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diff --git a/6262.txt b/6262.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..75becd9 --- /dev/null +++ b/6262.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5094 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook The Weavers, by Gilbert Parker, v2 +#89 in our series by Gilbert Parker + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**EBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers***** + + +Title: The Weavers, Volume 2. + +Author: Gilbert Parker + +Release Date: August, 2004 [EBook #6262] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on November 14, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + + + + + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WEAVERS, BY PARKER, V2 *** + + + +This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net> + + + + + +THE WEAVERS + +By Gilbert Parker + + + +BOOK II. + + +V. THE WIDER WAY +VI. "HAST THOU NEVER BILLED A MANY" +VII. THE COMPACT +VIII. FOR HIS SOUL'S SAKE AND THE LAND'S SAKE +IX. THE LETTER, THE NIGHT, AND THE WOMAN +X. THE FOUR WHO KNEW +XI. AGAINST THE HOUR OF MIDNIGHT +XII. THE JEHAD AND THE LIONS +XIII. ACHMET THE ROPEMAKER STRIKES +XIV. BEYOND THE PALE + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE WIDER WAY + +Some months later the following letter came to David Claridge in Cairo +from Faith Claridge in Hamley: + + David, I write thee from the village and the land of the people + which thou didst once love so well. Does thee love them still? + They gave thee sour bread to eat ere thy going, but yet thee didst + grind the flour for the baking. Thee didst frighten all who knew + thee with thy doings that mad midsummer time. The tavern, the + theatre, the cross-roads, and the cockpit--was ever such a day! + + Now, Davy, I must tell of a strange thing. But first, a moment. + Thee remembers the man Kimber smitten by thee at the public-house on + that day? What think thee has happened? He followed to London the + lass kissed by thee, and besought her to return and marry him. This + she refused at first with anger; but afterwards she said that, if in + three years he was of the same mind, and stayed sober and hard- + working meanwhile, she would give him an answer, she would consider. + Her head was high. She has become maid to a lady of degree, who has + well befriended her. + + How do I know these things? Even from Jasper Kimber, who, on his + return from London, was taken to his bed with fever. Because of the + hard blows dealt him by thee, I went to make amends. He welcomed + me, and soon opened his whole mind. That mind has generous moments, + David, for he took to being thankful for thy knocks. + + Now for the strange thing I hinted. After visiting Jasper Kimber at + Heddington, as I came back over the hill by the path we all took + that day after the Meeting--Ebn Ezra Bey, my father, Elder Fairley, + and thee and me--I drew near the chairmaker's but where thee lived + alone all those sad months. It was late evening; the sun had set. + Yet I felt that I must needs go and lay my hand in love upon the + door of the empty hut which had been ever as thee left it. So I + came down the little path swiftly, and then round the great rock, + and up towards the door. But, as I did so, my heart stood still, + for I heard voices. The door was open, but I could see no one. Yet + there the voices sounded, one sharp and peevish with anger, the + other low and rough. I could not hear what was said. At last, a + figure came from the door and went quickly down the hillside. Who, + think thee, was it? Even "neighbour Eglington." I knew the walk + and the forward thrust of the head. Inside the hut all was still. + I drew near with a kind of fear, but yet I came to the door and + looked in. + + As I looked into the dusk, my limbs trembled under me, for who + should be sitting there, a half-finished chair between his knees, + but Soolsby the old chair-maker! Yes, it was he. There he sat + looking at me with his staring blue eyes and shock of redgrey hair. + "Soolsby! Soolsby!" said I, my heart hammering at my breast; for + was not Soolsby dead and buried? His eyes stared at me in fright. + "Why do you come?" he said in a hoarse whisper. "Is he dead, then? + Has harm come to him?" + + By now I had recovered myself, for it was no ghost I saw, but a + human being more distraught than was myself. "Do you not know me, + Soolsby?" I asked. "You are Mercy Claridge from beyond--beyond and + away," he answered dazedly. "I am Faith Claridge, Soolsby," + answered I. He started, peered forward at me, and for a moment he + did not speak; then the fear went from his face. "Ay, Faith + Claridge, as I said," he answered, with apparent understanding, his + stark mood passing. "No, thee said Mercy Claridge, Soolsby," said + I, "and she has been asleep these many years." "Ay, she has slept + soundly, thanks be to God!" he replied, and crossed himself. "Why + should thee call me by her name?" I inquired. "Ay, is not her tomb + in the churchyard?" he answered, and added quickly, "Luke Claridge + and I are of an age to a day--which, think you, will go first?" + + He stopped weaving, and peered over at me with his staring blue + eyes, and I felt a sudden quickening of the heart. For, at the + question, curtains seemed to drop from all around me, and leave me + in the midst of pains and miseries, in a chill air that froze me to + the marrow. I saw myself alone--thee in Egypt and I here, and none + of our blood and name beside me. For we are the last, Davy, the + last of the Claridges. But I said coldly, and with what was near to + anger, that he should link his name and fate with that of Luke + Claridge: "Which of ye two goes first is God's will, and according + to His wisdom. Which, think thee," added I--and now I cannot + forgive myself for saying it--"which, think thee, would do least + harm in going?" "I know which would do most good," he answered, + with a harsh laugh in his throat. Yet his blue eyes looked kindly + at me, and now he began to nod pleasantly. I thought him a little + mad, but yet his speech had seemed not without dark meaning. "Thee + has had a visitor," I said to him presently. He laughed in a + snarling way that made me shrink, and answered: "He wanted this and + he wanted that--his high-handed, second-best lordship. Ay, and he + would have it, because it pleased him to have it--like his father + before him. A poor sparrow on a tree-top, if you tell him he must + not have it, he will hunt it down the world till it is his, as + though it was a bird of paradise. And when he's seen it fall at + last, he'll remember but the fun of the chase; and the bird may get + to its tree-top again--if it can--if it can--if it can, my lord! + That is what his father was, the last Earl, and that is what he is + who left my door but now. He came to snatch old Soolsby's palace, + his nest on the hill, to use it for a telescope, or such whimsies. + He has scientific tricks like his father before him. Now is it + astronomy, and now chemistry, and suchlike; and always it is the + Eglington mind, which let God A'mighty make it as a favour. He + would have old Soolsby's palace for his spy-glass, would he then? + It scared him, as though I was the devil himself, to find me here. + I had but come back in time--a day later, and he would have sat here + and seen me in the Pit below before giving way. Possession's nine + points were with me; and here I sat and faced him; and here he + stormed, and would do this and should do that; and I went on with my + work. Then he would buy my Colisyum, and I wouldn't sell it for all + his puffball lordship might offer. Isn't the house of the snail as + much to him as the turtle's shell to the turtle? I'll have no + upstart spilling his chemicals here, or devilling the stars from a + seat on my roof." "Last autumn," said I, "David Claridge was housed + here. Thy palace was a prison then." "I know well of that. + Haven't I found his records here? And do you think his makeshift + lordship did not remind me?" "Records? What records, Soolsby?" + asked I, most curious. "Writings of his thoughts which he forgot-- + food for mind and body left in the cupboard." "Give them to me upon + this instant, Soolsby," said I. "All but one," said he, "and that + is my own, for it was his mind upon Soolsby the drunken chair-maker. + God save him from the heathen sword that slew his uncle. Two better + men never sat upon a chair!" He placed the papers in my hand, all + save that one which spoke of him. Ah, David, what with the flute + and the pen, banishment was no pain to thee! . . . He placed the + papers, save that one, in my hands, and I, womanlike, asked again + for all. "Some day," said he, "come, and I will read it to you. + Nay, I will give you a taste of it now," he added, as he brought + forth the writing. "Thus it reads." + + Here are thy words, Davy. What think thee of them now? + + "As I dwell in this house I know Soolsby as I never knew him when he + lived, and though, up here, I spent many an hour with him. Men + leave their impressions on all around them. The walls which have + felt their look and their breath, the floor which has taken their + footsteps, the chairs in which they have sat, have something of + their presence. I feel Soolsby here at times so sharply that it + would seem he came again and was in this room, though he is dead and + gone. I ask him how it came he lived here alone; how it came that + he made chairs, he, with brains enough to build great houses or + great bridges; how it was that drink and he were such friends; and + how he, a Catholic, lived here among us Quakers, so singular, + uncompanionable, and severe. I think it true, and sadly true, that + a man with a vice which he is able to satisfy easily and habitually, + even as another satisfies a virtue, may give up the wider actions of + the world and the possibilities of his life for the pleasure which + his one vice gives him, and neither miss nor desire those greater + chances of virtue or ambition which he has lost. The simplicity of + a vice may be as real as the simplicity of a virtue." + + Ah, David, David, I know not what to think of those strange words; + but old Soolsby seemed well to understand thee, and he called thee + "a first-best gentleman." Is my story long? Well, it was so + strange, and it fixed itself upon my mind so deeply, and thy + writings at the hut have been so much in my hands and in my mind, + that I have put it all down here. When I asked Soolsby how it came + he had been rumoured dead, he said that he himself had been the + cause of it; but for what purpose he would not say, save that he was + going a long voyage, and had made up his mind to return no more. "I + had a friend," he said, "and I was set to go and see that friend + again. . . . But the years go on, and friends have an end. Life + spills faster than the years," he said. And he would say no more, + but would walk with me even to my father's door. "May the Blessed + Virgin and all the Saints be with you," he said at parting, "if you + will have a blessing from them. And tell him who is beyond and away + in Egypt that old Soolsby's busy making a chair for him to sit in + when the scarlet cloth is spread, and the East and West come to + salaam before him. Tell him the old man says his fluting will be + heard." + + And now, David, I have told thee all, nearly. Remains to say that + thy one letter did our hearts good. My father reads it over and + over, and shakes his head sadly, for, truth is, he has a fear that + the world may lay its hand upon thee. One thing I do observe, his + heart is hard set against Lord Eglington. In degree it has ever + been so; but now it is like a constant frown upon his forehead. I + see him at his window looking out towards the Cloistered House; and + if our neighbour comes forth, perhaps upon his hunter, or now in his + cart, or again with his dogs, he draws his hat down upon his eyes + and whispers to himself. I think he is ever setting thee off + against Lord Eglington; and that is foolish, for Eglington is but a + man of the earth earthy. His is the soul of the adventurer. + + Now what more to be set down? I must ask thee how is thy friend Ebn + Ezra Bey? I am glad thee did find all he said was true, and that in + Damascus thee was able to set a mark by my uncle's grave. But that + the Prince Pasha of Egypt has set up a claim against my uncle's + property is evil news; though, thanks be to God, as my father says, + we have enough to keep us fed and clothed and housed. But do thee + keep enough of thy inheritance to bring thee safe home again to + those who love thee. England is ever grey, Davy, but without thee + it is grizzled--all one "Quaker drab," as says the Philistine. But + it is a comely and a good land, and here we wait for thee. + + In love and remembrance. + + I am thy mother's sister, thy most loving friend. + + FAITH. + + +David received this letter as he was mounting a huge white Syrian donkey +to ride to the Mokattam Hills, which rise sharply behind Cairo, burning +and lonely and large. The cities of the dead Khalifas and Mamelukes +separated them from the living city where the fellah toiled, and Arab, +Bedouin, Copt strove together to intercept the fruits of his toiling, as +it passed in the form of taxes to the Palace of the Prince Pasha; while +in the dark corners crouched, waiting, the cormorant usurers--Greeks, +Armenians, and Syrians, a hideous salvage corps, who saved the house of +a man that they might at last walk off with his shirt and the cloth under +which he was carried to his grave. In a thousand narrow streets and +lanes, in the warm glow of the bazaars, in earth-damp huts, by blistering +quays, on the myriad ghiassas on the river, from long before sunrise till +the sunset-gun boomed from the citadel rising beside the great mosque +whose pinnacles seem to touch the blue, the slaves of the city of Prince +Kaid ground out their lives like corn between the millstones. + +David had been long enough in Egypt to know what sort of toiling it was. +A man's labour was not his own. The fellah gave labour and taxes and +backsheesh and life to the State, and the long line of tyrants above him, +under the sting of the kourbash; the high officials gave backsheesh to +the Prince Pasha, or to his Mouffetish, or to his Chief Eunuch, or to his +barber, or to some slave who had his ear. + +But all the time the bright, unclouded sun looked down on a smiling land, +and in Cairo streets the din of the hammers, the voices of the boys +driving heavily laden donkeys, the call of the camel-drivers leading +their caravans into the great squares, the clang of the brasses of the +sherbet-sellers, the song of the vendor of sweetmeats, the drone of the +merchant praising his wares, went on amid scenes of wealth and luxury, +and the city glowed with colour and gleamed with light. Dark faces +grinned over the steaming pot at the door of the cafes, idlers on the +benches smoked hasheesh, female street-dancers bared their faces +shamelessly to the men, and indolent musicians beat on their tiny drums, +and sang the song of "O Seyyid," or of "Antar"; and the reciter gave his +sing-song tale from a bench above his fellows. Here a devout Muslim, +indifferent to the presence of strangers, turned his face to the East, +touched his forehead to the ground, and said his prayers. There, hung to +a tree by a deserted mosque near by, the body of one who was with them +all an hour before, and who had paid the penalty for some real or +imaginary crime; while his fellows blessed Allah that the storm had +passed them by. Guilt or innocence did not weigh with them; and the dead +criminal, if such he were, who had drunk his glass of water and prayed to +Allah, was, in their sight, only fortunate and not disgraced, and had +"gone to the bosom of Allah." Now the Muezzin from a minaret called to +prayer, and the fellah in his cotton shirt and yelek heard, laid his load +aside, and yielded himself to his one dear illusion, which would enable +him to meet with apathy his end--it might be to-morrow!--and go forth to +that plenteous heaven where wives without number awaited him, where +fields would yield harvests without labour, where rich food in gold +dishes would be ever at his hand. This was his faith. + +David had now been in the country six months, rapidly perfecting his +knowledge of Arabic, speaking it always to his servant Mahommed Hassan, +whom he had picked from the streets. Ebn Ezra Bey had gone upon his own +business to Fazougli, the tropical Siberia of Egypt, to liberate, by +order of Prince Kaid,--and at a high price--a relative banished there. +David had not yet been fortunate with his own business--the settlement +of his Uncle Benn's estate--though the last stages of negotiation with +the Prince Pasha seemed to have been reached. When he had brought the +influence of the British Consulate to bear, promises were made, doors +were opened wide, and Pasha and Bey offered him coffee and talked to him +sympathetically. They had respect for him more than for most Franks, +because the Prince Pasha had honoured him with especial favour. Perhaps +because David wore his hat always and the long coat with high collar like +a Turk, or because Prince Kaid was an acute judge of human nature, and +also because honesty was a thing he greatly desired--in others--and never +found near his own person; however it was, he had set David high in his +esteem at once. This esteem gave greater certainty that any backsheesh +coming from the estate of Benn Claridge would not be sifted through many +hands on its way to himself. Of Benn Claridge Prince Kaid had scarcely +even heard until he died; and, indeed, it was only within the past few +years that the Quaker merchant had extended his business to Egypt and had +made his headquarters at Assiout, up the river. + +David's donkey now picked its way carefully through the narrow streets of +the Moosky. Arabs and fellaheen squatting at street corners looked at +him with furtive interest. A foreigner of this character they had never +before seen, with coat buttoned up like an Egyptian official in the +presence of his superior, and this wide, droll hat on his head. David +knew that he ran risks, that his confidence invited the occasional +madness of a fanatical mind, which makes murder of the infidel a passport +to heaven; but as a man he took his chances, and as a Christian he +believed he would suffer no mortal hurt till his appointed time. He was +more Oriental, more fatalist, than he knew. He had also early in his +life learned that an honest smile begets confidence; and his face, grave +and even a little austere in outline, was usually lighted by a smile. + +From the Mokattam Hills, where he read Faith's letter again, his back +against one of the forts which Napoleon had built in his Egyptian days, +he scanned the distance. At his feet lay the great mosque, and the +citadel, whose guns controlled the city, could pour into it a lava stream +of shot and shell. The Nile wound its way through the green plains, +stretching as far to the north as eye could see between the opal and +mauve and gold of the Libyan Hills. Far over in the western vista a long +line of trees, twining through an oasis flanking the city, led out to a +point where the desert abruptly raised its hills of yellow sand. Here, +enormous, lonely, and cynical, the pyramids which Cheops had built, the +stone sphinx of Ghizeh, kept faith with the desert in the glow of +rainless land-reminders ever that the East, the mother of knowledge, will +by knowledge prevail; that: + + "The thousand years of thy insolence + The thousand years of thy faith, + Will be paid in fiery recompense, + And a thousand years of bitter death." + + +"The sword--for ever the sword," David said to himself, as he looked: +"Rameses and David and Mahomet and Constantine, and how many conquests +have been made in the name of God! But after other conquests there have +been peace and order and law. Here in Egypt it is ever the sword, the +survival of the strongest." + +As he made his way down the hillside again he fell to thinking upon all +Faith had written. The return of the drunken chair-maker made a deep +impression on him--almost as deep as the waking dreams he had had of his +uncle calling him. + +"Soolsby and me--what is there between Soolsby and me?" he asked himself +now as he made his way past the tombs of the Mamelukes. "He and I are as +far apart as the poles, and yet it comes to me now, with a strange +conviction, that somehow my life will be linked with that of the drunken +Romish chair-maker. To what end?" Then he fell to thinking of his Uncle +Benn. The East was calling him. "Something works within me to hold me +here, a work to do." + +From the ramparts of the citadel he watched the sun go down, bathing the +pyramids in a purple and golden light, throwing a glamour over all the +western plain, and making heavenly the far hills with a plaintive colour, +which spoke of peace and rest, but not of hope. As he stood watching, he +was conscious of people approaching. Voices mingled, there was light +laughter, little bursts of admiration, then lower tones, and then he was +roused by a voice calling. He turned round. A group of people were +moving towards the exit from the ramparts, and near himself stood a man +waving an adieu. + +"Well, give my love to the girls," said the man cheerily. Merry faces +looked back and nodded, and in a moment they were gone. The man turned +round, and looked at David, then he jerked his head in a friendly sort of +way and motioned towards the sunset. + +"Good enough, eh?" + +"Surely, for me," answered David. On the instant he liked the red, +wholesome face, and the keen, round, blue eyes, the rather opulent +figure, the shrewd, whimsical smile, all aglow now with beaming +sentimentality, which had from its softest corner called out: +"Well, give my love to the girls." + +"Quaker, or I never saw Germantown and Philadelphy," he continued, with a +friendly manner quite without offence. "I put my money on Quakers every +time." + +"But not from Germantown or Philadelphia," answered David, declining a +cigar which his new acquaintance offered. + +"Bet you, I know that all right. But I never saw Quakers anywhere else, +and I meant the tribe and not the tent. English, I bet? Of course, or +you wouldn't be talking the English language--though I've heard they talk +it better in Boston than they do in England, and in Chicago they're +making new English every day and improving on the patent. If Chicago +can't have the newest thing, she won't have anything. 'High hopes that +burn like stars sublime,' has Chicago. She won't let Shakespeare or +Milton be standards much longer. She won't have it--simply won't have +England swaggering over the English language. Oh, she's dizzy, is +Chicago--simply dizzy. I was born there. Parents, one Philadelphy, one +New York, one Pawtucket--the Pawtucket one was the step-mother. Father +liked his wives from the original States; but I was born in Chicago. My +name is Lacey--Thomas Tilman Lacey of Chicago." + +"I thank thee," said David. + +"And you, sir?" + +"David Claridge." + +"Of--?" + +"Of Hamley." + +"Mr. Claridge of Hamley. Mr. Claridge, I am glad to meet you." They +shook hands. "Been here long, Mr. Claridge?" + +"A few months only." + +"Queer place--gilt-edged dust-bin; get anything you like here, from a +fresh gutter-snipe to old Haroun-al-Raschid. It's the biggest jack-pot +on earth. Barnum's the man for this place--P. T. Barnum. Golly, how the +whole thing glitters and stews! Out of Shoobra his High Jinks Pasha +kennels with his lions and lives with his cellars of gold, as if he was +going to take them with him where he's going--and he's going fast. Here +--down here, the people, the real people, sweat and drudge between a cake +of dourha, an onion, and a balass of water at one end of the day, and a +hemp collar and their feet off the ground at the other." + +"You have seen much of Egypt?" asked David, feeling a strange confidence +in the garrulous man, whose frankness was united to shrewdness and a +quick, observant eye. + +"How much of Egypt I've seen, the Egypt where more men get lost, strayed, +and stolen than die in their beds every day, the Egypt where a eunuch is +more powerful than a minister, where an official will toss away a life as +I'd toss this cigar down there where the last Mameluke captain made his +great jump, where women--Lord A'mighty! where women are divorced by one +evil husband, by the dozen, for nothing they ever did or left undone, +and yet 'd be cut to pieces by their own fathers if they learned that +'To step aside is human--' Mr. Claridge, of that Egypt I don't know much +more'n would entitle me to say, How d'ye do. But it's enough for me. +You've seen something--eh?" + +"A little. It is not civilised life here. Yet--yet a few strong +patriotic men--" + +Lacey looked quizzically at David. + +"Say," he said, "I thought that about Mexico once. I said Manana-- +this Manana is the curse of Mexico. It's always to-morrow--to-morrow +--to-morrow. Let's teach 'em to do things to-day. Let's show 'em what +business means. Two million dollars went into that experiment, but +Manana won. We had good hands, but it had the joker. After five years +I left, with a bald head at twenty-nine, and a little book of noble +thoughts--Tips for the Tired, or Things you can say To-day on what you +can do to-morrow. I lost my hair worrying, but I learned to be patient. +The Dagos wanted to live in their own way, and they did. It's one thing +to be a missionary and say the little word in season; it's another to +run your soft red head against a hard stone wall. I went to Mexico a +conquistador, I left it a child of time, who had learned to smile; and +I left some millions behind me, too. I said to an old Padre down there +that I knew--we used to meet in the Cafe Manrique and drink chocolate-- +I said to him, 'Padre, the Lord's Prayer is a mistake down here.' +'Si, senor,' he said, and smiled his far-away smile at me. 'Yes,' said +I, 'for you say in the Lord's Prayer, "Give us this day our daily +bread."' 'Si, senor,' he says, 'but we do not expect it till to-morrow!' +The Padre knew from the start, but I learned at great expense, and went +out of business--closed up shop for ever, with a bald head and my Tips +for the Tired. Well, I've had more out of it all, I guess, than if I'd +trebled the millions and wiped Manana off the Mexican coat of arms." + +"You think it would be like that here?" David asked abstractedly. + +Lacey whistled. "There the Government was all right and the people all +wrong. Here the people are all right and the Government all wrong. Say, +it makes my eyes water sometimes to see the fellah slogging away. He's a +Jim-dandy--works all day and half the night, and if the tax-gatherer +isn't at the door, wakes up laughing. I saw one"--his light blue eyes +took on a sudden hardness--"laughing on the other side of his mouth one +morning. They were 'kourbashing' his feet; I landed on them as the soles +came away. I hit out." His face became grave, he turned the cigar round +in his mouth. "It made me feel better, but I had a close call. Lucky +for me that in Mexico I got into the habit of carrying a pop-gun. It +saved me then. But it isn't any use going on these special missions. +We Americans think a lot of ourselves. We want every land to do as +we do; and we want to make 'em do it. But a strong man here at the +head, with a sword in his hand, peace in his heart, who'd be just and +poor--how can you make officials honest when you take all you can get +yourself--! But, no, I guess it's no good. This is a rotten cotton +show." + +Lacey had talked so much, not because he was garrulous only, but because +the inquiry in David's eyes was an encouragement to talk. Whatever his +misfortunes in Mexico had been, his forty years sat lightly on him, and +his expansive temperament, his childlike sentimentality, gave him an +appearance of beaming, sophisticated youth. David was slowly +apprehending these things as he talked--subconsciously, as it were; +for he was seeing pictures of the things he himself had observed, through +the lens of another mind, as primitive in some regards as his own, but +influenced by different experiences. + +"Say, you're the best listener I ever saw," added Lacey, with a laugh. + +David held out his hand. "Thee sees things clearly," he answered. + +Lacey grasped his hand. + +At that moment an orderly advanced towards them. "He's after us--one of +the Palace cavalry," said Lacey. + +"Effendi--Claridge Effendi! May his grave be not made till the karadh- +gatherers return," said the orderly to David. + +"My name is Claridge," answered David. + +"To the hotel, effendi, first, then to the Mokattam Hills after thee, +then here--from the Effendina, on whom be God's peace, this letter for +thee." + +David took the letter. "I thank thee, friend," he said. + +As he read it, Lacey said to the orderly in Arabic "How didst thou know +he was here?" + +The orderly grinned wickedly. + +"Always it is known what place the effendi honours. It is not dark where +he uncovers his face." + +Lacey gave a low whistle. + +"Say, you've got a pull in this show," he said, as David folded up the +letter and put it in his pocket. + +"In Egypt, if the master smiles on you, the servant puts his nose in the +dust." + +"The Prince Pasha bids me to dinner at the Palace to-night. I have no +clothes for such affairs. Yet--" His mind was asking itself if this was +a door opening, which he had no right to shut with his own hand. There +was no reason why he should not go; therefore there might be a reason why +he should go. It might be, it no doubt was, in the way of facilitating +his business. He dismissed the orderly with an affirmative and +ceremonial message to Prince Kaid--and a piece of gold. + +"You've learned the custom of the place," said Lacey, as he saw the gold +piece glitter in the brown palm of the orderly. + +"I suppose the man's only pay is in such service," rejoined David. +"It is a land of backsheesh. The fault is not with the people; it is +with the rulers. I am not sorry to share my goods with the poor." + +"You'll have a big going concern here in no time," observed Lacey. "Now, +if I had those millions I left in Mexico--" Suddenly he stopped. "Is it +you that's trying to settle up an estate here--at Assiout--belonged to an +uncle?" + +David inclined his head. + +"They say that you and Prince Kaid are doing the thing yourselves, and +that the pashas and judges and all the high-mogul sharks of the Medjidie +think that the end of the world has come. Is that so?" + +"It is so, if not completely so. There are the poor men and humble--the +pashas and judges and the others of the Medjidie, as thee said, are not +poor. But such as the orderly yonder--" He paused meditatively. + +Lacey looked at David with profound respect. "You make the poorest +your partners, your friends. I see, I see. Jerusalem, that's masterly! +I admire you. It's a new way in this country." Then, after a moment: +"It'll do--by golly, it'll do! Not a bit more costly, and you do some +good with it. Yes--it--will--do." + +"I have given no man money save in charity and for proper service done +openly," said David, a little severely. + +"Say--of course. And that's just what isn't done here. Everything goes +to him who hath, and from him who hath not is taken away even that which +he hath. One does the work and another gets paid--that's the way here. +But you, Mr. Claridge, you clinch with the strong man at the top, and, +down below, you've got as your partners the poor man, whose name is +Legion. If you get a fall out of the man at the top, you're solid with +the Legion. And if the man at the top gets up again and salaams and +strokes your hand, and says, 'Be my brother,' then it's a full Nile, and +the fig-tree putteth forth its tender branches, and the date-palm +flourisheth, and at the village pond the thanksgiving turkey gobbles and +is glad. 'Selah'!" + +The sunset gun boomed out from the citadel. David turned to go, and +Lacey added: + +"I'm waiting for a pasha who's taking toll of the officers inside there +--Achmet Pasha. They call him the Ropemaker, because so many pass +through his hands to the Nile. The Old Muslin I call him, because he's +so diaphanous. Thinks nobody can see through him, and there's nobody +that can't. If you stay long in Egypt, you'll find that Achmet is the +worst, and Nahoum the Armenian the deepest, pasha in all this sickening +land. Achmet is cruel as a tiger to any one that stands in his way; +Nahoum, the whale, only opens out to swallow now and then; but when +Nahoum does open out, down goes Jonah, and never comes up again. He's a +deep one, and a great artist is Nahoum. I'll bet a dollar you'll see +them both to-night at the Palace--if Kaid doesn't throw them to the lions +for their dinner before yours is served. Here one shark is swallowed by +another bigger, till at last the only and original sea-serpent swallows +'em all." + +As David wound his way down the hills, Lacey waved a hand after him. + +"Well, give my love to the girls," he said. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +"HAST THOU NEVER KILLED A MAN?" + +"Claridge Effendi!" + +As David moved forward, his mind was embarrassed by many impressions. +He was not confused, but the glitter and splendour, the Oriental +gorgeousness of the picture into which he stepped, excited his eye, +roused some new sense in him. He was a curious figure in those +surroundings. The consuls and agents of all the nations save one were +in brilliant uniform, and pashas, generals, and great officials were +splendid in gold braid and lace, and wore flashing Orders on their +breasts. David had been asked for half-past eight o'clock, and he was +there on the instant; yet here was every one assembled, the Prince Pasha +included. As he walked up the room he suddenly realised this fact, and, +for a moment, he thought he had made a mistake; but again he remembered +distinctly that the letter said half-past eight, and he wondered now if +this had been arranged by the Prince--for what purpose? To afford +amusement to the assembled company? He drew himself up with dignity, +his face became graver. He had come in a Quaker suit of black +broadcloth, with grey steel buttons, and a plain white stock; and he wore +his broad-brimmed hat--to the consternation of the British Consul-General +and the Europeans present, to the amazement of the Turkish and native +officials, who eyed him keenly. They themselves wore red tarbooshes, as +did the Prince; yet all of them knew that the European custom of showing +respect was by doffing the hat. The Prince Pasha had settled that with +David, however, at their first meeting, when David had kept on his hat +and offered Kaid his hand. + +Now, with amusement in his eyes, Prince Kaid watched David coming up the +great hall. What his object was in summoning David for an hour when all +the court and all the official Europeans should be already present, +remained to be seen. As David entered, Kaid was busy receiving salaams, +and returning greeting, but with an eye to the singularly boyish yet +gallant figure approaching. By the time David had reached the group, the +Prince Pasha was ready to receive him. + +"Friend, I am glad to welcome thee," said the Effendina, sly humour +lurking at the corner of his eye. Conscious of the amazement of all +present, he held out his hand to David. + +"May thy coming be as the morning dew, friend," he added, taking David's +willing hand. + +"And thy feet, Kaid, wall in goodly paths, by the grace of God the +compassionate and merciful." + +As a wind, unfelt, stirs the leaves of a forest, making it rustle +delicately, a whisper swept through the room. Official Egypt was +dumfounded. Many had heard of David, a few had seen him, and now all +eyed with inquisitive interest one who defied so many of the customs of +his countrymen; who kept on his hat; who used a Mahommedan salutation +like a true believer; whom the Effendina honoured--and presently honoured +in an unusual degree by seating him at table opposite himself, where his +Chief Chamberlain was used to sit. + +During dinner Kaid addressed his conversation again and again to David, +asking questions put to disconcert the consuls and other official folk +present, confident in the naive reply which would be returned. For there +was a keen truthfulness in the young man's words which, however suave and +carefully balanced, however gravely simple and tactful, left no doubt as +to their meaning. There was nothing in them which could be challenged, +could be construed into active criticism of men or things; and yet much +he said was horrifying. It made Achmet Pasha sit up aghast, and Nahoum +Pasha, the astute Armenian, for a long time past the confidant and +favourite of the Prince Pasha, laugh in his throat; for, if there was +a man in Egypt who enjoyed the thrust of a word or the bite of a phrase, +it was Nahoum. Christian though he was, he was, nevertheless, Oriental +to his farthermost corner, and had the culture of a French savant. He +had also the primitive view of life, and the morals of a race who, in the +clash of East and West, set against Western character and directness, and +loyalty to the terms of a bargain, the demoralised cunning of the desert +folk; the circuitous tactics of those who believed that no man spoke the +truth directly, that it must ever be found beneath devious and misleading +words, to be tracked like a panther, as an Antipodean bushman once said, +"through the sinuosities of the underbrush." Nahoum Pasha had also a +rich sense of grim humour. Perhaps that was why he had lived so near the +person of the Prince, had held office so long. There were no Grand +Viziers in Egypt; but he was as much like one as possible, and he had one +uncommon virtue, he was greatly generous. If he took with his right hand +he gave with his left; and Mahommedan as well as Copt and Armenian, and +beggars of every race and creed, hung about his doors each morning to +receive the food and alms he gave freely. + +After one of David's answers to Kaid, which had had the effect of causing +his Highness to turn a sharp corner of conversation by addressing himself +to the French consul, Nahoum said suavely: + +"And so, monsieur, you think that we hold life lightly in the East--that +it is a characteristic of civilisation to make life more sacred, to +cherish it more fondly?" + +He was sitting beside David, and though he asked the question casually, +and with apparent intention only of keeping talk going, there was a +lurking inquisition in his eye. He had seen enough to-night to make him +sure that Kaid had once more got the idea of making a European his +confidant and adviser; to introduce to his court one of those mad +Englishmen who cared nothing for gold--only for power; who loved +administration for the sake of administration and the foolish joy of +labour. He was now set to see what sort of match this intellect could +play, when faced by the inherent contradictions present in all truths or +the solutions of all problems. + +"It is one of the characteristics of that which lies behind civilisation, +as thee and me have been taught," answered David. + +Nahoum was quick in strategy, but he was unprepared for David's knowledge +that he was an Armenian Christian, and he had looked for another answer. + +But he kept his head and rose to the occasion. "Ah, it is high, it is +noble, to save life--it is so easy to destroy it," he answered. "I saw +his Highness put his life in danger once to save a dog from drowning. To +cherish the lives of others, and to be careless of our own; to give that +of great value as though it were of no worth--is it not the Great +Lesson?" He said it with such an air of sincerity, with such +dissimulation, that, for the moment, David was deceived. There was, +however, on the face of the listening Kaid a curious, cynical smile. +He had heard all, and he knew the sardonic meaning behind Nahoum's words. + +Fat High Pasha, the Chief Chamberlain, the corrupt and corruptible, +intervened. "It is not so hard to be careless when care would be +useless," he said, with a chuckle. "When the khamsin blows the dust- +storms upon the caravan, the camel-driver hath no care for his camels. +'Malaish!' he says, and buries his face in his yelek." + +"Life is beautiful and so difficult--to save," observed Nahoum, in a tone +meant to tempt David on one hand and to reach the ears of the notorious +Achmet Pasha, whose extortions, cruelties, and taxations had built his +master's palaces, bribed his harem, given him money to pay the interest +on his European loans, and made himself the richest man in Egypt, whose +spies were everywhere, whose shadow was across every man's path. Kaid +might slay, might toss a pasha or a slave into the Nile now and then, +might invite a Bey to visit him, and stroke his beard and call him +brother and put diamond-dust in the coffee he drank, so that he died +before two suns came and went again, "of inflammation and a natural +death"; but he, Achmet Pasha, was the dark Inquisitor who tortured every +day, for whose death all men prayed, and whom some would have slain, but +that another worse than himself might succeed him. + +At Nahoum's words the dusky brown of Achmet's face turned as black as the +sudden dilation of the pupil of an eye deepens its hue, and he said with +a guttural accent: + +"Every man hath a time to die." + +"But not his own time," answered Nahoum maliciously. + +"It would appear that in Egypt he hath not always the choice of the +fashion or the time," remarked David calmly. He had read the malice +behind their words, and there had flashed into his own mind tales told +him, with every circumstance of accuracy, of deaths within and without +the Palace. Also he was now aware that Nahoum had mocked him. He was +concerned to make it clear that he was not wholly beguiled. + +"Is there, then, for a man choice of fashion or time in England, +effendi?" asked Nahoum, with assumed innocence. + +"In England it is a matter between the Giver and Taker of life and +himself--save where murder does its work," said David. + +"And here it is between man and man--is it that you would say?" asked +Nahoum. + +"There seem wider privileges here," answered David drily. + +"Accidents will happen, privileges or no," rejoined Nahoum, with lowering +eyelids. + +The Prince intervened. "Thy own faith forbids the sword, forbids war, +or--punishment." + +"The Prophet I follow was called the Prince of Peace, friend," answered +David, bowing gravely across the table. + +"Hast thou never killed a man?" asked Kaid, with interest in his eyes. +He asked the question as a man might ask another if he had never visited +Paris. + +"Never, by the goodness of God, never," answered David. + +"Neither in punishment nor in battle?" + +"I am neither judge nor soldier, friend." + +"Inshallah, thou hast yet far to go! Thou art young yet. Who can tell?" + +"I have never so far to go as that, friend," said David, in a voice that +rang a little. + +"To-morrow is no man's gift." + +David was about to answer, but chancing to raise his eyes above the +Prince Pasha's head, his glance was arrested and startled by seeing a +face--the face of a woman-looking out of a panel in a mooshrabieh screen +in a gallery above. He would not have dwelt upon the incident, he would +have set it down to the curiosity of a woman of the harem, but that the +face looking out was that of an English girl, and peering over her +shoulder was the dark, handsome face of an Egyptian or a Turk. + +Self-control was the habit of his life, the training of his faith, +and, as a rule, his face gave little evidence of inner excitement. +Demonstration was discouraged, if not forbidden, among the Quakers, and +if, to others, it gave a cold and austere manner, in David it tempered to +a warm stillness the powerful impulses in him, the rivers of feeling +which sometimes roared through his veins. + +Only Nahoum Pasha had noticed his arrested look, so motionless did he +sit; and now, without replying, he bowed gravely and deferentially to +Kaid, who rose from the table. He followed with the rest. Presently the +Prince sent Higli Pasha to ask his nearer presence. + +The Prince made a motion of his hand, and the circle withdrew. He waved +David to a seat. + +"To-morrow thy business shall be settled," said the Prince suavely, "and +on such terms as will not startle. Death-tribute is no new thing in the +East. It is fortunate for thee that the tribute is from thy hand to my +hand, and not through many others to mine." + +"I am conscious I have been treated with favour, friend," said David. +"I would that I might show thee kindness. Though how may a man of no +account make return to a great Prince?" + +"By the beard of my father, it is easily done, if thy kindness is a real +thing, and not that which makes me poorer the more I have of it--as +though one should be given a herd of horses which must not be sold but +still must be fed." + +"I have given thee truth. Is not truth cheaper than falsehood?" + +"It is the most expensive thing in Egypt; so that I despair of buying +thee. Yet I would buy thee to remain here--here at my court; here by my +hand which will give thee the labour thou lovest, and will defend thee if +defence be needed. Thou hast not greed, thou hast no thirst for honour, +yet thou hast wisdom beyond thy years. Kaid has never besought men, but +he beseeches thee. Once there was in Egypt, Joseph, a wise youth, who +served a Pharaoh, and was his chief counsellor, and it was well with the +land. Thy name is a good name; well-being may follow thee. The ages +have gone, and the rest of the world has changed, but Egypt is the same +Egypt, the Nile rises and falls, and the old lean years and fat years +come and go. Though I am in truth a Turk, and those who serve and rob me +here are Turks, yet the fellah is the same as he was five thousand years +ago. What Joseph the Israelite did, thou canst do; for I am no more +unjust than was that Rameses whom Joseph served. Wilt thou stay with +me?" + +David looked at Kaid as though he would read in his face the reply that +he must make, but he did not see Kaid; he saw, rather, the face of one he +had loved more than Jonathan had been loved by the young shepherd-prince +of Israel. In his ears he heard the voice that had called him in his +sleep-the voice of Benn Claridge; and, at the same instant, there flashed +into his mind a picture of himself fighting outside the tavern beyond +Hamley and bidding farewell to the girl at the crossroads. + +"Friend, I cannot answer thee now," he said, in a troubled voice. + +Kaid rose. "I will give thee an hour to think upon it. Come with me." +He stepped forward. "To-morrow I will answer thee, Kaid." + +"To-morrow there is work for thee to do. Come." David followed him. + +The eyes that followed the Prince and the Quaker were not friendly. What +Kaid had long foreshadowed seemed at hand: the coming of a European +counsellor and confidant. They realised that in the man who had just +left the room with Kaid there were characteristics unlike those they had +ever met before in Europeans. + +"A madman," whispered High Pasha to Achmet the Ropemaker. + +"Then his will be the fate of the swine of Gadarene," said Nahoum Pasha, +who had heard. + +"At least one need not argue with a madman." The face of Achmet the +Ropemaker was not more pleasant than his dark words. + +"It is not the madman with whom you have to deal, but his keeper," +rejoined Nahoum. + +Nahoum's face was heavier than usual. Going to weight, he was still +muscular and well groomed. His light brown beard and hair and blue eyes +gave him a look almost Saxon, and bland power spoke in his face and in +every gesture. + +He was seldom without the string of beads so many Orientals love to +carry, and, Armenian Christian as he was, the act seemed almost +religious. It was to him, however, like a ground-wire in telegraphy-- +it carried off the nervous force tingling in him and driving him to +impulsive action, while his reputation called for a constant outward +urbanity, a philosophical apathy. He had had his great fight for place +and power, alien as he was in religion, though he had lived in Egypt +since a child. Bar to progress as his religion had been at first, it had +been an advantage afterwards; for, through it, he could exclude himself +from complications with the Wakfs, the religious court of the Muslim +creed, which had lands to administer, and controlled the laws of marriage +and inheritance. He could shrug his shoulders and play with his beads, +and urbanely explain his own helplessness and ineligibility when his +influence was summoned, or it was sought to entangle him in warring +interests. Oriental through and through, the basis of his creed was +similar to that of a Muslim: Mahomet was a prophet and Christ was a +prophet. It was a case of rival prophets--all else was obscured into a +legend, and he saw the strife of race in the difference of creed. For +the rest, he flourished the salutations and language of the Arab as +though they were his own, and he spoke Arabic as perfectly as he did +French and English. + +He was the second son of his father. The first son, who was but a year +older, and was as dark as he was fair, had inherited--had seized--all his +father's wealth. He had lived abroad for some years in France and +England. In the latter place he had been one of the Turkish Embassy, +and, having none of the outward characteristics of the Turk, and being +in appearance more of a Spaniard than an Oriental, he had, by his gifts, +his address and personal appearance, won the good-will of the Duchess of +Middlesex, and had had that success all too flattering to the soul of a +libertine. It had, however, been the means of his premature retirement +from England, for his chief at the Embassy had a preference for an +Oriental entourage. He was called Foorgat Bey. + +Sitting at table, Nahoum alone of all present had caught David's arrested +look, and, glancing up, had seen the girl's face at the panel of +mooshrabieh, and had seen also over her shoulder the face of his brother, +Foorgat Bey. He had been even more astonished than David, and far more +disturbed. He knew his brother's abilities; he knew his insinuating +address--had he not influenced their father to give him wealth while he +was yet alive? He was aware also that his brother had visited the Palace +often of late. It would seem as though the Prince Pasha was ready to +make him, as well as David, a favourite. But the face of the girl--it +was an English face! Familiar with the Palace, and bribing when it was +necessary to bribe, Foorgat Bey had evidently brought her to see the +function, there where all women were forbidden. He could little imagine +Foorgat doing this from mere courtesy; he could not imagine any woman, +save one wholly sophisticated, or one entirely innocent, trusting herself +with him--and in such a place. The girl's face, though not that of one +in her teens, had seemed to him a very flower of innocence. + +But, as he stood telling his beads, abstractedly listening to the scandal +talked by Achmet and Higli, he was not thinking of his brother, but of +the two who had just left the chamber. He was speculating as to which +room they were likely to enter. They had not gone by the door convenient +to passage to Kaid's own apartments. He would give much to hear the +conversation between Kaid and the stranger; he was all too conscious of +its purport. As he stood thinking, Kaid returned. After looking round +the room for a moment, the Prince came slowly over to Nahoum, and, +stretching out a hand, stroked his beard. + +"Oh, brother of all the wise, may thy sun never pass its noon!" said +Kaid, in a low, friendly voice. + +Despite his will, a shudder passed through Nahoum Pasha's frame. +How often in Egypt this gesture and such words were the prelude to +assassination, from which there was no escape save by death itself. Into +Nahoum's mind there flashed the words of an Arab teacher, "There is no +refuge from God but God Himself," and he found himself blindly wondering, +even as he felt Kaid's hand upon his beard and listened to the honeyed +words, what manner of death was now preparing for him, and what death of +his own contriving should intervene. Escape, he knew, there was none, if +his death was determined on; for spies were everywhere, and slaves in the +pay of Kaid were everywhere, and such as were not could be bought or +compelled, even if he took refuge in the house of a foreign consul. The +lean, invisible, ghastly arm of death could find him, if Kaid willed, +though he delved in the bowels of the Cairene earth, or climbed to an +eagle's eyrie in the Libyan Hills. Whether it was diamond-dust or +Achmet's thin thong that stopped the breath, it mattered not; it was +sure. Yet he was not of the breed to tremble under the descending sword, +and he had long accustomed himself to the chance of "sudden demise." It +had been chief among the chances he had taken when he entered the high +and perilous service of Kaid. Now, as he felt the secret joy of these +dark spirits surrounding him--Achmet, and High Pasha, who kept saying +beneath his breath in thankfulness that it was not his turn, Praise be to +God!--as he, felt their secret self-gratulations, and their evil joy over +his prospective downfall, he settled himself steadily, made a low +salutation to Kaid, and calmly awaited further speech. It came soon +enough. + +"It is written upon a cucumber leaf--does not the world read it?--that +Nahoum Pasha's form shall cast a longer shadow than the trees; so that +every man in Egypt shall, thinking on him, be as covetous as Ashaah, who +knew but one thing more covetous than himself--the sheep that mistook the +rainbow for a rope of hay, and, jumping for it, broke his neck." + +Kaid laughed softly at his own words. + +With his eye meeting Kaid's again, after a low salaam, Nahoum made +answer: + +"I would that the lance of my fame might sheathe itself in the breasts of +thy enemies, Effendina." + +"Thy tongue does that office well," was the reply. Once more Kaid laid +a gentle hand upon Nahoum's beard. Then, with a gesture towards the +consuls and Europeans, he said to them in French: "If I might but beg +your presence for yet a little time!" Then he turned and walked away. +He left by a door leading to his own apartments. + +When he had gone, Nahoum swung slowly round and faced the agitated +groups. + +"He who sleeps with one eye open sees the sun rise first," he said, with +a sarcastic laugh. "He who goes blindfold never sees it set." + +Then, with a complacent look upon them all, he slowly left the room by +the door out of which David and Kaid had first passed. + +Outside the room his face did not change. His manner had not been +bravado. It was as natural to him as David's manner was to himself. +Each had trained himself in his own way to the mastery of his will, and +the will in each was stronger than any passion of emotion in them. So +far at least it had been so. In David it was the outcome of his faith, +in Nahoum it was the outcome of his philosophy, a simple, fearless +fatalism. + +David had been left by Kaid in a small room, little more than an alcove, +next to a larger room richly furnished. Both rooms belonged to a +spacious suite which lay between the harem and the major portion of the +Palace. It had its own entrance and exits from the Palace, opening on +the square at the front, at the back opening on its own garden, which +also had its own exits to the public road. The quarters of the Chief +Eunuch separated the suite from the harem, and Mizraim, the present Chief +Eunuch, was a man of power in the Palace, knew more secrets, was more +courted, and was richer than some of the princes. Nahoum had an office +in the Palace, also, which gave him the freedom of the place, and brought +him often in touch with the Chief Eunuch. He had made Mizraim a fast +friend ever since the day he had, by an able device, saved the Chief +Eunuch from determined robbery by the former Prince Pasha, with whom he +had suddenly come out of favour. + +When Nahoum left the great salon, he directed his steps towards the +quarters of the Chief Eunuch, thinking of David, with a vague desire for +pursuit and conflict. He was too much of a philosopher to seek to do +David physical injury--a futile act; for it could do him no good in the +end, could not mend his own fortunes; and, merciless as he could be on +occasion, he had no love of bloodshed. Besides, the game afoot was not +of his making, and he was ready to await the finish, the more so because +he was sure that to-morrow would bring forth momentous things. There was +a crisis in the Soudan, there was trouble in the army, there was dark +conspiracy of which he knew the heart, and anything might happen +to-morrow! He had yet some cards to play, and Achmet and Higli--and +another very high and great--might be delivered over to Kaid's deadly +purposes rather than himself tomorrow. What he knew Kaid did not know. +He had not meant to act yet; but new facts faced him, and he must make +one struggle for his life. But as he went towards Mizraim's quarters he +saw no sure escape from the stage of those untoward events, save by the +exit which is for all in some appointed hour. + +He was not, however, more perplexed and troubled than David, who, in the +little room where he had been brought and left alone with coffee and +cigarettes, served by a slave from some distant portion of the Palace, +sat facing his future. + +David looked round the little room. Upon the walls hung weapons of every +kind--from a polished dagger of Toledo to a Damascus blade, suits of +chain armour, long-handled, two-edged Arab swords, pistols which had been +used in the Syrian wars of Ibrahim, lances which had been taken from the +Druses at Palmyra, rude battle-axes from the tribes of the Soudan, and +neboots of dom-wood which had done service against Napoleon at Damietta. +The cushions among which he sat had come from Constantinople, the rug at +his feet from Tiflis, the prayer-rug on the wall from Mecca. + +All that he saw was as unlike what he had known in past years as though +he had come to Mars or Jupiter. All that he had heard recalled to him +his first readings in the Old Testament--the story of Nebuchadnezzar, of +Belshazzar, of Ahasuerus--of Ahasuerus! He suddenly remembered the face +he had seen looking down at the Prince's table from the panel of +mooshrabieh. That English face--where was it? Why was it there? Who +was the man with her? Whose the dark face peering scornfully over her +shoulder? The face of an English girl in that place dedicated to sombre +intrigue, to the dark effacement of women, to the darker effacement of +life, as he well knew, all too often! In looking at this prospect for +good work in the cause of civilisation, he was not deceived, he was not +allured. He knew into what subterranean ways he must walk, through what +mazes of treachery and falsehood he must find his way; and though he did +not know to the full the corruption which it was his duty to Kaid to turn +to incorruption, he knew enough to give his spirit pause. What would be +--what could be--the end? Would he not prove to be as much out of place +as was the face of that English girl? The English girl! England rushed +back upon him--the love of those at home; of his father, the only father +he had ever known; of Faith, the only mother or sister he had ever known; +of old John Fairley; the love of the woods and the hills where he had +wandered came upon him. There was work to do in England, work too little +done--the memory of the great meeting at Heddington flashed upon him. +Could his labour and his skill, if he had any, not be used there? Ah, +the green fields, the soft grey skies, the quiet vale, the brave, self- +respecting, toiling millions, the beautiful sense of law and order and +goodness! Could his gifts and labours not be used there? Could not-- + +He was suddenly startled by a smothered cry, then a call of distress. +It was the voice of a woman. + +He started up. The voice seemed to come from a room at his right; not +that from which he had entered, but one still beyond this where he was. +He sprang towards the wall and examined it swiftly. Finding a division +in the tapestry, he ran his fingers quickly and heavily down the crack +between. It came upon the button of a spring. He pressed it, the door +yielded, and, throwing it back, he stepped into the room-to see a woman +struggling to resist the embraces and kisses of a man. The face was that +of the girl who had looked out of the panel in the mooshrabieh screen. +Then it was beautiful in its mirth and animation, now it was pale and +terror-stricken, as with one free hand she fiercely beat the face pressed +to hers. + +The girl only had seen David enter. The man was not conscious of his +presence till he was seized and flung against the wall. The violence of +the impact brought down at his feet two weapons from the wall above him. +He seized one-a dagger-and sprang to his feet. Before he could move +forward or raise his arm, however, David struck him a blow in the neck +which flung him upon a square marble pedestal intended for a statue. In +falling his head struck violently a sharp corner of the pedestal. He +lurched, rolled over on the floor, and lay still. + +The girl gave a choking cry. David quickly stooped and turned the body +over. There was a cut where the hair met the temple. He opened the +waistcoat and thrust his hand inside the shirt. Then he felt the pulse +of the limp wrist. + +For a moment he looked at the face steadily, almost contemplatively it +might have seemed, and then drew both arms close to the body. + +Foorgat Bey, the brother of Nahoum Pasha, was dead. + +Rising, David turned, as if in a dream, to the girl. He made a motion of +the hand towards the body. She understood. Dismay was in her face, but +the look of horror and desperation was gone. She seemed not to realise, +as did David, the awful position in which they were placed, the deed +which David had done, the significance of the thing that lay at their +feet. + +"Where are thy people?" said David. "Come, we will go to them." + +"I have no people here," she said, in a whisper. + +"Who brought thee?" + +She made a motion behind her towards the body. David glanced down. The +eyes of the dead man were open. He stooped and closed them gently. The +collar and tie were disarranged; he straightened them, then turned again +to her. + +"I must take thee away," he said calmly. "But it must be secretly." He +looked around, perplexed. "We came secretly. My maid is outside the +garden--in a carriage. Oh, come, let us go, let us escape. They will +kill you--!" Terror came into her face again. "Thee, not me, is in +danger--name, goodness, future, all. . . . Which way did thee come?" + +"Here--through many rooms--" She made a gesture to curtains beyond. +"But we first entered through doors with sphinxes on either side, +with a room where was a statue of Mehemet Ali." + +It was the room through which David had come with Kaid. He took her +hand. "Come quickly. I know the way. It is here," he said, pointing to +the panel-door by which he had entered. + +Holding her hand still, as though she were a child, he led her quickly +from the room, and shut the panel behind them. As they passed through, +a hand drew aside the curtains on the other side of the room which they +were leaving. + +Presently the face of Nahoum Pasha followed the hand. A swift glance to +the floor, then he ran forward, stooped down, and laid a hand on his +brother's breast. The slight wound on the forehead answered his rapid +scrutiny. He realised the situation as plainly as if it had been written +down for him--he knew his brother well. + +Noiselessly he moved forward and touched the spring of the door through +which the two had gone. It yielded, and he passed through, closed the +door again and stealthily listened, then stole a look into the farther +chamber. It was empty. He heard the outer doors close. For a moment he +listened, then went forward and passed through into the hall. Softly +turning the handle of the big wooden doors which faced him, he opened +them an inch or so, and listened. He could hear swiftly retreating +footsteps. Presently he heard the faint noise of a gate shutting. He +nodded his head, and was about to close the doors and turn away, when his +quick ear detected footsteps again in the garden. Some one--the man, +of course--was returning. + +"May fire burn his eyes for ever! He would talk with Kald, then go again +among them all, and so pass out unsuspected and safe. For who but I--who +but I could say he did it? And I--what is my proof? Only the words +which I speak." + +A scornful, fateful smile passed over his face. "'Hast thou never killed +a man?' said Kaid. 'Never,' said he--'by the goodness of God, never!' +The voice of Him of Galilee, the hand of Cain, the craft of Jael. But +God is with the patient." + +He went hastily and noiselessly-his footfall was light for so heavy a +man-through the large room to the farther side from that by which David +and Kaid had first entered. Drawing behind a clump of palms near a door +opening to a passage leading to Mizraim's quarters, he waited. He saw +David enter quickly, yet without any air of secrecy, and pass into the +little room where Kaid had left him. + +For a long time there was silence. + +The reasons were clear in Nahoum's mind why he should not act yet. A new +factor had changed the equation which had presented itself a short half +hour ago. + +A new factor had also entered into the equation which had been presented +to David by Kaid with so flattering an insistence. He sat in the place +where Kaid had left him, his face drawn and white, his eyes burning, but +with no other "sign of agitation. He was frozen and still. His look was +fastened now upon the door by which the Prince Pasha would enter, now +upon the door through which he had passed to the rescue of the English +girl, whom he had seen drive off safely with her maid. In their swift +passage from the Palace to the carriage, a thing had been done of even +greater moment than the killing of the sensualist in the next room. In +the journey to the gateway the girl David served had begged him to escape +with her. This he had almost sharply declined; it would be no escape, he +had said. She had urged that no one knew. He had replied that Kaid +would come again for him, and suspicion would be aroused if he were gone. + +"Thee has safety," he had said. "I will go back. I will say that I +killed him. I have taken a life, I will pay for it as is the law." + +Excited as she was, she had seen the inflexibility of his purpose. She +had seen the issue also clearly. He would give himself up, and the whole +story would be the scandal of Europe. + +"You have no right to save me only to kill me," she had said desperately. +"You would give your life, but you would destroy that which is more than +life to me. You did not intend to kill him. It was no murder, it was +punishment." Her voice had got harder. "He would have killed my life +because he was evil. Will you kill it because you are good? Will you be +brave, quixotic, but not pitiful? . . . No, no, no!" she had said, +as his hand was upon the gate, "I will not go unless you promise that you +will hide the truth, if you can." She had laid her hand upon his +shoulder with an agonised impulse. "You will hide it for a girl who will +cherish your memory her whole life long. Ah--God bless you!" + +She had felt that she conquered before he spoke as, indeed, he did not +speak, but nodded his head and murmured something indistinctly. But that +did not matter, for she had won; she had a feeling that all would be +well. Then he had placed her in her carriage, and she was driven swiftly +away, saying to herself half hysterically: "I am safe, I am safe. He +will keep his word." + +Her safety and his promise were the new factor which changed the equation +for which Kaid would presently ask the satisfaction. David's life had +suddenly come upon problems for which his whole past was no preparation. +Conscience, which had been his guide in every situation, was now +disarmed, disabled, and routed. It had come to terms. + +In going quickly through the room, they had disarranged a table. The +girl's cloak had swept over it, and a piece of brie-a-brae had been +thrown upon the floor. He got up and replaced it with an attentive air. +He rearranged the other pieces on the table mechanically, seeing, feeling +another scene, another inanimate thing which must be for ever and for +ever a picture burning in his memory. Yet he appeared to be casually +doing a trivial and necessary act. He did not definitely realise his +actions; but long afterwards he could have drawn an accurate plan of the +table, could have reproduced upon it each article in its exact place as +correctly as though it had been photographed. There were one or two +spots of dust or dirt on the floor, brought in by his boots from the +garden. He flicked them aside with his handkerchief. + +How still it was! Or was it his life which had become so still? It +seemed as if the world must be noiseless, for not a sound of the life in +other parts of the Palace came to him, not an echo or vibration of the +city which stirred beyond the great gateway. Was it the chilly hand of +death passing over everything, and smothering all the activities? His +pulses, which, but a few minutes past, were throbbing and pounding like +drums in his ears, seemed now to flow and beat in very quiet. Was this, +then, the way that murderers felt, that men felt who took human life--so +frozen, so little a part of their surroundings? Did they move as dead +men among the living, devitalised, vacuous calm? + +His life had been suddenly twisted out of recognition. All that his +habit, his code, his morals, his religion, had imposed upon him had been +overturned in one moment. To take a human life, even in battle, was +against the code by which he had ever been governed, yet he had taken +life secretly, and was hiding it from the world. + +Accident? But had it been necessary to strike at all? His presence +alone would have been enough to save the girl from further molestation; +but, he had thrown himself upon the man like a tiger. Yet, somehow, he +felt no sorrow for that. He knew that if again and yet again he were +placed in the same position he would do even as he had done--even as he +had done with the man Kimber by the Fox and Goose tavern beyond Hamley. +He knew that the blow he had given then was inevitable, and he had never +felt real repentance. Thinking of that blow, he saw its sequel in the +blow he had given now. Thus was that day linked with the present, thus +had a blow struck in punishment of the wrong done the woman at the +crossroads been repeated in the wrong done the girl who had just left +him. + +A sound now broke the stillness. It was a door shutting not far off. +Kaid was coming. David turned his face towards the room where Foorgat +Bey was lying dead. He lifted his arms with a sudden passionate gesture. +The blood came rushing through his veins again. His life, which had +seemed suspended, was set free; and an exaltation of sorrow, of pain, of +action, possessed him. + +"I have taken a life, O my God!" he murmured. "Accept mine in service +for this land. What I have done in secret, let me atone for in secret, +for this land--for this poor land, for Christ's sake!" + +Footsteps were approaching quickly. With a great effort of the will he +ruled himself to quietness again. Kaid entered, and stood before him in +silence. David rose. He looked Kaid steadily in the eyes. "Well?" +said Kaid placidly. + +"For Egypt's sake I will serve thee," was the reply. He held out his +hand. Kaid took it, but said, in smiling comment on the action: "As the +Viceroy's servant there is another way!" + +"I will salaam to-morrow, Kaid," answered David. + +"It is the only custom of the place I will require of thee, effendi. +Come." + +A few moments later they were standing among the consuls and officials in +the salon. + +"Where is Nahoum?" asked Kaid, looking round on the agitated throng. + +No one answered. Smiling, Kaid whispered in David's ear. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE COMPACT + +One by one the lights went out in the Palace. The excited guests were +now knocking at the doors of Cairene notables, bent upon gossip of the +night's events, or were scouring the bazaars for ears into which to pour +the tale of how David was exalted and Nahoum was brought low; how, before +them all, Kaid had commanded Nahoum to appear at the Palace in the +morning at eleven, and the Inglesi, as they had named David, at ten. But +they declared to all who crowded upon their words that the Inglesi left +the Palace with a face frozen white, as though it was he that had met +debacle, while Nahoum had been as urbane and cynical as though he had +come to the fulness of his power. + +Some, on hearing this, said: "Beware Nahoum!" But those who had been at +the Palace said: "Beware the Inglesi!" This still Quaker, with the white +shining face and pontifical hat, with his address of "thee" and "thou," +and his forms of speech almost Oriental in their imagery and simplicity, +himself an archaism, had impressed them with a sense of power. He had +prompted old Diaz Pasha to speak of him as a reincarnation, so separate +and withdrawn he seemed at the end of the evening, yet with an uncanny +mastery in his dark brown eyes. One of the Ulema, or holy men, present +had said in reply to Diaz: "It is the look of one who hath walked with +Death and bought and sold with Sheitan the accursed." To Nahoum Pasha, +Dim had said, as the former left the Palace, a cigarette between his +fingers: "Sleep not nor slumber, Nahoum. The world was never lost by one +earthquake." And Nahoum had replied with a smooth friendliness: "The +world is not reaped in one harvest." + +"The day is at hand--the East against the West," murmured old Diaz, as he +passed on. + +"The day is far spent," answered Nahoum, in a voice unheard by Diaz; and, +with a word to his coachman, who drove off quickly, he disappeared in the +shrubbery. + +A few minutes later he was tapping at the door of Mizraim, the Chief +Eunuch. Three times he tapped in the same way. Presently the door +opened, and he stepped inside. The lean, dark figure of Mizraim bowed +low; the long, slow fingers touched the forehead, the breast, and the +lips. + +"May God preserve thy head from harm, excellency, and the night give thee +sleep," said Mizraim. He looked inquiringly at Nahoum. + +"May thy head know neither heat nor cold, and thy joys increase," +responded Nahoum mechanically, and sat down. + +To an European it would have seemed a shameless mockery to have wished +joy to this lean, hateful dweller in the between-worlds; to Nahoum it was +part of a life which was all ritual and intrigue, gabbling superstition +and innate fatalism, decorated falsehood and a brave philosophy. + +"I have work for thee at last, Mizraim," said Nahoum. + +"At last?" + +"Thou hast but played before. To-night I must see the sweat of thy +brow." + +Mizraim's cold fingers again threw themselves against his breast, +forehead, and lips, and he said: + +"As a woman swims in a fountain, so shall I bathe in sweat for thee, who +hath given with one hand and hath never taken with the other." + +"I did thee service once, Mizraim--eh?" + +"I was as a bird buffeted by the wind; upon thy masts my feet found rest. +Behold, I build my nest in thy sails, excellency." + +"There are no birds in last year's nest, Mizraim, thou dove," said +Nahoum, with a cynical smile. "When I build, I build. Where I swear by +the stone of the corner, there am I from dark to dark and from dawn to +dawn, pasha." Suddenly he swept his hand low to the ground and a ghastly +sort of smile crossed over his face. "Speak--I am thy servant. Shall I +not hear? I will put my hand in the entrails of Egypt, and wrench them +forth for thee." + +He made a gesture so cruelly, so darkly, suggestive that Nahoum turned +his head away. There flashed before his mind the scene of death in which +his own father had lain, butchered like a beast in the shambles, a victim +to the rage of Ibrahim Pasha, the son of Mehemet Ali. + +"Then listen, and learn why I have need of thee to-night." + +First, Nahoum told the story of David's coming, and Kaid's treatment of +himself, the foreshadowing of his own doom. Then of David and the girl, +and the dead body he had seen; of the escape of the girl, of David's +return with Kaid--all exactly as it had happened, save that he did; not +mention the name of the dead man. + +It did not astonish Mizraim that Nahoum had kept all this secret. That +crime should be followed by secrecy and further crime, if need be, seems +natural to the Oriental mind. Mizraim had seen removal follow upon +removal, and the dark Nile flowed on gloomily, silently, faithful to the +helpless ones tossed into its bosom. It would much have astonished him +if Nahoum had not shown a gaping darkness somewhere in his tale, and he +felt for the key to the mystery. + +"And he who lies dead, excellency?" + +"My brother." + +"Foorgat Bey!" + +"Even he, Mizraim. He lured the girl here--a mad man ever. The other +madman was in the next room. He struck--come, and thou shalt see." + +Together they felt their way through the passages and rooms, and +presently entered the room where Foorgat Bey was lying. Nahoum struck a +light, and, as he held the candle, Mizraim knelt and examined the body +closely. He found the slight wound on the temple, then took the candle +from Nahoum and held it close to the corner of the marble pedestal. A +faint stain of blood was there. Again he examined the body, and ran his +fingers over the face and neck. Suddenly he stopped, and held the light +close to the skin beneath the right jaw. He motioned, and Nahoum laid +his fingers also on the spot. There was a slight swelling. + +"A blow with the fist, excellency--skilful, and English." He looked +inquiringly at Nahoum. "As a weasel hath a rabbit by the throat, so is +the Inglesi in thy hands." + +Nahoum shook his head. "And if I went to Kaid, and said, 'This is the +work of the Inglesi,' would he believe? Kaid would hang me for the lie-- +would it be truth to him? What proof have I, save the testimony +of mine own eyes? Egypt would laugh at that. Is it the time, while +yet the singers are beneath the windows, to assail the bride? All +bridegrooms are mad. It is all sunshine and morning with the favourite, +the Inglesi. Only when the shadows lengthen may he be stricken. Not +now." + +"Why dost thou hide this from Kaid, O thou brother of the eagle?" + +"For my gain and thine, keeper of the gate. To-night I am weak, because +I am poor. To-morrow I shall be rich and, it may be, strong. If Kaid +knew of this tonight, I should be a prisoner before cockcrow. What +claims has a prisoner? Kaid would be in my brother's house at dawn, +seizing all that is there and elsewhere, and I on my way to Fazougli, to +be strangled or drowned." + +"O wise and far-seeing! Thine eye pierces the earth. What is there to +do? What is my gain--what thine?" + +"Thy gain? The payment of thy debt to me." Mizraim's face lengthened. +His was a loathsome sort of gratitude. He was willing to pay in kind; +but what Oriental ever paid a debt without a gift in return, even as a +bartering Irishman demands his lucky penny. + +"So be it, excellency, and my life is thine to spill upon the ground, a +scarlet cloth for thy feet. And backsheesh?" + +Nahoum smiled grimly. "For backsheesh, thy turban full of gold." + +Mizraim's eyes glittered-the dull black shine of a mongrel terrier's. He +caught the sleeve of Nahoum's coat and kissed it, then kissed his hand. + +Thus was their bargain made over the dead body; and Mizraim had an almost +superstitious reverence for the fulfilment of a bond, the one virtue +rarely found in the Oriental. Nothing else had he, but of all men in +Egypt he was the best instrument Nahoum could have chosen; and of all men +in Egypt he was the one man who could surely help him. + +"What is there now to do, excellency?" + +"My coachman is with the carriage at the gate by which the English girl +left. It is open still. The key is in Foorgat's pocket, no doubt; +stolen by him, no doubt also. . . . This is my design. Thou wilt +drive him"--he pointed to the body--"to his palace, seated in the +carriage as though he were alive. There is a secret entrance. The bowab +of the gate will show the way; I know it not. But who will deny thee? +Thou comest from high places--from Kaid. Who will speak of this? Will +the bowab? In the morning Foorgat will be found dead in his bed! The +slight bruise thou canst heal--thou canst?" + +Mizraim nodded. "I can smooth it from the sharpest eye." + +"At dawn he will be found dead; but at dawn I shall be knocking at his +gates. Before the world knows I shall be in possession. All that is his +shall be mine, for at once the men of law shall be summoned, and my +inheritance secured before Kaid shall even know of his death. I shall +take my chances for my life." + +"And the coachman, and the bowab, and others it may be?" + +"Shall not these be with thee--thou, Kaid's keeper of the harem, the lion +at the door of his garden of women? Would it be strange that Foorgat, +who ever flew at fruit above his head, perilous to get or keep, should be +found on forbidden ground, or in design upon it? Would it be strange to +the bowab or the slave that he should return with thee stark and still? +They would but count it mercy of Kaid that he was not given to the +serpents of the Nile. A word from thee--would one open his mouth? Would +not the shadow of thy hand, of the swift doom, be over them? Would not +a handful of gold bind them to me? Is not the man dead? Are they not +mine--mine to bind or break as I will?" + +"So be it! Wisdom is of thee as the breath of man is his life. I will +drive Foorgat Bey to his home." + +A few moments later all that was left of Foorgat Bey was sitting in his +carriage beside Mizraim the Chief Eunuch--sitting upright, stony, and +still, and in such wise was driven swiftly to his palace. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +FOR HIS SOUL'S SAKE AND THE LAND'S SAKE + +David came to know a startling piece of news the next morning-that +Foorgat Bey had died of heart-disease in his bed, and was so found by his +servants. He at once surmised that Foorgat's body had been carried out +of the Palace; no doubt that it might not be thought he had come to his +death by command of Kaid. His mind became easier. Death, murder, crime +in Egypt was not a nine days' wonder; it scarce outlived one day. When a +man was gone none troubled. The dead man was in the bosom of Allah; then +why should the living be beset or troubled? If there was foul play, why +make things worse by sending another life after the life gone, even in +the way of justice? + +The girl David saved had told him her own name, and had given him the +name of the hotel at which she was staying. He had an early breakfast, +and prepared to go to her hotel, wishing to see her once more. There +were things to be said for the first and last time and then be buried for +ever. She must leave the country at once. In this sick, mad land, in +this whirlpool of secret murder and conspiracy, no one could tell what +plot was hatching, what deeds were forward; and he could not yet be sure +that no one save himself and herself knew who had killed Foorgat Bey. +Her perfect safety lay in instant flight. It was his duty to see that +she went, and at once--this very day. He would go and see her. + +He went to the hotel. There he learned that, with her aunt, she had left +that morning for Alexandria en route to England. + +He approved her wisdom, he applauded her decision. Yet--yet, somehow, +as he bent his footsteps towards his lodgings again he had a sense of +disappointment, of revelation. What might happen to him--evidently that +had not occurred to her. How could she know but that his life might be +in danger; that, after all, they might have been seen leaving the fatal +room? Well, she had gone, and with all his heart he was glad that she +was safe. + +His judgment upon last night's event was not coloured by a single +direct criticism upon the girl. But he could not prevent the suggestion +suddenly flashing into his mind that she had thought of herself first and +last. Well, she had gone; and he was here to face the future, +unencumbered by aught save the weight of his own conscience. + +Yet, the weight of his conscience! His feet were still free--free for +one short hour before he went to Kaid; but his soul was in chains. As he +turned his course to the Nile, and crossed over the great bridge, there +went clanking by in chains a hundred conscripts, torn from their homes in +the Fayoum, bidding farewell for ever to their friends, receiving their +last offerings, for they had no hope of return. He looked at their +haggard and dusty faces, at their excoriated ankles, and his eyes closed +in pain. All they felt he felt. What their homes were to them, these +fellaheen, dragged forth to defend their country, to go into the desert +and waste their lives under leaders tyrannous, cruel, and incompetent, +his old open life, his innocence, his integrity, his truthfulness and +character, were to him. By an impulsive act, by a rash blow, he had +asserted his humanity; but he had killed his fellow-man in anger. He +knew that as that fatal blow had been delivered, there was no thought of +punishment--it was blind anger and hatred: it was the ancient virus +working which had filled the world with war, and armed it at the expense, +the bitter and oppressive expense, of the toilers and the poor. The +taxes for wars were wrung out of the sons of labour and sorrow. These +poor fellaheen had paid taxes on everything they possessed. Taxes, +taxes, nothing but taxes from the cradle! Their lands, houses, and palm- +trees would be taxed still, when they would reap no more. And having +given all save their lives, these lives they must now give under the whip +and the chain and the sword. + +As David looked at them in their single blue calico coverings, in which +they had lived and slept-shivering in the cold night air upon the bare +ground--these thoughts came to him; and he had a sudden longing to follow +them and put the chains upon his own arms and legs, and go forth and +suffer with them, and fight and die? To die were easy. To fight?. . . . +Was it then come to that? He was no longer a man of peace, but a man of +the sword; no longer a man of the palm and the evangel, but a man of +blood and of crime! He shrank back out of the glare of the sun; for it +suddenly seemed to him that there was written upon his fore head, "This +is a brother of Cain." For the first time in his life he had a shrinking +from the light, and from the sun which he had loved like a Persian, had, +in a sense, unconsciously worshipped. + +He was scarcely aware where he was. He had wandered on until he had come +to the end of the bridge and into the great groups of traffickers who, at +this place, made a market of their wares. Here sat a seller of sugar +cane; there wandered, clanking his brasses, a merchant of sweet waters; +there shouted a cheap-jack of the Nile the virtues of a knife from +Sheffield. Yonder a camel-driver squatted and counted his earnings; and +a sheepdealer haggled with the owner of a ghiassa bound for the sands of +the North. The curious came about him and looked at him, but he did not +see or hear. He sat upon a stone, his gaze upon the river, following +with his eyes, yet without consciously observing, the dark riverine +population whose ways are hidden, who know only the law of the river and +spend their lives in eluding itpirates and brigands now, and yet again +the peaceful porters of commerce. + +To his mind, never a criminal in this land but less a criminal than he! +For their standard was a standard of might the only right; but he--his +whole life had been nurtured in an atmosphere of right and justice, had +been a spiritual demonstration against force. He was with out fear, as +he was without an undue love of life. The laying down of his life had +never been presented to him; and yet, now that his conscience was his +only judge, and it condemned him, he would gladly have given his life to +pay the price of blood. + +That was impossible. His life was not his own to give, save by suicide; +and that would be the unpardonable insult to God and humanity. He had +given his word to the woman, and he would keep it. In those brief +moments she must have suffered more than most men suffer in a long life. +Not her hand, however, but his, had committed the deed. And yet a sudden +wave of pity for her rushed over him, because the conviction seized him +that she would also in her heart take upon herself the burden of his +guilt as though it were her own. He had seen it in the look of her face +last night. + +For the sake of her future it was her duty to shield herself from any +imputation which might as unjustly as scandalously arise, if the facts of +that black hour ever became known. Ever became known? The thought that +there might be some human eye which had seen, which knew, sent a shiver +through him. + +"I would give my life a thousand times rather than that," he said aloud +to the swift-flowing river. His head sank on his breast. His lips +murmured in prayer: + +"But be merciful to me, Thou just Judge of Israel, for Thou hast made me, +and Thou knowest whereof I am made. Here will I dedicate my life to Thee +for the land's sake. Not for my soul's sake, O my God! If it be Thy +will, let my soul be cast away; but for the soul of him whose body I +slew, and for his land, let my life be the long sacrifice." + +Dreams he had had the night before--terrible dreams, which he could never +forget; dreams of a fugitive being hunted through the world, escaping and +eluding, only to be hemmed in once more; on and on till he grew grey and +gaunt, and the hunt suddenly ended in a great morass, into which he +plunged with the howling world behind him. The grey, dank mists came +down on him, his footsteps sank deeper and deeper, and ever the cries, as +of damned spirits, grew in his ears. Mocking shapes flitted past him, +the wings of obscene birds buffeted him, the morass grew up about him; +and now it was all a red moving mass like a dead sea heaving about him. +With a moan of agony he felt the dolorous flood above his shoulders, and +then a cry pierced the gloom and the loathsome misery, and a voice he +knew called to him, "David, David, I am coming!" and he had awaked with +the old hallucination of his uncle's voice calling to him in the dawn. + +It came to him now as he sat by the water-side, and he raised his face to +the sun and to the world. The idlers had left him alone; none were +staring at him now. They were all intent on their own business, each man +labouring after his kind. He heard the voice of a riverman as he toiled +at a rope standing on the corn that filled his ghiassa from end to end, +from keel to gunwale. The man was singing a wild chant of cheerful +labour, the soul of the hard-smitten of the earth rising above the rack +and burden of the body: + + "O, the garden where to-day we sow and to-morrow we reap! + O, the sakkia turning by the garden walls; + O, the onion-field and the date-tree growing, + And my hand on the plough-by the blessing of God; + Strength of my soul, O my brother, all's well!" + +The meaning of the song got into his heart. He pressed his hand to his +breast with a sudden gesture. It touched something hard. It was his +flute. Mechanically he had put it in his pocket when he dressed in the +morning. He took it out and looked at it lovingly. Into it he had +poured his soul in the old days--days, centuries away, it seemed now. It +should still be the link with the old life. He rose and walked towards +his home again. The future spread clearly before him. Rapine, murder, +tyranny, oppression, were round him on every side, and the ruler of the +land called him to his counsels. Here a great duty lay--his life for +this land, his life, and his love, and his faith. He would expiate his +crime and his sin, the crime of homicide for which he alone was +responsible, the sin of secrecy for which he and another were +responsible. And that other? If only there had been but one word +of understanding between them before she left! + +At the door of his house stood the American whom he had met at the +citadel yesterday-it seemed a hundred years ago. + +"I've got a letter for you," Lacey said. "The lady's aunt and herself +are cousins of mine more or less removed, and originally at home in the +U. S. A. a generation ago. Her mother was an American. She didn't know +your name--Miss Hylda Maryon, I mean. I told her, but there wasn't time +to put it on." He handed over the unaddressed envelope. + +David opened the letter, and read: + +"I have seen the papers. I do not understand what has happened, but I +know that all is well. If it were not so, I would not go. That is the +truth. Grateful I am, oh, believe me! So grateful that I do not yet +know what is the return which I must make. But the return will be made. +I hear of what has come to you--how easily I might have destroyed all! +My thoughts blind me. You are great and good; you will know at least +that I go because it is the only thing to do. I fly from the storm with +a broken wing. Take now my promise to pay what I owe in the hour Fate +wills--or in the hour of your need. You can trust him who brings this to +you; he is a distant cousin of my own. Do not judge him by his odd and +foolish words. They hide a good character, and he has a strong nature. +He wants work to do. Can you give it? Farewell." + +David put the letter in his pocket, a strange quietness about his heart. + +He scarcely realised what Lacey was saying. "Great girl that. Troubled +about something in England, I guess. Going straight back." + +David thanked him for the letter. Lacey became red in the face. He +tried to say something, but failed. "Thee wishes to say something to me, +friend?" asked David. + +"I'm full up; I can't speak. But, say--" + +"I am going to the Palace now. Come back at noon if you will." + +He wrung David's hand in gratitude. "You're going to do it. You're +going to do it. I see it. It's a great game--like Abe Lincoln's. Say, +let me black your boots while you're doing it, will you?" + +David pressed his hand. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE LETTER, THE NIGHT, AND THE WOMAN + + "To-day has come the fulfilment of my dream, Faith. I am given to + my appointed task; I am set on a road of life in which there is no + looking back. My dreams of the past are here begun in very truth + and fact. When, in the night, I heard Uncle Benn calling, when in + the Meeting-house voices said, 'Come away, come away, and labour, + thou art idle,' I could hear my heart beat in the ardour to be off. + Yet I knew not whither. Now I know. + + "Last night the Prince Pasha called me to his Council, made me + adviser, confidant, as one who has the ear of his captain--after he + had come to terms with me upon that which Uncle Benn left of land + and gold. Think not that he tempted me. + + "Last night I saw favourites look upon me with hate because of + Kaid's favour, though the great hall was filled with show of + cheerful splendour, and men smiled and feasted. To-day I know that + in the Palace where I was summoned to my first: duty with the + Prince, every step I took was shadowed, every motion recorded, every + look or word noted and set down. I have no fear of them. They are + not subtle enough for the unexpected acts of honesty in the life of + a true man. Yet I do not wonder men fail to keep honest in the + midst of this splendour, where all is strife as to who shall have + the Prince's favour; who shall enjoy the fruits of bribery, + backsheesh, and monopoly; who shall wring from the slave and the + toil-ridden fellah the coin his poor body mints at the corvee, in + his own taxed fields of dourha and cucumbers. + + "Is this like anything we ever dreamed at Hamley, Faith? Yet here + am I set, and here shall I stay till the skein be ravelled out. + Soon I shall go into the desert upon a mission to the cities of the + South, to Dongola, Khartoum, and Darfur and beyond; for there is + trouble yonder, and war is near, unless it is given to me to bring + peace. So I must bend to my study of Arabic, which I am thankful I + learned long ago. And I must not forget to say that I shall take + with me on my journey that faithful Muslim Ebn Ezra. Others I shall + take also, but of them I shall write hereafter. + + "I shall henceforth be moving in the midst of things which I was + taught to hate. I pray that I may not hate them less as time goes + on. To-morrow I shall breathe the air of intrigue, shall hear + footsteps of spies behind me wherever I go; shall know that even the + roses in the garden have ears; that the ground under my feet will + telegraph my thoughts. Shall I be true? Shall I at last whisper, + and follow, and evade, believe in no one, much less in myself, steal + in and out of men's confidences to use them for my own purposes? + Does any human being know what he can bear of temptation or of the + daily pressure of the life around him? what powers of resistance + are in his soul? how long the vital energy will continue to throw + off the never-ending seduction, the freshening force of evil? + Therein lies the power of evil, that it is ever new, ever fortified + by continuous conquest and achievements. It has the rare fire of + aggression; is ever more upon the offence than upon the defence; + has, withal, the false lure of freedom from restraint, the throbbing + force of sympathy. + + "Such things I dreamed not of in Soolsby's but upon the hill, Faith, + though, indeed, that seemed a time of trial and sore-heartedness. + How large do small issues seem till we have faced the momentous + things! It is true that the larger life has pleasures and expanding + capacities; but it is truer still that it has perils, events which + try the soul as it is never tried in the smaller life--unless, + indeed, the soul be that of the Epicurean. The Epicurean I well + understand, and in his way I might have walked with a wicked grace. + I have in me some hidden depths of luxury, a secret heart of + pleasure, an understanding for the forbidden thing. I could have + walked the broad way with a laughing heart, though, in truth, habit + of mind and desire have kept me in the better path. But offences + must come, and woe to him from whom the offence cometh! I have + begun now, and only now, to feel the storms that shake us to our + farthest cells of life. I begin to see how near good is to evil; + how near faith is to unfaith; and how difficult it is to judge from + actions only; how little we can know to-day what we shall feel + tomorrow. Yet one must learn to see deeper, to find motive, not in + acts that shake the faith, but in character which needs no + explanation, which--" + +He paused, disturbed. Then he raised his head, as though not conscious +of what was breaking the course of his thoughts. Presently he realised a +low, hurried knocking at his door. He threw a hand over his eyes, and +sprang up. An instant later the figure of a woman, deeply veiled, stood +within the room, beside the table where he had been writing. There was +silence as they faced each other, his back against the door. + +"Oh, do you not know me?" she said at last, and sank into the chair +where he had been sitting. + +The question was unnecessary, and she knew it was so; but she could not +bear the strain of the silence. She seemed to have risen out of the +letter he had been writing; and had he not been writing of her--of what +concerned them both? How mean and small-hearted he had been, to have +thought for an instant that she had not the highest courage, though in +going she had done the discreeter, safer thing. But she had come--she +had come! + +All this was in his eyes, though his face was pale and still. He was +almost rigid with emotion, for the ancient habit of repose and self- +command of the Quaker people was upon him. + +"Can you not see--do you not know?" she repeated, her back upon him now, +her face still veiled, her hands making a swift motion of distress. + +"Has thee found in the past that thee is so soon forgotten?" + +"Oh, do not blame me!" She raised her veil suddenly, and showed a face +as pale as his own, and in the eyes a fiery brightness. "I did not know. +It was so hard to come--do not blame me. I went to Alexandria--I felt +that I must fly; the air around me seemed full of voices crying out. Did +you not understand why I went?" + +"I understand," he said, coming forward slowly. "Thee should not have +returned. In the way I go now the watchers go also." + +"If I had not come, you would never have understood," she answered +quickly. "I am not sorry I went. I was so frightened, so shaken. My +only thought was to get away from the terrible Thing. But I should have +been sorry all my life long had I not come back to tell you what I feel, +and that I shall never forget. All my life I shall be grateful. You +have saved me from a thousand deaths. Ah, if I could give you but one +life! Yet--yet--oh, do not think but that I would tell you the whole +truth, though I am not wholly truthful. See, I love my place in the +world more than I love my life; and but for you I should have lost all." + +He made a protesting motion. "The debt is mine, in truth. But for you I +should never have known what, perhaps--" He paused. + +His eyes were on hers, gravely speaking what his tongue faltered to say. +She looked and looked, but did not understand. She only saw troubled +depths, lighted by a soul of kindling purpose. "Tell me," she said, +awed. + +"Through you I have come to know--" He paused again. What he was going +to say, truthful though it was, must hurt her, and she had been sorely +hurt already. He put his thoughts more gently, more vaguely. + +"By what happened I have come to see what matters in life. I was behind +the hedge. I have broken through upon the road. I know my goal now. +The highway is before me." + +She felt the tragedy in his words, and her voice shook as she spoke. "I +wish I knew life better. Then I could make a better answer. You are on +the road, you say. But I feel that it is a hard and cruel road--oh, I +understand that at least! Tell me, please, tell me the whole truth. You +are hiding from me what you feel. I have upset your life, have I not? +You are a Quaker, and Quakers are better than all other Christian people, +are they not? Their faith is peace, and for me, you--" She covered her +face with her hands for an instant, but turned quickly and looked him in +the eyes: "For me you put your hand upon the clock of a man's life, and +stopped it." + +She got to her feet with a passionate gesture, but he put a hand gently +upon her arm, and she sank back again. "Oh, it was not you; it was I who +did it!" she said. "You did what any man of honour would have done, +what a brother would have done." + +"What I did is a matter for myself only," he responded quickly. "Had I +never seen your face again it would have been the same. You were the +occasion; the thing I did had only one source, my own heart and mind. +There might have been another way; but for that way, or for the way I did +take, you could not be responsible." + +"How generous you are!" Her eyes swam with tears; she leaned over the +table where he had been writing, and the tears dropped upon his letter. +Presently she realised this, and drew back, then made as though to dry +the tears from the paper with her handkerchief. As she did so the words +that he had written met her eye: "'But offences must come, and woe to him +from whom the offence cometh!' I have begun now, and only now, to feel +the storms that shake us to our farthest cells of life." + +She became very still. He touched her arm and said heavily: "Come away, +come away." + +She pointed to the words she had read. "I could not help but see, and +now I know what this must mean to you." + +"Thee must go at once," he urged. "Thee should not have come. Thee was +safe--none knew. A few hours and it would all have been far behind. We +might never have met again." + +Suddenly she gave a low, hysterical laugh. "You think you hide the real +thing from me. I know I'm ignorant and selfish and feeble-minded, but I +can see farther than you think. You want to tell the truth about--about +it, because you are honest and hate hiding things, because you want to be +punished, and so pay the price. Oh, I can understand! If it were not +for me you would not. . . . " With a sudden wild impulse she got to +her feet. "And you shall not," she cried. "I will not have it." Colour +came rushing to her cheeks. + +"I will not have it. I will not put myself so much in your debt. I will +not demand so much of you. I will face it all. I will stand alone." + +There was a touch of indignation in her voice. Somehow she seemed moved +to anger against him. Her hands were clasped at her side rigidly, her +pulses throbbing. He stood looking at her fixedly, as though trying to +realise her. His silence agitated her still further, and she spoke +excitedly: + +"I could have, would have, killed him myself without a moment's regret. +He had planned, planned--ah, God, can you not see it all! I would have +taken his life without a thought. I was mad to go upon such an +adventure, but I meant no ill. I had not one thought that I could not +have cried out from the housetops, and he had in his heart--he had what +you saw. But you repent that you killed him--by accident, it was by +accident. Do you realise how many times others have been trapped by him +as was I? Do you not see what he was--as I see now? Did he not say as +much to me before you came, when I was dumb with terror? Did he not make +me understand what his whole life had been? Did I not see in a flash the +women whose lives he had spoiled and killed? Would I have had pity? +Would I have had remorse? No, no, no! I was frightened when it was +done, I was horrified, but I was not sorry; and I am not sorry. It was +to be. It was thetrue end to his vileness. Ah!" + +She shuddered, and buried her face in her hands for a moment, then went +on: "I can never forgive myself for going to the Palace with him. I was +mad for experience, for mystery; I wanted more than the ordinary share of +knowledge. I wanted to probe things. Yet I meant no wrong. I thought +then nothing of which I shall ever be ashamed. But I shall always be +ashamed because I knew him, because he thought that I--oh, if I were a +man, I should be glad that I had killed him, for the sake of all honest +women!" + +He remained silent. His look was not upon her, he seemed lost in a +dream; but his face was fixed in trouble. + +She misunderstood his silence. "You had the courage, the impulse to--to +do it," she said keenly; "you have not the courage to justify it. I will +not have it so. + +"I will tell the truth to all the world. I will not shrink I shrank +yesterday because I was afraid of the world; to-day I will face it, I +will--" + +She stopped suddenly, and another look flashed into her face. Presently +she spoke in a different tone; a new light had come upon her mind. "But +I see," she added. "To tell all is to make you the victim, too, of what +he did. It is in your hands; it is all in your hands; and I cannot speak +unless--unless you are ready also." + +There was an unintended touch of scorn in her voice. She had been +troubled and tried beyond bearing, and her impulsive nature revolted at +his silence. She misunderstood him, or, if she did not wholly +misunderstand him, she was angry at what she thought was a needless +remorse or sensitiveness. Did not the man deserve his end? + +"There is only one course to pursue," he rejoined quietly, "and that is +the course we entered upon last night. I neither doubted yourself nor +your courage. Thee must not turn back now. Thee must not alter the +course which was your own making, and the only course which thee could, +or I should, take. I have planned my life according to the word I gave +you. I could not turn back now. We are strangers, and we must remain +so. Thee will go from here now, and we must not meet again. I am--" + +"I know who you are," she broke in. "I know what your religion is; that +fighting and war and bloodshed is a sin to you." + +"I am of no family or place in England," he went on calmly. "I come of +yeoman and trading stock; I have nothing in common with people of rank. +Our lines of life will not cross. It is well that it should be so. As +to what happened--that which I may feel has nothing to do with whether I +was justified or no. But if thee has thought that I have repented doing +what I did, let that pass for ever from your mind. I know that I should +do the same, yes, even a hundred times. I did according to my nature. +Thee must not now be punished cruelly for a thing thee did not do. +Silence is the only way of safety or of justice. We must not speak of +this again. We must each go our own way." + +Her eyes were moist. She reached out a hand to him timidly. "Oh, +forgive me," she added brokenly, "I am so vain, so selfish, and that +makes one blind to the truth. It is all clearer now. You have shown me +that I was right in my first impulse, and that is all I can say for +myself. I shall pray all my life that it will do you no harm in the +end." + +She remained silent, for a moment adjusting her veil, preparing to go. +Presently she spoke again: "I shall always want to know about you--what +is happening to you. How could it be otherwise?" + +She was half realising one of the deepest things in existence, that the +closest bond between two human beings is a bond of secrecy upon a thing +which vitally, fatally concerns both or either. It is a power at once +malevolent and beautiful. A secret like that of David and Hylda will do +in a day what a score of years could not accomplish, will insinuate +confidences which might never be given to the nearest or dearest. In +neither was any feeling of the heart begotten by their experiences; and +yet they had gone deeper in each other's lives than any one either had +known in a lifetime. They had struck a deeper note than love or +friendship. They had touched the chord of a secret and mutual experience +which had gone so far that their lives would be influenced by it for ever +after. Each understood this in a different way. + +Hylda looked towards the letter lying on the table. It had raised in her +mind, not a doubt, but an undefined, undefinable anxiety. He saw the +glance, and said: "I was writing to one who has been as a sister to me. +She was my mother's sister though she is almost as young as I. Her name +is Faith. There is nothing there of what concerns thee and me, though it +would make no difference if she knew." Suddenly a thought seemed to +strike him. "The secret is of thee and me. There is safety. If it +became another's, there might be peril. The thing shall be between us +only, for ever?" + +"Do you think that I--" + +"My instinct tells me a woman of sensitive mind might one day, out of an +unmerciful honesty, tell her husband--" + +"I am not married-" + +"But one day--" + +She interrupted him. "Sentimental egotism will not rule me. Tell me," +she added, "tell me one thing before I go. You said that your course was +set. What is it?" + +"I remain here," he answered quietly. "I remain in the service of Prince +Kaid." + +"It is a dreadful government, an awful service--" "That is why I stay." + +"You are going to try and change things here--you alone?" + +"I hope not alone, in time." + +"You are going to leave England, your friends, your family, your place-- +in Hamley, was it not? My aunt has read of you--my cousin--" she paused. + +"I had no place in Hamley. Here is my place. Distance has little to do +with understanding or affection. I had an uncle here in the East for +twenty-five years, yet I knew him better than all others in the world. +Space is nothing if minds are in sympathy. My uncle talked to me over +seas and lands. I felt him, heard him speak." + +"You think that minds can speak to minds, no matter what the distance-- +real and definite things?" + +"If I were parted from one very dear to me, I would try to say to him or +her what was in my mind, not by written word only, but by the flying +thought." + +She sat down suddenly, as though overwhelmed. "Oh, if that were +possible!" she said. "If only one could send a thought like that!" +Then with an impulse, and the flicker of a sad smile, she reached out a +hand. "If ever in the years to come you want to speak to me, will you +try to make me understand, as your uncle did with you?" + +"I cannot tell," he answered. "That which is deepest within us obeys +only the laws of its need. By instinct it turns to where help lies, +as a wild deer, fleeing, from captivity, makes for the veldt and the +watercourse." + +She got to her feet again. "I want to pay my debt," she said solemnly. +"It is a debt that one day must be paid--so awful--so awful!" A swift +change passed over her. She shuddered, and grew white. "I said brave +words just now," she added in a hoarse whisper, "but now I see him lying +there cold and still, and you stooping over him. I see you touch his +breast, his pulse. I see you close his eyes. One instant full of the +pulse of life, the next struck out into infinite space. Oh, I shall +never--how can I ever-forget!" She turned her head away from him, then +composed herself again, and said quietly, with anxious eyes: "Why was +nothing said or done? Perhaps they are only waiting. Perhaps they know. +Why was it announced that he died in his bed at home?" + +"I cannot tell. When a man in high places dies in Egypt, it may be one +death or another. No one inquires too closely. He died in Kaid Pasha's +Palace, where other men have died, and none has inquired too closely. +To-day they told me at the Palace that his carriage was seen to leave +with himself and Mizraim the Chief Eunuch. Whatever the object, he was +secretly taken to his house from the Palace, and his brother Nahoum +seized upon his estate in the early morning. + +"I think that no one knows the truth. But it is all in the hands of God. +We can do nothing more. Thee must go. Thee should not have come. In +England thee will forget, as thee should forget. In Egypt I shall +remember, as I should remember." + +"Thee," she repeated softly. "I love the Quaker thee. My grandmother +was an American Quaker. She always spoke like that. Will you not use +thee and thou in speaking to me, always?" + +"We are not likely to speak together in any language in the future," he +answered. "But now thee must go, and I will--" + +"My cousin, Mr. Lacey, is waiting for me in the garden," she answered. +"I shall be safe with him." She moved towards the door. He caught the +handle to turn it, when there came the noise of loud talking, and the +sound of footsteps in the court-yard. He opened the door slightly and +looked out, then closed it quickly. "It is Nahoum Pasha," he said. +"Please, the other room," he added, and pointed to a curtain. "There is +a window leading on a garden. The garden-gate opens on a street leading +to the Ezbekiah Square and your hotel." + +"But, no, I shall stay here," she said. She drew down her veil, then +taking from her pocket another, arranged it also, so that her face was +hidden. + +"Thee must go," he said--"go quickly." Again he pointed. + +"I will remain," she rejoined, with determination, and seated herself in +a chair. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE FOUR WHO KNEW + +There was a knocking at the door. David opened it. Nahoum Pasha stepped +inside, and stood still a moment looking at Hylda. Then he made low +salutation to her, touched his hand to his lips and breast saluting +David, and waited. + +"What is thy business, pasha?" asked David quietly, and motioned towards +a chair. + +"May thy path be on the high hills, Saadat-el-basha. I come for a favour +at thy hands." Nahoum sat down. "What favour is mine to give to Nahoum +Pasha?" + +"The Prince has given thee supreme place--it was mine but yesterday. It +is well. To the deserving be the fruits of deserving." + +"Is merit, then, so truly rewarded here?" asked David quietly. + +"The Prince saw merit at last when he chose your Excellency for +councillor." + +"How shall I show merit, then, in the eyes of Nahoum Pasha?" + +"Even by urging the Prince to give me place under him again. Not as +heretofore--that is thy place--yet where it may be. I have capacity. +I can aid thee in the great task. Thou wouldst remake our Egypt--and my +heart is with you. I would rescue, not destroy. In years gone by I +tried to do good to this land, and I failed. I was alone. I had not the +strength to fight the forces around me. I was overcome. I had too +little faith. But my heart was with the right--I am an Armenian and a +Christian of the ancient faith. I am in sorrow. Death has humbled me. +My brother Foorgat Bey--may flowers bloom for ever on his grave!--he is +dead,"--his eyes were fixed on those of David, as with a perfectly +assured candour--"and my heart is like an empty house. But man must not +be idle and live--if Kaid lets me live. I have riches. Are not +Foorgat's riches mine, his Palace, his gardens, his cattle, and his +plantations, are they not mine? I may sit in the court-yard and hear the +singers, may listen to the tale-tellers by the light of the moon; I may +hear the tales of Al-Raschid chanted by one whose tongue never falters, +and whose voice is like music; after the manner of the East I may give +bread and meat to the poor at sunset; I may call the dancers to the +feast. But what comfort shall it give? I am no longer a youth. I would +work. I would labour for the land of Egypt, for by work shall we fulfil +ourselves, redeem ourselves. Saadat, I would labour, but my master has +taken away from me the anvil, the fire, and the hammer, and I sit without +the door like an armless beggar. What work to do in Egypt save to help +the land, and how shall one help, save in the Prince's service? There +can be no reform from outside. If I laboured for better things outside +Kaid's Palace, how long dost thou think I should escape the Nile, or the +diamond-dust in my coffee? The work which I did, is it not so that it, +with much more, falls now to thy hands, Saadat, with a confidence from +Kaid that never was mine?" + +"I sought not the office." + +"Have I a word of blame? I come to ask for work to do with thee. Do I +not know Prince Kaid? He had come to distrust us all. As stale water +were we in his taste. He had no pleasure in us, and in our deeds he +found only stones of stumbling. He knew not whom to trust. One by one +we all had yielded to ceaseless intrigue and common distrust of each +other, until no honest man was left; till all were intent to save their +lives by holding power; for in this land to lose power is to lose life. +No man who has been in high place, has had the secrets of the Palace and +the ear of the Prince, lives after he has lost favour. The Prince, for +his safety, must ensure silence, and the only silence in Egypt is the +grave. In thee, Saadat, Kaid has found an honest man. Men will call +thee mad, if thou remainest honest, but that is within thine own bosom +and with fate. For me, thou hast taken my place, and more. Malaish, it +is the decree of fate, and I have no anger. I come to ask thee to save +my life, and then to give me work." + +"How shall I save thy life?" + +"By reconciling the Effendina to my living, and then by giving me +service, where I shall be near to thee; where I can share with thee, +though it be as the ant beside the beaver, the work of salvation in +Egypt. I am rich since my brother was--" He paused; no covert look was +in his eyes, no sign of knowledge, nothing but meditation and sorrowful +frankness--"since Foorgat passed away in peace, praise be to God! He lay +on his bed in the morning, when one came to wake him, like a sleeping +child, no sign of the struggle of death upon him." + +A gasping sound came from the chair where Hylda sat; but he took no +notice. He appeared to be unconscious of David's pain-drawn face, as he +sat with hands upon his knees, his head bent forward listening, as though +lost to the world. + +"So did Foorgat, my brother, die while yet in the fulness of his manhood, +life beating high in his veins, with years before him to waste. He was a +pleasure-lover, alas! he laid up no treasure of work accomplished; and so +it was meet that he should die as he lived, in a moment of ease. And +already he is forgotten. It is the custom here. He might have died by +diamond-dust, and men would have set down their coffee-cups in surprise, +and then would have forgotten; or he might have been struck down by the +hand of an assassin, and, unless it was in the Palace, none would have +paused to note it. And so the sands sweep over his steps upon the shore +of time." + +After the first exclamation of horror, Hylda had sat rigid, listening +as though under a spell. Through her veil she gazed at Nahoum with a +cramping pain at her heart, for he seemed ever on the verge of the truth +she dreaded; and when he spoke the truth, as though unconsciously, she +felt she must cry out and rush from the room. He recalled to her the +scene in the little tapestried room as vividly as though it was there +before her eyes, and it had for the moment all the effect of a hideous +nightmare. At last, however, she met David's eyes, and they guided her, +for in them was a steady strength and force which gave her confidence. +At first he also had been overcome inwardly, but his nerves were cool, +his head was clear, and he listened to Nahoum, thinking out his course +meanwhile. + +He owed this man much. He had taken his place, and by so doing had +placed his life in danger. He had killed the brother upon the same day +that he had dispossessed the favourite of office; and the debt was heavy. +In office Nahoum had done after his kind, after the custom of the place +and the people; and yet, as it would seem, the man had had stirrings +within him towards a higher path. He, at any rate, had not amassed +riches out of his position, and so much could not be said of any other +servant of the Prince Pasha. Much he had heard of Nahoum's powerful +will, hidden under a genial exterior, and behind his friendly, smiling +blue eyes. He had heard also of cruelty--of banishment, and of enemies +removed from his path suddenly, never to be seen again; but, on the +whole, men spoke with more admiration of him than of any other public +servant, Armenian Christian in a Mahommedan country though he was. That +very day Kaid had said that if Nahoum had been less eager to control the +State, he might still have held his place. Besides, the man was a +Christian--of a mystic, half-legendary, obscure Christianity; yet having +in his mind the old faith, its essence and its meaning, perhaps. Might +not this Oriental mind, with that faith, be a power to redeem the land? +It was a wonderful dream, in which he found the way, as he thought, to +atone somewhat to this man for a dark injury done. + +When Nahoum stopped speaking David said: "But if I would have it, if it +were well that it should be, I doubt I have the power to make it so." + +"Saadat-el-bdsha, Kaid believes in thee to-day; he will not believe +to-morrow if thou dost remain without initiative. Action, however +startling, will be proof of fitness. His Highness shakes a long spear. +Those who ride with him must do battle with the same valour. Excellency, +I have now great riches--since Death smote Foorgat Bey in the forehead" +--still his eyes conveyed no meaning, though Hylda shrank back--"and I +would use them for the good thou wouldst do here. Money will be needed, +and sufficient will not be at thy hand-not till new ledgers be opened, +new balances struck." + +He turned to Hylda quietly, and with a continued air of innocence said: +"Shall it not be so-madame? Thou, I doubt not, are of his kin. It would +seem so, though I ask pardon if it be not so--wilt thou not urge his +Excellency to restore me to Kaid's favour? I know little of the English, +though I know them humane and honest; but my brother, Foorgat Bey, he +was much among them, lived much in England, was a friend to many great +English. Indeed, on the evening that he died I saw him in the gallery of +the banquet-room with an English lady--can one be mistaken in an English +face? Perhaps he cared for her; perhaps that was why he smiled as he lay +upon his bed, never to move again. Madame, perhaps in England thou mayst +have known my brother. If that is so, I ask thee to speak for me to his +Excellency. My life is in danger, and I am too young to go as my brother +went. I do not wish to die in middle age, as my brother died." + +He had gone too far. In David's mind there was no suspicion that Nahoum +knew the truth. The suggestion in his words had seemed natural; but, +from the first, a sharp suspicion was in the mind of Hylda, and his last +words had convinced her that if Nahoum did not surely know the truth, he +suspected it all too well. Her instinct had pierced far; and as she +realised his suspicions, perhaps his certainty, and heard his words of +covert insult, which, as she saw, David did not appreciate, anger and +determination grew in her. Yet she felt that caution must mark her +words, and that nothing but danger lay in resentment. She felt the +everlasting indignity behind the quiet, youthful eyes, the determined +power of the man; but she saw also that, for the present, the course +Nahoum suggested was the only course to take. And David must not even +feel the suspicion in her own mind, that Nahoum knew or suspected the +truth. If David thought that Nahoum knew, the end of all would come at +once. It was clear, however, that Nahoum meant to be silent, or he would +have taken another course of action. Danger lay in every direction, but, +to her mind, the least danger lay in following Nahoum's wish. + +She slowly raised her veil, showing a face very still now, with eyes as +steady as David's. David started at her action, he thought it rash; but +the courage of it pleased him, too. + +"You are not mistaken," she said slowly in French; "your brother was +known to me. I had met him in England. It will be a relief to all his +friends to know that he passed away peacefully." She looked him in the +eyes determinedly. "Monsieur Claridge is not my kinsman, but he is my +fellow-countryman. If you mean well by monsieur, your knowledge and your +riches should help him on his way. But your past is no guarantee of good +faith, as you will acknowledge." + +He looked her in the eyes with a far meaning. "But I am giving +guarantees of good faith now," he said softly. "Will you--not?" + +She understood. It was clear that he meant peace, for the moment at +least. + +"If I had influence I would advise him to reconcile you to Prince Kaid," +she said quietly, then turned to David with an appeal in her eyes. + +David stood up. "I will do what I can," he said. "If thee means as well +by Egypt as I mean by thee, all may be well for all." + +"Saadat! Saadat!" said Nahoum, with show of assumed feeling, and made +salutation. Then to Hylda, making lower salutation still, he said: "Thou +hast lifted from my neck the yoke. Thou hast saved me from the shadow +and the dust. I am thy slave." His eyes were like a child's, wide and +confiding. + +He turned towards the door, and was about to open it, when there came a +knocking, and he stepped back. Hylda drew down her veil. David opened +the door cautiously and admitted Mizraim the Chief Eunuch. Mizraim's +eyes searched the room, and found Nahoum. + +"Pasha," he said to Nahoum, "may thy bones never return to dust, nor the +light of thine eyes darken! There is danger." + +Nahoum nodded, but did not speak. + +"Shall I speak, then?" He paused and made low salutation to David, +saying, "Excellency, I am thine ox to be slain." + +"Speak, son of the flowering oak," said Nahoum, with a sneer in his +voice. "What blessing dost thou bring?" + +"The Effendina has sent for thee." + +Nahoum's eyes flashed. "By thee, lion of Abdin?" The lean, ghastly +being smiled. "He has sent a company of soldiers and Achmet Pasha." + +"Achmet! Is it so? They are here, Mizraim, watcher of the morning?" + +"They are at thy palace--I am here, light of Egypt." + +"How knewest thou I was here?" + +Mizraim salaamed. "A watch was set upon thee this morning early. The +watcher was of my slaves. He brought the word to me that thou wast here +now. A watcher also was set upon thee, Excellency"--he turned to David. +"He also was of my slaves. Word was delivered to his Highness that thou" +--he turned to Nahoum again--"wast in thy palace, and Achmet Pasha +went thither. He found thee not. Now the city is full of watchers, and +Achmet goes from bazaar to bazaar, from house to house which thou was +wont to frequent--and thou art here." + +"What wouldst thou have me do, Mizraim?" + +"Thou art here; is it the house of a friend or a foe?" Nahoum did not +answer. His eyes were fixed in thought upon the floor, but he was +smiling. He seemed without fear. + +"But if this be the house of a friend, is he safe here?" asked David. + +"For this night, it may be," answered Mizraim, "till other watchers be +set, who are no slaves of mine. Tonight, here, of all places in Cairo, +he is safe; for who could look to find him where thou art who hast taken +from him his place and office, Excellency--on whom the stars shine for +ever! But in another day, if my lord Nahoum be not forgiven by the +Effendina, a hundred watchers will pierce the darkest corner of the +bazaar, the smallest room in Cairo." + +David turned to Nahoum. "Peace be to thee, friend. Abide here till +to-morrow, when I will speak for thee to his Highness, and, I trust, +bring thee pardon. It shall be so--but I shall prevail," he added, with +slow decision; "I shall prevail with him. My reasons shall convince his +Highness." + +"I can help thee with great reasons, Saadat," said Nahoum. "Thou shalt +prevail. I can tell thee that which will convince Kaid." + +While they were speaking, Hylda had sat motionless watching. At first +it seemed to her that a trap had been set, and that David was to be the +victim of Oriental duplicity; but revolt, as she did, from the miserable +creature before them, she saw at last that he spoke the truth. + +"Thee will remain under this roof to-night, pasha?" asked David. + +"I will stay if thy goodness will have it so," answered Nahoum slowly. +"It is not my way to hide, but when the storm comes it is well to +shelter." + +Salaaming low, Mizraim withdrew, his last glance being thrown towards +Hylda, who met his look with a repugnance which made her face rigid. She +rose and put on her gloves. Nahoum rose also, and stood watching her +respectfully. + +"Thee will go?" asked David, with a movement towards her. + +She inclined her head. "We have finished our business, and it is late," +she answered. + +David looked at Nahoum. "Thee will rest here, pasha, in peace. In a +moment I will return." He took up his hat. + +There was a sudden flash of Nahoum's eyes, as though he saw an outcome of +the intention which pleased him, but Hylda, saw the flash, and her senses +were at once alarmed. + +"There is no need to accompany me," she said. "My cousin waits for me." + +David opened the door leading into the court-yard. It was dark, save for +the light of a brazier of coals. A short distance away, near the outer +gate, glowed a star of red light, and the fragrance of a strong cigar +came over. + +"Say, looking for me?" said a voice, and a figure moved towards David. +"Yours to command, pasha, yours to command." Lacey from Chicago held out +his hand. + +"Thee is welcome, friend," said David. + +"She's ready, I suppose. Wonderful person, that. Stands on her own feet +every time. She don't seem as though she came of the same stock as me, +does she?" + +"I will bring her if thee will wait, friend." + +"I'm waiting." Lacey drew back to the gateway again and leaned against +the wall, his cigar blazing in the dusk. + +A moment later David appeared in the garden again, with the slim, +graceful figure of the girl who stood "upon her own feet." David drew +her aside for a moment. "Thee is going at once to England?" he asked. + +"To-morrow to Alexandria. There is a steamer next day for Marseilles. +In a fortnight more I shall be in England." + +"Thee must forget Egypt," he said. "Remembrance is not a thing of the +will," she answered. + +"It is thy duty to forget. Thee is young, and it is spring with thee. +Spring should be in thy heart. Thee has seen a shadow; but let it not +fright thee." + +"My only fear is that I may forget," she answered. + +"Yet thee will forget." + +With a motion towards Lacey he moved to the gate. Suddenly she turned to +him and touched his arm. "You will be a great man herein Egypt," she +said. "You will have enemies without number. The worst of your enemies +always will be your guest to-night." + +He did not, for a moment, understand. "Nahoum?" he asked. "I take his +place. It would not be strange; but I will win him to me." + +"You will never win him," she answered. "Oh, trust my instinct in this! +Watch him. Beware of him." David smiled slightly. "I shall have need +to beware of many. I am sure thee does well to caution me. Farewell," +he added. + +"If it should be that I can ever help you--" she said, and paused. + +"Thee has helped me," he replied. "The world is a desert. Caravans from +all quarters of the sun meet at the cross-roads. One gives the other +food or drink or medicine, and they move on again. And all grows dim +with time. And the camel-drivers are forgotten; but the cross-roads +remain, and the food and the drink and the medicine and the cattle helped +each caravan upon the way. Is it not enough?" + +She placed her hand in his. It lay there for a moment. "God be with +thee, friend," he said. + +The next instant Thomas Tilman Lacey's drawling voice broke the silence. + +"There's something catching about these nights in Egypt. I suppose it's +the air. No wind--just the stars, and the ultramarine, and the nothing +to do but lay me down and sleep. It doesn't give you the jim-jumps like +Mexico. It makes you forget the world, doesn't it? You'd do things here +that you wouldn't do anywhere else." + +The gate was opened by the bowab, and the two passed through. David was +standing by the brazier, his hand held unconsciously over the coals, his +eyes turned towards them. The reddish flame from the fire lit up his +face under the broad-brimmed hat. His head, slightly bowed, was thrust +forward to the dusk. Hylda looked at him steadily for a moment. Their +eyes met, though hers were in the shade. Again Lacey spoke. "Don't be +anxious. I'll see her safe back. Good-bye. Give my love to the girls." + +David stood looking at the closed gate with eyes full of thought and +wonder and trouble. He was not thinking of the girl. There was no +sentimental reverie in his look. Already his mind was engaged in +scrutiny of the circumstances in which he was set. He realised fully his +situation. The idealism which had been born with him had met its reward +in a labour herculean at the least, and the infinite drudgery of the +practical issues came in a terrible pressure of conviction to his mind. +The mind did not shrink from any thought of the dangers in which he would +be placed, from any vision of the struggle he must have with intrigue, +and treachery and vileness. In a dim, half-realised way he felt that +honesty and truth would be invincible weapons with a people who did not +know them. They would be embarrassed, if not baffled, by a formula of +life and conduct which they could not understand. + +It was not these matters that vexed him now, but the underlying forces of +life set in motion by the blow which killed a fellow-man. This fact had +driven him to an act of redemption unparalleled in its intensity and +scope; but he could not tell--and this was the thought that shook his +being--how far this act itself, inspiring him to a dangerous and immense +work in life, would sap the best that was in him, since it must remain a +secret crime, for which he could not openly atone. He asked himself as +he stood by the brazier, the bowab apathetically rolling cigarettes at +his feet, whether, in the flow of circumstance, the fact that he could +not make open restitution, or take punishment for his unlawful act, would +undermine the structure of his character. He was on the threshold of his +career: action had not yet begun; he was standing like a swimmer on a +high shore, looking into depths beneath which have never been plumbed by +mortal man, wondering what currents, what rocks, lay beneath the surface +of the blue. Would his strength, his knowledge, his skill, be equal to +the enterprise? Would he emerge safe and successful, or be carried away +by some strong undercurrent, be battered on unseen rocks? + +He turned with a calm face to the door behind which sat the displaced +favourite of the Prince, his mind at rest, the trouble gone out of his +eyes. + +"Uncle Benn! Uncle Benn!" he said to himself, with a warmth at his +heart as he opened the door and stepped inside. + +Nahoum sat sipping coffee. A cigarette was between his fingers. He +touched his hand to his forehead and his breast as David closed the door +and hung his hat upon a nail. David's servant, Mahommed Hassan, whom he +had had since first he came to Egypt, was gliding from the room--a large, +square-shouldered fellow of over six feet, dressed in a plain blue yelek, +but on his head the green turban of one who had done a pilgrimage to +Mecca. Nahoum waved a hand after Mahommed and said: + +"Whence came thy servant sadat?" + +"He was my guide to Cairo. I picked him from the street." + +Nahoum smiled. There was no malice in the smile, only, as it might seem, +a frank humour. "Ah, your Excellency used independent judgment. Thou +art a judge of men. But does it make any difference that the man is a +thief and a murderer--a murderer?" + +David's eyes darkened, as they were wont to do when he was moved or +shocked. + +"Shall one only deal, then, with those who have neither stolen nor slain +--is that the rule of the just in Egypt?" + +Nahoum raised his eyes to the ceiling as though in amiable inquiry, and +began to finger a string of beads as a nun might tell her paternosters. +"If that were the rule," he answered, after a moment, "how should any man +be served in Egypt? Hereabouts is a man's life held cheap, else I had +not been thy guest to-night; and Kaid's Palace itself would be empty, if +every man in it must be honest. But it is the custom of the place for +political errors to be punished by a hidden hand; we do not call it +murder." + +"What is murder, friend?" + +"It is such a crime as that of Mahommed yonder, who killed--" + +David interposed. "I do not wish to know his crime. That is no affair +between thee and me." + +Nahoum fingered his beads meditatively. "It was an affair of the +housetops in his town of Manfaloot. I have only mentioned it because I +know what view the English take of killing, and how set thou art to have +thy household above reproach, as is meet in a Christian home. So, I took +it, would be thy mind--which Heaven fill with light for Egypt's sake!-- +that thou wouldst have none about thee who were not above reproach, +neither liars, nor thieves, nor murderers." + +"But thee would serve with me, friend," rejoined David quietly. "Thee +has men's lives against thy account." + +"Else had mine been against their account." + +"Was it not so with Mahommed? If so, according to the custom of the +land, then Mahommed is as immune as thou art." + +"Saadat, like thee I am a Christian, yet am I also Oriental, and what is +crime with one race is none with another. At the Palace two days past +thou saidst thou hadst never killed a man; and I know that thy religion +condemns killing even in war. Yet in Egypt thou wilt kill, or thou shalt +thyself be killed, and thy aims will come to naught. When, as thou +wouldst say, thou hast sinned, hast taken a man's life, then thou wilt +understand. Thou wilt keep this fellow Mahommed, then?" + +"I understand, and I will keep him." + +"Surely thy heart is large and thy mind great. It moveth above small +things. Thou dost not seek riches here?" + +"I have enough; my wants are few." + +"There is no precedent for one in office to withhold his hand from profit +and backsheesh." + +"Shall we not try to make a precedent?" + +"Truthfulness will be desolate--like a bird blown to sea, beating 'gainst +its doom." + +"Truth will find an island in the sea." + +"If Egypt is that sea, Saadat, there is no island." + +David came over close to Nahoum, and looked him in the eyes. + +"Surely I can speak to thee, friend, as to one understanding. Thou art a +Christian--of the ancient fold. Out of the East came the light. Thy +Church has preserved the faith. It is still like a lamp in the mist and +the cloud in the East. Thou saidst but now that thy heart was with my +purpose. Shall the truth that I would practise here not find an island +in this sea--and shall it not be the soul of Nahoum Pasha?" + +"Have I not given my word? Nay, then, I swear it by the tomb of my +brother, whom Death met in the highway, and because he loved the sun, +and the talk of men, and the ways of women, rashly smote him out of the +garden of life into the void. Even by his tomb I swear it." + +"Hast thou, then, such malice against Death? These things cannot happen +save by the will of God." + +"And by the hand of man. But I have no cause for revenge. Foorgat died +in his sleep like a child. Yet if it had been the hand of man, Prince +Kaid or any other, I would not have held my hand until I had a life for +his." + +"Thou art a Christian, yet thou wouldst meet one wrong by another?" + +"I am an Oriental." Then, with a sudden change of manner, he added: +"But thou hast a Christianity the like of which I have never seen. I +will learn of thee, Saadat, and thou shalt learn of me also many things +which I know. They will help thee to understand Egypt and the place +where thou wilt be set--if so be my life is saved, and by thy hand." + +Mahommed entered, and came to David. "Where wilt thou sleep, Saadat?" +he asked. + +"The pasha will sleep yonder," David replied, pointing to another room. +"I will sleep here." He laid a hand upon the couch where he sat. + +Nahoum rose and, salaaming, followed Mahommed to the other room. + +In a few moments the house was still, and remained so for hours. Just +before dawn the curtain of Nahoum's room was drawn aside, the Armenian +entered stealthily, and moved a step towards the couch where David lay. +Suddenly he was stopped by a sound. He glanced towards a corner near +David's feet. There sat Mahommed watching, a neboot of dom-wood across +his knees. + +Their eyes remained fixed upon each other for a moment. Then Nahoum +passed back into his bedroom as stealthily as he had come. + +Mahommed looked closely at David. He lay with an arm thrown over his +head, resting softly, a moisture on his forehead as on that of a sleeping +child. + +"Saadat! Saadat!" said Mahommed softly to the sleeping figure, scarcely +above his breath, and then with his eyes upon the curtained room +opposite, began to whisper words from the Koran: + +"In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful--" + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +AGAINST THE HOUR OF MIDNIGHT + +Achmet the Ropemaker was ill at ease. He had been set a task in which +he had failed. The bright Cairene sun starkly glittering on the French +chandeliers and Viennese mirrors, and beating on the brass trays and +braziers by the window, irritated him. He watched the flies on the wall +abstractedly; he listened to the early peripatetic salesmen crying their +wares in the streets leading to the Palace; he stroked his cadaverous +cheek with yellow fingers; he listened anxiously for a footstep. +Presently he straightened himself up, and his fingers ran down the front +of his coat to make sure that it was buttoned from top to bottom. He +grew a little paler. He was less stoical and apathetic than most +Egyptians. Also he was absurdly vain, and he knew that his vanity would +receive rough usage. + +Now the door swung open, and a portly figure entered quickly. For so +large a man Prince Kaid was light and subtle in his movements. His face +was mobile, his eye keen and human. + +Achmet salaamed low. "The gardens of the First Heaven be thine, and the +uttermost joy, Effendina," he said elaborately. + +"A thousand colours to the rainbow of thy happiness," answered Kaid +mechanically, and seated himself cross-legged on a divan, taking a +narghileh from the black slave who had glided ghostlike behind him. + +"What hour didst thou find him? Where hast thou placed him?" he added, +after a moment. + +Achmet salaamed once more. "I have burrowed without ceasing, but the +holes are empty, Effendina," he returned, abjectly and nervously. + +He had need to be concerned. The reply was full of amazement and anger. +"Thou hast not found him? Thou hast not brought Nahoum to me?" Kaid's +eyes were growing reddish; no good sign for those around him, for any +that crossed him or his purposes. + +"A hundred eyes failed to search him out. Ten thousand piastres did not +find him; the kourbash did not reveal him." + +Kaid's frown grew heavier. "Thou shalt bring Nahoum to me by midnight +to-morrow!" + +"But if he has escaped, Effendina?" Achmet asked desperately. He had a +peasant's blood; fear of power was ingrained. + +"What was thy business but to prevent escape? Son of a Nile crocodile, +if he has escaped, thou too shalt escape from Egypt--into Fazougli. +Fool, Nahoum is no coward. He would remain. He is in Egypt." + +"If he be in Egypt, I will find him, Effendina. Have I ever failed? +When thou hast pointed, have I not brought? Have there not been many, +Effendina? Should I not bring Nahoum, who has held over our heads the +rod?" + +Kaid looked at him meditatively, and gave no answer to the question. +"He reached too far," he muttered. "Egypt has one master only." + +The door opened softly and the black slave stole in. His lips moved, but +scarce a sound travelled across the room. Kaid understood, and made a +gesture. An instant afterwards the vast figure of Higli Pasha bulked +into the room. Again there were elaborate salutations and salaams, and +Kaid presently said: + +"Foorgat?" + +"Effendina," answered High, "it is not known how he died. He was in this +Palace alive at night. In the morning he was found in bed at his own +home." + +"There was no wound?" + +"None, Effendina." + +"The thong?" + +"There was no mark, Effendina." + +"Poison?" + +"There was no sign, Effendina." + +"Diamond-dust?" + +"Impossible, Effendina. There was not time. He was alive and well here +at the Palace at eleven, and--" Kaid made an impatient gesture. "By the +stone in the Kaabah, but it is not reasonable that Foorgat should die in +his bed like a babe and sleep himself into heaven! Fate meant him for a +violent end; but ere that came there was work to do for me. He had a +gift for scenting treason--and he had treasure." His eyes shut and +opened again with a look not pleasant to see. "But since it was that he +must die so soon, then the loan he promised must now be a gift from the +dead, if he be dead, if he be not shamming. Foorgat was a dire jester." + +"But now it is no jest, Effendina. He is in his grave." + +"In his grave! Bismillah! In his grave, dost thou say?" + +High's voice quavered. "Yesterday before sunset, Effendina. By Nahoum's +orders." + +"I ordered the burial for to-day. By the gates of hell, but who shall +disobey me!" + +"He was already buried when the Effendina's orders came," High pleaded +anxiously. + +"Nahoum should have been taken yesterday," he rejoined, with malice in +his eyes. + +"If I had received the orders of the Effendina on the night when the +Effendina dismissed Nahoum--" Achmet said softly, and broke off. + +"A curse upon thine eyes that did not see thy duty!" Kaid replied +gloomily. Then he turned to High. "My seal has been put upon Foorgat's +doors? His treasure-places have been found? The courts have been +commanded as to his estate, the banks--" + +"It was too late, Effendina," replied High hopelessly. Kaid got to his +feet slowly, rage possessing him. "Too late! Who makes it too late when +I command?" + +"When Foorgat was found dead, Nahoum at once seized the palace and the +treasures. Then he went to the courts and to the holy men, and claimed +succession. That was while it was yet early morning. Then he instructed +the banks. The banks hold Foorgat's fortune against us, Effendina." + +"Foorgat had turned Mahommedan. Nahoum is a Christian. My will is law. +Shall a Christian dog inherit from a true believer? The courts, the +Wakfs shall obey me. And thou, son of a burnt father, shalt find Nahoum! +Kaid shall not be cheated. Foorgat pledged the loan. It is mine. Allah +scorch thine eyes!" he added fiercely to Achmet, "but thou shalt find +this Christian gentleman, Nahoum." + +Suddenly, with a motion of disgust, he sat down, and taking the stem of +the narghileh, puffed vigorously in silence. Presently in a red fury he +cried: "Go--go--go, and bring me back by midnight Nahoum, and Foorgat's +treasures, to the last piastre. Let every soldier be a spy, if thine own +spies fail." + +As they turned to go, the door opened again, the black slave appeared, +and ushered David into the room. David salaamed, but not low, and stood +still. + +On the instant Kaid changed, The rage left his face. He leaned forward +eagerly, the cruel and ugly look faded slowly from his eyes. + +"May thy days of life be as a river with sands of gold, effendi," he said +gently. He had a voice like music. "May the sun shine in thy heart and +fruits of wisdom flourish there, Effendina," answered David quietly. He +saluted the others gravely, and his eyes rested upon Achmet in a way +which Higli Pasha noted for subsequent gossip. + +Kaid pulled at his narghileh for a moment, mumbling good-humouredly to +himself and watching the smoke reel away; then, with half-shut eyes, he +said to David: "Am I master in Egypt or no, effendi?" + +"In ruling this people the Prince of Egypt stands alone," answered David. +"There is no one between him and the people. There is no Parliament." + +"It is in my hand, then, to give or to withhold, to make or to break?" +Kaid chuckled to have this tribute, as he thought, from a Christian, who +did not blink at Oriental facts, and was honest. + +David bowed his head to Kaid's words. + +"Then if it be my hand that lifts up or casts down, that rewards or that +punishes, shall my arm not stretch into the darkest corner of Egypt to +bring forth a traitor? Shall it not be so?" + +"It belongs to thy power," answered David. "It is the ancient custom of +princes here. Custom is law, while it is yet the custom." + +Kaid looked at him enigmatically for a moment, then smiled grimly--he +saw the course of the lance which David had thrown. He bent his look +fiercely on Achmet and Higli. "Ye have heard. Truth is on his lips. +I have stretched out my arm. Ye are my arm, to reach for and gather in +Nahoum and all that is his." He turned quickly to David again. "I have +given this hawk, Achmet, till to-morrow night to bring Nahoum to me," he +explained. + +"And if he fails--a penalty? He will lose his place?" asked David, with +cold humour. + +"More than his place," Kaid rejoined, with a cruel smile. + +"Then is his place mine, Effendina," rejoined David, with a look which +could give Achmet no comfort. "Thou will bring Nahoum--thou?" asked +Kaid, in amazement. + +"I have brought him," answered David. "Is it not my duty to know the +will of the Effendina and to do it, when it is just and right?" + +"Where is he--where does he wait?" questioned Kaid eagerly. + +"Within the Palace--here," replied David. "He awaits his fate in thine +own dwelling, Effendina." Kaid glowered upon Achmet. "In the years +which Time, the Scytheman, will cut from thy life, think, as thou fastest +at Ramadan or feastest at Beiram, how Kaid filled thy plate when thou +wast a beggar, and made thee from a dog of a fellah into a pasha. Go to +thy dwelling, and come here no more," he added sharply. "I am sick of +thy yellow, sinful face." + +Achmet made no reply, but, as he passed beyond the door with Higli, he +said in a whisper: "Come--to Harrik and the army! He shall be deposed. +The hour is at hand." High answered him faintly, however. He had not +the courage of the true conspirator, traitor though he was. + +As they disappeared, Kaid made a wide gesture of friendliness to David, +and motioned to a seat, then to a narghileh. David seated himself, took +the stem of a narghileh in his mouth for an instant, then laid it down +again and waited. + +"Nahoum--I do not understand," Kaid said presently, his eyes gloating. + +"He comes of his own will, Effendina." + +"Wherefore?" Kaid could not realise the truth. This truth was not +Oriental on the face of it. "Effendina, he comes to place his life in +thy hands. He would speak with thee." + +"How is it thou dost bring him?" + +"He sought me to plead for him with thee, and because I knew his peril, +I kept him with me and brought him hither but now." + +"Nahoum went to thee?" Kaid's eyes peered abstractedly into the distance +between the almost shut lids. That Nahoum should seek David, who had +displaced him from his high office, was scarcely Oriental, when his every +cue was to have revenge on his rival. This was a natural sequence to his +downfall. It was understandable. But here was David safe and sound. +Was it, then, some deeper scheme of future vengeance? The Oriental +instinctively pierced the mind of the Oriental. He could have realised +fully the fierce, blinding passion for revenge which had almost overcome +Nahoum's calculating mind in the dark night, with his foe in the next +room, which had driven him suddenly from his bed to fall upon David, only +to find Mahommed Hassan watching--also with the instinct of the Oriental. + +Some future scheme of revenge? Kaid's eyes gleamed red. There would be +no future for Nahoum. "Why did Nahoum go to thee?" he asked again +presently. + +"That I might beg his life of thee, Highness, as I said," David replied. + +"I have not ordered his death." + +David looked meditatively at him. "It was agreed between us yesterday +that I should speak plainly--is it not so?" + +Kaid nodded, and leaned back among the cushions. + +"If what the Effendina intends is fulfilled, there is no other way but +death for Nahoum," added David. "What is my intention, effendi?" + +"To confiscate the fortune left by Foorgat Bey. Is it not so?" + +"I had a pledge from Foorgat--a loan." + +"That is the merit of the case, Effendina. I am otherwise concerned. +There is the law. Nahoum inherits. Shouldst thou send him to Fazougli, +he would still inherit." + +"He is a traitor." + +"Highness, where is the proof?" + +"I know. My friends have disappeared one by one--Nahoum. Lands have +been alienated from me--Nahoum. My income has declined--Nahoum. I have +given orders and they have not been fulfilled--Nahoum. Always, always +some rumour of assassination, or of conspiracy, or the influence and +secret agents of the Sultan--all Nahoum. He is a traitor. He has grown +rich while I borrow from Europe to pay my army and to meet the demands of +the Sultan." + +"What man can offer evidence in this save the Effendina who would profit +by his death?" + +"I speak of what I know. I satisfy myself. It is enough." + +"Highness, there is a better way; to satisfy the people, for whom thee +lives. None should stand between. Is not the Effendina a father to +them?" + +"The people! Would they not say Nahoum had got his due if he were +blotted from their sight?" + +"None has been so generous to the poor, so it is said by all. His hand +has been upon the rich only. Now, Effendina, he has brought hither the +full amount of all he has received and acquired in thy service. He would +offer it in tribute." + +Kaid smiled sardonically. "It is a thin jest. When a traitor dies the +State confiscates his goods!" + +"Thee calls him traitor. Does thee believe he has ever conspired against +thy life?" + +Kaid shrugged his shoulders. + +"Let me answer for thee, Effendina. Again and again he has defeated +conspiracy. He has blotted it out--by the sword and other means. He has +been a faithful servant to his Prince at least. If he has done after the +manner of all others in power here, the fault is in the system, not in +the man alone. He has been a friend to thee, Kaid." + +"I hope to find in thee a better." + +"Why should he not live?" + +"Thou hast taken his place." + +"Is it, then, the custom to destroy those who have served thee, when they +cease to serve?" David rose to his feet quickly. His face was shining +with a strange excitement. It gave him a look of exaltation, his lips +quivered with indignation. "Does thee kill because there is silence in +the grave?" + +Kaid blew a cloud of smoke slowly. "Silence in the grave is a fact +beyond dispute," he said cynically. + +"Highness, thee changes servants not seldom," rejoined David meaningly. +"It may be that my service will be short. When I go, will the long arm +reach out for me in the burrows where I shall hide?" + +Kaid looked at him with ill-concealed admiration. "Thou art an +Englishman, not an Egyptian, a guest, not a subject, and under no law +save my friendship." Then he added scornfully: "When an Englishman in +England leaves office, no matter how unfaithful, though he be a friend of +any country save his own, they send him to the House of Lords--or so I +was told in France when I was there. What does it matter to thee what +chances to Nahoum? Thou hast his place with me. My secrets are thine. +They shall all be thine--for years I have sought an honest man. Thou art +safe whether to go or to stay." + +"It may be so. I heed it not. My life is as that of a gull--if the wind +carry it out to sea, it is lost. As my uncle went I shall go one day. +Thee will never do me ill; but do I not know that I shall have foes at +every corner, behind every mooshrabieh screen, on every mastaba, in the +pasha's court-yard, by every mosque? Do I not know in what peril I serve +Egypt?" + +"Yet thou wouldst keep alive Nahoum! He will dig thy grave deep, and +wait long." + +"He will work with me for Egypt, Effendina." Kaid's face darkened. + +"What is thy meaning?" + +"I ask Nahoum's life that he may serve under me, to do those things thou +and I planned yesterday--the land, taxation, the army, agriculture, the +Soudan. Together we will make Egypt better and greater and richer--the +poor richer, even though the rich be poorer." + +"And Kaid--poorer?" + +"When Egypt is richer, the Prince is richer, too. Is not the Prince +Egypt? Highness, yesterday--yesterday thee gave me my commission. If +thee will not take Nahoum again into service to aid me, I must not +remain. I cannot work alone." + +"Thou must have this Christian Oriental to work with thee?" He looked at +David closely, then smiled sardonically, but with friendliness to David +in his eyes. "Nahoum has prayed to work with thee, to be a slave where +he was master? He says to thee that he would lay his heart upon the +altar of Egypt?" Mordant, questioning humour was in his voice. + +David inclined his head. + +"He would give up all that is his?" + +"It is so, Effendina." + +"All save Foorgat's heritage?" + +"It belonged to their father. It is a due inheritance." + +Kaid laughed sarcastically. "It was got in Mehemet Ali's service." + +"Nathless, it is a heritage, Effendina. He would give that fortune back +again to Egypt in work with me, as I shall give of what is mine, and of +what I am, in the name of God, the all-merciful!" + +The smile faded out of Kaid's face, and wonder settled on it. What +manner of man was this? His life, his fortune for Egypt, a country alien +to him, which he had never seen till six months ago! What kind of being +was behind the dark, fiery eyes and the pale, impassioned face? Was he +some new prophet? If so, why should he not have cast a spell upon +Nahoum? Had he not bewitched himself, Kaid, one of the ablest princes +since Alexander or Amenhotep? Had Nahoum, then, been mastered and won? +Was ever such power? In how many ways had it not been shown! He had +fought for his uncle's fortune, and had got it at last yesterday without +a penny of backsheesh. Having got his will, he was now ready to give +that same fortune to the good of Egypt--but not to beys and pashas and +eunuchs (and that he should have escaped Mizraim was the marvel beyond +all others!), or even to the Prince Pasha; but to that which would make +"Egypt better and greater and richer--the poor richer, even though the +rich be poorer!" Kaid chuckled to himself at that. To make the rich +poorer would suit him well, so long as he remained rich. And, if riches +could be got, as this pale Frank proposed, by less extortion from the +fellah and less kourbash, so much the happier for all. + +He was capable of patriotism, and this Quaker dreamer had stirred it in +him a little. Egypt, industrial in a real sense; Egypt, paying her own +way without tyranny and loans: Egypt, without corvee, and with an army +hired from a full public purse; Egypt, grown strong and able to resist +the suzerainty and cruel tribute--that touched his native goodness of +heart, so long, in disguise; it appealed to the sense of leadership in +him; to the love of the soil deep in his bones; to regard for the common +people--for was not his mother a slave? Some distant nobleness trembled +in him, while yet the arid humour of the situation flashed into his eyes, +and, getting to his feet, he said to David: "Where is Nahoum?" + +David told him, and he clapped his hands. The black slave entered, +received an order, and disappeared. Neither spoke, but Kaid's face was +full of cheerfulness. + +Presently Nahoum entered and salaamed low, then put his hand upon his +turban. There was submission, but no cringing or servility in his +manner. His blue eyes looked fearlessly before him. His face was not +paler than its wont. He waited for Kaid to speak. + +"Peace be to thee," Kaid murmured mechanically. + +"And to thee, peace, O Prince," answered Nahoum. "May the feet of Time +linger by thee, and Death pass thy house forgetful." + +There was silence for a moment, and then Kaid spoke again. "What are thy +properties and treasure?" he asked sternly. + +Nahoum drew forth a paper from his sleeve, and handed it to Kaid without +a word. Kaid glanced at it hurriedly, then said: "This is but nothing. +What hast thou hidden from me?" + +"It is all I have got in thy service, Highness," he answered boldly. +"All else I have given to the poor; also to spies--and to the army." + +"To spies--and to the army?" asked Kaid slowly, incredulously. + +"Wilt thou come with me to the window, Effendina?" Kaid, wondering, went +to the great windows which looked on to the Palace square. There, drawn +up, were a thousand mounted men as black as ebony, wearing shining white +metal helmets and fine chain-armour and swords and lances like medieval +crusaders. The horses, too, were black, and the mass made a barbaric +display belonging more to another period in the world's history. This +regiment of Nubians Kaid had recruited from the far south, and had +maintained at his own expense. When they saw him at the window now, +their swords clashed on their thighs and across their breasts, and they +raised a great shout of greeting. + +"Well?" asked Kaid, with a ring to the voice. "They are loyal, +Effendina, every man. But the army otherwise is honeycombed with +treason. Effendina, my money has been busy in the army paying and +bribing officers, and my spies were costly. There has been sedition-- +conspiracy; but until I could get the full proofs I waited; I could but +bribe and wait. Were it not for the money I had spent, there might have +been another Prince of Egypt." + +Kald's face darkened. He was startled, too. He had been taken unawares. +"My brother Harrik--!" + +"And I should have lost my place, lost all for which I cared. I had no +love for money; it was but a means. I spent it for the State--for the +Effendina, and to keep my place. I lost my place, however, in another +way." + +"Proofs! Proofs!" Kaid's voice was hoarse with feeling. + +"I have no proofs against Prince Harrik, no word upon paper. But there +are proofs that the army is seditious, that, at any moment, it may +revolt." + +"Thou hast kept this secret?" questioned Kaid darkly and suspiciously. + +"The time had not come. Read, Effendina," he added, handing some papers +over. + +"But it is the whole army!" said Kaid aghast, as he read. He was +convinced. + +"There is only one guilty," returned Nahoum. Their eyes met. Oriental +fatalism met inveterate Oriental distrust and then instinctively Kaid's +eyes turned to David. In the eyes of the Inglesi was a different thing. +The test of the new relationship had come. Ferocity was in his heart, a +vitriolic note was in his voice as he said to David, "If this be true-- +the army rotten, the officers disloyal, treachery under every tunic-- +bismillah, speak!" + +"Shall it not be one thing at a time, Effendina?" asked David. He made +a gesture towards Nahoum. Kaid motioned to a door. "Wait yonder," he +said darkly to Nahoum. As the door opened, and Nahoum disappeared +leisurely and composedly, David caught a glimpse of a guard of armed +Nubians in leopard-skins filed against the white wall of the other room. + +"What is thy intention towards Nahoum, Effendina?" David asked +presently. + +Kaid's voice was impatient. "Thou hast asked his life--take it; it is +thine; but if I find him within these walls again until I give him leave, +he shall go as Foorgat went." + +"What was the manner of Foorgat's going?" asked David quietly. + +"As a wind blows through a court-yard, and the lamp goes out, so he went +--in the night. Who can say? Wherefore speculate? He is gone. It is +enough. Were it not for thee, Egypt should see Nahoum no more." + +David sighed, and his eyes closed for an instant. "Effendina, Nahoum has +proved his faith--is it not so?" He pointed to the documents in Kaid's +hands. + +A grim smile passed over Kaid's face. Distrust of humanity, incredulity, +cold cynicism, were in it. "Wheels within wheels, proofs within proofs," +he said. "Thou hast yet to learn the Eastern heart. When thou seest +white in the East, call it black, for in an instant it will be black. +Malaish, it is the East! Have I not trusted--did I not mean well by all? +Did I not deal justly? Yet my justice was but darkness of purpose, the +hidden terror to them all. So did I become what thou findest me and dost +believe me--a tyrant, in whose name a thousand do evil things of which I +neither hear nor know. Proof! When a woman lies in your arms, it is not +the moment to prove her fidelity. Nahoum has crawled back to my feet +with these things, and by the beard of the Prophet they are true!" He +looked at the papers with loathing. "But what his purpose was when he +spied upon and bribed my army I know not. Yet, it shall be said, he has +held Harrik back--Harrik, my brother. Son of Sheitan and slime of the +Nile, have I not spared Harrik all these years!" + +"Hast thou proof, Effendina?" + +"I have proof enough; I shall have more soon. To save their lives, +these, these will tell. I have their names here." He tapped the papers. +"There are ways to make them tell. Now, speak, effendi, and tell me what +I shall do to Harrik." + +"Wouldst thou proclaim to Egypt, to the Sultan, to the world that the +army is disloyal? If these guilty men are seized, can the army be +trusted? Will it not break away in fear? Yonder Nubians are not enough +--a handful lost in the melee. Prove the guilt of him who perverted the +army and sought to destroy thee. Punish him." + +"How shall there be proof save through those whom he has perverted? +There is no writing." + +"There is proof," answered David calmly. + +"Where shall I find it?" Kaid laughed contemptuously. + +"I have the proof," answered David gravely. "Against Harrik?" + +"Against Prince Harrik Pasha." + +"Thou--what dost thou know?" + +"A woman of the Prince heard him give instructions for thy disposal, +Effendina, when the Citadel should turns its guns upon Cairo and the +Palace. She was once of thy harem. Thou didst give her in marriage, +and she came to the harem of Prince Harrik at last. A woman from without +who sang to her--a singing girl, an al'mah--she trusted with the paper to +warn thee, Effendina, in her name. Her heart had remembrance of thee. +Her foster-brother Mahommed Hassan is my servant. Him she told, and +Mahommed laid the matter before me this morning. Here is a sign by which +thee will remember her, so she said. Zaida she was called here." He +handed over an amulet which had one red gem in the centre. + +Kaid's face had set into fierce resolution, but as he took the amulet his +eyes softened. + +"Zaida. Inshallah! Zaida, she was called. She has the truth almost of +the English. She could not lie ever. My heart smote me concerning her, +and I gave her in marriage." Then his face darkened again, and his teeth +showed in malice. A demon was roused in him. He might long ago have +banished the handsome and insinuating Harrik, but he had allowed him +wealth and safety--and now . . . + +His intention was unmistakable. + +"He shall die the death," he said. "Is it not so?" he added fiercely to +David, and gazed at him fixedly. Would this man of peace plead for the +traitor, the would-be fratricide? + +"He is a traitor; he must die," answered David slowly. + +Kald's eyes showed burning satisfaction. "If he were thy brother, thou +wouldst kill him?" + +"I would give a traitor to death for the country's sake. There is no +other way." + +"To-night he shall die." + +"But with due trial, Effendina?" + +"Trial--is not the proof sufficient?" + +"But if he confess, and give evidence himself, and so offer himself to +die?" + +"Is Harrik a fool?" answered Kaid, with scorn. + +If there be a trial and sentence is given, the truth concerning the army +must appear. Is that well? Egypt will shake to its foundations--to the +joy of its enemies." + +"Then he shall die secretly." + +"The Prince Pasha of Egypt will be called a murderer." + +Kaid shrugged his shoulders. + +"The Sultan--Europe--is it well?" + +"I will tell the truth," Kaid rejoined angrily. + +"If the Effendina will trust me, Prince Harrik shall confess his crime +and pay the penalty also." + +"What is thy purpose?" + +"I will go to his palace and speak with him." + +"Seize him?" + +"I have no power to seize him, Effendina." + +"I will give it. My Nubians shall go also." + +"Effendina, I will go alone. It is the only way. There is great danger +to the throne. Who can tell what a night will bring forth?" + +"If Harrik should escape--" + +"If I were an Egyptian and permitted Harrik to escape, my life would pay +for my failure. If I failed, thou wouldst not succeed. If I am to serve +Egypt, there must be trust in me from thee, or it were better to pause +now. If I go, as I shall go, alone, I put my life in danger--is it not +so?" + +Suddenly Kaid sat down again among his cushions. "Inshallah! In the +name of God, be it so. Thou art not as other men. There is something in +thee above my thinking. But I will not sleep till I see thee again." + +"I shall see thee at midnight, Effendina. Give me the ring from thy +finger." + +Kaid passed it over, and David put it in his pocket. Then he turned to +go. + +"Nahoum?" he asked. + +"Take him hence. Let him serve thee if it be thy will. Yet I cannot +understand it. The play is dark. Is he not an Oriental?" + +"He is a Christian." + +Kaid laughed sourly, and clapped his hands for the slave. + +In a moment David and Nahoum were gone. "Nahoum, a Christian! +Bismillah!" murmured Kaid scornfully, then fell to pondering darkly over +the evil things he had heard. + +Meanwhile the Nubians in their glittering armour waited without in the +blistering square. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE JEHAD AND THE LIONS + +"Allah hu Achbar! Allah hu Achbar! Ashhadu an la illaha illalla!" The +sweetly piercing, resonant voice of the Muezzin rang far and commandingly +on the clear evening air, and from bazaar and crowded street the faithful +silently hurried to the mosques, leaving their slippers at the door, +while others knelt where the call found them, and touched their foreheads +to the ground. + +In his palace by the Nile, Harrik, the half-brother of the Prince Pasha, +heard it, and breaking off from conversation with two urgent visitors, +passed to an alcove near, dropping a curtain behind him. Kneeling +reverently on the solitary furniture of the room--a prayer-rug from +Medina--he lost himself as completely in his devotions as though his life +were an even current of unforbidden acts and motives. + +Cross-legged on the great divan of the room he had left, his less pious +visitors, unable to turn their thoughts from the dark business on which +they had come, smoked their cigarettes, talking to each other in tones so +low as would not have been heard by a European, and with apparent +listlessness. + +Their manner would not have indicated that they were weighing matters of +life and death, of treason and infamy, of massacre and national shame. +Only the sombre, smouldering fire of their eyes was evidence of the +lighted fuse of conspiracy burning towards the magazine. One look of +surprise had been exchanged when Harrik Pasha left them suddenly--time +was short for what they meant to do; but they were Muslims, and they +resigned themselves. + +"The Inglesi must be the first to go; shall a Christian dog rule over +us?" + +It was Achmet the Ropemaker who spoke, his yellow face wrinkling with +malice, though his voice but murmured hoarsely. + +"Nahoum will kill him." Higli Pasha laughed low--it was like the gurgle +of water in the narghileh--a voice of good nature and persuasiveness from +a heart that knew no virtue. "Bismillah! Who shall read the meaning of +it? Why has he not already killed?" + +"Nahoum would choose his own time--after he has saved his life by the +white carrion. Kaid will give him his life if the Inglesi asks. The +Inglesi, he is mad. If he were not mad, he would see to it that Nahoum +was now drying his bones in the sands." + +"What each has failed to do for the other shall be done for them," +answered Achmet, a hateful leer on his immobile features. "To-night many +things shall be made right. To-morrow there will be places empty and +places filled. Egypt shall begin again to-morrow." + +"Kaid?" + +Achmet stopped smoking for a moment. "When the khamsin comes, when the +camels stampede, and the children of the storm fall upon the caravan, can +it be foretold in what way Fate shall do her work? So but the end be the +same--malaish! We shall be content tomorrow." + +Now he turned and looked at his companion as though his mind had chanced +on a discovery. "To him who first brings word to a prince who inherits, +that the reigning prince is dead, belong honour and place," he said. + +"Then shall it be between us twain," said High, and laid his hot palm +against the cold, snaky palm of the other. "And he to whom the honour +falls shall help the other." + +"Aiwa, but it shall be so," answered Achmet, and then they spoke in lower +tones still, their eyes on the curtain behind which Harrik prayed. + +Presently Harrik entered, impassive, yet alert, his slight, handsome +figure in sharp contrast to the men lounging in the cushions before him, +who salaamed as he came forward. The features were finely chiselled, the +forehead white and high, the lips sensuous, the eyes fanatical, the look +concentrated yet abstracted. He took a seat among the cushions, and, +after a moment, said to Achmet, in a voice abnormally deep and powerful: +"Diaz--there is no doubt of Diaz?" + +"He awaits the signal. The hawk flies not swifter than Diaz will act." + +"The people--the bazaars--the markets?" + +"As the air stirs a moment before the hurricane comes, so the whisper has +stirred them. From one lip to another, from one street to another, from +one quarter to another, the word has been passed--'Nahoum was a +Christian, but Nahoum was an Egyptian whose heart was Muslim. The +stranger is a Christian and an Inglesi. Reason has fled from the Prince +Pasha, the Inglesi has bewitched him. But the hour of deliverance +draweth nigh. Be ready! To-night!' So has the whisper gone." + +Harrik's eyes burned. "God is great," he said. "The time has come. The +Christians spoil us. From France, from England, from Austria--it is +enough. Kaid has handed us over to the Greek usurers, the Inglesi and +the Frank are everywhere. And now this new-comer who would rule Kaid, +and lay his hand upon Egypt like Joseph of old, and bring back Nahoum, +to the shame of every Muslim--behold, the spark is to the tinder, it +shall burn." + +"And the hour, Effendina?" + +"At midnight. The guns to be trained on the Citadel, the Palace +surrounded. Kaid's Nubians?" + +"A hundred will be there, Effendina, the rest a mile away at their +barracks." Achmet rubbed his cold palms together in satisfaction. + +"And Prince Kaid, Effendina?" asked Higli cautiously. + +The fanatical eyes turned away. "The question is foolish--have ye no +brains?" he said impatiently. + +A look of malignant triumph flashed from Achmet to High, and he said, +scarce above a whisper: "May thy footsteps be as the wings of the eagle, +Effendina. The heart of the pomegranate is not redder than our hearts +are red for thee. Cut deep into our hearts, and thou shalt find the last +beat is for thee--and for the Jehad!" + +"The Jehad--ay, the Jehad! The time is at hand," answered Harrik, +glowering at the two. "The sword shall not be sheathed till we have +redeemed Egypt. Go your ways, effendis, and peace be on you and on all +the righteous worshippers of God!" + +As High and Achmet left the palace, the voice of a holy man--admitted +everywhere and treated with reverence--chanting the Koran, came +somnolently through the court-yard: "Bismillah hirrahmah, nirraheem. +Elhamdu lillahi sabbila!" + +Rocking his body backwards and forwards and dwelling sonorously on each +vowel, the holy man seemed the incarnation of Muslim piety; but as the +two conspirators passed him with scarce a glance, and made their way to a +small gate leading into the great garden bordering on the Nile, his eyes +watched them sharply. When they had passed through, he turned towards +the windows of the harem, still chanting. For a long time he chanted. +An occasional servant came and went, but his voice ceased not, and he +kept his eyes fixed ever on the harem windows. + +At last his watching had its reward. Something fluttered from a window +to the ground. Still chanting, he rose and began walking round the great +court-yard. Twice he went round, still chanting, but the third time he +stooped to pick up a little strip of linen which had fallen from the +window, and concealed it in his sleeve. Presently he seated himself +again, and, still chanting, spread out the linen in his palm and read the +characters upon it. For an instant there was a jerkiness to the voice, +and then it droned on resonantly again. Now the eyes of the holy man +were fixed on the great gates through which strangers entered, and he was +seated in the way which any one must take who came to the palace doors. + +It was almost dark, when he saw the bowab, after repeated knocking, +sleepily and grudgingly open the gates to admit a visitor. There seemed +to be a moment's hesitation on the bowab's part, but he was presently +assured by something the visitor showed him, and the latter made his way +deliberately to the palace doors. As the visitor neared the holy man, +who chanted on monotonously, he was suddenly startled to hear between the +long-drawn syllables the quick words in Arabic: + + +"Beware, Saadat! See, I am Mahommed Hassan, thy servant! At midnight +they surround Kaid's palace--Achmet and Higli--and kill the Prince Pasha. +Return, Saadat. Harrik will kill thee." + +David made no sign, but with a swift word to the faithful Mahommed +Hassan, passed on, and was presently admitted to the palace. As the +doors closed behind him, he would hear the voice of the holy man still +chanting: "Waladalleen--Ameen-Ameen! Waladalleen--Ameen!" + +The voice followed him, fainter and fainter, as he passed through the +great bare corridors with the thick carpets on which the footsteps made +no sound, until it came, soft and undefined, as it were from a great +distance. Then suddenly there fell upon him a sense of the peril of his +enterprise. He had been left alone in the vast dim hall while a slave, +made obsequious by the sight of the ring of the Prince Pasha, sought his +master. As he waited he was conscious that people were moving about +behind the great screens of mooshrabieh which separated this room from +others, and that eyes were following his every motion. He had gained +easy ingress to this place; but egress was a matter of some speculation. +The doors which had closed behind him might swing one way only! He had +voluntarily put himself in the power of a man whose fatal secret he knew. +He only felt a moment's apprehension, however. He had been moved to come +from a whisper in his soul; and he had the sure conviction of the +predestinarian that he was not to be the victim of "The Scytheman" before +his appointed time. His mind resumed its composure, and he watchfully +waited the return of the slave. + +Suddenly he was conscious of some one behind him, though he had heard no +one approach. He swung round and was met by the passive face of the +black slave in personal attendance on Harrik. The slave did not speak, +but motioned towards a screen at the end of the room, and moved towards +it. David followed. As they reached it, a broad panel opened, and they +passed through, between a line of black slaves. Then there was a sudden +darkness, and a moment later David was ushered into a room blazing with +light. Every inch of the walls was hung with red curtains. No door was +visible. He was conscious of this as the panel clicked behind him, and +the folds of the red velvet caught his shoulder in falling. Now he saw +sitting on a divan on the opposite side of the room Prince Harrik. + +David had never before seen him, and his imagination had fashioned a +different personality. Here was a combination of intellect, refinement, +and savagery. The red, sullen lips stamped the delicate, fanatical face +with cruelty and barbaric indulgence, while yet there was an intensity in +the eyes that showed the man was possessed of an idea which mastered him +--a root-thought. David was at once conscious of a complex personality, +of a man in whom two natures fought. He understood it. By instinct +the man was a Mahdi, by heredity he was a voluptuary, that strange +commingling of the religious and the evil found in so many criminals. +In some far corner of his nature David felt something akin. The +rebellion in his own blood against the fine instinct of his Quaker faith +and upbringing made him grasp the personality before him. Had he himself +been born in these surroundings, under these influences! The thought +flashed through his mind like lightning, even as he bowed before Harrik, +who salaamed and said: "Peace be unto thee!" and motioned him to a seat +on a divan near and facing him. + +"What is thy business with me, effendi?" asked Harrik. + +"I come on the business of the Prince Pasha," answered David. + +Harrik touched his fez mechanically, then his breast and lips, and a +cruel smile lurked at the corners of his mouth as he rejoined: + +"The feet of them who wear the ring of their Prince wait at no man's +door. The carpet is spread for them. They go and they come as the feet +of the doe in the desert. Who shall say, They shall not come; who shall +say, They shall not return!" + +Though the words were spoken with an air of ingenuous welcome, David felt +the malignity in the last phrase, and knew that now was come the most +fateful moment of his life. In his inner being he heard the dreadful +challenge of Fate. If he failed in his purpose with this man, he would +never begin his work in Egypt. Of his life he did not think--his life +was his purpose, and the one was nothing without the other. No other man +would have undertaken so Quixotic an enterprise, none would have exposed +himself so recklessly to the dreadful accidents of circumstance. There +had been other ways to overcome this crisis, but he had rejected them for +a course fantastic and fatal when looked at in the light of ordinary +reason. A struggle between the East and the West was here to be fought +out between two wills; between an intellectual libertine steeped in +Oriental guilt and cruelty and self-indulgence, and a being selfless, +human, and in an agony of remorse for a life lost by his hand. + +Involuntarily David's eyes ran round the room before he replied. How +many slaves and retainers waited behind those velvet curtains? + +Harrik saw the glance and interpreted it correctly. With a look of dark +triumph he clapped his hands. As if by magic fifty black slaves +appeared, armed with daggers. They folded their arms and waited like +statues. + +David made no sign of discomposure, but said slowly: "Dost thou think I +did not know my danger, Eminence? Do I seem to thee such a fool? I came +alone as one would come to the tent of a Bedouin chief whose son one had +slain, and ask for food and safety. A thousand men were mine to command, +but I came alone. Is thy guest imbecile? Let them go. I have that to +say which is for Prince Harrik's ear alone." + +An instant's hesitation, and Harrik motioned the slaves away. "What is +the private word for my ear?" he asked presently, fingering the stem of +the narghileh. + +"To do right by Egypt, the land of thy fathers and thy land; to do right +by the Prince Pasha, thy brother." + +"What is Egypt to thee? Why shouldst thou bring thine insolence here? +Couldst thou not preach in thine own bazaars beyond the sea?" + +David showed no resentment. His reply was composed and quiet. "I am +come to save Egypt from the work of thy hands." + +"Dog of an unbeliever, what hast thou to do with me, or the work of my +hands?" + +David held up Kaid's ring, which had lain in his hand. "I come from the +master of Egypt--master of thee, and of thy life, and of all that is +thine." + +"What is Kaid's message to me?" Harrik asked, with an effort at +unconcern, for David's boldness had in it something chilling to his +fierce passion and pride. + +"The word of the Effendina is to do right by Egypt, to give thyself to +justice and to peace." + +"Have done with parables. To do right by Egypt wherein, wherefore?" +The eyes glinted at David like bits of fiery steel. + +"I will interpret to thee, Eminence." + +"Interpret." Harrik muttered to himself in rage. His heart was dark, +he thirsted for the life of this arrogant Inglesi. Did the fool not see +his end? Midnight was at hand! He smiled grimly. + +"This is the interpretation, O Prince! Prince Harrik has conspired +against his brother the Prince Pasha, has treacherously seduced officers +of the army, has planned to seize Cairo, to surround the Palace and take +the life of the Prince of Egypt. For months, Prince, thee has done this: +and the end of it is that thee shall do right ere it be too late. Thee +is a traitor to thy country and thy lawful lord." + +Harrik's face turned pale; the stem of the narghileh shook in his +fingers. All had been discovered, then! But there was a thing of dark +magic here. It was not a half-hour since he had given the word to strike +at midnight, to surround the Palace, and to seize the Prince Pasha. +Achmet--Higli, had betrayed him, then! Who other? No one else knew +save Zaida, and Zaida was in the harem. Perhaps even now his own palace +was surrounded. If it was so, then, come what might, this masterful +Inglesi should pay the price. He thought of the den of lions hard by, +of the cage of tigers-the menagerie not a thousand feet away. He could +hear the distant roaring now, and his eyes glittered. The Christian to +the wild beasts! That at least before the end. A Muslim would win +heaven by sending a Christian to hell. + +Achmet--Higli! No others knew. The light of a fateful fanaticism was in +his eyes. David read him as an open book, and saw the madness come upon +him. + +"Neither Higli, nor Achmet, nor any of thy fellow-conspirators has +betrayed thee," David said. "God has other voices to whisper the truth +than those who share thy crimes. I have ears, and the air is full of +voices." + +Harrik stared at him. Was this Inglesi, then, with the grey coat, +buttoned to the chin, and the broad black hat which remained on his head +unlike the custom of the English--was he one of those who saw visions and +dreamed dreams, even as himself! Had he not heard last night a voice +whisper through the dark "Harrik, Harrik, flee to the desert! The lions +are loosed upon thee!" Had he not risen with the voice still in his ears +and fled to the harem, seeking Zaida, she who had never cringed before +him, whose beauty he had conquered, but whose face turned from him when +he would lay his lips on hers? And, as he fled, had he not heard, as it +were, footsteps lightly following him--or were they going before him? +Finding Zaida, had he not told her of the voice, and had she not said: +"In the desert all men are safe--safe from themselves and safe from +others; from their own acts and from the acts of others"? Were the +lions, then, loosed upon him? Had he been betrayed? + +Suddenly the thought flashed into his mind that his challenger would not +have thrust himself into danger, given himself to the mouth of the Pit, +if violence were intended. There was that inside his robe, than which +lightning would not be more quick to slay. Had he not been a hunter of +repute? Had he not been in deadly peril with wild beasts, and was he not +quicker than they? This man before him was like no other he had ever +met. Did voices speak to him? Were there, then, among the Christians +such holy men as among the Muslims, who saw things before they happened, +and read the human mind? Were there sorcerers among them, as among the +Arabs? + +In any case his treason was known. What were to be the consequences? +Diamond-dust in his coffee? To be dropped into the Nile like a dog? To +be smothered in his sleep?--For who could be trusted among all his slaves +and retainers when it was known he was disgraced, and that the Prince +Pasha would be happier if Harrik were quiet for ever? + +Mechanically he drew out his watch and looked at it. It was nine +o'clock. In three hours more would have fallen the coup. But from this +man's words he knew that the stroke was now with the Prince Pasha. Yet, +if this pale Inglesi, this Christian sorcerer, knew the truth in a vision +only, and had not declared it to Kaid, there might still be a chance of +escape. The lions were near--it would be a joy to give a Christian to +the lions to celebrate the capture of Cairo and the throne. He listened +intently to the distant rumble of the lions. There was one cage +dedicated to vengeance. Five human beings on whom his terrible anger +fell in times past had been thrust into it alive. Two were slaves, one +was an enemy, one an invader of his harem, and one was a woman, his wife, +his favourite, the darling of his heart. When his chief eunuch accused +her of a guilty love, he had given her paramour and herself to that awful +death. A stroke of the vast paw, a smothered roar as the teeth gave into +the neck of the beautiful Fatima, and then--no more. Fanaticism had +caught a note of savage music that tuned it to its height. + +"Why art thou here? For what hast thou come? Do the spirit voices give +thee that counsel?" he snarled. + +"I am come to ask Prince Harrik to repair the wrong he has done. When +the Prince Pasha came to know of thy treason--" + +Harrik started. "Kaid believes thy tale of treason?" he burst out. + +"Prince Kaid knows the truth," answered David quietly. "He might have +surrounded this palace with his Nubians, and had thee shot against the +palace walls. That would have meant a scandal in Egypt and in Europe. +I besought him otherwise. It may be the scandal must come, but in +another way, and--" + +"That I, Harrik, must die?" Harrik's voice seemed far away. In his own +ears it sounded strange and unusual. All at once the world seemed to be +a vast vacuum in which his brain strove for air, and all his senses were +numbed and overpowered. Distempered and vague, his soul seemed spinning +in an aching chaos. It was being overpowered by vast elements, and life +and being were atrophied in a deadly smother. The awful forces behind +visible being hung him in the middle space between consciousness and +dissolution. He heard David's voice, at first dimly, then +understandingly. + +"There is no other way. Thou art a traitor. Thou wouldst have been a +fratricide. Thou wouldst have put back the clock in Egypt by a hundred +years, even to the days of the Mamelukes--a race of slaves and murderers. +God ordained that thy guilt should be known in time. Prince, thou art +guilty. It is now but a question how thou shalt pay the debt of +treason." + +In David's calm voice was the ring of destiny. It was dispassionate, +judicial; it had neither hatred nor pity. It fell on Harrik's ear as +though from some far height. Destiny, the controller--who could escape +it? + +Had he not heard the voices in the night--"The lions are loosed upon +thee"? He did not answer David now, but murmured to himself like one in +a dream. + +David saw his mood, and pursued the startled mind into the pit of +confusion. "If it become known to Europe that the army is disloyal, +that its officers are traitors like thee, what shall we find? England, +France, Turkey, will land an army of occupation. Who shall gainsay +Turkey if she chooses to bring an army here and recover control, remove +thy family from Egypt, and seize upon its lands and goods? Dost thou not +see that the hand of God has been against thee? He has spoken, and thy +evil is discovered." + +He paused. Still Harrik did not reply, but looked at him with dilated, +fascinated eyes. Death had hypnotised him, and against death and destiny +who could struggle? Had not a past Prince Pasha of Egypt safeguarded +himself from assassination all his life, and, in the end, had he not been +smothered in his sleep by slaves? + +"There are two ways only," David continued--"to be tried and die publicly +for thy crimes, to the shame of Egypt, its present peril, and lasting +injury; or to send a message to those who conspired with thee, commanding +them to return to their allegiance, and another to the Prince Pasha, +acknowledging thy fault, and exonerating all others. Else, how many of +thy dupes shall die! Thy choice is not life or death, but how thou shalt +die, and what thou shalt do for Egypt as thou diest. Thou didst love +Egypt, Eminence?" + +David's voice dropped low, and his last words had a suggestion which went +like an arrow to the source of all Harrik's crimes, and that also which +redeemed him in a little. It got into his inner being. He roused +himself and spoke, but at first his speech was broken and smothered. + +"Day by day I saw Egypt given over to the Christians," he said. "The +Greek, the Italian, the Frenchman, the Englishman, everywhere they +reached out, their hands and took from us our own. They defiled our +mosques; they corrupted our life; they ravaged our trade, they stole our +customers, they crowded us from the streets where once the faithful lived +alone. Such as thou had the ear of the Prince, and such as Nahoum, also +an infidel, who favoured the infidels of Europe. And now thou hast come, +the most dangerous of them all! Day by day the Muslim has loosed his +hold on Cairo, and Alexandria, and the cities of Egypt. Street upon +street knows him no more. My heart burned within me. I conspired for +Egypt's sake. I would have made her Muslim once again. I would have +fought the Turk and the Frank, as did Mehemet Ali; and if the infidels +came, I would have turned them back; or if they would not go, I would +have destroyed them here. Such as thou should have been stayed at the +door. In my own house I would have been master. We seek not to take up +our abode in other nations and in the cities of the infidel. Shall we +give place to them on our own mastaba, in our own court-yard--hand to +them the keys of our harems? I would have raised the Jehad if they vexed +me with their envoys and their armies." He paused, panting. + +"It would not have availed," was David's quiet answer. "This land may +not be as Tibet--a prison for its own people. If the door opens outward, +then must it open inward also. Egypt is the bridge between the East and +the West. Upon it the peoples of all nations pass and repass. Thy plan +was folly, thy hope madness, thy means to achieve horrible. Thy dream is +done. The army will not revolt, the Prince will not be slain. Now only +remains what thou shalt do for Egypt--" + +"And thou--thou wilt be left here to lay thy will upon Egypt. Kaid's ear +will be in thy hand--thou hast the sorcerer's eye. I know thy meaning. +Thou wouldst have me absolve all, even Achmet, and Higli, and Diaz, and +the rest, and at thy bidding go out into the desert"--he paused--"or into +the grave." + +"Not into the desert," rejoined David firmly. "Thou wouldst not rest. +There, in the desert, thou wouldst be a Mahdi. Since thou must die, wilt +thou not order it after thine own choice? It is to die for Egypt." + +"Is this the will of Kaid?" asked Harrik, his voice thick with wonder, +his brain still dulled by the blow of Fate. + +"It was not the Effendina's will, but it hath his assent. Wilt thou +write the word to the army and also to the Prince?" + +He had conquered. There was a moment's hesitation, then Harrik picked up +paper and ink that lay near, and said: "I will write to Kaid. I will +have naught to do with the army." + +"It shall be the whole, not the part," answered David determinedly. "The +truth is known. It can serve no end to withhold the writing to the army. +Remember what I have said to thee. The disloyalty of the army must not +be known. Canst thou not act after the will of Allah, the all-powerful, +the all-just, the all-merciful?" + +There was an instant's pause, and then suddenly Harrik placed the paper +in his palm and wrote swiftly and at some length to Kaid. Laying it +down, he took another and wrote but a few words--to Achmet and Diaz. +This message said in brief, "Do not strike. It is the will of Allah. +The army shall keep faithful until the day of the Mahdi be come. +I spoke before the time. I go to the bosom of my Lord Mahomet." + +He threw the papers on the floor before David, who picked them up, read +them, and put them into his pocket. + +"It is well," he said. "Egypt shall have peace. And thou, Eminence?" + +"Who shall escape Fate? What I have written I have written." + +David rose and salaamed. Harrik rose also. "Thou wouldst go, having +accomplished thy will?" Harrik asked, a thought flashing to his mind +again, in keeping with his earlier purpose. Why should this man be left +to trouble Egypt? + +David touched his breast. "I must bear thy words to the Palace and the +Citadel." + +"Are there not slaves for messengers?" Involuntarily Harrik turned his +eyes to the velvet curtains. No fear possessed David, but he felt the +keenness of the struggle, and prepared for the last critical moment of +fanaticism. + +"It were a foolish thing to attempt my death," he said calmly. "I have +been thy friend to urge thee to do that which saves thee from public +shame, and Egypt from peril. I came alone, because I had no fear that +thou wouldst go to thy death shaming hospitality." + +"Thou wast sure I would give myself to death?" + +"Even as that I breathe. Thou wert mistaken; a madness possessed thee; +but thou, I knew, wouldst choose the way of honour. I too have had +dreams--and of Egypt. If it were for her good, I would die for her." + +"Thou art mad. But the mad are in the hands of God, and--" + +Suddenly Harrik stopped. There came to his ears two distant sounds--the +faint click of horses' hoofs and that dull rumble they had heard as they +talked, a sound he loved, the roar of his lions. + +He clapped his hands twice, the curtains parted opposite, and a slave +slid silently forward. + +"Quick! The horses! What are they? Bring me word," he said. + +The slave vanished. For a moment there was silence. The eyes of the two +men met. In the minds of both was the same thing. + +"Kaid! The Nubians!" Harrik said, at last. David made no response. + +The slave returned, and his voice murmured softly, as though the matter +were of no concern: "The Nubians--from the Palace." In an instant he was +gone again. + +"Kaid had not faith in thee," Harrik said grimly. "But see, infidel +though thou art, thou trustest me, and thou shalt go thy way. Take them +with thee, yonder jackals of the desert. I will not go with them. I did +not choose to live; others chose for me; but I will die after my own +choice. Thou hast heard a voice, even as I. It is too late to flee to +the desert. Fate tricks me. 'The lions are loosed on thee'--so the +voice said to me in the night. Hark! dost thou not hear them--the +lions, Harrik's lions, got out of the uttermost desert?" + +David could hear the distant roar, for the menagerie was even part of the +palace itself. + +"Go in peace," continued Harrik soberly and with dignity, "and when Egypt +is given to the infidel and Muslims are their slaves, remember that +Harrik would have saved it for his Lord Mahomet, the Prophet of God." + +He clapped his hands, and fifty slaves slid from behind the velvet +curtains. + +"I have thy word by the tomb of thy mother that thou wilt take the +Nubians hence, and leave me in peace?" he asked. + +David raised a hand above his head. "As I have trusted thee, trust thou +me, Harrik, son of Mahomet." Harrik made a gesture of dismissal, and +David salaamed and turned to go. As the curtains parted for his exit, +he faced Harrik again. "Peace be to thee," he said. + +But, seated in his cushions, the haggard, fanatical face of Harrik was +turned from him, the black, flaring eyes fixed on vacancy. The curtain +dropped behind David, and through the dim rooms and corridors he passed, +the slaves gliding beside him, before him, and behind him, until they +reached the great doors. As they swung open and the cool night breeze +blew in his face, a great suspiration of relief passed from him. What he +had set out to do would be accomplished in all. Harrik would +keep his word. It was the only way. + +As he emerged from the doorway some one fell at his feet, caught his +sleeve and kissed it. It was Mahommed Hassan. Behind Mahommed was a +little group of officers and a hundred stalwart Nubians. David motioned +them towards the great gates, and, without speaking, passed swiftly down +the pathway and emerged upon the road without. A moment later he was +riding towards the Citadel with Harrik's message to Achmet. In the red- +curtained room Harrik sat alone, listening until he heard the far clatter +of hoofs, and knew that the Nubians were gone. Then the other distant +sound which had captured his ear came to him again. In his fancy it grew +louder and louder. With it came the voice that called him in the night, +the voice of a woman--of the wife he had given to the lions for a crime +against him which she did not commit, which had haunted him all the +years. He had seen her thrown to the king of them all, killed in one +swift instant, and dragged about the den by her warm white neck--this +slave wife from Albania, his adored Fatima. And when, afterwards, he +came to know the truth, and of her innocence, from the chief eunuch who +with his last breath cleared her name, a terrible anger and despair had +come upon him. Time and intrigue and conspiracy had distracted his mind, +and the Jehad became the fixed aim and end of his life. Now this was +gone. Destiny had tripped him up. Kaid and the infidel Inglesi had won. + +As the one great passion went out like smoke, the woman he loved, whom +he had given to the lions, the memory of her, some haunting part of her, +possessed him, overcame him. In truth, he had heard a voice in the +night, but not the voice of a spirit. It was the voice of Zaida, who, +preying upon his superstitious mind--she knew the hallucination which +possessed him concerning her he had cast to the lions--and having given +the terrible secret to Kaid, whom she had ever loved, would still save +Harrik from the sure vengeance which must fall upon him. Her design had +worked, but not as she intended. She had put a spell of superstition on +him, and the end would be accomplished, but not by flight to the desert. + +Harrik chose the other way. He had been a hunter. + +He was without fear. The voice of the woman he loved called him. It +came to him through the distant roar of the lions as clear as when, with +one cry of "Harrik !" she had fallen beneath the lion's paw. He knew now +why he had kept the great beast until this hour, though tempted again and +again to slay him. + +Like one in a dream, he drew a dagger from the cushions where he sat, and +rose to his feet. Leaving the room and passing dark groups of waiting +slaves, he travelled empty chambers and long corridors, the voices of the +lions growing nearer and nearer. He sped faster now, and presently came +to two great doors, on which he knocked thrice. The doors opened, and +two slaves held up lights for him to enter. Taking a torch from one of +them, he bade them retire, and the doors clanged behind them. + +Harrik held up the torch and came nearer. In the centre of the room was +a cage in which one great lion paced to and fro in fury. It roared at +him savagely. It was his roar which had come to Harrik through the +distance and the night. He it was who had carried Fatima, the beloved, +about his cage by that neck in which Harrik had laid his face so often. + +The hot flush of conflict and the long anger of the years were on him. +Since he must die, since Destiny had befooled him, left him the victim of +the avengers, he would end it here. Here, against the thing of savage +hate which had drunk of the veins and crushed the bones of his fair wife, +he would strike one blow deep and strong and shed the blood of sacrifice +before his own was shed. + +He thrust the torch into the ground, and, with the dagger grasped +tightly, carefully opened the cage and stepped inside. The door clicked +behind him. The lion was silent now, and in a far corner prepared to +spring, crouching low. + +"Fatima!" Harrik cried, and sprang forward as the wild beast rose at +him. He struck deep, drew forth the dagger--and was still. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +ACHMET THE ROPEMAKER STRIKES + +War! War! The chains of the conscripts clanked in the river villages; +the wailing of the women affrighted the pigeons in a thousand dovecotes +on the Nile; the dust of despair was heaped upon the heads of the old, +who knew that their young would no more return, and that the fields of +dourha would go ungathered, the water-channels go unattended, and the +onion-fields be bare. War! War! War! The strong, the broad-shouldered +--Aka, Mahmoud, Raschid, Selim, they with the bodies of Seti and the +faces of Rameses, in their blue yeleks and unsandalled feet--would go +into the desert as their forefathers did for the Shepherd Kings. But +there would be no spoil for them--no slaves with swelling breasts and +lips of honey; no straight-limbed servants of their pleasure to wait on +them with caressing fingers; no rich spoils carried back from the fields +of war to the mud hut, the earth oven, and the thatched roof; no rings of +soft gold and necklaces of amber snatched from the fingers and bosoms of +the captive and the dead. Those days were no more. No vision of loot or +luxury allured these. They saw only the yellow sand, the ever-receding +oasis, the brackish, undrinkable water, the withered and fruitless date- +tree, handfuls of dourha for their food by day, and the keen, sharp night +to chill their half-dead bodies in a half-waking sleep. And then the +savage struggle for life--with all the gain to the pashas and the beys, +and those who ruled over them; while their own wounds grew foul, and, in +the torturing noon-day heat of the white waste, Death reached out and +dragged them from the drooping lines to die. Fighting because they must +fight--not patriot love, nor understanding, nor sacrifice in their +hearts. War! War! War! War! + +David had been too late to stop it. It had grown to a head with +revolution and conspiracy. For months before he came conscripts had been +gathered in the Nile country from Rosetta to Assouan, and here and there, +far south, tribes had revolted. He had come to power too late to devise +another course. One day, when this war was over, he would go alone, save +for a faithful few, to deal with these tribes and peoples upon another +plane than war; but here and now the only course was that which had been +planned by Kaid and those who counselled him. Troubled by a deep danger +drawing near, Kaid had drawn him into his tough service, half-blindly +catching at his help, with a strange, almost superstitious belief that +luck and good would come from the alliance; seeing in him a protection +against wholesale robbery and debt--were not the English masters of +finance, and was not this Englishman honest, and with a brain of fire +and an eye that pierced things? + +David had accepted the inevitable. The war had its value. It would draw +off to the south--he would see that it was so--Achmet and Higli and Diaz +and the rest, who were ever a danger. Not to himself: he did not think +of that; but to Kaid and to Egypt. They had been out-manoeuvred, beaten, +foiled, knew who had foiled them and what they had escaped; congratulated +themselves, but had no gratitude to him, and still plotted his +destruction. More than once his death had been planned, but the dark +design had come to light--now from the workers of the bazaars, whose +wires of intelligence pierced everywhere; now from some hungry fellah +whose yelek he had filled with cakes of dourha beside a bread-shop; now +from Mahommed Hassan, who was for him a thousand eyes and feet and hands, +who cooked his food, and gathered round him fellaheen or Copts or +Soudanese or Nubians whom he himself had tested and found true, and ruled +them with a hand of plenty and a rod of iron. Also, from Nahoum's spies +he learned of plots and counterplots, chiefly on Achmet's part; and these +he hid from Kaid, while he trusted Nahoum--and not without reason, as +yet. + +The day of Nahoum's wrath and revenge was not yet come; it was his deep +design to lay the foundation for his own dark actions strong on a rock of +apparent confidence and devotion. A long torture and a great over- +whelming was his design. He knew himself to be in the scheme of a +master-workman, and by-and-by he would blunt the chisel and bend the saw; +but not yet. Meanwhile, he hated, admired, schemed, and got a sweet +taste on his tongue from aiding David to foil Achmet--Higli and Diaz were +of little account; only the injury they felt in seeing the sluices being +closed on the stream of bribery and corruption kept them in the toils of +Achmet's conspiracy. They had saved their heads, but they had not +learned their lesson yet; and Achmet, blinded by rage, not at all. +Achmet did not understand clemency. One by one his plots had failed, +until the day came when David advised Kaid to send him and his friends +into the Soudan, with the punitive expedition under loyal generals. It +was David's dream that, in the field of war, a better spirit might enter +into Achmet and his friends; that patriotism might stir in them. + +The day was approaching when the army must leave. Achmet threw dice once +more. + +Evening was drawing down. Over the plaintive pink and golden glow of +sunset was slowly being drawn a pervasive silver veil of moonlight. A +caravan of camels hunched alone in the middle distance, making for the +western desert. Near by, village life manifested itself in heavily laden +donkeys; in wolfish curs stealing away with refuse into the waste; in +women, upright and modest, bearing jars of water on their heads; in +evening fires, where the cover of the pot clattered over the boiling mass +within; in the voice of the Muezzin calling to prayer. + +Returning from Alexandria to Cairo in the special train which Kaid had +sent for him, David watched the scene with grave and friendly interest. +There was far, to go before those mud huts of the thousand years would +give place to rational modern homes; and as he saw a solitary horseman +spread his sheepskin on the ground and kneel to say his evening prayer, +as Mahomet had done in his flight between Mecca and Medina, the distance +between the Egypt of his desire and the ancient Egypt that moved round +him sharply impressed his mind, and the magnitude of his task settled +heavily on his spirit. + +"But it is the beginning--the beginning," he said aloud to himself, +looking out upon the green expanses of dourha and Lucerne, and eyeing +lovingly the cotton-fields here and there, the origin of the industrial +movement he foresaw--"and some one had to begin. The rest is as it must +be--" + +There was a touch of Oriental philosophy in his mind--was it not Galilee +and the Nazarene, that Oriental source from which Mahomet also drew? But +he added to the "as it must be" the words, "and as God wills." He was +alone in the compartment with Lacey, whose natural garrulity had had a +severe discipline in the months that had passed since he had asked to be +allowed to black David's boots. He could now sit for an hour silent, +talking to himself, carrying on unheard conversations. Seeing David's +mood, he had not spoken twice on this journey, but had made notes in a +little "Book of Experience,"--as once he had done in Mexico. At last, +however, he raised his head, and looked eagerly out of the window as +David did, and sniffed. + +"The Nile again," he said, and smiled. The attraction of the Nile was +upon him, as it grows on every one who lives in Egypt. The Nile and +Egypt--Egypt and the Nile--its mystery, its greatness, its benevolence, +its life-giving power, without which Egypt is as the Sahara, it conquers +the mind of every man at last. + +"The Nile, yes," rejoined David, and smiled also. "We shall cross it +presently." + +Again they relapsed into silence, broken only by the clang, clang of the +metal on the rails, and then presently another, more hollow sound--the +engine was upon the bridge. Lacey got up and put his head out of the +window. Suddenly there was a cry of fear and horror over his head, a +warning voice shrieking: + +"The bridge is open--we are lost. Effendi--master--Allah!" It was the +voice of Mahommed Hassan, who had been perched on the roof of the car. + +Like lightning Lacey realised the danger, and saw the only way of escape. +He swung open the door, even as the engine touched the edge of the abyss +and shrieked its complaint under the hand of the terror-stricken +driver, caught David's shoulder, and cried: "Jump-jump into the river-- +quick!" + +As the engine toppled, David jumped--there was no time to think, +obedience was the only way. After him sprang, far down into the grey- +blue water, Lacey and Mahommed. When they came again to the surface, the +little train with its handful of human freight had disappeared. + +Two people had seen the train plunge to destruction--the solitary +horseman whom David had watched kneel upon his sheepskin, and who now +from a far hill had seen the disaster, but had not seen the three jump +for their lives, and a fisherman on the bank, who ran shouting towards a +village standing back from the river. + +As the fisherman sped shrieking and beckoning to the villagers, David, +Lacey, and Mahommed fought for their lives in the swift current, swimming +at an angle upstream towards the shore; for, as Mahommed warned them, +there were rocks below. Lacey was a good swimmer, but he was heavy, and +David was a better, but Mahommed had proved his merit in the past on many +an occasion when the laws of the river were reaching out strong hands for +him. Now, as Mahommed swam, he kept moaning to himself, cursing his +father and his father's son, as though he himself were to blame for the +crime which had been committed. Here was a plot, and he had discovered +more plots than one against his master. The bridge-opener--when he found +him he would take him into the desert and flay him alive; and find him he +would. His watchful eyes were on the hut by the bridge where this man +should be. No one was visible. He cursed the man and all his ancestry +and all his posterity, sleeping and waking, until the day when he, +Mahommed, would pinch his flesh with red hot irons. But now he had other +and nearer things to occupy him, for in the fierce struggle towards the +shore Lacey found himself failing, and falling down the stream. +Presently both Mahommed and David were beside him, Lacey angrily +protesting to David that he must save himself. + +"Say, think of Egypt and all the rest. You've got to save yourself--let +me splash along!" he spluttered, breathing hard, his shoulders low in +the water, his mouth almost submerged. + +But David and Mahommed fought along beside him, each determined that it +must be all or none; and presently the terror-stricken fisherman who had +roused the village, still shrieking deliriously, came upon them in a +flat-bottomed boat manned by four stalwart fellaheen, and the tragedy of +the bridge was over. But not the tragedy of Achmet the Ropemaker. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +BEYOND THE PALE + +Mahommed Hassan had vowed a vow in the river, and he kept it in so far as +was seemly. His soul hungered for the face of the bridge-opener, and the +hunger grew. He was scarce passed from the shivering Nile into a dry +yelek, had hardly taken a juicy piece from the cooking-pot at the house +of the village sheikh, before he began to cultivate friends who could +help him, including the sheikh himself; for what money Mahommed lacked +was supplied by Lacey, who had a reasoned confidence in him, and by the +fiercely indignant Kaid himself, to whom Lacey and Mahommed went +secretly, hiding their purpose from David. So, there were a score of +villages where every sheikh, eager for gold, listened for the whisper of +the doorways, and every slave and villager listened at the sheikh's door. +But neither to sheikh nor to villager was it given to find the man. + +But one evening there came a knocking at the door of the house which +Mahommed still kept in the lowest Muslim quarter of the town, a woman who +hid her face and was of more graceful figure than was familiar in those +dark purlieus. The door was at once opened, and Mahommed, with a cry, +drew her inside. + +"Zaida--the peace of God be upon thee," he said, and gazed lovingly yet +sadly upon her, for she had greatly changed. + +"And upon thee peace, Mahommed," she answered, and sat upon the floor, +her head upon her breast. + +"Thou hast trouble at," he said, and put some cakes of dourha and a +meated cucumber beside her. She touched the food with her fingers, but +did not eat. "Is thy grief, then, for thy prince who gave himself to the +lions?" he asked. + +"Inshallah! Harrik is in the bosom of Allah. He is with Fatima in the +fields of heaven--was I as Fatima to him? Nay, the dead have done with +hurting." + +"Since that night thou hast been lost, even since Harrik went. I +searched for thee, but thou wert hid. Surely, thou knewest mine eyes +were aching and my heart was cast down--did not thou and I feed at the +same breast?" + +"I was dead, and am come forth from the grave; but I shall go again into +the dark where all shall forget, even I myself; but there is that which I +would do, which thou must do for me, even as I shall do good to thee, +that which is the desire of my heart." + +"Speak, light of the morning and blessing of thy mother's soul," he said, +and crowded into his mouth a roll of meat and cucumber. "Against thy +feddan shall be set my date-tree; it hath been so ever." + +"Listen then, and by the stone of the Kaabah, keep the faith which has +been throe and mine since my mother, dying, gave me to thy mother, whose +milk gave me health and, in my youth, beauty--and, in my youth, beauty!" +Suddenly she buried her face in her veil, and her body shook with sobs +which had no voice. Presently she continued: "Listen, and by Abraham and +Christ and all the Prophets, and by Mahomet the true revealer, give me +thine aid. When Harrik gave his life to the lions, I fled to her whom I +had loved in the house of Kaid--Laka the Syrian, afterwards the wife of +Achmet Pasha. By Harrik's death I was free--no more a slave. Once Laka +had been the joy of Achmet's heart, but, because she had no child, she +was despised and forgotten. Was it not meet I should fly to her whose +sorrow would hide my loneliness? And so it was--I was hidden in the +harem of Achmet. But miserable tongues--may God wither them!--told +Achmet of my presence. And though I was free, and not a bondswoman, he +broke upon my sleep. . . ." + +Mahommed's eyes blazed, his dark skin blackened like a coal, and he +muttered maledictions between his teeth. ". . . In the morning there +was a horror upon me, for which there is no name. But I laughed also +when I took a dagger and stole from the harem to find him in the quarters +beyond the women's gate. I found him, but I held my hand, for one was +with him who spake with a tone of anger and of death, and I listened. +Then, indeed, I rejoiced for thee, for I have found thee a road to honour +and fortune. The man was a bridge-opener--" "Ah!--O, light of a thousand +eyes, fruit of the tree of Eden!" cried Mahommed, and fell on his knees +at her feet, and would have kissed them, but that, with a cry, she said: +"Nay, nay, touch me not. But listen. . . . Ay, it was Achmet who +sought to drown thy Pasha in the Nile. Thou shalt find the man in the +little street called Singat in the Moosky, at the house of Haleel the +date-seller." + +Mahommed rocked backwards and forwards in his delight. "Oh, now art thou +like a lamp of Paradise, even as a star which leadeth an army of stars, +beloved," he said. He rubbed his hands together. "Thy witness and his +shall send Achmet to a hell of scorpions, and I shall slay the bridge- +opener with my own hand--hath not the Effendina secretly said so to me, +knowing that my Pasha, the Inglesi, upon whom be peace for ever and +forever, would forgive him. Ah, thou blossom of the tree of trees--" + +She rose hastily, and when he would have kissed her hand she drew back to +the wall. "Touch me not--nay, then, Mahommed, touch me not--" + +"Why should I not pay thee honour, thou princess among women? Hast thou +not the brain of a man, and thy beauty, like thy heart, is it not--" + +She put out both her hands and spoke sharply. "Enough, my brother," +she said. "Thou hast thy way to great honour. Thou shalt yet have a +thousand feddans of well-watered land and slaves to wait upon thee. Get +thee to the house of Haleel. There shall the blow fall on the head of +Achmet, the blow which was mine to strike, but that Allah stayed my hand +that I might do thee and thy Pasha good, and to give the soul-slayer and +the body-slayer into the hands of Kaid, upon whom be everlasting peace!" +Her voice dropped low. "Thou saidst but now that I had beauty. Is there +yet any beauty in my face?" She lowered her yashmak and looked at him +with burning eyes. + +"Thou art altogether beautiful," he answered, "but there is a strangeness +to thy beauty like none I have seen; as if upon the face of an angel +there fell a mist--nay, I have not words to make it plain to thee." + +With a great sigh, and yet with the tenseness gone from her eyes, she +slowly drew the veil up again till only her eyes were visible. "It is +well," she answered. "Now, I have heard that to-morrow night Prince Kaid +will sit in the small court-yard of the blue tiles by the harem to feast +with his friends, ere the army goes into the desert at the next sunrise. +Achmet is bidden to the feast." + +"It is so, O beloved!" + +"There will be dancers and singers to make the feast worthy?" + +"At such a time it will be so." + +"Then this thou shalt do. See to it that I shall be among the singers, +and when all have danced and sung, that I shall sing, and be brought +before Kaid." + +"Inshallah! It shall be so. Thou dost desire to see Kaid--in truth, +thou hast memory, beloved." + +She made a gesture of despair. "Go upon thy business. Dost thou not +desire the blood of Achmet and the bridge-opener?" + +Mahommed laughed, and joyfully beat his breast, with whispered +exclamations, and made ready to go. "And thou?" he asked. + +"Am I not welcome here?" she replied wearily. "O, my sister, thou art +the master of my life and all that I have," he exclaimed, and a moment +afterwards he was speeding towards Kaid's Palace. + +For the first time since the day of his banishment Achmet the Ropemaker +was invited to Kaid's Palace. Coming, he was received with careless +consideration by the Prince. Behind his long, harsh face and sullen eyes +a devil was raging, because of all his plans that had gone awry, and +because the man he had sought to kill still served the Effendina, putting +a blight upon Egypt. To-morrow he, Achmet, must go into the desert with +the army, and this hated Inglesi would remain behind to have his will +with Kaid. The one drop of comfort in his cup was the fact that the +displeasure of the Effendina against himself was removed, and that he +had, therefore, his foot once more inside the Palace. When he came back +from the war he would win his way to power again. Meanwhile, he cursed +the man who had eluded the death he had prepared for him. With his own +eyes had he not seen, from the hill top, the train plunge to destruction, +and had he not once more got off his horse and knelt upon his sheepskin +and given thanks to Allah--a devout Arab obeying the sunset call to +prayer, as David had observed from the train? + +One by one, two by two, group by group, the unveiled dancers came and +went; the singers sang behind the screen provided for them, so that none +might see their faces, after the custom. At last, however, Kaid and his +guests grew listless, and smoked and talked idly. Yet there was in the +eyes of Kaid a watchfulness unseen by any save a fellah who squatted in a +corner eating sweetmeats, and a hidden singer waiting until she should be +called before the Prince Pasha. The singer's glances continually flashed +between Kaid and Achmet. At last, with gleaming eyes, she saw six Nubian +slaves steal silently behind Achmet. One, also, of great strength, came +suddenly and stood before him. In his hands was a leathern thong. + +Achmet saw, felt the presence of the slaves behind him, and shrank back +numbed and appalled. A mist came before his eyes; the voice he heard +summoning him to stand up seemed to come from infinite distances. The +hand of doom had fallen like a thunderbolt. The leathern thong in the +hands of the slave was the token of instant death. There was no chance +of escape. The Nubians had him at their mercy. As his brain struggled +to regain its understanding, he saw, as in a dream, David enter the +court-yard and come towards Kaid. + +Suddenly David stopped in amazement, seeing Achmet. Inquiringly he +looked at Kaid, who spoke earnestly to him in a low tone. Whereupon +David turned his head away, but after a moment fixed his eyes on Achmet. + +Kaid motioned all his startled guests to come nearer. Then in strong, +unmerciful voice he laid Achmet's crime before them, and told the story +of the bridge-opener, who had that day expiated his crime in the desert +by the hands of Mahommed--but not with torture, as Mahommed had hoped +might be. + +"What shall be his punishment--so foul, so wolfish?" Kaid asked of them +all. A dozen voices answered, some one terrible thing, some another. + +"Mercy!" moaned Achmet aghast. "Mercy, Saadat!" he cried to David. + +David looked at him calmly. There was little mercy in his eyes as he +answered: "Thy crimes sent to their death in the Nile those who never +injured thee. Dost thou quarrel with justice? Compose thy soul, and I +pray only the Effendina to give thee that seemly death thou didst deny +thy victims." He bowed respectfully to Kaid. + +Kaid frowned. "The ways of Egypt are the ways of Egypt, and not of the +land once thine," he answered shortly. Then, under the spell of that +influence which he had never yet been able to resist, he added to the +slaves: "Take him aside. I will think upon it. But he shall die at +sunrise ere the army goes. Shall not justice be the gift of Kaid for an +example and a warning? Take him away a little. I will decide." + +As Achmet and the slaves disappeared into a dark corner of the court- +yard, Kaid rose to his feet, and, upon the hint, his guests, murmuring +praises of his justice and his mercy and his wisdom, slowly melted from +the court-yard; but once outside they hastened to proclaim in the four +quarters of Cairo how yet again the English Pasha had picked from the +Tree of Life an apple of fortune. + +The court-yard was now empty, save for the servants of the Prince, David +and Mahommed, and two officers in whom David had advised Kaid to put +trust. Presently one of these officers said: "There is another singer, +and the last. Is it the Effendina's pleasure?" + +Kaid made a gesture of assent, sat down, and took the stem of a narghileh +between his lips. For a moment there was silence, and then, out upon the +sweet, perfumed night, over which the stars hung brilliant and soft and +near, a voice at first quietly, then fully, and palpitating with feeling, +poured forth an Eastern love song: + + "Take thou thy flight, O soul! Thou hast no more + The gladness of the morning! Ah, the perfumed roses + My love laid on my bosom as I slept! + How did he wake me with his lips upon mine eyes, + How did the singers carol--the singers of my soul + That nest among the thoughts of my beloved! . . . + All silent now, the choruses are gone, + The windows of my soul are closed; no more + Mine eyes look gladly out to see my lover come. + There is no more to do, no more to say: + Take flight, my soul, my love returns no more!" + +At the first note Kaid started, and his eyes fastened upon the screen +behind which sat the singer. Then, as the voice, in sweet anguish, +filled the court-yard, entrancing them all, rose higher and higher, fell +and died away, he got to his feet, and called out hoarsely: "Come--come +forth!" + +Slowly a graceful, veiled figure came from behind the great screen. He +took a step forward. + +"Zaida! Zaida!" he said gently, amazedly. + +She salaamed low. "Forgive me, O my lord!" she said, in a whispering +voice, drawing her veil about her head. "It was my soul's desire to look +upon thy face once more." + +"Whither didst thou go at Harrik's death? I sent to find thee, and give +thee safety; but thou wert gone, none knew where." + +"O my lord, what was I but a mote in thy sun, that thou shouldst seek +me?" + +Kaid's eyes fell, and he murmured to himself a moment, then he said +slowly: "Thou didst save Egypt, thou and my friend"--he gestured towards +David"--and my life also, and all else that is worth. Therefore bounty, +and safety, and all thy desires were thy due. Kaid is no ingrate--no, +by the hand of Moses that smote at Sinai!" + +She made a pathetic motion of her hands. "By Harrik's death I am free, a +slave no longer. O my lord, where I go bounty and famine are the same." + +Kaid took a step forward. "Let me see thy face," he said, something +strange in her tone moving him with awe. + +She lowered her veil and looked him in the eyes. Her wan beauty smote +him, conquered him, the exquisite pain in her face filled Kaid's eyes +with foreboding, and pierced his heart. + +"O cursed day that saw thee leave these walls! I did it for thy good-- +thou wert so young; thy life was all before thee! But now--come, Zaida, +here in Kaid's Palace thou shalt have a home, and be at peace, for I see +that thou hast suffered. Surely it shall be said that Kaid honours +thee." He reached out to take her hand. + +She had listened like one in a dream, but, as he was about to touch her, +she suddenly drew back, veiled her face, save for the eyes, and said in a +voice of agony: "Unclean, unclean! My lord, I am a leper!" + +An awed and awful silence fell upon them all. Kaid drew back as though +smitten by a blow. + +Presently, upon the silence, her voice sharp with agony said: "I am a +leper, and I go to that desert place which my lord has set apart for +lepers, where, dead to the world, I shall watch the dreadful years come +and go. Behold, I would die, but that I have a sister there these many +years, and her sick soul lives in loneliness. O my lord, forgive me! +Here was I happy; here of old I did sing to thee, and I came to sing to +thee once more a death-song. Also, I came to see thee do justice, ere I +went from thy face for ever." + +Kaid's head was lowered on his breast. He shuddered. "Thou art so +beautiful--thy voice, all! Thou wouldst see justice--speak! Justice +shall be made plain before thee." + +Twice she essayed to speak, and could not; but from his sweetmeats and +the shadows Mahommed crept forward, kissed the ground before Kaid, and +said: "Effendina, thou knowest me as the servant of thy high servant, +Claridge Pasha." + +"I know thee--proceed." + +"Behold, she whom God has smitten, man smote first. I am her foster- +brother--from the same breast we drew the food of life. Thou wouldst do +justice, O Effendina; but canst thou do double justice--ay, a +thousandfold? Then"--his voice raised almost shrilly--"then do it upon +Achmet Pasha. She--Zaida--told me where I should find the bridge- +opener." + +"Zaida once more!" Kaid murmured. + +"She had learned all in Achmet's harem--hearing speech between Achmet and +the man whom thou didst deliver to my hands yesterday." + +"Zaida-in Achmet's harem?" Kaid turned upon her. + +Swiftly she told her dreadful tale, how, after Achmet had murdered all of +her except her body, she rose up to kill herself; but fainting, fell upon +a burning brazier, and her hand thrust accidentally in the live coals +felt no pain. "And behold, O my lord, I knew I was a leper; and I +remembered my sister and lived on." So she ended, in a voice numbed and +tuneless. + +Kaid trembled with rage, and he cried in a loud voice: "Bring Achmet +forth." + +As the slave sped upon the errand, David laid a hand on Kaid's arm, and +whispered to him earnestly. Kaid's savage frown cleared away, and his +rage calmed down; but an inflexible look came into his face, a look which +petrified the ruined Achmet as he salaamed before him. + +"Know thy punishment, son of a dog with a dog's heart, and prepare for a +daily death," said Kaid. "This woman thou didst so foully wrong, even +when thou didst wrong her, she was a leper." + +A low cry broke from Achmet, for now when death came he must go unclean +to the after-world, forbidden Allah's presence. Broken and abject he +listened. + +"She knew not, till thou wert gone," continued Kaid. She is innocent +before the law. But thou--beast of the slime--hear thy sentence. There +is in the far desert a place where lepers live. There, once a year, one +caravan comes, and, at the outskirts of the place unclean, leaves food +and needful things for another year, and returns again to Egypt after +many days. From that place there is no escape--the desert is as the sea, +and upon that sea there is no ghiassa to sail to a farther shore. It is +the leper land. Thither thou shalt go to wait upon this woman thou hast +savagely wronged, and upon her kind, till thou diest. It shall be so." + +"Mercy! Mercy!" Achmet cried, horror-stricken, and turned to David. +"Thou art merciful. Speak for me, Saadat." + +"When didst thou have mercy?" asked David. "Thy crimes are against +humanity." + +Kaid made a motion, and, with dragging feet, Achmet passed from the +haunts of familiar faces. + +For a moment Kaid stood and looked at Zaida, rigid and stricken in that +awful isolation which is the leper's doom. Her eyes were closed, but her +head was high. "Wilt thou not die?" Kaid asked her gently. + +She shook her head slowly, and her hands folded on her breast. "My +sister is there," she said at last. There was an instant's stillness, +then Kaid added with a voice of grief: "Peace be upon thee, Zaida. Life +is but a spark. If death comes not to-day, it will tomorrow, for thee-- +for me. Inshallah, peace be upon thee!" + +She opened her eyes and looked at him. Seeing what was in his face, they +lighted with a great light for a moment. + +"And upon thee peace, O my lord, for ever and for ever!" she said +softly, and, turning, left the court-yard, followed at a distance by +Mahommed Hassan. + +Kaid remained motionless looking after her. + +David broke in on his abstraction. "The army at sunrise--thou wilt speak +to it, Effendina?" + +Kaid roused himself. "What shall I say?" he asked anxiously. + +"Tell them they shall be clothed and fed, and to every man or his family +three hundred piastres at the end." + +"Who will do this?" asked Kaid incredulously. "Thou, Effendina--Egypt +and thou and I." + +"So be it," answered Kaid. + +As they left the court-yard, he said suddenly to an officer behind him: + +"The caravan to the Place of Lepers--add to the stores fifty camel-loads +this year, and each year hereafter. Have heed to it. Ere it starts, +come to me. I would see all with mine own eyes." + + + + +GLOSSARY + +Aiwa----Yes. +Allah hu Achbar----God is most Great. +Al'mah----Female professional singers, signifying "a learned female." +Ardab----A measure equivalent to five English bushels. + +Backsheesh----Tip, douceur. +Balass----Earthen vessel for carrying water. +Bdsha----Pasha. +Bersim----Clover. +Bismillah----In the name of God. +Bowdb----A doorkeeper. + +Dahabieh----A Nile houseboat with large lateen sails. +Darabukkeh----A drum made of a skin stretched over an earthenware funnel. +Dourha----Maize. + +Effendina----Most noble. +El Azhar----The Arab University at Cairo. + +Fedddn----A measure of land representing about an acre. +Fellah----The Egyptian peasant. + +Ghiassa----Small boat. + +Hakim----Doctor. +Hasheesh----Leaves of hemp. + +Inshallah----God willing. + +Kdnoon----A musical instrument like a dulcimer. +Kavass----An orderly. +Kemengeh----A cocoanut fiddle. +Khamsin----A hot wind of Egypt and the Soudan. + +Kourbash----A whip, often made of rhinoceros hide. + +La ilaha illa-llah----There is no deity but God. + +Malaish----No matter. +Malboos----Demented. +Mastaba----A bench. +Medjidie----A Turkish Order. +Mooshrabieh----Lattice window. +Moufettish----High Steward. +Mudir----The Governor of a +Mudirieh, or province. +Muezzin----The sheikh of the mosque who calls to prayer. + +Narghileh----A Persian pipe. +Nebool----A quarter-staff. + +Ramadan----The Mahommedan season of fasting. + +Saadat-el-bdsha----Excellency Pasha. +Sdis----Groom. +Sakkia----The Persian water-wheel. +Salaam----Eastern salutation. +Sheikh-el-beled----Head of a village. + +Tarboosh----A Turkish turban. + +Ulema----Learned men. + +Wakf----Mahommedan Court dealing with succession, etc. +Welee----A holy man or saint. + +Yashmak----A veil for the lower part of the face. +Yelek----A long vest or smock. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +Begin to see how near good is to evil +But the years go on, and friends have an end +Does any human being know what he can bear of temptation +Heaven where wives without number awaited him +Honesty was a thing he greatly desired--in others +How little we can know to-day what we shall feel tomorrow +How many conquests have been made in the name of God +One does the work and another gets paid +To-morrow is no man's gift +We want every land to do as we do; and we want to make 'em do it + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WEAVERS BY PARKER, V2 *** + +******* This file should be named 6262.txt or 6262.zip ******* + +This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net> + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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