His Excellency's English Governess

by Sydney C. Grier

“Mount the pony for me, O Ishak,” he said, “and ride him round the courtyard, that I may see his paces.”

“Upon my head be it, O my lord,” responded Ishak, and did his best to obey. But no sooner was he mounted than the animal gave a complicated bound, something between a standing leap, a wriggle, and a buck-jump, and Ishak came to the ground with a crash.

“God is great!” burst from Masûd. “What wisdom is this of my lord’s?”

“Take him up, and send for the hakim bashi,” said Azim Bey, “and take care that the pony is kept for the Pasha to see.”

Severe concussion of the brain was the result of the experiment on poor little Ishak’s part, but the hakim bashi pointed out that to any one but a negro the blow would have meant almost certain death, a fact which spoke volumes to the Pasha. His Excellency accepted the warning thus conveyed, for he had felt anxious about his son’s safety ever since he had heard of Cecil’s illness. Had the report of the case reached him on the authority of Jamileh Khanum alone, he would not have believed it; but when, at her earnest request, he had sent his own physician to see Mdlle. Antaza, and he confirmed her account, he could not well refuse the governess a few weeks of rest, even at the cost of danger to Azim Bey. Now he resolved to keep the boy with him constantly until Cecil’s return, and never to allow him out of his sight.

Under these circumstances Azim Bey made sure that he should be able to secure Cecil’s recall at once; but in this he was reckoning without his host, as he found when he tried to approach the subject with his father. He supposed that he had only to tell the Pasha that the Khanum Effendi was keeping mademoiselle a prisoner at Sardiyeh for her to be released immediately; but to his amazement and mortification he was merely told that it was not so at all—that mademoiselle was taking a little rest by the doctor’s orders, and could not return to Baghdad for the present. To be treated like a child in this way was sufficiently annoying, but it was worse to feel conscious the whole time that if he only dared to say what he knew, matters would be set right. But this was impossible. He was afraid to tell his father of Charlie’s return and death, lest he should get into trouble for his share in the latter; and he had also a very real fear that M. Karalampi might revenge himself upon him afterwards, now that he was so completely in his power. His entreaties that Cecil might be allowed to rejoin him were thus made in vain, for the Pasha, ignorant of any reason for her prostrate state, could only attribute it, as the hakim bashi had done, to an overworked brain and incipient madness. Complete rest for a short time was the only thing that could be tried; and the Pasha intended, though he did not tell his son this, to send the physician again to Sardiyeh in the course of a few weeks, that he might examine the patient anew, and judge if there were any hope of her recovery. This being the case, the boy’s constant references to his governess became rather wearisome to the Pasha, and after several valiant attempts to press the subject on his father’s attention, Azim Bey found himself peremptorily silenced, and forbidden to allude to it again. When they reached Baghdad he was watched over much too closely to allow of his speaking either to Sir Dugald or Lady Haigh, and thus his second avenue of escape was closed. The hakim bashi was sent to the Residency to tell the Balio Bey that Mdlle. Antaza had been ill, and was spending some time longer in the mountains for rest and change, and it did not occur to any one that there was anything strange underlying this apparently straightforward message.

Any anxiety which was felt at the Residency at this time was entirely on Charlie’s account. Lady Haigh had not heard from him for months, and no letters from him to Cecil had passed through Sir Dugald’s hands. It was supposed, however, that she had written to tell him of the plan of spending the summer in the hills, and that he had found some new channel of communication with her by way of Mosul or Erzeroum, while he was probably so busy at home in having his house done up that he had no time to write to other people. In this happy confidence Lady Haigh remained until she received a letter from Mrs Howard White, who with her husband had spent a few days at the Residency on her homeward journey from Hillah, and was now in England. Lady Haigh took up the letter and opened it with somewhat languid interest, anticipating nothing more than a graceful acknowledgment of her kind hospitality, and some information as to the light in which Professor Howard White’s discoveries were regarded by the learned world. But after a very brief message of thanks, the writer dashed at once into another subject.

“... I feel that I must write to you,” she said, “and only hope that my warning may prove to be unnecessary. It will be news to you to hear that your cousin, Dr Egerton, was in Hillah just before we left it, disguised as an Armenian trader. At his earnest request I arranged a meeting between him and Miss Anstruther in my house, but they had no private conversation, owing to the presence of Miss Anstruther’s pupil. It is my impression that the secret remained undiscovered by Azim Bey, but I cannot be sure of this. Dr Egerton avowed to me the next day his intention of following, unknown to her, the Pasha’s caravan, in which Miss Anstruther was travelling, and I was unable to dissuade him from it. I promised to keep his secret, lest Sir Dugald should interfere with the scheme, but now that so long a time has elapsed without any news of him, I feel it only right to tell you all I know in order that inquiries may be made. I understand that Dr Egerton has not returned home, and that neither his aunt nor Miss Anstruther’s family know anything of his movements....”

Lady Haigh read the letter through with a face of horror, and rushed with it to Sir Dugald’s office.

“Read that, Dugald!” she cried, flinging it down before him, “and then leave those papers and go and see the Pasha at once. You must do it.”