"I glory in them, but I wouldn't have let them go if—"
"You've changed your mind, just because I gave Miss Gilder my Browning? Honestly, Duffer, I don't think there's actual danger. But, anyhow, don't you see, they had to go, and they had to go alone. They would have hated us and themselves and each other if they hadn't answered the girl's appeal. And we couldn't do the thing, unfortunately, as it deals with the harem. If it can be done at all, it's woman's business. These two are the right ones, as they felt bound to do it, and you and I can but see them through, from the outside."
CHAPTER XIX
"IF AT FIRST YOU DON'T SUCCEED"
Now that we were thoroughly launched on this somewhat quixotic adventure, I envied Anthony because his part in the drama kept him "in the wings," within sight of the stage. He was to watch the house of Rechid Bey, and if the rescue party of two did not appear after an hour's absence, the true story of the affair and Mabel's appeal was to be laid before the Inspector General of Upper Egypt—laid before him not by "Ahmed Antoun Effendi," but by Captain Anthony Fenton, officially on leave, secretly on a special mission for the British government.
My rôle, less exciting but perhaps no less important, was to play the diplomat in beguiling the American Consul to stand by the wife of Rechid Bey, if the attempt at rescue succeeded, or—if possible—even if it failed.
"Antoun" accounted for his presence in front of Rechid Bey's high garden wall, by attracting a crowd, and lecturing them in his character of Hadji, while I dashed off in a jingling arabeah, to the American Consulate. As in Cairo, my progress was one long adjuration of the crowd by the driver, who would have revelled in conducting the car of Juggernaut.
"Shemalak, ya welad!" ("To the left, oh, boy!"), or "Yeminick!" ("To the right!"), he roared, while men dived and dipped under his horse's prancing feet. A hawk flew by on my right side, and my right eyelid twitched, as we neared the Consulate. In Egypt these were good omens. Besides, there had been a red sunrise, which in the Nile country had meant, since Egyptians superseded the prehistoric "new race," that Rã had conquered his enemies, and stained the sky with their blood. Therefore all should be well with me and the world; and it did seem as if my hopes bade fair to be fulfilled, when in the Consul I recognized a man I had been able to advise in a small official difficulty in my early days at the Embassy in Rome. This was even more fortunate than the case of Slaney. We shook hands warmly, and as soon as was decent, I interrupted a flow of reminiscent gratitude by flooding Mr. James Bronson with the story of Rechid Bey's unhappy American bride, Mabella Hânem, ill treated as well as cruelly deceived, if her story were true. He knew Rechid slightly, but the marriage was news to him. With interest he listened to my account of the lonely little governess in Paris, bewitched by the love-making of a handsome Turk as white as herself. But when I asked for help, the Consul shook his head.
"Lord Ernest," he said, "there's nothing I'd like better than to pay my debt by doing you some favour. But you're asking me the one thing that's hardest, as you probably know. You understand as well as I do that when a girl marries a man, she ceases to be a subject of her native land. And to interfere with the inmate of a harem is just about impossible. But I'll tell you what I will do for your sake. If you can get the girl out of Rechid Bey's house—which, mind you, I doubt—you may bring her to my wife, and we'll cook up some story about her being a relative of mine. So she is, I guess, through Adam and Eve! If you think she's been badly treated, we'll stand by her, once she's under this roof (which means she'll be on American soil), through thick and thin, whatever the consequences. I can't go farther, and I don't believe you expected that I would."