Lord John in New York

by C. N. Williamson; A. M. Williamson

"Some day!" the words echoed in my brain. Would the day come in this world, or must I solve the greatest secret of all before I solved Maida's?

The dream went on, but I saw nothing when the girl closed the shutters. Soon, however, she flung them wide again; and though she had put out the light, the moon was shining in. I could see her moving about. She listened at the door, as if she heard something in the corridor. She had fastened the bolt, but now she discovered that it was broken. The door could be opened from the outside. She placed a chair against it, with the back caught under the handle. Then she went and sat down close to the window. The camel was there, and she spoke to it, as if she were comforted by its nearness. For a time she was very still. Her head drooped; but it was impossible to sleep for long in the high, uncomfortable chair. Now and then the girl started awake, always turning to glance at the door: but at last she fell into a deeper doze. Slowly the door opened, almost without noise. Maida remained motionless: but the watching mehari uttered a snarl. The girl sprang to her feet, not knowing what to do. A cloaked figure which had slipped in attempted to hide behind the open door, but was too late. Maida saw the gliding shadow, shrieked, and would have run into the corridor, but the man in the Arab cloak caught her on the threshold, and muffled her head in his mantle. She struggled in his grasp, and almost escaped. Chairs were overturned: the rug under the table was twisted round the man's feet: I thought that he would trip and fall, but he saved himself. Holding Maida with one hand, with the other he drew a bottle from some pocket, and pulled out the cork with his teeth. The girl freed an arm, but before she could push the bottle away the man emptied a quantity of the liquid over the cloth that covered her face. A sickly scent of chloroform filled the air. Still she fought bravely, her freed hand seized the bottle, and dashed it on the floor, where it broke with a crash. At this instant a woman in Arab dress came swiftly into the room. She was very tall, as tall as the man, and I noticed a likeness between their figures, a remarkable breadth of shoulder, something peculiar in their bearing. The woman's face was unveiled, but in the darkness I could not make out its features.

She shut the door hastily. The two spoke to each other in a language I could not understand. Maida struggled no more. The chloroform had taken effect. In my dream I felt that the two did not wish her to die: the time had not come. There was a climax towards which they were working, had been working for a long time. Now it was close at hand. The woman held a much smaller bottle than the one which lay broken. She had also a glass with a little water, and a spoon. These she placed on the wash-hand stand, and went swiftly to the window. Driving away the camel with a threatening gesture, she closed the shutters. It seemed as if they slammed in my face. I waked with a great start, and found myself sitting up in bed, my face damp with sweat.

The shutters, which I'd kept wide open, had banged together in the rising wind. I bounded off the bed to the window, and flung them apart again. Sand stung my face and eyelids. The white camel had disappeared, but there was a wild snarling in the fondouk.

"My wish has been granted," I said to myself, "I have seen what the watching eye saw in this room. But what did it see after that? Which way did the caravan go?"

I must have slept soundly, and longer than I thought, for behind the cloud of sand dawn was grey in the sky. Half an hour later I was out of the room, in the courtyard, where the Arab servants had begun to stir. From his own part of the building the landlord appeared. I told him that I had sent to have my man roused, and that I would start in spite of the storm.

"What has become of the white mehari?" I asked. "Is he in the fondouk after all?"

The man called one of his Arabs, asked a question, got an answer, and turned to me. "The beast snarled so wickedly it waked my fellows," he explained, "and they, not knowing of my promise to you, drove it into the desert. That must have been two hours ago."

I was furious, but scolding was vain. I had hoped superstitiously for the guidance of the watcher, till the end; but this was not to be. I must trust to my own instinct.

Despite the arguments of the landlord and my own man that it was dangerous to set out in the face of a simoom, we started, taking the route towards Hathor Set.