The Weavers, Complete - Gilbert Parker
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He started up. The voice seemed to come from a room at his right; not
that from which he had entered, but one still beyond this where he was.
He sprang towards the wall and examined it swiftly. Finding a division in
the tapestry, he ran his fingers quickly and heavily down the crack
between. It came upon the button of a spring. He pressed it, the door
yielded, and, throwing it back, he stepped into the room-to see a woman
struggling to resist the embraces and kisses of a man. The face was that
of the girl who had looked out of the panel in the mooshrabieh screen.
Then it was beautiful in its mirth and animation, now it was pale and
terror-stricken, as with one free hand she fiercely beat the face pressed
to hers.
The girl only had seen David enter. The man was not conscious of his
presence till he was seized and flung against the wall. The violence of
the impact brought down at his feet two weapons from the wall above him.
He seized one-a dagger-and sprang to his feet. Before he could move
forward or raise his arm, however, David struck him a blow in the neck
which flung him upon a square marble pedestal intended for a statue. In
falling his head struck violently a sharp corner of the pedestal. He
lurched, rolled over on the floor, and lay still.
The girl gave a choking cry. David quickly stooped and turned the body
over. There was a cut where the hair met the temple. He opened the
waistcoat and thrust his hand inside the shirt. Then he felt the pulse of
the limp wrist.
For a moment he looked at the face steadily, almost contemplatively it
might have seemed, and then drew both arms close to the body.
Foorgat Bey, the brother of Nahoum Pasha, was dead.
Rising, David turned, as if in a dream, to the girl. He made a motion of
the hand towards the body. She understood. Dismay was in her face, but
the look of horror and desperation was gone. She seemed not to realise,
as did David, the awful position in which they were placed, the deed
which David had done, the significance of the thing that lay at their
feet.
"Where are thy people?" said David. "Come, we will go to them."
"I have no people here," she said, in a whisper.
"Who brought thee?"
She made a motion behind her towards the body. David glanced down. The
eyes of the dead man were open. He stooped and closed them gently. The
collar and tie were disarranged; he straightened them, then turned again
to her.
"I must take thee away," he said calmly. "But it must be secretly." He
looked around, perplexed. "We came secretly. My maid is outside the
garden--in a carriage. Oh, come, let us go, let us escape. They will kill
you--!" Terror came into her face again. "Thee, not me, is in
danger--name, goodness, future, all. . . . Which way did thee come?"
"Here--through many rooms--" She made a gesture to curtains beyond. "But
we first entered through doors with sphinxes on either side, with a room
where was a statue of Mehemet Ali."
It was the room through which David had come with Kaid. He took her hand.
"Come quickly. I know the way. It is here," he said, pointing to the
panel-door by which he had entered.
Holding her hand still, as though she were a child, he led her quickly
from the room, and shut the panel behind them. As they passed through, a
hand drew aside the curtains on the other side of the room which they
were leaving.
Presently the face of Nahoum Pasha followed the hand. A swift glance to
the floor, then he ran forward, stooped down, and laid a hand on his
brother's breast. The slight wound on the forehead answered his rapid
scrutiny. He realised the situation as plainly as if it had been written
down for him--he knew his brother well.
Noiselessly he moved forward and touched the spring of the door through
which the two had gone. It yielded, and he passed through, closed the
door again and stealthily listened, then stole a look into the farther
chamber. It was empty. He heard the outer doors close. For a moment he
listened, then went forward and passed through into the hall. Softly
turning the handle of the big wooden doors which faced him, he opened
them an inch or so, and listened. He could hear swiftly retreating
footsteps. Presently he heard the faint noise of a gate shutting. He
nodded his head, and was about to close the doors and turn away, when his
quick ear detected footsteps again in the garden. Some one--the man, of
course--was returning.
"May fire burn his eyes for ever! He would talk with Kald, then go again
among them all, and so pass out unsuspected and safe. For who but I--who
but I could say he did it? And I--what is my proof? Only the words which
I speak."
A scornful, fateful smile passed over his face. "'Hast thou never killed
a man?' said Kaid. 'Never,' said he--'by the goodness of God, never!' The
voice of Him of Galilee, the hand of Cain, the craft of Jael. But God is
with the patient."
He went hastily and noiselessly-his footfall was light for so heavy a
man-through the large room to the farther side from that by which David
and Kaid had first entered. Drawing behind a clump of palms near a door
opening to a passage leading to Mizraim's quarters, he waited. He saw
David enter quickly, yet without any air of secrecy, and pass into the
little room where Kaid had left him.
For a long time there was silence.
The reasons were clear in Nahoum's mind why he should not act yet. A new
factor had changed the equation which had presented itself a short half
hour ago.
A new factor had also entered into the equation which had been presented
to David by Kaid with so flattering an insistence. He sat in the place
where Kaid had left him, his face drawn and white, his eyes burning, but
with no other "sign of agitation. He was frozen and still. His look was
fastened now upon the door by which the Prince Pasha would enter, now
upon the door through which he had passed to the rescue of the English
girl, whom he had seen drive off safely with her maid. In their swift
passage from the Palace to the carriage, a thing had been done of even
greater moment than the killing of the sensualist in the next room. In
the journey to the gateway the girl David served had begged him to escape
with her. This he had almost sharply declined; it would be no escape, he
had said. She had urged that no one knew. He had replied that Kaid would
come again for him, and suspicion would be aroused if he were gone.
"Thee has safety," he had said. "I will go back. I will say that I killed
him. I have taken a life, I will pay for it as is the law."
Excited as she was, she had seen the inflexibility of his purpose. She
had seen the issue also clearly. He would give himself up, and the whole
story would be the scandal of Europe.
"You have no right to save me only to kill me," she had said desperately.
"You would give your life, but you would destroy that which is more than
life to me. You did not intend to kill him. It was no murder, it was
punishment." Her voice had got harder. "He would have killed my life
because he was evil. Will you kill it because you are good? Will you be
brave, quixotic, but not pitiful? . . . No, no, no!" she had said, as his
hand was upon the gate, "I will not go unless you promise that you will
hide the truth, if you can." She had laid her hand upon his shoulder with
an agonised impulse. "You will hide it for a girl who will cherish your
memory her whole life long. Ah--God bless you!"
She had felt that she conquered before he spoke as, indeed, he did not
speak, but nodded his head and murmured something indistinctly. But that
did not matter, for she had won; she had a feeling that all would be
well. Then he had placed her in her carriage, and she was driven swiftly
away, saying to herself half hysterically: "I am safe, I am safe. He will
keep his word."
Her safety and his promise were the new factor which changed the equation
for which Kaid would presently ask the satisfaction. David's life had
suddenly come upon problems for which his whole past was no preparation.
Conscience, which had been his guide in every situation, was now
disarmed, disabled, and routed. It had come to terms.
In going quickly through the room, they had disarranged a table. The
girl's cloak had swept over it, and a piece of brie-a-brae had been
thrown upon the floor. He got up and replaced it with an attentive air.
He rearranged the other pieces on the table mechanically, seeing, feeling
another scene, another inanimate thing which must be for ever and for
ever a picture burning in his memory. Yet he appeared to be casually
doing a trivial and necessary act. He did not definitely realise his
actions; but long afterwards he could have drawn an accurate plan of the
table, could have reproduced upon it each article in its exact place as
correctly as though it had been photographed. There were one or two spots
of dust or dirt on the floor, brought in by his boots from the garden. He
flicked them aside with his handkerchief.
How still it was! Or was it his life which had become so still? It seemed
as if the world must be noiseless, for not a sound of the life in other
parts of the Palace came to him, not an echo or vibration of the city
which stirred beyond the great gateway. Was it the chilly hand of death
passing over everything, and smothering all the activities? His pulses,
which, but a few minutes past, were throbbing and pounding like drums in
his ears, seemed now to flow and beat in very quiet. Was this, then, the
way that murderers felt, that men felt who took human life--so frozen, so
little a part of their surroundings? Did they move as dead men among the
living, devitalised, vacuous calm?
His life had been suddenly twisted out of recognition. All that his
habit, his code, his morals, his religion, had imposed upon him had been
overturned in one moment. To take a human life, even in battle, was
against the code by which he had ever been governed, yet he had taken
life secretly, and was hiding it from the world.
Accident? But had it been necessary to strike at all? His presence alone
would have been enough to save the girl from further molestation; but, he
had thrown himself upon the man like a tiger. Yet, somehow, he felt no
sorrow for that. He knew that if again and yet again he were placed in
the same position he would do even as he had done--even as he had done
with the man Kimber by the Fox and Goose tavern beyond Hamley. He knew
that the blow he had given then was inevitable, and he had never felt
real repentance. Thinking of that blow, he saw its sequel in the blow he
had given now. Thus was that day linked with the present, thus had a blow
struck in punishment of the wrong done the woman at the crossroads been
repeated in the wrong done the girl who had just left him.
A sound now broke the stillness. It was a door shutting not far off. Kaid
was coming. David turned his face towards the room where Foorgat Bey was
lying dead. He lifted his arms with a sudden passionate gesture. The
blood came rushing through his veins again. His life, which had seemed
suspended, was set free; and an exaltation of sorrow, of pain, of action,
possessed him.
"I have taken a life, O my God!" he murmured. "Accept mine in service for
this land. What I have done in secret, let me atone for in secret, for
this land--for this poor land, for Christ's sake!"
Footsteps were approaching quickly. With a great effort of the will he
ruled himself to quietness again. Kaid entered, and stood before him in
silence. David rose. He looked Kaid steadily in the eyes. "Well?" said
Kaid placidly.
"For Egypt's sake I will serve thee," was the reply. He held out his
hand. Kaid took it, but said, in smiling comment on the action: "As the
Viceroy's servant there is another way!"
"I will salaam to-morrow, Kaid," answered David.
"It is the only custom of the place I will require of thee, effendi.
Come."
A few moments later they were standing among the consuls and officials in
the salon.
"Where is Nahoum?" asked Kaid, looking round on the agitated throng.
No one answered. Smiling, Kaid whispered in David's ear.
CHAPTER VII
THE COMPACT
One by one the lights went out in the Palace. The excited guests were now
knocking at the doors of Cairene notables, bent upon gossip of the
night's events, or were scouring the bazaars for ears into which to pour
the tale of how David was exalted and Nahoum was brought low; how, before
them all, Kaid had commanded Nahoum to appear at the Palace in the
morning at eleven, and the Inglesi, as they had named David, at ten. But
they declared to all who crowded upon their words that the Inglesi left
the Palace with a face frozen white, as though it was he that had met
debacle, while Nahoum had been as urbane and cynical as though he had
come to the fulness of his power.
Some, on hearing this, said: "Beware Nahoum!" But those who had been at
the Palace said: "Beware the Inglesi!" This still Quaker, with the white
shining face and pontifical hat, with his address of "thee" and "thou,"
and his forms of speech almost Oriental in their imagery and simplicity,
himself an archaism, had impressed them with a sense of power. He had
prompted old Diaz Pasha to speak of him as a reincarnation, so separate
and withdrawn he seemed at the end of the evening, yet with an uncanny
mastery in his dark brown eyes. One of the Ulema, or holy men, present
had said in reply to Diaz: "It is the look of one who hath walked with
Death and bought and sold with Sheitan the accursed." To Nahoum Pasha,
Dim had said, as the former left the Palace, a cigarette between his
fingers: "Sleep not nor slumber, Nahoum. The world was never lost by one
earthquake." And Nahoum had replied with a smooth friendliness: "The
world is not reaped in one harvest."
"The day is at hand--the East against the West," murmured old Diaz, as he
passed on.
"The day is far spent," answered Nahoum, in a voice unheard by Diaz; and,
with a word to his coachman, who drove off quickly, he disappeared in the
shrubbery.
A few minutes later he was tapping at the door of Mizraim, the Chief
Eunuch. Three times he tapped in the same way. Presently the door opened,
and he stepped inside. The lean, dark figure of Mizraim bowed low; the
long, slow fingers touched the forehead, the breast, and the lips.
"May God preserve thy head from harm, excellency, and the night give thee
sleep," said Mizraim. He looked inquiringly at Nahoum.
"May thy head know neither heat nor cold, and thy joys increase,"
responded Nahoum mechanically, and sat down.
To an European it would have seemed a shameless mockery to have wished
joy to this lean, hateful dweller in the between-worlds; to Nahoum it was
part of a life which was all ritual and intrigue, gabbling superstition
and innate fatalism, decorated falsehood and a brave philosophy.
"I have work for thee at last, Mizraim," said Nahoum.
"At last?"
"Thou hast but played before. To-night I must see the sweat of thy brow."
Mizraim's cold fingers again threw themselves against his breast,
forehead, and lips, and he said:
"As a woman swims in a fountain, so shall I bathe in sweat for thee, who
hath given with one hand and hath never taken with the other."
"I did thee service once, Mizraim--eh?"
"I was as a bird buffeted by the wind; upon thy masts my feet found rest.
Behold, I build my nest in thy sails, excellency."
"There are no birds in last year's nest, Mizraim, thou dove," said
Nahoum, with a cynical smile. "When I build, I build. Where I swear by
the stone of the corner, there am I from dark to dark and from dawn to
dawn, pasha." Suddenly he swept his hand low to the ground and a ghastly
sort of smile crossed over his face. "Speak--I am thy servant. Shall I
not hear? I will put my hand in the entrails of Egypt, and wrench them
forth for thee."
He made a gesture so cruelly, so darkly, suggestive that Nahoum turned
his head away. There flashed before his mind the scene of death in which
his own father had lain, butchered like a beast in the shambles, a victim
to the rage of Ibrahim Pasha, the son of Mehemet Ali.
"Then listen, and learn why I have need of thee to-night."
First, Nahoum told the story of David's coming, and Kaid's treatment of
himself, the foreshadowing of his own doom. Then of David and the girl,
and the dead body he had seen; of the escape of the girl, of David's
return with Kaid--all exactly as it had happened, save that he did; not
mention the name of the dead man.
It did not astonish Mizraim that Nahoum had kept all this secret. That
crime should be followed by secrecy and further crime, if need be, seems
natural to the Oriental mind. Mizraim had seen removal follow upon
removal, and the dark Nile flowed on gloomily, silently, faithful to the
helpless ones tossed into its bosom. It would much have astonished him if
Nahoum had not shown a gaping darkness somewhere in his tale, and he felt
for the key to the mystery.
"And he who lies dead, excellency?"
"My brother."
"Foorgat Bey!"
"Even he, Mizraim. He lured the girl here--a mad man ever. The other
madman was in the next room. He struck--come, and thou shalt see."
Together they felt their way through the passages and rooms, and
presently entered the room where Foorgat Bey was lying. Nahoum struck a
light, and, as he held the candle, Mizraim knelt and examined the body
closely. He found the slight wound on the temple, then took the candle
from Nahoum and held it close to the corner of the marble pedestal. A
faint stain of blood was there. Again he examined the body, and ran his
fingers over the face and neck. Suddenly he stopped, and held the light
close to the skin beneath the right jaw. He motioned, and Nahoum laid his
fingers also on the spot. There was a slight swelling.
"A blow with the fist, excellency--skilful, and English." He looked
inquiringly at Nahoum. "As a weasel hath a rabbit by the throat, so is
the Inglesi in thy hands."
Nahoum shook his head. "And if I went to Kaid, and said, 'This is the
work of the Inglesi,' would he believe? Kaid would hang me for the
lie--would it be truth to him? What proof have I, save the testimony of
mine own eyes? Egypt would laugh at that. Is it the time, while yet the
singers are beneath the windows, to assail the bride? All bridegrooms are
mad. It is all sunshine and morning with the favourite, the Inglesi. Only
when the shadows lengthen may he be stricken. Not now."
"Why dost thou hide this from Kaid, O thou brother of the eagle?"
"For my gain and thine, keeper of the gate. To-night I am weak, because I
am poor. To-morrow I shall be rich and, it may be, strong. If Kaid knew
of this tonight, I should be a prisoner before cockcrow. What claims has
a prisoner? Kaid would be in my brother's house at dawn, seizing all that
is there and elsewhere, and I on my way to Fazougli, to be strangled or
drowned."
"O wise and far-seeing! Thine eye pierces the earth. What is there to do?
What is my gain--what thine?"
"Thy gain? The payment of thy debt to me." Mizraim's face lengthened. His
was a loathsome sort of gratitude. He was willing to pay in kind; but
what Oriental ever paid a debt without a gift in return, even as a
bartering Irishman demands his lucky penny.
"So be it, excellency, and my life is thine to spill upon the ground, a
scarlet cloth for thy feet. And backsheesh?"
Nahoum smiled grimly. "For backsheesh, thy turban full of gold."
Mizraim's eyes glittered-the dull black shine of a mongrel terrier's. He
caught the sleeve of Nahoum's coat and kissed it, then kissed his hand.
Thus was their bargain made over the dead body; and Mizraim had an almost
superstitious reverence for the fulfilment of a bond, the one virtue
rarely found in the Oriental. Nothing else had he, but of all men in
Egypt he was the best instrument Nahoum could have chosen; and of all men
in Egypt he was the one man who could surely help him.
"What is there now to do, excellency?"
"My coachman is with the carriage at the gate by which the English girl
left. It is open still. The key is in Foorgat's pocket, no doubt; stolen
by him, no doubt also. . . . This is my design. Thou wilt drive him"--he
pointed to the body--"to his palace, seated in the carriage as though he
were alive. There is a secret entrance. The bowab of the gate will show
the way; I know it not. But who will deny thee? Thou comest from high
places--from Kaid. Who will speak of this? Will the bowab? In the morning
Foorgat will be found dead in his bed! The slight bruise thou canst
heal--thou canst?"
Mizraim nodded. "I can smooth it from the sharpest eye."
"At dawn he will be found dead; but at dawn I shall be knocking at his
gates. Before the world knows I shall be in possession. All that is his
shall be mine, for at once the men of law shall be summoned, and my
inheritance secured before Kaid shall even know of his death. I shall
take my chances for my life."
"And the coachman, and the bowab, and others it may be?"
"Shall not these be with thee--thou, Kaid's keeper of the harem, the lion
at the door of his garden of women? Would it be strange that Foorgat, who
ever flew at fruit above his head, perilous to get or keep, should be
found on forbidden ground, or in design upon it? Would it be strange to
the bowab or the slave that he should return with thee stark and still?
They would but count it mercy of Kaid that he was not given to the
serpents of the Nile. A word from thee--would one open his mouth? Would
not the shadow of thy hand, of the swift doom, be over them? Would not a
handful of gold bind them to me? Is not the man dead? Are they not
mine--mine to bind or break as I will?"
"So be it! Wisdom is of thee as the breath of man is his life. I will
drive Foorgat Bey to his home."
A few moments later all that was left of Foorgat Bey was sitting in his
carriage beside Mizraim the Chief Eunuch--sitting upright, stony, and
still, and in such wise was driven swiftly to his palace.
CHAPTER VIII
FOR HIS SOUL'S SAKE AND THE LAND'S SAKE
David came to know a startling piece of news the next morning-that
Foorgat Bey had died of heart-disease in his bed, and was so found by his
servants. He at once surmised that Foorgat's body had been carried out of
the Palace; no doubt that it might not be thought he had come to his
death by command of Kaid. His mind became easier. Death, murder, crime in
Egypt was not a nine days' wonder; it scarce outlived one day. When a man
was gone none troubled. The dead man was in the bosom of Allah; then why
should the living be beset or troubled? If there was foul play, why make
things worse by sending another life after the life gone, even in the way
of justice?
The girl David saved had told him her own name, and had given him the
name of the hotel at which she was staying. He had an early breakfast,
and prepared to go to her hotel, wishing to see her once more. There were
things to be said for the first and last time and then be buried for
ever. She must leave the country at once. In this sick, mad land, in this
whirlpool of secret murder and conspiracy, no one could tell what plot
was hatching, what deeds were forward; and he could not yet be sure that
no one save himself and herself knew who had killed Foorgat Bey. Her
perfect safety lay in instant flight. It was his duty to see that she
went, and at once--this very day. He would go and see her.
He went to the hotel. There he learned that, with her aunt, she had left
that morning for Alexandria en route to England.
He approved her wisdom, he applauded her decision. Yet--yet, somehow, as
he bent his footsteps towards his lodgings again he had a sense of
disappointment, of revelation. What might happen to him--evidently that
had not occurred to her. How could she know but that his life might be in
danger; that, after all, they might have been seen leaving the fatal
room? Well, she had gone, and with all his heart he was glad that she was
safe.
His judgment upon last night's event was not coloured by a single direct
criticism upon the girl. But he could not prevent the suggestion suddenly
flashing into his mind that she had thought of herself first and last.
Well, she had gone; and he was here to face the future, unencumbered by
aught save the weight of his own conscience.
Yet, the weight of his conscience! His feet were still free--free for one
short hour before he went to Kaid; but his soul was in chains. As he
turned his course to the Nile, and crossed over the great bridge, there
went clanking by in chains a hundred conscripts, torn from their homes in
the Fayoum, bidding farewell for ever to their friends, receiving their
last offerings, for they had no hope of return. He looked at their
haggard and dusty faces, at their excoriated ankles, and his eyes closed
in pain. All they felt he felt. What their homes were to them, these
fellaheen, dragged forth to defend their country, to go into the desert
and waste their lives under leaders tyrannous, cruel, and incompetent,
his old open life, his innocence, his integrity, his truthfulness and
character, were to him. By an impulsive act, by a rash blow, he had
asserted his humanity; but he had killed his fellow-man in anger. He knew
that as that fatal blow had been delivered, there was no thought of
punishment--it was blind anger and hatred: it was the ancient virus
working which had filled the world with war, and armed it at the expense,
the bitter and oppressive expense, of the toilers and the poor. The taxes
for wars were wrung out of the sons of labour and sorrow. These poor
fellaheen had paid taxes on everything they possessed. Taxes, taxes,
nothing but taxes from the cradle! Their lands, houses, and palm-trees
would be taxed still, when they would reap no more. And having given all
save their lives, these lives they must now give under the whip and the
chain and the sword.