Donovan Pasha, and Some People of Egypt Part 26

The Khedive's fingers twisted round the chair-arm savagely.

"Who will prevent it?"

"Your Highness will. Your Highness could not permit it--the time is far past. Suppose Kingsley Bey gave you his whole fortune, would it save one palace or pay one t.i.the of your responsibilities? Would it lengthen the chain of safety?"

"I am safe."

"No, Highness. In peril--here with your own people, in Europe with the nations. Money will not save you."

"What then?"

"Prestige. Power--the Soudan. Establish yourself in the Soudan with a real army. Let your name be carried to the Abyssinian mountains as the voice of the eagle."

"Who will carry it?" He laughed disdainfully, with a bitter, hopeless kind of pride. "Who will carry it?"

"Gordon-again."

The Khedive started from his chair, and his sullen eye lighted to laughter. He paced excitedly to and fro for a minute, and then broke out:

"Thou hast said it! Gordon--Gordon--if he would but come again!--But it shall be so, by the beard of G.o.d's prophet, it shall. Thou hast said the thing that has lain in my heart. Have I had honour in the Soudan since his feet were withdrawn? Where is honour and tribute and gold since his hand ruled--alone without an army? It is so--Inshallah! but it is so. He shall come again, and the people's eyes will turn to Khartoum and Darfdr and Kordofan, and the greedy nations will wait. Ah, my friend, but the true inspiration is thine! I will send for Gordon to night--even to-night. Thou shalt go--no, no, not so. Who can tell--I might look for thy return in vain! But who--who, to carry my word to Gordon?"

"Your messenger is in the anteroom," said d.i.c.ky with a sudden thought.

"Who is it, son of the high hills?"

"The lady at a.s.siout--she who is such a friend to Gordon as I am to thee, Highness."

"She whose voice and hand are against slavery?"

"Even so. It is good that she return to England there to remain. Send her."

"Why is she here?" The Khedive looked suspiciously at d.i.c.ky, for it seemed that a plot had been laid.

Thereupon, d.i.c.ky told the Khedive the whole story, and not in years had Ismail's face shown such abandon of humour.

"By the will of G.o.d, but it shall be!" he said. "She shall marry Kingsley Bey, and he shall go free."

"But not till she has seen him and mourned over him in his cell, with the mud floor and the bala.s.s of water."

The Khedive laughed outright and swore in French. "And the cakes of dourha! I will give her as a parting gift the twenty slaves, and she shall bring her great work to a close in the arms of a slaver. It is worth a fortune."

"It is worth exactly ten thousand pounds to your Highness--ten thousand pounds neither more nor less."

Ismail questioned.

"Kingsley Bey would make last tribute of thus much to your Highness."

Ismail would not have declined ten thousand centimes. "Malais.h.!.+" he said, and called for coffee, while they planned what should be said to his Amba.s.sadress from a.s.siout.

She came trembling, yet determined, and she left with her eyes full of joyful tears. She was to carry the news of his freedom and the freedom of his slaves to Kingsley Bey, and she--she, was to bear to Gordon, the foe of slavery, the world's benefactor, the message that he was to come and save the Soudan. Her vision was enlarged, and never went from any prince a more grateful supplicant and envoy.

Donovan Pasha went with her to the room with the mud floor where Kingsley Bey was confined.

"I owe it all to you," she said as they hastened across the sun-swept square. "Ah, but you have atoned! You have done it all at once, after these long years."

"Well, well, the time is ripe," said d.i.c.ky piously. They found Kingsley Bey reading the last issue of the French newspaper published in Cairo.

He was laughing at some article in it abusive of the English, and seemed not very downcast; but at a warning sign and look from d.i.c.ky, he became as grave as he was inwardly delighted at seeing the lady of a.s.siout.

As Kingsley Bey and the Amba.s.sadress shook hands, d.i.c.ky said to her: "I'll tell him, and then go." Forthwith he said: "Kingsley Bey, son of the desert, and unhappy prisoner, the prison opens its doors. No more for you the cold earth for a bed--relieved though it be by a sleeping-mat. No more the cake of dourha and the bala.s.s of Nile water.

Inshallah, you are as free as a bird on the mountain top, to soar to far lands and none to say thee nay."

Kingsley Bey caught instantly at the meaning lying beneath d.i.c.ky's whimsical phrases, and he deported himself accordingly. He looked inquiringly at the Amba.s.sadress, and she responded:

"We come from the Khedive, and he bids us carry you his high considerations--"

"Yes, 'high considerations,' he said," interjected d.i.c.ky with his eye towards a fly on the ceiling.

"And to beg your company at dinner to-night."

"And the price?" asked Kingsley, feeling his way carefully, for he wished no more mistakes where this lady was concerned. At a.s.siout he had erred; he had no desire to be deceived at Cairo. He did not know how he stood with her, though her visit gave him audacious hopes. Her face was ruled to quietness now, and only in the eyes resolutely turned away was there any look which gave him a.s.surance. He seemed to hear her talking from the veranda that last day at a.s.siout; and it made him discreet at least.

"Oh, the price!" murmured d.i.c.ky, and he seemed to study the sleepy sarraf who pored over his accounts in the garden. "The price is 'England, home, and beauty.' Also to prop up the falling towers of Khedivia--ten thousand pounds! Also, Gordon."

Kingsley Bey appeared, as he was, mystified, but he was not inclined to spoil things by too much speaking. He looked inquiry.

At that moment an orderly came running towards the door--d.i.c.ky had arranged for that. d.i.c.ky started, and turned to the lady. "You tell him.

This fellow is coming for me. I'll be back in a quarter of an hour."

He nodded to them both and went out to the orderly, who followed his footsteps to the palace.

"You've forgiven me for everything--for everything at a.s.siout, I mean?"

he asked.

"I have no desire to remember," she answered. "About Gordon--what is it?"

"Ah, yes, about Gordon!" She drew herself up a little. "I am to go to England--for the Khedive, to ask Gordon to save the Soudan."

"Then you've forgiven the Khedive?" he inquired with apparent innocence.

"I've no wish to prevent him showing practical repentance," she answered, keenly alive to his suggestion, and a little nettled. "It means no more slavery. Gordon will prevent that."

"Will he?" asked Kingsley, again with m.u.f.fled mockery.

"He is the foe of slavery. How many, many letters I have had from him!

He will save the Soudan--and Egypt too."

"He will be badly paid--the Government will stint him. And he will give away his pay--if he gets any."

She did not see his aim, and her face fell. "He will succeed for all that."