John Buchan - The Collected Works of John Buchan (Illustrated)

And yet I wasn’t really depressed, only impatient. I could never again get back to the beastly stagnation of that Constantinople week. The guns kept me cheerful. There was the devil of a bombardment all day, and the thought that our Allies were thundering there half a dozen miles off gave me a perfectly groundless hope. If they burst through the defence Hilda von Einem and her prophet and all our enemies would be overwhelmed in the deluge. And that blessed chance depended very much on old Peter, now brooding like a pigeon on the house-tops.

It was not till the late afternoon that Hussin appeared again. He took no notice of Peter’s absence, but lit a lantern and set it on the table. Then he went to the door and waited. Presently a light step fell on the stairs, and Hussin drew back to let someone enter. He promptly departed and I heard the key turn in the lock behind him.

Sandy stood there, but a new Sandy who made Blenkiron and me jump to our feet. The pelts and skin-cap had gone, and he wore instead a long linen tunic clasped at the waist by a broad girdle. A strange green turban adorned his head, and as he pushed it back I saw that his hair had been shaved. He looked like some acolyte—a weary acolyte, for there was no spring in his walk or nerve in his carriage. He dropped numbly on the divan and laid his head in his hands. The lantern showed his haggard eyes with dark lines beneath them.

‘Good God, old man, have you been sick?’ I cried.

‘Not sick,’ he said hoarsely. ‘My body is right enough, but the last few days I have been living in hell.’

Blenkiron nodded sympathetically. That was how he himself would have described the company of the lady.

I marched across to him and gripped both his wrists.

‘Look at me,’ I said, ‘straight in the eyes.’

His eyes were like a sleep-walker’s, unwinking, unseeing. ‘Great heavens, man, you’ve been drugged!’ I said.

‘Drugged,’ he cried, with a weary laugh. ‘Yes, I have been drugged, but not by any physic. No one has been doctoring my food. But you can’t go through hell without getting your eyes red-hot.’

I kept my grip on his wrists. ‘Take your time, old chap, and tell us about it. Blenkiron and I are here, and old Peter’s on the roof not far off. We’ll look after you.’

‘It does me good to hear your voice, Dick,’ he said. ‘It reminds me of clean, honest things.’

‘They’ll come back, never fear. We’re at the last lap now. One more spurt and it’s over. You’ve got to tell me what the new snag is. Is it that woman?’

He shivered like a frightened colt. ‘Woman!’ he cried. ‘Does a woman drag a man through the nether-pit? She’s a she-devil. Oh, it isn’t madness that’s wrong with her. She’s as sane as you and as cool as Blenkiron. Her life is an infernal game of chess, and she plays with souls for pawns. She is evil—evil—evil.’ And once more he buried his head in his hands.

It was Blenkiron who brought sense into this hectic atmosphere. His slow, beloved drawl was an antiseptic against nerves.

‘Say, boy,’ he said, ‘I feel just like you about the lady. But our job is not to investigate her character. Her Maker will do that good and sure some day. We’ve got to figure how to circumvent her, and for that you’ve got to tell us what exactly’s been occurring since we parted company.’

Sandy pulled himself together with a great effort.

‘Greenmantle died that night I saw you. We buried him secretly by her order in the garden of the villa. Then came the trouble about his successor … The four Ministers would be no party to a swindle. They were honest men, and vowed that their task now was to make a tomb for their master and pray for the rest of their days at his shrine. They were as immovable as a granite hill and she knew it… Then they, too, died.’

‘Murdered?’ I gasped.

‘Murdered… all four in one morning. I do not know how, but I helped to bury them. Oh, she had Germans and Kurds to do her foul work, but their hands were clean compared to hers. Pity me, Dick, for I have seen honesty and virtue put to the shambles and have abetted the deed when it was done. It will haunt me to my dying day.’

I did not stop to console him, for my mind was on fire with his news.

‘Then the prophet is gone, and the humbug is over,’ I cried.

‘The prophet still lives. She has found a successor.’

He stood up in his linen tunic.

‘Why do I wear these clothes? Because I am Greenmantle. I am the Kaaba-i-hurriyeh for all Islam. In three days’ time I will reveal myself to my people and wear on my breast the green ephod of the prophet.’

He broke off with an hysterical laugh. ‘Only you see, I won’t. I will cut my throat first.’

‘Cheer up!’ said Blenkiron soothingly. ‘We’ll find some prettier way than that.’

‘There is no way,’ he said; ‘no way but death. We’re done for, all of us. Hussin got you out of Stumm’s clutches, but you’re in danger every moment. At the best you have three days, and then you, too, will be dead.’

I had no words to reply. This change in the bold and unshakeable Sandy took my breath away.

‘She made me her accomplice,’ he went on. ‘I should have killed her on the graves of those innocent men. But instead I did all she asked and joined in her game… She was very candid, you know… She cares no more than Enver for the faith of Islam. She can laugh at it. But she has her own dreams, and they consume her as a saint is consumed by his devotion. She has told me them, and if the day in the garden was hell, the days since have been the innermost fires of Tophet. I think—it is horrible to say it— that she has got some kind of crazy liking for me. When we have reclaimed the East I am to be by her side when she rides on her milk-white horse into Jerusalem … And there have been moments—only moments, I swear to God—when I have been fired myself by her madness… ‘

Sandy’s figure seemed to shrink and his voice grew shrill and wild. It was too much for Blenkiron. He indulged in a torrent of blasphemy such as I believe had never before passed his lips.

‘I’m blessed if I’ll listen to this God-darned stuff. It isn’t delicate. You get busy, Major, and pump some sense into your afflicted friend.’

I was beginning to see what had happened. Sandy was a man of genius—as much as anybody I ever struck—but he had the defects of such high-strung, fanciful souls. He would take more than mortal risks, and you couldn’t scare him by any ordinary terror. But let his old conscience get cross-eyed, let him find himself in some situation which in his eyes involved his honour, and he might go stark crazy. The woman, who roused in me and Blenkiron only hatred, could catch his imagination and stir in him— for the moment only—an unwilling response. And then came bitter and morbid repentance, and the last desperation.

It was no time to mince matters. ‘Sandy, you old fool,’ I cried, ‘be thankful you have friends to keep you from playing the fool. You saved my life at Loos, and I’m jolly well going to get you through this show. I’m bossing the outfit now, and for all your confounded prophetic manners, you’ve got to take your orders from me. You aren’t going to reveal yourself to your people, and still less are you going to cut your throat. Greenmantle will avenge the murder of his ministers, and make that bedlamite woman sorry she was born. We’re going to get clear away, and inside of a week we’ll be having tea with the Grand Duke Nicholas.’ I wasn’t bluffing. Puzzled as I was about ways and means I had still the blind belief that we should win out. And as I spoke two legs dangled through the trap and a dusty and blinking Peter descended in our midst.

I took the maps from him and spread them on the table.