"Well, I don't know. He is guilty, isn't he? You said you would like to
see him in the prisoner's dock. You would probably convict him of
killing as well as slavery. You would torture him with prison, and then
hang him in the end. Ismail would probably get into a rage--pretended,
of course--and send an army against him. Kingsley would make a fight for
it, and lose his head--all in the interest of a sudden sense of duty on
the part of the Khedive. All Europe would applaud--all save England, and
what could she do? Can she defend slavery? There'll be no kid-gloved
justice meted out to Kingsley by the Khedive, if he starts a campaign
against him. He will have to take it on the devil's pitchfork. You must
be logical, you know.
"You can't have it both ways. If he is to be punished, it must be after
the custom of the place. This isn't England."
She shuddered slightly, and Dicky went on: "Then, when his head's off,
and his desert-city and his mines are no more, and his slaves change
masters, comes a nice question. Who gets his money? Not that there's
any doubt about who'll get it, but, from your standpoint, who should get
it?"
She shook her head in something like embarrassment.
"Money got by slavery--yes, who should get it?" interposed Kingsley
carefully, for her eyes had turned to him for help. "Would you favour
his heirs getting it? Should it go to the State? Should it go to the
slaves? Should it go to a fund for agitation against slavery? . . .
You, for instance, could make use of a fortune like his in a cause like
that, could you not?" he asked with what seemed boyish simplicity.
The question startled her. "I--I don't know. . . . But certainly
not," she hastened to add; "I couldn't touch the money. It is absurd--
impossible."
"I can't see that," steadily persisted Kingsley. "This money was made
out of the work of slaves. Certainly they were paid--they were, weren't
they?" he asked with mock ignorance, turning to Dicky, who nodded assent.
"They were paid wages by Kingsley--in kind, I suppose, but that's all
that's needed in a country like the Soudan. But still they had to work,
and their lives and bodies were Kingsley's for the time being, and the
fortune wouldn't have been made without them; therefore, according to the
most finely advanced theories of labour and ownership, the fortune is
theirs as much as Kingsley's. But, in the nature of things, they
couldn't have the fortune. What would they do with it? Wandering tribes
don't need money. Barter and exchange of things in kind is the one form
of finance in the Soudan. Besides, they'd cut each other's throats the
very first day they got the fortune, and it would strew the desert sands.
It's all illogical and impossible--"
"Yes, yes, I quite see that," she interposed.
"But you surely can see how the fortune could be applied to saving those
races from slavery. What was wrung from the few by forced labour and
loss of freedom could be returned to the many by a sort of national
salvation. You could spend the fortune wisely--agents and missionaries
everywhere; in the cafes, in the bazaars, in the palace, at court.
Judicious gifts: and, at last, would come a firman or decree putting down
slavery, on penalty of death. The fortune would all go, of course, but
think of the good accomplished!"
"You mean that the fortune should be spent in buying the decree--in
backsheesh?" she asked bewildered, yet becoming indignant.
"Well, it's like company promoting," Dicky interposed, hugely enjoying
the comedy, and thinking that Kingsley had put the case shrewdly. It was
sure to confuse her. "You have to clear the way, as it were. The
preliminaries cost a good deal, and those who put the machinery in
working order have to be paid. Then there's always some important person
who holds the key of the situation; his counsel has to be asked. Advice
is very expensive."
"It is gross and wicked!" she flashed out.
"But if you got your way? If you suppressed Kingsley Bey, rid the world
of him--well, well, say, banished him," he quickly added, as he saw her
fingers tremble--" and got your decree, wouldn't it be worth while? Fire
is fought with fire, and you would be using all possible means to do what
you esteem a great good. Think of it--slavery abolished, your work
accomplished, Kingsley Bey blotted out!"
Light and darkness were in her face at once. Her eyes were bright, her
brows became knitted, her foot tapped the floor. Of course it was all
make-believe, this possibility, but it seemed too wonderful to think of
--slavery abolished, and through her; and Kingsley Bey, the renegade
Englishman, the disgrace to his country, blotted out.
"Your argument is not sound in many ways," she said at last, trying to
feel her course. "We must be just before all. The whole of the fortune
was not earned by slaves. Kingsley Bey's ability and power were the
original cause of its existence. Without him there would have been no
fortune. Therefore, it would not be justice to give it, even indirectly,
to the slaves for their cause."
"It would be penalty--Kingsley Bey's punishment," said Dicky slyly.
"But I thought he was to be blotted out," she said ironically, yet
brightening, for it seemed to her that she was proving herself
statesmanlike, and justifying her woman's feelings as well.
"When he is blotted out, his fortune should go where it can remedy the
evil of his life."
"He may have been working for some good cause," quietly put in Kingsley.
"Should not that cause get the advantage of his 'ability and power,' as
you have called it, even though he was mistaken, or perverted, or cruel?
Shouldn't an average be struck between the wrong his 'ability and power'
did and the right that same 'ability and power' was intended to advance?"
She turned with admiration to Kingsley. "How well you argue--I remember
you did years ago. I hate slavery and despise and hate slave-dealers and
slave-keepers, but I would be just, too, even to Kingsley Bey. But what
cause, save his own comfort and fortune, would he be likely to serve?
Do you know him?" she added eagerly.
"Since I can remember," answered Kingsley, looking through the field-
glasses at a steamer coming up the river.
"Would you have thought that he would turn out as he has?" she asked
simply. "You see, he appears to me so dark and baleful a figure that I
cannot quite regard him as I regard you, for instance. I could not
realise knowing such a man."
"He had always a lot of audacity," Kingsley replied slowly, "and he
certainly was a schemer in his way, but that came from his helpless
poverty."
"Was he very poor?" she asked eagerly.
"Always. And he got his estates heavily encumbered. Then there were
people--old ladies--to have annuities, and many to be provided for, and
there was little chance in England for him. Good-temper and brawn
weren't enough."
"Egypt's the place for mother-wit," broke in Dicky. "He had that anyhow.
As to his unscrupulousness, of course that's as you may look at it."
"Was he always unscrupulous?" she asked. "I have thought him cruel and
wicked nationally--un-English, shamefully culpable; but a man who is
unscrupulous would do mean low things, and I should like to think that
Kingsley is a villain with good points. I believe he has them, and I
believe that deep down in him is something English and honourable after
all--something to be reckoned with, worked on, developed. See, here is a
letter I had from him two days ago"--she drew it from her pocket and
handed it over to Dicky. "I cannot think him hopeless altogether . . .
I freed the slaves who brought the letter, and sent them on to Cairo. Do
you not feel it is hopeful?" she urged, as Dicky read the letter slowly,
making sotto voce remarks meanwhile.
"Brigands and tyrants can be gallant--there are plenty of instances on
record. What are six slaves to him?"
"He has a thousand to your one," said Kingsley slowly, and as though not
realising his words.
She started, sat up straight in her chair, and looked at him indignantly.
"I have no slaves," she said.
Kingsley Bey had been watching the Circassian girl Mata, in the garden
for some time, and he had not been able to resist the temptation to make
the suggestion that roused her now.
"I think the letter rather high-flown," said Dicky, turning the point,
and handing the open page to Kingsley. "It looks to me as though written
with a purpose."
"What a cryptic remark!" said Kingsley laughing, yet a little chagrined.
"What you probably wish to convey is that it says one thing and means
another."
"Suppose it does," interposed the lady. "The fact remains that he
answered my appeal, which did not mince words, in most diplomatic and
gentlemanly language. What do you think of the letter?" she asked,
turning to Kingsley, and reaching a hand for it.
"I'll guarantee our friend here could do no better, if he sat up all
night," put in Dicky satirically.
"You are safe in saying so, the opportunity being lacking." She laughed,
and folded it up.
"I believe Kingsley Bey means what he says in that letter. Whatever his
purpose, I honestly think that you might have great influence over him,"
mused Dicky, and, getting up, stepped from the veranda, as though to go
to the bank where an incoming steamer they had been watching was casting
anchor. He turned presently, however, came back a step and said "You
see, all our argument resolves itself into this: if Kingsley is to be
smashed only Ismail can do it. If Ismail does it, Kingsley will have
the desert for a bed, for he'll not run, and Ismail daren't spare him.
Sequel, all his fortune will go to the Khedive. Question, what are we
going to do about it?"
So saying he left them, laughing, and went down the garden-path to the
riverside. The two on the veranda sat silent for a moment, then Kingsley
spoke.
"These weren't the things we talked about when we saw the clouds gather
over Skaw Fell and the sun shine on the Irish Sea. We've done and seen
much since then. Multitudes have come and gone in the world--and I have
grown grey!" he added with a laugh.
"I've done little-nothing, and I meant and hoped to do much," she almost
pleaded. "I've grown grey too."
"Not one grey hair," he said, with an admiring look. "Grey in spirit
sometimes," she reflected with a tired air. "But you--forgive me, if I
haven't known what you've done. I've lived out of England so long. You
may be at the head of the Government, for all I know. You look to me as
though you'd been a success. Don't smile. I mean it. You look as
though you'd climbed. You haven't the air of an eldest son whose way is
cut out for him, with fifty thousand a year for compensation. What have
you been doing? What has been your work in life?"
"The opposite of yours."
He felt himself a ruffian, but he consoled himself with the thought that
the end at which he aimed was good. It seemed ungenerous to meet her
simple honesty by such obvious repartee, but he held on to see where the
trail would lead.
"That doesn't seem very clear," she said in answer. "Since I came out
here I've been a sort of riverine missionary, an apostle with no
followers, a reformer with a plan of salvation no one will accept."
"We are not stronger than tradition, than the long custom of ages bred
in the bone and practised by the flesh. You cannot change a people by
firmans; you must educate them. Meanwhile, things go on pretty much the
same. You are a generation before your time. It is a pity, for you have
saddened your youth, and you may never live to see accomplished what you
have toiled for."
"Oh, as to that--as to that . . ." She smoothed back her hair lightly,
and her eyes wandered over the distant hills-mauve and saffron and opal,
and tender with the mist of evening. "What does it matter!" she added.
"There are a hundred ways to live, a hundred things to which one might
devote one's life. And as the years went on we'd realise how every form
of success was offset by something undone in another direction, something
which would have given us joy and memory and content--so it seems. But--
but we can only really work out one dream, and it is the working out--
a little or a great distance--which satisfies. I have no sympathy with
those who, living out their dreams, turn regretfully to another course or
another aim, and wonder-wonder, if a mistake hasn't been made. Nothing
is a mistake which comes of a good aim, of the desire for wrongs righted,
the crooked places made straight. Nothing matters so that the dream was
a good one and the heart approves and the eyes see far."
She spoke as though herself in a dream, her look intent on the glowing
distance, as though unconscious of his presence.
"It's good to have lived among mountains and climbed them when you were
young. It gives you bigger ideas of things. You could see a long way
with the sun behind you, from Skaw Fell."
He spoke in a low voice, and her eyes drew back from the distance and
turned on him. She smiled.
"I don't know. I suppose it gives one proportion, though I've been told
by Donovan Pasha and the Consul that I have no sense of proportion. What
difference does it make? It is the metier of some people of this world
to tell the truth, letting it fall as it will, and offend where it will,
to be in a little unjust maybe, measure wrongly here and there, lest the
day pass and nothing be done. It is for the world to correct, to adjust,
to organise, to regulate the working of the truth. One person cannot do
all."
Every minute made him more and more regretful, while it deepened his
feelings for her. He saw how far removed was her mind from the sordid
views of things, and how sincere a philosophy governed her actions and
her mission.
He was about to speak, but she continued: "I suppose I've done unwise
things from a worldly, a diplomatic, and a political point of view.
I've--I've broken my heart on the rock of the impossible, so my father
says. . . . But, no, I haven't broken my heart. I have only given it
a little too much hope sometimes, too much disappointment at others. In
any case--can one be pardoned for quoting poetry in these days? I don't
know, I've been so long out of the world--
'Bruised hearts when all is ended,
Bear the better all after-stings;
Broken once, the citadel mended
Standeth through all things.'
I'm not--not hopeless, though I've had a long hard fight here in Egypt;
and I've done so little." . . . She kept smoothing out the letter she
had had from Kingsley Bey, as though unconsciously. "But it is coming,
the better day. I know it. Some one will come who will do all that I
have pleaded for--stop the corvee and give the peasants a chance; stop
slavery, and purify the harem and start the social life on a higher
basis; remove a disgrace from the commerce of an afflicted land; remove
--remove once for all such men as Kingsley Bey; make it impossible for
fortunes to be made out of human flesh and blood." She had the rapt look
of the dreamer. Suddenly she recovered her more worldly mood: "What are
you doing here?" she added. "Have you come to take up official life?
Have you some public position--of responsibility? Ah, perhaps,"--she
laughed almost merrily,--"you are the very man; the great reformer.
Perhaps you think and feel as I do, though you've argued against me.
Perhaps you only wanted to see how real my devotion to this cause is.
Tell me, are you only a tourist--I was going to say idler, but I know you
are not; you have the face of a man who does things--are you tourist or
worker here? What does Egypt mean to you? That sounds rather non-
conformist, but Egypt, to me, is the saddest, most beautiful, most
mysterious place in the world. All other nations, all other races, every
person in the world should be interested in Egypt. Egypt is the lost
child of Creation--the dear, pitiful waif of genius and mystery of the
world. She has kept the calendar of the ages--has outlasted all other
nations, and remains the same as they change and pass. She has been the
watcher of the world, the one who looks on, and suffers, as the rest of
the nations struggle for and wound her in their turn. What does Egypt
mean to you? What would you do for her--anything?"
There was no more satirical laughter in his eyes. He was deeply in
earnest, disturbed, even excited. "Egypt means everything in the world
to me. I would do what I could for her."
"What has she done for you?"
"She has brought me to you again--to make me know that what you were by
Skaw Fell all those years ago, you are now, and a thousand times more."
She parried the dangerous meaning in his voice, refused to see the
tenderness in his manner.
"I'm very sorry to hear that," she added in a tone vainly trying to be
unconcerned. "It is a pity that our youth pursues us in forms so little
desirable. . . . Who are they?" she added quickly, nodding towards
the shore, from which Dicky was coming with an Egyptian officer and a
squad of soldiers.
"H'm," he responded laughing, "it looks like a matter of consequence. A
Pasha, I should think, to travel with an escort like that."
"They're coming here," she added, and, calling to her servant, ordered
coffee.
Suddenly Kingsley got to his feet, with a cry of consternation; but sat
down again smiling with a shrug of the shoulders.
"What is it?" she asked, with something like anxiety, for she had seen
the fleeting suspicion in his look.
"I don't know," he answered lightly, and as though the suspicion had
gone. He watched Dicky and his companions closely, however, though he
chatted unconcernedly while they stood in apparent debate, and presently
came on. Dicky was whistling softly, but with an air of perplexity, and
he walked with a precision of step which told Kingsley of difficulty
ahead. He had not long to wait, and as Dicky drew nearer and looked him
in the eyes, he came to his feet again, his long body gathering itself
slowly up, as though for deliberate action. He felt trouble in the air,
matters of moment, danger for himself, though of precisely what sort was
not clear. He took a step forward, as though to shield the lady from
possible affront.
"I fancy they want to see me," he said. He recognised the officer--
Foulik Pasha of the Khedive's household.
The Pasha salaamed. Dicky drew over to the lady, with a keen warning
glance at Kingsley. The Pasha salaamed again, and Kingsley responded in
kind. "Good-day to you, Pasha," he said.
"May the dew of the morning bring flowers to your life, Excellency," was
the reply. He salaamed now towards the lady, and Kingsley murmured his
name to her.
"Will you not be seated," she said, and touched a chair as though to sit
down, yet casting a doubtful glance at the squad of men and the brilliant
kavass drawn up near by. The Pasha looked from one to the other, and
Kingsley spoke.
"What is it, Pasha? Her ladyship doesn't know why she should be
honoured."
"But that makes no difference," she interposed. "Here is coffee--ah,
that's right, cigarettes too! But, yes, you will take my coffee, Pasha,"
she urged.
The insolent look which had gathered in the man's face cleared away. He
salaamed, hesitated, and took the coffee, then salaamed again to her.
She had caught at a difficulty; an instinctive sense of peril had taken
possession of her; and, feeling that the danger was for the Englishman
who had come to her out of her old life, she had interposed a diplomatic
moment. She wanted to gain time before the mystery broke over her. She
felt something at stake for herself. Premonition, a troubling of the
spirit, told her that she was in the presence of a crisis out of which
she would not come unchanged.
Dicky was talking now, helping her--asking the Pasha questions of his
journey up the river, of the last news from Europe, of the Khedive's
health, though he and Kingsley had only left Cairo a half-day before the
Pasha.
The officer thanked the lady and salaamed again, then turned towards
Kingsley.
"You wished to speak with me, perhaps, Pasha," said Kingsley.
"If a moment of your time may have so little honour, saadat el bey."
Kingsley moved down the veranda shoulder to shoulder with the Pasha, and
the latter's men, responding to a glance, moved down also. Kingsley saw,
but gave no heed.
"What's up, Pasha?" he asked in a low voice. "The Khedive commands your
return to Cairo."
"With you?"
"So, effendi."
"Compulsion, eh? I don't see quite. I'm an Englishman, not a fellah."
"But I have my commands, saadat el bey."
"What's the row, Pasha?"
"Is it for the servant to know the mind of his master?"
"And if I don't go?"
The Pasha pointed to his men, and motioned towards the boat where forty
or fifty others showed. "Bosh, Pasha! That's no reason. That's
flummery, and you know and the Highness knows it. That would have been
all very well in the desert, but this is not the desert, and I'm not
doing business with the Highness any more. What's the penalty if I don't
go?"
"Twenty men will lose their heads to-morrow morning, a riot will occur,
the bank where much gold is will be broken into, some one will be made
poor, and--"
"Come, never mind twaddle about my money--we'll see about that. Those
twenty men--my men?"
"Your men, saadat el bey."
"They're seized?"
"They are in prison."
"Where?"
"At Abdin Palace."
Kingsley Bey had had a blow, but he was not dumfounded. In Egypt, the
wise man is never surprised at anything, and Kingsley had gone from
experience to experience without dismay. He realised the situation at
once. The Khedive had been worked upon by some one in the circle, and
had put on this pressure, for purposes of backsheesh, or blackmail, or
whatever it might be called. His mind was made up at once.
"Very well, Pasha. Though there's no reason why I should go with you
except to suit myself. You'll excuse me for a moment, please." He
turned back. Meanwhile, Dicky had been distracting the mind of the lady
with evasive and cheerful suggestions of urgent business calling Kingsley
to Cairo. He saw the plot that had been laid, and it made him very
angry, but nothing could be done until he met the Khedive.
He guessed who had filled the Khedive's mind with cupidity. He had seen
old Selamlik Pasha, who had lent the Khedive much money, entering the
palace as he left with Kingsley Bey thirty-six hours before. He had hope
that he could save the situation, but meanwhile he was concerned for the
new situation created here at Assiout. What would Kingsley do? He knew
what he himself would do in the circumstances, but in crises few men of
character do the necessary thing in exactly the same way. Here was
comedy of a high order, a mystery and necessary revelation of singular
piquancy. To his thinking the revelation was now overdue.
He looked at the woman beside him, and he saw in her face a look it never
had had before. Revelation of a kind was there; beauty, imagination,
solicitude, delicate wonder were there. It touched him. He had never
been arrested on his way of life by any dream of fair women, or any dream
of any woman. It did not seem necessary--no one was necessary to him;
he lived his real life alone, never sharing with any one that of himself
which was not part of the life he lived before the world. Yet he had
always been liked by men, and he had been agreeable in the sight of more
women than he knew, this little man with a will of iron and a friendly
heart. But he laughed silently now as he saw Kingsley approaching; the
situation was so beautifully invented. It did not seem quite like a
thing in real life. In any other country than Egypt it would have been
comic opera--Foulik Pasha and his men so egregiously important; Kingsley
so overwhelmed by the duty that lay before him; the woman in a
whimsically embarrassing position with the odds, the laugh, against her,
yet little likely to take the obvious view of things and so make possible
a commonplace end. What would she do? What would Kingsley do? What
would he, Dicky Donovan, do? He knew by the look in Kingsley's eyes that
it was time for him to go. He moved down to Foulik Pasha, and, taking
his arm, urged him towards the shore with a whispered word. The Pasha
responded, followed by his men, but presently turned and, before Dicky
could intervene--for he wanted Kingsley to make his own revelation--said
courteously:
"May the truth of Allah be with you, I will await you at the boat,
Kingsley Bey."
Dicky did not turn round, but, with a sharp exclamation of profanity,
drew Foulik Pasha on his imbecile way.
As for Kingsley Bey, he faced a woman who, as the truth dawned upon her,
stared at him in a painful silence for a moment, and then drew back to
the doorway of the house as though to find sudden refuge. Kingsley's
head went round. Nothing had gone according to his anticipations.
Foulik Pasha had upset things.
"Now you know--I wished to tell you myself," he said.
She answered at once, quietly, coldly, and with an even formal voice:
"I did not know your name was Kingsley."
"It was my grandmother's name."
"I had forgotten--that is of no consequence, however; but--" she stopped.
"You realise that I am--"
"Yes, of course, Kingsley Bey--I quite understand. I thought you Lord
Selden, an English gentleman. You are--" she made an impatient gesture--
"well, you are English still!"
He was hit hard. The suggestion of her voice was difficult to bear.
"I am not so ungentlemanly as you think. I meant to tell you--almost at
once. I thought that as an old friend I might wait a moment or two. The
conversation got involved, and it grew harder every minute. Then Foulik
Pasha came-and now. . . ."
She showed no signs of relenting. "It was taking advantage of an old-
acquaintance. Against your evil influence here I have been working for
years, while you have grown rich out of the slavery I detest. You will
pardon my plain speaking, but this is not London, and one has had to
learn new ways in this life here. I do not care for the acquaintance of
slave-drivers, I have no wish to offer them hospitality. The world is
large and it belongs to other people, and one has to endure much when one
walks abroad; but this house is my own place, a little spot all my own,
and I cherish it. There are those who come to the back door, and they
are fed and clothed and sent away by the hand of charity; there are those
who come to the front door, and I welcome them gladly--all that I have is
theirs; there are those who come to a side door, when no one sees, and
take me unawares, and of them I am afraid, their presence I resent. My
doors are not open to slave-drivers."
"What is the difference between the letter from the slave-driver's hand
and the slave-driver himself?"
She started and flushed deeply. She took the letter slowly from her
pocket and laid it on the table.
"I thought it a letter from a man who was openly doing wrong, and who
repented a little of his wrongdoing. I thought it a letter from a
stranger, from an Englishman who, perhaps, had not had such advantages
of birth and education as came to you."
"Yet you had a good opinion of the letter. There seemed no want of
education and all that there--won't you be reasonable, and let me
explain? Give me half a chance."
"I do not see that explanation can mend anything. The men you sent me to
free: that was a-well, call it a manoeuvre, to achieve what, I cannot
tell. Is it not so? The men are not free. Is it not so?"
"I am afraid they are not free," he answered, smiling in spite of
himself.
"Your coming here was a manoeuvre also--for what purpose I do not know.
Yet it was a manoeuvre, and I am--or was to be--the victim of the plot."
She smiled scornfully. "I trust you may yet be the victim of your own
conduct."
"In more ways than one, maybe. Don't you think, now that the tables are
turned, that you might have mercy on 'a prisoner and a captive'?"
She looked at him inquiringly, then glanced towards the shore where Dicky
stood talking with Foulik Pasha. Her eyes came back slowly and again
asked a question. All at once intelligence flashed into them.
"You wished to see Kingsley Bey a prisoner; you have your wish," he said
smiling.
"Whose prisoner?" she asked, still coldly. "The Khedive's."
A flash of triumph crossed her face. Her heart beat hard. Had it come
at last, the edict to put down slavery? Had the Khedive determined to
put an end to the work of Kingsley Bey in his desert-city-and to Kingsley
Bey himself? . . . Her heart stopped beating now. She glanced
towards Dicky Donovan, and her pulses ran more evenly again. Would the
Khedive have taken such a step unless under pressure? And who in Egypt
could have, would have, persuaded him, save Dicky Donovan? Yet Dicky was
here with his friend Kingsley Bey. The mystery troubled her, and the
trouble got into her eyes.
"You are going to Cairo?" she said, glancing towards the boat.
"It would seem so."
"And Donovan Pasha goes too?"
"I hope so. I am not sure."
"But he must go," she said a little sharply.
"Yes?"
"He--you must have somebody, and he has great power."
"That might or might not be to my benefit. After all, what does it
matter?"--He saw that she was perturbed, and he pressed his advantage.
She saw, however, and retreated. "We reap as we sow," she said, and made
as if to go inside the house. "You have had the game, you must pay for
the candles out of your earnings."
"I don't mind paying what's fair. I don't want other people to pay."
She turned angrily on him, he could not tell why. "You don't want others
to pay! As if you could do anything that doesn't affect others. Did you
learn that selfishness at Skaw Fell, or was it born with you? You are of
those who think they earn all their own success and happiness, and then,
when they earn defeat and despair, are surprised that others suffer. As
if our penalties were only paid by ourselves! Egotism, vanity! So long
as you have your dance, it matters little to you who pays for the tune."
"I am sorry." He was bewildered; he had not expected this.
"Does a man stoop to do in a foreign land what he would not do in his own
country--dare not do?--One is so helpless--a woman! Under cover of an
old friend ship--ah!" She suddenly turned, and, before he could say a
word, disappeared inside the house. He spoke her name once, twice; he
ventured inside the house, and called, but she did not come. He made his
way to the veranda, and was about to leave for the shore, when he heard a
step behind him. He turned quickly. It was the Circassian girl, Mata.
He spoke to her in Arabic, and she smiled at him. "What is it?" he
asked, for he saw she had come from her mistress.
"My Lady begs to excuse--but she is tired," she said in English, which
she loved to use.
"I am to go on--to prison, then?"
"I suppose. It has no matter. My Lady is angry. She has to say, 'Thank
you, good-bye.' So, goodbye," she added naively, and held out her hand.
Kingsley laughed, in spite of his discomfiture, and shook it.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"I am My Lady's slave," she said proudly.
"No, no--her servant. You can come and go as you like. You have wages."
"I am Mata, the slave--My Lady's slave. All the world knows I am her
slave. Was I not given her by the Khedive whose slave I was? May the
leaves of life be green always, but I am Mata the slave," she said
stubbornly, shaking her head.
"Do you tell My Lady so?"
"Wherefore should I tell My Lady what she knows? Is not the truth the
truth? Good-night! I had a brother who went to prison. His grave is by
Stamboul. Good-night, effendi. He was too young to die, but he had
gold, and the captain of the citadel needed money. So, he had to die.
Malaish! He is in the bosom of God, and prison does not last forever.
Goodnight, effendi. If you, effendi, are poor, it is well; no man will
desire your life. Then you can be a slave, and have quiet nights. If
you are rich, effendi, remember my brother. Good-night, effendi. May
sacrifices be yours . . . and My Lady says good-night." Kingsley gave
her a gold-piece and went down to Foulik Pasha.
As they steamed away Kingsley looked in vain to the house on the shore.
There was no face at window or door, no sign of life about the place.
"Well, my bold bey," said Donovan Pasha to him at last, "what do you
think of Egypt now?"
"I'm not thinking of Egypt now."
"Did the lady deeply sympathise? Did your prescription work?"
"You know it didn't. Nothing worked. This fool Foulik came at the wrong
moment."
"It wouldn't have made any difference. You see you were playing with
marked cards, and that is embarrassing. You got a certificate of
character by--"
"Yes, I know. That's what she said. Never mind. I've played as I meant
to play, and I'll abide the result. I said I'd marry her, and I mean to,
though she gently showed me the door--beautiful, proud person!"
"She is much too good for you."
"What does that matter, if she doesn't think so?"
"My opinion is she'll never touch you or your slave-gold with a mile-
measure."
Dicky did not think this, but it was his way of easing his own mind.
Inwardly he was studying the situation, and wondering how he could put
Kingsley's business straight.
"She thinks I'm still a 'slave-driver,' as she calls it--women are so
innocent. You did your part, as well as could be expected, I'm bound to
say. I only wish I wasn't so much trouble to you. I owe you a lot,
Dicky Pasha--everything! You got me the golden shillings to start with;
you had faith in me; you opened the way to fortune, to the thing that's
more than fortune--to success."
"I'm not altogether proud of you. You've messed things to-day."
"I'll set them right to-morrow--with your help. Ismail is going a bit
large this time."
"He is an Oriental. A life or two--think of Sadik Pasha. Your men--"
"Well? You think he'd do it--think he'd dare to do it?"
"Suppose they disappeared? Who could prove that Ismail did it? And if
it could be proved--they're his own subjects, and the Nile is near! Who
can say him nay?"
"I fancy you could--and I would."
"I can do something. I've done a little in my day; but my day, like
Ismail's, is declining. They are his subjects, and he needs money, and
he puts a price on their heads--that's about the size of it. Question
How much will you have to pay? How much have you in Cairo at the bank?"
"Only about ten thousand pounds."
"He'd take your draft on England, but he'll have that ten thousand
pounds, if he can get it."
"That doesn't matter, but as for my arrest--"
"A trick, on some trumped-up charge. If he can hold you long enough
to get some of your cash, that's all he wants. He knows he's got no
jurisdiction over you--not a day's hold. He knows you'd give a good deal
to save your men."
"Poor devils! But to be beaten by this Egyptian bulldozer--not if I know
it, Dicky"
"Still, it may be expensive."
"Ah!" Kingsley Bey sighed, and his face was clouded, but Dicky knew he
was not thinking of Ismail or the blackmail. His eyes were on the house
by the shore, now disappearing, as they rounded a point of land.
"Ah" said Donovan Pasha, but he did not sigh.