Where did Hamilton come in? Hamilton was one James Farland, an American crook of the highest accomplishments, known to the police of the entire civilized world. He, too, had gone out for Lure of Souls, but the woman, his professional competitor, had proved too clever for him.
The Rev. Mr. Rawlingson? He was Detective-Inspector Wexford of New Scotland Yard. Yes, it’s a rotten story, from a romantic point of view.
III
THE SECRET OF ISMAIL
I
MUSTAPHA MIRZA knew it—Mustapha Mirza, the blind Persian who makes shoes hard by the Bâb ez-Zuwêla and in the very shadow of the minarets of Muayyâd; Hassan es-Sîwa of the Street of the Carpet-sellers in the Mûski, Hassan, who, where another man has hands, has but hideous stumps, knew it, and because of him it was that Abdûl Moharli sought it—Abdûl the mendicant who crouches on the steps of the Blue Mosque muttering, guttural, inarticulate, and pointing to the tongueless cavity of his mouth. Now I know it; but not from Abdûl Moharli: may Allah, the Great, the Compassionate, defend me!
I say “May Allah defend me,” yet I am no Moslem; I have no spot of Egyptian blood in my veins. No, I am a pure Greek of Cos, of Cos the home of the loveliest women in the world; and my mother was one of these, whilst my father was a Cretan, and a true descendent of Minos. My story perhaps will not be believed, for always it has been my fate to be maligned. You will ask, perhaps, what I was doing in the Mâzi Desert between Beni Suêf and the Red Sea, but I reply that my cotton interests—for I have cotton interests in the Delta—often lead me far afield. You do not understand the cotton industry or this explanation would be unnecessary. It is only those who do not understand the cotton industry that speak of hashish. Hashish! I leave it to the Egyptians and the Jews to deal in hashish; I am neither a Jew nor an Egyptian, but a Greek of Cos, who would not soil his hands with such a trade—no.
Upon my business, then, my legitimate business, I found myself with a small company of servants encamped by the Wâdi Araba. At the Wâdi Araba I had a commercial acquaintance, a sheikh of the Mâzi Arabs. Those villains who say that he was a “go-between,” that my business was not with him, but through him with a port of the Red Sea, dare not say as much to my face; for there is a law in the land—even in the land of Egypt, now that the British hold power here.
I had reached the point, then, whereat it was my custom to meet my business acquaintance and to discuss certain affairs in which we were interested. My servants had erected the tent in which I was to sleep, and the camels lay in a little limestone valley to the west, their eyes mild because they knew that the day’s work was ended; for it is a foolish mistake to suppose that the eye of a camel is mild at any other time. The camel knows the secret name of Allah—and that name is Rest.
The violet after-glow, which is the most wonderful thing in Nature, crowned the desert with glory right away to the porphyry mountains. I stood at my tent door looking westward to the Nile. I stood looking out upon the waste of the sands, the eternal sands which are a belt about Egypt; and my thoughts running fleetly before me, crossed the desert, crossed the Nile, and came to rest in the verdant, fertile Fàyûm, its greenness sweet to look upon in the heat of such an evening, its palms fashioned in ebony black against the wondrous sky. Yes, I, who am a Greek, love the Fàyûm more than any spot on earth; the modern clamor and dust of Cairo are hateful to me, although my business often takes me there, and also to Alexandria, the most European city in the East, and to me the most detestable. But my business is in the Delta and it is a good business, so why should I complain?