In the West an interest in Philosophy is considered to be an indication
of eccentricity; and the thought brings before the imagination some
long-haired and ancient professor, detached from the active world,
wandering around a college quadrangle, his hands folded, and his face
upturned to the sky as though averted from the stains of spilt food upon
his breast. In the East, however, the Philosopher is held in high
honour; and his vocation calls to mind a thousand tranquil figures each
of whom has been the power behind an Oriental throne.
Daniel Lane was a philosopher by inclination and by education, and his
great common sense was the definite consequence of careful reasoning.
He believed that Right was an unconquerable force which needed no
display of manners or sounding of trumpets to signal its movement; and
so long as he did not offend against the laws formulated by his
philosophy, he did not look for difficulties or defeat.
Nor was he a man who could be terrorized by any threats; and though Lord
Blair had warned him that assassination was a likely end to a political
career in Cairo, he was not in the slightest degree troubled by the
thought. Very reluctantly he consented to profit by the activities of
the Secret Service; and he determined to dispense with their aid as soon
as he had made himself acquainted with the ramifications of native
intrigue.
He began his work at the Residency, therefore, without trepidation; and
on the first morning of his official employment he inaugurated a
procedure which before nightfall was the talk of many in the native
quarter.
In a secluded corner of the garden, at the end of a short terrace at the
edge of the Nile, there was a luxuriant group of palms, in the shade of
which stood a marble bench of Arabic design, built in a half-circle upon
a base of Damascus tiles. A mass of shrubs and prolific rose bushes shut
it off from the main grounds; while from passing boats it was screened
by a low parapet covered by a wild tangle of flowering creepers. This
sheltered and peaceful alcove was promptly appropriated by Daniel, and
in this setting he made his appearance in the political life of Cairo.
His first visitor was a wealthy, silk-robed land-owner from Upper Egypt,
who desired to lay certain complaints before the British authorities, in
regard to the hostile actions of a native inspector of Irrigation. The
man had been shown into the waiting-room in the Residency, where he had
been filled with anxiety by the ticking of the typewriters in the
adjoining room, the constant ringing of telephone bells, and the hurried
passage to and fro of clerks and liveried servants. He had wondered
whether he knew sufficient English to make himself understood without
the aid of an interpreter, and whether, if the interpreter's services
were required, he would have to give him very handsome _backshish_ to
render his tongue persuasive.
Therefore, when he was led presently across the lawn to the sunny
terrace beside the Nile, where he came upon a mild and quiet figure who
stood smoking his pipe, and idly tossing pebbles into the placid waters,
and who now greeted him in the benevolent language of the Koran, his
agitation left him upon the moment, and with it went the need of
cunning. He stated his case frankly, as he strolled to and fro with
Daniel in the sunlight, and he blessed God and his Prophet that the
interview which he had dreaded so long in anticipation should prove so
undisturbing in actuality.
Daniel next found himself seated upon the marble bench with a
caravan-master who had failed through the ordinary channels to obtain
redress for the illegal seizure of certain goods at the Tripolitan
frontier; and this personage's amazement at the Englishman's knowledge
of the desert routes was profound.
Later, a deputation of sheikhs from Dongola was received in the shade of
the rustling palms: grave, anxious men who had come to speak of the
disaffection of certain neighbouring tribes, and to express their own
loyalty, which was somewhat in doubt.
At the close of the interview, while he was warning them against revolt,
Daniel happened to notice a bundle of stout wooden faggots lying near by
in readiness for use as supports for some young trees which had recently
been planted. He went across to them, and selecting one of them, carried
it back to his seat upon the bench; and presently, turning to the
sheikhs, he asked if any man amongst them could break such a faggot
across his knees.
The youngest member of the deputation, a magnificent specimen of negroid
humanity, took the faggot in his brown hands, and strained his muscles
in the attempt to break it, but without success. His colleagues, older
men, made no trial of their lesser strength, but were satisfied to
declare the task to be impossible.
Daniel rose and took it from them, and a moment later flung it to the
ground in two halves. "That faggot," he said, quietly resuming his seat,
"may be likened to the land of Dongola, which is to be the strong
support of the fruit-bearing tree of the Sudan. But if it fail in its
useful duty, it may thus be broken asunder by hands more powerful than
yours, and be cast into the flames."
To the native mind a demonstration of this kind was more potent than any
words, and the deputation of sheikhs left the alcove, carrying with them
a tale which would be told to their children's children.
As they retreated across the lawn towards the entrance, Daniel suddenly
caught sight of Muriel, whose face peered out from amongst the rose
bushes, as though she were looking to see if he were alone.
"Hullo!" he called out; "what are you doing here?"
"Spying on you," she answered, coming out into the open, her arms full
of roses which she had been picking.
"That's very wrong of you," he said.
"Well, you've taken possession of my particular corner," she laughed,
"and I always get my roses from here."
"I'm sorry," he replied as they seated themselves upon the marble bench.
"I though you slacked about upstairs until midday."
She looked at him squarely. "You've got a wrong idea about me
altogether," she declared. "It's true I don't spend my mornings in
smashing up Government property.... By the way, why did you break that
wooden stake across your knee?"
He laughed quietly. "It was a parable: it represented a certain province
of the Soudan, and its possible fate at England's hands."
She thought it out. "I wonder what would have happened," she mused, "if
you'd found that you couldn't break it. I suppose in that case you would
have said it represented England."
"No," he answered, "I should have been in a bad fix, and it would have
served me right for showing off. But I don't often attempt what I don't
think I can do. It's a bad thing to fumble about with anything that's
beyond one, like a dog with an uncrackable bone."
"Somebody ought to have invented a proverb," she said, "like 'Don't
worry what you can't bite.' But, you know, you're fumbling about with me
very badly."
"Would you rather I bit clean through you right away?" he asked.
"Supposing I said I thought I had smashed you open already...?"
"I'd pity your strange delusion," she answered, and they both laughed,
though Muriel did not feel hilarious.
"Well, supposing I just said I thought I _could_ do so, and was going to
try?"
"I'd reply: 'Any thing, so long as you don't worry me.'"
Again they laughed, and this time Muriel did so with more sincerity, for
she felt that she had answered him well.
He took a rose from the bunch in her hands, and smelt it thoughtfully.
"Yes, I'm going to try," he said at length. "I'm going to understand
you, and then make you understand yourself. I'm going to show you
yourself."
"You're a busy man," she answered, at once estranged; "you'd better not
take on any new job."
"It's worth while, I think," he replied.
There was something in his voice which changed the tone of their
conversation, and arrested the development of her hostile feelings. The
flippancy of their words died away, and a new seriousness, a salient
eventfulness, took its place. Suddenly Muriel was filled with longing to
be understood, to be laid bare mentally both to him and to herself. She
felt solitary and her heart cried out for the enlightenment of
friendship; yet she did not dare to make an intimate of this man, whose
treatment of her sex did not seem to be conspicuously delicate.
Nevertheless the inadequacy, the inutility of her method of life was
very forcibly presented to her, and she seemed to be beating at the bars
of her cage. There was something so flat and unprofitable in all that
she had done, and the desire was urgent in her to realize herself and
expand.
"O, I want to be taught," she exclaimed, "I want to be taught...." She
checked herself, and was silent.
He looked at her in surprise, for she uttered the words with intensity,
and it was clear that she meant them; but it was not clear that they
were prompted by more than a passing emotion, for presently she began to
talk about the lighter things of her life, and she spoke of the various
events in prospect which would keep her from brooding. The greater part
of each day for the next week or so was already filled; and Muriel spoke
of these coming events as though they were dispensations granted to her
by a benevolent Fortune for her heart's comfort.
"I've come to the conclusion," she said, "that the only way to be happy
is to be surrounded by amusing people, so that there is no opportunity
for thinking about oneself."
He shook his head. "No, you're wrong. Your happiness must come from
within, from the contentment and fullness of your own mind. The Buddha
once said 'Let us dwell free from yearning, among men who are anxious';
and there is an anonymous Oriental poem which says something about the
lost paradise being hidden, really, in the human breast. My good girl,"
he exclaimed, warming to his subject, "don't you realize that what you
can get from this restless world of 'society' you live in is only
pleasure, not happiness, and even at that it doesn't last. You are like
a punctured wheel: so long as people are pumping you up, you seem to be
all right, but when they leave you alone you go flat, because your inner
tube isn't sound. You ought to be alone in the desert for a bit: it
would do you all the good in the world."
Muriel looked at him questioningly. "Were you alone in the desert?" she
asked. There had come into her mind a vision of that harim of which she
had heard tell.
"Well, I wasn't exactly alone ...," he replied; for he had many friends
among the natives.
His answer gave fresh colour to her thoughts, and a sense of annoyance
crept over her.
"It seems to me," she remarked, "that I ought to remind you of the
Biblical saying, 'Physician, heal thyself.'"
She got up, and, with a little nod to him, strolled back to the
rose-bushes. He watched her as she added fresh blooms to the bunch she
was carrying; and he noticed how the sunlight caught her hair and made
it beautiful. He would have liked to have gone after her and taken her
in his arms.
Presently he returned to the house, and, finding that there were no more
native visitors, went to talk over serious matters of policy with the
regular Secretaries.
He remained to luncheon at the Residency, and at the table Lord Blair
enquired eagerly as to whether he had found his first morning's work
interesting, and appeared to be relieved to hear that such was the case.
Muriel joined in the conversation. "I was eavesdropping behind the
bushes," she said, "and I can say with confidence that Mr. Lane enjoyed
it all thoroughly, especially the part where he smashed up the
gardener's work of weeks." Therewith she related the incident of the
wooden stake, but in her narrative the faggot became an immense
tree-trunk.
Lord Blair rubbed his hands. "That's the sort of thing!" he exclaimed.
"Dear me, dear me!--what strength you have, Daniel!"
"Yes," said Muriel, "his mere presence would make the dullest party
piquant. One has only to recollect that if he were suddenly to get out
of control, every person in the vicinity would run the risk of being
banged into a boneless emulsion...."
She broke off with a laugh, and Daniel smiled affably. Somehow, in spite
of his Herculean proportions, he was not a man one would associate with
violence.
After luncheon, Daniel spent some time in talking to Lord Blair in
regard to native affairs; and it was already half past three when he
left the Great Man's study, and walked across the hall to the main
entrance. Here he encountered Lady Muriel, who was just going off upon
her visit to the bazaars. She was about to step into a very new and
luxurious automobile, which Mrs. de Courcy Cavilland, wife of the
Colonel of the Dragoons, had recently purchased to the honour of the
regiment and to the dismay of her husband. This lady, a small fluffy
woman, with innocent blue eyes and sharp little teeth, was making
gushing remarks to Muriel as Daniel appeared at the head of the steps;
and three young Dragoon officers were standing behind her, like nice
little dogs awaiting their turn to go through their tricks. Actually
they were excellent fellows, but in the presence of their colonel's
wife, they bore little resemblance to the fire-eating cavalrymen of
tradition; and Daniel, as he looked down upon them from the top of the
steps, wondered which was the more disastrous influence in a
regiment--that of the colonel's wife upon the younger officers, or that
of the younger officers upon the colonel's wife.
He felt a sort of gloomy interest in the group before him; and, as his
presence seemed to be unnoticed, he leaned against the jamb of the door,
hat in hand, watching the scene through a recurrent haze of
tobacco-smoke.
"I suggest," Mrs. Cavilland was saying to Muriel whose back was turned
to him, "that we drive up the Mousky, and go first to the scent bazaar.
Willie Purdett, here, wants to buy some scent for his mother--Lady Mary,
you know. And then I must go to the brass bazaar: I promised dear Lady
Agatha Lawer I'd get her one of those tea-tray things. She so hates
going to the bazaars herself: she says they're so smelly. Personally, I
simply love the East...."
Muriel took her seat in the car, and as she did so she caught sight of
Daniel.
"Hullo!" she exclaimed, "I thought you'd gone."
He took his pipe out of his mouth, and told her he was just going.
Muriel introduced him to Mrs. Cavilland, who stared at him with disdain,
casting a withering glance upon the disreputable hat he was holding in
one hand, and upon the pipe in the other. She then turned away as though
the sight were unbearable.
"Mr. Lane is a cousin of your friend Charles Barthampton," Muriel told
her; and thereat her manner changed with surprising suddenness, for the
British peerage was as meat and drink to her.
"Why, of course," she answered, "I can see the likeness now;" and she
glanced with surprise at the mischievous smile--almost a wink--which
Muriel directed at him. "You're new to Cairo?" she added. "You must come
and see me: I'm always at home on Tuesdays."
"Yes," said Muriel, "that will be very nice for him: he loves
tea-parties, don't you, Daniel dear?"
Daniel looked at her curiously. His Christian name sounded strange from
her lips, and he wondered why she had used it now for the first time.
Her expression suggested that there was a private joke between them, and
the intimacy pleased him.
"Yes, Muriel dear," he replied, gravely, and Muriel gasped; "but you
needn't blurt out my secret." He turned to Mrs. Cavilland as though to
explain. "I'm rather addicted to tea-drinking and quiet gossip," he
said.
Mrs. Cavilland thought him somewhat forward, but she excused it in one
who was so well-connected. "We tear each other to pieces on Tuesdays,"
she laughed.
He did not reply. He was still wondering why his name, Daniel, should
have sounded so pleasant to his ears, and why the expression of silent
understanding on Muriel's face should have stirred him so subtly. It was
as though their friendship had taken a leap forward.
He stepped to the side of the car, and put his hand on Muriel's arm.
"Don't get too tired," he said, "or you won't enjoy your dance tonight."
"Are you coming?" Mrs. Cavilland asked him.
"No," he answered, "I have a previous engagement with a lady in the
desert."
"Who?" asked Muriel, quickly. She was taken off her guard.
"A very dear friend," he replied. "Her name is Sleep."