Donovan Pasha, and Some People of Egypt Part 27

"He can levy taxes, of course."

"But he will not-for himself."

"I will give him twenty thousand pounds, if he will take it."

"You--you!--will give him--" Her eyes swam with pleasure. "Ah, that is n.o.ble! That makes wealth a glory, to give it to those who need it. To save those who are down-trodden, to help those who labour for the good of the world, to--" she stopped short, for all at once she remembered-remembered whence his money came. Her face suffused. She turned to the door. Confusion overmastered her for the moment. Then, anger at herself possessed her. On what enterprise was she now embarked?

Where was her conscience? For what was she doing all this? What was the true meaning of her actions? Had it been to circ.u.mvent the Khedive? To prevent him from doing an unjust, a despicable, and a dreadful thing?

Was it only to help the Soudan? Was it but to serve a high ideal, through an ideal life--through Gordon?

It came upon her with embarra.s.sing force. For none of these things was she striving. She was doing all for this man, against whose influence she had laboured, whom she had bitterly condemned, and whose fortune she had called blood-money and worse. And now...

She knew the truth, and it filled her heart with joy and also pain. Then she caught at a straw: he was no slave-driver now. He had--

"May I not help you--go with you to England?" he questioned over her shoulder.

"Like Alexander Selkirk 'I shall finish my journey alone,'" she said, with sudden but imperfectly a.s.sumed acerbity.

"Will you not help me, then?" he asked. "We could write a book together."

"Oh, a book!" she said.

"A book of life," he whispered.

"No, no, no--can't you see?--oh, you are playing me like a ball!"

"Only to catch you," he said, in a happier tone.

"To jest, when I am so unhappy!" she murmured.

"My jest is the true word."

She made a last rally. "Your fortune was made out of slave labour."

"I have given up the slaves."

"You have the fortune."

"I will give it all to you--to have your will with it. Now it is won, I would give it up and a hundred times as much to hear you say, 'Come to Skaw Fell again."'

Did he really mean it? She thought he did. And it seemed the only way out of the difficulty. It broke the impa.s.se.

It was not necessary, however, to spend the future in the way first suggested to her mind. They discussed all that at Skaw Fell months later.

Human nature is weak and she has become a slavedriver, after all. But he is her only slave, and he hugs his bondage.

A YOUNG LION OF DEDAN

Looking from the minaret the Two could see, far off, the Pyramids of Ghizeh and Sakkara, the wells of Helouan, the Mokattam Hills, the tombs of the Caliphs, the Khedive's palace at distant Abbasiyeh. Nearer by, the life of the city was spread out. Little green oases of palms emerged from the noisy desert of white stone and plaster. The roofs of the houses, turned into gardens and promenades, made of the huge superficial city one broken irregular pavement. Minarets of mosques stood up like giant lamp-posts along these vast, meandering streets. Shiftless housewives lolled with unkempt hair on the housetops; women of the harem looked out of the little mushrabieh panels in the clattering, narrow bazaars.

Just at their feet was a mosque--one of the thousand nameless mosques of Cairo. It was the season of Ramadan, and a Friday, the Sunday of the Mahommedan--the Ghimah.

The "Two" were Donovan Pasha, then English Secretary to the Khedive, generally known as "Little d.i.c.ky Donovan," and Captain Renshaw, of the American Consulate. There was no man in Egypt of so much importance as Donovan Pasha. It was an importance which could neither be bought nor sold.

Presently d.i.c.ky touched the arm of his companion. "There it comes!" he said.

His friend followed the nod of d.i.c.ky's head, and saw, pa.s.sing slowly through a street below, a funeral procession. Near a hundred blind men preceded the bier, chanting the death-phrases. The bier was covered by a faded Persian shawl, and it was carried by the poorest of the fellaheen, though in the crowd following were many richly attired merchants of the bazaars. On a cart laden with bread and rice two fellaheen stood and handed, or tossed out, food to the crowd--token of a death in high places. Vast numbers of people rambled behind chanting, and a few women, near the bier, tore their garments, put dust on their heads, and kept crying: "Salem ala ahali!--Remember us to our friends!"

Walking immediately behind the bier was one conspicuous figure, and there was a s.p.a.ce around him which none invaded. He was dressed in white, like an Arabian Mahommedan, and he wore the green turban of one who has been the pilgrimage to Mecca.

At sight of him d.i.c.ky straightened himself with a little jerk, and his tongue clicked with satisfaction. "Isn't he, though--isn't he?" he said, after a moment. His lips, pressed together, curled in with a trick they had when he was thinking hard, planning things.

The other forbore to question. The notable figure had instantly arrested his attention, and held it until it pa.s.sed from view.

"Isn't he, though, Yankee?" d.i.c.ky repeated, and pressed a knuckle into the other's waistcoat.

"Isn't he what?"

"Isn't he bully--in your own language?"

"In figure; but I couldn't see his face distinctly."

"You'll see that presently. You could cut a whole Egyptian Ministry out of that face, and have enough left for an American president or the head of the Salvation Army. In all the years I've spent here I've never seen one that could compare with him in nature, character, and force. A few like him in Egypt, and there'd be no need for the money-barbers of Europe."

"He seems an ooster here--you know him?"

"Do I!" d.i.c.ky paused and squinted up at the tall Southerner. "What do you suppose I brought you out from your Consulate for to see--the view from Ebn Mahmoud? And you call yourself a cute Yankee?"

"I'm no more a Yankee than you are, as I've told you before," answered the American with a touch of impatience, yet smilingly. "I'm from South Carolina, the first State that seceded."

"Anyhow, I'm going to call you Yankee, to keep you nicely disguised.

This is the land of disguises."

"Then we did not come out to see the view?" the other drawled. There was a quickening of the eye, a drooping of the lid, which betrayed a sudden interest, a sense of adventure.

d.i.c.ky laid his head back and laughed noiselessly. "My dear Renshaw, with all Europe worrying Ismail, with France in the butler's pantry and England at the front door, do the bowab and the sarraf go out to take air on the housetops, and watch the sun set on the Pyramids and make a rainbow of the desert? I am the bowab and the sarraf, the man-of-all-work, the Jack-of-all-trades, the 'confidential' to the Oriental spendthrift. Am I a dog to bay the moon--have I the soul of a tourist from Liverpool or Poughkeepsie?"

The lanky Southerner gripped his arm. "There's a hunting song of the South," he said, "and the last line is, 'The hound that never tires.'

You are that, Donovan Pasha--"

"I am 'little d.i.c.ky Donovan,' so they say," interrupted the other.

"You are the weight that steadies things in this shaky Egypt. You are you, and you've brought me out here because there's work of some kind to do, and because--"

"And because you're an American, and we speak the same language."

"And our Consulate is all right, if needed, whatever it is. You've played a square game in Egypt. You're the only man in office who hasn't got rich out of her, and--"