We were both quite excited at the idea of meeting Dimitri, and hearing all the news of the world. We had been cut off from everything for more than four months, and had not had a single letter, or a scrap of information of any sort. We speculated as to whether the dragoman would have brought our English letters up with him, and we wondered what sort of a reception the Consul-General would have told him to give us. We could not imagine the obsequious Dimitri being anything but polite, and we knew, of course, that, of himself, he could have no authority over us. We presumed that he had been sent up with an order, or a message, or a letter from the Consul-General, and our presumption proved to be correct. No sooner did we pass through the gate of the town than we met the dragoman, clothed in his best blue serge suit, and wreathed in smiles.
"Here we are again, Dimitri," said Edwards, greeting him heartily. "I suppose you thought that we were lost. We are very sorry to have given you this long journey."
"I am truly delighted," replied Dimitri, "to see you two gentlemen again, safe and well. The Consul-General ordered me to convey an important letter to you, and to return with you to Baghdad."
"Where is the letter?" asked Edwards.
"I have it," said the dragoman, "at my lodgings, and I shall hand it to you as soon as I have seen you accommodated in suitable quarters."
Having paid his respects to the Commandant, with whom he appeared to have business to discuss, Dimitri came and walked by our sides as we rode through the streets of Nejf, pointing out to us the great golden shrine of Ali, and the other buildings of importance. He told us much news, but, to our great disappointment, we learned that he had brought with him neither letters nor newspapers; and he confided to Edwards that he was afraid that there was trouble in store for us.
The next excitement was the Consul-General's letter to Edwards, which was brought to him soon after we had settled down in the room allotted to us. Dismissing Dimitri, with a request that he would come and see us again at sunset, Edwards nervously broke the seal of the letter, and read its contents to himself. I watched his face as he read; at first pale and serious, it presently flushed crimson, and the puckered forehead gradually grew smooth, then came a deep-drawn sigh of relief, and I knew that things were not as bad as Edwards had expected them to be.
"Would you like to read it?" asked Edwards, handing me the letter. "It is marked 'Private and confidential,' but I do not suppose that there is any harm in your seeing it. You will not mind his abusing you a bit, I am sure."
I took the letter, and read it through. It was of considerable length, and began by severely reprimanding Edwards in strong official terms, after which the Consul-General appeared to have laid aside his wrath, for the remainder of the epistle might have been written by one friend to another. He hoped that we had made good use of our opportunities, and would be able to add to the world's knowledge of the desert. He even expressed his admiration of our pluck in having lived for so long in the wilds; and, except that in one sentence I was alluded to as "that crack-brained treasure-seeker," there was nothing in the letter with which I could quarrel. Towards the end, however, he had evidently read over what he had written, and perhaps repented of having said so much; for he added a postscript, which ran as follows:--
"Do not imagine from the above that I am not annoyed with you both.
I am intensely annoyed, and at present I do not see how the matter is going to end. I am unwilling to judge you until I have heard your own explanation. I beg that you will inform Mr Henderson that I request that he will be good enough to accompany you and Mr Dimitri to Baghdad forthwith."
"Well," said Edwards, anxiously, when I had finished reading, "what do you think?"
"I think," I replied, "that your chief is a gentleman, and, though he may think me a hopeless idiot, you may be quite certain that he will see you through any difficulties that may arise."
"I am glad that that is your opinion," said Edwards. "The letter has certainly made me feel happier."
"After all," said I, "we have done nothing extraordinarily sinful or foolish. The Turkish Government gave me a _firman_, which was practically a passport to go where I pleased. We were certainly advised by the police captain, poor chap, not to go into the desert from Hillah, but that was only so that he might not get mixed up in a row himself. If he had thought that there was any real harm in our going to visit Faris, he would not have lent us a guide to put us on our way. The one mistake we made was not coming back that first day, when we found that the Turkish police were after Faris. From that moment we were done. We never had a chance of returning until now. And we have returned; what more can they want? There is the whole business, placed comfortably in a nutshell."
As I concluded my address, Dimitri knocked at the door, and we were soon informed of the programme that had been arranged for us. Next morning, our friend the Commandant was to pay a state visit to the Governor of Adiba, who was in camp on the other side of the water, and we were to go with him. It now transpired that the object of our having been sent to Nejf was not so much to be handed over to Dimitri, as to be confronted with Ali Khan. The authorities, apparently, had a sort of suspicion that we had not played a square game with Ali Khan, and the Commandant was to investigate the matter. Directly our visit was over, we were to start for Baghdad by the direct route, passing some miles to the west of Hillah, and Dimitri hoped that we should reach our destination within four days. The programme seemed to us a most satisfactory one, for our consciences were quite clear about Ali Khan, whom we felt certain we could convince that our disappearance from his camp had been not only unpremeditated but also undesired by us. I, personally, was a little disappointed that we should not return to Hillah, as I would have liked a talk with Kellner; but, after what the Consul-General had said in his letter, I thought it best to accept the situation, and get back to Baghdad as soon as possible.
At an early hour next day we rode out with much pomp and ceremony, round the shores of the Sea of Nejf, to the Adiba encampment, and were met halfway by Haroun and his brave men. He did not recognise us in our European clothes, and doubtless thought that we were two inquisitive Englishmen bent on sight-seeing; while we, fearing to upset arrangements, considered it best to restrain our desire to make ourselves known to him. Ali Khan received the Commandant in front of his tent, and, after the customary compliments had been paid, the latter requested us to come forward and be introduced.
"I have brought with me, your Excellency," said the Commandant, addressing Ali Khan, with much solemnity, "two English gentlemen who are desirous of renewing your acquaintance. This one tells me that he was at one time your court physician, the other your chief military adviser."
I do not know what Edwards's feelings were, but I, at that moment, would have been quite pleased if the earth had suddenly opened and swallowed me up. The abrupt manner in which we were, so to speak, flung at Ali Khan's head was disagreeable in the extreme, and he himself was so taken aback, that for some little time he could do nothing but stare at us open-mouthed. There was an awful silence, and nobody seemed inclined to break it, until, at last, feeling that I could stand it no longer, and observing that Edwards (as was his wont when things were going unpleasantly) was signing to me to say something, I stepped forward and spoke.
"Great sheik," I said, "what the Effendi has said is true. We have come to offer an explanation in connection with a matter which we fear has caused you trouble and pain. We have come to seek your pardon; for I doubt not you have been under the impression that, considering the kindness and hospitality which you always showed to us, we behaved ungratefully and basely towards you, when we deserted your camp some few days ago. Your knowledge of us is not slight, and you must have found it difficult to believe that two men of honour--as you knew us to be--would have released your prisoners, stolen your horses, and deserted you. Yet that is, doubtless, what you did believe, and do, even now, believe.
Now, I declare to you, before Allah, that of our own accord we did none of these things."
I then proceeded to describe fully and graphically how we had been carried off by the Shammar, and the miserable journey that we had been forced to take. I did not think it necessary, or desirable, to enter into details about Kellner and the Golden Girdle, so I merely said that we had eventually ridden away from the Shammar on two of the horses which had been stolen from his camp, that we had now brought these horses with us, and that we wished to return them to him. I concluded by congratulating him on the prospect of his speedy restoration to his kingdom, and expressed a hope that his little son was still enjoying good health.
My speech made an immense impression, not only on Ali Khan, Haroun, and the rest of the Adiba party, but also on the Commandant and his escort; and when I had finished, our two old friends, shaking off all formalities, seized Edwards and myself by the hands, and overwhelmed us with expressions of joy at our safety, and of regret at ever having doubted us. Though pleasant, the _denouement_ was decidedly embarrassing; for the Adiba men crowded round us with offers of congratulation, and we were only saved from being carried off our feet in the frantic rush of enthusiasm by Ali Khan's prompt action in leading us to the inner apartment of his tent, to be welcomed by his wife and their beloved boy. Their delight at again seeing us was most gratifying, and they were truly sorry when they learned that we were not returning with them to Adiba. Ali Khan and his wife did all in their power to persuade us to accompany them; but finding that it was a matter of honour that we should return to Baghdad, they made us promise that, should it ever be possible, we would pay a long visit to Adiba, and see the place settled down again in peace and plenty, as they hoped that it would soon be.
The time was all too short, for we had to return to Nejf, and thence ride, some fifteen miles, to the nearest khan before dusk. We therefore prepared to take leave of our friends, and I asked Ali Khan's permission to use his two horses for the return journey to Nejf, promising that we would send them back to his camp by sundown.
"Nay," said the sheik, "I have horses enough, and I beg that you will accept them from me. Take them back with you to Baghdad, to remind you of your promise to visit us at Adiba."
With expressions of gratitude from both of us, with many handshakes and last words of parting, we at length mounted our horses and joined the escort, which had been long waiting for us. Edwards and I rode in silence for some distance; I fancy that we had similar feelings--a decided lumpiness about the throat. Edwards spoke first.
"I had no idea," said he, "that the desert possessed men like Ali Khan.
I always thought that all the big rulers were stony-hearted tyrants, who only made themselves agreeable to Europeans for what they could get out of them."
"Dear old Ali Khan has not derived much benefit from us," I answered.
"On the contrary," said Edwards, "we have been a dead loss to him. And he finishes up by giving us two horses."
"These two old horses," said I, "make me laugh. They are becoming rather a stale present. Within the last week they have been given to us no less than three times, first by the Shammar sheik, then by Faris, and now by Ali Khan."
"Well," said Edwards, "I hope that this time we shall keep them, and take them safely back to Baghdad."
Arrived at our quarters in Nejf, we packed up our belongings, and were off again in half an hour, the Commandant seeing us for about a mile on our road, and then bidding us a friendly farewell. In order to make certain that we should not get lost again, he gave us an escort of twenty irregular cavalry, and I firmly believe, although Dimitri denied it, that they had instructions not to let us out of their sight until we had entered the courtyard of the Residency at Baghdad. At any rate, during our uneventful journey of the next four days, they were always about us, and on reaching the city, their sergeant requested the Consul-General to give him a letter practically amounting to a receipt for us.
What the Consul-General said to us, and what we said to him, are things best left untold. Suffice it to say, therefore, that at the conclusion of the interview, we still found ourselves alive. Moreover, on that night, and on many subsequent nights, we were the great man's guests at dinner.
After the life I had been leading, the humdrum existence in the city soon began to pall on me. I had, within a few days, seen everything that there was to be seen, and I grew tired of morning and evening canters outside the walls, and of trying to make the round wicker-work _kufas_ go straight up and down the river. I longed to be back in the free desert, and one day, more out of fun than anything else, I suggested to Edwards that we should pay our promised visit to Adiba. He looked at me for a minute, as if he doubted my sanity.
"What you want," said he, "is sea air. You will never be quite right until you have taken a voyage."
"That does not sound very hospitable," said I, "considering that only yesterday you begged me to stay with you as long as I could."
"Yesterday," said Edwards, "I did not know that you were so unwell."
"To tell you the honest truth," said I, "I am sick to death of this life, and if Faris does not let me have some news of the Golden Girdle soon, I shall chuck the whole thing and go home."
"You do not mean to say," said Edwards, "that you are still building castles in the air."
"No," said I, "not in the air, I hope. But if you mean that you want to know whether I am still thinking of Queen Sophana's belt, I will break it to you gently that, much as I love you, George, nothing earthly would have induced me to hang about here for the last six weeks, unless I had been in daily expectation of getting news either from Faris or from Kellner."
"Then take my advice," said my friend, "and give it up. Kellner, from what the Turkish doctor wrote to me the other day, is too ill to trouble about anything. Faris, I expect, has got other fish to fry. Besides, I believe he is in mortal terror of that Girdle. In any case, even if you did receive news from the desert, you could not go romping about there again."
"Oh, great wet blanket!" I answered, "have you no soul? Wait till I lay out before you, on that very table, the string of twisty-twirly golden serpents!"
"I cannot wait so long, old man," said Edwards irritatingly.
"Unfortunately, I shall have to die, like other people."
"Then I suppose," I said, putting out a feeler, "when I go off on my next hunt, you will let me go alone."
"On that point," he replied, "you can be absolutely certain. Nothing that you or anyone else could say would ever persuade me to go on another wild-goose chase with you. Why, the Turks are still saying nasty things about us, and worrying my chief to death."
"That," said I, "is all bluster. Hillah's Governor tried it on when he talked so grandly about compensation. I happen to have discovered from Dimitri that there never was, at any time, any idea of compensation. The mistake I made was getting a _firman_. I shall make my next trip without one."
"By the way," said Edwards, changing the subject, "did I ever tell you the result of the inquiry after Kellner's Baghdad merchant--I mean the man who, Daud or somebody told us, was going to pay the Shammar for the Girdle?"
"No," said I, "the last news I heard was that he had cleared out of this place, bag and baggage, and no one knew what had become of him."
"Well," said Edwards, "he has been seen in the bazaar at Kerbela."
"Then I suppose that he and Kellner have got some deep scheme in hand again," I said; "but, for the life of me, I cannot fathom it."