The Four Feathers

by A. E. W. Mason

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  PLANS OF ESCAPE

  For three days Feversham rambled and wandered in his talk, and for threedays Trench fetched him water from the Nile, shared his food with him,and ministered to his wants; for three nights, too, he stood withIbrahim and fought in front of Feversham in the House of Stone. But onthe fourth morning Feversham waked to his senses and, looking up, withhis own eyes saw bending over him the face of Trench. At first the faceseemed part of his delirium. It was one of those nightmare faces whichhad used to grow big and had come so horribly close to him in the darknights of his boyhood as he lay in bed. He put out a weak arm and thrustit aside. But he gazed about him. He was lying in the shadow of theprison house, and the hard blue sky above him, the brown bare trampledsoil on which he lay, and the figures of his fellow-prisoners draggingtheir chains or lying prone upon the ground in some extremity ofsickness gradually conveyed their meaning to him. He turned to Trench,caught at him as if he feared the next moment would snatch him out ofreach, and then he smiled.

  "I am in the prison at Omdurman," he said, "actually in the prison! Thisis Umm Hagar, the House of Stone. It seems too good to be true."

  He leaned back against the wall with an air of extreme relief. ToTrench the words, the tone of satisfaction in which they were uttered,sounded like some sardonic piece of irony. A man who plumed himself uponindifference to pain and pleasure--who posed as a being of so muchexperience that joy and trouble could no longer stir a pulse or cause afrown, and who carried his pose to perfection--such a man, thoughtTrench, might have uttered Feversham's words in Feversham's voice. ButFeversham was not that man; his delirium had proved it. Thesatisfaction, then, was genuine, the words sincere. The peril of Dongolawas past, he had found Trench, he was in Omdurman. That prison house washis longed-for goal, and he had reached it. He might have been danglingon a gibbet hundreds of miles away down the stream of the Nile with thevultures perched upon his shoulders, the purpose for which he livedquite unfulfilled. But he was in the enclosure of the House of Stone inOmdurman.

  "You have been here a long while," he said.

  "Three years."

  Feversham looked round the zareeba. "Three years of it," he murmured. "Iwas afraid that I might not find you alive."

  Trench nodded.

  "The nights are the worst, the nights in there. It's a wonder any manlives through a week of them, yet I have lived through a thousandnights." And even to him who had endured them his endurance seemedincredible. "A thousand nights of the House of Stone!" he exclaimed.

  "But we may go down to the Nile by daytime," said Feversham, and hestarted up with alarm as he gazed at the thorn zareeba. "Surely we areallowed so much liberty. I was told so. An Arab at Wadi Halfa told me."

  "And it's true," returned Trench. "Look!" He pointed to the earthen bowlof water at his side. "I filled that at the Nile this morning."

  "I must go," said Feversham, and he lifted himself up from the ground."I must go this morning," and since he spoke with a raised voice and amanner of excitement, Trench whispered to him:--

  "Hush. There are many prisoners here, and among them many tale-bearers."

  Feversham sank back on to the ground as much from weakness as inobedience to Trench's warning.

  "But they cannot understand what we say," he objected in a voice fromwhich the excitement had suddenly gone.

  "They can see that we talk together and earnestly. Idris would know ofit within the hour, the Khalifa before sunset. There would be heavierfetters and the courbatch if we spoke at all. Lie still. You are weak,and I too am very tired. We will sleep, and later in the day we will gotogether down to the Nile."

  Trench lay down beside Feversham and in a moment was asleep. Fevershamwatched him, and saw, now that his features were relaxed, the marks ofthose three years very plainly in his face. It was towards noon beforehe awoke.

  "There is no one to bring you food?" he asked, and Feversham answered:--

  "Yes. A boy should come. He should bring news as well."

  They waited until the gate of the zareeba was opened and the friends orwives of the prisoners entered. At once that enclosure became a cage ofwild beasts. The gaolers took their dole at the outset. Little more ofthe "aseeda"--that moist and pounded cake of dhurra which was the staplediet of the town--than was sufficient to support life was allowed toreach the prisoners, and even for that the strong fought with the weak,and the group of four did battle with the group of three. From everycorner men gaunt and thin as skeletons hopped and leaped as quickly asthe weight of their chains would allow them towards the entrance. Hereone weak with starvation tripped and fell, and once fallen lay prone ina stolid despair, knowing that for him there would be no meal that day.Others seized upon the messengers who brought the food, and tore it fromtheir hands, though the whips of the gaolers laid their backs open.There were thirty gaolers to guard that enclosure, each armed with hisrhinoceros-hide courbatch, but this was the one moment in each day whenthe courbatch was neither feared, nor, as it seemed, felt.

  Among the food-bearers a boy sheltered himself behind the rest and gazedirresolutely about the zareeba. It was not long, however, before he wasdetected. He was knocked down, and his food snatched from his hands; butthe boy had his lungs, and his screams brought Idris-es-Saier himselfupon the three men who had attacked him.

  "For whom do you come?" asked Idris, as he thrust the prisoners aside.

  "For Joseppi, the Greek," answered the boy, and Idris pointed to thecorner where Feversham lay. The boy advanced, holding out his emptyhands as though explaining how it was that he brought no food. But hecame quite close, and squatting at Feversham's side continued to explainwith words. And as he spoke he loosed a gazelle skin which was fastenedabout his waist beneath his jibbeh, and he let it fall by Feversham'sside. The gazelle skin contained a chicken, and upon that Feversham andTrench breakfasted and dined and supped. An hour later they were allowedto pass out of the zareeba and make their way to the Nile. They walkedslowly and with many halts, and during one of these Trench said:--

  "We can talk here."

  Below them, at the water's edge, some of the prisoners were unloadingdhows, others were paddling knee-deep in the muddy water. The shore wascrowded with men screaming and shouting and excited for no reasonwhatever. The gaolers were within view, but not within ear-shot.

  "Yes, we can talk here. Why have you come?"

  "I was captured in the desert, on the Arbain road," said Feversham,slowly.

  "Yes, masquerading as a lunatic musician who had wandered out of WadiHalfa with a zither. I know. But you were captured by your owndeliberate wish. You came to join me in Omdurman. I know."

  "How do you know?"

  "You told me. During the last three days you have told me much," andFeversham looked about him suddenly in alarm, "Very much," continuedTrench. "You came to join me because five years ago I sent you a whitefeather."

  "And was that all I told you?" asked Feversham, anxiously.

  "No," Trench replied, and he dragged out the word. He sat up whileFeversham lay on his side, and he looked towards the Nile in front ofhim, holding his head between his hands, so that he could not see or beseen by Feversham. "No, that was not all--you spoke of a girl, the samegirl of whom you spoke when Willoughby and Durrance and I dined with youin London a long while ago. I know her name now--her Christian name. Shewas with you when the feathers came. I had not thought of thatpossibility. She gave you a fourth feather to add to our three. I amsorry."

  There was a silence of some length, and then Feversham replied slowly:--

  "For my part I am not sorry. I mean I am not sorry that she was presentwhen the feathers came. I think, on the whole, that I am rather glad.She gave me the fourth feather, it is true, but I am glad of that aswell. For without her presence, without that fourth feather snapped fromher fan, I might have given up there and then. Who knows? I doubt if Icould have stood up to the three long years in Suakin. I used to see youand Durrance and Willoughby and many men who ha
d once been my friends,and you were all going about the work which I was used to. You can'tthink how the mere routine of a regiment to which one had becomeaccustomed, and which one cursed heartily enough when one had to put upwith it, appealed as something very desirable. I could so easily haverun away. I could so easily have slipped on to a boat and gone back toSuez. And the chance for which I waited never came--for three years."

  "You saw us?" said Trench. "And you gave no sign?"

  "How would you have taken it if I had?" And Trench was silent. "No, Isaw you, but I was careful that you should not see me. I doubt if Icould have endured it without the recollection of that night atRamelton, without the feel of the fourth feather to keep therecollection actual and recent in my thoughts. I should never have gonedown from Obak into Berber. I should certainly never have joined you inOmdurman."

  Trench turned quickly towards his companion.

  "She would be glad to hear you say that," he said. "I have no doubt sheis sorry about her fourth feather, sorry as I am about the other three."

  "There is no reason that she should be, or that you either should besorry. I don't blame you, or her," and in his turn Feversham was silentand looked towards the river. The air was shrill with cries, the shorewas thronged with a motley of Arabs and negroes, dressed in their longrobes of blue and yellow and dirty brown; the work of unloading thedhows went busily on; across the river and beyond its fork the palmtrees of Khartum stood up against the cloudless sky; and the sun behindthem was moving down to the west. In a few hours would come the horrorsof the House of Stone. But they were both thinking of the elms by theLennon River and a hall of which the door stood open to the cool nightand which echoed softly to the music of a waltz, while a girl and a manstood with three white feathers fallen upon the floor between them; theone man recollected, the other imagined, the picture, and to both ofthem it was equally vivid. Feversham smiled at last.

  "Perhaps she has now seen Willoughby; perhaps she has now taken hisfeather."

  Trench held out his hand to his companion.

  "I will take mine back now."

  Feversham shook his head.

  "No, not yet," and Trench's face suddenly lighted up. A hope which hadstruggled up in his hopeless breast during the three days and nights ofhis watch, a hope which he had striven to repress for very fear lest itmight prove false, sprang to life.

  "Not yet,--then you _have_ a plan for our escape," and the anxietyreturned to Feversham's face.

  "I said nothing of it," he pleaded, "tell me that! When I was deliriousin the prison there, I said nothing of it, I breathed no word of it? Itold you of the four feathers, I told you of Ethne, but of the plan foryour escape I said nothing."

  "Not a single word. So that I myself was in doubt, and did not dare tobelieve," and Feversham's anxiety died away. He had spoken with his handtrembling upon Trench's arm, and his voice itself had trembled withalarm.

  "You see if I spoke of that in the House of Stone," he exclaimed, "Imight have spoken of it in Dongola. For in Dongola as well as inOmdurman I was delirious. But I didn't, you say--not here, at allevents. So perhaps not there either. I was afraid that I should--how Iwas afraid! There was a woman in Dongola who spoke some English--verylittle, but enough. She had been in the 'Kauneesa' of Khartum whenGordon ruled there. She was sent to question me. I had unhappy times inDongola."

  Trench interrupted him in a low voice. "I know. You told me things whichmade me shiver," and he caught hold of Feversham's arm and thrust theloose sleeve back. Feversham's scarred wrists confirmed the tale.

  "Well, I felt myself getting light-headed there," he went on. "I made upmy mind that of your escape I must let no hint slip. So I tried to thinkof something else with all my might, when I was going off my head." Andhe laughed a little to himself.

  "That was why you heard me talk of Ethne," he explained.

  Trench sat nursing his knees and looking straight in front of him. Hehad paid no heed to Feversham's last words. He had dared now to give hishopes their way.

  "So it's true," he said in a quiet wondering voice. "There will be amorning when we shall not drag ourselves out of the House of Stone.There will be nights when we shall sleep in beds, actually in beds.There will be--" He stopped with a sort of shy air like a man upon thebrink of a confession. "There will be--something more," he said lamely,and then he got up on to his feet.

  "We have sat here too long. Let us go forward."

  They moved a hundred yards nearer to the river and sat down again.

  "You have more than a hope. You have a plan of escape?" Trench askedeagerly.

  "More than a plan," returned Feversham. "The preparations are made.There are camels waiting in the desert ten miles west of Omdurman."

  "Now?" exclaimed Trench. "Now?"

  "Yes, man, now. There are rifles and ammunition buried near the camels,provisions and water kept in readiness. We travel by Metemneh, wherefresh camels wait, from Metemneh to Berber. There we cross the Nile;camels are waiting for us five miles from Berber. From Berber we ride inover the Kokreb pass to Suakin."

  "When?" exclaimed Trench. "Oh, when, when?"

  "When I have strength enough to sit a horse for ten miles, and a camelfor a week," answered Feversham. "How soon will that be? Not long,Trench, I promise you not long," and he rose up from the ground.

  "As you get up," he continued, "glance round. You will see a man in ablue linen dress, loitering between us and the gaol. As we came pasthim, he made me a sign. I did not return it. I shall return it on theday when we escape."

  "He will wait?"

  "For a month. We must manage on one night during that month to escapefrom the House of Stone. We can signal him to bring help. A passagemight be made in one night through that wall; the stones are looselybuilt."

  They walked a little farther and came to the water's edge. There amidthe crowd they spoke again of their escape, but with the air of menamused at what went on about them.

  "There is a better way than breaking through the wall," said Trench, andhe uttered a laugh as he spoke and pointed to a prisoner with a greatload upon his back who had fallen upon his face in the water, andencumbered by his fetters, pressed down by his load, was vainlystruggling to lift himself again. "There is a better way. You havemoney?"

  "Ai, ai!" shouted Feversham, roaring with laughter, as the prisoner halfrose and soused again. "I have some concealed on me. Idris took what Idid not conceal."

  "Good!" said Trench. "Idris will come to you to-day or to-morrow. Hewill talk to you of the goodness of Allah who has brought you out of thewickedness of the world to the holy city of Omdurman. He will tell youat great length of the peril of your soul and of the only means ofaverting it, and he will wind up with a few significant sentences abouthis starving family. If you come to the aid of his starving family andbid him keep for himself fifteen dollars out of the amount he took fromyou, you may get permission to sleep in the zareeba outside the prison.Be content with that for a night or two. Then he will come to you again,and again you will assist his starving family, and this time you willask for permission for me to sleep in the open too. Come! There's Idrisshepherding us home."

  It fell out as Trench had predicted. Idris read Feversham an abnormallylong lecture that afternoon. Feversham learned that now God loved him;and how Hicks Pasha's army had been destroyed. The holy angels had donethat, not a single shot was fired, not a single spear thrown by theMahdi's soldiers. The spears flew from their hands by the angels'guidance and pierced the unbelievers. Feversham heard for the firsttime of a most convenient spirit, Nebbi Khiddr, who was the Khalifa'seyes and ears and reported to him all that went on in the gaol. It waspointed out to Feversham that if Nebbi Khiddr reported against him, hewould have heavier shackles riveted upon his feet, and many unpleasantthings would happen. At last came the exordium about the starvingchildren, and Feversham begged Idris to take fifteen dollars.

  Trench's plan succeeded. That night Feversham slept in the open, and twonights later Trench lay down beside him.
Overhead was a clear sky andthe blazing stars.

  "Only three more days," said Feversham, and he heard his companion drawin a long breath. For a while they lay side by side in silence,breathing the cool night air, and then Trench said:--

  "Are you awake?"

  "Yes."

  "Well," and with some hesitation he made that confidence which he hadrepressed on the day when they sat upon the foreshore of the Nile. "Eachman has his particular weak spot of sentiment, I suppose. I have mine. Iam not a marrying man, so it's not sentiment of that kind. Perhaps youwill laugh at it. It isn't merely that I loathe this squalid, shadeless,vile town of Omdurman, or the horrors of its prison. It isn't merelythat I hate the emptiness of those desert wastes. It isn't merely that Iam sick of the palm trees of Khartum, or these chains or the whips ofthe gaolers. But there's something more. I want to die at home, and Ihave been desperately afraid so often that I should die here. I want todie at home--not merely in my own country, but in my own village, and beburied there under the trees I know, in the sight of the church and thehouses I know, and the trout stream where I fished when I was a boy.You'll laugh, no doubt."

  Feversham was not laughing. The words had a queer ring of familiarity tohim, and he knew why. They never had actually been spoken to him, butthey might have been and by Ethne Eustace.

  "No, I am not laughing," he answered. "I understand." And he spoke witha warmth of tone which rather surprised Trench. And indeed an actualfriendship sprang up between the two men, and it dated from that night.

  It was a fit moment for confidences. Lying side by side in thatenclosure, they made them one to the other in low voices. The shouts andyells came muffled from within the House of Stone, and gave to them botha feeling that they were well off. They could breathe; they could see;no low roof oppressed them; they were in the cool of the night air. Thatnight air would be very cold before morning and wake them to shiver intheir rags and huddle together in their corner. But at present they laycomfortably upon their backs with their hands clasped behind their headsand watched the great stars and planets burn in the blue dome of sky.

  "It will be strange to find them dim and small again," said Trench.

  "There will be compensations," answered Feversham, with a laugh; andthey fell to making plans of what they would do when they had crossedthe desert and the Mediterranean and the continent of Europe, and hadcome to their own country of dim small stars. Fascinated and enthralledby the pictures which the simplest sentence, the most commonplacephrase, through the magic of its associations was able to evoke in theirminds, they let the hours slip by unnoticed. They were no longerprisoners in that barbarous town which lay a murky stain upon thesolitary wide spaces of sand; they were in their own land, followingtheir old pursuits. They were standing outside clumps of trees, guns intheir hands, while the sharp cry, "Mark! Mark!" came to their ears.Trench heard again the unmistakable rattle of the reel of hisfishing-rod as he wound in his line upon the bank of his trout stream.They talked of theatres in London, and the last plays which they hadseen, the last books which they had read six years ago.

  "There goes the Great Bear," said Trench, suddenly. "It is late." Thetail of the constellation was dipping behind the thorn hedge of thezareeba. They turned over on their sides.

  "Three more days," said Trench.

  "Only three more days," Feversham replied. And in a minute they wereneither in England nor the Soudan; the stars marched to the morningunnoticed above their heads. They were lost in the pleasant countries ofsleep.