Chapter 15
War and Women
Grace exhausted her imagination in vain and impracticable projects, but in spite of the activity of her brain, the time seemed interminable. The idle, indolent life of the harem had never appeared so unbearable. She had seen Slatin again; but there was nothing to be done, nothing to be attempted for the present. Other things were going badly too, especially for Grace. The comparative freedom granted to women was being restricted more and more; every day brought narrower espionage, more numerous reports to the cadis. The Khalif had given express orders on the point.
The fact is women had ended by securing too high a degree of importance. When the husband was rotting in prison, it was the wife who worked for the meal she brought him. The majority worked at a trade or kept a shop. True the husband contributed the big sums, came home loaded with booty after a battle; but the daily bread, the small daily profits, these the wife supplied. Thus they had come by degrees to rid themselves of all restraint. When the husband was at the wars, the wife denied herself nothing, and found in adultery a compensation for the loss of conjugal delights. The sufferers crowded to the Cadi. The husband would put away his guilty spouse and the judge order her to be whipped,-which meant a double allowance for her, as before dragging her to the court, the husband invariably gave her a sound thrashing on his own account.
Moreover the spies who were prowling everywhere in search of a seditious conversation to report, or a tobacco smoker or drinker of marissa to hunt down, had received orders to keep an eye on the women. This task they undertook con amore, taking a pride in outwitting the cunning of the most experienced intriguers of the sex. Nor did their surveillance confine itself solely to the wives, but not unfrequently included concubines as well, all their skill not always enabling them to distinguish the two classes. The worst of it was these spies were so clever and their proceedings so adroit, it was not possible to find out who you had to deal with. Otherwise with a trifle of money it would have been easy enough to buy them off.
In the case of the Judge this was not to be thought of. In other directions the Cadi was nothing if not corruptible. Drinkers of marissa, smokers of tobacco, could enjoy their pet vices as much as ever they pleased, provided it was not in public and on condition of paying a recognized tax to the Judge, on receipt of which he became deaf to all evidence whatsoever. But where adultery was concerned, he was adamant; neither gold nor silver would induce him to acquit the unfaithful wife. After one extra conscientious day's work on the part of these gentry, more than eight hundred women were crowded in the city gaol.
The Khalif was furious on hearing the monstrous total, and ordered that an example should be made. Now a woman whose husband had been for two years on garrison duty at Berber had a lover, from whose embraces two children had been born. So she was taken from prison, and led into the Market-place. A child was put in either arm, and fastened there with cords. Then a pit was dug, and the group of three placed in it in such a way as to leave the children, and the woman from the waist upwards, above ground, the ground being trodden hard all round so that the legs were secured as if in a case or sheath. Heaps of stones were duly provided, all the bigger ones having been picked out to make amusement last the longer, and only round pebbles left no bigger than walnuts. From these heaps everybody took a supply for stoning the adultress and her little ones. Customers interrupted their buying, and shopkeepers closed their doors, all anxious to have their share of the pleasure provided. Each clever shot was greeted with shouts of laughter and delight. The children's moans and their mother's sobs were inaudible, but the faces they pulled could be seen, and this was enough to cause great merriment. The first pebble was thrown by a Dongola negro after taking long and careful aim, but his shot only grazed the woman's shoulder. The second was more fortunate and knocked one of the babies' eyes out. The mother gave a howl, and struggled wildly with her arms, striving to throw the child away from her, out of the murderous range of fire. But the knots had been drawn tight, and the three bodies were inseparable. It was not long before only a bleeding mass of mangled flesh was left. The very bones had been broken and shattered by the jagged flints.
About the same time occurred an extraordinary instance of conjugal devotion that shocked all Omdurman. One morning the daughter of a gravedigger appeared before the Cadi, accusing her father of violating graves and committing foul atrocities on women's dead bodies. The Cadi telling the girl to say nothing to anyone else, had the man watched, with the result that he was caught in the act. In the night he had left his hut, and using his spade as a weapon had driven off the cowardly hyenas. Then he proceeded to dig up a woman's body, and seated on the ground, took the dead woman on his knees, enfolding her in his arms. He kissed her greedily and pressed her to him murmuring words of love and phrases expressive of ecstasy and pleasure. Brought before the Cadi, he gave the following account of himself. He had had two wives; when he married the second, she was just sixteen, while he was getting on for fifty. He seemed as if he could never tire of describing the adorable child,-how pretty she was, how loving, how the scent of her was sweeter than the odor of sandalwood, and the least touch of her turned him mad with delight! He had loved her beyond words!
But alas! they had not been wed more than six months before he lost her. In the morning she was smiling and gay, and the same evening she lay dead in his arms. At the time he was a merchant at Khartoum,-before the Malidi's days. He thought he was going mad. But the cruelest moment of all was when he saw the earth cover the form he loved so well. What a wrench it was; his heart seemed to go with the dead girl, to be buried in the same grave with her!. . . That night a temptation that was stronger than his will assailed him ... His head said no! no! no! but his feet started of their own accord and carried him to the cemetery. He climbed the wall and disinterred the corpse. He held his beloved in his arms; he spoke to her; he began to fondle her and caress her tenderly,-and she came to life again! He was positive she did,-a brief and partial life, it is true,-but she did live, ... and gave him back his kisses,-kisses such as she alone knew how to give.
He went again and again. Finally he gave money to the gravedigger to leave the country, and obtained his situation. The Egyptian functionary he bribed was not a little surprised to see so insignificant a post sought for so eagerly, especially as he knew the man was well to do. The answer was another fistful of dollars slipped into his hand, which made it impossible to refuse. Every night was given up to orgies,-orgies of love that strain the nerves and exhaust the limbs and leave the brain empty,-empty of everything, but a sense of delirious, delicious pleasure! He used to dig up his beloved and only return her to the grave towards dawn, when the night was waning, the moment when the first shudder of coming day sets the tops of the date-palms quivering. Meantime putrefaction was at work; the flesh began to crawl with worms, and the orbits of the eyes were now empty. The cheeks hung in ribbons, and the lips half eaten away wore a fixed smile,-the smile of death; but the teeth shone so white, with nothing to hinder his smothering them with his kisses! ... To him the carrion still displayed the pretty features, the fair face of his lost love. He would bite the dead woman in his paroxysms, and his teeth would penetrate to the bone in the frenzied kiss. For a brief moment he hesitated before the advances of decay, the foul stench of putrefaction. But soon he shook off this feeling of repulsion; for underneath the fetid odor he had found again in the dead girl the soft, penetrating perfume she had breathed out when alive.
But one night, as he was pressing her to his bosom, showering frantic kisses on the poor disfigured face, the head fell off! ... This was the end, the end of all, come at last! It took him some time to find the head, which had rolled away, but eventually he laid it piously in the tomb, beside the body. He would go no more! What good now? Yet two weeks later, he was constrained to open the grave once more; the temptation was more than he could resist. He worked as if in a dream, and found ... a heap of bones! Then black melancholy overwhelmed him, and enforced continence began to torment him grievously, for no living woman could find favor; what pleasures could she have offered him comparable to the transports he had enjoyed with his dead bride?
"The wrath of God be upon you!" cried the Cadi, breaking in on his narrative. "No man can live with the dead,-but to claim of them the pleasures of life, is madness, horrible madness!"
"If love is madness, mad I am!" the gravedigger answered. "Yet it is a madness common enough! ... I dug up other women, and always in their corpses it was Fatma I saw,-Fatma, my darling, my beloved! I knew it! I was sure of it!. . . How,-by what miracle, I cannot tell; but when I fell to fondling them, little by little they would quit their torpor ,and grow alive and render me back my kisses!"
"You are mad,-thrice mad! What prodigy can bring the dead to life again?"
"What can you know of such things, Cadi? Wiser men than you confess their ignorance ... Can you tell me why pain heightens and intensifies pleasure! can you tell me that?. . . Life springs out of death, and whatsoever lives must die. All things come and go, and new vigor arises from the ruins of the old. Life and death commingle and embrace, and love makes them fruitful. 'Tis not you, wretched Cadi, that shall separate them! Think you, you can alter the work of the Almighty?"
With these words on his lips, he fell foaming at the mouth, writhing in a fit of epilepsy. The Cadi dismissed him unpunished, but forbade his going near the graveyard. The same night he was scaling its wall, when he dropped dead, shot by one of the soldiers on guard. The Khalif took the event for the text of a sermon which he preached at the Great Mosque one Friday, and in which he inveighed against adultery, and swore to punish all women guilty of such sinfulness.
What troubled Abdullahi more than anything else was the ravages committed by syphilis, which had even made inroads among his Bagaras. Under that sky of fire the disease took the most malignant forms, and especially among negroes, found a favorable soil. The quacks had nothing to oppose to it but drugs entirely incapable of arresting the progress of so terrible a malady, and Omdurman was full of persons maimed by the horrid complaint. The Khalif of course realized that everybody could not do as he did, shut up their wives in the harem and never let them leave it.
He had four hundred, of whom four were lawful wives; and of these four he was constantly changing three, repudiating whichever had ceased to please him. Sarah, his first wife, the chosen bride of his youth, the companion of his evil days, was the only one he firmly refused to put away. Even from her he had narrowly escaped divorce.
Formerly Sarah had cooked his meals; but in the days of his magnificence he had wished to taste of whatever was most exquisite, and had dishes prepared for him after Turkish and Egyptian receipts, and in all sorts of elaborate ways. One day or another, she declared, he would get himself poisoned, that was certain! and scolded him sharply, adopting the same tone she had employed when he was only a wandering Arab, a rough Bagara tribesman, a poor raiser of stock. But he was no longer disposed to put up with reproaches; and the letter of divorce was already made out, when his brother Yakub interfered. Sarah was retained, but her active service was held to be at an end. For physical pleasures he relied chiefly on his concubines, who were also four hundred in number, parked in little huts scattered about a large garden surrounded by a high wall. Soldiers were on guard duty day and night, while all domestic offices were performed by little Eunuch boys under the superintendence of the Chief Eunuch, a great, fat Copt, always ready to flourish the kourbash at the smallest provocation. This enclosure the concubines could never leave; for them the world ended at the wall, before which paced sentinels with loaded muskets.
The Khalif did not require his subjects to follow his own example; but he directed that women should be granted as little freedom as possible. Grace shared this curtailment of liberty, and one day when she wished to enter the prison, the gaoler, Saier, had turned her back. On her way home from this expedition, she noticed a great gathering of crowds in the street, people collecting in groups with an air of melancholy, shaking their heads and apparently discussing some mournful news. Many she saw opening wide, startled eyes, throwing out their arms, then drawing them in again with a rough gesture of annoyance, indulging in all the free mimicry and exuberant gestures of Orientals. Every moment the throng increased, getting more dense and compact. Now it filled the street, which re-echoed with sounds of lamentation that spread rapidly from one to another.
Grace was already congratulating herself, for in her present state of mind anything that was bad for the Dervishes was good for her, when suddenly at a street corner appeared Aisha, the tall Dinka. The negress came straight up to her, accosted her and almost without looking at her, said coldly:
"Go back to the house; they are waiting for you!"
For four years, since the day she ran away from Uncle Dick's house, this was the first time she had ever spoken to Grace.
The latter, much frightened, asked her:
"What is the matter? Who is waiting for me?"
But Aisha, drawing up her tall figure, only looked down at her contemptuously without a word. This calm, superior attitude seemed mere insolence to the European girl, and such scorn on the part of a servant touched her more nearly than all the humiliations she had hitherto undergone. Aisha still stood motionless in the same spot; her lace was calm, but her eyes flashed fire. Grace began to tremble before her gaze, and hurried off to obey. After a few steps she turned round, and saw that Aisha had vanished. She drew near a group of talkers, and listened; and it was in this way she learned the death of Abu-Anga.
He had died at Galabat, after only a day or two's illness. Some said it was typhus; others had a tale that, in order to check the corpulency that was increasing upon him, he had been in the habit of taking nux vomica, that he had exceeded the dose, and the poison had killed him. The latter were not far from the truth; poison had killed him. The friends of Yunis had kept their promise; Yunis was avenged, and might now return in security. But they were alone in their satisfaction. Everywhere else was weeping and lamentation; the people loved Abu-Anga for his generosity, and with him at its head the Ansar deemed themselves invincible. Already there was talk of santifying his memory; the Khalif, so report affirmed, was going to build him a mausoleum more beautiful than the Malidi's tomb itself.
On turning to the harem, Grace found Fadl-el-Maula, Abu-Anga's brother, already there, busily conferring with Fardji the Eunuch, and a Cadi. He had lost no time; barely had the news of his brother's death arrived before he was on the spot and in process of taking possession of the inheritance. To Grace the earth seemed to be crumbling away beneath her feet; her temples beat wildly and her heart felt like lead. Fadl-el-Maula however made as though he did not even see her; and next day the news was known that the Khalif had ordered his arrest. Although he held the command of the Djedadieh, the picked troop of negro soldiers, he had been chained and delivered into Saier's hands. This was another success to Yunis, who had insinuated to the Khalif that Fadl-el-Maula had been keeping back, to sell again, a large part of the dourrha issued to him by the Beit-el-Maal as rations for his men.
Abdullahi, who was always disposed to be suspicious, believed that Fadl-el-Maula wanted to get together a private store of money with a view to ambitious projects. But this was to misread his character, for in truth all he thought about was his pleasures. Wherever and whenever he set eyes on a pretty girl, he tried to get hold of her to clap her in his harem. Not a bad sort of man!-though he was too ready with the kourbash, whipping his women for nothing at all, for the mere pleasure of doing it. Under these circumstances he always declined the help of the Eunuch in charge, making a point of administering such chastisements with his own hand. Some time before, he had been seriously ill from an attack of syphilis, effluxions in the head having affected his brain. A "Fiki," or savant, had been consulted, and had pronounced him under the influence of the evil eye, declaring some ill-wisher must have cast a spell over him. And the funny thing was the Fiki spoke the exact truth for once! Among Fadl-el-Maula's wives was a Djaalin woman, quite a girl, a Negress of superb beauty. Fadl-el-Maula had fallen desperately in love with her, and she could do with him what she wished. But he had grown weary of her,-an event that soon befell so blase an individual,-and the girl's mother, who had been making a good thing out of the Emir's infatuation, attempted to stir up his passion afresh. She applied to a Fiki and paid him handsomely. The man gave her certain amulets, rolls of paper covered with mysterious writing, which had to be laid in accordance with his injunctions on the floor of the oven where the bread Fadl-el-Maula ate was cooking. This piece of sorcery however being discovered, its originator was easily traced, and the woman was condemned to the proper punishment reserved for practises of the black art,-amputation of the right hand and left foot. In the end his strong constitution got the upper hand, and Fadl-el-Maula was restored to health.
But now the calumnies of Yunis had brought him to a sorry pass. Grace was glad of it, though really his imprisonment caused no improvement in her circumstances. The first time she tried to leave the harem, to take the walk Abu-Anga had always permitted, Fardji sent her back again to her angareb, and with his favorite gesture, dropping his hand on the kourbash that hung from his belt, had forbidden her to pass the gate henceforth. The days passed in tedious monotony, Grace sitting dull and morose, wrapped up in fruitless reveries, amid the mirth and chatter of the other women.
Meantime Omdurman was exulting over fresh news from Galabat. On Abu-Anga's death, the Khalif had appointed Zeki Tummal to succeed to the command of the Fortress of Galabat. The new Commandant was a man of action, and at once set to work to strengthen the fortifications. Nor was it long before he had good reason to congratulate himself on these precautions. Advancing by forced marches, King John of Abyssinia was making for the frontier. He was accompanied by all his Ras, his
Viceroys of Provinces, each with his contingent,-in all an army of fifty thousand men, including no less than twenty thousand cavalry. The Ras Adal marched with the vanguard. He had sworn to slay as many Emirs as his wife and daughter counted years between them on the day they had been tom from him by Abu-Anga. Great was the alarm; the men sent out to reconnoiter reported that the enemies' forces were beyond counting, that their march raised the dust in whirling clouds that darkened the sun. As soon as the Abyssinians had crossed the frontier, King John sent a messenger bearing a flag of truce to say that his master had no intention of coming by stealth like a thief, to formally announce his approach and to warn the Dervishes he would give no quarter, but intended to exterminate the Malidists, the foes of Christianity. Very soon he made his appearance, at the head of his numerous army, which was followed by crowds of women,-wives and sweethearts of his soldiers. The assault was delivered with the utmost impetuosity, and the Dervishes poured a murderous fire into the serried masses. But the Abyssinians swarmed like ants up the slope and hurled themselves against the barrier of thorns, which they tried to set on fire. At last by a supreme effort, they succeeded in penetrating within the ramparts, and spread themselves through the town. They slew all they met on their way. The Dervish women fled before them with fearful screams, but they ran after them and spitted them on their long pikes. Soon the Abyssinians were in possession of the Beit-el-Maal, and in occupation of Abu-Anga's house, where they set to work to search for his body, thinking to dig it up and give it to the flames, in revenge for the burning of Gondar.
The Dervishes had lost heart; they were short of ammunition and their case seemed already desperate, when the report spread, like a train of gunpowder, among the assailants that their King had just been killed, shot with a rifle-bullet through the heart. A hasty retreat ensued, and in an instant the town was free of the foe, though as he retired, each Abyssinian took anything he could lay his hands on. They also carried off a large number of women, whom they drove before them, spurring them on with the points of their lances. The Dervishes were able to seize a few stragglers, whom Zeki Tummal beheaded and sent the heads to Omdurman together with the news of this fresh victory. Still they could not get over their surprise, and entirely failing to understand why the Abyssinians had beaten a retreat at the very moment of victory, they looked for a second attack. Presently however their scouts told them the real state of the case, and without another moment's delay, they dashed in pursuit. At the first onset the Abyssinians fled, leaving their women in the hands of the enemy. Next the Dervishes came upon a long box fastened and sealed, where they hoped to discover treasure, but all it contained was a dead man,-the half embalmed corpse of King John. Immediately they cut off the dead monarch's head, and dispatched it to the Khalif, along with a fine lot of booty,-King John's throne, gold and silver crosses richly worked and set with jewels, and innumerable captives.
Abdullahi was radiant with delight. He ordered the war drums to be beaten and the ombeya to sound, while the guns on the walls thundered to proclaim the victory. King John's head was set on a camel and taken round the marketplaces, a herald going before, who described the battle, announced the death of the puissant Negus and called upon the people to rejoice. Then the Khalif had the head packed in a piece of leather, and a camel-driver carried the parcel to Dongola, whence it was forwarded on to Wadi-Halfa, the nearest of the Egyptian garrisons. No writing was sent with it, Abdullahi deeming the message of death sufficiently eloquent by itself. Unless they made haste to humiliate themselves before the-Khalif, the Khedive of Egypt and Queen Victoria of England might expect a like fate.
And there were yet other causes of rejoicing to delight the people of Omdurman, for the Khalif was marrying his son Osman, who had just attained his seventeenth year, to the daughter of his brother Yakub. The betrothal had already taken place with much mangificence. Chafing dishes loaded with perfumes smoked day and night, and after the conclusion of the ceremony, musicians of the Dar-Fertit, and Niam-Niam singers, scraped the "nekuba," or native guitar, and intoned songs of war and triumph, while Abyssinian dancing girls delighted the eye. Now a procession of rich merchants and Emirs was announced at the Palace, each of whom was followed by a number of slaves bearing gifts,-costumes, precious stuffs and jewels. Others offered provisions, quintals of sugar, ardebs of dourrha, butter and honey, while there were some who came driving stock before them, fat oxen, swift racing camels, good goats and big sheep with fine fleeces. According to custom, the father of the bride presented this great store of food to the bride on the day of the "tefail," when women only are admitted to the festival. This is the occasion when the matrons of experience lavish their advice and warnings on the maid so soon to be a wife, and instruct her how to answer the husband's caresses, specially urging upon her that while over much expertness will suggest a doubt of her virginity, extreme awkwardness may cool the bridegroom's ardour for ever. After this the bride's hands were stained red with henna, and her feet as well. Each ceremonial was succeeded by a banquet, Abdullahi and Yukub keeping open house for the Emirs, while dates were distributed among the people in profusion.
This union showed clearly the Khalif was determined to found a dynasty. He had now reached the zenith of his power; and his own tribe, the Bagaras, prospered to the detriment of all the others in the Sudan. Once these stock-breeders had been held in contempt; the Aulad-Be-lad, that is to say the Djaalin, the Dongolawi and the
Barabras, the earliest adherents of the Malidi, felt the same scorn for the Bagaras as they lavished upon the fellahin of Egypt. And lo! these nomads, these uncouth rustics, transported from their native sands to Omdurman, had quickly assimilated all the qualities of town dwellers, inhabitants of the great densely populated centres of industry. They proved themselves both brave in battle and skilful in affairs,-but always and invariably greedy after gain. Booty of war and profit of commerce tempted them alike. Even their womanfolk seconded them well in the race of supremacy. Clever and keen after a bargain, they nearly all kept shop, gathering together in the hands of the tribe all the coin in the Sudan.
But the never ending wars had diminished the number of males, and every victory only further increased the preponderance of women. Every soldier had his concubine, and marriage was altogether at a standstill. Under these circumstances the Khalif decreed that three days were allowed, and three days only, to all girls over sixteen years of age, within which to get married. This respite once exceeded, she became the property, the slave of a Bagara. Never before had the Cadis been so busy; the couples were waiting in long files till their turn came to be made one. The Khalif was in joyous humor, and disposed to clemency, and he ended by pardoning Fadl-el-Maula.