Hall Caine - The White Prophet, Volume II (of 2)

Against thoughts like these he tried to set the memory of old Mahmud's words at the meeting of the Sheikhs: "Man cannot resist his destiny. If God wills that you should go into Cairo you will go, and God will protect you!"

But there was really only one way to reconcile himself to what he intended to do, and that was to think of Helena and to keep her beautiful face constantly before him. She was on the other side of the wall, and she would be awake now – the only other person in the house who was not asleep – thinking of him and waiting for the hour when they were to escape.

The luminous dark blue of the air died into the soft red of the early dawn, the "Wahhed!" of the night watchmen became less frequent, and the call of Black Zogal stopped altogether. It was now three o'clock, and Gordon, who had not undressed, rose to a sitting position on his bed.

This brought him face to face with Ishmael, whose angerib was on the opposite side of the room. The Arab was sleeping peacefully. He, too, had lain down in his clothes, having to rise early, but he had unrolled his turban, leaving nothing on his head but his Mecca skullcap, which made him look like the picture of a saintly Pope. The dim light that was filtering through the windows rested on him as he lay in his white garments under a white sheepskin. There was a look of serenity, of radiance, almost of divinity, in his tranquil face.

Gordon felt as if he were a thief and a murderer – stealing from and stabbing the man who loved and trusted him. He had an almost irresistible impulse to waken Ishmael there and then, and tell him plainly what he was about to do. But the thought of Helena came back again, and he remembered that that was quite impossible.

At length he rose to go. He was still wearing Hafiz's slippers, but he found himself stepping on his toes to deaden the sound of his tread. When he got to the door he opened it carefully so as to make no noise; but just at that moment the sleeping man stirred and began to speak.

In the toneless voice of sleep, but nevertheless with an accent of affection which Gordon had never heard from him before, Ishmael said —

"Rani! My Rani!"

Gordon stood and listened, not daring to move. After a moment all was quiet again. There was no sound in the room but Ishmael's measured breathing as before.

How Gordon got out at last he never quite knew. When he recovered his self-possession he was in the guest-room, drawing aside the curtain that covered the open doorway, and feeling the cool, fresh, odourless desert air on his hot face and in his nostrils.

He saw Black Zogal stretched out at the bottom of the wooden steps, fast asleep and with his staff beside him. The insurgent dawn was sweeping up, but all was silent both within and without. Save for the Nubian's heavy snoring there was not a sound about the house.

Feeling his throat to be parched, he turned back to the water-niche for a drink, and while he was lifting the can to his lips his eye fell on a letter which had been left for him there, having come by the train which arrived late the night before, and then been specially delivered after he had gone to bed.

The letter, which was in a black-bordered envelope, was addressed —

At first sight the handwriting struck him like a familiar face, but before he had time to recognise it he was conscious of a crushing sense of fatality, a vague but almost heart-breaking impression that while he had been spending the long, black hours of the night in building up hopes of flying away with Helena, this little packet of sealed paper had all the time been waiting outside his door to tell him they could not go.

He took it and opened it with trembling fingers, and read it at a glance as one reads a picture. It was from Hafiz, and it told him that his mother was dead.

Then all the pent-up pain and shame of the night rolled over him like a breaking wave, and he dropped down on the nearest seat and wept like a child.

Contrary to Gordon's surmise, Helena had slept soundly, with the beautiful calm confidence of one who relied absolutely upon him and thought her troubles were over; but she awoke at half-past three as promptly as if an alarum-clock had wakened her.

The arms of Ayesha were then closely encircling her neck, and it was with difficulty that she liberated herself without awakening the child, but as soon as she had done so she could not resist an impulse to kiss the little one, so boundless was her happiness and so entirely at that moment had she conquered the sense that Ishmael's innocent daughter had been a constant torture to her.

Then dressing rapidly in her usual mixed Eastern and Western costume, and throwing a travelling cloak over her shoulders instead of her Indian veil, but giving no thought to the other belongings which she must leave behind, she stepped lightly out of the sleeping room.

The moment she entered the guest-room she heard a moan, and before realising where it came from, she said —

"Who's there?"

Then Gordon lifted his tear-stained face to her face, and, without speaking, held out the letter which hung from his helpless hand.

She took it and read it with a sense of overwhelming disaster, while Gordon, with that access of grief which, at the first moment of a great sorrow, the presence of a loved one brings, heaped reproaches upon himself, as if all that he had done at the hard bidding of his conscience had been a sin and a crime.

"Poor mother! My poor, dear mother! It was I who made her last days unhappy."

Half-an-hour went by in this way, and the time for going passed. Helena dared not tell him that their opportunity for flight was slipping away – it seemed like an outrage to think of that now – so she stood by his side, feeling powerless to comfort him, and dazed by the blow that had shattered their hopes.

Then Black Zogal, being awakened by the sound of Gordon's weeping, came in with his wild eyes, and after him came Abdullah, and then Zenoba, who, gathering an idea of trouble, went off to awaken Ishmael and old Mahmud, so that in a little while the whole of the Arab household were standing round Gordon as he sat doubled up on the edge of a divan.

When Ishmael heard what had happened he was deeply moved, and sitting down by Gordon's side he took one of his hands and smoothed it, while in that throbbing voice which went to the heart of everybody, and with a look of suffering in his swarthy face and luminous black eyes, he spoke some sympathetic words.

"All life ends in death, my brother. This world is a place of going, not of staying. The mystery of pain – who can fathom it? Life would be unbearable but for one thought – that God is over all. He rules everything for the best. Yes, believe me, everything. I have had my hours of sorrow too, but I have always found it so."

After a while Gordon was able to control his grief, and then Ishmael asked him if he would not read his letter aloud. With some reluctance Gordon did so, but it required all his self-control to repeat his mother's message.

Leaving out the usual Arabic salutations he began where Hafiz said —

"With a heavy heart I have to tell you, my most dear brother, that your sweet and saintly mother died this morning. She had been sinking ever since you went away, but the end came so quickly that it took us all by surprise."

Gordon's voice thickened, and Ishmael said —

"Take your time, brother."

"She had the consolations of her religion, and I think she passed in peace. There was only one thing clouded her closing hours. On her deathbed she was constantly expressing an earnest hope that you might all be re-united – you and she and your father and Helena, who are now so far apart."