Donovan Pasha, and Some People of Egypt Part 20

"You scarcely looked to see me here, Lady May?" Her voice trembled with pleasure. "No, of course. When did you come, Lord Selden?... Won't you sit down?"

That high green terrace of c.u.mberland, the mist on Skaw Fell, the sun out over the sea, they were in her eyes. So much water had gone under the bridges since!

"I was such a young girl then--in short frocks--it was a long time ago, I fear," she added, as if in continuation of the thought flashing through her mind. "Let me see," she went on fearlessly; "I am thirty; that was thirteen years ago."

"I am thirty-seven, and still it is thirteen years ago."

"You look older, when you don't smile," she added, and glanced at his grey hair.

He laughed now. She was far, far franker than she was those many years ago, and it was very agreeable and refreshing. "Donovan, there, reproved me last night for frivolity," he said.

"If Donovan Pasha has become grave, then there is hope for Egypt," she said, turning to d.i.c.ky with a new brightness.

"When there's hope for Egypt, I'll have lost my situation, and there'll be reason for drawing a long face," said d.i.c.ky, and got the two at such an angle that he could watch them to advantage. "I thrive while it's opera boufe. Give us the legitimate drama, and I go with Ismail."

The lady shrank a little. "If it weren't you, Donovan Pasha, I should say that, a.s.sociated with Ismail, as you are, you are as criminal as he."

"What is crime in one country, is virtue in another," answered d.i.c.ky. "I clamp the wheel sometimes to keep it from spinning too fast. That's my only duty. I am neither Don Quixote nor Alexander Imperator."

She thought he was referring obliquely to the corvee and the other thing in which her life-work was involved. She became severe. "It is compromising with evil," she said.

"No. It's getting a breakfast-roll instead of the whole bakery," he answered.

"What do you think?" she exclaimed, turning to Kingsley.

"I think there's one man in Egypt who keeps the boiler from bursting,"

he answered.

"Oh, don't think I undervalue his Excellency here," she said with a little laugh. "It is because he is strong, because he matters so much, that one feels he could do more. Ismail thinks there is no one like him in the world."

"Except Gordon," interrupted Kingsley.

"Except Gordon, of course; only Gordon isn't in Egypt. And he would do no good in Egypt. The officials would block his way. It is only in the Soudan that he could have a free hand, be of real use. There, a man, a real man, like Gordon, could show the world how civilisation can be accepted by desert races, despite a crude and cruel religion and low standards of morality."

"All races have their social codes--what they call civilisation,"

rejoined Kingsley. "It takes a long time to get custom out of the blood, especially when it is part of the religion. I'm afraid that expediency isn't the motto of those who try to civilise the Orient and the East."

"I believe in struggling openly for principle," she observed a little acidly.

"Have you succeeded?" he asked, trying to keep his gravity. "How about your own household, for instance? Have you Christianised and civilised your people--your n.i.g.g.e.rs, and the others?"

She flushed indignantly, but held herself in control. She rang a bell.

"I have no 'n.i.g.g.e.rs,'" she answered quietly. "I have some Berberine servants, two fellah boatmen, an Egyptian gardener, an Arab cook, and a Circa.s.sian maid. They are, I think, devoted to me."

A Berberine servant appeared. "Tea, Mahommed," she said. "And tell Madame that Donovan Pasha is here. My cousin admires his Excellency so much," she added to Kingsley, laughing. "I have never had any real trouble with them," she continued with a little gesture of pride towards the disappearing Berberine.

"There was the Armenian," put in d.i.c.ky slyly; "and the Copt sarraf. They were no credit to their Christian religion, were they?"

"That was not the fault of the religion, but of the generations of oppression--they lie as a child lies, to escape consequences. Had they not been oppressed they would have been good Christians in practice as in precept."

"They don't steal as a child steals," laughed d.i.c.ky.

"Armenians are Oriental through and through. They no more understand the Christian religion than the Soudanese understand freedom."

He touched the right note this time. Kingsley flashed a half-startled, half-humorous look at him; the face of the lady became set, her manner delicately frigid. She was about to make a quiet, severe reply, but something overcame her, and her eyes, her face, suddenly glowed. She leaned forward, her hands clasped tightly on her knees--Kingsley could not but note how beautiful and brown they were, capable, handsome, confident hands--and, in a voice thrilling with feeling, said:

"What is there in the life here that gets into the eyes of Europeans and blinds them? The United States spent scores of thousands of lives to free the African slave. England paid millions, and sacrificed ministries and men, to free the slave; and in England, you--you, Donovan Pasha, and men like you, would be in the van against slavery. Yet here, where England has more influence than any other nation--"

"More power, not influence," d.i.c.ky interrupted smiling.

"Here, you endure, you encourage, you approve of it. Here, an Englishman rules a city of slaves in the desert and grows rich out of their labour. What can we say to the rest of the world, while out there in the desert"--her eyes swept over the grey and violet hills--"that man, Kingsley Bey, sets at defiance his race, his country, civilisation, all those things in which he was educated? Egypt will not believe in English civilisation, Europe will not believe in her humanity and honesty, so long as he pursues his wicked course."

She turned with a gesture of impatience, and in silence began to pour the tea the servant had brought, with a message that Madame had a headache. Kingsley Bey was about to speak--it was so unfair to listen, and she would forgive this no more readily than she would forgive slavery. d.i.c.ky intervened, however.

"He isn't so black as he's painted, personally. He's a rash, inflammable sort of fellow, who has a way with the native--treats him well, too, I believe. Very flamboyant, doomed to failure, so far as his merit is concerned, but with an incredible luck. He gambled, and he lost a dozen times; and then gambled again, and won. That's the truth, I fancy. No real stuff in him whatever."

Their hostess put down her tea-cup, and looked at d.i.c.ky in blank surprise. Not a muscle in his face moved. She looked at Kingsley. He had difficulty in restraining himself, but by stooping to give her fox-terrier a piece of cake, he was able to conceal his consternation.

"I cannot--cannot believe it," she said slowly. "The British Consul does not speak of him like that."

"He is a cousin of the Consul," urged d.i.c.ky. "Cousin--what cousin? I never heard--he never told me that."

"Oh, n.o.body tells anything in Egypt, unless he's kourbashed or thumb-screwed. It's safer to tell nothing, you know."

"Cousin! I didn't know there were Kingsleys in that family. What reason could the Consul have for hiding the relationship?"

"Well, I don't know, you must ask Kingsley. Flamboyant and garrulous as he is, he probably won't tell you that."

"If I saw Kingsley Bey, I should ask him questions which interest me more. I should prefer, however, to ask them through a lawyer--to him in the prisoner's dock."

"You dislike him intensely?"

"I detest him for what he has done; but I do not despise him as you suggest I should. Flamboyant, garrulous--I don't believe that. I think him, feel him, to be a hard man, a strong man, and a bad man--if not wholly bad."

"Yet you would put him in the prisoner's dock," interposed Kingsley musingly, and wondering how he was to tell her that Lord Selden and Kingsley Bey were one and the same person.

"Certainly. A man who commits public wrongs should be punished. Yet I am sorry that a man so capable should be so inhuman."

"Your grandfather was inhuman," put in Kingsley. "He owned great West Indian slave properties.

"He was culpable, and should have been punished--and was; for we are all poor at last. The world has higher, better standards now, and we should live up to them. Kingsley Bey should live up to them."

"I suppose we might be able to punish him yet," said d.i.c.ky meditatively.

"If Ismail turned rusty, we could soon settle him, I fancy. Certainly, you present a strong case." He peered innocently into the distance.

"But could it be done--but would you?" she asked, suddenly leaning forward. "If you would, you could--you could!"

"If I did it at all, if I could make up my mind to it, it should be done thoroughly--no half measures."