There was no moon, but the stars were thick, and one of them was falling.
CHAPTER VI
Taking his steam-launch, which had been moored to the boat-landing of the Ghezirah Palace, the Consul-General returned home immediately after Gordon's arrest. He did not wait to say what was to be done with the prisoner, or to tell his officials what further steps, if any, were to be taken to prevent the expected insurrection. One overwhelming event had wiped everything else out of his mind. His plans had been frustrated; he had been degraded, made a laughing-stock, and by Gordon—his own son.
As his launch skimmed across the river in the darkness he could hear in the back-wash of the propeller the guffaws of the diplomatic corps, and in the throbbing of the engine the choking laughter of the whole world.
His mind was going like a weaver's shuttle, and he was asking himself by what sinister development of fate this devilish surprise had been brought about. He could find no answer. In the baffling mystery of events only one thing seemed clear—that Gordon, when he disappeared from Cairo after the affair of El Azhar, had not gone to America or India or Australia, as everybody had supposed, but straight to the man Ishmael's camp, and that he had allowed himself to be used by that charlatan mummer to further his intrigues. Against his own father, too! His father, who had been thinking of him every day, every night, and nearly all night, and was now, by his instrumentality, made an object of derision and contempt.
"Fool! Fool! Fool!" thought the Consul-General, and his anger against Gordon burnt in his heart like a fierce and consuming fire.
On reaching the Agency he went upstairs to his room and rang violently for Fatimah. Somebody within his own household had become aware of his plans and revealed them to his enemies. He had little doubt of the identity of the traitor, for he remembered Fatimah's unexpected appearance in the dining-room the night before, and her confusion and lame excuse when the Sirdar observed her presence.
Fatimah answered her bell cheerfully as one who had nothing to fear, but the moment she saw the Consul-General's face, with the deep folds in his forehead and the hard and implacable lines about his mouth, she dropped on her knees before he had uttered a word.
"What is this you have been doing, woman?" he demanded, in a stern voice, whereupon Fatimah made no attempt at disguise.
"I couldn't help it, O Master," she said, breaking into tears. "I would have given him my eyes. He was the same as my own son, and I had suckled him at my breast. Can a woman deny anything to her own?"