Chapter 5. Sheikh Ibrahim

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_ CHAPTER FIVE. SHEIKH IBRAHIM

Time works wonders, they say; so does money in able and experienced hands.

The professor's were experienced hands, and he had ample funds at his disposition. The result of his inquiries that morning was that he found he could by starting the next night catch the mail which would bear him and his friends, travelling night and day, to Brindisi--for southern Italy, where the mail steamer would be waiting to take them on to Ismailia. Then in a few days from starting they would have changed into the not very efficient Egyptian railway, to be set down within sight of the pyramids on the borders of the mighty desert, with the south open to them, if all went as they had arranged, for their journey in search of the prisoner gazing northward and hoping still that help might come and his captivity and sufferings at last be ended.

It is wonderful what energy will do.

Now that the plans had been decided upon the professor worked like a slave. Long experience had made him an adept. He knew exactly what outfitters to go to, and when there what to select, and it was wonderful how little he deemed necessary.

"You see we hardly want anything here, Frank, lad," he said. "Some things we cannot get out there, but the majority of our necessaries we must buy in Cairo, and quietly too, for if it got wind that we were going upon such an expedition we should be stopped."

"I suppose so."

"But I can manage all that. I have an old friend or two, sheikhs who will do anything I ask, and supply me on the quiet with followers and tents and camels. For they love me as a brother, and you shall hear them say all sorts of sugary flowers of speech. They will bless me, and say that it is like the rising of the sun upon their tents to see my noble visage once again. They will kiss the sand beneath my feet in the warmth of their attachment, and do all I wish for shekels, Franky, all for shekels."

"But can you trust them?" said Frank.

"Certainly. They will keep faith, and be ready even to fight for us if the odds are not too great, and the shekels are duly paid. There, I don't think we need trouble about anything more, after the two leather cases are packed with the conjuring tricks and physic of the learned Hakim and his slaves. The sinews of war will do the rest. Hah! I am glad we are going into the desert once again. We must get to Hal as soon as possible, and somehow scheme to get him free, but you must curb your impatience. It will be all express till we reach Cairo--all the end of the nineteenth century; but once we are there, excepting for the civilisation of that modern city we shall have gone back to the times of the Arabian Nights and find the country and the people's ways unchanged. And do you know what that means?"

"Pretty well," said Frank; "crawling at a foot's pace when one wants to fly."

"That's it; just as fast as a camel will walk."

Those hours of preparation passed more quickly to Frank than any that he could recall during his busy young life, and over and over again he despaired of the party being ready in time, so that he could hardly believe it when the carriage-door was slammed, the whistle sounded, and the train glided out of the London terminus with the question being mentally asked, Shall we ever see the old place again?

Then sleepless nights and drowsy days, as the party sped through France and Switzerland, dived through the great tunnel, to flash out into light in sunny Italy, and then on and on south, with the rattle of the train forming itself into a constant repetition of two words, which had been yelled in the tunnel and echoed from the rocky walls of the deep cutting--always the same: "_Save Harry! Save Harry_!" till Frank's brain throbbed.

Then Brindisi, with the mails being hurried from the train to the noble steamer waiting to plough the Mediterranean and bear the adventurers south and east for the land of mystery with its wonders of a bygone civilisation buried deeply in the ever-preserving sand.

And now for the first time Frank's brain began to be at rest from the hurry of the start, as he lay back half asleep in the hot sunshine, watching the surface of the blue Mediterranean and the soft, silvery clouds overhead, while the doctor and the professor sat in deck-chairs, reading or comparing notes, but all three resting so as to be ready for the work in hand.

It was one glorious evening when Frank was leaning over the side gazing forward towards the land that they were soon to reach, and where they would give up the inert life they were leading for one of wild and stirring adventure, that the young man suddenly started out of his dreamy musings, for a voice behind him said softly--

"Beg pardon, sir." Frank turned sharply round. "Don't mind me speaking, sir, I hope?"

"No, Sam," said Frank, rousing himself and speaking in a tone which plainly suggested, "_Go on_."

"Thankye, sir. Don't seem to have had a chance to speak to you in all this rumble tumble sort of look-sharp-or-you'll-be-left-behind time."

"No, we haven't seen much of one another, Sam."

"We ain't, sir, and I don't know as I've wanted to talk much, for it's took all my time to think and make out whether it's all true."

"All true?"

"Yes, sir. Seems to me as if I'm going to wake up directly to find I've been having a nap in my pantry in Wimpole Street."

"Hah! It has been a rush, Sam."

"Rush, sir? It's wonderful. Seems only yesterday we were packing up, and now here we are--down here on the map. One of the sailors put his finger--here it is, sir, signed Jack Tar, his mark, for it was one of the English sailors, not one of the Lascar chaps. That's where we are, sir."

Sam held up a conveniently folded map, surely enough marked by the tip of a perspiring finger.

"He says we shall be in port to-morrow, and have to shift on to the rail again, and in a few hours be in Cairo on the River Nile."

"That's quite correct, Sam," said Frank, smiling; "and then our work will begin."

"And a good job too, sir; I want to be at it. But my word! it seems wonderful. Me only the other day in my pantry, Wimpole Street, W., and to-morrow in King Pharaoh's city where there were the plagues and pyramids."

"And now hotels and electric lights, and the telegraph to communicate with home."

"Yes, sir, it's alarming," said Sam. "Pity it don't go right up to Khartoum--that's the place, ain't it, sir?"

"Yes, Sam."

"So as we could send a message to Mr Harry: 'Keep up your spirits; we're on the way.'"

"Ah, if we could, Sam!" said Frank, with a sigh.

"Never mind, sir; we're not losing much time. But who'd ever think it! I used to fancy that foreign abroad would look foreign, but it don't a bit. Here's the sea and the sky looking just as it does off the Isle o' Wight when you're out o' sight o' land; and only when we saw the mountains with a morsel of snow on their tops did the land look different to at home. I suppose it will be a bit strange in Egypt, though, sir, won't it?"

"Oh, yes. Wait a few hours longer," said Frank, "and then you'll see."

Sam came to him the next night when they were settled in the European hotel, where the professor was welcomed as an old friend.

"I've put out all you'll want, sir," said the man. "Is there anything else I can do?"

"No, Sam; I'm just going to bed so as to have a good night's rest ready for work to-morrow. Well, does this seem foreign?"

"Foreign, sir? Hullo! there's another of 'em."--_Slap_.--"Missed him again! Have they been at you yet, sir?"

"What, the mosquitoes? Yes. I just brushed one off."

"They seem to fancy me, sir. I expected they'd be great big things, but they're only just like our gnats at home."

"Indeed! What about their bite!"

"Oh, yes, they bite sharper, sir. I expect it's because they're so precious hungry, sir. But foreign? Oh, _yes_, this'll do, sir. It's wonderful, what with the camels and the donkeys. My word! they are fine 'uns. I saw one go along cantering like a horse. Yes, sir, this'll do. But I suppose we're not going to stay here long?"

"Only till the professor can make his preparations for the start, and then we're off right away into the desert."

"Right, sir; on donkeys?"

"On camels, Sam."

"H'm! Seems rather high up in the air, sir. Good way to fall on to a hard road."

"Road--hard road, Sam?" said Frank laughing. "If you fall it will be on to soft sand. There are no roads in the desert."

"No roads, sir? You mean no well-made roads."

"I mean no roads at all; not even a track, for the drifting sand soon hides the last foot-prints."

Sam stared.

"Why, how do you find your way, sir?" said Sam, staring blankly.

"Either by the compass, as one would at sea, or by trusting to the Arabs, who know the landmarks."

"And sometimes by the camels' bones," said the professor, who had entered the room unheard. "Plenty of them die along the caravan tracks. But I daresay we shall find our way, for there is the big river which marks our course pretty well, if we were at fault."

"Thankye, sir; you'd be sure to know," said Sam hurriedly. "I was only asking Mr Frank like so as to pick up a little about the place."

The man asked no more questions, but made the best of his way to his own room.

"Come down and out into the grounds, my lad," said the professor. "The doctor's sitting in the garden having his cigar."

"I was just going to bed."

"Yes, but come with me for an hour first. I've an old friend waiting to see me, and I thought I'd bring you down."

"I don't want to meet his old friends," thought Frank impatiently. Then aloud, as he followed: "Of course you will say nothing about the object of our visit here?"

"Trust me," said the professor quietly.

"Is your friend staying here?"

"Yes; he comes here regularly at this time of year, expecting to meet old visitors to Egypt."

"I see," said Frank drily. Then to himself, "I wish he was at Jericho. I can't talk about anything now but the desert."

As they descended into the prettily lit-up hall and went out into the garden among the palm trees, the scene was attractive enough to fix any newcomer's eyes; but Frank could see nothing but a long wide stretch of desert country, at the horizon of which were a few palms overshadowing dingy, sun-baked mud buildings, houses formed of the brick made of straw now as in the days when the taskmaster-beaten Israelitish bondmen put up such pitiful plaint.

"Where is the doctor?" said Frank.

"Over yonder on that seat," replied the professor, as they were going down a sandy path towards a group of palms. "Ah, there's my friend."

Frank looked in the indicated direction, but he saw no English visitor. There was a stately looking turbaned figure, draped in white, standing in the dim shadowy light among the palms, and he seemed to catch sight of them at the same moment, and came softly forward, to stop short and make a low obeisance to each in turn.

"Well, Ibrahim, how are you?" said the professor sharply.

"His Excellency's servant is well and happy now, for his soul rejoices to find that the dogs told lies. They said his Excellency would not come to El Caire until the war was over, and the Mahdi's successor--may his fathers' graves be defiled--had gone back to the other dogs of the far desert."

"Oh, yes, I've come again. Frank, this is Sheikh Ibrahim, of the Dhur Tribe. And look here, Ibrahim, this is my friend and brother, Mr Frank Frere."

"And my master," said the Arab, with another grave and dignified reverence, speaking too, in spite of the flowery Eastern ornamentation, in excellent English. "His Excellency has come, then, to continue his search for the remains of the old people?"

"Hah!" cried the professor, "that's right. Now let's understand one another at once. No, Ibrahim, I have not."

"Not come, Excellency?" cried the Sheikh, in a disappointed tone, and his hands flew up to his long flowing grey beard, but he did not tear it, contenting himself with giving two slight tugs.

"No, not come to explore."

"But, your Excellency, I and my people have found a fresh temple with tombs, and deep in the sand where no one has been before."

"Yes, and you know too that the authorities have given strict orders that no expeditions are to be made right out in the desert on account of the danger?"

"It is true, O Excellency," said the Arab, with a sigh, "and I and mine will starve. We had better have been driving our sheep and goats here and there for pasture far away yonder, than waiting for English travellers. All who are here go up the river in boats. There are no journeys into the wilds this year. I have been stopped twice."

Frank glanced at the professor, and saw that his eyes were glittering as he spoke in a low tone.

"Yes, Sheikh," he said; "it is very ill for you, and it is bad for me. There are those stones cut into and painted that we left buried in the sand."

"Yes, Excellency; hidden safely away, waiting for your servants to dig them out. Why not let me gather my people and let us go so many days' journey out into the wilderness and carry them off, before some other learned traveller to whose eyes all the mysteries of the past are like an open book shall come and find them?"

"That would be bad, Ibrahim," said the professor slowly.

"It would break thy servant's heart, Excellency," said the man. "Look here, Excellency. It is forbidden, but my people are away there to the south with the tents and camels, and their Excellencies might come and dwell with us in the tents for days, and then some night the camels would be ready--the poor beasts are sobbing and groaning for burdens to bear and long journeys into the desert--and some moonlight night they might be loaded with their sacks of grain and skins of water, and no one would know when we stole away into the desert to where the old tombs are hidden. Then the treasures could be found and brought away by his Excellency's servants, who would rejoice after and have the wherewithal to buy oil and honey, dhurra and dates, so that their faces might shine and the starving camels grow sleek and fat upon his Excellency's bounty."

"Ah," said the professor slowly and dubiously, as Frank listened with his heart beating fast, while he held his quivering nether lip pressed tightly by his teeth; "you think that would be possible, Sheikh?"

"Possible, your Excellency?" said the man, in an earnest whisper; "why not? Am I a man to boast and say 'I will do this,' and then show that I have a heart of water, and do it not?"

"No," said the professor slowly; "Sheikh Ibrahim has always been a man in whom my soul could trust, in the shadow of whose tent I have always lain down and slept in peace, for I have felt that his young men were ready with their spears to protect me, and that their father looked upon me as his sacred charge."

"Hah!" said the Sheikh, with calm, grave dignity. "They are the words of truth. His Excellency trusts me as he has always done. Will he come, then, into the desert once again? If he says yes, Ibrahim will go away to-night with gladsome heart to the village close by, and there will be joy in the hearts of his two young men, who are waiting sorrowfully there."

"You know the desert well, Ibrahim," said the professor slowly.

"It is my home, Excellency. My eyes opened upon it first, and when the time comes they will look upon it for the last time, and I shall sleep beneath its sands."

"Yes, as a patriarchal Sheikh should," said the professor. "But you and your young men are quite free from engagements?"

"Ready to be thy servants, to do thy bidding, for no one wants us now; go where you will choose, and work and dig, and find as they have found before."

"It is good," said the professor gravely. "Of course I shall pay you well."

"His Excellency always did pay us well," said the Arab, bending low.

"And my two friends will add to the payment."

The Arab smiled.

"You will keep our departure quite private, Ibrahim--no one is to know."

The man shook his head.

"And I should want you to lead us wherever I chose to go."

"You always did, Excellency."

"But suppose I wanted you to go where some of your people--I mean men of your race--would consider it dangerous?"

"There are Arabs of some tribes, Excellency, who are of low breed--men who are not of the pure blood, who would say the way was dangerous: the men of my tribe, the Dhur, do not know that word. If they said they would take the English learned one, they would take him. They have their spears and their guns and swords, and their camels are swift. Is not that enough, O Excellency?"

"Quite," said the professor; "but there would be danger, perhaps, for the Mahdi's followers range far."

"True, my lord, and they are many. Mine are but as a handful of sand. His Excellency would not go to fight the Khalifa? It would be mad."

"A wise man can fight with cunning, and do more than a strong man with his sword and spear."

The Sheikh was silent, and stood in the semi-darkness with his eyes reflecting the lights of the hotel strangely, as he glanced from one to the other as if trying to read their faces.

"I shall have to tell him all, Frank," said the professor slowly, in Latin.

"The risk is too great," replied Frank hurriedly. "We should be putting ourselves in his power, and if he is not true he would destroy all our hopes."

"We can go no further without his help, Frank," said the professor gravely. "_Tace_."

"His Excellency's words are dark," said the Sheikh, in a low, deep voice. "He speaks of dangers, and of the Mahdi's men, and of fighting with cunning. Will he not fully trust his servant, and make his words and wishes shine with the light of day? Does his Excellency wish to play the spy upon the new Mahdi's movements?"

"No," said the professor firmly.

The Sheikh drew a long breath which sounded like a sigh of relief.

"I am glad," he said softly, "for their lives are dear to my young men. They have their wives and little ones, and the followers of the Mahdi seek blood. What would the learned Englishman who loves the stone writings of the ancient people do amongst the conquering spearmen of the prophet's chosen one?"

"Answer this, Ibrahim: Do you believe this new Mahdi or Khalifa is the chosen one of the prophet?"

The Sheikh laughed softly.

"Thy servant thought much when he was young, and all his life he has had dealings with the wise men from the west who have come here from many countries to see and seek out what the old people left buried in the sands of time. He could not help, as he saw the wonders they brought to light, and sat in the same tent with them, growing wiser and thinking in their tongue. He has seen, too, again and again, fresh prophets rise to utter the same cry, 'Lo, O people, I am the prophet's chosen, sent to free the country from the heathen Christian dog.' And it has always been the same: the people cry aloud and believe and follow him to the fight always to kill and destroy, to make slaves, and to pass like a flight of locusts across the land, and the new prophet eats and drinks and makes merry till he dies like the thousands he has killed; but he does not carry out his boast, and another arises and cries, 'Lo, I am the chosen of the prophet. Upon me does the Mahdi's mantle fall.' Excellency, I am a man of the desert, but there is wisdom even amongst the sand, and I have picked up some, enough to know when false prophets come amongst the people. No; I do not believe the new Mahdi is the chosen one. He is only another man of blood. Why does my master ask? Why does he wish to run where there is danger to him and his friends-- danger to us who would be his guides?"

"Listen," said the professor, and in a few well-chosen words he told the old Sheikh of Harry Frere's unhappy fate.

"Hah!" ejaculated the old Arab, after hearing the speaker to the end. "Yes; I have heard of this before. With mine own eyes I saw the German who escaped, and it was said that there was a young Englishman out yonder, a slave. And he is your brother, my lord?" he continued, turning quickly upon Frank.

"Yes; my brother, whom I have come here to save."

"It is good," said the Arab slowly. "But I hear that an army is going south to fight the Khalifa."

"Yes," said Frank bitterly; "but it will be months or years before they reach the place, and before then my brother may be dead. Sheikh," said Frank, in a low, hoarse voice that bespoke the emotion from which he suffered "he is a slave, and in chains. I must go to his help at once."

"The young Excellency's words are good, and they make the eyes of his servant dark with sorrow; but it will not be freeing his brother from his chains if he goes as a young man would, to rashly throw away his life. It is so easy away out there. Here there is law, and if a man steals or raises his hand against his brother man, there is the wise judge waiting, and the judgment bar. But out yonder they make their own laws, and it is but a thrust with a spear, a stroke with a sharp sword, and the sand is ever athirst to drink up the blood, the jackals and the unclean birds to leave nothing but a few bones. Has the young Excellency thought of all this?"

"Yes," said Frank hoarsely, "and I have seen in the darkness of the night when I could not sleep, my brother's hands stretched out to me, and have felt that I could hear his voice calling to me to come and save him."

The Sheikh stood silently there beneath the palms, and for some minutes no words came.

At last he repeated his former stereotyped expression.

"It is good. Yes," he said, "it is good, and God will go before you on such an errand as this, my son. I am growing old now."

"And you--"

Frank began to utter his thoughts impulsively, but the professor laid a hand sharply upon his arm.

"Silence," he said, and the Arab paused for a few moments as if to give way, but as Frank checked himself he went on--

"--And old men grow to love money and greater flocks and herds, and more and better camels, as they come nearer to the time when all these things will be as naught. I have been much with the wise men from Europe, and it has been pleasant to my soul to take their piastres to make my tribe richer every year. His Excellency here has paid me much gold in the past times, and I and my people have worked justly for him, so that he has come to us again and again, till his coming has been that of a friend, and my heart was sore when I heard that he was not to be with us this season of the year. And now he has come for this as to a friend to ask the help of me and mine. He has come to me as a brother in suffering, and it is good. Yes, Excellency, you are welcome to the tents of your brethren, and we will do all we can to bring the lost one back. And what I bid my people do they will do, till I am gathered to my fathers and my son takes my place. But when I go to my people to-night and tell them of your words, they will say 'O my father, this is not work for money. Our master must not give us payment for such a thing as this. Of a truth we will go and bring the young man back to those who mourn for him. If we redden the sand with our blood instead, well, we have died as men, and we shall sleep with the just.'"

The professor caught the old Arab's hand, and Frank snatched impulsively at the other, the thin, nervous fingers closing tightly upon the English grip, and they stood in silence for some minutes.

"Tell him what I feel," said Frank at last. "I can't find words."

"Neither can I," said the professor, "but I must try."

"Listen, Sheikh," he said, "you have made our hearts glad within us. For when this news came to England I said to myself that I would seek my old Arab friend and ask him to help me to find our young brother."

"It is good," said the Arab softly. "You remembered the far away."

"How could I forget the man who watched by me in his tent when I was sick unto death, and who rejoiced over me when I was brought back to life? I looked back upon you as a brother and friend, and now I have come; but this must not be only a work of friendship. You and your young men must be paid, and paid well, for all their risks, for we do not come as poor suppliants. I and my friends are fairly rich, and will gladly spend money over this adventure."

"Yes, money is as water that we fling upon the sand at such a time as this," said the Sheikh. "And you are rich. Well, so are we. Our life is simple; we live as we have always lived, in tents, and our riches are in our flocks and herds, our camels and our horses. We have our pride as you have, even if we do work for the rich English for the piastres they pay. But in such a work as this for our wise brother and friend, take money? No; we go to help our brother. It is for love."

"But Sheikh--" began Frank.

"Let your young brother be silent, Excellency; the bargain is made, and we must have much thought about how this is to be done. As you said, the fight must be with cunning; much wisdom must be brought to bear. We must try and find out what the Khalifa desires most. We must go as merchants, and you will need your piastres to buy enough for a little caravan of such things as will be welcome in the enemy's camp. Powder for the guns of his people for certain he will want. Strong wines and waters too, for he, like those of his kind, loves to break the prophet's laws. I will leave you now to sleep and muse upon all this. Mayhap you will find some plan or scheme, as you English call it, that will be better than mine; but something of this sort it must be, and we will go."

"Yes," said Frank eagerly, "and we will go."

The Sheikh shook his head slowly.

"No," he said, "this is no work for such as you. The task is for me and mine. Good-night."

He turned, and seemed to fade into the darkness at once, just as the doctor, who had been waiting impatiently upon the seat, strode up.

"Well," he said, "have you secured your man?"

"Yes," replied the professor; "but there is a battle yet to fight. He does not know our plans." _

Read next: Chapter 6. The Starting Point

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