Terence O'Rourke/Part 1/Chapter 15
CHAPTER XV
HE IS ASTONISHED
A faint moon, late rising, lighted them on their way as they left the borders of the oasis and made in the direction of the Eirene. As they progressed, it rose and gained in power. By the time they had arrived at the agreed place of meeting with Chambret and Mouchon, it was flooding the desert with a clear, cold radiance that served for the purpose at hand as well as would have served the light of day—better, indeed, since now there was no suffocating heat, but rather such tingling cold as rouses a man to activity.
Such preparations as they made were simple; Chambret and Monsieur le Prince removed their coats. O'Rourke tested the foils, and allowed Mouchon the choice. A level place was discovered, some twenty yards or so from the line of travel between the oasis and the yacht, and screened by dunes from observation; the sand was not so soft as to clog seriously the feet of the combatants.
They took their places—Chambret, cold, pale, and silent; Monsieur le Prince, blustering and confident. O'Rourke stepped aside.
"Are ye ready, messieurs? Proceed!" he said.
The prince brought his heels together and the hilt of his rapier to his chin in a superb salute. "Au revoir, Monsieur Chambret," he said mockingly. "I shall find you in hell, when my time comes."
"Au revoir," responded Chambret, saluting with an awkwardness that showed his lack of skill with the weapon he handled. "On the contrary, Monsieur le Prince, when I have slain you I intend to lead a virtuous life. There is no danger of our meeting in the hereafter."
Monsieur le Prince chuckled, supremely disdainful of the prowess of an opponent admittedly an absolute ignoramus with the sword. He brought himself with one swift movement to the guard.
Their blades clashed in the moonlight, glimmering, singing, glinting fire.
To the onlookers it appeared that Chambret was forcing the attack. He seemed to throw himself almost bodily upon Monsieur le Prince, as a desperate man might, utterly careless of the outcome. The end came abruptly, unexpectedly; Monsieur le Prince fell. Chambret staggered back, two-thirds of his blade missing.
Mouchon flung himself forward with a cry, half of despair, half of terror, falling upon his knees by the side of the prostrate man, pawing him frantically, muttering to himself, calling the man's name aloud. Presently he looked up, a queer expression in his eyes, his hand dabbled with blood showing black in the silvery moonlight.
"He is dead, messieurs—quite dead," he stated simply.
The word seemed to rouse Chambret as from a stupor; he withdrew his hand from his eyes, and with a gesture of finality cast from him the hilt of the rapier with its stump of broken blade.
O'Rourke wrung his hand, congratulating.
"How did ye manage it?" he demanded joyously. "Faith, the heart of me was in me mouth, and that dry with fear for ye!"
"I don't know," said Chambret dully. "I was assured that this would be the end, from the first, despite my inexperience. I'm told that a novice is the moat dangerous of opponents, "as a rule."
"Faith," cried the Irishman, "I owe ye a debt of gratitude that grows like a rolling snowball. And, mon ami," he added thoughtfully, "I'm thinking that when we fight 'twill be with snowballs. I know nothing else that ye cannot best me with."
It was three o'clock in the morning when O'Rourke returned to the oasis, side by side with the Frenchman, Mouchon. At the door of the latter's tent he stopped and looked around.
There was none within hearing distance. O'Rourke lifted the flap of the tent and glanced in; on a cot he made out the dim form of D'Ervy, snoring in a stupor begotten of the champagne he had swilled with Monsieur l'Empereur an hour gone.
"Mouchon," said the Irishman, "one moment. If ye let slip one word of what has passed this night, to D'Ervy or to Monsieur l'Empereur, until I give ye permission—I fancy I need not warn ye what will happen. As for Monsieur le Prince, he decided suddenly last night to return to Las Palmas with Chambret. There was little time for adieux. We accompanied him to the yacht. That is all ye are to know."
Mouchon nodded with compressed lips, staring at him with frightened eyes; he was very much in awe of this Irishman, whose word to him was now as law.
"Very well, monsieur," he acceded plaintively.
The Irishman sought his cot; he lay down fully dressed, too weary to compose himself properly for his slumbers. What he needed, must have, was rest—no matter how, nor when, nor where. Sleep, oblivion—he desired it as he hoped for salvation.
But it appeared that he could not sleep. The night was old, the moon in her glory; a pale, intense light filtered down through the overhanging date palms, and lit up the interior of the tent, sharply defining its every object with black shadow.
O'Rourke closed his eyes obstinately. It seemed as though his mental vision insisted upon repeating with maddening exactness the look that had been upon the face of Monsieur le Prince—that was: who was Monsieur le Prince no longer.
They had buried him in a shallow ditch in a grave dug in the sands of the desert by Mouchon, with a spade which the Irishman had succeeded in obtaining from the yacht without exciting comment. They had placed him on his side, with his face to the sea, looking away from the woman whom he had wronged, away from the man he had deluded and enticed into this futile scheme for empire. And yet the Irishman felt that he himself lay under the gaze of those dead eyes, miles distant though they were.
It appeared that he had nerves; the eyes haunted him. He cursed the habit of dueling, cursed himself for having permitted the fight to take place, for being an accessory before a fact of murder—justifiable murder in the eyes of men; but, nevertheless, plain murder.
And yet he was glad—that he might not honestly deny; he was glad that Monsieur le Prince was gone to his final accounting; glad that it was not by his hand; glad that the affair had freed from bonds that were worse than galling the woman upon whom O'Rourke's every thought was now centered; glad that he was now free to think of her without dishonoring her by the thought of loving her—another man's wife.
He tossed upon his cot, that creaked and added to his sleeplessness. He imagined something pregnant in the air—something foreboding trouble and disaster. He could not sleep. Once he thought a cry fell upon his ears—a slender, wailing moan; and he rose, and went to the door to look out.
But then the tramping of feet as the guards made their rounds reassured him, and again he lay down.
In time—but it was very long indeed—he slept; uneasily, it is true, but sleep of a sort, temporary unconsciousness that robbed him of his carking thoughts, and thus proved grateful.
And yet it was little more than a mockery of rest; he was permitted no more than a brief hour's nap. A hand shaking him by the shoulder roused him.
He found himself sitting up on the edge of the cot, rubbing his eyes, striving vainly to collect wits that seemed reluctant to return from their wool-gathering. His head ached with the weariness that possessed him, and he felt that his eyes were sore and red-rimmed—though that might be partly due to gazing over the desert glare.
His shoulder ached from the grip of the man who had wakened him; he looked up, saw that it was a Turco, and grinned drowsily. "Me soul, Mahmud!" he muttered stupidly. "Ye have the divvle of a strong hand. What are ye waking me for, at this ungodly hour, can ye, tell me?" he added, wrathfully, beginning to come to his senses.
"Pardon, mon général" replied the man respectfully. "We judged it best to let you know at once."
"What?" He was on his feet now, staring at the Turco with clear understanding that something had gone desperately amiss while he had slept. "What? What's wrong, man? Speak up!"
Mahmud had hesitated, fearful of his general's just anger.
Now he stiffened himself against the coming storm. "There has been evil work this night, mon général," he reported. "Three men have been slain, and one is missing."
"Three slain? One gone? Who? Speak out, man; or I'll—"
"Monsieur recalls that a Spahi came to his tent with the Frenchman, Soly, last night? That Spahi was one Abdullah; he is dead—his throat has been slit. Also the Frenchman is gone. Also two pickets, Ali, of the Turcos, and a Frenchman, Rayet, have been slain, with daggers, on their posts."
O'Rourke was buckling on his sword and looking to the loading of his revolver.
"Which posts?" he demanded sternly.
"Those two at the southernmost end of this oasis, mon général—"
"And what the divvle, can ye tell me, were the rest of ye doing while this was going on?"
The storm had broken; Mahmud endured in piteous silence; when occasion afforded he fled as from the wrath of the Judgment Day.
As for O'Rourke, he went out, and calling a guard of soldiers made a round of the posts. It proved true, as Mahmud had said; not only was the Spahi, Abdullah, foully murdered, but also the two outposts on that edge of the oasis which was most distant from the camp.
And Soly gone! Here was food for consideration. Whither had he escaped? Not upon the yacht, O'Rourke was certain; for he himself had been the last to leave that vessel before she. had sailed. Moreover, he felt assured that the murder of Abdullah would have been discovered quickly had it occurred before his return to the camp; he remembered distinctly having seen the men moving about Abdullah's tent while he was bidding good-night to Mouchon.
No; it had taken place since he had lain down to sleep. He recalled with a start that cry which he had heard while half asleep, and, hearing, had attributed to his imagination.
So—where was Soly?
Not in the oasis, for that had been beaten thoroughly; not a hiding-place therein had been overlooked—not a hole large enough to conceal a rabbit. The search had gone on by his orders while he was making the rounds of the pickets;, he was satisfied as to its thoroughness.
It was about five o'clock, at the hour of the windy dusk that foretells dawn upon the desert. O'Rourke lingered near the dead body of one of the unfortunate sentries, looking out to the eastern horizon where a pale and opalescent light was growing steadily.
Was Soly out there? And if so, where? What did he purpose, how might he hope to exist, without food or water or camels?
His eye was caught by the flutter of a white thing, far out on the sands. He walked slowly out to see, without actually attaching much importance to the matter. It was idle curiosity that led him—that alone. And yet when he at last came to it and stopped, it was with an exclamation of direst dismay.
He stooped suddenly, trembling with an uncontrollable agitation, and put forth his fingers. They closed about the white object; he brought it close to his eyes, as if doubting much its reality; for surely he must be dreaming!
It was a handkerchief—a mere bit of sheer linen, for the most part lacework and embroidery. It was real; he could feel and see it, he dared no longer doubt the evidence of his senses, and yet the initial in the corner struck terror to his heart.
Suddenly, he found himself running back to the oasis, his heart in his throat. He dashed past his escort, thrusting them from his path with frantic strength; and they looked first at his face, drawn and haggard with straining eyes—the face of a madman—and then to one another, shaking their heads gravely.
It was not until he had reached the door of Monsieur l'Empereur's tent that he paused—not then, in fact, for he rushed on in, regardless of the etiquette that hedges about the sanctified persons of monarchs, and caught the sleeping Lemercier roughly, dragging him from his bed.
"Monsieur," he commanded rudely, "get up and dress yourself."
"What—what's trouble, O'Rourke? Eh-yah! Br-r-r, but it's cold."
"Monsieur," cried the exasperated O'Rourke, "I give ye two minutes to dress yourself and to go to the tent of Madame la Princesse, to see if she is there. Ye are her brother, and alone dare enter."
The Lemercier opened his eyes.
"What?" he stammered.
Briefly—curtly, in truth—O'Rourke related the events of the morning hours. He had scarce need to finish, to tell what he feared. At the sight of the handkerchief and upon his telling where he had found it, le petit Lemercier was struggling into his clothes.
Together they ran to the marquee of madame. Lemercier, standing outside, raised his voice and yelped for his sister; then, that unavailing, went within and found—precisely what they had feared.
Madame was gone.
Soly was gone.
Whither?
There was but one answer: The desert.
Somewhere out there in the fastnesses of that great, silent, sterile waste, whereon the sun was just beginning to cast a crimson flush, were madame and her abductor, Soly.
There was no time for arguing over the mystery of the affair, for trying to fit a reason to the whys and wherefores of the former sans souci's mad conduct. The conclusion was irrefutable that he had kidnaped madame, for some occult reason of his own.
O'Rourke did not stop to analyze the case. Upon le petit Lemercier's frightened report he whirled about and snatched a Mauser from one of his troopers. Then, calling to the others to follow, he made off at the top of his speed for the spot where he had found the linen handkerchief.
Once there he knelt, and scrutinized the ground painstakingly; and it seemed to him that he could discern faint traces of the footsteps of three people. But why three? Had Soly a confederate in the camp, as yet undetected?
He rose and walked on as rapidly as he might and still maintain his scrutiny of the trail. Here the surface was rather hard packed than merely soft, shifting sands; in some places the wind had covered the traces of footsteps thoroughly with a thin film of sand; but still he would come upon them a little farther on, trending always to the southward.
And he pressed ever on, the troopers at his heels exchanging muttered speculations as to the sanity of their commander.
Something like a half a mile to the south of the oasis, El Kebr, lay the dry river bed called the Wadi Saglat; this O'Rourke had forgotten completely; the rolling face of the desert had deceived him, leading him to the very brink of the gully before he saw it. He stumbled, slipped and rolled to the bottom—some twenty feet—in a smother of sand and pebbles.
He got up, shook himself, and set his jaw with commingled determination and despair. Here it was absolutely an impossibility to trace footprints.
He turned half-heartedly to the east, towards the interior, and passed along the bed of the gully for a matter of about twenty feet. And then he stopped suddenly—brought to a halt by a shot.
A puff of gas ascended above a rock a little ways ahead, and he saw the helmet of one of his own troopers dodge down behind it. Instantaneously a bullet shaved his cheek closely, and buried itself deep in the wall of the gully. With a cry of relief, O'Rourke sprang forward, hope high in his heart. He swung around the corner of the rock and covered with the Mauser the figure of Soly—Soly recumbent upon one elbow, clutching his rifle with feeble fingers, lying in a welter of his own blood.
The man looked up sullenly, and growled faintly.
"Go on!" he said. "Shoot me; I haven't long to live, anyway, monsieur."
O'Rourke wrenched the Mauser from the man's grip and knelt beside him; the rest of the searching party came up and stood about, wondering aloud.
"Ye are right!" exclaimed the Irishman, rising after a diagnosis of the fellow's wound. "Ye have about an hour to live. Ye have been bleeding for some time?"
"About two hours, monsieur." The man shuddered. "I'm faint, or I would have potted you, sure. But I wasn't shooting at monsieur; I thought you were that damned Tawarek."
"Who? Speak up, man; or I'll throttle ye."
"Will you? "said the fellow, leering hideously. "And what will monsieur be learning then about madame? Let me tell the story my own way, or I'll not tell it at all. First—brandy."
A Spahi produced a flask and gave it to the wounded man, who drank greedily, with great gulps, and seemed revived somewhat. Life, however, was but flickering; he was mortally injured, with three gaping bullet holes through his body.
He sighed with satisfaction: "Ah-h!" smacking his lips over the liquor, and began to talk jeeringly, vaingloriously: a fearful and sickening spectacle, with the death pallor on his face, and the intense, pitiless sun beating full upon him.
"Ah-h, messieurs! I wish that Monsieur le Prince were here to listen. It would do him good—that devil! It was such a pretty scheme, messieurs, and we took you all in—only it miscarried at the finish. Listen. Monsieur le Prince sent for me in Paris. He knew me of old; many's the dirty little trick I've turned for him. I'll say this for him, though, he always paid handsomely. Well, he sent for me, and told me he wanted me to enlist with you. You recall that he gave me a letter of recommendation to you, describing me as an honorable old soldier of the republic? He told me what he wanted, and we cooked up the plot. It was very simple. …
"Among you all I was the only one, monsieur, who understood Tamahak. That I discovered while we were in that pig-sty of a prison at Las Palmas. It was first planned that I should escape from the encampment here and go to the Tawareks with our offer. But they saved us the trouble. That night—last night—when was it?—that Ibeni came aboard we played the farce to perfection, messieurs, right under your very noses. I was interpreting to you just what you wanted to hear, and you were gobbling it down greedily. More brandy!"
He got it, slobbering over the flask greedily, leering without shame or fear of a just God. O'Rourke was patient perforce, forbearing to press the wretch for fear he would turn stubborn and refuse to talk; the fellow knew it, and taunted them—in the face of death.
"Let's see—where was I? Oh, the Tawarek. I was telling him what Monsieur le Prince desired of him, and he was setting his price, bargaining over it while you thought he was treating for peace. Monsieur le Prince wanted your sou-centime fool of an emperor kidnaped, put out of the way, and was willing to pay for it. As things stood, Monsieur Lemercier paid for it himself. Eh—a good joke, messieurs? … We arranged it all—under your very noses—you, so wise and righteous! When Ibeni left it was all arranged that he was to come to the camp on the following night, and that I was to meet him and help him overpower Monsieur l'Empereur. Or, if not that night, the first that the simpleton slept ashore."
He paused, drank deep, and proceeded with some difficulty.
"Madame spoiled it—she with her beauty. Monsieur le Prince well-nigh spoiled it, paying me to shoot at your shadow. How I missed I never could tell; you should be dead now, Irish pig that you are! But I missed, and you were sharp enough to catch me; and so I had to cut the throat of your Spahi, What's-his-name. A difficult job, let me tell you, to do noiselessly. However—I did it. Me, I am clever! … Then I went out to meet Monsieur Ibeni. He was waiting here in the gully with three camels: one for Monsieur l'Empereur, one for himself, one for me. I whistled the signal, low, but he heard and came and helped finish your pickets.
"But then there was trouble. He was going back on his bargain, the treacherous dog! He had seen madame, and preferred to abduct her. I did not understand until he made me, with the revolver which you so kindly gave him, Monsieur O'Rourke. He threatened, and—I gave in, and helped him. But when we got her out here in the gully, messieurs, and madame wept, then my heart turned, and I would have none of the business. I am a fore-damned scoundrel, beyond doubt, and hell will be my portion. But I love,the ladies, the pretty dears! Me, I am a Frenchman, and gallant where the sex is concerned. … So we quarreled, the Tawarek and I—and he did this to me, you remark. However, I evened up matters with the gentleman, somewhat. I shot one of his camels, and kept him away from the other, so that he had to go away finally afoot, with madame perched atop the other beast—and weeping. I tried to shoot him, too, but he kept away. The other camel is around the bend of the gully up there, messieurs; when the sun came up I had to crawl to this rock for shelter, and leave the brute.
"I trust that you will catch Monsieur Ibeni, and serve him as he served me. Otherwise … It has been a great farce, has it not, messieurs? We have all been fooled—myself and Monsieur le Prince and Monsieur Lemercier and madame. All—except the Tawarek, with whom God at least will deal. Ah-h-h!"
Thus blaspheming, he shuddered and died.
By rights, wounded as he was, he should have been dead before they found him; a magnificent hardihood had sustained him, aided by a desire to be revenged upon the Tawarek, and to laugh at those whom he had hoodwinked. They buried him without ceremony beneath a pile of rocks—as fitting a grave, possibly, as he deserved.
As for O'Rourke, he had not waited for the end of the narrative. The man's gestures had told them which direction the Tawarek had taken with his captive; to the east, up the gully called the Wadi Saglat. Without an instant's delay O'Rourke rounded the farther bend in the gully's walls, and there discovered the camel, hobbled, of which the man Soly had spoken—a magnificent animal, a racing dromedary, beyond doubt the flower of the Tawarek's stable. This O'Rourke knew from former experience with camels in the Soudan; and than this he had never seen a finer beast, he told himself.
He tightened its surcingle, unhobbled the beast, blessing it and keeping out of the way of its curling lips and sharp, white teeth. When ready, he mounted, and gave the word to proceed. The dun-colored beast arose by sections—first the one hind quarter, then the other, then the fore quarters with one sudden, tremendous lurch; O'Rourke shouted at it a native word of command. It started forward swiftly, long neck outstretched, up the gully of the Wadi Saglat, bearing the Irishman into the unknown wilds of the desert.
O'Rourke was without food or water, without protection from the sun; he had nothing to depend upon but this camel, his Mauser, and the high, bold heart of him.
But that was light; for he knew that he was going to rescue madame.