THE DRIVER OF AN ARABEAH
"Thank God!" cried Biddy, as a slim figure in a loose white robe framed
itself in the doorway.
With a sob, Mabel ran toward them, both hands held out, and in an
instant she was being hugged and kissed and cooed over.
"You've found me--you've come!" she cried. "I never dared think you
would, when _he_ rushed me away from Asiut. He said he would keep me
here all the rest of my life, to punish me for complaining to you."
"But how did he know?" Monny asked. "Did your sister-in-law tell him
about the letter?"
"I don't think so, unless he has made her confess. It was like this: He
was coming to his place here on business. I felt so thankful. It seemed
providential he should be away then, just when you were starting up
Nile. I was almost happy that morning, when suddenly he appeared again
and I was ordered to put on a habberah and yashmak, and travel with
him. Yeena, the woman who acts as my maid, had to get ready in a hurry,
too. The chief eunuch, a hateful hypocritical wretch, followed. Some
clothes have been sent to me since, but not many. At first I couldn't
guess what had happened, and _he_ was in such a fiendish temper I
daren't ask questions. It wasn't till after we arrived that he
explained. I'm sure he took pleasure in hurting me. He said that he
left home early the morning he was going to Luxor, because he meant to
stop and make a business call on the way to the depot, otherwise he
wouldn't have been able to rush home and fetch me as he did, and still
be in time to catch his train after the warning. It was some dragoman
you employed in Cairo, he told me, who had seen us getting off the
_Laconia_, and who ran after his carriage in the street, in Asiut. The
wicked creature warned him that you were all there, and that he'd heard
you say something which sounded as if there were a plot to get at me.
Just at that minute, by the worst of luck, Mr. Sheridan passed. You
know how foolish and cruel _he_ was about Mr. Sheridan on the ship.
Well, he hadn't forgotten. So he turned round and almost snatched me
out of the house, rather than I should be left in Asiut with him away."
"This is exactly what we thought must have happened!" exclaimed Monny.
"That beast, Bedr! And to think that Rachel and I wasted our time
trying to convert him! How I wish I hadn't let Aunt Clara engage him at
Alexandria! She thought he'd come from a man with her favourite name,
Antony: but she wouldn't have insisted if I hadn't encouraged her. I
feel as if this trouble were partly my fault. And if I hadn't been
thoughtless enough at Asiut to blurt out your husband's name--."
"You're not to blame for anything, dearest," Biddy tried to comfort
her. "It was your unfailing resolve to help, which has brought us
here."
"You're both my good angels," said Mabel, "Oh, it's heavenly to see
you. But I can't understand why I'm allowed to, after all the threats
and punishments. I'm afraid I shall be made to pay somehow. He loves to
torture me--and he knows how. I believe he hates me, now he's begun to
realize that I'd give anything to leave him, that I don't consider
myself his wife."
"If he hates you, why isn't he willing to let you go?" Monny questioned
her.
"Partly because he's very vain, and it would humiliate him. Partly
because he has no son yet, only that horrid little brown girl; and he's
set his heart on a boy who's to possess all the qualities and strength
of the West. No, he won't let me go!"
"Well, you'll do it in spite of him then," said Monny eagerly. "That's
what we're here for. We shall take you with us. You must say to your
servants that we've invited you to drive, and you've accepted. There's
nothing in that to make them suspect. Lots of Turkish ladies go driving
and motoring with European women, in Cairo. And you can have that fat
black man sit on the box seat, with--with our coachman, if it would
make things easier, taking him to guard you. He can be hustled or
bribed or something, when the right time comes to get rid of him, never
fear. Oh, it's going to be a glorious adventure, and at the end of it
you'll be free! Nobody could blame you, as the man has another wife."
Mabella Hânem shook her head. "You're splendid to plan this. But it's
too late. It was too late from the moment that dragoman warned--my
husband. Why you've been allowed to come into the house and talk with
me, I can't think, unless _he_ is watching and listening through a
hidden spyhole. There's sure to be _some_ secret reason in his head,
anyhow--a reason that's for _his_ good and not mine. And I shall not be
able to get out, if you do."
"_If_ we do!" echoed Biddy, a catch in her voice.
She glanced furtively at Monny. What had we all been dreaming of when
we let this beautiful girl run into danger? I know Biddy well enough to
be sure that her thought at that instant was for Monny Gilder, not
Brigit O'Brien. But the fear in her heart was vague, until the next
answer Mabel made--an answer that came almost with calmness; for
Mabella Hânem's whole being was concentrated upon herself, and her own
imbroglio. Everything else, everybody else--even these friends who were
risking much to help her--were secondary considerations.
"I don't suppose real harm will come to you. I don't see how he'd
_dare_. And yet--there may be something on foot. Three men had come
to-day, one who might be a dragoman, and two Europeans. They came
together. I saw them. And I haven't seen them go away. They're in the
men's part of the house--the _selâmlik_. They must be with my husband.
Perhaps there's only some business about the sugarcane. But--"
"Did you see the men distinctly?" Biddy asked, in a changed tone.
"Yes, quite distinctly, for they glanced up at the window where I was
peeping out. Of course they couldn't see me, through the wooden lattice
and the bougainvillia, but I had a good look at them. The dragoman
seemed to have one blind eye. Oh! I hadn't thought of _that_ before!
Can it be the man who gave the warning?"
"What were the Europeans like?" Biddy questioned, without answering.
"Were they wearing light tweed knickerbockers with big checks?"
"No, they were in dark clothes, not very noticeable."
"Had one a scar on his forehead?"
"Why, yes, I believe he had!"
The eyes of Brigit and Monny met: but there was none of that deadly
fear in the girl's, which Biddy was trying to keep out of hers. Even
now, it was hardly fear for herself. It was nearly all for Monny; but
Monny must not know, lest she should lose her nerve when it was needed
most. That idea of Brigit's, about Monny being mistaken for Esmé
O'Brien by members of the Organization O'Brien betrayed, had seemed
foolish and far fetched, although Esmé was hidden from her father's
enemies near Monaco, and it was at Monaco that Miss Gilder and Rachel
Guest and Mrs. East had joined Brigit on the _Laconia_. I had laughed
at the suggestion, and Biddy had been half-ashamed to make it. But now,
in this lonely house where she and the girl had been unexpectedly
welcomed, in this house where the master watched, entertaining three
strange men, the thought did not appear quite so foolish, quite so far
fetched. Indeed, Biddy marvelled why it had occurred to none of us that
one of the dangers to be run in rescuing Mabel might come through Bedr,
the same danger which had perhaps threatened in the House of the
Crocodile.
Too late to think of this now! The fact remained that we had not
thought of it when there was time. Not even Biddy had felt certain that
there was a secret motive for taking the girls to the hasheesh den, or
that Bedr had been guilty of anything worse than indiscretion. His
warning to Rechid Bey we had put down to a petty desire for revenge, to
"pay us out" for his discharge. Though Biddy had never felt sure of his
new employers' German origin, and though she had had qualms at sight of
the party, following or arriving before us on our pilgrimage through
the desert and up the Nile, she had never associated their possible
designs with Rechid Bey's grudge against us. Yet how obvious that Bedr
should take advantage of it for his clients' sake, if those two men
were what she sometimes feared! Brigit had never spoken out to Monny
what was in her mind about Esmé O'Brien. She had known that Monny would
laugh, and perhaps say "What fun!" For the girl had invited Biddy to
Egypt "because she attracted adventures," and because Monny badly
needed a few, her life having been, up to the date of starting, a "kind
of fruit and flower piece in a neat frame." Now, perhaps Monny wouldn't
laugh; but it was not the time to speak of new dangers.
"Well, if your husband thinks that creatures like Bedr and his Germans
are going to help him stop us from getting out, or taking you out, he's
wrong," said Monny, stoutly. "Bedr's the most sickening coward, as
Rachel Guest and I have reason to remember. But I'm glad we know what
we have to expect, aren't you, Biddy?"
It was hard to answer, because the girl was in reality so far from
knowing what she might have to expect. Brigit tried to smile her reply,
as Monny began to tell Mabel something of their plan: about the friends
ready to rally round them, once they were in the carriage waiting
outside the gate; and about the motor coat and veiled hood which had
been brought for Mabel to put on, at a safe distance from the house.
"You'll have to start in your own things," the girl was saying,
"otherwise your servants would think it odd. Ring now, dear, for your
woman, and have her give you your habberah and yashmak."
"There are no bells," said Mabella Hânem, with her soft air of
obstinate hopelessness. "When I want Yeena, if she isn't in the room, I
clap my hands as hard as I can. But I tell you, it is no use. It is too
late." As she spoke, throwing up her arms and letting them fall with a
gesture of helpless despair, both Brigit and Monny felt that Islam had
already raised a barrier between them and this delicate creature it had
taken into its keeping. In the white wool robe she wore--the kind of
loose dressing gown affected by Turkish women--she looked more like a
Circassian than an American girl. Always she had seemed to her would-be
rescuers a charming doll, a feminine thing of exactly the type which
would appeal to a Turk, weary of dark beauties: her hair was so very
golden, her eyes so very big and blue, her lashes so very black, her
mouth so very red and small: but now she had become an odalisque.
Mabel's friends realized that she would do nothing to save herself.
They must do all.
Hesitating no longer, Monny struck her hands loudly together. Yeena did
not come. The girl clapped again, and yet again, till her palms
smarted, but nothing happened.
"Yeena is in it--whatever they mean to do," said Mabel. "She's had her
orders."
"Very well, then," Monny persisted, her eyes shining and her cheeks
carnation, "you must go without your wraps. Come along. Don't be
frightened. Isn't it better to risk something to get away than to stay
here alone when we're gone?"
The pretty doll, with a little moan, gave herself up to her friends.
Brigit as well as Monny realized that the moment had come. They must
take her while she was in this mood.
"Let me go ahead," said Monny, in a low, firm voice. "You know why."
Brigit did know why. Monny had Anthony's Browning, and she alone
understood the use of it. Yes, she must lead the way; yet Brigit longed
to fling herself in front, to make of her body a shield for the tall
white girl she had never so loved and admired. Biddy put Mabel in front
of her, and behind Monny, keeping her between them with two cold but
determined little hands on the shrinking shoulders, and so pushing her
along, protected front and rear, in the piteous procession.
Of course, if the door leading toward the house entrance had been
locked on the outside, there would have been the end of the endeavour,
for the moment: but it opened to Monny's hand, and all three went on
unchecked, until they came to the vestibule, where on the wall bench
they had seen the koran of the fat negro, awaiting his return.
They had come tiptoeing, and had made no more sound than prowling
kittens, yet he sat there facing the door, no longer heavy lidded, a
black mountain of lazy flesh, but alert, beady eyed, as if he had been
counting the minutes.
As they swept through the doorway, hoping to surprise him, the eunuch
jumped to his feet as lightly as a man of half his weight, and smiling
with pleasure in the excitement of an event to break monotony, he
blocked with his great bulk the aperture between wall and projecting
screen.
No wonder they had not needed to lock doors, with this giant for a
jailer, and a big Sudanese knife conspicuously showing in a belt under
his open galabeah! Rechid had perhaps wanted the white mouse in his
trap to feel the thrill of hope, and then the shock of disappointment.
He had counted completely on the guardian of his harem, but--though he
had chosen an American wife, he had not counted on the courage of
another type of American girl. The knife looked terrible; but it was
sheathed and tucked into a belt. Anthony's Browning was in Monny's
hand, and hidden only under her serge coat. Out it came, with a warning
click of the trigger. And with an astonished, frightened gurgle in his
throat the negro involuntarily fell back.
"Run!" Monny breathed, prisoning him where he stood, with the little
bright eye of the Browning cocked up at his face. She had to be obeyed
then, and they ran, the two of them, flashing past the black man,
touching his clothes as they squeezed by, yet he dared not put out a
detaining hand. When they were away--safe or not, she could not tell
--Monny still kept the pistol in position, but began slowly to turn, that
she too might pass the dragon, holding him at her mercy till the end.
Not a word of Arabic could she recall, but the Browning spoke for her,
a language understood without the trouble of learning, by all the sons
of Adam.
When she had backed through the doorway, the girl still faced toward
the inner vestibule, and it was well she did so, for scarcely was she
out of his sight before the black giant was after her, taking the
chance that she would have turned to run. But there was the resolute
young face, with eyes defying his; and there was the weapon ready to
blow out such brains as he had, if the hand on the knife moved. Again
he fell back, and then Monny did run, making the best use she had ever
made of those long limbs which gave her the air of a young Diana. She
ran until she had caught up with the other two, flying toward the
distant gate; for something told her that the negro would have hurried
to tell his master of the trick the women had played--preferring the
lash on his back perhaps, to a bullet through his head.
She was right, no doubt, to trust her instinct, for the eunuch did not
pursue, though his tale of failure was not needed. Rechid Bey had been
watching from a window of the selâmlik, as Mabel his wife had watched
when he received visitors. He did not wait for the negro's warning, but
dashed out of the house, followed and then passed by several long-robed
men in Arab dress. The faces of these were almost hidden by the loose
hoods which desert men pull over their heads in a high wind, but had
they been uncovered the women would not have seen them. The thing was
to escape, not to take note of the pursuers; and it was only Biddy,
looking over her shoulder for Monny, who even saw that they were
followed. She cried out to her friend to hurry, that some one was
coming, that they must get to the gate or all would be ended; then
feeling Mabel falter, she held her more tightly and ran the faster.
Rechid and his companions were shouting, not to the women, but to the
gatekeeper; and as the master's furious voice rang out, just in front
of the fugitive (all three together now), appeared the big form of the
man at the gate.
Monny did not know what to do; for in whichever direction she faced
with the Browning, she could be captured from the other. She might kill
the negro, and then turn to keep the pursuers back: but the thought of
killing a man sickened her. She had meant only to threaten, not to take
life. Suddenly she felt afraid of the Browning. She hesitated, in a
wild second of confusion, hating herself for failing her friends, yet
unable to decide or act: but hardly had the gatekeeper sprung in sight
than he went down, flat on his face, struck in the back of the neck by
the shabby fellow who had driven their carriage. "Go on!" the dirty-faced
Arab said in French. "There's some one else to drive you. I'll
follow. I'm armed."
The three sped by him, as he stood aside to let them pass, showing to
Monny a pistol which matched the one he had lent her. This consoled the
girl in obeying; for as "Antoun" had trusted her courage in this
adventure, so did she trust his, and his strength and wit against four
men or four dozen men, if need were.
There was the waiting arabeah, and there on the box was a much cleaner,
more self-respecting Arab to drive it than the soiled figure which had
left the horses and strayed into the garden. Afterwards they learned
that the new man was the "sister's cousin's uncle" of the Hadji's café
acquaintance. He had been engaged to stroll past in the road, stop,
speak, offer the gatekeeper a cigarette, drift into conversation, and
be ready to jump onto the box seat the instant Antoun left it. His
instructions included furious driving with the three ladies (once they
had bundled into the arabeah), to the Temple of Mût.
Rechid Bey had every right, according to his own point of view, to
resent the kidnapping of his wife, and to get her back in any way he
could, even if blood had to be spilt. But his companions--they who were
muffled in the cloaks and hoods to save their faces from the sharp
wind--had perhaps not the same right or interest. In any case, when
they saw that the women had a man, or men, to help them, and that so
helped they had passed from the privacy of the garden to the publicity
of the road, the three fell back. Publicity, it may be, did not please
them: or else, thinking to have only women to deal with, they were not
armed and did not like the look of the pistol. Rechid, evidently no
coward, or past feeling fear in rage at the failure of his counterplot,
ran on, wheezing slightly--he was fat for his age--toward the erect
Arab and the prostrate negro.
"Beast! devil!" he panted breathlessly, and cried out other words of
evil import in both Turkish and Arabic; threatening the silent man of
the pistol with death and things even worse. But before he had gone
far, the hooded men caught up with him, and surrounding, urged him
back. What they said, Anthony could not hear, or what he said in
return; but he thought they were proposing some plan which appealed to
Rechid's reason, for he showed signs of yielding. There was now no
longer anything to detain the protector of the ladies, for by this
time, he hoped and believed that their arabeah must be far on its way
toward the Temple of Mût, the meeting-place agreed upon. Accordingly,
he stepped over the unconscious gatekeeper, who lay with his nose in
the grass, and backed calmly out of the garden. Not far off, an arabeah
was crawling along the road, so slowly that one might have thought the
driver half asleep. But this supposition would have done him an
injustice. Dusk had fallen now, the purple dusk which drops like a
curtain just after the pageant of sunset is finished, yet the driver
was wide enough awake to pierce the purple with a pair of sharp eyes,
and recognize a figure expected. He whipped up his horse, and the dirty
Arab running to meet it, in a few seconds the latter was on the box
beside the coachman. Then the arabeah turned, and dashed wildly off
according to the custom of arabeahs, back in the direction whence it
had been crawling.
The two dark-faced men in the vehicle talked rapidly in low voices,
speaking the language not only of the country but the _patois_ of Luxor
itself. "Your brother passed you in his arabeah?"
"Yes, Hadji, he passed with the three European ladies you told me had
been in secret to visit their friend."
Then Anthony knew that Brigit and Monny had been able already to carry
out their plan of wrapping Mabella Hânem in one of their own cloaks.
This was well, and would save gossip, if the occupants of the arabeah
were stared at by passers by. And at the temple also it would be well,
for if possible the Set were to know nothing, now or later, of the
adventure. But though Anthony was glad of the news he had got from this
Arab ordered to meet him at the gate, he did not settle down
comfortably and say to himself: "Thank goodness, the thing is over."
Those men back there in the garden would not so easily have persuaded
Rechid Bey to let his wife go unpursued, if they had not offered some
alternative plan that could be carried out quickly.
Still, so far so good. Brigit and Monny had "won out," and secured the
prize, as Anthony had prophesied that they would do. They were on their
way to the temple, where I would be with the comfortable, commonplace
crowd from the _Enchantress Isis_, and where the American Consul and
his wife would just "happen" also to be wandering. Instead of driving
straight there himself, Anthony went with a friend to an obscure,
mud-built house in the village. When he came out of that house, his
brown-stained face was no longer disfigured with dirt. It was as
immaculate, as noble as the proudest Hadji's face should be, and above
it was wound the green turban. Ahmed Antoun Effendi's own dignified,
old-fashioned robes of the Egyptian gentleman flowed round his tall
figure, when once more he took his place in the waiting arabeah--this
time not on the box seat--and drove off at more furious speed than ever,
toward the Temple of Mût.