The Weavers, Volume 4.

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THE WEAVERS

By Gilbert Parker

BOOK IV.

XXVIII. NAHOUM TURNS THE SCREW
XXIX. THE RECOIL
XXX. LACEY MOVES
XXXI. THE STRUGGLE IN THE DESERT
XXXII. FORTY STRIPES SAVE ONE
XXXIII. THE DARK INDENTURE
XXXIV. NAHOUM DROPS THE MASK

CHAPTER XXVIII

NAHOUM TURNS THE SCREW

Laughing to himself, Higli Pasha sat with the stem of a narghileh in his
mouth. His big shoulders kept time to the quivering of his fat stomach.
He was sitting in a small court-yard of Nahoum Pasha's palace, waiting
for its owner to appear. Meanwhile he exercised a hilarious patience.
The years had changed him little since he had been sent on that
expedition against the southern tribes which followed hard on David's
appointment to office. As David had expected, few of the traitorous
officers returned. Diaz had ignominiously died of the bite of a
tarantula before a blow had been struck, but Higli had gratefully
received a slight wound in the first encounter, which enabled him to beat
a safe retreat to Cairo. He alone of the chief of the old conspirators
was left. Achmet was still at the Place of Lepers, and the old nest of
traitors was scattered for ever.

Only Nahoum and Higli were left, and between these two there had never
been partnership or understanding. Nahoum was not the man to trust to
confederates, and Higli Pasha was too contemptible a coadjutor. Nahoum
had faith in no one save Mizraim the Chief Eunuch, but Mizraim alone was
better than a thousand; and he was secret--and terrible. Yet Higli had a
conviction that Nahoum's alliance with David was a sham, and that David
would pay the price of misplaced confidence one day. More than once when
David's plans had had a set-back, Higli had contrived a meeting with
Nahoum, to judge for himself the true position.

For his visit to-day he had invented a reason--a matter of finance; but
his real reason was concealed behind the malevolent merriment by which he
was now seized. So absorbed was he that he did not heed the approach of
another visitor down an angle of the court-yard. He was roused by a
voice.

"Well, what's tickling you so, pasha?"

The voice was drawling, and quite gentle; but at the sound of it, Higli's
laugh stopped short, and the muscles of his face contracted. If there
was one man of whom he had a wholesome fear--why, he could not tell--it
was this round-faced, abrupt, imperturbable American, Claridge Pasha's
right-hand man. Legends of resourcefulness and bravery had gathered
round his name. "Who's been stroking your chin with a feather, pasha?"
he continued, his eye piercing the other like a gimlet.

"It was an amusing tale I heard at Assiout, effendi," was Higli's abashed
and surly reply.

"Oh, at Assiout!" rejoined Lacey. "Yes, they tell funny stories at
Assiout. And when were you at Assiout, pasha?"

"Two days ago, effendi."

"And so you thought you'd tell the funny little story to Nahoum as quick
as could be, eh? He likes funny stories, same as you--damn, nice, funny
little stories, eh?"

There was something chilly in Lacey's voice now, which Higli did not
like; something much too menacing and contemptuous for a mere man-of-all-
work to the Inglesi. Higli bridled up, his eyes glared sulkily.

"It is but my own business if I laugh or if I curse, effendi," he
replied, his hand shaking a little on the stem of the narghileh.

"Precisely, my diaphanous polyandrist; but it isn't quite your own affair
what you laugh at--not if I know it!"

"Does the effendi think I was laughing at him?"

"The effendi thinks not. The effendi knows that the descendant of a
hundred tigers was laughing at the funny little story, of how the two
cotton-mills that Claridge Pasha built were burned down all in one night,
and one of his steamers sent down the cataract at Assouan. A knock-down
blow for Claridge Pasha, eh? That's all you thought of, wasn't it? And
it doesn't matter to you that the cotton-mills made thousands better off,
and started new industries in Egypt. No, it only matters to you that
Claridge Pasha loses half his fortune, and that you think his feet are
in the quicksands, and 'll be sucked in, to make an Egyptian holiday.
Anything to discredit him here, eh? I'm not sure what else you know; but
I'll find out, my noble pasha, and if you've had your hand in it--but no,
you ain't game-cock enough for that! But if you were, if you had a hand
in the making of your funny little story, there's a nutcracker that 'd
break the shell of that joke--"

He turned round quickly, seeing a shadow and hearing a movement. Nahoum
was but a few feet away. There was a bland smile on his face, a look of
innocence in his magnificent blue eye. As he met Lacey's look, the smile
left his lips, a grave sympathy appeared to possess them, and he spoke
softly:

"I know the thing that burns thy heart, effendi, to whom be the flowers
of hope and the fruits of merit. It is even so, a great blow has fallen.
Two hours since I heard. I went at once to see Claridge Pasha, but found
him not. Does he know, think you?" he added sadly.

"May your heart never be harder than it is, pasha, and when I left the
Saadat an hour ago, he did not know. His messenger hadn't a steamer like
Higli Pasha there. But he was coming to see you; and that's why I'm
here. I've been brushing the flies off this sore on the hump of Egypt
while waiting." He glanced with disdain at Higli.

A smile rose like liquid in the eye of Nahoum and subsided, then he
turned to Higli inquiringly.

"I have come on business, Excellency; the railway to Rosetta, and--"

"To-morrow--or the next day," responded Nahoum irritably, and turned
again to Lacey.

As Higli's huge frame disappeared through a gateway, Nahoum motioned
Lacey to a divan, and summoned a slave for cooling drinks. Lacey's eyes
now watched him with an innocence nearly as childlike as his own. Lacey
well knew that here was a foe worthy of the best steel. That he was a
foe, and a malignant foe, he had no doubt whatever; he had settled the
point in his mind long ago; and two letters he had received from Lady
Eglington, in which she had said in so many words, "Watch Nahoum!" had
made him vigilant and intuitive. He knew, meanwhile, that he was
following the trail of a master-hunter who covered up his tracks. Lacey
was as certain as though he had the book of Nahoum's mind open in his
hand, that David's work had been torn down again--and this time with dire
effect--by this Armenian, whom David trusted like a brother. But the
black doors that closed on the truth on every side only made him more
determined to unlock them; and, when he faltered as to his own powers,
he trusted Mahommed Hassan, whose devotion to David had given him eyes
that pierced dark places.

"Surely the God of Israel has smitten Claridge Pasha sorely. My heart
will mourn to look upon his face. The day is insulting in its
brightness," continued Nahoum with a sigh, his eyes bent upon Lacey,
dejection in his shoulders.

Lacey started. "The God of Israel!" How blasphemous it sounded from the
lips of Nahoum, Oriental of Orientals, Christian though he was also!

"I think, perhaps, you'll get over it, pasha. Man is born to trouble,
and you've got a lot of courage. I guess you could see other people bear
a pile of suffering, and never flinch."

Nahoum appeared not to notice the gibe. "It is a land of suffering,
effendi," he sighed, "and one sees what one sees."

"Have you any idea, any real sensible idea, how those cotton-mills got
afire?" Lacey's eyes were fixed on Nahoum's face.

The other met his gaze calmly. "Who can tell! An accident, perhaps,
or--"

"Or some one set the mills on fire in several places at once--they say
the buildings flamed out in every corner; and it was the only time in a
month they hadn't been running night and day. Funny, isn't it?"

"It looks like the work of an enemy, effendi." Nahoum shook his head
gravely. "A fortune destroyed in an hour, as it were. But we shall get
the dog. We shall find him. There is no hole deep enough to hide him
from us."

"Well, I wouldn't go looking in holes for him, pasha.

"He isn't any cave-dweller, that incendiary; he's an artist--no palace is
too unlikely for him. No, I wouldn't go poking in mud-huts to find him."

"Thou dost not think that Higli Pasha--" Nahoum seemed startled out of
equanimity by the thought. Lacey eyed him meditatively, and said
reflectively: "Say, you're an artist, pasha. You are a guesser of the
first rank. But I'd guess again. Higli Pasha would have done it, if it
had ever occurred to him; and he'd had the pluck. But it didn't, and he
hadn't. What I can't understand is that the artist that did it should
have done it before Claridge Pasha left for the Soudan. Here we were
just about to start; and if we'd got away south, the job would have done
more harm, and the Saadat would have been out of the way. No, I can't
understand why the firebug didn't let us get clean away; for if the
Saadat stays here, he'll be where he can stop the underground mining."

Nahoum's self-control did not desert him, though he fully realised that
this man suspected him. On the surface Lacey was right. It would have
seemed better to let David go, and destroy his work afterwards, but he
had been moved by other considerations, and his design was deep. His
own emissaries were in the Soudan, announcing David's determination to
abolish slavery, secretly stirring up feeling against him, preparing for
the final blow to be delivered, when he went again among the southern
tribes. He had waited and waited, and now the time was come. Had he,
Nahoum, not agreed with David that the time had come for the slave-trade
to go? Had he not encouraged him to take this bold step, in the sure
belief that it would overwhelm him, and bring him an ignominious death,
embittered by total failure of all he had tried to do?

For years he had secretly loosened the foundations of David's work, and
the triumph of Oriental duplicity over Western civilisation and integrity
was sweet in his mouth. And now there was reason to believe that, at
last, Kaid was turning against the Inglesi. Everything would come at
once. If all that he had planned was successful, even this man before
him should aid in his master's destruction.

"If it was all done by an enemy," he said, in answer to Lacey, at last,
"would it all be reasoned out like that? Is hatred so logical? Dost
thou think Claridge Pasha will not go now? The troops are ready at Wady-
Halfa, everything is in order; the last load of equipment has gone. Will
not Claridge Pasha find the money somehow? I will do what I can. My
heart is moved to aid him."

"Yes, you'd do what you could, pasha," Lacey rejoined enigmatically, "but
whether it would set the Saadat on his expedition or not is a question.
But I guess, after all, he's got to go. He willed it so. People may try
to stop him, and they may tear down what he does, but he does at last
what he starts to do, and no one can prevent him--not any one. Yes, he's
going on this expedition; and he'll have the money, too." There was a
strange, abstracted look in his face, as though he saw something which
held him fascinated.

Presently, as if with an effort, he rose to his feet, took the red fez
from his head, and fanned himself with it for a moment. "Don't you
forget it, pasha; the Saadat will win. He can't be beaten, not in a
thousand years. Here he comes."

Nahoum got to his feet, as David came quickly through the small gateway
of the court-yard, his head erect, his lips smiling, his eyes sweeping
the place. He came forward briskly to them. It was plain he had not
heard the evil news.

"Peace be to thee, Saadat, and may thy life be fenced about with safety!"
said Nahoum.

David laid a hand on Lacey's arm and squeezed it, smiling at him with
such friendship that Lacey's eyes moistened, and he turned his head away.

There was a quiet elation in David's look. "We are ready at last," he
said, looking from one to the other. "Well, well," he added, almost
boyishly, "has thee nothing to say, Nahoum?"

Nahoum turned his head away as though overcome. David's face grew
instantly grave. He turned to Lacey. Never before had he seen Lacey's
face with a look like this. He grasped Lacey's arm. "What is it?" he
asked quietly. "What does thee want to say to me?"

But Lacey could not speak, and David turned again to Nahoum. "What is
there to say to me?" he asked. "Something has happened--what is it?
. . . Come, many things have happened before. This can be no worse.
Do thee speak," he urged gently.

"Saadat," said Nahoum, as though under the stress of feeling, "the
cotton-mills at Tashah and Mini are gone--burned to the ground."

For a moment David looked at him without sight in his eyes, and his face
grew very pale. "Excellency, all in one night, the besom of destruction
was abroad," he heard Nahoum say, as though from great depths below him.
He slowly turned his head to look at Lacey. "Is this true?" he asked at
last in an unsteady voice. Lacey could not speak, but inclined his head.

David's figure seemed to shrink for a moment, his face had a withered
look, and his head fell forward in a mood of terrible dejection.

"Saadat! Oh, my God, Saadat, don't take it so!" said Lacey brokenly,
and stepped between David and Nahoum. He could not bear that the
stricken face and figure should be seen by Nahoum, whom he believed to be
secretly gloating. "Saadat," he said brokenly, "God has always been with
you; He hasn't forgotten you now.

"The work of years," David murmured, and seemed not to hear.

"When God permits, shall man despair?" interposed Nahoum, in a voice
that lingered on the words. Nahoum accomplished what Lacey had failed to
do. His voice had pierced to some remote corner in David's nature, and
roused him. Was it that doubt, suspicion, had been wakened at last? Was
some sensitive nerve touched, that this Oriental should offer Christian
comfort to him in his need--to him who had seen the greater light? Or
was it that some unreality in the words struck a note which excited a new
and subconscious understanding? Perhaps it was a little of all three.
He did not stop to inquire. In crises such as that through which he was
passing, the mind and body act without reason, rather by the primal
instinct, the certain call of the things that were before reason was.

"God is with the patient," continued Nahoum; and Lacey set his teeth to
bear this insult to all things. But Nahoum accomplished what he had not
anticipated. David straightened himself up, and clasped his hands behind
him. By a supreme effort of the will he controlled himself, and the
colour came back faintly to his face. "God's will be done," he said,
and looked Nahoum calmly in the eyes. "It was no accident," he added
with conviction. "It was an enemy of Egypt." Suddenly the thing rushed
over him again, going through his veins like a poisonous ether, and
clamping his heart as with iron. "All to do over again!" he said
brokenly, and again he caught Lacey's arm.

With an uncontrollable impulse Lacey took David's hand in his own warm,
human grasp.

"Once I thought I lost everything in Mexico, Saadat, and I understand
what you feel. But all wasn't lost in Mexico, as I found at last, and I
got something, too, that I didn't put in. Say, let us go from here. God
is backing you, Saadat. Isn't it all right--same as ever?"

David was himself again. "Thee is a good man," he said, and through the
sadness of his eyes there stole a smile. "Let us go," he said. Then he
added in a businesslike way: "To-morrow at seven, Nahoum. There is much
to do."

He turned towards the gate with Lacey, where the horses waited. Mahommed
Hassan met them as they prepared to mount. He handed David a letter.
It was from Faith, and contained the news of Luke Claridge's death.
Everything had come at once. He stumbled into the saddle with a moan.

"At last I have drawn blood," said Nahoum to himself with grim
satisfaction, as they disappeared. "It is the beginning of the end.
It will crush him-I saw it in his eyes. God of Israel, I shall rule
again in Egypt!"

CHAPTER XXIX

THE RECOIL

It was a great day in the Muslim year. The Mahmal, or Sacred Carpet,
was leaving Cairo on its long pilgrimage of thirty-seven days to Mecca
and Mahomet's tomb. Great guns boomed from the Citadel, as the gorgeous
procession, forming itself beneath the Mokattam Hills, began its slow
march to where, seated in the shade of an ornate pavilion, Prince Kaid
awaited its approach to pay devout homage. Thousands looked down at the
scene from the ramparts of the Citadel, from the overhanging cliffs, and
from the tops of the houses that hung on the ledges of rock rising
abruptly from the level ground, to which the last of the famed Mamelukes
leaped to their destruction.

Now to Prince Kaid's ears there came from hundreds of hoarse throats the
cry: "Allah! Allah! May thy journey be with safety to Arafat!"
mingling with the harsh music of the fifes and drums.

Kaid looked upon the scene with drawn face and lowering brows. His
retinue watched him with alarm. A whisper had passed that, two nights
before, the Effendina had sent in haste for a famous Italian physician
lately come to Cairo, and that since his visit Kaid had been sullen and
depressed. It was also the gossip of the bazaars that he had suddenly
shown favour to those of the Royal House and to other reactionaries,
who had been enemies to the influence of Claridge Pasha.

This rumour had been followed by an official proclamation that no
Europeans or Christians would be admitted to the ceremony of the Sacred
Carpet.

Thus it was that Kaid looked out on a vast multitude of Muslims, in which
not one European face showed, and from lip to lip there passed the word,
"Harrik--Harrik--remember Harrik! Kaid turns from the infidel!"

They crowded near the great pavilion--as near as the mounted Nubians
would permit--to see Kaid's face; while he, with eyes wandering over the
vast assemblage, was lost in dark reflections. For a year he had
struggled against a growing conviction that some obscure disease was
sapping his strength. He had hid it from every one, until, at last,
distress and pain had overcome him. The verdict of the Italian expert
was that possible, but by no means certain, cure might come from an
operation which must be delayed for a month or more.

Suddenly, the world had grown unfamiliar to him; he saw it from afar; but
his subconscious self involuntarily registered impressions, and he moved
mechanically through the ceremonies and duties of the immediate present.
Thrown back upon himself, to fight his own fight, with the instinct of
primary life his mind involuntarily drew for refuge to the habits and
predispositions of youth; and for two days he had shut himself away from
the activities with which David and Nahoum were associated. Being deeply
engaged with the details of the expedition to the Soudan, David had not
gone to the Palace; and he was unaware of the turn which things had
taken.

Three times, with slow and stately steps, the procession wound in a
circle in the great square, before it approached the pavilion where the
Effendina sat, the splendid camels carrying the embroidered tent wherein
the Carpet rested, and that which bore the Emir of the pilgrims, moving
gracefully like ships at sea. Naked swordsmen, with upright and shining
blades, were followed by men on camels bearing kettle-drums. After them
came Arab riders with fresh green branches fastened to the saddles like
plumes, while others carried flags and banners emblazoned with texts and
symbols. Troops of horsemen in white woollen cloaks, sheikhs and
Bedouins with flowing robes and huge turbans, religious chiefs of the
great sects, imperturbable and statuesque, were in strange contrast to
the shouting dervishes and camel-drivers and eager pilgrims.

At last the great camel with its sacred burden stopped in front of Kaid
for his prayer and blessing. As he held the tassels, lifted the gold-
fringed curtain, and invoked Allah's blessing, a half-naked sheikh ran
forward, and, raising his hand high above his head, cried shrilly:
"Kaid, Kaid, hearken!"

Rough hands caught him away, but Kaid commanded them to desist; and the
man called a blessing on him; and cried aloud:

"Listen, O Kaid, son of the stars and the light of day. God hath exalted
thee. Thou art the Egyptian of all the Egyptians. In thy hand is power.
But thou art mortal even as I. Behold, O Kaid, in the hour that I was
born thou wast born, I in the dust without thy Palace wall, thou amid the
splendid things. But thy star is my star. Behold, as God ordains, the
Tree of Life was shaken on the night when all men pray and cry aloud to
God--even the Night of the Falling Leaves. And I watched the falling
leaves; and I saw my leaf, and it was withered, but only a little
withered, and so I live yet a little. But I looked for thy leaf, thou
who wert born in that moment when I waked to the world. I looked long,
but I found no leaf, neither green nor withered. But I looked again upon
my leaf, and then I saw that thy name now was also upon my leaf, and that
it was neither green nor withered; but was a leaf that drooped as when an
evil wind has passed and drunk its life. Listen, O Kaid! Upon the tomb
of Mahomet I will set my lips, and it may be that the leaf of my life
will come fresh and green again. But thou--wilt thou not come also to
the lord Mahomet's tomb? Or"--he paused and raised his voice--"or wilt
thou stay and lay thy lips upon the cross of the infidel? Wilt thou--"

He could say no more, for Kaid's face now darkened with anger. He made a
gesture, and, in an instant, the man was gagged and bound, while a sullen
silence fell upon the crowd. Kaid suddenly became aware of this change
of feeling, and looked round him. Presently his old prudence and
subtlety came back, his face cleared a little, and he called aloud,
"Unloose the man, and let him come to me." An instant after, the man
was on his knees, silent before him.

"What is thy name?" Kaid asked.

"Kaid Ibrahim, Effendina," was the reply.

"Thou hast misinterpreted thy dream, Kaid Ibrahim," answered the
Effendina. "The drooping leaf was token of the danger in which thy life
should be, and my name upon thy leaf was token that I should save thee
from death. Behold, I save thee. Inshallah, go in peace! There is no
God but God, and the Cross is the sign of a false prophet. Thou art mad.
God give thee a new mind. Go."

The man was presently lost in the sweltering, half-frenzied crowd; but he
had done his work, and his words rang in the ears of Kaid as he rode
away.

A few hours afterwards, bitter and rebellious, murmuring to himself, Kaid
sat in a darkened room of his Nile Palace beyond the city. So few years
on the throne, so young, so much on which to lay the hand of pleasure, so
many millions to command; and yet the slave at his door had a surer hold
on life and all its joys and lures than he, Prince Kaid, ruler of Egypt!
There was on him that barbaric despair which has taken dreadful toll of
life for the decree of destiny. Across the record of this day, as across
the history of many an Eastern and pagan tyrant, was written: "He would
not die alone." That the world should go on when he was gone, that men
should buy and sell and laugh and drink, and flaunt it in the sun, while
he, Prince Kaid, would be done with it all.

He was roused by the rustling of a robe. Before him stood the Arab
physician, Sharif Bey, who had been in his father's house and his own
for a lifetime. It was many a year since his ministrations to Kaid had
ceased; but he had remained on in the Palace, doing service to those who
received him, and--it was said by the evil-tongued--granting certificates
of death out of harmony with dark facts, a sinister and useful figure.
His beard was white, his face was friendly, almost benevolent, but his
eyes had a light caught from no celestial flame.

His look was confident now, as his eyes bent on Kaid. He had lived long,
he had seen much, he had heard of the peril that had been foreshadowed by
the infidel physician; and, by a sure instinct, he knew that his own
opportunity had come. He knew that Kaid would snatch at any offered
comfort, would cherish any alleviating lie, would steal back from
science and civilisation and the modern palace to the superstition of the
fellah's hut. Were not all men alike when the neboot of Fate struck them
down into the terrible loneliness of doom, numbing their minds? Luck
would be with him that offered first succour in that dark hour. Sharif
had come at the right moment for Sharif.

Kaid looked at him with dull yet anxious eyes. "Did I not command that
none should enter?" he asked presently in a thick voice.

"Am I not thy physician, Effendina, to whom be the undying years? When
the Effendina is sick, shall I not heal? Have I not waited like a dog at
thy door these many years, till that time would come when none could heal
thee save Sharif?"

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