CHAPTER XX. THE SHEIK AGREES.

Kāra congratulated himself. For one whose early life had been passed in a hovel, he had been very successful in directing the destinies of the great. All his grandmother’s vengeful plans, supplemented by his own clever arrangement of details, had matured in a remarkably satisfactory manner, and this evening he was destined to complete the ruin of Lord Roane’s family. In addition to compromising Aneth beyond all hope by a false marriage, he would to-morrow have my lord cast into prison on a charge of embezzlement. The proof which he had pretended to place in the girl’s keeping, and which she had without doubt promptly destroyed, was merely a forgery of the receipt to McFarland. The original was still safe in his custody.

This ruse had been a clever one. His judgment of the girl’s nature was marvelously accurate. Having destroyed the paper to insure her grandfather’s safety, Aneth was effectually prevented from breaking her contract with Kāra. There was no way for her to recede. He had paid the price, and she was left with no excuse for not fulfilling her part of the agreement.

When Kāra entered his courtyard he found it ablaze with lights. The women’s apartments, now completely refitted, were truly magnificent. A dozen servants,{227} arrayed in splendid costumes, stood motionless at their posts, awaiting the arrival of their new mistress. Mykel, a rascally Copt whom Kāra had recently attached to his household, was clad in priestly robes, and paced up and down the court with an assumed dignity that elicited sly smiles from his fellow-servants.

Only the prince’s own people were present, for Kāra wished to be in a position to deny even the farce of a ceremony, should Aneth attempt in the future to use it as an excuse for her downfall. But it pleased him to lull her suspicions in this way in the beginning, and so render her an easy victim. It also gave an added flavor to his revenge.

Tadros had been carefully instructed, and would have no difficulty in fulfilling his mission. He ought to reach the villa on his return by half-past nine, allowing for natural delays. Kāra trusted Tadros because the dragoman was so completely in his power; but, with his usual caution, he had sent a spy to watch his messenger and report any irregularity in his conduct. Tadros did not know of this spy; otherwise, he might have felt less confidence in himself.

Half-past nine arrived, but no sound of carriage wheels broke the stillness. The servants stood motionless in their places, and Kāra paced the courtyard in deep reflection while engaged in drawing on his white kid gloves. The false priest stood under the bower of roses where the ceremony was to take place, trying to find the service in the Coptic Bible he had borrowed.{228}

Nine-forty-five; ten o’clock. The dark-eyed servants noticed that their master grew uneasy and cast anxious glances toward the entrance.

It was twenty minutes later, when the nerves of the most unconcerned were beginning to get on edge, that the patter of horses’ feet and the rapid whir of wheels broke the silence. A carriage dashed up to the villa and halted.

Kāra hurried forward expectantly, but paused abruptly when he met the spy who had been sent to watch Tadros.

“Where is the dragoman?” he demanded, in a sharp voice.

“The dragoman, your highness, is a traitor,” said the man.

Kāra’s nervousness suddenly subsided. He became composed in demeanor and his voice grew soft.

“Explain, if you please,” said he.

The man bowed.

“Arriving at the hotel, Tadros sent away your excellency’s carriage—”

“Where is it now?”

“I do not know. Then he engaged another equipage—that of the Arab named Effta Marada, bearing the number of ninety-three. Tadros brought the young lady down and placed her in Effta’s carriage, ordering him to drive to the opera house. I sprang up behind and accompanied them. Tadros soon got rid of Effta by sending him on an errand and then drove quickly{229} away. He crossed the Nile to the west embankment and drove down the river to a point opposite the island of Roda, where your dragoman placed the lady on board a dahabeah.”

“Yes; go on.”

“When the boat steamed away up the river, I took the deserted carriage and drove here as rapidly as possible. That is all, your excellency.”

“Whose dahabeah was it?”

“That belonging to Winston Bey. I saw him on board.”

“Did you see anyone else?”

“The lady who has been a friend to Miss Consinor.”

“That is Mrs. Everingham.”

“And an old Englishman, Lord Roane.”

“Ah! Quite a family party. And our dear Tadros went with them?”

“He did, your excellency.”

“Up the river, you say?”

“Yes, your excellency.”

“Thank you. You may retire.”

Kāra turned to Ebbek.

“Put out the lights and send the servants to their quarters,” he said, calmly.

In his room the prince tore off the white gloves and changed from evening dress to a gray traveling suit. Then he returned to the now deserted courtyard and sat down in the moonlight beside the fountain to smoke a cigar.{230}

The blow had been sharp and sudden. While Kāra fully realized the natural capability of Tadros for deception and double dealing, he also knew that the blustering dragoman was an arrant coward, and so was bewildered at the courage manifested in his treachery.

But it was characteristic of Kāra that he neither bemoaned his adverse fortune nor became despondent. He entertained a passing regret that he had delayed killing the dragoman, but did not permit himself to dwell long upon his servant’s defection. The thing to be first sought was a remedy for the apparent failure of his carefully laid plans. By and by he would attend to the dragoman’s reward. Just now it was imperative to prevent his intended victims from succeeding in their attempt to escape.

There was no demand for immediate action. The dahabeah was, as he knew, a slow steamer, and would be forced to breast the Nile current sluggishly. His enemies doubtless depended for their safety from pursuit upon Kāra’s supposed ignorance of their whereabouts. He admitted that someone had plotted shrewdly against him. On the Nile a party in a small boat is almost as isolated as if at sea. The express steamers and tourist steamers pass now and then, but they travel rapidly, appearing and disappearing within the brief space of half an hour. Aside from these, only the native barges, picturesque and ghostlike as they drift by, break the ripples of the broad river. The banks{231} are sprinkled with many villages, and at this season shaduf workers are plentiful; but the native has tired of staring at the Nile flotilla, unless awaiting with eagerness the landing of the big tourist steamer, from whose passengers a scant livelihood is gained, and this occurs only at certain points of interest.

So Kāra had time to be deliberate. It even occurred to him that this seeming calamity might turn out to be exceptionally favorable to the success of his schemes. In Cairo one must act with circumspection, because the police of the city are alert and almost incorruptible. The Nile dwellers fear the law rather than respect it; but they are too far from the capital to be very much afraid. Where tourists disembark, a mounted officer is stationed to lash the impudent villagers into a state of dull apathy, such as the caged tiger feels for its trainer; but they lapse into savagery when his back is turned, and in the more unfrequented villages the sheik is absolute king.

Kāra considered carefully these conditions, and soon formed new plans to complete his vengeance. Then, the cigar being finished, he went to bed and slept until daybreak.

“I shall be absent for several days,” he said to Ebbek, as he ate an early breakfast. “See that everything is in perfect order when I return. If tradesmen come to demand money, promise them payment immediately on my arrival in Cairo.”

“Yes, my master.”{232}

He caught the morning train for Luxor and arrived by noon at a station opposite the native village of Beni-Hassan, whence he crossed the river in a small boat.

The children of Hassan have for centuries been known as “the bandits of the Nile,” and their three connected villages, lying close to the river bank, have replaced those that were totally destroyed by the Government during the reign of Mohammed ‘Ali in the hope of scattering the tribes and breaking up their thieving propensities; but the Beni-Hassans rebuilt their mud dwellings and calmly remained in possession. To-day they are cautiously avoided by isolated tourists, who are fully warned of their evil reputation.

As he landed, Kāra found the villages seemingly deserted. Underneath the tall palms at the right a few swathed figures lay motionless, while small black goats and stray chickens wandered listlessly about; but the visitor paid little attention to these signs. He knew the old men and women were swarming in the huts while the younger men were away at the distant tombs in the hills or engaged in earning a stipend at the neighboring shadufs.

Turning to the left, he followed a path leading up a slight incline to the low bluff covered with a second grove of stately palms, beneath the shade of which the better dwellings of Beni-Hassan have been built. He had never been in the village before, but had heard it described innumerable times since his boyhood. Even{233} when he paused before an extensive building having cane and mud walls and a roof of palm leaves, he was fairly certain he had correctly guessed the location of the place he sought.

“Does Sheik Antar live here?” he asked a child that came out to stare at him.

The little one nodded and ran within. Kāra sat down cross-legged upon the path of baked mud, removed both his shoes and placed them beside him, and then patiently awaited his reception.

After some five minutes a gigantic Arab bent his head to emerge from the low doorway, and, after a calm but shrewd glance at his visitor, came forward and stood before Kāra.

“Allahu akbar!” he said, spreading wide his arms in greeting. “The stranger is welcome to all that I possess.”

“May Allah bless and guard the habitation of the mighty sheik!” responded Kāra, in purest Arabic.

Then the sheik sat cross-legged upon the ground, facing his guest, and also removed his red morocco slippers. His beard was gray and his eyes black and piercing. His frame was lean and the flesh hard as iron, denoting great strength. He wore the green turban that proved he had made the Mecca pilgrimage.

“It pleases me that I behold the mighty Sheik Antar, beloved of Allah, and the curse of all enemies of the prophet,” began Kāra after a brief silence, during which the men eyed each other earnestly.{234}

“My brother speaks well,” was the grave reply; “yet so lost am I in wonder at the glory and honor conferred upon my humble home by his presence, that the exalted name of my guest escapes my fickle memory.”

Kāra bowed to the ground.

“I am of Gebel Abu Fedah, the grandson of the Princess Hatatcha, and descended from the line of Ahtka-Rā and the royal kings of ancient Egypt. My name is Kāra.”

With dignified gesture the sheik extended his hand and clasped that of the stranger.

“The fame of the last great Egyptian has already reached my ears,” said he. “Raschid, the Syrian dragoman, whose boat, the Rameses, was here but three days since, told me of your life in Cairo, of your magnificence and vast riches, of your generosity and wisdom. Fedah I know, for the sheik of Al-Kusiyeh is my comrade. The glory of Kāra the Egyptian is reflected upon every dweller along the Nile bank.”

After another pause to permit of due and deliberate appreciation of this compliment, Kāra drew a heavy sigh and responded:

“Yet all is not at peace with me, most noble Antar. My enemies oppress me and cause me much sorrow; wherefore I am driven to appeal to my brother for aid.”

The eyes of the sheik sparkled.

“Already,” said he, “confusion has fallen upon Kāra’s foes; for they surely cannot escape the blight of Antar’s hatred!”{235}

“Then see how gratitude flows from my heart like a very cataract,” answered the other, with downcast eyes. “It is little that Kāra can do to repay such brotherly love; but the great sheik must distribute for me ten thousand piastres to his worthy poor, even on that day when my enemies are confounded.”

Antar’s brow was thoughtful. A great payment meant a great service.

“My brother will tell me a story,” said he, “and I will listen.”

Thereupon, in the flowery language of Arabia, which English words but feebly translate, the Egyptian told of a boat steaming slowly up the Nile and bearing his enemies toward the villages of Beni-Hassan. He described the women and the men, and noticed that the sheik grunted with discouraging emphasis when Winston Bey’s name was mentioned. Then, following out the idea of relating a tale, Kāra told how his brother, the mighty sheik Antar, fell upon the dahabeah and captured it, turning over all the passengers and crew to Kāra except one—Tadros the dragoman being unfortunately killed and dropped overboard to find a final resting-place in the mud at the river’s bottom. Then Winston’s crew was replaced by six strong men of Beni-Hassan, who obeyed Kāra’s commands as willingly as if they proceeded from Antar himself. And Kāra afterward steamed up the Nile to Fedah, with the sheik on board, and at Fedah gave to him not only the ten thousand piastres for his poor, but many gems{236} of fabulous worth for his personal adornment and that of his women.

Was it not a pretty story? he concluded, and did it not sound like a prophecy in Antar’s discerning ears?

The sheik considered long and earnestly. He did not like meddling with Winston Bey, whom he knew of old and respected highly; but Kāra’s allusion to the gems was irresistible, and Antar might discover a way to keep from being recognized by the scientist.

It required several hours to conclude the bargain, but at last both men thoroughly understood the details of the service that was required and must be rendered. The assault upon the dahabeah was discussed and planned, and the terms of payment agreed upon. The killing of Tadros was an incident that the sheik accepted without demur.

With two clever rascals such as the Egyptian and the Arab in charge of the raid, there seemed little hope that Winston Bey’s unsuspecting party could escape absolute destruction.