He had the camels taken away and slaughtered; but only with great reluctance, for he was now faced with the problem of how they were to proceed. Zanthe's woman could walk with the men; but they would need the tent to shelter them from the blazing sun during the middle of the day, and the spare litter-bearers, after their spells of carrying Zanthe, would collapse if they then had to take up burdens of food and water which, to start with must be sufficient for several days' journey.
He still had enough money on him to buy a score of camels at their normal price, but in the present circumstances he doubted if it would buy a couple. He proved right. Going into the town again, he spent the whole evening endeavouring to buy animals; but he could find no sellers until at last he came upon a peasant whom he persuaded to part with his donkey for five gold pieces.
It was by then too late to start that night; so they set off very early next morning. Even so, they now found themselves in the midst of the Army. Only a few of the regiments had been halted in Jaffa, to assist the engineers in destroying its defences. The main body had been ordered to reach Egypt with as little delay as possible, and was taking advantage of the cool of the night for the greater part of the marches.
The condition of both officers and men was pitiful. Their uniforms were faded, torn and blood-stained, and every third man had a bandage round his head or face or his arm in a sling. The horses of those who were mounted were skin and bone, as were also those which drew guns or light vehicles. The bands no longer had the strength to play. The only words uttered were curses and in quarrels over water. There were still many seriously wounded among them, either being carried in hammocks and reclining on the water and ration carts. Attempt was no longer made to march in formation. They trudged blindly on in ragged little groups, in couples and singles. All discipline had ceased to exist.
It was now less than a month until the longest day in the year. The sun rose each morning soon after five o'clock. By nine it was blazing down from a brassy sky; by midday the barren land became as hot as the inside of a furnace. During the hours of intolerable heat the troops threw themselves down on the burning sands and lay as though dead until well into the afternoon. They suffered most terribly from sunburn and frequently some poor wretch would go off his head with sunstroke.
On the fourth day out from Acre an order was passed down from the General-in-Chief that the wounded must be everybody's first consideration. All mounted men, officers included and of whatever rank, were to give up their horses to the sick or injured. For two days past Roger had not been feeling very well, so he was most loath to give up his mount; but since he had to do so he felt that Zanthe was his first consideration. They had lost three more bearers, which had reduced their number to nine, and it was a pitiful sight to see six of them at a time staggering along with the litter. Should many more of them collapse the litter would have to be abandoned, and he then intended to mount Zanthe on his horse. Although she was not wounded he knew that no Frenchman would cavil at her riding it. So to keep the animal with them he made her mount it there and then, which also relieved the wretched bearers and gave them a better chance of surviving as they then had only to carry the baggage in the litter.
Zanth£'s hard Mameluke guard were bearing up well and, although Roger had to walk himself, he felt decidedly better. Next day, however, he developed a splitting headache. By midday he knew that he was running a high temperature and he assumed that his wretched state could be put down to a touch of sunstroke; but he was puzzled by a stiffness that seemed to be affecting his limbs and the strong light began to hurt his eyes.
When these disorders came quite suddenly upon him he was lying beside Zanthe in the shade of the tent. Seeing his distress she anxiously questioned him, then, undoing his tunic, slid her hands up to his armpits. Under the left one her fingers felt a lump. Her great tawny eyes distended with terror, but she did not cry out. With a sob in her voice, she said:
' My love! My love! It is useless to conceal it from you. Four to six days is the usual period for the horror to reveal itself after one has been infected. Oh, that accursed camel! A flea from it has given you the plague.'
21
Plague and the Great Temptation
Had it not been for Zanthe there is little doubt that at the age of thirty-one Roger would have died in Palestine. During that terrible retreat the French Army went to pieces. The men fought among themselves for water. In many cases wounded officers who were being carried in litters were abandoned at night by the bearers, who stole the supply of water that had been allotted to the officers, and their valuables. Anyone showing symptoms of the plague was driven away by his comrades and left to die alone or be butchered by the Arabs. As the French retreated, setting fire to every village, farm and field of crops that they left behind them, the numbers of desperate, homeless Arabs seeking vengeance constantly increased. Like the carrion crows that hung in clouds on the rear and flanks of the Army, bands of these Arabs pressed on it night and day, forcing it to keep to the shore and falling upon any small parties rash enough to seek shelter or water by leaving the main, straggling line of march.
The course of Roger's affliction was no exception to the rule. First the rather seedy feeling for a day or so, recovery to normal spirits for about forty-eight hours then, almost without warning, the onset of stiffness, blinding headaches, nausea and rise in temperature. He was overcome so swiftly that he would not have been capable even of sending the Mamelukes among the retreating Army to try to find a doctor or a senior officer who would at least have ensured that he would not be abandoned by the roadside, and but for Zanthe that would have been his fate.
362
Neither could a European woman have saved him, however great her courage and devotion, for the Mamelukes and Turks would certainly have made off with the water and left her to die with him. As it was, when she told them that the Effendi was smitten with the pestilence they accepted the situation with the fatalism of Orientals and, through a mixture of devotion and fear, continued to accept her orders. The devotion of the Mamelukes was partly inspired by. Bonaparte's having entrusted her safety to them; since, as a great leader of fighting men, he had inspired an almost religious respect in them, and partly because she was a beautiful woman. The element of fear, which equally affected the Turkish prisoners, was due to the fact that, as the daughter of a Sultan, she had in her veins the Blood of the Prophet; so to abandon her would have meant certain hell-fire in the Hereafter.
She explained to them that plague was neither infectious nor contagious, unless pus from a plague boil came in contact with a scratch or open wound. She then had Roger lifted into the litter and carried down to the seashore. There, while with glassy, staring eyes he twisted and moaned, she got his clothes off and had the men in turns support his head as he lay in the creamy surf. By this means she reduced the heat of his fevered body until the sun went down. She made them strip, too, search all their garments minutely, in case they were harbouring a flea, wash them in the sea and bathe themselves.
All night and for most of the two days that followed Roger was delirious. For a part of the time he raved in English but, as he had spoken and thought in French for a long time past, broken sentences in that tongue came equally often from his cracked lips and at times he shouted in Turkish. His eyes were red and inflamed, his tongue swollen and covered with white fur. From time to time he vomited and, although Zanthe kept him for hours each day immersed in the surf, he broke out in profuse sweats when taken from it. On the third day he was prostrate with exhaustion, but Zanthe still had hopes for him because he was constipated and that, in a case of plague, she knew to be a good sign.