In the chill silence of the hour that precedes the dawn he had risen cramped and shivering from his seat by the dying fire and too late then to take the rest he had neglected, had roused Yoshio and started on the usual foraging expedition that was his daily occupation. And from that time he had been careful of a life which, though valueless to him, was invaluable to his companions. From that time, too, the ill-luck that had pursued them ceased. There had been no more deaths, no more desertions from the already depleted train of carriers. The work had gone forward with continuing success and, six months ago, after a hazardous march through a hostile country, Craven had led the remnant of the expedition safely to the coast. He had waited for some weeks at the African port after the mission had returned to England, and then embarking on a small trading steamer, had made his way northward to an obscure station on the Moroccan seaboard, when by a leisurely and indirect route he had slowly crossed the desert to the district where he now was and which he had reached only a week ago. Twice before he had visited the tribe as the guest of the Sheik Mukair Ibn Zarrarah’s younger son, an officer of Spahis whom he had met in Paris, and the warm hospitality shown him had left a deep impression. A sudden unaccountable impulse had led him to revisit a locality where he had spent some of the happiest months of his life. He had conceived an intense admiration and liking for the stern old Arab Chief and his two utterly dissimilar sons; the elder a grave habitually silent man, who clung to the old traditions with the rigid tenacity of the orthodox Mohammedan, disdainful of the French jurisdiction under which he was compelled to live, and occupied solely with the affairs of the tribe and his beautiful and adored wife who reigned alone in his harem, despite the fact that she had given him no child; the younger in total contrast to his brother, a dashing ultra-modern young Arab as deeply imbued with French tendencies as the conservative Omar was opposed to them. The wealthy and powerful old Sheik, whose friendship had been assiduously sought by the French Administration to ensure the co-operation of a tribe that with its far reaching influence might have proved a dangerous element in an unsettled district, shared in his inmost heart the sentiments of his heir, but with a larger and more discriminating wisdom saw the desirability of associating at least one of his family with the Government he was obliged, though grudgingly and half contemptuously, to acknowledge. He had hovered long between prejudice and policy before he reluctantly gave his consent for Saïd to be placed on the roll of the regiment of Spahis. And the unusual love existing between the two brothers had survived a test that might have proved too strong for its continuance; Omar, bowing to the decision of the autocratic old Chief, had refrained even from comment, and Saïd, despite his enthusiasm, had carefully avoided inflaming his brother’s deeply rooted hatred of the nation the younger man was proud to serve. His easy-going nature adapted itself readily to the two wholly separate lives he lived, and though secretly preferring the months spent with his regiment he contrived to extract every possible enjoyment from the periods of leave for which he returned to the tribe where, laying aside the picturesque uniform his ardent soul rejoiced in and scrupulously suppressing every indication of his Francophile inclinations he resumed with consummate tact the somewhat invidious position of younger son of the house.
The meeting of the young Spahi with Craven in Paris had led to the discovery of similar tastes and ultimately to an intimate friendship. Together in Algeria they had shot panther and Barbary sheep and eventually Craven had been induced to visit the tribe, where he had seen the true life of the desert that appealed strongly to his unconventional wandering disposition. The heartiness of his reception had been unqualified, even the taciturn Omar had unbent to the representative of a nation he felt he could respect with no loss of prestige. To Craven the weeks passed in the Arab camp had been a time of uninterrupted enjoyment and a second visit had strengthened mutual esteem. Situated on the extreme fringe of the Algerian frontier, in the heart of a perpetually disturbed country, the element of danger prevailing in the district was to Craven not the least of its attractions. It had been a source of keen disappointment that during both his visits there had been a cessation of the intertribal warfare that was carried on in spite of the Government’s endeavours to preserve peace among the great desert families. For generations the tribe of Mukair Ibn Zarrarah had been at feud with another powerful tribe which, living further to the south and virtually beyond the suzerainty of the nominal rulers of the country, harried the border continually. But, aware of the growing power and resources of Mukair Ibn Zarrarah, for many years the marauders had avoided collision with him and confined their attention to less dangerous adversaries. The apparent neglect of his hereditary enemies had not, however, lessened the old Sheik’s precautions. With characteristic oriental distrust he maintained a continual watch upon them and a well organized system of espionage kept him conversant with all their movements. Often during his visits Craven had listened to the stories of past encounters and in the fierce eager faces around him he had read the deep longing for renewed hostilities that animated the younger members of the tribe in particular and had wondered what spark would eventually set ablaze the smouldering fires of hatred and rivalry that had so long lain dormant. And it had been really a subconscious presage of such an outbreak that had brought him back to the camp of Mukair Ibn Zarrarah. His presentiment, the outcome of earnest desire, had been fulfilled, and in its fulfilment attended with horrible details which, had it not been already his intention, would have driven him to beg a place in the ranks of the punitive force that was preparing to avenge an outrage that involved the honour of the tribe. A week ago he had arrived to find the camp seething with an infuriated and passion-swayed people who bore no kind of resemblance to the orderly well-disciplined tribesmen he had seen on his former visits, and the daily arrival of reinforcements from outlying districts had kept the tension strained and swelled the excitement that rioted day and night.
In the barbaric sumptuousness of his big tent and with a calm dignity that even tragedy could not shake the old Sheik had received him alone, for the unhappy Omar was hidden in the desolate solitude of his ravished harem. To the Englishman, before whom he could speak openly the old man had revealed the whole terrible story with vivid dramatic force and all the flowery eloquence of which he was master. It was a tale of misplaced confidence and faithlessness that, detected and punished with oriental severity, had led to swift and dastardly revenge. A headman of the tribe whom both the Sheik and his elder son trusted implicitly had proved guilty of grave indiscretion that undetected might have seriously impaired the prestige of the ruling house. Deposed from his headmanship, and deserted with characteristic vacillation by the adherents on whom he counted, the delinquent had fled to the camp of the rival tribe, with whom he had already been in secret negotiation. This much Mukair Ibn Zarrarah’s spies had ascertained, but not in time to prevent the catastrophe that followed. Plans thought to be known only to the Sheik and his son had been disclosed to the marauding Chief, who had long sought an opportunity of aiming an effectual blow at his hated rival, and on one of Omar’s periodical tours of inspection to the more remote encampments of the large and scattered tribe, the little caravan had been surrounded by an overwhelmingly superior force led by the hereditary enemy and the renegade tribesman. Hemmed in around the litter of the dearly loved young wife, from whom he rarely parted, Omar and his small bodyguard had fought desperately, but the outcome had been inevitable from the first. Outnumbered they had fallen one by one under the vigorous onslaughts of the attacking party who, victorious, had retired southward as quickly as they had come, carrying with them the beautiful Safiya—the price of the traitor’s treachery. Covered with wounds and left for dead under a heap of dying followers Omar and two others had alone survived, and with death in his heart the young man had lived only for the hour when he might avenge his honour. Animated by the one fierce desire that sustained him he had struggled back to life to superintend the preparations for retaliation that should be both decisive and final. To old injuries had been added this crowning insult, and the tribe of Mukair Ibn Zarrarah, roused to the highest pitch of fury, were resolved to a man to exterminate or be exterminated. The preparations had been almost completed when Craven arrived at the camp, and tonight, for the first time, at a final war council of all the principal headmen held in the Sheik’s tent, he had seen the stricken man and had hardly recognized in the gaunt attenuated figure that only an inflexible will seemed to keep upright, the handsome stalwart Arab who of all the tribe had most nearly approached his own powerful physique. The frenzied despair in the dark flashing eyes that met his struck an answering chord in his own heart and the silent handclasp that passed between them seemed to ratify a common desire. Here, too, was a man who for love of a woman sought death that he might escape a life of terrible memory. A sudden sympathy born of tacit understanding seemed to leap from one to the other, an affinity of purpose that drew them strangely close together and brought to Craven an odd sense of kinship that dispelled the difference he had felt and enabled him to enter reservedly into the discussions that followed. After this meeting he had gone back to his tent to make his own final preparations with a feeling almost of exhilaration. To Yoshio, more than usually stolid, he had given all necessary instructions for the conveyance of his belongings to England.