CHAPTER XLV.
THE DEATH WRESTLE.
Tidings had come, as stated, to the zereba of Sheikh Moussa of the deportation of his kinsman Zebehr in a British ship of war as a State prisoner to Gibraltar, and Malcolm Skene—no longer cared for as a hostage—found himself in greater peril than before among his unscrupulous captors.
He was conscious that his movements by day were watched more closely than ever now, and by night he was always placed in a close prison beyond the court wherein the lions were chained.
Other Sheikhs came and went, with their standard-bearers and horsemen; conferences were evidently held with Moussa Abu Hagil; Skene found himself an object of growing hostility, and suspected 'that something, he knew not what,' was in progress; that Gordon had actually been victorious or rescued at Khartoum, or some great battle had been lost by the Mahdi.
He could gather from his knowledge of the language, and the remarks that were let fall unwittingly in his hearing that the zereba was to be abandoned for a general movement on Khartoum, or for another fortified post farther up the country—a move worse for him; and the consequent preparations, therefore, packing tents, provisions, and spoil, had begun.
To save further trouble, and gratify the lust of blood which forms a part of the Oriental nature, he might be assassinated after all—after having found protection under the roof and eaten the salt of Moussa—killed as poor Hector MacLaine was killed after the battle of Candahar, two or three years before this time.
The expression of Moussa's face as he regarded him occasionally now, was neither pleasant nor reassuring; his deep set eyes, when he was excited, glared with fire, like lights in the sockets of a skull; and Malcolm Skene never knew when the supreme moment might come.
In the morning he had no assurance that he should see night—in the night that he would be a live man in the morning.
Anything—death itself—were better than this keen and cruel suspense.
One evening about sunset there was a vehement beating of tom-toms, and a body of Baggara Arabs, some on horseback, others on camels, but many on foot—a fierce and jabbering mob, all but nude—though well-armed with bright-bladed Solingen swords and excellent Remington rifles, passed the zereba, bound for some point of attack; and the Sheikh Moussa, with every man he could muster, joined them in hot haste.
So great had been the bustle and hurry of their departure that Malcolm Skene, to his astonishment, found himself forgotten, overlooked; and, full of hopeful thoughts, he lay quiet and still in the poor apartment allotted to him, watching the strange constellations and stars unknown to Europe through the unglazed aperture that served as a window, and listening to the silence—if we may use such a paradox—a silence that seemed to be broken only by the pulsations of his own heart, as hope grew up in it suddenly, and he thought that, considering a kind of crisis that had come in his fate, now or never was the time to make a stroke for liberty, and to elude, if possible, the few Arabs who were left to watch the gates in the dense mimosa hedge that surrounded the zereba.
To elude them—but how?
The stars were singularly bright even for that hemisphere; but there was no moon as yet, fortunately, and softly quitting his hut, he looked sharply about the 'compound,' as it would be called in India, and found himself alone there, unnoticed and unseen. He drew near the hedge in the hope of finding, as he ultimately did, an opening in that barrier, a thinner portion of its dense branches, close to the ground, and at once he proceeded to creep through.
How easy it seemed of accomplishment just then; but when the zereba was full of armed men, and watchers and sentinels were numerous, the attempt would have been useless.
Slowly, softly, and scarcely making a twig or a thorn crack, he drew himself through on his hands and face ere many minutes passed; minutes? they could not have been more than five, if so many; but with life trembling in the balance, to poor Skene they seemed as ages.
At last he was through!
He was outside that hated place of confinement, every feature of which he knew but too well, and every detail of which he loathed; and yet he was not quite free. Keen eyes might see him after all, and every moment he expected to hear an alarm.
He thanked Heaven for the absence of the moonlight, and, favoured by the obscurity, crept on his hands and knees for a considerable distance ere he ventured to stand erect, to draw a long breath, and with a prayer of hope and thankfulness on his lips, set out at a run towards the Nile.
By the oft-studied landmarks he knew well in what direction the great river lay, a few miles off, however.
A boat thereon, could he but find one, might be the means of ultimate escape, by taking him lower down the stream to more civilized regions.
Anyway, he could not be worse off, be in greater hourly peril, or have a more dark future, than when in the zereba, unless, too probably, thirst and starvation came upon him.
While the darkness of night lasted, he had a certain chance of safety and concealment, and he dared scarcely long for day and the perils it might bring forth in a land where every man's hand was certain to be against him.
He was totally defenceless, unarmed—oh, thought he, for a weapon of any description, that he might strike, if not a blow for liberty or life, at least one in defiance and for vengeance!
So, full of vague and desperate yet hopeful ideas, he pushed in the direction to where he knew the river lay. On its banks he hoped to obliterate or leave behind all trace of his footsteps, for he knew but too well the risk he ran of recapture on his flight or absence being discovered; and that there were Arabs in the zereba who had applied themselves diligently to the study of tracking or tracing the human foot.
So acute are these men of vision that they can know whether the footsteps belong to their own or to another tribe, and consequently whether a friend or a foe has passed that way; they know by the depth of the impression whether the man bore a load or not; by the regularity of the steps whether the man was fatigued or fresh and active, and hence can calculate to a nicety the chances of overtaking him; whether he has trodden in sand or on grass, and bruised its blades, and by the appearance of the traces whether the stranger had passed on that day or several days before.
Malcolm Skene knew all this, and that with dawn they would be like scenting beagles on his trail, hence his intense anxiety to reach the river's bank.
Swiftly the dawn came in, red and fiery, and his own shadow and the shadows of every object were cast far behind him. He looked back again and again; no sign of pursuit was in his rear. In the distance he saw a few Arab huts with sakias or water-wheels, and then with something like a start of joy that elicited an exclamation, he got a glimpse of the river, rolling clear and blue, its banks a stripe of narrow green, between the rocky, rugged, inexorable black mountains; but there no boat floated on and no sail whitened the yellowish blue of the Nile. But the morning light was vivid, the breeze from the river was pleasant and exultant, the glories of Nature were around him, yet anxiety made him gasp for breath as he struggled forward.
Not a bird or other living thing was visible. The silence was intense, and not even an insect hummed amid the scrub mimosas; the hot, red sun came up in his unclouded glory. All seemed sad, solitary, yet intensely sunny.
Ere long he did hear a sound of life; it was the shrill cry of a little naked boy attending on a sakia wheel. Irrigation is done by the latter, which is driven by oxen turning a chain of water-jars, which admits of being lengthened as the river falls. It is usually enclosed in an edifice like an old tower, green with creeping plants, and as the boy drives the oxen, his cry and the creaking of the great wheel are sounds that never cease, day or night, by the Nile.
To avoid this sakia and its too probable surroundings or adjuncts, Malcolm Skene turned aside into a rocky chasm that overhung the river at a considerable height, and then, far down below, on the blue surface of the stream and between its banks, which in some places were barred in by rocks, blackened by the sun and rent by volcanic throes into strange fragments, and which in others, where the desert touched the stream, was bordered by level sand, he saw a sight which, were he to live a thousand years, he thought he could never, never forget!
There, about half a mile distant, was a regular flotilla of boats, manned by redcoats, with sails set and oars out—broad-bladed oars that flashed like silver as they were feathered in the sunshine, pulled steadily against the downward current of the river, and all apparently advancing merrily within talking distance—a sight that made his heart leap within his breast, for he knew that this was a relieving column, or part of it, en route for Khartoum!
For a minute he stood still, as if he could scarcely believe his senses, or that he was not dreaming—paralysed, as it were, with this sudden joy and sight—one far, far beyond his conception or hope of ever being realised.
He stretched his tremulous hands towards these advancing boats; he fancied he could hear the voices and see the faces of the oarsmen in their white helmets and red coats; and never did 'the old red rag that tells of Britain's glory' seem more dear to his eye and more dear to his heart than at that supreme moment!
What force might already have passed up?
How many days had they been passing, and if so, how narrowly had he escaped being left behind? This was assuredly the Khartoum Expedition, or part of it, and the recent bustle, consternation, and excitement at the zereba of Moussa Abu Hagil were quite accounted for now.
The sight of his comrades imbued him with renewed strength of mind and purpose, and his whole soul became inspired with new impatience, hope, and joy—hope on the eve of fulfilment.
While looking about for a means of descent to the river bank, from whence to attract the attention of the nearest crew, he heard a sound like a mocking laugh or ironical shout. He turned and looked back, and—with what emotions may be imagined, but not described—he beheld a man clad like an Arab, and covering him with a levelled rifle, at about a hundred yards' distance.
The condition of his uniform—in tatters long since—had not been improved by the thorns of the prickly zereba hedge in his passage through it; his helmet had since given place to a tarboosh, and, all unkempt and unshorn, his aspect was somewhat remarkable now, but quite familiar to Pietro Girolamo—for Girolamo it was—who knew him in an instant.
Whether the revengeful Greek had tracked him or not, or whether Moussa's followers were within hearing of a musket-shot, Skene might never know; the fact was but too evident that, intent on death and dire mischief, the Ionian Isleman and ci-devant gambling-den keeper was there, with his white, pallid visage, fierce hawk nose, long jetty moustache, and gleaming black eyes.
Every detail of his tantalising and most critical position flashed on the mind of Malcolm Skene.
On one hand were the boats of the River Column—life and freedom!
On the other, death—no captivity, but death, certain and sure; for even if he escaped Girolamo, in the direction where the zereba lay he could now see a cloud of dust, and amid it the dusky figures of men and camels, with the gleam of burnished steel, and then within almost his grasp, was Girolamo, rifle in hand, arresting his path to the boats.
With another mocking laugh, the Greek levelled his weapon more surely, took aim, and fired.
Skene heard—yes, felt—the bullet whiz past his ear. Powerless, defenceless, unarmed, his heart burned with rage and desperation at the narrow escape his life had; but discretion and scheming were then the better part of valour, and, with thought that came upon him quick as a flash of lightning, instead of risking another discharge, he resolved to feign death, and, after reeling round as if shot, he fell on the ground.
Then he heard the steps of his would be assassin approach ing him slowly and steadily, to give a coup de grace if requisite with his knife, perhaps, rather than to seek plunder, as Skene, he knew, would possess nothing worth taking.
Restraining his breath till the Greek was close upon him, Skene lay still; and then, as the former was about to stoop, he sprang to his feet and confronted him. So startled was Girolamo by this unexpected movement that the rifle dropped from his hand, slipped over the rocks, and the two enemies were face to face on equal terms, for Girolamo was minus knife or poniard.
He clenched his teeth; his glittering eyes blazed; his long, lean fingers were curled like the claws of a kite; and he uttered strange, guttural sounds of astonishment and rage; but Skene had no time to lose.
Straight out from the shoulder he planted his left fist, clenched, with a dull thud on the hooked beak of Girolamo, followed by a similar application of his right, and knocked him with a crash on the rocks.
Agile as a tiger and blindly infuriated like one, the Greek sprang again to his feet, and was rushing forward like a mad thing to get Skene's throat in the grasp of his long and powerful fingers, which would speedily have strangled the life out of him, but the latter bestowed upon his antagonist another 'facer,' which sent more than one of his sharp teeth rattling down his throat and loosened many of the rest, covering his pale face with blood; but, blinded by fury—a fury that endowed his wiry form with double strength—he closed in, and contrived to encircle Skene in his grasp—an iron one; for, long accustomed to a seafaring life, his muscles and nerves were like bands of steel, and now came the tug of war, even while distant cries came to the ears of the wrestlers.
No sound escaped either now, but hard and concentrated breathing; it was a struggle for death or for life, and each scarcely paused a moment to glare into the other's eyes. Fiercely as the first of his race and name is said to have grappled with the wolf in the wilds of Stocket Forest, did Skene grapple with his athletic adversary.
Near the edge of the rocks that overhung the river at the end of the chasm, backwards and forwards they swayed, locked in a savage and deadly grasp. Finding that every effort to uproot Skene, to get him off his legs and throw him, so that he might resort to strangulation, proved unavailing, he strove to drag him towards the Nile, in the hope of flinging him down the bank; but whether the said bank was a precipice of a hundred feet or only the drop of a few yards Skene knew not, and in the blind fury of the moment, with pursuers coming on, never thought of it.
Nearer and nearer the verge, by sheer strength of muscle and weight of limb, the Greek was dragging him, and already some shouts in English ascending from the bosom of the river evinced that the struggle was visible from the boats; but Skene now gave up all hope of being able to conquer his opponent or free himself from his terrible grasp, and had but one thought—that if he perished, Pietro Girolamo should perish too!
Now they were at the edge, the verge of what was evidently a precipice of considerable height, and more fiercely and breathlessly than ever did they wrench, sway, and grasp each other, their arms tightening, as hatred, rage, and ferocious dread grew apace together—the clamorous dread that one might escape the doom he meant to mete out to or compel the other to share with him.
As last a species of gasping sigh escaped them. Both lost their footing at once and fell for a moment through the air; they then crashed upon bushes and stones, and without relaxing their grasp rolled over and over each other with awful speed down a precipitous steep, sending before and bringing after them showers of gravel and little stones, crashing through mimosa bushes and other scrub, maimed, bruised, and covered with each other's blood, for some forty feet or so.
Mad was the thirst for each other's destruction that inspired these two men; for Malcolm Skene, by the peril and circumstances of the time, was reduced to the level of the Ionian savage with whom he fought—if fighting it could be called.
Another moment and they had rolled into the Nile—a fall, ere it was accomplished, that in a second seemed to compress and contain the epitome of life, and down they went under the surface, cleaving the water at a rate that seemed to take all power out of heart and limb, and, parting, they rose at a little distance from each other.
Faint and breathless Skene went down again, water bubbling in his eyes, choking in his throat, and all breath had left him ere he rose to the surface again, and saw Girolamo clinging to a rock round which swept the beginning of a rapid. He was visible for a moment only; exhaustion made him relax his hold. He sank, rose again only to sink; then a hand was visible once or twice above the water as he was swept away into eternity by the fierce current that bubbled round the sun-baked rocks.
Then Skene felt hands laid upon him, and while English voices and exclamations came pleasantly to his half-dulled ears, he was dragged by soldiers on board one of the boats, where he lay so completely exhausted as to be almost insensible; and he had not fallen into the river a moment too soon, for, just as he did so, a group of armed Arabs, the followers of Moussa Abu Hagil, crowned with a spluttering fire of musketry, and with wild gesticulations, the rocks above the Nile.