III
The moon poured radiance on the desert. At the entrance to a camel-hair tent stood a tall, handsome man, arrayed in the picturesque costume of the Bedouin. The tent behind him was upheld by six poles. The ends and one side were pegged to the ground, and the whole of that side before which he stood was quite open, with the exception of a portion before which hung a goat-hair curtain.
This was the “house of hair” of the Sheikh El-Suleym, of the Masr-Bishareen—El-Suleym, “the Regicide” outcast of the great tribe of the Bishareen. At some distance from the Sheikh’s tent were some half a dozen other and smaller tents, housing the rascally following of this desert outcast.
Little did those who had engaged the picturesque El-Suleym, to display his marvellous horsemanship in London, know that he and those that came with him were a scorn among true sons of the desert, pariahs of that brotherhood which extends from Zered to the Nile, from Tanta to the Red Sea; little did those who had opened their doors in hospitality to the dashing horseman dream that they entertained a petty brigand, sought for by the Egyptian authorities, driven out into ostracism by his own people.
And now before his tent he stood statuesque in the Egyptian moonlight, and looked towards Gizeh, less than thirty miles to the north-east.
As El-Suleym looked towards Gizeh, Graham and his wife were seated before Mena House looking out across the desert. The adventure of the morning had left its impression upon both of them, and Eileen wore the gold chain with its turquoise pendant. Graham was smoking in silence, and thinking, not of the old porter and his odd Eastern gratitude, but of another figure, and one which often came between his mental eye and the beauties of that old, beautiful land. Eileen, too, was thinking of El-Suleym; for the Bedouin now was associated in her mind with the old pedlar, since she had last seen the handsome, sinister face amid the throng at the entrance to the bazaar.
Telepathy is a curious fact. Were Graham’s reflections en rapport with his wife’s, or were they both influenced by the passionate thoughts of that other mind, that subtle, cunning mind of the man who at that moment was standing before his house of hair and seeking with his eagle glance to defy distance and the night?
“Have you seen—him, again?” asked Graham abruptly. “Since the other day at the bridge?”
Eileen started. Although he had endeavoured to hide it from her, she was perfectly well aware of her husband’s intense anxiety on her behalf. She knew, although he prided himself upon having masked his feelings, that the presence of the Bedouin in Egypt had cast a cloud upon his happiness. Therefore she had not wished to tell him of her second encounter with El-Suleym. But to this direct question there could be only one reply.
“I saw him again—this morning,” she said, toying nervously with the pendant at her neck.
Graham clasped her hand tensely.
“Where?”
“Outside the bazaar, in the crowd.”
“You did not—tell me.”
“I did not want to worry you.”
He laughed dryly.
“It doesn’t worry me, Eileen,” he said carelessly. “If I were in Damascus or Aleppo, it certainly might worry me to know that a man, no doubt actively malignant towards us, was near, perhaps watching; but Cairo is really a prosaically safe and law-abiding spot. We are as secure here as we should be at—Shepherd’s Bush, say!”
He laughed shortly. Voices floated out to them, nasal, guttural, strident; voices American, Teutonic, Gallic, and Anglo-Saxon. The orchestra played a Viennese waltz. Confused chattering, creaking, and bumping sounded from the river. Out upon the mud walls dogs bayed the moon.
But beyond the native village, beyond the howling dogs, beyond the acacia ranks out in the silver-grey mystery of the sands hard by, an outpost of the Pharaohs, where a ruined shrine of Horus bared its secret places to the peeping moon, the Sheikh of the Masr-Bishareen smiled.
Graham felt strangely uneasy, and sought by light conversation to shake off the gloom which threatened to claim him.
“That thief, Mohammed,” he said tersely, “has no more idea than Adam, I believe, who your old porter friend really is.”
“Why do you think so?” asked Eileen.
“Because he’s up in Cairo to-night, searching for him!”
“How do you know?”
“I cornered him about it this afternoon, and although I couldn’t force an admission from him—I don’t think anybody short of an accomplished K.C. could—he was suspiciously evasive! I gave him four hours to procure the name and address of the old gentleman to whom we owe the price of a turquoise necklace. He has not turned up yet!”
Eileen made no reply. Her Celtic imagination had invested the morning’s incident with a mystic significance which she could not hope to impart to her hard-headed husband.
A dirty and ragged Egyptian boy made his way on to the verandah, furtively glancing about him, as if anticipating the cuff of an unseen hand. He sidled up to Graham, thrusting a scrap of paper on to the little table beside him.
“For me?” said Graham.
The boy nodded; and whilst Eileen watched him interestedly, Graham, tilting the communication so as to catch the light from the hotel windows, read the following:
“He is come to here but cannot any farther. I have him waiting the boy will bring you.
“Your obedient Effendi,
Mohammed.”
Graham laughed grimly, glancing at his watch.
“Only half an hour late,” he said, standing up, “Wait here, Eileen; I shall not be many minutes.”
“But I should like to see him, too. He might accept the price from me where you would fail to induce him to take it.”
“Never fear,” said her husband; “he wouldn’t have come if he meant to refuse. What shall I offer him?”
“Whatever you think,” said Eileen, smiling; “be generous with the poor old man.”
Graham nodded and signed to the boy that he was ready to start.
The night swallowed them up; and Eileen sat waiting, whilst the band played softly and voices chatted incessantly around her.
Some five minutes elapsed; ten; fifteen. It grew to half an hour, and she became uneasy. She stood up and began to pace up and down the verandah. Then the slinking figure of the Egyptian youth reappeared.
“Graham Effendi,” he said, showing his gleaming teeth, “says you come too.”
Eileen drew her wrap more closely about her and smiled to the boy to lead the way.
They passed out from the hotel, turned sharply to the left, made in the direction of the river, then bore off to the right in the direction of the sand-dunes. The murmuring life of Mena House died into remoteness; the discordance of the Arab village momentarily took precedence; then this, in turn, was lost, and they were making out desert-ward to the hollow which harbours the Sphinx. Great events in our lives rarely leave a clear-cut impression; often the turning-point in one’s career is a confused memory, a mere clash of conflicting ideas. Trivial episodes are sharp silhouettes; unforgettable; great happenings but grey, vague things in life’s panorama. Thus, Eileen never afterwards could quite recall what happened that night. The thing that was like to have wrecked her life had no sharp outlines to etch themselves upon the plate of memory. Vaguely she wondered to what meeting-place the boy was leading her. Faintly she was conscious of a fear of the growing silence, of a warning instinct whispering her to beware of the loneliness of the desert.
Then the boy was gone; the silence was gone; harsh voices were in her ears—a cloth was whipped about her face and strong arms lifted her. She was not of a stock that swoon or passively accept violence. She strove to cry out, but the band was too cunningly fastened to allow of it; she struck out with clenched fists and not unshrewdly, for twice her knuckles encountered a bearded face and a suppressed exclamation told that the blows were not those of a weakling. She kicked furiously and drew forth a howl of pain from her captor. Her hands flew up to the bandage, but were roughly seized, thrust down and behind her, and tied securely.
She was thrown across a saddle, and with a thrill of horror knew herself a captive. Out into the desert she was borne, into that unknown land which borders so closely upon the sight-seeing track of Cook’s. And her helplessness, her inability to fight, broke her spirit, born fighter that she was; and the jarring of the saddle of the galloping horse, the dull thud of the hoofs on the sand, the iron grip which held her, fear, anger, all melted into a blank.