“Wait a minute,” said Dick. “How did you manage everything without an interpreter?”
“I got out my best Ethiopian for the occasion, and when that failed we had recourse to Arabic,” returned Stratford. “The King and Fath-ud-Din can both talk it pretty well when they like, as you know. Well, when war had once been declared by my refusing the coffee, we sat for hours arguing. It was intimated to me pretty clearly at the beginning that if I didn’t sign their treaty, I should not leave the Palace alive; but when they saw that that didn’t seem to affect me to any appreciable extent, they began to add inducements on the other side. They offered me money and precious stones—quite a comfortable little fortune, I should think—rising by degrees until either their tempers or their purses gave way. Then, evidently thinking that my obstinacy arose from a fear that the rest of you would split upon me, they offered to put every one else belonging to the Mission out of the way, and to send me back to Khemistan as a conquering hero, returning with the best treaty I could manage to obtain. When they found that wouldn’t do, they offered me Jahan Beg’s office and property if I would only sign. I was to disappear from the ken of mortals outside Ethiopia, of course, and they would represent that the Mission had all been carried off by a pestilence, leaving only the treaty behind them. Their ideas as to English credulity are distinctly Arcadian. Well, all this time the servants kept bringing in sweetmeats and sherbet and fruit; but I would not touch anything, though I was abominably thirsty, for I remembered what Miss Keeling had said about some poison that destroyed the will, and I didn’t want to be hocussed into signing. Then they started on a fresh tack, and had in a crowd of dancing-girls——”
“The temptation of St Egerton!” cried Fitz, hugely delighted. “Were they very fascinating, Mr Stratford?”
“You might possibly have found them so,” returned Stratford, coolly; “but my tastes don’t happen to lie in that direction. I endured their performances for some time, and then they began to get tiresome. It was rather hard on the poor things, I know, for they were doing their level best; but I yawned aggressively, and suggested that we should go back to business. They bundled the girls out, and I found that the King and Fath-ud-Din had about reached the end of their patience. They took to threats now, and discoursed movingly for some time on the subject of tortures, with a strictly personal application. Fath-ud-Din did most of the talking; but when the King thought that his language was lacking in vigour, he added a few stronger touches to the picture. At last I remarked that this was all very interesting, but it wasn’t business, and that set them off. The King stamped on the floor, and immediately the curtain over the door was pulled aside, and a gang of the most villainous-looking negroes I ever saw filed in. ‘Seize that white devil,’ said Fath-ud-Din, ‘and let our lord the King behold your skill.’ That was all very well, but there were two sides to the question. ‘Stop,’ I said to the foremost black fellow as he turned towards me—‘cross that line in the floor at your peril!’ He laughed. I believe they thought I meant to take it fighting; but that was not my game at all. In a rough-and-tumble fight with those niggers I should have gone under in no time, and I didn’t exactly see being pulled to pieces with red-hot pincers to make a holiday for the King and Fath-ud-Din. I had slipped the little revolver down my sleeve and into my right hand, and I had some extra cartridges in my left, and as the man set his foot on the line I had pointed at, I shot him straight off. It was rather a strong thing to do; but it was my only chance. The other black fellows drew back as the first man fell forward on his face, his arms almost touching the King, and Fath-ud-Din opened his mouth to yell out to the guard; but I spoke first, slipping in another cartridge into the chamber I had fired. ‘I have six shots here without reloading,’ I said. ‘The next two are for the King and the Grand Vizier, as soon as either of them moves or speaks; the rest are for the first four men that cross this line.’”
“I have six shots here without reloading,” I said.
“Sir,” said Mr Hicks, approvingly, “there was a dreadful smart newspaper man lost when you were raised for a diplomatist.”
Stratford smiled in acknowledgment of the compliment, which was delivered with even more than the amount of drawl which Mr Hicks chose usually to affect.
“Well, there was a moment’s pause,” he went on, “which I utilised in surveying the position. I had the King within easy range, with Fath-ud-Din standing beside him, and to reach the door they would have to pass me. I was in the corner, so that even if the guard came in they could only reach me in front. Of course they could have floored me easily if the black fellows had come at me in a body; but it would have been the last fight for two or three of them, and they knew it and kept quiet. The only danger was that they might fire at me from the door or from the outside of one of the windows when the guard found out what had happened, and I saw that if I was to get off we must come to terms before any one in the great hall suspected anything. What they made of the sound of my revolver-shot I don’t know, but it doesn’t seem to have struck them as anything suspicious; perhaps they thought that the King was amusing himself with practising shooting at me. No one appeared, at any rate, and I spoke to the King again. ‘Before we do anything further,’ I said, ‘I should be glad to know where Jahan Beg is.’ Fath-ud-Din instantly replied with great gusto that he was expiating his crimes in the King’s deepest dungeon, which he would never leave alive. I remarked that it was just possible some one in that room might die sooner than Jahan Beg did, which made him calm down a little, and then I asked the King what crime Jahan Beg had committed. He did not fly out as Fath-ud-Din had done, but told me quite quietly that it was unwise in me to inquire after the traitor who had done his best to deliver Ethiopia into our hands. I asked what he meant (of course I kept my eyes about me and the revolver ready all this time), and he told me a very circumstantial story, the recital of which was intended to cover me with confusion. It seemed that Fath-ud-Din, as soon as the Chief had definitely refused to gratify him by extraditing Jahan Beg on account of some imaginary crime, told the King that he had strong reason to suspect his rival of intriguing with us. He was sure he was an Englishman, and he believed that he was plotting with the English to dethrone the King and put Rustam Khan in his place. The King was loath to suspect Jahan Beg, and particularly anxious not to have to find a substitute for him in the frontier work which he alone could do; but the Vizier was so positive that he consented to set spies to watch him. Of course they saw him come to us at night and found out that he was supplying us with corn, so he was promptly arrested and thrown into prison, and the charge considered proved.”
“You must have been pretty well stumped at that,” said Dick. “It was a mad thing for Jahan Beg to continue to come here as he did when he knew that Fath-ud-Din suspected him.”