“I said Kurds or any bad men, mademoiselle.”
“What do you mean, Um Yusuf?” asked Cecil, impressed by the woman’s tone. “Is there any one who wants to kill us?”
“I tell you what I know,” said Um Yusuf, looking fearfully round the house-top, where they were standing. “Khanum Effendi want get you away from Azim Bey, mademoiselle. All this time she been rude to you, and her servants the same, but when you not there they say to Basmeh Kalfa, to Masûd, to me, ‘You see your Mdlle. Antaza? What she signify here? Khanum Effendi do what she like with her. Balio Bey big man, but his arm not reach to Kurdistan. You help Khanum Effendi get rid of her, you not be punished, get plenty of money. You say she want poison Azim Bey, Pasha send her away, all right for you.’ That what they say to us, mademoiselle, we say no, tell Pasha if they do it again. They laugh at us, but not try it, and I think they kill you if they can.”
Cecil turned pale. It was a horrible thing to feel that her enemies had tried to bribe her own servants to bear false witness against her, and to know that she owed her life to their faithfulness. Their safety as well as her own was now at stake, and she did not need another warning from Um Yusuf. She kept her pupil with her all day, and did not attempt to go out unless escorted by Masûd. It did not occur to her to take further precautions, and she did not know until some time afterwards that Um Yusuf, fearing poison, made a practice of tasting beforehand every dish which was to be set before her mistress. All the food used by the household was purchased separately in the market by Basmeh Kalfa, and none of the harem slaves were allowed to come near the kitchen. These measures once taken, Um Yusuf felt that things were tolerably safe, not knowing that Jamileh Khanum’s messengers had conveyed to M. Karalampi the news of the failure to corrupt the members of the household, and also of the precautions which had been adopted, and that the answer returned was that he had a new plan for effecting the desired purpose just ready to be put in action.
It afforded a partial relief to Cecil’s anxiety for her pupil when he was allowed, in answer to his piteous prayers, to accompany his father and the troops part of the way in their march against the chief stronghold of the insurgents. He was away for some days, and his governess employed the time in writing one of the long journal letters which kept the family at Whitcliffe regularly informed of all her doings under ordinary circumstances, but had been neglected during the exciting times of the last few weeks, which were unfavourable to epistolary composition. But it was still difficult to write, for Cecil did not dare to say a word on the subject which lay nearest her heart—that of Charlie’s present whereabouts. The alarm she had felt on his account in leaving Hillah had increased tenfold now that a considerable time had elapsed without her hearing from him, and it was in vain that she tried to comfort herself with the suggestion that the insurgents might have prevented the passage of any couriers, or that his letters might have been intercepted once more. She felt sure that if he had reached Baghdad, he would not have failed to send her some intimation of his safety through Sir Dugald, with whose letters neither Azim Bey nor the mountaineers, who cherished a deep veneration for the British name, would venture to meddle. It was evident, then, that Charlie was either still in Hillah, or was retracing his steps to Ispahan by the way he had come—if, at least, he had not been suspected and seized.
The thought of this last possibility tormented Cecil day and night, and the more so that no means of solving the mystery presented themselves to her. Even if she wrote to Sir Dugald to inform him of her meeting with Charlie and of her fears respecting his safety, and inquiries were set on foot, it might have just the effect of arousing suspicion, and endangering him in his journey back to Persia or his retirement at Hillah, supposing that he had settled down there to enjoy a taste of Eastern life once more. Cecil longed wearily for some assurance that this was the case, and wished too late that she had not set her face so resolutely against her lover’s eccentricities in the past. Merely to know now that he was safe in the camp of some sheikh of the Hajar would have been the height of bliss, but it was a bliss she was not to enjoy.
To write her letter under these circumstances, without alluding to the subject which filled almost all her waking thoughts, was a difficult task, but she feared that the epistle might fall into unfriendly hands, and she wrote it without even mentioning Charlie’s name. The recital of the alarms and moving incidents which had diversified the passage of the caravan through the mountains took her so long that she did not finish the letter until the afternoon of the day on which Azim Bey was expected back, and she gave a sigh of gratification as she wrapped the envelope in the strong paper covering which was necessary to protect it against the rough usage it would probably meet with in its transit to Baghdad. This operation completed, and the packet firmly sealed, she went out on the broad lewan or piazza to call one of the servants, who might give it to the Pasha’s courier before he started on his journey to the city.
Looking down into the courtyard, without the slightest foreboding of coming trouble, she saw that the servants had a visitor. Um Yusuf, old Ayesha, and Basmeh Kalfa were sitting on the ground, entertaining with coffee and cakes an elderly woman in whom Cecil recognised a former kalfa of the Um-ul-Pasha’s, who had married a non-commissioned officer of one of the regiments which formed the guard of honour, and who had been permitted to accompany her husband on this expedition. But the cakes stood untasted, and Basmeh Kalfa had paused in the act of pouring out the coffee, and was holding the pot suspended in the air, while she and the others stared with eyes of horror at their visitor, and listened with upraised hands of dismay to some story which she seemed to be narrating.
“May God visit it upon my own head if it be not true!” concluded the stranger, and Cecil heard Um Yusuf apostrophising a string of obscure Syrian saints, while the two other women murmured, “God forbid!” and “God is great!” in awestruck tones.
“How wilt thou tell thy lady, O Um Yusuf?” asked old Ayesha, just as Um Yusuf looked up, met her mistress’s eye, and dropped in her consternation the cup she was holding. A feeling for which she could not account impelled Cecil to descend the steps leading into the court and enter the group, the members of which started guiltily when they found her among them, the visitor alone taking refuge in an assumed carelessness.