"What?" Michael jumped out of bed. "The _Sitt_ has gone? No sign of her camp?"
"_Aiwah_, Effendi, that is so. Your servant offers his apologies for bringing you bad news."
To Abdul"s eternal amazement, Michael burst into a roar of laughter, hearty, unsuppressed enjoyment of a good joke.
"Gone?" he repeated. "The _Sitt_ has gone, made a moonlight flitting?
The little devil!"
Abdul"s mystification was so complete that he could only salaam.
"The little coward!" Michael said. "The miserable little coward!"
He spoke so rapidly, and in English, that Abdul could not fully understand. Indeed, he was totally at a loss to comprehend anything of the situation. It baffled him. His master actually seemed pleased and highly amused at the cowardly conduct of his mistress!
"When did the _Sitt_ leave the camp, Abdul?"
"At about two o"clock this morning, Effendi. She has taken everything with her," he threw up his hands. "Her medicines, her delicate food, everything we need for the saint."
"Curse her!" Michael said. "What a dirty trick!"
"The _Sitt_ was very much afraid, Effendi."
"Well, perhaps that was quite natural, Abdul. But to take everything away! What shall we do without her tins of milk, her medicine-chest?"
"_Insha Allah_, we will save the "favoured of G.o.d," Effendi. There in the Bedouin camp they will give us milk--they have goats."
"How is he this morning?"
"The Answerer of Prayer has heard the cry of His children. He has again bestowed upon us His everlasting mercy, His compa.s.sion is infinite."
"The saint is better?"
"The malady is running its course. _Insha Allah_, it will do so without any complications. The pox now appears on his back and body.
The condition of the saint"s general health is not such as to cause any undue anxiety to the Effendi."
"Is he conscious?"
"His thoughts are in heaven, but his mind is clearer, praise be to Allah."
"And the _Sitt_?" Michael said. "How did she get away?"
"She gave minute instructions to Ha.s.san early in the evening." Abdul salaamed. "_Aiwah_, honourable Effendi, you will be relieved of a double anxiety--the _Sitt_ was greatly afraid."
"Yes, Abdul, I"m thankful, very thankful." Michael stretched out his arms and breathed a deep breath of freedom. Thank G.o.d she had gone, gone of her own free will! This, then, was the meaning of his sense of liberation. The white tent was there no longer. It had vanished.
Then he remembered having stirred in his sleep. The bells he had heard were the bells on the animals which were carrying the frightened Millicent. Her _hijrah_ had not been achieved without affecting his subconscious mind.
Meanwhile, Abdul was studying his master"s mind. He was reading his thoughts as one reads a story from the ill.u.s.trations of a book. He saw relief and freedom--and, above all, thankfulness. His master"s besetting sin was his dislike of scenes, his hypersensitiveness in the matter of causing pain to others, the desire to surround himself with happiness.
"_Gehenna_ to the harlot!" he said to himself. "_Insha Allah_, she will regret last night"s work, even though it may benefit the Effendi!"
"You will be lonely, Effendi," he said. "But without the honourable _Sitt_ your work will progress. Women are a hindrance to men"s minds, an anxiety."
"I am well pleased, Abdul. We were not lonely before Madam came."
"_Aiwah_, Effendi, there was the prospect of the meeting with the honourable _Sitt_. Now there is desolation."
"I did not seek the meeting, Abdul. All is well."
"_Insha Allah_, things will progress more favourably."
Abdul left his master. He had learned all that he wanted to know. The Effendi did not love the harlot. He knew now that the woman had followed Michael, and that she had got wind of the hidden treasure.
When he was alone, he gazed at the shrunken encampment. The white tent was there no longer; the place was rid of the woman and her luxuries.
Had she decamped with two ends in view--to get away from the infected spot and to antic.i.p.ate the Effendi in his search?
"_Gehenna!_" he said again. "I did not tell the honourable Effendi that the linen sheets in which the saint slept last night belonged to the _Sitt_--that they are packed with her clothes which she will wear again! She has made her own bed--let her sleep in it. Ha.s.san will see to that."
The distance of the flat desert had obliterated Millicent"s cavalcade.
Was it journeying towards civilization, hurrying from the plague-spot in the desert, or was it going to the hills behind Akhnaton"s city?
When Michael had hurried to the saint the night before and had shown himself totally fearless and unmindful of his own welfare, the saint had implored him to leave him. He knew the danger and the awfulness of smallpox; he knew the risk the Englishman was running.
When Michael made him understand that he had no intention of leaving him, that he was going to wait for him until he was better, the sick man was overwhelmed with grat.i.tude. He told Michael that he would show him, if Allah permitted, the place in the hills where the hidden treasure lay. But in case it should please the Giver of Death to allow His servant to look upon the beauty of His face (which was the sick man"s way of saying in case he should die), he would beg of the Effendi to listen to what he had to tell him.
"While my memory is clear, while the All-Merciful permits me to speak to the Effendi, I will instruct him, the treasure shall be his."
Had the saint"s instructions been pa.s.sed on to Millicent"s ears? Were her fast-moving camels bearing her to the crocks of fine gold and the wealth of jewels which the hermit of el-Azhar had visualized?
The fate of every man hangs round his neck. If Allah had willed it?
CHAPTER VII
The saint was dead. At dawn his soul had pa.s.sed into _Barzakh_, or the second world, the intermediate state between the present life and the resurrection.
While administering to him, Abdul"s anxious ears heard the ominous rattle in the dying man"s throat, he turned his face Mecca-wards and reverently closed his eyes. At the same moment the faithful who had gathered round him--among whom were some of the inhabitants of the Bedouin village, for the presence of the hermit-saint in the foreigner"s camp was known--in one voice acclaimed ecstatically:
"Allah! Allah! There is no strength nor power but in G.o.d. To G.o.d we belong, to Him we must return! G.o.d have mercy on him. _La ilaha illallah_."
His death had taken place one hour before sunrise; it was now one hour before sunset and Michael was sitting on a little knoll in the desert, watching the mourners return from the funeral of the holy man. It was a very simple affair, far different from the splendid ceremony which would have been accorded him if he had died near a city or of a less contagious malady. There were no hired mourners, no fine trappings on the bier, no wild women whose quavering "joy-cries" (_zaghareet_) rent the air with their shrill voices.
The little procession which followed the emaciated corpse to its last resting-place in G.o.d"s wide acre of sand and sky was composed of sincere mourners. The corpse had been wrapped in white muslin and enclosed in a white linen bag. When devout pilgrims or pious Moslems go on a lengthy journey, they usually carry their grave-cloths with them. The saint had not provided himself with even his shroud. As a favoured of G.o.d, the clothes in which he would be buried would be forthcoming; he took no thought for the morrow. All his life, by Allah"s guidance, men had provided for his simple wants. A hermit-saint is never without his devotees. As a _welee_ he was worthy of a costly funeral, but the nature of his death demanded immediate burial. His fame would follow after. Michael knew that probably some day a white tomb, like a miniature mosque, would mark the spot where his bones had been laid to rest. And to that tomb, a conspicuous object in the flat desert, with its white dome silhouetted against the deep blue sky, devout pilgrims would travel, for many generations.
Michael had not attended the funeral. He had consulted Abdul and they had come to the conclusion that it would be wiser for him, as a professing Christian, not to be present at the actual religious ceremony. From a raised spot in the desert he had seen all that had taken place. In accordance with Moslem superst.i.tion, the funeral had been before sunset. All Moslems dislike a dead body remaining in the house overnight; it is always, when circ.u.mstances permit, buried in the evening of the day on which death has taken place.
Abdul had told Michael that the dead man would, in all probability, guide the bearers to the exact spot where they were to bury him; if they were going in the wrong direction he would impel them to stop.