The Weavers Part 18

Kald's eyes showed burning satisfaction. "If he were thy brother, thou wouldst kill him?"

"I would give a traitor to death for the country's sake. There is no other way."

"To-night he shall die."

"But with due trial, Effendina?"

"Trial--is not the proof sufficient?"

"But if he confess, and give evidence himself, and so offer himself to die?"

"Is Harrik a fool?" answered Kaid, with scorn.

"If there be a trial and sentence is given, the truth concerning the army must appear. Is that well? Egypt will shake to its foundations--to the joy of its enemies."

"Then he shall die secretly."

"The Prince Pasha of Egypt will be called a murderer."

Kaid shrugged his shoulders.

"The Sultan--Europe--is it well?"

"I will tell the truth," Kaid rejoined angrily.

"If the Effendina will trust me, Prince Harrik shall confess his crime and pay the penalty also."

"What is thy purpose?"

"I will go to his palace and speak with him."

"Seize him?"

"I have no power to seize him, Effendina."

"I will give it. My Nubians shall go also."

"Effendina, I will go alone. It is the only way. There is great danger to the throne. Who can tell what a night will bring forth?"

"If Harrik should escape--"

"If I were an Egyptian and permitted Harrik to escape, my life would pay for my failure. If I failed, thou wouldst not succeed. If I am to serve Egypt, there must be trust in me from thee, or it were better to pause now. If I go, as I shall go, alone, I put my life in danger--is it not so?"

Suddenly Kaid sat down again among his cushions. "Inshallah! In the name of G.o.d, be it so. Thou art not as other men. There is something in thee above my thinking. But I will not sleep till I see thee again."

"I shall see thee at midnight, Effendina. Give me the ring from thy finger."

Kaid pa.s.sed it over, and David put it in his pocket. Then he turned to go.

"Nahoum?" he asked.

"Take him hence. Let him serve thee if it be thy will. Yet I cannot understand it. The play is dark. Is he not an Oriental?"

"He is a Christian."

Kaid laughed sourly, and clapped his hands for the slave.

In a moment David and Nahoum were gone. "Nahoum, a Christian!

Bismillah!" murmured Kaid scornfully, then fell to pondering darkly over the evil things he had heard.

Meanwhile the Nubians in their glittering armour waited without in the blistering square.

CHAPTER XII. THE JEHAD AND THE LIONS

"Allah hu Achbar! Allah hu Achbar! Ashhadu an la illaha illalla!"

The sweetly piercing, resonant voice of the Muezzin rang far and commandingly on the clear evening air, and from bazaar and crowded street the faithful silently hurried to the mosques, leaving their slippers at the door, while others knelt where the call found them, and touched their foreheads to the ground.

In his palace by the Nile, Harrik, the half-brother of the Prince Pasha, heard it, and breaking off from conversation with two urgent visitors, pa.s.sed to an alcove near, dropping a curtain behind him. Kneeling reverently on the solitary furniture of the room--a prayer-rug from Medina--he lost himself as completely in his devotions as though his life were an even current of unforbidden acts and motives.

Cross-legged on the great divan of the room he had left, his less pious visitors, unable to turn their thoughts from the dark business on which they had come, smoked their cigarettes, talking to each other in tones so low as would not have been heard by a European, and with apparent listlessness.

Their manner would not have indicated that they were weighing matters of life and death, of treason and infamy, of ma.s.sacre and national shame.

Only the sombre, smouldering fire of their eyes was evidence of the lighted fuse of conspiracy burning towards the magazine. One look of surprise had been exchanged when Harrik Pasha left them suddenly--time was short for what they meant to do; but they were Muslims, and they resigned themselves.

"The Inglesi must be the first to go; shall a Christian dog rule over us?"

It was Achmet the Ropemaker who spoke, his yellow face wrinkling with malice, though his voice but murmured hoa.r.s.ely.

"Nahoum will kill him." Higli Pasha laughed low--it was like the gurgle of water in the narghileh--a voice of good nature and persuasiveness from a heart that knew no virtue. "Bismillah! Who shall read the meaning of it? Why has he not already killed?"

"Nahoum would choose his own time--after he has saved his life by the white carrion. Kaid will give him his life if the Inglesi asks. The Inglesi, he is mad. If he were not mad, he would see to it that Nahoum was now drying his bones in the sands."

"What each has failed to do for the other shall be done for them,"

answered Achmet, a hateful leer on his immobile features. "To-night many things shall be made right. To-morrow there will be places empty and places filled. Egypt shall begin again to-morrow."

"Kaid?"

Achmet stopped smoking for a moment. "When the khamsin comes, when the camels stampede, and the children of the storm fall upon the caravan, can it be foretold in what way Fate shall do her work? So but the end be the same--malaish! We shall be content tomorrow."

Now he turned and looked at his companion as though his mind had chanced on a discovery. "To him who first brings word to a prince who inherits, that the reigning prince is dead, belong honour and place," he said.

"Then shall it be between us twain," said High, and laid his hot palm against the cold, snaky palm of the other. "And he to whom the honour falls shall help the other."

"Aiwa, but it shall be so," answered Achmet, and then they spoke in lower tones still, their eyes on the curtain behind which Harrik prayed.

Presently Harrik entered, impa.s.sive, yet alert, his slight, handsome figure in sharp contrast to the men lounging in the cushions before him, who salaamed as he came forward. The features were finely chiselled, the forehead white and high, the lips sensuous, the eyes fanatical, the look concentrated yet abstracted. He took a seat among the cushions, and, after a moment, said to Achmet, in a voice abnormally deep and powerful: "Diaz--there is no doubt of Diaz?"