Signorina von Bek joined me at the rail. ‘Is that a comrade of yours, Sheikh Mustafa?’
‘A servant,’ I explained. ‘A simple-minded fellow. He wandered off some days ago. He is the son of a Caucasian woman and has a smattering of Russian. Do you speak Russian, Signorina von Bek?’
She admitted to only a few words. This meant I could address Kolya directly.
‘My dear friend, I intend to rescue you,’ I called. ‘But you must play your part.’
I was pleased to see Kolya nod vigorously, proving he still had some control of his sanity.
Then began the long negotiation with the tribesmen as they attempted, through shouted questions, to get some measure of Kolya’s value to me. I understood they were offering this slave for sale. I was in need, I said, of a strong fellow, but this one looked rather weak. Had he been exposed to the desert? And why was he gagged?
They assured me he was muscular and fit, a veritable work-camel of a creature. True, at present he was a trifle touched by the sun, but this made no difference to his value. He would recover.
By this time negotiations were settling into a rhythm and I felt my friend’s cause would best be served by my pretending a lack of interest. ‘A strong dog is of no use to me if he is mad. Look - he is foaming!’
They responded with shrill denials. That was merely saliva caused by the tightness of the gag. If I was not interested, they would take him to Khufra and sell him there. I remarked that I had come from Khufra and was not aware people were buying crazed outcasts to work their fields. The slave must be possessed, I added, by a djinn. Why else would he be bound and gagged in that way? Better allow the poor creature to wander into the desert where God would look after him.
No, they insisted, he would work. By torchlight they removed Kolya’s ropes. They took the stick from his mouth. He mumbled something incomprehensible. Then, with their spear-tips, they pushed him towards the water and watched as he drank. Next he was forced to fetch skins to the oasis and fill them, which he did with some speed, aware of the importance of playing this game to the full. He hurried back and forth through the firelight. He carried a dozen skins at a time. I began to fear that he would work so hard he would put his price beyond my means.
Signorina von Bek was admiring of my bargaining skills, although I had not as yet made any kind of offer for Kolya. We were still at the stage of agreeing whether he was worth selling or not. As the moon emerged and silver light spread to the horizon, either side had yet to name a price. At length I told them I would say in the morning if I wished to make an offer for their captive. We would all sleep on the question. Kolya did not seem too pleased by this, but I spoke briefly in Russian again, as if calling back to someone in my own party. ‘Be patient, old friend. I will have your release by noon tomorrow.’
That night, after I had bedded down and watered my camels using Signorina von Bek’s reserves of ballast, I wearily wrapped myself in my jerd and prepared myself to sleep on the ground. On the other side of the wickerwork, Signorina von Bek remained awake for some while, reading by the light of the hurricane lamp while out of the darkness came the muffled rendering of some of the more familiar passages from Lohengrin sung against the monotonous rhythms of a Gora drum with which, I think, they were trying to drown him out. Eventually his voice cut off suddenly and I shared the relief of silence.
In the morning I was awakened by the pretty aeronaut in her loose, hooded djellabah offering me a cup which, from its smell, could only hold Columbian coffee. I shook my head in surprised delight and sat up.
‘I hope your poor servant survived the night.’ She offered me the china sugar-basin. ‘He seemed very upset. Is it a kind of Bedouin blues? His singing sounded almost Wagnerian at times. Are you familiar with the composer’s work?’
I explained how the poor creature had for some time been in the employ of a Beiruti gramophone-seller and had picked up snatches of German music from the records he had heard. Like certain other idiots, he had a gift for musical mimicry. He would calm down, I assured her, as soon as he was returned to us. It would be best, however, to avoid the subject of the Master of Bayreuth.
‘He seems quite good-looking,’ she said, ‘under all the filth and sunburn. Was his mother beautiful?’
‘She was a Russian aristocrat,’ I told her truthfully, ‘who became his father’s wife.’
She nodded. ‘The genes sometimes do not withstand the shock. I myself have some of that dangerous old blood. Even mixed with its own kind it can produce mental deficients. My sister for instance is quite raving. It is the same with horses, of course. Would you care for a rusk and a little confiture? It’s all I have to offer for breakfast. The butter went off.’
I agreed to join her as soon as I had said my prayers. It did no harm to show devotion, especially to the Gora, who would expect it from me. Indeed, they would become suspicious if I ignored the morning prayer.
She was peering through a binocular when I came to the table. ‘He seems better rested, your fellow.’ She handed me the glasses. Kolya, a trifle less red-eyed than he had been, was staring up at us in baffled agitation. Then we watched as again he was put to work to display his stamina.
It was probably better that he was occupied. It diverted him from Wagner who, after all, had contributed to his predicament. I think he had begun to realise this and his sense of humour returned. Once he glanced over his shoulder and called in Russian, quite cheerfully, ‘You see, Dimka dear - I promised you we’d find slavers here.’
The problem, as I remarked drily, stroking my Bedouin beard, was not how to find the slavers, but how to lose them. I would guess that the only reason they had attacked the balloon in the first place was because they thought it undefended. Now honour had been restored and decent intercourse begun, they would almost certainly drift back towards the Sudan or whatever god-forsaken wasteland they recognised as home.
‘See!’ said the only Gora who spoke much Arabic. ‘He is good and strong and when he works he does not sing.’
‘But where will I keep him? He cannot work all the time.’
‘Work him hard, then he will be too tired to sing.’
I considered this reasonable logic for a while. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘he seems strong enough. We could perhaps use another ammunition-carrier.’ I took a step or two back, out of their view. When I returned I said that we did not all agree that we required another slave. We broke for coffee. Meanwhile Kolya staggered to and from the oasis with his waterskins.
‘He is very strong,’ said Signorina von Bek, munching a rather inexpertly pickled cucumber, ‘it seems wrong that you should have to bargain to buy your own slave back.’
‘Sadly,’ I said, ‘there are very few circuit judges in the desert. The law of possession carries considerable authority here.’
She took my meaning and smiled. ‘It’s your job to keep what’s yours, eh? That’s the kind of individualism the New Order is encouraging in Europe. They could learn from you.’
‘Oh, I think my people have taught them much already,’ I quipped, almost chiding. She responded to this with a blush. I put out my hand to touch hers, to reassure her that I meant no ill-will. At which she smiled, and I was doubly entranced, yet still in that same delicious, platonically spiritual state where my ordinary senses seemed to quiver delicately on the brink of ecstasy, yet required no physical expression.
After lunch, as Kolya lay panting in the shade of a small palm, I returned to the lip of the rocky spur, Lee-Enfield crooked in my arm, and said that I had been elected to inspect the slave. I began the courtesies of approach and they responded. Carefully I climbed down the path towards where they waited on the far side of the dark water. The heavy limestone overhang, which protected the place from the sun’s rays and had allowed the pool to form, was reflected in the oasis, together with the few clumps of date palms planted here, no doubt, by the civilisation which had abandoned Zazara. Beyond the gathered Gora were their somewhat threadbare woollen tents, some skinny goats and a few tethered camels. These people looked like outlaws, irregular and amateur slavers at best. I had seen the powerful Bedouin slave-masters. They were grandly dressed and heavily armed, with tents, servants, wives and beasts of burden befitting their station. They would only have taken pity on Kolya as their code demanded, and helped him to his destination. Pride would not have allowed them to spend a minute of their time considering his sale. By deigning to bargain I was myself risking losing face, but I must also give these black rogues enough face so that to trade would suffice. They could then leave with all honour. I was certain they had not instructed scouts to come round on us and did not know how few our numbers were. Perhaps they did not want to know a truth they suspected. Ignorant, they would not feel called upon to take violent action, especially since our Gatling remained our chief argument.