CHAPTER XXVIAs the hours of the day passed on, Helena became painfully aware that her courage was ebbing away.Unconsciously Ishmael was adding to her torture. Soon after the midday meal he called on her to write to his dictation a letter which Gordon was to take into Cairo..."One more letter, O Rani, only one, before our friend and brother leaves us."It was to the Ulema, telling them of the change in his plans and begging them to be good to Gordon."Trust him and love him. Receive him as you would receive me, and believe that all he does and says is according to my wish and word."Helena had to write this letter. It was like writing Gordon's death-warrant.Later in the day, seeing her idle, nibbling the top of the reed pen which she held in her trembling fingers, Ishmael called for the kufiah."Where is the kufiah, O Rani—the kufiah that was to disguise the messenger of God from his enemies?"And when Helena, in an effort to escape from that further torture, protested that in Gordon's case a new kufiah was not essential, because he wore the costume of a Bedouin already, Ishmael replied—"But the kufiah he wears now is white, and every official in Khartoum has seen it. Therefore another is necessary, and let it be of another colour."At that, with fiendish alacrity, the Arab woman ran off for a strip of red silken wool, and Helena had to shape and stitch it.It was like stitching Gordon's shroud.The day seemed to fly on the wings of an eagle, the sun began to sink, the shadows to lengthen on the desert sand, and the time to approach for the great ceremony of the leave-taking in the mosque. Helena was for staying at home, but Ishmael would not hear of it."Nay, my Rani," he said. "In the courtyard after prayers we must say farewell to Omar, and you must clothe him in the new kufiah that is to hide him from his foes. Did you not promise to do as much for me? And shall it be said that you grudge the same honour to my friend and brother?"Half-an-hour afterwards, Ishmael having gone off hand in hand with Gordon, and old Mahmud and Zenoba and Ayesha and the two black servants having followed him, Helena put on a veil for the first time since coming to Khartoum, and made her way to the mosque.The streets of the town, as she passed through them, seemed to be charged with an atmosphere of excitement that was little short of frenzy; but the courtyard, when she had crossed the threshold, was like the scene of some wild phantasmagoria.A crowd of men and women, squatting about the walls of the open space, were strumming on native drums, playing on native pipes, and uttering the weird, monotonous ululation that is the expression of the Soudanese soul in its hours of joy.A moment later Helena was in the gallery, the people had made way for her, and she was sitting as before by the Arab woman and the child. Overhead was a brazen, blood-red Southern sky; below were a thousand men on crimson carpets, some in silks, some in rags, all moving and moaning like tumultuous waves in a cavern of the sea.[image]Helena was in the galleryThe Reader, in the middle of the mosque, was chanting the Koran, the muezzin in the minaret was calling to prayers, the men on the floor were uttering their many-throated responses, and the very walls of the mosque itself seemed to be vibrating with religious fervour.A moment after Helena had taken her seat Ishmael entered, followed by Gordon, and the people gathered round them to kiss their hands and garments. Helena felt her head reel, she wanted to cry out, and it was with difficulty she controlled herself.Then the Reader stood up in his desk and recited an invocation, and the people repeated it after him."God is Most Great!""God is Most Great!""There is no god but God! ..."Mohammed is His Prophet! ..."Listen to the preacher! ..."Amen!""Amen!"After that Ishmael rose from his knees before the Kibleh, took the wooden sword at the foot of the pulpit, ascended to the topmost step, and, after a preliminary prayer, began to preach.Never had Helena seen him so eager and excited, and every passage of his sermon seemed to increase both his own ecstasy and the emotion of his hearers.Helena hardly heard his words, so far away were her thoughts and so steadfastly were her eyes fixed on the other figure in front of the Kibleh, but a general sense of their import was beating on her brain as on a drum.All religions began in poverty and ended in corruption.It had been so with Islam, which began with the breaking of idols and went on to the worship of wealth, the quest of power, the lust of conquest—Caliphs seeking to establish their claim not by election and the choice of God but by theft and murder.It had been so with Christianity, which began in meekness and humility and went on to pride and persecution—Holy Fathers exchanging their cells for palaces and their poverty for pomp, forgetting the principle of their great Master, whose only place in their midst was in pictured windows, on vaporous clouds, blessing with outstretched arms a Church which favoured everything he fought against and a world which practised everything he condemned."What is the result, O my brothers? War, wealth, luxury, sensuality, slavery, robbery, injustice, and oppression!"Listen to the word of the Holy Koran: 'And Pharaoh made proclamation among his people, saying, Is not this Kingdom of Egypt mine and the rivers thereof?'"But not in Egypt only, nor alone under the Government of the King who lives across the seas, but all the world over, wheresoever human empires are founded, wheresoever men claim the earth and the fruits of the earth and the treasures that lie in the bowels of the earth—impoverishing the children of men to obtain them, or destroying their souls that they may deck and delight their bodies—there the Pharaohs of this world are saying, 'Is not this Kingdom of Egypt mine and the rivers thereof?'"But the earth and the fruits of the earth and the treasures of the earth are God's, my brothers, and He is coming to reclaim them, and to right the wrongs of the oppressed, to raise up the downtrodden, and to comfort the broken-hearted."The mosque seemed to rock with the shouts which followed these words, and as soon as the cries of the people had subsided, the voice of Ishmael, now louder and more tremulous than before, rang through its vaults again."Deep in the heart of man, my brothers, is the expectation of a day when the Almighty will send His Messenger to purify and pacify the world and to banish intolerance and wrong. The Jews look for the Messiah, the Christians for the divine man of Judæa, and we that are Moslems for the Mahdi and the Christ."In all climes and ages, amid all sorrows and sufferings, sunk in the depths of ignorance, sold into slavery, the poorest of the poor, the most miserable among the most miserable of the world, humanity has yet cherished that great expectation. Real as life, real as death, real as wells of water in a desert land to man on his earthly pilgrimage is the hope of a Deliverer from oppression and injustice—and who shall say it is vain and false? It is true, my brothers, true as the sky rolling overhead. Our Deliverer is coming! He is coming soon! He is coming now!"Ishmael's tremulous voice had by this time broken into hysterical sobs, and the responses of his hearers had risen to delirious cries.More of the same kind followed which Helena did not hear, but suddenly she was awakened to full consciousness of what was going on about her by hearing Ishmael speak of Gordon and the people answering him with rapturous shouts."He is not of our race, yet no doubt enters into our hearts of his fidelity.""El Hamdullillah!""He is not of our faith, yet he will be true to God and His people.""Allah! Allah!""For us he has left his home, his country, and his kindred.""Allah! Allah! Allah!""For us he is going into the place of danger.""Allah! Allah! Allah!""What says the Lord in the Holy Koran?—'They therefore who had left their country and suffered for My sake I will surely bring them into gardens watered by rivers—a reward of God.'""Allah! Allah! Allah!""The Lord bless the white man to whom the black man is a brother! Bless him in the morning splendour! Bless him in the still of night! Bless him with children—the eye of the heart of man! Bless him with the love of woman—the joy and the crown of life!""Allah! Allah! Allah!""And may the Lord of majesty and might who has hitherto covered his head in battle protect and preserve him now!"At this last word the whole company of men on the floor below—men in silks and men in rags—rose to their feet, as if they had been one being animated by one heart, and raising their arms to heaven, cried—"Allah! Allah! Allah! Allah!"Helena felt as if some one had taken her by the throat. To see these poor, emotional Eastern children, with their brown and black faces, streaming with tears and full of love for Gordon, shouting down God's blessing upon him, was stifling her.It was like singing his dirge before he was dead.During the next few minutes Helena was vaguely aware that Ishmael had come down from the pulpit; that the Reader was reciting prayers again; that the men on the crimson carpets were bowing, kneeling, prostrating themselves and putting their foreheads to the floor; and finally that the whole congregation was rising and surging out of the mosque.When she came to herself once more, somebody by her side—it was Zenoba—was touching her shoulder and saying—"The Master is in the Courtyard and he is calling for you—come!"The scene outside was even more tumultuous. Instead of the steady solemnity of the service within the mosque there were the tum-tumming of the drums, the screeling of the pipes, and the lu-luing of the women.The great enclosure was densely crowded, but a space had been cleared in the centre of the courtyard, where the Ulema of Khartoum, in their grey farageeyahs, were ranged in a wide half-circle. In the mouth of this half-circle Gordon was standing in his Bedouin dress with Ishmael by his side.Silence was called, and then Ishmael gave Gordon his last instructions and spoke his last words of farewell."Tell our brothers, the Ulema of Cairo," he said, "that we are following close behind you, and when the time comes to enter the city we shall be lying somewhere outside their walls. Let them therefore put a light on their topmost height—on the minaret of the mosque of Mohammed Ali—after the call to prayers at midnight—and we shall take that as a sign that the Light of the World is with you, that the Expected One has appeared, and that we may enter in peace, injuring no man, being injured by none, without malice towards any, and with charity to all."Then seeing Helena as she came out of the mosque, veiled and with her head down, he called on her to come forward."Now do as you have always designed and intended," he said. "Cover our friend and forerunner with the kufiah you have made for him, that until his work is done and the time has come to reveal himself, he may, like the angel of the Lord, be invisible to his foes."What happened after that Helena never quite knew—only that a way had been made for her through the throng of wild-eyed people and that she was standing by Gordon's side.Down to that instant she had intended to bear herself bravely for Gordon's sake if not for her own, but now a hundred cruel memories came in a flood to sap away her strength—memories of the beautiful moments of their love, of the little passages of their life together that had been so tender and so sweet. In vain she tried to recover the spirit with which he had inspired her in the morning, to think how much better it was that he should die gloriously than live in disgrace, to feel the justice, the necessity, the inevitableness of what he was going to do.It was impossible. She could think of nothing but that she was seeing Gordon for the last time, that he was leaving her behind him, among these Allah-intoxicated Arabs, that he was going away, not into battle—with its chance of victory and its hope of life—but to death, certain death, perhaps shameful death, and that, say what he would about Fate and Destiny or the will of God, she herself was sending him to his doom.She felt that the tears were running down her cheeks under her thin white veil, and that Gordon must see them, but she could not keep them back; and though she had promised not to break down, she knew that at that last moment, in the face of the death that was about to separate them, the dauntless heroine of the morning was nothing better than a poor, weak, heart-broken woman.Meantime the drums and the pipes and the lu-luing had begun again, and she was conscious that under the semi-savage din Gordon was speaking to her and comforting her."Keep up! Be brave! Nobody knows what may happen. I'll write. You shall hear from me again."He had taken off the white kufiah which he had hitherto worn, and she could see his face. It was calm—the calmest face in all that vast assembly.The sight of his face strengthened her, and suddenly a new element entered into the half-barbaric scene—an element that was half human and half divine. These poor, half-civilised people thought Gordon was going to risk his life for them; but he was going to die—deliberately to die for them—to save them from themselves, from the consequences of their fanaticism, the panic of their rulers, and the fruits of the age-long hatred that had separated the black man from the white.Helena felt her bosom heave, her nerves twitch, her fingers dig trenches in her palms, and her thoughts fly up to scenes of sacrifice which men talk of with bated breath."If he can do it, why can't I?" she asked herself, and taking the red kufiah, which the Arab woman was thrusting into her hands, with a great effort she put it on Gordon—over his head and under his chin and across his shoulders and about his waist.It was like clothing him for the grave.Every eye had been on her, and when her work was done, Ishmael, who was now weeping audibly, demanded silence and called on the Ulema to recite the first Surah—"Praise be to God, the Lord of all creatures——"When the weird chanting had come to an end the hoarse voices of the people broke afresh into loud shouts of "Allah! Allah! El Hamdullillah!"In the midst of the wild maëlstrom of religious frenzy which followed—the tum-tumming of the drums, the screeling of the pipes, and the ululation of the women—Helena felt her hand grasped, and heard Gordon speaking to her again."Don't faint! Don't be afraid! Don't break down at the last moment.""I'm not afraid," she answered, but whether with her voice or only with her lips she never knew.Still the drums, the pipes, the zaghareet, and the delirious cries of "Allah!" And to show Gordon that she felt no fear, that she was not going to faint or to break down, Helena also, in the fierce tension of the moment, cried—"Allah! El Hamdullillah!""That's right! That's brave! God bless you!" whispered the voice by her side. And again a moment later—"God bless and protect you!"After that she heard no more. She saw the broad gate of the Courtyard thrown open—she saw a long streak of blood-red sand outside—she saw Gordon turn away from her—she saw Ishmael embrace and kiss him—she saw the surging mass of hot and streaming black and brown faces close about him—and then a loud wind seemed to roar in her ears, the earth seemed to give way under her feet, the brazen sky seemed to reel about her head, and again she felt as if she were falling, falling, falling into a bottomless abyss.When she recovered consciousness the half-barbaric scene was over, and she was being carried into the silence of her own room in the arms of Ishmael, who with many words of tender endearment was laying her gently on her bed.CHAPTER XXVIIThat day, under the two crackling flags, the Crescent and the Union Jack, Lady Mannering had given a party in the garden of the Palace of the Sirdar.The physiognomy of the garden had changed since "the martyr of the Soudan" walked in it. Where scraggy mimosa bushes and long camel grasses had spurted up through patches of sand and blotches of baking earth there were the pleasant lawns, the sycamores, the date-trees, and the blue streams of running water. And where the solitary soldier, with his daily whitening head, had paced to and fro, his face to the ground, smoking innumerable cigarettes, there were a little group of officers of the military administration, with their charming wives and daughters, a Coptic priest, a Greek priest, a genial old Protestant clergyman, and a number of European visitors, chiefly English girls, wearing the lightest of white summer costumes, and laughing and chattering like birds.In pith helmets and straw hats, Lady Mannering's guests strolled about in the sunshine or drank tea at tables that were set under the cool shadow of spreading trees, while, at a little distance, the band of a black regiment, the Tenth Soudanese (sons and grandsons of the very men who in the grey dawn of a memorable morning had rushed in a wild horde into those very grounds for their orgy of British blood), played selections from the latest comic operas of London and New York.The talk was the same all over the gardens—of the new Mahdi and his doings."Married to an Indian Princess, you say!""Oh yes! Quite an emancipated person, too! A sort of thirty-second cousin of the Rani of Jhansi. It seems she was educated by an English governess, kicked over the traces, became a sort of semi-religious suffragette, and followed her holy man to Egypt and the Soudan.""How very droll! It istooamusing!"The Sirdar, who had gone indoors some time before, returned to the garden dressed for a journey."Going away, your Excellency?""Yes, for a few weeks—to the lower Nile."His ruddy, good-natured face was less bright than usual, and his manner was noticeably less buoyant. A few of his principal officials gathered about him, and he questioned them one by one."Any fresh news, Colonel?" he said, addressing the Governor of the city."No, sir. A sort of sing-song to-day in honour of the Bedouin Sheikh—that's all I hear about."But the Financial Secretary spoke of further difficulties in the gathering of taxes—the land tax, the animal tax, and the tax on the date-trees not having yet come in—and then the Inspector-General repeated an opinion he had previously expressed, that everything gave evidence of a projected pilgrimage, presumably in a northerly direction and almost certainly to Cairo.The Governor of the city corroborated this, and added that his Zabit, his police officer, had said that Ishmael Ameer, on passing to the mosque that day, had been saluted in the streets by a screaming multitude as the "Messenger" and the "Anointed One.""It's just as I say," said the Inspector-General. "These holy men develop by degrees. This one will hoist his flag as soon as he finds himself strong enough—unless we stop him before he goes further—and the Soudan is lost to civilisation.""Well, we'll see what Nuneham says," said the Sirdar, and at that moment his Secretary came to say that the launch was ready at the boat-landing to take him across the river to the train.The Sirdar said good-bye to his guests, to his officers, and to his wife, and as he left the garden of the palace the Soudanese band, sons of the Mahdi's men, played the number which goes to the words—"They never proceed to follow that light,But always follow me."Half-an-hour afterwards, while the Sirdar's black body-guard were ranged up on the platform of the railway station, and his black servant was packing his luggage into his compartment, the Governor-General was standing by the door of the carriage, with his Aide-de-camp, giving his last instructions to his General Secretary."Telegraph to the Consul-General and say ... but please make a note of it.""Yes, sir," said the Secretary, taking out his pocketbook and preparing to write."Think it best to go down myself to deal personally with matter of suspected mutiny in native army. Must admit increasing gravity of situation. Man here is undoubtedly acquiring name and influence of Mahdi, so time has come to consider carefully what we ought to do. Signs of intended pilgrimage, probably in northerly direction, enormous numbers of camels, horses, and donkeys having been gathered up from various parts of country and immense quantities of food-stuffs being bought for desert journey. Am leaving to-night, and hope to arrive in four days.""Four days," repeated the Secretary, as he came to an end.At that moment a tall man in the costume of a Bedouin walked slowly up the platform. His head and most of his face were closely covered by the loose woollen shawl which the sons of the desert wear, leaving only his eyes, his nose, and part of his mouth visible. As he passed the Sirdar, he looked sharply at him; then, pushing forward with long strides until he came to the third-class compartments, he stepped into the first of them, which was full of coloured people, strident with high-pitched voices and pungent with Eastern odours."Who was that?" asked the Sirdar."I don't know, sir," replied the Secretary. "I thought at first it was their Bedouin Sheikh, but I see I was mistaken."Then came the whistle of the locomotive, and its slow, rhythmic, volcanic throb. The guard saluted, and the Sirdar got into his carriage."Well, good-bye, Graham! Don't forget the telegram.""I'll send it at once.... In cypher, sir?""In cypher certainly."At the next moment the Sirdar and Gordon Lord, travelling in the same train, were on their way to Cairo.END OF THIRD BOOKFOURTH BOOKTHE COMING DAYCHAPTER IThe Consul-General had taken a firm grasp of affairs. Every morning his Advisers and Under-Secretaries visited him, and it seemed as if they could not come too often or say too much. He who rules the machine of State becomes himself a machine, and it looked as if Lord Nuneham were ceasing to be a man.Within a week after the day on which he received Helena's letter, he was sitting in his bleak library walled with Blue-Books, with the Minister of the Interior and the Adviser to the same department. The Minister was the sallow-faced Egyptian Pasha whom he had made Regent on the departure of the Khedive; the Adviser was a tall, young Englishman with bright red hair on which the red tarboosh sat strangely. They were discussing the "special weapon" which had been designed to meet special needs. The Consul-General's part of the discussion was to expound, the Adviser's was to applaud, the Minister's was to acquiesce.The special weapon was a decree. It was to be known as the Law of Public Security, and it was intended to empower the authorities to establish a Special Tribunal to deal with all crimes, offences, and conspiracies committed or conceived by natives against the State. The Tribunal was to be set up at any time and at any place on the request of the Agent and Consul-General of Great Britain; its sentences, which were to be pronounced forthwith, were not to be subject to appeal; and it was to inflict such penalties as it might consider necessary, including the death penalty, without being bound by the provisions of the penal code."Drastic!" said the Pasha, with a sinister smile."Necessary," said the Consul-General, with a frown.The Pasha became silent again while the virtual ruler of Egypt went on to say that the state of the country demanded that the Government should be armed with special powers to meet widespread fanaticism and secret conspiracy."No one deplores more than I do," he said, "that the existing law of the land is not sufficient to deal with the new perils by which we are threatened, but it is not, and therefore we must make it stronger.""Certainly, my lord," said the red-headed figure in the fez, and again the sinister face of the Pasha smiled."And now tell me, Pasha," said the Consul-General, "how long a time will it take to pass this law through the Legislative Council and the Council of Ministers?"The Pasha looked up out of his small, shrewd eyes, and answered—"Just as long or as short as your lordship desires."And then the Consul-General, who was wiping his spectacles, put them deliberately on to his nose, looked deliberately into the Pasha's face, and deliberately replied—"Then let it be done without a day's delay, your Excellency."A few minutes afterwards, without too much ceremony, the Consul-General had dismissed his visitors and was tearing open a number of English newspapers which Ibrahim had brought into the room.The first of them,The Times, contained a report of the Mansion House Dinner, headed "UNREST IN THE EAST. Important Speech by Foreign Minister."The Consul-General found the beginning full of platitudes. Egypt had become the great gate between the Eastern and Western hemispheres. It was essential for the industry and enterprise of mankind that that gate should be kept open, and therefore it was necessary that Egypt should be under a peaceful, orderly, and legal Government.Then, lowering the lights, the Minister had begun to speak to slow music. While it was the duty of Government to preserve order, it was also the duty of a Christian nation in occupation of a foreign country to govern it in the interests of the inhabitants, and, speaking for himself, he thought the executive authority would be strengthened, not weakened, by associating the people with the work of government. However this might be, the public could at least be sure that as long as the present Ministry remained in power it would countenance no policy on the part of its representatives that would outrage the moral, social, and, above all, religious sentiments of a Moslem people.The Consul-General flung down the paper in disgust."Fossils of Whitehall! Dunces of Downing Street!"For some minutes he tramped about the room, telling himself again that he didn't care a straw what any Government and any Foreign Minister might say because he had a power stronger than either at his back—the public.This composed his irritated nerves, and presently he took up the other newspapers. Then came a shock. Without an exception the journals accepted the Minister's speech as a remonstrance addressed to him, and reading it so they sympathised with it.One of them saw that Lord Nuneham, however pure and beneficent his intentions might be, had no right to force his ideals upon an alien race. Another hinted that he was destroying England's prestige in her Mohammedan dominions, and, if permitted to go on, he would not only endanger the peace of Egypt, but also the safety of our Indian Empire. And a third, advocating the establishment of representative institutions, said that the recent arbitrary action of the Consul-General showed in glaringly dangerous colours the faults of the One-Man Rule which we granted to the King's representative while we denied it to the King himself.The great Proconsul was, for some moments, utterly shaken—the sheet-anchor of his public life was gone. But within half-an-hour he had called for his First Secretary and was dictating a letter to the Premier, who was also the Minister of Foreign Affairs."Having read the report of your lordship's speech at the Mansion House," he said, "I find myself compelled to tell you that so great a difference between your lordship's views and mine makes it difficult for me to remain in Egypt."I take the view that nine-tenths of these people are still in swaddling-clothes, and that any attempt to associate them with the work of government would do a grave injustice to the inarticulate masses for whom we rule the country."I also take the view that Egypt is honeycombed with agitators, who, masquerading as religious reformers, are sowing sedition against British rule, and that the only way to deal with such extremists is by stern repression."Taking these views and finding them at variance with those of your lordship, I respectfully beg to tender my resignation of the post of H.M.'s Agent, Consul-General and Minister Plenipotentiary, which I have held through so many long and laborious years, and at the same time to express the hope that my successor may be a man qualified by knowledge and experience of the East to deal with these millions of Orientals who, accustomed for seventy centuries to the dictation of imperial autocrats, are so easily inflamed by fanatics and yield so readily to the wily arts of spies and secret conspirators."Having finished the dictating of his letter, the Consul-General asked when the next mail left for England, whereupon the Secretary, whose voice was now as tremulous as his hand had been, replied that there would be no direct post for nearly a week."That will do. Copy out the letter and let me have it to sign."With a frightened look the Secretary turned to go."Wait! Of course you will observe absolute secrecy about the contents of it?"With a tremulous promise to do so the Secretary left the room.Then the Consul-General took up a calendar that had been standing on his desk and began to count the days."Five—ten—fifteen, and five days more before I can receive a reply—it's enough," he thought.England's eyes would be opened by that time and the public would see how much the Government knew about Egypt. Accept his resignation? They dare not! It would do them good, though—serve as a rebuke, and strengthen his own hands for the work he had now to do.What was that work? To destroy the man who had robbed him of his son.CHAPTER IIEarly the next morning the Consul-General received a letter from the Princess Nazimah, saying she had something to communicate, and proposed to come to tea with him. At five o'clock she came, attended by sais, footmen, and even eunuch, but wearing the latest of Paris hats and the lightest of chiffon veils.Tea was laid on the shady verandah overlooking the fresh verdure of the garden, with its wall of purple bougainvillea, and thinking to set the lady at ease the Consul-General had told Fatimah, instead of Ibrahim, to serve it. But hardly had they sat down when the Princess said in French—"Send that woman away. I don't trust women. I'm a woman myself, and I know too much of them."A few minutes afterwards she said, "Now you can give me a cigarette. Light it. That will do. Thank you!" Then squaring her plump person in a large cane chair, she prepared to speak, while the Consul-General, who was in his most silent mood, composed himself to listen."I suppose you were surprised when this woman who blossomed out of a harem wrote to say that she was coming to take tea with you? Here she is, though, and now she has something to say to you."Then puff, puff, puff from the scarlet lips, while the powdered face grew hard, and the eyes, heavily shaded with kohl, looked steadfastly forward."I have always suspected it, but I discovered it for certain only yesterday. And where did I discover it? In my own salon!""What did you discover in your own salon, Princess?" asked the Consul-General in his tired voice."Conspiracy!"Trained as was the Consul-General's face to self-command it betrayed surprise and alarm."Yes, conspiracy against you and against England."[image]"Yes, conspiracy against you and against England""You mean, perhaps, that the man Ishmael Ameer——""Rubbish! Ishmael indeed! He is in it, certainly. In a country like Egypt the holy man always is. Religion and politics are twins here—Siamese twins, you may say, for you couldn't get a slip of paper between them.... What's that? The Mahdist movement political? Perhaps it was, but politics on the top of religion—the monkey on the donkey's back, you know. Always so in the East. The only way to move the masses is to make an appeal to their religious passions.Theyknow that, and they've not scrupled to use their knowledge, the rascals! Rascals, that's what I call them. Excuse the word. I say what I think, Nuneham.""They? Who arethey, Princess?""Thecorps diplomatique."Again the stern face expressed surprise."Yes, thecorps dip-lo-ma-tique!" with a dig on every syllable. "Half-a-dozen of them were at my house yesterday and they were not ashamed to let me know what they are doing.""And whatarethey doing, Princess?""Helping the people to rebel!"Then throwing away her cigarette the Princess rose to her feet, and pacing to and fro on the verandah, with a firm tread that had little of the East and not much of the woman, she repeated the story she had heard in her salon—how Ishmael Ameer was to return to Cairo, with twenty, thirty, forty thousand of his followers, and some fantastic dream of establishing a human society that should be greater, nobler, wider, and more God-like than any that had yet dwelt on this planet; how the diplomats laughed at the ridiculous hallucination, but were nevertheless preparing to support it in order to harass the Government and dishonour England."But how?""By finding arms for the people to fight with if you attempt to keep their Prophet out! Ask your Inspectors! Ask your police! See if rifles bought with foreign money are not coming into Cairo every day."By this time it was the Consul-General who was pacing up and down the verandah, while the Princess, who sat to smoke another cigarette, repeated the opinions of the foreign representatives one by one—Count This, who was old and should know better if white hairs brought wisdom; Baron That, who was as long as a palm tree but without a date; and the Marquis of So-and-So."They tellmebecause I'm a Turk; but a Turk need not be a traitor, so I'm telling you."The iron face of the Consul-General grew white and rigid, but, saying nothing, he continued to pace to and fro."Why don't you turn them all out? They are making nothing but mischief. The head of the idle man is the house of the devil, and the best way is to pull it down. Why not? Capitulations! Pooh! While the meat hangs above, the dogs will quarrel below. Dogs, that's what I call them. Excuse the word. I speak what I think.""And the Egyptians—what are they doing?""What are they always doing? Conspiring with your enemies to turn you out of the country on the ground that you are trampling on their religious liberty.""Which of them?""All of them—pashas, people, effendis, officials, your own Ministers—everybody.""Everybody?""Everybody! The stupids! They can't see farther than the ends of their noses, or realise that they would only be exchanging one master for fourteen. What would Egypt be then? A menagerie with all the gates of the cages open. Oh, I know! I say what I think! I'm their Princess, but they can take my rank to-morrow if they wish to."The second cigarette was thrown away, and a powder-puff and small mirror were taken from a silver bag that hung from the lady's wrist."But serve you right, you English! You make the same mistake everywhere. Education! Civilisation! Judicial reform! Rubbish! The Koran tells the Moslem what to believe and what to do, so what does he want with your progress?"The powder-puff made dabs at the white cheeks, but the lady continued to talk."Your Western institutions are thrown away on him. It's like a beautiful wife married to a blind husband—a waste!"The sun began to set behind the wall of purple creeper and the lady rose to go."No news of your Gourdan yet? No? He was the best of the bunch, and I simply lost my heart to him. You should have kept him more in hand though.... You couldn't? You, the greatest man in.... Well, there's something to say for the Eastern way of bringing up boys, it seems."Passing through the drawing-room the Princess came upon the portrait of Helena, which used to stand by Lady Nuneham's bed."Ah, the moon! The beauty! Bismillah! What did Allah give her such big black eyes for? Back in England, isn't she? My goodness, there was red blood in that girl's veins, Nuneham! God have mercy upon me, yes! You should have heard her talk of your Ishmael!"The Princess put the portrait to her lips and kissed it, then closed her eyes and said with a voluptuous laugh—"Ah,mon Dieu, if this had only been a Muslemah, you wouldn't have had much trouble with your Mahdi!"Hardly had the Consul-General returned to his library after the departure of the Princess when his Secretary brought him a telegram from the Sirdar—the same that he had dictated at Khartoum, telling of the intended visit to Cairo, of the preparations for Ishmael's projected pilgrimage, and of the danger that was likely to arise from the growing belief in the Prophet's "divine" inspiration."So our friend is beginning to understand the man at last," he said, with an expression of bitter joy. "Meet him on his arrival. Tell him I have much to say."That night when the Consul-General went up to his bedroom—the room in which alone the machine became the man—he was thinking, as usual, of Gordon."Such power, such fire, such insight, such resource! My own son too, and worth all the weaklings put together! Oh, that he could be here now—now, when every hand seems to be raised against his father! But where is he? What is he doing? Only God can say."Then the Consul-General remembered what the Princess had said about Helena. Ah, if those two could have carried on his line—what a race! So pure, so clean, so strong! But that was past praying for now, and woe to the day when they had said to him, "A man child is born to you."After that the Consul-General thought of Ishmael, and then the bitterness of his soul almost banished sleep. He had known from the first that the man could not be working alone; he had known, too, that some of England's "allies" were her secret enemies, but a combination of Eastern mummery with Western treachery was more than he had reckoned upon."No matter! I'll master both of them!" he thought.A great historical tragedy should be played before the startled audience of disunited Europe, whose international jealousies were conspiring with religious quackeries to make the government of Egypt impossible, and when the curtain fell on that drama England would be triumphant, he would himself be vindicated, and the "fossils of Whitehall" would be ashamed.Last of all he thought of the Egyptian Ministers. These were the ingrates he had made and worked with, but they were no fools, and it was difficult to understand why they were throwing in their lot with a visionary mummer who was looking for a millennium."I am at a loss to know what to think of a world in which such empty quackery can be supported by sane people," he thought.There was one sweeter thought left, though, and as the Consul-General dropped off to sleep he told himself that, thanks to Helena, he would soon have Ishmael in his hands, and then he would kill him as he would kill a dangerous and demented dog.
CHAPTER XXVI
As the hours of the day passed on, Helena became painfully aware that her courage was ebbing away.
Unconsciously Ishmael was adding to her torture. Soon after the midday meal he called on her to write to his dictation a letter which Gordon was to take into Cairo...
"One more letter, O Rani, only one, before our friend and brother leaves us."
It was to the Ulema, telling them of the change in his plans and begging them to be good to Gordon.
"Trust him and love him. Receive him as you would receive me, and believe that all he does and says is according to my wish and word."
Helena had to write this letter. It was like writing Gordon's death-warrant.
Later in the day, seeing her idle, nibbling the top of the reed pen which she held in her trembling fingers, Ishmael called for the kufiah.
"Where is the kufiah, O Rani—the kufiah that was to disguise the messenger of God from his enemies?"
And when Helena, in an effort to escape from that further torture, protested that in Gordon's case a new kufiah was not essential, because he wore the costume of a Bedouin already, Ishmael replied—
"But the kufiah he wears now is white, and every official in Khartoum has seen it. Therefore another is necessary, and let it be of another colour."
At that, with fiendish alacrity, the Arab woman ran off for a strip of red silken wool, and Helena had to shape and stitch it.
It was like stitching Gordon's shroud.
The day seemed to fly on the wings of an eagle, the sun began to sink, the shadows to lengthen on the desert sand, and the time to approach for the great ceremony of the leave-taking in the mosque. Helena was for staying at home, but Ishmael would not hear of it.
"Nay, my Rani," he said. "In the courtyard after prayers we must say farewell to Omar, and you must clothe him in the new kufiah that is to hide him from his foes. Did you not promise to do as much for me? And shall it be said that you grudge the same honour to my friend and brother?"
Half-an-hour afterwards, Ishmael having gone off hand in hand with Gordon, and old Mahmud and Zenoba and Ayesha and the two black servants having followed him, Helena put on a veil for the first time since coming to Khartoum, and made her way to the mosque.
The streets of the town, as she passed through them, seemed to be charged with an atmosphere of excitement that was little short of frenzy; but the courtyard, when she had crossed the threshold, was like the scene of some wild phantasmagoria.
A crowd of men and women, squatting about the walls of the open space, were strumming on native drums, playing on native pipes, and uttering the weird, monotonous ululation that is the expression of the Soudanese soul in its hours of joy.
A moment later Helena was in the gallery, the people had made way for her, and she was sitting as before by the Arab woman and the child. Overhead was a brazen, blood-red Southern sky; below were a thousand men on crimson carpets, some in silks, some in rags, all moving and moaning like tumultuous waves in a cavern of the sea.
[image]Helena was in the gallery
[image]
[image]
Helena was in the gallery
The Reader, in the middle of the mosque, was chanting the Koran, the muezzin in the minaret was calling to prayers, the men on the floor were uttering their many-throated responses, and the very walls of the mosque itself seemed to be vibrating with religious fervour.
A moment after Helena had taken her seat Ishmael entered, followed by Gordon, and the people gathered round them to kiss their hands and garments. Helena felt her head reel, she wanted to cry out, and it was with difficulty she controlled herself.
Then the Reader stood up in his desk and recited an invocation, and the people repeated it after him.
"God is Most Great!"
"God is Most Great!"
"There is no god but God! ...
"Mohammed is His Prophet! ...
"Listen to the preacher! ...
"Amen!"
"Amen!"
After that Ishmael rose from his knees before the Kibleh, took the wooden sword at the foot of the pulpit, ascended to the topmost step, and, after a preliminary prayer, began to preach.
Never had Helena seen him so eager and excited, and every passage of his sermon seemed to increase both his own ecstasy and the emotion of his hearers.
Helena hardly heard his words, so far away were her thoughts and so steadfastly were her eyes fixed on the other figure in front of the Kibleh, but a general sense of their import was beating on her brain as on a drum.
All religions began in poverty and ended in corruption.
It had been so with Islam, which began with the breaking of idols and went on to the worship of wealth, the quest of power, the lust of conquest—Caliphs seeking to establish their claim not by election and the choice of God but by theft and murder.
It had been so with Christianity, which began in meekness and humility and went on to pride and persecution—Holy Fathers exchanging their cells for palaces and their poverty for pomp, forgetting the principle of their great Master, whose only place in their midst was in pictured windows, on vaporous clouds, blessing with outstretched arms a Church which favoured everything he fought against and a world which practised everything he condemned.
"What is the result, O my brothers? War, wealth, luxury, sensuality, slavery, robbery, injustice, and oppression!
"Listen to the word of the Holy Koran: 'And Pharaoh made proclamation among his people, saying, Is not this Kingdom of Egypt mine and the rivers thereof?'
"But not in Egypt only, nor alone under the Government of the King who lives across the seas, but all the world over, wheresoever human empires are founded, wheresoever men claim the earth and the fruits of the earth and the treasures that lie in the bowels of the earth—impoverishing the children of men to obtain them, or destroying their souls that they may deck and delight their bodies—there the Pharaohs of this world are saying, 'Is not this Kingdom of Egypt mine and the rivers thereof?'
"But the earth and the fruits of the earth and the treasures of the earth are God's, my brothers, and He is coming to reclaim them, and to right the wrongs of the oppressed, to raise up the downtrodden, and to comfort the broken-hearted."
The mosque seemed to rock with the shouts which followed these words, and as soon as the cries of the people had subsided, the voice of Ishmael, now louder and more tremulous than before, rang through its vaults again.
"Deep in the heart of man, my brothers, is the expectation of a day when the Almighty will send His Messenger to purify and pacify the world and to banish intolerance and wrong. The Jews look for the Messiah, the Christians for the divine man of Judæa, and we that are Moslems for the Mahdi and the Christ.
"In all climes and ages, amid all sorrows and sufferings, sunk in the depths of ignorance, sold into slavery, the poorest of the poor, the most miserable among the most miserable of the world, humanity has yet cherished that great expectation. Real as life, real as death, real as wells of water in a desert land to man on his earthly pilgrimage is the hope of a Deliverer from oppression and injustice—and who shall say it is vain and false? It is true, my brothers, true as the sky rolling overhead. Our Deliverer is coming! He is coming soon! He is coming now!"
Ishmael's tremulous voice had by this time broken into hysterical sobs, and the responses of his hearers had risen to delirious cries.
More of the same kind followed which Helena did not hear, but suddenly she was awakened to full consciousness of what was going on about her by hearing Ishmael speak of Gordon and the people answering him with rapturous shouts.
"He is not of our race, yet no doubt enters into our hearts of his fidelity."
"El Hamdullillah!"
"He is not of our faith, yet he will be true to God and His people."
"Allah! Allah!"
"For us he has left his home, his country, and his kindred."
"Allah! Allah! Allah!"
"For us he is going into the place of danger."
"Allah! Allah! Allah!"
"What says the Lord in the Holy Koran?—'They therefore who had left their country and suffered for My sake I will surely bring them into gardens watered by rivers—a reward of God.'"
"Allah! Allah! Allah!"
"The Lord bless the white man to whom the black man is a brother! Bless him in the morning splendour! Bless him in the still of night! Bless him with children—the eye of the heart of man! Bless him with the love of woman—the joy and the crown of life!"
"Allah! Allah! Allah!"
"And may the Lord of majesty and might who has hitherto covered his head in battle protect and preserve him now!"
At this last word the whole company of men on the floor below—men in silks and men in rags—rose to their feet, as if they had been one being animated by one heart, and raising their arms to heaven, cried—
"Allah! Allah! Allah! Allah!"
Helena felt as if some one had taken her by the throat. To see these poor, emotional Eastern children, with their brown and black faces, streaming with tears and full of love for Gordon, shouting down God's blessing upon him, was stifling her.
It was like singing his dirge before he was dead.
During the next few minutes Helena was vaguely aware that Ishmael had come down from the pulpit; that the Reader was reciting prayers again; that the men on the crimson carpets were bowing, kneeling, prostrating themselves and putting their foreheads to the floor; and finally that the whole congregation was rising and surging out of the mosque.
When she came to herself once more, somebody by her side—it was Zenoba—was touching her shoulder and saying—
"The Master is in the Courtyard and he is calling for you—come!"
The scene outside was even more tumultuous. Instead of the steady solemnity of the service within the mosque there were the tum-tumming of the drums, the screeling of the pipes, and the lu-luing of the women.
The great enclosure was densely crowded, but a space had been cleared in the centre of the courtyard, where the Ulema of Khartoum, in their grey farageeyahs, were ranged in a wide half-circle. In the mouth of this half-circle Gordon was standing in his Bedouin dress with Ishmael by his side.
Silence was called, and then Ishmael gave Gordon his last instructions and spoke his last words of farewell.
"Tell our brothers, the Ulema of Cairo," he said, "that we are following close behind you, and when the time comes to enter the city we shall be lying somewhere outside their walls. Let them therefore put a light on their topmost height—on the minaret of the mosque of Mohammed Ali—after the call to prayers at midnight—and we shall take that as a sign that the Light of the World is with you, that the Expected One has appeared, and that we may enter in peace, injuring no man, being injured by none, without malice towards any, and with charity to all."
Then seeing Helena as she came out of the mosque, veiled and with her head down, he called on her to come forward.
"Now do as you have always designed and intended," he said. "Cover our friend and forerunner with the kufiah you have made for him, that until his work is done and the time has come to reveal himself, he may, like the angel of the Lord, be invisible to his foes."
What happened after that Helena never quite knew—only that a way had been made for her through the throng of wild-eyed people and that she was standing by Gordon's side.
Down to that instant she had intended to bear herself bravely for Gordon's sake if not for her own, but now a hundred cruel memories came in a flood to sap away her strength—memories of the beautiful moments of their love, of the little passages of their life together that had been so tender and so sweet. In vain she tried to recover the spirit with which he had inspired her in the morning, to think how much better it was that he should die gloriously than live in disgrace, to feel the justice, the necessity, the inevitableness of what he was going to do.
It was impossible. She could think of nothing but that she was seeing Gordon for the last time, that he was leaving her behind him, among these Allah-intoxicated Arabs, that he was going away, not into battle—with its chance of victory and its hope of life—but to death, certain death, perhaps shameful death, and that, say what he would about Fate and Destiny or the will of God, she herself was sending him to his doom.
She felt that the tears were running down her cheeks under her thin white veil, and that Gordon must see them, but she could not keep them back; and though she had promised not to break down, she knew that at that last moment, in the face of the death that was about to separate them, the dauntless heroine of the morning was nothing better than a poor, weak, heart-broken woman.
Meantime the drums and the pipes and the lu-luing had begun again, and she was conscious that under the semi-savage din Gordon was speaking to her and comforting her.
"Keep up! Be brave! Nobody knows what may happen. I'll write. You shall hear from me again."
He had taken off the white kufiah which he had hitherto worn, and she could see his face. It was calm—the calmest face in all that vast assembly.
The sight of his face strengthened her, and suddenly a new element entered into the half-barbaric scene—an element that was half human and half divine. These poor, half-civilised people thought Gordon was going to risk his life for them; but he was going to die—deliberately to die for them—to save them from themselves, from the consequences of their fanaticism, the panic of their rulers, and the fruits of the age-long hatred that had separated the black man from the white.
Helena felt her bosom heave, her nerves twitch, her fingers dig trenches in her palms, and her thoughts fly up to scenes of sacrifice which men talk of with bated breath.
"If he can do it, why can't I?" she asked herself, and taking the red kufiah, which the Arab woman was thrusting into her hands, with a great effort she put it on Gordon—over his head and under his chin and across his shoulders and about his waist.
It was like clothing him for the grave.
Every eye had been on her, and when her work was done, Ishmael, who was now weeping audibly, demanded silence and called on the Ulema to recite the first Surah—
"Praise be to God, the Lord of all creatures——"
When the weird chanting had come to an end the hoarse voices of the people broke afresh into loud shouts of "Allah! Allah! El Hamdullillah!"
In the midst of the wild maëlstrom of religious frenzy which followed—the tum-tumming of the drums, the screeling of the pipes, and the ululation of the women—Helena felt her hand grasped, and heard Gordon speaking to her again.
"Don't faint! Don't be afraid! Don't break down at the last moment."
"I'm not afraid," she answered, but whether with her voice or only with her lips she never knew.
Still the drums, the pipes, the zaghareet, and the delirious cries of "Allah!" And to show Gordon that she felt no fear, that she was not going to faint or to break down, Helena also, in the fierce tension of the moment, cried—
"Allah! El Hamdullillah!"
"That's right! That's brave! God bless you!" whispered the voice by her side. And again a moment later—
"God bless and protect you!"
After that she heard no more. She saw the broad gate of the Courtyard thrown open—she saw a long streak of blood-red sand outside—she saw Gordon turn away from her—she saw Ishmael embrace and kiss him—she saw the surging mass of hot and streaming black and brown faces close about him—and then a loud wind seemed to roar in her ears, the earth seemed to give way under her feet, the brazen sky seemed to reel about her head, and again she felt as if she were falling, falling, falling into a bottomless abyss.
When she recovered consciousness the half-barbaric scene was over, and she was being carried into the silence of her own room in the arms of Ishmael, who with many words of tender endearment was laying her gently on her bed.
CHAPTER XXVII
That day, under the two crackling flags, the Crescent and the Union Jack, Lady Mannering had given a party in the garden of the Palace of the Sirdar.
The physiognomy of the garden had changed since "the martyr of the Soudan" walked in it. Where scraggy mimosa bushes and long camel grasses had spurted up through patches of sand and blotches of baking earth there were the pleasant lawns, the sycamores, the date-trees, and the blue streams of running water. And where the solitary soldier, with his daily whitening head, had paced to and fro, his face to the ground, smoking innumerable cigarettes, there were a little group of officers of the military administration, with their charming wives and daughters, a Coptic priest, a Greek priest, a genial old Protestant clergyman, and a number of European visitors, chiefly English girls, wearing the lightest of white summer costumes, and laughing and chattering like birds.
In pith helmets and straw hats, Lady Mannering's guests strolled about in the sunshine or drank tea at tables that were set under the cool shadow of spreading trees, while, at a little distance, the band of a black regiment, the Tenth Soudanese (sons and grandsons of the very men who in the grey dawn of a memorable morning had rushed in a wild horde into those very grounds for their orgy of British blood), played selections from the latest comic operas of London and New York.
The talk was the same all over the gardens—of the new Mahdi and his doings.
"Married to an Indian Princess, you say!"
"Oh yes! Quite an emancipated person, too! A sort of thirty-second cousin of the Rani of Jhansi. It seems she was educated by an English governess, kicked over the traces, became a sort of semi-religious suffragette, and followed her holy man to Egypt and the Soudan."
"How very droll! It istooamusing!"
The Sirdar, who had gone indoors some time before, returned to the garden dressed for a journey.
"Going away, your Excellency?"
"Yes, for a few weeks—to the lower Nile."
His ruddy, good-natured face was less bright than usual, and his manner was noticeably less buoyant. A few of his principal officials gathered about him, and he questioned them one by one.
"Any fresh news, Colonel?" he said, addressing the Governor of the city.
"No, sir. A sort of sing-song to-day in honour of the Bedouin Sheikh—that's all I hear about."
But the Financial Secretary spoke of further difficulties in the gathering of taxes—the land tax, the animal tax, and the tax on the date-trees not having yet come in—and then the Inspector-General repeated an opinion he had previously expressed, that everything gave evidence of a projected pilgrimage, presumably in a northerly direction and almost certainly to Cairo.
The Governor of the city corroborated this, and added that his Zabit, his police officer, had said that Ishmael Ameer, on passing to the mosque that day, had been saluted in the streets by a screaming multitude as the "Messenger" and the "Anointed One."
"It's just as I say," said the Inspector-General. "These holy men develop by degrees. This one will hoist his flag as soon as he finds himself strong enough—unless we stop him before he goes further—and the Soudan is lost to civilisation."
"Well, we'll see what Nuneham says," said the Sirdar, and at that moment his Secretary came to say that the launch was ready at the boat-landing to take him across the river to the train.
The Sirdar said good-bye to his guests, to his officers, and to his wife, and as he left the garden of the palace the Soudanese band, sons of the Mahdi's men, played the number which goes to the words—
"They never proceed to follow that light,But always follow me."
"They never proceed to follow that light,But always follow me."
"They never proceed to follow that light,
But always follow me."
But always follow me."
Half-an-hour afterwards, while the Sirdar's black body-guard were ranged up on the platform of the railway station, and his black servant was packing his luggage into his compartment, the Governor-General was standing by the door of the carriage, with his Aide-de-camp, giving his last instructions to his General Secretary.
"Telegraph to the Consul-General and say ... but please make a note of it."
"Yes, sir," said the Secretary, taking out his pocketbook and preparing to write.
"Think it best to go down myself to deal personally with matter of suspected mutiny in native army. Must admit increasing gravity of situation. Man here is undoubtedly acquiring name and influence of Mahdi, so time has come to consider carefully what we ought to do. Signs of intended pilgrimage, probably in northerly direction, enormous numbers of camels, horses, and donkeys having been gathered up from various parts of country and immense quantities of food-stuffs being bought for desert journey. Am leaving to-night, and hope to arrive in four days."
"Four days," repeated the Secretary, as he came to an end.
At that moment a tall man in the costume of a Bedouin walked slowly up the platform. His head and most of his face were closely covered by the loose woollen shawl which the sons of the desert wear, leaving only his eyes, his nose, and part of his mouth visible. As he passed the Sirdar, he looked sharply at him; then, pushing forward with long strides until he came to the third-class compartments, he stepped into the first of them, which was full of coloured people, strident with high-pitched voices and pungent with Eastern odours.
"Who was that?" asked the Sirdar.
"I don't know, sir," replied the Secretary. "I thought at first it was their Bedouin Sheikh, but I see I was mistaken."
Then came the whistle of the locomotive, and its slow, rhythmic, volcanic throb. The guard saluted, and the Sirdar got into his carriage.
"Well, good-bye, Graham! Don't forget the telegram."
"I'll send it at once.... In cypher, sir?"
"In cypher certainly."
At the next moment the Sirdar and Gordon Lord, travelling in the same train, were on their way to Cairo.
END OF THIRD BOOK
FOURTH BOOK
THE COMING DAY
CHAPTER I
The Consul-General had taken a firm grasp of affairs. Every morning his Advisers and Under-Secretaries visited him, and it seemed as if they could not come too often or say too much. He who rules the machine of State becomes himself a machine, and it looked as if Lord Nuneham were ceasing to be a man.
Within a week after the day on which he received Helena's letter, he was sitting in his bleak library walled with Blue-Books, with the Minister of the Interior and the Adviser to the same department. The Minister was the sallow-faced Egyptian Pasha whom he had made Regent on the departure of the Khedive; the Adviser was a tall, young Englishman with bright red hair on which the red tarboosh sat strangely. They were discussing the "special weapon" which had been designed to meet special needs. The Consul-General's part of the discussion was to expound, the Adviser's was to applaud, the Minister's was to acquiesce.
The special weapon was a decree. It was to be known as the Law of Public Security, and it was intended to empower the authorities to establish a Special Tribunal to deal with all crimes, offences, and conspiracies committed or conceived by natives against the State. The Tribunal was to be set up at any time and at any place on the request of the Agent and Consul-General of Great Britain; its sentences, which were to be pronounced forthwith, were not to be subject to appeal; and it was to inflict such penalties as it might consider necessary, including the death penalty, without being bound by the provisions of the penal code.
"Drastic!" said the Pasha, with a sinister smile.
"Necessary," said the Consul-General, with a frown.
The Pasha became silent again while the virtual ruler of Egypt went on to say that the state of the country demanded that the Government should be armed with special powers to meet widespread fanaticism and secret conspiracy.
"No one deplores more than I do," he said, "that the existing law of the land is not sufficient to deal with the new perils by which we are threatened, but it is not, and therefore we must make it stronger."
"Certainly, my lord," said the red-headed figure in the fez, and again the sinister face of the Pasha smiled.
"And now tell me, Pasha," said the Consul-General, "how long a time will it take to pass this law through the Legislative Council and the Council of Ministers?"
The Pasha looked up out of his small, shrewd eyes, and answered—
"Just as long or as short as your lordship desires."
And then the Consul-General, who was wiping his spectacles, put them deliberately on to his nose, looked deliberately into the Pasha's face, and deliberately replied—
"Then let it be done without a day's delay, your Excellency."
A few minutes afterwards, without too much ceremony, the Consul-General had dismissed his visitors and was tearing open a number of English newspapers which Ibrahim had brought into the room.
The first of them,The Times, contained a report of the Mansion House Dinner, headed "UNREST IN THE EAST. Important Speech by Foreign Minister."
The Consul-General found the beginning full of platitudes. Egypt had become the great gate between the Eastern and Western hemispheres. It was essential for the industry and enterprise of mankind that that gate should be kept open, and therefore it was necessary that Egypt should be under a peaceful, orderly, and legal Government.
Then, lowering the lights, the Minister had begun to speak to slow music. While it was the duty of Government to preserve order, it was also the duty of a Christian nation in occupation of a foreign country to govern it in the interests of the inhabitants, and, speaking for himself, he thought the executive authority would be strengthened, not weakened, by associating the people with the work of government. However this might be, the public could at least be sure that as long as the present Ministry remained in power it would countenance no policy on the part of its representatives that would outrage the moral, social, and, above all, religious sentiments of a Moslem people.
The Consul-General flung down the paper in disgust.
"Fossils of Whitehall! Dunces of Downing Street!"
For some minutes he tramped about the room, telling himself again that he didn't care a straw what any Government and any Foreign Minister might say because he had a power stronger than either at his back—the public.
This composed his irritated nerves, and presently he took up the other newspapers. Then came a shock. Without an exception the journals accepted the Minister's speech as a remonstrance addressed to him, and reading it so they sympathised with it.
One of them saw that Lord Nuneham, however pure and beneficent his intentions might be, had no right to force his ideals upon an alien race. Another hinted that he was destroying England's prestige in her Mohammedan dominions, and, if permitted to go on, he would not only endanger the peace of Egypt, but also the safety of our Indian Empire. And a third, advocating the establishment of representative institutions, said that the recent arbitrary action of the Consul-General showed in glaringly dangerous colours the faults of the One-Man Rule which we granted to the King's representative while we denied it to the King himself.
The great Proconsul was, for some moments, utterly shaken—the sheet-anchor of his public life was gone. But within half-an-hour he had called for his First Secretary and was dictating a letter to the Premier, who was also the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
"Having read the report of your lordship's speech at the Mansion House," he said, "I find myself compelled to tell you that so great a difference between your lordship's views and mine makes it difficult for me to remain in Egypt.
"I take the view that nine-tenths of these people are still in swaddling-clothes, and that any attempt to associate them with the work of government would do a grave injustice to the inarticulate masses for whom we rule the country.
"I also take the view that Egypt is honeycombed with agitators, who, masquerading as religious reformers, are sowing sedition against British rule, and that the only way to deal with such extremists is by stern repression.
"Taking these views and finding them at variance with those of your lordship, I respectfully beg to tender my resignation of the post of H.M.'s Agent, Consul-General and Minister Plenipotentiary, which I have held through so many long and laborious years, and at the same time to express the hope that my successor may be a man qualified by knowledge and experience of the East to deal with these millions of Orientals who, accustomed for seventy centuries to the dictation of imperial autocrats, are so easily inflamed by fanatics and yield so readily to the wily arts of spies and secret conspirators."
Having finished the dictating of his letter, the Consul-General asked when the next mail left for England, whereupon the Secretary, whose voice was now as tremulous as his hand had been, replied that there would be no direct post for nearly a week.
"That will do. Copy out the letter and let me have it to sign."
With a frightened look the Secretary turned to go.
"Wait! Of course you will observe absolute secrecy about the contents of it?"
With a tremulous promise to do so the Secretary left the room.
Then the Consul-General took up a calendar that had been standing on his desk and began to count the days.
"Five—ten—fifteen, and five days more before I can receive a reply—it's enough," he thought.
England's eyes would be opened by that time and the public would see how much the Government knew about Egypt. Accept his resignation? They dare not! It would do them good, though—serve as a rebuke, and strengthen his own hands for the work he had now to do.
What was that work? To destroy the man who had robbed him of his son.
CHAPTER II
Early the next morning the Consul-General received a letter from the Princess Nazimah, saying she had something to communicate, and proposed to come to tea with him. At five o'clock she came, attended by sais, footmen, and even eunuch, but wearing the latest of Paris hats and the lightest of chiffon veils.
Tea was laid on the shady verandah overlooking the fresh verdure of the garden, with its wall of purple bougainvillea, and thinking to set the lady at ease the Consul-General had told Fatimah, instead of Ibrahim, to serve it. But hardly had they sat down when the Princess said in French—
"Send that woman away. I don't trust women. I'm a woman myself, and I know too much of them."
A few minutes afterwards she said, "Now you can give me a cigarette. Light it. That will do. Thank you!" Then squaring her plump person in a large cane chair, she prepared to speak, while the Consul-General, who was in his most silent mood, composed himself to listen.
"I suppose you were surprised when this woman who blossomed out of a harem wrote to say that she was coming to take tea with you? Here she is, though, and now she has something to say to you."
Then puff, puff, puff from the scarlet lips, while the powdered face grew hard, and the eyes, heavily shaded with kohl, looked steadfastly forward.
"I have always suspected it, but I discovered it for certain only yesterday. And where did I discover it? In my own salon!"
"What did you discover in your own salon, Princess?" asked the Consul-General in his tired voice.
"Conspiracy!"
Trained as was the Consul-General's face to self-command it betrayed surprise and alarm.
"Yes, conspiracy against you and against England."
[image]"Yes, conspiracy against you and against England"
[image]
[image]
"Yes, conspiracy against you and against England"
"You mean, perhaps, that the man Ishmael Ameer——"
"Rubbish! Ishmael indeed! He is in it, certainly. In a country like Egypt the holy man always is. Religion and politics are twins here—Siamese twins, you may say, for you couldn't get a slip of paper between them.... What's that? The Mahdist movement political? Perhaps it was, but politics on the top of religion—the monkey on the donkey's back, you know. Always so in the East. The only way to move the masses is to make an appeal to their religious passions.Theyknow that, and they've not scrupled to use their knowledge, the rascals! Rascals, that's what I call them. Excuse the word. I say what I think, Nuneham."
"They? Who arethey, Princess?"
"Thecorps diplomatique."
Again the stern face expressed surprise.
"Yes, thecorps dip-lo-ma-tique!" with a dig on every syllable. "Half-a-dozen of them were at my house yesterday and they were not ashamed to let me know what they are doing."
"And whatarethey doing, Princess?"
"Helping the people to rebel!"
Then throwing away her cigarette the Princess rose to her feet, and pacing to and fro on the verandah, with a firm tread that had little of the East and not much of the woman, she repeated the story she had heard in her salon—how Ishmael Ameer was to return to Cairo, with twenty, thirty, forty thousand of his followers, and some fantastic dream of establishing a human society that should be greater, nobler, wider, and more God-like than any that had yet dwelt on this planet; how the diplomats laughed at the ridiculous hallucination, but were nevertheless preparing to support it in order to harass the Government and dishonour England.
"But how?"
"By finding arms for the people to fight with if you attempt to keep their Prophet out! Ask your Inspectors! Ask your police! See if rifles bought with foreign money are not coming into Cairo every day."
By this time it was the Consul-General who was pacing up and down the verandah, while the Princess, who sat to smoke another cigarette, repeated the opinions of the foreign representatives one by one—Count This, who was old and should know better if white hairs brought wisdom; Baron That, who was as long as a palm tree but without a date; and the Marquis of So-and-So.
"They tellmebecause I'm a Turk; but a Turk need not be a traitor, so I'm telling you."
The iron face of the Consul-General grew white and rigid, but, saying nothing, he continued to pace to and fro.
"Why don't you turn them all out? They are making nothing but mischief. The head of the idle man is the house of the devil, and the best way is to pull it down. Why not? Capitulations! Pooh! While the meat hangs above, the dogs will quarrel below. Dogs, that's what I call them. Excuse the word. I speak what I think."
"And the Egyptians—what are they doing?"
"What are they always doing? Conspiring with your enemies to turn you out of the country on the ground that you are trampling on their religious liberty."
"Which of them?"
"All of them—pashas, people, effendis, officials, your own Ministers—everybody."
"Everybody?"
"Everybody! The stupids! They can't see farther than the ends of their noses, or realise that they would only be exchanging one master for fourteen. What would Egypt be then? A menagerie with all the gates of the cages open. Oh, I know! I say what I think! I'm their Princess, but they can take my rank to-morrow if they wish to."
The second cigarette was thrown away, and a powder-puff and small mirror were taken from a silver bag that hung from the lady's wrist.
"But serve you right, you English! You make the same mistake everywhere. Education! Civilisation! Judicial reform! Rubbish! The Koran tells the Moslem what to believe and what to do, so what does he want with your progress?"
The powder-puff made dabs at the white cheeks, but the lady continued to talk.
"Your Western institutions are thrown away on him. It's like a beautiful wife married to a blind husband—a waste!"
The sun began to set behind the wall of purple creeper and the lady rose to go.
"No news of your Gourdan yet? No? He was the best of the bunch, and I simply lost my heart to him. You should have kept him more in hand though.... You couldn't? You, the greatest man in.... Well, there's something to say for the Eastern way of bringing up boys, it seems."
Passing through the drawing-room the Princess came upon the portrait of Helena, which used to stand by Lady Nuneham's bed.
"Ah, the moon! The beauty! Bismillah! What did Allah give her such big black eyes for? Back in England, isn't she? My goodness, there was red blood in that girl's veins, Nuneham! God have mercy upon me, yes! You should have heard her talk of your Ishmael!"
The Princess put the portrait to her lips and kissed it, then closed her eyes and said with a voluptuous laugh—
"Ah,mon Dieu, if this had only been a Muslemah, you wouldn't have had much trouble with your Mahdi!"
Hardly had the Consul-General returned to his library after the departure of the Princess when his Secretary brought him a telegram from the Sirdar—the same that he had dictated at Khartoum, telling of the intended visit to Cairo, of the preparations for Ishmael's projected pilgrimage, and of the danger that was likely to arise from the growing belief in the Prophet's "divine" inspiration.
"So our friend is beginning to understand the man at last," he said, with an expression of bitter joy. "Meet him on his arrival. Tell him I have much to say."
That night when the Consul-General went up to his bedroom—the room in which alone the machine became the man—he was thinking, as usual, of Gordon.
"Such power, such fire, such insight, such resource! My own son too, and worth all the weaklings put together! Oh, that he could be here now—now, when every hand seems to be raised against his father! But where is he? What is he doing? Only God can say."
Then the Consul-General remembered what the Princess had said about Helena. Ah, if those two could have carried on his line—what a race! So pure, so clean, so strong! But that was past praying for now, and woe to the day when they had said to him, "A man child is born to you."
After that the Consul-General thought of Ishmael, and then the bitterness of his soul almost banished sleep. He had known from the first that the man could not be working alone; he had known, too, that some of England's "allies" were her secret enemies, but a combination of Eastern mummery with Western treachery was more than he had reckoned upon.
"No matter! I'll master both of them!" he thought.
A great historical tragedy should be played before the startled audience of disunited Europe, whose international jealousies were conspiring with religious quackeries to make the government of Egypt impossible, and when the curtain fell on that drama England would be triumphant, he would himself be vindicated, and the "fossils of Whitehall" would be ashamed.
Last of all he thought of the Egyptian Ministers. These were the ingrates he had made and worked with, but they were no fools, and it was difficult to understand why they were throwing in their lot with a visionary mummer who was looking for a millennium.
"I am at a loss to know what to think of a world in which such empty quackery can be supported by sane people," he thought.
There was one sweeter thought left, though, and as the Consul-General dropped off to sleep he told himself that, thanks to Helena, he would soon have Ishmael in his hands, and then he would kill him as he would kill a dangerous and demented dog.