Chapter 6

Violated!

One moonless night Khartoum was taken by the Dervishes. In dead silence the swarming hosts had crossed the Nile. Admirably served by their spies, they had discovered a ford exactly in front of the breach. At this point the last flood had undermined the rampart, and embankment and wall had given way and disappeared in the swollen stream. Not a soul had informed Gordon of the damage, which had been deemed of no importance and left unrepaired, so that a gaping hole was there, as if to invite attack ... The breach was perfectly practicable, and through it the Malidists had been able to enter at their leisure. The guard was taken by surprise and massacred before they could raise an alarm. Fifty thousand assailants spread themselves through the city, destroying and devastating, with loud cries of "Lil Kenisa! Lil Saraya!" (To the Church! To the palace!) greedy for booty, eager to appropriate the treasures they hoped to find in the ill-fated town.

Traversing the gardens, they made straight for the Palace, and beat down its doors. Gordon came forward to meet them,-alone, for such had been his own wish. At the first alarm, he had given orders that every man should leave him and see to his own personal safety.

The door opened, and the assailants stood back. Gordon appeared on the threshold, and paused a moment there. Then he started to descend the steps, walking with a firm, manly step. Then he stopped again, and made signs he wished to speak. But with one bound a gigantic Negro was upon him. There was a flash of steel, and the man's cutlass pierced the hero to the heart. He fell forward, his face striking the ground. The howling mob flew upon their prey; not a Dervish but longed to have his share in sacrificing the idolater, not a fanatic but was eager to bury his dagger in the flesh of the Christian dog.

But some of the Emirs drove back the assassins with savage blows, and they stood looking on in sullen silence. One of the Officers gave a brief order. A soldier stepped forward, and lifting his naked sabre in both hands, beheaded the corpse with a single stroke. The officers, lowering a pikeman's lance, stuck the pale head on its point, while the blood trickling down the shaft, gleamed scarlet in the light of the torches. This done, the procession marched off in search of the Malidi.

From a distant hiding-place, James saw it pass by. Concealed by the darkness, he saluted the grim trophy in military fashion. At first he had resisted, and expressed his intention of staying beside his General, and Gordon had had to repeat his order in a dry peremptory tone. Then he had shaken James by the hand, and in a voice strangely gentle and caressing, had said: "Away! quick, to defend your future wife!"

So James had left him to his fate. Already the gardens were full of Dervishes, who guarded all the exits. He slipped through some bushes, reached the enclosing wall, against which he found a tree-trunk that helped him to climb over. He dropped into the street, falling on his feet. Without waiting to answer the sentinels who challenged him, he ran with all his speed towards his Uncle's house. At the corner of the street he heard the rapid steps of a man flying for his life, and a torrent of threats and insults in the thick, guttural tones of the Negro. Evidently a party of Dervishes in pursuit of a white man. James stood still and listened; there was nothing to be heard behind him, and he waited in motionless expectancy. Already the fugitive, noticing him, was trying a dodging movement to avoid him, when he exclaimed, "Halloa! Dufour'"

"Halloa! is it you, James? You gave me a fright ... Sorry, but there's no time to talk."

"Why hardly! With these devils on your track ... Shall we join company? Right?"

"Right!"

And they started running side by side, with quick rapid strides, elbows in and fist clenched. "Where are we bound?" asked Dufour. "To my Uncle Dick's!" replied James. "I thought so!"

"Quiet! We want all our breath to distance..."

However they did distance the Dervishes. Better still, they succeeded in putting them off the scent. Hidden under a porch, they heard their pursuers making off in quite a wrong direction.

Arrived at Uncle Dick's, they found it no easy matter to gain admission. Succeeding at last, they found that gentleman pondering deeply. Who was there he could trust for the defense? Nobody whatever,-save and except William, the English footman! But here was a reinforcement, James and Dufour, making four men in all, ready and willing to die to save Grace.

"And you know," cried he, "they haven't caught us yet. They've first got to find us ... We are going to lie low."

He struck the gong, and the room quickly filled, the servants readily answering the summons. But there were vacant places, some having already made off to fraternize with the victorious Malidists.

"No time to lose!" growled Uncle Dick..."Well; here we are! All the live stock left in the establishment is now in this room."

Then raising his voice and speaking in Arabic:

"My children, I've always been a good master to you ... If anyone thinks otherwise, let him speak up. Nobody has a word to say? Very well! Now I have a piece of bad news to tell you. I am leaving you. The town is in the hands of the enemy, and we are going to fly. We have camels waiting, and are off directly. But I don't intend anyone to know in what direction. So I am going to take the liberty of locking you all up in this room! A few hours, and you will be free!"

There was a murmur of protest, and one or two negroes stepped forward in a threatening attitude. But the four white men had revolvers in heir hands, and the party got in motion without further resistance, enclosing Grace in their midst. No sooner were they outside than Uncle Dick turned the key in the door, muttering. "There! Before they think of breaking down the door, we shall be safe in our hiding-place-My friends, I am going to conduct you into the bowels of the earth."

The little band now began to descend a staircase, a winding stone stair that led downwards under the floor. Uncle Dick was an epicure in the matter of good wine and cool beer and when he had the house built, he had paid the utmost attention to the cellars. There was nothing like them in all Khartoum; even the palace cellars could not be compared with them. Of solid brickwork, heavily and massively constructed, with vaults as high as the aisle of a Cathedral, they extended far beneath the house, deep and cool.

Soon they were traversing a long passage, William going first with a lantern. Suddenly the man sopped, and began hauling at an enormous bottle rack, a mighty erection loaded with dusty wine bottles. The huge mass of iron and glass slid on rails laid for the purpose, and a secret door was revealed. The good Uncle burst out laughing, as he explained the dodge. He was now going to open this door, and by the act of shutting it again he drew back the rack once more into its place. You might pass the spot a dozen times without guessing there was anything concealed. For months, ever since he had known Gordon was coming without bringing any troops with him, he had been at work with William, storing up arms in plenty and provisions enough to last a year-dry Captain's biscuits and preserved foods, not to mention some of his finest wine and the various strong waters he was so fond of. Nor had he omitted a supply of the most indispensable articles of furniture, even including an electric stove, for cooking purposes, which could be heated without producing any smoke to betray the secret.

"No fear of rheumatism!" he cried in high good humor. "It's just as dry as the sands of the desert, though there's no lack of water, neither."

So saying, he opened a tap, from which flowed an abundant jet of water.

"And now, to await developments ... Will you have a cigar, James? And you, Dufour? No need to offer you one, William; you, sneak 'em, whether or no!"

James had gone up to Grace, and was gazing at her with a submissive glance, such as a faithful dog casts at his mistress. Seeing him looking thus, she blushed; and presently took his hand boldly and pressed it hard:

"I was a wretch, James, last night-at the concert, you know, in the Palace gardens ... Can you forgive me?"

He answered the pressure of her hand, so strongly moved he could only stammer out her name:

"Grace! ... my own Grace!"

"You told me you still wished me to be your wife ... That was what you meant, was it not?"

For only answer he pressed her hand again, and his eyes softened in an unspoken prayer.

"If ever we get out of here, we will be married, James-whenever you wish."

Uncle Dick was leering at them out of the corner of his eye. He had drawn Dufour on one side, and was getting him to institute a comparison between his old port and his old sherry, William serving them with an expression of compunction on his face at such ill-timed indulgence.

Meantime from the upper world and the street outside, came muffled shouts, indistinct rumblings and half-heard explosions. They were the sounds of massacre, conflagration and the shooting down of men,-faint echoes of the sack of Khartoum.

Grace laid her two hands on James's shoulders, and said with a slow, solemn voice:

"If they reach us here, I trust they will never have been alive, James."

He smiled mournfully, while his voice rang out calm and manly:

"I swear they shall not; when I can no longer defend you, I will kill you."

A half deadened rumbling made itself heard, coming nearer and nearer, and soon they could distinguish men's steps echoing from the hollow vaulting.

"They're coming," whispered Uncle Dick. "Hunt away, my boys! I wish you joy of your search!"

"Nobody knows the hiding-place," added William; "though one day I certainly did catch Aisha, the tall Kinka negress, spying on us. I drove her off with a stick soundly applied ... Foul brute! can she have discovered our secret? ... I don't think she can. And after all, what matter? she's far enough away, now, in Aisha."

However the noise approached closer and closer. Suddenly there was a crash, a cataract of broken glass thrown headlong on the floor. The Dervishes had overturned the bottle-rack, and unmasked the door! Grace turned pale, while the men leapt to seize their guns. Heavy blows were now heard, the butt-ends of muskets smashing down on the solid woodwork. These were reinforced by hatchets, and soon the door split beneath their edge,-and showed an open gap. At this a negro showed his grinning face, but instantly fell back, beating the air with his arms, a bullet in his temple. Then through the narrow opening the four men began a steady fire, Grace handing them the loaded rifles one by one from the row along the wall. Among the assailants, there was a moment of indecision but it was of the briefest. Why fear death? They ought rather to long for it; for had not the Malidi promised all who should fall the sensual joys of Paradise? Were not forty houris, fairest among the fair, awaiting them-forever young and beautiful, expert in the arts of love, and whose Virginity is miraculously renewed as often as required!

They were not slow to return the fire, and suddenly William was seen to whirl round and measure his length on the floor, shot through the heart. Next it was Uncle Dick's turn to fall mortally wounded. Dufour and James were left alone to defend the entrance, revolver in hand, firing repeatedly, into the mass of the enemy. But a rush on the part of the Dervishes drove them from their post. Dufour had fired six shots from his revolver, hitting his man every time; he was shouting wildly, "Ha, ha! I defy you to kill me six times over," when he collapsed under a blow from a hatchet, which knocked his brains out.

Only Lord Elphin was left, on his feet and unwounded. But the chambers of his revolver were all empty, and he threw away the now useless weapon. With one bound he dashed at his nearest assailant and grasped him by the throat. The negro tossed his arms wildly, clutching the air with his hands. He let his sabre fall, and James instantly took possession of it.

But in doing so, he had unmasked Grace. In a moment the Blacks had their hands upon her, and held her firmly, in spite of her frantic efforts to escape. Their great eyes rolled full of savage admiration, while their thick lips murmured outspoken compliments.

James fell on them like a thunderbolt, his sword working like a windmill. They shrank back before the naked steel; but just as he was laying hold of Grace, he staggered, stunned by a blow from the butt. He was down; and a dozen hands were busy holding him fast and tying his arms. Through the blood that poured over his forehead, he caught sight of Grace, with clasped hands, surrounded by a mob of ruffians, who were laughing a harsh, guttural laugh of triumph.

There was a surging to and fro of the crowd; an Emir was pressing his way to the front, pushing back with vigorous blows all who stood in his road. He was a superb specimen of humanity, a perfect type of the Nubian negro. He was well over six feet, and his crisp hair uniting with his beard gave him what looked like a lion's mane. The man threw his arms round Grace, who drew back in terror and disgust, shrinking as far as possible from the black, shiny face on which a horrid smile showed a row of flashing teeth as white as milk. Slowly and gradually, with his strong hand on her shoulder, the negro forced her face forward nearer and nearer to his own. She uttered a wild cry of distress, immediately stifled under a vigorous kiss...

Oh, the horrors, the abominations of that kiss! ... She all but fainted, as with dilated eyes and nostrils filled with the stench of the negro, she breathed in the odious, greasy smell, the fetid goaty stink! ... It was foul beyond words; her mouth turned sour, while a spasm of nausea seized her by the throat!

Then she gave vent to a more bitter cry still, a cry deeper and more terrible, biting desperately at the hideous, thick lips of her ravisher ... Oh, the pain of it! the sharp, sickening pain! (I) The poor girl screamed aloud, her wild cries, that grew louder and louder, telling her horror of the brutal male, her abhorrence of the agony she was made to endure.

Her nerves were at the highest tension, and now began to quiver with a feeling of intense, delirious pleasure

(i) In a work by an anonymous author (Dr. Jacobus X.), a book equally remarkable for the charm of its manner and the erudition of its matter, entitled. "L'Ethnologie du sens genital: Etude de l'Amour Normal et ses Abus, Perversions, Folies et Crimes, dans l'Especc Hu-maine," (Paris, Carrington, iqoi), is to be found the explanation of this terrible penalty which Nature exacts from women.

Shuddering under the virile efforts of the muscular Negro, she no longer saw her assailant; it was James she saw, the man of her choice, the man who loved her, and to whom she had just plighted her troth afresh ... There he stood, motionless, propped up against the wall, bound baud and foot by these savages ... Yes! he saw her I he was looking at her with eyes starting out of his head, the wild eyes of a madman ... What a look, a look of farewell, full of despair and frantic anger!..."James! James" ... the name sprang to her lips in a cry of ardent voluptuous ecstasy; it was James she loved, and James only,-for him it was she felt her nerves vibrate so delightfully, for him she was enduring this exquisite pain, this joy of joys, born of blood and torment.

Half swooning with excess of pleasure, she beheld James roughly dragged forward and forced to his knees, while a sword flashed in the air. An instant after his head came rolling to her feet. She gazed at the ghastly object, her eyes wandering from the huddled body, which spouted blood in torrents, to the pale face, a white blotch in a red pool. It was handsome still, in spite of the dreadful expression, the grimace of impotent anger the features yet wore m death.

Grace fainted away, and still in a condition of torpor felt herself being carried off and moving through the streets of Khartoum. All round her were the sounds of guns going off, the prayers of victims and the cries and groans of wretches under torture. She could hear bursts of savage laugher, and see flames ascending amid whirlwinds of sparks. Then her conductor crossed a stretch of open country, bordering on the Nile, a sandy plain dotted with clumps of parched alfa grass. The sun was blazing high in a sky of deepest blue.

Presently they pushed her into an enclosed space of open yard, where she found herself among a number of other women, captives,-Copts, Nubians, and Greeks. All were silent, and deadly pale, grief and anxiety were depicted on every face, the majority sitting squatted on their heels, resting.

Further off, was a crowd of warriors, agitated, noisy and busy. Fresh Dooty was continually arriving, while fighting was still going on here and there, single explosions and isolated volleys rending the air at intervals. Underneath all was a never ceasing clamour of shouting coming from the camp, mingled with the rolling of the great war drums and the harsh tones of the ombeya, the elephant's tusk hollowed to form a trumpet, die clarion of these noble knights.

Beside a clump of mimosas, surrounded by his Emirs, the Malidi was seated on a sheep-skin, breakfasting. The fare consisted of watermelons, and slices of flesh cut from a young camel, which he ate raw. Swarms of flies eddied round the food, and kept drowning themselves in the cups. All the while he was eating, the Malidi was giving brief peremptory orders-dividing the plunder, distributing the women among his followers, always reserving the handsomest for himself, deciding disputes, giving sentence and assigning the punishment, which was carried out there and then.

A Copt, an old man, was tied up to a tree, while four soldiers were thrashing him systematically with kourbashes, heavy flexible whips cut bodily from a hippopotamus hide. The four lashes whirled in the air, and fell rhythmically with a dull thud, cutting open the skin at every blow. At short intervals all four with one consent stopped beating. Then an Emir would question the victim, trying to discover where the old man had hidden his treasures, for he was known to be wealthy. The Copt, maddened by pain, did not even hear; then at a sign from the Emir, the kourbashes rose again, whistled whirling through the air and wrapped the miserable creature, as it were, in their horrid net. It was not long before the unhappy man's belly was cut open, and the bowels tumbled out in a green-looking mass, followed by a torrent of blood.

A woman was undergoing the same punishment. By a refinement of licentious cruelty she had been tied up with the two legs drawn wide apart, so that the kourbash drawn from below upwards, caught the sexual parts with its flexible tip, making the tender mucous membrane of that delicate organ swell up hideously. Grace recognized the victim, to whom she had often carried a cup of tea in her Uncle Dick's' drawing-room. She was the widow of Musta-pha Tiranis, a rich Circassian lady, who had supplied Gordon with money by the ass load, and whom the grateful General had decorated with the Khartoum medal. Now, to punish her and to extort anything she might still possess, the Malidists were deliberately thrashing her to death.

But Grace trembled in every limb when she saw Aisha, the tall Dinka negress, who dressed in a man's "jibbeh," or Dervishes' long robe, and brandishing a drawn sword, was mounting guard over two Nubians, bound naked to stakes and facing one another. They were still alive, though the horrible contraction of their features showed death was not far off. From the lower part of their belly the blood was oozing, trickling down their thighs, while tatters of bloody skin and flesh made their thick lips to which they were fastened with thorns, look more swollen still.

They were soldiers of the Malidi's bodyguard, of the "Jedehiah," magnificent fellows, tall and slim, with beautifully moulded limbs, negroes of Kordofan, vigorous and muscular to the last degree. Both came from El-Obayd, and they had been friends from inimagine. Their fathers were neighbours, who from the very beginning had embraced the Malidi's cause with the savage zeal of fanatics, and were anxious for their children to serve in his armies and contribute something to his triumph.

For some time now their comrades had had their suspicions. The elder always displayed towards the younger an ardent attachment, lavishing all a lover's cares upon him.

On the march it was he who carried the baggage of both, while in difficult places he would hold out his long lance, to which the other would cling and so surmount the ruggedness of the road. After the massacre was completed and the camp pitched, drunk with butchery and satiated with laughter, they had slipped away together into a neighboring thicket. But sharp eyes were spying their actions, and some of their comrades caught them in the act, before they had time so much as to re-arrange their clothes. Dragged before the Malidi, they were ordered by him to be given up to the women's tender mercies. Aisha had acted as mistress of the ceremonies, and under her directions the Furies had torn off their garments, spitting in their face, scratching and beating the two wretches. Then with shouts of "Mot! Mot!" (Kill them! Kill them!), they had hurried them away and bound them fast, each to a stake, facing one another. First Aisha put a hard pad under their loins, so as to throw out the belly into prominence. Then the women, taking turns, proceeded to inflict an endless, ceaselessly renewed caress on the criminals. This went on four hours, the spasms of ejaculation being repeated again and again and again.

At first the victims had apparently experienced a pleasurable sensation, and had laughed and joked with the women surrounding them; but under the persevering, merciless hands of their tormentors, the nerves stiffened in intolerable cramps, and they felt their very life was being drained away. Before long, the ever repeated caress, now gently applied by expert fingers, now rough and brutal, started the blood spurting, and every feeling annihilated save one of anguish, they had begged and prayed and besought to be released. Presently they had fallen into a condition of torpor, which made them insensible to all their torturers' efforts. Seeing this, Aisha severed the testicles, and driving a big thorn through them, pinned them to their lips, in a long kiss of shame and agony. Thus they left them, bound to their stakes, to affront naked the burning sun, the torment of the flies and the derision of the camp.

Grace looked on at all these horrors with a dull sense of utter wretchedness. One thought, and one only, filled her mind, and she saw continually before her eyes the pale face and bleeding head of the unfortunate James, the man who had loved her so. Now she reproached herself with having caused his death. She recalled the scene in the hotel in Wardour Street, near Leicester Square, when he had looked so abject and ridiculous. But why? He was really showing energy, and he was so strong, if he had persisted, he could have forced her to submit,-as easily as the wretched vile negro, who had hurt her so. It was because he loved her that he had stopped short, recoiling at the violence she compelled him to employ. She stretched herself on the sand, her whole body racked with disabling pain. A sharp, shooting agony tortured her, and presently another sensation, a sharp hunger, each moment growing more violent, more intolerable, was added to her sufferings.

Suddenly she started violently at the touch of a rough hand on her shoulder, and she found herself pushed rather than led into the Malidi's presence. Her appearance was greeted with a murmur of astonishment and delight from the Emirs, and all gazed at her with eyes that sparkled with unholy desire. She was pale and hungry, and could hardly stand. So fierce were the pangs of hunger she forgot everything else, her shame and disgrace as a woman, and the hot pain she still felt from the violation she had undergone.

The Malidi looked long at her without a word, while all his officers stood round panting with concupiscence. No doubt he would keep this woman also for himself, this white woman with the soft skin and bright eyes and pretty head in its aureole of gold! He would send her off to his "Beit-el-Maal," his treasure-house, where he collected all that pleased him among the booty,-gold, silver, arms, precious stuffs, food, slaves, even the heads of his vanquished foes. But Grace seemed to see nothing. She was stupid with hunger, and everything sank into insignificance before the one imperious craving,-even the awful sights she had seen, the atrocious outrage she had endured, the head of the man she loved rolling at her feet, while the hideous stinking negro bruised her flesh and tore her inwards. Her eyes were blood-shot and dizzy with horror, and the people about her seemed like demons in an evil dream. She felt only one clear and definite desire, the wish to eat,-to eat anything, no matter what, but now directly! She never thought they would give her food, or she would have asked for it. Doubtless it was the sequel of her other tortures, of which hunger was to form a part. They must know what she was suffering, and they were glad of it, the same as just now, when for all their pretended indifference, they no doubt found a vile pleasure in seeing the old man's bowels gush out under the lash, and in watching the agonies of the two wretches whose organs were torn away piecemeal by the women.

They had plenty to eat, the scoundrels; she could see no end of good cheer, and appetizing dishes, fowls, rice, beautiful with rice that smelt deliciously of the fresh milk it had been cooked in. And there were noble joints of roast meat, all browned by the fire, red meat with rich gravy, juicy meat so tender it would surely melt under the teeth, and cakes of dourrha, all hot, exhaling a lovely odor that showed they were cooked to a turn!

But lo! an arm stretched out to her, reaching her one of those very cakes, with a slice of rich, succulent meat, the gravy soaking into the cake on which it lay! She simply threw herself upon the food, seized with both hands, and hurriedly carrying it to her mouth, swallowed it ravenously. The Emirs burst out laughing; and generously, at the v prayer of the Khalif Abdullahi, the Generalissimo of his army, the Madhi presented Grace to Abu-Anga, the most valiant of his Emirs.