The Triumph Of The Sun

Osman leapt back into al-Buq’s saddle and galloped out through the gates of the compound.

The jailers came for Penrod and dragged him to his cell. As previously, they chained him to the iron stake. But before they locked the door and left him, one of the jailers grinned at him. “Do you still have the strength to attack the great emir?”

“Nay,” Penrod whispered. “But perhaps I could still twist off the head of one of his chickens.” He showed the jailer his hands. The man slammed the door hurriedly and locked it.

Standing within his reach were three large pitchers of water in place of the usual one, and a meal that in comparison to those he had previously been offered was a banquet. Rather than having been thrown on to the bare floor, the food had been placed in a dish. Penrod was so exhausted that he could hardly chew, but he knew that if he were to survive he must eat. There was half a shoulder of roasted lamb, a lump of hard cheese and a few figs and dates. As he munched he wondered who had provided this fare, and if Osman Atalan had ordered it. If that was the case, what game was he playing? They let him rest on the following day, but on the next his jailers woke him before sunrise.

“Up, Abd Jiz! The emir presents his apologies. He cannot join you in the gazelle hunt this day. He has urgent business at the palace of the Mahdi. However, al-Noor, the famous aggagier, invites you to hunt with him.” They placed the rope round his neck before they removed his chains.

Penrod’s feet were so swollen and torn that standing on them was agony, but after the first few miles the pain receded and he ran on. They found not a single gazelle, although they scoured the desert for many leagues. By the time they returned the nails on three of Penrod’s toes had turned blue.

They hunted again, day after day. Osman Atalan did not accompany them and they killed no gazelle, but al-Noor ran him hard. The nails fell off his injured toes. Many times over the next few weeks Penrod thought that the infected wounds and scratches on both feet might turn gangrenous and he would lose his legs.

By the onset of the new moon that signalled the beginning of Ramadan, both his feet had healed and the soles were toughened and calloused as though he wore sandals. Only the sharpest thorns could pierce them. He was as lean as a whippet. The fat had been stripped from his frame, replaced with rubbery muscle, and he could keep pace with al-Noor’s horse.

Penrod had not seen Osman Atalan since the first unsuccessful gazelle hunt, but when he returned to Omdurman from the field on the third day of Ramadan, he was running strongly beside al-Noor’s stirrup. He looked like a desert Arab now: he was lean and bearded, sun-darkened and hard.

As they reached the outskirts of the holy city, al-Noor reined in. “There is something amiss,” he said. “Listen!” They could hear the drums beating and the ombeyas blaring. The music was not a battle hymn or the sound of rejoicing. It was a dirge. Then they heard salvoes of rifle fire, and al-Noor said, “It is bad news.”

A horseman galloped towards them, and they recognized another of

Osman Atalan’s aggagiers. “Woe upon us!” he shouted. “Our father has left us. He is dead. Oh, woe upon us all.”

“Is it the emir?” al-Noor yelled back. “Is Osman Atalan dead?”

“Nay! It is the Holy One, the Beloved of God, the light of our existence. Muhammad, the Mahdi, has been taken from us! We are children without a father.”

For weeks they waited at the bedside of the Mahdi. Chief among them was Khalifa Abdullahi. Then there were the Ashraf, the Mahdi’s brothers, uncles and cousins, and the emirs of the tribes: the Jaalin, the Hadendowa, the Beja and others. The Mahdi had no sons, so if he should die the succession was uncertain. There were only two women in his sickroom, both heavily veiled and sitting unobtrusively in a far corner. The first was his principal wife, Aisha. The second was the concubine al-Jamal. Not only was she his current favourite, but it was well known that she possessed great medical skills. Together these two women waited out the long and uncertain course of his disease.

Rebecca’s Abyssinian cure seemed highly effective during the first stages of the illness. She mixgd the powder with boiled water, and she and Aisha prevailed upon the Mahdi to drink copious draughts of it. As with Amber, his body was drained of fluids by the scouring of his bowels and the prolonged vomiting, but between them the two women were able to replace the liquid and mineral salts he had lost. It was fourteen days before the patient had started along the road to full recovery, and prayers of thanksgiving were held at every hour in the new mosque below his window.

When he could sit up and eat solid food, the city resounded to the beat of drums and volleys of rapturous rifle fire. The following day the Mahdi complained of insect bites. Like most of the other buildings in the city the palace was infested by fleas and lice, and his legs and arms were speckled with red swellings. They fumigated the room by burning branches of the turpentine bush in a brazier. However, the Mahdi scratched the flea bites, and soon a number were infected with the faeces of the vermin that had inflicted them. The temperature of his body soared, and he suffered alternating bouts of fever and chill. He would not eat. He was prostrated by nausea. The doctors thought that these symptoms were a complication of the cholera.

Then, on the sixteenth day, the characteristic rash of typhus fever covered most of his body. By this time he was in such a weakened condition that he sank rapidly. Near the end he asked the two women to help him sit up and, in a faint, unsteady voice, he addressed all the important men crowded around his angareb. “The Prophet Muhammad, who sits on the right hand of Allah, has come to me and he has told me that the Khalifa Abdullahi must be my successor on earth. Abdullahi is of me, and I am of him. As you have obeyed me and treated me, so must you obey and treat him. Allah is great and there is no other God but Allah.” He sagged back on the bed and never spoke again.

The men around the bed waited, but the tension in the crowded room was even more oppressive than the heat and the odour of fever and disease. The Ashraf whispered among themselves, and watched the Khalifa Abdullahi surreptitiously. They believed that their blood-tie to the Mahdi superseded all else: surely the right to take possession of the vacant seat of power belonged to one of their number. However, they knew that their claim was weakened by the last decree of the Mahdi, and by the sermon he had preached in the new mosque only weeks before he fell ill. Then he had reprimanded his relatives for their luxurious living, their open pursuit of wealth and pleasure.

“I have not created the Mahdiya for your benefit. You must give up your weak and wicked ways. Return to the principles of virtue I have taught you which are pleasing to Allah,” he had ranted, and the people remembered his words.

Even though the claim of the Ashraf to the Mahdiya was flawed, if one or two powerful emirs of the fighting tribes declared for them, Abdullahi would be sent to the execution grounds behind the mosque to meet his God and follow his Mahdi into the fields of Paradise.

Sitting quietly beside Aisha at the end of the room Rebecca had learnt enough of Dervish politics to be aware of the nuances and undercurrents that agitated the men. She drew aside the folds of her veil to ask Aisha if she might take a dish of water to bathe the fevered face of the dying Mahdi.

“Leave him be,” Aisha replied softly, “He is on his way to the arms of Allah who, even better than we can, will love and cherish him through all eternity.”

It was so hot and muggy in the room that Rebecca kept her veil open a little longer, making the most of a sluggish movement of air through the tiny windows across the room. She felt an alien gaze upon her, and flicked her eyes in its direction. The Emir Osman Atalan of the Beja was contemplating her bare face steadily, and though his dark eyes were implacable she knew he was looking at her as a woman, a young and beautiful woman who would soon be without a man. She could not look away: her eyes were held by a force beyond her control, as the compass needle is held by the lodestone.

Though it seemed an age, it was only a few moments before Abdullahi leant towards Osman Atalan and spoke to him so softly that his lips hardly moved. Osman turned his head to listen, and broke the spell that had existed between him and the young woman.

“How do you stand, noble Emir Atalan?” Abdullahi whispered, and his voice was so low that nobody else in the room could overhear.

“The east is mine,” Osman said.

“The east is yours,” Abdullahi agreed.

“The Hadendowa, the Jaalin and the Beja are my vassals.”

“They are your vassals,” Abdullahi acknowledged. “And you are mine?”

“There is one other small matter.” Osman procrastinated a moment longer, but Abdullahi was ahead of him.

“The woman with yellow hair?”

So he had seen the exchange of glances between Osman and al-Jamal. Osman nodded. Like the rest of them, Abdullahi lusted after this exotic creature with her pale golden hair, blue eyes and ivory skin, but to him she was not worth the price of an empire.

“She is yours,” Abdullahi promised.

“Then I am the vassal of Abdullahi, the successor of the Mahdi, and I will be as the targe on his shoulder and the blade in his right hand.”

Suddenly the Mahdi opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. He uttered a cry: “Oh! Allah!” Then the air rushed from his lungs. They covered his face with a white sheet, and the opposing factions faced each other across the cooling body.

The Ashraf stated their case, which was based on their holy blood. Against this the Khalifa Abdullahi’s case was manifest: he did not have the blood but he had the word and blessing of the Mahdi. Still it hung in the balance. The newborn empire teetered on the verge of civil war.

“Who declares for me?” asked the Khalifa Abdullahi.

Osman Atalan rose to his feet and looked steadily into the faces of the emirs of the tribes that traditionally owed him allegiance. One after the other they nodded. “I declare for the word and wish of the holy Mahdi, may Allah love him for ever!” said Osman. “I declare for the Khalifat Abdullahi.”

Every man in the room shouted in homage to the new ruler, the

Khalifat, of the Sudan, although the voices of the Ashraf were muted and lacked enthusiasm.

When Rebecca returned to the hut in the zenana, Amber greeted her ecstatically. They had been parted for all the long weeks of the Mahdi’s last illness. They had never been separated for so long before. They lay together on one angareb, hugging each other and talking. There was so much to tell.

Rebecca described the death of the Mahdi and the ascendancy of Abdullahi. “This is very dangerous for us, my darling. The Mahdi was hard and cruel, but we managed to inveigle ourselves into his favour.” Rebecca did not elaborate on how this had been achieved, but went on, “Now he is gone, we are at the mercy of this wicked man.”

“He will want you,” Amber said. She had grown up far ahead of her years while they had been in the clutches of the Dervish. She understood so much Rebecca was amazed by it. “You are so beautiful. He will want you just as the Mahdi did,” Amber repeated firmly. “We can be sure he will send for you within the next few days.”

“Hush, my sweet sister. Let us not go ahead to search for trouble. If trouble is coming it will find us soon enough.”

“Perhaps Captain Ballantyne will rescue us,” Amber said.

“Captain Ballantyne is far away by now.” Rebecca laughed. “He is probably at home in England, and has been these many months past.”

“No, he is not. He is here in Omdurman. Nazeera and I have seen him. All the town is talking about him. He was captured by that wicked man Osman Atalan. They keep him on a rope and make him run beside the emir’s horse like a dog.”

In the lamplight Amber’s eyes glistened with tears. “Oh, it is so cruel. He is such a fine gentleman.”

Rebecca was astonished and dismayed. Her brief interlude with Penrod seemed like a dream. So much had happened since he had deserted her that her memory of him had faded and her feelings towards him had been soured by resentment. Now it all came flooding back.

“Oh, I wish he had not come to Omdurman,” she blurted. “I wish he had stayed away, and that I never had to lay eyes on him again. If he is a prisoner of the Dervish, as we are, there is nothing he can do to help us. I don’t even want to think about him.”

Rebecca spent most of the following day bringing up to date the journal she had inherited from her father, describing in small, closely written script all that she had witnessed at the death bed of the Mahdi, then her own feelings at the news that Penrod Ballantyne had come back into her life.

From time to time her writing was disturbed by the shouts from the vast crowds in the mosque, which carried over the zenana wall. It seemed that the entire population of the country had gathered. Rebecca sent out Nazeera to investigate. Amber wanted to accompany her, but Rebecca forbade it. She would not let Amber out of her sight in these dangerous, uncertain times.

Nazeera returned in the middle of the afternoon. “All is well. The Mahdi has been buried, and the Khalifat has declared that he has become a saint and that his tomb is a sacred site. A great new mosque will be built over it.”

“But what is all the noise in the mosque? It has been going on all day.” Rebecca demanded.

“The new Khalifat has demanded that the entire population take the Beia, the oath of allegiance to him. The emirs, sheikhs and important men were first to do so. Even the Ashraf have made the oath. There are so many of the common people clamouring to swear that the mosque is overflowing. They are administering the oath to five hundred men at a time. They say that the Khalifat weeps like a widow in mourning for his Mahdi, but still the populace crowds around him. Everywhere I walked in the streets I heard the crowds shouting the praises of the Khalifat and declaring their promises to obey him as the Mahdi decreed. They say the oath-taking will go on for many more days and even weeks before all can be satisfied.”

And when it is done, the Khalifat will send for me, Rebecca thought, and her heart raced with panic and dread.

She was wrong. It did not take that long. Two days later AH Wad came to their hut. With him were six other men, all strangers to her. “You are to pack everything you own, and go with these men,” AH Wad told her. “This is ordered by the Khalifat Abdullahi, who is the light of the world, may he always please Allah.”

“Who are these men?” Rebecca eyed the strangers anxiously. “I do not know them.”

“They are aggagiers of the mighty Emir Osman Atalan. Nazeera and al-Zahra are to go with you.”

“But where are they taking us?”

“Into the harem. Now that the holy Mahdi is departed from us, he has become your new master.”

There was much work to be done. The Khalifat Abdullahi was a clever man. He understood that he had inherited a powerful, united empire, and that this had been built upon the religious and spiritual mysticism of the Mahdi and the political imperative of ridding the land of the Turk and the infidel. Now that the Mahdi was gone, the cement that held it together was dangerously weakened. The infidel would soon gather on his borders and the enemies within would emerge and gnaw away, like termites, the central pillars of his power. Not only was Abdullahi clever, he was also ruthless.

He called all the powerful men to him in a great conclave. Their numbers almost filled the new mosque. First he reminded them of the oath they had sworn only days before. Then he read to them the proclamation that the Mahdi had issued the previous year in which he had made abundantly clear the trust that he placed in Khalifa Abdullahi: “He is of me, and I am of him,” the Mahdi had written in his own hand. “Behave with all reverence to him, as you do to me. Submit to him as you submit to me. Believe in him as you believe in me. Rely on all he says, and never question his proceedings. All that he does is by the order or the permission of the Prophet Muhammad. If any man thinks evil or speaks evil of him, he will be destroyed. He has been given wisdom in all things. If he sentences a man to death, it is for the good of all of you.”

When they had listened earnestly to this proclamation he ordered the emirs and the Ashraf to write letters that were sent out with fast horsemen and camel-riders to the most remote corners of the empire to reassure and calm the population. He announced the creation of six new khalifs. In effect they would become his governors. His brothers were elevated to this rank, and so was Osman Atalan. The Khalif Osman was awarded a new green war-banner to go with the scarlet and black, and granted the honour of planting this at the gates of Abdallahi’s palace whenever he was in Omdurman. All the eastern tribes were placed under his banner. Thus Osman now commanded almost thirty thousand elite fighting men.

It took several months for all this to be accomplished, and when it was achieved Abdullahi invited Osman Atalan to hunt with him. They rode out into the desert. There are no eavesdroppers in those great empty spaces, and the two mighty men rode a mile ahead of their entourage. When they were alone Abdullahi disclosed his vision of the future.

“The Mahdiya was conceived in war and the flames of the jihad. In peace and complacency it will rust and disintegrate like a disused sword. Like spoilt children, the tribes will return to their old blood feuds, and the sheikhs will bicker among themselves like jealous women,” he told Osman. “In the Name of God, we lack not real enemies. The pagan and the infidel surround us. They gather like locust swarms at our borders. These enemies will ensure the unity and strength of our empire, for their threat gives reason for the jihad to continue. My empire must continue to expand or it will collapse upon itself.”

“You wisdom astounds me, mighty Abdullahi. I am like an innocent child beside you. You are my father and the father of the nation.” Osman knew the man well: he fed on flattery and adulation. Yet the scope of his vision impressed Osman. He realized that Abdullahi dreamed of creating an empire to rival that of the Sublime Porte of the Ottoman Empire in Constantinople.

“Osman Atalan, if you are a child, and Allah knows that you are not, you are a warlike child.” Abdullahi smiled. “I am sending Abdel Kerim with his jihad ia northwards to attack the Egyptians on the border. If he is victorious, the entire country of Egypt from the first cataract to the delta will rise up behind our jihad.”

Osman was silent as he considered this extraordinary proposal. He thought that Abdullahi had wildly overestimated the appeal of the Mahdiya to the Egyptian population. It was true that the majority were Islamic, but of a much milder persuasion than the Dervish. There was also a large Coptic Christian population in Egypt, which would oppose the Sudanese Mahdiya fanatically. Above all, there were the British. They had only recently taken over supreme power in that country, and would never relinquish it without a bitter fight. Osman knew the quality of these white men: he had fought them at Abu Klea where there had been a mere handful of them. He had heard that they were building up their armies in the north. Their battleships were anchored in Alexandria harbour. No army of the Khalifat could ever fight its way over those thousands of miles to reach the delta. Even if by some remote chance it did, then certain destruction awaited it there at the hands of the British. He was trying to find the diplomatic words to say this without incurring Abdullahi’s ire, when he saw the sly glint in his eye.

Then he realized that the proposal was not what it seemed. At last he saw through it: Abdullahi was not intent on the conquest and occupation of Egypt; rather, he was setting a snare to catch his enemies. The Ashraf were the main threat to his sovereignty: Abdel Kerim was the cousin of the Mahdi and one of the leaders of the Ashraf. He had under his control a large army, including a regiment of Nubians who were superb soldiers. If Abdel Kerim failed against the Egyptians, Abdullahi could accuse him of treachery and have him executed, or at least strip him of his rank and take the Ashraf army under his own command.

“What an inspired battle plan, great Khalifat!” Osman was sincerely impressed. He realized now that Abdullahi, by virtue of his cunning and ruthlessness, was indeed fitted to become the one ruler of the Sudan.

“As for you, Osman Atalan, I have a task also.”

“Lord, you know that I am your hunting dog,” Osman replied. “You have only to command me.”

“Then, my warlike child, my faithful hunting dog, you must win back for me the Disputed Lands.” This was the territory around Gondar, a huge tract of well-watered and fertile land that lay along the headwaters of the Atbara river, and stretched from Gallabat as far as the slopes of Mount Horrea. The Sudanese and the Abyssinian emperors had fought over this rich prize for a hundred years.

Osman considered the task. He looked for the pitfalls and snares that Abdullahi was setting for him, as he had done for Abdel Kerim, but found none. It would be a hard and difficult campaign, but not an impossible one. He had sufficient force to carry it out. The risks were acceptable. He knew he was a better general than the Abyssinian Emperor John. He would not be forced to campaign in the highlands where the advantage would pass to Emperor John. The prize was enormous, and the recaptured lands would become part of his own domain. The thought of moving his personal seat of government to Gondar, once he had captured the city, was attractive. Gondar had been the ancient capital of Abyssinia. There, he would be so far removed from Omdurman that he could establish virtual autonomy while paying lip service to Abdullahi.

“You do me great honour, exalted lord!” He accepted the command. “Before the rise of the new moon I shall leave Omdurman and travel up the Atbara river to reconnoitre the border and lay my battle plans.” He thought for a moment, then went on, “I shall need some pretence to travel along the border, and perhaps even visit Gondar. If great Abdullahi should write a letter of greetings and good wishes to the Emperor that he orders me to deliver to the Abyssinian governor at Gondar, I could secretly inspect the de fences of the city and the deployment of the enemy troops along the border.”

“May Allah go with you,” said Abdullahi gently. “You and I are as twin brothers, Osman Atalan. We think with one mind and strike with the same sword.”

In a flotilla of dhows, Osman Atalan and his entourage sailed up the Bahr El Azrek, the Blue Nile, as far as the small river town of Aligail. Here, one of the major tributaries joined the Nile. This was the Rahad river, but it was not navigable for more than a few leagues upstream. Osman offloaded his aggagiers, his women and slaves, almost three hundred souls. The horses had come up in the dhows from Omdurman. At Aligail he sent his aggagiers fifty miles in all directions to hire camels and camel-drivers from the local sheikhs. Once the caravan was assembled they moved eastward along the course of the Rahad. The caravan was strung out over several miles. Osman and a select band of his aggagiers rode well in advance of the main column. Penrod ran beside his horse with the rope round his neck.

The country became more wooded and pleasant as they moved slowly towards the mountains. There were a few small villages along the river, but these were well separated and the land between was populated with wild game and birds. They came upon rhinoceros and giraffe, buffalo, zebra and antelope of all descriptions. Osman hunted as they travelled. Some days were passed entirely in the pursuit of a particular species of antelope that had caught his attention. Spurning firearms, he and his aggagiers used the lance from horseback to bring down the quarry. There were wild rides and Penrod was able to keep up only by grabbing hold of Osman’s stirrup leather and letting himself be pulled along by al-Buq at full gallop, his feet touching the earth lightly every dozen paces or so. By this time he was in such superb physical condition that he delighted in the sport as much as any of the aggagiers. It was all that made his captivity bearable, for during the chase he felt free and vital once again.

Most nights Osman’s party slept in the open under the starry sky wherever the day’s hunting had taken them. They were usually far ahead of the main column. However, when they had killed some large animal, such as a giraffe or rhinoceros, they camped beside the carcass until the main body caught up with them. When the baggage train arrived, Osman’s enormous leather tent was erected in the centre of a zareba of thorn bush. It was the size of a large house, furnished with Persian carpets and cushions. The smaller but no less luxurious tents of his wives and concubines were placed around it.

Unlike the Mahdi and the Khalifat Abdullahi, Osman had limited himself to four wives, as decreed in the Koran. The number of his concubines was also modest, and although it fluctuated, it did not exceed twenty or thirty. On this expedition he had brought with him only his latest wife: she had not yet borne him a child and he needed to impregnate her. He had also restricted himself to seven of his most attractive concubines. Among this small group was the recently acquired white girl, al-Jamal. Until now Osman had been so occupied with affairs of state and politics that he had not yet gathered and tasted her fruits. He was in no hurry to do so: the anticipation of this consummation added greatly to his pleasure.

Penrod knew that Rebecca was with the expedition. He had seen her going aboard one of the dhows when they embarked at Omdurman. He had also seen her from a distance on four different occasions since the land journey had begun. Each time she had avoided looking in his direction, but Amber, who was with her, had waved and given him a saucy grin. Of course, there was never an opportunity to exchange a word: Atalan’s women were strictly guarded, while Penrod was kept on a leash during the day and locked in leg shackles each evening. At night he was confined to a guarded hut in the zareba of al-Noor and the other aggagiers.

Even though he was usually exhausted when he settled down on the sheepskin that served him as a mattress, he still had opportunity to think about Rebecca during the long nights. Once he had convinced himself that he loved her, that she was the main reason why he had defied Sir Charles Wilson’s strict orders and returned to Khartoum after the battle of Abu Klea. Since then his feelings towards her had become ambivalent. Of course, she was still his fellow countrywoman. Added to that she had surrendered her virginity to him, and for those reasons he had a duty and responsibility towards her. However, her virtue, which had initially made her so attractive to him, was now indelibly tarnished. Although she had not done so of her own free will, she had become the whore of not one but at least two other men. His strict code of honour would never permit him to marry another man’s whore, especially if that man was his blood enemy and of a dark, alien race.

Even if he were able to subdue these feelings and take her as his wife, what good could come of it? When they returned to England the full story of her defilement and degradation at the hands of the Dervish would not remain secret. English society was unforgiving. She would be branded for life as a scarlet woman. He could not present her to his friends and family. As a couple they would be ostracized. The regiment would never condone his choice of wife. He would be denied advancement and forced to resign his commission. His reputation and standing would be destroyed. He knew that in time he would come to resent and, later, even hate her.

As an ambitious man with a well-developed instinct for self-preservation and survival, he knew what his course of action must be. First, he would do his duty and rescue her. Then, painful as it might be, they must part company and he would return to the world from which she would be for ever excluded.

If he were to carry through this determination, and rescue Rebecca and her little sister, his first concern must be to find freedom himself. To achieve this he must gain the trust of Osman Atalan and his aggagiers, and lull any suspicions they harboured that the sole purpose of his miserable life was either to assassinate the Khalif or to escape from his clutches. Once he induced them to relax the conditions of his imprisonment he knew he would find his opportunity.

The closer they came to the Abyssinian border, the more wild and grand the land became. Magnificent savannahs gave way to forests of stately trees, interrupted by open glades of green grass. Twenty-five days after they had left the Nile they came upon the first herd of elephant. Closer to the towns and villages, these great animals had been ruthlessly pursued by ivory hunters and had been forced to withdraw deeper into the wilderness.

This herd was drinking and bathing at a pool in the Rahad river. The water was deep and broad, surrounded by fever trees with canary yellow trunks. They heard the squealing and splashing from a great distance, and manoeuvred downwind to climb the low kopje that overlooked the pool. From the summit they had a splendid view of the unsuspecting herd. It was made up of fifty or so cows with their offspring. There were three immature bulls with them, but they carried nondescript tusks.

One of Osman Atalan’s young warriors had not yet killed an elephant in the classical manner, on foot and armed only with the sword. Osman described the technique to him. It was a masterly dissertation.

Penrod listened with fascination. He had heard of this dangerous pastime in which the aggagiers earned their title, but had never seen its execution. Towards the end of his lecture, when Osman was pointing out the exact point on the back of the elephant’s hind leg where the sword stroke must be aimed to sever the tendon, it occurred to Penrod that Osman was addressing him as much as the Arab novice. He dismissed this as an idle thought. The herd finished drinking and wandered away through the grove of fever trees. Osman let them go unmolested. They were not worthy of his steel. He ordered the aggagiers to mount up and they rode back to the encampment.

Three days later they came across more elephant tracks. The aggagiers dismounted to study them, and saw that they had been made by a pair of bulls. The pad marks were fresh and one set was enormous. With animation they speculated among themselves as to the size and weight of ivory that the larger bull carried. Osman ordered them to remount and led them forward at a smart walk, so that the sound of galloping hoofs would not alarm and stampede the quarry.

“They drank at the river early this morning and now they are returning to the hills to take cover in the thickets of kit tar thorns where they feel secure,” Osman said. As they approached the hills they saw that the lower slopes were covered with the reptilian and venomous green thorn bush which contrasted with the brighter, fresher colour of the deciduous forest higher up the slope. They found the big bull standing alone on the edge of the thicket.

“The two bulls have parted company and gone their separate ways. This will make the hunt easier for us,” Osman said softly, and led them forward. The elephant was drowsing quietly, fanning his huge ears, rocking gently from one foot to the other. He was angled away from them and his head was lowered so that the thorn scrub reached to his lower lip and hid his tusks from view. The aggagiers reined in the horses to rest them before beginning the hunt. The breeze was steady and favourable and there was no reason to hurry. Penrod rested with the horses. He squatted on his haunches and drank from the waters king that al-Noor unstrapped from the pommel of his saddle and dropped to the ground beside him.

Suddenly the bull shook his head so that his ears clapped loudly, then reached out with his trunk to pluck a bunch of kit tar blossom. When he lifted his head to stuff the yellow flowers into the back of his throat, he revealed his tusks. They were perfectly matched, long and thick.

The hunters stirred and murmured in appreciation.

“This is a fine animal.”

“This is an honourable bull.”

They all looked to Osman Atalan to see whom he would choose for the honour, each hoping it would be himself.

“Al-Noor,” said Osman, and al-Noor pushed his mount forward eagerly, only to slump again in the saddle when his master went on, ‘slip the leash off Abd Jiz.”

Penrod came to his feet with surprise and al-Noor removed the rope from round his neck.

“It is too great an honour for an infidel slave,” Al-Noor whispered enviously.

Osman ignored his protest. He drew his sword and reversed it before he handed it to Penrod. “Kill this bull for me,” he ordered.

Penrod tested the balance and weight of the blade, cutting with it forehanded, then backhanded. He spun it in the air and caught it with his left hand, then cut and thrust again. He turned back to Osman, on al-Buq. Penrod was balanced on the balls of his bare feet; he held the sword in the guard position. His expression was grim. The blade was steady as if fixed in the jaws of a steel vice, pointed at the Khalif’s chest. Osman Atalan was unarmed and within the sweep of Penrod’s sword arm. Their eyes locked. The aggagiers urged their mounts forward and their hands rested on their sword hilts.

Penrod brought the sword slowly to his lips and kissed the flat of the blade. “It is a fine weapon,” he said.

“Use it wisely,” Osman advised him quietly.

Penrod turned away up the slope towards where the bull elephant stood. His bare feet made no sound on the stony earth and he stepped lightly. He felt the breeze chill the sweat on the back of his neck. He used its direction to guide him as he angled in behind the bull. It was an enormous creature: at the shoulder it stood over twice his own height.

Penrod had in mind every word of Osman’s advice as he studied the hind legs. He could clearly make out the tendons beneath the grey and riven hide. They were thicker than his thumb, and as the beast rocked gently they tightened and relaxed. He fastened his gaze on them and moved in quickly. Unexpectedly the bull humped his back and braced both back legs. From the pouch of loose skin between his back legs his penis dropped out and dangled until the tip almost touched the ground. It was longer than the span of Penrod’s outstretched arms and as thick as his forearm. The bull began to urinate, a powerful yellow stream that hosed out a shallow trench in the hard earth. The smell was rank and strong in the noonday heat.

Penrod closed in to within three yards of the bull’s haunches, and stood poised, the sword lifted. Then he ran forward and swung the blade, aiming two hand spans above the bull’s right heel. It sliced down to the bone, and with a rubbery snap the tendon parted. In the same movement Penrod stepped across to the other leg, reversed his blade and cut again. He saw the recoil of the severed tendon under the thick hide, and jumped back. The crippled bull squealed and dropped heavily to his hindquarters in a sitting position with both back legs paralysed.

Behind him Penrod heard the aggagiers shout in acclamation. He watched the jets of blood squirting from the twin wounds. The bull’s struggles to regain his feet aggravated the flow. It would not be long. The bull saw him and swung his head to face Penrod. He tried to drag himself forward, but his movements were awkward and ineffectual. Penrod retreated before him, watching until he was certain that the bull was mortally wounded, then turned and walked unhurriedly back towards the group of watching horsemen.

He had covered half the distance when another elephant squealed on his right flank. The sound was so unexpected that he wheeled to face it. All this time the second, younger bull had been standing nearby, also asleep on its feet. The kit tar bush had concealed it, but at the cries and struggles of its companion it burst out of the dense thorn bush at full charge, pugnaciously seeking a focus for its alarm and anger. It saw Penrod immediately and swung towards him, rolling back the tips of its huge ears and coiling its trunk against its chest in a threatening attitude. It trumpeted wildly. As it began its charge the ground trembled under its weight.

Penrod glanced around swiftly for some avenue of retreat. There was no point in running towards the group of horsemen. They could offer him no help and would gallop away before he reached them. Even to climb into one of the tall trees that grew nearby would be of no avail. Standing on its back legs the bull could reach even to the top branches to pull him down, or it could knock over the whole tree almost effortlessly. He thought of the ravine they had crossed a short distance back. It was so narrow and deep that he might crawl down into it beyond the bull’s reach. He whirled and ran. Faintly he heard the ribald shouts of the aggagiers.

“Run, Dung Beetle! Spread your wings and fly.”

“Pray to your Christian God, infidel!”

“Behold, the fields of Paradise lie before you.”

He heard the elephant crashing through the scrub behind him. Then he saw the opening of the ravine a hundred paces ahead. He was at the top of his own speed, his tempered, hardened legs driving so hard that the elephant was overhauling him only gradually. But he knew in his heart that it would catch him.

Then he heard pounding hoofs close behind him. He could not help glancing back. The bull was towering over him like a dark cliff, already uncoiling its trunk to swipe him down. The blow would smash bone.

Once he was on the ground the bull would kneel on him, crushing him against the hard earth until every bone in his body was smashed, then stabbing those long ivory shafts repeatedly through what remained of his body.

He tore away his gaze and looked ahead. Still the sound of hoofs crescendoed. Without slackening his run Penrod braced himself for the shattering blow that must surely come. Then the hoofs were alongside him, and he saw movement from the corner of his eye. The black bulk of al-Buq was overtaking him. Osman was leaning forward over his withers and pumping the reins. He had kicked his foot out of the near side stirrup, and the empty iron bumped against al-Buq’s flank.

“Come up, Abd Jiz!” Osman invited him. “I have not finished with you yet.”

With his right hand Penrod snatched the stirrup leather and twisted it round his wrist. Instantly he was jerked off his feet, and he allowed himself to be carried away by the racing stallion. As he swung on the end of the leather he looked back. The bull was still at full charge behind them, but losing ground to the stallion. At last he abandoned the chase and, still squealing with rage, turned aside into the kit tar thorn. As he ran off he ripped down branches from the trees in his path in frustration and hurled them high into the air. He vanished over the crest of the hill.

Osman reined in al-Buq, and Penrod released the stirrup leather. He still held the hilt of the sword in his left hand. Osman threw his leg over the stallion’s neck and dropped to the ground, landing like a cat in front of him. The other aggagiers were widely scattered and for the moment the two were alone. Osman held out his right hand. “You have no further need of that steel,” he said quietly.

Penrod glanced down at the sword. “It grieves me to give it up.” He reversed the weapon and slapped the hilt into Osman’s right hand.

“In God’s Name, you are a brave man, and an even wiser one,” Osman said, and brought out his left hand from behind his back. In it he held a fully cocked pistol. He thumbed the hammer and let it drop to half-cock, just as al-Noor rode up.

Al-Noor also jumped down and spontaneously embraced Penrod. “Two true strokes,” he applauded him. “No man could have done it cleaner.”

They did not have time to wait for the tusks to rot free so they chopped them out. It took until noon the next day to remove the long cone-shaped nerve from the cavity in the base of each. It was painstaking work: a slip of the blade would mar the ivory and reduce drastically its monetary and aesthetic value.

They loaded them on to the packhorses, and when they rode into the main encampment the drummers beat loud and the horns blared. The women, even the Khalif’s wife and his concubines, came out to watch. The men fired their rifles in the air, then crowded around the packhorse to marvel at the size of the tusks.

“This must have been the father and grandfather of many great bulls,” they told each other. Then they asked Osman Atalan, “Tell us, we beg you, exalted Khalif, which hunter brought down this mighty beast?”

“The one who was once known as Abd Jiz, but who has now become the aggagier Abadan Riji.”

From then on no man ever called Penrod Abd Jiz again. That derogatory name was lost and forgotten.

“Command us, Supreme One. What must we do with these tusks?”

“I shall keep one in my tent to remind me of this day’s sport. The other belongs to the aggagier who slew it.”

Early the following morning when Osman Atalan emerged from his tent he greeted his waiting aggagiers and discussed with them the usual business of the day, the route he intended to follow and the purpose and object of the day’s ride. Penrod squatted nearby with the horses, taking no part until Osman called to him, “Your style of dress brings your companions into disrepute.”

Penrod stood up in surprise and looked down at his shift. Although he had washed it whenever an opportunity presented itself, it was stained and worn. He had no needle or thread with which to mend it, and the cloth was ripped by thorn and branch, worn threadbare with hard use. “I have become accustomed to this uniform. It suits me well enough, great Atalan.”

“It suits me not at all,” said Osman, and clapped his hands. One of the house slaves came scurrying forward. He carried a folded garment. “Give it to Abadan Riji,” Osman ordered him, and he knelt before Penrod and proffered the bundle.

Penrod took it from him and shook it out. He saw that it was a clean, unworn jibba and with it were a pair of sandals of tanned camel hide.

“Put them on,” said Osman.

Penrod saw at once that the jibba was plain, not decorated with the ritual multi-coloured patches that had such powerful political and religious significance and constituted a Dervish uniform. He would not have donned the jibba if it had. He stripped off his rags and slipped it over his head. It fitted him remarkably well, as did the sandals. Somebody had observed his size shrewdly.

“That pleases me better,” said Osman, and swung up easily into al-Buq’s saddle. Penrod moved up to his usual position at the stirrup, but

Osman shook his head. “An aggagier is a horseman.” He clapped again, and a groom led a saddled horse from behind the tent. It was a sturdy roan gelding that Penrod had noticed in the herd of spare horses.

“Mount up!” Osman ordered him, and he went into the saddle, then followed the group of riders into the forest. Penrod was conscious of his inferior rank in the band, so he kept well back.

Over the first few miles he assessed the roan under him. The horse had a comfortable gait and showed no vices. He would not be particularly fast. He could never outrun any of the other aggagiers. If Penrod ever tried to escape, they would run him down quickly enough.

No great beauty, but a hard pounder with good temperament, he decided. It felt good to have a horse between his knees again. They rode on towards the blue mountains and the Abyssinian border. They were heading now directly for Gallabat, the last Dervish stronghold before the border. Though the mountains seemed close, they were still ten days’ ride ahead. Gradually they left the wilderness behind. There were no more signs of elephant or of the other great game animals. Soon they were passing through fields of dhurra and other cultivation and many small Sudanese villages. Then they started to climb through the foothills of the central massif.

When they off-saddled to recite the midday prayers, Osman Atalan always left the others and spread his carpet in a shaded place that overlooked the next green valley. After he had prayed he would usually eat alone, but that day he called Penrod, and indicated that he should sit facing him on the Persian carpet. “Break bread with me,” he invited. Al-Noor set out between them a dish of unleavened dhurra cakes and as ida and another dish of cold smoked antelope meat. He had hastily cut the throats of the animals before they died from the lance wounds that had brought them down so the flesh was hal al There was a smaller dish filled with coarse salt. Osman gave thanks to Allah and asked for His blessing on the food. Then he selected a morsel of smoked meat and, with his right hand, dipped it in to the salt. He leant forward and held it to Penrod’s lips.

Penrod hesitated. He was faced with a crucial decision. If he accepted food and salt from Osman’s hand it would constitute a pact between them. In the tradition of the tribes it would be equivalent to a parole. If thereafter he tried to escape, or if he committed any warlike or aggressive act against Osman, he would break his word of honour.

Swiftly he made his decision. I am a Christian, not a Muslim. Also, I am not a Beja. For me this is not a binding oath. He accepted the offering, chewed and swallowed, then picked out a scrap of venison,

salted it and offered it to Osman. The Khalif ate it and nodded his thanks.

They ate slowly, savouring the meal, and their easy conversation concerned the affairs that absorbed them both: war, hunting and the pursuit of arms. At first it was wide-ranging, then became more specific as Osman asked how the British trained their troops and what qualities their commanders looked for in their officers.

“Like you we are a warlike people. Most of our kings were warriors,” Penrod explained.

“This I have heard.” Osman nodded. “I have also seen with my own eyes how your people fight. Where do they learn these skills?”

“There are a people called the French, a neighbouring tribe. We have sport with them on occasion. There is always trouble in some part of the Empire that must be controlled. During periods of peace we have colleges, which have been established for many generations, to train our line and staff officers. Two are famous: the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, and the Royal Military College at Camberley.”

“We also have a school for our warriors.” Osman nodded. “We call it the desert.”

Penrod laughed, then agreed. “The battlefield is the best training school, but we have found the academic study of the art of war invaluable too. You see, most of the great generals of all the ages from Alexander to Wellington have written of their campaigns. There is much in which they are able to instruct us.”

When they rode on eastwards, Osman summoned Penrod to ride at his side and they continued their discussion animatedly. At times they became heated. Penrod was describing how Bonaparte had been unable to break the British square at Waterloo, and Osman had mocked him lightly. “We Arabs have not studied at any college, and yet unlike this Frenchman we broke your square at Abu Klea.”

Penrod rose to the bait, as Osman had intended he should. “You never broke us. You penetrated locally, but the square held and healed itself, then became a trap for your emir al-Salida, his sons and a thousand of his men.” They argued with the freedom of blood-brothers, but when their voices rose the aggagiers looked at each other uneasily and pressed close to be ready to intervene if their khalif was threatened. Osman waved them back. He reined in on the skyline of another ridge in the series that climbed like a giant staircase towards the mountains.

“Before us lies the land of the Abyssinians, our enemies for many centuries past. If you were my general and I asked you to seize the territory as far as Gondar, then hold it against the rage of Emperor

John, tell me how you, with your schoolroom studies, would accomplish this task.”

It was the kind of problem that Penrod had studied at the staff officer’s college. He took up the challenge with enthusiasm. “How many men will you give me?”

“Twenty-five thousand,” Osman replied.

“How many does the Emperor have to bring against me?”

“Maybe ten thousand at Gondar, but another three hundred thousand beyond the mountains at Aksum in the highlands.”

“They will have to descend through the high passes to bring me to battle, will they not? Then I must invest Gondar swiftly, and once the city is contained I will not pause to reduce it, but I will drive on hard to seal the mouths of the passes before the reinforcements can debouch into the open ground.”

They discussed this problem in detail, considering every possible response to the attack. Their discussion continued unflaggingly over the rest of the march to Gallabat. It was only when they came in sight of the town that it occurred to Penrod that it had not been an academic discussion, and that this journey was a prelude to the Dervish invasion of the kingdom of Abyssinia. Osman was calling on his training as a military adviser.

So the Mahdi’s jihad did not end at Khartoum, Penrod realized. Abdullahi knows that he must fight or he will languish and perish. Then he considered how much damage he had unwittingly done by giving encouragement and expert advice to Osman.

Even if the Dervish triumphs here at Gondar, Abdullahi will not be satisfied. He will turn his eyes on Eritrea, and he won’t stop there. He cannot stop. He will never stop until he is forcibly stopped. That will not happen until Abdullahi has aroused the wrath of the civilized world, he decided. In my own humble way I may have done something to help bring that about. He smiled coldly. There are exciting days ahead.

The Dervish governor of Gallabat was almost overcome by the honour of receiving the mighty Khalif Osman Atalan as a guest in his city. Immediately he vacated his own mud-brick palace and placed it at the disposal of the visitors. He moved into a much smaller, humbler building on the outskirts of the town.

Osman decided to rest in Gallabat until the cessation of the monsoon period, which would make travelling in the hilly country around Gondar almost impossible. This would entail a delay of several months,

but there was much to keep him occupied. He wanted to gather every scrap of information that might be of importance during the coming campaign. He sent out word that the local guides who had taken caravans up to Gondar through the high passes, and those warlike sheikhs who had raided the Ethiopian territories for cattle and slaves must come to him in Gallabat. They hastened to his bidding. He questioned them at great length, and recorded all they had to tell him. This information would comprise the bulk of his report to the Khalifat Abdullahi when he returned to Omdurman.

Osman recalled that the Mahdi had used the white concubine, al-Jamal, as a scribe and letter-writer. She was skilled in many languages. He ordered her to be present at these interrogations to write down the facts as they were revealed by the witnesses. He had seen little of al-Jamal since the beginning of the expedition for he had had marital obligations elsewhere. But Osman had barely settled into the governor’s palace before the older women slaves of the harem came to him with the news that his youngest wife had at last responded to his repeated attentions by missing her moon. They informed him that she had not flown her red banner for two months past.

Osman was pleased. His fourth wife was a niece of the Khalifat Abdullahi and therefore her pregnancy was of great political importance. Her name was Zamatta. Although she had a pretty face, she enjoyed her food and had thick thighs, a pudding-shaped belly and a pair of soft, cow-like udders. At this time in his life Osman Atalan demanded more from his favourites than a musical giggle and a willingness to lie back and open their legs. He had done what had to be done, and now he felt no inclination to spend more time in the company of the dull-witted Zamatta.

During the first few days of the interrogations al-Jamal had taken up an unobtrusive position behind the governor’s dais in the audience hall. On the third day Osman ordered her to move to a seat below the front of the dais. Here she sat cross-legged with her writing tablet on her lap, directly in his line of vision. He liked the quick movements of her slim, pale hands, and the texture of the cheek that was turned towards him as she wrote. As was fitting, she never raised her eyes from the parchment or looked at him directly. Once or twice while he was watching her a mysterious smile touched her lips, and this intrigued him. Seldom before in his life had he been concerned with what his women were thinking, but this one seemed different.

“Read back to me what you have written,” he ordered.

She lifted those strangely pale blue eyes to look at him, and his breath caught. She recited the evidence, without having to read it.

When she finished she leant towards him and dropped her voice so that he alone could hear. Trust him not, Great Lord,” she said. “He will give you little for your comfort.” They were the first words she had ever addressed to him.

Osman’s expression remained impassive, but he was thinking quickly. He had let it be known that he was conducting these enquiries to facilitate trade with the Abyssinians and plan his state visit to Gondar. Had this woman guessed his true intentions, or had she been informed? What grounds did she have for the warning she had just given him? He went on with his enquiries, but now he studied the man before him more intently.

He was an elderly caravan master, prosperous from the cloth of his robes, intelligent judging by the depth of his knowledge. In all other respects he was unremarkable. He had stated that he was of the tribe of Hadendowa. Yet he did not affect the patched jibba, and there was something alien in his accent and the manner of his speech. Osman considered challenging his identity, but discarded the idea. He looked for the other signs that al-Jamal must have noticed. The man leant forward to take the small brass cup of coffee from the tray that had been placed before him, and the neck opening of his robe gaped to show a flash of silver. It was a fleeting glimpse, but Osman recognized the ornately engraved Coptic Christian cross that hung on a chain round his neck.

He is Abyssinian, Osman realized. Why would he dissemble? Are they spying on us as we are on them? He smiled at the man. “What you have told me has been of great value. For this I thank you. When do you begin your next journey?”

“Great Khalif, three days hence I leave with two hundred camels laden with rock salt from the pans at al-Glosh.”

“What is your destination?”

“I travel to the new city of Addis Ababa in the hills, where I purpose to barter my salt for ingots of copper.”

“Go with God, good merchant.”

“Stay with God, mighty Atalan, and may angels guard your sleep.”

When the caravan owner left the audience hall, Osman gestured al-Noor to his side. When the aggagier knelt beside him he whispered, “The merchant is a spy. Kill him. Do it secretly and with cunning. None must learn who delivered the blow.”

“As you order, so shall it be done.”

The staff left the hall, each making an obeisance to the Khalif as he passed, but when al-Jamal rose to follow them Osman said curtly, “Sit by me. We shall talk a while.”

By this time Rebecca could act the part of a concubine. The Mahdi had taught her how to please an Arab master. Flattery was the one sure way to achieve it. She was always astonished at how they would accept the most extravagant hyperbole as nothing more than their due. While she spouted this nonsense she could efface herself and keep her true feelings hidden. She sat as he had ordered and, with her face veiled, waited for him to speak.

“Remove your veil,” he said. “I wish to see your face while we discourse.” She obeyed. He studied her features in silence for a while, then asked, “Why do you smile?”

“Because, my lord, I am happy to be in your presence. It gives me great pleasure to serve you.”

“Are all the women in your country like you?”

“We speak the same language, but none of us is like the others. Great Khalif, I am sure your women are no different.”

“Our women are all the same. The reason for their existence is to please their husbands.”

“Then they are fortunate, great Atalan, especially those who have the honour to belong to you.”

“How did you learn to read and write?”

“My lord, I was taught to do so from an early age.”

“Your father did not forbid this?”

“Nay, sweet master, he encouraged it.”

Osman shook his head with disapproval. “What of his wives? Did he allow them to indulge in such dangerous practice?”

“My father had one wife, and she was my mother. When she died he never remarried.”

“How many concubines?”

“None, exalted Khalif.”

“Then he must have been very poor, and of little standing in this world.”

“My father was the representative of our queen, and well beloved by her. I have a letter from Her Majesty that says so.”

“If the Queen truly loved him, she should have sent him a dozen wives to replace the old one.” Osman was fascinated by her replies, each of which led him immediately to another question. He found it difficult to imagine a land where it rained almost every day and was so cold that the raindrops turned to white salt before they hit the ground.

“What do the people drink? Why do they not die of thirst if the water turns to saltV

“My master, before very long the snow turns back to water.”

Osman looked up to the spade-shaped windows. “The sun has set.

You must follow me to my quarters. I wish to hear more of these wonders.”

Rebecca’s spirits quailed. Since she had been taken into his zenana, she had been able to avoid this confrontation. She smiled prettily, and covered her mouth with one hand as she had seen the other women do when overcome with shyness. “Again you fill my heart with joy, noble lord. To be with you is all in this life that gives me pleasure.”

The cooks brought up the evening meal to his quarters while Osman prayed alone on the terrace, which commanded a grand vista of distant mountains. As soon as he had completed the complicated ritual he dismissed the cooks, and ordered Rebecca to serve his food, but showed little interest in it. He took a few mouthfuls, then made her sit at his feet and eat from his leavings.

He continued to ply her with questions, and listened intently to her replies, hardly allowing her a chance to swallow before he asked the next question. Some time in the early hours of the morning she slumped over and fell into a deep sleep on the cushions from sheer exhaustion. When she awoke it was dawn and she was stretched out still fully dressed on his angareb. She wondered how she had got there, then remembered her dream of being a small girl again and her father carrying her up the stairs to bed. Had the Khalif carried her to bed? she wondered. If he had, that was some small miracle of condescension.

She heard excited shouts and galloping hoofs from below the terrace and rose from the bed, went to the window and looked down. In the courtyard Osman Atalan and some of his aggagiers were trying out a string of unbroken three-year-old horses that had been the gift of the governor of Gallabat. Penrod Ballantyne, almost indistinguishable from the Arabs, was up on a frisky bay colt that was bucking furiously around the yard with arched back and stiff legs. Osman and his other aggagiers shouted with laughter and offered ribald advice.

These days, whenever Rebecca laid eyes on Penrod her emotions were thrown into uproar. He was a heartbreaking reminder of that long-ago existence from which she had been snatched so untimely. Did she still love him, as she had once thought she did? She was not sure. Nothing was certain any longer. Except that the man who stood at the opposite end of the yard now ruled her destiny. She stared at Osman Atalan, and the despair she thought she had subdued returned in full force to overwhelm her like a dark wave.

She turned from the window and stared at the Webley revolver that lay on a side table across the room. She had seen the Khalif place it there before he went to his prayers the previous night. It had probably been taken from a dead British officer at Abu Klea or perhaps even looted at the sack of Khartoum.

She crossed the room and picked it up. She opened the action and saw that every chamber was fully loaded. She snapped it shut and turned to the mirror on the facing wall. She stared at her image as she cocked and lifted the pistol to point at her own temple. She stood like that trying to summon that last grain of determination to press the trigger.

Then she noticed in the mirror the initials engraved discreetly in the butt plate of the weapon. She lowered it and examined the inscription. “D. W. B. From S. I. B. With love,” she read. “David Wellington Benbrook from Sarah Isabel Benbrook.”

This had been her mother’s gift to her father. She hurled it from her and ran from the room, back to the zenama to find Nazeera, the only person in the world to whom she could turn.

Penrod sat the colt easily and let him work himself into a lather as he whipped from side to side with long elastic jumps, then stood on his hind legs and pawed at the sky. When the colt lost his balance and toppled backwards, the watching aggagiers shouted and al-Noor beat on his leather shield with his scabbard. But Penrod jumped clear, still holding the long rein. With a convulsive heave the colt came up again on all four legs, and before he could break away, Penrod sprang lightly on to his bare back. The colt stood on planted hoofs and shivered with outrage and frustration at being unable to rid himself of the unfamiliar weight.

“Open the gates!” Penrod shouted, to the captain of the city guard, then lashed the colt across the shoulder with the end of the reins. He sprang into startled flight, and Penrod turned him towards the open gates. They flew through and out into the lane, scattering chickens, dogs and children, skirted the souk, then ran out into the open country, still at full gallop. Almost an hour later horse and rider returned. Penrod walked the colt round the courtyard, turning him left and right, halting him, making him back up and stand at last. He threw one leg over his neck and dropped to the ground, stood at the colt’s head and stroked his sweat-drenched neck.

“What think you, Abadan Riji?” Osman Atalan called down from the terrace. “Is this a horse fit for an aggagier?”

“He is strong and swift, and he learns quickly,” Penrod responded.

“Then he is my gift to you,” said the Khalif.

Penrod was astonished at this mark of approval. It enhanced his status yet again. He lacked only a sword to be counted a full warrior of the Beja. He clenched his right fist and held it to his heart in a gesture of respect and gratitude. “I am not worthy of such liberality. I shall name him Ata min Khalif, the Gift of the Khalif.”

The following day Penrod loaded his ivory tusk on to one of the packhorses and carried it down to the souk. For an hour he sat drinking coffee and haggling with a trader from Suakin. In the end he sold the tusk for two hundred and fifty Maria Theresa dollars.

When he had entered the souk he had passed the stall of a fat Persian. In pride of place among the merchant’s wares a sword was laid out on a sheepskin fleece. Now Penrod came back to him. He examined all his other stock, showing particular interest in a matched necklace and earrings of polished amber, and avoided glancing at the sword. He haggled the price of the amber jewellery, and drank so many more cups of coffee that his bladder ached. In the end he struck a bargain at three Maria Theresas for the necklace. He bid the Persian farewell, and was leaving his stall when his eye fell at last upon the sword. The Persian smiled: he had known all along where Penrod’s true interest lay.

The slim curved blade was of the finest Damascus steel, unembellished by gold engravings and inscriptions for the graceful wavy patterns in the metal, caused by the strip forgings, were sufficient ornamentation. This was not a pretty bauble but a true killing blade. With the bright edge Penrod shaved a patch of hair off his forearm, then flicked his wrist. The steel sang like a crystal glass. It cost him seventy-five Maria Theresas, the equivalent price-of two pretty Galla slave girls.

Three days later Osman Atalan held an audience in the great tent that had been set up at the edge of the city. Penrod waited his turn among the supplicants, then knelt before the Khalif. “What more do you require of me, Abadan Riji?” Osman asked, and his tone was sharp and brittle as flint.

“I beg the mighty and noble Atalan to accept the gift of one he has honoured with his benevolence.” He placed the roll of sheepskin at Osman’s feet.

Osman unwrapped it and smiled when he saw the lovely weapon. “This is a fine gift and one that I accept with pleasure.” He handed the sword back to Penrod. “Carry it for me. If you must use it, use it wisely.”

Between them they had reached a compromise. The slave was still a slave, but accoutred like a warrior.

Rebecca sat at the Khalif s feet each day, recording the proceeds in the audience hall. Every evening she was sent back to the zenana in the governor’s palace. At first his indifference was a relief to her, but after three days it irked her. Had she given him offence by falling asleep in his presence, or bored and annoyed him with garrulousness, she wondered. Or am I just unattractive to him? It really does not matter what he feels. Only what happens to Amber and Nazeera, and of course to me also. Endlessly she and Nazeera discussed this predicament, which involved them all so intricately and intimately. Their well-being and even their lives were in the Khalifs hands. From hating the thought of allowing Osman Atalan to touch her, Rebecca began to fear that he would not do so.

Nazeera held up to her the example of his fourth wife Zamatta. “She was unable to hold his interest. And so, even though she is a relative of the Khalifat Abdullahi, he sent her back to Omdurman as soon as she had a babe in her belly. She may never see him again, and will probably pass the entire remainder of her life locked in the zenana. Beware, al-Jamal. If he rejects you, you may not be so fortunate as Zamatta. He might sell you, or give you to some old emir or sheikh who smells like a goat. And Amber what will he do with her? The Khalifat likes children, young children. He would welcome her into his own harem, if Osman Atalan offered her to him. You must strive to please him. I shall teach you how, for I have some small experience in these matters.”

With these threats as an incentive Rebecca determined to pay full attention to Nazeera’s advice and instruction.

The following afternoon Nazeera returned from a visit to the souk, and displayed her purchase: the tusk from the lower jaw of a hippopotamus. “We shall use this as a tool of instruction,” she informed Rebecca. “There is much demand for toys such as this among the women of the harem and zenana who do not see their husbands from one feast of Ramadan to the next. They call them the jinn of the angareb. The Khalif Atalan has different tastes from those of the Divine Mahdi. Your mouth and sweet lips alone will not suffice. He will require more of you than the Mahdi ever did.” She held up the tusk. “The Khalif will be this shape, but if he is so large you will be blessed indeed.” Nazeera went on to demonstrate her artistry.

Rebecca would never have dreamt that some of the behaviour Nazeera described between man and woman was possible, and she found herself becoming more interested in the subject than the cold contemplation of survival required. She thought about it a great deal at night before she slept, and if Amber had not been lying beside her on the same angareb she might have indulged in some preliminary experimentation with the ivory toy.

However, it seemed that Osman Atalan had lost interest in her even before he had pursued their relationship to its full potential. Eventually he finished questioning the last of the witnesses. He was about to leave the audience hall without having acknowledged her, when unexpectedly he turned to one of his viziers. “This evening the concubine al-Jamal will serve my evening meal. See to it.”

Although she kept her eyes downcast Rebecca felt a lift of intense relief, tempered by a stirring of trepidation. I must play the game that Nazeera has taught me to arouse his carnal passions, and make our lives secure, she thought, then tried to suppress the flutter of excitement in the pit of her stomach. It seemed, however, that this particular evening the Khalif’s passions were more conversational than concupiscent. He gave her little opportunity to try out her freshly acquired knowledge.

“I know that in your country the ruler is a woman,” he said, before he had finished eating.

“Yes. Victoria is our queen.”

“Does she rule firmly and are her laws strong?”

“She does not make the laws. The laws are made by Parliament.”

“Ah!” said the Khalif knowingly. “So Parliament is her husband, and he makes the laws. That is clever of him. He must be cunning and wise. I knew that a man must be behind it all. I should like to write a letter to Lord Parliament.”

“Parliament is not a single man. It is an assembly of the people.”

“The common people make the laws? Do you mean the cooks and grooms, the carpenters and masons, the beggars, fellahin and grave-diggers? Anyone of this riffraff can make a law? Surely this is not possible.”

Rebecca struggled for half of the rest of the night to explain an electoral system of government and the democratic process. When finally she succeeded Osman was appalled. “How can warriors like those Englishmen I have fought allow this obscenity to exist?” He was silent for a while as he paced the floor. Then he stopped in front of her, and his tone was diffident, as though he feared her answer. “Women also have this thing you call a vote?”

“Women do not have a voice. No woman may cast a vote,” she replied.

Osman placed his fists on his hips and laughed triumphantly. “Ha! Now at least I can still respect my enemies. At least your men keep control of their wives. But tell me, please. You say your ruler is a woman. Does she not have a voice, a vote?”

“I - I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“You Franks!” He clutched his head theatrically. “Are you mad? Or is it me alone?”

Rebecca found that she was beginning to enjoy herself. Like a pack of hunting dogs, their discussion ranged over wide territory and started some extraordinary game. This was like the unrestricted and open-ended discussions in which her father had indulged her. Beyond the open windows the cocks crowed at dawn while she was still trying to explain to him that the Atlantic Ocean was wider than the Nile or even, in God’s Name, Lake Tana. When he sent her back to the harem unmolested, her relief was tempered by a strange feeling of inadequacy.

Before she joined Amber on the mattress she held up the oil lamp and studied herself in the small mirror. Most men find me appealing, she reminded herself, and thought of Ryder Courtney and Penrod Ballantyne. So why does this savage treat me like another man? she wondered.

The next morning she watched with Amber and the rest of the women from the terrace of the harem as Osman Atalan rode out at the head of a band of his aggagiers on a hawking expedition along the eastern border.

“Look!” cried Amber. “There is Captain Ballantyne. They say that the Khalif gave him that horse. On him the jibba looks as dashing as a cavalry dolman. He is so handsome, would you not agree, Becky?”

Rebecca had barely noticed Penrod but she made a noncommittal sound while she followed with her eyes the elegant, exotic figure at the head of the cavalcade of horsemen. He is as fierce and dangerous as the falcon on his wrist, she thought.

Osman Atalan was gone from the city for almost ten days. When he returned he sent for Rebecca. He stood behind her shoulder as he directed her to draw a detailed map of the ground he had covered in his foray across the Abyssinian border. When she had completed it to his satisfaction, he dismissed her. Then he called her back from the door, “You will attend me after evening prayers. I want to discuss with you certain matters that interest me.”

When she found Nazeera in the harem, she whispered the news to her. “He wants me to go to him again this evening, Nazeera. What shall I do?”

Nazeera saw the colour in her cheeks. “I am sure you will think of something,” she said. “Now I will prepare your bath.” She poured a liberal measure of attar of roses and sandalwood essence into the pitchers of hot water, then rummaged through the chests to choose a robe fitting to the occasion from the wardrobe that the Mahdi had provided for Rebecca.

“You can see through it,” Amber protested, when Rebecca put it on. “With the lamp behind you it makes you seem nakedV She placed a powerful pejorative emphasis on the last word. “You will look like a belly-dancer!”

“I shall wear my woollen shawl over it, and keep myself covered throughout the dinner,” Rebecca reassured her.

As soon as they were alone in his quarters, the Khalif picked up the subject of their conversation of ten days previously, as though it had not been interrupted. “So this large water you call the ocean is alive. It moves backwards and forwards, and leaps up and down. Is that not what you told me?”

“Indeed, mighty Atalan, at times it is like a ravening beast with the strength of a thousand elephants. It can overwhelm ships fifty times larger than any that voyage on the Nile as though they were dried leaves.”

He looked into her eyes to discover if there was any truth at all in these improbable statements. All he found were points of light, like those in the depths of a sapphire. This diverted his train of thought and he took her chin and lifted it to gaze deeply into her eyes. His hands were strong and his fingers hard as bone from swordplay and from handling his hawks and horses.

He made her feel helpless and vulnerable. I must remember everything Nazeera has taught me. She felt her loins melt lubriciously. This might be the only opportunity he will ever give me.

“I shall send an expedition of a thousand of my most intrepid men to find this wild water and bring it back in large skins,” Osman announced. “I will pour it into the Nile to overwhelm the British steamers when next they sail upriver to attack us.”

She was touched by his naivety. Sometimes it was like talking to a small child. Not for the first time she felt an extraordinary tenderness towards him, which she had forcibly to suppress. This is no child. This is a shrewd, ruthless, arrogant tyrant. I am completely at his mercy. Why did that thought excite her, she wondered. But before she could decide the answer he made another disconcerting change of subject.

“But I have heard that their steamers are able to voyage on the land further and faster than the bravest horse. Is this true?”

“It is true, mighty Khalif. These carriages are different from the river steamers and are called steam locomotives.” It took her a few moments to rally her thoughts, and she described how she had journeyed from

London to Portsmouth in a single day, including a stop for refreshment. “That is a distance greater than from Metemma to Khartoum.” Her voice was husky and disturbed. He still held her chin, but now he stroked her cheek and touched a lock of her hair. She was surprised at the gentleness of his hard fingers, this savage warrior from the primal deserts.

“What unguent do you use to keep your skin and hair so soft?” he asked.

“This is how I was born.”

“It grows dark. Light the lamps so that I may see you more clearly.”

She remembered how Amber had disapproved of the transparency of the silk she wore. She slipped the light woollen shawl off her shoulder as she stood up, and tossed it over the table as she went to take a taper from the fire pot. She cupped the flame in her hands and carried it across to the lamp. It caught, then burnt brightly; the warm yellow light chased the shadows along the walls. She lingered there a little longer, trimming the wick until the flame was burning evenly. Her back was turned to him, but she was aware of the picture she made. I am acting like a harlot, she thought, then seemed to hear her father’s voice: “It’s an honourable profession. The oldest in the world.” She smiled in confusion as the ghost voice went on, delivering his often repeated advice to her: “Whatever you do, do it to the very best of your ability.” It was a blessing.

“I shall try, Daddy,” she replied inwardly, and at that she felt a touch. She had not heard Osman Atalan cross the room behind her. His hands on her shoulders were strong and steady. She smelt him. It was a good smell like a well-groomed horse or a cat. Muslim men of his rank bathed as many times in a day as an Englishman did in a month.

She stood submissively as his hands ran down from her shoulders, under her armpits, then reached in front of her to take her breasts. They filled each of his hands. He took her nipples and rolled them between his fingers, then pinched them until she gasped. The pressure was skilfully applied, just sufficient to startle and arouse her without inflicting pain. Then he pulled her back against him. It was some moments before she realized that he had shed his jibba and was now naked. Through the silk of her robe she could feel the hard muscular length of his body pressing against her back. Tentatively she pushed back with her buttocks, and found conclusive proof that he did not find her repellent. With Nazeera’s advice and instruction still sharp in her mind, Rebecca stood without moving as she appraised that which the Khalif was pressing against her. It seemed to be of similar shape to Nazeera’s hippo tusk, and it was certainly every bit as hard.

She turned slowly in his arms and looked down. It seems that I am to be blessed indeed, she thought. Like the ivory tusk, he was smooth and slightly curved. She touched him, then encompassed him with her hand. Her fingers were barely able to meet round his girth. She made the movements of her hand that Nazeera had demonstrated and felt him throb and leap in her grip.

“Great Khalif, in your manly attributes you are peerless and imperial.”

He took the word ‘imperial’ as a comparison to the Light of the World, Muhammad el Mahdi, who now sat at the right hand of Allah, and he was well pleased. “I am your stallion,” he said.

“And I am your filly, in awe of your strength and majesty. Treat me gently, I beg you, sweet lord.”

She continued to hold him. She expected him to pounce upon her as Ryder Courtney had done, but his restraint surprised, then titillated her. She kept her grip on him as he undressed her, and was still holding him as she fell back on his mattress. She attempted to direct him to her source, using both hands and coming up on her elbows so she could watch him disappear inside her. But he resisted her urging, and began to examine her as though she were indeed a thoroughbred filly, turning her this way and that, lifting each limb in turn, admiring and caressing them. It was at first flattering to be at the centre of his attention, but he was so unhurried and deliberate that she became impatient. She longed for the delicious sensation of being deeply invaded that she had last known with Ryder Courtney.

Still he lingered over her, taking his time so deliberately that she felt she must scream in her desperation. She had once owned a tabby cat named Butter. In her season Butter would yowl and sob to attract feline admirers. Rebecca understood that imperative now. How many thousand women has he known? she wondered. For him there is no urgency. He cares not at all that he is causing me such distress.

She tugged at him again with both hands. “I beg of you, great Atalan, lack of you is torture beyond my ability to endure. Please be merciful and end it now.”

“You asked me to treat you gently,” he reminded her, with a smile.

“I am a silly creature who does not know her own mind or nature. Forget what I have said, my lord. You know much better than I ever will what must be done. Make haste, I entreat you. I can wait no longer.” He did as she asked, and this time she could not forbear from screaming, louder and longer than Butter ever had. None of Osman Atalan’s other women had ever acknowledged his mastery in such a comprehensive vocal fashion. He was flattered and amused.

He did not dismiss her on rising, as was his habit, but kept her beside him as he ate his breakfast. Soon none of the other concubines he had brought with him from Omdurman were honoured by a summons to his private quarters. Rebecca took up almost permanent abode in them. She did not bore him, as the others were wont to do.

Once Osman Atalan had assembled all the expert first-hand information of the local guides and hunters and traders, he employed Rebecca’s artistic skills and penmanship to incorporate it into a large-scale map of the border and the disputed country immediately beyond, where he expected one day soon to do battle with the Ethiopians. He gave a tracing of this map to Penrod and sent him out on a scouting mission to check it against the terrain. He could not entrust this task to any of his aggagiers: for all their loyalty and dedication to him, none was more than barely literate and none possessed more than a vestige of map-reading skills. However, to exclude any from such an important expedition would be to afford them deep insult.

On the other hand he was still not certain how far out of his sight he could trust the slave Abadan Riji. He solved this delicate problem by selecting al-Noor and six other aggagiers to accompany him, ostensibly as his jailers but in reality as his bodyguard. Osman left them in no doubt that they should accede to the reasonable orders and directions of Abadan Riji in the accomplishment of the objects of the expedition. On the other hand if they returned to Gallabat without their charge, he would decapitate them.

After his scouts had left, Osman Atalan remained at Gallabat to review with the Dervish governor the state of his province, also to receive the Abyssinian emissaries from Aksum. Emperor John was anxious to discern the true reason for the presence of such an important Dervish on his borders. His ambassadors brought valuable gifts, and assurances of mutual peace and goodwill. Osman sent back a message that as soon as the season of the big rains ended he would travel to Gondar to meet the emperor.

Meanwhile the thunderstorms raged daily over the mountains, affording him ample opportunity for prolonged discourse with his new favourite.

Penrod’s expedition left Gallabat in the middle of the morning, just as soon as the rain of the previous night had blown over and the sun broken out between the high cumulus-nimbus cloud mountains. They were as lightly equipped as a tribal raiding party. Each man carried his own weapons and bedroll on the pommel of his saddle, while three pack mules brought up the rear with leather bags of provisions and cooking pots bouncing on their backs. Half a mile beyond the last buildings of the town they came upon a group of five women sitting beside the track. They were engaged in the endless feminine pastime of hairdressing. This was the equivalent of the aggagiers’ sword-honing, and filled their idle hours, of which there were many.

It was not possible for an Arab woman to arrange her hair alone: it was a social enterprise that involved all her close companions. The styling was elaborate and might take two or three days of patient, skilled creation. In the year that Amber had lived in the harem she had learnt the art so well that, with her nimble fingers and eye for detail, her skills were much in demand among the other women of Osman Atalan’s zenana; so much so that she was able to charge a fee of two or three Maria Theresas, depending on the labour required.

First, the hair had to be combed out. It was usually wiry, matted with congealed cosmetics and twisted into tight curls from its previous dressing. Amber used a long skewer to separate the strands. After that she employed a coarse wooden comb to bring about some order to the dense tresses. All these preliminaries might occupy a full day, which was enlivened by laughter and the exchange of juicy morsels of scandal and gossip.

Once it was possible to burrow down as far as the scalp, a hunt for trespassers was conducted in which everyone participated. The sport was accompanied by cries of triumph and shrieks of delight as the scurrying vermin were hunted down and crushed between the fingernails. Once the field had been cleared, Amber dressed the locks with a concoction of oil of roses, myrrh, dust of sandalwood, and powder of cloves and cassia mixed with mutton fat. Then the most delicate part of the operation took place. The hair was twisted into hundreds of tiny tight plaits and set with a liberal application of sticky gum arabic and dhurra paste. This was allowed to dry until it was stiff as toffee. On the final day each tiny plait was carefully unpicked with the long tortoise shell skewer, and allowed to stand on its own, free and proud, so the woman’s head appeared twice its normal size. The finished work was usually greeted with squeals of admiration and approbation. After ten days the entire process was repeated, affording Amber a steady income.

This morning Amber was so intent on her work that she was not aware of the approaching band of aggagiers until they were less than a hundred paces off. All present were now placed in an invidious situation. Here were five of the Khalif Osman Atalan’s women, unveiled and unchaperoned, except by each other, about to be confronted by a war party of the same Khalif’s trusted warriors. The correct and diplomatic behaviour would have been for both sides to ignore the presence of the other, and for the aggagiers to pass by as though they were as invisible as the breeze.

“Captain Ballantyne!” screamed Amber, and jumped to her feet, leaving the skewer sticking from her customer’s bushy curls. She flew down the road to meet him. None of the women knew quite what to do. So they giggled and did nothing. Al-Noor, at the head of the band of horsemen, was in a similar predicament. He scowled ferociously and glanced at Penrod. Penrod ignored both him and Amber and rode on expressionlessly. Al-Noor could think of no rules to cover this situation. Al-Zahra was still a child, not a woman. She was in sight of four other women, and six warriors. By no stretch of the imagination could she be in any danger of violation. In the event of any repercussions all the others present were in equal guilt. In the last resort, he could plead with the Khalif that Abadan Riji was the leader of the band and therefore responsible for any breach of etiquette or custom. He stared straight ahead and pretended that this was not happening.

“Penrod Ballantyne, this is the first opportunity I have had to speak to you since Khartoum. “Amber danced along beside Ata.

“And you know very well why.” Penrod spoke from the corner of his mouth. “You must go back to the other women or we shall both be in serious trouble.”

“The women think you very dashing. They would never tell on us.” They were speaking English, and Penrod was sure that none of the aggagiers understood a word of it.

“Then take a message to your sister. Tell Rebecca that I will seize the first opportunity to arrange your escape, and bring both of you to safety.”

“We know that you will never let us down.”

His expression softened: she was so pretty and winsome. “How are you, Amber? Are you bearing up?”

“I was very sick, but Rebecca and Nazeera saved me. I am well now.”

“I can see that. How is your sister?”

“She is also well.” Amber wished he would not keep harking back to Rebecca.

“I have a little gift for you,” said Penrod. Surreptitiously he slipped his hand into the saddlebag and found the amber necklace and earrings he had bought in the souk. He had wrapped them in a scrap of tanned sheepskin. He did not hand them to her directly but dropped them into the road, using his horse to conceal the move from the other aggagiers.

“Wait until we have gone before you pick it up,” he instructed her, ‘and don’t let the other women see you do it.” He pressed his heels into Ata’s flanks and rode on. Amber watched him out of sight. The eyes of the other women also followed the band of horsemen. Amber scooped up the small roll of sheepskin. She could barely contain herself until she was alone in the zenana before she opened it. When she did she was almost overcome with delight.

“It is the most beautiful gift I have ever had.” She showed it to Rebecca and Nazeera. “Do you think he really likes me, Becky?”

“It is a very handsome gift, darling,” Rebecca agreed, ‘and I am sure he likes you very much.” She chose her words carefully. “As does everyone who knows you.”

“I wish I could grow up soon. Then he would no longer treat me as a child,” said Amber wistfully.

Rebecca hugged her hard and felt her tears just below the surface. At times like this the peril of their situation and her sense of responsibility towards Amber was a burden almost too heavy for her to bear. If you do to this beautiful child what you did to me, Penrod Ballantyne, she vowed silently, I shall kill you with my bare hands and dance on your grave.

The principal object of the expedition into Abyssinian territory was to scout the three main mountain passes through which any army coming down from the highlands to the relief of Gondar would have to march.

The major combe in the mountain chain was the gorge of the Atbara river. Although the ground on the north bank of this river was precipitous and guarded by sheer rock cliffs, the slope of the south bank was less demanding. The ancient trade route ran along this side of the river. It took Penrod’s party almost three weeks to reach the mouth of the pass. It rained heavily almost every night, and during the day the rivers and streams were swollen, the ground sodden and swampy. The going was so heavy that on some days they covered less than ten miles. The aggagiers suffered cruelly from the wet and cold, to which they were unaccustomed.

Once they reached the Atbara gorge they climbed the slope of the south bank and about three hundred feet above the level of the river they came upon a saucer of ground that was hidden from any traveller on the caravan road below. A tiny stream ran down the middle of this hollow. Fresh green grass grew along both banks of the stream. They had driven the horses and mules hard, and Penrod decided to rest them for a few days while he observed any traffic coming down through the pass.

Each morning Penrod and al-Noor climbed to the lip of the saucer and took up a position in a patch of dense scrub just below the skyline. On the first two days they saw no sign of any human activity. The only living creatures were a pair of black eagles who had their eyrie in the cliffs above the north bank of the river: they were curious about the two men and came sailing along the hills on their immense wings to pass close over their heads as they crouched in the scrub. During the rest of the day they were often in sight, carrying hare and small antelope in their talons to their young in the shaggy pile of their nest.

Apart from these birds, the mountains seemed barren and deserted, the silence so complete that the mournful cry of the eagles carried clearly to them, although the birds were mere specks in the blue vault of cloud and sky.

Towards evening on the third day Penrod was roused from a drowsy reverie by another alien sound. At first he thought it might be a fall of rock rattling down the hillside. Then he was startled to hear the faint sound of human voices. He reached for his telescope and scanned the caravan road as far as the first bend of the pass. He saw nothing, but over the next half-hour the sounds grew louder, and when the echoes picked them up and accentuated them he was no longer in any doubt that a large caravan was threading its way down the pass. He lay on his belly and focused the spyglass on the head of the pass. Suddenly a pair of mules appeared in the field of his lens. They were heavily laden, followed immediately by another pair, then a third, until finally he counted a hundred and twenty beasts of burden and their drovers descending along the riverbank towards the vale of Gondar.

“A rich prize.” The sight had woken the bandit instincts in al-Noor and he watched the caravan hungrily. “Who can say what is in those sacks? Silver Maria Theresas? Gold sovereigns? Enough for each of us to afford a hundred camels and a dozen beautiful slave girls. Paradise enow!”

“Paradise indeed! Who could ask for more?” Penrod agreed, grim-faced. “If we lifted a finger to these good merchants, Abyssinia would be thrown into uproar. The plans of the exalted Khalif Atalan would be frustrated, and you and I would be sent to Paradise without our testicles with which to enjoy its pleasures. All things in their season, al-Noor.”

Slowly the leading mules of the column came closer until they were passing directly below Penrod’s lookout. Three men were bringing up the rear. Penrod studied them. One was a young lad, the second was short and pudgy and the third was a powerfully built rascal, who looked as if he could give good account of himself in a fracas. As they rode closer still, their features became more distinct, and Penrod almost let out an exclamation of surprise. He checked the outburst before it passed his lips. He did not want to arouse curiosity in al-Noor. He looked again more carefully and this time there could be no doubt. Ryder Courtney! His mind had difficulty accepting what his eyes had seen.

He moved the lens to the plump figure who rode at Ryder’s left side. Bacheet, the fat rogue!

Then he turned his lens to the third person, a stripling dressed in baggy crimson trousers, a bright green coat with long skirts and a wide-brimmed yellow hat that seemed to have been designed in anger or in a state of mental confusion. The boy was laughing at something Courtney had said. But the laughter had a decidedly feminine lilt, and Penrod started, then controlled himself. Saffron! Saffron Benbrook! It seemed impossible. He had believed she must have perished with her father in Khartoum. The thought had been too painful to contemplate squarely, and he had pushed it to the back of his mind. Now here she was, as lively as a grasshopper and pretty as a butterfly despite her outlandish garb.

“They are on their way down to Gondar from either Aksum or Addis Ababa.” Al-Noor gave his opinion morosely, still mourning the fortune in camels and nubile wenches that he was being forced to pass by.

“They are going into camp,” said Penrod, as the head of the long column turned aside from the route and drew up on a clear, level stretch of ground above the bank of the Atbara. He looked at the height of the sun. There would be at least another two hours of light by which to travel, but Ryder was setting up his camp. While the herders cut fodder from the riverbank and carried it back in bundles to feed the mules, the servants erected a large dining and sitting tent and two smaller sleeping tents. They set out a pair of folding chairs in front of the fire. Ryder Courtney travelled in comfort and style.

Just as the sun set and the light began to fade Penrod saw Ryder, accompanied by Saffron, who had divested herself of the yellow hat,

making his rounds of the camp and posting his sentries. Penrod made a careful note of the position of each guard. He had seen that they were armed with muzzle-loaders, and he could be certain these were filled with a mixture of pot-legs, rusted nails and assorted musket balls, all of which would be unpleasant missiles to receive in the belly at close range.

Penrod and al-Noor kept watch on Ryder’s camp until darkness obscured it, except for the area in front of the main tent, which was dimly lit by an oil lamp. Penrod observed that Saffron retired early to her small tent. Ryder remained by the fire smoking a cheroot, for which Penrod envied him. At last he threw the stub in to the embers, and went to his own bed. Penrod waited until the lamplight had been extinguished in both tents, then led al-Noor back to their own camp beside the stream. They built no fire and ate cold as ida and roast mutton. Firelight and the smell of smoke might warn unfriendly strangers of their presence.

Al-Noor had been quiet since they left the ridge, but now he spoke through a mouthful of cold food. “I have devised a plan,” he announced. “A plan that will make all of us rich.”

“Your wisdom will be received as cool rain by the desert. I wait in awe for you to impart it to me,” Penrod replied, with elaborate courtesy.

“There are twenty-two Abyssinians with the caravan. I have counted them, but they are fat traders and merchants. We are six, but we are the fiercest warriors in all of Sudan. We will go down in the night and kill them all. We will allow none to escape. Then we will bury their bodies and drive their mules back to Gallabat, and the Abyssinians will believe that they were devoured by the djinni of the mountains. We will hand all the treasure to our exalted lord Atalan, and from him we will win great preferment and riches.” Penrod was silent, until al-Noor insisted, “What think you of my plan?”

“I can see no vice in it. I think that you are a great and noble shufta,” Penrod replied.

Al-Noor was surprised but pleased to be called a bandit. To an aggagier of the Beja, the epithet was a compliment. “Then this very night in the time when all of them are asleep, we will go down to the camp and do this business. Are we agreed, Abadan Riji?”

“Once we have been given permission by the Emir Osman Atalan, may Allah love him for ever, we will murder these fat merchants and steal their wares.” Penrod nodded, and another long silence ensued.

Then al-Noor spoke again: “The mighty Emir Atalan, may Allah look upon him with the utmost favour, is in Gallabat two hundred leagues to the north. How will it be possible to solicit his permission?”

“That is indeed a difficulty.” Penrod agreed. “When you have found an answer to that question, we shall discuss your plan further. In the meantime, Mooman Digna will take the first watch. I shall take the midnight shift. You, Noor, will take the dawn watch. Perhaps then you will have time to consider a solution to our dilemma.” Al-Noor moved away in dignified silence, rolled himself in his sheepskin and, within a short while, emitted his first snore.

Penrod slept fitfully and was fully awake at Mooman Digna’s first touch on his shoulder, and his whisper, “It is time.”

Penrod allowed almost an hour for the aggagiers to settle again. He knew from experience that once they were cocooned in their sheepskins, they could not be easily roused to face the bitter mountain cold. He rose from his seat on the rock that overlooked the camp and, barefooted, moved silently up over the lip of the ridge. He approached Ryder’s camp with great caution. By this time there was a slice of crescent moon above the horizon, and the stars were bright enough for him to pick out the sentries. He avoided them without difficulty. As al-Noor had pointed out, they were not warriors. He crept up behind the rear wall of Ryder’s tent, and squatted beside it. He could hear Ryder breathing heavily on the other side of the canvas, only inches from his ear. He scratched on the canvas with his fingernails, and the sound of breathing was cut off immediately.

“Ryder,” Penrod whispered, “Ryder Courtney!”

He heard him stir, and ask in a sleepy whisper, “Who is that?”

“Ballantyne - Penrod Ballantyne.”

“Good God, man! What on earth are you doing here?” A wax vesta flared, then lamplight glowed and cast a shadow on the canvas. “Come inside!” Ryder urged him.

When Penrod stooped through the doorway, he was astounded. “Is it really you, Ballantyne?” You look like a wild tribesman. How did you get here?”

“I don’t have long to talk to you. I am a prisoner of the Dervish and under restraint. I would appreciate it if you waste no more time on famous questions.”

“I stand corrected.” Ryder’s friendly smile faded. “I shall listen to what you have to tell me.”

“I was captured after the fall of Khartoum. I had returned there in an attempt to discover the fate of those who had been unable to escape, especially David Benbrook and his family.”

“I can reassure you that Saffron is with me. We managed to get out of Khartoum on my steamer at the last minute. I have been trying to contact her family in England, to send her back to them, but these things take a great deal of time.”

“I know she is with you. I have been keeping watch on your camp. I saw her this evening.”

“I have been waiting to receive a message from you,” Ryder said. “Bacheet met your man, Yakub, in Omdurman. He told Yakub that Ras Hailu could carry messages between us.”

‘I have not seen Yakub since the day I was captured in Omdurman. He did not tell me anything about a meeting with Bacheet, or about this man Ras Hailu,” Penrod said grimly, “Yakub has disappeared. I think that he and his uncle, a rogue named Wad Hagma, betrayed me to the Dervish. I was able to deal with his uncle, and Yakub is next on my list of unfinished business.”

“You cannot trust any of these people,” Ryder agreed, ‘no matter how long you have known them and how well you have treated them.”

“So you know, then, that David Benbrook was killed in the sack of Khartoum, and that Rebecca and Amber were captured by the Dervish and handed over to the Mahdi:”

“Yes. Bacheet heard all this terrible news from Nazeera when he was looking for you in Omdurman. It is hard to imagine those two lovely young Englishwomen in the clutches of that dissipated maniac. I hope and pray that Amber is young enough to have been spared the worst, but Rebecca! The good Lord alone knows what she has suffered.”

“The Mahdi is dead. He died of cholera or some other disease. Nobody can be certain what carried him off.”

“I had not heard. I don’t suppose that will change anything. But what has become of Rebecca now?” Ryder’s concern was apparent. He made little effort to hide his feelings for Rebecca.

So Courtney has also had the benefit of Rebecca Benbrook’s liberal nature, Penrod thought cynically. She has had so much experience now that when she returns to London she can turn professional and ply her trade in Charing Cross Road. Although his pride was stung, it did not detract from the responsibility he felt for her safety, or for that of her little sister. Aloud he said, “When the Mahdi died the two sisters, Rebecca and Amber, were taken into the harem of the new Khalif Osman Atalan.” As he said it, there was a gasp behind him, and he turned quickly with his hand on the hilt of his dagger.

Saffron stood in the tent doorway. She was dressed in a man’s shirt, which was many times too large for her and hung well below her knees. She must been awakened by their voices, and had come from her own tent just in time to overhear his last words. The thin cloth of the shirt was artlessly revealing, so that Penrod could not help but notice her figure under it. She had changed a great deal from when he had last seen her. Her hips and bosom were swelling and her face had lost its childish roundness. She was already too mature to be sharing a camp in the remote African wilderness with a man.

“My sisters!” Her eyes were huge with sleep and shock. “First my father, and now my sisters. Ryder, you never told me that they were in the harem. You said they were safe. Is there never to be an end to this nightmare?”

“But, Saffron, they are safe. They have not been harmed.”

“How do you know that?” she demanded. “How can they be safe in the den of the pagan and the barbarian?”

“I spoke to Amber not two weeks ago,” Penrod intervened, to comfort her. “She and Rebecca are brave and are making the best of the hard blows that Fate has dealt them. It may seem impossible, but they are being treated … if not kindly then gently enough. The Dervish see them as valuable chattels, and they will want to preserve their worth.”

“But for how long? We have to do something. Especially for Amber. She is so sweet and sensitive. She is not strong like Rebecca and me. We have to rescue her.”

“That is why I am here,” Penrod told her. “It is the most incredible good fortune that I stumbled across your path. It must be one chance in a million. But now that we have met we can plan the rescue of your sisters.”

“Is that possible? Abyssinia, where we are now, is primitive and backward, but at least the people are Christians. The Sudan is hell on earth, ruled by demons. No white man or woman can remain there long with any chance of survival.”

“I will be going back,” said Penrod. “I can stay with you only a few minutes more, and then I am going to do what I can for your sisters. But if I am to get them out of the Sudan, I will need all your help.” Penrod turned back to Ryder. “Can I count on you?”

“I feel insulted that you need to ask,” said Ryder, stiffly.

It was amazing how quickly the two of them could give and take offence, Saffron thought angrily. In these dreadful circumstances why did they have to bicker and posture? Why were men always so pigheaded and arrogant? “Captain Ballantyne, we will help you,” she promised, ‘in every way within our power.”

Penrod noticed that she used the plural ‘we’ with the proprietary air of a wife. Penrod wondered if she had good reason to do so. The idea was repugnant: despite appearances Saffron was still a child. And a man like Ryder Courtney would never molest her.

“I can waste no more time,” he said. “I must return to my keepers, if my delicate position of trust with the Dervish is not to be compromised. We have much to plan. First, we must be able to contact each other and exchange news and plans. Tell me about Ras Hailu.”

“He was my friend and trading partner,” Ryder explained. “He used to travel to Omdurman in his dhow two or three times a year to trade with the Dervish. Tragically he fell foul of the Mahdi, who accused him of spying for Emperor John. He was executed in Omdurman. I have no other agents in the Sudan.”

“Well, we shall have to set up some new line of communication. Do not to try to contact me directly, for I am carefully watched at all times. You must try to get any message to Nazeera. She is allowed much freedom of movement. I shall try to arrange for a messenger of my own. There are other European captives in Omdurman. One of them is Rudolf Slatin, who was the Egyptian governor of Dongola. He is a resourceful fellow, and I suspect that he has ways of communicating with the outside world. If I am successful in finding a messenger, where will he be able to contact you?”

Quickly Ryder gave Penrod a list of his trading posts closest to the Sudanese border, and the names of his trusted agents there. “Any message they receive will be passed on to me but, as you can see, I am forced to travel great distances in pursuit of my business affairs. It may take an inordinate length of time to reach me.”

“Nothing happens swiftly in Africa,” Penrod agreed. “What I will ask from you, when the time comes, is that you make the travel arrangements to get us to the Abyssinian border as swiftly as possible. As soon as we leave Omdurman the entire Dervish army will be alerted, and will pursue us relentlessly.”

“The safety of Saffron’s sisters takes priority over everything else,” Ryder assured him.

“Where is the Intrepid this?” Penrod asked. “A steamer would be the fastest and surest method of getting us to the border. I should not like to attempt a flight on camels across the desert. The distances are enormous and the going is killing hard on the women.”

“Unfortunately I was obliged to sell the little steamer. Now that the upper reaches of both Niles have been closed to me by the Dervish, I have been forced to restrict my business activities to Abyssinia and Equatoria. The this was of no further use to me.”

“That is a great pity, but I shall devise another route.” Penrod stood up. “I can spend no more time with you. Before I go, there is one other important matter. The reason I am here is that Abdullahi is planning to attack Abyssinia, and seize all the disputed territories from Gondar to Mount Horca. He is going through all the diplomatic motions of lulling Emperor John with overtures of friendship and peace. But he will attack, probably after the big rains of next year. Osman Atalan will command the Dervish army of about thirty thousand. His first and main objective will be the passes here at Atbara gorge and Minkti. His purpose will be to prevent the Emperor coming down from the plateau with his main forces to intervene. I have been sent here by Atalan, may he rot in hell, to scout the terrain over which he will attack.”

“My God!” Ryder looked aghast. “The Emperor has no inkling of this.”

“Do you have access to him?” Penrod demanded.

“I do, yes. I know him well. I shall be seeing him immediately on my return to Entoto in three or four months’ time.”

“Then give him this warning.”

“I will depend on it. He will be grateful. I am sure he will offer his assistance in the rescue of Rebecca and Amber,” Ryder assured him. “But tell me, Ballantyne, why do you offer him this warning? What is it to you if the Dervish invade this country?”

“Need you ask? Your enemy is my enemy. The evil that is abroad can only be appreciated by those who have witnessed the sack of a city by the Dervish. You were at Khartoum?” Ryder nodded. “Emperor John is a Christian monarch. Abdullahi and his bloodthirsty maniacs must be stopped. Perhaps he will be able to put an end to these horrors.” Penrod turned to Saffron. “What message can I take back to Omdurman for your sisters?” he asked.

Her eyes glistened with tears in the lamplight as she struggled with her reply. “Tell them that I love them both with all my heart, and always shall. Tell them to be brave. We will help them. We shall all be together again soon. But whatever happens I still love them.”

“I will give them that message,” Penrod promised. “I am certain it will be of great comfort to them.” He turned back to Ryder, and held out his hand. “I think we would be wise to forget our personal differences and work together towards our common goal.”

“I agree with all my heart,” said Ryder, and shook the proffered hand.

Penrod stooped over the lamp and blew out the flame, then disappeared out into the night.

It was almost Christmas before Ryder Courtney returned to Entoto, the capital of Abyssinia and the city where he had his main trading compound.

“This must be the bleakest place in the world,” said Saffron, as they rode in through the city gates at the head of the caravan of mules, ‘even worse than Khartoum. Why can’t we live in Gondar, Ryder?”

“Because, Miss Saffron Benbrook, in the near future you will be living in the village of Bishop’s Sutton in Hampshire with your uncle Thomas and aunt Jane.”

“You are being tiresome again, Ryder,” she warned him. “I don’t want to live in England. I want to stay here with you.”

“I am flattered.” He touched the brim of his hat. “But, most unfortunately for all concerned, you cannot spend the rest of your life traipsing through the African bush like a gypsy. You have to go back to civilization and learn to be a lady. Besides, people are beginning to talk. You are a child no longer indeed, you are a big girl now.”

Ah, so you have noticed! Saffron thought complacently. I was beginning to think you, Ryder Courtney, were blind. Then, aloud, she reiterated the promise that was usually enough to satisfy him: “I will go back to England without any fuss when Rebecca and Amber have been rescued,” she spoke with a straight face and total insincerity, ‘and when my uncle Thomas promises to take care of us. He has not replied to your letters yet, and it’s over a year since you first wrote,” she reminded him smugly. “Now, let us speak of more interesting matters. How long will we stay in Entoto, and where will we travel to next?”

“I have business here that will take some time.”

“It’s so cold and windy in the mountains after the warmth of the lowlands, and there is no firewood for miles. All the trees have been cut down.”

“You must have been talking to Empress Miriam. She shares your opinion of Entoto. That’s why the Emperor is moving the capital to the hot springs at Addis Ababa. She is a nag, just like somebody else I know.”

“I am not a nag, but sometimes I know best,” said Saffron sweetly. “Even though you treat me like a baby.”

Despite her protests, the Courtney compound at Entoto was really very comfortable and welcoming, and she had managed, with the help of Bacheet, to make it even more so. She had even prevailed on Ryder to convert one of the old disused storerooms into a bedroom and studio for her exclusive use. It had not been easy. Ryder was reluctant to do anything that might give her reason to believe that her stay with him was permanent.

In order to procure a studio Saffron had enlisted the help of Lady Alice Packer, wife of the British ambassador to the court of the Emperor, who had taken her under her wing. Of course, her husband had known David Benbrook when they had both worked under Sir Evelyn Baring in the diplomatic agency in Cairo so she felt some responsibility for his orphaned daughter.

Alice was an amateur artist, and when she recognized Saffron’s natural talent in the same field she had assumed the role of teacher. She provided Saffron with paints, brushes and art paper brought in from Cairo in the diplomatic pouch, and taught her how to make her own canvas stretchers and charcoal sticks.

Within the time that they had known each other Saffron had almost outstripped her teacher. Her portfolio contained at least fifty lovingly wrought portraits of Ryder Courtney, most of which had been drawn without the subject’s knowledge, and she had completed numerous African landscapes and animal sketches, which astonished both Alice and Ryder with their maturity and virtuosity. Recently she had commenced a series of drawings and paintings from her memories of Khartoum and the horrors of the siege. They were beautiful but harrowing. Ryder realized that they were a form of catharsis for her, so he encouraged her to continue with them.

Two days after their return to Entoto, Saffron made her way up to the embassy to take tea with Alice. She showed her tutor all the Khartoum sketches, which they discussed at some length. Alice wept as she looked at them. “These are magnificent, my dear. I stand in awe of your skill.”

Saffron stopped repacking them and turned to Alice, her eyes full of tears.

“What is it, Saffron?” Alice asked kindly. Although she had been sworn to secrecy by Ryder, Saffron blurted out a full account of the nocturnal meeting with Penrod Ballantyne in the Atbara gorge. Alice promised her husband would inform Sir Evelyn Baring at once of the predicament of her sisters and also of Captain Ballantyne. Saffron was much cheered by this. Then, as she was leaving, she asked innocently, “If any mail for Mr. Courtney has arrived, I would be pleased to deliver it to him, and perhaps save one of your staff the trouble.”

Alice sent down to the chancery and a secretary returned with a stack of envelopes addressed to “Ryder Courtney Esq,” care of the British ambassador at Entoto, Abyssinia.

Saffron examined them as she walked through the town to the market. She recognized the handwriting on the first envelope. It was from Ryder’s nephew, Sean Courtney, at the newly discovered gold fields in the Transvaal Republic of South Africa. Saffron knew that Sean was importuning his uncle to invest several thousand pounds in a new mine. The next was a bill for goods supplied by the Army and Navy stores in London. The third envelope bore the seal of “The Office of the Government Assayer of the Cape of Good Hope’, and the fourth was the one that Saffron had been dreading. On the reverse was the inscription:

Sender:

The Reverend Thomas Benbrook

The Vicarage

Bishop’s Sutton

Hampshire. England

She placed the other letters in her pocket, but this one she hid down the front of her bodice. Saffron spent less time than usual in the market. She bought a large bunch of wild mountain gladioli from her favourite flower-seller. Then she came across a handsome silver hip-flask, which she decided might do for Ryder’s birthday. The price was beyond her meagre resources and she was in too much of a hurry to bargain with the merchant, so she promised to return the following day.

She hurried back to the compound and placed the flowers in the tub beside the kitchen door. Then she retired to the earth closet, which was discreetly tucked away in a corner behind the living quarters. She bolted the door, perched on the high seat and carefully split the seal on the fourth envelope. The single sheet was covered with writing on both sides, and dated seven months earlier. She read it avidly;

Dear Mr. Courtney,

My wife and I were saddened to receive your letter and to hear of the tragic murder of my brother David in Khartoum, and of the plight of his daughters. I understand your predicament and agree that it is beyond common decency for poor little Saffron to continue in your care, as you are a bachelor and there is no woman with you to see to her upbringing.

I have addressed enquiries to Sebastian Hardy Esquire, my dear brother’s solicitor, as you suggested I might. It pains me to have to inform you that the value of my brother’s few remaining assets are far exceeded by his substantial debts. Sarah, his deceased wife, was a lady of profligate disposition. None of my brother’s daughters will be due any inheritance from his estate.

My wife and I have discussed the possibility of taking Saffron into our home. However, we have nine children of our own to support on my stipend as a country vicar. Alas, we would not be able to feed and clothe the poor orphan. Fortunately I have been able to make adequate arrangements for her to be taken into a suitable institution where she will receive strict Christian instruction and an education that will be adequate for her later entry into respectable employment as governess to a child of the nobility.

If, in your Christian charity, you would be kind enough to provide her with passage to England and the train fare from the port of her arrival to the Bishop’s Sutton railway station, I would meet the poor child there and convey her to the institution. Unfortunately I am not able to contribute to her subsequent upkeep and maintenance.

I wait to hear from you.

Your brother in Christ,

Thomas Benbrook

Slowly, and with relish, Saffron tore the letter into shreds, and dropped each scrap separately into the malodorous pit beneath her. Then she pulled up her skirts and urinated vigorously on the remains of the offending document.

“A fitting end for such a nasty piece of rubbish,” she said to herself. “So much for an institution, Christian instruction and employment as a governess. I would prefer to walk back to Khartoum on my own bare feet.” She stood up and smoothed down her skirts. “Now I must hurry to see that Ryder’s dinner is ready, and to prepare his whisky peg for him.”

For Saffron, dinner-time was the highlight of her busy day. After she had discussed the roasting of the chicken and yams with the cook, she made certain there was hot water, soap and a clean towel on the washstand in Ryder’s bedroom, and a freshly ironed shirt folded on the bed. Next she laid the table, and arranged the flowers and candles. She would not trust one of the servants, even Bacheet, with such an important task. Then she unlocked the strongroom with the key that Ryder had entrusted to her and brought out the bottle of whisky, the crystal glass and the cedar wood cigar box. She set them on the table at the end of the veranda from where there would be a fine view of the sunset over the mountains.

She hurried to her own room and changed the clothes she had worn all day for a dress of her own design and creation. With the help of two Amharic women from the town, who were expert seamstresses, she had assembled her own abundant and unusual wardrobe. Lady Alice Packer and even Empress Miriam had complimented her on her style.

While she was still combing her hair she heard the clatter of hoofs in the courtyard as Ryder returned from the palace, where he had been in day-long discussions with the Emperor and various royal functionaries. She was waiting for him on the veranda when he emerged from his private quarters in the fresh shirt, his face glowing from the hot water and his wet hair combed back neatly. He is the most handsome man in the world, but his hair needs cutting again. I shall see to it tomorrow, she thought, as she held the whisky bottle over the glass. “Say when,” she invited.

‘ “When” is a four-letter word that should be uttered only with great deliberation after long reflection,” he replied. It was their private joke, and she poured him a liberal quantity. He tasted it and sighed. “Too good for human consumption! Such nectar should be drunk only by angels in their flight!” That completed the ritual. He sank down comfortably on to the leather cushions of his favourite chair. She sat opposite him and they watched the sun set in crimson splendour over the mountains.

“Now tell me what you did today,” Ryder said.

“You first,” she replied.

“I spent the morning in council with the Emperor and two of the generals of his army. I told them what Penrod Ballantyne had reported about the intentions of the Dervish to attack his country. Emperor John was grateful for this warning, and I think he has taken it seriously. I did not tell him of our plans to rescue your sisters. I thought it premature to do so. However, I believe that he will be helpful when we are in a position to act.”

Saffron sighed. “I do wish Captain Ballantyne would be in touch. It seems ages since he was.”

“He and your sisters have probably been travelling in the entourage of Osman Atalan. Penrod is so closely guarded that he might not have been able to find a reliable messenger. We must be patient.”

“So easy to say, so hard to do,” she said.

To distract her he went on with a recital of his day. “After I left the Emperor, I spent the rest of the day with his treasurer. He finally agreed to renew my licence to trade throughout the country for another year. The bribe he demanded was extortionate, but in all other respects quite reasonable.” He made her laugh he always made her laugh. “By the way, I forgot to mention that we are invited to the royal audience next Friday. Emperor John is to award me the Star of the Order of Solomon and Judea, in recognition of my services to the state. I think that the truth of the matter is that Empress Miriam wants to admire your latest high-fashion creation and persuaded her husband to invite us. Either that or she wants you to paint another portrait of her.”

“How exciting. Will the Star of Solomon be enormous and covered with lots of diamonds?”

“I am sure it will be gigantic, and perhaps not diamonds, but at least good-quality cut glass,” he said, and reached across the table to the small stack of mail that Saffron had brought down from the embassy. First he opened the bill from the Army and Navy Stores. “Good!” he exclaimed with pleasure. “They have my pair of number-ten rifles ready to ship out to me. I shall arrange payment tomorrow. They should arrive before our next journey to Equatoria where they will be most useful.” He set aside the bill and opened the letter from his nephew. “Sean is insistent that this new gold reef they have opened will persist to great depth. I do not have the same hopes for it. I believe that the reef will pinch out before long and leave him much poorer in pocket, if richer in experience. I am afraid I shall have to disabuse him of his hopes that I might provide any capital for his venture.” He picked up the letter with the Cape Colony postage stamp, and examined it. “I have been waiting for this!”

He opened the envelope, took out the assay report, scanned it anxiously, then smiled comfortably. “Excellent! Oh, so very good indeed.”

“Can you tell me?” Saffron asked.

“Certainly! Before we left for Gondar I sent a bag of rock samples to the assay office of the Cape Colony. The year before I was caught up in the siege of Khartoum I gathered them from the mountains a hundred miles east of Aksum while I was hunting mountain ny ala This is the report on those samples. Over thirty per cent copper, and just on twelve per cent silver. Even taking into account how remote the area is, and the difficulty of reaching it, it should be a highly profitable deposit. The only trouble is that I will have to go back to the royal treasurer to ask for a mining licence. He had my skin today, so tomorrow he will want my scalp and my teeth.”

“Sans teeth and sans hair, you might set a new fashion,” Saffron suggested, and he laughed.

As usual they sat late after dinner, talking endlessly. When Ryder climbed into his own bed he was still chuckling at her saucy Parthian shot. He blew out the lamp, and as he composed himself for sleep he realized he had not once thought of Rebecca that day.

When they entered the audience hall at the palace, Alice Packer summoned Saffron with a peremptory wave of her fan. “Will you forgive me, please, Ryder?”

“Off you go and do your duty.” Ryder watched her cross the room, as did almost everybody else. It was not only the yellow dress that was so striking. Youth has beauty inherent in its very nature. He realized he was staring and looked away quickly, hoping no one had noticed.

The rest of the company was made up of a number of Abyssinian princes and princesses, for the Emperor and the other members of the house of Memelik were prolific breeders. There were also generals and bishops, prosperous merchants and landowners, the entire corps of foreign diplomats, with a few foreign travellers and adventurers. The uniforms and costumes were so exotic and colourful that Saffron’s dress seemed restrained and understated by comparison.

Suddenly Ryder became aware that somebody in the throng was watching him. He looked about quickly, then started with surprise. The person who had purchased the Intrepid this from him was standing at the far corner of the room, but even at that range her Egyptian eyes above the veil had a hypnotic quality that could not be ignored. As soon as she had his attention she resumed her conversation with the elderly general beside her who was resplendent in an array of medals, jewelled orders and a cloak of leopard skins

“Peace and the blessing of Allah be upon you, Sitt Bakhita al-Masur,” Ryder greeted her in Arabic, as he came to her side.

“And upon you in equal measure, Effendi.” She made a graceful gesture in reply, touching her lips, then her heart with her fingertips.

“You are a long way from your home,” he remarked. Her eyes slanted upwards at the outer corners, and her dark gaze was direct, unusual in an Egyptian lady even of the highest rank, yet also mysterious. Some men would find her irresistible, but she was not to Ryder’s taste.

“I came by the river. In my fine new steamer it was not such a long journey from the first cataract.” Her voice was soft and musical.

“You encountered no let or hindrance along the way, I hope? These are troubled times and the this is well known.”

“She is the this no longer but the Durkhan Sama, the Wisdom of the Skies. Her appearance is much altered. No one would recognize her for what she once was. My boat-builders at Aswan have lavished much attention on her. I paid my dues to the men of God in Omdurman when I passed that pestilential if holy city.”

“Where is she moored now?” Ryder demanded eagerly.

Bakhita looked at him quizzically. “She is at Roseires.” That was the small port at the uppermost limit of navigation on the Blue Nile. It was still within the Sudan, but less than fifty miles from the Abyssinian border.

Ryder was pleased. “Is Jock McCrump still the engineer?” he asked.

Bakhita smiled. “He is captain also. I think it would be difficult to dislodge him from his berth.”

Ryder was even better pleased. Jock would be a useful man to have aboard if they were to use the steamer in any rescue attempt. “You seem interested in your old steamer, Effendi. Do I imagine it, or is it indeed so?”

Immediately Ryder was wary. He knew little about this woman, except that she was wealthy and had influence in high places in many countries. He had heard it said that even though she was a Muslim she was favourably inclined towards British interests in the Orient, and opposed to those of France and Germany. It was even rumoured that she was an agent of Sir Evelyn Baring in Cairo. If this was true she would not support the Dervish jihad in Omdurman, but it was best not to trust her.

“Indeed, Sitt Bakhita, I did have some idea of chartering the steamer from you for a short period but I am not sure that you would be agreeable to the proposition,” he said.

She dropped her voice when she spoke next: “General Ras Mengetti speaks only Amharic. Nevertheless we should continue this conversation in private. I know the whereabouts of your compound. May I call upon you there? Say, tomorrow an hour before noon?”

“I will be at your disposal.”

“I will have matters of mutual interest to relate to you,” she promised. Ryder bowed and moved away.

Saffron was still with Alice, but the moment Ryder was free she came across to join him. “Who was the fat Arab lady?” she asked tartly. “She was making huge cow eyes at you.”

“She may be useful to us in uniting us with friends and family.”

Saffron considered this, then nodded. “In that case I forgive her.”

Ryder was uncertain as to how Bakhita had transgressed, but before he made the mistake of pursuing the subject, a flourish of trumpets announced the entrance of the Emperor and his wife.

Much later that evening when they returned to the compound, Saffron brought Ryder his slippers and poured him a nightcap. Then she unpinned the Star of Solomon from his lapel and examined it in the lamplight. “I am certain they are real diamonds,” she said.

“If you are correct then we are probably millionaires.” He chuckled, and noted that he had picked up the habit from her of using the plural pronoun. It seemed somehow to constitute a formal link between them. He wondered if that was wise, and concluded that perhaps it was not. In future I shall be more circumspect, he promised himself.

The following day Bakhita arrived at the compound in a closed coach drawn by four mules. Ryder recognized the coach and driver and knew that they had probably been put at her disposal by the Emperor. This was further proof, if any were needed, of Bakhita al-Masur’s influence and importance. Behind the coach half a dozen armed bodyguards followed closely. They waited in the courtyard while Ryder ushered Bakhita into the main room, where Saffron served coffee and little honey cakes.

When she stood up and excused herself, Bakhita held up her hand. “Please do not go, Sitt Benbrook. What I have to say concerns you above all others.” Saffron sank back on the sofa, and Bakhita went on, “I have come to Entoto for the main purpose of meeting you and Mr. Courtney. The three of us have affairs of great concern that are all linked in Omdurman. I have a friend to whom I owe complete loyalty, and close members of your family are held in captivity by the Dervish. I am certain that you are as anxious to procure their release as I am. To this end I wanted to pledge to you all the assistance and support of which I am capable.” Ryder and Saffron stared at her in silent astonishment. “Yes, I know that your elder sister and your twin are in the harem of the Emir Osman Atalan. My friend is the slave of the same man.”

“May we know the name of your friend?” Ryder asked cautiously.

Bakhita did not answer at once then said, “My English is not good, but I think we must use your language for very few people in Abyssinia understand it.”

“Your English is very good, Sitt Bakhita,” said Saffron. Her latent antagonism towards the other woman had undergone a sea-change.

“You are kind, but it is not so.” She smiled at Saffron, then turned back to Ryder. “I could refuse to answer your question, but I want us to be honest with each other. I am sure that my friend is well known to both of you. He is Captain Penrod Ballantyne of the 10th Hussars.”

“He is a valiant officer and a fine gentleman,” Saffron exclaimed. “We last met him at the Atbara gorge not more than five months ago.”

“Oh, please tell me how he was!” Bakhita exclaimed.

“He was well, although indistinguishable in dress and deportment from his captors,” said Saffron.

“I knew he had been captured by the Dervish, but I heard he had been terribly abused and tortured. Your assurances are of much comfort to me.”

While they discussed Penrod, Ryder was thinking swiftly. From Bacheet he had heard a rumour, which Nazeera had told him, that Penrod had an intimate Egyptian friend. From the depth of her concern for him there was little doubt that Bakhita must be the lady in question. Ryder was shocked. Penrod was a highly decorated officer in a firstrate regiment. A liaison of this nature, if it came to light, might easily cost him his commission and his reputation.

“From all that you have told us, Sitt Bakhita, it is clear that we must pool all our intelligence and resources,” he said. “Our first concern, which has been troubling me deeply, is how to get messages to and from our friends in Omdurman.”

“I believe I am able to offer a means of communication.” Bakhita stood up and went to the door that led into the courtyard. She clapped her hands, and one of her bodyguard appeared before her. “I think you know this man,” said Bakhita, as he removed his head cloth and made a deep salaam towards Ryder.

“May God always protect you, Effendi.”

“Yakub!” Ryder was truly astonished. “I heard bad things about you. I heard that you had betrayed your master, Abadan Riji.”

“Effendi, sooner would I betray my father and mother, and may Allah hear my words and strike me down into hell if I lie,” said Yakub. “The only remaining purpose in my life is to bring my master safely out of the clutches of the Dervish into which my uncle so treacherously led him. I will do anything…” Yakub hesitated, then qualified his statement: “I will do anything except have any truck with the despicable Bacheet to save my master from the Dervish. If there is no other way, I may even abide with, for some brief time, the company of the nefarious Bacheet. However, I shall probably kill him afterwards.”

“On the matter of killing,” Ryder told him grimly, “Abadan Riji believes that you were as much the traitor as your uncle. He slew your uncle, and he means to do the same to you.”

“Then I must go to him and place my life and loyalty in his hands.”

“While you are about it,” said Ryder, drily, ‘you may as well take your master a message and return to us with his reply.”

It took five more days for Ryder and Bakhita to evolve an escape plan for the prisoners in Omdurman that had a reasonable chance of success.

On the following day Yakub left alone for the Sudan.

Osman Atalan was well pleased with the report that Penrod brought him back from the passes of the Abyssinian highlands. He listened with great attention to his suggestions concerning the conduct of the campaign against Emperor John, and they discussed all these in exhaustive detail during the course of the long return, journey to Omdurman.

Once they reached that city, Penrod found that the conditions of his imprisonment were much relaxed. He had achieved a position of conditional trust, which had been his objective from the first day of his capture. It was what he had set out to achieve by indulging Osman Atalan, and pretending to submit to his will. However, he was still accompanied at all times by selected aggagiers of Osman’s personal bodyguard. During the months after their return to Omdurman Osman spent much time with the Khalifat Abdullahi. Al-Noor told Penrod that he was trying to persuade Abdullahi to allow him to return to his tribal domain in the desert. However, Abduliahi was too foxy and devious to allow a man of such power and influence as Osman Atalan to escape his direct supervision and control. Osman was allowed out of Omdurman only for brief punitive raids and reprisals on those persons and tribes who had incurred Abdullahi’s displeasure, or for hunting and hawking excursions into the desert.

When he returned to the city, Osman found himself with much time on his hands. One day he sent for Penrod. “I have watched the way you wield a blade. It is contrary to usage and custom, and lacks even the semblance of grace.”

Penrod lowered his gaze to hide his anger at the insult, and with an effort refrained from reminding him of their first meeting at El Obeid in which the mighty Khalif Atalan had countered Penrod’s feint by raising his targe and blocking his own view of the thrust that followed, a riposte that passed close to his heart.

“However,” said Osman, ‘it holds some interest.”

Penrod looked up at him and saw the glimmer of mockery in his eyes. “Exalted Khalif, from such a master swordsman as you are, this is praise that warms my soul,” he mocked in return.

“It will amuse me to practise at arms against you, and to demonstrate the true and noble usage of the long blade,” said Osman. “We will begin tomorrow after the morning prayers.”

The next morning as they faced each other with naked blades, Osman set out the rules of engagement, “I shall try to kill you. You will try to kill me. If I succeed I will hold your memory in contempt. If you succeed, my aggagiers,” he indicated the fifteen men that formed a circle around him, ‘will immediately kill you, but you will be buried with much honour. I shall commission a special prayer to be recited in the mosque in your memory. Am I not a benevolent master?”

“The mighty Atalan is fair and just,” Penrod agreed, and they went to it. Twenty minutes later, when Osman was slow on the recovery, Penrod nicked his forearm in warning.

Osman’s gaze was murderous. “Enough for now. We shall fight again in two days’ time.”

After that they fought for an hour every second day, and Osman learnt to recover swiftly and riposte like a hussar. Gradually Penrod found himself more seriously taxed, and was forced to exert all his own skill to restrain his opponent. At the end of Ramadan Osman told him, “I have a gift for you.”

Her name was Lalla. She was a frightened and abused little thing, a child of war, pestilence and famine. She did not remember her father or mother, and in all her short life nobody had ever shown her kindness.

Penrod was kind to her. He paid one of al-Noor’s concubines to wash her as though she were a stray puppy, and to dress her tangled hair. He provided her with fresh clothing to replace her rags. He allowed her to cook his meals, launder his clothes, and sweep the floor of the small cell off the courtyard of the aggagiers, which was his lodging. He let her sleep outside his door. He treated her as though she was human, not an animal.

For the first time in her life Lalla had sufficient food. Hunger had been part of her life from as far back as she could remember. She did not grow fat, but her bones were gradually covered with a little flesh. Sometimes he heard crooning softly over the fire as she cooked his meal. Whenever he returned to the courtyard of the aggagiers she smiled. Once when Osman had succeeded in touching his right shoulder with the long blade, Lalla dressed the wound under his instruction. It was a flesh wound and healed swiftly. Penrod told her she was an angel of mercy, and he bought her a cheap silver bracelet in the souk as a reward. She crept away with it to a corner of the yard and wept with happiness. It was the first gift she had ever received.

That night she crept shyly on to Penrod’s angareb, and he did not have the heart to send her away. When she whimpered with her nightmares, he stroked her head. She woke and cuddled closer to him. When he made love to her it was without lust or passion, but with pity. The following evening while she was cooking his dinner he spoke to her quietly: “If I asked you to do something dangerous and difficult for me, would you do it, Lalla?”

“My lord, I would do whatever you ask.”

“If I asked you to put your hand in the fire and bring out a burning brand for me, would you do it?” Without hesitation she reached towards the flames and he had to seize her wrist to prevent her thrusting her hand into them. “No, not that! I want you to carry a message for me. Do you know the woman Nazeera, whom they call Ammi? She works in the harem as a servant of the white concubines.”

“I know her, my lord.”

“Tell her that Filfil is safe with al-Sakhawi in Abyssinia.” Filfil, or Pepper, was Saffron’s Arabic name.

Lalla waited her chance to accost Nazeera discreetly at the well, which was a gathering place for all the women, and delivered the message faithfully. Nazeera hurried back to give the news to Rebecca and Amber.

Within days Nazeera had met Lalla again at the well. She had a message for her to take to Penrod. “Yakub is here in Omdurman,” Lalla reported faithfully.

Penrod was amazed. “It cannot be the Yakub I know. That rascal disappeared a long time ago.”

“He wants me to meet him,” Lalla said. “What will you have me do?”

“Where will you meet?”

“I will be with Nazeera in the souk, at the camel market.”

“Will it be safe for you?” Penrod asked.

Lalla shrugged. “That is of no account. If you ask it, I will do it.”

When she returned he asked, “How was this Yakub?”

“He has two eyes, but they do not follow each other. One looks east and the other north.”

“That is the Yakub I know.” How could he ever have doubted him, Penrod asked himself.

“He said to tell you that the peerless Yakub is still your servant. He has languished a year and three months in an Egyptian prison, unjustly accused of trading in slaves. Only when he was released was he able to go to the lady of Aswan. Now she has sent him back to you with tidings that are much to your benefit.”

Penrod knew instantly who was the lady of Aswan, and his heart leapt. He had not thought of Bakhita recently, but she was still there, as constant as she had ever been. With her and Yakub he was no longer alone. “You have done well, Lalla. No one could have done better,” he said, and her face glowed.

He had now established a line of communication to the outside world, but Lalla was a simple child, incapable of remembering more than a few sentences at a time, and the meetings with Nazeera and Yakub could be risked only at intervals of several days: Abdullahi and Osman had spies everywhere.

Planning the escape was a long-drawn-out and complicated business. Twice Yakub had to leave Omdurman and make the hazardous journey to Abyssinia to consult Ryder Courtney and Bakhita. But, very slowly, the plan took shape.

The attempt would be made on the first Friday of Ramadan, five months hence. Yakub would have camels waiting on the far bank of the Nile, hidden among the ruins of Khartoum. By some ruse or subterfuge, Penrod would find his own way out of the courtyard of the aggagiers. Nazeera would spirit Rebecca and Amber out of the harem to a waiting felucca that she would arrange. Penrod would meet them there, and the felucca would ferry them across the Nile. Then, on Yakub’s camels, they would dash up the south bank of the Blue Nile to where Jock McCrump would have the old this hidden in the Lagoon of the Little Fish. He would take them up to Roseires, where horses would be waiting for the final dash to the Abyssinian border.

“Will you take me with you, my lord?” Lalla asked wistfully.

What on earth would I do with her? Penrod wondered. She was not pretty, but had an endearing monkey face, and she looked at him with worshipful adoration. “I will take you with me wherever I go,” he promised, and thought, Perhaps I can marry her to Yakub. She would make him a perfect little wife.

Only four weeks later, when everything was at last in place, Lalla brought Penrod another message, which struck him like the broadside of heavy cannon.

“Ammi Nazeera says that al-Zahra has seen her first moon and become a woman. She can hide this from the exalted Osman Atalan, but in one month’s time her moon will rise again. She will not be able to conceal it longer from him. The mighty Atalan has already ordered Nazeera to watch for and report to him the first show of her woman’s blood. He has announced that, as soon as she is marriageable,

he will offer al-Zahra as a gift to the Khalifat Abdullahi, who hungers for her.”

Even if he had to risk all of them, Penrod could not possibly allow Amber to go to Abdullahi. It would be worse than feeding her alive to some obscene carnivorous monster. The entire plan had to be brought forward. They had a month’s grace in which to change the arrangements. It would be a near-run thing. He sent the willing Lalla almost daily to carry messages to Yakub.

Two weeks before the new date of the escape attempt, the Khalif Osman Atalan announced a feast and entertainment for all his relatives and his most loyal followers. The main compound was decorated with palm fronds and two dozen prime sheep were roasted on spits. The low tables at which the company sat on soft cushions were piled with dishes of fruit and sweetmeats. Penrod found himself placed in a position of preference, close to the Khalif, with al-Noor at one hand and Mooman Digna on the other.

When all had eaten their fill and the mood was as warm as the sunshine, with laughter rippling like the waters of the Nile, Osman rose, made a short speech of welcome and commended them on their loyalty and duty. “Now let the entertainment begin!” he ordered, and clapped his hands.

A finger drum began to tap a staccato rhythm and then a murmur of surprise went up. Every head craned towards the side gate of the courtyard. Two men led in a creature on a leash. It was impossible at first to guess the nature of the animal. It moved slowly and painfully on all fours, forced by its handlers to make a torturous circuit of the yard. It was only gradually that they realized it was a human female. Her hands and feet had been crudely amputated at wrists and ankles. The stumps had been dipped in hot pitch to staunch the bleeding. She crawled on elbows and knees. The rest of her naked body had been whipped with thorn branches. The thorns had lacerated her skin. The mutilations were so horrible that even the hardened aggagiers were silenced. Slowly she crawled to where Penrod sat. The handlers tightened the leash and forced her to lift her head.

Cold with horror Penrod stared into Lalla’s little monkey face. Blood was trickling from her torn scalp into her empty eye-sockets. They had burned out her eyeballs with hot irons. “Lalla!” he said softly. “What have they done to you?”

She recognized his voice, and turned towards him. Blood was still oozing down her cheeks. “My lord,” she whispered, “I told them nothing.” Then she collapsed with her face in the dust, and though they yanked on the leash they could not rouse her.

“Abadan Riji!” Osman Atalan called. “My trusted aggagier of the famous sword arm, put this sorry creature out of her agony.” A terrible silence hung over the gathering. Every man looked at Penrod, not understanding but enthralled by the drama of the moment.

“Kill her for me, Abadan Riji,” Osman repeated.

“Lalla!” Penrod’s voice trembled with pity.

She heard him and rolled her head towards him, blindly seeking his face. “My lord,” she whispered, ‘for the love I bear you, do this thing. Give me release, for I can go on no longer.”

Penrod hesitated only a moment. Then he rose and drew his sword from its sheath. As he stood over her she spoke again: “I will always love you.” And with a single blow he struck her head off the maimed body. Then he placed his foot on the blade and, with a sharp tug at the hilt, snapped it in two.

“Tell me, Abadan Riji,” said Osman Atalan, ‘are those tears I see in your eyes? Why do you weep like a woman?”

“They are tears indeed, mighty Atalan, and I weep for the manner of your death, which will be terrible.”

“With the help of this creature, Abadan Riji was planning to escape from Omdurman,” Osman explained to his aggagiers. “Bring in the shebba, and place it round his neck.”

The shebba was a device designed to restrain and punish recalcitrant slaves, and to prevent them escaping. It was a heavy Y-shaped yoke cut from the fork of an acacia tree. The prisoner was stripped naked, to add to his humiliation, then the crotch of the shebba was fitted against his throat. The thick trunk extended in front of him. They lifted it to shoulder height, and bound the fork in place behind his neck with twisted rawhide ropes. Finally Penrod’s bare arms were lashed to the long pole in front of him. With both arms pinioned, he was unable to feed himself or lift a bowl of water to his lips. He could not clean himself of his bodily waste. If he allowed the pole to sink from horizontal the fork would crush his windpipe and choke him. To move he had first to raise the whole massive contraption and keep it balanced. He could not lie on his side or back, nor was he able to sit. If he wished to rest or sleep he must do so on his knees, with the end of the pole resting on the earth in front of him. At best he could only totter a few paces before the weight of the unbalanced pole forced him to his knees again.

The feast continued while Penrod knelt in the centre of the court yard. Afterwards he was driven back to the courtyard of the aggagiers. Mooman Digna whipped him along like a beast of burden. He was unable to eat or drink, and nobody would help him. He could not sleep for the pain of the shebba goaded him awake. It was too large and cumbersome to allow him to enter his cell so he knelt in the open courtyard, with an aggagier assigned to guard him day and night. By the third day he had lost all feeling in his arms, and his hands were blue and swollen. Although he staggered around the wall of the courtyard to keep in the shadow, the sun’s rays reflected from the lime washed walls and his naked body reddened and blistered. His tongue was like a dry sponge in his parched mouth for the heat in the noonday was intense.

By the morning of the fourth day he was becoming weak and disoriented, hovering on the verge of unconsciousness. Even his eyeballs were drying out, and still no one would help him. As he knelt in a corner of the courtyard he heard the voices of the aggagiers arguing nearby. They were discussing how much longer he would be able to hold out. Then there was silence and he forced open his swollen eyelids. For a moment he thought he was hallucinating.

Amber was coming towards him across the yard. She carried a large pitcher balanced on her head in the manner of an Arab woman. The aggagiers were watching her, but none tried to intervene. She took the pitcher off her head and placed it on the ground. Then she dipped a sponge into it and held it to his lips. He was unable to speak, but he sucked it gratefully. When she had given him as much as he could drink, she replaced the empty pitcher on her head and said softly, “I will come again tomorrow.”

At the same time the following day Osman Atalan entered the yard and stood in the shade of the cloister with al-Noor and Mooman Digna. Amber came in shortly after his arrival. She saw him at once and stopped, balancing the pitcher with one hand, slim and graceful as a gazelle on the point of flight. She stared at Osman, then she lifted her chin defiantly and came to where Penrod knelt. She dipped the sponge and gave him drink. Osman did not stop her. When she had finished and was ready to leave, she whispered, without moving her lips, “Yakub will come for you. Be ready.” She walked past Osman on her way to the gate. He watched her go impassively.

Amber came again the next day. Osman was not there and most of the aggagiers seemed to have lost interest. She gave Penrod water, then fed him as ida and dhurra porridge, spooning it into his mouth as though he were an infant, wiping the spillage off his chin. Then she used another sponge to wash his filth from the back of his legs and his buttocks. “I wish you did not have to do that,” he said.

She gave him a particular look and replied, “You still do not understand, do you?” He was too bemused and weak to try to fathom her meaning. She went on, with barely a pause, “Yakub will come for you tonight.”

Darkness fell and Penrod knelt in his corner of the courtyard. The aggagier Kabel al-Din was his guard that night. He sat nearby, with his back against the wall and his sheathed sword across his lap.

The muscles in Penrod’s arms were cramping so violently that he had to bite his lip to stop himself screaming. The blood in his mouth tasted bitter and metallic. Eventually he slipped into a dark, numb sleep. When he woke he heard a woman’s soft laughter nearby. It was a vaguely familiar sound. Then the woman whispered salaciously, “The enormity of your manhood terrifies me, but I am brave enough to endure it.” Incredibly Penrod realized that it was Nazeera. What was she doing here, he wondered. He opened his eyes. She was lying on her back in the moonlight with her skirts drawn up to her armpits. Kabel al-Din was kneeling between her parted thighs, about to mount her, oblivious to everything about him.

Yakub came over the wall as silently as a moth. As Kabel al-Din humped his back over Nazeera, Yakub sank the point of his dagger into the nape of the man’s neck. With the expertise of long practice he found the juncture of the third and fourth vertebrae and severed the spinal column. Al-Din stiffened, then collapsed soundlessly on Nazeera. She pushed aside his limp body and rolled out from beneath him. Then she scrambled to her feet, pulling down her skirts as she came to help Yakub, who was stooped over Penrod. With the blood-smeared dagger Yakub cut the thongs that pinioned his arms and Penrod almost screamed as the blood coursed back into his starved arteries and veins. While Nazeera took the weight of the yoke to prevent it crushing Penrod’s larynx, Yakub cut the thongs at the back of his neck. Between them they lifted it off.

“Drink.” Nazeera held a small glass flask to his lips. “It will deaden the pain.” With three gulps Penrod swallowed the contents. The bitter taste of laudanum was unmistakable. They helped him to his feet and half carried him to the wall. Yakub had left a rope in place. While Nazeera propped him up, Yakub settled the loop on the end of the rope under Penrod’s armpits. As he straddled the top of the wall and heaved on the rope Nazeera pushed from below and they hoisted Penrod over. He fell in a heap on the far side. Nazeera slipped quietly away in the direction of the harem. Yakub dropped down beside Penrod and hauled him on to his numb feet.

At first their progress towards the riverbank was torturously slow, but then the laudanum took effect and Penrod pushed away Yakub’s hands. “In future, do not stay away so long, tardy Yakub,” he mumbled, and Yakub giggled at the jest. Penrod broke into a shambling run towards the river, where he knew the felucca was waiting to take them across.

As the favourite of Osman Atalan, Rebecca had her own quarters and Amber was allowed to share them with her. The two waited by the small grilled window through which they had a glimpse of the silver moonlight reflected from the wide river. Rebecca had turned the wick of the oil lamp low, so they could just make out each other’s faces. Amber was wearing a light woollen robe and sandals, ready to travel, and she was quivering with excitement.

“It is almost time. You must make ready, Becky,” she entreated. “Nazeera will be back at any moment to fetch us.”

“Listen to me, my darling Amber.” Rebecca placed her hands on her sister’s shoulders. “You must be brave now. I am not coming with you. You are going alone with Penrod Ballantyne.”

Amber went as still as stone, and stared into her sister’s eyes, but they were unfathomable in the gloom. When she spoke at last her voice shook. “I don’t understand.”

“I cannot go with you. I must stay here.”

“But why, Becky? Why, oh, why?”

In reply Rebecca took her sister’s hands and guided them under her shift. She placed them on her own naked belly. “Do you feel that?”

“It’s just a little fat,” Amber protested. “That won’t stop you. You must come.”

“There is a baby inside me, Amber.”

“I don’t believe it. It cannot be. I still love you and need you.”

“It’s a baby,” Rebecca assured her. “It’s Osman Atalan’s bastard. Do you know what a bastard is, Amber?”

“Yes.” Amber could not bring herself to say more.

“Do you know what will happen if I go home to England with an Arab bastard inside me?”

“Yes.” Amber’s voice was almost inaudible. “But the midwives could take it away, couldn’t they?”

“You mean kill my baby?” Rebecca asked. “Would you kill your own baby, Amber darling?” Amber shook her head. “Then you cannot ask me to do it.”

“I will stay with you,” said Amber.

“You saw what a sorry condition Penrod is in.” Rebecca knew it was the strongest lever she had to move Amber. “You have saved his life already. You fed him and gave him water when he was dying. If you desert him now, he will not survive. You must do your duty.”

“But what about you?” Amber was cruelly torn.

“I will be safe, I promise.” Rebecca hugged her hard, and then her tone became firm and brisk. “Now, you must take this with you. It’s Daddy’s journal, which I have added to. When you reach England, take it to his lawyer. His name is Sebastian Hardy. I have written his name and address on the first page. He will know what to do with it.” She handed the book to Amber. She had packed it into a bag of woven palm leaves and bound it up carefully. It was heavy and bulky, but Rebecca had plaited a rope handle to make it easier to carry.

“I don’t want to leave you,” Amber blurted.

“I know, darling. Duty can be hard. But you must do it.”

“I will love you for ever and always.”

“I know you will, and I will love you just as hard and just as long.” They clung to each other until Nazeera appeared quietly beside them.

“Come, Zahra. It is time to go. Yakub and Abadan Riji are waiting for you by the riverside.”

There was nothing left to say. They embraced for the last time, then Nazeera took Amber’s hand and led her away, with the bag that contained her legacy. Only once she was alone did Rebecca allow her grief to burst out. She threw herself on to their angareb below the window and wept. Every sob came up painfully from deep inside her.

Then something inside her was awakened by the strength of her sorrow, and for the first time she felt the infant kick in her womb. It startled her into stillness, and filled her with such bitter joy that she clasped her arms round her belly and whispered, “You are all I have left now.” She rocked herself and the infant to sleep.

The felucca was anchored close to the muddy strip of beach below the old mosque. It was a battered, neglected craft that stank of river mud and old fish. The owner hoped to replace it with a new vessel paid for out of the exorbitant fee he had been promised for a single crossing of the river. Its amount warned him that he was at great risk, and he was edgy and fidgety as he waited.

The laudanum made Penrod Ballantyne feel muzzy-headed and divorced from reality, but at least he was without pain in his limbs. He and Yakub were lying on the floorboards where they would be concealed from casual inspection. In a whisper Yakub was trying to tell him something that he seemed to think was of prime importance. However, Penrod’s mind kept floating off on the wings of opium, and Yakub’s words made no sense to him.

Then, vaguely, he was aware that somebody was wading out to the vessel. He lifted himself on one elbow and looked groggily over the side. Nazeera was standing on the beach, and the lithe figure of Amber Benbrook, with a large bag on her head, was moving towards the felucca. “Where is Rebecca?” he asked, and blinked to make certain he was seeing straight.

Amber pulled herself aboard the felucca, then Nazeera turned away from the water and ran off.

“Where is Nazeera going?” he wondered vaguely.

Amber dropped her bag on the deck and stooped over him. “Penrod! Thank goodness! How are you feeling? Let me see your arms. I have some ointment for your bruises.”

“Wait until we get to the other side,” he demurred. “Where is Nazeera going? Where is Rebecca?” Neither Amber nor Yakub answered him. Instead Yakub gave a sharp order to the boat-owner and scrambled to help him hoist the lateen sail. It filled to the night breeze and they bore away.

The felucca sailed closer to the wind than her age would suggest, and she kicked up such a bow wave that the spray splattered over them. On the Khartoum side they went aground with such force that the rotten keel was almost torn off her. Amber and Yakub helped Penrod ashore, and Yakub propped his shoulder under his armpit to steady him as they hurried through the deserted streets of the ruined city. They met not a living soul until they reached Ryder Courtney’s abandoned compound. There, a Bedouin boy was waiting for them with a string of camels. As soon as he had handed the lead reins to Yakub, he fled into the shadows.

The riding camels were fully saddled and equipped. They mounted at once, but Yakub had to help Penrod into the saddle and he was almost unseated as the animal lurched to its feet. Yakub took him on the lead rein and led the little caravan through the mud of the almost dry canal and into the desert beyond. There he goaded the camels onwards and they paced away, keeping the river in sight on their left-hand side. Within the first mile, Penrod lost his balance and slipped sideways out of the saddle. He hit the ground heavily and lay for a while like a dead man. They dismounted and helped him back into the saddle.

“I will hold him,” Amber told Yakub. She climbed up, sat behind Penrod and placed both arms round his waist to steady him. They went on for hours without a halt, until in the first light of dawn they picked out the shape of the lagoon ahead in the river mist. There was no sign of the steamer out on the open water.

On the edge of the reed bed Yakub reined in his camel and stood upright on his saddle. He sang out over the lagoon in a high wail that would carry for a mile. “In God’s Name, is there no man or jinnee who hears me?”

Almost immediately, from close by in the reeds, a jinnee replied in a broad Scots burr: “Och, aye, laddie! I hear you.” Jock McCrump had camouflaged his steamer with cut reeds so that it was almost invisible from the bank of the lagoon. As soon as they had turned the camels loose and were safely aboard he reversed the old this, now the Wisdom of the Skies, out into the open water and turned her bows eastwards for Roseires, almost two hundred miles upstream. Then he came down to the cabin where Penrod was stretched out on the bunk with Amber anointing his blisters and bruises with the lotion that Nazeera had provided. “And now you’ll be expecting me to make you a cup pa tea, I hae nae door,” said Jock, morosely. It was Darjeeling Orange Pekoe, with condensed milk, and Penrod had never tasted anything so heavenly. He fell asleep immediately after he had downed a third mug, and did not wake again until they were a hundred miles upriver from Khartoum, and beyond the pursuit of even the swiftest camels of Osman Atalan’s aggagiers.

When he opened his eyes Amber was still sitting at the end of his bunk, but she was so engrossed in reading her father’s bulky journal that for some time she did not realize he was awake. Penrod studied her countenance as the emotions that her father’s writing evoked flitted across it. He saw now that she had become far and away the beauty of the trio of Benbrook girls.

Suddenly she looked at him, smiled and closed the journal. “How are you feeling now? You have slept for ten hours without moving.”

“I’m a great deal better, thanks to you and Yakub.” He paused. “Rebecca?”

Amber’s smile faded, and she looked bereft. “She will stay in Omdurman. It was her choice.”

“Why?” he asked, and she told him. They were both silent for a while and then Penrod said, “If I had had my wits about me, I would have gone back to fetch her.”

“She did the right thing,” Amber said softly. “Rebecca always does the right thing. She made that sacrifice for love of me. I will never forget it.”

Over the rest of the river voyage, as they talked, Penrod discovered that she was no longer a child in either body or mind, but that she had become a courageous, mature young woman, her character tempered in the forge of suffering.

The horses were waiting at Roseires, and they picked up relays of mules as they journeyed through the foothills of the Abyssinian highlands. They reached Entoto after eleven days of hard going, and as they rode into the courtyard of Ryder Courtney’s compound Saffron rushed out to greet her twin. Amber tumbled off her mule and they fell into each other’s arms, too overcome to speak. Ryder watched them from the veranda with a benign smile.

Once they had recovered their tongues, the twins could barely pause to draw breath. They sat up all night in Saffron’s studio, talking. They wandered hand in hand through the souks and lanes of Entoto, talking. They rode out into the mountains and came back with armfuls of flowers, still talking. Then they read their father’s journal aloud to each other, and Rebecca’s additions to it, and they hugged each other as they wept for their father and elder sister, both of whom they had lost for ever.

Amber studied Saffron’s portfolio of Khartoum sketches. She pronounced them wonderfully accurate and evocative, then suggested a few small changes and improvements, which Saffron, anxious to please her, adopted immediately. Saffron designed and made a complete wardrobe of new clothes for Amber, and took her to have tea with Lady Alice Packer and Empress Miriam. The queen thought Amber’s new outfit stylish and fetching, and asked Saffron to design her a dress for the next state dinner.

Amber continued David Benbrook’s journal from the point where Rebecca had left off. In it she described her escape from Omdurman and the flight up the Blue Nile to the Abyssinian border. In the process she discovered she had a natural talent with the written word.

Only Ryder was not completely enchanted by Amber’s arrival in Entoto. He had become accustomed to having Saffron’s undivided attention. Now that it had been diverted to her twin, he realized, with something of a shock, how much he missed it.

Penrod recovered swiftly from the injuries he had suffered in Osman Atalan’s shebba. He exercised his sword arm in practice with Yakub, and his legs in long, solitary walks in the mountains. His first urgent duty was to report his actions and whereabouts to his superiors in Cairo, but the telegraph line ran only as far as Djibouti on the Gulf of Aden. He wrote letters to Sir Evelyn Baring and Viscount Wolseley, and to his elder brother in England. The British ambassador sent these out in the diplomatic pouch, but they all knew how long it would be before he could expect a reply.

Ryder Courtney had a sealed blank envelope for Penrod. When Penrod weighed it in his hand he realized that it contained more than paper. “Who is it from?” he asked. “Regrettably I have been sworn to silence,” Ryder replied, ‘but I am sure the answer is contained in it. You must ask nothing more from me concerning the matter, for I am unable to discuss it.”

Penrod took it to the bedroom that Ryder had set aside for him and bolted the door. As he slit open the envelope, a weighty object fell out, but he caught it before it struck the tiles. It lay in his palm, shimmering gold and magnificent, its beauty undiminished by the ages. On the obverse side was the crowned portrait of Cleopatra Thea Philopator and on the reverse the head of Marcus Antonius. In the envelope with the coin was a single line of Arabic written on parchment. “When my lord needs me, he knows where I shall be.” The coin was her signature.

“Bakhita!” He rubbed the portrait of the woman with his thumb. How did she fit into the scheme of things now? Then he remembered Yakub trying to tell him something important while he was drugged with laudanum on the first night of the escape from Omdurman.

The next day he and Yakub rode up into the mountains where they could be alone. Yakub related in detail how, after Penrod had been captured by Osman Atalan, he had set out for Aswan to enlist the aid of the only person who could and would help them. He explained how he had been arrested on the Egyptian border while travelling with a dealer in slaves, and how he had been imprisoned for over a year before he could go on to Aswan.

“As soon as I found Bakhita al-Masur she travelled with me here to Entoto, and arranged your escape with al-Sakhawi.”

Penrod considered ignoring Ryder Courtney’s warning and taxing him with Bakhita’s role in their rescue, but in the end he shied away from doing so. He and Bakhita had always maintained the greatest secrecy and discretion in their relationship. It even surprised him that Yakub had known of it. By this time I should have learnt not to be surprised by anything that the intrepid Yakub comes up with. He smiled to himself. Then he considered writing to Bakhita, but this would be equally unwise. Even if the letter went through diplomatic channels, there was no telling which of the embassy staff was in the pay of the ubiquitous Evelyn Baring. There was another reason not to contact Bakhita. This was less clear-cut in his mind but it had to do with Amber Benbrook. He did not want to do anything that might later hurt the child.

Child? He questioned his choice of word as he watched her cross the yard in deep conversation with her twin sister. You deceive yourself, Penrod Ballantyne.

It was five months before Penrod received a reply to the letter he had written to his elder brother Sir Peter Ballantyne, at the family estate on the Scottish Borders. In his reply Sir Peter agreed that the Benbrook sisters might make their home at Clercastle until such time as their future had been decided. Penrod would sail back to England with Amber and Saffron and take care of them until they reached Clercastle. Once they arrived Sir Peter’s wife, Jane, would take over the responsibility from him.

As soon as Penrod received his brother’s letter he went up to the British Embassy and telegraphed to the office of the Peninsular and Orient Steamship line in Djibouti. He booked passage for himself and the twins on board the SS Singapore, sailing via Suez and Alexandria for Southampton in six weeks’ time. When Amber learnt that she would be sailing home in company with Penrod Ballantyne, then staying at Clercastle with the Ballantyne family she made no objection. On the contrary she seemed well pleased with the arrangement.

It did not go so easily with the other twin. There followed long and difficult discussions with Saffron, who announced with passion that she could see no reason why she should return to England ‘where it rains all the time, and I shall probably expire with double pneumonia on the same day I arrive’. It was necessary to appeal to Alice Packer for a ruling.

“My dear Saffron, you are only fourteen.”

“Fifteen in a month’s time,” Saffron corrected her grimly.

“Your education has been somewhat neglected,” Alice went on imperturbably. “I am sure Sir Peter will provide a governess for you and

Amber. After all, he has daughters of very much the same age as you two darling girls.”

“I don’t need geography and mathematics,” said Saffron, stubbornly. “I know all about Africa and I can paint.”

“Ah!” said Alice. “Sir John Millais is a dear friend of mine. How would you like to study art under him? I’m sure I can arrange it.”

Saffron wavered: Millais was a founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, the most celebrated painter of the day. David Benbrook had kept a book of his paintings in his study at Khartoum. Saffron had spent hours dreaming over them. Then Alice played her trump: “And, of course, as soon as you are sixteen you will always be welcome to return to Entoto as my guest, whenever and as often as you wish.”

As the day of their departure for Djibouti drew nearer, Saffron spent less time with her twin and more in helping Bacheet look after Ryder. He agreed to pose for an hour or two each evening for one last portrait. Since the twins’ future had been agreed upon, his mood had been subdued, but it lightened perceptibly during these daily painting sessions. Saffron was an amusing girl and made him laugh.

Two days before Penrod and the twins were due to leave Entoto for Djibouti, Ryder announced his intention of joining their little caravan, as he was expecting a shipment of trade goods to arrive on board the SS Singapore from Calcutta. During the journey down to the coast Ryder and Saffron spent much time riding side by side at the rear of the convoy. The closer they came to Djibouti, the more serious their expressions became. The day before they came in sight of the town and harbour a flaming row broke out between them. Saffron left Ryder and galloped to the head of the column to ride beside Amber.

That night, as was the custom, the four of them ate supper beside the fire. When Ryder addressed a polite remark to her, Saffron pulled a face and deliberately moved her chair so that her back was turned to him. She did not bid him goodnight when she and Amber went to their tent.

The next day as they came in sight of Djibouti harbour the SS Singapore was lying in the roads and discharging cargo into the lighters clustered around her. While Ryder and Bacheet set up camp on the outskirts of the town, Penrod and the twins rode down to the shipping office at the wharf to pay for and receive their tickets for the voyage to Southampton. The shipping clerk assured them that the Singapore would sail on schedule at noon the following day. Penrod managed to buy a bottle of Glenlivet whisky from the purser. He and Ryder made short work of it that evening, when the twins had retired to their tent not long after nightfall.

Due to the exigencies of the previous evening’s consumption of liquor the two men were late in rising. In the roads the Singapore was already making steam in preparation for her sailing in three hours’ time. Penrod took the luggage down to the wharf and sent it on board, then rode back to the camp and found it in a state of uproar.

“She has gone!” Bacheet lamented, and wrung his plump hands. “Filfil has gone!”

“What do you mean, Bacheet? Where has she gone?”

“We do not know, Effendi. During the night she took her mule and rode away. Al-Sakhawi has gone after her, but I think Filfil has six hours’ start on him. He won’t be able to catch her before nightfall.”

“By that time the Singapore will have sailed,” Penrod fumed, and went to find Amber.

“After Saffron and I climbed into bed, I went to sleep directly. When I woke it was already light and Saffy had gone, just like that, without even a goodbye.”

Penrod studied her face for some hint of the truth. He was sure he had heard the twins whispering when he had passed their tent on the way to his own bed. He knew for certain it had been after midnight, because he had wound his pocket watch before he blew out the lamp. “We will have to go on board. We cannot miss this sailing. There will not be another for months. I will try to persuade the captain to delay until Saffron is on board,” he said, and Amber agreed with an angelic expression.

While Penrod and Amber stood at the starboard rail of the Singapore, Penrod was staring anxiously through a pair of borrowed binoculars as the last boat from the shore approached the ship’s side.

“Blue bloody blazes!” he muttered furiously. “She isn’t on board.”

As he lowered the binoculars, the ship’s third officer hurried down the ladder from the bridge and came to them. “The captain’s compliments, Captain Ballantyne, but he very much regrets that he is not able to delay the sailing until the arrival of Miss Benbrook. If he does he will be unable to make his reservation for the transit of the Suez Canal.” Just then the ship’s siren wailed and cut off the rest of his apology. The capstan in the bows began to clatter and the anchor broke free.

“Now, Miss Amber Benbrook,” Penrod said grimly, “I think it’s time you delivered the truth. Just what is your sister playing at?”

“I should think that is perfectly obvious, Captain Ballantyne, except to a blind man or an imbecile.”

“Nevertheless, I would be most obliged if you could explain it to me.”

“My sister is in love with Mr. Ryder Courtney. She has not the slightest intention of leaving him. I am afraid we are to be deprived of her company on this voyage. You will have to make do with mine.”

A prospect that I do not find particularly distressing, he thought, but tried to disguise his pleasure.

The tracks of Saffron’s mule headed straight back along the main route towards the Abyssinia border. Except where they had been overridden by other travellers they were easy to follow. Saffron had made no attempt to cover them or to throw off any pursuit. Soon Ryder knew that he was overhauling her, but it was the middle of the afternoon before he made out her mule in the distance. He urged his own mount into a gallop. As he came within hail he let out an angry shout. She stopped and turned back towards him. Then he saw that it was not her at all, but one of the camp servants: a dim-witted lad whose sole employment was chopping firewood for the camp. Anything more demanding was beyond his limited capabilities.

“What in the name of God are you up to, Solomon? Where do you think you are going on Filfil’s mule?”

“Filfil gave me a Maria Theresa to ride back to Entoto and fetch a box she had forgotten,” he announced importantly, proud of the task with which he had been entrusted.

“Where is Filfil now?”

“Why, Effendi, I know not.” Solomon picked his nose with embarrassment at the complexity of the question. “Is she not still in Djibouti?”

When Ryder came in sight of the harbour again, the Singapore’s anchorage was empty, and the smoke from her funnels was merely a dark smear on the watery horizon. Ryder stormed into his camp and shouted at Bacheet: “Where is Filfil?” Bacheet remained silent but rolled his eyes in the direction of her tent.

Ryder strode to the tent and stooped through the opening of the fly. “There you are, you scamp.”

Saffron was sitting cross-legged on her camp-bed. She was barefooted and her most extravagant hat was perched on her head. She was looking extremely pleased with herself.

“What have you to say for yourself?” he demanded.

“All I have to say is that you are my dog and I am your flea. You can scratch and scratch as much as you will, but you’ll not get rid of me, Ryder Courtney.”

They were half-way back to Entoto before he had recovered from the shock, and had come to realize how happy he was that she had not sailed with the Singapore. “I still don’t know what we should do now,” he said. “I shall probably be arrested for child abduction. I have no idea of the legal age for marriage in Abyssinia.”

“It’s fourteen,” said Saffron. “I asked the Empress before we left Entoto. Anyway, that is merely a guideline. Nobody pays much attention to it. She was thirteen when the Emperor married her.”

“Have you any other gems of information?” he asked tartly.

“I have. The Empress has expressed her willingness to sponsor our union, should you care to marry me. What do you think of that?”

“I had not thought about it at all,” he exclaimed, ‘but, by God, now that you raise the subject it is not the worst notion I have ever heard of.” He reached across, lifted her off the back of her mule, seated her on the pommel of his own saddle and kissed her.

She clamped her hat onto her head with one hand and flung her other arm round his neck. Then she kissed him back with a great deal more vigour than finesse. After a while she broke away to breathe. “Oh, you wonderful man!” she gasped. “You cannot imagine how long I have wanted to do that. It feels even nicer than I hoped it might. Let’s do it again.”

“An excellent idea,” he agreed.

The Empress was as good as her word. She sat in the front pew of the Entoto cathedral with the Emperor at her side, beaming on the ceremony like the rising sun. She was dressed in a Saffron Benbrook creation, which made her look rather like a large sugar-iced chocolate cake.

Lady Packer had prevailed on her husband, Sir Harold White Packer, Knight Commander of Michael and George, Her Britannic Majesty’s ambassador, to give Saffron away. He was in full fig, including his bicorne hat with gold lace and white cockerel feathers. The groom was handsome and nervous in his black frock-coat, with the dazzling Star of the Order of Solomon and Judea on his breast. The Bishop of Abyssinia performed the service.

Saffron had designed her own wedding dress. When she came down the aisle on Sir Harold’s arm, Ryder was mildly relieved to see that it was in pure virginal white. Saffron’s taste usually ran to brighter hues. When they left the church as man and wife, a troop of the Royal Abyssinian Artillery fired a nine-gun salute. In the fever of the moment, one of the ancient cannon had been double charged and it burst in spectacular fashion on the first discharge. Fortunately nobody was injured, and the bishop declared it a propitious omen. The Emperor provided vast quantities of fiery Tej to the populace, and toasts were drunk to bride and groom for as long as the liquor held out and their well-wishers remained upright and conscious.

For the honeymoon Ryder took his bride into the southern Abyssinian highlands on an expedition to capture the rare mountain ny ala They returned some months later without having caught even a glimpse of the elusive beast. Saffron painted a picture to commemorate the expedition: on a mountain peak in the background stood a creature that bore more than a passing resemblance to a unicorn, and in the foreground a man and woman whose identities were in no doubt. The woman wore a huge yellow hat decorated with seashells and roses. They were not looking at the unicorn, but clasped between them was a large and magnificent bird, half ostrich and half peacock. The legend beneath the painting read, “We went to find the elusive ny ala but found instead the elusive bird of happiness.”

Ryder was so enchanted by it that he had the picture mounted in an ivory frame, and hung it on the wall above their bed.

The voyage up the Red Sea was calm and peaceful. There were only four passenger cabins on board the SS Singapore, two of which were unoccupied. Amber and Penrod dined each evening with the captain, and after dinner they strolled around the deck or danced to the music of the violin played by the Italian chef, who thought Amber was the most lovely creature in all creation.

During the day Amber and Penrod worked together in the card room, editing David Benbrook’s journal. Amber exercised her new-found writing talent, and Penrod provided military and historical background. Amber suggested he write his own account of the battle of Abu Klea, his subsequent capture by Osman Atalan and their escape from the captivity of the Dervish. They would combine this with the writings of David and Rebecca. The further they advanced into the project, the greater their enthusiasm for it became. By the time the Singapore anchored in Alexandria harbour they had made great progress in expanding and correcting the text. It could now be published as an inspiring true adventure, and they had the remainder of the voyage home to complete it.

Penrod went ashore in Alexandria, and hired a horse. He rode the thirty miles to Cairo, and went directly to the British agency. Sir Evelyn Baring kept him waiting only twenty minutes before he sent his secretary to summon him into his office. He had the thirty-page letter that Penrod had sent from Entoto spread like a fan on the desk in front of him. On it were many cryptic notations written in red ink in the margins. Baring maintained his usual cold, enigmatic manner and expression during the interview, which lasted almost two hours. At the end he rose to dismiss Penrod without making any comment, expressing any opinion, or offering either censure or approval. “Colonel Samuel Adams at Army headquarters in Giza is anxious to speak to you,” he told Penrod, at the door.

“Colonel?” Penrod asked.

“Promotion,” Baring replied. “He will explain everything to you.”

Sam Adams limped only slightly and he no longer used a cane as he came round his desk to greet Penrod warmly. He looked fit and suntanned, although there were a few grey hairs in his moustache.

“Congratulations on the colonel’s pips, sir.” Penrod saluted.

Adams was without a cap so he could not return the salute, but he seized Penrod’s hand and shook it warmly. “Delighted to have you back, Ballantyne. Much has happened while you have been away. There is a great deal we must talk about. Shall we go for lunch at the club?”

He had reserved a table in the corner of the dining room at the Gheziera Club. He ordered a bottle of Krug, then waited until the glasses were filled and they had placed their order with the waiter, in red fez and white galabiyya, before he got down to business. “After the disaster of Khartoum, and the murder of that idiot Gordon, there were many unpleasant repercussions. The press at home were looking for scapegoats and fastened on Sir Charles Wilson’s delay in pressing on to the relief of Gordon after the victory at Abu Klea. Wilson sought to defend himself by placing the blame on his subordinates. Unfortunately you were one of those to suffer, Ballantyne. He has brought charges of subordination and desertion against you. Now that you have come back from limbo, you will almost certainly be court-martialled Capital offence, if you’re found guilty. Firing squad, don’t you know?”

Penrod blanched under his suntan and stared at Adams in horror.

He went on hurriedly: “You have friends here. Everyone knows your worth. Victoria Cross, derring-do, heroic escapes and all that. However, you will have to resign your commission in the Hussars.”

“Resign my commission?” Penrod exclaimed. “I will let them shoot me first.”

“It might come to that. But hear me out.” Adams reached across the table and laid his hand on Penrod’s arm to prevent him leaping to his feet. “Drink your champagne and listen to me. Damn fine vintage, by the way. Don’t waste it.” Penrod subsided, and Adams went on,

“First, I must give you some other background information. Egypt now belongs to us in all but name. Baring calls it the Veiled Protector’ ate, but it’s a bloody colony for all the pretty words. The decision has been taken by London to rebuild the Egyptian army from a disorganized rabble into a firstrate fighting corps. The new sirdar is Horatio Herbert Kitchener. Do you know him?”

“I cannot say that I do,” Penrod said. The sirdar was the Commander-in-chief of the Egyptian army.

“Cross between a tiger and a dragon. Absolute bloody fire-eater. He desperately needs first-class officers for the new army, men who know the desert and the lingo. I mentioned your name. He knows of you. He wants you. If you join him he’ll quash all Wilson’s charges against you. Kitchener is going up the ladder to the top and will take his people with him. You will start at your equivalent rank of captain, but I can almost guarantee you a battalion within a year, your own regiment within five. For you the choice is between ruin and high rank. What do you say?”

Penrod smoothed his whiskers thoughtfully on board ship Amber had trimmed his sideburns and moustache for him and once again they were luxuriant. He had learnt never to jump at the first offer.

“Camel Corps.” Adams tossed in another plum. “Plenty of desert fighting.”

“When can I meet the gentleman?”

“Tomorrow. Nine hundred hours sharp at the new army headquarters. If you love life, don’t be late.”

Kitchener was a muscular man of middling height and moved like a gladiator. He had a full head of hair and a cast in one eye, not unlike Yakub’s. This made Penrod incline towards him. His jaw had been shot half away in a fight with the Dervish at Suakin when he had been governor of that insalubrious and dangerous corner of Africa. The bone was distorted and the kelo id scar was pale pink against his darkly tanned skin. His handshake was iron hard and his manner harsh and unyielding.

“You speak Arabic?” he asked, in that language. He spoke it well, but with an accent that would never allow him to pass him as a native. “Sirdar effendi! May all your days be perfumed with jasmine.” Penrod made the gesture of respect. “In truth, I speak the language of the One True God and His Prophet.”

Kitchener blinked. It was perfect. “When can you come on strength?”

“I need to be in England until Christmas. I have been out of contact with civilization for some time. I must settle my personal affairs, and I shall have to resign my commission with my present regiment.”