In the Mahdi's Grasp

George Manville Fenn

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• Publié par: ummo
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 38
• Langue: English

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The Project Gutenberg EBook of In the Mahdi's Grasp , by George Manville Fenn

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Title: In the Mahdi's Grasp

Author: George Manville Fenn

Illustrator: Lancelot Speed

Release Date: March 28, 2008 [EBook #24926]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THE MA HDI'S GRASP ***

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

George Manville Fenn

"In the Mahdi's Grasp"

Chapter One.

In Wimpole Street.

Sam—or, as he liked to be called, “Mr Samuel,” or “Mr D ownes,” holding as he did the important post of confidential and body-servant to Dr Robert Morris, a position which made it necessary for him to open the door to patients and usher them into the consulting-room, and upon particular occasions be called in to help with a visitor who had turned faint about nothing—“a poor plucked ’un,” as he termed him—

To begin again:—

Sam, who was in his best black and stiffest white tie, consequent upon “the doctor” having company to dinner that evening, had just come out of the dining-room of the dingy house in Wimpole Street, carrying a mahogany tray full of dish covers, when cook opened the glass door at the top of the kitchen stairs, thrust her head into the hall, looked eagerly at Sam, as she stood fanning her superheated face with her apron, and said—

“Well?”

There

was

a

folding

pair

of

trestles

standing

ready,

 and Sam placed the tray upon them, raised a white damask napkin from where it hung over his arm, and was about to wipe his perspiring forehead with it, when cook exclaimed sharply—

“Sam!”

“Forgot,” said that gentleman, and he replaced the napkin upon his arm and took out a clean pocket-handkerchief, did what was necessary, and then repeated cook’s word—

“Well?”

“Did they say anything about the veal cutlets?”

“No,” said Sam, shaking his head.

“Nor yet about the curry?”

“No. And they didn’t say a word about the soup, nor half a word about the fish.”

“My chycest gravy soup,ar lar prin temps” said cook bitterly, “andfilly de sole mater de hôtel. One might just as well be cutting chaff for horses. I don’t see any use in toiling and moiling over the things as I do. Mr Landon’s just as bad as master, every bit. I don’t believe either of ’em’s got a bit o’ taste. Hot as everything was, too!”

“Spesherly the plates,” said Sam solemnly. “Burnt one of my fingers when the napkin slipped.”

“Then you should have took care. What’s a dinner unless the plates and dishes are hot?”

“What, indeed?” said Sam; “but they don’t take no notice of anything. My plate looked lovely, you could see your face out o’ shape in every spoon; and I don’t believe they even saw the eighteen-pen’orth o’ flowers on the table.”

“Savages! that’s what they are,” said cook. “But they did eat the things.”

“Yes, they pecked at ’em, but they was talking all the time.”

“About my cooking?”

“Not they! The doctor was talking about a surgical case he had been to see at the hospital. Something about a soldier as had been walking about for three years with a bit of broken spear stuck in him out in the Soudan.”

“Ugh!” grunted cook, with a shudder of disgust. “That was over the veal cutlets,” said Sam thoughtfully.

“And what did Mr Landon say? He ought to have known better than to talk about such ’orrid stuff over his meals.”

“Him?” said Sam, with a grin of contempt; “why, he’s worse than master.”

“He couldn’t be, Sam.”

“Couldn’t? But he is. Master does talk about live people as he does good to. Mr Landon don’t. He began over the curry.”

“Made with best curry paste too, and with scraped cocoanut, a squeeze of lemon, a toemarter, and some slices of apple in, just as old Colonel Cartelow taught me hisself. Talk about throwing pearls! And pray what did Mr Landon talk about?”

“Mummies.”

“Ugh!” ejaculated cook. “I saw some of ’em once, at the British Museum; but never no more! The idea of bringing a mummy on to a dinner-table!”

“Ah,” said Sam, “it’s a good job, old lady, that you don’t hear all that I do.”

“So I suppose,” said cook, with a snort. “And he calls hisself a professor!”

“No, no, he don’t, old lady. It’s other people calls him a professor, and I suppose he is a very clever man.”

“I don’t hold with such clever people. I like folks as are clever enough to understand good cooking. Professor, indeed! I should like to professor him!”

“Well, master’s no better,” said Sam. “Look at the trouble I have with him to keep him decent. If I didn’t watch him he’d put on anything. I can’t even keep a book out of his hand when I’m cutting his hair. Only yesterday he gives a duck down to cut the leaf of his book just at an awk’ard moment, and of course in goes the point of the scissors.”

“Serve him right!” said cook.

“And what do you think he said?”

“Oh, don’t ask me.”

“Nothing; and I dabbed the place and put a bit o’ bl ack court-plaister on his ear, and I don’t hardly believe he even knew of it.”

“I’m not surprised,” said cook indignantly. “Them two rea d and read till they’re a pair of regular old scribums. Anyone would think they were old ancient men instead of being— How old is master?”

“Six years older than me.”

“And you’re six-and-twenty.”

“Yes.”

“And a fine, handsome man too.”

“Thankye, cook,” said Sam, smiling.

“Get out! I don’t mean you. Master. How old’s the professor?”

“Oh, he’s thirty-five,” said Sam, in rather a disappointed tone.

“And looks it,” said cook. “Well, I wish he’d go abroad again to his nasty grave-digging in the sands, and then praps master would have decent people to dine with him. Oh! There’s the front bell.”

Cook dived down into the lower regions, and Sam opened the folding inner doors to go and answer the street door bell, frowning the while.

“Wanted for some patient,” he muttered sourly. “I do w ish people would have their accidents at decent times.”

Chapter Two.

“News! News!”

On the other side of the dining-room door Doctor Morris, a thoughtful-looking man of goodly presence, and the better looking for a calm ignorance of his being handsome, was seated opposite to his thin, yellow-skinned, and rather withered, nervous-looking old college friend, both partaking slowly of the good things the doctor’s domestic had prepared for them, as if it came perfectly natural to them to follow out the prover bial words of the old Greek philosopher who bade his pupils, “Live not to eat, but eat to live.”

As Sam had truthfully said, they had been talking very learnedly about their investigations in the particular branches of science which they had followed up since their old school and college days when they had begun their friendship, in company with another companion, missing now; and the doctor had said, with a far-off look in his large dark eyes—

“No, Fred, old chap, I don’t want to settle down here yet, because I know how it will be. Once I regularly begin, the practice will completely swallow me, as it did the dear old dad. People came from far and wide to be treated by him, and he had hardly an hour to call his own. Of course I shall be glad to do the same, for it’s a duty to one’s fellow-creatures; but I want to leave it all to old Stanley for another two or three years while I travel and see more of the world. I should like to go with some army if I could.”

“Yes,” said his guest, “I see; as a volunteer surgeon.”

“Exactly; the experience and confidence I should gain would be so great. After that, here is my place, and I could relieve Stanley till he retires, which he says he shall do as soon as I like to take the old practice fully in hand.”

“Hah! Yes, Bob,” said the visitor. “There’s nothing like travel—seeing foreign countries, with

some special pursuit to follow. I’m like a fish out of water now, with all this trouble in Egypt. Oh, hang the Khalifa, or Mahdi, or whatever they call him!”

“That’s what a good many people would like to do,” said the doctor drily.

“Like to? I should like to do it myself,” cried Landon, w ith his yellow face flushing. “The wretch, the impostor, the cruel, heartless brute! Poor H arry Frere! as handsome, manly, true- hearted a gentleman as ever breathed.”

“Hah, yes!” said the doctor, sighing. “Don’t talk about i t, old fellow. It makes me miserable every night as it is.”

“Miserable? Yes, for if ever friend was like a brother poor old Harry was. He had only one fault in him, and that was his blind faith and belief in poor Gordon.”

“Fault?”

“No, no, not fault. You know what I mean; but it is so pitiful to think of. Only the other day we gave him that dinner on his appointment to his regiment in the Egyptian army, and he is off to Cairo. Then the next thing is that he goes on the expedition to join Gordon up the country.”

“And the next news,” said the doctor sadly, “is that he and all with him have been massacred, fighting in poor Gordon’s defence.”

“Horrible! Horrible!” said Landon passionately. “So bri ght, so brave a lad, with, in the ordinary course, a good manly career of fifty years before him.”

“Think there is any possibility of his having escaped after all?” said the doctor, after a pause.

“Not a bit, poor lad. I was red-hot to go up the country somehow or other last year when I was about to investigate those buried tombs of the Ra Sa dynasty. I wanted to give up the search for those mummies and the stores of old incised inscriptions.”

“Yes, and you applied for permission,” said the doctor.

“Like an idiot,” said Landon angrily, “instead of keeping my own counsel and going without saying a word. I might have found poor old Hal a prisoner, or a slave, or something. But what did the authorities say?”

“That they were quite convinced that there were no survivors of the last expedition, and that they must debar your proceeding up the country.”

“Debar!” cried Landon, with a peculiar laugh. “Splendid word for it. Bar, indeed! Yes, and they politely bundled me out of the country just when I was on the scent of some of the most wonderful discoveries ever made, connected with the ancient Egyptian civilisation.”

“You must wait a few years, and when the country is settled try again.”

“I was willing to give up further researches then, but they wouldn’t let me go in search of poor Harry.”

“Their belief was that the attempt would be fatal.”

“But they did not know; I was the best judge of that. S ee what a knowledge I have of the people and their language. I believe I could have gone anywhere.”

“That was young Frank’s belief.”

“Yes, but that was different. The boy did not know what he was talking about. He’d have been murdered before he had gone fifty miles up the country.”

“It was very brave and true of him, though.”

“Of course,” said Landon, “and I should have risked taking him with me if I could have obtained permission. But perhaps it was better that he should stick to his chemistry.”

“Yes,” said the doctor, with a sigh, “and that you should have been sent home.”

“Nonsense! I say it was a disgraceful thing that a scientist like myself should be so treated.”

“But the result is that Harry’s brother is safe at home, Fred, and that I have not lost another companion.”

The doctor stretched out his hand to his rather excitable friend, who grasped it directly.

“That’s very good of you, Bob, old fellow. Thank you; but I felt it bitterly not being allowed to go in search of poor Harry.”

“Yes, but so did Frank.”

“Of course, poor boy. He would. Ah, well, I tried my be st. I feel it, though, and I am very miserable doing my work in the museum instead of in Egypt amongst the sand. I suppose the upper country will become settled again.”

“Sure to,” said the doctor, “and in the meantime why d on’t you go and try Nineveh or Babylon?”

“No; I can’t take up an entirely fresh rut. I must give years upon years yet to the sand-buried cities and tombs of Egypt. Ah! what an endless mine of wonders it is.”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“With everything so preserved by the drifting sand.”

“But the ruins of the Tigris and Euphrates must be equally interesting.”

“They can’t be.”

“But look here: you can’t go to Egypt now, and you could to Nineveh. Have a trip there, and I’ll go with you.”

“You will, Bob?” cried Landon excitedly.

“I will, Fred, on my word.”

“Then we will, Bob,” said the professor enthusiastically. “We’ll start and— No, we won’t. Egypt is my motto, and much as I should like to have you for a companion, no, sir, no. As the old woman said, ‘Wild horses sha’n’t drag me from my original plans and unfinished work.’ I must get back to the sand. I’d give anything to be there digging.”

“Humph!” ejaculated the doctor. “After all, it is a nasty, ghoulish business: moleing in the old tombs and unrolling mummies.”

“It may seem so to you, but to me it is intensely interesting. Besides, much as you condemn it, this is the only way to find out the history—the manners and customs of the people two and three thousand years ago.”

“The bell!” exclaimed the doctor. “I hope no poor creature wants me to-night.”

“So do I,” said Landon, “for myown sake as well as for his or hers. I wanted a longchat with

you as soon as this tiresome dinner is at an end.”

“Hark,” said the doctor. “Some one has come in. Yes, I’m wanted, and— Hullo, Frank, my dear boy, how are you?” he cried, as a youthful-looking young man, who appeared flushed and excited, threw open the door without waiting to be announced, and strode in, to nod to first one and then the other.

“Why, there is something the matter!” said the doctor quickly. “You want to see me?”

“To see you? Yes, of course,” said the young man shaking han ds hurriedly. “No, no, not professionally. I hurried on to Old Bones, but the servant said he had come to dine with you, so I jumped into a cab and made the fellow canter here.”

“Then you have come for a snack with us. Wish I’d known, and we’d have waited. Sit down, my lad. Why didn’t you come sooner?”

“Dinner?” cried the young man, ignoring the chair, and beginning to stride up and down the room, swinging his arms excitedly; “don’t talk to me about dinner!”

“Very well, little man,” said the professor, smiling; “but don’t jump quite out of your skin.”

The newcomer turned upon the speaker sharply, and stopping short stood pointing at him.

“Hark at that fellow, doctor,” he cried. “That’s Old Bones all over. He’s as cool as one of his dry mummies. Why, my news is enough to make any fellow with a heart jump out of his skin!”

“Sit still, Bob,” said the professor quietly; “the boy has made a discovery.”

“Yes, a discovery,” cried the newcomer—“a discovery!” and he brought his hand down so heavily upon the dining table that the glasses jumped.

“That’s it,” said the professor; “metaphorically speaking, he has been pouring sulphuric acid upon the carbonate of lime of his composition, and all this effervescence is the consequence. He’ll be better soon. Now, Frank, boy, what is the discovery—something that will set the Thames on fire?”

“Have you got a good appointment as chemist, Frank?” said the doctor.

“Discovery—appointment!” cried the young man, with his voice breaking from the emotion he felt. “Something a thousand times better than either of those. It’s the news of news, I tell you— Hal!”

His two hearers sprang to their feet and rushed at him excitedly, each seizing a hand.

“What about him?” cried the doctor.

“Not dead?” shouted the professor.

“No—no—no!” cried the young man wildly, and then his voice thoroughly broke, becoming almost inaudible as he tried to declare his news.

“I can’t bear it,” he panted; “I can’t bear it. Morris—Landon—don’t take any notice of me—I’ve kept all this in for days, and now—now— Oh, tell me—is it true, or am I going mad?”

The young man sank heavily into the chair to which his friends helped him, and then he lay back quivering, with his hands covering his face, while the doctor made a sign to his companion and went hurriedly into his consulting-room, w here he turned up the gas and then opened a cabinet, from which he took down a stoppered bottle and a graduated glass, into which he carefully measured a small portion, half filled the glass from a table filter, and

then hurried back into the dining-room.

“Drink this, Frank, my boy,” he said.

“No, no; let me be. I shall soon come round.”

“Drink this, my lad,” said the doctor sternly; “it is for your good.”

The young man caught the glass from his friend’s hand, to ssed down the contents, shuddered, and then drew a deep breath, pulling himself together directly.

“I’m better now,” he said. “It has all been such a shock, and I’ve been travelling night and day.”

“Where from?” said the doctor, so as to give the young fe llow time for the medicine to produce its effect.

“Berlin,” was the reply.

“Berlin? That accounts for it. I was wondering why you had not been here. I thought you were in Paris about some mineral business.”

“I was there, but I heard some news about—about poor Hal.”

“Indeed?” said the professor, growing excited now.

“Yes, it was from a gentleman who had escaped out of Khartoum.”

“Go on, my lad; go on,” said Morris.

“Yes, yes, I can go on now,” said the young man calmly. “Don’t think any more about what I said.”

“No, no, of course not, Frank, my lad,” said the doctor; “but pray speak out. Landon and I are suffering pain.”

“Of course, and I’ve travelled night and day as I told you, so as to bring you the news myself. This German gentleman has been a prisoner ever since Khartoum was taken by the Mahdi, and only managed to get out of the place in disguise six months ago.”

“Yes, yes,” said the doctor excitedly, and the professor took up a carafe and made it rattle against a glass as he hurriedly poured out some water and drank it with avidity.

“He knew poor old Hal well by sight, and spoke to him tw ice, and heard who he was. He was alive, and seemed to be well the last time this gentleman saw him; but he was a miserable slave in irons without the slightest prospect of getting away.”

“Hah!” exclaimed the doctor, dropping into a chair and beginning to wipe his forehead.

“Oh!” groaned the professor, sinking back in his chair, but only to become excited directly after, as he turned upon the bearer of the news.

“But he’s alive, Frank, boy! he’s alive!” he cried, in a peculiarly altered voice.

“Yes, thank Heaven!” said Frank Frere softly; “he is alive.”

No one spoke for a few moments. Then the professor began again excitedly—

“Look here,” he cried, “both of you; that German sausage is a fool!”

The others turned on him with wondering eyes as if they doubted his sanity, a notion quite pardonable from his manner of speaking and the wild look he had given himself by thrusting both his hands through his rather long, shaggy black hair, and making it stand up on end.

“Well,” he said sharply, “what are you two staring at?”

“Well, Fred,” said the doctor smiling, “I suppose it was at you.”

“And pray why were you staring in that peculiar way at me? Here, you answer—you, Frank.”

“I was staring on account of the sausage,” said the young man, sinking back in his chair and laughing aloud.

“Here, Bob,” said the professor excitedly, “what have you been giving this fellow—ether? It’s too strong for him. Got on his nerves.”

“Nonsense,” said the doctor, joining softly in their young friend’s mirth. “What makes you think that?”

“Why, you heard. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about— staring on account of the sausage!”

“Well, that’s why I was looking at you so hard.”

The professor stared now in turn, passed one hand across hi s forehead, stared again, and then said gravely—

“I say, you two, has this glorious news sent you both out of your minds?”

“No,” cried both heartily. “It only sounded so comical and so different from your ordinary way,” continued the younger man, “when you called my German friend a sausage.”

The professor’s face was so full of perplexity that in the reaction after the pain of the sudden good news, his friends began to laugh again, making the clever scientist turn his eyes inquiringly upon the doctor.

“Well, it’s a fact,” said the latter. “You did.”

“What!” cried the professor indignantly. “That I didn’t! I said that German gentleman was a fool.”

“No, no, no,” cried Frank, half hysterically. “You said sausage.”

“Frank, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, I do,” cried the young man. “Sausage, sausage, sausage.”

The professor drew lines horizontally across his forehead from his eyebrows to the roots of his hair, and shook his head slowly and piteously at the speaker.

“Well, really, Fred, old fellow,” said the doctor, “I must take Frank’s part. You certainly did say sausage. I suppose it was suggested by the common association of the two words, German sausage.”

“Humph!” ejaculated the professor slowly; “suppose then I must. German silver—German band—German tinder—German sausage. But I meant to say German gentleman, upon my word.”

“Nobody doubts you,” said Frank; “but why did you call him a fool?”

“Oh! for saying that Harry couldn’t escape. Do you both mean to tell me that an Englishman, and such an Englishman as our Harry Frere, couldn’t do what a German has done?”

“I don’t,” said the doctor, bringing his fist down upon the table. “Come, Franky, lad, what have you to say to that?”

“Hah!” sighed the young man sadly, “it is easily accounted for. My German friend managed to gain the confidence of the Khalifa from his knowledge o f Arabic, and was freed from the chains he first wore. Poor Harry was wearing heavy irons up to the day when my new friend left.”

“Oh!” groaned the professor, “that’s bad, that’s bad. Frank, boy, I beg your German friend’s pardon. He isn’t a—”

“Sausage!” put in the doctor quickly.

“A fool,” said the professor, shaking his fist playfully at his old school-fellow. “Well, I feel ten years younger than I did half an hour ago, and this settles it at once.”

“Settles what?” said the doctor.

“Settles what!” cried the professor, in a tone full of mock disgust. “Hark at him, Frank! Settles this, sir,” he continued, flashing his fierce eyes upon the doctor, clenching his fist menacingly, and shaking his shaggy hair. “I’m off back to Egypt as soon as ever I can get a berth in a steamer, and then I’m going right up the country with tools in every pocket on purpose to file off those chains.”

“Bravo! bravo!” shouted the other two.

“An Englishman in chains,” continued the professor, gesticulating like an orator, though as a rule he was one of the quietest of men, “and of all E nglishmen in the world, our Harry, the merriest school-fellow, the heartiest undergrad, and the truest friend!”

“And brother,” said Frank softly.

“Yes,” cried the professor excitedly, “and brother, that man ever had. The brother we three have mourned as dead for years, but who lives—as a slave.”

“Britons never shall be slaves,” cried the doctor solemnly.

“Never!” said Frank through his teeth, and with a look o f stern determination in his eyes which meant more than words could have expressed.

“Never!” cried the professor, bringing his fist down with such a crash that this time a large goblet leaped off the table, was smashed upon the floor, and the next moment the door was thrown open and Sam, the doctor’s butler, as he called himself, looking white with anxiety, rushed into the room, to stand staring wildly from one to the other.

This quelled the professor’s excitement at once, and he dropped back in his chair and began mopping his face.

“What’s the matter, Samuel?” said the doctor sternly.

“That’s what I’ve come to see, sir,” cried the man piteou sly. “I did stop in the hall, sir, in aggynies, waiting to know. First in comes Mr Frank when I opens the door to him and hits me in the chest hard, just like a patient as has got rid of the strait w. Into the dining-room he bangs, before I could announce him, and without a bit o’ pollergy, slams the door after him. Then master goes into his consulting-room in a hurry and comes back with a something to exhibit, looking as he always do when there’s anything seri ous on; and ever since it’s been

getting worse and worse, and you never rung for me, sir. Fancy my feelings, sir! First s’posing as it was fits with Mr Frank, sir; then it seemed to be you, sir; and then the professor went on, having it worse than either of you, sir, till it got to the smashing of my glass, and I couldn’t bear it no longer.”

“No, no, of course you couldn’t, Sam,” cried Frank; “and you must know at once. It’s news, Sam—glorious news—the best of news. My brother is alive after all!”

“What!” cried the man. “Mr Harry, sir?”

“Yes, alive, Sam—alive!”

“What, him as was dead, sir?”

“Yes, alive, I tell you.”

“What, him as was killed out in the Soudan—our Mr Harry, sir, as we give the dinner to in this very room, when he made that speech as I stood and heared to the very end?”

“Yes, Sam; yes, yes!” cried Frank, as excited now as the man, who now dashed at him and seized him by the hand and shook it with all his might.

“Then—then—then,” he cried. “Oh, Mr Frank—oh, Mr Frank—oh, Mr Frank!”

Dropping the young man’s hand, he seized the professor’s a nd shook at that for a few moments, before rushing at his master’s, to pump that wildly up and down before dashing to the door, flinging it open, and yelling—

“Here! hi! cook! Mary! everyone! He isn’t dead after all. Hooray! hooray! hoo—”

From a tremendous emphasis and sonorous roar over the first hurrah, Sam made a rapid diminuendo to the first syllable of the last, which trailed off and would have died away but for Frank, who, touched by the man’s show of devotion, finishe d it heartily, and led off with another cheer, in which the others joined, the shouts ha ving an accompaniment in the pattering of feet upon the floor-cloth of the hall.

Sam’s fit of exaltation was over, and he stood shamefaced and troubled, wiping his damp hands upon the white napkin.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” he said humbly. “You see, I kno wed Mr Harry so well. He was always such a gentleman to me, and it was such an upset when he died that—that now he’s come to life again, sir, it seemed like making a man forget himself, sir, and—”

“Show that he felt a genuine attachment to our very dear friend, Samuel,” said the doctor quietly. “Thank you. My friends thank you too, for we know it was all perfectly sincere.”

“Hah!” said the professor, as the door closed. “I always li ked your Sam, though as a bit of a linguist I must say that sometimes his use of the Queen’s English does rather jar upon my feelings.”

“But his heart’s in the right place,” said Frank warmly.

“And a good heart too. But as we were saying when he burst into the room, Britons never shall be slaves, and I’m going back to Egypt after all to file off those chains.”

“That’s right,” said the doctor warmly, “and just what I knew you would say. You are a man, Fred, who has found out things that have puzzled a good many—”

“Better ones,” said the professor modestly. “Well, I have.”