There was bustle in that little house in the ten minutes which followed, all hands being engaged in packing the Major's belongings. Then, having completed the work to his satisfaction, the Jew and the Armenian servant of Douglas Pasha dragged his trunks through the opening down into the cellar beneath. Long before that, Joe Douglas had transformed himself into an absolute replica of the Jew who had come to warn him, and, indeed, looked the part to perfection. Then, casting a hurried glance round, and throwing the light from an electric torch into every corner—for already the dusk was falling, and the house opposite darkened that in which he had been living—he slid through the opening in the floor, and gently lowered the trap-door after him, having just before that dragged the table across it. Then the three made their way to the far edge of the cellar, and, ascending some steps, entered a narrow alley. There, at the bidding of the Major, his two companions went off to their left, while Joe Douglas made ready to venture into the open.
"You will go to the old quarters," he told them in a whisper, "while I see what is happening in the street yonder. To-night, as the moon rises, you will have a conveyance ready for me, and to-morrow we shall be well out in the desert."
But a minute before, Douglas Pasha, in spite of the rags with which he was now covered, was without doubt the tall British officer who had made his way into the heart of the city of Bagdad; but now, as the need to act up to his disguise arrived, he became transformed in a manner which was really remarkable. Leaning on a long, stout stick, his head and shoulders bent, and his legs tottering, he stumbled from the alley into the open street, and shuffled and clattered his way along past the door of his own dwelling. It was there that he almost collided, in the dusk, with three Turkish rascals, one of whom was preparing to break the door in with a crowbar. Yet the Jew took no notice of them, but stumbled past, muttering into the cloak which covered his head, talking to himself, and pulling his rags round him. A little farther on, less than a hundred yards, perhaps, he caught sight of a rotund and perspiring figure in a sunken doorway—a figure which was faintly illuminated by an oil lamp hanging in a passage opposite. It was the figure of von Hildemaller, who had crept to this spot to watch the doings of his hired assassins. Again it was characteristic of the Major that he halted in front of the man, careless of the consequences.
"Money! Money to buy food and lodging," he whined, holding out a shuddering, shaking hand, while his whole frame swayed and tottered. "Money, Excellency, to keep body and soul within me!"
"Money! Bah!" The German struck at him with the light cane he was carrying, and threw a glance of hatred and contempt after the tottering figure of the Jew as he retreated.
Then with wide-open ears he listened as the door of the house along the street was burst open, and waited breathlessly for news from his assassin. It was with a storm of rage and disappointment that he learned that the place was empty, that Douglas Pasha was gone, and that the scheme for ending his energies in Mesopotamia had been defeated.
Yet the cunning of this German was not always to meet with such ill success, for though Douglas Pasha contrived to escape from Bagdad that night, and made his way into the desert, there came a day when von Hildemaller traced him. Also there came a day when Douglas Pasha—a prisoner then, and none too well treated—contrived to get a message out of the Turkish fortress in which he was incarcerated. Even as Geoff Keith, and Philip, and Commander Houston braced themselves for a stiff engagement with the Turks aboard the steam-launch which had been pursuing them, that message was speeding down the Tigris towards the British forces. It was a request for help, but with no definite statement of the position where Douglas Pasha was imprisoned. And there were miles of desert country to traverse, and hundreds of enemies to pass, ere the messenger could bear his missive to our Head-quarters. It was a toss-up, indeed, as to whether the news of the Major's plight would ever reach his own people; just as it was a toss-up whether Geoff and his comrades would ever contrive to beat off the Turks who were about to assail them.