 Chapter 1 The Secret and the Girl The exciting part began in Cairo, but perhaps I ought to go back to what happened on the Laconia between Naples and Alexandria. Luckily no one can expect a man who actually rejoices in his nickname of Duffer to know how or where a true story should begin. The huge ship was passing swiftly out of the bay of Naples, and already we were in the strait between Capri and the mainland. I had come on deck from the smoking-room for a last look at poor Vesuvius, who lost her lovely head in the last eruption. I paced up and down, acutely conscious of my great secret, the secret inspiring my voyage to Egypt. For months it had been the hidden romance of life, now it began to seem real. This is not the moment to tell how I got the papers that revealed the secret, before I passed them on to Anthony Fenton at Cartoon, for him to say whether or not the notes were of real importance. But the papers had been left in Rome by Fellini, the Italian Egyptologist, seventy years ago, when he gave to the museum at Berlin the treasures he had unearthed. It was Fellini who ransacked the pyramids all about Mero, that so-called island in the desert, where in its days of splendor reigned the queen's Candice. Fenton, stationed at Cartoon, an eager dabbler in the old lore of Egypt, sent me an enthusiastic telegram the moment he read the documents. They confirmed the legends of the Sudan in which he had been interested. Between two and two together, the legends and Fellini's notes, Anthony was convinced that we had the clue to fortune. At once he applied for permission to excavate under the little outlying mountain, named by the desert folk the Mountain of the Golden Pyramid. At first the spot was thought to fall within the province given up to Garstang, digging for Liverpool University. Later however the service des Antiquités pronounced the place to be outside Garstang's borders, and it seemed that luck was coming our way. No one but we, too, Fenton and I, had any inkling of what might lie hidden in the Mountain of the Golden Pyramid. That was the great secret. Then Fenton had gone to the Balkans on a flying trip in every sense of the word. It was only a fortnight ago, I being then in Rome, that I had a wire from him in Salonica saying, friends at work to promote our scheme, meet me on my return to Egypt. After that several telegrams had been exchanged, and here I was on the Laconia bound for the land of my birth, full of hope and dreams. For some moments distant Vesuvius had beguiled my thoughts from the still more distant Mountain of the secret, when suddenly a white girl in a white hood and a long white cloak passed me on the white deck, whereupon I forgot mountains of reality and dreams. She was one of those tall, slim, long-limbed, dry-ed sorts of girls they are running up nowadays in England and America with much success, and besides all that she was an amazing symphony in white and gold against an azure Italian sea and sky, the two last being breezily jumbled together at the moment for us on shipboard. She walked well in spite of the blue turmoil, and if a fair girl with golden brown hair gets herself up in satiny white fur from head to foot she is evidently meant to be looked at. Girls were looking also, they were whispering after she went by, and her serene air of being alone in a world made entirely for her caused me to wonder if she were not someone in particular. Just then a sweet, soft voice said, close to my ear, Why, duffer dear, it can't possibly be you. I gave a jump, for I hadn't heard that voice for many a year, and between the ages of four and fourteen I had been in love with it. It O'Brien, said I, then I grabbed her two hands and shook them as if her arms had been branches of a young cherry-tree dropping fruit. Why not Biddy, she asked, or are you wanting me to call you Lord Ernest? Good heavens know, what's a duffer, always a duffer, I assured her, and I've been thinking of you as Biddy from then till now, only—twas as clever a thing as a boy ever did, she broke in, with one of her smiles that no man ever forgets, to begin duffing at an early age, in order to escape all the professions and businesses your pastors and masters proposed, and go your own way. Are you at it still? Rather, but you, I want to talk to you. Then don't do it in a loud voice, if you please, because, as you must have realized, if you've taken time to think, I'm Mrs. Jones at present. Why Jones? Because Smith is engaged beforehand by too many people. Honestly without joking, I'm in danger here and everywhere. And it's a wicked, selfish thing for me to come the way I have. But Rosamond Gilder is the hardest girl to resist you ever saw, so I'm with her and it's a long history. Rosamond Gilder? What, the canon princess, the birth-a-crop of America? Yes, the gilded babe that used to be wheeled about in a caged perambulator guarded by detectives. The gilded bud whose coming out in society was called the Million Dollar Debut. Now she's just had her twenty-first birthday, and the Sunday supplements have promoted her to be the Golden Girl, alternating with the gilded Rose, although she's the simplest creature really, with a tremendous sense of the responsibility of her riches. Poor child, there she is, walking toward us now with those two young men. Of course, young men, droves of young men, she can't get away from them any more than she can from her money. No, she's stopped to talk to Cleopatra. That tall, white girl, Rosamond Gilder? Just before you came, I was wondering who she was, and when you smiled at each other across the deck, it sprang into my mind that—that—that what? Oh, it seems stupid now. Give me a chance to judge, dear Duffer. Well, seeing you and knowing, that is, it occurred to me you might be traveling with the daughter of your late good heavens, don't say any more. I've been frightened to death somebody would get that brilliant notion in his head, especially as money and her aunt came on board the Laconia only at Monaco. Esmael Bryan is in a convent school not thirty miles from there. But that's the deepest secret. Poor Peter Gilder's fears for his millionaire girl would be child's play to what might happen before such a mistake was found out if once it was made. That's just one of the hundred reasons why it would be as safe for Monty Gilder to travel with a bomb in her dressing-bag as to have me in her train of dependence. She telegraphed New York for me because of a stupid thing I said in a letter about being lonely, though she pretends it would be too dull journeying to such a romantic country alone with a mere aunt. And as she thinks I attract adventures, it's only too true. But I couldn't resist her, nobody can. Why, the first time I ever saw Monty she'd cast herself down in a mud puddle and was screaming and kicking because she wanted to walk, while one adoring father, one sycophantic governess, and two trained nurses wanted her to get into an automobile. That was on my honeymoon, Heaven saved the mark, and Monty was nine. She has other ways now of getting what she wants, but they're even more effective. I laughed at her that first time, and she was so surprised at my impudence she took a violent fancy to me. But I don't always laugh at her now. Oh, she's a perfect terror, I assure you, and still more a perfect darling. Such an angel of charity to the poor, such a demon of obscenity with the rich. I worship her. So does Cleopatra. So does everybody who doesn't hate her. So will you, the minute you've been introduced. And by the way, why not? Why shouldn't I make myself useful for once by arranging a match between Rosamond Gilder, the prettiest heiress in America, and Lord Ernest Barrow of the oldest family in Ireland? And the poorest. All the more reason why, don't you see? She mightn't. Well, what's the good of her having all that money if she doesn't get a hold of a really grand title to hang it on? I shall tell her that Barrow comes down from Barrow, Brian Barrow, the rightful king of Ireland, and when your brother dies you'll be Marquise of Kalina. He'll not die for thirty or forty years, let's hope. Who I hope it, when he likes nobody and nobody likes him and everybody likes you. He can't be happy. And anyhow, isn't it worth a few millions to be Lady Ernest Barrow, and have the privilege of restoring the most beautiful old castle in Ireland? I'm sure Kalina would let her. He would, out of sheer weak kindness of heart. But she's far too thickly gilded and heiress for me to aspire to. A few thousands a year is my most ambitious figure for a wife. Look at the men collecting around her and the wonderful lady you call Cleopatra. Why Cleopatra? Did sponsors in baptism—no, they didn't. Why she's Cleopatra is as weird a history as why I'm Mrs. Jones. But she's Monnie Zandt, at least she's a half-sister of Peter Gilder, and as his only living relative his will makes her Monnie's guardian until the girl marries or reaches twenty-five. A strange guardian. But he didn't know she was going to turn into Cleopatra. She wisely waited to do that until he was dead, so it came on only a year ago. It was a Bond Street crystal-gazer transplanted to Fifth Avenue, told her who she really was. You know Saida Sabri, the woman who has the illuminated mummy? It's Cleopatra's idea that Monnie's second morning for Peter should be a white. Nothing but white. Her idea—but I thought Miss Monnie, as you called her, adopted only her own ideas. How can a mere half-ond, laboring under the name of Cleopatra, force her? Well you see why it's very becoming, and as for the Cleopatra part, it pleases our princess to tolerate that. It's part of the queer history that's mixing me up with the family. We've come to spend the season in Egypt because Cleopatra thinks she's Cleopatra. Also because Monnie, that's what she's chosen to call herself since she tried to list Rosamond and couldn't, because Monnie has read The Garden of Allah and wants the desert to take her. That book had nothing to do with Egyptian deserts, but any desert will do for Monnie. What she expects it to do with her exactly when it has taken her, on the strength of a cooked ticket I don't quite know, but I may later, because she vows she'll keep me at her side with hooks of steel all through the tour, unless something worse happens to me or to some of us because of me. Bitty dear, don't be morbid. Nothing bad will happen. I tried to reassure her. Thank you for saying so. It cheers me up. We women folk are so in the habit of believing anything you men folk tell us. It's really quaint. Stop rotting and tell me about yourself, and a truce to Eris's and Cleopatra's. You know I'm dying to hear. Not a syllable until you've told me about yourself. Where you're going, and what the dickens for? We laughed into each other's eyes. To do so I had to look a long way down, and she a long way up. This in itself is a pleasantly Victorian thing for a man to do in these days of gerry-built girls, on the same level or a story or two higher than himself. I'm not a tall man, just the dull, average five foot ten or eleven that appears taller while it keeps lean. So naturally I have a hopeless yearning for nymph-like creatures who pretend to be engaged when I ask them to dance. Still there's consolation and homely comfort in talking with a little woman who makes you feel the next best thing to a giant. Bitty is an old-fashioned five foot four in her highest heels, and as she smiled up at me I saw that she hadn't changed a jot in the last ten years, despite the tragedy that had involved her. Not a silver thread in the black hair, not a line on the creamy round face. You're just yourself, I said. I oughtn't to be, I know that very well. I ought to be a dido, and a neoby, and a kisandra rolled into one. I'm a brute not to be dead or look a hag. I've gone through horrors, and the secrets I know could put dozens of people in prison, if not electrocute them. But you see I'm not the right type of person for the kind of life I've had, as I should be if I were in a story-book, and the author had created me to suit my background. I can't help flapping up out of my own ashes before they're cold. I can't help laughing in the face of fate. And looking a girl of twenty-three at most while you do it. If I look a girl I must be a phenomenon as well as a phoenix, for nobody knows better than you that my Bible age is thirty-one if it's a day. And I think Burke and DeBret have got the same tale to tell about you, eh? They have. I was always delighted to share something with you. You can have the whole sheriff my age over twenty-six. There's one advantage Mrs. Jones has. She can, if her looking class doesn't forbid, go back to that classic age dear to all sensible adventurers. I'm afraid I come under the head of adventurers, with my alias, and traveling as companion to the rich Miss Gilder. You're the last person on earth for the part. Your fate was thrust on you. You've thrust yourself on no one. Miss Gilder achieved you. Collected me rather as one of her specimens. She has a noble weakness for lame ducks, and though she fails sometimes in trying to strengthen their game-legs, she tries gloriously. She and her aunt have been traveling in France and Italy, guided by instinct in French maids, and already Manny has picked up two weird protégés sure to bring her grief. The most exciting and deadly specimen is a perfectly beautiful American girl just married to a Turkish bay who met her in Paris, and is taking her home to Egypt. I haven't even seen the unfortunate Uri, because the Turk has shut her up in their cabin and pretends she's seasick. Manny doesn't believe in the seasickness and sends secret notes in presence of flowers and boxes of chocolates. But I have seen the Turk, he's pink and white and looks angelic, except for a gleam deep down in his eyes, if Manny inquires after his wife when any of her best young men are hanging about. Especially when there's Neal Sheridan, a young Egyptologist from Harvard, Manny met in Paris, or Willis Bailey, a fascinating sculptor who wants to study the crystal eyes of wooden statues in the museum at Cairo. He is going to make them the fashion in America next year. Yes, Madame Rashid Bey is a most explosive protégé for a girl to have on her way to Egypt. I'm not even sure I am not innocuous by comparison, though I do wish you hadn't reminded me of my poor little step-daughter Esme in her convent school. If anyone should get the idea that Manny—but I won't put it in words—besides me and the brand new bride of Rashid Bey, is our name for him, there's one more protégé, a Miss Rachel Guest from Salem, Massachusetts, a schoolteacher taking her first holiday. That sounds harmless, and it looks harmless to an amateur. But wait till you meet her and see what instinct tells you about her eyes. Oh, we shall have ructions. But that reminds me, you haven't told me where you're bound, or anything. Thanks for putting me among the specimens, but this sample hasn't been yet collected by Miss Gilder. You might be her salvation and keep her out of mischiefs. She's quite wild now with sheer joy because she's going to Egypt. But do be serious, and tell me all I pine to know if you want me to do the same by you. Well, though it's unimportant compared to what you have to tell, I'm an insignificant second secretary to Sir Raymond Ronalds, the British ambassador at Rome. I've got four months' leave—ah, that's what comes of duffing so skillfully in avoiding all the things you didn't want to do, till you got exactly what you did want. I remember when we were a small boy and girl, and you used to walk down to the vicarage every day, to talk Greek or Latin or something with father—no, to see you. Well, you used to tell me, if you couldn't be the greatest prize-fighter or the greatest opera singer in the world, you thought you'd like to be a diplomat. I haven't become a diplomat yet, in spite of foreign office grubbing. But I've been enjoying life pretty well, fagging up Arabic and modern Greek, and playing about with pleasant people, while pretending to do my duty. Now I've got leave on account of a mild fever which turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I could have found no other excuse for Egypt this winter. You speak as if you had some special reason for going to Egypt. I've been wishing to go, more or less, for years, because you know, if you haven't forgotten, I was accidentally born in Cairo while my father was fighting in Alexandria. My earliest recollections are of Egypt, for we lived there till I was four, about the time I met and fell in love with you. I've always thought I'd like to polish up old memories. But my special hurry is because I'm anxious to meet a friend, a chap I admire and love beyond all others. I want to see him for his own sake, and for the sake of a plan we have, which may make a lot of difference for our future. How exciting! Did I ever know him? I think not. Well, don't you mean to tell me who he is? I hesitated, sorry I had let myself go, because Anthony had written that he didn't want his movements discussed at present. I'll tell you another time, I said, I want to talk about you. Anybody else is irrelevant. Clever Duffer! Your friend is a secret. Not he, but if there's a secret anywhere it's only a dull, dusty sort of secret. You wouldn't be interested. Women never are in secrets. While I'm glad somebody else besides myself has a mystery to hide. You're very quick. I'm Irish, but I'm merciful. No more questions till you're off your guard. You're free to ask me all you like, if there's anything you care to know which horrid newspapers haven't told you these last few years. There are a thousand things. You didn't answer anybody's letters after—after—after Richard died. Oh, I can talk about it now. It was the best thing that could happen for him, poor fellow. Life and hiding was purgatory. No, I couldn't answer letters, though my old friends, you among them, wanted to be kind. There wasn't anything I could let anybody do for me. Monty Gilder's different. You'll see why. I smiled indulgently. But though I was to be introduced to Miss Gilder for the purpose of being eventually gilded by her, at the instant my thoughts were all for my childhood's sweet heart. Bridget Byrne made a terrible mess of things in marrying when she was eighteen or so, Richard O'Brien, in the height of his celebrity as a socialist leader. People still believed in him, then, at the time of his famous lecturing tour and visit to his birthplace on our Green Island. And though he was more than twice her age, the fascination he had for Bitty surprised few who knew him. He was eloquent in a fiery way. He had extraordinary eyes, and it was his pride to resemble portraits of Lord Byron. After an acquaintance of a month, Bitty married O'Brien. I had just gone up to Oxford at the time, or I should have tried not to let it happen. Went to America with him, and voluntarily ceased to exist for her friends. Poor girl, she must have had an awakening. He had posed as a bachelor, but after her marriage she found out, and the world with her, that he was a widower with one child, a little girl he had practically abandoned. Bitty adopted her, though the mother had been a rather undesirable French woman, and now, when I saw her smiling at the tall white girl on the Laconia, I had thought for an instant that Bitty and her step-daughter might be in flight together. O'Brien was a drunkard, as well as a demagogue, and not long after Bridget's flitting with him there was a scandal about the accepting of bribes from politicians on the opposing side, apparently his greatest enemies, but a minor scandal compared to what came some years afterwards. Bridget's name was implicated in the blowing up of the World Republican Building in Washington, and the wrecking of Senator Marlowe's special train after his speech against socialist interests. But the coward turned in former against his friends and associates in the secret society of which he had been a leader, and saved himself by sending them to prison. From that day until his death he had lived the life of a hunted animal flying from the hounds of vengeance. Bridget stood by him in spite of threats against her life as well as his, and the life of the child. Since then, though she answered none of our letters, we had heard rumors. The girl Esme, whom the Avengers had threatened to kidnap, was supposed to be hidden in some convent school in Europe. As for Bridget, she was said to be training for a hospital nurse, reported to have become a missionary in India, China, and one or two other countries, seen on the Music Hall stage and traced to Johannesburg, where she had married a diamond merchant. But here she was on board the Laconia, unchanged in looks or nature, and the guest of a much-paragraphed, much-proposed-to American heiress en route to Egypt. While Bridget was telling me the real story of her last two years as governess, companion, teacher, music, and journalist, Miss Gilder regarded us sidewise from amid her bodyguard of young men. Evidently she was dying to know who was the acquaintance her darling Biddy had picked up in mid-meneterranean the moment her back was turned. And at last, unable to restrain herself longer, she made use of some magic trick to attach the band of youths to her aunt. Then separating herself with almost indecent haste from the group, she marched up to us, gazing, I might say, staring, with large, unfriendly eyes at the intruder. Bridget promptly accounted for me, however, rolling her oars patriotically because I reminded her of Ireland. Do let me introduce Lord Ernest Borough, she said. I must have told you about him in my stories when you were a child, for he was my first love. It was the other way round, I objected. She wouldn't look at me. I adored her. Biddy glared a warning. Her eyes said, Silly fellow, don't you know every girl wants to be the one and only love of a man's life? I had supposed that this old craze had gone out of fashion, but perhaps there were a few primitive things which will never go out of fashion with women. Now that I had Miss Gilder's proud young face opposite mine, I saw that it wasn't quite so perfect as I'd fancied when she flashed by in her tall whiteness. Her nose, pure Greek in profile, seen in full was, well, just neat American, a straight-determined little twentieth century nose. The full red mouth, not small, struck me as being determined also, rather than classic, despite the daintily drawn cupid's bow of the short upper lip. I realized, too, that the long lashed, wide-open and wide-apart eyes were of the usual bluish gray possessed by half the girl's one nose. And as for the thick wavy hair pushed crisply forward by the white hood, now it was out of the sun's glamour there was more brown than gold in it. I said to myself that the face with the firm cleft chin was only just pretty enough to give a great heiress or a youthful princess the reputation of a beauty, a combination desired and generally produced by journalists. Then as I was thinking this, while Bridget explained me, Miss Gilder suddenly smiled. I was dazzled. No wonder Bitty loved her. It would be a wonder if I didn't love her myself before I knew what was happening. And so I should have instantly have done, perhaps if it hadn't been for Bitty's eyes, seeming to come between mine and Miss Gilder's, and the fact that at the moment I was in quest of another treasure than a woman's heart. My thoughts were running ahead of the ship to Alexandria to find out from Anthony Fenton, Antona Fendi, the biggest boys used to nickname him at school, more about the true history of that treasure than he dared trust to paper and ink and the post-office. So I put off falling in love with Rosamund Gilder till I should have seen Anthony and tidied up my distracted mind. A little later would do, I told myself, because, owing to the fact that my ancestral castle had figured in Bitty's tales of long ago, I was annexed as one of the protégés, allowed to make a fifth at the small flowery table under a desirable porthole in the green and white restaurant. Also I was invited to go about with the ladies and show them Cairo. Just how much going about and falling in love I should be able to do there depended on Antona Fendi. But when Bitty congratulated me on my luck and chance of success in the scheme, I said nothing of Anthony. End of Chapter 1. CHAPTER 2. OF IT HAPPENED IN EGYPT. IT HAPPENED IN EGYPT. BY CHARLES NORRIS WILLIAMSON AND ALICE MURIEL WILLIAMSON. CHAPTER 2. CLIOPATRA AND THE SHIP'S MYSTERY. Now at last I can skip over the three days at sea and get to our arrival at Alexandria, because, as I've said, the exciting part began soon after at Cairo. They were delightful days, for the Laconia is a Paris hotel disguised as a liner, and no man with blood in his veins could help enjoying the society of Brigitte O'Brien and Rosamond Gilder. Cleopatra, too, was not to be despised as a charmer, and then there was the human interest of the protégés, the one with the eyes and the one who had reluctantly developed into the ship's mystery. Still, in spite of Biddy and Monnie and the others, and not for them, my heart beat fast when, on the afternoon of the third day out from Naples, the ship brought us suddenly inside of something strange. We were moving through a calm sea, more like liplified marble than water, for it was creamy white rather than blue, veined with azure and street, as marble is, with pink and gold. Far away across this gleaming floor blossomed a long line of high-growing lotus-flowers, white and yellow against a silver sky. The effect was magical, and the wonder grew when the big flower bed turned into domes and cupolas' inspires rising out of the sea. Unimaginative people remarked that the coast looked so flat and uninteresting they didn't see why Alexander had wanted to bother with it. But they were the sort of people who ought to stop at home in London or Birmingham or Chicago and not make innocent fellow passengers burn with un-Christian feelings. Soon I should see Anthony and hear his news. I felt sure he would be at Alexandria to meet the ship. When Antonofendi makes up his mind to do a thing, he will crawl from under a falling sky to do it. As the Laconia swept on, I hardly saw the glittering city on its vast prayer rug of green and gold, guarded by sea-forts like sleepy crocodiles. My mind's eyes were picturing Anthony as he would look after his wild Balkan experiences, brown and lean, even haggard and bearded, perhaps a different man from the smart young officer of every day life, unless he contrived to refit in the short time since his return to Egypt, a day or two at most, according to my calculation. But all my imaginings fell short of the truth. As I thought of Anthony, Mrs. East came and stood beside me. I knew she was there before I turned to look, because of the delicate tinkling of little Egyptian amulets, which is her accompaniment, her late motif, and because of the scent of sandalwood with which, in obedience to the ancient custom of Egyptian queens, she perfumes her hair. I don't think I've described Monty Gilder's aunt according to my conception of her, though I may have hinted at Biddy's. Biddy, having a habit of focusing her sense of humor on any female she doesn't wholly love, may not do Mrs. East justice. The fact is, Monty's aunt is a handsome creature, distinctly a charmer who may at most have reached the age when Cleopatra, Antony's and Caesar's Cleopatra, died in the prime of her beauty. If Mrs. East chooses to date herself at thirty-three, any man not a confirmed misanthrope must believe her. Biddy says that until Peter Gilder was safely dead, Mara East was just an ordinary, well-dressed, pleasure-loving, novel reading, chocolate-eating, respectable widow of a New York stockbroker, superstitious, perhaps, fond of consulting palmists and possessing billikins or other mascots, how many women are free from superstition, slightly oriental in her love of sumptuous colors and jewelry, but then her mother, Peter Gilder's stepmother, was a beautiful Jewish opera singer. After Peter's death, his half-sister gave up novels for Egyptian and Roman history, took to studying hieroglyphics and learning translations of Greek poetry. She invited a clairvoyant and crystal-gazer, claiming Egyptian origin, to visit her at her Madison Square flat. Cida Sabri, banished from Bond Street years ago, took up her residence in New York, accompanied by her tame mummy. Of course it is the mummy of a princess, and she keeps it illuminated with blue lights in an inner sanctum, where the bored-looking thing stands upright in its brilliantly painted mummy case, facing the door. About the time of Cida's visit it was noticed by Mrs. East's friends, this according to Biddy, that the color of the lady's hair was slowly but surely changing from black to chestnut, then to auburn, she was heard to remark casually that Queen Cleopatra's hair had been red. She took to rich eastern scents, to whitening her face as eastern women of rank have whitened their since time immemorial. The shadows round her almond-shaped eyes were intensified, her full lips turned from healthful pink to carmine. The ends of her tapering fingers blushed rosely as sticks of coral. The style of her dress changed at the moment of going into purple a second morning for Peter, and became oriental, even to the turban-like shape of her hats, and the design of her jewelry. She did away with crests and monograms on handkerchiefs, stationery, luggage, and so on, substituting a curious little oval containing strange devices, which Monnie discovered to be the cartouche of Cleopatra. Then the whole truth burst forth. Cida's sabri's crystal had shown that Clara East, Niae Gilder, was the reincarnation of Cleopatra the Great of Egypt. There had been another incarnation in between, but it was of no account. And like a poor relation who has disgraced a family, the less said about it the better. The lady did not proclaim her identity from the house-tops. Rare souls possessing knowledge of Egyptian lore might draw their own conclusions from the cartouche on her note-paper and other things. Only Monnie and a few intimates were told the truth at first, but afterward it leaked out, as secrets do, and Mrs. East seemed shyly pleased if discreet questions were asked concerning her emulets and the cartouche. Now I never feel inclined to laugh at a pretty woman. It is more agreeable, as well as gallant, to laugh with her. But the trouble is Cleopatra doesn't go in for laughter. She takes life seriously. Not only has she no sense of humor, but she does not know the difference between it and a sense of fun, which she can understand if a joke about somebody else is explained. She is grateful to me because I look her straight in the eyes when the subject of Egypt is mentioned. Leaning from Harvard has been in her bad books since he put Ptolemaic rulers outside of the pale of Egyptian history, called their art ornate and bad, mentioned that each of their queens was named Cleopatra and classified the lot as modern, almost suburban. Mrs. East, leaning beside me on the rail, was burning with thoughts inspired by Alexandria. She had Plutarch's lives under her arm and Hepatia in her hand. Of course she dropped them both, one after the other, and I picked them up. Do you know, Lord Ernest, she said, in the low, rich voice she is cultivating, I don't mind telling you that I felt as if I were coming home after a long absence. Moni wanted to see Egypt. I was dying to. That's the difference between us. It's natural, I answered, sympathetically. Yes, considering everything. Yet we're both afraid. She, in one way, I in another. I haven't told her. She hasn't told me. But I know. She has the same impression I have that something's going to happen, something very great, to change the whole of life. In Egypt, Khem, it seems to me I can remember calling it. You know it was Khem until the Arabs came and named it Miser. Do you believe in impressions like that? I don't disbelieve, I said. Some people are more sensitive than others. Yes, or else they're older souls. But it may be the same thing. I can't fancy Moni an old soul, can you? Yet she may be, for she's very intelligent, although so self-willed. I think what she's afraid of is getting interested in some wonderful man with Turkish or Egyptian blood, a magnificent creature like you read of in books, you know, and then you have to give them up in the last chapter and send them away broken-hearted. I suppose there are such men in real life? I doubt if there are such romantic figures as the books make out, I tried to reassure her. There may be a prince or two, handsome and cultivated, educated in England perhaps, for some of the swells are sent from Egypt to Oxford and Cambridge, just as they are in India. But if Miss Gilder should meet a man of that sort, I should say she was too sensible and clear-headed. Oh, she is almost too much for so young a girl. And she has a detestation for anyone with one drop of dark blood in America. She doesn't even like Jews, and that makes a friction between us, if we ever happen to argue, for maybe you don't know, my mother was a Jewess. I'm proud of her memory. But that's just why, if you can understand, Moni's afraid in Egypt. Some girls would like to have a tiny flirtation with a gorgeous eastern creature. Of course he must be a bae or prince or something, otherwise it would be infra-dig. But Moni would hate herself for being attracted. Yet I know she dreads it happening, because of the way I've heard her rave against the heroines of novels, saying she has no patience with them, they ought to have more strength of mind even if it broke their hearts. I wondered if Biddy, too, suspected some such fear in the mind of her adored girl, and if that were one reason why she had turned matchmaker for my benefit. Since the first day out she had used stratagems to throw us together, and it seemed that years ago, when she used to teach the little girl French, Moni's favorite stories have been of castle calina, and my boyish exploits, birds, nestings on the crags. Biddy said this was a splendid beginning if I had the sense to follow it up. And you, I went on to Mrs. East, what do you feel is going to happen to you in the land of Kim? Oh, I don't know, she said. I wish I did. And afraid isn't exactly the word. I just know that something will happen. I wonder if history does repeat itself. I should hate to be bitten by an asp. Asked throughout a fashion, I comforted her. I doubt if you could find one in all of Egypt, though I remember my Egyptian nurse used to say there were cobras in the desert in summer. Anyhow, we'll all be away before summer. I suppose so, she agreed. But who knows what will become of any of us? Madam Rashid Bey will be staying, of course. I don't know whether to be sorry for her or not. The Bey is good-looking. He has brown eyes, and is as white as you or I. Probably it's true that she's been too seasick to leave her room for the last ten days, though Moni and Mrs. Jones think she's shut up because men stared, and because Mr. Sheridan talked to her. As for me, there's always that question asking itself in my mind. What is going to happen? And I hear it twice as loud as before inside of Alexandria. Rakoti, we lagade, used to call the city. As she spoke, the long oriental eyes glanced at me sidewise, but my trustworthy Celtic features showed a grave intelligent interest in her statements. It must be, she went on, encouraged, that I'm the reincarnation of Cleopatra. Otherwise, how could I have the sensation of remembering everything? There's no other way to account for it. When you know my modern name, Clara, does begin with C. Saida must be right. She's told lots of women the most extraordinary things. You really ought to consult her, Lord Ernest, if you ever go to New York. I did not say, as Neal Sheridan might, that a frothy course of Egyptian historical novels would account for anything. I simply looked as diplomatic training can teach anyone to look. Evidently it was the right look in the right place, for Cleopatra continued more courageously, recalling the great pharaohs of white marble, which used to be one of the world's wonders in her day, the museum and the marvellous library which took fire while Julius Caesar burned the fleet, nearby in the harbor. Think of the philosophers who deserted the College of Heliopolis for Alexandria, she said. Antony was more of a soldier than a student, but even he grieved for the library. You know he tried to consult Cleopatra by making her a present of two hundred thousand manuscripts from the library of the King of Paris. It was a generous thought, like Antony. Does the harbor look changed, I hasten to inquire? Not from a distance, though landing may be a shock. They tell me it's also Italian now. It was Greek in old days. I've read that there isn't a stone left of my—of the lovely palace on the locius point, except the foundations they found in the seventies. But I must go and see what's left of the baths, even though there's only a bit of mosaic and the remains of a room. She's anxious to get on to Cairo, but we shall come out to Alexandria later. Lord Ernest, when I shut my eyes I really do seem to picture the Mariotic Lake, and the buildings that made Alexandria the glory of the world. Do you remember what Strabo said about Dangkeres, the architect who laid out the plan of the city in the shape of a Macedonian mantle to please Alexander? I'm not as well up in history as you are, I said, though I've studied a bit, because I was born in Egypt. Or Alexander didn't live long in his fine city, did he? I wonder what he'd think of it now. And I wonder if his palace was handsomer than the Kedibs. That huge white building with pillars and domes. I seem to remember—what? You remember, too? You ought to consult Zaidah. I didn't mean exactly what you mean, I explained humbly. Still, why shouldn't I have lived in Egypt long ago? The learned ones say you're always drawn back where you've been in other states of existence. That's true, I'm sure. Well, then, why shouldn't I have the same sort of right to Egypt you have if you were Cleopatra? I believe you must have been, because you look as she ought to have looked, you know. Why shouldn't I have been a friend of Mark Antony, coming from Rome to give him good advice and trying to persuade—oh, not that he ought to give me up. No, indeed, to urge him to leave the island where he hid even from you. Didn't they call it Timonium? Why couldn't Antony play his cards so as to keep Cleopatra and the world, too? She'd have liked him better, wouldn't she? My friend Antony Effendi—I mean Anthony Fenton, I stopped short, for the less said about Fenton the better at present. But Cleopatra caught me up. What? Have you really a friend, Anthony? Where does he live, and what's he like? I hesitated and glancing round for inspiration. In other words, for some harmless necessary fib, I saw that Bridget and Monty had arrived on the scene. They had been pacing the deck arm in arm and now, arrested by Mrs. East's question, they hovered near, awaiting my answer with vague curiosity. A twinkle in Biddy's eyes, which I caught, rattled me completely. I missed all the easiest fibs and can catch hold of nothing with the bare truth. There are moments like that when, do what you will, you must be truthful or silent, and silence fires suspicion. What is he? I echoed feebly. Oh, Captain Fenton, he's in the Jippie Army stationed up at Cartoon, hundreds of miles beyond where cooksboats go. You wouldn't be interested in Anthony because he spells his name with an H, and he's dark and thin, not a bit like your Anthony, who was a big stout fellow I've always heard and fair. Big but not stout, Cleopatra corrected me. And if he's incarnated again, he may be dark for a change. As for the H, that's not important. I wonder if we shall meet your Anthony. We think of going to Cartoon, don't we, Monty? Yes, the girl said shortly. She was always rather short in her manner at that time when, in her opinion, her aunt was being silly. I gathered from a vexed flash in the gray eyes that there had never been any hint of an impending Anthony. Is your friend in Cartoon now, bitty-ventured, in her creamiest voice? The twinkle was carefully turned off like the light of a dark lantern, but I knew well that Mrs. Jones was recalling a certain conversation, in which I had refused to satisfy her curiosity. Bridget's quick, Irish mind has a way of matching mental jigsaw puzzles, even when vital bits appear to be missing. And if she could make a cat's paw, Cleopatra, the witch would not be above doing it. I bore her no grudge. Who could bear, soft-eyed, laughing, yet tragic, bitty, a grudge, but I wished that she and Monty were at the end of the deck. I, uh, really I don't know where my friend is just now, I answered, with more or less foundation of truth. I wonder if I didn't read in the papers about a Captain Fenton who took advantage of leave he'd got to make a rush for the Balkans and see the fighting from the lines of the Allies, bitty murmured, with dreadful intelligence. Can he be your Captain Fenton? I fancy he'd been stationed in the Sudan, and he was officially supposed to have gone home to spend his leave in England. Anyhow there was a row of some sort after he and another man dropped down onto the Turks out of a Greek aeroplane. Or was it a Serbian one? Anyhow I know he oughtn't have been in it, and Padafamilius in Patriot wrote letters to the Times about British officers who don't mind their own business. Why, I saw the papers on board this ship. They were old ones. Papers on ships always are. But I think they came on at Algiers or somewhere. Probably somewhere, I witheringly replied. I didn't come on at Algiers, so I don't know anything about it. Diplomatists never do know anything official. Do they, Duffer? Dear? Smiled bitty. I'll wager your friend is interesting, even if he does spell himself with an H, and weighs two stone less than his namesake from Rome. Mrs. East believes in reincarnation, and I'm not sure I don't, though Moni's so young she doesn't believe in anything. Just suppose your friend is a reincarnation of Antony without an H. And suppose, too, by some strange trick of fate he should meet you in Alexandria or Cairo. You'd introduce him to us, wouldn't you? It's the most unlikely thing in the world, and he'd be no good to you. He's a man's man. He thinks he doesn't like women. Doesn't like women? echoed Moni Gilder. He must be a curmudgeon. Or has he been jilted? Rather not. Too impulsively I defended the absent. Girls go mad about him. He has to keep them off with a stick. He's got other things to think of than girls. Things he believes are more important. So of course he's mistaken. He'll find that out some day when he has more time. So far he's been hunting other game, often in wild places. A book might be written on his adventures. What kind of adventures? Tell us about them, said Biddy, up to the Balkan one, which you did not having heard of. You wouldn't care about his sort of adventures. There aren't any women in them, I said. Women want love stories. It's only the heroines they care for, not the heroes. And I don't, somehow, say the right heroine for Fenton's story. I noticed an expression dawning on Cleopatra's face, as I thus bereft her of a possible Antony with an age. There was a softening of the long eyes and the glimmer of a smile which said, Am I Cleopatra for nothing? Never had she looked hansomer. Never before had I thought of her as really dangerous. I'd been inclined to poke fun at the lady for her superstition in her cartouche, and Cleopatra hood in general. But suddenly I realized that her makeup was no more exaggerated than that of many a beauty of the stage and society, and that nowadays women who are, well, forty-ish, can be formidable rivals for younger and simpler sisters. Not that I feared much for Antony from Cleopatra or any other female thing, for I'd come to consider him practically woman-proof. Still, I saw danger that the lady might make a dead set at him if she got the chance, and all through my stupidity in giving away his name. Antony was a thrilling password to that mysterious something which she expected to happen in Egypt, and already she regarded my friend as a ram caught in the bushes for a sacrifice on her altar. But instead of screening him I had dragged him in front of the foot-lights, but fortunately there was still time to jerk down the curtain. I threw a glance at Bridget and Manny, and was relieved to find that their attention was distracted by a new arrival. Miss Rachel Guest from Salem, Massachusetts. A pale, thin, lanky copy of our rose, with a beauty in bloom left out, but a pair of eyes to redeem the colorless face. Oh, yes, a pair of eyes, strange, hungry, waiting eyes. When I'm alone I fear Manny's favorite protege, who started out to see the world on a legacy of two thousand dollars, and one Miss Gilder's admiration and hospitality through her unassuming pluck. To my mind she is the ideal adventurous of a new, unknown, and therefore deadly type. But for once I rejoiced at the sight of the pallid, fragile woman, so cheerful in spite of frail health, so frank about her twenty-eight years. She had news to tell of a nature so exciting that, after a whisper or two, Cleopatra forgot Antony and her desire to know the latest development in the ship's mystery. My stewardess says he won't let his wife land till we're all off, murmured the ex-school mistress in her colorless voice. She heard the end of a conversation when she carried the poor girl's lunch to the door, just a word or two. So we shan't see her again, I suppose. Oh, yes we shall, said Manny. If wretched Bay can get a private boat, so can I. I'll not desert her if I have to stay on board the Laconia the whole night. All four began talking together eagerly, and blessing Miss Guest I sneaked away. Presently I saw that clever Neil Sheridan and handsome actor-like Willis Bailey, the two bets noir of Wretched Bay, had joined the group. By this time the roofs and domes and minarets of Alexandria sparkled in clearly sketched outlines between sunset, sky, and sea. Sunset of Egypt, which divided ruby flame of cloud, emerald dura, gold of desert, and sapphire waters into separate bands of color, vivid as the stripes of a rainbow. There was a new buzz of excitement on the decks and in the ivy-draped verandah cafe. Those who had been studying Bettaker gabbled history, ancient and modern, until the conquest of Alexandria and the bombardment of 82 became a hopeless jumble in the ears of the ignorant. Bors who had traveled inflicted advice on victims who had not. People told each other pointless anecdotes of the last time I was in Egypt, while those forced to listen did so with the air of panthers waiting to pounce. A pause for breath on the part of the enemy gave the wished fore-opportunity to spring into the breach with an adventure of their own. We took an Arab pilot on board, the first Arab ever seen by the ladies of my party, and before the red torch of sunset had burned down to dusky purple, tenders like big black turtles were swimming out to the Laconia. We slaves of the Rose, however, had surrendered all personal interest in these objects. The word of Miss Gilder had gone forth, and unless Rashid Bay changed his mind at the last minute, we were all to lurk in ambush until he appeared with his wife. Then somehow Monnie was to snatch her chance for a word with the ship's mystery, and whatever happened none of us were to stir until it had been snatched. Arguments even from Biddy were of no avail, and mine were silenced by cold permission to go away by myself if I chose. It was terrible, it was wicked to talk of people making their own beds and then lying in them. It was nonsense to say that even if the wife of Rashid Bay asked for help, we could do nothing. Of course we would do something, if the girl wanted to be saved, she should be saved, if Monnie had to act alone. Whatever happened Mr. Sheridan and Mr. Bailey must remain in the background, as the very side of them would drive Wretched Bay wild. I was thinking of Antony's surprise when, one after the other, two tenders should reach the quay without me, and if the gilded rose had not been so sweet, her youthful cocksurance would have made me yearn to slap her. In spite of all, however, the girl's excitement became contagious as passengers crowded down the gangway, and Rashid Bay did not appear. Allah, Allah, cried the boatmen and the Arab porters as they hauled huge trunks off the ship onto a float. Then one after the other the two tenders puffed away, packed from stem to stern. A few people, for whom there was no room, embarked in small boats manned by jabbering Arabs. Two of these cockle-shells still moved up and down under the black mountainous side of the ship, and the officer whose duty it was to see the passengers off was visibly restless. He wanted to know if my lordship was ready, and my lordship's brain was straining after an excuse for further delay, when a man and woman arrived opportunely. Rashid Bay in a veiled, muffled form hooked to his arm, a slender, appealing little figure, and through the veil I fancied that I caught a gleam of large, wistful, anxious eyes. The ladies were lying in wait out of sight, and I dodged behind the sturdy blue shoulders guarding the gangway. This was my first glimpse of the ship's mystery, and though I did not like my job, I had to surprise Rashid Bay and take his mind off his wife, my curiosity was pricked. The figure in seal-skin looked very girlish. The veiled head was bowed. The mystery took on human personality for me, and Monty Gilder was no longer obstinate, she was a loyal friend. I did not see that we could be of any use to the poor little fool who had married a Turk, yet I was suddenly ready to do what I could. As Rashid Bay brought his wife to the top of the gangway, I lounged out and spoke. Disconcerted, the stout, good-looking man of thirty let drop the arm of the girl, putting her behind him. And this was what Monty wanted. They would have an instant for a few disjointed words. Monty might perhaps have time to promise help which the girl dared not ask, even behind her husband's back. Good evening, I said in French, taking advantage of a smoke-room acquaintance. Is that smart boat down there for you? I was trying to secure it in my best Arabic, but the fellow said it was engaged. Yes, it is mine, Rashid answered civilly, trying to hide his annoyance. I telegraphed from Naples to a friend in Alexandria to send me a private boat. I do not like crowds. Neither do I, so I waited, too, I explained. They told me there were always boats, and my big luggage is gone. I suppose yours has, too? No doubt, said Rashid Bay. Good night, my Lord borough. He turned quickly to his wife, as if to catch her at something, but the slim, veiled mystery stood meekly, waiting his will. To my intense relief, Monty and her friends were invisible. I could hardly wait until the two figures had passed out of sight down the gangway to know whether my skirmishing attack had been successful. Well, I asked, as Miss Gilder, Mrs. Jones, Cleopatra, and Rachel Guest, and two maids filed out from concealment. Did I give you time enough? Did you get the chance you wanted? Yes, thank you ever so much, said Monty, with one of those dazzling smiles that would make her a beauty even if she were not the favorite Sunday supplement, Aris. I counted on you, and she had counted on me. She must have known I wouldn't fail her, for she had this bit of paper ready. When I jumped out she slipped it into my hand. We didn't need to say a word, and Rashid Bay has no idea I came near her. A bit of paper, I echoed with interest, for it sounded the obvious secret thing, a bit of paper stealthily slid from hand to hand. Yes with her address on it, nothing more in writing but two other words, pricked with a pin. Save me. Don't you see, if her husband had pounced on it, no harm would have been done. He wouldn't have noticed the pin-pricks as a woman would. I thought she was going to live in Cairo, and I believe she thought so too, at first. But she's written down the name of a house in a place called Asuit. Did you ever hear of such a town, Lord Ernest? Oh, yes, said I. The Nile boat stopped there, and people see tombs and mummied cats and by silver shawls. Good, said Manny, my boat shall stop there, but not only for tombs or cats or silver shawls. I have an idea that the poor girl is frightened and wants me to help her escape. Great heavens, I exclaimed. You mustn't, on any account, get mixed up in an adventure of that sort. Remember, this is Egypt. I don't care, said Manny, if it's the moon. She believed that this settled the matter. I believed the exact opposite. But I left it at that, for the moment, as the boat was waiting, and Asuit seemed a long way off. This was my first lesson in what Bridget called Manny's little ways, but the second lesson was on the heels of the first. CHAPTER III It Happened in Egypt. It happened in Egypt, by Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson. CHAPTER III A DISAPPOINTMENT AND A DRAGON MAN. It was a blow not to see Anthony on the quay. And other blows rained thick and fast. My two consolations were that I was actually in Egypt, and that in the confusion Rashid Bey, with the veiled figure of his silent bride, had slipped away without further incidents. Their disappearance was regretted by no one save money, unless it was Neil Sheridan, and he was discreet enough to keep his feelings to himself. The girl was not. She protested on principle, although she had the Asuit address. But where all men, black and brown and white, were yelling with the whole force of their lungs, and pitching and tossing luggage, mostly the wrong luggage, with all the force of their arms, nobody heard or cared what she said. For once Manny Gilder was disregarded by a crowd of men. This could happen only at the departure of a boat train. But if I was not thinking about her I was thinking about her fifteen trunks, and Cleopatra's sixteen, and Biddy's and Miss Guest's two. The maids were worse than the useless, and I had no valet. I have never had a valet. I clawed, I fought, I wrestled in an arena where it was impossible to tell the wild beasts from the martyrs. I rescued small bags from under big boxes and dashed off with a few samples to the train in order to secure places. All other able-bodied men, including Sheridan and the artist's sculptor Bailey, were engaged in the same pursuit, and our plan was to bag a whole compartment between us in the boat train for Cairo. But we never met again till we reached our destination. One expects Egypt to warm the heart with its weather, but the cold was bitter, so was the disappointment about Anthony. Both cut through me like knives. Mades had fallen before I was ready to join the ladies if I could. In passing earlier I had shouted to the maids where to find the places, grabbed with difficulty for their mistresses. Whether they had found them, or whether any of the parties still existed, was the next question, and it was settled only as the train began to move. The compartment I had selected was one boiling over with the South American President and his effects. But as I said, transfixed by this transformation scene, Cleopatra's maid hailed me from the end of the corridor. Le Casse d'Homme were in the restaurant car. Why? Ah, it was the Arab they had engaged at Isidrego-men who had advised the chains in Milord's absence. He said it would be better, as of course they would want dinner. He himself was looking after the small baggages, except the little sacks of the hand which the maids kept. What! The ladies had engaged Isidrego-men, and they had trusted him a stranger with luggage? Then it was as good as gone. But no, mildly ventured Cleopatra's handmaiden. The Drego-men came recommended. He had a letter from a friend of Milord. My thoughts jumped, of course, to Antony. Yet how could he have known that I was travelling with ladies? And if by some Marconian miracle he had heard, why should he, who prided himself on not bothering with women, troubled to provide a Drego-men at Alexandria? I hurried to the dining-car and found Moni with her satellite seated at a table, three of them looking as calmly innocent as if they had not upset my well-laid scheme for their comfort. Biddy alone had a guilty air, because, perhaps, I was more important in her eyes than in the eyes of the others. Oh, dear Duffer! She began to weadle me. We hope you don't mind our coming here. We thought it a good idea, for we're starving, although we're perfectly happy because we're in Egypt, and because it's such a quaint train, so different and eastern. The Drego-men who—I think he came from your friend Antony with an H, Cleopatra broke in. He seemed providential, and he speaks English. The only objection is he's not as good-looking as Moni and I wanted our Drego-men to be. We did hope to get one who would be becoming to us, you see, and give the right sort of eastern background. But I suppose one can't have everything. And it was I who said your friend Antony's messenger must be engaged, even if his face is—is rather like an accident. It's like a catastrophe, remarked Moni, looking as if she blamed me. Where is it? I wanted to know. It's waiting in a vestibule outside, where the cook's cooking, Biddy explained, ungrammatically. I told it you'd want to see it, and it's got a letter for you from someone. Did the fellow say the letter was from Fenton, I inquired? No, he only said, from a friend who'd expected to meet you, and Mrs. East was sure it must be from the one you were talking about. Wasting no more words, I marched off to the fountainhead for information. Here the open door of the infinitesimal kitchen stood a fat little dark man with a broken nose, and one white eye. The other eye, as if to make up, was singularly repellently intelligent. It fixed itself on me as I approached, with eager questioning which melted into ingratiating politeness. Instinct warned the fellow that I was the person he awaited. At the same moment, instinct was busily whispering to me that there was something fishy about him, despite the alleged letter. He did not look the type of man Fenton would recommend. And though his face was of an unwholesome olive tint, and he wore a tabooche, and a Galabia as long as a dressing-gown under his short European coat, I was sure he was not of Arab or Egyptian blood. M'lord Borough, he began displaying large white teeth, of which he was evidently proud. I assented. My name is Beter Elgamele, he introduced himself. I have a letter for my lord. Who gave it to you, I challenged him. The ingratiating smile seemed to flicker like a candle-flame in a sudden puff of wind. A friend of mine, a dregoman, he could not come to bring it, so he gave it to me. The gentleman's name was Fenton. My friend he was sent from him at Cairo. As the fellow spoke in fairly good English, he took from a pocket of the short coat which spoiled his costume a colorful silk handkerchief. Unwrapping this he produced an envelope. It was addressed to me in the handwriting of Fenton, but before opening it I went on with my catechism. Then the letter doesn't introduce you, but your friend? The smile was practically dead now. I think it do not introduce any ones. It is only a letter. My friend Abdullah engaged to carry it, but he got sick too soon to come to the ship. I see, said I, you seem to have used the letter, however, to get yourself taken on as dregoman by the ladies of my party. How the devil did you find out they were travelling with me, eh? I shot the question at him and tried to imitate gimlets with my eyes. But he was ready with his answer. No doubt he had prepared it. I see you all together from a distant place before I come there. A gentleman off the ship he pointed you out when I ask where I find Milord Burrow. I see you and those ladies. When I come you was away already, so I speak to them and say if I could help I'd be very pleased. When I tell one of the ladies I was from a friend of Milord's with a letter, she say, is the friend's name Captain Fenton, and I say, yes, madam, Captain Fenton, that is the name, and I am a dregoman to show Egypt to the strangers. I know it all very well, from Alexandria, way up the Nile. Then the lady say, very quick, she will take me for her dregoman. I am pleased, for I was not engaged for season, and she say if I satisfy her she keep me in Cairo and on from there. Hmm! I grunted, still screwing in the gimlets. I see you're not an Egyptian. You have selected the name of an Armenian famous in history. Are you Armenian? I am the same thing as Egyptian. I've been here for dregomans so many years. I am Musalman in faith, but I was born Armenian, he admitted. You speak English with an American accent, I went on. Have you lived in America? One time a family take me to New York and I stay a year or two. Then I get homesick and come to Egypt again. But I learn to talk maybe some like American peoples while I am over there. It sounded plausible enough the whole story. And if Mrs. East had snapped the dregoman up under the impression that he came from a man she had determined to meet, the fellow might be no more to blame than any other boaster, touting in his own interest. Still, I had an uneasy feeling that something lay hidden under Armenian plausibility. Better Elgamely was perhaps a thief who had courted a chance for a big haul of jewelry. But if that were all, why hadn't he hopped off the tram as it began to move with the lady's hand luggage? He might easily have got away and disappeared into space before we could wire the police of Alexandria to look out for him. He had not done that but had waited and risked facing my suspicions. And he must have realized, while in charge of monies and Cleopatra's attractive dressing bags, that he was missing an opportunity such as might never come to him again. His conduct suggested an honest desire to be a good dregoman. Yet, well, I resolved not to let the gimlets rest until better Elgamely had been got rid of. If Mrs. East had really promised him a permanent engagement she could salvage his disappointment by giving him a day's pay. I would take the responsibility of sending him about his business. Without further parley I opened the letter. It was short, evidently written in a hurry. And he had scribbled, Horribly sorry, dear old duffer, but I'm wanted by the powers that be in Cairo. No other reason could have kept me from Alexandria. I was afraid a wire wouldn't reach you so I sent a decent old chap by the train I meant to take. He's pledged to find you on the quay and he will, unless someone makes him drunk. This seems unlikely to happen as he won't be paid till he gets back, and having no friends on earth nobody will stand him drinks. Beastly luck, but I shan't be able to see you tonight even in Cairo. Tell you all to-morrow, and there's a lot to tell about many things. Yours ever, AF. The messenger had no friend on earth, according to Fenton. Then the friendship stated to exist between him and better El Gamale must have come ready-made from heaven, or its opposite. I guessed the nature of the decent old chap's illness. But I should have been glad to know whether it had been produced by design or accident. When I went back to the ladies, better went with me at my firm suggestion, and gave them their handbags to use as footstools. Dinner was ready, and a seat had been kept for me at a table just across the aisle. But before beginning I explained the real circumstances governing the Dregelman's arrival. Whatever else he may be, he's a shark, I said, or he wouldn't have traded on a misunderstanding to grab an engagement. You owe him nothing, really, but if you choose give him a sovereign when we get to Cairo, and I'll tell him that I have a Dregelman in view for the party. He'll then have two days' pay, according to the guide-books. With this I slipped into my seat, thinking the matter settled. But between courses, Moni leaned across from her table, she and I had end-seats, and said that she and her aunt had been talking about that poor Dregelman. Aunt Clara raised his hopes, the girl went on, and now Rachel Guest and I think it would be mean to send him away, just because he's hideous. That won't be the reason, said I, it will be because we don't know anything about him, and because in his sharpness he's overreached himself. But we do know things about him. He showed Aunt Clara letters from people who'd employed him, lots of Americans who've names we've heard, and somewhere acquainted with. The tragic thing is that he finds difficulty in getting engaged because of his face. I felt guilty ever since I called it a catastrophe. Of course it is, but I said it to be funny, which was cruel. And we deserved to punish ourselves by keeping the poor wretch a few days or more if he's good. I thought she wanted a becoming Dregelman, I reminded her. Oh, that was just our silliness. I do like good-looking people, I must say. But what does it matter whether a brown person is handsome or homely when you come to think of it? Besides, we can have another Dregelman, too, for ornament if we run across a very picturesque one. I laughed. But you can't go up the Nile on a boat with a drove of private Dregelmans, you know. I don't know, Lord Ernest, and why don't you call them Dregelmen? You make them sound as if they were some kind of animal. Dregelmans is the plural, I persisted. Well, I shall call them Dregelmen. And if this poor thing can't get anyone else to drag, he shall drag us up the Nile, if he's intelligent in his ways, as he is in that one eye, which is so like a hard-boiled egg. You see, Lord Ernest, we're going to have a boat of our own. A steam to Habia is what we want, so we won't be at the mercy of the wind. And we can have all the Dregelmen we choose, can't we? I suppose you can fill up your cabins with them, I agreed, because I felt that the gilded rose wished me to argue the point, and that if I did I should be worsted. As I should not be on board the Dahabia in question, it would not matter to me personally if the boat were entirely manned by Dregelmans, except that there would, in that case, probably be a collision, and I should not be near to save Biddy, and incidentally the girl Biddy wished me to marry. After that we went on eating our dinner and talking of Egypt, Miss Guest doing all the listening as usual. When we had finished we kept our places because we had no others. Cleopatra was curious about my friend's failure to arrive, but I put her off with a vagueness, and said to myself that, for Anthony's sake, it was well that mysterious business had kept him in Cairo. Still, I wondered what the business was, why he would be unable to see me that night, and what were the many things he had to tell. CHAPTER IV A MAN IN A GREEN TURBIN I shall never know for certain whether or not our future was entirely shaped by Manny's resolve to breakfast on the terrace of Shepherd's Hotel next morning. A great many remarkable things have happened on that historic site. Napoleon made the place his headquarters. General Claibor was murdered in the garden. Half the most important people in the world have had tea on the terrace, but according to a German waiter there was one deed yet undone. Nobody had ever ordered breakfast out of doors. Of course Manny got what she wanted. Not by storming, not by putting on power of wealth airs, but simply by turning bright pink and looking large-eyed. At once that waiter rushed off and fetched other waiters, and almost before the invited guests knew what to expect, two tables had been fitted together, covered with white, adorned with fresh roses, and set forth with cups and saucers. I was the one man invited, and I felt like an actor called to play a new part in an old scene. A scene vaguely, excitingly familiar. Could I possibly be remembering it, I asked myself, or was my impression but the result of a lifelong debacle of Egyptian photographs? Anyhow, there was the impression, with a thrill in it, and I felt that I ought to be handsomer, more romantic, altogether more vivid, if I were to live up to the moving picture. It seemed as if nothing would be too extraordinary to do if I wanted to match my surroundings. I thought, even if I burst into a passionate Arab love-song and proposed to Mani across the table, it would be quite the right note. But somehow I didn't feel inclined to propose. It was enough to admire her over the rim of a coffee-cup. In her white tussure, I heard Biddy call it tussure, and drooping, garden-type of hat, she was different girl from the girl of the ship. She had been a winter girl in white fur, then. Now she was a summer girl and a radiant vision, twice as pretty as before, especially in this oriental frame. Still, I was waiting to see myself fall in love with her, much in the same way that Biddy was waiting. And there was that oriental frame. It belonged to my past, and perhaps Mani Gilder didn't belong even to my future, so it was excusable if I thought more of it than her. It was hardly nine o'clock, but already the wonderful, colored cinema show of Cairo Daily Life had begun to flash and flicker past the terrace of shepherds, where East and West meet and mingle more sensationally than anywhere in Egypt. Nobody save ourselves had dared suggest breakfast, but travelers were pouring into the hotel and pouring out. Pretty women and plain women were sitting at the little wicker tables to read letters or discuss plans for the day with each other or their dregle-mans. Others and khaki came and talked to them about golf and gimkanas. Down on the pavement, close under the balustrade, crowded young and old Egyptian men with dark faces and wonderful eyes, or no eyes at all, struggling to sell painted postcards, strings of blue-gray mummy-beads, necklaces of cornelian and great lumps of amber, fans, perfumes, sample sticks of smoking incense, toy camels cleverly made of jute, fly-whisks from the Sudan with handles of beads and dangling shells, scarab rings and brooches, cheap gay jewelry, scarves from a suet, white, black, pale green and purple, glittering like miniature cataracts of silver, as brown arms held them up. Darting Arab urchins hawked tame itchinimons or shouted newspapers for sale. English, American, Greek, French, German, Italian and Turkish. Copper-tinted, classic-featured youths in white had golden crowns of bananas round their turbans. Withered patriarchs in blue Galabias offered oranges or immense bunches of mixed flowers, fresh and fragrant as the morning, or baskets of strawberries red and bright as rubies. Dignified Arabs stalked by, bearing on nobly poised heads pots of growing rose-bushes or arum lilies or azaleas. Jet-black giants, wound in rainbow-striped cottons, clanked brass saucers like cymbals, advertising the sweet drinks in their glass jars, while memory whispered in my ears the Arab name, Sherbetli. Across the street clear-silvered sunshine of winter in Egypt shone on precious stones, on carved ivories, silver anklets, Persian rugs and embroideries, brilliant as hummingbird's wings, all displayed in the windows of shops where dark eyes looked out eagerly for buyers. Everything was for sale, for sale to the strangers. The whole clamoring city seemed to consist of one vast concentrated desire on the part of brown people to sell things to fair people. They shouted and weadled and besought on the sidewalks, and the roadway between was a wide river of color and life. Motor-cars with Arab chauffeurs carried rich turks to business, or to an audience of state. Now and then a face of ivory glimmered through a gauzy veil and eyes of ink and diamonds shot starry glances from passing carriage windows. Erect Englishwoman drove high dog-carts. Gordon Highlanders swung along in the kilt, more at home in Cairo than in Edinburgh, the droning of their pipes as oriental as the drone of Varaita, or the beat of Tom Tom's. A wedding-party with a hidden bride in a yellow chariot met a funeral, and yash-macked faces peeped from curtain windows in one procession to stare at the wailing, marching men of the other and to shrink back hastily from the side of the coffin. Tangled it would seem inextricably with streams of traffic, surging both ways moved the ships of the desert, loaded with emerald-gring bursim, long-lilting necks, and calm, mysterious eyes of camels high above the cloaked heads of striding bedowins, heads of defiant Arab prisoners chained and handcuffed to each other, heads of blue-eyed water-buffalos, and heads of trim white-tassled donkeys. None of us talked very much as we sat at the breakfast-table. The novelty and wonder of the scene made the actors forget their words, and if we had been able to talk we could not have appreciated each other's rhapsodies over the shoutings of men who wanted us to buy their wares, and harangues of dregomens who wished, as Manny said, to drag us. These latter especially were persistent, and better than one-eyed, having been forbidden to come till ten o'clock, was not on the spot to give protection. Our method at first was to appear oblivious, but presently in my wickedest Arabic I would have ordered the troop away if Manny had not interfered. Don't, she said, they're part of the picture. Besides they have more right here than we have, it's their country not ours, and they're so interesting most of them. That tall man over there, for instance, with the green turban. He's the only one who hasn't opened his mouth. Just to show him that virtue's its own reward I'm going to engage him. Will you call him to us, please, Lord Ernest? Sitting as I sat, I could not see the person indicated. What do you want him for, Miss Gilder? I obeyed my temptation and asked. Why, to be a dregelman, of course, she exclaimed, that's what he's here for. I told you I'd have a picturesque one for ornament. These creatures a perfect specimen. I stood up reluctantly and looked down over the balustrade. A man with a green turban, I repeated, but that means he's a haji who's been to Mecca and back. I never heard of a dregelman. I stopped short in my argument. My eyes had found the man with the green turban. He stood at some distance behind the pavement-merchants and self-advertising dregelmans who pressed against the railing. In his long galabia of Sudan's silk, ashes of roses in colour, he was tall and straight as a palm, gravely dignified with his folded arms and the haughty remoteness of his expression. Dark and silent, half disdainful, half amused, he was like a prince compared with his humbler brethren, but there was another resemblance more relevant and intimate which cut my sentence short. By Jove, I thought, how like he is to Anthony Fenton. He was looking not at me, but at Miss Gilder, quite respectfully, yet hypnotically, as if by way of an experiment he had been willing her to find and single out the one motionless figure, the one person whose tongue had not called attention to himself. Yes, I thought again, he was an Arab copy of Anthony, but more as Anthony had been years ago before his moustache grew, than as Anthony had become in late years. Still there were the aquiline-features, the long, rather sad eyes shaded with thick straight lashes, the eyebrows raised at the bridge of the thin nose, then sloping steeply down toward the temples, the slight working of muscles in the cheeks, the peculiarly charming mouth which could be irresistible in a smile, the stern, contradictory chin marring by its prominence the otherwise perfect oval of the face. I wondered if Anthony had as noble a throat as this colorless gaolabia left uncovered, reminding myself that I could not at all recall Anthony's throat. Then as the somber eyes turned to me, drawn perhaps by my stare, I was stunned, flabbergasted, what ye will, by realizing that Anthony himself was looking at me from under the green turban. The dark face was blankly expressionless. He might have been gazing through my head. His eyes neither twinkled with fun nor sent a message of warning, but somehow I knew that he saw me, that he had been watching me for a long time. You see the one I mean, don't you? asked Monnie. Well, that's the one I want. I'll take him. She spoke as if she were selecting a horse at a horse-show. Anthony had brought this on himself, but I was not angry with Anthony. I was angry with the girl for putting her finger into our pie. That's not a dregelman, I assured her. If he were, he'd come and ball out his accomplishments as the others do. He's a very different sort of chap. That's why I want him, said Monnie, and if he isn't a dregelman he'll jump at being one if I offer to pay him enough. He's an Egyptian, anyhow, by his clothes or a bed-a-win or something, although he isn't as dark as the rest of these men. I suppose he must know a little about his own city and country. It doesn't follow he tell travelers about them for money, said I. He looks to me a man of good birth and distinction in old-fashioned dress. Why he's lingering on the pavement in front of this hotel I can't explain, but I'm certain he isn't touting. Probably he's waiting for a friend. He's the best-looking Arab we've yet seen, remarked Mrs. East, like my idea of an Egyptian gentleman. Poo! said Monnie, just test him, Lord Ernest. I'm sorry, but I can't do it, I answered, with a firmness which ought to have been tried on her long ago. And I wouldn't discuss him in such a loud tone of voice. He may understand English. We have to yell to hear ourselves speak over all this row, bid he apologize for her, darling, but she need not have troubled herself. Miss Gilder had been deaf to my implied reproach. I'm glad I'm an American girl, she said. When I want things I want them so dreadfully I just go for them and surprise them so much that I get them before they know where they are. Now I'm going for this Drago-man. He's not a drago—' I persisted, but she cut me short. I bet you my hat that he will be won. What will you bet that he won't, Lord Ernest? I'll bet you his green turban, said I. How can you get it? As easily as you can get him, I retorted, it's a safe bet. Monty looked excited but firm. Luckily, as she does it so often, it's becoming to her to look firm. I have noticed that it's not becoming to most girls. It squares their jaws and makes their eyes snap. But the spoiled daughter of the dead canon king at her worst merely looks pathetically Ernest and Minerva-like. This I suppose is one of the little ways she has acquired since she gave up kicking and screaming people into submission. As Bitty says, the girl can be charming not only when she wants to be, but quite often when she doesn't. The man with the green turban was no longer engaged in hypnotizing. He had retired within himself and appeared oblivious to the outer world. Yet nobody jostled the tall, straight figure which stood with folded arms, lightly leaning against a tree. The color of his turban was sacred in the eyes of the crowd, and when Miss Gilder, leaning over the terrace, railing back into him, surprised rather than jealousy, showed on the faces of the unwanted draggle-mans. As for the wearer of the turban, he did what I expected and wished him to do, paid not the slightest attention to the gesture. Whatever the motive for his masquerade it was not to attract anything feminine. I smiled sardonically. That's a nice hat you've got on, Miss Gilder, I remarked. Do you collect girls' hats, she asked, sweetly? But mine isn't eligible yet for your collection. Let me see. What did you say he was? Oh, a haji. And she strolled forth sweetly, her voice sounding young and clear. Haji! Haji! Effendi! Venez ici, s'il vous plaît. Please come here. I could have been knocked flat by a blow of the smallest, cheapest ostrich feather in the hands of any street merchants. For he came. Anthony came. Not to look meekly up from the pavement below the railing, but to ascend the steps of the terrace and advance with grave dignity toward our table. Within a yard of us he stopped, giving to me, not to Miss Gilder, the beautiful Arab salute, a touch on the forehead and heart. You devil, I was saying to myself, so you walk into this trap, do you, and calmly trust me to get you out? Serve you right if I don't move hand or foot. And I almost made it my mind that I wouldn't. When I was interested, I wanted intensely to know what the dickens Anthony was up to, and whether he would have been up to it if he'd known the sort of young woman who he had to deal with. It was I who called to you, not this gentleman, said Mani, when she found that Green Turban did not look at her. Do you speak French or English a little? A little of both. But I choose French when talking to Americans, replied Anthony Fenton, with astounding impertinence in the preferred language. I do not know you, madam, but I do know this gentleman. Good heavens, what next? He acknowledged me. What was I to do now? What did the impudent fellow want me to do? Evidently he was trying an experiment. Anthony is great on experiments, and always has been. But this was a bomb. I thought he wanted to see if I could catch it on the fly and drop it into water before it had time to explode. Why didn't you tell us, Lord Ernest? asked Mani, with a flash in her gray eyes. I thought you hadn't been in Egypt since you were a child. I haven't, and I didn't recognize him at first, I answered, trying for the coolness which Anthony dared to count upon. You remember me now, he inquired politely. I—er—yes, I replied, also in French. Your face is familiar, though you've changed, I think, since—er—the last you were in England. It must have been there. Yes, of course. You were on a diplomatic mission. It's your name—you may have known me as Ahmed Attune, said the wretch, not dreaming of the slip that he had made. Cleopatra, who has a little French, nevertheless started, and fixed upon the face under the turban a stare of feverish interest. Bridget and the unobtrusive lady with the slanting eyes both showed such symptoms of surprise as must too late have warned Fenton that he had missed his footing, skating on thin ice. Attune, exclaimed Mrs. East, why, that's what you said you called your friend Captain Fenton. I glanced at Anthony. His profile had no more expression than that of an Indian on an American penny, and indeed rather resembled it. If he were blaming me for letting anything out, I had a right to blame him for letting himself in. He was silent as well as expressionless. He left it all to me, diplomat or duffer. Attune Effendi was the nickname my friend Fenton got at school. I explained to Cleopatra, because it sounded a bit like his own name, and because he had—er—because he had associations with Egypt. He was proud of them and still is. But Attune is a name often heard here, and every man who isn't a bae or a prince or a shake is an Effendi. I quite remember you now, I hurried on, turning to Anthony once more. You are haji as well as Effendi. I have the right to call myself so, if I choose, he admitted. I am pleased to meet you again. I was waiting for a friend when you beckoned. If you did not recognize my face at first, may I ask what it was you wanted of me? There was no limit, then, to his audacity. He had not learned his lesson yet, after all it would seem. Mani could not bear tamely to lose her hat, although she must have felt her hat-pins trembling in the balance. I told you before, she repeated, that it was I who beckoned you. I beckoned at her without speaking, and somehow the green turban and the long straight gown, by adding to his dignity, added also to his remote air of cold politeness. How could she go on? Had she the cheek to go on? She had, but the cheek was flushed with embarrassment. I—er—I'm anxious for a guide, someone who knows Egypt well, and several languages. She desperately blurted out, looking like a half-frightened, half-defiant child. I thought, there are plenty of dregomans, madam, green turban reminded her. I can recommend you several. I don't want a regular dregoman, she said, and I'm not, madam. I am Miss Gilder. Indeed—shilling indifference in the tone—Mani's hat was practically mine. I thought I should rather value it. Yes, but of course that can't matter to you. No, it cannot, mademoiselle. What I want to say is this. You're a haji, which means you've been to Mecca. Lord Ernest Burroughs just told us, so you must be very intelligent. Are you in business? I am interested in excavations. Oh, and are you allowed to make them yourself? Not always. I glanced at him quickly, wondering if he meant that answer more for me than for the girl. But his face told nothing. Would you be able to, if you were rich enough? It is possible. Well, I'd be willing to give you a big salary for showing us about Cairo and perhaps going up the Nile. You do not know who I am, mademoiselle. Ask your friend Lord Ernest Burroughs. Perhaps he may remember something about my circumstances, now he has recalled my face. I was honestly not sure whether this were further devil-tree or an appeal for help. In any case, I thought at time for the scene to end. I told you, I said to Mani in English, that he was a man of importance, not at all the sort of person you could expect to engage for a guide. You must see now that he is a gentleman, and an Egyptian gentleman is just the same as any other. Surely not quite, she answered in the same language, and I realized my foolish mistake in using it, as if I meant her to understand that Anto and Effendi knew it too little to catch our secrets. An Egyptian man can't have the same feelings as a European. Why for hundreds and hundreds of years they've been an enslaved race, like our black people at home? We'd never think of calling even the fairest quadrine man a gentleman, though he might be wonderfully good-looking and nice-mannered. Literally I was frightened. Anthony Fenton is fiercely devoted to the memory of the beautiful princess mother, for love of whom his father's career was ruined. Her mother was a Sicilian woman, and her father was half Greek, so there is little enough Egyptian blood, after all, in the veins of General Fenton's son. He is proud of what there is, proud because of his mother's fatal charm and the romance of her story. It was on the eve of her wedding with a cousin of the sultan that the famous soldier Charles Fenton ran away with Princess Lulla and married her in Sicily, but he is sensitive too, because great name as Charles Fenton had made in Egypt he was asked to resign his commission on account of the escapade. Anthony, sent to England to a public school, had fought bigger boys than himself, who in a certain tone had sneeringly called him Egyptian. I imagined, now, that through the dark stain on his face I could see him turn pale with rage. He thought, perhaps, that the American beauty was revenging herself for his impertinence, and maybe he was right, but that did not excuse her. Be careful, Miss Gilder, I warned the girl. This man understands English better than you think. He comes of a princely family, and he's only got to put out his hand to claim a fortune. You seem to remember all about me now, Lord Ernest, broken Fenton, looking dangerous. Yes, I said, it comes back to me. You must forgive Miss Gilder. There is nothing to forgive, he caught me up. I am not a dregelman, to be sure, but I am enough of an Egyptian to have a price for anything I do. I may put myself at this lady's service if she will pay my price, though I am not a servant and I can't accept wages, even for the sake of pursuing my excavations. He continued to speak in French, lest my companion's suspicion should be further aroused by the English of an Englishman. And Monnie, pale after her blush, answered in neat schoolgirl French, with a pretty American accent. What's the price you wish to name, she inquired, looking a little afraid of him and ashamed of herself, now that the talk of princes and fortunes was bandied about? Of course she went on, when he did not answer at once. If I'd known all this, I shouldn't have asked you to be a dregelman. At least perhaps I shouldn't. Anyhow I shouldn't have made a bet. A bet that I would have a price, mademoiselle? Then you may win your bet, for I've just told you I have a price. But I think it unlikely you would be willing to pay it. Good heavens! Is he going to try and marry the girl? I asked myself. It would be the last thing to expect of Anthony Fenton. However he had already done, the last but one, the thing I had bet his green turban he would not do. After all he was a man and a reckless man as he had proved on more than one wild occasion. He was in a strange mood, capable of anything, and the gilded rose could never have been pretty in her life than at this minute. She had made him furious, and I had imagined that his acceptance of her overtures was the beginning of some scheme of punishment. Now I was almost sure I had been right, yet I could not guess what he would be at. Neither could Manny. But here was the dangerous picturesque Arab who must be a prince or something, as Cleopatra had expressed it. And he was even more dangerous than picturesque. You—you said you wouldn't take wages, she stammered. I enjoyed hearing the self-willed young person stammer, so I can't understand what you mean. But even though you are all those things Lord Ernest says you are, your price can't be so terribly high as to be beyond my power, if I choose to pay. First mademoiselle, I must decide whether I choose to be paid. Oh! Manny exclaimed, taken aback, I thought it was a question of price. Not only that, I may put myself at the lady's service for a price, was what I said. I didn't say I will. I shall not be able to tell you until to-night. The patronizing tone in which Anthony spoke this sentence was worth to me everything I had gone through in the last half hour. But I want to settle things this morning, or not at all, said Anthony, reverting to type, that of the spoiled child. I am sorry, replied the man of the green turban. In that case it must be not at all. And he made as if to go. The gilded girl could not bear this. I and the others would see that she was fallible, that there were things she wanted which she could not get. Why can't you tell me now what your price is, she persisted? Because mademoiselle, I may not need to tell you ever. It depends partly on another than myself. She threw a quick glance at me. I expect to meet that other at Abdullahi's cafe in an hour from now at latest. Everything will depend on the interview. In any case, I will let you know tonight what I can do. I may not be in, said Manny, but if I'm out you can leave a note. If I must refuse to serve you, yes, I can leave a note. If I am to accept, I must see you in person. Should you be out, I'll take it for granted that you have changed your mind and do not want," he smiled faintly for the first time. No expense of a guide. Manny hesitated. I'm not stingy. I'll stay at home this evening. She volunteered at last. Brave Petrucio, I said under my breath. But if Biddy's plot were to succeed, it was my business to play the part of Petrucio to this Catherine. Let the masquerading prince find a Desdemona who would suit his Othello. CHAPTER V. THE CAFÉ OF ABDILAH Well, you got away from them all right, began the man with the green turban, when, according to his roundabout instructions, I met him an hour later at the café he had named, one of the principal resorts of Cairo, where Europeans can consort with natives without attracting remark. The real Drago-men came and took them off my hands. At least the realer won than you, a dreadful creature with a game eye who murdered your messenger last night and gave me your letter and induced the ladies to engage him on the strength of it. No wonder they want a looker to take the taste of him out of their mouths. And you certainly are a looker in that get-up. Now kindly tell me all about it and everything else. That's what I'm here for, said Anthony, running a matchbox to Earth in some mysterious Arab pocket. But hold on, Duffer. Something you said just then may be important. Is it true that my messenger didn't give you the letter? If you'd hung about Shepherd's Hotel ten minutes longer, you'd have seen the fellow who did give it. Better al-Gemmele, he calls himself, Armenian Muselman, a sickening combination and an awful brute to look at. Said your messenger was taken suddenly ill, pretends to be a Drago-men. What is he like? Rather like a partially decayed but decently dressed goat. Don't wroth, this may be serious. I describe better al-Gemmele as best I could, feature by feature. When I had polished them off, Anthony shook his green turbaned head. I tortured of him in my robes' gallery. Just now I'm sensitive about spies. Oversensitive, rather. Of course, you've spotted my game. I confess I was conceited enough you'd think you've given yourself all this trouble with a costumier in order to take a rise out of me. But when you speak of spies, I begin to put two and two together. Your business in Cairo, the powers that be, keeping you from me last night, et cetera. I suppose it's an official job, this fancy dress affair? Yes, in my own capacity I'm not in Cairo. I turned up day before yesterday. Jolly glad to get that from Adrian Opel, though it was good fun there I can tell you for a while, and I looked forward to wallowing no end in the alleged delights of civilization. I reported myself and all seemed well. I took a room at Shepherds where you and I had arranged to meet, and when I'd scrubbed I strolled over to the turf club to see what the gay world would have to say to a fellow in disgrace. Only silly asses swallowed that newspaper spoof, everyone in London who knows anything about you was betting his boots that the story had been spread on purpose to save our face with Turkey. I couldn't resist interrupting his narrative to this extent, but Anthony merely smiled and watched a long-lived smokering settle like a halo over the head of an Arab at the nearest table. He was not giving away official secrets. But I was sure and always had been sure that he was a martyr, not a rebel, in the matter of the Balkan incident just closed. What the public were led to suppose was this, that Captain Fenton had asked for two months' leave from regimental duet cartoon in order to spend the time with a relative who was seriously ill in Constantinople, that instead of remaining at his relative's bedside he had used his leave for a dash to the Balkans, that this indiscretion might have been kept a secret had he not capped it with another, a flight with a Greek officer in an army aeroplane which had ended by crashing down in the midst of a Turkish encampment. What I, and friends who knew him best supposed, was that the leave had been a pretext, that Fenton had been sent on a secret mission of some sort and that he was bound to take the blame if anything went wrong. Aeroplanes have the habit of other fierce, untaided animals. They won't always obey their trainers. Thus Anthony and his plan had both been upset. Or had it really been premeditated that he should fall into that camp? The remainder of his leave was cancelled in punishment and he had been recalled to Egypt to be scolded in Cairo before proceeding to cartoon. Queer how many silly asses one knows, Anthony said, still considering what a mess I seem to have made of things, fellows were jolly kind at the turf club. Nobody cut me and only a few let me alone. Maybe there'd have been still fewer if there hadn't been a hero present who claimed attention, an American chap, Jack Dennis, who knows Miss Gilder and was telling the good news that she was on her way to Egypt. He called her the Gilded Rose and said it was going to be a good flower season in Cairo and up the Nile. All the men, with one exception, seemed to have heard a lot about her and to find her an interesting subject and to want Dennis to introduce them. I can guess the one exception, said I. Can you? While I don't read newspaper gossip about heiresses, thank heaven I have something better to do with my time. But the others wanted to meet her, or pretended to, perhaps to chaff Dennis, rather a cocky youth, though I oughtn't to say so, as he was nice to me according to his lights. He got Sam Blake to introduce us when he happened to hear my name and went out of his way to pay me compliments, which I dare say he thought I'd like. When there was a lull in the discussion of what could be done to make Miss Gilder enjoy herself in Egypt, chaps suggesting trips in their motor-cars or on their camels and a lot of rot, Dennis remarked that I was the only man who hadn't shipped into the conversation. And hadn't I any ideas for entertaining the Golden Girl? Naturally I said that I didn't know who she was and I had never heard of her, and even if I had, entertaining girls wasn't in my line. They all roared, and Dennis wouldn't believe at first that I didn't know of such an important person's existence. But the other men rotted a bit and described me to him according to their notions of me. So he let me alone on the subject, and having plenty of other things to think of, I forgot all about it till the lady in question introduced herself this morning. Then, well, it struck me as rather amusing at first that I, the only one in the crowd who hadn't made plans to get at her, should have her trying to get at me. That was partly why I came up on the terrace when she beckoned. Really? For purely intellectual reasons I'm curious to know the rest. I suppose it had nothing to do with her looks? As it happened, my cynical friend, it hadn't. I've got eyes in my head and I could see she was pretty, very pretty, though not my ideal type at all. That little sprite of a woman in fawn-color, the one with green eyes and a lot of black lashes, is more what I'd fall in love with if I were frivolous. But apart from the funny side of my meeting with Miss Golder, or Gilder, it popped into my head that I might make her a victim in a certain cause. Don't ask me to explain yet, because there are a lot of things that have got to be explained first, or you couldn't understand. You were right, of course, when you thought I'd stationed myself in front of shepherds to take a rise out of you. I gave up my room there yesterday, for reasons I'll tell you. But I knew you'd be in the hotel, and that you'd be bound to show yourself on the terrace in order to go out. I wanted to see if you'd recognize me, and to have a little fun with you if you didn't. By the way, I'm not pleased that you did. It's a poor compliment to my makeup, which I may tell you has been warmly praised in high quarters. Well, you see, I apologized. I knew you were a nailer at that sort of thing, or you would have never got to Mecca and earned your green turban. I knew you'd been pretty often called upon to disguise yourself and go about among the natives for one thing and another. And besides, we were chums before you had the shadow of a bush, so I have an advantage over the other Sherlock Holmeses. But even as it was, I couldn't be sure at first. You must have got some fun out of my expression. I did. I took revenge on you for recognizing me by tormenting you as far as I dared. Dear old boy, I knew you'd see me through to the end, bitter or sweet. Which was it, I inquired. Mixed. The girl riled me, rather, so much that I definitely decided it would be fair play to make use of her as a cat's paw. And it depends on you whether she's to lose or win her bet. If she loses, I get her hat. If she wins, I've engaged myself to procure for her your green turban. Do you think you could without my consent? No, I distinctly thought I couldn't. But I would have been willing to bet the head in the turban, served up on a charger, so sure was I that you'd refuse to come near her. I thought I knew you all fond, you see. You do. I haven't changed. The circumstances have changed, and that brings me near to the sage of this business which concerns you and me. First, before I go further, though, I'll tell you a part of the reason why I'm sporting the green turban. There's been the dickens to pay here, about a new street that had to be made, and immensely important and necessary street. Well, they couldn't make it because of the tomb of a popular saint or sheikh was in the way. To move the body or even disturb a saint's tomb would mean no end of a row. You remember or have read enough about Mohammedans to know that. What to do was the question. Nobody'd been able to answer it till yesterday when the sight of me reminded them of a trick or two I'd brought off some time ago by disguising myself and hanging about the cafes. They wanted me to try it again. Consequently Captain A. Fenton received a telegram and had to leave Cairo at once on business. He gave up his room at Sheppard's, and the only regrettable thing to the official mind is that the fellow'd been seen about town even for an hour. However, it couldn't be helped. Luckily Ahmed Atun is not unknown in Cairo cafes. He's made quite an impression upon the public on several occasions since his pilgrimage to Mecca two years ago. And since yesterday afternoon he's been drinking enough coffee to give him jaundice, while casually spreading the story of a dream he had. Our friend the haji related how he had slept in the mosque of Ibn Talun after the noon hour, and had dreamed of the shake whose tomb is so inconveniently placed. In the dream the saint clamored to have his tomb moved on account of a bad smell of drainage, which he considers an insult to his own memory. Also dogs have taken to howling round his resting place at night, and you know that to the true believer a dog is an unclean animal. Except for hunting purposes, or watch dogging in various branches, good Mohammedans class dogs and Christians together in their minds. Well, already the haji's dream is working like yeast. The news of it is being carried from one cafe to another, and I hope that a few more nights' work will do the trick. The votaries of the saint will get up a petition to have his body moved. When it has found another abode the making of the new thoroughfare will be suggested. Very neat. I see it all except the connection with Miss Gilder. What has your saint got to do with her? Very little I should say by the look in her eyes. But though a green turban is as good as an heirloom and extorts respect wherever it goes, even a haji may have jealous detractors. I have mine. Another green turban in this town, whose genuineness is doubted for some obscure reason or another, has sneered at my dream. I say, that sounds as if you may be in danger. One man suspects you to-day, to-morrow. Oh, it's only the dream he suspects at present. I know all the little prayer tricks so well, and I've invented my own history so ingeniously, with a patois to match my provenance, that I shall get through this incident as I have through others of the sort. There's only one hull in my jeba. Last night, when my rival sprang a sudden question as to what I was doing in Cairo, I'm supposed to be a Luxor man. On the spur of the moment I replied that I was acting as Dregoman to a rich family of tourists. On that the brute inquired with honeyed accents where they were staying. I said, shepherds, because I expected you to be there, and thought if I were followed you might be useful as a dummy. Ah, that's where Miss Gilder comes in? A gilded gingerbread lamb ready for the sacrifice. Why didn't you accept her offer at once, as she seemed so providential? I'm coming to that. It sounds complicated, but it isn't. For one thing, though, it may be well to wait and find out a little more about that goat-eyed Armenian of yours. He isn't mine. He's—I want to know for certain who's he is. If he has anything to do with my rival Haji, there's more venom and wit inside that green turban than I've given it credit for. Is there a reason, by the way, except they're riches, why one should want to get at a member of the American party? By Jove, said I, as if I'd been pinched, for there was a sharp nip in the thought Anthony's question jabbed into my mind. I had disliked and distrusted better al-Gamali, but I had associated my distaste for him with Fenton's affairs. It had not occurred to me that Biddy's fears meant more than a nervous woman's vague forebodings. During the few hideous years of hide and seek she had passed in trying to protect the traitor, Richard O'Brien, she had no doubt real enough reason to dread a spy in every stranger, but I had cheerfully advised her not to be morbid when she spoke of herself as a dangerous companion, or stopped me with a gasp in the midst of what seemed an innocent question about her stepdaughter. Could it be possible that her alarms might, after all, be justified, and that the powerful association betrayed by O'Brien would visit his sins on his widow and daughter? That American accent of Gamalese. He admitted having been in New York. Of course he had made acquaintances there. My thoughts flashed back to the meeting at the railway train. Could the fellow have found out in advance that I was with Mrs. O'Brien, Alias Jones, and her friends? It seemed as if such knowledge could have reached land ahead of us only by miracle. But there was always Marconi. Perhaps news of Miss Gilder had been sent by wireless to Alexandria, with our humbler names starred as satellites of that bright planet. If this were so, better, instructed from afar to watch Richard O'Brien's widow, might easily have been clever enough to suborn a messenger waiting for one earnest borough. What are you mumbling about, Anthony wanted to know, when I forgot to answer? Have I put some idea that you don't like into your head? I was turning your question over in it, I explained, and I wondered what to answer. Of course Miss Gilder is rather important, and I believe her father's obsession used to be when she was a child that she'd be kidnapped for ransom. The little sprite of a woman you admire so much knew the Gilders in those days. She says that the unfortunate baby used to be dragged about in a kind of caged perambulator, and that some of her nurses were female detectives in disguise, with revolvers under their white gowns. No wonder the girl revels in emancipation and travel. I should think now she's grown up to twenty-one years in five-foot eight or nine of height, without being kidnapped, there's not much danger so long as she keeps in the boundaries of civilization. Still one never knows, in such a queer world as ours, where newspapers live on happenings we'd laugh to scorn if they came out of novel-writer's brains. That's the only incentive you can suggest for spying, unconnected with my affairs? I hesitated, for Biddy's secret was not my secret, and it seemed that I had no right to pass it on, even to my best friend. I must ask Biddy's permission before telling Fenton that Mrs. Jones was the widow of the informer Richard O'Brien, that she feared over subtlety on the part of the enemy, might confuse her girl-traveling companion with Esmael O'Brien, hidden in a convent school near Monaco. It's just credible that there may be other incentives, I said, but I must confess I'd rather believe that Armenian spies were on the track of Ahmed Atun, who can take care of himself than after poor Miss Gilder or any of her party. What's the name of the laughing sprite? Suddenly asked Fenton. Miss Err-Jones, Bridget Jones, where's her husband? In his grave. Oh, well, his widow looks ready to bubble over with the joy of life, so I suppose we can't associate spies or anything shady with her. That's too much to hope for. Why to hope for? That would make her too interesting. Look here, my dear fellow, you can't have them both. The dark eyes of Antoon lit with a spark of surprise and laughter. I don't want either, thanks. I admire flowers, but I never gather them. I leave them growing. However, you might tell me which one you want for your own buttonhole. Really, I don't know, I mumbled, taken aback. All I do know is, it's not likely I can get either. Anthony stared at me with a curious expression, then abruptly changed the subject. You've heard of Sir Marcus Lark, he asked? Of course, said I, surprised at this question sandwiched into our affairs. Sir Marcus Lark is a man who has his finger in many pies, but I didn't see how he could poke one into ours. He knows Sir M.A. Lark, given a baronetcy by the radicals some years ago when returned for services to the party, starting and running a newspaper which must have cost him fifty thousand pounds before it began to pay. He has financed theaters and vegetarian restaurants. He owns cocoa plantations and factories and a garden city. He has a racing yacht which once beat the German emperors. He owns two hotels. He has written a book of travel. His name, as a director, is sought by financial companies. He has lent money to a distressed South American government in the making. And though the success of his enterprises has sometimes hung in the balance for months or years, his wonderful luck seems invariably to triumph in the end. So much so that Lark's luck has become a well-known heading for newspaper columns, in the middle of which his photograph is inset. At the mention of his name, the oft-seen picture rose before my eyes. A big man, anywhere between thirty-six and fifty, good head, large forehead, curly hair, kind eyes, pugnacious nose, conceited smile under waxed moustache, heavy jaw, unconquerable chin, and prize fighters neck and shoulders. What a surmarcus Lark to do with us! He's in Egypt, in Cairo just now, and he's got our mountain. Good heavens! I stared blankly at Anthony, seeing not his dark face under the green turban, but that everlasting, ever-smiling newspaper block portrait. Down toppled our castle in the air, Anthony's in mine, the shining castle which had been the lodestone of my journey to Egypt, the secret hope and romance of our two lives, for all those months since Anthony first read the Fellini papers and began negotiations with the Egyptian government. It's all up then, I said, when I felt that I could speak without betraying palsy of the jaw. We're done. I'm not sure of that, Fenton answered. If I had been, I shouldn't have broken the news so brutally. It's on the cards that we may be able to bring the thing off yet. But how, if that bounder has got the place for himself? He must have found out the truth about it somehow, or he wouldn't have bothered. And if he knows what we know, or think we know, he certainly won't give up to us what he's grabbed for himself. A beastly shame we should have been let in like this, after being given to understand that it would be all right. Work must have a pool of some sort. I haven't learned what, but I will. The one hope is he hasn't stumbled onto the secret. What? You think he hid on our pitch by a mere coincidence? An accident? No, there's not a shadow of a doubt that he had a special motive for wanting our mountain and no other. Have you formed an idea what the motive is, if not the same as ours? I've heard his version from his own lips. It's rather astounding, and I want you to hear it from him, too. You've met him? Yesterday at Sheppard's, before I went in for this dressing up business, Lark heard I had wired for a room at the hotel and was lying in wait for me on the terrace when I got back from the agency. We had a talk. I'd heard just before the news about the mountain, but he explained. Now he wants to see you. He's got something special to say, and I've made an appointment for you with him at two o'clock. End of chapter 5