The Weavers, Complete - Gilbert Parker
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Why doesn't some one else help him? He's working for humanity.
Give him half a chance, and Haroun-al-Raschid won't be in it. Kaid
trusts him, depends on him, stands by him, but doesn't seem to know
how to help him when help would do most good. The Saadat does it
all himself; and if it wasn't that the poor devil of a fellah sees
what he's doing, and cottons to him, and the dervishes and Arabs
feel he's right, he might as well leave. But it's just there he
counts. There's something about him, something that's Quaker in
him, primitive, silent, and perceptive--if that's a real word--which
makes them feel that he's honest, and isn't after anything for
himself. Arabs don't talk much; they make each other understand
without many words. They think with all their might on one thing at
a time, and they think things into happening--and so does he. He's
a thousand years old, which is about as old-fashioned as I mean, and
as wise, and as plain to read as though you'd write the letters of
words as big as a date-palm. That's where he makes the running with
them, and they can read their title clear to mansions in the skies!
You should hear him talk with Ebn Ezra Bey--perhaps you don't know
of Ezra? He was a friend of his Uncle Benn, and brought the news of
his massacre to England, and came back with the Saadat. Well, three
days ago Ebn Ezra came, and there came with him, too, Halim Bey, the
Egyptian, who had brought the letters to us from Cairo. Elm Ezra
found him down the river deserted by his niggers, and sick with this
new sort of fever, which the Saadat is knocking out of time. And
there he lies, the Saadat caring for him as though he was his
brother. But that's his way; though, now I come to think of it, the
Saadat doesn't suspect what I suspect, that Halim Bey brought word
from Nahoum to our sheikhs here to keep us here, or lose us, or do
away with us. Old Ebn Ezra doesn't say much himself, doesn't say
anything about that; but he's guessing the same as me. And the
Saadat looks as though he was ready for his grave, but keeps going,
going, going. He never seems to sleep. What keeps him alive I
don't know. Sometimes I feel clean knocked out myself with the
little I do, but he's a travelling hospital all by his lonesome.
Later.--I had to stop writing, for things have been going on--
several. I can see that Ebn Ezra has told the Saadat things that
make him want to get away to Cairo as soon as possible. That it's
Nahoum Pasha and others--oh, plenty of others, of course--I'm
certain; but what the particular game is I don't know. Perhaps you
know over in England, for you're nearer Cairo than we are by a few
miles, and you've got the telegraph. Perhaps there's a revolution,
perhaps there's been a massacre of Europeans, perhaps Turkey is
kicking up a dust, perhaps Europe is interfering--all of it, all at
once.
Later still.--I've found out it's a little of all, and the Saadat is
ready to go. I guess he can go now pretty soon, for the worst of
the fever is over. But something has happened that's upset him--
knocked him stony for a minute. Halim Bey was killed last night--by
order of the sheikhs, I'm told; but the sheikhs won't give it away.
When the Saadat went to them, his eyes blazing, his face pale as a
sheet, and as good as swore at them, and treated them as though he'd
string them up the next minute, they only put their hands on their
heads, and said they were "the fallen leaves for his foot to
scatter," the "snow on the hill for his breath to melt"; but they
wouldn't give him any satisfaction. So he came back and shut
himself up in his tent, and he sits there like a ghost all
shrivelled up for want of sleep, and his eyes like a lime-kiln
burning; for now he knows this at least, that Halim Bey had brought
some word from Kaid's Palace that set these Arabs against him, and
nearly stopped my correspondence. You see, there's a widow in
Cairo--she's a sister of the American consul, and I've promised to
take her with a party camping in the Fayoum--cute as she can be, and
plays the guitar. But it's all right now, except that the Saadat is
running too close and fine. If he has any real friends in England
among the Government people, or among those who can make the
Government people sit up, and think what's coming to Egypt and to
him, they'll help him now when he needs it. He'll need help real
bad when he gets back to Cairo--if we get that far. It isn't yet a
sure thing, for we've got to fight in the next day or two--I forgot
to tell you that sooner. There's a bull-Arab on the rampage with
five thousand men, and he's got a claim out on our sheikh, Mustafa,
for ivory he has here, and there's going to be a scrimmage. We've
got to make for a better position to-morrow, and meet Abdullah, the
bull-Arab, further down the river. That's one reason why Mustafa
and all our friends here are so sweet on us now. They look on the
Saadat as a kind of mascot, and they think that he can wipe out the
enemy with his flute, which they believe is a witch-stick to work
wonders.
He's just sent for me to come, and I must stop soon. Say, he hasn't
had sleep for a fortnight. It's too much; he can't stand it. I
tried it, and couldn't. It wore me down. He's killing himself for
others. I can't manage him; but I guess you could. I apologise,
dear Lady Cousin. I'm only a hayseed, and a failure, but I guess
you'll understand that I haven't thought only of myself as I wrote
this letter. The higher you go in life the more you'll understand;
that's your nature. I'll get this letter off by a nigger to-morrow,
with those the Saadat is sending through to Cairo by some
friendlies. It's only a chance; but everything's chance here now.
Anyhow, it's safer than leaving it till the scrimmage. If you get
this, won't you try and make the British Government stand by the
Saadat? Your husband, the lord, could pull it off, if he tried; and
if you ask him, I guess he'd try. I must be off now. David Pasha
will be waiting. Well, give my love to the girls!
Your affectionate cousin,
TOM LACEY.
P. S.--I've got a first-class camel for our scrimmage day after
to-morrow. Mustafa sent it to me this morning. I had a fight on
mules once, down at Oaxaca, but that was child's play. This will be
"slaughter in the pan," if the Saadat doesn't stop it somehow.
Perhaps he will. If I wasn't so scared I'd wish he couldn't stop
it, for it will be a way-up Barbarian scrap, the tongs and the
kettle, a bully panjandrum. It gets mighty dull in the desert when
you're not moving. But "it makes to think," as the French say.
Since I came out here I've had several real centre thoughts, sort of
main principles-key-thoughts, that's it. What I want now is a sort
of safety-ring to string 'em on and keep 'em safe; for I haven't a
good memory, and I get mighty rattled sometimes. Thoughts like
these are like the secret of a combination lock; they let you into
the place where the gold and securities and title-deeds of life are.
Trouble is, I haven't got a safety-ring, and I'm certain to lose
them. I haven't got what you'd call an intellectual memory. Things
come in flashes to me out of experiences, and pull me up short, and
I say, "Yes, that's it--that's it; I understand." I see why it's
so, and what it means, and where it leads, and how far it spreads.
It's five thousand years old. Adam thought it after Cain killed
Abel, or Abel thought it just before he died, or Eve learned it from
Lilith, or it struck Abraham when he went to sacrifice Isaac.
Sometimes things hit me deep like that here in the desert. Then I
feel I can see just over on the horizon the tents of Moab in the
wilderness; that yesterday and to-day are the same; that I've
crossed the prairies of the everlasting years, and am playing about
with Ishmael in the wild hills, or fighting with Ahab. Then the
world and time seem pretty small potatoes.
You see how it is. I never was trained to think, and I get stunned
by thoughts that strike me as being dug right out of the centre.
Sometimes I'd like to write them down; but I can't write; I can only
talk as I'm talking to you. If you weren't so high up, and so much
cleverer than I am, and such a thinker, I'd like you to be my
safety-ring, if you would. I could tell the key-thoughts to you
when they came to me, before I forgot them with all their bearings;
and by-and-by they'd do me a lot of good when I got away from this
influence, and back into the machinery of the Western world again.
If you could come out here, if you could feel what I feel here--and
you would feel a thousand times as much--I don't know what you
wouldn't do.
It's pretty wonderful. The nights with the stars so white and
glittering, and so near that you'd think you could reach up and hand
them down; the dark, deep, blue beyond; such a width of life all
round you, a sort of never-ending space, that everything you ever
saw or did seems little, and God so great in a kind of hovering
sense like a pair of wings; and all the secrets of time coming out
of it all, and sort of touching your face like a velvet wind. I
expect you'll think me sentimental, a first-class squash out of the
pumpkin-garden; but it's in the desert, and it gets into you and
saturates you, till you feel that this is a kind of middle space
between the world of cities, and factories, and railways, and
tenement-houses, and the quiet world to come--a place where they
think out things for the benefit of future generations, and convey
them through incarnations, or through the desert. Say, your
ladyship, I'm a chatterer, I'm a two-cent philosopher, I'm a baby;
but you are too much like your grandmother, who was the daughter of
a Quaker like David Pasha, to laugh at me.
I've got a suit of fine chain-armour which I bought of an Arab down
by Darfur. I'm wondering if it would be too cowardly to wear it in
the scrap that's coming. I don't know, though, but what I'll wear
it, I get so scared. But it will be a frightful hot thing under my
clothes, and it's hot enough without that, so I'm not sure. It
depends how much my teeth chatter when I see "the dawn of battle."
I've got one more thing before I stop. I'm going to send you a
piece of poetry which the Saadat wrote, and tore in two, and threw
away. He was working off his imagination, I guess, as you have to
do out here. I collected it and copied it, and put in the
punctuation--he didn't bother about that. Perhaps he can't
punctuate. I don't understand quite what the poetry means, but
maybe you will. Anyway, you'll see that it's a real desert piece.
Here it is:
"THE DESERT ROAD
"In the sands I lived in a hut of palm,
There was never a garden to see;
There was never a path through the desert calm,
Nor a way through its storms for me.
"Tenant was I of a lone domain;
The far pale caravans wound
To the rim of the sky, and vanished again;
My call in the waste was drowned.
"The vultures came and hovered and fled;
And once there stole to my door
A white gazelle, but its eyes were dread
With the hurt of the wounds it bore.
"It passed in the dusk with a foot of fear,
And the white cold mists rolled in;
"And my heart was the heart of a stricken deer,
Of a soul in the snare of sin.
"My days they withered like rootless things,
And the sands rolled on, rolled wide;
Like a pelican I, with broken wings,
Like a drifting barque on the tide.
"But at last, in the light of a rose-red day,
In the windless glow of the morn,
From over the hills and from far away,
You came--ah, the joy of the morn!
"And wherever your footsteps fell, there crept
A path--it was fair and wide:
A desert road which no sands have swept,
Where never a hope has died.
"I followed you forth, and your beauty held
My heart like an ancient song;
By that desert road to the blossoming plains
I came-and the way was long!
"So I set my course by the light of your eyes;
I care not what fate may send;
On the road I tread shine the love-starred skies--
The road with never an end."
Not many men can do things like that, and the other things, too,
that he does. Perhaps he will win through, by himself, but is it
fair to have him run the risk? If he ever did you a good turn, as
you once said to me he did, won't you help him now? You are on the
inside of political things, and if you make up your mind to help,
nothing will stop you--that was your grandmother's way. He ought to
get his backing pretty soon, or it won't be any good. . . . I
hear him at his flute. I expect he's tired waiting for me. Well,
give my love to the girls!
T. L.
As Hylda read, she passed through phases of feeling begotten of new
understanding which shook her composure. She had seen David and all that
David was doing; Egypt, and all that was threatening the land through the
eyes of another who told the whole truth--except about his own cowardice,
which was untrue. She felt the issues at stake. While the mention of
David's personal danger left her sick for a moment, she saw the wider
peril also to the work he had set out to do.
What was the thing without the man? It could not exist--it had no
meaning. Where was he now? What had been the end of the battle? He had
saved others, had he saved himself? The most charmed life must be pierced
by the shaft of doom sooner or later; but he was little more than a youth
yet, he had only just begun!
"And the Saadat looks as though he was ready for his grave--but keeps
going, going, going!" The words kept ringing in her ears. Again: "And he
sits there like a ghost all shrivelled up for want of sleep, and his eyes
like a lime-kiln burning. . . . He hasn't had sleep for a fortnight. . . .
He's killing himself for others."
Her own eyes were shining with a dry, hot light, her lips were quivering,
but her hands upon the letter were steady and firm. What could she do?
She went to a table, picked up the papers, and scanned them hurriedly.
Not a word about Egypt. She thought for a moment, then left the
drawing-room. Passing up a flight of stairs to her husband's study, she
knocked and entered. It was empty; but Eglington was in the house, for a
red despatch-box lay open on his table. Instinctively she glanced at the
papers exposed in the box, and at the letters beside it. The document on
the top of the pile in the box related to Cyprus--the name caught her
eye. Another document was half-exposed beneath it. Her hand went to her
heart. She saw the words, "Soudan" and "Claridge Pasha." She reached for
it, then drew back her hand, and her eyes closed as though to shut it out
from her sight. Why should she not see it? They were her husband's
papers, husband and wife were one. Husband and wife one! She shrank back.
Were they one? An overmastering desire was on her. It seemed terrible to
wait, when here before her was news of David, of life or death. Suddenly
she put out her hand and drew the Cyprus paper over the Egyptian
document, so that she might not see it.
As she did so the door opened on her, and Eglington entered. He had seen
the swift motion of her hand, and again a look peculiar to him crossed
his face, enigmatical, cynical, not pleasant to see.
She turned on him slowly, and he was aware of her inward distress to some
degree, though her face was ruled to quietness.
He nodded at her and smiled. She shrank, for she saw in his nod and his
smile that suggestion of knowing all about everything and everybody, and
thinking the worst, which had chilled her so often. Even in their short
married life it had chilled those confidences which she would gladly have
poured out before him, if he had been a man with an open soul. Had there
been joined to his intellect and temperament a heart capable of true
convictions and abiding love, what a man he might have been! But his
intellect was superficial, and his temperament was dangerous, because
there were not the experiences of a soul of truth to give the deeper hold
upon the meaning of life. She shrank now, as, with a little laugh and
glancing suggestively at the despatch-box, he said:
"And what do you think of it all?"
She felt as though something was crushing her heart within its grasp, and
her eyes took on a new look of pain. "I did not read the papers," she
answered quietly.
"I saw them in your fingers. What creatures women are--so dishonourable
in little things," he said ironically.
She laid a hand on his. "I did not read them, Harry," she urged.
He smiled and patted her arm. "There, there, it doesn't matter," he
laughed. He watched her narrowly. "It matters greatly," she answered
gently, though his words had cut her like a knife. "I did not read the
papers. I only saw the word 'Cyprus' on the first paper, and I pushed it
over the paper which had the word 'Egypt' on it 'Egypt' and 'Claridge,'
lest I should read it. I did not wish to read it. I am not dishonourable,
Harry."
He had hurt her more than he had ever done; and only the great matter at
stake had prevented the lesser part of her from bursting forth in
indignation, from saying things which she did not wish to say. She had
given him devotion--such devotion, such self-effacement in his career as
few women ever gave. Her wealth--that was so little in comparison with
the richness of her nature--had been his; and yet his vast egotism took
it all as his right, and she was repaid in a kind of tyranny, the more
galling and cruel because it was wielded by a man of intellect and
culture, and ancient name and tradition. If he had been warned that he
was losing his wife's love, he would have scouted the idea, his
self-assurance was so strong, his vanity complete. If, however, he had
been told that another man was thinking of his wife, he would have
believed it, as he believed now that David had done; and he cherished
that belief, and let resentment grow. He was the Earl of Eglington, and
no matter what reputation David had reached, he was still a member of a
Quaker trader's family, with an origin slightly touched with scandal.
Another resentment, however, was steadily rising in him. It galled him
that Hylda should take so powerful an interest in David's work in Egypt;
and he knew now that she had always done so. It did not ease his vexed
spirit to know that thousands of others of his fellow-countrymen did the
same. They might do so, but she was his wife, and his own work was the
sun round which her mind and interest should revolve.
"Why should you be so keen about Egypt and Claridge Pasha?" he said to
her now.
Her face hardened a little. Had he the right to torture her so? To
suspect her? She could read it in his eyes. Her conscience was clear. She
was no man's slave. She would not be any man's slave. She was master of
her own soul. What right had he to catechise her--as though she were a
servant or a criminal? But she checked the answer on her tongue, because
she was hurt deeper than words could express, and she said, composedly:
"I have here a letter from my cousin Lacey, who is with Claridge Pasha.
It has news of him, of events in the Soudan. He had fever, there was to
be a fight, and I wished to know if you had any later news. I thought
that document there might contain news, but I did not read it. I realised
that it was not yours, that it belonged to the Government, that I had no
right. Perhaps you will tell me if you have news. Will you?" She leaned
against the table wearily, holding her letter.
"Let me read your letter first," he said wilfully.
A mist seemed to come before her eyes; but she was schooled to
self-command, and he did not see he had given her a shock. Her first
impulse was to hand the letter over at once; then there came the
remembrance of all it contained, all it suggested. Would he see all it
suggested? She recalled the words Lacey had used regarding a service
which David had once done her. If Eglington asked, what could she say? It
was not her secret alone, it was another's. Would she have the right,
even if she wished it, to tell the truth, or part of the truth? Or, would
she be entitled to relate some immaterial incident which would evade the
real truth? What good could it do to tell the dark story? What could it
serve? Eglington would horribly misunderstand it--that she knew. There
were the verses also. They were more suggestive than anything else,
though, indeed, they might have referred to another woman, or were merely
impersonal; but she felt that was not so. And there was Eglington's
innate unbelief in man and woman! Her first impulse held, however. She
would act honestly. She would face whatever there was to face. She would
not shelter herself; she would not give him the right in the future to
say she had not dealt fairly by him, had evaded any inquest of her life
or mind which he might make.
She gave him the letter, her heart standing still, but she was filled
with a regnant determination to defend herself, to defend David against
any attack, or from any consequences.
All her life and hopes seemed hanging in the balance, as he began to read
the letter. With fear she saw his face cloud over, heard an impatient
exclamation pass his lips. She closed her eyes to gather strength for the
conflict which was upon her. He spoke, and she vaguely wondered what
passage in the letter had fixed his attention. His voice seemed very far
away. She scarcely understood. But presently it pierced the clouds of
numbness between them, and she realised what he was saying:
"Vulgar fellow--I can't congratulate you upon your American cousin. So,
the Saadat is great on moral suasion, master of it--never failed yet--not
altogether--and Aunt Melissa and skim-milk and early piety!' And 'the
Saadat is a wonder from Wondertown'--like a side-show to a circus, a
marvel on the flying trapeze! Perhaps you can give me the sense of the
letter, if there is any sense in it. I can't read his writing, and it
seems interminable. Would you mind?"
A sigh of relief broke from her. A weight slipped away from her heart and
brain. It was as though one in armour awaited the impact of a heavy,
cruel, overwhelming foe, who suddenly disappeared, and the armour fell
from the shoulders, and breath came easily once again.
"Would you mind?" he repeated drily, as he folded up the letter slowly.
He handed it back to her, the note of sarcasm in his voice pricking her
like the point of a dagger. She felt angered with herself that he could
rouse her temper by such small mean irony. She had a sense of bitter
disappointment in him--or was it a deep hurt?--that she had not made him
love her, truly love her. If he had only meant the love that he swore
before they had married! Why had he deceived her? It had all been in his
hands, her fate and future; but almost before the bridal flowers had
faded, she had come to know two bitter things: that he had married with a
sordid mind; that he was incapable of the love which transmutes the
half-comprehending, half-developed affection of the maid into the
absorbing, understanding, beautiful passion of the woman. She had married
not knowing what love and passion were; uncomprehending, and innocent
because uncomprehending; with a fine affection, but capable of loving
wholly. One thing had purified her motives and her life--the desire to
share with Eglington his public duty and private hopes, to be his
confidante, his friend, his coadjutor, proud of him, eager for him,
determined to help him. But he had blocked the path to all inner
companionship. He did no more than let her share the obvious and outer
responsibilities of his life. From the vital things, if there were vital
things, she was shut out. What would she not give for one day of simple
tenderness and quiet affection, a true day with a true love!
She was now perfectly composed. She told him the substance of the letter,
of David's plight, of the fever, of the intended fight, of Nahoum Pasha,
of the peril to David's work. He continued to interrogate her, while she
could have shrieked out the question, "What is in yonder document? What
do you know? Have you news of his safety?" Would he never stop his
questioning? It was trying her strength and patience beyond endurance. At
last he drew the document slowly from the despatch-box, and glanced up
and down it musingly. "I fancy he won the battle," he said slowly, "for
they have news of him much farther down the river. But from this letter I
take it he is not yet within the zone of safety--so Nahoum Pasha says."
He flicked the document upwards with his thumb.