“Ah!” said a lady, in a dirty pink house at Assiout, with an accent
which betrayed a discovery and a resolution, “I will do it. I may be of
use some way or another. The Khedive won’t dare--but still the times
are desperate. As Donovan Pasha said, it isn’t easy holding down the
safety-valve all the time, and when it flies off, there will be dark
days for all of us.... An old friend--bad as he is! Yes, I will go.”
Within forty-eight hours of Donovan Pasha’s and Kingsley Bey’s arrival
in Cairo the lady appeared there, and made inquiries of her friends. No
one knew anything. She went to the Consulate, and was told that Kingsley
Bey was still in prison, that the Consulate had not yet taken action.
She went to Donovan Pasha, and he appeared far more mysterious and
troubled than he really was. Kingsley Bey was as cheerful as might be
expected, he said, but the matter was grave. He was charged with the
destruction of the desert-city, and maintaining an army of slaves in the
Khedive’s dominions--a menace to the country.
“But it was with the Khedive’s connivance,” she said. “Who can prove
that? It’s a difficult matter for England to handle, as you can see.”
This was very wily of Dicky Donovan, for he was endeavouring to create
alarm and sympathy in the woman’s mind by exaggerating the charge.
He knew that in a few days at most Kingsley Bey would be free. He had
himself given Ismail a fright, and had even gone so far as to suggest
inside knowledge of the plans of Europe concerning Egypt. But if he
could deepen the roots of this comedy for Kingsley’s benefit--and for
the lady’s--it was his duty so to do.
“Of course,” he made haste to add, “you cannot be expected to feel
sympathy for him. In your eyes, he is a criminal. He had a long innings,
and made a mint of money. We must do all we can, and, of course, we’ll
save his life--ah, I’m sure you wouldn’t exact the fullest penalty on
him!”
Dicky was more than wily; he was something wicked. The suggestion of
danger to Kingsley’s life had made her wince, and he had added another
little barbed arrow to keep the first company. The cause was a good one.
Hurt now to heal afterwards--and Kingsley was an old friend, and a good
fellow. Anyhow, this work was wasting her life, and she would be much
better back in England, living a civilised life, riding in the Row, and
slumming a little, in the East End, perhaps, and presiding at meetings
for the amelioration of the unameliorated. He was rather old-fashioned
in his views. He saw the faint trouble in her eyes and face, and he made
up his mind that he would work while it was yet the day. He was about to
speak, but she suddenly interposed a question.
“Is he comfortable? How does he take it?”
“Why, all right. You know the kind of thing: mud walls and floor--quite
dry, of course--and a sleeping-mat, and a balass of water, and cakes of
dourha, and plenty of time to think. After all, he’s used to primitive
fare.”
Donovan Pasha was drawing an imaginary picture, and drawing it with
effect. He almost believed it as his artist’s mind fashioned it. She
believed it, and it tried her. Kingsley Bey was a criminal, of course,
but he was an old friend; he had offended her deeply also, but that was
no reason why he should be punished by any one save herself. Her regimen
of punishments would not necessarily include mud walls and floor, and a
sleeping-mat and a balass of water; and whatever it included it should
not be administered by any hand save her own. She therefore resented,
not quite unselfishly, this indignity and punishment the Khedive had
commanded.
“When is he to be tried?”
“Well, that is hardly the way to put it. When he can squeeze the Khedive
into a corner he’ll be free, but it takes time. We have to go carefully,
for it isn’t the slave-master alone, it’s those twenty slaves of his,
including the six you freed. Their heads are worth a good deal to the
Khedive, he thinks.”
She was dumfounded. “I don’t understand,” she said helplessly.
“Well, the Khedive put your six and fourteen others in prison for
treason or something--it doesn’t matter much here what it is. His game
is to squeeze Kingsley’s gold orange dry, if he can.”
A light broke over her face. “Ah, now I see,” she said, and her face
flushed deeply with anger and indignation. “And you--Donovan Pasha, you
who are supposed to have influence with the Khedive, who are supposed
to be an English influence over him, you can speak of this quietly,
patiently, as a matter possible to your understanding. This barbarous,
hideous black mail! This cruel, dreadful tyranny! You, an Englishman,
remain in the service of the man who is guilty of such a crime!” Her
breath came hard.
“Well, it seems the wisest thing to do as yet. You have lived a long
time in Egypt, you should know what Oriental rule is. Question: Is
one bite of a cherry better than no bite of a cherry? Egypt is like a
circus, but there are wild horses in the ring, and you can’t ride
them just as you like. If you keep them inside the barriers, that’s
something. Of course, Kingsley made a mistake in a way. He didn’t start
his desert-city and his slavery without the consent of the Khedive;
he shouldn’t have stopped it and gone out of business without the same
consent. It cut down the Effendina’s tribute.”
He spoke slowly, counting every word, watching the effect upon her. He
had much to watch, and he would have seen more if he had known women
better.
“He has abandoned the mines--his city--and slavery?” she asked
chokingly, confusedly. It seemed hard for her to speak.
“Yes, yes, didn’t you know? Didn’t he tell you?” She shook her head. She
was thinking back-remembering their last conversation, remembering how
sharp and unfriendly she had been with him. He had even then freed his
slaves, had given her slaves to free.
“I wonder what made him do it?” added Dicky. “He had made a great
fortune--poor devil, he needed it, for the estates were sweating under
the load. I wonder what made him do it?”
She looked at him bewilderedly for a moment, then, suddenly, some faint
suspicion struck her.
“You should know. You joined with him in deceiving me at Assiout.”
“But, no,” he responded quickly, and with rare innocence, “the situation
was difficult. You already knew him very well, and it was the force of
circumstances--simply the force of circumstances. Bad luck--no more. He
was innocent, mine was the guilt. I confess I was enjoying the thing,
because--because, you see he had deceived me, actually deceived me, his
best friend. I didn’t know he knew you personally, till you two met on
that veranda at Assiout, and--”
“And you made it difficult for him to explain at once--I remember.”
“I’m afraid I did. I’ve got a nasty little temper at times, and I had
a chance to get even. Then things got mixed, and Foulik Pasha upset the
whole basket of plums. Besides, you see, I’m a jealous man, an envious
man, and you never looked so well as you did that day, unless it’s
to-day.”
She was about to interrupt him, but he went on.
“I had begun to feel that we might have been better friends, you and
I; that--that I might have helped you more; that you had not had the
sympathy you deserved; that civilisation was your debtor, and that--”
“No, no, no, you must not speak that way to me,” she interposed with
agitation. “It--it is not necessary. It doesn’t bear on the matter. And
you’ve always been a good friend--always a good friend,” she added with
a little friendly quiver in her voice, for she was not quite sure of
herself.
Dicky had come out in a new role, one wherein he would not have been
recognised. It was probably the first time he had ever tried the
delicate social art of playing with fire of this sort. It was all true
in a way, but only in a way. The truest thing about it was that it was
genuine comedy, in which there were two villains, and no hero, and one
heroine.
“But there it is,” he repeated, having gone as far as his cue warranted.
“I didn’t know he had given up his desert-city till two days before you
did, and I didn’t know he knew you, and I don’t know why he gave up his
desert-city--do you?”
There was a new light in her eyes, a new look in her face. She was
not sure but that she had a glimmering of the reason. It was a woman’s
reason, and it was not without a certain exquisite egotism and vanity,
for she remembered so well the letter she had written him--every word
was etched into her mind; and she knew by heart every word of his reply.
Then there were the six slaves he sent to her-and his coming immediately
afterwards.... For a moment she seemed to glow, and then the colour
slowly faded and left her face rather grey and very quiet.
He might not be a slave-driver now, but he had been one--and the world
of difference it made to her! He had made his great fortune out of the
work of the men employed as slaves, and--she turned away to the window
with a dejected air. For the first time the real weight of the problem
pressed upon her heavily.
“Perhaps you would like to see him,” said Dicky. “It might show that you
were magnanimous.”
“Magnanimous! It will look like that--in a mud-cell, with mud floor, and
a piece of matting.”
“And a balass of water and dourha-cakes,” said Dicky in a childlike way,
and not daring to meet her eyes.
He stroked his moustache with his thumb-nail in a way he had when
perplexed. Kingsley Bey was not in a mud-cell, with a mat and a balass
of water, but in a very decent apartment indeed, and Dicky was trying to
work the new situation out in his mind. The only thing to do was to have
Kingsley removed to a mud-cell, and not let him know the author of his
temporary misfortune and this new indignity. She was ready to visit
him now--he could see that. He made difficulties, however, which would
prevent their going at once, and he arranged with her to go to Kingsley
in the late afternoon.
Her mind was in confusion, but one thing shone clear through the
confusion, and it was the iniquity of the Khedive. It gave her a
foothold. She was deeply grateful for it. She could not have moved
without it. So shameful was the Khedive in her eyes that the prisoner
seemed Criminal made Martyr.
She went back to her hotel flaming with indignation against Ismail. It
was very comforting to her to have this resource. The six slaves whom
she had freed--the first-fruits of her labours: that they should be
murdered! The others who had done no harm, who had been slaves by
Ismail’s consent, that they should be now in danger of their lives
through the same tyrant! That Kingsley Bey, who had been a slave-master
with Ismail’s own approval and to his advantage, should now--she glowed
with pained anger.... She would not wait till she had seen Kingsley Bey,
or Donovan Pasha again; she herself would go to Ismail at once.
So, she went to Ismail, and she was admitted, after long waiting in an
anteroom. She would not have been admitted at all, if it had not been
for Dicky, who, arriving just before her on the same mission, had
seen her coming, and guessed her intention. He had then gone in to
the Khedive with a new turn to his purposes, a new argument and a new
suggestion, which widened the scope of the comedy now being played. He
had had a struggle with Ismail, and his own place and influence had
been in something like real danger, but he had not minded that. He had
suggested that he might be of service to Egypt in London and Paris. That
was very like a threat, but it was veiled by a look of genial innocence
which Ismail admired greatly. He knew that Donovan Pasha could hasten
the crisis coming on him. He did not believe that Donovan Pasha would,
but that did not alter the astuteness and value of the move; and,
besides, it was well to run no foolish risks and take no chances. Also,
he believed in Donovan Pasha’s honesty. He despised him in a worldly
kind of way, because he might have been rich and splendid, and he was
poor and unassuming. He wanted Kingsley Bey’s fortune, or a great slice
of it, but he wanted it without a struggle with Dicky Donovan, and with
the British Consulate--for that would come, too, directly. It gave him
no security to know that the French would be with him--he knew which
country would win in the end. He was preying on Kingsley Bey’s humanity,
and he hoped to make it well worth while. And all he thought and planned
was well understood by Dicky.
Over their coffee they both talked from long distances towards the
point of attack and struggle, Ismail carelessly throwing in glowing
descriptions of the palaces he was building. Dicky never failed to show
illusive interest, and both knew that they were not deceiving the other,
and both came nearer to the issue by devious processes, as though these
processes were inevitable. At last Dicky suddenly changed his manner and
came straight to the naked crisis.
“Highness, I have an invitation for Kingsley Bey to dine at the British
Consulate to-night. You can spare his presence?”
“My table is not despicable. Is he not comfortable here?”
“Is a mud floor, with bread and water and a sleeping-mat, comfortable?”
“He is lodged like a friend.”
“He is lodged like a slave--in a cell.”
“They were not my orders.”
“Effendina, the orders were mine.”
“Excellency!”
“Because there were no orders and Foulik Pasha was sleepless with
anxiety lest the prisoner should escape, fearing your Highness’s anger,
I gave orders and trusted your Highness to approve.”
Ismail saw a mystery in the words, and knew that it was all to be part
of Dicky’s argument in the end. “So be it, Excellency,” he said, “thou
hast breathed the air of knowledge, thine actions shine. In what quarter
of the palace rests he? And Foulik Pasha?”
“Foulik Pasha sits by his door, and the room is by the doorway where the
sarrafs keep the accounts for the palaces your Highness builds. Also,
abides near, the Greek, who toils upon the usury paid by your Highness
to Europe.”
Ismail smiled. The allusions were subtle and piercing. There was a short
pause. Each was waiting. Dicky changed the attack. “It is a pity we
should be in danger of riot at this moment, Highness.”
“If riots come, they come. It is the will of God, Excellency. But in our
hand lies order. We will quiet the storm, if a storm fall.”
“There will be wreck somewhere.”
“So be it. There will be salvage.”
“Nothing worth a riot, Highness.”
The Khedive eyed Dicky with a sudden malice and a desire to slay--to
slay even Donovan Pasha. He did not speak, and Dicky continued
negligently: “Prevention is better than cure.”
The Khedive understood perfectly. He knew that Dicky had circumvented
him, and had warned the Bank.
Still the Khedive did not speak. Dicky went on. “Kingsley Bey deposited
ten thousand pounds--no more. But the gold is not there; only Kingsley
Bey’s credit.”
“His slaves shall die to-morrow morning.”
“Not so, Highness.”
The Khedive’s fingers twisted round the chair-arm savagely.
“Who will prevent it?”
“Your Highness will. Your Highness could not permit it--the time is far
past. Suppose Kingsley Bey gave you his whole fortune, would it save one
palace or pay one tithe of your responsibilities? Would it lengthen the
chain of safety?”
“I am safe.”
“No, Highness. In peril--here with your own people, in Europe with the
nations. Money will not save you.”
“What then?”
“Prestige. Power--the Soudan. Establish yourself in the Soudan with a
real army. Let your name be carried to the Abyssinian mountains as the
voice of the eagle.”
“Who will carry it?” He laughed disdainfully, with a bitter, hopeless
kind of pride. “Who will carry it?”
“Gordon-again.”
The Khedive started from his chair, and his sullen eye lighted to
laughter. He paced excitedly to and fro for a minute, and then broke
out:
“Thou hast said it! Gordon--Gordon--if he would but come again!--But it
shall be so, by the beard of God’s prophet, it shall. Thou hast said the
thing that has lain in my heart. Have I had honour in the Soudan since
his feet were withdrawn? Where is honour and tribute and gold since his
hand ruled--alone without an army? It is so--Inshallah! but it is so. He
shall come again, and the people’s eyes will turn to Khartoum and Darfdr
and Kordofan, and the greedy nations will wait. Ah, my friend, but
the true inspiration is thine! I will send for Gordon to night--even
to-night. Thou shalt go--no, no, not so. Who can tell--I might look for
thy return in vain! But who--who, to carry my word to Gordon?”
“Your messenger is in the anteroom,” said Dicky with a sudden thought.
“Who is it, son of the high hills?”
“The lady at Assiout--she who is such a friend to Gordon as I am to
thee, Highness.”
“She whose voice and hand are against slavery?”
“Even so. It is good that she return to England there to remain. Send
her.”
“Why is she here?” The Khedive looked suspiciously at Dicky, for it
seemed that a plot had been laid.
Thereupon, Dicky told the Khedive the whole story, and not in years had
Ismail’s face shown such abandon of humour.
“By the will of God, but it shall be!” he said. “She shall marry
Kingsley Bey, and he shall go free.”
“But not till she has seen him and mourned over him in his cell, with
the mud floor and the balass of water.”
The Khedive laughed outright and swore in French. “And the cakes of
dourha! I will give her as a parting gift the twenty slaves, and she
shall bring her great work to a close in the arms of a slaver. It is
worth a fortune.”
“It is worth exactly ten thousand pounds to your Highness--ten thousand
pounds neither more nor less.”
Ismail questioned.
“Kingsley Bey would make last tribute of thus much to your Highness.”
Ismail would not have declined ten thousand centimes. “Malaish!” he
said, and called for coffee, while they planned what should be said to
his Ambassadress from Assiout.
She came trembling, yet determined, and she left with her eyes full of
joyful tears. She was to carry the news of his freedom and the freedom
of his slaves to Kingsley Bey, and she--she, was to bear to Gordon, the
foe of slavery, the world’s benefactor, the message that he was to come
and save the Soudan. Her vision was enlarged, and never went from any
prince a more grateful supplicant and envoy.
Donovan Pasha went with her to the room with the mud floor where
Kingsley Bey was confined.
“I owe it all to you,” she said as they hastened across the sun-swept
square. “Ah, but you have atoned! You have done it all at once, after
these long years.”
“Well, well, the time is ripe,” said Dicky piously. They found Kingsley
Bey reading the last issue of the French newspaper published in Cairo.
He was laughing at some article in it abusive of the English, and seemed
not very downcast; but at a warning sign and look from Dicky, he became
as grave as he was inwardly delighted at seeing the lady of Assiout.
As Kingsley Bey and the Ambassadress shook hands, Dicky said to her:
“I’ll tell him, and then go.” Forthwith he said: “Kingsley Bey, son of
the desert, and unhappy prisoner, the prison opens its doors. No
more for you the cold earth for a bed--relieved though it be by a
sleeping-mat. No more the cake of dourha and the balass of Nile water.
Inshallah, you are as free as a bird on the mountain top, to soar to far
lands and none to say thee nay.”
Kingsley Bey caught instantly at the meaning lying beneath Dicky’s
whimsical phrases, and he deported himself accordingly. He looked
inquiringly at the Ambassadress, and she responded:
“We come from the Khedive, and he bids us carry you his high
considerations--”
“Yes, ‘high considerations,’ he said,” interjected Dicky with his eye
towards a fly on the ceiling.
“And to beg your company at dinner to-night.”
“And the price?” asked Kingsley, feeling his way carefully, for he
wished no more mistakes where this lady was concerned. At Assiout he had
erred; he had no desire to be deceived at Cairo. He did not know how he
stood with her, though her visit gave him audacious hopes. Her face was
ruled to quietness now, and only in the eyes resolutely turned away was
there any look which gave him assurance. He seemed to hear her talking
from the veranda that last day at Assiout; and it made him discreet at
least.
“Oh, the price!” murmured Dicky, and he seemed to study the sleepy
sarraf who pored over his accounts in the garden. “The price is
‘England, home, and beauty.’ Also to prop up the falling towers of
Khedivia--ten thousand pounds! Also, Gordon.”
Kingsley Bey appeared, as he was, mystified, but he was not inclined to
spoil things by too much speaking. He looked inquiry.
At that moment an orderly came running towards the door--Dicky had
arranged for that. Dicky started, and turned to the lady. “You tell him.
This fellow is coming for me. I’ll be back in a quarter of an hour.”
He nodded to them both and went out to the orderly, who followed his
footsteps to the palace.
“You’ve forgiven me for everything--for everything at Assiout, I mean?”
he asked.
“I have no desire to remember,” she answered. “About Gordon--what is
it?”
“Ah, yes, about Gordon!” She drew herself up a little. “I am to go to
England--for the Khedive, to ask Gordon to save the Soudan.”
“Then you’ve forgiven the Khedive?” he inquired with apparent innocence.
“I’ve no wish to prevent him showing practical repentance,” she
answered, keenly alive to his suggestion, and a little nettled. “It
means no more slavery. Gordon will prevent that.”
“Will he?” asked Kingsley, again with muffled mockery.
“He is the foe of slavery. How many, many letters I have had from him!
He will save the Soudan--and Egypt too.”
“He will be badly paid--the Government will stint him. And he will give
away his pay--if he gets any.”
She did not see his aim, and her face fell. “He will succeed for all
that.”
“He can levy taxes, of course.”
“But he will not-for himself.”
“I will give him twenty thousand pounds, if he will take it.”
“You--you!--will give him--” Her eyes swam with pleasure. “Ah, that is
noble! That makes wealth a glory, to give it to those who need it. To
save those who are down-trodden, to help those who labour for the
good of the world, to--” she stopped short, for all at once she
remembered-remembered whence his money came. Her face suffused. She
turned to the door. Confusion overmastered her for the moment. Then,
anger at herself possessed her. On what enterprise was she now embarked?
Where was her conscience? For what was she doing all this? What was the
true meaning of her actions? Had it been to circumvent the Khedive? To
prevent him from doing an unjust, a despicable, and a dreadful thing?
Was it only to help the Soudan? Was it but to serve a high ideal,
through an ideal life--through Gordon?
It came upon her with embarrassing force. For none of these things was
she striving. She was doing all for this man, against whose influence
she had laboured, whom she had bitterly condemned, and whose fortune she
had called blood-money and worse. And now...
She knew the truth, and it filled her heart with joy and also pain. Then
she caught at a straw: he was no slave-driver now. He had--
“May I not help you--go with you to England?” he questioned over her
shoulder.
“Like Alexander Selkirk ‘I shall finish my journey alone,’” she said,
with sudden but imperfectly assumed acerbity.
“Will you not help me, then?” he asked. “We could write a book
together.”
“Oh, a book!” she said.
“A book of life,” he whispered.
“No, no, no--can’t you see?--oh, you are playing me like a ball!”
“Only to catch you,” he said, in a happier tone.
“To jest, when I am so unhappy!” she murmured.
“My jest is the true word.”
She made a last rally. “Your fortune was made out of slave labour.”
“I have given up the slaves.”
“You have the fortune.”
“I will give it all to you--to have your will with it. Now it is won, I
would give it up and a hundred times as much to hear you say, ‘Come to
Skaw Fell again.”’
Did he really mean it? She thought he did. And it seemed the only way
out of the difficulty. It broke the impasse.
It was not necessary, however, to spend the future in the way first
suggested to her mind. They discussed all that at Skaw Fell months
later.
Human nature is weak and she has become a slavedriver, after all. But he
is her only slave, and he hugs his bondage.