第37章

After this we managed to get Leo, who was in a very poor way indeed, and only half-conscious, safely off to bed, supported by Job and that brave girl Ustane, to whom, had I not been afraid she might resent it, Iwould certainly have given a kiss for her splendid behavior in saving my dear boy's life at the risk of her own.But Ustane was not the sort of young person with whom one would care to take liberties unless one were perfectly certain that they would not be misunderstood, so I repressed my inclinations.Then, bruised and battered, but with a sense of safety in my breast to which I had for some days been a stranger, Icrept off to my own little sepulchre, not forgetting before I laid down in it to thank Providence from the bottom of my heart that it was not a sepulchre indeed, as, were it not for a merciful combination of events that I can only attribute to its protection, it would certainly have been for me that night.Few men have been nearer their end and yet escaped it than we were on that dreadful day.

I am a bad sleeper at the best of times, and my dreams that night, when at last I got to rest, were not of the pleasantest.The awful vision of poor Mahomed struggling to escape the red-hot pot would haunt them, and then in the background, as it were, a veiled form was always hovering, which, from time to time, seemed to draw the coverings from its body, revealing now the perfect shape of a lovely blooming woman, and now again the white bones of a grinning skeleton, and which, as it veiled and unveiled, uttered the mysterious and apparently meaningless sentence:

"That which is alive hath known death, and that which is dead yet can never die, for in the Circle of the Spirit life is naught and death is naught.Yea, all things live forever, though at times they sleep and are forgotten."The morning came at last, but when it came I found that I was too stiff and sore to rise.About seven Job arrived, limping terribly, and with his face the color of a rotten apple, and told me that Leo had slept fairly, but was very weak.Two hours afterwards Billali (Job called him "Billy-goat," to which indeed his white beard gave him some resemblance, or more familiarly "Billy") came too, bearing a lamp in his hand, his towering form reaching nearly to the roof of the little chamber.I pretended to be asleep, and through the cracks of my eyelids watched his sardonic but handsome old face.He fixed his hawk-like eyes upon me, and stroked his glorious white beard, which, by the way, would have been worth a hundred a year to any London barber as an advertisement.

"Ah!" I heard him mutter (Billali had a habit of muttering to himself), "he is uglyugly as the other is beautifula very Baboon; it was a good name.But Ilike the man.Strange now, at my age, that I should like a man.What says the proverb'Mistrust all men, and slay him whom thou mistrustest overmuch; and as for women, flee from them, for they are evil, and in the end will destroy thee.' It is a good proverb, especially the last part of it; I think it must have come down from the ancients.Nevertheless I like this Baboon, and I wonder where they taught him his tricks, and I trust that _i_ She _i_ will not bewitch him.

Poor Baboon! he must be wearied after that fight.Iwill go, lest I should awake him."

I waited till he had turned and was nearly through the entrance, walking softly on tiptoe, and then I called after him.

"My father," I said, "is it thou?"

"Yes, my son, it is I; but let me not disturb thee.Idid but come to see how thou didst fare, and to tell thee that those who, would have slain thee, my Baboon, are by now well on their road to _i_ She _i_._i_ She _i_ said that ye also were to come at once, but I fear ye cannot yet.""Nay," I said, "not till we have recovered a little;but have me borne out into the daylight, I pray thee, my father.I love not this place.""Ah, no," he answered, "it hath a sad air.I remember when I was a boy I found the body of a fair woman lying where thou liest now, yes, on that very bench.