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Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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The New Magazine, Jan 1922, with the first part of "Harvest of Javelins"
"Harvest of Javelins," Grosset & Dunlap, New York, 1923
"Harvest of Javelins," Grosset & Dunlap, New York, 1923
"Harvest of Javelins," Grosset & Dunlap, New York, 1923
"And he went the way to her house... her house is
the way to hell, going down to the chamber of death."
"FOR him, too, there were javelins forging in the armouries of Destiny and though they might be long in the coming nevertheless he could not escape them for one instant past the time appointed for their homing. Though he might turn cunningly, feint and twist and elude with all his skill, scheme deeply, dart and contrive, sooner or later, assured and inexorable, they would home to him through the heart...."
THAT, as will be seen by those who read this book was how it came to be with Crichton Hoodless—and the book itself is the story of how another man, typical of millions like him, and a woman, with many sisters, knew the stab of the javelins that forged themselves out of their own sins. They suffered—but they established the foundations of their suffering by their own acts. Even as all of us.
The whole world seeks ever that glittering Will-o'-the-Wisp which it calls Happiness but which it had far better call Peace of Mind. Nothing is simpler to attain than Peace of Mind—provided one is willing to observe the inexorable condition that one must not commit sin. Everybody knows that—though few know how they come to know it. They knew it a thousand thousand years ago. Nobody, in this world as we have made it, can hope wholly to observe the great condition. But all can try and the measure of one's success is the measure of one's happiness. A good man or a good woman, suffers less and comes nearer attaining Peace of Mind than a bad or half-bad man or woman. This is not religion, nor cant, nor puerility nor an attempt at modern humour—it is more nearly mathematics than anything else. The better we are the happier we shall be and we are all perfectly aware of this even while we wonder why we are not happier. This book is no more than an effort, concealed under much modern embroidery, to remind people that the Happiness we so feverishly pursue lies not on some distant horizon but in the hollow of our own one hand and the Unhappiness (or Javelins) we dread so bitterly lies in the hollow of our other hand. We are free to close which hand we choose.
Bertram Atkey.
"Sirens—women—call them all sirens... Some men can laugh at their arts—keep cool, calculating heads in the presence of the loveliest... Well, a Marchurst can't do it. The weak spot, you see."
Roger Marchurst.
DICK MARCHURST slowly tore to pieces the scrawled note that one of the hotel servants had brought to the little table at which he was sitting, smiled slightly and lit another cigar. His friend, Crichton Hoodless, tactfully entertaining a man who could be useful to him, had scribbled a few words asking him to be patient for yet a little longer. They had been discussing a plan throughout dinner, he wrote, and now, over coffee, that plan seemed to be fruiting to a definite conclusion.
Marchurst understood. He was very well satisfied to linger at his table, watching, in a lazy mood, the ripple and surge of the Cairene crowd about and beyond the hotel terrace. Color, novelty, incident, noise—enough, more than enough, to mitigate an empty half-hour for any man.
Marchurst smiled over his cigar at the many-hued eddy, watching idly. But he was already so familiar with it all that it had lost its power to exclude everything else from his mind, and his thoughts went back to Hoodless.
Poor old Crichton—what a pity he had to do this sort of thing at all. Why, he was like a man who went through life always with a gun under his arm—ready at a moment's notice to take a quick right and left at a brace of birds—no, money-bags—with wings—that was it exactly—a brace of winged money-bags, whenever they whirred into view. Of course he was pretty expert at it—and did nothing that a gentleman could not do. He was not in the category of dubious sportsmen who shot their game sitting. Not at all. Old Hoodless was—well, straight. Straight as a string. And if, by the sheer necessity of the past few years, he had acquired a very pronounced and arrowy skill at recognizing opportunities to make for himself that income which he had expected, but failed, to inherit, why, that was entirely to his credit.
A pity, perhaps, for many reasons—not least of which was the fact that it was apt to produce just such unexpected little gaps and dislocations of one's plans as had occurred this evening.
Still—one could forgive that.
"After all—it's only while we are in civilization— or on the fringe—that he will go off at those abrupt tangents," Dick Marchurst told himself. "Once we get away up the Nile—past Khartoum—there will be no opportunities. We shall settle down to steady shooting. Meantime, if he can make his expenses, so much the better for him. Fortunately, I am spared the need—just as well, perhaps."
Marchurst was young, but not so young that he was incapable of congratulating himself upon being spared the necessity of having (for his income's sake) to do as his friend Hoodless was compelled to do.
"The wind is tempered," he said tranquilly to his cigar. "I haven't the brains—the quick wit—the gift of tongues—the personality."
He said nothing about the appearance, for there he had the advantage over Hoodless, who was merely good-looking in an experienced, slightly hard way, whereas Dick Marchurst, in addition to the lean, powerful shapeliness into which a long course of public-school and 'Varsity games and sports had molded his tall and symmetrical body, possessed that striking personal beauty which usually is only to be found in men who have inherited with the masculinity of a good-looking father, a generous part of the feminine delicacy of a lovely mother.
One, looking closely at the brown, handsome, confident face of this twenty-three-year-old boy—lingering a little perhaps on the intense blueness of his eyes, his white teeth and crisp wavy hair—would have decided that what of spiritual weakness there was in his beauty was weakness inherited from the masculine side of his parentage, and the strength was such strength as his mother could give him.
And one would have wondered whether that strength were sufficient....
But however that may have been, he was free enough from vanity to acknowledge readily that his wits were less keen than those of Crichton Hoodless.
Rather deviously en route from London to Cairo, whence they planned a trip up the Nile, and a shooting expedition in Kordofan—at that time a great lion-country—they had halted at Paris, Monte Carlo and Alexandria.
And, Dick Marchurst gathered, his friend Hoodless had brought off a right and left in Paris—not bad shooting in a city where the winged money-bag season knows no close time and many sportsmen carry guns; a right at Monte—thanks to an inspiration at trente et quarante; a little coup at Alexandria—to do with the discovery and swift purchase of certain queerly-carved jewels and their profitable resale to a wealthy American who was collecting, as Hoodless had learned, just that kind of expensive curio; and now there was some similar passing coup being effected in Cairo....
"Poor old Crichton," smiled Dick Marchurst, honestly wishing him fortune.
And after all there was no hurry. The season was no more than at its beginning, and a little extra delay would not appreciably affect the duration of the shooting trip, or the supply of lions in Kordofan.
Perfectly patient, because he was comfortable, a little lazy, and because he was genuinely fond of Hoodless, Marchurst sat content, watching the crowd.
The two friends had no definite arrangements for that evening. They would have a "look round" Cairo—but their stroll would only take them to such quarters as might be expected to allure two traveling Englishmen, one in his early twenties, one nearer thirty. They were not avid in their search for beauty or novelty in the form of architecture, history or scenery, nor were they especially interested in observing or studying the customs and habits of the medley that made up the population of Cairo. A "look around" would amuse them sufficiently to pass another evening of their halt en route to the destruction of lions in the far south....
There was, perhaps, that girl—Saïs—of whom Hoodless had spoken, mused Marchurst. Possibly they might see her—Hoodless had known her during an earlier trip to Egypt, and he had inclined to enthusiasm when describing her, suggesting that Dick would be interested to make her acquaintance. She was, in her way, a novelty.
"Easily the most beautiful thing of the kind I've seen," Crichton had laughed. "A dancer, I think. Part Greek, part French, part Arab or Turkish—Lord knows what! She would be interesting to drink coffee with—but, remember, Dickie, not the sort of girl to get entangled with."
Dick Marchurst pondered upon Saïs.
Saïs. A pretty name—though surely there was rather a familiar sound about it. Lazily he sent a tendril of his mind back to the classics they had forced upon him at school and Cambridge, and it seized at once on "Laïs." There had been two of these—Laïs the elder, a lovely flower of ancient Corinth, and that beautiful child, Laïs, whom they had plucked from Sicily, brought to Greece as a young girl, and sold to some Corinthian of old.
Laïs—and Laïs. Both beautiful, both great courtesans and both—Dick smiled—"not the sort of girls to get entangled with."
Another tendril bore back its ancient name for his consideration to-night in modern Cairo—Thaïs, favorite of the great Alexander and, after Alexander, of Ptolemy Lagus—Thaïs, also of Greece, also a courtesan. Laïs—Thaïs—Saïs.
"Probably she has named herself after those great ladies of old time," said Marchurst. (Later he was to know that Saïs had taken the name from that city which was once the capital of Lower Egypt, long dead and disappeared, whose site between Alexandria and Cairo is now marked only by the ruins of Sa-al-Hagar. But Marchurst had never heard of that place. There were no lions in those ruins.)
Yes, it would be amusing to meet Saïs whom Hoodless thought so wonderful.
Saïs—the word hovered in one's mind—Saïs— there was a certain fascination, a soft, rather pleasing sibilance vaguely like the whispering sound of a tiny wave breaking, soft as a caress, upon a warm sandy beach. Saïs, with whom one must not become entangled.
Then Marchurst's thoughts ranged away from Egypt, to settle upon a figure vastly different from Saïs. That of his sole remaining relative, an uncle in London. He laughed as he realized that it was the thought of this girl Saïs—or, rather, of the warning which Crichton Hoodless had so casually coupled with her name—which had led his mind to a not dissimilar warning uttered by that uncle, Roger Marchurst, who had been his guardian.
His smile faded slowly as his mind, progressing logically and orderly along the new train of thought, recalled a few of the sentences with which old Roger had relinquished the legal rights of his guardianship on the day Dick came of age.
"Nothing much more to say, my boy... recommend you to steer a careful course when you find yourself skirting the coast of the sirens. You, especially. I may tell you it's a weak spot in the Marchurst make-up. Sex, I mean. Dick, we're more than ordinarily weak there.... Your father would have told you before ever you reached your present age. I suppose I should have done so.... Anyhow, I've watched you—closer than you have guessed. D'you understand, my boy? Sirens—women—call 'em all sirens. Some men can laugh at their arts, keep cool, calculating heads in the presence of the loveliest—even ignore them, eh? Well, a Marchurst can't do it. The weak spot, you see. Better to tell you this than to let you discover it for yourself too late. As I did, for instance. It's in your blood. Just as the drink craving is in some men's blood. Not your fault—not theirs. Not a fault—but a curse. It goes back—far back.... Well, that's the red flag for you. D'ye understand, my boy?"
Dick Marchurst, musing idly on the veranda of a Cairo hotel, was back again in the den of his uncle's flat, listening to the words of the handsome, white-mustached old man, who, not without a touch of nervousness, was trying to acquaint him with a peril latent in his blood—a weak spot.
"A man is a man—naturally. One is not a block of ice. But there are degrees.... Dick, my boy, you are not rich, but you have ample to land you, without much difficulty, into a morass. Well; that is easily understood—most men find their sex morass sooner or later. But many extricate themselves. The trouble with us—with a Marchurst—is that he is liable not to desire to extricate himself. (Perhaps that's why we are so few.) It's ruin, my boy.... Look at me.... No, never mind me. I've made myself clear, I think, without supplying an object lesson."
Dick remembered that he paused for a moment, this worn-looking but still striking old man—perfectly dressed, as he always was, with a wonderful manner.
"I did not intend to harass you with theories, Dick, but there's one thing I'd like to say to you. I've been through the world sufficiently to claim some knowledge—some inkling of knowledge, about things. You're at the Entrance of Life—I'm at the Exit. I'll take the risk of boring you with a theory of mine.... Being an ordinary human, you are going to sin often and variously before you near the Exit. That's quite certain. It may seem odd to you that I should speak in this vein—but, believe me, I'm qualified to speak about sin. Well, I'd like to ask you to remember this theory of mine occasionally. It's very simple. A sin—any sin, big or little—is very much the same thing, to my mind and in my experience, as a written promise to pay handed to—say, Destiny—or call it the Force which drives this funny world. And I believe that these promissory notes are presented unfailingly—and paid, with interest. Every ill-deed you do—you atone for. You pay in unhappiness a price, and a heavy price, for every sin. It's—to me—it's simple arithmetic. I'm an old man and I've ceased to be sure of much—but of this I am very sure. Every sin a man commits in this world forges its own javelin—and sooner or latter it homes again to him—through the heart, my boy, clean through the heart.... Go deeper—no, that's enough—"
He had taken Dick's hand and gripped it for an instant.
"Don't forget that entirely, old boy. Sounds queer, perhaps? But even if it does you no good—it will do no harm. And that's all!"
His tone had changed.
"Well, it's one o'clock. You've been legally a man for an hour; I've rendered an account of my guardianship; we're both satisfied—and so we'll split a bottle for luck. They launch a ship with wine—can't do less than launch a man with the same, eh? We'll anticipate the festivities at the vicarage to just that extent. Great doings there later, of course."
He spoke of the country vicarage which had been Dick's home for the many years which had passed since the death of his parents.
The Benfields, distant relatives of Roger Marchurst, had taken Dick in, body and soul, as a boy....
He smiled now, a very friendly and affectionate smile, as he thought of them all—the old vicar and his wife, tranquil and kind, a little behind the times but all the more charming for that; and of his uncle.
Queer, burnt-out old chap—with his queer, worn-out old theories. "Be sure your sins will find you out." Why, his old nurse had told him that—less picturesquely, perhaps. It sounded rather grimmer, too, put as that old Roger had put it.
"Every sin a man commits... forges its own javelin—and sooner or later it homes again to him—through the heart, my boy, clean through the heart!"
"Through the heart!" said Dick Marchurst, unconsciously speaking aloud. "What's that, old chap?" He looked up with a little start. It was Hoodless.
"Eh? Oh, nothing. Did I speak?"... He dropped his cold cigar into a tray and stood up, with a half-yawn.
"Well, old thimble-rigger, finished your business?" Hoodless laughed.
"Nothing happened. It was all wasted effort. Never mind. I'm sick of business. Let's go and see Saïs! You'd care to meet her, Dick?"
"Naturally," said Marchurst, adding half audibly, "in spite of the Curse."
"The Curse? What's that?" Hoodless was very quick.
"Oh—a legend—a fanciful thing—nothing that matters. Call it an echo from a half-forgotten nursery of mine," laughed Marchurst, as they left the hotel.
"You are more safe here at my house than at lions' dens of the desert... and I am more gentle than lions, more kind than leopards."
Saïs.
ALTHOUGH, seen from the narrow street, the outside of Saïs's house in the old quarter of the city appeared to have escaped the attention of the collector, and remained untouched and wholly Eastern, retaining the beautiful mushrebyeeh lattice work of the windows, the hand of the European furniture-designer and decorator lay heavily upon the interior.
Uncritical of these things though he was, Marchurst saw at once that her taste in furniture and decoration was unusual and extraordinarily inconsistent, save only in its aim, which appeared to be the achievement of a profusely planned and ornate comfort. And she had succeeded. Many styles, periods and countries had contributed to that effect. There were rugs from Persia; huge English lounges upholstered in striped silk; one of those modern Japanese screens carved in shining black wood, bits of ivory inlaid, and many birds and dragons in raised relief upon it; Chinese embroidered silk curtains, a brilliantly hued oil painting by a French impressionist, tiger-skins, water-colors, books, flowers, little Moorish coffee tables, cushions by the dozen, gold, silver, purple, green, black, scarlet, iridescent.
The big room glowed with color—too much color. An Indian chair, beautifully designed, inlaid with silver, its seat and back upholstered in velvet-soft leather, stood close by an antique English oak stool which served as a seat for a modern Broadwood baby-grand piano.
Here and there glowed like a flower a beautiful "bit" of china.
Everything was good of its kind, and costly, but there had been no discrimination, and he need not have been a very strict connoisseur who would have said that the value of almost every piece was destroyed by that which came near it.
But Marchurst was neither an artist nor a critic, and he hardly sensed the clashing of styles, the many incongruities in that room.
Like most men he was content with sheer comfort, and perfect taste was not to him a necessary ingredient of comfort. He liked Saïs's room immensely.
"By jove, but she knows how to make herself snug," he said. "It's a bit bright, but a man can rest in a room like this."
Crichton Hoodless laughed, nodding.
"Yes. It's a mixture—Saïs told me it was—but it's a comfortable mixture. Personally, I like a little color. I've got a cousin would say that all this set his teeth on edge—but he's one of those artist chaps and wouldn't allow a room to contain more than one chair, one picture and one flower on a long stalk.... After all, Saïs is a mixture, too. I suppose it's her French blood that calls for all these prosperous-looking, modern European things."
"Why not?" said Marchurst. "It's a fine room—it's bright—and quiet, and meant to be used.... Ah!"
They rose quickly as a curtain slid back, and a girl appeared in the narrow, arched entrance which the portiere had screened.
It was Saïs—laughing.
"Welcome to my hous', oh yes," she called in English from the archway. "You, Creeton—an' your frien'. I am very honor' that you have come—on your journey to shoot lions. You are more safe here at my hous' than at lions' dens of the desert—and I am more gentle than lions, more kind than leopards. I shall give you coffee—not wounds. So you shall not shoot me, eh?"
She posed in the archway, a slim hand to each pillar, looking at them, inviting their gaze with the frankness of an unspoiled, perfectly natural child.
They were not loath to look.
She was wholly beautiful.... But this was the invincible beauty of Saïs, that she was skilled.
If she wept, her loveliness did not leave her; if she raged, her dark beauty glowed but did not vanish; if she were tranquil, her charm clung to her as to a still flower.
She could convey innocence with a look, a gesture; but she was not innocent, and her dark, glorious eyes were deep with strange knowledge; she could express kindness with a tiny, smiling movement of her red lips, a little closing of her eyelids—though there might be no kindness, no echo of kindness, in her heart; she could flatter sweetly with a little raising of her dark, moon-curving brows, even while she annulled her flattery with the wave of a slender hand; she could call a man to her, and yet utter no word, invite passion with folded hands and downcast eyes, rebuke it with arms held out alluringly.
She was trained in beauty, apt at the crafts of loveliness, and wise in the arts of charm.
These delights and sweet masques were to her easy and swift and natural as flight to a swallow.
And her deadly arts were as much a part of her as her physical perfections were a part of her, for she was too young to have acquired them....
And her dress was as unusual as her beauty. Indeed she was not dressed in the Western sense, though she must have put on the garment she wore with a certain care, for its effect was as striking as that of the most novel and wonderfully-made gown.
It seemed to Marchurst, who, unlike many modern men, knew little of these mysteries, and cared less, that Saïs's dress was no more than a sheet of gold and white silk, fringed on its lower side with a bright, metallic, kingfisher-blue fringe; that she had done no more than to wind this soft, silken sheet carelessly about her, and secure it with a flaming sash about her waist and a jeweled pin at her breast. That, at least was the effect of it, and the yellow Oriental slippers she wore on her bare feet did nothing to modify the effect, or minimize its subtle simplicity.
Even her dark hair, bound with a strip of some lace-like silvery material, seemed careless, but it was not the carelessness of disorder.
So she stood, smiling at them.
"Why, Saïs—were you sleeping? Have we disturbed you?" asked Hoodless. Marchurst nodded unconsciously. His friend had put into words exactly the impression he had gathered from the appearance of the girl.
She looked as if she had been lying lightly asleep, unclothed, in some dim inner room, and, roused by their voices, had glided quickly from her couch, thrown on her silken sheet, coiled and bound the sash about her, banded her hair, and, her eyes yet dark with sleep, had come half-breathlessly to receive them.
That was the first impression of Saïs which Dick Marchurst ever received and never forgot, though a time was to come when he could look back and remember that, of a thousand poses, this was ever one of her favorites.
She turned, calling in a low, musical voice to one behind her. Marchurst knew enough French to understand that she was ordering the young negress who had admitted them to the house to bring coffee. Then she came forward to them.
"No, thank you—I was not resting. I was looking in my mirror to see the years in my eyes," she said, with a low laugh, and curled up on a big divan facing them. "It is in her eyes that a woman must look for the years that come so silently to alight upon her spirit not, as a man looks, at the silver threads in her hair, the little wrinkles upon her face. So—I tell you the mysteries—make known all my secrets to you?"
She was speaking in French now, having glanced inquiringly at Marchurst to see if he understood.
She offered him a slender hand.
"I like it that you understand me when I spik French," she said slowly. "For not yet do I spik your own tongue quite good, you see. Some time I mus' learn better."
She shrugged her white shoulders.
"So many tongues to learn—I speak so many a little—and not one do I speak good."
"But you speak them all prettily, Saïs," said Hoodless.
"That's true, Dick—Saïs speaks a little of nearly every language in Europe—Turkish, Greek, French, Spanish—but she isn't at home with any of them—I mean she hasn't a native tongue—that's novel, isn't it?"
"Saïs is entirely novel," said Marchurst dreamily in French. "I've never had the privilege of meeting anyone so novel—unique—as Saïs."
He spoke slowly, dreamily, as a man may speak who does not want to speak at all. And that was his mood. He would be content for a little while to do no more but sit there and look at Saïs—and wonder.
A man who has lived in England, idled in France, cannot have failed to see beauty—but never before had Marchurst looked upon beauty which affected him like this of Saïs. It was to him as though her loveliness, her fascination, breathed out from her as an invisible force, an atmosphere, strange, enchanting, enervating, which stole over him, enfolding him like a drugged and drowsy perfume, inescapable, inevitable.
"This is how men must feel who are hypnotized," warned a faint, far-off voice within him. "Be careful... not the sort of girl to become entangled with—" But the voice died out as he gazed.
He would have been content to sit thus indefinitely— listening half uncomprehendingly to the talk of Hoodless and the girl.
But the entry of the young Nubian girl, deft and silent, with coffee, fruit, and sweets, broke the spell. He roused himself—became normal—as normal as a man can be who has fallen a victim to the charms of a Saïs.
As though she had been following every emotion Saïs seemed instantly aware of the change in Marchurst.
She checked the idle flow of compliment and jest with which Hoodless was entertaining her and himself with a quaint, pretty gesture, as of one who pushes, palms outward, a great weight, and turned to Marchurst.
"You are glad that the good Creeton has brought you to see me, Richard—no, I shall call you Dick always, you are so English—Dick. When do you go to kill the lions? Perhaps not for a few little days yet? You are more serious, more grave, than Creeton, who laughs always. Creeton is nice—but he is quick. He flits—a butterfly—a bird. He forgets so easily. Creeton is your good friend. You have been friends together for a long time? But you are not alike. He forgets. I tell you that; you did not know that, eh? Do you understand—Dick?" She lingered quaintly on the name.
"Like this, Creeton is a bee. He pauses at a flower for a little while, takes a sip and flies away, laughing. But you, Dick, are not a bee. You find a flower—and you stay. You are a moth that sips and sips and sips, and cannot fly away ever.... Never!"
She was looking into Marchurst's eyes with a sudden intentness.
"Never... Dick!"
She selected and gave him a cigarette.
"I would like to know all about you," she said.
"But an Englishman does not know how to tell you about himself. Creeton must tell me—while you smoke. Where has Dick been, then? What has he done? Does he know that he is handsome—beautiful?" She laughed. "Is he in love? Why does he wish to shoot lions?"
Marchurst flushed a little, laughing. But Saïs shook a finger at him.
"You must be silent, if you please, and listen to Creeton. Only when he says that which is not true, you must speak."
She leaned back listening with half-closed eyes to all that Hoodless told her—a queer, playful account of Marchurst and his life.
He made it amusing with grotesquely wild imaginings to fill in the gaps created by his omissions to include such things as one does not tell, even to a Saïs, concerning one's friends.
But the girl was content. It was not until they were on the point of leaving her that she made a comment which thrilled Marchurst.
"Dick, poor Dick—to have lived all these twenty-three years and never to have fallen in love!"
"You must help the poor chap, Saïs," laughed Hoodless. "Haven't you a sister?"
She looked at him oddly for a moment. Then her lids fell and she nodded.
"Oh yes, I will think of a way to help him!"
Her hand contracted a little in that of Marchurst—a soft pressure that was like a promise.
"Do you see Saïs settling down as a wife of a member of the House of Lords? Why, she couldn't! She is not tame. She's a product of North Africa—of ancient Egypt."
Crichton Hoodless.
DICK MARCHURST was looking over the rifles and kit on the following day, a little before lunch. They had planned to leave for Khartoum in two days, and there was nothing more remaining to be done in Cairo.
Only three days before Marchurst had inspected the weapons and kit. But then he had lingered ever the task, peering at the grooved brightness of the rifle barrels, testing the smooth, oily working of the bolts, examining the sights, even giving a quite unnecessary rub with a silk handkerchief to the polished, well-oiled butts.
He had spent nearly the whole of an enjoyable morning on the task, musing delightfully over the knowledge, gossip, advice and rumor which he and Hoodless had gleaned concerning the Kordofan deserts where the lions went in troops, the rocky valleys were full of leopards, and antelope—the larger varieties with the lesser—were always to be met with.
He had looked forward to the trip for a long time, and because it would give him an opportunity of passing through Egypt and seeing the Nile, the Sudan, many places, people and things, he had chosen for a big game trip Kordofan in preference to Somaliland, Uganda, or any other of the big game "paradises" of the Dark Continent.
And he had thought himself fortunate to discover lounging at the club one day, wholly at a loose end and moderately in funds, Crichton Hoodless, with whom he had a club acquaintance, who readily agreed to join him. Hoodless knew Lower Egypt, he said; had spent a winter there—and also could get in touch with men far south—service men—whose advice would be valuable. They had arranged the expedition then and there, for there was nothing to prevent it. He had consulted old Roger, who had thought a little, asked Hoodless to dine, discussed the trip, and had approved.
Since that day, his enthusiasm increasing with every stage of the journey, Marchurst had thought of little but the coming sport.
And his enthusiasm had endured through Paris, Monte Carlo and other pleasure haunts.
The European stage of the trip had provided its lighter episodes, but nothing serious; no white hands had held him back from his destination, no bright eyes had diverted him from his course for an instant longer than he had planned.
He and Hoodless had agreed that this should be their last day in Cairo, and he had been glad of that.
But this morning his brown shapely hands hovered indecisively over the rifles, and his face was no longer keen.
He stared with absent blue eyes at the pile of man's things on the table and about the floor. One entering suddenly would have believed that the prospect of shooting bored him, even was distasteful to him. Certainly it was with no spark of enthusiasm that he put down a beautifully built, heavy, double-barrelled Express rifle, for which he had cared as a woman cares for a favorite jewel.
He lit a cigarette and shrugged his shoulders.
"I have enthused myself stale," he said, with a curious smile at his reflection in a mirror opposite.
He passed a hand over his crisp, wavy hair, and smoothed his closely shaven cheeks and clean-cut chin. He was looking trimmer, more carefully groomed this morning—more like one who has arrived in Egypt to spend the winter in idleness than a sportsman, halting for a little, en route to his dangerous pleasure in the desert.
"I've lost interest in the trip," he said. Then he laughed quietly.
"Oh, why lie about it—it's Saïs!" And that was the truth.
She had haunted his thoughts from the moment he had left her house to this moment of self-confession. In that time he had lost every shred of desire to go on. He could no longer take any pleasure in balancing that perfect rifle in his hands, no longer dwell with a keen delight upon those desert joys to which he had so intensely looked forward.
The face of Saïs had drifted between him and his visions, beautifully eclipsing them all.
Saïs....
He wanted to stay in Cairo now—to be with Saïs.
He knew it; he said it aloud, his eyes upon his rifles. The volte-face was so complete and utterly frank that it was boyish, naive.
He had never seen any one like her before—he had not imagined such a woman existed.
Big, eager, youthful, well mannered as he was, he had had his adorers, and he had worshipped briefly at the feet of his divinities.
But these had been incredibly different from this dark and desirable mystery who had glided, on yellow sandals, into the archway of that house in the old secret quarter of Cairo, who had said in her soft voice, glancing at him from under heavy eyelids: "You, Dick, are a moth that sips and sips and sips, and cannot fly away—ever.... Never. Poor Dick—to have lived all these twenty-three years and never to have fallen in love!" Who had shot that odd, challenging look at Hoodless when he had half hinted that he had a proprietary right in her, Saïs, and that Dick might seek a "sister" like her, and whose hand, at parting, had pressed his as in a promise!
The call of the distant desert died out, and the bright face of danger dulled for him as he sat over his cigarette.
He was not going south—in his heart he knew it.
Saïs had wiped out the trip with one hand-clasp.
Kordofan and its wild beasts could wait—at least, until he had discovered what that subtle promise meant.
He stared at the weapons with real distaste now, moving restlessly about the room.
But what about Crichton Hoodless? He had implied that Saïs was his, and certainly his manner was that of one who was very close, very intimate. But that meant, surely, that Hoodless was the source from which Saïs had obtained her house, all that costly, clashing furniture, the many jewels and clothes which, he guessed instinctively, she possessed. Hoodless, too, must have provided the funds for those European trips which Saïs sometimes made, and to which she had lightly referred during the talk of the previous evening. Hoodless!
Marchurst frowned, then laughed.
"But that's absurd," he said. "Poor old Crichton—living like the birds in the air. Saïs is a rich man's jewel—unless she really loved a man."
Only if she really loved Hoodless, would she consent to share his poverty....
He shrugged his shoulders with a certain relief. He would ask his friend flatly at lunch. But he had not even that short time to wait, for even as he decided it, the door of the sitting-room swung back and Hoodless entered gaily.
"Ah, Dick, old man. I nailed him—a chap I had some business with last time I was here. Nothing much. A little commission I pulled off in town for him!"
He laughed, patting his breast pocket, his quick, dark eyes flickering over the jumble of kit about the room. He was a man of medium height, inclined to be florid, and of the type which one day would be fat.
Carefully dressed, and obviously well bred, he was pleasing enough to look upon, and his restlessness seemed, at his present age, only a natural expression of high spirits.
"Been having a look over the things?"
He picked up the Express, threw it to his shoulder, clicked the trigger, and replaced it in a space of seconds.
"A grand little rifle—perfect balance. Lancaster let you into a bargain there, Dick."
He lit a cigarette.
"I'll take my full share of this kind of work now, old man. Finished business for the present." He sat down.
"Well, to-morrow we shall be away for open country. I've wired a man in Khartoum to look out for us—but we may be able to make El Obeid our kicking off place. They've pretty well cleared up after the war now. The tribes are quiet. Omdurman and the Sirdar cooled their blood permanently, eh?"
Dick fidgeted a little, and broke in.
"Just a moment, Hoodless. I—I fancy I've cooled a little, too. This trip—"
"Eh! Cooled!"
Hoodless looked up quickly.
Dick spoke hurriedly, with the bluntness of youth.
"It's shabby, I suppose, but the fact is I'm no longer in the mood for this trip. I want to call it off."
"Call it off! But, my dear old chap, you have been mad about it up till now; why, only yesterday you said how glad you would be to get—" He stopped abruptly, and whistled softly.
"Oh-o!" he said, and paused for a second, thinking.
Then he nodded.
"I see, Dick. It's that witch, Saïs, I suppose?"
"I mean to stay in Cairo for a time, anyway," said Dick awkwardly, even a little stiffly. He stared at Hoodless.
"Tell me, old man, is she—yours?" he asked.
Hoodless was looking at him curiously. He hesitated, and a wrinkle of intense thought engraved itself between his brows.
"Why, of course," he said at last, very deliberately.
"You mean," pressed Dick, "you mean that you are going to marry her?" he said, his voice not quite controlled.
Crichton Hoodless opened his eyes.
"Not necessarily. She would hardly expect that. Saïs isn't a marrying kind." He was staring with concerned eyes at his friend.
"Then in that case you can hardly object to the rivalry of one who is prepared to—to take her out of—all that."
"You mean yourself, Dick?"
"I do."
"But do you mean, also, that you are prepared to marry her?" "I do."
Hoodless stood up.
"My dear old chap, what are you talking about? Good God! You marry Saïs. One doesn't marry a girl like Saïs, Dick—she—" He broke off before his friend's angry stare.
He seemed honestly puzzled.
"My dear boy, you would be mad. Why, aren't you likely to become Lord Lissmere some day? At least, it's on the cards, I've heard. Old Roger told me. I'd better say that it was one of the reasons he asked me to—to make this a steady-going trip. Do you see Saïs settling down as the wife of a respectable, steady-going member of the House of Lords? Why, Dick, she couldn't. She's not tame. She's a product of North Africa, of ancient Egypt. You are not so young, old chap, as to want me to tell you in detail all about the life of a girl like Saïs. Even if the title never comes to you she would be tragically unsuitable. You couldn't afford her, Dick, comfortably off as you are. Good Lord, you have no conception of the greed, the crazy folly, the deadly extravagance of such a girl-"
Marchurst interrupted.
"All right, I understand all that," he said. "But if that's the way you look at it, I don't see that you can have any logical objection to my competition."
Hoodless nodded.
"I haven't," he said easily. "Do you think I should care to break with you for a Saïs, old chap? Fire away! I'll say beforehand that you can almost certainly cut me very completely out. She likes you."
He lit a cigarette.
"But don't talk about marriage. And why spoil our trip? If you want to linger a little in Cairo we can easily arrange that. Postpone our trip up the Nile for a fortnight, if you like. I am willing enough."
"You talk as if she were a discarded glove! Saïs! Haven't you any delicacy, Hoodless?"
But Hoodless laughed.
"I have common sense, my boy. And it is so that you should go into this affair with your eyes open, and against—in spite of—my advice, that I have been so very frank with you."
His eyes softened a little at sight of the real misery on his friend's face and he crossed over to him.
"You think that's brutal, old chap. Well, better be blunt than allow you to make a fool of yourself, ruin yourself, financially and socially, entangle yourself with Saïs. You're looking at her through the wrong end of the glasses. Why, at the moment you're capable of anything—because she was sweet to you last night. As if it were not her business to be sweet to you—to any one and every one like you. Lord, Dick, get the thing in perspective...."
He thought again.
"As a matter of fact, what I said about my relations with Saïs was untrue. She is nothing to me—never has been. I wanted to choke you off. I failed. Very well, old chap, I have nothing more to say. But remember later, if necessary, that I advised you against it—exceeded, you may say, the privileges of friendship to stop any liaison. Tell Roger Marchurst that.... Would you care to know anything of Saïs's past, Dick?"
"Saïs's past doesn't concern me," said the boy, white with anger. "You take the basest view of things, Hoodless. I don't propose to. I'm going to take your advice!"
He stepped swiftly to the door, snatched it open, and paused for an instant.
"I'm going to take your advice," he said in a voice that suddenly became harsh. "I'm going to get things in perspective—a better perspective than yours!"
The door banged.
"Good God!" said Hoodless, really amazed. "I thought he was a man of the world, but he's a schoolboy!... A young man void of understanding.... And he went the way to her house!... Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death!"
He murmured the words with a mechanical smile, staring at the door.
Once he moved uncertainly as though to follow the boy, but he stopped at once.
"No. When he comes back.... Can't let him make a fool of himself, but it's no use talking to him now. We'll have it out when he comes back."
But Dick Marchurst did not come back.
"Who did this?... You, Dick? You?"
Crichton Hoodless.
ADVENTURER though he was, or, failing a fortunate marriage or coup, must inevitably become, Hoodless was not yet so hardened that he could watch a friend go the way of Dick Marchurst and dismiss the matter from his mind with a shrug.
In actual years the difference in their ages was not more than eight, but in experience he was, to Dick, what an elderly man is to a boy. And he knew more of the East than Marchurst, and his experience of life since his Oxford days had been widely different.
Hoodless had come down from Oxford to a London flat whither his father had retreated from a series of futile and disastrous speculations to die, practically penniless, leaving his son to face a future wholly different from that to which he had looked forward. Believing himself the only son of a rich father, Hoodless had never contemplated the idea of working to live, much less prepared himself for it.
That had been some years before.
And Hoodless had not yet worked, but he had survived—kept up appearances, established a credit, and deviously achieved what he regarded as a moderately good time. He had salved enough from his father's wreck to assure himself a roof over his head, and that was all.
He was already hard, but not so hard as he would have been had his luck been worse.
Had Dick Marchurst been a poor man Hoodless might have let him go without wasting another thought on him.
But he knew that the boy was comparatively well off, and, further, that there were no more than two lives between him and the Barony of Lissmere. And Lord Lissmere was notoriously wealthy—very much the kind of person whom Hoodless would be glad to put under an obligation to him.
It was not for nothing that one or two of the more wide-awake people at his own London club were beginning to look a little askance at Crichton Hoodless.
For four days after the impulsive departure of Marchurst he did nothing, and to those of the floating population of the hotel who were interested enough to ask about his friend he answered vaguely.
He did not go to the house of Saïs, and he neither saw nor heard of Dick, save that on the afternoon after he left he had returned, packed, and, leaving his shooting gear at the hotel, had settled his bill and gone again.
At the end of a week he wrote a little friendly note to the boy:
Dear Dick,
Am I to take it that our trip is definitely off? Let me know at once, like a good fellow, as I have other plans if you have really determined to cry it off.
My homage to Saïs.
Yours,
George Crichton Hoodless.
He smiled as he dispatched the inquiry. "At least, he won't accuse me of preaching at him," he laughed.
It was with a certain amused curiosity that he tore open the envelope of a note addressed to him in Marchurst's writing the next day. But the amusement left his face as he read the contents.
Dear Hoodless,—If you are willing to stand by me in horrible trouble, come to Saïs's house at once. I am in need of a friend. Tell nobody you are coming here. If you won't come, will you meet me somewhere as soon as possible—wherever you like? R. M.
Hoodless whistled softly, staring at the scrawl, evidently written in furious haste.
"Early days," he said uneasily, and thought for a moment.
"Well, I don't see that he can have landed himself into any very serious trouble yet," he muttered. His face cleared.
"I told him that Saïs was only half tame!" he chuckled, and hurried out.
He was smiling as he entered the house of Saïs a little later, prepared to face some naive account by Dick of a simple difficulty—a misunderstanding. The boy was drifting in strange waters, and because he had a conscience no doubt he was already aware of pin-pricks.
"Some little difficulty—some naive confession—" ran the thoughts of the polite adventurer as Saïs's little negress admitted him.
But he had not been in the house for the fraction of a second before his smooth and smiling confidence was gone. He was a man of swift instincts, like a beast of prey, and almost before he had caught the gleam of fear in the eyes of the Nubian girl he sensed that the atmosphere of the house was changed—that it was wrong.
His face hardened, and his eyes became keen. He turned and stared at the negress.
"What are you afraid of, Bina? Where—" he began, but stopped abruptly as Dick Marchurst appeared in the curtained arch which led to Saïs's favorite room and came to him.
"Thank God, you've come, Hoodless, old man. I was beginning to think you weren't going to stand by," he said in a curious thick voice. "I—I'm in awful trouble," he gulped.
His hand was trembling as it gripped that of Hoodless, and his face was gray.
"I can trust you, old chap?" he muttered, staring with wavering eyes at Hoodless.
"Naturally, Dick. But what's the trouble? Man, you're quaking. What's gone wrong? Where's Saïs?"
"Saïs went out. Shell be back in a minute—she said so," said Marchurst in a low voice.
He drew Hoodless through the archway into the bigger room, pointing dumbly.
Upon one of the divans lay a man, a youngish man, dressed in European style, with a tarboosh—a fez—awry on his head. He was white, but not quite with the whiteness of a European, and his hair was black. These things Hoodless realized almost subconsciously, for there was that about the pose of this man which chilled him.
"He's dead, Dick!"
His voice was suddenly low.
Marchurst nodded, clasping his hands nervously.
"Dead, yes," he muttered.
"Who did this?" whispered Hoodless, but stopped as a sudden flare of understanding ran into his eyes.
"You, Dick, you?"
Marchurst sat down suddenly.
"We were struggling—well, fighting—and suddenly he went quiet—loose—lax—in my hands. I didn't want to hurt him. I was—appalled, Hoodless—that's it—appalled. Something broke, you know.... He insulted Saïs, Hoodless. I was putting him out. He insulted Saïs... and me, too."
Dick's voice rose a little—reedy, half tremulous, half angry.
"He ordered me out of the house—his house, he said—called me things. Hoodless, he sprang at me like an angry cat—struck me with his open hand. He had nearly broken Safe's arm—I wasn't going to stand that—nobody would—" He broke off. "Who is he?"
Hoodless shook his head.
"Saïs knows. She must. I don't. This is bad-damned bad. I say, Dick, this might be serious. Where is Saïs? Is he anybody in particular? He looks... my God, Marchurst, they'll say you murdered him."
The boy groaned.
"I know—do you think I haven't thought of that, sitting here, waiting? But it was an accident; he broke—in my hands, I tell you—like a doll.... We were struggling. Don't you understand, Hoodless—"
"Where the devil is Saïs? What's she gone out for, now, of all times?" snapped Hoodless, with an odd, nervous irritation. "She knows who he is. If he's somebody important it's going to be serious. Look here, Dick, you've got to pull yourself together. Where's Bina? She may know."
He called in and questioned the little Nubian girl. But she shook her head vehemently, denying strenuously that she had ever seen the man.
Hoodless sent her away.
"Oh, she'll never say, nor will any of the servants. They adore Saïs. That child particularly; she would allow herself to be cut to pieces before she would utter a word against Saïs, who bought her in Alexandria when she was the merest child."
He stared at Marchurst, scowling unconsciously. He hated remaining here at all—all his instincts were spurring him to get out of the house and away. It might be serious—very serious—if this man were somebody of importance.
Marchurst seemed to have gone to pieces, and Saïs had disappeared. That was not like her; he had known her, and of her, long enough to understand that. Saïs possessed a cold courage that was not likely to be broken by this tragedy. Yet why had she gone?
Then, deep down under his surface instincts, there uncoiled, there moved silently, like a latent and stealthy thing rousing from sleep, another and a terrible instinct.
His eyes narrowed as his quick mind ranged forward.
This frightened boy, Marchurst, might easily become Lord Lissmere and the owner of the Lissmere revenues. And he would be under a life obligation to him, Hoodless, if only he helped extricate him from this deadly fix.
Why, even if he did not inherit, he must even now have perhaps a couple of thousand a year—riches to a man who went ever with his gun under his arm ready to bring down whatever game exposed itself....
Hoodless shook off the thought, for those were deeper and deadlier waters than any into which he had yet plunged for gain.
But it turned the balance.
"Yes," he said slowly, "they'll say you murdered him—you know what the police of any country are—" Marchurst quailed. Hoodless went on: "But we know—Saïs knows—the servants, if any of them saw it, know—that it was at the most manslaughter—self-defence—an accident—we've got to settle which—and settle it quickly. Get our story right—pat—perfect, d'ye see—"
Something in the appearance of the man on the divan caught his attention, and he went nearer, bending over him.
"Are you sure he's a Turk—an Egyptian—an Oriental at all?" he said, and took the fez from the dead man's head.
For a moment he studied the sleek, straight, black hair, the rather thin face, the high cheek-bones. He leaned forward, peering at the loose lips, then, with the air of one who drives himself, he lifted one lip, exposing a set of teeth, perfect except for a gold front tooth in the upper left jaw—American work.
Marchurst watched dully.
"This man isn't an Oriental at all," said Crichton Hoodless softly. "Have you searched him?"
"No, I—I couldn't!"
Hoodless hesitated, scrutinizing the clothing of the unknown. He raised the lolling head and looked at the inside of the coat for the tailor's tab. There was none.
"He's tried to pass as an Oriental, but he's not." He slipped his hand into the breast pocket of the dead man.
"There's Saïs," said Marchurst, on a note of extraordinary relief, and hurried out. He had caught the sound of her low voice from beyond the archway.
Hoodless withdrew his hand with a thick, leather, pocket letter and note-case. He opened this, looked at the stamp, postmark, name and address on one of the envelopes it contained, bit his lip, glanced over his shoulder, and slipped the case into his own pocket.
"I thought so," he muttered. "An American—some old friend of Saïs—trying to pass as an Oriental."
He turned towards the archway and was half-way across the room as Saïs and Marchurst entered.
"What is a dead man more or less to me—Saïs of Old Ouro."
Saïs.
THERE had been no mistaking the sheer gratitude and relief with which Dick Marchurst had greeted Hoodless's arrival—but it was otherwise with Saïs.
Not a flicker of change made itself apparent on her lovely face, nor was there any welcome in her dark, brilliant eyes.
"You, Creeton?" she said quietly. "Why have you come here now?"
"To help you and Dick, Saïs," replied the adventurer swiftly. "This—this unfortunate accident might prove awkward. Who is this man?"
Saïs was staring into his eyes.
"I do not know him," she said very steadily. "I have never seen him. Cairo is full of such men—half-bred Turkish dogs. I think he is hashshâsh—a hashish slave—or mad. He came to my house uninvited and he refused to leave it. He insulted Dick—and me he insulted also. Well—he is now dead. This he brought upon his own head. Good. I have arranged. Presently he will be taken away. That is all. Dick has a compassionate heart and he distresses himself and grieves for this dog. There is no need to grieve nor to fear anything. I have arranged, without police—without talk. It is all well. To-night he will be taken away by those with whom I have arranged it." Hoodless stared.
"But somewhere somebody will miss him, Saïs. There will be inquiry. They may trace him here. This isn't the Middle Ages."
Saïs smiled—she knew, if Hoodless did not, that there are no ages for her sisterhood.
"Let them come," she said. "What will they find? I have good friends—obedient friends. There will be no trace of that man here—and in a day no trace of Dick nor me. Come, let us leave this room—give it to that one for an hour."
She led them to an inner room, smaller, less ornate.
"Bina shall bring you what you wish—coffee—wine. Talk—make your plans—and forget that one. There is no need to be distressed, Dick. I say that I have arranged all—without noise, without fuss. He will—go—silently—and be forgotten."
She patted the boy's arm and went out.
"Where has she gone, Dick?" asked Hoodless suspiciously.
Saïs's return, her matter-of-fact handling of the affair, her easy confidence, had had its effect on Marchurst. He was still shaken—but he was no longer hopelessly so.
"Oh, to change, I expect. You saw how she was dressed—street clothes—she did not want to attract attention."
"Well, what are you going to do? What did Saïs mean about not being here after a day?"
"We're going to a villa I've taken farther out of the town," explained Marchurst, "and, after, we're going up the Nile. At least that's what we had planned. Now," he hesitated, "I don't know quite how this—all this—will affect our plans."
Hoodless mixed himself a brandy and soda from the tray which Bina had brought in.
"Still devoted, I suppose, Dick? Your attachment will survive this trouble?... But I think you would be wise to get away from Cairo for a time. Saïs is extraordinarily clever—and I've no doubt that she can influence things so—the disappearance of that hashshâsh will remain a mystery. But if any hitch occurs you may find yourself in an awkward position. Why not tear yourself away from Saïs for a month or two? Leave her in the villa and come up the river with me. You will come back with all the freshness of this tragic accident effaced."
He paused.
"It will make a difference, Dick." But Marchurst's eyes fell.
"I can't leave Saïs," he muttered. "You don't understand. She loves me, and I—I worship her."
Hoodless rose. He made no further effort to persuade his friend. He saw how it was with him—he was fast in the morass and he hated it, no doubt, but he was unable to bring himself to tear free.
Dick Marchurst had fallen far in the last few days—even Hoodless, looking at him, was aware of a vague wonder, almost pity, as he realized that less than a week ago this boy could sit with a cigarette, chatting and laughing over a little table with one or more of the friends he made so easily, as free from care as a child, with nothing to trouble him except the possibility of a lack of lions, a shortage of game, in the far south.
And now—what was he but the haggard and uneasy slave of a beautiful and dangerous mystery who called herself Saïs, blind and besotted with what he called his love for her; incredibly believing that she loved him; an unstrung, frightened child, clinging to or relying on, the woman to shield him from the consequences of that unexplained and fatal quarrel, the fruits of which lay so still and grim upon the divan in the adjoining room?
A chill touched the veins of the adventurer as he measured the depth of the fall, and for an instant a shadow of pity darkened his face.
But it passed. He had seen too many weaklings to grieve for yet another of them. He could do nothing for Marchurst. A fool and his folly....
Besides, there was a mystery here that he did not understand. That dead man was an American—he was sure of it, even though there were many indications that, for some reason, he had been trying to pass as an Oriental—Europeanized. And Hoodless was convinced that Saïs, too, knew this but chose to pretend that he was a stranger—a Turk and hashshâsh.
Why had he come to this house and insulted Marchurst—ordered him to leave—attempted to enforce his order? He must have had some claim to a right to do this. No stranger to Saïs was likely to do it. Indeed, this was a business which wanted looking into. Perhaps it might prove to be not altogether unproductive to a keen and cautious investigator—such as himself.
He had done all he could for the boy—given him sound, honest advice—that sort of thing. What more was there to do? Marchurst was not a child. After this each must play his own hand. There was nothing to gain by lingering now—and much to lose.
"That's true, by Jove," muttered Hoodless sharply. "This is a house to get out of."
He thought swiftly, with a sharpening sense of his own danger. Suppose there should be some hitch—Saïs was clever but not infallible. What would be his position if some one—some friend of the dead man—the police—came in now?
Eh? Accessory after the fact—that was it, or something like it. Accessory after the fact, by God! He had seen the words somewhere and—they meant serious trouble.
Hoodless paled a little.
"Well, it seems that I can do no more, Dick," he said. "Except, perhaps, to ask you once more—for the last time—will you come away?"
But Marchurst shook his head and drained his glass.
"No, I stay with—stand by Saïs," he said with a certain sullenness. "Thanks for coming. I was rattled—badly rattled. It meant a lot to me just then, old chap—your coming. And I'm grateful. But I'm getting hold of myself now. I'm going through with it. But there's no reason on earth why you should be involved. You had better go."
There was an increasing note of self-control, even of decision, in his voice now. The return of Saïs seemed to have given him confidence and the strong spirit he had drunk had strung his nerves a little.
"After all, my conscience is clear," he went on. "You know, that—business—was quite unintentional—an accident. But if there should be trouble it isn't necessary to drag you into it. So, good-iby, Hoodless—and good luck."
He offered his hand. He looked years older than when he had left the hotel.
Hoodless shook hands.
"All right—let it be as you say, Dick."
A movement across the room caught his eye and he turned.
Saïs was standing in the archway, watching them. She had changed from the quiet clothes she had worn for the street and was wearing a curious kimono-like wrap of heavy, dull orange silk, wonderfully embroidered with black and red dragons—a Chinese thing—and she looked more wonderful than ever.
"You are going now, yes?" she said to Hoodless. "Wait a little, please. I heard all you said to Dick and I think you are right. I do not wish Dick to be in any danger, and it will be good if he goes with you—to shoot lions—after all. To leave Cairo for a little—"
She came swiftly across the room, and dropped to the divan by Marchurst. Her beautiful arms reached up, sliding round his neck, and she pulled his head down.
"Listen, my dear," she said softly. "Our friend is right. You must leave Cairo for a little—in case of accident. You are to go to your shooting, and I will go to the villa and await you there. It will be much better like that. Safer. Are you sorry, Dick? Yes. And it breaks my heart to send you away so. But—because of the danger you must go."
She put her cheek close to his, whispering.
Hoodless stared openly. Was it possible that she felt for the boy—loved him—in the complete and reckless way in which he loved her. It seemed so—Hoodless felt instinctively that she was not now acting.
He moved restlessly. Good God, one would think that they were in the tranquil garden of some innocent English vicarage—instead of the room adjoining that of the dead man—
Saïs looked over her shoulder.
"Dick will come to shoot with you—just as it was all planned before," she said. "Presently he will come back to the hotel—presently—when I have explained."
Hoodless turned briskly, following Bina, the little Nubian girl who had appeared in response to Saïs's call.
"But, Saïs, oh, Saïs—what about that—dead man? I am not going to desert you now—even for a little time," came Marchurst's voice, wrung and tormented.
Hoodless lingered to hear her answer.
It came, clear, musical, ringing low with a deadly-scorn, thrilling with a wicked pride:
"Fear not for me, beloved. The dead man? What is a dead man more or less to me—Saïs of Old Cairo!... Kiss!"
"Ah, Saïs, Saïs, Saïs!"
Was it a whisper of despair that Marchurst uttered then as of a man who sinks beyond aid or redemption in the morass—or the sigh of some drugged slave for ever lost, destroyed by his own passion?
Hoodless heard it and waited to hear no more. He shrugged his shoulders, turned away and a moment later was in the narrow street.
He was glad to be free from the house of Saïs. He touched his pocket lightly with his finger-tips as though to assure himself of the safety of the letter case he had taken from the dead man, and made his way swiftly back to the hotel.
"That beautiful American... looked at me like a voice speaking."
Dick Marchurst.
LONG before he had regained the hotel Crichton Hoodless was conscious of a great satisfaction that Saïs had kept Marchurst back for yet a little longer.
"It fits in—I have plenty to do before he returns," he said, with a curious smile, as he picked his way through the people crowding on to the terrace. There was a hotel dance in progress, and after the dim secrecy and silence of Saïs's house he found it oddly inspiring to be once more among the gay, well-dressed guests, idly overlooking the swarming crowds in the great square before the hotel.
He stopped at the office to reserve a room for Dick Marchurst, lingering there in conversation with the clerk who attended to him for some minutes after the small matter of the apartment had been arranged.
Some correspondence had arrived for him during his absence, and when presently he went to his own room there was a strange excitement in his eyes.
He locked the door and, placing on a table the wallet he had taken from the pocket of the dead man at Saïs's house, his own letters and a newspaper or two which had come by that mail, he surveyed the little collection with a queer air of hesitation, groping for his cigarette-case as he looked....
Crichton Hoodless knew that now he stood definitely at a point in his life where the road which hitherto he had pursued was forked—and it was necessary that he should choose which of the two open to him he would henceforward travel upon.
It was not an easy choice to this man—and it was far less easy to-day than it would have been a fortnight earlier.
With something of that appearance of caution with which a man accustomed to firearms examines a strange and new type of automatic pistol, or a naturalist may handle one of the smaller, venomous snakes, Hoodless separated the collection on the table, setting the newspapers aside from the letters, and the letters aside from the wallet.
He took up one of the letters, glanced at a crest embossed on the back of the envelope, and swore softly but with an extraordinary bitterness. Without looking at the contents he knew that from the owner of that crest no good news could come. The fact of a letter from that particular person appearing in his correspondence at all was a certain sign of desperately bad news—in a financial sense. It had to do with a serious matter for the settlement of which his plans had miscarried.
Hastily he turned over another letter addressed to him in a clerkly hand. It was stamped on the back with the name of a firm—his solicitors.
It was not really necessary to open either. The letter from the solicitors he knew merely confirmed the contents of that with the crested envelope.
"If I believed in the existence of a devil I should believe that it was through his agency these letters coincided with that—note-case," he said, lingered a moment longer, then suddenly seized and ripped open the envelopes, glancing through their contents.
His face was white and tormented as he threw the letters back on the table.
"That finishes me as far as England is concerned for some years," he said bleakly. "Well—it was my own fault. I took a risk with my eyes open."
He eyed the wallet.
"It's ruin—if it is possible to ruin a man who has always lived on his wits and such credit as he can get," he muttered. "I thought Livingfold a bigger fool than he is—and less vindictive than his letter shows him to be.... Very well...."
He picked up the letters and tore them to pieces.
"That's the end of that—anyway, I know where I stand now."
It was true. Some time before he had taken the dangerous risk of using another man's name on paper with a financial value—and the risk had developed into an actual existing fact. He had been discovered, and only a distant relationship to the man whose letter he had just received had saved him from arrest and a charge of forgery.
He had used the word "ruin" without exaggeration.
His clubs, London, even England, and what means of subsistence as those places had provided him, were closed to him until such time as the man he had victimized relented or forgot—and he knew that.
He hesitated a moment longer, mentally peering into a future that suddenly was dark and sinister. "If I open and examine that wallet," ran his thoughts, "with the intention of making use of its contents, I brand myself.... I become definitely a scoundrel—a criminal—a man of prey.... It's worth while avoiding such a career. But if I do not—if I decide to go straight—what sort of prospects have I? A lifetime of work. Well, I could stand that. Most people do. But what work? What am I fit for?"
He thought swiftly, running over in his mind his list of accomplishments, his equipment for "a lifetime of work."
"I might get a berth as junior master in a small school—but it's an over-crowded market and leads nowhere. A clerkship—perhaps. If I happen to be one of the few lucky ones out of ten thousand. A gamekeeper damn it, I only know how to shoot. A gamekeeper's is a difficult job, calling for years of special experience and training. I might take a chance in the army—and put myself, body and soul, under the boots of illiterate and petty-minded N.C.O.s for the next few years or so!"
He threw away his cigarette with a rather dreary smile.
"No—I've left it till too late. I should have faced all that sort of thing when I first came down from Oxford. I might have tackled one of the rough roads then. But not now. I've hung on too long. Here I am now—another of them—a public school and a university man—useless in the business world, unfitted for the labor world, not brilliant enough to be worth money in the intellectual market.... Well, I'm not the first—and I shan't be the last. So it must be the black flag—"
His face was wrung and his eyes guilty as he reached for the wallet, for despite the few grains of truth in his argument that his haphazard though expensive education was to a man in his position a handicap rather than a boon, he was well aware that it was not despair which drove him to hoist the black flag of piracy, but sheer distaste for the years of hard work and concentration which any man in any position must face and endure before he sees far ahead the first faint gleam of the sunrise of success.
Crichton Hoodless, like many before him, was choosing the line of least resistance....
He lit another cigarette, and opened the wallet, shaking out the letters and papers with which it was filled.
It was the act of a man who had deliberately decided to war upon his fellows—of an adventurer who had become a criminal—a very different act from that first dangerous risk which he had taken in a moment of despondency, fear and despair, faintly lightened by a ray of hope that he could adjust matters. That had been, in a sense, a first offender's folly—this was cold, deliberate and studied.
He bent over the papers, and his eyes grew hard and keen. A dangerous and formidable man....
Half an hour later he rose, put the wallet carefully away, and went downstairs.
He found a table on the terrace, ordered a drink, and fell to studying the flow of people with quick and eager eyes. It was mainly upon the women of these that he looked, as though seeking a particular person.
But, apparently, he did not discover her.
His failure did not seem to vex him greatly, and he appeared to be on the point of giving up his search when a voice behind him relit the eagerness in his eyes.
"Here is your slayer of lions, Louise, returned to the fold. Looking a little older—and perhaps a little tired."
It was the clear voice of an educated, well-bred and traveled American woman, touched with a faint velvety Southern accent. Hoodless turned slightly, glancing out of the corners of his eyes. The speaker was the companion of the woman whom he had been seeking. She had been sitting at the table immediately behind him, her back to him.
"Why do you say that he is my slayer of lions?" she asked, in a tone so low that Hoodless could only just catch it.
Both were looking across the terrace towards the hotel entrance, so that Hoodless could see the exquisite and delicate profile of the lady called Louise.
Her companion laughed softly.
"It is the English boy you thought so perfect. Do you forget perfection so readily, my dear?"
The lips of the woman—little more than a girl —parted as she smiled.
"Oh, no. I had not forgotten him. But I do not carry him always in my mind, you know."
It was Marchurst whom they were discussing. He had just arrived, and was standing at the entrance giving the hall-porter instructions about his luggage.
Hoodless watched him for a moment, amazed at the change in him. He was himself again—a trim, well-groomed, apparently happy man. The only noticeable difference between the Marchurst who had left the hotel for the house of Saïs a few days before and this quiet, self-possessed boy, was that he looked pale, a little tired and a year or two older. The companion of the beautiful American had been very quick to see that—and she was wholly right.
Hoodless rose and beckoned. Marchurst saw him and came across.
"It is the cleverness of Saïs. Saïs has done this— tightened his nerve—pulled him together—as one tightens a violin string," said Hoodless within himself, as the boy drew nearer.
He flashed a glance at Marchurst's eyes, struck by a singular fancy that they were of a lighter tint than their usual blue-gray. He saw then that this curious effect was caused by an unusual contraction of the pupil, and understood swiftly.
"Saïs has keyed him up for this return by some subtle drug—which, of course, is what Saïs would do," Hoodless told himself as he took Dick's hand.
"Welcome back, old chap," he said. "Sit down and have a drink. Everything's ready—this will be our last evening here if you are agreeable."
"Oh, thanks—yes, I am keen on getting away," replied the boy dreamily, with a serene tranquillity. Hoodless looked at him with a queer little smile—as one artist may smile at the skilled work of another. Indeed Saïs and her drugs had schooled him well. Few people on that crowded terrace would have believed that not two hours ago the boy had been half hysterical with horror, wringing his hands over the body of a man he himself had just killed.
"Give me a drink, Crichton, and then I think I'll turn in! I am tired—somehow I'm deadly tired."
He stared round.
"What's happening? A dance—reception or something?" he asked, still with that languid and eerie calm.
Hoodless was signaling a waiter and did not answer. Not till he had given his order and turned again to Marchurst did he notice that the women behind him had risen and were going into the hotel.
He saw that Dick was staring intently after them—at the beautiful girl called Louise, a tiny frown of puzzlement between his brows.
Hoodless followed his gaze.
At the edge of the area of tables she looked back. An electric light projecting from the hotel facade immediately above her illumined her pale, lovely face almost as though she stood in a shaft of limelight.
Her eyes were on Marchurst, and it seemed to Hoodless that they were full of a strange wistfulness. For a moment their eyes clung, then suddenly she seemed to shiver as though a chill air had touched her, smiled faintly, turned and entered the hotel.
"There goes one of the loveliest women I've ever seen," said Dick Marchurst. "Who is she?" Hoodless nodded.
"She is an admirer of yours—a Mrs. Lammarsh, of New York—Louise Elaine Lammarsh, to quote the hotel register. She is here with her husband, Charles Lammarsh, and his cousin, the lady with her now. You are right about her, Dick. She's wonderful!"
His eyes narrowed.
"Like Saïs, Dick," he added.
"Yes, wonderful. Like Saïs," echoed Marchurst drowsily, almost muttering. "If I had not met Saïs—I mean if I had met Mrs. Lammarsh—if she were free—I mean—damn it, what do I mean, Crichton?"
He half drained his glass suddenly, and leaned heavily across the table.
"Crichton, old chap, if I had not had Saïs to help me to-night—" he began and broke off. "All the same I wish I'd never seen her—at least, I think I do. But probably I don't.... That beautiful American looked at me—like a voice speaking."
Hoodless stared at him with a steady, unwavering regard.
"She thinks you are perfect, Dick. I happened to overhear it."
Marchurst looked at his friend with bitter eyes.
"What is the use of telling me that, Crichton," he said, "when I belong body and soul to Saïs—when she belongs body and soul to this man—Charles, was it?—Charles Lammarsh?... Perfect—I?—God!"
He lifted his hands, staring with tragic eyes at his palms, then abruptly finished the strong brandy and soda which Hoodless had thought fit to order for him.
"I'm rambling a bit to-night, I fancy," he said, staring and extraordinarily pale. "And tired—oh, my God, Crichton, but I'm tired! Let's go in now and to-morrow we'll get away from all this—into the desert. I wish we had gone a fortnight ago."
"Oh, well—never too late, Dick," laughed Hoodless. "Come on, then!"
They went in.
"Give him a year of lotus-eating, of passion and play, a villa at Cairo or Luxor. Halcyon days... and at the end disillusion and satiety...."
Crichton Hoodless.
WHATEVER may have been the drug with which Saïs had imparted fresh nerve and courage to Marchurst, it left no reaction which the deep sleep and resilience of youth could not conquer.
The boy was late down to breakfast—so late that Hoodless had breakfasted and arranged all the necessary little details of departure by the time Dick appeared, quiet, but seeming very fit.
"All ready, old chap? How are you this morning? Had breakfast? Good." Hoodless, returned to the hotel, was brisk and businesslike. "I'll square up with the folk here while you finish that cigarette." He moved into the hotel, leaving Marchurst on the terrace.
Looking out across the brilliantly sunlit square, already filling with the highly colored Cairene medley, Marchurst was suddenly aware of a woman at his side.
"I have been watching the porters handle the formidable array of gun-cases and things for the desert which you and your friend are taking," she said, smiling. "And I would like to wish you good hunting and a safe return. Do you go far south?"
It was Mrs. Lammarsh.
Bare-headed, he thanked her.
"We have planned to shoot in Kordofan," he said.
The lovely face shadowed a little.
"That is very far, and still a little unsettled, isn't it?"
He shook his head, his eyes on hers.
"Oh, no. We have inquired about that, and such tribes as there are in that country had all the trouble they want in the war. There are not many; it is practically all desert, you know, until one comes to the Kir River in the south or the White Nile in the east."
She nodded.
"There is plenty of game in those regions, they say. Lions. You look forward to your trip, Mr. Marchurst? You prefer the big game to wandering—and wondering—among the ruins of Egypt?"
He hesitated.
"I have looked forward to the trip for a long time," he said presently. "When I arrived in Cairo I was so keen that I would have liked to go straight through to Khartoum.... I am not quite so desperately keen as that now."
She looked at him with a strange intentness in her darkly blue eyes. He thought he read a question in them.
"I expect that a month in the desert will give us all the sport we want," he said. "Then we shall come down, 'seeing the sights' as we come."
"That is a good plan," she said softly. "To leave Egypt without seeing more than this wonderful city, a little of the Kordofan desert, and what one can glimpse from the train would be—feckless."
She smiled.
"Why did that curious old Scotch word come into my head like that?" she said. He laughed.
"It is a good word, though, and you are quite right," he agreed.
A sudden thrill of gratitude ran through him. It was kind of her to make a point of stopping to wish him good luck—a stranger except for the fact that they were fellow guests at the same hotel. He had expected no farewell good wishes from any woman, but he had received them from two. Last night, in the warm, scented, Eastern nest of Saïs—though all that seemed part of some strange dream—and now, in the open sunshine, from this cool, sweet, friendly woman, whose beauty rivaled, in its utterly different way, even the beauty of Saïs.
He flushed slightly.
"You know, it is tremendously kind of you to have taken the trouble to wish me luck, to give me this little send-off. I shall treasure the recollection of it. I would like very much to be able to bring back a souvenir for you, if you would permit me; perhaps a leopard skin—something like that—curios—if we have the luck to find any. May I?"
"Why, of course. If you would like that. You shall give me a leopard skin—they have fascinated me from the time I saw my first circus. I think every woman has a weakness for leopard and tiger skins." He was immensely pleased.
"That's splendid. I don't know whether I shall have the luck to meet you again in Egypt. Perhaps, if you are staying long, I may. But if not, I promise that some day you shall receive the trophy at your home in America."
"Thank you." She gave him a New York address and offered her hand. "Here is my cousin; we are going to explore Cairo. Good-by, Mr. Marchurst, and good luck."
She smiled, and moved away to meet her companion of the previous evening. For a moment he gazed after her, then turned to Hoodless, who was approaching quickly.
"Been making friends with the beautiful Mrs. Lammarsh, Dick?" he said. "A bit late in the day, old man, but there's nothing wrong with your taste. I should have liked to meet them. They are delightful people. But it can't be helped, and, anyway, her husband has gone to Alexandria for a few days. They say he has plans to take a financial interest in this country. We may meet them again when we get back."
He laughed rather mirthlessly. "The sort of man I like to meet," he added, with the air of one who half jests. There was neither conviction nor sincerity in his voice, and as he spoke his finger-tips brushed lightly against the outside of his breast pocket in the half-conscious gesture of one who reassures himself that the contents of that pocket are safe. None knew better than Crichton Hoodless that neither he nor Dick Marchurst was ever likely to meet Charles Lam-marsh.
Nor was that exquisite woman, his wife.... "Well, allons, Dick."
Half an hour later they were en route to Shellal, whence they would take the Nile steamer to Haifa.
But it was not the joyous journey which it would have been had they started a fortnight earlier—before the evening of that visit to Saïs.
Both of them seemed content to smoke, more or less in silence, each busy with his own thoughts. There had been a time, not so long ago, when Dick Marchurst would have watched with the eagerness of a boy every furlong of the country as it went sliding past the window of their carriage, looking for game in a district which he well knew was now devoid of any game worthy of attention, joking about his keenness, his impatience, even as he looked. He would have talked almost endlessly of high-velocity rifles and their builders, of Lancaster, Bland, Holland and Holland, of cartridges deadly with scientifically sounding explosives, of bullets, soft nosed, coated with nickel, guaranteed to expand, so that they entered the body of a beast like a stubby pencil but emerged like a mushroom; terrible things, one of which could bring an elephant to his knees more quickly than thirty of the spherical lead balls propelled by the black powder of the days of Gordan Cumming and the early trips of Selous.
He would have made a good-humored nuisance of himself threshing out and threshing out purely speculative and often fanciful details of the expedition; dwelt lovingly upon such matters as, for example, the advisability and method of building a zareba, or thorn hedge, round their camp every night, all with the beautiful ignorance of a beginner; questioned and re-questioned Hoodless, or any one who had chanced to be traveling with them, upon the matter of rations, particularly the ration of dates for the camel-men, which had always fascinated him, in that he could never believe in his heart that any man could subsist on a handful of dates a day; he would have spoken of eland and oryx, of kudu and roan and kob, of all such antelopes; he would by no means have neglected the buffalo, elephant, giraffe, rhinoceros and leopard; and he would have saved till the very end his bonne bouche, read of in some thrilling volume of high adventure, lions—the lions of Kordofan—"where they go in troops." On the way out he had never tired of that glorious phrase.
He had met men whose eyes had twinkled as they realized that he hugged wild hopes of levying toll upon all the beasts that he mentioned, and probably many more. And because they recognized that he was no more than a boy in spirit they had not disillusioned him too unkindly. For if he had been ever ready to talk he had been readier still to listen to those willing to tell him of their own experiences—officers, for the most part, returning to duty in the East—to duty at the out-stations, a vastly different matter from the duty that is half regimental, half social, at Cairo. These men, going back to their lonely, wild life, where each, like an ant laboring with a grain far from his earthly metropolis, labored with his particular piece that fitted, or some day would fit, somewhere on the outer edge of the giant, living jig-saw of empire, Dick Marchurst had adored, and, figuratively, he had sat at their feet, disciple-wise.
And they had warmed to him, this tall, brown, handsome, clean-limbed boy, and wished him "good hunting," doing their best to assure it to him.
But now, as he sat with a cigar, facing Hoodless, all those healthy, wholesome visions of fanged and ferocious heads, of graceful scimitar, pointed or spiral horns, of tawny or dappled hides came no more.
They were eclipsed or quenched or outshone by greater glories.
Women's faces—women's faces.
Dick Marchurst stared out through the windows of the railway carriage, and Egypt was unrolled, like a wide, wonderful strip of rare and ancient carpet, before his eyes; but he did not see it, or, if he saw, took no interest in it.
The dark, vivid face of Saïs, the calm and perfect face of Louise Lammarsh—these were the ever-present veils that hung beautifully between his eyes and the desert he had traveled so far to gaze upon. Two fair faces—Eastern beauty of Cairo, Western beauty of New York.
But behind these there hung ever, pallid and wan and blind, a dead face, oddly unreal, like a face seen in a dark dream—that of the hashish slave he had killed in the house of Saïs.
A low exclamation from Hoodless shattered his visions.
"What's the matter, Crichton?"
Hoodless passed him an English newspaper, pointing to a paragraph which announced the death, resulting from injuries received in a motor-racing accident, of one Captain Wygram, the son of Lord Lissmere.
"Why, wasn't that poor chap your cousin, Dick?" asked Hoodless, his voice very level. Marchurst nodded.
"Bill Wygram, yes." He frowned over the paragraph.
"They say he was one of the best amateur racing drivers in England," continued Hoodless. "Did you know him well, Dick?"
Marchurst shook his head.
"No, I knew none of them well. There was something of a feud between my father and his brother, Lissmere," he said absently. "I only met Bill Wygram once. A first-rate chap."
Hoodless said no more.
But there was an odd gleam in his eyes—a look almost of proprietorship—as he watched Marchurst when the boy turned again to his absent gazing out across the sandy wastes stretching westwards from the railway, and he nodded imperceptibly as he reflected that now there remained between his companion and the great fortune built up by the first Baron Lissmere only the declining years of an old man.
Dick returned to his dreams, gazing out either unaware or regardless of his companion's stare.
Had one questioned him he would have declared without hesitation his unalterable conviction that there was no man to whom he could more confidently look for even the last extreme of comradeship than Crichton Hoodless. If one talked of these things—which men of Marchurst's type do not—he would have said, with absolute conviction, "If ever it were necessary, old Crichton Hoodless would risk—and lose—his life for me; as, naturally, I would risk mine for him!"
Men do not go on big game expeditions on lesser terms than these, even though they never speak, and rarely think deliberately, of them.
He would, of course, have been right.
He would have risked and lost his life for Hoodless as a matter of course, because he was of the caliber to which the extreme sacrifice, if it be demanded, is a natural condition of comradeship.
But it would not occur to him until the actual instant of the exigency, until the very moment of the demand.
And that was where he was, in spirit, poles apart from the cool-brained adventurer companioning him.
Hoodless had determined that if by any chance Marchurst failed to come out of their expedition alive, then he, Hoodless, was completely indifferent whether he himself came out alive or not.
For Dick Marchurst represented his whole future. Even as he watched the boy, the lips of the adventurer tightened unconsciously as his mind, running over, examining, weighing the situation, produced a parallel.
"It is precisely as if you were taking into the desert a document, most valuable, desperately valuable, provided only that you bring it out from the desert, out from the dangers of the desert again," said a cold, deadly voice in his brain. "This boy almost certainly represents to you a lifetime free from anxieties, from poverty and its daily indignities. He owes you much; you will see that he owes you more. He is of the type that, properly handled, will repay freely. When he is Lord Lissmere he will be able to express his gratitude in liberal terms."
Hoodless nodded slightly, his brows knitted in a little frown as he thought intensely.
"Unless all this had been pre-ordained—meant—it would be almost impossible for the most wildly reckless man to land himself in such a coil of difficulty as Dick Marchurst has done in the last week or so. And he does not suspect it. Already he is quite satisfied in his own mind that the death of that man at Saïs's house was really no more than a deeply regrettable accident. A blow or a fall that was the last straw to a weak or already diseased heart. Deplorable, yes; a matter for very great and very real regret, yes. But—an accident."
The quick, predatory, rapacious mind of the adventurer ranged forward, glimpsing the future.
"Give him a year with Saïs—a year of lotus-eating, of passion and play—a villa at Cairo or Luxor—halcyon days in a Nile dahabeeyah—little trips and oasis campings—and, at the end, disillusion, satiety, and a famishing for colder climes and less abandoned loving."
That would be the way of it. Marchurst would hunger for the chill, clean waves of a Northern sea after the tepid water of Egypt, for the cold kiss of the east wind after the hot embrace of the sirocco, for green fields and cool flowers after the dazzling sands and exotic blooms, and for purity after passion.
And Hoodless believed Louise Lammarsh would give him all these things. He had seen it in her eyes as she had said "good-by" to Dick.
After a year more or less these two would come together again....
Now, at this moment, it had never entered their minds. Their mutual attraction had pleased them—but it held out no promise of fruition to more than a tranquil friendship. They had both believed Charles Lammarsh to be in Alexandria, whence he would return to his wife in a day or two.
"And I—I am the only person in the world who knows that Charles Lammarsh is dead, and that Dick Marchurst killed him, for I don't believe Lammarsh would have disclosed himself to Saïs," ran the keen, cruel, incisive thoughts of Hoodless, comrade to Marchurst. "And some day—not so far away if my judgment of people is not worthless—that might be very valuable knowledge."
His mouth corners drooped suddenly and his eyelids flickered.
"Very valuable knowledge—to a blackguard like me!"
He caught his breath.
Then the pang passed and his face hardened again. He turned, gazing silently out across the desert.
"I think Mrs. Lammarsh would not thank me for the finest leopard skin in the world if the beast had killed you before he yielded it."
Crichton Hoodless.
BUT before they arrived at Khartoum, then awake and stirring from the black lethargy that had numbed it after the death of Gordon, and long before they had reached El Obeid, a hundred and fifty miles south, Dick Marchurst had recovered himself.
Rallied gently by the watchful Hoodless, he had explained gravely, looking across a .450 rifle balanced upon his knees, which he was examining:
"Oh, I have not forgotten Saïs, old chap," he said. "I owe too much to her to forget her, or to forget that she will be awaiting me presently at Luxor. And I haven't forgotten that poor chap—that hashish eater. I shall remember that business as long as I live. But, somehow, his face doesn't haunt me like it did. I'm not callous—don't think that. It's due to the lapse of time, the excitement, the consciousness that I meant no real harm to him, I suppose. For days, almost all the time it took us to reach this place, I could see him, his lax head, his pale face. It used to come to me in my sleep and peer at me, Crichton. Peer, with blind eyes, you know. With a sort of stony accusation in them.... Well, that's past, thank God. His face, his eyes, do not remain with—revisit—me like the face and the eyes of Saïs, or even of that charming woman who wished us luck—Mrs. Lammarsh. Is that callous, do you think?"
Hoodless shook his head, smiling.
"My dear Dick, no"—he said airily, and turned to immediate matters.
That had been at El Obeid on the day before they were cut off from even that remote and slender tentacle of civilization, and disappeared southward with their train of guides, shikaris, porters, gun-bearers, camel-men and all such people. They purposed pushing as quickly as possible south-west through Sungakai to Gereif and there hunting within an immense triangular area, having Gereif for its apex and the Kir River for its base.
Here, they were told, they could not fail of sport, and with reasonable good fortune they need run no dangerous risk of any lack of water—nor, added a young officer stationed at El Obeid, himself tanned to the hue of brown leather, of mosquitoes.
"You will find down there great forests of gum-thorns, water-holes galore—mostly dry—plenty of game and lions in—well, bouquets," he told them.
"Bouquets will be ample," laughed Marchurst—and so they went in search of them.
But they never reached Gereif. Their journey ended in a group of hills slightly north of that place.
From the very moment of the start of the expedition Dick Marchurst had impressed upon their headman, one El Addar, a huge, half-bred Abyssinian negro with (thanks to a liberal dash of Arab blood) unusual intelligence, his desire to obtain above all things a leopard skin that should be something in the nature of a record. He promised a heavy reward.
And it worked its usual magic.
It was one evening, a little after they camped at the end of a long day's march on the last few stages of the long journey to Gereif that the headman came to their tent, his eyes gleaming with excitement, to tell them that one of the porters, cutting brushwood for the night fires round the camp, had caught sight of two of the largest leopards they had ever seen.
The beasts were entering a rocky gorge leading into the hills.
Scoring marks with his foot in the sandy floor the big headman excitedly, in a queer jumble of Arabic, French and English, its complexity made yet more complex with scraps of many dialects, conveyed to them the news that the male could not be less than nine feet from tail-tip to nose, and that his hide was perfect.
The leopardess matched her mate in size but her skin was patchy.
"Get the men together to beat along the gorge, man," said Marchurst, reaching hastily for the heavy boots he had kicked off.
But the older man was more cautious.
"Just a minute, Dick," he said slowly. "What about the light? This is the wrong end of the day to follow a couple of leopards into the hills. It will be dark in half an hour."
He waved a hand to the open tent-flap. Already, outside, the sky was full of the fading gold of the sunset.
"They'll feed and lay up at dawn, Dick. We can go out the first thing and—help ourselves, old chap. It would be folly to go in after them now."
He wheeled abruptly on El Addar.
"What the devil are you thinking about to come here at this hour with your infernal fairy tales of nine-foot leopards, you fool?" he said harshly. "They told me in Khartoum that you were a good shikari—"
"Oh, leave him out of it, Crichton," said Dick, laughing, as he tugged at his boots. "He's willing to take as big a risk for the reward as I am for the leopard. Get on, El Addar, and pick out your men.... Lord, Crichton, if we hold straight, what is it but a couple of shots—and all over. One doesn't come across a record leopard every day—or every year for that matter. Come on, man!"
He snatched up his heavy, double-barrelled .450, crammed in a couple of cartridges and dropped another half-dozen into the pocket of his khaki tunic.
But Hoodless shook his head an oddly unfamiliar obstinacy.
"Look here, Dick, be reasonable," he said with a touch of anxiety. "Nobody does this sort of thing. They are brutes. Any one will tell you that a wounded leopard is worse than all the lions in Kordofan—cunning brutes, they are. Mad. I don't want the job of going back to Saïs without you or guiding you up to her a grinning, distorted, blind thing half mauled to rags. And I think Mrs. Lammarsh would not thank me for the finest leopard skin in the world if the beast had killed you before he yielded it. I tell you, they won't go away from the valley. They'll gorge and lay up."...
The burly form of El Addar blocked the entrance to the tent again.
"It is too late, sar, for to-night. To-morrow, yais," he muttered.
Evidently he had taken thought, realizing that there would be little reward forthcoming if in his eagerness he led his employers into a fatal encounter.
He muttered something about the shifting light of the sunset making it difficult to see well enough for good shooting in the valley; that the leopards would not go far from their kill; and that probably their den was in the valley.
Dick Marchurst stepped to the tent flap, looking out.
The night was falling with the extraordinary swiftness that never fails to amaze those strange to the tropics. The glory of the sky had already departed, the purple veil of shadow was deepening to black, and the stars were leaping out. The fires of thorn-scrub were crackling round the camp and the men busy with their cooking pots.
He shrugged his broad shoulders and unloaded his rifle.
"Oh, very well," he said, a shade sulkily. "If we're going to appoint a committee of inquiry to consider the risk every time a chance crops up on this trip—"
"My dear old chap—" began Hoodless, good-humoredly, his relief plain in his voice and eyes. But he got no further, for a wild clamor from outside suddenly shattered the peace of the camp.
Marchurst, staring out, gave a sharp exclamation and violently jammed back into the breech of his rifle the cartridges he had been balancing in his hand, closed the breech with a metallic snap and ran out into the half-light.
On his heels leaped the black, shouting furiously.
Hoodless sprang after them, startled. He saw instantly what had inspired this sudden alarm.
One of the fuel-cutters was running desperately towards the camp, and behind came leaping, in long, easy bounds, very swiftly in spite of the appearance of effortless grace, an enormous leopard. Years of easy prey had rendered the big beast so confident that he dared pursue and pull down a man in sight of the camp.
The boy had been among the fuel cutters, and had lingered too long at his search, or wandered too far from the camp.
A little crowd of the men were racing out towards the boy, screaming and waving firebrands. But for all their quickness and courage it was through these that the unfortunate victim was doomed. They ran in, blocking Marchurst's line of sight completely. The wild bellow of the big headman to spread out or swerve, drove across to them a fraction too late.
Once a gap appeared for a few seconds, through which the leopard, rising in his last spring, showed, no more than a blur, beyond the dancing flames of the firebrands, and the heavy report of Marchurst's rifle rang out stunningly as he fired both barrels as quickly as he could press his triggers. But it was no more than a snapshot, and the two jets of sand which spurted violently into the air a few inches behind the leopard registered the miss, which was almost inevitable.
Then came a wild scream of pain and deadly terror, a muffled snarl—and El Addar ceased shouting.
Reloading swiftly, Dick Marchurst saw the leopard bounding away towards the hills from which he had issued, his jaws clamped between the neck and shoulder of the boy, dragging his victim with no more apparent effort than a fox bearing away a fowl.
Marchurst ran forward, reloading his rifle as he ran. But he was too late—even as he flung the rifle to his shoulder the swiftly moving beast vanished into the shadowy mouth of the valley.
With all the speed of which he was capable Marchurst hurried after the killer. A few yards behind him Hoodless ran, and every man who could seize a weapon or a flaming brand raced to aid them.
The night shut down upon them as they entered the mouth of the valley. They pushed swiftly in along the stone-strewn, rocky floor of the gorge, but they had not far to go. El Addar, a waving flower of flame in each hand, shouting to his men to keep close in to the rifles, led the way.
The big black stopped abruptly fifty yards up the valley, pointing with his torch to a ledge of rock away to the right. There, in the ruddy, shifting glare from the burning brands Marchurst and Hoodless saw dimly a sight which remained with them all their lives.
Hunched upon the ledge, they could see the outline of the great beast, black and monstrous in the flickering, smoky light, its head hung low, its great shoulders jutting up like a peak of rock. It was glaring down at them, its eyes two globes of green and lambent fire. One great paw was resting on the chest of its victim, whose naked legs dangled helplessly over the ledge.
The rifles crashed simultaneously. There was a half-strangled roar, and suddenly Dick Marchurst felt himself thrust aside as Hoodless leaped in front of him, fired again, and then thrust furiously with the muzzle of his rifle at a snarling thing that had leaped straight out from a cavern in the rock wall almost exactly over the spot where Dick Marchurst had been standing. The leopardess—mate of the mankiller.
Hoodless went down with a muffled cry. El Addar turned, and in the sweep of light from his torches Marchurst saw the beast almost at his feet. He jammed the muzzle of his rifle to the round head and pulled the trigger. Hoodless's second shot had already blown away the lower jaw—so that the beast collapsed almost entirely headless on his body.
They dragged the brute away, and Marchurst, under a ring of torches, hastily examined his comrade.
He was unconscious, and the claw of the leopardess had punished him terribly. He was mauled from shoulder to wrist, though no bones were broken.
Quickly Dick Marchurst had him carried back to the camp. It was not from the loss of blood, or the shock of the encounter, that serious danger was to be feared. But there was a very great risk of blood-poisoning.
Few men who have been badly mauled by a leopard have escaped those after-effects which have given the wounds inflicted by these great felines a reputation that could hardly be more terrible were the foul and formidable teeth and talons naturally poisonous in the sense that a cobra's fangs are poisonous.
Marchurst had learned enough of the wild to be well aware of this, and the night was far advanced before he finished bathing with powerful antiseptic, dressing and bandaging the torn and furrowed arm.
Hoodless had long recovered consciousness.
"Thanks, Dick," he said when the last bandage had been adjusted. "If that doesn't do the trick—so much the worse for me. But it will."
He spoke confidently.
"I'm afraid this ruins the trip," he went on. "But it can't be helped. Another time perhaps.... Anyhow, you've got your trophy for Mrs. Lammarsh. Have they skinned the beast yet?"
Even as he spoke the burly form of El Addar appeared at the tent opening, to announce that the spotted hide was off and in perfect condition, save for two bullet-holes through the shoulder—and that the grave for the dead boy was prepared.
"I'll go and see that they do things decently, Crichton. They are a casual crowd," said Dick, and moved across the camp to a little group by one of the larger fires.
Hoodless called El Addar to him.
"Listen to me," he said, "and understand. You receive a reward—for helping to secure that skin. How much? Ten pounds Turkish promised. Good. Listen! It is my order that the skin be cared for above all things in this camp. It is to be cleaned more perfectly than you have ever cleaned a hide, cured and suppled. Inspect it daily, watch it, guard it. If the skin is perfect when you are paid off at Khartoum there shall be due to you another ten pounds Turkish—and the little Mannlicher rifle that you have coveted since you first saw it. If I am well pleased, perhaps, too, a thousand rounds of ammunition. Do you understand? Listen to me, El Addar. It may befall that by reason of these wounds I become delirious—that is childish, meaningless, muttering, as one talks in sleep, uneasily and without sense. At these times keep the Effendi Marchurst away from me as much as may be possible. I do not desire that he should hear my babbling. Contrive these things, El Addar, for sake of—ten pounds Turkish, the little rifle and a thousand cartridges..."
His voice sank.
"You have lived in Cairo, El Addar, and it may be that you have heard of Saïs—the dancing girl—"
The eyes of the big black gleamed in the dim light of the lamp suspended from the pole of the tent.
"From Kodok to Alexandria Saïs of Cairo is known—to the appreciative," he murmured, in his barbarous jargon.
"Good. Get word to her that the hunting is at an end, and that the Effendi Marchurst returns soon to Egypt with me."
"It shall be done."
"Good. In Khartoum comes the reward. Now go."
Hoodless closed his eyes, waiting for the relief from his red-hot pain which the tiny tabloids Marchurst had given him on finishing his cleansing and dressing of the wounds would soon bestow. He could sleep now, satisfied that, as far as possible, his plans were safeguarded.
He marshalled them in his mind as he lay with closed eyes. They were so simple, so apparently natural that they need even be kept secret. Why keep secret a slight anxiety that Marchurst should carry out his promise of a trophy to Louise Lammarsh, that Saïs should be informed of the unexpectedly early return of the expedition, and a reluctance that Marchurst should unnecessarily tie himself to a sick bed, when he might be getting a fraction of the sport he had once longed for while the native servant who acted as butler to them could remain by him, Hoodless, if it should become necessary?
In spite of his pain he smiled, as he realized how simple they must seem to any one who ever heard of them.
Put, tenacious, crafty, and set in his purpose as he was, he knew that to the future of ease and luxury at which he aimed these plans were as steel girders to the fabric of a great house; and to the secret hate which, like a speck of radium, deep in his spirit, energized all his actions, they were as gently, subtly pleasant as the drug-inspired drowsiness which now was stealing over him.
"I take what the gods offer...."
Dick Marchurst.
BUT Hoodless did not weaken under the effects of the mauling sufficiently to be in danger of delirium, and though the healing of his wounds was slow, it was steady and well maintained.
"You are a good doctor—and I am a tough patient," he would say to Dick from his camp bed. "Go out and shoot something. El Addar says there are lions in a ravine round the western spur of these hills. In a few days I shall be fit enough to move, so make the most of your time."
So Marchurst would take El Addar, a gun-bearer, and a few men and get his sport.
But it was without enthusiasm or any real zest. The keenness had gone out from his desire to hunt, and he was anxious to return to Egypt. Some day, perhaps, in the future, he would come again to these regions and shoot in earnest, but now he could not fan the embers of his old desire into anything but the feeblest flame. He shot half mechanically, and seemed to care nothing at all whether his hunters found him game or not. And, as is frequently the case, fortune, as if piqued at his indifference, showered him with gifts.
In the ten days during which Hoodless lay helpless he killed lions, another leopard, giraffe, oryx, roan, kob and several smaller antelope. He missed a small herd of elephant by half a day—indeed, but for his determination to keep within easy reach of the helpless man at the camp he might have followed these south and added to his trophies. But he let them go—turning back with an indifference which a few weeks before would have seemed impossible to him.
El Addar, though he, too, had reasons why he desired to be in Khartoum as soon as possible, was amazed.
Staring south, from a bit of rising land, towards the distant smudge which indicated the thickening forests of the less arid regions, the big negro hesitated.
"In one day we can come up with them, sar," he said. "They have turned back from this country, and will go slowly south—feeding as they go. There is a big bull among them."
But Marchurst was not tempted.
"Let them go," he said. "I have tired of this country. To-morrow we go north—returning again to the main camp. See to it, El Addar."
So he turned his back on the game-haunted south. He had been three days away from the main camp already, and though Hoodless, at the time of his leaving, had been so far recovered that Dick had been able to go without anxiety, he easily assured himself that it was at least as much on account of Hoodless that he returned as on account of his increasing desire to get back to Egypt and the fervency of Saïs—or was it the cool friendliness of Louise Lammarsh? He could not have said.
But he was aware of a deep instinct which moved him, or, as he felt it, promised him, that he had not finished his association with the one, nor begun it with the other. He was not yet of the age which thinks deeply, or plans far ahead of the present. Indeed, his movements in the immediate future were not definitely planned, nor even moderately clear-cut.
He anticipated that there would be something in the nature of a holiday with Saïs at the villa at Luxor which she had planned to prepare for his return—the "halcyon days," of which Hoodless had told himself Why not? That was adventure. No doubt there was a moral aspect to such an adventure—but he concerned himself with moral aspects no more and possibly less than most men of his type, few of whom, young, vital, unattached, would look upon the adventure in so far as Saïs was concerned as otherwise than a heaven-sent romance—even a right of youth. What was there for a young man, unstudious, without any profound special interest or pursuit, in this ancient Egypt, but the hope of some such adventure? He would be other than normal who failed to welcome it with wide eyes, with open arms.... Romance....
And the death of that hashish eater, that obscure and nameless stranger, which had inlaid the adventure with a scarlet thread, no longer distressed him, though it disturbed him still. It had been an accident in the sense that he had not intended to kill the man, and, in the twenties, one cannot grieve interminably or even consistently after the shock of a sudden event has worn off.
Yes—he would go back to Saïs for a little.
A time would come when he would have to return to England and take up a very different life—now that Bill Wygram was dead.
Almost inevitably he would be Lord Lissmere, and that promised to be a sufficiently serious business—serious enough to justify his taking what of romance and adventure Egypt now offered him—dubious though he knew it to be.
That, then, was all of Saïs.
Trudging steadily towards the main camp he thought these things over, and his decision seemed good to him—even though he was rather wistfully conscious that there might have been an alternative—a cooler, clearer, sweeter choice, and yet not devoid of the passion which youth demands as a right. Had that cool, lovely woman, Mrs. Lammarsh, only been free from the bonds which, he suspected, had long become irksome to her, a very different vista might have opened itself before his mind's eye. He might have weighed the possibility, even the hope, of love and marriage with her against the certainty of halcyon days with Saïs.
But that did not arise. There was no problem—there could never be any problem as long as Charles Lammarsh, the husband, lived.
For, young though he was, Dick Marchurst had not failed to sense the purity of spirit which forever rendered any secret intrigue impossible for Louise Lammarsh.
"I take what the gods offer," he said, pressing forward.
He looked up with a little start as El Addar came up. "Sar!"
The big negro's voice was uneasy. "What's the matter?"
The headman pointed with his rifle across the sandy waste which, since they had left the wooded region south of them, they were now traversing.
"Arabs, sar!" he said.
Marchurst halted. His little company of five men, exclusive of himself and the Abyssinian, had drawn together and stood in a little group behind him. He glanced at them, and saw that they were cowed and frightened. He noticed that half-consciously as his glance passed over them to the rear, where, some distance away, rode perhaps a dozen or fifteen white-robed figures, hunched upon riding-camels. They were too far for him to distinguish whether they were armed, but, novice in the desert though he was, he knew that these white riders of the sands were not peaceful.
They were approaching slowly.
A startled grunt from the headman drew his eyes from the distant riders. The huge black was staring away to their right, his eyes gleaming, his wide, thick lips curled back, his immense nostrils distended.
A second band of those white-clad, almost ghostly figures was visible on their flank also, seeming to waver through the increasing shimmer of sand, heat and glare.
He heard the slap of the heavy rifle rolling in the hollow of the negro's arm, hard as iron and shining like black ivory, as El Addar whirled abruptly to search the horizon westwards.
Here, too, hovering at the same distance from them was a third party of Arabs.
"El Addar, we're hemmed in on three sides," said Marchurst. "What are they? Friendlies?"
The white teeth of the negro glistened as he answered, with a contemptuous flick of his huge round head at the five bearers.
"They know, sar," he said, and jerked his head from side to side, glaring across the sands.
"Band of raiders, sar. All the Emirs did not go to Paradise at Omdurman or at Umm Dabrekat. By God, sar—we are dead men if we fight them."
His great black fingers curled and fidgeted lovingly about the breech and grip of the heavy, double elephant rifle he was carrying, and he was muttering unintelligibly in his bull throat.
Marchurst watching him thought that he was like a great animal trying to lash itself into the rage that gives courage. But he saw that the man was perspiring, and behind the dark, shining skin was a faint, remote hint of greenish pallor, and he knew that El Addar was afraid, though not terror-stricken like the bearers at whom he was glaring and muttering contemptuously.
"They know, sar. Some of these were in Omdurman in the days before the Khalifa and his Emirs died on their sheepskins with their breasts to the rifles and machine-guns. They are no dam good, sar, to fight. Their bellies have melted.... I know. I, too, lived once in Omdurman. An executioner, sar! I, El Addar, was an executioner—I have had such things as these dogs and cowards by dozens on their knees in ranks before me—awaiting my stroke. One by one, and never one that needed a second blow, sar—"
"Shut up, you black brute," snapped Marchurst, suddenly sickened by this unnatural and puerile attempt of the negro to stimulate his courage in face of their danger.
He had understood enough of the mutterings of this ex-killer from the old Omdurman to know that they were in quite a hopeless position. These white riders were evidently some lingering band of those fugitives from the forces of the Khalifa which, in ever diminishing numbers, still haunted the Sudan wastes. Fanatics and murderers to a man, they had probably been got together by some ferocious and untameable Dervish Emir who, brooding on past glories, was not content to throw away his weapons and turn to more peaceful pursuits, as most of the Arabs surviving from the slaughters of Atbara, Omdurman, and that final schooling at Umm Dabrekat, had done.
"If it's hopeless then we've got no choice, El Addar. We'll kill as many of these wolves as we can before they finish us. Break open a box of cartridges.... It'll soon be over, that's one blessing," said Dick Marchurst, and faced south.
The party in that direction were drawing up while the flanking bands were moving in, so that presently they would converge and join forces a few furlongs short of Marchurst's little company.
Against the whole band were Marchurst and El Addar, with two heavy rifles and a little Mannlicher which one of the bearers, spurred to a sort of desperation by his own obvious terror, would use.
"Get ready—here they come!" snapped Marchurst, and flung his rifle to his shoulder....
But the Abyssinian who had been staring intently at an Arab riding on a white dromedary slightly in advance of the party, suddenly uttered a strange, hoarse, half-strangled exclamation and snatched the rifle from Marchurst.
"Sar! Sar! It is the Red Emir!" he shouted in a fury of savage excitement, dropped both rifles to the ground and ran out towards the advancing Arabs empty-handed.
At sight of this gigantic and half-naked figure rushing out to meet them unarmed, the white wolves slowed a little, drawing together, like animals that suspect a trap. But the dazzling points of light struck by the sun from the bright parts of their rifles as they raised them warned Marchurst that they were ready and well prepared.
El Addar ran desperately towards them, shouting, his empty hands high.
Dick Marchurst, fascinated, watched, and the quailing servants stared with eyes of terror. It was quite apparent that even though he may have known the veiled rider whom he had called the Red Emir, the big negro was inspired only by the strange fey daring of fear.
And if there had been any confidence or hope in his inspiration at the beginning, there was nothing of either in his attitude as he drew near the silent group of desert men. The solitary rider, hunched on his dromedary, a little in front of his band, awaited the negro, motionless, silent. But behind him the small black muzzles of thirty rifles stared like watching eyes straight at the headman.
His pace slackened from a run to a walk, from a walk to a crawl, and his huge body seemed to shrink, and bow down as he drew nearer, so that he covered the last few feet of his journey bent, humble, reluctant, very slow, in an attitude of utter abasement and supplication—exactly as an erring dog writhes painfully to a master waiting with a whip.
The Red Emir sat motionless as El Addar ended his journey on his knees.
Dick Marchurst drew a deep breath as the negro stopped, almost groveling. He had taken up the rifle and now he laid his sight dead on the chest of the Red Emir. He waited through a second that stretched itself to a minute, an hour, an incalculable period. He knew that if the Emir raised his hand, or shouted a word, El Addar would die swiftly under the rifles, and he intended that the Emir should join him before the crash of the reports died away.
But there came no order. The seconds stole past, and slowly Marchurst allowed his breath to escape, his muscles to relax.
They were parleying—the Red Emir and the erstwhile executioner of Omdurman.
Presently El Addar, with a last abasement, rose slowly and pointed back to the group round Marchurst.
The other nodded, and the Abyssinian turned, making his way back to Marchurst. The Arabs dropped their rifles and rode forward.
Dick Marchurst went to meet the negro.
"Well, what has happened, El Addar?" he asked.
"Prisoners, sar," said the headman. He was panting like one who has been running a hard race and his face was streaming with perspiration. "It is the Red Emir, lord of this desert. He will hold us for ransom if we do not anger him."
Marchurst flushed.
"And if—" he began, but the negro pointed mutely. Marchurst turned.
Riding down upon them from the direction of the main camp came yet another body of Arabs.
"They captured the camp three days ago, sar. Do not anger the Emir," said El Addar.
"And my friend—the Effendi Hoodless!" demanded Dick. "What has befallen him?"
"He is prisoner also, sar!" gasped the big black, starting aside as the dromedary of the man he called the Red Emir swung up.
Marchurst straightened himself and looked at the thin, brown face under the hood of the Emir.
With a shock he realized that the eyes of the man were blue—a grayish blue—bright as steel and as hard. And he saw, too, that the thin face was brown with the reddish, bronze-like brown which is seen only on the faces of white men who have lived long under an Eastern sun.
"Why, you—are a European! An Englishman—a renegade!" he said.
The thin, motionless lips twitched.
"I am the Red Emir—and you are my prisoner!" said the man on the white dromedary in perfect English. "Turn and march to your camp."
The tone was cold, arrogant, contemptuous. Marchurst set his jaw and did not move.
"Do you prefer to be bound and dragged at the heels of a carnal?" said the Red Emir.
It was quite hopeless. He was encircled by at least fifty men—all itching for the order to cut him down or to riddle him with bullets.
He saw that, shrugged, flung himself round, and strode away following the big negro, glaring straight before him. Behind him he heard the soft, almost imperceptible padding of the spongy feet of the camel, the creaking of equipment, as the desert horde followed him.
But before he had gone twenty paces a sudden sharp scream of agony and fear halted him.
He turned swiftly in the face of the phantom-silent riders bearing down upon him. For a moment he could not trace the source of the scream, then suddenly he saw.
It had come from a group just clear of the left flank of the band. Half a dozen of the Arabs had dismounted and were killing his servants—as coolly, callously, unconcernedly as men kill calves.
With a low cry of fury Marchurst snatched for the revolver at his belt. He had believed that at most his men were to share his captivity, and it had been as much on their account as on his own that he had surrendered.
But he was too late. Even as he tore the weapon free, the white dromedary loomed over him, snarling viciously, and the Red Emir leaned forward driving a heavy, silver-mounted rifle-butt swiftly down on Marchurst's upturned forehead. His revolver cracked as he fell but the bullet went wide, whining away across the desert to raise a jet of dusty sand far to the right.
The Red Emir gave a harsh order in Arabic—speedily obeyed....
An hour later they reached the camp where Hoodless and his guards sat staring out across the desert.
It was some minutes before the adventurer recognized that the bundle of torn and blood-stained rags which trailed by a rope behind the dromedary of the Red Emir was Dick Marchurst.
A crimson flush ran into the pallid face of Hoodless, who, whatever else he may have been, was no coward.
"Good God, man," he snarled up at the renegade Emir, "what do you think you gain by that?"
He believed Marchurst was dead.
"Are you, too, the species of animal that must bite at—tear at—mutilate the body of a dead enemy?" he raved in a cold fury of desperation. "They—don't feel, you know—after they are dead."
The renegade ignored him, and gave a curt order. Two Arabs ran up, loosened the noose from under the armpits of the unconscious man and dragged him into the shade by Hoodless.
He groaned once as they left him, and moving painfully, the adventurer stooped over him and, with a dirty handkerchief, began slowly to do what he could to cleanse the cut on the boy's forehead made by the rifle butt. His face cleared a little as he realized that it was from the wound rather than from any serious hurt received during his journey back to their camp that the ominous bloodstains had come.
For a moment the Red Emir watched him in silence, then turned to his tent, followed, at his order, by the negro El Addar, guarded by two lean, fierce-eyed Arabs with their long curved knives bare in their hands. But these they did not need, for humbled and made harmless by fear or cunning the black went not less meekly than those victims of his in the old evil days of the Khalifa's capital, of which he had spoken such a short time before.
"The Red Emir can demand no price for the life of the Effendi Marchurst which Saïs would not pay."
The Khalifa's Executioner.
INSIDE the tent of the Red Emir there were many indications that the chief of this wandering horde was not an Arab.
The tent itself was furnished far more richly than that of any desert-bred chief not in a permanent camp. The sides and roof of the abode were partially hung with silks, and bright rugs softened the sand of the floor. There was a species of divan, a camp bed, and articles of toilet never to be seen in the tent of an Arab, as well as many odds and ends of field equipment that were peculiarly British. There was shaving tackle, a case of razors with a London maker's trade-mark on it, and a box of Havana cigars lay on a table by the divan.
It was precisely the tent which one knowing both the East and the West might expect to find the property of an Englishman, possibly an ex-officer, who had turned to Islam and risen to power and wealth among Mohammedans.
Inside the tent the Red Emir threw off the white burnous which had enveloped him almost entirely and stood revealed for what he was—a European of middle age, dressed in thin khaki drill riding-clothes except for the tunic, which lay folded on the camp bed ready to hand. He was of medium height, lean and wiry, clean-shaven, with a thin-lipped bitter mouth, cold, unchanging blue eyes that hinted at nothing but a fierce, merciless and arrogant spirit, and close cropped, crisp, red hair, probably one of the reasons for the adjective which El Addar, doubtless out of previous knowledge, had added to the Arab title of Emir, or Prince.
To any one competent to judge, this man was as obviously of English stock as the Herculean negro standing humbly before him was of Abyssinian origin, with a strain of cross-bred Arab blood.
For a few moments after entering the tent the Red Emir stood looking over the black with a curious, subtly menacing and sardonic air of interest. Then he took a cigar from the box on the table, lit it and sat on the divan, speaking fluently in harsh Arabic.
"I have not forgotten you, negro," he said. "You were an executioner at the palace of the Khalifa eight years ago. How do you come here with these white men?"
El Addar spoke swiftly but concisely of his escape from Omdurman, of his flight in the train of the Khalifa, of his second escape into the far south after the battle of Umm Dabrekat, of his return in due course, of his attempt to follow peaceful pursuits, and finally of his employment by big game hunters who, now that the Sudan was becoming more settled, were coming more frequently and in increasing numbers to Kordofan and the adjoining countries.
"You were headman to the expedition of these white men," said the renegade, as El Addar ceased abruptly at a motion of the lean, brown hand. "In the desert you said that they were great lords in their own land, and that for their safety heavy ransom would be paid. What do you know of these—great lords?"
There was a significant and sardonic pause of the jarring voice before the last two words, and the strange slaty grayness of fear lightened the heavy face of the headman.
"Lord, I have overheard them talking together at the end of the day's journey," he said eagerly. "The Effendi Marchurst—he that was dragged by the camel—is rich and will be some day a great lord in his own land, wealthy and powerful."
With a desperate anxiety El Addar related all he had gleamed from the scraps of conversation between Marchurst and Hoodless, overheard during the expedition.
He painted a future for Marchurst so glowing, yet with such odd, puerile limitations due to his complete ignorance of life in England, that had he not been inventing and lying for his very life it must have been merely humorous.
The Red Emir, indeed, did smile once or twice—if a sour and savage twist of the lips can be called a smile—and presently he raised his hands.
"Liar!" he said. "You speak of things of which you have no knowledge."
The big frame of the negro drooped and contracted. His eyes rolled in despair as he realized that he had failed to attract this tiger of the desert to the bait of great riches he had tried so urgently to describe. Another idea flashed into his mind.
"Lord, I have spoken the truth according to my powers. It may be that I am wrong in many things that I have tried to tell," he said, in a queer, whining voice. "But there is one who can tell of these matters better than I. A woman."
The Red Emir stirred.
"Name her."
"Saïs of Cairo—Saïs the dancer." The negro craned forward, his eyes searching the Emir's face.
"My lord has heard of her? She is known for her beauty from Alexandria to Kodok. Saïs! The Effendi Marchurst is lover to Saïs—and it is said that Saïs esteems him above gold or jewels!"
The gleaming, straining eyes lost a tithe of their desperation as they caught the faint look of interest on the cruel narrow face of the man on the divan.
"Give me leave, lord, to go secretly to Khartoum—it may be to Luxor—and tell Saïs that her lover's life is between the finger and thumb of the lord of this region, the Red Emir, who holds him demanding a ransom paid to him by Saïs out of her own hands." His voice sank and grew significant.
"The most beautiful woman in Egypt, lord," he said. "Saïs, the dancer."
He grew bolder.
"What do I know of the future glory and wealth of the Effendi Marchurst? I am not a man of words, and, as my lord has said, I know not the customs of the English in their own land. I am not a learned man—I am only an executioner lacking a patron. Yet what I say is true, and"—he gulped as he took the plunge—"my lord could demand no price for the life of the Effendi Marchurst which Saïs would not pay—Saïs! My lord has heard of her? Most beautiful—"
The Red Emir quieted him with a look. "I have heard. Be silent, you!" He thought for a few moments, his blue eyes gleaming coldly.
Far off in the north-west, at an unknown, nameless and all but inaccessible oasis this white wolf had his harem, but among the wives that filled it were none that could companion him in the sense that a cosmopolitan, traveled, quick-witted woman, such as Saïs, could do. He had heard of her and he knew that her beauty paralleled, even probably surpassed, the beauty of his favorite. But what is another rose to a man with a garden already overflowing with roses? It was not the lure of Saïs's beauty, clumsily held out by the Abyssinian, that attracted the raider. Rather was it the hope that in Saïs he might discover a beauty sufficiently worldly-wise, sufficiently civilized, to be able to talk with him of the things upon which he had turned his back. That was a task completely beyond the powers of the sleek, indolent and unintelligent houris at the oasis.
An ex-officer of the English army, justly cashiered years before, he had gone south, becoming a Mohammedan, and offered his services to the Khalifa.
Spurred by a blind, bitter and ever-increasing hatred of the country which, he considered, had rejected him, trained in the craft of war, and only too anxious to impart his knowledge and experience to those who were enemies of his country, this man had found it easy to rise under the Khalifa to a high rank. And when the despot he had served, and by whom he had been rewarded, was finally crushed, and the cleansing of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan began, the Red Emir had found it as easy as politic to avoid the death which most of the fanatic emirs had welcomed, and, deserting the lost cause of the Mahdi, to establish himself with a few followers in the remote Saharan lair from which he made his forays with his band, or, on rare occasions, daringly visited Lower Egypt, Europe, and once even London.
Originally he had not been a man of extremely sensual character, but in the course of the past few years he had sought among the indolently fatalistic, and, therefore, carelessly acquiescent, women of his harem some palliative of the sheer boredom which, in his less active hours, lay more and more heavily upon his bitter and brooding spirit. Like the drug eater that begins as master of his drugs and ends their slave, so the Red Emir, increasingly seeking and ever failing to find compensation for the loss of these advantages of the civilization in which he had been bred and lived his youth, was drawing nearer and nearer that terrible slavery to his own passions from which there could be no escape.
But he was aware of this, and he believed that such a recruit to his retinue as Saïs might introduce, if not pleasure, at least a certain acid zest.....
He dropped the fuming butt of his cigar into a copper bowl near the divan and leaned forward.
"You shall bring me this woman, Saïs," he said. "Go down the Nile and fetch her. She shall pay me ransom for these men; she shall be ransom. Bring her."
The Abyssinian's relief was so tremendous that he forgot his fear of the Red Emir and laughed—a hoarse, foolish, meaningless laugh.
But the next order of the cold-eyed man on the divan chilled his laughter in an instant.
It was brief but clear. The two Arabs guarding the negro were to accompany him and at the first sign of treachery, or of any attempt to abandon the bringing of Saïs, were ordered to kill him instantly, no matter at what risk to themselves. The Emir reminded them that they, too, were leaving hostages at the oasis. They understood the veiled menace and swore to obey.
"Provision yourselves, take the fastest camels, and go," ordered the Emir, and waved them away.
It was completely characteristic of this man that he gave neither advice nor more detailed instructions to his men or the Abyssinian. El Addar knew that if he failed to bring Saïs swiftly to the camp of the Red Emir he would die at the hands of the guards. And the guards knew that if they failed in their part of the work they or those belonging to them at the oasis would suffer for their failure....
Some twenty minutes later, Dick Marchurst, sitting dazedly in the shade, his head bound with a strip of dirty linen bribed from one of the Arabs guarding him, and Hoodless, his mauled arm still in its sling, attracted by a few hoarse shouts of farewell from a group of Arabs lounging close by, turned and saw the three men leaving the camp.
Each man was mounted on a swift camel, and the Arabs were heavily armed. Only the great negro, towering on his beast, was without a weapon.
One of the Arabs was leading the Red Emir's own fast dromedary—for Saïs.
El Addar, as he swung past, nodded and grimaced in a pantomimic effort to convey a message to Marchurst.
But before they could grasp what the Abyssinian was trying to convey, one of the guards snapped a furious order at him and he turned away.
They urged their big beasts forward, increasing their speed at every moment, and quickly disappeared, heading north-east towards the distant Nile.
"You will find Saïs a companion to your taste."
Crichton Hoodless.
"THE Abyssinian has gone to fetch your ransom."
Marchurst and Hoodless turned abruptly from gazing after the three riders to see the Red Emir standing over them.
He had not resumed his burnous, and there was little or nothing in his appearance, save for a certain sinister and formidable air of wildness, to distinguish him from a white officer, sportsman or exploring traveler. He was wearing a well-fitting riding-suit of khaki drill, with good riding-boots and a topee.
"Your treatment during the time he is away will depend on circumstances," continued the renegade.
"What circumstances?" asked Crichton Hoodless.
The Red Emir shook half an inch of gray ash from his cigar.
"First, the movements of the army patrols that are always blundering about this part of the Sudan. It is possible that I may not be able to remain in camp here long enough for your late headman—he was headsman when I last met him, by the way—to return. That depends upon the inspiration of the military genius commanding at El Obeid!"
His thin lips wrung themselves into a sneer as he spoke of the detachment garrisoning the military post far away to the north, and his voice was bitter with the unreasoning renegade hate.
"And, further, your personal tone to me will regulate your treatment. I am a man of quick temper, and, curious though it may seem, not without a certain sensitiveness. You appear to me, I gathered from your negro, to be people of some consequence at ho—in England. It is just conceivable that you are sufficiently insular to imagine that I shall tolerate a certain loftiness of attitude from you. That is characteristic of your type of Englishman.... Well, try it, if you are sufficiently damned fools. I will break your hearts and your bodies in return," he warned them, coldly ferocious.
"Consider it, my young friends," he added, half turned to go, then checked himself.
"On the other hand, a decent, moderate tone from you to me will make your stay here at least endurable, always providing that we are not interfered with by the busybodies of El Obeid. In that case it will not be within my power to help you. We are short of camels for ourselves. My men would not tolerate my sacrificing any of their comrades in order to provide camels for you to retreat with us. Therefore you would be left behind, and, if you know anything at all of the type of Arab serving me here, it is not necessary for me to explain that any patrol reaching this camp would find you both unpleasantly dead."
He lingered a moment longer.
"We may as well start fairly. I will send you fresh water and clean linen for your injuries," he said, and so moved away, apparently on a tour of inspection round the camp.
Hoodless, accustomed to thinking more deeply than Marchurst, watched him with thoughtful, interested eyes.
"That man is sick with loneliness, Dick," he said. "He would give anything to talk with us about things that he used to be interested in, the life he used to belong to, and the people and places he used to know. He must have had a terrific sort of past—a white man did not become an Emir of the Khalifa for nothing.... Dick, we shall have to go very slow with him—hold a candle to the devil sort of thing. He's as sensitive as a schoolgirl; I suppose most renegades are, in his position. We've got either to leave him very much alone, treating him as an Arab chief, in whose power we are, or, if we recognize him as a white man, a civilized man, we have to be extraordinarily careful to give him no cause for offense in our manner towards him. As he says, we can choose. And as it is no ambition of mine to be killed like a rat in a trap, I purpose holding a candle to him."
He glanced at the dull, half-comprehending eyes of his companion. The effect of that savage blow had not yet passed.
"Do as I say, Dick; leave it to me. There's no room for heroics in this situation."
Dully Marchurst agreed. He was in no condition for the heroics of which Hoodless had spoken.
"Hold a candle to him, yes," mused Hoodless.
"I've got to get Marchurst safely out of this, as well as myself. It's the only thing to do, we being just ordinary men. If we were Ouida heroes and tried the lofty attitude with him we should be dead before dawn, and if any intrusive military patrol puts in an appearance we shall certainly be the first to die."
He grimaced and turned to an Arab who was approaching with water and a strip of clean rag.
During the tedious days that followed Hoodless frequently had cause to congratulate himself that he had adopted the practical rather than the heroic view. It was not without rough handling that he had been taken prisoner by the Red Emir's men during Marchurst's absence, and several of the healing leopard wounds had been reopened. It needed all his skill to avoid complications with these, and had it not been for the reasonable supply of clean water and other facilities allowed him by the renegade Emir he might have found himself in a desperate condition.
And, for a time, things were even worse with Marchurst, who had narrowly escaped serious concussion, if not actual fracture. For days he lived in a heavy stupor, and the wound at the top of the arch of his forehead refused at first to heal at all. He was like a man recovering very slowly, over a space of many days, from the effects of a heavy drug. Hoodless cared for him with unremitting anxiety that, oddly, was not without a certain quality of relief, for he knew Marchurst's temperament as well as he knew his own, and he was aware that, in normal health, Dick would have found it impossible to compromise even to a limited extent with the man who had injured and humiliated him as the Red Emir had done.
Hoodless, craftier, more politic and patient, found it not difficult to leave Marchurst in their hut, drowsing, and obey a summons or invitation from the renegade to smoke and talk with him for an hour. He found the man avid for news of the world beyond the desert—of sport, of the theater, of military and naval progress, of society. He must have been out of the world for many years, for of the numerous names he mentioned only a few were familiar to Hoodless.
These were curious conversations, cold and guarded on the part of the Emir, without spontaneity or sympathy on the part of Hoodless. It was, vaguely, as though Hoodless had been hired, for pay, to talk.
He never gleaned the slightest knowledge of the original identity of the Emir, nor did he seriously try. He was content to let sleeping dogs lie.
It was during one of these singular talks that Hoodless learned the reason of the Abyssinian's hurried departure from the camp.
"Do you believe that this dancer, Saïs, will come to arrange the matter of ransom?" asked the Emir carelessly.
Hoodless nodded.
"I do. For a girl of her type and class she was surprisingly in love with Marchurst. But there may be a difficulty about the amount. Marchurst is not yet a rich man, you know—may not be for many years. And I have nothing. Saïs might get a little from moneylenders on Marchurst's prospects, or she may be inclined to invest in the ransom herself, if she has money. But, to be frank, there is little possibility of anything enormous," he concluded. The renegade said nothing.
"What have you demanded?" pressed Hoodless uneasily.
The other smiled his cold, mirthless smile.
"Nothing that she will find it impossible to pay," he said evenly. The two stared at each other. Hoodless understood.
"It would be safer to play tricks with a cobra of the sands than with Saïs," he said, but he said it silently within himself.
Aloud he seemed merely to acquiesce.
"She is a woman of singular beauty," he said.
"And intelligence?" asked the Red Emir quickly. "She has traveled—has seen something of the world—used her eyes and her brain? She is not one of these lazy, docile harem kine?"
Hoodless shrugged.
"By no means," he said. "You will find Saïs a companion to your taste, if you prevail on her to pay the ransom."
"That will present no difficulty," said the Emir ominously.
"I will secure you the mercy of a bullet before the impalement... do that much for you...."
The Red Emir.
SLOWLY the monotonous days went past, growing into weeks.
It was a camp of idleness and waiting. Evidently the Red Emir and his band knew the country well, for provisions, probably torn from some weaker tribe or distant village, appeared with unfailing regularity.
Upon the spirits of none did the monotony of these blazing desert days bear more heavily than on those of the prisoners, but the enforced idleness was not without its compensations. At least it enabled Marchurst and Hoodless to regain their strength.
Then, one morning, Dick Marchurst woke mentally his own man again, still a little weak physically, but fit to take a certain interest in the life of the camp. For a time he said nothing, contenting himself with watching the arrival of the scouts which the Red Emir sent out daily, and the departure of their relief.
"What's the idea of hanging about here, Crichton?" demanded Dick at last. "How long have we been here, and is there any fighting going on or expected? These Arab blackguards seem restless. I seem to have been here, half asleep, in a sort of daze for years."
Hoodless, looking about him rather anxiously, nodded.
"You haven't been too fit, old man. Dazed, as you say. Result of the little scrap in the desert when you were knocked out. We've been—we still are—waiting for Saïs. I didn't tell you before—at least, I told you, but you didn't seem quite to follow. This chap, the Red Emir, has sent an escort to bring back Saïs to arrange about ransoming us. They may be back any day—"
"Saïs!"
"Yes, Dick. El Addar suggested that she was about the only person in Egypt likely to be sufficiently interested in us—you, particularly—to arrange about ransom, and the Emir took his tip. It will probably be all right. Let us once get back to civilization and you can square with Saïs."
He was watching a group of the Arabs, who were staring intently across the desert at some distant object.
"What's up this morning, anyway?" he said rather anxiously. "These beggars seem damned restless, as you said."
He peered over the waste of sand, following the direction of the gaze of the Arabs.
"A camel rider," he said at last, "coming in from the east. One of their scouts."
His eyes were uneasy.
"My God, Dick, I hope this stir doesn't mean that some military patrol—a camel corps detachment from El Obeid—is moving in this direction."
"Why?"
Hoodless told him.
"Do you mean seriously that this man—this Red Emir—intends to kill us and leave our bodies for the patrol to find if they drive him away from this camp before Saïs gets here?" demanded Dick, his voice rising.
Hoodless nodded.
"Right, Dick, but take it easy," he warned. "There's an old feud between our friend and the military, I fancy. And it would appeal to his and his crew's queer sense of the fitness of things to leave us dead or impaled for the military to find. A Saharan souvenir!"
He smiled at his grim joke, but without conviction, and turned to study the approaching rider.
It was, as Hoodless had said, one of the Red Emir's men. He was traveling slowly, and had evidently come a long way at his best speed, for his beast was badly distressed.
A crowd ran out to meet him, but he rode through them, dismounting at the entrance of the Emir's tent, his sunken eyes gleaming with excitement.
The Emir came out, and, standing by the kneeling camel, questioned him sharply.
He broke into a short volley of Arabic, pointing north-east, the Emir listening attentively.
Presently he was dismissed and the Emir disappeared again.
The scout, eating ravenously as he went, passed the tent of the prisoners, talking eagerly and loudly to his fellows.
Hoodless listened with strained attention—he knew a few words of the Arabic used by the men.
Then he turned to Marchurst, nodding.
"It's as I said, Dick. A camel corps patrol set out from El Obeid on a general round—not necessarily heading for this place, but inclining in this direction—a day or two ago!"
A thrill of excitement shook his voice.
"Dick, old man, it's going to be a case of touch and go with us!" he said.
For a time they sat discussing their situation in low tones. But they arrived nowhere. Completely unarmed, surrounded and closely watched by a company of men, any one of which would have counted it a creditable and honorable feat to kill them, escape was impossible.
For reasons best known to himself the Red Emir intended to retreat to his distant fastnesses if the patrol became aware of the camp—as it certainly would—and he had already told Hoodless that, even had he been willing to take them with him, there were no riding camels for them. (And they were shortly to learn that he was not willing.)
Hoodless shrugged his shoulders, rose and strode through the entrance to the tent which, thanks to his propitiation of the renegade, they had been allowed to occupy, and stared scowling across the camp.
"It's no good, Dick—we've got two chances. One—the chance that the patrol will miss hearing of this camp—is so slender as to be hardly a chance at all. And the other—call it an even chance—is that Saïs gets here, if she comes at all, before the Emir has to slink clear of the patrol from El Obeid!"
His voice rose a little as the excitement of the thing gripped him.
"That's it, Dick—it's a race—and if you like to put it that way, we are staking our lives on Saïs—and the Abyssinian."
Dick Marchurst joined him at the tent opening, and for a moment they looked about the camp in silence.
There was already apparent a marked change. The atmosphere was different—an air of alertness, of keenness, even of hurry had succeeded the previous tranquillity. The Red Emir had doubled his scouts, and appeared to be sending them out at much shorter intervals. The Arabs were making preparations for departure at a few minutes' notice, and, the prisoners noted, there was a new and ominous expression in the fierce eyes that occasionally shot a glance across at them.
The prisoners engaged themselves in elaborate but necessarily sketchy calculations as to the day Saïs might be considered due at the camp—if she came at all—but evolved nothing satisfactory.
"It depends whether El Addar had to go to Cairo to find her," said Hoodless presently. "If so—it's hopeless."
Dick looked across the desert.
"Saïs would be at Luxor," he said. "I promised her a villa there... a holiday together... there's just a chance that she might have been in Khartoum. She wanted to meet us there—when we returned from the shooting."
Hoodless shook his head.
"Too early, Dick. She would not be in Khartoum to meet us for weeks. Luxor, yes. She might just do it if she were at Luxor and started at once. Anyway, we shall soon know. She will be somewhere between Khartoum and this place now.... It's the last part of the journey that might do our business. We're a long way south-west of El Obeid—and don't forget that El Obeid is something like two hundred miles from Khartoum.... Still—what's the use of worrying?"
He shrugged again but his eyes were anxious.
"God, but there are a lot of people I'd choose to depend on for my life before a dancing girl and an outcast executioner from Omdurman," he muttered in-audibly. "Yet—she may come—if her sort are capable of loving a man, she loves Marchurst."
He filled his pipe and lapsed into brooding silence.
In the tense days that followed they saw little of the Red Emir, though he dropped an edged reminder of their situation as he passed their tent one morning.
"Thrilling for you," he said, with his thin, twisted smile. "I only wait here two days longer. That infernal patrol is working south"—his eyes glittered with a light of hatred akin to madness as he spoke of the British forces—"and if they swing west, God help you.... I shall know to-night. My men are clamoring for leave to impale you!"—and passed on, his eyes seeking the eastern horizon.
Many eyes in the camp searched that horizon in the next few hours, and the curious current of excitement ran more and more strongly like an ever-increasing current of electricity.
The monotony which had dulled the camp for weeks past had given place, as far as Dick Marchurst and Hoodless were concerned, to a hectic and feverish waiting—an almost intolerable urgency for something to happen, for the distant line of the desert horizon to break and give up either the camel corps patrol riding down upon them, or Saïs and her grim attendants, racing.
In the afternoon a scout rode in with news.
He had it from a desert dweller encountered some distance south-west of El Obeid. This one had been at El Obeid when a rumor had come through, borne inexplicably, as rumor can be in the east, of four people riding fast from Khartoum, heading west—a woman, mercilessly driving a magnificent racing dromedary, with two Arabs and a giant Abyssinian. For the latter there had been some talk that new camels would be wanted....
"She's coming, Dick—" said Hoodless, keeping the wild note of exultation out of his voice with an effort, for a knot of the Arabs were watching. Dick Marchurst nodded, staring out across the gleaming sand, already tinted with the first pale gold hues of the evening. The anxiously awaited news, now that it had arrived, affected him oddly. Oppressed by the ever-present sense of hatred and menace which in his weakened condition had weighed even more heavily upon him than upon his companion though he was, Dick Marchurst was aware of a curious, remotely painful feeling of something almost approaching dissatisfaction. Or, rather, his relief, his new hope, was tinged with a vague and singular regret that it should be Saïs who was bringing the ransom.
"If only it had been Louise Lammarsh—cool, tranquil, restful...."
He threw out the thought at the instant of thinking it.
"Mad!" he said, with a species of silent passion. "Impossible in a hundred different ways. Her duty is to the man she married. Why, she doesn't know. And if she did—her clear course would be to inform the authorities, and leave it to them. To go to the office of the nearest authority and say: 'Out there, hundreds of miles across the Kordofan wastes, two Englishmen—travelers—acquaintances' of mine—are held for ransom by a renegade raider. Something should be done in the matter. Will you please see to it!'"
And, having said this, made this notification, and urged action, to have left the office with the husband who, doubtless, adored her, and continued her pleasure in Egypt—precisely as others were doing.
That was all she could be expected to do.
Dick Marchurst nodded slowly, his hands clenched as he stared out over the brazen gold of the empty desert.
Good—good—yes, by God, but it was a good and fortunate thing for him and for Hoodless that the matter was in the hands of Saïs.
He laughed wryly as his overwrought mind pictured the arrival of the news. By some mental trick he was able to visualize the two women together—standing, watching the oncoming of the trio out of the desert—the two clean, hawk-faced, bearded Arabs, hooded and imperturbable, and the huge jet-black Abyssinian, towering on his camel, leading the dromedary of the Red Emir, halting before the women and hoarsely crying out the news. He saw the one shrink back aghast, turning to the nearest man, her husband, her every instinct of habit and training calling for the police—but the other, the dancing girl, trained to the ways of men, skilled in danger, swift to move, springing instantly to action, hissing a few incisive orders, leaping to her place on the ungainly but swift and enduring beast sent for her, and riding—riding—riding into the desolation and danger of the western desert, fearless, assured, furious, shrilly hounding her fierce escort into even greater speed. Yes—that was the way of Saïs.
She had saved him once before in that night of horror in Cairo—she would save him again here, in this remote wilderness. He knew it intuitively.
Only, in his heart, in his deep heart, he wished that it had been Louise Lammarsh—almost a stranger, certainly another man's wife....
His thoughts were whirling. With an effort he cast all out, and stood up, looking round for Hoodless. He saw him some distance off, outside a murmuring crowd about a scout who had just ridden in from the south-east.
This one, too, had brought news.
Dick Marchurst sensed it. He would have known even without the gesture of real despair with which Hoodless turned away, and hastened across to him.
"All up, Dick," he said, a hunted note in his voice. "The patrol—a big patrol—picked up some of the tribesmen these raiders have robbed—and laid them on the trail. The patrol wheeled north-west—for the camp—at midday to-day—"
"Saïs?" asked Marchurst.
"Nothing fresh—I don't see how she can do it."
From across the camp the orders of the Red Emir came like the cracking of a whip.
The camp boiled with loud activity, as the Arabs split up on their various duties—some to the tents—some to the baggage camels, others to the swifter riding beasts. The sun was dropping fast, flooding the sky with gold.
Half a dozen Arabs surrounded the Emir, clamoring.
The prisoners heard the rasp of his order, saw the men fall back and hasten away.
The Red Emir strode over to them.
"It is those Sudanese bloodhounds from El Obeid that doom you men," he said, "in their efforts to doom me. I can't help you."
He ground his knuckles against his teeth in his ugly habit when moved.
"I will secure you the mercy of a bullet before the impalement—do that much for you.... You've been civil—for a couple of Englishmen!" and swung away.
Marchurst and Hoodless drew together half unconsciously.
In the center of the camp several of the Arabs were busily fixing in the soft sand two stout stakes, sharpened to points at their upper ends.
Hoodless shuddered.
"They—my God, Dick, they mean it, you know. I've heard of it happening in Algeria—Morocco—never dreamed we should—"
The stakes stood up black against the distant gold of the sky.
But they were spared the most exquisite agony of suspense.
A shout came grating across to them from another point of the camp, and, with all there, they turned again to the east to which an Arab was pointing and peering.
Far off, very far off, across the sands, moved a speck.
To the white men it seemed no more than an infinitely small blur, a minute thing, no larger than some distant beast—an antelope—but to the keen-sighted men of the desert it was something more than that—something that was not one of their scouts.
They stared like startled wolves disturbed over a carcase.
The Red Emir, summoned by a running man, came out, unslinging his binoculars. For a long minute he stared.
Then abruptly he spoke, his harsh voice rising above through the talk of the men, the snarling complaints of the camels, reaching clearly to Dick Marchurst and Hoodless.
"It is the Abyssinian returning."
The hooded heads of the listening Arabs turned upon the prisoners and an ugly, threatening move was made towards them.
The Red Emir snapped an order backing it with a big service revolver, and the Arabs fell back reluctantly. He lashed them to their duties with a volley of Arabic, and turned with a sour smile to the prisoners, nodding.
"It's all right, Dick," said Hoodless. "Saïs is in sight."
But Marchurst hardly heard. He was staring out towards the quartet of striding animals racing down on the camp. The white dromedary led them, swinging along with its swift, tireless, peculiar gait, steadily as though it were at the beginning of the desperate and furious effort which it had been called upon to make during many days past. Behind came the ruined beasts of the others—the Abyssinian brandishing his arms, fiercely excited,—and beside him, like two sheeted ghosts, rode the Arabs of the Red Emir.
Suddenly the white figure on the dromedary waved a hand.
"Saïs! Dick, it's Saïs!" shouted Hoodless wildly, and together they ran to meet her as she drove straight for the heart of the camp.
But the Red Emir stepped before them.
"Get to your tent!" he said, menacing them with eyes and weapon.
Empty-handed they faced him. Despite the fixed intent in his eyes Marchurst was settling on the balls of his feet to spring when Hoodless dragged him back.
"It's suicide, Dick. Come on. You can see Saïs and—thank her—after the matter of the ransom has been settled—yes—after—"
But his voice trailed off and his eyes did not meet those of his comrade as he spoke. Dick Marchurst yielded and they retreated to their tent, even as the white dromedary knelt—oddly enough across the long shadows of the impalement stakes.
"He keeps me.... Better to kiss asps of the sand than Saïs, he will find...."
Saïs.
WAITING—like men in the dark, for now there were two armed, savage-eyed sentries at their tent entrance—to be called to the discussion concerning the matter of their ransom, a request or invitation which Dick Marchurst certainly expected, they could hear from all sides the unmistakable sounds which indicated that the camp was closing.
The minutes slipped past and a certain anxiety began to shadow Marchurst's face.
"What is he delaying for, Crichton?" he asked.
Hoodless shrugged his shoulders.
"Lord knows, old chap. Perhaps Saïs is not fit—she was reeling with fatigue as she rode in. A few minutes' rest perhaps."
Dick stared past the motionless figure of the Arab half-blocking the tent entrance.
"But they're going!" he said, a sharp note of uneasy surprise in his voice. "Look! Why, even the camels for these guards of ours are here—ready and waiting."
Hoodless was looking out, his hard eyes puzzled.
Outside, a few yards away, were kneeling two camels.
Before he could speak one of the Arabs beckoned Dick Marchurst, signing to Hoodless to remain in the tent.
Dick stepped out, his face brightening.
"I'll make the best terms I can, Crichton," he said.
He still believed that the ransom was a matter of money. But he was on the threshold of disillusion. Even as he stepped clear of the tent, strong hands, ready with ropes, seized and bound him with fierce, deft swiftness that indicated the expert at this work. He was helpless before he could fight—and fighting would have been suicide for he was covered by the rifles of two other men.
They threw him down on the sands and turned into the tent, springing upon Hoodless. In another minute the two white men lay side by side in the tent, bound and helpless.
Marchurst was swearing tensely.
"Might have known that we couldn't trust that renegade cur," he said.
Hoodless did not reply. He knew, if Dick did not, that the Red Emir was deviating from the plan he had outlined only to the extent of a greater degree of violence than Hoodless had expected. To Marchurst it came as a shock—but not to the adventurer.
In spite of the pain which the tight ropes sent stabbing through his incompletely healed wounds the adventurer's lips twitched as he saw, and listened to, the fury of his comrade.
Marchurst, obviously, had expected to see Saïs and, with her and Hoodless, to discuss the position with the Red Emir in his tent, agree upon a price and, that settled, the three of them free and unhindered should either make their way (on camels to be left for them by the Emir) to El Obeid, or wait until the camel corps people arrived and return with them.
It was to have been as simple and coldly businesslike as that, Dick had dreamed, and the bigger treachery, even the possibility of it, had never entered his mind.
Dick was very English. He trusted very readily. Well, his moment of disillusion was very near.
Within half an hour the camp was silent save for an occasional shout. But these grew rarer and presently there fell an absolute silence.
"They're gone, Dick," said Hoodless. A shadow fell across the tent opening, and the burly form of El Addar blocked out the light for a moment.
He stepped in.
Behind him, outside, waited two Arabs, mounted. The Abyssinian stooped and slipped a folded scrap of paper between Marchurst's fingers.
"From the lady, Saïs, please, sar," he said. His eyes rolled to Hoodless.
"Sar, I am prisoner too, going to the oasis as servant of the Red Emir. I shall not stay there—I shall escape with the lady Saïs—and come to you, sar, at Khartoum, or Luxor, for—ten pounds Turkish, the Mannlicher rifle and a thousand rounds of cartridges, the reward that was promised, sar."
He gaped expectantly.
"All right, El Addar. It shall be waiting for you at Khartoum. I will arrange," said Hoodless.
The big negro's eyes gleamed.
"The leopard skin, sar—it is buried in the sand under a round white stone by the marks of the tent of the Red Emir."
"Good," muttered Hoodless.
El Addar rose—but stooped again at the virile, angry whisper of Hoodless.
"Cut these ropes, El Addar—damn you, d'you mean to leave us lying here—"
The negro glanced fearfully at the Arabs outside. "Sar—it is an order—to leave you bound—but—"
Something dropped to the soft sand and El Addar rose swiftly, leaving the tent without another word. Hoodless, craning, saw him mount a kneeling camel outside, heard the beast rise with a discordant complaint, and go.
"That's the last of the Red Emir—for the time being, Dick," said Hoodless, straining towards the knife which the Abyssinian, not daring to cut their ropes under the ready rifles of the Arabs watching him, had dropped close by.
"But—Saïs—" gasped Marchurst.
"The Emir has taken her with him," said Hoodless slowly. "It, seems as if he means her to be ransom."
And when some twenty minutes later, after they had painfully contrived to cut the cords round Marchurst's wrists, and release themselves, Dick read Saïs's note, he realized that it was as Hoodless said.
It was just a wild short scrawl the girl sent—obviously done in an unwatched moment with a lead bullet on a scrap of the paper lining the cigar box in the Red Emir's tent.
"He keeps me. Better to kiss asps of the sands than Saïs, he will find. I return soon. Wait for me at the Villa Blanche at Luxor, Dick. Sal—"
She had not time to finish signing her name.
The two men stared westward. But nothing moved there now. Only the shapeless tracks of the camels indicated the direction in which the Red Emir had traveled, for, as he said, they went fast. Even the Abyssinian and the Arabs with him had passed out of sight, heading after the rest of the band en route to the distant fastness of the Red Emir.
They glanced round. The camp was stripped save only for the tent they had just left and one other—the big tent in which Hoodless had been lying when their own camp was rushed and taken.
They moved across to it. Inside they found a number of their own things which the raider, either because he had no use for them, or possibly with some twisted idea of playing the game in a certain degree, had left for them—a little food, some clothes, such items.
While Hoodless looked these things over, Dick Marchurst found the white stone of which El Addar had spoken and, scraping away the sand, came upon the leopard skin.
The Abyssinian had evidently taken some trouble and possibly risk to preserve it, for it was in excellent condition, and as he spread it out in the sun Dick was aware of a queer little thrill of pleasure.
"Well, anyway, I shall be able to keep my promise to Mrs. Lammarsh," he said....
An hour later the scouts of the patrol appeared on the south-eastern skyline, and just as the darkness fell the officer in charge rode into the deserted camp.
He was a tall youngster named Carruthers, with the rank of captain, extraordinarily bronzed, almost as lean and hard as a strip of sun-dried flesh. His blue eyes were fever-bright with fatigue, and he fell rather than dismounted from his camel.
"How long—?" he asked huskily.
"Two hours—"
The blue eyes flickered to the camel tracks, lifted, and stared westward.
"Were the beasts fresh?" Hoodless nodded.
"Except for the scouts. They've done no work for weeks," he explained.
The boy's lips drooped. His own camels and men, like himself, were worn out. He had not the remotest chance of overtaking the raiders before they reached the waterless, pathless region beyond which lay safety, and he knew it.
And he and his men were too exhausted even to seek solace in profanity.
He seemed to know all about Marchurst and Hoodless. As he had left El Obeid some days before Saïs had passed through, that puzzled them a little, but later he explained that a number of men had been detailed from the military out-station to join him, and they had given him the news that the Emir held two prisoners—Saïs had taken care that the commandant should be notified, as she raced through.
"We follow up as soon as you've rested your men?" asked Marchurst.
The officer shook his head reluctantly.
"No. I'm sorry. Orders. I could have fought them here—but I have instructions not to follow. You see, it's bad country westwards and it will have to be rather a special expedition to hunt that scoundrel out of his nest. But it's brewing up for him. He will kneel on his sheepskin before long—if he means to finish like a genuine Emir."
That was before the days of the modern aeroplane and the gas bomb.
Dick Marchurst flamed.
"But there's a girl—Saïs," he cried. "Man, he's taking her to some den he calls his harem—out in that lair of his. She saved our lives—"
But he was in conflict with military "orders," not, as the bronzed boy anxiously explained, against any disinclination of himself or his men who, he paternally claimed, were "absolute gluttons for a scrap—best fellows in the Sudan."
"Personally, I'd cheerfully give my next three leaves for a chance of running down this renegade Emir," he said, "but I'm not free, I tell you. I'll cut out the rest of the patrol and report back at El Obeid as quickly as we can get there—but more than that I can't do in face of my orders."
"Well, can you let us have a couple of rifles, some ammunition, a scrap of food, and a camel? We'll try a rescue on our own. And we'll pay the Government for the things when we return," asked Dick.
"My dear man, you would never return. It's a rotten, bad country, I tell you. Two men would have no chance at all. No—come back with me and fight it out with the commandant. You'll find plenty of us there to help you try to persuade him to start. But you won't succeed. He only starts when he's ready. But he only returns when he's finished!" he concluded significantly.
And with that Marchurst had to be content—though he argued stubbornly against it.
Next day they headed for El Obeid. It was not a pleasant journey for it had occurred to Dick to ask the captain what he would have done had Saïs been—not Saïs but an English or American lady of position.
It was not quite a fair question, and they all knew it—but Marchurst was wrung by the sacrifice of Saïs.
But neither his inability to answer this question, nor the sullen reluctance of Marchurst to return, altered the patrol captain's decision.
"I shall become weary of the desert very soon, weary and—dangerous!"
Saïs.
HAD it been possible for Dick Marchurst to see Saïs as she was, instead of visualizing her as he imagined her to be, he might have accompanied the camel corps patrol back to El Obeid with diminished reluctance and a less tormented conscience.
She had been as bitterly disappointed as Marchurst at the swift decision of the Red Emir that she should not see the man she had ridden so far to save. Aching and sick with fatigue as she was, half fainting from the stress of the most stressful of all forms of riding, she had hoped to dismount from her dromedary into the arms of Marchurst. But instead she found herself facing a strange man of English appearance, in English clothes, who greeted her calmly by name and led her to a luxurious tent.
"Who are you?" she asked in the broken French which she used most easily, after she had drained the cup of water dashed with strong spirit which he had given her. "Where is Dick?"
He looked at her with steady and significant eyes.
"I am the Red Emir," he said. "And Dick—you mean Marchurst, I suppose—is preparing to return to the liberty which you have bought him."
Her keen instincts awoke at that, dispersing her intense weariness as a sudden, chill wind disperses fog. The faint friendliness that had been apparent in her wonderful eyes until then died out swiftly, and she looked across at him with a new and very different regard.
Hitherto she had looked at him as at any white man who possibly might prove to be a friend or even a friendly acquaintance of Marchurst. But now that he had revealed himself not as Dick's friend but as his captor, and had hinted that she, herself, was not to pay ransom but to be ransom, her scrutiny changed.
It was Saïs of Old Cairo, Saïs the dancer, Saïs the courtesan who looked into the Red Emir's eyes now—calculating, appraising, without friendship, without hatred.
She moved a little where she sat resting on the divan.
"This is the manner of the ransom, Saïs," said the Red Emir. "I let Marchurst and his comrade go; I leave them alive to await the arrival of the patrol that is hunting us down; but I keep you."
He waited, watching her closely.
Her eyes narrowed, though she smiled.
"He is safe, yes? And well?" she asked.
The Red Emir pointed across the camp to the tent of Marchurst and Hoodless.
"Both, Saïs. My men desired to impale them—leave them for the camel corps people to find. I forbade it."
"Let me see him—speak with him?" asked Saïs.
"No," said the Emir. "There is no time. Prepare for a long journey."
Not a shadow touched the lovely face.
"Whither?" asked Saïs.
"To my house. A far journey."
She nodded, watching him steadily.
"You have your harem there?" she asked.
"You shall be queen of it, and companion to me, Saïs."
Still she seemed to muse.
"How far?"
"Ten days' riding."
"Deep in the desert?"
"So deep that it is unknown by my enemies."
Saïs stood up, yawning, stretching with a curious, graceful, feline air of abandon.
"You mean to take me there, keep me there, Emir?" she asked lazily. "I am a woman of the towns and cities. I shall become weary of the desert very soon, weary and dangerous."
"You shall be entertained."
"What is there to entertain a woman such as I am in the deep desert, Emir?... I love Dick Marchurst. I shall not go."
The Red Emir nodded gravely.
"To refuse is to sentence the man you love to death by impalement," he said tranquilly.
Her eyes grew cold and brilliant. But she faced him without a change of color, a quickening of the breath.
"I will go with you," she said, and her heavy lids flickered.
He ran his eyes over her, boldly, searchingly.
"You like me so much as to commit this crime for me; you have heard of me, eh?—Saïs of Old Cairo?" she asked, showing her teeth in a little strange smile.
He nodded.
"You are more wonderful than I expected, Saïs," he said.
"More beautiful, yes?"
"More beautiful."
"All dimmed by the dust of the desert, swathed in these stained riding clothes—you find me beautiful and shapely? It is a good ransom, this that you receive for Dick Marchurst, eh?"
She leaned closer to him, dark, desirable, alluring, He drew her closer yet.
"A good ransom—a high price," he said dreamily. "I am content, Saïs—content—ah!" Her arm flashed out. "And I wear chain mail, beautiful viper! See! The blade is snapped."
He crushed her close, kissed her ferociously, and threw her back from him, laughing.
On the rug between them lay the hilt of a poniard, its slender blade, scarcely thicker than a knitting-needle, snapped off by the force of the snake-swift blow which Saïs had darted for his heart.
"I, too, have been a man of the towns and cities, Saïs," he mocked. "See, your sting is broken. So soon!... Never mind, I forgive you because you are so lovely and so quick. Later we will talk. Now we go."
He went to the tent opening and shouted a fierce order. Men came running, leading camels, and swiftly began to empty the tent.
Saïs watched them calmly. Her failure to kill the Emir seemed to have left her entirely unruffled. She had caught a note in his fierce mirth that contented her—a strange, wild note that was more of pride in her than of anger. And, knowing men, she understood.
A quarrel broke out at a little knot of Arabs across the camp. The Emir strode over to them. Swiftly Saïs drew El Addar the Abyssinian between her and the Emir.
"Screen me, El Addar," she hissed, and, snatching a loose revolver cartridge that lay on the table by the cigar box, scrawled her message to Marchurst.
When the Red Emir turned El Addar was rolling up a rug, and Saïs was preparing for the desert ride, calmly, without haste, without delay, like one completely resigned to her fate.
Only once she looked back, and that was not until they were so far from the site of the camp that the two lone tents remaining were no more than ant-hills on the horizon.
Then silently she turned to face the desert again. The Red Emir, riding close beside her, was watching her.
Their glances caught. She was muffled against the sand and sun, almost to the eyes. He peered close, seeking what he might discover in the steady, silent stare of her great, black, slanting eyes.
But he saw only what many men had seen before him—mystery, dark, alluring, perhaps deadly.
His thin lips curved faintly in a smile of satisfaction. Some men—perhaps many men—would have feared her. But not so the Red Emir.
Saïs had suppressed his extremest expectations, and he was content. There would be time and to spare for her taming when they were at his small kingdom, the oasis.
"You will not be able to linger all your life in Egypt, basking in the beauty of Saïs. Break with her now—while you can...."
Colonel Dacre.
THE events and atmospheres of the fortnight immediately following the rescue formed a perfect test of the exact degree of Dick Marchurst's passion for Saïs, and it was with a cynical though carefully concealed amusement that Hoodless watched the gradual change of spirit in the boy.
He left the site of the camp possessed of an incandescent, sullen fury against the Abyssinian who had fetched Saïs, the Red Emir who had taken her, young Carruthers in charge of the patrol who, obeying orders, had refused to follow the desert wolves on to their own ground, and even against that unknown commandant at El Obeid who was so slow to begin the imperative duty of discovering the oasis and wiping out its denizens, as one destroys a wasp's nest that is too near one's house.
For the first day of the return journey Dick fretted terribly.
"You know, Hoodless, as well as I, that if Saïs were an English or American lady this chap Carruthers would wheel his men west and get after the Red Emir in an instant. It's simply because Saïs is a dancer, well known in Egypt, slandered, lied about, like any other popular favorite in any other country. I could see in Carruther's eyes exactly what he was thinking when he fell back on the excuse of 'military orders.' He was saying to himself that the army had something better to do than to chase after a dancing girl who has voluntarily sacrificed herself for sake of a couple of civilian big game hunters. But if she had been my wife he would have acted differently.... Anyway, I shall make up my own expedition at the first opportunity and follow her. And I can promise the military people at El Obeid that I will put in some reports in the right place that will enliven them...."
So, with occasional halts to stare back westwards, like a man who retreats so reluctantly that he is liable to turn back again at any moment, he continued throughout the first day.
Hoodless would counsel patience.
"Remember, Dick, that, with complete deference and respect to Saïs, one can say that she is not like the average white woman one meets touring Egypt. She is capable of taking some care of herself in such circumstances. Remember her ride with those three savages, and her note to you."
"We were a camp of armed men," said Dick, "and what were we able to do against that Arab swarm? Nothing. What can Saïs do with all her cleverness and charm?"
"Saïs fights with women's weapons—more dangerous than rifles," replied Hoodless. "I'll admit the situation is pretty bad, and I'm with you in anything you care to attempt, but it is vastly better than it would be if the Red Emir's ransom were not Saïs but some other woman less familiar with the ways of men. Imagine a woman of the quality of, for example, that beautiful American, Mrs. Lammarsh, in Saïs's position! Tragic as the situation is for Saïs, how much more tragic would it be for a woman like Mrs. Lammarsh!" His lids flickered as he said it, and Dick Marchurst was suddenly silent.
He rode a furlong before he spoke again.
Then he nodded slowly.
"You are right, Crichton. A woman like Mrs. Lammarsh would probably kill herself in Saïs's position."
"Yes. But Saïs won't. She will be much more likely to kill the Red Emir!"
Hoodless laughed, and turned to look back across the dun desolation of the sun-struck desert.
"I tell you, Dick, it would not surprise me to see, at any moment, Saïs and El Addar come riding out of the mirages behind us free and unhurt."
And Dick Marchurst agreed that it was conceivable, if not probable. It was the first sign that the edge of his anger and eagerness to follow after was growing less keen. Hoodless, realizing that the thoughts of his comrade had admitted the possibility of a future as well as a past, said no more. He had started a train of thought that led direct to Louise Lammarsh, direct from Saïs. That was all he desired to do just then, and by the time, some days later, they rode into El Obeid, sick of the desert, the frame of mind in which Dick Marchurst greeted the white-mustached, level-eyed commandant of the out-station was leagues apart from the frame of mind in which he had left the camp.
Half consciously he had yielded to the ever-ready, suave logic of Hoodless, to the clear-cut argument of Carruthers, to the knowledge, deep and secret in his own heart despite his quick and fiery loyalty to her, that the sacrifice which Saïs had made was a far lesser sacrifice than the same surrender would have been in a different type of woman—such as Louise Lammarsh. And he was weary, worn out. The effects of that blow from the savagely driven rifle butt still lingered in the form of intermittent bursts and stabs of white-hot pain, accentuated by the glare of the sun. The desert and the circumstances of life in the desert oppressed him now. It was harsh, brutal, ugly, without any rest or softness. The reek of camels, the smell of hot leather, of rifle oil, of camp-fire smoke, the jabber of the Soudanese troopers, all things which once had thrilled him, now inspired him with a feeling that was almost disgust. He wanted to rest, to be away from all that now, to rest and be tranquil and cool. It seemed to him that from the moment that he had first set eyes on Saïs he had been caught up in some strange, dark and fatal current of events that were controlled and directed by a malignant force which delighted to tangle, confuse and guide wrongly.
Everything had gone badly wrong—everything. One could not even fight against it. The only thing he had been able to do exactly as he had planned had been to keep his promise about a trophy for Louise Lammarsh. And that had been due entirely to good luck.
He hoped very much that he would be fortunate enough to meet her again in Egypt. She was, he felt, the kind of woman he would like to meet above all others now. To talk with her, to be friends for a little. Cool, peaceful, serene, she, above all women, could help him during his rest to win back his old confidence and happiness. Like a sister who understands, and knows how to comfort one vaguely unhappy, tired and troubled....
The commandant at El Obeid, Colonel Dacre, an old, grizzled veteran, with boys of his own as old as Dick Marchurst, had no trouble at all in showing him that any hope of a private expedition to the oasis of the Red Emir was impracticable and impermissible.
"We are cleaning up the Sudan fast, but the time for riding down that renegade madman has not arrived yet, though it is not so far off as perhaps Carruthers may have believed and led you to believe," he explained. "But the reorganization of this country—a hard and difficult country that even yet is only linked with civilization by one sinew or nerve or vein, the Sirdar's railway—must necessarily be slow. Bit by bit, my boy. And this so-called Red Emir is still out of range for a little while."
"I see, sir." Dick nodded wearily, recognizing the naked truth. "But Saïs. What about Saïs? You see, she saved our lives. There can be no question about that. How can I—and Hoodless—how can we go down the Nile to rest, to amuse ourselves, to just go back to things, and leave her?"
The old colonel's direct gray eyes softened. It pleased him that this youngster tried to pay his debts—persisted even stubbornly in his efforts to do so—impracticable and hopeless though they were.
He thought for a moment, then rose and came over to Dick, putting both hands on the boy's shoulder, watching him with level eyes.
"My boy, let a man who has grown old in service and discipline speak frankly. I have sons older than you, and I hope that if ever one of them finds himself in a difficulty such as yours he may also find some one prepared to speak as frankly to him as I want to do to you. I know North Africa—Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, the Sudan; best of all Egypt and this Sudan of ours. Everything of mine worth while has been poured out on its unquenchable sands. I ought to know this land, Marchurst; I do know it—arid, insatiable, thankless. A dry quicksand. I have seen them go to feed it, one after another, good friends of mine, good men, brave boys. It takes all, gives back nothing. Some day, perhaps, when its sands are satiated, it may bloom and be fruitful—"
He pulled himself up, smiling stiffly under the clipped, white mustache, and started again.
"They tell me that some day you may—you almost certainly will—be called upon to fill a responsible position at home. I understand that you are Lord Lissmere's heir.... Don't be angry with me if I say that you might do worse than to keep yourself fit to occupy that position. You will fail if you cling to any liaison with this dancer Saïs. She is Egypt, you are England. Don't be surprised that I know a good deal of the circumstances of your capture and release; it's my duty, my job, to know of such things. I haven't the least doubt that for the moment you are, you sincerely believe yourself to be, in love with her, or that she—that you are her favorite just now. But it will lead you nowhere.... She will come back one of these days, maybe almost at once, maybe in a year; it depends on many things. What shall you do then? You cannot marry her, take her home; you must face the fact that you are by no means the first favorite she has had. And you will not be able to linger all your life in Egypt basking in the beauty of Saïs. Some day you will have to break with her, and my advice is, 'Break now, while you can.'"
His keen old eyes noted the heavy shadow on Dick's face.
"Not very chivalrous advice, eh? Nor palatable. But it is sound, my boy. You cannot help her where she is, if she needs help. Nor can we act any sooner in the matter of this Emir than originally planned. So you may go home with a clear conscience—grateful, naturally. A day may come when you can express your gratitude to her in terms which, after a lapse of time, may appeal most strongly of all to her. Financial terms. Go home, Marchurst, and marry a nice girl and forget Egypt. Your remaining will not help Saïs, your going will not delay us helping her in due season. That's all. I have exceeded my duty, and exercised a privilege to which I have no claim, in saying to you what I have said. But it is well meant. It is what I would like said to one of my own boys in like circumstances."
He offered his hand.
Dick gripped it.
"I will remember what you have said, sir. I'm very grateful. I shall try to act on your advice. But it is going to be difficult. I—I think that I want to. Only, when I remember what Saïs has done for me... it's difficult. Why, you know—Carruthers reported it, of course—we were within an inch of impalement. They had the stakes set up in the sand—sharpened... fearful!" His eyes widened with horror.
"Whatever Saïs may be, she rode herself half senseless to save us from that... and saved us. I wish to God I were an older man, sir—harder. There's a soft streak in us Marchursts... so they say. Still, I shall do my best. I wish.... Probably when I've got a bit fitter—-mind clearer—I shall be able to do the right thing. I suppose I shall have to worry it out—fight it out for myself in the long run. But I'll always remember that you've been so kind as to take enough real interest to—speak frankly—"
He broke off as the notes of a trumpet sang across to them from somewhere close by.
"Yes, you have it, Marchurst... to fight it out for yourself. But do your fighting at home—in England. You say you have a soft streak—about women, I mean. My boy, believe me when I say—very earnestly, as I do now—the East is not a safe place for any man with a soft streak where women—Eastern women—are concerned. Fight it out for yourself—yes, at home, on your own ground—not on Saïs's ground.... And I wish you luck, and a happy ending...."
The colonel's tone changed subtly as the trumpet call died out.
"That's for tiffin—lunch time, my boy. Come along. Let me see, you and your friend start for Khartoum this afternoon, I think. Let me know if there's anything I can do for you before you go."
They joined the little handful of officers and Hoodless in the mess.
"I came here to rest in idleness. You did that too. Shall we help each other?"
Louise Lammarsh.
DICK MARCHURST was never nearer the definite decision to follow the advice of Colonel Dacre and leave Egypt than at the moment when he uttered that useless cry, "I wish to God I were an older man—and harder."
Had it been possible to keep him in the frame of mind which inspired that cry it is possible that he might have returned to England forthwith.
But long before they sighted Khartoum, and very long before they reached Luxor, the impulse of discretion had expended itself.
He had consulted Hoodless. It is one of the penalties of normal youth that it ever shirks, unconsciously, arriving at its more serious decisions unaided or unadvised even though it may disdain the aid offered or the advice given.
The adventurer had made light of everything.
"My dear old chap, the colonel meant well enough, no doubt. But if one listened to every one who comes the heavy father, life would be a solemn business. All these old boys love to get into the pulpit or confessional and lay down the law. Reason and common sense are good enough for me."
It was no part of the complex plan of Hoodless that Dick should leave Egypt yet.
"Let's look at it in a reasonable—I mean an everyday, ordinary man's way. Here you are, like me, fed up with the strenuous life, not too fit, simply crazy for a few weeks' quiet rest. You are anxious to know how Saïs gets on—and, if there is ever a chance, to help her. Some day, and probably before long, she will be back. She may need help—she will certainly expect gratitude and thanks. That's only fair. I needn't tell you that, Dick, for you are more punctilious in such matters than I am. Like you now, she will come out of the desert sick for rest and peace. It won't hurt you much to give her that at Luxor—to share your own rest with her. I don't see that you can do less. There's no real question of serious complications. You have given up your first rather quixotic idea of marrying Saïs. You can't marry her—and she would be quite the last to expect it. But you can wind up the affair in the right spirit—not the spirit of a young, enthusiastic, unsophisticated boy, or that of the roué or the libertine. Take the middle course, Dick—that of a reasonably broadminded man of the world. My advice is this—go to the villa at Luxor and take it easy for a time, see the Nile, slip down to Cairo now and then, rest, get fit and enjoy yourself quietly. If Saïs comes back before you are bored give her the good time she expected, enjoy your holiday together. In due course you will both want to get back to livelier scenes; obviously one could not spend one's life in a Luxor villa. Then will come the parting. Treat Saïs generously, and go home. Saïs will be satisfied—you will have done no harm and you will have no secret self-reproach gnawing at you. Like me, you will always owe much to Saïs—unlike me, you will someday be in a position to repay her," he concluded, and lit a cigar.
"How's that for a solution, Dick?" he asked. "I think it's a better plan and slightly more sporting, and, yes, chivalrous—it's a good word, if old-fashioned—than quietly dodging off to England now!"
Dick nodded, his face clearing, his eyes brightening.
"By Jove, Crichton, you've put it in a nutshell. It's the only course to take. You've relieved my mind of a tremendous load. I see my way—absolutely clear. You are a brick."
Hoodless laughed.
"Oh, I don't know. The old chap, Colonel Dacre, was right enough in his way. He meant well. These old boys usually do. But he was so drastic—they often are. It's the old story—they can't resist trying to put old heads on young shoulders. And they don't realize that a man of twenty-three with a head of fifty-three would be a—a devilish melancholy hybrid to do with in normal everyday life!"
Dick laughed. It was the first really genuine laugh he had enjoyed since the day he left Saïs in the house in Cairo.
"You are a practical-minded old ruffian, Crichton," he said, almost gratefully. "But you do see things sanely."
So they came to Luxor and to the Villa Blanche, a little house, standing alone, in a small garden, on the eastern side of the river.
Saïs had made it ready for Dick's return. Bina, the little Nubian maid, was there, and another from her Cairo house, a silent woman of middle age, whom Saïs had brought from Alexandria some years before. Something of a mystery this woman had always seemed to Dick. Of an Egyptian type, but of paler, fairer complexion, that spoke plainly of Continental parentage on one side, this woman, Olympe, had once been beautiful in a generous, full-blown way, but her day was over. Neither Saïs nor she ever spoke of her past. Her duties to Saïs had seemed to Dick at Cairo to include something of those of housekeeper, of cook, of personal maid, of stewardess. She "attended to" things—everything. At least, things were always done smoothly, competently, punctually, Dick had observed at Cairo, and he assumed that Olympe saw to this.
She was a big, silent-moving, competent woman, with a gift of placidity. No doubt there were, or had been, strange fires under that placid air, but the woman successfully conveyed an impression that those fires were now extinct. Like Saïs, she spoke many tongues badly. French was the only one she spoke well. Like Bina, she seemed to adore Saïs.
Neither Olympe nor Bina seemed surprised to see Dick Marchurst and Hoodless. The one greeted them with a grave smile, the other with a gleam of black eyes and a flash of beautiful white teeth. Everything was in perfect order, and almost immediately an attractive dinner was ready for them.
Hoodless professed astonishment and a touch of envy.
"You are well looked after, Dick," he said with a sigh, as he poured a glass of liqueur brandy after the meal.
"Saïs knows how to choose her servants," said Dick, relapsing into a comfortable cane chair on the little terrace to which the French window gave access. He lit a cigar, then lay back staring out into the starlit night over the river.
"Did you notice that neither Olympe nor Bina seemed surprised that Saïs did not return with us?" he asked presently.
Hoodless nodded.
"Oh, they know what has happened. Don't ask me how they know. But they do. Sometimes—not always—but sometimes news travels to this land as though the birds of the air bore it. I've no doubt Olympe knows exactly what to do, and how long to wait before asking you for news or instructions. May ask you for money, though," he added laughing. "But that will depend upon how much of her resources Saïs took with her into the desert."
Dick finished his coffee and stood up.
"And that reminds me, Crichton. There should be letters at the hotel here for us. Let's get over there and see."
Hoodless was more than willing, and they strolled across to the hotel.
"Well, Dick, it's good to get in touch with civilization again, but in a day or two I must get nearer to it still. After pleasure,"—he laughed dryly—"work. I shall get down to Cairo pretty soon. This country is going to move now, and I shall have to get in on the ground floor in some way or other."
"Plenty of time for that. And that arm of yours is not right yet. Stay on here for a time."
"A few days, perhaps," agreed Hoodless.
"Good man."
There was a bundle of letters for Dick at the hotel.
He took them and was running through them, glancing at the handwriting on the envelopes, when a lady approached the office.
Dick stood aside, looking up absently.
He caught his breath then.
It was Mrs. Lammarsh.
Their eyes met, and for a second there was a curious, taut silence. Then she came forward quickly.
"You!" she said. "But I heard that you had been captured by some raider."
He was thrilling at the touch of her cool, slender hand.
"You have escaped," she said. "That is splendid."
Her eyes played over his face with a certain unconcealed anxiety.
He, too, was looking keenly at her. The same thought occurred to both.
"She is as lovely as ever—lovelier—only she looks —tired a little," he told himself.
"Oh, but how ill he looks—worn out, and haggard," she was saying in her heart. "He has had a terrible time."
"Our trip was a failure—a failure from the very beginning," he said. A slow flush stole into his thin brown cheeks as he made one reservation. "Except for one thing—the trophy for you. I have it—a really fine leopard skin."
She smiled, with shining eyes.
"That! You remembered that—in all your troubles?"
"I remembered my promise—but it was only by chance that I was able to keep it," he confessed.
His hands were clenched tightly. She saw that and knew that he was quite unconscious of it. But it told her that his nerves had been badly shaken.
There was a queer silence of seconds.
Hoodless, by the office, was watching them closely. They seemed quite unaware of his presence and he did not desire to join them then. He whispered a few words to the hotel clerk and went quietly out.
Louise Lammarsh broke the silence with an effort.
"If you have dined, shall we have coffee together?" she said. "I have been so interested in your expedition from the first. And if you would care to tell me of it I should like so much to hear."
He accepted gratefully.
"If only you knew how I have been looking forward—I mean, hoped to have the great luck to be able to tell you—" he said impulsively, then stopped, remembering Hoodless.
"Why, we have forgotten Crichton; he's here, too."
He turned—to meet the hotel clerk, a glib Alsatian, who explained that Hoodless had gone back to the Villa Blanche to get the leopard skin and that he would return almost immediately.
"You are not staying at the hotel?" she asked, surprised, for at that period there was less accommodation at Luxor than to-day.
"No. I have—taken a small villa here. For a little—to rest," he said in a low strained tone, almost muttering. He did not shirk her gaze—rather, he sought it, but she saw with a curious poignant sense of shock that his eyes were full of unhappiness, wistfulness, or was it something akin to shame?
"A small villa—to rest quietly for a time," he said. "I planned to be here for some weeks!"
His hands gripped again.
"And you—is yours just a flying visit—with your people—to see the ruins?" he asked, still in that low, strange, half-reluctant voice.
Her wonderful eyes darkened suddenly, and a tinge of rose faintly misted the ivory of her cheeks. She did not answer at once. She stood before him, slim, beautiful, perfect. Her lids drooped a little, half-closing for an instant, as those of one suddenly thinking, concentrating intently on some elusive point.
Then she drew a long breath, and her lips parted.
"No. I am not here on a flying visit," she said softly. "And I am quite alone."
She realized that the clerk was staring greedily, and she half turned with a little low laugh.
"But how much better to gossip over coffee than to stand out here," she said quickly. "I came to see if there were any letters."
The clerk shook his head, and she moved away. Dick Marchurst went with her, rapt.
But her moment of emotion seemed to have ended. She had recovered all the tranquillity and perfect poise which, he remembered, at the Cairo hotel, had isolated her in beauty from the crowd with the cool and silken isolation of a fine pearl among a heap of harder, showier gems.
They found a quiet place and settled to their conversation.
"I suppose that it is quite a wonderful coincidence we should meet here like this—each with the same purpose, each in much the same frame of mind," she said. An exquisite, sweet gaiety seemed to have succeeded her tenser manner.
"Almost as if the Fates had paid us the honor of interesting themselves actively in our movements."
She leaned to him, half closing her eyes in that little alluring, unconscious trick of hers.
"You see, Mr. Marchurst, I too have had a good deal of—trouble. Oh, yes, it is possible even for a young American woman, traveling with all the circumstance of plentiful means, apparently without a care in the world, to have her secret troubles.... I came here to rest in idleness. You did that, too. Shall we help each other? There is nothing to do in Luxor, you know—but much to see."
His eyes were burning.
"You are so charitable.... I hardly realize my great luck. To find you willing, agreeable to let me be with you like that sometimes," he said, with a curious humility that puzzled her a little. She had met a good many English boys at various times, but never before one who, with all the advantages of this one, yet seemed so humble.
She knew that he had suffered during his big game trip, that he had returned tired, with his nerves shaken; she knew instinctively that he was in thrall, or very ready to become so, to her beauty; she had heard some vague, sketchy story of a notorious dancing girl who was or had been wildly in love with him; but none of these things accounted completely for the almost passionate gratitude with which she greeted what he called her "charity."
But she liked him none the less for that. She had always admired him. Attracted by his personal beauty in the first place, she had been held by a certain winning simplicity of heart that was something more than boyishness which she had sensed in him.
And, young though she was, her married life had not been of the kind which left her unsophisticated or ignorant of the world of men. Rather it had been the other way about. Her husband had never been the type of man to screen away from the gaze of the envious or curious a beautiful wife. As, at home in New York, he had loved to show his really fine horses, his motors, his house, so he had never hesitated to parade his wife—at any rate, while she had been a novelty.
She attached no serious importance to the nebulous hotel gossip about the dancing girl. Probably it was mainly fiction with a minute grain of truth in it—no more.
She smiled across at him, conscious that few women of her acquaintance would be slow to accept the homage of this handsome heir to the Lissmere peerage.
"Well, we have agreed on that," she smiled. "To be companions for our little time here."
"That's a compact—" he said. "A one-sided one, though, for I gain everything!"
"I wonder—" she said, her eyes half closed.
She turned with a little start as a voice spoke beside her—that of Hoodless, who had returned.
"I could not resist going to get the trophy," he said eagerly, and put the big bundle on a chair.
He bent over her hand, acknowledging her welcome.
"All the more so because I am leaving for Cairo to-morrow—there were letters for me, too, Dick—and I was anxious to be here while the story of the trophy was told. Dick would burke half the story; he is modest, you see, Mrs. Lammarsh, and probably would omit the fact that among other things he snatched my life from under the talons of one of the leopards!"
He spoke gaily. Dick saw that he was in extremely good spirits and decided, with a little thrill of sympathetic pleasure, that old Crichton had received good news in his mail. It was impossible that he should know that the adventurer's high spirits, like his own, were caused by the discovery that Louise Lammarsh was staying at Luxor—alone. It had been of the essence of the adventurer's plan to throw his comrade and Mrs. Lammarsh together at the earliest possible moment, and to find this done for him by a benign fate within an hour or so of their return had given Hoodless an extraordinary sense of elation, confidence and success.
He unrolled the spotted skin on the floor beside the table at which they sat.
"The finest I have ever seen! Do you like it, Mrs. Lammarsh?"
"Oh, but indeed I do—it is magnificent!"
"Dick must tell you the story of how he got it. It was quite exciting enough, I assure you—both the taking and the safeguarding of it. It nearly cost me this stiff clumsy arm of mine, among other things."
Dick rose and began to roll it up.
"Sit down, Crichton," he said. "I'd forgotten your arm.... Of course, this skin is not properly cured yet. I will send it down to Cairo and have it completed for Mrs. Lammarsh," he said, on his knees over the rosetted hide.
"I'll take it, Dick," offered Hoodless. "I'm going down to-morrow—a great business opportunity I must not miss. You must take your holiday here alone, after all. You will have to try hard to persuade Mrs. Lammarsh to take pity on you and spare you a little of her company, Dick!"
He spoke with an air of lightness, laughed and lit a cigarette.
From behind the thin blue cloud he saw; their eyes meet—and he was satisfied.
"I only wanted to confide in you this trouble, that my husband has wearied of me, I think, and has left me, and I am lonely."
Louise Lammarsh.
BUT it was for no more than a few hours that Dick Marchurst held to the belief that here at Luxor with Louise Lammarsh he was to be undisturbedly happy.
At first, in the keen, even poignant, flaming-up into which this unexpected meeting had fanned his spirit, he had felt like a tired man suddenly revitalized by an unlooked-for stimulant.
But, later, lying wakeful in the bedroom which the smiling, silent Olympe had prepared perfectly for him, he knew that the flame within him was wavering, flickering low, dying down.
Staring into the darkness, wide-eyed, his strung nerves like taut wires, he faced the facts.
En route to this place, across the arid wastes of the Kordofan desert, he had given free rein to the fancies of a man made reckless by nostalgia. He had traveled to Luxor in something of the frame of mind into which long absence from his normal life may drive a soldier returning from war, with every fine emotion as well as every fierce appetite questing like eager hounds far ahead of him. Nevertheless, his dreams had been shadowy and unreal, neither stable, clear-cut nor consistent.
He spoke the truth aloud in the darkness as it came to him.
"I never really believed I should ever see her again.... And now she is here. Alone and willing to be my friend, to give me her company. And there was a strange look—mystery—in her eyes as she told me so."
His mind swerved back to Cairo, or Alexandria, where he believed her husband, Charles Lammarsh, pursued the completion of his business concerns, and from whence, no doubt, he would soon set out to join her.
It was just a chance, a bit of wild luck, that she happened to be at Luxor at all, he told himself. She had not said why she was there alone, but no doubt she would tell him—if she thought it mattered.
And, at least, they might achieve a sort of happiness—a mirage of happiness.
They would see the ruins together, talk a little, buy a few curios in company, see some sunsets, perhaps idle away some hours on the river—and then she would go away to rejoin her husband.
Nothing more than that.
"It never could have been more than that," said Marchurst to the darkness. "Either for her with a husband, relatives, a life to live, a reputation in New York. Or for me—owing Saïs what I owe her.... Only, she is so beautiful and sweet. I believe I have dreamed of just such a woman as Louise Lammarsh all my life."
He felt as old as that sounded.
"Cool, pale, lovely—poised. But there is a hint of passion behind her ivory chill!"
He realized with a sense of shock that his hands were clenched so tightly that a little stiff pain was suggesting itself in his fingers.
"I am a waster—no, a Marchurst—weak, weak, that's what is wrong with me. Tied to Saïs as tightly—if gratitude means anything to me—as Louise is to Charles Lammarsh!... And I love her. Love her? Do I? God, do I love anybody but myself? I wish I were older. Lying here, brooding—old Crichton wouldn't brood. He'd laugh. Practical, experienced old Hoodless.... I tell myself I love Louise Lammarsh—but if that door swung back and Saïs came gliding in, the light behind her, speaking low in that pretty, broken English of hers... yes, I am a waster, no good...."
He slid suddenly from the bed and went in to Hoodless.
"Sorry, Crichton—were you asleep? Old man, I'm jumpy. Give me a couple of those damned little tablets we used to take out there. I—I can't sleep, old man."
Hoodless made a light and looked at him. His face was still white and haggard. The adventurer nodded.
"That's all right, Dick," he said soothingly. "What's worrying you? This is just—reaction. Nothing. Reaction. Here you are."
Dick took the tablets.
"What pals these little specks of stuff can be to a man, eh, Crichton?" he said, smiled and nodded at the other's reminder that they were dangerously fickle "pals," and went back to his room to forget Louise Lammarsh and Saïs in deep sleep.
But soon he was to learn that much of his partially self-inflicted torment was without cause.
Hoodless went on to Cairo the following day, promising to return after he had attended to certain personal matters he wished to arrange.
Then Marchurst turned eagerly to Louise Lammarsh, and such happiness as he might find in her company....
The days flew swiftly for them—strange, dreamlike days for Dick Marchurst, days of double dawn, in which sun dawn was vaguely incomplete for him until Louise Lammarsh, too, had appeared.
They were together very much, for whole days even, recklessly careless of the opinion of the increasing number of visitors to the hotel.
But had an acquaintance—Hoodless, for instance, running up the river from Cairo on a brief visit—asked Dick if he were at last happy again, he would have been puzzled to answer. There were moods in which he would have said "Yes" without hesitation, but there were other moods and moments in which he would have said "No," and even more when he could only have answered that he did not know.
But it was not happiness that lit their way; it was a species of feverish expectancy, far from the tranquil friendship of which Marchurst had dreamed.
And it was evident to him, prone to satisfy himself with superficial appearances though he was, that Louise Lammarsh was not happy. There was an inexplicable and elusive air of waiting ever investing her.
But nevertheless he often found it possible to win her away from that brink of desperation to which she ever seemed so near.
There were rides that were a joy from beginning to end, absurd, delightfully intimate picnics out and away from the little town, long expeditions and wanderings among the ruins of Thebes. Karnak they saw together, marveling, but their amazement was not so complete, nor their wonder so overwhelming, that those mighty ruins were able to render either for one moment forgetful of the other. Certainly that was so with Dick Marchurst. Without her these terrific relics of the ages that had striven so desperately to leave an indelible and eternal impression on time itself would have wearied, oppressed and bored him after the first involuntary thrill. But he could endure them with her.
And she wished to see all. She was like one who must see everything, who must never lose interest in that before her eyes lest she should turn her head and look at the past. So they became familiar with many old things—courts and columns of ancient kings, queens and priests, their tombs, temples, sanctuaries, pavilions, obelisks, terraces, statues, shrines and inscriptions, all falling slowly, slowly to ruin; so many and so much that it was useless to attempt to remember a fraction of what they saw. On both sides of the river they made their expeditions, saw their sights, and in the end she seemed to weary suddenly of it all.
"That is the end of dead things for me," she said. "I am coming back to the present and to those who live. I wanted to do that, to see all those things; but I think that all they have taught is that everything passes. It comes into being, exists for a little, and then ceases to exist.... It passes.... Let us forget that as well as we can now, and come back to the world we know, and in which we have to live."
This was on an evening when, tired after a long day, they had dined together at the hotel and now were sitting in a quiet, partly screened corner of the hall. They had taken their coffee there.
"I am glad you have had enough of the ruins and tombs and cemeteries," said Dick frankly. "If you had not been with me they would have got on my nerves long ago. As it is, I was never so interested in that sort of thing in my life before," he added with naive haste.
"Of course, I don't pretend to understand all the mystery and marvelousness that people talk about in connexion with these ruins, but that's my fault and my loss. I am only an ordinary, average person, and not very imaginative. But even fellows like me have their marvels."
"What are your marvels, Dick?" she asked. Long before she had slipped into the habit of using his Christian name.
"Well, it has always seemed really marvelous to me that you should have felt interested enough in us two men, strangers, drifting through Cairo on the way to shoot, to ask about it and to wish us good luck. I could see that you were sincere, that you meant it. I have never forgotten that good wish," he told her.
She smiled a little at the boyish simplicity of that. The sheer youth of him was always cropping up, shining like veins of gold in dark earth. But her smile was touched with sadness, for his boyishness made her feel old. In actual years she was a little younger than he, but even as much of his spirit was older than his years justified, so, she felt, was the whole of hers. She had been able to escape that feeling now and then in the past few weeks, but it was always recurring.
He read something of that in her smile.
"Does that sound insincere to you?" he asked.
"Oh, no, no," she said, adding quickly: "I know the difference between sincerity and insincerity too well ever to mistake again the one for the other.... You could not be insincere.... Perhaps it is because I have had to learn so much about insincerity that I feel so old—so old!"
He stared for a moment. She had dressed that evening very carefully, and she had long lost the look of weariness which he had noticed when he first arrived at Luxor.
"No, not like that. I don't look old, of course—I hope not. But in my spirit. That is—was—so old. You see, I was married at eighteen. My husband was a wealthy man in a 'live' circle, and I was precipitated into that circle also. And after a little while my husband, intent on other interests, left me to fend for myself. Oh, not openly, of course. I was still the mistress of his house; we were ostensibly on good terms, and on ceremonious occasions that fact would be solemnly paraded to the view of the world. I don't think that at first he meant to leave me lonely at heart, but he needed all his consistency for his business—financial business that was a sort of fierce, daily warfare. After business was over he would relax, and seek pleasure. It was, I think, a kind of passion, a desperate and anxious need to get what he felt was value for the huge sums of money he used to earn—or rather, recompense for the hard work and time he sacrificed in making those sums!" She paused a moment, frowning over her thoughts.
"Perhaps it was not noticeable to others, but to me, who knew him, his anxiety to get everything the money he toiled to earn could buy him seemed to be exactly in the spirit of 'eat, drink and be merry, for to-morrow we die.'"
Now she seemed to be talking more to herself than to Marchhurst—like one who repeats old, well-tried and tested conclusions.
"There are so many men like that, all the world over, I suppose, but most of all in New York. Men become so rich there, some of them, and so many are driven by their desire to have everything that rich men can buy. Mostly they have been poor, and because they have not been trained from childhood to the idea and uses of wealth it is impossible for a great many of them to remain faithful to their simple, single possessions for fear they are losing something, missing something!"
She laughed a little bitterly.
"'One auto for me? I, who have made millions?' he asks himself subconsciously. 'Ridiculous. Almost anybody can have one. I must have more, or how am I richer than everybody else?'
"Or, 'One house, one horse, one hound, one wife...'"
Her eyes dilated.
"One wife!" she repeated. "Yes, it is inevitable that a certain type of rich man should feel that—first subconsciously, then consciously! But not all, no, not all men. Yet many!"
A sudden thought checked her.
"Please do not think that I pretend to have thought all that out wholly for myself. I was told that by a clever woman, long ago—so long ago, it seems; but since then I have lived through it and I know that it is true."
She looked at him gravely. "Do you think it is true?" she asked. He answered that it was true, that he could understand it being true in the case of many men. She nodded.
"It is true in the case of my husband," she said in a peculiar and toneless voice.
"And it is because it has been true in his case for nearly four years that I am here, alone, at this hotel in Egypt to-night," she went on calmly.
"You mean—" he began, then paused awkwardly, his eyes intent on that pale, beautiful face before him.
"That my husband has been one of those men almost from the day of our marriage.... That is very frank; perhaps you are thinking that it is a most indiscreet thing to say. But I have a good reason for saying it to you. Be patient with me for a little. It is not just a—a seeking for sympathy, you know. I have found it very difficult to decide on confiding in you, but I have decided, and I am very glad of that. I had to confide in some one, you see; things have reached that stage with me. I have friends in Cairo-older, graver, perhaps even kindlier people than you—in whom I could have confided, and who would have comforted me in my trouble—for I have a great trouble, as you will see presently—but I could not confide in them—at least, not as I can in you!... Listen; the reason I came to Luxor was because I hoped to meet you here. I had gleaned that you might be heard of here. I know now that it was the merest stroke of luck that I was right. It was you in whom I wanted to confide—you!"
She leaned towards him, clasping her slender hands tightly.
"That was so strange, I think. I only knew you as an English boy with gray-blue eyes, just passing through Cairo on your way to the desert to shoot lions. I had only spoken to you once, and I knew that I could not hope to find you so serious minded and so experienced as my friends—I said to myself that no doubt you could not even give me advice that was valuable—but I knew that you could give me the sympathy I wanted."
She paused a moment, her eyes shining.
"Dear Mrs. Lammarsh, I would do anything," he began with very obvious, if awkward, sincerity.
"I know, I know; that is why I came to Luxor to find you, to tell you. I have wondered why for days, for days. What is there about you that drew me here? It was not just because you are young, happy, good-looking, brave. I have older friends who are all those things. Why, in all Egypt, or Europe, should you be the one person in whom I desired to confide the trouble of which I shall tell you soon? I have racked my brains, puzzled, been very frank with myself. I do not know. I do not think I am in love with you—my experience has made me mistrustful of love!... It is destiny. There is a reason, a deep reason; I am sure of that. It means something.... But we shall come to that again, if you can endure to listen long enough to the bewilderments of an unhappy woman."
He made a gesture that meant he would listen forever.
"I wanted—no, I think it would be truer to say that I was driven, impelled—to come to you in order to confide in you a disaster concerning which you are powerless to help me. That is the irony of it all." She paused again, and the wonderful ivory complexion flushed faintly pink.
"For I only wanted to confide in you this trouble, that my husband has wearied of me, I think, and has left me, and I am lonely," she said in a voice so low that is was little more than a whisper with a hint of tears behind it.
The color had ebbed from her face as quickly as it had risen, and now she was very pale. Against the whiteness of her cheeks her eyes looked larger and darker than usual.
"That is what I have wished to tell you," she went on. "No, please don't speak—don't say anything yet. I wish to be clearer than I have been before you say anything at all. I want to go over it all again, only giving you facts this time and not troubling about causes. I was influenced into marrying at eighteen a rich man who was a roué, and who within a month or two of our marriage no longer troubled to hide his character from me. He let me see quite plainly that he had needed me to complete, to round off, what he called his position—just as he had required a town house. That was four years ago, not very happy years for me, I assure you. Years that were full of troubles—which I kept to myself. But now I think those troubles are over, though I feel—I am afraid there will be new ones. During the past four years my husband has progressed from the point of what he once called loving me to the point of hating me. 'My white, frozen, tragic face,' he called it. I—I suppose I was frozen to him, but I tried very hard that it should not be suspected by people outside one's home. Little by little it has grown worse. He was immensely daring and fortunate in his business, and as his wealth increased so did his queer fury to 'enjoy' it. For a long time now we have been almost strangers. But this trip to Egypt was the end. I should not have come with him at all had it not been for my cousin, Mona, my friend. We wandered over half Europe—stopping in many places—before we came here. But I hardly ever saw him, he was busy re-visiting old friends, renewing old acquaintances, old liaisons. Often Mona and I have given out as a reason for his strange absences that he has gone to another place on urgent business when we have not had the least idea as to where he was. He has deteriorated rapidly on this trip from America, and we believe that as a result of his excesses he was no more than just within the border line of sanity when we came to Egypt. He left us the day after we reached Cairo and he has never returned. And I have an instinct, no, a strange and certain knowledge, that he does not intend to return. Before we left America he gave up active interest in business and made financial arrangements assuring him his huge income. And he knows that I am well provided for. He means to 'enjoy' Europe, regardless of the past, of reputation, of everything but the desires and plans of a rich man on the very borderland of sanity. Mona his cousin, who knows him even better than I, says that too. And so I am left, old in spirit, at twenty-two, to make the best of a life that was inaugurated with four ruined and terrible years. He has gone, and I know in my heart he will never return. There are those who will say I have failed as a wife to him. But there are those, too, who know that I have done my very best. Only I can do no more. I should have been ill if I had stayed in Cairo while Mona and some of our friends and advisers were trying to get in touch with him. It was said that he has been seen at Monte Carlo. So Mona and an American lawyer, a New York friend we met in Cairo, quite by chance, went to Europe to try to see him and arrange that he should agree to a conventional and legal and orderly separation from me. But I could not endure either to wait in Cairo for them to return or to accompany them, and while I was thinking it over as carefully as I could, you came into my mind and that strange longing to confide in you which I do not understand yet but which, I know, in some mysterious way has a deep meaning. So, because I could not endure Cairo any more, because I wanted for a little to be alone, and because I hoped, after a time, I might meet you here, I came to Luxor."
She paused, thinking for a moment, but before he could speak she continued in a different tone:
"And no matter what may happen, no master what it all means, if it means anything at all, I shall always be glad I came, grateful for the instinct which sent me here, for at least I have sometimes been happy here. I have had more real happiness here in the past few weeks than in the whole of the last four years. And I owe that to you. Because you are only a boy at heart you have been able to make me feel young again, too—a girl. At those picnics—riding—idling. Ah, it has been wonderful for me, Dick."
Her eyes were misty, but she was smiling a little now.
He spoke impulsively.
"But that is how it has been for me," he said in a low urgent voice. "I, too, I came here unhappy, worn, half hoping against hope that I might see you, and I did see you, and I have had a great deal of happiness too. It is wonderful. We have been lucky, really, we two."
"I think it was something different from luck, Dick," she said. "It seems to me that it was destined that we should come together—that we have been, that we still are, moving blindly—no, being moved like pawns, chessmen,—by an unseen hand."
He nodded carelessly, gaily. He was not of the type to study the inscrutable countenance, or ponder the unguessable plans, of Destiny.
"What does it matter why?" he said. "Let us be happy while we can. We are doing no harm."
There was no thought in his mind then of that one who had died at his hands in the Cairo house of Saïs, nor did it occur to him to connect the missing dissolute husband of the beautiful woman before him with that nameless stranger whom the dancing girl had contemptuously called a Turk and hashish slave and so disposed of.
For, as they smiled at last to each other, he had forgotten, for a little, even Saïs.
Yet, if ever the wraith of one dead came back to warn or benefit any that still lived in this world, the shade of Charles Lammarsh might have made itself manifest then, in warning or compassion, to the wife he had misused, and to the man at whose hands he had suffered in that silent, Secret house in Cairo.
But there was neither warning nor premonition.
"We are doing no harm," they said, smiling, and that was true. They were young, and in tune, even to the extent of sharing a vague and pleasant feeling that this was, in its lighter hours, a truant's holiday and that they must enjoy it while they were able.
He leaned closer, and began to tell her how sorry he was, and of how it had hurt him to listen to those parts of her story which had to do with her suffering—even as a little boy may comfort a little girl who has ventured too near the fire and so scorched a finger.
He had forgotten the ugly things in his own life for a moment, he was very much in earnest, and she was longing for just such comforting.
She had said that she was not in love with him and that may have been true. Certainly she had believed it to be true when she said it—but she would have said it less confidently when, presently, they parted.
It was otherwise with Marchurst.
Walking slowly through the sharp moonlight towards the Villa Blanche he was trying to face the fact that he loved her, that she was exactly the woman he would like to make his wife.
He had learned much since the time, not so long ago, when he had almost quarreled with Hoodless because of the adventurer's frank amazement that he, Dick, could for an instant contemplate Saïs as a possible wife, and, before ever he met Louise Lammarsh, before ever he listened to the earnest, sincere and well-meant advice of that old colonel at El Obeid, he had known in his heart that he would never marry Saïs. It may have been because of this certain knowledge or conviction that, as he walked slowly towards the little house which even now he was maintaining for the dancing girl, no thought of Saïs, away in the deep desert, wholly at the mercy and disposal of that vicious-souled outlaw the Red Emir, was in his mind—not one thought.
He had come away from the hotel, not only in love with Louise Lammarsh, but with a dawning belief that she returned it, and, in addition to that belief, he felt a glimmer of hope that some day she would be free, legally, morally, in every sense, to return it.
She would be Lady Lissmere. For the first time he was aware of a keen anticipatory pleasure in the prospect of inheriting the title, revenues and estates, not for himself, but because Louise could not fail to enjoy the position, and, better still, to grace it.
Beautiful as she was, traveled, well-bred, she would be perfect.... They had been intermittently happy there at Luxor, but they could look for a finer, sounder, more balanced and permanent happiness at home—at Lissmere....
Thrilling, he threw away his half-smoked cigar and stepped into the villa.
There was a light in the little drawing-room, he saw, and the door was ajar. He went in, his mind full of Louise Lammarsh, of her pale beauty, its faint, far hint of secret passion, to find himself face to face with Saïs!
Saïs, dark and beautiful as the moonlit night, with shining eyes, awaiting him. She said nothing but glided across to him, with a little, low alluring laugh, her arms wide. She had evidently intended to surprise him, and must have reached the villa some time before, for she had bathed after the journey, and had spent a long time preparing for his return. Never had she looked so lovely. The fragrance of her hair, of the rare, vaguely sweet scent she always used, struck upon his brain with a curious hypnotic effect that sapped his will almost instantly.
"I have come back to you, Dick—out of the deserts, out of the mirages, out of the dangers," she said. "Are you surprised? Are you glad? It is I—Saïs!"
Her bare arms slid over his shoulders, her face drew near. Under the thin, embroidered silk wrap which she had slipped on—a beautiful thing of gold and white and scarlet and vivid blue—he felt her soft warm body, the beating of her heart as she clung close, close—the dizzy scent of her wonderful hair was sweet, almost stupefying.
"Kiss me—are you glad to see me, Dick? Kiss me." Her whisper would have melted almost any man and inevitably a Marchurst, and a tenuous little voice of warning that rose, like a thin far-off cry in his soul, died away instantly.
"Saïs! You! I—did not know!" Almost blindly he sought her red lips, murmuring.
"But at the end of ten days he trusted me enough to drink from a cup which for one second had been within my reach."
Saïs.
SAÏS told him the tale of her adventure from the time she rode into the remoter levels of the desert with the Red Emir until her return, late that night, long past midnight.
If Marchurst had been more experienced in the ways of such women as Saïs, he might have marked a certain vague evasiveness, a reticence of tone rather than of words, as she poured out the story. But men are not critical at midnight, and here, in this Luxor villa, poised as it were between the ancient river and the breathless Arabian desert, enwrapped in the deep, silver-blue Egyptian night, Dick Marchurst was so little in the vein for a close scrutiny or keen consideration of the story of Saïs that he was far from observing that the narrative was blurred, loose, disjointed.
Had he really loved this beautiful woman who, with many caresses, poured out her story to him throughout a full hour, he might have found anxious, even jealous, reason to question her more closely on many points. But it did not occur to him to question one thing, one act, of the many of which she spoke. He let her talk, listening almost idly, satisfied that she was there, not less beautiful than before, quite obviously content, talking in her curious, clipped, incomplete English, with occasional lapses into French.
She had never reached the distant oasis of the Red Emir.
"That was good fortune for you and for me," she said significantly. "I should not have escaped easily from that place, Dick."
From that fierce moment when her poniard had snapped against the secret chain mail of the Emir—probably some priceless relic of the ancient craft of the Oriental armorers—she had pinned her faith to her wits, her beauty, her ring, and the cupidity of that black survival of Omdurman, El Addar.
By her beauty she intended to lull the alert wolf-wits of the Red Emir into a mood of placid confidence that she was resigned, submissive, even to be won voluntarily; with the contents of her ring, a great, hollow jewel of ancient gold, set with a green diamond, she hoped to kill him; and with the aid of the dead Khalifa's executioner, now definitely one of the band, she trusted to evade the Arabs and procure riding camels for the dash back to civilization.
True to the ancient principles of her craft she punctuated her story with wine and caresses, and he accepted it even as she told it.
"It was in anger because he denied me seeing you that I tried to kill him at the camp—and that was not wise, Dick. He was not more afraid—he is never afraid, that one—but he was more wary. If I had given him a kiss instead of a dagger I would have been free of him in one day instead of ten days."
Her great, slanting eyes narrowed suddenly and her lips hardened.
"For ten days I was at the mercy of that merciless one," she said, watching his face, then went on swiftly:
"But at the end of ten days he trusted me enough to drink from a cup which for one second had been within my reach."
She slid off the great ring and held it up to him.
"There was a djinn who dwelt in my ring," she said, laughing. "And his name was Death. Only I could not spare the whole of the drug for the Emir, for El Addar had need of most—for the guards.... Two or three grains went for the Emir's coffee, the rest went to the Abyssinian. That was when we were but one day's journey from the oasis. They had not drunk water for two days. But on this day they finished the last of their water which they had kept. And El Addar had used the rest of my drug in that water. What is enough to kill one man was only enough to drug fifty for a few hours. So they slept. Perhaps some of them died, I do not know. Perhaps the Emir never awoke. That also I do not know. But when they were asleep, like white bundles, like dead men, in the moonlight, the negro and I took the four fastest camels and the Emir's own waterskin—full, for he would permit one of his men to die of thirst before he denied himself water in which to wash—and came away across the desert, to Khartoum. El Addar is there. There is a hundred English pounds to pay that one, Dick, and I am here."
She rose from the big, broad couch upon which she had been curled and stretched luxuriously.
"And I am here," she said again. "Have I done well, Dick?"
He watched her.
In spite of his present mental laxity he knew that she had achieved an amazing escape, but he was in no frame of mind to attempt to visualize the processes of that escape. She had returned unharmed, and he was content to let the rest go—he did not desire to picture, for example, the ride from the camp into the glare of the desert, the swift motion of the dromedary, the pad and shuffle of the camels of the white clad, hooded band pressing like ghosts behind.
Nor the halts at the midday heats, the quickly flung-up tent for Saïs and the Red Emir, rising in the desolation like some curious bloom flowering from the sands; the strange and sinister wooings of the narrowed-faced, hard-eyed renegade, and the even stranger, even more sinister responses of his beautiful but dangerous captive—luring him, encharming him, tightening daily her cords about his wild, ferocious spirit, cords soft as silk but strong as a strangler's noose; of the swift, cunningly snatched conferences or conspirings with the gigantic and crafty Abyssinian on fire with greed and wolf-witted with fear.
Strange, lurid pictures, almost impossible for the mind of one habituated to an English environment to visualize, yet almost if not entirely natural, when set in that blanched and arid region of desolation, lying side by side with the unquenchable Sudan, the grave of innumerable victims, which in its turn lay side by side with Egypt—with Egypt, the lion-hued land of tombs and ruins, and the dust of myriads upon myriads of slaves and freemen, priests, princes and queens, soldiers, harlots, beggars and kings.
A man of imagination might have encouraged, even urged this lovely daughter of the East to tell more, to tell all—and so have heard a stranger tale than that which she told Marchurst; or have seen more pictures, even more sinister scenes than those of which she spoke.
"Coffee which for one second had been within my reach!" Saïs had said, implying without a change of expression the stealthy reaching-out of a bare, beautiful arm, a slender hand, to drop a few grains of some poisonous drug into the coffee which the white tyrant of the oasis would not deny himself, even upon his raids....
"There was a djinn within my ring... his name was Death... and El Addar had used the rest in the last full water-skin!" Another picture in that chain of pictures—the black crouching in the shadows, among the sleeping Arabs, his eyes darting about him, his skin crawling with apprehension, stealing inch by painful inch nearer to the skin of water which he must drug.
And lastly the flight on the ever-enduring, highly-bred dromedaries from that camp of silent figures huddled in stupor about the tent of their leader. "Perhaps some of them died—I do not know," Saïs had said, shrugging her curved, ivory shoulders indifferently....
"Have I done well, Dick?" she asked again.
"It was a miracle, Saïs," swore Marchurst.
She laughed, giving a curious gesture as of one who softly snaps finger and thumb, then filled two glasses with champagne.
"We shall have a long holiday—here at Luxor, eh, Dick?" she cried, and gently clinked her glass against his.
She placed the empty glasses upon a tray, put all upon a little table outside, closed the door, and came back.
For a little she gazed intently at her face in the mirror, then turned, smiling.
"I am not ugly yet—in spite of all that," she said.
Then, suddenly, she yawned, and a look of extraordinary fatigue dimmed her. The shadows under her great eyes seemed to deepen almost to jet black.
"And now I am tired—weary," she said, in a low, hushed voice, slurring her words a little. "I have ridden so far in all these last weeks—hundreds upon hundreds—a thousand miles—upon the ships of the desert—white dromedaries, eh? Oh, Dick...."
She settled herself upon her bed, with a long-drawn sigh, like a tired child, her eyes closing in instant sleep, as her cheek touched the pillow.
"White dromedaries—to save Dick—and Creeton—ten thousand miles—one million miles—forever.... Oh, I shall be blinded, by this sand, this sun... and aching.... Beat them, negro—so... with the rifle. We shall be too late.... Again, black animal.... Oh—I die.... I cannot ride more.... I cannot.... It is to ride in furnace-fires.... Beat them...."
Asleep almost before she had lain down, Saïs was dreaming of her ride out to the camp of the Red Emir, in that furious, merciless race against those trained and disciplined riders of the Soudanese Camel Corps, to save Dick Marchurst from the impalement stakes of the Arab raiders.
Awake, she had hidden well her fatigue, or, perhaps, in the triumph and passion of her return to Marchurst she had forgotten it.
But it came back to her in her sleep.
"To ride—so—forever—I cannot," she moaned, then began to whisper, as the scene changed.
"El Addar—El Addar! Have they drunk of the water?... They are like dead men lying in the moonlight.... Quick—quick! The dromedaries—the dromedaries. By the stars, negro? How is that?... We go to Khartoum—not yet to Paradise."... She laughed uncannily in her sleep. "By the stars, then, Abyssinian—by the stars—east—east—east—to Khartoum—to the Lord Marchurst—ride!"
She slept silently after that—save only for one word—murmured so low that Dick Marchurst, drowsy by her side, failed to catch it.
"Emir!" she said, very low and faint.
"I want Louise Lammarsh... and, God help me, there are days when I want Saïs, too!"
Dick Marchurst.
LONG before Saïs emerged from the strange deeps of the profound, almost lifeless sleep into which she had sunk after the first uneasy and troubled hour on the borderland, Marchurst had left her side, and was out, walking quickly in the dawn.
Careless, reluctant to think deeply as a weak man almost always is fated to be, nevertheless, he was aware that he was face to face with the need of a decision, a choice.
He must choose between the woman who had saved once his life and once his liberty—Saïs, the dancer—an Eastern dancer and all else which that implies, the woman of his senses, the high priestess of his passions, and Louise Lammarsh, the woman of his soul, even the ideal of his spirit.
"If only my debt had been to Louise instead of Saïs," he muttered, staring blankly before him. "Or if only Saïs were tired of me. I could leave her with a light heart.... But I have promised her this—this holiday—here—and she has earned it, God knows. What shall I do? If I throw up the villa, the holiday, Saïs—I should be almost any kind of ungrateful hound she cared to consider me. She could say: 'Your life—all-the rest of your life—is mine because I saved it. Because, but for me, but for my placing myself unarmed except by my own wits and secret weapons into the hands of, at the disposal of, that desert-wolf, the Red Emir, you would long ago have died horribly. I ask you for no more than a few months of that life. But give me three months—this holiday—this holiday long planned and promised. What are a few months of love and idleness to one like you—free, unbetrothed, adventurous. Give them to me!"
"Yes, she could say that—she would say it—and being what I am I should yield—agree. What else could I do? Or any broadminded man—any man not a fanatic? But if I do, I lose Louise Lammarsh....
"A priest would say of Saïs, 'Turn away from her. Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death—eh? And that might be true—Saïs has a magic—she is a witch. When I am with her the way to hell is not so bad—not so bad as it sounds....
"My old uncle, old Roger Marchurst, would say: 'It was bound to happen—get out of the morass if you can—you will pay your penalty for it sooner or later, in any case.'
"Old Crichton Hoodless would say: 'Be strategic—carry on, but send Saïs down to Cairo. Don't let her learn of Mrs. Lammarsh—and vice versa....'"
He dropped his half-smoked cigarette with a little gesture of bewilderment and indecision. It seemed to him that he could only think clumsily—disconnectedly—futilely.
"What the devil am I to do? I want Louise Lammarsh—and there is a glimmer of hope; I can't play the ingrate to Saïs, and, God help me, there are days when I want Saïs, too!"
A solution, keen as a blade, pierced his mind.
"Leave them both!... No. That's too grotesque." He laughed, a strained, dry, bitter laugh, entirely mirthless. "That is distinctly the sort of solution which would not appeal to any poor, damned Marchurst. To flee from two superb women like these.
"What would a saint do? Well, that's obvious enough. I can't do it. Very well. What would a blackguard do? Lose neither, if he could avoid it. Manoeuvre—be strategic—eh? But that's what old Hoodless would suggest. Hoodless!"
His brows knitted suddenly at this new idea that Hoodless might conceivably be a blackguard. But that was a side issue. He forgot it.
"What's the middle course?"
He thought desperately, confusedly.
"There is not one; it's a damned deadlock.... No! There's a way!"
He stopped in his stride abruptly, as a flower of hope bloomed marvelously in his mind.
"Go to a good woman, tell her everything openly, ask her what to do, do it at all costs.... Ah! Go to Louise herself!"
It was dazzling; certainly it dazzled him.
"She has suffered enough, too, and she is good. She wouldn't be a saint or a fanatic, surely, and she couldn't be a—a—whatever was the feminine of blackguard. Ah, but that was an idea. The key of the lock. Safe, sure, wise. To confess to her, to ask her advice. Yes, that was it. The thing was settled. No need to puzzle over the complexities of it any longer. Splendid. Splendid. He would do that."
He was due to lunch with her to-day, in any case. But he would go immediately after breakfast. Abide by her decision—a good woman who had known suffering. He laughed, lit a cigarette, and almost lighthearted again turned back to the villa.
The baksheesh-craving beggars and children that he met and passed on the way back gained generously from his boyish relief.
Saïs was still sleeping—sleeping. He went in and looked at her, hung over her for a little, wondering with a queer, faintly reckless pride at her beauty, then breakfasted alone.
"She is so tired—she has ridden so far," said the smiling Olympe with a tinge of apology in her low voice. "When she awakes she will be exquisite, she will be fond!"
Bina, the little Nubian maid, showed her white teeth, laughing, nodding. She was waiting with a curious collection of perfumed oils, spirits and such things to massage away the last effects of Saïs's physical weariness.
Marchurst lit a cigar and left the women to their sleights and mysteries.
He glanced at his watch, decided that it was too early yet to go to the hotel, and began to plan phrases in which to describe his dilemma to Louise Lammarsh.
Then, a few minutes later, Olympe, silent, self-possessed, still smiling her strange, secret smile, came to him with a white envelope bearing the mark of the hotel.
He opened it, to learn that his problem was solved —temporarily, at any rate.
Louise wrote hastily, a few lines only, to say that she was leaving at once for Cairo, en route to Nice. Her friend, Mona, and the lawyer had telegraphed from Nice that her presence was imperative there. A man, resembling Charles Lammarsh in some respects, had been taken from the sea. He was unrecognizable, but it was hoped that Louise could help settle the question of identity to the extent of saying whether this poor flotsam had been her husband.
Marchurst folded the letter and looked at Olympe.
"Has a steamer gone down the river this morning, Olympe?" he asked.
"While monsieur was walking before he breakfasted."
"Thank you, Olympe."
"Pas du tout, monsieur."
Olympe went into the house smiling.
Dick Marchurst stared across the gleaming water-levels of the river.
"Well, the gods have settled that for me," he said slowly, and gave an imperceptible shrug. "She will write again, though—she promises that. Meantime, I pay my debts, and, not to be hypocritical about it, and, further, being a Marchurst, I pay them willingly," he added, with a queer blend of relief, recklessness, excitement and a touch of self-contempt in his voice.
Olympe came to him again.
"Saïs is awake and desires monsieur to go to her," she said softly, and watched him go in, smiling her everlasting, enigmatic smile.
A gigantic negro came to her there, dressed in Arab clothes, carrying a Mannlicher rifle.
"I am El Addar, the servant of Saïs and of the Effendi Marchurst, reporting from Khartoum for service and rewards," he said sonorously in his queer jargon, and bestowed upon Olympe a military salute.
Unmoved, she scrutinized him.
"Wait," she said briefly.
El Addar settled down on the floor of the veranda, produced an oily rag and began to polish his speck-less rifle. There was about the erstwhile executioner of Omdurman an air of one who has come to a journey's end into a place of plenty and of rest.
From somewhere within the house floated the sound of a low laugh. The Abyssinian looked up, listening.
His thick, puffy lips widened in a smile. Then he yawned enormously, chuckled in, his throat, and patiently continued to polish his rifle.
One might say that the presence of this black, predacious wanderer halting thus with his air of homecoming and permanence came as the last token that it was indeed holiday eve at the Villa Blanche....
"You can no more give me love, but I may ask of you other things!"
Saïs.
THE "halcyon days" extended into weeks, and the weeks slipped into months. There were times when it seemed to Dick Marchurst that he had never lived any other life but this strange, dream-like, floating existence, that there had never been any other place than the edge of the desert and the river, any other woman in the world than Saïs, any other servants than Bina, Olympe, or the great negro El Addar.
They were so skilful, Saïs and her retinue, that it seemed they could manipulate even time itself, so that it ceased to exist for Marchurst—almost. But never quite, for there were hours when sudden revulsions would prey upon his spirit, and he would wander out alone, or lay wide-eyed, awake in the night, and wonder whether the life of the lotus-eater was worth while, and know that it was not.
At first these hours were rare, but they came with increasing frequency. The first had come with the promised letter from Louise Lammarsh. This, too, was brief, but promised a longer letter. The body of the man from the sea at Nile had not been that of Charles Lammarsh, but business and legal complications had arisen which made it necessary for Louise to go to America, and she had sailed. She spoke of returning some day to England.
That had set up for a little a nostalgia, a sudden sick hunger for home in Dick Marchurst's heart, but Saïs had divined his unease and had charmed it away.
She was extraordinarily clever and versatile, and could enchant him with many lures. She had a gift for story-telling, and a stock of stories from real life—her own amazing life—upon which to draw. She was imaginative, too, and familiar with secret things of Egyptian life of which the visitor has little opportunity to learn. With Saïs also Marchurst revisited parts of the ruins, and listened to her theories and fancies concerning past ages.
Her tone in these matters was very different from that of Louise. There was an odd, human effect of familiarity, of camaraderie, even of intimacy, in her attitude towards the vanished legions which had lived, loved, labored, lusted and died centuries before at these places, and she could speak of long-dead priests or kings, queens or courtesans, great soldiers or slaves, as though these had died only yesterday, and their acts and aims were still vivid in one's mind, even though Marchurst guessed that she was inventing almost all she said as she was speaking....
They, too, had their jaunts about the borders of the desert, and many idle days and little journeys on the Nile.
Hoodless came occasionally to see them, to stay for a day or so, gossiping, professing great envy for Dick, disappearing again to press on with the vague business with which he was concerned at Cairo.
"Well, you haven't regretted taking the—the well, broadminded way out, eh, Dick?" he would say.
"No," said Marchurst on the first occasion of his friend's comment.
"No, but—well, on the whole, no—" on the second occasion. "You know, Crichton, Saïs is wonderful...."
She was so wonderful that, save for those occasional hours of revulsion, she charmed him to the beginning of the hot weather without his ever thinking one serious thought of the future.
Then suddenly the secret flame of passion which had lighted or vitalized the dreamy days seemed to waver, pause and dwindle....
Long after, Marchurst, looking back at this period with seeing eyes and an honest mind, knew that this beginning of the end of the "halcyon days" had its source in a mutual wearying of each other that was not due to satiety but to the fact that the intimacy had never been without secret reservations on both sides. He had always expected, and, in a nebulous way, planned, to meet Louise Lammarsh again either in America or England.
But he had not known, nor did he know until months after, that, even in the secret places of Saïs's heart, the dancing girl, too, had her reservations from him. Perhaps Saïs herself was hardly conscious then that her passion for Marchurst was just short of complete....
It is certain that at the end of two months they came to the difficult point when a liaison ceases to be the effect of an impulse as natural and mutual and blind to convention as a mating of wild birds; when a touch of artificiality, a suspicion of effort, insinuates itself.
But they were spared the painful and debasing progress of the inevitable estrangement that develops from this fatal point, for it was at precisely this stage of their relations that a cable from England announced to Marchurst the death of Lord Lissmere, his own succession, and the urgency of his return.
It flashed into his mind that this was salvation; yet, illogically, he felt a pang as Saïs, who had been talking to El Addar, fresh from some mysterious business of Saïs in Khartoum, came in, laughing and lovely.
He told her at once, almost bluntly. "...So it is finished, Saïs. I am no longer a free man. There are duties," he concluded. "Ah!"
Her lids fell for a moment. "What of me, Dick?" He hesitated.
Her swift wits interpreted his hesitation instantly.
"You cast me off—throw me away!"
Her eyes blazed. There was no sign of weakness, for tears were not a weapon to which the dancing girl was prone to fly.
"I have known from the beginning that it would be thus. For all that I have done, the risks that I have taken, the things that I have suffered, I knew that in the end it would be like this. I know very well, I can see in your eyes, that you are glad—no, there is another word; what is it?—yes, relieved; that is it—you are relieved that you have to go back now to your rank, your high position, your great wealth, and your pale lady of New York."
That last startled him a little. Saïs had never mentioned Louise Lammarsh, and he had forgotten that she must long ago have heard from Olympe and doubtless others of his intimate friendship with Louise.
But Saïs had spoken quietly, and he saw with immense relief that she was going to take this abrupt ending of their holiday, of their relations, in a "reasonable" way. There would be neither furious anger nor hysterical reproach. She was looking at him with a curious, deep-seeing, almost calculating expression, and a little pang that was akin to pique touched him as it occurred to him that she could let him go without grieving deeply. Even the little spate of reproach with which she had received his announcement had been sardonic rather than violent.
It bruised his vanity a little as it came to him that Saïs did not care much—that she was almost indifferent to his going.
She sensed this queer, illogical dissatisfaction and smiled.
"I think you would be better pleased if I were to weep and make you a terrible scene," she said. "But that is not my way—I am Saïs!"
She made a graceful, lofty gesture that implied a shrug of the shoulders, even a snapping of finger and thumb, almost a complete indifference.
"You are deeply in my debt, Dick," she said. "But you may go. I understand you as well as any other woman ever will.... When you are settled in your position in your own country there will be time for you to consider your debt to me."
She shrugged openly.
"I shall do everything in my power to repay my debt, Saïs," he said.
"Yes, you will do that," she agreed. Her voice was as sweet as ever, but underlying the sweetness was a faint, steely edge of menace.
He stared at her. In spite of the curious, and, to him at least, novel position, the first and most insistent thought in his mind was still of her singular beauty. One could not escape the living, luring charm of it.... Even now, at the moment of leaving her forever, as he fully intended it to be, he could not blind himself to that. He knew as he looked at her that physically she would jewel any position in any country; and she had wit and keen intelligence and great courage. But that was the whole of her white side, and there was a dark side. He knew that she was wholly non-moral, in the sense that she was incapable of seriously attaching the least importance to a question either of morals or of honor, save only when it affected adversely or favorably her personal comfort or ends or desires.
But he was aware that there were many like that; one need not travel to Egypt to find them.
The dark side of Saïs was even more profound, more abysmal than her moral deadness implied. There was in her psychology a strange, black and remotely terrifying capacity for intricate and fantastic sin. He had sensed at times a secret unholiness. It had flashed out once or twice, like the sudden flicker of the forked tongue of a serpent, indescribably sinister and appalling. It was wholly of the East, of Egypt, this land of violated tombs and desecrated temples; something vague, vile and utterly foreign.
It was almost entirely a matter of instinct with Marchurst, and he had never cared to ponder it, to acknowledge it. But now he was glad secretly to remember it, to add it as new steel to his will....
It enabled him to shatter the spell of her beauty. He reechoed her words.
"Yes, I shall do that, Saïs." The definite decision imparted a certain flatness, a deadness, into his tone, and she recognized that her purely personal spell over him was indeed ended. She had lost her power of invincible appeal to his senses now, and she knew it.
She waited a second, then laughed.
"Let it be so, Dick. It is over," she said slowly, and then as suddenly as it had invested her that air of secret menace left her.
"Kiss me, Dick. It will be quite safe. I cannot enslave you any more. I have lost my power; you have escaped from me, eh?" Her low laugh was sweet and with a timber of mischief now—almost the innocent mischief of a child.
"You know, Dick, I have been very good, modest, not extravagant, all these past weeks. Now, soon, I travel a little—to Europe. That will cost you such a lot of your new money. You do not mind that, eh? You can no more give me love, but I may ask you other things, yes? Kiss me, then; we shall be good friends. It is not necessary to be enemies because we love no more as we used to...."
So they ended the "holiday."
Marchurst was too relieved at what he regarded as the "good sense" of Saïs to dream that the easy acceptance of the break which showed so gaily in her eyes was not reflected in her heart. Nor in his excited mood did he observe that the silent Olympe no longer smiled; that the Nubian girl, Bina, seemed to shrink a little from her mistress, watching her incessantly; or, even more ominous, that the giant Abyssinian free-lance went about his duties more softly and circumspectly in Saïs's presence than ever before. But Marchurst was not of the East, as were these, and, unlike them, he could not guess at the chill and implacable fury poised, balanced and perfectly controlled, in the deep heart of Saïs. Nor, in the brief time which he remained at the Villa Blanche, was he allowed to suspect that the white side of Saïs's nature had dreamed of accompanying him to share openly, as his wife, the "glories" to which he went, and had suffered a disappointment that her dark side would avenge....
On the following day he went down the river.
El Addar went with him to Cairo, and at Cairo was paid off with a liberality which startled that black adventurer into one of his rarest impulses—an impulse of generosity and kindliness—so that to his profuse thanks he added a word of warning.
"When next my lord desires adventure let him not seek it in Cairo not at the house of Saïs"—he glanced over his shoulder and dropped his voice to a harsh whisper—"the house of Saïs, which to him will ever be a house of danger and maybe of death!"
He stepped back and most elaborately saluted, turned and strode into the crowd.
"Now, what did that black rascal mean by that?" demanded Dick of Crichton Hoodless, who had met him.
"Lord knows! You overpaid him; probably he threw his warning in as a kind of discount, Dick!" laughed Hoodless. "They can be flowery at a pinch, those scoundrels! Come along to the hotel...."
So, together, they went back to the great caravanserai from which, only a few months before, they had set out. For an instant, as he passed through the familiar entrance, it seemed to Marchurst that he had been away no more than a few short days, but that feeling was purely transitory.
He could never recapture the old buoyancy, the old happy carelessness, which had been his at the beginning of the adventure. Egypt, the Sudan, North Africa, had taken from him more, far more, than he had dreamed of during the process of taking.
He had first come to that hotel a boy—but he was no longer a boy; he had brought to Egypt a certain innocence, a simplicity of heart—Egypt had taken that from him; he had known nothing of women at the beginning of those crowded months—now he had been educated by two women who were, on the surface, as wide apart, different and opposed as it was possible for two women to be, who, he would have said, had seemed to have nothing in common. But he would have hesitated to say that now. In his heart he felt, he could not resist feeling, that there was a point where the psychology of the pale, lovely American met and touched and harmonized with a point in the psychology of the darkling beauty of the East. He had stood at that point with Saïs—and it was with a strange joy, not unmixed with a faint foreboding, that he felt he was going from Egypt almost straight to that point with Louise Lammarsh. Between them, and in utterly different ways, they had set in his soul an invincible and imperative conviction that all women were alike at that point—all straws in the fierce current of their own passion, when once the natural and pre-destined master and magnet and slave of their latent desires had appeared.
"She seems to regard you as a perpetual fountain of gold. You have sent her fifteen thousand pounds in the last two months. I question if she has a hundred left."
Crichton Hoodless.
PERHAPS the most eloquent of many indications that Lissmere's fever for Saïs had never been more than a fierce but quite transient infatuation was the ready compliance with which, hastening from Egypt to the great estate he had inherited, he was content to leave to Crichton Hoodless the business of discharging his great debt to the dancing girl.
Hoodless had suggested that at Cairo, and he had been very glad to take that apparently easy way of closing the door upon the immediate past.
He was looking forward to a future which he hoped Louise Lammarsh would make radiant, and he was eager to lock away the past, setting upon it such a seal that it would never be reopened.
Hoodless, listening silently to his requests during their last conversation at Cairo, had reduced Dick's feeling and attitude to a simple sentence.
"If necessary I am to bar Saïs from reentry into your life with a wall of solid gold?" said the adventurer.
Dick had thought a moment, frowning as though he found something little to his taste in this blunt, almost brutal, summing up. But in the end he had nodded.
"I hope Saïs and I will always be good friends," he said. "But I do not expect that she will ever again come seriously into my life. That sounds a queer sort of thing to say, perhaps, but I am a wiser man now than I was when I came to Egypt. I am going back to England, and I have sense enough to see that Saïs no longer fits in. But I don't forget what I owe her, and I am willing—anxious—to prove that. She may have whatever she wants—any stun in my power. I have told her to come to you, Crichton, as you understand the situation, and will be living here more or less permanently."
He had thought for a moment.
"Treat her generously, Crichton. Don't question a thing she asks. I believe she will do nothing—ask nothing—outrageous. She has been incredibly generous to me. I'll confess that I am not proud of leaving like this—never shall be. And I'd like to be able to feel in ten—twenty—years—at any time in the future—that I repaid her, at any rate as far as money is concerned, generously—that I had made the very best of a—a difficult business. If ever you have any doubt—decide, err, if necessary, on the side of over-generosity, if that is possible, rather than on the other side."
Hoodless had nodded.
"I see, Dick. I think you are right. But I think, too, that you are fortunate in having the means of acting generously. For you have to deal with a girl who will test your generosity to the last ounce. I tell you this in warning. You have seen that Saïs can give—in the mood for giving she knows no limits. But she can take—and in the mood for taking also she knows no limits. Be prepared for heavy demands....
"Yes—I understand that. I expect that. I shall not mind—she is to have what she wants. Now, you and I must come to some sort of financial arrangement, Crichton."
That, at least, was an arrangement which presented no difficulty....
Lord Lissmere reached England in early May. He found old Roger Marchurst waiting to welcome him at Lissmere Hall, and he told that wise, experienced, disillusioned old counselor the whole story of the Egyptian trip before the end of this first evening at home.
Roger listened in silence, and at the end approved—with a certain reluctance—of Dick's last instructions to Hoodless.
"You did wisely to break with her. That was sane, my boy. And, naturally, you insisted that generosity should guide Hoodless in—in any matter which may crop up. But—a blank cheque—carte blanche—may prove a boomerang in dealing with a woman like Saïs. She is of the East, Dick."
He shook his head, his face grave.
"I don't see what else you could have done. The pleasant weeks at Luxor were a mistake, I suppose—but hardly serious. It added nothing to your debt to Saïs. She was enormously your creditor—morally—before Luxor."
He stared for a long time with thoughtful, dubious eyes at his cigar.
"It is a curious situation," he went on presently. "I thought I had a formula for almost every conceivable situation between man and woman—or women. But you bring me a new problem, Dick. If it were any other man but you I am afraid I should call it an intensely interesting situation. But instead I call it disturbing. I am uneasy, my boy. It suggests to me possibilities of tragedy."
"You believe I have got to pay my penalty—"
The old man's eyelids drooped oddly.
"That you will have to pay—consciously or unconsciously—in any case, Dick. I see you remember my theories. I have learned nothing during your absence which has tempted me to alter or abandon them, Dick," he said. "But that is to generalize. I am shutting all that out when viewing your particular affair.... This Egyptian business makes me uncomfortable—devilishly uncomfortable. I have a feeling akin to that of the traveler on a lonely road at dusk—I want to keep glancing over my shoulder—and dare not for fear I should see a—a dark follower."
His keen old eyes noted a passing disquiet on the boy's face, and he nodded sympathetically.
"All right, Dick. If the Marchursts have always been weak about women, they have never been weak about consequences. That's a balance—a compensation. Let's look at the situation with level eyes—minds.... I don't like that—accident. The business of the Turk at Saïs's house—and I don't like the idea that Saïs is in a position to dispose of dead men so easily. She saved you from an awkward business there, Dick.... Of course, she knew who he was. But it suited her not to tell.... I find myself wondering just what her relations were with Hoodless. That young man seems to have been a good friend?"
Eagerly Dick had assured him of that, instancing several things.
"Ye-es, I know. I have nothing to say against Hoodless... though since you went away I have not met many who have anything to say for him. Never mind that, just now...."
He fixed his eyes on those of his nephew.
"You want my views, and I suppose you will allow me to be frank, my boy—I want to help you, you know. We must remember that Saïs is, shall we say, a courtesan, and that she, like yourself, has outgrown a temporary passion. But she saved you first from a serious scandal and, possibly, imprisonment, at grave risk to herself; and, secondly, she certainly saved your life in the desert by sacrificing herself to this hyena from the oasis—this Red Emir. (It is just possible that I may discover who he was—old General Stanshaw is an encyclopaedia of the courts-martial of the last twenty years.) If instead of Saïs the prey of this renegade had been a—shall we use simple words?—a good girl, a pure girl, you would, of course, have made her your wife long ago. Thank God that does not arise.... But Saïs might argue that it arises in her case as justly as in such a case as I have mentioned. Suppose that she were unwilling to relinquish you—I gather that she was, but accepted in an indefinite sort of way the inevitable—would she not be entitled to say: 'I have sacrificed myself to the Red Emir to save your life, Lord Lissmere. And I killed men to clear my way back to you. Because I am what I am, is my sacrifice the less? I am one of those whom the world despises, yet I have my own code of honor. Do you, does your world dare to say that a woman such as I am can have no honor?...' There's a point for the immaculate, Dick. Even the saints can't have it both ways. I point all that out because it seems to me to be a tempting argument for Saïs to use in order to strengthen the very heavy claims you may expect. For I gather that other rewards than a wedding-ring will satisfy her—and I think Hoodless was right in saying that they will need to be heavy. You are fortunate in being able to view the financial aspect of the business without distress. I do not see that you could have acted in any other way. The Luxor holiday was a mistake, no doubt—but a mistake it was perilously easy to make.... At your age, in your circumstances, I have no doubt I should have made the same mistake. Most men would—though probably many would deny that."
"Suppose Saïs had demanded that I should marry her and share with her—all this?" Dick moved his hand in a vague gesture, indicating his new circumstances. "What should I have done?"
Old Roger's face went wry. But he answered quickly:
"Refused. To have married her, after Luxor, would have been to pile madness upon madness. Besides, you have chosen, have you not?"
"Yes—Louise Lammarsh, if my luck lasts long enough."
"Tell me about her, Dick."
Lissmere told something of the past, a little of the present, nothing of the future.
At the end of it Roger Marchurst had curiously little to say, beyond the obvious felicitations. Indeed, as soon as he tactfully could, he spoke of other matters. But Dick understood well enough that his relative preferred, probably considered it wise, to delay forming an opinion or offering advice.
He had cabled to Louise in New York news of the sudden change in his circumstances caused by the death of Lord Lissmere and his own succession, but he had not yet heard from her; so that, ignorant of her situation and plans as he was himself, he did not invite any serious comment.
At first he was willing to wait. Among the things he had learned in Egypt was the sure knowledge that fortune usually frowns upon the precipitous, and he conceived that there must be many things to do for his own distraction, even though he had found the estate to be so perfectly maintained as to leave him practically nothing to criticize or alter.
The old Lord Lissmere, a wealthy man, had jealously perfected the Hampshire estate for an idolized son, and he had left little room for any improvement by the unconsidered "poor relation" who had inherited. It had been the old peer's permanent residence and perpetual joy. There were other places—a London house, a place in Leicestershire, a villa on the Riviera, but these were all let, and Dick was satisfied that they should remain let.
He discovered quickly, too, that he would not care to stay long in England, lacking news of Louise, and it was not long after he settled at Lissmere that he found himself studying the Cunard and White Star sailings to New York. Indeed, before he had been at home six weeks Lord Lissmere was intensely restless.
Neither racing, yachting, gambling, excess nor any other of the summer diversions of a society that lived permanently in a feverish and, to the spectator, intensely diverting effort to escape a boredom created by precisely that puerile effort, attracted him; it was too early for the field sports he liked best, and towards games he had at present no inclination.
He was at the point of hastening across the Atlantic precipitately when in June he received confirmation of the warning which both Hoodless and his uncle had given him—and this in spite of the fact that during the short period he had been in England he had remitted to Hoodless for Saïs sums running into five figures.
To the tactfully expressed questions of the head of Barr's, the famous firm of solicitors who had acted for old Lord Lissmere and continued for him, and who appeared to believe that the sending of these sums to Egypt hinted at blackmail, he explained in a few sentences.
"This money goes to Mr. Hoodless for the benefit of a woman who saved my life during my big game expedition. But for her I should not be here now—to be blunt, I should be not Lord Lissmere, but a heap of gnawed bones strewn round the base of an impalement stake out in the Kordofan deserts. Some day I'll tell you the story of that affair. There's no question of blackmail—anything of that sort. I want you to regard the requirements of this—lady—as contingencies which must be provided for and met."
The tiny, unconscious pause before the word "lady" had not escaped the notice of the solicitor, but he nodded.
"I understand, Lord Lissmere," he said. "Mr. Roger Marchurst told me that you had a very exciting and adventurous trip. I am very glad indeed that you came out of it so well—and glad also to be able to assure you that, if you desire, you are in a position to make the lady of whom you speak a comparatively rich woman without too serious consequences to your own reserves."
He had said that on the occasion when Lissmere had sent Hoodless the first remittance—but he had not repeated it. Instead, when a fortnight later a second very heavy sum had been sent, the lawyer suggested tentatively that it might be more satisfactory both to Saïs and to Lissmere if he were to arrange a fixed allowance for her.
Dick had promised to consult Hoodless. He had written at once and received an answer—from Marseilles. Hoodless wrote:
"I am a little worried about this business of Saïs's finances, and I am going to be frank with you. I'll begin by telling you that Saïs has changed extraordinarily since you left Egypt. She is not the girl who lived so simply at Luxor. There, I suppose, a couple of thousand pounds a year would have more than covered your mutual expenses. But that's altogether changed now. She may be possessed with some idea of 'punishing' you for breaking off, or it may be a kind of reaction after the comparatively simple life at Luxor, or perhaps it is just sheer wanton waste, I don't pretend to know. She was always extravagant in the days before our trip. But now the thing is serious, Dick. She wastes like a woman possessed. I won't call it carelessness for 'carelessness' isn't the word I want; absolute indifference to money comes nearer to what I want to explain. Nowadays she seems to regard you as a kind of perpetual fountain of gold. You have sent her fifteen thousand pounds in the last two months. I question if she has a hundred left! She has bought some amazing jewels, she and Olympe have been to Paris where I fancy they opened the eyes of the shopkeepers. They are now at Monte Carlo. I have business here at Marseilles, and this morning brings a fresh telegraphed request for funds. I think you should give me authority to talk frankly to her. She should be shown that there is a limit to even the resources of a wealthy English peer. I'm afraid your suggestion of a settled income does not solve the difficulty unless you state a figure beyond which you are resolved not to go...."
That was all of Saïs in the letter except for a postscript.
"I anticipate that among her pending requests will be one for a villa on the Riviera, or a big place at Cairo, or possibly an establishment in Paris. I advise firmness, even though I recognize that I look at the business from a viewpoint that is very different from yours."
Lissmere had frowned a little over that letter. But though Hoodless had made his uneasiness very apparent, it was not infectious. He scribbled a short letter of reassurance.
Roger Marchurst, drifting into Lissmere's den with a tempting account of the way in which the trout were rising, was shown the letter from Hoodless.
He read it attentively and returned it, shrugging his shoulders.
"That's at the rate of ninety thousand a year, Dick! This young lady has a generous notion of the value of her services. Do you propose to let Hoodless talk frankly to her?"
"No. I prefer to pay while I can. I suppose it's only human to feel irritated at this senseless waste, but I haven't reached the stage where I can say that I am not getting, or hoping to get, more out of life than I should be if Saïs had not ridden out to the camp of the Red Emir!"
There was no possible answer to that.
"Quite so," said old Roger quietly. "It—"
He broke off as a servant came in with a telegram for Dick.
He read it, and a sudden flush darkened his face. "Come for the answer in five minutes," he told the servant, and turned to his uncle.
"Mrs. Lammarsh arrived at Liverpool yesterday," he said, his voice vibrating with excitement. "I am going to town. If Barr raises any question, will you make it clear to him that I authorize a further remittance to Saïs?" and hurried out.
For a long, long time old Roger stood at the window of that big, comfortable room, staring out at the glowing gardens, at the wide, gracious deer park beyond.
His gaze lifted to where the tiny straight spires of smoke ascended in the warm, still air from the kitchen fires of the cottages down in the village, then passed these things to dwell on the rich agricultural lands of the valley.
From where he stood he commanded a view of thousands of acres of good and well-tilled land, from the rich, fertile, well-cared-for farms of the lowlands to the wide, smooth, sloping heights of the sheep pastures, golden in the summer light, on the distant downs.
And wellnigh every acre that he could see belonged to Dick Marchurst—Lord Lissmere.
"A noble estate, a great possession," he said quietly. "Well managed, productive, a bit of the very heart of England!"
A little flush ran into the temples of the old viveur.
"I suppose I am what it amuses some of them occasionally to call cynical," he muttered, "but at least I am not cynical enough to stand idly by and see this wonderful place squandered for the glory of a Cairene wanton!"
He turned from the window.
"Dick means well. And one may admit that he is in a tangle from which it won't be easy to extricate himself with self-respect. But it will have to be contrived in some fashion. Slowly, I think, and very tactfully. It's a great pity he is not older."
His eye caught the letter from Hoodless, left on Lissmere's table. He took it up and read it carefully again with knitted brows, pondering every word.
Presently he put it away in his pocket, and went away down to the river for the evening rise; but he fished mechanically, his thoughts far away. More than once he ceased casting his flies in order to take cut and re-read the letter.
Long before the leaping fish had finished rising he broke off and left the river.
"I am getting old and maybe a little slow in my wits," he said, as he passed through the water-meadows, "but nevertheless I think I will look a little more closely into the record of Mr. Crichton Hoodless. To-morrow I will run up to town and spend the day at the club... I am not convinced that the note of anxiety in this letter is altogether without a touch of the ring of base metal....
"Base metal..." he repeated, as he reentered the broad park.
"To marry for love is to build a palace upon a foundation of rock.... Let them preserve their love and they are invincible."
John Barr.
IN her sitting-room at the Savoy Louise Lammarsh awaited Lissmere. She had not asked him to come to her there, but she knew full well that he would.
She had told herself at Luxor that she did not know whether she loved him, and then she had believed that. But she no longer doubted.
From the hour of her hurried departure from the town of many tourists she had not known one really happy moment, and her spirit cried out for relief from the dull oppression which had been upon her throughout the long weeks of her journey to America, her stay there, and her return to England.
Embarked, as she had been, on the bitter quest of ascertaining whether the husband she did not love had died or deserted her, she had not expected an agreeable stay in Europe after her Egyptian days with Dick Marchurst. But it had been with a deep though secret dismay that she had found, or, in her somber mood, seemed to find, no remission of her unhappiness in her homeland.
She was wise enough to face the truth that the fault lay not with the friends who welcomed her with warm and unreserved hospitality. It lay rather with herself. She was not, she found that she could not be, responsive, for her heart was in Egypt with Marchurst; and it was to Egypt, or possibly to England—wherever Marchurst was or would be, that her spirit yearned, for it was there that she hoped some cay to attain that simple happiness which so long had been denied her.
Old friends had received her with the indulgent tenderness which the kind-hearted love to bestow upon one who has suffered, and she had been poignantly grateful, but she could not be tranquil among these old friends and scenes.
She could never shake off a haunting expectation of coming face to face with Charles Lammarsh. She dreaded that very much, yet she strove to desire it. That was the cruel paradox which tortured her. She did not wish him dead; she feared to discover him alive. She was harried by a strange, secret terror that if he were alive he would know of, and would surely misinterpret, distort, her harmless weeks of happy rest at Luxor. He had always been so—so cunning at that sort of thing. It had been even a kind of special gift of his to know things which people did not expect him to know. And if, finding him alive, she started divorce proceedings, he would fight her action and make the most of, exploit to the very utmost, his knowledge. And being innocent she shrank from that far more than if she had not been innocent.
But she did not wish him dead, though she feared that she might come to that. She prayed tensely to be delivered from the temptation, the sin, of ever wishing that....
She was so young to be so utterly lonely in spirit. Her friends did not understand the complexity of her trouble, and she could not bring herself to tell them.
So the weeks passed.
Trustees were appointed to act for the missing man and the beneficiaries under his will, but it was not possible yet to gain legal permission to assume his death. Her own financial affairs were quickly put in order; she steadfastly refused to accept any form of allowance from Charles Lammarsh's estate. Though not a rich woman, she had ample means.
She had set out from the great Lammarsh house in New York which had so long been her home—or prison—upon a round of visits to her relatives and closest friends, but she never finished that round.
Half-way through it her longing for even one more hour like those Luxor hours would no longer be denied. Indeed, she made no effort to check it, but gladly yielded.
She booked her passage to England, telegraphed to Dick from Liverpool, and came on to London.
On the boat, people, glancing at her clothes, believed her to be a widow, and she was content that they should believe this.
She never forgot that voyage.
It was to her in the nature of a last attempt for happiness. Not without many tremors of the spirit she had decided to presume that her husband was dead. She would marry Lord Lissmere and take the risk of Charles Lammarsh reappearing.
"I shall never be happy if I remain as I am," she told herself, "and I shall be happy with Dick some of the time if I marry him. And if Charles appears again he can do no more than divorce me and throw me back again into my present misery. I shall take that risk. It is the only way I can think of...."
She had wondered throughout the voyage whether she really would have the courage to keep her resolution of allowing Dick to believe her a widow, but now her doubts were past and done with. She had not shrunk from her course....
She was standing by a table arranging some flowers with trembling hands, and dressed as though she were on the point of going out, when he was shown in.
He was silent for a moment, staring, taking in her mourning, then came across quickly to where she stood, little and lovely, pale, her eyes dark and dilated.
"I came as quickly as I could, my dear... my dear..." he said, and took her in his arms and drew her close.
For a space of seconds she was completely passive. Her eyes were closed, and she was very still in his arms. Then suddenly her hands went up to his shoulders.
"Oh, Dick, I have been so lonely and unhappy," she cried.
He crushed her close.
"But that's all finished now," he told her. "You —we—are going to be happy now.... It will be better than Luxor. Oh, my dear, if you knew how empty everything has been for me since I came to England.... Never mind. Kiss me now. I will make you happy, my dear. I will think of nothing except how to make you happy...."
A little color stole into her cheeks and she smiled faintly. If she had retained any shred of doubt that she loved him it was utterly gone now. She had known during her married life so little of love that she had been mistrustful, doubtful of it when it had come to her, but she was doubtful no longer. She loved him, and she knew that very surely.
It was as though she had entered some warm, soft, fragrant sea, a gentle, half-drowsy sea of healing whose caressing waves had power to pervade, to saturate one, body and soul, with sheer contentment.
She was satisfied, and her secret fear, like her secret doubts, had vanished. She had taken, she was still taking, a grave risk, but, close in his arms, lapped in that enchanted, languorous sea of content, the risk about which she had pondered so long and fearfully faded, diminished, thinned, and like wind-driven fog or vapor, died out and disappeared.
She drew his head down and began to kiss him—strange, half-painful kisses of relief, gratitude, love and a growing passion.
"Oh, but I could weep for love of you, Dick," she whispered.
He laughed a little tremulously.
"I, too, dearest," he half muttered.
But then a waiter, bringing tea, knocked, and they must smile instead.
That, too, they found easy....
Three weeks later they were married quietly at a registry office, Roger Marchurst and John Barr being the only witnesses.
Louise was radiant. What the sun is to a flower so happiness is to beauty. She had conquered Roger Marchurst at their first meeting.
He congratulated Dick again after the marriage.
"She is very sweet and beautiful, and as good as she is beautiful, Dick," he said. "You have been fortunate."
He dropped his voice a little—Louise was talking to Barr near the window of the dingy office.
"She has known a great deal of unhappiness in the past, I see that. But you have both locked away the past?"
Dick nodded.
"Yes," he said with a certain eagerness. "We have never discussed either mine or hers. She wished it as much as I. If only the past has finished with us as completely as we hope to have finished with the past we shall be happy."
Old Roger had nodded, hesitated as though to say something more, then changed his mind and said nothing.
He shook hands and turned to Louise.
They were both too excited to be critical or closely observant, and neither sensed the vague unease which, in spite of his real pleasure, Roger could not wholly banish from his manner.
But when they had left, he turned to the gray-haired solicitor.
"We must take care that no complications arise to spoil what has begun so well, you and I, Barr," he said slowly. "And I fear it is not going to be easy. Still, one does what one can. It will be all right in the long run."
"I trust so, I trust so"; but the lawyer's voice was no more confident than that of Roger Marchurst.
"At any rate, there's this—they love each other with all their hearts. That will help—don't you agree?"
"It will conquer anything; to marry for love is to build a palace upon a foundation of rock," said Barr warmly. "Let them preserve their love and they are invincible.... I am not sure of many things at my age, but am very sure of that."
Old Roger glanced at him sidelong.
"Well, I am only an old bachelor, but you should know, Barr. You made a love match, I believe, and it worked well in your case, did it not?"
"All that side of my life has been a—a triumph, Mr. Marchurst," said the solicitor quietly.
"Good—good." There was a touch of wist fullness in old Roger's voice. "Let's hope it will prove the same for Lord and Lady Lissmere.... Ah, but you hit it there, my friend—a foundation of rock, a foundation of rock. Splendid!"
"After all, what complication can arise to hurt them, except perhaps when Lord Lissmere cries halt to this Egyptian drain on his resources. Even that one could hardly call a complication. And at its worst he would have to face nothing more than a charge of ingratitude brought by the lady to whom he owes his life—a charge which her extravagance and a glance at the list of payments he had made her would easily refute. Nothing desperately serious or complicated there, I believe?" said the solicitor with a faint smile.
But there was no answering smile on Roger Marchurst's lips, for he knew of more serious possibilities than those mentioned.
There was, for instance, the matter of the killing of that obscure and nameless stranger in Saïs's house at Cairo!
That was a weapon against Lissmere which, embittered or disappointed, Saïs might use at any moment. Old Roger shook his head.
"I am afraid it is not quite so simple as you may think just now," he said quietly. "And I confess that I do not look into the future with unlimited confidence. Lissmere was extraordinarily entangled in Egypt. I think I know the whole facts—they will be laid before you some day if necessary—and I am making a few inquiries on my own account. There is a person, more or less concerned in the matter, at whom I find myself looking a little askance; but I hope to contrive a rod for his back in due course. We shall see in good time. Now, come to lunch."
He laughed quietly.
It was Crichton Hoodless to whom he had referred. He suspected that Hoodless was in league with Saïs to prey upon Lissmere. He had managed to glean that Hoodless was in funds—this from one Sir Geoffrey Livingfold, a fellow clubman, and that selfsame relative who, fleeced by Hoodless, had condemned the adventurer to keep out of England. Livingfold naturally had not gone into details with Roger Marchurst, but he had no hesitation in saying that Hoodless had recently remitted a fair sum in settlement of a "debt," and evidently, therefore, was in funds.
Roger Marchurst had been very pleased at this promising and significant start of his investigation, but his confidence would have dissolved instantly, or have been transformed into something very like horror, had he dreamed of the cruel weapon upon which Hoodless relied for defense and attack.
The weapon of Saïs, as far as Roger Marchurst knew, comprised a threat against Lissmere's liberty.
But the weapon of Crichton Hoodless had a deadlier power, a power to wring the heart not only of Lord Lissmere but of his wife; to wring their hearts, haunt and harass their consciences, to drive out from their lives all happiness, and instead to steep them in the icy waters of despair.
Like every weapon of every blackmailer, it could he used only once, but once would be enough to devastate their lives.
They had gone away to their home radiant, confident, aglow with love, blindly trusting each other, convinced that the past would lie silent, be still or adjust itself. She was so grateful for this happy ending of the past, this auspicious beginning of the future, that she had often prayed her thanks and gratitude for it all, and would ever pray that it might endure; and, in his deep heart, Lissmere, too, was humble with gratitude. How were they able to dream, even to suspect, the tragic truth?
But Hoodless knew, and it was this formidable, cold-blooded, unscrupulous and secret enemy whom Roger Marchurst hoped, for sake of Lissmere's possessions, to expose!
But there was no likelihood of success. For what answer could Roger Marchurst or Barr or the cleverest, boldest, most astute mind make to the declaration with which the adventurer, challenged or at bay, would lay the happiness of the Lissmeres in ruins; the declaration that Lord Lissmere had killed, presumably in the course of a quarrel for the favors of a Cairene dancing girl, the husband of Louise Lammarsh, now Lady Lissmere?
"How long before you begin to mortgage farms—so that this insatiable creature might be gorged with gold?"
Roger Marchurst.
THE fates spared them a month or two of undiluted happiness.
Because of her charm and beauty, and because she loved it all from the very instant of her arrival—the great house, the estate, the people of the estate—the village and the county received her affectionately—even then something of a triumph for her, although the hard suspicion and cupidity bred on many a countryside by the conditions of the War still lay far in the future, and she rejoiced in it.
"Oh, I like people after all," she would say, wandering about the estate, riding with her husband, or idling in the garden, now in its summer glory. "And I get nearer and nearer to them every day. They like me, don't you think so, Dick? I had a fear that they might think of me as an interloper, but they don't a bit. Perhaps it is a compensation for having been unhappy so long.... I am so fortunate. I love you so."...
So it went with them through the sunny weeks, and though at first the thought of the risk she believed she had taken was ever with her, gradually it receded and diminished until soon it only occurred to her at intervals and as a dim contingency unlikely ever to arise.
It helped Lissmere, too, that the big sum he had caused to be sent to Saïs just prior to his reunion with, Louise seemed to have satisfied her. At least, he had heard no more from Hoodless, and he, too, had been able temporarily to forget the unsolved problem of permanently breaking with Saïs.
He had, after a long consultation with Roger Marchurst and Harkness, empowered the latter to write to Hoodless authorizing him to offer an allowance of no less a sum than ten thousand pounds a year for her lifetime to Saïs—an amount equivalent to a quarter of his income. It had taken him a long time to convince his two counselors that he meant this, but he had insisted.
No answer to this generous proposal—"extravagant, unheard of" were two of the words Barr had selected to describe it—was received during those first sunny weeks, but when Lissmere thought of it at all it was merely to remember that Saïs was not likely to do things in the businesslike way that would best satisfy Barr, for example. When she needed money she needed it instantly—when she possessed money she was, he believed, quite unable to interest herself in plans for future supplies.
He had told Louise of the offer and the circumstances of their rescue from the Arabs, but no more of Saïs than that, though in due course he intended to tell her the whole story, and she had been at one with him in his view that he must not err on the side of parsimony.
"If you were to die, Dick, ten thousand a year would not be compensation to me—nor ten times that. Your life to me is priceless beyond money values—and I should be ashamed and afraid to grudge one farthing of that money—or of all your money—to one who has saved you for me."
He had drawn her close to him.
"Dearest, that is a bold thing to say," he had told her, with a sudden gravity which sat strangely on him. "Suppose I were—entangled—to such an extent that to gratify the woman who saved me I were compelled to sacrifice everything I own—what would you say then?"
She rang true as the note of a golden bell to that.
Her fair face was serious but not distressed, her eyes were dark but not dismayed, and her voice was wholly steadfast as she replied.
"Dick, all my life long I have been accustomed to wealth and its power, but until I met you what happiness had I found in all the circumstances of wealth? You know, for I have told you. I realise that there are many, very many, who would say that I speak like the heroine of a novelette, or of a moving picture drama, but I do not care—I swear to you, my dear, dear husband, that if we were stripped penniless, I should be utterly happy as long as we continued to love each other so. I should not be afraid to be poor so long as I had you. Or, if you were to die, and it were possible, do you not know that I would gladly give all the wealth in the world—anything—everything —to have you back again?"
That had touched him, moved him very much, and he had held her to him in a passion of sheer worship.
"Only—love me always, always, please," she had whispered. "Never cease to love me—it is everything, Dick, everything to me—I have been so starved for love until you came...."
In late July Hoodless wrote to say that he had been unable to get a definite decision from Saïs as to the allowance.
He described the proposal as "princely," but he added that Saïs's attitude towards it seemed mainly to be one of complete indifference—explaining, however, that he felt this indifference to arise mainly from a conviction, perhaps subconscious, of Saïs that she could have at any time precisely as much money as she cared to ask for:
"She insists that you are an English nobleman aware of an obligation which will endure till the end of the life she saved, and she seems to believe that she can look to you for exactly as much of the money which results to you because you are alive as she requires. In a way one sees her point of view though one may not agree with her. She says that if you were of the East she would not trust to or rely upon your sense of justice, gratitude or honor, but because you are an Englishman she has no fear that you will ever ignore her claim. I find it a difficult argument to answer, Dick. To be frank, I have not yet attempted to answer it. I am aware, and I shall not forget, that you will not approve of the introduction of any spirit of bargaining (I question the wisdom though I acknowledge the chivalry of that), and I try to keep the whole thing from being debased by the introduction of any purely mercenary argument. Am I right? Don't hesitate to instruct me when to harden on this point. Candidly, it irks me to see money thrown away as Saïs throws it. I have—tactfully, of course—tried to get her to see the economic side of things more sanely, but it is uphill work. She is utterly careless—and, I fear, bitter. I suspect that she had dreamed of sharing your present life—and name—with you. Hopeless, of course, but one of the things I have to combat...."
Hoodless wrote a good deal more in the same strain. He conveyed very skilfully an anxiety that Lissmere should authorize him to "bargain" with Saïs for the rigid allowance, but in the next paragraph he acknowledged vaguely that this was the "sordid" way, whereas Dick's was the honorable way....
And because life had never meant so much to him as it meant now, Lord Lissmere, with the wholehearted agreement of his wife, wrote forbidding Hoodless (precisely as that one expected and desired) to introduce any "spirit of bargaining" into the discharge of the great debt to Saïs.
"I once spoke to him of Saïs not unsympathetic-ally," grumbled Roger Marchurst to Barr. "But I regret that now. How long before you will begin to mortgage farms—so that this insatiable creature might be gorged with gold? I've no doubt this man Hoodless is fattening on his profits as go-between, too!"
"Give me something to work upon—or give me leave to put a special agent in charge of that side of the case—and I can promise to eliminate Hoodless quickly enough," Barr would say. "But you won't."
"Lord Lissmere would never agree. But I shall go over there myself, unless this drain stops. I am beginning to recognize the preliminaries of the demands now—that letter foreshadows another, you will see," declared old Roger.
He was right. The demand came within the next three weeks.
And this time it was backed with a weapon that was used ruthlessly.
Hoodless announced that Saïs had given birth to a son—to Dick's son!
"She is mad with pride" (wrote Hoodless), "and certainly, as far as I am able to judge, the child is all right. She insisted on my going to her house with the English doctor who attended her—a man of position and reputation, I had seen to that—and she showed the child to me. 'Dick's son.' she said. 'The son of the noble Lord Lissmere. Look, is he not beautiful? No such child has been born in Cairo for many years. Write to Dick. Tell him. He shall be brought up in the Christian faith, and he shall be a noble from his cradle'—incidentally, Dick, a carved ivory cradle that cost a fabulous sum of money—'and Dick will be proud to have him brought up as befits his son!'
"She told me to ask that a hundred thousand pounds should be settled on the child. I have no doubt she would have said a quarter of a million had it occurred to her. It killed my natural interest in the child in an instant. I warned her that it was impossible—that I should have to consider seriously whether I should transmit such a demand. She began to storm—her rages, which perhaps you did not experience, can be deadly—but the doctor interfered, and she began to cry weakly. I yielded—I promised to acquaint you with what she said. I have done so. I don't pretend to advise you, Dick—I wish I could, but it is so obviously not a matter for any one to deal with but yourself...."
There was a postscript:
"It is rather a pretty child, I should say. Olympe, who still serves Saïs, told me that it rarely cries. I am afraid I am not much use at this kind of description. The doctor I mentioned tells me that physically the child is perfect. No doubt. But I can't resist the conviction that it complicates things terribly."
"Complicates things terribly," repeated Dick, reading the letter alone in his den. "What will Louise say to this? A child—a son—my son!"
White-faced, his brain dull with the shock of it, he stared before him, sitting at his writing-desk.
He felt no pride nor pleasure in the fact of the birth—and the huge demand left him unmoved. He could only think anxiously of one thing, of the one question flaming in his mind:
"What will Louise say to this?"
After a long time he rose and went slowly, reluctantly, out into the gardens to find her. He intended to tell her at once—not because he had thought it all out carefully, weighing, balancing this advantage against that disadvantage, for indeed, during those long minutes through which he had sat in his chair staring at the letter, he had hardly thought at all. It was his instinct that sent him to his wife.
She was great-hearted—because she, too, had suffered much.
It came to him as he went slowly down a grassy path between huge and ancient walls of clipped, wonderfully kept yew that this would hurt her. He was aware that she was not altogether ignorant that his association with Saïs had been much more intimate than he had told her—and probably she guessed that the huge sums sent to Egypt had helped to allay certain twinges of conscience as well as to express his gratitude for his rescue.
Yes, she would suffer precisely that poignant, wistful pain which any woman would suffer who learns that she can never be the mother of her husband's first-born....
He caught his breath at the flicker of a white dress against the blaze of flowers in the garden at the end of the yew walk.
She would forgive him—he knew that—but it would be a stab, a javelin through her heart—ah, what was that? A javelin? Yes, precisely as old Roger had said years ago, or was it only days?
"Every sin a man commits in this world forges its own javelin—and sooner or later it homes again to him—through the heart, my boy, clean through the heart..."
Lord Lissmere remembered that—and he remembered, too, that he had smiled at it on a certain evening in Cairo. What had he called it, laughing?, "A legend—a fanciful thing—nothing that matters—an echo from a half-forgotten nursery of mine!"
But it had come true. Already he had felt the piercing of such self-created javelins, and now he was even about to plant one of those javelins in the heart of the woman he adored.
And there was no escape—for he realized that if he spared her the knowledge now, there was no hope that it could be long kept from her.
He gleaned a grain of comfort from the thought that after he had confessed—explained—there could be nothing else left to attack their happiness, or to pierce them anew.
This was the worst that could befall them, he believed—he was not an imaginative man, and lacking completely that strange susceptibility possessed by a few people who seem able instinctively to "sense" impending danger, how could he suspect that in the profound and unseen armories of fate there were forging other and far keener javelins than this?
"Did I not come to you spoiled—soiled? What right have I to demand that you should have been immaculate? You took me as I was—shall I not be content with you, then?"
Lady Lissmere.
ALTHOUGH Lissmere was perhaps in no condition of mind to realize the full import of it, the manner in which Louise received the news was intensely significant of what she had endured through her married life with Charles Lammarsh.
Sitting upon a stone bench, in the heart of the flower garden, her hands full of the flowers she had been gathering, she listened in silence to the very end of her husband's story and confession.
Then, in a low voice, she asked to be shown the letter from Hoodless, which she read quietly.
He watched her desperately, noting every catch of her breath, every flush or paling of her cheek.
Her eyes were bright with tears when she handed it back to him, but she held herself in perfect control.
"I understand, Dick," she said. "It hurts—But thank you for telling me."
Her lips quivered at sight of the wretchedness on his face, and she drew him down to the seat beside her, speaking earnestly.
"Oh, don't be so distressed, Dick!" she implored. "I understand.... If only we had met a little earlier—before ever you went to Cairo—this would not have happened.... That is true, and as long as I know and believe that it is true I shall not let myself or you grieve for things which occurred before ever you knew I was free—or that we loved each other."
She thought for a moment.
"You see, Dick, I have known what it is to endure far more real, more inexcusable, more disdainfully open infidelities than yours—which was not infidelity to me at all—only to yourself.... That is how I wish to see it. I can't quite see it like that now—not yet. But I shall try. I shall never reproach you, Dick."
Her beautiful, graceful head dropped low, and her voice was strangely hushed.
"Who—what—am I to reproach you, my husband? Did I not come to you spoiled—soiled? What right have I to demand that you should be—immaculate? You took me as I was—shall I not be content with you, then?"
Her voice failed her, and he took her in his arms, and they comforted each other....
But the problem of the child remained, and after a day of instinctive evasion of or shrinking from the subject they began to discuss it carefully.
With a generosity of spirit which could only add fuel to the flame of his adoration for her Louise was gently insistent that Dick must make himself responsible for the child's welfare and future, but she recognized that the worst possible way to succeed in this would be to settle a vast sum of money on the child and leave the rest to Saïs.
Saïs, truly, was his mother, but she was hardly the most acceptable guardian or trustee of the boy's upbringing, training and fortune. Her mode of life, her total and inborn inability to understand responsibilities, her whole attitude to moral questions, her unbridled passions, her Oriental spirit, all these and many other points combined to make a formidable argument against the fact of her motherhood and that other asset—her great and undeniable physical courage.
Louise and Dick intended to discuss all that with meticulous care and scrupulous fairness, but they found it altogether too painful. She would have tried to struggle against that, but she was not a superwoman. She was good, but she was also human, and she found quickly that there were limits to even her generosity.
"I am afraid of being insincere, Dick," she cried when she broke down early in the discussion. "He is not my child, and I have to fight against a feeling of growing resentment and prejudice that every word we say seems to feed and enlarge.... I want very much for the best possible things, the right things, to be done for this little one, but I am not strong enough to plan these things without feeling."
Dick understood that—was even conscious of a certain vague relief at the declaration.
So he took the problem to old Roger Marchurst and John Barr, both of whom, he discovered, had very clear views of what should be insisted upon by Lord Lissmere if the settlement were insisted on by Saïs, and, after some discussion, were authorized to deal with the situation.
But not before Dick, at his wife's suggestion, had written gently to Saïs.
"Whatever she may feel towards you now, Dick, whatever she may be now or ever have been, she will hunger secretly for that from you. I have no child of my own, but my heart tells me that," said Louise with a strange little smile and shining eyes....
But the penitence of Lord Lissmere, the generous compassion of his wife, and the practical proposals of the man of the world and the lawyer were thrown back, torn to shreds in the sirocco blast of fury, menace and contempt from Egypt with which Saïs responded to the letter sent to Hoodless by Barr acting for Lord Lissmere.
It was Hoodless who wrote, but he was careful to explain that this time he wrote strictly at her dictation, and his letter was addressed not to Barr but to Lissmere.
The letter arrived by an afternoon post, and was brought by a servant to the garden house where Louise and her husband were having tea alone.
The summer was slowly yielding to autumn now and the grounds and gardens were hushed save for the low hum of insects. The birds had come to an end of their singing for that year, and the glory of the garden was already fading to the more mellow, golden tints of the waning year.
It was drowsy there and peaceful, and the afternoon had been something of a little holiday for them both—one of those rare afternoons free from callers. They had been playing tennis, and were planning another set after tea.
Louise caught sight of the stamp on the envelope and recognized it.
"It is from Egypt, Dick—from Mr. Hoodless?" she cried.
"Yes."
He heard the note of anxious impatience in her voice and invited her to read it with him.
His mind was intent only on the child in Cairo. The reply had come so quickly that he was quite certain that it had to do with the child.
It was not without confidence that he opened the envelope and drew out the thin sheets. The proposals that he had finally authorized Barr to send had been generous, practical, and very obviously designed to benefit Saïs's child. Briefly it had contained an offer to place in the hands of trustees for the boy the sum of twenty-five thousand pounds, payable to him at the age of twenty-one, provided that Saïs would agree to allow his trustees to take charge of him at the age of four and bring him up and educate him in England. Lord Lissmere would defray all costs of this. Saïs would have access to the child whenever she desired, subject, as he grew older, to the usual reasonable, unwritten but implied restrictions during the period of education and discipline which every parent recognizes. There were many minor points, but these never arose.
Every one, including Roger Marchurst, expected that Saïs would readily agree to this suggestion or some modification of it, for the advantages to the child were palpable; it offered a future for the boy which was not to be paralleled by anything Egypt could give him, and it denied Saïs nothing that any mother with the interests of her child at heart need mind sacrificing.
Lissmere spread out the letter openly, holding it so that Louise could read over his shoulder.
Before he had read one line his confidence had disappeared.
"... I ask you to understand throughout this letter that it is written at Saïs's deliberated dictation—with the sole exception that I have put it into plain English. I accept no responsibility. I am most anxious that this should be quite clear in your mind from the beginning for reasons which the following will make plain....
"Saïs completely rejects the proposal you made through Mr. John Barr. She will not even discuss it. She bids me say that she does not abate one farthing of her demand that a hundred thousand pounds be settled on her child, and she insists that she and I should be sole trustees, I cannot conceive why she should select me, but I give you her own words.
"She bids me to say that unless this money is paid in the way she directs she intends to make known to the police the facts relating to the death of the man she says you murdered in her house at Cairo, and to Lady Lissmere the fact that the man killed was no Turk but a wealthy American named Charles Lammarsh, then husband of the lady who is now your wife. I fear that this is true; Saïs has shown me unshakable proofs...."
There was more, but neither Lissmere nor his wife read it then.
"Dick!" Her cry of shock and horror went wailing across the sunny garden like the cry of one mortally wounded.
"That is not true, Dick?"
She ran round to face him, staring with wide eyes.
"Dick! Dick! Look at me—oh, look, and say it is not true!"
He was utterly unstrung, almost incoherent.
"I—I—killed a man there—I did not know—" he gasped. "Let me think.... Louise, don't look at me like that."
Unconsciously she obeyed him; her eyes closed suddenly as she swayed forward with a strange, low, moaning sound, very pitiful.
Somehow, half blindly, he caught her, just in time to save her forehead from contact with the sharp edge of the heavy wooden seat from which he had just risen.
The letter fluttered unfinished to the floor of the garden house as he held her close, whispering to her in a species of frenzy to waken—to waken and hear his explanation. But she lay still and lax and pallid in his arms.
Truly the javelins were homing now, swift and bitterly sharp and merciless, clean through the heart—even as Roger Marchurst had said.
"There could never be any more happiness—like it used to be in the garden... you would not care to continue long like that... side by side in a guilty darkness!"
Lady Lissmere.
IT was nearing midnight before they spoke again of the tragic news which the threat of Saïs had broken to them.
A trim, self-possessed maid came to Lord Lissmere where he sat brooding dully in his study.
Louise wished him to go to her.
Gratefully he gleaned from the trained composure of the maid rather than from her words that Louise was better, and he was quick to join her.
She was in bed, sitting up, with a dressing-jacket—a beautiful, costly thing of silk and swansdown and lace—about her.
She was very pale, with deep shadows under her wide eyes. Her fair, gleaming hair hung like a heavy plait of pale silk down her shoulder.
He had not seen her since he had carried her through the sunlit garden, hours ago, and had left her room at the direct suggestion of her French maid.
"I will care for milady. If milor will leave her to me—" Julie's eyes had been like blue ice, for she adored Louise.
Her face brightened as her husband came in, and a queer, tremulous little smile quivered for a moment on her lips as he went across with that curious, unconsciously boyish, remotely clumsy air she had always loved. She patted the bed gently.
"Sit down by me, Dick, and we will face it all together," she said. He stared a little, noting a new quality in her beautiful voice—a thinness, a faintness.
He sat down and she caught his hand.
"Don't speak, please, don't say anything at all, Dick, until I have spoken," she began quickly. "Just hold my hand—yes, like that. I have been thinking so much—so hard."
Her fingers were clenched in his so tightly that they hurt him—though she was quite unaware that her hand was not lying lax in his.
And she was trembling, her body was trembling, though her face was very set and still.
"I have thought it all out, lying here," she said.
Her lids went wide, her eyes dilated so that they seemed to change color and become so deeply dark that they were almost black.
"Look at me and hold my hand. I wish to say to you that I do not believe that you murdered Charles Lammarsh. I do not believe that letter. But if it should be true, if, presently, when you speak, you say that it is the truth, that you deliberately killed him, nevertheless I am more at one with you, more united to and inseparable from you, in my soul than I have ever been. I have been good—I have tried hard to be good all my life until now. Except for the time when I came to Luxor in the hope of seeing you I have never wilfully done anything that I deserved great punishment for. I have tried to—behave myself. Does that sound childish, Dick? I don't mean it childishly. I have had temptations—oh, plenty of temptations before ever I saw you in Cairo. And it has not always been easy to cling sufficiently to my pride to be able to withstand some of those temptations. Little victories—I was always so proud of those little victories afterwards. But that is all past now. I am with you in everything now, I associate myself with you in this charge and I am your accomplice. If that is wicked then I am wicked. If that thing is true then you have in spirit gone down into a place of shadows, dark and vast and secret—alone. Now you need no more be alone, for I join you there. Do you understand what I am trying to say, my dear? It is so difficult—and my head is—hard inside—rigid. Oh, I can't express it. I want to say that I am with you—your close comrade. I am no better than you—I don't want to be any better. It is like that terrible poem: If I were hanged on the highest hill, I know whose love would follow me still.... Do you see now, Dick?"
She stared at him a little wildly.
"So that we are hand in hand, you see, and our souls are together."
Her voice grew hushed. "Only, Dick, I do not want to go on living now it is like that with us. There could never be any more happiness—like it used to be in the garden. You would not care to continue long like that any more than I should. Side by side in a guilty darkness. So... look, Dick."
She ended in a whisper and opened a hand which she had kept concealed under the coverlet, revealing a little bottle filled with tiny white tablets.
"I got these long ago in New York in the early years of my marriage," she said. "And three of them—each—will release us—to go together—to sleep—drowned in the deepest sea—together...."
Her voice trailed off. She was watching him intently with shining eyes.
"That is what I wanted to say, Dick," she whispered.
He reached out, gently lifted the bottle of morphia tablets from her open palm, and dropped it in his pocket.
His lips moved but he made no sound. There was a terrible and intolerable aching at his throat and he could not speak.
He raised her hand and pressed it to his lips and remained so for a long time silent.
But at last he found words.
"If I had not left you here I see now that I should have saved you a great deal of suffering," he said. "I thought I was doing rightly to obey Julie—she seemed to be so confident and capable. Don't think that I haven't understood you, my dear, dear wife. Every word burnt me. Oh, you are so wonderful and brave and loyal. To share your very soul, my dear. That was what you meant. Yes, if I were doomed you would come with me to be my comrade. In the dark places. Oh, my God!"
He choked, stiffened in a fierce effort at self-control and went on with a ring of strange triumph in his voice.
"I only left you here because I believed it was better so, but I see now that you have tortured yourself all the time. But there was no need, dearest. Let me speak now. I will tell you the truth. I did not murder Charles Lammarsh—Saïs has used that word for her own purposes. Listen to me now."
Then, very carefully and slowly, omitting nothing of the events of that fatal evening, he told her the truth of the affair at the house of Saïs.
She listened with strained, almost poignant attention, and, as he spoke, slowly the tense and tragic stare in her eyes died out.
"He came there, to that house, wildly excited, and angry—so angry that he did not seem able to explain exactly what he was angry about. But it was jealousy—a sort of jealousy. He claimed Saïs—and insulted me. I did not want to quarrel, certainly not to fight. Only a man of the lowest class ever wishes to entangle himself in a brawl in—a house like that. But he was dressed as a Turk or an Egyptian, his face was very dark, purposely stained, I suppose. He was not like an Englishman or an American. He spoke French without a suspicion of accent. Saïs said he was a Turk and a hashish slave and told me to send him away. Then he seemed to lose control of himself and sprang at me. I had to defend myself. There was a struggle and then he collapsed quite suddenly. I had no weapons—did not want any. I should not have used one if I had it. It did not seem a really serious thing to me—until he collapsed. Then I was horror-stricken. Do you understand, dear? I just wanted to get him out of the house and to shut him out. I hadn't enough interest in him to hate him or to want to hurt him. He insulted me, but one doesn't want to kill a man when, under the influence of drugs or drink, he insults one or makes a nuisance of himself. It was terrible that he died. But it was an accident. If only I had not been so foolish as to listen to Saïs's proposal that I should leave the house and Cairo and allow her to deal with the matter! But I was horrified and shaken—and Hoodless seemed to think it best to do as Saïs suggested. And so I agreed."...
He paused for a moment, watching her anxiously.
"I acknowledge that I was weak and that I deserve all this suffering because of my folly," he continued. "And I am prepared to pay any penalty that may be inflicted on me. But I cannot bear to see you suffer any more because of me—or my folly. Already you have had blow after blow, wound after wound—all my fault, all my doing. I can't alter the truth, I know that. And, except to tell you the exact truth and to fight against any lie or false charge that comes out of Egypt, I can do nothing. I only want to see you happy, my dear. I don't suppose there will be much more happiness for me—I don't deserve it. I know that very well. If I had dreamed that Charles Lammarsh and that man at Saïs's house were the same person I should not have dared to expect that you would marry me, and I should not have ventured to ask you to before I had told you everything—the whole truth!"
He broke off for a moment thinking.
They were still holding hands—like two children in trouble. There was a curious, unconscious expression of bewilderment on his face, which his next words explained.
"I don't understand things quite—I mean, it seems to me that you and I are being punished almost savagely—too much—for what wasn't a very deadly sin. I do not consider that I am to blame at all for the death of Charles Lammarsh. It was an accident. I confess that it was a sin to stay at Saïs's house with her as I did—but thousands of men, like me, have done that sort of thing and they have not been—been haunted, nor their wives made so unhappy, nor their married life wrecked, because of the—indiscretions-sins of their youth. It seems as if I have been caught up in a kind of net all entangled. Except for that first week with Saïs I did not do anything very bad in Egypt. I suppose that holiday at Luxor with her was a mistake—but if you had not been called away I am sure that you would have found a way out of that for me. I was coming to you for your advice. Saïs had saved my life, and she wanted me to stay at Luxor with her. I—I know I am—was—weak that way—but, honestly, I think it was a sort of instinct, a kind of fear of feeling priggish or hypocritical, as much as any passion that kept me at Luxor with her."...
A faintly angry rebellion against the remorseless operation of fate stirred him.
"I don't care for myself—I can take whatever is in store for me without whining—as far as I am concerned, but it breaks my heart to See that every time you begin to be happy something out of my past seems to spring out of ambush and snatch your happiness away. I don't think I can endure much more of it, my dear. I am trying to play the game—to meet my obligations. I called the tune, as they say, and I must pay the piper. But I don't see why you should pay too—and you shall not!"
The slow temper of his people shook clear another coil.
"I have made a few mistakes. But on the whole I have tried to be decent—generous—a sportsman. That doesn't seem to be good enough for Fate. It seems to be part of the price that you should suffer. Well, you shall not—if I can prevent it. It is only you I care about of all the women in the world, and, if it comes to that, I can be a good deal harder, like many other men, and snap my fingers at Egypt and the past in Egypt, and say to you, 'Never mind, never mind, we have each other and all the rest can go to the devil!' You and I, Louise—you and I. We've got to live our own lives. If they make us hard, we'll be hard. If they want us to be selfish we'll be selfish!"
He sprang up, excited, too excited to notice the quick flush of color that ran into her cheeks or the sudden light in her eyes as his excitement communicated itself to her.
"I can see how dreadful it must have been for you during the last few hours—lying here thinking, brooding, but it has made a difference for you to know that the death of Charles Lammarsh was an accident, and that until to-day I had not the least suspicion that he was your husband, hasn't it?"
She drew a deep breath.
"Difference!" she cried. "All the difference in the world! I am more than ever with you now. I cannot pretend to grieve about him. He had given me no reason to love him during our married life, and many to hate him. I am only concerned for you now."
She leaned to him suddenly.
"I have a confession to make, too, my dear. If you have not been perfect, neither have I. Dick, I did not know—I was not quite sure—when I came to England in mourning clothes whether Charles Lammarsh was really dead. He had just disappeared. Nobody knew where he had gone, nor when he would return—if ever he returned. I tried to be patient. But all the time I knew that I could come to you, that you loved me. And at last I could wait no more. I—I thought of it all for a long time—it seemed long to me—and I realized what a terrible position I should be in if, after you and I were married, Charles Lammarsh should suddenly appear. But you haunted me—ever since that evening on the hotel terrace at Cairo I have loved you—and I could not bring myself to lose you. I felt that I could endure anything for sake of just one little period of happiness with you. So I took the risk... came to you in mourning clothes and you asked me nothing about the past at all. But there, in the garden, when the news came that Charles Lammarsh was dead I should have felt nothing but relief, even though it might have been wicked, had he died in any other circumstances. But that was swamped in a great wave of fear for you and terror for myself. I felt that we were so helpless. It seemed that the Past was like some patient, stealthy, all-powerful enemy, watching us, stalking us, playing with us, that we were ever at its mercy, and it was merciless. It flashed to my mind that you had killed Charles Lammarsh purposely. If I had not fainted when I did I should have known in the next instant that it was impossible. Forgive me for that wild thought, Dick. I was stunned and confused—and—" He stopped her.
"Dearest, there is nothing for me to forgive," he said. "But I am as glad you have told me all that as I am that now you know everything of my past that can come between us. We can face things now—together. Whatever happens there is nothing more to surprise us or spring out of the past upon us—99
"And the present we can face together, Dick," she broke in quickly.
"Yes, oh yes."
There was confidence in his voice now, as in her eyes, confidence and, if not renewed happiness, at least there was hope. For they felt that whatever the future held for them at least the past had exhausted itself of weapons. They had told each other the whole truth, they had made complete confession, and in doing that had disarmed that looming enemy of whom Louise had spoken.
She could not bring herself to believe that her husband, an English nobleman, need do more than to relate simply and clearly, upon oath if necessary, the exact happenings at the house of Saïs when Lam-marsh died, to be believed, and, as far as the death was concerned, to be exonerated.
There would be scandal and fork-tongued comment upon them both to be endured, she knew that.
But she and her husband were armed with love against the poisoned arrows of the uncharitable. That was the knowledge which had kindled hope in her heart and made it easy for her to acquiesce in the only course that was left to Lissmere—to go to Cairo without delay and investigate carefully, meet openly, and fight the charge with which he was menaced.
"Accept the conditions Saïs makes... pay her the money, leave her the child, go home to your own life and forget her."
Crichton Hoodless.
WHEN, some weeks later, Lord Lissmere and his wife reached Cairo, hot, glaring, wholly unattractive at this period of the year, their resolution of firmness was not so rigid and sternly inflexible as on that evening of mutual confession they had planned it to be.
Several causes had contributed to this curious sapping of their intent, not least of which had been the coldly practical advice and tone of Barr the solicitor, keenly supported by Roger Marchurst.
Barr had immediately characterized the last letter from Saïs as a deliberate declaration of an intention of blackmail, and advocated swift defense by purely legal tactics into which no suggestion of sentiment or human feeling should be permitted to enter or weaken. And Roger Marchurst had joined him, though at first the old viveur had been frankly for using the weapon of Saïs.
He had urged that Dick and Louise should turn over the whole conduct of the affair to Barr and himself, who would go to Egypt and settle things forthwith.
The lawyer had raised the point that Saïs, in her present mood, might be prepared to swear that Lammarsh had been deliberately killed, but Roger Marchurst had answered that, in any case, Saïs herself—and, for that matter, Hoodless—were in the position of accessories, and could be challenged as such. He would be quite willing to exchange threat for threat, and he was confident that this would easily defeat Saïs. But Barr's legal mind worked on safer if more intricate lines, and old Roger had quickly realized that Barr was right.
Then had followed long discussions, with Dick and Louise figuring mainly as listeners.
They had seen the skilled, patient, legal minds of the old lawyer and the counsel he consulted build up from the materials of defense a powerful and formidable attack, and they had realized with amazement the extraordinary power of the secret influence which the old, experienced man of the world, Roger Marchurst, diplomatic, politic, suave, could enlist on behalf of his nephew; not because Dick was his nephew or a young man, who repented deeply the errors of his immediate past, but because he was Lord Lissmere, one of a caste whose long-entrenched position was daily menaced more gravely by the rising tide of reform and progress—so gravely threatened that, as a class, it dared not disdain any means which would help it to conceal any fresh evidence of weakness, unworthiness or vulnerability created by the folly of any member of it.
So that in the end, and quickly, the Lissmeres, young, susceptible, generous natured, and tolerant with the warm, ready tolerance of lovers absorbed in each other, had found themselves gazing with a curious vague unease upon the sharp weapon so patiently forging for the heart of Saïs. It was evident to them that Dick had nothing really serious to fear from the vindictiveness of Saïs, and from that it was only a step to the feeling of pity for the dancing girl that crept in upon them.
They had said to each other that they would be hard, fully believing it. But neither of them was of that nature.
Louise could understand—she believed she could understand—the angry desolation of Saïs. Had she not lost forever the man whom Louise adored?—a terrible thing. Louise could not have resisted a surge of sympathy for any woman who had lost Dick, and she could understand only too well that a woman so bereaved should feel bitter and revengeful.
And, after all, she had saved Dick's life. That was indisputable. There was the child, of course. But there was a reason why the intangible but painful jealousy of the dancing girl's motherhood was fast dwindling in the heart of Louise.
And Lissmere thought with Louise.
A hard-natured critic would have called them weak, but neither had ever pretended to be stronger than average people. And like average people they were at heart generous, though with infinitely greater opportunities of acting generously than the average person, who, quite frequently dares not, for a thousand complex reasons, give his or her generous instincts free play.
They were human—ordinary little human folk— dreading sorrow, fearing tragedy, who longed only for happy peace, who recoiled sharply from the thought of tense and bitter hostility. To them, at last, the cold, balanced, competent plans of the legal people seemed almost merciless, and they had suddenly disclosed their united decision to go to Egypt and see first what could be done in a tolerant, broadminded, peaceable way with Saïs. To forgive certain things, to be forgiven others; to establish Saïs in the happiest circumstances possible, and, their consciences clear, to return to their own happiness....
Their advisers were wholly against that. Roger Marchurst, indeed, came near to anger at what he considered sheer weakness. But they insisted obstinately, with the impregnable obstinacy of the weak. Soon they gave up discussing it.
They were right, and they knew it, but they could not explain their instinct clearly.
Unexpectedly Barr, the lawyer, came nearer to approval than old Roger. But then his happiness, too, had been founded on love, and that was a chink in his armor of legal habit and mode of thought which made him far more vulnerable to their influence than any of them suspected.
"Well, we are going," said Dick at last. "So let's drop the discussion. If we are wrong we shall pay. It need not affect the case, the—the weapon you are building up, and it need not postpone its use if it is needed. In any case you will not be ready to proceed before we know whether we have succeeded or failed. So we can do no real harm, and we may do some good. To settle all this amicably would be splendid. We are going to try."
There was no more to be said, and they had left England as soon after that as possible.
Crichton Hoodless, prosperous looking, perhaps a trifle more effusive than of old, received them and dined with them at their hotel on the evening of their arrival.
At first they talked of anything but the object of their journey. All three seemed curiously loath to begin, and it was Hoodless who opened the subject.
"Well, it is a very great relief to me to see you here, Dick," he said, "and I will say frankly that I consider it both wise and courageous of Lady Liss-mere to have accompanied you, for things are difficult—really serious.... It has worried me a good deal more than I have cared to tell you."
His quick eyes flickered questioning from husband to wife and back again.
"I am to speak frankly?" he asked.
"Entirely, please, Crichton. My wife and I are one in all this," said Lissmere simply.
Hoodless nodded.
"This is very wise," he told them, smiling faintly. He went on:
"The situation is still very much what it was when I wrote you explaining that last demand—that preposterous demand. Saïs insists on retaining the child—no, that is not the right way to put it. I should say instead that she simply ignores any other view of that difficulty—the matter of the child—but her own. She is so sure of herself in that particular part of the affair that she merely laughs and snaps her fingers at any mention of that. She will never part with the child until it grows up and goes away on its own account. That is certain. I have spent hours in trying to persuade, to coax, to tempt her. She is absolutely inflexible. She does not value an English education or your interest and protection for the boy; she does not even understand that it might be worth having.... She has changed since you were last in Egypt. In those days there was never any serious indication that she thirsted for money. But now it is different. She has become hard; she seems embittered. I don't understand that quite in Saïs. She is more or less cosmopolitan, but she has suddenly set her face against the English—or perhaps I should say civilization, for her bitterness extends to all the—one might say—Christian countries. I have been with her as recently as this morning, urging her, but she is inflexible and hard. Indeed, she is hard about everything except the boy. She adores him, in the spirit that a tigress adores her cub!"
He noticed the sudden slight dilation of Lady Liss-mere's eyes, and added swiftly: "That's natural enough, of course; at least, nothing to reproach her for."
He was very quick and adroit.
"But it complicates matters—you see that?" he went on. "I have contrived to remain on good terms with her as recently as this morning, urging her, but to put the question in a nutshell, Dick, she is adamant. She is confident that she is in a position to dictate terms, and I have racked my brains trying to plan out a compromise that is not quite so one-sided as a complete surrender on your part."
He was speaking a little more quickly, eagerly, with a remote thrill, a faint vibrating undercurrent of excitement in his voice.
"Tell us, Crichton, quite bluntly, what exactly are the terms—the demands—which Saïs will not abate?" said Lissmere slowly.
"Briefly, it is as I was compelled to repeat them to you in my last letter.... Saïs insists that she retain absolute control of the boy and his upbringing. He must live with her. And a hundred thousand pounds must be paid to her and another trustee—she named myself, but I shall not act except at your own request —for the boy. Provision for herself she is willing to leave entirely to your sense of gratitude and honor. Her words—or the gist of them—not mine. You know my views. Failing that, she intends to notify the police of the circumstances of the death of—" He hesitated.
"Please do not hesitate for my sake, Mr. Hoodless. My husband and I have no secrets from each other," said Louise, pale but composed.
"—the death of that poor fellow Lammarsh!" completed Hoodless gravely.
"I see," said Lissmere quietly.
A curious change flitted over the face of Hoodless and into his eyes—a fleeting suggestion of hard surprise. It was gone at once, but Louise, watching him intently, had seen it.
He had been quite unable to control it for Liss-mere's answer or comment and the manner of it had genuinely surprised, even startled, him.
It told him that Dick had changed—had grown much older and probably more capable.
The Dick Marchurst of a year ago could not have answered so blatant a threat in this steady, reserved fashion. He would have flown into a defiant rage, he would have laughed with gay recklessness, or he might have fallen into a semi-panic of over-anxiety. It would have depended upon his mood and nerves.
Hoodless had fully expected some such outburst—possibly from both of them—and he was prepared for that.
It disconcerted him for the fraction of a second to find that his judgment had been inaccurate. He had not expected from either Lissmere or the beautiful woman beside him this steady, balanced, reserved reception of the threat.
"They have been advised by the legal folk! Be careful!" warned the sharp wits of the adventurer.
"A terrible thing," he deplored aloud. "I have exhausted every idea I could think of to urge her to take a less infamous course. But both you and Lady Lissmere know the East, and that, by a certain class at least, blackmail is regarded less as an infamy than as a—a windfall. Perhaps you have been able to think of a solution—a way out. I hope very much that it is so, for I confess I have failed to do so...." He paused for a moment, but Lissmere did not break in, and he continued:
"I have thought enormously over this. Of course, it is quite obvious to us—and even probably to Saïs—that there is no actual danger to you to be contemplated. You are Lord Lissmere, an English peer; Saïs is a notorious dancing girl. She would have to prove her charges against you. She could not do that without incriminating herself.... Your story would be accepted before hers. I could give useful evidence on your behalf myself, too; all that we can go into if necessary. But I can't bring myself to advise you to let it come to that, Dick. To offer yourself, and, even more unthinkable, Lady Lissmere, as targets to not merely the world's press but to the appalling and scurrilous Nationalist and native papers of this country and others, Dick! They would pounce on such a case like vultures.... You see for yourself. I won't dilate on it all. It's hopeless.... Another of those one-sided affairs in which the one party has nothing to lose and the other everything. So I come to the only possible advice I can offer. Accept the conditions Saïs makes... pay her the money, leave her the child, go home to your own life and forget her."
He spoke quietly, even more quietly than usual, but nothing could keep the hard glitter out of his eyes as he neared the triumph he had planned so carefully and minutely and patiently before ever he and Lissmere had gone to Kordofan. The half of that money was to be his—as half of the money previously sent for Saïs had come to him—and he felt that it was practically assured.
Louise drew in her breath sharply as she saw the ordeal prepared for them should they refuse.
She had been cognizant of it at home both when sitting in the office of John Barr, lapped about, encouraged by an intangible but sustaining atmosphere of safety and security, or at Lissmere, talking it over quietly with her husband.
But now its proportions and perspective were suddenly changed and enlarged and made terrible.
It was as though Hoodless had taken from her a pair of glasses through which she had been looking the wrong way, reversed them and placed them again to her eyes. The distant thing had become close, looming, dreadful.
Below the level of the table at which they sat side by side her hand, unseen by Hoodless, sought Dick's.
His fingers closed reassuringly on hers, but they were strangely cold.
"I have been a failure, I am afraid," said Hoodless slowly, watching Dick. "But success with Saïs was never possible."
"I understand, Crichton," said Dick quietly, a little dully. "I see that I—"
He stopped abruptly, for his wife's hand had slipped from his palm, tightened on his fingers, and had shaken them slightly in an unexpected but unmistakable movement of warning.
She had caught in the last words of Hoodless something which Dick had missed; a low vibration—imperceptible to any but a woman strung up to the limits of nervous endurance—of malice or cruel triumph, faint as the infinitely small stirring of loose desert sand under which breathes a sleeping asp.
It flashed almost miraculously to her that this man, this smooth, adroit, friendly-seeming man hated her husband with a chill, remorseless, patient, viperous hatred, and that now at this very moment, when he appeared to be sympathizing and advising, he was assuaging that hatred.
She was sure of it within an instant of divining it, and she acted swiftly.
He hated Dick, her husband. Her tremors vanished in the lightning flash of conviction, and a fierce courage flamed in her heart now like a steel blade fired by the sun.
Yet she was cool. She spoke quietly.
"I think that we ought to leave the discussion at that for to-night, Dick. Mr. Hoodless has shown us the impasse, and we ought to think very carefully before we say anything.... Besides, I don't think I can endure any more now for a little while."
Dick was on his feet in a second, bending over her with concerned eyes.
"Why, of course, my dear," he said. "I am so sorry; I forgot. You are tired."
She saw in his eyes that for that moment he had completely forgotten any trouble in the world but the urgent fear that all was not well with her, and at this new proof of his sheer devotion a sudden moisture dimmned her eyes.
"A little tired, yes, Dick."
And, regardless of Hoodless, she drew him down and kissed him in a strange passion that was full of gratitude to him blended thrillingly with a curious sense of protection for him.
Hoodless rose.
"It was my fault. I warned myself before we began to talk that I must not talk too long to-night. But I forgot," he said ruefully, apologetically, arranged briefly to call on the following morning, and went.
He smiled faintly as he closed the door behind him, well satisfied with that evening's progress. For the intuition of Louise had not been at fault. He hated Lissmere; he had hated him from the hour when Dick Marchurst, without effort, and at first quite unconsciously, had taken Saïs from him. It was that, as much as his desperate financial circumstances, which had set the feet of the adventurer upon the course which now he was pursuing and from which nothing could divert him.
In the first hours of his decision, before the shooting trip to Kordofan, Crichton Hoodless had been merely dangerous.
But now he was also infamous.
"I am his wife...."
Lady Lissmere.
LOUISE did not hasten to confide her doubts of Hoodless to her husband. Like him, and for all her youth, she had long ago learned the danger of precipitance, and she felt that it was not yet time to attack the man in whom Dick believed so completely.
Hoodless lunched with them on the following day, and during the afternoon he left them in order to see Saïs and arrange with her for the interview they both desired.
There was no difficulty. Hoodless reappeared in the early evening with the information that Saïs was willing to see them.
They went forthwith to her house, Hoodless with them.
For a few seconds Lissmere had seemed to repent of his promise that Louise should accompany them. He had glanced at her half interrogatively, hesitant, but she had only smiled a little, shaking her head. He understood and said nothing.
Whatever Saïs had done at the other houses she had bought she seemed to have made no marked changes at the secluded, silent house in which Lissmere had first met her and sown the seeds of the harvest he was now reaping.
They were admitted by El Addar the Abyssinian, whom Hoodless had already told them Saïs had kept in her service from the time Dick had left Egypt. The ex-headsman of Omdurman, clothed with a queer, barbaric splendor of which he seemed to be childishly proud, grinned cheerfully at Lissmere. He was evidently prosperous in the service of the dancing girl. His manner to Louise was extraordinarily deferential.
Louise looked at him steadily for a moment.
"Are you the man who rode to fetch help for Lord Lissmere when he and his friend were prisoners of the Red Emir?" she asked in English.
Hoodless broke in rather hastily:
"He understands practically no English, Lady Lissmere," he explained, and repeated the question in Arabic.
"This is the man," he went on, without waiting for El Addar to reply. He appeared anxious to keep them from direct communication.
Louise took from her bag a bracelet heavily set with big diamonds—a very valuable thing—and gave it to the big black.
"For your fidelity to Lord Lissmere, El Addar," she explained, Hoodless translating.
It was a graceful act. The eyes of the erstwhile executioner gleamed on the jewels, and he bent almost double in a passion of slaked greed.
Louise had chosen her gift well. She had felt that Saïs would have thrown to this black adventurer money enough to accustom him to money gifts, but the jewels were new possessions to him, and during his lurid past he must have seen enough of such things to appreciate a gift of them.
But the grin of intense gratification on the lips of the black bravo, whose further greed-inspired fidelity she had so easily, quickly and unconsciously bought, brought a sudden dark shadow flitting over the face of Hoodless as he listened to El Addar's jumbled eager torrent of thanks.
Lissmere, watching, nodded unconscious approval. It had been an unexpected sign to the black that his services had not been forgotten, and he, too, saw that it had an advantage which probably had not occurred to Louise at all. For what it was worth the mercenary loyalty of the Abyssinian was assured to them.
Then they followed Hoodless into the room that was always so vivid in Lissmere's mind—the room in which he had first met Saïs.
It had not changed. No sign of the courtesan's sudden increase of prosperity had penetrated here. The clashing colors had not diminished, nor the strange medley of furniture from everywhere altered. The gold, black, peacock, scarlet and silver of the many cushions still flamed from the big divans, the striped or spotted skins of tiger and leopard lay across the softer coloring of the Persian rugs. The room, after the spacious apartments at Lissmere, seemed to blaze hotly, airlessly, and was oppressive. Some cloying scent, intensely sweet and heavy, lay upon the close atmosphere, and the glass panes behind the lattice-work of the high windows were closed in spite of the airless heat of the city outside.
There had been a time when Lissmere believed that he liked this room. A phrase of his glowed whitely in the recesses of his mind as he entered it:
"It's a bit bright, but a man can rest in a room like this."
(And indeed one man had rested in it—Charles Lammarsh.)
But now it oppressed Lissmere.
His eyes flickered to the big couch on which Lammarsh had rested, and he was conscious of a faint sensation of cold.
He turned to Louise, for whom Hoodless was pushing forward a chair.
She was very pale in the subdued light, he saw, but she stood very straight and erect, and she was studying the room carefully.
Her eyes caught and paused on a photograph of Lissmere set in a silver frame upon a small Moorish table. She crossed to it, lifted her hands as though to take it from its frame, then dropped them again. She had conquered an impulse to remove it almost as soon as the impulse had arisen.
She looked at her husband, smiling faintly, and sat down, nodding a little.
"What a boy you were, my dear, when you allowed all the—the glamor of this to grip you," she said in her clear, sweet, musical voice. There was much more of understanding, of indulgence, in her tone than irony. He nodded ashamedly.
There was a movement at the archway which had first framed the courtesan for him, a flash of color, and Saïs was there looking in upon them silently.
Lissmere caught his breath as he stared. For a moment it seemed to him that he must have dreamed all those long months of excitement and suffering which had elapsed between the moment of his first glimpse of Saïs and this moment. For she was, she seemed, unchanged; either unconsciously or for some reason of her own she had deliberately reproduced herself exactly as she had been on that first evening.
Her dress now, as it had been then, was no more than a sheet of gold and white silk, bordered with bright, metallic, kingfisher-blue fringe, secured with a flaming sash about her waist and a jewelled pin at her breast.... She looked as if she had been lying lightly asleep, unclothed, in some dim inner room, and, roused by their voices, had glided quickly from her couch, thrown on her silken sheet, coiled and bound the sash about her, banded her hair and, her eyes yet dark with sleep, had come half breathlessly to receive them... even as of old.
Lissmere clenched his hands as he stared.
Then with a muttered word he threw off the spell.
This was not the woman for whose favor he had been willing to sacrifice everything not so long ago. Though as yet she was outwardly indistinguishable from the old Saïs, though she was not less lovely, yet she was changed greatly.
She was his enemy now, and mother of his child....
He dropped his eyes, and Saïs came swaying in, her eyes on Louise. So they came face to face; the beauty of the East, vivid, glowing, dark and splendid, with the beauty of the West, slender, straight, delicate, almost colorless; the black diamond against the pearl.
Saïs had enlisted all the aid which brilliant color could give to her darkling beauty; Louise had put her trust in simplicity. Saïs flashed radiant with jewels; Louise wore no ornament except her wedding ring.
Yet only a very young man choosing between these two, and knowing neither, would have chosen Saïs.
For her strange, vivid and challenging beauty lacked utterly that hall-mark which stamped Louise Lissmere not less certainly than the symbol one looks for in an object of noble metal—purity.
To one with eyes to see and a mind to reason her natural purity of spirit and habit of thought was as conspicuously present upon the pale, delicate face of Lady Lissmere as it was absent from the brilliant eyes and imperious air of the courtesan....
Saïs was evidently in a mood to make things difficult.
After her first swift, sweeping glance at them all she relaxed lazily upon one of the big couches, facing Louise and her husband.
"You have become old—many years older—and haggard and worn, Dick," she said in French, with a strange, secretive smile. "Your wealth and glory in England weigh heavily upon you, eh?"
The slanting, dark-fringed, heavy-lidded eyes moved on to Louise.
"You are Dick's wife, the Lady Lissmere?" Her narrow smile seemed curiously to thin, to take on a touch of cruelty.
"You are too slight and delicate and pale to endure the burden of suffering which the sins of your husband, the noble Lord Lissmere, have thrown upon your shoulders," said Saïs. "Have you had any happiness yet with him?" she purred.
Hoodless, who had been moving uneasily, broke in:
"Lord and Lady Lissmere have come to see you in a friendly spirit, Saïs, to plan with you for the welfare of the little one and yourself," he said. His voice and manner were deprecatory and slightly nervous, and there was a vague suggestion of reminder in his tone.
She turned her black eyes widely on him in a stare that was not devoid of a certain contempt—a tolerant contempt.
"There is nothing to discuss. You have made clear my requirements to the Lord Lissmere and his lady? You have told them of the things I shall reveal if I am denied what I ask?"
"Oh, yes; it is that which they wish to discuss."
"More words!" Saïs shrugged, her teeth gleaming as her lips parted again in that disdainful smile. "There is no need for words, except these: The Lord Lissmere pays what I ask in money, and the Lady Lissmere pays for what I suffered in suffering."
Her smile vanished and a darkness settled upon her face.
"If it pleases me to demand from him the whole of what he possesses, to the last penny, he shall pay me that! if it pleases me to inflict upon his pale lady the penalty of seeing her living husband hanged for the murder of her dead husband I shall inflict it. I have the power, and I have the right. His life is mine. I saved it. Her sufferings at my hands can only wipe out, cancel, my sufferings at his hands.... I have heard very much talk of the honor of the Englishman. What honor is it that permits a man to cast off a woman—even a dancing girl—who has given all, not only to him but to his enemy also, for his sake, for his life?"
She turned her full gaze swiftly on Louise.
"You are not English; you are of New York—of America. Tell me, what quality of honor have, they taught you in that country? Is the honor of an American woman of the same quality as the honor of this English nobleman?"
She stood up suddenly; like a leopardess she was lashing herself to a mood of vicious anger.
"You are content to share with him that which he has denied me? Your honor, whatever it may be, permits that! Is it you or I who should share his great wealth, his possessions, his name and rank with him? I—I, who paid the price to save him from the impalement stakes of the Arabs—it is I, Saïs of Cairo, who should have been the Lady Lissmere! I, the mother of his son. Have you done anything for him? What have you done to share his name and his life with him? If you bear him a son that son will grow up to be an English noble. What has Lord Lissmere done to save my son from being anything but a bastard of Cairo?—the child of Saïs. Ignored, disdained, he will grow to be a man ashamed of, cursing his antecedents! Yet it was I who saved Lord Lissmere, and it was not I who killed Charles Lammarsh. Do you—does Lord Lissmere—dare to grudge me and my nameless son money? Even though it be the whole of his possessions!" She paused to draw breath.
Hoodless turned to them shrugging his shoulders in a gesture of despair and weariness, as of one who has heard a thing many times before.
Lissmere, flushed and looking a little dazed at the directness of the attack, would have spoken, but Louise was before him.
She stepped nearer to Saïs, speaking in a low, earnest voice.
"Saïs, if there were any intention of denying you or your son either money or recognition or aid then both Lord Lissmere and I would be guilty of ingratitude and baseness. But there is no such intention. We have come here to tell you of that, to arrange all that. We both hope to be able to help make it quite certain that your child shall grow into a man with every advantage we can obtain for him. You charge us with ingratitude, but time will convince you that we are not ungrateful. You are bitter because your son can never be heir to Lord Lissmere, but it is against the English law that you should direct your bitterness on that point. It is not in our power to give him the birthright of another. That can be explained—perhaps Mr. Hoodless has explained it already. It is not to dispute or haggle over making acknowledgment of our great debt to you, and of your sacrifices, that we are here. You shall receive acknowledgment that shall satisfy you. We promise that. Everything within our power. It was not because of the payments you require that we came. It was because of the things you said concerning the death of Charles Lammarsh. What do you know of that?"
Saïs's smile was malign as she answered: "I know that Lord Lissmere murdered him here," she said. "We had been friends, that one, Charles Lammarsh and I, but I sent him away from me after Dick came. He was not content. He came to this house angry, and they quarreled, and Dick killed him. I disposed of him. That is all. The rest is for the law of which you have spoken."
"That is only partly the truth," said Lissmere sharply. "There was no murder; it was no wish or intention of mine to harm Lammarsh. And his death was an accident. He collapsed suddenly and died. Lady Lissmere can say—and prove—that his heart was affected seriously long before he came to Egypt."
Hoodless frowned; he had not known that.
"But if you wish, all that can be explained to the law, to the police with whom you have threatened me," continued Lissmere. "I am prepared to answer any charge of that kind."
He had recovered himself now, and went on steadily:
"The proposals for your welfare and the child's future were made as much in your interests as in mine, Saïs, and were planned simply to ensure that any payments and allowances you require should be subject to some sort of regularity and reason. They were carefully thought out and were well meant. There was no need to threaten, and if you had not desired to hurt us you would not have insisted on Hoodless repeating the threat with the brutal directness on which you insisted. You wanted to hurt us—particularly my wife. And you succeeded."
"Yes, I succeeded," Saïs laughed, her eyes cruel.
Lissmere flushed and his face hardened.
"Now I tell you this," he went on. "I do not intend that my wife or I shall remain targets for your arrows all our lives long. I wish' very much to pay my debts to you as well as I can, but they shall not be paid in the coin of Lady Lissmere's unhappiness or my wretchedness. You and the child shall be provided for with absolute generosity. But I shall appoint trustees to retain control of that provision—not for sake of protecting the money, but in order to protect ourselves from attack. I—we wanted peace; we still want peace. You must decide if it shall be peace."
A note of anger stole into his voice as he saw the smile of arrogance and contempt on the lips of Saïs. "But I tell you this, Saïs; there are limits to my contrition, and we have reached them. I will satisfy you as far as money is concerned, but you must satisfy me that you will not use again the weapon of blackmail—"
A sudden fury shot into the eyes of the courtesan, and a red glow of rage stained her cheeks for a moment. She had not been prepared for the steady, balanced, fearless attitude and tone of Lissmere. She had known him only as a plastic and unthinking boy. But now he had changed—grown older and wiser She felt that the argument was going against her; she sensed that she would have to abandon the triumphant position of arrogant command she had secretly cherished; and she sought relief in rage.
"You—you—you!" she cried shrilly. "It is not you who should say 'this must be so' or 'that must not be so.' It is I—Saïs—because of what I have done, because of what I know. I saved you, but I can destroy both you and your wife!"
Her voice rose higher. It was as though the instinctive movement of Louise towards her husband added fuel to her fury.
"You I will give to the mercy of the law," Saïs went on, shrill and malignant. "And your wife"—she darted blazing eyes at Louise—"I will destroy afterwards."
It was easy to see that her real hatred was directed at Louise—that terrible hatred bred of envy, jealousy, and a secret knowledge of inferiority.
"It is for me to say what must be done!" she cried, her voice coarsening strangely.
And now, under the outer beauty of this woman, rising balefully to the surface like a poisonous water-snake rising to the surface of a beautiful pool, they saw or heard or became aware of the secret ugliness and baseness that the successful courtesan must ever keep concealed.
Her sudden delirium of rage was betraying her at every second.
She glared at Louise.
"It is not Dick that is to blame for coming here to haggle, to browbeat, to talk to me as if I were a—a servant. It is you who have changed him, made him old, ungrateful, hard—you—pale, cold, cunning—"
A vivid pinkness ran into the cheeks of Louise.
"You are wrong," she cried imperiously in a new voice. "I am his wife, and I advise only as wife should advise. I have encouraged him to be kind. But you meet kindness with insult because one tries to use kindness with reason. He has said that there are limits to his contrition, and I may tell you that, no matter what you have done, there are limits to the right you arrogate to yourself—the right to utilize the man you voluntarily saved as your slave, his possessions as your toys, his wife as a weapon with which to torture him! We have been reasonable and patient, but I see that it is like being patient towards a striking cobra! I have no desire to wound you, but you have made it necessary that you should be told plainly that you have no right, no claim, no shadow of claim to authority over or control of Lord Lissmere."
She stepped nearer to the courtesan in a white passion of defense and just anger.
"You have the insolence to claim a right to dispose of the life of a man who has bitterly repented of a wrong done to you and is anxious to make every reparation in his power," she cried, her voice ringing clear as a steel blade. "That would be an effrontery in a perfect woman. Do you dare to claim that you are perfect? I—and I speak for my husband—deny any such right to you, for you are not fit to influence the life you saved—"
"Be silent!" Saïs leaned forward to hiss it at Louise. Her eyes were glittering now with a light of rabid anger.
"I am not fit, do you say?" she said swiftly. "Because I am—what I am. Do you dream that you are fitter than I—more perfect? Listen; Charles Lammarsh is not dead, but alive, here in Cairo! So you are not the Lady Lissmere! Like me, you are no wife—no wife to the noble Lord Lissmere—but, like me, his plaything, his mistress, and soon, no doubt, to be cast off and thrown away, even as I.... And we shall stand equal to each other in the eyes of men—harlots in Egypt both!"
It was the last javelin.
Lissmere stepped forward to his wife's side with a furious oath, wrung from him by the bitter malignity of Saïs, and Hoodless whirled on the dancing girl with a low, furious cry that she had thrown away her last instrument of extortion for the barren joy of inflicting pain on the woman she hated.
Louise stood, horror-stricken and dumb, like one verily transfixed by a sharp weapon.
"His wife!" jeered Saïs, and her low, cruel laughter crawled on the air like a live, poisonous thing crawling.
Faintly, as from some distant room, another sound trickled to them, remote at first, but, as the laughter on Saïs's lips died out, growing clearer and more insistent—the crying of a child.
"Do you dream I care whether any priest erases his record of our marriage—or any official blots us out from his book of marriages?..."
Lord Lissmere.
FOR a tortured moment Lissmere held Louise to him. Both men were staring at Saïs, their eyes hard with anger, though their anger was inspired by widely different reasons.
Saïs stood facing them in a curious crouching attitude, with one arm outstretched, bent and thrown a little back in almost exactly the attitude of one who has just hurled a missile and peers forward to see the result. So, for an instant. Then the crying of the child rose almost to a scream, and Saïs turned suddenly and glided out precisely as a leopardess may turn from a victim to her cubs, or a serpent wind back to its eggs.
She had meant to wound terribly; she had paid a high price for that bitter luxury, though, with the exception of Hoodless they were all slow to realize that; and she had succeeded.
Despite her unhappy past and the knowledge of the darker side of human nature which her marriage and her life after it had forced upon her, Louise almost unconsciously had preserved the essential purity of spirit which had been her birthright, and the ferocious, vicious, utterly naked revelation and taunt of the dancing girl had struck upon her consciousness with a force that seemed physical as well as spiritual. Her body cringed and shuddered under the brutality of it while, for a few moments, her mind was numb.
She went lax in the arms of Lissmere, and a darkness deepened about her mind, a darkness through which a harsh and venomous voice seemed to drive again like a scarlet arrow.
"We shall be equal to each other in the eyes of men—harlots in Egypt both!"
She shivered, and a coldness gripped her, stealing upon her like frost. But almost instantly that strange mental darkness was checked, for, like the first beam of dawn, a ray of gold illumined it.
"Charles Lammarsh is not dead!"
If that were true it destroyed her right to the name of wife, but also it meant that her husband could not be charged with having caused his death, that Dick was free—free from danger, from slander, from any public ordeal or scandal. It meant that Saïs, in striking a javelin through her heart, had drawn one from Dick's; that a part, a great part, of her husband's burden had been lifted from his shoulders and, in a sense, placed upon her own.
The realization thrilled through her like a sudden miraculous influx of new strength and courage, and the darkness about her soul dispersed.
She raised her head from her husband's shoulder and stood away from his arms.
"But Dick—Dick, don't you see what it means? Charles Lammarsh is not dead, and you are innocent!" she cried, her face transfigured.
"But you—your position—" he stammered.
"I accept that gratefully.... At first—before I could think—I was shaken, horrified, but now that I see more clearly I regret nothing. If I have sinned it has been in ignorance—unwitting—"
She stopped abruptly at that, for now she remembered the risk which she had deliberately taken; that she had married Lissmere while she still doubted in her heart whether Lammarsh was really dead.
She paled a little as she realized that she could not honestly claim to have sinned unwittingly. She bad taken a risk and she had known it to be a risk. She had concealed from Dick her remote fear that she might not be free to marry; she had deliberately yielded to the temptation of wedded life with Lissmere knowing that it was possible that a day might come when she would be unable to claim that her happiness, her love and her passion at Lissmere had been those of a wife.
There had been that much at least of truth in the taunt of Saïs. She saw that.
"We shall be equal to each other in the eyes of men!" Saïs had said, but that was not true. For if she had sinned, yet out of her sin she had saved Lissmere, whereas Saïs had sought only to accomplish his destruction....
Louise turned to Lissmere, saying low:
"I am content, Dick. If I have sinned I am prepared to suffer, for out of my sin comes your salvation. I have a price, a high price, to pay. But I shall pay gladly."
But Lord Lissmere, true to his character, was not for subtleties. All his life long he had been simple natured, not given to deep thought or excessive debating within himself upon the ethics of debatable things.
And, upon occasion, such men are refuge and sanctuary to erring women.
He caught Louise to him again.
"My dear, my dear," he said very deliberately, "do you think I care what others say of you, think of you or your position, except for your sake? I care nothing for them, nor for what you have done, wittingly or unwittingly. You are my wife in my eyes always. And that will never be changed. Do you dream that I care in the least whether any priest erases his record of our marriage, or any official blots us out from his book of marriages? We are not saints, and if we have sinned we have suffered for it. I care nothing for all that. You are mine, and I have you and I shall keep you; and the past can bury itself, or remain unburied. I don't care so long as I have you!"
She quivered in his arms, sighed, and was quiet for a little.
Lissmere looked at Hoodless. "What do you know about all this, Crichton?" he asked.
"Nothing—if you mean Lammarsh," replied the adventurer uneasily. "But it seems to be working out well. I congratulate you, Dick." Lissmere frowned.
"But you cursed Saïs when she was speaking. You said she had thrown away her last chance of getting a fortune!"
The adventurer's eyes grew hard and wary.
"Oh, that! I was carried away with anger; I guessed the insult she was preparing for Lady Lissmere. I was desperately anxious to stop her, divert her. You see, there is still the difficulty of the child's future and the question of the sacrifice Saïs made for you—us—in the desert. It is shocking that she should have allowed you both to suffer so over the business of Lammarsh, but—"
He broke off abruptly, listening to a sudden mutter of voices outside, sounding as though El Addar were in violent altercation with a new-comer.
"A moment, dear!" Lissmere put Louise in a deep chair, and, with Hoodless, turned to the entrance of the apartment.
"Stand clear, negro," rasped a voice outside. There came the thud of a blow, a heavy fall, and a second later a man, dressed in the white suit of an Englishman in the tropics, stepped into the room.
He did not remove his topi as he entered.
In his hand, lean, sinewy, brown as an Arab's, he held an ugly, modern automatic pistol.
He stepped swiftly aside so that his back was in a corner of the room, and faced Hoodless, and Lissmere.
He glanced swiftly round the room as though in search of some one, and in spite of the narrow, pointed beard he was wearing Lissmere and Hoodless recognized him instantly. They had last seen that lean, handsome face, those merciless blue eyes and slim, wiry figure in circumstances they would never forget.
He eyed them coolly, warily, wiping the butt of the automatic with a silk handkerchief.
"I appear to be intruding upon a species of conference," he said acridly. "Where is Saïs?"
It was the Red Emir, that renegade of the Kordofan border whom Saïs had left for dead in the desert moonlight on the night of her escape to Khartoum.
"Suffer no more...."
Lord Lissmere.
IT was Hoodless who answered the renegade.
"What do you want with Saïs?" he demanded. Again the adventurer had changed. There was about him now nothing of the old quick, glib suavity, the smooth, airy carelessness, or even the faintly anxious gravity which on occasion he could so well assume. He stood staring now under drawn brows at the outlaw Emir; subtly he seemed to have become less pantherine, more boar-like.
"What do you want with Saïs. You, with a price on your head?"
The other looked at him closely, curiously, and smiled suddenly.
"I have come to take her home!" he said softly.
"Home!" Hoodless laughed unpleasantly. "To a tent in the desert. Saïs has a better home than any hiding hole which you may hope to share with her. You have wasted your time, and probably thrown away your life, by venturing here, out of the wilds to which you belong. Saïs is not for you."
The Red Emir smiled.
"Ah, is she not? Well, she shall decide that. But be very sure that she is not for you. I am content that the decision shall be left to her."
There was a remote jeer in his voice, and his eyes were confident.
It dawned upon the Lissmeres, watching these men, that Hoodless was on the defensive, that he intended to stand between this wild, handsome scoundrel out of the desert and Saïs because he, Hoodless, loved and desired her for himself. And since it was hardly likely that any such passion had flamed up in the heart of the adventurer only at the moment of the outlaw's arrival, it followed that Hoodless must have been in love with Saïs from some time in the past.
But he had always striven to convey to Lissmere that he regarded Saïs rather as an enemy, a raider, a beautiful plunderer, rapacious and dangerous, a she-wolf to be fought and beaten off!
What if he had secretly loved her all the time, or had been working in secret league with her?
His attitude now was certainly that of a man sullenly, even dangerously, jealous of a possible rival.
Even as this thought occurred to Lissmere Louise drew him down to her, whispering the same thing. He nodded, and a new knowledge of the true character of Crichton Hoodless began to glow in his mind.
"Crichton has been playing a double game all the time! He has been trying to bleed me and to remain on terms with Saïs; she must have known, agreed. Why—why, Louise, it has been a conspiracy right from the time we left Cairo for the desert," he whispered.
"Yes, yes, but wait a little; watch them and listen. Hoodless will betray himself, I think. He has forgotten us; he is like an angry, bristling dog—"
Louise broke off as the Emir spoke again with a glance in their direction.
"I fancy that I have interrupted a 'scene' of sorts," he said; "but I do not apologize. My time is limited. I wish to see Saïs. Will some one send for her or fetch her, or must I find her myself? Let me warn you that if I have to search for her the first person who tries to leave this house in order to betray me will step straight into—not the street, but paradise. Possibly paradise. I have two entirely trustworthy watchdogs at the doorway, fully instructed."
He fixed his eyes on Hoodless, and his tone changed.
"Now listen, you," he said arrogantly. "I am here for Saïs. She is mine. Voluntarily she paid herself to me once, and I intend to hold her to her bargain, by force, or by strategy, if necessary. But it will not be necessary."' He smiled. "She is not without a regard for me—"
Hoodless laughed, a jarring, uneasy sound.
"Man, you are mad! Her regard for you was not fierce enough to prevent her from trying to poison you in the desert—as one poisons a jackal that has become a pest."
But it left the other unmoved.
"Yes, that was like Saïs. She had not learned her lesson," he said with a curious indulgent tolerance. "She left me drugged in the moonlight. Not dead. Has it never occurred to you that if she had wished me dead she needed only to have used a knife or a pistol? I assure you there were plenty at her hand. Or if she were of too tender, too mild a spirit to assure my permanent sleep with her own hand, let me remind you that she had only to give an order to that black ruffian unconscious in the next room. He would have had no qualms—"
He broke off sharply as the fretful cry of the child penetrated again for an instant to that room, and a sudden flush darkened redly his bronzed, lean cheeks.
"What is that noise of a child crying?" he said low, like a man questioning himself.
Then he glared at Hoodless.
"Whose child is that crying in this house?" he asked fiercely.
There was no answer, and he repeated the question with an air of menace. This time it was answered by Saïs, entering softly.
"My child!... Ah!" She had recognized the outlaw.
His eyes glittered, playing over the courtesan as she paused in the archway staring, like one fascinated, at the man out of the desert.
"Emir!" she said, very low.
For a moment they faced each other in silence. Then the Red Emir spoke in a slow, peculiar tone—soft, but extraordinarily authoritative.
"Whom you drugged but did not destroy, Saïs... Saïs, come here to me."
Hoodless made as though to move, and the pistol-hand of the outlaw shot up like the head of a snake.
"Be still," he said in a harsh and ugly whisper. Hoodless was still.
"Come here to me, Saïs," said the Red Emir again.
Saïs, watching him intently, moved slowly across the room, almost like a woman hypnotized.
The outlaw threw out his left arm as though to receive her, but she hesitated half-way.
"Why do you hesitate, Saïs? You know that you must come. You love me, and I am your master," said the man, still in that strange, new voice.
The others watched, thrilled and a little wondering.
Saïs moved forward again slowly, even meekly, but it was the sinister meekness of a fierce creature under the spell of a fierce mate.
"Ah, you beautiful fool!" said the outlaw in a low, husky voice, and his arm closed tight upon her. Her head drooped to his shoulder in absolute surrender, while his right hand swayed gently as the black eye of the pistol followed every uneasy movement of Hoodless.
"Whose was that crying child, Saïs? Tell these people the truth. Is it the child of one of your slaves or victims in Cairo, or the son of your master—my son?" said the Red Emir loudly.
"Your son!" answered Saïs.
And the truth was plain in her voice.
The outlaw went on:
"This man Hoodless dreams you are for him, Saïs. Tell him what you are going to do." She looked keenly into the eyes of the man with a price upon his head, read something there, and twisted lithely in his arm to face them all.
"I go now from Cairo to the desert with this man and our son!" she said, paused a moment, then broke from him.
"He is my master, as he has said, and my man, and that is an end of all things European for me, and I am content!" she cried, laughing loudly. Her great slanting eyes were burning with passion, excitement and some obscure, secret triumph at which they could only guess.
She wheeled on Louise.
"You—even you—your pale face, big eyes, I hate no more. So I will set you free!"
She moved quickly to the door, calling in swift French to her servant Olympe.
Louise caught a few words and started up white and shaken.
"She has sent for Charles Lammarsh!":
Saïs heard the whisper, and turned in the archway to say carelessly, half mockingly:
"Yes; but he is dying. Do not distress yourself. It is not necessary even to pretend to grieve."
Louise caught her breath, shivering, at the savage frankness of the courtesan.
The Red Emir and Hoodless watched each other like wolves, and outside the sprawled heap that was El Addar stirred and groaned heavily....
Yet, for all the crowding excitements and changes, the swirl of new passions, the uprising of old specters, the hints of terror, violence, treachery and tragedy, the new light of hope, unconquerable, illimitable, that had been kindled in the hearts of Lissmere and Louise burned with a steady increase.
One by one the javelins of their own sins had pierced and punished them—now, one by one, the measured, inevitable hand of Fate was plucking back the sharp points, bringing hope, bringing happiness as surely, certainly, unavoidably as, nearly a year before, it had foredoomed them to the period of unhappiness, misery, error and tragedy through which they had passed.
The wheel of fortune was swinging full circle now with a speed that was bewildering.... Here, within a space almost of seconds, so brief that it appeared wellnigh instantaneous, they had discovered that Crichton Hoodless, inspired, hounded by jealousy and greed, had consistently betrayed and deeply plotted against them; that he was a secret and tireless enemy; that the intangible barrier which the death of Lammarsh had threatened to set forever between them had yielded to another and a lesser barrier; that the child of Saïs was not the fruit of that Luxor holiday, but of a stranger liaison than any they had visioned—of that fierce wooing by the Red Emir and, they no longer doubted, the equally fierce if involuntary response of Saïs during that desert week through which the Emir, retreating to the oasis, had held her body captive and subtly, more subtly and surely than even Saïs herself had dreamed, ensnared her spirit.
Even as they waited for the appearance of Lammarsh, painfully adjusting their minds to violently altered perspectives, they thrilled to the knowledge that the most woeful of their burdens was lifted.
The swift pain that had stabbed Louise as Saïs's bitter taunts before the coming of the Emir had made plain to her the position in which she stood, had been assuaged almost as soon as it had been caused. Relief at the safety of Lissmere, a burning, wholly womanly secret gratitude for that she yet was destined to bear Lissmere's firstborn, these two things alone had reconciled her to anything that came after.
Charles Lammarsh would divorce her, no doubt, but she and Lissmere would welcome that. The wife that Lammarsh threw away Lord Lissmere was ready to welcome on his very knees.
But then Olympe came in, burdened, and they saw that Saïs had spoken the truth.
Charles Lammarsh would never divorce Louise. He had arrived at the very borderland of life and death, and even if he were capable of considering such a matter at all, it could only be in the spirit of one who, at the portals of sleep, may think for a second of some infinitely small, unimportant detail of the past day, forgotten, neglected, left undone.
He was dying.
The woman, Olympe carried him in her arms as though he were no more than a child, and, like a child, laid him gently on one of the divans. The waxen face, wasted body and dim eyes bore instant and unmistakable witness to the cause of his condition. It was that of a man who has come to the end of the long and utterly ruinous slavery of the drug-eater.
Even the hard eyes of the Red Emir, accustomed to gaze upon strange sights as they were, dilated for an instant as they fell on the fleshless face of Lammarsh.
"He was far gone with drugs before ever he came to this place," said Hoodless defensively, sullenly, to Lissmere, vaguely repudiating blame which none had implied to him.
Almost unwittingly, Louise nodded confirmation of that, but her pity surged up to overwhelm any question of censure or blame.
"He needs an English doctor," she cried to Saïs. "Can you not send for one?"
Saïs stared, shrugged, glanced at the renegade, then curtly told Olympe to fetch a doctor. But it was impossible to believe that any doctor could aid the man on the divan. He lay there like one sleeping, incredibly aloof.
Saïs turned to the Emir, and drew him with her to a corner, where they spoke swiftly in low tones. Lissmere caught a few words of the rapid French as he faced Hoodless: "Camels," "disguise," "oasis," "child"—such words. They were planning their flight, and he saw that the time was short for the clearing up of any mystery.
He drew close to Hoodless.
"Tell me the truth of it all, Hoodless," he said, leaving Louise at Lammarsh's side. "For both our sakes."
The adventurer tore his brooding eyes from Saïs, looked at Lissmere, and automatically his quick, calculating wits warned him that never again could he hope to find his erstwhile comrade in a mood so likely to be lenient as now. He spoke swiftly.
"You can blame me for all your later sufferings," he confessed, speaking harshly, roughly. "But it goes back to the beginning. Saïs was mine before ever she was yours. You took her from me. I never forgave you for that, I suppose. But I was penniless and could not afford to quarrel with you. The death —for at that time, like you, I believed he was dead— of Charles Lammarsh and the sudden mutual interest between Mrs. Lammarsh and yourself gave me the opportunity which I developed. I knew that the man you thought you had killed was her husband. Your breaking with Saïs and marriage to Mrs. Lammarsh completed that opportunity. I became partners with Saïs—partly for the sake of the money, partly in the hope of winning her back. But there was no chance for me. She had fallen in love with that blackguard of the desert. He can master her—you saw it. That is the only man she can ever love. Probably, after a time, he will ill-use her. She will only cling more closely to him. Some women are like that.... Months ago I learned that Lammarsh was not dead at all. Saïs told me—showed him to me. At first—that night when you struggled with him—even Saïs thought he was dead. It was not until several hours after you left the house that he stirred—when they came to fetch him. He seems to have been in some sort of stupor—trance. He's got a queer heart, they say. Whatever it may be, it's true that sometimes after excitement he goes into that stupor—like deep sleep. It's a kind of catalepsy or something.... His mind was never normal after that night, you know—memory gone. Saïs kept him from that time—had some idea that it might be useful for her revenge on you, I believe.... You know, you are lucky, really. You'll never know how lucky. If Saïs had not fallen in love with that cashiered traitor she would have taken her full revenge on you. She wanted to marry you when you inherited the title.... Yes, you've been lucky. You've suffered, and Mrs. Lammarsh; but you'll forget that. The money has meant nothing to you, either. You'll never miss it.... What does it all matter, anyway? A little suffering. You can look forward to something like a good time. You have plenty of money, a good wife. You need no pity. It's as that old uncle of yours used to say—you have paid your penalty, squared your debt. My advice to you, Lissmere, is to go home with your wife, regularize your position when that poor devil is dead, and forget the whole damned crew of us."
He paused, looking curiously at Lissmere.
"Do you want your money—my share of it—back again? Or do you want to hand me over to the police, for—what is it?—fraud, blackmail, anything you like. You owe me nothing. Anything I did in the desert for you was done mainly for my own sake. I intended to make a fortune out of you; you were pretty young—simple.... Now I don't think I care particularly what you do. I have all the money I want, but that she-devil Saïs has got into my blood and I'll never get her. She is for the oasis, and some time in the future, when they're ready in Kordofan, she'll probably die before the machine-guns with the Emir and his band. You can do as you like about me. If I had had the sense to have come here armed to-day you might have seen a different ending to all this—probably we should have got each other, the Emir and I... I think that's about all. If you had left Saïs alone in the first place it would never have happened."
He finished, staring at Lissmere steadily, with hard eyes, as hopeless as they were hard.
It was that hardness which forbade any impulse of complete forgiveness which Lissmere might have felt.
"I suppose it is weakness, but you've nothing to fear from me, Hoodless," said Lissmere. "As you have said, it is just as Roger Marchurst warned me. Javelins—forged out of one's own sins. I never believed that a year ago. I used to laugh at it. But I've learned things since then. It may amuse you, but all I intend to do is just to leave you to your own javelins. And I could not save you from those even if I desired to."
He turned to Louise.
Hoodless watched him move away with smoldering eyes.
Lissmere had implied that he might be so cynical that the prospect of his infamies recoiling on his own head, in Fate's own good time, might seem amusing to him.
But there was no sign of amusement in his expression, for he was a clever man—quite clever enough to know that Lissmere had spoken the sheer truth. For him, too, there were javelins forging in the armories of Destiny, and though they might be long in the coming, nevertheless he could not escape them for one instant past the time appointed for their homing. Though he might turn cunningly, feint and twist and elude with all his skill, scheme deeply, dart and contrive, sooner or later, assured and inexorable, they would home to him, through the heart.
And he knew that.
He watched, glowering, as El Addar, bleeding from a deep cut at his temple, lurched in glaring at the Emir.
He muttered as he came, and balanced in his hand with a dreadful skill a sword which he had taken from one of the walls in the outer apartment.
Saïs wheeled, laughing, raising a slender hand.
"Be still, negro," she said swiftly in Arabic. "It was necessary that the Emir should pass into this room. There is no blame, and there will be rewards. I, Saïs, promise it!"
The Abyssinian halted reluctantly.
"Rewards—?"
"Because of the blow, fool! Get to the door and wait— No!"
She thrust a finger towards Hoodless.
"Watch that man! He is an enemy to my lord the Red Emir. Watch him well, El Addar. If he moves to attack, or when the English doctor is here he shouts to betray the Emir, remember that thou are an headsman again—headsman to Saïs of Cairo! Take him into the next room, El Addar, and guard him well!... There will be great rewards."
She glanced at Hoodless, signing peremptorily.
For a second the adventurer hesitated. Then he turned and moved through the archway, the black bravo following him closely.
Lissmere turned to the courtesan in an impulse of protest. But she laughed.
"He will be safe, if he desires to be safe," she said scornfully. "Shall I allow him to call aloud the name of the Red Emir in a city that is full of enemies?"
And turned again to the Emir, whispering. She spoke of the child, inviting him to see his son; the Lissmeres caught a sentence full of fierce pride:
"Thy little son, my lord! Blue eyes! Even as an English baby—"
She turned to Lissmere, her hand on the Emir's sleeve.
"Because of old time, Dick, you will not betray my lord to the white doctor?" she said softly, trading on his debt to the last, staring deep in his eyes and, without waiting for an answer, went out with the renegade, confident, urgent, proud of her baby as a leopardess is proud of her cub... or as a good woman of her little one....
On the divan the drug-eater, indifferent to all, drowsed on his journey to the Gateway, and the room was very still.
Louise suddenly began to tremble. Her nerves were breaking. She turned a blanched face to Lissmere.
"Dick, hold me. I am afraid," she breathed. "I cannot endure any more."
He drew her away from the divan. She was sobbing.
"He was my husband, after all, and I remember when he was not like that. It is no fault of mine that he is like this now—not my fault. No fault—no sin of mine! Only—I feel—somehow guilty—guilty—"
He caught her hands.
"Be quiet," he whispered harshly, for all his instincts warned him against kindness in this light against hysteria.
"There is no fault; I swear that to you now, Louise. You are good—you have been good. This man is dying by his own hand—his own folly! There has been sin—guilt—yes. But my sin, my guilt. His sin and his guilt. Was it a sin to come for sanctuary—a little love—kindness—to me? No sin. You have done no harm; you have done nothing except to suffer so—" His heart melted within him. "Ah, suffer no more, no more, dear wife—"
He ceased, his throat wrung and aching.
But she understood, and the tension passed. She was weeping, but these were new tears strangely blended of sadness and a timid wonder that soon would yield to joy.
So, too, was it with Lissmere. As yet he hardly dared believe that the path to freedom lay cleared and shining before him, for though he saw plainly that he had reaped to the full his bitter harvest, he could see not less plainly that he had not Heaped alone. He had sown his sins, but the woman he loved had helped to harvest the suffering. It was hers to proclaim and point out the path to him, his to follow her humbly upon it.
He waited, adoring her.
"Now we can go home!"
Lord Lissmere.
SO the doctor found them waiting when presently he entered behind Olympe.
This one, an Englishman weary of the East and long accustomed to the ugly mysteries of secret Cairo, purposely prolonged his examination of Lammarsh for sake of the weeping woman, and when at last he turned to them his face was dark. He took Lissmere aside.
"You understand, of course, that nothing can be done for your friend?" he said quietly. "It is unlikely that he will live another three days. He may never recover consciousness. He has wasted himself with drugs for months, perhaps years. There is no hope at all. What do you wish done? I can have him removed from here; if he is a friend of yours you will not wish him to die in this house?"
Lissmere introduced himself and implored the doctor's interest for the dying man.
"He is a friend of mine, a sahib," said Lissmere. "If you could arrange for everything to be fitting, I should be grateful. No doubt he has mismanaged things a little, but it would mean a great deal to my wife and to me if he could go out like a sahib."
The doctor looked at him comprehendingly, entirely without curiosity.
"Naturally. I will arrange that," he said.
Saïs and the Emir returned as the carriage of the doctor rolled away, taking Lammarsh.
True to herself the courtesan glanced carelessly at the empty divan.
"He has gone?" she said, and peered past the curtain beyond which the Abyssinian watched Hoodless.
"And now you go also, Dick?" she asked. "Yes?"
Her eyes were only for the renegade, and there was a supreme indifference in her voice.
"Yes," said Lissmere. "Come, Louise, let us go."
The renegade stared, opened his lips, started forward like one who would entrust a message.
"You wish to say something to Dick?" purred Saïs indulgently.
But the Emir stepped back, shaking his head.
"It does not matter, Saïs," he answered.
"It does not matter," she echoed. "Let us go back to the little one; there is an hour before you leave...."
She signed to Olympe, and turned her back on Lissmere and Louise, utterly indifferent, intent only on luring the Emir through the archway.
Olympe, smiling her eternal and enigmatic smile, shrugged faintly as she led the way to the outer door.
"No farewell—nothing! It is the way of Saïs!" she murmured. "Adieu, madame! Monsieur, adieu!"
The door swung to behind them, and, holding hands like children, they stepped past the motionless Arabs guarding the doorway for their master.
It was dark in the narrow street, but their souls were in the sunlight at last.
"Now we can go home," said Lissmere raptly.
Her fingers tightened on his.
"Ah, yes, yes, yes—home!"
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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