CHAPTER XIII
That night the Sirdar dined with the Consul-General, and as soon as the servants had gone from the dining-room he said —
"Nuneham, I have something to tell you."
"What is it?" asked the Consul-General.
"Notwithstanding three weeks of the closest observation, I have found no trace of insubordination in the Egyptian army, but nevertheless, in obedience to your warning, I have taken one final precaution. I have given orders that the ammunition with which every soldier is entrusted shall be taken from him to-morrow evening, so that if Ishmael Ameer comes into Cairo at night with any hope of – "
"My dear Mannering," interrupted the Consul-General with his cold smile, "would it surprise you to be told that Ishmael Ameer is already in Cairo?"
"Already? Did you say – "
"That he has been here for three weeks, that he came by the same train as yourself, wearing the costume of a Bedouin Sheikh, and that – "
"But, my dear Nuneham, this is incredible," said the Sirdar, with his buoyant laugh. "It is certainly true that a Bedouin Sheikh travelled in the same train with me from the Soudan, but that he was Ishmael Ameer in disguise is of course utterly unbelievable."
"Why so?"
"Because a week after I left Khartoum I heard that Ishmael was still living there, and because every other day since then has brought us advices from our Governors saying the man was coming across the desert with his people."
"My dear friend," said the Consul-General, "in judging of the East one must use Eastern weights and measures. The race that could for fourteen centuries accept the preposterous tradition that it was not Jesus Christ who was crucified but some one else who took on His likeness and died instead of Him, is capable of accepting for itself and imposing upon others a substitute for this White Prophet."
"But you bewilder me," said the Sirdar. "Isn't the man Ishmael at this moment lying encamped, with fifty thousand of his demented people, on the desert outside Cairo?"
"No," said the Consul-General.
And then in his slow, deep, firm voice, grown old and husky, he unburdened himself for the first time – telling of Helena's departure for Khartoum on her errand of vengeance; of her letter from there announcing Ishmael's intention of coming into Cairo in advance of his people in order to draw off the allegiance of the Egyptian army; of Ishmael's arrival and his residence at the house of the Chancellor of El Azhar; of the visit of the Princess Nazimah and her report of the conspiracy of the diplomatic corps, and finally of the Grand Cadi's disclosure of the Khedive's plot for the establishment of an Arab Empire.
"So you see," said the Consul-General, with an indulgent smile, "that all the bad concomitants of an Oriental revolution are present, and that while you, my dear friend, have been holding your hand in the Soudan for fear of repeating the error of two thousand years ago – troubling yourself about Pontius Pilate and moral forces versus physical ones, and giving me the benefit of all the catchwords of your Christian socialism and Western democracy – a conspiracy of gigantic proportions has been gathering about us."
The Sirdar's usually ruddy face whitened, and he listened with a dumb, vague wonder while the Consul-General went on, with bursts of bitter humour, to describe one by one the means he had taken to defeat the enemies by whom they were surrounded.
"So you see, too," he said at last, lifting unconsciously his tired voice, "that by this time to-morrow we shall have defeated the worst conspiracy that has ever been made even in Egypt – meted out sternly retributive justice to the authors of it; put an end to all forms of resistance, whether passive or active, silenced all chatter about Nationalism and all prattle about representative institutions, destroyed the devilish machinery of this accursed Pan-Islamism, crushed the Khedive, and wiped out his fanatic-hypocrite and charlatan-mummer, Ishmael Ameer."
The Consul-General had spoken with such intensity, and the Sirdar had listened so eagerly, that down to that moment neither of them had been aware that another person was in the room. It was Fatimah, who was standing, with the death-like rigidity of a ghost, near to the door, in the half-light of the shaded electric lamps.
The Sirdar saw her first, and with a motion of his hand he indicated her presence to the Consul-General, who, with a face that was pale and stern, turned angrily round and asked the woman what she wanted, whereupon Fatimah, with trembling lips and a quivering voice, as if struggling with the spirit of falsehood, said she had only come to ask if the Sirdar intended to sleep there that night and whether she was to make up a bed for him.
"No, certainly not! Why should you think so? Go to bed yourself," said the Consul-General, and with obvious relief the woman turned to go.
"Wait!" he cried. "How long have you been in the room?"
"Only a little moment, oh my lord," replied Fatimah.
After that the two men went to the library, but some time passed before the conversation was resumed. The Sirdar lit a cigar and puffed in silence, while the Consul-General, who did not smoke, sat in an arm-chair with his wrinkled hands clasped before his breast. At length the Sirdar said —
"And all this came of Helena's letter from Khartoum?"
"Was suggested by it," said the Consul-General.
"You told me she was there, but I could not imagine what she was doing – what her errand was. Good heavens, what a revenge! It makes one shiver! Carries one back to another age!"
"A better age," said the Consul-General. "A more natural and less hypocritical age at all events."
"The age of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, perhaps – the age of a hot and consuming God."
"Yes, a God of wrath, a God of anger, a God who did something, not the pale, meek, forgiving, anæmic God of our day – a God who does nothing."
"The God of our day is at least a God of mercy, of pity, and of love," said the Sirdar.
"He is a lay figure, my friend, who permits wrong without avenging it – in short, no God at all, but an illogical, inconsequential, useless creature."
The Sirdar made no further resistance, and the Consul-General went on to defend Helena's impulse of vengeance by assailing the Christian spirit of forgiveness.
"There was at least something natural and logical as well as majestic and magnificent in the old ideal of Jehovah, but your new ideal of Jesus is contrary to nature and opposed to the laws of life. 'Love your enemies.' 'Do good to them that hate you.' 'If a man smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.' 'Resist not evil!' 'If any man take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also!' Impossible! Fatal! If this is Christianity, I am no Christian. When I am hit, I hit back. When I am injured, I demand justice. The only way! Any other would lead to the triumph of the worst elements in humanity. And what I do everybody else does – everybody – though the hypocrisy of the modern world will not permit people to admit it."
The Consul-General had risen and was tramping heavily across the room.
"Is there one man alive who will dare to say that he actually orders his life according to the precepts of Christ? If so, he is either a liar or a fool. As for the nations, look at the facts. Christianity has been two thousand years in the world, yet here we are competing against each other in the building of warships, the imposition of tariffs, the union of trades. Why not? I say, why not?"
The Consul-General drew up and waited, but getting no answer he continued —
"Civilisation requires it – I say requires it. What holds the world together and preserves peace among the nations is not Christianity but cast-iron and gunpowder. Yet what vexes me and stirs my soul is to hear people praying in their churches for peace and concord, while all the time they know that 'peace and concord' is an impossible ideal, that Christianity in its first sense is dead, and that Jesus as a practical guide to life – as a practical guide to life, mind you – has failed."
Then the Sirdar lifted his eyes and said —
"Do you know, my dear Nuneham, I once heard somebody else talk like that, though from the opposite standpoint – of sympathy, not contempt."
"Who was it?"
"Your own son."
"Humph!"
The Consul-General frowned and there was silence again for some moments. When the conversation was resumed it concerned the dangers of the Arab Empire, which, according to the Grand Cadi, the Khedive (with the help of Ishmael) expected to found.
"What would it mean?" said the Consul-General. "The utter annihilation of the unbeliever. Does not the word 'Ghazi' signify a hero who slays the infidel? Does not every Mollah, when he recites the Khuttab in the mosque, invoke divine wrath on the non-Moslem? What then? The establishment of an Arab Empire would mean the revolt of the whole Eastern world against the Western world, and a return to all the brutality, all the intolerance of the farrago of moribund nonsense known as the Sacred Law."
The Sirdar made no reply, and after a moment the Consul-General said —
"Then think of the spectacle of a conquering Mohammedan army in Cairo! If the Citadel and the Arsenal of the capital could be occupied by that horde outside, it would not be merely England's power in Egypt that would be ended, or the English Empire as a world force that would be injured – it would be Western civilisation itself that would in the end be destroyed. The Mohammedans in India would think that what their brethren in Cairo had done they might do. The result would be incalculable chaos, unlimited anarchy, the turning back of the clock ten centuries."
The Consul-General returned to his seat, saying —
"No, no, my friend, a catastrophe so appalling as that cannot be left to chance, and if it is necessary to blow these fifty thousand fanatics out of the mouths of guns rather than lay the fate of the world open to irretrievable ruin, I … I will do it."
"But all this depends on the truthfulness of the Grand Cadi's story – isn't it so?" asked the Sirdar.
The Consul-General bent his head.
"And the first test of its truthfulness is whether or not these thousands of Ishmael's followers are an armed force?"
Again the Consul-General bent his head.
"Well," said the Sirdar, rising and throwing away his cigar, "I am bound to tell you that I see no reason to think they are. More than that, I will not believe that when our boy took his serious step he would have sided with this White Prophet if he had suspected that the man's aims included an attack upon England's power in Egypt, and I cannot imagine for a moment that he could be fool enough not to know."
Again the Consul-General frowned, but the Sirdar went on firmly.
"I believe he thought and knew that Ishmael Ameer's propaganda was purely spiritual, the establishment of an era of universal peace and brotherhood, and that is a world-question having nothing to do with England or Egypt, or Arab Empires, except so far as – "
But the Consul-General, who was cut to the quick by the Sirdar's praise of Gordon, could bear no more.
"Only old women of both sexes look for an era of universal peace," he said testily.
"In that case," replied the Sirdar, "the old women are among the greatest of mankind – the Hebrew prophets, the prophets of Buddhism, of Islam, and of Christianity. And if that is going too far, then Abraham Lincoln and John Bright, and, to come closer home, your own son, as brave a man as ever drew a sword, a soldier too, the finest young soldier in the King's service, one who might have risen to any height if he had been properly handled, instead of being – "
But the old man, whose nostrils were swelling and dilating like the nostrils of a broken-winded horse, leapt to his feet and stopped him.
"Why will you continue to talk about my son?" he cried. "Do you wish to torture me? He allowed himself to become a tool in the hands of my enemies, yet you are accusing me of destroying his career and driving him away. You are – you know you are!"
"Ah, well! God grant everything may go right to-morrow," said the Sirdar after a while, and with that he rose to go.
It was now very late, and when Ibrahim, in the hall, with sleepy eyes, hardly able to keep himself from yawning, opened the outer door, the horses of the Sirdar's carriage, which had been waiting for nearly an hour, were heard stamping impatiently on the gravel of the drive.
At the last moment the old man relented.
"Reg," he said, and his voice trembled, "forgive me if I have been rude to you. I have been hard hit and I must make a fight. I need not explain. Good-night!" And he had gone back to the library before the Sirdar could reply.
But after a while the unconquerable spirit and force of the man enabled him to regain his composure, and before going to bed he went up on to the roof to take a last look at the enemy he was about to destroy. There it lay in the distance, more than ever like a great serpent encircling the city on the south, for there was no moon, the night was very dark, and the dying fires of the sinuous camp at Sakkara made patches of white and black like the markings of a mighty cobra.
Fatimah was at his bedroom door, waiting to bring his hot water and to ask if he wanted anything else.
"Yes, I want you to go to bed," he replied, but the Egyptian woman, still dallying about the room and speaking with difficulty, wished to know if it was true, as the black boy had said, that Miss Helena was in Khartoum and that she had betrothed herself to the White Prophet.
"I don't know and I don't care – go to bed," said the Consul-General.
"Poor Gordon! My poor boy! Wah! Wah! Everything goes wrong with him. Yet he hadn't an evil thought in his heart."
"Go to bed, I tell you!"
It was even longer than usual before the Consul-General slept.
He thought of Helena. Where was she now? He had been telling himself all along that to save appearances she might find it necessary to remain for a while in Ishmael's camp, but surely she might have escaped by this time. Could it be possible that she was kept as a prisoner? Was there anything he ought to do for her?
Then he thought of the speech he was to make in proposing the King's health the following day, and framed some of the stinging, ironical sentences with which he meant to lash his enemies to the bone.
Last of all he thought of Gordon, as he always did when he was dropping off to sleep, and the only regret that mingled with his tingling sense of imminent triumph was that his son could not be present at the King's Dinner to see – what he would see!
"Oh, if I could have him there to-morrow night – what I would give for it!" he thought.
At length the Consul-General slept and his big desolate house was silent. If any human eye could have looked upon him as he lay on his bed that night, the old man with his lips sternly set, breathing fitfully, only the tired body overcome, the troubled brain still working, it would have been a pitiful thing to think that he who was the virtual master of millions appeared to be himself the sport of those inscrutable demons of destiny which seem to toss us about like toys.
His power, his pride, his life-success – what had he gained by them? His wife dead; his son in revolt against him; alone, enfeebled, duped, and self-deluded.
God, what a little thing is man! He who for forty years had guided the ship of State, before whose word Ministers and even Khedives had trembled, could not see into the dark glass of the first few hours before him.
Peace to him – until to-morrow!
CHAPTER XIV
"SERAI FUM EL KHALIG,
"CAIRO.
"MY DEAREST HELENA, – I am going to that dinner! Yes, as Ishmael Ameer in the disguise of the Sheikh Omar Benani, chief of the Ababdah, I am to be one of my father's guests.
"This is the morning of the day of the festivities, and from Hafiz, by the instrumentality of one who would live or die or give her immortal soul for me, I have at length learned all the facts of my father's coup.
"Did you ever hear of the incident of the Opera House? Well, this incident is to be a replica of that, though the parts to be played in the drama are in danger of being differently cast.
"As this is the last letter I shall be able to send to you before an event which may decide one way or other the fate of England in Egypt, my father's fate, Ishmael's, and perhaps yours and mine, I must tell you as much as I dare commit to paper.
"The British army, as I foresaw from the first, is being brought back to Cairo. It is to come in to-night as quietly as possible by the last trains arriving at Calioub. The Consul-General is to go to Ghezirah as if nothing were about to happen, but at the last moment, when his enemies have been gathered under one roof – Ministers, Diplomats, Notables, Ulema – when the operation of their plot has begun, and the bridge is drawn and the island is isolated, and Ishmael and his vast following are making ready to enter the city, my father is to speak over the telephone to the officer commanding at Abbassiah, and then the soldiers, with fifty rounds of ammunition, are to march into Cairo and line up in the streets.
"Such is my father's coup, and to make sure of the complete success of it – that Ishmael's following is on the move, and that no conspirator (myself above all) escapes – he has given orders to the Colonel not to stir one man out of the barracks until he receives his signal. Well, my work to-night is to see that he never receives it.
"Already you will guess what I am going to do. I must go to the dinner in order to do it, for both the central office of the telephone and the office of the telegraph are now under the roofs of the Ghezirah Palace and Pavilion.
"I hate to do the damnable thing, but it must be done. It must, it must! There is no help for it.
"I cannot tell you how hard it is to me to be engaged in a secret means to frustrate my father's plans – it is like fighting one's own flesh and blood, and is not fair warfare. Neither can I say what a struggle it has been to me as an English soldier to make up my mind to intercept an order of the British army – it is like playing traitor, and I can scarcely bear to think of it.
"But all the same I know it is necessary. I also know God knows it is necessary, and when I think of that my heart beats wildly.
"It is necessary to prevent the massacre which I know (and my father does not) would inevitably ensue; necessary to save my father himself from the execration of the civilised world; necessary to save Ishmael from the tragic consequences of his determined fanaticism; necessary to save England from the possible loss of her Mohammedan dominions, from being faithless to her duty as a Christian nation, and from the divine judgment which will overtake her if she wantonly destroys her great fame as the one Western power that seems designed by Providence to rule and to guide the Eastern peoples; and necessary above all to save the white man and the black man from a legacy of hatred that would divide them for another hundred years and put back the union of races and faiths for countless centuries.
"If I am not a vain fool this is what I (D.V.) have got to do, so why in the name of God need I trouble myself about the means by which I do it? And if I am the only man who can, I must, or I shall be a coward skulking out of his plain responsibility, and a traitor not only to England but to humanity itself.
"God does not promise me success, but I believe I shall succeed. Indeed I am so sure of success that I feel as if all the recent events of my life have been leading up to this one. What I felt when I left Cairo for Khartoum, and again when I left Khartoum for Cairo – that everything had been governed by higher powers which could not err – I feel now more than ever.
"If I had delivered myself up to the authorities after your father's death my life would have been wasted and thrown away. Nay, if I had obeyed orders over the blunder of El Azhar I should not have been where I am now – between two high-spirited men who are blindly making for each other's ruin, and the destruction of all they stand for.
"This reconciles me to everything that has happened, and if I have to pay the penalty of playing buffer I am ready to do so. I have great trust that God will bring me out all right, but if that is not His plan, then so be it. I am willing to give my life for England, whatever name she may know me by when she comes to see what I have done, and I am willing to die for these poor Egyptians, because I was born and brought up among them, and I cannot help loving them.
"Death has no terrors for me anyway. I think the experiences of the past months have taught me all that death has to teach. In fact I feel at this moment exactly as I have felt at the last charge in battle, when, fighting against frightful odds, it has not been a case of every man for himself, but of God for us all.
"Besides I feel that on the day of your father's death I died to myself – to my selfish hopes of life, I mean – and if God intends to crush me in order that I may save my country and these people whom I love and who love me I really wish and long for Him to do so.
"But In-sha-allah! It will be as God pleases, and I believe from the bottom of my heart that He is working out His wonderful embroidery of events to a triumphant issue. So don't be afraid, my dear Helena, whatever occurs to-night. I may be taken, but (D.V.) I shall not be taken in disgrace. In any case I feel that my hour has come – the great hour that I have been waiting for so long.
"This may be the last letter I shall write to you, so I am sending it by Mosie, lest Hamid should find a difficulty in getting into your camp. I hope to God you may get it, for I want you to know that my last thoughts are about yourself.
"Upon my soul, dear, I believe the end will be all right, but if it is to be otherwise, and we are to be separated, and our lives in this world are to be wasted, remember that deep love bridges death.
"Remember, too, what you said to me at Khartoum. 'I am a soldier's daughter,' you said, 'and in my heart I am a soldier's wife as well, and I shouldn't be worthy to be either if I didn't tell you to do your duty, whatever the consequences to me.'
"Good-bye, my dear, my dear! If anything happens you will know what to do. I trust you without fear. I have always trusted you. I can say it now, at this last moment – never, dearest, never for one instant has the shadow of a doubt of you entered into my heart. My brave girl, my love, my life, my Helena!
"May the great God of Heaven bless and protect you!
"GORDON.
"P.S.– Oh, how the deuce did I forget? There is something for you to do – something important – and I had almost sent off my letter without saying anything about it.
"Do you remember that on the day I left Khartoum it was ordered by Ishmael that after the call of the muezzin to midnight prayers, a light was to be set up in the minaret of the mosque of Mohammed Ali as a sign that he might enter the city in peace?
"Well, if I fail and the British army comes into Cairo Ishmael must be kept out of it. He may be stubborn – a man who thinks God guides and protects him and makes a special dispensation for him is not easy to dissuade – but if the light does not appear he must be restrained.
"That is your work with Ishmael – why you are with him still. I knew it would be revealed to us some day. Once more, my dear, my dear, God bless and protect you!"