The Veiled Man

Chapter Eleven

The Throne of the Great Torture

Far south, beyond the Atlas Mountains, beyond that great, limitless plain of the Talidat where nothing meets the aching eye but a dreary waste of red-brown, drifting sand, one experiences some curious phases of a life comparatively unknown, and little understood in European civilisation. There, life to-day is the same as it was ten centuries ago – the same as it will ever be: free and charming in its simplicity, yet with many terrors ever present, and sun-bleached bones ever reminding the lonely traveller that a pricked water-skin means the end of all things.

On a journey alone from Biskra to Mourzouk, in Fezzan, I foolishly disregarded the injunctions of my fellow tribesmen, and was rendered extremely uncomfortable by the astounding discovery that the camel caravan I had joined in Zaouia Timassanin, and with which I had been travelling for twenty days, belonged to the Kel-Izhaban, a tribe of marauders and outlaws with whom we had had for years a fierce blood-feud, and whose depredations and relentless butchery of their weaker neighbours caused them to be held in awe from Morocco across to Tripoli, and from Biskra to Lake Tsâd. In addition, I ascertained that the Sheikh, known to me as Sidi El-Adil, or “The Just,” was really none other than Abdul-Melik, like myself, a pirate of the desert, against whom the French Government had sent three expeditions, and upon whose head a price had been set.

With bronzed, aquiline features, long grey beard, and keen, deep-set eyes; tall, erect, agile, and of commanding presence, he was a splendid specimen of the true-bred Arab of the plains. Though he expressed intense hatred for the Infidel, and invoked curses most terrible upon the horsemen of the Roumis in general, and those of the Azjar in particular, he, nevertheless, treated me with haughty courtesy, and extended to me the hand of friendship. As, at the head of our cavalcade of two hundred armed horsemen and a long string of camels, he rode day by day across the parched wilderness, interspersed by small sand-hills and naked ledges of rock, speckled with ethel-bushes half overwhelmed by sand, he was truly an imposing figure. His burnouse was of finest white wool, embroidered heavily with silk; the haick surrounding his face was of spotless china-silk, and around his head was wound many yards of brown camel’s hair. The saddle upon which he sat was of crimson velvet, embroidered with gold and set with precious stones, and stirrups and spurs of massive silver completed the trappings of his splendid coal-black horse, which he managed with rare perfection and skill. On my white Ku-hai-lan stallion, I usually rode at his side, chatting to him in his own tongue, while two hundred of his people, erect in their saddles, and with their long-barrelled rifles slung behind, were ready to instantly execute his slightest wish.

The days were breathless and blazing. Scorched by the sun, and half-suffocated by the sand-laden wind, our way lay through a wilderness that Nature had forsaken. At night, however, when the outlaws of the desert had cast sand upon their feet and prayed their maghrib, and we had encamped under the palms of the oasis, eaten our dates and kouss-kouss, and slaked our thirst from our water-skins, then commenced the real luxury of the day – the luxury of idleness – as, reclining on a mat in front of the Sheikh’s tent, with coffee and a cigarette, the great Abdul-Melik would relate with slow distinctness stories of past encounters between his people and the hated Christians.

While sentries with loaded rifles kept a vigilant look-out lest we should be surprised by the ever-watchful Spahis or Chasseurs, half – a – dozen Arabs would squat in a semicircle before the great Sheikh, and, twanging upon their queer little banjos fashioned from tortoise-shells over which skin is stretched, would chant weirdly, in a strange staccato, Arab songs of love and war. At that hour a coolness falls over everything, intense silence reigns, the sky above grows a deeper and deeper blue, and the palms and talha trees look mysterious in the half-light. Soon the stars shine out like diamond points, and it grows darker and darker, until the chill night-breeze of the desert stirs the feathery heads of the date-palms. Then the lawless nomads, my companions, would wrap their burnouses closely about them, scoop out a hole in the warm sand, and there repose until the first flush of dawn.

About five weeks after I had inadvertently thrown in my lot with the Kel-Izhaban, and after penetrating a region that, as far as I am aware, has never been explored by Europeans – for it remains a blank upon the most recent map issued by the French Dépôt de la Guerre – we were one evening, at a spot evidently pre-arranged, joined by a body of three hundred horsemen, who armed themselves with the rifles they obtained from our camel’s packs, and then, leaving the camels in charge of half-a-dozen men in a rocky valley called the Anzoua, we all continued our way in high spirits, jesting, laughing, and singing snatches of songs. Throughout that night, and during the following day, we rode at the same steady pace, with only brief halts that were absolutely necessary. On the second night darkness fell swiftly, but the moon rose, and under its bright mystic light we sped forward, until suddenly the gaunt man, in a dirty, ragged burnouse, who acted as our guide, shouted, and we pulled up quickly. Then, in the moonlight, I could just distinguish among the trees of the little oasis a few low, white houses, of what I subsequently learned was the little desert village of Tilouat, inhabited by the Kel-Emoghri, and distant ten leagues from the town of Idelès.

Abdul-Melik shouted an order, clear and distinct, whereupon the horsemen spread themselves out in two long lines, and with their guns carried across their saddles, the first line crept slowly and silently forward. By this movement I knew that we were about to attack the village, and held my own rifle ready for purposes of self-defence. Sitting in the second line, I advanced with the others, and the breathless moments that followed were full of excitement.

Suddenly a shot startled us, and at the same moment a muttered curse fell from the Sheikh’s lips as he saw that our presence had been detected, for the shot had been fired in the village as a sound of warning. Almost instantly it was apparent that we had been betrayed, for a great body of horsemen galloped out to meet us, and in a few moments I found myself lying behind my horse pouring forth volley after volley from my rifle.

The fusillade was deafening, and for fully half an hour it was kept up. About twenty of our men had been killed or wounded, when suddenly the first line rose with loud shouts as if they were one man, and, mounting, rode straight at their opponents, while we followed at headlong speed upon our enemies almost ere they had time to realise our intention. The mêlée was awful. Swords, rifles, and keen, crooked jambiyahs were used with terrible effect, but very soon all resistance was at an end, and the work of looting the village commenced.

Half demented by excitement and success, my companions entered the houses, shot down the women with relentless cruelty, tore from them what little jewellery they possessed, and plundered, wrecked, and burned their homes out of sheer delight in destruction. I stood watching the terrible scene, but unable to avert the great calamity that had fallen so swiftly upon the peaceful little place. The fiendishness of our enemies had, alas! not been exaggerated. Abdul-Melik laughed gleefully, uttering some words as he rode past me swift as the wind. But I heeded him not; I loathed, despised, and hated him.

While dawn spread in rosy streaks, the work of plunder still proceeded, but when the sun shone forth, only the smoke-blackened walls of Tilouat remained standing. The plunder was quickly packed upon our horses, and soon afterwards we rode off, carrying with us twenty men and women who had been captured, all of whom would eventually find their way into the great slave-market, far away at Mourzouk.

At sundown, five days afterwards, we descended into a rocky valley, and suddenly came upon a wonderful mass of scattered ruins, of amazing magnitude and extent, which Abdul-Melik told me were the remains of a forgotten city called Tihodayen, and as we approached, I saw by the massive walls of hewn stone, the fallen columns half embedded in the sand, and by an inscription over an arched door, that they were relics of the Roman occupation. When we dismounted, I found that the ruined city gave shelter to the outlaws, and was their habitual hiding-place.

An hour later, reclining on mats under the wall of what had once been a great palace, the outlaw Sheikh and myself ate our evening meal of saubusaj, beryseh, and luzinyeh, and drank copiously of dushab, that luscious date-syrup which is so acceptable after the heat and burden of the Saharan day, while my companions feasted and made merry, for it appeared that they kept stores of food concealed there.

On commencing to smoke, Abdul-Melik ordered that the captives should be brought before him, and when, a few minutes later, they were ushered into his presence, they, with one exception, fell upon their knees, grovelled, and cried aloud for mercy. The single captive who begged no favour was a young, dark-haired girl of exquisite beauty, with black, piercing eyes, pretty, dimpled cheeks, and a complexion of almost European fairness. She wore a zouave of crimson velvet heavily embroidered with gold, a heavy golden girdle confined her waist, and her wide trousers were of palest rose-pink silk, while her tiny feet were thrust into velvet slippers of green embroidered with gold thread. But her dress had been torn in the fierce struggle with her pitiless captors, and as she stood, erect and defiant, with her hands secured behind her with a leathern thong, she cast at us a glance full of withering scorn.

The Sheikh raised his hand to command silence, but as her fellow-captives continued wailing, he ordered the removal of all but this girl, who apparently set him at defiance. Turning his keen eyes upon her, he noted how extremely handsome she was, and while she returned his gaze unflinchingly, her beauty held me in fascination. In all my journeys in the Land of the Sun I had never before seen such an absolutely perfect face.

“Who art thou?” demanded the dreaded chief, roughly. “What is thy name?”

“I am called Khadidja Fathma, daughter of Ali Ben Ushshâmi, cadi of Idelès,” she answered, in a firm, defiant tone.

“Ali Ben Ushshâmi!” echoed Abdul-Melik, knitting his brows fiercely. “Thou art his daughter; the daughter of the accursed son of offal who endeavoured to betray me into the hands of the Roumis,” he cried, exultantly. “I have kindled the lights of knowledge at the flambeau of prophecy, and I vowed that I would ere many moons seek vengeance.”

“I have anticipated this thy wrath ever since thine horde of cowardly ruffians laid hands upon me,” she answered, with a contemptuous toss of her pretty head. “But the daughter of the cadi of Idelès craveth not mercy from a servant of Eblis.”

“Darest thou insult me, wench?” he cried, pale with passion, and starting up as if to strike her. “Thou art the child of the man who would have given me into the hands of the Spahis for the sake of the two bags of gold offered for my head. I will return his good offices by sending him to-morrow a present he will perhaps appreciate, the present of thine own hands. He will then be convinced that Abdul-Melik knoweth how to repay those who seek to injure him.”

“Dost thou intend to strike off my hands?” she gasped, pale as death, nevertheless making a strenuous effort to remain calm.

“At sunrise the vultures will feast upon thee, and thine hands will be on their way to Idelès,” he answered, with a sinister smile playing about his hard mouth.

“Malec hath already set his curse upon thee,” she said, “and by each murder thou committest so thou createst for thyself a fresh torture in Al-Hâwiyat, where thy food will be offal and thou wilt slake thy thirst with boiling pitch. True, I have fallen captive into thine hands, having journeyed to Tilouat to see my father’s mother who was dying; but thinkest thou that I fear thee? No!” she added with flashing eyes. “Though the people dread thee as the great and powerful Chief, I despise thee and all thy miserable parasites. If thou smitest off mine hands, it is but the same punishment as thou hast meted out to others of my sex. Thou art, after all, a mere coward who maketh war upon women.”

“Silence, jade!” he cried, in a tumult of passion, and, turning to the men beside him, commanded: “Take her away, secure her alone till dawn, and then let her hands be struck off and brought to me.”

Roughly the men dragged her away, but ere she went she cast at us a look of haughty scornfulness, and, shrugging her shoulders, treated this terrible mandate with ineffable disdain.

“The jade’s hands shall be sent to her father, the Cadi, as a souvenir of the interest he taketh in my welfare,” the Sheikh muttered aloud. “Her tongue will never again utter rebuke or insult. Verily, Allah hath delivered her into my hands a weapon to use against mine enemies.”

I uttered eager words of intercession, pointing out the cruelty of taking her young life, but he only laughed derisively, and I was compelled to sit beside him while the other captives were questioned and inspected.

That night I sought repose in a shed that had been erected in a portion of the ruins, but found sleep impossible. The defiantly beautiful face of the young girl who was to die at dawn kept recurring to me with tantalising vividness, and at length I rose, determined if possible to save her. Noiselessly I crept out, my footsteps muffled by the sand, saddled one of Abdul-Melik’s own horses, and without attracting the notice of either sentry on duty at each end of the encampment, I entered the ruin where, confined to an iron ring in the masonry by a leathern band, she crouched silent and thoughtful.

“Fi amâni-illah!” I whispered, as I approached. “I come to have speech with thee, and assist thee to escape.”

“Art thou a friend?” she inquired, struggling to her feet and peering at me in the gloom.

“Yes, one who is determined that the outlaw’s command shall never be executed,” and taking the jambiyah from my girdle, I severed the thongs that confined her hands and ankles, and next second she was free.

Briefly I explained how I had saddled a fleet horse and placed a saddle-bag with food upon it.

“If I get safely away I shall owe my life to you,” she said, with intense gratitude, pressing my hand for an instant to her quivering lips. “I know this place, and ere two moons can have risen I can travel through the rocky defile and be at my father’s house in Idelès. Tell me thy name, so that my father may know who was his daughter’s liberator.”

I told her, and in the same hasty breath asked for some souvenir.

“Alas! I have nothing,” she answered; “nothing but a strange ornament which my father’s mother gave to me immediately before she died, an hour previous to the attack being made upon the village,” and placing her hand deep into the breast of her dress she drew forth a rough disc of copper, about the size of a crown piece, with a hole in it, as if it had been strung upon a thread.

“When she gave it to me she told me it had been in her possession for years, that it was a talisman against terror, and that some curious legend was attached to it, the nature of which I do not now recollect. There is strange writing upon it in some foreign tongue of the Roumis that no one has been able to decipher.”

I looked, but unable to detect anything in the darkness, I assured her that its possession would always remind me of her, and slipped it into the pocket of my gandoura.

Then together we crept along under the shadow of the wall, and, gaining the spot where the horse stood in readiness, I held her for a second while she kissed my hand, uttering a fervent word of thanks, and afterwards assisted her into the saddle. Then a moment later, with a whispered “Allah iselemeck!” she sped away, with her unbound hair flying behind her, and was instantly lost in the darkness.

On realising that she had gone I was seized with regret, but feeling that at least I had saved her from a horrible doom, I returned to my little shed and, wrapping myself in my burnouse, slept soundly until the sun had risen high in the heavens.

Opening my eyes, I at once remembered Khadidja’s quaint souvenir, and on examining it, was astonished to find both obverse and reverse of the roughly fashioned disc covered with an inscription in English crudely engraved, or rather scratched, apparently with the point of a knife. Investigating it closely I was enabled, after some difficulty, for I have only an elementary knowledge of the tongue of the Roumis, to read the following surprising words: —

“This record I leave for the person into whose hands it may fall, for I am starving. Whosoever reads this let him hasten to Zemnou, in the Zelaf Desert, two days from the well of El Ameïma, and from the Bab-el-Oued pace twenty steps westward outside the city wall, and under the second bastion let him dig. There will he be rewarded. John Edward Chatteris, held captive in the Kasbah of Borku by order of the Sultan ’Othmân, Sunday, June 13, 1843.”

Chatteris! Instantly it occurred to me that a celebrated English explorer, archaeologist, and member of the Royal Geographical Society of that name, had years ago been lost, and his fate had remained a complete mystery. Inquiries for news of him had been circulated throughout the great Desert among the wandering tribes, with an offer of a reward. This, then, was a message inscribed, with apparent difficulty within the impregnable citadel of the warrior Sultan of Borku, whose little mountain kingdom was situate five hundred miles south of Mourzouk, between the Tibesti Mountains and Lake Tsâd; a secret that for half a century had been in the keeping of those who could not decipher it.