The Lighted Match Part 32

"If you had not, as usual, been so d.a.m.ned late"--he turned with a gesture of raw impatience to the heavy-faced _Osmanli_ at his side--"I could have pointed them out to you on Galata Bridge. As it is, they have returned to the yacht."

"May Heaven never again thwart your wish with delay, Martin _Effendi_."

The Turk spoke placidly, his oily voice soft as a benediction, "I was delayed by pigs, and sons of pigs! Your annoyance is my desolating sorrow, yet"--he waved his hand with a bland gesture--"I am but the servant of His Majesty, the Sultan--whom Allah preserve--and the official is frequently detained."

"What is done, is done. _Bismillah_--no matter!" The Englishman curbed his annoyance and spoke as one resigned. "What now remains is this: We must see them, and you must learn to recognize them. You understand?"

The other bowed in unperturbed a.s.sent.

"All Europeans," he suggested, "dine at the Pera Palace Hotel--it is the Mecca of their hunger."

To the white man's voice returned the ring of asperity. "And at the Pera Palace, we shall not only see, but be seen. Likewise unless we have a care in this enterprise, we shall not only eat, but be eaten. A man may stare at whom he chooses on Galata Bridge."

"When I dine in a public place"--the _Osmanli_ smiled cunningly from the depths of small pig-like eyes--"I s.h.i.+eld myself behind a screen. Thus may I observe un.o.bserved."

The sun had set, but the yellow after-glow still lingered in the sky behind Stamboul as the two men stood looking toward Galata Bridge, where their quarry had escaped them, and across the Golden Horn.

A pyramid of domes, flanked by a pair of slender minarets, daintily proclaimed the Mosque Yeni-Djami against the fading amber. On Galata Bridge itself, the day-long tide of medleyed life was thinning. Where there had been an eddying current of turbans and _tarbooshes_, bespeaking all the tribes and styles which foregather at the meeting place of two Continents and two seas, there were now only the belated few.

To the jaded imagination of Martin _Effendi_ and his companion, Abdul Said _Bey_, the falling of night over the quadruple city, smothering more than a million souls under a single blanket of blackness, made no appeal. They were watching a yacht.

Over the Pera roofs swept flocks of crows to roost in their garden rookeries at the center of the town. Across the harbor water, now too gloomy to reveal its thousands of jelly-fish, drifted the complaining cries of the loons. Then as the occasional city lamps began to twinkle, making the darkness murkier by their inadequacy, there arose from the twisting ways of Pera, Galata and Stamboul the night howling of thirty thousand dogs.

At length Martin held up the dial of his watch to the uncertain light.

"I must be off," he announced. "Jusseret is waiting at the Pera Palace.

Don't fail us at seven-thirty."

The tireless features of Abdul Said _Bey_ once more shaped themselves into a deliberate smile. "Of a surety, _Effendi_. May your virtues ever find favor in the sight of Allah."

For a moment the pig-like eyes followed the well-knit figure of the Englishman as it went swinging along the street. Then the Turk turned and lost himself in the darkness.

The Pera Palace Hotel stands in the European quarter of the town. To its doors your steps are guided by a trail of shop signs in English, French, German and Greek, among which appear only occasional characters in the native Arabic.

Almost immediately after Cara, Pagratide and Benton had seated themselves in the dining-room that evening, Arab servants secluded a corner table, close to their own, behind _mushrabieh_ screens. The party for whom this distinguished aloofness had been arranged made its entrance through an unseen door, but the voices indicated that several were at table there. The waiter who served this table apart might have testified that one was an Englishman, wearing in addition to European evening dress the native _tarboosh_, or fez. Also, that against his white s.h.i.+rt-front glittered the Star of Galavia. The second diner wore one of the many elaborate uniforms that signify Ottoman officialdom. His eyes were small and pig-like, and as he talked no feature or gesture at the table beyond escaped his appraising scrutiny.

There was one other behind the _mushrabieh_ screens. The niceties of his dress were Parisian, punctilious, perfect. In his right lapel was the unostentatious b.u.t.ton of the _Legion d'Honneur_.

The Englishman spoke. "Much of your story, _Monsieur_ Jusseret, is familiar to me. It will, however, prove interesting _in toto_, I daresay, to our friend Abdul Said _Bey_, whom Allah preserve."

There was a murmur of compliment from the Turk, adding his a.s.surance of interest, and the Frenchman took up the thread of his narrative.

"We supposed that Karyl was dead--the Throne of Galavia clear for Delgado. Alas, we were in error!" The speaker shook his head in deep regret, as, turning to Martin, he added:

"It was a pardonable mistake. Let us hope the announcement was merely premature." He lifted his wine-gla.s.s with the air of one proposing a toast. "It becomes our duty to make that statement true. _Messieurs_, our success!"

When the three gla.s.ses had been set down, the Englishman questioned: "How did it occur?"

In the smooth manner of an after-dinner narrative, Jusseret explained the occurrences of the night when he had brought his plans to an almost successful termination. He told his story with charm of recital, verve and humor, and gave it withal a touch of vivid realism, so that even his auditors, long since graduated from the stage where a tale of adventurous undertaking thrilled them, yet listened with profound interest.

With the salad Jusseret sighed regretfully.

"I rather plume myself on one quality of my work, _Monsieur_ Martin. I rarely overlook an integral detail. I, however, find myself growing alarmingly faulty of judgment."

"Indeed!" The Englishman was not greatly engrossed in the autobiographical phases of Jusseret's diplomatic felonies.

"I regret to acknowledge it, but it is, alas, true. I reflected that the world would resent harsh treatment of a man like Von Ritz. He had committed no crime. We could not charge treason against a government not yet born. I opposed even exile. He immediately rejoined his fleeing King--and has since returned to Puntal, where one can only surmise what mischief he agitates. It may be as well to consider his future."

"And now," callously supplemented the Englishman, "our new King feels an uncertainty of tenure so long as the old King lives, and I am rushed after this refugee Monarch with brief instructions to dispose of him."

There was a certain eloquence in the shrug of Jusseret's shoulders.

"_Messieurs_, we have wrecked Karyl's dynasty, but it still devolves upon us in workmanlike fas.h.i.+on to clear away the debris."

Martin leaned forward and put his query like an attorney cross-examining a witness.

"Where was this Queen when the King was taken?"

"That," replied Jusseret, "is a question to be put to Von Ritz or Karyl. It would appear that Von Ritz suspected the end and, wise as he is in the cards of diplomacy, resolved that should his King be taken, he would still hold his Queen in reserve. That Kingdom does not hold to the Salic Law--a Queen may reign! And so you see, my colleagues," he summarized, "we, representing the plans of Europe, find ourselves confronted with questions unanswered, and with matters yet to do."

Martin's voice was matter-of-fact. "After all," he observed, "what are the odds, where the King was or where the Queen was at a given time in the past, so long as we jolly well know where they are to-night?"

Turning to the Sultan's officer, he spoke rapidly. "You understand what is expected?" He pointed one hand to the party from the yacht. "The man nearest us is the King who failed to remain dead. That failure is curable if you play your game." He paused. "The lady," he added, "has the misfortune to have been the Queen of Galavia. You understand, my brother?"

The Turk rose, pus.h.i.+ng back his chair.

"Your words are illuminating." He spoke with a profound bow. "In serving you, I shall bring honor to my children, and my children's children."

With the Turkish gesture of farewell, his fingers touching heart, lips and forehead, he betook himself backward to the door.

Two hours later, alighting from a rickety victoria by the landing-stage, Cara made her way between the two men, toward the waiting launch from the _Isis_. Filthy looking Arabs, to the number of a dozen, rose out of the shadows and crowded about the trio, pleading piteously for _backs.h.i.+sh_ in the name of Allah. The party found itself forced back towards the carriage, and Benton fingered the grip of the revolver in his pocket as the other hand held the girl's arm. At the same moment there was a sudden clamor of shouting and the patter of running feet.

Then the throng of beggars dropped back under the pelting blows from heavy _naboots_ in the hands of _kava.s.ses_.

An instant later a stout Turk in official uniform broke through the confusion, shouting imprecations.

"Back, you children of swine!" he declaimed. "Back to your mires, you pigs! Do you dare to affront the great _Pashas_?" Then, turning obsequiously, he bowed with profound apology. "It is a bitter sorrow that you should be annoyed," he a.s.sured them, "but it is over."

"To whom have we the honor of expressing our thanks?" smiled Pagratide.

The _Osmanli_ responded with a deprecating gesture of self-effacement.

"To one of the least of men," he said. "I am called Abdul Said _Bey_. I am the humble servant of His Majesty, the Sultan--whom Allah preserve."

As the launch put off, the elliptical figure of Abdul Said _Bey_, on the lowest step of the landing, speeded its departure with a gesture of ceremonious farewell--fingers sweeping heart, lips and forehead. "If you go to shop in Stamboul," he shouted after them, "have a care. The pigs will cheat you--all save Mohammed Abbas."

When the reflected lights of the launch s.h.i.+mmered in vague downward shafts at a distance, he turned and the scattered throng of beggars regathered to group themselves about him with no trace of fear.

"You will know them when you see them in the bazaars?" he demanded. "You shall be taught in time what is expected--likewise _bastinadoed_ upon your bare soles if you fail. Now you have only to remember the faces of the Infidels. Go!" He swept out his hand and the Bedouins scattered like rats into a dozen dark places.

If the panorama of Constantinople fades from a lurid silhouette to a sooty monotone by night, it at least makes amends by day. Then the sun, s.h.i.+ning out of a sky of intense blue, on water vividly green, catches the tiled color-chips of the sprawling town; glints on dome and minaret, and makes such a city as might be seen in a kaleidoscope.