Donovan Pasha And Some People Of Egypt, Complete - Gilbert Parker
Dicky smiled, and looked into the eyes of the Mussulmans with an
incorruptible innocence; he ostentatiously waved the cigarette smoke away
with the hand on which was the ring the Khedive had given him.
"Thy tongue is as the light of a star," said the bright-eyed
Sheikh-el-beled; "wisdom dwelleth with thee." The woman took no notice of
what they said. Her face showed no sign of what she thought; her eyes
were unwaveringly fixed on the distance.
"She shall choose her own death," said the Sheikhel-beled; "and I will
bear word to the Mudir."
"I dine with the Mudir to-night; I will carry the word," said Dicky; "and
the death that the woman shall die will be the death he will choose."
The woman's eyes came like lightning from the distance, and fastened upon
his face. Then he said, with the back of his hand to his mouth to hide a
yawn:
"The manner of her death will please the Mudir. It must please him."
"What death does this vulture among women choose to die?" said the
Sheikh-el-beled.
Her answer could scarcely be heard in the roar and the riot surrounding
the hut.
A half-hour later Dicky entered the room where the Mudir sat on his divan
drinking his coffee. The great man looked up in angry astonishment--for
Dicky had come unannounced-and his fat hands twitched on his breast,
where they had been folded. His sallow face turned a little green. Dicky
made no salutation.
"Dog of an infidel!" said the Mudir under his breath.
Dicky heard, but did no more than fasten his eyes upon the Mudir for a
moment.
"Your business?" asked the Mudir.
"The business of the Khedive," answered Dicky, and his riding-whip tapped
his leggings. "I have come about the English girl." As he said this, he
lighted a cigarette slowly, looking, as it were casually, into the
Mudir's eyes.
The Mudir's hand ran out like a snake towards a bell on the cushions, but
Dicky shot forward and caught the wrist in his slim, steel-like fingers.
There was a hard glitter in his eyes as he looked down into the eyes of
the master of a hundred slaves, the ruler of a province.
"I have a command of the Khedive to bring you to Cairo, and to kill you
if you resist," said Dicky. "Sit still--you had better sit still," he
added, in a soothing voice behind which was a deadly authority.
The Mudir licked his dry, colourless lips, and gasped, for he might make
an outcry, but he saw that Dicky would be quicker. He had been too long
enervated by indulgence to make a fight.
"You'd better take a drink of water," said Dicky, seating himself upon a
Louis Quinze chair, a relic of civilisation brought by the Mudir from
Paris into an antique barbarism. Then he added sternly: "What have you
done with the English girl?"
"I know nothing of an English girl," answered the Mudir.
Dicky's words were chosen as a jeweller chooses stones for the ring of a
betrothed woman. "You had a friend in London, a brother of hell like
yourself. He, like you, had lived in Paris; and that is why this thing
happened. You had your own women slaves from Kordofan, from Circassia,
from Syria, from your own land. It was not enough: you must have an
English girl in your harem. You knew you could not buy her, you knew that
none would come to you for love, neither the drab nor the lady. None
would lay her hand in that of a leprous dog like yourself. So you lied,
your friend lied for you--sons of dogs of liars all of you, beasts
begotten of beasts! You must have a governess for your children,
forsooth! And the girl was told she would come to a palace. She came to a
stable, and to shame and murder."
Dicky paused.
The fat, greasy hands of the Mudir fumbled towards the water-glass. It
was empty, but he raised it to his lips and drained the air.
Dicky's eyes fastened him like arrows. "The girl died an hour ago," he
continued. "I was with her when she died. You must pay the price, Abbas
Bey." He paused.
There was a moment's silence, and then a voice, dry like that of one who
comes out of chloroform, said: "What is the price?"
The little touch of cruelty in Dicky's nature, working with a sense of
justice and an ever-ingenious mind, gave a pleasant quietness to the
inveterate hate that possessed him. He thought of another woman--of her
who was to die to-morrow.
"There was another woman," said Dicky: "one of your own people. She was
given a mind and a soul. You deserted her in your harem--what was there
left for her to think of but death? She had no child. But death was a
black prospect; for you would go to heaven, and she would be in the outer
darkness; and she loved you! A woman's brain thinks wild things. She fled
from you, and went the pilgrimage to Mecca. She did all that a man might
do to save her soul, according to Mahomet. She is to die to-morrow by the
will of the people--and the Mudir of the Fayoum."
Dicky paused once more. He did not look at the Mudir, but out of the
window towards the Bahr-el-Yusef, where the fellaheen of the Mudir's
estate toiled like beasts of burden with the barges and the great
khiassas laden with cotton and sugar-cane.
"God make your words merciful!" said the Mudir. "What would you have me
do?"
"The Khedive, our master, has given me your life," said Dicky. "I will
make your end easy. The woman has done much to save her soul. She buries
her face in the dust because she hath no salvation. It is written in the
Koran that a man may save the soul of his wife. You have your choice:
will you come to Cairo to Sadik Pasha, and be crucified like a bandit of
your own province, or will you die with the woman in the Birket-el-Kurun
to-morrow at sunrise, and walk with her into the Presence and save her
soul, and pay the price of the English life?"
"Malaish!" answered the Mudir. "Water," he added quickly. He had no power
to move, for fear had paralysed him. Dicky brought him a goolah of water.
The next morning, at sunrise, a strange procession drew near to the
Birket-el-Kurun. Twenty ghaffirs went ahead with their naboots; then came
the kavasses, then the Mudir mounted, with Dicky riding beside, his hand
upon the holster where his pistol was. The face of the Mudir was like a
wrinkled skin of lard, his eyes had the look of one drunk with hashish.
Behind them came the woman, and now upon her face there was only a look
of peace. The distracted gaze had gone from her eyes, and she listened
without a tremor to the voices of the wailers behind.
Twenty yards from the lake, Dicky called a halt--Dicky, not the Mudir.
The soldiers came forward and put heavy chains and a ball upon the
woman's ankles. The woman carried the ball in her arms to the very verge
of the lake, by the deep pool called "The Pool of the Slaughtered One."
Dicky turned to the Mudir. "Are you ready?" he said.
"Inshallah!" said the Mudir.
The soldiers made a line, but the crowd overlapped the line. The
fellaheen and Bedouins looked to see the Mudir summon the Ulema to
condemn the woman to shame and darkness everlasting. But suddenly Abbas
Bey turned and took the woman's right hand in his left.
Her eyes opened in an ecstasy. "O lord and master, I go to heaven with
thee!" she said, and threw herself forward.
Without a sound the heavy body of the Mudir lurched forward with her, and
they sank into the water together. A cry of horror and wonder burst from
the crowd.
Dicky turned to them, and raised both hands.
"In the name of our master the Khedive!" he cried.
Above the spot where the two had sunk floated the red tarboosh of the
Mudir of the Fayoum.
A TREATY OF PEACE
Mr. William Sowerby, lieutenant in the Mounted Infantry, was in a
difficult situation, out of which he was little likely to come with
credit--or his life. It is a dangerous thing to play with fire, so it is
said; it is a more dangerous thing to walk rough-shod over Oriental
customs. A man ere this has lost his life by carrying his shoe-leather
across the threshold of a mosque, and this sort of thing William Sowerby
knew, and of his knowledge he heeded. He did not heed another thing,
however; which is, that Oriental ladies are at home to but one man in all
the world, and that your acquaintance with them must be modified by a
mushrabieh screen, a yashmak, a shaded, fast-driving brougham, and a
hideous eunuch.
William Sowerby had not been long in Egypt, he had not travelled very far
or very wide in the Orient; and he was an impressionable and harmless
young man whose bark and bite were of equal value. His ideas of a harem
were inaccurately based on the legend that it is necessarily the
habitation of many wives and concubines and slaves. It had never occurred
to him that there might be a sort of family life in a harem; that a pasha
or a bey might have daughters as well as wives; or might have only one
wife--which is less expensive; and that a harem is not necessarily the
heaven of a voluptuary, an elysium of rosy-petalled love and passion. Yet
he might have known it all, and should have known it all, if he had taken
one-fifth of the time to observe and study Egyptian life which he gave to
polo and golf and racquets. Yet even if he had known the life from many
stand-points he would still have cherished illusions, for, as Dicky
Donovan, who had a sense of satire, said in some satirical lines, the
cherished amusements of more than one dinner table:
"Oh, William William Sowerby
Has come out for to see
The way of a bimbashi
With Egyptian Cavalree.
But William William Sowerby
His eyes do open wide
When he sees the Pasha's chosen
In her "bruggam" and her pride.
And William William Sowerby,
He has a tender smile,
Which will bring him in due season
To the waters of the Nile
And the cheery crocodile!"
It can scarcely be said that Dicky was greatly surprised when Mahommed
Yeleb, the servant of "William William Sowerby," came rapping at his door
one hot noon-day with a dark tale of disaster to his master. This was the
heart of the thing--A languid, bored, inviting face, and two dark curious
eyes in a slow-driving brougham out on the Pyramid Road; William's
tender, answering smile; his horse galloping behind to within a discreet
distance of the palace, where the lady alighted, shadowed by the
black-coated eunuch. The same thing for several days, then a device to
let the lady know his name, then a little note half in Arabic, half in
French, so mysterious, so fascinating--William Sowerby walked on air!
Then, a nocturnal going forth, followed by his frightened servant, who
dared not give a warning, for fear of the ever-ready belt which had
scarred his back erstwhile; the palace wall, an opening door, the figure
of his master passing through, the closing gate; and then no
more--nothing more, for a long thirty-six hours!
Mahommed Yeleb's face would have been white if his skin had permitted--it
was a sickly yellow; his throat was guttural with anxiety, his eyes
furtive and strained, for was he not the servant of his master, and might
not he be marked for the early tomb if, as he was sure, his master was
gone that way?
"Aiwa, efendi, it is sure," he said to Dicky Donovan, who never was
surprised at anything that happened. He had no fear of anything that
breathed; and he kept his place with Ismail because he told the truth
pitilessly, was a poorer man than the Khedive's barber, and a beggar
beside the Chief Eunuch; also, because he had a real understanding of the
Oriental mind, together with a rich sense of humour.
"What is sure?" said Dicky to the Arab with assumed composure; for it was
important that he should show neither anxiety nor astonishment, lest
panic seize the man, and he should rush abroad with grave scandal
streaming from his mouth, and the English fat be in the Egyptian fire for
ever. "What is sure, Mahommed Yeleb?" repeated Dicky, lighting a
cigarette idly.
"It is as God wills; but as the tongue of man speaks, so is he--Bimbashi
Sowerby, my master--swallowed up these thirty-six hours in the tomb
prepared for him by Selamlik Pasha."
Dicky felt his eyelids twitch, and he almost gave a choking groan of
anxiety, for Selamlik Pasha would not spare the invader of his harem; an
English invader would be a delicate morsel for his pitiless soul. He
shuddered inwardly at the thought of what might have occurred, what might
occur still.
If Sowerby had been trapped and was already dead, the knowledge would
creep through the bazaars like a soft wind of the night, and all the Arab
world would rejoice that a cursed Inglesi, making the unpardonable breach
of their code, had been given to the crocodiles, been smothered, or
stabbed, or tortured to death with fire. And, if it were so, what could
be done? Could England make a case of it, avenge the life of this young
fool who had disgraced her in the eyes of the world, of the envious
French in Cairo, and of that population of the palaces who hated her
because Englishmen were the enemies of backsheesh, corruption, tyranny,
and slavery? And to what good the attempt? Exists the personal law of the
Oriental palace, and who may punish any there save by that personal law?
What outside law shall apply to anything that happens within those
mysterious walls? Who shall bear true witness, when the only judge is he
whose palace it is? Though twenty nations should unite to judge, where
might proof be found--inside the palace, where all men lie and bear false
witness?
If Sowerby was not dead, then resort to force? Go to Selamlik Pasha the
malignant, and demand the young officer? How easy for Selamlik Pasha to
deny all knowledge of his existence! Threaten Selamlik--and raise a
Mahommedan crusade? That would not do.
Say nought, then, and let Sowerby, who had thrust his head into the jaws
of the tiger, get it out as best he might, or not get it out, as the case
might be?
Neither was that possible to Dicky Donovan, even if it were the more
politic thing to do, even if it were better for England's name. Sowerby
was his friend, as men of the same race are friends together in a foreign
country. Dicky had a poor opinion of Sowerby's sense or ability, and yet
he knew that if he were in Sowerby's present situation--living or
dead--Sowerby would spill his blood a hundred useless times, if need be,
to save him.
He had no idea of leaving Sowerby where he was, if alive; or of not
avenging him one way or another if dead. But how that might be he was not
on the instant sure. He had been struck as with a sudden blindness by the
news, though he showed nothing of this to Mahommed Yeleb. His chief
object was to inspire the Arab with confidence, since he was probably the
only man outside Selamlik's palace who knew the thing as yet. It was
likely that Selamlik Pasha would be secret till he saw whether Sowerby
would be missed and what inquiry was made for him. It was important to
Dicky, in the first place, that this Mahommed Yeleb be kept quiet, by
being made a confidant of his purposes so far as need be, an accomplice
in his efforts whatever they should be. Kept busy, with a promise of
success and backsheesh when the matter was completed, the Arab would
probably remain secret. Besides, as Dicky said to himself, while Mahommed
kept his head, he would not risk parading himself as the servant of the
infidel who had invaded the Pasha's harem. Again, it was certain that he
had an adequate devotion to his master, who had given him as many
ha'pence as kicks, and many cast-off underclothes and cigarettes.
Thus it was that before Dicky had arranged what he should do, though
plans were fusing in his brain, he said to Mahommed Yeleb seriously, as
befitting the crime Sowerby had committed--evenly, as befitted the
influence he wished to have over the Arab: "Keep your tongue between your
teeth, Mahommed. We will pull him through all right."
"But, effendi, whom God honour, for greatness is in all thy ways, friend
of the Commander of the Faithful as thou art--but, saadat el basha, if he
be dead?"
"He is not dead. I know it by the eyes of my mind, Mahommed--yea, by the
hairs of my head, he is not dead!"
"Saadat el basha, thou art known as the truth-teller and the
incorruptible--this is the word of the Egyptian and of the infidel
concerning thee. I kiss thy feet. For it is true he hath deserved death,
but woe be to him by whom his death cometh! And am I not his servant to
be with him while he hath life, and hath need of me? If thou sayest he is
alive, then is he alive, and my heart rejoices."
Dicky scarcely heard what the Arab said, for the quick conviction he had
had that Sowerby was alive was based on the fact, suddenly remembered,
that Selamlik Pasha had only returned from the Fayoum this very morning,
and that therefore he could not as yet have had any share in the fate of
Sowerby, but had probably been sent for by the Chief Eunuch. It was but
an hour since that he had seen Selamlik Pasha driving hastily towards his
palace.
His mind was instantly made up, his plans formed to his purpose.
"Listen, Mahommed," he said to the Arab. "Listen to each word I say, as
though it were the prayer to take thee into Paradise. Go at once to
Selamlik Pasha. Carry this ring the Khedive gave to me--he will know it.
Do not be denied his presence. Say that it is more than life and death;
that it is all he values in the world. Once admitted, say these words:
'Donovan Pasha knows all, and asks an audience at midnight in this
palace. Until that hour Donovan Pasha desires peace. For is it not the
law, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth? Is not a market a place
to buy and sell?'"
Four times did Dicky make the Arab repeat the words after him, till they
ran like water from his tongue, and dismissed him upon the secret errand
with a handful of silver.
Immediately the Arab had gone, Dicky's face flushed with excitement, in
the reaction from his lately assumed composure. For five minutes he
walked up and down, using language scarcely printable, reviling Sowerby,
and setting his teeth in anger. But he suddenly composed himself, and,
sitting down, stared straight before him for a long time without stirring
a muscle. There was urgent need of action, but there was more urgent need
of his making no mistake, of his doing the one thing necessary, for
Sowerby could only be saved in one way, not many.
It was useless to ask the Khedive's intervention--Ismail dared not go
against Selamlik in this. Whatever was done must be done between Selamlik
Pasha, the tigerish libertine, and Richard Donovan, the little man who,
at the tail end of Ismail's reign, was helping him hold things together
against the black day of reckoning, "prepared for the devil and all his
angels," as Dicky had said to Ismail on this very momentous morning, when
warning him of the perils in his path. Now Dicky had been at war with
Selamlik ever since, one day long ago on the Nile, he and Fielding had
thwarted his purposes; and Dicky had earned the Pasha's changeless hatred
by calling him "Trousers"--for this name had gone up and down throughout
Egypt as a doubtful story travels, drawing easy credit everywhere. Those
were the days when Dicky was irresponsible. Of all in Egypt who hated him
most, Selamlik Pasha was the chief. But most people hated Selamlik, so
the world was not confounded by the great man's rage, nor did they
dislike Dicky simply because the Pasha chose to do so. Through years
Selamlik had built up his power, until even the Khedive feared him, and
would have been glad to tie a stone round his neck and drop him into the
Nile. But Ismail could no longer do this sort of thing without some show
of reason--Europe was hanging on his actions, waiting for the apt moment
to depose him.
All this Dicky knew, and five minutes from the time Mahommed Yeleb had
left him he was on his way to Ismail's palace, with his kavass behind
him, cool and ruminating as usual, now answering a salute in Turkish
fashion, now in English, as Egyptians or Europeans passed him.
II
There was one being in the Khedive's palace whose admiration for Dicky
was a kind of fetish, and Dicky loathed him. Twice had Dicky saved this
Chief Eunuch's life from Ismail's anger, and once had he saved his
fortune--not even from compassion, but out of his inherent love of
justice. As Dicky had said: "Let him die--for what he has done, not for
something he has not done. Send him to the devil with a true bill of
crime." So it was that Dicky, who shrank from the creature whom Ministers
and Pashas fawned upon--so powerful was his unique position in the
palace--went straight to him now to get his quid-pro-quo, his measure for
measure.
The tall, black-coated, smooth-faced creature, silent and watchful and
lean, stepped through the doorway with the footfall of a cat. He slid
forward, salaamed to the floor-Dicky wondered how a body could open and
shut so like the blade of a knife--and, catching Dicky's hand, kissed it.
"May thy days be watered with the dew of heaven, saadat el basha," said
the Chief Eunuch.
"Mine eyes have not seen since thy last withdrawal," answered Dicky
blandly, in the high-flown Oriental way.
"Thou hast sent for me. I am thy slave."
"I have sent for thee, Mizraim. And thou shalt prove thyself, once for
all, whether thy hand moves as thy tongue speaks."
"To serve thee I will lay down my life--I will blow it from me as the
wind bloweth the cotton flower. Have I not spoken thus since the Feast of
Beiram, now two years gone?"
Dicky lowered his voice. "Both Mustapha Bey, that son of the he-wolf
Selamlik Pasha, still follow the carriage of the Khedive's favourite, and
hang about the walls, and seek to corrupt thee with gold, Mahommed
Mizraim?"
"Saadat el basha, but for thy word to wait, the Khedive had been told
long since."
"It is the sport to strike when the sword cuts with the longest arm, O
son of Egypt!"
The face of Mizraim was ugly with the unnatural cruelty of an unnatural
man. "Is the time at hand, saadat el basha?"
"You hate Selamlik Pasha?"
"As the lion the jackal."
Dicky would have laughed in scorn if he might have dared--this being to
class himself with lions! But the time was not fit for laughter. "And the
son of Selamlik Pasha, the vile Mustapha Bey?" he asked.
"I would grind him like corn between the stones! Hath he not sent
messages by the women of the bazaar to the harem of my royal master, to
whom God give glory in heaven? Hath he not sought to enter the harem as a
weasel crawls under a wall? Hath he not sought to steal what I hoard by a
mighty hand and the eye of an eagle for Ismail the Great? Shall I love
him more than the dog that tears the throat of a gazelle?" The gesture of
cruelty he made was disgusting to the eyes of Dicky Donovan, but he had
in his mind the peril to Sowerby, and he nodded his head in careless
approval, as it were.
"Then, Mizraim, thou son of secrecy and keeper of the door, take heed to
what I say, and for thine honour and my need do as I will. Thou shalt
to-night admit Mustapha Bey to the harem--at the hour of nine o'clock!"
"Saadat el basha!" The eunuch's face was sickly in its terrified wonder.
"Even so. At nine."
"But, saadat--"
"Bring him secretly, even to the door of the favourite's room; then, have
him seized and carried to a safe place till I send for him."
"Ah, saadat el basha--" The lean face of the creature smiled, and the
smile was not nice to see.
"Let no harm be done him, but await my messenger, Mahommed Yeleb, and
whatsoever he bids you to do, do it; for I speak."
"Ah, saadat el basha, you would strike Selamlik Pasha so--the great
beast, the black river pig, the serpent of the slime . . . !"
"You will do this thing, Mizraim?"
"I shall lure him, as the mirage the pilgrim. With joy I will do this,
and a hundred times more."
"Even if I asked of thee the keys of the harem?" asked Dicky grimly.
"Effendi, thou wouldst not ask. All the world knows thee. For thee the
harem hath no lure. Thou goest not by dark ways to deeds for thine own
self. Thou hast honour. Ismail himself would not fear thee."
"See, thou master of many, squeak not thy voice so high. Ismail will take
thy head and mine, if he discovers to-night's business. Go then with a
soft tread, Mizraim. Let thy hand be quick on his mouth, and beware that
no one sees!"
III
Upon the stroke of midnight Dicky entered the room where Selamlik Pasha
awaited him with a malicious and greasy smile, in which wanton cruelty
was uppermost. Selamlik Pasha knew well the object of this meeting. He
had accurately interpreted the message brought by Mahommed Yeleb. He knew
his power; he knew that the Englishman's life was in his hands to do with
what he chose, for the law of the harem which defies all outside law was
on his side. But here he was come to listen to Dicky Donovan, the
arrogant little favourite, pleading for the life of the English boy who
had done the thing for which the only penalty was death.
Dicky showed no emotion as he entered the room, but salaamed, and said:
"Your Excellency is prompt. Honour and peace be upon your Excellency!"
"Honour and the bounty of the stars be upon thee, saadat el basha!"