 CHAPTER XV The Desert Diary to Its Bitter End. PART I Tuesday. The principal water-cask has leaked, consequently not enough water to go round. Chef said it was a question of baths or soup. Considering the cold, most of the people voted for soup. Some washed in Apollonarius. Others douched with soda siphons. We can get more water tonight. Can't think why the north wind doesn't stop and warm itself while traversing the Mediterranean or the hot sands. It seems to be in too fierce a hurry and consequently cuts across the desert. Like a frozen siph, the moment its rival, the sun, has gone to sleep. I hear that Miss Hasset Bean cried with cold as she dressed, and put on two of everything, but she is luckier than the younger women. Monnie and Mrs. East, though warned that the nights would be chill, have come clothed in silk and gossamer, and have brought low-necked nightgowns instead of nann soup trimmed with lace. This was confided to me soon after sunrise by a blue-nosed bitty, hovering over the kitchen fire and, incidentally, ingratiating herself with the cook. It wouldn't be bitty if she weren't ingratiating herself with someone. Nobody yearned to get up early. I speak for others, as I passed my night in the altitude of a suspension bridge between two folding chairs. But in camp where sleep is concerned, men may propose, camels dispose. Their nights they spend in a ring of camel-hood, huddled together for warmth, and if they do not have nightmare or bite each other in their sleep, mere humans in neighboring tents may hope for comparative silence in the desert, if not near a village full of pie-dogs. At sunrise, however, a change comes over their spirit. They are given food and made as happy and contented as it is their nature to be, which apparently is not saying much. Judging by the strange, inarticulate oaths they constantly mutter, they are equally accursed in their sitting down and their getting up. It is only when they are actually on the move, floating and swaying through the air, legs, tail, neck, jaws, that they have nothing disagreeable to say. Immediately after dawn this morning our camels began to imitate every animal they could have met since the days of the Ark, when one had to know everybody. They muted like hats, hissed like snakes, bleated like sheep, roared like toy lions, grunted like pigs, barked like dogs, swalked like geese, and bellowed like baby bulls. Also they gargled their throats like elderly invalids. It was useless trying to sleep, and when I had accomplished such bathing as the chef permitted, I went out to see what was the matter. Nothing was the matter except that the creatures had the sunrise in their eyes and could see the camel-boys preparing their loads, but I was glad I had come out, because Biddy was there and the scene was beautiful. Shivering we chuckled over the morning toilet of the camels, who turned their faces disconcertingly upon us, sneering with long yellow teeth and bubbling as if their mouths were full of pink soap suds, when they realized that we were laughing at them. Incidentally we learned why the baby's finks accompanied our caravan uninvited. His name is Salee, and he came because there's a very important camel, the property of his father, who refuses to eat or stir without him. It is a most original and elaborate camel. It has a neat way of turning its ears with their backs to the wind, in order to make them sand-proof. If any person other than Salee touches it, an incredible quantity of green cud is instantly let loose over their turbans, but at the approach of Salee it emits a purring noise, preens its head for the nose-strap ornamented with a bunch of palm-like plumes, and playfully not to want the bursum which the little black sphinx thrusts down its throat in handfuls. This, it seems, is good camel-table manners, and it is to the tale of this animal that Salee clings on the march. If he is not there the animal looks round, stops, or turns to charge at any Arab who jestingly misuses its eyeball. Yesterday the miniature sphinx was in a white robe. Today he is in black. All the Arabs have changed their clothes, although they have brought no visible luggage except vague pieces of sacking. The Dregelman is exquisitely arrayed, Galabia and Kaftan gray-blue with a pink petticoat and a white one on under that. I suspect that he sleeps beneath the dining-table and the other Arabs among the kitchen-pots, yet they are smarter than any of us Europeans, all of whom have afraid air. This, I suppose, would not be so in desert fiction. Nothing would be said about hot water-bottles leaking or beetles beatling. One doesn't come to Egypt to see live scarabs, or drafts raging, or camels gobbling, or flags flapping all night. Memo abolish flags even at the expense of patriotism. Despite every desert drawback, however, Biddy and I agreed that the sunrise alone was worth the journey, and the pure air of dawn which, though cold, seemed perfumed by mysterious rose-fields. Just at sun-up the desert was lily-pale, then, as the horizon flamed, a dazzling flood of gold poured over the dunes. The sun was a fantastic brooch of beaten copper, caught in a veil of ruby gauze, while here and there a belated star was a dull, flawed emerald sewn onto the veil's fringe. Shadows swept westward across the desert like blue water, showing a glitter of drowned jewels underneath, and though last night it had seemed that we were alone in a vast wilderness, now there were signs that a village lay not far off. A group of children in red and blue, staring avidly at the camp, were like a bunch of ragged poppies in the sand. Their mangy pie-dogs had ventured nearer to smell sadly at the meat-saves hanging outside our kitchen-tent. A gypsy woman with splendid eyes and a blue tattooed chin, breakfasted on an adjacent dune with her husband. Men like living hen-coops passed in the distance. Patriarchal persons blew in, in that graceful way in which people do blow in in Egypt, driving a flock of sheep, with a black lamb for luck. These men were dressed as their ancestors had dressed in the time of Abraham, and Biddy and I envied them. How nice said she to wear the same clothes for a hundred years if you happen to live, and never be out of fashion. If a few of your things dropped off by degrees, you were still all right, and nobody would be rude enough to notice. Our faded family revived after breakfast, and even those who vowed they hadn't closed an eye all night enjoyed the scene of striking camp. The big white tents fell to the ground like pricked soap-bubbles, whereupon their remains were deftly rolled up and tied onto the backs of bitterly protesting camels. Beds, mattresses, tables, chairs ceased to be what they had been and became something else. Camels made faces and noises. Arabs tore this way and that, doing as little work as possible. The cook fluttered about in his blanket, brandishing a soft span. Use of the drago-men made noble gestures of command, and our little desert cities ceased to exist except on camels' backs. It was shaved off the surface of the earth, and went churning and swaying along toward the next stand, the procession rising and falling among swelling dunes, under a sky which seemed to trail like a heavy blue curtain, where at the horizon it met the gold. We traveled over pebbly plateaus, scattered with jewel-like stones. Sand pyramids rose out of the glistening plain. Here and there were rocks, like partly hewns' finxes pushing out of the sand to breathe, other rocks like monstrous toads, and still others dark and dreadful in the distance as ogres' houses. Altogether the desert gave us a truly Libyan effect, which made the set feel that after all they were getting what they paid for, with an introduction to a beauty and an heiress thrown in. But, apropos of this latter boon, it is dawning upon me that Rachel Guest is receiving more attention than money. This strikes me as inexplicable. There are more men than women in our party, all young except Sir John Biddle, General Harlow, and Mills of Manchester, a soft, fat sort of fellow whose first name you can never remember. It occurred to me, on starting, that the desire of so many unattached young men to spend a week in the desert and the fayoon might not be unconnected with Miss Guilder's intention to join the party. Not being jealous, I expected to see a little fun, and to laugh it over with Biddy, who is a heavenly person with whom to share a joke. But, if there is a joke, I haven't yet seen the point, nor has she. There's no disputing the fact that Miss Guest, the poor, brave schoolteacher on holiday, is the bell of the desert. Of course, if Monty had stopped in Cairo, Rachel's success with our men wouldn't be astonishing. As Bridget and Monty warned me in their letters to the Candice, she grows better looking every day. But, though she is distinctly of Monty's type, despite those slanting eyes, she will never be a real beauty, or a complete fascinator, like our gilded girl. Besides, Monty has millions, and Rachel hasn't a cent. Yet there it is. Miss Guest is having the time of her life in spite of leaky water-bottles and bumping camels, while Miss Guilder might be an old married woman for all the attention she gets from any man on this trip except me. What can be the explanation? Even those two exaggeratedly German-looking men, with better, stared at Rachel from their respectful distance. It turns out that they camped not far from us last night. Yousef heard this from one of our camel-boys. But they kept themselves, and didn't come within a mile of us, so there's nothing to complain of. Everyone except Sir John delighted with today's desert. He can't see anything beautiful in yellow lumps that keep you sawing up and down, though he has no doubt the desert is full of other fools doing what we're doing, and we could all see each other doing it if it weren't for those darn dunes. Later. Adventure for Sandcart on one of the biggest plateaus. Looked all right from the top, but a shriek for Mrs. East put me to the dire necessity of sliding off Farag and running to the rescue. The plateau was broken off in front and became a precipice which, Cleopatra seemed to think, would not have existed had Antoon arrived in time to arrange it. Great wind came roaring up again about noon, feared to learn that it had been impossible to get lunch and tent in position. But when the time came to find it, there it was with its back to the blast and its shady open front of tile-patterned applique offering the hoped-for picture of white dining table and smiling brown waders. While we lunched, the fierce gusts striking the back canvas wall were like frightened flappings of giant wings, and the beating of a great bird's heart. Otherwise we might have forgotten the elements as we ate, save for a slight powdering of sand on our food. But even that wasn't bad if we selected only the port side of our bread and chicken, leaving the windward bits to the Arabs. Our night camp was in shelter of the two vast dunes which hide the ancient city of Bacchias, now called Am El Adel, where we found Antoon waiting us. He had started from Cairo in the morning on a coastguard camel, coming quickly along the camel route between Bedrishain and Tomea, and the extra few miles to our encampment. Before we arrived he had sent the camel back with the mounted Arab who accompanied him, and somehow the camp seemed all the smarter and more ship-shaped for the presence of the handsome Haji in his green turban. The set are all extremely interested in him, and, on hearing my version of his history, sketchily told, have taken to calling him the Prince. Enid and Elaine almost fawn upon him in their admiration of so romantic and splendid an addition-tower party, a real, live Egyptian gentleman, with enough European blood in his veins to justify nice-minded maidens in cherishing a hopeless love for him, when he is safely vanished out of their lives. Mrs. East made Anthony pick up prehistoric oyster shells in the desert, between flaming sunset and twilight, when the sky became a vast blue tent hung with a million lamps, and at dinner she was not nice to Enid and Elaine who admired her hero too frankly. She has developed an embarrassing clearness of vision as to other people's former incarnations, especially their disagreeable or shocking ones. Ah, it has just come to me, she exclaimed, her elbows on the table, looking dreamily into Elaine Biddle's face. You were zantipay, I knew I'd seen you somewhere. As for Enid, it seems that she was Charmian or Iris, Cleopatra can't be sure which, but the girl has come to me saying that, if Mrs. East doesn't stop calling her my dear handmaiden, one or the other of them will have to give up starting on the Nile trip next week. Wednesday. We had lobster a la Newburgh for dinner, in mid Libyan desert, and drank the chef's health in Champagne. I don't know which was to blame, or whether it was the combination, but in the windy middle of the night when tent flaps stirred like a nest full of young birds, there were demands for ginger and for peppermint. Now ginger and peppermint happened to be the only two medicaments in the whole pharmacopia left out of the medicine chest. But nothing else would do. The more the things there weren't there, the more there were wanted, and all the people who had made notes to remember me in their wills scratched me out again. Then, to pile Assa on Pellion, the dogs of Tomia arrived to pay a visit. They barked, of course, but they barked so much that the noise was like a silence, and nobody minded after the first half hour. The worst was that they did not confine their demonstrations to barking. In order to signify their disapproval of our stingy ways, they took the boots we had confided to the sand in front of our tents to be cleaned, and worried them at a considerable distance. Some of the boots were passed wearing when found, and some were not found. Judging from cold glances directed at me by those obliged to resort to pumps or bedroom slippers, one would imagine me the trainer of this canine menagerie. It has been hinted, too, that a conductor worth his salt would have filled up interceases of the medicine chest with toothbrushes. Several members of the party forgot to pack theirs and move in camp, and now they are the property of jackals. A stock of toothbrushes is the one other thing besides peppermint and ginger and hot water bottles that Slaney and I left out of our calculations. Still, I do think that bygones ought to be left bygones. Anthony is the hero now, because it occurred to him to buy in Cairo flannelette nightwear, male and female, of the thickest and most hideously pink description. Had these horrors been suggested at the start, they would have been rejected with fury in favour of lace and namesook, but the combination has made success foo at a crisis when vanity has been forgotten and the girls are employing their prettiest frops as bed covering. Another day. Have now forgotten which or how many we've had. This is Anthony's hour, but he may take such advantage of it as he chooses, I'm indifferent. On top of my troubles I've contracted desert snivels. Whether the habit of using sand for snuff has produced the malady, or whether I've caught something, despite the tonic air from nomads or oasis dwellers, all of whom emit a storm of coughs and sneezes, I do not know. All desire is to use this grand opportunity of taking Cleopatra's advice and winning Monty's love for once she's neglected by others has died within me. My one wish is to keep away from her and the rest, except perhaps Biddy, and suffer alone like a cat. Biddy has got desert snivels too. It makes another link between us, like the memories of our childhood. We swap stories of symptoms. Both feel that sense of terrible resignation which desert babies have when their eyes are full of flies and no one takes them out. The sky lowers. Big black birds flap over our heads like pirate flags that have blown away. They are the vultures which used to be sacred to Egyptians and seem to labor under the delusion that they are sacred still. The sand blows into our back hair and the Arabs make scarves and veils of their turbans. Apparently these Muslims never say any prayers, and the Candace people feel they've been cheated out of a promised sensation of desert life. The only religious thing the men do is to ball Allah when they lift the heavy rolled up tents onto the camels. People are beginning to grumble about their meals, which at first seem to them miracles of culinary art. Same old desert things we've been eating ever since Moses, I heard Harry's snail mutter, and Sir John Biddle is sick of H.B. Eggs. I suppose he means hard-boiled. I should like to feed him on soft-shelled scarabs. T. is the only incident in the desert which has paled on no one yet. Very jolly, having finished the day's exertion and sitting on folding chairs inside tent door, teak up in hand, watching the winged shadows sweep across the dunes. One feels like Jacob or Rebecca or someone. There may be a fine saint's tomb standing up, marble white, against the rose garden of a sunset sky, but one doesn't bother to walk out and examine it at close quarters. There's nothing like sitting still after a windy day on camelback. We lack interest in history, ancient and modern, although Egypt is the country which ought to make one want to know all other history. There may be a European war or an earthquake. We don't care what happens to anyone but ourselves. All we can do is to keep track of our own affairs. As for ancient history, we content ourselves with wondering if Antony and Cleopatra, when picnicic in the desert, dropped orange peels and cake to feed the living scarabs of their day. We seem to be lost to the world, yet now and then we're reminded that we have neighbors in the desert. We've had glimpses of a distant caravan which must be betters, and when we came inside of our own camp last evening we were just in time to catch a party of Germans being photographed in front of it, with our things for an unpaid background. Ever-beautiest picture by the bay, your own encampment, white tents blossoming like snowy flowers in a wilderness, a dense black cloud massed nearby on the golden sand which might in the distance be a plantation of young palms, but is in reality a congested mass of camels. You sing at the top of your voice, from the desert I come to thee, on a stallion shod with fire, hoping to thrill the girls. But they are thinking about their tea. Girls in the desert I find are always thinking about their tea, or their dinner, or their beds. You would like, when your desert snivels improve, to walk with a maiden under the stars, but no, she is sleepy, she wants to go to bed early. Even the camels are most particular about their bed-hours. It would be irritating if you didn't secretly feel the same yourself. But what a waste of stars. Some old day or other. Interesting but dusty dyke-roads into the fayume oasis. Everyone enraged with Robert Hitchens because Bella Donna's Nigel recommended the fayume. No wonder she poisoned him, snarled Mrs. Harlow. Our Arabs riding ahead look magnificent, seeming to wade through a flood of gold, the feet and legs of their camels floating in a rose-pink mist. But alas, the flood of gold and the rose-pink mist are composed of dust, that reddish dust in which presumably the boasted fayume roses grow, and it blows into our noses. This upsets our tempers and prevents our enjoying the pictures we see in the sudden transition from desert to oasis. Biblical patriarchs on white asses disputing the high, narrow gizzard or dyke-road, women with huge gold nose-rings, running possessions of girls in blowing coral and copper robes, large ornamental jars on their veiled heads, thin trailing black scarves and slim dark figures against a sky of gold. Blue-eyed water-buffalos, gamushas, and exaggerated brown-gray calves with wide-open, box-like ears in which you feel you ought to post something. Canals stretching away through emerald fields to distant palm groves, here and there a miniature cataract, children playing in the water, imps whose red and amber rags ring out high notes of color like the clash of cymbals. Now and then a gerboa or a mongoose wading across the path, traveling families on trotting donkeys or swinging camels who pass us with difficulty. Camels everywhere, indeed on dyke or in meadow, even the clouds are shaped like camels who have gone to heaven and turned to mother of pearl. There are horses too, not little sand stallions like ours, but ordinary, plodding animals whose hoofs know only fayume dust or mud. Our desert creature, however, does not spurn them. On the contrary, he pretends not to notice camels, cows, or buffaloes. He whinnies and prances with delight when he meets anything of his own shape and assumes hobby-horse attitudes, much to the alarm of Cleopatra and Miss Hassek being. Also, just to remind everybody that sand is his element, he shies at water and almost swoons at the sight of the fayume light railway. Much wind again, but thank goodness out of fayume dust and in desert sand for lunch. Prop up tent with our backs, leaning against the blast. However, we now have a special clothes-brush for the bread and a moderately clean bandana for the fruit. Plates we blow upon without a qualm. Scarabay, gambling in the sand around our feet, we pass unnoticed. This is the simple desert life. End of Chapter 15 Part 1 Chapter 15. The Desert Diary to Its Bitter End. Part 2. But ah, what an encampment for the night. It makes up for everything, and a sudden realization of abounding health is tingling in our veins. We adore the desert. We want to spend our lives in it. Thank goodness we have two nights here on the golden shore of the Blue Birket Caroon, all that's left of Lake Morris, of which Strabo and Herodotus raved. From the dune-sheltered plateau where our white-tent's cluster, the glitter of water in the desert is like a mirage, a mysterious melancholy sheet of steel and silver turning to ruby in the sunset, with dark birds skimming over the clear surface. Suddenly the Bible seems as exciting as some wonderful novel. Not far from here ran Joseph's River, making the desert to blossom like the rose. Intense like ours, perhaps, Abraham rested with Sarah, planning how to save himself by giving her to the Egyptian king. To see this lake is like seeing a bright living eye suddenly open in the face of a mummy, dead for six thousand years. Our best sunset, romance but slightly damaged by an Arab waiter wrapping up his head in a towel with which he had just dried our teacups, and no doubt will again. Another day, nearly slavish, to look it out in the calendar, and besides there is none. All I know is, we've had two on the shores of Birket Caroon, I spell it a different way now, because no books ever spell anything in Egypt twice alike. The Lake of the Horns, and we've been on the water in some very old boats, in order to see things which may have existed once but don't now, and at present we're encamped near Medinat al-Fayum, a kind of lesser Cairo, originally named Medinat al-Faris, city of horsemen, because of a Roman equestrian statue found in the neighboring mounds of Crocodilopolis. We have just arrived, hot and dusty, with more dust of more Fayum than we had before Lake Morris. Fayum means country of the lake, it seems, and it really is a great emerald cup sunk below the level of the Nile, as if to dip up water for its roses. However, the set is happy despite the state of its clothes and its hair. None of us quite realized what the Felicin were like before, or that the word Felal meant plowman. This has been market day, and we met an endless stream of riding men and walking women with black trailing garments. They had bought sheep, and goats, and rabbits, and quantities of rustling pale green sugar cane, which they carried on their shoulders. There were wild adventures for the sand cart, and watery spaces across which Cleopatra was carried, at her own urgent request, by Anthony, Miss Hasset Beam, by me, and the strongest Arab. There were the wonderfully picturesque squalid mud towns of Sonoros, and two or three others, honey yellow in a green mist of palms, against an indigo sky with streaks of sunshine like bright bayonets of gins. And then Madanet, through which our caravan had to pass and route to camp, much to the rybal joy of smart, silk-robed Egyptian undergrads who strolled hand in hand along the broad streets near the university. They were big, fantastic houses to suit modern oriental taste, painted pink and green, and set in shady gardens. And between high brick embankments we saw the river Joseph made, swiftly running, deep golden yellow like the Nile, with ancient water-wheels pouring crystal jets into enormous troughs. This was our most fatiguing day, and we wanted our last encampment to be the best. We found the worst, a suburban meadow inhabited by goats and buffaloes. Can't we move somewhere else, Cleopatra besought Anthony, to whom she appeals when he's within appealing distance? Isn't this tour for our pleasure, and can't we do what we like? Anthony absolved the camp-makers, explaining that we must be near the town in order to get carriages and see the sights we had come to see. Also our water supply had given out, and we must beg some from the government people. He hinted that it would be well to make the best of things, but Cleopatra, with her royal memories, is not good at making the best of what she doesn't like. She wants what she wants, especially in her own Egypt, where things ought to know that they once belonged to her. Ms. Hassett Bean is quite as exigent, in a different way, more biblical, less pagan. Her criticism on the encampment was that it, in all her oasis experiences, are destroying her faiths and hymns. By cool Salom Shady-Rill, for instance, used to be her favorite, but she doesn't believe now that Salom ever had a real. Later, eleven p.m., Felicin and Felaha, doesn't sound female, but it is, pretended to have things to do on the frontier of their field and ours, as we were settling in, and stared unblinkingly at us whenever we stuck a note outside a tent. Also they laughed. Also they brought their dogs. But they couldn't spoil the sunset, and Medinet was a colorful picture of the Orient, towering against the Crimson West. I took Manny and Biddy into the town to see the bridge and elapidated Mosque of Kate Bay, with its pillars stolen from Arseneau. Anthony took Cleopatra, and most of the other unmarried men took Rachel Guest. When Bridget remarked rather sharply upon the ex-school teacher's popularity, Manny laughed an odd, understanding little laugh. I believe you think you know why they're all so mad about that girl, exclaimed Biddy. Perhaps I do, smiled Miss Gilder. What is her fascination? Better could have told you, Manny cryptically replied. He told several people. What do you mean, child? I'm eating my heart out to know. Don't eat it, dearest. You can't eat your heart out and have it, too, and it's your most important possession. I wish you wouldn't tease me when I'm tired. Is it part of the secret you and Rachel were always giggling over when we first got to Cairo? Yes, dear, it is, if you must know. But I don't want to tell even you what the secret is. Please. You might think it's your duty to spoil Rachel's fun, and she and I are both enjoying it so much. Can you guess what she means, Duffer? Biddy appealed to me. You know I wrote you that Manny and Miss Guest had a secret. I thought afterward it might have been only their plan to see the Hashish den, but since then I've realized it was something else. Even if I could guess, ought I to give Miss Gilder away when she has just told you she doesn't want you to know? I asked innocently. They both turned on me in a flash. I expected that. Do you guess? I don't see if I do why I shouldn't have my little secret, I mildly replied. I knew that after this Manny would give me a good deal of her society, even though she might not have forgiven me for bolting to haul down the cook-in sign in the midst of her confidences. But the truth is I have not guessed the secret. My wits go wheeling round it like screaming swallows who see a crumb. I get a glimpse of the crumb and lose it again. In my present mood I almost regret that better and his supposed Germans have not dumped themselves down in our field. It would have been like them to do so, judging by the aggressive checks on those mustard tweeds, but as a matter of fact the party has disappeared from view since just before Birket Karun. They may have turned back to Cairo, they may have been swallowed up by palsied sand dune, they may have been eaten by jackals, we saw a dead one, or they may have taken to the flesh-pots of a Greek hotel in Medinet, but the fact remains that, just when he might be useful, better is not to be had. In our tent tonight I took advantage of our friendship to try and draw Fenton out a little on the subject of his feelings. It seemed like the right hour to open the door of the soul. The fellow heen, having taken their families home, our tent flaps were up and only the stars looked in, stars swarming like fireflies in the blue cup of a hanging flower, but Anthony would speak of nothing more intimate than the mountain of the golden pyramid or his tiresome Shakespeare's tomb. I yearned to tell him of the contra-tomps about the hieroglyphic letter, but something stopped the confession on the end of my tongue, though perhaps in the circumstances I owed it to Mrs. East. If he had mentioned her name the story might have come out, but the one drop of eastern blood which mingles with a hundred of the West in Anthony's veins makes him singularly reserved, aggravatingly reticent where women are concerned. I used to think that this was because he was not interested in them, but something I can't explain what unless its instinct tells me that this is no longer the case. Another interest has come into his life, rivaling his soldier interest, and the secret hope buried deep in our mountain. I see it in his eyes. I hear it in the timbre of his voice. It means woman. But what woman? Is Manny right? Is he falling seriously in love for the first time in his strenuous life with Biddy, with whom he picked out for admiration the moment he set eyes on her? Or is it Manny himself? I must be a dog in the manger, because I don't like the idea of its being either. He is asleep on the other side of the tent, as I write. Desert dogs do not disturb him. He's great on concentrating his mind, and when he goes to sleep he concentrates on that. I wish he'd talk in his sleep, but even in unconsciousness he is discreet as a statue. The last day. Evening. I am in disgrace, and I am left alone to bear it, so I may as well finish my desert diary. It's all on account of a lamb, just an ordinary modern lamb as you might meet anywhere. But I mustn't begin with that, though it haunts me. In spirit it's here in the tent, sitting at my feet, staring up into my face. Avant, lamb, thy blood is not on my head. Go to those who deserve thee. I wish to write of Crocodilopolis. Chetet, the city was called in the beginning of things. Chetet, or the reclaimed, for the Egyptians stole land from the water, and made it the capital of their great lake Provence, which Ptolemy Philadelphus renamed to please his adored wife. Queen Arsenault was charming, no doubt, and the Greek ruins and papyri of her day are interesting, but it is the city sacred to the crocodile god Sebek, which can alone distract my thoughts now from the tragedy of the black lamb. If his car refuses to go, I shall set crocodiles at it, ghosts of crocodiles mummied somewhere under the desert hills, which separates the Fayoum from the Nile Valley. We drove out to the ruins in a string of hired carriages at an incredibly early hour this morning. As the night was one long dog-how, and the dawn one overwhelming cockroach, people were thankful to get up. But what a waste of hardly-obtained baths from the start. Between Medenet and Crocodilopolis rose a solid wall of red dust. We had to break through it as firemen dashed through the smoke of a burning house, and when our Arabias stopped at the foot of a mountainous mound about a mile out of Medenet, the dust had come too. Scrambling up with the wind on our backs, we began to breathe, but it was not until we had ascended to the old guard-house on top of the pottery-strewn height that we could draw a clean breath. Then the reward was worth the pains. Down below us, as seen from a bird's eye view, lay a vast, unroofed honeycomb. Its size was incredible. The thing could not really be there. It was a startling dream, that endless, gold-brown city of regular streets, and mud-brick buildings, big and small, shops and houses, theaters and libraries, lacking only their roofs, deserted, saved by ghosts for thousands of years, yet looking as though it had been destroyed by a cyclone yesterday. Down there, in the devastated beehive, myriads of bees still worked frantically. Human bees, which Cleopatra said were reincarnations of those who had owned slaves and killed them with forced labor, when Chetet was among the richest cities of the two lands. These bees of today work to destroy, not to recreate, for the crumbling brick is the best of fertilizers, and fertilizing their land is the one great interest in life for the Felaen of the Fayyum. Furiously they tore at the remaining walls. Furiously they packed away their treasure of dried mud in sacks. Furiously they piled it on backs of donkeys and rushed away to make room for others. Each instant hundreds of wild figures in dusty black or blue scampered off, beating loaded donkeys, only to be replaced by hundreds more doing the same thing in the same manner. Yet always a few forms remained stationary. They were the police guardians of the ruins, men armed with staves, whose business was to oversee each worker's sack, lest some rare roll of papyri, some rich jewel once adorned with a pampered crocodile of the lake, should be found. Glimpsed through the red flame of blowing ruby dust, the scene was a vision of inferno. We, on our mount, looking down on it, were in company of Dante and Virgil. The rest of the day we gave to a light railway excursion to Illalun and the brick pyramid of Hawara. There was much laughing and shrieking among the girls of the set. I don't count Mani, who shrieks for nothing less terrible than the largest spiders, as Arabs pushed our trolley-cars along the line, and we were frivolous even on the site of the labyrinth which was, perhaps, copied from the labyrinth of Crete. The set were, frankly, disappointed in the few remains of granite columns and carvings, but vague memories of jewels seen at the Egyptian Museum waked in interest in the brick pyramid tomb at Hawara, where King Amenenpat and his daughter Ptanefru lay for a few thousand years. All of us were eager for the last Camp T. when we got home for our expedition, and it was then that the tragedy happened—the tragedy of the black lamb. How could I guess when Yusuf said the camel-boys wanted Mani to buy meat as a feast for the last day that they meant to buy it alive? When we arrived in camp an idyllic scene was being enacted. A woolly black lamb with a particularly engaging facial expression was being hospitably entertained by all our men, with the exception of the chef. They formed an admiring ring around it, taking turns in feeding it with bursim, and patting its delightfully innocent head. It was difficult to say which was happier, the charming guest or its kind hosts. How sweet of them, said Miss Hassetbeen, I must write a few verses about this for our home paper. Everybody joined with her in thinking the Arab suite, and Enid Biddle went round and took up a collection. The men arranged a football match for our benefit to show their gratitude, and played so well and were so picturesque that Sir John and other ardent sportsmen pressed more money upon them. It was, altogether, a red-letter day for the camel-boys, quite apart from the fact that they would get rid of their noble benefactors to-morrow, and by way of a climax they had what we supposed to be a bonfire at dark. Aren't all those white figures wonderful, grouped round the blaze, asked Monnie, who appeared on the whole, satisfied with the way in which the desert had taken her? And look, the flames are reflected on the clouds. I do believe it's going to rain, if such a thing can happen here. I hope it won't spoil the poor darling's celebration. Why, they seem to have something big and black hanging over the fire. What can it be? Oh, it looks awful. It is not awful, Mies, Yusuf, standing near, good-naturedly reassured her. It very nice. It is the lamb they cook it for their supper. The gentleman, my lord, he gave them money to buy it. Lamb, shrieked Monnie, in a wild voice, which brought a crowd round us. Lamb, not—oh, not—yes, Mies, you all see it feeded when you come home, when you say it so sweet. Camel-boys find sweeter now. Oh, the girl exclaimed, fiends! They invited that lamb here, and brought it in their arms, and played with it, and did everything they could to make it think it was having a pleasant afternoon. And then they killed it. Yes, of course, Mies, said Yusuf puzzled. Why elsefore, my lord, tell they can buy it. They kill and pound it up to make good, and soon they eat it in honor of the gentlemen and ladies who have been so kind this nice trip. I should like to kill them, gasped Monnie, preparing to cry, and flinging herself into Biddy's arms. Oh, somebody give me a hanky, quick! We all felt mechanically in our pockets, but I, being nearest, was first in the field. It was a shock to see Monnie wave my handkerchief away with a gesture of horror and bury her face in a far inferior one tendered by Anthony. No wonder, exclaimed Miss Hassett Bean, who is not, as a rule, a monite. You're quite right, Miss Gilder. Lord Ernest Barrow, I don't see much difference between you and a murderer. For a minute I did not know what she meant. Then it broke upon me that the Arab's monstrous breach of hospitality to the lamb was laid at my door. I jabbered explanations, but no one listened, and just then the rain, which nobody had believed in, seized the opportunity of coming down in floods. The camels roared with rage and surprise. The camel boys swore Arab oaths. The fires sputtered, and what became of the half-cooked lamb I shall never know. We rushed for the dining-tent, all soaked in an instant, with the exception of Bridget and Monnie, whom Antoon protected with a long cloak. Dinner was a gloomy feast, which might have been composed of funeral-baked meats, though the chef himself came to the door and vowed by all his saints that the lamb cutlets were not from that lamb. So well did he exonerate himself, so eloquently did he protest that he had nothing to do with the camel-boys orgy that another special collection was taken up for him. Poor dear old gentleman, sighed Miss Hasset-Bean, I shall never be able to forget him. When I am out of this awful country of cannibals and safe in my own home, he will simply haunt me, passing his respectable old age, black though he is, chasing across deserts on camels, wrapped in a blanket and covered with chicken-coops at the mercy of any queer Christian who can afford to pay for him. It's a tragedy. Perhaps she wrote her poem about the cook instead of the camel-boys. Luckily, however, at the last moment I remembered a superstition of the ancient Egyptians. They were in the habit of sacrificing a black lamb to propitiate Set, the sender of storms. Our lamb was black, and at the hour of his untimely death a storm was coming up. The dreadful deed, therefore, was turned into a rite. CHAPTER XVI. An oiled hand. That is where my diary of the desert stopped, for the adventure that ended our trip was not of the sort that mixes well with tragedies of lambs. Before dinner, Monnie had apologized for refusing my handkerchief. I really believed because she was sorry she had misunderstood, not because the rain had leaked through her tent, and she wanted me to give her mine. In fact, she and Biddy refused to point blank at first when Anthony and I suggested the change. They would not have told us that the water had come in on their beds if they had thought we should suggest such a thing. All they wished for was to have the tent-roof somehow mended before matters got worse. But we insisted, especially Fenton, and he is difficult to disobey. A look from him and a drawing together of the black eyebrows has the same effect on the mind of a rebellious woman as an off with her head from an Arabian night's sultan, while I might vainly exert my ingenuity to achieve the results he gets by sheer, mysterious magnetism. It was bedtime when the leak showed itself, but the change of quarters was accomplished with military quickness and precision, as Fenton's undertakings generally are, and almost before they knew what had happened, Monnie and Bridget, who had been tentmates during the tour, found themselves transferred bag and baggage to our tent, with the last clean sheets in the bedroom Arab's possession. Transferred we set ourselves to making repairs and soon patched up the leaks. Rain at this season comes so rarely it was not surprising that a stitch or two had been neglected. Only the pillows and upper blankets had had time to get wet, and we had but to remove the coverings and turn the pillows. We both did this simultaneously and simultaneously explained hello. They've left their treasures, said Anthony, not with quite the masculine scorn of feminine weaknesses I was used to noticing in him. Indeed he spoke almost tenderly, as a father might speak, at finding the forgotten doll of an absent child. Each of us stood with a wet pillow in his hand, gazing at his borrowed bunk. In the one I had selected lay a small chamois skin bag attached to a narrow pink ribbon. In the bed chosen by Fenton was a tiny white enameled watch on a platinum chain. Both these things had been covered by their respective owners' pillows and forgotten in the hasty change of quarters. The watch was Manny's. She wore it round her neck every day. Therefore the chamois skin bag on the other bed must be Bridget's. I told myself that in it she probably kept her pathetic store of money, hidden under her bodice by day, her pillow by night, and beholding this intimate souvenir of my childhood's friend, my heart yearned over her. Too late to rouse them up now, said Anthony. Yes, said I. We must have been twenty minutes or half an hour getting the roof to rights. They may be asleep, and if not they won't worry anyhow. They'll know that their things are safe till tomorrow morning. Fenton agreed with this verdict, and each keeping charge of his own treasure-trove we went to bed and to sleep. I am a champion dreamer, so much so that I often find the life of dreamland rivaling in interest the life of this side of sleep. I look forward to my dreams as some people look forward to an interesting dinner party, but that night I was too tired to inspect the dream menu before lying down to it. The first thing I knew, a handsome Egyptian god with crystal eyes, like those which Bill Bailey means to make the fashion, stood by my bedside. I asked him politely whether he were raw or osiris, deliberately picking the two best gods of the bunch in order to flatter him. But without answering he pointed a bronze hand to the mat on which he stood. It was a white mat, and on it I read a word which evidently he meant to take as his name—Tom Hattab. For an instant it seemed to me a fine name for an Egyptian god, though I hadn't met it before. Then I burst out laughing disrespectively. Why, you're only a bath-mat, wrong side out, I heard myself sneering, and the god disappeared as a flash of lightning comes and is gone. In going, however, he stumbled slightly against the bed. It was a mere touch, but that, or my own voice, half-waked me up. Tom Hattab, I mumbled dreamily, and was just reminding myself, before dropping off to sleep again, that I must tell Biddy about the new bath-god, when I realized that he had not quite gone. No, not quite gone. It must be he who still lingered by the bed, for it could be nobody else. Anthony would not come and hover silently at my bedside in the middle of the night. Besides, I was almost awake now, and could hear the gentle, regular breathing of a man asleep—Anthony's breathing. Go away, Tom Hattab, I tried to say, but I was not awake enough to speak. He was bending over the bed. His face was near to mine. I felt rather than sight. How could I see in the dark, sleepily, even fretfully, I asked myself? And yet was the tent dark? It had been, I remembered that. I remember that Anthony had got to bed first, and I had extinguished the two candles on the wash-stand. Afterward I had to grope my way to the bed. Now, however, there was a light—a very faint, rather curious light. There seemed to be only a square of it, a square sloped off at the top. It was opposite my eyes, which really were open now, I felt sure. I couldn't be dreaming this. It was like a queer-shaped window in the blackness—a window full of starlight, but close to the floor. Then the rain must have stopped. The stars must be out. Yes, but how could I see that? There was no window in the tent. This thought dogged the last film of sleep off my tired brain, like a veil snatched away by impatient fingers on an unseen hand. Odd! Those very words set over themselves in my head—fingers on an unseen hand. And that was because a hand was being slipped cautiously, inch by inch, under my pillow. It was the Egyptian god's hand. But I knew suddenly that the dream god had turned into a thief, that the silver-glimmering square of light was one of the tent flaps unbuttoned and turned back. That the man mustelfally have pulled up a peg or two while we slept our heavy sleep, must have crept into the tent, soft-footed over the thick rugs, and now, here he was, trying to steal. After that I did not go on with the thought. My dull reasoning snapped off as short as a dry stick. I made a grab for the hand under my pillow, seized a wrist, held it for an instant in a grip which must have hurt, then had the shame and disappointment of feeling it slip out of my grasp, like a greased snake. There was a stifled exclamation of pain or surprise, scarcely louder than a sigh, and I was out of bed and after a shadow that ran for the low square of starlight. Something caught and tripped me as I reached the opening. What it was I did not know then and I don't know now, but I had a vague impression that it was warm. If I had stumbled against a bare leg thrust out to stop me it would have felt like that. Yet it could not have been the leg of the man running away. He was using both his and must have used them well, for I was up and out from under the lifted tent flap which had fallen on top of me as I tumbled before I could have counted five. Very wide awake now I stood in the rough sandy grass under a sky encrusted with stars and could see no one. Barefooted I pattered this way and that, searching every shadow, but the whole camp seemed in a boat of peace. There was not a sound or movement even in the black ring of sleeping camels. Rain had driven to shelter the roving dogs which had troubled us last night. The camp lanterns burned clear and strong, yellow and crude in the silver flood of starlight which dulled their radiance. The smell of earth and grass after the heavy shower was like the fragrance of tea roses. Could it be that an evil, stealthy presence had but just broken this sweet serenity with its vile intention or had the whole incident been, after all, a singularly vivid dream? I should have believed so if my hand, which had clutched that other hand, had not been slippery with oil. No, I had not dreamed, and suddenly a troubling thought leaped into my mind. Pity! the name sprang onto my lips and spoke itself aloud. If this were for her, I had laughed at her for boatings. Sensational revenges such as she feared seemed so incongruous, so utterly unsuited to those laughing, long-lashed eyes of hers. Yet she had, in her past life, lived side by side with fear and tragedy for more years than I liked to count. As she said, men such as those whom Richard or Brian had betrayed had been known to reach out very far to take revenge. Pity had done nothing. Surely they owed her no grudge, but she had known things. Perhaps they thought that she knew even more than she did know. Their organization was rich as well as powerful. It had taken many branches. Yet why should men use its power to hurt the widow of a dead enemy, now that they, or fate, had put him underground? In a flash I remembered the chamois-skin bag which she had forgotten under the pillow, and lifting the loosened canvas flap with its dangling pegs, I stooped to go back into the tent. Inside I expected to find darkness, but instead I found light, Anthony up setting a match to a candle-wick and looking a tall, dark silhouette in his pajamas. What's the row, he calmly wanted to know, too calmly to suit my ruffled mood. A thief, that's all, I answered, hastily searching under the pillow where the unseen hand had been. Sheet and pillow case were slimy with oil, yet the chamois-skin bag was safe. But he didn't get what he wanted, I finished. Good! said Anthony, who had lighted both candles. Let's go look for him. I've been and couldn't see anything. I know I heard a sound. I sang out and you didn't answer, so I thought something must be up. Let's have another try. I've got Miss Guilder's watch. I slipped Biddy's bag into the pocket of my pajamas and pulling on our boots we went out into the night. It's their tent I'm thinking of, I said, though I'd never talked of Bridget O'Brien's affairs to Fenton. If someone had planned to rob them, not knowing of the change we made at the last minute. All our Arabs did know, I'm not talking of them. We've been here two days. Anyone could have spied on us enough to find out which tent was Mrs. Jones's and Miss Guilder's. You're thinking of better? Well, yes, I suppose I am. Biddy never believed they were Germans. Who, those chaps and checked clothes he had in tow? By Jove, yes. I heard her speak of a scar on the forehead of one. She thought he might have been Burke, the fellow in the street-route, that night at the house of the crocodile. These things happened to Arises in old-fashioned story-books, said Anthony, but there's nothing that happens in a story which can't happen in real life, I suppose, especially to a girl. She—oh, but I wasn't thinking of her, I began, then stopped, shocked because it was true, and also because I was unwilling to tell why my thoughts had turned to Mrs. Jones. We must find out if they're safe, I went on. The thieves seemed to have got clear away and were not likely to find them unless they've gone to our old tent. Come along, said Anthony, we'll slip on something and call the ladies as softly as we can, not to disturb the others and have the whole camp buzzing like a beehive. When we're sure they're all right, we can attend to such details as searching for tracks. He seemed as eager as I was to know that the two women were safe, but there was no sign to tell me about which one he chiefly concerned himself. A minute transformed him from a pyjamed Englishman into a robed Egyptian of that old-fashioned order which despises things European. Only he forgot to put on his turban. I didn't think of the omission myself at the time, but I recalled it later. Going to the tent which had been ours, I scratched on the tight-drawn canvas near the spot where I knew one of the folding iron beds-deads was placed. Biddy! Biddy! I called, gently, and after a few repetitions I heard her voice, rather sleepy, a little anxious, cry, Is that you, Duffer? Yes, I whispered, seeing the tent quiver in the region of some cushiony buttons. Anthony and I are both here, but don't be scared. Could you come and peep out from under the door flap a minute? Yes, said she. Go round there and I'll come. There was not much delay, for Biddy's crinkled black hair needs no night disfigurements by way of patent curlers. In a few seconds the door flap waved and Biddy looked out into the starlight, the yellow glimmer of a candle flame within the tent, silhouetting the Japanese little figure wrapped in a kimono. Behind her dark head and above it floated a mist of bronzy gold, which I took to be Miss Gilder's hair. There seemed to be quantities of it, and I should have been feverishly interested in wondering how long it was, if I had time to think of anything but my thankfulness that Biddy and Manny were both safe. Are either of you ill? asked the creamy Irish voice, which had never sounded half so sweet as now, in the starlight and fragrance of this strange night. Because if you are, I've some lovely medicine. I wouldn't frighten them any more than I could help if I were you, I heard Fenton mumbling advice in muffled tones at my back. For obvious reasons I made no audible answer, but I had just been resolving not to tell Biddy my suspicions unless it were necessary to do so. No, we're not ill, I assured her, but there's been a silly sort of scare about a sneak-thief. May have been a false alarm, and we won't say anything about it tomorrow if others don't. We're horribly sorry to disturb you and Miss Gilder, but we couldn't rest without making sure you hadn't been worried. You heard nothing, did you, Manny? Bridge it through a question over her shoulder to the floating mist of gold. No, and I wasn't asleep, either, Miss Gilder's voice answered. I was lying awake thinking about its being our last night, and lots of things. I was lying half awake, too, thinking of lots of things, Biddy mimicked her friend, or I shouldn't have heard you so easily when you scratched on the canvas. Oh, by the way, Duffer, did you or Antoine Effendi find a little chamois skin bag under the pillow? I found it, said I, and this gave me a chance I had been wanting, but hadn't quite known how to snatch. I was rather worried over the responsibility. Of course you knew that we'd take care of your treasures. It's all my money, and just one other thing, Biddy answered, with an odd little hesitation in her manner, and a catch in her voice. I should hate to have anybody open that bag. I'm thankful it's safe. With you I know it's sacred. All the same I'd like to have it if you don't mind the bother. You oughtn't to carry the thing about with you if it's so important, I scolded her. Why not leave your secret treasure, whatever it is, and most of your money in Cairo when you come off on an expedition like this? I don't know, she mumbled evasively. I'm used to having this thing with me. I can't think how I forgot it under my pillow. I never had before. It isn't the sort of valuable one keeps in a bank. Monnie embroidered the bag when she was a little girl. It was her first work. I taught her how to do it. And she gave it to me for a birthday present. I wouldn't lose it for the world. You shan't, I said soothingly. I had heard what I had been afraid to hear, but why should Biddy's trip be spoiled by another worry if I could shield her? We could not know that the oiled hand had been groping for that bag, and I resolved not to distress Bridget by putting the idea into her head at present. Go to sleep again in peace, both of you, I went on. All's well since you're well. Probably some prowler has been sneaking round the kitchen tent. Yes, the news of the lamb has gone forth, said Biddy. Good night. Good night, I answered. Down went the tent flap and hid the sparkle of eyes in star sheen and mist of gold in wavering candlelight. We trusted that the two had crept back to their beds, but we did not return to ours. We took one of the camp lanterns and searched for footprints, those which were freshest after the rain. The rough grass growing sparsely out of the sandy earth was not favorable to such attempts, however, and even at dawn, when we looked again before the camp was stirring, we made no notable discoveries such as amateur detectives make in books. Our next expedition, as soon as light came, was to the town, where we inquired at the few hotels and put questions to the police. Nobody answering the description of Better and his two companions had been seen in Madenet, and we had to go back to camp baffled. There was our adventure, and when we reached Cairo by train, the mystery of the oiled hand was still unsolved. End of Chapter 16 Chapter 17 of It Happened in Egypt This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. It Happened in Egypt by Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson. Chapter 17 The Ship's Mystery Again I expected a black mark for the lamb in every little desert difficulty, but to my surprise only our joys were remembered. Those who had stayed in Cairo exchanged details with the desert travelers, and it was astonishing to hear what a marvellous week we had had. Each day had been better than its brother. In fact, our trip had been one long, glorious dream of golden sands and amethyst sunsets. The camels were as easy to ride as sofas, and combined the intelligence of human beings with the disposition of angels. The camp was as luxurious as the Savoy or the Plaza, and to me and that wonderful Antunefendi all credit was suddenly due. Not to be outdone, the stayers in Cairo had had the time of their lives. They had not been herded together like animals in a menagerie as in Colonel Corcoran's day. The girls had not only been to dances, but had danced with darling pets of officers, friends of Ernest Barrow, while their mothers had been asked to those fascinating picnics they get up in Egypt, don't you know, where you dig in ancient burial grounds and find mummy beads and amulets. Somehow or other all these people attributed their pleasures to me, as they had blamed me for their mishaps, and my spirits were at the top of the thermometer three days later when, after some hard work, the Enchantress Isis was ready to start up Nile. Sir Marcus wanted his tours to be different from every other Nile tour, and a little better. He wanted to show what he could do, and he was beginning well. Though the Enchantress Isis had had a past under other owners, she looked as if this were her maiden trip, and she was as beautifully decorated as a debutante for her first ball. Her paint was new and gleaming white, her brass and nickel glittered like jewelry, and even those who thought nothing quite good enough for them uttered admiring o's as they trooped on board. The highway of Egypt was the silver paved road leading to adventure. The mass of native boats lying along the river bank were etched in black lines crowding over one another on the lightly washed in background of blue. Nearby the great Cossirelle Nile bridge gleamed with color and life like a rainbow come alive, and the Enchantress Isis looked as gay and inviting as a houseboat in Fett for Henley Regatta. She was smaller than the most modern of the Nile boats, for she had been sold cheap to Sir Marcus by another firm, but she was big enough for his experiment, though he had turned some of her cabins into private baths and sitting rooms. Her three decks towered out of the water with a superior air of stateliness, such as small women put on beside tall sisters, and her upper deck was a big open air sitting room. There were Turkish rugs on the white floor, and basket chairs and sofas with silk cushions. On the tables and on the piano top there were picture books of Egypt, and magazines and bowls of flowers. From the roof sprouted electric lamps with brass leaves and glass lotuses, and smiling Arabs in white from turban to slippers had blue larks flying wide winged on their breasts. Oh yes, Sir Marcus was doing his clients well. That was patent at first glance, and became even more conspicuous to the eyes of the set as they wandered into the dining saloon, drawing room, and library, or peeped into each other's cabins. Sir Marcus himself had come on board ostensibly to see us off, really to watch the effect of his boat upon Cleopatra. He lay in wait for her outside the door of her suite, the best on board, pretending to engage me in conversation, but forgot my existence as she appeared. The ecstasy on his big face was pathetic, as his brown eyes fixed themselves on a quantity of artificial blue lotuses she held in her hands. Do you like them, Mrs. East? he ventured. Do I like what? she inquired, that quiver of impatience in her tone, which she kept for her unfortunate adorer. The—those flowers, he stammered, I—they're awful, she exclaimed. The rooms are lovely, but these dreadful artificial things some silly person has stuck all over the place spoiled a whole effect. I want to find an Arab to take them away. Or do you think I might throw them overboard? No one could like them, I'm sure. Of course, chuck them overboard, or hand them to me, and I'll do it," said Sir Marcus, looking ready to cry. But their lotuses, I suppose you know, I heard say you'd give anything to have some. Not artificial ones, explained Cleopatra. Beldam sounds mercy. I can't stand artificial flowers even on hats, much less in rooms. Who could have put such horrors all over my salon? I don't know, Sir Marcus lied stoutly, but it shan't happen again. There ain't any real lotuses to be got, so maybe the—the decorator—his meanderings died into silence as he took the bunch of flowers from Mrs. East and viciously flung them as tribute to the Nile. After all, we oughtn't to do that, said Cleopatra. In the beautiful old days real lotuses were given to the Nile. These aren't insults. They aren't meant as such, the big man apologized, all joy in his fine boat and the compliments he had received crushed out of him. I knew now that he had hovered at Cleopatra's door, hoping for a cry of pleasure. Probably he had ransacked Cairo for the lotuses or telephoned to Paris before his cruel lady went from him into the desert. I was sorry for the boss, though a snub or two would be good for him, no doubt, and perhaps were being specially provided by a wise providence. But I had other things to think of than Sir Marcus Lark's love troubles. Manny, for instance, who at last had found a letter from Madame Wretched in Cairo and had wonderful schemes in her head. On board the Laconia I should have thought such schemes obstinate and headstrong, the wish of a spoiled child to do something dangerous, to meddle in matters which did not concern her, and to have an adventure. But I understood the gilded rose a little better now. I began to see the real Manny as Biddy saw her, bright with the flame of courage and enthusiasm and passionate generosity, behind the passing cloud of superficial faults. She wanted everybody to be as fortunate and happy as she, and was prepared to be exceedingly trying and disagreeable in the effort to make them so. We had not been on board ten minutes when Biddy told me about the exciting letter, and escorted me to find it and Manny. Miss Gilder was in the act of insisting that General and Mrs. Harlow should accept her suite, and that she should take their cabin. The matter had to be argued out before she could spare attention for anything else, but as she made it clear that the Harlow's were not to pay extra, their scruples were soon conquered. The baggage hasn't been put into the cabins yet, she explained, verethlessly to me. So that's all right. In my astonishment I forgot, Madame Wretched. But why, I adjured Manny in my professional tone as conductor, why on earth should you sacrifice yourself to these people? What have they done for you? I thought you didn't like them. I don't, she replied, calmly, while Biddy listened, smiling. That's why I gave them my suite. At least it's partly why. I should think the other part of the partly is more convincing, I remarked, and Manny blushed. Perhaps you know that your friend Antona Fendi thinks me the most selfish, as well as the most obstinate girl he ever saw, she said, and I don't intend to have foreigners like him go on doing American girls and injustice. Besides, maybe he's right about me, and I want him to be wrong. I hate having all the best things there are everywhere just because I'm rich. The Harlow's wanted a suite, and they couldn't afford to take one. They were looking sadly through the door at my rooms and envying me, so I thought I would change. I was determined to change, whether they would let me or not. They're old, I'm young, and I shall enjoy thinking I've done something nice for people. I thoroughly dislike, as much as they will enjoy having their own bathroom. If Mrs. Harlow could hear you calling her old, gurgled Biddy. Well, she is old, and she's perfectly horrid, much more horrid even than Miss Hassett Bean, so I'd rather give my suite to her and her husband than anyone else. Biddy and Rachel are together, and Aunt Clara is alone. I'm robbing no one but myself. How do you know Antoine Effendi thinks you are selfish and obstinate?" I inquired. Surely he wasn't rude enough to say so. He was, indeed, the day I would have the Coast Guard camel, and he came after me when it ran away, she confessed. And you're not to tell him about the suite. I didn't give it up to please him. I thought you did, I ventured, in order that Egyptian princes shouldn't do an injustice to American girls. I meant, she explained hastily, that I like to know they're wrong about us. And now what was it that Biddy and you had wanted to say? Oh, poor Mabel's letter! How thankful I am to get it! I've been wondering if I dared right, and thinking all sorts of desperate plans. But Biddy thought we must wait till Wretched was off his guard. You see, we shall have to rescue her when we get to Astuette. I would have answered but a look from Biddy enjoined silence. And so we were in touch with the ship's mystery again. I took the envelope which was addressed to Miss Gilder in a distinctively American handwriting, strange to see coming from an Egyptian harem. The letter began abruptly and showed signs of haste. You were so good I know I can appeal to you, but I'm not sure if there's any way to help me. I began to be frightened on the ship, when he behaved so queerly, just because I talked about the most ordinary things to one or two men. He made me stay in my cabin, but she'll remember that. Already it's like ages ago. I tell myself now that I was almost happy then. At least I believed I was his wife, and it was better than being poor and a governess to hateful French children in Paris. He was kind, too. He seemed to love me, and I thought it was like living in a romance to marry a Turk. He swore he'd never loved anyone except me, that he'd never been married, and that he wouldn't try to convert me or shut me up like Turkish women. But everything was untrue and different from what he said. I hardly know how to tell you, for you will think it horrible, yet I must tell. When I came here I found he had a wife already and a perfectly fiendish little girl. It's legal in this dreadful country to have four wives, but I don't care about the law. I want to get away. I've been cheated. This isn't marriage. I don't know what will become of me, for I haven't any money, but I'd rather starve than stay. I heard Mr. Sheridan say on board ship that it was easy to get a divorce in Egypt or Turkey. Maybe he meant me to hear, thinking some day I might be glad to know. But I can't get a divorce while I'm shut up in this house and watched. Now he suspects I want to leave him, since a scene we had about the wife, and he won't let me go out, even into the garden. You are my only hope. You'll wonder why I don't try appealing to the American consul here, instead of to you. I suppose there must be a consul. A suet seems a big, important town. I'll tell you why I don't. For one thing there may it be a consul. For another thing the woman who has promised to post this wouldn't do so if she guessed I was riding against my husband, who is her brother-in-law, and she would guess if she saw an envelope addressed to a consul, although she knows scarcely any English. I have to talk to her in French. He thinks she is devoted to him and that she's explaining the Muslim religion and ideas of a woman's life to me, or he wouldn't let her come. It's true she is loyal to him in a way. She wouldn't help me to escape. But I think women in the harems like to have secrets with each other, which they hide from their men. I've told her about you, how pretty you are, and a great heiress, and she's so interested she's dying to see you. She hopes if she posts this letter that she will call on me on your way up the Nile. She can, perhaps, find out what day your boat is to arrive, through her husband, and then she'll try to come to our house on the chance of meeting you. I'm almost sure she'll keep her promise and post this letter. If not, if he sees it, maybe he will kill me. I believe now he would do anything. But I must run the risk. Do come. Do think of some way to help. Mabel. I don't feel I have the right to any other name, for as surely as he has a wife, I'm not truly married. Well, asked Moni, as she saw me finish and fold up the letter. You were horrid about her at first, but just at the last minute on the ship you were good, and kept Wretched Bay talking, so I might have my chance with Mabel. If you hadn't, I shouldn't like you as much as I do, and I'm sure even you'll be anxious to do something now. Yet we don't wish Ernest or Antuna Fendi to run into danger, do we, dear? Biddy suggested coaxingly. When you wanted to show the letter I said yes, but Moni listened no longer. Her eyes were sparkling as they looked straight into mine. Antuna Fendi, she repeated, tell me first, because you know you are his friend, what would he think about a case like this? Whatever he is, he's not a Muslim, I'm sure. Still, he's not one of us. You're sure he's not a Muslim, I echoed. What makes you sure, when you know he's been to Mecca, unless somebody has put the idea into your head? His own head put it there, she answered. I saw it without his turban the night of the alarming camp. It wasn't shaved, as I've read the heads of Muslim men are. It was a head like—like the head of every Christian man I know, except that it was in better shape than most. So as he isn't Muslim, he might not mind our trying to help this poor, deceived girl. Shall I ask his advice? I inquired, rather dryly, perhaps. She hesitated for an instant, then said, yes. You seem certain that whatever he thinks he won't betray your plan. I am certain, she replied, looking rapt. He's not the kind of man who betrays. You're right, I said. He's not the kind of man who betrays. He's the kind that helps. Though in such a case as this—you know, the very meanie or forbidden—still we shall see. We could not see it once, however, because Anthony had not come on board. Even when the hour for starting arrived there was no Anthony, no message from Anthony. The end isn't going to leave us in the lurch, is he, asked Sir Marcus, watch in hand. He had meant to travel with us as far as Benny Hassan, our first stop, and return to Cairo by donkey and train, but had changed his intention and was going off at once. I thought I could guess why. The enchantress Isis ought to be under way this very minute, but Antune and you are our chief attractions. We can't leave him behind. I agreed. We could not leave Anthony behind, but I was not worrying. If he had to drop down out of an airplane, I felt sure that having said he would come he would keep his word. So, while Sir Marcus stared at his watch and fumed, I rushed usefully about among the ladies who clamored for their luggage, or complained that their cabins were too small for innovation trunks. I showed them how these traveling wardrobes could be opened wide and flattened against the walls, taking up next to no room. I assured each woman in confidence that she had been given the best cabin on the boat. I dealt out little illustrated books about the trip. I advised people which tables to choose in the dining saloon and consoled them when the places they wanted were gone. Still the enchantress Isis had not stirred and a rumour was beginning to go round that something had happened when suddenly I saw Antune Effendi's green turban. Thank goodness, murdered Sir Marcus, putting his watch into his pocket. And then Mrs. East came swiftly across the deck from the door of her own suite, where she must have stood watching, hidden behind the portier. Oh, Antune Effendi, she cried, and though her face was turned toward us, she did not seem to know that we existed. How Anthony looked at her we could not judge, for we saw only his back, but her eyes must have told Sir Marcus a piece of news. He glanced from her to Fenton and from Fenton to her, with the expression of a schoolboy who has been punished for something he hasn't done. Then he turned to me as though to ask a question, but shut his mouth tightly as if gulping down a large pill, wheeled, and left me without a good-bye. I wondered, Cleopatra fashion, what he had done in his last incarnation to deserve these heavy blows in the hour which should have seen his triumph. What if he changes his mind and doesn't want Fenton in me after all, I asked myself. To my surprise I realized that it would be a genuine disappointment not to be wanted by Sir Marcus Lark. The mountain of the golden pyramid had nothing to do with this. It was born in upon me that I had begun to enjoy the role of conductor, and certainly I was learning lessons in high diplomacy which might be useful in my career. Anthony, who was free as an eagle from questions of innovation trunks and how to give everybody the best cabins and places at table, looked as if he were bound for the island of Hesperides on a voyage of pure romance. The air of gravity and responsibility he had worn in Cairo and in the desert was gone with the starting of the boat. I knew suddenly without asking him that his mission had been of a far more serious nature than the transplanting of a Shakespeare's tomb, that there had been something else, and that it had finished at the last moment in success. Sir Marcus was worrying about you, I said, when the importance of unpacking left the deck empty save for Anthony and me. You weren't, were you? He was smiling at me in the friendly, confidential way that showed a happy mood. Not I, I knew you'd turn up as you'd said you would. Thanks, my good duffer, but now it's over I don't mind telling you that it was a toss-up. You mean there was a chance of your failing us in spite of the mountain? Well, I meant to bring this off somehow, but my first duty was to finish up the Cairo business. I simply had to finish it, and I did. It was a rather bigger job than the Shakespeare's tomb racket, though of course that was on the cards too. Everything's all right now, but I spent last night in getting the full details of an Arab pilot to blow up the house of a rich cop who's been of great service to the government. Some of the young nationalists think that the Christian cops are put ahead of the Muslims by the British, and there are jealousies. The whole set of men concerned in this affair were arrested an hour ago, so all's well with the world. I'm free to turn my face toward the mountain of the golden pyramid, free to enjoy myself, though I must stick to my turban still. Are you getting tired of it? I asked. I've been tired of it since the first day I put it on. I don't like play-acting for long, but it was necessary, and it has had its advantages as well as disadvantages for me. I should have liked to ask another question, but dared not. So instead I told him about the letter from Bashid Bey's beautiful American bride, Mabella Hanim, the ship's mystery of the Laconia. Anthony listened as the enchantress Isis slipped past the island of Rhoda, past Giza, past Old Cairo and still older Babylon, then out onto the broad bosom of the river where the Nile valley lay bathed in sunshine from Gebel Makatem in the east to the Libyan hills haunt of departed spirits in the west. Miss Gilder wants me to help, does she? he asked at last. She told you to tell me about this? I warned her that you mightn't approve, I explained. I said you had more knowledge of Egypt in your little finger than I had in all my gray matter, and you might think that nothing could be done. Tell her I think something may be done, he interrupted me, and before we reach a suet we'll plan out how best to do it. You and I? You and she and I. She has brains as well as courage. She? Of course, I mean Miss Gilder. Oh, is it of course? There are others who answer to that description. Fenton smiled. But it's going to be her show. She is under the impression, I reminded him, laughing, that all Egypt, including the Nile, and you and your green turban, are her show. Anthony did not answer. Perhaps already he was thinking of something else. I should have liked to be sure exactly what his smile meant. Was it for Manny? Was it for Biddy? Or only for an adventure which he saw in the distance? End of Chapter 17 Chapter 18 of It Happened in Egypt. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. It happened in Egypt by Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson. Chapter 18 The Asuet Affair Nothing could be less appropriate to the spirit of the Nile than our spirit in setting out. We had turned our backs upon medieval Cairo and our faces toward Ethiopia. Our minds should have teamed with thoughts of early gods and the mysteries of their great temples. But not at all. Medieval or prehistoric it was all one to us in our secret hearts, which throbbed with passionate excitement over our own small affairs of today and tomorrow. Little cared we as our white boat bore us southward, on the bosom of the sacred river, little cared we for the love story of the great enchantress, pupil of magician Thoth, fair Isis in whose honor that boat was named. Her tragic journey along this river, whose streams she could augment by one sacred tear, should have been followed by our fancy. We should have seen with our minds' eyes the lovely lady asking news of the painted boat, which carried the dead body of her murdered husband Osiris, asking always vainly until she thought of questioning the little children. But instead we thought of our own love stories and amusements. We played bridge and danced the tango on deck. We drummed on the piano or warbled the latest musical comedy airs. Above all we flirted or gossiped about those who flirted, if for any reason we were off the active list of flirters ourselves. To be sure we had brought learned books and took pains to leave them in our chairs, open at marked passages of deep interest to students. We even scribbled heterogeneous notes, if for a moment there were nothing more amusing to do, and bits of paper scampered wildly about the deck informing those who retrieved them that nub was ancient Egyptian for gold, that Osiris created men and women from the tears he wept over his own body, cut in pieces by set, that the ivy was his favorite plant, or that scarabias was the Greek word for a blue-green beetle, which created itself from itself, becoming the symbol of eternal life. All this, however, was affectation. Each hoped others might think that he or she was not an ordinary tourist, each wished to pose as a devotee of some phase of history concerning gods, temples, or portrait statues, anything not difficult to study up. But life was too strong for us. The color and glamour of the Nile got into our blood. Hathor, goddess of love, bewitched us into doing queer things which we should not have dreamed of doing if we hadn't drunk Nile's champagne. Yet after all what did it matter? We were absorbing what our hearts, if not our minds, called for, the enchantment of Egypt. More or less conscientiously I performed the duties Sir Marcus Lark had bribed me to perform. I gave neat little lectures, and tried to remind people, whether they liked it or not, that almost every moment the boat was taking us past places of astonishing interest. The so-called tombs of Benny Hassan, the enchantress Isis stopped for us to see, in order that we might admire wall paintings in rock chambers, and gavel about Queen Hatshetsu, or King Seti, and his mother Pakhet, the beautiful lady of the space. But it was difficult to rouse emotion concerning things which we glided by without visiting. Ruined temples were everywhere, thick as flies, as I heard Harry Snell say to Enid Biddle, but why bother about them when finer ones were waiting further down on the menu card of the Nile meal? Especially when there was a pretty girl to walk the deck with, meanwhile. As for Tel Alamarna, the heretic king's great city, the general vote went against a visit to the ruins. Antune Effendi praised it as one of the most interesting places near the Nile, because with the exception of Queen Hatshetsu and Ramesses the Great, Amun Hoteb the Fourth was the most human personality in Egyptian history. But only Mani, who was making a hero out of Akhnator, really wished to delay at the disc worshipers Utopia. It must have seemed strange to the gilded rolls not to have her will prevail, but there was a clique on board who appeared to find pleasure in thwarting Mani. Her sacrifice to the Harlow's was misunderstood. She had made it, said those who did not like her, in order to gain credit for unselfishness, or to have an excuse for displaying herself unroute to the public bath, in a dream of a dressing gown and a vision of a cap, carrying a poem of a sponge bag. Rachel Guest was still mysteriously more popular than Mani, and was said to have had two proposals on the first day. She didn't want to get off the boat to see irrelevant painted pavements in the harem of Akhnator's royal palace, and her laziness won when the vote was taken. But what did anything matter if the glamour of the Nile was in our blood? Not one of us but thrilled to the droning cry of the Shadoof men on the brown banks, as the dripping water jars went up and down, tier after tier above the river level. Not one but felt a strange allurement in the passing scene, the dark mystery of palm groves whose slender stems were prison bars against the shining sky, the copper glow of the mud bricks in piled-up villages, the colour of the flowing water where secret gleams as from flooded gold mines seemed to glint through masses of dead violets and floated with the tide. No eye so dull that it could not see how the shadows on land and water were painted at evening with a blue glaze, like the bloom on old scarabs and mummy-beads, and broken bits of pottery that art cannot copy now. In her way even Miss Hasset Bean felt the charm of the Nile and its shores of brown and emerald and peacock purple. I don't call it scenery, she explained, except when the light is different or there's some green stuff for cattle growing on the banks. Everything's the same yellow-brown and nothing happens but palms and mud villages and Shadoofs, and a few Arabs or camels or those ugly water-buffalos they say the devil made to show what he could do. But the funny thing is you can't bear to shut your eyes for a single minute for fear of missing a tree or a mound or one of those tall-masted Giasias loaded with white and pink pottery. They all seem so ridiculously important somehow. Then there's that bothersome north wind following you and trying to freeze your spine unless you pounce on the best seat where it can't reach. And if you put on your fur coat you're too hot, if you don't you're too cold, at night your bed creaks and so does everybody else's. You hear a creaking all down the line when people turn over which gets on your nerves, but you soon forget and the whole experience is so perfectly wonderful that I'd like to spend the rest of my natural life going up and down on a Nile boat. Through the opalescent dream of these first days and nights shot the fiery thought of our mission in a suit. I had been surprised at first that Anthony, who knew so well the dangers and mysteries of the East, encouraged Miss Gilder to meddle in so delicate an affair, and there had never been any explanations between us. But I told myself that his motive was sympathy with Manny's desire to help, or else he had been tempted to associate himself with her in an adventure where again, as once or twice before, he had been able to win her gratitude. Perhaps both motives combined. As for Miss East, she frankly sulked. Intuition told me that she had never dared speak to Antune Effendi about the proposal in Hieroglyphics, so difficult for me to explain, which she attributed to him. Never had she dared say, You have written me a love letter, why don't you follow it up and give me a chance to answer it one way or the other. But it was puzzling her, disappointing her, if not breaking her heart, that he avoided, rather than sought her, on this glorified houseboat where the Egyptian prince was more or less a hero with romantic women. While we foreplanned, in thrilling whispers, how to rescue the ship's mystery, and Rachel Guest walked the deck with Bill Bailey or Harry Snell, Cleopatra was reduced to writing picture postcards. I thought, if Sir Marcus had but the inspiration to reappear at some stopping place farther on, she might be ready to forgive him the false lotus flowers, and perhaps he would come, for the lark type is as difficult to snub as Cleopatra's needle. I was half inclined to send him a telegram on some excuse or other. We came to a suet in the morning, and it was to be a long stop for there was much to see, and everyone was excited at the thought of our first Nile town, a town already of Upper Egypt, which made it seem that we had come a tremendous way from Cairo. For us Egypt existed no longer as a country, but as a golden brown, purple-green river-bed and a flowing stream of history on which we floated, so it was for fun for those having no special mission to feel that once again bizzars and more or less sophisticated sites awaited their pleasure. I had given my after-dinner lecture the night before, trying to behave as if I were not boiling with emotion, and had told those who deigned to listen that a suet, city of the wolves, was the capital of a province. I had babbled, too, about the tombs which self-respecting tourists must see, even if they hurry over the inspection of carvings, cartouches, and representations of very small queens smelling very large lotuses. Most Egyptian queens apparently spent much of their time lightly clothed and smelling lotuses, a ladylike pursuit for those about to have their portraits taken, in order to find time for the mummied cats, the bizzars, the silver scarves, the red and black pottery, and the images of wolves, crocodiles, and camels cheap enough to be freely bought for poor relations at home. Antoun and I hinted at business which must prevent our joining the sightseers, who would be chaperoned by the dregoman. Luckily they got the idea into their heads that our affairs were connected with Sir Marcus and the trip. We were pitied, rather than blamed, but our real difficulty was with Mrs. East, as Manny did not wish Cleopatra to be let into the secret. If she knew she would want to be in the adventure, and in Manny's opinion Aunt Clara was a deer but unfitted for adventures. We planned that Brigid and Manny should call upon the wife of Rashid Bey, whose house would be easy to find. If they were admitted they would try to bring her out, as if for a drive, for it seemed a case of now or never if she were to escape. In case she were able to come, they would take her straight to the American consulate, which I was to visit meanwhile in order to explain matters. But if the rescuers were refused admission, the consul must be entreated to give help. I, as a diplomat, was considered a suitable person to deal with this side of the affair. An Antoun offendi was to keep unobtrusive guard within sight of Rashid's house until Brigid and Manny, with or without a companion, should come forth safely. As I said, however, the difficulty was Mrs. East. She would expect her niece, if not Brigid, to go about with her, and would not be easily persuaded to join any other party. As for Rachel we need not think of her, as she had been annexed by the Biddles, who would otherwise have lost Harry Snell. But Cleopatra, what to do with Cleopatra? It was Anthony who had an inspiration. There lived near Asuit, it seemed, an Italian who bred Sicilian lapdogs, said to be like those which had been the favorite pets in the day of Cleopatra the Great. Indeed, Anthony was supposed to have given one to the Queen. Now Fenton asked permission to present his Sicilian lapdog to Mrs. East, a dog so small, so polite, that he could be taken anywhere. Anthony could not go himself to select the gift, but would find an interpreter as a guide to the kennel and bring her back to the exploring party. Cleopatra, delighted with her hero's thoughtfulness, caught at the idea, and when the set went tearing furiously away in Arabias or on donkeys, Mrs. East followed sedately in a carriage with the elderly Greek interpreter and Miss Hasset Bean, who also fancied the idea of a Sicilian lapdog, to replace the lamented marmoset. Everything glittered at Asuit. The sun glittered on the water, palm trees and gardens glittered as the wind waved their big green fans, the white or pink facades of large square houses glittered, those fine houses along the Nile, in one of which Rashid Bey was known to live. But brighter than all glittered the silver scarves which Arabs begged us to buy. Hanging over arms raised to show them off, those shining folds glittered like cascades of running water in moonlight. Very cheap, very beautiful, cried the merchants. Ladies, see here, your gentlemen, they buy for you. In spite of Antunes' dignified refusals, putting the men off till our return, they ran after us, waving scarves and shawls and robes, white as scintillating whorefrost, pink as palest roses, pale as sunset clouds, green and golden as Nile water, or sequined, black as a night of stars. Their vendors feared that if we did not buy of them, others might beguile us, and saw danger ahead in a distant group of rivals crowding round some tourists from another boat. This group we had to pass, and as we did so, who should break out from the glittering ring but better? He came toward us, humble and cringing, giving the beautiful Arab salute. Dear gentlemen and ladies," he exclaimed, I am very happy to see you again. Won't you shake hands to forgive, because I meaned no harm, and did no wrong thing but to obey the sweet lady's wish when they would go to that house of the crocodile? I am too much punished when I've been sent away. That's past now and forgotten," said Manny, shrinking slightly from the outstretched hand. Perhaps it wasn't your fault, that trouble we got into, but we didn't need you afterward anyhow, and probably the people you are with now are nicer to you than we were. Oh, no peoples could be nicer, though they are very nice, my two gentlemen's, you see me with in the desert. They travel with me yet. We go everywhere by trains, because it takes not so much time as the boats. And Miss Guest, that nice good young lady, is she well? Yes, she is very well," replied Miss Gilder, beginning to be restless, her beauty-loving eyes avoiding Better's face, as had been her habit when the man was in our employ. She did not like to hurt his feelings. Manny can't bear to hurt the feelings of anyone below herself in wealth or situation, though apparently she doesn't consider that one is bound to be kind-hearted with the rich. But I could see that she wanted to escape. Never had she liked Better. He had been Rachel's man from the first. Miss Guest has gone to see the tombs, Manny explained. You not go there and to the bazaars? I take my gentlemen in a few minutes. We shall go by and by. Just now we've other things to do," said the girl evasively, rather too evasively, perhaps. But in the hope of killing two birds with one stone, luring the man to betray his secret if he had one, and then shunting him, I broke in. How have you been getting on, I inquired, looking into the squint eyes? Since that night I saw you at Madinat Alpha Yume. But the eyes opened wide with a stare of innocence. You see me there, my lord? I thought your party had not come when we went away. My gentlemen not like that camping-place, and we stay there not even one night. You must make mistake and think some other man me. Sure. We could not help laughing at the sure. It was spoken in so truly an American way that it was funny on those lips. Afterward, however, it struck me in remembering the scene that the man's accent in speaking English was even more distinctly American than it had been. This was odd if he had been associated with Germans, but natural if his new clients were Americans. Another question was on my tongue, but before I had time to speak, Monty cried out, Oh, there's Wretched Bay in a carriage, all alone with some luggage. I hope he's going away. Naturally we turned, but I saw Bitty raise her eyebrows warningly. The girl looked puzzled, as if for an instant she did not see what she had done that was wrong. But I guess that Bitty's distrust of Better as a possible spy was still alive in her breast. She did not know of my suspicions concerning the camp thief, for the afferent Madenot, thanks to a white fib or two, had never assumed serious proportions in her mind. It did not need that, however, to make her feel that Better's ears were not fit receptacles for secrets. Monty had not been mistaken. It was Rashid Bay, leaning comfortably back in an old-fashioned but not badly appointed open carriage, drawn by two very decent horses, and driven by a smart, red-sashed, white-robed negro. We saw him in profile as he passed along the road at some distance, but he was reading a paper with an expression so placid that I felt sure that he had not seen us. On the seat beside him was a suitcase with the air of having been made in France, and circumstantial evidence said that Monty's wish was to be granted. I glanced hastily at Better to observe, if I could, whether the girl's impulsive exclamation had aroused undue interest, for it was not unlikely that he had seen Rashid Bay and Mabel landing at Alexandria the night of his first meeting with us. But the ugly face showed nothing. If you have things you want to do, my ladies, he said, please excuse that I have kept you. I go to my gentlemen, or they give the men with the silver shawls too much money. The gentlemen in question were the more interested in observing our movements than in completing any bargain with the street vendors. Nevertheless, Better hastened back as if in great fear that they might be cheated. An Arbija waited for them, and having bought a scarf or two, they drove off before we had parted to go our several ways. An Arbija was in attendance upon us also, and we put Bridget and Monty into it alone, for Rashid Bay's house, the driver informed us, was not far off. Good luck, I said encouragingly, and Bridget smiled gaily at me, but Monty was looking at Fenton. She was telling him something with her eyes, and with a significant little gesture she touched the small leather handbag she carried. One would think she was a suffragette with a bomb, I remarked to Anthony, trying to speak easily as though I were not at all anxious when the carriage had turned its back on us. Instead of which, said Anthony, gazing at the dark head and the fair head, as earnestly as if he never expected to see them again, instead of which she's merely a brave girl with a pistol that she knows how to use. Or anyhow, she says she does. Good heavens, has she got one in that bag, I gasped. She has, my browning. By Jove, you gave it to her? I did, last night. My heart began suddenly to feel like a cannon-ball in my breast. I felt that I had not understood the situation, and that now I did not understand Anthony, though that was far from being a new sensation. I thought that you thought there was no danger, I bleated. You know, Egypt, and I don't. I didn't want them to go in for this thing, but when you said it would be all right, I yielded. I wished to heaven I hadn't. Do you think, if you hadn't given in, Miss Gilder would have given up? You and I together could have kept them both out of the business. Only by sheer force. You see, Miss Gilder was interested in this girl and fond of her before she met you. So was Mrs. East. As Rashid tricked the pretty little governess by making her believe she would be his first and only wife, they don't look upon her as married to him. And I think they're right. Don't you glory in them both for knowing there's a risk, yet taking it so gaily, for that foolish child's sake? I glory in them, but I wouldn't have let them go if— You've changed your mind, just because I gave Miss Gilder my browning? Honestly, Duffer, I don't think there's actual danger. But anyhow, don't you see they had to go, and they had to go alone. They would have hated us and themselves and each other if they hadn't answered the girl's appeal. And we couldn't do a thing, unfortunately, as it deals with the harem. If it can be done at all, it's woman's business. These two are the right ones, as they felt bound to do it, and you and I can but see them through from the outside. CHAPTER 19 If at first you don't succeed, Part I Now that we were all thoroughly launched on this somewhat chaotic adventure, I envied Anthony because his part in the drama kept him in the wings, within sight of the stage. He was to watch the house of Rashid Bey, and if the rescue party of two did not appear after an hour's absence, the true story of the affair and Mabel's appeal was to be laid before the Inspector General of Upper Egypt. Layed before him not by Ahmed Antoun Effendi, but by Captain Anthony Fenton, officially on leave, secretly on a special mission for the British government. My role, less exciting but perhaps no less important, was to play the diplomat in beguiling the American consul to stand by the wife of Rashid Bey if the attempt at rescue succeeded, or if possible, even if it failed. Antoun accounted for his presence in front of Rashid Bey's high garden wall by attracting a crowd, and lecturing them in his character of haji, while I dashed off in a jingling arabia to the American consulate. As in Cairo my progress was one long adoration of the crowd by the driver, who would have reveled in conducting the car of a juggernaut. Shemalak Yahwaled to the left, O boy, or Yemenik to the right, he roared, while men dived and dipped under his horse's prancing feet. A hawk flew by on my right side, and my right eyelid twitched as we neared the consulate. In Egypt these were good omens. Besides, there had been a red sunrise which in the Nile country had meant, since Egyptians superseded the prehistoric new race, that Rah had conquered his enemies and stained the sky with their blood. Therefore all should be well with me and the world, and it did seem as if my hopes bad fare to be fulfilled, when in the consul I recognized a man I had been able to advise in a small official difficulty in my early days at the Embassy in Rome. This was even more fortunate than the case of Slaney. We shook hands warmly, and as soon as was decent I interrupted a flow of reminiscent gratitude by flooding Mr. James Bronson with the story of Rashid Bey's unhappy American bride, Mabella Hanim, ill-treated as well as cruelly deceived if her story were true. He knew Rashid slightly, but the marriage was news to him. With an interest he listened to my account of the lonely little governess in Paris, bewitched by the love-making of a handsome Turk as wide as herself. But when I asked for help the consul shook his head. Lord Ernest, he said, there's nothing I'd like better than to pay my debt by doing you some favor. But you're asking me the one thing that's hardest as you probably know. You understand, as well as I do, that when a girl marries a man she ceases to be a subject of her native land. And to interfere with the inmate of a harem is just about impossible. But I'll tell you what I will do for your sake. If you can get the girl out of Rashid Bey's house, which, mind you, I doubt, you may bring her to my wife and we'll cook up some story about her being a relative of mine. So she is, I guess, through Adam and Eve, if you think she's been badly treated we'll stand by her, once she's under this roof, which means she'll be on American soil through thick and thin whatever the consequences. I can't go farther and I don't believe that you expected I would. I admitted that I had not and thanked him for his promise. By this time I thought that Brigid and Manny might be on their way to meet me at the consulate, as arranged, escorted by Antoon, and perhaps bringing Mabel. Even the route they were to take was planned so that I could not miss them if I started. Meanwhile Mr. Bronson was to interest his wife in our protégé. Back I flew, my ears deafened by more yawelads, but, though I met many things and many creatures on the congested road, there was no Arabia containing the desired ones. I made my driver slack in pace as we neared the big, square pink house of Rashid Bay, set far back in its garden of palms and impossible statues on the bank of the Nile. No green turban was in sight and I wondered what could have happened as we drove slowly past the ponderous black gatekeeper, apparently half asleep on his bench. There was nothing to do but crawl along at a snail's pace lest that droop of crocodile lids should be assumed for effect. I went on, meaning to turn presently, but when the Arabia had taken me beyond eyeshot of Rashid's gatekeeper, an Arab sacca or water-seller ran forward, striking his musical gong. From his brass jar, protected by crimson-dyed horse-hair to keep out dust, he offered a draft, and his looks said that he had something more for me than a drink of water. I beckoned him close, stomping the Arabia, and under the tumbler he handed up was a folded bit of paper. None save the water-seller had attention to spare for me just then, as a wedding procession was approaching, with a crude but gorgeous curtained litter drawn by camels, and a number of musicians with ratas, darbukas, the key and bottle, and other eastern instruments, which may have been the ancestors of the Highlander's bagpipes. The street crowd followed, enchanted by the plaintiff, monotonous tones, grotesque to newcomers from the West, but enthralling to those who have fallen under the spell of their melancholy magic. Failure for the present, but Miss G. and Mrs. J. safe, Anthony had scrawled in pencil, couldn't wait in front of ours house, but you'll find us at an Arab restaurant to which the messenger will guide you. All you have to do is to discharge your Arabia and walk in the direction the man takes, keeping your distance in case you're watched. I obeyed instructions, and in the town of Asuat, far from the gardens along the Nile front, I came to a house between the mosque of the tallest minaret, and the great market where there Arabia as well as Egypt sends her wares. It was a house of some pretension, though in a narrow, unpaved street, lined with humble native dwellings. I guessed that it must have been built for a rich man who had died or failed in business, but now a sign in Arabic announced that it was a restaurant. A nod from the water-seller told that I had reached the end of the journey. Nubian servants salomed in the big room where once the master of the house had held receptions, and in a smaller room beyond I saw Antoun, Bridget, and Moni. They were seated at a low table where no forks or knives or even plates were laid. In the center of the white cloth stood a large dish of something sweet and rich-looking, from which everybody pretended to eat, but at sight of me Bridget and Moni began talking together. They told me breathlessly how they had been informed by the gatekeeper that Mabella Hanem was not well. Having insisted that they were intimate friends whom she would desire to see, they had been bitten to return in an hour. Reluctantly coming away they had as soon as was prudent been joined by Antoun. He had taken them to the bazaars, hoping to give them a glimpse of the shops before the set returned from the tombs, but they had met Neil Sheridan who had something to tell. He had caught sight of better running after the carriage of a Turk strongly resembling Rashid Bey. The carriage had stopped near the railway station, and after an instant's conversation the horses had been turned to gallop off in the direction once they had come. Of course we were sure the Turk was Rashid, said Moni, so Antoun Effendi thought we'd better go back to watch his house. When we got there it was too late, for already some time had passed since Mr. Sheridan saw better. Rashid's gateman said that Mabella Hanem was suddenly better and had gone away with her husband. He could talk a little French, so we understood perfectly, and anyhow you know I'm studying Arabic. It's so discouraging when Arabs answer me in cockney English or say sure in American. We believed the fellow because it seemed exactly what Rashid would do. Come back and grab Mabel away at a moment's notice. So unfortunate about Neil Sheridan. Rashid was idiotically jealous of him on the Laconia, and if he caught a glimpse of him today he's certain to think Mr. Sheridan's here to try and see Mabel. We tore to the railroad depot, but the train was just going out. No doubt Rashid and his wife were both on it. Isn't it heartbreaking? I sat mute, thinking things over, but Anthony tried to give consolation by saying that he still had some hope. He had found out that Rashid Bey owned a sugar plantation with a house on it near Luxor. The train which had left Usuit was bound for Luxor. In a very few days our boat would land us there and we would try our luck again. Not much doubt, Fenton added, speaking as always in French, that this is better's revenge on us. He must have told Rashid that Miss Gilder had mentioned his name, saying she hoped he was leaving home. That hint of danger would be enough for any Turk. It will be my fault then, moaned Manny, if he kills Mabel. He's deceived and shut her up and tried to convert her. Worse than all he has another wife. The next step will be murder. Oh, how can we bear the delay of going on to Luxor by boat? Hadn't we better take a train? Better miss all the things we've come to Egypt to see rather than leave Mabel to her fate. Rashid isn't the sort to have her put out of the way, said Anthony. He's not a bad fellow as such men go and he's hardly had time to tire of his conquest yet. According to his lights he's right not to allow any interference with his harem from Europeans. He was jealous on board ship of one or two men of your acquaintance, you've told me. This attempted visit of yours will revive his interest in his wife, inconveniently for us, but if I know his type it will die down again the minute he thinks he has covered his tracks. For a day or two he will be a dragon. Then he'll begin to think we're discouraged or that we haven't found out about his sugar plantation or that nothing more than a visit to his wife was intended and he'll turn his attention to other things than watch-dogging. It's far better to go on by boat and make a dash when he's off guard again. After a few arguments we agreed with Antoun as we usually ended by doing and soothed our restlessness by visiting Mr. Bronson to tell him about our disappointment. If it hadn't been for Manny I think the consul would have taken the point of view that he was now out of the affair. But Manny sapphire-eyed with generous zeal is rather irresistible. Fired by her enthusiasm, as he had not been by my beguiling, he volunteered to go to Luxor on two or three days leave with his wife to visit a Syrian friend who had often vainly invited them to his villa and arriving, if possible, about the time our boat was due. If we succeeded in our quest we might bring Mabel to them and they would smuggle her back to the American consulate at Asuit. Our great adventure thus postponed we let the Nile dream take us once more and though we had moments of impatience the dream was too fair to be resisted. Besides we were all four dreaming it together. Poor Cleopatra was the only one outside for Rachel Guest was dreaming her own dream with an extremely practical side to it unless Biddy and I were mistaken. She wore Manny's clothes and used her special perfume and took advantage of the same initials to accept gifts of filmy handkerchiefs and monogrammed bags and brushes. Also she had firmly annexed most of the men on board who would, in normal states of mind, have belonged to the Gilded Rose. But they all seemed to have gone mad on the subject of Miss Guest. Even Harry Snell, who had been the property of Enid Biddle on board the Candice, on the enchantress Isis was gravitating guestward, lured by that meek, mysterious witchery which I was trying hard to understand. We got past Sohag and the famous white and red Coptic monasteries built by St. Helena without jarring notes of any sort in the Nile dream, save for the failure of our rescue plot, past Akman, which Herodotus wrote of as Shemus, past Gerga, where once stood ancient Theis that gave the first dynasty of kings to Egypt. But when we arrived at Baliana to visit Abidos, between Enid Biddle and Harry Snell I had an interlude of nightmare. It was Rachel's fault, but it was I who had to suffer for her sins, I who had engaged as conductor of the set and found myself their arbiter as well. Other tourists on other boats do not see Abidos until the return trip, but the aim of Sir Marcus was originality as well as exclusiveness. This was a special tour and everything we were to do must be special. Some passengers might wish to stay longer than others at Khartoum, or from there go up the white or blue Nile after big game. Or they might tire of the Nile and wish to tear back to Cairo by train. Sir Marcus was boldly outdoing his rivals by allowing clients to engage caverns for up Nile only, instead of paying the return also, and they were not to miss any temple because of this concession. I consider it an advertisement and a cheap one, he had explained to me in saying that we were to visit at Abidos on our way south. Beautiful smiling donkeys adorned with beads and amulets met us at the boat landing. We ought to have called it al-Balyana, but we didn't. We called it Balyana, and we pronounced Abidos according to our education. We had a ride of an hour and a half from the boat to the temple, and having sent off Cleopatra and Lady Biddle in a carriage, my conscience was free, my heart light. The sun shone on tawny desert hills like lions creeping stealthily out from the horizon toward the Nile to drink. There were sweet smells of unseen flowers and herbs such as ancient Egyptian doctors used, and I looked forward to keeping my donkey near Biddy's. Of course I ought to have preferred Manny's, but then I could talk of Manny to Biddy, and we had so many subjugation comments at childhood that it was restful to ride even the most energetic donkey at the side of Mrs. Jones. No sooner, however, had I begun to urge my gray animal after her white one than I was called by Enid Biddle. Oh, Lord Ernest, I must speak to you! she pleaded so piteously that I couldn't pretend not to hear. When we were ambling side by side, separated from the rest of the party by a gleaming cloud of copper dust, a few long-haired brown sheep, some blue-eyed water buffalo, and a plague of little birds, Enid turned upon me a pair of tear-wet eyes. Why, Miss Biddle, what is the matter? Or is it a cold in your head?" I asked anxiously. It's not a cold in my head, she confessed. It's a dreadful, dreadful pain in my heart, and you are the only one who can cure it. For a fearful moment I thought she was going to propose. One hears of these awful visitations, but I need not have trembled. I feel as if I could say anything to you, she murmured. You are so understanding and so sympathetic. It was on the tip of my tongue to reply that it was my duty as conductor to be so, and that if I succeeded, a mountain full of hidden treasure might perhaps reward me. But just in time I realized that this speech would not be tactful. Instead of speaking, I looked at her and let her go on. It's Harry Snell, she said. You have influence with him. He thinks you such a great swell, he'd hate to do anything you would call unworthy of a gentleman. He—he's making me so unhappy. He's done everything to win my love, and now—now he's gone over to that misguest. The donkey, having begun inopportunely to trot, the words were jolted out, one after another, like a shower of pebbles, and they fell on my feelings like paving stones. She expected me to do something about it? Horrible! I should almost have preferred the proposal. My dear Miss Biddle, I soothed her in my best, salad-oil voice, cultivated at the Embassy. You are much prettier than misguest, and you can win Snell back easily if you want him. Probably he's only flirting, to make you jealous. It's me he was flirting with, she moaned, but I don't believe he cares for misguest. It's only a case of follow my leader, because other men like her so much. Nothing succeeds like success, you know, and other men's admiration is the most becoming background of my life. I don't know how long a girl can have. He told Mrs. Harlow it was haunting him that Elaine and I would get fat like our mother, and the men who married us would have to spend dull years seeing us slowly grow into mother's likeness. Wasn't it cruel, and we eat scarcely anything except pickles on purpose to keep thin? But that's only his excuse. It's the romance of the situation, and the secret that appeals to him. What secret, I felt entitled to inquire, why the secret between those two girls, Miss Gilder and Miss Guest? What all the men believe about them, don't you? But of course you do. But of course I don't. Why, that they've changed places to deceive people, just as heiresses and poor girls do in old-fashioned plays or guide-books. They think Miss Gilder, I mean the girl we call Miss Gilder, is really the schoolteacher, and the one we call Miss Guest, and that all the men are after, is Rosamund Gilder, the canon heiress. Phew, I whistled, bumpily as my donkey kept up with Enid's. For goodness' sake, what makes them think that? I don't know exactly how the story started, but it seems authentic. Have you known them long? Only since Naples, but—then you can't be certain whether it's true or not? I paused, swallowing an answer. So this was the explanation of the Moni puzzle. Yet it was but the first word of another enigma. Who was responsible for the wild story? There was more than met the eye or ear in this. I could hardly believe that Moni would have chosen, or Rachel dared, to start this rumor. Though it might have amused the real heiress and suited the false one to watch it run. I dared not contradict it flatly without consulting Bridget or the gilded Rose herself. It was not my business to be a spoil-sport, if there were sport to spoil, no matter how sternly I might disapprove. In the matter of actual knowledge I have very little about Miss Gilder, I decided to reply, except that she's charming enough and pretty enough for any man to fall in love with if she hadn't a penny. As for Miss Guest, Miss Guest is a cat, and if you'll only tell Harry Snelso, I'll bless you all my life. Good gracious, I couldn't do that. I mean, tell him you think she isn't the heiress, and that she's only what she seems to be, and nothing mysterious or interesting. He'll believe you. Why, she can't have any money, or even a nice mind. She always writes no with her finger on top of her cold cream at hotels. She told me so herself. Not that it's any good with Arabs, they don't want to steal cold cream. But such a trick would never occur to a rich girl, would it? She grows veiner every day, too, till one can just see vanity spouting from the top of her head. She intends to use this mistake people are making about her to bag a rich man like Harry Snel, or a successful one with a big growing reputation like Mr. Bailey, the American sculptor. You will help me save Harry from her, and bring him back to me, won't you? You're the only one he'll listen to. To speak, I shall simply jump overboard into the Nile, and Sir Marcus Lark would hate that.