Donovan Pasha, and Some People of Egypt Part 11

"It is no youth, but a woman," he answered--"the latest wife of the Mudir. In a man's clothes--"

He paused, for the head sheikh of El Medineh, with two Ulema, entered the throng. The crowd fell back. Presently the Sheikh-el-beled mounted the mastaba by the house, the holy men beside him, and pointing to the Arab youth, spoke loudly:

"This sister of scorpions and crocodiles has earned a thousand deaths.

She was a daughter of a pasha, and was lifted high. She was made the wife of Abbas Bey, our Mudir. Like a wanton beast she cut off her hair, clothed herself as a man, journeyed to Mecca, and desecrated the tomb of Mahomet, who hath written that no woman, save her husband of his goodness bring her, shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven."

He paused, and pointed to the rough pictures on the walls. "This morning, dressed as a man, she went in secret to the sacred purple pillar for barren women in the Mosque of Amrar, by the Bahr-el-Yusef, and was found there with her tongue to it. What shall be done to this accursed tree in the garden of Mahomet?"

"Cut it down!" shouted the crowd; and the Ulema standing beside the Sheikh-el-beled said: "Cut down for ever the accursed tree."

"To-morrow, at sunrise, she shall die as a blasphemer, this daughter of Sheitan the Evil One," continued the holy men.

"What saith the Mudir?" cried a tax-gatherer. "The Mudir himself shall see her die at sunrise," answered the chief of the Ulema.

Shouts of hideous joy went up. At that moment the woman's eyes met d.i.c.ky's, and they suddenly lighted. d.i.c.ky picked his way through the crowd, and stood before the Sheikh-el-beled. With an Arab salute, he said:

"I am, as you know, my brother, a friend of our master the Khedive, and I carry his ring on my finger." The Sheikh-el-beled salaamed as d.i.c.ky held up his hand, and a murmur ran through the crowd. "What you have done to the woman is well done, and according to your law she should die. But will ye not let her tell her story, so it may be written down, that when perchance evil voices carry the tale to the Khedive he shall have her own words for her condemnation?"

The Ulema looked at the Sheikh-el-beled, and he made answer: "It is well said; let the woman speak, and her words be written down."

"Is it meet that all should hear?" asked d.i.c.ky, for he saw the look in the woman's eyes. "Will she not speak more freely if we be few?"

"Let her be taken into the house," said the Sheikhel-beled. Turning to the holy men, he added: "Ye and the Inglesi shall hear."

When they were within the house, the woman was brought in and stood before them.

"Speak," said the Sheikh-el-beled to her roughly. She kept her eyes fixed on d.i.c.ky as she spoke: "For the thing I have done I shall answer.

I had no joy in the harem. I gave no child to my lord, though often I put my tongue to the sacred pillar of porphyry in the Mosque of Amrar.

My lord's love went from me. I was placed beneath another in the harem.... Was it well? Did I not love my lord? was the sin mine that no child was born to him? It is written that a woman's prayers are of no avail, that her lord must save her at the last, if she hath a soul to be saved.... Was the love of my lord mine?" She paused, caught a corner of her robe and covered her face.

"Speak on, O woman of many sorrows," said d.i.c.ky. She partly uncovered her face, and spoke again: "In the long night, when he came not and I was lonely and I cried aloud, and only the jackals beyond my window answered, I thought and thought. My brain was wild, and at last I said: 'Behold, I will go to Mecca as the men go, and when the fire rises from the Prophet's tomb, bringing blessing and life to all, it may be that I shall have peace, and win heaven as men win it. For behold! what is my body but a man's body, for it beareth no child. And what is my soul but a man's soul, that dares to do this thing!'..."

"Thou art a blasphemer," broke in the chief of the Ulema.

She gave no heed, but with her eyes on d.i.c.ky continued:

"So I stole forth in the night with an old slave, who was my father's slave, and together we went to Cairo.... Behold, I have done all that Dervishes do: I have cut myself with knives, I have walked the desert alone, I have lain beneath the feet of the Sheikh's horse when he makes his ride over the bodies of the faithful, I have done all that a woman may do and all that a man may do, for the love I bore my lord. Now judge me as ye will, for I may do no more."

When she had finished, d.i.c.ky turned to the Sheikhel-beled and said: "She is mad. Behold, Allah hath taken her wits! She is no more than a wild bird in the wilderness."

It was his one way to save her; for among her people the mad, the blind, and the idiot are reputed highly favoured of G.o.d.

The Sheikh-el-beled shook his head. "She is a blasphemer. Her words are as the words of one who holds the sacred sword and speaks from the high pulpit," he said sternly; and his dry lean face hungered like a wolf's for the blood of the woman.

"She has blasphemed," said the Ulema.

Outside the house, quietness had given place to murmuring, murmuring to a noise, and a noise to a tumult, through which the yelping and howling of the village dogs streamed.

"She shall be torn to pieces by wild dogs," said the Sheikh-el-beled.

"Let her choose her own death," said d.i.c.ky softly; and, lighting a cigarette, he puffed it indolently into the face of the Arab sitting beside him. For d.i.c.ky had many ways of showing hatred, and his tobacco was strong. The sea has its victims, so had d.i.c.ky's tobacco.

"The way of her death shall be as we choose," said the Sheikh-el-beled, his face growing blacker, his eyes enlarging in fury.

d.i.c.ky yawned slightly, his eyes half closed. He drew in a long breath of excoriating caporal, held it for a moment, and then softly ejected it in a cloud which brought water to the eyes of the Sheikh-el-beled. d.i.c.ky was very angry, but he did not look it. His voice was meditative, almost languid as he said:

"That the woman should die seems just and right--if by your kindness and the mercy of G.o.d ye will let me speak. But this is no court, it is no law: it is mere justice ye would do."

"It is the will of the people," the chief of the Ulema interjected. "It is the will of Mussulmans, of our religion, of Mahomet," he said.

"True, O beloved of Heaven, who shall live for ever," said d.i.c.ky, his lips lost in an odorous cloud of 'ordinaire.' "But there be evil tongues and evil hearts; and if some son of liars, some brother of foolish tales, should bear false witness upon this thing before our master the Khedive, or his gentle Mouffetish--"

"His gentle Mouffetish" was scarcely the name to apply to Sadik Pasha, the terrible right-hand of the Khedive. But d.i.c.ky's tongue was in his cheek.

"There is the Mudir," said the Sheikh-el-beled: "he hath said that the woman should die, if she were found."

"True; but if the Mudir should die, where would be his testimony?" asked d.i.c.ky, and his eyes half closed, as though in idle contemplation of a pleasing theme. "Now," he added, still more negligently, "I shall see our master the Khedive before the moon is full. Were it not well that I should be satisfied for my friends?"

d.i.c.ky smiled, and looked into the eyes of the Mussulmans with an incorruptible innocence; he ostentatiously waved the cigarette smoke away with the hand on which was the ring the Khedive had given him.

"Thy tongue is as the light of a star," said the bright-eyed Sheikh-el-beled; "wisdom dwelleth with thee." The woman took no notice of what they said. Her face showed no sign of what she thought; her eyes were unwaveringly fixed on the distance.

"She shall choose her own death," said the Sheikhel-beled; "and I will bear word to the Mudir."

"I dine with the Mudir to-night; I will carry the word," said d.i.c.ky; "and the death that the woman shall die will be the death he will choose."

The woman's eyes came like lightning from the distance, and fastened upon his face. Then he said, with the back of his hand to his mouth to hide a yawn:

"The manner of her death will please the Mudir. It must please him."

"What death does this vulture among women choose to die?" said the Sheikh-el-beled.

Her answer could scarcely be heard in the roar and the riot surrounding the hut.

A half-hour later d.i.c.ky entered the room where the Mudir sat on his divan drinking his coffee. The great man looked up in angry astonishment--for d.i.c.ky had come unannounced-and his fat hands twitched on his breast, where they had been folded. His sallow face turned a little green. d.i.c.ky made no salutation.

"Dog of an infidel!" said the Mudir under his breath.

d.i.c.ky heard, but did no more than fasten his eyes upon the Mudir for a moment.

"Your business?" asked the Mudir.

"The business of the Khedive," answered d.i.c.ky, and his riding-whip tapped his leggings. "I have come about the English girl." As he said this, he lighted a cigarette slowly, looking, as it were casually, into the Mudir's eyes.

The Mudir's hand ran out like a snake towards a bell on the cus.h.i.+ons, but d.i.c.ky shot forward and caught the wrist in his slim, steel-like fingers. There was a hard glitter in his eyes as he looked down into the eyes of the master of a hundred slaves, the ruler of a province.

"I have a command of the Khedive to bring you to Cairo, and to kill you if you resist," said d.i.c.ky. "Sit still--you had better sit still," he added, in a soothing voice behind which was a deadly authority.