 CHAPTER VI. The Great Sir Marcus. The appointment was at the Semiramis Hotel, where Sir Marcus Lark was staying. I went with my mind an aching void and my heart a cold-boiled potato. I can think of nothing more disagreeable, for not a word more would fend and let drop as to the great man's business with us or the mountain of the golden pyramid. I sent up my card, and a few minutes later was shown into a private salon more appropriate to a beautiful young duchess than to a middle-aged, bumpious financier. It was pale green and white, full of lilies and fragrance, and an immense French window opened out onto a rubbed logea overlooking the Nile. This would have been the ideal environment for our gilded rose, and I felt more venomous than before, if possible, toward the rich bounder who posed against such an unsuitable background. I thought, as the door of the salon was opened for me by the smart Arab servant, that the room was untenanted and that Sir Marcus Lark meant to keep me waiting. But there he was on the balcony, gazing in rapture at the shining river. As if he were capable of raptures, he an earth-bound worm. But there was no mistaking that back, those shoulders, or the face, as the big body turned. He advanced through the open window, holding out a hand as big as a stake. He was exactly like his photograph, except that there was even more of him than I had been led to expect. The pretty room was not small, but entering he seemed to turn it into a doll's house parlor. Six foot two if he's an inch, I said to myself, longing to play David to his Goliath. Big, rich, common, brute, I thought, you snatch our mountain out of our mouths, then you send for us as if we were servants, men whose boots you ought to be blacking. I was vindictive. I stared him straight between the eyes, where a stone from David's sling would have fitted in neatly. The eyes were wide apart and kinder than in the photographs. They were even curiously innocent and boyish. His grin of greeting made the large, waxed black moustache point joyously up. He showed teeth as wide as a child's, and had dimples—actually dimples—in his big cheeks, to say nothing of the one in his chin, with which snapshots had familiarized me. He looked a huge, overgrown schoolboy with a corked moustache. My glare faded in the light of his smile. No man with a gleam of humor could have kept a mask of grimness. I found my hand enveloped in the pound of steak, and warmly shaken up and down inside it. Lord Ernest Burrow, I'm delighted to see you. Very good of you to come, I'm sure. To David's Quoth Goliath, in a big voice, mellow despite a slight cockney accent. Nice of you I've treated myself to here, what? I'm in Egypt on business, but I like to have pretty things around me. Pleasant colors and flowers and a view. That's a specialty of mine. I'm great on specializing, and that brings me to what we have in common—a scheme of yours, a scheme of mine. I wanted to detest the man, but somehow couldn't. To hate him would be hating an overpowering force like heat or electricity. With an old-fashioned politeness he made me sit down, picking out my chair, the most comfortable in the room, then taking the next best for himself. He fitted into it as tightly as a ripe plum into its skin, and talked with one leg crossed over the other and swinging, the points of his brown fingers joined. I was glad they were brown. I'm afraid your sore with me, he began, having ordered coffee and liqueurs, and forced upon his guest a cigar as big as a sausage. I've got what you and your friend wanted, and I'm going to be frank with you as I've been with him, and admit that I got it because you did want it. Simply and solely for that reason and nothing else. He told you this? He left the telling to you, I said, wondering why I wasn't more furious than curious. But it was the other way around. Good egg! He promised he would, and he looks the sort of chap to keep a promise. Well, I see you want me to get down to business, and I will. I'm going to lay all my cards on the table. I came here to Egypt for the first time in my life to see a scheme through, and I landed on the scene in time to find that I was likely to fail. I haven't told anyone else that but your friend Fenton, for I never have made a business failure yet, and I don't mean to now if I can help it. The scheme had to be saved in a hurry if it could be saved at all, and when I set my wits to work I saw that I must get hold of some such young men as you and Captain Fenton to help me. I don't know how the thought of you two popped into my head, but I suppose it was seeing a lot of stuff about Fenton in the papers, his Balkan adventure, and the announcement that he'd been recalled to his regiment. There were paragraphs about him as a linguist and an Egyptologist, and anecdotes of him as a smart soldier. You know the sort of thing. And the stories about his parentage caught my fancy a bit. They're romantic. I've got enough romance in me to see that side of life and know how it goes down with the women. This scheme of mine depends on women, most schemes do. At the same time the Egyptian papers were printing paragraphs about Lord Ernest Burrow. I don't know whether you're aware of that or not. No. Would you like to see him? I've had my secretary cut him out, and the Fenton stuff too. The minute this idea began to wiggle in my mind like a tadpole in water I kept everything. Don't trouble about the paragraphs, thanks, I said. All right, it will save our time, not to. But your wish to go in with your friend for the rites of excavating in the Sudan was mentioned, and the delay on account of alleged interference with Garstang's pitch. Bajov, I wonder how the reporters got on to that, I couldn't help exclaiming. It's their livelihood to get on to everything. Well then, I said to myself, here's my chance, my only one. I want those two young men. They're the right combination for me to give real distinction to my undertaking. I have money, but they ain't the sort you can buy with money. There must be an incentive. If I get what they want, perhaps I can get them. So I went into the job tooth and nail. Neither you nor Fenton was on the spot. I was, very much on it. Nothing was definitely fixed up between the government and Fenton for the rite to excavate at the mountain of the golden pyramid, as they call the little old mole hill, and I scored. Now, if you two will do what I want, you can have your mountain, and whatever you find you can keep. You're worth more to me than any beads and broken nose statues under the sands of Egypt. I think I've made some impression on your friend. He may be inclined to go in with me if you will. He's explained that in any case he can't use his own name on account of his position in the army and so on. That's a disappointment to me, but I'll put up with it for the sake of his accomplishments and his looks. Your name alone will carry the necessary weight as a leader. You're very flattering, I said, but I'm in the dark. I'm going to put you wise, as Americans say. My scheme was and is to be a rival deluxe of cook on the Nile. Not only that, but all over the Near East. You've heard, of course, about my buying the Marquis of Redruth's yacht, Candace, on his bankruptcy, the second-biggest and the most up-to-date yacht in the world and turning her into a pleasure cruiser for the Mediterranean? If I've heard, I'm afraid my memory's treacherous, said I, glad to show how unimportant to me were the schemes of financiers, but interested in the yacht's name, which carried my thoughts away to Mero. Great Scott, and I've spent two thousand in advertising, I've taken whole pages of London and continental papers. I never read advertisements if I can help it except of new patents and razors. They're a fad of mine. Thank goodness you've got fads, then we've something in common. I make money out of my fads. I call them inspirations. I thought the Candace business was one of my inspirations and that I'd have some fun out of it. I advertised her to start on her first pleasure cruise from Marseille to Gibb, Algiers, Tangier, Tunis, Greece, Alexandria, and Jaffa. That'll be a smack in the eye for the big liners, I said to myself. I'll skim the top layer of clotted cream off their passenger lists. I was going to do the thing to luck straight through, bid for the swell set, exclusiveness, my motto. Of course I didn't expect to hit the dukes and dollar-kings first shot, but I thought if everything went right the passengers would tell their friends at home how much better we did them on board than anyone else had ever done, and we'd get a snowball ad that nothing could stop. All would have worked out first rate if I hadn't made one mistake. I engaged a retired army colonel for a conductor on board my yacht. I got the man cheap. But I was a fool to economize on him. I ought to have launched out on a belted earl. Folks, especially Americans, don't like retired colonels. The woods are full of them over there, crawling with them. Most Americans are colonels and not retired. Besides, this chap of mine's no good anyhow, fancies himself as a politician, and is a first-class snob, has no tact, rubs up the passengers the wrong way, and outrageous their feelings. We got a lot of people from the north of England, rich, and a bit crude like me. Will you believe it? Colonel Corcoran began his job by sneering audibly at provincials to some beastly friend of his, come to see him off at Marseille. Instead of making his dinner-table lectures a kind of travelogue as he was hired to do, he turns them into political tirades and calls the liberals scoundrels, half our folks being red-hot rads. Not only that, if the girls and boys talk while the bands play in any of his favorite airs, he hisses out silence through a hole in his mouth where the one tooth's missing. That tooth being gone has got the girl's nerves worse than anything else, it would seem, except his being down on suffragettes. And the crisis was reached when he insulted Miss Hassett Bean, the richest and most important woman in the bunch, when she expressed her political opinions. Said to her, My dear lady, why do you bother to have opinions? They give you a lot of trouble to collect, and nobody else will trouble to listen. Why not collect insects or stamps instead? Of course she did think Germany had already invaded England with a large army of soldiers disguised as hotel waiters, which was calculated to rile an old officer. But that's no excuse for a man who's paid to please. And now the fellow's wondering why he's not popular with the passengers. I laughed, but Sir Walter had worked himself into a state past smiling-point. It's no laughing matter, he said. This snob cork runs, killing my scheme. There's a plot on foot for the party to walk off the yacht at Alexandria, and demand half their passage money. Some old grampus on board has started the story that the Candice has been down three times. A lie, of course, I soothed him. A dastardly lie, she's been down only twice. The first time was a collision, the second a coincidence. But I thought she was the most up-to-date yacht in the world. So she is, as the Candice. That was the Marquis's name for her. He gave it after a trip to Egypt. He bought her second hand and rechristened her while she was being redecorated. He spared no expense which he could well afford seeing that he never paid a penny. I got her at cost price, as you may say. But these plotters are going to claim they were invagaled on board under false pretenses by my advertising the Candice as the newest thing in yachts. I've had a letter and several cipher telegrams from the assistant conductor, a useful chap telling me the whole story of the plot, which he's nosed out, and I'm faced with humiliating failure unless I can save the situation by a grand coup at the eleventh hour. Now, you can guess why, on the spur of the moment, I bought up your rights to dig in the Sudan, can't you? I confess I can't, I said. Why, I want you to take Colonel Corcoran's place on the Candice as conductor, and I want you and your friend Fenton to go up the Nile in charge of the splendid steam to Habia I've bought to supplement the Mediterranean trip. There you have my motives in a nutshell. I burst out laughing. A cracked nutshell, I remarked, Sir Marquis's rosy face turned royal purple. What, you won't undertake it? I couldn't, I assured him. For one thing I'd be a fish out of water. My dear sir, perhaps you don't know that my nickname since the age of five has been Duffer? I'm proud of it. I take pains to live up to it. I bet you do. I bet it opens doors and lays down velvet's carpets for you. Why, a Duffer with a title is exactly what I want. Duffers are all the rage nowadays. You and your friend will make a brilliant pair, a fine contrast, especially with your friend's present get-up. If you'd both been born for me you couldn't suit me better. I laughed again. You said you ought to have launched out on belted earls. We're humble. There's no earls handy, and if there were any they wouldn't be what you two are in looks and talents, to say nothing of your brother being a Marquis. I'm offering you both the softest kind of a job. All you have to do is be agreeable young gentleman with a knowledge of society and history. That means you can be yourselves. You get a fine trip on high salaries if you don't scorn to accept my money, and as a reward for a good holiday you receive the right to explore your golden mountain. I suppose you must think it is a golden mountain, or you wouldn't be such nuts on it. You'd better consult your friend before you refuse my offer, anyhow. Haven't you heard that Fenton's left Cairo? I took the precaution to ask. That doesn't look as if he were entertaining the idea of going up the Nile on your steam to Habia. I have heard that he's left, but I happen to know it isn't so. I saw him standing in front of Shepherd's Hotel this morning, waiting for you. I got on to what was in that green turban before the pretty girl in white. Miss Gilder, I found out since, called him on to the terrace. Don't look as if you wanted to eat me, Lord Ernest. I've won my way up from the bottom rung of the ladder by keeping my eyes open and putting two and two together. I specialize on that. I don't suppose there's another man in Cairo except me and you would have recognized Fenton, so you needn't worry. I twigged that he'd dressed up for serious business, not for fun, because I read about some smart coups he'd brought off by going among the natives like one of themselves. I'm not a sneak, and I shan't revenge myself by giving him away, even if you two do show me the frozen face. Captain Fenton encouraged me to think he might consider my proposition if you would, though he refused to influence your decision one way or the other. Naturally I conclude that he could be on my Nile boat if he wanted to, even if not in his own capacity as an officer. I'll take him in his green turban. He makes the best looking Egyptian I ever saw, and he'd go down with the ladies like hotcakes. Sir Marcus, I smiled, you're one of the most amusing as well as the sharpest men if you'd allow me to say so that I ever met. Whatever happens I shall not forget this conversation. I don't want you to forget it, he grinned, beginning to hope. Think it over. We're the chance of a lifetime for each other, and remember the mountain of the Golden Pyramid. I rose, and he got up heavily. When will you let me know, he asked. I was tempted to reply that he must have taken Fenton's seeming encouragement too seriously, that mountain or no mountain it was practically impossible for us to accept his amazing proposition. But suddenly I seemed to hear Antune Effendi telling Miss Gilder that she must wait for his decision until evening. He had said afterward also that it depended on me. It was evident that he had a scheme of his own worked by wheels within wheels. He had consoled me after the first blow by saying that all was not lost. And I had four months leave from duty. A lot could be done in four months. I will let you know before night, I said to Sir Marcus Lark. CHAPTER 7 The revelations of a retired colonel Fenton's orders were, when the Cairo business should be finished, to go slowly up the Nile in native dress, and to get at the truth of certain rumours which had disturbed officialdom at Cairo. At Dendera, Luxor, and two or three other places there had been incidents, small but troublesome. English sightseers had complained of being hustled and even insulted by the inhabitants of several river towns. And it was important to find out whether the Egyptians or the foreigners had been more to blame, whether there were real symptoms of sedition, as reported, or whether the young men of the suspected places had merely resented with roughness some discurty of tactless tourists. Fenton had seized upon the idea that, as Egyptian lecturer and conductor, a sort of super-dregoman, on board Lark's Nile boat, he might find a plausible pretext for his secret errand. Why do you travel would be the question he must expect from suspicious leaders of any plot that might be hatching, if he journeyed from one Nile village to another without the excuse of business? As a glorified conductor of a pleasure trip for a party of tourists, his excuse would be ready made for him, but he had been far from sure that I would fall in with Sir Marcus Lark's plan, despite the bride. He had wanted me to hear the whole story, the whole project, from Sir Marcus's own lips, and in his uncertainty of the result he had thought of Miss Gilder as an attractive victim. There she was, as he had said, presented to him by Providence. If I should pour scorn upon the Lark's suggestion, he might find it worthwhile to guide the Gilded girl and her friends on their Nile pilgrimage. He left the question for me, and I decided to kill as many birds as possible with one stone. The name of the yacht was, in itself, an incentive—Candice, Queen of Merrow, our Merrow. She seemed to call and to promise good luck. We would accept Lark's terms and enter his service, in return, for a written agreement to hand over his ill-got-digging rights to us, whether or no we turned out to be satisfactory as guides. We could do but our best, and at all events we should earn the reward which we had looked upon as ours already. Anthony would play his double part, serving the interests of government and those of Sir Marcus Lark. As for Monty Gilder, why shouldn't she and her party become Lark's teenagers? The only reason against this inspiration, as Sir Marcus would have called it, lay in the fact that Monty wished to engage a private d'habia. When she wished for a thing, it appeared that only a miracle or a cataclysm could induce her to give it up for something else suggested by an outsider. But when I mentioned this peculiarity to Fenton, he was fired to punish the girl by forcing her compliance with our will. She had treated him like a servant. She looked upon a man, supposedly of Egyptian blood, even though of princely birth, somewhat as she looked upon an American nigger. True, Anthony Fenton had in his veins but a very few such drops. On his father's side he was all English, and his mother had been more than two-thirds Greek and Italian. Nevertheless, this spoiled girl had struck a blow at the pride which went ever walking about the world with a chip lightly poised on its shoulder. Anthony had no desire to poach on my preserves. At the same time he yearned to show Miss Gilder that he could be her master, not her servant. Once Anthony and I had made up our minds, everything else arranged itself with lightning speed. Sir Marcus, rejoicing in his ill-got conquest of us, broke to me the news that I must go by the first ship to Piraeus to meet the Candace and head off the recalcitrant band of passengers. He flattered me by thinking that, if I took the place of Colonel Corcoran as conductor, they would abandon their plot to desert the yacht at Alexandria. It was, according to Lark's secret information, only the smart and would-be smart set who had combined to spring this mine upon the management. The rest grumbled no more than it was normal for all pleasure pilgrims to grumble, and as roughly speaking the contented travelers were all going on to Palestine after a week's wild sight-sing in Cairo, the Colonel might be allowed to continue his voyage without the interruption of a row. I should have had enough common sense at the start, growled Sir Marcus with crude candor, to engage a lord for the smart set and a parson for the earnest inquirers. There's a world of difference in catering for a set and a flock. The art is to know it and how to do it. Now I've secured you, I'm all right with the SS, and thanks be I have a young reformed missionary on board to shepherd the flock. Now the Reverend Watts will come in handy, herding his sheep through Palestine, while the Colonel swagger's and fancies he's bossing the show. It's the Egypt lot I worry about, girls out for dukes, and dukes out for dollars. Not that there's a darned duke on board, but there are some who think that they outduke the dukes, and it's our business to humor them. You just duff all you want, Lord Ernest, and they'll swallow anything you do like honey. Don't bother about a line of conduct, only be genial. Murmur soft nothings to the women, flirt but don't have favorites. Don't be too political with the men, work in plenty of anecdotes about your swell relations. I replied that I could confidently promise geniality, except if seasick, but Sir Marcus implored me at all costs not to be seasick. That was the one thing I must not be. My whole time between the Piraeus and Alexandria on board the Candice must be spent in ingratiating myself with the sulky passengers, and obliterating from their memories the crimes of Colonel Corcoran. In Sir Marcus's opinion my future charges had taken passage on the Candice and would go up the Nile not to see sights, but to be seen doing the right things. According to him, not two out of twenty cared tuppence for Egypt, but wished to talk about it in sparkling style at home. My friend Captain Fenton and I must make it sparkle. Sir Marcus had resigned himself to the fact that one of his trump cards, Anthony, could not be produced until the arrival in Cairo of the troop, and that even then the name of Fenton must not be used as an attraction. Lark felt confident that I was good enough card to make his hand worth playing, and in spite of the half-contemptuous amusement with which I regarded the whole scheme, I couldn't help being on my medal. I found myself wanting to succeed, wanting to please the big, common man whom a few hours ago I had been cursing. I had to start for Greece the net after our decision. Meanwhile I was anxious to explain the unexplainable to Bridget and Moni and secure the party for Sir Marcus Lark's alleged Dehabia, which turned out to be one of Cook's old boats bought and newly decorated. Both my tasks would be difficult. I had to hide the secret reason for selling myself to the financier, and at the same time keep the respect of the ladies. As for inducing Miss Gilder to give up her dream of a private Dehabia, I foresaw that it would be like persuading the youngest lioness in the Cairo Zoo to surrender her cherished wooden ball. But I began by giving Monia present a fine old turban box of rare red tortoise shell inlaid with Mother of Pearl, which I found at an antiquaries. In the silk-lined box reposed a green turban, and that green turban told its own story. Miss Gilder flushed with pleasure at sight of it. I've won my bet, she exclaimed. Yes, said I, to my astonishment, the man consents. He's a great prize, knows Cairo and upper Egypt like a book, but you'll have to surrender him when you go on the Nile. In her haste to know why, Moni forgot to ask how I had obtained the green turban, and for this I was glad because it was only the second best headgear of my smart friend, the Haji. In explaining that the distinguished Egyptian had been engaged by Sir Marcus Lark, I slipped in a word about my own part in the trip, describing it as an ideal rest cure for a budding diplomat on sick leave. I praised the boat and spoke of the fun on board. I regretted Miss Gilder's preference for a private dahabiya so obvious, so millionary. Still, I added every one to his taste. And anyhow, no doubt all the best cabins on the enchantress Isis were taken. That was the entering wedge, the mention of an obstacle to overcome. Miss Gilder looked thoughtful, though she kept silence, and next day when making my adjus before starting for Alexandria, she flung out a careless question. When would the enchantress Isis leave Cairo? How many passengers would she carry? Would there be a rush at the temples, or would they bring plenty of time for proper sight-seeing? And was I sure that all the nicest cabins were engaged? No, I was not sure, I could inquire. I tried not to look triumphant, but I must have darted out a ray, because Manny withdrew into her shell. She had inquired out of curiosity, she explained. I had told such stories about the enchantress Isis that she would like to see her. Perhaps unto an offendi could get permission for a visit to the boat. In this state I had to leave affairs and start for the Piraeus, where I must await the return of the tourists from Athens. I had two days at sea in which to work up an agony of apprehension, and I could have thanked heaven when, arriving on board the big white yacht, I found that I was ahead of the passengers. I was expected, however, and a deck cabin was ready for my occupation. I hoped that I had not turned out my rival from the room, but dared not question the steward. He seemed to know all about me, nevertheless, and said that my name had been posted up as conductor of the Nile Party. If I may take the liberty of mentioning it, my lord, he added, it has made a very good impression. We were to steam for Alexandria the moment the passengers arrived in the special train, having had three days of sightseeing in Athens, and I just got my possessions stowed away when a wave of clattering voices broke over the ship. My heart gave a jump as the soldiers must when called to fight on an empty stomach at dawn on a winter's morning. What ought I to do? How was I to make the acquaintance of my future charges? Must it be en masse, or could it be done singly? I had neglected to ask, Sir Marcus, what would be expected of me, and I was in a worse funk than a new boy on his first day at school. Soon it would be dinnertime. I wished that I were ill, but I remembered that the one thing I must not do was to be seasick. Already the ship was beginning to move out of the Greek harbor, or I should have been tempted to get a telegram calling me home. Even the mountain of the golden pyramids seemed not too great a sacrifice to make, but it was too late to make it, and someone was knocking at my door. I opened it with such courage as I had, and the instant I said eyes on the man I knew that he was Colonel Corcoran. He was born to be a retired Colonel. What came before the retiring could have been but a prelude. A stout figure of middle height, red face, veined on cheeks and nose, pale blue eyes which looked as if they had faded in the wash, purple moustache and eyebrows, close cropped gray hair, a double chin clamoring for extra color space, and a bridge player's expression. This was the rival whose place I had virtually, though not officially, usurped. I was prepared to hear him his viper between his teeth, as characters in melodramatic serials due to perfection, their front teeth having doubtless been designed for such purposes. But his looks seemed to denote pity rather than hatred. So might a prison warder regard a condemned man in coming to announce the hour of execution. Lord Ernest Burrow, said he, in a slightly hoarse voice, I am Colonel Corcoran. Delighted to meet you. I have met your brother, Lord Kelina. Dare say he wouldn't remember me. I don't think I can begin better than by thanking you for coming to take over my job. Oh, I haven't done that, I hastened to protest, as he sat fatally down in a chair I pushed forward. As I understand, I'm to take a few people off your hands, and the hands of your assistant, Mr. Kruger, so that you can go to Palestine instead of leaving that important excursion entirely to the chaplain, Mr. Watts. Colonel Corcoran laughed. Thank you for trying to save my feelings, said he, but I assure you they're not hurt. I'm sincerely delighted to see you for my own sake. For yours, well, that's another pair of shoes. My dear fellow, I wonder if you've the smallest idea what you're in for. In for, I echoed. Yes, I'm saying this as a friend. Don't think I'm jealous. Lord, no. I look on you as a deliverer. And don't think I want to frighten you. It isn't that. But I feel it's my duty to prepare you. I might have got on better if there'd been someone to do the same by me. There wasn't. Kruger, my so-called assistant, is a spy. At best he's a mere accountant, not supposed to look after the passengers socially. I gather that he was some secretary of Lark's. Beware of him. He writes to Lark from every port. As for the passengers, the saintly lot are bad enough. Yet it's only the food and the cabins and the attendants they grumble about. I'm shunted off the worldly lot unto them in future. But at their worst they'll be a rest cure, and Lark has the decency not to reduce my screw. It's the worldly lot that's going to make you curse the day you were born. He wanted me to speak or groan, but I maintained a stricken silence, to which I gave some illusion of dignity. After a disappointed pause he went on, you'd better know something about these people, beasts every one of them, young or old, some beastly common beasts, but all beastly rich, except those that are beastly poor and on the make, to marry their daughters or catch for smart friends. Lark was bidding for swells and got snobs. Things his silly title were carry weight in society as it does in the city. Lark pie, we're called, I hear. I call us a pretty kettle of fish. The girls are the worst of the caboodle, though some of them aren't bad looking. You won't believe the trouble I've had with the creatures till you begin to get the same yourself. What kind of trouble, I inquired gingerly. Every kind a woman can make. Apart from food troubles they think they're not being entertained enough on board. Think I ought to get up more dances. Tango teas, I suppose. Don't like the way I organize games. Are mad because they can't have music at meals. Which they can't because the band's all stewards. Blame me because the men don't make love to them or because they do. And at the hotels where we go on shore it's Hades. Naturally the people staying in the hotels resent us. They look on us as a menagerie, a rabble. So we are. At least they are. I don't count myself in with them. What can I do? I'm not omnipotent. Perhaps you are. Anyhow they're prepared to believe it for you're a new broom, a broom with a fine handle. I'm only a poor colonel with a few medals given by my country for services that were appreciated. You're brother to a marquise. You paint a lurid picture, I said, when he stopped for breath. I couldn't paint it lurider than it is. But you'll have to find out for yourself. It won't be so bad while you're a novelty. Don't say I haven't warned you. And oh, by the way, I've announced that you're to be presented to the passengers at dinner tonight on coming in before the soup is served. As a sort of hors d'oeuvres, I suppose, I murmured weakly. Colonel Corcoran stared without a smile as the titled conductor of the Egypt tour. He explained to my dull intelligence with a slight sneer. So will you please be in the dining saloon just before the bugle blows the beasts in? I have to introduce you in a short speech. It's all I can do except say, God help you. But I don't see how he can. I suppose your friends or marquise told you that you would be expected to deliver a lecture on Egypt tonight at the dinner table. After you finished your dinner, of course, I hope the cracking and crunching of nuts doesn't disturb you much. I confess I found it getting on my nerves. I was aghast. My mind jumped to the wild thought of eating soup in order to froth at the mouth and simulate a fit. It seemed my only way of escape. And after that the deluge. But my rival was so reveling in the mental havoc he had wrought that I rallied. Replying that, as Sir Marcus had not broken the news to me, I didn't see how it would be possible to deliver a lecture. Aren't you up on Egypt, the Colonel asked, pityingly. Neither am I, though I have sweated over Bedecker with my head in wet towels when I wanted to be at bridge. But I thought that was the excuse for engaging you. That in your title, of course, which is going to make you popular. As fast as I fag up the names of those beastly Egyptian gods or kings and queens, they run out of my brains like water out of a sieve. Or if I do contrive to remember any by chance together with their dates, which is almost more than can be expected of the human intellect, why I find that I pronounced some wrong, or they're spelled another way in the next book. But I suppose you know, Egypt, its damned history comes natural as breathing. How I wished it did. And how different was this new program from the one outlined by Sir Marcus. Just to be genial and flirt with the girls. My recollections of Egypt are from some time ago, I admitted, to give a lecture at half an hour's notice. In justice to yourself, I'm afraid you'll have to, the Colonel persisted. It's been announced that you will give the lecture, and the Egypt lot are looking forward to it as the animals in a zoo look forward to their food. If they're defrauded, they'll think you're a slacker, and that you're presuming on your title. I shouldn't like that, my anguish racked out of me. I fancied you wouldn't, but what's to be done? Am I to announce when I introduce you that your knowledge of Egypt isn't equal to the strain? I took an instant for reflection. I knew that he was hoping I might throw myself on his mercy, or else that I would speak and fail, but I determined to do neither. On second thoughts, I may be able to give some kind of a powwow, I replied. Colonel Corcoran's face fell. That's all right, then, he exclaimed, getting to his feet. While I must be off, will you have a cocktail? No thanks, said I. I think I can get on without it. He was at the door. Kind of hash of gods and goddesses with a peppering of kings and queens, and mixed sauce of history and legend. That's what's needed, were his farewell words. Then he shut the door, and I tore my watch from the pocket of my waistcoat. I had twenty-eight minutes in which to repair the said hash with its seasoning and sauce, and the bugle was inviting my judges to dress for the inquisition. CHAPTER VIII. Foxy Duffing. I'll show you your place, Corcoran volunteered, lying in wait for me inside the saloon door, with a cocktail in his hand. Sorry you wouldn't have one, you'll need it. But no time to change your mind. I put you at the head of the table that would be the captain's if he ate with us, which he doesn't, happy man. Place of honor, to his mind, to his yours. But I can't go on with the quotation unless I turn it into your slave to thousands. Sixty odd can be as formidable as thousands. Are there sixty odd? I asked. Yes, very odd. The Egypt lot will be about twenty-five. But the whole gang's yours for the present. I give them to you with the seed of honor. Please don't put me in your place, I protested. I prefer, my poor boy, it isn't a question of what you prefer, as you'll learn if you stick this out. Of course if you funk it, but that's a joke. This table's the only one where you can be heard. Do you see? I did see, and accepted the situation, because the dinner bugle began to sound, and I could not be seen scampering around the saloon like a frightened rabbit, as the set and the flock began dropping into dinner. As it happened, they did not drop. They poured into the room in a steady stream, which phenomenon, whispered Corcoran, was caused by a curiosity for a first sight of me. My heart counted each new arrival with a bump. If Corcoran had not represented Lark's party as being a menagerie for which I had inadvertently engaged as a tamer, I should have thought they looked a harmless crowd. But then, of course, I was not obliged to tame anybody on the Laconia, which makes a difference in one's point of view. Miss Gilder needed taming, no doubt, but I hadn't tackled the task. My thoughts flew to Cairo as I stood struggling till it pleasant, and I wished myself back to where Anthony Fenton was now in the taming business. I envied him, for there was only one money, whereas in this terrible, bright dining saloon the air was pink and white with girls, dozens of them with eyes fixed on me, glittering eyes which appeared like the headlights of motor-cars. I didn't suppose there could be so many eyes in the world as these people of all ages and every possible sex seemed to own. Sixty odd there were, according to Corcoran, but they looked like six hundred, a human miracle of loaves and fishes. Yes, the creatures might have appeared harmless enough had there been no retired colonel. But there was a retired colonel, and so deftly had he undermined my courage that at almost any shock might cause it to explode in a blue flame of funk. His speech of introduction was now to come, and if I survived that I might hope to live through my own fireworks. They've put on their best bibs and tuckers, Corcoran mumbled in a stage whisper, as the eight dwellers at our table began to sort themselves for places. Then, in portentous silence, he paused till everybody everywhere was seated. Waiting still until satisfied that eyes and ears were focused upon us, he wrapped on the table with the handle of a lady's and gentlemen, he roared, I have the pleasure of introducing to you Sir Marcus Lark's great surprise, entitled Lord Ernest Burrow, younger brother of the Marquis of Collina, appear, as Sir Marcus has reminded us, of the oldest lineage in Ireland. Let me reassure you all by saying that Lord Ernest's last name is as unsuited to his nature as the first is true to it. If you'll pardon the pun, it is Sir Marcus who burrows for your benefit, and he hasn't borrowed trouble but a blessing in disguise. I am now left free, as suits my superior age and experience, to devote my attention to the serious-minded ones among you, who are to proceed with the reverend Mr. Watts and myself to Palestine. This young and gallant neophyte will lord it over the flesh-poss of Egypt and those about to seek them. I hope you'll help him as loyally as you have helped me, and later will drink to his health and success, in any beverage we happen to have signed for. To have killed Corcoran might have been butchery. No jury would have brought in a verdict of murder or even manslaughter had I stabbed him with the knife he used to pound upon the table. I smiled the smile of a skull in a doctor's waiting-room, and in a sickly voice bleated my pleasure in meeting these new acquaintances. I hoped we might be friends as well as shipmates. Then, like a mass of jelly out of its mold, I plopped into my chair. The Colonel had sneaked off to his own table, and I was left to recover myself as best I might among eight of his enemies. They proved, in whispers, to be the most active of these, and tacitly offered me allegiance, which I accepted in the same manner. There was a Sir John Biddle, who informed me in the first five minutes that he had been Lord Mayor of London. He promised to show me a speech he had made in the presence of King Edward, which, in the form of a newspaper cutting, he never traveled without. This, however, was his first trip farther than Paris, and he had brought with him not only the speech, but his wife and twin daughters. The distinguished family occupied one side of my table, the other was given up to a general Harlow, his wife, both with high profiles and opinions of themselves, a youngish newspaper proprietor from Manchester, evidently rich and a catch, and a maiden lady doubtless of importance equal to her proportions, as she was allowed to bring to the table a melancholy marmoset. These people did their best to raise my spirits. The girls, who copied royalties in their hair-dressing, looked alike, dressed alike, talked and laughed alike, and entertained me with chat about high society in London. They had red cheeks, black eyes, white teeth, and an almost indecent familiarity with the private lives of the aristocracy. The Mrs. Biddle and the fat Miss Hassett Bean, the lady of the marmoset, hinted that the cream of the yacht's social life had risen to our table, and told me, not only what to lecture about, but how to treat the rival cliques. My brain felt more and more like a blotting-pad. I answered at random and longed for the meal to end, until I remembered my lecture. Then I wished that dinner might go on indefinitely like the tea-party of the Mad Hatter. All too soon the glory of a French menu flickered down to a dying spark of nuts and raisins, and hardly had I cracked my first almond. Was it an omen that there should be a worm in it, when a steward handed me a twisted note from the executioner? The rule for the conductor's dinner speech is, rise with the raisins. Hope you won't find your lecture too hard and nut to crack. Yours, sympathetically, Corcoran. Bang on the table to make them stop gambling, or shall I do it for you? If you haven't by the time I count to ten, I will. He did. I trust it wasn't my courage that failed, but having a raisin in my mouth I could not on the instant respond to the lash. And, as Corcoran would have said, it takes more than one swallow to make a speech. Ruthlessly he rapped, seizing what I wished might be his dying chance to indulge a mania for puns and thumping wood. Ladies and gentlemen, he bawled from his comparatively obscure corner, Lord Ernest Borough would render your last moments the most enjoyable of the meal, by washing down your nuts and raisins with the wine of his eloquence. Take your desserts now, we consciences conductors hope for ours in heaven. How ardently I desired that these might indeed be the last moments, not only of my audience but of Colonel Corcoran. If the next second had brought a tidal wave or a collision I should have blessed Providence. But I got to my feet and nothing happened. I seemed to be in a dream of having shot up to a gigantic height and having put on the wrong clothes or none. My hands weighed two pounds each and ought to have been at the butchers. My mouth was the size of a negro minstrel's and so full of large bones which once had been teeth that I could not utter a syllable. I clacked my jaws and emitted a hacking cough which, fortunately, so much resembled that of a professional lecturer that I kept my senses. Not only did I keep them, but they seemed suddenly to become my servants. The thought of a certain fable jumped into my head and I began thereupon to speak. Although I had forgotten everything I had ever read of Egyptian history. It happens, said I, in a phonographic voice, that I was born in Egypt. I played with clay gods and goddesses instead of ten soldiers. I preferred stories of Egypt's past and present to tales of adventure. I confessed to you what I fear I didn't confess to Sir Marcus Lark. The trouble is I have stuffed two full of facts about Egypt. I want you all to help me get them out and not duplicate yours. No doubt all of you, in travelling to the East, have packed your brains with knowledge as well as your boxes with guidebooks. Why should I bore you by telling you things that you were born knowing? A plan has occurred to me by which your knowledge can be turned into account. As I said, I begged your help, and permission to drink a cup of coffee would be first aid. People laughed, whether at me or with me, I was not sure, yet I felt that I had tickled their curiosity. Coffee was going round. Corcoran was unctuously sipping his, and had not expected me to receive mine till after the battle. But I got it in spite of him and mapped out a program as I drank. Then I ceased to tremble before the confused assemblage or bird-headed gods, cat-faced goddesses, and sacred vultures that dance or flapped in my brain. I no longer felt inclined to commit suicide because I could remember nothing about Egypt except that the delta was shaped like a lily, with the feyum for a bud and the nile for its stem, that Alexander the Macedonian defeated Darius the Persian, B.C. three hundred and something, that ancient Egyptians loved beer, but were forbidden to eat beans. My proposal is, I went on, that before I unload any of my knowledge upon you, I gleam some of what you already know. Thus I can spare you repetitions, and anyone who has anything particularly interesting to say about Egypt let him or her hold up a hand. Now was the crucial moment. If no hand went up I was lost. But hardly were the words out of my mouth when there was a waving as if in a windswept wheat-field plasso dames. I called upon Miss Hasset Bean to begin. She wrestled silk lia, bowing to me, then directing an acetylene glare upon Colonel Corcoran's end of the room. She was, I foresaw, about to kill two birds with one stone, to say nothing of the marmoset who fell off her arm into General Harlow's coffee and created a brief diversion. As soon, however, as the monkey was rescued and before General Harlow's shirt front was dried, the lady began to speak. We all thank Lord Ernest, she said, looking from the Colonel to the reverend Wyman Watts, and back again, for sparing us one of those commonplace inflections from which we've all nightly suffered on board this yacht. If we didn't know already, such schoolbook facts as Christianity being introduced to Egypt by St. Mark in Nero's time, and that Moses and Plato both studying philosophy at Heliopolis, and things like that, we wouldn't be spending our money with Sir Marcus A. Lark to see Egypt. Never before have we been encouraged to air our views. Those of us with political opinions have been snubbed, and we who are interested in women's suffrage have been assured that we will find nothing to please us in the land of veiled women. At last I am given a chance to state, without being interrupted, that Egypt was once the most enlightened country in her treatment of women. Long before the time of the Greeks, and even before the shepherd kings, Mr. Watts has told us so much about, using his old testament as if it were a beddaker, the women of ancient Egypt had rights according to their class. Queens and princesses were considered equal with their husbands. Women were great musicians playing upon many instruments, especially the Systrom sacred to the goddess Hathor. And weren't all the best gods, goddesses, when you come to think of it? Women used to drive their own chariots as we do our motors, and hold salons like the French ladies. There was Rhodopis, for instance, who married the brother of Sappho. I wonder if Colonel Corcoran could have told you the story of Cinderella comes from an anecdote of Rhodopis? I hardly think he's been able to spare enough time from Bridge to study Strabo, who was the beddaker of Egypt for tourists six hundred years before Christ. An eagle saw Rhodopis bathing and stealing one of her sandals flew with it to Memphis, where he dropped it into the king's lap. It was so small and dainty that King Hoffra scoured Egypt for the owner. And when he found her at last, according to Strabo, made her his queen. If Strabo was right, she lived long before Sappho's day, interpolated the Colonel's voice. Of course Strabo was right. There were two of Rhodopis. Everybody knows that. The third pyramid was built for the tomb of the first one, not for King Mycenaeus, I believe. Why shouldn't a woman have a pyramid to herself? The sphinx is a woman, as I will insist to my dying day if it were my last word. I hope Lord Ernest won't ram down our throats any nonsense about that noble and graceful tribute to the mystery of womanhood, being a stupid king Harmakis, or Haramku. I wouldn't believe it if I found a hundred nasty stone beards lying buried in the sand under her chin instead of one which could easily have been put there to deceive people. Probably King Harmakis had the sphinx altered to look like him. No wonder she shuddered at such profanation and shed her false beard. There you have my theory. And as for Egypt, being now the land of veiled women, where suffragettes find no sympathy, I've heard that the Prophet's order for veiling has been purposely misconstrued by tyrannical men with their usual jealousy. Even Muhammad himself was jealous. With this Miss Hassett Bean sat down amid fitful applause, and at my Ernest request Miss Enid Biddle, the prettier twin, stood bravely up. She wished, before the subject was changed, to tell some little things she had read about the girls of ancient Egypt, how like they were to girls of today in all their ways, especially in—in things concerning love. It was they who first questioned the petals of flowers for their lover's loyalty. How much they thought about their clothes, too, getting their best things from foreign countries, as women did now from Paris. It was so funny to read how the girls of old Egypt had consulted palmists and fortune-tellers and astrologers, just as girls did in Bond Street now, and that what Billikins and Swastikas and birthstones were to us, images of gods were to the girls of Egypt who lived before the days of Moses. They had scarab rings with magic inscriptions, and sacred asps for the symbol of intelligence, and lucky eyes of horrors wounded by the wicked gods set, and cured by the love of Isis. On their bracelets and necklaces they hung charms, and their dressing tables were covered with images of favorite gods and goddesses. Hathor, the goddess of love and joy, was supposed to give her choices gifts to girls who wore her special color, that green-blue in the temple of Edfu, which Robert Hitchens calls the color of love, and to those who had her pet stones, emeralds, or turquoises. Nowadays in Egypt the jewels of the women were only lent to them by their men, and could be taken away as punishment, or be pawned or sold in case of need, but in old days Egyptian women had all their most beautiful possessions buried with them. When her sister had finished I urged the other twin to speak, and timidly Miss Elaine repeated to us what a friend of hers, a clergyman, here a blush, had told her, that the Red Sea was not red, but a brighter blue than any sea in the world, and called red only because it watched the red lands. Her friend had written down for her in verse such a sweet legend concerning the Nile rising every spring from a single tear shed by Isis, a much more powerful goddess than Hathor, because she was the goddess of goodness as well as love. And the Nile used to be named Seahore by the Egyptians, and the year separated into three seasons, flood time, seed time, and harvest. Miss Biddle's friend was writing a book about Egypt and was going to divide it in three parts like that. It was to be dedicated to her. Blessed the dear creatures, how they kept the ball rolling to please themselves, and indirectly to sort out my stock of ideas. Harry Snell, the newspaper man, was not hard to persuade to his feet. He was studying the resemblance between Arabic and English words. He had found out, among other things, that Tali-Hul was Tali-Hun, brought home by the Crusaders. He even had a theory that some of our words came from the early Egyptian. Amen, for instance, he believed to be derived from Amun, the name of the great God, father of all the other gods of Egypt, which was cried aloud he understood in the temples during religious services. The parson jumped eagerly up to dispute this theory, and happily, forgetful of me, seized the opportunity to spring upon us a few facts from his own store. When, however, Mr. Watts's discourse got him as far as Joseph's well in the Citadel, General Harlow could bear no more, but sprang up to inform us that the Joseph of the well in the Citadel was quite another Joseph, some Yusuf of the Arab conquerors. The general knew all about that, because his son was stationed in the Citadel, and he proceeded to meander on historically over a period between the first Arab conqueror Amru to Harun al-Rashid, assuring us that old Cairo was the city of the Arabian knights. He would, to my joy, have gone on indefinitely from Saladin to Napoleon if Sir John Biddle, as the only baronet on board, had not cut the only general short. He is a square man whose portrait could be properly done only by a cubist. Too much history, my friend, he shouted, getting up with a manner of one accustomed to making dinner-table speeches. What most of us are coming to Egypt for is mummies. Egyptian history is too troublesome, anyhow, for a normal man to grasp. Give me mummies. There's something in them. Why, even if you can get a king or queen fixed in your head, somebody who's paid to make you know things don't know—an eye-shot for Corcoran—comes along and swears they didn't exist. Now, there's Mina. I'd have pinned him like a stuck butterfly. I could remember that he was the first known king, unfounded Memphis, and lived six thousand years before Christ, all because we're going to stay at Mina's house, which is named after him. I don't know why I remembered him that way, but I did. Just as I could recall the queen with a name like a sneeze, by thinking of her as Queen Hatton's shoes. Now Colonel Corcoran informs us that we must pronounce her in a different way. And what's the consequence to me? I've ceased to try and keep track of her. King Mina is, too, lost to me forever, through the over-conscientiousness of our late conductor, who says there never was a Mina, only several kings they've mixed into one. I seem to be the one who's most mixed up. To wet my appetite for Egypt now I have to have something tasty. Where's the good of stuffing my mind up with a string of names which I couldn't mention to anyone at home, because I can't pronounce them? The word dynasty—he pronounced it, dynasty—makes me sick. Luckily I feel that nobody else will know any more than I do. I'm coming to Egypt for a rest cure, because I don't have to learn its history. But some lecturers won't let me have a minute's peace. A king named Sneferu couldn't expect to appeal to a man like me, even if he did build the oldest pyramid, and even if you could show me his mummy which you can't. But I draw the line at kings without mummies. I don't want to know them. Now my wife is against mummies on show. She's heard that the malignance of mummies, especially museums, is incredible. And she thinks at a judgment that some of the most distinguished ones are going bad. She says it's spite. I say it's management. But I'm not ready to sit down yet. My wife means to start a society for the prevention of cruelty to mummies, with the object of sending them back to their tombs where they can rest in that state of death it pleased their gods to call them to. Their object was eternal privacy, and they spent more on their tombs than on their houses, because they expected to be dead a long time and wanted all the comforts of home. But I judge mummies by myself. It wouldn't have taken me these thousands of years to realize how narrow and un-Christian my notions had been. I should see that I owed some duty to the world, and as so much posterity has rolled by since my day I'd feel that lying in a museum at some large place like Cairo was, after all, the only way to keep my name before the public. Now, that brings me to my tip for Lord Ernest. He asks what there is we don't know, and want to know. I'll answer for us all, being used to feel the pulse of crowds. We want to know what the deuce, ancient Egypt Egyptians really believed about death and religion. Had they any sense, or were they just plain fools? On the tide of applause which congratulated the boat's only baronette, I felt that I was on the crest of the wave, for the ancient religion of Egypt appeals to me, and, as I now had reason to hope that others were comfortably ignorant of my subject, I could spread myself as much as I pleased. The ancient Egyptians were far from being fools, I answered Sir John, with the air of being in their confidence. We who are tempted to think so don't take the trouble to try the key of their faith in its door. I might say that its door was the door of the tomb. If we go through that door into the kingdom of Osiris, Amenti, which the Greeks renamed Hades, the mysteries which appear tangled sort themselves graciously out. The story of Isis, the great enchantress, and her search for the body of her husband Osiris, murdered by Set, his wicked and jealous brother, spirit of evil, is perhaps the most lovable legend of the world. But in hearing that Horus, the son of Isis, was really the same God as Osiris, modern ideas begin to get mixed and confuse themselves over Isis, goddess of love and goodness, cow-headed Hathor, mistress of love and joy, cat-headed Pasht and lioness-headed Seket, goddess of love and passion. There's hawk-headed Horus, the youth, too, and Horus the child, represented in statues with his thumb in his mouth. How is one to make sense of them all? But once you have the key, it is easy and even beautiful. The esoteric or secret religion known to the high priests and the instructed ones was different from the animal worship and adoration of bird-headed deities, which gave the common people such interest in daily life. They would have been lost without their monsters, and the priests would have been lost without the temple necessary for the worship of such a menangerie. For Egypt was a priest-ridden country in old days. The explanation of the many gods and goddesses was this. Each was a different phase of the one god, Ra, the son, by whom and through whom only the world could exist. Animals and birds were chosen to express the different phases, because animals were considered to be nearer nature, therefore nearer God than human beings. Besides, to give the god the head of a man would not set him apart from humanity, as it would to make him appear with the body of a man and the head of some bird or beast. Horus, finished off with the head of a hawk, that sacred bird who could look the sun in the face, became to the uneducated eye a supernatural being, which he would not have been with the face of a smiling youth. The child Horus, or herpocrates, was not respected as was Horus of the hawkhead. He was merely petted and loved. Even set, God of evil wasn't all bad. He was the spirit of storm and strife in nature and had to be propitiated by the ignorant. Typhon or typhoon and he were one. Red was his color and red-haired people were his children. There were a hundred phases of the one God, each made incarnate, given his own mission, and worshipped in a different place. It's an ill wind of set that blows nobody good, and animals had a gorgeous time in those days. Very few weren't sacred for some reason or other. It was death and destruction to kill a cat, and I don't think that cats have forgotten to this day the importance they had in Egypt. It's made them the most supercilious of animals. If Amun Ra were angry he could become Menthu, the war-God. If he were inclined to be gentle he could shrink to the dimensions of Horus, child God of the rising sun. If he were weary he could rest as the old God-tum of the setting sun. Probably gods and goddesses never enjoyed themselves so much as in ancient Egypt, and, though it does seem a drawback from our artistic point of view, for Hathor to have the head or ears of a cow, for wise thought to have the long beak of an ibis, and so on, it was for them only an amusing kind of masquerade or tet-party on the walls of the temples and tombs. At home they could be what they liked. Think how interesting for the Egyptians to have all these queer gods and what variety it gave to their lives. Perhaps the priests really meant well in keeping the secret of the one God for themselves and the kings, as the people weren't fitted to bear its solemnity. Fancy how amusing it was for the children to be told on silver bright nights about Kansu, God of the moon, always young, wearing the curled lock of the youth on his brow, who staked five nights of his light, playing dross with thoth, father of magic. But he had a more serious phase, for when he was not a gambler he was an expeller of demons, a most popular accomplishment. Indeed almost every god had several thriving businesses conducted under different aliases. K'num, the creator, taller at the cataracts, is my favorite, and is still busy as he looks after the rise and fall of the river. Heket, goddess of birth, was a pal of his in spite of her appalling ugliness, and she used to kneel by his potter's wheel. While he fashioned the clay she would hold the sign of life so that spirit might enter into the formed body when K'num got it to the right state. For very important babies, royal ones or geniuses, she held a sign of life in each hand, which made them extraordinarily vital. When you arrive in Egypt the first thing you'll be asked to buy will be the sign, or key of life, in the shape of paper knives or broaches or whatnot, and it will be pointed out to you in tombs till you're sick and tired of it. You can by Heket, too, and funny old best nurse goddess of children, quite the golly-wig of her day, and all the other gods and goddesses will be offered to you to say nothing of the kings who were entitled to worship themselves as gods if they wanted to. It's easy, you see, to make fun of ancient religion, and other nations did make fun of it. But to be serious the priests were nearer right than it would seem, for they believed that God was all, that there was nothing in this or any universe which was not part of God. That note was my highest, and I stopped on it. Besides, I could think of nothing more to say. I ventured to sit down, and because the people were glad to hear the last of me, or because I had helped them finish their almonds and raisins, they applauded. Secretly I shook hands with myself, as the monkey must have done, when, with the cat-spa, he had pulled the hot chestnuts out of the fire. I had carefully selected my chestnuts and waited until they were cool. Also I had disappointed Colonel Corcoran. CHAPTER IX What happened when my back was turned? Three letters from me brought out by the pilot. One I had expected from Anthony, but my heart gave a pound as I recognized Bridget's handwriting, not seen for years, and instinct told me that the third was from Monty Gilder. My one thought for the last two days, steaming back from the Piraeus to Alexandria, had been that I was drawing nearer to Cairo, and to those whose doings in my absence pulled at my curiosity and keyed my interest to the breaking point. But if you think that I tore open those envelopes and greedily absorbed their contents the moment they were put into my hands, you have never been a conductor or even an observant passenger on a pleasure yacht. When the letters arrived I was engaged in persuading breakfast lingerers, they of the eggs and bacon habit who ought never to leave their peaceful English homes, that it would give them more real pleasure to be the first in the shoreboats than the last at the table. Then to get them into the boats, then to hypnotize Lady Biddle and Mrs. Harlow into the belief that they would not, could not, be seasick on the dancing waves which bobbed us up and down. No time to think of the letters, much less to feel the strangeness of fate which brought me back in such queer circumstances to the port I had entered on in Laconia eight days ago. As soon as we get on shore, I soothed my gnawing impatience, I'll steal a minute somehow. But each moment was so conspicuously labelled that I could not be a thief of time, my time, which was my charge's time, bought and paid for by Sir Marcus Lark. This was not the first occasion on which I'd heard the clanking of my chains, for although I flattered myself that I was a popular success, popularity had penalties. On the night of the lecture I had used the passengers. Since then they had used me. Old ladies appealed to me on questions of etiquette, health or religion, and retailed my answers, not always correctly. Girls asked my advice about keeping up flirtations, and men wanted my help in getting out of them. I was expected to spout pages of Strabo or Pliny at an instant's notice. I must know why Plato went to Egypt or how long he stayed, and be umpire between American and British bridge-players. I must be able to explain the true meaning in age of the Sphinx, invent new debt games, and show those who hadn't learned how to dance the tango. But with those three letters burning over my heart the duties of conductor became infuriating. It was an awful day. For what was Pompey's pillar to me while I remained ignorant of my friends's adventures? As I discourced, more or less, learnedly about Diocletian and Ptolemy's plot to drown Pompey in the Nile, something inside was asking, has Anthony fallen in love with Monty Gilder? What scrapes has that blessed girl got into? Has anything happened to worry Biddy? Even that nameless but incomparable tomb on the hill of Kham el-Shakufah could not distract my thoughts from the sealed envelopes. And three very modern hand-writings came obstinately between my eyes and the matchless wall paintings. Paintings as fresh in their underground hiding-place as it finished yesterday, instead of in days when it was dowdy to be pagan, fashionable to be Christian. Corcoran, as a soldier, had to guide a band to Abukir and chat about Nelson, point out the medieval fort of Cite Bay, and dash with hired motors to Agemi, where Napoleon landed. Kruger took a few studious pilgrims to that unspoiled Oriental Nile town where the Rosetta Stone gave the secrets of ancient Egypt to the world. It was mine to pilot the frivolous lot, to escort them in carriages round the Italian-looking city when they had absorbed its two chief sites, to give them a glimpse of the museum and to let them see the beauty and fashion of Alexandria driving out to San Stefano in the late afternoon. Still I had no chance to read my letters, but thought I at the hotel, now at last it has come. Not at all. People's trunks were missing or in the wrong rooms. It was I who had to sue the alarms and calm rising storms. It was I who must assure Mrs. Harlow that her room was really preferable to that of Lady Biddle, and Lady Biddle that she, and not Miss Hasset Bean, had the best in the hotel. Still I had ten minutes to dress for dinner. Like Mr. Gladstone I could do it in five, and have five left for my letters. But hardly had I slipped a paper-knife under the flap of Monty's envelope. I should have felt a vandal to tear it, when one of the hotel managers knocked at my door. A gentleman was being very angry in the dining-room. He insisted on seeing me. He said he had been Lord Mayor of London and ought to have a window table. All these were previously engaged. What was to be done? Would I kindly come at once? I persuaded Sir John that window tables were the least desirable owing to drafts, and returning to my room I had four minutes to dress or risk further rouse. After dinner Miss Hasset Bean burst into tears because she was alone in the world owing to the Marmoset's death from seasickness, and now that she was growing old nobody cared to talk to her. I argued that people were shy because she was more important than they, and had a reputation for satire. It took half an hour for the ladies' nose to go from red to pink. I think she had Papier Poudre in her handkerchief, and then I was obliged to walk on the beach with Miss Enid Biddle to keep Mr. Watts from proposing. As Snell relieved me from sentry duty I was called by Kruger to discuss certain details of next morning's start for Cairo, and at midnight when I crawled to my room a shattered wreck the letters were still unread. I'm incapable of caring now, I groaned, what has happened to any of them. If an earthquake has swallowed up our mountain and Anthony's married Monty and Bridget's been abducted, or vice versa, and Miss Guest has gone off with the jewels, it will leave me calm. That was the spirit in which I tossed up a coin to see which letter to read first. Heads, monies, tails, Anthony's, but the penny rolled away far under the bed where collar buttons go, and so I opened biddies. She began, my dear good duffer. For any sake hurry back. Make an excuse to leave your pilgrims the minute you get this, and take the first train to Cairo. Surely the late conductor can be your understudy, and trot the people round Alexandria for a day? We need you more than they do. I picture you reading this early in the morning with Alexandria still in the distance, for you said you'd arrange to have letters come out to the yacht by the pilot. I shall expect a telegram saying by what train you'll arrive here in the afternoon. You'll understand, when I told you everything, why it's necessary for you to hurry. We have done and seen so many things. It seems years instead of days since you left us in the care of that handsome haji of yours. I wonder if, really, you didn't suspect that I guessed who he was, or did you suspect and didn't care. I caught the look in your eyes when you first saw him standing under the terrace at Sheppard's, and then when the name Antune of Fendi came up in the conversation I put two and two together. Mistress East guesses also. I don't know if she did from the first, but she does now. It isn't a question of guessing with either of us, really. It's a certainty. Not that she said anything to me or I to her. That is the malady of us all since she went. We are boiling with secret thoughts and keeping them to ourselves, which is bad for us and for each other in the long run. I haven't told Manny that the Egyptian prince, as Rachel Guest has nicknamed him, is your friend, Captain Anthony Fenton, playing some deep game, partly connected with us, partly connected with the secret of his and yours. The secret, you said, was a dusty one in which women would not be interested. I haven't told her because I don't want her to know. She is always talking and thinking about him, and is vexed with herself for doing so. She tries to stop, but can't. If she knew who he was, she wouldn't try to stop. She'd let herself go and feel she was living in a beautiful romance. So she is living in a romance, but I want you to be the hero of it, not your Anthony Fenton. That's why I don't open her eyes to the game that's going on. The man is a perfect devil, not a bad devil, but a wild devil. Mrs. East doesn't tell Manny that Antoine is Anthony with an H, because she is enjoying the thought that she alone knows the wonderful truth. She imagines that she is in love with him. She believes fate has brought them together, that he is a reincarnation as she is, and that they ought to belong to each other. Well, let them. She isn't more than six or seven years older than he, and she's rich, though poor compared to Manny, of course, and every day she goes handsomer. So does Manny. As for Rachel Guest, but she is in another part of my story. Yet no, come to think of it. I'll bring her in now, because if it weren't for developments concerning that young woman, I might be able to wait one more day without begging you to come to us. She is taking Manny away from me, and something odd is going on. I can't make out what. Anyhow, that horrid, better algemaly is in it. And there's to be a climax, I'm sure, tomorrow night. You'll get this letter tomorrow morning, for I'm writing it early, with my hair down my back and my coffee not ordered, though I'm starving. We've left Shepherds because Manny wanted to live for a few days in a hotel close to the Nile, and we were all pleased with the plan, for this was once a palace of Kediv Ishmael, and his furniture still in it, the wildest mixture of orientalized French taste. There's a garden with paths of vermilion sand brought from somewhere in the desert. But the most convulsive things live along the Nile Valley and spend their nights braying, hooting, cooing, whining, bellowing, and barking. If only the donkeys and dogs and birds and a few other sacred animals of Egypt would be a little more reticent, especially after dark, the country would be faultless. But what with worrying myself, and listening to furred and feathered creatures worrying themselves, I couldn't sleep last night, and I want you to help me. You'll be here tomorrow afternoon, and I shall stay in to receive you instead of going to the bazaars with the others, chaperoned by that dark-eyed devil of yours, Antoon. I was there all yesterday watching crowds of tourists by beautiful expensive things for themselves, and horrid inexpensive things to take to their friends. Cleopatra purchased some disgracefully cheap pearls no self-respecting mummy would be seen in, and my prophetic soul tells me she's going to try and dissolve them in wine. There is to be a fancy dress-ball at the hotel tomorrow night, or rather in the adjacent casino, which is one reason we migrated here, and praise the saints if you'll be in time for it, because if anything's going to happen, you'll be able to stop whatever it is. If I were supposed to know that Antoon was Anthony Fenton, I might take him into my counsels. As it is, I can't, and anyhow it wouldn't do much good at present, because a silent duel is going on between him and Manny. He is bent on compelling her to acknowledge his authority. She is bent on resisting it, which is a great compliment to his power, but he doesn't know that, for he doesn't know Manny yet. It would be fun to watch them together if I hadn't your interest to think of. He hasn't got rid of better al-gamali, but he would have done so, I'm sure, if it hadn't been for an unexpected turn of the wheel by the hand of fate in the person of Rachel Guest. Her hand is never off the wheel just now. The few days since you have been away have brought out the two inwardness of her. Feliz domestica, with very little domestica. Perhaps it's the air of Egypt which is having a really extraordinary effect on all of us. Perhaps it's the fact that Manny has given Rachel a lot of lovely clothes which have rejuvenated and apparently revitalized her. But you will see for yourself and talk things over with your old friend, Biddy. This was a nice letter to read. Heaven knew how many hours too late. My fatigue had slipped off like the skin of a grape. I felt energetic enough to start out and walk to Cairo. What could be in Biddy's mind, and what must she have thought when afternoon and evening passed without even a telegram? The evening paper, if she had happened to look, would have told her that the Candice had reached Alexandria in the morning, as she expected, and she could neither have guessed nor believed that the whole day could pass without my having a chance to read her letter. I ransacked the writing-table drawers for a telegraph form, and finding one had begun to address it when I stopped. The message could not go out until morning. Meanwhile there were Manny's and Anthony's letters to read. One or both might give me some clue to the climax Biddy feared for to-night at the ball. I cut open Manny's envelope, which had on it an alluring sunset picture of the pyramids and the name of the hotel. Hasteily I ran through the pages. Not a hint of anything disquieting. If I had read her letter instead of Bridgetts I might have gone to my well earned rest without a qualm. Dear Lord Ernest, Miss Gilder addressed me in a handwriting which to any expert would reveal some originality, more pride, still more conscientiousness, any amount of self-will and singularly little conceit. An odd combination, but the gilded rose is that. She went on. You asked me to write to you while you were away and tell you the news and what I thought about things. But I'm thinking so much and so fast that I can't sort out my thoughts. I suppose it must be so with everyone who comes to Egypt for the first time. Everything fascinates and absorbs me even more than I had hoped it would. Almost too much, I feel sometimes. Your Anton Effendi is a very good guide, and I am not sorry that we have him except once in a while. And now and then I'm glad. We are proud of his looks when we go about, for everyone stares at him and envies us for having him to take us about instead of being condemned to a mere dregelman. Oh, talking of dregelman, you see I will call them that. We still have better, though I know you thought we ought to give him up, and I don't see how we are ever to discharge him now, for he has attached himself to Rachel, Gee, in the most wonderful way. It is pathetic. It began with a talk they had the day you left about his having been in America and about religion. She found him half inclined to be converted, and, of course, her goodness and unselfishness made her long to snatch him like a brand from the burning. He thinks no one ever talks so wonderfully about religion as she does, which she, dear thing, attributes to the fact that she taught Sunday school in Salem. She says if she can have him to work upon, even for a few weeks, she is sure to make him a convert. We haven't wasted a minute since she went away, but have seen sights from morning till night, so as not to have missed anything when we leave Cairo on the enchantress Isis. I hope you'll be pleased that I've given up my dream of having a private Dahabia, and that we shall be with you on Sir Marcus Lark's boat. She really is a beauty. Antoon took us over her, and on board we met Sir Marcus, who was showing some friends round. Antoon introduced him to us. I think Sir M. asked him to do it. We had great fun, for Sir Marcus seemed to take the most violent fancy to Aunt Clara, who didn't like him at all. She says now that she believes when she was Cleopatra he was Caesar, and that it's a pity he can't wear a wreath to hide his baldness, as she remembers his doing then. It's only a very little bald spot, really, and Rachel Guest says it reminds her of a tonsher on the head of a fine-looking monk. Aunt C. quite resents Sir Marcus being able to engage the services of you and Antoon. She wants you both to be there, but she doesn't like Sir M. to have a superior position to Antoon's. That day, on the enchantress Isis, Sir M. invited us to have tea on the deck, and it really was enchanting. A deck like a huge open-air drawing room, or one of our biggest verandahs at Newport, or somewhere, with jolly green wicker chairs and tables and sofas with heaps of cushions. But I forgot, you've seen the boat. The best rooms were engaged, but when we talked to Sir Marcus he called a man who can speak many languages and bits, broken English, cracked German, fractured French, and goodness knows what all. Between them they arranged it somehow that we should have our choice, and the other people were to take what was left. I would have refused, because it didn't seem fair, but it was for Aunt Clara's sake, evidently, that Sir M. wanted to make the exchange, and she accepted. She was as haughty as a queen, but in a rather fascinating, soft way that I think men like, and she was looking beautiful. So is Rachel, as even Biddy admits. I do believe Rachel looks younger than I do, in some new dresses and hats she has. I never noticed before, but I fancy now that we're rather alike. I'm so delighted to see her enjoying herself so much, for you know she's wonderful. Think what courage it must have taken to break with her tiresome old life, because she felt she must see the glory of the world, when a tiny legacy gave her the chance she'd longed for. She wouldn't have had a penny left after she'd finished her trip, if Aunt C. and I hadn't been able to help her out. It's a privilege to do anything for such a brave creature, and I can't bear to think of her having to go back when this is over to the dull round. Perhaps some way out will be found for her. I've fallen in love with Cairo, although or perhaps because I still feel as if I were moving in a marvelous picture. Anton does make it live for us. I will say that for him, though he can be so annoying that at times he spoils everything, and makes me wish you'd won my hat instead of my winning his green turban. I'm dying to find out how you got it, but of course I can't ask him. It would be an infradig. You must tell me when you come. I think the one he wears now is handsomer, though. I wish I could change it for mine. We've been to heaps of mosques, and I can't help wishing we were the only tourists in Cairo. Of course this is a selfish wish, and, as Dear Biddy says, it's quite funny to think how each tourist feels that he is the only spiritually-minded, imaginative person travelling, that he alone has the right to be in Egypt, that all the others are offensive, vulgar creatures who desecrate the beautiful places with their presence. But really, you know, it gets on one's nerves, meeting droves of silly men in pith helmets with little white Lamberkins looped up, when it would be so much more appropriate to wear the kind of hats they have at home. And some of the women are weird. They have the queerest ideas of what is suitable for Egypt. One friend of betters refused to go about and be seen with the ladies who'd engaged him, as he was the smartest dregelman in Cairo and had his reputation to keep up. Don't you like that? Even Anton laughed, which he hardly ever does. He's so dignified I wish his turban would blow off or something. I wonder how he'd look without it, and if most of the charm would be gone. Almost, I hope so. One doesn't like to catch one's self-feeling toward an Egyptian, even for a minute, as one does towards men of one's own blood, I mean on the same level, or even as if a person like that were above one. It's just the picturesque dignity of the costume and the pose, perhaps. And then this strange glamour of east is over everybody and everything here. I used to wonder why people wrote and spoke of the east as mysterious. Why should it be more mysterious than the west, I would ask. Nobody could explain exactly. They only said, it is. Now I know why. At least I feel why. Without his green turban, or in a European coat instead of his graceful silk robe, and away from these luminous sunsets of pale rose and golden emerald, Anton would be nothing extraordinary, would he? He says he is considered old fashioned in his way of dress. Most of his friends wear European clothes, and the tarbouche which Egyptians love because it never blows away or falls off when they pray. He does make me angry because he wants to banish the beggars and poor men who sell things in the street, instead of letting me give and buy. What am I for with all my money except to do things for people? And it's such fun making them happy by saying, I want a cat necklace, or a scarab, or whatever they have, instead of pushing past with a stony glare as if they were dust under our feet. Of course we're attended by great crowds wherever we go, because it's got round that we don't refuse anyone. Consequently it takes a little long to arrive anywhere. But what does that matter in Egypt? Already I'm losing my American hustle. I want to eat lotuses, which seem out of season in Egypt now. I've asked for them everywhere but can't get them. I want to feel back in the Middle Ages in Cairo, which, as Antoine says, is an Oriental and a medieval gateway to Egypt older than history. And how am I looking forward to the desert? Sir Marcus tells us that you are to take the people of the Candice for a desert trip before they go up the Nile. So of course you must count us among your trippers, and Mr. Willis and Mr. Sheridan, who have settled to go on the Isis. You didn't mention the desert plan before you went away. No news of that poor, beautiful child, Richard Bay's wife, though I've written twice. I'm worried about her. Mabel, she used to be. Now she's ma bella hanim. Biddy says you'll arrive for the ball tomorrow night. But somehow I don't feel you will. I don't know why you should. Men don't care for such things much. And of course I shall not dance, as I'm still in half-morning. I shall only look on, and then Rachel and I have an amusing plan for the end of the evening. But even if you came, we couldn't let you in on the secret, as you would think it's silly. Yours sincerely, Rosamond Gilder. Mine sincerely, Rosamond Gilder. So she ended her letter with youthful and characteristic dignity, childlessly unaware, apparently, that there was more to read between the lines than in the lines themselves. Had I read this Rosamond letter first, the last four or five sentences would have meant little for me. As it was, I would have given a month out of my future for the gift of an astral body which could go this minute to the ball at the Gesera Palace. I was lost in the mystery of that amusing plan. In Anthony's letter lay the last hope of a clue. But in it there was none. He did not even mention Manny's name. It was all about that desert trip which, from her, I hadn't taken seriously. Sir Marcus was actually planning it. Kruger had written that some of the passengers were clamoring for a few days' camping, and the idea was to send them off in my care after three days in Cairo, while the others remained in charge of Antoon, who wasn't yet ready to leave. Fenton said, Somebody's trying to defeat my scheme for getting the Shakespeare's tomb moved. I don't know who it is yet. Meanwhile my time and my head are so full that in the few hours of the night I put aside for sleep I dream queerer dreams than the visits of ghostly shakes. Aproposive dreams, do you know by chance a man who answers this description? Elderly, stoutish, red face, gray hair, black mustache, pale eyes with a sharp look in them? Sounds commonplace doesn't it? But I have a recurring dream of such a man whose face I never saw elsewhere. For the last three nights, as soon as I shut my eyes, he comes. He seems to interrupt some scene between you and Lark and myself, and I see him looking over Lark's shoulder. Then he turns quickly away and tiptoes off to a very low closed door in a deep recess. There he disappears into shadow, and I wake up with a jump or slide off into another dream. But generally this rouses me, for there's an impression of something stealthy in the shadow round the door. That so ordinary a type of person should be in a dream. You'll laugh at my asking if you've ever known such a man, and say that I'm back at my old tricks again as a dreamer of dreams. Never mind, I scored dreaming of our mountain of the golden pyramid the night before I got your letter with Ferlini's papers. I can't help feeling that there may be something in dreams, in mine anyhow, though I never have any except in Egypt. This one about the red-faced man and the closed door in the deep recess is getting a bit on my nerves. Excited as I was over the patchwork of news, I laughed scornfully at Anthony's dream. For the man he described might be Colonel Corcoran. End of Chapter 9 CHAPTER TEN 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 TEN THE SECRET MONNY KEPT. Cairo at last. My watch said that the journey took only three hours but my nerves said six. I had telegraphed Biddy first thing in the morning the hour of my arrival with the Candace crowd, and I half expected to see her at the big red and white station, but there was no familiar form in the throng, the gay throng which excited my charges. Everything interested them, the black face of the Sudanese engine driver who looked down from his huge British locomotive, the display of English, French, and German literature mingled with Greek, Italian, Arab, or Turkish papers on the bookstall, the ebony and copper-colored luggage carriers who seemed eager to take one another's lives, but in reality desired no more than to snatch each other's jobs under the eyes of the uniformed hotel porters. To me the busy place was a desert lacking one face. Even outside the station yard and in the streets and squares where silent camels looked their contempt of electric trams, soldiers in khaki uniforms jostled bedowens in khaki robes, and drivers of Arabias made the way one long procession of shrieks. I still glanced at passing carriages in hopes of a belated bitty. All in vain, and destitute of news I resigned myself to the task of piloting the set out to Mina House. The moon would be full that night, and it's the thing to be a neighbor of the Sphinx while the moon feeds her with honey. The flock, under the guidance of Mr. Watts, had now definitely parted from the set, chieftain'd by me. They went meekly off to the cheaper hotels where they would live before boarding the Candice again for Palestine, and Colonel Corcoran, who was supposed to have joined that party, announced that he was bound for a long talk with Mark the Lark. Mr. Watts, refused by Enid Biddle and separated from her, had relapsed into melancholia. He had ceased to brilliantene his once sleek hair, and dust and crumbs were allowed to collect in each fold of his clerical waistcoat. As we of the set buzzed richly away in taxicabs, I saw him in a shabby arabia between two old ladies, gazing wistfully after us. He was envying me, Enid. It is a wonderful drive through Cairo to the pyramids, whether you spin out there in a motor, or trot on a donkey, or lilt on a camel, squatting cross-legged on a load of green bear sim. Past the great swinging bridge, and the island of Gesara, the word that in itself means island, begins the six-mile dyke in which the road is made by Ismail to please the empress Eugenie. Since her visit in the days when the Suez canal was opened, it has pleased two empresses and more queens than I have time to count. Under the deep shade of lebic trees it goes on and on toward the pyramids, a dark, cool avenue high above cultivated fields flooded by the Nile when the river is up. The emerald waves of grain flow like green water to the foot of the broad dyke-road, and canals like long, tight-drawn blue ribbons are threaded through it, their ends lost to sight at the shimmering horizon. Even at this noon hour when the world should have been eating lotuses or luncheon, the interminable arbor was crowded with strings of camels, forever going both ways into Cairo and out, one wondered why, and there were flocks of woolly brown sheep and donkeys drawing sideless carts in which whole families of veiled women and half-naked children were seated tailor-fashioned. On we spun past the zoo, past scattered villas of frenchified oriental fashion which might have been designed by a confectioner, past azure lakes left by the ebbing Nile and so into sudden dazzling sight of three geometric mountains in a tawny desert, two monsters in size and one a baby trying to catch up with them. Oh, everybody breathed, for these things were beyond words. Then in a moment more the great pyramid had grown so big that it loomed over us and ate up half the sky, a pyre of yellow flame against a flame of blue. We were at the end of the shadowy road that leads like a causeway to the desert and on the verge of the golden, billowing sea which flows round the pyramids and engulfs the distant sphinx. Oriental life encircled us in the foreground of the picture, a long row of wading camels gaily saddled and tassled, delicately nibbling, bursam green as heaped emeralds, donkeys white and gray, bereaved and beaded, small yellow sand carts, little white desert horses and tall brown desert men, camels snarling, donkey spraying, horses winneying, and men touting. Very nice sand carts, very nice camels. Take ladies and gentlemen quick to pyramids and sphinx or petrified forest. Farther on, the big modern hotel, rather like an overgrown Swiss chalet built by Arabs, a vast confused building, the color of sand or brown heather honey, with carved musher bee-a-work lending an eastern charm to windows, balconies and logeas, and enough green flowery garden to give a sensational effect of contrast with the tidal wave of the desert poised ready it would seem to overwhelm palms and roses. Clustered near, the tiny mushroom village which huddles under the shelter of Kayop's pyramid, beyond the immense upward sweep of golden dunes, culminating in the great pyramid itself. I stayed in the picture only long enough to settle my big children into their quarters and to see most of them making for the dining room, agreeably oriental with its white and red walls, its dome and windows of musher bee-a-work. Then I darted back to Cairo in a taxi driven by a newbie in youth, so black that he was almost blue like a whortleberry. He wore a scarlet tourbouche, a livery of violet, and the holes for silver rings and the tops of his ears were so large that the light shining through gave the effect of inserted diamonds. Unconsciously he made a nice contrast with his modern motor. He drove with such reckless speed that it camels rubber-neck to look at us, and whirled me past the fat black gatekeeper into the gezeria palace-garden of scarlet paths, moon-like lamps, cedivial statues, and spreading banyans where each tree continued itself in its own next slumber, like an endless serial romance. I nearly asked for Mrs. O'Brien, but turned her into Jones at the danger-point. The face of the concierge, as he said that she was at home, conveyed nothing. Yet I could not resist adding, are the ladies well? Mrs. East is not very well today, he replied. We have had the doctor, but the young ladies have been outspending the night with friends, I believe. They have not yet returned. It was a long five minutes before Biddy and I were wildly shaking hands in a huge private sitting-room, all red and gold brocade and crystal chandeliers, as it had been in the days of Ishmael. I knew I should be delighted to see her, but I didn't realize that it was going to be quite as good as it was. Anyhow, you're all right and safe, I heard myself blurt out. I'm safe, but not all right, she reproached me. My messenger, who went to the train, didn't find you from my description, I know, because he came back with my note. Too flattering was your description, or the other way, I asked, trying to bore you up with frivolity. You wouldn't joke if you'd read the note. Oh, Ernest, Manny and Rachel have disappeared. Good gracious! But Anthony—he went to look for them, of course, and he's disappeared too. By Jove, the exclamation sounded inadequate, but I was so taken aback that I had nothing else to say. It seemed impossible that Anthony, instead of averting danger, could be involved in it himself. It was unlike his resourcefulness. I could not believe it of him, and so, when I had time to control mind and tongue, I said as much to Biddy. Yes, I felt like that, too, at first, she admitted. He gives one the impression of being so infallible in any emergency, somehow, as if he'd be above it and look down on it from his height. But it's more than twelve hours since he went, and he promised to send me word how things were going on if he couldn't get to me himself. No word has come. What have you done? I asked. Have you communicated with the police? Sir Marcus Lark has. He was at the ball and has been very good. But it's for Mrs. East's sake, mostly. One feels he's glad it happened, to give him the chance to win her gratitude or something. He's been back and forth all day, and I'm expecting him any minute. Mrs. East has been fainting and hysterical and everything early Edwardian, so I sent for a doctor. But she's better on the strength of Saul Balotille and Eggnog, and she's promised to cease Sir Marcus. Now, tell me what happened from the beginning, I said, when I had made Biddy sit down by me on the sofa, and was trying to warm a cold little hand in mind. What it all amounted to, told disjointedly, was this. Since Manny had had an inspiration, the day after our arrival in Cairo, to give Rachel Guest a lot of her new unworn clothes, Rachel had become quite girlish and flighty. She had lost her Puritan primness, and behaved more in accordance with her slanting eyes than with her bringing up. She giggled like a schoolgirl rather than a schoolmistress, tried to make herself look young, and copied Manny in the way she tilted her hat and dressed her hair. No harm in this, but it had seemed to Biddy that Rachel deliberately incited the girl to do things which Antune disapproved. Bridgett fancied that Bidder's influence had been at work, for knowing, as he did, that Antune would gladly give him marching orders, he took pleasure in thwarting his superior when he could do so with safety. Bidder had been clever in enlisting the girl's sympathy for his soul. As for Biddy, she had disliked him from the first, and imagined that he had tacked himself onto our party as a spy, upon the receipt of orders from America, he having learned most of his English there. The idea appeared so far-fetched that she had abandoned it. Now, however, it was again hovering at the back of her mind. Bidder had told Rachel's stories of the fascination of Hashish-smoking, and had said that no stranger knew Cairo, who did not visit one of the best houses where Hashish, though forbidden, was still secretly smoked. He had assured her that there were several which were perfectly respectable, even for the nicest ladies and gentlemen, and Rachel, probably at his suggestion, had tried to persuade Monty to make the expedition. Monty had mentioned it to Antune in the presence of everybody, and, as Rachel and Bidder had looked guilty, Biddy guessed that they had wished to keep the plan a secret. Antune had perhaps too brusquely vetoed the idea. He said that there were no such houses which could be visited by ladies, and that it was absurd to think of going. That word absurd stung Monty. She began to protest that Bidder knew Cairo as well as Antune did, and it was as likely to be right. I don't see why we shouldn't go, if others do, she persisted, and I've always longed to know what a Hashish dream was like, ever since I read De Quincey. A little just once could do us no harm, and Rachel says—but what Rachel had said was evidently not for publication. Missed-guess stopped her with a hand on hers, and a dear Monty, please don't let us think of it any more, if Antune offending disapproves. Maybe it was a silly idea, and we've plenty of amusing things to do every minute. Monty was apparently contented to let the idea slip, and Bridget had thought that, in the excitement of getting ready for the ball, she and Rachel had really forgotten it. Then, before writing me, she had overheard Rachel say to her friend, It's for twelve o'clock sharp, and Monty had answered, Won't it be great? Just better think, but she had stopped short at side of Bridget. Even this did not suggest to Biddy a visit to a Hashish den, for various other plans had been broached and discussed by Antune. She did not feel that, as she was not supposed to know his real status, she could go blabbing to him, and fearing that mischief was on foot she had wished for me. When I didn't arrive she soothed herself by reflecting that, after all, she need only keep a sharp watch over Monty when midnight drew near. None of the party intended to dance, and so it would be easy, Bridget thought, to have an eye upon the girls. Monty had brought oriental costumes for herself and Rachel. They were rather conspicuous, luckily for Biddy's plan, for among the many gorgeous dresses in the casino she had no difficulty in tracking those two. Until half past eleven she told herself she need not be on the alert every instant, but therein had lain her mistake. Sir Marcus Larkin appeared, dressed more or less as a Roman officer of the Occupation days, he having heard Mrs. East remark that whatever anybody said it was her favorite period. The lady, of course, had not missed such an opportunity to appear as Cleopatra. She had brought a costume with her from New York, and while Biddy lost herself in watching the effect of this magnificence on Sir Marcus, the girls vanished. Without alarming Mrs. East, Bridget had begun to search. She asked everybody she knew in the ballroom if the girls had gone out, and inquired in the cloak room, but the two had been seen by nobody. It was as if they had melded into air, and Bridget began to suspect that they must have covered up their brilliant dresses with dominoes smuggled into the casino. Willis Bailey was at the ball, but he had developed a flirtation with Miss Guest, and Biddy felt that he was not to be trusted as a confidant. Perhaps, too, he had helped the girls to disappear. It seemed cruel to frighten Mrs. East when the scheme, whatever it was, might be no more than an innocent freak, so Biddy said nothing to Queen Cleopatra or her Roman attendant. She slipped across the garden to the hotel and sent an Arab messenger off in a taxi with a note to the address Antune had told her would find him. In less than an hour he had arrived, and when he had listened to her account of what had happened, he said after a minute's reflection that the ladies had almost surely gone with Biddy to some hashish din or a place masquerading as such. Antune consoled Biddy as well as he could by saying that no harm would come to Miss Gilder or Miss Guest. Biddy would know only too well on which side his bread was buttered to take its clients where insult or danger could reach them. Off Antune went to look for the missing ones, though, and assured Biddy that she should have news as soon as possible. It was not till three o'clock that she had begun to be very anxious, and had disturbed the harmony of Sir Marcus Lark's duet with Mrs. East. Even then she would not have spoken had she not feared that the ball would break up and there would be no man to appeal to. Sir Marcus had been inclined to smile at the notion of danger, but he, like Antune Fenton, was ignorant of any private qualms which troubled Bridget O'Brien. She could not tell him who she was, and that she considered herself far from being a mascot to her fellow-travelers. If she had told and added that she feared enemies who might for certain reasons make a mistake in Monty's identity, he would have laughed his hearty laugh, and said that such melodramatic things didn't happen even in Egypt. But you know, Biddy appealed to me, that melodramatic things have happened to me and those near me. I'm not even sure that poor Richard's death was natural, though I watched over him like a hawk in those dreadful days when he was fearing every shadow, and we were flitting, from pillar to post, with Esme. Through Richard two men were electrocuted. He used to get threatening letters forwarded from place to place, always signed with the same initials, and he wouldn't tell me what they meant. It was because of them that he hid Esme in a convent school before he died, for she was threatened as well as he. I, too, for the matter of that. Not that the child or I had done the organization any harm, but Esme is of his blood and they may have thought I had more of their secrets than I really have. I've not used the name of O'Brien for years now, and I've moved about so much that sometimes I have felt I must be safe. Still, I ought perhaps not to have gone to visit Esme, though she wrote and begged me to, for special reasons I needn't bother you with. A curious little love romance which I fear must end badly. I didn't think of danger to Manny, but you see, as I told you, the convent isn't far from Monaco. I got off the Laconia there to visit Esme, and when I came on board again, Manny and Mrs. East and Rachel came with me. They'd been in Italy and France, and had picked up Mrs. Guest, who was only too enchanted to batten on Manny's kindness and dollars. It was I who had engaged their staterooms on a cable from Manny long before, and if there were a spy somewhere he might have the idea that I wanted to smuggle Esme out of her convent by a trick. And—but almost everyone must know Miss Gilder's face from her photographs and newspapers I broke in on a stifled sob of bitties. She couldn't be mistaken for another girl, as an unimportant young person might. I'm not sure. Those photographs were snapshots and very bad, as you must know if you've ever seen any. Manny never gave a portrait of herself to a newspaper, and its years since they got hold of a good one. Besides, if she weren't mistaken for Esme O'Brien, that wretched bettor might have made up the plot to have her kidnapped for ransom. It was the thing Manny's father was always afraid of—absurdly afraid of, I used to think. I think so still, I said. Such things don't happen anywhere to a grown-up girl. What about Reisily in Tangier? Biddy challenged me. He used to kidnap people whenever he liked, and so do lots of brigands. We have it to do with brigands. Oh, what's in a name, and I wouldn't put anything past that horrid bettor. As Anthony said to you, he knows which side his breads buttered. But if he hopes someone will give him more butter for being wicked than he can get from us for being good— Let's not think of far-fetched contingencies, dear, said I. Now you've told me all. I will try to do something. May I come in? Boomed a big voice at the door. I knocked and nobody answered, so I thought the room would be empty. Biddy dropped my hand like a hot potato. She had jumped up so quickly from our sofa that Sir Marcus Lark's observant eyes could hardly have seen us sitting there together. Of course, come in, she said. Have you anything to tell? But I'll call Mrs. East. She won't like you to begin without her. Biddy darted off to an adjoining room, leaving me alone with my employer. What do you think of this affair, I wanted to know. Well, said he, I can only judge other men by myself. If I had such a chance to appear a hero in the eyes of a pretty woman as Fenton has, I'm afraid I'd be tempted to take advantage of it, even if I had to play some trick to make myself indispensable. Now you can see in a nutshell what I think. Captain Fenton will certainly rescue those young ladies from a trap if he has to make the trap himself. I was disgusted and shrugged my shoulders. You have a poor opinion of Fenton, I said. On the contrary, I think very highly of his opinions. I'm not worrying about any one of the three, though don't mention it to Mrs. East or Mrs. Jones that I said so. I've come to tell them that my men have searched Cairo and found nothing. Not the police, you know, I haven't applied to the police after all. I thought Fenton would be furious. And anyhow it might make talk. But I've paid the best Drago-mans in town to look sharp, and they know as much about this old place as the police do, if not more. By the way, Lord Ernest, did Corcoran say anything to you about an intention to throw over his job on the Candice? No. He said he was going to call on you, that's all. He did call. I was out on this business as it happens. He waited, and I found him making himself at home in my sitting-room, which I used as a kind of office. I wish I knew how many of my letters and papers he'd had time to read. Surely he wouldn't. I shouldn't say surely was the word. I'd gone out in a hurry and left things scattered about, which isn't my habit. When I came back it struck me that my desk looked a bit tempting for a man with a retired conscience. I was going to keep him on the Candice rather than fuss because it wasn't so much his fault as mine that he was the wrong man in the place. He couldn't do any harm in Jerusalem, it seemed. Let him wail in the Jew's wailing place, if he'd any complaints, I said to myself. I thought he was too keen on money to resign because his silly pride was hurt. But to my surprise he informed me that he'd come to hand in his papers, as he called it. So much the worse for his pocket and the better for mine. Only it struck me as damned queer considering Corcoran's character. I wanted to ask if he'd spit out any venom to you. Not a drop, said I, but I too thought it queer considering Corcoran's character and the fact that having resigned of his own free will he could hardly expect Lark to pay his way home. It even occurred to me to wonder if the resignation were not a sudden thought of the colonels. He had spoken several times of going on to Palestine and had mentioned the trip that morning. Had Sir Marcus said something inadvertently which had so peaked Corcoran that he threw over his appointment on the impulse? Or had he perhaps been dishonorable enough to glance at a letter in which Lark referred to him in terms uncomplementary? As I asked myself these questions Mrs. East came in with Bridget and Sir Marcus forgot me. His face said, What a woman! An anxiety was becoming to Cleopatra. It gave her that thrilling look which only beautiful juicies or women of Latin race ever wear, a look of all the tragedy and mystery of womanhood since Eve. What news of them, she asked Sir Marcus, when she had given a ringed hand and an almond-eyed glance to me. No news exactly, said the big man, but I feel sure your niece and her friend are safe. My niece and her friend, explained to Cleopatra, and gratefully frowning. Why do you say nothing of Antune? Does nobody care what becomes of him? As she spoke there was a knock at the door. One of the Arab servants of the hotel announced that a man had a letter for Mrs. Jones. Mrs. Jones cried bitty, I am Mrs. Jones. Where is the letter? That man not give it to us. He say he see you or not give it at all. Well, why didn't you send him up? Arab man's not let in hotel if peoples don't ask for them. In Arab, not—not—is he a stranger? Yes, Mrs., very low man, never come to before. Bring him here, quick! Five minutes passed. We tried to talk, but could think of nothing to say. Then the servant returned, ushering in a dwarvish Arab in a dirty white turban, and the shabby black Galabia worn only by the poor who cannot afford good materials and the bright colors loved by Egyptians. From Antune Effendi asked Bitty in excitement as he held out a piece of folded paper, not in an envelope. The man shook his head. He speak no English, explained the servant who waited. You talk to him, Bitty appealed to me, while Cleopatra told the hotel footmen that he might go. But I had no time to question the messenger. Bitty cried out as she unfolded the paper. Why, duffer, inside its address to you, it says, for Lord Ernest Borough to be opened by Mrs. Jones in his absence. Then the outer wrapping was a second-folded paper of the same kind. They looked like sheets torn from a notebook, and I saw that the address, scrawled in pencil, was in Anthony's handwriting.