CHAPTER XIV"SERAI FUM EL KHALIG,"CAIRO."MY DEAREST HELENA,—I am going to that dinner! Yes, as Ishmael Ameer in the disguise of the Sheikh Omar Benani, chief of the Ababdah, I am to be one of my father's guests."This is the morning of the day of the festivities, and from Hafiz, by the instrumentality of one who would live or die or give her immortal soul for me, I have at length learned all the facts of my father'scoup."Did you ever hear of the incident of the Opera House? Well, this incident is to be a replica of that, though the parts to be played in the drama are in danger of being differently cast."As this is the last letter I shall be able to send to you before an event which may decide one way or other the fate of England in Egypt, my father's fate, Ishmael's, and perhaps yours and mine, I must tell you as much as I dare commit to paper."The British army, as I foresaw from the first, is being brought back to Cairo. It is to come in to-night as quietly as possible by the last trains arriving at Calioub. The Consul-General is to go to Ghezirah as if nothing were about to happen, but at the last moment, when his enemies have been gathered under one roof—Ministers, Diplomats, Notables, Ulema—when the operation of their plot has begun, and the bridge is drawn and the island is isolated, and Ishmael and his vast following are making ready to enter the city, my father is to speak over the telephone to the officer commanding at Abbassiah, and then the soldiers, with fifty rounds of ammunition, are to march into Cairo and line up in the streets."Such is my father'scoup, and to make sure of the complete success of it—that Ishmael's following is on the move, and that no conspirator (myself above all) escapes—he has given orders to the Colonel not to stir one man out of the barracks until he receives his signal. Well, my work to-night is to see that he never receives it."Already you will guess what I am going to do. I must go to the dinner in order to do it, for both the central office of the telephone and the office of the telegraph are now under the roofs of the Ghezirah Palace and Pavilion."I hate to do the damnable thing, but it must be done. It must, it must! There is no help for it."I cannot tell you how hard it is to me to be engaged in a secret means to frustrate my father's plans—it is like fighting one's own flesh and blood, and is not fair warfare. Neither can I say what a struggle it has been to me as an English soldier to make up my mind to intercept an order of the British army—it is like playing traitor, and I can scarcely bear to think of it."But all the same Iknowit is necessary. I also knowGodknows it is necessary, and when I think of that my heart beats wildly."It is necessary to prevent the massacre which I know (and my father does not) would inevitably ensue; necessary to save my father himself from the execration of the civilised world; necessary to save Ishmael from the tragic consequences of his determined fanaticism; necessary to save England from the possible loss of her Mohammedan dominions, from being faithless to her duty as a Christian nation, and from the divine judgment which will overtake her if she wantonly destroys her great fame as the one Western power that seems designed by Providence to rule and to guide the Eastern peoples; and necessary above all to save the white man and the black man from a legacy of hatred that would divide them for another hundred years and put back the union of races and faiths for countless centuries."If I am not a vain fool this is what I (D.V.) have got to do, so why in the name of God need I trouble myself about the means by which I do it? And if I am the only man who can, I must, or I shall be a coward skulking out of his plain responsibility, and a traitor not only to England but to humanity itself."God does not promise me success, but I believe I shall succeed. Indeed I am so sure of success that I feel as if all the recent events of my life have been leading up to this one. What I felt when I left Cairo for Khartoum, and again when I left Khartoum for Cairo—that everything had been governed by higher powers which could not err—I feel now more than ever."If I had delivered myself up to the authorities after your father's death my life would have been wasted and thrown away. Nay, if I had obeyed orders over the blunder of El Azhar I should not have been where I am now—between two high-spirited men who are blindly making for each other's ruin, and the destruction of all they stand for."This reconciles me to everything that has happened, and if I have to pay the penalty of playing buffer I am ready to do so. I have great trust that God will bring me out all right, but if that is not His plan, then so be it. I am willing to give my life for England, whatever name she may know me by when she comes to see what I have done, and I am willing to die for these poor Egyptians, because I was born and brought up among them, and I cannot help loving them."Death has no terrors for me anyway. I think the experiences of the past months have taught me all that death has to teach. In fact I feel at this moment exactly as I have felt at the last charge in battle, when, fighting against frightful odds, it has not been a case of every man for himself, but of God for us all."Besides I feel that on the day of your father's death I died to myself—to my selfish hopes of life, I mean—and if God intends to crush me in order that I may save my country and these people whom I love and who love me I really wish and long for Him to do so."ButIn-sha-allah! It will be as God pleases, and I believe from the bottom of my heart that He is working out His wonderful embroidery of events to a triumphant issue. So don't be afraid, my dear Helena, whatever occurs to-night. I may be taken, but (D.V.) I shall not be taken in disgrace. In any case I feel that my hour has come—the great hour that I have been waiting for so long."This may be the last letter I shall write to you, so I am sending it by Mosie, lest Hamid should find a difficulty in getting into your camp. I hope to God you may get it, for I want you to know that my last thoughts are about yourself."Upon my soul, dear, I believe the end will be all right, but if it is to be otherwise, and we are to be separated, and our lives in this world are to be wasted, remember that deep love bridges death."Remember, too, what you said to me at Khartoum. 'I am a soldier's daughter,' you said, 'and in my heart I am a soldier's wife as well, and I shouldn't be worthy to be either if I didn't tell you to do your duty, whatever the consequences to me.'"Good-bye, my dear, my dear! If anything happens you will know what to do. I trust you without fear. I have always trusted you. I can say it now, at this last moment—never, dearest, never for one instant has the shadow of a doubt of you entered into my heart. My brave girl, my love, my life, my Helena!"May the great God of Heaven bless and protect you!"GORDON."P.S.—Oh, how the deuce did I forget? There is something for you to do—something important—and I had almost sent off my letter without saying anything about it."Do you remember that on the day I left Khartoum it was ordered by Ishmael that after the call of the muezzin to midnight prayers, a light was to be set up in the minaret of the mosque of Mohammed Ali as a sign that he might enter the city in peace?"Well, if I fail and the British army comes into Cairo Ishmael must be kept out of it. He may be stubborn—a man who thinks God guides and protects him and makes a special dispensation for him is not easy to dissuade—but if the light does not appear hemustbe restrained."That is your work with Ishmael—why you are with him still. I knew it would be revealed to us some day. Once more, my dear, my dear, God bless and protect you!"CHAPTER XV"UNDER THE PYKAMIDS."MY DEAR GORDON,—Your letter has not yet reached me. What has happened? Has your messenger been caught? Who was it? Was it Hamid?"Not having heard from you, I was of course compelled to come on with the camp and therefore I am with it still. We are under the shadow of the pyramids, with the mud-built village of Sakkara by our side and Cairo in front of us, beyond the ruins of old Memphis and across a stretch of golden sand."This is, it seems, the day of 'the King's Dinner,' and at sunset when the elephant-horn was blown for the last time we gathered for prayers under a sea-blue sky on the blood-red side of the Step Pyramid."It was a splendid, horrible, inspiring, depressing, devilish, divine spectacle. First, Ishmael recited from the Koran the chapter about the Prophet's great vision (the Surat er Russoul, I think), while the people on their knees in the shadow, with the sun slanting over their heads, shouted their responses. Then in rapturous tones he spoke, and though I was on the farthest verge of the vast crowd I heard nearly all he said."They had reached their journey's end, and had to thank God who had brought them so far without the loss of a single life. Soon they were to go into Cairo, the Mecca of the new world, but they were to enter it in the spirit of love, not hate, of peace, not war, doing violence to none and raising no rebellion. What said the Holy Koran? 'Whosoever among Moslems, Christians or Jews believe in God and in another life shall be rewarded.'"Therefore let no man think they were come to turn the Christians out of Egypt. They were there on a far higher errand—to turn the devil out of the world! The intolerance and bitterness of past ages had been the product of hatred and darkness. The grinding poverty and misery of the present age was the result of a false faith and civilisation. But they were come to bring universal peace, universal brotherhood, and universal religion to all nations and races and creeds—one State, one Faith, one Law, one God!"Cairo was the gate to the East. It was also the gate to the West. He who held the keys of that gate was master of the world. Who, then, should hold them but God's own, His Guided One, His Expected One, His Christ?"More and yet more of this kind Ishmael said in his thrilling, throbbing voice, and of course the people greeted every sentence with shouts of joy. And then finally, pointing to the minarets of the mosque of Mohammed Ali, far off on the Mokattam hills, he told them that at midnight, after the call to prayers, a light was to shine there, and they were to take it for a sign that they might enter Cairo without injury to any and with goodwill towards all."'Watch for that light, O my brothers! It will come! As surely as the sun will rise on you to-morrow, that light will shine on you to-night!'"It is now quite dark and the camp is in a delirious state of excitement. The scene about my tent is simply terrifying. At one side there is an immense Zikr, with fifty frantic creatures crying 'Allah!' to a leader who in wild guttural tones is reciting the ninety-nine attributes of God. At the other side there is a huge fire at which a group of men, having slaughtered a sheep, are boiling it in a cauldron, with many pungent herbs, that they may feast and rejoice together in honour of the coming day. People are sitting in circles and singing hymns of victory; tambourines, kettle-drums, and one-stringed lutes are being played everywhere, and strolling singers are going about from fire to fire making up songs that describe Ishmael's good looks, and good deeds, and his 'divinity'—the wildest ditty being the most applauded."Where Ishmael himself is I do not know, but he must indeed be carried away by religious ecstasy if he is not trembling at the mere thought of to-morrow morning. What is to happen if these 'Allah-intoxicated Arabs' have to meet five thousand British bayonets? Or, supposing you can obviate that, what is to occur when they are compelled to realise that all their high-built hopes are in the dust? O God! O God!II"El Hamdullillah! Your letter has come at last! Perhaps I wish it hadn't been Mosie who brought it, but the boy was clever in riding into the camp unobserved, and now I have sent him outside to hide in the darkness while I scribble a few lines in reply. He is to come back presently, and meantime, please God, he will keep out of the sight of that she-cat of an Arab woman."You are doing right, darling—I am sure you are! Naturally you must be troubled with thoughts about England and your father, but both will yet see what motives inspired you, and whatever they do now they will eventually make amends."Bravo, my boy, bravo! Perhaps we shall all become Quakers some day, but let the peace-people croak as they please, it is war that brings out the truly heroic virtues, and though you are trying to prevent bloodshed you are really going into battle. Go, then, and God bless you!"What wretched ink this is—it must have got mixed with water."Oh yes, certainly! I will stay here to the end, and if occasion arises I will do what you desire, though I have not the faintest hope of succeeding. The fact is that even if I could persuade Ishmael not to enter Cairo the people would not under any circumstances be restrained."To tell you the truth, I cannot help feeling sorry for him. He really began with the highest aims and the strongest common sense, but he has become the victim of his people's idolatry, and, being made an idol, he may no longer be a man."I cannot help feeling sorry for the people also, for I suppose they have only tried in their blind way to realise the dream of humanity in all ages, the dream of all the holy books and all the great prophets—the dream of a millennium."It seems, too, as if God, who puts beautiful ideals in people's hearts, always calls for a scapegoat to pay the price of them. That is what you are to be, dear, and when I think of what you are going to do to save these poor people I begin to see for the first time what is meant by the sacrificial blood of Christ."I suppose this is shocking, but I don't care a pin about that. Every heroic man who risks his life for his fellow-man is doing what Christ did. You are doing it, and I don't believe the good God will ask any question about ways and means."There! That's something out of my eyes splash on to the very point of my pen. Don't take it as a mark of weakness, though, but as the sign-manual of Helena's heart telling you to go on without thinking about her."Forget what I said about my Jewish blood and Jezebel and all that nonsense. Ishmael's 'work' will not be 'finished' until he enters into Cairo, so I run no risk while I am here, you see."Of course I am in a fever of impatience to know what is happening on Ghezirah to-night, but you must not suppose that I am afraid. In any case, I shall stay here, having no longer the faintest thought of running away, and if there is anything to do I'll do it."Thismaybe the last letter I am to write to you, so good-bye, my Gordon, and God bless you again! My dear, my dear, my dear! HELENA."P.S.—I suppose you are in the thick of it by this time, for I see that the illuminations on Ghezirah have already begun. My dear, my dear, my ... my——"CHAPTER XVIAt eight o'clock that night the Pavilion of the Ghezirah Palace was brilliantly lit up for the "King's Dinner." A troop of British cavalry was mounted in front of it under the sparkling lights that swung from the tall palms of the garden, and a crowd of eager spectators were waiting to see the arrival of the guests.The Consul-General came early, driving in his open carriage with two gorgeously clad saises running before him. When he stepped down at the door, in his cocked hat, laced coat, and gold-braided trousers, he was saluted like a sovereign. The band of a British regiment under the trees played some bars of the National Anthem, and the English onlookers cheered.In the open court of the Pavilion, which was walled about by Oriental hangings, the Consul-General's own people were waiting to receive him. His old and weakened but still massive and even menacing personality showed out strongly against the shadowy forms of some of the Advisers and Under-Secretaries who stood behind him.It was quickly seen that his manner was less brusque and masterful than usual, but that his tone was cynical and almost bitter. When his First Secretary stepped up to him and whispered that a Reuter's telegram, which had just come, announced that the Khedive had left Paris for Marseilles intending to take steamer for Egypt, he was heard to say—"I don't care a —— what the Khedive does or what he intends to do. Let him wait until to-morrow."The Sirdar was one of the first of the guests to arrive, and after saying in a low tone that he had just taken the necessary steps to withdraw the ammunition from the native troops, he whispered—"The great thing is to keep calm—not to allow yourself to lose your temper.""Iamcalm, perfectly calm," said the Consul-General.Then the other guests came in quick succession, Envoys Extraordinary, Ministers-Plenipotentiary, Chancellors and Counsellors of Legation and Attachés, wearing all their orders; Barons, Counts, and Marquises—attired magnificently in a prodigious quantity of pad and tailor-work, silk stockings, white, blue, and red, coats with frogs and fur collars, stars, ribbons, silver shoe-buckles, tight breeches, and every conceivable kind of uniform and court-dress.Among the diplomatic corps came Egyptian Ministers wearing the tarboosh and many decorations; the Turkish High Commissioner, a gorgeous and expansive person; a Prince of the Khedivial house, a long miscellaneous line of Pashas and Beys, and finally a few of the Ulema in their turbans and flowing Eastern robes.The Consul-General received them all with smiles, and it was said afterwards that never before had he seemed to be so ceremoniously polite.There was a delay in announcing dinner, and people were beginning to ask who else was expected, when the First Secretary was seen to approach the host and to say something which only he could hear. A moment later the venerable Chancellor of El Azhar entered the hall in his simple grey farageeyah, accompanied by a tall, strong, upright man in the ample folds of a Bedouin Sheikh, and almost immediately afterwards the guests went into the dining-hall.Dinner was served by Arab waiters in white, and while the band in the gardens outside played selections from the latest French operas, some of the European guests consumed a prodigious deal of fermented liquor, and buzzed and twittered and fribbled in the manner of their kind. The Egyptian Ministers and Pashas were less at ease and the Ulema were obviously constrained, but the Consul-General himself, though he continued to smile and to bow, was the most preoccupied person in the room.He passed dish after dish, eating little and drinking nothing, though his tongue wras dry and his throat was parched. From time to time he looked about him with keen eyes, as if counting up the number of those among his guests who had conspired against him. There they were, nearly all of them, his secret enemies, his unceasing revilers, his heartless and treacherous foes. But wait! Only wait! He would soon see their confusion!The Sirdar, who sat on the left of the host, seemed to be conscious of the Consul-General's impatience, and he whispered again—"The great thing is to be calm—perfectly calm.""Iamcalm," said the Consul-General, but in a tone of anger which belied his words.Towards the end of the dinner his Secretary stepped up to the back of his chair and whispered to him that the bridge had been opened, and after that his impatience increased visibly, until the last dish had been served, the waiters had left the room, the band outside had ceased playing, and the toast-master had called silence for the first toast. Then in an instant all impatience, all nervousness, all anxiety disappeared, and the Consul-General rose to propose "The King."Never had any one heard such a bitter, ironical, biting speech. Every word stung, every sentence cut to the bone.He began by telling his guests how happy he was to welcome them in that historic hall, "sacred to the memory of the glories of Ismail Pasha, whose princely prodigality brought Egypt to bankruptcy." Then he assured them that he took their presence there that night as a cordial recognition of what Great Britain had done through forty hard and sleepless years to rescue the Valley of the Nile from financial ruin and moral corruption. Next, he reminded them that England was now reaping the results of the education it had given the country, and among these results were certain immature efforts to found Western institutions on Eastern soil, not to speak of secret conspiracies to embarrass, disturb, and even destroy her rule in Egypt altogether."But I am glad to realise," he said in a withering tone, "that all such attempts to carry the country back from civilisation to barbarism have been repelled by the best elements in the community, European and Egyptian alike, and especially by the illustrious leaders by whom I am now surrounded."Then his eyes flashed like the eyes of an old eagle, while, amid breathless silence, in the husky voice that came from his dry throat, turning from side to side, he thanked his guests, class by class, for the help they had given to the representative of the King in putting down political and religious fanaticism."Gentlemen of the diplomatic corps," he said, "you are satisfied with what England has done for Egypt, and you do not wish to see her rule disturbed. Between you and ourselves there are no animosities, no selfish interests to serve, no hostile groupings, no rival combinations. Knowing that we are the joint trustees of civilisation in a backward Eastern country, nothing could induce you so to act as if you wanted Egypt for yourselves. Gentlemen, in the name of the King, I thank you!"Turning then to the Egyptian Ministers, he said in tones of blistering irony—"Your Excellencies, it seems idle to thank you for your loyalty to the nation by whose power you live. You are far too intelligent not to see that a man cannot set fire to his house and yet hope to preserve it from being burnt to the ground, far too sensible of your own interests to listen to the extremists who would tear to pieces the country you govern and give it back to bankruptcy and ruin. Gentlemen, in the name of the King, I thank you."Then facing the Notables he said, with a curl of his firm lip—"It might perhaps be thought that you, of all others, had least reason to be grateful to the Power that took thecourbashout of your hands, and deprived you of the advantages of forced labour; but you do not want to regain the powers you once held over the great unmoving masses of the people; you are willing to see all false ledgers showing unjust debts burnt in the public squares with your whips and instruments of the bastinado. Therefore, gentlemen, in the name of the King, I thank you."Finally, looking down the middle table to where the Chancellor of El Azhar sat with his Bedouin friend beside him, he said—"And your Eminences of the Ulema, I thank you also. Your enemies sometimes say that you continue to live in the Middle Ages, but you are much too keenly alive to your interests in the present hour not to realise how necessary it is to you to be assured for the future against the possible recurrence of Mahdist raids and revolutions. You know that the hydra-headed monster called fanaticism would destroy you and your class, and therefore you support with all the loyalty of your eager hearts the Power which in the interests of true religion would crush and quell it. Gentlemen, in the name of the King, I thank you."The effect of the speech was paralysing. As, one by one, the Consul-General spoke to the classes represented by his guests, there was not a response, not a sound, nothing but silence in the room, with white faces and quivering lips on every side.At length the Consul-General raised his glass and, in a last passage of withering sarcasm, called on the company to drink to the great sovereign of the great nation which, with the cordial sympathy and united help of the whole community, as represented by those who were there present, had done so much for civilisation and progress in the East—"The King!"They could not help themselves—they rose, a lame, halting, half-terrified company, getting up irregularly, with trembling hands and pallid cheeks, and repeated after the toast-master in nervous, faltering, broken voices, "The King!"After the speaker sat down there was a subdued murmur which rose by degrees to a sort of muffled growl. The Consul-General heard it, and his keen eyes flashed around the company. Down to this moment he had done no more than he intended to do, but now, carried away by the excitement created within himself by his own speech, he wished to throw off all disguise, and fling out at everybody."Better be calm, though," he thought, remembering the Sirdar's advice, and at the next moment the Sirdar himself, whom he had missed from his side, returned and said, in a whisper—"Afraid I must go. Just heard that some of the Egyptian soldiers have been knocking down the officers who were sent to remove their ammunition."At that news, which appeared to confirm predictions and to be the beginning of everything he had been led to expect, the Consul-General lost all control of himself."Wait! Wait a little and we'll go together," he whispered back, and then, calling for silence, he rose to his feet again and faced full upon his guests."Your Highness, your Eminences, your Excellencies, and Gentlemen," he said in a loud voice, "I have one more toast. I have given you the health of the King, and now I give you 'Confusion to his Enemies.'"If a bomb had fallen in the dining-hall it could scarcely have made more commotion. The Consul-General saw this and smiled."Yes, gentlemen, I say his enemies, and when I speak of the King's enemies, I refer to his enemies in Egypt, his enemies in this room."The sensation produced by these words was compounded of many emotions. To such of the guests as were entirely innocent of conspiracy it seemed plainly evident that a kind of mental vertigo had seized the Consul-General. One of them looked round for a doctor, another rose from his seat with the intention of stepping up to the speaker, while a third took out his gold pencil-case and began to scribble a note to the Sirdar, asking him, as the best friend of their host, to remove the Consul-General from the room.On the other hand, the persons who were actually participating in conspiracy had, by operation of that inscrutable instinct which compels guilty men to expose themselves, risen to their feet, and were loudly shouting their protests."Untrue!" "Disgraceful!" "False!" "Utterly false!""False, is it?" said the Consul-General. "We shall see."Then glancing over them one by one as they stood about him, his eye fixed itself first upon a foreign representative whose breast was covered with decorations, and he said—"Baron, did you not say in the Salon of a certain Princess that out of your Secret Service money you were providing arms for the Egyptian populace?"The Baron gave a start of surprise, made some movement of the lips as if trying to reply, and sank back to his seat. Then the Consul-General turned to one of two Egyptian Ministers who, with faces as red as their tarbooshes, were standing side by side, and said—"Pasha, will you deny that as recently as yesterday you sent somebody to me in secret to say that while you were innocent of conspiracy against British rule, your colleague, who stands at your right, was deeply guilty?"The Pasha stammered out some confused words and collapsed.Then the Consul-General faced down to one of the Ulema, the Grand Mufti, who, in his white turban and graceful robes, was trying his best to smile, and said—"Your Eminence, can it be possible that you were not present at the house of the Chancellor of El Azhar when a letter was sent to a certain visionary mummer then in the Soudan, asking him to return to Cairo in order to draw off the allegiance of the Egyptian army?"The smile passed in a flash from the Grand Mufti's face, and he, too, dropped back to his seat. Then one by one the others who had been standing, slithered down to their places, as if each of them was in fear that some secret he had whispered in the salon, the harem or the mosque, would in like manner be blurted from the housetops.The Consul-General swept the whole company with a look of triumph and said—"You see, gentlemen, I know everything, and it is useless to deny. In order to overthrow the authority of England in Egypt you have condescended to the arts of anarchists—you have joined together to provoke rebellion against law and order."All this time the Sirdar's face had been stamped with an expression of sadness, and now he was seen to be addressing the Consul-General in a few low-toned words, but his warning, if such it were, seemed to be quite unheeded. With increasing excitement and intense bitterness the Consul-General turned hotly upon the foreign representatives and said—"Gentlemen of the diplomatic corps, joint trustees with me of peace and civilisation in a backward country, you thought you were using the unrest of the Egyptians to serve your own ends, but listen, and I will tell you what you were really doing."Then, more fiercely than ever, his face aflame, his hoarse voice breaking into harsh cries, he disclosed his knowledge of the Egyptian plot as he understood it to be—how the final aim, the vast and luminous fact to which all Moslem energies were directed, was the establishment of an Arab Empire which should have for its first purpose to resist the Christian nations; how this Empire had originated in the mind of the Khedive, who wished to put himself at the head of it; and how, since it was necessary in an Eastern country to give a religious colour to political intriguing, Ishmael Ameer, the mock Mahdi, the fanatic-hypocrite, had been employed to intimidate the British authorities by bringing up the scourings of the Soudan to their very doors.This fell on the whole company, innocent and guilty, like a thunderclap.The great Proconsul, the strong and practical intellect which had governed the State so long, had been deceived on the main issue, had been fooled, and was fighting a gigantic phantom!"Is this news to you, gentlemen of the diplomatic corps? Ask your friends, the Ulema! Is it news to you, too, gentlemen of El Azhar? Ask your Grand Cadi! But that is not all. You have had no scruples, no shame! In hitting at England you have not hesitated to hit at England's servant—myself. You have hit me where I could least bear the blow. By lies, by hypocrisies, by false pretences you have got hold of my son, my only son, my only relative, all that was left to me ... the one in whom my hopes in life were centred and——"Here the old man's voice faltered, and it was afterwards remembered that at this moment the Bedouin Sheikh rose in obvious agitation, made some steps forward, and then stopped.At the next instant the Consul-General had recovered himself, and, with increasing strength and still greater ferocity, was hurling his last reproaches upon his enemies.[image]The Consul-General was hurling his last reproaches upon his enemies"But you are mistaken, gentlemen. I may be old but I am not yet helpless. In the interests not only of England but of Europe I have made all necessary preparations to defeat your intrigues, and now—now I am about to put them into execution."Saying this he left his seat and directed his steps towards the door. Nearly the whole of the company rose at the same moment, and all stood aside to let him pass. Nobody spoke, nobody made a gesture. In that room there were now no longer conspirators and non-conspirators. There were only silent spectators of a great tragedy. Everybody felt that an immense figure was passing from the world's stage, and none would have been more surprised if the Pyramid of Gizeh had crumbled before their eyes.On reaching the door the Consul-General stopped and spoke again, but with something of his old courageous calm."I understand," he said, "that it was part of the plan that to-night at midnight, while the British army was expected to be on the Delta, and I and my colleagues were to be held prisoners on Ghezirah, the horde of armed fanatics now lying outside on the desert were to enter and occupy the city. That was a foolish scheme, gentlemen, such as could only have been conceived in the cobwebbed brains of El Azhar. But whatever it was I must ask you to abide by its consequences. In the interests of peace and of your own safety you will remain on this island until to-morrow, and in the morning you shall see ... what you shall see!"Then saying something in a low voice to the Commandant of Police who was standing near, he passed out of the dining-hall and the door was closed behind him.CHAPTER XVIIA few minutes afterwards the military band in the garden was playing again, red and white rockets were shooting into the dark sky from the grounds of the Khedivial Sports Club, and the Consul-General was entering the little insular telephone office of Ghezirah, which was under the same roof as the Pavilion."Call me up the Colonel commanding at Abbassiah and ask him to hold the line.""Yes, my lord."While the attendant put in the plug of his machine and waited for a reply, the Consul-General walked nervously to and fro between the counter and the door. He was expecting the Commandant of Police to come to him in a moment with news of the arrest of Ishmael Ameer. Without this certainty (though he had never had an instant's doubt of it) he could not allow himself to proceed to the last and most serious extremity."Not got him yet?""Not yet, my lord," said the attendant, and he plugged his machine afresh.The Consul-General resumed his restless perambulation. He was by no means at ease about the unpremeditated developments of the scene in the dining-hall, but he had always intended to make sure that his enemies were safely housed on the island, and thereby cut off from the power of making further mischief, before he ordered the army into the city. The plugging of the machine was repeated."Not got him even yet, boy?""Cannot get an answer from the Central in Cairo, my lord.""Try yet another line. Quick!"The Consul-General thought the Commandant was long in coming, but no doubt the police staff had removed the supposed "Bedouin" to a private room, so that in making his arrest, and in stripping off his disguise to secure evidence of his identity, there might be no unnecessary commotion, no vulgar sensation. The plugging of the machine ceased."Got him at last?""No, my lord. Think there must be something wrong with the wires.""The wires?""They seem to have been tampered with.""You mean—cut?""Afraid they are, my lord.""Then the island—so far as the telephone goes—the island is isolated?""Yes, my lord."The old man's face, which had been flushed, became deadly pale, and his stubborn lower lip began to tremble."Who can have done this? Who? Who?"The attendant, terrified by the fierce eye that looked into his face, was answering with a vacant stare and a shake of the head when the Sirdar entered the office, accompanied by the Commandant of Police, and both were as white as if they had seen a ghost."Well, what is it now?" demanded the Consul-General, whereupon the Sirdar answered—"The Commandant's men have got him, but——""But—what?""It is not Ishmael Ameer.""Not Ishma ... you say it is not Ish——"The Consul-General stopped, and for a long moment he stared in silence into the blanched faces before him. Then he said sharply, "Who is it?"The Commandant dropped his head and the Sirdar seemed unwilling to reply."Who is it, then?""It is ... it is a British officer.""A British ... you say a British——""A Colonel."The old man's lips moved as if he were repeating the word without uttering it."His tunic was torn where his decorations had been. He looked like ... like a man who might have been degraded."The Consul-General's face twitched, but in a fierce, almost ferocious voice he said, "Speak! Who is it?"There was another moment of silence, which seemed to be eternal, and then the Sirdar replied—"Nuneham, it is your own son."CHAPTER XVIII"From the Slave of the Most High, Abdul Ali, Chancellor of El Azhar, to Ishmael Ameer, the Messenger of God—Praise be to Him, the Exalted One!
CHAPTER XIV
"CAIRO.
"MY DEAREST HELENA,—I am going to that dinner! Yes, as Ishmael Ameer in the disguise of the Sheikh Omar Benani, chief of the Ababdah, I am to be one of my father's guests.
"This is the morning of the day of the festivities, and from Hafiz, by the instrumentality of one who would live or die or give her immortal soul for me, I have at length learned all the facts of my father'scoup.
"Did you ever hear of the incident of the Opera House? Well, this incident is to be a replica of that, though the parts to be played in the drama are in danger of being differently cast.
"As this is the last letter I shall be able to send to you before an event which may decide one way or other the fate of England in Egypt, my father's fate, Ishmael's, and perhaps yours and mine, I must tell you as much as I dare commit to paper.
"The British army, as I foresaw from the first, is being brought back to Cairo. It is to come in to-night as quietly as possible by the last trains arriving at Calioub. The Consul-General is to go to Ghezirah as if nothing were about to happen, but at the last moment, when his enemies have been gathered under one roof—Ministers, Diplomats, Notables, Ulema—when the operation of their plot has begun, and the bridge is drawn and the island is isolated, and Ishmael and his vast following are making ready to enter the city, my father is to speak over the telephone to the officer commanding at Abbassiah, and then the soldiers, with fifty rounds of ammunition, are to march into Cairo and line up in the streets.
"Such is my father'scoup, and to make sure of the complete success of it—that Ishmael's following is on the move, and that no conspirator (myself above all) escapes—he has given orders to the Colonel not to stir one man out of the barracks until he receives his signal. Well, my work to-night is to see that he never receives it.
"Already you will guess what I am going to do. I must go to the dinner in order to do it, for both the central office of the telephone and the office of the telegraph are now under the roofs of the Ghezirah Palace and Pavilion.
"I hate to do the damnable thing, but it must be done. It must, it must! There is no help for it.
"I cannot tell you how hard it is to me to be engaged in a secret means to frustrate my father's plans—it is like fighting one's own flesh and blood, and is not fair warfare. Neither can I say what a struggle it has been to me as an English soldier to make up my mind to intercept an order of the British army—it is like playing traitor, and I can scarcely bear to think of it.
"But all the same Iknowit is necessary. I also knowGodknows it is necessary, and when I think of that my heart beats wildly.
"It is necessary to prevent the massacre which I know (and my father does not) would inevitably ensue; necessary to save my father himself from the execration of the civilised world; necessary to save Ishmael from the tragic consequences of his determined fanaticism; necessary to save England from the possible loss of her Mohammedan dominions, from being faithless to her duty as a Christian nation, and from the divine judgment which will overtake her if she wantonly destroys her great fame as the one Western power that seems designed by Providence to rule and to guide the Eastern peoples; and necessary above all to save the white man and the black man from a legacy of hatred that would divide them for another hundred years and put back the union of races and faiths for countless centuries.
"If I am not a vain fool this is what I (D.V.) have got to do, so why in the name of God need I trouble myself about the means by which I do it? And if I am the only man who can, I must, or I shall be a coward skulking out of his plain responsibility, and a traitor not only to England but to humanity itself.
"God does not promise me success, but I believe I shall succeed. Indeed I am so sure of success that I feel as if all the recent events of my life have been leading up to this one. What I felt when I left Cairo for Khartoum, and again when I left Khartoum for Cairo—that everything had been governed by higher powers which could not err—I feel now more than ever.
"If I had delivered myself up to the authorities after your father's death my life would have been wasted and thrown away. Nay, if I had obeyed orders over the blunder of El Azhar I should not have been where I am now—between two high-spirited men who are blindly making for each other's ruin, and the destruction of all they stand for.
"This reconciles me to everything that has happened, and if I have to pay the penalty of playing buffer I am ready to do so. I have great trust that God will bring me out all right, but if that is not His plan, then so be it. I am willing to give my life for England, whatever name she may know me by when she comes to see what I have done, and I am willing to die for these poor Egyptians, because I was born and brought up among them, and I cannot help loving them.
"Death has no terrors for me anyway. I think the experiences of the past months have taught me all that death has to teach. In fact I feel at this moment exactly as I have felt at the last charge in battle, when, fighting against frightful odds, it has not been a case of every man for himself, but of God for us all.
"Besides I feel that on the day of your father's death I died to myself—to my selfish hopes of life, I mean—and if God intends to crush me in order that I may save my country and these people whom I love and who love me I really wish and long for Him to do so.
"ButIn-sha-allah! It will be as God pleases, and I believe from the bottom of my heart that He is working out His wonderful embroidery of events to a triumphant issue. So don't be afraid, my dear Helena, whatever occurs to-night. I may be taken, but (D.V.) I shall not be taken in disgrace. In any case I feel that my hour has come—the great hour that I have been waiting for so long.
"This may be the last letter I shall write to you, so I am sending it by Mosie, lest Hamid should find a difficulty in getting into your camp. I hope to God you may get it, for I want you to know that my last thoughts are about yourself.
"Upon my soul, dear, I believe the end will be all right, but if it is to be otherwise, and we are to be separated, and our lives in this world are to be wasted, remember that deep love bridges death.
"Remember, too, what you said to me at Khartoum. 'I am a soldier's daughter,' you said, 'and in my heart I am a soldier's wife as well, and I shouldn't be worthy to be either if I didn't tell you to do your duty, whatever the consequences to me.'
"Good-bye, my dear, my dear! If anything happens you will know what to do. I trust you without fear. I have always trusted you. I can say it now, at this last moment—never, dearest, never for one instant has the shadow of a doubt of you entered into my heart. My brave girl, my love, my life, my Helena!
"May the great God of Heaven bless and protect you!
"GORDON.
"P.S.—Oh, how the deuce did I forget? There is something for you to do—something important—and I had almost sent off my letter without saying anything about it.
"Do you remember that on the day I left Khartoum it was ordered by Ishmael that after the call of the muezzin to midnight prayers, a light was to be set up in the minaret of the mosque of Mohammed Ali as a sign that he might enter the city in peace?
"Well, if I fail and the British army comes into Cairo Ishmael must be kept out of it. He may be stubborn—a man who thinks God guides and protects him and makes a special dispensation for him is not easy to dissuade—but if the light does not appear hemustbe restrained.
"That is your work with Ishmael—why you are with him still. I knew it would be revealed to us some day. Once more, my dear, my dear, God bless and protect you!"
CHAPTER XV
"UNDER THE PYKAMIDS.
"MY DEAR GORDON,—Your letter has not yet reached me. What has happened? Has your messenger been caught? Who was it? Was it Hamid?
"Not having heard from you, I was of course compelled to come on with the camp and therefore I am with it still. We are under the shadow of the pyramids, with the mud-built village of Sakkara by our side and Cairo in front of us, beyond the ruins of old Memphis and across a stretch of golden sand.
"This is, it seems, the day of 'the King's Dinner,' and at sunset when the elephant-horn was blown for the last time we gathered for prayers under a sea-blue sky on the blood-red side of the Step Pyramid.
"It was a splendid, horrible, inspiring, depressing, devilish, divine spectacle. First, Ishmael recited from the Koran the chapter about the Prophet's great vision (the Surat er Russoul, I think), while the people on their knees in the shadow, with the sun slanting over their heads, shouted their responses. Then in rapturous tones he spoke, and though I was on the farthest verge of the vast crowd I heard nearly all he said.
"They had reached their journey's end, and had to thank God who had brought them so far without the loss of a single life. Soon they were to go into Cairo, the Mecca of the new world, but they were to enter it in the spirit of love, not hate, of peace, not war, doing violence to none and raising no rebellion. What said the Holy Koran? 'Whosoever among Moslems, Christians or Jews believe in God and in another life shall be rewarded.'
"Therefore let no man think they were come to turn the Christians out of Egypt. They were there on a far higher errand—to turn the devil out of the world! The intolerance and bitterness of past ages had been the product of hatred and darkness. The grinding poverty and misery of the present age was the result of a false faith and civilisation. But they were come to bring universal peace, universal brotherhood, and universal religion to all nations and races and creeds—one State, one Faith, one Law, one God!
"Cairo was the gate to the East. It was also the gate to the West. He who held the keys of that gate was master of the world. Who, then, should hold them but God's own, His Guided One, His Expected One, His Christ?
"More and yet more of this kind Ishmael said in his thrilling, throbbing voice, and of course the people greeted every sentence with shouts of joy. And then finally, pointing to the minarets of the mosque of Mohammed Ali, far off on the Mokattam hills, he told them that at midnight, after the call to prayers, a light was to shine there, and they were to take it for a sign that they might enter Cairo without injury to any and with goodwill towards all.
"'Watch for that light, O my brothers! It will come! As surely as the sun will rise on you to-morrow, that light will shine on you to-night!'
"It is now quite dark and the camp is in a delirious state of excitement. The scene about my tent is simply terrifying. At one side there is an immense Zikr, with fifty frantic creatures crying 'Allah!' to a leader who in wild guttural tones is reciting the ninety-nine attributes of God. At the other side there is a huge fire at which a group of men, having slaughtered a sheep, are boiling it in a cauldron, with many pungent herbs, that they may feast and rejoice together in honour of the coming day. People are sitting in circles and singing hymns of victory; tambourines, kettle-drums, and one-stringed lutes are being played everywhere, and strolling singers are going about from fire to fire making up songs that describe Ishmael's good looks, and good deeds, and his 'divinity'—the wildest ditty being the most applauded.
"Where Ishmael himself is I do not know, but he must indeed be carried away by religious ecstasy if he is not trembling at the mere thought of to-morrow morning. What is to happen if these 'Allah-intoxicated Arabs' have to meet five thousand British bayonets? Or, supposing you can obviate that, what is to occur when they are compelled to realise that all their high-built hopes are in the dust? O God! O God!
II
"El Hamdullillah! Your letter has come at last! Perhaps I wish it hadn't been Mosie who brought it, but the boy was clever in riding into the camp unobserved, and now I have sent him outside to hide in the darkness while I scribble a few lines in reply. He is to come back presently, and meantime, please God, he will keep out of the sight of that she-cat of an Arab woman.
"You are doing right, darling—I am sure you are! Naturally you must be troubled with thoughts about England and your father, but both will yet see what motives inspired you, and whatever they do now they will eventually make amends.
"Bravo, my boy, bravo! Perhaps we shall all become Quakers some day, but let the peace-people croak as they please, it is war that brings out the truly heroic virtues, and though you are trying to prevent bloodshed you are really going into battle. Go, then, and God bless you!
"What wretched ink this is—it must have got mixed with water.
"Oh yes, certainly! I will stay here to the end, and if occasion arises I will do what you desire, though I have not the faintest hope of succeeding. The fact is that even if I could persuade Ishmael not to enter Cairo the people would not under any circumstances be restrained.
"To tell you the truth, I cannot help feeling sorry for him. He really began with the highest aims and the strongest common sense, but he has become the victim of his people's idolatry, and, being made an idol, he may no longer be a man.
"I cannot help feeling sorry for the people also, for I suppose they have only tried in their blind way to realise the dream of humanity in all ages, the dream of all the holy books and all the great prophets—the dream of a millennium.
"It seems, too, as if God, who puts beautiful ideals in people's hearts, always calls for a scapegoat to pay the price of them. That is what you are to be, dear, and when I think of what you are going to do to save these poor people I begin to see for the first time what is meant by the sacrificial blood of Christ.
"I suppose this is shocking, but I don't care a pin about that. Every heroic man who risks his life for his fellow-man is doing what Christ did. You are doing it, and I don't believe the good God will ask any question about ways and means.
"There! That's something out of my eyes splash on to the very point of my pen. Don't take it as a mark of weakness, though, but as the sign-manual of Helena's heart telling you to go on without thinking about her.
"Forget what I said about my Jewish blood and Jezebel and all that nonsense. Ishmael's 'work' will not be 'finished' until he enters into Cairo, so I run no risk while I am here, you see.
"Of course I am in a fever of impatience to know what is happening on Ghezirah to-night, but you must not suppose that I am afraid. In any case, I shall stay here, having no longer the faintest thought of running away, and if there is anything to do I'll do it.
"Thismaybe the last letter I am to write to you, so good-bye, my Gordon, and God bless you again! My dear, my dear, my dear! HELENA.
"P.S.—I suppose you are in the thick of it by this time, for I see that the illuminations on Ghezirah have already begun. My dear, my dear, my ... my——"
CHAPTER XVI
At eight o'clock that night the Pavilion of the Ghezirah Palace was brilliantly lit up for the "King's Dinner." A troop of British cavalry was mounted in front of it under the sparkling lights that swung from the tall palms of the garden, and a crowd of eager spectators were waiting to see the arrival of the guests.
The Consul-General came early, driving in his open carriage with two gorgeously clad saises running before him. When he stepped down at the door, in his cocked hat, laced coat, and gold-braided trousers, he was saluted like a sovereign. The band of a British regiment under the trees played some bars of the National Anthem, and the English onlookers cheered.
In the open court of the Pavilion, which was walled about by Oriental hangings, the Consul-General's own people were waiting to receive him. His old and weakened but still massive and even menacing personality showed out strongly against the shadowy forms of some of the Advisers and Under-Secretaries who stood behind him.
It was quickly seen that his manner was less brusque and masterful than usual, but that his tone was cynical and almost bitter. When his First Secretary stepped up to him and whispered that a Reuter's telegram, which had just come, announced that the Khedive had left Paris for Marseilles intending to take steamer for Egypt, he was heard to say—
"I don't care a —— what the Khedive does or what he intends to do. Let him wait until to-morrow."
The Sirdar was one of the first of the guests to arrive, and after saying in a low tone that he had just taken the necessary steps to withdraw the ammunition from the native troops, he whispered—
"The great thing is to keep calm—not to allow yourself to lose your temper."
"Iamcalm, perfectly calm," said the Consul-General.
Then the other guests came in quick succession, Envoys Extraordinary, Ministers-Plenipotentiary, Chancellors and Counsellors of Legation and Attachés, wearing all their orders; Barons, Counts, and Marquises—attired magnificently in a prodigious quantity of pad and tailor-work, silk stockings, white, blue, and red, coats with frogs and fur collars, stars, ribbons, silver shoe-buckles, tight breeches, and every conceivable kind of uniform and court-dress.
Among the diplomatic corps came Egyptian Ministers wearing the tarboosh and many decorations; the Turkish High Commissioner, a gorgeous and expansive person; a Prince of the Khedivial house, a long miscellaneous line of Pashas and Beys, and finally a few of the Ulema in their turbans and flowing Eastern robes.
The Consul-General received them all with smiles, and it was said afterwards that never before had he seemed to be so ceremoniously polite.
There was a delay in announcing dinner, and people were beginning to ask who else was expected, when the First Secretary was seen to approach the host and to say something which only he could hear. A moment later the venerable Chancellor of El Azhar entered the hall in his simple grey farageeyah, accompanied by a tall, strong, upright man in the ample folds of a Bedouin Sheikh, and almost immediately afterwards the guests went into the dining-hall.
Dinner was served by Arab waiters in white, and while the band in the gardens outside played selections from the latest French operas, some of the European guests consumed a prodigious deal of fermented liquor, and buzzed and twittered and fribbled in the manner of their kind. The Egyptian Ministers and Pashas were less at ease and the Ulema were obviously constrained, but the Consul-General himself, though he continued to smile and to bow, was the most preoccupied person in the room.
He passed dish after dish, eating little and drinking nothing, though his tongue wras dry and his throat was parched. From time to time he looked about him with keen eyes, as if counting up the number of those among his guests who had conspired against him. There they were, nearly all of them, his secret enemies, his unceasing revilers, his heartless and treacherous foes. But wait! Only wait! He would soon see their confusion!
The Sirdar, who sat on the left of the host, seemed to be conscious of the Consul-General's impatience, and he whispered again—
"The great thing is to be calm—perfectly calm."
"Iamcalm," said the Consul-General, but in a tone of anger which belied his words.
Towards the end of the dinner his Secretary stepped up to the back of his chair and whispered to him that the bridge had been opened, and after that his impatience increased visibly, until the last dish had been served, the waiters had left the room, the band outside had ceased playing, and the toast-master had called silence for the first toast. Then in an instant all impatience, all nervousness, all anxiety disappeared, and the Consul-General rose to propose "The King."
Never had any one heard such a bitter, ironical, biting speech. Every word stung, every sentence cut to the bone.
He began by telling his guests how happy he was to welcome them in that historic hall, "sacred to the memory of the glories of Ismail Pasha, whose princely prodigality brought Egypt to bankruptcy." Then he assured them that he took their presence there that night as a cordial recognition of what Great Britain had done through forty hard and sleepless years to rescue the Valley of the Nile from financial ruin and moral corruption. Next, he reminded them that England was now reaping the results of the education it had given the country, and among these results were certain immature efforts to found Western institutions on Eastern soil, not to speak of secret conspiracies to embarrass, disturb, and even destroy her rule in Egypt altogether.
"But I am glad to realise," he said in a withering tone, "that all such attempts to carry the country back from civilisation to barbarism have been repelled by the best elements in the community, European and Egyptian alike, and especially by the illustrious leaders by whom I am now surrounded."
Then his eyes flashed like the eyes of an old eagle, while, amid breathless silence, in the husky voice that came from his dry throat, turning from side to side, he thanked his guests, class by class, for the help they had given to the representative of the King in putting down political and religious fanaticism.
"Gentlemen of the diplomatic corps," he said, "you are satisfied with what England has done for Egypt, and you do not wish to see her rule disturbed. Between you and ourselves there are no animosities, no selfish interests to serve, no hostile groupings, no rival combinations. Knowing that we are the joint trustees of civilisation in a backward Eastern country, nothing could induce you so to act as if you wanted Egypt for yourselves. Gentlemen, in the name of the King, I thank you!"
Turning then to the Egyptian Ministers, he said in tones of blistering irony—
"Your Excellencies, it seems idle to thank you for your loyalty to the nation by whose power you live. You are far too intelligent not to see that a man cannot set fire to his house and yet hope to preserve it from being burnt to the ground, far too sensible of your own interests to listen to the extremists who would tear to pieces the country you govern and give it back to bankruptcy and ruin. Gentlemen, in the name of the King, I thank you."
Then facing the Notables he said, with a curl of his firm lip—
"It might perhaps be thought that you, of all others, had least reason to be grateful to the Power that took thecourbashout of your hands, and deprived you of the advantages of forced labour; but you do not want to regain the powers you once held over the great unmoving masses of the people; you are willing to see all false ledgers showing unjust debts burnt in the public squares with your whips and instruments of the bastinado. Therefore, gentlemen, in the name of the King, I thank you."
Finally, looking down the middle table to where the Chancellor of El Azhar sat with his Bedouin friend beside him, he said—
"And your Eminences of the Ulema, I thank you also. Your enemies sometimes say that you continue to live in the Middle Ages, but you are much too keenly alive to your interests in the present hour not to realise how necessary it is to you to be assured for the future against the possible recurrence of Mahdist raids and revolutions. You know that the hydra-headed monster called fanaticism would destroy you and your class, and therefore you support with all the loyalty of your eager hearts the Power which in the interests of true religion would crush and quell it. Gentlemen, in the name of the King, I thank you."
The effect of the speech was paralysing. As, one by one, the Consul-General spoke to the classes represented by his guests, there was not a response, not a sound, nothing but silence in the room, with white faces and quivering lips on every side.
At length the Consul-General raised his glass and, in a last passage of withering sarcasm, called on the company to drink to the great sovereign of the great nation which, with the cordial sympathy and united help of the whole community, as represented by those who were there present, had done so much for civilisation and progress in the East—"The King!"
They could not help themselves—they rose, a lame, halting, half-terrified company, getting up irregularly, with trembling hands and pallid cheeks, and repeated after the toast-master in nervous, faltering, broken voices, "The King!"
After the speaker sat down there was a subdued murmur which rose by degrees to a sort of muffled growl. The Consul-General heard it, and his keen eyes flashed around the company. Down to this moment he had done no more than he intended to do, but now, carried away by the excitement created within himself by his own speech, he wished to throw off all disguise, and fling out at everybody.
"Better be calm, though," he thought, remembering the Sirdar's advice, and at the next moment the Sirdar himself, whom he had missed from his side, returned and said, in a whisper—
"Afraid I must go. Just heard that some of the Egyptian soldiers have been knocking down the officers who were sent to remove their ammunition."
At that news, which appeared to confirm predictions and to be the beginning of everything he had been led to expect, the Consul-General lost all control of himself.
"Wait! Wait a little and we'll go together," he whispered back, and then, calling for silence, he rose to his feet again and faced full upon his guests.
"Your Highness, your Eminences, your Excellencies, and Gentlemen," he said in a loud voice, "I have one more toast. I have given you the health of the King, and now I give you 'Confusion to his Enemies.'"
If a bomb had fallen in the dining-hall it could scarcely have made more commotion. The Consul-General saw this and smiled.
"Yes, gentlemen, I say his enemies, and when I speak of the King's enemies, I refer to his enemies in Egypt, his enemies in this room."
The sensation produced by these words was compounded of many emotions. To such of the guests as were entirely innocent of conspiracy it seemed plainly evident that a kind of mental vertigo had seized the Consul-General. One of them looked round for a doctor, another rose from his seat with the intention of stepping up to the speaker, while a third took out his gold pencil-case and began to scribble a note to the Sirdar, asking him, as the best friend of their host, to remove the Consul-General from the room.
On the other hand, the persons who were actually participating in conspiracy had, by operation of that inscrutable instinct which compels guilty men to expose themselves, risen to their feet, and were loudly shouting their protests.
"Untrue!" "Disgraceful!" "False!" "Utterly false!"
"False, is it?" said the Consul-General. "We shall see."
Then glancing over them one by one as they stood about him, his eye fixed itself first upon a foreign representative whose breast was covered with decorations, and he said—
"Baron, did you not say in the Salon of a certain Princess that out of your Secret Service money you were providing arms for the Egyptian populace?"
The Baron gave a start of surprise, made some movement of the lips as if trying to reply, and sank back to his seat. Then the Consul-General turned to one of two Egyptian Ministers who, with faces as red as their tarbooshes, were standing side by side, and said—
"Pasha, will you deny that as recently as yesterday you sent somebody to me in secret to say that while you were innocent of conspiracy against British rule, your colleague, who stands at your right, was deeply guilty?"
The Pasha stammered out some confused words and collapsed.
Then the Consul-General faced down to one of the Ulema, the Grand Mufti, who, in his white turban and graceful robes, was trying his best to smile, and said—
"Your Eminence, can it be possible that you were not present at the house of the Chancellor of El Azhar when a letter was sent to a certain visionary mummer then in the Soudan, asking him to return to Cairo in order to draw off the allegiance of the Egyptian army?"
The smile passed in a flash from the Grand Mufti's face, and he, too, dropped back to his seat. Then one by one the others who had been standing, slithered down to their places, as if each of them was in fear that some secret he had whispered in the salon, the harem or the mosque, would in like manner be blurted from the housetops.
The Consul-General swept the whole company with a look of triumph and said—
"You see, gentlemen, I know everything, and it is useless to deny. In order to overthrow the authority of England in Egypt you have condescended to the arts of anarchists—you have joined together to provoke rebellion against law and order."
All this time the Sirdar's face had been stamped with an expression of sadness, and now he was seen to be addressing the Consul-General in a few low-toned words, but his warning, if such it were, seemed to be quite unheeded. With increasing excitement and intense bitterness the Consul-General turned hotly upon the foreign representatives and said—
"Gentlemen of the diplomatic corps, joint trustees with me of peace and civilisation in a backward country, you thought you were using the unrest of the Egyptians to serve your own ends, but listen, and I will tell you what you were really doing."
Then, more fiercely than ever, his face aflame, his hoarse voice breaking into harsh cries, he disclosed his knowledge of the Egyptian plot as he understood it to be—how the final aim, the vast and luminous fact to which all Moslem energies were directed, was the establishment of an Arab Empire which should have for its first purpose to resist the Christian nations; how this Empire had originated in the mind of the Khedive, who wished to put himself at the head of it; and how, since it was necessary in an Eastern country to give a religious colour to political intriguing, Ishmael Ameer, the mock Mahdi, the fanatic-hypocrite, had been employed to intimidate the British authorities by bringing up the scourings of the Soudan to their very doors.
This fell on the whole company, innocent and guilty, like a thunderclap.
The great Proconsul, the strong and practical intellect which had governed the State so long, had been deceived on the main issue, had been fooled, and was fighting a gigantic phantom!
"Is this news to you, gentlemen of the diplomatic corps? Ask your friends, the Ulema! Is it news to you, too, gentlemen of El Azhar? Ask your Grand Cadi! But that is not all. You have had no scruples, no shame! In hitting at England you have not hesitated to hit at England's servant—myself. You have hit me where I could least bear the blow. By lies, by hypocrisies, by false pretences you have got hold of my son, my only son, my only relative, all that was left to me ... the one in whom my hopes in life were centred and——"
Here the old man's voice faltered, and it was afterwards remembered that at this moment the Bedouin Sheikh rose in obvious agitation, made some steps forward, and then stopped.
At the next instant the Consul-General had recovered himself, and, with increasing strength and still greater ferocity, was hurling his last reproaches upon his enemies.
[image]The Consul-General was hurling his last reproaches upon his enemies
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The Consul-General was hurling his last reproaches upon his enemies
"But you are mistaken, gentlemen. I may be old but I am not yet helpless. In the interests not only of England but of Europe I have made all necessary preparations to defeat your intrigues, and now—now I am about to put them into execution."
Saying this he left his seat and directed his steps towards the door. Nearly the whole of the company rose at the same moment, and all stood aside to let him pass. Nobody spoke, nobody made a gesture. In that room there were now no longer conspirators and non-conspirators. There were only silent spectators of a great tragedy. Everybody felt that an immense figure was passing from the world's stage, and none would have been more surprised if the Pyramid of Gizeh had crumbled before their eyes.
On reaching the door the Consul-General stopped and spoke again, but with something of his old courageous calm.
"I understand," he said, "that it was part of the plan that to-night at midnight, while the British army was expected to be on the Delta, and I and my colleagues were to be held prisoners on Ghezirah, the horde of armed fanatics now lying outside on the desert were to enter and occupy the city. That was a foolish scheme, gentlemen, such as could only have been conceived in the cobwebbed brains of El Azhar. But whatever it was I must ask you to abide by its consequences. In the interests of peace and of your own safety you will remain on this island until to-morrow, and in the morning you shall see ... what you shall see!"
Then saying something in a low voice to the Commandant of Police who was standing near, he passed out of the dining-hall and the door was closed behind him.
CHAPTER XVII
A few minutes afterwards the military band in the garden was playing again, red and white rockets were shooting into the dark sky from the grounds of the Khedivial Sports Club, and the Consul-General was entering the little insular telephone office of Ghezirah, which was under the same roof as the Pavilion.
"Call me up the Colonel commanding at Abbassiah and ask him to hold the line."
"Yes, my lord."
While the attendant put in the plug of his machine and waited for a reply, the Consul-General walked nervously to and fro between the counter and the door. He was expecting the Commandant of Police to come to him in a moment with news of the arrest of Ishmael Ameer. Without this certainty (though he had never had an instant's doubt of it) he could not allow himself to proceed to the last and most serious extremity.
"Not got him yet?"
"Not yet, my lord," said the attendant, and he plugged his machine afresh.
The Consul-General resumed his restless perambulation. He was by no means at ease about the unpremeditated developments of the scene in the dining-hall, but he had always intended to make sure that his enemies were safely housed on the island, and thereby cut off from the power of making further mischief, before he ordered the army into the city. The plugging of the machine was repeated.
"Not got him even yet, boy?"
"Cannot get an answer from the Central in Cairo, my lord."
"Try yet another line. Quick!"
The Consul-General thought the Commandant was long in coming, but no doubt the police staff had removed the supposed "Bedouin" to a private room, so that in making his arrest, and in stripping off his disguise to secure evidence of his identity, there might be no unnecessary commotion, no vulgar sensation. The plugging of the machine ceased.
"Got him at last?"
"No, my lord. Think there must be something wrong with the wires."
"The wires?"
"They seem to have been tampered with."
"You mean—cut?"
"Afraid they are, my lord."
"Then the island—so far as the telephone goes—the island is isolated?"
"Yes, my lord."
The old man's face, which had been flushed, became deadly pale, and his stubborn lower lip began to tremble.
"Who can have done this? Who? Who?"
The attendant, terrified by the fierce eye that looked into his face, was answering with a vacant stare and a shake of the head when the Sirdar entered the office, accompanied by the Commandant of Police, and both were as white as if they had seen a ghost.
"Well, what is it now?" demanded the Consul-General, whereupon the Sirdar answered—
"The Commandant's men have got him, but——"
"But—what?"
"It is not Ishmael Ameer."
"Not Ishma ... you say it is not Ish——"
The Consul-General stopped, and for a long moment he stared in silence into the blanched faces before him. Then he said sharply, "Who is it?"
The Commandant dropped his head and the Sirdar seemed unwilling to reply.
"Who is it, then?"
"It is ... it is a British officer."
"A British ... you say a British——"
"A Colonel."
The old man's lips moved as if he were repeating the word without uttering it.
"His tunic was torn where his decorations had been. He looked like ... like a man who might have been degraded."
The Consul-General's face twitched, but in a fierce, almost ferocious voice he said, "Speak! Who is it?"
There was another moment of silence, which seemed to be eternal, and then the Sirdar replied—
"Nuneham, it is your own son."
CHAPTER XVIII
"From the Slave of the Most High, Abdul Ali, Chancellor of El Azhar, to Ishmael Ameer, the Messenger of God—Praise be to Him, the Exalted One!