The Weavers, Complete - Gilbert Parker
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There was silence for a moment, and then Kaid spoke again. "What are thy
properties and treasure?" he asked sternly.
Nahoum drew forth a paper from his sleeve, and handed it to Kaid without
a word. Kaid glanced at it hurriedly, then said: "This is but nothing.
What hast thou hidden from me?"
"It is all I have got in thy service, Highness," he answered boldly. "All
else I have given to the poor; also to spies--and to the army."
"To spies--and to the army?" asked Kaid slowly, incredulously.
"Wilt thou come with me to the window, Effendina?" Kaid, wondering, went
to the great windows which looked on to the Palace square. There, drawn
up, were a thousand mounted men as black as ebony, wearing shining white
metal helmets and fine chain-armour and swords and lances like medieval
crusaders. The horses, too, were black, and the mass made a barbaric
display belonging more to another period in the world's history. This
regiment of Nubians Kaid had recruited from the far south, and had
maintained at his own expense. When they saw him at the window now, their
swords clashed on their thighs and across their breasts, and they raised
a great shout of greeting.
"Well?" asked Kaid, with a ring to the voice. "They are loyal, Effendina,
every man. But the army otherwise is honeycombed with treason. Effendina,
my money has been busy in the army paying and bribing officers, and my
spies were costly. There has been sedition--conspiracy; but until I could
get the full proofs I waited; I could but bribe and wait. Were it not for
the money I had spent, there might have been another Prince of Egypt."
Kald's face darkened. He was startled, too. He had been taken unawares.
"My brother Harrik--!"
"And I should have lost my place, lost all for which I cared. I had no
love for money; it was but a means. I spent it for the State--for the
Effendina, and to keep my place. I lost my place, however, in another
way."
"Proofs! Proofs!" Kaid's voice was hoarse with feeling.
"I have no proofs against Prince Harrik, no word upon paper. But there
are proofs that the army is seditious, that, at any moment, it may
revolt."
"Thou hast kept this secret?" questioned Kaid darkly and suspiciously.
"The time had not come. Read, Effendina," he added, handing some papers
over.
"But it is the whole army!" said Kaid aghast, as he read. He was
convinced.
"There is only one guilty," returned Nahoum. Their eyes met. Oriental
fatalism met inveterate Oriental distrust and then instinctively Kaid's
eyes turned to David. In the eyes of the Inglesi was a different thing.
The test of the new relationship had come. Ferocity was in his heart, a
vitriolic note was in his voice as he said to David, "If this be
true--the army rotten, the officers disloyal, treachery under every
tunic--bismillah, speak!"
"Shall it not be one thing at a time, Effendina?" asked David. He made a
gesture towards Nahoum. Kaid motioned to a door. "Wait yonder," he said
darkly to Nahoum. As the door opened, and Nahoum disappeared leisurely
and composedly, David caught a glimpse of a guard of armed Nubians in
leopard-skins filed against the white wall of the other room.
"What is thy intention towards Nahoum, Effendina?" David asked presently.
Kaid's voice was impatient. "Thou hast asked his life--take it; it is
thine; but if I find him within these walls again until I give him leave,
he shall go as Foorgat went."
"What was the manner of Foorgat's going?" asked David quietly.
"As a wind blows through a court-yard, and the lamp goes out, so he
went--in the night. Who can say? Wherefore speculate? He is gone. It is
enough. Were it not for thee, Egypt should see Nahoum no more."
David sighed, and his eyes closed for an instant. "Effendina, Nahoum has
proved his faith--is it not so?" He pointed to the documents in Kaid's
hands.
A grim smile passed over Kaid's face. Distrust of humanity, incredulity,
cold cynicism, were in it. "Wheels within wheels, proofs within proofs,"
he said. "Thou hast yet to learn the Eastern heart. When thou seest white
in the East, call it black, for in an instant it will be black. Malaish,
it is the East! Have I not trusted--did I not mean well by all? Did I not
deal justly? Yet my justice was but darkness of purpose, the hidden
terror to them all. So did I become what thou findest me and dost believe
me--a tyrant, in whose name a thousand do evil things of which I neither
hear nor know. Proof! When a woman lies in your arms, it is not the
moment to prove her fidelity. Nahoum has crawled back to my feet with
these things, and by the beard of the Prophet they are true!" He looked
at the papers with loathing. "But what his purpose was when he spied upon
and bribed my army I know not. Yet, it shall be said, he has held Harrik
back--Harrik, my brother. Son of Sheitan and slime of the Nile, have I
not spared Harrik all these years!"
"Hast thou proof, Effendina?"
"I have proof enough; I shall have more soon. To save their lives, these,
these will tell. I have their names here." He tapped the papers. "There
are ways to make them tell. Now, speak, effendi, and tell me what I shall
do to Harrik."
"Wouldst thou proclaim to Egypt, to the Sultan, to the world that the
army is disloyal? If these guilty men are seized, can the army be
trusted? Will it not break away in fear? Yonder Nubians are not enough--a
handful lost in the melee. Prove the guilt of him who perverted the army
and sought to destroy thee. Punish him."
"How shall there be proof save through those whom he has perverted? There
is no writing."
"There is proof," answered David calmly.
"Where shall I find it?" Kaid laughed contemptuously.
"I have the proof," answered David gravely. "Against Harrik?"
"Against Prince Harrik Pasha."
"Thou--what dost thou know?"
"A woman of the Prince heard him give instructions for thy disposal,
Effendina, when the Citadel should turns its guns upon Cairo and the
Palace. She was once of thy harem. Thou didst give her in marriage, and
she came to the harem of Prince Harrik at last. A woman from without who
sang to her--a singing girl, an al'mah--she trusted with the paper to
warn thee, Effendina, in her name. Her heart had remembrance of thee. Her
foster-brother Mahommed Hassan is my servant. Him she told, and Mahommed
laid the matter before me this morning. Here is a sign by which thee will
remember her, so she said. Zaida she was called here." He handed over an
amulet which had one red gem in the centre.
Kaid's face had set into fierce resolution, but as he took the amulet his
eyes softened.
"Zaida. Inshallah! Zaida, she was called. She has the truth almost of the
English. She could not lie ever. My heart smote me concerning her, and I
gave her in marriage." Then his face darkened again, and his teeth showed
in malice. A demon was roused in him. He might long ago have banished the
handsome and insinuating Harrik, but he had allowed him wealth and
safety--and now . . .
His intention was unmistakable.
"He shall die the death," he said. "Is it not so?" he added fiercely to
David, and gazed at him fixedly. Would this man of peace plead for the
traitor, the would-be fratricide?
"He is a traitor; he must die," answered David slowly.
Kald's eyes showed burning satisfaction. "If he were thy brother, thou
wouldst kill him?"
"I would give a traitor to death for the country's sake. There is no
other way."
"To-night he shall die."
"But with due trial, Effendina?"
"Trial--is not the proof sufficient?"
"But if he confess, and give evidence himself, and so offer himself to
die?"
"Is Harrik a fool?" answered Kaid, with scorn.
"If there be a trial and sentence is given, the truth concerning the army
must appear. Is that well? Egypt will shake to its foundations--to the
joy of its enemies."
"Then he shall die secretly."
"The Prince Pasha of Egypt will be called a murderer."
Kaid shrugged his shoulders.
"The Sultan--Europe--is it well?"
"I will tell the truth," Kaid rejoined angrily.
"If the Effendina will trust me, Prince Harrik shall confess his crime
and pay the penalty also."
"What is thy purpose?"
"I will go to his palace and speak with him."
"Seize him?"
"I have no power to seize him, Effendina."
"I will give it. My Nubians shall go also."
"Effendina, I will go alone. It is the only way. There is great danger to
the throne. Who can tell what a night will bring forth?"
"If Harrik should escape--"
"If I were an Egyptian and permitted Harrik to escape, my life would pay
for my failure. If I failed, thou wouldst not succeed. If I am to serve
Egypt, there must be trust in me from thee, or it were better to pause
now. If I go, as I shall go, alone, I put my life in danger--is it not
so?"
Suddenly Kaid sat down again among his cushions. "Inshallah! In the name
of God, be it so. Thou art not as other men. There is something in thee
above my thinking. But I will not sleep till I see thee again."
"I shall see thee at midnight, Effendina. Give me the ring from thy
finger."
Kaid passed it over, and David put it in his pocket. Then he turned to
go.
"Nahoum?" he asked.
"Take him hence. Let him serve thee if it be thy will. Yet I cannot
understand it. The play is dark. Is he not an Oriental?"
"He is a Christian."
Kaid laughed sourly, and clapped his hands for the slave.
In a moment David and Nahoum were gone. "Nahoum, a Christian! Bismillah!"
murmured Kaid scornfully, then fell to pondering darkly over the evil
things he had heard.
Meanwhile the Nubians in their glittering armour waited without in the
blistering square.
CHAPTER XII
THE JEHAD AND THE LIONS
"Allah hu Achbar! Allah hu Achbar! Ashhadu an la illaha illalla!" The
sweetly piercing, resonant voice of the Muezzin rang far and commandingly
on the clear evening air, and from bazaar and crowded street the faithful
silently hurried to the mosques, leaving their slippers at the door,
while others knelt where the call found them, and touched their foreheads
to the ground.
In his palace by the Nile, Harrik, the half-brother of the Prince Pasha,
heard it, and breaking off from conversation with two urgent visitors,
passed to an alcove near, dropping a curtain behind him. Kneeling
reverently on the solitary furniture of the room--a prayer-rug from
Medina--he lost himself as completely in his devotions as though his life
were an even current of unforbidden acts and motives.
Cross-legged on the great divan of the room he had left, his less pious
visitors, unable to turn their thoughts from the dark business on which
they had come, smoked their cigarettes, talking to each other in tones so
low as would not have been heard by a European, and with apparent
listlessness.
Their manner would not have indicated that they were weighing matters of
life and death, of treason and infamy, of massacre and national shame.
Only the sombre, smouldering fire of their eyes was evidence of the
lighted fuse of conspiracy burning towards the magazine. One look of
surprise had been exchanged when Harrik Pasha left them suddenly--time
was short for what they meant to do; but they were Muslims, and they
resigned themselves.
"The Inglesi must be the first to go; shall a Christian dog rule over
us?"
It was Achmet the Ropemaker who spoke, his yellow face wrinkling with
malice, though his voice but murmured hoarsely.
"Nahoum will kill him." Higli Pasha laughed low--it was like the gurgle
of water in the narghileh--a voice of good nature and persuasiveness from
a heart that knew no virtue. "Bismillah! Who shall read the meaning of
it? Why has he not already killed?"
"Nahoum would choose his own time--after he has saved his life by the
white carrion. Kaid will give him his life if the Inglesi asks. The
Inglesi, he is mad. If he were not mad, he would see to it that Nahoum
was now drying his bones in the sands."
"What each has failed to do for the other shall be done for them,"
answered Achmet, a hateful leer on his immobile features. "To-night many
things shall be made right. To-morrow there will be places empty and
places filled. Egypt shall begin again to-morrow."
"Kaid?"
Achmet stopped smoking for a moment. "When the khamsin comes, when the
camels stampede, and the children of the storm fall upon the caravan, can
it be foretold in what way Fate shall do her work? So but the end be the
same--malaish! We shall be content tomorrow."
Now he turned and looked at his companion as though his mind had chanced
on a discovery. "To him who first brings word to a prince who inherits,
that the reigning prince is dead, belong honour and place," he said.
"Then shall it be between us twain," said High, and laid his hot palm
against the cold, snaky palm of the other. "And he to whom the honour
falls shall help the other."
"Aiwa, but it shall be so," answered Achmet, and then they spoke in lower
tones still, their eyes on the curtain behind which Harrik prayed.
Presently Harrik entered, impassive, yet alert, his slight, handsome
figure in sharp contrast to the men lounging in the cushions before him,
who salaamed as he came forward. The features were finely chiselled, the
forehead white and high, the lips sensuous, the eyes fanatical, the look
concentrated yet abstracted. He took a seat among the cushions, and,
after a moment, said to Achmet, in a voice abnormally deep and powerful:
"Diaz--there is no doubt of Diaz?"
"He awaits the signal. The hawk flies not swifter than Diaz will act."
"The people--the bazaars--the markets?"
"As the air stirs a moment before the hurricane comes, so the whisper has
stirred them. From one lip to another, from one street to another, from
one quarter to another, the word has been passed--'Nahoum was a
Christian, but Nahoum was an Egyptian whose heart was Muslim. The
stranger is a Christian and an Inglesi. Reason has fled from the Prince
Pasha, the Inglesi has bewitched him. But the hour of deliverance draweth
nigh. Be ready! To-night!' So has the whisper gone."
Harrik's eyes burned. "God is great," he said. "The time has come. The
Christians spoil us. From France, from England, from Austria--it is
enough. Kaid has handed us over to the Greek usurers, the Inglesi and the
Frank are everywhere. And now this new-comer who would rule Kaid, and lay
his hand upon Egypt like Joseph of old, and bring back Nahoum, to the
shame of every Muslim--behold, the spark is to the tinder, it shall
burn."
"And the hour, Effendina?"
"At midnight. The guns to be trained on the Citadel, the Palace
surrounded. Kaid's Nubians?"
"A hundred will be there, Effendina, the rest a mile away at their
barracks." Achmet rubbed his cold palms together in satisfaction.
"And Prince Kaid, Effendina?" asked Higli cautiously.
The fanatical eyes turned away. "The question is foolish--have ye no
brains?" he said impatiently.
A look of malignant triumph flashed from Achmet to High, and he said,
scarce above a whisper: "May thy footsteps be as the wings of the eagle,
Effendina. The heart of the pomegranate is not redder than our hearts are
red for thee. Cut deep into our hearts, and thou shalt find the last beat
is for thee--and for the Jehad!"
"The Jehad--ay, the Jehad! The time is at hand," answered Harrik,
glowering at the two. "The sword shall not be sheathed till we have
redeemed Egypt. Go your ways, effendis, and peace be on you and on all
the righteous worshippers of God!"
As High and Achmet left the palace, the voice of a holy man--admitted
everywhere and treated with reverence--chanting the Koran, came
somnolently through the court-yard: "Bismillah hirrahmah, nirraheem.
Elhamdu lillahi sabbila!"
Rocking his body backwards and forwards and dwelling sonorously on each
vowel, the holy man seemed the incarnation of Muslim piety; but as the
two conspirators passed him with scarce a glance, and made their way to a
small gate leading into the great garden bordering on the Nile, his eyes
watched them sharply. When they had passed through, he turned towards the
windows of the harem, still chanting. For a long time he chanted. An
occasional servant came and went, but his voice ceased not, and he kept
his eyes fixed ever on the harem windows.
At last his watching had its reward. Something fluttered from a window to
the ground. Still chanting, he rose and began walking round the great
court-yard. Twice he went round, still chanting, but the third time he
stooped to pick up a little strip of linen which had fallen from the
window, and concealed it in his sleeve. Presently he seated himself
again, and, still chanting, spread out the linen in his palm and read the
characters upon it. For an instant there was a jerkiness to the voice,
and then it droned on resonantly again. Now the eyes of the holy man were
fixed on the great gates through which strangers entered, and he was
seated in the way which any one must take who came to the palace doors.
It was almost dark, when he saw the bowab, after repeated knocking,
sleepily and grudgingly open the gates to admit a visitor. There seemed
to be a moment's hesitation on the bowab's part, but he was presently
assured by something the visitor showed him, and the latter made his way
deliberately to the palace doors. As the visitor neared the holy man, who
chanted on monotonously, he was suddenly startled to hear between the
long-drawn syllables the quick words in Arabic:
"Beware, Saadat! See, I am Mahommed Hassan, thy servant! At midnight they
surround Kaid's palace--Achmet and Higli--and kill the Prince Pasha.
Return, Saadat. Harrik will kill thee."
David made no sign, but with a swift word to the faithful Mahommed
Hassan, passed on, and was presently admitted to the palace. As the doors
closed behind him, he would hear the voice of the holy man still
chanting: "Waladalleen--Ameen-Ameen! Waladalleen--Ameen!"
The voice followed him, fainter and fainter, as he passed through the
great bare corridors with the thick carpets on which the footsteps made
no sound, until it came, soft and undefined, as it were from a great
distance. Then suddenly there fell upon him a sense of the peril of his
enterprise. He had been left alone in the vast dim hall while a slave,
made obsequious by the sight of the ring of the Prince Pasha, sought his
master. As he waited he was conscious that people were moving about
behind the great screens of mooshrabieh which separated this room from
others, and that eyes were following his every motion. He had gained easy
ingress to this place; but egress was a matter of some speculation. The
doors which had closed behind him might swing one way only! He had
voluntarily put himself in the power of a man whose fatal secret he knew.
He only felt a moment's apprehension, however. He had been moved to come
from a whisper in his soul; and he had the sure conviction of the
predestinarian that he was not to be the victim of "The Scytheman" before
his appointed time. His mind resumed its composure, and he watchfully
waited the return of the slave.
Suddenly he was conscious of some one behind him, though he had heard no
one approach. He swung round and was met by the passive face of the black
slave in personal attendance on Harrik. The slave did not speak, but
motioned towards a screen at the end of the room, and moved towards it.
David followed. As they reached it, a broad panel opened, and they passed
through, between a line of black slaves. Then there was a sudden
darkness, and a moment later David was ushered into a room blazing with
light. Every inch of the walls was hung with red curtains. No door was
visible. He was conscious of this as the panel clicked behind him, and
the folds of the red velvet caught his shoulder in falling. Now he saw
sitting on a divan on the opposite side of the room Prince Harrik.
David had never before seen him, and his imagination had fashioned a
different personality. Here was a combination of intellect, refinement,
and savagery. The red, sullen lips stamped the delicate, fanatical face
with cruelty and barbaric indulgence, while yet there was an intensity in
the eyes that showed the man was possessed of an idea which mastered
him--a root-thought. David was at once conscious of a complex
personality, of a man in whom two natures fought. He understood it. By
instinct the man was a Mahdi, by heredity he was a voluptuary, that
strange commingling of the religious and the evil found in so many
criminals. In some far corner of his nature David felt something akin.
The rebellion in his own blood against the fine instinct of his Quaker
faith and upbringing made him grasp the personality before him. Had he
himself been born in these surroundings, under these influences! The
thought flashed through his mind like lightning, even as he bowed before
Harrik, who salaamed and said: "Peace be unto thee!" and motioned him to
a seat on a divan near and facing him.
"What is thy business with me, effendi?" asked Harrik.
"I come on the business of the Prince Pasha," answered David.
Harrik touched his fez mechanically, then his breast and lips, and a
cruel smile lurked at the corners of his mouth as he rejoined:
"The feet of them who wear the ring of their Prince wait at no man's
door. The carpet is spread for them. They go and they come as the feet of
the doe in the desert. Who shall say, They shall not come; who shall say,
They shall not return!"
Though the words were spoken with an air of ingenuous welcome, David felt
the malignity in the last phrase, and knew that now was come the most
fateful moment of his life. In his inner being he heard the dreadful
challenge of Fate. If he failed in his purpose with this man, he would
never begin his work in Egypt. Of his life he did not think--his life was
his purpose, and the one was nothing without the other. No other man
would have undertaken so Quixotic an enterprise, none would have exposed
himself so recklessly to the dreadful accidents of circumstance. There
had been other ways to overcome this crisis, but he had rejected them for
a course fantastic and fatal when looked at in the light of ordinary
reason. A struggle between the East and the West was here to be fought
out between two wills; between an intellectual libertine steeped in
Oriental guilt and cruelty and self-indulgence, and a being selfless,
human, and in an agony of remorse for a life lost by his hand.
Involuntarily David's eyes ran round the room before he replied. How many
slaves and retainers waited behind those velvet curtains?
Harrik saw the glance and interpreted it correctly. With a look of dark
triumph he clapped his hands. As if by magic fifty black slaves appeared,
armed with daggers. They folded their arms and waited like statues.
David made no sign of discomposure, but said slowly: "Dost thou think I
did not know my danger, Eminence? Do I seem to thee such a fool? I came
alone as one would come to the tent of a Bedouin chief whose son one had
slain, and ask for food and safety. A thousand men were mine to command,
but I came alone. Is thy guest imbecile? Let them go. I have that to say
which is for Prince Harrik's ear alone."
An instant's hesitation, and Harrik motioned the slaves away. "What is
the private word for my ear?" he asked presently, fingering the stem of
the narghileh.
"To do right by Egypt, the land of thy fathers and thy land; to do right
by the Prince Pasha, thy brother."
"What is Egypt to thee? Why shouldst thou bring thine insolence here?
Couldst thou not preach in thine own bazaars beyond the sea?"
David showed no resentment. His reply was composed and quiet. "I am come
to save Egypt from the work of thy hands."
"Dog of an unbeliever, what hast thou to do with me, or the work of my
hands?"
David held up Kaid's ring, which had lain in his hand. "I come from the
master of Egypt--master of thee, and of thy life, and of all that is
thine."
"What is Kaid's message to me?" Harrik asked, with an effort at
unconcern, for David's boldness had in it something chilling to his
fierce passion and pride.
"The word of the Effendina is to do right by Egypt, to give thyself to
justice and to peace."
"Have done with parables. To do right by Egypt wherein, wherefore?" The
eyes glinted at David like bits of fiery steel.
"I will interpret to thee, Eminence."
"Interpret." Harrik muttered to himself in rage. His heart was dark, he
thirsted for the life of this arrogant Inglesi. Did the fool not see his
end? Midnight was at hand! He smiled grimly.
"This is the interpretation, O Prince! Prince Harrik has conspired
against his brother the Prince Pasha, has treacherously seduced officers
of the army, has planned to seize Cairo, to surround the Palace and take
the life of the Prince of Egypt. For months, Prince, thee has done this:
and the end of it is that thee shall do right ere it be too late. Thee is
a traitor to thy country and thy lawful lord."
Harrik's face turned pale; the stem of the narghileh shook in his
fingers. All had been discovered, then! But there was a thing of dark
magic here. It was not a half-hour since he had given the word to strike
at midnight, to surround the Palace, and to seize the Prince Pasha.
Achmet--Higli, had betrayed him, then! Who other? No one else knew save
Zaida, and Zaida was in the harem. Perhaps even now his own palace was
surrounded. If it was so, then, come what might, this masterful Inglesi
should pay the price. He thought of the den of lions hard by, of the cage
of tigers-the menagerie not a thousand feet away. He could hear the
distant roaring now, and his eyes glittered. The Christian to the wild
beasts! That at least before the end. A Muslim would win heaven by
sending a Christian to hell.