II
It was the full season at Cairo. The wealth and fashion of Bayswater, South Kensington, and even the bosky Wood of the Evangelist had sent their latest luxury and style to flout the tombs of the past with the ghastly flippancy of to-day. The cheap tripper was there—the latest example of the Darwinian theory—apelike, flea and curio hunting! Shamelessly inquisitive and always hungry, what did he know of the Sphinx or the pyramids or the voice—and, for the matter of that, what did they know of him? And yet he was not half bad in comparison with the "swagger people,"—these people who pretend to have lungs and what not, and instead of galloping on merry hunters through the frost and snow of Piccadilly and Park, instead of enjoying the roaring fires of piled logs in the evening, at the first approach of winter steal away to the Land of the Sun, and decline to die, like honest Britons, on British soil. And then they know nothing of the Egyptians and are horrified at "bakshish," which they really ought to pay for the privilege of shocking the straight-limbed, naked-footed Arab in his single rough garment with their baggy elephant-legged trousers! And they know nothing of the mystic land of the old gods, filled with profound enigmas of the supernatural, dark secrets yet unexplored except in this book. Well might the great Memnon murmur after this lapse of these thousand years, "They're making me tired!"
Such was the blissful, self-satisfied ignorance of Sir Midas Pyle, or as Lord Fitz-Fulke, with his delightful imitation of the East London accent, called him, Sir "Myde His Pyle," as he leaned back on his divan in the Grand Cairo Hotel. He was the vulgar editor and proprietor of a vulgar London newspaper, and had brought his wife with him, who was vainly trying to marry off his faded daughters. There was to be a fancy-dress ball at the hotel that night, and Lady Pyle hoped that her girls, if properly disguised, might have a better chance. Here, too, was Lady Fitz-Fulke, whose mother was immortalized by Byron—sixty if a day, yet still dressing youthfully—who had sought the land of the Sphinx in the faint hope that in the contiguity of that lady she might pass for being young. Alaster McFeckless, a splendid young Scotchman,—already dressed as a Florentine sailor of the fifteenth century, which enabled him to show his magnificent calves quite as well as in his native highland dress, and who had added with characteristic noble pride a sporran to his costume, was lolling on another divan.
"Oh, those exquisite, those magnificent eyes of hers! Eh, sirs!" he murmured suddenly, as waking from a dream.
"Oh, damn her eyes!" said Lord Fitz-Fulke languidly. "Tell you what, old man, you're just gone on that girl!"
"Ha!" roared McFeckless, springing to his feet, "ye will be using such language of the bonniest"—
"You will excuse me, gentlemen," said Sir Midas,—who hated scenes unless he had a trusted reporter with him,—"but I think it is time for me to go upstairs and put on my Windsor uniform, which I find exceedingly convenient for these mixed assemblies." He withdrew, caressing his protuberant paunch with some dignity, as the two men glanced fiercely at each other.
In another moment they might have sprung at each other's throats. But luckily at this instant a curtain was pushed aside as if by some waiting listener, and a thin man entered, dressed in cap and gown,—which would have been simply academic but for his carrying in one hand behind him a bundle of birch twigs. It was Dr. Haustus Pilgrim, a noted London practitioner and specialist, dressed as "Ye Olde-fashioned Pedagogue." He was presumably spending his holiday on the Nile in a large dahabiyeh with a number of friends, among whom he counted the two momentary antagonists he had just interrupted; but those who knew the doctor's far-reaching knowledge and cryptic researches believed he had his own scientific motives.
The two men turned quickly as he entered; the angry light faded from their eyes, and an awed and respectful submission to the intruder took its place. He walked quietly toward them, put a lozenge in the mouth of one and felt the pulse of the other, gazing critically at both.
"We will be all right in a moment," he said with professional confidence.
"I say!" said Fitz-Fulke, gazing at the doctor's costume, "you look dooced smart in those togs, don'tcherknow."
"They suit me," said the doctor, with a playful swish of his birch twigs, at which the two grave men shuddered. "But you were speaking of somebody's beautiful eyes."
"The Princess Zut-Ski's," returned McFeckless eagerly; "and this daft callant said"—
"He didn't like them," put in Fitz-Fulke promptly.
"Ha!" said the doctor sharply, "and why not, sir?" As Fitz-Fulke hesitated, he added brusquely: "There! Run away and play! I've business with this young man," pointing to McFeckless.
As Fitz-Fulke escaped gladly from the room, the doctor turned to McFeckless. "It won't do, my boy. The Princess is not for you—you'll only break your heart and ruin your family over her! That's my advice. Chuck her!"
"But I cannot," said McFeckless humbly. "Think of her weirdly beautiful eyes."
"I see," said the doctor meditatively; "sort of makes you feel creepy? Kind of all-overishness, eh? That's like her. But whom have we here?"
He was staring at a striking figure that had just entered, closely followed by a crowd of admiring spectators. And, indeed, he seemed worthy of the homage. His magnificent form was closely attired in a velveteen jacket and trousers, with a singular display of pearl buttons along the seams, that were absolutely lavish in their quantity; a hat adorned with feathers and roses completed his singularly picturesque equipment.
"Chevalier!" burst out McFeckless in breathless greeting.
"Ah, mon ami! What good chance?" returned the newcomer, rushing to him and kissing him on both cheeks, to the British horror of Sir Midas, who had followed. "Ah, but you are perfect!" he added, kissing his fingers in admiration of McFeckless's Florentine dress.
"But you?—what is this ravishing costume?" asked McFeckless, with a pang of jealousy. "You are god-like."
"It is the dress of what you call the Koster, a transplanted Phenician tribe," answered the other. "They who knocked 'em in the road of Old Kent—know you not the legend?" As he spoke, he lifted his superb form to a warrior's height and gesture.
"But is this quite correct?" asked Fitz-Fulke of the doctor.
"Perfectly," said the doctor oracularly. "The renowned ''Arry Axes'—I beg his pardon," he interrupted himself hastily, "I mean the Chevalier—is perfect in his archaeology and ethnology. The Koster is originally a Gypsy, which is but a corruption of the word 'Egyptian,' and, if I mistake not, that gentleman is a lineal descendant."
"But he is called 'Chevalier,' and he speaks like a Frenchman," said Fluffy.
"And, being a Frenchman, of course knows nothing outside of Paris," said Sir Midas.
"We are in the Land of Mystery," said the doctor gravely in a low voice. "You have heard of the Egyptian Hall and the Temple of Mystery?"
A shudder passed through many that were there; but the majority were following with wild adulation the superb Koster, who, with elbows slightly outward and hands turned inward, was passing toward the ballroom. McFeckless accompanied him with conflicting emotions. Would he see the incomparable Princess, who was lovelier and even still more a mystery than the Chevalier? Would she—terrible thought!—succumb to his perfections?