The next morning Penrod found out what Kitchener and Adams had in store for him. He was to recruit and train three companies of camel cavalry to travel far and fast, and fight hard. “I want men from the desert tribes,” he told Adams. “They make the best soldiers. Abdullahi has driven many of the Ashraf out of Sudan, emirs of the Jaalin and the Hadendowa. I want to go after them. Hatred makes a man fight harder. I believe I shall be able to turn them against their former masters.”
“Find them,” Adams ordered.
Penrod and Yakub took the steamer to Aswan. Here they waited thirty-six hours for the sailing of another boat that would carry them up beyond the first cataract, as far as Wadi Haifa. Penrod left Yakub at the dock to guard the baggage, and went alone to the gate at the end of the narrow, winding alley. When old Liala heard his voice she flung open the gate and collapsed in a heap of faded robes and veils, wailing pitifully. “Effendi, why have you come back? You should have spared my mistress. You should never have returned here.”
Penrod lifted her to her feet. “Take me to her.”
“She will not see you, Effendi.”
“She must tell me that herself. Go to her, Liala. Tell her I am here.” Sobbing pitifully, the old woman left him beside the fountain in the courtyard and tottered into the back quarters. She was gone a long time. Penrod picked tiny green flies from the flowering fuchsias and dropped them into the pool. The perch rose to the surface and gulped them down.
Liala returned at last. She had stopped weeping. “She will see you.” She led him to the bead screen. “Go in.”
Bakhita sat on a silk rug on the far side of the well-remembered room. He knew it was her by her perfume. She was heavily veiled. “My heart fills with joy to see you safe and well, my lord.”
Her soft, sweet voice tugged at his heart. “Without you, Bakhita, that would not have been possible. Yakub has told me of the part you played in bringing me to safety. I have come to thank you.”
“And the English girl’s Arabic name is al-Zahra. I am told that she is young and very beautiful. Is that so, my lord?”
“It is so, Bakhita.” He was not surprised that she knew. Bakhita knew everything.
“Then she is the one we spoke of. The girl of your own people who will be your wife. I am happy for you.”
“We will still be friends, you and I.”
“Friends and more than that,” she said softly. “Whenever there is something that you should know I will write to you.”
“I will come to see you.”
“Perhaps.”
“May I see your face once more before I go, Bakhita?”
“It would not be wise.”
He went to her and knelt in front of her. “I want to see your lovely face again, to look into your eyes and to kiss your lips one last time.”
“I beg of you, lord of my heart, spare me this thing.”
He reached out and touched her veil. “May I lift it?”
She was silent for a while. Then she sighed. “Perhaps, after all, it would be easier this way,” she said.
He lifted the veil and stared at her. Slowly she watched the horror dawn in his eyes.
“Bakhita, oh, my dear heart, what has happened to you?” His voice trembled with pity.
“It was the smallpox. Allah has punished me for loving you.” The pockmarks were still fresh and livid. Her luminous eyes shone in the ruins of the face that had once been so lovely. “Remember me as I once was,” she pleaded.
“I will remember only your courage and your kindness, and that you are my friend,” he whispered, and bent forward to kiss her lips.
“It is you who are kind,” she replied. Then she reached up and covered her face with the veil. “Now you must leave me.”
He stood up. “I shall return.”
“Perhaps you will, Effendi.”
But they both knew he never would.
The aggagiers found the corpse of Kabel al-Din lying in the courtyard beside the abandoned yoke of the shebba. Osman Atalan called all his men to horse and for many days they scoured both banks of the river. Osman was in a murderous mood when at last he returned to Omdurman without having found any trace of the fugitive. This was a bad time for the women to come to him and tell him that al-Zahra was also missing.
“How long has she been gone?” he demanded.
“Eight days, exalted Khalif.”
“The same time as Abadan Riji,” he exclaimed. “What of the woman al-Jamal?”
“She is still in the zenana, mighty Atalan.”
“Bring her to me, and her servant also.”
They dragged in the two women and flung them at his feet.
“Where is your sister?”
“Lord, I do not know,” Rebecca replied.
Osman looked at al-Noor. “Beat her,” he ordered. “Beat her until she answers truthfully.”
“Mighty Khalif!” Nazeera cried. “If you beat her she will lose your child. It may be a son. A son with golden hair like his mother and the lion heart of his sire.” Osman looked startled. He hesitated, staring at Rebecca’s belly. Then he snarled at his aggagiers, “Leave us. Do not return until I call you.”
They hurried out of the room, relieved to be sent away, for when a khalif and emir of the Beja is angry all men around him are in jeopardy.
“Disrobe,” he ordered. Rebecca rose to her feet and let her robe drop to her feet. Osman stared at her white, protruding belly. Then he went to her and placed his hand upon it.
Move! Please, my darling, move! Rebecca begged silently, and the foetus kicked.
Osman jerked away his hand and jumped back.
“In God’s Name, it is alive.” He stared in awe at the bulge. “Cover yourself!”
While Nazeera helped her to dress, Osman tugged furiously in his beard as he considered his dilemma. Suddenly he let out another angry shout and his aggagiers trooped back into the room. “This woman.” He pointed at Nazeera. “Beat her until al-Jamal tells us the whereabouts of her sister.”
Two of them held Nazeera’s arms and Mooman Digna grabbed the cloth at the back of her neck and ripped it open to the knees. Al-Noor hefted the kurbash in his right hand. The first blow raised a red stripe across her shoulder-blades.
“Yi! Yi!” screeched Nazeera, and tried to throw herself flat, but the aggagiers held her.
“Yi!” she howled.
“Wait, Lord. I will tell you everything.” Rebecca could bear it no longer.
“Stop!” Osman ordered. “Tell me.”
“A stranger came and led al-Zahra away,” Rebecca gabbled. “I think they went north towards Metemma and Egypt, but I cannot be certain of it. Nazeera had nothing to do with this.”
“Why did you not go with them?”
“You are my master, and the father of my son,” Rebecca replied. “I will leave you only when you kill me or send me away.”
“Beat the old whore again.” Osman waved to assuage his fury without endangering the well-being of the son who might have blue eyes and golden hair.
Rebecca clutched her belly with both hands and cried, “I can feel the distress of my son within me. If you beat this woman, who is as my own mother, I shall not be able to hold the boy longer in my womb.”
“Hold!” Osman shouted. He was torn. He wanted to see blood. He drew his sword and Nazeera quailed under his gaze. Then he rushed at the stone column in the centre of the room and struck it with such force that sparks showered from the steel.
“Take these two women to the mosque at the oasis of Gedda.” It was a lonely place run by a few old mullahs fifty leagues out in the desert, a religious retreat for the devout, and for students of the Noble Koran. “If the child
