CHAPTER XI
THE HOUSE OF THE CROCODILE
The letter had evidently been dashed off in a great hurry. It was short and written in French, the language in which "Antoun" chose to talk with foreigners.
Give the bearer two hundred piastres and let him go. Don't try to make him speak. I have promised this. Then quick to Jarvis Pasha and get him to raid the House of the Crocodile. Question of hasheesh. We must be smuggled out when arrests are made—also Bedr, to save scandal.
Not a word as to whether all were safe, or in danger! But I realized that, for some reason, each instant had been of value. And each instant was of value now.
Anthony was one who knew precisely what he wanted and why he wanted it. I obeyed his instructions implicitly. Two hundred piastres went from my pocket into the hand of the withered Arab, and he was allowed to take his departure despite a burst of protest from my companions, who naturally wished the man to be catechised. Once the door had shut behind the bent blue back, I handed round the letter, which had to be translated for Sir Marcus, who professed contempt for "foreign gibberish."
Jarvis Pasha is at the head of the police, has been for many years, and is the most interesting man in Egypt after the well-beloved "K." Leaving Sir Marcus to go on with his task of consoling Mrs. East, I dashed off in my waiting taxi with the Nubian of the silver earrings. We drove to the Governorat, a big house in a square near what was once known as the Guarded City, the very heart and birthspot of Cairo: Masrel Kahira, the Martial, founded under the planet Mars.
I scribbled a line to Jarvis Pasha, and sent it to him in an envelope with my card. This combination opened doors for me; and three minutes later I was shaking hands with a tall, thin, white moustached, hawk-featured Englishman who looked all muscle and bones and brain. Jarvis Pasha being in the secret of "Antoun's" identity and business in Cairo, simplified the explanation, and did away with the necessity for a preface. All I had to tell was the brief story of the girls' disappearance with Bedr el Gemály, and Fenton's following them into space; then, how word had come after fourteen hours.
"The House of the Crocodile," Jarvis Pasha said, when he had taken and read the letter. "H'm! Do you know anything about that house?"
"I know the old stories connected with it," I answered. "If it's reputation to-day is as sinister as ever——."
"Not at all. Figuratively speaking it has been whitewashed. It's become a show place—a monument historique. This is interesting information which Fenton sends, but if it came from any one else, I should say he had dreamed it. He may be giving us the chance of an important coup. Wait a few minutes, and I'll have this thing attended to, Lord Ernest. But you look upset. Is it that you haven't had lunch, or are you worrying about the ladies?" "Both," I answered with a sickly grin. "Not that I mind about lunch. I couldn't have eaten if I'd had the time."
"You haven't as much belief as I have, in your friend," remarked Jarvis Pasha, "if you think he'd let them come to harm." "They're all in the same box, apparently," I excused my lack of faith.
"Trust Fenton!" said the Head of the Police. "He was sharp enough to find the needles in the haystack, and he's smart enough and strong enough to take care of them when they're found."
On this, Jarvis Pasha went out and left me to my reflections, which rushed to the House of the Crocodile. Every one who has read or heard stories of native Cairo, knows the House of the Crocodile, in the Street of the Sisters, and how, in the later days of Mohammed Ali, people scarcely dared to name it aloud. The "Tiger" Defterdar Ahmed built it, for that beautiful Tigress, Princess Zohra, favourite daughter of Mohammed Ali, who married her off to the fierce soldier when she became too troublesome at home. Zohra had loved a young Irish officer who was murdered for her sake, and had no true affection to give Ahmed or any other. She hated all men because of the murderer, her own nephew, and vowed that since her love had cost the life of the one who had her heart, others who dared to love her must pay the same price. When Ahmed died suddenly, soon after the wedding, those who had heard of Zohra's vow (and there were many in the harems) whispered "poison." Never again did the Princess drive out to see the women she knew; and those who had been her friends were sent away from the door of the dead Ahmed's palace, over which he had suspended for "luck," a huge crocodile killed in the far south. But Zohra was beautiful, with strange eyes which drew love whether she asked for it or not; and sometimes a small lattice would open in a bay of one of those windows of wooden lace whose carving was known as mushrbiyeh work because shirib, or sherbet, used to be placed there to cool. Out of the lattice would look a wonderful face, as thinly veiled as the moon by a mist, and then it would vanish so quickly that a man who saw, half believed that he had dreamed. But the eyes of the dream seemed to call, and could not be forgotten, any more than the song of a siren can cease to echo in ears which once have heard.
After the beginning of Zohra's widowhood, the noblest and handsomest youths of Cairo began mysteriously to disappear. They would be well and happy one day, and the next they would be gone from the places that knew them. By and by their bodies would be found in a canal; always the same canal, near the water gate of the House of the Crocodile. Then the vow of the Princess was remembered: but there was no English rule in those days, and the police shut their ears and eyes where a daughter of Mohammed Ali was concerned. Mothers and sisters of handsome young men shuddered and begged those they loved never to pass through the dark Street of the Sisters (Sharia el Benât) where the crocodile grinned over the door, and the vision of a face looked down from a latticed window. The women thought of the water gate at the back of the house; the little children, who had heard secret words spoken, thought of the crocodile, and ran crying past the house; but the handsome young men thought only of the face, and each one said to himself, "She will not make me pay the price." Still, as years went on, bodies were seen in the water from time to time, with a tiny purple spot over the heart to show the curious that death had not come from drowning. And some, who looked for lost ones, could not reclaim them from the canal, for bodies were not always found. As time passed, it seemed to people who hurried by the house in the narrow street, that the crocodile grew larger and larger. It was said that it had been fed on the children of men Tiger Ahmed had murdered in Sennaar.
None dared to say what they believed of Princess Zohra, but when, after a long imprisonment by her nephew Abbas, in the House of the Crocodile, she escaped to Constantinople, nobody would live where she had lived, and the palace fell almost into ruin.
This was the story of the house where Monny Gilder and Rachel Guest and Anthony Fenton were now. I had heard it talked about by our Arab servants when I was a child, and had never forgotten, though scarcely since then had I thought of the tale, until the remembered name and the horrors attached to it jumped into my mind on reading Anthony's letter. What had happened in the House of the Crocodile since Zohra's day, I did not know; but because of the old story it seemed more sinister that my friends should appeal for help from that place than from any other in Cairo.
I was not left long alone. Five minutes after Jarvis Pasha went out of the room to "arrange things" according to Fenton's request, he sent me a man with whiskey and soda, and biscuits. I drank gladly, and ate rather than seem ungrateful. But there was a lump in my throat which would stick there, I knew, until those three were away from the House of the Crocodile. I was still crumbling biscuits when Jarvis Pasha came briskly back.
"Well," he asked, "are you braced up now? If you'd like to be in this business, you can. I'm sending a white superintendent with my police to raid the house, on the strength of Fenton's letter to you, though until now the place hasn't been suspected. As I said, it's been a 'show' house, for some years—ground floor and first story in repair, just as in Zohra's day—upper floors ruinous, and the public not admitted there. If anything queer's going on, it must be in the forbidden part: and the caretaker is mixed up in the show. A pity you felt bound to let Fenton's messenger off! You can go with my superintendent, Allen, and reach your friends as soon as my men do. Allen has instructions to let Fenton and the ladies, if they're found there, slip away, and it's best for you to be on the spot to save mistakes in identification. Also I've ordered a closed arabeah to wait for you, as near as possible—my men will show you where. You'll know it for certain by a red camellia on the Arab driver's European coat. And by the way, take this Browning, in case of an attack; which I don't anticipate."
As Jarvis Pasha spoke, he opened the door, and summoned in a brown young Britisher wearing the tarboosh which denotes "Gyppy" officialdom. Evidently Allen was prepared for me as I for him, and we started off together on foot, for it seemed that our destination was not far away. We walked swiftly through the crowded Mousky (once the fashionable part of Cairo, before the tide flowed to the modern Isma'iliya quarter), and after a few intricate turnings plunged into a still, twilight region. The streets through which we passed were so narrow, and the old houses so far overhung the path that the strip of sky at the top of the dark canyon was a mere line of inlaid blue enamel flecked with gold. The splendid mushrbiyeh windows thrust out toward each other big and little bays, across the ten or twelve feet of distance which parted them, as if to whisper secrets; yet the delicate wooden carvings skilfully hid all that they wished to hide, and only suggested their secrets.
"Now we'll soon be coming to the House of the Crocodile," said Allen. "By Jove, it's a joke on us, and a smart one, if it's been turned into a hasheesh den, under our noses. But it must be something new, or we should have got onto it. The Chief thinks already he can guess who's at the bottom of the business and who has put the money up: a certain Bey, in whose service the caretaker was—a rich old Johnny, very old fashioned, who lives not far off in a beautiful house of the best Cairene period. He's keen on antiquities, and has been of service to the government in several ways, though he's a reformed smuggler; and his only son, dead now, was a hopeless hashash; that's what they call slaves of the hasheesh habit. I suppose you've read all about the 'Hashashseyn' of the Crusaders' days, whom we speak of as Assassins? Well, ever since then the Hashasheyn have had a bad reputation; but this old man I speak of has been pitied for his son's failings, which he pretends to think a 'judgment for his own past, repented sins.' Now, Lord Ernest, saunter, please, as if you were a tourist in my charge, admiring the old doorways."
Two native workmen appeared in front of us, with pickaxes on their shoulders. Stopping, they threw down their tools. One produced a cord which he stretched across the street from house to house; and in the middle he hung a small red flag. Then the pair began to pick in a leisurely way at the surface of the road, and before we reached the barrier, an Arab policeman stationed himself by the cord. Glancing ahead, I saw that the farther end of the narrow lane was blocked in the same manner.
"This is one trick we have of doing our work quietly," said Allen. "It always answers pretty well."
I said nothing, but used my eyes. Coming from nowhere apparently, there were twenty men in the street. A few had crowbars in their hands. Others, native policemen, carried the canes with which they control the movements of the people. From the shaded doorway of a large house a native sergeant of police stepped out as we approached, and saluted Allen. Over the closed door, a large, dryly smiling, ancient crocodile hung.
"Have our men come and taken their places?" asked my companion in Arabic.
"Yes, Effendi," the sergeant answered. "All has been done according to order. The back entrance which was the water gate before the old canal was filled up, is surrounded, and the adjoining houses with which some communication may have been established are watched. Not a rat could have crawled out since we came, nor could one have gone in. To-day is the feast of a saint, and these people have their excuse not to open the house to visitors, for so it is with other show places. Look, it is written up, that until to-morrow there is no admission." As the man pointed to a card hanging from a hook, he and Allen smiled at the cleverness of this pretext for closing the door. In English, French, and Arabic, the reason was announced in neat print. Probably this was not the first time the same excuse had been used in the same way.
"They must have taken alarm at something, and thought they were being watched," Allen said to me. "That's why they've sported their oak. I expect we shall make a haul, as—for everybody's sake concerned—they wouldn't dare let their clients out, to fall into a trap. Yes, that's why! Or else—"
He stopped, and I did not ask him to go on, for I knew that to ask would be useless. Yet I guessed what he had meant to say, and why he had stopped. He didn't wish to alarm me, but it was in his mind that the house had teen closed because of something planned to happen inside. And that something might be connected with my friends. We should soon know!
My first thought was that we were to get through the door, by breaking it in, or by forcing those on the other side to open for us. In an instant, however, I realized that my idea was absurd. It would take an hour to batter down that thick slab of old cedarwood, and Allen had said that he wanted to do things quietly. No, the brown sergeant was not here to open the door, but to see that it did not open unless for our benefit.
Two of Allen's men were unfolding a curious ladder like a lattice, which they made secure with screws when they had stretched it to full length. Then, up it went to one of the beautiful mushrbiyeh windows which, on the level of the story above the ground floor, bayed graciously, overhanging the street. One man standing below held the ladder firmly in place, while another, small and lithe as a monkey and enjoying the task as a monkey might, ran up to the top that leaned against the window. Evidently he was a skilled worker, for before I knew what he would be at, he had with some small, sharp instrument, prized out without breaking it, one of the sections of carved lattice. This he tossed lightly down to a man who caught it, and as he and four others after him slipped through the opening, the sergeant knocked on the closed door, under the swinging form of the crocodile. Nobody answered. But three minutes passed, and then suddenly there was the sound of a falling bar, and a very old, very dark man, with a white turban and a white beard, peeped out.
"Thieves!" he cried in Arabic. "Thieves break in at the windows!"
He was making the best of a bad business, I guessed, and hoped somehow to justify himself to the police. But though he was gray with fright, he forgot to look surprised.
My Arabic was not equal to the strain of catching all the gabble that followed: the old man protesting that it was right to close the house to-day; that if it were the police and not thieves who broke in, it was unjust, it was cruel, and his son Mansoor, the caretaker, would appeal to all the Powers. Before he had come to the end of his first breath, he was hushed and handcuffed, and hustled away; and another man sprang forward from behind the angle of a screen-wall inside the entrance. He was young, and looked strong and fierce as an angry giant, but at sight of Allen and the rest of us, he stopped as if we had shot him. Perhaps he had not expected so many. In any case, he saw that there was nothing he could hope to gain by violence or bluster. All he could do was to protest as his father had done, that this visit was a violation of his right to close the house on a holiday.
"Don't be a fool, Mansoor," said Allen, who evidently knew him. "You understand very well that isn't why we are here. You've jot a hasheesh den upstairs, above the public show rooms. A nice trick you thought you'd played us, but you see you didn't bring it off."
By this time we were inside the house, having thrust the caretaker in again, and passing the three tortuous screen walls of the entrance, into a courtyard. Several young Arabs dressed as servants stood there, large-eyed, and stricken at sight of their giant master held by four policemen. But there was not a sign of our men who had crawled through the window, and I was impatient to go where they had gone.
There was no sound of scuffling, no sound at all, except the crying of some startled doves, and Mansoor's voice, swearing by the Prophet's sacred beard that if anything were wrong he was not the one to blame. There were those above him who must be obeyed or he and all that were his would be put out of life; but I cared too little for him, or what might become of him and his, to listen much. I looked up and saw at the left of the courtyard, with its several closed doors, a short flight of steps with a mounting-block, and a doorway leading to a winding staircase. Round the court went a gallery, supported with old marble pillars, and underneath on one side was a large recess, the takhtabosh, raised slightly above the level of the courtyard, and having a row of wooden benches round its three walls. Here the caretaker and his male relatives and friends had evidently been smoking their nargilehs and drinking coffee; our arrival had disturbed them in the midst.
Suddenly, into the frightened mourning of the doves, broke a sharp sound of cracking wood. "Come along!" cried Allen. "They'll be past the barrier in a minute!" And leaving Mansoor and the others to be dealt with by subordinates, he led the way up the steep stairs, at a run.
We did not stop at the first story, the "show" part of the House of the Crocodile; but catching a glimpse of a latticed balcony off the landing, all lovely mushrbiyeh work, and a great room of Persian tiled walls and coloured marble floor, beyond, we dashed up another flight of stairs to the story above. These stairs were of common wood, and somewhat out of repair. At the top was a door of carved cedarwood like those below, but rough in execution, faded, and with here and there a starpoint or triangle of the pattern missing, leaving a hole in the thick wood. On this door was nailed a large card with the notice in English, French, and Arabic, "Forbidden to the Public."
"What a grand idea to install a hasheesh den here!" I could not help thinking as I followed at Allen's heels to the head of the stairs, where two of his men worked with crowbars to prize open that theatrically dilapidated door. Behind the pair who worked were the others who had entered by the window below; and hardly had we taken our places in the strange queue, when with a loud groan the door gave way. The couple in front almost fell into a dark passage on the other side, and my heart leaped, for I half expected to see them driven back upon us by an attack with knives or pistols. But the dim vista seemed to hold only silence and emptiness as I peered over men's shoulders; and as we crowded in, Allen pushing ahead to take the lead, nothing stirred.
The passage was but a gallery, like that below, but instead of being open, it was closed in with lattice of mushrbiyeh work, so that, though those within could look through, it was as secret for those outside as if it had been enclosed by a solid wall.
The darkness was patterned with light, like ebony thinly inlaid with gold, for the afternoon sunlight trickled into the delicate loopholes of the carvings, and we began to see what Enterprise had made of this ruinous upper story. The floor had been dilapidated and unsafe; but new boards had been placed over it, covered with Egyptian-made matting and rugs to deaden sound and give an appearance of comfort. We walked quickly along to the end where this closed gallery turned at right angles, and there found another door, new and rough, evidently but lately put up. It was not so strong as the old one; and it yielded in a few minutes to the furious industry of our men with their crowbars. They lifted the door from its broken hinges, leaning it against a wall; and as we passed through, an Arab pulled aside a thick curtain which filled in a doorway. He was evidently a servant, and seeing the police, showed no sign of surprise, but only of a most humble resignation which disclaimed responsibility and begged for mercy.
In silence the man was taken into custody; and Allen and I, with three of the four policemen, passed into the region behind the portière. There, all was dusk, save for the faint light sifting down from a carved wooden dome in the ceiling, partly curtained; and a dark lantern flashed out a long revealing ray. The men ran to pull back heavy cloth hangings which entirely covered the latticed windows, and would allow lamps to be lit at night without being seen from street or courtyard. Instantly sunshine pierced the carved interstices, and let us see what Enterprise had done for his clients. We were in the antechamber of a long, beautiful room. The old, coloured marble of the durkááh—the lower level of floor nearest the entrance—had been repaired with new; the dilapidations of a fountain were almost hidden by pink azaleas in pots; the liwán, on the next level, had a good rug or two; and the diwáán, at the farthest and highest end, was furnished with red-covered mattresses and pillows. The low wall-benches of marble were set here and there with glass bowls of roses and syringa; and tiny cedarwood cupboards high in the tiled walls were open to show coffee cups, tobacco jars, and pipes made of cocoanut shells with long stems of cane.
Four men, who had apparently been lying on the mattresses, stood up and faced us, not fiercely, but with something of the attendant's resignation. Two were in European clothes, with the inevitable tarboosh; and two, equally well dressed, were old fashioned and picturesque in the long, silk gown and turban style which "Antoun" and other lovers of the ancient ways affected. They were of the "Effendi class," and might be merchants or professional persons. A turbaned man with a black beard Allen knew, and greeted in Arabic, "Hussein Effendi! Who would have thought to see you here!"
"Why not?" answered the other, with a melancholy smile and shrug of the shoulders. "There is no harm, really, but only in the eyes of the English. We are caught, and we cannot complain, for we have had true delight: and we have known, since the alarm came last night, that we might have to pay for our pleasure."
"So you had the alarm last night?" said Allen, looking as if there were nothing surprising or puzzling in that.
"Yes, why should we not admit it now? Word came that a watch had been set outside, both back and front, and none of us dared leave the house. We consented to be locked in, though there is one in another room who wished to get out and run the risk. That was not permitted, for the sake of others; and to prevent him from taking his own way in spite of prudence, we let ourselves be shut in, with only one attendant who took through the holes in the door such little food as we needed. We had begun to hope that it had been a false alarm, or, since no inquiries seemed to have been made below, that the watchers had gone and would not come again. We planned as soon as night fell to go to our homes; but it was not to be. And if any are to blame, it is not those who come to take pleasures provided for them, but rather they who cheat the coastguard of the swift-running camels, and bring what is forbidden into Egypt."
"The blame will be rightfully apportioned," said Allen. "Meanwhile, I am sorry to say, Hussein Effendi, that you and those in your company are subject to the law. I must now leave you, and go farther to see what others we have to deal with."
The four Effendis were politely left in charge of two policemen who would have been equal to twice their number, and our one remaining man went on with Allen and me.
"Your friends, and perhaps two or three who can afford to pay big prices, will have had their smoke in private rooms," Allen explained. "We can guess who it was, who wanted to break out! There are probably no more doors, only curtains, so we shall have no trouble. But don't forget that, if anything unexpected should happen, you have a pistol. Of course, you understand that it could be used only in an extreme case."
A curtained doorway led out from the diwáán into a small anteroom, and there, on the floor, sat Bedr el Gemály, the picture of dejection. Had I raised my voice in the next room, he would perhaps have ventured in to see what I could do to help him; for now, at sight of me, he scrambled up in shamefaced eagerness.
"Oh, my lordship!" he began to cackle. "Praise be to Allah you are come! I was persuaded to bring the young ladies here. They would make me do it. Yes, sir. It is not my fault. They pay me. I have to obey. Then we get caught, like we was some rats. No fair to punish me. The ladies all right. No harm come, except a little sick."
"If no harm has come, that's not due to you, but to a very different man, as you well know," I said. And as I spoke, the man I had in my mind appeared before my eyes. "Hullo!" I exclaimed, joyously.
Anthony's eyes and Allen's met; but I could not tell if they knew each other, nor could I ask then. It was enough for Allen in any case, however, that this magnificent Hadji was one of the friends for whom I searched. He turned to Bedr. "You brought two ladies here, I understand," he said quickly and sharply. "Then you must have acquaintance with the place. For good reasons which have nothing to do with you, I shall not arrest you, but you will have to report at the Governorat inside the hour, or you will regret it. Do you know the way out at the back of the house?"
"I do, gracious one," Bedr responded with businesslike promptness.
"Then take these gentlemen, and the ladies, whom I do not need to see, out by that door, and you will all be allowed to go, because my men who are there have seen Lord Ernest Borrow, and they have my instructions."
We waited for no more, but followed Anthony, who made a dash through the further room, and into another. There, on a mattress, crouched two forlorn figures, veiled as if in haste, and muffled in black satin habberahs such as Turkish ladies wear in the street.
"Lord Ernest! Oh, how glad I am!" cried one of these creatures, while the other, less vital or more miserable, whimpered and gurgled a little behind her veil.
"Come along, quick!" I said; and they came. Bedr led the way, thankful to show himself of use. Anthony followed as if to protect or screen the girls from sight. I brought up the rear, and so, scuttling through a rabbit warren of little unfurnished, dilapidated rooms, we found a narrow side staircase, and tumbled down it, anyhow, in dust and dimness. Then two more staircases, and we were in a cellar which looked as if it might once have been used as a prison. Up again, and rattling at a chained door. Then out, into light and air, into the midst of a group, which for an instant, closed threateningly round us. But the sergeant I had seen was among the alert brown men. A glance, a gesture, and we were allowed to pass, a youth running with us, to show the promised carriage and the Arab driver with the red camellia. So it was over, this adventure!
Yet was it over?
That remained to be seen. And remained also, to see what it meant, if indeed there were a meaning underneath the surface.
CHAPTER XII
THE NIGHT OF THE FULL MOON
"It seems too good to be true that it should end like this," said Monny.
She said it on the roof of Mena House, in the kiosk-room made of mushrbiyeh work, which I had engaged for a little private dinner-party that night. You see, it was the night of the full moon, the magic night of the Sphinx-spell, which must not be wasted, no matter how tired you may be or how many excitements you may have lived through.
Anthony and I had had our explanations. He had told me that one night in a café, where he was spreading the news of his dream, he had heard two men talking in low voices about the House of the Crocodile. The word "hasheesh" had not been mentioned, but Anthony had imbibed a vague impression of something secret, and had wondered, and been interested. Then the matter had slipped his mind; but, summoned in the night from the writing of letters, to advise Mrs. Jones, he had recalled Monny's wish to visit a hasheesh den. He knew of none, but suspected the existence of one or two. How to find out in a hurry? he had asked himself. And with that, the remembrance of those few whispered words in the café had come echoing back to his brain. He acted upon the suggestion; went to the door of the swinging crocodile, knocked, and knocked again; had the door opened to him as if in surprise by an apparently sleepy man. Announced the motive of his coming as if it were a foregone conclusion that hasheesh could be smoked in that house by the initiated. His disguise was not suspected. It never was, when he played the Egyptian; and when asked who had sent him, he had the inspiration to utter the name of that Bey who had been Mansoor's master. This gave him entrance. He was taken upstairs, passed through the door "Forbidden to the Public"; and the first person he saw in the long room as he entered, was Bedr smoking a gozeh, one of those cocoanut, cane-stemmed pipes in which hasheesh is mingled with the Persian tobacco called tumbák.
Bedr was accused of treachery, and defended himself. The ladies had insisted. It was his place to obey. He had done no wrong in engaging a carriage to wait outside the Ghezireh Palace gardens, and bringing his employers to the best place in Cairo for the hasheesh smoking. The ladies were safe and happy, in a private room where they had tried their little experiment, and now they were sleeping. As soon as they waked and felt like going home, he was ready to take them. It was for Miss Gilder, not for Bedr, to beg pardon of her friends if they were frightened. And all the time, it had seemed to Anthony, that the man was expecting some one to arrive. He watched the doorway half eagerly, half anxiously; when a servant came or went, he started, and betrayed emotion which might have been disappointment or relief. But when Anthony questioned him, he said, "I expect no one, Effendi. It is only that I shall not be easy till we get the ladies home, now you tell me their people are alarmed."
Just then, and before Anthony saw the girls, a servant had come running in to say that there was an alarm. Something had happened in the street, and the police were there. Mansoor feared that it was a ruse, and that the house was being watched, back and front. Where the forbidden thing is, no precaution can be too great. For their own sakes, and Mansoor's sake, no one must go out, perhaps not till the next night; but luckily a saint's day would give peace for the morrow, and all doors could be shut without causing remark. The news that there was no escape for many hours to come distressed no one apparently, except "Antoun." He had gone to the door, and tried to open it, but found that already it was locked on the other side. Then he knew that it was useless to struggle, for he was unarmed, the door was thick, and no one outside could hear if he shouted. He must use his wits; but first he must make sure that the two girls were safe. He forced, rather than induced Bedr to show him the room they had engaged—a small one, closed only with a portière, and looking over the court, down into the open-fronted recess where Mansoor's family-life went on, like a watch dog's in his kennel.
It was true, as Bedr had said; the girls slept on a cushioned mattress, wrapped in black habberahs, their faces turned to the wall. As they could not be taken out, Anthony did not wake them, but let them get, in peace, their money's worth of dreaming. His next thought was to try and bribe the Arab attendant to smuggle out a letter; but acceptable as a bribe would have been, the man explained his helplessness to earn it, at least for the time being. He could do nothing till one of his fellow-servants came up from below, to pass the food for the imprisoned smokers through a hole in the door, made purposely in case of just such an emergency. Probably no one would appear till morning, for who would be hungry before then? Even with the morning, it might be Mansoor himself who would bring the food, and inquire again at the door if all were well within. But if the noble Hadji wrote the letter, it should be sent when opportunity arose. One of the servants below stairs, said the man, was his father, who might during the next day be able to slip out as if on some errand. Then he would perhaps take a letter, if he could be sure of good pay, and that he would not be delivered up to the police. So Anthony had written on a sheet torn from his notebook, and made an envelope of another sheet. The address of the Ghezireh Palace had helped the man to believe that no evil would reach his father; and a "sweetener" in the shape of all Anthony's ready money had done the rest. But evidently the old man had not succeeded in finding an excuse for an errand until after the noon hour, and meanwhile time had seemed long in the House of the Crocodile. When the girls waked, wanting to go home, they were ill. They found the game not worth the candle—but Anthony's presence had given them comfort. They were humble, and remorseful; and Bedr was so conspicuously a worm that Monny consented to his discharge. "It would take more time than we've got to make him worth converting," she said to Rachel when the Armenian had carefully laid all the blame of the expedition upon her shoulders.
Never were two runaway children more glad to be found and restored to their anxious relatives than Monny Gilder and Rachel Guest. As for Bedr, he took his dismissal, with a week's wages, submissively; but the gravest question concerning him still lacked an answer. Had he merely been officious and indiscreet in guiding the girls secretly to the House of the Crocodile, and there procuring hasheesh to buy them dreams, or had he wanted something to happen, in that house, which had not happened? A certain amount of browbeating from "Antoun," and bullying from me, dragged nothing out of him. And perhaps there was nothing to be dragged. Perhaps it was through oversensitiveness that Brigit and I dwelt suspiciously upon Bedr's motives, and asked each other who it was he had expected at the House of the Crocodile. Even Anthony did not accuse the Armenian of anything worse than slyness and cowardice, according to him the two worst vices of a man; but he volunteered to find out what mysterious night-disturbance in the street had caused the sudden closing of the doors. It was Biddy's thought that the person Bedr wished to meet might fortunately have been prevented by this very disturbance from keeping his appointment, and Monny saved a serious ending to her adventure. It began to seem rather a worry, travelling with so important a young woman as Miss Gilder: and a vague dread of the future hung over me, as it hung over Brigit, who loved the girl. We felt, dimly, as if we had had a "warning," and did not yet know how to profit by it. The atmosphere was charged with electricity, as before an earthquake; and we felt that the affair of the hasheesh den might be but a preface to some chapter yet unwritten. Still, it was impossible not to forgive Monny her indiscretion. Indeed, she became so honey-sweet and childlike in her desire to "make up" for what we had suffered, that the difficulty was not to like her better.
She besought us to forget the episode. If we only knew how sick she and Rachel had been, we'd see why they never wanted to think of those hours again! And when I chanced to mention that to-night would be full moon—the night of nights when the Sphinx and the Ghizeh Pyramids held their court—Monny begged to have the bad taste of her naughtiness taken out of her mouth by a dinner at Mena House. We might dine early, and plunge into the desert later, when the moon was high. Of course, I proposed that all should be my guests—all except "Antoun" who, though recognized as a gentleman of Egypt, was considered by Miss Gilder an alien, not exactly on "dining terms." He was supposed to go home, "to his own address." At eight-thirty he was to take a taxi to Mena House, where he would arrive before nine, in time to help me organize my expedition.
I explained to Monny that, though we should dine privately, it would be my duty to see that the Candace people paid their respects to the Sphinx, and gazed upon her as she ate moon-honey. If they missed this sight, or if anything went wrong with their way of seeing it, I should never be forgiven. But the much chastened Monny graciously "did not mind." She thought it would be fun to watch the sheep-dog rounding up his flock. Useless to explain to her the subtle social distinction between a "Flock" and a "Set" (both with capitals)! To her, the blaze of the Set's smartness was but the flicker of a penny dip. We could drive the crowd on ahead, and look at our moon when they were out of its light.
So there's the explanation of Monny's presence in the mushrbiyeh kiosk on the roof of Mena House, on the night following the great adventure, which would have put most girls to bed with nervous prostration!
Part of our programme, to be sure, had failed; but it was not a part which could interfere with my selfish enjoyment. Mrs. East had changed her mind at the last moment, and had decided not to dine, although I had invited Sir Marcus on purpose for her. According to Biddy, Cleopatra had "something up her sleeve," something her excuse of "seediness" was meant to cover. Maybe it was only a flirtatious wish to disappoint Sir Marcus—maybe it was something more subtle. But it did not matter much to anybody except Lark, who was obliged to put up with Mrs. Jones in place of Mrs. East; for Rachel Guest and the sculptor, whom we nicknamed "Bill Bailey" were to be paired off: and, urged by Biddy, I intended to monopolize Monny.
I suppose there could scarcely be a more ideal room for an intimate dinner-party on a moonlight night than that kiosk on the flat roof of Mena House. Through the wide open doors, and the openwork walls like a canopy of black lace lined with silver, the moonlight filtered, sketching exquisite designs upon the white floor and bringing out jewelled flecks of colour on the covering and cushions of the divans. There was no electricity in this kiosk, and we aided the moonlight only with red-shaded candles, and ruby domed "fairy lamps," the exact shade of the crimson ramblers which decorated the table. For the corners by the open doors, I had ordered pots of Madonna lilies, which gave up their perfume to the moon, and looked, in the mingling radiance of rose and silver, like hovering doves.
"Oh, I could hug and kiss that moon!" sighed Monny, tall and fair in her white dress as the lilies I had chosen for her.
I was relieved that the Man in the Moon has now been superseded by a Gibson Girl; for Monny was beautiful at that moment as a vision met in the secret garden which lies on the other side of sleep.
"And the stars," Monny said, as I watched her uplifted face, wondering just how much I was in love with it, "the little stars high up at the zenith twinkle like silver bees. Those that sit on the edge of the horizon are huge and golden, like desert watch-fires. Oh, do you know, Lord Ernest, if quite a dull, uninteresting man, or—or one that it would be madness even to think of—proposed to me on such a night, I should have to say yes. It would seem so prosaic and such a waste, of moonlight, not to. Wouldn't you feel like that if you were a girl?"
"I'm sure I should," I replied with extraordinary sympathy. "I do feel like it, even as a man. I warn you not to propose, or I shall snap at you."
She laughed; but I was wondering if I were dull and uninteresting enough to stand a chance. It seemed as if Providence were actually handing it to me. But just then Biddy and Sir Marcus came to the doorway which so becomingly framed Monny's form and mine. Naturally that put the idea out of my head; and two such opportunities don't come to a man in a single night.
Dinner was not ready yet, and we sauntered about on the flat roof, white as marble in the moonlight. The sky was milk—the desert, honey —far off Cairo with its crowned citadel, pale opal veined with light, and faintly streaked with misty greens and purples; the cultivated land a deep indigo sea. The fantastically built hotel (in its ancient beginnings the palace of a Pasha) was like a closely huddled group of châlets, looked down on from its central roof. On the fringe of the oasis-garden the cafés and curiosity-shops buzzed with life, and glittered like lighted beehives. Outside the gateway, donkey-boys and camel-men and drivers of sandcarts chattered. To-night, and on a few moonlight nights to come they would reap their monthly harvest. They were all ready to start off anywhere at a moment's notice; but apart from them and their clamour, reposed a row of camels previously engaged, free, therefore, to enjoy themselves until after dinner. As we gazed down as if from a captive balloon, at the line of sitting forms, they looked immense, like giant, newborn birds, with their huge egg-shaped bodies and thin necks. Along the arboured road from Cairo, flashed motor-car after motor-car, their lights winking in and out between the dark trees, now blazing, now invisible, their occupants all intent on doing the right thing: dining at Mena House, and seeing the full moon feed honey to the Sphinx. Some, wishing to save time, or to dine later in town, or to take a train, for somewhere, later, did not turn in at the hotel gate, but swept past with siren shrieks, and tore on, hoping to "rush" the steep hill to the Pyramid platform at top speed. Only a few of the strongest succeeded, and, with a dash instead of an ignominious crawl, triumphantly fanned their lights along the base of that vast monument in which King Cheops vainly sought eternal privacy. What would he say, we wondered, could he see the crowds of tourists tearing out to pay him a call, on their way to the Sphinx? Would he blight them with a curse, or would he remember pearly nights of old, when his subjects assembled in multitudes for the feast of the Goddess Neith when the moon was full, and all the white, brightly painted houses along the Nile reflected their flowerlike illuminations in the water? Anyhow (as Sir John Biddell would have said), this was helping to keep his name before the public; and nothing could succeed in vulgarizing his mountain of gold in its gleaming waves of desert, under pulsing stars and creamy floods of moonlight.
Anthony had told me that the great "tip" was to go out while the less instructed sightseers ate their dinner. Then, the desert was comparatively empty; and, more important still, instead of having the moon on her head, and her face in shadow, the Sphinx received its full blaze in her farseeing eyes. Of this advice I meant to avail myself, feeling vaguely guilty as I thought of the giver, who was absent from the feast: Anthony Fenton, one of the finest young soldiers in Egypt, who could be lionized in drawing-rooms at home if he would "stand for it"! Anthony who, would he but accept the repentant overtures of that tyrannical old prince, his maternal grandfather, might inherit a fortune and a palace at Constantinople! Yet as Ahmed Antoun in his green turban, he was "taboo" at our little party.
He was due later, however, and I rather expected to find him waiting below, when I excused myself to descend to the Set. But I had not left the roof when a note for Monny was brought up by an ebony person in livery. I watched her as she read, one side of her face turned to marble by the moon, the other stained rose by the red-shaded candles. I thought that the rosy side grew more rosy as she finished the letter.
"There's a—message for you, Lord Ernest," she said. "Aunt Clara wants me to tell you that 'Antoun' can't meet you at the hotel, because she —changed her mind about not coming out, and sent for him. She felt better, it seems, and got thinking what a pity it would be to miss the full moon, so she suddenly remembered that 'Antoun' wasn't with us, and decided to invite him. She writes in a hurry and didn't know where they would dine, but says anyhow they'll meet us by the Sphinx between nine and ten."
"Where 'they'd' dine!" echoed Sir Marcus, pricked to interest. "Was she going to let Fe—I mean 'Antoun,' take her out to dinner?"
"Apparently she was," replied Monny, rather dryly.
"Why not?" asked Brigit. "He's perfectly splendid. And Mrs. East—not that she isn't a young woman, of course—is old enough to go about without a chaperon."
"If we're to meet them between nine and ten at the Sphinx," said Monny briskly, "don't you think, Lord Ernest, you'd better hurry and get your people off, so we can set out ourselves?"
"I'm going," I assured her. "But I thought we planned to give them a long start, in hopes that they might be ready to come back by the time we arrived?"
"Oh, well," she said, "that will make it very late, won't it, and we may miss Aunt Clara? Anyhow, lots of other creatures just as bad as yours will be there, for we can't engage the desert like a private sitting-room."
That settled it. I dashed downstairs and sorted out my charges. They had got themselves up in all kinds of costumes, for this "act." One man had on a folding opera-hat, which he had thought just the right thing for Egypt, as it was so easy to pack! Girls in evening dress; men young and old in helmets and straw hats, ancient maidens, and fat married ladies, in dust cloaks or ball gowns, climbed or leaped or scrambled onto camels, with shrieks of joy or moans of horror: or else they tumbled onto donkeys which bounded away before the riders were well on their backs. And men, women, and animals were shouting, giggling, groaning, gabbling, snarling, and squeaking; an extraordinary procession to pay honour to the Pyramids and the lonely Sphinx.
We of the roof-party considered ourselves, figuratively speaking, above camels, far above donkeys, and scornful of motor-cars, in which it was irreverent to charge up to the Great Pyramid as if to the door of a café. We walked, and Monny still lent herself to me; but she no longer bubbled over with delight at everything. A subdued mood was upon her, and her eyes looked sad, even anxious, in the translucent light which was not so much like earthly moonlight as the beginning of sunrise in some far, magic dreamland. She had the pathetic air of a spoiled child who begins suddenly, if only vaguely, to realize that it cannot have everything it wants in the world. And she merely smiled when I told her how, to insure the peace of the desert, I had offered a prize of a large blue scarab as big as a paperweight, for that member of the Set who did not even say "Oh!" to the Sphinx. "Antoun" had "vetted" the alleged scarab and pronounced it a modern forgery; but nobody else knew that, and as a prize it was popular.
The sky had that clear pale blue of dawn, when day first realizes that, though born of night, it is no longer night. Casseopeia's Chair and Orion were being tossed about the burning heavens like golden furniture out of a house on fire; and one great star-jewel had fallen on the apex of cruel Khufu's Pyramid. I should have liked to believe it was Sirius, the "lucky" star sacred to Isis and Hathor; but Monny's schoolgirl knowledge of astronomy bereft me of that innocent pleasure. No wonder that the ancient Egyptians, with such jewels in their blue treasure-house, were famous astrologers and astronomers before the days when Rameses' daughter found Moses in the bulrushes of Roda Island!
The stars spoke to us as we walked, soft-footed, through the sand; and the pure wind of the desert spoke other words of the same language, the language of the Universe and of Nature. Here and there yellow lights in a distant camp flashed out like fireflies; far away across the billowing sands, rocks bleached like bone gave an effect of surf on an unseen shore; now and then a silent, swift-moving Arab stealing out of shadow, might have been the White Woman who haunts the Sphinx, hurrying to a fatal tryst: and the Great Pyramid seemed to float between desert sand and cloudless sky like the golden palace of Aladdin being transported through air by the Geni of the Lamp. There never was such gold as this gold of sand and pyramids, under the moon! We said that it was like condensed sun rays, so vivid, so bright, that the moon could not steal its colour. Cloudlike white figures were running up Khufu's geometric mountain; Arabs expecting money when they should come leaping down, whole or in pieces. And the khaki uniforms of British soldiers mounting or descending for their own stolid amusement, made the Pyramid itself seem to be writhing, so like was the colour of the cloth to that of the stone. No use being angry because the monument was crawling with Tommies! The Pyramids were as much theirs as ours. And probably Napoleon's soldiers spent their moonlit evenings in the same way; a thought which somehow made the thing seem less intolerable.
We climbed to the vast platform of the Ghizeh Pyramids, and then plunged into the billows of the desert, in quest of the Sphinx. Sir Marcus was entitled to call himself the pioneer, but we needed no one to show us the way. It was but too clearly indicated by the bands of pilgrims, going or returning. And among the latter were those whom Monny callously referred to as "poor Lord Ernest's crowd." Miss Hassett-Bean and the Biddell girls made us linger, with sand trickling over the tops of our shoes, while they poured into our ears their impressions of the Sphinx. Miss H. B. thought that She (with a capital S) was a combination of Goddess, Prophetess, and Mystery. Enid thought she was like an Irish washerwoman making a face; and Elaine said she was the image of their bulldog at home. Monny (after a sandy introduction) listened to these verbal vandalisms in horrified silence. I could see that she was exerting herself, for my sake, to be civil to my charges (who were more interested in her than they had been in the Sphinx), and that, if she could have done so without hurting their feelings, she would have struck them dead. But my fears that their mental suggestions might obsess her were baseless. She did not speak when the golden billows parted to give us a first vision of the great Mystery of the Desert. I had led Monny by a roundabout way, and instead of seeing the Sphinx from the back, we came upon her face to face, as she gazed with her wonderful, all-knowing eyes, straight into that world beyond knowledge which lies somewhere east of the moon. Veiled by the night in silver and blue, with a proud lift of the head, she faced past and future, which were one for her, and the present, nothing. The moon gave back for a few hours all her lost loveliness, of which men had robbed her, seeming miraculously to restore the broken features, whole and beautiful as they had been in her youth before history began. It was as if in the moon's rays were silver hands, mending the marred majesty, giving life to the eyes and to the haunting, secret smile. I thought of the story of King Harmachis: how he dreamed that the Sphinx came to him, saying that the sand pressed upon her, and she could not breathe. Nobody since his day had for long left her buried!
"What does it mean to you?" I broke the silence to ask.
"I don't know," Monny said. "All I know is that she's more wonderful than I expected, and as beautiful as the loveliest marble Venus of Italy, though a thousand times greater—if one perfect thing can be greater than another. She's so great that I don't think she can be meant to be a woman—or even a man. She is like a soul carved in stone."
"All in a moment you have guessed the riddle!" I exclaimed, liking and understanding the girl better than I had liked or understood her yet. "I believe that's the secret of the Sphinx. The king who had this stupendous idea, and caused it to be carried out, said to some inspired sculptor, 'Make for me from the rock of the desert, a portrait, not of me as I am seen by men, in my mortal part or Khat, for that can be placed elsewhere; but an image of my real self, my soul or Ka, looking past the small things of this world into eternity, which lies beyond this desert and all deserts.' Then the sculptor made the Sphinx, and gave it such grandeur, such mystery of countenance that instinctively the souls of people recognized the soul look. You have a soul, and it told you the secret. Only those who have no souls find the Sphinx heavy or hideous, or utterly beyond their comprehension."
"Have I a soul?" Monny asked, dreamily. "Men I've known have told me I haven't. Yet sometimes I've thought I felt it fluttering. And if I have a soul, I shall find it in Egypt. Oh, I shall! Something—yes, the Sphinx herself!—tells me that."
I was tempted to ask "What about a heart?" And then—in a violent hurry, before anybody came—to mention my own, into which the moon seemed pouring a little of the honey it had brought for the Sphinx. I did feel that some one owed a moonlight proposal under the Sphinx's nose (or the place where its nose had been) to such a girl as Monny. Her Egyptian experience could never be perfect and complete unless she were proposed to on the night of the full moon, with the Sphinx's blessing; and as no better man was here to do it, I could not be thought conceited if I took the duty upon myself. Besides, Brigit would so thoroughly approve!
"Look here, Biddy, I mean Monny," I began hastily, "there's something I want to tell you, something very important you ought to know, because matters can't go on much longer as they are—"
"Is it something about 'Antoun'?" she broke in, with a little gasp, as I paused for breath and courage. "If it is, maybe I know it already!"
Extraordinary, the relief I felt! I ought to have suffered a shock of disappointment, because I couldn't possibly finish a proposal after such an interruption. But instead, my spirits went up with a bound. Probably, however, that was because her hint was a whip to my curiosity. "What do you know about 'Antoun'?" I asked.
Perhaps I forgot to lower my voice; or perhaps voices carry far across desert-spaces, as across water. Anyhow the clear tones of Cleopatra answered like an echo. "Antoun—Antoun! I hear Lord Ernest calling."
Biddy—dear little matchmaking Biddy—had managed Sir Marcus, Bill Bailey and Rachel, as a circus rider manages three spirited white horses at one time. The desert was her ring, and she had reined her steeds to her will, keeping them out of my way and Monny's at all costs, no matter whether they saw the Sphinx in back view or noseless profile. But Mrs. East's principal occupation in life was not to get me engaged to the Gilded Rose. And either she lost her presence of mind, or else she was not so much enjoying her moonlight tête-à-tête with Fenton, that it was worth while to hide from us behind a sand dune.
The two emerged from a gulf of shadow, Anthony very splendid under the moon, a true man of the desert. I thought I heard Monny draw in a little sharp breath as she saw that noble incarnation of Egypt (so he must have seemed, unless she knew the British reality of him) walking beside Cleopatra.
Then up came the others, Sir Marcus impossible to restrain; and we all talked together as people are expected to talk when they have come thousands of miles to see these monuments of Egypt. Yes, yes! Wonderful—incredible! Which do you find more impressive, the Sphinx or the Pyramids? Isn't it a pity they let the temple between the paws remain buried? And aren't the Pyramids just like Titanic, golden beehives? And can't you simply see the swarming builders, like bees themselves, working for twenty years?
Thus we jabbered; and others, many others, appeared to dispute the scene with us, to break the magic of the moonlight, and to puncture the vast silence of the desert with their cooings and gurglings and chatterings in German, English, Arabic, and every other language known since the Tower of Babel. Arab guides lit up the Sphinx with flaring magnesium, an impertinence that should have made hideous with hate the insulted features, but instead turned them for a thrilling instant of suspense into marble. Indeed, none of our petty vulgarities could jar or even fret the majestic calm of the desert and the stone Mystery among its billows. The Sphinx gazed above and past us all. She was like some royal captive surrounded by a rabble mob, yet as undisturbed in soul as though her puny, hooting tormentors had no existence. It was not so much that she scorned us, as that she did not know we were there.
When we sorted ourselves out, to escape Sir Marcus, Cleopatra deigned to make use of me, having first observed (with burning interest) that Monny and Rachel were with Bailey, and that "Antoun" was pointing things out to Brigit O'Brien, as it is Man's métier (in pictures and advertisements) to point things out to Woman.
"It's been a wonderful evening," Mrs. East said. "It has made up for everything I suffered last night. We brought dinner out into the desert, in that smallest tea-basket, you know, and ate it together, he and I—Antony and I. There! I may as well confess that's what I call him to myself, for I've guessed your secret—and his. But don't be afraid. I won't tell a soul. It's too romantic and fascinating for words—or to put into words. He let me have my fortune told by an Arab sand diviner, who came while we were at dinner. I can't repeat to you what the fortune-teller said. But I feel as if I were living in a book. Oh, if only I were writing it myself and could make everything happen just as I want it to happen! Do you know one thing I would put into the story?"
"No, I can't think," I said, rather anxiously.
"I would have you propose to Monny."
"Oh—by Jove, Mrs. East!"
"Why—don't you admire her?"
"But of course. She's irresistible. Only she's so horribly rich. And besides, she doesn't think of me in that way."
"You can't be sure. Now, Lord Ernest, I'm going to whisper you a secret. I believe—I really do—that Monny would be glad if you'd propose. If I were in your place, if I liked her, I would do so as soon as possible. It might save her from humiliation—from a great trouble."
Being a duffer, I could only say once again, "By Jove!"