It Happened in Egypt by C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson (page 5)

“I glory in them, but I wouldn’t have let them go if–“

“You’ve changed your mind, just because I gave Miss Gilder my Browning? Honestly, Duffer, I don’t think there’s actual danger. But, anyhow, don’t you see, they _had_ to go, and they had to go alone. They would have hated us and themselves and each other if they hadn’t answered the girl’s appeal. And _we_ couldn’t do the thing, unfortunately, as it deals with the harem. If it can be done at all, it’s woman’s business. These two are the right ones, as they felt bound to do it, and you and I can but see them through, from the outside.”

CHAPTER XIX

“IF AT FIRST YOU DON’T SUCCEED”

Now that we were thoroughly launched on this somewhat quixotic adventure, I envied Anthony because his part in the drama kept him “in the wings,” within sight of the stage. He was to watch the house of Rechid Bey, and if the rescue party of two did not appear after an hour’s absence, the true story of the affair and Mabel’s appeal was to be laid before the Inspector General of Upper Egypt–laid before him not by “Ahmed Antoun Effendi,” but by Captain Anthony Fenton, officially on leave, secretly on a special mission for the British government.

My rôle, less exciting but perhaps no less important, was to play the diplomat in beguiling the American Consul to stand by the wife of Rechid Bey, if the attempt at rescue succeeded, or–if possible–even if it failed.

“Antoun” accounted for his presence in front of Rechid Bey’s high garden wall, by attracting a crowd, and lecturing them in his character of Hadji, while I dashed off in a jingling arabeah, to the American Consulate. As in Cairo, my progress was one long adjuration of the crowd by the driver, who would have revelled in conducting the car of Juggernaut.

“Shemalak, ya welad!” (“To the left, oh, boy!”), or “Yeminick!” (“To the right!”), he roared, while men dived and dipped under his horse’s prancing feet. A hawk flew by on my right side, and my right eyelid twitched, as we neared the Consulate. In Egypt these were good omens. Besides, there had been a red sunrise, which in the Nile country had meant, since Egyptians superseded the prehistoric “new race,” that Rã had conquered his enemies, and stained the sky with their blood. Therefore all should be well with me and the world; and it did seem as if my hopes bade fair to be fulfilled, when in the Consul I recognized a man I had been able to advise in a small official difficulty in my early days at the Embassy in Rome. This was even more fortunate than the case of Slaney. We shook hands warmly, and as soon as was decent, I interrupted a flow of reminiscent gratitude by flooding Mr. James Bronson with the story of Rechid Bey’s unhappy American bride, Mabella Hânem, ill treated as well as cruelly deceived, if her story were true. He knew Rechid slightly, but the marriage was news to him. With interest he listened to my account of the lonely little governess in Paris, bewitched by the love-making of a handsome Turk as white as herself. But when I asked for help, the Consul shook his head.

“Lord Ernest,” he said, “there’s nothing I’d like better than to pay my debt by doing you some favour. But you’re asking me the one thing that’s hardest, as you probably know. You understand as well as I do that when a girl marries a man, she ceases to be a subject of her native land. And to interfere with the inmate of a harem is just about impossible. But I’ll tell you what I will do for your sake. If you can get the girl out of Rechid Bey’s house–which, mind you, I doubt–you may bring her to my wife, and we’ll cook up some story about her being a relative of mine. So she is, I guess, through Adam and Eve! If you think she’s been badly treated, we’ll stand by her, once she’s under this roof (which means she’ll be on American soil), through thick and thin, whatever the consequences. I can’t go farther, and I don’t believe you expected that I would.”

I admitted that I had not, and thanked him for his promise.

By this time, I thought that Brigit and Monny might be on their way to meet me at the Consulate, as arranged, escorted by “Antoun,” and perhaps bringing Mabel. Even the route they were to take was planned, so that I could not miss them if I started.

Meanwhile, Mr. Bronson was to interest his wife in our protégée. Back I flew, my ears deafened by more “Ya Welads,” but though I met many things and many creatures on the congested road, there was no arabeah containing the desired ones. I made my driver slacken pace as we neared the big, square pink house of Rechid Bey, set far back in its garden of palms and impossible statues, on the bank of the Nile. No green turban was in sight, and I wondered what could have happened, as we drove slowly past the ponderous black gate-keeper, apparently half asleep on his bench. There was nothing to do but crawl along at a snail’s pace, lest that droop of the crocodile-lids should be assumed for effect. I went on, meaning to turn presently; but when the arabeah had taken me beyond eyeshot of Rechid’s gate-keeper, an Arab sacca, or water seller, ran forward, striking his musical gong. From his brass jar, protected by crimson-dyed horse hair to keep out dust, he offered a draught; and his look said that he had something more for me than a drink of water. I beckoned him close, stopping the arabeah; and under the tumbler he handed up was a folded bit of paper. None save the water seller had attention to spare for me just then, as a wedding procession was approaching, with a crude but gorgeous curtained litter drawn by camels, and a number of musicians with räitas, darabukas, the “key and bottle,” and other Eastern instruments which may have been ancestors of the Highlanders’ bagpipes. The street crowd followed, enchanted by the plaintive, monotonous notes, grotesque to newcomers from the west, but enthralling to those who have fallen under the spell of their melancholy magic.

“Failure for the present, but Miss G. and Mrs. J. safe,” Anthony had scrawled in pencil. “Couldn’t wait in front of R.’s house, but you’ll find us at an Arab restaurant to which the messenger will guide you. All you have to do is to discharge your arabeah, and walk in the direction the man takes, keeping your distance in case you’re watched.”

I obeyed instructions, and in the town of Asiut, far from the gardens along the Nile front, I came to a house between the mosque of the tallest minaret, and the great market whither Arabia as well as Egypt sends her wares. It was a house of some pretension, though in a narrow unpaved street, lined with humble native dwellings. I guessed that it must have been built for a rich man who had died or failed in business, but now a sign in Arabic announced that it was a restaurant. A nod from the water seller told that I had reached the end of the journey. Nubian servants salaamed in the big room where once the master of the house had held receptions, and in a smaller room beyond I saw Antoun, Brigit, and Monny. They were seated at a low table where no forks or knives or even plates were laid. In the centre of the white cloth stood a large dish of something sweet and rich-looking, from which everybody pretended to eat; but at sight of me, Brigit and Monny began talking together. They told me breathlessly how they had been informed by the gatekeeper that “Mabella Hânem” was not well. Having insisted that they were intimate friends whom she would desire to see, they had been bidden to return in an hour. Reluctantly coming away, they had as soon as was prudent been joined by Antoun. He had then taken them to the bazaars, hoping to give them a glimpse of the shops before the Set returned from the Tombs; but they had met Neill Sheridan, who had something to tell. He had caught sight of Bedr running after the carriage of a Turk strongly resembling Rechid Bey. The carriage had stopped near the railway station; and after an instant’s conversation the horses had been turned to gallop off in the direction whence they had come.

“Of course we were sure the Turk _was_ Rechid,” said Monny, “so Antoun Effendi thought we’d better go back to watch his house. When we got there, it was too late, for already some time had passed since Mr. Sheridan saw Bedr. Rechid’s gate-man said that Mabella Hânem was suddenly better, and had gone away with her husband. He could talk a little French, so we understood perfectly–and, anyhow, you know I’m studying Arabic. It’s _so_ discouraging when Arabs answer me in Cockney English, or say “Sure” in American! We believed the fellow, because it seemed exactly what Wretched _would_ do–come back and grab Mabel away at a minute’s notice. So unfortunate about Neill Sheridan! Wretched was idiotically jealous of him on the _Laconia_; and if he caught a glimpse of him to-day he’s certain to think Mr. Sheridan’s here to try and see Mabel. We tore to the railroad depot, but the train was just going out. No doubt Rechid and his wife were both on it. Isn’t it heartbreaking?”

I sat mute, thinking things over, but Anthony tried to give consolation by saying that he still had some hope. He had found out that Rechid Bey owned a sugar plantation, with a house on it, near Luxor. The train which had left Asiut was bound for Luxor. In a very few days our boat would land us there, and we would try our luck again.

“Not much doubt,” Fenton added, speaking as always in French, “that this is Bedr’s revenge on us. He must have told Rechid that Miss Gilder had mentioned his name saying she hoped he was leaving home. That hint of danger would be enough for any Turk.”

“It will be my fault, then,” moaned Monny, “if he kills Mabel. He’s deceived and shut her up and tried to convert her. Worse than all, he has another wife. The next step will be murder. Oh, how can we bear the delay of going on to Luxor by boat! Hadn’t we better take a train? Better miss all the things we’ve come to Egypt to see, rather than leave Mabel to her fate.”

“Rechid isn’t the sort to have her put out of the way,”! said Anthony. “He’s not a bad fellow, as such men go, and he’s hardly had time to tire of his conquest yet. According to his lights, he’s right not to allow any interference with his harem from Europeans. He was jealous on board ship, of one or two men of your acquaintance, you’ve told me. This attempted visit of yours will revive his interest in his wife, inconveniently for us; but if I know his type it will die down again, the minute he thinks he has covered his tracks. For a day or two he will be a dragon. Then he’ll begin to think we’re discouraged, or that we haven’t found out about his sugar plantation, or that nothing more than a visit to his wife was intended, and he’ll turn his attention to other things than watch-dogging. It’s far better to go on by boat, and make a dash when he’s off guard again.”

After a few arguments, we agreed with “Antoun,” as we usually ended by doing, and soothed our restlessness by visiting Mr. Bronson to tell him of our disappointment. If it hadn’t been for Monny, I think the Consul would have taken the point of view that he was now “out” of the affair, but Monny, sapphire-eyed with generous zeal, is rather irresistible. Fired by her enthusiasm, as he had not been by my beguiling, he volunteered to go to Luxor on two or three days’ leave, with his wife, to visit a Syrian friend who had often vainly invited them to his villa, and arriving if possible about the time our boat was due. If we succeeded in our quest, we might bring Mabel to them, and they would smuggle her back to the American Consulate at Asiut.

Our great adventure thus postponed, we let the Nile-dream take us once more; and though we had moments of impatience, the dream was too fair to be resisted. Besides, we were all four dreaming it together. Poor Cleopatra was the only one outside, for Rachel Guest was dreaming her own dream, with an extremely practical side to it, unless Biddy and I were mistaken. She wore Monny’s clothes, and used her special perfume, and took advantage of the same initials, to accept gifts of filmy handkerchiefs and monogrammed bags and brushes. Also she had firmly annexed most of the men on board who would, in normal states of mind, have belonged to the Gilded Rose. But they all seemed to have gone mad on the subject of Miss Guest. Even Harry Snell, who had been the property of Enid Biddell on board the _Candace_, on the _Enchantress Isis_ was gravitating Guest-ward, lured by that meek, mysterious witchery which I was trying hard to understand.

We got past Sohâg, and the famous White and Red Coptic Monasteries built by Saint Helena, without jarring notes of any sort in the Nile-dream (save for the failure of our rescue plot): past Akhmin, which Herodotus wrote of as Chemmis: past Girgah, where once stood ancient This, that gave the first dynasty of kings to Egypt: but when we arrived at Baliana to visit Abydos, between Enid Biddell and Harry Snell I had an interlude of nightmare. It was Rachel’s fault, but it was I who had to suffer for her sins. I, who had engaged as Conductor of the Set and found myself their Arbiter as well.

Other tourists on other boats do not see Abydos until the return trip; but the aim of Sir Marcus was originality as well as “exclusiveness.” This was a special tour, and everything we were to do must be special. Some passengers might wish to stay longer than others at Khartum, or from there go up the White or Blue Nile after Big Game. Or they might tire of the Nile, and wish to tear back to Cairo by train. Sir Marcus was boldly outdoing his rivals by allowing clients to engage cabins for “up Nile” only, instead of paying the return also: and they were not to miss any temple because of this concession. “I consider it an advertisement, and a cheap one,” he had explained to me, in saying that we were to visit at Abydos on our way south.

Beautiful smiling donkeys, adorned with beads and amulets, met us at the boat-landing. We ought to have called it Al-Balyana, but we didn’t. We called it Baliana, and we pronounced Abydos according to our education. We had a ride of an hour and a half from the boat to the temple; and having sent off Cleopatra and Lady Biddell in a carriage, my conscience was free, my heart light. The sun shone on tawny desert hills, like lions creeping stealthily out from the horizon toward the Nile to drink. There were sweet smells of unseen flowers, and herbs such as ancient Egyptian doctors used, and I looked forward to keeping my donkey near Biddy’s. Of course I ought to have preferred Monny’s, but then, I could talk of Monny to Biddy, and we had had so many subjects in common since childhood that it was restful to ride even the most energetic donkey at the side of “Mrs. Jones.” No sooner, however, had I begun to urge my gray animal after her white one, than I was called by Enid Biddell. “Oh, Lord Ernest! I _must_ speak to you!” she pleaded so piteously that I couldn’t pretend not to hear.

When we were ambling side by side, separated from the rest of the party by a gleaming cloud of copper dust, a few long-haired, brown sheep, some blue-eyed water buffalo, and a plague of little birds, Enid turned upon me a pair of tear-wet eyes.

“Why, Miss Biddell, what is the matter–or is it a cold in your head?” I asked anxiously.

“It’s not a cold in my head,” she confessed. “It’s a dreadful, dreadful pain in my heart. And you’re the only one who can cure it.”

For a fearful moment I thought that she was going to propose. One hears of these awful visitations. But I need not have trembled.

“I feel as if I could say anything to you,” she murmured. “You are so understanding, and so sympathetic.”

It was on the tip of my tongue to reply that it was my duty as Conductor to be so, and that, if I succeeded, a mountain full of hidden treasure might perhaps reward me. But just in time I realized that this speech would not be tactful. Instead of speaking, I looked at her and let her go on.

“It’s Harry Snell,” she said. “You have influence with him. He thinks you such a great swell, he’d hate to do anything you would call unworthy of a gentleman. He–he’s making me so unhappy. He’s done –everything–to win my love and now–now he’s gone over to that Miss Guest.” The donkey having begun inopportunely to trot, the words were jolted out, one after another, like a shower of pebbles. And they fell on my feelings like paving stones. She expected _me_ to do something about it! Horrible! I should almost have preferred the proposal.

“My dear Miss Biddell,” I soothed her in my best salad-oil voice, cultivated at the Embassy, “you are much prettier than Miss Guest, and you can win Snell back easily if you want him. Probably he’s only flirting, to make you jealous.”

“It’s me he was flirting with,” she moaned. “But I _don’t_ believe he cares for Miss Guest. It’s only a case of ‘follow my leader,’ because other men like her so much. Nothing succeeds like success, you know. And other men’s admiration is the most becoming background a girl can have. He told Mrs. Harlow it was haunting him, that Elaine and I would get fat like our mother, and the men who married us would have to spend dull years seeing us slowly grow into mother’s likeness. Wasn’t it cruel? And we eat scarcely _anything_ except pickles on purpose to keep thin. But that’s only his excuse. It’s the romance of the situation, and the _secret_ that appeals to him.”

“What secret?” I felt entitled to inquire.

“Why, the secret between those two girls, Miss Gilder and Miss Guest. You _know_ what all the men believe about them, don’t you? But of course you do.”

“But of course I don’t.”

“Why, that they’ve changed places, to deceive people, just as heiresses and poor girls do in old-fashioned plays or books. They think Miss Gilder (I mean the girl we _call_ Miss Gilder) is really the school-teacher, and the one we call Miss Guest, and that all the men are after, is Rosamond Gilder the cannon heiress.”

“Whew!” I whistled, bumpily, as my donkey kept up with Enid’s. “For goodness’ sake, what makes them think that?”

“I don’t know exactly how the story started, but it seems _authentic_. Have you known them long?”

“Only since Naples. But–“

“Then you can’t be certain whether it’s true or not?”

I paused, swallowing an answer. So _this_ was the explanation of the Monny puzzle! Yet it was but the first word of another enigma. _Who_ was responsible for the wild story? There was more than met the eye–or ear–in this. I could hardly believe that Monny would have chosen, or Rachel dared, to start this rumour, though it might have amused the real heiress, and suited the false one, to watch it run. I dared not contradict it flatly, without consulting Brigit or the Gilded Rose herself. It was not my business to be a spoil-sport, if there were sport to spoil, no matter how sternly I might disapprove.

“In the matter of actual knowledge, I have very little about Miss Gilder,” I decided to reply, “except that she’s charming enough and pretty enough for any man to fall in love with, if she hadn’t a penny. As for Miss Guest”

“Miss Guest is a cat! And if _only_ you’ll tell Harry Snell so, I’ll bless you all my life.”

“Good gracious! I couldn’t do that.”

“I mean, tell him you think she isn’t the heiress, that she’s only what she seems to be, and nothing mysterious or interesting. He’ll believe _you_! Why, she _can’t_ have any money, or even a nice mind. She always writes ‘No,’ with her finger on top of her cold cream at hotels, she told me so herself. Not that it’s any good with Arabs, they don’t want to steal cold cream. But such a trick would never occur to a rich girl, would it? She grows vainer every day, too, till one can just see vanity spouting from the top of her head. She intends to use this mistake people are making about her, to bag a rich man like Harry Snell, or a successful one with a big, growing reputation like Mr. Bailey the American sculptor. You _will_ help me save Harry from her, and bring him back to me, won’t you? You’re the only one he’ll listen to. If you don’t speak, I shall simply jump overboard into the Nile, and Sir Marcus Lark would _hate_ that.”

“So should I, dear Miss Biddell,” I assured her. “But what can I possibly do in–in such a very intimate matter?”

“Why, you’re a diplomat, aren’t you? I thought they always knew what to do. You make us all dance to your tune like puppets, and imagine we’re prancing about to please ourselves. Tell him he’s breaking my heart.”

“By Jove! You’re not in earnest?”

“I am. Oh, he must come back! I thought on board the _Candace_ we were as good as engaged. I–I submitted to his kisses, and now–“

“‘Submitted’ is a good word,” I sneered to my inner self, but outwardly I submitted a handkerchief to the lady, as she had lost hers in one of the last donkey jolts, and ventured to insert sympathetically into a pause a small suggestion. It was usual, I reminded Miss Biddell, if a gentleman’s intentions had to be asked, that the father did the asking. This hint, however, fell flatter than a flounder; and all the way to Abydos, most sacred temple of ancient Egypt, I was persecuted with Enid Biddell’s woes, when I should have been free to meditate upon the tragic history of Isis and Osiris. It was here that the head of the murdered god was buried, and perhaps his whole body, when the magic secret of Thoth had enabled Isis to collect the fourteen separate pieces Set had hidden. Many temples claimed the sacred body of Osiris, ruler over departed spirits and Amenti, their dim dwelling place beyond the western desert; Philae and Memphis among others; but it was Abydos to which the Egyptians give their most reverent faith, as the true burial place of the Beloved One. It was there they wished to lie when they died and were mummied, in order to rest through eternity near the relic of their most precious god. Thus a necropolis grew like a poppy-garden of sleep, round the temple; and a city rose also. But even in the long-ago time of Strabo, the city was reduced to a village, and all traces of the shrine had vanished. The great white jewel of the temples–temple of Seti I, and the temple of his son Rameses II–remain to this day, however, with the Tablet of Ancestors which has helped in the tracing of Egyptian history. Therefore is it that this treasure of the Nile-desert is still a shrine for travellers from the four corners of the earth.

After the long, straight road, and a high, sudden hill, we came face to face with the marble-white columns of the outer court. If I had been with Brigit or Monny, I could have run back into the past, hand in hand with either, to see with my mind’s eyes the white limestone palace of Memnon, copied from the Labyrinth, standing above the city between the canal and the desert. I should have peered into the depths of its fountain; and with a hand shading my eyeballs from the sun I should have gazed at the grove of Horus’ sacred acanthus trees, dark against the burning blue. I should have found the Royal tombs which Rameses restored, grouped near the buried body of Osiris. But bad luck gave me Enid Biddell for my companion. She would not let any one else come near me, even had the Right Somebody wished to dispute my battered remains with her. “Antoun Effendi” had the others hypnotized, and I wondered if they noticed how like his boldly cut profile was to certain portraits of the youthful Rameses carved on the glittering white walls. So splendid were they that had I been a woman my spirit would have rushed back along the sand-obliterated, devious paths of Egypt’s history, to find and fall at the feet of their original. But–there was Antoun, much easier to get at, and perhaps better worth the gift of a woman’s heart than Rameses the Great with all his faults and cruelties!

Crowds of birds lived in interstices of the broken columns, and their tiny faces peeped out like flowers growing among rocks, their eyes bright and arresting as personal anecdotes in long, dull chapters of history. They seemed to look at me, and sympathize, cocking their heads on one side as if to say, “Poor, foolish, modern man, why don’t you make a virtue of necessity and get rid of this still more foolish modern maid, by promising her anything she asks? Then you can go listen to that princely looking person in the green turban, who might be descended from the kings our ancestors used to behold. He does seem to know something about the history of this place, on which _we_ are authorities! The dragomans who bring crowds of tourists to our temple and gabble nonsense, put us really off our feed. Peep, peep! Just hear him tell about the staircase we’re so proud of. Did _you_ know there was a picture of it in the Book of The Dead, with Osiris standing at the top, like a good host waiting to receive his guests? Well, then, if you didn’t, do anything you must to escape from that lovesick girl, while there’s time to hear a real scholar talk of ‘Him who is at the Head of the Staircase!’ Peep, peep! Hurry up, or you’ll lose it all, you Silly. Of course, the real staircase is in Amenti, which your Roman Catholics call Purgatory; and no doubt Osiris is standing on it to this day.”

So I took the birds’ advice, and promised Enid to have a “heart to heart” talk with Harry Snell. Satisfied that she had got all that was to be got out of me, she powdered her nose (in the same spirit that David anointed his head) and attached herself to Rachel, in whose train was the Desired One. Thus basely did I free myself to enjoy the society of Biddy and Osiris, with lovely carved glimpses of Isis thrown in, to say nothing of Seti I and Rameses II. Trying to push into the background of my mind the nauseating thought of my vow and its fulfillment, I helped Brigit and Monny take snapshots of King Seti showing his son Rameses how to lasso, and also to catch by its tail the most fascinating of bulls. They were on the wall, of course (Rameses and Seti, I mean, not Brigit and Monny), but seemed so real they might leap off at any instant; and so charmed was Monny with Rameses’ braided “lock of youth” that she resolved to try one over her left temple in connection with an Egyptian Princess costume she was having made for some future fancy-dress ball. “I can’t take a grain of interest in any one but Egyptian Princes and Princesses and their profiles,” she exclaimed; then blushed faintly and added, “I mean Princes and Princesses of the _past_.”

We got some good pictures of the temple of Seti, for Monny had an apparatus for natural colour photography which gave sensational results in ancient wall-paintings–when any one except Monny herself did the taking. It was better still in the Seven Chapels, the holy of holies at Abydos, and in the joy of my first colour photography I forgot the doom ahead. Appropriately, the sword I had hung up over my own cranium descended in the Necropolis, at that place of tombs called Umm el-Ka’ab, “Mother of Pots.” Nobody wanted to see the fragments of this mother’s pots, but I insisted on a brief visit, as important discoveries have been made there, among the most important in Egypt. It was a dreary place where Harry Snell strolled up and caught me alone, gazing at a desolation of sandy hillocks, full of undiscovered treasure.

“Look here,” said he. “You’re supposed to know everything. Tell me why they call seats outside shops in bazaars, and tombs of the Ancient Empire by the same name: mastaba?”

I explained that mastaba was an Arab word meaning bench. Then, realizing that it would be flying in the face of Providence not to get the ordeal over while my blood was up, I spoke of Enid. Among the shattered pots and yawning sepulchres, I racked up her broken heart and blighted affections. I talked to Snell like a brother, and when he had heard me through in silence, to the place where words and breath failed, I thought that I had moved him. His eyes were downcast. I fancied that I saw a mist as of tears, a man’s slow tears. Then suddenly he opened his eyelids wide, and glared–a glare stony as the pots, and as the desert hills. “Borrow,” he said, “I thought you were a good fellow and a man of the world. I see now that you’re a damned sentimental ass.”

With this he stalked off, and I could not run after him to bash his head, because what he said was perfectly true. I was almost sorry that evening, on board the boat, when he apologized and the Nile-dream went on as if I hadn’t broken it by being the sort of fool Snell had said that I was.

In the dream were Nile cities, with crowding houses whose walls were heightened by tier upon tier of rose-and-white pots, moulded in with honey-coloured mud. There were stretches of sandy shore, and green gloom of palm groves. There were domed tombs of saints, glittering like snow-palaces in the sun. There were great golden mounds inlaid with strips of paler gold picked out with ebony. There were sinister hillsides cut into squarely by door-holes, leading to cave-dwellings. There were always shadoofs, where giant soup-ladles everlastingly dipped water and threw it out again, mounting up from level to level of the brown, dyke-like shore. The wistful, musical wail of the men at the wells was as near to the voice of Nature as the sighing of wind, or the breaking of waves which has never ceased since the world began. Sometimes the horizon was opal, sometimes it throbbed with azure fire, or blazed ruby red, as the torch of sunset swept west and east before the emerald darkness fell. When our _Enchantress_ landed, great flocks of kites, like in form and wing to the sacred vulture of Egypt, flew to welcome us with swoopings of wide purple wings. Their shadows on the water were like passing spirits; and at night when the Nubian boatmen danced, their feet thudding on the lower deck to the cry of the darabukah, the Nile whispered of the past, with a tinkling whisper, like the music of Hathor’s sacred sistrum. Gyassas glided by, loaded with pots like magic melons, long masts pointing as though they had been wands in the hands of astrologers: and the reflection of the piled pots as they moved gave vague glimpses as of sunken treasure.

Denderah meant work for Fenton. There had been trouble there, and tourists had complained of insults. It was the Hadji’s business to find out whether natives or Europeans had been more to blame, and whether there were wrongs to right, misunderstandings to adjust. But to the rest of us, Denderah meant the sacred temple of Hathor, Goddess of Love, in some ways one of the most beautiful of all the Nile temples; though, being not much over two thousand years old (it was built upon ruins more ancient than King Menes) archeologists like Neill Sheridan class it as “late Ptolemaic,” uninterestingly modern.

Mrs. East had been looking forward to the temple of Denderah more eagerly than to any other, because she had read that on an outer wall was carved the portrait of Cleopatra the Great. That of Cæsarion was there also, as she must have known; but Cleopatra’s son was never referred to by her reincarnation, who chose to ignore the Cæsar incident. Mrs. East had not yet deigned to mount a donkey, but to reach the temple she must do so or walk, or sway in a dangerous looking _chaise à porteur_. Rather than miss the joy of seeing herself on a stone wall as others had had the privilege of seeing her for two thousand years, she consented to accept as a seat a large gray animal, tasselled with red to keep off flies and evil eyes. “Won’t you ride with me, Antoun Effendi?” she asked. “I’m afraid. This creature looks as large as an elephant and as wild as a zebra. I feel _you_ could calm him.” But Antoun Effendi was not going to ride. He had other fish to fry; and poor Cleopatra’s luminous dark eyes were like overflowing lakes, when he had politely excused himself on the plea of a pressing engagement. I felt sure that she would have been kind to Sir Marcus if at that moment he could have appeared from behind the picturesque group of bead-necklace sellers, or emerged from one of the huge bright-coloured baskets exposed for sale on a hill of brown-gold sand.

I don’t know whether it made things better or worse that the gray donkey should be named “Cleopatra,” but it was evidently a blow when the animal’s white-robed attendant announced himself as Anthony.

“I can’t and won’t have the creature with me!” she murmured, as I helped her to mount when she had pushed the boy aside. “Thank you, Lord Ernest. You’re very kind. But Antoun ought to have been here. Fancy seeing _this_ temple, of all others, without an Anthony of any sort on the horizon! A pity it isn’t _your_ middle name! If you could spare time to ride with me, that would be better than nothing!”

“I’ll be delighted,” I said hypocritically, for I had been dying to talk with Brigit about the Monny and Rachel imbroglio which, as a hard-worked Conductor, I had not since Abydos found a chance to discuss. Besides, Biddy had whispered in passing that a letter just delivered at Denderah, had brought exciting news of Esmé O’Brien: But I was sorry for Cleopatra, and wondered whether I could manage after all to hint an explanation of the hieroglyphic love-letter–that fatal letter of mine which had stealthily made mischief between Mrs. East and Anthony. I didn’t quite see how the subject was to be broached: still, some way might open. “I’m sorry about the middle name,” I said. “But if I assumed it–like a virtue which I have not–I should be the third person connected with this trip, labelled the same fashion.”

“Who is the second person?” she asked abruptly, as all the animals of the party started to trot vivaciously through the blowing yellow sand.

“Sir Marcus. Surely you’ve heard that his ‘A’ stands for Antonius?”

“Good heavens!” she gasped: and I hardly knew whether it was the shock of my news, or a jolt of the donkey which forced the exclamation. Whatever it was, the emotion she felt bound her to silence after that one outburst. She said not a word, and did not even groan or threaten to fall off when both our beasts broke into a thumping gallop. In silence we swept round that great bulk of rubbish heap, Roman and early Christian, under which lies An, the town of the Column. Cleopatra did not cry out when suddenly we came in sight of Hathor’s temple, honey-gold against the turquoise sky, and vast as some Wagnerian palace of the gods. The tasselled donkey (or I) had given her cause to think. Or perhaps she did not consider me worth talking to, as we approached the temple toward which all her previous travelling had been a mere pilgrimage. Still silently, when we had left our donkeys and were following the crowd up the dromos (Harry Snell actually with Enid, thanks to me and the wisdom of second thoughts), Cleopatra’s eyes wandered over the Hathor-headed columns with their clinging colour; and over the portal with its brilliant mass of yellow, of dark Pompeian red, and the green-blue sacred to Hathor, whom Horus loved –Venus-Hathor, whose priestesses danced within these walls in Cleopatra’s day. “Oh, this red and this green-blue were my colours, I remember,” she murmured, and then hardly spoke when I walked with her in the gloom of the temple itself–the rich gloom under heavily ornamented ceilings. She wanted to save the portrait till the last, she announced, until after she had seen everything else: and she didn’t care _what_ Mr. Sheridan said about her temple; it was wonderful. I tried to interest her in the crocodiles, which had been detested and persecuted at Denderah in the late Cleopatra’s time as ardently as they were worshipped at Crocodilopolis and other places. I joked about Old Egypt having consisted of “crocs and non crocs,” just as the inhabitants of Florence had to be Guelphs or Ghibellines. I explained carefully the geography of the place, or rather, “reminded” Cleopatra of it, adding details of the canal which once led to Koptos, where the magic book of the Wisdom of Thoth lay hidden under the Nile. I could not waken Mrs. East from reverie to interest, as Antoun would have had the power to do; but my vanity was not hurt. It was only my curiosity which suffered, for I wanted desperately to know whether the donkey had seriously jolted the lady’s spine, or whether the news that Sir M. A. Lark was Marcus Antonius, not a more obvious Marcus Aurelius, had fired her imagination.

In any case I devoted myself to her while Monny and Brigit frolicked with others; and I had a reward of a kind. When we had seen all the halls and chambers, and the crypt with its carvings all fresh as if made yesterday; when we had been on the roof where chanting priests had once awaited the rising of Sirius; when I had taken her outside the temple, where blowing columns of dusty sand rose like incense from hidden altars of Hathor, we stood at last alone together, gazing up at the figures of Cleopatra and her son. The wall on which they were carved rose behind the Holy of Holies, where the golden statue of the Goddess had been kept; but alas, the figures themselves! Alas! I knew how Cleopatra must be feeling; and I dared not speak. Perhaps she was even blushing: but I did not look. Instead, I gazed helplessly up at that exposed, misshapen form, that flaccid chin.

“Thank heaven it’s only _you_ who are with me!” breathed Mrs. East.

That was my reward. Or should I call it a punishment? Anyhow, it made it easier for the insignificant person in question to unburden his conscience about the hieroglyphic letter. I stammered it all out, on the way back, apropos of the rubbish-heap which had been Tentyra. I let it remind me of Fustât and our digging expedition. I had meant to follow Mrs. East’s advice and propose to Miss Gilder, I explained, but Monny had not found my buried love-letter. What had become of it I–er –had never been told. All I knew was that it hadn’t come into Miss Gilder’s hands; and I should never have as much courage again.

“Oh!” Cleopatra exclaimed, with a curious light in her eyes, more like relief than disappointment. “You really do want to marry my niece? You delayed so, that I wondered. I wasn’t sure, sometimes, if it were Monny or–but I am on your side, Lord Ernest. It isn’t too late yet _for any of us_, perhaps. Trust in me. I’m going to help you.”

I could have bitten my tongue out, though I had blundered with the best intentions. “Mrs. East,” I protested almost ferociously, “you mustn’t do anything. I said before I began, that I was going to tell you a _secret_.”

“I won’t betray your confidence. But I _will_ help. I want to. It would be a good thing for Monny to accept you, Lord Ernest, a very good thing in more ways than one. Mrs. Jones wants it too, or did. I promise you, I’ll be discreet.”

With that, we arrived in sight of the boat. Once more, necklaces and scarabs and baskets were thrust under our noses. Anthony had returned from his mysterious whisperings in cafés or mosques in the new town, and was waiting for us. Cleopatra called him, with a note of gayety in her voice, to help her off “the elephant.” He came. I felt she was going to hint to him that I was in love with Monny–hint to Brigit also.

Virtue may be its own reward, but it makes you very lonely!

I hadn’t another easy moment for dreaming the Nile-dream. And we all woke out of it when, with the pink dawn of a certain morning, we saw a vast temple, repeated column for column, in the clear river, as in a mirror of glass.

We were at Luxor; and somewhere not far off, Mabella Hânem was praying for release.

CHAPTER XX

THE ZONE OF FIRE

Just at the first moment of waking, when I was moved by my subconscious self to roll out of my berth and bound to the cabin window, I forgot that we had anything more active to do at Luxor than worship the glory of sky and river and temples. I had room in my mind only for the dream-beauty of that astounding picture, into the foreground of which I seemed to have been thrust, so close upon my eyes loomed the line of lotus columns. It was as if the ancient gods had poured a libation of ruby wine from their zenith-dwelling into the translucent depths of the Nile. Even the long colonnade of broken pillars was deep rose-red against a pale rose sky, repeated again in deeper rose down in a magic world beneath the pink crystal roof of shining water. Then, suddenly, bright windows of sky behind the dark rose-columns flamed to the colour of primroses, were shot with pansy purple, and cleared to the transparent green of unflawed emerald. The thought came as I gazed at the carved wonder (reflected flower for flower and line for line in the still river) that here was illustrated in unearthly beauty the chief religious legend of ancient Egypt. As each human soul was believed to be a part of the World-Soul, Osiris, reunited with him beyond the western desert, after death, so did these columns made by human hands unite themselves at sunrise with the soul of the Nile, the life of Egypt. I caught a glimpse as if in an illuminated parable, of the Egyptian Cosmos, the Heavens, the Earth, the Depths, three separate entities, yet forever one as is the Christian’s Trinity. Almost I expected to see the sun-boat of the gods steered slowly across the river from the city of Kings, westward to the tombs of Kings; and the little white-breasted birds, which promenaded the deck of our boat as though it belonged to them, might have been Heart-birds from the world of mummies across the Nile, escaped for a glimpse of Rameses’ gayly painted, mosaiced white palace with its carved brass balconies, its climbing roses, its lake of lotuses and its river gardens. I was sure that, if I told these tiny creatures that the Pharaohs and all their glories had vanished off the earth except for a few bits in museums, they would not believe the tale. I wasn’t even sure I believed it myself; and deliberately blotting out of sight the big modern hotels and the low white line of shops away to the right of the temple, I tried to see with the Ba-birds, eastern Thebes as it must have been in the days of Rameses II. I pictured the temple before Cambyses the Persian, and the great earthquake felled arches and pillars, obelisks and kingly statues. I built up again the five-story houses of the priests and nobles, glistening white, and fantastically painted in many colours: I laid out lawns and flower beds, and set fountains playing. Then, with a rumbling shock, a chasm many thousand years deep yawned between me and ancient No, the City of Palaces:

It was the voice of Sir John Biddell which opened the ravine of time, and let the Nile pour through it. He was on deck, in pyjamas and overcoat, with General Harlow, holding forth on his favourite topic of mummies–an appropriate subject for this neighbourhood of all others; yet, I should have preferred silence.

Poor Sir John! He had been disappointed in Cairo because a villain had not lurked behind each of the trees in the Esbekîya Gardens, and notes tied with silken black hairs had not tumbled on his respectable bald head from the mystery of latticed windows; but he was thoroughly enjoying his Nile trip, and learning something every day to tell at home. Lady Biddell had humiliated him twice, once by asking me if “those old hieroglyphics were written in Arabic?” again by inquiring whether the stone-barred temple windows had been “filled in once with pretty stained glass?” But he had forgiven her because yesterday had been their silver-wedding day, and he meant to buy her a present at some curiosity-shop at Luxor. “A pity it isn’t the wooden wedding,” I heard him say to General Harlow, “for I might give a handsome mummy-case. I suppose silver will have to be Persian or Indian, unless I can get hold of one of those old bracelets or discs the Egyptians used for money: but that’s too good to hope for.”

It certainly was: though no doubt some industrious manufacturer of antiques would cheerfully have made and dug up any amount on the site of Rameses’ palace, could he have known in time.

We were to have three days at Luxor–three days, when three months would have been too little!–and the second attempt at abducting an ill-used lady from the harem of her treacherous lord would take place as soon as we could learn that our auxiliaries, the Bronsons, had arrived. Until they were on the spot, even a success might prove an anti-climax. Meanwhile I had plenty to do in playing my more obvious part of Conductor, and arranging the last details of our excursion programme. Every one had bundled out early to see the sunrise. Consequently most members of the Set were cross or hungry, or both. Nothing could be less suitable than to clamour for porridge on the Nile, but they did it, and called for bacon, too, in a land where the pig is an unclean animal. They were the same people who played “coon can” and bridge on the deck at twilight, when moving figures on shore were etched in black on silver, or against flaming wings of sunset, and in gathering darkness the blue-robed shadoof-men who bent and rose against gold-brown dykes, were like Persian enamels done on copper.

“Hundred gated” Thebes, the dwelling of Amen-Rã whom Greece adopted as Jupiter-Amon, used to lie on both banks of the Nile; the east for the living, the west for the dead and those who lived by catering for mummyhood.

I had arranged to take our people first round Luxor, making them acquainted with the temple which had already introduced its reflection to us. As for the town, they were capable of making themselves acquainted with that, its hotels and curiosity-shops, when there was nothing more important on hand. Next was to come Karnak, the “father of temples,” once connected with the younger temple at Luxor as if by a long jewelled necklace of ram-headed sphinxes. And for those whose brains and legs were intact, by evening I thought of a visit to the thrilling temple of Mût. This last would be an adventure; for Mût, goddess of matter, the Mother goddess, has apparently not taken kindly to Moslem rule. Any disagreeable trick she, and her attendant black statues of passion, fierce Sekhet, can play on a devout Mohammedan, are meat and drink to her: but she can work her spells only after dusk, therefore none save the bravest Arab will venture his head inside her domain, past sunset. I was sure we could get no dragoman to go with us, and equally sure that the adventure would be more popular for its spice of horror.

The second and third days I allotted to western Thebes, the city of the dead: the tombs of the Kings, the tombs of the Queens and the Nobles; then the Ramesseum, the “Musical Memnon” with his companion Colossus, and the great temples wrapped in the ruddy fire of the western desert, where Hathor receives the setting sun in outstretched arms.

As I was about to unfold these projects at breakfast, a telegram was handed to me. I read it; and while bacon plates were being exchanged for dishes of marmalade, I cudgelled my brain like a slave to make it rearrange the whole programme without a hitch.

The American Consul wired from Asiut that he was detained by an Important Personage, who wanted to know things about Egyptian Cotton and its enemy the boll worm. But Mr. and Mrs. Bronson would arrive at the Villa Sirius, Luxor, day after to-morrow, “ready for emergencies.”

Of course, being Conductor of a tour, and next a man, I ought to have put the interests of Sir Marcus and his “Lark Pie” (as we were called by rival firms) ahead of personal concerns. I ought to have immolated myself in the western Mummyland with the consciousness of duty done, while on the eastern side of the Nile, Anthony Fenton and Monny Gilder and Biddy played the live, modern game of kidnapping a lady. But I determined to do nothing of the sort. I gazed at the telegram with the air of committing to heart instructions from my superior officer; and without sign of inward tremour, announced that we would explore the wonders of the west before visiting those nearer at hand. The weather being cool and the wind not too high (I said), it would be well to seize this opportunity for the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings, an expedition trying in heat or sand storms. To-morrow also would be devoted to the west, and our third day would belong to Luxor and Karnak. As a _bonne bouche_, I dangled the adventure of the Temple of Mût, to sweeten the temper of grumblers: but there were no grumblers. The Set listened calmly to my honeyed plausibilities; and the alarmed stewards dared not betray their consternation at the lightning change.

No doubt they thought me mad, or worse, because a day in western Thebes meant a picnic: magical apparition at the right moment, in a convenient tomb, of smiling Arabs and Nubian men with baskets of food and iced drinks.

Somehow the trick had to be managed, however; for I must be in eastern Thebes, alias Luxor, on the day when the Bronsons’ presence would render our second attempt at rescue feasible. I had to interview the chêf–a formidable person–hypnotizing him and the stewards to work my will, and above all, I had to make sure of boats and donkeys for the party at short notice. Only by a miracle could all go well; but I set my heart upon that miracle. “Antoun,” hurriedly taken into my confidence, volunteered to arrange about the boats, and the donkeys for the other side. Fortunately there was no rival ahead of us; and with juggling of plans and jingle of silver, Anthony’s part was done. Just at the moment when, by dint of bribes and adjurations I had induced chêf and stewards to smile, Fenton dashed on board to cry “Victory!” Somehow, less than an hour later than we should have started, we got off in two big boats with white sails and brown rowers. The canvas did its work in silent, bulging dignity; but the rowers exhausted themselves by breathlessly imploring Allah to grant them strength, and shouting extra prayers to some sailor-saint whose name was calculated to pump dry the strongest lungs.

On the mystic western side, where once landed with pomp and pageant the sun-boat of the gods, and the mourning boats of the dead, we scrambled on shore with that ribald mirth which always made the Set feel it was getting its money’s worth of enjoyment. Many donkeys and a few carriages awaited us: the whole equipment previously engaged for to-morrow! and in opaline sunshine which stained with pale rose the Theban hills and piled the shadows full of dark, dulled rubies, we started across an emerald plain, kept ever verdant by Nile water. The touch of comedy in the dream of beauty was the queer, mud-brick village of Kurna, with its tomb dwellings of the poor, and immense mud vases shaped like mushrooms, standing straight up on thick brown stems before the crowded hovels. In each vase reposed sleeping babies, brooding hens, dogs, rabbits, or any other live stock, mixed with such rubbish as the family possessed: and the most ambitious mushrooms were decorated with barbaric crenellations.

Almost as far as the Temple of Seti I flowed the green wave like a lake in the desert, but beyond, to join the Sahara, rolled and billowed a waste of rose-pink sand, shot with topaz light, and walled with fantastic rocks, yellow and crimson, streaked with purple. In the heart of each shadow, fire burned like dying coals in a mass of rosy ashes: and the light over all was luminous as light on southern seas at moonrise and sunset. Before our eyes seemed to float a diaphanous veil of gilded gauze; and white robes and red sashes of donkey-boys, animals’ bead necklaces, and blue or green scarfs on girls’ hats, were like magical flowers blowing over the gold of the desert.

Everything blew: above all, sand blew. We found that out to our sorrow, after we had seen the Temple of Kurna, with its noble columns, and its fine fragment of roof, where squares of sky were let in like blocks of lapis lazuli. I rushed here and there on donkey-back assuring people that this was not _wind_ we felt: it was only a breeze. We could not have a more favourable day for our excursion into this world of the dead. Why, if we’d waited till to-morrow we might have met a _real_ wind, perhaps even Khamsin, alias Simoom, the terror of the desert. To make Miss Hassett-Bean and Cleopatra forget the smarting of their eyes, I told them what a true-sand-storm was like, and how its names in Arabic, Turkish, and Persian all came from the fiend “Samiel,” who destroyed caravans, just as “devil” came from the Persian “div.” _Our_ little breeze was from the east, which at Thebes in old days was considered lucky. The west wind used to bear across the river evil spirits disguised as sand-clouds. And these wicked ones had not far to travel, because the Tuat, or Underworld, was a long narrow valley parallel to Egypt, beginning on the west bank of the Nile. Red-haired Set was ruler there, the god who had to be propitiated by having kings named after him. But Rä, greater than he, could safely pass down the dim river running through that world: could pass in his golden sun-boat, guided by magic words of Thoth instead of oars or sails; and the guardian hippopotamus (whom Greeks turned into the dog Cerberus) dared not put out a paw.

Mrs. East remembered that Thebes was Tape in “her day,” at which Miss Hassett-Bean snorted: and when out came that familiar story about Cleopatra making red hair fashionable, Miss Hassett-Bean stared coldly at the lady’s auburn waves. “I wonder if the queen got the colour at her hairdresser’s, as people do now?” she murmured. “I’ve read that they had beauty-doctors in those days, and used arsenic for their complexion, and all sorts of mixtures. Besides, I can’t imagine anything natural about Cleopatra, except the asp wanting to bite her!” Upon this, Mrs. East retaliated by calling her companion Miss Bean without the Hassett.

I shall always think of the Valley of the Tombs as a place of terror and splendour, meant to be hidden from mortals by the spells of Thoth, who circled the rock-houses of the dead with a zone of fire, as Wotan hid Brunhilda, and decreed that they should be lost forever in the blazing desert. Despite Thoth and his magic, men have burst through the blazing belt and found in the gold-rose heart of the rocks, sacred shrines the wise old god would have protected. They have found many but not all: for in the breast of some one among Thoth’s sleeping lions which masquerade as rocks, may yet be discovered a tomb, better than all those we know with their buried store of jewels, and their painted walls like drapings of strange tapestry.

We broke through the zone of fire, and it pursued us with burning smoke of sand, pink as powdered rubies. Always it was beautiful and terrible as we rode in the blowing pink mist: and still it was beautiful and terrible, when half dazed we slipped off donkeys or slid out of carriages, to enter the tombs which the desert had vainly striven to hide. It was hot and breathless in those underground chambers, scooped out of solid rock thousands of years ago, that great kings and their queens and families and friends might rest with their kas in eternal privacy. Enid Biddell waited until Harry Snell happened to be exactly behind her, and then fainted, with dexterity beyond praise. Cleopatra, however, was in her element. She felt at home, and did not turn one of those auburn hairs scorned by “Miss Bean,” at sight of the royal mummies lit up by electricity in their coffins. These gave the rest of us a shock, our nerves being already in the condition of Aladdin’s on his way down to the Cave of Jewels. When the guardian of the Tomb of Amenhetep (the king had several other names, which annoyed Sir John Biddell) darkened the painted, royal chamber of death, and suddenly lit up several white, sleeping faces, the ghostly dusk was alive with little gasps. There lay Amenhetep himself, in a disproportionately large sarcophagus of rose-red granite from Suan; and in companion coffins were a woman and a girl, all three brilliantly illuminated. They had the look of the light hurting their poor eyes, and being outraged because, against their will, they were treated as if they had been paintings by old masters.

The dreadful rumour ran that the woman was none other than the great Queen Hatasu (never mind her more scientific names), her mummy never having been found, or, at any rate, identified: and it was pitiful seeing her so small and female, when in life she had wished to be represented with a beard and the clothing of a man. Our dragoman, who read English newspapers and whose idea of entertaining his crowd was to make cheap jokes (just as his family doubtless manufactured cheap scarabs), announced that Hatasu was the “first suffragette.” But even those who thought her downtrodden nephew, Thothmes III, justified in erasing every trace of her existence wherever possible, did not smile at this jest. In fact, having Antoun and me to refer to, the Set as a whole sat upon the unfortunate dragoman, trying to talk him down in tombs and temples, or ostentatiously reading Weigall, Maspero, Petrie, Sladen, and Lorimer when he attempted to give them information. A few with kinder intentions, however, interrupted his flow of historical narrative by exclaiming, “Why, yes, of _course_!” “I thought so!” and “Now I remember!” He revenged himself by advising everybody to buy antiques from an extraordinary old gentleman, extremely like a galvanized mummy. The antiques were extraordinary, too, so everybody took the dragoman’s advice, neglecting the other curiosity merchants of the squatting row near the luncheon-tomb and the glorious three-tier temple, in that vast copper cup of desert and cliff which is called Der el-Bahari. The sale in mummied hawks, gilded rams’ horns, broken tiles with beetles flying out of the sun, boats of the gods, and gods themselves, was brisk round this ancient gentleman, who advertised a blue mummy-cap by wearing it on his bald pate, and seemed to possess as many royal scarabs as a dressmaker has pins. Afterward I learned that he was our dragoman’s father; but I was loyal and did not tell.

It was a wonderful day, all the more wonderful perhaps because it left in the mind a colourful confusion; pictures of painted tombs hidden deep under red rock and drifted sand, tombs which we should perhaps never reach again through their guarding zone of fire–tombs of kings and queens and nobles forgotten through thousands of centuries save by their kas and has, their friends and servants, painted or sculptured on the walls with the sole purpose of caring for or entertaining them eternally.

Already we had ceased to remember which was which. And back on the boat, in the hour of sunset, when dazzling tinsel and pale pink cloud-flowers sailed over a lake of clear green sky, the Set argued whether the King with the Horses, or the Queen with the Retroussé Nose was in this or that tomb. Sir John Biddell recalled the fact that Egyptian horses had been celebrated, and that it was “as swell a thing to be a charioteer then as it was now to be a Vanderbilt with a coach and four.” As for a retroussé nose, it didn’t matter _where_ it was, on a tomb-wall or on a girl’s face.

Monny thought differently. She and Biddy were glad that the sand and rocks would still hide many secret treasures, while the world lasted. It would be dreadful to think that everything was dug up, for tourists to pry into, or to cart away to museums, and no mysteries left. As for Mrs. East, she was doubtful whether to rejoice or grieve that Cleopatra’s mummy had not been found. If, however, it were like the incised wall portrait at Denderah, it would be well that it should share the fate of Alexander’s body and remain lost forever.

The next day gave us another trip to the west of the Nile: not again in the burning desert, but only as far as the Ramesseum, and then to see the Colossi, seated side by side on their green carpet of meadow, looking out past the centuries toward eternity.

We had a dance on board that night; and next morning it came out that Rachel Guest, who had disappeared during a “turkey trot” and a “castle walk,” had got herself engaged to Bailey. I was not as pleased about this event as was Enid Biddell, who now saw her “title clear” to Harry Snell; for I had “bagged” Willis Bailey and Neill Sheridan for Sir Marcus in order to gain Kudos for myself: but Biddy, appealed to, consoled me by saying it served Bailey right if he were mercenary: and that both men would have come in any case.

The third day was to be the Great Day for us, the day big with fate for Mabella Hânem; and the first thing that happened was a letter sent by hand from the Bronsons at the Villa Sirius. They had arrived. The fireworks could begin.

CHAPTER XXI

THE OPENING DOOR

Not half an hour after the first word from Bronson, came another hurried note. An unexpected obstacle had cropped up. So confident had he and Mrs. Bronson been of their friends’ cooperation, that rather than put such important matters on paper, they had waited to explain by word of mouth. The owner of the villa was a rich Syrian with a French-American wife. He was a Copt in religion, hating Mohammedanism in general and the father of Rechid Bey in particular. This had seemed to the American Consul a providential combination: but to his disgust he found that there had been a reconciliation between the families. Dimitrius Nekean would not betray the Bransons’ confidence, but he could not allow his roof to be used as a shelter for Rechid’s runaway wife–no, not even if Rechid had three other wives in his harem.

Here was a situation! And as Monny remarked, in neat American slang, we were “right up against it.” She thought that, if Antoun and I “put our heads together,” maybe we could think of “some way out.” So we did, almost literally put our heads together across a table no bigger than a handkerchief, in my cabin: and decided that the visit to Rechid Bey’s harem must be made by Brigit and Monny in the late afternoon. They must time their departure from the house at about the hour when the Set would arrive at the Temple of Mût. “Antoun” would be waiting for them, and they would drive in a closed arabeah to the temple, where Mr. and Mrs. Bronson would happen to be “sightseeing.” If Mabella Hânem had been rescued, she would then be put in charge of the American Consul, whose very footprints created American soil around him as far as his shoes could reach. Rechid would be unlikely to search at the Temple of Mût, nor could he induce any Arab servant to accompany him there after sundown. We would escort Mabel and her two protectors to the town, and to the train for Cairo, Mr. Bronson promising to take the girl to Alexandria, whence she could sail for “home.”

It was the best plan we could think of in the circumstances, and Monny approved it, though her patience was tried by having to wait through nearly all of another day. Mabel must have begun to believe that we had ignored her prayer and meant to do nothing. I argued that the girl would believe we were working for her in our own way. I said, too, that if Rechid were spying, his suspicions would be disarmed by seeing us go the ordinary round of tourists. Every one came to Luxor. We had come, leisurely, by river, and were sightseeing every moment. Even Bedr, if he were on the spot, intending to finish his revenge as neatly as it had been begun, could have noticed nothing suspicious in our actions. The mention of Bedr in this connection seemed to startle Biddy, and I was sorry I had let his name slip. But, as I had said, every one came to Luxor. Bedr had with apparent frankness explained that he was travelling up the Nile by rail with his two clients: and if that were true, he would arrive at all our destinations in advance of us. Probably it would depend on “the clients” whether they lingered at Luxor long enough for us to run across them again.

“What are you afraid of,” I asked Biddy when I had a chance with her alone, “even if Bedr is a spy? Surely you kept your promise and left that chamois-skin bag in a Cairo bank?”

“It wasn’t a promise,” she reminded me. “I only said I’d think about it. Well, I did think about it, and I couldn’t put it in a bank. I told you it was the sort of thing one _doesn’t_ put in banks.”

“You didn’t tell me what it was–I mean, what was in it besides money.”

“No, I couldn’t.”

“Will you now?”

“Oh, no!”

“Well, then, will you give it to me to keep till we get back to Cairo?”

“No, _indeed_! But Duffer dear, honestly and truly it isn’t for myself I’m afraid. You _know_ that, don’t you?”

“Of course. Yet if people are believing that Monny Gilder is Rachel Guest, a poor little school teacher, then no one who heard the gossip would bother to risk kidnapping her for ransom. And, also, there’ll be no further danger of those you fear mistaking her for–“

“Oh, don’t speak the name!”

“I wasn’t going to. I was merely about to use the word ‘another.'”

“Good Duffer! Yours is a consoling argument. Still, I never liked Bedr or wanted him with us. And even now, there seems something mysterious about Rachel thinking so much of him. As if there were a secret arrangement between them, you know! I’ve never got over that, or understood it a bit.”

“He flattered Miss Guest, perhaps. She loves flattery. But she’s made her market now, and all through Monny’s charity. She couldn’t want to do her benefactress harm.”

“No-o, I suppose not. Unless it were to do herself good. Don’t those eyes of hers say to you that she’d sacrifice any one for herself?”

“I’ve been thinking more about a different pair of eyes. And there were such a lot of men crowding round Rachel’s–for some reason or other.”

“_Now_ we know what the reason was–as she and Monny must have known all along, since their joke together began. Oughtn’t _you_ to tell Bill Bailey the truth?”

“No, my dear girl, I must draw the line somewhere! I’ve gone about at people’s beck and call, telling other people disagreeable truths, till I’m a physical and mental wreck. Bill Bailey knows all about statues, with and without glass eyes. Let him find out for himself about a mere girl–“

“With cat’s eyes.” Biddy snapped.

If one triumph leads to another, Anthony could afford to be hopeful for the ending of our stay at Luxor. He had not done as much sightseeing as the rest of us, but when we had been asleep in our beds or berths, dreaming of temples–or of each other–he had been out whispering and listening, in places where his green turban opened doors and hearts. He had traced the mysterious “trouble” to its source, and learned the inner history of that regrettable incident which, like a dropped match, had lit a fire hard to extinguish. A party of young men travelling with a “bear leader” had laughed at some Arabs prostrating themselves to pray, at that sacred moment, just after sunset, ordained by Mohammed lest his people should appear to worship the orb itself. One of these youths, fancying himself a mimic, had imitated the Moslems. They were old men, unable to resent with violence what they thought an insult to their religion; but they had told their sons, and the story had spread. Later that night the joyous tourists with their near-sighted “bear leader,” had been attacked apparently without reason, on coming out of a native café. Having forgotten the sunset prayer, they honestly believed that they had been set upon by men to whom they had given no provocation. They had uttered statements and complaints; and disgusted with the “beastly natives” had pursued their journey up Nile, visiting their grievances on the innocent, and making more mischief at each stopping place. Murmured threats, with dark looks, insulting words and jostlings of strangers by the inhabitants of Upper Nile villages, had occasioned anxiety at the British Agency. It had proved impossible to get at the truth, and the influence of the Young Nationalists had been suggested. Our Hadji had now turned the green light of his sacred turban upon obscurity, and those in power at Cairo would know how to set about repairing damages. In spite of private anxieties, those which I shared and others which I didn’t share but suspected, I think Anthony was happy on that third morning at Luxor. He must have been tired, for much of his work had been night work, but he showed no fatigue. The true soldier-look was in his eyes, the look I knew far better than the new and strange expression which had said to me lately, “A woman has come to be of importance in Anthony Fenton’s life.”

We spent our morning and a good part of the afternoon at Karnak, lunching irreverently but agreeably in the shade of fallen pillars Cambyses or the great earthquake had thrown down. Neill Sheridan, who had been to California, likened the ruddy columns of the Great Hall to the giant redwoods. He was enjoying Karnak because there was practically nothing “modern and Ptolemaic about it,” but I thought how quickly he would lose this calmness of the student if some one blurted out a word about our plan for that evening. According to Monny, he had been “taken” with poor Mabella Hânem on board the Laconia–admiring her so frankly that Rechid had banished his bride to her cabin. If Sheridan regretted her, as a man regrets a woman vainly loved, he had confided in no one, not even Monny, who had risked seeming to seek his society in order to reach the secret of his heart. He had, however, been graver in manner than at first, so said the girl, who had been much with him before my appearance on the scene. Whether it was intuition, or sheer love of romance which inclined her to the opinion, she believed that Sheridan was unhappy. It would make things worse for Mabel (if our scheme failed) were Neill Sheridan mixed up in the plot; therefore, even impulsive Monny admitted the wisdom of keeping him out of it. But I could see by the way she looked at him–almost pityingly–when he discoursed of lotus and papyrus columns, how she was saying to herself: “You poor fellow, if only you _knew_!”

The “thing” being to see the Temple of Luxor at sunset, we gave it the afternoon, as if condescending to do it a favour. When I remembered how I had meant to linger here week after week, I felt that I was paying a big price for my share of the Mountain of the Golden Pyramid, making a knock-about comedian of myself, rushing through halls of history followed by a procession of tourists, as a comet tears past the best worth seeing stars, obediently followed by its tail. Still, I had Brigit and Monny as bright spots in the tail; and my old dreams of Luxor had been empty of them.

These ideas were in my mind, while on donkeys and in arabeahs we dashed as if our lives depended on speed, from the Temple of Karnak to the Temple of Luxor, along the dusty white road trimmed with sphinxes. This description was Enid Biddell’s, she being happy and therefore frivolous. She rode with Harry Snell, as queens may have ridden along that way, guarding a captive prince who had been subdued forever.

Sunset illumined the world, as for a New Year’s festival of Amen-Rã in his ruby-studded boat of gold, when we were ready to leave the glorious temple, and turn to the region of little bazaars and big hotels, fair gardens, and girls with tennis rackets whose shape reminded our Egypt-steeped minds of the key of life. Monny and Brigit had slipped away. Their _real_ day was just beginning.

My heart was with them; Anthony’s, too, and his work permitted him to conduct _his_ heart along the way that they must take, while I had to conduct the Set to the Winter Palace Hotel, and give them tea on the terrace.

When everybody was rested and had had enough strawberry tarts, view and flirtation, we were to make for the Temple of Mût: and, having returned at last to the _Enchantress Isis_, were to steam away just as tourist boats and dahabeahs were lighting up along the shore. We were to dine late, after starting, and anchor in some dark solitude, so as to enjoy a peaceful, dogless night on the Nile. But–what would have happened to Brigit and Monny before the sounding of that dinner gong?

What did happen at the beginning I must tell as best I can, because I was not there, and can speak for myself only from the Temple of Mût.

When they stole almost secretly away from Karnak, they took an arabeah which was waiting and drove to the sugar-plantation of Rechid Bey. This place of his is not prepared for a lengthy or luxurious residence; but as I have said, there is a house. There is also a small gatehouse, in a somewhat neglected condition; but a gatekeeper was there: the usual stout negro. Monny and Biddy were quivering with fear lest they should be refused admission, as at Asiut: but this time their coachman was Ahmed Antoun, carefully disguised as a common driver of an arabeah, a rather exaggeratedly common driver perhaps, for his face and turban were not as clean as the face and turban of a self-respecting Moslem ought to be. He had been helped to play this trick by one of the secret friends he had made in some café or other, the cousin of an uncle of a brother of him who should have sat on the box seat. But the motive he had alleged was not the real one. The two beating hearts in the arabeah had confidence in him. If the gatekeeper tried to send them away, Antoun would bribe him, or threaten him with black magic, or say some strange word which would be for them as an “Open Sesame.”

The fat creature at the gate had no French, but the driver of the arabeah addressed him in Arabic, and translated his answers. Yes, the great lady had come hither with her husband the Bey. Word should go to her. It should be ascertained whether it was her pleasure to receive these friends who had journeyed from a far country to pay her a visit.

Monny and Brigit sat in the arabeah to wait, but they dared not talk to the dirty-faced driver, lest some spy should be on the watch, where every group of flowering plants might have ears and eyes. Even if the big gatekeeper came back with an excuse, as seemed too probable, there was hope from Antoun’s diplomacy; but the chances were two to one against success. Rechid Bey had almost certainly been put upon his guard by the revengeful Bedr who had shown himself all grinning friendliness to us. Rechid might have tired of playing dragon, as Antoun prophesied; yet it would be strange if he had not given instructions that no European ladies were to visit his wife. Mabella Hânem had been snatched in haste from Asiut, but if she were still in Luxor with her husband, she and her women in the harem would be guarded by eunuchs, as in the more ambitious villa which Rechid called his home.

I suppose Anthony, slouching on the box seat in his unattractive disguise, must have been as much astonished as Monny and Brigit when the gatekeeper returned with another big negro to say that the ladies would be welcomed by Mabella Hânem. The two girls were wildly delighted. Fenton’s emotions were mixed. He wanted to save the American bride from the consequences of her tragic mistake, but he cared more for his friends’ safety than for hers.

He knew that Monny and Brigit were brave, and that Monny had his Browning, but the thought that she might need to use it could not have made him comfortable on the box seat of his borrowed arabeah, outside Rechid’s gate. It was arranged that he should give Mabel’s visitors one hour, thus allowing for delays and emergencies; but if they did not appear at the end of that time, he would dash off to tell the Luxor police that two ladies were detained against their will in the house of Rechid Bey.

Once in charge of the chief eunuch, who had come to take them to the harem, Brigit and Monny might almost as well have been deaf and dumb. Brigit knew practically nothing of Arabic; and Monny, though she had been vaguely studying since her arrival, had been too passionately occupied with other things to give much time or attention to the language of Egypt’s invaders. Her blood was beating in her veins now, and she could think of no words except “Imshi!” “Malish!” and “Ma’salama!” These buzzed in her head, like persistent flies, as she and Biddy followed their silent, white-robed and turbaned conductor along a narrow pink path, toward a modern villa almost shrouded with bougainvillia. And they were the last words she needed. She didn’t want to tell the ponderous negro to “get out.” On the contrary, she wished to be polite. So far from saying “no matter,” everything mattered intensely. And, unfortunately, it was not time yet to bid the creature “farewell.”

Behind the white house with its crimson embroidery of flowers, rose a thick growth of tall sugar-cane, the shimmering green pale as beryl, in the dreaming light which precedes sunset. The dark red of the bougainvillia looked like streaming blood against such a background.

Though the villa appeared to be comparatively new, it was built according to Turkish, not European ideas, as it might have been were the owner a Copt instead of a Mohammedan. The building was in two parts, entirely separating the _selamlik_ from the _haremlik_. The latter was small and insignificant compared with the former, for this was not a place prepared for family life: it was but a temporary dwelling, where the master would more often come alone than with the ladies of his harem.

The eunuch opened a door leading into the women’s building, and Brigit and Monny entered the same secretive sort of vestibule they must have remembered in the House of the Crocodile. A screen-wall prevented them from seeing what was beyond; and the dead silence frightened them a little, so easy was it to make of this place a trap.

In the vestibule was a long, cheaply cushioned bench, the resting-place of the women’s custodian; and upon it lay spread open the eunuch’s well-used koran, which he had deserted to meet the visitors. Who had given him the order to go, and why it had been given, the guests began to ask themselves.

Beyond the screen-wall they entered an anteroom. Through a big window-door they could look into a small, grassy court that served as a garden: and opening from the anteroom was a second room much larger, which also gave upon the garden court. At the door of this, the eunuch bowed himself away; but an involuntary glance which Monny threw at him over her shoulder showed that he was grinning. The grin died quickly as a white flash of heat-lightning fades from a black night-sky: but though the heavy face composed itself respectfully, there remained a disquieting twinkle in the full-lidded eyes. It struck Monny that the negro was amusing himself at the expense of the visitors, because of something he knew which they did not know.

“We’re not going to be allowed to see Mabel!” she thought, with a jump of her pulses; and even when a negress, smiling invitingly, beckoned her and Biddy into the large room whose three windows looked on the garden, she still believed that they had been deceived. She did not, however, speak out her conviction to Brigit. Nothing could be done yet. They must wait and see what would happen.

The room was furnished in abominable taste, with cheap Trench furniture, upholstered with blue brocade that clashed hideously with the scarlet carpet. There were several sofas and chairs stiffly arranged round the walls; but no tables, save low maidahs of carved wood inlaid with pearl, such as they had seen in Cairo bazaars and hotels. The windows were closed, and the air heavy, as in a room seldom used. The two seated themselves close together, on one of the ugly sofas facing a door through which the beckoning negress had gone out. There was no sound except the harsh ticking of a huge, bulbous clock, all gilding and flowers, which stood in a corner. Monny’s and Brigit’s eyes met, with a question.

Who would open the door just closed? Would it be Mabel, or would Rechid Bey stride in, to reproach or insult them?

“_Are you sure it’s loaded_?” Biddy whispered.

No need for Monny to ask what she meant.

“Sure,” she answered.

The handle of the door turned.

CHAPTER XXII

THE DRIVER OF AN ARABEAH

“Thank God!” cried Biddy, as a slim figure in a loose white robe framed itself in the doorway.

With a sob, Mabel ran toward them, both hands held out, and in an instant she was being hugged and kissed and cooed over.

“You’ve found me–you’ve come!” she cried. “I never dared think you would, when _he_ rushed me away from Asiut. He said he would keep me here all the rest of my life, to punish me for complaining to you.”

“But how did he know?” Monny asked. “Did your sister-in-law tell him about the letter?”

“I don’t think so, unless he has made her confess. It was like this: He was coming to his place here on business. I felt so thankful. It seemed providential he should be away then, just when you were starting up Nile. I was almost happy that morning, when suddenly he appeared again and I was ordered to put on a habberah and yashmak, and travel with him. Yeena, the woman who acts as my maid, had to get ready in a hurry, too. The chief eunuch, a hateful hypocritical wretch, followed. Some clothes have been sent to me since, but not many. At first I couldn’t guess what had happened, and _he_ was in such a fiendish temper I daren’t ask questions. It wasn’t till after we arrived that he explained. I’m sure he took pleasure in hurting me. He said that he left home early the morning he was going to Luxor, because he meant to stop and make a business call on the way to the depot, otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to rush home and fetch me as he did, and still be in time to catch his train after the warning. It was some dragoman you employed in Cairo, he told me, who had seen us getting off the _Laconia_, and who ran after his carriage in the street, in Asiut. The wicked creature warned him that you were all there, and that he’d heard you say something which sounded as if there were a plot to get at me. Just at that minute, by the worst of luck, Mr. Sheridan passed. You know how foolish and cruel _he_ was about Mr. Sheridan on the ship. Well, he hadn’t forgotten. So he turned round and almost snatched me out of the house, rather than I should be left in Asiut with him away.”

“This is exactly what we thought must have happened!” exclaimed Monny. “That beast, Bedr! And to think that Rachel and I wasted our time trying to convert him! How I wish I hadn’t let Aunt Clara engage him at Alexandria! She thought he’d come from a man with her favourite name, Antony: but she wouldn’t have insisted if I hadn’t encouraged her. I feel as if this trouble were partly my fault. And if I hadn’t been thoughtless enough at Asiut to blurt out your husband’s name–.”

“You’re not to blame for anything, dearest,” Biddy tried to comfort her. “It was your unfailing resolve to help, which has brought us here.”

“You’re both my good angels,” said Mabel, “Oh, it’s heavenly to see you. But I can’t understand why I’m allowed to, after all the threats and punishments. I’m afraid I shall be made to pay somehow. He loves to torture me–and he knows how. I believe he hates me, now he’s begun to realize that I’d give anything to leave him, that I don’t consider myself his wife.”

“If he hates you, why isn’t he willing to let you go?” Monny questioned her.

“Partly because he’s very vain, and it would humiliate him. Partly because he has no son yet, only that horrid little brown girl; and he’s set his heart on a boy who’s to possess all the qualities and strength of the West. No, he won’t let me go!”

“Well, you’ll do it in spite of him then,” said Monny eagerly. “That’s what we’re here for. We shall take you with us. You must say to your servants that we’ve invited you to drive, and you’ve accepted. There’s nothing in that to make them suspect. Lots of Turkish ladies go driving and motoring with European women, in Cairo. And you can have that fat black man sit on the box seat, with–with our coachman, if it would make things easier, taking him to guard you. He can be hustled or bribed or something, when the right time comes to get rid of him, never fear. Oh, it’s going to be a glorious adventure, and at the end of it you’ll be free! Nobody could blame you, as the man has another wife.”

Mabella Hânem shook her head. “You’re splendid to plan this. But it’s too late. It was too late from the moment that dragoman warned–my husband. Why you’ve been allowed to come into the house and talk with me, I can’t think, unless _he_ is watching and listening through a hidden spyhole. There’s sure to be _some_ secret reason in his head, anyhow–a reason that’s for _his_ good and not mine. And I shall not be able to get out, if you do.”

“_If_ we do!” echoed Biddy, a catch in her voice.

She glanced furtively at Monny. What had we all been dreaming of when we let this beautiful girl run into danger? I know Biddy well enough to be sure that her thought at that instant was for Monny Gilder, not Brigit O’Brien. But the fear in her heart was vague, until the next answer Mabel made–an answer that came almost with calmness; for Mabella Hânem’s whole being was concentrated upon herself, and her own imbroglio. Everything else, everybody else–even these friends who were risking much to help her–were secondary considerations.

“I don’t suppose real harm will come to you. I don’t see how he’d _dare_. And yet–there may be something on foot. Three men had come to-day, one who might be a dragoman, and two Europeans. They came together. I saw them. And I haven’t seen them go away. They’re in the men’s part of the house–the _selâmlik_. They must be with my husband. Perhaps there’s only some business about the sugarcane. But–“

“Did you see the men distinctly?” Biddy asked, in a changed tone.

“Yes, quite distinctly, for they glanced up at the window where I was peeping out. Of course they couldn’t see me, through the wooden lattice and the bougainvillia, but I had a good look at them. The dragoman seemed to have one blind eye. Oh! I hadn’t thought of _that_ before! Can it be the man who gave the warning?”

“What were the Europeans like?” Biddy questioned, without answering. “Were they wearing light tweed knickerbockers with big checks?”

“No, they were in dark clothes, not very noticeable.”

“Had one a scar on his forehead?”

“Why, yes, I believe he had!”

The eyes of Brigit and Monny met: but there was none of that deadly fear in the girl’s, which Biddy was trying to keep out of hers. Even now, it was hardly fear for herself. It was nearly all for Monny; but Monny must not know, lest she should lose her nerve when it was needed most. That idea of Brigit’s, about Monny being mistaken for Esmé O’Brien by members of the Organization O’Brien betrayed, had seemed foolish and far fetched, although Esmé was hidden from her father’s enemies near Monaco, and it was at Monaco that Miss Gilder and Rachel Guest and Mrs. East had joined Brigit on the _Laconia_. I had laughed at the suggestion, and Biddy had been half-ashamed to make it. But now, in this lonely house where she and the girl had been unexpectedly welcomed, in this house where the master watched, entertaining three strange men, the thought did not appear quite so foolish, quite so far fetched. Indeed, Biddy marvelled why it had occurred to none of us that one of the dangers to be run in rescuing Mabel might come through Bedr, the same danger which had perhaps threatened in the House of the Crocodile.

Too late to think of this now! The fact remained that we had not thought of it when there was time. Not even Biddy had felt certain that there was a secret motive for taking the girls to the hasheesh den, or that Bedr had been guilty of anything worse than indiscretion. His warning to Rechid Bey we had put down to a petty desire for revenge, to “pay us out” for his discharge. Though Biddy had never felt sure of his new employers’ German origin, and though she had had qualms at sight of the party, following or arriving before us on our pilgrimage through the desert and up the Nile, she had never associated their possible designs with Rechid Bey’s grudge against us. Yet how obvious that Bedr should take advantage of it for his clients’ sake, if those two men were what she sometimes feared! Brigit had never spoken out to Monny what was in her mind about Esmé O’Brien. She had known that Monny would laugh, and perhaps say “What fun!” For the girl had invited Biddy to Egypt “because she attracted adventures,” and because Monny badly needed a few, her life having been, up to the date of starting, a “kind of fruit and flower piece in a neat frame.” Now, perhaps Monny wouldn’t laugh; but it was not the time to speak of new dangers.

“Well, if your husband thinks that creatures like Bedr and his Germans are going to help him stop us from getting out, or taking you out, he’s wrong,” said Monny, stoutly. “Bedr’s the most sickening coward, as Rachel Guest and I have reason to remember. But I’m glad we know what we have to expect, aren’t you, Biddy?”

It was hard to answer, because the girl was in reality so far from knowing what she might have to expect. Brigit tried to smile her reply, as Monny began to tell Mabel something of their plan: about the friends ready to rally round them, once they were in the carriage waiting outside the gate; and about the motor coat and veiled hood which had been brought for Mabel to put on, at a safe distance from the house. “You’ll have to start in your own things,” the girl was saying, “otherwise your servants would think it odd. Ring now, dear, for your woman, and have her give you your habberah and yashmak.”

“There are no bells,” said Mabella Hânem, with her soft air of obstinate hopelessness. “When I want Yeena, if she isn’t in the room, I clap my hands as hard as I can. But I tell you, it is no use. It is too late.” As she spoke, throwing up her arms and letting them fall with a gesture of helpless despair, both Brigit and Monny felt that Islam had already raised a barrier between them and this delicate creature it had taken into its keeping. In the white wool robe she wore–the kind of loose dressing gown affected by Turkish women–she looked more like a Circassian than an American girl. Always she had seemed to her would-be rescuers a charming doll, a feminine thing of exactly the type which would appeal to a Turk, weary of dark beauties: her hair was so very golden, her eyes so very big and blue, her lashes so very black, her mouth so very red and small: but now she had become an odalisque. Mabel’s friends realized that she would do nothing to save herself. They must do all.

Hesitating no longer, Monny struck her hands loudly together. Yeena did not come. The girl clapped again, and yet again, till her palms smarted, but nothing happened.

“Yeena is in it–whatever they mean to do,” said Mabel. “She’s had her orders.”

“Very well, then,” Monny persisted, her eyes shining and her cheeks carnation, “you must go without your wraps. Come along. Don’t be frightened. Isn’t it better to risk something to get away than to stay here alone when we’re gone?”

The pretty doll, with a little moan, gave herself up to her friends. Brigit as well as Monny realized that the moment had come. They must take her while she was in this mood.

“Let me go ahead,” said Monny, in a low, firm voice. “You know why.”

Brigit did know why. Monny had Anthony’s Browning, and she alone understood the use of it. Yes, she must lead the way; yet Brigit longed to fling herself in front, to make of her body a shield for the tall white girl she had never so loved and admired. Biddy put Mabel in front of her, and behind Monny, keeping her between them with two cold but determined little hands on the shrinking shoulders, and so pushing her along, protected front and rear, in the piteous procession.

Of course, if the door leading toward the house entrance had been locked on the outside, there would have been the end of the endeavour, for the moment: but it opened to Monny’s hand, and all three went on unchecked, until they came to the vestibule, where on the wall bench they had seen the koran of the fat negro, awaiting his return.

They had come tiptoeing, and had made no more sound than prowling kittens, yet he sat there facing the door, no longer heavy lidded, a black mountain of lazy flesh, but alert, beady eyed, as if he had been counting the minutes.

As they swept through the doorway, hoping to surprise him, the eunuch jumped to his feet as lightly as a man of half his weight, and smiling with pleasure in the excitement of an event to break monotony, he blocked with his great bulk the aperture between wall and projecting screen.

No wonder they had not needed to lock doors, with this giant for a jailer, and a big Sudanese knife conspicuously showing in a belt under his open galabeah! Rechid had perhaps wanted the white mouse in his trap to feel the thrill of hope, and then the shock of disappointment. He had counted completely on the guardian of his harem, but–though he had chosen an American wife, he had not counted on the courage of another type of American girl. The knife looked terrible; but it was sheathed and tucked into a belt. Anthony’s Browning was in Monny’s hand, and hidden only under her serge coat. Out it came, with a warning click of the trigger. And with an astonished, frightened gurgle in his throat the negro involuntarily fell back.

“Run!” Monny breathed, prisoning him where he stood, with the little bright eye of the Browning cocked up at his face. She had to be obeyed then, and they ran, the two of them, flashing past the black man, touching his clothes as they squeezed by, yet he dared not put out a detaining hand. When they were away–safe or not, she could not tell –Monny still kept the pistol in position, but began slowly to turn, that she too might pass the dragon, holding him at her mercy till the end. Not a word of Arabic could she recall, but the Browning spoke for her, a language understood without the trouble of learning, by all the sons of Adam.

When she had backed through the doorway, the girl still faced toward the inner vestibule, and it was well she did so, for scarcely was she out of his sight before the black giant was after her, taking the chance that she would have turned to run. But there was the resolute young face, with eyes defying his; and there was the weapon ready to blow out such brains as he had, if the hand on the knife moved. Again he fell back, and then Monny did run, making the best use she had ever made of those long limbs which gave her the air of a young Diana. She ran until she had caught up with the other two, flying toward the distant gate; for something told her that the negro would have hurried to tell his master of the trick the women had played–preferring the lash on his back perhaps, to a bullet through his head.

She was right, no doubt, to trust her instinct, for the eunuch did not pursue, though his tale of failure was not needed. Rechid Bey had been watching from a window of the selâmlik, as Mabel his wife had watched when he received visitors. He did not wait for the negro’s warning, but dashed out of the house, followed and then passed by several long-robed men in Arab dress. The faces of these were almost hidden by the loose hoods which desert men pull over their heads in a high wind, but had they been uncovered the women would not have seen them. The thing was to escape, not to take note of the pursuers; and it was only Biddy, looking over her shoulder for Monny, who even saw that they were followed. She cried out to her friend to hurry, that some one was coming, that they must get to the gate or all would be ended; then feeling Mabel falter, she held her more tightly and ran the faster.

Rechid and his companions were shouting, not to the women, but to the gatekeeper; and as the master’s furious voice rang out, just in front of the fugitive (all three together now), appeared the big form of the man at the gate.

Monny did not know what to do; for in whichever direction she faced with the Browning, she could be captured from the other. She might kill the negro, and then turn to keep the pursuers back: but the thought of killing a man sickened her. She had meant only to threaten, not to take life. Suddenly she felt afraid of the Browning. She hesitated, in a wild second of confusion, hating herself for failing her friends, yet unable to decide or act: but hardly had the gatekeeper sprung in sight than he went down, flat on his face, struck in the back of the neck by the shabby fellow who had driven their carriage. “Go on!” the dirty-faced Arab said in French. “There’s some one else to drive you. I’ll follow. I’m armed.”

The three sped by him, as he stood aside to let them pass, showing to Monny a pistol which matched the one he had lent her. This consoled the girl in obeying; for as “Antoun” had trusted her courage in this adventure, so did she trust his, and his strength and wit against four men or four dozen men, if need were.

There was the waiting arabeah, and there on the box was a much cleaner, more self-respecting Arab to drive it than the soiled figure which had left the horses and strayed into the garden. Afterwards they learned that the new man was the “sister’s cousin’s uncle” of the Hadji’s café acquaintance. He had been engaged to stroll past in the road, stop, speak, offer the gatekeeper a cigarette, drift into conversation, and be ready to jump onto the box seat the instant Antoun left it. His instructions included furious driving with the three ladies (once they had bundled into the arabeah), to the Temple of Mût.

Rechid Bey had every right, according to his own point of view, to resent the kidnapping of his wife, and to get her back in any way he could, even if blood had to be spilt. But his companions–they who were muffled in the cloaks and hoods to save their faces from the sharp wind–had perhaps not the same right or interest. In any case, when they saw that the women had a man, or men, to help them, and that so helped they had passed from the privacy of the garden to the publicity of the road, the three fell back. Publicity, it may be, did not please them: or else, thinking to have only women to deal with, they were not armed and did not like the look of the pistol. Rechid, evidently no coward, or past feeling fear in rage at the failure of his counterplot, ran on, wheezing slightly–he was fat for his age–toward the erect Arab and the prostrate negro.

“Beast! devil!” he panted breathlessly, and cried out other words of evil import in both Turkish and Arabic; threatening the silent man of the pistol with death and things even worse. But before he had gone far, the hooded men caught up with him, and surrounding, urged him back. What they said, Anthony could not hear, or what he said in return; but he thought they were proposing some plan which appealed to Rechid’s reason, for he showed signs of yielding. There was now no longer anything to detain the protector of the ladies, for by this time, he hoped and believed that their arabeah must be far on its way toward the Temple of Mût, the meeting-place agreed upon. Accordingly, he stepped over the unconscious gatekeeper, who lay with his nose in the grass, and backed calmly out of the garden. Not far off, an arabeah was crawling along the road, so slowly that one might have thought the driver half asleep. But this supposition would have done him an injustice. Dusk had fallen now, the purple dusk which drops like a curtain just after the pageant of sunset is finished, yet the driver was wide enough awake to pierce the purple with a pair of sharp eyes, and recognize a figure expected. He whipped up his horse, and the dirty Arab running to meet it, in a few seconds the latter was on the box beside the coachman. Then the arabeah turned, and dashed wildly off according to the custom of arabeahs, back in the direction whence it had been crawling.

The two dark-faced men in the vehicle talked rapidly in low voices, speaking the language not only of the country but the _patois_ of Luxor itself. “Your brother passed you in his arabeah?”

“Yes, Hadji, he passed with the three European ladies you told me had been in secret to visit their friend.”

Then Anthony knew that Brigit and Monny had been able already to carry out their plan of wrapping Mabella Hânem in one of their own cloaks. This was well, and would save gossip, if the occupants of the arabeah were stared at by passers by. And at the temple also it would be well, for if possible the Set were to know nothing, now or later, of the adventure. But though Anthony was glad of the news he had got from this Arab ordered to meet him at the gate, he did not settle down comfortably and say to himself: “Thank goodness, the thing is over.” Those men back there in the garden would not so easily have persuaded Rechid Bey to let his wife go unpursued, if they had not offered some alternative plan that could be carried out quickly.

Still, so far so good. Brigit and Monny had “won out,” and secured the prize, as Anthony had prophesied that they would do. They were on their way to the temple, where I would be with the comfortable, commonplace crowd from the _Enchantress Isis_, and where the American Consul and his wife would just “happen” also to be wandering. Instead of driving straight there himself, Anthony went with a friend to an obscure, mud-built house in the village. When he came out of that house, his brown-stained face was no longer disfigured with dirt. It was as immaculate, as noble as the proudest Hadji’s face should be, and above it was wound the green turban. Ahmed Antoun Effendi’s own dignified, old-fashioned robes of the Egyptian gentleman flowed round his tall figure, when once more he took his place in the waiting arabeah–this time not on the box seat–and drove off at more furious speed than ever, toward the Temple of Mût.

CHAPTER XXIII

BENGAL FIRE

The Temple of Mût I think must always be mysterious even by day. That night it was more than mysterious. It was sinister.

Darkness shut us in among the pillars and the black, lion-faced statues. The least imaginative of my charges seemed to feel the influence of the place. Not an Arab, not even the superior boat dragoman, would come inside with us: because after the sun has set, dethroned Sekhet comes into her own again. Strange stories are whispered by Arabs, of the Temple of Mût, and of the ghostly, golden dahabeah that, once a year, sails slowly by to a faint sound of music, on the Sacred Lake. We had brought candles with us, protected by smoky glass from the wind that swept down the avenue of broken Sphinxes outside, and hissed like angry cats through the dark courts lined with granite statues of the Cat-goddess. Yet despite the mystery, or because of it, people seemed curiously happy. The spirit of the past, of Old Egypt, touched them in the shadowy spaces of this ruined temple, brushed them with its wings, and whispered half-heard words into their ears. They talked to each other in low tones, as if not to miss the whispers or the soft footfalls of unseen things; and they did not laugh and make jokes, or ask silly questions, according to their irritating custom.

I blessed this mood, for my nerves were jangled (more than ever after the Bronsons unobtrusively appeared) waiting for Brigit and Monny to come, wondering if they would come, or what we should do if they didn’t; because suddenly in this place of gloom and eloquent silence all the clever little plans Anthony and I had made, in case of accident, seemed futile. How could we have let those two walk alone into a trap? I blamed myself, I blamed Anthony; and sometimes I gave the wrong answers to Mrs. East, who walked with me, trying to keep out of the way of the crowd.

She was anxious to talk of her niece, and to relate how she had been singing my praises to Monny. “You mustn’t be discouraged,” she said. “Never mind about the hieroglyphic letter. Oh, no, you needn’t worry! I haven’t told her it was yours. Better let her think what she thought at first. Did she _tell_ you what she thought? _Please_ answer me, Lord Ernest! I don’t mind your knowing–_now_–that I believed it was from Antoun to me. Believing so, did no harm. Why should it, to me, or to him? I soon guessed that there was a mistake somewhere–when he didn’t –didn’t follow the letter up. I was not offended by the proposal as Monny would have been–oh, not if she’d known it was _yours_, but if she’d supposed Antoun was making love to her. Don’t you see–you must have seen, you’re so quick and observant–that she’s been caught by the romance of him, just as she was afraid she might be by some thrilling prince, when she came to Egypt. She’s miserable. She’s hating herself. And you _won’t_ save her though I’ve prepared her mind!”

“So _that’s_ what you meant when you hinted that I could spare her humiliation!” I said, half in laughter, half in bitterness, suddenly able to concentrate my mind upon the talk. “Do you think a man would want a girl to take him for such a reason, when she’s caring for some one else?”

“But, if it would be impossible for her to marry the some one else?”

“Why should it be impossible?”

“She would think it impossible.”

“Would she, if–” I checked myself, but Mrs. East understood instantly. “If he has a secret,” she said, “then none of us has a right to suggest it to her. Every man for himself, Lord Ernest, in _love_! Antoun Effendi has no reason too feel too kindly to Monny. You’ll be robbing your friend of _nothing_, if you speak to her. If he’s in _love_ with any one, it isn’t my niece.”

“At least it’s not _you_. Perhaps it’s Biddy after all!” my thoughts interpolated.

“To care for Monny would be beneath his dignity, considering all that’s passed. And you can make _her_ happy, as well as yourself, by taking my advice,” Mrs. East went on. “Aren’t you going to be sensible?”

Just then came a murmur expressing surprise or some other new emotion, from one of the outer courts where the crowd wandered, Cleopatra having lured me–yes, “lured” _is_ the word–into the sanctuary itself.

“Something has happened!” I said. “Let’s go back, and see what it is.”

“Perhaps Antoun has come!” Mrs. East caught me up eagerly. “He was coming, wasn’t he, when he’d finished his business? Or maybe it’s only Monny and Brigit.”

“_Only_ Monny and Brigit!”

In the hope of seeing Antoun, Cleopatra turned her back upon the dreary sanctuary not unwillingly, even though the burning question was left unanswered. I hurried her through the dark passages which lay between us and the courts, lighting our way with a glassed-in candle; and it was all I could do not to cry out aloud “Thank heaven!” or “Hurrah!” or something else that would have opened people’s eyes, when I saw that indeed, Brigit and Monny had arrived. It was Rachel Guest and Willis Bailey who had hailed them from afar, as candlelights flashed across their faces; and suddenly to my eyes the gloomy temple seemed to be brilliantly illuminated. I don’t know exactly how I contrived to leave Cleopatra, and get to the newcomers; but I did get to them in less than a minute. Perhaps I was a little rude to Mrs. East. I wasn’t thinking of that at the time, however, nor of her.

I separated the two I wanted from the others. Their faces radiated excitement, but I was not sure if it meant success. I was sure only that they had been through an ordeal and were feeling the reaction.

“You’re safe!” I said, and shook hands with them feverishly. Then I shook hands all over again.

“Safe, yes,” Monny answered. “And Mabel–why don’t you ask about her? Oh, Lord Ernest, we’ve done it–we’ve done it–thanks to Antoun Effendi! We should have failed at the last if it hadn’t been for him. Just look over there, at the Bronsons, and see if you can guess who it is they’re talking to?”

I looked and saw tall, thin Mr. Bronson, and short, plump Mrs. Bronson trying to form a hollow square around a little figure in a long gray coat of Biddy’s, and a hood with a veil I remembered her wearing the day we motored to Heliopolis. It seemed about a hundred years ago. I had conducted so much and so violently since; but I was not too old to remember Biddy’s hood. What if Neill Sheridan, poking about alone with a candle, could see through that veil?

“Triumph!” I exclaimed. “You’re heroines!” (I didn’t know then how true were my own words.) “Was it a great adventure?”

“_Was it_, Biddy?” the girl asked, half shyly of her friend.

“So great that I can’t talk about it,” Brigit answered, and her eyes implored mine not to ask questions. Also they said that she had things to tell me–not now but by and by. Things for me alone. Biddy’s eyes could be wonderful.

“Where’s Antoun Effendi?” Monny broke in, when I had taken Brigit’s hint, and was beginning to say that we must go and speak to the Bronsons.

“He hasn’t come yet,” I answered; and then her eyes, too, began to implore.

“Not come yet? But–it’s a long time. We found Mr. and Mrs. Bronson outside, hoping for us to arrive, and we talked to them and introduced Mabel, and explained things. They would have liked to go and take her away quickly, but Biddy and I begged them not to. We said it would be better to wait for the rest, and all the crowd to be together in case of–trouble. Oh, we discussed everything, for ages–minutes and minutes. I do think Antoun Effendi ought to be here, unless–“

I caught her up quickly. “Unless?”

“Well, you see, we left him inside Rechid’s gate, where he’d just knocked down a big negro, and was keeping back Rechid and _lots_ of other men–anyhow three–with a pistol–not the one he lent me. He told us to go, so we went.”

He told them to go–so they went! A change, this, for the Gilded Rose. She spoke at the moment like an obedient little girl.

“If he told you to go–it was all right, you may be sure,” I said encouragingly. But despite my faith in Anthony as a fighting man, I felt–well, somewhat dismayed at the picture called up. “Rechid and anyhow three men!” It was rather a large order. If with a wish I could have sent every member of the Set back to their peaceful homes in England and America, and thus rid myself of them in a second, they would all have found themselves walking in at their respective front doors.

I wished this wish, but having a mere smoking candle in my hand, and not Aladdin’s lamp, it didn’t work. There they inconveniently remained in the Temple of Mût, looking twice as large as life.

“What if I tell them they’ve seen everything?” I muttered. “They haven’t, but that’s a detail. If I could rush ’em all back to the boat –and you with them, of course, and get Mabella Hânem and the Bronsons off safely, I could go look for Anth–for Antoun. Of course we were to wait for him, but I don’t like the picture you’ve painted–“

“Oh, _do_ look for him!” broke in Monny. “Leave us to take care of ourselves. I’m sure we can. There are enough of us. And Mr. Bronson is a _Consul_. Go and get the police.”

“I can’t leave you,” I said. “Antoun would be the last one to forgive me if I did that. But I’ll start off the party, now. The arabeahs and donkeys are waiting. Listen to the stentorian voice of the Conductor, announcing–“

I tried to speak gayly; but the announcement, which I opened my mouth to roar through the temple, was never made. There came instead, at that instant, a rival roar from outside. Mine would have been the roar of a sucking dove. This other was a wild bull roar of rage. What it was for, who was making it, and whether it concerned us, we did not know; but it was the sound of many voices, and flowing to us on the wind, driving nearer out of distance, it was startling and caused the heart to miss a beat.

Suddenly the thought sprang into my mind that this was like something in a theatre. We were on the stage, in a play of Ancient Egypt, and a mob of supers was yelling for our lives in the wings. They would pour out upon the stage and attack us. Only the hero and heroine would be saved. All the villains and other unnecessary people would be polished off.

Everybody had stopped talking. Involuntarily groups drew together. We looked over our smoking candles, past the standing statues and the fallen statues, away toward the columns of the temple entrance.

Mr. and Mrs. Bronson, and the girl in Biddy’s veiled hood and cloak, walked across the court and joined our party of three. Neill Sheridan was at a distance. His prophetic soul told him nothing. “I hope that fellow Rechid Bey hasn’t worked up any trouble against us,” the American Consul from Asiut said in a low, somewhat worried tone.