, and we will start as soon as possible."
"But what shall we do with the sick stranger?" I asked.
"Leave him to the vultures," was the curt reply.
"Great sheik," I said reprovingly, "that was not spoken out of the heart of Faris-ibn-Feyzul. What if the Englishman who found your wounded Sedjur had uttered such words?"
"Then what do you wish to do with him?" asked Faris. "You say that he is too ill to ride, and we must move quickly."
Edwards and I consulted, and, much against my will, I felt bound to act as he advised. We could not abandon Kellner; to take him away into the desert would probably kill him; moreover, since Edwards had no medicines with him, he could do little or nothing for the ailing German, even if the journey did not prove fatal. On the other hand, Hillah lay only a few miles away, and the Turkish hospital there was well-equipped. So we decided that Kellner must be conveyed to Hillah, and as, of course, the Aeniza would not go near the place, we two would have to accompany him.
Now came the difficulty; to walk was out of the question, Kellner had no horse, and the horses which we had been riding belonged to Faris, who, however, was in possession of the two horses which we had brought with us from Baghdad. In the end, we agreed to lay the matter before the sheik, and trust to his generosity to help us. At first he was greatly disappointed at the thought that we proposed to leave him, as he had intended to give us a grand reception at his headquarters, and he had hoped that we would have travelled with his people when they moved to their winter grazing grounds in the Hamad. He argued with us about the folly of abandoning our search for the Girdle, after all that we had passed through, and when there was every hope of our obtaining it, but finding that our minds were made up, and that no words of his would make us change them, he accepted the inevitable, and acted in a far more noble manner than we could have expected.
"You shall have your wish," said he, "and some day you will again visit the Jelas tents, where you will always be truly welcome. I shall send away to their camp all my men save six, who, with Sedjur and myself, will ride with you this night to the very walls of the town. There we shall leave you ere day dawns, when we can gallop away out of danger, and overtake our camels on the way to the tents."
How grateful we felt to the great man for this fresh mark of friendship we found it difficult to convey to him in words, and Kellner, on hearing the news that within twenty-four hours he would be lodged safely in the hospital at Hillah, sobbed with joy. The glittering spears of the Aeniza soon passed away over the distant sky-line, and our small party, lying in a sand hollow, awaited the fall of night.
Almost before it was dark, we set out on what Edwards and I felt was our return to the world. It was a slow journey, for we moved at a walk, two of the Bedouins on foot carrying Kellner, who was found to be incapable of sitting on a horse. But the distance was not great, and, soon after midnight, we saw the walls of Hillah outlined against the starlit sky.
Faris led us silently to a small date garden, in the corner of which was a hut, where dwelt an old man, who, he told us, was his friend--or, more correctly, his paid spy. Entering the hut, the sheik soon found the owner, sleeping within the doorway, and a conversation of some length followed. Then a candle was lighted in the inner room, and we were informed that we could stay there for the remainder of the night.
Making Kellner as comfortable as was possible in a corner of the room, we received our last instructions from Faris. As soon as the gates of the town were open, the old man would go and interview the doctor at the hospital, and relate how three Europeans had found their way during the night to his house, and that one of them was very ill. In all probability, a Turkish guard would then be sent out to fetch us in, after which it would be for us to act as circumstances dictated. More than that the sheik regretted that he could not arrange. We thanked him profusely for what he had done for us, and I promised that, if it were ever possible, I would come to the desert again and pay him a visit. He made us a present of the two horses, saying that we might require them to reach Baghdad; and then, to my delight, he lifted up his cloak, and unfastened my chamois-leather belt from his waist.
"I have worn it for safety," said he, "ever since I returned to my tent from our ride to the ruins. Your other goods, and those of the Hakim, I will watch over until we meet again."
"And should we not come again," I answered, "then keep the things in remembrance of us. There is little of value."
"The money in your belt, O magician," continued Faris, laughing as he handed it to me, "still remains untouched. Thus again does your magic recover your long-lost goods. Would that it had brought you Queen Sophana's Serpent Belt also? But I will find it for you. I will yet prove that I am worthy of the reward of the great Shahzadi's shoe.
Return to Baghdad, and rest there until a message calls you to the desert. I say no more. Be patient. Allah is great."
Gripping our hands in silence, the sheik and Sedjur parted from us with unfeigned grief, and strode out into the darkness. A moment later we heard a muffled word of command, followed by a clatter of hoofs, and the party had gone.
Sleep was out of the question. The day's work had been full of incident, and a dubious morrow was before us. We had much to think over, and many things to discuss; so, leaving the exhausted Kellner asleep, we went outside, and sat among the palm trees.
"George," said I, "we are in the last lap. It is a straight run home now."
"Yes," he replied, "unless something goes wrong. Personally, I am not altogether sorry, except for your disappointment."
"I suppose the best thing we can do," I remarked, "will be to get away to Baghdad as soon as possible."
"Of course," said Edwards. "What else can we do?"
"Why, slip back to Faris," I answered, "and have another try for the Golden Girdle."
"Believe me," said Edwards, "you will do no good with the thing except through our German friend. He has fought hard for it, and you may rest assured that he was not fool enough to part with it without being perfectly certain that he would find it again. Besides, have you not grasped the fact that it belongs to him. He got it in much the same way as you meant to get it."
"Not quite," said I, "for he did not play fair with the Shammar who helped him to get it. If he had paid them what he promised, then I should certainly agree that he had every right to the Girdle."
"Splitting hairs," said Edwards. "Judging by what we have seen of desert methods, he who possesses a thing considers himself its rightful owner--until he loses it. If I were you, I should wait until Kellner recovers, and then try and come to terms with him."
"I believe you are right, George," I replied. "But, to tell you the honest truth, I have rather lost faith in the gentleman. In fact, since this morning my dull wits have been sharpened, and, if I am not very much mistaken, the German 'shadowed' me all the way from Marseilles to Baghdad, and got out of me all the information that he required. It makes me positively sick when I think of it."
"Never mind," said Edwards, consolingly, "it was not your fault. One cannot go through life in a perpetual state of suspicion of everyone.
You have still got something up your sleeve; for, when you tell your story, the world will not count Kellner as much of a hero."
For some reason Edwards and I were both in the lowest spirits. I, for my part, had every cause for being depressed; I had had enough pleasant and unpleasant experiences to last an ordinary man for his lifetime; my labours had borne no fruit; I should return to Baghdad without having effected anything, and, in all probability, my absence would have caused grave anxiety to my parents. But, perhaps, what troubled me most was the knowledge that I had been such a fool as to be taken in by Kellner.
Edwards, on the other hand, had, to my mind, very little to complain of.
He had seen more of the desert than almost any European had ever done, had come through everything without a scratch, and was as fit as he had been at starting. We had been living a free life for so long, that now that there was the immediate prospect of our having to conform to the conventionalities of civilisation, neither of us relished the idea of the change. That was what was the matter with us; and I believe that if I had argued with my companion for a little longer, he would have agreed to leave Kellner to the old man, and have set out with me in search of Faris. But I restrained my desire to influence Edwards one way or the other, for my conscience told me that it was our duty to look after our invalid.
We talked spasmodically until the stems of the date trees gradually began to stand out against the increasing light in the heavens. Then, when day had come, the old Arab set out on his mission, while we returned to the hut to keep the German company. Thus we waited, it may have been for a couple of hours, occasionally going outside to see if the expected relief was coming; and at last we saw a party of soldiers riding towards us, accompanied by men carrying a stretcher.
CHAPTER XIX.
IN CLOVER.
"Gentlemen," said the Turkish officer commanding the party, as he drew up his men in front of the hut, and addressed us in French, "my instructions are to have the man who is ill removed to the military hospital, and to request that you will consider yourselves as my prisoners, and accompany me to the barracks."
We told him that, of course, we should obey any orders that he gave us, and at the same time asked him if he knew who we were. To this he replied that his orders forbade him to converse with us on any subject whatever, and he begged us to understand that, disagreeable as his duty was, he was bound to carry out his instructions to the letter. There was nothing more to be said, and though we were permitted to see that Kellner was comfortably settled on the stretcher, we were afterwards ordered to mount our horses, and ride, like real prisoners, in the midst of the guard.
As we entered the town we soon saw that our capture had been noised abroad; crowds of Arabs had assembled in the streets to witness our arrival; but it was evident, from the remarks that we overheard, that there was a good deal of speculation as to what it all meant. Until that moment, I had not considered what queer-looking figures we must be, and when I looked at Edwards and then at my own clothes, I almost laughed aloud. Each of us wore dirty and ragged Arab garments; our hair was long and unkempt, and our beards were thick and stubbly. That we were respectable Englishmen no one would have guessed. Even our own mothers would have failed to recognise us.
In due course we reached the barrack gate and were admitted, when we found ourselves within a large quadrangle, where numbers of conscripts were being drilled. Here we were ordered to dismount, and, our horses having been led away, we were conducted to a house at the far end of the quadrangle and shown into a well-appointed room, when the officer told us that we were to remain there until visited by the Commandant.
As soon as we were alone, Edwards and I looked at one another, and burst out laughing.
"We are a jolly looking couple," said I.
"Just what I was thinking," said Edwards.
"What do you suppose is going to happen to us?" I asked.
"Oh, nothing much," he replied. "As soon as we have proved our identity, things will be all right. They seem to have a great many more troops here than when last we were in the place. I wonder if our old friend, the Captain who showed us round last time, is still here."
While we were talking, the door was suddenly thrown open, and the Commandant himself was ushered in. He was a stout and pleasant-looking old gentleman, with a merry twinkle in his eye, and no sooner did he see us than he broke into a guffaw, at the same time holding out his hand to each of us in turn.
"Pardon my laughing," said he, "but, for the life of me, I could not help it. We will have you washed, and cleaned, and put into respectable clothes, before you are taken before the Governor. In the meanwhile, now that we have got you safe inside the barracks, if you like to give me your word that you will not leave them, I shall be glad if you will become my guests."
At first we thought that he was amusing himself at our expense, but he appeared to be in earnest, so we accepted his proffered hospitality, and were soon enjoying the luxuries of really good coffee and a cigarette.
"How long, Effendi, have you been in Hillah?" I asked, for the sake of something to say.
"Barely two weeks," he replied. "We came up with reinforcements for this place and Meshed Ali, as trouble was expected from the desert."
"Some of the tribes in revolt, I suppose," said I.