“Excellent, Bey Effendi! May I suggest that this time Dr Egerton should not be intrusted to your friends the Hajar, with whose language and customs he is well acquainted? If I am right, you do not wish that this imprisonment should be made too pleasant for him. You desire something more than mere safekeeping?”
Azim Bey nodded. M. Karalampi went on, watching his face keenly.
“The Kurds would suit your purpose much better, Bey Effendi. They have hiding-places and strongholds in the hills which the Padishah’s whole army could not discover, and they do not love Christians. They might be relied upon to keep Dr Egerton so safely that even the Balio Bey should never hear of him.”
“That is what I want,” cried Azim Bey, eagerly. “Let him disappear, and not be heard of until he is wanted, which will not be for a very long time.”
“And you do not wish to make any stipulation as to the treatment he is to receive, Bey Effendi? The Kurds may make a slave of him if they like?”
“Anything, so long as they keep him safely,” said Azim Bey.
M. Karalampi went away well pleased. The news he had just heard, and his conversation with Azim Bey, had opened up vistas of endless possibilities of revenge on several of the people against whom he cherished grudges, besides affording a prospect of gratifying the wishes of the Um-ul-Pasha and Jamileh Khanum. As for Azim Bey, he returned to his governess with a quiet mind. He had put matters in train, and left them in the charge of a safe person, and was able to enjoy the spectacle of Cecil’s anxiety. In all the bustle of starting on their further journey, her mind was occupied with other matters than boxes and bundles. She could not rid herself of the haunting impression of Charlie’s fatal imprudence. How could he risk death in this way just for the sake of seeing her? It was foolish, it was criminal. If only she could have some assurance that he was safely on his way to Baghdad before Azim Bey’s suspicions were roused! What was to be done? Could she send Um Yusuf out to make inquiries about him, and to warn him, if he were still in Hillah, to leave at once? No; such a step could only serve to awaken suspicion. There was nothing to be done but to try and let everything take its usual course. In this belief, she nerved herself to give due attention to her packing, and at last to don her blue wrapper and mount her mule, although she felt as though she could not leave the place while Charlie might still be in it. The appearance of an Armenian, as they passed through the town, made her start and tremble, but nowhere did her eyes light upon the face which was now so strange and yet so familiar. She did her best to assure herself that this showed that Charlie had safely departed, never guessing that among the miscellaneous throng that closed the Pasha’s long procession were the two Armenians from Julfa with their mules and their packs, watched closely by little Ishak.
The march went on, and still Cecil heard and saw nothing. Across the desert, up the lower hills, over the sandy tablelands, wound the long cavalcade, headed by banners and guards, kettledrums and led horses, and escorted by bands of irregular horsemen belonging to the tribes whose country was traversed. From pleasant villages in fertile valleys the people came forth with professions of obedience to the Pasha, and gifts of provisions for his followers. They were a much finer set of men than the inhabitants of the plains, strapping Kurds in pink and black striped garments and preposterous turbans, and sturdy Nestorian Christians in pointed felt caps, the women nearly all well-dressed, and often very beautiful. At night a site for the camp was chosen close to some village, and the richer inhabitants gave up their houses to the Pasha and his immediate following, while the motley crowd of hangers-on bivouacked outside. The journey through these districts was very pleasant, but it did not last long. The lower hills, with their orchards and vineyards, their rose-thickets and fruit-gardens, were soon left behind, and the way now lay through the mountains, dark and steep and rugged, which form the outermost of the natural fortifications of Kurdistan.
The Pasha’s tour was not intended solely as a pleasure-trip. It was meant to combine with this the functions of a triumphal march, for in the district which was now to be traversed there had lately been “troubles,” both with the Kurds and the Yezidis, and the Pasha was making this progress as a kind of outward sign of the restoration of order, now that the Mutesalim or lieutenant-governor had put down the disturbances by force. The Mutesalim came to meet his overlord on the borders of his district, bringing with him a large body of troops, and the march through the newly pacified regions began. The Mutesalim was not altogether happy in his mind, for he was conscious that his own exactions and bad treatment of the people, Moslems and Christians alike (to ill-treat the heathen, as the Yezidis were called, was a matter of course), had caused the disturbances. He was further afraid that they might prove not to have entirely ceased even now, when, by his glowing reports of the successes he had won, and the peaceful and prosperous state of the country, he had, quite unintentionally, tempted the Pasha into paying it a visit. His uneasiness was only too well grounded. As soon as the caravan was once embarked on the difficult mountain-paths, it began to be beset by bands of Yezidis, the survivors of the communities which the Mutesalim had broken up. He had carried off the children as slaves and murdered all the adults he could find, but the young and active men had escaped into the fastnesses of the hills, and were preparing a welcome for their oppressor. With them were a few Kurds, whose wrath against the Mutesalim had been sufficiently strong to join them with the devil-worshippers in opposing him, and they followed out a policy of harassing the caravan constantly at inconvenient times. They beset it in difficult places, and were gone before the troops could be brought up, and they kept up continual alarms in the night, organising a series of small surprises on the outskirts of the camp. It was very evident that the disturbances had not been put down, and the Pasha represented this to the Mutesalim in forcible language. It was plain that he was absolutely incapable, and insolent as well, since he had brought his Excellency out from Baghdad to see a conquered country which was not conquered at all, and the only thing to be done was for the Pasha himself to take the business seriously in hand.
When this decision became known, there was loud lamentation and great dismay in the harem. It was one thing to come on a pleasure-trip, and quite another to find it turned into a military promenade through a country swarming with enemies. It was not reassuring to hear, on camping for the night, that the mountaineers had swept off into slavery during the march some twenty of the non-combatants in the rear, nor to find in the morning that two or three guards had been murdered in the darkness close to one’s tent. Nor was it pleasant, in the course of the day, just when a particularly nasty place in a steep descending path had been reached, with a precipice on one side and a perpendicular wall of rock on the other, to be assailed suddenly by tremendous stones, which came crashing down across the path, frightening the mules and almost unseating their riders, while a brisk fusillade from the summit of the cliffs showed that it was no avalanche which thus interrupted the march, and caused the ladies to scream frantically to the guards and soldiers to save them and take them out of this horrible place. To do the soldiers justice, they were no more anxious for the ladies’ presence at such a juncture than they were themselves, declaring that what with the rocks crashing down, the mules capering, and the women screaming, it was impossible to take aim or to do anything quietly. Under these circumstances the Pasha thought it advisable to bestow his household in some safe place before beginning military operations in earnest, and the caravan moved on as fast as possible towards the fort and town of Sardiyeh, the seat of the Mutesalim’s government, where Jamileh Khanum, with her attendants, was to be left under a strong guard.