At the village they had to wait for some little time, until Daud had recovered sufficiently to travel, when he went to Kerbela, to endeavour to find out from his friend the astrologer if he had heard of the fate of Mersina and the Girdle. The Hindu appeared to know some of the events that had taken place. He knew that the Girdle had been thrown into the well, and he knew that Mersina had taken a party there to try and recover it. Furthermore, he stated that he had discovered, by divination, that the belt of gold had been taken from the well, and was in Baghdad, hinting at the same time that it was with the Jew Mersina.
This information Daud had obtained only quite recently, and as soon as Faris and Sedjur heard it, they set out for Baghdad, in search of Mersina and the Girdle, while Daud remained in Kerbela, with the hope of picking up fresh news.
"Then you thought," said I, "that I was dead."
"We felt certain of it," said Faris, "otherwise I should have remained at the well until I had rescued you."
"Why, then," I asked, "since you believed me to be dead, should you have taken any further trouble about Mersina and the Girdle?"
"Because," replied the sheik, "I considered that I was responsible for your death, and I intended to come and confess all to the good Hakim.
But I was unwilling to do so unless I could bring to him, for presentation to your family, the Great Queen's belt, which had cost you your life. Now that I know that you are alive, and have reaped your reward, I can return to the desert in happiness."
"There to await," said I, "the coming of Shahzadi's shoe."
"Nay," said the sheik, with a surprised look, "that can never be now; for I failed to carry out my part of the bargain."
"Who was it, then," I asked, "who lowered me into the well, from which I recovered the Girdle? Except through you, my brother, I should never have obtained it; and, as Daud will be rewarded by the sum which was promised to him, so also shall Shahzadi's shoe be bestowed on Faris-ibn-Feyzul. Even this day," I continued, "have I sent a message to my friends, who are coming from the big house across the seas to take back Sophana's belt, that they should bring with them the shoe which you desire to possess."
The two Bedouins were delighted, and for some minutes continued to pour out volumes of thanks. Then the Consul-General suggested that the hours had slipped by and that soon day would break. Without wishing to hurry the departure of his guests, he thought that they would desire to leave while it was still dark.
"When, sheik," he asked, addressing Faris, "do you propose to quit Baghdad?"
"We shall leave," replied Faris, "within a few hours. So soon, that is, as we can get our horses and ride away."
"But before you go," said the Consul-General, "you would doubtless like to see with your own eyes, and perhaps touch, this great treasure in which you have been so deeply interested. What says our hero? Eh, Henderson?"
Observing the eagerness depicted on the sheik's countenance, I readily acquiesced, and the Consul-General took out his keys and walked to the safe in the corner of the room. As he did so, my eyes happened to turn towards Edwards. He was clutching convulsively at his chair, and his face had lost all colour. The key turned in the lock with a sharp click; at the same moment Edwards rose from his chair, and, saying that he did not feel well, walked out of the room into the open air. I was so engrossed with the opening of the safe, that I paid little attention to Edwards's action; and, almost trembling with excitement, I watched the Consul-General lift up the mass of intertwined rope and gold. It was just as I had last seen it, and when it had been placed on the table in front of Faris, I explained that it was thus that I had bound it to my body when first I recovered it from the bottom of the Devil's Well.
The Girdle was partly concealed by the rope, and in order that it might be seen the better, I commenced to disentangle it; but I had hardly unwound one turn of the rope than a wild cry from outside electrified us. Dropping the rope and Girdle, I rushed to the door, followed by Faris and Sedjur; for the cry was an unmistakable call for help, and the voice I knew to be that of Edwards. As I crossed the room, I had time to notice that the Consul-General snatched up the Girdle from the table, and, instantly locking it up in the safe, ran after us, to reach the courtyard simultaneously with Sedjur. By the side of the wall above the river, I saw Edwards standing in the moonlight, and looking down into the water.
"What is the matter, old chap," I asked, as I ran up to him.
"I am afraid it is a bad business," said Edwards, "but it served him right, whoever he is. There he is, down in that kufa."
We all looked over the edge of the embankment, and we could see below us, in the dim light, a kufa, with the figure of a man lying across the gunwale, the head and shoulders at the bottom of the boat, and the legs trailing in the water over the side.
[Illustration: "WE COULD SEE BELOW US ... THE FIGURE OF A MAN LYING ACROSS THE GUNWALE"]
"See that he does not escape," shouted Edwards. "He may not be dead."
Quick as thought, Sedjur ran to where his own kufa was fastened, jumped down into it, and soon brought it alongside the other one. Faris and I then assisted to drag the man up and lay him on the ground, while Edwards obtained a lamp from indoors, and made an examination. The man was dead, his skull having been crushed and his neck broken. Death, Edwards declared, must have been instantaneous; and, with some excitement, he told us what had taken place. Feeling faint, he had walked out into the courtyard, and was sitting on one of the seats in the fresh air, when he suddenly saw a figure climb stealthily over the wall from the direction of the river, and creep towards the room where we were seated. Thinking that something was wrong, Edwards rushed across to the intruder, but the man was too quick for him, and fled back to the river-side. Edwards, however, shouting for help, succeeded in cutting him off, and was able to seize, for a second, the end of his cloak as the man leapt over the wall into the river. Whether the fugitive knew that his kufa was immediately below him, and had intended to jump into it, no one can say; but it was evident that the effect of Edwards's temporary hold on his cloak was to throw him off his balance, so that he pitched headlong into the bottom of the boat from a height of some fifteen feet or more.
Holding the lamp to the dead man's face, we sought to identify him, and Faris instantly uttered an exclamation of surprise.
"Wallah!" said he, "it is Shustri, the astrologer."
"Wallah!" exclaimed Sedjur, "and he told Daud that he was going to Damascus."
"Without a doubt," said Faris, "he had come here to steal the Serpent Belt; but death overtakes even a man who knows all things, and who can converse with the dead."
There were already signs of day, and Faris was anxious to depart.
"Twere better," said he "that this man's body should not remain here; for if it became known that such an one had perished in this place, then would it have an evil reputation for all time. We will therefore take the body and the kufa a little way with us, and let them float away in mid-stream, until, if Allah wills, they reach the great Shattu'l Arab."
None of us dissented, and within a few minutes we had grasped the hands of our Bedouin friends, and had seen them drop down into their kufa.
Then we lowered the body of the Hindu into the other boat, and Sedjur, casting loose its rope, towed it astern, while Faris paddled away from land. We stood watching the two black specks moving across the water, until, in the growing daylight, we saw them part, the one slowly ascending the river, and the other, caught by the current, sweeping down stream, out of sight.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
MYSTERIES, SOLVED AND UNSOLVED.
The adventures of that memorable night laid me low for many a day to come, and Edwards himself suffered a good deal from the shock of having been, as he supposed, the cause of Shustri's death. I argued with him that no blame whatever could possibly attach to him, since the ruffian was evidently up to no good.
"There I am convinced that you are right," said Edwards; "for the Consul-General picked up, just outside his study door, the most diabolical looking knife you ever saw."
"Did he?" said I. "Then I expect he meant business."
"I suppose," said Edwards, after a long silence, "that you are too matter of fact to believe in presentiments."
"I do not know," I replied. "They have never bothered me much. But why do you ask?"
"Well," said my friend, "I will confess to you, in strict confidence, that when you were brought in here that day, by your weird old Sinbad, and I took the Golden Girdle from your waist, I felt a most extraordinary sensation all over me. I cannot explain what it was like, except that it was very similar to the feeling that I have when a cat is anywhere near, about which you always laugh at me."
"My dear George," said I, "I would not dream of laughing at you. But go on."
"The curious thing about it," said he, "was that I felt all right directly the Consul-General locked up the Girdle. But I positively dreaded seeing the thing again. It haunted me day and night, but I did not like to mention my fears to anyone."
"At any rate," said I, "you did not conceal them very well. I noticed that you looked blue whenever I suggested having a peep at my Girdle.
Poor chap, I wish I had known that you had got it so badly. How do you feel now?"
"Since last night," said he, "I have become a different being, but I felt pretty ill when the Consul-General unlocked the safe."
"I saw you," said I; "and I thought you were going to faint. What was the matter?"
"I cannot describe it," said Edwards. "Something seemed to drag me out of my chair, haul me out of the room, and plump me on a bench in the courtyard. My whole body felt as if it were full of pins and needles, darting about in all directions; and this sort of thing continued until the man fell over the wall, when suddenly a delightful feeling of calm spread over me. Now I fear nothing from your Golden Girdle; you might take it out of the safe, and flourish it in front of my face, and I would not move a muscle."
I looked at him out of the corner of my eye, thinking that his mind was unhinged, but he appeared to be quite rational, so I concluded that he had suffered from some temporary delusion, and that he had recovered from it. It struck me, however, as certainly most extraordinary that he should have fought shy of the Girdle, and gone outside just in time to frustrate the astrologer's evil designs. Afterwards, we discussed the matter often, but the enigma remained unsolved; for it was difficult for a plain, untutored brain like mine to follow my friend into the intricate regions of telepathy, second sight, and psychology in general, in which things he professed to be a believer. In the end, I formed my own opinion, which I kept to myself: Edwards's fear of the Girdle was superstitious dread, produced by the various stories which he had heard of it; his experiences on the night of Shustri's death amounted to nothing more than that, suffering from the same superstitious dread, he had left the room at a certain moment, which moment happened to have been selected by Shustri for his appearance on the scene. This I put down as a mere coincidence, and whether my opinion was right or wrong, no man will ever be able to decide. That there was reason enough for superstitious dread I freely admit, and surely no one had more cause to dread the sight of the Girdle than had I. As far as I was aware, death had always followed swiftly after its appearance. Raspul the seer, Yusuf Mersina, and Shustri the astrologer, had each and all been killed before my very eyes, and when I reckoned up the deaths that had occurred within my certain knowledge, they appeared to be legion. At times I found myself speculating as to who would be the victim when next the safe was unlocked; but each time such thoughts rose up I banished them from my mind, as unworthy of a man of intelligence.
On such matters as these I had plenty of leisure to reflect, as I was on my back for several weeks, and unable to do much more than think and sometimes talk. During this time, however, I succeeded in getting into communication with Sheik Daud; and, through the Indian pilgrim agent at Kerbela, paid him his 5000 kerans. He sent a grateful message of thanks to me, and expressed a hope that some day I would honour him by a visit to his tents. But the most pleasant part of his message was the news that he had sworn a perpetual truce with Faris and Sedjur. The two latter, I learned, had gone away to join their people in the Hamad, where they would remain until the coming of spring, or at any rate until I should let them know that Shahzadi's shoe was waiting for them.
Slowly but surely the days and weeks passed. I had received a telegram from Karachi, from my father, who told me that he and my uncle Ambrose had got so far on their journey, and were just leaving for the Persian Gulf. Ten days later, the river steamer panted past the Residency, and Edwards and I were down at the wharf to greet the newcomers. It was a great and glorious occasion, and I was astonished at the change that seemed to have come over my uncle, with his tanned face and his travelling suit taking the place of the colourless cheeks and dingy old black coat to which I was accustomed. In my father I saw little alteration. He was still the smart, soldierly-looking man that he had always been; and looked no older than he did on the day when I had met him at Southampton, on his return from South Africa.
"Well, Walter," said my uncle, after we had recovered from the excitement of our first meeting, "is your golden treasure still safe and sound?"
"Under lock and key at the Residency," I replied, "and only waiting for your arrival to be properly inspected. The Consul-General will be away until this evening, but he sent all sorts of messages to you, and that there are rooms ready for you in the Residency. Have you brought Shahzadi's shoe?"