“Behold, O Prince of the Jews, the house of Sitt Zeynab!”
The response to the announcement was as alarming as it was unexpected. Cyril fell forward unconscious upon his horse’s neck.
“Guessed it would come to this,” muttered Mr Hicks. “No, sheikh,” when Mansfield and he had tried various remedies in vain, “it’s no good trying to revive him out here. We must get him in somewhere cool and shady, with plenty of water.”
“But why should the Prince of the Jews become as one dead when I show him the house of Sitt Zeynab?” asked the sheikh.
“Well,” said Mr Hicks meditatively, for he was busy superintending the construction of a litter from spears and cloaks, “I guess he thinks you’ve kept him so long upon the road that he hasn’t much time to ward off those disasters he spoke of from your Princess.”
Much subdued by this reply, the sheikh detailed four of his followers to carry the litter, and ordered four others to be ready to relieve them, betraying by such unexpected complaisance the ascendency which Cyril had gained over his mind. Mansfield, in his deep anxiety, dismounted and walked beside the litter, fearing lest the bearers might stumble; but Mr Hicks laughed at him and maintained his position beside the sheikh, with the cheering assurance that this period of insensibility would ensure to Cyril the very rest his brain needed. Mansfield had no attention to give to anything unconnected with the patient, but the American’s restless eyes were everywhere. He noticed the broken columns and other fragments of stonework which began to make their appearance in the sand, and which showed that a considerable town had once stood on this spot, looking for its defence to the fortified hill of Sitt Zeynab. As he approached the fortress he was able to distinguish that the massive wall enclosing the summit of the hill bore evident traces of having been repaired at various points, and probably at very varying dates, with masses of rock and pieces of sculptured marble in place of its own bevelled stone. Above the top of the wall a flat roof supported by pillars was just visible, and at one corner stood a watch-tower of considerable height. Under the shadow of the hill nestled a motley group of black tents and mud huts, keeping guard over an oasis of moderate extent, the greenness of which looked heaven-like to eyes wearied by the glare of the desert. Palm-groves and leafy thickets marked the course of a stream, and fringed the borders of the marsh in which it terminated, and Mr Hicks perceived at once that some attempt was made to cultivate corn and melons with the help of irrigation. The water, the sheikh told him, came from hidden springs in the heart of the hill, and served to keep filled an underground reservoir, for use in the event of a siege, before it was allowed to issue forth into the plain. This information was given as the travellers began to mount the zigzag path which led to the gateway of the fortress. It was evident that their approach had been observed, for one of the heavy doors stood open, and a woman, wrapped from head to foot in a white veil, had stepped outside to await them.
“Is that the Princess?” asked Mr Hicks of the sheikh, looking up at the white figure with involuntary awe.
“Nay, it is only her scribe, but she also is a great woman, one in whom is much wisdom, and the Princess is guided by her counsels. The khawaja will see her eyes like the clouds when the snow is falling upon Lebanon, but I who speak to him have seen them black like the sky in a midnight without stars. That is when the Princess is in great straits.”
“But what sort of difficulties does the Princess get into?” asked Mr Hicks curiously. The sheikh drew nearer, and spoke confidentially.
“There was a time, Khawaja, when I with certain of the tribe was escorting the Princess and her women to Sitt Zeynab. On a sudden we beheld a great host riding swiftly against us, with every sign of war. Then I cried out, loudly, and with intent to deceive the women, ‘Lo! it is the Beni Ayub who have heard that we are ruled by a woman, and are coming to swallow us up.’ But when I looked to see the Princess blench, she cried, as the scribe told us, ‘Let us have no bloodshed! I will go and speak with them,’ and beckoning to the scribe, she urged on her horse. But the scribe cried to me, ‘Stop the Princess! If aught befall her, it were better for thee and thy tribe never to have been born,’ and she dashed forward by herself. Then it was that I saw her eyes black as Iblis, but it was not with fear, for she rode straight up to those who came against us, and spoke boldly to them, I holding fast to the Princess’s bridle, although she cursed me and struck at me with her whip. But when the scribe reached the enemy, behold! they were not the Beni Ayub at all, but the rest of our own tribe, come to greet the Princess. And all the tribe said, ‘Lo! the spirit of a man is in these women. It is no shame to be ruled by them,’ and we were content.”
“And the ladies—were they content when they twigged your little joke?” asked Mr Hicks.
“Nay, the scribe spoke very freely to us all. But who cares for a woman’s tongue?”
“It don’t seem to strike you that it was a queer dodge to play tricks of that sort on your Princess, sheikh. Was it just at the beginning of her reign?”
The sheikh looked straight at Mr Hicks with blank, expressionless eyes. His burst of confidence was clearly at an end. “This is the door of the house of Sitt Zeynab, and here is the scribe of the Great Princess,” he said. “Peace be upon thee, O lady!”
“And upon thee be peace!” replied the veiled woman, in Arabic. “Are the Princess’s letters with thee?”
The sheikh took a leather bag from the front of his saddle, where it had excited the unavailing curiosity of his guests throughout the journey, and presented it respectfully.
“The Princess perceived that one of thy men was being carried in a litter, and she desired to know what had happened, and whether he was badly hurt. But who are these?” There was a wild alarm in her voice, as she caught sight of the travel-stained Norfolk suits of Mr Hicks and Mansfield, whose uniform of abba and kaffiyeh had rendered them until this moment indistinguishable from the Arabs, and she staggered back against the door-post.
“O lady, these men are the servants of the Prince of the Jews, whom we have brought hither from Es Sham to see what is the will of the Princess concerning him. He professes much goodwill towards our tribe, desiring to enter into a treaty with the great lady, and we have perceived that he is a lucky person.”
“Where is he? Let me see him.” The bearers of the litter had deposited their burden upon the ground, and she bent forward to look at it. A convulsive shiver ran through her frame, and she sprang back as though she had seen a snake. “That man?” she ejaculated, and Mr Hicks and Mansfield both observed that her grey eyes, the only feature visible between the folds of her veil, were dilated by anger or horror until the black alone was visible. “O son of misfortune, why hast thou brought him here? He is the Princess’s deadliest enemy, the man that has most injured her in all the world.”
“It may be that he desires to make atonement, O lady,” suggested the sheikh deprecatingly.
“To make atonement—he? Nay, rather to do more mischief,” and she bestowed a dainty but vicious kick upon Cyril’s unconscious form. “Take him and his companions to the vaults, O sheikh, and keep them there safely until they shall return to their own country.”
“Pardon me, madam; if you would allow me a few words with you——” Mr Hicks came forward politely, and spoke in his best Arabic, but he was in difficulties with his kaffiyeh, which he had naturally tried to take off on addressing a lady. The heavy gold-worked handkerchief had become mixed up with the twisted cord which held it to the head, and the consciousness that he was appearing at a disadvantage embarrassed Mr Hicks seriously.
“I will not listen. Take them away. Let no more be seen of them!” cried the lady, escaping into the fortress and shutting the door behind her.
“What a fiend!” ejaculated Mansfield, with blazing eyes, as the rattle of bolts and bars showed that there was no hope of changing her mind.
“Excitable female, any way,” said Mr Hicks, his equanimity restored. “Well, sheikh, I guess you had better march us off to these vaults of yours. See what a pity it is that the Prince of the Jews wasn’t on hand to blarney the lady!”
The sheikh assented gloomily, and giving an order to his followers, they retraced their steps and descended the path.
“Of course you saw that our fair friend was a European?” remarked Mr Hicks to Mansfield, as they followed the litter.
“What, that woman—that—that creature?”
“The lady who just honoured us with her attention. She wore Paris shoes, any way, and a rustling frill round the edge of her gown.”
“I should think she has very good reasons for living out here, then,” was the unchivalrous remark of Mansfield, for the insult offered to Cyril had made his blood boil.
“Now that I would call one of the hasty judgments of youth,” drawled Mr Hicks, and said no more until they arrived at the entrance to their prison, which proved to be a cave at the foot of the hill, approached by a low doorway almost buried in the sand. A man was sent to the village for spades, and the sand was shovelled away until a large flat stone, standing more or less perpendicularly, was laid bare. This rested on rough hinges cut in the rock, and opened inwards like a door. All was dark inside, but it seemed cool and airy. Mr Hicks struck a match. Furniture there was none, with the exception of various heaps of broken pottery and fragments of rock, and what seemed a series of colossal bookshelves lining the walls.
“Look here, sheikh,” said the American, “you’ve got to give us food and lights, and some tent-cloth to sleep on, if you run this high-class hotel.”
“What will the Princess say?” was the lugubrious reply.
“What will she say when the Prince of the Jews speaks with her and tells her how badly you treated us?”
“It shall be done, Khawaja,” and the sheikh gave the necessary orders, which resulted in the arrival soon afterwards of three native lamps, with a supply of oil, some fresh bread and a further provision of the detestable compound of dates, and three pieces of goat’s-hair cloth. Meanwhile, Mansfield had been laboriously bringing in sand, a spadeful at a time, thus forming a substructure on which one of the tent-cloths was laid to make a bed for Cyril. Then the door was shut, and the prisoners were left to their reflections.
“They may call this place the house of the Lady Zenobia as much as they like,” said Mr Hicks aggressively, “but I’ll stick out that it was the Lady Zenobia’s burying-lot, no less.”
“This place—a mausoleum?” asked Mansfield, with marked disgust.
“I guess so. Look at those shelves—all empty, of course; but there’s a choice collection of miscellaneous remains in the room down the passage there, where the light comes in through a hole in the roof. The Arabs have rifled the place, you bet, and lugged the corpses into daylight that they might be sure of missing nothing. All mummied, of course, so you needn’t look so sick.”
“But we can’t stay here!” cried Mansfield, in horror.
“I guess we’ve got to. The lady upstairs don’t calculate to be trifled with, you see. But I’ve slept in many worse locations than this, for it’s clear that the last interment took place several hundreds of thousands of years back, so the deceased won’t interfere with our physical comfort; and if you see a ghost, just hurry up and tell me, and I’ll interview him for the ‘Crier.’ Suppose you fly around and fix things up for the night now. Our supper don’t need much cooking, unfortunately, but the water’s good, any way. You might put out two of those lamps, for it’s past sundown, and I’d as lief keep a light going all night. Guess we’ll fix up one of these pieces of tent-cloth to keep off the draught from that passage. I’m going to sit up with the boss, so I’m better without a bed.”
“No,” said Mansfield, “I’m going to look after him.”
“Young man,” said Mr Hicks firmly, “this is my funeral. Your turn will come to-morrow night, but as the distinguished sufferer’s medical attendant, I calculate to do my obvious duty to-night. The boss is taking a fine spell of rest just now, breathing natural, pulse regular, everything first-rate, but I must be on hand when he wakes up. Now don’t turn nasty, or I’ll sit up next night as well. I’m a peaceable man, but when I get riz, there’s likely to be unpleasantness.”
Accepting the inevitable with the worst possible grace, Mansfield prepared the supper, assisted in hanging the curtain, and finally betook himself to his couch of hair cloth, where he muffled his head in his cloak in the way he had learnt from the Arabs, and was fast asleep in two minutes. He slept until late the next day, and was only awakened by the voices of Cyril and Mr Hicks, as they expressed their heartfelt admiration of his powers of slumber, and suggested exhibiting him to the Arabs as one of the Seven Sleepers. Cyril was in the wildest spirits. The fatigue of the journey seemed to have altogether passed away, and Mr Hicks’s account of the lady at the gateway and her ungracious behaviour had filled him with delight. Mr Hicks, on the contrary, was more silent than usual, and offered presently to show Mansfield a rock-cut swimming-bath, supplied with water from the reservoir of which the Arabs had spoken, which he had discovered while exploring one of the passages branching from the cave. After a few moments’ silence, as they groped their way between the rocky walls, he turned suddenly.
“Mr Mansfield, do I look like a man that would see ghosts?”
“No, I should say not,” replied Mansfield, holding up the lamp to scrutinise his companion’s features; “but you look as if you had seen one now,” he added maliciously.
“That is so, Mr Mansfield. Or I have seen an apparition of a surprising character, any way. About midnight I was sitting on a rock beside the boss, and figuring out what I might clear by transporting to the States that whole cargo of damaged Palmyrene antiquities in the cellar back of ours, and selling them in small quantities to local museums, when I distinctly saw that curtain move that we fixed up. You bet I kept my eyes nailed on it. Well, it was drawn back slightly, and there was an old woman—a little old woman—standing in the passage, wrapped in a white sheet, like our friend at the door above, but I could see her whole face. She never saw me, for the light was between us; but she took a step forward and looked at the boss. I guess I was hasty, but I cocked my six-shooter. She heard me, and in the minutest fraction of a second she was gone. I caught up the light, and made tracks after her, but there was nothing to be seen. I searched every inch of the passage and the cave where the remains are, but she wasn’t there, and there is no means of getting out that way, unless she slithered up the roof to the hole where the light comes in, and that isn’t what you would expect of an elderly female of respectable appearance.”
“But was she a European, as you said the other one was?”
“Can’t say, Mr Mansfield. One old woman is pretty much like another. Maybe she was the ghost of the Lady Zenobia. If that is so, I’ve lost the best chance a newspaper man ever had, and I can tell you I feel real mean.”
“Well,” said Mansfield, with ungenerous exultation, “I can tell you something, and that is, it’s my funeral to-night. You haven’t said anything to the Count?”
“Do I look such a fool as all that, sir? But I’m real down. You could most trample on me. I guess I ought to shove you into the swimming-bath for your impudence, and I would do it, too, if it wasn’t that maybe you would catch cold,” and having launched this Parthian shaft, Mr Hicks departed.
When Mansfield returned to the cave, he found that Cyril was giving audience to the sheikh, who had come to announce their fate to the prisoners. They need cherish no hope of being admitted to the presence of the Princess, or even to an interview with her secretary. The doors of the fortress were irrevocably closed against them, and they would remain in their gloomy prison until they chose to return to civilisation, when they would be escorted across the desert and set down in the neighbourhood of Damascus. The sheikh’s mental discomfort as he made this announcement was very evident, and it was clear that he feared Cyril’s wrath only less than that of his sovereign; but the placid smile with which his message was received served to reassure him, and he retired puzzled but contented. Cyril remained in high spirits all day, his gaiety only increasing towards evening. It was in vain that Mr Hicks attempted to write to his paper, and that Mansfield sat down resolutely with the intention of renovating the clothes of the party, for he gave them no peace. He had a plan, which he persisted in setting before them, conceived in the regulation boys’-book-of-adventure style, for overpowering the sheikh and the guard outside the cave, and scaling the walls of the fortress by the aid of rope-ladders made of twisted strips of hair-cloth, thus literally “dropping in” on the Princess with an urgency that would admit of no denial. He seemed unable to turn his mind to anything else, and at last Mr Hicks took the matter into his own hands.
“Say, Count,” he observed, as he returned, carrying a tray, from a colloquy at the prison-door with some person unknown, “I guess it’s my duty as your medical adviser to warn you against all this excitement. Now here’s some real good coffee that the sheikh has sent us, and I’ve concluded to allow you a cup if you’ll do your level best to sleep after it, but otherwise not so much as a drop.”
“Tyrant!” groaned Cyril. “You know that two days ago we should have been thankful to get drinkable water, but that, having got it, the soul of man refuses to be satisfied without coffee, especially when you tantalise him with the smell. Well, I give in.” He took the cup and sipped it, but his tone changed immediately. “Hicks, you villain! you’ve put some beastly stuff into this coffee.”
“Just to make you sure of a night’s rest, Count. How do you intend to go on the bust to-morrow if you don’t sleep?”
The narcotic produced the desired effect, and before long Cyril was sleeping as soundly as he had done the night before. As soon as this had become evident, Mansfield jumped up.
“Now then, Hicks, off you go!” he said, “and no keeping awake, mind. Honour bright!”
“Honest Injun!” assented Mr Hicks, accepting his dismissal to the recess which Mansfield had occupied the night before. “Guess I couldn’t keep awake if I tried, any way. But mind, you’re to call me if there’s any spiritual manifestation.”
“If I can do it without disturbing the manifestation,” agreed Mansfield, and went on with his preparations for observing, in a thoroughly scientific spirit, any phenomenon that might occur. He looped back the curtain which had been hung over the entrance to the passage, and arranged his bed directly opposite the opening, so that he could command both sides of the passage as far as the light of the lamp would extend. The lamp itself he placed in such a position that he himself was left in shadow, while the eyes of any intruder would be dazzled. Then he wrapped himself in his cloak, leaving a peep-hole through which he could see without being seen, lay down with his cocked revolver in his hand, and waited.
He waited so long, with every sense on the alert, yet disturbed only by purely imaginary noises, that he rebuked himself impatiently when it seemed to him that he felt a breath of cold air in his face, and that he heard at the same moment a slight rustle. But no, this time there was no delusion. From the darkness of the passage emerged the little old woman of whom Mr Hicks had spoken. She gave a quick glance round the cave, then turned her head for a moment, and a taller woman, also wrapped in the swathing white draperies, followed her out into the light. Mansfield’s heart stood still as the two white figures moved softly to Cyril’s side, and stood looking down at him. Could they intend to murder him? But even as he raised his revolver noiselessly to cover them, the taller woman’s veil dropped from her face, and he saw that her hands were clasped convulsively on her breast. Still she stood looking down at the sleeper, until her companion touched her gently, when, to Mansfield’s utter bewilderment, she stooped and kissed Cyril softly on the forehead. The old woman drew her away, and they vanished.
CHAPTER XVII.
FACE TO FACE.
“Mansfield, was any one in here last night?”
“Why—er—how do you mean, Count? Oh, when the sheikh’s son brought the coffee?”
“No, no, much later than that. Was there any one?”
“I—I suppose there must have been. I don’t know.”
“But why do you suppose so? because I ask you, or because you saw some one? Why can’t you say?”
“Because I am not sure. I saw something.”
“But what could it have been if it was not a person? a ghost?”
An embarrassed laugh from Mansfield revealed that the chance shot had hit the mark, and Cyril’s eyes gleamed with mischievous delight.
“Come, this is interesting! Let us hear about it.”
“Well, Count, I saw—at least, I thought I saw—two ladies come into the cave from the passage and look at you.”
“How flattering! Did you see their faces?”
“The first lady was old and bent. I think Mr Hicks caught sight of her the night before, and frightened her away. There was nothing particular about her face. The other was taller, but not really tall. She let her veil fall when she was standing beside you, and I saw that her hair was white, but her face looked quite young—comparatively.”
Cyril closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again slowly. “And did she do nothing but look at me?”
“She clasped her hands—like this. I don’t know whether it was because she was glad or sorry.”
“Is that all? You are sure there was nothing else?”
“She—she stooped down and—and kissed you, Count.” Mansfield’s abashed voice would have provoked his auditor to laughter at any other moment, but now Cyril only nodded approvingly.
“I thought I couldn’t have dreamt it. And after that?”
“They slipped back into the passage, and disappeared suddenly. I can’t find any door through which they could have gone.”
“Well, we can think of that presently. I am heartily obliged to you, Mansfield. It’s a comfort to have a man about one who can tell his tale sensibly, without interlarding it with wretched feeble jokes. Any one could make a joke of this affair, no doubt, but not when it is looked at in the proper light. Of course you know who the lady is?”
“I, Count?” Mansfield’s astonished face attested his ignorance sufficiently.
“It has never once struck you that the Queen of the Desert and Queen Ernestine are one and the same person? Nor that one of the letters which the sheikh carried in that leather bag of his was from Fräulein von Staubach, and contained the news of your invasion of Brutli, and identified me with the Prince of the Jews?”
“But how long have you known it? and why didn’t you——”
“Share my knowledge with you? Because I thought that you and Hicks deserved a little punishment for mixing yourselves up in my affairs. I have not known the truth long, of course. When Fräulein von Staubach told you that she could not mention my name to the Queen for a fortnight, that set me on the track. Some time ago I chanced to hear that the Queen had held out for a whole fortnight before she would consent to see some one. Of course she was being sent for from here. When the coincidence had once flashed upon my mind, everything was clear—the Queen’s persistent isolation on the one hand, and the extraordinary proceedings of the Arab Princess on the other. The rescue of the persecuted tribe, the idea of obtaining the mediation of the Empress of Pannonia—who is Queen Ernestine’s sister-in-law—and the threatened appeal to the Powers, are all characteristic of her. Then you know that no one ever heard of the Queen of the Desert until two years ago, which corresponds roughly with the time Queen Ernestine disappeared from the public gaze. My hypothesis accounted for all the facts, and you see it was correct.”
“But how can you be sure, when you didn’t see the lady last night?”
Cyril smiled impatiently. “My dear Mansfield, I felt she was there. That’s enough for me. Did Hicks see her?”
“No, he was asleep.”
“Then I think you need only mention to him that you saw his old lady of the night before. Hicks is a good fellow enough, but there are times when he would sell his soul to purchase a sensation for his paper. It is just like the Queen to have made this midnight expedition, but you needn’t—I don’t want——”
“Oh, I understand,” said Mansfield hastily. “He shall never hear about it from me.”
“And now, Mansfield, we will make a searching investigation of the walls of the passage. I want to find that secret door through which the ladies came and went, and then we will pay them a visit.”
Mr Hicks, returning at this moment from conferring with the sheikh on the subject of a change of food for the party, was duly informed of the reappearance of his ghost, and joined with extreme zeal in the hunt for the door, although a close observer might have perceived that when his face was turned away from the others it underwent a series of extraordinary contortions, suggestive of suppressed mirth. For some time the search was fruitless, the smooth surface of the rock on both sides of the passage displaying no indication of any joint or crack, even when examined minutely with the aid of a lamp.
“Mansfield,” said Cyril at last, “lie down where you were last night, and tell me exactly how far the lady had got when she disappeared.”
Mansfield obeyed, and was able to indicate the spot with tolerable precision, by estimating its distance from the edge of the curtain.
“Now, Hicks,” said Cyril, “the lamp here, please. I think we may be pretty sure that the door is in the left-hand wall, as that is the side on which the hill is, and I should imagine we shall find the spring two or three feet either to the right or the left of the point at which the lady vanished.”
He began to test the wall by pressing it carefully with his fingers, keeping his left hand a few inches higher than his right, and before very long Mr Hicks gave a shout.
“You’ve hit it, Count! I saw something give that time, and here’s a break in the wall ahead of you. Guess you’d better let me help you shove.”
But the stone door moved so easily upon its pivot that this was unnecessary. It swung open without the slightest sound, revealing the foot of a flight of steps cut in the rock.
“Now this is what I call real thoughtful of the Lady Zenobia,” said Mr Hicks. “If she found it necessary to assist a friend into the next world, there was no need to have corpses lying around upstairs. She could plant them out in her lot down here quite comfortably, and no one the wiser.”
“Now,” said Cyril, panting a little, “you and I will make a voyage of discovery, Mansfield. Do you know, Hicks, I think your nocturnal visitor must be an old acquaintance of mine, Baroness von Hilfenstein? I needn’t tell you in whose household she is, and you won’t be surprised to hear that I intend to make a call on her.”
“You don’t calculate to leave me out of the party, Count, I hope?”
“I’m afraid I must on this occasion. Who is to receive the sheikh and bamboozle him as to our doings, if we all go? He would scour the passages, thinking we were trying to escape, and we should be brought back before we could do anything.”
“That’s so, sir. Go ahead,” and Mr Hicks got out his fountain pen and his writing-pad, and set to work on a letter to his paper, while Mansfield, by Cyril’s directions, made himself as smart as his extremely limited resources allowed. His employer was one of those fortunate people who contrive always to be presentable in spite of the most adverse circumstances, but he displayed unwonted anxiety about his appearance on this occasion, and Mr Hicks smiled grimly as he closed the stone door upon the flickering light carried by Mansfield.
“You ought to have known me better, Count. As if all this prinking wouldn’t tell me what was on hand even if I hadn’t used my eyes last night! You deserve I should make a real blood-curdling, soul-thrilling, romantic, pathetic life-drama out of you and your Queen, but you and I are partners, and I’m on the square, any way.”
The rock-cut staircase up which Cyril and Mansfield made their way was narrow and winding, but quite dry, and the edges of the stone were as sharp as if they had only been hewn a day. Air was admitted from the outer world by means of shafts reaching to the face of the rock, but these were too small to allow the entrance of more than a ray of light, which served to increase by contrast the surrounding darkness. A quantity of sand, admitted in the course of ages through these air-shafts, was heaped in the corners, but Cyril pointed out to Mansfield that the flowing robes of the nocturnal visitors had swept a clear pathway in the middle of the steps. The two men went on, up and up, now turning to the right and now to the left, sometimes finding themselves on ground which was almost level, and again confronted with steps nearly two feet high, until there was a change in the sound of their echoing footsteps, and they discovered that instead of solid rock the walls and roof were now of masonry.
“This is the wall of the fortress, then!” said Cyril. “Interesting question where we shall come out—in the palace itself, or hopelessly outside.”
He was hot and panting, and his voice vibrated strangely. Mansfield suggested a rest, but he shook his head. “No, no,” he said impatiently; “let us go through with it now, and know the worst.”
The passage ended abruptly in a stone door like that by which they had left the cave. Mansfield pushed it open, cautiously at first, for in the blinding glare of sunlight into which it admitted them they could not at once see where they were. Then came disappointment. True, they stood inside the circuit of the vast wall visible from the plain, but before them loomed the huge side of the palace, blank and windowless, built of immense blocks of bevelled stone. Travelling upwards from one course of Cyclopean masonry to another, the eye could discover no opening into the interior of the building until it reached the colonnade supported on columns which crowned the roof. Between the palace and the outer wall was a space of waste ground overgrown with coarse dry grass and low bushes, and Mansfield crept softly among the scattered rocks and fragments of carved stone, which lay everywhere around, towards the back of the building, and peered round the corner.
“Nothing there but a few servants’ huts and attempts at gardening—certainly no door into the palace,” he whispered, returning.
“Very well, we will try this way,” said Cyril, turning to the right, but here again was disappointment. The entrance to the palace was before them, indeed—a huge pillared portico with great stone doors; but these were as closely shut as the wooden gate facing them, which the angry lady had fastened behind her two days before. A small grated window above the door was the only opening here, and it was far beyond even Mansfield’s reach. But Cyril did not exhibit any sign of discouragement.
“Take one,” he said, sitting down at the base of one of the columns and holding out his cigar-case. “There are only two left, but Sir Philip Sidney’s generosity was nothing to mine when there is anything to be gained by it. What I want to gain just now is an interview with the lady of the gateway, whom I take to be Princess Anna Mirkovics.”
Mansfield obeyed, much puzzled, and they smoked in silence for some minutes. Then a female voice, speaking in German, broke the stillness.
“Those servants again!” it said. “How often have I forbidden them to smoke in the neighbourhood of the Queen’s apartments! They know how much she dislikes the smell. Which of them can it be?”
“Drawn!” whispered Cyril. “Though it is a little hard to have one’s best cigars mistaken for the stuff these fellows smoke, isn’t it?”
“Markor! Zachary! Johannes! which of you is smoking out there?” cried the voice, which Mansfield recognised as that of the lady of the gateway, in Arabic, and her face appeared at the window. She recoiled precipitately when she saw Cyril, who bowed to her with the utmost politeness.
“You here!” she cried, her eyes dilating as they had done before. “What do you want?”
“An audience of her Majesty, mademoiselle.”
“I thought so. I felt sure you would come cringing back to the woman you had wronged, but you shall not see her. I will not have her made miserable a second time by you.”
“Mademoiselle, I acknowledge you readily as a true prophet—I will even confess that your reproaches are deserved—but it lies with her Majesty, and not with you, to grant or refuse me an interview.”
“It does lie with me. I refuse to submit your request to her Majesty, do you understand? I take upon myself the responsibility of excluding you from her presence. You shall not tear open the cruel wound you once made. I will have you dragged back again to your prison.”
“Pardon me, mademoiselle. I am master of the situation at present, for I fancy the Arabs would obey my orders—perhaps as readily as your own. In any case, the sounds of a scuffle would attract the Queen’s attention.”
“I have no fear of the fidelity of the Arabs, Count.”
“Then pray test it, mademoiselle. I ask merely that my presence here should come to her Majesty’s knowledge. Her pleasure is my law. If she refuses to grant me an audience, I will go away without another word.”
“Then consider that she has refused it, for it will not be granted. I am bold enough to risk her Majesty’s displeasure when it falls to me to guard her happiness. You need not hope to move me by an air of meekness, of suffering. Pray remain there in the sun the whole day. I rejoice to see you shut out—unable to reach her. Nothing could please me better.”
“Pardon me, mademoiselle, there is one thing wanting to complete your enjoyment. If her Majesty rejoiced to see me shut out, then you could be happy indeed. But you are afraid to lay my request before her, because you know that she would grant it.”
“I cannot stand talking all day,” said the lady angrily. “You, Count, have doubtless plenty of time to spare. I hope you may enjoy yourself!”
She disappeared from the grating, and all through the long, hot, noonday hours Cyril held his ground, with Mansfield, as determined as himself, at his side. Recommended to find his way back to the cave and take counsel with Mr Hicks, Mansfield refused to leave his post in the portico. With the nature of the grudge that Princess Anna Mirkovics cherished against Count Mortimer he was unacquainted; but she seemed to have little regard for consequences provided she could obtain her revenge. In the course of the afternoon she appeared again at the window, fresh from a cool siesta—so, with a refinement of cruelty, she informed them—and jeered at Cyril’s persistence in remaining where he was not wanted, and where he could do no good. Even Mansfield grew fainthearted after this. Cyril’s paleness and evident exhaustion alarmed him, and he suggested a retreat to the cave and the employment of Mr Hicks as ambassador. But Cyril was resolute.
“I’ll stay here till I get in, or die on her doorstep!” he said fiercely, and Mansfield offered no further suggestions. Their patience met with its reward at last, although this would scarcely have happened had Princess Anna been able to resist informing Cyril that the Queen was about to spend the evening in the garden, and he might therefore give up the hope of attracting her attention. Scarcely had she departed when another face appeared at the grating, that of Baroness von Hilfenstein, coming to see who it was that had been conversing in French with her colleague.
“You here, Count!” she said, with reproachful incredulity. “This is a—a—an unpleasant surprise.”
“Baroness, you are very cruel, when I have spent the whole day here in the hope of catching a glimpse of you.”
“You can hardly expect me to believe that, Count.”
“Even though you know you are going to get me an interview with the Queen?”
The Baroness threw up her hands. “Not that, Count, not that!” she pleaded piteously. “You would not make such an inexpedient, ill-timed request?”
“But I do make exactly that request, Baroness. One word with her Majesty—that will tell me all I want to know.”
“But, my dear Count,” said the old lady persuasively, “you must really be patient. Her Majesty was quite gratified—yes, I think I may without impropriety use the word—to hear from Fräulein von Staubach that you were anxious to wait upon her, and I think it is extremely probable that she will command your presence when the Court returns to Brutli. But now—I really could not say how she would receive this unfortunate application of yours!”
“I will take my chance of that, Baroness. And here I stay until you assure me that her Majesty positively refuses to receive me.”
“Now, Count, be reasonable.” The Baroness was much distressed by Cyril’s persistence. “I am sure you don’t wish to involve her Majesty in any unpleasantness? And poor dear Princess Anna, who has made such sacrifices, and shown such devotion to the Queen, would almost break her heart if she saw you received in audience. You see, she does not even know of Fräulein von Staubach’s letter—I happened to be in attendance when her Majesty opened it, and we thought it better to—to spare her feelings. Of course you understand?”
“Am I to understand that Princess Anna’s feelings will be considered before mine? I know I have not deserved consideration, but——”
“Her Majesty is all consideration, Count. She knows that the Prince of the Jews is here, for one of the Armenian servants heard it from the Arabs, but she believes you think she is at Brutli. She is able to identify the Prince of the Jews, but she does not know that you have found out who the Queen of the Desert is.”
“I see,” said Cyril meditatively. “Then this explains why you played the ghost the night before last, Baroness—and last night also?”
“Count!” The poor Baroness renounced the unequal struggle. “You knew it all the time, then? I was over-persuaded—her Majesty insisted—I was horrified, but still—Oh, come in, Count,” she began to unfasten the door. “You must say what you like to the Queen. I might have known that if you were determined to get in you would. Will your—your suite accompany you?” glancing doubtfully at Mansfield.
“I am afraid I shall need his arm,” said Cyril, with a laugh. He was shaking from head to foot as Mansfield helped him through the doorway and across the paved hall into which it led. The Baroness, in a state of extreme trepidation, went before them, turning at every few steps to hasten them on, or warn them not to speak, but they met no one. A door at the farther end of the long hall led into an inner courtyard, which was partially laid out as a garden, and surrounded by a half-ruined colonnade, entwined with gourds and other creeping plants. In the shade of the dwarf palms and shrubs at the opposite side could be seen two white-robed figures.
“Her Majesty walks here in the evenings,” said the Baroness, with a gasp of uncontrollable excitement, “and Princess Anna is with her. When they pass this doorway you must do what you think best,” and she fled back into the hall.
“Mansfield! when she comes, help me to kneel down, and then make yourself scarce,” said Cyril breathlessly.
He was gripping Mansfield’s arm hard as they stood in the shadow of the doorway, and the two women, unconscious of their presence, came slowly towards them. Anna Mirkovics seemed to be talking excitedly, regardless of etiquette, but the Queen paid little or no attention to her, pacing the time-worn stones in silence, with her eyes on the ground, and a half-smile upon her lips.
“Surely, madame, you were not really thinking of returning to Brutli at present?” cried her companion, as they turned the corner.
“Now!” panted Cyril to Mansfield, and as the Queen approached he fell on his knees before her. She started back, and Anna Mirkovics screamed. Mansfield had retreated swiftly into the doorway.
“Cyril!” cried the Queen, irrepressible joy in her voice; then, more doubtfully, “Is it you, Count?”
“My dearest, forgive me!”
“Madame!” Anna Mirkovics had recovered herself, “allow me to have this person removed. Is he to be permitted to intrude himself upon you in this insolent manner? Madame, you will not suffer him to approach you?”
“Anna, you forget yourself.” The maid of honour shrank before the tone, and the gesture with which the Queen waved her aside, but she made another valiant effort.
“Oh, madame, listen to me for one moment! You know how I love you—that I would give everything I have in the world to provide a moment’s happiness for you. Don’t expose yourself again to this man’s cruelty. He returns to you merely that he may gratify his ambition. He cannot love. Trust me, madame; I love you better than my life.”
“I am in your hands, Ernestine,” said Cyril faintly. “If you command me to leave you, I will go at once.”
“To leave me, when I have been waiting years for you? I knew you would come back, Cyril, but I was often sick with longing. Go, Anna; you do not understand. If Count Mortimer were to forsake me again to-morrow, I would welcome him now.”
“Oh, my dearest, I have not deserved this!” broke from Cyril. “That day—that day—when you knelt to me, and I would not listen——”
“Don’t, don’t!” murmured the Queen painfully. “I can’t bear to remember it. Oh, Cyril, you would not even send me a kind word! You did not know how I loved you, or you could not have been so cruel.”
“I didn’t even know how I loved you, Ernestine. I thought it was all over, but I have never had a happy moment since.”
“I am so glad!” she replied, with a radiant smile. “That is selfish of me, isn’t it? but I was always jealous of your policy, you know. Cyril, my beloved, if you knew how I have prayed for this day! I used to wish that I might die, because I thought you would come to me if I was dying. But now—oh, I am too happy! No, you are not to kiss my hands. Come and sit here, and tell me what you have been doing all these years.”
A despairing groan at his side made Mansfield start, as he stood in the shadowy hall, out of earshot of the garden. Turning quickly, he saw Cyril leading the Queen to a seat, and found that Princess Anna, in the shadows beside him, was also a witness of the reconciliation. The sight seemed to destroy her self-command altogether, for she fell upon him as the nearest victim, and stormed at him in Thracian for some minutes. Then, either because her anger had exhausted itself, or because she was mollified by his enforced meekness under her attack, she burst into tears, and was led away, sobbing bitterly, by Baroness von Hilfenstein, who appeared opportunely from out of the gloom.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE PENALTY OF GREATNESS.
“Well, gentlemen!” said Mr Hicks, as Cyril, holding tightly to Mansfield’s arm, stumbled painfully into the cave about sunset, “I’m glad to see you, any way, for I had a notion that the gateway lady might have fixed you both up with safer quarters than these, but I guess the distinguished patient is about played-out?”
“Never felt better in my life!” returned Cyril, collapsing on his bed. “Don’t plague me to-night, Hicks. I shall be as fit as possible after a good rest.”
“No, sir. I think I see myself allowing you to die of starvation. Joy may seem to answer every demand of a man’s nature, but it don’t serve him instead of his regular meals. Come, you don’t incline to give her Majesty the trouble of coming all this way down to see you again right now, do you?”
“Then you were awake after all?” said Cyril, accepting meekly the bowl of broth which Mr Hicks forced upon him. “I thought your sleep was suspiciously profound.”
“Well, Count, I don’t mind allowing that I wasn’t as fast asleep as I looked. But I was on my honour not to interfere with Mr Mansfield’s plan of campaign, and I didn’t. For the rest, you may be sure that the grave isn’t a circumstance to me in the matter of discreet silence.”
“I haven’t a doubt of it. Well, this soup of yours has waked me up pretty thoroughly, so I may as well explain things a little to the two of you, for I can see you are both palpitating with curiosity. It seems that when the Queen was obliged to leave Thracia, she chose Brutli as her place of refuge, for family reasons. The senior deaconess was once betrothed to one of the Schwarzwald-Molzau princes, but he died just when the family had given their consent to his marrying her. The sisters received the Queen most kindly, but she found that her steps were continually dogged by spies. The Princess of Dardania was anxious to have it thought she was mad, and seems to have left no means untried to make her so. It was partly this perpetual espionage that made her refuse to admit any man to her presence, and partly—well, that was my fault.”
“Very natural in the circumstances, Count.” Mr Hicks’s comment was diplomatically ambiguous.
“Of course such seclusion only gave colour to her cousin’s inventions, and the Queen and her ladies saw this. It was Mlle. Mirkovics who devised a plan of relief. She was in Damascus when the Vali arrested the Beni Ismail for non-payment of their tribute, and she told the Queen about it. Her Majesty was so much affected and distressed that Princess Anna, to please her, paid up the arrears of tribute through the sheikh. After such kindness as that, he could not refuse to answer the questions she asked him about the unknown desert in which his tribe were said to live, and he even offered to guide her to this place, Sitt Zeynab, thinking that all Europeans were interested in antiquities. The tribe had kept it in some sort of repair as a fortress for use in war-time, but they preferred sticking to their tents in the oasis whenever they could. It seems to have struck her that this might afford the Queen the refuge of which she felt the need, and when the sheikh came to her in his next trouble she made a bargain with him. The Queen induced the Empress of Pannonia to use her influence at Czarigrad, so saving the tribe from deportation, and they accepted her as their ruler. They have really made rather a good thing out of it, for they have been provided with food, and had their tribute paid, on condition that they robbed no more caravans. Of course the Vali and Mahmud Fadil know the truth about the mysterious Princess, but they have accepted a present to hold their tongues, and they are honourable men.”
“But General Banics and M. Stefanovics—don’t they know?” cried Mansfield. “To keep them there at Brutli eating their hearts out——”
“The Queen told me herself that she had entreated them to return to Thracia, but they refused to go. No, they do not know. It was impossible to confide the secret to them, for the Princess of Dardania’s emissaries are buzzing round them continually. Naturally Madame Stefanovics knows the truth, for she spends part of every day at the Institute, with the lady who is left there to delude the Queen’s visitors. Mlle. Mirkovics and Fräulein von Staubach spend alternate months here and at Brutli, and do their best to account for the fortnight which must pass before the Queen can be seen, or can give an answer to any question.”
“Guess it’s a queer life here for a set of lone women,” remarked Mr Hicks.
“The Queen seems to have found it rather peaceful than otherwise. They have plenty of servants—fugitive Armenians who were glad to find a refuge here with their wives and children—and the Arabs are wonderfully amenable. They have lost their old occupation of highway robbery, but they find it rather interesting, for a change, to mislead inquisitive travellers, and they appear to be taking kindly to the cultivation of their oasis. The Queen is much too devoted to the tribe to take leave of them altogether, but I think they will be able to get on with an occasional visit.”
“When her Majesty and you are reigning at Jerusalem?” There was a touch of awe in Mr Hicks’s voice. “Well, Count, I have always reckoned you the most almighty successful man of my acquaintance—with runs of bad luck now and then, of course, like the rest of us—but you bet I never thought of anything like this. You start right away into the desert on the maddest freak in creation, and it brings you out just where you calculated to be, and fixes you up with the finest future a man could desire. But then you started with getting round the twelve tribes of Israel, and the man that can do that has little to learn, even with regard to the female persuasion.”
“You see, once I had the clue, the whole mystery surrounding the Queen of the Desert vanished away,” said Cyril. “It is rather hard on Mlle. Mirkovics, for I am convinced that one of her reasons for bringing the Queen here was the desire to remove her beyond the reach of my baleful influence, but that is the way things happen in this world. By the bye, the Queen would like me to present you both to her to-morrow, so be prepared.”
“Count,” said Mr Hicks warningly, “I’m a plain American citizen, whose intercourse with kings and queens and courts has been strictly professional. Do you ask me to compromise my independence right now by figuring round as a member of your suite?”
“No, I don’t,” said Cyril, while Mansfield laughed, remembering the Baroness’s description of himself; “I want to introduce you both, as my friends, to the lady who is going to do me the honour of marrying me. She knows that I owe my life to you both several times over, and that I couldn’t have got here without you.”
“Shake, Count!” said Mr Hicks; “you’re a white man, sir. And if it would make you any happier, you may bet your last red cent I would go so far as to put on a Court suit for the occasion, if you had one here and offered it me.”
With this magnanimous surrender on Mr Hicks’s part, the conversation ended, and on the morrow it appeared that he was highly dissatisfied with the meagreness of the preparation it was possible to make for his visit to the Queen. His travel-worn clothes and the helmet in which he had ridden out of Damascus were the objects of much anxious care, and he went so far as to offer to part with his cherished beard, if Cyril thought well, but the sacrifice was gratefully declined. Little time was allowed for personal decoration, since the prisoners had scarcely finished breakfast when the sheikh made his appearance, his demeanour betokening a vast increase of respect, to the extent even of sending a messenger in advance, to ask whether the Prince of the Jews would receive him. On entering, he bowed to the ground before Cyril.
“O my lord, the Princess desires thee and thy servants to come to her. ‘Where are my friends?’ she says. ‘Bring them here, that I may make with them the treaty that they desire.’ O my lord, how is this? It has never been the pleasure of the Princess heretofore that any stranger should approach her.”
“What did I tell you?” asked Cyril, through Mr Hicks. “Didn’t I say that the Princess would receive me and enter into a treaty?”
“O my lord, thy words sounded in the ears of thy servant as foolishness, but they have indeed proved true. My lord will speak favourably of his servant before the Princess?”
“By all means,” said Cyril pleasantly, as the sheikh drew back to allow him to pass out of the cave. Once outside, the whole party mounted their horses, and rode up the hill-path in state, escorted by the tribesmen, who discharged their guns at intervals to do honour to the mighty stranger. Arrived at the gate, where the Armenian servants were drawn up in line to receive the visitors, the sheikh alone entered with his guests. Just as the gate was closing, Mansfield uttered an exclamation.
“There are two men on camels riding across the desert from the direction of Damascus!” he cried. “They are kicking up a tremendous cloud of dust, so they must be coming fast.”
“It is doubtless a post bringing letters for the Princess,” said the sheikh; “but I know not why there should be two men. See, the watchman has observed them,” as a shot rang out from the lofty tower on the wall. “Word will be brought at once if there is any ill news.”
They passed on through the portico into the great hall, and paused before the doorway of a room opening from it on the left. A servant drew aside the curtain, and revealed Queen Ernestine enthroned upon a marble seat, with Baroness von Hilfenstein and Mlle. Mirkovics standing behind her. All three ladies were swathed from head to foot in white isars, but the sheikh prostrated himself without venturing to steal a glance at them, and remained with his forehead touching the ground.
“Behold, O great Princess, the Prince of the Jews,” he said. “He is come to learn thy will concerning his nation.”
“It is well,” said the Queen, through Princess Anna. “My scribe shall declare to him my pleasure, and do thou wait without to conduct him back to his lodging when the audience is over.”
The sheikh retired, quitting the awful presence of his sovereign with unconcealed willingness, and when he was safely out of sight the ladies relieved the Queen of her veil. After a word or two with Cyril, she turned to Mr Hicks and Mansfield with a smile that won their hearts for ever.
“Count Mortimer’s friends are mine,” she said, stepping forward and holding out a hand to each; “and he has told me what good friends you have been to him. Please do not think I shall be jealous of his affection for you. I know that I owe this meeting to your fidelity to him.”
To Cyril’s intense delight, that sturdy republican, Mr Hicks, dropped on one knee to kiss the Queen’s hand, as though to the manner born, murmuring:
“If I were Count Mortimer’s deadliest enemy, madame, I guess the inducement you offer would make me friends with him right away.”
“I know your story,” said the Queen softly to Mansfield, as he kissed her hand in silence, unable to utter a word. “Consider me your friend, and let me assure you that Count Mortimer is also on your side. When one is happy oneself, one is always eager to make others so.”
Cyril smiled involuntarily, as he wondered in what light the Queen would regard Mansfield’s love-story when she heard of her son’s admiration for Philippa, and there was the faintest ghost of a bitter laugh from Mlle. Mirkovics. A pained look crossed the Queen’s face, but before she could speak, the sheikh’s voice was heard on the other side of the curtain, very close to the ground.
“Let the Princess pardon the presumption of her servant, but word is come for the Prince of the Jews, entreating him to return immediately to Es Sham. The messenger has travelled day and night.”
Mlle. Mirkovics interpreted the words, and the Queen’s eyes filled with tears as they met Cyril’s. He had made an involuntary movement towards the door, but her gaze of entreaty drew him back.
“I am at your commands, madame,” he said, with forced calmness.
“If I ask you, you will stay?” she said, too low for the rest to hear, and her eyes marked, almost with agony, the struggle in his face.
“I will stay, Ernestine—if you ask me,” he replied at last. He spoke without enthusiasm, but with the desperate resolution to atone by one tremendous sacrifice for his past sins against her.
“But I don’t ask you. You must go—at once, if it is necessary. But come to me before you start, and tell me what has happened. Messieurs,” she turned again to Mr Hicks and Mansfield, “I regret to have had so little conversation with you. We must meet again—at Brutli, I hope. There is much that I wish to ask you.”
Again the gleam of that dazzling smile, for which, as Mr Hicks confided afterwards to Mansfield, he would have walked round the world, and the visitors retired. The moment they were gone, the Queen turned to Anna Mirkovics.
“Anna, you have disappointed me—grieved me bitterly. You will not forget!”
“How can I forget, madame? He leaves you now—even now—in a moment, for his policy.”
“I told him to go. He would have stayed. Why will you not consent to be happy, since I am? It breaks my heart to see how you hate him.”
“Madame, I do rejoice to see you happy. There is nothing I desire more on earth. But I cannot forget. In my eyes, your happiness has no foundation. My blood boils when I remember how he treated you——”
“Anna, Anna, think. I love him. Can’t you understand? Don’t you know what love is?”
“Alas, madame, yes! I love you.”
“Then you do understand. You have borne with me, my despair, my fretfulness, my ill temper, because you love me. Your love has never failed for one moment. And that is the measure of my love for him.”
“Madame, I will not have you compare yourself with him. I love your changes of mood—even your coldness. How can they make any difference to me?”
“And I love him in the same way. Come, Anna, you would not make me miserable? How can I be happy if you persist in frowning upon my happiness?”
“Oh, you break my heart, madame! Well, then, I rejoice that you are happy, and if his Excellency continues to make you so, I shall rejoice all my life long that he has returned to you.”
“That is my dear good Anna!” cried the Queen, drawing her friend’s pale plain face down to hers, and kissing her on the forehead. “Hilfenstein, I must kiss you too, for you have been on my side the whole time.”
“Ah, madame, I have known you a good many years, and the Count also,” said the Baroness. “It would have been little use my opposing either of you. But I hear his Excellency returning. Your Majesty will receive him alone?”
The Queen’s smile was a sufficient answer to the question, and both ladies disappeared hastily into the garden as Cyril entered from the hall, looking rather irritated than perturbed.
“Dearest,” he said, “I think you understand that nothing but the very gravest necessity would drag me away from you at this moment, but I really must go. The blind man Yeshua has come all the way from Damascus to say that Paschics entreats me to return at once, if all that we have gained is not to be lost. Evidently something serious has happened, which I did not foresee, and which has thrown out all our calculations. Moreover, as far as I can make out, there was an unmistakable attempt made to kidnap Yeshua on his way to the spot where he always arranges to meet your scouts, and he insists that the Scythian Consulate was mixed up in it. However that may be, it seems that the Beni Ayub are out on the warpath as well, for they chased Yeshua and your tribesman who was bringing him here. They only shook them off when they got to the waterless desert. It may be a mere coincidence, but it looks uncommonly like an organised attempt to prevent any notice of the danger, whatever it may be, from reaching me. At any rate, it’s clear that I must go, or give up all hope of success in the great scheme.”
“Yes, yes, I quite see,” she replied quickly, “and I shall come back to Brutli at once. Then our engagement shall be made public, Cyril. You are going back to win success for me as well as for yourself, you know.”
“Do you know that every one will say I have sought your forgiveness for the sake of the added importance that marriage with you will give me? The world hasn’t very much confidence in me, Ernestine.”
“But I have. Do you know what I shall do when you are Prince of Palestine? I shall lay aside my crown for a coronet. The world shall see that your wife is prouder of being Princess of Palestine than Queen of Thracia.”
“My dearest, you have a way of making the world look foolish by doing lofty, Quixotic, useless things, that covers me with shame. I wish I had the knack, but no one would believe that I did them without an ulterior motive. But suppose I am not made Prince of Palestine?”
“Then we will return here together, and you shall be King of the Desert. You will unite the Arabs under one rule, and make a nation of them, and they will adore you. They are grateful to me because of what I have done for them, but they still feel a little ashamed of being ruled by a woman. They have the greatest possible respect for you already.”
“Will they still respect me when I rob them of their Queen? One, or at most two visits in the year, as a respite from the cares of State, will be very different from having a resident sovereign. But dearest, you won’t start for Brutli until the sheikh assures you that the way is safe? If the Beni Ayub got hold of you it would be very unpleasant personally, and absolutely distracting politically.”
“Yes; I suppose Michael would feel obliged to interfere. Oh, Cyril, I wanted to speak to you about him. You heard of that terribly sad business about Lida, of course? Well, since his engagement came to an end, Michael has written me such nice letters, so affectionate, so respectful. He says that he has turned over a new leaf, and this is because he has formed an attachment for a young lady who will be as acceptable to me as to Thracia. Do you know who she is?”
“I have an idea.”
“And is it all as suitable as he thinks?”
“So far as I know, the only opposition to their engagement will come from the lady herself.”
“But why? Is she as beautiful and altogether desirable as he says she is?”
“I feel some delicacy in answering that question. You see, she happens to be my niece.”
“What! your brother Carlino’s daughter? But, Cyril, the Thracians will go mad with joy. Is it the little girl with the beautiful golden hair whom I saw years ago at Tatarjé? She must be a good deal older than Michael, but she had such sweet ways that it is no wonder she has captivated him. He could not make a better choice. But why are you looking at me in that way, Cyril? Why should she raise any objection? It’s not—oh, don’t say that you have no other niece! This is not the young lady with whom that pleasant Mr Mansfield is in love?”
“Unfortunately it is.”
“But she couldn’t refuse Michael!”
“And yet I heard a lady propose a few minutes ago to resign a crown for the sake of her lover.”
“But that is different. Your niece would be the making of Michael. Cyril, promise me you will persuade her to accept him.”
“My dearest, I could not set myself a second time to interfere with the course of true love.”
“But she ought—oh, Cyril, how unkind of you to remind me of that! No, most certainly I won’t try to smooth Michael’s path for him. I did too much harm the last time, and it has come to nothing after all. But you do think it is her duty to marry him, don’t you?”
“I fancy Phil will decide for herself where her duty lies. And really, Ernestine, it will do your boy all the good in the world to want something very much, and not be able to get it. That will make a man of him, if you like. Is that some one outside?”
“I beg your pardon, Count”—Mansfield’s deprecating voice was heard from the hall—“but the horses are ready.”
“Those two good fellows have been doing my packing, that I might have a longer time with you. Good-bye, my dearest. Au revoir at Brutli!”
“Auf wiedersehen, my beloved! Take care of yourself for my sake.”
“By the bye, dearest, I suppose I may assure your sheikh that it’s all right about the treaty, and that you have decided to maintain friendly relations with the Jews?”
“Of course you may. But politics again, Cyril! I am jealous.”
The sheikh and a small band of picked men were in readiness in the desert below the fortress, all well armed, and mounted on the best horses that the tribe possessed. Yeshua and his guide were to be left behind, to give them time to recover from the fatigues of their hurried journey before undertaking another, for the sheikh had promised to conduct the travellers to Damascus by the shortest available route, involving as few halts as possible, and the hardship would be great. In spite, however, of long stages and little rest, with a meagre supply of food and water, the return from Sitt Zeynab proved much less disagreeable than the journey thither had been. The sheikh had banished from his mind the last traces of suspicion and enmity, and was above all things anxious to secure Cyril’s friendship for his tribe, and for his tribe alone. His anxiety lest the Prince of the Jews should admit the Beni Ayub also to a share in his favour found utterance again and again, and was as amusing as was his claim to the entire ownership of the desert between Damascus and Palmyra. He went so far as to invite Cyril to aid him in maintaining his supposed rights by force of arms, but this was merely a rhetorical flourish, not intended to be taken seriously.
The first part of the journey, including the crossing of the waterless desert which was the true patrimony of the Beni Ismail, was uneventful, but no sooner had the boundary, invisible as it was to the untrained eye, been crossed, than the party became aware that they were watched. A camel and its rider would suddenly appear on the horizon, only to vanish in a cloud of dust as quickly as they had come. Sometimes these scouts would appear in the direction of Damascus, sometimes to the right or left of the line of march, but for two days they kept the travellers almost constantly in sight, without offering to approach them more closely.
“The sons of Shaitan can see us much more readily than we can see them,” grumbled the sheikh, “and they are closing round us. Then they will lie in wait for us in the broken ground before reaching Es Sham.”
“How would you shake them off if we were not here?” asked Cyril.
“We would lead them astray, O my lord, with feigned pursuit of their scouts, and running fights, until we were either safe on our own land or could slip through them into Es Sham, but that would need many days, and if they contrived to separate us one from another, evil might come to my lord.”
“Evil might also come to some of them,” suggested Cyril.
“Doubtless, but if their object is rather to delay my lord than to hurt him, they might attain it with little danger to themselves.”
“Hullo! they seem to be coming to meet us,” said Mansfield, as a group of mounted men appeared from behind a sandhill some distance in front. The sheikh cast his eye over his own troop, and ordered a halt. Here on the open plain there was no possibility of an ambush, but his men unslung their long matchlocks, and the travellers locked to their rifles.
“They seem friendly,” said Cyril, as the sheikh of the opposite party, distinguished by his gold-embroidered crimson cloak, rode out from among his men, making signs that he had left his weapons behind, and desired an amicable conference.
“Stay thou here, O Prince of the Jews,” said the sheikh, “and let the father of a writing-book leave his gun and ride forward with me, that we may hear what this dog has to say. Never yet have I spoken in peace with a man of the Beni Ayub.”
Mr Hicks, who owed his name to the note-book which was his inseparable companion, handed his rifle to Mansfield, remarking that he supposed the surrender of his revolver was not necessarily included in the bond. If it was, he had, at any rate, a weapon at hand which would astonish the Arab who tried any foolishness with him, and as he spoke he patted a coil of thin rope which he had procured at Sitt Zeynab and insisted on looping to his saddle, to the mystification of his companions. Thus provided, he rode forward with the sheikh, who halted at a discreet distance from the representative of the other party, and asked what the Beni Ayub were doing in that portion of the desert. As the district in question was claimed by the Beni Ayub, their sheikh disregarded the enquiry.
“We come in peace, O sheikh of the Beni Ismail, hearing that the Prince of the Jews is a sojourner in the tents of thy people. Why does he pass by the Beni Ayub in his return to Es Sham? Does not the desert belong to us also? Let him turn aside and visit our tents, that we may make peace with his nation, and there be no ill blood between us.”
“The Prince of the Jews will return at another time and visit you,” said Mr Hicks, anticipating the angry reply which the sheikh had in preparation. “At present he is journeying to Es Sham in haste.”