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“Ah! That’s the mystery,” said Lady Smith-Evered, with a look of profound knowing. “Incidentally, my dear, he is said to keep a harîm of Bedouin women somewhere out in the desert. I shouldn’t be surprised if every night he beat them all soundly and sent them where the rhyme says.”
She laughed nastily, and Muriel made a grimace.
CHAPTER II – THE FREEDOM OF THE DESERT
Lord Blair rose from his chair as the door opened, and removed from his thin, furtive nose a pair of large horn-rimmed spectacles which he always wore when quite alone in his study.
“Come in, come in, my dear Mr. Lane,” he exclaimed, taking a few blithe steps forward and shaking his visitor warmly by the hand. “I’m very well, thank you, very well indeed, and so are you, I see. That’s right, that’s good, – splendid! Dear me, what physique! What a picture of health! How did you get here so quickly? – do take a seat, do be seated. Yes, yes, to be sure! Have a cigar? Now, where did I put my cigars?”
He pushed a leather arm-chair around, so that it faced his own desk chair, and began at once to hunt for his cigar-box, lifting and replacing stacks of papers and books, glancing rapidly, like some sort of rodent, around the room, and then again searching under his papers.
“Thanks,” said Daniel Lane, “I’ll smoke my pipe, if it won’t make you sick.”
“Tut, tut!” Lord Blair laughed, extending his delicate hands in a comprehensive gesture. “I sometimes smoke a pipe myself: I enjoy it. A good, honest, English smoke! Dear me, where are my cigars?”
Lord Blair was a little man of somewhat remarkable appearance – remarkable, that is to say, when considered in relation to his historic name and excellent diplomatic record. In a company of elderly club waiters he would, on superficial observation, have passed unnoticed. He bore very little resemblance to his daughter; and, in fact, he was often disposed to believe his late wife’s declaration, made whenever she desired to taunt him, that Muriel was no child of his. Lady Blair had had many lovers; and it is notorious that twenty odd years ago in Mayfair there was an exceptionally violent epidemic of adultery.
He himself had thin auburn hair, now nearly grey, neatly parted in the middle; nervous, quick-moving brown eyes; closely cut ‘mutton-chop’ whiskers; an otherwise clean-shaven, sharp-featured face; and a wide mouth, furnished with two somewhat apparent rows of false teeth. His smile was kindly and gracious, and his expression, in spite of a certain vigilance, mild.
The evening dress which he was now wearing was noteworthy in four particulars: his collar was so big for him that one might suppose that, in moments of danger, his head totally disappeared into it; his bow-tie was exceptionally wide and large; his links and studs were, as such things go, enormous; and the legs of his trousers were cut so tightly as to be bordering on the comic. In other respects there was nothing striking in his appearance, except, perhaps, a general cleanliness, almost a fastidiousness, especially to be noticed in the polished surface of his chin and jaw, and in his carefully manicured finger-nails.
Daniel Lane pulled out his pipe and began to fill it from a worn old pouch. “Please don’t bother about cigars,” he said, as Lord Blair extended his hand towards the bell. “Tell me why you sent for me. Your letter was brought over from El Homra by a nigger corporal of your precious frontier-patrol, who nearly lamed his camel in trying to do the thirty miles in under four hours. My Bedouin friends thought at the very least that the King of England was dying and wished to give me his blessing.”
“Dear, dear! – it was not so urgent as all that,” his Lordship replied. “I told them to mark the letter ”Express,“ but I trust, I do trust, the message itself was not peremptory.”
“Not at all,” the other replied. “I was mighty glad of an excuse to come into Cairo; I wanted to do some shopping; and there was another reason also. A young cousin of mine – in the Guards – has come to Cairo, with his regiment, and I ought to see him about some family business. I should probably have let it slide if you hadn’t sent for me. Tell me, what’s your trouble?”
“Ah, that’s the point! – you always come to the point quickly. It’s capital, capital!” Lord Blair leaned forward and tapped his friend’s knee with a sort of affection. “I don’t know where I should be without your advice, Mr. Lane – Daniel: may I call you Daniel?”
“Sure,” said Daniel, laconically.
“When I came here two years ago, my predecessor said to me ‘When in doubt, send for Daniel Lane.’ Do you remember how worried, indeed how shaken – yes, I may say shaken – I was by the Michael Pasha affair? How you laughed! Dear me, you were positively rude to me; and how right you were! Personally I should have had him deported: it never occurred to me to convert him into a friend.”
His visitor smiled. “‘Bind a brave enemy with the chains of absolution,’” he said.
“Yes, yes, very true,” replied Lord Blair, still hunting about for the cigars. “Very true, very daring: a policy for brave men.” He started into rigidity, as though at a sudden thought: one might have supposed that he had recollected where he had put the cigars. “Daniel!” he exclaimed, “you bring with you an air of the mediæval! That’s it! One always forgets that Egypt is mediæval.”
Daniel blew a cloud of oriental tobacco-smoke through his nostrils, at which his host frenziedly renewed his search for the less pungent cigars. “About this business you want to ask my advice upon …?” he asked.
“Ah yes, you must be tired,” his Lordship murmured. “You want to go to bed after your long ride. Let me put you up here. I’ll ring and have a room prepared.”
“No thanks,” said Daniel, firmly. “I’ve left my kit at the Orient Hotel. But fire away, and I’ll give you my opinion either at once or in the morning.”
Lord Blair laid his thin fingers upon a document, and handed it to his friend. “Read that,” he said, and therewith leaned back in his chair, his dark eyes glancing anxiously about the room.
The document was written in Arabic, and beneath the flowing script a secretary had pencilled an English translation. “The translation is appended,” remarked his Lordship, as Daniel bent forward to study the paper in the light of the electric reading-lamp.
“I prefer the original,” he replied, with a smile, “I don’t trust translations: they lose the spirit.”
For some considerable time there was silence. Suddenly Lord Blair rose from his chair, and hurried across to a cupboard, from which he returned bearing in triumph the missing cigars. He proffered them to his visitor, who, without raising his eyes, took one, smelt it, and put it in his breast pocket.
At length, through a cloud of smoke, Daniel looked up. “The man’s a fool,” he said, and laid the paper back upon the table.
“You think I ought to refuse?” asked Lord Blair.
“No, procrastinate. That’s the basis of diplomacy, isn’t it?”
The document in question was a request made by the Egyptian Minister of War that the nomadic Bedouin tribes of the desert should be brought under the Conscription Act, from which, until now, they had been exempt.
“I ventured to ask you to come in,” said his Lordship, “because I am sure, indeed I know, you have the interests of these rascals at heart. I thought you would wish to be consulted; and at the same time I felt that you would be able to tell me just what the consequences would be of any action of this kind.”
Daniel nodded. “Yes, I can tell you the consequences,” he answered. “If you conscribe them, they will evade the law by all possible means, and you will turn honest men into law-breakers.”
“But, as you see, he suggests that it will bring the benefits of discipline into their lives,” Lord Blair argued. “And if some of them escape across the frontiers into Arabia or Tripoli, it will be, surely it will be, no great loss to Egypt.”
Daniel spread out his hands. “What is military discipline?” he asked. “Good Lord! – d’you think the Bedouin will be better men for having learnt to form fours and present arms? Will barrack life in dirty cities bring them some mystic benefit which they have missed in the open spaces of the clean desert? Don’t you realize that it is just their freedom from the taint of what we call civilization that gives them their particular good qualities? Why is it that the man of the desert is faithful and honourable and truthful? Because time and money and power and ambition and success and cunning are nothing to him. Because he is not herded with other men.”
He leant forward earnestly. “Lord Blair,” he said, and his voice was grave, “hasn’t the thought ever come to you that we civilized people, with our rules and regulations, our etiquette and our conventions, have built up a structure which screens us from the face of the sun?”
“Ah, yes, indeed, my dear Daniel,” he replied. “Back to the land: the simple life: Fresh Air Fund – a capital sentiment. But, you know, I am very anxious, most anxious, not to offend this particular minister – most anxious.”
His visitor relapsed into silence, and the volume of smoke which issued from his mouth was some indication that he had much to say which he preferred to leave unsaid.
At length he took the pipe from between his teeth. “You had better fix your frontiers first,” he declared. “There’ll be a fine old row if Egyptian patrols blunder into foreign territory. There’s your chance for procrastination. Send out a commission to settle the desert frontiers definitely. That’ll keep you all wrangling comfortably for five years.”
“Ah! – that is an idea, a very good idea,” replied Lord Blair, bringing the tips of the fingers of one hand against those of the other sharply and repeatedly.
“Write to the minister,” Daniel went on, “and tell him you don’t altogether agree with him, but that you will consent to the preliminary step of fixing the frontiers. Before that’s accomplished you may both be dead.”
“I trust not, I trust not,” murmured Lord Blair.
“Or retired,” said his friend; and his Lordship nodded his thanks for the correction.
It was not long before Daniel rose to take his departure. “Oh, by the way,” he said, with a broad smile, “I have one little favor to ask you…”
“Certainly, certainly,” responded Lord Blair warmly. “Anything I can do, I’m sure – anything. You have put me under a great obligation by coming so promptly to my aid in this matter.”
“Well, will you be so good as to walk as far as your front gate with me? There’s something I want to show you.”
Lord Blair, somewhat mystified, accompanied him on to the veranda; and here they chanced upon Lady Muriel again taking the air with Rupert Helsingham who was once more her partner. The couple were strolling towards them as they came out of the house.
Daniel made for the steps. “What I want you to see is over here,” he said, pointing to the gateway.
“One moment,” Lord Blair interjected, taking hold of his arm. “I want to introduce you to my daughter.”
He called Muriel to him, who replied somewhat coldly that she had already met Mr. Lane.
“Really?” exclaimed his Lordship. “Splendid, capital!”
“Yes,” said Daniel, taking his pipe out of his mouth, “when she was quite a kid; but I’m blest if I know where it was.”
He was standing again almost with his back to Muriel, his pipe between his teeth, and once more a sense of annoyance entered her mind. She would have liked to pinch him, but for all she knew he might turn round and fling her into the middle of the drive. She racked her brains for something to say, something which would show him that she was not to be ignored in this fashion.
“Ah,” she exclaimed suddenly, “now I remember. It was in the Highlands that we met. You came over to tea with us: I was staying with my cousin the Duchess of Strathness.”
Daniel scratched his head. “I’m so bad at names,” he said. “What’s she like?”
Lord Blair uttered a sudden guffaw, but Muriel did not treat the matter so lightly. A man with gentlemanly instincts, she thought to herself, would at any rate pretend he remembered.
“Oh, why bother to think it out?” she answered, her foot ominously tapping the floor. “It’s of no consequence.”
“None,” Daniel replied, looking at her with his steady laughing eyes. “You’re still you, and I’m still I… But I did like your pigtails.”
Muriel turned to her partner, who stood anxiously fiddling with his eyeglass. “Come along,” she said; “let’s go back. The music’s begun again.”
She nodded with decided coolness to Daniel, and turned away. He gazed after her in silence for a moment; then he put his hand on her father’s arm, and gently propelled him towards the gates.
As they walked down the drive in the moonlight, the sentry peered at them through the iron bars, and, recognizing Lord Blair, suddenly presented arms, becoming thereat a very passable imitation of a waxwork figure.
Lord Blair put his arm in Daniel’s. “What is it you wanted to show me?” he asked, as they passed through the gate and stood upon the pavement outside.
“A good soldier,” said Daniel, indicating the sentry, whose face assumed an expression of mingled anxiety and astonishment. “I wanted to call your attention to this lad. Do you think you could put in a word for him to his colonel? I was very much struck this evening with the way in which he dealt with a ruffianly tramp who apparently wanted to get into the grounds. He showed great self-restraint combined with determination and devotion to duty.” There was not the trace of a smile upon his face.
Lord Blair turned to the rigid Scotchman, whose mouth had fallen open. “What’s your name, my man?” he asked.
“John Macdonald, me Lord,” he answered unsteadily.
“Now, will you make a note of it?” said Daniel. “And if you get a chance, recommend him for his soldierly conduct. Or, better still, send him a little present as a mark of your regard.”
“Certainly, certainly,” replied Lord Blair, still somewhat puzzled.
“Thanks, that’s all,” said Daniel. “Good-night.”
“Will you come to luncheon tomorrow?” Lord Blair asked, as they shook hands. “I will then show you the draft of my reply to the Minister of War.”
“Thank you,” Daniel answered, knocking the ashes from his pipe. “I’ll be delighted, if it isn’t a party. I haven’t got any respectable clothes with me.”
“Tut, tut!” murmured his Lordship. “Come in anything you like.” And with that he patted his friend on the arm, and hastened with little tripping steps back to the house.
Daniel put his hands in his pockets and faced the sentry, who was once more standing at ease. “John Macdonald,” he said, “is the account square?”
The Scotchman looked at him with a twinkle in his eye. “Ye mus’ na’ speak tae th’ sentry on duty,” he answered.
Daniel uttered a chuckle, and walked off across the square.
CHAPTER III – THE WORLD AND THE FLESH
When a man, in the heyday of his manhood, voluntarily lives the life of a monk or hermit, his friends suppose him to be either religious, defective, or possessed of a secret mistress. Now, nobody supposed Daniel Lane to be religious, for he seldom put his foot inside a church: and people seem to be agreed that religion is, as it were, black kid gloves, handed out with the hymnbooks and, like them, “not to be taken away.” Nor did anybody think him abnormal, for a figure more sane, more healthy, or more robust in its unqualified manhood, could not easily be conjured before the imagination.
Hence the rumour had arisen in Cairo that the daughters of the Bedouin were not strangers to him; but actually, like most rumours, this was entirely incorrect. He did, in very truth, live the life of a celibate in his desert home; and if this manner of existence chanced to be in accord with his ideas of bachelorhood, it was certainly in conformity with the nature of his surroundings. Some men are not attracted by a diet of onions, or by a skin-polish of castor oil.
When he had been commissioned by a well-known scientific institute to make a thorough study of the manners, customs, and folk-lore of the Bedouin tribes of the Egyptian desert, he had entered upon his task in the manner of one dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge; and he found in the life he was called upon to lead the opportunity for the practice of those precepts of the philosophers which, in spite of his impulsive nature, had ever appealed to him in principle during the course of his wide reading.
Almost unwittingly he had cultivated the infinite joys of a mind free from care, free from the desires of the flesh; and, with no apparent, or, at any rate, no great effort, he had established in himself a condition of undisturbed equanimity, by virtue of which he could smile benevolently at the frantic efforts of his fellow men and women to make life amusing. To him his existence in the desert was a continuous pleasure, for the great secret of human life had been revealed to him – that a mind at peace in itself is happiness.
But here in Cairo circumstances were different; and as he walked from the Residency through the moonlit streets to the Orient Hotel his thoughts were by no means tranquil. He did not feel any very noticeable fatigue after his long ride; for a series of recent expeditions through the desert had hardened him to such a point that the hundred and fifty miles which he had covered in the last three days had in no way strained his always astonishing physical resources. His senses were alert and active, and, indeed, were near to a riotous invasion of the placid palace of his mind, where his soul was wont to sit enthroned above the clamour of his mighty body.
He took the road which led him past the Semiramis Hotel, and through its brilliantly illuminated windows he could see the richly dressed throng of visitors, and could hear the strains of the orchestra which was playing selections from a popular musical comedy. He turned his head away, and gazed across the Nile which lay on his other hand; but here too the lights of the gay city glittered and were reflected in the water, while from a dahabiyah moored against the opposite bank there came the sound of tambourines and the rhythmic beating of the feet of native dancers.
In the main streets of the city the light of the lamps seemed strangely bright to his unaccustomed eyes; and the great square in front of the Orient Hotel presented an animated scene. Crowds of people were here streaming out of the Opera House, and carriages and automobiles were moving in all directions. The trees of the Esbekieh gardens were illuminated by the neighbouring arc lamps, and rich clusters of exotic flowers hung down towards the dazzling globes. The cafés on the other side of the square were crowded, and hundreds of small tables, standing in the open, were occupied by the native and continental inhabitants of the city. The murmur of many voices and the continuous rattle of dice upon the marble table-tops could be heard above the many sounds of the traffic; and somewhere a Neapolitan orchestra was playing a lilting tune.
The terrace and façade of the hotel were illuminated by numerous rows of small electric globes, and as Daniel ascended the steps to the brilliantly lighted main entrance he was met by a throng of men and women in evening dress pouring out on to the terrace. Evidently the weekly ball was in progress, and the couples were emerging into the cool night air to rest for a few brief moments from their exertions.
For some time he wandered about the hotel, furtively watching the dancers; but in his rough clothes he did not feel quite at his ease, and he was conscious that many pairs of eyes looked at him from time to time with wonder, while those of the hall-porter and the waiters, so he thought, expressed frank disapproval, if not disgust. He had no wish, however, to retire to his room; for the music of the orchestra would undoubtedly prevent sleep for yet some time to come. Moreover, he felt excited and disturbed by the brilliant scenes around him; and the seclusion of his desert home seemed very far away.
At length he found a seat upon a sofa at the end of a passage near the American Bar, where, except during the intervals between the dances, he was more or less alone; and here he settled himself down to enjoy the cigar which he had pocketed at the Residency. He wanted to be quiet; his mind was disturbed by his sudden incursion into the world, and he was aware of a number of emotions which he had not experienced for many months.
Suddenly the swinging doors of the Bar were burst open and a red-headed young man, muffled in an overcoat, sprang through and darted down the passage. He was clutching at a lady’s gold bag; and for a moment Daniel supposed him to be a thief. An instant later, however, he was followed by a girl, wearing an evening cloak and a large black hat, who called after him in broken English, telling him to behave himself. At this the man paused, tossed the bag to her, and, with a wave of his hand, disappeared round the corner.
The bag fell at Daniel’s feet. He therefore stooped down, and, picking it up, returned it to her.
“A silly boy – that one,” she smiled. “He like always the rag.”
“I nearly shot him for a thief,” said Daniel, placing his hand significantly upon his hip-pocket, where he still carried the revolver which had accompanied him on his journey.
The girl fixed her large dark eyes upon him in amazement. “Mais non!” she exclaimed. “He has the red hair: he like joking and running about.”
She sat herself down beside him, and made a pretence to touch his hip-pocket.
“Why you carry a pistol?” she asked.
Daniel looked at her with mild amusement. Her profession was evident, but it did not shock him.
“Because I’m a wild man,” he answered, with a smile.
“You not live in Cairo?” she queried.
“No fear!” he replied.
There was silence for some moments, while Daniel, smoking his cigar, endeavoured to ignore her existence. Once or twice she looked expectantly at him: it was evident that she could not quite classify him. Then she rose to her feet, and, with a little friendly nod to him, walked towards the swinging doors.
Daniel suddenly felt lonely, felt that he would like to have somebody to talk to, felt that he could keep any situation within bounds, felt that he did not much mind whether he could do so or not. He took the cigar out of his mouth, forming an instant resolution: “Hi!” he called out.
She turned round. “Why you call me ‘Hi’?” she asked. “I’m Lizette.”
“I beg your pardon,” he answered, gravely. “Will you have supper with me, Lizette?”
“Have you got enough money?” she asked.
