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It Happened in Egypt

by C. N. Williamson · English · Gutenberg #9799 · 806,517 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: It Happened in Egypt

Author: C. N. Williamson
        A. M. Williamson


        
Release date: January 1, 2006 [eBook #9799]
                Most recently updated: January 2, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9799

Credits: Produced by Suzanne Shell, David Gundry, Michael Lockey,
        Martin Agren, Tonya Allen and PG Distributed Proofreaders


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IT HAPPENED IN EGYPT ***




Produced by Suzanne Shell, David Gundry, Michael Lockey,
Martin Agren, Tonya Allen and PG Distributed Proofreaders










IT HAPPENED

IN

EGYPT

by

C.N. & A.M. Williamson



_Authors of_


"The Port of Adventure"

"The Heathen Moon", Etc.



1914




TO

D.D. AND F.C.J.

WHO WERE THERE WHEN

IT HAPPENED



[Illustration: "A man with a green turban?" I repeated. "Well, I'll
take him."]




WE DEDICATE THIS STORY OF ADVENTURES GRAVE AND GAY IN EGYPT


CONTENTS


CHAPTER


    I.    The Secret and the Girl

   II.    Cleopatra and the Ship's Mystery

  III.    A Disappointment and a Dragoman

   IV.    A Man in a Green Turban

    V.    The Café of Abdullahi

   VI.    The Great Sir Marcus

  VII.    The Revelations of a Retired Colonel

 VIII.    Foxy Duffing

   IX.    What Happened When My Back Was Turned

    X.    The Secret Monny Kept

   XI.    The House of the Crocodile

  XII.    The Night of the Full Moon

 XIII.    An Underground Proposal

  XIV.    The Desert Diary Begun

   XV.    The Desert Diary to Its Bitter End

  XVI.    An Oiled Hand

 XVII.    The Ship's Mystery Again

XVIII.    The Asiut Affair

  XIX.    "If at First You Don't Succeed"

   XX.    The Zone of Fire

  XXI.    The Opening Door

 XXII.    The Driver of an Arabeah

XXIII.    Bengal Fire

 XXIV.    Playing Heavy Father to Rachel

  XXV.    Marooned

 XXVI.    What We Said: What We Heard

XXVII.    The Inner Sanctuary

XXVIII.   Worth Paying For

 XXIX.    Exit Antoun

  XXX.    The Sirdar's Ball

 XXXI.    The Mountain of the Golden Pyramid

XXXII.    The Secret





IT HAPPENED IN EGYPT




CHAPTER I

THE SECRET AND THE GIRL


The exciting part began in Cairo; but perhaps I ought to go back to
what happened on the _Laconia_, between Naples and Alexandria. Luckily
no one can expect a man who actually rejoices in his nickname of
"Duffer" to know how or where a true story should begin.

The huge ship was passing swiftly out of the Bay of Naples, and already
we were in the strait between Capri and the mainland. I had come on
deck from the smoking-room for a last look at poor Vesuvius, who lost
her lovely head in the last eruption. I paced up and down, acutely
conscious of my great secret, the secret inspiring my voyage to Egypt.
For months it had been the hidden romance of life; now it began to seem
real. This is not the moment to tell how I got the papers that revealed
the secret, before I passed them on to Anthony Fenton at Khartum, for
him to say whether or not the notes were of real importance. But the
papers had been left in Rome by Ferlini, the Italian Egyptologist,
seventy years ago, when he gave to the museum at Berlin the treasures
he had unearthed. It was Ferlini who ransacked the pyramids all about
Meroë, that so-called island in the desert, where in its days of
splendour reigned the queens Candace. Fenton, stationed at Khartum, an
eager dabbler in the old lore of Egypt, sent me an enthusiastic
telegram the moment he read the documents. They confirmed legends of
the Sudan in which he had been interested. Putting two and two
together--the legends and Ferlini's notes--Anthony was convinced that
we had the clue to fortune. At once he applied for permission to
excavate under the little outlying mountain named by the desert folk
"the Mountain of the Golden Pyramid." At first the spot was thought to
fall within the province given up to Garstang, digging for Liverpool
University. Later, however, the _Service des Antiquités_ pronounced the
place to be outside Garstang's borders, and it seemed that luck was
coming our way. No one but we two--Fenton and I--had any inkling of
what might lie hidden in the Mountain of the Golden Pyramid. That was
the great secret! Then Fenton had gone to the Balkans, on a flying trip
in every sense of the word. It was only a fortnight ago--I being then
in Rome--that I had had a wire from him in Salonica saying, "Friends at
work to promote our scheme. Meet me on my return to Egypt." After that,
several telegrams had been exchanged; and here I was on the _Laconia_
bound for the land of my birth, full of hope and dreams.

For some moments distant Vesuvius had beguiled my thoughts from the
still more distant mountain of the secret, when suddenly a white girl
in a white hood and a long white cloak passed me on the white deck:
whereupon I forgot mountains of reality and dreams. She was one of
those tall, slim, long-limbed, dryad-sort of girls they are running up
nowadays in England and America with much success; and besides all
that, she was an amazing symphony in white and gold against an azure
Italian sea and sky, the two last being breezily jumbled together at
the moment for us on shipboard. She walked well in spite of the blue
turmoil; and if a fair girl with golden-brown hair gets herself up in
satiny white fur from head to foot she is evidently meant to be looked
at. Others were looking: also they were whispering after she went by:
and her serene air of being alone in a world made entirely for her
caused me to wonder if she were not Some One in Particular.

Just then a sweet, soft voice said, close to my ear:

"Why, Duffer, dear, it can't possibly be you!"

I gave a jump, for I hadn't heard that voice for many a year, and
between the ages of four and fourteen I had been in love with it.

"Brigit O'Brien!" said I. Then I grabbed her two hands and shook them
as if her arms had been branches of a young cherry tree, dropping
fruit.

"Why not Biddy?" she asked. "Or are ye wanting me to call ye Lord
Ernest?"

"Good heavens, no! Once a Duffer, always a Duffer," I assured her. "And
I've been thinking of you as Biddy from then till now. Only--"

"'Twas as clever a thing as a boy ever did," she broke in, with one of
her smiles that no man ever forgets, "to begin duffing at an early age,
in order to escape all the professions and businesses your pastors and
masters proposed, and go your own way. Are ye at it still?"

"Rather! But you? I want to talk to you."

"Then don't do it in a loud voice, if you please, because, as you must
have realized, if you've taken time to think, I'm Mrs. Jones at
present."

"Why Jones?"

"Because Smith is engaged beforehand by too many people. Honestly,
without joking, I'm in danger here and everywhere, and it's a wicked,
selfish thing for me to come the way I have; but Rosamond Gilder is the
hardest girl to resist you ever saw, so I'm with her; and it's a long
history."

"Rosamond Gilder? What--the Cannon Princess, the Bertha Krupp of
America?"

"Yes, the 'Gilded Babe' that used to be wheeled about in a caged
perambulator guarded by detectives: the 'Gilded Bud' whose coming out
in society was called the Million Dollar Début: now she's just had her
twenty-first birthday, and the Sunday Supplements have promoted her to
be the Golden Girl, alternating with the Gilded Rose, although she's
the simplest creature, really, with a tremendous sense of the
responsibility of her riches. Poor child! There she is, walking toward
us now, with those two young men. Of course, young men! Droves of young
men! She can't get away from them any more than she can from her money.
No, she's stopped to talk to Cleopatra."

"That tall, white girl Rosamond Gilder! Just before you came, I was
wondering who she was; and when you smiled at each other across the
deck it sprang into my mind that--that--"

"That what?"

"Oh, it seems stupid now."

"Give me a chance to judge, dear Duffer."

"Well, seeing you, and knowing--that is, it occurred to me you might be
travelling with--the daughter of--your late--"

"Good heavens, don't say any more! I've been frightened to death
somebody would get that brilliant notion in his head, especially as
Monny and her aunt came on board the _Laconia_ only at Monaco. Esmé
O'Brien is in a convent school not thirty miles from there. But that's
the _deepest_ secret. Poor Peter Gilder's fears for his millionaire
girl would be child's play to what might happen, before such a mistake
was found out if once it was made. That's just one of the hundred
reasons why it would be as safe for Monny Gilder to travel with a bomb
in her dressing-bag as to have me in her train of dependants. She
telegraphed to New York for me, because of a stupid thing I said in a
letter, about being lonely: though she pretends it would be too dull
journeying to such a romantic country alone with a mere aunt. And she
thinks I 'attract adventures.' It's only too true. But I couldn't
resist her. Nobody can. Why, the first time I ever saw Monny she'd cast
herself down in a mud-puddle, and was screaming and kicking because she
wanted to walk while one adoring father, one sycophantic governess and
two trained nurses wanted her to get into an automobile. That was on my
honeymoon--heaven save the mark--! and Monny was nine. She has other
ways now of getting what she wants, but they're even more effective. I
laughed at her that first time, and she was so surprised at my
impudence she took a violent fancy to me. But I don't always laugh at
her now. Oh, she's a perfect terror, I assure you--and a still more
perfect darling! Such an angel of charity to the poor, such a demon of
obstinacy with the rich! I worship her. So does Cleopatra. So does
everybody who doesn't hate her. So will you the minute you've been
introduced. And by the way, why not? Why shouldn't I make myself useful
for once by arranging a match between Rosamond Gilder, the prettiest
heiress in America, and Lord Ernest Borrow, of the oldest family in
Ireland?"

"And the poorest."

"All the more reason why. Don't you _see?_"

"She mightn't."

"Well, what's the good of her having all that money if she doesn't get
hold of a really grand title to hang it on? I shall tell her that
Borrow comes down from Boru, Brian Boru the rightful King of Ireland:
and when your brother dies you'll be Marquis of Killeena."

"He'll not die for thirty or forty years, let's hope."

"Why hope it, when he likes nobody and nobody likes him, and everybody
likes you? He can't be happy. And anyhow, isn't it worth a few millions
to be Lady Ernest Borrow, and have the privilege of restoring the most
beautiful old castle in Ireland? I'm sure Killeena would let her."

"He would, out of sheer, weak kindness of heart! But she's far too
thickly gilded an heiress for me to aspire to. A few thousands a year
is my most ambitious figure for a wife. Look at the men collecting
around her and the wonderful lady you call Cleopatra. Why Cleopatra?
Did sponsors in baptism--"

"No, they didn't. _Why_ she's Cleopatra is as weird a history as why
I'm Mrs. Jones. But she's Monny's aunt--at least, she's a half-sister
of Peter Gilder, and as his only living relative his will makes her
Monny's guardian till the girl marries or reaches twenty-five. A
strange guardian! But he didn't know she was going to turn into
Cleopatra. She wisely waited to do that until he was dead; so it came
on only a year ago. It was a Bond Street crystal-gazer transplanted to
Fifth Avenue told her who she really was: you know Sayda Sabri, the
woman who has the illuminated mummy? It's Cleopatra's idea that Monny's
second mourning for Peter should be white, nothing but white."

"Her idea! But I thought Miss Monny, as you call her, adopted only her
own ideas. How can a mere half-aunt, labouring under the name of
Cleopatra, force her--"

"Well, you see, white's very becoming; and as for the Cleopatra part,
it pleases our princess to tolerate that. It's part of the queer
history that's mixing me up with the family. We've come to spend the
season in Egypt because Cleopatra thinks she's Cleopatra; also because
Monny (that's what she's chosen to call herself since she tried to lisp
'Resamond' and couldn't) because Monny has read 'The Garden of Allah,'
and wants the 'desert to take her.' That book had nothing to do with
Egyptian deserts; but any desert will do for Monny. What she expects it
to do with her exactly when it has taken her, on the strength of a Cook
ticket, I don't quite know; but I may later, because she vows she'll
keep me at her side with hooks of steel all through the tour--unless
something worse happens to me, or to some of us _because_ of me."
"Biddy, dear, don't be morbid. Nothing bad will happen," I tried to
reassure her.

"Thank you for saying so. It cheers me up. We women folk are so in the
habit of believing anything you men folk tell us. It's really quaint!"

"Stop rotting, and tell me about yourself; and a truce to heiresses and
Cleopatras. You know I'm dying to hear."

"Not a syllable, until you've told me about _your_self. Where you're
going, and what the dickens for!"

We laughed into each other's eyes. To do so, I had to look a long way
down, and she a long way up. This in itself is a pleasantly Victorian
thing for a man to do in these days of Jerrybuilt girls, on the same
level or a story or two higher than himself. I'm not a tall man: just
the dull average five foot ten or eleven that appears taller, while it
keeps lean--so naturally I have a hopeless yearning for nymph-like
creatures who pretend to be engaged when I ask them to dance. Still,
there's consolation and homely comfort in talking with a little woman
who makes you feel the next best thing to a giant. Biddy is an
old-fashioned five foot four in her highest heels; and as she smiled up at
me I saw that she hadn't changed a jot in the last ten years, despite
the tragedy that had involved her. Not a silver thread in the black
hair, not a line on the creamy round face.

"You're just yourself," I said.

"I oughtn't to be. I know that very well. I ought to be a Dido and
Niobe and Cassandra rolled into one. I'm a brute not to be dead or look
a hag. I've gone through horrors, and the secrets I know could put
dozens of people in prison, if not electrocute them. But you see I'm
not the right type of person for the kind of life I've had, as I should
be if I were in a story book, and the author had created me to suit my
background. I can't help flapping up out of my own ashes before they're
cold. I can't help laughing in the face of fate."

"And looking a girl of twenty-three, at most, while you do it!"

"If I look a girl, I must be a phenomenon as well as a phoenix, for
nobody knows better than you that my Bible age is thirty-one if it's a
day. And I think Burke and Debrett have got the same tale to tell about
you, eh?"

"They have. I was always delighted to share something with you."

"You can have the whole share of my age over twenty-six. There's one
advantage 'Mrs. Jones' has. She can, if her looking-glass doesn't
forbid, go back to that classic age dear to all sensible adventuresses.
I'm afraid I come under the head of adventuress, with my alias, and
travelling as companion to the rich Miss Gilder."

"You're the last person on earth for the part! Your fate was thrust on
you. You've thrust yourself on no one. Miss Gilder 'achieved' you."

"Collected me, rather, as one of her 'specimens.' She has a noble
weakness for lame ducks, and though she fails sometimes in trying to
strengthen their game legs, she tries gloriously. She and her aunt have
been travelling in France and Italy, guided by instinct and French
maids, and already Monny has picked up two weird _protégées_, sure to
bring her to grief. The most exciting and deadly specimen is a
perfectly beautiful American girl just married to a Turkish Bey who met
her in Paris, and is taking her home to Egypt. I haven't even seen the
unfortunate houri, because the Turk has shut her up in their cabin and
pretends she's seasick. Monny doesn't believe in the seasickness, and
sends secret notes in presents of flowers and boxes of chocolate. But I
have seen the Turk. He's pink and white and looks angelic, except for a
gleam deep down in his eyes, if Monny inquires after his wife when any
of her best young men are hanging about. Especially when there's Neill
Sheridan, a young Egyptologist from Harvard, Monny met in Paris, or
Willis Bailey, a fascinating sculptor who wants to study the crystal
eyes of wooden statues in the Museum at Cairo. He is going to make them
the fashion in America, next year. Yes, Madame Rechid Bey is a most
explosive _protégée_ for a girl to have, on her way to Egypt. I'm not
sure even I am not innocuous by comparison; though I do wish you hadn't
reminded me of my poor little step-daughter Esmé, in her convent-school.
If any one should get the idea that Monny--but I won't put it
in words! Besides me, and the brand-new bride of Rechid Bey ('Wretched
Bey' is our name for him), there's one more _protégée_, a Miss Rachel
Guest from Salem, Massachusetts, a school-teacher taking her first
holiday. That _sounds_ harmless, and it looks harmless to an amateur;
but wait till _you_ meet her and see what instinct tells you about her
eyes. Oh, we shall have ructions! But that reminds me. You haven't told
me where you're bound--or anything."

"Thanks for putting me among the 'specimens.' But this sample hasn't
yet been collected by Miss Gilder."

"You might be her salvation, and keep her out of mischief. She's quite
wild now with sheer joy because she's going to Egypt. But do be
serious, and tell me all I pine to know, if you want me to do the same
by you."

"Well--though it's unimportant compared to what you have to tell! I'm
an insignificant second secretary to Sir Raymond Ronalds, the British
Ambassador at Rome. I've got four months' leave----"

"Ah, _that's_ what comes of duffing so skilfully, and avoiding all the
things you didn't want to do, till you got exactly what you did want! I
remember when we were small boy and girl, and you used to walk down to
the vicarage every day, to talk Greek or Latin or something with
father----"

"No, to see you!"

"Well, you used to tell me, if you couldn't be the greatest
prize-fighter or the greatest opera-singer in the world, you thought
you'd like to be a diplomat.

"I haven't become a diplomat yet, in spite of Foreign Office grubbing.
But I've been enjoying life pretty well, fagging up Arabic and modern
Greek, and playing about with pleasant people, while pretending to do
my duty. Now I've got leave on account of a mild fever which turned out
a blessing in disguise. I could have found no other excuse for Egypt
this winter."

"You speak as if you had some special reason for going to Egypt."

"I've been wishing to go, more or less, for years, because you know--if
you haven't forgotten--I was accidentally born in Cairo while my father
was fighting in Alexandria. My earliest recollections are of Egypt, for
we lived there till I was four--about the time I met and fell in love
with you. I've always thought I'd like to polish up old memories. But
my special hurry is because I'm anxious to meet a friend, a chap I
admire and love beyond all others. I want to see him for his own sake,
and for the sake of a plan we have, which may make a lot of difference
for our future."

"How exciting! Did I ever know him?"

"I think not."

"Well? Don't you mean to tell me who he is?"

I hesitated, sorry I had let myself go: because Anthony had written
that he didn't want his movements discussed at present.

"I'll tell you another time," I said. "I want to talk about you.
Anybody else is irrelevant."

"Clever Duffer! Your friend is a _secret_."

"Not he! But if there's a secret anywhere, it's only a dull, dusty sort
of secret. You wouldn't be interested."

"Women never are, in secrets. Well, I'm glad somebody else besides
myself has a mystery to hide."

"You're very quick."

"I'm Irish! But I'm merciful. No more questions--till you're off your
guard. You're free to ask me all you like, if there's anything you care
to know which horrid newspapers haven't told you these last few years."

"There are a thousand things. You didn't answer anybody's letters,
after--after----"

"After Richard died. Oh, I can talk about it, now. It was the best
thing that could happen for him, poor fellow. Life in hiding was
purgatory. No, I couldn't answer letters, though my old friends (you
among them) wanted to be kind. There wasn't anything I could let
anybody do for me. Monny Gilder's different. You'll soon see why."

I smiled indulgently. But, though I was to be introduced to Miss Gilder
for the purpose of being eventually gilded by her, at the instant my
thoughts were for my childhood's sweetheart.

Brigit Burne made a terrible mess of things in marrying, when she was
eighteen or so, Richard O'Brien, in the height of his celebrity as a
socialist leader. People still believed in him then, at the time of his
famous lecturing tour and visit to his birthplace on our green island;
and though he was more than twice her age, the fascination he had for
Biddy surprised few who knew him.

He was eloquent, in a fiery way. He had extraordinary eyes, and it was
his pride to resemble portraits of Lord Byron. After an acquaintance of
a month, Biddy married O'Brien (I had just gone up to Oxford at the
time, or I should have tried not to let it happen), went to America
with him, and voluntarily ceased to exist for her friends.

Poor girl, she must have had an awakening! He had posed as a bachelor;
but after her marriage she found out (and the world with her) that he
was a widower with one child, a little girl he had practically
abandoned. Biddy adopted her, though the mother had been a rather
undesirable Frenchwoman; and now when I saw her smiling at the tall
white girl on the _Laconia_, I had thought for an instant that Biddy
and her stepdaughter might be in flight together. O'Brien was a
drunkard, as well as a demagogue; and not long after Brigit's flitting
with him there was a scandal about the accepting of bribes from
politicians on the opposing side, apparently his greatest enemies; but
a minor scandal compared to what came some years afterward. O'Brien's
name was implicated in the blowing up of the _World-Republican_
Building in Washington, and the wrecking of Senator Marlowe's special
train after his speech against socialist interests, but the coward
turned informer against his friends and associates in the secret
society of which he had been a leader, and saved himself by sending
them to prison. From that day until his death he lived the life of a
hunted animal flying from the hounds of vengeance. Brigit stood by him
in spite of threats against her life as well as his, and the life of
the child. Since then, though she answered none of our letters, we had
heard rumours. The girl Esmé, whom the avengers had threatened to
kidnap, was supposed to be hidden in some convent-school in Europe. As
for Brigit, she was said to be training for a hospital nurse: reported
to have become a missionary in India, China, and one or two other
countries; seen on the music-hall stage, and traced to Johannesburg,
where she had married a diamond-merchant; yet here she was on board the
_Laconia_, unchanged in looks, or nature, and the guest of a much
paragraphed, much proposed to American heiress _en route_ to Egypt.

While Brigit was telling me the real story of her last two years, as
governess, companion, teacher of music, and journalist, Miss Gilder
regarded us sidewise from amid her bodyguard of young men. Evidently
she was dying to know who was the acquaintance her darling Biddy had
picked up in mid-Mediterranean the moment her back was turned; and at
last, unable to restrain herself longer, she made use of some magic
trick to attach the band of youths to her aunt. Then, separating
herself with almost indecent haste from the group, she marched up to
us, gazing--I might say, staring--with large unfriendly eyes at the
intruder.

Brigit promptly accounted for me, however, rolling her "r's"
patriotically because I reminded her of Ireland. "Do let me introduce
Lord Ernest Borrow," she said. "I must have told you about him in my
stories, when you were a child, for he was me first love."

"It was the other way round," I objected. "She wouldn't look at me. I
adored her."

Biddy glared a warning. Her eyes said, "Silly fellow, don't you know
every girl wants to be the one and only love of a man's life?"

I had supposed that this old craze had gone out of fashion. But perhaps
there are a few primitive things which will never go out of fashion
with women.

Now that I had Miss Gilder's proud young face opposite mine, I saw that
it wasn't quite so perfect as I'd fancied when she flashed by in her
tall whiteness. Her nose, pure Greek in profile, seen in full was
--well, just neat American: a straight, determined little
twentieth-century nose. The full red mouth, not small, struck me as being
determined also, rather than classic, despite the daintily drawn
cupid's bow of the short upper lip. I realized too that the
long-lashed, wide-open, and wide-apart eyes were of the usual bluish-gray
possessed by half the girls one knows. And as for the thick wavy hair
pushed crisply forward by the white hood, now it was out of the sun's
glamour, there was more brown than gold in it. I said to myself, that
the face with the firm cleft chin was only just pretty enough to give a
great heiress or a youthful princess the reputation of a beauty; a
combination desired and generally produced by journalists. Then, as I
was thinking this, while Brigit explained me, Miss Gilder suddenly
smiled. I was dazzled. No wonder Biddy loved her. It would be a wonder
if I didn't love her myself before I knew what was happening.

And so I should instantly have done, perhaps, if it hadn't been for
Biddy's eyes seeming to come between mine and Miss Gilder's: and the
fact that at the moment I was in quest of another treasure than a
woman's heart. My thoughts were running ahead of the ship to
Alexandria, to find out from Anthony Fenton ("Antoun Effendi" the
biggest boys used to nickname him at school) more about the true
history of that treasure than he dared trust to paper and ink and the
post office.

So I put off falling in love with Rosamond Gilder till I should have
seen Anthony, and tidied up my distracted mind. A little later would
do, I told myself, because (owing to the fact that my ancestral castle
had figured in Biddy's tales of long ago) I was annexed as one of the
_protégés_; allowed to make a fifth at the small, flowery table under a
desirable porthole in the green and white restaurant; also I was
invited to go about with the ladies and show them Cairo. Just how much
"going about," and falling in love, I should be able to do there,
depended on "Antoun Effendi." But when Biddy congratulated me on my
luck, and chance of success in the "scheme," I said nothing of Anthony.




CHAPTER II

CLEOPATRA AND THE SHIP'S MYSTERY


Now, at last, I can skip over the three days at sea, and get to our
arrival at Alexandria, because, as I've said, the exciting part began
soon after, at Cairo.

They were delightful days, for the _Laconia_ is a Paris hotel disguised
as a liner. And no man with blood in his veins could help enjoying the
society of Brigit O'Brien and Rosamond Gilder. Cleopatra, too, was not
to be despised as a charmer; and then there was the human interest of
the _protégées_, the one with the eyes and the one who had reluctantly
developed into the Ship's Mystery.

Still, in spite of Biddy and Monny and the others, and not for them, my
heart beat fast when, on the afternoon of the third day out from
Naples, the ship brought us suddenly in sight of something strange. We
were moving through a calm sea, more like liquefied marble than water,
for it was creamy white rather than blue, veined with azure, and
streaked, as marble is, with pink and gold. Far away across this
gleaming floor blossomed a long line of high-growing lotus flowers,
white and yellow against a silver sky. The effect was magical, and the
wonder grew when the big flower-bed turned into domes and cupolas and
spires rising out of the sea. Unimaginative people remarked that the
coast looked so flat and uninteresting they didn't see why Alexander
had wanted to bother with it; but they were the sort of people who
ought to stop at home in London or Birmingham or Chicago and not make
innocent fellow-passengers burn with unchristian feelings.

Soon I should see Anthony and hear his news. I felt sure he would be at
Alexandria to meet the ship. When "Antoun Effendi" makes up his mind to
do a thing, he will crawl from under a falling sky to do it. As the
_Laconia_ swept on, I hardly saw the glittering city on its vast
prayer-rug of green and gold, guarded by sea forts like sleepy
crocodiles. My mind's eyes were picturing Anthony as he would look
after his wild Balkan experiences: brown and lean, even haggard and
bearded, perhaps, a different man from the smart young officer of
everyday life, unless he'd contrived to refit in the short time since
his return to Egypt--a day or two at most, according to my calculation.
But all my imaginings fell short of the truth.

As I thought of Anthony, Mrs. East came and stood beside me. I knew she
was there before I turned to look, because of the delicate tinkling of
little Egyptian amulets, which is her accompaniment, her _leit motif_,
and because of the scent of sandalwood with which, in obedience to the
ancient custom of Egyptian queens, she perfumes her hair.

I don't think I have described Monny Gilder's aunt, according to my
conception of her, though I may have hinted at Biddy's. Biddy having a
habit of focussing her sense of humour on any female she doesn't wholly
love, may not do Mrs. East justice. The fact is, Monny's aunt is a
handsome creature, distinctly a charmer who may at most have reached
the age when Cleopatra--Antony's and Caesar's Cleopatra--died in the
prime of her beauty. If Mrs. East chooses to date herself at thirty-three,
any man not a confirmed misanthrope must believe her. Biddy says
that until Peter Gilder was safely dead, Clara East was just an
ordinary, well-dressed, pleasure-loving, novel-reading,
chocolate-eating, respectable widow of a New York stockbroker:
superstitious perhaps; fond of consulting palmists, and possessing
Billikens or other mascots: (how many women are free from
superstition?) slightly oriental in her love of sumptuous colours
and jewellery; but then her mother (Peter Gilder's step-mother)
was a beautiful Jewish opera singer. After Peter's death, his
half-sister gave up novels for Egyptian and Roman history,
took to studying hieroglyphics, and learning translations of
Greek poetry. She invited a clairvoyant and crystal-gazer, claiming
Egyptian origin, to visit at her Madison Square flat. Sayda Sabri,
banished from Bond Street years ago, took up her residence in New York,
accompanied by her tame mummy. Of course, it is the mummy of a
princess, and she keeps it illuminated with blue lights, in an inner
sanctum, where the bored-looking thing stands upright in its
brilliantly painted mummy case, facing the door. About the time of
Sayda's visit, it was noticed by Mrs. East's friends (this, according
to Biddy) that the colour of the lady's hair was slowly but surely
changing from black to chestnut, then to auburn; she was heard to
remark casually that Queen Cleopatra's hair had been red. She took to
rich Eastern scents, to whitening her face as Eastern women of rank
have whitened theirs since time immemorial. The shadows round her
almond-shaped eyes were intensified: her full lips turned from
healthful pink to carmine. The ends of her tapering fingers blushed
rosily as sticks of coral. The style of her dress changed, at the
moment of going into purple as "second mourning" for Peter, and became
oriental, even to the turban-like shape of her hats, and the design of
her jewellery. She did away with crests and monograms on handkerchiefs,
stationery, luggage and so on, substituting a curious little oval
containing strange devices, which Monny discovered to be the
"cartouche" of Cleopatra. Then the whole truth burst forth. Sayda
Sabri's crystal had shown that Clara East, née Gilder, was the
reincarnation of Cleopatra the Great of Egypt. There had been another
incarnation in between, but it was of no account, and, like a poor
relation who has disgraced a family, the less said about it the better.

The lady did not proclaim her identity from the housetops. Rare souls
possessing knowledge of Egyptian lore might draw their own conclusions
from the cartouche on her note-paper and other things. Only Monny and a
few intimates were told the truth at first; but afterward it leaked
out, as secrets do; and Mrs. East seemed shyly pleased if discreet
questions were asked concerning her amulets and the cartouche.

Now, I never feel inclined to laugh at a pretty woman. It is more
agreeable, as well as gallant, to laugh with her; but the trouble is,
Cleopatra doesn't go in for laughter. She takes life seriously. Not
only has she no sense of humour, but she does not know the difference
between it and a sense of fun, which she can understand if a joke
(about somebody else) is explained. She is grateful to me because I
look her straight in the eyes when the subject of Egypt is mentioned.
Sheridan from Harvard has been in her bad books since he put Ptolemaic
rulers outside of the pale of Egyptian history, called their art ornate
and bad, mentioned that each of their queens was named Cleopatra and
classified the lot as modern, almost suburban.

Mrs. East, leaning beside me on the rail, was burning with thoughts
inspired by Alexandria. She had "Plutarch's Lives" under her arm, and
"Hypatia" in her hand. Of course, she dropped them both, one after the
other, and I picked them up.

"Do you know, Lord Ernest," she said, in the low, rich voice she is
cultivating, "I don't mind telling you that I felt as if I were coming
home, after a long absence. Monny wanted to see Egypt; I was dying to.
That's the difference between us."

"It's natural," I answered, sympathetically.

"Yes--considering everything. Yet we're both afraid. She in one way, I
in another. I haven't told her. She hasn't told me. But I know. She has
the same impression I have, that something's going to _happen_
--something very great, to change the whole of life--in Egypt: 'Khem,' it
seems to me I can remember calling it. You know it was Khem, until the
Arabs came and named it Misr. Do you believe in impressions like that?"

"I don't disbelieve," I said. "Some people are more sensitive than
others."

"Yes. Or else they're older souls. But it may be the same thing. I
can't fancy Monny an old soul, can you?--yet she may be, for she's very
intelligent, although so self-willed. I think what she's afraid of is
getting interested in some wonderful man with Turkish or Egyptian
blood, a magnificent creature like you read of in books, you know; then
you have to give them up in the last chapter, and send them away
broken-hearted. I suppose there _are_ such men in real life?"

"I doubt if there are such romantic figures as the books make out," I
tried to reassure her. "There might be a prince or two, handsome and
cultivated, educated in England, perhaps, for some of the 'swells' are
sent from Egypt to Oxford and Cambridge, just as they are in India. But
even if Miss Gilder should meet a man of that sort, I should say she
was too sensible and clear-headed--"

"Oh, she is, almost too much so for a young girl, and she has a
detestation for any one with a drop of dark blood, in America. She
doesn't even like Jews; and that makes friction between us, if we ever
happen to argue, for--maybe you don't know?--my mother was a Jewess.
I'm proud of her memory. But that's just _why_, if you can understand,
Monny's _afraid_ in Egypt. Some girls would like to have a tiny
flirtation with a gorgeous Eastern creature (of course, he must be a
bey, or prince or something, otherwise it would be _infra dig_), but
Monny would hate herself for being attracted. Yet I know she dreads it
happening, because of the way I've heard her rave against the heroines
of novels, saying she has no patience with them; they ought to have
more strength of mind, even if it broke their hearts."

I wondered if Biddy, too, suspected some such fear in the mind of her
adored girl, and if that were one reason why she had turned matchmaker
for my benefit. Since the first day out she had used strategems to
throw us together: and it seemed that, years ago, when she used to
teach the little girl French, Monny's favourite stories had been of
Castle Killeena, and my boyish exploits birds'-nesting on the crags.
(Biddy said that this was a splendid beginning, if I had the sense to
follow it up.)

"And you?" I went on to Mrs. East. "What do you feel is going to happen
to you in the land of Khem?"

"Oh, I don't know," she sighed. "I wish I did! And 'afraid' isn't
exactly the word. I just know that something will happen. I wonder if
history does repeat itself? I should hate to be bitten by an asp----"

"Asps are out of fashion," I comforted her. "I doubt if you could find
one in all of Egypt, though I remember my Egyptian nurse used to say
there were cobras in the desert in summer. Anyhow, we'll be away before
summer."

"I suppose so," she agreed. "Yet--who knows what will become of any of
us? Madame Rechid Bey will be staying, of course. I don't know whether
to be sorry for her or not. The Bey's good-looking. He has brown eyes,
and is as white as you or I. Probably it's true that she's been too
seasick to leave her room for the last ten days, though Monny and Mrs.
O'Bri--I mean, Mrs. Jones--think she's shut up because men stared, and
because Mr. Sheridan talked to her. As for me, there's always that
question asking itself in my mind: _'What_ is going to happen?' And I
hear it twice as loud as before, in sight of Alexandria. Rakoti, we
Lagidae used to call the city." As she spoke, the long, oriental eyes
glanced at me sidewise, but my trustworthy Celtic features showed a
grave, intelligent interest in her statements.

"It must be," she went on, encouraged, "that I'm the reincarnation of
Cleopatra, otherwise how _could_ I have the sensation of remembering
everything? There's no other way to account for it! And you know my
modern name, Clara, does begin with 'C.' Sayda must be right. She's
told lots of women the most extraordinary things. You really ought to
consult her, Lord Ernest, if you ever go to New York."

I did not say, as Neill Sheridan might, that a frothy course of
Egyptian historical novels would account for anything. I simply looked
as diplomatic training can teach any one to look.

Evidently it was the right look in the right place, for Cleopatra
continued more courageously, recalling the great Pharos of white marble
which used to be one of the world's wonders in her day; the Museum, and
the marvellous Library which took fire while Julius Caesar burned the
fleet, nearby in the harbour.

"Think of the philosophers who deserted the College of Heliopolis for
Alexandria!" she said. "Antony was more of a soldier than a student,
but even he grieved for the Library. You know he tried to console
Cleopatra by making her a present of two hundred thousand MSS. from the
library of the King of Pergamus. It was a generous thought--like
Antony!"

"Does the harbour looked changed?" I hastened to inquire.

"Not from a distance, though landing may be a shock: they tell me it's
all so Italian now. It was Greek in old days. I've read that there
isn't a stone left of my--of the lovely place on Lochias Point, except
the foundations they found in the seventies. But I must go to see
what's left of the Baths, even though there's only a bit of mosaic and
the remains of a room. Monny's anxious to get on to Cairo, but we shall
come back to Alexandria later. Lord Ernest, when I shut my eyes, I
really do seem to picture the Mareotic Lake, and the buildings that
made Alexandria the glory of the world. Do you remember what Strabo
said about Deinchares, the architect who laid out the plan of the city
in the shape of a Macedonian mantle, to please Alexander?"

"I'm not as well up in history as you are," I said, "though I've
studied a bit, because I was born in Egypt. Poor Alexander didn't live
long in his fine city, did he? I wonder what he'd think of it now? And
I wonder if his palace was handsomer than the Khedive's? That huge
white building with the pillars and domes. I seem to remember----"

"What, you remember, too? You _ought_ to consult Sayda!"

"I didn't mean exactly what you mean," I explained, humbly. "Still, why
shouldn't I have lived in Egypt long ago? The learned ones say you're
always drawn back where you've been in other states of existence----"

"That's true, I'm sure!"

"Well, then, why shouldn't I have the same sort of right to Egypt you
have, if you were Cleopatra?--I believe you must have been, because you
look as she ought to have looked, you know. Why shouldn't I have been a
friend of Marc Antony, coming from Rome to give him good advice and
trying to persuade----"

"Oh, _not_ that he ought to give me up!"

"No, indeed: to urge him to leave the island where he hid even from you
(didn't they call it Timoneum?). Why couldn't Antony play his cards so
as to keep Cleopatra and the world, too? She'd have liked him better,
wouldn't she? My friend Antoun Effendi--I mean Anthony Fenton,"--I
stopped short: for the less said about Fenton the better, at present.
But Cleopatra caught me up.

"What--have you really a friend Antony? Where does he live? and what's
he like?"

I hesitated; and glancing round for inspiration (in other words for
some harmless, necessary fib) I saw that Brigit and Monny had arrived
on the scene. They had been pacing the deck, arm in arm; and now,
arrested by Mrs. East's question, they hovered near, awaiting my answer
with vague curiosity. A twinkle in Biddy's eyes, which I caught,
rattled me completely. I missed all the easiest fibs and could catch
hold of nothing but the bare truth. There are moments like that, when,
do what you will, you must be truthful or silent; and silence fires
suspicion.

"What is he?" I echoed feebly. "Oh, Captain Fenton. He's in the Gyppy
Army stationed up at Khartum, hundreds of miles beyond where Cook's
boats go. You wouldn't be interested in Anthony, because he spells his
name with an 'H', and he's dark and thin, not a bit like _your_ Antony,
who was a big, stout fellow, I've always heard, and fair." "Big, but
_not_ stout," Cleopatra corrected me. "And--and if he's incarnated
again, he may be dark for a change. As for the 'H', that's not
important. I wonder if we shall meet your Anthony? We think of going to
Khartum, don't we, Monny?"

"Yes," said the girl, shortly. She was always rather short in her
manner at that time when in her opinion her aunt was being "silly."

I gathered from a vexed flash in the gray eyes that there had never
been any hint of an impending Antony.

"Is your friend in Khartum now?" Biddy ventured, in her creamiest
voice. The twinkle was carefully turned off like the light of a dark
lantern, but I knew well that "Mrs. Jones" was recalling a certain
conversation, in which I had refused to satisfy her curiosity. Brigit's
quick, Irish mind has a way of matching mental jigsaw puzzles, even
when vital bits appear to be missing; and if she could make a cat's paw
of Cleopatra, the witch would not be above doing it. I bore her no
grudge--who could bear soft-eyed, laughing, yet tragic Biddy a grudge?
--but I wished that she and Monny were at the other end of the deck.

"I--er--really, I don't know where my friend is just now," I answered,
with more or less foundation of truth.

"I wonder if I didn't read in the papers about a Captain Fenton who
took advantage of leave he'd got, to make a rush for the Balkans, and
see the fighting from the lines of the Allies?" Biddy murmured with
dreadful intelligence. "Can he be your Captain Fenton? I fancy he'd
been stationed in the Sudan; and he was officially supposed to have
gone home to spend his leave in England. Anyhow, there was a row of
some sort after he and another man dropped down on to the Turks out of
a Greek aeroplane. Or was it a Servian one? Anyhow, I know he oughtn't
to have been in it; and 'Paterfamilias' and 'Patriot' wrote letters to
the _Times_ about British officers who didn't mind their own business.
Why, I saw the papers on board this ship! They were old ones. Papers on
ships always are. But I think they came on at Algiers or somewhere."

"Probably 'somewhere,'" I witheringly replied. "_I_ didn't come on at
Algiers, so I don't know anything about it."

"Diplomatists never do know anything official, do they, Duffer dear?"
smiled Biddy. "I'll wager your friend is interesting, even if he does
spell himself with an 'H', and weighs two stone less than his namesake
from Rome. Mrs. East believes in reincarnation, and I'm not sure I
don't, though Monny's so young she doesn't believe in anything. Just
suppose your friend is a reincarnation of Antony without an 'H'? And
suppose, too, by some strange trick of fate he should meet you in
Alexandria or Cairo? You'd introduce him to us, wouldn't you?"

"It's the most unlikely thing in the world. And he'd be no good to you.
He's a man's man. He thinks he doesn't like women."

"Doesn't like women!" echoed Monny Gilder. "He must be a curmudgeon. Or
has he been jilted?"

"Rather not!" Too impulsively I defended the absent. "Girls go mad
about him. He has to keep them off with a stick. He's got other things
to think of than girls, things he believes are more important--though,
of course, he's mistaken. He'll find that out some day, when he has
more time. So far, he's been hunting other game, often in wild places.
A book might be written on his adventures."

"What kind of adventures? Tell us about them," said Biddy, "up to the
Balkan one, which you deny having heard of."

"You wouldn't care about his sort of adventures. There aren't any women
in them," said I. "Women want love stories. It's only the heroines they
care for, not the heroes, and I don't somehow see the right heroine for
Fenton's story."

I noticed an expression dawning on Cleopatra's face, as I thus bereft
her of a possible Antony (with an "H"). There was a softening of the
long eyes, and the glimmer of a smile which said "Am I Cleopatra for
nothing?"

Never had she looked handsomer. Never before had I thought of her as
really dangerous. I'd been inclined to poke fun at the lady for her
superstition and her cartouche, and Cleopatra-hood in general. But
suddenly I realized that her make-up was no more exaggerated than that
of many a beauty of the stage and of society: and that nowadays, women
who are--well, forty-ish--can be formidable rivals for younger and
simpler sisters. Not that I feared much for Anthony from Cleopatra or
any other female thing, for I'd come to consider him practically
woman-proof; still, I saw danger that the lady might make a dead set at
him, if she got the chance, and all through my stupidity in giving away
his name. "Antony" was a thrilling password to that mysterious "something"
which she expected to happen in Egypt: and already she regarded my
friend as a ram caught in the bushes, for a sacrifice on her altar.
Instead of screening him I had dragged him in front of the footlights.
But fortunately there was still time to jerk down the curtain.

I threw a glance at Brigit and Monny, and was relieved to find that
their attention was distracted by a new arrival: Miss Rachel Guest from
Salem, Massachusetts: a pale, thin, lanky copy of our Rose, with the
beauty and bloom left out; but a pair of eyes to redeem the colourless
face--oh, yes, a pair of eyes! Strange, hungry, waiting eyes.

When I am alone, I fear Monny's favourite _protégée_, who started out
to "see the world" on a legacy of two thousand dollars, and won Miss
Gilder's admiration (and hospitality) through her unassuming pluck. To
my mind she is the ideal adventuress of a new, unknown, and therefore
deadly type; but for once I rejoiced at sight of the pallid, fragile
woman, so cheerful in spite of frail health, so frank about her
twenty-eight years. She had news to tell of a nature so exciting that,
after a whisper or two, Cleopatra forgot Anthony in her desire to know the
latest development in the Ship's Mystery.

"My stewardess says he won't let his wife land till we're all off,"
murmured the ex-schoolmistress, in her colourless voice. "She heard the
end of a conversation, when she carried the poor girl's lunch to the
door--just a word or two. So we shan't see her again, I suppose."

"Oh, yes, we shall," said Monny. "If Wretched Bey can get a private
boat, so can I. I'll not desert her, if I have to stay on board the
_Laconia_ the whole night."

All four began talking together eagerly, and blessing Miss Guest I
sneaked away. Presently I saw that clever Neill Sheridan and handsome,
actor-like Willis Bailey, the two _bêtes noires_ of Wretched Bey, had
joined the group.

By this time the roofs and domes and minarets of Alexandria sparkled in
clearly sketched outlines between sunset-sky and sea; sunset of Egypt,
which divided ruby-flame of cloud, emerald dhurra, gold of desert, and
sapphire waters into separate bands of colour, vivid as the stripes of
a rainbow.

There was a new buzz of excitement on the decks and in the ivy draped
veranda café. Those who had been studying Baedeker gabbled history,
ancient and modern, until the conquest of Alexander and the bombardment
of '82 became a hopeless jumble in the ears of the ignorant. Bores who
had travelled inflicted advice on victims who had not. People told each
other pointless anecdotes of "the last time I was in Egypt," while
those forced to listen did so with the air of panthers waiting to
pounce. A pause for breath on the part of the enemy gave the wished-for
opportunity to spring into the breach with an adventure of their own.

We took an Arab pilot on board--the first Arab ever seen by the ladies
of my party--and before the red torch of sunset had burned down to
dusky purple, tenders like big, black turtles were swimming out to the
_Laconia_. We slaves of the Rose, however, had surrendered all personal
interest in these objects. The word of Miss Gilder had gone forth, and,
unless Rechid Bey changed his mind at the last minute, we were all to
lurk in ambush until he appeared with his wife. Then, somehow, Monny
was to snatch her chance for a word with the Ship's Mystery; and
whatever happened, none of us were to stir until it had been snatched.

Arguments, even from Biddy, were of no avail, and mine were silenced by
cold permission to go away by myself if I chose. It was terrible, it
was wicked to talk of people making their own beds and then lying in
them. It was nonsense to say that, even if the wife of Rechid Bey asked
for help, we could do nothing. Of course, we would do something! If the
girl wanted to be saved, she should be saved, if Monny had to act
alone. Whatever happened, Mr. Sheridan and Mr. Bailey must remain in
the background, as the very sight of them would drive "Wretched Bey"
_wild!_

I was thinking of Anthony's surprise when one after the other, two
tenders should reach the quay without me; and if the Gilded Rose had
not been so sweet, her youthful cocksureness would have made me yearn
to slap her. In spite of all, however, the girl's excitement became
contagious as passengers crowded down the gangway and Rechid Bey did
not appear.

"Allah--Allah!" cried the boatman and the Arab porters as they hauled
huge trunks off the ship onto a float. Then one after the other the two
tenders puffed away, packed from stem to stern. A few people for whom
there was no room embarked in small boats manned by jabbering Arabs.
Two of these cockle-shells still moved up and down under the black,
mountainous side of the ship, and the officer whose duty it was to see
the passengers off was visibly restless. He wanted to know if my
lordship was ready; and my lordship's brain was straining after an
excuse for further delay, when a man and woman arrived opportunely;
Rechid Bey and a veiled, muffled form hooked to his arm; a slender,
appealing little figure: and through the veil I fancied that I caught a
gleam of large, wistful, anxious eyes.

The ladies were lying in wait out of sight, and I dodged behind the
sturdy blue shoulders guarding the gangway. This was my first glimpse
of the Ship's Mystery; and though I did not like my job (I had to
surprise Rechid Bey and take his mind off his wife) my curiosity was
pricked. The figure in sealskin looked very girlish; the veiled head
was bowed. The mystery took on human personality for me, and Monny
Gilder was no longer obstinate; she was a loyal friend. I did not see
that we could be of use to the poor little fool who had married a Turk,
yet I was suddenly ready to do what I could. As Rechid Bey brought his
wife to the top of the gangway, I lounged out, and spoke. Disconcerted,
the stout, good-looking man of thirty let drop the arm of the girl,
putting her behind him. And this was what Monny wanted. They would have
an instant for a few disjointed words: Monny might perhaps have time to
promise help which the girl dared not ask, even behind her husband's
back.

"Good evening," I said in French, taking advantage of a smoke-room
acquaintance. "Is that smart boat down there for you? I was trying to
secure it, in my best Arabic, but the fellow said it was engaged."

"Yes, it is mine," Rechid answered, civilly, trying to hide his
annoyance. "I telegraphed from Naples to a friend in Alexandria to send
me a private boat. I do not like crowds."

"Neither do I, so I waited, too," I explained. "They told me there were
always boats, and my big luggage has gone. I suppose yours has, too?"

"No doubt," said Rechid Bey. "Good night, Milord Borrow."

He turned quickly to his wife, as if to catch her at something, but the
slim veiled mystery stood meekly awaiting his will. To my intense
relief Monny and her friends were invisible. I could hardly wait until
the two figures had passed out of sight down the gangway, to know
whether my skirmishing attack had been successful.

"Well?" I asked, as Miss Gilder, "Mrs. Jones," Cleopatra, Rachel Guest,
and two maids filed out from concealment. "Did I give you time enough?
Did you get the chance you wanted?"

"Yes, thank you ever so much," said Monny, with one of those dazzling
smiles that would make her a beauty even if she were not the favourite
Sunday supplement heiress. "I counted on you--and _she_ had counted on
me. She must have known I wouldn't fail her, for she had this bit of
paper ready. When I jumped out she slipped it into my hand. We didn't
need to say a word, and Wretched Bey has no idea I came near her."

"A bit of paper?" I echoed, with interest. For it sounded the obvious
secret thing; a bit of paper stealthily slid from hand to hand.

"Yes, with her address on it--nothing more in writing: but two other
words, pricked with a pin. '_Save me._' Don't you see, if her husband
had pounced on it, no harm would have been done. He wouldn't have
noticed the pin-pricks, as a woman would. I thought she was going to
live in Cairo, and I believe she thought so too, at first. But she's
written down the name of a house in a place called Asiut. Did you ever
hear of such a town, Lord Ernest?"

"Oh, yes," said I. "The Nile boats stop there and people see tombs and
mummied cats and buy silver shawls."

"Good!" said Monny. "_My_ boat shall stop there, but not only for tombs
or cats or silver shawls. I have an idea that the poor girl is
frightened, and wants me to help her escape."

"Great heavens!" I exclaimed. "You mustn't on any account get mixed up
in an adventure of that sort! Remember, this is Egypt----"

"I don't care," said Monny, "if it's the moon."

She believed that this settled the matter. I believed the exact
opposite. But I left it at that, for the moment, as the boat was
waiting, and Asiut seemed a long way off.

This was my first lesson in what Brigit called "Monny's little ways";
but the second lesson was on the heels of the first.




CHAPTER III

A DISAPPOINTMENT AND A DRAGOMAN


It was a blow not to see Anthony on the quay. And other blows rained
thick and fast. My two consolations were that I was actually in Egypt;
and that in the confusion Rechid Bey with the veiled figure of his
silent bride had slipped away without further incidents. Their
disappearance was regretted by no one save Monny, unless it was Neill
Sheridan, and he was discreet enough to keep his feelings to himself.
The girl was not. She protested on principle, although she had the
Asiut address. But where all men, black and brown and white, were
yelling with the whole force of their lungs, and pitching and tossing
luggage (mostly the wrong luggage) with all the force of their arms,
nobody heard or cared what she said. For once Monny Gilder was
disregarded by a crowd of men. This could happen only at the departure
of a boat train! But if I was not thinking about her, I was thinking
about her fifteen trunks, and Cleopatra's sixteen and Biddy's and Miss
Guest's two. The maids were worse than useless, and I had no valet. I
have never had a valet. I clawed, I fought, I wrestled in an arena
where it was impossible to tell the wild beasts from the martyrs. I
rescued small bags from under big boxes, and dashed off with a few
samples to the train, in order to secure places. All other able-bodied
men, including Sheridan and the artist sculptor Bailey, were engaged in
the same pursuit, and our plan was to "bag" a whole compartment between
us in the boat-special for Cairo. But we never met again till we
reached our destination. One expects Egypt to warm the heart with its
weather, but the cold was bitter; so was the disappointment about
Anthony. Both cut through me like knives. Darkness had fallen before I
was ready to join the ladies--if I could. In passing earlier, I had
shouted to the maids where to find the places, grabbed with difficulty,
for their mistresses. Whether they had found them, or whether any of
the party still existed, was the next question; and it was settled only
as the train began to move. The compartment I had selected was boiling
over with a South American president and his effects; but as I stood
transfixed by this transformation scene, Cleopatra's maid hailed me
from the end of the corridor. _Les quatres dames_ were in the
restaurant car. Why? Ah, it was the Arab they had engaged as dragoman,
who had advised the change in milord's absence. He said it would be
better, as of course they would want dinner. He himself was looking
after the small _baggages_, except the little sacks of the hand which
the maids kept.

What, the ladies had engaged a dragoman! And they had trusted him--a
stranger--with luggage? Then it was as good as gone! But no, mildly
ventured Cleopatra's handmaiden. The dragoman came recommended. He had
a letter from a friend of milord.

My thoughts jumped, of course, to Anthony. Yet how could he have known
that I was travelling with ladies? And if by some Marconian miracle he
had heard, why should he, who prided himself on "not bothering" with
women, trouble to provide a dragoman at Alexandria?

I hurried to the dining car, and found Monny with her satellites seated
at a table, three of them looking as calmly innocent as if they had not
upset my well-laid scheme for their comfort. Biddy alone had a guilty
air, because, perhaps, I was more important in her eyes than in the
eyes of the others. "Oh, dear Duffer," she began to wheedle me: "We
hope you don't mind our coming here? We thought it a good idea, for
we're starving, although we're perfectly happy because we're in Egypt,
and because it's such a _quaint_ train, so different and Eastern. The
dragoman who----"

"I think he came from your friend Anthony with an 'H,'" Cleopatra broke
in. "He seemed providential. And he speaks English. The only objection
is, he's not as good-looking as Monny and I wanted our dragoman to be.
We did hope to get one who would be _becoming_ to us, you see, and give
the right sort of Eastern background. But I suppose one can't have
_everything!_ And it was I who said your friend Anthony's messenger
must be engaged even if his face is--is--rather like an _accident!_"

"It's like a catastrophe," remarked Monny, looking as if she blamed me.

"Where _is_ it?" I wanted to know.

"It's waiting in a vestibule outside where the cook's cooking," Biddy
explained ungrammatically. "I told it you'd want to see it. And it's
got a letter for you from some one." "Did the fellow say the letter was
from Fenton?" I inquired.

"No. He only said, from a friend who'd expected to meet you; and Mrs.
East was sure it must be from the one you were talking about."

Wasting no more words, I marched off to the fountainhead for
information. Near the open door of the infinitesimal kitchen stood a
fat little dark man with a broken nose, and one white eye. The other
eye, as if to make up, was singularly, repellently intelligent. It
fixed itself upon me, as I approached, with eager questioning which
melted into ingratiating politeness. Instinct warned the fellow that I
was the person he awaited. At the same moment, instinct was busily
whispering to me that there was something fishy about him, despite the
alleged letter. He did not look the type of man Fenton would recommend.
And though his face was of an unwholesome olive tint, and he wore a
tarbush, and a galabeah as long as a dressing-gown, under his short
European coat, I was sure he was not of Arab or Egyptian blood.

"Milord Borrow?" he began, displaying large white teeth, of which he
was evidently proud.

I assented.

"My name is Bedr el Gemály," he introduced himself. "I have a letter
for milord."

"Who gave it to you?" I challenged him.

The ingratiating smile seemed to flicker like a candle flame in a
sudden puff of wind. "A friend of my, a dragoman. He could not come to
bring it. So he give it to me. The gentleman's name was Fenton. My
friend, he was sent from him at Cairo." As the fellow spoke, in fairly
good English, he took from a pocket of the short coat which spoiled his
costume, a colourful silk handkerchief. Unwrapping this, he produced an
envelope. It was addressed to me in the handwriting of Fenton, but
before opening it I went on with my catechism.

"Then the letter doesn't introduce you, but your friend?"

The smile was practically dead now. "I think it do not introduce any
ones. It is only a letter. My friend Abdullah engaged to carry it. But
he got sick too soon to come to the ship."

"I see," said I. "You seem to have used the letter, however, to get
yourself taken on as dragoman by the ladies of my party. How the devil
did you find out that they were travelling with me, eh?" I shot the
question at him and tried to imitate gimlets with my eyes. But he was
ready with his answer. No doubt he had prepared it.

"I see you all together, from a distant place, before I come there. A
gentleman off the ship, he pointed you out when I ask where I find
Milord Borrow. I see you, and those ladies. When I come, you was away
already, so I speak to them, and say if I could help, I be very
pleased. When I tell one of the ladies I was from a friend of milord's
with a letter, she say, is the friend's name Captain Fenton, and I say
'yes, madame, Captain Fenton, that is the name; and I am a dragoman to
show Egypt to the strangers. I know it all very well, from Alexandria
way up Nile.' Then the lady say very quick she will take me for her
dragoman. I am pleased, for I was not engaged for season, and she say
if I satisfy her she keep me in Cairo and on from there." "H'm," I
grunted, still screwing in the gimlets. "I see you're not an Egyptian.
You have selected the name of an Armenian famous in history. Are you
Armenian?"

"I am the same thing as Egyptian, I bin here for dragoman so many
years. I am Mussulman in faith. But I was born Armenian," he admitted.

"You speak English with an American accent," I went on. "Have you lived
in America?"

"One time a family take me to New York and I stay a year or two. Then I
get homesick and come to Egypt again. But I learn to talk maybe some
like American peoples while I am over there."

It sounded plausible enough, the whole story. And if Mrs. East had
snapped the dragoman up under the impression that he came from a man
she had determined to meet, the fellow might be no more to blame than
any other boaster, touting in his own interest. Still, I had an uneasy
feeling that something lay hidden under Armenian plausibility. Bedr el
Gemály was perhaps a thief who had courted a chance for a big haul of
jewellery. Yet if that were all, why hadn't he hopped off the tram, as
it began to move, with the ladies' hand luggage? He might easily have
got away, and disappeared into space, before we could wire the police
of Alexandria to look out for him. He had not done that, but had
waited, and risked facing my suspicions. And he must have realized,
while in charge of Monny's and Cleopatra's attractive dressing bags,
that he was missing an opportunity such as might never come to him
again. This conduct suggested an honest desire to be a good dragoman.
Yet--well, I resolved not to let the gimlets rust until Bedr el Gemály
had been got rid of. If Mrs. East had really promised him a permanent
engagement, she could salve his disappointment by giving him a day's
pay. I would take the responsibility of sending him about his business.

Without further parley I opened the letter. It was short, evidently
written in a hurry. Anthony had scribbled:

Horribly sorry, dear old Duffer, but I'm wanted by the Powers that Be
in Cairo. No other reason could have kept me from Alexandria. I was
afraid a wire wouldn't reach you, so I sent a decent old chap by the
train I meant to take. He's pledged to find you on the quay, and he
will--unless some one makes him drunk. This seems unlikely to happen,
as he won't be paid till he gets back, and having no friends on earth,
nobody will stand him drinks. Beastly luck, but I shan't be able to see
you to-night even in Cairo. Tell you all to-morrow--and there's a lot
to tell, about many things.

Yours ever,

A.F.

The messenger had "no friend on earth," according to Fenton. Then the
friendship stated to exist between him and Bedr el Gemály must have
come readymade from heaven, or--its opposite. I guessed the nature of
the "decent old chap's" illness. But I should have been glad to know
whether it had been produced by design or accident.

When I went back to the ladies, Bedr went with me, at my firm
suggestion, and gave them their handbags to use as footstools. Dinner
was ready, and a seat had been kept for me at a table just across the
aisle, but before beginning, I explained the real circumstances
governing the dragoman's arrival. "Whatever else he may be, he's a
shark," I said, "or he wouldn't have traded on a misunderstanding to
grab an engagement. You owe him nothing really, but if you choose, give
him a sovereign when we get to Cairo, and I'll tell him that I have a
dragoman in view for the party. He'll then have two days' pay,
according to the guide-books."

With this, I slipped into my seat, thinking the matter settled. But
between courses, Monny leaned across from her table (she and I had end
seats) and said that she and her aunt had been talking about that poor
dragoman. "Aunt Clara raised his hopes," the girl went on, "and now
Rachel Guest and I think it would be mean to send him away, just
because he's hideous."

"That won't be the reason!" said I. "It will be because we don't know
anything about him, and because in his sharpness he's over-reached
himself."

"But we do know things about him. He showed Aunt Clara letters from
people who'd employed him, lots of Americans whose names we've heard,
and some we're acquainted with. The tragic thing is, that he finds
difficulty in getting engaged because of his face. I've felt guilty
ever since I called it a catastrophe. Of course it _is_; but I said it
to be funny, which was cruel. And we deserve to punish ourselves by
keeping the poor wretch a few days, or more, if he's good."

"I thought you wanted a becoming dragoman?" I reminded her.

"Oh, that was just our silliness. I _do_ like good-looking people, I
must say. But what _does_ it matter whether a brown person is handsome
or homely, when you come to think of it? Besides, we can have another
dragoman, too, for ornament, if we run across a very picturesque one."

I laughed. "But you can't go up the Nile on a boat with a drove of
private dragomans, you know!"

"I _don't_ know, Lord Ernest. And why don't you call them dragomen? You
make them sound as if they were some kind of animal."

"Dragomans is the plural," I persisted.

"Well, I shall call them dragomen. And if this poor thing can't get any
one else to drag, he _shall_ drag us up the Nile, if he's as
intelligent in his ways as he is in that one eye, which is so like a
hard-boiled egg. You see, Lord Ernest, we're going to have a boat of
our own. A steam dahabeah is what we want, so we won't be at the mercy
of the wind. And we can have all the dragomen we choose, can't we?"

"I suppose you can fill up your cabins with them," I agreed, because I
felt that the Gilded Rose wished me to argue the point, and that if I
did I should be worsted. As I should not be on board the dahabeah in
question, it would not matter to me personally if the boat were
entirely manned by dragomans. Except that there would in that case
probably be a collision, and I should not be near to save Biddy--and
incidentally the girl Biddy wished me to marry.

After that, we went on eating our dinner and talking of Egypt, Miss
Guest doing all the listening, as usual. When we had finished, we kept
our places because we had no others. Cleopatra was curious about my
friend's failure to arrive, but I put her off with vaguenesses; and
said to myself that, for Anthony's sake, it was well that mysterious
business had kept him in Cairo. Still, I wondered what the business
was: why he would be unable to see me that night: and what were the
"many things" he had to tell.




CHAPTER IV

A MAN IN A GREEN TURBAN


I shall never know for certain whether or not our future was entirely
shaped by Monny's resolve to breakfast on the terrace of Shepheard's
Hotel next morning.

A great many remarkable things have happened on that historic site.
Napoleon made the place his headquarters. General Klèber was murdered
in the garden. Half the most important people in the world have had tea
on the terrace: but, according to a German waiter, there was one deed
yet undone. Nobody had ever ordered breakfast out of doors.

Of course, Monny got what she wanted. Not by storming, not by putting
on power-of-wealth airs, but simply by turning bright pink and looking
large-eyed. At once that waiter rushed off, and fetched other waiters;
and almost before the invited guests knew what to expect, two tables
had been fitted together, covered with white, adorned with fresh roses,
and set forth with cups and saucers. I was the one man invited, and I
felt like an actor called to play a new part in an old scene, a scene
vaguely, excitingly familiar. Could I possibly be remembering it, I
asked myself, or was my impression but the result of a life-long
debauch of Egyptian photographs? Anyhow, there was the impression, with
a thrill in it; and I felt that I ought to be handsomer, more romantic,
altogether more vivid, if I were to live up to the moving picture. It
seemed as if nothing would be too extraordinary to do, if I wanted to
match my surroundings. I thought, even if I burst into a passionate
Arab love-song and proposed to Monny across the table, it would be
quite the right note. But somehow I didn't feel inclined to propose. It
was enough to admire her over the rim of a coffee cup. In her white
tussore (I heard Biddy call it tussore) and drooping, garden-type of
hat, she was a different girl from the girl of the ship. She had been a
winter girl in white fur, then. Now she was a summer girl, and a
radiant vision, twice as pretty as before, especially in this Oriental
frame; still I was waiting to see myself fall in love with her, much in
the same way that Biddy was waiting. And there was that Oriental frame!
It belonged to my past, and perhaps Monny Gilder didn't belong even to
my future, so it was excusable if I thought of it more than of her.

It was hardly nine o'clock, but already the wonderful coloured cinema
show of Cairo daily life had begun to flash and flicker past the
terrace of Shepheard's, where East and West meet and mingle more
sensationally than anywhere in Egypt. Nobody save ourselves had dared
suggest breakfast; but travellers were pouring into the hotel, and
pouring out. Pretty women and plain women were sitting at the little
wicker tables to read letters, or discuss plans for the day with each
other or their dragomans. Officers in khaki came and talked to them
about golf and gymkhanas. Down on the pavement, close under the
balustrade, crowded young and old Egyptian men with dark faces and
wonderful eyes or no eyes at all, struggling to sell painted
post-cards, strings of blue-gray mummy beads; necklaces of cornelian and
great lumps of amber; fans, perfumes, sample sticks of smoking incense,
toy camels cleverly made of jute; fly whisks from the Sudan with
handles of beads and dangling shells; scarab rings and brooches; cheap,
gay jewellery, scarfs from Asiut, white, black, pale green and purple,
glittering like miniature cataracts of silver, as brown arms held them
up. Darting Arab urchins hawked tame ichneumons, or shouted newspapers
for sale--English, American, Greek, French, German, Italian, and
Turkish. Copper-tinted, classic-featured youths in white had golden
crowns of bananas round their turbans; withered patriarchs in blue
galabeahs offered oranges, or immense bunches of mixed flowers, fresh
and fragrant as the morning; or baskets of strawberries red and bright
as rubies. Dignified Arabs stalked by, bearing on nobly poised heads
pots of growing rose-bushes or arum lilies, or azaleas. Jet-black
giants, wound in rainbow-striped cottons, clanked brass saucers like
cymbals, advertising the sweet drinks in their glass jars, while memory
whispered in my ears the Arab name "sherbétly." Across the street,
clear silver-gold sunshine of winter in Egypt shone on precious stones,
on carved ivories, silver anklets, Persian rugs, and embroideries,
brilliant as hummingbirds' wings, all displayed in the windows of shops
where dark eyes looked out eagerly for buyers. Everything was for sale,
for sale to the strangers! The whole clamouring city seemed to consist
of one vast, concentrated desire on the part of brown people to sell
things to fair people. They shouted and wheedled and besought on the
sidewalks; and the roadway between was a wide river of colour and life.
Motor cars with Arab chauffeurs carried rich Turks to business, or to
an audience of State. Now and then a face of ivory glimmered through a
gauzy veil and eyes of ink and diamonds shot starry glances from
passing carriage windows. Erect English women drove high dog-carts.
Gordon Highlanders swung along in the kilt, more at home in Cairo then
in Edinburgh, the droning of their pipes as Oriental as the drone of a
räita, or the beat of tom-toms. A wedding party with a hidden bride in
a yellow chariot, met a funeral, and yashmaked faces peeped from
curtained windows, in one procession, to stare at the wailing, marching
men of the other, and to shrink back hastily from the sight of the
coffin. Tangled it would seem inextricably with streams of traffic,
surging both ways, moved the "ships of the desert," loaded with
emerald-green bersím; long, lilting necks, and calm, mysterious eyes of
camels high above the cloaked heads of striding Bedouins, heads of
defiant Arab prisoners, chained and handcuffed to each other; heads of
blue-eyed water buffaloes, and heads of trim white, tasselled donkeys.

None of us talked very much, as we sat at the breakfast table: the
novelty and wonder of the scene made the actors forget their words: and
if we had been able to talk, we could not have appreciated each other's
rhapsodies, over the shoutings of men who wanted us to buy their wares,
and harangues of dragomans who wished, as Monny said, to "drag" us.
These latter, especially, were persistent, and Bedr the One Eyed,
having been forbidden to come till ten o'clock, was not on the spot to
give protection. Our method at first was to appear oblivious, but
presently in my wickedest Arabic, I would have ordered the troop away
if Monny had not interfered.

"Don't!" she said, "they're part of the picture. Besides, they've more
right here than we have. It's their country, not ours. And they're so
interesting--most of them. That tall man over there, for instance, with
the green turban. He's the only one who hasn't opened his mouth. Just
to show him that virtue's its own reward, I'm going to engage him. Will
you call him to us, please, Lord Ernest?"

Sitting as I sat, I could not see the person indicated. "What do you
want him for, Miss Gilder?" I obeyed temptation, and asked.

"Why, to be a dragoman, of course," she explained. "That's what he's
for. I told you, I'd have a picturesque one for ornament. This
creature's a perfect specimen."

I stood up reluctantly, and looked down over the balustrade. "A man
with a green turban?" I repeated. "But that means he's a Hadji, who's
been to Mecca and back. I never heard of a dragoman--"

I stopped short in my argument. My eyes had found the man with the
green turban.

He stood at some distance behind the pavement-merchants and
self-advertising dragomans who pressed against the railing. In his long
galabeah of Sudan silk, ashes of roses in colour, he was tall and
straight as a palm, gravely dignified with his folded arms and the
haughty remoteness of his expression. Dark and silent, half-disdainful,
half-amused, he was like a prince compared with his humbler brethren;
but there was another resemblance more relevant and intimate which cut
my sentence short.

"By Jove," I thought, "how like he is to Anthony Fenton!"

He was looking, not at me, but at Miss Gilder, quite respectfully yet
hypnotically, as if by way of an experiment he had been willing her to
find and single out the one motionless figure, the one person whose
tongue had not called attention to himself.

Yes, I thought again, he was an Arab copy of Anthony, but more as
Anthony had been years ago before his moustache grew, than as Anthony
had become in late years. Still, there were the aquiline features, the
long, rather sad eyes shaded with thick, straight lashes, the eyebrows
raised at the bridge of the thin nose, then sloping steeply down toward
the temples; the slight working of muscles in the cheeks; the
peculiarly charming mouth which could be irresistible in a smile, the
stern, contradictory chin marring by its prominence the otherwise
perfect oval of the face. I wondered if Anthony had as noble a throat
as this collarless galabeah left uncovered, reminding myself that I
could not at all recall Anthony's throat. Then, as the sombre eyes
turned to me, drawn perhaps by my stare, I was stunned, flabbergasted,
what you will, by realizing that Anthony himself was looking at me from
under the green turban.

The dark face was blankly expressionless. He might have been gazing
through my head. His eyes neither twinkled with fun nor sent a message
of warning; but somehow I knew that he saw me, that he had been
watching me for a long time. "You see the one I mean, don't you?" asked
Monny. "Well, that's the one I want. I'll take _him_."

She spoke as if she were selecting a horse at a horse show.

Anthony had brought this on himself, but I was not angry with Anthony.
I was angry with the girl for putting her finger into our pie.

"That's not a dragoman," I assured her. "If he were, he'd come and bawl
out his accomplishments, as the others do. He's a very different sort
of chap."

"That's why I want him," said Monny. "And if he isn't a dragoman, he'll
jump at being one if I offer to pay him enough. He's an Egyptian,
anyhow, by his clothes, or a Bedouin or something--although he isn't as
dark as the rest of these men. I suppose he must know a little about
his own city and country."

"It doesn't follow he'd tell travellers about them for money," said I.
"He looks to me a man of good birth and distinction in old fashioned
dress. Why he's lingering on the pavement in front of this hotel I
can't explain, but I'm certain he isn't touting. Probably he's waiting
for a friend."

"He's the best looking Arab we've seen yet," remarked Mrs. East. "Like
my idea of an Egyptian gentleman."

"Pooh!" said Monny. "Just test him, Lord Ernest."

"Sorry, but I can't do it," I answered, with a firmness which ought to
have been tried on her long ago. "And I wouldn't discuss him in such a
loud tone of voice. He may understand English."

"We have to yell to hear ourselves speak over all this row," Biddy
apologized for her darling; but she need not have troubled herself.
Miss Gilder had been deaf to my implied reproach.

"I'm glad I'm an American girl," she said. "When I want things I want
them so dreadfully I just go for them, and surprise them so much that I
get them before they know where they are. Now I'm going for this
dragoman."

"He's not a drag--" I persisted, but she cut me short.

"I bet you my hat he will be one! What will you bet that he won't, Lord
Ernest?"

"I'll bet you his green turban," said I.

"How can you get it?"

"As easily as you can get him," I retorted. "It's a safe bet."

Monny looked excited, but firm. Luckily, as she does it so often, it's
becoming to her to look firm. (I have noticed that it's not becoming to
most girls. It squares their jaws and makes their eyes snap.) But the
spoiled daughter of the dead Cannon King at her worst, merely looks
pathetically earnest and Minerva-like. This, I suppose, is one of the
"little ways" she has acquired, since she gave up kicking and screaming
people into submission. As Biddy says, the girl can be charming not
only when she wants to be, but quite often when she doesn't.

The man with the green turban was no longer engaged in hypnotizing. He
had retired within himself, and appeared oblivious to the outer world.
Yet nobody jostled the tall, straight figure which stood with folded
arms, lightly leaning against a tree. The colour of his turban was
sacred in the eyes of the crowd; and when Miss Gilder, leaning over the
terrace railing beckoned him, surprise rather than jealousy showed on
the faces of the unwanted dragomans. As for the wearer of the turban,
he did what I expected and wished him to do: paid not the slightest
attention to the gesture. Whatever the motive for his masquerade, it
was not to attract anything feminine.

I smiled sardonically. "That's a nice hat you've got on, Miss Gilder,"
I remarked.

"Do you collect girls' hats?" she asked sweetly. "But mine isn't
eligible yet for your collection. Let me see, what did you say he was?
Oh, a Hadji!" And she shrilled forth sweetly, her voice sounding young
and clear, "Hadji! Hadji! Effendi! Venez ici, s'il vous plait. Please
come here."

I could have been knocked flat by a blow of the smallest, cheapest
ostrich feather in the hands of any street-merchant. For he came.
Anthony came! Not to look meekly up from the pavement below the
railing, but to ascend the steps of the terrace, and advance with grave
dignity toward our table. Within a yard of us he stopped, giving to me,
not to Miss Gilder, the beautiful Arab salute, a touch on forehead and
heart.

"You devil!" I was saying to myself. "So you walk into this trap, do
you, and calmly trust me to get you out. Serve you right if I don't
move hand or foot." And I almost made up my mind that I wouldn't. But I
was interested. I wanted intensely to know what the dickens Anthony was
up to, and whether he would have been up to it if he'd known the sort
of young woman he had to deal with.

"It was I who called to you, not this gentleman," said Monny, when she
found that Green Turban did not look at her. "Do you speak French or
English a little?"

"A little of both. But I choose French when talking to Americans,"
replied Anthony Fenton, with astounding impertinence, in the preferred
language. "I do not know you, Madame. But I do know this gentleman."

Good heavens! What next? He acknowledged me! What was I to do now? What
did the impudent fellow want me to do? Evidently he was trying an
experiment. Anthony is great on experiments, and always has been. But
this was a bomb. I thought he wanted to see if I could catch it on the
fly, and drop it into water before it had time to explode.

"Why didn't you tell us, Lord Ernest?" asked Monny, with a flash in her
gray eyes. "I thought you hadn't been in Egypt since you were a child."

"I haven't, and I didn't recognize him at first," I answered, trying
for the coolness which Anthony dared to count upon.

"You remember me now?" he inquired politely.

"I--er--yes," I replied, also in French. "Your face is familiar, though
you've changed, I think, since--er--since you were in England. It must
have been there--yes, of course. You were on a diplomatic mission. But
your name--"

"You may have known me as Ahmed Antoun," said the wretch, not dreaming
of that slip he had made.

Cleopatra, who has little French, nevertheless started, and fixed upon
the face under the turban a stare of feverish interest. Brigit and the
unobtrusive lady with the slanting eyes both showed such symptoms of
surprise as must too late have warned Fenton that he had missed his
footing, skating on thin ice.

"Antoun!" exclaimed Mrs. East. "Why, that's what you said you called
your friend Captain Fenton."

I glanced at Anthony. His profile had no more expression than that of
an Indian on an American penny, and, indeed, rather resembled it. If he
were blaming me for letting anything out, I had a right to blame him
for letting himself in. He was silent as well as expressionless. He
left it all to me--diplomat or duffer.

"'Antoun Effendi' was the nickname my friend Fenton got at school," I
explained to Cleopatra, "because it sounded a bit like his own name,
and because he had--er--because he had associations with Egypt. He was
proud of them and is still. But Antoun is a name often heard here. And
every man who isn't a Bey or a Prince, or a Sheikh, is an Effendi. I
quite remember you now," I hurried on, turning to Anthony once more.
"You are Hadji as well as Effendi."

"I have the right to call myself so, if I choose," he admitted. "I am
pleased to meet you again. I was waiting for a friend when you
beckoned. If you did not recognize my face at first, may I ask what it
was you wanted of me?"

There was no limit, then, to his audacity. He had not learned his
lesson yet, after all, it would seem.

Monny could not bear tamely to lose her hat, though she must have felt
her hatpins trembling in the balance. "I told you before," she
repeated, "that it was I who beckoned you." He looked at her, without
speaking; and somehow the green turban and the long straight gown, by
adding to his dignity, added also to his remote air of cold politeness.
How could she go on? Had she the cheek to go on? She had; but the cheek
was flushed with embarrassment.

"I--er--I am anxious for a guide, some one who knows Egypt well, and
several languages," she desperately blurted out, looking like a
half-frightened, half-defiant child. "I thought----"

"There are plenty of dragomans, Madame," Green Turban reminded her. "I
can recommend you several."

"I don't want a regular dragoman," she said. "And I'm not 'Madame.' I
am Miss Gilder."

"Indeed?" Chilling indifference in the tone. (Monny's hat was
practically mine. I thought I should rather value it.)

"Yes. But of course that can't matter to you."

"No. It cannot, Mademoiselle."

"What I want to say, is this. You're a Hadji, which means you've been
to Mecca; Lord Ernest Borrow's just told us. So you must be very
intelligent. Are you in business?"

"I am interested in excavations."

"Oh! And are you allowed to make them yourself?"

"Not always."

I glanced at him quickly, wondering if he meant that answer more for me
than for the girl. But his face told nothing.

"Would you be able to, if you were rich enough?"

"It is possible." "Well, I'd be willing to give you a big salary for
showing us about Cairo, and perhaps going up the Nile."

"You do not know who I am, Mademoiselle. Ask your friend Lord Ernest
Borrow. Perhaps he may remember something about my circumstances now he
has recalled my face."

I was honestly not sure whether this were further deviltry, or an
appeal for help. In any case, I thought it time for the scene to end.
"I told you," I said to Monny in English, "that he was a man of
importance, not at all the sort of person you could expect to engage
for a guide. You must see now that he's a gentleman. And a--a--an
Egyptian gentleman is just the same as any other."

"Surely not quite!" she answered in the same language, and I realized
my foolish mistake in using it, as if I meant her to understand that
Antoun Effendi knew it too little to catch our secrets.

"An Egyptian man can't have the same feelings as a European? Why, for
hundreds and hundreds of years they've been an enslaved race, like our
black people at home. We'd never think of calling even the fairest
quadroon man a gentleman, though he might be wonderfully good looking
and nice mannered."

Literally, I was frightened. Anthony Fenton is fiercely devoted to the
memory of the beautiful princess-mother, for love of whom his father's
career was ruined. _Her_ mother was a Sicilian woman, and her father
was half Greek, so there is little enough Egyptian blood, after all, in
the veins of General Fenton's son. He is proud of what there is--proud,
because of his mother's fatal charm, and the romance of her story (it
was on the eve of her wedding with a cousin of the Sultan that the
famous soldier Charles Fenton ran away with Princess Lalla and married
her in Sicily): but he is sensitive, too, because, great name as
Charles Fenton had made in Egypt, he was asked to resign his commission
on account of the escapade. Anthony, sent to England to a public
school, had fought bigger boys than himself, who, in a certain tone,
had sneeringly called him "Egyptian." I imagined now that through the
dark stain on his face I could see him turn pale with rage. He thought,
perhaps, that the American beauty was revenging herself for his
impertinence, and maybe he was right, but that did not excuse her.

"Be careful, Miss Gilder!" I warned the girl. "This man understands
English better than you think. He comes of a princely family and he's
got only to put out his hand to claim a fortune--"

"You seem to remember all about me now, Lord Ernest," broke in Fenton,
looking dangerous.

"Yes," I said. "It comes back to me. You must forgive Miss Gilder."

"There is nothing to forgive," he caught me up. "I am not a dragoman,
to be sure, but I'm enough of an Egyptian to have a price for anything
I do. I may put myself at this lady's service if she will pay my price,
though I'm not a servant and can't accept wages, even for the sake of
pursuing my excavations!"

He continued to speak in French, lest my companions' suspicions should
be further roused by the English of an Englishman; and Monny, pale
after her blush, answered in neat, schoolgirl French, with a pretty
American, accent. "What's the price you wish to name?" she inquired,
looking a little afraid of him and ashamed of herself, now that talk of
princes and fortunes was bandied about. "Of course," she went on, when
he did not answer at once, "if I'd known--all this, I shouldn't have
asked you to be a dragoman. At least, perhaps I shouldn't. Anyhow, I
shouldn't have made a bet--"

"A bet that I would have a 'price,' Mademoiselle? Then you may win your
bet, for I've just told you; I have a price. But I think it unlikely
you would be willing to pay it."

"Good heavens, is he going to try and marry the girl?" I asked myself.
It would be the last thing to expect of Anthony Fenton. However, he had
already done the last but one; the thing I had bet his green turban he
would not do. After all, he was a man, and a reckless man, as he had
proved on more than one wild occasion. He was in a strange mood,
capable of anything; and the Gilded Rose could never have been prettier
in her life than at this minute. She had made him furious, and I had
imagined that his acceptance of her overtures was the beginning of some
scheme of punishment. Now I was almost sure I had been right, yet I
could not guess what he would be at. Neither could Monny. But here was
the dangerously picturesque Arab who "must be a prince or something,"
as Cleopatra had expressed it. And he was even more dangerous than
picturesque.

"You--you said you wouldn't take wages," she stammered (I enjoyed
hearing the self-willed young person stammer): "so I can't understand
what you mean. But even though you are all those things Lord Ernest
says you are, your price can't be so terribly high as to be beyond my
power to pay--if I choose to pay."

"First, Mademoiselle, I must decide whether I choose to be paid."

"Oh!" Monny exclaimed, taken aback. "I thought it was a question of
price."

"Not only that. 'I _may_ put myself at the lady's service--for a
price,' was what I said. I didn't say, 'I will.' I shall not be able to
tell you until to-night." The patronizing tone in which Anthony spoke
this sentence was worth to me everything I had gone through in the last
half hour.

"But--I want to settle things this morning or--not at all," said Monny,
reverting to type: that of the spoiled child.

"I am sorry," replied the man of the green turban. "In that case, it
must be not at all." And he made as if to go.

The Gilded Girl could not bear this. I and the others would see that
she was fallible; that there were things she wanted which she could not
get. "Why can't you tell me now what your price is?" she persisted.

"Because, Mademoiselle, I may not need to tell you ever. It depends
partly on another than myself." He threw a quick glance at me. "I
expect to meet that other at Abdullahi's Café in an hour from now at
latest. Everything will depend on the interview. In any case, I will
let you know to-night what I can do."

"I may not be in," said Monny. "But if I'm out, you can leave a note."

"If I must refuse to serve you, yes, I can leave a note. If I am to
accept, I must see you in person. Should you be out, I'll take it for
granted that you have changed your mind and do not want"--he smiled
faintly for the first time--"so expensive a guide."

Monny hesitated. "I am not stingy. I'll stay at home this evening," she
volunteered at last.

"Bravo Petruchio!" I said under my breath. But if Biddy's plot were to
succeed, it was _my_ business to play the part of Petruchio to this
Katherine. Let the masquerading prince find a Desdemona who would suit
his Othello!




CHAPTER V

THE CAFÉ OF ABDULLAH


"Well--you got away from them all right?" began the man with the green
turban when, according to his roundabout instructions, I met him an
hour later at the café he had named, one of the principal resorts of
Cairo, where Europeans can consort with natives without attracting
remark.

"The real dragoman came and took them off my hands--at least the realer
one than you--a dreadful creature with a game eye, who murdered your
messenger last night, and gave me your letter and induced the ladies to
engage him on the strength of it. No wonder they want a 'looker' to
take the taste of him out of their mouths. And you certainly are a
'looker' in that get-up. Now kindly tell me all about it, and
everything else."

"That's what I'm here for," said Anthony, running a match-box to earth
in some mysterious Arab pocket. "But hold on, Duffer. Something you
said just then may be important. Is it true that my messenger didn't
give you the letter?"

"If you'd hung about Shepheard's Hotel ten minutes longer, you'd have
seen the fellow who did give it. Bedr el Gemály he calls himself
--Armenian Mussulman, a sickening combination, and an awful brute to look
at--said your messenger was taken suddenly ill; pretends to be a
dragoman."

"What is he like?"

"Rather like a partially decayed but decently dressed goat."

"Don't rot. This may be serious."

I described Bedr el Gemály as best I could, feature by feature. When I
had polished them off, Anthony shook his green-turbaned head. "No
portrait of him in my rogues' gallery. Just now, I'm sensitive about
spies--over-sensitive rather. Of course, you've spotted my game?"

"I confess I was conceited enough to think you'd given yourself all
this trouble with the costumier in order to take a rise out of me. But
when you speak of spies, I begin to put two and two together--your
business in Cairo--the powers that be, keeping you from me last night,
etc. I suppose it's an official job, this fancy dress affair?"

"Yes. In my own capacity, I'm not in Cairo. I turned up day before
yesterday, jolly glad to get back from Adrianople--though it was good
fun there, I can tell you, for a while; and I looked forward to
wallowing no end in the alleged delights of civilization. I reported
myself, and all seemed well. I took a room at Shepheard's where you and
I had arranged to meet, and when I'd scrubbed, I strolled over to the
Turf Club to see what the gay world would have to say to a fellow in
disgrace."

"Only silly asses swallowed that newspaper spoof! Every one in London
who knows anything about you was betting his boots that the story had
been spread on purpose to save our face with Turkey." I couldn't resist
interrupting his narrative to this extent. But Anthony merely smiled,
and watched a long-lived smokering settle like a halo over the head of
an Arab at the nearest table. He was not giving away official secrets,
but I was sure and always had been sure that he was a martyr, not a
rebel, in the matter of the Balkan incident, just closed. What the
public were led to suppose was this: that Captain Fenton had asked for
two months' leave from regimental duty at Khartum, in order to spend
the time with a relative who was seriously ill in Constantinople. That
instead of remaining at his relative's bedside, he had used his leave
for a dash to the Balkans. That this indiscretion might have been kept
a secret had he not capped it with another: a flight with a Greek
officer in an army aeroplane which had ended by crashing down in the
midst of a Turkish encampment.

What I and friends who knew him best supposed, was that the "leave" had
been a pretext--that Fenton had been sent on a secret mission of some
sort--and that he was bound to take the blame if anything went wrong.
Aeroplanes have the habits of other fierce, untamed animals: they won't
always obey their trainers. Thus Anthony and his plan had both been
upset. (Or had it really been premeditated that he should fall into
that camp?) The remainder of his "leave" was cancelled, in punishment,
and he had been "recalled" to Egypt, to be scolded in Cairo before
proceeding to Khartum.

"Queer how many silly asses one knows!" Anthony said. "Still,
considering what a mess I seem to have made of things, fellows were
jolly kind, at the Turf Club. Nobody cut me, and only a few let me
alone. Maybe there'd have been still fewer if there hadn't been a hero
present who claimed attention: an American chap, Jack Dennis, who knows
Miss Gilder and was telling the good news that she was on her way to
Egypt. He called her the Gilded Rose and said it was going to be a good
flower season in Cairo and up the Nile. All the men with one exception
seemed to have heard a lot about her and to find her an interesting
subject, and to want Dennis to introduce them."

"I can guess the 'one exception'!" said I.

"Can you? Well, I don't read newspaper gossip about heiresses. Thank
heaven, I've something better to do with my time. But the others wanted
to meet her, or pretended to, perhaps to chaff Dennis, rather a cocky
youth, though I oughtn't to say so, as he was nice to me, according to
his lights. He got Sam Blake to introduce us, when he happened to hear
my name, and went out of his way to pay me compliments, which I daresay
he thought I'd like. When there was a lull in the discussion of what
could be done to make Miss Gilder enjoy herself in Egypt--chaps
suggesting trips in their motor cars or on their camels and a lot of
rot, Dennis remarked that I was the only man who hadn't chipped into
the conversation. And hadn't I any ideas for entertaining the Golden
Girl? Naturally I said that I didn't know who she was and had never
heard of her, and even if I had, entertaining girls wasn't in my line.
They all roared, and Dennis wouldn't believe at first that I didn't
know of such an important person's existence; but the other men rotted
a bit, and described me to him according to their notions of me. So he
let me alone on the subject; and having plenty of other things to think
of, I forgot all about it till the lady in question introduced herself
this morning. Then--well, it struck me as rather amusing at first that
I, the only one in the crowd who hadn't made plans to get at her,
should have her trying to get at me. That was partly why I came up on
the terrace when she beckoned."

"Partly? For purely intellectual reasons I'm curious to know the rest.
I suppose it had nothing to do with her looks?"

"As it happened, my cynical friend, it hadn't. I've got eyes in my head
and I could see she was pretty, very pretty, though not my ideal type
at all. That little sprite of a woman in fawn colour, the one with
green eyes and a lot of black lashes, is more what I'd fall in love
with if I were frivolous. But apart from the funny side of my meeting
with Miss Golder, or Gilder, it popped into my head that I might make
her a victim in a certain cause. Don't ask me to explain yet, because
there are a lot of things that have got to be explained first, or you
couldn't understand. You were right, of course, when you thought I'd
stationed myself in front of Shepheard's to take a rise out of you. I
gave up my room there yesterday, for reasons I'll tell you. But I knew
you'd be in the hotel, and that you'd be bound to show yourself on the
terrace, in order to go out. I wanted to see if you'd recognize me, and
to have a little fun with you if you didn't. By the way, I'm not
pleased that you did. It's a poor compliment to my make-up, which I may
tell you has been warmly praised in high quarters!" "Well, you see," I
apologized, "I knew you were a nailer at that sort of thing, or you
would never have got to Mecca, and earned your green turban. I knew
you'd been pretty often called upon to disguise yourself and go about
among the natives for one thing or another. And besides, we were chums
before you had the shadow of a moustache, so I have an advantage over
the other Sherlock Holmeses! But even as it was, I couldn't be sure at
first. You must have got some fun out of my expression."

"I did. I took revenge on you for recognizing me by tormenting you as
far as I dared. Dear old boy, I knew you'd see me through to the end,
bitter or sweet!"

"Which was it?" I inquired.

"Mixed. The girl riled me, rather, so much so that I definitely decided
it would be fair play to make use of her as a cat's-paw. But it depends
on you, whether she's to lose or win her bet."

"If she loses, I get her hat. If she wins, I've engaged myself to
procure for her--your green turban."

"Did you think you could, without my consent?"

"No. I distinctly thought I couldn't. But I would have been willing to
bet the head in the turban, served up on a charger, so sure I was that
you'd refuse to come near her. I thought I knew you _au fond_, you
see."

"You do. I haven't changed. But--circumstances have changed. And that
brings me near to the stage of this business which concerns you and me.
First, before I go further though, I'll tell you a part of the reason
why I'm sporting the green turban. There's been the dickens to pay
here, about a new street that had to be made; an immensely important
and necessary street. Well, they couldn't make it, because the tomb of
a popular saint or sheikh was in the way. To move the body or even
disturb a saint's tomb would mean no end of a row. You remember or have
read enough about Mohammedans to know that. What to do, was the
question. Nobody'd been able to answer it till yesterday, when the
sight of me reminded them of a trick or two I'd brought off some time
ago, by disguising myself and hanging about the cafés. They wanted me
to try it again. Consequently Captain A. Fenton received a telegram and
had to leave Cairo at once on business. He gave up his room at
Shepheard's, and the only regrettable thing to the official mind is,
that the fellow'd been seen about town even for an hour. However, it
couldn't be helped. Luckily Ahmed Antoun is not unknown in Cairo cafés.
He's made quite an impression upon the public on several occasions
since his pilgrimage to Mecca, two years ago. And since yesterday
afternoon, he's been drinking enough coffee to give him jaundice, while
casually spreading the story of a dream he had. Our friend the Hadji
related how he had slept in the mosque of Ibn Tulun after the noon
hour, and dreamed of the sheikh whose tomb is so inconveniently placed.
In the dream, the saint clamoured to have his tomb moved on account of
a bad smell of drainage which he considers an insult to his own memory.
Also dogs have taken to howling round his resting-place at night, and
you know that to the true believer a dog is an unclean animal. Except
for hunting purposes, or watch-dogging in various branches, good
Mohammedans class dogs and Christians together in their mind. Well,
already the Hadji's dream is working like yeast. The news of it is
being carried from one café to another; and I hope that a few more
nights' work will do the trick. The votaries of the saint will get up a
petition to have his body moved. When it has found another abode, the
making of the new thoroughfare will be suggested."

"Very neat! I see it all, except the connection with Miss Gilder. What
has your saint got to do with her?"

"Very little, I should say, by the look in her eyes. But though a green
turban's as good as an heirloom, and extorts respect wherever it goes,
even a Hadji may have jealous detractors. I have mine. Another green
turban in this town, whose genuineness is doubted for some obscure
reason or other, has sneered at my dream."

"I say! That sounds as if you might be in danger. If one man suspects
you to-day, to-morrow------"

"Oh, it's only the dream he suspects--at present. I know all the little
prayer tricks so well, and I've invented my own history so ingeniously,
with a _patois_ to match my province, that I shall get through this
incident as I have through others of the sort. There's only one hole in
my jebbah. Last night, when my rival sprang a sudden question as to
what I was doing in Cairo (I'm supposed to be a Luxor man), on the spur
of the moment I replied that I was acting as dragoman to a rich family
of tourists. On that, the brute inquired with honeyed accents where
they were staying. I said Shepheard's, because I expected you to be
there, and thought if I were followed, you might be useful as a dummy."

"Ah, that's where Miss Gilder comes in? A gilded gingerbread lamb,
ready for the sacrifice. Why didn't you accept her offer at once, as
she seemed so providential?" "I'm coming to that. It sounds
complicated, but it isn't. For one thing, though, it may be well to
wait and find out a little more about that goat-eyed Armenian of
yours."

"He isn't mine. He's--".

"I want to know for certain whose he is. If he has anything to do with
my rival Hadji, there's more venom and wit inside that green turban
than I've given it credit for. Is there a reason, by the way, except
their riches, why one should want to 'get at' a member of the American
party?"

"By Jove!" said I, as if I had been pinched--for there was a sharp nip
in the thought Anthony's question jabbed into my mind. I had disliked
and distrusted Bedr el Gemály, but I had associated my distaste for him
with Fenton's affairs. It had not occurred to me that Biddy's fears
meant more than a nervous woman's vague forebodings. During the few
hideous years of hide-and-seek she had passed in trying to protect the
traitor, Richard O'Brien, she had no doubt had real enough reason to
dread a spy in every stranger; but I had cheerfully advised her "not to
be morbid" when she spoke of herself as a dangerous companion, or
stopped me with a gasp in the midst of what seemed an innocent question
about her stepdaughter. Could it be possible that her alarms might
after all be justified, and that the powerful association betrayed by
O'Brien would visit his sins on his widow and daughter? That American
accent of Gemály's! He admitted having been in New York. Of course, he
had made acquaintances there. My thoughts flashed back to the meeting
at the railway train. Could the fellow have found out in advance that I
was with Mrs. O'Brien, [alias Jones] and her friends? It seemed as if
such knowledge could have reached land ahead of us only by miracle. But
there was always Marconi. Perhaps news of Miss Gilder had been sent by
wireless to Alexandria, with our humbler names starred as satellites of
that bright planet. If this were so, Bedr, instructed from afar to
watch Richard O'Brien's widow, might easily have been clever enough to
suborn a messenger waiting for one Ernest Borrow.

"What are you mumbling about?" Anthony wanted to know, when I forgot to
answer. "Have I put some idea that you don't like into your head?"

"I was turning your question over in it," I explained, "and wondering
what to answer. Of course, Miss Gilder's rather important, and I
believe her father's obsession used to be when she was a child, that
she'd be kidnapped for ransom. The 'little sprite of a woman' you
admire so much, knew the Gilders in those days. She says that the
unfortunate baby used to be dragged about in a kind of caged
perambulator, and that some of her nurses were female detectives in
disguise, with revolvers under their white aprons. No wonder the girl
revels in emancipation and travel! I should think, now she's grown up
to twenty-one years and five foot eight or nine of height, without
being kidnapped, there's not much danger so long as she keeps in the
boundaries of civilization. Still, one never knows, in such a queer
world as ours, where newspapers live on happenings we'd laugh to scorn
if they came out of novel writers' brains."

"That's the only incentive you can suggest for spying, unconnected with
my affairs?"

I hesitated, for Biddy's secret was not my secret, and it seemed that I
had no right to pass it on, even to my best friend. I must ask Biddy's
permission before telling Fenton that Mrs. Jones was the widow of the
informer Richard O'Brien; that she feared over-subtlety on the part of
the enemy might confuse her girl travelling companion with Esmé
O'Brien, hidden in a convent school near Monaco. "It's just credible
that there may be other incentives," I said. "But I must confess, I'd
rather believe that Armenian spies were on the track of Ahmed Antoun,
who can take care of himself, than after poor Miss Gilder or--any of
her party."

"What's the name of the laughing sprite?" suddenly asked Fenton.

"Mrs.--er--Jones. Brigit Jones."

"Where's her husband?"

"In his grave."

"Oh! Well, his widow looks ready to bubble over with the joy of life,
so I suppose we can't associate spies or anything shady with her?
That's too much to hope for?"

"Why to 'hope' for?"

"It would make her too interesting."

"Look here, my dear fellow, you can't have them both!"

The dark eyes of Antoun lit with a spark of surprise and laughter. "I
don't want either, thanks. I admire flowers, but I never gather them. I
leave them growing. However, you might tell me which one you want for
your own buttonhole?" "Really, I don't know," I mumbled, taken aback.
"All I do know is, it's not likely I can get either."

Anthony stared at me with a curious expression, then abruptly changed
the subject. "You've heard of Sir Marcus Lark?" he asked.

"Of course," said I, surprised at this question sandwiched into our
affairs. Sir Marcus Lark is a man who has had his finger in many pies,
but I didn't see how he could poke one into ours. Everybody knows Sir
M. A. Lark, given a baronetcy by the Radicals some years ago in return
for services to the party--starting and running a newspaper which must
have cost him fifty thousand pounds before it began to pay. He has
financed theatres, and vegetarian restaurants; he owns cocoa
plantations and factories, and a garden city; he has a racing yacht
which once beat the German Emperor's; he owns two hotels; he has
written a book of travel; his name as a director is sought by financial
companies; he has lent money to a distressed South American government
in the making; and though the success of his enterprises has sometimes
hung in the balance for months or years, his wonderful luck seems
invariably to triumph in the end; so much so, that "Lark's Luck" has
become a well-known heading for newspaper columns, in the middle of
which his photograph is inset. At the mention of his name, the oft-seen
picture rose before my eyes--a big man, anywhere between thirty-six and
fifty--good head, large forehead, curly hair, kind eyes, pugnacious
nose, conceited smile under waxed moustache, heavy jaw, unconquerable
chin, and prize-fighter's neck and shoulders. "What has Sir Marcus Lark
to do with us?" "He's in Egypt--in Cairo just now; and--he's got our
mountain."

"Good heavens!" I stared blankly at Anthony, seeing not his dark face
under the green turban, but that everlasting, ever-smiling newspaper
block portrait. Down toppled our castle in the air, Anthony's and
mine--the shining castle which had been the lodestone of my journey to
Egypt, the secret hope and romance of our two lives, for all those
months since Anthony first read the Ferlini papers and began
negotiations with the Egyptian Government.

"It's all up then," I said, when I felt that I could speak without
betraying palsy of the jaw. "We're done!"

"I'm not sure of that," Fenton answered. "If I had been, I shouldn't
have broken the news so brutally. It's on the cards that we may be able
to bring the thing off yet."

"But how, if that bounder has got the place for himself? He must have
found out the truth about it somehow, or he wouldn't have bothered. And
if he knows what we know--or think we know--he certainly won't give up
to us what he's grabbed for himself. A beastly shame we should have
been let in like this, after being given to understand that it would be
all right."

"Lark must have had a pull of some sort, I haven't learned what; but I
will. The one hope is, that he hasn't stumbled onto the secret."

"What! You think he hit on our pitch by a mere coincidence--an
accident?"

"No. There's not a shadow of doubt that he had a special motive for
wanting _our_ mountain and no other." "Have you formed an idea what the
motive is, if not the same as ours?"

"I've heard his version from his own lips. It's rather astounding. And
I want you to hear it from him, too."

"You've met him!"

"Yesterday at Shepheard's, before I went in for this dressing-up
business. Lark heard I had wired for a room at the hotel, and was lying
in wait for me on the terrace when I got back from the Agency. We had a
talk. I'd heard just before, the news about the mountain. But he
explained. Now he wants to see you. He's got something special to say,
and I've made an appointment for you with him at two o'clock."




CHAPTER VI

THE GREAT SIR MARCUS


The appointment was at the Semiramis Hotel, where Sir Marcus Lark was
staying. I went with my mind an aching void, and my heart a cold boiled
potato. I can think of nothing more disagreeable! For not a word more
would Fenton let drop as to the great man's business with us or the
Mountain of the Golden Pyramid.

I sent up my card, and a few minutes later was shown into a private
salon more appropriate to a beautiful young duchess than to a middle-aged,
bumptious financier. It was pale green and white, full of lilies
and fragrance, and an immense French window opened out upon a roofed
loggia overlooking the Nile. This would have been the ideal environment
for our Gilded Rose; and I felt more venomous than before, if possible,
toward the rich bounder who posed against such an unsuitable
background. I thought, as the door of the salon was opened for me by
the smart Arab servant, that the room was untenanted, and that Sir
Marcus Lark meant to keep me waiting; but there he was, on the balcony,
gazing in rapture at the shining river. As if he were capable of
raptures, he, an earth-bound worm! But there was no mistaking that
back, those shoulders, or the face, as the big body turned. He advanced
through the open window, holding out a hand as big as a steak. He was
exactly like his photograph, except that there was even more of him
than I had been led to expect. The pretty room was net small, but
entering, he seemed to turn it into a doll's house parlour. "Six foot
two, if he's an inch!" I said to myself, longing to play David to his
Goliath. "Big, rich, common brute!" I thought. "You snatch our mountain
out of our mouths, and then you send for us as if we were servants--men
whose boots you ought to be blacking!" I was vindictive. I stared him
straight between the eyes--where a stone from David's sling would have
fitted in neatly.

The eyes were wide apart, and kinder than in the photographs. They were
even curiously innocent, and boyish. His grin of greeting made the
large, waxed black moustache point joyously up. He showed teeth white
as a child's, and had dimples--actually dimples--in his big cheeks, to
say nothing of the one in his chin, with which snapshots had
familiarized me. He looked like a huge, overgrown schoolboy with a
corked moustache. My glare faded in the light of his smile. No man with
a gleam of humour could have kept a mask of grimness. I found my hand
enveloped in the pound of steak, and warmly shaken up and down inside
it.

"Lord Ernest Borrow, I'm delighted to see you. Very good of you to
come, I'm sure!" to David quoth Goliath, in a big voice, mellow despite
a slight Cockney accent. "Nice view I've treated myself to here, what?
I'm in Egypt on business, but I like to have pretty things around me
--pleasant colours and flowers and a view. That's a specialty of mine.
I'm great on specializing. And that brings me to what we have in
common; a scheme of yours; a scheme of mine."

I wanted to detest the man, but somehow couldn't. To hate him would be
hating an overpowering force, like heat, or electricity.

With an old-fashioned politeness he made me sit down, picking out my
chair, the most comfortable in the room, then taking the next best for
himself. He fitted into it as tightly as a ripe plum into its skin, and
talked with one leg crossed over the other and swinging, the points of
his brown fingers joined. I was glad they were brown.

"I'm afraid you're sore with me," he began, having ordered coffee and
liqueurs, and forced upon his guest a cigar as big as a sausage. "I've
got what you and your friend wanted; and I'm going to be frank with you
as I've been with him, and admit that I got it because you did want it.
Simply and solely for that reason and nothing else. He told you this?"

"He left the telling to you," I said, wondering why I wasn't more
furious than curious. But it was the other way round.

"Good egg! He promised he would, and he looks the sort of chap to keep
his promise. Well, I see you want me to get down to business, and I
will. I'm going to lay all my cards on the table. I came here to Egypt
for the first time in my life, to see a scheme through, and I landed on
the scene in time to find that I was likely to fail. I haven't told any
one else that, but your friend Fenton; for I never have made a business
failure yet, and I don't mean to now if I can help it. The scheme had
to be saved in a hurry if it could be saved at all; and when I set my
wits to work I saw that I must get hold of some such young men as you
and Captain Fenton to help me. I don't know how the thought of you two
popped into my head, but I suppose it was seeing a lot of stuff about
Fenton in the papers, his Balkan adventure, and the announcement that
he'd been recalled to his regiment. There were paragraphs about him as
a linguist, and an Egyptologist, and anecdotes of him as a smart
soldier. You know the sort of thing. And the stories about his
parentage caught my fancy a bit. They're romantic. I've got enough
romance in me to see that side of life, and to know how it goes down
with the women. This scheme of mine depends on women. Most schemes do.
At the same time the Egyptian papers were printing paragraphs about
Lord Ernest Borrow. I don't know whether you're aware of that or not?
No? Would you like to see 'em? I've had my secretary cut 'em out--and
the Fenton stuff, too. The minute this idea began to wiggle in my mind
like a tadpole in water, I kept everything."

"Don't trouble about the paragraphs, thanks," I said.

"All right. It will save our time not to. But your wish to go in with
your friend, for the rights of excavating in the Sudan, was mentioned,
and the delay on account of alleged interference with Garstang's
pitch."

"By Jove, I wonder how the reporters got onto that?" I couldn't help
exclaiming.

"It's their livelihood to get onto everything. 'Well then,' I said to
myself, 'Here's my chance, my only one. I want those two young men.
They're the right combination nation for me, to give real distinction
to my undertaking. I have money, but they ain't the sort you can buy
with money. There must be an incentive. If I get what they want,
perhaps I can get _them_.' So I went into the job tooth and nail.
Neither you nor Fenton was on the spot. I was--very much on it. Nothing
was definitely fixed up between the Government and Fenton for the right
to excavate at the Mountain of the Golden Pyramid, as they call the
little old molehill, and I scored. Now, if you two will do what I want,
you can have your mountain, and whatever you find you can keep. You're
worth more to me than any beads and broken-nosed statues under the sand
of Egypt. I think I've made some impression on your friend. He may be
inclined to go in with me, if you will. He's explained that in any case
he can't use his own name, on account of his position in the army and
so on. That's a disappointment to me, but I'll put up with it for the
sake of his accomplishments and his looks. Your name alone will carry
the necessary weight as a leader."

"You're very flattering," said I. "But I'm in the dark."

"I'm going to put you wise, as Americans say. My scheme was--and is--to
be a rival _de luxe_ of Cook on the Nile. Not only that, but all over
the near East. You've heard, of course, about my buying the Marquis of
Redruth's yacht _Candace,_ on his bankruptcy--the second biggest, and
the most up-to-date yacht in the world--and turning her into a pleasure
cruiser for the Mediterranean?"

"If I've heard, I'm afraid my memory's treacherous," said I, glad to
show how unimportant to me were the schemes of financiers, but
interested in the yacht's name, which carried my thoughts away to
Meröe.

"Great Scout! And I've spent two thousand in advertising! I've taken
whole pages of London and Continental papers!"

"I never read advertisements if I can help it, except of new patents in
razors. They're a fad of mine."

"Thank goodness you've got fads. Then we've something in common. I make
money out of my fads. I call 'em inspirations. I thought the _Candace_
business was one of my inspirations, and that I'd have some fun out of
it. I advertised her to start on her first pleasure cruise from
Marseilles to Gib, Algiers, Tangier, Tunis, Greece, Alexandria, and
Jaffa. 'That'll be a smack in the eye for the big liners,' I said to
myself. 'I'll skim the top layer of clotted cream off their passenger
lists!' I was going to do the thing _de luxe_ straight through--bid for
the swell set, exclusiveness my motto. Of course I didn't expect to hit
the dukes and dollar kings first shot, but I thought if everything went
right the passengers would tell their friends at home how much better
we did them on board than any one else had ever done, and we'd get a
'snowball' ad, that nothing could stop. All would have worked out first
rate, if I hadn't made one mistake. I engaged a retired army colonel
for a conductor on board my yacht. I got the man cheap. But I was a
fool to economize on him. I ought to have launched out on a belted
earl. Folks, especially Americans, don't like retired colonels. The
woods are full of 'em over there, crawling with 'em. Most Americans are
colonels and not retired. Besides, this chap of mine's no good anyhow
--fancies himself as a politician, and is a first-class snob; has no
tact; rubs up the passengers the wrong way, and outrages their
feelings. We got a lot of people from the north of England, rich and a
bit crude, like me. Will you believe it, Colonel Corkran began his job
by sneering audibly at 'provincials' to some beastly friend of his,
come to see him off at Marseilles? Instead of making his dinner-table
lectures a kind of travellogue as he was hired to do, he turns 'em into
political tirades, and calls the Liberals scoundrels, half of our folks
being red-hot Rads. Not only that, if the girls and boys talk while the
band's playin' any of his favourite airs, he hisses out 'Silence,'
through a hole in his mouth where one tooth's missin'. That tooth bein'
gone, has got on the girls' nerves worse than anything else, it would
seem, except his being down on Suffragettes. And the crisis was reached
when he insulted Miss Hassett Bean, the richest and most important
woman in the bunch, when she expressed her political opinions. Said to
her, 'My dear lady, why do you bother to have opinions? They give you a
lot of trouble to collect, and nobody else will trouble to listen. Why
not collect insects or stamps instead?' Of course she did think Germany
had already invaded England with a large army of soldiers disguised as
hotel waiters, which was calculated to rile an old officer; but that's
no excuse for a man who's paid to please. And now the fellow's
wondering why he's not popular with the passengers!"

I laughed, but Sir Walter had worked himself into a state past smiling
point. "It's no laughing matter," he said, "This snob Corkran's killing
my scheme. There's a plot on foot for the party to walk off the yacht
at Alexandria, and demand half their passage money. Some old grampus on
board has started the story that the _Candace_ has been down three
times------"

"A lie, of course," I soothed him.

"A dastardly lie. She's been down only twice. The first time was a
collision, the second a coincidence."

"But I thought she was the most up-to-date yacht in the world!"

"So she is, as the _Candace._ That was the Marquis's name for her: gave
it after a trip to Egypt. He bought her second hand, and rechristened
her while she was being redecorated. He spared no expense, which he
could well afford, seeing that he never paid a penny. I got her at cost
price, as you may say. But these plotters are going to claim that they
were inveigled on board under false pretences, by my advertising the
_Candace_ as the newest thing in yachts. I've had a letter and several
cypher telegrams from the assistant conductor, a useful chap, telling
me the whole story of the plot, which he's nosed out; and I'm faced
with humiliating failure unless I can save the situation by a grand
coup at the eleventh hour. Now, you can guess why on the spur of the
moment I bought up your rights to dig in the Sudan, can't you?"

"I confess I can't," I said.

"Why, I want you to take Colonel Corkran's place on the _Candace_ as
conductor. And I want you and your friend Fenton to go up Nile in
charge of the splendid steam dahabeah I've bought to supplement the
Mediterranean trip. There you have my motives in a nutshell!"

I burst out laughing. "A cracked nutshell," I remarked. Sir Marcus'
rosy face turned royal purple. "What--you won't undertake it?"

"I couldn't," I assured him. "For one thing, I'd be a fish out of
water. My dear sir, perhaps you don't know that my nickname since the
age of five has been 'Duffer?' I'm proud of it. I take pains to live up
to it----"

"I bet you do. I bet it opens doors and lays down velvet carpets for
you. Why, a duffer with a title is exactly what I want! Duffers are the
rage nowadays. You and your friend will make a brilliant pair, a fine
contrast, especially with your friend's present get up. If you'd both
been born for me you couldn't suit me better."

I laughed again. "You said you ought to have launched out on belted
earls. We're humble----"

"There's no earls handy, and if there were any, they wouldn't be what
you two are in looks and talents, to say nothing of your brother being
a marquis. I'm offering you both the softest kind of job. All you have
to do is to be agreeable young gentlemen, with a knowledge of society,
and history; that means, you can be yourselves. You get a fine trip on
high salaries if you don't scorn to accept my money; and as a reward
for a good holiday you receive the right to explore your golden
mountain. I suppose you must think it _is_ a golden mountain, or you
wouldn't be such nuts on it. You'd better consult your friend before
you refuse my offer, anyhow."

"Haven't you heard that Fenton's left Cairo?" I took the precaution to
ask. "That doesn't look as if he were entertaining the idea of going up
the Nile on your steam dahabeah." "I have heard that he's left. But I
happen to know--it isn't so. I saw him standing in front of Shepheard's
Hotel this morning, waiting for you. I got on to what was in that green
turban before the pretty girl in white--Miss Gilder, I've found out
since--called him on to the terrace. Don't look as if you wanted to eat
me, Lord Ernest. I've won my way up from the bottom rung of the ladder
by keeping my eyes open, and by putting two and two together. I
specialize on that. I don't suppose there's another man in Cairo except
me and you, would have recognized Fenton, so you needn't worry. I
twigged that he'd dressed up for serious business, not for fun, because
I read about some smart coups he'd brought off by going among the
natives like one of themselves. I'm not a sneak, and I shan't revenge
myself by giving him away, even if you two do show me the frozen face.
Captain Fenton encouraged me to think he might consider my proposition
if you would, though he refused to influence your decision one way or
the other. Naturally I conclude that he could be on my Nile boat if he
wanted to, even if not in his own capacity as an officer. I'll take him
in his green turban. He makes the best looking Egyptian I ever saw, and
he'd go down with the ladies like hot cakes."

"Sir Marcus," I smiled, "you're one of the most amusing as well as the
sharpest men, if you'll allow me to say so, that I ever met. Whatever
happens I shall not forget this conversation."

"I don't want you to forget it," he grinned, beginning to hope. "Think
it over. We're the chance of a lifetime for each other. And remember
the Mountain of the Golden Pyramid." I rose, and he got up heavily.
"When will you let me know?" he asked.

I was tempted to reply that he must have taken Fenton's seeming
encouragement too seriously, that, mountain or no mountain, it was
practically impossible for us to accept his amazing proposition. But
suddenly I seemed to hear "Antoun Effendi" telling Miss Gilder that she
must wait for his decision until evening. He had said afterward, also,
that it depended on me. It was evident that he had a scheme of his own,
worked by wheels within wheels. He had consoled me after the first blow
by saying that all was not lost. And I had four months' leave from
duty. A lot could be done in four months. "I will let you know before
night," I said to Sir Marcus Lark.




CHAPTER VII

THE REVELATIONS OF A RETIRED COLONEL


Fenton's orders were, when the Cairo business should be finished, to go
slowly up the Nile in native dress, and get at the truth of certain
rumours which had disturbed officialdom at Cairo. At Denderah, Luxor,
and two or three other places there had been "incidents," small but
troublesome. English sightseers had complained of being hustled, and
even insulted by the inhabitants of several river towns, and it was
important to find out whether the Egyptians or the foreigners had been
more to blame; whether there were real symptoms of sedition, as
reported, or whether the young men of the suspected places had merely
resented with roughness some discourtesy of tactless tourists. Fenton
had seized upon the idea that, as Egyptian lecturer and conductor--a
sort of super-dragoman--on board Lark's Nile boat, he might find a
plausible pretext for his secret errand. "Why do you travel?" would be
the question he must expect from suspicious leaders of any plot that
might be hatching, if he journeyed from one Nile village to another
without the excuse of business. As a glorified conductor of a pleasure-trip
for a party of tourists his excuse would be readymade for him; but
he had been far from sure that I would fall in with Sir Marcus Lark's
plan, despite the bribe. He had wanted me to hear the whole story, the
whole project, from Sir Marcus' own lips; and in his uncertainty of the
result, he had thought of Miss Gilder as an attractive "victim." There
she was, as he had said, presented to him by Providence. If I should
pour scorn upon the Lark suggestion, he might find it worth while to
guide the Gilded Girl and her friends on their Nile pilgrimage. He left
the question for me, and I decided to kill as many birds as possible
with one stone. The name of the yacht was in itself an incentive:
_Candace_--Queen of Meröe--our Meröe. She seemed to call, and to
promise good luck. We would accept Lark's terms, and enter his service
in return for a written agreement to hand over his ill-got digging
rights to us, whether or no we turned out to be satisfactory as guides.
We could but do our best, and at all events we should earn the reward
which we had looked upon as ours already. Anthony would play his double
part, serving the interests of government and those of Sir Marcus Lark.
As for Monny Gilder, why shouldn't she and her party become Lark's
passengers? The only reason against this "inspiration" (as Sir Marcus
would have called it), lay in the fact that Monny wished to engage a
private dahabeah. When she wished for a thing, it appeared that only a
miracle or a cataclysm could induce her to give it up for something
else suggested by an outsider. But when I mentioned this peculiarity to
Fenton, he was fired to punish the girl by forcing her compliance with
our will. She had treated him like a servant. She looked upon a man
supposedly of Egyptian blood, even though of princely birth, somewhat
as she looked upon an American "nigger." True, Anthony Fenton had in
his veins but very few such drops. On his father's side he was all
English, and his mother had been more than two thirds Greek and
Italian. Nevertheless this spoilt girl had struck a blow at the pride
which went ever walking about the world with a chip lightly poised on
its shoulder. Anthony had no desire to poach on my preserves. At the
same time he yearned to show Miss Gilder that he could be her master,
not her servant.

Once Anthony and I had made up our minds, everything else arranged
itself with lightning speed. Sir Marcus, rejoicing in his ill-got
conquest of us, broke to me the news that I must go by the first ship
to the Piraeus, to meet the _Candace,_ and head off the recalcitrant
band of passengers. He flattered me by thinking that, if I took the
place of Colonel Corkran as conductor, they would abandon their plot to
desert the yacht at Alexandria. It was, according to Lark's secret
information, only the "smart and would-be smart set" who had combined
to spring this mine upon the management. The rest grumbled no more than
it was normal for all pleasure-pilgrims to grumble; and as, roughly
speaking, the contented travellers were all going on to Palestine after
a week's wild sightseeing in Cairo, the colonel might be allowed to
continue his voyage without the interruption of a "row."

"I should have had enough common sense at the start," growled Sir
Marcus with crude candour, "to engage a lord for the Smart Set, and a
parson for the Ernest Inquirers. There's a world of difference catering
for a Set, and a Flock. The art is, to know it, and how to do it. Now
I've secured you, I'm all right with the S. S. and thanks be, I've a
young reformed missionary on board to shepherd the Flock. Now the
Reverend Watts will come in handy, herding his sheep through Palestine,
while the colonel swaggers and fancies he's bossing the show. It's the
Egypt lot I worry about: girls out for dukes, and dukes out for
dollars. Not that there's a darned duke on board, but there are some
who think they out-duke the dukes, and it's our business to humour 'em.
You just duff all you want to, Lord Ernest, they'll swallow anything
you do, like honey. Don't bother about a line of conduct: only be
genial. Murmur soft nothings to the women; flirt but don't have
favourites. Don't be too political with the men: work in plenty of
anecdotes about your swell relations."

I replied that I could confidently promise geniality, except if
seasick: but Sir Marcus implored me at all costs not to be seasick.
That was the one thing I must not be. My whole time between the Piraeus
and Alexandria, on board the _Candace,_ must be spent ingratiating
myself with the sulky passengers, and obliterating from their memories
the crimes of Colonel Corkran. In Sir Marcus' opinion my future charges
had taken passage on the _Candace,_ and would go up the Nile, not to
see sights, but to be seen doing the right things. According to him not
two out of twenty cared tuppence for Egypt, but wished to talk about it
in sparkling style at home. My friend Captain Fenton and I must make it
sparkle. Sir Marcus had resigned himself to the fact that one of his
trump cards--Anthony--could not be produced until the arrival in Cairo
of the troupe, and that even then, the name of Fenton must not be used
as an attraction. Lark felt confident that I was a good enough card to
make his hand worth playing, and in spite of the half contemptuous
amusement with which I regarded the whole scheme, I couldn't help being
"on my mettle." I found myself wanting to succeed, wanting to please
the big, common man whom a few hours ago I had been cursing.

I had to start for Greece the night after our decision. Meanwhile, I
was anxious to explain the unexplainable to Brigit and Monny, and
secure the party for Sir Marcus Lark's alleged dahabeah, which turned
out to be one of Cook's old boats bought and newly decorated. Both my
tasks would be difficult. I had to hide the secret reason for selling
myself to the financier, and at the same time keep the respect of the
ladies. As for inducing Miss Gilder to give up her dream of a private
dahabeah, I foresaw that it would be like persuading the youngest
lioness in the Cairo Zoo to surrender her cherished wooden ball. But I
began by giving Monny a present; a fine old turban-box of rare, red
tortoise shell inlaid with mother of pearl, which I found at an
antiquary's. In the silklined box reposed a green turban; and that
green turban told its own story. Miss Gilder flushed with pleasure at
sight of it. "I've won my bet!" she exclaimed.

"Yes," said I. "To my astonishment! The man consents. He's a great
prize, knows Cairo and upper Egypt like a book. But you'll have to
surrender him when you go on the Nile."

In her haste to know why, Monny forgot to ask how I had obtained the
green turban; and for this I was glad, because it was only the second
best headgear of my smart friend the Hadji. In explaining that the
distinguished Egyptian had been engaged by Sir Marcus Lark, I slipped
in a word about my own part in the trip, describing it as an ideal
rest-cure for a budding diplomat on sick leave. I praised the boat and
spoke of the fun on board. I regretted Miss Gilder's preference for a
private dahabeah, so obvious, so millionairy! Still, I added, every one
to his taste! And anyhow, no doubt all the best cabins on the
_Enchantress Isis_ were taken.

That was the entering wedge--the mention of an obstacle to overcome.
Miss Gilder looked thoughtful, though she kept silence: and next day,
when making my adieux before starting for Alexandria, she flung out a
careless question. When would the _Enchantress Isis_ leave Cairo? How
many passengers would she carry? Would there be a rush at the Temples,
or would there be plenty of time for proper sightseeing? And was I sure
that all the nicest cabins were engaged? No, I was not sure. I could
inquire. I tried not to look triumphant, but I must have darted out a
ray, because Monny withdrew into her shell. She had inquired out of
curiosity, she explained. I had told such stories about the
_Enchantress Isis_ that she would like to see her. Perhaps Antoun
Effendi could get permission for a visit to the boat.

In this state I had to leave affairs, and start for the Piraeus, where
I must await the return of the tourists from Athens. I had two days at
sea in which to work up an agony of apprehension, and I could have
thanked heaven when, arriving on board the big white yacht, I found
that I was ahead of the passengers. I was expected, however, and a deck
cabin was ready for my occupation. I hoped that I had not turned out my
rival from the room, but dared not question the steward. He seemed to
know all about me, nevertheless, and said that my name had been "posted
up" as conductor of the Nile party. "If I may take the liberty of
mentioning it, my lord," he added, "it has made a very good
impression." We were to steam for Alexandria the moment the passengers
arrived in the special train--having had three days of sightseeing in
Athens--and I had just got my possessions stowed away when a wave of
chattering voices broke over the ship. My heart gave a jump, as a
soldier's must when called to fight on an empty stomach at dawn on a
winter's morning. What ought I to do? How was I to make the
acquaintance of my future charges? Must it be en masse, or could it be
done singly? I had neglected to ask Sir Marcus what would be expected
of me, and I was in a worse funk than a new boy on his first day at
school. Soon it would be dinner time. I wished that I were ill, but I
remembered that the one thing I must not do was to be seasick. Already
the ship was beginning to move out of the Greek harbour, or I should
have been tempted to get a telegram calling me home. Even the Mountain
of the Golden Pyramid seemed not too great a sacrifice to make--but it
was too late to make it--and some one was knocking at my door.

I opened it with such courage as I had; and the instant I set eyes on
the man I knew that he was Colonel Corkran. He was born to be a retired
colonel. What came before the retiring could have been but a prelude. A
stout figure of middle height; red face, veined on cheeks and nose;
pale blue eyes which looked as if they had faded in the wash; purple
moustache and eyebrows; close-cropped gray hair; a double chin
clamouring for extra collar space; and a bridge-player's expression.
This was the rival whose place I had virtually, though not officially,
usurped.

I was prepared to hear him hiss "Viper!" between his teeth, as
characters in melodramatic serials do to perfection, their front teeth
having doubtless been designed for such purposes. But his look seemed
to denote pity rather than hatred. So might a prison-warder regard a
condemned man, in coming to announce the hour of execution.

"Lord Ernest Borrow?" said he, in a slightly hoarse voice. "I'm Colonel
Corkran. Delighted to meet you. I've met your brother, Lord Killeena.
Daresay he wouldn't remember me. I don't think I can begin better than
by thanking you for coming to take over my job."

"Oh, I haven't done that!" I hastened to protest, as he sat fatly down
in a chair I pushed forward. "As I understand, I'm to take a few people
off your hands, and the hands of your assistant, Mr. Kruger, so that
you can go to Palestine instead of leaving that important excursion
entirely to the chaplain, Mr. Watts."

Colonel Corkran laughed. "Thank you for trying to save my feelings,"
said he. "But I assure you they're not hurt. I'm sincerely delighted to
see you--for my own sake. For yours--well, that's another pair of
shoes! My dear fellow, I wonder if you've the smallest idea what you're
in for?"

"In for?" I echoed.

"Yes. I'm saying this as a friend. Don't think I'm jealous. Lord, no! I
look on you as a deliverer. And don't think I want to frighten you. It
isn't that. But I feel it's my duty to prepare you. I might have got on
better if there'd been some one to do the same by me. There wasn't.
Kruger, my so-called assistant, is a spy. At best, he's a mere
accountant, not supposed to look after the passengers socially. I
gather that he was some secretary of Lark's. Beware of him. He writes
to Lark from every port. As for the passengers, the saintly lot are bad
enough. Yet it's only the food and the cabins and the attendance _they_
grumble about. I'm shunted off the worldly lot onto them in future. But
at their worst, they'll be a rest-cure! and Lark has the decency not to
reduce my screw. It's the worldly lot that's going to make you curse
the day you were born."

He wanted me to speak, or groan; but I maintained a stricken silence,
to which I gave some illusion of dignity. After a disappointed pause he
went on: "You'd better know something about these people. Beasts, every
one of 'em, young or old, some beastly common beasts, but all beastly
rich, except those that are beastly poor, and on the make--to marry
their daughters, or cadge for smart friends. Lark was bidding for
swells, and got snobs. Thinks his silly title will carry weight in
society as it does in the city. 'Lark Pie,' we're called, I hear. I
call us a 'Pretty Kettle of Fish!' The girls are the worst of the
caboodle, though some of 'em aren't bad looking. You won't believe the
trouble I've had with the creatures till you begin to get the same
yourself."

"What kind of trouble?" I inquired gingerly.

"Every kind a woman can make. Apart from food troubles, they think
they're not being entertained enough on board; think I ought to get up
more dances; tango teas I suppose! Don't like the way I organize games;
are mad because they can't have music at meals--which they can't
because the band's all stewards; blame me because the men don't make
love to them, or because they do. And at the hotels where we go on
shore, it's Hades. Naturally the people staying in the hotels resent
us. They look on us as a menagerie--a rabble. So we are. At least, they
are. I don't count myself in with them. What can I do? I'm not
omnipotent. Perhaps you are. Anyhow, they're prepared to believe it,
for you're a new broom--a broom with a fine handle. I'm only a poor
colonel with a few medals given by my country for services that were
appreciated. You're brother to a marquis."

"You paint a lurid picture" I said, when he stopped for breath.

"I couldn't paint it lurider than it is. But you'll have to find out
for yourself. It won't be so bad while you're a novelty. Don't say I
haven't warned you. And oh, by the way, I've announced that you're to
be presented to the passengers at dinner to-night, on coming in, before
the soup is served."

"As a sort of _hors d'oeuvre,_ I suppose," I murmured weakly.

Colonel Corkran stared, without a smile. "As the titled conductor of
the Egypt tour," he explained to my dull intelligence, with a slight
sneer. "So will you please be in the dining saloon just before the
bugle blows the beasts in? I have to introduce you, in a short speech.
It's all I can do, except say, God help you! But I don't see how He
can. I suppose your friend Sir Marcus told you that you would be
expected to deliver a lecture on Egypt, to-night at the dinner table?
After you've finished your dinner, of course. I hope the cracking and
crunching of nuts doesn't disturb you much? I confess I've found it
getting on my nerves."

I was aghast. My mind jumped to the wild thought of eating soap, in
order to froth at the mouth and simulate a fit. It seemed my only way
of escape, and after that, the Deluge. But my rival was so revelling in
the mental havoc he had wrought that I rallied, replying that, as Sir
Marcus had not broken the news to me, I didn't see how it would be
possible to deliver a lecture.

"Aren't you up on Egypt?" the colonel asked, pityingly. "Neither am I,
though I've sweated over Baedeker with my head in wet towels, when I
wanted to be at bridge. But I thought that was the excuse for engaging
you? That, and your title, of course, which is going to make you
popular. As fast as I fag up the names of those beastly Egyptian gods
or kings and queens, they run out of my brains like water out of a
sieve. Or if I do contrive to remember any, by chance, together with
their dates, which is almost more than can be expected of the human
intellect, why, I find that I pronounce 'em wrong; or they're spelled
another way in the next book. But I suppose as you know Egypt, its d--d
history comes natural as breathing."

How I wished it did! And how different was this new programme from the
one outlined by Sir Marcus. Just to be genial, and flirt with the
girls. "My recollections of Egypt are from some time ago," I admitted.
"To give a lecture at half an hour's notice.----"

"In justice to yourself I'm afraid you'll have to," the colonel
persisted. "It's been announced that you will give the lecture, and the
Egypt lot are looking forward to it as the animals in a zoo look
forward to their food. If they're defrauded, they'll think you a
slacker, and that you're presuming on your title."

"I shouldn't like that!" my anguish racked out of me.

"I fancied you wouldn't. But what's to be done? Am I to announce, when
I introduce you, that your knowledge of Egypt isn't equal to the
strain?"

I took an instant for reflection. I knew that he was hoping I might
throw myself on his mercy, or else that I would speak and fail; but I
determined to do neither. "On second thoughts, I may be able to give
some kind of a pow-wow," I replied.

Colonel Corkran's face fell. "That's all right, then!" he exclaimed,
getting to his feet. "Well, I must be off. Will you have a cocktail?"

"No, thanks," said I. "I think I can get on without it."

He was at the door. "Kind of hash of gods and goddesses with a
peppering of kings and queens, and mixed sauce of history and legend,
is what's needed," were his farewell words. Then he shut the door; and
I tore my watch from the pocket of my waistcoat. I had twenty-eight
minutes in which to prepare the said hash with its seasoning and sauce;
and the bugle was inviting my judges to dress for the inquisition.




CHAPTER VIII

FOXY DUFFING


"I'll show you your place," Corkran volunteered, lying in wait for me
inside the saloon door, with a cocktail in his hand. "Sorry you
wouldn't have one. You'll need it. But no time to change your mind.
I've put you at the head of the table that would be the captain's, if
he ate with us, which he doesn't--happy man! Place of honour. 'Twas
mine, 'tis yours. But I can't go on with the quotation unless I turn it
into 'You're slave to thousands.' Sixty odd can be as formidable as
thousands."

"Are there sixty odd?" I asked.

"Yes, very 'odd.' The Egypt lot will be about twenty-five. But the
whole gang's yours for the present. I give them to you, with the seat
of honour."

"Please don't put me in your place," I protested. "I prefer------"

"My poor boy, it isn't a question of what you prefer, as you'll learn
if you stick this out. Of course if you funk it--but that's a joke!
This table's the only one where you can be heard. Do you see?"

I did see; and accepted the situation, because the dinner bugle began
to sound, and I could not be scampering round the saloon like a
frightened rabbit as the Set and the Flock began dropping in to dinner.
As it happened, they did not drop--they poured into the room in a
steady stream, which phenomenon, whispered Corkran, was caused by
curiosity for a first sight of me. My heart counted each new arrival,
with a bump.

If Corkran had not represented "Lark's Party" as being a menagerie for
which I had inadvertently engaged as tamer, I should have thought they
looked a harmless crowd. But then, of course, I was not obliged to tame
anybody on the _Laconia,_ which makes a difference in one's point of
view. Miss Gilder needed taming, no doubt, but I hadn't tackled the
task. My thoughts flew to Cairo, as I stood struggling to look
pleasant; and I wished myself back where Anthony Fenton was now in the
taming business. I envied him, for there was only one Monny, whereas in
this terrible, bright dining saloon, the air was pink and white with
girls, dozens of girls, with eyes fixed on me, glittering eyes, which
appeared like the headlights of motor cars. I didn't suppose there
could be so many eyes in the world as these people of all ages and
every possible sex seemed to own. Sixty odd they were, according to
Corkran, but they looked like six hundred; a human miracle of loaves
and fishes.

Yes, the creatures might have appeared harmless enough had there been
no retired colonel. But there was a retired colonel, and so deftly had
he undermined my courage that almost any shock might cause it to
explode in a blue flame of funk. His speech of introduction was now to
come, and if I survived that, I might hope to live through my own
fireworks.

"They've put on their best bibs and tuckers," Corkran mumbled in a
stage whisper, as the eight dwellers at our table began to sort
themselves for places. Then, in portentous silence he paused till
everybody everywhere was seated. Waiting still, until satisfied that
eyes and ears were focussed upon us, he rapped on the table with the
handle of a knife.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he roared, "I have the pleasure of introducing
to you Sir Marcus Lark's Great Surprise, entitled Lord Ernest Borrow,
younger brother of the Marquis of Killeena, a peer, as Sir Marcus has
reminded us, of the oldest lineage in Ireland. Let me reassure you all
by saying that Lord Ernest's last name is as unsuited to his nature as
the first is true to it. If you'll pardon the pun it is Sir Marcus who
'Borrows' for your benefit, and he hasn't Borrowed Trouble, but a
Blessing--in disguise. I am now left free, as suits my superior age and
experience, to devote my attention to the serious minded ones among
you, who are to proceed with the Reverend Mr. Watts and myself to
Palestine. This young and gallant neophyte will 'lord' it over the
fleshpots of Egypt and those about to seek them. I hope you'll help him
as loyally as you have helped _me:_ and later we'll drink to his health
and success, in any beverage we happen to have signed for!"

To have killed Corkran might have been butchery; no jury could have
brought in a verdict of murder or even manslaughter, had I stabbed him
with the knife he used to pound upon the table. I smiled the smile of a
skull in a doctor's waiting-room, and in a sickly voice bleated my
pleasure in meeting these new acquaintances. I hoped we might be--er
--friends as well as shipmates. Then like a mass of jelly out of its
mould I plopped onto my chair. The colonel had sneaked off to his own
table and I was left to recover myself as best I might among eight of
his enemies. They proved (in whispers) to be the most active of these,
and tacitly offered me allegiance which I accepted in the same manner.
There was a Sir John Biddell, who informed me in the first five minutes
that he had been Lord Mayor of London. He promised to show me a speech
he had made in the presence of King Edward which, in the form of a
newspaper cutting, he never travelled without. This, however, was his
first trip farther than Paris, and he had brought with him, not only
the speech, but his wife and twin daughters. The distinguished family
occupied one side of my table: the other was given up to a General
Harlow, his wife (both with high profiles and opinions of themselves),
a youngish newspaper proprietor from Manchester, evidently rich and a
"catch," and a maiden lady doubtless of importance equal to her
proportions, as she was allowed to bring to the table a melancholy
marmoset. These people did their best to raise my spirits. The girls,
who copied royalties in their hair-dressing, looked alike, dressed
alike, talked and laughed alike, and entertained me with chat about
high society in London. They had red cheeks, black eyes, white teeth,
and an almost indecent familiarity with the private lives of the
aristocracy. The Misses Biddell and fat Miss Hassett-Bean (the lady of
the marmoset) hinted that the cream of the yacht's social life had
risen to our table, and told me, not only what to lecture about, but
how to treat the rival cliques. My brain felt more and more like a
blotting-pad. I answered at random and longed for the meal to end
--until I remembered my lecture. Then I wished that dinner might go on
indefinitely like the tea party of the Mad Hatter. All too soon the
glory of a French menu flickered down to a dying spark of nuts and
raisins, and hardly had I cracked my first almond (was it an ill omen
that there should be a worm in it?) when a steward handed me a twisted
note from the executioner. "The rule for conductor's dinner speech is,
rise with the raisins! Hope you won't find your lecture too hard a nut
to crack. Yours sympathetically, Corkran. Bang on the table to make
them stop gabbling. Or shall I do it for you? If you haven't by the
time I count ten, I will."

He did. I trust it wasn't my courage that failed. But having a raisin
in my mouth I could not on the instant respond to the lash. And as
Corkran would have said, it takes more than one swallow to make a
speech. Ruthlessly he rapped, seizing what I wished might be his dying
chance to indulge a mania for puns and thumping wood.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he bawled from his comparatively obscure
corner. "Lord Ernest Borrow will render your last moments the most
enjoyable of the meal, by washing down your nuts and raisins with the
wine of his eloquence. Take your desserts now. We conscientious
conductors hope for ours in heaven."

How ardently I desired that these might indeed be the "last moments"
not only of my audience but of Colonel Corkran. If the next second had
brought a tidal wave or a collision I should have blessed Providence.
But I got to my feet--and nothing happened. I seemed to be in a dream,
of having shot up to a gigantic height, and having put on the wrong
clothes, or none. My hands weighed two pounds each, and ought to have
been at the butcher's. My mouth was the size of a negro minstrel's, and
so full of large bones which once had been teeth that I could not utter
a syllable. I clacked my jaws, and emitted a hacking cough which
fortunately so much resembled that of a professional lecturer that I
kept my senses. Not only did I keep them, but they seemed suddenly to
become my servants. The thought of a certain fable jumped into my head,
and I began thereupon to speak; although I had forgotten everything I
had ever read of Egyptian history.

"It happens," said I, in a phonographic voice, "that I was born in
Egypt. I played with clay gods and goddesses instead of tin soldiers. I
preferred stories of Egypt's past and present to tales of adventure. I
confess to you what I fear I didn't confess to Sir Marcus Lark. The
trouble is, I'm stuffed too full of facts about Egypt. I want you to
help me get them out, and not duplicate yours. No doubt all of you, in
travelling to the East, have packed your brains with knowledge as well
as your boxes with guide books. Why should I bore you by telling you
things that you were born knowing? A plan has occurred to me by which
your knowledge can be turned into account. As I said, I beg your help.
And permission to drink a cup of coffee would be first aid."

People laughed, whether at me, or with me, I was not sure; yet I felt
that I had tickled their curiosity. Coffee was going round. Corkran was
unctuously sipping his, and had not expected me to receive mine till
after the battle. But I got it in spite of him, and mapped out a
programme as I drank. Then I ceased to tremble before the confused
assemblage or bird-headed gods, cat-faced goddesses, and sacred
vultures that danced or flapped in my brain.

I no longer felt inclined to commit suicide because I could remember
nothing about Egypt except that the Delta was shaped like a lily, with
the Fayum for a bud, and the Nile for its stem: that Alexander the
Macedonian defeated Darius the Persian B. C. three hundred and
something; that ancient Egyptians loved beer, but were forbidden to eat
beans.

"My proposal is," I went on, "that before I unload any of my knowledge
upon you, I gleam some idea of what you know already. Thus I can spare
you repetitions. Any one who has anything particularly interesting to
say about Egypt, let him--or her--hold up a hand."

Now was the crucial moment. If no hand went up, I was lost. But hardly
were the words out of my mouth when there was a waving as if in a
wind-swept wheatfield _Place aux dames!_ I called upon Miss Hassett-Bean
to begin. She rustled silkily up, bowing to me, then directing an
acetylene glare upon Colonel Corkran's end of the room. She was, I
foresaw, about to kill two birds with one stone, to say nothing of the
marmoset, who fell off her arm into General Harlow's coffee and created
a brief diversion. As soon, however, as the monkey was rescued and
before General Harlow's shirt front was dried, the lady began to speak.

"We all thank Lord Ernest," she said, looking from the colonel to the
Reverend Wyman Watts, and back again, "for sparing us one of those
commonplace inflictions from which we've nightly suffered on board this
yacht. If we didn't know already, such school-book facts as
Christianity being introduced to Egypt by St. Mark in Nero's time, and
Moses and Plato both studying philosophy at Heliopolis, and things like
that, we wouldn't be spending our money with Sir Marcus A. Lark to see
Egypt. Never before have we been encouraged to air our views. Those of
us with political opinions have been snubbed; and we who are interested
in Woman Suffrage have been assured that we'll find nothing to please
us in the land of Veiled Women. At last I am given a chance to state
without being interrupted that Egypt was once the most enlightened
country in her treatment of women. Long before the time of the Greeks,
and even before the Shepherd Kings Mr. Watts has told us so much about,
using his Old Testament as if it were a Baedeker, the women of Ancient
Egypt had rights according to their class. Queens and princesses were
considered equal with their husbands. Women were great musicians,
playing on many instruments, especially the sistrum, sacred to the
goddess Hathor. And weren't all the best gods goddesses, when you come
to think of it? Women used to drive their own chariots, as we do our
motors, and hold salons, like the French ladies. There was Rhodopis,
for instance, who married the brother of Sappho. I wonder if Colonel
Corkran could have told you that the story of Cinderella comes from an
anecdote of Rhodopis? I hardly think that he's been able to spare
enough time from bridge to study Strabo, who was the Baedeker of Egypt
for tourists six hundred years before Christ. An eagle saw Rhodopis
bathing, and stealing one of her sandals flew with it to Memphis, where
he dropped it into the king's lap. It was so small and dainty that King
Hophra scoured Egypt for the owner, and when he found her at last,
according to Strabo, made her his queen."

"If Strabo was right, she lived long before Sappho's day!" interpolated
the colonel's voice.

"Of course, Strabo was right. There were two of Rhodopis. Everybody
knows that. The Third Pyramid was built for the tomb of the first one,
_not_ for King Mycineris, _I_ believe. Why shouldn't a woman have a
Pyramid to herself? The Sphinx is a woman, as I will insist to my dying
day, if it were my last word! I hope Lord Ernest won't ram down our
throats any nonsense about that noble and graceful tribute to the
Mystery of Womanhood being a stupid King Harmachis, or Horemkhu. I
wouldn't believe it if I found a hundred nasty stone beards lying
buried in the sand under her chin, instead of one, which could easily
have been put there to deceive people. Probably King Harmachis had the
Sphinx altered to look like him. No wonder she shuddered at such
profanation, and shed her false beard. There you have my theory. And as
for Egypt being now the land of Veiled Women, where Suffragettes find
no sympathy, I've heard that the prophet's order for veiling has been
purposely misconstrued by tyrannical men, with their usual jealousy.
Even Mohammed himself was jealous."

With this Miss Hassett-Bean sat down, amid fitful applause; and at my
earnest request, Miss Enid Biddell, the prettier twin, stood bravely
up. She wished, before the subject was changed, to tell some little
things she had read about the girls of Ancient Egypt, how like they
were to girls of to-day, in all their ways, especially in--in things
concerning love. It was they who first questioned the petals of flowers
for their lovers' loyalty. How much they thought about their clothes,
too, getting their best things from foreign countries, as women did
now, from Paris! It was so funny to read how the girls of Old Egypt had
consulted palmists and fortune tellers and astrologers just as girls
did in Bond Street now; and that what 'Billikens' and 'Swasticas' and
birth-stones were to us, images of gods were to the girls of Egypt who
lived before the days of Moses! They had scarab rings with magic
inscriptions, and sacred apes for the symbol of Intelligence, and lucky
eyes of Horus, wounded by the wicked god Set, and cured by the love of
Isis. On their bracelets and necklaces they hung charms, and their
dressing-tables were covered with images of favourite gods and
goddesses. Hathor, the goddess of Love and Joy, was supposed to give
her choicest gifts to girls who wore her special colour (that green-blue
in the Temple of Edfu which Robert Hichens calls "the colour of
love") and to those who had her pet stones, emeralds, or turquoises.
Nowadays, in Egypt, the jewels of the women Were only lent to them by
their men, and could be taken away as a punishment, or be pawned or
sold in case of need; but in old days Egyptian women had all their most
beautiful possessions buried with them.

When her sister had finished I urged the other twin to speak, and
timidly Miss Elaine repeated to us what a friend of hers, a clergyman
(here a blush) had told her. That the Red Sea was not red but a
brighter blue than any sea in the world, and called red only because it
washed the Red Lands. Her friend had written down for her in verse
_such_ a sweet legend about the Nile rising every spring from a single
tear shed by Isis, a _much_ more powerful goddess than Hathor, because
she was the goddess of goodness as well as love. And the Nile used to
be named Sihor by the Egyptians; and the year separated into three
seasons, Flood time, Seed time, and Harvest. Miss Biddell's friend was
writing a book about Egypt and was going to divide it in three parts
like that. It was to be dedicated to _her_.

Bless the dear creatures, how they kept the ball rolling to please
themselves, and--indirectly--to sort out my stock of ideas!

Harry Snell, the newspaper man, was not hard to persuade to his feet.
He was studying the resemblance between Arabic and English words. He
had found out, among other things, that Tallyho was "Tallyhoon,"
brought home by the Crusaders. He even had a theory that some of our
words came from the early Egyptian. "Amen," for instance, he believed
to be derived from "Amon," the name of the great god, father of all the
other gods of Egypt, which was cried aloud, he understood, in the
temples, during religious services. The parson jumped eagerly up to
dispute this theory, and happily forgetful of me, seized the
opportunity to spring upon us a few facts from his own store. When,
however, Mr. Watts' discourse got him as far as Joseph's Well in the
Citadel, General Harlow could bear no more, but sprang up to inform us
that the Joseph of the Well in the Citadel was quite another Joseph,
some Yusef of the Arab conquerors. The general knew all about that,
because his son was stationed in the Citadel. And he proceeded to
meander on historically, over a period between the first Arab conqueror
Amru, to Haroun-al-Raschid, assuring us that old Cairo was the city of
the Arabian Nights. He would, to my joy, have gone on indefinitely from
Saladin to Napoleon if Sir John Biddell, as the only baronet on board,
had not cut the only general short. He is a square man whose portrait
could be properly done only by a Cubist. "Too much history, my friend!"
he shouted, getting up with the manner of one accustomed to making
dinner-table speeches. "What most of us are coming to Egypt for is
_mummies_. Egyptian history is too troublesome, anyhow, for a normal
man to grasp. Give me mummies! There's something _in_ them. Why, even
if you get a king or queen fixed in your head, somebody who's paid to
make you know things you don't know" (an eye-shot for Corkran) "comes
along and swears they didn't exist. Now, there's Mena. I'd pinned him
like a stuck butterfly. I could remember that he was the first known
king, and founded Memphis and lived six thousand years before Christ,
all because we're going to stay at Mena House, which is named after
him. I don't know why I remembered him that way, but I did. Just as I
could recall the queen with a name like a sneeze by thinking of her as
Queen Hat-and-Shoes. Now Colonel Corkran informs us that we must
pronounce her, in a different way. And what's the consequence to me?
I've ceased to try and keep track of her. King Mena, too, is lost to me
forever, through the over-conscientiousness of our late conductor, who
says there never was a Mena, only several kings they've mixed into one.
I seem to be the one who's most mixed up! To whet my appetite for Egypt
now, I have to have something tasty. Where's the good of stuffing my
mind with a string of names which I couldn't mention to any one at
home, because I can't pronounce them? The word Dynasty (he pronounced
it Die-nasty) makes me sick! Luckily I feel that nobody else will know
any more than I do. I'm coming to Egypt for a rest-cure, because I
don't have to learn its history. But some lecturers won't let me have a
minute's peace. A king named Sneferu couldn't expect to appeal to a man
like me, even if he did build the oldest Pyramid, and even if you could
show me his mummy, which you can't. But I draw the line at kings
without mummies. I don't want to know them. Now, my wife is against
mummies on show. She's heard that the malignance of mummies, especially
in museums, is incredible. And she thinks it a judgment that some of
the most distinguished ones are going bad. She says it's spite. I say
its management. But I'm not ready to sit down yet! My wife means to
start a society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Mummies, with the
object of sending them back to their tombs where they can rest in that
state of death it pleased their gods to call them to. Their object was
eternal privacy, and they spent more on their tombs than their houses,
because they expected to be dead a long tune, and wanted all the
comforts of home. But I judge mummies by myself. It wouldn't have taken
me these thousands of years to realize how narrow and un-christian my
notions had been. I should see that I owed some duty to the world; and
as so much posterity had rolled by since my day, I'd feel that lying in
a museum at some large place like Cairo, was, after all, the only way
to keep my name before the public. Now, that brings me to my tip for
Lord Ernest. He asks what there is we don't know, and want to know.
I'll answer for us all, being used to feel the pulse of crowds. We want
to know what the deuce Ancient Egyptians really believed about death
and religion. Had they any sense, or were they just plain fools?"

On the tide of applause which congratulated the boat's only baronet, I
rose. I felt that I was on the crest of the wave; for the ancient
religion of Egypt appeals to me; and as I now had reason to hope that
others were comfortably ignorant of my subject I could spread myself as
much as I pleased.

"The Ancient Egyptians were far from being fools," I answered Sir John
with the air of being in their confidence. "We who are tempted to think
so, don't take the trouble to try the key of their Faith in its door. I
might say that its door was the door of the Tomb. If we go through that
door into the Kingdom of Osiris, Amenti, which the Greeks renamed
Hades, the mysteries which appear tangled sort themselves graciously
out. The story of Isis the Great Enchantress, and her search for the
body of her husband Osiris, murdered by Set, his wicked and jealous
brother, Spirit of Evil, is perhaps the most lovable legend of the
world. But in hearing that Horus, the son of Isis, was really the same
god as Osiris, modern ideas begin to get mixed, and confuse themselves
over Isis, goddess of love and goodness, cow-headed Hathor, mistress of
love and joy, cat-headed Pasht and lioness-headed Sekhet, goddesses of
love and passion. There's hawk-headed Horus, the youth, too; and Horus
the child, represented in statues with his thumb in his mouth. How is
one to make sense of them all? But once you have the key, it is easy
and even beautiful. The esoteric or secret religion known to the high
priests and the instructed ones was different from the animal-worship
and adoration of bird-headed deities, which gave the common people such
interest in daily life. They would have been lost without their
monsters; and the priests would have been lost without the temples
necessary for the worship of such a menagerie. For Egypt was a
priest-ridden country in old days. The explanation of the many gods and
goddesses was this: each was a different phase of the one God, Rã, the
Sun, by whom and through whom only the world could exist. Animals and
birds were chosen to express the different phases, because animals were
considered to be nearer nature, therefore nearer God than human beings;
besides, to give a god the head of a man would not set him apart from
humanity, as it would to make him appear with the body of a man and the
head of some bird or beast. Horus, finished off with the head of a hawk
(that sacred bird who could look the sun in the face), became to the
uneducated eye a supernatural being, which he would not have been with
the face of a smiling youth. The child Horus, or Harpocrates, was not
respected as was Horus of the Hawk Head. He was merely petted and
loved. Even Set, god of evil, wasn't all bad. He was the Spirit of
Storm and Strife in Nature, and had to be propitiated by the ignorant.
Typhon, or Typhoon, and he were one. Red was his colour, and red-haired
people were his children. There were a hundred phases of the one god,
each made incarnate, given his own mission, and worshipped in a
different place. It's an ill wind (of Set) that blows nobody good, and
animals had a gorgeous time in those days. Very few weren't sacred for
some reason or other. It was death and destruction to kill a cat. And I
don't think that cats have forgotten to this day the importance they
had in Egypt. It's made them the most supercilious of animals.

"If Amon-Rã were angry he could become Menthu, the war god. If he were
inclined to be gentle, he could shrink to the dimensions of Horus,
child-god of the Rising Sun. If he were weary, he could rest as the old
god Tum, of the Setting Sun. Probably gods and goddesses never enjoyed
themselves so much as in Ancient Egypt; and though it does seem a
drawback from our artistic point of view for Hathor to have the head or
ears of a cow, for wise Thoth to have the long beak of an ibis, and so
on, it was for them only an amusing kind of masquerade or 'tête' party,
on the walls of the temples and tombs. At home, they could be what they
liked. Think how interesting for the Egyptians to have all these queer
gods, and what variety it gave to their lives. Perhaps the priests
really meant well in keeping the secret of the One God for themselves
and the kings, as the people weren't fitted to bear its solemnity.
Fancy how amusing it was for the children to be told, on silver-bright
nights, about Khonsu, god of the moon, always young, wearing the curled
lock of youth on his brow--who staked five nights of his light playing
draughts with Thoth, father of Magic. But he had a more serious phase,
for when he was not a gambler he was an Expeller of Demons, a most
popular accomplishment. Indeed, almost every god had several thriving
businesses, conducted under different aliases. Khnum the Creator,
dweller at the Cataracts, is my favourite, and is still busy, as he
looks after the rise and fall of the river. Hekt, goddess of birth, was
a pal of his, in spite of her appalling ugliness; and she used to kneel
by his potter's wheel. While he fashioned the clay she would hold the
Sign of Life, so that spirit might enter into the formed body when
Khnum got it to the right state. For very important babies, royal ones
or geniuses, she held a Sign of Life in each hand, which made them
extraordinarily vital. When you arrive in Egypt, the first thing you'll
be asked to buy will be the Sign, or Key of Life, in the shape of paper
knives or brooches or what not, and it will be pointed out to you in
tombs till you're tired and sick of it. You can buy Hekt, too, and
funny old Bes, nurse-goddess of children, quite the golliwog of her
day; and all the other gods and goddesses will be offered to you, to
say nothing of the kings who were entitled to worship themselves as
gods if they wanted to.

"It's easy, you see, to make fun of the ancient religion, and other
nations did make fun of it. But to be serious, the priests were nearer
right than it would seem; for they believed that God was All: that
there was nothing in this or any Universe which was not part of God."

That note was my highest, and I stopped on it. Besides, I could think
of nothing more to say. I ventured to sit down; and because the people
were glad to hear the last of me, or because I had helped them finish
their almonds and raisins, they applauded. Secretly I shook hands with
myself, as the monkey must have done, when, with the catspaw, he had
pulled the hot chestnuts out of the fire. I had carefully selected my
chestnuts--and waited till they were cool. Also, I had disappointed
Colonel Corkran.




CHAPTER IX

WHAT HAPPENED WHEN MY BACK WAS TURNED


Three letters for me, brought out by the pilot! One I had expected from
Anthony; but my heart gave a bound as I recognized Brigit's
handwriting, not seen for years; and instinct told me that the third
was from Monny Gilder.

My one thought for the last two days, steaming back from the Piraeus to
Alexandria, had been that I was drawing nearer to Cairo, and to those
whose doings in my absence pulled at my curiosity and keyed my interest
to breaking point. But if you think that I tore open those envelopes
and greedily absorbed their contents the moment they were put into my
hands, you have never been a conductor or even an observant passenger
on a "pleasure yacht." When the letters arrived I was engaged in
persuading breakfast-lingerers (they of the eggs-and-bacon habit, who
ought never to leave their peaceful English homes) that it would give
them more real pleasure to be first in the shore boats than last at the
table. Then to get them into the boats; then to hypnotize Lady Biddell
and Mrs. Harlow into the belief that they would not, could not, be
seasick on the dancing waves which bobbed us up and down. No time to
think of the letters; much less to feel the strangeness of fate which
brought me back in such queer circumstances to the port I had entered
on the _Laconia_ eight days ago.

"As soon as we get on shore," I soothed my gnawing impatience, "I'll
steal a minute somehow." But each moment was so conspicuously labelled
that I could not be a thief of time--my time, which was my charges'
time, bought and paid for by Sir Marcus Lark.

This was not the first occasion on which I'd heard the clanking of my
chains, for, although I flattered myself that I was a popular success,
popularity had penalties. On the night of the lecture I had used the
passengers. Since then they had used me. Old ladies appealed to me on
questions of etiquette, health or religion, and retailed my answers,
not always correctly. Girls asked my advice about keeping up
flirtations, and men wanted my help in getting out of them. I was
expected to spout pages of Strabo or Pliny at an instant's notice; I
must know why Plato went to Egypt, or how long he stayed; and be umpire
between American and British bridge-players. I must be able to explain
the true meaning and age of the Sphinx; invent new deck games; and show
those who hadn't learned, how to dance the Tango. But with those three
letters burning over my heart the duties of conductor became
infuriating.

It was an awful day; for what was Pompey's Pillar to me while I
remained ignorant of my friends' adventures? As I discoursed (more or
less) learnedly about Diocletian, and Ptolemy's plot to drown Pompey in
the Nile, something inside was asking, "Has Anthony fallen in love with
Monny Gilder?" "What scrapes has that blessed girl got into?" "Has
anything happened to worry Biddy?" Even that nameless but incomparable
tomb on the hill of Kom esh-Shukafa could not distract my thoughts from
the sealed envelopes; and three very modern handwritings came
obstinately between my eyes and the matchless wall-paintings--paintings
as fresh in their underground hiding-place as if finished yesterday
instead of in days when it was dowdy to be pagan, fashionable to be
Christian.

Corkran, as a soldier, had to guide a band to Aboukir, and chat about
Nelson; point out the medieval fort of Kait Bey, and dash with hired
motors to Adjemi, where Napoleon landed. Kruger took a few studious
pilgrims to that unspoiled Oriental Nile town where the Rosetta Stone
gave the secrets of Ancient Egypt to the world. It was mine to pilot
the "frivolous lot"; to escort them in carriages round the
Italian-looking city when they had absorbed its two chief sights; to give
them a glimpse of the Museum, and to let them see the beauty and fashion
of Alexandria driving out to San Stefano in the late afternoon. Still I
had no chance to read my letters; but, thought I at the hotel, "Now at
last, it has come!" Not at all! People's trunks were missing, or in the
wrong rooms. It was I who had to sooth alarms, and calm rising storms.
It was I who must assure Mrs. Harlow that her room was really
preferable to that of Lady Biddell; and Lady Biddell that she, and not
Miss Hassett-Bean, had the best in the hotel. Still, I had ten minutes
to dress for dinner. Like Mr. Gladstone, I could do it in five, and
have five left for my letters. But hardly had I slipped a paper knife
under the flap of Monny's envelope (I should have felt a vandal to tear
it) when one of the hotel managers knocked at my door. A gentleman was
being very angry in the dining-room. He insisted on seeing me. He said
he had been Lord Mayor of London, and ought to have a window-table. All
these were previously engaged. What was to be done? Would I kindly come
at once?

I persuaded Sir John that window-tables were the least desirable, owing
to draughts, and returning to my room, had four minutes to dress or
risk further rows. After dinner Miss Hassett-Bean burst into tears
because she was alone in the world owing to the marmoset's death from
seasickness; and now that she was growing old nobody cared to talk to
her. I argued that people were shy because she was more important than
they, and had a reputation for satire. It took half an hour for the
lady's nose to go from red to pink (I think she had papier poudré in
her handkerchief); and then I was obliged to walk on the beach with
Miss Enid Biddell to keep Mr. Watts from proposing. As Snell relieved
me from sentry duty, I was called by Kruger to discuss certain details
of next morning's start for Cairo; and at midnight, when I crawled to
my room a shattered wreck, the letters were still unread.

"I'm incapable of caring now," I groaned, "what has happened to any of
them. If an earthquake has swallowed up our mountain, and Anthony's
married Monny, and Brigit's been abducted, or vice versa, and Miss
Guest has gone off with the jewels, it will leave me calm."

That was the spirit in which I tossed up a coin to see which letter to
read first. Heads, Monny's; tails, Anthony's; but the penny rolled
away, far under the bed where collar-buttons go, and so--I opened
Biddy's. She began:

MY DEAR GOOD DUFFER!

For any sake hurry back. Make an excuse to leave your pilgrims the
minute you get this, and take the first train to Cairo. Surely the late
conductor can be your understudy, and trot the people round Alexandria
for a day? We need you more than they do. I picture you reading this
early in the morning, with Alexandria still in the distance; for you
said you'd arrange to have letters come out to the yacht by the pilot.
I shall expect a telegram saying by what train you'll arrive here in
the afternoon. You'll understand when I've told you everything, why
it's _necessary_ for you to hurry.

We have done and seen so many things, it seems years instead of days
since you left us in care of that handsome Hadji of yours. I wonder if
really you didn't suspect that I guessed who he was; or _did_ you
suspect; and didn't care? I caught the look in your eyes, when you
first saw him standing under the terrace at Shepheard's, and then, when
the name "Antoun Effendi" came up in the conversation, I put two and
two together. Mrs. East guesses, also. I don't know if she did from the
first, but she does now. It isn't a question of "guessing" with either
of us, really. It's a certainty. Not that she's said anything to me or
I to her. That is the malady of us all since you went. We are boiling
with secret thoughts, and keeping them to ourselves, which is bad for
us and for each other in the long run. I haven't told Monny that the
"Egyptian Prince," as Rachel Guest has nicknamed him, is your friend
Captain Anthony Fenton playing some deep game, partly connected with
us, partly connected with a secret of his and yours; the secret you
said was a "dusty" one in which women would not be interested. I
haven't told her, because I don't want her to know. She is always
talking and thinking about him, and is vexed with herself for doing so.
She tries to stop, but can't. If she knew who he was, she wouldn't try
to stop. She'd let herself go, and feel she was living in a beautiful
romance. So she is living in a romance, but I want you to be the hero
of it, not your Anthony Fenton. That's why I don't open her eyes to the
game that's going on. The man is a perfect devil. Not a bad devil, but
a wild devil.

Mrs. East doesn't tell Monny that Antoun is "Anthony with an h" because
she is enjoying the thought that she alone knows the wonderful truth.
She imagines that she is in love with him. She believes Fate has
brought them together--that he is a "reincarnation," as she is, and
that they ought to belong to each other. Well, let them! She isn't more
than six or seven years older than he, and she's rich (though poor
compared to Monny, of course), and every day she grows handsomer. So
does Monny. As for Rachel Guest--but she is in another part of my
story. Yet no, come to think of it, I'll bring her in now, because if
it weren't for developments concerning that young woman, I might be
able to wait one more day without begging you to come to us. She is
taking Monny away from me; and something odd is going on, I can't make
out what. Anyhow, that horrid Bedr el Gemály is in it. And there's to
be a climax, I'm sure, to-morrow night. You'll get this letter
to-morrow morning, for I'm writing it early, with my hair down my back,
and my coffee not ordered, though I'm starving. We've left Shepheard's
because Monny wanted to live for a few days in a hotel close to the
Nile; and we were all pleased with the plan, for this was once a palace
of Khedive Ismael, and his furniture's still in it, the wildest mixture
of Orientalized French taste. There's a garden, with paths of vermilion
sand brought from somewhere in the desert. But the most convulsive
things live along the Nile Valley and spend their nights braying,
hooting, cooing, whining, bellowing, and barking. If only the donkeys
and dogs and birds and a few other sacred animals of Egypt would be a
little more reticent, especially after dark, the country would be
faultless. But what with worrying myself, and listening to furred and
feathered creatures worrying themselves, I couldn't sleep last night,
and I want you to help me! You'll be here to-morrow afternoon, and I
shall stay in to receive you instead of going to the bazaars with the
others, chaperoned by that dark-eyed devil of yours, "Antoun." I was
there all yesterday, watching crowds of tourists buy beautiful
expensive things for themselves, and horrid inexpensive things to take
to their friends. Cleopatra purchased some disgracefully cheap pearls
no self-respecting _mummy_ would be seen in; and my prophetic soul
tells me that she's going to try and dissolve them in wine.

There's to be a fancy dress ball at this hotel to-morrow night--or
rather in the adjacent Casino, which is one reason we migrated here;
and praise the saints you'll be in time for it because if anything's
going to happen, you'll be able to stop whatever it is. If I were
supposed to know that Antoun was Anthony Fenton, I might take him into
my counsels. As it is, I can't. And anyhow, it wouldn't do much good,
at present, because a silent duel is going on between him and Monny. He
is bent on compelling her to acknowledge his authority. She is bent on
resisting it--which is a great compliment to his power--but he doesn't
know that, for he doesn't know Monny yet. It would be fun to watch them
together, if I hadn't your interests to think of.

He hasn't got rid of Bedr el Gemály; but he would have done so, I'm
sure, if it hadn't been for an unexpected turn of the wheel, by the
hand of Fate in the person of Rachel Guest. Her hand is never _off_ the
wheel just now! The few days since you have been away have brought out
the true inwardness of her. _Felis Domestica_ with very little
_Domestica!_ Perhaps it's the air of Egypt which is having a really
extraordinary effect on all of us; perhaps it's the fact that Monny has
given Rachel a lot of lovely clothes which have rejuvenated and
apparently revitalized her. But you will see for yourself, and talk
things over with Your old friend, Biddy.

This was a nice letter to read, heaven knew how many hours too late!

My fatigue had slipped off like the skin off a grape. I felt energetic
enough to start out and walk to Cairo. What could be in Biddy's mind?
And what must she have thought when afternoon and evening passed
without even a telegram? The evening paper, if she had happened to
look, would have told her that the _Candace_ had reached Alexandria in
the morning, as she expected; and she could neither have guessed nor
believed that the whole day would pass without my having a chance to
read her letter. I ransacked the writing-table drawers for a telegraph
form; and finding one had begun to address it, when I stopped. The
message could not go out until morning. Meanwhile there were Monny's
and Anthony's letters to read. One or both might give me some clue to
the "climax" Biddy feared for to-night at the ball. I cut open Monny's
envelope, which had on it an alluring sunset picture of the Pyramids
and the name of the hotel. Hastily I ran through the pages. Not a hint
of anything disquieting! If I had read her letter instead of Brigit's I
might have gone to my well-earned rest without a qualm.

"Dear Lord Ernest," Miss Gilder addressed me, in a handwriting which to
any "expert" would reveal some originality, more pride, still more
conscientiousness, any amount of self-will, and singularly little
conceit. An odd combination! But the Gilded Rose is that. She went on:

You asked me to write to you while you were away, and tell you the
news, and what I thought about things. But I'm thinking so much and so
fast that I can't sort out my thoughts. I suppose it must be so with
every one who comes to Egypt for the first time. Everything fascinates
and absorbs me, even more than I had hoped it would--almost too much, I
feel sometimes. Your Antoun Effendi is a very good guide, and I am not
sorry that we have him--except once in a while. And now and then I'm
glad. We're proud of his looks when we go about, for every one stares
at him and envies us for having him to take us about, instead of being
condemned to a mere dragoman. Oh, talking of dragomen (you see I _will_
call them that!), we still have Bedr, though I know you thought we
ought to give him up, and I don't see how we are ever to discharge him
now, for he has attached himself to Rachel G. in the most wonderful
way. It is _pathetic_. It began with a talk they had the day you left,
about his having been in America, and about _religion_. She found him
half inclined to be converted, and of course, her goodness and
unselfishness made her long to snatch him like a brand from the
burning. He thinks no one ever talked so wonderfully about religion as
she does, which she, dear thing, attributes to the fact that she taught
Sunday-school in Salem. She says, if she can have him to work upon even
for a few weeks, she is sure to make him a convert.

We haven't wasted a minute since you went away, but have seen sights
from morning till night, so as not to have missed anything when we
leave Cairo on the _Enchantress Isis_. I hope you'll be pleased that
I've given up my dream of having a private dahabeah, and that we shall
be with you on Sir Marcus Lark's boat. She is really a beauty. Antoun
took us over her, and on board we met Sir Marcus, who was showing some
friends round. Antoun introduced him to us. I think Sir M. asked him to
do it. We had great fun, for Sir Marcus seemed to take the most violent
fancy to Aunt Clara, who didn't like him at all. She says now that she
believes when she was Cleopatra he was Caesar, and that it's a pity he
can't wear a wreath to hide his baldness, as she remembers his doing
then. It's only a _very_ little bald spot, really, and Rachel Guest
says it reminds her of a tonsure on the head of a fine-looking monk.
Aunt C. quite resents Sir Marcus being able to engage the services of
you and Antoun. She wants you both to be there, but she doesn't like
Sir M. to have a superior position to Antoun's. That day on the
_Enchantress Isis_ Sir M. invited us to have tea on the deck, and it
really was enchanting; a deck like a huge open-air drawingroom, or one
of our biggest verandas at Newport, or somewhere,  with jolly green
wicker chairs and tables and sofas with heaps of cushions. But I
forgot--you've seen the boat. The best rooms _were_ engaged, but when
we talked to Sir Marcus, he called a man who can speak many languages
in bits--broken English, cracked German, fractured French, and goodness
knows what all. Between them, they arranged it somehow that we should
have our choice, and the other people were to take what was left. I
would have refused, because it didn't seem fair, but it was for Aunt
Clara's sake, evidently, that Sir M. wanted to make the exchange, and
_she_ accepted. She was as haughty as a queen, but in rather a
fascinating, soft way that I think men like. And she was looking
beautiful. So is Rachel, as even Biddy admits. I do believe Rachel
looks younger than I do, in some new dresses and hats she has. I never
noticed before, but I fancy now that we're rather alike. I'm so
delighted to see her enjoying herself so much, for you know, she's
_wonderful_. Think what courage it must have taken to break with her
tiresome old life, because she felt she must see the glory of the
world, when a tiny legacy gave her the chance she'd longed for. She
wouldn't have had a penny left, after she'd finished her trip, if Aunt
C. and I hadn't been able to help her out. It's a privilege to do
anything for such a brave creature. And I can't bear to think of her
having to go back when this is over, to the dull round. Perhaps some
way out will be found for her.

I've fallen in love with Cairo, although--or perhaps because--I still
feel as if I were moving in a marvellous picture. Antoun does make it
live for us! I will say that for him, though he can be so annoying that
at times he spoils everything, and makes me wish you'd won my hat
instead of my winning his green turban. I'm dying to find out how you
got it. But, of course, I can't ask him: it would be _infra dig_. You
_must_ tell me when you come. I think the one he wears now is handsomer
though. I wish I could change it for mine.

We have been to heaps of mosques, and I can't help wishing we were the
only tourists in Cairo. Of course, this is a selfish wish; and as dear
Biddy says, it's quite funny to think how each tourist feels that _he_
is the only spiritual-minded, imaginative person travelling--that he
alone has the right to be in Egypt--that all the others are offensive,
vulgar creatures, who desecrate the beautiful places with their
presence. But really, you know, it gets on one's nerves, meeting droves
of silly men in pith helmets with little white lambrequins looped up,
when it would be so much more appropriate to wear the kind of hats they
have at home. And some of the women are _weird!_ They have the queerest
ideas of what is suitable for Egypt. One friend of Bedr's refused to go
about and be seen with the ladies who'd engaged him, as he was the
smartest dragoman in Cairo and had his reputation to keep up. Don't you
_like_ that? Even Antoun laughed--which he hardly ever does. He's so
dignified I wish his turban would blow off or something. I _wonder_ how
he'd look without it, and if most of the charm would be gone? Almost, I
hope so. One doesn't like to catch one's self feeling toward an
Egyptian, even for a minute, as one does toward men of one's own blood
--I mean, on the same level, or even as if 

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