The White Prophet, Volume II (of 2). Sir Hall Caine
she had surrounded Ishmael. Mosie was now far on his way to Cairo; he carried to the Consul-General not only her own letter but also the original of Ishmael's letter to the Chancellor of El Azhar. The hideous work was done.
Two days passed, during which her over-excited feelings seemed to paralyse all her powers of thought. Then a new idea took possession of her, and she set herself to undo what she had done with Ishmael himself. Little by little, in tremulous tones, and with a still deeper sense of duplicity than before, she began to express halting doubts of the success of their enterprise.
"I have been thinking about it," she said nervously, "and now I fear – "
"What do you fear, O Rani?" asked Ishmael.
"I fear," said Helena, trembling visibly, "that the moment the Government learn from the Sirdar, as they needs must, that the great body of your people have left Khartoum, and are travelling north, they will recall the British army to protect the capital and thus – "
But Ishmael interrupted her with a laugh.
"If the day of the Redeemer has come," he said, "will human armies hinder him? No!"
It was useless! Ishmael was now more than ever an enthusiast, a fanatic, a visionary. His spiritual ecstasy swept away every obstacle, and made him blind to every danger.
Helena felt like a witch who was trying to undo the effects of her charm. She could not undo them. She could not destroy the potency of the spell she herself had raised, and the effort to do so put her into a fever of excitement.
Two days more passed like this, and still Helena was in the toils of her own actions. From time to time she saw Gordon as he sat at meals or moved about the house. He did not speak to her, and she dropped her head in shame as often as they came close together. But at length she caught a look in his face which seemed to her to say, "Are you really going to let an innocent man walk into the jaws of death?"
That brought her wavering mind to a quick conclusion. Gordon was waiting for her to speak. She must speak! She must confess everything! She must tell Ishmael what she had done, and by what tragic error she had done it. At any cost, no matter what, she must put an end to the false situation in which she lived, and thus redeem herself in Gordon's eyes and in her own.
At noon that day, being Friday, Ishmael preached in the mosque, delivering a still more fervent and passionate message. The kingdom of heaven which the Lord Isa had foretold was soon to come! When it came God would lend them legions of angels, if need be, to protect the oppressed and to uphold the down-trodden! Therefore let the children of God fear nothing from the powers and principalities of the world! Their pilgrimage was safe! No harm could come to them, for however their feet might slip the arms of the Compassionate would bear them up!
As Ishmael's ecstasy had increased so had the devotion of his people, and when he returned home they followed him in a dense crowd through the streets shouting the wildest acclamations.
"Out of the way! The Master is coming! The Messenger is here! Allah! El Hamdullillah!"
Helena heard them, but she did not hear Ishmael reprove them, as in earlier days he had been wont to do. She was standing in the guest-room, and the noise of the approaching crowd had brought Gordon from his bedroom, at the moment when Ishmael, surrounded by a group of his people, stepped into the house.
Ishmael was in a state of excitement amounting to exaltation, and after holding out hands both to Helena and Gordon he turned to his followers to dismiss them. "Go back now," he said, "and to-night, two hours after sunset, let the Ulema and the Notables come to me that we may decide on the details of our pilgrimage."
"Allah! El Hamdullillah!" cried the people.
More than ever they were like creatures possessed. Hungry and ragged as many of them were, the new magnificence that was to be given to their lives appeared to be already shining in their eyes.
Helena saw this, and her heart was smitten with remorse at the thought of the cruel confession she had decided to make. She could not make it in sight of the hopes it must destroy. But neither could she look into Gordon's searching face and remain silent, and as soon as the crowd had gone, she made an effort to speak.
"Ishmael," she said, trembling all over, "there is something I wish to say – if it will not displease you."
"Nothing the Rani can say will displease me," said Ishmael.
He was looking at her with the expression of enthusiastic admiration which she had seen in his eyes before. It was hard to go on.
"Your intentions are now known to everybody," she said. "You have not hidden them from any of your own people. That has been very trustful, very noble, but still – "
"Still – what, my sister?"
"If somebody … should betray your scheme to the Government, and … and the moment you set foot in Cairo – "
Again Ishmael interrupted her with a laugh.
"Impossible!" he said, smiling upon her with his bright and joyous eyes. "Islam has only one heart, one soul, one mind."
Then taking her quivering hand and leading her to the door, he pointed to the camp outside and said —
"Look! Ten thousand of our poor unhappy people are there. They have come to me from the tyrannies of cruel taskmasters and have been true to me through the temptations of hunger and thirst. Some of them are from Cairo and are waiting to return home. All are the children of Islam, and are looking for the coming of the Expected who brings peace and joy. Is there one of them who will betray me now? Not one! Treachery would injure me, but it would hurt the betrayer more."
Then with the same expression of enthusiastic admiration, and in a still tenderer and softer voice, he began to laugh and to rally her, saying he knew well what was going on in his sweet sister's mind – that though her brave spirit had devised the plan they had adopted, yet now that the time was near for carrying it into execution her womanly heart was failing her, and affectionate anxiety for his own safety was making her afraid.
"But have no fear at all," he said, standing behind her and smoothing her cheek with a light touch of his tapering fingers. "If this is God's work will God forget me? No!"
With a sense of stifling duplicity Helena made one more effort and said —
"Still, who knows, there may be some one – "
"None, O Rani!"
"But don't you know – "
"I don't want to know anything except one thing – that God guides and directs me."
Again he laughed, and asked where was the kufiah (the Bedouin head-dress) which she had promised to make for his disguise.
"Get to work at it quick," he said; "it will be wanted soon, my sister."
And then, clapping his hands for the mid-day meal, he went into his room to prepare for it, leaving Gordon and Helena for some moments alone together.
Gordon had been standing aside in the torment of a hundred mixed emotions, and now he and Helena spoke in whispers.
"He is determined to go into Cairo," she said.
"Quite determined."
"Oh, is there no way to prevent him?"
"None now – unless – "
"Unless – what?" she asked eagerly.
"Let us … Let us wait and see," said Gordon, and then Abdullah came in to lay the table.
CHAPTER XX
As soon as the mid-day meal was over Gordon escaped to his room – the room he shared with Ishmael – and throwing himself down on the angerib with his hands clasped across his face, he tried to think out the situation in which he found himself, to gaze into the depths of his conscience, and to see where he was and what he ought to do.
So violent was the state of his soul that he sat there a long time before he could link together his memories of what had happened since he arrived in Khartoum.
"Am I dreaming?" he asked himself again and again, as one by one his thoughts