MAHOMED LAUGHS
The drawing back of Ryanne's powerful arm was produced by the stimulus
of self-preservation; but almost instantly thought dominated impulse,
and all indications of belligerency disappeared. The arm sank, relaxed.
It was not possible nor politic that Mahomed-El-Gebel meant to take
reprisal in this congested quarter. It would have gained him no
advantage whatever. And Ryanne's perception of the exact situation
enabled him to smile with the cool effrontery of a man inured to sudden
dangers.
"Well, well! So you have found your way to Cairo, Mahomed?"
"Yes, effendi," returned Mahomed, with a smile that answered Ryanne's in
thought and expression, the only perceivable difference being in the
accentuated whiteness of his fine teeth. "Yes, I have found you."
"And you have been looking for me?"
"Surely."
Ryanne, with an airy gesture, signified that he wished to enter his
carriage. Mahomed, with a movement equally light, implied his
determination to stand his ground.
"In a moment, effendi," he said smoothly.
Mahomed spoke English more or less fluently. His career of forty-odd
years had been most colorful. Once a young sheik of the desert, of ample
following, a series of tribal wars left him unattached, a wanderer
without tent, village, or onion-patch. He had first appeared in Cairo.
Here he had of necessity picked up a few words of English; and from a
laborer in the cotton fields he was eventually graduated to the envied
position of dragoman or guide. He tired of this, being nomadic by
instinct and inclination. He tried his hand at rugs in Smyrna, failed,
and found himself stranded in Constantinople. He drifted, became a
stevedore, a hotel porter, burying his pride till that moment when he
could, in dignity and security, resurrect it. Fortune, hanging fire,
relented upon his appointment as _cavass_ or messenger to the British
Consulate. After a time, he became what he considered prosperous; and
like all fanatic pagans of his faith, proposed to reconstruct his
religious life by a pilgrimage to Holy Mecca. While there, he had
performed a considerable service in behalf of the future Pasha of
Bagdad, who thereafter gave him a place in his retinue.
Mahomed was not only proud but wise; and a series of events, sequences
of his own shrewdness, pushed him forward till he became in deed, if not
in fact, the Pasha's right-hand man in Bagdad. That quaint city, removed
as it is from the ordinary highways of the Orient, is still to most of
us an echo remote and mysterious; and the present Pasha enjoys great
privileges, over property, over life and death; and it is not enlarging
upon fact to say that when he deems it necessary to lop off a head, he
does so, without consulting his master in Constantinople. It is all in
the business of a day. Next to his celebrated pearls and rose-diamonds,
the Pasha held as his most precious treasure, the Holy Yhiordes. And for
its loss Mahomed knew that his own head rested but insecurely upon his
lean neck. That his star was still in ascendancy he believed. The Pasha
would not be in Bagdad for many weeks. The revolution in Constantinople,
the success of the Young Turk party, made the Pasha's future incumbency
a matter of conjecture. While he pulled those wires familiar to the
politician, Mahomed set out bravely to recover the stolen rug. He was
prepared to proceed to any length to regain it, even to the horrible (to
his Oriental mind) necessity of buying it. He retained his travel-worn
garments circumspectly, for none would believe that his burnouse was
well lined with English bank-notes.
"Well?" said Ryanne, whirling his cane. He was by no means at ease.
There was going to be trouble somewhere along the road.
"I have come for the Yhiordes, effendi."
"The rug? That's too bad. I haven't it."
"Who has?" One fear beset Mahomed's heart: this dog, whom he called
effendi, might have sold it, since that must have been the ultimate
purpose of the theft. And if he had sold it to one who had left
Egypt.... Mahomed's neck grew cold. "Who has it, effendi? Is the man
still in Cairo?"
"Yes. If you and your two friends will come with me to the English-Bar,
I'll explain many things to you," assured Ryanne, beginning, as he
believed, to see his way forward. "Don't be afraid. I'm not setting any
trap for you. I'll tell you truthfully that I didn't expect to see you
so soon. If you'll come along I'll do the best I can to straighten out
the matter. What do you say?"
Mahomed eyed him with keen distrust. This white man was as strong in
cunning as he was in flesh. He had had practical demonstrations. Still,
whatever road led to the recovery of the rug must needs be traveled. His
arm, though it still reposed in a sling, was not totally helpless. It
stood three to one, then. He spoke briefly to his companions, over whom
he seemed to have some authority. These two inventoried the smooth-faced
Feringhi. One replied. Mahomed approved. Three to one, and in these
streets many to call upon, in case of open hostilities. The English-Bar
Mahomed knew tolerably well. He had known it in the lawless and reveling
eighties. It would certainly be neutral ground, since the proprietor was
a Greek. With a dignified sweep of his hand, he signed for Ryanne to
get into the carriage. Ryanne did so, relieved. He was certain that he
could bring Mahomed round to a reasonable view of the affair. He was
even willing to give him a little money. The three Arabs climbed in
beside him, and the journey to the hostelry was made without talk.
Ryanne pretended to be vastly interested in the turmoil through which
the carriage rolled, now swiftly, now hesitant, now at a standstill, and
again tortuously. Once Mahomed felt beneath his burnouse for his money;
and once Ryanne, in the pretense of seeking a cigar, felt for his. They
were rather upon even terms in the adjudication of each other's
character.
The English-Bar was not the most inviting place. Sober, Ryanne had never
darkened its doors. The odor of garlic prevailed over the lesser smells
of bad cooking. It was lighted only from the street, by two windows and
a door that swung open all the days in the year. The windows were
generally half obscured by bills announcing boxing-matches,
wrestling-bouts and the lithographs of cheap theaters. The walls were
decorated in a manner to please the inherent Anglo-Saxon taste for
strong men, fast horses, and pink-tighted Venuses. A few iron-topped
tables littered both room and sidewalk, and here were men of a dozen
nationalities, sipping coffee, drinking beer, or solemnly watching the
water-bubbles in their _sheeshas_, or pipes.
A curious phase of this class of under-world is that no one is curious.
Strangers are never questioned except when they invite attention, which
they seldom do. So, when Ryanne and his quasi-companions entered, there
wasn't the slightest agitation. A blowsy barmaid stood behind the bar,
polishing the copper spigots. Ryanne threw her a greeting, to which she
responded with a smirk that once upon a time had been a smile. He, being
master of ceremonies, selected a table in the corner. The four sat down,
and Ryanne plunged intrepidly into the business under hand. To make a
tool of Mahomed, if not an ally, toward this he directed his effort.
Half a dozen times, Mahomed dropped a word in Arabic to the other two,
who understood little or no English.
"So, you see, Mahomed, that's the way the matter stands. I'm not so much
to blame as you think. Here this man Jones has me in a vise. If I do not
get this bit of carpet, off I go, into the dark, into nothing, beaten.
I handled you roughly, I know. But could I help it? It was my throat or
yours. You're no chicken. You and that other chap made things exciting."
Mahomed accepted this compliment to his prowess in silence. Indeed, he
gazed dreamily over Ryanne's head. The other fellow wouldn't trouble any
one again. To Mahomed it had not been the battle, man to man; it had
been the guile and trickery leading up to it. He had been bested at his
own game, duplicity, and that irked him. Death, he, as his kind, looked
upon with Oriental passivity. Ah, well! The game was to have a second
inning, and he proposed to play it in strictly Oriental ways.
"How much did he give you for it?"
The expression upon Ryanne's face would have deceived any one but
Mahomed. "Give for it!" indignantly. "Why, that's the whole trouble. All
my trouble, all the hard work, and not a piaster, not a piaster! Can't
you understand, I _had_ to do it?"
"Is he going to sell it?"
"Sell it? Not he! He's a collector, and crazy over the thing."
Mahomed nodded. He knew something of the habits of collectors. "Is he
still in Cairo, and where may he be found?"
Ryanne began to believe that the game was going along famously; Mahomed
was sure of it.
"He is George P. A. Jones, of Mortimer & Jones, rich rug dealers of New
York. Money no object."
Though his face did not show it, Mahomed was singularly depressed by
this news. If this man Jones had money, of what use was his little
packet of notes?
"I must have that rug, effendi. There are two reasons why: it is holy,
and the loss of it means my head."
"Good riddance!" thought Ryanne, a sympathetic look upon his face.
"What have you to suggest in the way of a plan?" asked Mahomed.
Ryanne felt a tingle of jubilation. He saw nothing but plain-sailing
into port. But Mahomed had arranged to guide his craft into the
whirlpool. Unto himself he kept up a ceaseless reiteration
of--"Patience, patience, patience!"
Said Ryanne: "You do not care how you get the rug, so long as you do get
it?"
"No, effendi." Mahomed smiled.
"A little rough work wouldn't disturb you?"
"No, it would not."
"Well, then, listen to me. Suppose you arrange to take my friend Jones
into the desert for a little trip. Be his dragoman for a while. In fact,
kidnap him, abduct him, steal him. You can hold him in ransom for the
rug and a nice little sum of money besides."
"Can they do such things these days in Cairo?"
"Why not?"
"Truly, why not?" Mahomed sat thoughtfully studying the outrageous
prints on the cracked walls. Had he dared he would have laughed. And he
had thought this dog cunning beyond all his kind! "I agree. But the
arrangements I must leave to you. Bring him here at nine o'clock
to-night," he continued, leaning across the table impressively, "and I
will give you one hundred pounds English."
Ryanne quickly assumed the expression needed to meet such splendid news.
"I say, Mahomed, that is pretty square, after what has passed between
us."
"It is nothing," gallantly.
If Ryanne laughed in his sleeve, Mahomed certainly found ample room in
his for such silent and figurative cachinnations. He knew very well that
Ryanne had received a goodly sum for his adventure. No man took his life
in his hand to cancel an obligation which was not based upon
disinterested friendship; and already the man had disavowed any such
quality. Also, he had not been a seller of rugs himself, or guardian of
the Yhiordes all these years, without having had some contact with
collectors. Why, if there was one person dear at this moment to
Mahomed-El-Gebel's heart, it was this man sitting opposite. And he
wanted him far more eagerly than the rug; only, the rug must be
regained, for its loss was a passport into paradise; and he wasn't quite
prepared to be received by the houris.
"Mr. Jones, then, shall be here promptly at nine," declared Ryanne,
beckoning the barmaid. "What will you have?"
Mahomed shook his head. His two companions, gathering the significance
of the gesture, likewise declined.
"A smoke, then?"
A smiling negative.
"Beware of the Greek bearing gifts," laughed Ryanne. "All right. You
won't mind if I have a beer to the success of the venture?"
"No, effendi."
Ryanne drank the lukewarm beverage, while Mahomed toyed with his
turquoise ring, that sacred badge of an honorable pilgrimage to Holy
Mecca.
"The young lady, effendi; she was very pretty. Your sister?" casually
inquired Mahomed.
"Oh, no. She is a young lady I met at the hotel the other day."
The liar! thought the Moslem, as he recalled the light in Ryanne's eyes
and the tenderness of his smiles. Apparently, however, Mahomed lost
interest directly. "At nine o'clock to-night, then, this collector will
arrive to become my guest?"
"By hook or crook," was the answer. "I'll have him here. Cash upon
delivery, as they say."
"Cash upon delivery," Mahomed repeated, the phrase being familiar to his
tongue.
"Frankly, I want this man out of the way for a while."
"Ah!"
"Yes. I want a little revenge for the way he has treated me."
"So it is revenge?" softly. Traitorous to both sides.
"And when I get him here?"
"Leave the rest to me."
"Good. I'm off, then. Take him to Bagdad. It will be an experience for
him. But when you get him there, keep an eye out for the Shah Abbas in
the Pasha's work-room."
The affair had gone so smoothly that Ryanne's usual keenness fell below
the mark; fatuity was the word. There had been so many twists to the
morning that his abiding distrust of every one became, for the time
being, edgeless. The trick of purloining the cable had keyed him high;
the subsequent meeting of Fortune had depressed him. And besides, he was
too anxious to be rid of Jones to consider the possibilities of
Mahomed's state of mind.
He got up, paid his score, turned a jest for the amusement of the
barmaid, and went out to his carriage. His deduction still fallow, he
rode away. Lord! how easy it had been. Not a hitch anywhere. And here,
for days, he had imagined all sorts of things, and his dreams, a jumble
of dungeons, of tortures. He understood. The old rascal's own head hung
in the balance. That's what saved him. To Mahomed the rug was the
paramount feature; revenge (and he knew that Mahomed was longing madly,
fiercely for it) must wait. And when Mahomed turned his attention to
this phase, why, he, Ryanne, would be at the other side of the Atlantic.
It was very hard not to drop off at Shepheard's and confide the whole
droll conspiracy to a bottle with a green and gilded neck. But, no; he
had had no sleep the night before; wine and want of rest would leave him
witless when the time came to see that Percival was safely stowed away.
A fine joke, a monstrous fine joke! By-by, Percival, old chap; pleasant
journey. The United Romance and Adventure Company gives you this little
romance upon approval. If you do not like it, return it ... if you can!
Mahomed sat perfectly still in his chair. His two companions watched him
carefully. The mask had fallen, and their master's face was not pleasant
to see. Suddenly he laughed. The barmaid stopped at her work. She had
somewhere heard laughter like that. It gave her a shiver. Where had she
heard it? Yes, that was it. A man who had played the devil in an opera
called _Fawst_ or something like that. Would she ever see dear old foggy
London again? With a vain sigh she went on rinsing the glasses and
coffee-cups.
* * * * *
When George rolled out of bed it was eleven. He bathed and dressed,
absolutely content, regretless of the morning hours he had wasted. Truth
to tell, he hadn't enjoyed sleep so thoroughly in weeks. He set to work,
ridding the room of its clutter of books and clothes and what-nots.
Might as well get the bulk of his packing out of the way while he
thought of it.
Why had he been in such a dreadful hurry to pull out? Cairo was just now
the most delightful place he knew of. To leave behind the blue skies and
warm sunshine, and to face instead the biting winds and northern snows,
rather dispirited him. He paused, a pair of trousers dangling from his
hand. Pshaw! Why not admit it frankly and honestly? Wherever Fortune
Chedsoye was or might be, there was the delectable country. He hadn't
thought to ask her when she was to leave, nor whither she was to go. The
abruptness with which she had left him the night before puzzled rather
than disturbed him. Oh, well; this old planet was neither so deep nor so
round as it had once been. What with steamships and railroads, the
so-called four ends were drawn closely together. He would ask her
casually, as if it did not particularly matter. In Naples it would be an
easy matter to change his booking to New York. From Naples to Mentone
was only a question of a few hours.
"It doesn't seem possible, George, old boy, does it? But it's true; and
there's no use trying to fool yourself that it isn't. Fortune Chedsoye;
it will be a shame to add Jones to it; but I'm going to try."
He pressed down the last book, the last collar, the last pair of shoes,
and sat upon the lid of the trunk. He growled a little. The lock was
always bothering him. It was wonderful how many things a chap could take
out of a trunk and how plagued few he could put back. It did not seem to
relieve the pressure if he added a steamer-trunk here or a suit-case
there; there was always just so much there wasn't any room for. Truly,
it needed a woman's hand to pack a trunk. However his mother in the old
school-days had got all his belongings into one trunk was still an
unsolved mystery.
Stubborn as the lock was, perseverance overcame it. George then, as a
slight diversion, spread the ancient Yhiordes over the trunk and stared
at it in pleasurable contemplation. What a beauty it was! What exquisite
blue, what soft reds, what minute patterns! And this treasure was his.
He leaned down upon it with his two hands. A color stole into his
cheeks. It had its source in an old confusion: school-boys jeering a
mate seen walking home from school with a girl. It was all rot, he
perfectly knew, this wishing business; and yet he flung into the
sun-warmed, sun-gilded space an ardent wish, sent it speeding round the
world from east to west. Fast as heat, fast as light it traveled, for no
sooner had it sprung from his mind than it entered the window of a room
across the corridor. Whether the window was open or shut was of no
importance whatever. Such wishes penetrated and went through all
obstacles. And this one touched Fortune's eyes, her hair, her lips; it
caressed her in a thousand happy ways. But, alas! such wishes are
without temporal power.
Fortune never knew. She sat in a chair, her fingers locked tensely, her
eyes large and set in gaze, her lips compressed, her whole attitude one
of impotent despair.
George did not see her at lunch, and consequently did not enjoy the
hour. Was she ill? Had she gone away? Would she return before he
started? He greeted the Major as one greets a long-lost friend; and by
gradations George considered clever indeed, brought the conversation
down to Fortune. No, the Major did not know where she was. She had gone
early to the bazaars. Doubtless she was lunching alone somewhere. She
had the trick of losing herself at times. Mrs. Chedsoye was visiting
friends at Shepheard's. When did Mr. Jones leave for America? What! on
the morrow? The Major shook his head regretfully. There was no place
like Cairo for Christmas.
George called a carriage, drove about the principal streets and shopping
districts, and used his eyes diligently; but it was love's labor lost.
Not even when he returned at tea-time did he see her. Why hadn't he
known and got up? He could have shown her the bazaars; and there wasn't
a dragoman in Cairo more familiar with them than he. A wasted day,
totally wasted. He hung about the lounging-room till it was time to go
up and dress for dinner. To-night (as if the gods had turned George's
future affairs over to the care of Momus) he dressed as if he were going
to the opera: swallow-tail, white vest, high collar and white-lawn
cravat, opera-Fedora, and thin-soled pumps; all those habiliments and
demi-habiliments supposed to make the man. When he reached what he
thought to be the glass of fashion and the mold of form, he turned for
the first time toward his trunk. He did not rub his eyes; it wasn't at
all necessary; one thing he saw, or rather did not see, was established
beyond a doubt, as plainly definite as two and two are four. The ancient
Yhiordes had taken upon itself one of the potentialities of its fabulous
prototype, that of invisibility: it was gone.