To-night she retired early, and George joined Ryanne's audience.
"It averages about nine cards to the play," he commented.
Ryanne turned over an ace. Ten or fifteen minutes went by. In the several attempts he had failed to score the full complement.
George laughed.
"What's in your mind?" cried Ryanne peevishly. "If it's anything worth telling, shoot it out, shoot it out!"
"I was thinking what I'd do to a club-steak just about now."
Ryanne stared beyond the fire. "A club-steak. Grilled mushrooms."
"Sauce Bordelaise. Artichokes."
"No. Asparagus, vinaigrette."
"What's the matter with endives?"
"That's so. Well, asparagus with butter-sauce."
"Grilled sweets, coffee, Benedictine, and cigars."
"And a magnum of '1900' to start off with!" Ryanne, with a sudden change of mood, scooped up the cards and flung them at George's head. "Do you want us both to become gibbering idiots?"
George ducked. He and the boys gathered in the fluttering paste-boards.
"You're right, Percival," Ryanne admitted humbly. "It will not hurt us to talk out loud, and we are all brooding too much. I am crazy for the want of tobacco. I'd trade the best dinner ever cooked for a decent cigar."
George put a hand reluctantly into his pocket. He brought forth, with extreme gentleness, a cigar, the wrapper of which was broken in many places. "I've saved this for days," he said. With his pen-knife he sawed it delicately into two equal parts, and gave one to Ryanne.
"You're a good fellow, Jones, and I've turned you a shabby trick. I shan't forget this bit of tobacco."
"It's the last we've got. The boys, you know, refuse a pull at the water-pipe; defiles 'em, they say. Funny beggars! And if they gave us tobacco, we shouldn't have paper or pipes."
"I always carry a pipe, but I lost it in the shuffle. I never looked upon smoking as a bad habit. I suppose it's because I was never caught before without it. And it is a bad habit, since it knocks up a chap this way for the lack of it. Where do you get your club-steaks in old N. Y.?"
And for an hour or more they solemnly discussed the cooking here and there upon the face of the globe.
By judicious inquiries, George ascertained that the trip to Bagdad, barring accidents, would take fully thirty-five days. The daily journeys proceeded uneventfully. Mahomed maintained a taciturn grimness. If he aimed at Ryanne at all, it was in trifling annoyances, such as forgetting to give him his rations unless he asked for them, or walking over the cards spread out upon the sand. Ryanne carried himself very well. Had he been alone, he would have broken loose against Mahomed; but he thought of the others, and restrained himself – some consideration was due them.
But into the blood of the two men there crept a petty irritability. They answered one another sharply, and often did not speak. Fortune alone seemed mild and gentle. Mahomed, since that night she had braved him, let her go and come as she pleased, nor once disturbed her. Had she shown weakness when most she needed courage, Mahomed might not have altered his plans. Admiration of courage is inherent in all peoples. So, without appreciating it, that moment had been a precious one, saving them all much unpleasantness.
By the twentieth day, the caravan was far into the Arabian desert, and early in the afternoon, they came upon a beautiful oasis, nestling like an emerald in a plaque of gold. So many days had passed since the beloved green of growing things had soothed their inflamed eyes, that the sight of this haven cheered them all mightily. Once under the shade of the palms, the trio picked up heart. Fortune sang a little, George told a funny story, and Ryanne wanted to know if they wouldn't take a hand at euchre. Indeed, that oasis was the turning-point of the crisis. Another week upon the dreary, profitless sands, and their spirits would have gone under completely.
This oasis was close to the regular camel-way, there being a larger oasis some twenty-odd miles to the north. But Mahomed felt safe at this distance, and decided to freshen up the caravan by a two-days' rest.
George immediately began to show Fortune little attentions. He fixed her saddle-bags, spread out her blanket, brought her some ripe dates of his own picking, insisted upon going to the well and drawing the water she was to drink. And oh! how sweet and cool that water was, after the gritty flat liquid they had been drinking! Just before sundown, he and Fortune set out upon a voyage of discovery; and Ryanne paused in his game of patience to watch them. There was more self-abnegation than bitterness in his eyes. Why not? If Fortune returned to her mother, sooner or later the thunderbolt would fall. Far better that she should fall in love with Jones than to go back to the overhanging shadow. A smile lifted the corners of his lips, a sad smile. Percival didn't look the part of a hero. His coat was variously split under the arms and across the shoulders; his trousers were ragged, and he walked in his cloth pads like a man who had gout in both feet. A beard covered his face, and the bare spots were blistered and peeling. But there was youth in Percival's eyes and youth in his heart, and surely the youth in hers must some day respond. She would know this young man; she would know that adversity could not crush him; that the promise of safety could not make a coward of him; that he was loyal and brave and honest. She would know in twenty days what it takes the average woman twenty years to learn, the manner of man who professed to love her. Ryanne left the game unfinished, stretched himself upon the ground with his face hidden in the crook of his arms. Oh, the bitter cup, the bitter cup!
Round the fire that night, the camel-boys got out their tom-toms and reeds, and the eerie music affected the white people hauntingly and mysteriously. For thousands of years, the high and low notes of the drums (hollow earthen-jars or large gourds covered with goat-skin at one end) and the thin, metallic wail of the reeds had echoed across the deserts, unchanged. The boys swayed to and fro to the rhythm, gradually working themselves into an ecstatic frenzy.
Fortune always remembered that night. Wrapped in her blanket, she had lain down just outside the circle, and had fallen into a doze. When the music stopped and the boys left the prisoners to themselves, George and Ryanne talked.
"I never forget faces," began George.
"No? That's a gift."
"And I have never forgotten yours. I was in doubt at first, but not now."
"I never met you till that night at the hotel."
"That's true. But you are Horace Wadsworth, all the same, the son of the millionaire-banker, the man I used to admire in the field."
"You still think I'm that chap?"
"I am sure of it. The first morning you gave yourself away."
"What did I say?" anxiously.
"You mumbled foot-ball phrases."
"Ah!" Ryanne was vastly relieved. He seemed to be thinking.
"Do you persist in denying it?"
"I might deny it, but I shan't. I'm Horace Wadsworth, all right. Fortune knows something about that chapter, but not all. Strikes you odd, eh?" continued Ryanne, iron in his voice. "Every opportunity in the world; and yet, here I am. How much do you know, I wonder?"
"You took some money from the bank, I think they said."
"Right-O! Wine, Percival; cards, wine and other things. Advice and warning went into one ear and out of the other. Always so, eh? You have heard of my brother, I dare say. Well, he wouldn't lend me two stamps were I to write for the undertaker to come and collect my remains. Beautiful history! I've been doing some tall thinking these lonely nights. Only the straight and narrow way pays. Be good, even if you are lonesome. When I get back, if I ever do, it's a new leaf for mine. Neither wine nor cards nor women."
Silence. The fire no longer blazed; it glowed.
"Who is Mrs. Chedsoye?" George finally began anew.
"First, how did you chance to make her acquaintance?"
"Some years ago, at Monte Carlo."
"And she borrowed a hundred and fifty pounds of you."
"Who told you that?" quickly.
"She did. She paid you back."
"Yes."
"And she hadn't intended to. You poor innocent!"
"Why do you call me that?"
"To lend money at Monte Carlo to a woman whose name you did not know at the time! Green, green as a paddy field! I'll tell you who she is, because you're bound to learn sooner or later. She is one of the most adroit smugglers of the age; jewels and rare laces. And never once has the secret-service been able to touch her. Her brother, the Major, assists her when he isn't fleecing tender lambs at all known games of chance. He's a card-sharp, one of the best of them. He tried to teach me, but I never could cheat a man at cards. Never makes any false moves, but waits for the quarry to offer itself. That poor child has always been wondering and wondering, but she never succeeded in finding out the truth. Brother and sister have made a handsome living, and many a time I have helped them out. There; you have me in the ring, too. But who cares? The father, so I understand, married Fortune's mother for love; she married him for his money, and he hadn't any. Drink and despair despatched him quickly enough. She is a remarkable woman, and if she had a heart, she would be the greatest of them all. She has as much heart as this beetle," as he filliped the green iridescent shell into the fire. "But, after all, she's lucky. It's a bad thing to have a heart, Percival, a bad thing. Some one is sure to come along and wring it, to jab it and stab it."
"The poor little girl!"
"Percival, I'm no fool. I've been watching you. Go in and win her; and God bless you both. She's not for me, she's not for me!"
"But what place have I in all this?" evasively.
"What do you mean by that?"
"Why did Mrs. Chedsoye pay me back, when her original intention had been not to pay me?"
"You'll find all that written in the book of fate, as Mahomed would say. More, I can not tell you."
"Will not?"
"Well, that phrase expresses it."
They both heard the sound. Fortune, her face white and drawn, stood immediately behind them.
CHAPTER XVI
MAHOMED RIDES ALONE
It was as if the stillness of the desert itself had encompassed the two men. In their ears the slither of the brittle palm-leaves against one another and the crackle of the fire were no longer sounds. They stared at Fortune with that speechless wonder of men who had come unexpectedly upon a wraith. What with the faint glow of the fire upon one side of her and the pallor of moonshine upon the other, she did indeed resemble man's conception of the spiritual.
Ryanne was first to pull himself together.
"Fortune, I am sorry; God knows I am. I'd have cut out my tongue rather than have hurt you. I thought you were asleep in the tent."
"Is it true?"
"Yes." Ryanne looked away.
"I had not quite expected this: the daughter of a thief."
"Oh, come now; don't look at it that way. Smuggling is altogether a different thing," protested Ryanne. (Women were uncertain; here she was, apparently the least agitated of the three.) "Why, hundreds of men and women, who regularly go to church, think nothing of beating Uncle Sam out of a few dollars. Here's Jones, for instance; he would have tried to smuggle in that rug. Isn't that right, Jones?"
"Of course!" cried George eagerly, though scarcely knowing what he said. "I'd have done it."
"And you wouldn't call Percival a thief," with a forced laugh. "It's like this, Fortune. Uncle Sam wants altogether too much rake-off. He doesn't give us a square deal; and so we even up the matter by trying to beat him. Scruples? Rot!"
"It is stealing," with quiet conviction.
"It isn't, either. Listen to me. Suppose I purchase a pearl necklace in Rome, and pay five-thousand for it. Uncle Sam will boost up the value more than one-half. And what for? To protect infant industries? Bally rot! We don't make pearls in the States; our oysters aren't educated up to it." His flippancy found no response in her. "Well, suppose I get that necklace through the customs without paying the duty. I make twenty-five hundred or so. And nobody is hurt. That's all your mother does."
"It is stealing," she reiterated.
How wan she looked! thought George.
"How can you make that stealing?" Ryanne was provoked.
"The law puts a duty upon such things; if you do not pay it, you steal. Oh, Horace, don't waste your time in specious arguments." She made a gesture, weariness personified. "It is stealing; all the arguments in the world can not change it into anything else. And how about my uncle who fleeces the lambs at cards, and how about my mother who knows and permits it?"
Ryanne had no plausible argument to offer against these queries.
"Is not my uncle a thief, and is not my mother an abettor? I do not know of anything so vile." Her figure grew less erect. To George's eyes, dimmed by the reflecting misery in hers, she drooped, as a flower exposed to sudden cold. "I think the thief in the night much honester than one who cheats at cards. A card-sharp; did you not call it that? Don't lie, Horace; it will only make me sad."
"I shan't lie any more, Fortune. All that you believe is true; and I would to God that it were otherwise. And I've been a partner in many of their exploits. But not at cards, Fortune; not at cards. I'm not that kind of a cheat."
"Thank you. I should have known some time, and perhaps only half a truth. Now I know all there is to know." She held her hands out before her and studied them. "I shall never go back."
"Good Lord! Fortune, you must. You'd be as helpless as a babe. What could you do without money and comfort?"
"I can become a clerk in a shop. It will be honest. Bread at Mentone would choke me;" and she choked a little then as she spoke.
"My dear Fortune," said Ryanne, calling into life that persuasive sweetness which upon occasions he could put into his tones, "have you ever thought how beautiful you are? No, I don't believe you have. Some ancestor of your father's has been reincarnated in you. You are without vanity and dishonesty; and I have found that these usually go together. Well, at Mentone you had a little experience with men. You were under protection then; protection it was of a sort. If you go out into the world alone, there will be no protection; and you will find that men are wolves generally, and that the sport of the chase is a woman. Must I make it plainer?"
"I understand," her chin once more resolute. "I shall become a clerk in a shop. Perhaps I can teach, or become a nurse. Whatever I do, I shall never go back to Mentone. And all men are not bad. You're not all bad yourself, Horace; and so far as I am concerned, I believe I might trust you anywhere."
"And God knows you could!" genuinely. "But I can't help you. If I had a sister or a woman relative, I could send you to her. But I have no one but my brother, and he's a worse scoundrel than I am. I at least work out in the open. He transacts his villainies behind closed doors."
George listened, sitting as motionless as a Buddhist idol. Why couldn't he think of something? Why couldn't he come to the aid of the woman he loved in this her hour of trial? A fine lover, forsooth! To sit there like a yokel, stupidly! Could he offer to lend her money? A thousand times, no! And he could not ask her to marry him; it would not have been fair to either. She would have misunderstood; she would have seen not love but pity, and refused him. Neither she nor Ryanne suffered more in spirit than he did at that moment.
"Jones, for God's sake, wake up and suggest something! You know lots of decent people. Can't you think of some one?"
But for this call George might have continued to grope in darkness. Instantly he saw a way. He jumped to his feet and seized her by the hands, boyishly.
"Fortune, Ryanne is right. I've found a way. Mr. Mortimer, the president of my firm, is an old man, kindly and lovable. He and his wife are childless. They'll take you. Why, it's as easy as talking."
She leaned back against the drawing of his hands. She was afraid that in his eagerness he was going to take her in his arms. She wondered why, of a sudden, she had become so weak. Slowly she withdrew her hands from his.
"I'll cable the moment we reach port," he said, as if reaching port under the existing conditions was a thing quite possible. "Will you go to them? Why, they will give you every care in the world. And they will love you as … as you ought to be loved!"
Ryanne turned away his head.
Fortune was too deeply absorbed by her misery to note how near George had come to committing himself. "Thank you, Mr. Jones; thank you. I am going to the tent. I am tired. And I am not so brave as you think I am."
"But will you?"
"I shall tell you when we reach port." And with that she fled to the tent.
Ryanne folded his arms and stared at the sand. George sat down and aimlessly hunted for the stub of the cigar he had dropped; a kind of reflex action.
The two men were all alone. The camel-boys were asleep. Mahomed had now ceased to bother about a guard.
"I can't see where she gets this ridiculous sense of honesty," said Ryanne gloomily.
George leaned over and laid his hand upon Ryanne's knee. "She gets it the same way I do, Ryanne – from here," touching his heart; "and she is right."
"I believe I've missed everything worth while, Percival. Till I met you I always had a sneaking idea that money made a man evil. The boot seems to be upon the other foot."
"Ryanne, you spoke about becoming honest, once you get out of this. Did you mean it?"
"I did, and still do."
"It may be that I can give you a lift. You worked in your father's bank. You know something about figures. I own two large fruit-farms in California. What do you say to a hundred and fifty a month to start with, and begin life over again?"
Ryanne got up and restlessly paced. Nonchalance had been beaten out of him; the mercurial humor which had once been so pleasant to excite, which had once given him foothold in such moments, was gone. He had only one feeling, a keen, biting, bitter shame. At length he stopped in front of George, who smiled and looked up expectantly.
"Jones, when you stick your finger into water and withdraw it, what happens? Nothing. Well, the man who gives me a benefit is sticking his finger into water. I'm just as unstable. How many promises have I made and broken! I mean, promises to myself. I don't know. This moment I swear to be good, and along comes a pack of cards or a bottle of wine, and back I slip. Would it be worth while to trust a man so damned weak as that? Look at me. I am six-foot two, normally a hundred and eighty pounds, no fat. I am as sound as a cocoanut. There isn't a boxer in the States I'm afraid of. I can ride, shoot, fence, fight; there isn't a game I can't take a creditable hand in. So much for that. There's the other side. Morally, I'm putty. When it's soft you can mold it any which way; when it's hard, it crumbles. Will you trust a man like that?"
"Yes. Out there you'll be away from temptation."
"Perhaps. Well, I accept. And if one day I'm missing, think kindly of the poor devil of an outcast who wanted to be good and couldn't be. I'm fagged. I'm going to turn in. Good night."
He picked up his blanket and saddle-bags and made his bed a dozen yards away.
George set his gaze at the fire, now falling in places and showing incandescent holes. A month ago, in the rut of commonplace, moving round in the oiled grooves of mediocrity. Bang! like a rocket. Why, never had those liars in the smoke-rooms recounted anything half so wild and strange as this adventure. Smugglers, card-sharps, an ancient rug, a caravan in the desert! He turned his head and looked long and earnestly at the little tent. Love, too; love that had put into his diffident heart the thrill and courage of a Bayard. Love! He saw her again as she stepped down from the carriage; in the dining-room at his side, leaning over the parapet; ineffably sweet, hauntingly sad. Would she accept the refuge he had offered? He knew that old Mortimer would take her without question. Would she accept the shelter of that kindly roof? She must! If she refused and went her own way into the world, he would lose her for ever. She must accept! He would plead with all the eloquence of his soul, for his own happiness, and mayhap hers. He rose, faced the tent, and, with a gesture not unlike that of the pagan in prayer, registered a vow that never should she want for protection, never should she want for the comforts of life. How he was going to keep such a vow was a question that did not enter his head. Somehow he was going to accomplish the feat.
What mattered the ragged beard upon his face, the ragged clothes upon his body, the tattered cloths upon his feet, the grotesque attitude and ensemble? The Lord of Life saw into his heart and understood. And who might say with what joy Pandora gazed upon this her work, knowing as she did what still remained within her casket?
From these heights, good occasionally for any man's soul, George came down abruptly and humanly to the prosaic question of where would he make his bed that night? To lie down at the north side of the fire meant a chill in the morning; the south side, the intermittent, acrid breath of the fire itself; so he threw down his blanket and bags east of the fire, wrapped himself up, and sank into slumber, light but dreamless.
What was that? He sat up, alert, straining his ears. How long had he been asleep? An hour by his watch. What had awakened him? Not a sound anywhere, yet something had startled him out of his sleep. He glanced over the camp. That bundle was Ryanne. He waited. Not a movement there. No sign of life among the camel-boys; and the flaps of the two tents were closed. Bah! Nerves, probably; and he would have lain down again had his gaze not roved out toward the desert. Something moved out there, upon the misty, moonlit space. He shaded his eyes from the fire, now but a heap of glowing embers. He got up, and shiver after shiver wrinkled his spine. Oh, no; it could not be a dream; he was awake. It was a living thing, that long, bobbing camel-train, coming directly toward the oasis, no doubt attracted by the firelight. Fascinated, incapable of movement, he watched the approach. Three white dots; and these grew and grew and at length became … pith-helmets! Pith-helmets! Who but white men wore pith-helmets in the desert? White men! The temporary paralysis left him. Crouching, he ran over to Ryanne and shook him.
"What…"
But George smothered the question with his hand. "Hush! For God's sake, make no noise! Get up and stand guard over Fortune's tent. There's a caravan outside, and I'm going out to meet it. Ryanne, Ryanne, there's a white man out there!"
George ran as fast as he could toward the incoming caravan. He met it two or three hundred yards away. The broken line of camels bobbed up and down oddly.
"Are you white men?" he called.
"Yes," said a deep, resonant voice. "And stop where you are; there's no hurry."
"Thank God!" cried George, at the verge of a breakdown.
"What the devil… Flanagan, here's a white man in a dress-suit! God save us!" The speaker laughed.
"Yes, a white man; and there's a white woman in the camp back there, a white woman! Great God, don't you understand? A white woman!" George clutched the man by the foot desperately. "A white woman!"
The man kicked George's hand away and slashed at his camel. "Flanagan, and you, Williams, get your guns in shape. This doesn't look good to me, twenty miles from the main gamelieh. I told you it was odd, that fire. Lively, now!"
George ran after them, staggering. Twice he fell headlong. But he laughed as he got up; and it wasn't exactly human laughter, either. When he reached camp he saw Mahomed and the three strangers, the latter with their rifles held menacingly. Fortune stood before the flap of her tent, bewildered at the turn in their affairs. Behind the leader of the new-comers was Ryanne, and he was talking rapidly.
"Well," the leader demanded of Mahomed, "what have you to say for yourself?"
"Nothing!"
"Take care! It wouldn't come hard to put a bullet into your ugly hide. You can't abduct white women these days, you beggar! Well, what have you to say?"
Mahomed folded his arms; his expression was calm and unafraid. But down in his heart the fires of hell were raging. If only he had brought his rifle from the tent; even a knife; and one mad moment if he died for it! And he had been gentle to the girl; he had withheld the lash from the men; he had not put into action a single plan arranged for their misery and humiliation! Truly his blood had turned to water, and he was worthy of death. The white man, always and ever the white man won in the end. To have come this far, and then to be cheated out of his revenge by chance! Kismet! There was but one thing left for him to do, and he did it. He spoke hurriedly to his head-boy. The boy without hesitation obeyed him. He ran to the racing-camel, applied a kick, flung on the saddle-bags, stuffed dates and dried fish and two water-bottles into them, and waited. Mahomed walked over to the animal and mounted.
"Stop!" The white man leveled his rifle. "Get down from there!"
Mahomed, as if he had not heard, kicked the camel with his heels. The beast lurched to its feet resentfully. Mahomed picked up the guiding-rope which served as a bridle, and struck the camel across the neck.
Click! went the hammer of the rifle, and Mahomed was at that moment very near death. He gave no heed.
"No, no!" cried Fortune, pushing up the barrel. "Let him go. He was kind to me, after his fashion."
Mahomed smiled. He had expected this, and that was why he had gone about the business unconcernedly.
"What do you say?" demanded the stranger of Ryanne.
Ryanne, having no love whatever for Mahomed, shrugged.
"Humph! And you?" to George.
"Oh, let him go."
"All right. Two to one. Off with you, then," to Mahomed. "But wait! What about these beggars of yours? What are you going to do with them?"
"They have been paid. They can go back."
The moment the camel felt the sand under his pads, he struck his gait eastward. And when the mists and shadows crept in behind him and his rider, that was the last any of them ever saw of Mahomed-El-Gebel, keeper of the Holy Yhiordes in the Pasha's palace at Bagdad.
"Now then," said the leader of the strange caravan, "my name is Ackermann, and mine is a carpet-caravan, in from Khuzistan, bound for Smyrna. How may I help you?"
"Take us as far as Damascus," answered Ryanne. "We can get on from there well enough."
"What's your name?" directly.
"Ryanne."
"And yours?"
"Fortune Chedsoye."
"Next?"
"Jones."
The humorous bruskness put a kind of spirit into them all, and they answered smilingly.
"Ryanne and Jones are familiar enough, but Chedsoye is a new one. Here, you!" whirling suddenly upon the boys who were pressing about. He volleyed some Arabic at them, and they dropped back. "Well, I've heard some strange yarns myself in my time, but this one beats them all. Shanghaied from Cairo! Humph! If some one had told me this, anywhere else but here, I'd have called him a liar. And you, Mr. Ryanne, went into Bagdad alone and got away with that Yhiordes! It must have been the devil's own of a job."
"It was," replied Ryanne laconically. He did not know this man Ackermann; he had never heard of him; but he recognized a born leader of men when he saw him. Gray-haired, lean, bearded, sharp of word, quick of action, rude; he saw in this carpet-hunter the same indomitable qualities of the ivory-seeker. "You did not stop at Bagdad?" he asked, after the swift inventory.
"No. I came direct. I always do," grimly. "Better turn in and sleep; we'll be on the way at dawn, sharp."
"Sleep?" Ryanne laughed.
"Sleep?" echoed George.
Fortune shook her head.
"Well, an hour to let the reaction wear away," said Ackermann. "But you've got to sleep. I'm boss now, and you won't find me an easy one," with a humorous glance at the girl.
"We are all very happy to be bossed by you," she said.
"Twenty days," Ackermann mused. "You're a plucky young woman. No hysterics?"
"Not even a sigh of discontent," put in George. "If it hadn't been for her pluck, we'd have gone to pieces just from worry. Are you Henry Ackermann, of the Oriental Company in Smyrna?"
"Yes; why?"
"I'm George P. A. Jones, of Mortimer & Jones, New York. I've heard of you; and God bless you for this night's work!"
"Mortimer & Jones? You don't say! Well, if this doesn't beat the Dutch! Why, if you're Robert E. Jones's boy, I'll sell you every carpet in the pack at cost." He laughed; and it was laughter good to hear, dry and harsh though it was. "Your dad was a fine gentleman, and one of the best judges of his time. You couldn't fool him a knot. He wrote me when you came into this world of sin and tribulation. Didn't they call you Percival Algernon, or something like that?"
"They did!" And George laughed, too.
"You're a sight. Any one sick? Got a medicine-chest aboard."
"No, only banged up and discouraged. I say, Mr. Ackermann, got an extra pipe or two and some 'baccy?"
"Flanagan, see what's in the chest."
Shortly Flanagan returned. He had half a dozen fresh corn-cob pipes and a thick bag of tobacco. George and Ryanne lighted up, about as near contentment as two men in their condition could possibly be.
Said Flanagan to Fortune: "Do you chew?"
Fortune looked horrified.
"Oh, I mean gum!" roared Flanagan.
No, Fortune did not possess that dubious accomplishment.
"Mighty handy when you're thirsty," Flanagan advised.
They built up the fire and sat round it cosily. They were all more or less happy, all except Fortune. So long as she had been a captive of Mahomed, she had forced the thought from her mind; but now it came back with a full measure of misery. Never, never would she return to Mentone, not even for the things that were rightfully hers. Where would she go and what would she do? She was without money, and the only thing she possessed of value was the Soudanese trinket Ryanne had forced upon her that day in the bazaars. She heard the men talking and laughing, but without sensing. No, she could not accept charity. She must fight out her battle all alone… The child of a thief: for never would her clear mind accept smuggling as other than thieving… Neither could she accept pity; and she stole a glance at George, as he blew clouds of smoke luxuriantly from his mouth and nose, his eyes half closed in ecstasy. How little it took to comfort a man!