The Haunting of Low Fennel Part 25

As El-Suleym looked towards Gizeh, Graham and his wife were seated before Mena House looking out across the desert. The adventure of the morning had left its impression upon both of them, and Eileen wore the gold chain with its turquoise pendant. Graham was smoking in silence, and thinking, not of the old porter and his odd Eastern grat.i.tude, but of another figure, and one which often came between his mental eye and the beauties of that old, beautiful land. Eileen, too, was thinking of El-Suleym; for the Bedouin now was a.s.sociated in her mind with the old pedlar, since she had last seen the handsome, sinister face amid the throng at the entrance to the bazaar.

Telepathy is a curious fact. Were Graham's reflections _en rapport_ with his wife's, or were they both influenced by the pa.s.sionate thoughts of that other mind, that subtle, cunning mind of the man who at that moment was standing before his house of hair and seeking with his eagle glance to defy distance and the night?

"Have you seen--him, again?" asked Graham abruptly. "Since the other day at the bridge?"

Eileen started. Although he had endeavoured to hide it from her, she was perfectly well aware of her husband's intense anxiety on her behalf.

She knew, although he prided himself upon having masked his feelings, that the presence of the Bedouin in Egypt had cast a cloud upon his happiness. Therefore she had not wished to tell him of her second encounter with El-Suleym. But to this direct question there could be only one reply.

"I saw him again--this morning," she said, toying nervously with the pendant at her neck.

Graham clasped her hand tensely.

"Where?"

"Outside the bazaar, in the crowd."

"You did not--tell me."

"I did not want to worry you."

He laughed dryly.

"It doesn't worry me, Eileen," he said carelessly. "If I were in Damascus or Aleppo, it certainly might worry me to know that a man, no doubt actively malignant towards us, was near, perhaps watching; but Cairo is really a prosaically safe and law-abiding spot. We are as secure here as we should be at--Shepherd's Bush, say!"

He laughed shortly. Voices floated out to them, nasal, guttural, strident; voices American, Teutonic, Gallic, and Anglo-Saxon. The orchestra played a Viennese waltz. Confused chattering, creaking, and b.u.mping sounded from the river. Out upon the mud walls dogs bayed the moon.

But beyond the native village, beyond the howling dogs, beyond the acacia ranks out in the silver-grey mystery of the sands hard by, an outpost of the Pharaohs, where a ruined shrine of Horus bared its secret places to the peeping moon, the Sheikh of the Masr-Bishareen smiled.

Graham felt strangely uneasy, and sought by light conversation to shake off the gloom which threatened to claim him.

"That thief, Mohammed," he said tersely, "has no more idea than Adam, I believe, who your old porter friend really is."

"Why do you think so?" asked Eileen.

"Because he's up in Cairo to-night, searching for him!"

"How do you know?"

"I cornered him about it this afternoon, and although I couldn't force an admission from him--I don't think anybody short of an accomplished K.C. could--he was suspiciously evasive! I gave him four hours to procure the name and address of the old gentleman to whom we owe the price of a turquoise necklace. He has not turned up yet!"

Eileen made no reply. Her Celtic imagination had invested the morning's incident with a mystic significance which she could not hope to impart to her hard-headed husband.

A dirty and ragged Egyptian boy made his way on to the verandah, furtively glancing about him, as if antic.i.p.ating the cuff of an unseen hand. He sidled up to Graham, thrusting a sc.r.a.p of paper on to the little table beside him.

"For me?" said Graham.

The boy nodded; and whilst Eileen watched him interestedly, Graham, tilting the communication so as to catch the light from the hotel windows, read the following:

"He is come to here but cannot any farther. I have him waiting the boy will bring you.

"Your obedient Effendi, MOHAMMED."

Graham laughed grimly, glancing at his watch.

"Only half an hour late," he said, standing up, "Wait here, Eileen; I shall not be many minutes."

"But I should like to see him, too. He might accept the price from me where you would fail to induce him to take it."

"Never fear," said her husband; "he wouldn't have come if he meant to refuse. What shall I offer him?"

"Whatever you think," said Eileen, smiling; "be generous with the poor old man."

Graham nodded and signed to the boy that he was ready to start.

The night swallowed them up; and Eileen sat waiting, whilst the band played softly and voices chatted incessantly around her.

Some five minutes elapsed; ten; fifteen. It grew to half an hour, and she became uneasy. She stood up and began to pace up and down the verandah. Then the slinking figure of the Egyptian youth reappeared.

"Graham Effendi," he said, showing his gleaming teeth, "says you come too."

Eileen drew her wrap more closely about her and smiled to the boy to lead the way.

They pa.s.sed out from the hotel, turned sharply to the left, made in the direction of the river, then bore off to the right in the direction of the sand-dunes. The murmuring life of Mena House died into remoteness; the discordance of the Arab village momentarily took precedence; then this, in turn, was lost, and they were making out desert-ward to the hollow which harbours the Sphinx. Great events in our lives rarely leave a clear-cut impression; often the turning-point in one's career is a confused memory, a mere clash of conflicting ideas. Trivial episodes are sharp silhouettes; unforgettable; great happenings but grey, vague things in life's panorama. Thus, Eileen never afterwards could quite recall what happened that night. The thing that was like to have wrecked her life had no sharp outlines to etch themselves upon the plate of memory. Vaguely she wondered to what meeting-place the boy was leading her. Faintly she was conscious of a fear of the growing silence, of a warning instinct whispering her to beware of the loneliness of the desert.

Then the boy was gone; the silence was gone; harsh voices were in her ears--a cloth was whipped about her face and strong arms lifted her. She was not of a stock that swoon or pa.s.sively accept violence. She strove to cry out, but the band was too cunningly fastened to allow of it; she struck out with clenched fists and not unshrewdly, for twice her knuckles encountered a bearded face and a suppressed exclamation told that the blows were not those of a weakling. She kicked furiously and drew forth a howl of pain from her captor. Her hands flew up to the bandage, but were roughly seized, thrust down and behind her, and tied securely.

She was thrown across a saddle, and with a thrill of horror knew herself a captive. Out into the desert she was borne, into that unknown land which borders so closely upon the sight-seeing track of Cook's. And her helplessness, her inability to fight, broke her spirit, born fighter that she was; and the jarring of the saddle of the galloping horse, the dull thud of the hoofs on the sand, the iron grip which held her, fear, anger, all melted into a blank.

IV

Mohammed the dragoman, with two hotel servants, came upon Graham some time later, gagged and bound behind a sand hillock less than five hundred yards from Mena House. They had him on his feet in an instant, unbound; and his face was ghastly--for he knew too well what the outrage portended.

"Quick!" he said hoa.r.s.ely. "How long is she gone?"

Mohammed was trembling wildly.

"Nearly an hour, Effendi--nearly an hour. Allah preserve us, what shall we do? I heard it in Cairo to-night--it is all over the bazaars--the Sheikh El-Suleym with the Masr-Bishareen is out. They travel like the wind, Effendi. It is not four days since they stopped a caravan ten miles beyond Bir-Amber, now they are in Lower Egypt. Allah preserve her!" he ran on volubly--"who can overtake the hors.e.m.e.n of the Bishareen?"

So he ran on, wildly, panting as they raced back to the hotel. The place was in an uproar. It was an event which furnished the guests with such a piece of local colour as none but the most inexperienced tourist could have antic.i.p.ated.

An Arab raid in these days of electric tramways! A captive s.n.a.t.c.hed from the very doors of Mena House! One would as little expect an Arab raid upon the _Ritz_!

The authorities at headquarters, advised of the occurrence, found themselves at a loss how to cope with this stupendous actuality. The desert had extended its lean arm and s.n.a.t.c.hed a captive to its bosom.

Cairo had never before entirely realised the potentialities of that all-embracing desert. There are a thousand ways, ten thousand routes, across that ruin-dotted wilderness. Justly did the ancient people wors.h.i.+p in the moon the queenly Isis; for when the silver emblem of the G.o.ddess claims the sands for her own, to all save the desert-born they become a place of secrets. Here is a theatre for great dramas, wanting only the tragedian. The outlawed Sheikh of the Bishareen knew this full well, but, unlike others who know it, he had acted upon his convictions and revealed to wondering Egypt what Bedouin craft and a band of intrepid hors.e.m.e.n can do, aided by a belt of sand, and cloaked by night.

Graham was distracted. For he was helpless, and realised it. Already the news was in Cairo, and the machinery of the Government at work. But what machinery, save that of the Omniscient, could avail him now?