He shivered like a frightened colt. ‘Woman!’ he cried. ‘Does a woman drag a man through the nether-pit? She’s a she-devil. Oh, it isn’t madness that’s wrong with her. She’s as sane as you and as cool as Blenkiron. Her life is an infernal game of chess, and she plays with souls for pawns. She is evil - evil - evil.’ And once more he buried his head in his hands.
It was Blenkiron who brought sense into this hectic atmosphere. His slow, beloved drawl was an antiseptic against nerves.
‘Say, boy,’ he said, ‘I feel just like you about the lady. But our job is not to investigate her character. Her Maker will do that good and sure some day. We’ve got to figure how to circumvent her, and for that you’ve got to tell us what exactly’s been occurring since we parted company.’
Sandy pulled himself together with a great effort.
‘Greenmantle died that night I saw you. We buried him secretly by her order in the garden of the villa. Then came the trouble about his successor … The four Ministers would be no party to a swindle. They were honest men, and vowed that their task now was to make a tomb for their master and pray for the rest of their days at his shrine. They were as immovable as a granite hill and she knew it. … Then they, too, died.’
‘Murdered?’ I gasped.
‘Murdered … all four in one morning. I do not know how, but I helped to bury them. Oh, she had Germans and Kurds to do her foul work, but their hands were clean compared to hers. Pity me, Dick, for I have seen honesty and virtue put to the shambles and have abetted the deed when it was done. It will haunt me to my dying day.’
I did not stop to console him, for my mind was on fire with his news.
‘Then the prophet is gone, and the humbug is over,’ I cried.
‘The prophet still lives. She has found a successor.’
He stood up in his linen tunic.
‘Why do I wear these clothes? Because I am Greenmantle. I am the _Kaaba-i-hurriyeh for all Islam. In three days’ time I will reveal myself to my people and wear on my breast the green ephod of the prophet.’
He broke off with an hysterical laugh. ‘Only you see, I won’t. I will cut my throat first.’
‘Cheer up!’ said Blenkiron soothingly. ‘We’ll find some prettier way than that.’
‘There is no way,’ he said; ‘no way but death. We’re done for, all of us. Hussin got you out of Stumm’s clutches, but you’re in danger every moment. At the best you have three days, and then you, too, will be dead.’
I had no words to reply. This change in the bold and unshakeable Sandy took my breath away.
‘She made me her accomplice,’ he went on. ‘I should have killed her on the graves of those innocent men. But instead I did all she asked and joined in her game … She was very candid, you know … She cares no more than Enver for the faith of Islam. She can laugh at it. But she has her own dreams, and they consume her as a saint is consumed by his devotion. She has told me them, and if the day in the garden was hell, the days since have been the innermost fires of Tophet. I think - it is horrible to say it - that she has got some kind of crazy liking for me. When we have reclaimed the East I am to be by her side when she rides on her milk-white horse into Jerusalem … And there have been moments - only moments, I swear to God - when I have been fired myself by her madness …’
Sandy’s figure seemed to shrink and his voice grew shrill and wild. It was too much for Blenkiron. He indulged in a torrent of blasphemy such as I believe had never before passed his lips.
‘I’m blessed if I’ll listen to this God-darned stuff. It isn’t delicate. You get busy, Major, and pump some sense into your afflicted friend.’
I was beginning to see what had happened. Sandy was a man of genius - as much as anybody I ever struck - but he had the defects of such high-strung, fanciful souls. He would take more than mortal risks, and you couldn’t scare him by any ordinary terror. But let his old conscience get cross-eyed, let him find himself in some situation which in his eyes involved his honour, and he might go stark crazy. The woman, who roused in me and Blenkiron only hatred, could catch his imagination and stir in him - for the moment only - an unwilling response. And then came bitter and morbid repentance, and the last desperation.
It was no time to mince matters. ‘Sandy, you old fool,’ I cried, ‘be thankful you have friends to keep you from playing the fool. You saved my life at Loos, and I’m jolly well going to get you through this show. I’m bossing the outfit now, and for all your confounded prophetic manners, you’ve got to take your orders from me. You aren’t going to reveal yourself to your people, and still less are you going to cut your throat. Greenmantle will avenge the murder of his ministers, and make that bedlamite woman sorry she was born. We’re going to get clear away, and inside of a week we’ll be having tea with the Grand Duke Nicholas.’ I wasn’t bluffing. Puzzled as I was about ways and means I had still the blind belief that we should win out. And as I spoke two legs dangled through the trap and a dusty and blinking Peter descended in our midst.
I took the maps from him and spread them on the table.
‘First, you must know that we’ve had an almighty piece of luck. Last night Hussin took us for a walk over the roofs of Erzerum, and by the blessing of Providence I got into Stumm’s room, and bagged his staff map … Look there … d’you see his notes? That’s the danger-point of the whole defence. Once the Russians get that fort, Kara Gubek, they’ve turned the main position. And it can be got; Stumm knows it can; for these two adjacent hills are not held … It looks a mad enterprise on paper, but Stumm knows that it is possible enough. The question is: Will the Russians guess that? I say no, not unless someone tells them. Therefore, by hook or by crook, we’ve got to get that information through to them.’
Sandy’s interest in ordinary things was beginning to flicker up again. He studied the map and began to measure distances.
‘Peter’s going to have a try for it. He thinks there’s a sporting chance of his getting through the lines. If he does - if he gets this map to the Grand Duke’s staff - then Stumm’s goose is cooked. In three days the Cossacks will be in the streets of Erzerum.’
‘What are the chances?’ Sandy asked.
I glanced at Peter. ‘We’re hard-bitten fellows and can face the truth. I think the chances against success are about five to one.’
‘Two to one,’ said Peter modestly. ‘Not worse than that. I don’t think you’re fair to me, Dick, my old friend.’
I looked at that lean, tight figure and the gentle, resolute face, and I changed my mind. ‘I’m hanged if I think there are any odds,’ I said. ‘With anybody else it would want a miracle, but with Peter I believe the chances are level.’
‘Two to one,’ Peter persisted. ‘If it was evens I wouldn’t be interested.’
‘Let me go,’ Sandy cried. ‘I talk the lingo, and can pass as a Turk, and I’m a million times likelier to get through. For God’s sake, Dick, let me go.’
‘Not you. You’re wanted here. If you disappear the whole show’s busted too soon, and the three of us left behind will be strung up before morning … No, my son. You’re going to escape, but it will be in company with Blenkiron and me. We’ve got to blow the whole Greenmantle business so high that the bits of it will never come to earth again … First, tell me how many of your fellows will stick by you? I mean the Companions.’ ‘The whole half-dozen. They are very worried already about what has happened. She made me sound them in her presence, and they were quite ready to accept me as Greenmantle’s successor. But they have their suspicions about what happened at the villa, and they’ve no love for the woman … They’d follow me through hell if I bade them, but they would rather it was my own show.’