The Four Feathers
Page 24
CHAPTER XXIV
ON THE NILE
It was a callous country inhabited by a callous race, thought Calder, ashe travelled down the Nile from Wadi Halfa to Assouan on his threemonths' furlough. He leaned over the rail of the upper deck of thesteamer and looked down upon the barge lashed alongside. On the lowerdeck of the barge among the native passengers stood an angareb,[2]whereon was stretched the motionless figure of a human being shrouded ina black veil. The angareb and its burden had been carried on board earlythat morning at Korosko by two Arabs, who now sat laughing andchattering in the stern of the barge. It might have been a dead man or adead woman who lay still and stretched out upon the bedstead, so littleheed did they give to it. Calder lifted his eyes and looked to his rightand his left across glaring sand and barren rocks shaped roughly intothe hard forms of pyramids. The narrow meagre strip of green close bythe water's edge upon each bank was the only response which the Soudanmade to Spring and Summer and the beneficent rain. A callous countryinhabited by a callous people.
[Footnote 2: The native bedstead of matting woven across a four-leggedframe.]
Calder looked downwards again to the angareb upon the barge's deck andthe figure lying upon it. Whether it was man or woman he could nottell. The black veil lay close about the face, outlining the nose, thehollows of the eyes and the mouth; but whether the lips wore a moustacheand the chin a beard, it did not reveal.
The slanting sunlight crept nearer and nearer to the angareb. Thenatives seated close to it moved into the shadow of the upper deck, butno one moved the angareb, and the two men laughing in the stern gave nothought to their charge. Calder watched the blaze of yellow light creepover the black recumbent figure from the feet upwards. It burnt at lastbright and pitiless upon the face. Yet the living creature beneath theveil never stirred. The veil never fluttered above the lips, the legsremained stretched out straight, the arms lay close against the side.
Calder shouted to the two men in the stern.
"Move the angareb into the shadow," he cried, "and be quick!"
The Arabs rose reluctantly and obeyed him.
"Is it a man or woman?" asked Calder.
"A man. We are taking him to the hospital at Assouan, but we do notthink that he will live. He fell from a palm tree three weeks ago."
"You give him nothing to eat or drink?"
"He is too ill."
It was a common story and the logical outcome of the belief that lifeand death are written and will inevitably befall after the manner of thewriting. That man lying so quiet beneath the black covering had probablyat the beginning suffered nothing more serious than a bruise, which afew simple remedies would have cured within a week. But he had beenallowed to lie, even as he lay upon the angareb, at the mercy of thesun and the flies, unwashed, unfed, and with his thirst unslaked. Thebruise had become a sore, the sore had gangrened, and when all remedieswere too late, the Egyptian Mudir of Korosko had discovered the accidentand sent the man on the steamer down to Assouan. But, familiar thoughthe story was, Calder could not dismiss it from his thoughts. Theimmobility of the sick man upon the native bedstead in a way fascinatedhim, and when towards sunset a strong wind sprang up and blew againstthe stream, he felt an actual comfort in the knowledge that the sick manwould gain some relief from it. And when his neighbour that evening atthe dinner table spoke to him with a German accent, he suddenly askedupon an impulse:--
"You are not a doctor by any chance?"
"Not a doctor," said the German, "but a student of medicine at Bonn. Icame from Cairo to see the Second Cataract, but was not allowed to gofarther than Wadi Halfa."
Calder interrupted him at once. "Then I will trespass upon your holidayand claim your professional assistance."
"For yourself? With pleasure, though I should never have guessed youwere ill," said the student, smiling good-naturedly behind hiseyeglasses.
"Nor am I. It is an Arab for whom I ask your help."
"The man on the bedstead?"
"Yes, if you will be so good. I will warn you--he was hurt three weeksago, and I know these people. No one will have touched him since he washurt. The sight will not be pretty. This is not a nice country foruntended wounds."
The German student shrugged his shoulders. "All experience is good,"said he, and the two men rose from the table and went out on to theupper deck.
The wind had freshened during the dinner, and, blowing up stream, hadraised waves so that the steamer and its barge tossed and the waterbroke on board.
"He was below there," said the student, as he leaned over the rail andpeered downwards to the lower deck of the barge alongside. It was night,and the night was dark. Above that lower deck only one lamp, swung fromthe centre of the upper deck, glimmered and threw uncertain lights anduncertain shadows over a small circle. Beyond the circle all was blackdarkness, except at the bows, where the water breaking on board flung awhite sheet of spray. It could be seen like a sprinkle of snow driven bythe wind, it could be heard striking the deck like the lash of a whip.
"He has been moved," said the German. "No doubt he has been moved. Thereis no one in the bows."
Calder bent his head downwards and stared into the darkness for a littlewhile without speaking.
"I believe the angareb is there," he said at length. "I believe it is."
Followed by the German, he hurried down the stairway to the lower deckof the steamer and went to the side. He could make certain now. Theangareb stood in a wash of water on the very spot to which at Calder'sorder it had been moved that morning. And on the angareb the figurebeneath the black covering lay as motionless as ever, as inexpressive oflife and feeling, though the cold spray broke continually upon its face.
"I thought it would be so," said Calder. He got a lantern and with theGerman student climbed across the bulwarks on to the barge. He summonedthe two Arabs.
"Move the angareb from the bows," he said; and when they had obeyed,"Now take that covering off. I wish my friend who is a doctor to see thewound."
The two men hesitated, and then one of them with an air of insolenceobjected. "There are doctors in Assouan, whither we are taking him."
Calder raised the lantern and himself drew the veil away from off thewounded man. "Now if you please," he said to his companion. The Germanstudent made his examination of the wounded thigh, while Calder held thelantern above his head. As Calder had predicted, it was not a pleasantbusiness; for the wound crawled. The German student was glad to cover itup again.
"I can do nothing," he said. "Perhaps, in a hospital, with baths anddressings--! Relief will be given at all events; but more? I do notknow. Here I could not even begin to do anything at all. Do these twomen understand English?"
"No," answered Calder.
"Then I can tell you something. He did not get the hurt by falling outof any palm tree. That is a lie. The injury was done by the blade of aspear or some weapon of the kind."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
Calder bent down suddenly towards the Arab on the angareb. Although henever moved, the man was conscious. Calder had been looking steadily athim, and he saw that his eyes followed the spoken words.
"You understand English?" said Calder.
The Arab could not answer with his lips, but a look of comprehensioncame into his face.
"Where do you come from?" asked Calder.
The lips tried to move, but not so much as a whisper escaped from them.Yet his eyes spoke, but spoke vainly. For the most which they could tellwas a great eagerness to answer. Calder dropped upon his knee close bythe man's head and, holding the lantern close, enunciated the towns.
"From Dongola?"
No gleam in the Arab's eyes responded to that name.
"From Metemneh? From Berber? From Omdurman? Ah!"
The Arab answered to that word. He closed his eyelids. Calder went onstill more eagerly.
"You were wounded there? No. Where then? At Berber? Yes. You were inprison at Omdurman and escaped? No. Yet you were wounded."
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Calder sank back upon his knee and reflected. His reflections roused inhim some excitement. He bent down to the Arab's ear and spoke in a lowerkey.
"You were helping some one to escape? Yes. Who? El Kaimakam Trench? No."He mentioned the names of other white captives in Omdurman, and to eachname the Arab's eyes answered "No." "It was Effendi Feversham, then?"he said, and the eyes assented as clearly as though the lips had spoken.
But this was all the information which Calder could secure. "I too ampledged to help Effendi Feversham," he said, but in vain. The Arab couldnot speak, he could not so much as tell his name, and his companionswould not. Whatever those two men knew or suspected, they had no mind tomeddle in the matter themselves, and they clung consistently to a storywhich absolved them from responsibility. Kinsmen of theirs in Korosko,hearing that they were travelling to Assouan, had asked them to takecharge of the wounded man, who was a stranger to them, and they hadconsented. Calder could get nothing more explicit from them than thisstatement, however closely he questioned them. He had under his hand theinformation which he desired, the news of Harry Feversham for whichDurrance asked by every mail, but it was hidden from him in a lockedbook. He stood beside the helpless man upon the angareb. There he was,eager enough to speak, but the extremity of weakness to which he hadsunk laid a finger upon his lips. All that Calder could do was to seehim safely bestowed within the hospital at Assouan. "Will he recover?"Calder asked, and the doctors shook their heads in doubt. There was achance perhaps, a very slight chance; but at the best, recovery would beslow.
Calder continued upon his journey to Cairo and Europe. An opportunity ofhelping Harry Feversham had slipped away; for the Arab who could noteven speak his name was Abou Fatma of the Kabbabish tribe, and hispresence wounded and helpless upon the Nile steamer between Korosko andAssouan meant that Harry Feversham's carefully laid plan for the rescueof Colonel Trench had failed.