His Excellency’s English
Governess

It was Presentation-day at the University of London. The date was somewhere in the latter half of the present century,—not this year, nor last year, nor the year before that, when you, dear reader, or your brother or cousin, may have graced the scene in cap and gown—but so long ago that the graduates and undergraduates of to-day were still in the nursery taking practical lessons as to the value of tactual perception, or forcing an undesired entrance into the realms of knowledge by way of the spelling-book and the Latin Primer. The day was a lovely one in May, and the spring sunshine poured in through the high windows of the theatre on the Chancellor in his Court suit and gold-embroidered gown, on the members of the Senate in their crimson and scarlet robes, and on the reporters scribbling away for dear life at their table. There was the usual throng of admiring friends and relations in the gallery and the back seats, and the usual inner semicircle of presentees, looking like a bed of gorgeous and not always harmonious flowers, from the vivid colours of their gowns and hoods. A modern observer would have noted only one point of marked difference from a similar scene to-day, and this was the absence of the serried ranks of lady graduates. There were only two or three women to be presented, and they looked pale and nervous, but dauntlessly resolved to do their duty to the end. In those days it was an achievement to gain possession of a London degree, and these girls felt that the eyes of England and of the world were upon them. They were conscious also of furnishing the sensation of the day, for a woman had obtained the prize for French in the B.A. Final, and the second place in Honours for Mental and Moral Science, for the first time on record, and the friends of female education were jubilant. Miss Arbuthnot, the principal of the South Central High School, in which Cecil Anstruther had received her education, looked fully two inches taller than usual as she led her pupil up to the Chancellor’s dais, and the little knot of friends and teachers in the gallery applauded frantically, while even the men who had been ignominiously left behind in the race were magnanimous enough to do their share of clapping. The parliamentary representative of the University referred especially to Miss Anstruther in his regulation speech, and the noble Chancellor himself pressed her hand and congratulated her with even more than his ordinary paternal suavity of manner. As for Cecil’s own feelings, she was so much embarrassed by the cheering, the publicity, and the difficulty of carrying her cap, her diploma, and her prize, and finding a hand to give the Chancellor at the same time, that she did not breathe freely until she was safely back in her seat, with her companions in misfortune eagerly inspecting her new possessions.

A little later, and the grand function was over. The Chancellor and the members of the Senate had filed off solemnly, like the chorus of a Greek play, the reporters had closed their note-books and decamped with much less ceremony, and the theatre was deserted, save by a few presentees who were displaying their medals and diplomas to impatient friends. Cecil paused at the door on her way to the robing-room with Miss Arbuthnot.

“I’m quite sorry to say good-bye to the dear old place,” she said; “I have been here for the Matriculation, the Intermediate, and the B.A., and now again to-day, and I know the pattern of the ceiling and all the mouldings on the walls by heart.”

“I only wish you would come here again for the M.A. and the D.Lit.,” said Miss Arbuthnot. “That is my one sorrow with regard to you, Cecil, that you are ending your academical course at this point.”

“But, you see, I have really no choice,” said Cecil. “The children at home are getting older, and I must either teach them myself or earn money to help with their education. And you know, Miss Arbuthnot, I do so much dread going among strangers, and I want to stay at home if I possibly can. If I could have got a post in the School, of course——”

“That would not be good enough,” replied Miss Arbuthnot with decision. “Public opinion has yet to be roused on the subject of High School teachers’ salaries. No, Cecil, what I should like for you would be something quite different. As for teaching your little brothers and sisters, I believe it is a task at once beyond and beneath your powers. You are much better fitted to instruct older children, and you are not at all suited to cope with very naughty ones, such as I understand them to be. I can’t prophesy success for you.”

“But what could I do?” asked Cecil.

“I think you should try for a post as finishing governess in some good family, where you would be properly treated,” said Miss Arbuthnot. “Abroad, perhaps; I believe the Russians treat their governesses very well. You are not a specialist, Cecil—that is another thing I regret, you would have gained the University scholarship for Mental and Moral Science if you had been—but you are good all round. Well, we mustn’t stay talking here. I will see you to Victoria, and then I must hurry back to the School. Only remember, if you do not succeed with the children, let me know. I am often asked to recommend thoroughly first-class governesses, and I will do my best for you, dear child.”

Miss Arbuthnot’s voice trembled a little as she concluded, for she had grown very fond of her head pupil, and honestly believed that she could have done anything she liked in the way of passing examinations. It had been a great pleasure to the elder lady to have this ardent young disciple always at hand, to sympathise with her plans and to become imbued with her views, nor was Miss Arbuthnot at all unmindful of the honour reflected on the School by the girl’s success. The cause of female education in general, and the South Central High School in particular, were the objects to which Miss Arbuthnot’s life was devoted, and the cause gained no small lustre from the ovation Cecil had received at the Presentation, and the comments which had been made thereon in the various speeches, and which might be looked for from the Press.

The principal’s expectations in this respect were not disappointed. The London dailies remarked on Cecil’s success in a style half-flattering, half-contemptuous, and at greater or less length according to their interest in the subject, and the country papers took up the strain, and carried it on in their several ways. In particular, the ‘Whitcliffe Argus,’ the chief organ of Cecil’s native place, devoted nearly half a column to setting forth, rather late in the day, in a dialect of journalese peculiarly its own, the honours gained by the “daughter of our esteemed fellow-townsman the much respected Vicar of St Barnabas’.” The paper was pounced upon, and the paragraph read aloud in a stentorian voice by one of Cecil’s younger brothers, a particularly rampant specimen of that troublesome race, when the ‘Argus’ was delivered at St Barnabas’ Vicarage. No subject had been further from Cecil’s mind as she sat at the head of the dinner-table, with flushed cheeks and rather dishevelled hair, and a worried look which contrasted sadly with the hopeful aspect she had worn when she bade farewell to Miss Arbuthnot little more than a month before. Mrs Anstruther was away on a visit, and to Cecil had fallen a task sufficient to appal the stoutest heart, that of keeping in order the seven small half-brothers and sisters who sat round the table, and whom no one but their own genial, boisterous Irish mother had ever succeeded in managing.

The Anstruther children were the terror of Whitcliffe. Their mother said that they had excellent hearts, and this was very possibly true, but it was also painfully evident that they had no manners, and a very small amount of conscience. Add to this the possession of tremendous animal spirits, splendid lungs, and most inventive brains, and it will be seen that the life of a conscientious elder sister, who held pronounced views of her own on the subject of education, was not likely to be an easy one among them. Of all those who tried to govern them Cecil was perhaps the least successful, for she was gentle, methodical, and somewhat old-maidish in her ways, and each of these tendencies militated strongly against her. She got on very well with Mrs Anstruther (indeed, no one who knew that stout, untidy little lady, with her blue-grey eyes and her soft, drawling brogue, could do otherwise), and loved her almost as much as if she had been her own mother, but the children did not take to her. Even now, after a morning spent in wild efforts to clear away the things they left about, undo the mischief they had done, and efface generally the traces of their baleful existence, she could not eat her dinner in peace. Patsy was spilling his pudding on the carpet, Loey feeding the cat from his plate, and when Cecil leaned across the table to rescue Eily’s glass of water from imminent peril of destruction, Terry seized the opportunity of pulling out all her hair-pins. And all this time Fitz was roaring out the paragraph from the ‘Argus’ in his loudest tones.

“Fitzgerald!” came in a stern voice from the lower end of the table, where sat Mr Anstruther, with a book propped up against the dish in front of him; “don’t make that noise. Why don’t you keep the children quiet, Cecil? My dear!” and Mr Anstruther’s eye-glasses went slowly up, to be focussed on Cecil’s dishevelled tresses, “what have you been doing to your hair? It is in a most disgraceful state. What is all this row about?”

“Why, daddy,” cried Loey, otherwise Owen, “it’s what we’ll do with Cissie’s money we’re talking about.”

“You will do nothing with it,” returned Mr Anstruther, severely, for the point was rather a sore one with him. “Your sister will spend the money as she likes, without consulting a set of little dunces like you.”

“Oh, papa, but I mean to do something for them,” cried Cecil. “I have been so glad ever since I heard I had got the prize to think that I should be able to help you with it. The money will pay the boys’ fees for one term, or help with their books, at any rate.”

“You are very good, my dear child, in wishing to be of use, but what can fifteen pounds do towards educating four boys, who have not brains enough among them all to get a ten-pound scholarship, nor steadiness and sense of honour enough to go to and from the Grammar-School like gentlemen? What with their school-fees, and the bills I have to pay for the damage they do, it needs a millionaire to look after them.”

And Mr Anstruther rose abruptly from his seat, said grace, and departed to his study. It was a constant disappointment to him that only his eldest daughter had inherited his own scholarly tastes, and that his younger children, although dowered with their mother’s splendid bodily health, had inherited also her distaste for steady mental work. Sometimes the disparity made him a little unjust to Cecil, as if his disappointment were her fault, and the sense of this struck her to-day so keenly that, worn-out and discouraged, she pushed back her chair from the table and burst into tears. The children stood around in impotent alarm; then, their consciences no doubt pricking them, one after another crept softly from the room. For a little while Cecil sobbed hopelessly; then a sudden resolution came to her, and she started up. Miss Arbuthnot’s words had returned to her memory, and she saw that if she could not be useful with the children at home, she might at any rate help to provide the money necessary to give them the education they so greatly needed. With ferocious haste she twisted her soft auburn hair into a rough knot, secured it by sticking in the pins in handfuls, and dashed away the tears from her brown eyes, now blurred and piteous with crying. Without giving herself time to repent, she sat down at the writing-table in the window, and began to write. The chair and table shook with her sobs as she did so, but she scrambled through her letter as fast as she could, sealed and stamped it, and then, snatching up her hat, rushed across the road to the pillar-box with the important missive, determined not to trust any of the boys.

All this afternoon Cecil, to use Biblical language, “went softly in the bitterness of her soul,” for the step she had just taken marked the downfall of many hopes. Throughout her school career, which had cost her father very little, owing to the number of prizes and scholarships she had won, her aim had been to make use of her knowledge in instructing her half-brothers and sisters. Recollections of past failure in holiday-times had not deterred her from setting to work again with enthusiasm, but after rather less than a month’s trial she was compelled to admit that the result was unsatisfactory. She knew that under ordinary circumstances she was an interesting teacher and a good disciplinarian,—experience in teaching classes at the South Central School had assured her of this,—and she had not reckoned on the opposing influence which was to render all her efforts nugatory. The children were the only subject on which Mrs Anstruther and Cecil were gravely divided in opinion, but on this one point they differed exceedingly. Mrs Anstruther insisted that Cecil was trying to break the children’s spirits, and she made it her business to rescue them from this untoward fate on every possible occasion. Derided by her pupils and unsupported by their mother, her rules set aside, and her punishments continually remitted, it is little wonder that Cecil decided to give up the contest in despair. There seemed to be something in her that aroused all the wickedness of which the children were capable; and only this morning a final touch had been put to her misery by a remark of her father’s, to the effect that he wished Cecil would leave her brothers and sisters alone, for they were always far worse with her than with any one else. That Mr Anstruther should say this was the most unkindest cut of all, and Cecil felt that her last support in the home was gone.

The next morning, just as breakfast was over at St Barnabas’ Vicarage, great excitement was caused among the children by the sight of a telegraph-boy coming up to the house. Six of them met him at the door, and conveyed the missive in triumph to Cecil, to whom it was addressed, offering meanwhile various suggestions as to the nature of the contents. It was with some difficulty that she succeeded in rescuing the envelope untorn, and in acquainting herself with the message.

“M. Arbuthnot to C. Anstruther.

“Come to me at once for two or three days. Have heard of something for you.”

Cecil read the words in astonishment, with all the children dancing and yelling round her like wild Indians. They were still in the hall, and Cecil was too much engrossed by the telegram to try to calm them, until the study door opened, and her father’s tired face looked out.

“Really, Cecil,” he began, “I think, when you know I am preparing my sermon, you might——” But his voice was drowned by the children.

“Daddy, Cissie’s got a telegram. We wouldn’t go to school until she would tell us what it was. She’s going to London, isn’t she?”

“What does all this mean, Cecil?” asked Mr Anstruther, wearily, and his daughter put the telegram into his hand.

“Well,” he said, when he had read it, “you have asked Miss Arbuthnot to find you a situation, I suppose? After all, perhaps it is the best thing you can do.”

“And you must let me help with the boys then, papa,” said Cecil, eagerly. “I think I am pretty sure to get a good salary, you know, and I can take one of them, at any rate, off your hands.”

“Very well, my dear. It is impossible not to feel grateful for such a proposal. Patrick, leave off teasing that cat, and go to school with your brothers. If you can get your things ready for the 11.55 train, Cecil, I will walk down to the station with you.”

Cecil dashed up-stairs, and spent the next hour in wild efforts to get her box packed, which was a work of difficulty, with Eily, Norah, and Geraldine standing around, advising, touching, criticising, meddling in a way that nearly drove her mad. Happily Mrs Anstruther was to return before lunch, and she therefore felt less compunction than she would otherwise have done in leaving her flock to their own devices. By dint of superhuman exertion she managed to be ready by the appointed time, and kissed the children all round, admonished them not to quarrel, rushed into the nursery to remind the nurse to put on their clean pinafores before their mother’s return, and gave hasty parting directions about lunch to the cook. Then there was a hurried walk down to the station, in which she endeavoured vainly to keep up with her father’s long strides, and a brief farewell on the platform. Cecil shook hands with Mr Anstruther (he had an invincible objection to being kissed in public, principally owing to the fact that his wife and younger children were especially given to the practice), and he put her into a ladies’ carriage just as the train was about to start.

Leaning back in her place, Cecil spent her time during the journey in speculations as to the situation found for her. Was she to be principal of some newly-founded High School, where the extent and freshness of her acquirements would counterbalance the defects of her youth and comparative inexperience? Or was she to be governess in a private family, possibly on the Continent, possibly in some stately English home, where she would be treated with frigid courtesy, and shunned and criticised as a “learned lady”? She sighed as she revolved these possibilities in her mind, and wished once more that she might have remained at home. But regrets were vain, the train was nearing Victoria, and on the platform stood Miss Arbuthnot, to whom Mr Anstruther had telegraphed from Whitcliffe that Cecil was on her way.

“I am glad you have come at once, Cecil,” she said, as they left the station in a cab, “for I can give you a rare treat for to-night. What do you think of tickets for both of us for the Conversazione at Burlington House, to meet all the great people?”

“How splendid!” cried Cecil, with sparkling eyes. “And the situation, Miss Arbuthnot?”

“Oh—ah—the situation. Of course that is the chief thing, after all. Well, you and I are to meet the lady and gentleman at Daridge’s Hotel to-morrow, and lunch with them afterwards.”

“Oh, then it is a private family?” asked Cecil.

“Private? Oh, well—yes. Not a school at all.”

Miss Arbuthnot seemed not to wish to say anything more, but presently she began to question Cecil as to her dress for the evening, betraying a solicitude as to her appearance which surprised the girl.

“Of course, I ought to have told you to bring your best evening gown,” she said, “but I never thought of it, and it would have been rather awkward to mention it in a telegram. What have you? the black velvet with your mother’s lace? It is rather old for you, but after all that is no drawback. You see, Cecil,” smiling at her pupil’s puzzled face, “we are all very proud of you. You have done the School great credit, and I should not wonder if you were to find yourself a little bit of a celebrity in a small way to-night. So you see why I want you to look well, that you may uphold the honour of the South Central.”

CHAPTER II.
“THERE WAS A SOUND OF REVELRY BY NIGHT.”

Miss Arbuthnot’s well-meant solicitude had the effect of making Cecil very nervous as the evening approached, and at last she actually entreated to be allowed to stay behind at the School and spend a quiet hour or two with the governesses, instead of going to Burlington House. But Miss Arbuthnot would not hear of this, and insisted on supervising her dressing personally, almost hustling her into the carriage at last.

“Nonsense, my dear, nonsense!” she said, vigorously, when they were fairly started. “You really must get rid of this foolish timidity, or you will be fit for nothing. I should have been seriously displeased if you had not come. Not only would it have been very rude, for it is a great favour to get a ticket, but there are several people I want you to see, a very old friend of mine for one. You have heard me speak of Elma Wargrave?”

“One of the pioneers?” asked Cecil.

In Miss Arbuthnot’s circle the early workers in the cause of female education were always designated by this respectful term.

“Yes, I see you know whom I mean. She and I were great friends when we were girls, and we had almost decided to start school-keeping together. She was most enthusiastic about it, and used to talk of the joy of devoting her whole life absolutely to the great work. But, unfortunately, she went to stay with some relations, and while with them she fell in with a young Scotch soldier, Sir Dugald Haigh. He was ridiculously poor, for his father had spent everything he could lay his hands on, and mortgaged the estates, so that Sir Dugald had scarcely more than his Artillery pay upon which to support an empty title and two people. But Elma married him and went out to India at once, and she has travelled about with him ever since in all sorts of outlandish places and horrible climates. I believe they have been very happy, and Sir Dugald is high in the Service, and has lately been made Consul-General and political agent at Baghdad, so I suppose they are not pinched any longer now. I don’t grudge them their happiness, my dear,” added Miss Arbuthnot, slowly, “but I have never been able to help regretting that Elma should have given up such a work for the sake of that very ordinary little man.”

“I am quite anxious to see them,” said Cecil. “Is Sir Dugald in England as well as Lady Haigh?”

“No, she is here alone. Some trouble broke out in the country just as they were starting, and Sir Dugald would not take his furlough. But here we are. Now, my dear child, forget yourself, and think of the people you will see.”

In spite of this excellent advice, Cecil still felt very nervous when they had laid aside their wraps and she was following Miss Arbuthnot’s sweeping satin train up the steps and into the crowded and brightly lighted rooms of the Academy. She did not know that she made a very pretty picture herself, with her fresh colouring and coils of bright hair set off by the black velvet dress, with its deep cuffs and standing collar of old lace, but Miss Arbuthnot perceived this and rejoiced to know it, not caring at all that her own plain, sensible face, adorned with the inevitable pince-nez, formed an excellent foil for Cecil’s girlish charms.

At first Cecil wanted to stand aside in some quiet corner, and watch the throng of noted people moving about, and learn all their names, but Miss Arbuthnot was a celebrity herself, and was, moreover, a woman of many acquaintances, who had all some kind or complimentary word for her young companion, when they recognised her or heard who she was. Still, it seemed to Cecil that her friend was watching anxiously for some one who had not yet appeared, and that she was manifestly relieved when a stout elderly lady, chiefly remarkable for the possession of a very prominent set of teeth, made her way through the crowd and joined them, greeting Miss Arbuthnot with effusion, and turning an expansive smile on Cecil.

“And this must be our young friend the lady graduate,” she said, looking at her kindly. “You must introduce us, Marian. I should like a talk with Miss Anstruther.”

“Cecil,” said Miss Arbuthnot, rather nervously, “I want to introduce you to Lady Haigh. We were speaking about her just now.”

Cecil was nothing loth to make acquaintance with the lady who had given up so much for the sake of her young Scotch soldier, and whose defection Miss Arbuthnot still mourned so bitterly, and she acquiesced at once when Lady Haigh suggested that they should retire to a quiet palm-shaded seat among the statuary, and have a chat, while Miss Arbuthnot was taken possession of by a distinguished cleric who had also been one of the pioneers of the education movement. Lady Haigh proved to be as kind as she looked, and showed herself very much interested in Cecil’s career. She asked as many questions as though she wanted to write her biography, and asked them, too, as if she were really interested in the answers, and not asking merely for politeness’ sake. Then she inquired all about the girl’s home circumstances, and learned all that Cecil would tell her about Mr and Mrs Anstruther and the rest of the family at St Barnabas’ Vicarage, and then she changed the subject of the conversation abruptly, and began to talk about her own doings in Baghdad. It seemed to be a fairly pleasant life on the whole, and Lady Haigh showed herself by no means desirous of underrating its attractions.

“You see, my dear, although it is dreadfully decayed since the days of the Khalifs and the ‘Arabian Nights,’ yet it is a very interesting place still. The society is really not bad, for there are nearly always travellers or officers of some sort passing through, and they all come to the Residency. Then the assistant political agent comes up sometimes from Basra, and of course there are clerks and secretaries, but they are mostly Armenians or East Indians. There is generally a gunboat in the river, too, and when it is lying off the Residency we are really quite gay. Then there are the officials at the other consulates, but socially speaking, and between you and me, they are rather a dull set. But there are a few of the Jews and Armenians in the place who are travelled and cultivated people, and quite friends of ours. Then, of course, it is very interesting when you get to know some of the Turkish ladies, and it is curious to study the mixture of nationalities in such a place as Baghdad. I often say that it reminds me of nothing so much as of Nuremberg or one of those German cities of the Middle Ages, at the time of their annual fairs.”

“I should love to see it,” said Cecil, drawing a long breath, “but I shall never be able to afford an Eastern trip until I am quite old. When the boys are all off my hands, I mean to save up, so that I can travel about wherever I like when I am an ancient spinster. It would scarcely do for me to go out now and set up a girls’ High School under the shadow of the Residency, would it?”

“Scarcely,” laughed Lady Haigh; “and I am afraid, too, you would hardly get pupils enough to make it pay, except possibly among the Greeks and Armenians. The Turkish ladies are kept very closely secluded, and although the Pasha is very anxious to do what he can to introduce European customs, yet he is not even backed up by his own harem.”

“It must feel like being in the ‘Arabian Nights’ to live in Baghdad,” said Cecil.

“Wouldn’t you like to find out something about it from one of the natives?” asked Lady Haigh, indicating a tall, olive-complexioned gentleman a short distance off, clad in irreproachable evening-dress and a fez cap. “That is Denarien Bey, an Armenian gentleman whose family has lived in Baghdad for many generations. He is in England at present on some business for the Pasha, and would be delighted to tell you anything you wanted to know.”

She beckoned with her fan, and Denarien Bey came forward with much alacrity. He bowed very politely when he was introduced, but Cecil fancied that she saw a start of dismay when he caught her name. She assured herself afterwards, however, that it must have been only fancy, for he was most attentive, answered all her questions about Baghdad, and escorted her to the buffet and catered for her as punctiliously as any Englishman. At last he took her back to Miss Arbuthnot, and the strange, delightful evening was over. Cecil passed the sleeping hours of that night in a wild whirl, in which visions of Baghdad in the golden prime of good Haroun-al-Raschid were peopled with the gorgeous throngs she had seen at Burlington House, and the President’s bow and hand-shake had some occult connection with the black eyes and hooked nose of Denarien Bey, and with the diamonds and Indian embroidery of the “Mother of Teeth,” as her Armenian friend had informed her that Lady Haigh was called in Baghdad. Towards morning she had a less extravagant dream, relating to the foundation of the High School she had laughingly proposed, and including the appearance of his Excellency Ahmed Khémi, Pasha-Governor of Baghdad, in full uniform and blazing with orders, to give away the prizes at the end of the first term. From this delightful vision Cecil was roused by a visit from Miss Arbuthnot, who came to her room to see whether she had overslept herself, and again displayed considerable interest in ascertaining what dress she intended to wear.

Breakfast over, and Miss Arbuthnot’s modest victoria at the door to convey Cecil to meet her fate, the principal grew nervous again. Cecil was far more collected than she was, and got together her testimonials and certificates with a calmness which was extremely creditable. At last they were ready to start, and, after what seemed a miraculously short drive, arrived at Daridge’s Hotel. Cecil’s courage was beginning to fail her now, and she felt her limbs trembling as she followed Miss Arbuthnot into the hall, and thence up the wide staircase, preceded by a peculiarly gorgeous domestic in livery. Presently this individual opened a door on one side of a lofty corridor, and ushered them into a room filled with gentlemen. Cecil caught Miss Arbuthnot’s arm.

“This can’t be the right room. He’s taking us into a committee meeting by mistake,” she whispered.

“No, my dear, it is all right,” said Miss Arbuthnot, and marched on undauntedly, Cecil following, and experiencing something of the feeling which must have actuated Childe Roland when he came to the Dark Tower.

The gentlemen rose as they entered, and one of them, in whom Cecil recognised her last night’s acquaintance, Denarien Bey, came to shake hands; while, to complete her mystification, she caught sight of Lady Haigh smiling and nodding at her from the other side of a long table. Denarien Bey placed chairs for the new arrivals—a proceeding which reminded Cecil forcibly of the words sometimes met with in the reports of trials, “the prisoner at the bar was accommodated with a seat,”—and then returned to his place, so that Cecil had time to look about her.

There were some eight or nine gentlemen present, the chief of whom seemed to be a grey-haired man at the end of the table. His face was in some way familiar to Cecil, but it was not at first that she remembered that she had seen him in close attendance on the Turkish Ambassador on his way to some State function. Next to him, on either side, sat Lady Haigh and Denarien Bey, and then came several vivacious, dark-eyed gentlemen in fezzes, who talked among themselves with a great deal of gesticulation, and seemed to bear a kind of national likeness to the Armenian envoy. Somewhat apart from the rest sat a stout elderly Englishman, with a stolid and unconvinced expression, and a general air of being present to keep other people from being imposed upon. There was also a secretary—a slim, dark-skinned youth in spectacles, who scribbled notes in a large clasped book, when he was not nibbling his pen and staring at Cecil; and lastly, at the very end of the table, Cecil and Miss Arbuthnot themselves. Cecil was in a hopeless state of amazement and mystification, feeling, moreover, a terrible inclination to giggle on finding herself the cynosure of all the eyes in the room. What could it all mean? Was it possible that Ahmed Khémi Pasha, who was said to be fond of European innovations, was going to found a High School in Baghdad? and was she to take charge of it? But no; Miss Arbuthnot had said that the situation was to be in a private family. What could be going to happen?

There was a little low-toned conversation between the two gentlemen at the head of the table, and then Denarien Bey spoke.

“We have heard, mademoiselle, that you are willing to accept a situation as governess out of England—a course seldom adopted by young ladies of your high attainments. This suggested to her ladyship,” he bowed to Lady Haigh, “and myself the idea that you might be found the proper person to undertake a charge of a very delicate and important nature. Before saying more, I must impress upon you that all that passes here is in strict confidence, whether the result of this interview is satisfactory or the reverse.”

Cecil bowed, and he went on—

“I think I shall scarcely be committing an indiscretion if I mention in the present company that his Excellency Ahmed Khémi Pasha, whom I have the honour to represent here, intends to make his third son, Azim Shams-ed-Din Bey, his heir. A cause may be found for this in the unsatisfactory character of his Excellency’s eldest son; and there are also other family reasons which render it imperative. His Excellency has always felt a profound admiration for the English people, and this has of late so much increased that he is anxious to secure an English governess for the Bey, who is now about ten years old. As I was about to visit England, his Excellency thought fit to confide to me the duty of finding a lady with suitable qualifications who would be willing to accept the post, and I, feeling the charge too heavy for me, even with the kind and experienced help of her ladyship, have taken the precaution of associating with myself my good friend Tussûn Bey,” here he bowed to the old gentleman at the head of the table, “and these other kind friends.”

There was another interlude of bowing, and Denarien Bey continued—

“The special qualifications which his Excellency desired me to seek in the lady who is to have the charge of his son are these: she must be capable of carrying on and completing the Bey’s education in all but strictly military subjects; she must be young and—and—well, not disagreeable-looking, that the Bey may feel inclined to learn from her; she must be discreet and not given to making mischief; and she must have been trained in the best methods of teaching. May I trouble you, mademoiselle, to bring your testimonials to this end of the table?”

Somewhat surprised, Cecil rose and carried her bundle of papers to him, while the other gentlemen all turned round on their chairs to look at her, apparently to ascertain whether she fulfilled the second condition satisfactorily.

“I think, gentlemen,” said Tussûn Bey in French, “that if Mademoiselle Antaza”—he made a bold attempt at the unmanageable name—“finds herself able to accept the situation, his Excellency will be much gratified by her appearance. She is thoroughly English.”

“Vraiment anglaise!” ran down the table, as all the gentlemen gazed critically at the tall slight figure in the severely simple tweed dress and cloth jacket, with the small close hat and short veil crowning the smooth hair. Cecil returned blushing to her place, while Denarien Bey explained to his assessors the purport of the various testimonials; and the secretary, finding Miss Arbuthnot’s eye upon him, made copious notes. After a time the papers were all returned to Denarien Bey, the gentlemen making remarks upon them in two or three strange-sounding dialects; and after receiving a paper from the secretary, the Pasha’s representative proceeded to explain the terms which were offered.

The salary proposed was a large one, but the Pasha was anxious that his son’s course of study should be uninterrupted, and it was therefore his endeavour to secure for it an unbroken period of five years by the following plan. Cecil was to sign an agreement, if her services were engaged, to serve for two years, and on the expiration of this term she could, if she was willing, at once sign another bond to remain three years more, after which she was to be entitled to a large extra bonus in consideration of her labours in conducting Azim Bey’s education to a successful close. If Cecil broke the agreement, she was to forfeit the salary for all but the time she had actually served; but if it was broken by the Pasha for any cause excepting her misconduct, the balance was to be paid to her. By the end of the five years Azim Bey would be fifteen, and old enough to be emancipated from female control, and Cecil might return to her own country after an uninterrupted absence of five years.

Cecil’s heart sank as she listened. When she heard the amount of the salary offered, she had eagerly calculated what she could do for the boys with it, and the mention of the bonus raised high hopes in her heart, until she realised the conditions under which alone it was to be gained. Actually to expatriate herself for five whole years! Never to see England, or her father, or cheerful little Mrs Anstruther, or any of those dear dreadful children for five years! It was too appalling. She was on the point of rising and refusing the situation point-blank, but she found that Denarien Bey was speaking again.

“You will take until the day after to-morrow to consider this, mademoiselle. I will peruse carefully your testimonials, if you will be good enough to leave them with me; and if they prove satisfactory, as I have no doubt will be the case, and you decide to accept the terms offered by his Excellency, Lady Haigh’s return to Baghdad to rejoin her husband will afford an excellent opportunity for your journey thither. This proposal comes from her ladyship herself, and I do not doubt that you will rejoice to avail yourself of it. I would remind you that there is no obligation upon you, when you have served for two years, to sign the further bond for three years more, although his Excellency is anxious to secure this, and offers such a handsome present with the view of obtaining it. I thank you for your presence here to-day, mademoiselle, and will not trouble you any further.”

The whole assembly rose and bowed as Cecil and Miss Arbuthnot passed out, Lady Haigh following them closely.

“Come to my sitting-room,” she said; “you are going to lunch with me, you know. Denarien Bey will be coming in as soon as he has got rid of his friends, and then we can pick his brains to some purpose.”

CHAPTER III.
A MOST ADVANTAGEOUS OFFER.

“Come in, come in,” said Lady Haigh, hospitably, leading the way into her sitting-room. “Well, Cecil, my dear (for I really must call you so), were you very much astonished at the sight of that formidable array? Wasn’t it just like Denarien Bey to make such a tremendous business of it? I suppose it’s his nature to like to have a great fuss about everything.”

“But hadn’t the Pasha appointed the council of selection?” asked Miss Arbuthnot.

“Not a bit of it,” laughed Lady Haigh. “Of course, for one thing, Denarien Bey was in a terrible fright. If Cecil turned out unsatisfactory, or if he bungled the business in any way, he might lose his head. So he gets together as many people as he can with whom to share the responsibility, so that he can put the blame on them if anything goes wrong, while some of them are too strong for the Pasha to touch, and the others are out of his reach. But it was simply a desire to make a great business of the matter which made him drag poor old Tussûn Bey here from the Embassy.”

“Yes; I could not quite see what he had to do with it,” said Miss Arbuthnot.

“Why, my dear Marian,” cried Lady Haigh, “he is the Pasha’s agent in the Embassy. Of course it is not called so. We say that he is ‘connected with the Pasha by old ties of friendship,’ but that only means that he is in his pay. He is originally and officially an ordinary secretary of Embassy; but his private and particular business is to watch over the Pasha’s interests, and warn him of any danger from his enemies here, either in the Embassy or in our own Government.”

“And all the other gentlemen, who were they?” asked Cecil.

“The Easterns were various Levantines and Armenians settled in London, also devoted to the Pasha’s interests. Some of them are in his pay, and some of them pay him. Of course what he gives them is called remuneration for services performed, and what they give him is called a present, or a tribute of respect, or something of that sort.”

“My dear Elma!” said Miss Arbuthnot, “I had no idea of the network of corruption into which you were leading us.”

“Corruption?” said Lady Haigh. “You might call it corruption in England, but for Ahmed Khémi Pasha it is really only self-defence. He knows that he is surrounded by spies and people who are longing to see him make a false step, and then report it at Constantinople, poor man! Of course I don’t defend his methods; I only say that from his point of view he has some excuse for them. His position is frightfully insecure. And that reminds me, you noticed the Englishman who watched over our conference just now?”

“Yes,” said Miss Arbuthnot and Cecil together.

“That was Mr Skrine, the Pasha’s banker, with whom Denarien Bey is staying. It is said that Ahmed Khémi invested £50,000 with him only last year, as a precaution, of course, in case he should be obliged to take flight.”

“But what is he afraid of?” asked Cecil; “has he done anything?”

“He has not committed any crime, if that is what you mean—not what is considered a crime in the East, at any rate. But he has committed the offence of existing, and of being the Pasha-Governor of Baghdad, and that alone makes him innumerable enemies. His reforms and his innovations have made him a good many more, and so the poor man has need of all the friends he can get to counteract their influence.”

“But can he trust Denarien Bey? Isn’t he an enemy?” asked Cecil.

“Denarien Bey stands or falls with Ahmed Khémi Pasha, as things are at present. He is too deeply committed to his cause to be able to dissociate himself from it.”

“But he is an Armenian,” objected Cecil, “and I thought the Armenians hated the Turks?”

“Theoretically, all Armenians hate and despise all Turks, and the Turks return the compliment with interest,” said Lady Haigh, “but practically they often find each other very useful. I daresay that Denarien Bey in his foolish moments, and when he is quite sure there are no spies about, talks of independence, and glorifies Holy Russia as the protector of the enslaved. But in everyday life he remembers that he is not a patriot hiding in the hills, with a long gun and a few rags for all his possessions, but a prosperous citizen, with a wife and family to support, and a reputation to keep up. I don’t know what might happen if a revolution really came, and seemed very likely to be successful. I fancy that Denarien Bey would find political salvation then; but for anything short of that, I think he will stick to the Pasha.”

“Lady Haigh, don’t you believe in any one?” Cecil’s tone was one of absolute dismay, and Lady Haigh laughed pleasantly.

“Not in many Armenians, dear, at any rate—or many Easterns, for that matter. I will give you a warning, Cecil. If you wish to keep your faith in human nature, don’t marry a consul-general in the East. When you have knocked about as much as I have, you will know what I mean. Of course there are exceptions. Ah! here is Denarien Bey at last. Now we can have lunch, and a really interesting talk.”

Cecil was still suffering under the shock caused by Lady Haigh’s want of faith in oriental human nature, and she was very silent at first. But the other two ladies kept up a brisk conversation with Denarien Bey, and presently she became interested against her will.

“Of what nation is the Pasha?” she asked at last, when the rest had been discussing the various reforms which his Excellency had lately introduced.

“It is very difficult to say,” replied Denarien Bey, meditatively. “I should think it probable that he has mingled Turkish, Circassian, and Egyptian blood in his veins. Nothing is known of his antecedents, but in Turkey we care little about that. When he first rose to distinction it was alleged that he himself did not know who his parents were, but he disproved the calumny by producing his mother, and installing her as the head of his harem.”

“And a most disagreeable woman she is too,” said Lady Haigh, with deep feeling. “I really don’t know a more intolerable person. It is a perfect penance to have to go and pay my respects to her, which is one of my official duties.”

“But why is not the Pasha’s wife the head of his harem?” asked Cecil.

“Which?” asked Denarien Bey, raising his eyebrows slightly.

“Oh, has he more than one? I thought he was an enlightened kind of man,” said Cecil.

“He had already two wives when he came to Baghdad,” said Denarien Bey. “You can suppose that his mother chose them for him, if you like, mademoiselle. But his third and favourite wife, the mother of Azim Bey, was an Arab, the daughter of the sheikh of the great Hajar tribe. So you see it is as well that there was some one to keep order in the harem, or the wills of these three ladies might have clashed.”

“But how can the Pasha choose Azim Bey to succeed him if he has two sons older than he is, as you said when we were in the other room?” asked Cecil.

“Not to succeed him, mademoiselle. Surely nothing that I said could have suggested to you such an idea? In Turkey we do not believe in hereditary honours, except in the case of the sovereign, and even then it is the eldest prince in the royal family who succeeds, not necessarily the eldest son of the late king, by any means. But with respect to a pashalik like that of Baghdad, any son of the present Pasha is the very last person on whom the Padishah would think of conferring it at his death. In one or two generations a clever family might gain the allegiance of the whole province, and succeed in detaching it from the empire. It would be the height of folly to permit such a thing. No, our young friend Azim Bey will be only a private person, or if he wishes for public office, he will have to make his way, like the sons of your own viceroys and governor-generals. Of course there will be many advantages on his side. He would have experience, friends, and plenty of money, which, after all, is the great thing with us.”

“Then how is he the Pasha’s heir?” asked Cecil.

“He will succeed to the bulk of his property,” answered Denarien Bey, “and that is by no means contemptible.”

“But what about the two elder sons?” asked Cecil.

“That is a long story,” said Denarien Bey. “The Pasha’s eldest son, Hussein Bey, was brought up by his mother and grandmother in retirement while his Excellency was struggling to his present position, and he grew up a very strict and bigoted Mussulman. Ahmed Khémi is, as you, mademoiselle, have heard, a man of liberal and enlightened opinions, and as soon as he sent for his household to Baghdad, trouble began. Whatever the Pasha did was bitterly opposed by his son, who was supported by the influence of the palace harem. At length things became so bad that Hussein Bey was banished, but he is still concerned in every plot which is set on foot by the more fanatical among the Moslems to get rid of the Pasha, and he hates, perhaps not unnaturally, his half-brother, Azim Bey. I believe that his mother and grandmother have some wild idea that he may be able, if properly supported, to depose his father and succeed him. Such a case has occurred once during the present century, but it is not in the least likely to be repeated, and they are not the right people to bring it about, in any case.”

“And the second son?” asked Cecil.

“Ah, the difficulty about Mahmoud Bey was of a different kind. His Excellency was much at Constantinople before he became Pasha, and while there he associated a good deal with certain members of the European colony at Pera, who were not, perhaps, altogether the best company he could have found. Among these was a Frenchman named Cadran, who acted as tutor to the young Mahmoud Bey, and made himself very useful to his father. When his Excellency came to Baghdad, M. Cadran accompanied him, and was even allowed to give French lessons to Naimeh Khanum, the Pasha’s eldest daughter, who was then very young. Suddenly it was discovered that he was trying to induce the young lady to elope with him, and was doing his best to gain her attendants over by bribery. Of course the fellow was sent off at once, and unfortunately, he was sent off so quickly that he was able to present a claim for damages. The French Government took up the matter, and the Pasha was forced to pay very heavily. Some time before, it had been arranged that Mahmoud Bey was to finish his education in France, and he was sent to the École Polytechnique. That was all very well, but when he had finished his course of study, he refused to come back. He was enjoying himself in Paris, with Cadran at his elbow, and his Excellency was in communication with the French Government on the subject, when the Bey died suddenly and all was ended.”

“And so Azim Bey is the only one left?” said Cecil.

“Just so, mademoiselle. Emineh[01] Khanum, his mother, was, as I have said, the Pasha’s favourite wife, and on her deathbed she induced him to promise to make her son his heir. That was just after Mahmoud Bey’s first refusal to come home, and his Excellency was so angry that he consented at once. But it was a foolish wish of the poor mother’s to see her son the heir, for his brothers became incensed against him immediately, and he is a mark for the hatred of the whole harem. Now that his mother is dead, there is no one to protect him, and the Um-ul-Pasha (mother of the Pasha) and the other two wives hate him for the sake of the two elder sons. His Excellency has been obliged always to take him with him wherever he went, and to keep him in the selamlik (the men’s part of the house), instead of the harem when at home, to save his life; but he finds that the Bey, from being so much with men, is growing precocious and conceited, and he desires therefore to obtain a governess for him.”

“But what made him wish for an Englishwoman?”

Denarien Bey smiled grimly.

“It is not easy, mademoiselle, to find ladies of other nationalities who combine the necessary qualifications. A Frenchwoman might have been obtained, but after what I have told you, you will not be surprised to hear that his Excellency would not allow a French person to enter the palace, much less to have the charge of his son. For the English, on the contrary, he has the highest admiration, and would have liked to send the Bey to be educated at one of your great public schools. The desire, however, of keeping him under his own eye, and the fear of a repetition of his experience with Mahmoud Bey, induces him to prefer this method, if it can be found practicable.”

Shortly after this Denarien Bey took his departure, after again expressing his earnest hope that Cecil would see her way clear to accepting the post offered her. When he was gone, Lady Haigh rose.

“Come, Marian,” she said to Miss Arbuthnot, “you and I are going to do our shopping. You promised me the whole day, you know. Cecil is going to sit down and write a glowing description of the situation the Pasha offers her to her father, and say how much she longs to take it.”

“But I don’t in the least think that papa will let me go, Lady Haigh,” said Cecil, waiving the remark about her personal wishes.

“If he won’t, he is a much more foolish man than I think him,” replied Lady Haigh, in her most uncompromising manner; “and I shall consider it my duty to write him an urgent letter of remonstrance.”

“When you go back, Lady Haigh,” asked Cecil, suddenly, “shall you go to Beyrout and Damascus and then across the desert to Baghdad?”

“When we go back, my dear Cecil,” corrected Lady Haigh, impressively, “we shall go by the P. & O. to Karachi, then by another steamer to Basra, and then by another to Baghdad. I am not an adventurous young lady disposed to be sentimental over Bedouin wanderers, and I have no wish to go through unnecessary hardships, nor yet to be captured by insurgent Arabs and held to ransom, and so I fear that you will have to be content to accompany the steady-going old woman by this humdrum route.”

“But I am quite sure that papa will never let me go,” repeated Cecil, confidently, with a sigh that was not all of sadness.

For æsthetic reasons she would be sorry not to see Baghdad, but everything else seemed to combine to make her dread going there. She was so strongly convinced that her father would share her feelings, that she gave herself a great deal of trouble in trying to compose a letter to him which should be scrupulously fair, and place all the advantages of the situation in their proper light. The letter once written and sent off, she felt quite at ease in her mind, and was even disposed to mourn gently over the chance she was losing. It was Miss Arbuthnot, and not Cecil, who betrayed excitement when Mr Anstruther’s answer arrived, and waited with bated breath whilst it was opened.

“I am sure he won’t let me go, Miss Arbuthnot,” Cecil had said, smiling, as she took up the envelope; but on glancing through the letter she uttered a cry, and looked up with a piteous face of dismay.

“Oh! Miss Arbuthnot, he wants me to go—at least, he says that it seems a most excellent offer, and he is coming up to town early to-morrow morning to see about it and to talk to you.”

“Well, my dear, it only confirms the high opinion I have always held of your father’s judgment. I expected he would say just this.”

“It only shows how dreadfully I must have failed at home if papa is so anxious to send me away,” said Cecil, on the verge of tears.

“My dear child, if you will only look at things in a sensible light instead of determining to make yourself out a martyr, you will remember that Mr Anstruther is probably thinking only how much you could help with the boys’ education.”

But Cecil refused to be consoled, and her only comfort lay in the hope that Mr Anstruther would find the post unsatisfactory when he came to look into its conditions a little more. But she was out when he arrived, and he was ushered immediately into the presence of Miss Arbuthnot and Lady Haigh, who both assured him that Cecil was an extremely fortunate girl to have such a chance.

“You see,” said Miss Arbuthnot, “Cecil has done so very well that an ordinary situation as governess or High School mistress is not to be thought of for her. But here is an almost unique post waiting for her acceptance in which she may do work which might well be called making history. It is true that she must bind herself for five years or so, but this is less of a drawback in her case than in others. I do not myself think that she is likely to marry—at any rate, not early—for she is a little fastidious in her tastes,—not that this is to be regretted, but rather admired.”

Mr Anstruther almost blushed when he heard his daughter’s future thus candidly discussed. It had not occurred to him to regard marriage in the light in which it appeared to Miss Arbuthnot—as a kind of devouring gulf which swallowed up the finest products of the female education movement—and it seemed to him indelicate to estimate probabilities so openly. But both ladies were so evidently unconscious of Miss Arbuthnot’s having said anything improper that he quickly recovered his composure and listened undisturbed to Lady Haigh’s exposé of the advantages of the scheme. The consequence was that when Cecil came in her father’s last doubts had been removed, and he was ready to bid her God-speed in her enterprise.

“Oh! Miss Arbuthnot, must I go?” she asked despairingly, when Mr Anstruther had hurried off to catch his train for Whitcliffe, and Cecil and the principal were at tea in the latter’s sanctum.

“That is for you to decide,” answered Miss Arbuthnot.

“That is just what papa said,” wailed Cecil; “but I don’t want to decide.”

“That means that you don’t want to go to Baghdad?” said Miss Arbuthnot.

“I want to go if it is right,” said Cecil; “but how am I to know whether it is right? Don’t you think it seems like going into temptation?”

“Temptation of what kind?” asked Miss Arbuthnot. “Temptation to become a Mohammedan, do you mean? No, my dear Cecil, I cannot honestly say that I think the side of Islam you will see at Baghdad is likely to attract you to it.”

“Now you are laughing at me,” said Cecil, reproachfully.

“Dear child, I want to help you. If you feel that there is a work to be done in Baghdad, and that you are called to do it, go; if not, stay at home.”

“But I am not to have anything to do with Azim Bey’s religious education. Denarien Bey said that the Pasha would look after that.”

“You can show him a Christian life, and you can exercise a Christian influence,” said Miss Arbuthnot. “You have the honour of England and of Christianity in your hands, Cecil, and it will be your work to remove prejudice and to set an example of honesty and incorruptibility.”

“But how am I to know that it is my work?” asked Cecil again.

“Cecil!” said Miss Arbuthnot, more in sorrow than in anger, “do I hear one of my girls talking like this? This work is offered to you, and you doubt whether it is meant for you. Your father, considering you a reasonable being, leaves the decision to you, and you will not decide.”

“But I had so much rather he had told me outright either to go or to stay,” pleaded Cecil. “I can’t bear deciding for myself.”

“Timidity again, Cecil. So far as I can make you out, you are convinced that you ought to go, but you want to stay.”

“I do really want to do what is right, Miss Arbuthnot, but it feels so dreadful to be going so far away from every one.”

“‘I only know I cannot drift

Beyond His love and care,’”

quoted Miss Arbuthnot, reverently.

“Oh! Miss Arbuthnot, you all want to drive me to Baghdad,” cried Cecil, with tears in her eyes.

“Is not that very thing the leading you are looking for?” asked Miss Arbuthnot.

“I think it must be,” said Cecil, slowly. “Say no more, Miss Arbuthnot—I will go.”

CHAPTER IV.
THE SHINING EAST.

A very busy time followed upon Cecil’s decision. Her agreement with the Pasha had to be signed at once, before Denarien Bey left London, though it was not to come into force until she reached Baghdad. It was an imposing document, written in French, Arabic, and Turkish, with an English translation thoughtfully appended, and Denarien Bey signed it on the Pasha’s behalf, Lady Haigh adding her signature as a witness. Two lawyers and several interpreters assisted in drawing up the deed, and the extraordinary stipulations considered necessary by one party and the other became a subject of mirth for both. When this legal business was ended, Cecil went down to Whitcliffe for her farewells, and found that her prospective departure had cast such a glamour over her in the eyes of the younger children, that they regarded her with a mixture of awe and envy delightful to behold. She was early informed that she was expected to see and describe in full both Noah’s Ark and the Tower of Babel; while the mere mention of Nineveh, Babylon, and the Euphrates filled the youthful minds with an expectant wonder, which would have been surprised by no result of her prospective travels, however astounding.

Mrs Anstruther was chiefly concerned as to the fate of a box of plain and fancy needlework, the fruit of the labours of the St Barnabas’ working-party during the past winter, which was destined for Mrs Yehudi, the wife of a Jewish missionary labouring at Baghdad among his own people,[02] and which Cecil was requested to deliver in person. It was so delightful to think that Cecil would be able to write her a special account of Dr and Mrs Yehudi’s work, to be read aloud at the working-party, said Mrs Anstruther, who believed fervently in her step-daughter, and thought that she was the most wonderful young woman in the world. Perhaps it was this very faith which made her, in Cecil’s present state of mind, appear unsympathetic, for her imagination was vivid, and ran riot among the gorgeous possibilities of the situation, having been nourished principally on a careful study of the ‘Arabian Nights,’ which Mrs Anstruther regarded as a sort of introductory guide-book to modern Baghdad.

Taken altogether, the last few weeks at Whitcliffe were so heart-breaking that Cecil was almost relieved when the day arrived for her departure. She had still ten days or so to spend in London in getting her outfit, and her father was to come up to see her off, but this must be the final farewell to Mrs Anstruther and the children. Cecil could almost have gone down on her knees to beg to be allowed to stay, if that would have done any good, so utterly desolate and lonely did she feel in view of the prospect which lay before her; but the remembrance of Miss Arbuthnot’s strictures came over her, and helped her to depart without quite breaking down. But it was very hard, and when once the train was fairly on its way she withdrew into her corner and cried. What were all the splendours and potentialities of her future position compared with the row of tear-stained faces she had seen on the platform, as she leaned out to get the last sight of the station? Through all her wanderings that picture would remain imprinted on her mind, its comic elements unperceived, and all appearing as saddest earnest. Other people, whose attention was attracted by the family group, laughed to behold Mr Anstruther forcibly restraining Patsy and Terry, whose paroxysms of grief threatened to land them on the rails, while Fitz stood by, with his hands deep in his pockets, trying hard to whistle, and thereby prove his manhood. Eily, Norah, and Geraldine, wiping their eyes vigorously with abnormally dirty pocket-handkerchiefs, did not detract from the moving effect of the scene upon a disinterested bystander, nor did Mrs Anstruther, who had little Loey in her arms, and wiped her eyes upon his jacket. Indeed, a cynical passenger in Cecil’s own compartment, on hearing the tempest of wails and sobs which heralded the departure of the train, remarked that the members of that family were evidently trying to compete against the railway-whistle, and that they stood an excellent chance of success. He had only jumped in as the train moved off, and did not guess Cecil’s relationship to the family in question, but his wife nudged him fiercely and frowningly, and he said no more.

During her ten days in London Cecil had little time to give to grief. It was an incessant rush from shop to stores, and from stores to shop, a whirl of choosing things, and being fitted, and packing and superintending. She had not only her own things to get, but an assortment of the best and newest books and teaching appliances for her future schoolroom at Baghdad. For this she had carte blanche from the Pasha, and was further empowered to order a certain number of books on educational subjects to be sent out to her every year. Cecil had always (except at the moment of teaching her young brothers and sisters) felt a pride and pleasure in her profession as teacher, and she hailed with joy this proof of the high estimation in which his Excellency also held her office. Miss Arbuthnot luxuriated as much as she did in the newest educational inventions, but it was with an unselfish, altruistic delight, for the governors of the South Central High School had no mind for experiments, and preferred to wait until a new idea was several years old before adopting it.

At last all was ready, and books and maps and school furniture were safely packed and sent on board ship in company with Cecil’s own modest outfit. It had been arranged that she was to adopt a modification of the native costume when at Baghdad, so as to avoid as far as possible shocking the susceptibilities of the Moslems in the Palace, and her personal luggage was therefore comparatively small in bulk; still, it represented a good deal of care and thought, and Cecil and Miss Arbuthnot heaved sighs of relief when it was off their minds. The next business was the farewell to the old School, where the girls and governesses, most of whom knew Cecil well, and nearly all of whom regarded her with admiring envy, entertained her at supper, and presented her with an elaborate dressing-case, in returning thanks for which she so nearly broke down that Miss Arbuthnot had to finish the speech for her.

This was on the very last evening before her departure, and the next day her father came up by the first train from Whitcliffe, and Lady Haigh gave her up to him until three o’clock. If Cecil had been inclined to think that she had caused more disappointment than joy to her father, she was undeceived by those last few hours spent alone with him, when he allowed a corner of the veil of reserve which usually shrouded his inner feelings to lift, and let her see something of what she really was to him. To poor Mr Anstruther, however, on looking back on it, the interview did not seem to have been at all satisfactory, for he had been thinking for days past of things he ought to say to his daughter, and after it he was continually remembering others which he ought to have said, none of which had occurred to him at the time. As it was, he gave her many pieces of advice as to her behaviour, her occupations, her influence over her pupil, her Sundays, and so on, interspersed with periods of sorrowful silence, which were far more eloquent than his abrupt and painful counsels. Thus the time passed as they walked up and down the Thames Embankment together, or sat down and pretended to admire the flower-beds, and then they made their way slowly to the place where they were to meet Lady Haigh. Miss Arbuthnot had heroically denied herself the last sight of her pupil that she and her father might be alone together as long as possible, and thus Cecil had no one but Mr Anstruther to think of as she leant out of the carriage window for a last look at his tall spare figure and lined face. It was the last look for five years, and five such years!—too much to have faced if she had known what they were to bring.

It seemed to Cecil afterwards that Lady Haigh must have talked on quietly and continuously, without making a pause or expecting an answer, from the time they left the hotel until they reached the docks. It was kindly intended, no doubt, that Cecil might have time to cry a little and recover herself, but as a means of conveying information it was a failure. Lady Haigh told Cecil all about the captain and officers of the steamer by which they were to travel, and by which she herself had returned to England. She also remarked that her own Syrian maid had gone on board already with the luggage and would give Cecil any assistance she might need during the earlier part of the voyage, since the attendant who had been specially engaged for her would not join them until they reached Egypt. They were to break their journey at Alexandria and pay a visit of a week or two to Cairo, where a married sister of Lady Haigh’s was living, whose husband occupied a prominent post in the entourage of the then Khedive. Here also they were to be joined by a cousin of Lady Haigh’s, who had just been appointed surgeon of the hospital attached to the British Residency at Baghdad, and who was to escort them during the rest of their journey. By means of this one-sided conversation the chasm caused by the actual parting was bridged, and Lady Haigh beguiled the time of dropping down the Thames and settling their cabin with similar pieces of information, while, when they were once fairly at sea, Cecil was too ill to be able to think of any but strictly personal miseries.

For once the agents’ rose-coloured forecast of the voyage proved to be correct. The steamer did not meet with bad weather, nor did her engines break down, and she accomplished the distance in rather less than the average time, but Lady Haigh refused to listen to Cecil’s plea for a day or two in Alexandria, and insisted on hurrying on at once to Cairo.

“My dear,” she said, “all this”—with a contemptuous wave of her hand towards the fine houses on either side of the broad street through which they were driving—“all this is modern, European, French, tasteless! You want to enjoy your first sight of Eastern life, you say? Very well, then thank me for taking you at once where you will really see it, and not this wretched half-imitation.”

“But the sky! the palm-trees! the people! the colours, Lady Haigh!” cried Cecil in an ecstasy.

“Nonsense, my dear—nothing to what you will see at Cairo!” and Cecil was forced to be content.

A short railway journey brought them to Cairo, and they found Mr Boleyn, Lady Haigh’s brother-in-law, waiting to meet them. They drove to his house in a luxurious carriage, with running footmen and a magnificent coachman, and Cecil left the talk to her two companions, and gave herself up to the enjoyment of the new pictures which met her eye on every side. It seemed to her that she would have liked that drive to go on for ever, and she was genuinely sorry, tired though she was, to reach the Boleyns’ house, although she ought to have felt more sympathy for Lady Haigh, who had not seen her sister for over twenty years. It seemed to Cecil, however, that both ladies would have acquiesced cheerfully in an even longer separation, for they could not forget the time when Lady Haigh had been a clever and irrepressible younger sister, and Mrs Boleyn had felt it her duty systematically to snub her. Life in the tropics had not suited the elder sister as well as it had the younger, and Mrs Boleyn was tall and gaunt and withered, with a tendency to exult over Lady Haigh, because she (Mrs Boleyn) had always said that Elma would soon be tired of her studies and her talk about Women’s Rights, and would marry like other people.

“But she didn’t say that at all, my dear,” Lady Haigh confided to Cecil when they were going to their rooms. “What she always said was that I should never get a husband because of my ridiculous notions.”

These ancient hostilities were renewed at dinner over the mention of Dr Egerton, the gentleman who was to escort the travellers for the rest of their way.

“Charlie has not arrived yet, I see,” Lady Haigh said pleasantly, as they sat down to the table.

“No, and he is not likely to arrive, so far as I can tell,” said Mrs Boleyn. “The temptations of Port Said have probably been too much for him. What good you expect a feather-pated rattlebrain like that to do at Baghdad, I don’t know! I don’t consider that you have done yourself at all a good turn, Elma, in inducing Dugald to get him appointed there.”

“Charlie is a good fellow, and I want him to have a chance at last,” said Lady Haigh, stoutly. “He has been unfortunate in his superiors hitherto.”

“I consider that his superiors have been extremely unfortunate in him,” said Mrs Boleyn, with crushing calmness.

“Well, we shall see,” said Lady Haigh, peaceably. “I hope to do what I can to smooth his path, and Dugald will make allowances which another man would not, perhaps.”

“I call it a very foolish and ill-advised thing to bring him to Baghdad,” persisted Mrs Boleyn; but as her sister did not accept the challenge, the matter dropped.

Mr Boleyn ate his dinner industriously without taking any notice of the little dispute, and Cecil felt that his plan was the wisest, after she had received two or three snubs from his wife in the course of the evening for injudiciously endeavouring to change the subject of the conversation when it seemed to be verging upon dangerous ground. Mrs Boleyn’s manner and appearance did not tend to recommend her opinions to the casual observer, and Cecil espoused Lady Haigh’s side of the case so warmly in her own mind that she really did not need the further assurance which her friend gave her when they went to their rooms that night, and she found herself summoned to Lady Haigh’s balcony for a talk.

“I really can’t let you go to bed, Cecil, without putting you right about poor Charlie Egerton. You mustn’t let Helena prejudice you against him, for she has a way of finding something unpleasant to say about every one. I think you know me well enough by this time, my dear child, to be sure that I should not be likely to countenance anything really unsatisfactory or wrong; but the fact is that, as I said, Charlie has been unfortunate. He is very clever, and a most delightful fellow, but he and his superiors always manage to rub one another the wrong way. I daresay he is very eccentric, and likes to mix with the natives more than Englishmen in the East generally do, but several great men have done the same, and it is only a matter of taste, after all, not a crime. He is very outspoken, too, and perhaps too much disposed to be hail-fellow-well-met with every one he comes across. I verily believe that if he met the Viceroy himself”—Lady Haigh spoke with bated breath—“out for a walk, he would enter into conversation quite coolly and offer him a cigar, just as if he was a man of his own standing. If the Viceroy was a nice sensible sort of man and took it all as it was meant, it would be all right, but if he was angry and tried to snub him, Charlie would be very much hurt, perhaps indignant, and would probably let him know it. You can imagine how a man of this sort comes into collision with some of our stiff-and-starched officials. They can’t understand a surgeon, with not so very many years’ service, trying it on with them in that way, and they consider it impudence; so they snub him, and that produces a coldness. Then Charlie comes across some abuse, or some piece of official neglect which he thinks it his duty to expose, and I should fear, my dear, that, remembering the past, he doesn’t do it as tenderly as he might. Then there are reports and complaints and censures, and finally Dr Egerton is requested to resign. This has happened two or three times.”

“A good man, no doubt, but perhaps not a very wise one,” was Cecil’s comment.

“That’s just it, my dear—as good as gold, but with no worldly wisdom whatever. Well, I have got Sir Dugald to use his influence to get him this post at Baghdad, and I only hope he may keep it. But now I see Marta glaring at me like a reproachful ghost for keeping her up so long, so I must send you away, Cecil. To-morrow night you also will have begun to learn what a tyrant a confidential maid may become.”

Cecil laughed, and said she meant to enjoy her last evening of freedom, which she did by writing a long letter to her father, and describing to him all that she had seen since her landing at Alexandria. Consequently, she overslept herself the next morning and did not wake until Marta brought her in a cup of tea, and informed her that her maid had come and was waiting to see her.

“I didn’t know that Eastern people got up so early in the morning now,” said Cecil to herself as she dressed. “I thought they were always about half a day late, but I suppose this is a unique specimen.”

“Come, Cecil,” said Lady Haigh, tapping at her door, “don’t you want to speak to your maid? She has been waiting quite a long time.” And Cecil hurried through her toilet obediently, and, coming out of her room, found a tall, severe-looking elderly Syrian woman talking to her friend.

“Her name is Khartûm,” said Lady Haigh, turning to Cecil, “but she is always called Um Yusuf—mother of Joseph, that is. It is the custom in Syria, you know. She has been a widow a good many years, and her son is a soldier in the Turkish army. Her last situation was at Constantinople, where she was nurse to the children of Lord Calne, the late Ambassador, so she knows a good deal about the ins and outs of Court life, and will be able to give you all the needed hints as to etiquette, and so on. Of course I shall always be glad to tell you anything; but then you will not have me continually at hand, and really good manners in Turkey are a very complicated business.”

In fact, Um Yusuf’s duties were those of a duenna quite as much as a maid, and she was well fitted in appearance for the post. She wore the long black silk mantle of the respectable Egyptian woman, which enveloped her from head to foot, and Lady Haigh commended the costume as exceedingly sensible and responsible-looking.

“You will have to accompany Miss Anstruther everywhere,” she said to the maid; “and I am sure I can depend upon you to help her with your experience whenever she feels puzzled.”

“She too young,” said Um Yusuf, bending her black brows on Cecil for the first time. We spare the reader the good woman’s pronunciation, while preserving her eccentric grammatical style. “Why she not stay home and get married? Tahir Pasha’s daughter have governess, old lady with spectacles, not like this. Azim Bey very bad boy. Laugh at Mademoiselle Antaza.”

“That is cheering news for you, Cecil,” said Lady Haigh, laughing; “but I don’t think you’ll be frightened. Miss Anstruther knows something about naughty boys, Um Yusuf. She has four brothers at home.”

“English bad boy not like Toork bad boy,” said the imperturbable Um Yusuf; “Azim Bey wicked boy, read bad books, go do bad things. My cousin in Baghdad tell me all about him.”

“A boy of ten who reads bad books!” cried Lady Haigh. “I didn’t know I was bringing you to face such a monster of juvenile depravity, Cecil. These Eastern children are very precocious, I know, but I never thought of this particular form of wickedness. Well, my dear, I think you will conquer him if any one can. But now it is breakfast-time, and we are going to the bazaars afterwards with the dragoman, so we must not be late. You can go to your sister Marta, Um Yusuf, and she will show you the way about the house. She can tell you all you want to know, too, so you need not trouble to try to read Miss Anstruther’s letters.”

CHAPTER V.
A NEW EXPERIENCE.

“There!” said Lady Haigh, “what do you think of that, Cecil?”

They were sitting on the divan in a little cramped-up shop in one of the bazaars, with tiny cups of black coffee before them, and all manner of lovely fabrics—silks and muslins and brocades and gauzes—strewn around. The proprietor of the establishment, an elderly Moslem with a long beard, was exhibiting listlessly a rich, soft silk, as though it was not of the slightest consequence to him whether they bought anything or not. Leaning against the door-post was the gorgeously attired dragoman whom Mr Boleyn had ordered to attend the ladies in their shopping, and who made himself actively objectionable by insisting on explaining everything that met their eyes, regardless of the fact that Lady Haigh was an old Eastern traveller, and that Cecil had read so much about Egypt that, but for her ignorance of the language, she could have acted as cicerone in a Cairo street as well as he could.

At the sound of Lady Haigh’s voice, Cecil, whose seat was nearest the street, turned with a start, for her eyes had wandered down the long dim arcade and among the many-coloured figures thronging it.

“I think it will do very well,” she said, and withdrawing her eyes resolutely from the street, devoted herself to listening to the energetic bargaining carried on between her friend and the shopman with the dragoman’s assistance. It was very oriental, of course, but it spoiled the poetry of the scene, and she was glad when Lady Haigh at last rose and left the shop, after paying for the silk and directing it to be sent to the house.

“Caffé-house, ladies,” said the dragoman, when they had gone on a little farther; and Cecil looked with much interest and curiosity at the building he pointed out. It was a large, low room, with one side open to the street, crowded with men sitting on the divans and smoking, or drinking coffee out of cups which stood beside them on little low tables. The group was a motley one, and Cecil, as soon as her eyes became accustomed to the dim light, began to try and make out by their costume the nationality of the different items that composed it. Following the sound of a loud distinct voice speaking in some unknown tongue, her gaze reached the speaker, and she saw to her amazement that he was a European, or at any rate a sunburnt, dark-haired young man in ordinary English dress. Lady Haigh’s eyes followed hers, and seemed to make the same discovery at the same moment, for their owner recoiled suddenly, and, seizing Cecil’s arm, led her away.

“Storree-teller tell tale, ladies,” remarked the dragoman, but Lady Haigh appeared to be stifling irresistible laughter, and Cecil wondered whether the story-teller were an oriental Mark Twain.

“I know that boy will be the death of me!” cried Lady Haigh, finding her voice at last. “My dear, it’s Charlie!”

“Charlie? Dr Egerton, your cousin?” gasped Cecil.

“The same, my dear. This is one of his freaks. You know I told you how fond he is of mixing with the natives wherever he goes. Now I daresay he has been a week in Cairo without ever letting Helena and her husband know he was here, staying in some wretched little native inn, and prowling about the bazaars all day.”

Cecil’s private thought was that Dr Egerton’s tastes in the matter of hotel accommodation must be peculiar, though she herself acknowledged the fascination of the bazaars; but she had not time to make any remark on the subject, for they heard some one running after them, and turning, beheld the coffee-house hero himself.

“Cousin Elma!” he cried, shaking hands with her, “I am so dreadfully ashamed not to have known you. I had a dim idea that there were some English ladies there, looking into the room, but I didn’t in the least know who it was until a Baghdadi, who happened to be among the audience, said—I mean, told me you were there.”

“Oh, don’t be afraid of hurting my feelings, my dear boy. I know he said, ‘O my Effendi, behold the Mother of Teeth,’ now didn’t he?” and Lady Haigh laughed long and heartily.

“You are cruelly hard on my poor little attempts at politeness, Cousin Elma. You will give your friend an awful idea of me. Oh, by the bye,” with intense eagerness, “what have you done with the old lady? Is she at Cousin Helena’s? How do they get on together?”

“My dear Charlie, what old lady? I have not the faintest idea whom you mean.”

“Why, the lady graduate, the instructress of youth, Mentor in a pith helmet and spectacles, the new female Lycurgus,—his Excellency’s English governess?”

“Charlie, have I never told you not to run on at such a rate? I want to introduce you. This is Miss Anstruther, officially known as Mademoiselle Antaza, his Excellency’s English governess.”

“Impossible!” cried he, aghast.

“Really,” said Cecil, with some pique in her tone, “everybody seems to think it their duty to impress upon me that I am very young and very giddy for the office. I am rather tired of it.”

“My dear Miss Anstruther,” said Charlie Egerton, solemnly, “I only wish I were Azim Bey!”

“Charlie, for shame!” cried Lady Haigh. “I will not have you tease Miss Anstruther. Remember that you will be companions all through our voyage to Baghdad, so you must behave properly. Cecil, my dear, you must not mind this wild boy. He is always getting into trouble by means of his tongue, and never takes warning. Charlie, I want to know how it is that you have not turned up at Helena’s house. She hasn’t an idea that you are in Cairo at all.”

“Cousin Helena’s house would be a desert to me without you, Cousin Elma; surely you know that? I felt it so acutely when I came, that I determined not to show myself there until you were safely arrived. I strolled round each day and had a talk with the bowab (doorkeeper), and so learned the news. I knew you were expected last night, and I meant to present myself in decent time for dinner this evening. I’ll do so still unless you have any objection.”

“I only hope,” said Lady Haigh, rather absently, “that you won’t talk nonsense of this kind to Helena. She won’t understand it, you know.”

“If you wish it, Cousin Elma, I will confine my conversation exclusively to Miss Anstruther. I couldn’t venture to talk nonsense to her, so that ought to keep me safe.”

“My dear Charlie, nothing but a gag would keep you safe,” said Lady Haigh, with deep conviction. “And now we are going in here to do some shopping, and we don’t want any gentlemen to interrupt us, so good-bye until this evening.”

He turned away with a rueful look which made both ladies laugh, and disappeared obediently among the brilliant crowd, Lady Haigh only waiting until he was out of earshot to inquire anxiously what Cecil thought of him.

“He seems rather talkative,” said Cecil, expressing her thought mildly. “An empty-headed rattle,” was what she said in her own mind, and Lady Haigh, as if guessing this, took up the cudgels at once on her cousin’s behalf.

“Oh, that’s nothing but nervousness, my dear. You would really never guess that Charlie is simply afraid of ladies, especially young ones. He talks like that just to keep his courage up. But he is not like some men, all on the surface. There’s plenty of good stuff behind. Why, you mightn’t think it, but he can talk eight or nine Eastern dialects well enough to make the natives think him an oriental, and there are not many of whom that can be said. I’m afraid all his cleverness has gone in that direction, instead of helping him on in the world. Natives always take to him wonderfully, but when you’ve said that you’ve said all, or nearly all.”

Even after this, Cecil still thought that Lady Haigh’s fondness for her cousin made her very kind to his virtues and decidedly blind to his faults; but she was a little ashamed of this hasty generalisation after a discussion she had with him that evening, and felt obliged to confess that there was more in Dr Egerton than she had thought. Dinner was over, and they were sitting out in the open court of the Boleyns’ house. Mr Boleyn had been obliged to go out to attend some official function, and the voices of Lady Haigh and Mrs Boleyn, as they discussed, more or less amicably, reminiscences of their youth, mingled pleasantly with the soothing plash of the fountain. A severe snubbing from Mrs Boleyn during dinner had failed to reduce Charlie to silence or contrition, but now he seemed to enter into Cecil’s mood, and waited meekly until she chose to speak. To Cecil, lying back in her chair in a bower of strange creepers and flowering-shrubs, watching the moonlight as it crept over the walls of the house and the more distant minarets of a mosque a little way off, it seemed almost sacrilege to talk. But she awoke at last to the fact that she was not doing her duty by her companion, and reluctantly broke the delightful silence by the only remark which would come into her mind.

“Isn’t it lovely?” she asked, softly, and Charlie awoke out of a reverie, and made haste to answer that it was heavenly.

“I have longed for this all my life,” said Cecil, “and Lady Haigh says that Baghdad will be even better.”

“Better? in what way?” asked Charlie.

“More Eastern, you know,” said Cecil, “but I can’t imagine anything more perfect than this.”

“I see that you are one of the people who feel the fascination of the East,” said he.

“Who could help it?” asked Cecil. “It is a fascination, there is no other word for it. Kingsley says that a longing for the West is bound up in the hearts of men, but I think that in this age of the world the reverse is true. I daresay if I had ever been in America it would be different; but now it seems to me that all the romance is gone from the West, and that it is all big towns, and gold-mines, and wonderful inventions, and rush. The East seems so mysterious and reposeful, so old, too, and so picturesque.”

“And yet,” said Charlie, “you want to change it all, and import into it the newest ideas in religions and the latest Yankee culture. You would like all those mysterious veiled women, with the beautiful eyes, whom you saw to-day, to be turned into learned ladies in tweed frocks and hard hats, with spectacles and short hair.”

“No, indeed,” said Cecil, “that is not my ideal at all. A modification of their own style of dress would be much more suitable to them than a bad copy of ours. And they couldn’t all be learned, but they all ought to know a good deal more than they can at present, poor things! If they were only better educated, it would be much easier to introduce reforms Denarien Bey says that most of Ahmed Khémi Pasha’s plans are thwarted by his harem.”

Charlie groaned. “I beg your pardon, Miss Anstruther,” he said, “but my feelings were too much for me. An Eastern I can respect, a European I can pity, but a Europeanised, Europeanising Turk like Ahmed Khémi I can only detest.”

“I can’t hear my employer spoken against in that way,” said Cecil.

“Your employer? So he is. Well, Miss Anstruther, I can forgive him anything, since he is bringing you to Baghdad.”

Cecil frowned. “I really cannot imagine,” she said, severely, “how a person like yourself, who admires quiet so intensely, can talk so much.”

“That is the fault of the two natures in me,” said Charlie, gravely, though he was inwardly shaking with laughter over this amazing snub. “As a European, I am bound to talk and go on like other people, to be feverishly busy, and if I have no work of my own, to hunt up other people’s and set them at it. Then I get sick of it all, and go off and become an Eastern. Perfect idleness is then my highest idea of happiness, and I am quite content to sit for a whole day in the tent-door with an Arab sheikh, exchanging platitudes on the inevitability of the decrees of fate, at intervals of half an hour.”

“But have you ever tried that?” asked Cecil, laughing.

“Tried it? I do it periodically, whenever I can get hold of a sufficiently unsophisticated sheikh. It doesn’t do to go to the same people twice. They always find out somehow afterwards who you really are, and spot you the next time. But the desert life is wonderful, simply wonderful! The mere thought of it makes me long to go out there and begin it again this moment. It is so free and irregular. You pass from tremendous exertion to absolute idleness.”

“And while you are idle the poor women do all the work,” interrupted Cecil, unkindly.

“Yes, that is where Eastern and Western notions clash,” said Charlie. “There must be some drawbacks even to desert life, and one scarcely feels called upon to go about lecturing to the Arabs on the proper treatment of their wives.” He looked at Cecil mischievously, but she declined to be drawn into an argument on the subject of women’s rights, and asked—

“Have you ever spent a really long time in the desert?”

“That depends on what you consider a long time,” he answered. “When I was in Persia I went with a caravan of pilgrims from Resht to Kerbela, which took some time, and a good part of the way lay through the desert. Of course the pilgrims were not always the most delightful of fellow-travellers, and one couldn’t help objecting very strongly to the companionship of the dead bodies which were carried along slung on mules to be buried at Kerbela. It was rather wearing, too, to have to be on your guard the whole time lest you should betray yourself, for the pilgrims are not particular, and would have torn you to pieces as soon as look at you. But it was great fun, all the same. There was pleasure even in the risk, and then it’s not many Europeans that get the chance of seeing the holy places. All that, and the desert as well.”

“But I don’t understand,” said Cecil. “Do you mean that you pretended to be a Mohammedan?”

“Yes,” answered Charlie, smiling. “I assure you that I am not one really, Miss Anstruther.”

“I don’t see that that makes it any better,” said Cecil. “You mean that you dressed up and went through all the ceremonies just as if you had been a Mohammedan, and said all the prayers, and never meant it? Of course they are wrong, but they believe in their religion, and it can’t make it right for us to do things of that kind. Besides, for you it was acting a lie.”

“Well, I don’t know. It never struck me in that light,” said Charlie. “I’m afraid I looked upon it as part of the joke, Miss Anstruther. Well, perhaps not of the joke—as part of what had to be gone through to ensure success. You see, I had an object. I was studying the dissemination of cholera by means of these caravans of pilgrims, and I wanted to do it thoroughly, so I thought I would go in for the whole thing. But I might perhaps have done it and stopped short of that. I’ll remember another time.”

“Charles,” said Mrs Boleyn’s voice, “perhaps you are not aware of the lateness of the hour;” and after this delicate hint, Charlie took his departure. During the remainder of their stay in Cairo, he made a point of appearing at unexpected times, and helping the travellers to organise expeditions to the Pyramids and other points of interest, but he turned a deaf ear to Lady Haigh’s hint that he ought to volunteer to come and take up his quarters at the Boleyns’, and at this they could scarcely wonder. Before the end of their stay, Cecil, though declaring emphatically that she was not in the least tired of Cairo, began to display great eagerness to reach Baghdad, and Lady Haigh made no pretence of disguising her desire to do the same.

“Helena and I agree better apart, my dear,” she explained frankly to Cecil. “One really can’t quarrel much in letters, but when we are together we can’t do anything else.”

This was already sufficiently obvious, and it is probable that no one, unless perhaps Mr Boleyn, was sorry when the time came for the travellers to journey to Port Said, there to resume their interrupted voyage. Lady Haigh and Cecil, with their two maids, and Dr Egerton, with his Armenian boy Hanna, made an imposing party, and excited no small amount of curiosity and speculation in the minds of the passengers on board the P. & O. boat. Lady Haigh was never a woman to do things by halves, and from the moment that she came on board she took by sheer force of character the place she felt was her right, although in the present case it was conceded to her without opposition as soon as it was known who she was.

“Have you noticed,” said Charlie Egerton to Cecil, one night in the Red Sea, “that my dear cousin is perceptibly growing taller and more imposing in appearance? Her foot is on her native heath now. This side of Suez we are under the beneficent sway of the Indian Government, and her position is assured, whereas at home she might have been anybody or nobody. You will observe the majesty of her demeanour increase continually, until, when she reaches Baghdad, you will recognise in her every gesture that she represents the Queen-Empress.”

“But surely that is Sir Dugald’s business?” laughed Cecil.

“Sir Dugald can’t do everything. He can’t render the Um-ul-Pasha and the other ladies at the Palace the civilities which are imperatively due to them, and he can’t conciliate or madden the ladies of the European colony by delicately adjusted hospitalities as she can. If I may say so, Cousin Elma represents the social half of her most gracious Majesty, and Sir Dugald, the Balio Bey as they call him, the administrative half.”

“And which is the more important?” asked Cecil.

“Too hard. Ask me another,” said Charlie.

“Well, which of them rules the other?” asked Cecil.

“That is a delicate point,” returned Charlie, “and opinions naturally differ; but if you ask me, I should say that Sir Dugald does it in reality, but that Cousin Elma thinks she does, and so both are satisfied.”

“Well, I think I should prefer it the other way,” said Cecil, meditatively, and Charlie laughed.

“That is exactly what I should have imagined,” he said. “But, joking apart, you can see that others consider that Cousin Elma has a right to think a good deal of herself. Look at the people here, for instance. Happily, we have no very big-wigs on board, or there might be trouble. In any case, Cousin Elma, as the wife of a major-general, would carry things with a pretty high hand among the army set, but there would be difficulty with the wives of the bigger civilians. But it’s all right with them too now, because Sir Dugald is a political. They know their duty too well to be unpleasant, and besides, it is quite on the cards that Sir Dugald might be useful to any of them any day, if it was desired to find a nice out-of-the-way berth for some unfortunate relative who had fooled away his chances, as Sir Dugald sympathetically remarked to me was my case, the only time I saw him.”

If Charlie expected an indignant contradiction, he was disappointed. Cecil looked away over the sea, and smiled involuntarily.

“I was wondering whether you had talked away your chances,” she said, for they were on sufficiently intimate terms now to allow of little hits like this.

“That’s exactly what I did do,” he said. “You may be surprised to hear it, Miss Anstruther, but I have a very inconvenient conscience, especially with regard to the things which other people leave undone. They say that in England abuses are good things on the whole, because people get up a separate society for the removal of each one, and this affords occupation to many deserving persons; but in the East they’re good for a man to come to grief over, and nothing more. If you will only let things alone you’re all right, but if you make a fuss it’s like fretting your heart out against a stone wall. Why, in my last district—my last failure, if you please—I found there was cholera brewing. I have studied the subject particularly, as I think I have mentioned to you before, but because I could see a little further than the rest of them they called me faddy and an alarmist. I told them what measures ought to be taken, but the man above me, pig-headed old brute! squashed all my representations. If ever a man deserved to be carried off by cholera, that fellow did. At last the cholera came, and I wrote him a letter that he had to attend to. The precautions I had recommended were taken—it was too late, naturally, but we checked the thing before it had gone very far—and I was recommended to resign. Insubordination and so on, of course.”

“But were you obliged to be insubordinate?” Cecil ventured to ask.

“No, it was too late, like the precautions. He couldn’t pretend to disregard the cholera, but I had to relieve my mind.”

“That was a great pity,” said Cecil, and would say no more.

CHAPTER VI.
A PERIOD OF PROBATION.

At Karachi there came the first interruption to the smoothness which had hitherto marked the journey. Lady Haigh had expected to be met at this point by the gunboat which was under Sir Dugald’s orders, and was generally occupied in patrolling the Shat-el-Arab and the Persian Gulf for the protection of British interests, and she had intended to make a triumphal voyage and entry into Baghdad by its means. But instead of the gunboat there came a telegram from Sir Dugald to say that the services of the Nausicaa were imperatively required in the opposite direction, and that the travellers must therefore come on in the ordinary way. Unfortunately, however, they had missed the regular steamer to Basra, and Lady Haigh, who had developed an extraordinary desire to have the journey over, insisted that they should take passage on another that happened to be starting. Charlie Egerton protested loudly against this, declaring that he knew what those wretched coasters were like—ramshackle old things, creeping along and touching at all sorts of unheard-of ports, and staying for no one knew how long. They would probably reach Basra not a day sooner than if they had waited for the next steamer; and if they were fated to lose time on the journey, why not spend it at Karachi, and take the opportunity of showing Miss Anstruther a little of India? But here Lady Haigh looked at him with mingled sorrow and impatience, and simply reiterated her determination to press on.

The voyage on the coasting steamer was a new experience to Cecil. The vessel was old, the cargo mixed, the crew also mixed—in fact, everything was mixed but the society, and that was extremely select, since it was confined to their own party. The captain and mate, overawed by the presence of two ladies on board, withdrew themselves as much as possible from the cabin, though they fraternised with Charlie, as every one did, when they could get him alone. Day after day the vessel steamed past the same low shores, with coral-reefs stretching out to sea, and ranges of low hills in the distance behind. Several times, during the first part of the voyage, she touched at queer little towns of square, white, flat-roofed houses, with high towers, where the inhabitants could catch what wind there was, rising up among the feathery date-palms. There were Englishmen at all these places—telegraph officials, clerks, and agents—who talked Anglo-Indian slang, and did their best to render life endurable by all manner of Indian expedients. After this there was a considerable stretch of coast without any port, and the captain and mate developed an inclination to take things easily and to let the ship look after herself. The first result of this was that the steamer ran ashore one night, taking the ground quite quietly and gently on a reef connected with an archipelago of small islands. The captain blamed the mate, whose watch on deck it was; the mate blamed the captain, who knew these waters better than he did; and both united in blaming the steersman, the charts, and the compass. The blame having been thus equitably distributed, the belligerents agreed to bury the hatchet and try and get the ship off; and as it appeared to be necessary to shift the cargo for this purpose, tents were constructed for the passengers on the nearest island. To these they were very glad to retreat, for the ship had heeled over to such a degree that the floor of the cabins was a steep slope, at the foot of which everything from the other side of the room gradually collected.

Here, then, on this nameless island, with its palm-trees and its spring of water, were all the materials for a latter-day idyll. A shipwreck, a desert island, a prolonged picnic, everything was complete, and yet one or two things spoilt it altogether, so that the episode would scarcely be worth mentioning save to show how Lady Haigh’s schemes went wrong. Charlie did not fail to remind her that he had counselled her to wait at Karachi, and pointed out that she, at any rate, would have been much more comfortable there. Their desert island was so far complete that there was even a likelihood of pirates in its neighbourhood, although Cecil, who had a robust and healthy faith in the past exploits of the British navy, and in the Pax Britannica established in Indian waters at this period of the century, could never be brought to believe that Charlie was doing more than trying to frighten her when he mentioned them. The greatest drawback to the place was its extreme smallness. There could be no exciting explorations, journeys made in single file through dense forests right into the heart of the island, because there was no forest and so very little island. There could be no hope of discovering volcanoes, caves, traces of previous inhabitants, wild beasts, or any other commonplaces of desert-island travel, because there was no room for them. If Lady Haigh was in her tent and wanted Cecil, she knew that she must be either sitting in the shade outside, or standing under the palm-trees looking out to sea, for there was nowhere else. Again, there were no hardships—not even the semblance of any. The ladies were not so much as obliged to make their own beds, for, besides their two maids, there was one of the ship’s stewards, a Zanzibari boy, who was always on shore at their service. On board this luckless youth was perpetually falling from the rigging or into the hold, and he was sent on land to keep him from doing any more damage to himself or to other people. No doubt it would be pretty and idyllic to describe how Charlie Egerton picked up sticks and lighted the fire in order that Cecil might prepare the breakfast, but it would not be true; for, in the first place, there were no sticks, but a portable stove brought from the vessel, which burned petroleum; and, in the second place, the ship’s cook was still responsible for the meals. In fine, this was a shipwreck with all the modern improvements.

Perhaps it was this fact which rendered the relations of the castaways different from those usually observed under such circumstances. The crew did not go off in the boats, abandoning the vessel and the passengers, nor did they broach the rum-casks. They worked as hard and were as obliging and respectful as before, and brought queer fishes and shells for the ladies to see when they found them. When the captain and mate walked along the reef at night to what was still called the “cabin dinner,” they still ate in silence, and when the meal was over, the mate felt it his duty at once to go and see what the men were doing, and when he did not come back, the captain invariably went to see what was keeping him, and did not come back either. As for the men, they appeared in great force on Sunday evening, when hymns were to be sung, and again one week-day, when a concert was got up after work was over, the sailors in their clean clothes, with very shiny faces and very smooth hair, and the Lascars in gorgeous raiment of all the colours of the rainbow, but otherwise the passengers saw less of them than they had done on shipboard.

The archipelago to which the desert island belonged was not all uninhabited. There were two good-sized islands in it which supported a considerable population, and the castaways made two expeditions to the larger of these. The people were all bigoted Moslems, who testified extreme horror at the sight of the unveiled faces of Lady Haigh and Cecil, and regarded the whole party with feelings of lively disapprobation. Their own women were wrapped up from top to toe whenever they ventured out of doors, and their faces were additionally protected by a thick horse-hair mask, so that it is possible that it was the discomfort of this arrangement which made the men fear a domestic rebellion as the result of the visit of the Frangi ladies. For the rest, the islanders lived a good deal on fish, and apparently also threw away a good deal, and dried a considerable quantity for future consumption, which made their streets unpleasantly odoriferous, and there were few attractions in their surroundings to counterbalance this defect, until, in extending the area of their observations, Cecil and Charlie made a great discovery. Lying among the hills which backed the little town was a valley filled with prehistoric ruins, and beyond this again an ancient cemetery. To Cecil this find was as a trumpet-call to utilise her detention in a way which would command the gratitude of the learned world by demonstrating, possibly finally, the real origin of the Phœnicians, and Charlie required little persuasion to induce him to help her. Accordingly, they returned to the island the next day, prepared for business. Photography was not practised then as it is now, but Cecil intended to sketch the ruins, and Charlie was to hire natives to begin excavations under his direction. Unfortunately, these proceedings did not meet the views of the inhabitants. To them it appeared certain that the strangers were going to search for hidden treasure, with the necessary result of exposing the island to the wrath of the defrauded ghostly guardians of the spoil, and they expressed their dissent so strongly that the baffled explorers were thankful to be able to return to their boat in safety, the people hurling maledictions and more substantial missiles after them. This is the reason why, so far as Cecil is concerned, the Phœnician problem remains still unsolved.

“I could soon make friends with those island fellows if I had them by myself,” remarked Charlie as they rowed away, with rather a wistful look back at the shore.

His Excellency’s EnglishGoverness

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