“I will have your heads cut off! You shall be impaled upon the walls!” shrieked the little fellow at last, and the crowd replied by derisive laughter and ominous threats directed against himself and the foreign woman, heaping special abuse on Cecil.
“These people not good, mademoiselle,” said Um Yusuf, coming to her mistress’s bridle-rein. “Some one from the harem gone tell them who we are, and they kill us. We should get away from them. See, there is a house with door open. Perhaps we find shelter there.”
Cecil repeated what Um Yusuf had said to her pupil, and Azim Bey, somewhat frightened now, consented to adopt the plan proposed. The donkeys’ heads were quickly turned in the direction of the house, and before the astonished owners realised what was happening, the party were all inside the courtyard and the door shut and fastened.
CHAPTER XI.
A DIPLOMATIC INCIDENT.
When the people of the house discovered the identity of their uninvited guests, the welcome which they offered them was the reverse of warm. All Azim Bey’s threats and promises could not induce them to allow him and his attendants to remain in the shelter of the courtyard until a messenger could be despatched to the Palace and return with a military escort; indeed they could scarcely be restrained from thrusting them out again to the mob, who were clamouring at the gate. It was some time before largely increased offers could win them over to consent to a compromise, namely, to let the whole party out by a back door leading into an unfrequented street, from which, through many twists and turnings, the Palace might be reached.
“But we cannot all go together,” said Azim Bey, “or they will recognise us again. We must separate.”
“Never!” cried Cecil, resolutely.
“Oh, you and I will keep together, mademoiselle. What I mean is, that we must not leave the house again as a large party. The two nurses will mount our donkeys and go with the servants. You and I will depart by ourselves.”
“Not unless you are disguised,” said Cecil. “For you to go in that dress would simply be to let yourself be murdered.”
“The disguise will not be difficult,” he cried, tearing off his long black coat and unbuckling his little sword. “Now if the good people of this house will give us in exchange for these an old abba and kaffiyeh, I shall be unrecognisable. As for you, mademoiselle, no one could know you. You look just like any Baghdadi lady in a sheet and yellow slippers.”