CHAPTER XII
NEPHTHYS
Kāra’s plans were now maturing excellently, save in one particular. He did not wish to acquire a fondness for the girl who was his proposed victim, yet from the first she had cast a powerful spell over him, which all his secret struggles failed to remove. Waking or sleeping, her face was always before him, nor could he banish it even when engaged in play with her father at the club.
The Egyptian was shrewd enough to recognize danger in this extraordinary condition, and it caused him much uneasiness.
Finally, during a wakeful night, he thought of a means of escape.
“Tadros,” said he to his dragoman in the morning, “go to Fedah and fetch Nephthys here. I have an empty harem at present; she shall be its first occupant.”
Even the dragoman was surprised. He had begun to look upon his master as one affecting the manners and customs of the Europeans rather than the followers of the lax Muslim faith; but his face showed his pleasure at receiving the command.
“Most certainly, my prince,” said he, with alacrity. “I will take the first train to Fedah, and the beauty shall be in your harem within three days.”
Kāra caught the tone and the look.
“On second thought, Tadros,” he said, gravely, “I will send Ebbek in your place. I may need your services here in Cairo.”
“Ebbek! that doddering old Arab! He will never do at all,” cried the dragoman, blusteringly. “I alone know Fedah, and I alone know how to deal with Sĕra, and how to bring her fat daughter to you in safety. It is I who will go!”
“Send Ebbek to me.”
“Not so; I will go myself to Fedah.”
“Am I the master, Tadros?”
“You think so, because you are rich. If I knew of the tombs you are plundering, it is I who would be the master!”
“You are in great danger, my poor dragoman.”
Tadros, who had been glaring defiantly upon the other, dropped his eyes before the cold look of Kāra.
“Besides, some one must pay old Sĕra the two hundred and fifty piastres due her,” he muttered, somewhat confused. “It was the contract, and she will not let the girl come unless she has the money.”
“Send Ebbek to me.”
The dragoman obeyed. He did not like Kāra’s manner. He might, in truth, be in danger if he persisted in protesting. No one was so deep as he in his master’s confidence. But what did he know? Merely enough to cause him to fear.
Ebbek performed the mission properly. He not only paid Sĕra her due, but gave her five gold pieces into the bargain, by his master’s instructions; and he brought the girl, closely veiled, to Cairo and delivered her to Kāra’s housekeeper.
The rooms of the harem had been swept and prepared. They were very luxurious, even for Cairo, and Nephthys was awed by the splendor of the apartments to be devoted to her use. Her dark, serious eyes, glorious as those attributed to the houris of Paradise, wandered about the rooms as she sank upon a divan, too dazed to think or speak.
Neither faculty was a strong point with Nephthys, however. Meekly she had obeyed the summons from the master who had purchased her. She did not try to consider what that summons might mean to her. What use? It was her fate. Perhaps at times she had dimly expected such a change. Kāra had once mentioned to her mother the possibility of his sending for her; but she had not dwelt upon the matter at all.
In the same listless manner that she had carried water from the Nile and worked at the loom she followed old Ebbek to Cairo, leaving her mother to gloat over her store of gold.
The journey across the river was a new experience to her – the journey by railway was wonderful; but she showed no interest. The great eyes calmly saw all, but the brain was not active enough to wonder. She had heard of such things and knew that they existed. Now she saw them – saw marvelous Cairo, with its thousand domes and minarets, its shifting kaleidoscope of street scenes, its brilliant costumes and weird clamor – and the medley of it all dulled her senses.
In a way she was really amused; but the amusement was only sensual. This costume was more gorgeous than the braided jacket of Tadros the dragoman, she observed; that house was better than the one old Hatatcha had lived in. But beyond this vague comparison, the sights were all outside her personal participation in them. The part she herself was playing on the world’s great stage, the uncertainty of her immediate future, the reason why this tall, gray-bearded Arab was escorting her to Cairo, were all things she failed to consider.
So it was that on her entry into Kāra’s splendid harem the girl could not at first understand that the luxury surrounding her was prepared for her especial use. Had she comprehended this fact, she would still have been unable to imagine why.
She rested upon the cushions and gazed stupidly, yet with childish intentness, at the rich draperies and rugs, the gilded tables and chairs, the marble statuary and the tinkling perfumed fountain in the corner, as if fearing the vision would presently dissolve and she would awake from a dream.
She had brought a bundle under her dark blue shawl, a bundle containing her cotton tunic, the spangled robe and the wreath of artificial flowers. The blue beads Kāra had once given her were around her neck – all but one, which she had carefully removed and given to Sĕra her mother for an amulet.
She scarcely noticed when the old hag who acted as Kāra’s housekeeper tossed her precious bundle scornfully into a corner and began to disrobe her. The shawl, the black cotton dress, the coarse undergown, were one by one removed, and then the flat-bottomed home-made shoes.
When she was nude, the hag led her to an adjoining chamber, where her bath was prepared. Nephthys wondered, but did not speak. Neither did old Tilga, the housekeeper. She saw that the girl needed a scrubbing rather than a bath, and gave it to her much as if she were washing a child.
Afterward, when the fat, soft skin was dried, and annointed, and properly perfumed, Tilga led Nephthys to the robing-room, and dressed her in underclothing of silken gauze and a marvelous gown that was fastened with a girdle of cloth of gold. Pink stockings were drawn snugly over her chubby legs, and pink satin slippers, with silver bead-work, adorned her feet.
Then Tilga dressed the girl’s magnificent hair, placing a jeweled butterfly against its lustrous coils.
When Nephthys was led before a great mirror, she could scarcely believe the image reflected therein was her own. But the woman in her was at last aroused.
She smiled at herself, then laughed – shyly at first, now with genuine delight. She could have remained hours before the mirror admiring the gorgeous vision; but the hag pulled her away, dragging her by one wrist back to the boudoir, with its gilded furniture and the fountain.
As she sank again upon the divan her eyes saw a tabouret at her side, upon which was a bronze lamp with a floating wick and a tray of cigarettes. She seized one of the latter eagerly, with a half-defiant look at old Tilga, and lighted it from the tiny flame of the lamp. Then she leaned back upon the cushions and inhaled the smoke with perfect enjoyment.
Tilga nodded approval, surveying her new charge the while critically. She had much experience with harems, and wondered where Prince Kāra could have found this exquisite creature; for, to Oriental eyes, at least, Nephthys was rarely beautiful, and, perhaps, few men of Europe would have gazed upon her perfect features and great velvet eyes without admiration.
The rich dress transformed the Nile girl. Her luxurious surroundings but enhanced her beauty. Seemingly she was born for a harem, and fate had qualified her for this experience.
The afternoon that Nephthys arrived, Kāra was at the club, playing écarté with Lord Consinor. He was steadily winning, and in compliance with his usual custom, he declared he would continue to double until he lost.
“I’m not anxious to get your money, Consinor,” he remarked, carelessly. “There will doubtless come a change in the luck before long.”
The viscount was visibly disturbed. In all his experience he had never seen a man win so persistently. Already the stakes, because of Kāra’s system of doubling, were enormous, and the game had attracted a group of spectators, who were almost as eager as the participants.
Gradually the afternoon waned, until at length the prince announced in a low voice that the stakes were ten thousand pounds. Consinor shivered: but with his eyes on the flame-lit ring of the prince, he cut the cards and played his hand as well as he was able. Kāra won, and the viscount threw down the cards with a white face. Already he was ruined, and to risk a deal for twenty thousand pounds was more than his nerves could bear.
“I’m done, Prince,” said he, hoarsely.
“Bah! it is nothing,” returned Kāra, lightly. “We will merely postpone the play until a more favorable time, when this cursed streak of luck – which I deplore more than you do – is broken. We will start afresh, and you shall have a chance to win your money back. Sign me a note of hand and I will go.”
The viscount drew a sheet of paper toward him and signed a note of hand for ten thousand pounds. According to the rules of the club, the paper must be witnessed by two members, so Colonel Varrin and Ering van Roden penciled their initials upon it.
Kāra stuffed the document carelessly into a side pocket; but a moment after, as if struck by a sudden thought, he pulled out a paper and rolled it into a taper. This he lighted from the blaze of a lamp and with it relit his cigar, afterward holding the taper in his fingers until it was consumed to a fine ash. Not a word was spoken. The others watched him silently, but with significant looks, never suspecting he had substituted another paper for the note of hand, while Consinor, as the ash was brushed to the floor, breathed more freely.
“The pleasure of winning ought to be enough for any man,” remarked the prince, and, rising from the table, he sauntered from the room.
“Nevertheless, it is a debt of honor,” said Colonel Varrin, gravely. “But it is fortunate, Consinor, you were playing with Prince Kāra. The fellow is so confoundedly rich that money means nothing to him, and he will not take his winnings unless you force him to accept them.”
“I know that,” returned the viscount. “I would never have allowed another man to double the stakes during a winning streak. Perhaps I should not have allowed the prince to do so.”
Then he also left the club, for, despite Kāra’s seeming generosity in destroying the note, his own insidious nature led him to suspect every man he had dealings with, and the amount involved was so enormous that it would swallow up double the sum his father’s crippled estates were now worth. On his own account he had nothing at all beyond the salary he drew from the Ministry of Finance; so he realized his danger, and could not resist feeling that he had been led into a trap.
Meantime Tadros had not forgotten, as his master had done, the probable arrival of Nephthys by the afternoon train. He should have waited in the ante-room of the club for Kāra’s orders; but instead he returned to the house and found that the girl had already been there for an hour.
“I will see her,” he muttered, and disregarding old Ebbek, who would have stopped him, he entered the harem.
Thrusting aside the draperies, Tadros coolly stalked into the girl’s boudoir and then stopped short in undisguised astonishment at what his eyes beheld. Nephthys was reclining upon the divan, smoking her cigarette, resplendent in her fleecy silks, the golden braid and the sparkling jewels.
She smiled and nodded as she saw her old friend the dragoman, but Tilga burst into a flood of angry protestations and curses, rushing at the intruder and trying to drive him from the room with futile pushes of her lean hands.
Tadros resisted, and when the hag started to scream he covered her mouth with his hand, holding her fast at the same time.
“Listen, old imbecile!” he muttered. “Do you wish to lose your place with Prince Kāra? Be sensible, then. You are under my orders – the orders of Tadros the dragoman, and you must obey me.”
“I obey only the prince,” retorted Tilga, sullenly. “You will not be dragoman when the master hears you have violated his harem.”
“Ah, but he will not hear! It is to be our secret, Tilga. You are going to enter my service, and I will make you rich in a few months. See! here are five hundred piastres – five golden pounds in good English money. It is only a promise of more to come. Take it, Tilga.”
The hag took it, but with reluctance.
“If the prince discovers – ” she began.
“But he won’t,” declared Tadros, promptly. “He will discover nothing. Just now I left him at the club, playing cards with an Englishman. Go outside, my Tilga, and watch in the courtyard.”
She hobbled away, still muttering protests, and the dragoman seated himself upon the divan beside Nephthys.
CHAPTER XIII
THE TALISMAN OF AHTKA-RĀ
Kāra found he had only time to dress for a dinner with Mrs. Everingham. Aneth was to be there also, and he must not neglect the intrigue he was conducting to obtain an ascendency over the girl. That was the reason, he told himself, why he was so anxious to attend.
His plans were progressing well at this time. The only adverse element was the obvious infatuation of Gerald Winston for Miss Consinor; but the Egyptian had carefully gauged the depths of the young girl’s character. She was interested in antiquities, and therefore encouraged Winston, who was a noted scholar; but there was no danger in that. Kāra knew more of Egyptology than all the scholars in Cairo, and had often seen Aneth’s face brighten when he told her some strange and interesting bit of unwritten history. To be sure, Winston was her own countryman, and had an advantage in that; yet Mrs. Everingham had once said in his hearing that a handsome foreigner was always fascinating to an Englishwoman, and he had remembered the careless remark and pondered its truth until he had come to believe it.
He had a better argument than any of these in reserve, however. If the Englishman really succeeded in winning Aneth’s love in the end, then Kāra knew how to compel the girl to obedience.
As he left his room he found the dragoman leaning against a pillar of the courtyard.
“Is Nephthys here?” he inquired.
“I suppose so,” answered the dragoman, yawning sleepily. “She was due to arrive this afternoon, wasn’t she?”
Kāra looked at him with sudden suspicion.
“Have you seen her?” he demanded.
“Am I the keeper of your harem?” retorted Tadros, indignantly. “Old Tilga has been hidden in the women’s quarters for hours. Probably she is attending to your Nephthys.”
He eyed his master disdainfully, and Kāra walked on and entered the carriage. He had barely time to join the company at dinner, and Nephthys could wait.
Winston was not present this evening, and the prince found Aneth unusually gracious. She chatted so pleasantly, her manner was so friendly and her clear eyes so sweet and intelligent, that Kāra gave way to the moment’s enchantment and forgot all else in the delight of her society.
Nor did he recover readily from the spell. After returning home he paced the floor for an hour, recalling the English girl’s fair face and every change of its expression. Then he gave a guilty start as a recollection of Hatatcha swept over him, impressing upon his memory his fearful oath.
Kāra’s nature, despite his cold exterior, was fervid in the extreme. He had sworn to hate this girl, yet to-night he loved her passionately. But Hatatcha’s training had not entirely failed. He calmed himself, and examined his danger critically, as an outsider might have done.
To yield to his love for Aneth would mean enslavement by the enemy, a condition from which his judgment instinctively revolted. To steel his heart against her charms would be difficult, but its necessity was obvious. He determined to pursue his plot with relentless hatred, and to raise between the girl and himself as many bars as possible. He scorned his own weakness, and since he knew that it existed, he resolved to conquer it.
Once Hatatcha had said to him: “You are cold, selfish and cruel, and I have made you so.” True; these qualities had been carefully instilled into his nature. He was proud that he possessed them, for he had a mission to fulfil. And if he desired any peace in his future life, that mission must be fully accomplished.
In the morning he went to see Nephthys, and his face brightened as he realized how remarkably beautiful she was. The Orientals generally admire only the form of a woman, being indifferent to the face; but Kāra was modern enough to appreciate beauty of feature, while holding to an extent the Eastern prejudice that a fat and soft form is the chief attraction of the female sex. So he found Nephthys admirable in every way; and if her indifference and perfect subjection to his will in any way annoyed him, he was at this time unaware of the fact. He wished this girl to replace Aneth Consinor in his affection and esteem, and would forgive much in Nephthys if she could manage to bring about this excellent result.
After this he devoted much of his attention to the Nile girl, striving in his association with her to exclude all outside interests. He purchased for her marvelous costumes and hired two Arab maidens to attend her and keep her royally attired. Kāra’s most splendid diamonds and rubies were set by Andalaft in many coronets, brooches and bracelets to deck her person, and many of the wonderful pearls he had brought from the secret tomb were carefully sized and strung to form a necklace for the Egyptian girl’s portly neck.
Nephthys was pleased with these possessions. They drew her from the dull lassitude in which she had existed, and aroused in her breast a womanly exultation that even her mother could never have imagined her able to develop. It may be the girl began to think and to dream; yet if so, there was little outward indication of the fact. To comprehend any woman’s capabilities is difficult; to comprehend those of Nephthys seemed impossible. She was luxury-loving by nature, as are all Orientals, and accepted the comforts of her surroundings without questioning why they were bestowed upon her. Whatever sensibilities she possessed had long lain dormant. They might be awakening now; her delight in adornment seemed the first step in that direction.
Kāra purposely remained away from the club for several evenings following that in which he had won Consinor’s ten thousand pounds. Perhaps he wished his enemy to become uneasy and fret at the delay in wiping out the debt, and if so, it would have gratified him to know the feverish anxiety with which the viscount haunted the club, and watched every new arrival in the hope that Kāra would appear.
At last the Egyptian judged that he had waited long enough, and prepared to still further enmesh his victim. In his room that evening he took from a secret drawer of his cabinet a small roll of papyrus, on which were closely written hieroglyphics. To refresh his memory he read the scroll carefully, although it was not the first time he had studied it since it had fallen at his feet when the bust of Isis was overturned at the tomb of Ahtka-Rā.
Freely translated, the writing was as follows:
“Being finally prepared to join Anubis in the nether world, I, Ahtka-Rā, son of the Sun and High Priest of Āmen, have caused to be added to the decoration of my sarcophagus the precious Stone of Fortune given to me by the King of Kesh1 in return for having preserved him and his people from the wrath of Rameses. It is my belief that this wondrous stone will guard my tomb when my spirit has departed, and by its powers preserve my body and my treasure from being despoiled, until that time when I shall return to Qemt2 to live again. Let no descendant of my house remove it from its place, for the Stone of Fortune is mine, and I bequeath it not to any of those who may come after me. In time of need my children may take of the treasure what they require, but to disturb my Stone of Fortune will be to draw upon the offender the bitterest curse of my spirit. It may be known to all from its changing color, being never the same for long; and the color of it is not bright, as is the ruby or the carnelian or amethyst, but ever gloomy and mysterious. That none may mistake its location, I have embedded it in a triple band of gold, and it is placed at the head of my sarcophagus. There shall it remain. Since it came into my possession I have ever worn it in my bosom, and by its magic I have been able to control Rameses the son of Seti, to rule his kingdom as if it were my own, to confound all my enemies and accusers, and to amass such riches as no man of Qemt has ever before possessed. Also has it brought to me health and many years in which to accomplish the purpose of my present existence. For this reason do I refuse to part with it in the ages during which I await the new life. Whatever else may happen to my tomb, I implore those who live in the days to come to leave to me this one treasure.”
It was signed by Ahtka-Rā and sealed with his seal, being doubtless the work of his own hand.
Kāra rerolled the papyrus and put it away, pausing to glance with a smile at the strange ring he wore upon his hand.
“My great ancestor was selfish,” he murmured, “and wished to prevent any of his descendants from becoming as famous as he himself was. Nevertheless, had I read the script before I removed the stone from the sarcophagus, I would have respected Ahtka-Rā’s wish; but I did not know what treasure I had gained until afterward, when it was too late to restore the stone without another visit to the tomb. A curse is a dreadful thing, especially from one’s ancestor, and it is even to avoid Hatatcha’s curse that I am now fulfilling her vengeance. But Ahtka-Rā may rest content; I have merely borrowed his talisman, and it shall be returned to him when I have obtained full satisfaction from my grandmother’s enemies. Meantime, the stone will protect me from evil fortune, and when it is restored the curse will be averted.”
Something in this expression struck him as incongruous. He thought deeply for a moment, a frown gathering upon his brow. Then he said: “I must not deceive myself with sophistries. What if the curse is already working, and because of it the English girl has turned my strength to weakness? But that cannot be. Whenever I have worn this ring I have mastered all difficulties and triumphed as I desired; and I will triumph in my undertaking to-night, in spite of the reproach I can already see in Aneth’s eyes. I am still the controller of my own destiny as well as the destinies of others; for if the talisman did so much for Ahtka-Rā as he claims, it will surely prove stronger than any curse.”
With a laugh he shook off the uncanny feeling that had for the moment oppressed him, and went to the club.