Greenmantle by John Buchan (snow like ashes series .txt) 📕

you or anyone. You’re paying the price of a suspicious nature. When you know a little more you’ll want to apologize to me. I’m going to see that you are kept quiet and comfortable for a day or two. You’ve no cause to worry, for you’ll suffer no harm. I give you my word of honour as an American citizen.”

Two of Sandy’s miscreants came in and bore him off, and presently Sandy himself returned. When I asked him where he was being taken, Sandy said he didn’t know. “They’ve got their orders, and they’ll carry them out to the letter. There’s a big unknown area in Constantinople to hide a man, into which the Khafiyeh never enter.”

Then he flung himself in a chair and lit his old pipe.

“Dick,” he said, “this job is getting very difficult and very dark. But my knowledge has grown in the last few days. I’ve found out the meaning of the second word that Harry Bullivant scribbled.”

“Cancer?” I asked.

“Yes. It means just what it reads and no more. Greenmantle is dying⁠—has been dying for months. This afternoon they brought a German doctor to see him, and the man gave him a few hours of life. By now he may be dead.”

The news was a staggerer. For a moment I thought it cleared up things. “Then that busts the show,” I said. “You can’t have a crusade without a prophet.”

“I wish I thought it did. It’s the end of one stage, but the start of a new and blacker one. Do you think that woman will be beaten by such a small thing as the death of her prophet? She’ll find a substitute⁠—one of the four Ministers, or someone else. She’s a devil incarnate, but she has the soul of a Napoleon. The big danger is only beginning.”

Then he told me the story of his recent doings. He had found out the house of Frau von Einem without much trouble, and had performed with his ragamuffins in the servants’ quarters. The prophet had a large retinue, and the fame of his minstrels⁠—for the Companions were known far and wide in the land of Islam⁠—came speedily to the ears of the Holy Ones. Sandy, a leader in this most orthodox coterie, was taken into favour and brought to the notice of the four Ministers. He and his half-dozen retainers became inmates of the villa, and Sandy, from his knowledge of Islamic lore and his ostentatious piety, was admitted to the confidence of the household. Frau von Einem welcomed him as an ally, for the Companions had been the most devoted propagandists of the new revelation.

As he described it, it was a strange business. Greenmantle was dying and often in great pain, but he struggled to meet the demands of his protectress. The four Ministers, as Sandy saw them, were unworldly ascetics; the prophet himself was a saint, though a practical saint with some notions of policy; but the controlling brain and will were those of the lady. Sandy seemed to have won his favour, even his affection. He spoke of him with a kind of desperate pity.

“I never saw such a man. He is the greatest gentleman you can picture, with a dignity like a high mountain. He is a dreamer and a poet, too⁠—a genius if I can judge these things. I think I can assess him rightly, for I know something of the soul of the East, but it would be too long a story to tell now. The West knows nothing of the true Oriental. It pictures him as lapped in colour and idleness and luxury and gorgeous dreams. But it is all wrong. The Kaf he yearns for is an austere thing. It is the austerity of the East that is its beauty and its terror⁠ ⁠… It always wants the same things at the back of its head. The Turk and the Arab came out of big spaces, and they have the desire of them in their bones. They settle down and stagnate, and by the by they degenerate into that appalling subtlety which is their ruling passion gone crooked. And then comes a new revelation and a great simplifying. They want to live face to face with God without a screen of ritual and images and priestcraft. They want to prune life of its foolish fringes and get back to the noble bareness of the desert. Remember, it is always the empty desert and the empty sky that cast their spell over them⁠—these, and the hot, strong, antiseptic sunlight which burns up all rot and decay. It isn’t inhuman. It’s the humanity of one part of the human race. It isn’t ours, it isn’t as good as ours, but it’s jolly good all the same. There are times when it grips me so hard that I’m inclined to forswear the gods of my fathers!

“Well, Greenmantle is the prophet of this great simplicity. He speaks straight to the heart of Islam, and it’s an honourable message. But for our sins it’s been twisted into part of that damned German propaganda. His unworldliness has been used for a cunning political move, and his creed of space and simplicity for the furtherance of the last word in human degeneracy. My God, Dick, it’s like seeing St. Francis run by Messalina.”

“The woman has been here tonight,” I said. “She asked me what I stood for, and I invented some infernal nonsense which she approved of. But I can see one thing. She and her prophet may run for different stakes, but it’s the same course.”

Sandy started. “She has been here!” he cried. “Tell me, Dick, what do you think of her?”

“I thought she was about two parts mad, but the third part was uncommon like inspiration.”

“That’s about right,” he said. “I was wrong in comparing her to Messalina. She’s something a dashed sight more complicated. She runs the prophet just because she shares his belief. Only what in him is sane