The White Prophet, Volume 1 (of 2)Caine, Hall, Sir
General
The White Prophet, Volume 1 (of 2)
Caine, Hall, Sir
British -- Egypt -- Fiction; Egypt -- Fiction
The new light that had dawned on Gordon’s mind was the same as he had
seen before, and yet it was now quite different. He would deliver
himself up, as he had first intended to do, but in humility, not in
pride, in submission to the will of God, not in defiance of the power of
man. A reclaiming voice seemed to say to him, "Atone for your crime!
Confess everything! Die—on the gallows if need be! Better suffer the
pains of death than the furies of remorse! Give your own life for the
life you have taken, no matter by what impulse of self-defence or
devilish accident of fate!"
Hafiz would carry his message to headquarters, or perhaps help him to go
there, and the good old Patriarch would explain why he had not gone
before.
"It is the only way now, the only hope," he thought.
Within half-an-hour Hafiz arrived hot and breathless as if he had been
running. One moment he stood near the door, while his lip lagged low
and his cheerful face darkened at sight of Gordon’s white cheeks, and
then he gushed out into words which tried their best to be brave but
were tragic with tears.
"I knew it," he said, "I’ve said so all day long. ’He’s lying ill
somewhere, or he would show up now, whatever the consequences.’ You’re
wounded, aren’t you? Let me see."
"It’s nothing," said Gordon. "Nothing at all. Sit down, old fellow."
And then Hafiz sat on the right of the bed, holding Gordon’s hand in his
hand, and told him what had happened during the day—how Macdonald and
his bloodhounds had been out in pursuit of him, expecting to arrest and
court-martial him, and how he also had been searching for him since
yesterday, but with the hope of helping him to escape.
"High and low we’ve looked, everywhere—everywhere except here—and who
would have thought of a place like this?" said Hafiz. "So much the
better, though! You’ll stay here until you are well and I can get you
safely away. I will, too! You’ll see I will!"
It was hard to listen to the good fellow’s schemes for his escape and
tell him at once of his intention to give himself up, so Gordon asked
one by one the questions that were uppermost in his mind, little
thinking that Hafiz’s answers would break up his purpose and stifle for
ever the cry of his tortured heart.
"The General is buried, isn’t he?" he said, turning his face away as he
spoke, and when Hafiz answered Yes, that he had died by the hand of God
and been buried that afternoon, and that everybody was saying that he
had been a good man and a great soldier and Egypt would never again see
his equal, Gordon asked himself what, after all, would be the worth of
an atonement which offered as an equivalent for a life like the
General’s a life such as his own, which was no longer of any use to him
or to any one.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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