The Weavers: Chapter 10

Chapter 10

THE FOUR WHO KNEW

There was a knocking at the door. David opened it. Nahoum Pasha stepped
inside, and stood still a moment looking at Hylda. Then he made low
salutation to her, touched his hand to his lips and breast saluting
David, and waited.

"What is thy business, pasha?" asked David quietly, and motioned towards
a chair.

"May thy path be on the high hills, Saadat-el-basha. I come for a favour
at thy hands." Nahoum sat down. "What favour is mine to give to Nahoum
Pasha?"

"The Prince has given thee supreme place--it was mine but yesterday. It
is well. To the deserving be the fruits of deserving."

"Is merit, then, so truly rewarded here?" asked David quietly.

"The Prince saw merit at last when he chose your Excellency for
councillor."

"How shall I show merit, then, in the eyes of Nahoum Pasha?"

"Even by urging the Prince to give me place under him again. Not as
heretofore--that is thy place--yet where it may be. I have capacity. I
can aid thee in the great task. Thou wouldst remake our Egypt--and my
heart is with you. I would rescue, not destroy. In years gone by I tried
to do good to this land, and I failed. I was alone. I had not the
strength to fight the forces around me. I was overcome. I had too little
faith. But my heart was with the right--I am an Armenian and a Christian
of the ancient faith. I am in sorrow. Death has humbled me. My brother
Foorgat Bey--may flowers bloom for ever on his grave!--he is dead,"--his
eyes were fixed on those of David, as with a perfectly assured
candour--"and my heart is like an empty house. But man must not be idle
and live--if Kaid lets me live. I have riches. Are not Foorgat's riches
mine, his Palace, his gardens, his cattle, and his plantations, are they
not mine? I may sit in the court-yard and hear the singers, may listen to
the tale-tellers by the light of the moon; I may hear the tales of
Al-Raschid chanted by one whose tongue never falters, and whose voice is
like music; after the manner of the East I may give bread and meat to the
poor at sunset; I may call the dancers to the feast. But what comfort
shall it give? I am no longer a youth. I would work. I would labour for
the land of Egypt, for by work shall we fulfil ourselves, redeem
ourselves. Saadat, I would labour, but my master has taken away from me
the anvil, the fire, and the hammer, and I sit without the door like an
armless beggar. What work to do in Egypt save to help the land, and how
shall one help, save in the Prince's service? There can be no reform from
outside. If I laboured for better things outside Kaid's Palace, how long
dost thou think I should escape the Nile, or the diamond-dust in my
coffee? The work which I did, is it not so that it, with much more, falls
now to thy hands, Saadat, with a confidence from Kaid that never was
mine?"

"I sought not the office."

"Have I a word of blame? I come to ask for work to do with thee. Do I not
know Prince Kaid? He had come to distrust us all. As stale water were we
in his taste. He had no pleasure in us, and in our deeds he found only
stones of stumbling. He knew not whom to trust. One by one we all had
yielded to ceaseless intrigue and common distrust of each other, until no
honest man was left; till all were intent to save their lives by holding
power; for in this land to lose power is to lose life. No man who has
been in high place, has had the secrets of the Palace and the ear of the
Prince, lives after he has lost favour. The Prince, for his safety, must
ensure silence, and the only silence in Egypt is the grave. In thee,
Saadat, Kaid has found an honest man. Men will call thee mad, if thou
remainest honest, but that is within thine own bosom and with fate. For
me, thou hast taken my place, and more. Malaish, it is the decree of
fate, and I have no anger. I come to ask thee to save my life, and then
to give me work."

"How shall I save thy life?"

"By reconciling the Effendina to my living, and then by giving me
service, where I shall be near to thee; where I can share with thee,
though it be as the ant beside the beaver, the work of salvation in
Egypt. I am rich since my brother was--" He paused; no covert look was in
his eyes, no sign of knowledge, nothing but meditation and sorrowful
frankness--"since Foorgat passed away in peace, praise be to God! He lay
on his bed in the morning, when one came to wake him, like a sleeping
child, no sign of the struggle of death upon him."

A gasping sound came from the chair where Hylda sat; but he took no
notice. He appeared to be unconscious of David's pain-drawn face, as he
sat with hands upon his knees, his head bent forward listening, as though
lost to the world.

"So did Foorgat, my brother, die while yet in the fulness of his manhood,
life beating high in his veins, with years before him to waste. He was a
pleasure-lover, alas! he laid up no treasure of work accomplished; and so
it was meet that he should die as he lived, in a moment of ease. And
already he is forgotten. It is the custom here. He might have died by
diamond-dust, and men would have set down their coffee-cups in surprise,
and then would have forgotten; or he might have been struck down by the
hand of an assassin, and, unless it was in the Palace, none would have
paused to note it. And so the sands sweep over his steps upon the shore
of time."

After the first exclamation of horror, Hylda had sat rigid, listening as
though under a spell. Through her veil she gazed at Nahoum with a
cramping pain at her heart, for he seemed ever on the verge of the truth
she dreaded; and when he spoke the truth, as though unconsciously, she
felt she must cry out and rush from the room. He recalled to her the
scene in the little tapestried room as vividly as though it was there
before her eyes, and it had for the moment all the effect of a hideous
nightmare. At last, however, she met David's eyes, and they guided her,
for in them was a steady strength and force which gave her confidence. At
first he also had been overcome inwardly, but his nerves were cool, his
head was clear, and he listened to Nahoum, thinking out his course
meanwhile.

He owed this man much. He had taken his place, and by so doing had placed
his life in danger. He had killed the brother upon the same day that he
had dispossessed the favourite of office; and the debt was heavy. In
office Nahoum had done after his kind, after the custom of the place and
the people; and yet, as it would seem, the man had had stirrings within
him towards a higher path. He, at any rate, had not amassed riches out of
his position, and so much could not be said of any other servant of the
Prince Pasha. Much he had heard of Nahoum's powerful will, hidden under a
genial exterior, and behind his friendly, smiling blue eyes. He had heard
also of cruelty--of banishment, and of enemies removed from his path
suddenly, never to be seen again; but, on the whole, men spoke with more
admiration of him than of any other public servant, Armenian Christian in
a Mahommedan country though he was. That very day Kaid had said that if
Nahoum had been less eager to control the State, he might still have held
his place. Besides, the man was a Christian--of a mystic, half-legendary,
obscure Christianity; yet having in his mind the old faith, its essence
and its meaning, perhaps. Might not this Oriental mind, with that faith,
be a power to redeem the land? It was a wonderful dream, in which he
found the way, as he thought, to atone somewhat to this man for a dark
injury done.

When Nahoum stopped speaking David said: "But if I would have it, if it
were well that it should be, I doubt I have the power to make it so."

"Saadat-el-bdsha, Kaid believes in thee to-day; he will not believe
to-morrow if thou dost remain without initiative. Action, however
startling, will be proof of fitness. His Highness shakes a long spear.
Those who ride with him must do battle with the same valour. Excellency,
I have now great riches--since Death smote Foorgat Bey in the
forehead"--still his eyes conveyed no meaning, though Hylda shrank
back--"and I would use them for the good thou wouldst do here. Money will
be needed, and sufficient will not be at thy hand-not till new ledgers be
opened, new balances struck."

He turned to Hylda quietly, and with a continued air of innocence said:
"Shall it not be so-madame? Thou, I doubt not, are of his kin. It would
seem so, though I ask pardon if it be not so--wilt thou not urge his
Excellency to restore me to Kaid's favour? I know little of the English,
though I know them humane and honest; but my brother, Foorgat Bey, he was
much among them, lived much in England, was a friend to many great
English. Indeed, on the evening that he died I saw him in the gallery of
the banquet-room with an English lady--can one be mistaken in an English
face? Perhaps he cared for her; perhaps that was why he smiled as he lay
upon his bed, never to move again. Madame, perhaps in England thou mayst
have known my brother. If that is so, I ask thee to speak for me to his
Excellency. My life is in danger, and I am too young to go as my brother
went. I do not wish to die in middle age, as my brother died."

He had gone too far. In David's mind there was no suspicion that Nahoum
knew the truth. The suggestion in his words had seemed natural; but, from
the first, a sharp suspicion was in the mind of Hylda, and his last words
had convinced her that if Nahoum did not surely know the truth, he
suspected it all too well. Her instinct had pierced far; and as she
realised his suspicions, perhaps his certainty, and heard his words of
covert insult, which, as she saw, David did not appreciate, anger and
determination grew in her. Yet she felt that caution must mark her words,
and that nothing but danger lay in resentment. She felt the everlasting
indignity behind the quiet, youthful eyes, the determined power of the
man; but she saw also that, for the present, the course Nahoum suggested
was the only course to take. And David must not even feel the suspicion
in her own mind, that Nahoum knew or suspected the truth. If David
thought that Nahoum knew, the end of all would come at once. It was
clear, however, that Nahoum meant to be silent, or he would have taken
another course of action. Danger lay in every direction, but, to her
mind, the least danger lay in following Nahoum's wish.

She slowly raised her veil, showing a face very still now, with eyes as
steady as David's. David started at her action, he thought it rash; but
the courage of it pleased him, too.

"You are not mistaken," she said slowly in French; "your brother was
known to me. I had met him in England. It will be a relief to all his
friends to know that he passed away peacefully." She looked him in the
eyes determinedly. "Monsieur Claridge is not my kinsman, but he is my
fellow-countryman. If you mean well by monsieur, your knowledge and your
riches should help him on his way. But your past is no guarantee of good
faith, as you will acknowledge."

He looked her in the eyes with a far meaning. "But I am giving guarantees
of good faith now," he said softly. "Will you--not?"

She understood. It was clear that he meant peace, for the moment at
least.

"If I had influence I would advise him to reconcile you to Prince Kaid,"
she said quietly, then turned to David with an appeal in her eyes.

David stood up. "I will do what I can," he said. "If thee means as well
by Egypt as I mean by thee, all may be well for all."

"Saadat! Saadat!" said Nahoum, with show of assumed feeling, and made
salutation. Then to Hylda, making lower salutation still, he said: "Thou
hast lifted from my neck the yoke. Thou hast saved me from the shadow and
the dust. I am thy slave." His eyes were like a child's, wide and
confiding.

He turned towards the door, and was about to open it, when there came a
knocking, and he stepped back. Hylda drew down her veil. David opened the
door cautiously and admitted Mizraim the Chief Eunuch. Mizraim's eyes
searched the room, and found Nahoum.

"Pasha," he said to Nahoum, "may thy bones never return to dust, nor the
light of thine eyes darken! There is danger."

Nahoum nodded, but did not speak.

"Shall I speak, then?" He paused and made low salutation to David,
saying, "Excellency, I am thine ox to be slain."

"Speak, son of the flowering oak," said Nahoum, with a sneer in his
voice. "What blessing dost thou bring?"

"The Effendina has sent for thee."

Nahoum's eyes flashed. "By thee, lion of Abdin?" The lean, ghastly being
smiled. "He has sent a company of soldiers and Achmet Pasha."

"Achmet! Is it so? They are here, Mizraim, watcher of the morning?"

"They are at thy palace--I am here, light of Egypt."

"How knewest thou I was here?"

Mizraim salaamed. "A watch was set upon thee this morning early. The
watcher was of my slaves. He brought the word to me that thou wast here
now. A watcher also was set upon thee, Excellency"--he turned to David.
"He also was of my slaves. Word was delivered to his Highness that
thou"--he turned to Nahoum again--"wast in thy palace, and Achmet Pasha
went thither. He found thee not. Now the city is full of watchers, and
Achmet goes from bazaar to bazaar, from house to house which thou was
wont to frequent--and thou art here."

"What wouldst thou have me do, Mizraim?"

"Thou art here; is it the house of a friend or a foe?" Nahoum did not
answer. His eyes were fixed in thought upon the floor, but he was
smiling. He seemed without fear.

"But if this be the house of a friend, is he safe here?" asked David.

"For this night, it may be," answered Mizraim, "till other watchers be
set, who are no slaves of mine. Tonight, here, of all places in Cairo, he
is safe; for who could look to find him where thou art who hast taken
from him his place and office, Excellency--on whom the stars shine for
ever! But in another day, if my lord Nahoum be not forgiven by the
Effendina, a hundred watchers will pierce the darkest corner of the
bazaar, the smallest room in Cairo."

David turned to Nahoum. "Peace be to thee, friend. Abide here till
to-morrow, when I will speak for thee to his Highness, and, I trust,
bring thee pardon. It shall be so--but I shall prevail," he added, with
slow decision; "I shall prevail with him. My reasons shall convince his
Highness."

"I can help thee with great reasons, Saadat," said Nahoum. "Thou shalt
prevail. I can tell thee that which will convince Kaid."

While they were speaking, Hylda had sat motionless watching. At first it
seemed to her that a trap had been set, and that David was to be the
victim of Oriental duplicity; but revolt, as she did, from the miserable
creature before them, she saw at last that he spoke the truth.

"Thee will remain under this roof to-night, pasha?" asked David.

"I will stay if thy goodness will have it so," answered Nahoum slowly.
"It is not my way to hide, but when the storm comes it is well to
shelter."

Salaaming low, Mizraim withdrew, his last glance being thrown towards
Hylda, who met his look with a repugnance which made her face rigid. She
rose and put on her gloves. Nahoum rose also, and stood watching her
respectfully.

"Thee will go?" asked David, with a movement towards her.

She inclined her head. "We have finished our business, and it is late,"
she answered.

David looked at Nahoum. "Thee will rest here, pasha, in peace. In a
moment I will return." He took up his hat.

There was a sudden flash of Nahoum's eyes, as though he saw an outcome of
the intention which pleased him, but Hylda, saw the flash, and her senses
were at once alarmed.

"There is no need to accompany me," she said. "My cousin waits for me."

David opened the door leading into the court-yard. It was dark, save for
the light of a brazier of coals. A short distance away, near the outer
gate, glowed a star of red light, and the fragrance of a strong cigar
came over.

"Say, looking for me?" said a voice, and a figure moved towards David.
"Yours to command, pasha, yours to command." Lacey from Chicago held out
his hand.

"Thee is welcome, friend," said David.

"She's ready, I suppose. Wonderful person, that. Stands on her own feet
every time. She don't seem as though she came of the same stock as me,
does she?"

"I will bring her if thee will wait, friend."

"I'm waiting." Lacey drew back to the gateway again and leaned against
the wall, his cigar blazing in the dusk.

A moment later David appeared in the garden again, with the slim,
graceful figure of the girl who stood "upon her own feet." David drew her
aside for a moment. "Thee is going at once to England?" he asked.

"To-morrow to Alexandria. There is a steamer next day for Marseilles. In
a fortnight more I shall be in England."

"Thee must forget Egypt," he said. "Remembrance is not a thing of the
will," she answered.

"It is thy duty to forget. Thee is young, and it is spring with thee.
Spring should be in thy heart. Thee has seen a shadow; but let it not
fright thee."

"My only fear is that I may forget," she answered.

"Yet thee will forget."

With a motion towards Lacey he moved to the gate. Suddenly she turned to
him and touched his arm. "You will be a great man herein Egypt," she
said. "You will have enemies without number. The worst of your enemies
always will be your guest to-night."

He did not, for a moment, understand. "Nahoum?" he asked. "I take his
place. It would not be strange; but I will win him to me."

"You will never win him," she answered. "Oh, trust my instinct in this!
Watch him. Beware of him." David smiled slightly. "I shall have need to
beware of many. I am sure thee does well to caution me. Farewell," he
added.

"If it should be that I can ever help you--" she said, and paused.

"Thee has helped me," he replied. "The world is a desert. Caravans from
all quarters of the sun meet at the cross-roads. One gives the other food
or drink or medicine, and they move on again. And all grows dim with
time. And the camel-drivers are forgotten; but the cross-roads remain,
and the food and the drink and the medicine and the cattle helped each
caravan upon the way. Is it not enough?"

She placed her hand in his. It lay there for a moment. "God be with thee,
friend," he said.

The next instant Thomas Tilman Lacey's drawling voice broke the silence.

"There's something catching about these nights in Egypt. I suppose it's
the air. No wind--just the stars, and the ultramarine, and the nothing to
do but lay me down and sleep. It doesn't give you the jim-jumps like
Mexico. It makes you forget the world, doesn't it? You'd do things here
that you wouldn't do anywhere else."

The gate was opened by the bowab, and the two passed through. David was
standing by the brazier, his hand held unconsciously over the coals, his
eyes turned towards them. The reddish flame from the fire lit up his face
under the broad-brimmed hat. His head, slightly bowed, was thrust forward
to the dusk. Hylda looked at him steadily for a moment. Their eyes met,
though hers were in the shade. Again Lacey spoke. "Don't be anxious. I'll
see her safe back. Good-bye. Give my love to the girls."

David stood looking at the closed gate with eyes full of thought and
wonder and trouble. He was not thinking of the girl. There was no
sentimental reverie in his look. Already his mind was engaged in scrutiny
of the circumstances in which he was set. He realised fully his
situation. The idealism which had been born with him had met its reward
in a labour herculean at the least, and the infinite drudgery of the
practical issues came in a terrible pressure of conviction to his mind.
The mind did not shrink from any thought of the dangers in which he would
be placed, from any vision of the struggle he must have with intrigue,
and treachery and vileness. In a dim, half-realised way he felt that
honesty and truth would be invincible weapons with a people who did not
know them. They would be embarrassed, if not baffled, by a formula of
life and conduct which they could not understand.

It was not these matters that vexed him now, but the underlying forces of
life set in motion by the blow which killed a fellow-man. This fact had
driven him to an act of redemption unparalleled in its intensity and
scope; but he could not tell--and this was the thought that shook his
being--how far this act itself, inspiring him to a dangerous and immense
work in life, would sap the best that was in him, since it must remain a
secret crime, for which he could not openly atone. He asked himself as he
stood by the brazier, the bowab apathetically rolling cigarettes at his
feet, whether, in the flow of circumstance, the fact that he could not
make open restitution, or take punishment for his unlawful act, would
undermine the structure of his character. He was on the threshold of his
career: action had not yet begun; he was standing like a swimmer on a
high shore, looking into depths beneath which have never been plumbed by
mortal man, wondering what currents, what rocks, lay beneath the surface
of the blue. Would his strength, his knowledge, his skill, be equal to
the enterprise? Would he emerge safe and successful, or be carried away
by some strong undercurrent, be battered on unseen rocks?

He turned with a calm face to the door behind which sat the displaced
favourite of the Prince, his mind at rest, the trouble gone out of his
eyes.

"Uncle Benn! Uncle Benn!" he said to himself, with a warmth at his heart
as he opened the door and stepped inside.

Nahoum sat sipping coffee. A cigarette was between his fingers. He
touched his hand to his forehead and his breast as David closed the door
and hung his hat upon a nail. David's servant, Mahommed Hassan, whom he
had had since first he came to Egypt, was gliding from the room--a large,
square-shouldered fellow of over six feet, dressed in a plain blue yelek,
but on his head the green turban of one who had done a pilgrimage to
Mecca. Nahoum waved a hand after Mahommed and said:

"Whence came thy servant sadat?"

"He was my guide to Cairo. I picked him from the street."

Nahoum smiled. There was no malice in the smile, only, as it might seem,
a frank humour. "Ah, your Excellency used independent judgment. Thou art
a judge of men. But does it make any difference that the man is a thief
and a murderer--a murderer?"

David's eyes darkened, as they were wont to do when he was moved or
shocked.

"Shall one only deal, then, with those who have neither stolen nor
slain--is that the rule of the just in Egypt?"

Nahoum raised his eyes to the ceiling as though in amiable inquiry, and
began to finger a string of beads as a nun might tell her paternosters.
"If that were the rule," he answered, after a moment, "how should any man
be served in Egypt? Hereabouts is a man's life held cheap, else I had not
been thy guest to-night; and Kaid's Palace itself would be empty, if
every man in it must be honest. But it is the custom of the place for
political errors to be punished by a hidden hand; we do not call it
murder."

"What is murder, friend?"

"It is such a crime as that of Mahommed yonder, who killed--"

David interposed. "I do not wish to know his crime. That is no affair
between thee and me."

Nahoum fingered his beads meditatively. "It was an affair of the
housetops in his town of Manfaloot. I have only mentioned it because I
know what view the English take of killing, and how set thou art to have
thy household above reproach, as is meet in a Christian home. So, I took
it, would be thy mind--which Heaven fill with light for Egypt's
sake!--that thou wouldst have none about thee who were not above
reproach, neither liars, nor thieves, nor murderers."

"But thee would serve with me, friend," rejoined David quietly. "Thee has
men's lives against thy account."

"Else had mine been against their account."

"Was it not so with Mahommed? If so, according to the custom of the land,
then Mahommed is as immune as thou art."

"Saadat, like thee I am a Christian, yet am I also Oriental, and what is
crime with one race is none with another. At the Palace two days past
thou saidst thou hadst never killed a man; and I know that thy religion
condemns killing even in war. Yet in Egypt thou wilt kill, or thou shalt
thyself be killed, and thy aims will come to naught. When, as thou
wouldst say, thou hast sinned, hast taken a man's life, then thou wilt
understand. Thou wilt keep this fellow Mahommed, then?"

"I understand, and I will keep him."

"Surely thy heart is large and thy mind great. It moveth above small
things. Thou dost not seek riches here?"

"I have enough; my wants are few."

"There is no precedent for one in office to withhold his hand from profit
and backsheesh."

"Shall we not try to make a precedent?"

"Truthfulness will be desolate--like a bird blown to sea, beating 'gainst
its doom."

"Truth will find an island in the sea."

"If Egypt is that sea, Saadat, there is no island."

David came over close to Nahoum, and looked him in the eyes.

"Surely I can speak to thee, friend, as to one understanding. Thou art a
Christian--of the ancient fold. Out of the East came the light. Thy
Church has preserved the faith. It is still like a lamp in the mist and
the cloud in the East. Thou saidst but now that thy heart was with my
purpose. Shall the truth that I would practise here not find an island in
this sea--and shall it not be the soul of Nahoum Pasha?"

"Have I not given my word? Nay, then, I swear it by the tomb of my
brother, whom Death met in the highway, and because he loved the sun, and
the talk of men, and the ways of women, rashly smote him out of the
garden of life into the void. Even by his tomb I swear it."

"Hast thou, then, such malice against Death? These things cannot happen
save by the will of God."

"And by the hand of man. But I have no cause for revenge. Foorgat died in
his sleep like a child. Yet if it had been the hand of man, Prince Kaid
or any other, I would not have held my hand until I had a life for his."

"Thou art a Christian, yet thou wouldst meet one wrong by another?"

"I am an Oriental." Then, with a sudden change of manner, he added: "But
thou hast a Christianity the like of which I have never seen. I will
learn of thee, Saadat, and thou shalt learn of me also many things which
I know. They will help thee to understand Egypt and the place where thou
wilt be set--if so be my life is saved, and by thy hand."

Mahommed entered, and came to David. "Where wilt thou sleep, Saadat?" he
asked.

"The pasha will sleep yonder," David replied, pointing to another room.
"I will sleep here." He laid a hand upon the couch where he sat.

Nahoum rose and, salaaming, followed Mahommed to the other room.

In a few moments the house was still, and remained so for hours. Just
before dawn the curtain of Nahoum's room was drawn aside, the Armenian
entered stealthily, and moved a step towards the couch where David lay.
Suddenly he was stopped by a sound. He glanced towards a corner near
David's feet. There sat Mahommed watching, a neboot of dom-wood across
his knees.

Their eyes remained fixed upon each other for a moment. Then Nahoum
passed back into his bedroom as stealthily as he had come.

Mahommed looked closely at David. He lay with an arm thrown over his
head, resting softly, a moisture on his forehead as on that of a sleeping
child.

"Saadat! Saadat!" said Mahommed softly to the sleeping figure, scarcely
above his breath, and then with his eyes upon the curtained room
opposite, began to whisper words from the Koran:

"In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful--"

Back to chapter list of: The Weavers