Tales of Secret Egypt Part 2

"And if I decline?"

Ab Tabah shrugged his shoulders.

"The loss must be made known--it would be a great scandal; the merchant Ali Mohammed, and the woman, Shahmarah, must be arrested--very undesirable; _you_ must be arrested--most undesirable; and your banking account will be poorer by three hundred pounds."

"Frightfully undesirable," I declared. "But suppose I strike the first blow and give you in charge of the police here and now?"

"You may try the experiment," he said.

I waved my hand in the direction of the door (I had reasons for remaining in bed). "_Ma'salama!_ (Good-bye)," I said. "Don't stay to restore the room to order. I shall expect you early in the morning.

You will find the door of the hotel open any time after eight and I can highly recommend it as a mode of entrance."

Having saluted me with both hands, Ab Tabah made his stately departure, leaving me much exercised in mind as to how he proposed to account to the _bowwab_ for his sudden appearance in the building.

This, however, was no affair of mine, and, first reclosing the window, I unfastened from around my left ankle the sandalwood box and the ring which I had bound there by a piece of tape--a device to which I owed their preservation from the subtle fingers of Ab Tabah. Furthermore, to their presence there I owed my having awakened when I did. I am persuaded that the mysterious Egyptian's pa.s.ses would have continued to keep me in a profound sleep had it not been for the pain occasioned by the pressure of the tape.

Opening the sandalwood box, and then the silver one which it enclosed, I re-examined the really wonderful specimen of embroidery whereof they formed the reliquary. The _burko_ was of Tussur silk, its texture so fine that the whole veil, which was some four feet long by two wide, might have been pa.s.sed through the finger ring and would readily be concealed in the palm of the hand.

It was of unusual form, having no forehead band, more nearly resembling a _yashmak_ than a true _burko_, and was heavily embroidered with pearls of varying sizes and purity, although none of them were large. Its intrinsic value was considerable, but in view of its history such a valuation must have fallen far below the true one.

When its loss became known, I estimated that Messrs. Moses, Murphy & Co. could readily dispose of three duplicates through various channels to wealthy collectors whose enthusiasms were greater than their morality. The sale to a museum, or to the lawful owners, of the original (known technically as "the model") would crown a sound commercial transaction.

c.o.c.k-crow that morning discovered me at the private residence, in the Boulevard Clot-Bey, of one Suleyman Levi, with whom I had had minor dealings in the past.

V

At nine o'clock on the following Monday night, an old Egyptian woman, enveloped from head to foot in a black _tob_ and wearing a black crepe face-veil boasting a hideous bra.s.s nose-piece, halted before a doorway set in the wall guarding the great gardens of the palace of Yssuf Bey. I was the impersonator of this decrepit female. Ab Tabah, who thus far had accompanied me, stepped into the dense shadow of the opposite wall and was thereby swallowed up.

I rapped three times slowly upon the doorway, then twice rapidly.

Almost at once a little wicket therein flew open, and a bloated negro face showed framed in the square aperture.

"The messenger from Ali Mohammed of the Sk en-Nahhasin," I said, in a croaky voice. "Conduct me to the Lady Shahmarah."

"Show her seal," answered the eunuch, extending through the opening a large, fat hand.

I gave him the ring so fortunately discovered in the _tarbsh_ of my friend the merchant and the hand was withdrawn. Within a colloquy took place in which a female voice took part. Then the door was partly opened for my admittance--and I found myself in the gardens of the Bey.

In the moonlight it was a place of wonder, an enchanted demesne; but more like an Edmond Dulac water-color than a real garden. The palace with its magnificent _mushrabiyeh_ windows, so poetically symbolical of veiled women, guarded by several fine, straight-limbed palm trees, spoke of the Old Cairo which saw the birth of _The Arabian Nights_ and which so many of us imagine to have vanished with the _khalifate_.

A girl completely m.u.f.fled up in many-hued shawls and scarves, so that her red-slippered feet and two bright eyes heavily darkened with _kohl_ were the only two portions of her person visible, stood before me, her figure seeming childish beside that of the gross negro--whom I hated at sight because he reminded me of the one whom I had encountered in Ab Tabah's cellar.

"Follow me, quickly, mother," said the girl. "You"--pointing imperiously at the black man--"remain here."

I followed her in silence, noting that she pursued a path which ran parallel with the wall and lay wholly in its shadow. The gardens were fragrant with the perfume of roses, and in the center was a huge marble fountain surrounded by kiosks projecting into the water, tall acacias overshadowing them. We skirted two sides of the palace, its _mushrabiyeh_ windows mysteriously lighted by the moon but showing no illumination from within. There we came to the entrance to a kind of trellis-covered walk, mosaic paved and patched delightfully with mystic light. It terminated before a small but heavy and nail-studded door, of which my guide held the key.

Entering, whilst she held the door ajar, I found myself in utter darkness, to be almost immediately dispelled by the yellow gleam of a lamp which the girl took from some niche, wherein, already lighted, it had been concealed. Up a flight of bare wooden stairs she conducted me, and opened a second prison-like door at their head. Leaving the lamp upon the top step, she pushed me gently forward into a small, octagonal room, paneled in dark wood inlaid with mother-o'-pearl and reminding me of the interior of a magnified _kursee_ or coffee table.

Rugs and carpets strewed the floor and the air was heavy with the smell of musk, a perfume which I detest, it having characterized the personality of a certain Arab lady who sold me so marvelous a Damascus scimitar that I was utterly deceived by it until too late.

Raising a heavy curtain draped in a door shaped like an old-fashioned keyhole, and embellished with an intricate ma.s.s of fretwork carving, my guide went out, leaving me alone with my reflections. This interval was very brief, however, and was terminated by the reappearance of the girl, who this time made her entrance through a second doorway masked by the paneling. A faint musical splashing sound greeted me through the opening; and when my guide beckoned me to enter and I obeyed, I found myself in a chamber of barbaric beauty and in the presence of the celebrated Shahmarah.

The apartment, save for one end being wholly occupied by a magnificent _mushrabiyeh_ screen, was walled with what looked like Verde Antico marble or green serpentine. An ebony couch having feet shaped as those of a leopard and enriched with gleaming bronze, having the skins of leopards cast across it, and, upon the skins, silken soft cushions wrought in patterns of green and gold, stood upon the mosaic floor at the head of three shallow steps which descended to a pool where a fountain played, softly musical; wherein lurked gleaming shapes of silver and gold. Bright mats were strewn around, and at one corner of the pool a huge silver _mibkharah_ sent up its pencilings of aromatic smoke.

Upon this couch Shahmarah reclined, and I perceived immediately that her reputation for beauty was richly deserved. There was something leopardine in her pliant shape, which seemed to harmonize with the fierce black and gold of the skins upon which she was stretched; she had the limbs of a Naiad and the eyes of an Egyptian Circe. Upon her head she wore a _rabtah_, or turban, of pure white, secured and decorated in front by a brooch of ancient Egyptian enamel-work probably fourteenth dynasty, and for which I would gladly have given her one hundred pounds. If I have forgotten what else she wore it may be because my senses were in somewhat of a turmoil as I stood before her in that opulent apartment--which I suddenly recognized, and not without discomfiture, to be the _meslakh_ of the _hammam_. I can only relate, then, that the image left upon my mind was one of jewels and dusky peach-like loveliness. Jewels there were in abundance, clasped about the warm curves of her arms and overloading her fingers; she wore gold bands thickly encrusted with gems about her ankles (the slim ankles of a dancing girl); and a fiery ruby of the true pigeon's-blood color gleamed upon the first toe of her left foot, the nails of which were highly manicured and stained with henna.

Fixing her wonderful eyes upon me--

"You have brought the veil?" she said.

"The merchant Ali Mohammed ordered me to convey to him the price agreed upon, O jewel of Egypt," I mumbled, "ere I yielded up this a poor man's only treasure."

Shahmarah sat upright upon the couch. Her delicate brows were drawn together in a frown, and her eyes, rendered doubly luminous by the pigment with which they were surrounded, glared fiercely at me, whilst she stamped one bare foot upon a cushion lying on the mosaic floor.

"The veil!" she cried imperiously. "I will send the merchant Ali Mohammed an order on the treasury of the Bey."

"O moon of the Orient," I replied, "O ravisher of souls, I am but a poor ugly old woman basking in the radiance of beauty and loveliness.

Would you ruin one so old and feeble and helpless? I must have the price agreed upon; let it be counted into this bag"--and concealing my tell-tale hands as much as possible, I bent humbly and placed a leather wallet upon a little table beside her which bore fruits, sweetmeats, and a long-necked gold flagon. "When it is done, the _yashmak_ of pearls, which only thy dazzling perfection might dare to wear, shall be yielded up to thee, O daughter of musk and ambergris."

There fell a short silence, wherein the fountain musically plashed and Shahmarah shot little inquiring glances laden with venom into the mists of my black veil, and others which held a query over my shoulder at her confidant.

"I might have you cast into a dungeon beneath this palace," she hissed at me, bending lithely forward and extending a jeweled forefinger. "No one would miss thee, O mother of afflictions."

"In that event," I crooned quaveringly, "O tree of pearls, the veil could never be thine; for the merchant Ali Mohammed, who awaits me at the gate, refuses to deliver it up until the price agreed upon has been placed in his hands."

"He is a Jew, and a son of Jews, who eats without washing! a devourer of pork, and an unclean insect," she cried.

She extended the jeweled hand towards the girl who stood behind me and who, having loosened her wraps, proved to be a comely but shrewd-looking a.s.syrian. "Let the money be counted into the bag,"

she ordered, "that we may be rid of the presence of this garrulous and hideous old hag."

"O fountain of justice," I exclaimed; "O peerless _houri_, to behold whom is to swoon with delight and rapture."

From a locked closet the a.s.syrian girl took a wooden coffer, and before my gratified eyes began to count out upon the little table notes and gold until a pile lay there to have choked a miser with emotion. (The ready-money transactions of the East have always delighted me.) But, with the c.h.i.n.king of the last piece of gold upon the pile--

"There is no more," said the girl. "It is one hundred pounds short."

"It is more than enough!" cried Shahmarah. "I am ruined. Give me the veil and go."

"O vision of paradise," I exclaimed in anguish, "the merchant Ali Mohammed would never consent. In lieu of the remainder"--I pointed to the antique enamel in her turban--"give me the brooch from thy _rabtah_."

"O sink of corruption!" was her response, her whole body positively quivering with rage, "it is not for thy filthy claws. Here!"--she pulled a ring containing a fair-sized emerald from one of her fingers and tossed it contemptuously upon the pile of money--"thou art more than repaid. The veil! the veil!"

I turned to the girl who had counted out the gold.

"O minor moon, whom even the glory of paradise cannot dim," I said, "put the money in the wallet, for my hands are old and infirm, and give it to me."

The a.s.syrian scooped the gold and notes into the leather bag with the utmost unconcern, and as though she had been sh.e.l.ling peas into a basket. The profound disregard for wealth exhibited in the _harem_ of Yssuf Bey was extraordinary; and I mentally endorsed the opinion expressed by Ab Tabah that the ruin of the Bey was imminent.

Securing the heavy wallet to the girdle which I wore beneath my veilings, I placed upon the table where the money had lain a small silken packet.

"Here is the veil," I said; "for my story of the merchant, Ali Mohammed, who had refused to yield it up, was but a stratagem to test the generosity of thy soul, as thy refusal to give me the price agreed upon was but a subterfuge to test my honesty."