I was about to repeat it aloud when he stopped me with a gesture.
“Don’t shout about it,” he said. “I’m not supposed to talk, and I don’t want even the English people here to know what I’m about. But it can’t matter telling you, and you’d be surprised what a relief it is to talk to someone!”
I was thankful to have started him on a topic that would keep him from questioning me till bedtime.
“That’s some kind of drug, isn’t it? I remember it in the Arabian Nights.”
“Good Lord! Where have you put yourself in Egypt? Yes, it’s a ‘kind of drug,’ as you say.” He whispered again, “It’s Cannabis indica, Indian hemp, in the medical books. We call it the other thing. It’s meat and drink, wife and family, lunacy and lingering death to the Oriental when he gets fond of it. Drink’s a boon and a blessing, and opium is mother’s milk to it. We’ve stopped it being cultivated, and we’ve prohibited its importation. We’re still trying to stop its being smuggled. That’s my job at present. I’ve been given a semi-military appointment with the temporary rank of colonel, Egyptian colonel of course, but that’s a blind.”
Any story of smuggling has always had a certain fascination for me. I became interested at once, and forgot my fatigue and my longing for bed. I thought it seemed a whimsical thing that I should live over a reputed smuggler’s passage, and now find in an old friend a modern “preventive man.”
“That must be an interesting job,” I said. “Tell me as much as you can. I needn’t tell you I have sense enough to keep my mouth shut.”
“I know you will. You see, the natives, especially the wealthy ones, will have the stuff, and they simply don’t care what they pay. Naturally, the value of it has become enormous—incredible. These damned Arabs and Levantines are always slipping it in. But there’s a bigger trade going on. They grow it regularly now in Greece, and the Greek Government won’t lift a finger to stop it. There’s too much backshish about. It will be a big thing for me if I succeed. At present I’m sorry to say I’m on the track of two renegade Englishmen.”
“Englishmen?” I repeated. “That’s bad.”
“It’s damnable,” he said. “You can’t imagine how we depend on prestige out here. If I could get evidence against them, we should have to keep it quiet here and have them dealt with at home. At present I’ve only suspicions to go on; but they’re in tow with a rascally native. The biggest blackguard in the trade. He was in the police and got to know all the ropes. Some years ago he made a big coup, collared two feluccas full of the stuff near the Western Frontier. There was thousands of pounds’ worth of the drug in them, and he had risked his life a dozen times to bring it off, to say nothing of the brains he showed. Of course, he was entitled to a reward, and what do you think they offered him?”