CHAPTER XIV.

A NIGHT ATTACK.

A FEW days were passed in journeying through the desert, whose dreariness was occasionally broken by an oasis, where water was found, and where the party could gather the red berries of the samh, while the camels cropped the delicate green twigs of the ghada, which form a graceful feathery tuft. Here the Persian travellers would linger for many hours, smoking, lounging on the scanty grass, eating fruit, telling stories, and reciting poems.

"Can you recite anything?" Ali once asked young Hartley.

"Not in Persian. I know nothing of that or any other Oriental tongue save scraps of Urdu; but I have learned by heart a good deal in English."

"That will serve," said Ali, who prided himself not a little on his knowledge of the European tongue. "Repeat to me and Hassan, who knows something of English, the finest thing which you know in the language."

The Persians, seated on carpets, smoked their narghillahs, as Robin, without hesitation or comment, repeated part of the opening chapter of the First Epistle of St. John.

Ali listened in grave silence, Hassan with undisguised impatience and aversion. "May the bones of his fathers be defiled who utters such heresies!" he exclaimed; then rising angrily, and spitting in token of disgust, the Persian walked away.

Ali pushed his own narghillah aside.

"Do you really believe, O Feringhee," he cried, "that the blood of your Prophet purifieth from sin?"

"The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanseth from all sin—the Word declares it," was Robin's reply.

Ali shook his head sadly. "Not all—it cannot be," he murmured.

"God hath said it; His Word is true, though all the world should deny it!" cried Robin boldly. "But," he added gravely, "the promise is to those who walk in the light, and have fellowship one with another."

"What is it to 'walk in the light'?" asked Ali.

"To walk with God, love Him and His people," replied the Knight of St. John.

"Perhaps you do so," said Ali, gloomily; "but there are some who neither can nor will so walk in the light. And there are stains which no blood could remove, even were your religion a true one."

"I know not of any such stains," quoth 'Robin.

"Suppose now—just suppose—that a murderer sought pardon from God, could he find it?" asked the Amir.

"David, who committed murder, found grace," replied Robin. "He repented, and though he was punished on earth, we know that he was washed white in atoning blood."

"There you are wrong," said Ali, quickly; "Hasrat David died long before your Prophet was born."

"But not before He existed," said Robin; and reverentially, he added, "Christ's sacrifice was for all the world; it saved believers who lived before His first coming, as well as those who now live before His second coming. The light from the Cross shines all around, behind as well as before."

"You think that even murderers may be saved," said Ali; "but there are different degrees of murder. A man slays his foe in open fight—that is fair; or by stratagem—perhaps stealing on him in his sleep. There may, as you say, be forgiveness for that."

"For the soul, though the body should be punished," said Robin.

"But if the blood on the murderer's hand were not that of an enemy but of a brother?" asked Ali, his face growing livid as he uttered the question.

"I cannot answer such things!" cried Robin, with a look of pain; he could hardly realise the possibility of any one committing the horrible crime of fratricide. "I can only repeat what stands in the Bible: The blood of Christ cleanseth from all sin."

Ali turned gloomily away.

It was decided that the Persians should remain in their present place of encampment till two hours before dawn, when the journey should be resumed during the comparative coolness of night. The travellers, in a semi-circle, slept near the tent, not far from their camels, except Hassan, whose turn it was to keep watch. Saddles were used as pillows, the horses themselves being tethered near their riders. Soon most profound stillness reigned around, scarcely broken by an occasional grunt from a camel, or snort from a steed.

But the stillness was not to last long. Robin was startled from a delicious dream of home by sudden yelling and shouting, the clash of weapons, and the cry, "The Bedouins! The Bedouins are upon us!" All was confusion and uproar. Recumbent camels rose to their feet, frightened horses plunged and reared; some men stumbled over tent-pegs in the darkness, some hastily snatched up such weapons as might be at hand. None knew the number of the enemy, who, tempted by hope of rich spoil, had, like wolves, stolen upon them in the night.

"In for an adventure!" thought our Knight of St. John, catching up a staff which lay on the ground.

Robin dashed towards the spot where the struggle seemed to be the hottest; he could only judge by the noise, for the stars, brilliant as they were, gave very ineffectual light. There was just enough to enable Robin to distinguish Ali, bareheaded—for his high cap had been knocked off—struggling on the ground with two Bedouin Arabs. It was a struggle for life. One Arab had got the Amir down and was grasping his throat, the other was brandishing a formidable knife which he was about to plunge into the Persian's breast. The struggle would have been as short as it was desperate, had not Robin dealt such a heavy blow on the head of the man who was grasping Ali's throat that the Arab's hold relaxed, and he fell to the ground.

The Amir thus freed, attempted to rise, but the knife of the second man would have been in his heart but for Robin's interposed arm—it was the left one—which was pierced through by the Bedouin's steel. Before the Arab could draw it back, he was laid in the dust by Ali, who had sprung to his feet. The whole fight was over in a few minutes; the Arabs, who had not expected so stout a resistance, fled, leaving two of their number dead on the ground, and the one whom Robin had struck down, who vainly attempted to get up and follow his comrades.

"Kill the dog! Hew him to pieces!" cried Hassan, who, with a sword in one hand and a torch in the other, now hurried to the spot.

"Don't hit a fellow when he's down!" exclaimed Robin, with an impulse of pity for the half-clad wretch who could make no resistance.

"You are the friend of our foes, false Kafir!" exclaimed Hassan, and his face looked more savage than ever, seen in the red glare of the torch.

"The English boy is no traitor," said Ali, who was calmly replacing the Persian cap on his own head, looking as little perturbed by his late peril, as if a struggle for life were with him an ordinary thing.

"If you had kept better watch, O Hassan, the Kafir had had no need to strike so hard. The brave boy has saved my life."

The Bedouin was clinging to the knees of Robin, whom he recognised as a protector from the weapons flashing around him. Robin had now an object in view beyond the pleasure of saving a foe, an object so engrossing, that he actually forgot for a while the deep wound in his own arm.

"Oh, sir," he exclaimed to Ali, "ask him—you know his language,—if he can tell us anything of my brother!" It seemed to Robin that on the life of that Bedouin might hang the only clue to the fate of Harold.

"Unhand the wretch; do not slay him," said the Amir sternly to his Persian followers, those who had been most slow to fight, being now the most eager to kill.

"Son of a dog!" he continued, addressing the crouching Arab, "Can you tell us anything of a white man who is in the hands of any of your detestable tribe?"

Ali had to repeat the question, and in a louder tone, before the frightened Bedouin seemed to comprehend it. Then he jabbered something which Robin of course could not understand, though he breathlessly listened.

"Oh! What does he say?" exclaimed young Hartley.

"He says that his band have met with no white man." Robin's heart sank within him, but hope, with him ever at hand, brightened again as the Arab spoke more, and at greater length. Eagerly Robin turned to the Persian for a translation.

"He says that he has heard that another, a kindred, tribe of these Bedouin thieves, have with them an old white woman and a child."

"And a man!" exclaimed Robin. "Surely a man!"

"He says that a tall white man was with them."

Robin could hardly refrain from a shout, but his joy was followed by such giddiness and faintness that he put out his hand and grasped a tent-rope to save himself from falling.

Then first Ali perceived by the torch-light that the youth's sleeve was drenched in blood, while large drops were falling fast to the ground.

"You are wounded!" exclaimed the Amir.

"Nothing—only my arm," was Robin's reply, but he almost swooned as he spoke.

Every care, by Ali's command, was taken of the youth. One of the Amir's followers was a tolerably skilful leech, especially in cases of hurt from bullet or steel. Robin's blood was staunched, his arm bandaged and put in a sling. The wound was not serious, though it had become more painful than it had been at first. Robin, even while his arm was being bound, was anxiously inquiring whether more particulars about the white captives could not be drawn from the Arab. Ali, in this inquiry, had anticipated his wishes.

"The man says that the Shararat Bedouins, with their prisoners, were, he believes, making their way towards Djauf."

"Djauf! Where's that?" cried Robin. He had always had bad marks for geography at school, and, as regarded Oriental names of places, owned himself to be a regular dunce.

"Djauf, in the wadi (valley) of the same name, is a city in North Arabia, lying in the direction of the Syrian desert."

"Is it far from hence?" asked Robin anxiously.

"Very far," answered Hassan in broken English; "ten days of journey; and all way dead camels lie."

"Shorten the number of days by four, and let the camels keep in their legs," cried Ali satirically. "But with all allowance for Hassan's inventive genius, the journey is a difficult one, and not unattended with danger. To undertake it now is not to be thought of."

Robin was silenced for awhile, but a prayer was rising from his heart, "Lord, do Thou help me; enable me to seek and to find my Harold!"

At the command of the Amir, a carpet was spread on the ground for Robin, and cushions were brought from the tent to support his head. A goblet of sherbet was placed at his side, and an attendant gently fanned him. Ali seated himself on the same carpet.

"You saved my life," said the Amir, after some minutes of silence.

"You first saved mine," was Robin's reply.

"But not at the cost of my blood. No one renders such service to Ali without receiving reward. Ask what you will—it is yours; were it the signet from my hand—" he touched a magnificent ring which he wore—"were it even my fleet Firdosi."

"Oh! I do not care for jewels; I do not want horses!" exclaimed Robin, bluntly. "If you wish to show me kindness, take me to Djauf to seek for my brother. He is more to me than all the jewels in the world!"

"You insult my lord grossly by rejecting his gifts," said Hassan. "As for going to Djauf, the idea is worthy only of a madman. We are going to quit Arabia for ever; to my lord the land is hateful. On to Djauf indeed! As well propose to go to Gehannurn."

"Had I but a camel I would go alone!" cried the Knight of St. John.

Ali smiled his own peculiar joyless smile. "I never knew any one so eager as you seem to be to perish in the desert," he observed. But the Persian thought in his heart, "Can it be that there is really such a thing as true disinterested love, such as Christians talk about, and write about, but which I never have met with before?"

"It is time for us to prepare for our start," cried Hassan, "or we shall not reach the sea before nightfall. Is it my lord's pleasure that the camels be loaded?"

"Ay, and let their heads be turned towards Djauf," was the Amir's reply.

Robin uttered an exclamation of gratitude and joy.

"But, my lord," began Hassan in a tone of angry expostulation; but Ali gave him no time to finish his sentence.

"We are going to Djauf," said the Persian, in the tone of one resolved to have his own way.

Hassan left his master's presence, with difficulty suppressing an explosion of anger; no sooner was he beyond Ali's hearing than he swore a deep oath by his Prophet, Hossein, Hassan, Fatima, and all other saints in the Shiah calendar, that neither he nor the Amir, nor the detested white-faced infidel should ever set foot in Djauf.