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CHAPTER III

“I have sworn a vow. Henceforward I serve none but queens!”

We had not yet made up our minds, but were dining with Meldrum Strange under a great ornamental palm by a splashing fountain, discussing anything from China to Peru that had no bearing on Strange’s offer, when a coal-black Egyptian servant, arrayed in fez, silver-laced purple jacket, and white cotton smock, brought Grim a scented envelope. The scent had a peculiar, pervading strength that commanded attention without challenging. The envelope was made from linen, stiff, thick, and colored faintly mauve, but bore no address. The seal was of yellow wax, poured on liberally and bearing the impress of a man’s thumb. No woman ever had a thumb of that size. Grim turned the thing over half a dozen times, the servant standing motionless behind his chair. When he tore it open at last the contents proved equally remarkable. In English, written with a damaged quill pen, was a message from Narayan Singh that looked as if he had held the paper in one unsteady hand at arm’s length, and made stabs at it with the other. But it was to the point.

* * *

If the sahib will bring the other sahibs, he shall look into the eyes of heaven and know all about hell. The past is past. The future none knoweth. The present is now. Come at once.

NARAYAN SINGH.

* * *

Grim asked the servant for more particulars—his master’s name, for instance, and where he lived. He answered in harsh Egyptian Arabic that he had been told to show us the way. He absolutely refused to say who had sent him, or whose paper the message was written on; and he denied all knowledge of Narayan Singh. All he professed to know was the way to the house where we were wanted immediately. So we all went upstairs and packed repeating pistols into the pockets of our tuxedos.

Meldrum Strange agreed to follow us in a hired auto, and to take careful bearings of whatever house we might enter; after which he would watch the place from a distance until midnight. If we didn’t reappear by twelve o’clock, it was agreed that he should summon help and have the place raided.

Looking back, I rather wonder that we took so much precaution. Cairo was quiet. There hadn’t been a political disturbance for six weeks, which is a long time as things go nowadays. The soldiers of the British garrison no longer had to go about in dozens for self-protection, and for more than a fortnight the rule against gathering in crowds had been suspended. Nevertheless, we were nervous, and kept that assignation armed.

A carriage waited for us in the luminous shadow in front of the hotel steps. It was a very sumptuous affair, drawn by two bay thoroughbreds and driven by another graven ebony image, in fez, blue frock-coat with silver buttons, and top-boots. There was a footman in similar livery, and behind the carriage, between the great C springs, was a platform for the enigma who had brought the message.

We were off at a clattering trot almost before the door slammed shut, swaying through the badly lighted streets to the tune of silver harness bells and the shouts of the driver and footman.

Mere pedestrians had to “imshi” and do it quick.

Lord! That was a carriage. We struck matches to admire the finery. It was lined with velvet, on which an artist had painted cupids and doves. There were solid silver brackets, holding silver tubes, that held real orchids—cypropedium expensivum, as Jeremy identified them.

The curtains that draped the windows were hand-made lace—Louis the Something-or-other—half as old as France; and the thing to put your feet on was covered with peacocks’ bosoms done in wood, inlaid with semiprecious stones. There were mirrors galore to see your face in, but no way of seeing out of the windows without tearing the lace, and we didn’t feel afraid enough to do that.

There was nothing to remind us of the ordinary, hum-drum world, except the noisy exhaust of Meldrum Strange’s hired car closely pursuing us, and even that sounded detached, you might say, like the sounds of next-door neighbors whom you don’t yet know.

We didn’t have to worry about what direction we were taking, since Strange was attending to that, but there seemed to be no effort made to confuse us. We kept to the straight, wide streets, and crossed an arm of the Nile by the stone bridge into the better residential quarter, where mansions stand amid palms and shrubbery behind high stone walls. Nor did we leave the Nile far behind us.

The faintly lighted interior of the carriage grew suddenly as dark as death as we passed under an echoing arch, and out again on gravel between an avenue of trees. We caught the click behind us of an iron gate, and wondered what Meldrum Strange would do, but hardly had time to think of him before the carriage came to a stand under a portico and the door was opened with a jerk.

We stepped out into a realm of mystery. We could see part of the outline of a great stone house, built in the semi-Oriental, barbaric style of modern Egypt; but the only light was from a Chinese paper lantern in the middle of the portico roof, throwing quivering golden shadows on a front door that was almost entirely covered with bronze Chinese dragons.

To right and left was a silhouette of fragrant shrubs against the blue Egyptian night; and there wasn’t a sound except what we made. When the carriage drove away and the click of horseshoes vanished somewhere around a corner there was utter silence, until the man who had brought the message stepped up to the front door like a ghost and pushed an electric bell.

Did it ever strike you that sound has color? The din that bell made was dazzling, diamond white, reflecting all the colors of the prism in its facets. When I spoke of it afterwards I found that Grim had noticed the same thing.

It was about two minutes before the door opened. Two black six-footers, who looked smug enough to be eunuchs, swung both leaves of the door wide open suddenly, and stood aside with chins in the air to let us pass.

* * * *

We entered a restfully lighted hall that might have belonged to a monastery, for it was all white stone without an ornament except simplicity. The ceiling was supported by plaster stone arches, and the whole effect was so unexpectedly different from that outside that it froze you into silence. It was like looking forward to the circus and finding yourself in church. There was even dim organ music descending from somewhere out of sight.

The stairs were on our right hand, of stone, severely plain, with a hand-forged iron balustrade that might have been plundered from an old New England mansion. The same black-visaged minion who had brought the note and rung the bell led the way up them, we following abreast, in step and silent until Jeremy whistled the first few bars of the “Dead March” from Saul.

“This feels like kissing a fish,” he exclaimed. “There’s no afterglow. Let’s warm things up!”

But there was no need. We passed into yet another world before the echo of his words had died. I hardly mean that figuratively either. Through a high, warm gray-and-silver curtain at the stair-head we stepped into a nearly square, enormous room at the back of the house. Four, high-arched, open windows along one side overlooked the Nile.

Maybe you’ve seen the Nile through a window at night, with the curved spars of boats as old as Moses motionless against the purple sky and the moonlight bathing everything in silver silence? It’s worth the trip.

The light within the room was of several colors, shining through stained-glass shades and causing all the rich furniture to glow in a sort of opalescent mystery. Simplicity was as much the key-note here as below; but this was simple extravagance. The carpet alone—one piece of old rose hand-work reaching from wall to wall—was likely worth the High Commissioner’s year’s salary; and the tapestry that covered the long wall facing the windows probably contributed to the fall of Marie Antoinette by helping bankrupt the poor devils who had to pay for it.

There was an Oriental touch, produced by long divans with silken cushions ranged against the walls. A door at the far end was hidden by a curtain of amber heads—old amber, each piece polished into ripeness on a woman’s breast; I walked over and examined them.

We sat down facing the windows, sinking a foot deep into silken cushions—and sniffed; there was the same scent that was on the envelope—jasmine, I think, mixed with some subtler stuff—and still the same far-away chords of organ music.

“Let’s sing hymns!” suggested Jeremy. “Or shall I do tricks? I know a dandy one with cushions.”

“Please do both. I would love to watch you!” said a woman’s voice; and though we hadn’t heard the door move, we could see her behind the amber curtain. She came forward at once.

“Zelmira Poulakis,” she announced, when we had told our names.

I may as well say right now, and have done with it, that I know nothing about women of her kind. My mother was a wrinkled old gray-haired lady with nothing subtle about her, but rather a plain straight-forwardness that made you understand; and somehow, she has always stood for Woman in my memory, most of the other types being incomprehensible—welcome to anything if they will let me alone in the smoking-room.

I suppose Zelmira Poulakis is a type, although I’ve never seen another like her. She is Levantine, and those she-Levantines while they are still young are supple, vivacious, with eyes that say more than their lips, and lips that can kiss, curse or coax with equal genius. She had on a frock all stitched with glittering beetles’ wings, that just a little more than reached her shins, and they were very shapely shins; it was charity and art to show them.

She had the poise and ease and grace that go with the sort of education women get, who are “presented” at the smaller European courts, and her jewels, which were few, were splendid, but hardly more so than her eyes.

Jeremy—you can’t put him out of countenance—drew up a sort of throne made of elephants’ tusks, and she sat down facing us, laughing, speaking English with only trace enough of accent to make it pretty.

“You look rather bewildered and I can’t blame you,” she began. “What must you have thought! But I’ve heard such wonderful accounts of you that I couldn’t resist the temptation. Will you forgive me?”

“Not we!” laughed Jeremy. “Forgiveness would imply that we didn’t like being here. If Narayan Singh is in your hands he’s all right.”

“But he isn’t! Oh, he isn’t! If only he were!” she exclaimed with a comical grimace.

“Suppose you shut up, Jeremy, and let her tell us,” Grim suggested.

Well, she told us. She was good at telling things, and a beautiful woman in a gorgeous setting is hypnotic, mistrust her how you will. We three listened to the end without interrupting to challenge her statements.

“Last night,” she began, “there was a ball at the Greek Legation. My husband was Greek, although I am not. I was returning from the ball in my carriage with a friend at about half-past four this morning, and had stopped at the door of my friend’s house about a mile from here to set her down; in fact, she had already left the carriage and my footman was in the act of closing the carriage door, when he was suddenly thrust aside by an enormous Indian dressed in a turban and a blue serge suit. My footman is a giant, but the Indian flung him aside with one hand with hardly an effort, and I’m afraid I screamed.”

She appeared to be ashamed of having screamed, but Narayan Singh with two quarts of whisky inside him would frighten the Sphinx.

“My footman returned to the rescue very pluckily,” she went on, “but the Indian threw him under the horses, which frightened them so badly that the coachman had all he could do to keep them from running away. My friend did run away. She has told me since that she ran indoors to get the servants, but by the time she had aroused them I was gone; so she went to bed, and hoped for the best. Philosophic, wasn’t she?”

Grim was sitting on my right hand. He made no remark, and didn’t change his facial expression; but I did notice a sudden stiffening of his muscles. You’ll see exactly the same thing when an experienced hunter becomes aware of big game creeping out from cover.

“I don’t know what the Indian intended in the first place.” she continued, “but my scream apparently fired his imagination. He swore terribly in English—said that protecting queens in distress was his only occupation—and jumped into the carriage, shutting the door behind him with a slam that sounded like a big gun going off. That was too much for the horses altogether; they went off at a gallop. Luckily the footman had scrambled out from under their feet, and there is a foot-board behind the carriage; he caught hold of that and climbed on. The carriage went so fast that it was all he could do to hang on, although he tried to climb on the roof and come to my assistance that way; the top of the ­carriage is smooth and slippery, and the feat proved impossible.

“Really, it was the worst predicament! it was almost totally dark, but I could see the whites of the Indian’s eyes, and his white teeth gleaming in the middle of his black beard, and I nearly fainted. But he sat down opposite me with his arms folded across his breast, and presently I grew calmer and began to think. You gentlemen, who are used to all sorts of wild adventures, would doubtless have known what to do; but I didn’t.

“I even began to suspect my coachman and footman of being parties to a plot to carry me off somewhere; and the fact that the Indian did not try to molest me made it seem as if he might be acting on behalf of some one else. I found words at last and asked him in English what he wanted.

“ ‘Nothing under heaven but your Majesty’s instructions!’ he answered. ‘I am Narayan Singh, your servant. Say but the word, your Majesty, and I will accomplish marvels—I will pull the heads off these Egyptians as a crow pulls worms out of a plowed field! Command me! Set me a task! My honor is involved! I have sworn a vow. Henceforward I serve none but queens!’

“Can you imagine it? I asked him to stop the horses! I couldn’t think of anything else to tell him to do! I knew by the overpowering smell of whisky that he was intoxicated, but he seemed mad in the bargain. I wanted to get rid of him and I’m afraid the thought occurred to me that he might get killed in making the attempt, although I hardly hoped he would really try.

“However, he didn’t hesitate for a second. The carriage was swaying all over the street, with the wheels grating against a curbstone one minute and skidding sidewise the next, and it was all I could do to keep my seat, to say nothing of standing up. But he opened the door, climbed out, swung himself up on the box beside the coachman, seized the reins, and tugged at them, discovered that was no use, and jumped on to the back of the near-side horse! Both horses nearly fell, and in the time they had recovered he had their heads together and was tugging them to a standstill! Strength—such strength—he nearly wrenched their heads off! And he brought them to a standstill beside a street lamp at a crossing, trembling and too thoroughly conquered to bolt again whatever happened!

“The footman jumped down then, and the Indian struck him, calling him names and ordering him to go and stand at the horses’ heads. Then the Indian came to the window and asked what he should do next, and before I could think of anything to tell him to do he was back in the carriage with folded arms, shouting to the coachman to drive on.

“My servants didn’t obey him at once, and he was going to get out and kill them, I think, so I called to them to drive straight home, thinking I might be able to get rid of the Indian at the gate. But not so. There is a servant who lives in the gate-house. He opened the gate as soon as he heard the carriage coming but before we entered I called out to the coachman to stop, which he did, with the horses’ heads underneath the arch and the carriage outside. Then I thanked the Indian for having protected me and bade him good night. He bowed and got out; but instead of going away he climbed up behind on the foot-board and called to the coachman to drive on in.

“Nothing would make him get down again. He swore that he was my only protector, and that none should deprive him of the honor. He threatened to pull to pieces any one who sought to interfere, and used such frightful language, and made such a noise that I was afraid he would wake the whole neighborhood and cause a scandal.

“It occurred to me that I have an Indian in the house who might be able to manage him—a gentle old philosopher, who used to be my husband’s friend, and whom I have allowed to live here since my husband died, because the house is so big, and he so quiet, and so dependent on charity in his old age, that it would have been hard-hearted not to. He is a wonderful old man. I have seen him calm human passions in a moment by his mere beneficence.

“So I made the best of an awkward situation by telling the coachman to drive on in. And Narayan Singh entered the house behind me, behaving like a family servitor except that he made more noise than ten ordinary men, and demanded to know which was my apartment, in order that he might lie down across the threshold and protect me. “Narendra Nath—that is the name of my old Indian friend—sleeps very little, spending most of the night on the floor above this one in meditation. I brought Narayan Singh into this room, and sent for Narendra Nath, who seemed to appreciate the situation without my saying anything. He is a very wise old man, and never makes unnecessary fuss. He began talking to Narayan Singh in his own language, and within five minutes the two of them were on their way upstairs together, as friendly as you please.

“I retired. It was already after dawn, and I needed rest after all that excitement. But déjeuner was brought to me a little after midday, and after my toilet was made I sent for both Indians, hoping to get to the bottom of the affair and perhaps to glean some amusement from it. Believe me, I was more than amused; I was amazed.

“Narayan Singh, although not yet sober, had begun to return to his senses, and the two men had struck up a strong friendship. The surprising thing was not that Narayan Singh should worship Narendra Nath, for he is a venerable old man, but that Narendra Nath, who has so few friendships, should reciprocate. The two men had sworn to be inseparable, and old Narendra Nath implored me with tears in his eyes to take Narayan Singh into my service.

“How could I refuse? I would do almost anything to oblige Narendra Nath. But a difficulty arose at once, which seemed to admit of no solution. It seems that Narayan Singh is a deserter from the British Army and liable to arrest for that at any minute. What was to be done? I couldn’t imagine.

“Narayan Singh spoke constantly of a certain Jimgrim and his two friends Ramsden and Jeremy—he spoke of you tout court—gave you no titles—and he vowed that you could accomplish anything—simply anything—between you. He spent about two hours telling me astonishing stories of your prowess, and it occurred to me at last that possibly you could get him out of the army in some way without his having to pay the penalty for desertion.

“But the problem then was how to reach you, and how to persuade you to take the necessary action, without letting the Indian’s whereabouts be known. I thought of a hundred methods. I even considered calling on you at Shepheard’s Hotel, where he told me you were staying. But finally I hit on the solution of getting Narayan Singh to write a letter, and sending my carriage for you, hoping that perhaps curiosity would induce you where persuasion might have failed.

“However, the task of persuading remains, doesn’t it! Can you arrange it, Major Grim, that Narayan Singh shall be discharged from the British Army, so that he may enter my service?”

Her smile as she asked that favor was the product of experience. She had tried it on a thousand different sorts of men, and used it now confidently. But Grim is a dry old rock, for all his vein of kindness.

“If I could see Narayan Singh himself, alone—” he suggested. And she found him harder to refuse than he did her, because his request was reasonable.