He remembered the last time he had used it--in the desert: two
days of forgetfulness to the world, when it all moved by him, the
swarming Arabs, the train of camels, the loads of ivory, the slimy
crocodile on the sandbanks, the vultures hovering above unburied
carcasses, the kourbash descending on shining black shoulders,
corrugating bare brown bodies into cloven skin and lacerated flesh, a
fight between champions of two tribes who clasped and smote and struggled
and rained blows, and, both mortally wounded, still writhed in last
conflict upon the ground--and Mahommed Hassan ever at the tent door or by
his side, towering, watchful, sullen to all faces without, smiling to his
own, with dog-like look waiting for any motion of his hand or any
word.... Ah, Mahommed Hassan, it was he! Mahommed had put this phial in
his pocket. His bitter secret was not hidden from Mahommed. And this was
an act of supreme devotion--to put at his hand the lulling, inspiring
draught. Did this fellah servant know what it meant--the sin of it, the
temptation, the terrible joy, the blessed quiet; and then, the agonising
remorse, the withering self-hatred and torturing penitence? No, Mahommed
only knew that when the Saadat was gone beyond his strength, when the
sleepless nights and feverish days came in the past, in their great
troubles, when men were dying and only the Saadat could save, that this
cordial lifted him out of misery and storm into calm.
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