Donovan Pasha, and Some People of Egypt Part 21

"What would be the whole measures?" she asked eagerly, but with a certain faint shrinking, for d.i.c.ky seemed cold-blooded.

"Of course you never could tell what would happen when Ismail throws the slipper. This isn't a country where things are cut and dried, and done according to Hoyle. You get a new combination every time you pull a string. Where there's no system and a thousand methods you have to run risks. Kingsley Bey might get mangled in the machinery."

She shrank a little. "It is all barbarous."

"Well, I don't know. He is guilty, isn't he? You said you would like to see him in the prisoner's dock. You would probably convict him of killing as well as slavery. You would torture him with prison, and then hang him in the end. Ismail would probably get into a rage--pretended, of course--and send an army against him. Kingsley would make a fight for it, and lose his head--all in the interest of a sudden sense of duty on the part of the Khedive. All Europe would applaud--all save England, and what could she do? Can she defend slavery? There'll be no kid-gloved justice meted out to Kingsley by the Khedive, if he starts a campaign against him. He will have to take it on the devil's pitchfork. You must be logical, you know.

"You can't have it both ways. If he is to be punished, it must be after the custom of the place. This isn't England."

She shuddered slightly, and d.i.c.ky went on: "Then, when his head's off, and his desert-city and his mines are no more, and his slaves change masters, comes a nice question. Who gets his money? Not that there's any doubt about who'll get it, but, from your standpoint, who should get it?"

She shook her head in something like embarra.s.sment.

"Money got by slavery--yes, who should get it?" interposed Kingsley carefully, for her eyes had turned to him for help. "Would you favour his heirs getting it? Should it go to the State? Should it go to the slaves? Should it go to a fund for agitation against slavery?... You, for instance, could make use of a fortune like his in a cause like that, could you not?" he asked with what seemed boyish simplicity.

The question startled her. "I--I don't know.... But certainly not," she hastened to add; "I couldn't touch the money. It is absurd--impossible."

"I can't see that," steadily persisted Kingsley. "This money was made out of the work of slaves. Certainly they were paid--they were, weren't they?" he asked with mock ignorance, turning to d.i.c.ky, who nodded a.s.sent. "They were paid wages by Kingsley--in kind, I suppose, but that's all that's needed in a country like the Soudan. But still they had to work, and their lives and bodies were Kingsley's for the time being, and the fortune wouldn't have been made without them; therefore, according to the most finely advanced theories of labour and owners.h.i.+p, the fortune is theirs as much as Kingsley's. But, in the nature of things, they couldn't have the fortune. What would they do with it?

Wandering tribes don't need money. Barter and exchange of things in kind is the one form of finance in the Soudan. Besides, they'd cut each other's throats the very first day they got the fortune, and it would strew the desert sands. It's all illogical and impossible--"

"Yes, yes, I quite see that," she interposed.

"But you surely can see how the fortune could be applied to saving those races from slavery. What was wrung from the few by forced labour and loss of freedom could be returned to the many by a sort of national salvation. You could spend the fortune wisely--agents and missionaries everywhere; in the cafes, in the bazaars, in the palace, at court.

Judicious gifts: and, at last, would come a firman or decree putting down slavery, on penalty of death. The fortune would all go, of course, but think of the good accomplished!"

"You mean that the fortune should be spent in buying the decree--in backsheesh?" she asked bewildered, yet becoming indignant.

"Well, it's like company promoting," d.i.c.ky interposed, hugely enjoying the comedy, and thinking that Kingsley had put the case shrewdly. It was sure to confuse her. "You have to clear the way, as it were. The preliminaries cost a good deal, and those who put the machinery in working order have to be paid. Then there's always some important person who holds the key of the situation; his counsel has to be asked. Advice is very expensive."

"It is gross and wicked!" she flashed out.

"But if you got your way? If you suppressed Kingsley Bey, rid the world of him--well, well, say, banished him," he quickly added, as he saw her fingers tremble--"and got your decree, wouldn't it be worth while? Fire is fought with fire, and you would be using all possible means to do what you esteem a great good. Think of it--slavery abolished, your work accomplished, Kingsley Bey blotted out!"

Light and darkness were in her face at once. Her eyes were bright, her brows became knitted, her foot tapped the floor. Of course it was all make-believe, this possibility, but it seemed too wonderful to think of--slavery abolished, and through her; and Kingsley Bey, the renegade Englishman, the disgrace to his country, blotted out.

"Your argument is not sound in many ways," she said at last, trying to feel her course. "We must be just before all. The whole of the fortune was not earned by slaves. Kingsley Bey's ability and power were the original cause of its existence. Without him there would have been no fortune. Therefore, it would not be justice to give it, even indirectly, to the slaves for their cause."

"It would be penalty--Kingsley Bey's punishment," said d.i.c.ky slyly.

"But I thought he was to be blotted out," she said ironically, yet brightening, for it seemed to her that she was proving herself statesmanlike, and justifying her woman's feelings as well.

"When he is blotted out, his fortune should go where it can remedy the evil of his life."

"He may have been working for some good cause," quietly put in Kingsley.

"Should not that cause get the advantage of his 'ability and power,' as you have called it, even though he was mistaken, or perverted, or cruel?

Shouldn't an average be struck between the wrong his 'ability and power' did and the right that same 'ability and power' was intended to advance?"

She turned with admiration to Kingsley. "How well you argue--I remember you did years ago. I hate slavery and despise and hate slave-dealers and slave-keepers, but I would be just, too, even to Kingsley Bey. But what cause, save his own comfort and fortune, would he be likely to serve? Do you know him?" she added eagerly.

"Since I can remember," answered Kingsley, looking through the field-gla.s.ses at a steamer coming up the river.

"Would you have thought that he would turn out as he has?" she asked simply. "You see, he appears to me so dark and baleful a figure that I cannot quite regard him as I regard you, for instance. I could not realise knowing such a man."

"He had always a lot of audacity," Kingsley replied slowly, "and he certainly was a schemer in his way, but that came from his helpless poverty."

"Was he very poor?" she asked eagerly.

"Always. And he got his estates heavily enc.u.mbered. Then there were people--old ladies--to have annuities, and many to be provided for, and there was little chance in England for him. Good-temper and brawn weren't enough."

"Egypt's the place for mother-wit," broke in d.i.c.ky. "He had that anyhow.

As to his unscrupulousness, of course that's as you may look at it."

"Was he always unscrupulous?" she asked. "I have thought him cruel and wicked nationally--un-English, shamefully culpable; but a man who is unscrupulous would do mean low things, and I should like to think that Kingsley is a villain with good points. I believe he has them, and I believe that deep down in him is something English and honourable after all--something to be reckoned with, worked on, developed. See, here is a letter I had from him two days ago"--she drew it from her pocket and handed it over to d.i.c.ky. "I cannot think him hopeless altogether... I freed the slaves who brought the letter, and sent them on to Cairo. Do you not feel it is hopeful?" she urged, as d.i.c.ky read the letter slowly, making sotto voce remarks meanwhile.

"Brigands and tyrants can be gallant--there are plenty of instances on record. What are six slaves to him?"

"He has a thousand to your one," said Kingsley slowly, and as though not realising his words.

She started, sat up straight in her chair, and looked at him indignantly. "I have no slaves," she said.

Kingsley Bey had been watching the Circa.s.sian girl Mata, in the garden for some time, and he had not been able to resist the temptation to make the suggestion that roused her now.

"I think the letter rather high-flown," said d.i.c.ky, turning the point, and handing the open page to Kingsley. "It looks to me as though written with a purpose."

"What a cryptic remark!" said Kingsley laughing, yet a little chagrined.

"What you probably wish to convey is that it says one thing and means another."

"Suppose it does," interposed the lady. "The fact remains that he answered my appeal, which did not mince words, in most diplomatic and gentlemanly language. What do you think of the letter?" she asked, turning to Kingsley, and reaching a hand for it.

"I'll guarantee our friend here could do no better, if he sat up all night," put in d.i.c.ky satirically.

"You are safe in saying so, the opportunity being lacking." She laughed, and folded it up.

"I believe Kingsley Bey means what he says in that letter. Whatever his purpose, I honestly think that you might have great influence over him,"

mused d.i.c.ky, and, getting up, stepped from the veranda, as though to go to the bank where an incoming steamer they had been watching was casting anchor. He turned presently, however, came back a step and said "You see, all our argument resolves itself into this: if Kingsley is to be smashed only Ismail can do it. If Ismail does it, Kingsley will have the desert for a bed, for he'll not run, and Ismail daren't spare him.

Sequel, all his fortune will go to the Khedive. Question, what are we going to do about it?"

So saying he left them, laughing, and went down the garden-path to the riverside. The two on the veranda sat silent for a moment, then Kingsley spoke.

"These weren't the things we talked about when we saw the clouds gather over Skaw Fell and the sun s.h.i.+ne on the Irish Sea. We've done and seen much since then. Mult.i.tudes have come and gone in the world--and I have grown grey!" he added with a laugh.

"I've done little-nothing, and I meant and hoped to do much," she almost pleaded. "I've grown grey too."

"Not one grey hair," he said, with an admiring look. "Grey in spirit sometimes," she reflected with a tired air. "But you--forgive me, if I haven't known what you've done. I've lived out of England so long. You may be at the head of the Government, for all I know. You look to me as though you'd been a success. Don't smile. I mean it. You look as though you'd climbed. You haven't the air of an eldest son whose way is cut out for him, with fifty thousand a year for compensation. What have you been doing? What has been your work in life?"

"The opposite of yours."

He felt himself a ruffian, but he consoled himself with the thought that the end at which he aimed was good. It seemed ungenerous to meet her simple honesty by such obvious repartee, but he held on to see where the trail would lead.