For one instant she had an impulse to break her promise and tell him of
her father's infirmity, but at the next moment she thought of the
Egyptian, and her pride and jealousy conquered.
"What is it, Helena?"
"Nothing," she said, and fled into her bedroom.
Gordon looked after her until she had disappeared, and then--hot, angry,
nervous, less able than before to meet the ordeal before him--he turned
the handle of the door and entered the General's office.
*CHAPTER XXIII*
The Consul-General, the General, and the Egyptian Pasha in his tarboosh
were sitting in a half-circle; the General's Military Secretary, Captain
Graham, was writing at the desk, and his Aide-de-camp, Lieutenant
Robson, was standing beside it. Nobody was speaking as Gordon entered,
and the air of the room had the dumb emptiness which goes before a
storm. The General signalled to Gordon to sit, and requested his
Aide-de-camp to step out and wait in his own office, and then said,
speaking in a jerky, nervous way--
"Gordon, I have an order of the utmost importance to give you, but
before I do so your father has something to say."
With that he took a seat by the side of the desk, while the
Consul-General, without changing the direction of his eyes, said slowly
and deliberately--
"I need hardly tell you, Gordon, that the explanation I am about to make
would be quite unnecessary in the case of an ordinary officer receiving
an ordinary command, but I have decided to make it to you out of regard
to the fact of who you are and what your relation to the General is to
be."
Gordon bowed without speaking. He was struggling to compose himself,
and something was whispering to him, "Above all things, be calm!"
"I regret to say the Ulema have ignored the order which his Excellency
sent to them," said the Consul-General, indicating the Pasha.
"Ignored?"
"That's what it comes to, though it's true they asked me to receive the
man Ishmael Ameer and to consider a suggestion."
"You did, sir?"
"I did. The man came, I saw him, and heard what he had to say--and now
I am more than ever convinced that he is a public peril."
"A peril?"
"First, because he advises officers and men to abstain from military
service on the ground that war is incompatible with religion. That is
opposed to the existing. order of society, and therefore harmful to good
government."
"I agree," said the General, swinging restlessly in his revolving chair.
"Next, because he tells the Egyptian people that where the authority of
the law is opposed to what he is pleased to consider the commandments of
God they are to obey God and not the Government. That is to make every
man a law to himself, and to cause the rule of the Government to be
defied."
The Pasha smiled and bowed his thin face over his hands, which were
clasped at his breast.
"Finally, because he says openly that in the time to come Egypt will be
a separate state with a peculiar mission, and that means Nationalism and
the end of the rule of England in the valley of the Nile."
Gordon made an effort to speak, but his father waved him aside.
"I am not here to argue with you about the man's teaching, but merely to
define it. He is one of the mischievous people who, taking no account
of the religious principles which lie at the root of civilisation, would
use religion to turn the world back to barbarism. What is true in his
doctrines is not new, and what is new is not true. As for his reforms
of polygamy, divorce, seclusion of women, and so forth, I have no use
for the people who, in Cairo or in London, are for ever correcting the
proof-sheets of the Almighty by reading their holy book as they please,
whether it is the Koran or the Bible. And as for his prophecies, there
are such things as mental strong drinks, and a man like this is
providing them."
"You spoke of a suggestion, sir," said Gordon, who was still struggling
to keep calm.
"His suggestion," said the Consul-General with icy composure, "his
suggestion was an aggravation of his offence. He proposed that we
should leave El Azhar unmolested on condition that the Ulema opened it
to the public. That meant that the Government must either countenance
his sedition or suppress it by the stupid means of discussing his
principles in courts of law."
The Pasha smiled and the General laughed, and then in a last word the
Consul-General said quietly--
"General Graves will now tell you what we require you to do."