Tales of Secret Egypt Part 8

"I will sleep on the problem," I said, "and communicate my decision in the morning."

I stood on the steps watching him depart, a man palpably disturbed in mind; indeed his behavior was altogether singular, and could only portend one thing--knavery. I think it highly probable that the Ottoman Empire had a certain claim upon Joseph Malaglou. He was one of those nondescript brutes whose mere existence is a menace to our rule in the Near East. He openly applauded British methods, and was the worst possible advertis.e.m.e.nt for the cause he claimed to have espoused. Altogether he left me in an uneasy mood; so that shortly after the third, or daybreak, call to prayer had sounded from Cairo's minarets on the morrow, I had arranged to lease the house in the Darb el-Ahmar for a period of three months, in the name of one Ahmed Ben Tawwab, a mythical friend, and had instructed Joseph Malaglou accordingly.

Other affairs claimed my attention throughout the day; but dusk discovered me at my newly acquired house in the quaint street adjoining the Bab ez-Zuwela. I procured the keys from the venerable old thief who had leased me the premises and learned from him that a representative of Joseph Malaglou had been admitted to the house earlier in the evening, in accordance with my instructions, and had delivered a load of boxes there.

Thus, on opening the door, I was not surprised to find the ten cases from Alexandria lying within, neatly labelled:

To Ahmed Ben Tawwab, Darb el-Ahmar, Sukkariya, Cairo.

Ascending to the top floor, I mounted the rickety ladder and unbolted and opened the trap. A cautious glance to the right revealed the fact that little difficulty existed in pa.s.sing from roof to roof; for in Egyptian houses these are flat and are used for various domestic purposes. I consulted my watch: the hour of the tryst was come.

And even as I learned the fact, from my neighbor's roof sounded the faint creaking of hinges ... and out into the moonlight stepped an odd figure--that of the lady of the lattice, dressed in a "European" blue serge costume which had obviously been purchased, ready made, in the bazaars! She wore high-heeled French shoes upon her pretty feet and her picturesque hair was concealed beneath a large Panama hat, from the brim of which floated one of those voluminous green veils dear to the heart of touring woman and so arranged as to hide her face. Only the gleam of her eyes and teeth was visible through the gauze.

I a.s.sisted her to step across, wondering since she was thus attired, to what crazy expedition I was committed.

"Please do not kiss me," she whispered, speaking in moderately good English, "Fatimah is listening!"

Such ingenuousness was rather alarming.

"But," I replied, "you have left the trap open."

"It is all right. Fatimah has locked the door of my room and will admit no one, because I have a headache and am sleeping!"

Resting her hand confidingly in mine, she descended the ladder into the adjoining house, and, removing the veil from her face, looked up at me.

"You will be kind to me, will you not?" she asked.

I suppose a lengthy essay upon the mentality of Oriental womanhood would serve no purpose here, therefore I refrain from inserting it.

Seated upon the chests in the room below, Mizmna--for this was her name--confided her troubles with perturbing frankness. She had conceived a characteristically Eastern and sudden infatuation for my society; nor am I prepared to maintain that she would have remained obdurate to anyone else who had been in a position to unbolt the door which offered the only chance of escape from her prison. The house of mystery, she informed me, belonged to a person styling himself Yssuf of Rosetta (a name that sounded fact.i.tious) and she hated him. For two months, I gathered, she had been in Cairo, during which time she had never pa.s.sed beyond the walls of the neighboring courtyard. And the object of her nocturnal adventure was innocent enough; she wanted to see the European shops and the tourists pa.s.sing in and out of the big hotels in the Sharia Kamel Pasha!

III

It was as we pa.s.sed along the Sharia el-Maghribi, where I had pointed out the St. James's Restaurant, better known as "Jimmy's," I remember, that Mizmna uttered a little, suppressed cry, and clutched my arm sharply.

"Oh!" she whispered fearfully, "it is Hanna! and he has seen me!"

With frightened, fascinated eyes she was staring across the street, apparently at a group of curiously m.u.f.fled natives--and her whole body was trembling.

"Quick!" she said, pulling me urgently, "take me back! if they find me they will kill me!"

"But if they have already seen you----"

"Oh! take me back," she entreated piteously. "Hanna must not find out where I live."

Here was mystery; but evidently my first dreadful theory that Hanna was Mizmna's husband had been incorrect. Apparently he was not even acquainted with Yssuf of Rosetta. But whoever or whatever he might be, I silently cursed the lapis armlet which had led me to involve myself in his affairs, as I hurried my companion across the Place de l'Opera and homeward....

We were come indeed unmolested but breathless, as near our destination as that nameless street beside the Mosque of Muayyad, when Mizmna suddenly stopped, uttered a stifled shriek, and--

"Oh, save me!" she panted, winding her arms about my neck. "Look!

Look! in the shadow of the mosque door!"

Panic threatened me for one fleeting moment; for this part of Cairo is utterly deserted at night and the mystery of the thing was taking toll of my nerves; then firmly unclasping the trembling arms, I pushed Mizmna behind me and s.n.a.t.c.hed out my Colt automatic ... as a group of m.u.f.fled figures became magically detached from the shadows that had hidden them; and began silently to advance.

I raised the pistol.

"_Usbur!_" I cried "_auz eh?_" (Stop! what do you want?)

They halted at once; but no answering voice broke the uncanny silence in which they regarded me. Mizmna plucked at my arm.

"Quick! Quick!" she whispered tremulously, "the keys! the keys!"

I was swift to grasp her meaning.

"My right pocket!" I whispered in answer.

The girl's shaking hand groped for the keys, found them; and, uttering no parting word, Mizmna darted off along the Sukkariya, which here bisects the Darb el-Ahmar. An angry muttering arose from the little knot of oddly m.u.f.fled figures, but not one of them had the courage to attempt a pursuit of the fugitive. Keeping my back to the wall of the mosque and feeling along it with one hand outstretched, I began to back away from the attacking party; intending to take to my heels along the first lane I came to.

This plan was sound enough; its weakness lay in the fact that I could make no proper survey of that which lay immediately behind me. The result was that I backed into someone who must have been stealthily approaching from the rear.

I knew nothing of his presence until he suddenly threw himself upon from behind, and I was down on my face in the dust! My pistol was jerked out of my hand, and, still preserving that unbroken disconcerting silence, the m.u.f.fled group bore down upon me.

I gave myself up for lost. My unseen a.s.sailant, who seemingly possessed wrists of steel, jerked my right hand up into the region of my shoulder-blades and pinioned my left arm so as to render me helpless as an infant. Then two of the m.u.f.fled Nubians--for Nubians the moonlight now showed them to be--raised me to my feet, and the grip from behind was removed.

That I had unwittingly intruded upon the amours of some wealthy and unscrupulous pasha I no longer doubted; and knowing somewhat of the ways of outraged lovers of the East, the mental vision which arose before me was unpleasing to contemplate. Yet even the extravagant picture which my imagination had painted fell short of the ferocious reality. For even as I was lifted upright, in the grasp of my huge guards, a door in the side of the neighboring mosque burst open, and there sprang into view an excessively tall, excessively lean and hawk-faced old man carrying a naked scimitar in his hand.

He possessed eyes like the eyes of an eagle, and a thin, hooked nose having dilated, quivering nostrils. In three huge strides he reached me, towered over me like some evil _ginnee_ of Arabian lore, and raised his gleaming scimitar with the unmistakable intention of severing my head from my trunk at a single blow!

I think I have never experienced an identical sensation in my life; my tongue clave to the roof of my mouth; my heart suspended its functions; and I felt my eyes start forward in their sockets. I had not thought my const.i.tution capable of such profound and helpless fear, nor had I hitherto paid proper respect to the memory of Charles I. I would gladly have closed my eyes in order that I might not witness the downward sweep of the fatal blade, but the lids seemed to be paralysed. Never whilst memory serves me can I forget one detail of the appearance of that frightful old devil; and never can I forget my grat.i.tude to that unseen captor, the man who had seized me from behind, and who now, alone, averted the blade from my neck.

Over my head he lunged--with an ebony stick--and skilfully; so that the pointed ferrule came well and truly into contact with the knuckles of my would-be executioner. The weapon fell, jingling, at my feet ...

and a slim, black-robed figure was suddenly interposed between myself and the furious old Arab.

It was Ab Tabah!

Dignified, unruffled, his cla.s.sically beautiful face composed and resembling, in the moonlight, beneath the snowy turban, that of some young prophet, he stood, one protective hand resting upon my shoulder, and confronted my a.s.sailant. His eyes were aglow with the eerie light of fanaticism.

"It is written that the wrath of fools is the joy of Iblees,"[A] he declared.

[A] Satan.

Their glances met in conflict, the eagle eyes of my aged but formidable enemy glaring insanely into the fine, dark eyes of Ab Tabah. The Arab was by no means quelled; yet presently his glance fell before the hypnotic stare of the mysterious _imam_.

"The Prophet (may G.o.d be kind to him) spared not the despoiler!" he said heavily. "With these, my two hands"--he extended the twitching, sinewy members before Ab Tabah--"will I choke the life from the throat of the dog who wronged me."

Ab Tabah raised his hand sternly.

"This matter has been entrusted to _me_," he said, staring down the enraged old man. "If you would have me abandon it, say so; if you would have me pursue it, be silent."