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.
Instantly I was certain that what he hoped had not happened, was indeed the thing that had happened. I seemed to see Rechid stirring up a crowd of his fellow Mussulmans, telling them that dogs of Christians had robbed him of his foreign wife, who was on the point of accepting Islam. Nothing easier than for Rechid to find us. All Luxor knew we were in the Temple of Mût. These men of Luxor and other Nile towns of Upper Egypt, had not yet settled down after the outburst against Christian insults which had alarmed the authorities in Cairo. In three days Anthony Fenton had discovered the dregs at the bottom of the teapot and had doubtless done something toward calming the tempest in it, but the troubled water had not time to cool. It could easily be brought to the boil again; and the despoiling of a harem by Europeans —the harem of an important man—would be oil thrown onto the dying fire under the tempestuous teapot.
The furious voices grew louder. From the wave of sound words spattered out and up like spray. Perhaps in all that astonished crowd gathered in the Temple of Mût, Bronson and I were the only ones who knew enough Arabic to catch their meaning. His question was answered. And this was not a stage. Those shouting men were not supers in the wings. They were in earnest. Foolish and dreamlike and utterly unreal as it seemed, their hearts were hot with savage anger against men and women of an alien race: and though what they might do to us would be visited on their own heads to-morrow, they were not thinking of to-morrow now. As for us—it was just possible that owing to this silly dream we were having about a mob of common, uneducated Arabs, for some of us there might not be any to-morrow.
"Is there a back door where we can dash out and give them the slip?" asked Bronson.
I was thinking hard. Mine was the responsibility for my charges, these rich, comfortable tourists from London and New York, Birmingham and Manchester, Chicago and St Louis. None of them knew yet that they were in danger. They were thinking about their dinner, and their pleasant, lighted cabins on board the Enchantress Isis, waiting for them not far away. They realized that something was the matter out there, that a lot of Arabs were making a row; but it interested and amused them impersonally. If somebody had robbed or murdered somebody else, morally it was a pity, of course: but it added to the picturesqueness of the scene, and would be nice to tell about at home. I felt myself overflowing with a sudden, new tenderness for the Set, so often troublesome. This that was going to happen—unless we could stop it —was in truth the affair of Monny and Brigit, Mabella Hânem and the Bronsons, Anthony Fenton and me; but all would be involved, the innocent with the guilty, unless very quickly the duffer of the company could think of some way out.
"No," I heard myself say with decision, "we mustn't leave the temple. They're superstitious about it. Few, if any, will venture in. What they want is to lure us into the open. And there must be no panic. Certainly my friend, unless he's been hurt, is working for us—somewhere. It's only a question of minutes. He borrowed my Browning to-day. I wish—" I glanced toward Brigit and Monny. They stood at a little distance, with Mrs. Bronson and Mabel, but the faces of both were turned toward us. I saw that they guessed the meaning of the uproar outside. Biddy's great soft eyes spoke to mine, spoke, and told me all the truth about myself. How I loved her, Biddy O'Brien, and no one else on earth! How I would die for her, and let all the rest die, if need be, yes, even Monny Gilder, to whom I had been idiot enough to write that letter! If I could save Biddy, what did anything beside matter? But—yes, it did matter. I must save them all. And the light that had lit up my dim soul gave me inspiration. Because I loved Biddy, I knew what to do.
"I've got a little surprise for every one!" I yelled, to be heard over the noise outside, where Rechid Bey's mob was now probably trying to make our donkey-boys and arabeah-men join in the fight or the siege. "Mr. Neill Sheridan will kindly lead the whole party to the sanctuary, which his knowledge of architecture will enable him to find, on the axis of the temple. Down that passage, please! In fifteen minutes the surprise will be ready, and you will receive the signal to return, from Mr. Bronson, American Consul at Asiut—no time for introductions now."
Sheridan, amazed, but perhaps not displeased, emerged from the dark corner where, until the row began, he had been examining a half-erased wall-carving. "Come along, then, everybody!" he shouted good-naturedly; and as the procession formed—discussing the "surprise" and the noise, now mysteriously linked together in the minds of my charges—I saw the veiled and hooded Mabel shyly try to pull Mrs. Bronson into place with her, as near as possible to Sheridan. She must have suspected that there was trouble brewing, and guessed the cause. Her timid, self-centred little soul instinctively sought shelter in the neighbourhood of a friend, who would perhaps have been more than a friend, if he could. So she followed him, he not knowing what eyes the gray veil hid: but Mrs. Bronson broke away from the small hand and hurried back to her husband.
"What am I to do?" she asked.
"Go with the others," he said, quietly. "Take care of the girl. Lord Ernest has some plan."
She went reluctantly; but Brigit and Monny and Mrs. East lingered at the tail of the procession, returning to us as the others vanished down the passage that led toward the sanctuary. I motioned them away, but Monny ran forward, while Biddy kept Cleopatra from following. They talked together and argued, Biddy's arm round the taller woman's waist, as Monny came straight to me, and put into my hand Anthony Fenton's pistol.
"I didn't have to use it," she said. "It's all loaded and ready. And I'm going to stay here with you and Mr. Bronson, to help. What are you planning to do?"
"Please run away," I said, "and take Biddy and your aunt. You must. That's the only help we want—"
"Not till you tell me what you mean to do."
"Oh, only to try a trick to frighten those Arab sheep out there. They funk this temple at night anyhow. And I've just remembered that I brought some Bengal fire to light the place up and amuse the crowd. I thought if a red blaze suddenly burst out it would give those fellows a scare—and the police are on the way—"
"But the Arabs will see that you're only two!"
"They shan't see us at all. We'll hide behind those statues and pot at them if they do come in, which I doubt. Now, off with the three of you!" And I was getting my illumination ready.
To my surprise and relief, Monny obeyed without further argument. Dimly it passed through my mind that she had been profiting by her lessons lately. I threw one glance over my shoulder, more, I'm afraid, to see whether my dear Brigit were on her way to safety than through anxiety for Miss Gilder. The three figures had already disappeared in the darkness, and Bronson and I gave ourselves to the work of lighting up.
An ocean-roar of voices surged round the temple entrance now; but the red light flamed like the fires of hell, and I, peeping from behind a statue, revolver in hand, saw that the temple itself had not been invaded. The flare lit the foreground of the darkness outside, and the columns of the front court. I could see a moving throng of white and black clad figures, gesticulating, running to and fro, seeming to urge each other to some action, yet none coming forward. I sprinkled on more powder, and up blazed the Bengal fire again. Now somebody was taking the lead. A tall man was pushing through the crowd. Would they follow this brave one? My fingers closed round the Browning. He was between the columns at last, but the light was dying down. I threw on all I had of the powder, and stared through the red dazzle to make certain what was happening—since this might decide our fate. The tall man's back was turned to us. He seemed to be motioning the crowd away instead of urging them on. How to make sure, in the blood-coloured glare, whether a man's turban was white or green or crimson? But that gesture—that lift of the head! No mistaking that. The man was Antoun—Ahmed Antoun, the worshipful Hadji, haranguing the mob.
Hardly would they let him speak at first. Those on the outskirts tried to yell him down. I heard the word "traitor!" and before the light ebbed I thought I caught sight of Rechid's pale face under the red tarboosh, Rechid's broad shoulders in European coat, edging past jebbahs and galabeahs, toward the columns. Then, just as the light died, from behind us in the temple came a cry. Above the shouting of the Hadji, who was beginning to make himself heard by the crowd, it rang out shrill and clear—a woman's voice: Monny Gilder's. She called on the name of Antoun, and then was silent.
I lifted my candle-lantern—all that was left to illumine the darkness, and saw at the far end of the court shadowy figures struggling together. It seemed to me that there were not two, but four or five. I ran toward them, and Bronson ran, but some one bounded past us both—a tall man in a green turban. A shot was fired after him, and hit a statue. I heard subconsciously a miniature crash of chipped granite, but I don't think Anthony heard, or had heard anything since that call for "Antoun!"
He had dashed ahead, though we had had the start and were running fast. Rounding a group of statues, erect and fallen, I saw a candle-lantern on the floor, and knew that Monny—and perhaps Biddy—had not obediently followed the procession to the sanctuary, after all. They had waited to watch and listen, hiding behind the black statues of Sekhet, and men who had crept in by another way—doubtless by the small Ptolemaic gate opening on the lake—had taken them by surprise.
Anthony had got to the shadowy mass, which, moved like black, wind-blown clouds, vague and shapeless, before Bronson and I were near enough to distinguish one form from another. As for our eyes, his tall figure blended with the waving shadows; two revolver shots exploded with thunderous reverberations. We did not know if he, or another, had fired; but almost simultaneously with the second shot two black shapes separated themselves from the rest, fleeing into darkness. They took the way by which they must have come, the way leading toward the gate on the lake.
Three seconds later we were on the spot; and the only shadows left resolved themselves under my candle light into the forms of Brigit O'Neill, Monny Gilder, Anthony Fenton, and Mrs. East somewhat in the background.
Monny's hat was off, and Biddy's was apparently hanging by a hatpin. Their hair was in disorder, a rope of Biddy's falling over one shoulder, a shining braid of Monny's hanging down her back. Monny seemed to be more or less in the arms of Antoun, but only vaguely and by accident. Dimly I gathered that she had stumbled, and he had saved her from falling. Biddy was fastening up the front of her gray chiffon blouse, which was open, and torn. Her hands trembled and I could see that her breast rose and fell convulsively; for, though the light was dim, I was looking at her, while I merely glanced at the others. Mrs. East was crying. But Brigit and Monny had smiles for Bronson and me as we came blundering along, stumbling over unseen obstacles.
"Some one stole up behind with an electric torch, and tried to drag me away," said Monny, in a weak little voice, scarcely at all like her own. It sounded as if a ventriloquist were imitating her. "Some one called me Esmé O'Brien—whispered right in my ear. And I screamed, and fought, and Antoun came. I think then the man pushed me down as he ran away. Anyhow I fell, and Antoun picked me up. Oh, Biddy, are you safe? Why, your dress is torn!"
"Yes, but I'm safe," answered another small, weak voice. "I fought, too. I—I think they wanted to rob me. Thank goodness, I didn't have it on."
"The bag, dearest?"
"Yes, darling, the bag. I thought I wouldn't wear it to-day."
Out in the night the yells had subsided since the Hadji's harangue, if not wholly because of it.
"The police have come," said Anthony. "It occurred to me that Rechid and some friends of his were cooking up a plan, and while I was getting into my clothes in the village it jumped into my head what it might be. So on my way out to the temple I stopped and left a warning. We're all right now. And I don't think the Arab lot would have dared venture in anyhow. These chaps who sneaked in at the back and attacked the ladies were dressed like the rest, but I doubt they were Arabs."
He would have doubted still more, if he had known all that I knew. But the one secret I'd kept from him was Biddy's secret. The words "Esmé O'Brien" whispered to Monny, as yet meant nothing save bewilderment to Fenton.
"The fifteen minutes are up, and no signal yet for your famous surprise," called out Sir John Biddell's complaining voice, from the end of a dark passage. "Has anything gone wrong?"
"Oh, I was going to give you a Bengal fire illumination of the temple, for a climax," I explained, coming suavely forward to meet him with my candle. "But the beastly stuff—er—sort of went off by itself, and it's all used up. I was—er—just going to call you."
"Well, not much harm done," said Sir John. "We've seen the sanctuary, such as it is. A little disappointing, perhaps, especially as Mr. Sheridan found a friend with Mrs. Bronson, the Consul's wife, and preferred talking with her to giving out information to us, from his stores of knowledge. But luckily not more than twenty minutes wasted. By the way, what's become of the row outside? Seems to have fizzled down while we were away, like your red fire."
"Yes, a great man of some sort was addressing the crowd. But the police came along and made it move on. There's been a bit of native grumbling in these Nile towns lately—you may have read some paragraph about it in the Cairo papers? So the police are rather quick to break up meetings."
"Why should men meet near the Temple of Mût?" inquired Sir John. "I shouldn't think of doing it."
"Perhaps in the beginning they hoped to get something out of the Europeans," said I lightly. "But they've given that up, evidently."
"I hope they haven't seduced our donkey-boys and arabeah drivers!" exclaimed Sir John. "I'm hungry. And I'm in a hurry to get home."
"Not they. Donkey-boys and arabeah-men aren't easily seduced when there's a question of baksheesh. They're all right! I'm only sorry about the Bengal fire."
"Well, it was a good idea, anyhow," Sir John patronized me.
"C'est vrai," I heard murmur in his chosen language, the Hadji, who had saved the situation. "C'etait une idée très bien pour un—duffer."