The colour rushed to Gordon's face and he dropped his head.
"As for this man's teaching, it may transcend Egypt but it includes it, and these people will take out of it only what they want, and what they want is an excuse to resist authority and turn their best friends out of the country. As for you," she said, with new force, "your duty is to go to Alexandria and bring this man back to Cairo. It begins and ends there, and has nothing to do with anything else."
Then Gordon raised his head and answered, "You are right, Helena. You are always right. A son is not the judge of his father. And where would England be to-day if her soldiers had always asked themselves whether she was in the right or the wrong? I thought England would be sinning against the light if she sent Ishmael Ameer to the Soudan and so stifled a voice that might be the soul of the East, but I know nothing about him except what his friends have told me… After all, grapes don't grow on pine trees, and the only fruit we see is … I'll see the man for myself, Helena, and if I find he is encouraging the rioters … if even in his sermons in the mosques … Hafiz and the Moslems are to tell me what he says in them… They must tell me the truth, though … Whatever the consequences … they must tell me the truth. They shall – my God, they must."
CHAPTER XI
The clock struck six, and Gordon rose to go. Helena helped him to belt up the sword he had taken off and to put on his military greatcoat. Then she threw a lace scarf over her head and went out with him into the garden that they might bid good-bye at the gate.
The sun was going down by this time, the odourless air of the desert was cooler and fresher than before, and all nature was full of a soothing and blissful peace.
"Don't go yet; you have a few minutes to spare still. Come," said Helena, and taking his hand she drew him to a blossom-thatched arbour which stood on the edge of the ramparts.
There, with the red glow on their faces, as on the face of the great mosque which stood in conscious grandeur by their side, they looked out in silence for some moments on the glittering city, the gleaming Nile, the yellow desert, and all the glory of the sky.
It was just that mysterious moment between day and night when the earth seems to sing a silent song which only the human heart can hear, and, stirred by an emotion she could scarcely understand, Helena, who had been so brave until now, began to tremble and break down, and the woman in her to appear.
"Don't think me foolish," she said, "but I feel – I feel as if – as if this were the last time you and I were to be together."
"Don't unman me, Helena," said Gordon. "The work I have to do in Alexandria may be dangerous, but don't tell me you are afraid – "
"It isn't that. I shouldn't be fit to be a soldier's daughter or to become – to become a soldier's wife if I were afraid of that. No, I'm not afraid of that, Gordon. I shall never allow myself to be afraid of that. But – "
"But what, Helena?"
"I feel as if something has broken between you and me, and we shall never be the same to each other after to-night. It frightens me. You are so near, yet you seem so far away. Coming out of the house a moment ago, I felt as if I had to take farewell of you, here and now."
Without more ado Gordon took her firmly in his arms, and with one hand on her forehead that he might look full in her face, he said —
"You are not angry with me, Helena – for what I said to your father just now?"
"No, oh no! you were speaking out of your heart, and perhaps it was partly that – "
"You didn't agree with me, I know that quite well, but you love me still, Helena?"
"Don't ask me that, dear."
"I must. I am going away, so speak out, I entreat you. You love me still, Helena?"
"I am here. Isn't that enough?" she said, putting her arms about his neck and laying her head on his breast.
He kissed her, and there was silence for some moments more. Then in a sharp, agitated whisper she said —
"Gordon, that man is coming between us."
"Ishmael Ameer?"
"Yes."
"What utter absurdity, Helena!"
"No, I'm telling you the truth. That man is coming between us. I know it – I feel it – something is speaking to me – warning me. Listen! Last night I saw it in a dream. I cannot remember what happened but he was there, and you and I, and your father and mine, and then – "
"My dear Nell, how foolish! But I see what has happened. When did you receive the Princess Nazimah's letter?"
"Last night – just before going to bed."
"Exactly! And you were brooding over what she said of the needle carrying only one thread?"
"I was thinking of it – yes."
"You were also thinking of what you had said yourself in your letter to me – that if I resisted my father's will the results might be serious for all of us?"
"That too, perhaps."
"There you are, then – there's the stuff of your dream, dear. But don't you see that whatever a man's opinions and sympathies may be, his affections are a different matter altogether – that love is above everything else in a man's life – yes, everything – and that even if this Ishmael Ameer were to divide me from my father or from your father – which God forbid! – he could not possibly separate me from you?"
She looked up into his eyes and said – there was a smile on her lips now – "Could nothing separate you and me?"
"Nothing in this world," he answered.
Her trembling lips fluttered up to his, and again there was a moment of silence. The sun had gone down, the stars had begun to appear, and, under the mellow gold of mingled night and day, the city below, lying in the midst of the desert, looked like a great jewel on the soft bosom of the world.
"You must go now, dear," she whispered.
"And you will promise me never to think these ugly thoughts again?"
"'Love is above everything' – I shall only think of that. Good-bye!"
"Good-bye!" he said, and he embraced her passionately. At the next moment he was gone.
Shadows from the wing of night had gathered over the city by this time, and there came up from the heart of it a surge of indistinguishable voices, some faint and far away, some near and loud, the voices of the muezzins calling from a thousand minarets to evening prayers – and then came another voice from the glistening crest of the great mosque on the ramparts, clear as a clarion and winging its way through the upper air over the darkening mass below —
"God is Most Great! God is Most Great!"
Music fragment
CHAPTER XII
At half-past six Gordon was at the railway-station. He found his soldier servant half-way down the platform, on which blue-shirted porters bustled to and fro, holding open the door of a compartment labelled "Reserved." He found Hafiz also, and with him were two pale-faced Egyptians, in the dress of Sheikhs, who touched their foreheads as Gordon approached.
"These are the men you asked for," said Hafiz.
Gordon shook hands with the Egyptians, and then standing between them, with one firm hand on the shoulder of each and the light of an electric arc lamp in their faces, he said —
"You know what you've got to do, brothers?"
"We know," the men answered.
"The future of Egypt, perhaps of the East, may depend upon what you tell me – you will tell me the truth?"
"We will tell you the truth, Colonel."
"If the man we are going to see should be condemned on your report and