In spite of being an Englishman with an Irish name and a little Irish blood, Dicky Donovan had risen high in the favour of the Khedive, remaining still the same Dicky Donovan he had always been—astute but incorruptible. While he was favourite he used his power wisely, and it was a power which had life and death behind it. When therefore, one day, he asked permission to take a journey upon a certain deadly business of justice, the Khedive assented to all he asked, but fearing for his safety, gave him his own ring to wear and a line under his seal.
With these Dicky set forth for El Medineh in the Fayoum, where his important business lay. As he cantered away from El Wasta, out through the green valley and on into the desert where stands the Pyramid of Maydoum, he turned his business over and over in his mind, that he might study it from a hundred sides. For miles he did not see a human being—only a caravan of camels in the distance, some vultures overhead and the smoke of the train behind him by the great river. Suddenly, however, as he cantered over the crest of a hill, he saw in the desert-trail before him a foot-traveller, who turned round hastily, almost nervously, at the sound of his horse’s feet.
It was the figure of a slim, handsome youth, perhaps twenty, perhaps thirty. The face was clean-shaven, and though the body seemed young and the face was unlined, the eyes were terribly old. Pathos and fanaticism were in the look, so Dicky Donovan thought. He judged the young Arab to be one of the holy men who live by the gifts of the people, and who do strange acts of devotion; such as sitting in one place for twenty years, or going without clothes, or chanting the Koran ten hours a day, or cutting themselves with knives. But this young man was clothed in the plain blue calico of the fellah, and on his head was a coarse brown fez of raw wool. Yet round the brown fez was a green cloth, which may only be worn by one who has been a pilgrimage to Mecca.
“Nehar-ak koom said—God be with you!” said Dicky in Arabic.
“Nehar-ak said, efendi—God prosper thy greatness!” was the reply, in a voice as full as a man’s, but as soft as a woman’s—an unusual thing in an Arab. “Have you travelled far?” asked Dicky.
“From the Pyramid of Maydoum, effendi,” was the quiet reply.
Dicky laughed. “A poor tavern; cold sleeping there, Mahommed.”
“The breath of Allah is warm,” answered the Arab. Dicky liked the lad’s answer. Putting a hand in his saddle-bag, he drew out a cake of dourha bread and some onions—for he made shift to live as the people lived, lest he should be caught unawares some time, and die of the remembrance of too much luxury in the midst of frugal fare.
“Plenty be in your home, Mahommed!” he said, and held out the bread and onions.
The slim hands came up at once and took the food, the eyes flashed a strange look at Dicky. “God give you plenty upon your plenty, effendi, and save your soul and the souls of your wife and children, if it be your will, effendi!”
“I have no wife, praise be to God,” said Dicky; “but if I had, her soul would be saved before my own, or I’m a dervish!” Then something moved him further, and he unbuttoned his pocket—for there really was a button to Dicky’s pocket. He drew out a five-piastre piece, and held it down to the young Arab. “For the home-coming after Mecca,” he said, and smiled.
The young Arab drew back. “I will eat thy bread, but no more, effendi,” he said quickly.
“Then you’re not what I thought you were,” said Dicky under his breath, and, with a quick good-bye, struck a heel into the horse’s side and galloped away toward El Medineh.
In El Medineh Dicky went about his business—a bitter business it was, as all Egypt came to know. For four days he pursued it, without halting and in some danger, for, disguise himself as he would in his frequenting of the cafes, his Arabic was not yet wholly perfect. Sometimes he went about in European dress, and that was equally dangerous, for in those days the Fayoum was a nest of brigandage and murder, and an European—an infidel dog—was fair game.
But Dicky had two friends—the village barber, and the moghassil of the dead, or body-washer, who were in his pay; and for the moment they were loyal to him. For his purpose, too, they were the most useful of mercenaries: for the duties of a barber are those of a valet-de-chambre, a doctor, registrar and sanitary officer combined; and his coadjutor in information and gossip was the moghassil, who sits and waits for some one to die, as a raven on a housetop waits for carrion. Dicky was patient, but as the days went by and nothing came of all his searching, his lips tightened and his eyes became more restless. One day, as he sat in his doorway twisting and turning things in his mind, with an ugly knot in his temper, the barber came to him quickly.
“Saadat el basha, I have found the Englishwoman, by the mercy of Allah!”
Dicky looked at Achmed Hariri for a moment without stirring or speaking; his lips relaxed, his eyes softening with satisfaction.
“She is living?”
“But living, saadat el basha.”
Dicky started to his feet. “At the mudirieh?”
“At the house of Azra, the seller of sherbet, saadat el basha.”
“When did she leave the mudirieh?”
“A week past, effendi.”
“Why did she leave?”
“None knows save the sister of Azra, who is in the harem. The Englishwoman was kind to her when she was ill, and she gave her aid.”
“The Mudir has not tried to find her?”
“Will the robber make a noise if the horse he has stolen breaks free, effendi?”
“Why has she not flown the place?”
“Effendi, can the broken-winged bird fly!”
“She is ill?” He caught the barber by the arm.
“As a gazelle with an arrow in its breast.”
Dicky’s small hand tightened like a vice on the barber’s thin arm. “And he who sped the arrow, Achmed Hariri?”
Achmed Hariri was silent.
“Shall he not die the death?”
Achmed Hariri shrank back.
Dicky drew from his pocket a paper with seals, and held it up to the barber’s eyes. The barber stared, drew back, salaamed, bowed his head, and put a hand upon his turban as a slave to his master.
“Show me the way, Mahommed,” said Dicky, and stepped out.
Two hours later Dicky, with pale face, and fingers clutching his heavy riding-whip fiercely, came quickly towards the bridge where he must cross to go to the mudirieh. Suddenly he heard an uproar, and saw men hurrying on in front of him. He quickened his footsteps, and presently came to a house on which had been freshly painted those rough, staring pictures of “accidents by flood and field,” which Mecca pilgrims paint on their houses like hatchments, on their safe return—proclamation of their prestige.
Presently he saw in the grasp of an infuriated crowd the Arab youth he had met in the desert, near the Pyramid of Maydoum. Execrations, murderous cries arose from the mob. The youth’s face was deathly pale, but it had no fear. Upon the outskirts of the crowd hung women, their robes drawn half over their faces, crying out for the young man’s death. Dicky asked the ghaflir standing by what the youth had done.
“It is no youth, but a woman,” he answered—“the latest wife of the Mudir. In a man’s clothes—”
He paused, for the head sheikh of El Medineh, with two Ulema, entered the throng. The crowd fell back. Presently the Sheikh-el-beled mounted the mastaba by the house, the holy men beside him, and pointing to the Arab youth, spoke loudly:
“This sister of scorpions and crocodiles has earned a thousand deaths. She was a daughter of a pasha, and was lifted high. She was made the wife of Abbas Bey, our Mudir. Like a wanton beast she cut off her hair, clothed herself as a man, journeyed to Mecca, and desecrated the tomb of Mahomet, who hath written that no woman, save her husband of his goodness bring her, shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”
He paused, and pointed to the rough pictures on the walls. “This morning, dressed as a man, she went in secret to the sacred purple pillar for barren women in the Mosque of Amrar, by the Bahr-el-Yusef, and was found there with her tongue to it. What shall be done to this accursed tree in the garden of Mahomet?”
“Cut it down!” shouted the crowd; and the Ulema standing beside the Sheikh-el-beled said: “Cut down for ever the accursed tree.”
“To-morrow, at sunrise, she shall die as a blasphemer, this daughter of Sheitan the Evil One,” continued the holy men.
“What saith the Mudir?” cried a tax-gatherer. “The Mudir himself shall see her die at sunrise,” answered the chief of the Ulema.
Shouts of hideous joy went up. At that moment the woman’s eyes met Dicky’s, and they suddenly lighted. Dicky picked his way through the crowd, and stood before the Sheikh-el-beled. With an Arab salute, he said:
“I am, as you know, my brother, a friend of our master the Khedive, and I carry his ring on my finger.” The Sheikh-el-beled salaamed as Dicky held up his hand, and a murmur ran through the crowd. “What you have done to the woman is well done, and according to your law she should die. But will ye not let her tell her story, so it may be written down, that when perchance evil voices carry the tale to the Khedive he shall have her own words for her condemnation?”
The Ulema looked at the Sheikh-el-beled, and he made answer: “It is well said; let the woman speak, and her words be written down.”
“Is it meet that all should hear?” asked Dicky, for he saw the look in the woman’s eyes. “Will she not speak more freely if we be few?”
“Let her be taken into the house,” said the Sheikhel-beled. Turning to the holy men, he added: “Ye and the Inglesi shall hear.”
When they were within the house, the woman was brought in and stood before them.
“Speak,” said the Sheikh-el-beled to her roughly. She kept her eyes fixed on Dicky as she spoke: “For the thing I have done I shall answer. I had no joy in the harem. I gave no child to my lord, though often I put my tongue to the sacred pillar of porphyry in the Mosque of Amrar. My lord’s love went from me. I was placed beneath another in the harem.... Was it well? Did I not love my lord? was the sin mine that no child was born to him? It is written that a woman’s prayers are of no avail, that her lord must save her at the last, if she hath a soul to be saved.... Was the love of my lord mine?” She paused, caught a corner of her robe and covered her face.
“Speak on, O woman of many sorrows,” said Dicky. She partly uncovered her face, and spoke again: “In the long night, when he came not and I was lonely and I cried aloud, and only the jackals beyond my window answered, I thought and thought. My brain was wild, and at last I said: ‘Behold, I will go to Mecca as the men go, and when the fire rises from the Prophet’s tomb, bringing blessing and life to all, it may be that I shall have peace, and win heaven as men win it. For behold! what is my body but a man’s body, for it beareth no child. And what is my soul but a man’s soul, that dares to do this thing!’...”
“Thou art a blasphemer,” broke in the chief of the Ulema.
She gave no heed, but with her eyes on Dicky continued:
“So I stole forth in the night with an old slave, who was my father’s slave, and together we went to Cairo.... Behold, I have done all that Dervishes do: I have cut myself with knives, I have walked the desert alone, I have lain beneath the feet of the Sheikh’s horse when he makes his ride over the bodies of the faithful, I have done all that a woman may do and all that a man may do, for the love I bore my lord. Now judge me as ye will, for I may do no more.”
When she had finished, Dicky turned to the Sheikhel-beled and said: “She is mad. Behold, Allah hath taken her wits! She is no more than a wild bird in the wilderness.”
It was his one way to save her; for among her people the mad, the blind, and the idiot are reputed highly favoured of God.
The Sheikh-el-beled shook his head. “She is a blasphemer. Her words are as the words of one who holds the sacred sword and speaks from the high pulpit,” he said sternly; and his dry lean face hungered like a wolf’s for the blood of the woman.
“She has blasphemed,” said the Ulema.
Outside the house, quietness had given place to murmuring, murmuring to a noise, and a noise to a tumult, through which the yelping and howling of the village dogs streamed.
“She shall be torn to pieces by wild dogs,” said the Sheikh-el-beled.
“Let her choose her own death,” said Dicky softly; and, lighting a cigarette, he puffed it indolently into the face of the Arab sitting beside him. For Dicky had many ways of showing hatred, and his tobacco was strong. The sea has its victims, so had Dicky’s tobacco.
“The way of her death shall be as we choose,” said the Sheikh-el-beled, his face growing blacker, his eyes enlarging in fury.
Dicky yawned slightly, his eyes half closed. He drew in a long breath of excoriating caporal, held it for a moment, and then softly ejected it in a cloud which brought water to the eyes of the Sheikh-el-beled. Dicky was very angry, but he did not look it. His voice was meditative, almost languid as he said:
“That the woman should die seems just and right—if by your kindness and the mercy of God ye will let me speak. But this is no court, it is no law: it is mere justice ye would do.”
“It is the will of the people,” the chief of the Ulema interjected. “It is the will of Mussulmans, of our religion, of Mahomet,” he said.
“True, O beloved of Heaven, who shall live for ever,” said Dicky, his lips lost in an odorous cloud of ‘ordinaire.’ “But there be evil tongues and evil hearts; and if some son of liars, some brother of foolish tales, should bear false witness upon this thing before our master the Khedive, or his gentle Mouffetish—”
“His gentle Mouffetish” was scarcely the name to apply to Sadik Pasha, the terrible right-hand of the Khedive. But Dicky’s tongue was in his cheek.
“There is the Mudir,” said the Sheikh-el-beled: “he hath said that the woman should die, if she were found.”
“True; but if the Mudir should die, where would be his testimony?” asked Dicky, and his eyes half closed, as though in idle contemplation of a pleasing theme. “Now,” he added, still more negligently, “I shall see our master the Khedive before the moon is full. Were it not well that I should be satisfied for my friends?”
Dicky smiled, and looked into the eyes of the Mussulmans with an incorruptible innocence; he ostentatiously waved the cigarette smoke away with the hand on which was the ring the Khedive had given him.
“Thy tongue is as the light of a star,” said the bright-eyed Sheikh-el-beled; “wisdom dwelleth with thee.” The woman took no notice of what they said. Her face showed no sign of what she thought; her eyes were unwaveringly fixed on the distance.
“She shall choose her own death,” said the Sheikhel-beled; “and I will bear word to the Mudir.”
“I dine with the Mudir to-night; I will carry the word,” said Dicky; “and the death that the woman shall die will be the death he will choose.”
The woman’s eyes came like lightning from the distance, and fastened upon his face. Then he said, with the back of his hand to his mouth to hide a yawn:
“The manner of her death will please the Mudir. It must please him.”
“What death does this vulture among women choose to die?” said the Sheikh-el-beled.
Her answer could scarcely be heard in the roar and the riot surrounding the hut.
A half-hour later Dicky entered the room where the Mudir sat on his divan drinking his coffee. The great man looked up in angry astonishment—for Dicky had come unannounced-and his fat hands twitched on his breast, where they had been folded. His sallow face turned a little green. Dicky made no salutation.
“Dog of an infidel!” said the Mudir under his breath.
Dicky heard, but did no more than fasten his eyes upon the Mudir for a moment.
“Your business?” asked the Mudir.
“The business of the Khedive,” answered Dicky, and his riding-whip tapped his leggings. “I have come about the English girl.” As he said this, he lighted a cigarette slowly, looking, as it were casually, into the Mudir’s eyes.
The Mudir’s hand ran out like a snake towards a bell on the cushions, but Dicky shot forward and caught the wrist in his slim, steel-like fingers. There was a hard glitter in his eyes as he looked down into the eyes of the master of a hundred slaves, the ruler of a province.
“I have a command of the Khedive to bring you to Cairo, and to kill you if you resist,” said Dicky. “Sit still—you had better sit still,” he added, in a soothing voice behind which was a deadly authority.
The Mudir licked his dry, colourless lips, and gasped, for he might make an outcry, but he saw that Dicky would be quicker. He had been too long enervated by indulgence to make a fight.
“You’d better take a drink of water,” said Dicky, seating himself upon a Louis Quinze chair, a relic of civilisation brought by the Mudir from Paris into an antique barbarism. Then he added sternly: “What have you done with the English girl?”
“I know nothing of an English girl,” answered the Mudir.
Dicky’s words were chosen as a jeweller chooses stones for the ring of a betrothed woman. “You had a friend in London, a brother of hell like yourself. He, like you, had lived in Paris; and that is why this thing happened. You had your own women slaves from Kordofan, from Circassia, from Syria, from your own land. It was not enough: you must have an English girl in your harem. You knew you could not buy her, you knew that none would come to you for love, neither the drab nor the lady. None would lay her hand in that of a leprous dog like yourself. So you lied, your friend lied for you—sons of dogs of liars all of you, beasts begotten of beasts! You must have a governess for your children, forsooth! And the girl was told she would come to a palace. She came to a stable, and to shame and murder.”
Dicky paused.
The fat, greasy hands of the Mudir fumbled towards the water-glass. It was empty, but he raised it to his lips and drained the air.
Dicky’s eyes fastened him like arrows. “The girl died an hour ago,” he continued. “I was with her when she died. You must pay the price, Abbas Bey.” He paused.
There was a moment’s silence, and then a voice, dry like that of one who comes out of chloroform, said: “What is the price?”
The little touch of cruelty in Dicky’s nature, working with a sense of justice and an ever-ingenious mind, gave a pleasant quietness to the inveterate hate that possessed him. He thought of another woman—of her who was to die to-morrow.
“There was another woman,” said Dicky: “one of your own people. She was given a mind and a soul. You deserted her in your harem—what was there left for her to think of but death? She had no child. But death was a black prospect; for you would go to heaven, and she would be in the outer darkness; and she loved you! A woman’s brain thinks wild things. She fled from you, and went the pilgrimage to Mecca. She did all that a man might do to save her soul, according to Mahomet. She is to die to-morrow by the will of the people—and the Mudir of the Fayoum.”
Dicky paused once more. He did not look at the Mudir, but out of the window towards the Bahr-el-Yusef, where the fellaheen of the Mudir’s estate toiled like beasts of burden with the barges and the great khiassas laden with cotton and sugar-cane.
“God make your words merciful!” said the Mudir. “What would you have me do?”
“The Khedive, our master, has given me your life,” said Dicky. “I will make your end easy. The woman has done much to save her soul. She buries her face in the dust because she hath no salvation. It is written in the Koran that a man may save the soul of his wife. You have your choice: will you come to Cairo to Sadik Pasha, and be crucified like a bandit of your own province, or will you die with the woman in the Birket-el-Kurun to-morrow at sunrise, and walk with her into the Presence and save her soul, and pay the price of the English life?”
“Malaish!” answered the Mudir. “Water,” he added quickly. He had no power to move, for fear had paralysed him. Dicky brought him a goolah of water.
The next morning, at sunrise, a strange procession drew near to the Birket-el-Kurun. Twenty ghaffirs went ahead with their naboots; then came the kavasses, then the Mudir mounted, with Dicky riding beside, his hand upon the holster where his pistol was. The face of the Mudir was like a wrinkled skin of lard, his eyes had the look of one drunk with hashish. Behind them came the woman, and now upon her face there was only a look of peace. The distracted gaze had gone from her eyes, and she listened without a tremor to the voices of the wailers behind.
Twenty yards from the lake, Dicky called a halt—Dicky, not the Mudir. The soldiers came forward and put heavy chains and a ball upon the woman’s ankles. The woman carried the ball in her arms to the very verge of the lake, by the deep pool called “The Pool of the Slaughtered One.”
Dicky turned to the Mudir. “Are you ready?” he said.
“Inshallah!” said the Mudir.
The soldiers made a line, but the crowd overlapped the line. The fellaheen and Bedouins looked to see the Mudir summon the Ulema to condemn the woman to shame and darkness everlasting. But suddenly Abbas Bey turned and took the woman’s right hand in his left.
Her eyes opened in an ecstasy. “O lord and master, I go to heaven with thee!” she said, and threw herself forward.
Without a sound the heavy body of the Mudir lurched forward with her, and they sank into the water together. A cry of horror and wonder burst from the crowd.
Dicky turned to them, and raised both hands.
“In the name of our master the Khedive!” he cried.
Above the spot where the two had sunk floated the red tarboosh of the Mudir of the Fayoum.
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