Donovan Pasha And Some People Of Egypt, Complete - Gilbert Parker
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.
ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
As if our penalties were only paid by ourselves!
Credulity, easily transmutable into superstition
Paradoxes which make for laughter--and for tears
What is crime in one country, is virtue in another
Women only admitted to Heaven by the intercession of husbands
DONOVAN PASHA AND SOME PEOPLE OF EGYPT
By Gilbert Parker
Volume 4.
A YOUNG LION OF DEDAN
HE WOULD NOT BE DENIED
THE FLOWER OF THE FLOCK
THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS
A YOUNG LION OF DEDAN
Looking from the minaret the Two could see, far off, the Pyramids of
Ghizeh and Sakkara, the wells of Helouan, the Mokattam Hills, the tombs
of the Caliphs, the Khedive's palace at distant Abbasiyeh. Nearer by, the
life of the city was spread out. Little green oases of palms emerged from
the noisy desert of white stone and plaster. The roofs of the houses,
turned into gardens and promenades, made of the huge superficial city one
broken irregular pavement. Minarets of mosques stood up like giant
lamp-posts along these vast, meandering streets. Shiftless housewives
lolled with unkempt hair on the housetops; women of the harem looked out
of the little mushrabieh panels in the clattering, narrow bazaars.
Just at their feet was a mosque--one of the thousand nameless mosques of
Cairo. It was the season of Ramadan, and a Friday, the Sunday of the
Mahommedan--the Ghimah.
The "Two" were Donovan Pasha, then English Secretary to the Khedive,
generally known as "Little Dicky Donovan," and Captain Renshaw, of the
American Consulate. There was no man in Egypt of so much importance as
Donovan Pasha. It was an importance which could neither be bought nor
sold.
Presently Dicky touched the arm of his companion. "There it comes!" he
said.
His friend followed the nod of Dicky's head, and saw, passing slowly
through a street below, a funeral procession. Near a hundred blind men
preceded the bier, chanting the death-phrases. The bier was covered by a
faded Persian shawl, and it was carried by the poorest of the fellaheen,
though in the crowd following were many richly attired merchants of the
bazaars. On a cart laden with bread and rice two fellaheen stood and
handed, or tossed out, food to the crowd--token of a death in high
places. Vast numbers of people rambled behind chanting, and a few women,
near the bier, tore their garments, put dust on their heads, and kept
crying: "Salem ala ahali!--Remember us to our friends!"
Walking immediately behind the bier was one conspicuous figure, and there
was a space around him which none invaded. He was dressed in white, like
an Arabian Mahommedan, and he wore the green turban of one who has been
the pilgrimage to Mecca.
At sight of him Dicky straightened himself with a little jerk, and his
tongue clicked with satisfaction. "Isn't he, though--isn't he?" he said,
after a moment. His lips, pressed together, curled in with a trick they
had when he was thinking hard, planning things.
The other forbore to question. The notable figure had instantly arrested
his attention, and held it until it passed from view.
"Isn't he, though, Yankee?" Dicky repeated, and pressed a knuckle into
the other's waistcoat.
"Isn't he what?"
"Isn't he bully--in your own language?"
"In figure; but I couldn't see his face distinctly."
"You'll see that presently. You could cut a whole Egyptian Ministry out
of that face, and have enough left for an American president or the head
of the Salvation Army. In all the years I've spent here I've never seen
one that could compare with him in nature, character, and force. A few
like him in Egypt, and there'd be no need for the money-barbers of
Europe."
"He seems an ooster here--you know him?"
"Do I!" Dicky paused and squinted up at the tall Southerner. "What do you
suppose I brought you out from your Consulate for to see--the view from
Ebn Mahmoud? And you call yourself a cute Yankee?"
"I'm no more a Yankee than you are, as I've told you before," answered
the American with a touch of impatience, yet smilingly. "I'm from South
Carolina, the first State that seceded."
"Anyhow, I'm going to call you Yankee, to keep you nicely disguised. This
is the land of disguises."
"Then we did not come out to see the view?" the other drawled. There was
a quickening of the eye, a drooping of the lid, which betrayed a sudden
interest, a sense of adventure.
Dicky laid his head back and laughed noiselessly. "My dear Renshaw, with
all Europe worrying Ismail, with France in the butler's pantry and
England at the front door, do the bowab and the sarraf go out to take air
on the housetops, and watch the sun set on the Pyramids and make a
rainbow of the desert? I am the bowab and the sarraf, the
man-of-all-work, the Jack-of-all-trades, the 'confidential' to the
Oriental spendthrift. Am I a dog to bay the moon--have I the soul of a
tourist from Liverpool or Poughkeepsie?"
The lanky Southerner gripped his arm. "There's a hunting song of the
South," he said, "and the last line is, 'The hound that never tires.' You
are that, Donovan Pasha--"
"I am 'little Dicky Donovan,' so they say," interrupted the other.
"You are the weight that steadies things in this shaky Egypt. You are
you, and you've brought me out here because there's work of some kind to
do, and because--"
"And because you're an American, and we speak the same language."
"And our Consulate is all right, if needed, whatever it is. You've played
a square game in Egypt. You're the only man in office who hasn't got rich
out of her, and--"
"I'm not in office."
"You're the power behind the throne, you're--"
"I'm helpless--worse than helpless, Yankee. I've spent years of my life
here. I've tried to be of some use, and play a good game for England; and
keep a conscience too, but it's been no real good. I've only staved off
the crash. I'm helpless, now. That's why I'm here."
He leaned forward, and looked out of the minaret and down towards the
great locked gates of the empty mosque.
Renshaw put his hand on Dicky's shoulder. "It's the man in white yonder
you're after?"
Dicky nodded. "It was no use as long as she lived. But she's dead--her
face was under that old Persian shawl--and I'm going to try it on."
"Try what on?"
"Last night I heard she was sick. I heard at noon to-day that she was
gone; and then I got you to come out and see the view!"
"What are you going to do with him?"
"Make him come back."
"From where?"
"From the native quarter and the bazaars. He was for years in Abdin
Palace."
"What do you want him for?"
"It's a little gamble for Egypt. There's no man in Egypt Ismail loves and
fears so much--"
"Except little Dicky Donovan!"
"That's all twaddle. There's no man Ismail fears so much, because he's
the idol of the cafes and the bazaars. He's the Egyptian in Egypt to-day.
You talk about me? Why, I'm the foreigner, the Turk, the robber, the man
that holds the lash over Egypt. I'd go like a wisp of straw if there was
an uprising."
"Will there be an uprising?" The Southerner's fingers moved as though
they were feeling a pistol.
"As sure as that pyramid stands. Everything depends on the kind of
uprising. I want one kind. There may be another."
"That's what you are here for?"
"Exactly."
"Who is he?"
"Wait."
"What is his story?"
"She was." He nodded towards the funeral procession.
"Who was she?"
"She was a slave." Then, after a pause, "She was a genius too. She saw
what was in him. She was waiting--but death couldn't wait, so . . . Every
thing depends. What she asked him to do, he'll do."
"But if she didn't ask?"
"That's it. She was sick only seventeen hours--sick unto death. If she
didn't ask, he may come my way."
Again Dicky leaned out of the minaret, and looked down towards the gates
of the mosque, where the old gatekeeper lounged half-asleep. The noise of
the-procession had died away almost, had then revived, and from beyond
the gates of the mosque could be heard the cry of the mourners: "Salem
ala ahali!"
There came a knocking, and the old porter rose up, shuffled to the great
gates, and opened. For a moment he barred the way, but when the bearers
pointed to the figure in white he stepped aside and salaamed low.
"He is stone-deaf, and hasn't heard, or he'd have let her in fast
enough," said Dicky.
"It's a new thing for a woman to be of importance in an Oriental
country," said Renshaw.
"Ah, that's it! That's where her power was. She, with him, could do
anything. He, with her, could have done anything. . . . Stand back there,
where you can't be seen--quick," added Dicky hurriedly. They both drew
into a corner.
"I'm afraid it was too late. He saw me," added Dicky.
"I'm afraid he did," said Renshaw.
"Never mind. It's all in the day's work. He and I are all right. The only
danger would lie in the crowd discovering us in this holy spot, where the
Muezzin calls to prayer, and giving us what for, before he could
interfere."
"I'm going down from this 'holy spot,'" said Renshaw, and suited the
action to the word.
"Me too, Yankee," said Dicky, and they came halfway down the tower. From
this point they watched the burial, still well above the heads of the
vast crowd, through which the sweetmeat and sherbet sellers ran, calling
their wares and jangling their brass cups.
"What is his name?" said Renshaw.
"Abdalla."
"Hers?"
"Noor-ala-Noor."
"What does that mean?"
"Light from the Light."
II
The burial was over. Hundreds had touched the coffin, taking a last
farewell. The blind men had made a circle round the grave, hiding the
last act of ritual from the multitude. The needful leaves, the graceful
pebbles, had been deposited, the myrtle blooms and flowers had been
thrown, and rice, dates, bread, meat, and silver pieces were scattered
among the people. Some poor men came near to the chief mourner.
"Behold, effendi, may our souls be thy sacrifice, and may God give
coolness to thine eyes, speak to us by the will of God!"
For a moment the white-robed figure stood looking at them in silence;
then he raised his hand and motioned towards the high pulpit, which was
almost underneath the place where Dicky and Renshaw stood. Going over, he
mounted the steps, and the people followed and crowded upon the pulpit.
"A nice jack-pot that," said Renshaw, as he scanned the upturned faces
through the opening in the wall. "A pretty one-eyed lot."
"Shows how they love their country. Their eyes were put out by their
mothers when they were babes, to avoid conscription. . . . Listen,
Yankee: Egypt is talking. Now, we'll see!"
Dicky's lips were pressed tight together, and he stroked his faint
moustache with a thumb-nail meditatively. His eyes were not on the
speaker, but on the distant sky, the Mokattam Hills and the forts
Napoleon had built there. He was listening intently to Abdalla's high,
clear voice, which rang through the courts of the ruined mosque.
"In the name of God the Compassionate, the Merciful, children of Egypt,
listen. Me ye have known years without number, and ye know that I am of
you, as ye are of me. Our feet are in the same shoes, we gather from the
same date-palm, of the same goolah we drink. My father's father--now in
the bosom of God, praise be to God!--builded this mosque; and my father,
whose soul abides in peace with God, he cherished it till evil days came
upon this land. 'Be your gifts to this mosque neither of silver nor
copper, but of tears and prayers,' said my father, Ebn Abdalla, ere he
unrolled his green turban and wound himself in it for his winding-sheet.
'Though it be till the Karadh-gatherers return, yet shall ye replace nor
stone nor piece of wood, save in the gates thereof, till good days come
once more, and the infidel and the Turk be driven from the land.' Thus
spake my father. . . ."
There came a stir and a murmuring among the crowd, and cries of "Allahu
Akbar!" "Peace, peace!" urged the figure in white. "Nay, make no noise.
This is the house of the dead, of one who hath seen God. . . . 'Nothing
shall be repaired, save the gates of the mosque of Ebn Mahmoud, the
mosque of my father's father,' so said my father. Also said he, 'And one
shall stand at the gates and watch, though the walls crumble away, till
the day when the land shall again be our land, and the chains of the
stranger be forged in every doorway.' . . . But no, ye shall not lift up
your voices in anger. This is the abode of peace, and the mosque is my
mosque, and the dead my dead."
"The dead is our dead, effendi--may God give thee everlasting years!"
called a blind man from the crowd. Up in the tower Dicky had listened
intently, and as the speech proceeded his features contracted; once he
gripped the arm of Renshaw.
"It's coming on to blow," he said, in the pause made by the blind man's
interruption. "There'll be shipwreck somewhere."
"Ye know the way by which I came," continued Abdalla loudly. "Nothing is
hid from you. I came near to the person of the Prince, whom God make wise
while yet the stars of his life give light! In the palace of Abdin none
was preferred before me. I was much in the sun, and mine eyes were
dazzled. Yet in season I spake the truth, and for you I laboured. But not
as one hath a life to give and seeks to give it. For the dazzle that was
in mine eyes hid from me the fulness of your trials. But an end there was
to these things. She came to the palace a slave-Noor-ala-Noor. . . . Nay,
nay, be silent still, my brothers. Her soul was the soul of one born
free. On her lips was wisdom. In her heart was truth like a flaming
sword. To the Prince she spoke not as a slave to a slave, but in high
level terms. He would have married her, but her life lay in the hollow of
her hand, and the hand was a hand to open and shut according as the soul
willed. She was ready to close it so that none save Allah might open it
again. Then in anger the Prince would have given her to his bowab at the
gates, or to the Nile, after the manner of a Turk or a Persian
tyrant--may God purge him of his loathsomeness . . . !"