Complete works of hall c.., p.476
Complete Works of Hall Caine, page 476
Last of all he thought of Gordon, as he always did when he was dropping off to sleep, and the only regret that mingled with his tingling sense of imminent triumph was that his son could not be present at the King’s Dinner to see — what he would see!
“Oh, if I could have him there to-morrow night — what I would give for it!” he thought.
At length the Consul-General slept and his big desolate house was silent. If any human eye could have looked upon him as he lay on his bed that night, the old man with his lips sternly set, breathing fitfully, only the tired body overcome, the troubled brain still working, it would have been a pitiful thing to think that he who was the virtual master of millions appeared to be himself the sport of those inscrutable demons of destiny which seem to toss us about like toys.
His power, his pride, his life-success — what had he gained by them? His wife dead, his son in revolt against him — alone, enfeebled, duped, and self-deluded.
God, what a little thing is man! He who for forty years had guided the ship of State, before whose word Ministers and even Khedives had trembled, could not see into the dark glass of the first few hours before him.
Peace to him — until to-morrow!
XIV
SEBAI FUM EL KHALIG, CAIBO. MY DEAREST HELENA: I am going to that dinner! Yes, as Ishmael Ameer in the disguise of the Sheikh Omar Benani, chief of the Ababdah, I am to be one of my father’s guests.
This is the morning of the day of the festivities, and from Hafiz, by the instrumentality of one ‘who would live or die or give her immortal soul for me, I have at length learned all the facts of my father’s coup.
Did you ever hear of the incident of the Opera House? Well, this incident is to be a replica of that, though the parts to be played in the drama are in danger of being differently cast.
As this is the last letter I shall be able to send to you before an event which may decide one way or another the fate of England in Egypt, my father’s fate, Ishmael’s, and perhaps yours and mine, I must tell you as much as I dare commit to paper.
The British Army, as I foresaw from the first, is being brought back to Cairo. It is to come in to-night as quietly as possible by the last trains arriving at Calioub. The Consul-General is to go to Ghezirah as if nothing were about to happen, but at the last moment when his enemies have been gathered under one roof — Ministers, Diplomats, Notables, Ulema — when the operation of their plot has begun, and the bridge is drawn, and the island is isolated, and Ishmael and his vast following are making ready to enter the city, my father is to speak over the telephone to the officer commanding at Abbassiah, and then the soldiers, with fifty rounds of ammunition, are to march into Cairo and line up in the streets.
Such is my father’s coup, and to make sure of the complete success of it — that Ishmael’s following is on the move, and that no conspirator (myself above all) escapes — he has given orders to the Colonel not to stir one man out of the barracks until he receives his signal. Well, my work to-night is to see that he never receives it.
Already you will guess what I am going to do. I must go to the dinner in order to do it, for both the central office of the telephone and the office of the telegraph are now under the roofs of the Ghezirah Palace and Pavilion.
I hate to do the damnable thing, but it must be done. It must, it must! There is no help for it.
I cannot tell you how hard it is to me to be engaged in a secret means to frustrate my father’s plans — it is like fighting one’s own flesh and blood, and is not fair warfare. Neither can I say what a struggle it has been to me, as an English soldier, to make up my mind to intercept an order of the British Army — it is like playing traitor, and I can scarcely bear to think of it.
But all the same I know it is necessary. I also know God knows it is necessary, and when I think of that my heart beats wildly.
It is necessary to prevent the massacre which I know (and my father does not) would inevitably ensue; necessary to save my father himself from the execration of the civilised world; necessary to save Ishmael from the tragic consequences of his determined fanaticism; necessary to save England from the possible loss of her Mohammedan dominions, from being faithless to her duty as a Christian nation, and from the divine judgment which will overtake her if she wantonly destroys her great fame as the one Western power that seems designed by Providence to rule and to guide the Eastern peoples; and necessary, above all, to save the white man and the black man from a legacy of hatred that would divide them for another hundred years, and put back the union of races and of faiths for countless centuries.
If I am not a vain fool this is what I (D. V.) have got to do, so why in the name of God need I trouble myself about the means by which I do it? And if I am the only man who can, I must, or I shall be a coward skulking out of his plain responsibility, and a traitor not only to England but to humanity itself.
God does not promise me success, but I believe I shall succeed. Indeed I am so sure of success that I feel as if all the recent events of my life have been leading up to this one. What I felt when I left Cairo for Khartoum, and again when I left Khartoum for Cairo — that everything had been governed by higher powers which could not err — I feel now more than ever.
If I had delivered myself up to the authorities after your father’s death my life would have been wasted and thrown away. Nay, if I had obeyed orders over the blunder of El Azhar I should not have been where I and now between two high-spirited men who are blindly making for each other’s ruin, and the destruction of all they stand for.
This reconciles me to everything that has happened, and if I have to pay the penalty of playing buffer I am ready to do so. I have great trust that God will bring me out all right, but if that is not His plan, then so be it. I am willing to give my life for England, whatever name she may know me by when she comes to see what I have done, and I am willing to die for these poor Egyptians, because I was born and brought up among them, and I cannot help loving them.
Death has no terrors for me anyway. I think the experiences of the past months have taught me all that death has to teach. In fact, I feel at this moment exactly as I have felt at the last charge in battle, when, fighting against frightful odds, it has not been a case of every man for himself, but of God for us all.
Besides, I feel that on the day of your father’s death I died to myself — to my selfish hopes of life, I mean — and if God intends to crush me in order that I may save my country, and these people whom I love and who love me, I really wish and long for Him to do so.
But In-sha-allah! It will be as God pleases, and I believe from the bottom of my heart that He is working out His wonderful embroidery of events to a triumphant issue. So don’t be afraid, my dear Helena, whatever occurs to-night. I may be taken, but (D. V.) I shall not be taken in disgrace. In any case I feel that my hour has come — the great hour that I have been waiting for so long.
This may be the last letter I shall write to you, so I am sending it by Mosie, lest Hamid should find a difficulty in getting into your camp. I hope to God you may get it, for I want you to know that my last thoughts are about yourself.
Upon my soul, dear, I believe the end will be all right, but if it is to be otherwise, and we are to be separated, and our lives in this world are to be wasted, remember that deep love bridges death.
Remember, too, what you said to me at Khartoum. “I am a soldier’s daughter,” you said, “and in my heart I am a soldier’s wife as well, and I shouldn’t be worthy to be either if I didn’t tell you to do your duty, whatever the consequences to me.”
Good-bye, my dear, my dear! If anything happens you will know what to do. I trust you without fear. I have always trusted you. I can say it now, at this last moment — never, dearest, never for one instant has the shadow of a doubt of you entered into my heart. My brave girl, my love, my life, my Helena!
May the great God of Heaven bless and protect you!
GORDON.
P. S. Oh, how the deuce did I forget? There is something for you to do — something important — and I had almost sent off my letter without saying anything about it.
Do you remember that on the day I left Khartoum it was ordered by Ishmael that after the call of the muezzin to midnight prayers, a light was to be set up in the minaret of the mosque of Mohammed Ali as a sign that he might enter the city in peace?
Well, if I fail and the British Army comes into Cairo, Ishmael must be kept out of it. He may be stubborn — a man who thinks God guides and protects him and makes a special dispensation for him is not easy to dissuade — but if the light does not appear he must be restrained.
That is your work with Ishmael — why you are with him still. I knew it would be revealed to us some day. Once more, my dear, my dear, God bless and protect you!
XV
UNDER THE PYRAMIDS.
MY DEAR GORDON: Your letter has not yet reached me. What has happened? Has your messenger been caught? Who was it? Was it Hamid?
Not having heard from you, I was of course compelled to come on with the camp and, therefore, I am with it still. We are under the shadow of the Pyramids, with the mud-built village of Sakltara by our side and Cairo in front of us, beyond the ruins of old Memphis and across a stretch of golden sand.
This is, it seems, the day of “the King’s Dinner,” and at sunset when the elephant’s horn was blown for the last time we gathered for prayers under a sea-blue sky on the blood-red side of the Step pyramid.
It was a splendid, horrible, inspiring, depressing, devilish, divine spectacle. First Ishmael recited from the Koran the chapter about the Prophet’s great vision (the Surat er Rassoul, I think) while the people on their knees in the shadow, with the sun slanting over their heads, shouted their responses. Then in rapturous tones he preached, and though I was on the farthest verge of the vast crowd I heard nearly all he said.
They had reached their journey’s end and had to thank God who had brought them so far without the loss of a single life. Soon they were to go into Cairo, the Mecca of the new world, but they were to enter it in the spirit of love, not hate, of peace, not war, doing violence to none, and raising no rebellion. What said the Holy Koran? “Whosoever among Moslems, Christians, or Jews believe in God and in another life shall be rewarded.”
Therefore let no man think they were come to turn the Christians out of Egypt. They were there on a far higher errand — to turn the devil out of the world! The intolerance and bitterness of past ages had been the product of hatred and darkness. The grinding poverty and misery of the present age was the result of a false faith and civilisation. But they were come to bring universal peace, universal brotherhood, and universal religion to all nations and races and creeds — one State, one Faith, one Law, one God!
Cairo was the gate to the East. It was also the gate to the West. He who held the keys of that gate was master of the world. Who, then, should hold them but God’s own, His Guided One, His Expected One, His Christ?
More and yet more of this kind Ishmael said in his thrilling, throbbing voice, and of course the people greeted every sentence with shouts of joy. And then finally, pointing to the minarets of the mosque of Mohammed Ali, far off on the Mokattam hills, he told them that at midnight, after the call to prayers, a light was to shine there, and they were to take it for a sign that they might enter Cairo without injury to any and with goodwill toward all.
“Watch for that light, oh, my brothers! It will come! As surely as the sun will rise on you to-morrow that light will shine on you to-night!”
It is now quite dark and the camp is in a delirious state of excitement. The scene about my tent is simply terrifying. At one side there is an immense Zikr, with fifty frantic creatures crying “Allah!” to a leader, who in wild, guttural tones is reciting the ninety-nine attributes of God. At the other side there is a huge fire at which a group of men, having slaughtered a sheep, are boiling it in a cauldron, with many pungent herbs, that they may feast and rejoice together in honour of the coming day. People are sitting in circles and singing hymns of victory; tambourines, kettle-drums, and one-stringed lutes are being played everywhere, and strolling singers are going about from fire to fire making up songs that describe Ishmael’s good looks, and good deeds, and his “divinity” — the wildest ditty being the most applauded.
Where Ishmael himself is I do not know, but he must indeed be carried away by religious ecstasy if he is not trembling at the mere thought of to-morrow morning. What is to happen if these “Allah-intoxicated Arabs” have to meet five-thousand British bayonets? Or, supposing you can obviate that, what is to occur when they are compelled to realise that all their high-built hopes are in the dust? O God! O God!
II
El Hamdullillah! Your letter has come at last! Perhaps I wish it hadn’t been Mosie who brought it, but the boy was clever in riding into the camp unobserved, and now I have sent him outside to hide in the darkness while I scribble a few lines in reply. He is to come back presently; and meantime, please God, be will keep out of the sight of that she-cat of an Arab woman.
You are doing right, darling — I am sure you are! Naturally you must be troubled with thoughts about England and your father, but both will yet see what motives inspired you, and whatever they do now they will eventually make amends.
Bravo, my boy, bravo! Perhaps we shall all become Quakers some day, but let the peace people croak as they please, it is war that brings out the truly heroic virtues, and though you are trying to prevent bloodshed you are really going into battle. Go, then, and God bless you!
What wretched ink this is — it must have got mixed with water.
Oh, yes, certainly! I will stay here to the end, and if occasion arises I will do what you desire, though I have not the faintest hope of succeeding. The fact is that even if I could persuade Ishmael not to enter Cairo the people would not under any circumstances be restrained.
To tell you the truth I cannot help feeling sorry for him. He really began with the highest aims and the strongest common-sense, but he has become the victim of his people’s idolatry, and, being made an idol, he may no longer be a man.
I cannot help feeling sorry for the people also, for I suppose they have only tried in their blind way to realise the dream of humanity in all ages, the dream of all the holy books and all the great prophets — the dream of a millennium.
It seems, too, as if God, who puts beautiful ideals in people’s hearts, always calls for a scapegoat to pay the price of them. That is what you are to be, dear, and when I think of what you are going to do to save these poor people I begin to see for the first time what is meant by the sacrificial blood of Christ.
I suppose this is shocking, but I don’t care a pin about that. Every heroic man who risks his life for his fellow-man is doing what Christ did. You are doing it, and I don’t believe the good God ‘will ask any questions about ways and means.
There! That’s something out of my eyes splash on to the very point of my pen. Don’t take it as a mark of weakness, though, but as the sign-manual of Helena’s heart telling you to go on without thinking about her.
Forget what I said about my Jewish blood and Jezebel and all that nonsense. Ishmael’s “work” will not be “finished” until he enters into Cairo, so I run no risk while I am here, you see.
Of course I am in a fever of impatience to know what is happening on Ghezirah to-night, but you must not suppose that I am afraid. In any case I shall stay here, having no longer the faintest thought of running away, and if there is anything to do I’ll do it.
This may be the last letter I am to write to you, so good-bye, my Gordon, and God bless you again! My dear, my dear, my dear! — HELENA.
P. S. I suppose you are in the thick of it by this time, for I see that the illuminations at Ghezirah have already begun. My dear, my dear, my... my....
XVI
AT eight o’clock that night the Pavilion of the Ghezirah Palace was brilliantly lit up for the “King’s Dinner.” A troop of British cavalry was mounted in front of it under the sparkling lights that swung from the tall palms of the garden, and a crowd of eager spectators were waiting to see the arrival of the guests.
The Consul-General came early, driving in his open carriage with two gorgeously clad sais running before him. When he stepped down at the door, in his cocked hat, laced coat, and gold-braided trousers, he was saluted like a sovereign. The band of a British regiment under the trees played some bars of the national Anthem, and the English onlookers cheered.
In the open court of the Pavilion, which was walled about by Oriental hangings, the Consul-General’s own people were waiting to receive him. His old and weakened but still massive and even menacing personality showed out strongly against the shadowy forms of some of the Advisers and Under Secretaries who stood behind him.
It was quickly seen that his manner was less brusque and masterful than usual, but that his tone was cynical and almost hitter. When his first Secretary stepped up to him and whispered that a Reuter’s telegram, which had just come, announced that the Khedive had left Paris for Marseilles intending to take steamer for Egypt, he was heard to say:
“I don’t care a — what the Khedive does or what he intends to do. Let him wait until to-morrow.”
The Sirdar was one of the first of the guests to arrive, and after saying in a low tone that he had just taken the necessary steps to withdraw the ammunition from the native troops, he whispered:
“The great thing is to keep calm — not to allow yourself to lose your temper.”
“I am calm, perfectly calm,” said the Consul-General.
Then the other guests came in quick succession: Envoys Extraordinary, Ministers-Plenipotentiary, Chancellors and Counsellors of Legation and Attachés, wearing all their orders; Barons, Counts, and Marquises attired magnificently in a prodigious quantity of pad and tailor work, silk stockings, white, blue, and red coats with frogs and fur collars, stars, ribbons, silver shoe-buckles, tight breeches, and every conceivable kind of uniform and court dress.
