# The Flower of the Flock

Extracted from Pall Mall magazine, vol 22, 1900, pp. 500-511. Accompanying illustrations may be added later. Included in Donovan Pasha and Some People of Egypt (1900)
THE FLOWER OF THE FLOCK
By GILBERT PARKER
I.
“'E was a flower,” said Henry Withers of the Sick Horse Depôt.
“A floower in front garden!” ironically responded Holgate, the Yorkshire engineer, as he lay on his back on the lower deck of the Osiris, waiting for Dicky Donovan's orders to steam up the river.
“'E was the bloomin' flower of the flock,” said Henry Withers, with a cross between a yawn and a sigh, and refusing to notice Holgate's sarcasm.
“Aw've heerd on 'em, the floowers o' the flock—they coom to a bad end mostwise in Yorkshire—nipped in t' bood loike! Was tha friend nipped untimely?”
“I'd give a bloomin' camomile to know!”
“Deserted or summat?”
“Ow yus, 'e deserted—to Khartoum,” answered Withers with a sneer. “The 'owlin' sneak went in 'idin' with Gordon at Khartoum!”
“Aye, aw've heerd o' Gordon a bit,” said Holgate dubiously, intent to further anger the Beetle, as Henry Withers was called.
“Ow yus, ow verily yus! An' ye've 'eard o' Julius Caesar, an' Nebucha'nezzar, an' Florence Noightingyle, 'aven't you—you wich is chiefly bellyband and gullet.”
“Aye, aw've eaten too mooch to-day,” rejoined Holgate placidly, refusing to see insult. “Aw don't see what tha friend was doin' at Khartoum wi' Goordon.”
“'E was makin' Perry Davis' Pain Killer for them at 'ome who wouldn't send Gordon 'elp when the 'eathen was at 'is doors a 'underd to one. 'E was makin' it for them to soothe their bloomin' pains an' sorrers when Gordon an' Macnamara 'ad cried ’elp! for the lawst toime!”
“Aw've taken off ma hat to Goordon's nevvy—he be a man that has a head for macheens,”—Holgate's eyes dwelt on his engine lovingly,—“but aw've heerd nowt o' Macnamara—never nowt o' him. Who was Macnamara?”
“'E was the bloomin' flower of the flock—'e was my pal as took service in the Leave-me-alone-to-die Regiment at Khartoum.”
“Aw've never read o' Macnamara. Dost think tha'll ever know how he went?”
“I ain't sayin' 'as 'e went, an' I ain't thinkin' as 'e went. I'm waitin' like a bloomin' telegarpher at the end of a wire. 'e was the pick o' fifteen 'underd men was Macnamara.”
“What sent t' laad to Goordon?”
“A-talkin' of 'isself silly to two lydies at onct.”
“Aye, theer's the floower o' the flock. Breakin' hearts an' spoilin' lives—aw've seen them floowers bloomin'!”
“'E didn't break no witherin' 'earts, an' 'e didn't spoil no lives. The lydies was both married afore Macnamara got as far as Wady Halfar. 'E break 'earts—not much! 'E went to Khartoum to be quiet.”
“Aw'm pityin' the laads that married them lasses.”
“'Ere, keep your bloomin' pity. I wuz one. An' if your pity's 'urtin' yer, think of 'im as 'adn't no wife nor kid to say when 'ee's dead, 'Poor Peter Macnamara, 'e is gone.”'
“A good job too, aw'm thinkin'.”
“An' a bloomin' 'ard 'eart y' 'ave. Wantin' of a man to die without leavin' 'is mark—'is bleedin' 'all-mark on the world. I 'ave two—two kids I 'ave—an' so 'elp me Gawd, things bein' as they are, I wouldn't say nothin' if one of 'em was Macnamara's—wich it ain't—no fear!”
“Was Macnamara here you wouldn't say thaat to his faace, aw'm thinkin'.”
“I'd break 'is 'ulkin' neck first. I ain't puttin' these things on the 'oardins, an' I ain't thinkin' 'em, if 'ee's alive in the clutches of the 'eathen Kalifer at Homdurman. There's them as says 'e is, an' there's them as says 'e was cut down after Gordon. But it's only gawd-forsaken Arabs as says it, an' they'll lie wichever way you want 'em.”
“Aye, laad, but what be great foolks doin' at Cairo? They be sendin' goold for Slatin an' Ohrwalder by sooch-like heathen as lie to you. If Macnamara be alive, what be Macnamara doin'? An' what be Wingate an' Kitchener an' great foolks at Cairo doin'?”
“They're sayin', 'Macnamara, 'oos 'e? 'E ain't no class. 'Oo wants Macnamara!'”
Holgate raised himself on his elbow, a look of interest in his face, which he tried to disguise. “See, laad,” he said, “why does tha not send messenger thaself—a troosty messenger?”
“'Ere, do you think I'm a bloomin' Crosus? I've done the trick twice—ten pounds o' loot once, an' ten golden shillings another. Bloomin' thieves both of 'em—said they wuz goin' to Homdurman, and didn't not much! But one of 'em went to 'eaven with cholery, an' one is livin' yet with a crooked leg, wich is less than I wuz workin' for.”
Holgate was sitting bolt upright now. “Didst tha save them ten sooverins to get news o' Macnamara, laad?”
“Think I bloomin' well looted 'em—go to 'ell!” said Henry Withers of the Sick Horse Depôt, and left the lower deck of the Osiris in a fit of sudden anger.
A half-hour later Holgate told the story to Donovan Pasha, his chief, and the chief called in his guest, Sir Barclay Winton of Winton, and Holgate had to tell it all over again.
The result of this telling was a remarkable thing. Before a month had gone by a "troosty messenger" was sent to Omdurman to discover the truth about Peter Macnamana. The Arab was commissioned to spend five hundred pounds in helping him to escape, if he was alive,
II
Up in Omdurman Peter Macnamara knew naught of this. He ran behind his master's horse, he sat on his master's mat, he stood in the sun before his master's door, barefooted and silent and vengeful in his heart, but with a grin on his face. When Khartoum fell he and Slatin had been thrown into the Saier loaded with irons. Then, when the Mahdi died he had been made the slave of the Ali Wad Helu, whose vanity was flattered by having a European servant. The Khalifa Abdullah being angry one day with Ali Wad Helu, vented his spite by ordering Macnamara back to prison again. Later the Khalifa gave him to Emir Wad Setti for a servant; but that service was of short duration, for Macnamara's patience gave way under his master's brutality on a certain morning, and he refused to help the Emir on his horse. This was in the presence of the Khalifa, and Abdullah was so delighted at the discomfiture of Wad Setti that he saved the Irishman's life, and gave him to Osman Wad Adam, after he had been in irons three months and looked no better than a dead man. Henceforth things went better, for Osman Wad Adam was an Arab with a sense of humour, very lazy and very licentious, and Macnamara's Arabic was a source of enjoyment to him in those hours when he did nothing but smoke and drink bad coffee. Also Macnamara was an expert with horses, and had taught the waler which Osman Wad Adam had looted from Khartoum a number of admired tricks.
Macnamara wished many a time that he could take to the desert with the waler; but the ride that he must ride to Wady Halfa was not for a horse. None but a camel could do it. Besides, he must have guides, and how was he to pay guides? More than once he had tried to get a word with Slatin, but that was dangerous for them both—most dangerous for Slatin, who was now the servant of the Khalifa Abdullah himself. Slatin was always suspected, and was therefore watched carefully; but the Khalifa knew that Macnamara had no chance to escape, for he had no friends in Cairo, no money, and no more could have bought a camel than a kingdom. Escaping from the city itself, he could but die in the desert.
He had only one Arab friend—little Mahommed Nafar the shoemaker. The shoemaker was friendly to him for a great kindness done in the days when they both lived in Khartoum and ere the Arab deserted to the camp of the Mahdi. Besides what help could Mahommed Nafar give him unless he had money? With plenty of money the shoemaker might be induced to negotiate with Arab merchants coming from Dongola or Berber into Omdurman to get camels, and arrange an escape down the desert to Wady Halfa; but where was the money to come from?
One day, at a great review, when the roar of the drums rivalled the hoarse shouts of the Mahdists, and the Baggaras, for a diversion, looted one quarter of the town, Macnamara was told by his master that Slatin had been given by the Khalifa to Mahommed Sherif, and was going to Darfur. As a kind of farewell barbecue, whether or not intended by the Khalifa as a warning to his departing general, ten prisoners had their feet and hands cut off in the Beit el Mal, and five lost their heads as well as their hands and feet.
“It makes my blood run cold,” said Slatin softly in English, as Macnamara passed him, walking at his master's stirrup.
“Mine's boilin', sir!” answered Macnamara.
Slatin's eyes took on a more cheerful look than they usually carried, for it was many a day since he had been addressed with respect, and the “sir” touched a mellow chord within him—memory of the days when he was Governor of Darfur. Suddenly he saw the Khalifa's eyes fixed on Macnamara, and the look, for a wonder, was not unfriendly. It came to him that perhaps the Khalifa meant to take Macnamara for his own servant, for it flattered his vanity to have a white man at his stirrup and on his mat. He knew that the Khalifa was only sending himself to Darfur that he might be a check upon Mahommed Sherif. He did not think that Macnamara's position would be greatly bettered, save perhaps in bread and onions, by being taken into the employ of the Khalifa. His life would certainly not be safer. But, if it was to be, perhaps he could do a good turn to Macnamara by warning him, by planting deep in the Khalifa's mind the Irishman's simple-minded trustworthiness. When, therefore, the Khalifa suddenly turned and asked him about Macnamara he chose his words discreetly. The Khalifa, ever suspicious, said that Macnamara had been thrown into prison twice for insubordination. To this Slatin replied:
“Sire, what greater proof could be had of the man's simplicity? His life is in your hands, sire. Would he have risked it, had he not been the most simple-minded of men? But you who read men's hearts, sire, as others read a book, you know if I speak truth.” Slatin bent his head in humility.
The flattery pleased the Khalifa.
“Summon Osman Wad Adam and the man to me,” he said.
In the questioning that followed, Macnamara's Arabic and his understanding of it was so bad that it was necessary for Slatin to ask him questions in English. This was a test of Macnamara, for Slatin said some things in English which were not for the Khalifa's knowing. If Macnamara's face changed, if he started, if any unusual expression came into it, Abdullah's suspicions, ever ready, would have taken form.
But Macnamara's wits were not wool-gathering, and when Slatin said to him, “If I escape, I will try to arrange yours,” Macnamara replied, with a respectful but placid stolidity: “Right, sir. Where does the old sinner keep his spoof?”
It was now for Slatin to keep a hold on himself, for Macnamara's reply was unexpected. Ruling his face to composure, however, he turned to the Khalifa and said that up to this moment Macnamara had not been willing to become a Mahommedan, but his veneration for the Mahdi's successor was so great that he would embrace the true faith by the mercy of God and the permission of the Khalifa. When the Khalifa replied that he would accept the convert into the true faith at once, Slatin then said to Macnamara:
“Come now, my man, I've promised that you will become a Mahommedan—it's your best chance of safety.”
“I'll see him on the devil's pitchfork first,” said Macnamara; but he did not change countenance. “I'm a Protestant and I'll stand be me baptism.”
“You'll lose your head, man,” answered Slatin. “Don't be a fool.”
“I'm keepin' to what me godfathers and godmothers swore for me,” answered Macnamara stubbornly.
“You must pretend for a while, or you'll be dead in an hour—and myself too.”
“You!—that's a different nose on me face,” answered Macnamara. “But suppose I buck when I get into the mosque?—no, begobs, I'll not be doin' it!”
“I'll say to him that you'll do it with tears of joy, if you can have a month for preparation.”
“Make it two an' I'm your man, seein' as you've lied for me, sir. But on wan condition—where does he keep his coin?”
“If you try that on, you'll die bit by bit like the men in the Beit el Mal to-day,” answered Slatin quickly.
“I'm carvin' me own mutton, thank ye kindly, sir,” answered Macnamara.
“I've heard that part of his treasure is under his own room,” went on Slatin quickly, for he saw that the Khalifa's eyes had a sinister look—the conversation had been too long.
“Speak no more!” said Abdullah sharply. “What is it you say, my son?” he added to Slatin.
“He has been telling me that he is without education even in his own faith, and that he cannot learn things quickly. Also he does not understand what to do in the mosque, or how to pray, and needs to be taught. He then asked what was impossible, and I had to argue with him, sire.”
“What did he ask?” asked the Khalifa, his fierce gaze on Macnamara.
“He wished to be taught by yourself, sire. He said that if you taught him he would understand. I said that you were the chosen Emperor of the Faithful, the coming king of the world, but he replied that the prophets of old taught their disciples with their own tongues.”
It was a bold lie, but the Khalifa was flattered, and made a motion of assent. Slatin, seeing his advantage, added:
“I told him that you could not spare the time to teach him, sire; but he said that if you would talk to him for half an hour every day for a month, after he had studied Arabic for two months, he would be ready to follow your majesty through life and death.”
“Approach, my son,” said the Khalifa to Macnamara suddenly. Macnamara came near. He understood Arabic better than he had admitted, and he saw in this three months' respite, if it were granted, the chance to carry out a plan that was in his mind. The Khalifa held out a hand to him, and Macnamara, boiling with rage inwardly and his face flushing—which the Khalifa mistook for modesty—kissed it.
“You shall have two moons to learn Arabic of a good teacher every day, and then for one moon I myself will instruct you in the truth,” said Abdullah. “You shall wait at my door and walk by my stirrup and teach my horse as you have taught the English horse of Osman Wad Adam. Thy faithful service I will reward, and thy unfaithfulness I will punish with torture and death.”
“I'll cut the price of the kiss on those dirty fingers from a dervish joint,” muttered Macnamara to himself, as he took his place that evening at the Khalifa's door.
One thing Macnamara was determined on. He would never pray in a Mahommedan mosque, he would never turn Mahommedan even for a day. The time had come when he must make a break for liberty. He must have money. With money Mahommed Nafar, who was now his teacher (Slatin had managed that) would move for him.
Under the spur of his purpose Macnamara rapidly acquired Arabic, and steadfastly tried to make Mahommed Nafar his friend, for he liked the little man, and the little man was the only Arab, save one, from first to last, whom he would not willingly have hung on the point of a bayonet. At first he chafed under the hourly duplicity necessary in his service to the Khalifa, then he took an interest in it, and at last he wept tears of joy over his dangerous proficiency. Day after day Macnamara waited, in the hope of making sure that the Khalifa's treasure was under the room where he slept. Upon the chance of a successful haul, he had made fervid promises, after the fashion of his race, to the shoemaker Mahommed Nafar. At first the shoemaker would have nothing to do with it: helping prisoners to escape meant torture and decapitation; but then he hated the Khalifa, whose Baggaras had seized his property, and killed his wife and children; and in the end Macnamara prevailed. Mahommed Nafar found some friendly natives from the hills of Gilif, who hated the Khalifa and his tyrannous governments, and at last they agreed to attempt the escape.
III.
A month went by. Lust, robbery, and murder ruled in Omdurman. The river thickened with its pollution, the trees within the walls sickened of its poison, the bones of the unburied dead lay in the moat beyond the gates, and, on the other side of the river, desolate Khartoum crumbled over the streets and paths and gardens where Gordon had walked. The city was a pit of infamy, where struggled, or wallowed, or died to the bellowing of the Khalifa's drum and the hideous mirth of his Baggaras, the victims of Abdullah. But out in the desert—the Bahluda desert—between Omdurman and Old Dongola, there was only peace. Here and there was “a valley of dry bones,” but the sand had washed the bones clean, the vultures had had their hour and flown away, the debris of deserted villages had been covered by desert storms, and the clear blue sky and ardent sun were over all, joyous and immaculate. Out in the desert there was only the life-giving air, the opal sands, the plaintive evening sky, the eager morning breeze, the desolated villages, and now and then in the vast expanse, stretching hundreds and hundreds of miles south, an oasis as a gem set in a cloth of faded gold.
It would have seemed to any natural man better to die in the desert than to live in Omdurman. So thought a fugitive who fled day and night through the Bahluda desert, into the sandy wastes, beyond whose utmost limits lay Wady Halfa, where the English were.
Macnamara had conquered. He had watched his chance when two of the Mulazimin were asleep, and the Khalifa was in a stupor of opium in the harem, had looted Abdullah's treasure, and carried the price of the camels and the pay of the guides to Mahommed Nafar the shoemaker.
His great sprawling camel, the best that Mahommed Nafar could buy of Ebn Mazar, the sheikh in the Gilif Hills, swung down the wind with a long, reaching stride, to the point where the sheikh would meet him, and send him on his way with a guide. If he reached the rendezvous safely, there was a fair chance of final escape.
Moonlight, and the sand swishing from under the velvet hoofs of the camel, the silence like a filmy cloak, sleep everywhere, save at the eyes of the fugitive. Hour after hour they sprawled down the waste, and for numberless hours they must go on and on, sleepless, tireless, alert, if the man was to be saved at all. As morning broke he turned his eye here and there, fearful of discovery and pursuit. Nothing. He was alone with the sky and the desert and his fate. Another two hours and he would be at the rendezvous, in the cover of the hills, where he would be safe for a moment at least. But he must keep ahead of all pursuit, for if Abdullah's people should get in front of him he would be cut off from all hope. There is little chance to run the blockade of the desert where a man may not hide, where there is neither water, nor feed, nor rest, once in a hundred miles or more!
For an hour his eyes were fixed, now on the desert behind him, whence pursuit should come, now on the golden-pink hills before him, where was sanctuary for a moment, at least. … Nothing in all the vast space but blue and grey-the sky and the sand, nothing that seemed of the world he had left; nothing save the rank smell of the camel, and the Arab song he sang to hasten the tired beast's footsteps. Mahommed Nafar had taught him the song, saying that it was as good to him as another camel on a long journey. His Arabic, touched off with the soft brogue of Erin, made a little shrill by weariness and peril, was not the Arabic of Ebn Mazar, but yet, under the spell, the camel's head ceased swaying nervously, the long neck stretched out bravely, and they came on together to the Gilif Hills, comrades in distress, gallant and unafraid. … Now the rider looked back less than before, for the hills were near, he was crossing a ridge which would hide him from sight for a few miles, and he kept his eyes on the opening in the range where a few dom-trees marked the rendezvous. His throat was dry, for before the night was half over he had drunk the little water he carried; but the Arab song still came from his lips:
“Doos ya lellee! Doos ya lellee! Tread, O joy of my life, tread lightly! Thy feet are the wings of a dove, And thy heart is of fire. On thy wounds I will pour the king's salve. I will hang On thy neck the long chain of wrought gold, When the gates of Bagdad are before us— Doos ya lellee! Doos ya lellee!”
He did not cease singing it until the camel had staggered in beneath the dom-trees where Ebn Mazar waited. Macnamara threw himself on the ground beside the prostrate camel which had carried him so well, and gasped, “Water!” He drank so long from Ebn Haraf's water-bag that the Arab took it from him. Then he lay on the sands hugging the ground close like a dog, till the sheikh roused him with the word that he must mount another camel, this time with a guide, a kinsman of his own, who must risk his life—at a price. Half the price was paid by Macnamara to the sheikh before they left the shade of the palm-trees, and, striking through the hills, emerged again into the desert farther north.
In the open waste the strain and the peril began again, but Mahmoud, though a boy in years, was a man in wisdom and a “brother of eagles” in endurance: and he was the second Arab who won Macnamara's heart.
It was Mahmoud's voice now that quavered over the heads of the camels and drove them on; it was his eye which watched the horizon. The hours went by, and no living thing appeared in the desert, save a small cloud of vultures, heavy from feasting on a camel dead in the waste, and a dark-brown snake flitting across their path. Nothing all day save these, and nothing all the sleepless night save a desert wolf stealing down the sands. Macnamara's eyes burned in his head with weariness, his body became numb, but Mahommed Mahmoud would allow no pause. They must get so far ahead the first two days that Abdullah's pursuers might not overtake them, he said. Beyond Dongola, at a place appointed, other camels would await them, if Mahmoud's tribesmen there kept faith.
For two days and nights Macnamara had not slept, for forty-six hours he had been constantly in the saddle, but Mahommed Mahmoud allowed him neither sleep nor rest.
Dongola came at last, lying far away on their right. With Dongola, fresh camels; and the desert flight began again. Hour after hour, and not a living thing; and then, at last, a group of three Arabs on camels going south, far over to their right. These suddenly turned and rode down on them.
“We must fight,” said Mahmoud; “for they see you are no Arab.”
“I'll take the one with the jibbeh,” said Macnamara coolly, with a pistol in his left hand and a sword in his right. “I'll take him first. Here's the tap off yer head, me darlin's!” he added as they turned and faced the dervishes.
“We must kill them all, or be killed,” said Mahmoud, as the dervishes suddenly stopped, and the one with the jibbeh called to Mahmoud:
“Whither do you fly with the white Egyptian?”
“If you come and see you will know, by the mercy of God!” answered Mahmoud.
The next instant the dervishes charged. Macnamara marked his man, and the man with the jibbeh fell from his camel. Mahmoud fired his carbine, missed, and closed with his enemy. Macnamara, late of the 7th Hussars, swung his Arab sword as though it were the regulation blade and he in sword practice at Aldershot, and catching the blade of his desert foe, saved his own neck and gave the chance of a fair hand-to-hand combat.
He met the swift strokes of the dervish with a cool certainty. His weariness passed from him; the joy of battle was on him. Now he took the offensive. Once or twice he circled slowly round the dervish, whose eyes blazed, whose mouth was foaming with fury; then he came on him with all the knowledge and the skill he had got in little Indian wars. He came on him, and the dervish fell, his head cut through like a cheese.
Then Macnamara turned, to see Mahmoud and the third dervish on the ground, struggling in each other's arms. He started forward, but before he could reach the two, Mahmoud jumped to his feet with a reeking knife, and waved it in the air.
“He was a kinsman, but he had to die,” said Mahmoud as they mounted. He turned towards the bodies, then looked at the camels flying down the desert towards Dongola.
“It is as God wills now,” he said. “Their tribesmen will follow when they see the camels. See, my camel is wounded!” he added, with a gasp.
IV.
Two days following, towards evening, two wounded men on foot trudged through the desert haggard and bent. The feet of one—an Arab—had on a pair of red slippers, the feet of the other were bare. Mahmoud and Macnamara were in a bad way. They were in very truth “walking against time.” Their tongues were thick in their mouths, their feet were lacerated and bleeding, they carried nothing now save their pistols and their swords, and a small bag of dates hanging at Macnamara's belt. Prepared for the worst, they trudged on with blind hope, eager to die fighting if they must die, rather than to perish of hunger and thirst in the desert. Another day, and they would be beyond the radius of the Khalifa's power: but would they see another day?
They thought that question answered, when, out of the evening pink and opal and the golden sand behind them, they saw three Arabs riding. The friends of the slain dervishes were come to take revenge. The two men looked at each other, but they did not try to speak. Macnamara took from his yelek a bag of gold and offered it to Mahmoud. It was the balance of the payment promised to Ebn Mazar. Mahmoud salaamed and shook his head, then in a thick voice said: “It is my life and thy life. If thou diest, I die. If thou livest, the gold is Ebn Mazar's. At Wady Halfa I will claim it, if it be the will of God.”
The words were thick and broken, but Macnamara understood him, and they turned and faced their pursuers, ready for life or death, intent to kill—Macnamara of the 7th Hussars and Mahommed Mahmoud of the Gilif Mountains. They were not aware that from out of the hollow a little farther north—behind them now—were riding six men from Wady Haifa on camels; and that these men quickened their speed when they saw the Arabs from Dongola riding down on the two. The Arabs from Dongola were nearer, but the men from Wady Halfa rode harder.
The Arabs from Dongola had almost reached their quarry when the two besieged ones heard the shouts of the friendlies from Wady Haifa behind them. There was no chance to look round; the time had come to fight. Their pistols cracked, and one man fell—Macnamara's. Then Mahmoud went down with a lance through his side.
And then the friendlies from Wady Haifa took their turn. They rode in upon the mêlée, where Macnamara, twice wounded, fought with his sword, vainly trying to speak at the same time—one man, delirious with thirst, dying with thirst and fatigue, fighting five like a demon.
Just as the friendlies took a hand in, Macnamara shouted, as he opened the head of a Baggara with a backward cut: "The 7th Hussars and Mary Malone!"
And as an Arab brought him down with a cut in the shoulder. Henry Withers of the Sick Horse Depôt, fighting with the friendlies, shouted: "’Ee's Macnamara, Give 'em 'ell!"
Which they did; and dragged Macnamara out of his mess, and Mahmoud with him.
Dicky Donovan's expedition for the rescue of Macnamara had succeeded, by the help of Ebn Mazar and Mahommed Mahmoud.
Mahommed Mahmoud lived to take back to Ebn Mazar the other hundred pounds of the gold Macnamara had looted from the Khalifa; and he also took something for himself from the British officers at Wady Halfa. For him nothing remained of the desperate journey but a couple of scars.
It was different with Macnamara. He had to take a longer journey still. He was not glad to do it, for he liked the look of the English faces round him, and he liked what they said to him. Also, he was young enough to “go a-roaming still,” as he said to Henry Withers. Besides, it sorely hurt his pride that no woman or child of his would be left behind to lament him. Still, when Henry told him he had to go, he took it like a man.
“'Ere, it ain't no use,” said Henry to him the day they got to Wady Halfa. “'Ere, old pal, it ain't no use. You 'ave to take your gruel, an' you 'ave to take it alone.”
Macnamara did not reply. He looked at him for a moment steadily, then he said: "It was you that sint thim after me, Hinry me b'y?"
"'Ow we went ain't the question, but 'ow you go, that is," answered Henry Withers, with a sense of duty on him.
"They towld me—Holgate an' the barionet towld me it was you, Hinry."
"'Ere, w'ere do yer think I could buy arf a dozen bloomin' camomiles? I tell yer, it was Donovan Pashar and the barionet—wich 'is name is Winton. But what I want to tell yer quiet and friendly, old pal, is that yer drawfted out—all the way out—for good!"
“'Sh—did ye think I wasn't knowin' it, me b'y?” Macnamara's face clouded. “Did ye think I wasn't knowin' it? Go an' lave me alone,” he added quickly.
Henry Withers went out pondering, for he was sure it was not mere dying that fretted Macnamara.
The next day the end of it all came. Henry Withers had pondered, and his mind was made up to do a certain thing. Towards evening he sat alone in the room where Macnamara lay asleep—almost his very last sleep. All at once Macnamara's eyes opened wide.
“Kitty, Kitty, me darlin',” he murmured vaguely. Then he saw Henry Withers.
“I'm dyin',” he said, breathing heavily. “Don't call anny one, Hinry,” he added brokenly. “Dyin's that aisy—aisy enough, but for wan thing.”
“'Ere, speak out, Pete.”
“Sure, there's no wan but you, Withers, not a wife nor a child av me own to say, 'Poor Peter Macnamara, he is gone!'”
“There's one,” said Henry Withers firmly. “There's one, old pal.”
“Who's that?” said Macnamara huskily.
“Kitty.”
“She's no wife,” said Macnamara, shaking his head. “Though she'd ha' been that, if it hadn't been for Mary Malone.”
“She's mine, an' she 'as the marriage lines,” said Henry Withers. “An' there's a kid—wich ain't mine—born six months after! 'Oo says no kid won't remark, 'Poor Peter Macnamara, 'ee is gone, wich 'e was my fader!”'
Macnamara trembled; the death-sweat dropped from his forehead as he raised himself up.
“Kitty—a kid av mine—and she married to Hinry Withers!—an' you saved me, too——!” Macnamara's eyes were wild.
Henry Withers took his hand.
“'Ere, it's all right, old pal,” he said cheerfully.
“What's the kid's name?” said Macnamara.
“Peter—same as yours.”
The voice was scarce above a breath. “Sure, I didn't know at all. An' you forgive me, Hinry darlin', you forgive me?”
“I've nothing to forgive,” said Henry Withers.
A smile lighted the blanched face of the dying man. “Give me love to the boy—to Peter Macnamara!” he said, and fell back with a smile on his face.
“I'd do it again. Wot's a lie so long as it does good?” said Henry Withers afterwards to Holgate the engineer. “But tell ’er, tell Kitty! no fear! I ain't no bloomin' fool. 'E's 'appy—that's enough. She'd cut me 'eart out, if she knowed I'd lied about 'er.”
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1932, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 91 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse