As her father came running up, Penrod rose to his feet but he kept one arm round Amber’s shoulders. “Forgive the impropriety, sir, but I owe this young lady my life.”
“Quite right and proper, Captain. I’m going to give her a kiss myself.”
Before that could happen Nazeera and Rebecca arrived.
“That filthy river!” Rebecca avoided Penrod’s eyes, and pulled Amber away from him. “Nazeera, we’re going to get her into a Lysol bath.” The two swept Amber away.
In the bathroom, as Rebecca and Nazeera stripped off Amber’s bedraggled, mud-plastered clothing and Saffron poured another bucket of heated water into the porcelain hip-bath, Amber was in raptures, “Did you hear what he said, Becky? He said he’d choose me in a scrap every time.”
Rebecca studiously avoided a reply, but went to the bath and poured a liberal measure of Lysol into the steaming water.
Saffron was not so reticent. “So now I suppose you think that makes him your beau,” she mocked.
“He jolly well will be one day. You wait and see.” Amber placed her hands on her bare hips and glared at her twin.
“Don’t be so silly, Midget,” Rebecca rebuked her. “Captain Ballantyne is old enough to be your father. Now, come and get into this bath at once.”
Nazeera felt a pang as she watched Amber clamber into the bath. Changes seemed to have taken place in the child’s body. Soon there would be womanly hollows and swells where before all had been flat and featureless.
I am losing all my babies, she lamented inwardly.
Once he had buckled on his breeches, Penrod could examine the pigeon. It was a large bird with body plumage of bronze and wing tips of white, probably a female for they made the best homers. The message it carried had been folded and rolled tightly into a spill no larger than the first joint of his little finger and secured to the bird’s leg with a fine silk thread. With his pocket-knife he cut the thread, and kept the carcass to take to the kitchens. He wrapped the roll of paper in his handkerchief to mop up as much moisture as possible, then pulled on his boots and, leaving David to mourn his waterlogged shotgun, set out for General Gordon’s headquarters in the west wing of the palace.
I understand that you have had some success with your shooting. There was a great deal of excitement on the riverbank,” Gordon greeted him.
“I managed to bring down a pigeon, sir, and it was a carrier.”
“You retrieved the message?” demanded Gordon eagerly.
“I have it, but it took a soaking in the river. I have not dared to unfold it, because the rice paper might disintegrate.”
“Let’s take a look at it. Put it here.” Obediently Penrod placed his bundled handkerchief on the general’s desk, and carefully unfolded it. They studied the tiny roll of paper.
“Seems it’s still in one piece,” Gordon murmured. “It’s your prize. You unfold it.”
Careful Penrod nipped the silk thread with the point of his penknife blade. The rice paper was so fine that it tore along the folds as he tried to open it, but the inner part of the message had been kept almost dry by the tightness of the roll. The ink had run, and in spots the words were indecipherable.
“We need a book,” Penrod said, ‘to press it while it dries completely.”
Gordon handed him his leather bound copy of the Bible.
“Are you certain, sir?”
“The good book for good works,” Gordon told him.
Penrod opened the Bible and gingerly spread the damp sheet between the pages. He closed it and pressed the heel of his hand on the outer cover. Gordon was visibly impatient. He paced up and down the room puffing at one of his Turkish cigarettes until he could contain himself no longer. “Damned thing must be dry enough by now.”
Penrod open the Bible carefully. The sheet of rice paper was still intact, flattened by the pressure, and it seemed that the ink had not run further. Gordon handed him a large magnifying glass. “Your eyes, and your understanding of Arabic, are probably better than mine.”
Penrod carried the Bible across to the table below the window where the light was better. He pored over it, and after a moment began to read aloud the tiny flowing script: ‘“I, Abdullah Sayid, son of Fahl,
Emir of the Baggara, greet the Victorious Mahdi who is the light of my eyes, and call down upon him the blessing of Allah and his other Prophet, who is also named Muhammad.”
“Standard salutation,” Gordon grunted.
Penrod went on: ‘“True to the orders of the Victorious Mahdi, I stand guard upon the Nile at Abu Hamed, and my scouts watch all the roads from the north. The infidel Frank and the despicable Turk approach on two separate routes. The Frankish steamers have this day passed through the cataract at Korti.”
Gordon slammed the flat of his hand on the desk. “Praise God! This is the first hard intelligence I have had in six weeks. If Wolseley’s steamers have arrived at Korti they should reach Abu Hamed before the end of Ramadan.”
“Sir!” Penrod agreed, though he was not so sure.
“Go on, man. Go on!”
“A trifle difficult here. The ink has run badly. I think it says, “The camel regiments of the Franks are still encamped at the Wells of Gakdul, where they have been now for twenty-eight days.”
“Twenty-eight days? What on earth does Stewart think he is playing at?” Gordon demanded. “If only he had some gumption, he would make a bold dash for it. He could reach us within ten days.”
That is Chinese Gordon’s own style the bold dash and the grand gesture, Penrod thought, but he kept his expression neutral. “Stewart is also a death-or-glory lad, but he has to bring up his supplies before he can make the final charge to the city.”
Gordon jumped up again, and flicked the butt of his cigarette through the open window. “With two thousand of Stewart’s first-line British troops I could hold the city until the desert freezes over, but still he shilly-shallies at Gakdul.” He spun on his heel and faced Penrod again. “Go on, Ballantyne, what else is there?”
“Not much, sir.” He stooped over the tattered scrap of paper. “In the name of the Victorious Mahdi, and with the blessing of Allah, we will meet the infidel at Abu Hamed and destroy him.” Penrod looked up. “That’s all. It seems that Sayid ran out of space.”
“Very little for our comfort,” Gordon observed, ‘and the Nile is falling.”
“With a brace of Ryder Courtney’s fast camels Yakub and I could be at the Wells of Gakdul in three days,” Penrod said. “I could take Stewart your message.”
“You do not escape me so easily, Ballantyne.” Gordon laughed ironically, a short bark of sound. “Not yet awhile. We will continue to follow the progress of the relief columns by intercepting the pigeons.”
“The Dervish might accept one or two missing birds as prey of the falcons,” Penrod demurred, ‘but we must not frighten them off by killing every one as it arrives.”
“Of course, you have a point. But I must have news. I want you to shoot every fourth pigeon that comes in.”
Muhammad Ahmed, the Victorious Mahdi, walked in the cool of the evening along the bank of the great river. He was attended by his khalifa and his five most trusted emirs. As he walked he recited the nine-and-ninety beautiful names of Allah and his entourage murmured the response after each was enunciated.
“Al-Ghafur, the concealer of faults.”
“God is great!”
“Al-Wall, the friend of the righteous.”
“Praise be to God!”
“Al-Qawi, the strong.”
“May his word triumph.”
They reached the tomb of the saint al-Rabb, and the Mahdi took his seat in the shade of the tree that spread its branches over it. When his warlords were assembled, he called upon each to report his order of battle, and give an account of the troops that he commanded. One after another they knelt before him and described their array. Then the Mahdi knew he had seventy thousand men gathered before the walls of Khartoum; another twenty-five thousand had gone two hundred miles north to Abu Hamed on the bend of the river to await the approach of the
