Author: Henryk Sienkiewicz
Category: Nonfiction
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be the reality. It occurred to the boy that theSudanese, reflecting upon their situation, had come to the conclusionthat they could not escape and, without saying anything to him, hadturned back to Fayum. But their calmness suggested to him the firstdoubts. If that really was Fayum, would they gaze upon it soindifferently? They, of course, saw the phenomenon and pointed it outto each other with their fingers, but on their faces could not be seenthe least perplexity or emotion. Stas gazed yet once more and perhapsthis indifference of the Arabs caused the picture to seem fainter tohim. He also thought that, if in truth they were returning, the caravanwould be grouped together, and the men, though only from fear, wouldride in a body. But, in the meanwhile, the Bedouins, who, by Idris'order, for the past few days drove considerably in advance, could notbe seen at all; while Chamis, riding as a rear guard, appeared at adistance not greater than the vulture lying on the ground.
"Fata Morgana," said Stas to himself.
In the meantime Idris approached him and shouted:
"Heigh! Speed your camel! You see Medinet!"
He evidently spoke jokingly and there was so much spite in his voicethat the last hope that the real Medinet was before him vanished in theboy's heart.
And with sorrow in his heart he turned to Nell to dispel her delusion,when unexpectedly an incident occurred which drew the attention of allin another direction.
At first a Bedouin appeared, running towards them at full speed andbrandishing from afar a long Arabian rifle which no one in the caravanpossessed before that time. Reaching Idris, he exchanged a few hurriedwords with him, after which the caravan turned precipitately into theinterior of the desert. But, after a time, the other Bedouin appearedleading by a rope a fat she-camel, with a saddle on its hump andleather bags hanging on its sides. A short conversation commenced, ofwhich Stas could not catch a word. The caravan in full speed made forthe west. It halted only when they chanced upon a narrow khor full ofrocks scattered in wild disorder, and of fissures and caverns. One ofthese was so spacious that the Sudanese hid the people and camels init. Stas, although he conjectured more or less what had happened, laybeside Idris and pretended to sleep, hoping that the Arabs, who thusfar had exchanged but a few words about the occurrence, would now beginto speak about it. In fact, his hope was not disappointed, forimmediately after pouring out fodder for the camels, the Bedouins andthe Sudanese with Chamis sat down for a consultation.
"Henceforth we can ride only in the night; in the daytime we will haveto hide!" spoke out the one-eyed Bedouin. "There will be many khors nowand in each one of them we will find a safe hiding-place."
"Are you sure that he was a sentinel?" asked Idris.
"Allah! We spoke with him. Luckily there was only one. He stood hiddenby a rock, so that we could not see him, but we heard from a distancethe cry of his camel. Then we slackened our speed and rode up soquietly that he saw us only when we were a few paces away. He becamevery frightened and wanted to aim his rifle at us. If he had fired,though he might not have killed any of us, the other sentinels wouldhave heard the shot; so, as hurriedly as possible, I yelled to him:'Halt! we are pursuing men who kidnapped two white children, and soonthe whole pursuit will be here!' The boy was young and foolish, so hebelieved us; only he ordered us to swear on the Koran that such was thecase. We got off our camels and swore--"
"The Mahdi will absolve us--"
"And bless you," said Idris. "Speak! what did you do afterwards?"
"Now," continued the Bedouin, "when we swore, I said to the boy: 'Butwho can vouch that you yourself do not belong to the outlaws who arerunning away with the white children, and whether they did not leaveyou here to hold back the pursuit?' And I ordered him also to take anoath. To this he assented and this caused him to believe us all themore. We began to ask him whether any orders had come over the copperwire to the sheiks and whether a pursuit was organized. He replied:'Yes!' and told us that a great reward was offered, and that all khorsat a two days' distance from the river were guarded, and that the great'baburs' (steamers), with Englishmen and troops are continuallyfloating over the river."
"Neither the 'baburs' nor the troops can avail against the might ofAllah and the prophet--"
"May it be as you say!"
"Tell us how you finished with the boy?"
The one-eyed Bedouin pointed at his companion.
"Abu-Anga," he said, "asked him whether there was not another sentinelnear-by, and the sentinel replied that there was not; then Abu-Angathrust his knife into the sentinel's throat so suddenly that he did notutter a word. We threw him into a deep cleft and covered him withstones and thorns. In the village they will think that he ran away tothe Mahdi, for he told us that this does happen."
"May God bless those who run away as he blessed you," answered Idris.
"Yes! He did bless us," retorted Abu-Anga, "for we now know that wewill have to keep at a three days' distance from the river, and besideswe captured a rifle which we needed and a milch she-camel."
"The gourds," added the one-eyed, "are filled with water and there isconsiderable millet in the sacks; but we found but little powder."
"Chamis is carrying a few hundred cartridges for the white boy's rifle,from which we cannot shoot. Powder is always the same and can be usedin ours."
Saying this, Idris nevertheless pondered, and heavy anxiety wasreflected in his dark face, for he understood that when once a corpsehad fallen to the ground, Stas' intercession would not secure immunityfor them from trial and punishment, if they should fall into the handsof the Egyptian Government.
Stas listened with palpitating heart and strained attention. In thatconversation there were some comforting things, especially that apursuit was organized, that a reward was offered, and that the sheiksof the tribes on the river banks had received orders to detain caravansgoing southward. The boy was comforted also by the intelligence aboutsteamers filled with English troops plying on the upper river. Thedervishes of the Mahdi might cope with the Egyptian army and evendefeat it, but it was an entirely different matter with English people,and Stas did not doubt for a moment that the first battle would resultin the total rout of the savage multitude. So, with comfort in hissoul, he soliloquized thus: "Even though they wish to bring us to theMahdi, it may happen that before we reach his camp there will not beany Mahdi or his dervishes." But this solace was embittered by thethought that in such case there awaited them whole weeks of travel,which in the end must exhaust Nell's strength, and during all this timethey would be forced to remain in the company of knaves and murderers.At the recollection of that young Arab, whom the Bedouins had butcheredlike a lamb, fear and sorrow beset Stas. He decided not to speak of itto Nell in order not to frighten her and augment the sorrow she feltafter the disappearance of the illusory picture of the oasis of Fayumand the city of Medinet. He saw before their arrival at the ravine thattears were involuntarily surging to her eyes; therefore, when he hadlearned everything which he wished to know from the Bedouins'narratives, he pretended to awake and walked towards her. She sat in acorner near Dinah, eating dates, moistened a little with her tears. Butseeing Stas, she recollected that not long before he declared that herconduct was worthy of a person of at least thirteen years; so, notdesiring to appear again as a child, she bit the kernel of a date withthe full strength of her little teeth, so as to suppress her sobs.
"Nell," said the boy, "Medinet--that was an illusion, but I know for acertainty that we are being pursued; so don't grieve, and don't cry."
At this the little girl raised towards him her tearful pupils andreplied in a broken voice:
"No, Stas--I do not want to cry--only my eyes--perspire so."
But at that moment her chin began to quiver; from under her closedeyelashes big tears gushed and she wept in earnest.
However, as she was ashamed of her tears and expected a rebuke for themfrom Stas, a little from shame and a little from fear she hid her headon his bosom, wetting his clothes copiously.
But he at once consoled her.
"Nell, don't b
e a fountain. You saw that they took away from some Araba rifle and a she-camel. Do you know what that means? It means that thedesert is full of soldiers. Once these wretches succeeded in trapping asentinel, but the next time they themselves will get caught. A largenumber of steamboats are plying over the Nile also--Why, of course,Nell, we will return. We will return, and in a steamer to boot. Don'tbe afraid."
And he would have comforted her further in this manner, were not hisattention attracted by a strange sound coming from the outside, fromthe sand-drifts, which the hurricane blew onto the bottom of theravine. It was something resembling the thin, metallic notes of a reedpipe. Stas broke off the conversation and began to listen. After awhile these very thin and