Part 32

It was Essenian who conducted Miss Forbis to the car, a palatial Daimler of huge size, enamelled black and violent red; overloaded with solid silver and ivory fittings; lined with primrose satin brocade upholstery, and driven by a handsome Italian chauffeur.

"How gorgeous! And in what native taste!" cried Trixie, delightedly as the springy yellow cushions received her. "And does it belong to the Egyptian Flying Officer--the little, purring Pasha with the extraordinary eyes? I shall call him 'The Basilisk' because he reminds me of one!"

They had quitted the dust and racket of the city, and as they passed through the Rosetta Gate, and out upon the Aboukir Road, and were in the quiet suburbs on the east, near the European cemetery, Katharine rose and looked back, and gave a cry of admiration. For Alexandria,--with her domes and minarets and huge square blocks of modern buildings,--bathed in the rose and amber light of an Egyptian sunset--was beautiful with something of the beauty of the Past....

"That is something to have seen," Katharine said with a sigh, as she dropped back on the springy primrose cushions. "Thank you, dear Lady Wastwood, for a wonderful afternoon! You have been happy, haven't you?"

"Quite amused," Lady Wastwood answered. "And if I haven't been quite happy, well, then neither have you!"

She moved nearer to Katharine, and took her hand, and patted it, affection mingling with solicitude in the green eyes that questioned the face of her friend.

"I won't make pretences to you, dear Commandant," Katharine returned after an instant's hesitation. "I have cause to be happy, and cause to be anxious. And the anxiety weighs so heavily that Happiness kicks the beam."

Trixie patted her hand again, and said as the car bowled along the Aboukir Canal Road with its charming country villas shaded by palms and casuarina-groves:

"If I can help in any way, you promise--you will let me? Won't treat me like a stranger--will give me the chance I'd like.... To show you that I don't forget--what I can never speak of, but what I live through in my dreams--nearly every night! Promise! For I am a lonely woman, Kathy dear, though I keep my end up and don't go round howling for sympathy!--and I am truly fond of you."

"I promise, dear friend. And I would tell you now what the trouble is--because I trust you absolutely--where I myself am concerned! But I am not free to give away the confidence of another."

"Meaning the Jew Colossus with the great hooked nose," said Trixie mentally. And Katharine went on:

"You're looking better. You've not had that dream of late. Probably because it has done you good--sleeping in the open."

For Lady Wastwood and Miss Forbis shared one of the roomy sleeping-tents in the grounds of the Palace, distinguished from other similar groups as the "V.A.D's Annexe."

"I shall hate it when the rains come and drive us back indoors," Trixie responded. "And to-night at any rate I shan't dream of shipwreck,--I shall dream of The Basilisk! That man gives me cold shivers all down my spinal column. Why, I couldn't exactly explain. Some people have a horror of cats--the gentlest and most faithful pets to those who love and understand them. Others simply abominate dogs--I'm not keen on them myself! But my feeling for the little Pasha isn't one of those mild antipathies. Shall I tell you what those basilisk eyes of his keep saying to me? No!--it's all right--the chauffeur can't hear! They say: 'My dear lady--I'm a wealthy Gyppo Notability, esteemed an Ace of Aces in the hand of the R.F.C.... I've a chestful of decorations--all earned brilliantly. _But my Mother was a Tigress--and my Father was a Snake!_ ...'"

"_Est ce que les dames feront un petit tour en campagne, ou retourneront elles directement à l' Hôpital?_"

"Will the ladies take a little tour in the country, or return directly to the Hospital?"

The question, asked in French through the speaking-tube fixed above the seat in front of them, made Katharine and the Commandant start. Briefly informed of the ladies' desire, the Italian turned the car upon the sanded road curving past the Khedivial Palace; and after half-a-dozen miles, swept round in a northward curve and presently was climbing a gradient between the orchards of peach and apricot trees, the fig-groves and pine-woods and gardens of beautiful Montana, gleaming like a fairy palace of rosy mother o' pearl in the fires of the sunset; on the square green promontory at whose shoreward base break the pearl and sapphire surges of the Western Sea.

XII

"The name of Forbes is common enough in your North Britain--the name of Forbis sufficiently unusual, to put me on the scent. And--one looks for the lady in these affairs!" purred Essenian, as he left the house in the Rue el Farad with John Hazel--profiting by the coolness of the evening to walk to the Aviators' Club. "Let me add, your taste is unimpeachable. I have never seen a handsomer Englishwoman than your friend."

Now he pursued, in his smooth, book-learned English, drawing out a platinum cigarette case--opening and offering it to John:

"Take one. The Macedonian leaf failed last year, but not so the crops of Shiraz, grown and ripened side by side with the purple-petalled afiyûn. You perhaps may not know this Club..." he added a little later, as they entered the wide, cool vestibule of a handsome granite building in Sherif Pasha Street. "No! Well, I anticipated you would not! ... Originally an association of mere amateur civilians, meeting periodically to exchange experiences--the Club has become,--since Government took over our aërodrome and hangars--you know them!--near the Water Works due east of Aboukir Road--a resort for Flying Officers of all grades and branches of the Service.... Since then, if much more social--we are a damnable lot more noisy and a good deal less exclusive.... Still, our Club remains distinguished by its European comfort, and its excellent _cuisine_!"

The dining-room into which a demure Levantine waiter ushered Essenian and his companion, was perfectly ventilated by electric appliances, and open along the whole of one side towards a sanded court containing a fountain, a great many long cane-chairs and several palms; and of the many small tables dotted over the spotless matting covering the floor, the majority were empty, though apparently reserved for diners. A few were already occupied. With the men who sat at them,--officers of the R.F.C. from the land-stations in the neighbourhood, and others of the R.N.A.S. from the sea-plane-stations at Ramleh, Port Said, Wara in the Delta,--and the seaplane-carrier anchored at the moment in the Port, Essenian exchanged nods and salutes of smiling courtesy. Several of the younger men stood up to greet him--though none approached the table where the Egyptian airman sat with a long-legged private of Territorials, wearing the badges of a London Regiment....

The temperature of the room approximated to that of London in July, thanks to the incessant movement of the wooden ceiling-fans. The dinner began excellently, with _hors d'œuvres_ of giant prawns, miniature cucumbers and fresh olives, and a shell-fish of delicate flavour, served on miniature mountains of finely pounded ice. A Comet hock accompanied, and a clear soup was succeeded by a _turban de turbot_, perfectly cooked, and a curry of tiny whitebait-like fish from the Canal.

Roast lamb and duckling followed, both of remarkable succulence, and John Hazel, who had lived for weeks on bully-beef and onions, tough Palestine goat-mutton, and slabby rice-pudding speckled with the bodies of defunct flies,--having--in the unavoidable absence of these--cheerfully battened on iron rations, the bottom of a tin of jam and a handful of sticky dates,--yielded now to the immemorial allure of the Egyptian fleshpots; and attacking dish after dish with the ferocity of an ogre, slaked his huge thirst with repeated draughts of the well-iced champagne supplied....

The magnificent red roses massed in a crystal and silver rose-bowl in the centre of their table, and the gratification of satisfying the hunger that raged in him, prevented him from grasping a fact to which he awakened later,--when quail from Upper Egypt with egg-plant and quince salad, and snipe from the marshes of the Delta succeeded the lamb and duckling, and he paused to gather breath.... For Essenian sat smiling on the other side of the roses, before unused cutlery and silver, and an array of wine-glasses innocent of wine.

"My hat! Pasha, what must you think of me?" John began, nearly dropping the fork and spoon that were lifting a plump quail from the offered dish: "This ain't your Ramadan, is it, by any chance? No, of course, that comes in May. Has anything put you off your feed, or don't you ever eat?"

"Have no anxiety on my account, my King of Damascus," returned Essenian, narrowing his long eyes as he smiled upon his guest: "I am well, and that I continue so, I owe to precautions which may seem absurd to you. But every advantage we enjoy in this world has to be purchased--and I purchase vigour and health at the expense of my appetite.... Pray do justice to the quail, while I follow my usual rule."

He clapped his hands, and an Egyptian body-servant, who had stood immovable in the background, holding a silver tray, moved noiselessly forwards and set before Essenian a goblet of crystal and a long-necked crystal beaker;--together with some small covered dishes of delicate porcelain, revealing when the covers were lifted--nothing beyond a few fresh dates, a small, snow-white cream cheese, and a delicate napkin, enveloping a round cake of bread.

"Distilled water and freshly-gathered fruit, with bread of the purest sesame-flour.... Of these, in limited quantity, I may eat twice in the day. Preferably, at dawn, and after sunset; though by religion I am no more Moslem than I am a Christian," said Essenian, daintily filling the crystal goblet, "or a Parsi, or a Hindu, or a Buddhist, or a Jew...." He broke bread.... "What is this? ..." He turned with feline suddenness on the dusky servant who stood behind him, and said harshly, speaking in Arabic: "There is error! The sesame has been mingled with wheaten-flour. It is impure.... I cannot eat of it! ... Take it away at once...."

"_La yâ Sidi--Allâh yisallimak!_" the man protested, paling under his chocolate skin.

But Essenian had sniffed the bread-cake remotely and delicately as a fox might sniff at some slily-poisoned titbit, and now replaced it on the dish, and thrust the dish away....

"Carry it to the cook and inquire into the matter!" He said to Hazel, as the servant removed the dish and vanished straightway: "Do not be disturbed on my account! To one so well schooled in abstinence as myself, it would matter little if the meal consisted only of dates. Mixed in a draught of this pure water, a few drops of an excellent tonic (to the virtues of which I am a living testimony) will more than supply the deficiency.... Meanwhile, do not neglect our _chef's_ excellent _omelette soufflée_. Or the _bombe glace_ of custard-apple on which he prides himself.... And then--since I know better than to offer cheese to a man who has been 'fed to the wide,' with that as an article of Army rations,--I will join you in a cup of Arabian coffee, black, thick and bitter as the nectar of Mocha should be."

He took from a front pocket of his Service jacket a little case of shining yellow metal, and opening it, showed three slender crystal vials, reposing in a velvet bed. He unstoppered one,--tinging the air laden with the savour of meats and viands--with a whiff of something delicately pungent--rather suggesting the fragrance of lemon-plant to John.... Then with dainty, scrupulous care, he dropped seven drops into the goblet of distilled water; re-stoppered the vial, wiped the lip with a green leaf, returned the vial to its bed, and pocketed the case,--watching through narrowed eyelids the turbid changes taking place in the clear liquid, until as it deepened from cloudy red to clearest ruby, he glanced across the rose-bowl to encounter Hazel's eyes....

"A pretty colour, is it not?" he said critically, holding up the goblet. "Now I will drink, and you must join me. I hope you do not find fault with our Club champagne? ..." He continued, signing to the attendant, who stood ready with another napkined bottle: "That you have been drinking came from von Falkenhayn's Headquarters in Transylvania,--when we bombed him out of them in the summer of 1916.... That defeat of the Vulkan Pass must have been a crushing blow to the Emperor's magnificent favourite,--coming after the tremendous failure of the Second Attack on Verdun."

To the rout of the Vulkan Pass, John knew, Essenian's prowess had contributed. When Roumania had joined the Allies in the August of 1916, and massed her Army on the Carpathian frontier for an invasion of Transylvania, Essenian had acted as Wing Commander of a squadron of Allied Aircraft, acting in concert with a Roumanian Army Corps,--and for his services had been distinguished with the Order of the Roumanian Crown. At Salonika, later on,--for the first time meeting Essenian--John had encountered the French observer who had accompanied the Egyptian's flights.

"They are greatly strong in artillery, the Austro-Germans of von Falkenhayn! ... We are not so.... The Roumanians are only strong in men. As we march on they retreat,--for two weeks it is a triumph.... Then their von Falkenhayn gives the signal, and their guns begin to play on us.... I who speak have been under fire!--was I not in the advanced trenches at Verdun with my storming-party, before I joined the _Service Aëronautique_! But this was super-gunnery--a torrent of steel and fire and German High Explosive, sweeping--as with the Devil's broom--the mountain-passes clear! All through October continues the fight--every day we are flying! In fog, and rain--zut! rain of shrapnel and fog of poison-gas--we never cease to fly.... When we are not observing--we are bombing! Or making more rain on the Austro-German Divisions--a rain of steel _flechettes_! Me, I am no coward! but whenever M. Essenian Pasha says to me: 'Prunier, this, day or night, my friend, you accompany me in my _avion_....' I say to myself as we used to say with my storming-party at Verdun: '_Ça va barda, mon ami! Prepare ton matricule!_' For M. le Major will fly with a broken wing, or a bullet through the petrol-tank, and all the juice running! ... _C'est un as!_ ... He puts in me the fear of God--that man who has none at all! ..."

Meanwhile Essenian ate of dates and cheese sparingly, sipped his tonic drink appreciatively, and waited for the man on the other side of the crimson roses to talk.

"Here is the port." He added as the servant filled Hazel's glass from a cobwebbed and ancient-looking bottle: "Don't drink yet. Let us follow the ancient fashion, the first glass of the bottle to a lady's health! ... I propose: 'The beautiful Miss Forbis! ...' What, do you break the glass?"--for John had nodded, and his huge brown fingers had snapped the stem of the wineglass like a match-stick as they set it, emptied, down. "Take a fresh one,--finish the bottle,--and meanwhile try those cheroots.... Or the others--excellent Havanas, though I smoke cigarettes for my own part, or else the water-pipe--our Egyptian _ârgili_. Ah, here is the coffee," said Essenian pleasantly, as the Egyptian servant previously dismissed, re-appeared at his elbow with another tray. "Black as the eyes and perfumed as the breath of the brides who lead the sons of Islam into the green pavilions of Paradise. Though," he smiled amiably at John over the cigarette he was lighting, as the attendant removed the empty bottle and placed a flask of Benedictine with the coffee beside the guest--"your personal predilection leans to something statelier and less seductive than the gazelle-eyed, moon-faced _haura_ of the glorious Koran.... What says our Saadi: 'The tresses of Beautiful Ones are chains upon the Feet of Prudence, and a snare upon the wings of the Bird of Wisdom..... We Easterners hardly credit the existence of Friendship between those of opposite sexes," pursued the Egyptian, letting the sentences trickle over his smooth lips as though they had been honey, "and yet, subsisting between an intellectual man, and a mentally-superior woman, it may be productive of more lasting gratification than the merely sensual tie."

"What are you getting at, Essenian Pasha?" asked his guest, bluntly.

Essenian had paused as though inviting a reply, and this was the response forthcoming. A faint line showed between his smooth black eyebrows and his tones were less sweet and liquid as he resumed:

"But this,--that such a union between man and woman might lead to great discoveries--in those psychological regions which we are beginning to explore. Two such adventurers, mutually keen, mutually gifted with spiritual perception, bound by sympathies unblunted by the earthly passion of love, might pass back along paths long buried beneath the _débris_ of extinct civilisations--trodden by the footsteps of generations who went before them, to the furthermost limits of the Mysterious Unknown."

He waited. This latest opening proved no whit more successful than others previously given. John Hazel continued to drink, and smoke, and answered nothing. To pry out the diamond hidden in this lump of living clay,--to wrench open the rugged valves of this human mollusc housing the pearl of priceless knowledge,--was going to be more difficult than Essenian had thought....

"Your friend, Miss Forbis," he resumed, and now the heavy eyes were on him, "strikes me as possessing an unusual degree of psychic force and energy, in combination with her remarkable physical beauty and charm. That she is less handsome than her brother, one would be disinclined to credit, were her own testimony not corroborated by the evidence of T.R.S. 43."

"And who might the gentleman you mention be, and what the--what does he know about it?" demanded John Hazel, regarding his host with a decided scowl, and speaking in an aggressive tone.

"T.R.S. is a Turkish Renegade Spy whom I recently met and interviewed at the B.S.I. Office Ismailia," returned Essenian smoothly, "on a subject of vital interest to your attractive English friend.... 'Describe,' I said, 'this British priest who lies in prison at Shechem,' and the man answered '_Mashallah!_' Describe the Archangel Jibrail when he came from the Ninth Heaven to announce to Mary the Pure One the Miraculous Birth of the Messiah--between Whom and the touch of Satan, at the moment of His Nativity--the Lord of Creation interposed a veil!' He was quite serious--Turks are idolaters of physical perfection.... Incidentally, he wound up with a few details concerning the--disposition, and predilections distinguishing the Turkish Lieutenant-General of gendarmerie who is at present Commandant of the Prison Camp at Shechem,--which throw a rather lurid light upon the conditions there...."

He chafed his delicate finger-tips softly against each other as he leaned both elbows on the cloth and smiled over the roses into Hazel's gloomy eyes.

"Hamid is a--let us say a protégé of the notorious Djemal Pasha, once Turkish Minister of Marine--now Commander of the Fourth and Eighth Turkish Army Corps. Of mean birth, a Turk from Crete--he bids fair to out-Djemal Djemal.... I need not remind you that Crete is--the country of the Minotaur! ..."

The speaker's beryl eyes shone green in the light of the electric globe-lamps. His voice had a little poisonous hiss through its delicate silkiness.

"Since the prison camps of Beersheba were shifted to Shechem, their Commandant has a narrower field for the exercise of his peculiar bent.... According to my Turkish spy, he has what you would call 'a down' upon your friend's brother,--whose refusal to be removed from the Barracks to the wired camp set apart for the officer-prisoners has offended the Bey.... Perhaps the presence of the priest is a check upon his usage of the soldiers, whom Father Forbis nurses in fever and other sickness, and for whom he has obtained consular funds for the purchase of medicines, charcoal for fires, meat for broth, and so on...."

He satisfied himself by a swift glance that John was absorbed in listening, and resumed: "Turks are--Turks!" He made as though to spit, but checked himself, and went on: "You have said to me: 'We Hazaëls have an old score to settle up with Hamid....' Two years have not changed the Bey. He is still the Minotaur! ... And unless Fortune, or," he shrugged "the favour of Heaven, operate in the interests of this brother of your friend, his may yet be the fate from which self-slaughter saved your Cousin Jacob--Catholics being forbidden that last resource of the desperate.... Escape from torture or degradation by the Gate of Suicide...."

XIII

Drifting down a sluggish stream of drowsy after-dinner reflections; brooding between a bellyful of varied meats, and a brain addled with wine;--lost to the guiding, dominant idea of the Big Old Men, ranged one behind the other like a sculptured procession of Assyrian planet-gods, reaching back to the Beginning of Actualities whence looked down the Biggest Old Man of All--John Hazel had been recalled as suddenly as though a 5.9 shell had exploded in the Club courtyard, and starting to his feet, upset the chair he had sat on; its fall--with the crash of a breaking glass--making the men at other tables look round.

"_In peril such as this, and you sit here drowsing!_"

It rang in Hazel's singing ears--the voice of the worshipped woman. And in a moment the gorged Sybarite was gone. With a curt apology he resumed the chair the Club attendant had picked up and now replaced for him. A cool, resourceful man, instinct with force and energy, sat looking at Essenian across the rose-filled bowl.

"If things are as desperate as you've said, why not have told me? Let's thrash this out, Essenian Pasha, please!"

"With pleasure, but I must first know how Miss Forbis discovered that her brother was living. For that she knows, in spite of her very remarkable reticence,--was plain to me to-day. Was it you who broke that news to her? ..."

"No ... She told me! ..."

"When? ..."

"This afternoon! ..."

"That is curious! ..." The tone was incredulous.... "Through whom did she learn the fact?"

"Couldn't enlighten you! ..."

"How long has she known? ..."

"I'm unable to say! ..."

Scrutinising his guest between narrowed eyelids, sifting the unwilling replies with inquisitorial care, it was patent to Essenian that John knew, but would not tell. He tried again with no better result.

"Has Miss Forbis by any unlucky chance, embarked--any other person--in an effort to rescue her brother from the prison at Shechem?"

This time John flatly lied:

"No! ..."

"That is well. I should certainly withdraw from the attempt if its success were to be so handicapped."

"Handicap or none, whether you withdraw or not, I'm entered for the running!"

"I did not say that I withdrew. On the contrary!"

"Good egg you! Now--"

John poured out a brimming glass of iced mineral water, emptied it, and finished as he set down the empty glass:

"How far is Shechem from Ismailia?"

"Following the old Pilgrim's route overland--a distance of about 232 English miles. As the crow flies--or as I shall fly"--Essenian smiled--"about 195 miles...."

"Thanks. When can we start? ..."

"For Shechem? ..."

"For Shechem! ..."

"That depends!" said Essenian with his titter, as John glanced at his wrist-watch, and then at the elaborate clock,--mounted in captured German gun-metal--that occupied a bracket over the door of the dining-room: "That depends on your readiness to accept my conditions! ..."