"What else, Helena?"
"Haven't I always told you that sooner or later that man would come
between us?"
"Ishmael?"
"Yes. Last night my father said ... but I hate to mention it."
"Tell me, dear, tell me."
"He said, 'You couldn't marry a man who had disobeyed and been
degraded.'"
"Meaning that if I refused to obey orders, you and I perhaps ... by
arrangement between your father and mine, maybe----"
"That is what I understood him to mean, dear, and therefore I came to
see you."
He flushed crimson for a moment and then began to laugh.
"No, no! I'll never believe that of them. It would be
monstrous--impossible!"
But the questioning look in Helena's eyes remained, and he tried to
reassure her. So many things might happen to remove the difficulty
altogether. The Ulema might take the order of the Government as a
protest against the visit of Ishmael Ameer, and send him instructions
not to come to Cairo.
"He's here already, dear," said Helena.
As she drove down from the Citadel she had passed through a crowd of
natives coming from the direction of the railway station, and some one
had said it was a procession in honour of the new prophet who had just
arrived from Alexandria.
"Then you've seen him yourself, Helena?"
"I saw a man in a white dress on a white camel, but I didn't look at
him.--I had somebody else to think about."
He was carried away by the singleness of her love, and with a score of
passionate expressions he kissed her beautiful white hands and did his
best to comfort her.
"Never mind, dear! Don't be afraid! The Governors of El Azhar may
agree to close their doors--temporarily, at all events. Anyhow, we'll
muddle through somehow."
She made him promise not to go near the "new Mahdi," and then began to
draw on her long yellow driving gloves.
"I suppose the gossips of Cairo would be shocked if they knew I had come
to see you," she said.
"It's not the first time you've been here, though. You're here
always--see!" he said, and with his arm about her waist he took her
round his room to look at her portraits that hung on the walls. It was
Helena here, Helena there, Helena everywhere, but since that was the
first time the real Helena had visited his quarters she must drink his
health there.
She would only drink it in water, and when she had done so, she had to
slip off her glove again and dip her finger into the same glass that he
might drink her own health as well. In spite of the shadow of trouble
which hung over them they were very happy. A world of warm impulses
coursed through their veins, and they could hardly permit themselves to
part. It was sweet to stand by the window again and look down at the
dazzling Nile. For them the old river flowed, for them it sang its
sleepy song. They looked into each other's eyes and smiled without
speaking. It was just as if their hearts saw each other and were
satisfied.
At length she clasped her arms about his neck, and he felt the warm glow
of her body.
"You think that still, Gordon?"
"What, dearest?"
"That love is above everything?"
"Everything in the world," he whispered, and then she kissed him of
herself and nothing else mattered--nothing on earth or in heaven.
*CHAPTER XIX*
When Helena had gone the air of his room seemed to be more dumb and
empty than it had ever been before; but the bell of the telephone rang
immediately, and Hafiz spoke to him.
Hafiz had just heard from his uncle that the Ulema were to meet at eight
o'clock to consider what course they ought to adopt. The Chancellor was
in favour of submission to superior force, but some of his colleagues of
the reactionary party--the old stick-in-the-muds made in Mecca--not
being able to believe the Government could be in earnest, were
advocating revolt, even resistance.
"Hadn't you better go up to El Azhar to-night, Gordon, and tell them the
Government means business? They'll believe _you_, you know, and it may
save riot, perhaps bloodshed."
"I hadn't intended to go there again, Hafiz, but if you think I can do
any good----"
"You can--I'm sure you can. Let me call for you at eight and we'll go
up together."
"Can't see why we shouldn't.... But wait! Ishmael Ameer is in
Cairo--will he be there, think you?"
"Don't know--should think it very likely."
"Well, it can't be helped. Eight o'clock, then! By-bye!" said Gordon,
and with that he rang off and wrote to Helena, telling her what he was
going to do. He was going to break his word to her again, but it was
only in the interests of peace, and with the hope of preventing trouble.
"Don't suppose these people can influence me a hair's-breadth, dearest,"
he wrote, "and above all don't be angry."
At eight o'clock Hafiz came for him, and, dressed in mufti, they walked
up to the University. With more than usual ceremony they were taken to
the Chancellor's room in the roof, and there in a tense, electrical
atmosphere, the Ulema were already assembled--a group of eight or nine
rugged and unkempt creatures in their farageeyahs (a loose grey robe
like that of a monk), squatting on the divans about the walls. All the
members of the Board of El Azhar were present, and the only stranger
there, except themselves, was Ishmael Ameer, who sat, in his spotless
white dress and with his solemn face, on a chair beside the door.
In silence, and with many sweeping salaams from floor to forehead,
Gordon was received by the company, and at the request of the Chancellor
he explained the object of his visit. It was not official, and it was
scarcely proper, but it was intended to do good. There were moments
when, passion being excited, there was a serious risk of collision
between governors and governed. This was one of them. Rightly or
wrongly the Consul-General was convinced that the University of Cairo
was likely to become a centre of sedition--could they not agree to close
it for a time at all events?
At that the electrical atmosphere of the room broke into rumblings of
thunder. The order of the Government was an outrage on the Mohammedan
religion, which England had pledged herself to respect. El Azhar was
one of the three holy places of the Islamic world, and to close it was
to take the bread of life from the Moslems. "The Government might as
well cut our throats at once and have done with it," said some one.
From denouncing the order of the Government the Ulema went on to
denounce the Government itself. It was eating the people! It was like
wolves trying to devour them! "Are we to be body and soul under the
heel of the infidel!" they asked themselves.
After that they denounced Lord Nuneham. He was the slave of power! He
was drunk with the strong drink of authority! The University was their
voice--he had deprived them of every other--and now he was trying to
strike them dumb! When somebody, remembering that they were speaking
before the Consul-General's son, suggested that if he were doing a bad
act it might be with a good conscience, an Alim with an injured eye and
a malignant face cried, "No, by Allah! The man who usurps the place of
God becomes a devil, and that's what Nuneham is and long has been."
Listening to their violence, Gordon had found himself taking his
father's part, and at this moment his anger had risen so high that he
was struggling against an impulse to take the unkempt creature by the
throat and fling him out of the room, when the soft voice of the
Chancellor began to plead for peace--
"Mohammed (to him be prayer and peace!) always yielded to superior
force, and who are we that we should be too proud to follow his
example?"
But at that the reactionary party became louder and fiercer than before.
"Our Prophet," cried one, "has commanded us not to seek war and not to
begin it. But he has also told us that if war is waged against Islam we
are to resist it under penalty of being ourselves as unbelievers, and to
follow up those who assail us without pity and without remorse.
Therefore, if the English close our holy El Azhar, they will be waging
war on our religion, and by the Most High God, we win fight them to the
last man, woman, and child."
At that instant Hafiz, who had been trembling in an obscure seat by the
door, rose to his feet and said in a nervous voice, addressing his
uncle--
"Eminence, may I say something?"
"Speak, son of my sister," said the Chancellor.
"It is about Colonel Lord," said Hafiz. "If you refuse to close El
Azhar, an order to force you to do so will be issued to the military,
and Colonel Lord will be required to carry it into effect."
"Well?"
"He is the friend of the Muslemeen, your Eminence, but if you resist him
he will be compelled to kill you."
"Wouldn't it be well to say 'With God's permission'?" said the man with
the injured eye, whereupon Hafiz wheeled round on him and answered
hotly--
"He has the bayonets and he has the courage, and if you fight him there
won't be so much as a rat among you that will be left alive."
There was a moment of tense and breathless silence, and then Hafiz, now
as nervous as before, said quietly--
"On the other hand, if he refuses to obey his orders he will lose his
place and rank as a soldier. Which of these do you wish to see, your
Eminence?"
There was another moment of breathless silence, and then Ishmael Ameer,
who had not spoken before, said in his quivering voice--
"Let us call on God to guide us, my brothers--in tears and in fervent
prayer, all night long in the mosque, until His light shines on us and a
door of hope has opened."
*CHAPTER XX*
As Gordon returned to barracks the air of the native section of the city
seemed to tingle with excitement. The dirty, unpaved streets with their
overhanging tenements were thronged. Framed portraits of Ishmael Ameer,
with candles burning in front of them, were standing on the counters of
nearly all the cafes, and the men squatting on the benches about were
chanting the Koran. One man, generally a blind man, with his right hand
before his ear, would be reciting the text, and at the close of every
Surah the others would cry "Allah! Allah!"
In the densest quarter, where the streets were narrowest and most full
of ruts, the houses most wretched, and the windows most covered with
cobwebs, a company of dervishes were walking in procession, bearing
their ragged banners, and singing their weird Arab music to the
accompaniment of pipes and drums, while boys parading beside them were
carrying tin lamps and open flares. Before certain of the houses they
stopped, and for some minutes they swayed their bodies to an increasing
chorus of "Allah! Allah! Allah!"
Gordon saw what had happened. With the coming of the new teacher a wave
of religious feeling had swept over the city. Dam it up suddenly, and
what scenes of fanatical frenzy might not occur!
Back in his room, with the window down to shut out the noises from the
river and the bridge, he tried to come to a conclusion as to what he
ought to do the following day if the Ulema decided to resist. They
_would_ resist, he had no doubt about that, for where men were under the
influence of gusts of religious passion, they might call on God, but
God's answer was always the same.
If the Ulema were to decide not to close their sacred place they would
intend to die in defence of it, and, seeing the issue from the Moslem
point of view, that El Azhar was the centre of their spiritual life,
Gordon concluded that they would be justified in resisting. If they
were justified the order to evict them would be wicked, and the act of
eviction would be a crime. "I can't do it," he told himself. "I can't
and I won't!"
This firm resolve relieved him for a moment, and then he began to ask
himself what would happen if he refused to obey. The bad work would be
done all the same, for somebody else would do it. "What, then, will be
the result?" he thought.
The first result would be that he himself would suffer. He would be
tried for insubordination, and of course degraded and punished. As a
man he might be in the right, but as a soldier he would be in the wrong.
He thought of his hard-fought fights and of the honours he had won, and
his head went round in a whirl.
The next result would be that he would bring disgrace upon his father as
well. His refusal to obey orders would become known, and if the
consequences he expected should come to pass he would seem to stand up
as the first of his father's accusers. He, his father's only son, would
be the means of condemning him in the eyes of England, of Europe, of the
world! In his old age, too, and after all he had done for Egypt!
Then above all there was Helena! The General would side with the
Consul-General, and Helena would be required to cast in her lot with her
father or with him. If she sided with him she would have to break with
her father; if she sided with her father she would have to part from
him. In either case the happiness of her life would be wasted--_he_
would have wasted it, and he would have wasted his own happiness as
well.
This thought seemed to take him by the throat and stifle him. He leapt
from the bed on which he had been lying in restless pain and threw open
the window. The river and the bridge were quiet by that time, but
through the breathless night air there came the music of a waltz. It
was the last dance of the visiting season at an hotel near by--a number
of British officers were dancing on the edge of the volcano.
Gordon shut the window and again threw himself on the bed. At length
the problem that tormented him seemed to resolve itself into one issue.
His father did not realise that the Moslems would die rather than give
up possession of their holy place, and that, in order to turn them out
of it, he would have to destroy them--slaughter them. A man could not
outrage the most sacred of human feelings without being morally blind to
what he was doing. His father was a great man--a thousand times greater
than he himself could ever hope to be--but in this case he was blind,
and somebody had to open his eyes.
"I'll go and bring him to reason," he thought. "He may insult me if he
likes, but no matter!"
The last cab had rattled home and the streets were silent when Gordon
reached the entrance to the Agency. Then he saw that it was late, for
the house was in darkness and not even the window of the library showed
a light. The moon was full and he looked at his watch. Good heavens!
It was two o'clock!
The house-dog heard his footsteps on the gravel path and barked and
bounded towards him; then, recognising him, it began to snuffle and to
lick his hands. At the same moment a light appeared in an upper window.
It was the window of his mother's room, and at sight of it his
resolution began to ebb away and he was once more seized with
uncertainty.
Strife between himself and his father would extinguish the last rays of
his mother's flickering life. He could see her looking at him with her
pleading, frightened eyes.
"Am I really going to kill my mother--that too?" he thought.
He was as far as ever from knowing what course he ought to take, but the
light in his mother's window, filtering through the lace curtains that
were drawn across it, was like a tear-dimmed, accusing eye, and with a
new emotion he was compelled to turn away.
*CHAPTER XXI*
As two o'clock struck on the soft cathedral bell of a little clock by
the side of her bed Fatimah rose with a yawn, switched on the electric
light, and filled a small glass from a bottle on the mantel-piece.
"Time to take your medicine, my lady," she said in a sleepy voice.