A DIPLOMATIC INCIDENT.
When the people of the house discovered the identity of their
uninvited guests, the welcome which they offered them was the reverse
of warm. All Azim Bey’s threats and promises could not induce them to
allow him and his attendants to remain in the shelter of the courtyard
until a messenger could be despatched to the Palace and return with a
military escort; indeed they could scarcely be restrained from
thrusting them out again to the mob, who were clamouring at the gate.
It was some time before largely increased offers could win them over
to consent to a compromise, namely, to let the whole party out by a
back door leading into an unfrequented street, from which, through
many twists and turnings, the Palace might be reached.
“But we cannot all go together,” said Azim Bey, “or they will
recognise us again. We must separate.”
“Never!” cried Cecil, resolutely.
“Oh, you and I will keep together, mademoiselle. What I mean is, that
we must not leave the house again as a large party. The two nurses
will mount our donkeys and go with the servants. You and I will depart
by ourselves.”
“Not unless you are disguised,” said Cecil. “For you to go in that
dress would simply be to let yourself be murdered.”
“The disguise will not be difficult,” he cried, tearing off his long
black coat and unbuckling his little sword. “Now if the good people of
this house will give us in exchange for these an old _abba_ and
_kaffiyeh_, I shall be unrecognisable. As for you, mademoiselle, no
one could know you. You look just like any Baghdadi lady in a sheet
and yellow slippers.”
The owners of the house could not resist the advantageous offer made
them, and Cecil, seeing in the bold stroke proposed their only chance,
allowed it to be accepted. A ragged old cloak, with the orthodox brown
and white stripes, and a torn head-handkerchief, fastened round the
brow by a rope of twisted wool, which kept it well down over the face,
made Azim Bey a most realistic-looking little Arab, and Cecil felt
that it was very unlikely that he would be recognised in his disguise.
The mob in front of the house had become quieter by this time, and old
Ayesha, the Bey’s nurse, proposed that she and her fellow-servants
should leave the house by the front door a few minutes after he and
Cecil had stolen out at the back, thus leading the crowd to believe
that the two most important members of the party were still within.
Cecil objected to this as sending the servants into unnecessary
danger, but Um Yusuf assured her that without herself and the Bey they
would in all probability be able to pass through the streets in
safety, and she allowed herself to be overruled.
“Go with the women, O Masûd,” said Azim Bey to the faithful negro,
who was following them to the back door.
“God forbid, O my lord!” said Masûd, stolidly. “Am I not here to
attend upon my lord and mademoiselle, and shall I leave them?”
“Go thy way, O Masûd!” cried Azim Bey, impatiently. “Thou art as well
known in Baghdad as the tower of the Lady Zubeydeh (upon whom be
peace) itself, and shall we be slain for the sake of thy black face?”
“My lord is very wise, and his servant will obey him,” returned
Masûd, and marched back to the other servants.
The door was cautiously opened, and Cecil, clasping the hand of her
little pupil, and holding her sheet in the proper way so as to hide
all but her eyes, quickly found herself in a narrow lane behind the
house. The way had been explained to them, and they started off
briskly, scarcely speaking. Azim Bey found this adventure exciting
enough to satisfy even his bold aspirations, and Cecil was afraid to
begin a conversation, lest her foreign accents should attract the
notice of any one in the houses on either side. Presently the lane led
them into a quiet street, where little knots of people were standing
talking and others were going about their business in a leisurely kind
of way, and mingling with these they passed on unnoticed. Next they
had to go through one of the bazaars, where business was pretty well
over for the day, and where groups of disappointed buyers and
unsuccessful salesmen were discussing the crops and abusing the Pasha.
Still they were unrecognised, but when they had nearly passed through
the bazaar they came upon a blind beggar, who was sitting on the
ground, with his hand held out, asking for alms. Before Cecil could
stop him, Azim Bey took a coin from his pocket and threw it to him. It
was a gold piece, and the mendicant called down blessings on his head
as he picked it up. But others had noticed it also, and a crowd of
beggars seemed to start up from the very ground as they thronged from
their various stations and niches, exhibiting their sores and
deformities, and demanding charity rather than entreating it.
“_Voici une foule de gens qui vont nous suivre de nouveau,
mademoiselle_,” said Azim Bey, as the shopkeepers and their gossips,
attracted by the hubbub, joined the crowd and tried to get a glimpse
of these generous strangers. At the sound of the unfamiliar tongue
they started and looked curiously at the pair, and a quick buzz went
round among them. Cecil grasped her pupil’s hand and dragged him on,
once more feeling ready to shake him for his foolishness, but it was
evident that the men around had understood who they were, for they
closed up as if to hustle them. Intent only on escaping, Cecil led her
charge down the first turning they reached, and they hurried on
breathlessly, through narrow echoing alleys, with houses almost
meeting overhead, while behind them came the sound of many feet. The
lanes afforded great facilities for eluding a foe, and Cecil and Azim
Bey turned and doubled until they were tired. At last they came out on
an open space with a well in it, and found their enemies awaiting
them--a motley crowd of rough-looking men, with a sprinkling of impish
boys and witch-like old women. A yell arose from the crowd as soon as
the fugitives were seen, and Cecil turned and fled once more, dragging
the boy with her. For a few moments they ran back along the way they
had come (no easy task, as any one who has tried to run in loose
slippers along a back alley of Baghdad, unpaved and uneven, will
confess), then found themselves at a place where two ways met,
hesitated, chose one at random, and came face to face with a
detachment of their pursuers. They were doubly pursued now, as they
turned back and took the other path, and stones and pieces of rubbish
began to hurtle through the air. Suddenly Cecil reeled against the
wall and loosed her hold of her pupil’s hand.
“Go on, Bey,” she gasped, “I am spent. I can’t go any farther, but you
may get away. Run on a little--creep into some house and hide. Oh, go,
go!” as the yells of the enemy approached.
“I shall not go,” returned the boy, stoutly, pulling out a jewelled
dagger about three inches long. “I am going to fight for you,
mademoiselle, and if they kill you they shall kill me too.”
“Come on again, then,” panted Cecil, spurred forward by the fear of
causing the death of her gallant little pupil, and she struggled on a
few steps farther. Then a stone struck her on the shoulder, and she
tottered and clutched at Azim Bey for support.
“I can’t go on,” she murmured, and the crowd behind, catching a
glimpse of her and guessing her exhausted condition, set up a
triumphant yell. Goaded on by the sound, she and her pupil made a last
dash round a corner into another lane, where they came face to face
with Charlie Egerton, who was walking serenely along, cigar in mouth.
“Miss Anstruther!” he gasped, and away went the cigar, and Charlie
caught Cecil as she swayed to and fro.
“They are hunting us, monsieur!” cried Azim Bey, in great excitement.
“They wish to massacre us! Take care of mademoiselle. As for me, I am
going to attack that rabble there.”
“Don’t let him go,” sobbed Cecil, feebly, as the boy unsheathed his
dagger anew and started out against the foe, and Charlie grasped the
situation.
“Nonsense, Bey; put up that penknife of yours, or keep it until we get
to close quarters. Hang on to my coat and come with me.”
To hear his highly-prized dagger called a penknife mortified Azim Bey
excessively, and his dignity was also wounded by the familiar tone;
but he pocketed his pride and obeyed, holding on to Charlie’s coat on
one side while the wearer supported Cecil along with as much
tenderness as was compatible with extreme haste. The mob had rushed
round the corner by this time, expecting to find an easy prey, but the
change in the aspect of affairs rather staggered them, and they
followed on in sullen silence for a little while, until their courage
revived on realising that Charlie was alone and apparently unarmed.
Once more the stones began to fly. One struck Charlie on the head, and
Cecil received a blow on the ankle which nearly threw her to the
ground.
“Brutes!” muttered Charlie, savagely, casting a hasty glance around in
search of some place of refuge. None was visible, and he turned to
Azim Bey, and said in his most reassuring tones, “This is warm work,
Bey; rather too much of a good thing, in fact. Now suppose you see
whether you can get Miss Anstruther on a little, while I try some
practice with my revolver?”
“Don’t keep him back with me; send him on,” said Cecil. “Do you
remember who he is?”
“Dear me! I forgot that I had Ahmed Khémi Pasha’s son to look after,”
said Charlie. “Well, Bey, run on, and make for the Residency as fast
as you can.”
“I will not!” cried Azim Bey, indignantly. “My father is Pasha, and I
am a gentleman. Shall I leave a lady to perish? No! I will rather shed
the last drop of my blood.”
“That’s a brave little chap!” said Charlie. “Now let Miss Anstruther
lean upon your shoulder for a minute;” and he drew a revolver from his
pocket, and turning, presented it at the foremost of the mob, who were
by this time unpleasantly near. The front rank recoiled precipitately,
and Charlie seized the opportunity.
“Take my arm again, Miss Anstruther. Hold on tight, Bey. We have not
much farther to go now.”
They got on a little way, Cecil stumbling along with clenched teeth
and brow drawn with pain. Then the mob began to press on them again,
and Charlie fired over their heads. This daunted them a little, but
they quickly came on anew, headed by a ferocious-looking ruffian who
got near enough to make a snatch at Azim Bey. The boy struck out
valiantly with his dagger, and Charlie turned and shot through the
wrist the man who had seized him. This excited the pursuers to fury,
and Charlie was obliged to walk backwards, threatening the crowd with
his revolver, and doing his best to support Cecil at the same time.
Happily the lane was so narrow that he was able to foil all attempts
at passing him, for if these had succeeded the mob could easily have
surrounded and annihilated the three fugitives, but they had a
wholesome fear of the revolver in a spot where only two could
comfortably walk abreast.
“Four shots more,” said Charlie, half audibly, after a short
experience of the difficulties of his present mode of progression,
“and the Residency is still---- We shall never reach it at this rate.
Here, Bey, you run on until you come to the Residency, and tell them
to have the gate open and to call out the guard. Run your hardest, and
tell them we are in for a row.”
“I will not run,” said Azim Bey. “I am not a coward. Do you run on,
monsieur, and leave me to defend mademoiselle.”
Charlie stamped with impatience, and his revolver went off without his
intending it. He turned to the Bey with a very ugly look on his face,
and uttered words which it took long for the Pasha’s son to forgive or
forget.
“Look here, small boy,” he said, “you will obey orders, if you please.
Do you think I would bother myself with you if I didn’t care more for
Miss Anstruther’s finger-tip than for the whole of your wretched
little body? I might have been able to defend her alone, but you are
endangering us both. I tell you what, if you don’t go, I’ll put a
bullet through your head, and have no more trouble with you. The only
good you can do is to run on and give my message, and fetch help. If
you don’t, mademoiselle’s death will lie at your door.”
Away went Azim Bey, in a tumult of rage, indignation, and disgust,
hard to imagine and impossible to describe. Charlie heard him running
off, and calculated mentally how long he would be in reaching the
Residency, and how long in returning with help. Almost at the same
moment he found that he was deciding, half mechanically, on which of
the leaders of the mob he should bestow his last three shots. He had
some more cartridges with him, but he could not load with one hand,
and Cecil was clinging, half-unconscious, to his left arm. Moreover,
if the crowd saw him stop to load, they would be upon him instantly.
Meanwhile Azim Bey, rushing on, had found that the lane led into the
street in which the Residency stood. Running up to the gate, he was
stopped by the Sepoy sentry, who refused absolutely to allow him to
enter. Here was a blow.
“Slave!” cried the boy, in a frenzy, “dost thou refuse me admittance?
Thou knowest not that I am Azim Bey, the Pasha-Governor’s son?”
To this the sentry, seeing only a small boy in a high state of
excitement, with worn and ragged clothes splashed and mud-bespattered,
replied merely by the Eastern equivalent of “Tell that to the
marines,” coupled with a little good advice as to civility of
language, and continued to bar the passage. Azim Bey turned pale.
“I must get in!” he cried. “The men of the city are murdering Mdlle.
Antaza. Show me the Balio Bey, your officer, the Mother of Teeth--any
one--they will know me and send help.”
But the sentry still smiled in grim incredulity, not unmixed with
anger at the boy’s disrespectful reference to Lady Haigh; and Azim Bey
threw himself on the ground and cast dust upon his head, and wept and
stormed in his despair. The more he cursed, the more the sentry
laughed, until the noise attracted the attention of Captain Rossiter,
an Engineer officer who was making the Residency his headquarters
during a series of surveys which he was carrying out for the Indian
Government within the borders of the pashalik, and who had lately been
present at a _fête_ at the Palace, where Azim Bey had seen him. He
happened to be crossing the courtyard, and hearing the din, came to
see what was the matter. To him Azim Bey rushed, and clinging to his
hand, told his tale of woe, while the tears poured down his grimy
little face. The tale was very incoherent, and, moreover, it was
related in a strange mixture of tongues; but Captain Rossiter
understood enough of it to send him flying madly out into the street
and down the lane, with as many of the Sepoys as he could collect at
his heels, Azim Bey staggering after them, almost too much exhausted
to walk.
They arrived at the scene of action in the nick of time, to find
Charlie, his last shot fired, standing at bay in an angle of the wall,
with the fainting Cecil all in a heap on the ground behind him, while
he was doing his best to defend himself with the butt-end of the
revolver. The arrival of the reinforcements turned the scale. The mob
fled before the onslaught of the hated Hindus, and Charlie and Captain
Rossiter lifted Cecil up, and half-carried her the rest of the way
between them. Azim Bey, picked up on the return journey, was hoisted
on the shoulders of one of the men, and they retraced their steps, to
find that they must force their way through a large and angry crowd
which had gathered in the street, and was hurling defiances at the
Residency. All eyes were turned on them as they emerged from the lane,
and a moment’s hesitation would have been fatal. A yell of execration
went up, a hundred hands were grasping missiles and were about to hurl
them, but Captain Rossiter said something quickly to Charlie, and gave
a sharp order. The Sepoys closed around, the two Englishmen caught up
Cecil and carried her across the street at a run, and before the mob
had guessed what was going to be done, they were parted as though by a
wedge, the gate of the Residency was gained, and their intended
victims were out of reach, the stones and potsherds which they threw
clattering on the stout doors as these were shut fast, and barred and
bolted from within.
“Sharp work!” said Captain Rossiter to Charlie, wiping his face. “I
say, I must go and report to the chief. You and Lady Haigh will look
after Miss Anstruther, I suppose? She looks pretty bad.”
He went off to Sir Dugald’s office at once, and told him what had
happened. Sir Dugald received the news with a look of weary
resignation most piteous to behold. His whole diplomatic life was a
struggle against the occurrence of what are euphemistically called
“complications,” and here was one brewing literally at his very door.
He finished the sentence he was writing, folded his papers and locked
them up in a drawer, carefully restoring the key to its place on his
watch-chain, but as he walked across the courtyard with Captain
Rossiter, his perturbation made itself audible in disjointed
mutterings.
“Why couldn’t they have taken refuge anywhere rather than here? That
fellow Egerton is bound to bring trouble wherever he goes. On my word,
it’s ‘heads you win, tails I lose,’ with a vengeance. If the mob
attack us, blood won’t wash it out, and if we fire on them we shall
have a blood-feud with all the Arabs in the country. Bringing that
child here, too, as if to proclaim that we support Ahmed Khémi in all
his wretched grinding oppression. We shall be identified with him in
the Baghdadi mind for years. Subadar, turn out the guard.”
The last sentence was addressed to the Sepoy officer, who was eagerly
awaiting the order, and the soldiers marched down to the gate, where
was gathered a crowd of clerks, servants, interpreters, cavasses, and
the other motley hangers-on of a consulate in the East, besides a
number of people from outside who considered themselves “under
protection,” and always sought the Residency in haste at the first
sign of a riot. These were all listening, pale with fear, to the
repeated crashes as the mob amused themselves by throwing stones at
the gate, but they made way with grateful confidence for Sir Dugald as
he advanced, his face absolutely impassive once more, and examined the
bars and bolts.
“So long as they are content with this,” he said to Captain Rossiter,
“we are all right. It’s an insult to the flag, of course, but an
apology will set it right. But if they get tired of throwing stones
and making no impression, we must still try and keep them off without
coming absolutely to blows. I will leave you in charge of the gate,
Rossiter, but there must be no firing with ball except in the very
last resort. Ah, listen to those mad idiots outside! They are trying
to provoke the Sepoys. Send the men back to fetch sand-bags or
anything that will strengthen the gate. Either keep them busy or keep
them out of hearing.”
Tired of throwing stones without result, the mob were now resorting to
hard words. One man after another stood up at a safe distance and
howled insults at the Sepoys, their families, and their whole
ancestry, and any particularly telling phrase was caught up and echoed
by the crowd. Sir Dugald’s brow was furrowed with anxiety as he slowly
retraced his steps from the gate, for these Sepoys were fresh from
India, full of memories of annual conflicts with Moslems at the Hûli
and the Moharram, and he could not tell how long they would stand the
provocation they were receiving. From the river-terrace he now sent
off a messenger to the Palace, informing the Pasha of the situation,
and begging him to send a sufficient force of soldiers to secure his
son’s safety and to enable him to return home, either by land or
water. And meanwhile he lamented that this “complication” should have
happened, as was only natural, at a time when the gunboat was away
down the river.