Chapter 14. Frank's First Milestone

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_ CHAPTER FOURTEEN. FRANK'S FIRST MILESTONE

It was just before daybreak on the fifth morning that everyone in the cluster of tents was astir. Much had been done over night to advance the preparations, so that nothing remained but the loading up of the camels.

This last was being rapidly carried out in an orderly way. This one with the water-skins, that with the meal; another bore personal effects; while again another carried two English-made portmanteaus slung pannier-fashion across its back, the carefully packed contents being the Hakim's selected store of medicines, instruments, and surgical appliances, reduced to the smallest compass possible for efficacy. The other leathern receptacle contained instruments and bottles that were heavy and cumbrous, Frank's own selection; and at the last minute, as he saw the extent of the preparations and what a caravan their party made for the long journey, he proposed to the Hakim and the professor when they were alone that the scientific apparatus should be left behind with their clothes, and other articles deemed unnecessary, in charge of the little tribe.

"After all, they are only to play scientific conjuring tricks with," said Frank. "The idea occurred to me at first, but on more thinking the matter over I don't fancy that they will pay for taking."

"I don't agree with you, Frank, lad," said the Hakim. "What you call scientific conjuring tricks are really displays of the wonders of nature, and are likely to impress the ignorant quite as much as any cure I can effect."

"Quite so," said the professor; "they appeal at once to the eye. For my part, I would not on any account leave the apparatus behind."

"As you like," said Frank. "I only thought our load was getting too great."

A few words followed with the Sheikh respecting the extent of their _impedimenta_ and the number of camels required, for others had to bear the gear of two tents, including several handsome rugs, and one way and another, with those devoted to riding, there were fifteen of the beasts of burden, while the party was increased to twelve by sturdy young men of the Sheikh's tribe.

"His Excellency the Hakim thinks the caravan too big?" said the Sheikh, smiling. "Oh, no. It ought to be larger. So great and wise a man must have a good following, or the people will think he is of no importance. The train is very small, but the tents are good and the camels the best we have in the tribe."

"And suppose we are attacked by some wandering tribe or a party of the new Mahdi's ruffianly followers. They may strip us and carry off the camels; what then?"

The Sheikh smiled and shook his head.

"No," he said; "they may come, but they will not rob us. There were plagues in Egypt once, and there are plagues in Egypt still. The wilder the people we meet, the less likely they will be to interfere with a learned Hakim. They will come to him for help. They know that he can take away disease, and they will think he can give disease amongst them like a curse. I know what the people fancy, and what they will do. No, the caravan is not too large, Excellencies. I should have liked it to be larger, for there are many things that would have been useful when we are far away where food and water are scarce; but there are the camels to feed, and the more we are the slower we travel. Like this we can go fast."

"Fast?" said the professor, with a dry look; and the Sheikh smiled.

"Fast for the desert, Excellency," he said. "No one expects to travel here faster than a camel walks when left to itself."

So at daybreak on that morning the last camel was laden, the last necessary attached, and amidst the farewell cries of the tribe assembled to bless and thank and pray for a safe journey to all, the leading camels started off, moaning and complaining, and apparently directing angry cries at those of their kin more fortunate than themselves who, instead of having to tramp over the burning, shifting sand, beneath the scorching desert sun, were to stop and browse around those pleasant water-holes, and tend their young, watched over by the women and children of the tribe the while.

The moaning and grumbling went on for some time, as the long line of ungainly beasts stepped out through the cool grey, and a running conversation seemed to be going on, as if the camels were comparing notes about their loads and the unfairness of the masters, who had given this a load too bulky, that, one too heavy, and another, moist water-skins to carry, instead of a Hakim or chief.

But as the stars paled out and the light increased, the camels settled down and shuffled silently along, while the silence extended to the party, who all had their feelings of sadness to bear.

For doubts arose as to the success of the dangerous adventure. The Sheikh felt that he was an old man, and that this journey, which must inevitably last for many months, might be his last. His followers thought of wife or child, and were ready to sigh as they pondered on the perils and dangers ahead; while Hakim, professor, servant, and Frank, each had his feeling of heart-soreness and doubt as to how the adventure would end.

Frank's greatest suffering was from the thought that time went on so fast while they went on so slowly. Already five days were dying out since they reached the temporary home of the tribe, and now that the start was made at last, how were they moving? In that long line of animals and pacing men advancing like some gigantic, elongated, crawling creature, whose home was the desert sand. Creeping patiently along, step by step, as if time were nothing, while probably the distance might prove to be a thousand miles before they reached, in the neighbourhood of Khartoum, some town or village which might be the prisoner's temporary home.

But there was no thought in any breast there of turning back. The start had been made, and there was to be no looking northward again till the task that had been set was achieved.

"Off at last, Frank," said the professor, who came up to where the young man was riding alone; "we are going splendidly."

"Splendidly?"

"Yes. Everything is beautifully packed; the Sheikh's men are all trained camel-drivers; and I never saw a finer set of animals since I first came to Egypt."

"But hark at them," said Frank.

"What for? It is their nature to, my lad. Your camel is a creature that seems to have been born with a grievance. I was talking about it to Morris just now, and he actually tried to make a joke about them."

"The doctor did?" said Frank, smiling.

"Fact, my dear boy. He says it is on account of their having so many stomachs."

"I always understood it was Nature's blessing to them to enable the poor beasts to exist in these waterless regions."

"That's what I said to him," replied the professor; "but he said that might be a great benefit, but his medical experience of patients was that most of their troubles from early childhood arose from disordered stomachs, and if human beings suffered so much from only having one, what must it be to have a plurality of these necessary organs like a camel! Enough to make anything ill-tempered, he said. Well, you don't laugh."

"No," said Frank sadly; "my spirits are too low."

"The time of day, my lad. I always feel at my worst about daybreak. You'll be better soon. I say we are getting on capitally, and I feel no fear about our plan."

"I do," said Frank sadly.

"Why, what fresh doubts do you feel?"

"Over this dumb business. There seem to be always fresh difficulties cropping up."

"Seem," said the professor coolly. "Things that seem are generally like clouds: they soon fade away in the sunshine. What is the new 'seem'?"

"About the Sheikh's men. Now, for instance, they must notice that I am talking to you."

"Of course they do, my lad. You may take it for granted that they know quite as much as we do, and that they grasp the fact that we are playing parts to deceive the dervishes."

"And sooner or later, out of no ill-will, but by accident, they will betray us."

"Take it for granted that they will not do anything of the sort. These Arabs are narrow-minded, and there is a good deal of the savage about them in connection with their carelessness regarding human life. But my experience of the Arab is, that he is a gentleman, and I would as soon trust one whom I had made my friend as I would a man of any nation. Now then, I've knocked that difficulty on the head. What is the next?"

"There are no more at present," said Frank, smiling. "I suppose, then, that I need not keep trying to play my part while we are in company with our own party only?"

"Certainly not, my dear boy," said the professor. "Your great difficulty really is to contain yourself fully when strangers are with us."

"I shall try my best," said Frank.

"Yes, my fine fellow, you had better. Now then, we've made our start, and you don't feel so glum, do you?"

"No."

"There's the reason," said the professor cheerily, as he pointed to the sun peering over the edge of the desert. "Nothing like that golden ball for sweeping away clouds of every kind. The only objection to his work is that he is a bit too thorough at times, and treats people out here as if they were meant to cook. Now then, look back as well as forward; the camels march like a line of grenadiers. Just as if they had been drilled."

"But so slowly--so slowly," said Frank, with a sigh.

"Here, look sharp, Sol!" cried the professor. "Get higher; there's another cloud."

"How can you be so light-hearted at a time like this?" said Frank bitterly.

"Because 'A merry heart goes all the day; your sad tires in a mile-a,' as Shakespeare says. Because we should never carry out our plans to success if we went at them with sad hearts. I found that out over many of my searches here. An eager, cheery captain makes an eager, cheery crew who laugh at wreck. Now then, I am going to demolish--with the help of the sun--that great, dense black cloud that has just risen above your mental horizon, my sable friend. Your fresh cloud is the slow one. Now, you must remember that we have given up civilisation, steam, electricity, and the like, to take up the regular and only way of travelling here in the desert. Some day, perhaps, we shall have the railway and wires from north to south; but until we do we must travel by caravan, and to travel by caravan you must travel in caravan fashion, in the old, long proved style. You would like to hurry on and do fifty miles the first day, instead of ten or fifteen."

"Of course," said Frank, "with such things at stake."

"Exactly, my dear boy, and very naturally. Well, we'll say you'd like to go forty miles to-day?"

"Yes."

"Couldn't be done. Men can't walk forty miles over hot sand under a desert sun."

"Then why not have had more camels?"

"Because camels can suffer like men. You would knock up your desert ships, and make them sore-footed the first day, have great difficulty in getting them half the distance the next day, half that the third, and no distance at all the fourth."

"So bad as that?" said Frank.

"Most likely a good deal worse. Now we have old Ibrahim and his men, who know camels exactly, understand their constitutions, how much they can do, and how to get them to do it. You see, we are not going on a week's journey."

"A week's!" said Frank bitterly; "at this rate it will be six months."

"Perhaps a year's," said the professor quietly.

"A year's?"

"Possibly; and if a camel should break down we can't send round to the livery stable in the next street, or order a fresh one from the Stores. No one knows that better than the Sheikh. He is making the caravan travel so that it can go on for a year if necessary, and at the end of that year the camels, which mean life to us, will be fit to go on for another year."

"But Harry--Harry--Harry!" sighed Frank sadly.

"Harry is in Egypt, my dear boy, where things go on as slowly now with the people as they did in the days of the old Pharaohs. Harry must wait, and you must wait, till we can reach him. Try at once to realise where you are, and that this is the only way in which we can achieve our plans."

"I'll try," said Frank sadly.

"That's right, for if left to yourself you would press on, and in less than a month all that would be left of my dear lad would be a few whitening bones in the desert, and Harry still gazing northward and westward for the help that did not come."

"I'm afraid you are right, Landon," said Frank sadly.

"I'm sure I am, my dear lad. Experientia has dosed me. Africa is a problem, solemn and slow as its great deserts, and the people here, much as we look down upon them, have been Nature-taught, educated, as it were, from the failings of those who have gone before, how to live, how to travel, in short, how to exist in such a land."

"Forgive me, Landon," said Frank.

"Of course, my dear boy. I know exactly how you feel. I was just as bad when I first came out here. The men maddened me with their slow movements when some glorious slab covered with hieroglyphics or painted pictures cut in, lay at the bottom of a hole into which the sand kept crumbling and trickling back. I was ready to give up over and over again when tired out at night, but a good rest made me ready to go on again in the morning with fresh patience, and in the end I won."

"There," said Frank, "say no more; I know you are right. This all comes of your talking to me. If you had not spoken I should have gone on in silence, so you have yourself to thank for my display of discontent."

"Then I am very glad I have spoken," said the professor warmly, "because I can feel that you will take the right view of matters."

"Yes, I shall try hard to."

"That's right, and the best thing you can do is to enter into the journey from a keen observer's point of view. Now look before you. What can you see?"

"A wide expanse of sand baking in the sunshine."

"Nothing else?"

"No."

"Ah, that shows how uneducated your eyes are, and how much they have to learn. I'm not very clever over such things, being best when I get scent of a buried temple, tomb, or city. But this waste of nothingness contains plenty to interest an observer, and I can help you a little if you will try to make the best of our journey."

"I have told you I will," said Frank.

"Yes; so we'll begin at once, for you may believe me that we are not going to journey fifteen or twenty miles to-day without seeing something more interesting than sand. Here's my little binocular. Take it, and we'll begin."

"First of all, though," said Frank, "are we bound for some particular place this evening?"

"Of course. For another patch of water-holes. Ibrahim says they are nothing like so good as those by the encampment, but they will do for the night's halt. To-morrow we shall have to halt right in the desert and depend upon the water we take with us. The next day we journey on to fresh wells."

"I see," said Frank; "our journeys are regulated by the supplies of water."

"Exactly. Water means life."

"And Ibrahim can trust to his knowledge of the country to go straight to these places?"

"Yes; I have proved him over and over again. Now then: try the glass."

"Yes," said Frank, opening the case; "but tell me, do you mean to collect birds, insects, fossils, and plants?"

"Certainly, everything we can find; but only to examine at the end of the day. We must keep nothing; only make a few notes. Well, can you see anything?"

"Not yet. It is rather awkward to get a steady look with the camel moving."

"If you catch sight of anything worth looking at you can check your steed."

"Yes, there's something moving yonder--a dog."

"I doubt it," said the professor. "Try again."

"It looks like a dog. What is it then--a fox? Ah, it is gone behind those heaps yonder."

"Then the desert is not quite empty, Frank. Your dog or fox must be a jackal; but I wonder at your seeing him in the daylight. Let me look at your heap of sand."

"One minute; there are two somethings upon it. Two of those jackals sitting on a heap, I suppose, by their holes. No; one of them has stretched out two wings. Why, they're vultures."

"Better still. Now I'll look.--Thanks. Your eyes require a different focus from mine. Yes. What I expected," said the professor, handing back the glass. "Have another look at your sand heap; it will repay observation; it is one of the milestones of the caravan roads, only they are not placed at regular distances. Have you caught it again?"

"I keep catching glimpses," replied Frank, with the glass to his eye; "but the whole thing seems to be dancing about.--Now I've got it.--No; gone again.--That's better. The vultures have hopped off the heap and are spreading their wings. We have scared them away. Yes, there they go--a few hops, and they are rising sluggishly. No, I can't follow them with the glass."

"Can you see anything else?"

"Yes, I've got the heap again, and there are three of the little dog-like creatures scurrying right away. I say, this is a good glass! I can see the dusty sand rise as it is kicked by the jackals. Here, let's stop the camel."

"No," said the professor; "there's nothing worth stopping for."

"But I want to make out something lying by that little heap. It looks like a curved bone."

"It is a curved bone," said the professor.

"You can't see with the naked eye."

"No," said the professor, smiling; "but I have been along such a track as this before."

"But there is no track," said Frank. "We are going over smooth sand, and making a fresh one."

"Which will all be obliterated in a few hours. It is a track, though, as your heap proves."

"I should have liked to examine it, though."

"Well, you will have plenty of chance, for we shall go pretty close to it--but on the windward side."

Frank lowered the glass to look inquiringly at the speaker.

"Look here," he said; "you mean something by the way you just spoke."

"Certainly I did."

"What?"

"Take your glass, and sharpen your powers of observation, my lad. The sooner you learn the desert the better for you."

"I begin to have my suspicions," said Frank sharply.

"If you wait a little longer, and go by there with your eyes shut, my lad, you will have something more than a suspicion."

"Horrible!" said Frank shortly, as he once more raised his glass to his eyes. "You have given me the clue. I can make it out clearly now. Some poor camel that has strayed and lost its way, I suppose. Died from hunger and thirst."

"More likely from old age or overwork," replied the professor; "a milestone, only one of the many that mark the caravan tracks across the desert. Some one must have passed here within forty-eight hours."

"How do you know?"

"By the appearance of that milestone. If we came by here to-morrow there would be nothing visible but some whitening bones. Look yonder without the glass. Look straight past the leading camel, low down at the horizon, and now raise your eyes. What can you see?"

"Glare," said Frank.

"Try again."

"Nothing but more glare, and the atmosphere quivering as it rises from the sand."

"Try once more," said the professor. "I can see one--two--three. Look higher."

"Ah, I've got it now; a mere speck," said Frank eagerly--"a crow."

"Make it vulture, and you will be right. I can make out three--four of the loathsome creatures on their way to the feast. They are making a circuit so as to drop down after we have gone by."

"They fulfil a duty, though, I suppose," said Frank.

"Yes, and a very necessary one," replied the professor; and this was evident a short time after, although the leading camel passed to windward of the heap, and it seemed to Frank that the animal he rode turned up the corners of its pendulous lips with a look of the most supreme disgust, as it turned its head slightly in the other direction.

"That's fancy, Frank," said the professor, as the young man drew his attention to the camel's aspect. "I believe the poor beasts are so accustomed to the sight that they take it as a matter of course."

"Is it so common, then?"

"Horribly common, and I hope we shall encounter nothing worse, but from what has been going on farther south I have my doubts."

Frank rode on silently, and the professor did not speak for a few minutes. Then--

"Human life has always been held cheap out here. If we were travelling to examine the old records I could show you them cut in stone, as you can see them in the museums in Cairo, or in London when we return, the bragging, boasting blasphemies of this or that conquering king, all to the same tune--'I came, I saw, I conquered; I slew so many thousands of the people--I took so many thousands into captivity--I built this temple to the gods--I raised this obelisk or that pyramid'--and all by hand labour, with the miserable, belaboured slaves dying by their thousands upon thousands under their taskmasters' lashes, to be cast afterwards into the Nile, or left to the jackals and vultures. These and the crocodiles have always been wanted here, Frank, and as it has been so it is now. There is always an 'I'--a very, very big capital 'I'--who is glorifying himself with slaughter."

"No conquering king now, though," said Frank, "to leave his victories cut in the stones."

"No, the slaughterers here nowadays are more barbarous. Not the city-building monarchs, but the nomadic chiefs who force themselves to the height of power with their horrible religious despotism--your Mahdis. It is a wonder that they find so many followers, but they do."

"Fanaticism, I suppose," said Frank.

"Yes, that and the love of conquest, with its additions in the shape of plunder. For years past these vast tracts of fertile land bordering the river have gone back to waste, village after village of industrious people having been massacred or forced to flee for their lives."

"But--I have read so little about the Khedival rule--why has not the Egyptian Government put a stop to all this frightful persecution?"

"From want of power, my lad. The country has been too big, the army too small, and the invading tribes from the south too warlike a fighting race to be withstood. There is the consequence--a smiling land, irrigated by the mighty river which brings down the rich tropic mud from the highlands of the south, utterly depopulated, and strewn with the wretched people's bones."

"And how long is this to last?" said Frank, as he thought of his brother's fate.

"Till England stretches forth her hand to sweep the blasphemous invader from the land he destroys. It is coming, Frank, but the old lion moves slowly and takes some time to rouse."

"But when he does make his spring--!"

"Yes, when he does! The Indian tiger learned his power then. But the sun is getting too hot for a political lecture, my lad. Come, use your glass again. There's another enemy about to cross our track." _

Read next: Chapter 15. Receiving The Enemy

Read previous: Chapter 13. Ben Eddin

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